Latest / Big Talk About Small Business / Ep. 17 - Halloween Special: Business Horror Stories

Transcript

Ep. 17 - Halloween Special: Business Horror Stories · Big Talk About Small Business

• 0:09
  Mark Zweig: Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Big Talk About Small Business.
• 0:15
  Mark Zweig: I'm here with my buddy, eric Howardton, who is laughing hysterically at making me laugh.
• 0:24
  Eric Howerton: Well, I mean you're.
• 0:25
  Eric Howerton: You're in rare form today, mark.
• 0:27
  Eric Howerton: You're always in rare form, though, so tell our audience about what's so special about this podcast.
• 0:34
  Mark Zweig: Well, it's Halloween and we're going to tell some horror stories from our past, some spooky stories, yes, some nightmares that have occurred on Elm Street.
• 0:47
  Mark Zweig: I almost bought a house on Elm Street once and it was in such bad condition we called it the nightmare on Elm Street.
• 0:55
  Mark Zweig: But so you have a horror story about the the, the, the other one about your housing days like when you used to do your yeah, we were talking earlier and we had to cut it off because Parker thought this would be a good story to tell, but no, I could tell you like I could sit here for the next 12 hours and tell you horror stories about building, but this one was.
• 1:19
  Mark Zweig: You'll appreciate this.
• 1:21
  Mark Zweig: Okay, so I had this house at 413 North Willow that I bought and this is in the historic district or, as some people call it, the hysterical district on Fayetteville, and so, anyway, you have to know this house.
• 1:36
  Mark Zweig: All right, it sits in a row of houses where this is the historic district.
• 1:40
  Mark Zweig: The first house on the corner is like a 1960 really not beautiful orange duplex ranch.
• 1:51
  Mark Zweig: All right, with not a single shrub so terrible, not a single shrub in the yard.
• 1:56
  Mark Zweig: All right, so you have to know this house.
• 1:59
  Mark Zweig: Okay, late 1800s, yeah, aluminum siding put on it circa 1960 in very bad shape, with mill finish, aluminum windows, right when they reduced the ceiling height and when they and put shorter windows in and then sided aluminum siding over the holes.
• 2:18
  Mark Zweig: I mean just the classic.
• 2:19
  Mark Zweig: Anyway, the back apartment had a fire in it at one time and was abandoned and, or you know, unlivable, and there was this squatter back there with a set of drums.
• 2:31
  Mark Zweig: I mean, have you ever heard of anything like that?
• 2:34
  Mark Zweig: No, I mean a squatter carrying drums around.
• 2:37
  Mark Zweig: I mean it's kind of bulky, you know yeah.
• 2:39
  Mark Zweig: A lot of set of drums, a full set of drums, anyway.
• 2:43
  Mark Zweig: So yeah, we got the seller, got that dude out of there by the time we closed on it.
• 2:51
  Mark Zweig: So we're working on the house.
• 2:53
  Mark Zweig: We tear all the aluminum siding off and tear the windows out of it, basically just completely got this thing down to its basic structure.
• 3:03
  Mark Zweig: You know, and this woman one day I'm outside, she comes running down the street, mark, mark, mark, and I'm like yeah, and she says you're not going to put cedar shingles on that house and green trim.
• 3:20
  Eric Howerton: Are you like you do for the other one?
• 3:22
  Mark Zweig: Well, I was your style.
• 3:24
  Mark Zweig: I've done a few of them like that.
• 3:25
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, I mean I don't do the same thing every time, but I will admit I like cedar shingles.
• 3:30
  Mark Zweig: It looks good.
• 3:30
  Mark Zweig: But but anyway, I said.
• 3:33
  Mark Zweig: I said, well, why do you ask she goes?
• 3:36
  Mark Zweig: Well, that's not right.
• 3:37
  Mark Zweig: You see those houses there, they're all white.
• 3:41
  Mark Zweig: That's the way they're supposed to be.
• 3:43
  Mark Zweig: I said to her, I said, no, really, houses really weren't painted white until the early 20th century, when America started finding its morality and leading up to the pro, to prohibition, everybody painted their houses white to look church, like I don't know.
• 4:03
  Mark Zweig: No, then Victorian houses were never white.
• 4:06
  Eric Howerton: Okay, so anyway, were they just like the right.
• 4:10
  Eric Howerton: Earth colors Earth.
• 4:11
  Mark Zweig: Okay, she goes, that's not right.
• 4:13
  Mark Zweig: She goes, that's not the way it's supposed to be.
• 4:15
  Mark Zweig: And I said, well, come on inside.
• 4:17
  Mark Zweig: And I showed her that when the house was first built as a two room shack and then had another two rooms added on to it and then another two rooms and so on, I found an exterior wall with cedar shingles on it and green trim.
• 4:32
  Mark Zweig: I said this is the way this house was originally built.
• 4:35
  Mark Zweig: No, no, that's not right.
• 4:36
  Mark Zweig: She tried anyway.
• 4:39
  Mark Zweig: That was just one experience.
• 4:41
  Mark Zweig: Another house on the same street.
• 4:42
  Mark Zweig: I'll give you one more horror story.
• 4:44
  Mark Zweig: This was a good one.
• 4:44
  Mark Zweig: A lot of these houses had asbestos shingles on them.
• 4:48
  Mark Zweig: Now, I worked in the asbestos abatement business.
• 4:52
  Mark Zweig: I was an owner and a firm that did asbestos abatement.
• 4:54
  Mark Zweig: I understand it.
• 4:55
  Mark Zweig: That's why whenever we have any asbestos, we always call in the pros.
• 5:02
  Mark Zweig: So we had this company.
• 5:03
  Mark Zweig: It was called EPA, which is kind of funny Environmental Protection Associates.
• 5:09
  Mark Zweig: Oh, that was really what EPA said.
• 5:11
  Mark Zweig: That's awesome.
• 5:13
  Mark Zweig: We had them do every single job that we had that had asbestos, because they were licensed.
• 5:20
  Mark Zweig: They take it off and has met suits with respirators, they do air quality monitoring and then they have to dispose of it properly.
• 5:29
  Mark Zweig: It's double bagged and then it's put in special trailers and stuff like that.
• 5:34
  Mark Zweig: So anyway, we had these guys do the exterior of this house that we just bought, to tear off the asbestos shingles, which really aren't even hazardous.
• 5:46
  Mark Zweig: I mean, you're outside, they're not really friable.
• 5:49
  Mark Zweig: Friable means where they come apart like insulation.
• 5:52
  Mark Zweig: So asbestos shingles, they're solid.
• 5:55
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, so they come apart in the asbestos, I guess.
• 5:59
  Eric Howerton: Right, that's what it is.
• 6:00
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, bring it in.
• 6:03
  Mark Zweig: As a homeowner, you can take your asbestos shingles off yourself in this state, but we don't do it.
• 6:08
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, we don't want a liability when I want to expose our workers to it, so we have these guys do it.
• 6:13
  Mark Zweig: So, anyway, the other company you know is Y Group and I get this call from I can't remember if it was Sonyer, whomever, but this woman next door called 911 because they were taking this asbestos off and she just went absolutely berserk and we're like look, you know that we've got a permit.
• 6:41
  Mark Zweig: That's why we hired these guys.
• 6:43
  Mark Zweig: And she saw the people out there in the hasmats and then she said that they put them in trailers and you could just see the dust flying off as they went down the street.
• 6:52
  Mark Zweig: The asbestos not true.
• 6:55
  Mark Zweig: Complete, total lie.
• 6:56
  Mark Zweig: Asbestos flyin' everywhere.
• 6:59
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, anyway, it had to get her calm down.
• 7:02
  Mark Zweig: But yeah, those are the kind of things that we were just talking about how, when a pain, sometimes the NIMBYs are the NIMBYs Not in my backyard, that's what they call NIMBYs.
• 7:14
  Eric Howerton: Not in my backyard Like you come by a house in their yard.
• 7:18
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, like your own through with your property, when it's like I don't know why people are just so anti-improvement or anti-development, I mean what are the article about that?
• 7:29
  Eric Howerton: No, it was like some social conversation about an article.
• 7:33
  Mark Zweig: Every so often I have to blow off steam on it because I've got a friend trying to build a hotel in Fayetteville right now, which is insane the hoops that they keep making the poor guy go through.
• 7:42
  Eric Howerton: Well, I mean, just look at kind of I mean honestly like it's the lack of progression and what it does to the, to everybody in the community.
• 7:51
  Mark Zweig: You're either growin' or you're declining.
• 7:53
  Mark Zweig: It's true.
• 7:53
  Mark Zweig: It's not gonna stay just like it always, was it never?
• 7:57
  Eric Howerton: will, and you can look at towns where they did not grow.
• 8:00
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, we've got those in, like Eastern Oklahoma like not even a town anymore.
• 8:06
  Mark Zweig: You know what I mean.
• 8:07
  Mark Zweig: There's like some dude living in the store, yeah.
• 8:10
  Eric Howerton: Oh, it's all over the Northeast too, everything.
• 8:12
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, I mean it's easy to see, right, yeah, you're either growin' or you're declining, but anyway we should be growing.
• 8:18
  Mark Zweig: But it's just one of many horror stories and business, my God, I can tell you a thousand.
• 8:22
  Eric Howerton: Why, in the housing, though, like if you bought a property like you're talking about, yeah, with the tin, and you ripped everything to the studs?
• 8:29
  Eric Howerton: Basically, right, the foundation why wouldn't you just commit and dole's all of it and just rebuild from around the world?
• 8:34
  Mark Zweig: You could do that.
• 8:35
  Mark Zweig: I mean, I guess there's a couple reasons.
• 8:38
  Mark Zweig: One you're trying to preserve it and make it as you know, as much of what it is, but just in good condition.
• 8:47
  Mark Zweig: Okay, so the configuration and the basic design of the place hasn't really changed.
• 8:53
  Eric Howerton: So you're trying to protect that original?
• 8:54
  Eric Howerton: Okay, that original design.
• 8:56
  Mark Zweig: You're trying to.
• 8:57
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, you want to preserve the character of the place, but truthfully, a lot of times it's cheaper to do that.
• 9:05
  Eric Howerton: To just demo or not to completely demo?
• 9:08
  Mark Zweig: Just demo the whole thing.
• 9:09
  Mark Zweig: Oh it is.
• 9:09
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, that's cheaper because if you think about it, you just come in and in two days it's gone and it's all the way Okay.
• 9:16
  Mark Zweig: When you have to dismantle a house, it takes a lot of time Before you can go back to build.
• 9:21
  Mark Zweig: You have to dismantle, and so you know it takes a lot, but you can still preserve some elements, like the wood floors, you know in this case, and we piece those back together and Did you take the floors off and then re-put them back in?
• 9:36
  Mark Zweig: No, Most of the time you leave them there, you just piece in new wood and then you come back and you sand all of it with professional floor finishers.
• 9:42
  Mark Zweig: Because we reconfigured this house, we added on to it, we added new fireplaces.
• 9:47
  Mark Zweig: Rock came out of the ground with them.
• 9:50
  Mark Zweig: I mean, it was a fabulous house and it was featured in country living, I believe.
• 9:57
  Mark Zweig: Oh really.
• 9:58
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, but that one person didn't want you to do it the way you do it.
• 10:01
  Mark Zweig: No, oh no, I shouldn't have done it like that.
• 10:04
  Mark Zweig: It was a lot better really with the white aluminum siding and the 1960s sears, silver finish, tarnish aluminum windows.
• 10:16
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, I mean always better than you know what I like about my horror story that I have right now.
• 10:20
  Mark Zweig: What's that?
• 10:22
  Eric Howerton: It's that I can't.
• 10:23
  Eric Howerton: The way that it could work is that I could actually buy a little bit of the property and not like just redo what's the grading on them?
• 10:35
  Eric Howerton: Sure, yeah.
• 10:37
  Mark Zweig: This is why we had a problem where their surveyors stayed correctly.
• 10:41
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, correct and so, but the neighbor was already expressive about how we might have cut down some trees in which we didn't.
• 10:51
  Eric Howerton: It was actually all just tornado down trees as a disaster.
• 10:54
  Mark Zweig: Right, You're just going in.
• 10:55
  Mark Zweig: By the time you clean it up, there's nothing that's any good.
• 10:57
  Mark Zweig: Oh yeah, totally.
• 10:59
  Eric Howerton: It was all all these oak trees were down in any way.
• 11:02
  Eric Howerton: But she's been kind of concerned about the trees.
• 11:05
  Eric Howerton: But the reality is is now, because I'm moving my driveway 30 feet the other way, you get to cut more trees.
• 11:12
  Eric Howerton: I have to cut down good trees, yeah, but she didn't want.
• 11:16
  Eric Howerton: She didn't want any of the trees cut.
• 11:17
  Mark Zweig: It's like you can't win buddy Win man, you cannot win.
• 11:22
  Mark Zweig: I mean, building stuff is extremely difficult, it is.
• 11:26
  Mark Zweig: Why is it going to be so hard?
• 11:30
  Eric Howerton: I just don't know If we talked about this previous episode about it's an industry of outlaws.
• 11:36
  Mark Zweig: Oh it is.
• 11:36
  Mark Zweig: It's outlaws, it's NIMBYs everywhere, yeah, and it's city council people who are anti-development.
• 11:45
  Eric Howerton: You know I?
• 11:46
  Eric Howerton: Why would they?
• 11:47
  Eric Howerton: I mean why?
• 11:48
  Mark Zweig: because they represent a very small minority of people who complain a lot about the development and they want to keep it.
• 11:56
  Mark Zweig: I had one guy once put put something on social media that said it's the historic district, not the changed district.
• 12:03
  Mark Zweig: Of course he lives in a rental house which I tried to buy after that but I was unable to Get a deal done on it.
• 12:11
  Mark Zweig: But anyway, because I'd like to see him out because he's a slob and I lived in that neighborhood, but I mean a total slob.
• 12:20
  Mark Zweig: This guy doesn't want me to do anything and yet he's got like 500 pots in his front yard, all Different kinds, falling over.
• 12:28
  Mark Zweig: You know what I mean?
• 12:29
  Mark Zweig: It looks absolutely frigging insane.
• 12:32
  Mark Zweig: Of course this garage is filled with shit.
• 12:34
  Mark Zweig: His vehicles are parked on the lawn because he's got broken vehicles in the driveway so he bark what's good on the lawn.
• 12:40
  Mark Zweig: I mean I don't know.
• 12:42
  Mark Zweig: You know it's, it's typical, but so, yeah, I think a lot of times they're very vocal.
• 12:50
  Mark Zweig: You know, one of my theories is that the most vocal people in the community sometimes are the ones that don't have jobs or don't have businesses.
• 12:58
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, yeah, the business people often don't want to alienate any potential customers.
• 13:03
  Mark Zweig: So, they're gonna be quiet about every.
• 13:04
  Mark Zweig: If they're smart, right, they're gonna be quiet, you know.
• 13:09
  Mark Zweig: And then, and then the, the ones that don't have anything to do Well, they got nothing else to do but run for city council and complain to city council members and, and it really is the case I I don't even want to get into my theories unfair bill, city council, but, um, it seems like and it's yeah, in our area it's it doesn't really represent the, the population, and we don't listen to our planning department, so we then everything goes to city council for approval and it's just very difficult, but anyway, hey, let's talk, though, about horror stories in business.
• 13:48
  Mark Zweig: Ooh, that's spooky, yeah, it is.
• 13:51
  Mark Zweig: You know, entrepreneurship is always only good stuff, right?
• 13:56
  Mark Zweig: Oh, yeah, totally.
• 13:57
  Eric Howerton: It's what I love about entrepreneurship is that immediately when you start a business like you have a lot of money.
• 14:02
  Eric Howerton: Yes, of course, unlimited funds unlimited funds, all kinds of free time, yep, no boss whatsoever.
• 14:10
  Mark Zweig: Yeah right, take time off anytime, total flex.
• 14:15
  Eric Howerton: You know I mean, and you know you're just like, like the wealth that you accumulate, like you take care of your entire family immediately, like for generations.
• 14:23
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, it's all generational wealth, so fantastic.
• 14:26
  Mark Zweig: Accrued immediately upon starting the business.
• 14:29
  Mark Zweig: Yeah so a total sarcasm?
• 14:31
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, we know that's not the case.
• 14:32
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, so I mean, as you and I were talking about at 6 am this morning, yeah, yeah, but we're working right already.
• 14:41
  Eric Howerton: Absolutely dude.
• 14:42
  Eric Howerton: I get up and my brain's working, of course, like there hasn't been before I get up my brain.
• 14:47
  Eric Howerton: So there hasn't been a dom that I haven't woken up in the morning Without already so much going into my brain that, like I can't go back to sleep.
• 14:58
  Eric Howerton: Like, if it's past three o'clock in the morning, I cannot go back to sleep if I wake up.
• 15:03
  Eric Howerton: And that's actually been happening to me like like the last 10 days.
• 15:06
  Eric Howerton: It's been kind of weird.
• 15:07
  Eric Howerton: I think this the moon I've been making for 3 am Dude.
• 15:11
  Mark Zweig: When you get to be my age, you can go back to sleep and I'll.
• 15:14
  Mark Zweig: Can you see?
• 15:15
  Mark Zweig: This is Sonia says.
• 15:16
  Mark Zweig: When it takes me a long time to go to sleep, that's 20 seconds versus like 10.
• 15:21
  Mark Zweig: I can just go to sleep like that.
• 15:24
  Mark Zweig: So beautiful, yeah, it's.
• 15:25
  Mark Zweig: It's amazing, but when I was your age I couldn't.
• 15:29
  Eric Howerton: I said that I had a guy a long time where my name is guys.
• 15:32
  Eric Howerton: He was a client that went in there and I was pitching this big presentation.
• 15:36
  Eric Howerton: You know about doing some stuff from walmart.
• 15:38
  Eric Howerton: There's probably 30 people in the room, dude sleeping.
• 15:41
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, it's like the main guy that had that was the older.
• 15:45
  Eric Howerton: He was just back there sleeping and he keep waking up Uh-huh, and he'd look at me and laugh and then he'd go back.
• 15:56
  Mark Zweig: Can you sure that wasn't me?
• 15:59
  Eric Howerton: That's when you said that it reminds me because, because then after he's like I'm sorry, he goes.
• 16:03
  Eric Howerton: It's not not like anything against you, I could.
• 16:05
  Eric Howerton: I just I could fall asleep anywhere anytime.
• 16:08
  Mark Zweig: Maybe that's why I got to keep moving.
• 16:10
  Mark Zweig: You know it's like, if I don't, I, sonia's always like god.
• 16:14
  Mark Zweig: You get your activity goal already.
• 16:16
  Mark Zweig: You know for the day, it's always tracking on, that whole watch right.
• 16:20
  Mark Zweig: But no, I keep moving and we, we like work.
• 16:23
  Mark Zweig: I mean, you can't like you said, I think, in one of our prior episodes, if you're an entrepreneur, it's not, it's not a matter of of.
• 16:31
  Mark Zweig: You know, it's the way you are, it's your life, it's your personality and.
• 16:36
  Mark Zweig: But, but, anyway, let's.
• 16:38
  Mark Zweig: Let's go back to horror stories.
• 16:40
  Mark Zweig: Why don't you tell one that you've had over the course of your career?
• 16:45
  Eric Howerton: man there's been.
• 16:45
  Eric Howerton: There's been a heck of a lot.
• 16:47
  Eric Howerton: Uh, I mean, a lot of our stuff is like so you've got a good one.
• 16:51
  Eric Howerton: So we had a one client that came in and way early on.
• 16:55
  Eric Howerton: The business that you know was talking with me in a word of website that was Fairly sophisticated at the time.
• 17:05
  Eric Howerton: You know it was no easy punch way to do it.
• 17:07
  Eric Howerton: I mean it was custom album, you know custom Programming and stuff, and so I sold it to her and we were really early on.
• 17:16
  Eric Howerton: So I mean we mean it was a good deal for us and we started getting into it and you know, client was pretty demanding and we were, you know, pretty short on resources and stuff but it ended up being, uh, just a very complicated project that turned really south quick and, like they weren't, we weren't getting it done in time and you know they were coming back with more changes that it was scope creep city man Sure yeah you know scope creep.
• 17:44
  Mark Zweig: Oh gosh, yeah right, it was just the worst, and I mean when you're a new.
• 17:48
  Mark Zweig: Let them have an inch, then they're gonna take a mile dude and when you're starting up your new business, you're giving.
• 17:53
  Eric Howerton: You're giving miles, not inches, yeah, yeah, because you need that cash flow.
• 17:57
  Eric Howerton: Well, you need that sale.
• 17:58
  Eric Howerton: So, anyway, we get into it.
• 18:00
  Eric Howerton: But I remember my, uh, my, my co-founder.
• 18:03
  Eric Howerton: He would slap me if he was here, but we were sitting in the conference room and the clock came in there Heather, what's in?
• 18:10
  Eric Howerton: And they were complaining and stuff, and he goes.
• 18:13
  Eric Howerton: He just stopped towards in the meetings, like you know.
• 18:15
  Eric Howerton: Uh, you didn't pay us enough for what we're worth.
• 18:22
  Mark Zweig: You a little dry and direct wasn't very dry and I go.
• 18:27
  Eric Howerton: I just kind of remember looking at him going.
• 18:30
  Mark Zweig: He never said I was just talking to him the other night.
• 18:34
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, is he?
• 18:35
  Eric Howerton: doing good.
• 18:36
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, he's okay, he's good.
• 18:37
  Eric Howerton: Oh, that's good, but uh, but he now it's like okay, uh, I was like hey, so anyway, let's go ahead and end the meeting.
• 18:43
  Eric Howerton: I mean, like man, I had to like go outside with the clock, make a listen.
• 18:48
  Eric Howerton: He didn't.
• 18:49
  Eric Howerton: You know he's.
• 18:50
  Eric Howerton: He's the guy we keep in the Backroom.
• 18:52
  Eric Howerton: He's a tech guy, Okay, yeah you know he's the smart finance guy, you know, and I'm the.
• 18:57
  Eric Howerton: You know I was like he didn't really meet it like that, because the worst part was is like I mean they just like snowballed and I would see him at gas to.
• 19:07
  Eric Howerton: It was weird Because I'd always run into me at, like gas stations and airports and everywhere I was going, except saying this client, I kept seeing this client after that meeting and I'm like dude.
• 19:17
  Eric Howerton: So I we ended up having to like make pretty good on and I mean I think that everybody kind of kind of went on that.
• 19:23
  Eric Howerton: But I don't know, that was my horror story, that sounds pretty bad.
• 19:26
  Mark Zweig: I remember I don't know if I ever told you the story.
• 19:28
  Mark Zweig: If I did, here in this venue, forgive me, but I still.
• 19:32
  Mark Zweig: It's a great story, sure, so it was right after I started marks wagon associates, which was eventually became swig white and then swig group today.
• 19:40
  Mark Zweig: So it was just me, okay, and I had this opportunity to do some work for a client and it was hr related.
• 19:50
  Eric Howerton: I just written a book for um john waley and sons On human resources for the design industry, which, by the way, I've always been fascinated how you can take the worst subject of human resources and make it sound like it's a great book.
• 20:06
  Eric Howerton: Well, like it's a good story.
• 20:08
  Mark Zweig: I've read some show.
• 20:09
  Mark Zweig: It is an important topic really.
• 20:12
  Mark Zweig: Oh, that's completely important, but greatly misunderstood and Misconstrued by hr people everywhere, which is why they're they're oftentimes hated.
• 20:23
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, and the least paid c level managers Are they really, yeah, they make less than than heads of marketing and and finance accounting it.
• 20:33
  Mark Zweig: They shouldn't.
• 20:34
  Mark Zweig: I mean, it's really an important job.
• 20:36
  Mark Zweig: But my theory on that is they're overly focused on liability reduction.
• 20:41
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, and management gets sick of hearing bad news and therefore they shoot the messenger and really they need to be focused on other stuff like recruitment and retention and development More than just this is going to get in trouble.
• 20:55
  Mark Zweig: This is illegal, yeah, management just doesn't want to hear that.
• 20:58
  Mark Zweig: Right, you know right, but anyway.
• 21:00
  Mark Zweig: So I'm just setting the stage, though, for this.
• 21:03
  Mark Zweig: So I got this client.
• 21:04
  Mark Zweig: He wants me to.
• 21:05
  Mark Zweig: I, early on in my consulting career, I would put in HR programs inside a e-farms that never had them.
• 21:13
  Mark Zweig: So I talked with this one company and I'm got the ceo and his assistant and anyway, um, they the ceo.
• 21:24
  Mark Zweig: I, well, I talked to the assistant and the ceo was going to call me and I knew, as we set up A time from the call, and so I had a two line phone set up in my house.
• 21:34
  Mark Zweig: I started for 30 days before I moved to an office, which was, by the time we had the meeting, it was actually in my office.
• 21:41
  Mark Zweig: This is in the house, okay, and so I said to my then wife like I want you to answer the phone, okay, and then put them on hold, and then I'll pick it up and it will sound more like a bigger company.
• 21:57
  Mark Zweig: And so she answers it and she puts them on hold, she thinks, but she cuts them off.
• 22:02
  Mark Zweig: I'm like, ah shit, sue.
• 22:04
  Mark Zweig: So she does it.
• 22:06
  Mark Zweig: So the guy calls again, she puts them on hold and cuts them off again, just looking incompetent.
• 22:13
  Mark Zweig: Now the guy calls the third time.
• 22:15
  Mark Zweig: This time she says to me, oh my God, I just cut them off again.
• 22:19
  Mark Zweig: I'm like Jesus, you know, blah, blah, blah, sue, I can't believe.
• 22:24
  Mark Zweig: It Turns out she hadn't cut them off, he was still on the line.
• 22:28
  Mark Zweig: So then when he comes to my new office the next week or two weeks after that he comes in never met this guy the first thing he does is shake my head.
• 22:40
  Mark Zweig: It's good to meet you, mr Human Resources.
• 22:42
  Mark Zweig: So embarrassed.
• 22:51
  Mark Zweig: Obviously, my management feedback approach was not solid.
• 22:56
  Mark Zweig: It's terrible, ok, it's terrible, but she did cut them off for the third time.
• 23:01
  Mark Zweig: I mean, it wasn't that hard to do.
• 23:05
  Mark Zweig: I mean, you know lines there, hit the whole button.
• 23:10
  Mark Zweig: Now it flashes.
• 23:11
  Mark Zweig: Ok, don't do anything else, just stop.
• 23:17
  Eric Howerton: Just work out Just stop right there.
• 23:19
  Mark Zweig: You can set the phone down on the table, it doesn't matter, they can't hear you.
• 23:23
  Mark Zweig: Everything would be fine.
• 23:24
  Eric Howerton: So I got a good one.
• 23:25
  Eric Howerton: Anyway, I got a good one Doing a photo shoot back in the day for one of our biggest clients and I basically set up a.
• 23:34
  Eric Howerton: I used to do photography back in the commercial type stuff.
• 23:37
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, you're good at it.
• 23:37
  Mark Zweig: No Right, it's all right.
• 23:38
  Mark Zweig: Outdoor photography.
• 23:40
  Eric Howerton: Outdoor photography, commercial stuff, but anyway.
• 23:42
  Eric Howerton: So I was trying to blend the commercial with the outdoor together for this catalog that I was doing, and so I had this vision of like sitting in a dining room table up seeing In the woods, in the something, in the creek, in the river, okay, yeah.
• 23:55
  Eric Howerton: I can see right, this is going wrong.
• 23:58
  Eric Howerton: It's so bad.
• 24:00
  Eric Howerton: So I got this vision of this, so you get your dining room table out of your house.
• 24:06
  Mark Zweig: Oh right, even worse, dude, this is so bad.
• 24:09
  Mark Zweig: You borrow your mom's dining room table.
• 24:11
  Eric Howerton: Even worse, bro, like this might get me in some trouble, but I go to Lowe's and I'm like I bought me an outdoor patio set, a really nice one, it's probably 750 bucks.
• 24:21
  Mark Zweig: Okay, like one of those cast aluminum ones or something.
• 24:25
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, Like just one of the nice it had.
• 24:27
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, it had like the aluminum of the glass table, the dryback chairs.
• 24:31
  Eric Howerton: I mean it was a good $700 or two chairs 25 years ago, I assume right 20 or two.
• 24:36
  Eric Howerton: It's crazy, but yeah, it's back in 08 or something like that 06.
• 24:43
  Eric Howerton: So, anyway, I go buy it at Lowe's, put it in my truck, drive all the way out to Devil's Den down the road Right, and I get all everybody there, it's a long haul, yeah.
• 24:50
  Eric Howerton: Long haul and I just bought it and we set up a scene, took the picture and everything, like I had taken this table right In the chairs and like I put it in the river and like had twisted it into the gravel.
• 25:04
  Eric Howerton: So when yeah, so when you pulled away and then I did the same for the chairs completely submerged into the water, and then I had my models get in there and they act like they had.
• 25:15
  Eric Howerton: Or having dinner, and I had this lamp, because it's all about a lighting company and I had that plugged in and stretched over.
• 25:21
  Eric Howerton: Oh my God.
• 25:23
  Mark Zweig: This is really getting to be a bad idea.
• 25:25
  Mark Zweig: Did you put a toaster over there on the shoreline?
• 25:28
  Mark Zweig: I did too, and it wasn't right over here, so I had some out of that.
• 25:35
  Eric Howerton: God yeah, dude, it was pretty sketchy, but I feel like hanging up and I mean it was a little sketchy, so I get it done.
• 25:42
  Eric Howerton: And of course I'm a young entrepreneur, I didn't have any money, so what was I naturally going to do with that?
• 25:48
  Mark Zweig: You're going to take it back to low.
• 25:49
  Mark Zweig: Take it back to low, get my money back, right?
• 25:51
  Mark Zweig: No, my wife didn't like it after all.
• 25:56
  Mark Zweig: I'm sorry.
• 25:57
  Mark Zweig: Exactly what I was going to say.
• 25:59
  Eric Howerton: And when I did say however, here's a first part about it so I go all the way back home from Devil's Den 30 minute drive, had the patio furniture in there it's still kind of airing out and I dropped some stuff off of my house and I was driving back down the Lowe's, going down that service road, and I was totally doing it in 55.
• 26:17
  Eric Howerton: I had a chair.
• 26:17
  Eric Howerton: I was flying out.
• 26:18
  Eric Howerton: I just hear this flanking going on my truck.
• 26:21
  Eric Howerton: I look back and I see both of those chairs bouncing 10 feet up in the air, Just slams.
• 26:28
  Mark Zweig: Slide.
• 26:28
  Mark Zweig: I'm like, oh my god, Don't take that back now are you?
• 26:32
  Eric Howerton: That's what I thought, but I was like something stopped me.
• 26:34
  Eric Howerton: I mean I went and picked them up.
• 26:35
  Eric Howerton: They were bent up Like they were like a brown you know, had a brown paint on them, but now they're all silver from all the paint being dragged off and I put them back in my truck and I'm like I can't afford to pay.
• 26:48
  Eric Howerton: Now I got $750 worth of bad chairs, like I can't even afford.
• 26:52
  Eric Howerton: So I was like man, I don't know, man, let me go give this a shot.
• 26:56
  Eric Howerton: That way I didn't talk to the manager and I'm like hey, man, listen, my wife didn't like these and I was on my way to bring them back and they fell out of the truck.
• 27:05
  Eric Howerton: He goes don't worry about it.
• 27:06
  Eric Howerton: I was like man, I'll pay for it.
• 27:09
  Eric Howerton: He's like don't worry about it, We'll get rid of them.
• 27:10
  Mark Zweig: Wow, and that was nice.
• 27:12
  Mark Zweig: It was really nice.
• 27:13
  Mark Zweig: That was a beautiful story, not a horror story, yeah, I know, but I mean the horror story.
• 27:18
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, the horror part too, though, was like all the bad stuff that happened, and I guess that's kind of the story here.
• 27:24
  Eric Howerton: Right, bad things happen, but it can turn out all right.
• 27:26
  Eric Howerton: It's true, sometimes they lead to good things.
• 27:28
  Eric Howerton: Good moral of it, sometimes they do.
• 27:30
  Eric Howerton: Those were my better situations there.
• 27:33
  Mark Zweig: So, yeah, there's been a bunch of them, so I'll tell you one.
• 27:37
  Mark Zweig: And again, I almost hesitate to tell this story.
• 27:43
  Mark Zweig: I should.
• 27:44
  Mark Zweig: Ok, there's no point in it.
• 27:46
  Mark Zweig: No, I don't know, I'll tell this story.
• 27:50
  Mark Zweig: I'm not going to get into that one.
• 27:52
  Mark Zweig: It might be a little too much for people, for our listeners.
• 27:55
  Mark Zweig: They can't handle the truth.
• 27:58
  Mark Zweig: You want the truth?
• 28:00
  Mark Zweig: No, no, I did have.
• 28:02
  Mark Zweig: I've had some interesting stories of people that I worked with in my company.
• 28:08
  Mark Zweig: One time we had this guy who was kind of a hot shot young guy but he had some issues.
• 28:16
  Mark Zweig: I had heard stories of other people who traveled with him and he was one of these guys who would get like incredibly drunk and then just do stupid stuff, like break things, throw things, whatever, which was very disturbing.
• 28:36
  Mark Zweig: I had to have a talk with him about that.
• 28:39
  Mark Zweig: But in any case he was a high performer.
• 28:42
  Mark Zweig: I mean, he billed a lot, he was successful in what he did so one day and he had a company car.
• 28:49
  Mark Zweig: He was an associate.
• 28:50
  Mark Zweig: The associates at that time had a small amount of ownership in the company.
• 28:55
  Mark Zweig: And he comes to me one day and my head of management consulting it says good news, I got great news for you guys.
• 29:05
  Mark Zweig: I'm like what's that?
• 29:06
  Mark Zweig: He goes.
• 29:07
  Mark Zweig: I've just accepted a job with another company that to compete with Swig Group Heading up there.
• 29:16
  Eric Howerton: Is he?
• 29:16
  Mark Zweig: mousing this.
• 29:17
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, he's telling me, and his boss, ok, and you're the owner of the Swig Group.
• 29:21
  Mark Zweig: And I'm like good news, I go.
• 29:23
  Mark Zweig: That's not good news, that's horrible news, that's terrible news.
• 29:28
  Mark Zweig: He goes.
• 29:29
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, but I'm really excited.
• 29:30
  Mark Zweig: I thought you'd be happy for me.
• 29:32
  Mark Zweig: I said give me the keys to the BMW and get your shit and go, call your wife because you're going to need to get a ride home.
• 29:40
  Mark Zweig: And we all sat there in the conference room because I called the meeting to tell everybody that he was no longer with us and he sat out in the curb looking rather forlorn, waiting for his wife to pick him up in the Camry.
• 29:54
  Mark Zweig: But anyway, I was pretty harsh back in those days, yeah speaking of yeah, I was thinking of a horror story.
• 30:01
  Eric Howerton: I just had about being harsh, a little too harsh.
• 30:02
  Mark Zweig: I learned from the sense.
• 30:03
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, I have to Mellowed out.
• 30:05
  Mark Zweig: What did you do?
• 30:06
  Mark Zweig: That was too harsh.
• 30:07
  Eric Howerton: Yeah.
• 30:07
  Eric Howerton: So I went on a rampage one day.
• 30:09
  Eric Howerton: We probably had I don't know 20 people on our team at the time this was many years ago and I said hey, listen, there's not enough productivity going on in this company.
• 30:23
  Eric Howerton: But I think that some of you don't want to work here, and if you're not ready to work, then you need to put in your notice, like I'm y'all need to go on get.
• 30:31
  Eric Howerton: And there was quite a few.
• 30:34
  Mark Zweig: Just a second.
• 30:35
  Mark Zweig: Here's my note.
• 30:36
  Mark Zweig: Just a second.
• 30:37
  Mark Zweig: How many turn their notice in?
• 30:41
  Mark Zweig: Ah, it's probably four or five.
• 30:42
  Eric Howerton: I mean it was well, but you know, I mean that was pretty harsh and I don't.
• 30:47
  Eric Howerton: I mean obviously I mean, but I think the reality longterm is actually is probably pretty helpful, because actually the people are like you know, I really appreciate you saying that, because I haven't been really doing much lately.
• 30:58
  Eric Howerton: It was weird.
• 31:00
  Eric Howerton: It was weird.
• 31:02
  Eric Howerton: I mean, I saw this guy.
• 31:03
  Eric Howerton: Sometimes you have to do that, I think.
• 31:05
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, get real.
• 31:06
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, I mean, you could be the nice guy all the time, but if you just every once in a while get really tough, then at least it shows that you can't do that.
• 31:16
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, you know, it's true.
• 31:18
  Mark Zweig: I think it might be more effective than just being tough all the time or just being a pushover all the time, yeah, so Do we have enough time to talk about work ethic?
• 31:28
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, let's do.
• 31:29
  Eric Howerton: Let's go back to work ethic.
• 31:30
  Eric Howerton: So, speaking of like six o'clock this morning, we were texting back and forth about the day show and I was like man, let's, we should talk about work ethic a little bit.
• 31:38
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, let's do.
• 31:40
  Mark Zweig: What do you want to say about it?
• 31:41
  Eric Howerton: Well, I mean, I think that I've been thinking about this lately and I think that a big part of because I would say that entrepreneurs like true entrepreneurs, like are relentlessly working, you know.
• 31:56
  Eric Howerton: But what is that Like?
• 31:58
  Eric Howerton: I mean, would you call that work ethic?
• 31:59
  Eric Howerton: I mean, I would call it a strong work ethic, yeah, sure, but that's kind of like the result, Because what really I think it is is like it's the, if you don't have a vision in what you're doing, if you're working just to work or work to get paid, You'll get tired.
• 32:16
  Eric Howerton: You'll get tired, yeah, and then your work ethic diminishes over time.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 32:21
  Eric Howerton: And you know you're coasting Right, I agree, and I think that that's like like, I think that that's why, like when folks will talk about like I'll have stories in my office and stuff, when people you know that will tell new employees that I've even met, that, like I mean you might get an email from American two, 30 in the morning.
• 32:40
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, and I don't see it.
• 32:42
  Eric Howerton: It's a problem.
• 32:42
  Mark Zweig: But I don't see it's a problem either.
• 32:44
  Mark Zweig: I never, I could never understand that.
• 32:46
  Mark Zweig: First off, turn your phone on silent and secondly, I didn't see you had to answer me at two 35.
• 32:53
  Mark Zweig: Why can't I send it to you at two 30?
• 32:56
  Mark Zweig: I'm done with it.
• 32:56
  Mark Zweig: What should I do?
• 32:57
  Mark Zweig: Like, I'm going to set an alarm.
• 32:59
  Mark Zweig: I'll send it to them at eight 31 tomorrow, because that's when they report to work.
• 33:05
  Mark Zweig: I'd never bought that, I'm just.
• 33:07
  Mark Zweig: What is that?
• 33:09
  Eric Howerton: I don't, I don't know, I guess, I guess.
• 33:10
  Mark Zweig: You're playing about me.
• 33:11
  Mark Zweig: You had the same thing now, so I totally oh yeah, absolutely.
• 33:14
  Eric Howerton: I'll have people say like no, you can.
• 33:16
  Eric Howerton: You can schedule it to send later.
• 33:17
  Eric Howerton: I'm like why would I do that, though?
• 33:19
  Eric Howerton: I want it to be the first thing.
• 33:21
  Mark Zweig: Right, I send it, they.
• 33:22
  Mark Zweig: They can respond when they want to respond, right, yeah, I mean, I want them to respond fast, but they can't.
• 33:31
  Mark Zweig: You know what's your patience level like?
• 33:33
  Mark Zweig: That's a lot better than it used to be.
• 33:35
  Mark Zweig: I'm a lot more forgiving and I'm a lot more patient, but I am still obsessed.
• 33:40
  Mark Zweig: My obsession for doing things and making things better or living up to my commitments or doing everything I can do to make something work is not diminished at all.
• 33:52
  Eric Howerton: I don't think so.
• 33:53
  Eric Howerton: So, like like on the work, yeah, On the work ethic part, I mean, it seems like to me just like you do keep driving all in.
• 33:59
  Eric Howerton: I feel the same for me too, Like if there's I actually feel like if there's less, like because there's less and less time in life, maybe that I'm wanting to get more and more done and as the, as the saying starts to kind of go down to the other side, Like the sands of an hourglass.
• 34:18
  Mark Zweig: These are the days of our lives.
• 34:19
  Mark Zweig: Do you remember that there was a soap opera?
• 34:22
  Mark Zweig: Days of our lives.
• 34:23
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, yeah, I'm a little.
• 34:25
  Mark Zweig: I just don't remember the the beginning.
• 34:26
  Mark Zweig: That was the beginning.
• 34:27
  Mark Zweig: They would, they would watch their stories.
• 34:29
  Mark Zweig: Well, now it's, it's getting to be about one o'clock.
• 34:32
  Mark Zweig: I better go watch my stories, but no, so you feel like the the last time you have, the more that I want to get accomplished before.
• 34:42
  Eric Howerton: You know like I just like I'm becoming more conscious of that.
• 34:44
  Eric Howerton: I guess that sand dripping down.
• 34:47
  Mark Zweig: Yeah.
• 34:48
  Eric Howerton: I understand, figuratively speaking, so, but but I mean, I think that's another driver of working.
• 34:53
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, like I don't know, do you think you can teach people to be like that, or is that just some kind of innate characteristic that they have, that maybe they developed as a child or something?
• 35:08
  Eric Howerton: I don't know.
• 35:09
  Eric Howerton: I mean, I think that that's one of my kind of my arguments on like teaching, entrepreneurism, or this thought of teaching it right, or the you know the kind of the bubbling up of right, Of of educating it.
• 35:21
  Mark Zweig: I guess, in a way, and because I don't know that you necessarily can teach that, you know, I don't like, I think, like you can't teach to be able to see something, yeah, there's a lot of stuff we can teach, though no no, no, totally Like, so like everybody practices all that kind of stuff yeah they could have a high motivation level Totally and not be able to direct that appropriately or make bad decisions because they don't have a good decision-making process or any number of.
• 35:51
  Mark Zweig: But you can't teach that one little.
• 35:54
  Eric Howerton: So I hear what you're saying, Because I could have been accelerated, like had I had, because back when I was going through school they didn't have entrepreneurism.
• 36:01
  Eric Howerton: Oh, Like I didn't even know what the hell the word meant.
• 36:04
  Mark Zweig: Wasn't going to talk to me.
• 36:05
  Mark Zweig: Well, we didn't have entrepreneurship.
• 36:06
  Mark Zweig: We really.
• 36:07
  Mark Zweig: We started out with small business and then it morphed into entrepreneurship and a lot more.
• 36:14
  Mark Zweig: Oh, really, yeah, okay.
• 36:16
  Eric Howerton: But you know that aspect of being able to visualize something which then drives all.
• 36:22
  Eric Howerton: Because here's the deal If you're starting up a small business, your work ethic has to be impeccable.
• 36:28
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, like you cannot not work a lot.
• 36:32
  Eric Howerton: Like I used to have a say in my office work harder, work faster, work, smarter, work longer.
• 36:38
  Eric Howerton: I mean that's basically the answer to all your problems.
• 36:40
  Mark Zweig: I know people would say work harder not, or work smarter, not harder.
• 36:43
  Mark Zweig: I'm like, how about work smarter and work harder?
• 36:46
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, both Okay.
• 36:46
  Mark Zweig: What could you imagine?
• 36:49
  Mark Zweig: What could you get done then?
• 36:51
  Mark Zweig: I mean, the whole formula is all yours Work smarter and work harder.
• 36:55
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, I totally get that.
• 36:57
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, they're not mutually exclusive.
• 36:59
  Eric Howerton: No, and that's a strong work ethic If you're working harder, smarter, faster and longer.
• 37:03
  Mark Zweig: I know, I understand Well, I think you know.
• 37:07
  Eric Howerton: I mean honestly, it's a requirement.
• 37:07
  Eric Howerton: Your work ethic is that's a requirement for you to be successful in business.
• 37:12
  Eric Howerton: I think it is.
• 37:13
  Mark Zweig: But I, you know, I've been a student of human behavior, you know, as a management consultant.
• 37:20
  Mark Zweig: Well, at starting selling bicycles at age 12, you know, at a shop I actually started younger than that.
• 37:28
  Mark Zweig: I was probably eight or nine when I sold my first bike.
• 37:31
  Mark Zweig: So I had to study behavior just to be able to sell stuff, to see, like, what kind of reaction I was getting.
• 37:37
  Mark Zweig: But, you know, as I went through my career, it's really I want to say only lately that I have really come to what I think is a pivotal issue for a lot of businesses, small businesses and the people who work there.
• 38:00
  Mark Zweig: And you know what that is.
• 38:02
  Mark Zweig: What's that?
• 38:02
  Mark Zweig: Raising their collective?
• 38:04
  Mark Zweig: Raising their individual and collective expectations If they?
• 38:10
  Mark Zweig: You know, you said it, you got to be.
• 38:12
  Mark Zweig: You know, you said something about visualizing it a moment ago.
• 38:16
  Mark Zweig: I don't remember the exact words used, but it's like you're going to work hard if you think that it's taking you somewhere, if it can pay off, if it can work out, but if you're very cynical, you're suspect of everything, or you're just scared, or you just have such low expectations Like now.
• 38:41
  Mark Zweig: Well, I paid my $500 rent this month and you know, I made the payment on my 2005 Monte Carlo out there with 800,000 miles on it, or whatever.
• 38:54
  Mark Zweig: I'm happy with it.
• 38:55
  Mark Zweig: It's running good now.
• 38:56
  Mark Zweig: You know the old Monte Carlo is running good now.
• 38:59
  Mark Zweig: If that makes you happy, then there's nothing that we're going to be able to do to motivate you to work harder.
• 39:07
  Mark Zweig: That's right, okay.
• 39:09
  Eric Howerton: You have to, you're saying.
• 39:10
  Eric Howerton: You're saying I want to get here, yes, Like you have a goal yeah.
• 39:16
  Mark Zweig: It may not be necessarily financial, it's accomplishment.
• 39:18
  Mark Zweig: Yes, it's honor.
• 39:19
  Mark Zweig: It's accomplishment, exactly.
• 39:21
  Mark Zweig: Honor If you can't Honor, yeah.
• 39:27
  Eric Howerton: If you don't have that, then there's no way that you're going to work as hard, long, fast and smart to get to whatever you're trying to.
• 39:35
  Eric Howerton: It's your desire, your accomplishment up there, Exactly, Exactly, and you know so.
• 39:44
  Mark Zweig: And you can't teach that.
• 39:46
  Mark Zweig: Well, I don't know, teaching it may not be the right word, yeah, you can't teach it, but is it possible to raise that expectation for what's possible?
• 39:57
  Mark Zweig: Right, I think it is.
• 39:59
  Mark Zweig: I mean, I think I think there's several ways you can do that.
• 40:03
  Mark Zweig: I mean, you, as the owner, head of the business, you've got to be selling constantly.
• 40:12
  Mark Zweig: You got to be selling everybody.
• 40:14
  Mark Zweig: It's a constant effort.
• 40:15
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, this is what we can do.
• 40:17
  Mark Zweig: This is where we are now, but you know we could be here.
• 40:20
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, paint that picture what that means.
• 40:22
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, that has got to be one of your primary jobs.
• 40:24
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, will everyone respond to that?
• 40:28
  Mark Zweig: No, it's called campaigning.
• 40:29
  Mark Zweig: Okay, campaigning, it's great.
• 40:32
  Mark Zweig: Well, you know as well as I do, not everyone's going to respond to that, but there may be some people out there that it wakes up.
• 40:39
  Mark Zweig: I have seen people sort of wake up out of their slumber and constantly slumber, and come alive and get excited about something because they hadn't really thought about what was possible to achieve.
• 40:56
  Mark Zweig: Okay, yeah, it doesn't happen all the time.
• 41:00
  Mark Zweig: But you know, you and I both know you don't always need a whole lot of those people either.
• 41:04
  Mark Zweig: No, no, you don't you need some no.
• 41:06
  Mark Zweig: And then they're like infectious, they may infect somebody else, just like the negativity and the can't do it and the depression is also contagious.
• 41:15
  Mark Zweig: No, but I do think you can.
• 41:18
  Mark Zweig: That that's a really big challenge.
• 41:21
  Mark Zweig: If we want people to work harder, they've got to feel like there's something in it for them.
• 41:25
  Mark Zweig: I think there's a lot of elements.
• 41:26
  Mark Zweig: I think shared business planning, open book management, potential.
• 41:32
  Eric Howerton: That allows people to see some goals, see some expectations for themselves, that they can achieve things.
• 41:38
  Eric Howerton: Right.
• 41:38
  Eric Howerton: I do think you've got to give some opportunities to people, but what you say, like the entrepreneur, though, has to be able to find that in themselves.
• 41:46
  Eric Howerton: Oh gosh, yeah, like you have to.
• 41:51
  Mark Zweig: If you don't, you're not going to make it.
• 41:53
  Mark Zweig: No, mentoring is going to do that for you.
• 41:55
  Mark Zweig: No, coaching is going to do that for you.
• 41:58
  Mark Zweig: Okay, you've got that comes from within.
• 42:02
  Eric Howerton: That must be what I'm thinking of when I'm seeing where I'm feeling like it can't be taught in a way, right, because you, you can't do that, and that's what drives the real whipless work ethic.
• 42:15
  Eric Howerton: Yes, when you say, when you agree with that well, yeah, I, I do.
• 42:21
  Mark Zweig: It absolutely does the.
• 42:23
  Mark Zweig: The problem, though, as we all know as Entrepreneurs, is how do you multiply yourself?
• 42:28
  Mark Zweig: How do you get other people to do that?
• 42:30
  Mark Zweig: Okay, because there's only so much we can do.
• 42:33
  Eric Howerton: You have an answer to that because it drives me Mike saying like I'm literally it's been one of my biggest challenges and still is it.
• 42:40
  Mark Zweig: It's always a challenge, it's still it's.
• 42:42
  Mark Zweig: It's a challenge for me.
• 42:44
  Mark Zweig: But again, for me, the way I look at it is it comes down to raising the expectations and sense of possibility for everybody.
• 42:53
  Mark Zweig: So I'm gonna have to constantly be painting the picture of where we could go.
• 42:56
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, I've got to constantly Provide people with information so they don't feel like they're cut off.
• 43:04
  Mark Zweig: I don't want to do anything that turns off somebody.
• 43:08
  Eric Howerton: Okay, so it's not you're what you're saying.
• 43:09
  Eric Howerton: It's not just about raising expectations, but also preventing Expectations being lower, exactly, exactly and, and just a few key people, make a large difference in any organization.
• 43:23
  Mark Zweig: They set the pace, they set the expectation.
• 43:26
  Mark Zweig: But you know I wrote an article about this recently that I do think that, like after watching suits Nine seasons we just finished it last night yeah brought tears to my eyes.
• 43:42
  Mark Zweig: I really yeah, did you get into that?
• 43:44
  Mark Zweig: I love that show, but what I you know people could say oh well, attorneys tell me it's not realistic.
• 43:50
  Mark Zweig: Whatever this, the show is based on these New York attorneys who are partners in a firm Mm-hmm, they got a million problems.
• 43:57
  Mark Zweig: They're fighting with each other.
• 43:59
  Mark Zweig: There's constant, yeah, attacks on the firm, but one thing is a fact they all work Incredibly hard and they make huge money.
• 44:09
  Mark Zweig: Okay, yeah, now a lot of businesses Don't really offer that opportunity to people and there's a lot of reasons for that.
• 44:18
  Mark Zweig: Sometimes it's the nature of the business.
• 44:20
  Mark Zweig: I mean, new York attorneys or partners can charge two thousand bucks an hour.
• 44:25
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, you know what I mean.
• 44:26
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, I can't necessarily get that.
• 44:28
  Mark Zweig: To build a website, right, right, right.
• 44:31
  Mark Zweig: That when there's somebody in India is doing it for $3 an hour, yeah, whatever, so said there, there are some differences in industries that you can't get away from.
• 44:40
  Mark Zweig: Summer inherently more lucrative than others, but the point I was trying to make is that in that kind of environment, they could really give some great opportunities to the people who are the ones that Absolutely friggin kill themselves.
• 44:55
  Mark Zweig: Now the industry I come out about there in the architecture and engineering side, but those companies don't really offer that.
• 45:03
  Mark Zweig: I mean, I'll be honest, they.
• 45:04
  Mark Zweig: It's a very, very, very rare company that says let's say it's you and you want to work 16 hours a day, and you got, I'm gonna be a partner in this firm.
• 45:14
  Mark Zweig: Come hell or high water, I will be here the first to come in, the last to go.
• 45:20
  Mark Zweig: I'll be here on the weekend.
• 45:21
  Mark Zweig: I'll kill myself.
• 45:22
  Mark Zweig: Okay, for the next 10 years to get there.
• 45:26
  Mark Zweig: They don't really.
• 45:28
  Mark Zweig: If you did that, you would be doing the same thing as the dude who gets up comes in at 830, has a cup of coffee and farts around till 930.
• 45:38
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, and you know what I'm saying.
• 45:39
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, we level everybody out.
• 45:42
  Mark Zweig: We don't really provide.
• 45:44
  Mark Zweig: The opportunity the outliers.
• 45:47
  Mark Zweig: We can't deal with the outliers Okay, we drive them out systematically over time till they have to start their own business.
• 45:58
  Eric Howerton: So how do you, how do you accommodate for that though?
• 46:00
  Eric Howerton: How do you structure to a small business To give them a pathway, for give those outliers a pathway to success, right?
• 46:08
  Mark Zweig: Well, I think you've got.
• 46:09
  Mark Zweig: You've got to do a lot of things differently.
• 46:11
  Mark Zweig: Like big companies, once a year pay raise or review, uh-huh.
• 46:14
  Mark Zweig: You may have to give people raises more often than that.
• 46:18
  Eric Howerton: So it's a red and click.
• 46:19
  Eric Howerton: So I'm gonna pin on that real quick, because we've been taught a lot of times as Entrepreneurs.
• 46:24
  Eric Howerton: We get taught by what we see.
• 46:25
  Eric Howerton: Read right, other big companies do other big, not Entrepreneurial companies exactly corporate ones that actually don't want a lot of outliers right.
• 46:36
  Mark Zweig: They basically morph into government Organization, gave all the characteristics of government organizations given enough time.
• 46:43
  Mark Zweig: That's what I think.
• 46:44
  Mark Zweig: I Think once you get to a certain size and the structure becomes all encompassing that there's as you said, they don't want outliers.
• 46:53
  Mark Zweig: There's no way to deal with an outlier because we look at everybody's pay once a year.
• 46:58
  Mark Zweig: We've got a raise, increase budget, but as a small business entrepreneur.
• 47:02
  Eric Howerton: You need you.
• 47:03
  Eric Howerton: You don't need to play by those rules.
• 47:06
  Eric Howerton: No, but you, you really could.
• 47:08
  Eric Howerton: You could really magnify your success, but have an outliers around with you.
• 47:13
  Mark Zweig: Absolutely like and you want to encourage outliers.
• 47:15
  Mark Zweig: You know I mean, don't you think, though?
• 47:20
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, man, I was just actually saying this exact thing.
• 47:22
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, at lunch I was like I'm not surprised I need to.
• 47:25
  Eric Howerton: I was like I will be Excited as hell when I walk into the room and I got you and the other and two of your other team members in here thinking about the business Coming together with solutions, and I am part of that team.
• 47:39
  Eric Howerton: I just want to be part of a team like that a team of champions.
• 47:44
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, and you don't need to be the leaner and the God.
• 47:47
  Mark Zweig: I mean, that's what I would have be part of a team that leads.
• 47:50
  Mark Zweig: I'm with you, I'm a passion freakin wolves, I'm a hundred percent with you, and and so, and you know, there's ways you can sort of find out who those people are Like.
• 48:01
  Mark Zweig: Are they the ones that are sending you the emails at night, or did they shut down?
• 48:04
  Mark Zweig: What do they?
• 48:05
  Mark Zweig: know they respond emails at 2 30 they were smart, even if that's not a clock hanging out with you.
• 48:10
  Mark Zweig: Okay, even 10 o'clock crazy man.
• 48:12
  Eric Howerton: I love it, I love you.
• 48:14
  Eric Howerton: So to me the emails at 2 30.
• 48:15
  Eric Howerton: You know you're doing something.
• 48:17
  Eric Howerton: I'm like man behind it.
• 48:18
  Eric Howerton: I'm like Marcus wires in.
• 48:20
  Eric Howerton: I'm in well, because you, I'm.
• 48:22
  Eric Howerton: I'm just a minute.
• 48:24
  Mark Zweig: I don't know, what else to say?
• 48:25
  Mark Zweig: I'm committed.
• 48:26
  Mark Zweig: I hate to fail.
• 48:28
  Mark Zweig: I don't want to let anybody down.
• 48:29
  Mark Zweig: I I have a really strong need to.
• 48:34
  Mark Zweig: I want to protect my reputation, yeah, yeah, I don't want to see that go down the toilet.
• 48:39
  Mark Zweig: Right?
• 48:39
  Mark Zweig: So there's a lot of heat on you.
• 48:41
  Mark Zweig: I mean you feel the responsibility, responsibility you.
• 48:44
  Mark Zweig: You know, in any organization that you're involved in, if you have a role, I've always Taken that responsibility real seriously, absolutely.
• 48:53
  Mark Zweig: If I felt like I wasn't doing that, I'd want to get out of it.
• 48:56
  Mark Zweig: Okay, I really mean I've had that.
• 49:01
  Mark Zweig: I've had good gigs as board members or whatever.
• 49:04
  Mark Zweig: Accompanies were so boring, huh, it was too boring.
• 49:08
  Mark Zweig: I wasn't.
• 49:08
  Mark Zweig: I didn't feel the love, I didn't see the chatter.
• 49:11
  Mark Zweig: I was gonna start talking without you by now because I've been playing the eye game.
• 49:21
  Eric Howerton: You know like try going through that and just negative, write it out each day and pay Money.
• 49:24
  Eric Howerton: Then the money for sure makes anxiety.
• 49:28
  Mark Zweig: Huh, greatest of money.
• 49:29
  Mark Zweig: The biggest is the money.
• 49:30
  Mark Zweig: Let me see how the he's doubts that you can give you.
• 49:37
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, going through Grand rounding for equity.
• 49:39
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, or even if it's options or phantom equity I mean, there's a lot of different vehicles you can use.
• 49:45
  Mark Zweig: Okay, Profit distributions in accordance with the, you know, whatever the metrics are that you're trying to track.
• 49:52
  Mark Zweig: I mean, those are all things that contribute to feeling like an owner and benefiting as if you were an owner, right?
• 49:58
  Mark Zweig: So I do think that that psychological ownership is really important.
• 50:02
  Eric Howerton: So what's kind of cool about this combo?
• 50:04
  Eric Howerton: I wish we had more time.
• 50:05
  Eric Howerton: Maybe we can talk about some more, because I think what a misconception that I've had as an entrepreneur in a small business is that I have to wait until my company is big enough to offer those things.
• 50:17
  Eric Howerton: When reality is that's because corp, that's what corporations have taught us right.
• 50:23
  Eric Howerton: But in all reality I should be in, I can, I should and could implement those right out of the gate.
• 50:30
  Eric Howerton: You can find my outliers right, like because you want.
• 50:33
  Eric Howerton: What you want to do.
• 50:34
  Eric Howerton: Is you want to set something up?
• 50:35
  Eric Howerton: That somebody that's got some hunger?
• 50:39
  Mark Zweig: Well, that's the whole icon of entrepreneurship.
• 50:41
  Mark Zweig: You want to be able to build it and then get out of it.
• 50:43
  Mark Zweig: You're never going to be able to get out of it if you can't have that, that replaced, whatever you bring to it, right, right, it's got to be.
• 50:51
  Mark Zweig: It's got to be.
• 50:52
  Mark Zweig: Whether it's one person or five people, somebody, the stuff that you bring to the equation, has got to be replaced by other people.
• 51:02
  Mark Zweig: If you're irreplaceable, there's no value in the business man.
• 51:05
  Eric Howerton: You actually, you taught me that a long time ago and I've been successful at doing that.
• 51:09
  Eric Howerton: You have, you've been very successful at it, or better than I was.
• 51:12
  Eric Howerton: Well, no, I mean just like in, like, I mean like even right now on the where I'm you know, like I got somebody that like I'm openly like supporting the replacement yeah, in risk of that where I might come across as replaceable, right, but I think that that's important for the company, it's important for me.
• 51:33
  Eric Howerton: I mean you know what I'm saying but at the same time, I know what value I bring Like the.
• 51:38
  Eric Howerton: The reality to it is is that and I've told the folks there because I mean like this is the first time I've been employed in a long- time, right, you know, probably since the last time you worked at Swig White, like it was 12 years ago or whatever.
• 51:52
  Mark Zweig: Right, right, yeah.
• 51:53
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, and and I'm like um, that was a short stint anyway, it really wasn't employed.
• 51:59
  Mark Zweig: I mean I was right.
• 51:59
  Mark Zweig: Then you became a, I was an outlier with you, right.
• 52:02
  Mark Zweig: Then you became somebody we did business with.
• 52:05
  Mark Zweig: I mean, yeah, it's like, yeah right, there was an outline, it was just a stopover in a way, but yeah, but it was good.
• 52:10
  Eric Howerton: Freaking fantastic.
• 52:11
  Eric Howerton: Yeah it was great, but uh, but uh, but I've you know, I've even expressed it's like the day that I feel I don't bring value to this company.
• 52:18
  Eric Howerton: I'm going to let you know because I need to be out of here.
• 52:21
  Eric Howerton: It's only been my zero chance in hell that I could ever be taking.
• 52:27
  Eric Howerton: I don't take from things I give to them, right, right, because if I was sitting there taking dude, I would, I would be depressed.
• 52:35
  Eric Howerton: I would be depressed in a week, yes, if I wasn't providing value to whatever organization it is I'm.
• 52:40
  Mark Zweig: I'm totally with you.
• 52:41
  Mark Zweig: It's a, it's a need.
• 52:43
  Mark Zweig: You would feel like you're wasting your time.
• 52:45
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, it wouldn't.
• 52:46
  Mark Zweig: You wouldn't have your full energy level that you would normally have.
• 52:50
  Eric Howerton: The biggest thing is I'd be stealing from other people.
• 52:53
  Eric Howerton: That's what I like.
• 52:54
  Eric Howerton: I don't think that people realize because if I'm over here sucking up the air and the money and the resources and the resources right, and I'm not playing my part, then you're being impacted indirectly by me because there's less money to be paid to you to progress the company.
• 53:11
  Eric Howerton: Yes, absolutely.
• 53:12
  Eric Howerton: I think it's light and thievery.
• 53:14
  Eric Howerton: Yeah Well, david, you and I six shooter, three different cowboy stuff.
• 53:23
  Mark Zweig: Draw.
• 53:23
  Mark Zweig: All right, bart, I'm going to get you.
• 53:28
  Mark Zweig: What was that?
• 53:29
  Mark Zweig: On a Christmas story, Black Bart, whatever it was, but anyway, so, yeah, I get it, and and that's you and I are different in that way.
• 53:42
  Mark Zweig: It's really important to us to spend our time doing stuff that we think is valuable and that we find rewarding.
• 53:49
  Mark Zweig: It's not money necessarily either the camaraderie, if you can find those other people, that it's like one plus one equals five there, love it.
• 54:01
  Mark Zweig: Okay, I mean, you know my, my buddies over there in the Goshen and and and that's, you know, there's, I have a lot of that there.
• 54:12
  Eric Howerton: There's a couple of those cats over there.
• 54:14
  Mark Zweig: man Just freaking brutal they're, they're just into it, outwater freaking.
• 54:17
  Mark Zweig: My wife just has to say like, okay, enough, man, love for the night.
• 54:21
  Mark Zweig: You got to tell Grant good night, because you know, you know, just keep going, we just keep going, and going, and going, and we're talking about work the whole time.
• 54:30
  Mark Zweig: Right, this is exciting.
• 54:32
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, it's exciting.
• 54:34
  Mark Zweig: There's possibilities, there's things we can do, there's things we can do better.
• 54:37
  Mark Zweig: There's things that we can do that we're not doing now.
• 54:40
  Mark Zweig: That would be fun.
• 54:41
  Mark Zweig: There's, you know, there's ways we can make other people's lives better.
• 54:44
  Eric Howerton: Yes, yeah, markets you can steal.
• 54:47
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, competitors you can crush.
• 54:48
  Eric Howerton: Don't act like it.
• 54:50
  Eric Howerton: You don't think it's five man I do have.
• 54:53
  Eric Howerton: I have to go.
• 54:54
  Mark Zweig: Okay, buddy.
• 54:54
  Mark Zweig: Well, hey, it's been a great time talking with you.
• 54:57
  Mark Zweig: Me too, man.
• 54:58
  Mark Zweig: This has been another episode of the big talk about small business.
• 55:05
  Eric Howerton: Hope you enjoy it.
• 55:07
  Mark Zweig: Thanks everybody.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning into this episode of big talk about small business.
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: 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.