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35. What Buyers Actually Look for in a Business with Eric Harrison · Scrappy but Successful [Consultant's Personalities When No One's Watching]

• 0:03
  What's happening, everybody? Welcome to Scrappy What's Successful, the show where I sit down with
• 0:07
  your favorite consultants and we find out if they're successful today because they're sophisticated or
• 0:12
  because they're a little bit scrappy. I'm your host, Jack Tompkins, CEO of Pineapple Consulting
• 0:16
  Firm and Pineapple Analyst. Always helping small businesses become more data-driven. Fun fact of the
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  day, this one is just totally random, stumbled upon it. the people who voiced Mickey
• 0:26
  and Minnie Mouse were actually married in real life. Nice wholesome thing. But that's neither
• 0:30
  here nor there. Today I'm joined by my friend Eric Harrison. He's the director of
• 0:35
  business development in the MA field, that D BG advisors. He's owned and sold a
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  wholesale distribution business. He's run a data business. Now he's in the MA field. He
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  has learned something the hard way in his words. A successful business and a valuable
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  business are not the same thing. So, Eric, we know that you are successful today.
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  I appreciate you joining. The question we have for you do you think you fall
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  more on the sophisticated side, more on the scrappy side?
• 1:02
  Yeah. Well, thanks for having me, Jack. And great question. I'm gonna always say scrappy.
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  I, you know, I always fancy myself as, you know, I've run into a lot
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  of people that are really, really smart people and they are doing some incredible things,
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  but I'll take anybody to task and I feel like I can outwork anybody. So
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  my success has been built around Show up early, work as long as and as
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  hard as you have to until you get the job done even better than hopefully
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  what's expected. So I'm I'm definitely the scrappy guy. not the smartest guy in the
• 1:42
  room, but nobody's gonna outwork me.
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  I love There you go. I I'm a big fan of there are very few
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  problems that you can outwork.
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  Yeah, I I agree. I've learned that lesson the hard way too, probably, but we'll
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  talk about that, I'm sure.
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  Yeah. Perfect. Okay. Taking back to the beginning. Do you always have this hard work
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  mindset? Like, are you are you entrepreneurial as a kid? Do you have a lemonade
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  stand or anything?
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  I when I was ten years old, I got a job delivering newspapers for a
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  little community newspaper. I lived in this small subdivision. I don't know how many I
• 2:22
  a few hundred houses, however many it was. So one of my j I delivered
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  papers. door to door every day and had black hands from ro well this is
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  back when you know you rolled them by hand you stuffed it anyway I went
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  door to door selling subscriptions at ten years old and had doors slamming it. So
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  I learned pretty early on that you know you gotta you gotta get a lot
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  of no's before you get to that yes. But yeah, so always I think that
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  started me out. I, you know worked with my father my whole life who I
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  would argue is probably the best salesman I have ever met and will ever meet.
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  But yeah, yeah, definitely got the ish at an early age and I love selling.
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  So
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  Okay. That's I mean, getting the door slammed in your face at ten years old,
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  that's a character defining thing that probably happened a couple hundred times. Like, do you
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  do you then go into school and you're like, All right, I'm okay with a
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  C minus because there's way worse things out there?
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  é muito. Totally. Totally. Yeah. I good point. I I did not have the highest
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  GPA in high school or college, but I had a really good time. So anyway.
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  There we go. I like it. Okay. any did you ever sell any candy in
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  school?
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  Yo yeah, we did we the funny thing is, I was okay, this is bringing
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  back a really long memory, but we used to sell the candy bars. Yeah, yeah,
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  yeah. Okay, here we go. I so yeah, we were I was part of baseball
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  teams and we'd sell those big candy bars, you know, for like a dollar. And
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  for some reason
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  Perfect. Welcome to the show.
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  I had the hardest time selling candy to my friends. Okay, so and I'm you
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  we'll go as far with this as you want. So I got my dad to
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  take a box to his office and he would sell every one of So you
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  know, I I don't know, I'm sure there's a lesson or a message in there.
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  I so yeah, but I've sold candy, I sold gosh, what else did I Later
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  on I had a son that was in Boy Scouts. We went door to door
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  selling popcorn. So you know, I've done a little bit of everything.
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  What was what was the issue selling to your friends? What was the candy bar
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  issue?
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  I yeah, okay. I I d I mean, I won't say I didn't do it.
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  I just had a hard time
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  Yeah.
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  Holly, that's a man. I feel like we're in a therapy session here, but here
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  we go. I I think it was really like, you know, I don't want to
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  push too hard on my friends because I want them to like me, you know.
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  And so maybe it was just the you know, if somebody said no, I just
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  took it at face value. Whereas, you know, if I was knocking on that door,
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  you know, and the woman said, Can you come back tomorrow?
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  Yeah.
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  I was going back tomorrow, you know, I wasn't taking that as a anything other
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  than, okay, it's just not yet. But, you know, so anyway, I don't know. That's
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  I've never I haven't had that memory in a long time, but so thanks for
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  bringing me back to that, man. I I don't know. I guess need to go
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  talk to my therapist about that. I don't know.
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  Okay. Yeah. I love it. It's this happens more often than I ever thought it
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  would, but on this show people just they think of these memories that they haven't
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  thought of in ten, twenty, thirty years, whatever it is. And I love it.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah, I that one's going back a good forty, maybe even fifty. So yeah, that's
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  an old one.
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  Okay. I'll sometimes ask like, did you have to unlearn anything from your parents? But
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  it sounds like you probably learned a lot from your dad in sales.
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  I yeah, I really did. I mean, I you know, my so I grew up
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  in a family business. my mom and dad both worked in the company and my
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  gosh, I learned so much from both of them. And different my mother was absolutely
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  meticulous about everything she did. I mean, i I used to joke it took her
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  an hour to make a sandwich, you know. Now it was the best sandwich you
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  ever had in your life. But if you were hungry and in a hurry, as
• 6:54
  somebody else. So but yeah I learned a lot. I I I think I did
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  unlearn a lot from them though, because you know they definitely had their way that
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  they did things. And when I took over the business from my dad, you know,
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  I definitely unlearned I mean I had to open up my dad was the kind
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  of guy that, you know, Again, I and I got it from him, you know,
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  you show up, you work hard, and good things happen. But you know what? At
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  some point, you can't do everything and you can't be everything to everybody. And the
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  one lesson I learned fairly early on, running my company is if I'm the smartest
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  guy in the room, there's a whole lot of people working for me that are
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  all in trouble because I need to have some people that are
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  Yeah.
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  smarter than I am and that can I can trust to do things because I
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  you know, I was not wired to do everything myself. So yeah, there was definitely
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  a lot of learning and a lot of unlearning. It's been a interesting journey for
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  sure.
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  Nice. Okay. Was was the family business the wholesale business?
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  Yeah, it was.
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  Yeah. So literally grew up in it. That was, you know, at the same time
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  I was selling papers door to door. I would have my dad, you know, because
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  I was cheap or we should say free labor. So my dad would help me
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  have me help him like unpack merchandise and pack it into boxes to ship out
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  UPS. I mean I was yeah, so I I definitely
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  I was there was something about like one of my first jobs was working with
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  a friend's dad and he he made like tile bathrooms essentially, right? So he was,
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  I don't know, fifty, sixty something at the time. He's like, I'm not gonna carry
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  this pallet of tiles of three flights of stairs. Jack, you're sixteen. Do you wanna
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  get twenty bucks under the table and just carry stuff for me? It worked, but
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  it was you know.
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  Mm.
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  I I didn't learn that much from it, but it was still, hey, it was a twenty dollar bill as a kid was was something else. Did your dad eventually like when when did you actually get paid for being in the business?
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  Heck yeah.
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  Yeah. Yeah, I mean I d I have some definite early memories of going with
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  him, like to trade shows and stuff like that. And it wasn't even that he
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  would give me well, he he would like we'd go and I'd help him and
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  then maybe like at the end of the day we'd go grab an ice cream
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  or you know, he might give me five bucks to go play in the arcade
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  in the hotel or something like that, you know. So it was little stuff like
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  that, but you know, to me that was, you know, like a gold mine, right?
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  It's like, hey, yeah, heck yeah. I'm I'll go play some, you know, video games
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  for a w an hour and, you know, do whatever so anyway, yeah, yeah, definitely.
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  Yeah, it's f it's it's I mean, that's a dad who knows value over over
• 10:00
  dollars, right? Of hey, this guy's gonna care a whole lot more about an ice
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  cream cone than a twenty dollar bill right now.
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  Right.
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  Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I and I, you know, I definitely my dad was
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  also one of the most frugal guys I ever knew. So he really taught me
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  the value of money and that, you know, even later on as he, you know,
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  made more and more money, he never they had nice things, but and I'm it's
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  funny, my wife and I laugh about it all the time. We're still you know,
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  some of the cheapest people we know. We we like I you know, I went
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  to the airport last week and I I was trying to talk my wife into
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  driving me so I didn't have to pay for an Uber and she had something
• 11:19
  No. It's all good. I I'm very much the same. I think there's there's part
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  of it's just like the entrepreneur in in both of us, I I'm sure, is
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  there's always that feeling of it could all be taken away next month somehow. And
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  so saving forty bucks on an Uber, paying for the faraway parking at the airport,
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  whatever it is, like I'll I'll save twenty bucks where I can. Absolutely.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah, we'd laugh all the we used to joke on my dad. He's passed many
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  years ago now, but he woke up or you know, every day thinking that he
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  was gonna go out of business. I mean, that was just kind of his mentality
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  that, you know, or at the beginning of the year he'd be like, Well, I
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  don't know if we're gonna make it through this year or not. And so I
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  think that's what he used to kick his own butt to get him to show
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  up and work, you know, but
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  Yeah.
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  Yep.
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  Yeah. It's it's the scrappiness too, right? If it's hey, like I've got systems in place and it's let's even call it a sophisticated business, it's still the scrappy mindset of I'm gonna fight and claw for every dollar that I can, either to save it or to earn it or whatever that looks like. when did you take over the business?
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  Yeah.
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  Two thousand and eight, which yeah. So my you know, I I again I'll I'll you know, God rest the soul. I my dad was one of the not one, he was the best business person I ever knew. So
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  man
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  you know, our joke was, you know, he knew when to get out, right? He's like, here, you take it. I'm I'm kinda done now. You know, you you figure out how to get through eight and nine. And of course then the joke for about two years was, you know, well when I ran this place, we made a lot of money. I don't know what you're doing wrong, you know. So yeah, thanks Dad. thanks for shoveling the stuff on me just at the right time. So anyway.
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  Yeah.
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  Right.
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  But I I got him back
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  I mean how
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  many years later. I'll share that story if you want. well, when I sold the business, that's kind of a long story, but you know, woke up one day and my wife looked at me and she's like, I think you need to get out of the business. And of course I'm being a good husband. Okay, honey, yeah, I'll think about that. And in my mind I'm thinking, What have you lost your mind? I mean, you know, what am I gonna do? You know, I've
• 13:34
  Yeah, please.
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  Ha ha
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  Since I was ten years old, I've been packing shoes and cartons to ship out and stuff and and selling shoes to all kinds of people. But, you know, dutifully I'm like, okay, let me think about this. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized she was right. So I sold the business, long story short, got it done very quickly. We closed on the sale of the business in September of twenty nineteen. So
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  Okay.
• 14:53
  six months later the world blew up and you know, so I'd love to tell you I planned it that way. I you know, I'd love to say I'm as smart as my dad was to get out when I did, but and it actually worked out well because I I sold the business to my brother who is my business partner and he got through covet, got through, did all the P P E stuff and you know, he's still doing a great job but
• 15:06
  I love the family tradition of accidentally screwing the next guy.
• 15:11
  Right. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. God bless my brother. So anyway. Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  That's too funny. What what was the product that
• 15:22
  you were actually like wholesaling? Like what what what were the things that you're doing?
• 15:22
  We I I was in the women's shoe business my whole life. So we sold women's shoes to everybody from Nordstrom to Zappos to Amazon to department stores like Dillards and Belk, mom and pop shoe stores, and then we did private label for like JC Penny and Army Air Force. So if there was a store that sold shoes somewhere along the way, I've probably sold to them one way or another.
• 16:37
  was mostly kind of fashion shoes, so it was a little bit higher end, not you know, the real expensive Italian stuff, but you know, just nice product. so it it it was a great business, great people. I I still miss the people, great people in the business. The the business got really hard and it hasn't gotten any easier since I got out, I don't think, but
• 16:37
  Anyway, it was you know, so I I grew up just a kind of working in the fashion business with a lot of women, which was kind of interesting, but that's what I did my whole life. And yeah, so live to tell the stories.
• 16:34
  yeah, so live to tell the stories.
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  There you go. How did you at like that's such an interesting dynamic because you're
• 16:41
  selling women's shoes? How did like and you're and you were the salesperson, right? Like
• 16:45
  so actually let's back up for a second. When you were running the company, were
• 16:49
  you still leading sales?
• 16:51
  Yeah, I was. I mean that yeah, we were a sales organization, so you know,
• 16:56
  we pretty much lived and died with how much we sold. I we had a
• 17:02
  team of salespeople. So I had and we did an acquisition and brought a company
• 17:08
  in a couple of three years before I sold and brought in a couple more.
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  So we had at least six, eight, ten salespeople across the country that that were
• 17:20
  working primarily for us. some had other side hustles that they were doing at the
• 17:25
  same time. But yeah, it was all coordinated through our office here in Dallas and
• 17:31
  we bring people in for meetings several times a year. yeah.
• 17:36
  Okay. How were you like I'm assuming most of your buyers were women. How did
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  they how did how were you received as a as a guy coming in to
• 17:44
  s sell women shoes?
• 17:46
  You know, I well, and the other great thing was growing up with my or
• 17:51
  working in the business with my mother, who she was one of these women that
• 17:56
  walked in a room and I mean people just kinda stopped, you know. I I
• 18:01
  I know that sounds kind of goofy, but she had just a you know, she
• 18:06
  was a beautiful woman. she had a lot of per of charisma and she just
• 18:11
  kinda commanded a room. So, you know, I I Wrote her coattails for sure and
• 18:16
  wrote my father's too. But you know, that was never an issue. I mean, I
• 18:21
  it's kind of funny. I I have always had as many friends, mo more friends
• 18:26
  who are women than I do men. And I d I ha I have a
• 18:31
  I have a group of girls from high school, which I graduated high school.
• 18:36
  Yeah, you get free shoes.
• 18:42
  a long time ago and we're still all friends. We text each other every day.
• 18:47
  We have this email group and or our text group that we're you know, so
• 18:52
  I've always I I'm very comfortable working with, socializing with, you know, it it's just
• 18:58
  kind of part of my DNA, I think. So it that that was never, ever,
• 19:03
  ever an issue.
• 19:05
  Okay. How is like the first time you were meeting your wife, how was that?
• 19:08
  Like did you have to bring that up softly? Like, hey, like a bunch of
• 19:12
  really attractive girls that are friends and they're just friends.
• 19:15
  Yeah, you know, it's funny. She my wife is very strong willed and very confident.
• 19:19
  And so she I don't think has ever really felt any jealousy about any of
• 19:24
  that, you know, and and again I worked with a lot of women and you
• 19:29
  know, as a result of what you know, we'd be setting up for trade shows
• 19:34
  and I'm hanging out with a bunch of women till, you know, all hours of
• 19:39
  the night or whatever. So and you know, or going out for drinks after work
• 19:44
  or what and it it was just part of my it was just what I
• 19:49
  did. And so yeah, it it I I don't think it was ever an issue
• 19:54
  for her.
• 19:55
  Nice. That's awesome. That's that's amazing.
• 19:57
  Yeah, well she I married way over my head, what can I say? Anyway. That's
• 20:01
  right.
• 20:02
  But we're all trying to do. I love it. I'm sure you had plenty of
• 20:06
  plenty of hustle stories, plenty of like maybe even dips in revenue and all that
• 20:10
  stuff. And any of the struggle time beers or anything like that, or when when
• 20:14
  you were trying to save a buck, like did you have a did you have
• 20:18
  a ramen noodle dinner as like a consistent dinner, like a PB and J sandwich
• 20:22
  over the sink, like anything like that?
• 20:24
  boy, that's a good question. Are you talking about just at a certain point in
• 20:29
  time in the business or just a time when the business was really tough?
• 20:34
  Yeah, maybe w a time when the business is tough, like where's some penny packing?
• 20:36
  Yeah, well so, you know, growing up in the business, I mean, I used to
• 20:40
  joke and it was really true, we could, you know, for twenty years, we could
• 20:45
  close our eyes and pretty much at the end of the year I could tell
• 20:50
  you, okay, our revenue's gonna be here and our bottom line profit's gonna be here.
• 20:55
  And if that you know, we could and I my joke, you know, we could
• 21:00
  screw up all day every day and it's still gonna work out. That was just
• 21:05
  the way the business was. But Right when I took over the business in eight
• 21:10
  and nine, and all of a sudden we're losing customers right and left, and you
• 21:15
  know, we're getting cancellations right and left. You know, it was like the sky was
• 21:20
  falling. It's like, okay, what you know, we've never not made money. We've never had
• 21:25
  so much inventory that you know we couldn't get rid of. And so it it
• 21:30
  got pretty scary there for a while. And yeah, there was some years. That we
• 21:35
  actually lost money. And you know, it got it got yeah, there was I I
• 21:39
  don't know, I'm not much of a ramen guy. I'll do the PBJ thing. But
• 21:44
  yeah, I mean there were years where we definitely were living a more modest lifestyle
• 21:49
  than we were accustomed to, you know, after all those years of just, you know,
• 21:54
  showing up every day and and making a nice living, and then all of a
• 21:59
  sudden it's like Holy cow, how are we gonna dig out of this thing? So
• 22:04
  yeah.
• 22:05
  And and the fear we talked about early on of it's all gonna go away
• 22:06
  next month or next year, becomes a little more real than any of us would
• 22:07
  want there. obviously you make it through that and business goes on, you sell to
• 22:08
  your brother. You don't have to give us like numbers or anything like that, but