Latest / Big Talk About Small Business / Ep. 96 - Corporate Experience Isn’t Enough

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Ep. 96 - Corporate Experience Isn’t Enough · Big Talk About Small Business

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Being a corporate executive is not the same.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: They're two completely different animals.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: From the entrepreneur, the corporate executive has so many more resources and people to draw on than you have when you're a small business owner.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that, the job is just totally different.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, you've got to get in the weeds.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: And if you have not been in the weeds for 20, 30 years or more, coming out of Megacorp, good luck, dude.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Here we are again with another episode of Big Talk by Small Business, and it's great to be here.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: It's hot outside.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: I'm sweating.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: I've been up early, dude.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: I woke up at 3 am this morning.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, maybe 3.10.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: I laid there from like 2.35 to Did you?
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just thinking yes, and then finally I just said I'm getting up, you just got to do it.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: I started making out my lists.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: I wrote, you know, an article.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, I just freaking got on it.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: What can I?
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: say so that's fun, like I like that.
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: You've always been writing articles.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like you're a big communication person, but that's obviously a significant priority for you.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: But that's obviously a significant priority for you, it is as something that is productive to get done.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: What is your theory behind why you do that Like?
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: Why is?
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: that important in prioritize, well, I mean, first off, you document your thinking.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: You're not going to forget things as easily when you write them down, and it forces you to really organize your thinking.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: But I'm talking about writing an article, right, Okay, writing that article forces me to organize my thinking about whatever the topic is Gotcha, and it helps me communicate that to other people that I need to make things happen.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: Got it.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, got it.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: It's not just teaching, it's also for the things I'm personally involved in, okay.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: Because you're okay.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: So here's what I'm hearing you say you have all these things flying at you, right, and and what I've experienced is people don't, they don't understand what you're saying a lot of times, sure, in the moment exactly, and so after a day's worth of trying to communicate, you have all these different things hitting.
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: If you can in the morning, at that time, you'll, you'll kind of collect all these things and you start organizing and you write an article that's expressing what your direction is, what your theory behind it is yes, your philosophy, your actions.
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and then you release that and then other people happen to read it.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: Maybe they will understand a little bit better.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's it.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: And if they don't, so what?
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: It helps you.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, you'd be surprised how many people say to me wow, you must be listening in on our board meetings because this is what we're talking about right now.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: So I mean, all it tells me it's the same reason we do this show yeah, whatever we're going through you and me individually, in our businesses and with the people that we try to help, and other people are going through it it's not that unique.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: No, it's not.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: You know, we could say all of our struggles are totally unique and I guess on certain levels they are, because we don't have the same history, resources, whatever, but on the other hand, a lot of it is just universal.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: It just goes along with business ownership.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it does, you know.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot of people facing the same issues.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Whatever you and I are facing, there's other people facing the same issues.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: It's the same theory I have about marketing.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, it's like I know, if I like something myself and would pay money for that, somebody else out there is going to yeah, a hundred percent, you know yeah, and would pay money for that, somebody else out there is going to yeah, 100%, you know yeah, I don't like designs to businesses around stuff that I wouldn't buy myself or use myself, right, I think some people do that, though.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: They try to do that, yeah, because they think that's a good market.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: They think of the money part too.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the money, it's only the money.
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: I think it's a danger zone.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: Oh God, I do too.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: I've seen a lot of people get hurt in that You're too disconnected from the user and you've got to be a user and no one really really understands how absolutely challenging it is to take something to market and to build a company off of it, like it's just relentlessly full of problems, like we talked about.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, relentlessly full of problems, like we talked about.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, you, and then if you don't love it, then you get lost real quick and you want to quit.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: It's just like if you worked out all the time and you don't see any results you're not getting stronger or you're not losing weight what are you going to do?
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: yeah, you're gonna keep doing it because you've been told it's going to work.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: No, no, no stop yeah, it's funny, you know.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: I think I mentioned on one of the prior shows that my kids got me this, this book, or one of my daughters did for father's day, where they send me a question every week and I have to answer it.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the one I just answered a couple of days ago was what advice do you have for future generations of you know in our family?
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: And one of them was you know, I know, I mean and again it sounds like a cliche follow your passion, follow your interest.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, so it will keep you going in spite of the obstacles.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: If it's purely financial, the obstacles will come up and they'll seem insurmountable and it won't ever make sense on on paper like you can run every freaking analysis calculation the world was like.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: That's never going to work out.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can do enough market research to convince yourself that anything is not going to work.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Is this the truth?
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: okay, yeah, yeah but you, unless you believe in it and you're like man, this is going to pan out and you can see yourself, you know, being part of something that built and was successful.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: That's pretty, pretty inspiring and if you love to do it, you got to do that.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: But you know at the same time, what amazes me is now I'm 67 years old.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, I am still learning lessons that I should have learned 40 freaking years ago.
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: I'm glad you said that.
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: Okay, I feel so much better.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, it makes me feel so much better about myself, man, this is why we do this show.
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: I feel good about myself.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Well, it's a mutual group therapy session.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: But I mean, on the one hand, it's very frustrating that I'm like holy cow.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I knew better than that.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: I should have known that lesson, I should have learned that long ago, and yet here I did it again.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: Speaking of that, have you ever had the experience of where you know you should do something but you don't make the time Right and you just allow it and you watch?
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: It's like some things I've watched and I know what's going to happen and I just never prioritize to take care of it or have a conversation or change a vendor or fire this or, oh, absolutely that right, make a change.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: But I just watch it and it just steadily just gets worse and worse and I'm just sitting there watching it like I'm on the sideline as a coach, just saying watching a bad play.
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: That I know is going to be bad, but I just let it go I have done that myself.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: That's another point I made in my advice.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: What was it Is?
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Procrastination and lack of action leads to depression.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, you will never be happy.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: You will be under stress all the time if you procrastinate.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: You'll always be saying to yourself why don't I need to do that, I need to do that, I need to do that, just freaking.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Do it, okay, then you won't be so stressed out.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: So true, whatever happens happens.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: Dude, I have been stressed out at times over an email that I've got like a couple of days ago, and I'll just sit there and let it hang out in the inbox.
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: I'll get that later.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: Exactly, I stay stressed about it for days and days and then I finally take care of it on a Sunday morning when everybody's still sleeping.
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: It takes you five minutes.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: It takes me five minutes.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: I'm like, ah, I know, I do that all the time.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: It's like a guy wanted me to write a recommendation for the MBA program.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: I'm like God, I got to do that, I got to do that, I got to do that, I got to do that.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: It to take me that long, just write the 10 minutes it takes to do the guy's recommendation and I'm done.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: And you feel so much better.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's like so much.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: But I had this, another one.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: I I got asked to write a forward for somebody's book.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: That I know, yeah, and I'm like all it had to be was like a thousand words.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: It's not going to take me that long, right, yeah, fast.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: And and it's like I procrastinate, I procrastinate.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: He's sending me emails.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Where's's the forward?
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Where's the forward Copy in the publisher?
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Where's the forward?
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Where's the forward?
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: No, we all do stuff like that, but it's that the key to reducing your stress is just getting it out of the way.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, and it applies in life, I mean it's just, there's so many things like this.
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know, what I think is good about this conversation is that I would not looking up to you and your experience in business, right?
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking Mark doesn't seem like that.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: He has my problem with this, Just like this whole procrastination of this email.
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: But I mean, all our listeners are probably, if you're a new entrepreneur, you're probably looking at you know.
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: You look at Martin like how does he do it?
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: It's so mysterious, you know, and I'm over here and I've had this email in my inbox.
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: I've been stressed out.
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: I don't want anybody to ever know that I've been procrastinating.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: We don't want to be criticized, right?
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I look at you and I think my God Eric is so smart.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: He just keeps getting smarter and smarter and smarter with these businesses that he creates.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: But I'm struggling.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: It's just like God.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Of course he never cuts me in on those people.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: No, that's fair.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: He saves the shitty stuff for me, but no, I'm kidding, but he does not.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: The reality is, if you got him, I mean you'd be like what in the fuck?
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: I can hear it now, what are you doing?
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: I can hear it now, what are you doing?
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: I don't even want to have that meeting Like, hey, can you have Mark, look at the financials of podcast videos?
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: And I mean I'd be like out of town for two weeks.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Dude, I think one of my problems as I got older is I've gotten too nice.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: I really do.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: I've lost some of my edge.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Like, I really do.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: I've lost some of my edge.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: What do you mean by too nice?
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: Not confronting enough, not being as direct as I should be, letting things go too long when people that need to be confronted and you could say, well, why do you do that?
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Well, we all want to be loved.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we all like being nice.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: It's nicer to be nice.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Right, it's more enjoyable.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: But the problem with it is things don't get done all the time.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fair, and you just end up with a mess on your hands.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: It's a bigger problem because you're not confronting what you need to confront daily before it goes out of control.
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: Well, that's the kind of that.
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: That's actually the little bit of the genesis of of.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: You know, when I was talking about watching that play, that bad play just progressed, and I know better.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: It's this person, it's this, of course it is.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: It's the way, and it's not the whole person, it's the way that they're thinking.
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: Everybody it's funny.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: Everybody has a way that they process the way that they think, their vision.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: You know what habits they got right.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: They're just all these things just mixed up.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: They bring all that to the job, they bring it all in, they put that perspective on stuff.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: And I have there's been situations where I have literally articulated the same thing over and over and over again with the person.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: But I like the person, I like 99% of this person On the other side, I like the way.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: So many of my feelings are related to that.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: Oh my God, you know they're valuable over here, you know, you know they have good character, they won't steal all these things.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: But there's this freaking one thing that like just continues.
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: But but you start and what I've realized is if, if, if they're missing out on the vision of what the company is trying to do Right and where we're going, and they're dragging that progress Right In the business Like it ends up being a bad thing and like I would think, like it would seem like there's three conversations.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: If I could meet with this lady or gentleman and have three conversations, then I finally realize with my wisdom like it's not going to work out.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, some people can't see the context, they can't see the end goal.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, it's just, I don't know why that's the case.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: But again, I mean, our job is to keep selling that to everybody inside and outside the company, and to get them to see how what we do today impacts where we end up tomorrow and whether or not we achieve that vision it is and then it's also.
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: I would say it's our job to to make to cut ties.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: Oh, dude, it is and the sooner that we know, like you, you know what I'm saying.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's true, but we have a response and I'm just talking just frankly with you.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like I need to have a higher level of what you said and then a higher level of understanding and reality of cutting the ties, because what ends up happening is that person continues to bottleneck, yes, and it becomes an exacerbated problem.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: Oh my God, I'm there, right, I'm there, and so I have to blame myself for not cutting that off way early, especially because I knew that was happening.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: It's your fault.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: It is my fault.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Listen, I had that conversation with somebody this morning and I said, you know, this person was being very self-deprecating and taking the blame and I'm like, look, I'm every bit as much of the blame as you.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: I allowed you to go on without confronting.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, for weeks.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because I didn't want to deal with your area.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: That's it.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: For some reason in my brain it's probably because of some sort of imagination that I've had of some other entrepreneur that's been really successful.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: They don't have to deal with this shit.
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: Right, they've gotten past that.
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: They've achieved beyond that.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: But the reality is is that especially in small and particularly in small business that's what we're talking about here you have to deal with every little thing.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: That bathroom in this office, if somebody is pissed on the toilet seat, that's my problem.
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: I know I clean it.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: But then I go around and I say I don't want to sit on the toilet seat.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: And if I find out who's pissing on the toilet seat, or if you don't clean it up after a client does it, which they don't have a responsibility, they can piss all over it if they want, right, no, I get it.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but we clean it.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: That's what we do as a company.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: That's what I do.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: You do have nice bathrooms here.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: I always enjoy going into them.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Thank you, I do that is always nice.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: That is the most important thing about this entire studio, in my opinion.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: They say that about restaurants too.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: It is that the bath if the bathrooms are super, super clean at the impression of the restaurant is good I can tell you right now, jimmy johns has excellent bathrooms.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just went there yesterday.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: It's, it's spotless.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: It's what do they say?
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Um spooky fast, crazy fast.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah it is, but it's super cool.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: I said to my wife she's driving, I'm on my Jimmy John's.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: I said, take me to Jimmy John's.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: I got to get a sandwich.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, seriously, she goes well, order it in advance.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Was she driving?
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: She's driving, she always drives.
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: So you're riding shotgun and you're sitting there and you're going to take me to Jimmy she didn't want to drive with me.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: She drives so fast, I drive too slow for her.
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: My wife drives.
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: I mean she scares me.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's, I'm like, babe, watch it, I'm like.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: And she's always about to hit a curb on the passenger side oh, oh, man don't even get me started always I'm like okay like a half inch off the curb, these 21 inch wheels that cost,000 a piece on her Porsche.
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: Okay, I'm like ah, and she's just sitting there all cross-legged just driving, I know Like it's no big deal, but she won't hit them.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: But anyway, she did once with the motorhome though, when I said you're too close and she did, but anyway.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: So going to Jimmy John's, she goes order in advance.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: So I get on the app, I go look I could walk in and order it.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: They'll give me the order in a minute.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: She goes no order it in advance anyway.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: So I order it in advance.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: I mean I hit send and then she pulls up in front of the place.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Like 30 seconds later I get out and the guy is looking at my thing receipt.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: It prints something out for the order when you make it online.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: He's literally looking at it right as I come in.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Boom done, boom fast.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Jimmy john's is amazing.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: You know what's more, the most amazing restaurant that I've ever been to is the sushi house there off exit 86 in bentonville.
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: Okay, have you ever been there?
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: No, bro, you gotta go, you got to go.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: I've never been there.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Do you like sushi?
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I like it.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not a huge Sushi rolls or whatever, Like I don't like raw fish, but I like sushi rolls.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: No, I'll get like a California roll or whatever.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: Go there, uh-huh, just go there place and it's great quality.
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: Like I'm talking, you walk in.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: Hey, how you doing Excellent, immediate sitting down.
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: Another server comes by a separate one.
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: What would you like to drink?
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: I'll have a water.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: And while he's taking that, boom, here's a free sushi roll for you to try.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's amazing Boom boom and then you order it.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: It's like bang bang and I mean you're in and out five minutes with great quality stuff and everybody's screaming it's packed in.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: I mean just rotation.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: Best brand establishment I've ever been to Sounds good.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: Bathrooms are.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: I mean I heard the bad.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: Well, your bathrooms are nice here, thank you.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: I mean you know it's important, but I mean that represents the brand.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: You take the dirtiest place and it looks really nice.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: That means they care about their clients.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: They care about oh, I've listened exactly.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've had this same discussion with one of the businesses I'm involved in.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: I, I go there and I and honestly I can't stand being in the office.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's just a mess.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm not comfortable like that.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: I, I, you know, I don't work like that.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I like a clean desk, I like to work.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you know that, yeah, yeah, yeah, and it just it's.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: It's, it reflects on everything it permeates through the entire organization, if you tolerate that.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: You would have loved it.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: Back about two months ago, I stopped all business in this company you said we're meeting on mond's like we're cleaning everything.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: God Lachie, I love that.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: I love the idea of stopping.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: It's funny you say that.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: It just occurred to me the other day.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: What if we just stopped, Just and fix?
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know it's got to happen.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: Sometimes, man it does, and I was like, don't bring any boxes, I'll bring the right boxes.
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: I brought clear.
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: I have these specific tupperware boxes.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: I'm in a stack of eight and we just started cleaning and cleaning and got everything off the top.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: I mean it's just piled up everywhere I love that and you get the exact right size for me.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: It's a 69 quart and it fits on my shelves in my garage perfectly.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, takes the maximum amount of space, but doesn't hang over.
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: Yes, okay, yeah, doesn't waste any space clippy things on the side, exactly, yeah, and I like the transparent one so I can look.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: Exactly, not to mark anything.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: I don't want to see the ones I can't see.
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, just look in the outside of, like, there's what I'm looking for, I'm with you.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: You, I got certain racks that I have right.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they fit right in the racks.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's beautiful.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: It is my God.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: We are so much alike, too similar, on that.
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: But I had them, like you know, and it was that whole day.
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: They were like what do we need to keep them?
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: Trash, everything going in the trash and everybody's desk was clean that day.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: It was beautiful.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when I decided I was going to shut down my construction and development company and we sold all the assets off, we had so many files that landed in our garage and this is like two or three years later and I, eric, I ordered a small dumpster delivered to our house and just tossed it all in there.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: I'm like I need to shred it.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: I don't really need to shred it.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: What difference does it make?
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: What's anybody going to do?
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: Who's going to the landfill picking around for a shredded document or for a document?
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: I just tossed it just all in that dumpster and it was so gratifying.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: So the point of all this is is, as a small business owner, we are responsible.
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: We have the big r, the big responsibility for all these things the cleanliness of the office, the organization, because people like, and I hate to.
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: I wish that there was a way to get above that, yeah, but I don't think there's not.
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: And it's comforting to have this dialogue with you that, where you know you still face the same things, it's comforting, but on the other hand, it could be depressing.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: You're like 20 years younger than me.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's what you have to.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: Another 20 years of that, that's what you have to look forward to.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Hopefully, you're smarter than me and you'll get through it, but no, but that's I mean.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: To me, though, eric, this again is reinforces why the owner of a small business needs to be involved with the business.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: This whole absentee owner myth that's a myth.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Systems are so great I can hire anybody to run this thing.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: It's it a myth You're setting yourself up for failure, Total.
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: And to our conversation we had last week, that's going to air the next couple days.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: With technology, the black hole, AI, a deeper black hole.
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: You cannot be hands-off on that.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: People don't just do things.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: Computers just don't do things.
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: Ai is just not going to do something.
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: You literally have to be involved in every nook and cranny of understanding why it's doing what it's doing.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you've got to understand the background.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, that was a fascinating conversation we had last week.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was good, and I think just the whole sort of breaking down the steps of whatever you want was so profound to me, as opposed to describing the out and result you want.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I never thought about that.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I mean, clearly, you're, you know, your guys know what they're doing.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: That's why you're in this business.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: But uh, that's very profound to me and you're right, yeah, it is fascinating but you know, I mean, I think that what one danger zone I see with entrepreneurship is that somebody again we we talk about it somebody in a professional career that's done really well, one has an idea or a dream.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: But to think that you can start that and not be working extremely hard to see that through, you're fooling yourself.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: And to think that you can have just because you have some money to invest, that through you're fooling yourself.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: And to think that you can have just because you have some money to invest in something that you won't be involved Now you can be a passive investor, but you better not want control.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: This is a pretty important topic, right?
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: Are you going to be an investor and you got $100,000?
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: You said this before you send it in.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: But then all of a sudden you want to just come to a board meeting and dig in and peel back onions and get pissed off and man shit, you can't do that.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: You don't have enough knowledge to do that.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: No, if you're an active investor and a business owner, in that you will have credibility to say things like that yeah, that makes total sense.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: But you can't come in on a board meeting and just throw down the walls, no, and what you think, but you know we have also mentioned this before on this show but being a corporate executive is not the same.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: They're two completely different animals.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: From the entrepreneur, the corporate executive has so many more resources and people to draw on than you have when you're a small business owner that the job is just totally different.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: You've got to get in the weeds.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: And if you have not been in the weeds for 20, 30 years or more coming out of Megacorp, good luck, dude.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: Bro, funny, you said this right, just literally about two weeks ago.
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: I get a call from somebody that's been in professional life and he started a business, right, and it's been nine months in and he's like what the hell?
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: I was like stop, stop everything.
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: He's talking about getting some debt financing and all this stuff and I'm like quit it.
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: I was like everyone's lying to you, going over here and getting a financial forecast about what the problems of your business In order to go get a loan to help solve those problems.
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: Stop everything.
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: I was like what are your sales?
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: He was like what are your sales?
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: He's like well, we've had one sale, but it's not.
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: I'm like everything stops.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: There's your problem, dude Go buy some freaking door hangers and go down the freaking neighborhoods and start hanging door hangers.
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: That's the only thing that's on your mind.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Oh God, sales, sales sales Right on your mind.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Oh god, sales, sales, sales right.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Without that you got nothing, nothing.
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: It always starts with that, doesn't it does.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: And then I mean speaking of our entire conversation, yeah, all this stuff we gotta do.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: If I'm not engaged in sales and figuring out how to sell from the sell sheets to the pricing, to the value statements, to all that stuff like that is something that I've and you know I have learned a hard lessons on, is like that.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: I step away from that and I'm not actively involved in that well, it puts you close to the customer too.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, you've got to be dealing with the customers or clients directly, yeah, to really understand their needs.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: I think you get too divorced from that.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Things go out of control once again.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that's a really good point.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, if they don't have any revenue, what's the point of it?
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: it starts with that, yeah, it starts with a sale and you can't expect somebody else to go and promote your business like you have.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: Like, if you're the owner, you are the salesperson.
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: I had another conversation with somebody the other day about that.
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: They were thinking about should they hire a salesperson so that they can focus on execution?
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: And they've had a business for years and they don't think of themselves as a salesperson.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: I'm like you are the best salesperson, exactly, and you forever will be Right You're going to hire a salesperson.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: It's easier to find somebody to help you with the execution than it is to sell.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: That's exactly the advice, man.
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: So, in summary and wrap up to this, we went way off.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we did, but I think I want to answer your question about.
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: It sounds depressing for the next 20 years, but actually it's encouraging, because what I do realize is that this is nothing but a dogfight and I can hang out in the dog fight.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: There's no secret sauce.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: I'm not missing a certain book that.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: I need to read.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: You're just not going to lay down and die right.
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: But if I know that the encouraging thing is, I know if I just fight, yep.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: I can play ball Exactly you never.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: You never fail if you never quit.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Dog with a bone Yep.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: Get that dog, I need that, get that dog.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: Get that dog, that bone.
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: Get that dog, that bone.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: Just lobbering, so I think.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: But all right.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Well, we're going to wrap it up.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: Let's do it.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: It's been another episode of big talk about small business.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: It's beautiful.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Tune in folks, wwwbigtalkaboutsmallbusinesscom.
• 27:24
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• 27:26
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• 27:29
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• 27:30
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• 27:31
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• 27:34
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• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Oh, but anyway, we'll see you all next week.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Thanks a lot.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: Bye-bye.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning into this episode of Big Talk about Small Business.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: If you have any questions or ideas for upcoming shows, be sure to head over to our website, wwwbigtalkaboutsmallbusinesscom and click on the Ask the Host button for the chance to have your questions answered on the show.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Stay connected with us on LinkedIn at Big Talk About Small Business and be sure to head over to our website to read articles, browse episodes and ask questions about upcoming shows.