Latest / Big Talk About Small Business / Ep. 67 - Holiday Hustle: Business Goals for the New Year

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Ep. 67 - Holiday Hustle: Business Goals for the New Year · Big Talk About Small Business

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: hey, what's up, hey?
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: ho, ho, hold on to your hats.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: You just wanted to say ho, I know let's kick.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Let's kick it off, mark.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: This is the.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: This is the holiday special.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Yes, it is For the episode of Big Talk.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: About Small Business.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: All right, coming at you with all kinds of Christmas balls and jingle bells and holiday cheers.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I've never been a big fan of Christmas.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I got it with Matt.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: It's always very stressful.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: For me, it is it is.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: The holiday season is a very stressful time for an entrepreneur.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: It is Because I got good reasons why.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Okay, because people quit buying.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, everybody's on vacation.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard for sales.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Everybody's on vacation.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard for sales, yeah it is.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: And your teams kind of gets in this like yeah, so your business takes a hit.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, back home, you had to be buying tons of stuff for people who don't need anything.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, that's a great point.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: That's the other part of it.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: I find that stressful.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: I also find stressful when I have to like I can't work.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Like I have to sit there and it's like this whole week's blown off going to one party after visiting family members and all that Everybody wants to sit around and talk, and I got stuff.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: I got to do no kidding, I get it, man.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: I will say, though, like in this episode we're talking about setting new goals and stuff, this is kind of a perfect time.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: it is it really is because I am able when everybody else is chilling yeah I'm able to go to a corner somewhere and just get into my box of like strategic thinking.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, really, goal setting, yes, you know.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: And then I actually have one of my team members.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: I've been with me for a long time.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: She she told somebody else on the team it hasn't been around me for very long.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: She's like now you do know everything's going to change.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: You're right, you didn't even know.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: But that's exactly what she said.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she's like the whole business changes at the first of the year because I've had some time to think about some stuff, right?
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Without being distracted, makes total sense to me.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, this is the time of the year.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: You gotta take a hard look at what happened last year, what you think's gonna happen this year, yeah, and how you're gonna get whatever resources you have allocated properly to achieve some new goals, right?
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: yeah, because I think one thing that is nice about the season a little bit.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: You know we talked about some negatives, but when january one turns around, yeah, I mean everybody in the industry's got like a refresh to them I know the new budgets everything like uncorks.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, it's usually like katie bar the door after the first of the year that's it.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Yep, and you better, you better, you better be on your game, you better be when that time happens.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: So I mean, you guys, you got to come out of the, out of the bullpen swinging, swinging, yeah, riding that donkey yeah, well, this is the time to do your business planning.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, it used to drive me crazy when people are doing their business plan for the new year and they're doing it on february 12.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're late to the game, bro.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the year has already started.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, we need to start right now.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: And you know, I've always been pretty critical of a lot of companies as far as their business plans and how unsubstantive they really are.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: You know, I know that's something that we were going to talk about today is how to set some actual goals that make sense in your planning process for the new year.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we've got anything profound to offer there, man, I mean like we've had we've had a guest in before where we talk about what we call strategic deployment, right, where there is a lot of thinking that's being done in November, december and you know, it's really just kind of I mean like for all practical purposes, like you can do this in an Excel spreadsheet, right.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: You make yourself a spreadsheet or whatever and you're actually lining out top level goals for the company yeah you know, for the front half of the next year.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: You know, because I really think that you got to look at things at like a, you know, a half a year.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: I don't disagree with you, that's the best.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, way to do it, but you can't just act like if things aren't going well in the first six months, we're just going to keep staying the course, right?
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: you can't and and then you gotta have, you gotta have some long view, but then you break it down, you know to where it comes, all the way back to that half, and then you're making sure your targets are hitting.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: So I mean, there is some, I think there's some things to really consider.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: You know, like kind of refresh, where are you at from this end of this year, you know, with your goals?
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: And then how do you set and realign goals at the next half, because some things, you know, some of the targets might be off, you know, and you do have to pressure a little bit on the team on certain things and there are certain things that you sandbagged this year that you're going to have to push a little bit harder on.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: You know, set some loftier goals, yes, you know, know, so the team can get aligned on it yeah, absolutely.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: I think the big thing, though, that you already sort of touched on, is they're going to be quantifiable and measurable.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: It's not these goals like we're going to be the best chicken place in northwest arkansas who determines that?
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, right, you sit down at the end of the year and one of the top people says I think we really did it.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: We got named the best chicken place in NWA by the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal and then somebody else says well, I think we didn't do it.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: We got 3,812 complaints this year for our customers, and that was up over the 3,014 complaints we got last year.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: So actually, I think we deteriorated.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: It's like how do you know whether you're the best chicken place?
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: That's right, that's right.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's got to be something that you can look at and go yay or nay on.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: I think that's where a lot of companies fall down, right there.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, setting goals is not like values and mission and visions or purpose statements.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: They're objective.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: They have to be objective and measurable.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: Right, and you've got to make them realistic, but you also have to make them push.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: You know you can't have everybody feeling good about things.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: That's always been a problem for me, that whole idea that they need to be realistic Mm-hmm, you know, because I'm going to be inclined to push for stuff that's not realistic.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's hard for me too.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Or not realistic as other people might perceive it.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, that's a hard balance to find.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: I think that's the why you do look at these things every six months, right, Because you can really, if you're not looking at that on a regular basis.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: And actually our company, we look at them every week, right, we report on them every week, but we have six month goals and we're watching what's going on and so you can actually tell about like month two, three, if something's like really unrealistic.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: You know, and I think it's also really important that that you're sharing these plans and these goals with the team and you're having them.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: You know you can't.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: You can't do a top down strategy, right, or a goal setting.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: You have to.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: You know you can start them out, but then you meet with each team member and you have them, agree, well, before you publish them out the first of the year.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: That's not always easy to do because they're going to tend to set their goals lower.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's just, it's human nature, yep, yep, then they can accomplish them.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: You know, I, I, I mean that's another problem I have is a lot of people, you know, it's really hard to get across sometimes to the team that if we can accomplish something far greater than what we are right now, you will be doing much better than we are right now.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, instead of let's set really modest goals and then everybody can have modest, if any, improvement in how well they're doing as an individual from this company, right, you know what I?
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: mean yeah, yeah, they got to be able to see that their teamwork makes the dream work.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, and they do perform, and the place performs, that they're going to get something out of it.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: You know, and that's always the challenge for me, but you know, and it's that's always the challenge for me, you know the.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: what I've found over time is the most important goal for everybody to to visualize that, like how they can make impact is in the sales side, like your revenue.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Amen, and indicating to everybody in the company that it's not one person's job to create sales and drive revenue.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, everyone's yes.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: And if you can align, like you know, bonuses, you can align financial rewards, those types of things, to the top line revenue numbers, yeah, like you're already on a good track, exactly Because, I mean, you know, a divisive thing is it's just to have a department or a person within the organization that's responsible and looking at the revenue, it's just, I mean, like you'll never get everybody on board to make sure that we're driving better sales.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Because I mean, even if you're in customer service or something like that, you have to understand how your particular objective and your goal that you have is lining up to having higher revenue, because if you don't have higher revenue, you cannot give bonuses, you cannot give raises, you cannot hire more people.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: You can't increase the value of the business.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: I used to do.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: You know, a lot of people have internal ownership in their companies where they sell stock to need people.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: And you know, especially out of the industry I come out of, which is architecture and engineering, it's very typical there.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: I valued my stock internally the first time we had Zweig Group the company that Zweig Group that was Zweig White at that time based on revenue.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, therefore, all owners were trying to push to increase the overall company revenue.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: I figured it's our job as managers to make sure we're going to make a profit.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Not everybody's in control of whether we make a profit or not.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: True, you know, because a big part of that is the costs.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Right, right, but yeah, pushing revenue Now a lot of companies don't do that yeah, so that way, if the company grew, then your value grew, because in reality that's what the external value was largely driven by was the revenue growth rate Absolutely Counter to what all these bean counters want to tell us about.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Four times EBIT, six times EBIT, whatever.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, I want high revenue growth rate.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm with you on that.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: That's the number one thing everybody needs to participate in.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: It's almost like if you're an entrepreneur and you're listening right now and you're like you haven't really ever set goals for the company, or you're starting a new business If there's anywhere to start, do some revenue, targeted goals.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: I mean it dries from that.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: And then you can cascade it later on, right, you know.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: But if you come out and when we're talking about that, so speaking of revenue, right, like you can't to your point earlier.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: Like let's say hey, we want to do $100,000 in revenue for the first half of next year, okay, great, you can't just have one goal.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: You need to start doing a waterfall of okay, how do you get to that $100,000?
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Right, and then you can start calculating, like how many calls, how many emails you're doing.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: Oh, then you're really getting sophisticated, man that's like real sales management there?
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: yeah, and then, how many meetings do you have?
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Yes, you know.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: How many products are you releasing, right, you know, so that your, your team, can go out and sell new things, and how can you innovate new stuff, you know, but it can all align to that top line revenue and you just got to waterfall that.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: So you might have one goal, that's a top line revenue you're tracking for the next year, but then you have really eight different objectives that are trying to reach to that revenue target and if you just start there, you're going to be doing a lot better than most of the small business entrepreneurs that are out there.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, most small businesses have no plan and no goals whatsoever.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's got to go down to the individuals too, by the way.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, this is something that drives me crazy is when individuals who are in charge of a revenue-generating unit have no goals.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, and there are a lot of companies that operate like that.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: All right, what's the goal for the service department?
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: What's the goal for the people who sell the widgets?
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, widget a's.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, this has got to be quantified and a lot of people don't have it and that's why, therefore, they just well, they just well, they just do the best they can, you know, and the market's good, so we'll do good.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: The market's not good, you know.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: I had somebody say that to me the other day and I thought it was great.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: He's a small business owner and he's got an outdoor store and he goes.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, the overall outdoor market is down, but he goes.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: What difference does that make to us?
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Right, we have like 0.00001 of the total, percent of the total outdoor market.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Right, we can grow and other people don't.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Um can decline.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: That's fine.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I it's.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: I think that's a really great attitude to have as an owner too.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: It's like, well, you know.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: It's like, well, you know what's.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Everybody wants to know what's happening in the market, but that's not going to dictate, unless you're in a business where you have like 70 of the market.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, then it's hard to ignore, sure, sure, no, that's exactly right.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: But you got these little tiny micro percentages.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: You can't get too hung up about that.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: You got to figure out a way to do well, anyway, yeah, yeah, and I mean I think that you know another thing too like when we're talking about this, like the entrepreneur should not deceive themselves in the amount of time and energy and work it takes to set these goals out and to work with your team, and so, like, when this, when this episode releases, we're going to be coming in to the close of the end of the year.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: But even if you're listening to this and it's January 1 of 25, you still need to exercise the time, like you have to.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Like, even if you release your goals by February, which is honestly a little bit too late, like next year, you can improve and start this in October, but it's better than not doing it, better than not doing it.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: I get it and you need to understand.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: Like I'm sitting here thinking as we're talking, like I'm, like you know, thinking about myself.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: I'm like, oh shit, man, I got a lot of meetings that I gotta have in the next few weeks, but it's just the reality to it.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: We have got to sit down and spend my time.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: And I'm talking like, if I'm thinking about this right now, I've got about probably 10 hours of work by myself to do.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, looking at my past goals and thinking about the future and where I'm trying to get to.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Then I got about another 10 hours worth of time that I'm spending with a team, individuals across the entire organization.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: You know, of course, we only have like less than 10 people, but, right, you know, that's easy to accommodate.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: And if you'd have more than that, you need to be spending with your top leaders, right, whoever their executives and top senior leaders are, yeah, but I got to spend an hour with each one of them.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Yep, then I need to come back and I got about another five hours of taking all that feedback, re-synthesizing that, the sizing, that it's a good word, it is, it is.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: It matches my freaking mustache right now synthesize it like I'm sitting across the table from errol flynn.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: You are 35 or you are.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: You should have like a 1934 dusenberg sitting sitting outside.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: I should, you know It'd be awesome.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you would fit it perfectly, so I got five hours to synthesize all the feedback from the team that I had.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Then I have another five hours to go back and make final reviews, to get final checkoff, sign-off, alignment with my team that's a lot of time, my team, that's a lot of time.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: And then I probably have another four hours worth of all that feedback making sure that there's not any freaking typos in my goals, that there's absolute clarity, there's no mistakes in the numbers, because that always screws us up.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: And then it's everything clear and I've reviewed it.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: And then it's published out to the team with a nice email and everybody's aligned, that the goals are in a location that everybody can access at any time.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: Right, and see how well we're doing, see how well we're doing and then make sure everybody understands that they have a responsibility to their own goals and to certain you know company objectives that we've lined out.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what we just calculate about 20 hours worth of work, like serious work that I have to do.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Hey, it's what we just calculated about 20 hours worth of work.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Like serious work that I have to do.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Hey, management, as my friend Matt Lewis likes to say, contains the word manage.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Yes, it does In it.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: It means you actually have to manage.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: You do as much as entrepreneurs don't necessarily like doing it.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: But what's beautiful about that is that if you spend that 20 hours like it going to save you hundreds of hours, sure, in the next half, because now when the team starts meeting the first of the year, everybody knows what they're doing.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: They can go have their holidays right when they come back on January, like we all know exactly what we're going, what we're doing, yeah, there's and and I can, and what I love about it, too, is in the middle of the like, all you have to do is reference back to the goals that you started set.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: They can answer their own questions.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: Well, it takes you.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: I think that's a really good point, because it takes you out of the day to day to a certain extent, because the path is laid out.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: It's not like do we want to do this or not?
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that should be really clear, based on the plan and what you're trying to achieve, and so it's not like everything has to go back to you as the business owner every day.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what you're trying to avoid.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: You're trying to scale this thing, that's right.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we've got to get everybody aligned.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, the biggest problem when you come right down to this whole goals thing, though, and setting high goals, is the individuals involved cap off their efforts.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: All right, and not always, but I'm saying a lot of people do.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: It's like that's okay, as long as I leave at five o'clock every day, I'll do what I can do until five, and then it's that's it, it's out of my hands, then it's that's it.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: It's out of my hands, then Okay.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: And what we all need is people who will go above and beyond, pushing harder, and that, as owners of businesses, we have to recognize that those people are doing that and reward them accordingly, instead of casting the same net over everybody and say, well, you know I can't pay, whatever you are, more than $62,000 a year, no matter how good you are at it.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: That's where people fall, I think, down.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the people who are really exceptional and are breaking their butts to make it happen.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: We've got to really recognize that, yep.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: And if other people don't like it, then there's your role model.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, do what they do, yeah.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: Okay, and those people are carrying the company for weight, you know, and they're leading the company.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: That's where you get your real leaders from.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: It's the 20% create 80% of the results.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: Or 15% create 85% of the results, if you can have a company where more than 20% of the people I mean your goal is kind of the exactly more than 20% of the company that's driving that company forward.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's a beautiful culture, man.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Oh, it is.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: That's the culture you want, that's it.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's hard to get there if you don't have these goals laid out, if you don't have metrics for these folks.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: Where you can, they can self-analyze, that, they can get behind the company, that they can work together with the team to drive this thing, these goals and objectives meet those, exceed them and and be rewarded, and everybody gets rewarded for it.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: So much of that comes down to their perception of how selfish you as the owner of the business is.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I really do.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: If they think you're not selfish, if they think you don't elevate yourself above them, if they believe that you'll get down in the trenches and do whatever the dirty work is too, then you get a completely different response out of people.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Then if you're like the trying to be the absentee owner and you're the guy with the special parking place or whatever you know, what I mean totally that creates the us versus them culture.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: That's right, you know and if they can't?
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: you know what?
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: I think that on this goal setting stuff.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: You know, one of my favorite quotes is is by the time you're tired of saying something, people are starting to listen.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: And so you yeah, and you, as the entrepreneur, you cannot be the sole owner of the vision of the company.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: No, you can't.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: You have got to get the vision instilled into everybody so they can see the future, they see the opportunity, they see the opportunity to get excited about that.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: Yes, and that is such.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: That is a lot more difficult than I think we give it credit for.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: And if and I, it took me.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: I remember there was a period of years actually where I was just living in this frustrating circumstance because I was like man, nobody can understand what I'm talking about.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm sitting here carrying a lot of weight for the future and driving every day, just driving, and I'm frustrated because people just aren't excited and can see it like I can as an entrepreneur.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: But when I realized that quote, I was like, okay, that helped me relax, cause I'm like, okay, I'm not living alone in this atmosphere of where nobody can understand what I'm talking about.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: But then I started realizing like being able to express that, and then, if you can tie that vision into these goals and these objective targets, like your vision is coming into the targets, and then people, and then you're spending the time with them, you're coaching them.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: With that, they are aligning with your goals.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: They're bringing up their own goals to align with the bigger vision.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: I mean then you start to have some magic happening.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Well, the thing that you see, it seems to me like somebody like you would have a big advantage over a lot of other people.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: First off, you're a good communicator and people like you.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: That helps.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: That does All right, it really does.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: But secondly, you've demonstrated that you can do this and deliver on the big rewards for your people.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: That's true, okay, that ought to give you a lot of credibility in my mind.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I've done this before.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: I know what can happen.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: That's true, all right.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, I mean, you got an advantage.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying you got that easily, right, you got that by performing, that's right, and that happened.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: But you should have more credibility.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: Not everybody has that credibility.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: They've got to rely on their charisma and their communication skills and their relationships with the individuals.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: And I think that if I could rewind back in the first company, I spent so much time not putting it down, not spending the time.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: So I remember early on, like when I would spend the holiday season, when I'd go in my little hole and I would come back and at the first of the year the company's changed and we have this new direction.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: But because I did not spend the time on with the individual to articulate the vision and to lay this out on paper in a in a very easily understood way, got the alignment from the individuals in the team, um, without that I was left to.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: I just basically postponed the frustration that I'd have in the first of the year because I was only verbalizing.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: And then I'm cheerleading every day and that's exhausting for anybody, right, and it's frustrating and exhausting.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: But if you I think that's the thing about this, this whole goal setting thing if you can get it on paper, you get the buy-in and you articulated that at the end of the year, then you have a clarity from everybody when they step back in on the new year.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: And there's not this all correct.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: I mean because, let's face it, really there's only a few select people on the planet that actually embrace and accelerate change.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: Yes, like they want, they like change.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: Change to them like they know it's a necessary thing.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: You've got to evolve and adapt and change and pivot all that type of stuff and the entrepreneur gets that.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: But that's part of their personality.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: They actually are the change makers, they are the trailblazers, yeah, but an entrepreneur needs to understand that no one else really on the entire planet wants that Like they really want it.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: I know they're fighting it.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: They are, they put their hands out, they stiff arm it.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: I think that's a really good transition, though, to something that we did want to talk about quickly in the time we got left over, and that is the future, what's going to happen in the future, and the business world likes consistency.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: The business world likes certainty, as they like to say Predictability, yeah, which we're not going to have.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: Never no.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, we're certainly not going to have it now that we're having a change in the administration, all right.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: And so I think you make a really good point.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, what's the answer?
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Be prepared for uncertainty.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Welcome it.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: Figure out how you can capitalize on the change.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: That's right, okay, don't fight it.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: No, embrace it and figure out how you're going to work with.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Work with it.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, instead of lamenting it.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, it's because it's just not positive.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: No, you can't do anything about the macro environment, okay.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: No, I think entrepreneurs true entrepreneurs understand that.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they focus on what they can control.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: They intuitive.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: And here's the thing.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: It's an intuitive thing, yeah, like if you, you know, but I think the entrepreneur what I would have been blinded myself by is I didn't realize that not every lawyer that I'm around is intuitively understanding.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: There you go, yeah, so it took me a long time.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: So that intuition.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: I think the point is, if you get that intuition, you spend the time with yourself and with others and you get that down into some objectives and goals.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what you're in essence doing is you're guiding your team through objective goal settings that they know where they're at and they feel comfortable.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: They feel like that there is guidance, security, that the change that they're doing.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: So a lot of times, like what I think that happens is a lot of times the teams don't even understand that they're adapting and changing, but they're following the goals that have been set and they feel secure in this change.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: But when they turn around, they turn around two or three years, 10 years later and they don't even know what happened to them.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: But they're happy, they're satisfied, they felt secure the whole way.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: It's exciting to them, you know.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: They feel like if they have changed, they can look back and say I did change, my career's changed, my income's changed, my lifestyle's changed, my house has changed, everything's gotten better.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: But that's because the entrepreneur had the I guess, the intelligence to understand that they're guiding To lay that path.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: To lay that path?
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because I really don't need a freaking spreadsheet, dude, yeah, I mean, I'll be honest with you, I don't think you do either.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: Right, we, as entrepreneurs, we don't need a guide.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: That's why we get so angry and, I think, frustrated when everybody wants a spreadsheet and a theory, it's, it's so true.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: It's like you know, my, my revenue growth goal, yeah, is as much as I can agree, okay, I mean honest, how much can it sell, you know?
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: And then we were like, well, how much working capital, as much as I can get debt?
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, we just got asked that question by the bank yesterday.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: How did you come up with how much money you want, um, to borrow, to have in credit?
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: I said, as much as we can get.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, that's what it is All right.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: So I'm totally with you.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: It's as much as I thought we could reasonably ask for and actually get.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: How much will you lend me?
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's how much I need.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: That's how much I need.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: It's like, how much growth do you want?
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: I don't want just 40 percent or no, I want, I'd love to grow by 100 percent.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if I could do, I'd rather grow by 120 percent.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, I want as much as I can get.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: So it's like you make total sense, yeah, and and uh.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: But I do think you know everybody is sitting around right now trying to predict the future.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: Thank God, the election's finally over, okay, and it's decided.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: We don't have this period of uncertainty which direction we're going to go.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, in that sense it's a blessing.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: Regardless, doesn't matter how you feel about the results.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: It honestly doesn't really matter which way it goes.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: There's certainty and everybody's fear calms down a little bit, right.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: It's just like you know, we had people say I'm not going to buy a motorcycle until after the election's over.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: And sure enough, as the election's over and we sold multiple bikes in two days.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't understand that.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know exactly.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: I don't either I don't really, but doesn't drive my decision yeah, but that's the way people are.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: So now we know what it's going to be, but it's going to.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: There's going to be plenty of uncertainty, but the uncertainty is going to create plenty of opportunities, if you can spot them, because change is not always a problem.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: No, change can be an opportunity.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: It's always an opportunity.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: It's how you see it, yeah, it's how you respond to it.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: That's right, okay, so anyway, um out of time for the christmas or the holidays oh, so you got.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Yes, one more thing oh shit, here we go.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Holiday gifts oh, what do we give?
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: I sent a note out to all my kids uh-huh five of them and said don't buy me anything.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I had virtually save your money.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, save your stress.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, figure out what I need or want, cause I don't need or want anything.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: I have everything I could possibly want and do not go buy me any clothes.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Oh my, I don't buy me clothes.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Socks, I don't, I, just the socks.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: It's so funny.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: I thought about that specifically.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know, just the socks.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: It's funny.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: I thought about that specifically.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: I bet I've got 200 pairs of socks in my dock drawers.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, that you don't even mind Multiple sock drawers.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I just go to my Walmart white socks every day.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: That's what I wear.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Hell, yeah, I mean.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: But yet we feel the pressure to buy stuff for people, I think, as far as corporate gifts go.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: you know what?
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: Do you have any great ideas for things you could do?
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: I really don't.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, you put me on the spot, I can't believe you with your name.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty cool.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, good swag.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, good swag I mean we did.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: We did used to give like holiday gift baskets to, to key clients that I think that always works.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know something tangible that their team can enjoy.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Right, you know you can't just send one thing to your one contact Like you.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: You know there's an opportunity there to really kind of bless the whole team.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: So they know about you.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's always a good know about you.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's always a good one.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's always a good one.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: It's it's hard.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: I don't have any great insight on holiday gifts either, but if I give anything away, it's probably gonna have my company name on it that's all I know yeah, for sure for sure all right, all right, man, hey, it's been fun talking with you.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, happy, happy holidays to everybody's listening.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, same to you.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: Get your planning on, get your goal setting it's.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: It's a good time to do it it sure is.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Now is the time to do it.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Now you're going to have a little down time.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: Things are going to slow down at the end of the year, yeah no, nobody's gonna answer the phone.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: Nobody's gonna strike a deal with you.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good time to sit down and get some things planned out.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: No kidding yep, I'm gonna do it.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: I'm heading to Indiana, here, coming up in a couple weeks to work on our business plan, janice Mm-hmm, and we're going to devote three days, well, a couple days, to the process.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Love it, yeah, so All right, well, hey, thanks everybody.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: This has been another episode of Big Talk About Small Business.
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: We'll see you next time.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: 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.
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: 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.