Latest / Big Talk About Small Business / From the Vault: Ep. 16 - Life as Entrepreneurs: The Reality Behind the Glamour

Transcript

From the Vault: Ep. 16 - Life as Entrepreneurs: The Reality Behind the Glamour · Big Talk About Small Business

• 0:05
  Mark Zweig: Hey everybody.
• 0:05
  Mark Zweig: We're back again with another episode of big talk about small business.
• 0:12
  Mark Zweig: I'm here with my co-host, eric Howardton, sup Mark, all the usual stuff, yeah man Just cranking.
• 0:21
  Mark Zweig: Cranking.
• 0:21
  Mark Zweig: It's an exciting day.
• 0:22
  Mark Zweig: I've been chilling today, actually it's been.
• 0:24
  Eric Howerton: yeah, I've been kind of relaxing.
• 0:25
  Eric Howerton: I've just been wondering what I'm going to do today.
• 0:29
  Eric Howerton: Wow, I mean, you know, it's just nice just to kind of work real hard and relax Half a dozen different businesses and all the kids and stuff you've got.
• 0:39
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, just watch the world go by.
• 0:41
  Mark Zweig: Well, I got up early this morning and started cutting grass, which is super gratifying.
• 0:45
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, you did.
• 0:46
  Eric Howerton: Okay, it is, I love it.
• 0:48
  Eric Howerton: That's actually one of the best things in the world to do is to mow.
• 0:50
  Mark Zweig: It is.
• 0:51
  Mark Zweig: You watch these videos where they have the people mowing.
• 0:54
  Mark Zweig: Have you seen any of those?
• 0:54
  Mark Zweig: It's so relaxing.
• 0:55
  Mark Zweig: The guy goes around and does it for free.
• 0:58
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, I've thought about doing a free landscaping business myself.
• 1:02
  Mark Zweig: And then he also does power washing, which you could practically pay me to do because I love doing that.
• 1:08
  Eric Howerton: I saw your post recently on you doing some power washing.
• 1:11
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, it feels so good, it's so gratifying, it's immediate, you know results, and I like the ones where they take the old cars out of the barns too and clean them.
• 1:20
  Mark Zweig: Have you seen that?
• 1:21
  Mark Zweig: No, I haven't seen those there's usually rat feces involved.
• 1:25
  Luke Waller: Other than that.
• 1:26
  Luke Waller: It's a lot of fun and very gratifying.
• 1:30
  Eric Howerton: Hey, nothing wrong with a couple of rats here and there, I guess.
• 1:33
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, it's good for you.
• 1:35
  Mark Zweig: So anyway, sorry about that audience.
• 1:38
  Mark Zweig: Today we've got two special guests with us, sarah and Luke, and welcome.
• 1:48
  Sara McDowell: Happy to be here.
• 1:49
  Mark Zweig: Thank you, thank you Thanks for having us.
• 1:51
  Mark Zweig: It's great.
• 1:52
  Mark Zweig: I'm a student, and are they both employees of White Spider?
• 1:56
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, they are actually.
• 1:57
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, yeah, so they're there.
• 1:59
  Eric Howerton: Thanks for that.
• 2:01
  Sara McDowell: Eric.
• 2:01
  Luke Waller: You're welcome.
• 2:02
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, for right now.
• 2:03
  Eric Howerton: It should not have put that on Depends how this podcast goes.
• 2:07
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, depends on that, and today is a Friday, you know so.
• 2:10
  Eric Howerton: But we thought those were Mark's termination days back in the day.
• 2:15
  Mark Zweig: We thought it'd be.
• 2:16
  Eric Howerton: it's true, I do believe that letting people go on Friday you taught me the Friday afternoon yes, let go.
• 2:22
  Mark Zweig: Everybody can cool down.
• 2:23
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, everybody can readjust.
• 2:25
  Eric Howerton: That's great.
• 2:25
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, and everybody, I mean it's not.
• 2:26
  Eric Howerton: It's not as big of a deal.
• 2:28
  Mark Zweig: Yep, it's true, it's never fun.
• 2:30
  Eric Howerton: No, but your mouth will make the best of it.
• 2:32
  Eric Howerton: Yep, I choosing the best day, that's for sure.
• 2:36
  Sara McDowell: That was my first question on this list.
• 2:37
  Sara McDowell: Actually, what's the best day to fire?
• 2:42
  Mark Zweig: You know, firing people is really hard.
• 2:43
  Mark Zweig: There's only one person I ever fired that I was like really glad to fire.
• 2:47
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, yeah, it's true.
• 2:48
  Mark Zweig: She's just so cancerous that there was like a celebration the day she packed up or stuff.
• 2:55
  Eric Howerton: But yeah, you got the relief of all that toxicity.
• 2:58
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, I mean, you felt free again.
• 3:00
  Mark Zweig: I was just so toxic, you know, but most of the time I don't feel real good about it.
• 3:04
  Mark Zweig: But, as my wife likes to say, people fire themselves, you know.
• 3:10
  Mark Zweig: So Very true.
• 3:11
  Mark Zweig: Anyway, we've got two great guests with us today, luke and Sarah.
• 3:16
  Mark Zweig: Why don't you guys tell our audience a little bit about yourselves?
• 3:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so I'm Luke Waller.
• 3:21
  Speaker 5: I was formerly a student of Mark's back while I was at the University of Arkansas, and he was an incredible teacher.
• 3:31
  Speaker 5: Seriously, he was one of my favorite ones.
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: A lot of the best teachers at the Walton College, I feel like, are former business owners or people who have operated in the space that they're teaching, that have real world experience, and Mark was a great testament to that.
• 3:49
  Mark Zweig: Anyways, Luke was a front row sitter, oh yeah.
• 3:52
  Mark Zweig: Always a good sign.
• 3:53
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, it is Okay.
• 3:55
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, always they're coming there to learn.
• 3:57
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, they're more engaged.
• 3:58
  Mark Zweig: Even during COVID, where we'd have these massive classes, you know, with like no one there, there'd be Luke Really.
• 4:06
  Mark Zweig: One of the people who actually showed up.
• 4:09
  Mark Zweig: Thank you, yeah.
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: But, yeah, right out of school I started a marketing agency that Mark was very supportive.
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: I've given you lots of direction on and ran that for a while and I guess in January of this year started working at White Spider and it's a very interesting world.
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: It's completely different from Walmartcom, is completely different from just normal online marketing, sure, so it's been super interesting to learn.
• 4:49
  Speaker 5: But yeah, I'm a Northwest Arkansas native, grew up here.
• 4:52
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, Lived in China at one point.
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: Lived in China for a couple of years.
• 4:58
  Speaker 5: Oh, that's right yeah.
• 4:59
  Luke Waller: That's a big deal, oh yeah.
• 5:02
  Mark Zweig: I mean, look like you cleaned yourself up since you went to work for Eric.
• 5:05
  Mark Zweig: What is it?
• 5:07
  Eric Howerton: And he came in with some long.
• 5:08
  Mark Zweig: Did you like shave or yeah?
• 5:10
  Eric Howerton: Then he grew a mustache a couple of weeks ago.
• 5:12
  Mark Zweig: He kind of switches it up a little bit.
• 5:13
  Mark Zweig: I'm glad you got that mustache.
• 5:15
  Mark Zweig: What is it with all these young guys and mustaches?
• 5:18
  Sara McDowell: Man, it's a thing man yeah, they're coming, they're coming back.
• 5:20
  Sara McDowell: It's weird.
• 5:22
  Eric Howerton: Dude.
• 5:22
  Eric Howerton: I saw a cat at the uh uh, the Onyx headquarters down there in downtown Rogers.
• 5:30
  Eric Howerton: I mean, I saw probably about 10 dudes, young guys and they all look like big.
• 5:35
  Sara McDowell: Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're always really thick yeah.
• 5:39
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, I'm really really short shorts too Mustache, that ain't right.
• 5:44
  Eric Howerton: I'm sorry that just is drinking coffee and eating muffins.
• 5:49
  Eric Howerton: Okay, with some big headphones on.
• 5:51
  Eric Howerton: All right, it was legit, all right.
• 5:54
  Mark Zweig: It was legit, so yeah Are you jealous Is?
• 5:58
  Luke Waller: that Is that what you're going to be doing next?
• 5:59
  Eric Howerton: I'm so jealous.
• 6:00
  Eric Howerton: That's what I'm going to do tomorrow.
• 6:01
  Mark Zweig: Anyway, it's nice to see you, luke, and I'm glad you cleaned your act up, thank you, thank you.
• 6:06
  Mark Zweig: I was never worried about you.
• 6:09
  Mark Zweig: So, sarah, why don't you tell everybody a little bit about yourself?
• 6:12
  Sara McDowell: Yeah, my name is Sarah McDowell.
• 6:14
  Sara McDowell: I recently finished up the MBA program at the University of Arkansas last May.
• 6:20
  Sara McDowell: Happy to be done with school, love school, but happy for the free time back.
• 6:24
  Sara McDowell: I've been at White Spider for about a year and a half now, started on the sales team and I remember those days, oh yeah, oh yeah, with the sales team.
• 6:35
  Sara McDowell: Some of those sales team members won't let me live it down.
• 6:37
  Sara McDowell: Well, let me forget, but did that for about six months as an internship and then moved over to the insights and account services side of the business.
• 6:46
  Mark Zweig: I see, when you got your MBA, did you think you were too good to sell, or what?
• 6:52
  Eric Howerton: That was such a great question and well said this was like a loaded question.
• 6:57
  Eric Howerton: It was very loaded.
• 6:58
  Sara McDowell: No, I enjoyed the sales process, but not really where I thrive, to be completely honest.
• 7:03
  Sara McDowell: I really like working with clients after they sign up with us and it's very much a collaborative relationship there.
• 7:10
  Sara McDowell: It's been great.
• 7:11
  Eric Howerton: The greatest thing about Sarah is that she laughs at everything I say in the office.
• 7:15
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, at first I was like man, you know she's great.
• 7:20
  Eric Howerton: And then I started realizing that one of the other ladies that works with us Eric, that's not a big deal she laughs at everything everyone says.
• 7:29
  Eric Howerton: And then I started watching and I started wrecking up.
• 7:32
  Mark Zweig: It's true, it's nice.
• 7:34
  Speaker 5: It's nice to have someone laugh at your stuff.
• 7:36
  Mark Zweig: Very, very intelligent person, yeah, and then she wants to make people feel good.
• 7:40
  Luke Waller: That's right, man.
• 7:42
  Sara McDowell: It's like a live studio audience.
• 7:44
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, and she.
• 7:46
  Eric Howerton: Her being so smart and then laughing at my jokes make me feel like my jokes are really smart and good.
• 7:52
  Sara McDowell: Your jokes are really good, just because I laugh at everything.
• 7:55
  Mark Zweig: I will say Eric and I have worked together before you know.
• 7:58
  Mark Zweig: I don't know if you guys knew that, but he has so much fun to work with.
• 8:02
  Luke Waller: Yeah, keep it fun, man.
• 8:03
  Luke Waller: It's the day it's fun, dude.
• 8:06
  Mark Zweig: It's like you look forward to going there and seeing.
• 8:08
  Eric Howerton: Eric.
• 8:08
  Eric Howerton: Thanks, man.
• 8:08
  Eric Howerton: I appreciate that.
• 8:09
  Eric Howerton: Every day I felt the same about you too, even though, like yours, the reason I was excited to see you every day is because I knew you'd be flipping your craft about something.
• 8:18
  Mark Zweig: I'm a lot more calm now.
• 8:21
  Eric Howerton: Well, I mean, I only mean like, like little things that are like just keep happening over and over again.
• 8:26
  Eric Howerton: I mean if I could get Mark banging his hands on the table and a lot of times I make up stories or I exaggerate them like I come in like Mark man, like dude, I don't think that that contract.
• 8:37
  Eric Howerton: they just came back and said they're not going to sign for another 30 days and he's like, oh my gosh, you know.
• 8:42
  Eric Howerton: And there's like why you know, and something like that.
• 8:44
  Eric Howerton: And now there's just sit back and just and just enjoy the reaction See me get excited.
• 8:51
  Eric Howerton: I do I like instigating.
• 8:52
  Mark Zweig: Yeah Well, thank God.
• 8:54
  Mark Zweig: The older I get, the less excitable I am.
• 8:57
  Eric Howerton: I have noticed it's harder to get you going.
• 8:59
  Mark Zweig: It is, it's one advantage of getting old.
• 9:01
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, the life force slowly drains, yeah.
• 9:05
  Mark Zweig: Just downward, just kind of slower, yeah, at some point that you hit an optimum level of life force and excitability still able to get you know something done.
• 9:15
  Mark Zweig: So I hope I'm approaching that.
• 9:18
  Eric Howerton: So we, I thought that we were thinking it'd be a good idea to bring Sarah and Luke in, because I think what would be interesting is is that from your perspective, at your, you know, career point, especially coming out of school, starting in, you know, with new career-oriented jobs, and then also Luke, I mean with your business that you already had.
• 9:40
  Eric Howerton: And then Sarah I know you've kind of inquired some as well about just some entrepreneurial related things.
• 9:45
  Eric Howerton: I just thought it'd be kind of neat for the audience to kind of hear that perspective.
• 9:48
  Eric Howerton: I'm actually interested too, like what types of questions?
• 9:51
  Eric Howerton: And I think there'd be a lot of folks that might be able to relate to that.
• 9:54
  Eric Howerton: So that's, I think that's pretty neat that you know that we could kind of have that dialogue.
• 10:01
  Eric Howerton: So why don't you go far away?
• 10:03
  Eric Howerton: Who's going first?
• 10:04
  Sara McDowell: Yeah, I can start us off.
• 10:06
  Eric Howerton: Go for it, sarah.
• 10:06
  Eric Howerton: You like me too, yeah.
• 10:10
  Sara McDowell: So what are some key lessons that you've learned throughout your entrepreneurial journey that you believe every small business owner should know?
• 10:17
  Eric Howerton: Mark, do you want me to go for that one, or do you want?
• 10:18
  Sara McDowell: to start it out.
• 10:19
  Mark Zweig: No, you can do that Okay, man.
• 10:23
  Eric Howerton: I think that a key lesson from my perspective is is that it takes a lot, it's good, it's hard, it's just absolutely difficult and hard.
• 10:33
  Eric Howerton: And to walk into it and think that just because you have a good idea doesn't mean it's going to be received, you know, and just because you can see other folks doing it doesn't mean it's going to be easy to do, and there's a lot more devils in the details as you start to get your business going, and so it's just hard, right.
• 10:53
  Eric Howerton: I mean, like I even you know Mark was mentioning it, you know, you know, along with White Spider, white Spider has obviously grown into a much larger organization.
• 11:02
  Eric Howerton: But even starting up a new business like what I have, you know, like it's just as hard as it was the first time.
• 11:10
  Eric Howerton: And because I might even know exactly certain things to go do, like and just dealing with with the tax regulations, the government, dealing with human resource issues, dealing with legal contracts and everything you know new technologies, softwares, banking, I mean all that type of stuff, financing I mean it's just as hard to do that as it ever was.
• 11:34
  Eric Howerton: And I don't think that when you know if you create more entities or whatever, doesn't necessarily get any easier.
• 11:39
  Eric Howerton: I mean, there's certain things that are that maybe you know a little bit and you can avoid the pitfalls, but it's just.
• 11:45
  Eric Howerton: It's just hard to start up a business and get it going, and so I think that you'll walk an end to that.
• 11:50
  Eric Howerton: One of my biggest lessons would be to try not to be too terribly naive although being naive is also not a bad thing especially depending on the age.
• 11:58
  Eric Howerton: You know I mean when I was young.
• 11:59
  Eric Howerton: You know I mean I started my first business.
• 12:01
  Mark Zweig: I don't know why not to do.
• 12:02
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, oh yeah, for sure I would be.
• 12:05
  Eric Howerton: I mean, my first business was 22 years old.
• 12:07
  Eric Howerton: I mean, had I known them what I know now?
• 12:10
  Eric Howerton: I mean I would have probably thought I probably wouldn't have done it.
• 12:13
  Mark Zweig: Is that the magazine?
• 12:14
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, yeah, it's a beautiful magazine.
• 12:16
  Mark Zweig: Well, thank you.
• 12:17
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, yeah, I mean I put everything I had into it, you know, and I didn't but like to start with something like that up again.
• 12:24
  Eric Howerton: I mean I just I would know exactly or not exactly, but I know a lot more about the financial burden that it was going to take and the costs and expenditures, but I really didn't even look at that.
• 12:33
  Eric Howerton: I was like, oh, I'm doing it because it needs to be done, but it taught me a lot of lessons.
• 12:37
  Eric Howerton: But then I wouldn't have learned all the lessons.
• 12:39
  Eric Howerton: I learned.
• 12:39
  Eric Howerton: Never used any nonsense.
• 12:40
  Eric Howerton: The only points mark biggest lessons.
• 12:43
  Mark Zweig: I think I don't know, yeah, if they're necessarily lessons or not.
• 12:47
  Mark Zweig: But I think you know, when I look at people and I go who's gonna be successful doing their own thing and who isn't, it just comes down many times to a couple things like obsession.
• 13:00
  Mark Zweig: Are they obsessed with it?
• 13:02
  Mark Zweig: Did they get up early and think about it?
• 13:03
  Mark Zweig: Did they write about it?
• 13:04
  Mark Zweig: They communicate, did they?
• 13:05
  Mark Zweig: You know, are they going earlier?
• 13:07
  Mark Zweig: Are they going late?
• 13:08
  Mark Zweig: I mean, if they're not, if they shut down on the weekend and you don't hear from them, or they shut down at five o'clock, forget it.
• 13:15
  Mark Zweig: I mean, I'm sorry, you just have to be obsessed.
• 13:18
  Mark Zweig: You do.
• 13:19
  Mark Zweig: And, and you know you got to be able to multitask because you're never gonna be able to just Hyper focus on one thing.
• 13:27
  Mark Zweig: There's a million things going on and you got to be able to Juggle all that and deal with the ambiguity of not knowing for sure what's gonna happen.
• 13:36
  Mark Zweig: You know, just dealing with ambiguity is really hard for a lot of people, but you know the other it's a cliche, but it's true.
• 13:44
  Mark Zweig: It's like if you never give up, you'll never fail.
• 13:47
  Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
• 13:47
  Mark Zweig: I mean, I, I think just Basically just constantly try and something new.
• 13:53
  Mark Zweig: My saying is there's always something you can do.
• 13:57
  Mark Zweig: It just doesn't matter how bad things are, there's always something you can do.
• 14:01
  Mark Zweig: And if you have that kind of a mindset, I think you're a lot better able to overcome whatever come.
• 14:07
  Mark Zweig: You know happens.
• 14:08
  Mark Zweig: It's bad, mm-hmm.
• 14:09
  Mark Zweig: Yeah and and then I guess the last thing is just action you know some people, they're there coffee shop Entrepreneurs is what I call them.
• 14:19
  Mark Zweig: They just sit around and they got a million ideas and they never Actually do any of chief strategists yeah, chief strategist, yeah, strad, at my undergraduate degrees in strategy, and I'll never forget that this, this sounds ridiculous and I don't think I don't remember if either of you were in the class.
• 14:38
  Mark Zweig: I don't think you were, maybe Sarah, but I don't recall and I had this one girl.
• 14:43
  Mark Zweig: I go around and ask everybody like what do you want to do when you get out of school?
• 14:46
  Mark Zweig: And this girl said I want to be the CEO of a fortune 500 company.
• 14:51
  Mark Zweig: Like, wow, that's ambitious, you know, you know that's a big goal.
• 14:56
  Mark Zweig: But great.
• 14:58
  Mark Zweig: I said where do you think you're gonna start out?
• 14:59
  Mark Zweig: She goes well, I'd be willing to start out as a COO, hmm.
• 15:03
  Mark Zweig: And I'm like oh, okay, you'll be the number two person in a fortune five.
• 15:08
  Mark Zweig: Wow, okay, that's gonna be a problem, mm-hmm.
• 15:13
  Mark Zweig: Anyway, I the other, you know, I just think If you're gonna be successful as an entrepreneur, you got to be willing to get your hands dirty.
• 15:22
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, you do.
• 15:23
  Mark Zweig: And, and you know, do the work of the business, sometimes just to show everybody you can do it.
• 15:28
  Mark Zweig: Otherwise it's really hard to garner their respect.
• 15:33
  Eric Howerton: I think that one thing you're pointing out on that action part, like I learned that a long time ago is Because I found myself strategizing, like I've always been kind of a Big picture thinker, you know, like I can see some things in my mind and but you know, and I can, I can definitely go down this trail of just living in this world of rotting and designing this.
• 15:55
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, yeah, I geek out.
• 15:58
  Eric Howerton: I mean, it's like a painting to me that I'm trying to express and what I've kind of can see and I've I learned a long time ago I was like man, this is just absolutely not getting me anywhere.
• 16:08
  Eric Howerton: And so how do you break off from that to get into the actions and just trying things like and not being afraid to fail on any little thing?
• 16:15
  Eric Howerton: I mean, just sometimes you just got to sign the document, you know, instead of sitting there reading over and thinking in this legal documents are a lot like that.
• 16:23
  Eric Howerton: Like you could, I don't like reading legal I don't either.
• 16:27
  Mark Zweig: My wife worked in a lawyer's office because I it's terrible I don't read them.
• 16:30
  Luke Waller: I just sign them I.
• 16:32
  Eric Howerton: Do the best thing I've ever heard anyone ever say yeah I mean, it's true, I you know you make a good point.
• 16:43
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, but I mean but because you could talk with an attorney about all the risks and potential risks and it's just like man Just sign it.
• 16:49
  Eric Howerton: I mean so I can get to work and start taking action.
• 16:52
  Luke Waller: You know, I think that that's a good analogy is on that so.
• 16:55
  Mark Zweig: You know the other thing.
• 16:56
  Mark Zweig: I was thinking about this.
• 16:57
  Mark Zweig: What was the original question?
• 16:59
  Mark Zweig: I don't want to stray too far.
• 17:01
  Sara McDowell: So no, you're fine.
• 17:02
  Mark Zweig: Key lessons that you've learned throughout your entrepreneur Okay but I think one of my key lessons that I've learned is I will bet on the people.
• 17:09
  Mark Zweig: Oh, yeah, see somebody that I think is good Mm-hmm.
• 17:14
  Mark Zweig: And I trust them and I think that they're ethical and I think they're committed and I think they're intelligent.
• 17:20
  Mark Zweig: I will bet on them.
• 17:21
  Mark Zweig: Yep, I don't need to know all the facts.
• 17:24
  Mark Zweig: You know I wrote several articles recently like should you invest in the firm you work for?
• 17:28
  Mark Zweig: You know, and and there's a million people write articles like this, right, and they'll talk about, well, what is the debt to equity ratio?
• 17:35
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, you know how profitable are they.
• 17:38
  Mark Zweig: Is their ebit?
• 17:39
  Mark Zweig: You know?
• 17:40
  Speaker 5: Doesn't mean shit, yeah it means absolutely nothing.
• 17:44
  Mark Zweig: What matters is the people who are running the business, okay, people who are in the key jobs, and if you have confidence in them, they'll get through all that.
• 17:53
  Mark Zweig: That's just a temporary situation and I think, you know, if I did anything right that really helped me a lot Was I was really pretty good at picking people.
• 18:04
  Mark Zweig: I mean, I made some.
• 18:05
  Mark Zweig: I made some errors.
• 18:06
  Mark Zweig: Sure, undoubtedly I made.
• 18:07
  Mark Zweig: I made some errors, but I would try to rectify them.
• 18:10
  Mark Zweig: But just being able to pick good people and, just, you know, give them a real opportunity, not this, yeah, it's gonna be great, but, by the way, I'm gonna pay you nothing.
• 18:21
  Mark Zweig: Right, okay, I'm not gonna share any information with you and you don't get to make any real decisions.
• 18:25
  Mark Zweig: Yep, yep.
• 18:26
  Mark Zweig: That's not the way to get good, smart people.
• 18:28
  Mark Zweig: Mm-hmm, you know.
• 18:30
  Sara McDowell: So, when it comes to finding good people early on in the journey, I imagine you know You're asking them to take on a lot of risk in their career and bet on you.
• 18:41
  Sara McDowell: So how are you finding good people who are willing to kind of jump in the deep end with you and trust what you're gonna make happen?
• 18:51
  Mark Zweig: Well, I mean, you know, maybe you should ask Eric.
• 18:54
  Mark Zweig: His company is basically at the size mine was at its peak, um, before we sold it the first time around.
• 19:01
  Mark Zweig: But you know, for me it's a combination of a lot of things.
• 19:07
  Mark Zweig: I mean a you have to be somebody that they feel is trustworthy and responsible and has a purpose in that purpose is is going to be Conveyed to the rest of the organization.
• 19:22
  Mark Zweig: I think that's important to a lot of people, but I also think it's important to do things like you know Share the business planning process with everybody.
• 19:34
  Mark Zweig: Share the key financial metrics with everybody you know, bring them in.
• 19:39
  Mark Zweig: Not be afraid to not hold your cards too close to the vest.
• 19:44
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, yeah you know, or you won't get good people to work for you.
• 19:49
  Eric Howerton: That's what I think what I would add is is, like you know, the number one.
• 19:54
  Eric Howerton: There's going to be certain people that are going to Be even interested in that to begin with, you might as well knock most of the population out, like I'd say, most of the folks that are in your all-is-age range, right that are we're in their career area, are looking for more.
• 20:09
  Eric Howerton: Hey, I want to make this certain salary that I've been told about.
• 20:13
  Eric Howerton: This is my kind of lifestyle.
• 20:14
  Eric Howerton: I'm trying to get to and I want it to be secure, and I work for a big company that has a lot of places to move up.
• 20:19
  Eric Howerton: Like you, you know you're not going to get that with working with a small business, and so you go ahead.
• 20:26
  Eric Howerton: I mean a lot of times.
• 20:27
  Eric Howerton: I wouldn't even waste a breath on a lot of folks like that, you know.
• 20:32
  Eric Howerton: But then you're going to have some that that just don't want to fit that boat, and so that's kind of your audience and you're talking to.
• 20:38
  Eric Howerton: But there's two things, two things on that.
• 20:41
  Eric Howerton: Number one those people in that that smaller audience, are going to be driven off passion.
• 20:48
  Eric Howerton: And so if you come to the table, I mean this is what my experience was, man, I was always just passionate about what I'm doing, like I mean, like even in with podcast videos or something, I'm just like man, this I can paint.
• 21:02
  Eric Howerton: I'm just like insistent In, relentless on the fact that this is going to fit a need and it's going to be fun.
• 21:09
  Eric Howerton: And let's say I'm going to do it and we're going to do it together.
• 21:12
  Eric Howerton: And then the things that mark said transparency.
• 21:13
  Eric Howerton: I've learned that over the years, like, don't be so guarded about everything.
• 21:16
  Eric Howerton: People just want to know where they're at, where they're going, how they're going to impact it, etc.
• 21:20
  Eric Howerton: And I'd say, on top of that, one of the big things that I like to do is just entrust those people to make decisions, even even when I know that it may not be the right decision.
• 21:33
  Mark Zweig: It's essential, it's hard for a lot of entrepreneurs, though, to do that.
• 21:39
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, that's true.
• 21:39
  Mark Zweig: I found that's been one of the greatest.
• 21:41
  Eric Howerton: Well, that's why you've been able to grow.
• 21:42
  Eric Howerton: You would not have the employees that you have if you weren't able to do that.
• 21:46
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, I mean maybe a 15 person company.
• 21:48
  Eric Howerton: That's, that's true.
• 21:49
  Eric Howerton: You know I mean you know there's times.
• 21:50
  Mark Zweig: There's times, that's true.
• 21:51
  Mark Zweig: There's times to step in when the impact could be huge.
• 21:54
  Eric Howerton: But if it's not going to shut the business down and you're not going to lose your biggest account ever, then let them make mistakes, let them learn on their own.
• 22:02
  Eric Howerton: That's how everybody learns right.
• 22:03
  Eric Howerton: And and then they're going to know it for sure, and then they're going to be able to teach it or lead it the next time, and and you got to be able to let things go.
• 22:11
  Eric Howerton: I mean it's, it's hard, that's.
• 22:13
  Eric Howerton: I see a lot of entrepreneurs.
• 22:14
  Eric Howerton: I have a hard time with that letting go why they do, and they and you will suffocate your business.
• 22:17
  Eric Howerton: I did that my first business.
• 22:18
  Eric Howerton: I suffocated it until it was worth nothing.
• 22:22
  Eric Howerton: You know, so yeah, I think that's a very common problem, as you said.
• 22:29
  Mark Zweig: Because you tend to be a control freak.
• 22:31
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, you want to do your thing, you want to do it the way you want to do, and so that sort of leads to that behavior, but it's counterproductive very much at some point, yeah, and it changes as you grow, yeah.
• 22:43
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, because I mean it's the company girl, like that's the other thing I think about business.
• 22:46
  Eric Howerton: I've learned Starting a company is different than growing a company.
• 22:49
  Eric Howerton: I mean very just two totally different worlds, right, and I would say that you know I feel very comfortable in starting companies.
• 23:02
  Eric Howerton: Growing companies is a lot more challenging and then you have to.
• 23:03
  Eric Howerton: You know you have to let go more.
• 23:06
  Eric Howerton: They're in the key people that you bring in, or even more, and maybe it kind of compounds itself as it gets bigger, the people get more and more important that are leading that company.
• 23:18
  Eric Howerton: And then you got to make harder decisions, like if you know, if Luke, you, if I started a company, you came into Join because you're excited about my enthusiasm about it and we built something together over the last two years.
• 23:26
  Eric Howerton: But then we start growing and you can't handle it because you act like a buffoon.
• 23:31
  Eric Howerton: That decision to have a talk with him like hey, man, you got to go.
• 23:33
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, you know, I mean those.
• 23:37
  Eric Howerton: That's that's a harder decision as the company's growing, but you know that's that's what happens you know, things become a lot more difficult.
• 23:47
  Mark Zweig: They do, I'm glad you brought up growth though, because you know you say how to get good people.
• 23:53
  Mark Zweig: If your vision is a small business owners, we're gonna stay small.
• 23:55
  Mark Zweig: You know I like it.
• 23:56
  Mark Zweig: I don't want to have any more than 10 people, and the day I decide I want to send everybody home, I want to send them all home and shut the doors or whatever.
• 24:04
  Mark Zweig: That is crap.
• 24:06
  Mark Zweig: You will never get anybody good to work for you if that's your view.
• 24:10
  Mark Zweig: The growth is where the opportunities come in for triple, and you've got to commit to growth.
• 24:18
  Mark Zweig: If you're not committed to growth, then you're gonna have a really hard time getting good people.
• 24:21
  Mark Zweig: Yep, so in those two kind of phases of the starting the business, and the growth side of the business.
• 24:27
  Sara McDowell: It is the starting the business Is.
• 24:29
  Sara McDowell: It feel like it's maybe more templated, like the processes and the things that you have to do are a little bit more standardized, and then the growth is much more planted by ear.
• 24:38
  Sara McDowell: Whatever industry you're in, you know you're not gonna be able to get a good start, whatever industry you're in, opportunities that present itself.
• 24:46
  Sara McDowell: Is that the case or do you?
• 24:49
  Eric Howerton: My opinion is neither one of them are really templated Really.
• 24:52
  Mark Zweig: No, that's spoken like an MBA, isn't it?
• 24:54
  Mark Zweig: I'm sorry, sarah.
• 24:56
  Sara McDowell: It hasn't worn off yet.
• 24:57
  Sara McDowell: Give me a little bit more time.
• 24:58
  Mark Zweig: No, I, I agree with you, eric.
• 25:00
  Mark Zweig: I don't template anything.
• 25:02
  Mark Zweig: I tell everybody in their business plans they like.
• 25:04
  Mark Zweig: Well, you give me some good examples of business plans.
• 25:07
  Mark Zweig: I won't do it.
• 25:08
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, because I say every business plan is different.
• 25:10
  Mark Zweig: This is so true.
• 25:11
  Eric Howerton: I just don't.
• 25:12
  Eric Howerton: Template I have as an operating agreement, yeah, and then even then I have to change it a little bit.
• 25:16
  Eric Howerton: But I mean like it's like operating agreement.
• 25:19
  Eric Howerton: Like here's a structure of it.
• 25:20
  Eric Howerton: It looks good, it protects us, but the rest of it is completely custom.
• 25:24
  Eric Howerton: Yeah completely custom.
• 25:27
  Speaker 5: Taking a step back to what both of you all said about not being naive when starting businesses, and you really have to put in a lot of work.
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: What is a realistic expectation for the first year?
• 25:39
  Speaker 5: First five years?
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: Is it gonna be five years?
• 25:42
  Eric Howerton: It's in your entire blood, man.
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 25:44
  Eric Howerton: It's everything you got.
• 25:46
  Eric Howerton: It's your being Apps to freaking loot we.
• 25:48
  Eric Howerton: There's no separation between the business and you, it's the number one priority man.
• 25:53
  Eric Howerton: It's got to drive you Like that's.
• 25:55
  Eric Howerton: I have a.
• 25:56
  Eric Howerton: I mean this Mark Martin does not agree with me but I mean like legitimately, like I've said it in interviews before where I did sacrifice my family and my health for the, for the business, and it's true and people be like.
• 26:09
  Eric Howerton: I didn't sacrifice my family and you know I'm a successful likes.
• 26:12
  Eric Howerton: That's okay, but I mean like.
• 26:14
  Eric Howerton: But the reality is, I think if you look at any entrepreneur, are they sacrificing their, their time with their family, their income, you know their health, their business?
• 26:26
  Eric Howerton: I mean there's always trade-offs.
• 26:27
  Eric Howerton: There's trade-offs everywhere in life.
• 26:29
  Eric Howerton: As an entrepreneur, you can't, you can't escape it.
• 26:31
  Eric Howerton: There's not a balance to it man, you're never off.
• 26:34
  Eric Howerton: And if you I mean that's.
• 26:37
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, that's.
• 26:38
  Mark Zweig: I think work-life balance is a myth.
• 26:40
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, but I like work-life integration.
• 26:42
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, I think that's possible you know one thing on that.
• 26:46
  Eric Howerton: So what I always did I actually told my wife about last night because I was like you know, I mean like honestly, like yesterday I just had so much information going in my head and at spider land, like it was just so.
• 26:59
  Eric Howerton: And you don't know the kind of stuff we deal with.
• 27:00
  Eric Howerton: It's like all these massive, complicated things and this person, that and that, and it's just it got to be too much.
• 27:06
  Eric Howerton: And you know that's happened a million times in my career.
• 27:10
  Eric Howerton: But the thing in time my integration and I told my wife I was like the cool thing is is being an entrepreneur, you can escape, like you just need to know when you need to go escape.
• 27:18
  Eric Howerton: Like if it starts getting cloudy, I mean you bounce out.
• 27:22
  Eric Howerton: You know, go do something separate from it.
• 27:25
  Eric Howerton: But you know it's funny enough.
• 27:27
  Eric Howerton: As I came back to it about, you know, in 45 minutes an hour I was like I was kind of a depressurized and then I got back into it and I felt good and was able to keep cranking and doing what I love.
• 27:37
  Eric Howerton: But there are points where it's just like it's a little too much.
• 27:40
  Eric Howerton: I mean it's just sometimes just too much information.
• 27:42
  Eric Howerton: My man brain's not very big I'm not the smartest guy in the room you know you're plenty smart.
• 27:48
  Eric Howerton: Thanks, mark.
• 27:49
  Mark Zweig: I think, if you have a lot of different businesses going at the same time, though, that that's actually good, because you can take a break from one and you move into the other, and then you realize that there's crossover.
• 28:00
  Mark Zweig: There are lessons that you learned in one place that apply to something else, and it's fun and and it helps keep you fresh.
• 28:07
  Mark Zweig: It does, it's just less boring.
• 28:10
  Eric Howerton: It's weird how that works.
• 28:11
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, cuz like to an outsider like my wife, she's like she's.
• 28:15
  Eric Howerton: I mean, she probably felt like I deserved to be overwhelmed, you know that's like, yeah, perfect chance to say I told you so exactly, yeah but she doesn't understand.
• 28:23
  Eric Howerton: Like it.
• 28:23
  Eric Howerton: It immediately it does.
• 28:25
  Eric Howerton: It makes me feel refreshed.
• 28:27
  Eric Howerton: I feel like I'm invigorated again because I can't handle the mundane we're gonna have our wives on next week?
• 28:34
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, it's gonna be a good one to tune into yeah we're gonna finally set them straight.
• 28:38
  Eric Howerton: I'm, I have, I'm so ready bro.
• 28:41
  Eric Howerton: I can't tell you I'm like every time we talk my wife and I do she's always, like you know, doesn't listen to what I have to say or react and change like I want her to change.
• 28:53
  Mark Zweig: She's changing this is fun week man.
• 28:55
  Sara McDowell: This, this is humorous okay might want to bring in a couple's therapists to aid in that conversation.
• 29:01
  Eric Howerton: Go through a change.
• 29:03
  Mark Zweig: This is not my conversation I plan on having with mine.
• 29:06
  Mark Zweig: Okay, I don't want her to change a bit.
• 29:09
  Mark Zweig: I'm totally happy with exactly the way she is.
• 29:12
  Eric Howerton: I don't want my wife to change, just wanted to change her attitude towards me.
• 29:16
  Mark Zweig: Oh well, it's you, eric.
• 29:18
  Mark Zweig: That's gonna be hard for any woman, but no.
• 29:22
  Mark Zweig: So yeah, I think one of the advantages of being in business for yourself, in spite of the fact that you have to work a lot and be obsessed and all that stuff, is that you do and still have more control over your time at least in my opinion.
• 29:38
  Mark Zweig: I did like.
• 29:39
  Mark Zweig: I never miss kids birthdays.
• 29:41
  Mark Zweig: I was always home.
• 29:42
  Mark Zweig: The only holiday I ever missed was Halloween once, where I was flying from Phoenix to Boston and they flew us to Minneapolis first and we got stuck in a snowstorm.
• 29:52
  Mark Zweig: It's the only time.
• 29:54
  Mark Zweig: So having that kind of control is is is a plus.
• 29:59
  Mark Zweig: Even if you work a lot, you know you still can do those kinds of things, I think, easier than if you're an employee.
• 30:06
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, look another quick.
• 30:08
  Eric Howerton: Thing on your question.
• 30:10
  Eric Howerton: I mean, and it's real to me, I mean everything's really even a subjective right.
• 30:14
  Eric Howerton: But there was a period of time in spider-lam, whenever it was tough times, like I mean you know I'm, you know, I mean I'm the person that's got to bear it at this point moment.
• 30:26
  Eric Howerton: But I knew that like I could literally visualize myself crawling across the hot asphalt from my spider-bus and like literally bleeding out and down on the road to keep the company going.
• 30:41
  Eric Howerton: But I mean that was like how intense it is.
• 30:43
  Eric Howerton: It was to me.
• 30:45
  Eric Howerton: You know, I mean it wasn't a it wasn't necessarily a pride thing or that's my baby, like that.
• 30:51
  Eric Howerton: I can't stand that.
• 30:52
  Eric Howerton: Like I mean, maybe my first business it was my baby, but it has nothing to be my baby.
• 30:57
  Eric Howerton: It has to do with the fact that I 100% confident believe that I was right in fitting a puzzle piece to the market and the world needed to have what we were delivering to it and I had a responsibility and honor to make sure that that puzzle piece got stuck in that world, because this is my life mission and so, you know, brave heart it, man.
• 31:20
  Eric Howerton: I mean, if the world's not gonna listen to you, then freakin, go out doing it, silverback, silverback it, yeah, exactly.
• 31:27
  Eric Howerton: But that's that's how far I get into kind of your question like how much is the commitment?
• 31:34
  Eric Howerton: I mean that that's how serious it is to me, you know that's a total commitment.
• 31:39
  Mark Zweig: Total, I mean I've rest everything I had.
• 31:45
  Mark Zweig: I mean, seriously, you gotta go hawk your house whatever cash in your 401k.
• 31:51
  Mark Zweig: I mean.
• 31:51
  Mark Zweig: Go get your cars that you own outright finance.
• 31:55
  Mark Zweig: You can get cash out of them.
• 31:56
  Mark Zweig: You do whatever you got to do.
• 31:58
  Sara McDowell: It takes man in order to keep it going and make it happen, because you have faith do you think that there's ever a point when you should cut your losses?
• 32:06
  Sara McDowell: Oh yeah and so how do you know when that is, and how do you know when you should bleed yourself dry to keep it going?
• 32:14
  Mark Zweig: that's a really good question.
• 32:15
  Mark Zweig: I mean, I think a lot of it again sort of depends on, like the people do you feel good about the team you've got?
• 32:23
  Mark Zweig: If you don't feel like you got the right team and you're losing interest in it, it's it's really is probably your interest is the key.
• 32:32
  Mark Zweig: Like if you don't find it something that you're really interested in anymore, then it's probably time to get out of it yeah, it's kind of like you you start waking up and hating what you're doing.
• 32:42
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, I would be out in a split second, like I don't think I would, even if I was making money and I'd be trying to get out of that thing yeah, I mean, that happened to me more than once yeah, yeah, you had successful business, but it's, but you just hated it right, but that doesn't mean you just shut it down no, no, no you see you can sell it, yeah you know.
• 33:01
  Mark Zweig: Or in the case of, like our real estate stuff, we just started getting rid of all our assets.
• 33:05
  Eric Howerton: That's true yeah, and that was very successful.
• 33:07
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, I mean you had a lot going on with that, but it wasn't fun.
• 33:11
  Mark Zweig: Right, it got to where it wasn't fun.
• 33:12
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, it's not fun.
• 33:13
  Eric Howerton: I think another another gauge for me would be is that after I have ex, okay, so you got your target market that has a need and there's audiences in that market.
• 33:23
  Eric Howerton: This is very important, not when you think that the market doesn't need a product, but when you've exhausted all the audiences in the market and so a lot of people make a mistake like, okay, got this product, I'm gonna go sell it, and then they go talk to five or ten people with a certain demographic profile or whatever you want to call it, and then it doesn't work.
• 33:45
  Eric Howerton: Then they just say it's not gonna work, like an entrepreneur can't do that.
• 33:49
  Eric Howerton: You go to the next audience.
• 33:50
  Eric Howerton: You try to find your audience, like when the businesses I have right now.
• 33:53
  Eric Howerton: I know full well.
• 33:55
  Eric Howerton: All I know is that the market needs it.
• 33:57
  Eric Howerton: I just don't know which audience is the best.
• 33:59
  Eric Howerton: It's gonna really, really engage with what I need, and there might be multiple audiences that engage in it, but there's one audience that really pays for the value of it.
• 34:09
  Eric Howerton: Right, pay for the lion's share of it, yeah, but I think that if I went through my little investigation and exploration and I can't find an audience, you know, then then I'd probably start dialing out interesting that's an interesting perspective, because I feel like you more often hear the opposite of that, where you identify an audience in their need and then you create the product yeah, I don't know how the hell I mean like man, seriously like dude, if you ask me, like on just some white spider my time there, like our business, is nothing like what it was in the beginning, yeah, other than some core competencies, you know, and capabilities and know how.
• 34:48
  Eric Howerton: But, like the pricing model, the business model, the marketing, the sales process, the execution process, everything's different.
• 34:56
  Eric Howerton: And then what we did is different and who we said we are, you know, I mean we have evolved and adapted a hundred times over and so I don't know that you can, you know, you can theoretically determine that it's this audience, they're gonna pay this price and they're gonna want it for this long and it's gonna do this kind of churns gonna.
• 35:16
  Eric Howerton: You know, whatever the case it might be, you cannot, you cannot predict that, especially with macro influences, you know, which happened a lot in our business too, right, I mean, you know.
• 35:27
  Eric Howerton: I mean there's just well, they influence everything.
• 35:29
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, I mean, I mean the motorcycle business.
• 35:33
  Mark Zweig: You know that's something that you and I are both getting involved in, and it's a great example.
• 35:38
  Mark Zweig: You know, if the stock market goes up, guess what?
• 35:42
  Mark Zweig: People buy more motorcycles.
• 35:43
  Mark Zweig: Now, why is that?
• 35:45
  Mark Zweig: Because affluent people have portfolios.
• 35:48
  Mark Zweig: They determine their sense of well-being and how much money they can spend based on whether that goes up or down.
• 35:54
  Mark Zweig: If it goes down, they start panicking.
• 35:56
  Mark Zweig: Has no impact on their income, really on it, you know, a daily or monthly basis at all.
• 36:04
  Mark Zweig: It's just their sort of perception of self-worth, you know.
• 36:07
  Mark Zweig: And so the macro market, just it.
• 36:10
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, you're right.
• 36:12
  Mark Zweig: I mean there are things that do happen that influence your buyers that are completely out of your control.
• 36:18
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, and you can't, you can't and you look at it no, you can't.
• 36:22
  Eric Howerton: It's like saying, like you know I'm gonna be a live and you know two years, two weeks, whatever it might be, I mean, there's no way to predict that now I can do my best to take care of myself.
• 36:33
  Eric Howerton: And yeah, increase the odds.
• 36:34
  Eric Howerton: Increase the odds, yeah, and plan for it like I'm gonna be.
• 36:38
  Eric Howerton: You know Mark's age.
• 36:40
  Eric Howerton: You know whenever he marks gonna lift till he was like 130, by the way, it just FYI he's got the genes and he takes really good care of himself, so he's like double laughing about that on the way here and just had a lucky strike in the parking lot.
• 37:02
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, yeah, I support all that.
• 37:04
  Eric Howerton: So I mean myself, I love it like I wish I could do it, but but I mean, you just can't predict.
• 37:09
  Eric Howerton: Like you have to be able to have to be able to react to it on a, on a dom too, and like you know, it's like I was talking to one of the sales folk, a person the other day selling some stuff, and it's like okay, we, we built this rate card, we built the pricing and we here's our products and our offerings and our services and you go to a meeting and you know who that person is.
• 37:31
  Eric Howerton: You walk in the meeting and you're ready to give them all this stuff and his response means like well, this she wasn't really interested in any of it, but she did bring up something about this.
• 37:42
  Eric Howerton: I'm like where's the contract for?
• 37:47
  Eric Howerton: Yeah?
• 37:47
  Eric Howerton: that's an opportunity, yeah and he's like well, I mean you know, I mean you know I'm wanting to come back as we don't really have that in our kit.
• 37:52
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, I don't care, you tell them.
• 37:55
  Eric Howerton: You say you're interested in that, you got a keen in on those interests, because that's an audience and, by the way, you have the capability, you're competent for it.
• 38:03
  Eric Howerton: Like you take the needs assessment, you go back, you talk to your team, you come with a plan and because you can always say, hey, let me go back and let me, you know, put some polishing touches on this.
• 38:13
  Eric Howerton: I'm making a proposal, I make sure it's great for exactly what you're talking about.
• 38:17
  Eric Howerton: That's how you deliver it.
• 38:19
  Eric Howerton: But if you just set there and stayed in your box, like you plan, that's probably.
• 38:22
  Eric Howerton: The problem is that people make these great, grandiose plans and they won't allow themselves to be flexible.
• 38:28
  Eric Howerton: And then you're going back to a group of investors who put money on your plan and now you're trying to duck and dodge and navigate that as you're going to market.
• 38:37
  Eric Howerton: There's a massive disconnect between the investor and the entrepreneur or the manager professional manager in that standpoint, you know.
• 38:44
  Eric Howerton: And so, if you like, if those things aren't married up like it, that's where there's a lot of tension that goes on and then you could you can really hurt your business by doing that if you have investors if you have investors but yeah, I mean, if you do have investors, the best thing to do is just talk with them constant yes, that's good
• 39:04
  Eric Howerton: it's essential yeah, that is, that is really good yeah people don't do it.
• 39:08
  Mark Zweig: They don't give them the bad news, they only want to give the good.
• 39:11
  Mark Zweig: And there's not enough frequency of communication.
• 39:14
  Eric Howerton: I've lost investment opportunities because I was just ignorant.
• 39:17
  Eric Howerton: But like I mean I did not communicate, like I did not, like I mean, look at it now, like all they're one, they're wanting to be engaged in the business, you know, and I mean honestly, like they'd probably rather hear more from me and me be on their nerves than to not hear enough, even though it might in the meantime they're like well, this is great, they're not bothering me.
• 39:35
  Eric Howerton: But the reality is is that at some point, whether that's week, three weeks or two months, they're gonna start getting a little antsy about it, especially when you pop in the next, next presentation and you've lost fifty thousand bucks yeah, or five hundred or five hundred yeah millions it gets worse that's such a good piece of us right there too, because there's so many people that are getting raising capital.
• 40:00
  Eric Howerton: It seems to be a trend or it's the new way of doing in a lot of ways like I mean, a lot of people think that's the first thing I do.
• 40:08
  Mark Zweig: After I get my ideas, I raise capital.
• 40:10
  Mark Zweig: These guys know how I hate that, because if you can just demonstrate that your business actually works, yeah, for a while, yeah, you will give a whole lot less away to get that capital.
• 40:23
  Eric Howerton: Yeah what did you always say?
• 40:24
  Eric Howerton: Cat the cat equities, the most expensive capital.
• 40:27
  Mark Zweig: It is yeah, but absolutely is.
• 40:29
  Mark Zweig: If you, if you look at, like, what private equity or VC investors expectations are, I mean, compare that to even a 15% interest rate.
• 40:40
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, okay, that's nothing.
• 40:42
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, the interest is nothing compared to what the expectations are 20, 25, 30, 40 X and it's expensive okay to.
• 40:52
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, I guess entrepreneur, cuz like you could be given, you could be unknowingly giving away many, many millions of dollars yeah, if you're successful, that is really expensive and then the only way they can get their money out is to do what?
• 41:05
  Mark Zweig: There's no liquidity unless they sell the business, yeah.
• 41:08
  Mark Zweig: So if you're not ready to sell the business, that's another problem, mm-hmm, but anyway it.
• 41:14
  Mark Zweig: I don't mind outside investors.
• 41:16
  Mark Zweig: If a I need him and I've exhausted my debt capital opportunities for sales right and B, they bring something to the table that the company doesn't have.
• 41:29
  Mark Zweig: So they're much, they're much more active participant and contributor than just the money, mm-hmm.
• 41:35
  Mark Zweig: The money is one thing, but energy, contribution, ideas, connections yeah, you know that's valuable, absolutely.
• 41:46
  Speaker 5: Within entrepreneurship, there's multiple ways to get into it.
• 41:49
  Speaker 5: You can raise money, you can bootstrap.
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: You can buy an existing business that's doing well.
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: You can buy one that's doing bit poorly.
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: What are the types of entrepreneurship that you all have experienced and seen?
• 42:03
  Speaker 5: And, looking back on it, what do you think gives you the highest chance of success?
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: Would you do it differently?
• 42:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah, what does that look like?
• 42:17
  Eric Howerton: So I mean my experience has been to start up.
• 42:19
  Eric Howerton: You know, I mean I've never raised money for the business.
• 42:24
  Eric Howerton: I mean even in my spider.
• 42:25
  Eric Howerton: We didn't, really we didn't raise any capital for it.
• 42:27
  Eric Howerton: We, you know I had $400 in my own pocket in it and so did Alex.
• 42:32
  Eric Howerton: You know we co-founded it and then we didn't take, we didn't relinquish any equity in exchange for capital, you know, or investment and the and so that's been predominantly my experience.
• 42:45
  Eric Howerton: I haven't really bought, ever bought, a business.
• 42:47
  Eric Howerton: You know that's existing, although I can see a lot of value in that.
• 42:51
  Eric Howerton: It can be tremendous amount of value in that, especially when you get into.
• 42:55
  Eric Howerton: Actually that's not true I have, but the value that is is that it's, you know, the database, the customer base that's already there and a lot of the processes you know and those types of things, the history, the history of it, and you know there's there's a lot to having a brand name.
• 43:11
  Eric Howerton: I mean trust you built.
• 43:13
  Eric Howerton: It's not a cheap thing to build trust in the community, not at all or or against your audience.
• 43:19
  Eric Howerton: I mean.
• 43:19
  Eric Howerton: I think that we can even look at white spider.
• 43:21
  Eric Howerton: I mean it's hard to get your fingers on while we continue to grow.
• 43:25
  Eric Howerton: But I'm I'm adamant about the fact, about the fact that I've never failed somebody, like I haven't, and I don't think our team has, and you know and like fail them.
• 43:34
  Eric Howerton: I'm not saying like mess up, but you know, but like you, you build that reputation proceeds itself like in, in, uh.
• 43:43
  Eric Howerton: So anyway, that's a lot of value there.
• 43:45
  Eric Howerton: I can see, uh, raising capital.
• 43:47
  Eric Howerton: I've never gone out and done.
• 43:49
  Eric Howerton: I have done pitch decks.
• 43:50
  Eric Howerton: I have tried to raise capital in the past.
• 43:52
  Eric Howerton: It just didn't work out, um, for multiple, multiple reasons.
• 43:56
  Eric Howerton: I'm glad it didn't.
• 43:58
  Eric Howerton: I would say that, um that if I was, there are certain businesses that I would do that with.
• 44:05
  Eric Howerton: I think that's one thing, like if you can start up something and a lot of times service businesses are really great for that Like I can start a service capital don't take a lot of capital, doesn't take many people at first and go chase the money and work that up and build that up solely.
• 44:22
  Eric Howerton: I think that you know that's.
• 44:23
  Eric Howerton: Don't go raise capital for that stuff.
• 44:26
  Eric Howerton: But if you're going to try to develop out a full tech stack and all this kind of stuff and compete with the major markets like I mean, you might as well be in for a ride that you're not even really an entrepreneur in a sense for that.
• 44:37
  Eric Howerton: You're a chief strategist and you want to become a good manager like you're an executive type person like that.
• 44:46
  Eric Howerton: I'm not talking smack about, there's just different.
• 44:47
  Eric Howerton: It's like the difference between a CFO and a CEO, you know, or a CMO.
• 44:52
  Eric Howerton: I mean, like you know, we have some of the greatest executive leaders on the freaking planet live in within 15 mile radius of us, right here, and I wouldn't be able to hold a candle to them, you know, when it comes to management like that.
• 45:07
  Eric Howerton: But you know, I think that you know, if you're, if you know, if you have that idea, you know there's, there's a lot of ways to fund and capital something doesn't have to be with you relinquishing all your equity, because once you do, you become, you become a, an executive manager.
• 45:24
  Speaker 5: Gotcha.
• 45:25
  Eric Howerton: You better be ready to play that game.
• 45:26
  Eric Howerton: It's going to be a lot of politics, a lot of board games, a lot of different ball game it really is.
• 45:33
  Mark Zweig: So I'll answer that question.
• 45:35
  Mark Zweig: I've done every one of those things, either myself, I mean I I can't even remember how many startups quote.
• 45:44
  Mark Zweig: I've done probably 10.
• 45:46
  Mark Zweig: I've done some of myself and some with other people.
• 45:49
  Mark Zweig: I have bought into existing businesses and been a minority shareholder probably another 10 or 12 times over my life.
• 45:58
  Mark Zweig: I have bought um troubled businesses myself or as part of other companies that I worked with and turned them around and I bought successful businesses.
• 46:09
  Mark Zweig: I would say my preference, if I look back in history, it would be um, I was going to start my whole entrepreneurial career over again.
• 46:18
  Mark Zweig: I would probably go buy an existing business that needs to be turned around.
• 46:22
  Mark Zweig: Um owner financing is available.
• 46:25
  Mark Zweig: It's just a faster start.
• 46:26
  Mark Zweig: If they're really in poor shape, the owner wants to get out.
• 46:30
  Mark Zweig: They're going to make it real possible for you to get that things Okay, cause they want out of it more than anything else.
• 46:38
  Mark Zweig: They don't expect a huge payoff.
• 46:40
  Mark Zweig: They'll probably finance it to you and I like that.
• 46:44
  Mark Zweig: Then I got you know.
• 46:46
  Mark Zweig: As Eric pointed out, you've got employees and processes and a brand and maybe a bad brand.
• 46:52
  Eric Howerton: It could be a bad brand but you know there's a story to take to turn around a bad brand yeah.
• 46:57
  Eric Howerton: If, if, if the business has been in business for a while, that one day in the past they were probably a good brand, but bad management or whatever the circumstances can turn it into bad brand, then you reinvigorate it.
• 47:11
  Eric Howerton: You might be a hero to a lot of people that love that brand originally, which is cool.
• 47:15
  Eric Howerton: It is.
• 47:17
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, so I like that first and then second.
• 47:19
  Mark Zweig: My second choice would be a startup.
• 47:21
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, you beat strap.
• 47:22
  Mark Zweig: Yeah.
• 47:23
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, it's just fun and I'm all about that.
• 47:25
  Eric Howerton: We call it dog and it don't we.
• 47:28
  Mark Zweig: And then my and then my third.
• 47:29
  Mark Zweig: My third preference would be to become an investor in an existing company and be more and more involved with that.
• 47:38
  Mark Zweig: So I take my small investment and I make it into something valuable.
• 47:43
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, interesting, that's sort of my that's.
• 47:46
  Mark Zweig: Buying a successful existing business is super, super risky.
• 47:51
  Mark Zweig: Most of the time they don't want to be acquired Right.
• 47:56
  Mark Zweig: The employees are unhappy.
• 47:58
  Mark Zweig: You're there.
• 47:58
  Mark Zweig: Any change you make is one.
• 48:02
  Eric Howerton: You're saying the employees are unhappy or at a successful no, they're unhappy that you're there.
• 48:07
  Mark Zweig: Oh that, oh yeah, I think you're going to screw it up.
• 48:10
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, yeah, I mean that's a real thing.
• 48:14
  Eric Howerton: It is real.
• 48:15
  Eric Howerton: We've been through a number of acquisitions in our life and acquisition is like one of the scariest thing for the, for the, for the entire company.
• 48:23
  Mark Zweig: They hate it.
• 48:23
  Mark Zweig: They're fearful, very fearful.
• 48:25
  Mark Zweig: But, you take a troubled company Like they done.
• 48:31
  Luke Waller: They're here.
• 48:34
  Mark Zweig: They're glad to see you.
• 48:36
  Mark Zweig: Okay they, they're welcoming you with open arms.
• 48:39
  Mark Zweig: So I mean, I just think, yeah, the really successful business.
• 48:45
  Mark Zweig: You have to pay so much for it that if anything goes wrong afterward, the payback period goes out so long that you're never going to get out of the hole on it.
• 48:55
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, it's true.
• 48:56
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, it's true.
• 48:59
  Eric Howerton: And I think that that's one of the big money, the big money players at PE firms.
• 49:03
  Eric Howerton: You know they've corralled that so they can ride out that long cycle of a successful well you know, doing well business and they know some ways that they can tap onto it where it's going to grow even further and they can play that.
• 49:16
  Eric Howerton: But I mean, you know, unless you're you're sitting on a lot of you know millions of dollars and you're starting your own PE firm and you're talking about just being an entrepreneur, I think what Mark's talking about I mean it's, it's good stuff, man.
• 49:29
  Mark Zweig: Most of the really good private equity groups.
• 49:32
  Mark Zweig: A they specialize in certain industries so they get to know that really well and so I think that's really important to them.
• 49:40
  Mark Zweig: And B they they look for ways to combine companies or they look for companies that have proven that they're good at buying other companies to use as a platform.
• 49:52
  Mark Zweig: You know I mean we work with some of them at at ZY group that you know have invested nine figure investments in some of these businesses that were successful and that's the reason they do it.
• 50:04
  Mark Zweig: They're looking for a platform.
• 50:05
  Mark Zweig: They're like these guys have proved they they bought 10 other companies and integrated them.
• 50:10
  Mark Zweig: This is the company we're going to bet on.
• 50:13
  Mark Zweig: We'll throw capital in there and they can do more of that, not just what they do on their own.
• 50:19
  Mark Zweig: Right, right, and that's a good situation for private equity, that or we've got all these different companies, we can share clients, or we can share capabilities to move across the platform.
• 50:31
  Mark Zweig: Most of them don't do a very good job with the sharing, though, and there's a whole lot of reasons for that.
• 50:36
  Mark Zweig: They set up their deals based on earnouts and other things, so you have to keep that entity discreet and on its own.
• 50:43
  Mark Zweig: That works against integration, in my experience it does.
• 50:50
  Eric Howerton: It's interesting.
• 50:50
  Eric Howerton: It gets really complex.
• 50:51
  Eric Howerton: You know, I think that it's like the thing just to know is like as, because I wish I would have known it when I was younger.
• 50:58
  Eric Howerton: I didn't know what I was, I didn't even know what an entrepreneur was, and they didn't even really heard the word.
• 51:02
  Eric Howerton: You know, it's definitely not what it is in today's time, where it's kind of been risen up as a glamorized, sensationalized yeah, and it's not so sensational.
• 51:12
  Eric Howerton: I'll tell you that, like you better be ready to be brave heart.
• 51:19
  Eric Howerton: Like if you like being attacked, it's true, like, let's get real here.
• 51:24
  Eric Howerton: Oh no, there's a trace to that.
• 51:25
  Eric Howerton: If you like being attacked, if you like having targets on your back, I'll tell you this one quick thing is in the beginning it was very exciting and everybody was supportive.
• 51:36
  Eric Howerton: But the second that I started that, that the company started to become successful, the Arles got out man, and it was brutal.
• 51:44
  Eric Howerton: I don't and I was not.
• 51:47
  Eric Howerton: I had no reality check to that, like a like I had no understanding.
• 51:52
  Eric Howerton: But but I mean like, if you, if you don't, if you're not ready to go to war, then it's going to be absolutely miserable.
• 51:59
  Eric Howerton: I can't remember what I was really really say Well, if I would have been, had I known back when I was young and starting my entrepreneurial career, about all these different options, it would have been, it would have been pretty nice.
• 52:12
  Eric Howerton: I calculated it, but you can't calculate too much, right?
• 52:14
  Eric Howerton: But I mean, there's just a lot of different ways you can take and it's kind of like going to bank, right, they have a lot of services.
• 52:21
  Eric Howerton: Like, if you go down this road, you just need to know, like, where that's going to put you.
• 52:24
  Eric Howerton: You know immediately in the future and don't don't fantasize that it's something else Like I think that's the problem.
• 52:33
  Eric Howerton: What I worry about in all honesty.
• 52:35
  Eric Howerton: I've shared this with Mark before offline, but I'm going to put it on video now and record it.
• 52:39
  Eric Howerton: I'm legitimately concerned by the sensationalism of entrepreneurism.
• 52:48
  Speaker 5: Oh, I hear you.
• 52:49
  Eric Howerton: Not for any other reason.
• 52:51
  Eric Howerton: Then let's say that you guys, as aspiring entrepreneurs, want to get out and start your own business and you do it because you have all these expectations that you've been taught.
• 53:02
  Eric Howerton: And then you go to find out that it's nothing but a God dang war zone.
• 53:07
  Eric Howerton: But yet you're.
• 53:10
  Eric Howerton: All these people are supporting you and telling they love you and you got a great business plan and there's nothing that can go wrong, and all these little bells and whistles and these spreadsheets, and it doesn't work out.
• 53:21
  Eric Howerton: And then all of a sudden, you turn around one day and none of your expectations in life have been met and you've been grinding it for five or 10 years.
• 53:29
  Eric Howerton: You're going to need to look and go, man.
• 53:32
  Mark Zweig: I screwed up.
• 53:34
  Eric Howerton: I screwed up.
• 53:35
  Eric Howerton: Nobody told me the real, the real of this and I'm miserable and I'm bankrupt and I lost my spouse and this and that, and that the legitimate reality of a significant emotional depression could exist.
• 53:55
  Mark Zweig: Oh yeah, the whole failure is great.
• 53:57
  Mark Zweig: Let's fail, fail, fail, early fail.
• 54:00
  Mark Zweig: Often, fail, fail, fail, fail your way to the top.
• 54:04
  Mark Zweig: It's wonderful Fail forward fail fast.
• 54:06
  Mark Zweig: It's horrible and a lot of some people never recover from it.
• 54:11
  Eric Howerton: Their reputations are shot and, as you said, psychologically they're just beaten down, dude, you can get yourself in a dark-ass spot.
• 54:18
  Eric Howerton: Sure, yeah, real quick.
• 54:20
  Eric Howerton: You really can Real quick, and if you fail, you can get there really fast.
• 54:24
  Mark Zweig: That's best not to.
• 54:26
  Mark Zweig: That's right.
• 54:26
  Mark Zweig: It's my experience, that's right.
• 54:28
  Eric Howerton: And then, if you do, you have to be able to pick yourself up Right.
• 54:32
  Eric Howerton: And that's let's be honest, like most of it say, there's many people out there that don't have a positive confidence already built into their self-esteem.
• 54:44
  Eric Howerton: So if you're going to be an entrepreneur, you better have almost a narcissistic amount of confidence in your being Like.
• 54:52
  Eric Howerton: The only reason that Mark and I are not narcissists is the fact that we question whether we are or not.
• 54:58
  Mark Zweig: Well, I have my wife to keep me straight.
• 55:00
  Mark Zweig: Right, very true.
• 55:01
  Luke Waller: Okay.
• 55:02
  Mark Zweig: She's been very helpful in that regard.
• 55:04
  Mark Zweig: Put the ego in check, you know.
• 55:09
  Eric Howerton: But it's true.
• 55:09
  Eric Howerton: But you have to be like, you have to be confident in your no you do, in yourself, and have faith.
• 55:15
  Eric Howerton: Like Mark said in the beginning.
• 55:16
  Eric Howerton: You know, confidence in the faith, I think, is really the biggest thing.
• 55:20
  Eric Howerton: Like, I mean, like it's going to work out, it's going to be fine.
• 55:22
  Eric Howerton: But you know, and if it doesn't work out, then you, what do you?
• 55:25
  Eric Howerton: I mean, don't you can't wallow in that.
• 55:29
  Eric Howerton: And I'm afraid that there's, like there's stuff that my junior high teachers told me and made me believe that was truth in the world that I'm still, and as you know this, mark, the older you would get, we process through those things that we were taught and like that shit ain't true.
• 55:44
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, like, what the hell?
• 55:46
  Eric Howerton: Like, like you know, like, why am I just now realizing that you know that's not really what that meant.
• 55:52
  Eric Howerton: You know because I get older and I start figuring that out.
• 55:54
  Eric Howerton: Same thing with this.
• 55:55
  Eric Howerton: This is another form of learning, to where it's at the high probability and theoretical.
• 56:00
  Eric Howerton: And even when you read about people going through bad times and didn't work out, well, there's a reason why it didn't work out.
• 56:06
  Eric Howerton: If they should have done this, then it wouldn't have been so bad.
• 56:10
  Eric Howerton: And so now in your mind, you're avoiding that pitfall, but you still get slapped in the face.
• 56:14
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, you know, and it's like nothing's true, it's like you have to be able to go into it.
• 56:20
  Eric Howerton: That's where that enthusiasm, that passion comes into this.
• 56:24
  Mark Zweig: Well, if you're not relentless, this to me goes back and you know, I could say you've been very successful by not doing what I'm going to say, right, and that is just going into a mature market and just doing something better than everybody else.
• 56:40
  Mark Zweig: I mean, you did have to invent something new.
• 56:42
  Luke Waller: Yeah, yeah.
• 56:42
  Mark Zweig: Yeah.
• 56:43
  Mark Zweig: Okay, that's a much less likely path to success, can be spectacularly successful, which you were, yeah, by any standard.
• 56:53
  Mark Zweig: But you know, if you want to talk safe, I always tell people it's like pizza Everybody, freaking, loves it.
• 57:01
  Mark Zweig: Okay, I don't need to do any market testing.
• 57:04
  Mark Zweig: I don't need to do.
• 57:05
  Mark Zweig: Nobody needs to calculate the size of the freaking market.
• 57:09
  Mark Zweig: We got what?
• 57:10
  Mark Zweig: 580,000 people living in Northwest Arkansas, I'd say probably 499,000 of them love pizza and maybe 50,000 of them will eat pizza.
• 57:21
  Sara McDowell: Yeah.
• 57:22
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, okay, just do it better than the next guy and you're much less likely to fail because you're going into something where the demand is absolutely 100% proven.
• 57:32
  Mark Zweig: You know, yeah, I mean again, I'll take the motorcycle business as an example.
• 57:37
  Mark Zweig: So I'm working with this company.
• 57:39
  Mark Zweig: Well, our plan if we achieve it in seven years, all we need is 0.53% of the US market to hit our goal.
• 57:51
  Mark Zweig: Is that likely?
• 57:52
  Mark Zweig: Is that seen point?
• 57:54
  Mark Zweig: That's a half a percent.
• 57:56
  Mark Zweig: It's a huge market I have.
• 57:58
  Mark Zweig: Should we be able to scratch out a half percent?
• 58:01
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, if we're not freaking lazy, okay, okay.
• 58:05
  Mark Zweig: If we spend money on marketing and we keep innovating our product, we're going to hit a percent of the domestic market.
• 58:12
  Mark Zweig: That doesn't even include all the international market opportunities that exist.
• 58:16
  Mark Zweig: But I mean, it's like I like big mature.
• 58:19
  Mark Zweig: Do I have to convince you know Sarah, to buy a motorcycle today?
• 58:23
  Mark Zweig: No, I don't.
• 58:24
  Mark Zweig: I don't need to sell one to Sarah because I've got a massive market of people that already know they want one, Right, and all I got to do is get one out of 200 to buy mine.
• 58:35
  Mark Zweig: I mean, so I like these big, mature markets.
• 58:40
  Mark Zweig: I think the risk is super low when you go into those kind of things.
• 58:45
  Mark Zweig: You know, maybe it's not as dramatic, but you know, usually with just really good marketing and just like cutting all the bureaucracy out of the business, making it a better place to work than everybody else's, because they're all following the same stupid rulebook that they learned, wherever they learned it from, like their bosses boss learned it from, you know it's like.
• 59:09
  Mark Zweig: So just you know you can break a few of those molds out and spend money on marketing and keep innovating.
• 59:17
  Mark Zweig: Then you're probably going to do really fine and it's not that risky.
• 59:23
  Eric Howerton: You know, agreed.
• 59:25
  Mark Zweig: I mean, I think entrepreneurship doesn't have to be risky.
• 59:27
  Mark Zweig: I do agree that it's been glorified.
• 59:29
  Mark Zweig: That's the model of come up with an idea, that I make my big pitch and I sell that and I'm an instant millionaire.
• 59:36
  Mark Zweig: That's a horrible model and the odds of that succeeding are about.
• 59:41
  Mark Zweig: You know, as great as you know, at age 65, I'm going to turn into, like you know, the world's number one triathlete.
• 59:49
  Eric Howerton: And here's what I love about what you just said.
• 59:51
  Eric Howerton: I've seen this happen when you do have somebody that goes and raises capital and they, they get the capital and then they exit, like the news media is like oh so, mark, mark Rose, kate wrote, raised some capital and then they just sold for 500, you know million dollars to the next round and you still got this founder.
• 1:00:12
  Eric Howerton: That was that raised to begin with.
• 1:00:15
  Eric Howerton: And they're just.
• 1:00:15
  Eric Howerton: You know they're in cityscapes or celebrate and you know, just looking like that in the cover, everything's great.
• 1:00:23
  Eric Howerton: But if you really started digging in, they might have gotten, like you know, 150,000 dollars for the buyout.
• 1:00:29
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and no one knows that Right.
• 1:00:32
  Mark Zweig: So, like the 500,000, did that go to them, or did that, or the 500 million, whatever that go to them, or did that go to the company?
• 1:00:39
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, you know, yeah.
• 1:00:41
  Eric Howerton: All kinds of deals, instructions and so like, and then of course those people never admit to the media either.
• 1:00:48
  Eric Howerton: Like well, actually it ended up not really working out very well for me financially.
• 1:00:53
  Luke Waller: Yeah, because I got held back as soon as I did that deal.
• 1:00:55
  Luke Waller: Yeah, I got fired.
• 1:00:56
  Luke Waller: I'm just kind of a lame duck.
• 1:00:57
  Eric Howerton: I don't have anybody, you know.
• 1:00:58
  Eric Howerton: I mean like it's like like actually, like I'm still in debt from everything you know, and it was really a bad deal for me.
• 1:01:05
  Eric Howerton: They're not going to admit that.
• 1:01:07
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, you know.
• 1:01:08
  Eric Howerton: So a lot of this is fantasized.
• 1:01:10
  Eric Howerton: It's this PR game.
• 1:01:11
  Sara McDowell: Yeah it goes along with that.
• 1:01:13
  Sara McDowell: It is that way.
• 1:01:14
  Eric Howerton: you think it's been so sensationalized is because oh yeah, man, people love having pictures taken on themselves.
• 1:01:20
  Eric Howerton: You know, I mean, it's here's the thing, and I know this is a little dangerous.
• 1:01:25
  Eric Howerton: On mark, go for it.
• 1:01:28
  Mark Zweig: I'm not scared.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 5: You just sound by Go.
• 1:01:34
  Eric Howerton: So who do you think wins if you take a, an entrepreneur with a great idea who has very little capital but it wants to go into a big opportunity with a big market, with big money, and then get matched up with an investor.
• 1:01:55
  Eric Howerton: Who do you think really wins in that scenario?
• 1:01:58
  Sara McDowell: I'm going to take a guess and say it's not the entrepreneur.
• 1:02:02
  Mark Zweig: Because it's the golden rule.
• 1:02:04
  Mark Zweig: He or she who has the gold rules?
• 1:02:05
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, it's so true.
• 1:02:09
  Luke Waller: That's a great one and.
• 1:02:10
  Eric Howerton: I already get up.
• 1:02:11
  Eric Howerton: There's an analogy that I can't remember what book I read it in Mark, some business books and entrepreneur book I'm sure.
• 1:02:17
  Eric Howerton: They said investors are like horses.
• 1:02:21
  Eric Howerton: Entrepreneurs are like wolves.
• 1:02:22
  Eric Howerton: Investors have eyes on both sides, watching out for all risk.
• 1:02:26
  Eric Howerton: You know they're prey because their money can get taken away.
• 1:02:29
  Eric Howerton: And then a wolf has eyes on the front and they're going out to hunt, right.
• 1:02:34
  Eric Howerton: But anytime you get investors and an investment group involved, that's why they crunch the hell out of numbers.
• 1:02:39
  Eric Howerton: It's why there's a massive, painfully massive and due, diligent process.
• 1:02:44
  Eric Howerton: Like if you, if you sell a company, you just it doesn't.
• 1:02:47
  Eric Howerton: It's not like selling the car over the weekend.
• 1:02:49
  Eric Howerton: I mean it is freaking, one of the most painful transactions you can go through, because you feel like that.
• 1:02:54
  Eric Howerton: You know it's worse than going to the freaking doctor, you know.
• 1:02:58
  Eric Howerton: I mean you're getting examined like.
• 1:02:59
  Eric Howerton: You know.
• 1:03:00
  Eric Howerton: It's like the IRS, right.
• 1:03:02
  Eric Howerton: I mean it's bad, yeah and so.
• 1:03:03
  Eric Howerton: But it's because there's could be at any moment this breaking point of where all their the money is just gone and it's at risk, which I don't kind of blame them, you know.
• 1:03:15
  Eric Howerton: But who ends up winning is if I could have somebody with a big vision big idea and working 90 hours a week and blah, blah, blah and all this kind of stuff.
• 1:03:25
  Eric Howerton: And then I'm letting them create this thing that I put some, put some money into and I get to go sit down every once every month and just kind of look over the numbers a little bit and give some consultation and I go back and hang out with you know and do other things, but this person's other driving and driving and putting everything I love that.
• 1:03:46
  Eric Howerton: That's what we're looking for Love it Right there.
• 1:03:49
  Eric Howerton: Love it, yeah, and then they get on them.
• 1:03:50
  Eric Howerton: But then they get that that entrepreneur gets on the cover of the magazine.
• 1:03:54
  Eric Howerton: You don't see the investors on the cover of the magazines, right?
• 1:03:56
  Eric Howerton: You see the founder riding the founders up there and they're being glorified.
• 1:03:59
  Eric Howerton: That just kind of feeds the frenzy of my next candidates, because they said, hey, I went into Howerton and his wide capital and got my first seed round and then I get more people like them coming back to me for more money.
• 1:04:11
  Eric Howerton: You know, yeah.
• 1:04:13
  Mark Zweig: It's the reality of it.
• 1:04:14
  Mark Zweig: There's a very small percentage of startups that get venture capital.
• 1:04:18
  Mark Zweig: It's like it's such a micro percentage.
• 1:04:21
  Mark Zweig: Majority of people out there just have to grind it out and build their way up over time, bootstrap it and borrow money from mom and dad and everything else.
• 1:04:29
  Eric Howerton: I feel like we should edit out that last thing that I just went through.
• 1:04:32
  Mark Zweig: No, that's okay, we don't need to edit that out.
• 1:04:33
  Mark Zweig: All right, cool, it's good stuff.
• 1:04:35
  Mark Zweig: It's all true, because that's the image of the media.
• 1:04:40
  Eric Howerton: That's why we have to sort of temper that Well and I think that, for people, that's part of our job here.
• 1:04:46
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, we got to speak some truth, because it's not like I don't think that it's all bad.
• 1:04:51
  Eric Howerton: I think that there are a lot of good deals and there's ideas and there's things that cannot be done without capital Right, and you have to have an army to start up, like tech.
• 1:05:03
  Eric Howerton: Software technology is a big example, right.
• 1:05:05
  Eric Howerton: Or, if you wanted to, drug company drug company a approval if you wanted to create your first car.
• 1:05:11
  Mark Zweig: You know you know it, on the road You're gonna need some help.
• 1:05:13
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, I take a lot of money to build up this production machine.
• 1:05:17
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, but the but, the yeah.
• 1:05:19
  Eric Howerton: The truth is not always told in it, right, and we, let's not be unrealistic.
• 1:05:23
  Eric Howerton: You, you can get your feelings hurt if you're truly an entrepreneur that's driving for a passionate vision and idea.
• 1:05:31
  Eric Howerton: And Then you give your equity away and you turn around five years later and you're on the cover of ink magazine.
• 1:05:38
  Eric Howerton: But now you've been off of it for three years and no one loves you anymore.
• 1:05:42
  Eric Howerton: Those aren't good things.
• 1:05:44
  Eric Howerton: It's not good things, and you know, and you made a hundred thousand dollars.
• 1:05:49
  Mark Zweig: I hope that are not, so what else?
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 5: I.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 5: We've talked a lot about investors, stuff like that.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 5: Yeah, something that I think is also very common is having a co-founder or a partner.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 5: I think both of you have had experiences with that.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 5: What were those experiences like?
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 5: Do you suggest going into business with a partner, and if so, what?
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 5: What should we look for in a partner?
• 1:06:16
  Mark Zweig: I'm gonna just jump into that one.
• 1:06:18
  Mark Zweig: I mean.
• 1:06:19
  Mark Zweig: To me, what I look for is people who have the same values and the same goal for what we're trying to do at the business but are totally 180 degrees opposite of me.
• 1:06:31
  Mark Zweig: The worst partnership is where the two of you are exactly alike and you fight over the same Territory.
• 1:06:38
  Mark Zweig: Then mm-hmm and it's never gonna work out.
• 1:06:41
  Mark Zweig: You agree with the principles, but you end up fighting over the territory on who yeah, because you both let's say you both are good at design and you both Don't like dealing with clients or whatever, all right.
• 1:06:51
  Mark Zweig: Well, if you're gonna be in the design business, somebody's got to deal with clients, and if you both want to do the design, you're gonna have conflict.
• 1:06:59
  Mark Zweig: Mm-hmm, I think that's the biggest mistake a lot of people make, is they go into business with their friends and and other people that they think are like them.
• 1:07:08
  Mark Zweig: We're just alike.
• 1:07:09
  Mark Zweig: We ingest alike is horrible.
• 1:07:12
  Mark Zweig: The best partners I had were people who were totally different.
• 1:07:15
  Mark Zweig: They did things I wasn't gonna do well and I did things that they didn't do well.
• 1:07:20
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, you put the two of us together.
• 1:07:21
  Mark Zweig: It's not all that different from you and Alex when you started out.
• 1:07:25
  Mark Zweig: You're a lot different.
• 1:07:26
  Mark Zweig: Both of those guys work for me at one time, so I know they're both still friends.
• 1:07:32
  Mark Zweig: I mean, I think that's that's as good of an example as any.
• 1:07:36
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, I just, I mean, I just would agree with all that I mean, and I would also say that I mean, had I not had partners that I don't, I don't know how successful I would have been.
• 1:07:46
  Eric Howerton: No, I'm not, I agree with that 100%.
• 1:07:49
  Eric Howerton: It kind of all backs up to everything we've been talking about today.
• 1:07:52
  Eric Howerton: It ain't easy.
• 1:07:53
  Eric Howerton: I mean, if you can have two folks that are Invested, worried, wig and Al, scared you know, and all that kind of stuff, obsessed you know, then the better.
• 1:08:05
  Eric Howerton: That's true.
• 1:08:06
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, because I mean, here's the other thing nobody tells you You're, you're gonna be crazy to everyone else, like you're gonna be on an island from day one because you're gonna believe in this and nobody else can see it, although you know your spouse might be like, oh, I'm so proud of you that that'll be the first day, but come about three months later when you've been freaking, check floating and you're not making any money.
• 1:08:29
  Mark Zweig: Yeah yeah, they're like what are you doing this?
• 1:08:31
  Mark Zweig: This is a?
• 1:08:35
  Mark Zweig: This is a concern to me when I look at companies that I get involved with, If the owners are not paying themselves anything.
• 1:08:43
  Luke Waller: I.
• 1:08:44
  Mark Zweig: Worry about that time.
• 1:08:45
  Mark Zweig: I worry that they are gonna be able to sustain their motivation level because their spouses are gonna be saying You're a freaking idiot and that's gonna put them in a conflict situation when they go home every day.
• 1:08:57
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, that's a bad thing.
• 1:08:58
  Mark Zweig: It is, man, you, they've got to make a decent.
• 1:09:00
  Mark Zweig: You got to figure out a way you can make a halfway decent, living at the same time it's doing.
• 1:09:06
  Mark Zweig: I can't wait till we ever spouses on next week.
• 1:09:08
  Eric Howerton: Yeah that's gonna be so good it will be so good.
• 1:09:11
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, it's gonna be fun, I hope.
• 1:09:19
  Eric Howerton: And don't say anything.
• 1:09:20
  Eric Howerton: That's like potentially sensitive topics that you don't know any about and it just brings up a bunch of stuff that I don't even expect.
• 1:09:30
  Eric Howerton: Deal, let's be on our best behavior, oh yeah it's gonna be fun.
• 1:09:39
  Eric Howerton: It is there, so they're wonderful.
• 1:09:41
  Mark Zweig: But seriously, though that is a really big problem I think a lot of people don't consider is the relationship of the business owners with their spouses and how they feel about the business that the business owner is created.
• 1:09:53
  Mark Zweig: Sometimes they're both involved in it.
• 1:09:55
  Mark Zweig: That's a really tough situation, yeah, and you might think it's great to work together and there can be some situations where it really works out Well, but a lot of times it doesn't.
• 1:10:06
  Mark Zweig: A lot of times there's resentment there.
• 1:10:10
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, one of them is in the sort of driver seat, the other one's helping.
• 1:10:13
  Mark Zweig: The helper gets tired of never having the limelight and is very resentful.
• 1:10:18
  Mark Zweig: Okay, that can develop.
• 1:10:20
  Eric Howerton: It's not important, just general partnerships or the spouse.
• 1:10:23
  Mark Zweig: I'm talking about spouses working together yeah.
• 1:10:25
  Mark Zweig: There's a lot of.
• 1:10:27
  Mark Zweig: There's a lot of that that you know you get into.
• 1:10:30
  Mark Zweig: I mean, that can happen with partners too.
• 1:10:32
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, yeah, in a business where you know somebody's the extrovert Camancy attention and the other one isn't behind the scenes making everything work and they can become resentful.
• 1:10:42
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, they, you know, they like it and people like it at first, you know, but it can, it can start building resentment.
• 1:10:48
  Eric Howerton: I mean, especially when I mean in my experience I've, like you know, I was kind of the front person a lot of times right, and I mean I would appear in in some sort of media and it really became uncomfortable Whenever, whether I quoted something or or I was in an event, you know I mean, but I was just that's just what I did.
• 1:11:09
  Eric Howerton: I mean, like between me and the in the partners, I was the more Extroverted, yeah, I guess, and I showed up right and I would call and you know I just do those things and but when it starts getting Noticed, then it becomes, you know, it can, it can make making even the person that's in that, like myself at the time, that we feel uncomfortable about the attention and not in the lack of attention, rather from my for the partner, who I know is really the one that's driving, I mean like there's no way in hell that I've.
• 1:11:38
  Mark Zweig: yeah, man, I've been there.
• 1:11:40
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:11:41
  Eric Howerton: What else you got?
• 1:11:44
  Sara McDowell: Well, you said something earlier.
• 1:11:45
  Sara McDowell: Sorry to backtrack a little bit here, but you said something earlier that kind of piqued my interest, that I wanted to ask you more about politics in the workplace in business.
• 1:11:54
  Sara McDowell: What kind of a role does that play?
• 1:11:57
  Sara McDowell: How much do you feel like you Maybe played the game a little bit and how much do you kind of try and stay out of it?
• 1:12:05
  Sara McDowell: Just general thoughts on that.
• 1:12:07
  Sara McDowell: I.
• 1:12:09
  Eric Howerton: Mean.
• 1:12:09
  Eric Howerton: I think that you know there is a line between politics and just what would I would call you know, I Don't know how it really say it just appreciation or or understanding, in being thoughtful, and consideration, consideration.
• 1:12:36
  Eric Howerton: I think there's a line between that.
• 1:12:37
  Eric Howerton: Right like so, for example, if you are working together and you're responsible for marketing, you're responsible over sales, and you come with a, with something that would impact, you know, the sales side of things, you know I want you to be recognized for that, even though you're head of sales, right, I mean, there's that's not necessarily political, as it is more recognition and consideration, and I think that you have to be, you have to be strong in this stance to to bust that open and keep it open, because those are the tops of things that can really lead into the politics.
• 1:13:11
  Eric Howerton: Because if I didn't allow that recognition for you to happen, like that one decision, we'll just start cascading into a bunch of politics that become cancerous and toxic and silos, yeah, silos and clicks, yeah, I just.
• 1:13:25
  Mark Zweig: I mean, you know, I've worked in some bigger companies and, and you know, I'm sure there were people who thought I was political Because, for example, let's say, I report to the executive vice president, but the president is somebody I've got a relationship with.
• 1:13:43
  Mark Zweig: He's mentoring me.
• 1:13:45
  Mark Zweig: I talk with him regularly, we go out to lunch together, we talk at night.
• 1:13:49
  Mark Zweig: Some people would go, oh shit, that's why he's a friggin brown noser.
• 1:13:53
  Mark Zweig: He's being political.
• 1:13:55
  Mark Zweig: Okay, no, it's not that at all, it's like your business.
• 1:14:00
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, I Realize who ultimately has control of the resources.
• 1:14:04
  Mark Zweig: I need resources to do my job as the head of marketing or whatever it is Well, and so I've got to have a relationship, I've got to have the attention of that person, I've got to have their respect, and it's essential for me to be successful in my job, to help the company.
• 1:14:22
  Mark Zweig: It's not political.
• 1:14:24
  Mark Zweig: Now, some people wouldn't do that.
• 1:14:26
  Mark Zweig: Okay, well, then maybe they don't get the resources they need, yeah, and then they fail.
• 1:14:30
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, who benefits from that?
• 1:14:32
  Mark Zweig: The company?
• 1:14:33
  Mark Zweig: No, right.
• 1:14:33
  Mark Zweig: So I think a lot of times, you know, I will admit I always had a relationship with the top people.
• 1:14:41
  Eric Howerton: anywhere, I worked well, I don't think the first job I had but that's not political, that's just you being ambitious and owning, but you're responsible.
• 1:14:49
  Eric Howerton: But the sea, that's right.
• 1:14:50
  Eric Howerton: That's when the politics start, is when the people that aren't doing those things, yeah, and then you get ahead.
• 1:14:56
  Mark Zweig: And then they wonder Well, why am I not getting ahead?
• 1:14:59
  Mark Zweig: Well, you're not forming relationships with people who control your destiny?
• 1:15:03
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, resources and I would say that if you're an entrepreneur and you're building that company, you have to be aware that in the first inkling you get of any types of true politics which are the recipients that are looking, and they're basically gossiping is what it comes down to gossiping Infusing, you know, toxicity into each other, clicking up all that type of stuff you recognize and you get all over that and destroy it.
• 1:15:30
  Eric Howerton: I mean, if it means I mean it's like literally having a couple of your kids and they get in a fight and you just not doing anything about it.
• 1:15:38
  Eric Howerton: They're gonna destroy themselves.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:15:40
  Eric Howerton: I mean, I hate to use that analogy, but if you bring them in and you sit them down and bust it out open and your heads together, like a coconuts.
• 1:15:48
  Eric Howerton: But you know, you, but you bring it down the forefront because man, that toxicity does not it does not go away, it's bad, real quick and that that will destroy your business a lot sooner than you run.
• 1:16:07
  Eric Howerton: You know a lot of other well and those are the things everybody's like.
• 1:16:10
  Mark Zweig: What keeps you awake at night?
• 1:16:11
  Mark Zweig: I hate that question.
• 1:16:13
  Mark Zweig: I always say my prostate condition if they ask, because that always gets them going oh.
• 1:16:20
  Mark Zweig: I gotta take urinate like every two hours.
• 1:16:22
  Mark Zweig: But seriously, what keeps you awake at night when you own a business is the relationships of the people that work for you.
• 1:16:31
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, it's so true, it's true.
• 1:16:35
  Mark Zweig: I just had lunch the other day with a friend of mine.
• 1:16:37
  Mark Zweig: He worked at, you know, like Microsoft and ti and all these at the highest level.
• 1:16:42
  Mark Zweig: He's like, yeah, it's like nobody's sitting around worried about like where's the cash gonna come from to me payroll?
• 1:16:48
  Mark Zweig: Where's the next thing?
• 1:16:49
  Mark Zweig: Instead, they're worried about like well, luke and Sarah getting along you know, I mean what kind of meeting I'm gonna have tomorrow.
• 1:16:58
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, what am I gonna do then?
• 1:16:59
  Mark Zweig: And you know, I mean, it's just those are the things that really tend to preoccupy.
• 1:17:05
  Mark Zweig: At least that was my experience, not to say I wasn't ever in some really tight situations, you know very true.
• 1:17:14
  Sara McDowell: So yeah, it seems like the success or the downfall comes from the people.
• 1:17:19
  Mark Zweig: Oh, it's a part of the organization Absolutely does, and getting good people to get along Is really difficult, and you better be considering the spouses.
• 1:17:28
  Mark Zweig: That's all I'm gonna say, very true, because there's also another issue we haven't talked about what if the spouse doesn't like somebody who is in your employee?
• 1:17:37
  Mark Zweig: What do you do then?
• 1:17:38
  Mark Zweig: And they're good, they're a good employee, but your spouse doesn't like them?
• 1:17:42
  Mark Zweig: Oh yeah, it's bad, it's horrible, it's a horrible position to be in.
• 1:17:46
  Mark Zweig: I've been in it.
• 1:17:48
  Eric Howerton: So we have Any more questions?
• 1:17:50
  Eric Howerton: I do have a meeting like right now.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 5: I'm out of question.
• 1:17:55
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, we can yeah, okay cool, Did you have one more?
• 1:18:00
  Sara McDowell: I had like kind of a funny question Okay, so well, maybe Not be funny, we'll give it a shot.
• 1:18:08
  Sara McDowell: I don't want to build it up too much.
• 1:18:09
  Sara McDowell: Name for white spiders, a company, pretty unique, is why group named after yourself.
• 1:18:16
  Sara McDowell: That's so unique.
• 1:18:16
  Sara McDowell: How well, I mean, it is your last name in enough.
• 1:18:20
  Sara McDowell: Itself is unique.
• 1:18:21
  Sara McDowell: Okay, I'll buy that also may go back to the, the need for a little bit of narcissism and the entrepreneurship.
• 1:18:27
  Sara McDowell: I'm just kidding.
• 1:18:37
  Mark Zweig: No, I listen.
• 1:18:38
  Mark Zweig: I always wondered why he fucking excuse me why he misspelled the name of white and spider.
• 1:18:46
  Mark Zweig: All right.
• 1:18:47
  Mark Zweig: Plus, I never particularly like the graphics of spider webs all over my vehicles, which was another thing that white spider used to do.
• 1:18:56
  Mark Zweig: But that said, obviously, we are not editing that part.
• 1:19:01
  Mark Zweig: Obviously, it worked out great in my case.
• 1:19:04
  Mark Zweig: The only reason I ever use my name in my business was I already had like Knowledge of my name out there in the field when I started, because I did a lot of writing and I did a lot of speaking.
• 1:19:17
  Mark Zweig: So when I first started what today is why group is marks, wagon associates it was because I was already known.
• 1:19:23
  Mark Zweig: Yeah why wouldn't I want to cash in on that?
• 1:19:26
  Mark Zweig: If I called it the, you know, the consulting collaborative or some you know it wouldn't, I would have been, I would have lost out on the yeah investment that I already made and building up my name Mm-hmm.
• 1:19:41
  Mark Zweig: But there's negatives associated with that.
• 1:19:43
  Mark Zweig: Obviously fail.
• 1:19:44
  Mark Zweig: Yes, Problem your entire name is destroyed.
• 1:19:53
  Mark Zweig: I mean that's thought about that.
• 1:19:55
  Eric Howerton: There's a bad downfall.
• 1:19:57
  Mark Zweig: There's some yeah, there can be some real negatives associated with that.
• 1:20:01
  Mark Zweig: So, yeah, eric is younger than me and trendy and he comes up with the crazy names and stuff that's what people love today.
• 1:20:10
  Mark Zweig: It's like the names a lot of times have nothing to do with what the business track is true, it's just very short and catchy you know, can you make electric trucks?
• 1:20:20
  Mark Zweig: You know, let's call it water bottle.
• 1:20:24
  Mark Zweig: You know what do you do?
• 1:20:25
  Mark Zweig: We provide cleaning services.
• 1:20:27
  Sara McDowell: I mean, I don't know the key is to spell it in correct.
• 1:20:31
  Sara McDowell: Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:20:32
  Eric Howerton: CTL see in you yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:20:35
  Sara McDowell: Yeah, make it all lowercase, yeah.
• 1:20:41
  Eric Howerton: All right, mark you wanna close this out?
• 1:20:43
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, I get this meeting Okay, sorry.
• 1:20:45
  Mark Zweig: Eric, I know you got to get back to work and I don't really have to.
• 1:20:51
  Eric Howerton: I mean I could just walk off.
• 1:20:52
  Eric Howerton: If y'all want to keep, I can literally just walk out no, we'll, and that's sorry for all the cutting up people.
• 1:21:01
  Mark Zweig: Hopefully you've managed to get a few nuggets out of this.
• 1:21:03
  Mark Zweig: We really appreciate you listing in today.
• 1:21:07
  Eric Howerton: Look up to the camera when you're talking.
• 1:21:08
  Mark Zweig: Oh sorry, we really appreciate it, we really appreciate you tuning in to it.
• 1:21:12
  Mark Zweig: I don't like the fact that my pants and so we promise next episode is gonna be a lot more serious and we're thankful to spend time with these intelligent and motivated and perceptive and good looking young people here that we have in Luke and Sarah, and so it's been another episode of Big.
• 1:21:40
  Eric Howerton: Talk about Small.
• 1:21:42
  Mark Zweig: Business and tune in next week and we'll have another exciting episode for you.
• 1:21:53
  Luke Waller: Thanks for tuning into this episode of Big Talk about Small Business.
• 1:21:56
  Luke Waller: 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.
• 1:22:10
  Luke Waller: 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.