Latest / Big Talk About Small Business / Ep. 20 - Lessons from a $100 Million Business Failure and the Resilience of an Entrepreneur with Harry Clark

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Ep. 20 - Lessons from a $100 Million Business Failure and the Resilience of an Entrepreneur with Harry Clark · Big Talk About Small Business

• 0:05
  Mark Zweig: Hey, welcome back everyone to another episode of Big Talk About Small Business.
• 0:12
  Mark Zweig: And I'm here with my co-host and friend, Eric Howerton One could say maybe a brother from another mother as well as a very special guest here today, Harry Clark, who is with us.
• 0:30
  Mark Zweig: And Harry is another person that I've developed a real kinship for.
• 0:35
  Mark Zweig: He's much classier than I am, but I have a real kinship with him over both business and cars.
• 0:46
  Mark Zweig: So we've become friends over the last couple of years and Harry even sold Rolls Royce for me that I lost a small fortune on.
• 0:59
  Eric Howerton: Oh really.
• 1:01
  Mark Zweig: That's a good story.
• 1:02
  Mark Zweig: I don't blame him for that, though.
• 1:05
  Eric Howerton: Oh, he wasn't the reason why you lost the self.
• 1:08
  Mark Zweig: I was my own undoing on that one.
• 1:10
  Mark Zweig: He just did his best to help me get out of this.
• 1:13
  Eric Howerton: Get out of a sandpit, harry?
• 1:16
  Eric Howerton: How was that?
• 1:17
  Eric Howerton: Was that fun for you to help your buddy Mark here?
• 1:21
  Harry Clark: Oh well, you know it took a while, it was easy, it was good it was good.
• 1:26
  Eric Howerton: What did you do?
• 1:26
  Eric Howerton: Go out and buy a brand new Rolls Royce.
• 1:30
  Mark Zweig: Oh no, I wish it was.
• 1:31
  Mark Zweig: I would have lost less money on it even, I think.
• 1:35
  Mark Zweig: But just no, it was a 99 Rolls Royce and it was British racing green.
• 1:41
  Mark Zweig: It was the only one that either Harry or myself had ever seen like that, and whenever I see green, it just does something to me.
• 1:50
  Mark Zweig: It does, yeah, I let go, I let go.
• 1:55
  Eric Howerton: All your Green does something to a lot of people, a very certain thing.
• 1:59
  Mark Zweig: Yeah.
• 2:00
  Mark Zweig: But I think that you're just more attuned or you're more attracted to the greenness Maybe, I don't know what it is, but anyway we won't get into that story.
• 2:10
  Mark Zweig: I think that's enough of that.
• 2:11
  Mark Zweig: One Really want to talk about Harry today.
• 2:14
  Mark Zweig: Harry has had a very interesting career.
• 2:19
  Mark Zweig: He's had two companies on the Inc 500 list Awesome and he has written a book called Mistakes Millionaires Make.
• 2:30
  Mark Zweig: And I'm not a big fan of business books, as you know, but Harry's book is great.
• 2:35
  Mark Zweig: It has one story after another of, I guess, spectacular growth, implosion and rebirth, wouldn't you say, harry?
• 2:48
  Harry Clark: Yes, yeah, I know exactly right yeah.
• 2:51
  Mark Zweig: Well, tell us a little bit about yourself and what your background is in just some of your life story, if you would.
• 3:01
  Harry Clark: Sure, sure, yeah, I really grew up or I say I grew up in Huntington Beach, california, which is a great place to grow up.
• 3:13
  Harry Clark: I was barefoot most of the time and had a great time.
• 3:19
  Harry Clark: I was a wrestler all through high school and college and grad school.
• 3:26
  Harry Clark: I didn't know that.
• 3:28
  Harry Clark: Yeah, yeah, yeah, which is you know it's very disciplined and you work very hard.
• 3:34
  Harry Clark: But yeah, that was kind of exciting.
• 3:39
  Harry Clark: My father was a at the time you wouldn't say a tech executive, but that's what he was in today's nomenclature.
• 3:51
  Harry Clark: So I saw him working six days a week, every single week, and working long hours.
• 4:00
  Harry Clark: So hard work was just something that was embedded into each of us.
• 4:05
  Harry Clark: So I went through college, grad school, worked for Deloitte, ernst and Young on the Consulting Sonnet, which was a phenomenal experience, because there we all basically the work ethic at the time was how you tried to bill as many hours as you could.
• 4:28
  Harry Clark: So a hundred hour work week is very normal and we had a blast.
• 4:34
  Mark Zweig: It's funny you say that, because that was really when all those consulting groups were getting started in those big aid firms.
• 4:40
  Mark Zweig: When I got out of my MBA program they were hiring everybody out of my class and at the time they paid about 18K.
• 4:51
  Mark Zweig: You know it was.
• 4:52
  Harry Clark: Oh yeah, the pay was strike-all.
• 4:58
  Mark Zweig: That's with an MBA, you know, but you could do well and that was a great time to be in that and I'm sure you learned a lot from all the competition.
• 5:06
  Harry Clark: That's what's amazing, right?
• 5:07
  Harry Clark: If you, when you're compress your, you know, by working a hundred hours a week on multiple projects, you're compressing your learning experience.
• 5:19
  Harry Clark: And it's phenomenal.
• 5:22
  Harry Clark: I mean in three years I learned what most people would learn in probably six or seven years.
• 5:28
  Harry Clark: So that's normal for that environment.
• 5:31
  Harry Clark: And then the manager that recruited me out of grad school recruited me into a municipal finance consulting firm you know where we helped municipal governments issue bonds, and after two and a half years they made me a partnership offer.
• 5:49
  Harry Clark: We couldn't agree.
• 5:50
  Harry Clark: So it was my brother and my father that said, well, why don't you just do it on your own?
• 5:57
  Harry Clark: You're doing great.
• 5:58
  Harry Clark: Yeah.
• 5:59
  Harry Clark: Well, I did, and I was about 27 years old and my brother invested $25,000 and off we went and and I literally broke even a $26,000 and it was cash flow and very profitable.
• 6:18
  Harry Clark: Great Cash positive and profitable.
• 6:21
  Eric Howerton: So you, you were, you were just consulting.
• 6:23
  Eric Howerton: What would all where you were consulting?
• 6:26
  Harry Clark: So initially it was a software solution to help administer municipal bonds.
• 6:31
  Harry Clark: And then you know, levy assessments to collect, to pay the debt service on the bonds, and then you'll, you'll, you guys will love this right.
• 6:43
  Harry Clark: As an entrepreneur and, by the way, I never wanted to be an entrepreneur- I just you know, I wanted to be a partner in a firm right.
• 6:51
  Eric Howerton: That's sure.
• 6:52
  Harry Clark: I wanted to be a colleague.
• 6:54
  Eric Howerton: Not Right.
• 6:55
  Harry Clark: Sure.
• 6:58
  Eric Howerton: A lot of values, a lot of benefits.
• 6:59
  Eric Howerton: Matt.
• 7:00
  Mark Zweig: You know, yeah, so um, that's your next book, Harry the Reluctant Entrepreneur.
• 7:06
  Mark Zweig: Yeah Right, I like it.
• 7:08
  Mark Zweig: And anyway.
• 7:11
  Harry Clark: So my first client that I sold the software to, yeah, after about six months they said, hey, harry, the software is great, but can you just do it for us?
• 7:20
  Harry Clark: And it's like sure, right.
• 7:23
  Harry Clark: So we retooled the business to be a service provider.
• 7:28
  Harry Clark: Yeah, um and uh, within five years it was the largest in the US.
• 7:33
  Harry Clark: Wow, it was just phenomenal, I mean, and I and I, you know I, started with the desk and, uh, toshiba laptop and the phone.
• 7:43
  Harry Clark: You know a desk phone?
• 7:45
  Harry Clark: Sure, yeah, this is 1989.
• 7:48
  Harry Clark: And, and you know, I, I looked at the phone and realized no one's calling me.
• 7:53
  Harry Clark: So I better get on the phone and start, you know, making sales.
• 7:57
  Harry Clark: So, anyway, it was a phenomenal experience.
• 8:00
  Harry Clark: And um, uh, anyway, I sold that in 1996 or seven, uh, to a Fortune 100 company, for, you know, a huge.
• 8:11
  Harry Clark: You know we were set for life.
• 8:13
  Harry Clark: I mean, it was you know what?
• 8:14
  Eric Howerton: what companies did you sell to?
• 8:15
  Eric Howerton: Are you able to release?
• 8:17
  Harry Clark: that, yeah.
• 8:18
  Harry Clark: And then I was able to sell the EIA, which was a bond insurance company, again Fortune 100 company, a $14 billion company, wow, great, wow.
• 8:27
  Harry Clark: And and so I was a senior officer with them for two years, which was twice as long as anybody thought I would.
• 8:35
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:37
  Harry Clark: Um, but then, then, uh, I started a school, uh, fully integrated design, build, school development company where we did everything from land acquisition, you know, municipal financing, uh, architecture, engineering, manufacturing and construction, um, and that we started with five of us, Uh and uh, in the first year, uh, we did seven and a half million.
• 9:11
  Harry Clark: The second, uh, the, and this is 1999.
• 9:15
  Harry Clark: Mm hmm, the second year we did 15 million, the third year 25 million, the fourth year 50 million, the fifth year 100 million, with 200 million at that.
• 9:26
  Harry Clark: Wow, I mean, it was, it was, it was a rocket ship.
• 9:31
  Eric Howerton: Harry, do you have anything that I can give you?
• 9:33
  Eric Howerton: $100 and you start.
• 9:34
  Eric Howerton: I got a look.
• 9:36
  Eric Howerton: I actually got a computer later around.
• 9:40
  Mark Zweig: It's a Toshiba too.
• 9:41
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, it's a Toshiba laptop.
• 9:45
  Harry Clark: Oh well, that was 89, right 1980.
• 9:48
  Mark Zweig: Awesome man.
• 9:49
  Mark Zweig: Now that's a tremendous success story though.
• 9:51
  Mark Zweig: That's cool.
• 9:52
  Mark Zweig: It really is.
• 9:54
  Mark Zweig: It's fun when things are going like that though, isn't it?
• 9:58
  Harry Clark: Oh, it's exciting, yeah, but but scary, sure.
• 10:02
  Harry Clark: I mean, it was, like you know, riding a tiger, yeah that's cool, and who doesn't like riding tigers?
• 10:10
  Mark Zweig: I know I do.
• 10:11
  Mark Zweig: I love it, but you look like you're riding a tiger.
• 10:14
  Mark Zweig: I feel like I rode one this morning.
• 10:17
  Mark Zweig: But no, seriously though, harry, didn't 2001 impact you at all?
• 10:23
  Mark Zweig: Because I remember our business in 01, like it started to slow up a little bit over the anthrax scare.
• 10:32
  Mark Zweig: That was the first thing.
• 10:35
  Mark Zweig: And then, when 9-11 hit, it was like the phone stopped breaking and I thought, holy cow, what is the world going to end?
• 10:41
  Mark Zweig: It didn't really flatten out no one.
• 10:43
  Mark Zweig: I don't think you'll do that, or no, we had 100% growth.
• 10:48
  Mark Zweig: That's right.
• 10:49
  Mark Zweig: We were doing right then damn it.
• 10:54
  Harry Clark: But let me back up, because the key to that is that we, those five people I was one of the five- senators.
• 11:10
  Harry Clark: And I was CEO and I funded the thing.
• 11:12
  Harry Clark: We started by going to a conference room at a resort and we had a huge whiteboard.
• 11:20
  Harry Clark: We listed all of the problems associated with school delivery.
• 11:26
  Harry Clark: So how do you deploy, how do you create new schools and deliver them?
• 11:32
  Harry Clark: We listed all of the problems and, one by one, we spent the weekend engineering the perfect solution to each and every problem.
• 11:41
  Harry Clark: So we created everything again, even the financing for it.
• 11:49
  Harry Clark: Sure, the name of it was turnkey.
• 11:54
  Mark Zweig: That's what you were.
• 11:55
  Harry Clark: The complete solution?
• 11:57
  Harry Clark: Yeah, now, if we were just doing one aspect of it, I could see that it would be more vulnerable, but there was such a pent up demand for our solution that really nothing would have stopped it.
• 12:15
  Mark Zweig: So what happened?
• 12:15
  Mark Zweig: You got up to a hundred million.
• 12:18
  Harry Clark: Now there, that's the drum roll right Heck at $15 million.
• 12:25
  Harry Clark: I recruited my first CFO because I had a finance background.
• 12:30
  Harry Clark: I had a CFO.
• 12:30
  Harry Clark: Well, we've recruited a great guy.
• 12:35
  Harry Clark: He had worked for TaylorMainGolf and Solomon Steeves and that kind of stuff and he was Parisian, just French cuffs, everything, just a real gentleman, anyway.
• 12:55
  Harry Clark: So this is a $50 million and so I hired him in 2004 and I say, hey, let's raise $20 million, because at this point I'm personally guaranteeing everything on this business and I never, even though I had that accident- and.
• 13:17
  Harry Clark: I had both this complex and comprehensive estate planning.
• 13:24
  Harry Clark: I never intended to have this rocket ship and all the risk associated with it.
• 13:31
  Harry Clark: So we had five proposals for $20 million and the best thing of $20 million for a 20% equity stake in those times and it's like, yes, a hundred million dollar valuation after five years.
• 13:47
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, it's impressive.
• 13:49
  Harry Clark: Yeah.
• 13:50
  Harry Clark: So one of them said that they could fund it in 30 days.
• 13:57
  Harry Clark: Everybody else was 90 days.
• 13:58
  Harry Clark: And I'm thinking, look, money is a commodity.
• 14:02
  Harry Clark: If somebody can fund it in 30 days and we're growing it 100% from 100, by this time $100 million to $200 million and when you grow fast, it sucks.
• 14:15
  Harry Clark: No matter how profitable you are, sure Yep.
• 14:17
  Harry Clark: So I'm thinking let's get the cash faster.
• 14:23
  Harry Clark: So we select the company that offered us bait $30 million and commence due diligence.
• 14:32
  Harry Clark: So we start the due diligence, everything's great.
• 14:37
  Harry Clark: The due diligence was 30 days Friday before funding the $20 million.
• 14:44
  Harry Clark: On Monday, the manager for the private equity firm goes up to my CFO and says hey, philippe, we're closing on Monday.
• 14:56
  Harry Clark: You have a million and a half in your bank account.
• 15:00
  Harry Clark: Why don't you pay down your payables?
• 15:03
  Harry Clark: And then on Monday, we'll fund.
• 15:05
  Harry Clark: And this way we get ahead of it.
• 15:08
  Harry Clark: Philippe does that, and then on Monday I get a phone call from the owner of the private equity firm, who was notorious which isn't a good word notorious billionaire.
• 15:26
  Harry Clark: It made his money doing corporate rates.
• 15:28
  Harry Clark: On Monday he calls me and he says Harry, we love your company, everything checked out fine.
• 15:35
  Harry Clark: But over the weekend we got a cash report and you don't have any cash, which means you need us or we need you.
• 15:44
  Harry Clark: So instead of 20% equity, we want 80% equity.
• 15:51
  Harry Clark: Oh Lord, wow, I draw a draw.
• 15:57
  Harry Clark: I told him hey, no, thank you.
• 16:02
  Harry Clark: We hung up, called the investment banker and we were in a world of hurt and ultimately, through a series of mistakes.
• 16:18
  Harry Clark: In hindsight we ended up winding the company down and with that all my personal guarantees.
• 16:26
  Harry Clark: I lost $100 million personal and that was in 2005.
• 16:31
  Mark Zweig: Wow, that's brutal buddy yeah.
• 16:35
  Harry Clark: That's a bad day.
• 16:36
  Mark Zweig: Oh man, I'm telling you, Geez.
• 16:38
  Mark Zweig: So this was a deliberate ploy, obviously, for this guy to hold you over a barrel, huh.
• 16:45
  Harry Clark: He had done it before and you know it.
• 16:49
  Harry Clark: Yes, yeah, exactly.
• 16:52
  Harry Clark: It took about two years of this intense litigation when the dust kind of settled a little bit and I got pissed off.
• 17:05
  Harry Clark: It was like, how did that happen?
• 17:07
  Harry Clark: Sure, because for 20 years I had gone to the top entrepreneurship programs in the world, all around the world.
• 17:17
  Harry Clark: Sure, mit, london Business School, you know, center for Creative Leadership, blah, blah, anyway, you name it.
• 17:24
  Harry Clark: I went to it.
• 17:24
  Harry Clark: How did I step on that landmine?
• 17:28
  Harry Clark: It was really you know a landmine, because I mean, how would you know that that's what he was doing, unless you heard somebody talk about it or write a book or whatever?
• 17:43
  Mark Zweig: Well, you know my theory is and you know I never had that level of bad dealing that I had to deal with.
• 17:51
  Mark Zweig: But I will say, just getting into the construction and development business coming out of the AE side, I was really unequipped for the ethics of the industry compared to what I came out of.
• 18:04
  Mark Zweig: And I think maybe you know, if you're so trusting and you've dealt with generally honorable people and then suddenly you confront somebody who's not it's it weren't unequipped for it.
• 18:17
  Harry Clark: You know, mark, you are so right because I came from municipal finance.
• 18:21
  Harry Clark: Yeah, it's a straight up business, very, very small, small industry.
• 18:26
  Harry Clark: Sure, well, you can't screw anybody, right?
• 18:29
  Harry Clark: You know, yeah, I mean, if you do, you're out of business.
• 18:33
  Harry Clark: Sure, right, I mean, there are people that were aggressive, but aggressive isn't, you know, screwing yourself?
• 18:42
  Eric Howerton: Sure, or you know, yeah, unethical right, right, and I think that there's.
• 18:47
  Eric Howerton: I mean, I have a story that I got left at the altar At 4 am on the day of signing.
• 18:54
  Eric Howerton: We had already signed on our side, uh-huh, 4 am, holy cow, and we'd already borrowed money in good faith against you know.
• 19:04
  Eric Howerton: We got pulled into that whole arena.
• 19:05
  Eric Howerton: Mm-hmm, hey, here's an advance.
• 19:08
  Eric Howerton: All good, we're doing this, no problem, all through due diligence.
• 19:11
  Eric Howerton: 4 am Partner.
• 19:13
  Eric Howerton: I wake up to an email the next morning that the investor wrote it at 4 am, saying I just don't feel good, wow, and we're just like what.
• 19:24
  Eric Howerton: And so we walk in.
• 19:25
  Eric Howerton: We celebrated the night before because we were about to do this Sure Walk in to a whole different, just a whole different energy, and then we had like a quarter of a million.
• 19:34
  Eric Howerton: I mean, it wasn't anything like that, but it was like a quarter of a million of debt.
• 19:36
  Eric Howerton: Now that we're riding that we got to pay back to somebody that just left us, like literally left, but anyway.
• 19:42
  Eric Howerton: But I think, like I can share, like your story reminds me of that gut punch man.
• 19:48
  Eric Howerton: Yeah To your point.
• 19:50
  Eric Howerton: Like I think that we're all really talking here about, like we're earnest entrepreneurs that are trying to make a living and make a difference and do the right thing and find a fill out gap, and then you run across people that are in that same realm, like it's true Business, the business is business statement.
• 20:09
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, is real, yeah.
• 20:12
  Mark Zweig: Well, to some people, all business is personal too, but anyway, yeah, you know, I had a similar story.
• 20:17
  Mark Zweig: We and our company sold in 2001 and we were all the way down to the details on the purchase and sale agreement.
• 20:27
  Mark Zweig: We were selling 80% of it to a nonprofit for 12.5 million and when 9-11 hit, they fired the development guy and we're just gone.
• 20:36
  Mark Zweig: I'd already ordered a nice new Mustang GT convertible for my 16 year old soon to be 16 year old, you know and it just like all then that's just going and everybody had gotten into that frame of mind that this is what we're doing, yeah.
• 20:53
  Mark Zweig: And the next thing and all that, and then that's the biggest damage, is the frame of mind of the team.
• 20:59
  Mark Zweig: Really hard to get that momentum back, yeah, which was fantastic up to that point.
• 21:05
  Eric Howerton: Right, you know, and just like your story here, like you straight up, you guys were like from your story, you're turning and building and things are just optimistic and you're growing and you need capital to continue the great ride that you're on.
• 21:17
  Eric Howerton: And then all of a sudden, yep.
• 21:23
  Harry Clark: Oh, it was so.
• 21:23
  Harry Clark: It was absolutely hard for me, had you, sorry, had you recovered for that.
• 21:28
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, that's what I'll be Sorry.
• 21:30
  Harry Clark: Sorry, that's all right, no it's great questions, yeah.
• 21:32
  Harry Clark: So it well, it depends on what you mean by recovered, but I can tell you like emotionally.
• 21:44
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 21:46
  Harry Clark: It was literally for seven years.
• 21:50
  Harry Clark: I did on average about 10 hours of yoga a week.
• 21:56
  Harry Clark: Wow, yeah, and you know, just to kind of keep centered and my head on straight.
• 22:06
  Mark Zweig: Yeah.
• 22:08
  Harry Clark: Hmm, yeah, really, you know I.
• 22:11
  Harry Clark: And I mean, can you imagine the humbling experience?
• 22:15
  Harry Clark: Yeah, and through that, Yup.
• 22:18
  Harry Clark: And finding out who your friends are and who they're like yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 22:22
  Harry Clark: The but what?
• 22:27
  Harry Clark: There's one thing in it and you know, I'm not sure if how applicable it this is to your listeners, but it's.
• 22:35
  Harry Clark: It's something that I had learned, or maybe we should save this for when we talk about the book, but um well, well, do you mind if I?
• 22:45
  Mark Zweig: jump into it At least yeah, yeah, okay.
• 22:49
  Harry Clark: So, um, the the book was a result of.
• 22:54
  Harry Clark: You know, it took me about 12 years of litigation to wind that business down, so it was like a ball and chain.
• 23:08
  Mark Zweig: Sure.
• 23:09
  Harry Clark: And I tapped on my ankle and and what?
• 23:13
  Harry Clark: What just made no sense to me was what we were taught in business school is look the worst cases.
• 23:23
  Harry Clark: The beautiful thing about the U?
• 23:25
  Harry Clark: S and the UK and and most of the Western world is the worst case.
• 23:32
  Harry Clark: You file bankruptcy and bam, you see a fresh start.
• 23:36
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, right, that way.
• 23:38
  Harry Clark: That's what we were taught.
• 23:39
  Harry Clark: Nothing else, right?
• 23:42
  Harry Clark: You know, full stop period right, fresh start right.
• 23:46
  Harry Clark: And yeah, and that's true for for most people.
• 23:50
  Harry Clark: The problem is that if you, if you have an estate that's that is worth a lot of money, then the lawyers it becomes a feeding frenzy for the lawyers.
• 24:05
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, so a target rich environment?
• 24:08
  Mark Zweig: Oh is it?
• 24:09
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, sure.
• 24:12
  Harry Clark: They'll literally look at how much money you have and determine how many years they can litigate.
• 24:20
  Harry Clark: It's phenomenal.
• 24:21
  Harry Clark: Nobody had ever known that before.
• 24:23
  Harry Clark: So you know, I have my, my book here, right, and it was really my wife.
• 24:29
  Harry Clark: My wife encouraged me to write a book after this whole 12 year period and I said, well, I mean, if I write about my experience, people would read it and say, well, he was an idiot.
• 24:46
  Harry Clark: Right, I would never do that.
• 24:48
  Harry Clark: Yeah, because that's how you know to be an entrepreneur, we have to have a lot of ego, right, we have to have Of course.
• 24:55
  Harry Clark: Yeah.
• 24:56
  Harry Clark: I mean not, not, not, you are no, no man.
• 25:01
  Harry Clark: I'm very humbled Very humbled.
• 25:03
  Eric Howerton: Man, I do love this so funny, he is.
• 25:06
  Mark Zweig: No, it's true he is.
• 25:08
  Mark Zweig: He really is.
• 25:11
  Mark Zweig: But now I hear what you're saying.
• 25:12
  Mark Zweig: You at least have to have enough ego to think I can overcome a lot of the guys there's not, because otherwise the first person gets those.
• 25:21
  Harry Clark: why aren't you kidding me, yeah?
• 25:22
  Eric Howerton: Right, yeah, yeah, okay, you off.
• 25:23
  Eric Howerton: I'm going to show him.
• 25:25
  Eric Howerton: That was exactly what you said, but I had somebody tell me no earlier.
• 25:32
  Eric Howerton: All it is maybe like that's exactly what I want to do.
• 25:35
  Eric Howerton: Then I will show them.
• 25:37
  Eric Howerton: Nothing can stop me, you know.
• 25:41
  Mark Zweig: So so let me ask you one thing I know in your book, you, you, you obviously found other people and their stories and told them of of all that they went through and and you did it in such an easy to read way.
• 25:56
  Mark Zweig: I was going to say that when I started out earlier, like I don't really like business books, but I really do like Harry's book, just the way he wrote it.
• 26:04
  Mark Zweig: It's yeah, he's a great writer.
• 26:06
  Mark Zweig: It's not got any bullshit in there, there's no acronyms and buzzwords and they're not pivoting and storytelling and all the other crap that people say today.
• 26:16
  Mark Zweig: He didn't herself proclaim he was a visionary, like these people do on LinkedIn.
• 26:23
  Mark Zweig: I love these, these, these.
• 26:24
  Mark Zweig: I don't understand what the prescriptions?
• 26:26
  Eric Howerton: What's the problem with the acronyms to you, Mark, or the cliches I, I, just I don't see the big problem with that.
• 26:33
  Mark Zweig: It just bugs me.
• 26:34
  Mark Zweig: I mean I don't know what else to say, but anyway, he doesn't do any of that.
• 26:38
  Mark Zweig: It's super readable.
• 26:39
  Mark Zweig: But, harry, I did.
• 26:40
  Mark Zweig: You mentioned your wife and I, and I never talked with you about this.
• 26:43
  Mark Zweig: Did you keep the same relationship during this whole endeavor?
• 26:49
  Harry Clark: Yeah, Great question.
• 26:51
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, so we because it puts a strain on things.
• 26:56
  Harry Clark: Yeah, yeah, no, we, we had been my wife with, with, with turnkey, right, yeah, oh well, we were married for 20 years, had three kids together, had what would seem like a charmed life, Sure, and one after one year of being in that purgatory.
• 27:18
  Harry Clark: Yeah, with all the litigation, she left, she, when, when she, when the attorney said she, she asked because at the beginning of it the attorney says, oh, in a year this will all be over, which you know.
• 27:36
  Harry Clark: I think he was selling the fact that he's charged us $800 and, yeah, $100,000 a month.
• 27:43
  Harry Clark: Wow, okay, yeah.
• 27:48
  Harry Clark: And and so after a year she said well, when is this going to be over?
• 27:53
  Harry Clark: She said I have no idea.
• 27:55
  Harry Clark: And literally I felt her spirit, just yeah, I mean scared the shit out of her.
• 28:03
  Eric Howerton: Scared the shit out of her, didn't it?
• 28:04
  Eric Howerton: Just absolutely scared the hell out of her.
• 28:06
  Eric Howerton: On that.
• 28:07
  Harry Clark: Yes, yeah, you know, and and it's totally understandable, sure, you know she, she wanted to know.
• 28:15
  Harry Clark: Yeah, and she said we're going to live in a mobile home in Barstow or we're going to keep our one country estate.
• 28:22
  Harry Clark: There was no answer.
• 28:24
  Harry Clark: Yeah, we're in purgatory.
• 28:27
  Harry Clark: Yeah.
• 28:28
  Mark Zweig: Maybe a split level in Vysalia?
• 28:31
  Mark Zweig: I don't know if you go down to.
• 28:32
  Mark Zweig: The mobile home might be a little too much, but no.
• 28:36
  Mark Zweig: But so yeah, it's common that these things, I think, put a huge strain on your relationships and not.
• 28:45
  Mark Zweig: You know, eric and I both had our spouses on the show in an earlier episode and we're both on.
• 28:53
  Mark Zweig: Well, he's on number two, I'm on number three, but it's they're not all able to deal with this entrepreneurial stuff.
• 29:04
  Harry Clark: Yes, you know, as a matter of fact, for when I literally my keynote, I talk about how, look, I'm not an entrepreneur, right, we, we are equipped generally to handle the stress, right, sure, that doesn't mean our family, exactly, yeah.
• 29:26
  Harry Clark: And so, you know, I mean I've really, you know, I've really, you know, I, you know, beat her up, you know, by exposing her to the stress.
• 29:40
  Harry Clark: I'm sure she knows more.
• 29:42
  Mark Zweig: Right.
• 29:43
  Harry Clark: She, you know she'll feel better, Right?
• 29:45
  Harry Clark: I mean, I want to know more.
• 29:47
  Mark Zweig: I feel better if I know Sure exactly yes, but in your case probably it was too much and man, you can't, you can't, you don't want navigating that.
• 29:58
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, Like as like, as entrepreneur, like those things, these things are hitting you.
• 30:02
  Eric Howerton: You're going these attorneys, you're trying to figure all this stuff out, You're trying to keep your wife involved in this because you think that that's I mean, but you cannot Thing to do.
• 30:11
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, I mean there, it's impossible for any human brain or emotional intelligence to consider so many dynamics from people around you and how that's going to, how this is affecting them.
• 30:23
  Eric Howerton: I mean.
• 30:25
  Harry Clark: You know?
• 30:25
  Harry Clark: What might be an appropriate analogy is you know, you know how, when you're leading a business and you're having a big challenge, you walk into the business and you have to project like, yeah shit's good, it's all good.
• 30:41
  Harry Clark: You know, everything's great right.
• 30:44
  Eric Howerton: Great Dave.
• 30:45
  Eric Howerton: I've been doing yoga for two and a half hours trying to get my head right to walk in.
• 30:48
  Eric Howerton: But today's a great day.
• 30:50
  Eric Howerton: Yes, yes.
• 30:51
  Harry Clark: No you're right and you know, probably the approach should have been more like that.
• 30:58
  Harry Clark: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:59
  Harry Clark: Well, we're going through a hard time, but you know what this?
• 31:01
  Harry Clark: It's going to be awesome on the other side.
• 31:05
  Eric Howerton: You know.
• 31:05
  Eric Howerton: But honestly, you know, harry, like I can relate completely, I can relate with everything you're saying.
• 31:10
  Eric Howerton: I mean it's just, it's awesome I love in this dialogue.
• 31:14
  Eric Howerton: But like the reality is, is, even as an entrepreneur and being as strong and as visionary as you are to get through these things or the you know, the level of risk doesn't affect you.
• 31:25
  Eric Howerton: The same way, like your family support is important to you at that time that you have somewhere to fall on, like emotionally, or just like there's just somebody that gives a shit Cause when you're dealing with that stuff, nobody else.
• 31:39
  Eric Howerton: Like your vision, the reality of your world is like everybody's a dog.
• 31:44
  Eric Howerton: After everything you got, and you got those attorneys, like even your attorney who's representing you, is actually just, I mean, they're just freaking.
• 31:53
  Eric Howerton: Freaking it in man.
• 31:55
  Mark Zweig: Did you?
• 31:55
  Mark Zweig: Let me ask you this were your mom and dad still alive at that point?
• 31:59
  Mark Zweig: Your mom's still alive now, isn't she?
• 32:01
  Harry Clark: No, no she passed away?
• 32:03
  Mark Zweig: Yes, but at the time they were both.
• 32:05
  Mark Zweig: Okay.
• 32:05
  Mark Zweig: Were they supporting you emotionally?
• 32:09
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, yeah, you at least had that, and that's important, yeah, so how?
• 32:17
  Mark Zweig: So?
• 32:17
  Mark Zweig: We went through this 12 years of being stuck in sort of a limbo state, I guess, trying to figure out where the dust was all gonna settle.
• 32:25
  Mark Zweig: And your wife, you know you, you've changed your relationship there, so so then what happened?
• 32:34
  Harry Clark: So I, you know, through this, this period, I did lots of consulting work and you know life, you know life was, you know was pretty, it was tolerable, Mm-hmm.
• 32:48
  Harry Clark: After, afterward, I, my, my now wife, who I'd been with, we'd been together for 12 years, yup and you know, and she was her idea to write the book.
• 33:04
  Harry Clark: So I I kind of you know dedicated myself.
• 33:09
  Harry Clark: I told myself for three years I'm gonna give back and I'm gonna write this book.
• 33:14
  Harry Clark: And I interviewed 30 entrepreneurs that made and lost 10 to 200 million recorded, recorded and transcribed.
• 33:23
  Harry Clark: The interviews correlated the risk factors in the stories to help the book.
• 33:28
  Harry Clark: So that's, you know, the or the, the stories are the book right and describe the risk factors.
• 33:35
  Harry Clark: So I was then basically delivering keynote speeches all around the world 30 countries, 80 cities, which may not sound like a lot, but 30 countries, that's a lot, man To.
• 33:54
  Harry Clark: You know, fly to, to to over, you know, an hour and a half keynote.
• 33:59
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, it's a grind yeah.
• 34:01
  Harry Clark: Yeah, but it was you know.
• 34:03
  Harry Clark: I mean, you can imagine them.
• 34:04
  Harry Clark: You know what I learned in doing all of that and meeting all those CEOs and business owners.
• 34:12
  Harry Clark: I mean it was really a blessing to me, sure, and then it was.
• 34:19
  Harry Clark: It was my mother who said, you know, harry, because I was trying to figure out, okay, what am I gonna do?
• 34:27
  Harry Clark: Right?
• 34:27
  Harry Clark: And initially it was my mother that said, you know, warren Buffett says if you do what you love for a living, you never work a day in your life.
• 34:37
  Harry Clark: So you, you ought to have a classic car dealership.
• 34:41
  Mark Zweig: Yeah.
• 34:42
  Harry Clark: It was like no, I could never.
• 34:43
  Harry Clark: I could never.
• 34:44
  Harry Clark: Right, I was a major collector, Sure, my whole life.
• 34:48
  Harry Clark: I mean, when I was 15, I had my first show car.
• 34:51
  Mark Zweig: Your dad was into it too, wasn't he?
• 34:53
  Harry Clark: Yeah, yeah, totally different cars, but he was still a good driver.
• 34:56
  Harry Clark: Sure, yeah, and and literally.
• 34:59
  Harry Clark: When she said that, I was like no way, because I never sold my own cars, I always used a auction company or a program.
• 35:07
  Harry Clark: And, and you know, I thought about it overnight and it was like you know what, Wow, If I, if I flip the switch as an reflector to being a business person, I could probably do it.
• 35:20
  Harry Clark: And my God, it's been phenomenal.
• 35:25
  Harry Clark: And so I did it kind of on the side usually, and then it then my, my wife, I don't know five years ago, six years ago, and said, you know, Harry, because the keynotes were, you know, I had done my few years, Sure.
• 35:44
  Mark Zweig: Done the second.
• 35:45
  Harry Clark: Yeah, um, yeah, right.
• 35:46
  Harry Clark: And then, and then, about five, six years ago, she said well, why don't you just buy a building and, and you know, have a real deal dealership and and lean in Because you know, Mark, I was.
• 36:01
  Harry Clark: I was contemplating okay, should I do?
• 36:03
  Harry Clark: Should I go one more round, you know, with a?
• 36:06
  Harry Clark: You know scaling a business or CEO, you know hired CEO, and she said no, just you know, buy a building and and and have a classic car dealership.
• 36:17
  Harry Clark: And why?
• 36:18
  Harry Clark: Why, god, I'm the luckiest guy in the world.
• 36:21
  Harry Clark: I mean, I, I'm right now, I'm surrounded by these beautiful classic cars and I have a great team.
• 36:29
  Harry Clark: I, we show cars all over the world and it's all a business expense.
• 36:34
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, yeah, it's awesome, you get to drive cool stuff.
• 36:38
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, get them.
• 36:40
  Mark Zweig: Still meet cool people.
• 36:41
  Eric Howerton: Right, and is that what you do?
• 36:43
  Eric Howerton: You started doing that full time.
• 36:44
  Eric Howerton: I mean I guess classic, yeah, and like when?
• 36:48
  Eric Howerton: What date did you kind of quit doing your key notes and stuff?
• 36:53
  Harry Clark: Oh, I still so, I still, luckily, you know, again, I'm very fortunate.
• 36:56
  Harry Clark: I have a great team here.
• 36:57
  Harry Clark: Okay, so I have a whole, a whole team here, so I can, you know, I can go and, and you know I was in Saudi Arabia, kuwait and Jordan in June and then Frisco, texas, yeah, I did a first wide group.
• 37:16
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, I care, I really talk.
• 37:18
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, At the latest, Innovate, Well, health, I see.
• 37:22
  Mark Zweig: But, um, yeah, Harry, Harry still does that.
• 37:25
  Mark Zweig: But I mean.
• 37:26
  Mark Zweig: So back on your, your classic car business, though.
• 37:29
  Mark Zweig: I mean, you've got sort of a unique way you do it.
• 37:33
  Mark Zweig: I know you own some of the vehicles yourself, but you do a lot on consignment and you do a fantastic job with your videos.
• 37:42
  Mark Zweig: The videos and the photography and and the sort of you know here's every single thing we can find wrong with this vehicle really reduces, I think, a lot of the risk for the buyer to buy from you Exactly.
• 38:01
  Harry Clark: So we're selling these cars all over the world, yeah, literally all over the world.
• 38:05
  Harry Clark: Yep, people are sending us cars from all over North America and I'm getting two cars from Malaysia, wow, yeah.
• 38:13
  Harry Clark: They are being sent to me, which makes no sense, you know, except for the fact that that you know through.
• 38:24
  Mark Zweig: You have a distribution.
• 38:25
  Mark Zweig: You have a distribution and the description Right.
• 38:29
  Harry Clark: So, different than what anybody else does.
• 38:32
  Harry Clark: That Right, we've created our community.
• 38:36
  Mark Zweig: Yes.
• 38:37
  Harry Clark: Worldwide.
• 38:38
  Mark Zweig: Yes.
• 38:39
  Harry Clark: It's fun.
• 38:39
  Harry Clark: But but, mark, the funny thing is, you know, we do the videos and photos ourselves.
• 38:45
  Harry Clark: Right, I know Right.
• 38:47
  Mark Zweig: And the quality is unbelievable yeah.
• 38:50
  Harry Clark: I mean, we have Gerald for you, you know, we, we, you know do our own drone videos and and we, just so you know it, what I love about this and and I would encourage anyone to really find out what they're really, what I mean, what gets them excited you know, in the morning, you know as a, as a passion, Yep, and you know for, for me, you know, I, I love it because I, I have this big art side of me, Sure Well, I get it.
• 39:23
  Harry Clark: The, the photos and videos.
• 39:26
  Harry Clark: Kind of check that.
• 39:28
  Harry Clark: I love doing the research on every single car.
• 39:33
  Harry Clark: You do a lot.
• 39:34
  Mark Zweig: I've learned you do a lot of the the history and you get into, like, who owned it originally and where it came from.
• 39:41
  Mark Zweig: It's always very interesting.
• 39:42
  Mark Zweig: I read all those that you print.
• 39:44
  Mark Zweig: Telling the story, yeah.
• 39:45
  Mark Zweig: Telling the story, yes.
• 39:47
  Harry Clark: Yeah, and God it's so much so that, but that you know that nerdy act, that that you can.
• 39:53
  Harry Clark: That side of me it it kind of ticks that box and and uh, luckily we have just incredible people, you know, and I, we think of it as we're in the happiness.
• 40:05
  Mark Zweig: Yep, I like that.
• 40:07
  Harry Clark: Whether you're a seller or a buyer, right, nobody needs this stuff.
• 40:12
  Harry Clark: No, all right, it's all a toy, it's their happy place, right?
• 40:17
  Harry Clark: So, whether they're selling or buying, we're making them happy.
• 40:21
  Mark Zweig: Right, that's great.
• 40:22
  Mark Zweig: Well, I think the other thing is too like.
• 40:24
  Mark Zweig: I mean, you don't come across as a car salesman, Okay so there's like, like I do, you don't.
• 40:33
  Eric Howerton: I mean, do I want?
• 40:33
  Eric Howerton: I like it, you'll have.
• 40:35
  Eric Howerton: Though I like being the car salesman, I go ahead.
• 40:38
  Mark Zweig: But no, I mean, I think you know, and you're also extremely knowledgeable about these things, you know, you're one of the few people I know really knows a lot about it, and so, but yeah, you've created your own little distribution channel here through providing better photos, better videos, better backstories, better conditional information and being trustworthy, and you can see why the whole thing works.
• 41:05
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 41:07
  Harry Clark: And no, it's a blast.
• 41:08
  Harry Clark: Yeah, I'm jealous entirely.
• 41:11
  Mark Zweig: So now you live out in Scottsdale.
• 41:13
  Mark Zweig: Now Is that right?
• 41:14
  Harry Clark: Yep, there's a little area called Paradise Valley, which is a sandwich between Phoenix and Scottsdale.
• 41:20
  Harry Clark: Yeah, and yeah, we, we.
• 41:25
  Harry Clark: We had the the fun process of 19 months ago moving into our guesthouse, tearing down our house and, and hopefully before Christmas, we moved back in.
• 41:37
  Harry Clark: Well, it's never fun.
• 41:38
  Mark Zweig: Well, it's never fun.
• 41:39
  Mark Zweig: Erica's building a, a, a, a castle on a hill.
• 41:45
  Mark Zweig: Oh, I like that.
• 41:45
  Mark Zweig: It's like a compound I think he's going to have Well, it might be more like a compound Houses for each of his kids there.
• 41:52
  Mark Zweig: It's, it's crazy, it's it's.
• 41:54
  Mark Zweig: I bought a little, just a little hill, by a, by a hill.
• 41:57
  Eric Howerton: By a crack, yeah, by a crack it's, it's going to be good.
• 42:00
  Eric Howerton: I actually just looked at the plans this morning.
• 42:02
  Mark Zweig: Are you going to have a cement pond over there?
• 42:05
  Mark Zweig: How might?
• 42:06
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, I thought I said I can final.
• 42:08
  Mark Zweig: We're really coming up here in Arkansas, here.
• 42:10
  Mark Zweig: You wouldn't believe it.
• 42:11
  Mark Zweig: I mean, we've got a dentist in town now.
• 42:15
  Eric Howerton: It's every once in a while, let's let Harry think that, because the stud that Harry is will come in and take over everything that you are trying to do.
• 42:25
  Eric Howerton: Oh yeah, we don't even get outsted immediately.
• 42:28
  Eric Howerton: Very new, how awesome it was here.
• 42:30
  Eric Howerton: Hey, this is a great.
• 42:32
  Eric Howerton: I mean, I love this.
• 42:33
  Eric Howerton: I just love this episode.
• 42:34
  Eric Howerton: Actually, I like Harry more than I like you now more.
• 42:37
  Eric Howerton: It literally took 45 minutes for me to understand that I would rather be hanging out there than you.
• 42:45
  Eric Howerton: How does that make you feel?
• 42:46
  Mark Zweig: Thanks for the introduction.
• 42:47
  Mark Zweig: It will elevate you.
• 42:49
  Mark Zweig: I'll say that he's far classier than I am.
• 42:52
  Mark Zweig: No way man he is.
• 42:54
  Eric Howerton: But no, I mean, but honestly, like it's, you know the conversation around those dark moments here, like I mean, those are, we don't have enough of that in our world.
• 43:08
  Eric Howerton: So I applaud you and thank you for your, for writing your book, for sticking that vision, for going deep within yourself to pull that out and exposing yourself.
• 43:19
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, as you made a really good point earlier about the ego, the pride.
• 43:23
  Eric Howerton: Well, my experience has been like there were moments when I had and there was no one you could talk to.
• 43:29
  Eric Howerton: I couldn't even talk to Mark.
• 43:30
  Eric Howerton: You should have been talking to me, man, I know man, but you know, at that moment though I mean now, now it's easy for me to think Like, yeah, you're super successful.
• 43:39
  Mark Zweig: We're talking.
• 43:40
  Mark Zweig: We're talking.
• 43:42
  Eric Howerton: Hey, you're talking now, but there was a time period yeah, there was a.
• 43:46
  Eric Howerton: You know there's both periods when, like you can't, yeah, what can you turn to?
• 43:50
  Eric Howerton: It's here in nobody to talk to, there's no one, and I don't care what anybody says.
• 43:55
  Eric Howerton: I mean, you've had it.
• 43:56
  Eric Howerton: I don't know that you have to be a strong person, you have to be a faithful person or a.
• 44:01
  Eric Howerton: So your vision is so just absolutely keen to make it through Some of those things because, like you and your mind, somewhere deep down within inside yourself, maybe it's when you're doing the downward dog you are recognizing that, hey, I'm going to make it through this, and shit happens, and you know what the world like I'm overcoming, because there's things that I still want to go do.
• 44:27
  Eric Howerton: That's at least where I was at.
• 44:29
  Harry Clark: Well, the fortunate thing is that, genetically, entrepreneurs are wired to be optimist.
• 44:38
  Harry Clark: Yes.
• 44:38
  Harry Clark: You're wired as optimist.
• 44:40
  Harry Clark: Yes, yes, as such.
• 44:43
  Harry Clark: We're more fun at parties, we're healthier, we live longer.
• 44:49
  Eric Howerton: That's good news.
• 44:51
  Harry Clark: You know, and we can make it through the dark periods right, you know, the downside is being an optimist.
• 44:59
  Harry Clark: Often it creates these vulnerability.
• 45:05
  Eric Howerton: Oh yeah, for sure.
• 45:05
  Harry Clark: Right, you know, if we were pessimists like if I were a pessimist, I would have been.
• 45:11
  Harry Clark: Well, what?
• 45:12
  Harry Clark: Why are they doing that?
• 45:13
  Harry Clark: Why would they want to be the 1.5 million?
• 45:17
  Harry Clark: It's good.
• 45:18
  Eric Howerton: It's going to put me at a risk level and, as it may, check off, yeah, don't do right, yeah.
• 45:23
  Mark Zweig: Yeah.
• 45:24
  Eric Howerton: It's everything's too risky.
• 45:25
  Eric Howerton: But you were like I mean shit.
• 45:27
  Eric Howerton: If you called somebody up, here's the reality.
• 45:29
  Eric Howerton: If any one of us calls him up said hey man, go ahead and wire that one and a half million over because it's going to make the books look good.
• 45:34
  Eric Howerton: My intention is is that is supposed to be helping you?
• 45:38
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, like there is zero is zero inkling.
• 45:40
  Eric Howerton: And why would you think it was a ploy?
• 45:42
  Eric Howerton: I never have a thought in my brain to do that to anybody on this entire planet, because it's like against all the shit that's inside my being.
• 45:50
  Eric Howerton: But it's just not the way it works for everyone.
• 45:54
  Mark Zweig: No, right, there are.
• 45:55
  Harry Clark: That's right.
• 45:57
  Mark Zweig: There are some people who don't mind hurting other people.
• 45:59
  Mark Zweig: That's not any of our styles, no, but they do exist out there.
• 46:04
  Eric Howerton: Not only do they not mind if they intentionally do that, like it's crazy, like it, you know, I mean here you said something earlier too.
• 46:10
  Eric Howerton: I mean I was there, my periods.
• 46:14
  Eric Howerton: There was moments where I was so absolutely dumbfounded, shocked, that I didn't even know that humanity could do some of the things that were going on.
• 46:22
  Eric Howerton: And it feels like that you in some of your comments you were kind of shocked a little bit too.
• 46:28
  Eric Howerton: Like what?
• 46:29
  Eric Howerton: Because you kept saying, like what the hell is going on here?
• 46:32
  Harry Clark: Yeah, yeah, you know in I mean, eric, you probably went through this too, maybe, but I, you know, I know for myself it was like, well, it can't get any worse until the next day.
• 46:46
  Mark Zweig: Oh well, he didn't touch it.
• 46:47
  Mark Zweig: He actually didn't.
• 46:49
  Harry Clark: I mean, he was like what yeah, like hell yeah.
• 46:52
  Harry Clark: Because you know, especially in my case, right everything I touched, you know, turned to gold.
• 46:59
  Harry Clark: Right yeah sure.
• 47:00
  Eric Howerton: Until it did, until everything he touched turned to shit.
• 47:03
  Eric Howerton: I ain't a boy, I get it.
• 47:06
  Mark Zweig: I get it, you know.
• 47:07
  Mark Zweig: I think again, though, it comes back to one of the recurring themes that we've talked about a lot, Eric, on this show, and that is that entrepreneurship is inaccurately portrayed by pop culture or in the pop culture of you know.
• 47:24
  Mark Zweig: I got to come up with a new idea.
• 47:25
  Mark Zweig: That's never been done before.
• 47:27
  Mark Zweig: Well, you were working in basically mature industries for all practical purposes, right, Definitely.
• 47:33
  Mark Zweig: So that blows that out of the water.
• 47:36
  Mark Zweig: And then, you know, immediately I got to go raise outside capital.
• 47:39
  Mark Zweig: Well, we all know that the longer you wait to do that, the better off you are.
• 47:44
  Mark Zweig: Right, Because you don't want to give it away too early, and that there's, you know.
• 47:51
  Mark Zweig: And then bad things can happen.
• 47:54
  Mark Zweig: I mean, it's like it's always portrayed as come up with idea, you know, raise all this, Somebody comes along and pays you a whole bunch of money for it and then you're done.
• 48:05
  Mark Zweig: You know, it's just not like that.
• 48:07
  Harry Clark: Well, I have to share this.
• 48:09
  Harry Clark: My wife did an executive program at Harvard you know kind of week long Harvard entrepreneurship programs and one of the professors there was saying, you know, he totally, totally doesn't believe in luck and he talked about how he engineered his business and had a successful sale.
• 48:33
  Harry Clark: That was kind of his data point and it's like holy smokes man.
• 48:38
  Harry Clark: If you read through my art it's like wow, there's no doubt that luck is it's part of it.
• 48:45
  Harry Clark: Luck is so much.
• 48:46
  Harry Clark: I should have so much to do this Success or failure.
• 48:50
  Mark Zweig: It really does man.
• 48:52
  Eric Howerton: You know to that point.
• 48:55
  Eric Howerton: You know in particular, Mark, what you were just saying a second ago the fear that I have in this encouragement of being an entrepreneur, this fad, like it needs to.
• 49:09
  Eric Howerton: It literally needs to stop.
• 49:11
  Eric Howerton: It's like the same fad or the same thing is like hey, you know, be a rock star, be a party person, you know, I mean, it's super cool, you know.
• 49:22
  Eric Howerton: And then there's good people that end up getting friggin hooked up on dope and they're dead.
• 49:28
  Eric Howerton: And they're dead, they're 27.
• 49:30
  Eric Howerton: Same shit can happen in entrepreneurship.
• 49:32
  Eric Howerton: If you are ready for that, or you don't even have to be ready, if you aren't able to go through those and kind of to your point here about the eternal optimist, if you are in that mind frame and there's a reason why you're trying to be an entrepreneur anyway, or that you don't even need to know that you are one, you just have something you want to go do Like.
• 49:53
  Eric Howerton: You can't like to set people up to be in those positions of what you were in or what I was in or something that Mark was in.
• 50:01
  Eric Howerton: Not everybody can make it through that.
• 50:04
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, it takes resilience that's the buzzword now Resilience.
• 50:10
  Eric Howerton: Okay, it does, but I mean that's like.
• 50:13
  Mark Zweig: I mean like I think that this part of what we're trying to do here is we're trying to give people that and show that it's possible to survive these things Right it there's that side and there's also, like you like, don't fall in the trap of just being like.
• 50:27
  Eric Howerton: being an entrepreneur is like becoming a freaking college professor or, or you know, an engineer.
• 50:32
  Eric Howerton: It's not the same.
• 50:33
  Mark Zweig: It's not the same, it's going to take a lot of work.
• 50:36
  Mark Zweig: It takes a lot of total dedication.
• 50:38
  Mark Zweig: I mean, you know all the things that we all know.
• 50:41
  Mark Zweig: It's not a separation of of work and personal life.
• 50:47
  Mark Zweig: It's an integration.
• 50:49
  Mark Zweig: Integration, don't you think?
• 50:52
  Harry Clark: And totally.
• 50:54
  Mark Zweig: It's so, you know, let's talk work life balance.
• 50:57
  Mark Zweig: The implication is works horrible and should be avoided.
• 51:00
  Mark Zweig: You know, in that, in that whole equation, isn't it?
• 51:04
  Mark Zweig: Work, life integration?
• 51:06
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, totally great, yeah.
• 51:08
  Mark Zweig: And so you know, it is a lot of work, but it's also not a lot of work because, at the same time, it's definitely like yeah right, like like what you're doing now, I mean that's not working either.
• 51:18
  Eric Howerton: I mean you're living your life Right.
• 51:20
  Eric Howerton: Absolutely you bet and even if it's not something like, but even your previous businesses that you're doing, you were still living because you had some.
• 51:29
  Eric Howerton: He had a vision.
• 51:30
  Eric Howerton: You're taking, you're on this ride, you're trying to solve a problem.
• 51:33
  Eric Howerton: You you're in the middle of that.
• 51:34
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, absolutely, make an impact.
• 51:37
  Harry Clark: Yep Totally.
• 51:38
  Mark Zweig: Yeah Well, we're running out of time here, but I'd like to hear what best piece of advice do you have for entrepreneurs and business owners today, Harry?
• 51:53
  Harry Clark: So, given you know my subject matter expertise, the number one risk factor for business owners are the personal guarantees.
• 52:06
  Harry Clark: Yeah, and if you have a line of credit or you know leases or credit cards or whatever, my recommendation is, for example, with a line of credit, meet with your banker.
• 52:22
  Harry Clark: find out what it would take for you to get an aid or carve out personal assets like your house, your car, etc.
• 52:33
  Harry Clark: From the personal guarantee.
• 52:37
  Harry Clark: So because if you don't ask, it'll never happen and you'll always have them If you ask, I know for sure and you'll.
• 52:47
  Harry Clark: You know, you can find out by reading the book, but you can have the business without any personal guarantees.
• 52:54
  Harry Clark: Yeah, it's really a mindset and I you know right.
• 53:00
  Mark Zweig: I don't.
• 53:00
  Mark Zweig: I mean, I got completely out of personal guarantees after being in business long enough and having a strong enough balance sheet in financial performance.
• 53:09
  Mark Zweig: Now, on the real estate side, I can't say that, no matter what I do, they always wanted a personal guarantee.
• 53:16
  Mark Zweig: I don't think I could get the loans on the real estate without it.
• 53:19
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, have you been able to?
• 53:22
  Eric Howerton: All the time.
• 53:23
  Eric Howerton: No, I'm just kidding, I have it.
• 53:24
  Eric Howerton: But I mean yeah, but I mean that gets surprising to me because you have actually a real property that can be right.
• 53:30
  Mark Zweig: Like they still demand it it's because it's an old business, right?
• 53:35
  Eric Howerton: I mean, it's just tradition.
• 53:36
  Mark Zweig: Well, and they're so regulated.
• 53:38
  Mark Zweig: The government wants to see that to maintain their insurance from the FDIC and all.
• 53:45
  Mark Zweig: But you're right, I mean you're never going to get there unless you ask.
• 53:49
  Mark Zweig: I think that's very good advice.
• 53:51
  Mark Zweig: You need a really good relationship with your banker and you got to keep probing to get them to commit to what it's going to take to let you out of that, because bad things can happen.
• 54:01
  Harry Clark: Yeah, For example, for my showroom here, I the seller, it's a seller finance.
• 54:09
  Harry Clark: So you have like an eight-year note and no personal guarantee.
• 54:17
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, that's good.
• 54:18
  Harry Clark: So anyway, the point is, yeah, if just have it be something that is a focus, because that's the number one risk factor.
• 54:29
  Mark Zweig: You're right.
• 54:30
  Mark Zweig: That's how you relate to crash and burn and lose it all, All right dude, this is fantastic here.
• 54:39
  Eric Howerton: It's awesome meeting you.
• 54:40
  Eric Howerton: Definitely going to be.
• 54:42
  Eric Howerton: I'm going to so.
• 54:42
  Eric Howerton: Your book obviously available on many bookstores online as well, and then is available in audible form or audio format as well, yes, audible, but no, the electronic version.
• 54:57
  Eric Howerton: And then hard copy Okay, perfect, I'm going to go buy that puppy today and listen to it, man, I mean it's an important book, I mean for entrepreneurs.
• 55:07
  Harry Clark: it's an important book because nobody else has ever delved into this.
• 55:13
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 55:14
  Mark Zweig: Harry was so nice.
• 55:15
  Mark Zweig: The first time I talked to him we were talking about cars.
• 55:19
  Mark Zweig: He said, told his assistant to send me the book and I'm like what book?
• 55:24
  Mark Zweig: He sent it, and then I found out he was a lot more than a car guy.
• 55:28
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, you know so anyway.
• 55:31
  Mark Zweig: Well, harry, thank you so much.
• 55:33
  Harry Clark: What?
• 55:34
  Harry Clark: Yes, eric, pleasure meeting you.
• 55:36
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, thank you sir.
• 55:37
  Harry Clark: Great seeing you again.
• 55:38
  Mark Zweig: Fantastic.
• 55:39
  Mark Zweig: We appreciate having you on the show and this has been another episode of Big Talk About Small Business, and check out our website, yeah, big Talk About Small Business dot com for other episodes of the show, and we also want to hear your comments and suggestions and questions and criticisms.
• 56:04
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, and we want you to subscribe too, so you know when the new shows come out.
• 56:07
  Eric Howerton: Right, and it's also important for this show, like I mean hey, man, look, we're doing a business here, right, mike?
• 56:12
  Eric Howerton: Right, I mean, we want to make sure I think I called you Mike, it's all right.
• 56:16
  Mark Zweig: You were thinking about my microphone.
• 56:18
  Mark Zweig: I had something to do with that.
• 56:20
  Eric Howerton: But we do.
• 56:21
  Eric Howerton: I mean, we're building a business here.
• 56:23
  Eric Howerton: If we get subscribers, you know we get downloads, views, likes, thumbs up, all that kind of crap.
• 56:29
  Eric Howerton: It helps.
• 56:29
  Eric Howerton: It helps us get sponsors, and we can keep doing this Exactly Otherwise at some point we'll be like why aren't we doing this Exactly?
• 56:36
  Eric Howerton: There's a lot of stuff.
• 56:38
  Mark Zweig: Right, we got to share it Like we're working.
• 56:40
  Mark Zweig: I know we got over out here.
• 56:42
  Eric Howerton: It's got to be so freaking.
• 56:44
  Eric Howerton: Subscribe, yeah, so we can get run drive more ad revenue, exactly, I mean, it's simple.
• 56:50
  Mark Zweig: Absolutely.
• 56:50
  Mark Zweig: And if you want a really cool car, by the way, or sometimes, occasional motorcycles, classic promenadecom has some really cool stuff.
• 57:01
  Mark Zweig: It's constantly changing.
• 57:03
  Mark Zweig: That's awesome.
• 57:04
  Mark Zweig: There's always something out there I want.
• 57:05
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, that's super cool.
• 57:07
  Eric Howerton: I'm going to go check out that content too, because, Harry, what you don't know about me is I'm a big content fanatic.
• 57:12
  Eric Howerton: Uh, I mean, I built my career on all that stuff, so we maybe sometime we'll connect on that and go deep about all this stuff after I do an audit of your content.
• 57:20
  Eric Howerton: No, I'm not going to do that, I'm just kidding, but I mean.
• 57:22
  Eric Howerton: But the final thing is is on the questions for the viewers, please do soon as questions.
• 57:28
  Eric Howerton: I think that what would be cool is send us some questions about this episode and maybe we get with Harry.
• 57:33
  Eric Howerton: Have them back on.
• 57:34
  Eric Howerton: Let's answer.
• 57:34
  Eric Howerton: Some of these things like that are relative, especially in the book.
• 57:37
  Eric Howerton: Right, If, if I, if, if somebody went and read the book, they threw some questions over to us, we can make that.
• 57:42
  Eric Howerton: We can come back and answer questions.
• 57:43
  Mark Zweig: We can do that.
• 57:44
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, if Harry's willing to do it.
• 57:47
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, are you willing to do something like that, harry?
• 57:50
  Mark Zweig: All right, thanks, harry.
• 57:51
  Mark Zweig: Right, thank you Everybody.
• 57:54
  Mark Zweig: That was recorded, right?
• 57:55
  Mark Zweig: Yes, I think that good.
• 57:56
  Eric Howerton: It was Not that I'm trying to entrap you, harry, as as as an attorney would.
• 58:03
  Mark Zweig: All right.
• 58:04
  Mark Zweig: Well, thanks everybody, and we'll see you next time.
• 58:06
  Mark Zweig: Thank you.