¶ Entrepreneurship and Small Business Experiences
All right , everybody , we're back for another episode of Big Talk About Small Business . I'm here with my co-host , Eric Howardton , and we've got a couple great guests . Today . We have Justin Macedo , who is one of my former students who acquired Uncle Sam's Outfitters , an outdoor and military surplus store based here in Fayetteville , Arkansas .
I think he actually bought it like a month before you graduated , didn't you ?
I did . Yeah , I bought it on November 23rd and I graduated on December 17th . Wow .
And then he just got married recently . I ran into Justin in the airport a couple of weeks ago , coming back from Goshen , indiana , and met Justin's new wife , who's fantastic .
So this was six months ago when he bought that basically .
Wow , yeah , so he's making the full commitment . Man , yeah , you really know the wife , everything Still driving the old Ford truck . There you go , glad to see which is a good quality . Put your money into your business , right , justin ?
And just say 180,000 miles First day .
It's just getting going , it's barely broken in . Then we also have today with us Johnny Smith , and Johnny was one of my favorite students . You know , classic front row guy always asked the tough questions of everybody . Did you ever have to say , johnny , please no more questions ? Never . I never said that .
I'm sure some of the students probably did , but I never said it .
It's because he was a student there trying to learn something . Yeah , he's a professional , exactly .
I mean Johnny and I became friends over the last couple of years and he's a super entrepreneurial guy himself . His parents , his dad , owned a body shop or owns a body shop , and Johnny's had a variety of side ventures , including one that makes dashboards with another guy for hot rods and racing cars Nice .
And we've even done some rock crawlers . I think there was a guy in Canada who had a snow plow that he did like mountain roads and so he needed the roll and tilt gauges because there's a certain point in which I guess it's a critical point , where they don't function right and also he'll just roll off the side of the mountain .
And so he wanted some very , very specific gauges with roll and tilt and it's kind of a very interesting piece of machinery because it's two separate kind of vehicles . So he needed a roll and tilt on the front and the rear because they can move independently . Oh , it's articulated in the middle . Yeah , wow , that's cool .
It's like from the 70s or 80s and he's redone it and needed . It's really interesting . Sounds dangerous as hell to be .
It sounds like something about to kill myself on .
That Jeep you're driving today .
It's something you could kill yourself on . It totally is . You need one of your dashes to make sure , but I don't roll over my Jeep . That thing is wild man .
But anyway , I just thought it'd be fun to have Johnny here . He is now going into the PhD program here at the Walton Study in what Business ?
I'm sorry , Mark , I asked such a silly , ignorant question .
Entrepreneurship strategy . Entrepreneurship and venture innovation Dang , it's going to be as thrust , but anyway , which is going to be a great life . I encouraged him to look into it , but I thought we'd have Johnny here just to ask the tough questions of Justin .
Hey , he can hear us .
So he's , you know , marginally passing the buck over to you now , justin , but if you have your questions , no , justin , tell everybody just a little bit about your story .
I think it's a great story and you know I've always been a big advocate of this idea that you don't have to do a cold start . You can go out and buy a business to get into entrepreneurship , and you certainly pulled that off . So tell everybody a little bit about yourself and your business and how you got into it .
Yeah . So I mean to be honest , I don't think I even like really thought about buying a business . Like I knew people that did it , but I didn't know that . It was like I didn't think that I could do it until your class and you talked about it Like well , here's 50 people that have done it and you're no different .
So I was like all right , that kind of was the seed for the actual purchasing of the business . But I've , the day after I graduated high school I got I applied to a Craigslist ad to that said sales associate wanted outdoor store and there was no description , no location , no , anything is pretty sketch .
And I was like all right , I'm going to apply because I like outdoor stuff and I figured it would work . So I applied and I was like , well , there's three outdoor stores in Fayetteville so I'd be happy with any of them .
Yeah , and applied there , got the job started the day after I graduated high school and have been working there part time for well , like last week was five years that I've worked there . So , yeah , worked there . They're still working half time , only 12 hours a day , yeah exactly , exactly , yeah , but yeah , I went there and rolled at the University of Arkansas .
I was originally a biology major . I thought I wanted to be a dentist . The funny part is , the only reason I wanted to be a dentist was because I wanted to own my own practice and make my own hours . I had zero interest in actually being a dentist . I think Donnie knew that .
I know I've been dealing with some nappy grills all day long Show me your grill . Only cool dentist has Steve Martin in Little Shop of Word . If you had been a dentist like that , I would have come seeing you . All right , yeah , yeah , you need to watch that . If you haven't seen it , I'll have to check it out .
Well , you do have good teeth , so I guess that would .
Yeah , I mean , that's all you need , right ? You don't need a bass chemistry , so right .
Right . So you got that . Somehow you got seduced away by the world of business and from dentistry or what , To be honest it was .
I couldn't ask him to . It was in honors , kim too , and I was at the point where I'm like I can't do this , I need something else . I chose small business management as my major because it was the least amount of hours to graduate . There you go . Sounds like an entrepreneur .
He's already thinking about the best he can say in his time Every other major would require a full extra year and this one would require just half an extra year . So I was like , all right , well , I can do an extra semester , no problem . And once I got in I just fell in love with the major itself . I've like it was pretty funny .
So right after my junior no , my freshman year of college , I went into this thing called the fly fishing film tour and there was this guy there that guided in Alaska and he looked younger and I was like hey , like I was shooting the breeze with him and I was too young to drink , so there was no drinking involved .
This guy was pretty drunk and I was like , hey , man , how did you guide in Alaska ? And then he puts his arm around me and he goes , listen , here , I've got a , I've got the spot for you . I'm like , okay , let me know . And so he texted me , he gives me his number .
He texted me this place called sweetwater guide school which is actually on my cup still , but it was a guide school to basically has like a hundred percent job placement for becoming a fly fishing guide . So I did that .
You're talking Eric's language he loves . I love that . Yeah , he had an outdoor magazine at one time .
Oh really .
Yeah , I went to his 22 . Yeah , yeah .
Yeah , and the people at Uncle Sam's were nice enough to let me take summers off . So for the past four summers I've been able to take off and guide places . So I guided fly fishing there and that was kind of like the moment .
I was a 19 year old with the captain's license , going to Alaska by myself , living in a trailer in the woods for three and a half months , four months , love it . And I got there , did a season there and I realized I was like I can kind of do whatever I want . There's no bounds , like .
There's like as a 19 year old I can go and get a Coast Guard captain's license and go out to middle of nowhere , alaska , and work . Yeah , I'm like , so I can kind of do whatever . Splitting all . Going back there , covid hit kind of threw some kinks in there .
That was about the time that I realized biology and becoming a dentist was not for me , so switched over to business and then guided at this place called Wayford Adventures for backpacking for the past three summers . And where was that ? That was in Southwestern Colorado , yeah .
That's cool I was able to do all of that and then truly use all of the gear that we have in the store , which is always pretty fun . Yeah , and you get that thereλη criminal for your professor's license . Yeah , thanks .
Good way to learn about it . Oh , yes , I always stick it . Strange when you deal with a business and then the owner of the business is it into whatever they're doing . Yeah , you know it seems crazy to me , but there's businesses out there like that . I knew a guy that owned a body shop business that was super successful .
He was on the cover of Ink Magazine and he told me he hated cars . So I just hate him . I have no interest in him at all . He did have five wives by the time he was 40 . So he had an interest in something , yeah , yeah , just wasn't cars .
So what are you gonna do this summer ? I mean , what's your summer trip this summer , now that you have his business ? Well , not .
Not , not much . I'm going back to that place and I'm guiding a four day trip , just as like a guest guide . They allow us to come back , so that'll be my vacation for the members . Then you'll come back and work in store , yeah , although I'll still be technically working on those four days , right ? Oh , yeah , yeah .
So what was it like , though , this new major of entrepreneurship , whatever you wanna call it ? What was it like ? What were the classes like that you took ? Well , I mean , I know you took mine , but what else ? What were the other classes like ? Did they really prepare you ? I guess , is what I'm asking .
I think on the broad sense , I feel like when I can talk the lingo now I understand whenever I'm talking to other guys , that especially like that own something that's I mean , uncle Sam's right now has got . I have two other employees , cause one of my guys just graduated , so like we're not super big , you don't have a huge organizational structure .
It's like me and these other guys and you just hang out and talk pretty much Like it's like hey , we need to do this , let's do this , like we all kind of get together stuff like that .
So like it's sort of helped figure out , like definitely the finance side , but like the nuts and bolts as far as like I had to figure out by myself how to build a website or how to use QuickBooks or how to like talk to a bank , and like I think your class was one of the only classes that talked about like hey , this is like like what you need for a
business plan , or this is what you need for like actually talking to a bank , like this is what they need . So the other classes ? It's like I'm not using full blown economics in my day to day , like I'm not doing that whenever I'm making an order . Yeah , it's sad .
But it's helping a bit like being able to look at the whole retail landscape or just like the I mean even more specifically the out to retail landscape and it's like going into those trends and stuff and understanding those . It's definitely helps a bunch having a baseline understanding of the picture as a
¶ Buying a Business Opportunities and Challenges
whole .
Yeah , yeah , you got to know what's going on in the world , no matter what business I think it impacts , it potentially creates opportunities or poses threats .
Yeah , you know , I mean it was , it was pretty funny . So I've got one of my guys that's a he's a poly-sci major and he's super into global politics and he knew about . He was talking about the Ukraine and Russia stuff like way before it happened , and he's like , hey , we need to get , cause we're military surplus as well .
He's like you need to get more military surplus . Then I'm like , okay , yeah , and then the Russian invades Ukraine and all of a sudden we sell all of our military surplus , yeah , and it's like a little bit of fear , but a little bit of like . We had like like 10 or 12 guys that came in .
They were like , oh yeah , like I've got my cousin or my best friends going to like Ukraine and going to go fight and I'm like , oh okay , so we've got all of our stuff there , Good move , yeah , yeah .
So tell these guys , tell our listeners , a little bit about how you ended up buying this business that you worked at as a student .
Yeah , so it would have been my official senior year , but I still had an extra semester . That eighth semester of college . I was doing a project where his wife's class about this business . It was a consulting project and I've worked there a bunch . I know the ins and outs .
We had our manager one of our managers leave during COVID , so I was already doing like some of the ordering and some of like the kind of like more like I had a fair amount of responsibility . So I did the project over that and I had these list of questions that I was asking the owner . Because this owner was somewhat new .
He had bought it from his dad Like two a year and a half prior to this . So sometime the deal went through him like 2020-ish . And then I was talking to him at the beginning of 2022 and asking these questions like so what do you see long-term for Uncle Sam's ? He's like I don't feel like owning it forever . I'm like , okay , cool .
I'm like how long is forever ? And he's like , well , you know , like don't tell me you also . But like there's a guy right now interested in buying it and I'm like , oh , okay .
And I was like , well , you know , if that deal ever falls through like let me know , cause you know I might be interested in buying it , just like tossing it out there just kind of like on a whim . And like a week later he comes up to me . He's like , hey , were you serious ? I was like serious about like what ?
Like we've had a bunch of conversations since then . He's like , oh , you're serious about like buying the business . I was like yeah , and so from there I like we had that conversation . That night I went fishing with my dad for the white bass run and I was telling him about it .
I'm like , hey , there's a chance that Uncle Sam's is for sale and I may have told owner that I'd be interested in buying it . You have any capital . This is before any of that . It's like , well , I could sell my truck , yeah , and that's about it . But yeah , we were talking about it . And he's like , man , go for it .
Just like , keep on going until it either works or it doesn't . I was like , okay . So he trusted me and was like , hey , just keep on continuing . So .
I just want to throw one thing in . Though you know everybody thinks you need a whole bunch of money to go buy a business , there are plenty of businesses out there . You don't need anything . Not to say that was the case in Justin's situation , but I mean , just in the last couple of weeks I was aware of two free businesses out there .
It could be picked up . I've got some students of mine doing wonderful , so they're already committed .
Yeah , there's a lot of ways you can make that happen . Like order of finance , I mean terms , I mean it's all kind of open for discussion .
Yeah , everything's open for negotiation every aspect Especially , like you know .
Remember the COVID times . I mean you had a lot of entrepreneurs that were just I mean , being an entrepreneur is exhausting , but then you have some macro event that makes it even more challenging .
I mean a lot of folks I mean they're a great opportunity Panicking and just tired , didn't want to deal with the ex-hurtle , exactly , and you know , just getting people away to escape something that they're not happy about anymore . Yeah , I mean you can lay down some good deals .
When you were early in talks for buying it ? Did you one have any goals or dreams of where you wanted to be financially personally in the next six months , year , five years , 10 years ? And did you have any idea what the financial position of the store was ? Did you know if they were making money ? Did you know how much the owner was taking Like ?
Did you even know if buying this would have aligned with your plans or goals , if you had a specific financial goal for yourself ?
Yeah , so I mean my financial . My thought entering out was that there's like it's like I'm gonna go get a corporate job at Walmart and I'm gonna make whatever the going rate is at the time , and it's like and then from there we'll figure it out .
I was just kind of like I would prefer to do other things and it's like I've had like I was like man , I could go guide in Alaska again and do like full-time stuff or I could go kind of do whatever . It was all kind of up in the air .
And then my girlfriend and I at that point we're getting more serious and I'm like , oh well , if we get married I can't go guide in Alaska and I need to find a job that'll pay better . And then it was funny , during the project the owner didn't really want to share any of the finances .
I knew generally from , like , our point of sale system and just what we like I've worked there for five years . I know what a good year is , what a bad year is , just generally . So I knew how much we were making . I knew from my math that the business could not be making much money if it was . So that was a little bit of a scary one sitting in .
It's like well , you know , I'm like like if I have to buy a ring and I need to , like , I get to buy a ring . It was a great thing yeah right .
Oh yeah .
Is that a half too ?
No , it was not a half Hopefully your wife won't watch this and get that comment no .
¶ Small Business Finances and Growth
But just like finance-wise , it's just like , well , this , this and this . And it's like , well , my truck needs a bunch of work . And it's like mentally , it was like in that moment it's just like , oh , I can't do this . And then talking with the other and like getting the actual finances down .
And then like talking with the banks and realizing like , oh , you know , I don't have to like front all the cash Cause , like my mind all the time was you have to pay everything in cash , yeah . And it's like , well , that's not the case .
So , yeah , it was like my financial goals will , with the way the business has been going , will end up great personal finances , the business stuff , definitely looking at the beginning , whenever you're like , oh , this thing is bleeding money a little bit , it's pretty scary , yeah .
And then slowly , as we were going through , looking at the finances more and more , I think the owner , I could see what he claimed he was taking out , couldn't always see like there's anything else that was going on .
Like I could see like he was paying like his gas , like thing , whatever he was driving , anything he was charging for , gas he'd put on at the company guard and like all these things . So I could figure out roughly what he was making and then doing the math , I was like , well , I could live on this . But can me and my future wife live on this ?
Though that was a kind of a fun one to discuss with my fiance at the time .
Yeah , you got a lot of that information during the course of the project .
Yeah , I got a fair amount there and then a lot of it came out . One , the due diligence . Yeah , during the due diligence phase of all of that , that's where I mean I was able to get the hard bar was because it had changed hands only two years before and the accounting , the bookkeeping , all that was pretty bad before that two years .
So it was like it was kind of just based off of feel and based off of . I was like friends with the old manager , slash .
She was the daughter of the previous of the owner , not this last one , but the one before and she was like these are what the years did and I'm like I'm putting a lot of trust in you because this is like what it is and it's like just based off of working there and feeling like , oh , this was a super busy year , like 2019 , we were slammed .
And it's like , oh , that would make sense , based on 2020 or 2021 or so . But yeah , and then I was able to get like tax returns for the past 10 years , but outside of that it was just kind of somewhat going in the dark .
But , like when you get your hands on the books of a small business , it doesn't necessarily tell you too much because they can be so just cooked .
It was pretty cool , whether intentionally or unintentionally , yeah , and I don't think this was like intentionally cooked , but it was like you definitely look at it and you're like man , like there's like none of this is making sense , like this business is supposed to be making , like if .
It's like if on her point of sale it says we did $500,000 in sales , and then I look at all these other things and it's claiming that we made $375,000 . I'm like where is $125,000 ago ? I'm like where did it go ? And it's like I know it's somewhere .
And then , like you look at like your purchase orders and you're like adding up all of your purchase orders , it's like well , the purchase orders themselves , like they just weren't added correctly into the books . So it's like right there is . Yeah , it's like right there is $40,000 to $50,000 of inventory that was there but just wasn't accounted for .
It's just it was just scanned in and that was it .
It was like that's a good example , just like the intensity of the discipline of the accounting . Oh yeah , I mean like , and it's so hard too for a small business . You know , I think that's what a lot of folks that whenever I talked to any new entrepreneur , you know like what's the most important things .
I'm like , if you're starting out and as you're going and as you're growing , even as you sell , have a really damn good accountant . Yeah , you know , in bookkeeping , as much as an accountant actually more than an accountant , I think , a bookkeeper or that role- that is a plet of just doing it all consistently on type yeah . But you know , there's so many .
And then attorney , I was gonna say illegal , yeah , anyone that actually knows about this kind of stuff . Yeah , about a divorce attorney . Well , that , I mean , that was part of what Justin had to find in order to get his deal inked up as an experienced attorney and stuff , because they'll all take the job .
It's just a question of whether they're any good at it or not , or a lot of them will . But back on , you know what we were just talking about there a lot of small business owners . If they've got cash sitting in their cash register , just pull that out and just shove it in their pocket and they get away with it .
They're in years .
Yeah , yeah , it's like they just pulled the $100 , $200 bucks out a day and it just and it never shows up in their system . And they get caught doing that sometimes because they go back and check all the purchase orders when they audit you . But it's really , really common .
Yeah , it is . I think that too , like on that point . Huh , you know what ? Obviously we're not saying about this particular case , but I mean , I've experienced , at least in my business career . There is a lot of opportunities to not do things either ethical or legal ways . Oh yeah , mostly ethical , right , and .
But you know , choosing that high role and I mean that's not , you know , you can find yourself in a bad pickle if you don't have that discipline . Yeah , and keep your you know , your conscious check , because they can ruin everything for you .
Oh yeah , I would say there's not even just opportunity to take the unethical route , but there's encouragement and and a lot of small business circles , I think and it happens in corporate America too , just , but in small business circles it's not even talked about because it's just understood that everybody , any cash , is being hidden .
I mean , these people and the circles that I've been in will be driving a brand new truck every year . You got their businesses losing a hundred grand , right , and how's that going on ?
Well , it's because they're cash rich and it's not going on any paperwork and and it works well if they don't get caught usually they don't and it works well unless they need to sell the business Right , then they're screwed because they have showed a loss for five years or for two years and a small gain and then yeah , yeah , you're right , and then they can't
sell for anything .
Yeah , a lot of wisdom on that , because I mean I was actually gonna say it's kind of backs up to what Mark enough talked about before . I mean you have people that start businesses that are not trying to grow and they don't have .
Like you know , we say exit strategy but even if you're thinking is , is do I want to make impact , I want to grow this business and have a bonafide , true company with people that are running this thing , yeah , that value that I can extract and get out , yeah , and then you can eventually sell , yeah , big check one day .
And you , to your point , john , you can't , you can't hide the hundred dollars because that's actually hurting you the long run . They're , they care . You stack those hundred dollars every day over the next , you know , ten years . That's a lot of money . On a big check , yeah , at the end , that's .
I mean , like any business I planned on selling , we always had audited financials , a history of audited financials , because it just gives you a whole lot more credibility . You go out there with your internally generated stuff or a compilation level Outside account done by your one person accounting firm . It just says no credibility . Yeah , you know , but anyway .
So , yeah , there's always something , but that wasn't necessarily a problem in your case , but you did . Just to go back to Johnny's original question , I mean I remember I posted to you in class I'm yeah , if you would , would you be happy because I could see sort of the path and what the potential was based on the info you gave us .
Yeah , and and I in the end I guess you decided that you could do it right . Yeah , yeah , you could meet those goals . Yeah , it's gonna be critical for you to grow the business or to do that . You can't do it just by operating it as is .
Yeah , yeah , and that was . That was part of the thing like I Mean we've talked about , like we spent I don't even know a week talking about bootstrapping and I feel like I watched from after you said it . Of course , every YouTube page On my YouTube said bootstrapping . I'm like , well , I guess I should probably watch all these if they're keep on popping up .
And it was like like once I took over , it was like I cut our Monthly cost for all sorts of things down Exponentially . Like we were paying like nearly $500 for cable , internet and phone and I cut that down to like $130 a month . It's just like just right there . It's like that's , that's 300 and whatever . That is 50 bucks . It's like just on cable alone .
It's like we are a retail shop . We don't need cable , so it's like all sorts of those other things . It's just like cutting out , like instead of Like buying a kidney . Remember we were buying something from Ozark natural foods once a month and it was like 80 bucks .
You're gonna pay a lot if I went out for selling it . Yeah , $40 a pound free-range chicken .
Yeah , like we could go to Walmart . It's like we go to Walmart get the same exact thing for eat bucks , or just like not get it . Yeah , it's like it's just pretty simple on some of those things .
¶ Leveraging Financing and Building Customer Relations
Well , and then you really got into some of the stuff like getting the most Financing , the best terms from your vendors , which is always a critical Bootstrapping strategy .
Yeah yeah , getting getting vendor financing was was great getting the credit built back up . Yeah that was , that was a problem . So I Mean like doing that and filling out all the credit applications for all the new vendors . It's like I did that from oh gosh October until Basically March .
It was like every single day was two hours of filling out credit applications and sending them off to vendors and explaining like , hey , I know that I am a 23 year old dude that has no history and my credit history goes back for two years when I got the first college credit card . Yeah , I've had a credit limit of like whatever 500 bucks , right .
I'm like I know I don't have much history , but the business has been around forever . And like being able to leverage Yep that this business has been here for 40 years . Like there's been some late charges , yeah , but they've always gotten paid Mm-hmm . And I'm like , and if you lower now ?
yeah , I'm like have late charges exactly .
Yeah , it's like leveraging that , just being like hey , it's a new owner and we are like like , and I tell them I'm like , hey , I've cut out this amount of Like costs here and there , so I'm like I will be able to pay you and a lot of them .
It's like , all right , well , we'll either give you to these terms or we'll like hey , you pay off this little Order right now . It's like you pay off a $500 order and then , if you , we know you can pay $500 cash , so we'll give you two to three grand it up credit .
So just that might have been one of the smartest things you could have ever done , like right off the right off the gate , like that I mean more you can agree with . I mean just oh yeah , because that's , I mean that's gonna allow you to do so much more . And you know , take some , take some new levels of risk . That might pay off in a big way Too .
I mean that's already paying off and yeah , right now , I mean it was it was the big , the inventory . Yeah , well , that was that was .
The biggest risk right now was was inventory , because it was like we needed stuff in the store , because , like , the big thing that was hard for me was like I feel like the new retail landscape is especially for smaller shops Is a little bit more experiential , and then it is just like you need to have the stuff .
But also it's the experience , like you want to come in and you want to like feel one that you're welcomed . Yep , you , they want to have the right stuff . When I have knowledgeable people , you want to have a good experience . When you enter and leave , it doesn't feel like it's a chore . You don't feel like you have to go grocery shopping up . It's a .
You get to come here , hang out , have a fun time . It's like . And that's where , like one , the relational building , it's like that's one of my favorite parts is like hmm , I Distain sitting at a desk , but I have to . I love sitting up at the registers just Shooting the breeze with guys that come in .
I talked the other day with some guy that had done Floated the entire Buffalo with the Sun for a senior trip and did it in four days and I was like me and like I've had a couple other guys that I know that have done it and it's like they're like six days and they're like , yeah , we're just moving , yeah , and it was like just talking with him about how
he got to hang out with the Sun for four days . It's like that's what I love doing , where I love talking to him , and that's part of like that experiential thing . It's like one I enjoy it because I just like talking about outdoor stuff but being able to like have the like .
Whatever he thinks about coming in Uncle Sam's now hopefully thinks , oh , there's some cool guys in there that we get to talk to and they have the stuff that we need . Like he needed some tix spray . It's like all right , we got your tix spray . Let's talk about your floating trip .
They couldn't agree more . I mean so many people we get wrapped up into all the supposed to do is and the . You know all the mechanics and you know the logic of the business . But it's that really , I mean and folks mostly by I mean it's like one of the greatest stats that they mostly buy out on emotional basis .
Yeah , you know they , everyone tries to be logical about it . You know , and I think that's so true . It a is gonna make it even more apparent that logic is everything . But it's not . I mean you get you can build a very successful business model by just having that relation and then they come in .
They got knowledgeable people that can help them make good decisions . Yeah , and there's somebody real behind it . And I think one of my big things , just as a customer , is , if I did business with you , like what I mean , if I have a problem with something , you're gonna help take care of my . Oh yeah , problem .
You know , and you cannot get that in a lot of places . It's just so mechanical and robotic , I mean and that I'm telling you .
Oh , that's so true .
I'm involved with the business right now and , and you know , bad customer service is , it will kill you yeah , but it's an opportunity to distinguish yourself if you have a problem , yeah , so we had some guy that had a problem and a part broke and you know so , puts it on Facebook , you know , after so many miles , such and such broke and , and so one of the
people From the company responded pretty quickly and said hey , I'll call you tomorrow , or beautiful , yeah , okay , I thought that was good , but it wasn't as good as I wanted , because what I wanted , that I most beautiful . What I , what I wanted to be said was we will send you a new blank Tomorrow .
There's a difference in I'll call you versus oh my gosh , sorry about that , We'll send you a new blank tomorrow . Then it's solved . Everybody sees it solved .
Okay , so I guess I know I got some more beautiful than either more . Okay , we will send you a new part and I will call you tomorrow .
Yeah , okay , okay , that's even better , that's even better , yeah , but but you know it's just like show the solution and then show everybody how responsive you are and then they're just all gonna be like , wow , nobody else does that , because they don't , you know . So you take a negative and you make it into a positive .
Big companies just can't function like that . No , no , but you know , I
¶ Challenges and Frustrations of Business Bureaucracy
was just thinking . Today you kind of brought , touched on a little bit . But you know , I love business . I like starting businesses , getting involved with them , I like turn them around , I like growing them , all that . But I hate the bureaucracy associated with business . So it's terrible , don't you ? I mean just like one new venture right now .
You know I got to get a sales tax permit , okay , so I look into that . And it says , well , if you , if your city , requires a business license , you must provide that , okay . So then I'm like , oh shit , now I got to deal with the city . So business license . So I started looking into I've had them before .
We all have anybody said a business in Fayetteville ? I'm sure you've got one . We've had them . You know , it's a little car and you post it up Whatever . We've had multiple ones of those for all our businesses . But this new thing is gonna be an off . It's gonna be rolled under a company I started in 2005 as a holding company .
It never had any operations at all , all right . So when you get into the , the , the business license , it says , well , if the business has been around for more than four months , then you know you're gonna be pay penalties . I'm like holy cow , I'm gonna pay 18 years of penalties for not even a business license so I can get my sales tax license .
But this business didn't require a license . It had no operation . It's just a holding company . Yeah , I mean , that's just one of like a million . You know , I just hate all that stuff , just like today . You know one of the banks we dealt with like we need a bcde FG and I'm like For years I had people who worked for me .
I could go , hey , so and so , send that on , gather it all up . But now there's nobody . Now you're facing something who has a small business . It's you . Oh yeah , you gotta go make the copies , you gotta run up down the old stuff . That's one of the things I just think is so aggravating , don't you ?
It was a little bit annoying and it always I felt guilty because it's like I really have to go do this . I don't wanna do it , I don't wanna do it and realistically my time is better spent doing good things .
But it's like I say that to myself but this is something that legitimately has to be done for me to do business , so it's like my time is not better spent doing something else , because this is what gets it to run .
I think that discourages a lot of people , or they just don't do it , like you said , then they get themselves in all kinds of water . That's completely avoidable .
Yeah , yeah . And I've never had once in my entire entrepreneurial career , ever one time , had the government help me with anything .
Not one time Other than roadways . Ppp money was a blessing . I will say that I mean , it was like a godsend for a lot of people .
No , it was . I mean that was a one time case , but even then , with the company of our size at that time , I mean it helped a little bit .
But it wasn't a huge deal .
I mean in all honesty , like we were our company at that time too , probably wasn't one that was so impact . We were a digital agency . I mean like , sort of like , if we didn't have a physical , yeah , I mean it wasn't , but I mean it was helpful . We needed it or , you know , definitely appreciated it .
When I was 15 years old in a town of 8,000 people , I started detailing cars and then gravel behind my dad's shop and it got to the point where I'd have a few cars a week . I'd wash , vacuum , wipe down all that stuff , had some repeat clients . I started doing running Facebook ads for like $10 .
I could reach a half the city essentially and I got a lot of business off of the Facebook ads . And apparently the Facebook ads is where I crossed the line because I got a call from the mayor directly and said that you need a business license .
I was making like $200 a week but at this point , like you need a business license , like well , the business license is , you know , half my yearly salary . It wasn't , but I mean I was after chemicals and stuff like that . I wasn't making a ton of money and it was all cash and whatever .
But I was a 15 year old and I got a call saying that there was gonna be From the mayor .
Yeah , I didn't mean to hear directly . That's hysterical .
There was gonna be intense ramifications if I didn't get a business license . So what I did is I said , well , I'm not my own business , I'm just working out of my dad's shop . All I was saying all the money flows through him . It's just I've got this new service offered by the shop .
So I just added in the Facebook name it was JS Auto Detailing , which was big enough . Then it was JS Auto Detailing at Johnny's . Oh no , fine , I didn't get another call after that and I just said that I was running all the money through the shop and it was just a new service we offered . But it's almost anti-business .
I remember this one woman in my neighborhood . I used to have a tutor in junior high because apparently , like a 98 math wasn't good enough , I'd have to be 100 . So I had a math tutor and she would tutor like two kids a week and then the city tried to shut her down because she had a business running out of her home .
And it's just ridiculous . Yeah , that's the other thing I was worried about with this business license . Like I don't live in an area that has this RO zoning as an agile office . It's just R4 , four units per acre , so then I could run a fall of them on that alone , you know .
So , yeah , there's all these silly little hurdles , and so I don't want to just sit here and rag on the government wall . It's not my intent , but I do think and you know , justin , I think you've had a pretty good reception from the community , right . Yeah yeah Overall .
I mean people are glad you're there , they're glad you took over , they're coming in the store and going , wow , it's better . And you know that's super reinforcing for you .
But I do think that at some level , in a lot of these government , municipal government entities , there's the implicit assumption that if you're in business , you're greedy and you're a crook and you're somehow doing something bad that they need to stop you from , and I hate that . I mean , I really felt that as a real estate developer . Oh yeah .
You know , you are inherently evil and no matter what you do , if you're tearing down a crack house , the way they look at it is the way they look at it is now . There's nowhere for that homeless person to camp out . You're evil . Yeah , I mean really , it's so twisted that gets discouraging .
But you just can't need all that external reinforcement , right , you just have to do it , yeah you just have to do it .
On a different note , one thing I'm interested in is when you were working , there were you , in the terms of HR which is funny to say in a small business . I don't even know how many employees you have , but did you say , hey , the HR needs to be overhauled , or were they doing payroll right , or were there benefits .
And then , when you hit the ground running which I know you did did you start implementing things ? Do you start changing things when it comes to how you treat your people , pay your people , all the different stuff ?
I think so , definitely the treat . And so we were just running payroll through QuickBooks . I switched to a payroll company called DeepAerol Company . Like we went live beginning at the first of May was whenever they ran the first one , mainly because of paperwork stuff that it wasn't able to run sooner . But yeah , we switched that up .
I switched to open book management
¶ Open Book Management and Employee Morale
. I let everyone know like right now I'm not paying myself enough to where I feel guilty about how much I pay myself . So I'm like this is how much I pay myself , this is how much the store's making . This is exactly what we're spending on rent . This is what we paid over Christmas . It's like got them food for the three busiest weekends that we had .
And it's like here's the 60 bucks that we spent on Domino's for the three weekends , that for the month . And it was like , hey , this is what we're getting paid for this , this is where we're paying for that , and I think that has helped a ton with just the morale of our guys . It's like they trust that .
Like , yes , like especially for us , because I mean we are such a cash intensive business and everything is , so it's all related to our inventory and our products . So like that's where we're investing our money in . And it's like , well , man , like hey , this is where we have our cash tied up right now .
It's like that's why I can't order from this company , and like we were told that and it's like I was told that for years . But it's like , well , but like , how much cash is actually tied up in these other things ? It's like , once we receive it and I get the invoice , I'm like okay , well , that was three grand right there . But it's like I don't .
I have no comprehension of three grand a lot or three grand a little in relation to this month and in our monthly or weekly like budget .
I'm so proud of you that you're giving them open book , because you know that's been a big thing I've always harped on and I just think it helps build trust , as you said , and understanding . I've got nothing to hide .
Understanding of the business , you wouldn't have anything to hide if you're making a decent living , as long as you're doing the same for everybody else too , I mean , you don't have to pay them all what you make . You're the owner . You have a lot more risk . You've invested money , they have invested . You need to explain that to people , yeah .
And that's what they all understand , that , which is something that was like . I was like , hey , if the ship goes down , I go down with it , I don't get to walk away .
Yeah , you can go find another job , yeah .
I've lived on both sides of . We got close book management .
Yeah .
And we had open book . And I mean , there's not in day difference of just morale .
Yes , Growth , I think just their incentive to sell , because it's like they get to look at it , like they're invested in , like our daily sales , like they all want to know , like , hey , how we do you , how are we doing ? And then , like I'll get asked like they're like , oh , how do we do the fast two days , cause they didn't worth the past two days .
I'm like I love that . I guess it's awesome , exactly , and they're like invested in , like man , we want this to do . Well , part of it is like they enjoy selling and like they love the stuff that we get in . So it's like , oh well , if we sell more .
It's like right now we've got inch-made knives that I just reopened our account and we're they've been a little bit of a problem just getting the product , yeah , the product to us right now .
But it's like I'm like , hey , you guys sell this amount , I'll put a big order from our other knife company in so then we can have even more knives , cause we're fairly stock now . But it's like we're missing our bench made for sure , yeah , and it's like , hey , you guys want that , let's sell more . And there's there .
They have the incentive of like I want those knives because I want to mess around with them whenever no one's in the store . So it's like I'm like all right , like let's you sell more and I'll order the knives .
Do it together . I mean , I think the reality is like in today's time , with all the information in the world like we need . The open book policy is actually like , unless you're doing it , people have access to information . They know better They've been , you know .
So if you're not transparent , there's no reason why it means that you must be hiding something because you know . I mean just the whole , the whole workforce has changed and its ability to get you know , to understand what's going on .
I saw a study once and I have not been able to find it again . I had it , I have it in writing somewhere , but it was a study of restaurant workers and at this this study claimed and I know this will sound beyond outrageous to all of you that the average restaurant worker thought the owner made 29 times as much as they did .
Wow Out of the business 29 times .
Yeah .
How could you be that insane , okay , and that far off base ? Yeah , I think if somebody thinks you're making 29 times what you are of that business , they're gonna be motivated . Yeah , do you think that's gonna impact their behavior ? Do you think they're gonna be worried about waste or stealing something from you or giving something to their friends ?
No way or not talking smack to your customers , to the associates , exactly this is poisonous .
It's terrible and that level of ignorance is you know . Of course I'm sure it varies greatly . Yeah , you know , if you've had workers that make a corp , they might not necessarily think it's that big of a gap .
I can't really think of a negative about being open and transparent .
I think it was the only argument that I heard from other people that like what I can't remember I was talking to . I was talking to someone and they're like well , what if your competitors find out ? And I was like well , I'll just work harder and do better .
I'm like what if they do ? They don't do anything with it Exactly .
I'm like I can know , like I'll go over there and tell them myself . I'm like , that's how much I make . And it's like , and I'm going to make more . Yeah , I'm like , what are you guys gonna do about it ?
It's like , that's like this they're gonna do it .
It's like , it's like , just gonna be fun . It's like and it's not necessarily . It's like I'm not gonna take money from you . It's like my goal is to bring like , especially with the outdoors , because I'm so passionate about it . It's like I'm not trying to take business from other outdoor companies . I'm trying to grow the outdoor market . The outdoor market .
Yeah , exactly People that are coming into the outdoors .
Right , we all get a fit .
Yeah , exactly , I'm like I would like to see more people out there , and then I'm gonna kick myself whenever I'm floating on the river and I see too many people and I'm like , well , you're sitting in my fishing spot , but it'll be greater in the end .
It's the same thing with business plans . I used to just put mine out there for anybody to see , because I knew my competitors weren't gonna do it . Not only could they not do it , they didn't have the same resources , they didn't have the same history , they didn't have the same people .
Okay , they didn't have the same dog as you had , yeah , but I mean it's like I love it when students come to me and they're like I've got this business plan I want to share with you and get your input on , but sign an NDA before I share it to you . I'm like sorry , I'm done Meeting's over . Okay , you can't share that .
What the heck People are so goofy about that ? Damn , it's really a backward way to think . Anyway , the great game of business . I don't like business books . You should read that sometime , okay , because there's really some good stuff in there about open book .
They're big advocates of open , and it was at a business just north of here in Springfield .
Right , yeah , springfield Rebuilders Re-manufacturing , re-manufacturing , yeah , re-manufacturing . Yeah , jack Stack , and he owned Ink Magazine . He may still own it I don't know , but he did own it and probably still does . But yeah , so that's some great stuff , justin . And then you did Farm your Pay roll out , because that's one thing every small business could do .
You started to talk about that . Then does it really cost much more ?
No , it does it cost ? I think 20 bucks more a month . That's yeah , because you've got to do that and it solves all that , Because if you missed a problem with a wage withholding tax and I've gotten email and I've just had a heart attack , I'm like I'm not messing with this , they all chain your doors by then .
So I know I talk so smack about the government , but they haven't helped , but I definitely don't mess around with it . Oh yeah , exactly , sales tax . And then , if you get into payroll tax issues , did your ?
Yeah , just hit that , you down .
It's terrible , not to mention the PR on it . It'll kill you , yeah .
It will literally put chains on the doors with padlocks . It's frightening ? Yep , it is so . That's really cool , though . So you got big plans for the business . What are you gonna do differently , other than you put more money in inventory and you're open book and you're adding some new products ? What else is coming down the pike for Uncle Sam's at this point ?
I think a big thing right now is like we're sponsoring a few events , like we just sponsored . This is back at the end of March and they have a iCrace down at Devil's Den and just helping out with that there's a small mouth tournament benefiting the Mayfly Project . They love it .
We sponsored a little bit , like gave out a bunch of koozies and stuff for door prizes and all those things .
So definitely more outreach in that sense , where it's not like a direct sell , it's just like hey , I'm also passionate about these things and I would love to help out in any way that I can and giving some koozies and some debt gators and like a couple of wallets to like just bring more people there .
I think it's great and I love the Mayfly Project and the iCrace for Devil's Den cause . Devil's Den is awesome .
Yeah , sure .
But any of those things right now . I now feel confident enough with our inventory . Part of the reason I was not super gung-ho on marketing of like right off the bat was one I had to figure out everything and tossing that on top was a little bit tough just as far as like true , like advertisements or like figuring out any of that .
And I felt like if people walked in the store , especially in like January and February post Christmas , it's like the experience would not have been great just because our inventory levels were so low Right , so promoting and then dragging people in and then they can't buy what they want , would be bad .
Yeah , so I was trying not to do that I feel very confident , now that we have the inventory , that people can walk in and regardless of what they're looking for , I will say something in that realm yeah , so Well , that's good . That's a big hurdle .
Yeah , so that was a tough one to get over , just cause it was a ton of inventory that we were bringing in and moving around .
So we just gave him an idea , though I said just gave me an idea . Maybe we need to throw a chainless motorcycle in there . I think you , absolutely . You know Army Green . Yeah , almost Sam's American made . I've got space in the front .
That could be cool . Yeah , sold it , mark . Yeah , maybe All right , everybody's always about to put the motorcycle in a shop . Mark , don't be shy about that offer .
So yeah , so that's good . You've really , really crossed , I think , some big hurdles to .
Yeah , and there was like we did Get work yard now . Yeah , and just even like the interior of the store , just like changing that up .
It was like you walked into like our shoe section and on the wall was this map of Arkansas that took up about a sixth of the wall and then the rest of the wall was blank and it was like Not good Huey , yellow color paint yeah , I hate the paint , it's bad . So , like , one of my ideas is like getting people .
I got the okay from our landlord to like paint murals inside of the store . So like bringing like local people Very good idea Like murals . I'm like we have tons of open space and it's like I'd love to have like local artists or anyone that likes to paint Be like hey , come and paint murals in here .
Like I'll pay you , I'll pay for the paint , whatever we can figure out something , but just like have something fun that sets us apart .
And then doing like some sort of like outreach thing this idea for Uncle Sam's after hours , doing like a like once a month during the sour I haven't figured it out fully yet , but doing like outreach things where it's like hey , we do like a gear giveaway . You come out , store stays open later .
We've got drinks , we can bring in some people to talk about whatever . Like we can bring in a biologist from the state that talks about the bear population or something like that to just do a little talk and then hang out or do like a cornhole tournament or something like that .
So those have been kind of brewing , trying to figure out the detailed plans on that .
¶ Entrepreneurship and SEO Strategies
And yeah , right now I'm doing a lot of SEO stuff on the website . Yeah , that's work . I'm teaching myself that .
So Do Google just focus on your Google places ? Yeah , I mean , that's the number one . Put your hours in there , coupons , discounts , the inventory . I mean , if you just did that , like that's the number one thing you could do , yeah , I mean .
You're talking to the master ? Yeah , I mean this guy I don't know he understands .
Don't worry about all the keywords and all that kind of junk right now . I mean , if you master that , you're going to be showing up and then do some podcast videos and put them on YouTube and optimize them to put them back to your site .
Yeah , I mean all the videos of the people enjoying the outdoor activities , productionally produced and distributed , yeah , where you can get sponsors paying for that , then right , that sell products , sponsors being companies that Justin does business with , yeah , suppliers , that would tie the whole thing together . I bet I know somebody could help with that .
I bet you do that . You do interesting , yeah , but okay , well , listen , it's been great having you here , justin , and I appreciate you too , johnny , we'll have to have you come back with some other .
Yeah , I'd love to learn more about , like your , your educational part of that , because I think that's important for listeners . Yeah , like , like , because the entrepreneurial education quote unquote is not really that old or you know , it's kind of a new thing ?
right , it is . I mean , you know , when I started teaching at the Walden College 19 years ago , I was the only undergrad professor in that field just me and then Carol Reeves handled the grad school Mm-hmm . And so now we've got like 28 people in our department . It's great .
It's even a relatively new topic in discipline in academia . There's only a couple journals that differentiate entrepreneurship from just general business . But if you look at the general business journals you'll see things on Fortune 500s and you won't see much stuff on companies that have 20 or less employees 50 or less employees .
But we're starting to see more journals pop up about entrepreneurship . We're starting to see more of the bigger journals accept entrepreneurship papers and that's been really nice , but it's still very , very new .
Well , it's totally different to be a really great manager and being an entrepreneur . I mean . A lot of people lump those into the same thing . It's not . One of my favorite definitions of an entrepreneur is that you're taking some sort of personal risk , you know , with it .
Like you're talking about your staff earlier , everything goes down , Everybody gets to walk away , but not you . Yeah , yeah . Well , that's a difference .
I think it's sort of conventional wisdom . I mean , academia is poo pooed , entrepreneurship basically for a long time . It's starting to change One of my theories on why there's not a lot of research on it is it's harder to research . Yeah yeah , you know Fortune 500 companies . There's tons of info out there . They're publicly traded .
True , you know 20 person companies there's no info on , or very little , and that's a problem . But but anyway , I do think that it's a topic that's growing in interest . But conventional wisdom is that , well , the people who start businesses aren't necessarily the same ones to manage them later .
And I've also found that sometimes those managers who don't have that entrepreneurial background and understanding they're not always as great as everybody thinks they are either . You know what I mean . You can back out of your business way too soon and it can lose its entrepreneurial spirit .
And you know you hire these outside managers that come in that worked at ABC company and then the next thing you know all they do is talk about well , at ABC , we did this and an ABC , we did that and an AB . I've been on boards with some of these guys . I'm like you know what ? Just shut that blank up . We don't give a shit how ABC did things .
They suck . Okay , we're not trying to model ourselves after you know bureaucratic , not growing ABC and take ruin our entrepreneurial business with all this , this bureaucratic stuff that you want to throw in here . Anyway , it's just sort of one of my little pet peeves is everybody thinks that the entrepreneurs just need to , like , get out of the way at some point .
Let the professional managers take over . It doesn't always work so well , so anyway , well , listen , we appreciate you guys being here and giving your time in , eric . It's always good to be with you , buddy . Thank you , mark . I appreciate your invite , so we'll see you all on the next episode of Big Talk about small business .
It's great .
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