¶ Challenges in Small Business
Hey everybody , welcome back to another episode of Big Talk About Small Business . I'm here with my buddy , eric Howardton , who is laughing hysterically at making me laugh .
Well , I mean you're . You're in rare form today , mark . You're always in rare form , though , so tell our audience about what's so special about this podcast .
Well , it's Halloween and we're going to tell some horror stories from our past , some spooky stories , yes , some nightmares that have occurred on Elm Street . I almost bought a house on Elm Street once and it was in such bad condition we called it the nightmare on Elm Street .
But so you have a horror story about the the , the , the other one about your housing days like when you used to do your yeah , we were talking earlier and we had to cut it off because Parker thought this would be a good story to tell , but no , I could tell you like I could sit here for the next 12 hours and tell you horror stories about building , but
this one was . You'll appreciate this . Okay , so I had this house at 413 North Willow that I bought and this is in the historic district or , as some people call it , the hysterical district on Fayetteville , and so , anyway , you have to know this house . All right , it sits in a row of houses where this is the historic district .
The first house on the corner is like a 1960 really not beautiful orange duplex ranch . All right , with not a single shrub so terrible , not a single shrub in the yard . All right , so you have to know this house .
Okay , late 1800s , yeah , aluminum siding put on it circa 1960 in very bad shape , with mill finish , aluminum windows , right when they reduced the ceiling height and when they and put shorter windows in and then sided aluminum siding over the holes . I mean just the classic .
Anyway , the back apartment had a fire in it at one time and was abandoned and , or you know , unlivable , and there was this squatter back there with a set of drums . I mean , have you ever heard of anything like that ? No , I mean a squatter carrying drums around . I mean it's kind of bulky , you know yeah .
A lot of set of drums , a full set of drums , anyway . So yeah , we got the seller , got that dude out of there by the time we closed on it . So we're working on the house . We tear all the aluminum siding off and tear the windows out of it , basically just completely got this thing down to its basic structure .
You know , and this woman one day I'm outside , she comes running down the street , mark , mark , mark , and I'm like yeah , and she says you're not going to put cedar shingles on that house and green trim .
Are you like you do for the other one ?
Well , I was your style . I've done a few of them like that . Yeah , I mean I don't do the same thing every time , but I will admit I like cedar shingles . It looks good . But but anyway , I said . I said , well , why do you ask she goes ? Well , that's not right . You see those houses there , they're all white . That's the way they're supposed to be .
I said to her , I said , no , really , houses really weren't painted white until the early 20th century , when America started finding its morality and leading up to the pro , to prohibition , everybody painted their houses white to look church , like I don't know . No , then Victorian houses were never white .
Okay , so anyway , were they just like the right . Earth colors Earth .
Okay , she goes , that's not right . She goes , that's not the way it's supposed to be . And I said , well , come on inside . And I showed her that when the house was first built as a two room shack and then had another two rooms added on to it and then another two rooms and so on , I found an exterior wall with cedar shingles on it and green trim .
I said this is the way this house was originally built . No , no , that's not right . She tried anyway . That was just one experience . Another house on the same street . I'll give you one more horror story . This was a good one . A lot of these houses had asbestos shingles on them . Now , I worked in the asbestos abatement business .
I was an owner and a firm that did asbestos abatement . I understand it . That's why whenever we have any asbestos , we always call in the pros . So we had this company . It was called EPA , which is kind of funny Environmental Protection Associates . Oh , that was really what EPA said . That's awesome .
We had them do every single job that we had that had asbestos , because they were licensed . They take it off and has met suits with respirators , they do air quality monitoring and then they have to dispose of it properly . It's double bagged and then it's put in special trailers and stuff like that .
So anyway , we had these guys do the exterior of this house that we just bought , to tear off the asbestos shingles , which really aren't even hazardous . I mean , you're outside , they're not really friable . Friable means where they come apart like insulation . So asbestos shingles , they're solid .
Yeah , so they come apart in the asbestos , I guess . Right , that's what it is . Yeah , bring it in .
As a homeowner , you can take your asbestos shingles off yourself in this state , but we don't do it . Yeah , we don't want a liability when I want to expose our workers to it , so we have these guys do it .
So , anyway , the other company you know is Y Group and I get this call from I can't remember if it was Sonyer , whomever , but this woman next door called 911 because they were taking this asbestos off and she just went absolutely berserk and we're like look , you know that we've got a permit . That's why we hired these guys .
And she saw the people out there in the hasmats and then she said that they put them in trailers and you could just see the dust flying off as they went down the street . The asbestos not true . Complete , total lie . Asbestos flyin' everywhere . Yeah , anyway , it had to get her calm down .
But yeah , those are the kind of things that we were just talking about how , when a pain , sometimes the NIMBYs are the NIMBYs Not in my backyard , that's what they call NIMBYs .
Not in my backyard Like you come by a house in their yard .
Yeah , like your own through with your property , when it's like I don't know why people are just so anti-improvement or anti-development , I mean what are the article about that ?
No , it was like some social conversation about an article .
Every so often I have to blow off steam on it because I've got a friend trying to build a hotel in Fayetteville right now , which is insane the hoops that they keep making the poor guy go
¶ Challenges in Business and Community Growth
through .
Well , I mean , just look at kind of I mean honestly like it's the lack of progression and what it does to the , to everybody in the community .
You're either growin' or you're declining . It's true . It's not gonna stay just like it always , was it never ?
will , and you can look at towns where they did not grow .
Yeah , we've got those in , like Eastern Oklahoma like not even a town anymore . You know what I mean . There's like some dude living in the store , yeah .
Oh , it's all over the Northeast too , everything .
Yeah , I mean it's easy to see , right , yeah , you're either growin' or you're declining , but anyway we should be growing . But it's just one of many horror stories and business , my God , I can tell you a thousand .
Why , in the housing , though , like if you bought a property like you're talking about , yeah , with the tin , and you ripped everything to the studs ? Basically , right , the foundation why wouldn't you just commit and dole's all of it and just rebuild from around the world ?
You could do that . I mean , I guess there's a couple reasons . One you're trying to preserve it and make it as you know , as much of what it is , but just in good condition . Okay , so the configuration and the basic design of the place hasn't really changed .
So you're trying to protect that original ? Okay , that original design .
You're trying to . Yeah , you want to preserve the character of the place , but truthfully , a lot of times it's cheaper to do that .
To just demo or not to completely demo ?
Just demo the whole thing . Oh it is . Yeah , that's cheaper because if you think about it , you just come in and in two days it's gone and it's all the way Okay . When you have to dismantle a house , it takes a lot of time Before you can go back to build .
You have to dismantle , and so you know it takes a lot , but you can still preserve some elements , like the wood floors , you know in this case , and we piece those back together and Did you take the floors off and then re-put them back in ?
No , Most of the time you leave them there , you just piece in new wood and then you come back and you sand all of it with professional floor finishers . Because we reconfigured this house , we added on to it , we added new fireplaces . Rock came out of the ground with them . I mean , it was a fabulous house and it was featured in country living , I believe .
Oh really .
Yeah , but that one person didn't want you to do it the way you do it .
No , oh no , I shouldn't have done it like that . It was a lot better really with the white aluminum siding and the 1960s sears , silver finish , tarnish aluminum windows . Yeah , I mean always better than you know what I like about my horror story that I have right now . What's that ?
It's that I can't . The way that it could work is that I could actually buy a little bit of the property and not like just redo what's the grading on them ? Sure , yeah .
This is why we had a problem where their surveyors stayed correctly .
Yeah , correct and so , but the neighbor was already expressive about how we might have cut down some trees in which we didn't . It was actually all just tornado down trees as a disaster .
Right , You're just going in . By the time you clean it up , there's nothing that's any good . Oh yeah , totally .
It was all all these oak trees were down in any way . But she's been kind of concerned about the trees . But the reality is is now , because I'm moving my driveway 30 feet the other way , you get to cut more trees . I have to cut down good trees , yeah , but she didn't want . She didn't want any of the trees cut .
It's like you can't win buddy Win man , you cannot win . I mean , building stuff is extremely difficult , it is . Why is it going to be so hard ?
I just don't know If we talked about this previous episode about it's an industry of outlaws .
Oh it is . It's outlaws , it's NIMBYs everywhere , yeah , and it's city council people who are anti-development .
You know I ? Why would they ? I mean why ?
because they represent a very small minority of people who complain a lot about the development and they want to keep it . I had one guy once put put something on social media that said it's the historic district , not the changed district . Of course he lives in a rental house which I tried to buy after that but I was unable to Get a deal done on it .
But anyway , because I'd like to see him out because he's a slob and I lived in that neighborhood , but I mean a total slob . This guy doesn't want me to do anything and yet he's got like 500 pots in his front yard , all Different kinds , falling over . You know what I mean ? It looks absolutely frigging insane . Of course this garage is filled with shit .
His vehicles are parked on the lawn because he's got broken vehicles in the driveway so he bark what's good on the lawn . I mean I don't know . You know it's , it's typical , but so , yeah , I think a lot of times they're very vocal .
You know , one of my theories is that the most vocal people in the community sometimes are the ones that don't have jobs or don't have businesses . Yeah , yeah , the business people often don't want to alienate any potential customers . So , they're gonna be quiet about every . If they're smart , right , they're gonna be quiet , you know .
And then , and then the , the ones that don't have anything to do Well , they got nothing else to do but run for city council and complain to city council members and , and it really is the case I I don't even want to get into my theories unfair bill , city council , but , um , it seems like and it's yeah , in our area it's it doesn't really represent the ,
the population , and we don't listen to our planning department , so we then everything goes to city council for approval and it's just very difficult , but anyway , hey , let's talk , though , about horror stories in business . Ooh , that's spooky , yeah , it is . You know , entrepreneurship is always only good stuff , right ? Oh , yeah , totally .
It's what I love about entrepreneurship is that immediately when you start a business like you have a lot of money . Yes , of course , unlimited funds unlimited funds , all kinds of free time , yep , no boss whatsoever .
Yeah right , take time off anytime , total flex .
You know I mean , and you know you're just like , like the wealth that you accumulate , like you take care of your entire family immediately , like for generations . Yeah , it's all generational wealth , so fantastic .
Accrued immediately upon starting the business . Yeah so a total sarcasm ? Yeah , we know that's not the case . Yeah , so I mean , as you and I were talking about at 6 am this morning , yeah , yeah , but we're working right already .
Absolutely dude . I get up and my brain's working , of course , like there hasn't been before I get up my brain . So there hasn't been a dom that I haven't woken up in the morning Without already so much going into my brain that , like I can't go back to sleep . Like , if it's past three o'clock in the morning , I cannot go back to sleep if I wake up .
And that's actually been happening to me like like the last 10 days . It's been kind of weird . I think this the moon I've been making for 3 am Dude .
When you get to be my age , you can go back to sleep and I'll . Can you see ? This is Sonia says . When it takes me a long time to go to sleep , that's 20 seconds versus like 10 . I can just go to sleep like that . So beautiful , yeah , it's . It's amazing , but when I was your age I couldn't .
I said that I had a guy a long time where my name is guys . He was a client that went in there and I was pitching this big presentation . You know about doing some stuff from walmart . There's probably 30 people in the room , dude sleeping . Yeah , it's like the main guy that had that was the older .
He was just back there sleeping and he keep waking up Uh-huh , and he'd look at me and laugh and then he'd go back .
Can you sure that wasn't me ?
That's when you said that it reminds me because , because then after he's like I'm sorry , he goes . It's not not like anything against you , I could . I just I could fall asleep anywhere anytime .
Maybe that's why I got to keep moving . You know it's like , if I don't , I , sonia's always like god . You get your activity goal already . You know for the day , it's always tracking on , that whole watch right . But no , I keep moving and we , we like work .
I mean , you can't like you said , I think , in one of our prior episodes , if you're an entrepreneur , it's not , it's not a matter of of . You know , it's the way you are , it's your life , it's your personality and . But , but , anyway , let's . Let's go back to horror stories . Why don't you tell one that you've had over the course of your career ?
man there's been . There's been a heck of a lot . Uh , I mean , a lot of our stuff is like so
¶ Challenges With Demanding Clients and HR
you've got a good one . So we had a one client that came in and way early on . The business that you know was talking with me in a word of website that was Fairly sophisticated at the time . You know it was no easy punch way to do it .
I mean it was custom album , you know custom Programming and stuff , and so I sold it to her and we were really early on .
So I mean we mean it was a good deal for us and we started getting into it and you know , client was pretty demanding and we were , you know , pretty short on resources and stuff but it ended up being , uh , just a very complicated project that turned really south quick and , like they weren't , we weren't getting it done in time and you know they were coming
back with more changes that it was scope creep city man Sure yeah you know scope creep .
Oh gosh , yeah right , it was just the worst , and I mean when you're a new . Let them have an inch , then they're gonna take a mile dude and when you're starting up your new business , you're giving .
You're giving miles , not inches , yeah , yeah , because you need that cash flow . Well , you need that sale . So , anyway , we get into it . But I remember my , uh , my , my co-founder . He would slap me if he was here , but we were sitting in the conference room and the clock came in there Heather , what's in ? And they were complaining and stuff , and he goes .
He just stopped towards in the meetings , like you know . Uh , you didn't pay us enough for what we're worth .
You a little dry and direct wasn't very dry and I go .
I just kind of remember looking at him going .
He never said I was just talking to him the other night . Yeah , is he ?
doing good . Yeah , he's okay , he's good . Oh , that's good , but uh , but he now it's like okay , uh , I was like hey , so anyway , let's go ahead and end the meeting . I mean , like man , I had to like go outside with the clock , make a listen . He didn't . You know he's . He's the guy we keep in the Backroom .
He's a tech guy , Okay , yeah you know he's the smart finance guy , you know , and I'm the . You know I was like he didn't really meet it like that , because the worst part was is like I mean they just like snowballed and I would see him at gas to .
It was weird Because I'd always run into me at , like gas stations and airports and everywhere I was going , except saying this client , I kept seeing this client after that meeting and I'm like dude . So I we ended up having to like make pretty good on and I mean I think that everybody kind of kind of went on that .
But I don't know , that was my horror story , that sounds pretty bad .
I remember I don't know if I ever told you the story . If I did , here in this venue , forgive me , but I still . It's a great story , sure , so it was right after I started marks wagon associates , which was eventually became swig white and then swig group today .
So it was just me , okay , and I had this opportunity to do some work for a client and it was hr related .
I just written a book for um john waley and sons On human resources for the design industry , which , by the way , I've always been fascinated how you can take the worst subject of human resources and make it sound like it's a great book . Well , like it's a good story .
I've read some show . It is an important topic really . Oh , that's completely important , but greatly misunderstood and Misconstrued by hr people everywhere , which is why they're they're oftentimes hated . Yeah , and the least paid c level managers Are they really , yeah , they make less than than heads of marketing and and finance accounting it . They shouldn't .
I mean , it's really an important job . But my theory on that is they're overly focused on liability reduction . Yeah , and management gets sick of hearing bad news and therefore they shoot the messenger and really they need to be focused on other stuff like recruitment and retention and development More than just this is going to get in trouble .
This is illegal , yeah , management just doesn't want to hear that . Right , you know right , but anyway . So I'm just setting the stage , though , for this . So I got this client . He wants me to . I , early on in my consulting career , I would put in HR programs inside a e-farms that never had them .
So I talked with this one company and I'm got the ceo and his assistant and anyway , um , they the ceo . I , well , I talked to the assistant and the ceo was going to call me and I knew , as we set up A time from the call , and so I had a two line phone set up in my house .
I started for 30 days before I moved to an office , which was , by the time we had the meeting , it was actually in my office . This is in the house , okay , and so I said to my then wife like I want you to answer the phone , okay , and then put them on hold , and then I'll pick it up and it will sound more like a bigger company .
And so she answers it and she puts them on hold , she thinks , but she cuts them off . I'm like , ah shit , sue . So she does it . So the guy calls again , she puts them on hold and cuts them off again , just looking incompetent . Now the guy calls the third time . This time she says to me , oh my God , I just cut them off again .
I'm like Jesus , you know , blah , blah , blah , sue , I can't believe . It Turns out she hadn't cut them off , he was still on the line . So then when he comes to my new office the next week or two weeks after that he comes in never met this guy the first thing he does is shake my head . It's good to meet you , mr Human Resources . So embarrassed .
¶ Management Feedback and Lessons Learned
Obviously , my management feedback approach was not solid . It's terrible , ok , it's terrible , but she did cut them off for the third time . I mean , it wasn't that hard to do . I mean , you know lines there , hit the whole button . Now it flashes . Ok , don't do anything else , just stop .
Just work out Just stop right there .
You can set the phone down on the table , it doesn't matter , they can't hear you . Everything would be fine .
So I got a good one . Anyway , I got a good one Doing a photo shoot back in the day for one of our biggest clients and I basically set up a . I used to do photography back in the commercial type stuff .
Yeah , you're good at it . No Right , it's all right . Outdoor photography .
Outdoor photography , commercial stuff , but anyway . So I was trying to blend the commercial with the outdoor together for this catalog that I was doing , and so I had this vision of like sitting in a dining room table up seeing In the woods , in the something , in the creek , in the river , okay , yeah . I can see right , this is going wrong . It's so bad .
So I got this vision of this , so you get your dining room table out of your house .
Oh right , even worse , dude , this is so bad . You borrow your mom's dining room table .
Even worse , bro , like this might get me in some trouble , but I go to Lowe's and I'm like I bought me an outdoor patio set , a really nice one , it's probably 750 bucks .
Okay , like one of those cast aluminum ones or something .
Yeah , Like just one of the nice it had . Yeah , it had like the aluminum of the glass table , the dryback chairs . I mean it was a good $700 or two chairs 25 years ago , I assume right 20 or two . It's crazy , but yeah , it's back in 08 or something like that 06 .
So , anyway , I go buy it at Lowe's , put it in my truck , drive all the way out to Devil's Den down the road Right , and I get all everybody there , it's a long haul , yeah .
Long haul and I just bought it and we set up a scene , took the picture and everything , like I had taken this table right In the chairs and like I put it in the river and like had twisted it into the gravel .
So when yeah , so when you pulled away and then I did the same for the chairs completely submerged into the water , and then I had my models get in there and they act like they had . Or having dinner , and I had this lamp , because it's all about a lighting company and I had that plugged in and stretched over . Oh my God .
This is really getting to be a bad idea . Did you put a toaster over there on the shoreline ? I did too , and it wasn't right over here , so I had some out of that .
God yeah , dude , it was pretty sketchy , but I feel like hanging up and I mean it was a little sketchy , so I get it done . And of course I'm a young entrepreneur , I didn't have any money , so what was I naturally going to do with that ?
You're going to take it back to low . Take it back to low , get my money back , right ? No , my wife didn't like it after all . I'm sorry . Exactly what I was going to say .
And when I did say however , here's a first part about it so I go all the way back home from Devil's Den 30 minute drive , had the patio furniture in there it's still kind of airing out and I dropped some stuff off of my house and I was driving back down the Lowe's , going down that service road , and I was totally doing it in 55 . I had a chair .
I was flying out . I just hear this flanking going on my truck . I look back and I see both of those chairs bouncing 10 feet up in the air , Just slams .
Slide . I'm like , oh my god , Don't take that back now are you ?
That's what I thought , but I was like something stopped me . I mean I went and picked them up . They were bent up Like they were like a brown you know , had a brown paint on them , but now they're all silver from all the paint being dragged off and I put them back in my truck and I'm like I can't afford to pay .
Now I got $750 worth of bad chairs , like I can't even afford . So I was like man , I don't know , man , let me go give this a shot . That way I didn't talk to the manager and I'm like hey , man , listen , my wife didn't like these and I was on my way to bring them back and they fell out of the truck . He goes don't worry about it .
I was like man , I'll pay for it . He's like don't worry about it , We'll get rid of them .
Wow , and that was nice . It was really nice . That was a beautiful story , not a horror story , yeah , I know , but I mean the horror story .
Yeah , the horror part too , though , was like all the bad stuff that happened , and I guess that's kind of the story here . Right , bad things happen , but it can turn out all right . It's true , sometimes they lead to good things . Good moral of it , sometimes they do . Those were my better situations there .
So , yeah , there's been a bunch of them , so I'll tell you one . And again , I almost hesitate to tell this story . I should . Ok , there's no point in it . No , I don't know , I'll tell this story . I'm not going to get into that one . It might be a little too much for people , for our listeners . They can't handle the truth . You want the truth ?
No , no , I did have . I've had some interesting stories of people that I worked with in my company . One time we had this guy who was kind of a hot shot young guy but he had some issues .
I had heard stories of other people who traveled with him and he was one of these guys who would get like incredibly drunk and then just do stupid stuff , like break things , throw things , whatever , which was very disturbing . I had to have a talk with him about that . But in any case he was a high performer .
I mean , he billed a lot , he was successful in what he did so one day and he had a company car . He was an associate . The associates at that time had a small amount of ownership in the company . And he comes to me one day and my head of management consulting it says good news , I got great news for you guys . I'm like what's that ? He goes .
I've just accepted a job with another company that to compete with Swig Group Heading up there .
Is he ?
mousing this . Yeah , he's telling me , and his boss , ok , and you're the owner of the Swig Group . And I'm like good news , I go . That's not good news , that's horrible news , that's terrible news . He goes . Yeah , but I'm really excited . I thought you'd be happy for me .
I said give me the keys to the BMW and get your shit and go , call your wife because you're going to need to get a ride home . And we all sat there in the conference room because I called the meeting to tell everybody that he was no longer with us and he sat out in the curb looking rather forlorn , waiting for his wife to pick him up in the Camry .
But anyway , I was pretty harsh back in those days , yeah speaking of yeah , I was thinking of a horror story .
I just had about being harsh , a little too harsh .
I learned from the sense . Yeah , I have to Mellowed out . What did you do ? That was too harsh .
Yeah . So I went on a rampage one day . We probably had I don't know 20 people on our team at the time this was many years ago and I said hey , listen , there's not enough productivity going on in this company .
But I think that some of you don't want to work here , and if you're not ready to work , then you need to put in your notice , like I'm y'all need to go on get . And there was quite a few .
Just a second . Here's my note . Just a second . How many turn their notice in ? Ah , it's probably four or five .
I mean it was well , but you know , I mean that was pretty harsh and I don't . I mean obviously I mean , but I think the reality longterm is actually is probably pretty helpful , because actually the people are like you know , I really appreciate you saying that , because I haven't been really doing much lately . It was weird . It was weird .
I mean , I saw this guy . Sometimes you have to do that , I think .
Yeah , get real . Yeah , I mean , you could be the nice guy all the time , but if you just every once in a while get really tough , then at least it shows that you can't do that . Yeah , you know , it's true .
I think it might be more effective than just being tough all the time or just being a pushover all the time , yeah , so Do we have enough time to talk about work ethic ?
Yeah , let's do . Let's go back to work ethic . So , speaking of like six o'clock this morning , we were texting back and forth about the day show and I was like man , let's , we should talk about work ethic a little bit . Yeah , let's do .
What do you want to say about it ?
Well , I mean , I think that I've been thinking about this lately and I think that a big part of because I would say that entrepreneurs like true entrepreneurs , like are relentlessly working , you know . But what is that Like ? I mean , would you call that work ethic ?
I mean , I would call it a strong work ethic , yeah , sure , but that's kind of like the result , Because what really I think it is is like it's the , if you don't have a vision in what you're doing , if you're working just to work or work to get paid , You'll get tired . You'll get tired , yeah , and then your work ethic diminishes over time .
Yes .
And you know you're coasting Right , I agree , and I think that that's like like , I think that that's why , like when folks will talk about like I'll have stories in my office and stuff , when people you know that will tell new employees that I've even met , that , like I mean you might get an email from American two , 30 in the morning .
¶ Motivating Work Ethic and Raising Expectations
Yeah , and I don't see it . It's a problem .
But I don't see it's a problem either . I never , I could never understand that . First off , turn your phone on silent and secondly , I didn't see you had to answer me at two 35 . Why can't I send it to you at two 30 ? I'm done with it . What should I do ? Like , I'm going to set an alarm .
I'll send it to them at eight 31 tomorrow , because that's when they report to work . I'd never bought that , I'm just . What is that ?
I don't , I don't know , I guess , I guess .
You're playing about me . You had the same thing now , so I totally oh yeah , absolutely .
I'll have people say like no , you can . You can schedule it to send later . I'm like why would I do that , though ? I want it to be the first thing .
Right , I send it , they . They can respond when they want to respond , right , yeah , I mean , I want them to respond fast , but they can't . You know what's your patience level like ? That's a lot better than it used to be . I'm a lot more forgiving and I'm a lot more patient , but I am still obsessed .
My obsession for doing things and making things better or living up to my commitments or doing everything I can do to make something work is not diminished at all .
I don't think so . So , like like on the work , yeah , On the work ethic part , I mean , it seems like to me just like you do keep driving all in .
I feel the same for me too , Like if there's I actually feel like if there's less , like because there's less and less time in life , maybe that I'm wanting to get more and more done and as the , as the saying starts to kind of go down to the other side , Like the sands of an hourglass .
These are the days of our lives . Do you remember that there was a soap opera ? Days of our lives . Yeah , yeah , I'm a little . I just don't remember the the beginning . That was the beginning . They would , they would watch their stories . Well , now it's , it's getting to be about one o'clock .
I better go watch my stories , but no , so you feel like the the last time you have , the more that I want to get accomplished before .
You know like I just like I'm becoming more conscious of that . I guess that sand dripping down .
Yeah .
I understand , figuratively speaking , so , but but I mean , I think that's another driver of working .
Yeah , like I don't know , do you think you can teach people to be like that , or is that just some kind of innate characteristic that they have , that maybe they developed as a child or something ?
I don't know . I mean , I think that that's one of my kind of my arguments on like teaching , entrepreneurism , or this thought of teaching it right , or the you know the kind of the bubbling up of right , Of of educating it .
I guess , in a way , and because I don't know that you necessarily can teach that , you know , I don't like , I think , like you can't teach to be able to see something , yeah , there's a lot of stuff we can teach , though no no , no , totally Like , so like everybody practices all that kind of stuff yeah they could have a high motivation level Totally and not
be able to direct that appropriately or make bad decisions because they don't have a good decision-making process or any number of . But you can't teach that one little .
So I hear what you're saying , Because I could have been accelerated , like had I had , because back when I was going through school they didn't have entrepreneurism . Oh , Like I didn't even know what the hell the word meant .
Wasn't going to talk to me . Well , we didn't have entrepreneurship . We really . We started out with small business and then it morphed into entrepreneurship and a lot more . Oh , really , yeah , okay .
But you know that aspect of being able to visualize something which then drives all . Because here's the deal If you're starting up a small business , your work ethic has to be impeccable . Yeah , like you cannot not work a lot . Like I used to have a say in my office work harder , work faster , work , smarter , work longer .
I mean that's basically the answer to all your problems .
I know people would say work harder not , or work smarter , not harder . I'm like , how about work smarter and work harder ? Yeah , both Okay . What could you imagine ? What could you get done then ? I mean , the whole formula is all yours Work smarter and work harder . Yeah , I totally get that . Yeah , they're not mutually exclusive .
No , and that's a strong work ethic If you're working harder , smarter , faster and longer .
I know , I understand Well , I think you know .
I mean honestly , it's a requirement . Your work ethic is that's a requirement for you to be successful in business . I think it is .
But I , you know , I've been a student of human behavior , you know , as a management consultant . Well , at starting selling bicycles at age 12 , you know , at a shop I actually started younger than that . I was probably eight or nine when I sold my first bike .
So I had to study behavior just to be able to sell stuff , to see , like , what kind of reaction I was getting . But , you know , as I went through my career , it's really I want to say only lately that I have really come to what I think is a pivotal issue for a lot of businesses , small businesses and the people who work there .
And you know what that is . What's that ? Raising their collective ? Raising their individual and collective expectations If they ? You know , you said it , you got to be . You know , you said something about visualizing it a moment ago .
I don't remember the exact words used , but it's like you're going to work hard if you think that it's taking you somewhere , if it can pay off , if it can work out , but if you're very cynical , you're suspect of everything , or you're just scared , or you just have such low expectations Like now .
Well , I paid my $500 rent this month and you know , I made the payment on my 2005 Monte Carlo out there with 800,000 miles on it , or whatever . I'm happy with it . It's running good now . You know the old Monte Carlo is running good now . If that makes you happy , then there's nothing that we're going to be able to do to motivate you to work harder .
That's right , okay .
You have to , you're saying . You're saying I want to get here , yes , Like you have a goal yeah .
It may not be necessarily financial , it's accomplishment . Yes , it's honor . It's accomplishment , exactly . Honor If you can't Honor , yeah .
If you don't have that , then there's no way that you're going to work as hard , long , fast and smart to get to whatever you're trying to . It's your desire , your accomplishment up there , Exactly , Exactly , and you know so .
And you can't teach that . Well , I don't know , teaching it may not be the right word , yeah , you can't teach it , but is it possible to raise that expectation for what's possible ? Right , I think it is . I mean , I think I think there's several ways you can do that . I mean , you , as the owner , head of the business , you've got to be selling constantly .
You got to be selling everybody . It's a constant effort . Yeah , this is what we can do . This is where we are now , but you know we could be here . Yeah , paint that picture what that means . Yeah , that has got to be one of your primary jobs . Yeah , will everyone respond to that ? No , it's called campaigning . Okay , campaigning , it's great .
Well , you know as well as I do , not everyone's going to respond to that , but there may be some people out there that it wakes up . I have seen people sort of wake up out of their slumber and constantly slumber , and come alive and get excited about something because they hadn't really thought about what was possible to achieve .
Okay , yeah , it doesn't happen all the time . But you know , you and I both know you don't always need a whole lot of those people either . No , no , you don't you need some no . And then they're like infectious , they may infect somebody else , just like the negativity and the can't do it and the depression is also contagious . No , but I do think you can .
That that's a really big challenge . If we want people to work harder , they've got to feel like there's something in it for them . I think there's a lot of elements . I think shared business planning , open book management , potential .
That allows people to see some goals , see some expectations for themselves , that they can achieve things . Right . I do think you've got to give some opportunities to people , but what you say , like the entrepreneur , though , has to be able to find that in themselves . Oh gosh , yeah , like you have to .
If you don't , you're not going to make it . No , mentoring is going to do that for you . No , coaching is going to do that for you . Okay , you've got that comes from within .
That must be what I'm thinking of when I'm seeing where I'm feeling like it can't be taught in a way , right , because you , you can't do that , and that's what drives the real whipless work ethic . Yes , when you say , when you agree with that well , yeah , I , I do .
It absolutely does the . The problem , though , as we all know as Entrepreneurs , is how do you multiply yourself ? How do you get other people to do that ? Okay , because there's only so much we can do .
You have an answer to that because it drives me Mike saying like I'm literally it's been one of my biggest challenges and still is it .
It's always a challenge , it's still it's . It's a challenge for me . But again , for me , the way I look at it is it comes down to raising the expectations and sense of possibility for everybody . So I'm gonna have to constantly be painting the picture of where we could go .
Yeah , I've got to constantly Provide people with information so they don't feel like they're cut off . I don't want to do anything that turns off somebody .
Okay , so it's not you're what you're saying . It's not just about raising expectations , but also preventing Expectations being lower , exactly , exactly and , and just a few key people , make a large difference in any organization .
They set the pace , they set the expectation . But you know I wrote an article about this recently that I do think that , like after watching suits Nine seasons we just finished it last night yeah brought tears to my eyes . I really yeah , did you get into that ?
I love that show , but what I you know people could say oh well , attorneys tell me it's not realistic . Whatever this , the show is based on these New York attorneys who are partners in a firm Mm-hmm , they got a million problems . They're fighting with each other .
There's constant , yeah , attacks on the firm , but one thing is a fact they all work Incredibly hard and they make huge money . Okay , yeah , now a lot of businesses Don't really offer that opportunity to people and there's a lot of reasons for that . Sometimes it's the nature of the business .
I mean , new York attorneys or partners can charge two thousand bucks an hour . Yeah , you know what I mean . Yeah , I can't necessarily get that . To build a website , right , right , right . That when there's somebody in India is doing it for $3 an hour , yeah , whatever , so said there , there are some differences in industries that you can't get away from .
Summer inherently more lucrative than others , but the point I was trying to make is that in that kind of environment , they could really give some great opportunities to the people who are the ones that Absolutely friggin kill themselves . Now the industry I come out about there in the architecture and engineering side , but those companies don't really offer that .
I mean , I'll be honest , they . It's a very , very , very rare company that says let's say it's you and you want to work 16 hours a day , and you got , I'm gonna be a partner in this firm . Come hell or high water , I will be here the first to come in , the last to go . I'll be here on the weekend . I'll kill myself .
Okay , for the next 10 years to get there . They don't really . If you did that , you would be doing the same thing as the dude who gets up comes in at 830 , has a cup of coffee and farts around till 930 . Yeah , and you know what I'm saying . Yeah , we level everybody out . We don't really provide . The opportunity the outliers .
We can't deal with the outliers Okay , we drive them out systematically over time till they have to start their own business .
So how do you , how do you accommodate for that though ? How do you structure to a small business To give them a pathway , for give those outliers a pathway to success , right ?
Well , I think you've got . You've got to do a lot of things differently . Like big companies , once a year pay raise or review , uh-huh . You may have to give people raises more often than that .
So it's a red and click . So I'm gonna pin on that real quick , because we've been taught a lot of times as Entrepreneurs . We get taught by what we see . Read right , other big companies do other big , not Entrepreneurial companies exactly corporate ones that actually don't want a lot of outliers right .
They basically morph into government Organization , gave all the characteristics of government organizations given enough time . That's what I think . I Think once you get to a certain size and the structure becomes all encompassing that there's as you said , they don't want outliers . There's no way to deal with an outlier because we look at everybody's pay once a year .
We've got a raise , increase budget , but as a small business entrepreneur .
You need you . You don't need to play by those rules . No , but you , you really could . You could really magnify your success , but have an outliers around with you .
Absolutely like and you want to encourage outliers . You know I mean , don't you think , though ?
Yeah , man , I was just actually saying this exact thing . Yeah , at lunch I was like I'm not surprised I need to . I was like I will be Excited as hell when I walk into the room and I got you and the other and two of your other team members in here thinking about the business Coming together with solutions , and I am part of that team .
I just want to be part of a team like that a team of champions .
Yeah , and you don't need to be the leaner and the God . I mean , that's what I would have be part of a team that leads .
¶ Passion, Ownership, and Success
I'm with you , I'm a passion freakin wolves , I'm a hundred percent with you , and and so , and you know , there's ways you can sort of find out who those people are Like . Are they the ones that are sending you the emails at night , or did they shut down ? What do they ?
know they respond emails at 2 30 they were smart , even if that's not a clock hanging out with you . Okay , even 10 o'clock crazy man .
I love it , I love you . So to me the emails at 2 30 . You know you're doing something . I'm like man behind it . I'm like Marcus wires in . I'm in well , because you , I'm . I'm just a minute .
I don't know , what else to say ? I'm committed . I hate to fail . I don't want to let anybody down . I I have a really strong need to . I want to protect my reputation , yeah , yeah , I don't want to see that go down the toilet . Right ? So there's a lot of heat on you . I mean you feel the responsibility , responsibility you .
You know , in any organization that you're involved in , if you have a role , I've always Taken that responsibility real seriously , absolutely . If I felt like I wasn't doing that , I'd want to get out of it . Okay , I really mean I've had that . I've had good gigs as board members or whatever . Accompanies were so boring , huh , it was too boring . I wasn't .
I didn't feel the love , I didn't see the chatter . I was gonna start talking without you by now because I've been playing the eye game .
You know like try going through that and just negative , write it out each day and pay Money . Then the money for sure makes anxiety .
Huh , greatest of money . The biggest is the money . Let me see how the he's doubts that you can give you .
Yeah , going through Grand rounding for equity .
Yeah , or even if it's options or phantom equity I mean , there's a lot of different vehicles you can use . Okay , Profit distributions in accordance with the , you know , whatever the metrics are that you're trying to track . I mean , those are all things that contribute to feeling like an owner and benefiting as if you were an owner , right ?
So I do think that that psychological ownership is really important .
So what's kind of cool about this combo ? I wish we had more time . Maybe we can talk about some more , because I think what a misconception that I've had as an entrepreneur in a small business is that I have to wait until my company is big enough to offer those things . When reality is that's because corp , that's what corporations have taught us right .
But in all reality I should be in , I can , I should and could implement those right out of the gate . You can find my outliers right , like because you want . What you want to do . Is you want to set something up ? That somebody that's got some hunger ?
Well , that's the whole icon of entrepreneurship . You want to be able to build it and then get out of it . You're never going to be able to get out of it if you can't have that , that replaced , whatever you bring to it , right , right , it's got to be . It's got to be .
Whether it's one person or five people , somebody , the stuff that you bring to the equation , has got to be replaced by other people . If you're irreplaceable , there's no value in the business man .
You actually , you taught me that a long time ago and I've been successful at doing that . You have , you've been very successful at it , or better than I was .
Well , no , I mean just like in , like , I mean like even right now on the where I'm you know , like I got somebody that like I'm openly like supporting the replacement yeah , in risk of that where I might come across as replaceable , right , but I think that that's important for the company , it's important for me .
I mean you know what I'm saying but at the same time , I know what value I bring Like the . The reality to it is is that and I've told the folks there because I mean like this is the first time I've been employed in a long- time , right , you know , probably since the last time you worked at Swig White , like it was 12 years ago or whatever .
Right , right , yeah .
Yeah , and and I'm like um , that was a short stint anyway , it really wasn't employed .
I mean I was right . Then you became a , I was an outlier with you , right . Then you became somebody we did business with . I mean , yeah , it's like , yeah right , there was an outline , it was just a stopover in a way , but yeah , but it was good .
Freaking fantastic . Yeah it was great , but uh , but uh , but I've you know , I've even expressed it's like the day that I feel I don't bring value to this company . I'm going to let you know because I need to be out of here . It's only been my zero chance in hell that I could ever be taking .
I don't take from things I give to them , right , right , because if I was sitting there taking dude , I would , I would be depressed . I would be depressed in a week , yes , if I wasn't providing value to whatever organization it is I'm .
I'm totally with you . It's a , it's a need . You would feel like you're wasting your time . Yeah , it wouldn't . You wouldn't have your full energy level that you would normally have .
The biggest thing is I'd be stealing from other people . That's what I like . I don't think that people realize because if I'm over here sucking up the air and the money and the resources and the resources right , and I'm not playing my part , then you're being impacted indirectly by me because there's less money to be paid to you to progress the company .
Yes , absolutely . I think it's light and thievery . Yeah Well , david , you and I six shooter , three different cowboy stuff .
Draw . All right , bart , I'm going to get you . What was that ? On a Christmas story , Black Bart , whatever it was , but anyway , so , yeah , I get it , and and that's you and I are different in that way . It's really important to us to spend our time doing stuff that we think is valuable and that we find rewarding .
It's not money necessarily either the camaraderie , if you can find those other people , that it's like one plus one equals five there , love it . Okay , I mean , you know my , my buddies over there in the Goshen and and and that's , you know , there's , I have a lot of that there .
There's a couple of those cats over there .
man Just freaking brutal they're , they're just into it , outwater freaking . My wife just has to say like , okay , enough , man , love for the night . You got to tell Grant good night , because you know , you know , just keep going , we just keep going , and going , and going , and we're talking about work the whole time . Right , this is exciting .
Yeah , it's exciting . There's possibilities , there's things we can do , there's things we can do better . There's things that we can do that we're not doing now . That would be fun . There's , you know , there's ways we can make other people's lives better .
Yes , yeah , markets you can steal . Yeah , competitors you can crush . Don't act like it . You don't think it's five man I do have . I have to go .
Okay , buddy . Well , hey , it's been a great time talking with you . Me too , man .
¶ Big Talk About Small Business
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