¶ Seasonality in Business Operations
Hey everybody , welcome back to another episode of Big Talk About Small Business . And here it is . It's another gonna be a hot summer day today . Eric and I are in the office together in the studio here this is why we do this , mark , so we actually meet up .
I know it seems like our travel schedule this summer is really kind of curtailed our meetings- you know that's actually a good topic is about summertime , like the cycles of business .
If you're in business like you got to kind of plan for these things . You don't know what they really are until after you know , know some time in your business , like it takes about two years to start understanding how your customer market . Yep , when they're taking off , and by the case .
There is seasonality to almost every business . That's really true .
People don't plan for that adequately yeah , and I've found like , at least , and it's , and it's really about your , your specific geographic audience too , and how they roll , Because around here I mean , like you just count off like new business in like mid-June through almost the end of July , Everybody's on family vacations . Yep , it's true .
Well , I think a lot of it too is like with the college population . Yeah , you know , when it heads out of town , all those professors like myself , we're like , we're off for the summer .
Yeah , yeah , you don't , you don't want to sign any new contracts yeah , but then you know you got all those families too .
You know all those people that have kids and everything and they're off and then you got back to school .
Yep , which is an impactful thing , right ?
I mean , retailers are usually profiting off all this I've got a target right now and the shelves are bare . Yeah , I , I swear , yeah , it's just like all the lamps and yeah , five by seven dorm room rugs and all that are just like gone man that
spreads . Yeah , yeah , it's all out , it's all out of stock . So retailers are doing great during these holiday seasons , but a lot of other service toptype businesses it's difficult . It's difficult to engage , it's difficult to get attention .
And then it's hard on the team because the team is putting really two or three times the effort on trying to reach out and coordinate for people that are out of office . It's disrupting , sure . And then you guys might as well count end of November , like starting with Thanksgiving , I know , and you might have a week in December at the very beginning .
But then it's done .
Productivity goes to shit . Yeah , I mean you got that one week in November and you got at least a week in December or more , and it's . Yeah , there is a seasonality and people need to plan for that . There's no doubt about it .
They do , they just need to be aware . And then you got from mid-December through probably after the first week of January , because people celebrate the New Year's and New Year's Eve , right , and everybody takes off , and then you get kind of back to business . It always seems like the hottest After the first of the year .
Yes , it's like boom .
Booy . Yes , it's like boom , yeah , the work just flows in , it does just buy stuff , just start signing it up . You know what I'm saying , I know .
And then that causes you know once obviously , the more contracts you start signing and sales that you have , the more work you got to do to execute on it well , depending on the business , like , if you're talking , yeah , some of the b2b businesses that we're in , yeah , that's true , so true .
And then you're like , oh God , now .
I got to do this , yeah , and then you got to staff up to take care of everything . And then June hits before you know it and you're kind of back in . You're like okay , right , you know , I mean . So you got to kind of just understand that .
And I think you , you know , obviously there is a thing about your revenue , making sure you're good , you can sustain through those things . But I think the bigger thing to me is , like when you're meeting with the team , the morale . Yes , you know , because it's easy to forget in the months of june and july .
You know , end of november and december , you start feeling like you start having these fears start creeping up about the business and you might make some rash decisions like letting some folks go or whatever it might be yeah , your stress shows up .
Yeah , from trying to meet payroll with reduced revenue . That's right .
That's right yeah , if you hadn't planned before . Right , you know . And then and then you start wondering if you're in the right business in the right market and whatever it might be . And I mean , you got a lot going on in your head , man .
I do second guess and everything I know . I'm sorry , man .
I guess it's just today , it's probably this moment . Do you ever second guess things ? Yeah , yeah , sure I do . Everybody does , I think so .
And this one thing I think that's a good point , though A lot of people like if you're an entrepreneur like one of our big topics that we were talking about just before we started the show is the lonely road as an entrepreneur . Right , I mean , because you need to , I think .
If you're in it A , if you're an entrepreneur right now and you have a business , you need to understand that you're not in a unique scenario about feeling lonely .
Yeah , there's millions of us out there , millions Right .
But we don't really talk about the low price of it and then you got . If you're thinking about getting in business , you need to kind of understand that you will be at a point where you're pretty lonely yes , in this scenario , because there are .
You know , as humans we do have fears and those things like sometimes it's difficult as an entrepreneur to be talking about that . I remember back in my history like there was a you know a certain period in my business like it was really lonely , but I couldn't even talk . That was before you came to work for swig white .
Oh yeah , you had a lonely time for you . You changed everything for me , though , man maybe unlonely ?
no , but I'm sorry , I didn't mean to interrupt you , but yeah , I remember that . I mean back in 88 , when I started my original company . That's today is why , group , one of the reasons I moved out of my small apartment and was in my two family house that I owned , where I had my office to an office was just to see other people .
¶ Entrepreneurial Challenges and Mindset
Absolutely , you know , just get up , get dressed . I put my suspenders and khakis on , tie and suspenders , no , and and my my tweed sport coat . I mean I was living in boston , yeah , I mean we cut our grass like that . Yeah , start , sure not . But uh , I'd go to the office and I and I got .
My first office was above Russ's Lunch , which was a little breakfast and lunch diner owned by a Greek guy named Costa , and it had this crazy cast of characters that were in the offices up above and it was fun , yeah , Well , you have to like , intentionally , proactively , get yourself engaged .
Yeah , you have to interact with people you do and it , you know , it really helped me a lot because it is lonely out there , you know , and a good , of course , a good partner , a good spouse who is interested in what you're doing and understands some of the stress , and all that's super helpful .
Right , business partner is really helpful absolutely absolutely part of business partner , you know well .
First , on the spouse thing , like , kind of going back to my story , like there was certain things that I couldn't speak to my spouse about because it just like it's so complex , right , like the things that are bubbling up in your conversation to your spouse have so much depth to them , like that they can't understand , right , they just get scared , they get
exactly that's what they just get scared , they get scared , that's it .
They're like well then , you should quit everything or well , some do I mean like my , my , of course I'm on , wife number three took me three times . That's right , right , which always reminds me that I'm number two for her . But , um , yeah , my first , my , my second wife was really like that , really you couldn't explain . I mean , her first reaction was fear .
Yeah , yeah , it just was .
That's just the way she was programmed by her upbringing yeah , a lot of folks you know , like in the , in the partner you're talking to , yeah , like like you say , like their upbringing I mean they might be afraid of not having security , because if they've been in a position where things have not been secure , put together , organized , I mean , and then you're
coming to the table with , like some chaos that's been going on in your business .
Yeah , like huge potential losses or obligations that you don't know how you're going to deal with .
Yeah , and business is mostly very high risk , right ?
Yeah , I mean , and so things are always kind of volatile , but but I mean , like , so you , you have to , as an entrepreneur , a know that it's okay that you're in that , because that's really what you signed up to be involved in , right , this is some sort of loneliness and solitude , yes , scenarios , and then , but then how ?
But , like to your point , how do you get yourself out of that showing up at places ? You have to be proactive , you have to have mentors . I think , like , in a big way , they'll absolutely can . Yeah , I mean just folks that you can talk to and get some inspiration from , and I think that you brought up a good point .
I mean , the external validation of what you're doing is important to sustain your motivation . I mean , I don't want to just say I'm just externally directed , but inside your company , if you have people , they're generally critical . Yes , okay , even if they don't say it all to you , that's right , okay , yeah , it's really what they don't say to you , right .
But you go outside , they think you're great , you know awesome , you know , and I think a big rule , you know , a big rule and I'll learn this a while back too is if you are having problems internally and you and you convey that , whether it's through your tone or your disposition or , obviously , your words .
Yes .
Like that shit really starts an impact of , of it spreads . Basically , if you go tell somebody , if somebody says , hey , how's your business going ? And you're like , oh man , I mean , man , I'm really struggling right now , yeah , trying to meet payroll . I have this debt , you know , not getting sales .
I wouldn't say that to anybody , but you I know , I know that's my point , though it's like , I'm not going to say that it's going to be good , absolutely .
Even if there's challenges .
If you do like it's that that negativity will spread real on the real quick it's , it's toxic , it's gonna kill you . You can't do it . Yeah , gotta remain . If you're the owner and the founder , you've got to remain optimistic . I mean , I just had this discussion with somebody yesterday in a business I'm involved with .
I said to the , to the founder , I said you know , I mean his morale has been good , he's been very positive . I said that's the most single , most important thing . Nobody cares about the rest of us . Okay , they don't really care . All they care about is you and what you're projecting out there .
And if you're projecting optimism , we can do it all that then it it's it's going to propel us .
It's almost like that's the number one thing an entrepreneur has to , has to do right , and that's a hard requirement that's actually a lot more challenging it has .
Then I think that I've , maybe even I'm even giving credit to right , like I mean your ability as an entrepreneur to to always relentlessly see the vision , the positive vision , right when you signed up to go , why you started it and began with Because as you start going through challenges , it starts knocking your own motivation and vision down .
And you can get lost in the weeds of that . And if you don't get your ass out of that and start seeing the light and the truth about what you're doing , you'll become your own self-toxicity .
It's true . I mean , I think you and I are pretty good at that Try to project a positive attitude , you know , and there's always something you can do . You know , that's sort of my thought , my motto . But in spite of that , we still have our moments too , and there's always something you can do . You know , that's sort of my thought , yeah , my motto .
But in spite of that we still have our moments . Hell , yeah Too , and I think if you're feeling like that , you know you may need to get out of there . Totally Okay , that's when you get yes , because you're going to do more damage than you're going to do . Good , you know what's worked
¶ Lessons From Nature
for me . A lot is , that is , I will get outside , like I get out , and I mean nature is a big thing for me . And this might sound a little corny , right , and I don't know if many people get it , but like there's been multiple occasions of where I've had that overwhelming , where I do , it's hard for me to see the my own vision that I've had .
But when I go out in nature and I just and I remember many instances looking at a tree and then hang with me for a second because this sounds , I mean I'm sounding really weird right now okay , you're getting trippy .
You weren't eating mushrooms while you were looking at that tree . I wasn't .
I was completely sober and and focused .
But I remember just going through this turmoil right and I couldn't I couldn't really talk to anybody because you're in that solitude position but watching tree and just understand , starting to understand , like watching the chaos of nature , because there's always something in nature like if you really stop and look at it like it's , it's always chaos , there's always
problems it's funny you say that because I was looking at ants the other day .
That's what I was just about to say and they're just like walking in this crazy . I'm like why did they do that ?
You're blowing my freaking mind right now . Swag , because that's my story is . I was looking at a tree and I started noticing the freaking ants everywhere , yeah , crawling up . I mean just busy . They're butting into each other , fighting . Then you got freaking other things come up trying to eat their ass , you know , and they're working relentlessly hard .
Yes , you know , and it's day in , day out , work , work , work , work , work . And then my revelation was shut your freaking face , you pansy ass about About my own problems and get to work .
Yes , everything's got to work . Doing something I put a post on LinkedIn the other day like that . It's like if you're not satisfied freaking , do something . Yes , even if it's a minor task , accomplish something . Do something . Yeah , okay , just action .
Take action like the ants do right yeah , Okay , Just action . Take action like the ants do right yeah . And here was another revelation I had . The second part was Eric , nothing's fair , Everything's out to get everything .
I never really had that feeling of unfairness that I was , you know , like why me ? Yeah , have you had that thought process ? Yeah , I have , I have .
Well , because there was a couple of instances in my career , in my business career , that where my intention and expectation was very positive and you know all those good sides that get those good things , whereas the other party , oh , I've had that feeling a million neck , we're very not like . It was really surprising , it's shocking , like yes .
I grew up and taught like don't hurt other people intentionally , right , right .
And they misinterpret your motivation and completely twisted that with students and with some people and organizations I worked with . Yeah , so then I was like why , why did this happen ? You know what I'm saying ? Yes , I have had that feeling completely .
But those ants taught me a good lesson . Is it really fair that a freaking bird comes up and starts gobbling about half of the freaking ant army ? I mean , it's just the way shit goes , bro .
There's always something else . Somebody survived , though didn't they Heck yeah . I was thinking that the other day I was sitting on , I sit in this front porch in my house . Well , first off , I had an ant super highway that went right down this expansion joint in my driveway right unbelievable , okay , they found the best , the path of least resistance yeah , I .
I , after about four applications of raid , I think I finally took care of that . But now I was sitting there and I got these chipmunks that live in this little retaining wall . You've got this long retaining wall goes down my driveway . It's probably 200 feet long and I watched these chipmunks on that .
And then we've got these freaking hawks that have wingspans of like five feet . Okay , and you know that chip , that chipmunk's out there walking around . It was sunny the other day and I thought to myself does that guy worry that , like at any second , this frigging hawk could come down and just grab him and eat him ?
Yeah , you know why isn't he scared even to go out of his hole ? Okay , because he's got to live , he's got to live .
It's time to live , he's got to live . It's time to . It's it's morning time , it's time to get up . Or if you don't get out and eat and find you a nut , you're I mean you're gonna die anyway . Right , but you go out there and but that's when they're always freaking like , you know , side side . You know head turning man looking for that hog to come kill .
Yeah , exactly . So there's a , there's this
¶ Strategic Growth Without Capital Dependency
. I think the the moral to is like everything and even about design . There there's threats , you know . There's there's survival , you know you . And then if you have this vision , like you have to , you have to be like the chipmunk . You've got to get up and get after it . Like the vision is to survive .
The vision is is to build and create right , raise up , you know , and do things improve .
Yes , yeah , man evolve , yeah adapt but see , I think a lot of times we have these discussions and you and I sort of see things . You know , a certain way , right , we're very similar in in in certain aspects of how we approach business and entrepreneurship . Some people out there have a different idea . Yeah , their idea is I just want to make a lot of money .
Yes , yeah , okay , let's get into that goal . And so you know . You know there's an inherent lack of realism that goes along with that . I think for a lot of people , you know , it's just like .
I looked at a business plan this morning and it was a pitch deck rather , but it was pretty detailed and one of the things in that they're out looking to raise some capital and one of the things I noticed is the two founders are paying themselves 150 K a piece each and their projected loss for the year is like two , 70 . Yeah , okay , yeah .
That to me seems completely unrealistic . If they didn't pay themselves anything and had jobs or whatever and we're doing this business on the side they could have made 30 grand and not sell any of their company .
Okay .
And so I don't know it . Just , it seems like there's an inherent lack of realism Some people have out there about what the likely struggle is going to be . You know , I mean we've talked about this before . I mean , I think pop culture has done a huge disservice .
It's all about the idea and capital raising versus the implementation of it and proof of concept that people will pay for it and it works . Um , but it's it's . You know , I think if you've got the attitude that you're willing to tough it out , that you know you're not going to make any money for a while , you're going to somehow scrap and survive .
Um , um , you have a much better chance you really do and you learn it , you learn and yeah , you know , I think that's like there is , you know , and I mean I know we've talked about it , but like there's two different roads to start a business these days , you know , one is is that age-old traditional ? Start it , work it , build it .
I mean you just start with nothing . Start with strapping , bootstrapping . Don't suck all the money out of it . Put it back into hiring and buying stuff .
Yeah , yeah . And then there's that other one of where I'm going to go out and raise capital , get myself a salary . You know the investors might want that because they want you focused , you know . And there's all these , you know , but the investors win on that side .
The best right that in the private equity firms and the VC firms and all that stuff and eventually the public market . You know there's a lot of winning going on in the big folks .
I think that you know the disservice is is if you're , if you're an entrepreneur that has a vision and you have a market demand that you're trying to meet and you're willing to sacrifice financially everything . That's really the definition of an entrepreneur from my standpoint . But you get pulled into this gamification . Really , yes , that's what it is .
It is , and you could really do yourself a huge disservice with that because you're not able to . Even if I had a vision and I raised capital for it , it's not my vision anymore , immediately when I get that money you know , the golden rule he or she who has the gold rules is the bottom line .
But you know , I guess I've sort of learned over the years that a lot of this stuff depends on , like , when you take that money . If you do that too early on , it's one thing . If you do it later on , when you've got the discipline and the systems and the culture , it really can then fuel growth and it has a much greater probability of working out .
I mean , that's the difference in private equity versus venture capital . Yep , right there , you know , private equity invests in established businesses that have a growth trajectory .
Yes , and they usually don't come in , and they don't usually come in and start making decisions . They want you investing .
Well , hopefully they don't .
Right right .
I mean , there's obviously some bad apples , but there's really some good apples in there too , where they really are putting money in to fuel it .
So that they can get a return .
They have faith in the founders and the people running the business .
The ones that are strategic buyers , that see your business as a platform for growth . Those are the good ones . Yeah , for growth , those are the good ones . Yeah , you know where they see you as the vehicle to that's it grow .
Yeah , if they just see you as one cog in a in a collection where somebody else is the vehicle for growth , that's not gonna probably get what you want . As far as accomplishment of your vision . Yeah , in the long run , I think yeah , you know , and it's .
I think the thing's funny , like my , my current experience of , after you know , starting a business or multiple and then having one that was able to to build up , an exit and sell , and then I'm back in the grind doing it all over again , which a lot of times I'm like right . I mean , just like two days ago I was messing around with our CRM .
I'm like am I seriously doing this over again ? Because the CRM is such a nightmare . It's critical for the business . Nobody does it right .
It's a team effort , 100% , everyone's got to believe in CRM 80% failure rate , Super critical though it could be your biggest asset you have . Yeah .
It's your scale , it's all right there and I'm just going . Am I really having to build freaking fields and criteria on where the lead source comes from for a lead ? I'm not gonna do . Yeah , you do , but I mean .
But you know , the funny thing is is like I don't know if it's you know , when we're talking about capital raising , like right now I don't want to raise capital necessarily because a , it takes so much time . Yep , it takes my time and my attention away from your primary business .
Yes , and then I turn around and if that gets in , it just immediately complicates everything . Now I'm not . Now I'm spending more time about with my investment group and trying to explain the vision to them on a continuous basis yes and then I gotta worry about the next round of investment I need . And then I got to hire a bunch of folks .
I mean it's like double the impact of overwhelming , of running this business , Whereas if I can just kind of keep creeping this thing up step by step and we learn , we sell , we learn , we sell , we learn , we sell . And then to your point , I do see down the road in maybe nine months or a year to where I'll be .
At this point we might still be not where we really want to be profitability-wise , but if I could bring in some fuel , some jet fuel , take less equity or give out less equity , continue to have the team here that's running this business and we that fuel helps us go to the next level .
you can see the path yeah you know , it's kind of like I was talking online the other day or read this article . Um , it was all about incremental growth and development .
Um , I can't remember the term they use , but basically the the thesis of it was that doing things a little bit at a time when it comes to like developing a city , is better than here's the neo-urbanism approach . Create city in cornfield , okay , the evolutionary process , and it ends up with a better result than it does designing it with a clean sheet of paper .
It's kind of like that with a business and what you're talking about . It's the same thing . Well , in the beautiful , you know you've got to go step by step . You know , doing that , that CRM , yeah , man , getting that figured out instead of going out and raising $8 million .
And now and then you hire somebody CSM experts , right , yeah , exactly . And then you , just then you have a bunch of folks that they lose complete control over it . Yeah , and they don't understand the market . They're not . They're not put in a corner to figure things out because it's for the well-being of their business and their own payroll .
Yes , you know , I mean like it just causes so much backlash and problems , and you know , and then you're just playing .
Now you're in a game of salesmanship of where you're constantly raising capital , you know , selling the vision to the next person , to the next person , and you know , I mean it's just , it's chaotic , it is you know and , like you said , the biggest problem is that it takes you away from your primary mission .
Which , by the way , if you're an entrepreneur and you have that vision , you want to be in and helping with the business , you want to be in the trench and , to your point , if you had a blank sheet of paper to build this city and this cornfield and you got this idea of this culture and then you fire , holes it out , it's not going to have a culture .
That's the same , as , little by little , fayetteville has a culture to it , yes , a very deep and grand culture , of which it keeps itself in that realm and everybody's just participating . Keep Fayetteville funky , yeah , but it stays funky because everybody wants to keep it funky .
I think Penguin Ed's daughter is the one who coined that term . Oh really , yeah , yeah , but it's Liz Slate . You know her ? Uh-uh , okay , I'm surprised she worked for a lot of these marketing big companies around here , but anyway , I think she's the one .
But yeah , it's got a bona fide culture . Some of the other areas I don't even know what their culture is .
I mean , there's not a thing . You know , rogers is a great example of that .
I mean , we're trying to replicate DFW area here in my mind , you know , and Rogers has all these distinct little pockets Like downtown you can't compare to the lake area , which you can't compare to the industrial area , which you can't compare to pinnacle , where we are , yeah Right , which is like freaking Disney world , all right , it is gated communities and
everything's new and shiny and yeah it's nice yeah . But there's not . It doesn't have a defined culture . Yeah , personality , I see what you're . Yeah , we're getting at . It's just all we have here is like this crazy growth . But I want to go back to something for a minute .
I want to go back down in the weeds on on , uh , what you're talking about with the CRM ? Yeah , because I've had businesses that you were involved in and you know how critical that is , and it just completely relies on sending out outbound email and people who say it doesn't work . I'm like you're out of your friggin mind . It's bullshit .
Yeah , okay , um , and yet , in spite of years and years of evidence that you have predictable response rates to certain emails , the company has no companies . Some companies that do this make no serious effort to grow their list . What is that about ?
It's like if I get a quarter of a percent response rate to my emails and I send out 100,000 of them and I get 250 sales or whatever that is . I don't know what that translates into . Yeah , okay , why wouldn't I ? Um ?
build my list , so obviously aggregating your list .
Yeah , so I could . So I could increase . I there's no . I see so many companies that understand that . Well , first off , they don't use it enough because they're all afraid they're going to turn into spammers or be gone of . But the other issue besides the frequency is just building the list . Yeah , yeah , build your
¶ Maximizing Email Marketing and List Growth
list .
So you mentioned two things like don't send enough emails , right , the answer to that is just you have to produce relevant , useful content .
Exactly so . It's not just marketing content . Yeah , it's perceived as having other value to the receiver .
Yeah , people don't unsubscribe things that are relevant to them , right and helpful for them . So you have to have that foundation to begin with yes , I agree , and not become too sales . But you can trickle in sales things and that's when that sales messages really work , is when you're trickled in on top of really great stuff .
You got their attention . Yeah yeah , there's something in it for them .
But that content is really like you already have that content . It's about building the practice of bringing that to the forefront . Everybody in the company has a that to the forefront . Everybody in the company I know has a message to help your customer out . Yeah , and you can't .
I think a blockade for people developing that content releasing it is they don't want to give away their secrets oh , I never had any fear of that .
I'm sure you didn't either no , I don't .
I had somebody the other day that said , well , wait a minute , won't give me like listen . Let me tell you , yeah , like number one , if I'm putting out my secrets or my business insight , like people are not paying me because I know something , I have it . I have this secret box .
They're paying me for the time in my expertise because I can do it 10 times faster than they can .
Right or better ?
And better . Yeah right , that's why they're paying me . That's the value , is the time ? Yeah , I know it's not about time .
I've never understood that . Yeah , I've had people come to me with I want you to review my business plan , but they first signed my NDA . I'm like I'm out . Yeah , I'm not going to .
Yeah , you don't have a secret box .
Yeah , I'm sorry If you're afraid to share it with me and I'm going to steal it . No , yeah , I'm out .
Yeah , but you know the thing about the list building and I'm actually doing this right now within my company is you know , we're all like how do we get more subscribers ? And like there's one missing fundamental thing and I really want the team to learn this .
Like I mean , or else I'd just do all this myself and there's not enough time , but it's like you've got to have an excellent landing page of why somebody wants to give you your email address . Yeah , if you don't have that and it's not the best in the world , it can be- All your efforts are in vain .
Yeah , the landing page is super , super , super critical .
I get it and you got to be able to see where I enter it in and I got to see a picture of what I'm going to get in the email and I've got to know that there's value to it .
I think some people who create this stuff in their businesses or ones they work for , they're so close to it they cannot put themselves in the seat of the customer . Yeah , and so they know everything it does .
They know I gotta look down in that far corner where it says options to figure out that that's where the freaking address of the business is , or whatever . Yeah , you know what I mean . Yeah , instead of having like contact information or whatever , I mean I just , you see this over and over .
They're so close to it that they can't really um if they can't remove themselves to be a new person .
Yes , like if they hear about podcast videos , they come to the site like there should be contact information , like just what is podcast ?
videos . What do we do ? Just just hammer ? How do we help ? How do we help customers ? You know our clients and it's all simple stuff .
Yeah , you know there's people that that , uh , they get it figured out , you know . And then I think the other thing about the list growth is you know you have to have somebody that's out there looking to grow that list , and where do you go buy a list from ? How do you partner with other people ?
I've had bad experience buying and running lists . I'm sure you have . Oh yeah , building your own is always better and there's a lot of tools you can use today to scrape the internet and do stuff . And then you test and if it's bad you clean it out .
That's it . It goes back to your CRM , yes , and making sure good data in constantly . Everybody that touches that tool has to be behind that vision , if you don't use it yourself .
They're never going to do it as the leader , you know . I go back to CRM . We had a CRM .
It's why I grew back in the early 90s running on a wide area network and I say early , maybe as early as 1990 , 91 , on a wide area network that linked all our offices and when you put a name in there it would search automatically for dupes and go is this the same person ? And it would give you all the options . Fred White had that figured out .
That was critical to your success . Oh god , it was so critical . And people . But see , I think a lot of people are more worried about keeping bad out than they are getting good in . That's another preoccupation with crms is I don't know what you mean by that .
What does that mean ?
meaning they're more concerned about getting bad names out of the list than they are getting good names onto the list . I'm like get the good names onto the list . They're bad . Okay , so they're bad .
Yeah , yeah you know what I mean ? Yeah , you can clean that out .
Yeah , but our obsession is to add more names . I'd rather spend the same energy on getting new that I would clearing out . It's like a sort of a false priority . You know what I mean .
Yeah , and then you can you know , on that , I mean I remember back with the swag white like as we were cleaning up , like we we migrated a system to another one . I mean that was a massive effort but right like , but once we got it in and we could start organizing , I mean you can tag , you can run reports .
I mean like there's a lot of power behind that crm and it helps you scale , so it keeps everybody tight . I mean I don't know how many businesses don't have a crm I .
It's just mind-boggling . Well , because your current customer is your best customer . Yes , so as soon as anybody buys anything from you , those are the people you want to be marketing to the most . Right , that's right , that's exactly right . I mean Keeping them engaged , yes , like you know , and coming up with new things .
Those people can buy , because they already trust you and they bought once . That's it so yeah . So true , that's my other thing . I love just coming up with new stuff to sell the same clients . That's always our customers .
That's always been something , and it doesn't have to be anything super brand new and grandiose . It just needs to be a little bit of an add-on , just another role of added service . But you've got to let them know about it . Yep , they've got to know that that's available .
And I want to take this and tie it all back into the seasonality topic we were talking about first . Yeah , because if you know that there are certain seasonality aspects to your business , do you just accept that and go okay , well , my revenue is going to be less in July , or whatever , love this .
Or do you say you know what , historically , our revenue is less than july . What the hell are we going to do this year so that doesn't happen to us ? Yes , okay , what action can we take in anticipating that and do that in starting that in april , yes , and in may , yes yes , yes , and then you're ready
¶ Combating Seasonality in Business
. I , I , you know that was really taught to me early on . I worked , you know I worked for bike shops early . So the first bike shop I worked at was a hole in the wall in a basement of a by glass place . It was terrible . It was in a back alley , all right , but I couldn't go in there .
Since I was a kid , as soon as I got my driver's license , I went to work for the big store um that sold Schwinn and Raleigh . Yeah , owner had three stores , maybe four , I don't remember now , but it was on the main road . It was a really nice retail environment . You know , we had like 10 or 12 guys in there . We had uniforms . Okay , it was a .
It was a , a serious business . Okay . The third guy I worked for recruited me directly , called me up at that place and said I've heard good things about you , I want you to come to work for me . He ended up having 10 stores . He had a mail order business . He had a touring company .
We were in products made in Taiwan to our spec that copied name brand products . It was early at that . But my point is this guy's name was don humphries . So all the bike shops I worked at now . One of them sold motorcycles and stuff to you know limited amount of that . Um , then the next one was only bicycles .
The guy had 10 stores , he was only bicycles . But he said you know what the winter sucks . I mean we would be . We had such high volume , we could buy stuff cheaper than anybody else and we were relentless marketers on the radio . It was a blast .
But the thing he did is he said you know what we got to combat seasonality , we started selling cross country skis in the winter , the build-up to christmas , promoting cross-country skiing in freaking st louis . I mean , think about it , okay , the weather's basically the same as it is here , yeah , yeah , okay , there's not that much opportunity for it .
But it's like he wasn't gonna just lay down and accept the fact that our business dies in january every year because there's a big build-up to christmas . And then it was just like you know , yeah , we're gonna freaking sell , we're gonna start selling cross-country skis in september and we're gonna sell everything we can to promote cross-country skiing .
Nice , that was my first illustration of a model to combat seasonality in the business and it worked . And it worked . I mean it certainly helped us . Yeah , we stayed in business . Okay , yeah , we're thinly capitalized . Yeah , I mean , this guy was so thinly capitalized .
I remember several times you'd be working away and the power would go off and the union electric car would like shoot out of the parking lot at high speed because they just cut us off Because Don hadn't paid the bill . It was just on a shoestring . Yeah , okay , yeah .
But yeah , I mean , I think a lot of businesses , if they looked at that , they would start thinking about it differently . What can we do ? What do we need to sell ? Now ? That's going to combat that retailers have done .
Walmart has done a fantastic job with that , right . I mean , like they , they probably have 20 30 different events that happen every year , right ?
and they sort of string that all together in this giant model . So there's always something .
Yes , back to school . Valentine's , easter , mother's Day , father's Day , backyard cookout , fourth of July . I mean , they have , over the years , just built this very fantastic plan and can you imagine the amount of coordination and work you have to do to have the merchandise hitting the shelves at those exact moments , along with the marketing , the productions ?
Yes , it's a huge endeavor and that's a huge . But I mean , but they've , but that's how they keep rolling right , that's how they keep the , because they're paying attention to that stuff .
They're not just dying , they're not just saying you know , I was in a restaurant the other day . You know , restaurants in fayetteville die in the summer because we got 30 some odd thousand students are gone , and then half the faculty and staff is gone . Yeah , which is small compared to the students , right .
But I thought to myself , what are these people doing to increase their business in the summer ? And you know what ? The answer I came up with is what ? Absolutely nothing , nothing . There's no sales , there's no promotions , there's no . Hey , let's have a special party on thursday nights . There's nothing , there's just not a damn thing . Just sit there , yeah .
And die sit there don't increase your instagram posts , don't do anything , don't send out direct mail , don't get on the radio , don't do emails just die , just die .
You know , the funny thing is we really were just talking about this recently here at this company and I won't call anybody out but really the whole team was just like , well , this is just because of this , you know the vacations , and it's just like that's the answer . Yeah , no , you know , and that's the job as the entrepreneur is to say wait a minute .
And I mean I said that exact thing . I'm like , okay , next year we're not going to go through this reality again . Like how do we get ready for that and promote ourselves through with a new product offering ?
well , yeah , I mean something the car wash business . I got a friend that's got a whole lot of them , all right , and obviously it's like proliferating around here insanely . I mean we've got three or four new ones in Fayetteville alone .
One of them is his , but it was changed dramatically by the subscription model that took the peaks and valleys out of their business . That was just horrible . Yep , that's why everybody's getting in the car wash business now . Yep , because's why everybody's getting in the car wash business now . Yep , because you know . So you're saying what can we do ?
Well , that's what we can do . We just charge everybody every month and they forget that their credit card's being dinged . Yep , yep . And you know , some months they're going to burn a lot of car washes and other months they're not going to do any car washes because they're not even here or whatever .
You know about that like that's such a a a critical leveling out of that problem , but it's a very simple answer to it it is and think how long it took people to figure that out .
How many car washes are in this country ? When did that model really start ?
yeah , that long ago no , no , it's like a few years ago . I remember the first . I remember one of the first ones membership . Yeah , oh , that makes sense . I can spend only ten dollars per month versus fifteen dollars for one car wash I'm in .
Yeah , why doesn't somebody do that with restaurants ? They tried with that that dollar slice club , but the problem with that was you had to pay in order to be able to buy the pizza . That's not the . The idea , maybe , is a certain amount of money per month and you just eat . You can eat all the damn pieces yeah .
You just eat it .
And people usually change the model . They'll take advantage of it the first month and then they'll start . You'll start graduating .
Minimum 12 month contract . Yeah , yeah , so you can't just cut it off ? Yeah , you can't just cut it off . Yeah , I mean , it's like a gym membership . Yeah , except it's pizza .
That's it , man who doesn't like pizza more than working out .
I know I do .
Yeah , I do too , man , but yeah , so there's always things . It's amazing how long it takes people to really think about these issues and take some actions to to stall them off . You know , I think it's a very interesting . So many small business owners just they just lay down and die and they accept it .
I mean , in the home building business I certainly saw that before . It's like , well , interest rates are high , so we can't sell
¶ Action and Innovation in Marketing
anything . Now how about find people who buy shit that don't have any interest ? Do you ever think about that ? People that have cash , yeah .
What do they want ? How do you , I mean , and then start thinking about how to market to them ?
relentlessly and how to build a product . I mean , marketing includes what's the product they want , right , yeah , but yeah , you change direction , yep . That's so true , pivot , oh pivot , as we say right , that's right .
I mean , yeah , there's , there's instead of just letting the external environmental circumstances dictate to you um your success or failure no , it's so true .
it's so true , man . I mean , you know , right now I feel like that , the business that I'm in it's at that relentless marketing time , like like we've done some right , right , yeah , he does a really good job . It's like brand name . How do we turn it up ?
Like , yeah , really like , go with multimedia approach in the mass approach , along with direct one-to-one , you know , and that type of stuff .
But there's a , it's interesting , there's a certain point to where you can really just turn that engine up and start driving , you know , like soliciting and driving them , promoting that business back into your business because you're ready to handle something . Right , right , yes , so with marketing promotions , you hit your point .
You got to have a product to reach out to them . So you need to see the cycle , get the seasonality coming , you have to back it up a quarter . What's the product ? Let's face this thing what ?
does the market ? What's the capacity we need to be able to ? Yeah ?
Yeah , and then does everybody understand this pricing model ?
Does everybody understand how to receive the phone call ? Are we all aligned to that ? And then hammer , I just got an idea for your business . What's that my idea ? So I think about my friend with the car wash . It's okay , you know how he promotes . He comes into a town . It's just free for like a month or two . Yeah , absolutely free .
What if you gave a free podcast away ? Yeah , just anybody . You could say look , here's your , you just get one . Yep , yes , there's a cost to that , but a certain number of those are going to go wow , this was great , yeah I love the process . Yeah , I love the people . I I love that final product I got . We sent it out . We got a great reaction .
You want to do that ? I'll do that . I mean you could pick up one out of five , one out of ten , whatever the nut . I mean you got to figure out if that's worth it to you . Yeah , but that could be a really good model .
Yeah , and just do that like in demonstrating , yeah , and especially in a season where it might be a little bit down .
Yeah , you've got the capacity soon yes , right , yes , maybe you don't do that all the time . That's just right at this point in time . Yeah , just a blitz , yeah , blitz of freeness . I I think that could be a really good thing to try . Yeah , that's good , let me get a shot .
All right , yeah I love it for that man .
It just came to me , but because I was thinking about the car wash thing . Yeah , it's like my friend says nothing is a better marketing than I experienced it and it was good . That's it , and that's where you get the real word of mouth instead of I believe in word of mouth but I do nothing .
I do absolutely nothing well , to have word of mouth you have to have an experience . Yes , to tell people about , gotta get there in the first place .
That's it . That's it , man , but I think yeah , I think a lot of businesses . The owners need to . Honestly , they got to get back more involved and get engaged .
Yeah .
Maybe they get discouraged because they got nobody to talk to , I don't know . But they sort of retreat into inaction .
You can't do that . That's your first . I mean , like I heard a saying the other day , it's so simple Stop moving , you're dead , you know . I mean it's true for health . You know you shared that with me a long time . I mean you're always freaking , doing something right , but I mean , like now , it goes for health . It goes for health . It goes for vehicles .
If you don't drive a vehicle , it's going to deteriorate . Yes , it does everything if you don't mow your yard .
They used to have too many cars at once . The batteries were dead and the tires were flat .
Yeah it just isn't that interesting yeah passivity , lack of action , it things just die , they deteriorate , they look like yes , yeah , yeah . And so the answer to all this is like , just like when we're talking about the beginning , about the ants , like the really the reality is , is that everything has to be in positive motion .
You have to constantly be pushing and it gets hard , right , I mean like sometimes . I mean like you get tired , you get exhausted , you get , you know you have negative things that happen and it takes your attention .
What's the alternative , though ?
The alternative is to die or you take action .
Yeah , Because it's going to be negative if you don't take action and you just getting lazy . Yeah , you're not going to be happy like that , or you get depressed and sad .
Yeah .
You know , and you , you're really good Like you know , and you , you're really good like you know . All these things we're talking about , like , even like building the email list , like , what are these ? I think one thing that's challenging for entrepreneurs is like you have so much going on . Where do you focus ?
yes , where do you take the action ?
oh yeah , the priority setting is is a huge deal you know and and we went through a few episodes about mark zwags like checklists and finances , right , but you got finance , you got marketing , you got human resources , there's all these things . Then you have the experts that come in and then people learn from big corporations .
They come into a small business , they try to implement big corporation things that don't work in small business . But you as the entrepreneur , you're thinking , okay , somebody else has it figured out , I'm going to read this book , I'm going to apply this . But else has it figured out ? I'm gonna start , I'm gonna read this book , I'm gonna apply this , you know
¶ Entrepreneurial Growth and Storytelling
. But the reality to it is is that you know it's really a simple thing of some very key things that you take action on . Some things have to go to the back burner , some things need to move up to the front . If you know , like I in my , what I zero back into is is sales . Amen to that , brother . You know what I'm saying . It drives everything .
Dude , it does . It drives everything . You know what I'm saying ? I hate to give up a single revenue dollar too . The MBA syndrome is well , we don't make any money on that , so we're going to cut that . I'm like you , cut it . We lose $150,000 a year on year on that , yeah , but how much overhead does it pay ? 200 000 okay . So we cut that out . Now .
We lose 200 000 . That's great . Now we're out . You're brilliant , okay , you're so freaking brilliant .
That's it that's it there . There's there's levels and there's there's uh , you know timelines of when you need to start with , but my opinion opinion is is I'll let the if somebody buys me , let them cut all the things and get down to their profitability . If that's what they want to do , yeah , but for me , I like to see that revenue come in .
Man , I love it all . I love every bit of that .
Yeah , exactly , I know that is something I've fought people on so many times the professional manager approach versus the entrepreneur approach yeah , and then it's like where do you invest money ?
and my thought is like , whatever I think about investing money in this , in this company , like , does it tie to sales , does it ? Tie to bringing back something like do I ? you know , one of the big things in the in the moments that we're in , is is like okay , we , we drove sales , we build our team around that .
Now , if we're selling bigger clients and it's like I don't want to get to , I know I can get to a certain level of client , but I know that that demand is going to be like they're going to have an expectation , yes , and this particular side of the market only has this much expectation , right .
So I fill in the hole of somebody that can handle the next level's expectation .
Yeah .
Because then I'm going to be ready to go out and start selling to that level Right .
But I don't want to sell somebody something and then have a bad experience because you're not ready for it yeah .
Yeah .
But it is an art though it yeah , yeah , but it's , it's , but it is an art though . I mean , sometimes you do have to do that , but you know , maybe you got time , once you do , to get ready to deliver on the expectation you did and you have to , you have to kind of gut feel that out like are we ready or it ?
I mean , you know and I think some of that comes with experience , right , uh , and and already have done some things . But I mean , you know , to the other model about raising capital , they'll raise all this capital and do all this at one time , yes , and waste a lot and waste .
So much , so much time . We look at these electric motorcycle manufacturers and it's like they raised $ million dollars and burn through it in two years or whatever . I'm like how do you even ? Do that ? How do you even do that ?
yeah , of course . You know well the game is that they try to get some sort of product that has a lot of opportunity and they sell it out on an idea that somebody else has the money to pour into it , and then it goes these next levels , next levels . But that game is so risky , man , oh my god .
It is like nobody hears about all the other ones that didn't make it , yeah , and they , then all the micro investors that put their money in the bad investments , you know , and then they're just and no one has control .
What I don't like about investing is is like I don't ever hear about progress , like , yeah , I might be invested in certain companies or whatever , but I'm like what's ?
going on . You've got to inject yourself . I mean , yeah , that's my experience . You can't just let it go . You've got to . You know , you got to keep throwing yourself into it , um , to figure out what the hell's actually going on there . Well , look , we're running out of time . It's been fun , summer's still on .
I'm off next week to already a board meeting , so I'm gonna have to roll solo in this puppy . Right , you could also be at that board if you so chose well , yes , yeah , because you'll be out of town .
It's the same , I'll be there remotely , though okay , yeah , so we're gonna be off next week and then the weekend , you know summertime's fishing time for me , like people , don't forget that , like man , I'm gonna be on a river we're taking a two week road trip . After that , we don't even know where we're going that's awesome .
So what are you ? Are you taking an rv ?
we do it every year just jump in an rv and go . No , we've had all the rvs , we're done with that . It's like shit . I'll stay in a nice hotel . I'm sorry , you know . I've been feeling that myself .
It's like it's too much trouble .
My rvs were always broken .
I always needed to do stuff with them and you have to go set them up , you have to plan ahead , I mean planning ahead on a spot it takes , you could be like months out and they're sold out where you want to go , yeah , yeah , and then you got to know which spots are good and then all that , you book all that , and then the weather is terrible and you're
driving a big RV and the freaking it's like a big sale Four miles to the gallon and cost me freaking 200 bucks a night to stay . Whatever I've , just the thing is depreciating faster than the Titanic sink .
Something's always breaking because you have a house on wheels . Yeah , exactly .
So now we're out of that . Uh , I'm never saying never to another one , like if I ever think if I ever got another one , I'd probably we , we would get like one of these like sprinters or something that's manageable . Yeah , yeah , with a diesel .
Um , that gets good fuel economy and you can get in and zip around .
Yeah , that's our thought process , but no , we're going to go somewhere . We used to go to New Mexico and California , colorado , places like that in the summer . We don't know where we're going to go this year . We may go visit some friends . We may head up north , where it's cooler Nice . We may go to the beach . We haven't decided yet .
Son sonya drives , so that makes my life a lot easier , actually , do you ?
feel comfortable about that , like I can't , do you really ? I can't , great , I can't ride shotgun man .
She's a great driver . It's amazing really . Yeah . So anyway , that's a we're . We're gonna be off for a little bit . We may have to recycle some content out there to our listeners , maybe so , but well , I mean , or maybe I'll just I'll start inviting people yeah , is that okay ?
yeah , I mean you , you're the man here . No , you are . This is the mark zwag podcast no , it's not .
It's as much yours as it is mine . So invite your guests , all right , and uh , plow ahead . But um , in the fall we've got a , we're going to be bringing some new guests on that I think are going to be very interesting for our listeners . Cool , yeah , you mentioned one earlier today . It sounds really exciting .
We'll see if we can stray a little and make it relevant for our audience out there .
Speaking of , we get actually quite a bit of folks that are reaching out wanting to be on the guest . We love that . It's great meeting new to be on the guest Like . If we love that , yeah , it's great meeting new people we enjoy all across the country , you know , I mean yes , this thing .
I just want to emphasize that our listeners were not necessarily interested in one person , companies who are trying to sell something to our audience .
Yeah .
Oh , we want to see people who've done something yeah yeah and have a good story to tell that's right that's what we're looking for .
It's about entrepreneurs , right ? Yeah , it's about advice to them , like how you fight this battle .
Yeah , it doesn't have to be big companies or anything like that .
Yeah , but we want people who've done something , not are just selling some trendy bullshit you know what I like I did and like I learned a lot , because that one guest we had I can't remember his name , but he's in Canada as the long company , right but he talked about that open book management , right . I mean , I actually started digging into that .
Right .
And we're doing it now in our business . Open book is great . It is great , man , I mean , every Monday starting to show all the team our financials and it's amazing how they react , right , Because they start thinking about the expenses of the company and what's going on and stuff . This is good content , man . I mean all these different experiences everybody has .
There's not a secret , specific way to start up a business and be an entrepreneur .
None , there's many different paths one can pursue . Yep , All right . Well , thanks everybody . Until next time . This has been another episode of Big Talk About Small Business . I just wanted to hear you say it for once , man . I'm just saying it like you . I would say it like this . Saying it like you , I would say it like this Until next week . We'll see you .
In the meantime , check out wwwbigtalkaboutsmallbusinesscom . I mean , I kind of like that , Thanks everybody .
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