What If It Did Work?
What If It Did Work?
Against The Giants: Small Biz Wins
Think beating big-box brands means slashing prices? Think again. We sit down with Sri Kaza, a seasoned strategist turned small business champion, to unpack how owners can outmaneuver giants with positioning, trust, and community—no coupons required. Sri’s journey from consulting and executive roles to leading a small-business lender gave him a front-row seat to what really drives resilience: relationships, not gimmicks.
We dig into why discounting attracts ghosts instead of fans, and how to build a customer base that shows up when it counts. From CrossFit-style community to a brilliantly curated convenience store beside a Tesla charger, we break down memorable examples of differentiation in action. You’ll hear how to communicate value, price with confidence, and design experiences people would fight to keep—so you stop racing to the bottom and start owning your niche.
The conversation also gets practical about navigating shocks. COVID and recent tariffs revealed a speed advantage small businesses rarely use: you can talk to customers today, pre-wire changes, test substitutions, and adapt without committees. We explore how to choose your customer, say no with conviction, and avoid self-sabotage on social media. Sri’s philosophy in Unconvention ties it together: align your business with your personal purpose, and profitability and fulfillment become reinforcing, not competing.
If you’re a founder, owner, or side-hustler craving a real playbook, this is a clear, grounded roadmap. Subscribe, share with a fellow builder, and leave a review with one shift you’ll make this week. Your community is your moat—let’s help you deepen it.
Join the What if it Did Work movement on Facebook
Get the Book!
www.omarmedrano.com
www.calendly.com/omarmedrano/15min
I never told no one that my whole life I've been holding back. Every time I load my gun up, so I can do for the star. I hear a voice like everybody.
SPEAKER_02:Another one of my favorite episodes, my favorite podcast, because yes, I'm biased. It's my own podcast. Going into season four already. Got with me a guy that I read his book, and I gotta say it's an amazing book because I completely believe in him. It's part of my story is being an entrepreneur. Being the David going up against the Goliath. Sri Kaza, he's a seasoned business leader, small business advocate with a background in corporate strategy, entrepreneurship. After earning his degrees from the University of Michigan and Northwestern, began his career at Pricewaterhouse Coopers and Blue Martini Software before advising Fortune 500 companies at McKenzie and Company. Later transitioned to executive roles, including leadership position at Viking Cruises, before shifting his focus to small business supports. Most recently, CEO of Ford Line Financial, scaled the private equity owner company and guided its sales through investors. What we're going to talk a lot about is his book, Unconvention, draws on this extensive experience, challenging conventional corporate thinking and empowering small businesses to succeed by staying true to their unique strengths. How's it going, brother?
SPEAKER_01:It's going great. Hey, thanks for the thanks for your intro. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_02:You're a heavy hitter, man. You went to like the two most prestigious schools in the Midwest, man.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I'm uh definitely very Midwest when you when you hear me talk.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, wrapping the Big Ten there.
SPEAKER_01:Yep, yep. Well, hey, I'm in LA today or these days, and we got the Big Ten out here now.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's that that's you USC and UCLA are are are part of the Big Ten, man. Uh yeah, I mean, let's throw out geography, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Right, right. I'm looking forward to a Big Ten game when Michigan comes to town to play the Trojans.
SPEAKER_02:Uh well, uh, Trojans have um, I I don't know if they've regret going that route, but you know, all those schools uh uh they're they're not doing too well playing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's tough. Well, Oregon's doing just fine.
SPEAKER_02:Well, yeah, well, with Phil Knight's money.
SPEAKER_01:Uh yes, exactly. It all comes down to money, and and I gotta believe there's money in LA. They just gotta do it right, they gotta put the right money into the right players.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, they've got Lincoln there. You know, he originally looked like he was gonna go LSU, but he he chose USC, so we'll see how. So far, it's a mixed bag for him. So I gotta say, man, I need an origin from you. Like you said, you grew up mid, were you from the Midwest?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Born in like uh Southfield, Michigan. Um, spent most of my uh childhood uh literally in the same neighborhood, didn't get 45 minutes away from the hospital I was born until after finishing University of Michigan.
SPEAKER_02:And just to go to the prestigious school, man, I mean the big house. So, but were your parents entrepreneurs? Because usually, I mean, you you wrote a book because a lot of people are like, Man, I I could never go into business because oh my goodness, yeah. Uh I mean, how am I ever gonna compete? I I heard that myself that there's no way, man. Why are you gonna do anything crazy like that? Uh you know, there's it's the origin story, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:The origin story is absolutely not from my childhood because my childhood, I was raised in a in a family. Uh a lot, my my parents have tons of brothers and sisters. My mom's a doctor, my dad's an engineer, um, immigrants from India um who valued education, science, and kind of you know, professional degrees and vocation. In fact, I grew up every uh relative or every person I ever met in any standing where my mom was there, she would be like, okay, this person, they're a doctor, let me introduce them to you. Or if the person wasn't a doctor, I didn't get introduced. So the value system was you just got to be a professional, work hard, put your head down, and make make enough money to take care of your family. Uh, I believed it my whole life. Um, I read at some point in time, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, had kind of changed my mindset on wait a minute, maybe I should have let my money make money for me. But a separate way to think about it for me was when my uncle, who's a doctor, left to the practice to go start a restaurant. And I think I was in my 20s and I was on my kind of career path to go get an MBA. Maybe I had already finished my MBA. Um, that was probably before I went to go get my MBA. And he said, you know, I was just tired of the politics, tired of dealing with administrators and all this stuff. And, you know, what I love is food, and what I love is um, you know, running a business and having my own domain. And sure enough, he kind of very happily and successfully transitioned to becoming a business owner um from having been a doctor. And you know, I'd gone a different path than the kind of whole doctor route too, but but it was not a path that anyone had ever pointed out to me was a better one or a more prestigious one than going to become a doctor. And um it really didn't really click for me until when I was doing my work with the with the uh tax credit company, and then later with the lender that was that was helping these small businesses. I have to get on the phone, talk to them, listen to them, understand their stories. What really turned me into a big advocate for the small businesses was to hear how important whatever they were delivering to people was in their lives. So just like my uncle, who just loved food and wanted to make sure or wanted to have some way to bring what he loved to the world, so many small business owners who are successful and resilient um really care about the thing that they're bringing to their to their customers or to their communities. Um, and that really touched me because you don't see that in the big corporations that I was working for and helping um for many years. They're worried about how am I growing, how am I going to get profits, where my revenue is coming from, how do I drive a customer into a more profitable channel, all this kind of stuff about making money for the business. But the small business owners are much more in touch with the the value that they brought. And so the the origin story for me was you know, I was almost blind to that for many, many years until I really got close to them um in doing in doing the uh couple of companies I ran that that supported the small businesses.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it's funny because you mentioned uh doctors. My ex-wife was uh pharmaceutical rep. So I would she would introduce me to all these primary doctors, and they're like, Oh, whatever you do, man, tell your kids this sucks. This is horrible. This is horrible. And you know, I it it came to you know, either you know, become a special, you know, go become a specialist, yep, as a doctor, because if not, you know, it's just a factory, and it's you're working non-stop. And uh uh one of them became my primer just because we did our well, I I did my master's at university miami and he got his doctorate, his medical degree there, but he would always tell me that he would even though you know he had limited time, he would always squeeze more time just to shoot the shit with me and and tell me that you know he he never thought his his life would be you know, really just as a a factory going like you know, not even being caring because he was like, Okay, I've got three minutes, okay. Uh nice to meet you. Yeah, here let me write your your script. And then you know, his office was always packed, and he's like and he he said he was gonna be paying just his his college, his medical degree bills until he was like probably at George Burns' age, right before it was time to retire, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's uh it's um look if you're gonna go work for a big company, they're gonna treat you like a cog in the wheel because you know, or cog in the machine, sorry, it's a big machine, and and doctors especially are falling to that space because these companies are just trying to optimize, right? That doctor is costing a whole bunch of money, and if he's working, you know, all 40 hours of the week that he gets to work and on all kinds of difficult but very doctor-oriented things, then they're gonna make money. But if he's got free time, if he's spending time thinking, or if you know he's shooting the shit with Omar, they're not making money, right? So it's a good job when they're like cracking the whip on you, because you don't have control of your own domain, uh, right? You're not even the king of the castle when you're working for some bigger corporation, despite having you know tons of education and despite being a very valuable person in the lives of the people that you help, you don't have any control in that space.
SPEAKER_02:Well, also, it's so sterile working for a major corporation, and my mom did it her whole life, and that was the path that my mom wanted me to, even though ever since I was a little kid, all the way through high school, and even when I went out of state, my mom was always like, Oh my gosh, you better graduate soon because I I hate doing this. And then to her, if the the path to success was, okay, well, you need to be calm, uh, you need to get this degree, you need to work. She worked for ATC, Mob Bell, Southern Bell, all that for like over 30 years. You need you'll find success doing the same thing I am and being completely miserable. That's awesome. Yes, that's yeah, and like, you know, even though I was I I found success as an entrepreneur, she never, she would always, it wasn't until very recent that my mom gave up on you know major corporation, major corporation, and she was like, You'll never be able to survive. And I was like, I was an entrepreneur for 20 years, and I I was I I came as a it was a franchise, but I was a pioneer into Florida for a new concept that going up against uh a corporation, and you know, everybody's like, Oh no, you you you you you won't last, you know. No, and it's a stock answer.
SPEAKER_01:Your your idea doesn't work because if it did, somebody else would have tried it.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, and why why do you think this major corporation is already all over the place? And to me, it was like, uh, you know, I'm stubborn, and I'm like, well, I I mean, if that was the case, then there would be no mom and pop burger joints. There there would only be, I mean, why, why, you know, there would only be McDonald's, or if if you wanted, you know, a a chicken sandwich, there would only be Chick-fil-A, and there wouldn't be like all these million concepts, and why you know, why would there be mom and pop burger uh like ice cream parlors and whatnot? And yeah, and that's I I love I love the book in the sense that you know the easiest thing to do you you just have to you you it one is the marketing, but two, you just having that personal touch. You know, when when you go to if if you went to a small convenience store, the owner's probably there, a wife, kids, and they're very personable because you know just being that and just having that warmth, I could only compete. I could I couldn't compete with discounting because that's the one thing that people think, yeah. Oh, I'm I'm gonna go up against the big giants. Let me just like you know, slash my prices.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's the worst thing to do. What you want to do is stand out and be different. You gotta have something which I call in the book positioning. And you're absolutely right. If you are a piece of the solution, or if you're a piece of the experience, you are by nature just different than the others. And so if you're in a business where you're interacting with customers or people know that you're around or part of what they experience when they either buy or use the service, now all of a sudden your personality, the things that you care about, the things that you focus on become important. And you may actually turn off a few customers who don't want to have a uh like a that personal experience. They want something impersonal. Great. McDonald's is gonna be in business all day long. Don't worry about them. Go be somebody who you are, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you'll have enough customers who like you. You don't need the ones who don't want your personality, you don't need the ones who need those discounts. In fact, if ever if anything you do is don't gravitate to the ones who are desperate for discounts because that's not sustainable. What's sustainable is being yourself or working, you know you gotta be better and improve every day, but working towards things that you want to improve on, we're going towards things that you care about.
SPEAKER_02:But three, even if you go with the discounting approach, it it's like a prostitute. These people are only they're not they're not raving fans. Oh my goodness, they're not customers. Yeah, once you pull that offer, whether it's wacky Wednesday or whatever bullshit promotion you throw out there and you cannibalize yourself, and and you're you're you're like at the you're not even making a profit, you're breaking even, which is still losing money. Once you realize, hey, okay, the place is my place is slammed, I've got the business. You pull that offer, those are ghosts, those those those weren't fans. They were there, they were only there for the discount. Yep. They weren't there for the experience, they they weren't there because you you're you're unique. No, they were just there to save a dollar.
SPEAKER_01:Yep, yep. And if you can't make money where they're thinking they're saving a dollar, then you're in trouble, right? You have to be offering something that people want. You know, one of the things I learned during COVID, so COVID was tough on everybody, tough on my business. Um, you know, we were lenders, so we had a whole bunch of money in the hands of small businesses that couldn't pay us back when they got shut down. Um, but so many of these small businesses struggled to kind of bounce back up. What I learned in the years after, as I started working with the ones that made it through, was that the ones that made it through had customers that went out of their way to support them. You know, it's not you're not going to go out of your way to support McDonald's. You're not going to go out of your way to support Walmart. But if you've got a business that you go to because you care about them, you want them in your life, you're not going there because of a discount, for example, but you're going there because it's something that you want to keep. So what what what you see, and you probably did this, I did this. There's a restaurant or two that you would never take on takeout from, or uh you only dined in once a month or even less. But when COVID hit and they were locked down, you're ordering takeout twice a month, maybe even you know, once a week. Uh why? Because you cared about the restaurant, you they were important in your life and you wanted to support them. And this happened not just in restaurants, but in every segment, right? People going and doing GoFundMe campaigns for bookstores or people, you know, signing up for video training with their with their uh uh personal trainer, right? Video exercises, really? Well, it wasn't really about the video exercises, it was about staying in that business because you need that person down the road. You wanted to be have them part of your life, and you knew the situation there, right? It was a personal connection. You don't see people doing that with gold gym, but you do see that with with uh uh people who had a relationship with their coach or their trainer.
SPEAKER_02:Well CrossFit, all little mom and pops, all boxes. It's how how how if you look at their business model, it's like there's no way you can compete with the Globo Gym. You can't compete with Planet Fitness or whatnot. Sure, you can. It's all about community. That's right, it's all about that experience, it's all about knowing, you know, you're you're fully invested in the owner.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. Like you go into the CrossFit, you're there, you see six other people in the morning, and you've got people you care about. Like, hey, how are you doing? How are you progressing? Like, you know, are you gonna hit those reps? You're gonna get exactly you're you're gonna cheer for that guy.
SPEAKER_02:You're you're right, you're you're not gonna go to the globo gym and you see the same guy. Yeah, but you avoid eye contact, you don't even look at all like I don't want to know who you are. Okay, are you done with that machine? Or if the person has an aneurysm, yes, and they're there, like, okay, well, you're done with the machine, right? That's right.
SPEAKER_01:I'm not the closest, am I? Somebody else can't do it.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly, like that. And you see the same people, and it's like, okay, yeah, you avoid eye contact unless uh how many more reps? Especially if it's somebody with their camera, the you know, the tripod, and and and they're trying to become an influencer. But yeah, no, at that, at that that's the globo gym. So, yeah, that's why they they charge that because all they're offering is hey, pay 10 bucks a month, that we'll upsell you. And if you're out of town you for like 40 bucks a month, you could go to the others, yeah. And you know, everybody they get the upsell because you know every idiot doesn't want to seem cheap, or I can't that's right.
SPEAKER_01:They have the person at the counter who's you know compelling says, Oh, you could afford it, you know, you do what you're doing, right? And you're like, Oh yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02:And I tell people if if you can do that, and it's not just CrossFit, it's any mom and pop gym, is once you once they have that experience, yes, you want to cheer for that person that you you know everybody's name at the 6 a.m. class or the 7 a.m. class. And oh yeah, you're gonna hit a PR, go for it, or yeah, how's how's the kids? Or you know, oh yeah, let's all go to the movies, let's take our kids somewhere. And and that's called that's the community, and and I had that for 20 years with five locations because yeah, it was a franchise, but they still saw my mug, they still they still saw my ex-business partner, my my ex-wife. They they saw my kids, they knew everything about me, and it's all about never once was I like, man, we need to just like cannibalize what what the the by the BOGO off what would you give the offer to the person that's already in there? It's like yo, what are you doing?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's not it, that's not how it was supposed to work.
SPEAKER_02:Oh and I felt bad because uh I was visiting a uh a pokey, it was I don't know whether it was a a mom and pop or a franchise. If it was a franchise, it was very small, and I could see the writing on the wall, yeah, literally, because they're giving out coupons to everybody. But uh every like it's just how I'm wired that I always want to help out the little guy. Yeah, now I'm not gonna give them entrepreneurs are like the most hard-headed people, the most narcissistic. So even if I gave them any business tips, any marketing tips, they'd roll their eyes. I'd be like, Oh, I I wrote two books on this, uh screw you, whatever. Yeah, and then you know, the next week, uh the handwritten signs, Monday's this day, Tuesday's that I'm like, oh yeah. And then like last week, go on Google and it says it's temporary, temporarily closed, and then like the day after. It's like, yeah, it's open again. I'm like, open again. So I drove over there. It was an empty shell. They they down. Yeah. So it's someone lost all their, you know, their life savings. The SBA. You know, their their credit is shot. And it was like, your marketing was if anybody was in there, let's cannibalize our sale by and I don't, I never, especially a business that's struggling. That's that's because we've all been there. I I never used a coupon or never did the hey buy by nine, get the 10th free. They they try to do that, they're they're implementing everything, and then you know, the the the simplest thing that a mom and pop can do is just have a social media presence too, man. And just yeah, you you are you have to like with your book, it's you have to be unconventional. Yeah, it's I mean, even the big businesses do, you just can't, right? You'll you'll get blown away.
SPEAKER_01:You go and say, Hey, look, oh, those guys did it, they did it with discounting or whatever. It's not gonna work for me. Well you've got to do is actually you start with what works for me. You start with, and and you say entrepreneurs are hard-headed. Well, there's a reason for that because they get hit on the head all the time, and the ones that survive only do it because they're stubborn and because they stick to it. How many times were you told you're gonna fail?
SPEAKER_02:You know, listen, right? Every single time, every day around every corner.
SPEAKER_01:So the entrepreneurs that are successful have to go and have a thick skull, they have to be hard-headed around things. But what's important is you know, you've got to have a couple of principles that you're gonna stick to. It's around your value, it's around what's different about you, it's around you caring about your customers, right? And of course, you caring about yourself, what you're really trying to do for your business. Those particular principles, if you can stick to those and get them right, they lend you to strategies that'll beat the big guys. And and when I say that, I look at, you know, take pricing, for example, right? You don't have to price higher than everybody else. You don't have to price at the maximum profitability. What you have to do is you have to know that you've got more value to the set of people that you work with because people do value the community that you've created, or they do value what's different about you. You communicate it, make sure they know that this is really the value. And then you can still charge the same price the other guys do, you can keep your price low, but people have to know that they're getting value above and beyond what they're spending on you. And you need to be confident in what that value is. And in the case of uh, you know, in the case of uh our examples here, it's the community. In other cases, it's maybe you've got a unique flavor, maybe you've got a special location, maybe you're just doing something a little different, or you care about you know being more uh cute or pretty in the in the in the food that you serve, any number of reasons to be different. If you can find the people that value that, and and you personally value that, you'll you'll find a business. Oh, exactly.
SPEAKER_02:And it's you're gonna laugh at this. Uh a bodega 7-Eleven convenience store. Well, I was on my way driving to Orlando from Fort Lauderdale, it's like a three-hour drive. Had to have an electric vehicle Tesla, so I had to charge up. And there was a you I walked into like a convenience store, and it was completely different. Now, you know, once you go into a seven, you and I were world travelers, we've been all over this country, so you know, they all you you know, a circle K looks like a circle K, 7-Eleven. You know, they can blindfold you, and you know, you're in a 7-Eleven. You still find the Slurpee, right? And but this store was like so completely different in the sense that it was unique, it was clean, the customer service was on point. Yeah, I literally came back the second time, like two days later, just because I had to charge up at the same. Yeah, and guy remembered me, was was talk, we were initiated, having a conversation, yeah. And not only that, but it it wasn't uh it wasn't like a bodega, it wasn't a convenience store just selling the random stuff. This guy was had like supplements, he had he had the pre-workouts too, and not like the the usual the monster drink and the red line and maybe the Celsius, and everything was organized. That was one section, and the other section had like beers, but it wasn't just like your typical, hey, for the homeless guy or for the high school kid that that's gonna give the person 20 bucks to buy whatever tall boy out there, it's premium stuff, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That a Tesla driver will buy, yeah. You hit it. This is the thing, he understood his unique value happened to be the fact that it's right by the Tesla supercharge station. And if you think about the types of people who are gonna walk in your store are absolutely and completely different than your typical corner store, and so he recognized it, he knew his customers, he adapted and built a business around the kinds of people who were coming in his store, and that's a different set of products, it's a different experience they expect. And if he can deliver that experience, he's gonna make a ton of money.
SPEAKER_02:He's gonna do just exactly, and but I'll I was you you and I have seen a dime a dozen of everything, the cookie cutter approach, right? But you you figure the guy back oh, I'm just gonna open up a convenience store, it it's it's gonna have the usual crap, the usual tchotchkis. Yeah, you know, I I'm I'm gonna try to compete with 7-Eleven and Circle K by beating them, yeah, which never works, which it never works. I mean, you have to be unique, you have to be different. It's like a restaurant, be so unique and on point, and be different by creating Raven fans, and you can't do that by cutting costs, you can't be cutting corners with your meat, or you know, because if that's the case, if why am I gonna pay for that crap? I can just go to you know the golden arches.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. You you have to embrace kind of the kind of customer that you want to bring in, know them really well because the other guys, they're going after everybody. Anyone who's trying to do scale, like a 7-Eleven, they're going after the lowest common denominator, high volume, and that's gonna be really tough to compete with. Go after the customer that you understand the best, go after the customer that you care about and want to serve. It's a big point of thinking about who you serve and who you don't. You know, it's a really hard for a small business owner to say, there's a group of customers that I really don't need to serve or don't want to serve. But if you pause for a minute, Omar, you probably get this. There's a bunch of dudes who would have come into your gym that you say, you know what, this isn't for you before they even open up their wallet to sign up. And that's because you really know who your real customer is, you know who's gonna value what you offer, and you also know who's not, who's gonna be a pain as a customer, who's probably gonna be finicky and leave, or even not an evangelist. Taking the time to know who it is that you want to serve, even by defining who it is that you don't want to serve, gives you a lot of freedom in how you run your business, gives you focus to go and offer things that that the people you do want to serve will like and care about.
SPEAKER_02:Well, some people it I call it the matrix, and it's about being in business and being an entrepreneur. The more you have it, you you're you look like friggin' Neo. You you know what type of client, you know, you you can see ahead, you you can dodge those bullets and whatnot. Unlike when you first open, and if you you know you you have like a quick service restaurant and somebody goes in and looks at the menu and leaves that you know, you're the entrepreneur, the the young guy running out. What's wrong? What what is it? Is it don't do that? Maybe the person, you know, just wanted to see what you're what you offer. It's not it's not about you, man. But that's but you know, the person that's been in business for for years knows it, it's like, oh yeah, you know, whatever. No beat back. And if not, that's not my customer.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's right. I think uh the the scene, I know kung fu. You know that where where he like pulls the jack out of the back of his head and it's like, ah, I know kung fu. Like you're never gonna learn that quickly about your business, but you knew going in, you already had a hard head about what the experience you wanted to have. You already knew the kind of people you want to get to. Not saying you should be completely hard-headed and stick with what you started out with, but refine it. Don't chase things that are that far away from what you believed in, because what you believed in is what made you good. Stick with that, right? Refine it, grow it, adjust it, but don't go chasing things that aren't aren't yours, that that aren't part of your DNA. You should now.
SPEAKER_02:Do you think people are chasers just because or or they're they get discouraged because social media, you know, how oh, well, you know, three months ago I was just a peon, I was like mowing lawns, I was working for someone, yeah, you know, and I took this course that I'm selling you for only$99. And now I live in La Jolla, I I live in a mansion, I'm I'm and I'm I'm the mother Teresa. I I want you to have this for only$99.
SPEAKER_01:I 100% believe you if you were to say a large number of people get discouraged and don't think they can do it or struggle because they're aiming for things that social media is totally setting their own expectation of. And to me, that's kind of a big reason why I wanted to write the book that I wrote. My my job, I mean, I scale up companies as a living. I I work with big enterprises that want to get bigger. Um, but the thing that really touched me was in seeing these small businesses that these are folks who aren't trying to hit home runs or, you know, trying to win lottery tickets. These people are trying to build sustainable, meaningful businesses that are helpful to their communities and feed their families. And that's real. And you don't see enough of that. You don't see that celebrated nearly as much as you see, you know, the the Zuckerbergs and the Elons who've made it made billions because of a couple of you know good and or lucky decisions. That's fine. Like go ahead and chase that, but that's that's you're gonna have a 99.999% chance of failure there. And instead, you know, if you were to chase something that was real and chase it in a practical way, you could actually build a pretty good life for yourself and the people around you. Um, if you if you if you have that passion to do something like this.
SPEAKER_02:Well, passion for that, that's success, man. Waking up isn't it true? Waking up every day, being like, hey man, I'm an entrepreneur. Yeah, I create I created this. I I'm I'm this is my dream. I'm not a tool for someone else's dream. Because when there to me, there's nothing more souls, soul sucking, because I I I have worked for mom and pop, I've I've worked for mid-size, I've worked for a major corporation where I know if I have an aneurysm, they're not they're not even gonna notice uh in a in a major corporation, unless you're on the board or you know, you're you're the CFO or you're someone you're like, okay, well, you know, who who has all this bullshit in this office? Oh, it's a guy that it's Omar. He he just croaked. Oh, let's get it, yeah, let's get that shit out and let's let's find someone younger and choose.
SPEAKER_01:How do we move on? Right, they have that problem solved already, but they don't have the boy. What are we gonna do without this guy? No, totally right. Like, you want to be an employee. I mean, I don't know, I don't know this is for everybody, so I don't want to say that everybody should stop being an employee and start running their own business, but there's a no no, because not everybody's designed for that.
SPEAKER_02:Uh that that's the biggest myth, too. You know how every oh, everybody's designed for college. I don't I don't believe that. That's academia selling that that's that's a business within the business. But when you you say, Oh, yeah, anybody can own their own business. No, not not everybody wants to wake up, say, holy shit, I'm at zero. Where's my sales? Or yeah, it's just my birthday today. Oh, I have to work.
SPEAKER_01:No, sometimes you know you should explore that a bit because there's a there's this unspoken thing for the entrepreneur. Any entrepreneur who looks another entrepreneur in the eye, they know that that guy woke up in a cold sweat at some point in the past couple of years.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, or that three mile stair, right? Oh every uh every entrepreneur, including me, had that in 2020 in March, when they're like, Hey, don't worry, it's only gonna be two weeks.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, right. Exactly. Yes, yes, exactly that. And and so, a that feeling is not for everybody, and and and and b, you know, they don't ever really talk about that in social media or any of the places where you're saying, here's how you go be successful. Buy my course, I'll tell you how to be successful. What's really powerful is telling people, hey, how do you stay grounded and committed to your to your vision and the thing you wanted to build in the face of that adversity? How do you say, you know what, this is brutal, this is painful. I don't know that we're gonna survive, but I'm gonna keep at it. I'm gonna do this because I believe in it, because I think it's gonna make I'm gonna get over this hub. That's really hard. Like you managed to get through that time period in 2020. There's a lot of people who didn't, and and and the difference in a lot of them was either their own commitment to the purpose, um, or it was that their customers that that rallied around them that that cared about them that helped them through that time frame.
SPEAKER_02:You you had to really you you had to the the thing people don't understand is when when you're at something like that, that was not not nobody ever planned for that, is you have to win to me, you have to win today. Yeah, you have to go day to day. You can't be oh well, you know, three months or four months or five months whenever this ends. Get enough money to keep the doors open. Win today. Let's worry about tomorrow. Maybe, maybe, maybe they'll find a cure, maybe we'll flatten the curve, maybe maybe, you know. But those and those that went out and did the guerrilla marketing, those that did, hey, we're we're only gonna do takeout, those because I remember my mom would always tell me there's three types of people those that do things, those that watch things, and those that are wondering what's happening. What a lot of people were wondering, yes, and during that time. That's right. Because either people made a lot of money or a lot of people drowned, but it was a lot of people drowned, not because based on their ability, they're they're waiting for something to happen, they're waiting for like the local government or the state.
SPEAKER_01:Well, take the whole tariff thing that just went down in the past couple of months, you know. Uh, not every small business is affected by tariffs directly, but tons of them were. They're either importing something or buying something that's got tariffs laid in. And I was shocked to hear from so many of them that they're just in a wait and see mode. Like we're just gonna wait and see what happens and then figure it out. And like, you know, you you have the ability, unlike big corporations, you have the ability to make adjustments right away. You can go talk to your customers, learn what they're doing, learn what they care about, start pre-wiring on price increases if that's what you're gonna have to do, or start pre-wiring on substitutions and different things and say, have a conversation to say, hey, if this goes up, what are we gonna go do? And if you can do that and not wait and act and talk and learn and listen and adapt, that's an advantage that you have over most of these bigger businesses that need a committee to decide something, they need surveys, they need data. You don't you need to talk to your customers, you gotta go consult with your teams and figure out hey, what can we do now to be ready to make it through whatever it is that's gonna challenge us in the next couple of months or weeks or years.
SPEAKER_02:Well, what I I tell well, here's comparing okay, a major corporation is like a big ocean liner or freight liner when it it comes to like making a curve, a turn takes forever. That's just imagine if somebody goes overboard, yeah. Like, oh, it's man overboard. Well, good luck because it's gonna take forever. Yeah, throw another ship in the water just to get the guys, yeah. But if if you're you have to look at the entrepreneur, the small business owner is like a small boat that can zig, that can zag. Yeah, if if it the major corporation, it takes them forever to decide. They meeting after meeting. Are we gonna tell people? Are we just gonna raise prices and act like nothing? Well, the small business owner at least has the ability to communicate, yep, and just say, hey, this is you know, I have to because of this. It's not because I am doing this because I want to go to Monaco. Yeah, no, I want to go to the French Riviera this summer.
SPEAKER_01:And in fact, they nobody knows what's really gonna fully happen. So you're gonna be able to tell your customers, hey, this is what I see, these are what could happen, this is what I might have to do if it does happen. Like you have that ability. Big companies, they don't, but you know, big companies, what they do is they're like, oh, probability of the prices of uh of those things giving driving our prices up or it's high. So why don't we take our prices now, collect a little bit of extra profit now, deal with it if we miss later. They're making calculations, um, but they don't, they're not really concerning themselves with the customer, they're concerning themselves with their profit. And yeah, small businesses have this opportunity to be concerned about their customer and make decisions with them in many cases.
SPEAKER_02:Well, your customer more than likely is a raving fan, wants to see you succeed, is bond into it emotionally, wants to see your business thriving, and we'll understand, we'll have that empathy. But when a major corporation raises prices or cuts portions or does whatever, people literally think, oh, it you know how it's like that meme that, oh, you know, you're helping pay for a ballerina lesson or whatnot. I love reading stuff like that because this isn't for like the the person's third winter home out in bail somewhere or or Sun Valley, and and that that would trigger you know when people think of a major corporation, and it's it's not always necessarily true, but we always it from either movies or media, it's all they are always portrayed as the the big evil yeah, mean. I I mean think about it. When Howard Schultz was thinking he was gonna run for president, now self-made billionaire, yep, off a coffee. He he didn't kill anybody. Nope. He he didn't force people to buy the experience or whatnot, but when he decided to possibly run, everybody's like, oh my gosh, this son of a bitch, this guy's a billionaire, this guy's evil.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I know it's how evil is it to make sure, I don't know, a million people not a million, maybe 600,000 people across the country have jobs in healthcare. I mean, that's what it that's what that business is doing, but they're evil. You know, I heard they're making employees buy their own shirts, which is seems you know god awful, but still that's what people are upset about.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah, but but do you remember? I I remember on CNBC, people with like he had that press conference, and people were grouped. Founder, CEO, X CEO, C I mean, he he comes back more than Cher and more than the Rolling Stones to save the company. That's right. Logically, we would we should be like, holy smokes, a self-made billionaire, not a self-made millionaire. Man, maybe this guy can run the country. Maybe let let's learn instead of being like, oh my well, major corporation, evil. So if they think that way, that's why to me, it was always easier. We talk about communication. Communication is selling.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And yeah, hey guys, you know what? This is only temporary. This is because of you know what's going on with the tariffs, and you don't have to be political because oh my gosh, there's so many businesses, small businesses, people that I know that that either they believe they're a lobbyist or that they're they're gonna get an ambassadorship or a cabinet position on either side, yeah, and they're just blasting on not only their personal page, but their business, business page, their political views.
SPEAKER_01:You gotta be careful. Look, I don't mind uh if people are gonna have a segment that they focus on, right? There's certain businesses that could survive saying, hey, I'm gonna pick my camp. Um, but you got to realize if you're gonna play, if you're gonna speak politics, you're limiting your customer base. It's okay. Um, as long as that customer base lines up with where you are and what you do, maybe that works. But in the grand scheme of things, you know, for a business to go out and be personal, they have to be vulnerable. They have to let people know who they really are. Um, a big element of selling or holding on to your customers is developing trust. And when you think about trust, it's not just, hey, the guy says what he can do and he delivers it and and he's got some credibility because he's got expertise. It really is, hey, this person is a person who's, you know, someone I understand. This person is someone who I can identify with, this person is someone who I can actually see myself caring about. That's trust. And to get there, you gotta be open, you gotta share who you are, you have to be willing to tell people, hey, I need your help if you need their help, or you have to be willing to be open uh to build that trust. So the small business owners can do it, big businesses can never build trust. Nobody trusts any of these big companies, never will.
SPEAKER_02:Amen to that. But and also when I tell people when if you're gonna be that political or if you're gonna be that polarizing, you have to understand the reason why Hobby Lobby or the reason I'll pick both sides, Chip-fil-A or Starbucks or Disney can be that is because their product and everything else is so exceptional that either you overlook it, yeah, yeah, or it's so great, you're like, okay, well, yeah, I it it it it's like you okay, uh you're in SoCal. In N Out Burger, yeah. In N Out Burger is right wing, they put Bible verses on literally everything. Yeah, yeah. And people from the West Coast are pretend that they're oblivious to it, yeah, because the product is that good. So be that good. Yeah, if you're gonna be such a rock star and so amazing that everybody's like, Man, I I love it, then yeah, you you can do that. Or if you're as big as Hobby Lobby and all these things, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, the other way around, look, if you want if you can survive on half as many customers, right?
SPEAKER_02:Well, true, or if if you're you live like in a community, yeah, that you know, like like the baker that would didn't want to do the cakes for the oh, that's brilliant.
SPEAKER_01:That's a great example of something, yeah. By by taking this stand, I get actually more loyalty and more people coming to me because they support my stance. So it's not it's not wrong to go and be political. I think you just have to be measured and you have to really know your customer. Like the last thing you want to do is have customers that you care about and and and people that you actually help, and then alienate them by telling them that you think they're wrong.
SPEAKER_02:That's that's not so what you're saying is common sense.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I don't know. I know it does sound common sense, but we wouldn't call it common sense if if it was as common as we think it should be.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, because because I you know, entrepreneurs know other entrepreneurs, and you know a couple of these were wondering why they're struggling, and it's like, well, maybe you just should shut up. Yeah, you're you're your own worst enemy. You you have such an amazing product, yeah. Uh unless you're you're trying to raise funds, uh and you know, you're there's no reason. 20 years, no, I never got on a soapbox. Well, if there was no social media, but people always thought I went either way, and it was like, well, really, my personality, I could care less. My I run my own economy, yeah. Yeah, I and that's I tell people either you're great because you're great, you you, or you sucked, you sucked under the Democrats, you sucked under the Republicans. When's it time to just finally look in the mirror and go right? It's all me.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, exactly. At some point, accountability matters. Now, you know, there's certain certain parties will talk about accountability, but but in the grand scheme of things, it's your personal accountability that matters.
SPEAKER_02:No, no, 100%. Yeah, true. I like I said, I was an entrepreneur for 20 years, so both both administrations and you know what, it if it was a bad day, a bad quarter, I could I couldn't blame Obama, I couldn't blame the W. I had to look in the mirror and go, what could I do to change these results? And and and this is what I have to say about your book. To me, it's a no-brainer for any entrepreneur or any wontrepreneur that's one day, one day, they're they're like friggin' Annie, tomorrow, maybe. Or if you have a side hustle, this is this is a book that sh would save and should save businesses. Because you and I are aren't you amazed by the amount of tools that are out there available now, but it's the same amount of bankruptcies, it's the same amount of businesses that folded 30 years ago when the only way to advertise was to do a clipper. And if you got like a 1.5, 2% return, you thought you were Hugh Hefner.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's right. These guys, they have they have a ton of support and tools and software, but they still struggle because they're not following principles that really matter to them. That they're not following what's unique and special about them. So thanks for the plug on the book. The book itself is exactly an opposite of go do these structured, known things to make your business better. Instead, it's a hey, look within, look at what you can offer that's special, go focus on the customers that you personally care about, go build a business that's actually personally rewarding to you. Here's how you can emphasize the things that you care about, and it gives an entrepreneur an ability to say, I can be myself and still be very successful. But it's very personable.
SPEAKER_02:It's not man, I've read millions of personal development, business development books, and usually they're very sterile. They're very it's it's like I feel like I'm back at LSU and I'm forced to read this, but you read it thinking, you know, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Either I'm gonna be able to walk on water, I'm gonna be able to cure cancer, I'll be able to go from zero to hero overnight, especially in books like scaling or or or how to make money. At least Rich Dad, Poor Dad. You you mentioned that book. It it that in like the millionaire next door, or like your books are just like honest, but people don't people are like, no, that's bullshit, man. I want to be super successful wearing my five thousand dollar Gucci track suit. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Like, well, get in line, buddy. That's good. No, I think that's I think that's right. It's grounded, it's down earth, it's fun to read. Actually, you know, the I think the more fun I had in writing it and putting in the stories and the and the the stuff about the business that really touched me, that was more fun than me kind of formulating business plans, etc. So we really, you know, me and and my editor helped me kind of really make it just a fun, readable book. That when you walk away after reading it, you're like, yeah, you know, this is something that actually applies to me, and now I can think about how to how to use it in practice. It's more real than um than a lot of the kind of self-help books.
SPEAKER_02:And the book, its own convention, a small business strategy guide by the man to myth the legend, Shrikaza, which you need to do an audible. I I have to come, I know, it's coming. It's coming. I I wrote two books, and all everybody I get the digital copy, yeah, and and I read it, yeah. And then I'll I'll I'll buy the audible. And and you're very, a very personal guy, because there's some of these people that I've had that it was like pulling teeth, and the book's good, but they've got zero personality. So the book's amazing, but then when you listen to Audible, it's like something that'll help put you to sleep. You'll you'll feel narcoleptic, and hopefully you're not listening uh like while you're driving.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think this is proven for a guy in the car, but my that's what that's what happened to me. Is we we we got the book written, uh, publisher's driving it, getting it out there. I'm out kind of doing a bunch of other work, and we do want to do the audiobook, but it's gonna be me, and that's kind of why it's a little late. Like it we were thinking of getting an actor or something like that, but really, this isn't these are my stories. I love talking about this stuff.
SPEAKER_02:And that's I I hate books by actors, especially if it's a famous person, like like hey, you know, if it's Tony Robbins, I want I want to hear his raspy voice, and I get it. Like, let's say they found like you know, some unearthed book by Zig Ziggler. Uh clearly, I guess Tom Ziggler, his son, would do it, yeah. And we wouldn't want the AI because that would sound creepy. But yeah, overall, man, it's it's like I wouldn't want anybody, I would probably freestyle a lot of it, and it would probably be like F-bombs in my Audible. But yeah, man, I I see that, and I have to ask you this because I see a home run in this for you, not only in the book, but if you do like webinars, yeah, and you give strategies, and it and it's one of those safe places because it's other entrepreneurs, yeah, and it's through Zoom or whatnot. Yeah, yeah, and they can all misery loves company, people love to build each other up because you know we're a different breed. You you know, entrepreneurs, you talk about the million it it we talk in a language too that like other people wouldn't get, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And you're gonna laugh at this. Yeah, it's it's huge, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, okay. Drive driving, like my kids back in the day would be in travel soccer, so drive aimlessly, and we would always discuss oh, look at that center, that would be great for such and such business, whatnot. But that's an entrepreneur talk. I mean, yeah, I I couldn't do that with like like a girlfriend, she'd be like, I don't understand exactly because you're not an entrepreneur, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That's right, that's right.
SPEAKER_02:But but yeah, think about it this way. I see that. So that that's something that uh just something else. Not only could you make money, but you could actually help people because the book is great, but then when you you you can monetize it just by helping people, guiding them, either one-on-one, but probably just like a community of entrepreneurs helping each other.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, my my my current plan is workshops and some speaking engagements, but um, you know, like you said, if you can bring the entrepreneurs together, that's gonna be where there's productivity, right? Because a lot of times they're stuck, right? A lot of a lot of leaders, they're running their business, they don't have a lot of time for a whole bunch of adventure or to talk to other people, and they've got nobody around them close to them with the same situation. But if you can pull a group together for a workshop, that's pretty productive. So that'll be that'll be available on my website um in the upcoming months as kind of workshops and and um seminars.
SPEAKER_02:So what's uh what's oh a website?
SPEAKER_01:Sorry, it's a good good good question. It's yeah, do a terrible job of marketing. I apologize. I've been pulling teeth with you, man. That's right. Sree dash kaza.com. It's very simple. Sri is Sri, Caza is k-a-z-a, sri dash kaza.com, and you'll see the book, you'll see some of the activities, you'll see blog, a bunch of cool articles, and of course, contact and and um seminars.
SPEAKER_02:You also you're also on LinkedIn because uh social media talking and you're also you're also on the gram, man. You're all also on the Instagram, yeah. You're you're in service, you you give out tips, you know, that you're just follow it, just watch it. Good stuff. To me, if you're thinking of being an entrepreneur or you're apreneur, this will help you push you over to decide, is this for me? Because there's no there's nothing out there that there's no you won't have a competitor, and more than likely you're gonna have a Goliath in any field, of course, and you have to know how to slay it, man, because even though it you say it's personal, they say business, it's not personal. Just the big guy wants to make sure you and your family eat cat food for like eternity, but besides that, it's not personal, not personal otherwise. Here, I I I have to ask you the last question. I I always wear the hat of a naysayer of somebody. Oh, shree. I've been in business for for years, man. My sales are going down, just competition's moving. I get hit left and right, man. Competitor here, big box there. What's the point, man? I just feel all defeated. Can can this book can can this book actually help me? What what what what what can it do for me? What how can just give me one simple step that that can get me it's brilliant, yeah, in the right path.
SPEAKER_01:There's a number of different stories about business owners in this book that we're going through exactly what you're talking about. It is, I've got challenges around me, uh, I'm not fulfilled with what I'm doing, um, and I'm struggling to find a way out of it. It turns out it's not just a piece of business advice. It actually is intertwined deeply with what you're what you care about and what you are trying to get out of the business to begin with. The steps you've got to go through are around identifying and understanding kind of who you are as a business, who you want to be, but also who you are and who you want to be as an individual or as a person. And they're very intertwined. And it's hard sometimes for people to see that their disappointment with the business is actually driving dissatisfaction in their home life or personal life, or the other way around is they're struggling because they thought they were pursuing a big, get-rich, quick business. And even if the business is doing well financially, they're unhappy because they've made these trade-offs that don't line up with a good profitable business. But read through the book. It's a whole bunch of good probing questions, a couple of good stories about about business leaders, business owners who who did go do the reset and they did go think through some of these challenges and found that really with simple adjustments and how they view themselves, a couple of adjustments to the principles they'd run their business on, they're able to go find both profit again and purpose with their business.
SPEAKER_02:Amen. There's no days off. Just like that, my my favorite chapter in your book. And and sucks, I tell people this all the time. It's not just business, but in anything, there are no days off. That's right. But especially in business, because like what I just said, it's not that personal. They just want to make sure your competitor that you're eating cat food. And I I don't know about most people, but I'm sure it looks and it tastes bad. So buy the book. It's on Amazon, on convention, small business strategy guide, shrikaza, the man the mintal legend. Thank you for the time. Thank you for the opportunity for spending an hour with me, man. You are a rock star.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's great to great to be on. Thanks for having me,