Big Talk About Small Business
Hosted by Mark Zweig and Eric Howerton. Our Mission is to inspire, empower, and equip entrepreneurs with the knowledge and insights they need to succeed in their ventures. Through engaging conversations with industry experts, seasoned entrepreneurs, and thought leaders, we aim to provide valuable strategies, actionable advice, and real-world experiences that will enable our listeners to navigate the challenges, seize the opportunities, and build thriving businesses.
Big Talk About Small Business
Ep. 73 - Turning Old Assets into New Opportunities
Ever wondered how resilience can transform your business outlook? This episode promises to equip you with the mindset and strategies needed to tackle the most daunting small business challenges, all while sipping your favorite morning brew. Our discussion takes a fascinating detour through listener questions, unraveling the universal struggles of maintaining old businesses and cars, peppered with the timeless wisdom of Edmund Vance Cooke. We encourage you to meet adversity with a cheerful heart, proving it's our responses that define our success, not the obstacles themselves.
Embark on an intriguing exploration of the world of car ownership and discover the financial nuances of managing multiple vehicles. Over 400 cars later, we share personal insights on turning depreciated assets into valuable investments, using examples like the Mercedes CLS and 911 Porsche. The conversation seamlessly weaves into the art of rejuvenating old assets, whether cars or businesses, with actionable strategies such as the "management audit" to breathe new life into underperforming ventures, drawing parallels to restoring cherished possessions.
Unleash the power of decisive leadership and continuous learning to fuel your business's growth. We dive into the essential tactics of empowering your teams through open book management and accountability, and the critical role of continuous recruitment. With anecdotal insights, we highlight the importance of emotional detachment in decision-making and explore the dynamics of leadership transitions. The episode wraps up with an engaging discussion on the CEO's ever-evolving role, underscoring the necessity of innovation and the invaluable contribution of founder wisdom to keep the entrepreneurial spirit alive during acquisitions.
get on the green, down on the green dot yeah, baby, yeah, baby we are back, busy, back for the business, the big talk about small business.
Speaker 2:I'm here with my partner, eric Howerton, in the studio and it's a lovely rainy day outside. I decided I'd drink hot chocolate today. Yeah, you did. In honor of Coco, yeah, coco. In honor of Coco, who works here at Podcast Videos. Yeah, she's awesome, she is awesome. So it's a perfect day to drink my hot cocoa Plus. I've already had like five cups of coffee and been up since 2 am Hell yeah, bro.
Speaker 1:So it was 2 am today. You got up yeah.
Speaker 2:I did go back to sleep at 4, but I got two hours worth of work done in that. What'd you do? Just cranking out emails? No, actually I was texting with grant, who's the president of janice? Was he awake? Okay, okay, we're, we're going making out lists. It's beautiful. You know doing those things. Will you work for me for free checking my mission accounts? I practically am right now that's a good point.
Speaker 2:All right, I'll back off a little. We try to help each other. Honestly, you're doing the same thing. Yeah, you really are. You're. You're giving more to this than I am by the use of your studio and production people, so we appreciate that. That's why we can do this show because of the generosity of our sponsor. Yes, yes, eric Howerton of Podcast.
Speaker 2:Videos. Podcastvideoscom is your leading provider of audio and video content. Dang, it's beautiful man Right here in Northwest Arkansas. We do it all from A to Z, keep going man, from the idea all the way through to the final execution and distribution, and marketing. And analytics, and analytics. I forgot that. It's the buzzword today. I got to say analytics and everything. We are data-driven, data-driven insights.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:We're all about the data we are, so anyway, we're back again. We got another episode today. It's going to be a fun topic today when you have an old car or an old business. I think it came from a response from one of our listeners to a post I put on somewhere on LinkedIn or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's pretty cool. I love it when listeners throw in some questions or discussion topics. It's always good Me too Because there's millions of them, yeah, millions of scenarios that are going on out there in small business and you really kind of need somebody at times, yeah, and you can't talk to everybody around you. It just makes it worse.
Speaker 2:Some of those questions are a little bit embarrassing that people ask yeah, we may have to put some of those out just the same, we're not going to identify the characters. No, no, no, that set them in.
Speaker 1:It's definitely confidential. So if you do have a question, send it in. We'll keep you completely confidential, unless you let us know otherwise and you want to be the person behind that, which would be kind of cool. Yeah, that, but definitely confidential.
Speaker 2:We won't narc you out, no, we're not narcs go to big talk about smallbusinesscom. Yeah, and there's a information. Isn't there a inquiry?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, yeah, there's contact is to tell us your question. Fantastic, hey, I do have a little on our history lesson section. Good, let's go for that. So I gave you a copy of it. Okay, because this is history in the sense that this was written by somebody a long time ago, but this is actually a poem.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, we're really getting esoteric here.
Speaker 1:Eric's going to read some poetry Great, I am man. It's by Edmund Vance Cook. He actually passed away in the 30s, born in the 1800s. But what I like about that is, you know, like it's always been hard. There's always been these same fundamental questions that we experience and ask of ourselves. So I mean, I've always found that fascinating. When I'm like man, things are so hard these days it's not any harder than it ever was.
Speaker 2:We were just having that discussion this morning. Richard Worsham and myself, really yeah, I said, man, we got a lot of problems or we could say, opportunities for improvement. That's the way he likes to look at it. Okay, I love it.
Speaker 1:That is great man. It's true, because you'll hear this poem that's actually talking about that. It's about your perspective, mm-hmm, you know. So I'm going to do my best to read this with beauty.
Speaker 2:All right, I'll keep a straight face. Thank you With beauty. All right, I'll try to keep a straight face, thank you.
Speaker 1:Did you tackle that trouble that came your way with a resolute heart and cheerful, or hide your face from the light of day with a craving soul and fearful? Oh, a trouble's a ton or a trouble's an ounce or a trouble is what you make it. A trouble's an ounce or a trouble is what you make it, and it isn't the fact that you're hurt that counts, but only how did you take it? You are beaten to earth, well. Well, what's that? Come up with a smiling face.
Speaker 1:It's nothing against you to fall down flat, but to lie there, that's disgrace. The harder you're thrown while the higher you bounce. Be proud of your blackened eye. It isn't the fact that you're licked that counts, it's how did you fight and why. And though you be done to the death, what then? If you battled the best you could, if you played your part in the world of men, why the critic will call it good. Death comes with a crawl or comes with a pounce, and whether he's slow or spry, it isn't the fact that you're dead that counts, but only how did you die?
Speaker 2:oh, man, that's beautiful isn't it?
Speaker 1:yeah, love it. You know what I love about that. You know it's just like what you're saying earlier it troubles a ton or troubles an ounce. So either have big problems or small problems, but it's what you make it right. And then it's not the fact that you're hurt that counts. But how did you take it? You know this skill is a long one, like we kind of talk about this a lot in our podcast. You know it's this ability to be resilient, to be optimistic, to fight through. It's so critical for an entrepreneur. It is like fundamental, like that's why, when we talk about this stuff, it's like can you fight through? So critical for an entrepreneur. It is like fundamental, like that's that's why, when we talk about this stuff, it's like can you teach entrepreneurism? I mean, can you really teach it? Like not, not business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but to be that elements of it. You can, but can you change the personality of somebody?
Speaker 1:is the question right their perspective, yeah, their energy, yeah, is the question right? Their perspective, their energy, their ambition, their drive, you know, because I mean it has to come from within. It does. And then you have to have a bigger perspective in life. And, like the fact that you know, I ask myself the question all the time is, why am I doing this? Right? But then I remind myself why I'm doing it. I actually have, I have this book right here that I carry around with me, but it does have my purpose and has my chief aim in life and I literally read it on a regular basis to remember why the hell I'm doing what I'm doing. Because there's something bigger. That affirmation, absolutely, it's critical. It's like the why you're doing something has to be greater than making money, you know oh yeah, always is.
Speaker 2:I mean, whenever anybody tells me it's like what do you really like to do? I like to make money, I'm like, okay, you're dead. Okay, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:It's like so true, yeah and there's so much of that goes on in the world and people get faked out by this shit. You know, yeah, yeah, they see all that. I mean, like you take somebody like zuckerberg, like I mean he he wasn't doing it for the money, he was doing it because, you know, he saw something, he had passion behind it, he drove through it. I mean nobody really remembers those times that he was doing all not freaking. You know hackathons, you know I mean like there is a reason he's doing. It wasn't because he was trying to make some money, it's because he's trying to figure something out Right and solve a problem.
Speaker 2:Sure you know, and that's always well. It's not always the driver that's. It's a good driver. Yeah, for sure. I mean there are others like creating good jobs for people and other things that are sort of, you know, improving the community and other ancillary drivers. But yeah, the mission why does the business exist? Has to be one that's worth doing, right, if you're going to be motivated, yeah, and then it's.
Speaker 1:You know, it's the. You know the fact that I mean, like you've been through it a lot, mark, right, where there are problems, I mean you can have a day that I've I know, I've experienced hundreds of them. But days that it's very bleak, like there's, like you are just just bad news all day. Bad news all day, everybody's twisted, no one's there to help, right, and it lands on you and it's really all your fault, no matter how you look at it, and you're totally accountable. But you know we don't just lay there, no, and die.
Speaker 2:That's the failure aspect. If you let you die, that's it. That's why, if you just decide, I'll never fail. That's why I hate this whole idea. Fail often, fail early. No, don't failing means you gave up. Yeah, okay, yeah, not failing means that you encounter roadblocks and setbacks and you plow on, plow on baby. You go around them, you go over them, you go through them, you do whatever you have to do. Then you didn't fail.
Speaker 1:That's right, because I love what he says right here. It's a disgrace yeah, it's a disgrace to fail and just lay there. That's the disgrace.
Speaker 2:It really is. It's embarrassing. I mean, yeah, it's shameful, it is. It's to be avoided. Yes, it is. Well, that's good stuff. That's heavy. Okay, it's very heavy. I will admit I don't read a lot of poetry, but that was a good one, thank you. I actually took a photo of that and already sent it out to some people. I think need to hear it. Great, I actually took a photo of that and already sent it out to some people. I think need to hear it. Great, man, and I think hopefully our listeners will benefit from that. Again, that was Edmund Vance Cook. How did you die?
Speaker 2:All right, today we've got a fun topic. We're going to talk about vehicles in a metaphorical sense. Right, the business is the vehicle that has to be maintained. But I just wanted to bring up and talk about cars for a minute. You know it's one of my favorite subjects.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Love cars. Can't help it, sorry, I know it's an addiction. It's horrible. I still look at them every day. You spent so much money on cars, wasted so much money. It's mind-boggling.
Speaker 2:I think you know people may not. It sounds like bullshit, but I've had over 400 cars. You've had over 400 cars, yes, and I probably had 150 new cars, okay, on top of that, you know, included in that 400. But think about all the depreciation. Terrible financial decision, oh my god. Yeah, most people would say that, and a lot of them were bad financial decisions, but some of them were good, yeah, um, and that's kind of what I wanted to talk about, because I saw on linkedin the other there was some money expert and he was talking and he said well, if you're ever going to be wealthy, the first thing to do is not drive a nice car. And you know there's a lot of truth to that. A lot of people are car poor. They owe too much on their cars. They shouldn't spend that money.
Speaker 2:It's a depreciating asset. Like, what's the worst thing to finance A depreciating asset? Right, yeah, worst thing to finance a depreciating asset? Yeah, right, yeah. However, there are exceptions. Um, you can buy some nice cars cheap if you are clever and you buy the right cars. Um, sometimes, I mean, they're not going to be new cars most of the time, although sometimes they are. I don't know if you've seen the new international scout that's coming back. No, well, I've got one on order. I read it oh, nice, okay, scouts man. Well, the last time I bought um the bronco. The first night, it was announced, matt lewis called me up and said you want to order one of these? I'm like, yeah, he goes, you need it?
Speaker 1:yeah, okay so I've ordered the easiest cell call of his day, I'm sure so I paid 44 500 for it.
Speaker 2:When it came in, I could have sold it for 72 000. Dang. We drove it for I don't know eight, nine months, whatever it was. We sold it back to lewis for 8 500 more than we paid. Wow, because there was a shortage of them. Yeah, everybody wanted Broncos, so that was a good purchase.
Speaker 2:You got to know what you're buying, true, you know I've got this Mercedes CLS. Okay, it's a complicated car, it's a 2008, but it looks a lot newer than that. They were very swoopy and advanced. Cost $80,000 new. The value of it today is ridiculous. Again, I just stumbled across a video. Yesterday Guy bought one. He said it costs 6% of its original cost. So I've got one. It's got 50,000 miles on it. It's mint condition, it's green, it's wonderful. 80,000 new that equates to 117,000, I think, today. Dang, and the value of the car. Honestly, I'm having a hard time selling it for eleven thousand dollars. So I just took it out to my oldest daughter last night. She needs to a car to drive. I'm like there's no point in getting rid of the car. Okay, yeah, $11,000. But my point is you can buy a car like that. It's a really nice car. It's fully depreciated, yeah, and you know it's not a bad investment. Yeah, it's not going to go down in value at this point.
Speaker 2:Here's another case in point 911 Porsches. They hold their value. If you buy a used one, you can sell it. You could drive it for five years and sell it for more than it cost, all right, yeah, there's no better car to buy, it's true Than that. I mean, it was a super nice car when it's new. Let the first five years of depreciation do their thing and then, basically, you're driving it for free and some new 911s people buy that they sell three years later and make money on. I know a guy here in town. He bought a new one. He drove it for three years, sold it for one thousand dollars, less than he paid for it. How can you beat that? That's good. So anyway, you can have a nice car if you're clever about it, yeah, and you don't just buy exactly what you want, regardless of the depreciation factor.
Speaker 1:It requires a little discipline, yeah, foresight, little research yes, exactly yeah, so it was funny.
Speaker 2:I I saw this guy on facebook, I know, posted and he was talking about how he wait, how much time he wastes at work um looking at cars, because I just can't help it you know I'm sitting there and the next thing you know I'm on auto trader. And then he took a picture. He goes outside. He goes oh my god, it's a beautiful restored um land bro. Uh cruiser out there got a photo with him. Maybe I should get a land cruiser always chasing that bug man totally understand that.
Speaker 2:But and in today's discussion we were going to talk about you know, when you've got an old car, um, or an old business, um, what do you have to do? How, uh, you know where do you start, um, as it relates to fixing it up, to making it good again and I've done a lot of restorations on cars too, you know.
Speaker 2:I had quite a little collection at one time, but so I understand this process and it really is similar Old car, old house, old business. They have many common characteristics and it starts out with figuring out what you got yeah, and it starts out with figuring out what you got and you know. So, in business, you know whether you have your existing business and you're not happy with how it's performing, or you're buying a business that you need to fix which is my favorite kind of business to buy yeah, I've turned around, yeah. Or you're taking over a business that you work in and now you have a larger role or the top role in it. Where do you start? Yeah, what? What do you think? What are, what are some things that you would do to to change the situation? Because obviously, if you keep doing the same thing, it's going to get the same results, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I mean that's a, that's a huge question. I mean, there's so many variants to it. But I mean, like you know, the one thing you just mentioned I think is cool is like if you buy an existing business and, just like your analogy with the car wait five years for the depreciation I mean an existing business you can walk in. And if they're just sitting there breaking even and they have been for a couple of years but they can't seem to grow it, yep, I mean, man, that's a, that's an opportunity, this huge opportunity it really is, cause I can guarantee you, you know, they might not be doing very good in marketing. Oh, all of them, they all share that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you could just come in and, and especially in today's time, I mean like, I mean I think it's encouraging for younger people, yes, to get involved, because you can take, like you know, like a landscaping business that's doing well, everybody's worn out that owns it, yep, but it's got a good operation. You know, the crew's been with them. They've kind of depreciated all the bad apples of the crew, right, and now they got five or six people that are like steady, consistent, they do good work. You know everything's going well. They got a customer base, yep, and you can march in that thing as a young person and know how to do social media marketing, digital marketing, google and whatever else it takes, and you can just absolutely just grow it and working visibility yeah, okay, I mean, it's like I can't tell you.
Speaker 2:I've said this so many times. The landscapers pull up in their white trucks yeah, with no signage. Okay, the workers all have whatever shirt they rolled out of bed wearing, yeah On. And there's no job site signage Right, it's like nobody even knows who they are. They come by and they see this yard transformed or whatever. Nobody even knows who they are. Yeah, I would have my trucks painted lime green. Yeah, I mean, I would have gigantic signage with phone numbers that are visible, websites that are visible, a statement of what you do yes, so it's not a mystery right, like you know.
Speaker 1:Simple question do the do you do? Leaves yeah I know, I mean, you know. Simple question Do you do leaves? Yeah, I know, I mean, you know I mean, unless you're saying that kind of stuff and you've got to say you know you can get that business immediately from people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just not that hard, yeah, but yeah, you're right. So the marketing is always a problem. But let's just go back again to where do we start. Okay, where do we start on this process?
Speaker 2:I, we did a lot of business planning, you know, over the years. I started doing it in 1980 and came up with this concept that we called the management audit. I think it was 1988 or 89 when we started doing that. Instead of just being hired as consultants to go in and moderate a business planning retreat for a company, we said we're not going to do that. We want to go in there armed with information, get everybody on the same page. So we're going to do a management audit and it's kind of analogous to the book Good to Great. Yeah, you remember how they studied those companies. They just got all the information they could and they just threw it all out on the table and started talking about them. Yeah, with no particular hypothesis or preconceived notions, mm-hmm, and I think that's a very good idea.
Speaker 2:The management audit was somewhat like that Like, get all the financials, okay. Get all their marketing materials, get all their contracts, take a look at all their staff, get all the the uh, go out and interview their clients, interview their employees, interview their owners, um, stack them up compared to the industry norms, do the benchmarking on how they're performing with the data that you've got and then see what comes out of that. What issues did you identify in that process? And then come up with your strategies and actions and goals to to deal with those things. But I think it's a really good way to go. Um, you need to to, you know, uh, go through some sort of a process, and it's very hard for people who own a business to do this.
Speaker 1:So you're talking about like, if I like, for my podcast videos? Yeah, what you're saying is is that an appropriate way to basically check the maintenance of the vehicle? Right, yeah, of the business? Right Is look over the whole thing. Look over the whole thing. Just come in and do a complete audit. Don't try to make assumptions. Yes, just analyze what the hell's going on in every nook and cranny and then see what pulls out of it. You got it, and is that handled better, you think, by somebody that's outside the company?
Speaker 2:It may be, or maybe it's somebody inside the company, but they're not necessarily at the top. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But somebody that has a non-biased objective perspective is the big thing.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and it's brave enough to be able to tell you the truth. But again, the information that you pull together is you don't have to put a spin on it if you're the one that's going through this process. The information is the information. Yeah, you know what I mean. Yeah, if somebody says something X, then that's what they said. It's not what you said, right, ok, if a client says something about you, that's what they said. It's not what you're saying about how the firm is performing. If the average collection period for a firm in your business is 45 days and yours is 80. Ok, there's a damn problem out, there is 80. Okay, there's a damn problem out there, there's a problem. Okay, that that's, that's evident. Yeah, yeah, all right, I mean. So again, I mean I think it's it's really good to go through that process and and it gets everybody on the same footing, it's kind of like, you know, I took my RV that I bought not too long ago, the diesel truck shop.
Speaker 2:They have the whole thing gone over. Okay, the guy charged four hours to really thoroughly look at it. Yeah, now he identified problems I knew it had. And he identified problems I didn't know it had. Right, okay, which is great. And then we took care of all those Like I didn't think there was anything wrong with my batteries, but he pulled them out, he tested them, the voltage was low and one of them was bulging out. Okay, that's bad, all right, yeah. Or I had an airline in the back that was leaking that I did not know was even there, because it had a special brake setup. So when you tow a car, it hooks up the brakes of the tow vehicle but you probably know about this stuff better than I do, no, but anyway, it uses the air brakes of the rv to control the brake pedal of the car that you're towing.
Speaker 1:Gotcha, it's really, you know, sophisticated, but that had a leak in it, then you would have known that until you started trying to tell something.
Speaker 2:I would not have known that at all. I mean, my gauges looked like I had adequate air pressure, Okay, but that's a real hazard. But I mean there were a lot of things like that, Okay.
Speaker 1:You know, when we're talking about this, like when I think about doing an audit of my business, it feels really painful to go through that, like just to start it, because you know, I mean like the thing is I mean great analogy about taking your car in for that. Look around, right, that's pretty normal. I know where to kind of go to do that and I can see kind of the box. It's four hours. But if we're going to do something like that for the business, it's a little intimidating. Sure, you know. But I mean you, you would know, like like I mean, what are we talking about? Like how, how would, how would one even start to get down that path?
Speaker 2:like you identify somebody's objective unbiased and brave, just information gathering, just a wide open.
Speaker 1:So, but then how? How long would you think this audit all together?
Speaker 2:I don't know. It depends on the size of the organization. It could take you a week, it could take you two months. I mean, it's hard for me to say, but you need to pull that trigger.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's kind of the point, right, it's a start. And then, how often do you think one should do it for a business?
Speaker 2:I don't know. Again, it sort of depends on your performance. Yeah, I mean, if I got a business that's growing by 50% a year, five years in a row and making profits galore, probably not going to be too worried about it, right, you know? I mean I'm certainly going to do my annual business planning, but I don't necessarily need to go through quite, maybe quite, the same investigative process. I mean, let's, you know, be honest. But but I do think you know the other thing when I work with my small business students who work with small businesses as part of their, the class and their, their project, they work with a real business. So they're going to go through a white, you know, information gathering phase, and I mean it's everything from Google reviews to seeing how they show up on Glassdoor. To, you know, are there any complaints against them at the Better Business Bureau that they're unaware?
Speaker 2:I mean, there's all kinds of digging that you can do, right, yeah, but you know it's once you get all this information and you identify all the issues that have to be addressed, that the next phase is let's come up with a new business plan. That's where we can say, ok, which of these things is a priority? We can't do everything. Yeah, you know what. What's the most important stuff that we're going to get done? Yeah, so I think it really gives you the ammunition to. It helps get everybody in the firm on the same page and gives you the ammunition you need to do the business plan.
Speaker 2:And the business plan is the place where we deal with all this stuff. Right, right, too many people, I mean again, it's a function of sort of the pop culture of entrepreneurship of which you and I both like to dig at. Yeah, that the only purpose of the business plan is to go out and raise outside capital. Yeah, that's not true, not true. The business plan should be something that guides your business that's right On a daily basis, and, and so that's where I like to to. After that that comprehensive overview is done, then let's sit down and figure out exactly what we're going to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you need to put goals, goals that have metrics to them, quantitative goals, quantitative goals. And you and you know one thing my former business partner at Get it Goals that have metrics to them Quantitative goals, quantitative goals, and you know one thing my former business partner at White Spider taught me at JS was they have to be easily accessible. Yes, these metrics, like you cannot have a metric in there that you have to go spend two hours to go find Right.
Speaker 2:It just doesn't make that. I mean you were so fortunate that you teamed up with him. Yeah, I mean such a brilliant guy who understands management he does.
Speaker 1:And then you've got to empower your team to know what they own. And then they have to provide those metrics. It's their job to watch over those right. And then you have to have recurring and we have recurring team meetings here, like where you lay it out, you present it to the rest of the team. So now you have some accountability.
Speaker 2:Yep, and it's really fantastic once you kind of lay that stuff out, I mean it's it really, is it just, I mean, that's why I'm a big fan of open book management. Yeah, yeah, you talk about accountability. Show what everybody sold for the month. Yeah, there's your accountability. You know how each unit's doing. Okay, there's your accountability. But you're right about having the information with the goals available to everybody and how you're performing toward those yep, um. So, yeah, you gotta have the goals. You gotta have, um, uh, you know actions. Who's gonna do what? How?
Speaker 1:when and where? Yeah, and you've got to decide. Are you going to repair something or are you going to?
Speaker 2:replace it. Yeah, and that applies to people too 100%.
Speaker 1:That's actually the first thing I'm thinking about. Yeah, it does, you know. I mean, that's a never-ending thing too, and it's not like You're a coach, you're building a team.
Speaker 2:Did they just recruit once in the beginning of the season and then stop?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, you can't do that. You're always in recruitment mode, you're always looking for you know, it's just the reality to it, I mean, and you can't like, I still kind of struggle sometimes with some hard decisions that you've got to make with people. You know, because we love other people, right, we, we love seeing them grow, I mean that's. But at the same time you know there's people that don't allow the progress of the company and it hurts everybody else along the way, and you have to make those decisions sooner than later I was just involved in one of those yesterday and this morning, and here's the.
Speaker 2:Here's the scenario. There's somebody in a job. They show up every day. They're not hostile or negative, right, okay, they do certain things adequately, but we need a lot more out of that person. The person doesn't have the education or the experience or the aggressive personality that it's going to take to where you can say, hey, go, do this, fix it, not do a, b, c, d. Did you do a? Now, let's take a look. Did you do b now, let's take a look? No, we nobody's got the time for that. No, okay, maybe in another environment that person would be fine, but in the role that they're in now, that's not going to get us where we need to go. Yep, so we got to upgrade. And it's this passionate thing. It's not that they perform badly. They may have a hard time understanding when they're let go. Why, yeah, hopefully our managers will communicate that to them in such a way that they understand why they have to be replaced.
Speaker 1:You know, Mark, I mean like the older I get and the more experiences I go through, the more I'm attuned and aware of this negative draw that individual people have. Oh God, you know what I'm saying. In the social media, the information availability, the continuous communication has exacerbated this negative perspective, this passive, drifting perspective, and it's just like the person you're talking about. They may not be negative towards other people, but their own self-perspective and why they're doing what they're doing is just fascinating.
Speaker 2:It's so limiting.
Speaker 1:Very limiting. Yeah, it's just too limiting. You cannot have that. I know it's like that. I mean, honestly, big corporations can't have it either, but it's tolerated more because they have enough flow going through. Yeah, they've got so much inertia they do.
Speaker 1:yeah you know, but but but you know, they have to make hard decisions, like when we see these big companies make massive layoffs. I mean, yeah, really a lot of people maybe that are good are being impacted by that, of course. But there's this machine this, yeah, this, this, uh, this, this, this action or lack of action, it's a component in the machine, yeah, and it comes down to the individual. The poem we just read earlier is exactly if everybody on the bus had a perspective like that poem, like why am I doing what I'm doing? Right, what are we?
Speaker 2:going to be able to accomplish, you wouldn't have any problems, I know. And here's the other thing. I think it always everybody thinks about it in the context of is it broken? If it's broken, it needs to be fixed or repaired. But it's business. It's not always broken, right, it just doesn't perform as well as it could. Yeah, here's okay.
Speaker 2:Let's say, I got a car. It's a hot rod. Yeah, american v8. It's got a four barrel carburetor on it. Oh, wow, it's a holly 650 double pumper. Right, yeah, but listen though, I want this thing to go even faster than it is, so I'm going to put a Holley 850 on it. All right, my 650 does not need to be overhauled, right, it works exactly like it's intended, but it doesn't throw enough gas in this monster that wants to suck the fuel and to create this incredible horsepower. Yeah, I put that 850 on there and I can get another 40 horsepower out of it.
Speaker 2:Think about your business like that in that context You're modifying it, I'm modifying it, I'm improving it. Okay, I'm not necessarily fixing something broken. I think a problem with a lot of us is we think, okay, we don't fix something until it's broken. Ie, you know, we don't replace somebody until they quit? Yeah, okay, yeah, then we can upgrade them. No, we're not stuck with that forever, right? Or we don't change that process until it breaks down in some horrible way that greatly affects us. You know, maybe we're doing what we're doing and we're doing a decent job at it, but it takes way too much effort and we don't capture information that's going to help us later, and that's why we need to change the process.
Speaker 1:Information that's going to help us later and that's why we need to change the process. It's true, it's true and I would even go a step further that the modification sometimes is comes back to the leadership to spend time with people, to help them see more in themselves, to perform better right To believe that it's possible.
Speaker 1:The capacity most people have is, like you said earlier, limiting, self-limiting. To get out of that and say wait a minute, I actually have the capability to do this, and sometimes it takes, you know, a lunch meeting or a coffee meeting. Just get a person out of the environment, talk to them, encourage them, direct them, and then it fixes problems.
Speaker 2:It's so true. It's like you know. I always tell my students at the beginning of every semester this stuff is not brain surgery. Yeah, you are very capable. I guarantee you are probably have a higher IQ than most people who will own a business. Yeah, because they're in college, they've been able to do certain tests, and you know, to get there. They're seniors, but you know what I mean. They overcome all these hurdles. That is an indication of intellect, sure, regardless of whether it's a predictor of performance later or not I'll argue with that one, though but it's like. You can do this. This is not that hard. You are completely capable and your potential is completely unlimited. There's no limitation on what you could do, other than the limitations that you set forth for yourself, and business owners are a lot like that. They set a lot of very self-imposed limitations, not just their employees and what they think that business can do, even themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. You know some of the great, the most successful folks that I've, you know, listened to or researched. One of their biggest regrets is that they didn't set their goals high enough, and we're talking about people that have basically changed the entire world. Sure, I wish I would have set my goals higher, because they recognize when they hit the goals that they were after they were obtainable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I could say that about myself. I can too, about myself too you know.
Speaker 1:There's no question about it. Yeah, we should be. We should have higher goals. I know what's wrong with us. What's wrong with us, that's our problem.
Speaker 2:I was saying that to my wife the other night about this this local home building company that sold this wasn't the latest one that sold to the largest home builder in the country, but it was one that sold to one of the largest home builders in the country that preceded that. And anyway, I'm like, can you believe how much money they got out of that company for what they did, for the quality of their work and everything I said? We are freaking idiots. Okay, that we were. We didn't do that with our, our business. You know we accumulated some assets in the real estate that we owned and things, but I'm just saying, as a going concern, the value that they created because they decided that's what they were going to do.
Speaker 2:They didn't put a cap on themselves. Yeah, I'm sure they had a million problems. I know they did. Like, the quality is not always what they want, right, okay, right, sometimes you got to put stuff out there to figure out how to make it better. Yep, we could say, well, no, we're going to not do this until it's perfect, or you go boom, we're going to get it out there.
Speaker 1:You know, a lot of times it's relating to focusing on what's wrong with your business versus what's really right about your business. Oh, I know that's so true, because if you just focus on the wrongs, look every freaking business, company, everything, anything has problems, right, you know, it's like we look at Walmart and think to ourselves man, they don't have any problems, I need to run my business. Dude, you get inside that, I'm sure you're going to find a. Oh my God, yeah, sure.
Speaker 2:Any company is going to have that, yeah, but there are certain things they do really well and they capitalize on those.
Speaker 1:And that's what you've got to focus on. Just keep doing. I mean, you know what I'm saying. That's the way I feel.
Speaker 2:I feel the same way as an individual. It's like they all want to work on all their weaknesses. Okay, let's not work on your weaknesses. Let's get out of the things that you're weak at, yeah, and do what you do really well, okay, yeah, that's the way to maximize that's it, and feel a hell of a lot better about yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're enthusiastic. You're doing what you love, what you're good at. I mean, you're making progress. Everybody loves what they're good at yeah, man Don't they.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they do. It's so true. Nobody loves anything that they're not good at no-transcript.
Speaker 1:You got some beautiful magic going on right there.
Speaker 2:You do it's like a catalyst.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man. Another thing that I think that can keep or prevent or stall somebody out from being honest with their business whether they should repair or replace whatever it might be is you do have owners, especially new founders, new entrepreneurs, that are attached to their brand. Yes, they're attached to their brand, yes, and they stall out by making hard, objective decisions because they just fall in love with their own company's identity. Oh, it's so true and feel like it's. I hate it when people say, when people ask me this question so you know, when we sold our company, they say so what was it like to sell your baby? Yeah, and I'm like dude, that was not my baby, that was a monster, that's right.
Speaker 2:I was like chaining yeah and trying to control it, right, that's right that thing, that whole baby concept went away like year one, you know.
Speaker 1:I mean yeah, because I did have a you know a moment way back, and they was like I recognized this is not my company. I am playing a part using my strength, right, but this thing is is is its own beast man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like you're the mother and it's the child, and the child for has its own personality.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you've got to let that living through the child right, and any mom, especially moms, can be a jeopardy of this right. They live through their kids and you know I'm saying they lose their identity, right, and then they're always disappointed and scared and worried about it. You can't do that like this thing. This machine has to develop on itself and you're just kind of ducking and dodging, trying to play a part to keep that puppy going.
Speaker 2:But if you get emotionally attached to this brand yes, like it's you're just basically like get rid of the baby concept it's like you're ignoring if you're so attached to your brand and what you do and your identity you're ignoring what's going on in the marketplace. That's what it says to me. Yeah, it's like we know better than the marketplace what we need to do and be and provide right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can't operate like that and I think that some of the thing is is like the entrepreneur can get so invested which you should be right, it goes back to what we were originally talking about. You are 100% invested to seeing the success of this company. You can't let loose of that. But you can't be attached to it like it's everything and anything Like and you have like you like. Basically, you know you can't be afraid to make changes because you'd be embarrassed that your baby isn't looking pretty. No, you got to get rid of that and so if you can't, you know, segment yourself from that situation, you're in a world of hurt.
Speaker 2:You know, I've always said, like managers all right, let's say we take an existing organization. It's 10, 20, 30 years old, whatever, and it's going to go through a leadership transition. There's a new leader that comes in Hopefully they came from within and rose to the ranks, but there's a transition in leadership that's taken place right. Transition in leadership that's taken place right. The art of that person's job is knowing what to keep and what to throw away to get to the next level. That is so difficult.
Speaker 2:Okay, founders tend to not want to throw anything away. Yeah, okay, I've been there myself like yeah, people go like that revenue, we don't make any money on that and we, we need to get Mike. No, I want to keep every revenue dollar. It takes more time to do that. We make it doesn't matter. You know, I'm always going to probably, you know likely fall into that kind of a crap, um, but I do think, um that knowing what you're going to keep and knowing what you need to change is the whole art of whether you're the one that's continuing at the helm or, particularly, in transitions.
Speaker 1:You know, and, on top of that, the ability to be decisive on that, oh yeah, and not like, like most of the times, you know in your gut, yes, what needs to be done, yes, so it's the stalling of this decisiveness and it's like holding on to your brand, it's like trying to make a calculated decision, decision. You're weighing all these pros and cons and you don't. And you, you just become passive and making a decision. It never. I have yet to experience something that I know that I should do and I'll give it more time before I decide to do it. And if somebody's coming in to the company and they're decisive, it's absolutely fantastic because they just make the call, move on, yes, and they're not worried about the criticism, right, you know, we've seen that a lot with, like you know, a lot of companies all the time. Recent ones, the starbucks, right, the new ceo comes in and is making decisions.
Speaker 2:Right, just call the shot getting criticized, getting like why did you pull the plug? Or whatever their latest thing they said they're gonna not do anymore. Yeah, it was very controversial.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and everybody's criticizing. But I mean, hey, you, the decision sticking to the guns. I mean you just got to do it. Yeah, it's a hard role, Like these CEOs of these big companies. I mean that's a really tough job, man, to come in. Oh it is, but you have to make the decisions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're going to be subject to all kinds of Monday morning quarterbacks. Right, absolutely, man, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's so true, but you gotta if you're in a small business and you know things aren't going the right way you have like, do your audit. Let that pull out what the information, the decisions that you need to make.
Speaker 2:Set your goals, put your metrics to it, make the decision don't be attached to it right, get yourself objective and then make decisions and go and and know the difference in fixing things that are broken yep and upgrading things that function but don't give you the performance that you want. You got to do both. It's not just fixing what's broken yep, it's more than that. If you want to optimize, juicing what's going good, yeah, yeah. And again to me you know I put something out the other day on LinkedIn and I got a certain amount of negative flack Some of it from friends of mine, people I care about and respect where I said I don't like the term solopreneur, I don't either. Okay, it's like what are you talking about? I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a one person company, but I do good things for the community and I am innovative in my practices, and yada, yada, yada. Just because it doesn't have any value doesn't mean I'm not an entrepreneur. You know that's my distinction. Yeah, it does. Right, you could have all those things you said you do. Those are the characteristics of a really great small business. There's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 2:I've had small businesses myself. I had a small business that got the $10 million in revenue and it was on the Inc list, but it was a small business. It had no value. At the end, the value was tied to me personally yeah, yeah, okay, not the organization itself. Okay, as a going concern, they'd have assets that were valuable, and assets that were valuable it's not like it wasn't lucrative to a certain extent, but you know, I think it doesn't make you an entrepreneur. The entrepreneur, it goes beyond fixing what's broken. They go beyond just being innovative and they say we're going to scale this, we're going to make this, so we don't even have to be a part of it.
Speaker 1:That's right. It becomes the monster.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's going to be the monster that we, you know we unchain and unleash on the world.
Speaker 1:That's right, man it is its own freaking monster. It's not my monster, you're done with it, frankenstein.
Speaker 2:You know, created the thing and now he's out there, you know, plundering the, the village or whatever it's it's got its own life, it's doing its own thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I think, a good, a really practical example on this too, that I think maybe a lot of people can understand. You see solopreneurs doing this and entrepreneurs too. I've been guilty of this. But calling yourself like, given the title of ceo, like a chief executive officer of any company, is not a face, you know, face value, title position. It is a real freaking job that requires a real amount of expertise, a real burden of responsibility, significant amount of pressure. I mean like it, like like you, if you're going to call this like.
Speaker 1:I don't want to call myself CEO of my companies. Yeah, I don't want to be myself CEO of my companies. Yeah, I don't want to be the freak. You don't like that. I'm not a good, I am not a good CEO. I've recognized that about myself. I don't want to deal with that stuff. I'm a good growth officer, you know. I can see things. I can go talk some smack. I can make you. I can make you're a good creator. Open doors starter. A good creator, I like to open doors, right, but I'm not a good closer. So I'm not a good sales officer. I'm not a good. You're probably better at closing than you think. Well, I mean, yeah, but I'd rather open. You know what I'm saying? Uh-huh, like I'd rather open, let the other other ones know what your strengths are.
Speaker 2:Again, get out of your weaknesses, right, yeah that's it, but.
Speaker 1:But being a good CEO is a significant burden of responsibility. So be careful. Even if you're starting your business, you know. If you're going to put on LinkedIn excitingly that you're the CEO of your company, then you got a lot of crap you need to be doing and you better be aware of it, right? I mean, you can be founder right Run with that credibility, yes, but are you a CEO? Yes, are you really the person that's making all the decisions based on a whole bunch of things you got to calculate? There's good CEOs out there and you should think about partnering with somebody that is actually a good CEO.
Speaker 2:Yeah. If you're not, if that's not what you enjoy and you're good at, I agree. Not. If that's not what you enjoy and you're good at, I agree. Yeah. Well, that always comes back to the team building. We've talked about that. Finding the right partner who complements your skills is not just like you dude, I got a good one on this whole conversation.
Speaker 1:What's that? If you're an entrepreneur, you have a business and we're trying to fix or repair or whatever, you need to be able to look at yourself and say am I the problem? Right, right, if you are in the position of CEO and you have this audit and all these things expose themselves, can you look at yourself and say I'm on the wrong seat here?
Speaker 2:That takes somebody whose ego is not, is so out of control that you know, and that's a problem, I think. It takes somebody that's yeah, it's a problem, I think it is, it takes, it takes somebody.
Speaker 1:It's like this isn't my baby, they're secure.
Speaker 2:They're secure in themselves and and and their ego is not completely wrapped up and in their identity of the job.
Speaker 1:That they have the company because I can bet you you can fix a lot in the business if you get a good ceo.
Speaker 2:You can now that that the one caveat to that, okay, is that person needs to also respect the founder. Oh, yeah, they. They cannot cast dispersions on the found. That's right, because they want to put their brand on there. That's right. If they do that, then they're shooting you in the back, it's. You know well, who was it that killed Julius Caesar? You know Brutus or whatever? Yeah, you know, I don't. I mean that happens a lot in a lot of entrepreneurial organizations because it's like, well, you know, they don't know what they're doing. They need professional management. That's why they brought me in. I know everything, ego trip, anything.
Speaker 1:That's right, yeah Bad. It's a big, big decision on who that is right.
Speaker 2:Yep, you got to make a good one and they got to respect the founder. I I saw a very interesting article on that on LinkedIn recently about, you know, successful uh acquisitions and one of the keys was keeping the founder involved, yeah, okay, and not throwing them out. Mm-hmm, um. So they're out there. You know they need to have respect shown to them so they're not working against you with this business that you just bought, yeah, and I would say it's hard for the acquiring company to recognize.
Speaker 1:I mean to be able to see value. And the founders are usually entrepreneurs, are usually outliers they're a little bit goofy outliers, right, they're a little bit goofy, right, they're a little crazy, they're squirrely and to know what, yeah, what their value really is. But they're doing a lot, right, you know? Right, they're driving this enthusiasm. Yes, it's, they're the. They're the freaking gasoline in the vehicle. I know you could have a perfect souped up rod, like you were talking about earlier, with no fuel in it. No fuel, yeah, your entrepreneur founder is the fuel that.
Speaker 2:Maybe they're like the nitrous oxide. Yeah, they got gas, but they don't have like that nitrous. You put that nitrous in there, man. The horsepower rating just goes like that's right yeah, yeah, and you gotta have that man.
Speaker 1:It's an easy thing to forget.
Speaker 2:Here's another thing that I think that we need to talk about, and that's how do we know when we, or how do we decide what new product or service lines that we add in to this organization as we analyze it and try to fix it, slash, improve its performance, new products and services? I've always been a really big fan of that. Yeah, I think it keeps the market interested in what the company's doing. Yeah, and it's part of marketing. People don't realize that. They think, oh, marketing is just promotion. You know, it's the four Ps. It's the product is one of the four p's, promotion's the one everybody thinks it is, and then it's physical distribution and then it's pricing.
Speaker 1:But the products themselves new yep dude, if you can roll out a product launch, like I mean, that's what I try to drive the team here is like, especially being good at launching new products, like from ideation you know to be able to do an analysis on it. What's the value proposition? Yeah, yeah, and then get your marketing, your go-to-market plan. But if you can be releasing new features and new features are products oh yeah that's part of it too is constant improvement.
Speaker 2:It doesn't have to be some revolutionary product. It's just right an improvement it keeps the market interested, it keeps your clients or customers interested in what you're doing and it gives you the excuse to market, gives you something new to market. And then my experience with that is then they also buy more at the old. That's right, okay, because now they're not ignoring you. You've been pounding away with the same stuff for so long. Now we come up with something new. It's like oh, now we've got their attention, yeah and interest again.
Speaker 1:Exactly, man. I really hope my team listens to our show. I know.
Speaker 2:I wish everybody in my businesses would listen to this show too. Yeah, every week, man, I know it's like it should be a requirement. My students too. The problem is that most people don't have the discipline to consistently educate themselves. Continuous learning Exactly, yeah, it's that. Exactly, yeah, it's that. Can that? Continuous learning? I mean, you know, I'm damn near 67 years old and I swear I feel like I'm learned so much in the last two years. You know what I mean it's like and it's a constant process.
Speaker 2:You've got to tune in, you've got to you know, and you've got to consider the credibility of who you're getting your information from. That's one of my complaints about social media. Obviously, there's a lot of unfactual information that's put out there, right? Yeah, or there's in the business social media. There's a lot of opinions that are given by people who don't really have any experience, experience or performance to back up the legitimacy of their, of their opinion. Yeah, it's just like. Well, I'm a one man guy band. I got fired from the last three places I worked. Now I'm a solopreneur, working out of my bedroom and don't get a living.
Speaker 1:But here you go. Here's how to be successful. And, by the way, I'm a CEO now too. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, here's how to be successful. Okay, I mean, it's just so. That's the problem. But if you're discerning, you know and you tune in to good sources of information, you can continue to learn. This is another thing. I had an interesting discussion aviation you can continue to learn. This is another thing.
Speaker 2:I had an interesting discussion, um uh, breakfast monday morning with a, with a guy here in northwest arkansas. He owns a 26 or 28 million dollar business very smart guy. Uh, his um. He took over from his father who acquired the business back in the 80s, and his mom actually owns the business, but he's done an amazing job growing it. Okay, he's gonna end up with the business, right, but he's done such a fantastic job, um, growing this business.
Speaker 2:But you know, we started talking about, um, the possibility of creating a board of directors for his company at this point to expand his marketing reach, to give him expertise that he doesn't have, you know, in how to grow a company, to give him reach with regulators in his industry. I mean, there's a lot of reasons why you'd want to create this outside board, but we were talking about potential people for it and I said, you know, my only thing is you need to find people who've been more successful than you had, or and they don't need the money. Yeah, okay, so they'll be honest with you. That's right, and I think it's, and he goes, you know. It goes back to that thing where you know we've all heard like, surround yourself, the five people you spend the most time with, or whatever, are going to be the ones that are most influential on you. There's a lot to that. Yeah, there is, there really is. So upgrade the people you hang out with is the moral of that story. It's a big one.
Speaker 1:They'll give you better advice and inspiration. Yep, and you've got to show up in places to meet those types of people too. Oh yeah, which is outside your comfort zone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it is for a lot of people.
Speaker 1:So hey, I've got a meeting coming up, mark, yeah, so we've got to close her up. We've got to wrap this thing up. Yeah, we've got to. I've got to go.
Speaker 2:I want to go work on my motorhome today. That's my job.
Speaker 1:It's going to be fun? Are we going to do the Zweig hat pull? Yeah, let's do that. Okay.
Speaker 2:Let's wrap it up. Let's get a Zweig hat pull. We don't know what's in here. No, there's no practice. We don't even know what these topics are. No, they're just pieces of paper.
Speaker 1:Fail forward. So we kind of already talked about that a little bit. I would say that the fail part is the bad word in there. It's really mistake forward.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, experiment forward.
Speaker 1:Experiment forward? Yeah, it is, because if you lie there, if you fail, that means you lie there and die. That's disgraceful. Yeah, but you're going to have a tremendous amount of mistakes, a tremendous amount of experiences. Just get back up and keep going. I mean, I know that the concept of that is what we're talking about, but it can be misinterpreted. That's the fear of what we're talking about here. Is that the failure? It's okay to fail so long as you fail into the next failure? Yeah, that the failure. It's okay to fail so long as you fail into the next failure.
Speaker 2:That's not true. No, I don't know. Do you watch football at all? No, okay, I didn't for years, but I got into it, like you know, maybe six, seven years ago. Yeah, and I was watching this playoff game this weekend between Kansas City and Buffalo. Yeah, fantastic game, two teams that are just like. I mean, if you watch college football and then you watch pro football, you realize these pros are freaking amazing. Oh, yeah, okay yeah.
Speaker 2:These guys are so good at what they do that it's mind-boggling, yeah. When you see these quarterbacks being chased by five guys running sideways and throw a pass, you know 30 yards and it hits some guy that's got like three guys around them, I mean it's just like it blows your mind. But anyway, talk about failing forward. It's the relevance here. There was the last touchdown that Kansas City made. That won the game for them. You know there's this guy, he's got the ball, won the game for him. You know there's this guy, he's got the ball, he's running, you know, and man, he's being tackled, okay, right at the goal line, it just just gets that ball. It just like you can just see him. It's like man, I'm gonna get that ball over the line, yeah, and just get his hand on the ball and just reaches over the line and that won the game. Okay, that was the winning touchdown. It's like he could have died there. He could have easily been on the yard line and been stopped.
Speaker 2:Instead, he just made this Herculean effort just to get his arm out there, and that's a. He failed forward.
Speaker 1:He got tackled. It's almost like fall forward yeah.
Speaker 2:Fall forward. Yeah, let's say fall forward. I like that better. Fall forward, fall forward, fall forward. So we're making progress even though we fell. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But you just fall, you don't fail. Yeah, that's it All right. Great episode I got to go to my meeting Mark Great talk business to conduct.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm sorry about that, but you go do your thing. I'm going to play the rest of the day.
Speaker 1:Okay, I thought you were going to say you're going to keep doing the show.
Speaker 2:No, I'm going to play, so I still have to do that sometimes.
Speaker 1:Anyway, another episode of Big Talk About.
Speaker 2:Small Business. Bye everybody.
Speaker 3:Thanks for tuning into this episode of Big Talk about Small Business. If you have any questions or ideas for upcoming shows, be sure to head over to our website, wwwbigtalkaboutsmallbusinesscom and click on the ask the host button for the chance to have your questions answered on the show. Stay connected with us on LinkedIn at Big Talk About Small Business and be sure to head over to our website to read articles, browse episodes and ask questions about upcoming shows.