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. 81 - Why Your Work Culture Matters More Than Your Office Perks
What really creates a thriving business culture? Forget the ping pong tables and office kegs – it's about treating people with respect, allowing them to fail, and making them feel valued. Successful entrepreneur Ben Clark shares the raw, unfiltered story of his journey from struggling student to business leader.
Ben's path wasn't conventional. Battling severe dyslexia that left him unable to pass tests, he developed exceptional people skills to compensate. After being suspended from college and buying a small t-shirt company in 2006, he faced an immediate crisis when his only artist quit. With no equipment, no drawing skills, and limited resources, Ben persevered through sheer determination.
The growth of Be Unlimited mirrors what Ben calls "building a fort" – people coming together organically, each bringing something valuable to the collective effort. This philosophy helped the company survive the 2008 financial crisis and eventually grow to a $20 million business with over 100 employees. By finding a niche in university apparel and focusing on creating an exceptional product through water-based screen printing and quality design, they carved out a distinctive market position.
Now splitting his time between business and philanthropy, Ben has founded Bold Creators, mentoring entrepreneurs in Uganda. His experiences there have reinforced his belief that work isn't something to escape from but a fundamental part of identity and purpose. True fulfillment comes not from accumulating possessions but from creating, building, and helping others succeed.
Whether you're starting your entrepreneurial journey or leading an established business, Ben's insights on authentic culture-building, finding your niche, and maintaining purpose beyond profit offer a refreshing perspective on what really matters in business and life.
It's not about the ping pong table in the office. It's not about having a beer keg or kegerator. Exactly, those things are fun. Those actually can be distractions more than anything, but it's really just about listening to people, making sure they feel validated just allowing people to fail. Those things are what really bring Treating people with respect. Treating people with respect yeah, they're all valuable. That's what really brings a good culture, honestly.
Speaker 3:All right, here we are everybody. Yeah, baby, we are back in the studio with our friend and experienced entrepreneur extraordinaire.
Speaker 4:Who's going?
Speaker 3:to teach us today, learn us. Anybody who knows Ben and pretty much everybody around here knows Ben have you ever noticed that? Oh yeah, totally. They all say oh Ben, he's such a nice guy. Well, that's why I named you.
Speaker 4:Ben all the time. I'm like man, I mean I work with Ben all the time. I mean you know him, I Ben all the time. I'm like man. I mean I work with Ben all the time you know him. I'm friends with Ben.
Speaker 3:I'm glad you can trust me it's like I got one of Ben's shirts on right now. That's right.
Speaker 4:Ben taught me everything I know. You can sign a deal with me.
Speaker 3:He is such a great guy, but anyway, we need to open it up. This is another episode of Big Talk, small Business. All right, we're here in the studio with Ben, and Ben is the founder of a company known as Be Unlimited that he's going to tell us all about today. How did you get that? I'll start off with.
Speaker 1:I mean just to correct you, mark, that I'm not the founder.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's right, I forgot you bought that.
Speaker 1:Although, yeah, I bought it when it was a small company and I just kind of grew it from there. I forgot it was a good friend of mine that had it. It was an opportunity he had started it Brian Reindl, and then he got into the real estate deal and, yeah, the rest is history for him. Gosh, that guy Brian's a great guy. I love.
Speaker 3:Brian. We should have Brian on the show. We should have him on the show. He's doing the new hotel in downtown.
Speaker 2:Fayetteville.
Speaker 4:Oh, really yeah.
Speaker 3:I love Brian. He's such a cool guy.
Speaker 1:We've been. I love Brian. He's such a cool guy. We were college roommates for the short amount of time that I was in college, just like anything. I was actually reading the book the Meaning of Marriage not too long ago. Why, at this stage of my life.
Speaker 3:I'm reading that book.
Speaker 1:I don't know You're such a huge fan of Brian, but it said this guy was talking about there's. He's been married 28 times whoa wait what?
Speaker 4:oh my god, I thought you gotta have him on the show there is something seriously wrong.
Speaker 3:Well, that's exactly what I'm thinking and, as I kept reading, it seriously wrong.
Speaker 1:he says they've changed 28 times and so he's been with the same woman, but they just changed 28 times through their marriage.
Speaker 3:Well, it's not just they meaning him as well. Yeah, oh, that's true, both of them.
Speaker 1:And so when you say that, so a lot of times, even when you talk about a founder or even buying a business, this business has been. I mean, I've owned several businesses within this one business yeah honestly I mean because it's changed so many times. So in a lot of ways I am a founder of many businesses within be unlimited, because I mean we've just gone up and down so many times, so it's just.
Speaker 4:That's a really cool point yeah, it actually makes me feel better about myself well you know.
Speaker 3:You know I'm on wife number three, right? I mean I'm not saying it should make you feel better. I always tell my students I go. You can either think that my relationship advice is worthless, or you could say maybe I've learned something. Yeah, you know the choice is yours. I think you have learned a lot, but no, that's an interesting way to look at it, ben. So tell us a little bit about your history, and I'm sorry I forgot that, because I did know Brian started it.
Speaker 1:But tell us more about your history and how you got into business. I mean my history, I mean growing up as a kid. I mean I think this is where it really starts, right, yeah, when you're a kid, and so you sit there and you think about. You know, I had dyslexia. I had add, had a really hard time in school everybody has add dan, that's nothing, that wasn't diagnosed back then, but trust me, I had add not to get the drug.
Speaker 1:I understand I really are for real. All of us have, All of us have. I get it Exactly that one doesn't count anymore. I guess, right.
Speaker 3:Just forget that. Dyslexia. I'm sure that presented some challenges it was pretty severe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, really, I literally did not pass a test growing up and the team would just kind of keep moving me on, but I kept it hidden, you know, and I just kind of like really kept it hidden. So I just my people skills probably grew because of that during that time.
Speaker 4:You were ducking and dodging the circumstance.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah and it helped you. Yeah, Well, I think it's helped me later on in life with just owning a business. Honestly.
Speaker 3:Have you seen that new dyslexia center that Don Nelm says yeah, because business, honestly so. Have you seen that new dyslexia center that don gnome says yeah, because you know he was? Dyslexic too, and he's been very successful I know, yeah, so if you have a kid out there, that's dyslexic.
Speaker 1:Don't worry about them. They're going to end up supporting you one day yeah, they'll be entrepreneurs right you're gonna have to think outside the box, and that's what you have to do as an entrepreneur. You have to think outside the box. You don't do it kind of the the traditional school way, you know right, a lot of times that just makes you a good employee, you know, yeah, so it's uh, instead of being an owner or an entrepreneur so you struggled in school, though obviously you're extremely intelligent guy, so you got through high school.
Speaker 3:Got through high school where'd?
Speaker 1:you grow up, grew up in north little rock, okay, went to, uh, indian hills elementary, then northeast high school, and this is. And then I, uh, my counselor said, okay, you really need to go to a trade school. And I said trade school. My brothers are at the university of arkansas. I really I've never not thought about anything, but just going to the university, yeah, so I came up here to the university and they quickly saw that we're going to put you in all remedial classes until you pass these to go on to the next thing and honestly, I just did not do. Well, I mean, they put me on probation and then suspended me, and then I tried to come back in and and I was sitting at the front row, you know. So it was just a.
Speaker 1:So my learning skills were just not the same way as most people, which I think, in a lot of ways, probably end up being to my benefit. And so, yeah, but my dad taught me how to work. I mean, I was a paper boy in third grade, I was a dishwasher when I was, you know, 12. Right, and then I mean, really, I was, I was cleaning. You worked your butt off. Yeah, I was working my butt off? Exactly, yeah, cleaning tables at a restaurant until I was 18, you know. And then I came up here to fayetteville and I I worked at chick-fil-a for a little while at the mall unit just opened up, uh, when chick-fil-a was only 300 stores in the nation and um, and then I probably learned something from that experience about how to.
Speaker 1:oh, I did, in fact, all three of my sons I made required them. They'll hire someone at 14. They usually hire three 14-year-olds at any given store and they have limited time and hours they can work and stuff. But I've made all three of my signs at 14. You're going to work at Chick-fil-A for two years. It's like boot camp for you. It's like boot camp. Yeah, they have such a good training yeah, I believe it.
Speaker 3:Customer service yeah, they know how to serve.
Speaker 1:Oh, they really do, it's just, and it stays with you and it stays with me still, to this day. I'll still think about it.
Speaker 3:You know the way I treat others, and just though it's just a great example of a business that's in a super crowded market. Yep, there's a zillion competitors. I don't think their food is any better than any other chicken place in my opinion, but their service is so good. It's just that's how they stand out. Yeah, I'm trying, you know they move their line faster.
Speaker 3:They've got a smile on their face. If they see you struggling with something, they rush out there to help you. I mean, can you imagine that at McDonald's or somewhere where the worker behind the counter is going to come around and say, let me help you get that to your table? I mean it just would never happen.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah for sure. So I think that all kind of played into the part, sure, and just not having a degree actually forced me into entrepreneurship. You know, I wouldn't call myself, like this, true entrepreneur or serial entrepreneur or someone like that, just flipping companies out there and doing whatnot, but you know, I literally had to get into it. I didn't come from money and so my parents didn't have money to help me kind of get started. I had to kind of really do whatever I could through, you know, like through my house. I think I used, you know, the equity in my house to help me buy the business out from Brian, and then I actually, he, he actually.
Speaker 1:So tell people what the business was. It was, well, being being limited, right. So so tell them what it did. It's a t-shirt company. Okay, at the time it was just I would do whatever, and at the time when I bought it I didn't have any equipment. It was just me and an artist, and that was my only staff that I had, and so it was just in the room about the size of this room we're in right now, wow. So that's why I say it's like a. So, after taking that business over, and then my artist quit, and so then it was just me.
Speaker 3:I don't know how to draw. I don't know how to print.
Speaker 1:I literally just kind of spiraled right then, thinking what in the world? It's like I've got this business I just paid for. He's out, he's out. I don't really know what I'm doing. I just kind of like I didn't have any other opportunities. So I just kind of took it.
Speaker 1:So I finally found another artist and thought, man, I'll never hire just one artist anymore, I've got to hire two artists, just in case one of them quits on me, you know. So I've got two artists and somehow or another, I really came across a really extraordinary artist. Extraordinary artist. I mean, he was an illustrator and he just, uh, he was working in a coffee shop, uh, and uh, at the hospital at washington regional, just at a kiosk. And I saw his art one day at an art show and I talked to him. He said, oh yeah, he's, he's kind of done some screen printing and he knew about it and, uh, he had worked for another guy years earlier and I said, would you come work for me while I'm looking for an artist? I thought, you know, like a stopgap temp measure?
Speaker 4:Yeah, because you didn't know how to draw.
Speaker 1:I didn't know how to draw, right, I didn't know how to draw, right, I was asking, literally, if I saw it and this did happen. I was at the bank teller and I saw this bank teller like uh, doodling, and I thought do you know how to draw? Can you do something for me real quick? I really need your help. So I mean, that's how it started. I mean, must you know? So?
Speaker 3:did you print, then I mean, you had I actually outsourced all the printing.
Speaker 1:Oh, so you outsourced it. Okay, so I would wow, I would have someone, uh, I would have a, uh, distributor of t-shirts, uh, drop ship to a uh someone that's like a contract printing company, yeah, and then they would, uh, they would print it for me, and that went on for like 10 years. I would try to buy a piece of equipment but they would just deny me because I didn't have my credit. Was it sucked? I mean, like, just you know, you're pouring everything into your business and trying to just make it. I mean, at the time I was doing logos and maps and just you asked me to do anything. I'd be like, yeah, we can do it, you know. And then I'd go back and try to figure out how do I do this? You know now, what year was this, ben gosh? This was. This wasn't even that long ago. It doesn't feel like that. I'm a late bloomer. This was back in 2006.
Speaker 3:Okay Is when you bought it from Brian. Yeah, okay, 2006. So then it took off from there.
Speaker 1:So then it took off from there. Okay, actually, it didn't really take off from there. So then it took off from there. Okay, actually, it didn't really take off from there. Then we kind of experienced the housing market in 2007,.
Speaker 3:2008, right around there. I was buying shirts from you then for my construction company.
Speaker 4:You were the only one you don't know this, but you were the only one.
Speaker 1:I bought shirts for me, thank you, because I was hanging on by a thread and the funny thing is, as a business owner back then, you're just like you're literally your head's down, you're in your room, you're not talking to other business people. I wasn't watching the news. I didn't know that the economy was crashing right now. I thought it was just me.
Speaker 3:I really did.
Speaker 1:I thought wow, it's like, here comes another failure, I'm failing again. It's going down fast. I was like yeah, oh yeah, I really did.
Speaker 4:I thought it was just like it's going down fast, but there's something to that, though We've talked about this a lot, I don't watch the news. I haven't watched the news in 20-plus years. This a lot. I don't watch the news.
Speaker 3:I haven't watched the news in 20 plus years Me either. I don't watch it. No point, man. It's not like I have 24 hours a day.
Speaker 4:I can tell you about your intensity on a daily basis. But I mean all it does is push fear into me and there's nothing I can do about it In most of the circumstances. If it's something real serious, mark will tell me. But I mean there's something about the fact that you thought it was you and so what you did was you looked at every nook and cranny of how you could do better and what you should and shouldn't do.
Speaker 2:And you just focused on yourself and your business.
Speaker 4:And you ducked and dodged, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Exactly. Ignorance, in a way, is a plus, because you don't know all the reasons why you shouldn't be succeeding. Oh right, you know what I mean. You just do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you do what you have to do. We had other businesses out there struggling too, and so they were underbidding me. I mean, they were coming in with these low prices, you know, and it's like, and then I would start saying I would drop my prices down. I dropped my prices down during that time and I'm literally I mean, it cost me more to make the shirt than I could, than I was, and I didn't even know how to really do that. I understand even my pricing. Come on, ben, I mean this business is.
Speaker 3:I mean, this business is a large business today. Okay, yeah, so obviously you did something right.
Speaker 1:I mean I just pushed, I pushed through, I persevered. There you go. I had a lot of grit, I stayed up late at night, okay, and I worked through it. And so just one of the printing companies that I was using at the time that I was farming a lot of printing out to, they weren't paying their taxes and so they were struggling and so they were going to get shut down or something, and so it got to a point where I was able to buy their equipment from them and then bring them on as employees, and so that actually worked in my favor at the time Like a little acquisition basically, what year was that Vertical integration?
Speaker 1:That was probably about 2000.
Speaker 3:Golly, what year was that? Is that when you were in the Quonset hut over there? Yeah?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. That's when I was over there, so it was probably around. It was the late to like 2018.
Speaker 4:Okay, something like that. So you had gone 10 years, then you bought this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you kind of acquired this.
Speaker 1:Maybe it's you're right, so it's 2006 when I bought it, so it's probably like it was probably about 2012. I think it was 2012.
Speaker 4:Okay, okay probably, like it was probably about 2012, I think it's okay. Well, okay, so it's on that. You shocked me on any of this stuff, are you?
Speaker 1:not prepared for this podcast. No, like I told you earlier, I don't prepare for anything, just to get literally told you. I've told people before I said listen. If you listen to different podcasts that I've been on, you'll think that I've. It's totally different companies. They sound so different.
Speaker 4:Well, had we gotten prepared for this, we would have let you know the questions we might ask. So this is the way it's done.
Speaker 1:This is how it happens. It's like real business.
Speaker 3:It's the best way. It's so seriously, though, Ben. So today, give us an idea, just so people listening have a perspective. How big is the company now?
Speaker 1:I mean altogether, we do close to $20 million. Okay, wow, it's like it's, you know.
Speaker 3:So how many employees do you have?
Speaker 1:We have about we don't have as many employees as we used to, because we've been able to downsize because of a lot of More efficiency. Yeah, more efficiency, yeah, just automation project, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we've been able to downsize because of a lot of more efficiency yeah, more efficiency automation project, you know, yeah, uh, so it's um, I'm thinking I have around a hundred and something employees, wow, so it sounds like, you know, he makes it sound like he's just got some t-shirts coming out of a truck or something.
Speaker 4:I mean, it's definitely an operation as of today.
Speaker 1:Honestly, as of today, I've been living down in Florida and here half the year. And as of today, I mean I've got a business partner, now that we merged five years ago. Okay, his name is Nathan Lott. And also, as of today, we have Laura Poe, who's the president of BN Limited. She's been there for 15 plus years and she's running BN. I mean, she really runs the day-to-day inside, she makes all the important decisions and she's done an incredible job. So what do you do? That's a good question.
Speaker 1:That's what everybody else asks too. I hope they're not listening to this podcast.
Speaker 4:It's like they're running that ass too. I hope they're not listening to this podcast. It's like they're running and they shouldn't come in. That's right Now when they see me coming, they probably don't even know who I am.
Speaker 3:Think you're somebody picking up some t-shirts. Well, you've obviously been good at picking people and you've been able to keep good people because you're a decent human and you treat people with respect. I try and that treat people with respect. I try, and that makes a huge difference.
Speaker 1:I mean, one of my things was just I learned early on that it's just better just to hire nice people and train them and just people you want to be around. 100%, 100%. It just makes work so much more enjoyable.
Speaker 4:Amen to that. Well, I mean, the reality is like any company, it's just the people that are building that company and you're working around. And I mean like when you spend most of your time in there, you've got to be able to get along. I mean, and when you get done with life, like that's who you spent most of your life with, it better be good people. Yeah, oh yeah, for sure that you enjoyed being around Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the thing is sometimes when you talk with people about this, let's not say business owners, necessarily, but let's say the managers below them. They'll say, oh, you just want people who are, yes, people. If you say you want to work with people you like and you don't want to sit there and argue all day, I think that's ridiculous. Yes, I do Personally, but that's what you'll be accused of. If you say that by some of the quote professional managers, okay, no, we don't want to have everybody pulling in different directions and arguing all the time about stupid stuff. It's too toxic?
Speaker 1:Yeah it is. It can be really toxic and it just can make it where you don't want to go, to your office yeah.
Speaker 3:And if you're demotivated it's a big problem. I mean, let's face exactly. Yeah, it's the owner of the business for sure.
Speaker 1:So I kind of look at being limited, like, honestly, I didn't, I didn't go into being limited to build a big company or even a mid-sized company. I just I actually I was just doing to survive, to get my kids, you know, to have your horses on table, make my house payment and stuff like that. But as you hire people then you have to start caring for others and, as these young people that I was hiring kind of straight out of college, then they start getting married and then have babies and then you know they need to buy a house and it's like it just kind of grew. It's like we've got to make, we have to do more.
Speaker 3:We, we have to do more, we have to make more, so we can provide for these, provide for these other people too. So it's not about just me yeah that's such a good point, isn't it 100%. I can relate to that entirely.
Speaker 1:I was thinking about something yesterday. I think that's pretty funny. This is out of the blue, but I was kind of equating my life and kind of the way that I do things is. It's kind of like me back as a kid riding my bike in the woods, if you can just think about this for a second. And you're riding in the woods and you stop, you decide you're going to you might see another kid with his bike. You wave, you meet each other. You say, hey, do you want to build a fort? Yeah, you know. They say, say, yeah, let's build one, and you start putting branches together and you start kind of building it. The next day you meet him back out there and you do it again and there's another kid that joins yeah, and then the next day, you know, someone brings some uh, you know rope or, and someone brings a hammer or some cigarettes are cigarettes are you kidding?
Speaker 3:me don't be rated g finish that though, I'm sorry.
Speaker 4:It's really set up, so it's just like it was.
Speaker 1:Just, I mean, it's just true and then you're building this you're building this fort and then all of sudden you've become, you've bonded with these other kids that you know. Then you see them in Walmart or you see them at Kroger's or something or at school and you're fist bumping and you're just kind of like all of a sudden you've just kind of formed a club. You know you don't even really, you don't realize what you've done it, it just kind of happened.
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah it wasn't planned, it wasn't planned, and that's how being has been. I didn't have a vision statement, I didn't have a, I didn't have a, um, you know, a performer, performer or just any of that stuff at the early on, I mean, you know. So it's just uh, we did have kind of an ethos that we had on the wall and I didn't realize it, but it was, uh, be yourself, be unique, be unlimited, and it's just it's words that were up. I like that, yeah, it's meaningful. I met a, uh, I met another company that we do do we buy our inks from, we do water-based printing and so and they're over in the uk, and so I flew over to london with some of my guys and we went up to their office and it just felt like being limited. And then they said it sounds like we have the same ethos. And I was like what's ethos? And I'm looking on my phone to see what ethos is and thought, oh, wow, we do. My ethos is written on the wall. So I do have something written.
Speaker 1:I don't have a mission statement or a vision statement or anything. But I do have an ethos. It's on the wall and we kind of do live by that. You know, because everybody just respects one another, it doesn't matter where you fall politically or any of that stuff. I mean, when you come through the doors, that's just dawn. You know we just kind of got a safe fort. You know that we built. Yeah, everybody's kind of helped, you know, build it so critical today.
Speaker 3:I think it's divided as people are. Oh, definitely, to create that, you know, safe space where we're just not going to get into that stuff here.
Speaker 1:Well, I won't get into it at B. I mean, I just sit there. I know some people want to draw a line for their businesses. Yeah, it's so done. We've got so many different people and they come from so many different.
Speaker 4:Why do you want? And this isn't the objective of the business.
Speaker 1:Exactly yeah.
Speaker 3:One, one person you know like. Just rule out half our customers, rule out half of our employee pool is that smart?
Speaker 4:because you have a stance, is that? Does that make any sense? Because I'm principled, yeah, yeah, I totally disagree with that man. But on that, like when you're talking about that fort building in the organic circumstance, right, it makes me think um, you know, that's the way I felt my first company as well. It was just I didn't necessarily know where I was going, I just could see, took the opportunities as they came, team built and all that just like you were talking about, and it was very genuine. You know, on the second round, you know, with the new companies that I got going on, I can see the value in that and I know where we can be.
Speaker 4:But there's something weird. It's kind of like to back to your analogy if, if I had that experience to be able to afford, and then I go out back into the woods and now I'm intentional to want that for it again. It's almost like you you're trying to expedite that process, but you can't expedite the process. You can't expedite it, right. But? But I think the thing is is like leaning on that experience a little bit. It makes me think about all the professional business modeling, the VC scenario, this whole trend of how companies should be ran the amount of money that they should raise all these details right, but the raw reality of it is is a good company is built by that fork.
Speaker 1:It's about the fork, it's about the fort, it's about the people. You get that. If you got capital and just had someone build that fort for you, then you don't have the culture.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 1:And you don't have that camaraderie. That's like yes.
Speaker 3:My theory is that being overcapitalized is a tremendous disadvantage, because then you don't build the discipline in of every aspect of your business to actually make it survive. Well, you don't have the creativity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't. The creativity's gone.
Speaker 3:You don't have to respond to the market as quickly because you got money, oh yeah because you got money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, no big deal Until that money runs out, then you're like Until that money runs out, Then you just have a big debt and then you're in a worse place.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 1:It's better to kind of build it slow.
Speaker 3:The only thing I disagree with you guys on. I'm just going to throw one counterpoint at Sorry.
Speaker 1:We do want to know that there is something I disagree with you on.
Speaker 3:There's not much, I know. I want to hear what it is though. No, I'm saying, when I started the company that's Zwei Group today, I had a business plan two years before I ever started it, and we basically followed that plan and it's still valid today. That was written in 1986. We started in 88. So we really did have a conscious plan and a conscious effort to grow the company. Okay, that said, you obviously don't know every direction you're going to go and everything you're going to pick up along the way and how it evolves. And I totally agree with you on the. I had no money. I had a six-month-old baby crying in the background. No, actually, she was soon to be a year old, what am I saying? And I had to make a living. So that's what propels you to start with, it's like holy cow, I've got to Right. Oh yeah, for sure I've. Yeah, oh yeah. But I do think you can have. I don't necessarily think all planning is bad. No, planning is good.
Speaker 1:I mean we do plan. We plan now. I mean we have planning meetings, we have like quarterly meetings, yearly meetings and retreats that we look back at last year and we plan for the future and stuff like that now. So I mean it is my thought process is. But just getting into it for me was not. There wasn't a plan. That was just the only plan. I didn't have a plan B or plan. Oh yeah, I understand that.
Speaker 3:I decided to do it. The ships are. There's no ships left on the shore. They got burned. That's right you know that's how we're going. Yeah, and I do agree that. I think the culture that you create is so critical to your success, because you can't have a rule for everything, right, you can't have a policy for everything, you can't anticipate everything, but if everybody's rowing the boat the same way, that's the thing.
Speaker 1:You know that everybody's rowing the boat the same way. Yeah, you know, it's not about the ping pong table in the office. It's not about having a beer keg or kegerator. Exactly, things are fun. Those actually can be distractions more than anything, but it's it's really just about listening to people, making sure they feel validated. You know, just allowing people to fail those things are what really bring treating people with respect. Treating people with respect, yeah, you know, they're all valuable. That's what really brings a good culture. Honestly, I mean, that's it's uh, it doesn't have to be just the coolest office space, you know it just it just doesn't. And so I've kind of learned my lesson through a lot of that. I mean, because we used to be, we would, we would get done working and we were all so close we didn't want to leave each other, you know yeah, that's fantastic we'd walk down to the bar and have a few drinks and just continue on the conversation.
Speaker 1:But really I've learned that now. I've kind of learned like hey, there's a place to stop, allow people to go home, have their families, enjoy their families and help nurture that too as well. Yeah, because if that's bad. There's a balance you have to have with culture, because if it's too good, then it's like no one ever wants to leave.
Speaker 3:Yeah, then their relationships and families fall apart, all fall apart, and then they bring all that back to the office.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, and it's a disaster right, so you got to like yeah, so there's a balance there. I mean, there really is, it's a balancing.
Speaker 3:So, in any case, you have made this business very successful. You've been good at picking people. You're obviously not a control freak, okay, which has allowed it to grow because you're not having to approve every nickel spent and, you know, make every single decision. What else do you think has been the keys to your success in this crowded, mature market that you're in? I mean, how do you guys sell $20 million worth of shirts? What's your focus? I mean?
Speaker 1:now our focus is on I mean, what we call ourselves is a custom licensed apparel company, because we really focus on universities. We found a niche, niche, niche, whatever you want to say and it's universities, and so from the University of Arkansas, we just kind of replicated that to another university, to another university, to another university, instead of trying to do everything for all people. We just found that and then we just learned how to scale. Yeah, you got really good at that. Y'all know Steve Graves, I know, but he's the one that used that word scale to me one day and I was like scale, what's that mean? Let me look it up you know, I mean seriously I didn't, I hadn't heard knowledge even the word is scale.
Speaker 1:It's like that's an easy one. What are you talking about? Scale? Is that a scale that you know what you know? But it's like I was thinking, okay, this that makes sense, you know. So I just thought, so kind of what I did is just fired pretty much all the customers. That really was just causing us just to pedal with not getting and not go anywhere, like Mark Wag like a construction company.
Speaker 3:Like forget our little crappy order of t-shirts.
Speaker 1:No, like we're done with the bright orange sheet.
Speaker 3:We don't need that.
Speaker 4:No, we don't wear bright orange. I know Y'all wore black. You had a tight brand with your Mark Swaggy.
Speaker 3:I know we followed your lead. You loved that black. I did love that black. I mean you were stuck in the 90s. You're off that plate. You love it, I he loves black Love.
Speaker 4:Black August loves it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I wore it for you today. I know you did.
Speaker 4:So that was the one thing I prepared. Hey, wear black.
Speaker 3:Wear black. So that was a great focus for you. Now, obviously, here you're located in Fayetteville, which is where the U of A is, and so you had that connection. We all know each other. We're not related as we talked about earlier. In this state everybody knows each other. Well, we're related. We're physically related, but I always said you've got to be 14 to get married here unless you're related.
Speaker 4:I want to be related to both of y'all so I can get that money.
Speaker 3:So you've got the wrong guy here, you've got the wrong guy here too.
Speaker 4:There's no money to be found here. All of a sudden, no one's successful.
Speaker 3:So, but anyway, I'm trying to remember where I was going with that. How did you build that same relationship with these other colleges and universities?
Speaker 1:I mean it was really just the same way we did here. I mean I'd have to drive there, talk with the licensing director, just build those relationships but didn't they say well, you're not from around here, boy.
Speaker 3:Are you like when you went to Mississippi State or whatever right exactly?
Speaker 1:you're not from around here, boy you're not from around here, yeah, you know, we've got our local screen printer down the road, yeah, so how do you counter that? So, uh, we countered it by just showing them what we did, what we offered different from those people, and so so to to allow their students to be able to have an option, and so that kind of so we had some differentiators that pulled us apart.
Speaker 3:One of those was water-based screen printing which is more environmentally sound and also holds up better right in the wash and all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so, and it just looks good, it's soft, it just feels good. It's not, it's not like a big piece of plastic on you. Oh yeah, you know you're sweating and it just feels. Hate that, yeah. And so, and then also, we were one of the first people to use comfort colors. And there was, they were a small company, also out about in new york city, and what's thatfort Colors is a brand that just all the sorority girls wanted at the time. You could go down to 30A to Seaside and that's the shirt that they used. So they make the shirt.
Speaker 1:They weren't being distributed in our normal distribution houses, so this is the actual T-shirt.
Speaker 1:This is the actual T-shirt Okay so the quality of the fabric, the quality of the fabric, and it was super soft. It was, you know, ring-spun cotton, still had that kind of little bit of heavy weight to it, but it was just super soft and it just held up really well and so we started using that and between using that shirt and then quality designs, I mean just always having. You know, we've prided ourselves on being more of an art house. I think me not having equipment for the first 10 years really made us into an art house first, and so we have interesting. We have 20 designers or they're all they're all.
Speaker 1:They're all illustrators that work at the 20, 20 illustrators that work every day in the building down here in south fed just cranking out, just cranking out designs.
Speaker 2:Just cranking out designs.
Speaker 1:And they have such the coolest kind of culture in their office. Those people love what they do. Oh, they do. They enjoy it, they enjoy working around each other and they just feed off each other.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's innovating, it's fun, Isn't that amazing? Though, 20 designers, that's awesome. So do you just pick the best of what they come out with? How do you do that?
Speaker 1:because they're all probably they're all just pulling jobs off a job board. So I mean we've got like probably 100 jobs a day that are coming through and that they're they're just working on, they just look at the brief and they start yeah, we've got, we've got an art director that's, you know that hands out.
Speaker 1:I say they know how different people you know, their different looks that they have, they go. Oh, you'd be great on this, this job right here. We want you to do this one and this one and this one that is so cool she'll, she'll assign jobs to the different artists and whatnot, and so, and then sometimes the artists were like, hey, I really want to do this job, you know, and so that's something that's fun, that is really cool.
Speaker 3:So I want to take I want to change gears for a minute now, so tell us about what you're doing in Uganda.
Speaker 1:Okay. So you know, kind of God's my age and really hopefully any age, but it's just that you want to kind of move from success to more significance, you know, and kind of doing stuff that's more purpose-driven Right, three years ago I went to Uganda with my church that I go to down in Florida, and just me and my wife have been supporting three girls over there and I wanted to go meet them. I wanted to go see if this was real. I've never been to Africa. I wanted to see if it was just kind of am I just giving money or what? And I got to have lunch with these three girls and it was really amazing to see the difference that $50 a month for each of them just made you know in their lives. It gave them school to go to and it gave them a meal at their school and, uh, and just to see them succeed in that way over the last few years that we'd been doing that and so.
Speaker 1:But through that I also noticed that, uh, I really our church went over there for an orphanage and baby care and all this stuff. I was like I don't know what I'm doing. They said what have you been doing all your life? I said, well, all I've done is grow a business. They said, oh well, let's put you with some business guys and why don't you talk to them? And I really thought it was going to be like 10 guys and it ended up being 100 men that showed up and they were just so enthusiastic about learning just anything they could about business. And Uganda is a very young country. It's 78% of Ugandans are under the age of 30.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, I mean because of the genocide, aids and all this other stuff that's happened in Uganda, it really kind of the older generation just kind of gave up, I mean, and so they don't have a lot of good mentors, right. But now that, uh, there's the internet that's opened up all over africa, now they're just, they feel like these young kids are just so creative and they just and they're kind of like the kid that I was talking about that's riding the bike down, you know, and they're starting to build stuff, making their forts. Now they've got their forts and they're building stuff and it's really unique and incredible innovations that they're doing over there, and so with no resources at all.
Speaker 3:With no resources, yeah, no money, right absolutely absolutely, yeah, absolutely nothing.
Speaker 1:And so and they really enjoyed they could resonate with my story, with being limited kind of. It's kind of very similar to the way they have to do things over there and just yeah, and so that one hour meeting lasted all morning and uh, and then it just spurred me to create a non-profit called bold creator scout thought, wow, I need to go back and they wanted me to come back and I wanted to bring more entrepreneurs over there to help kind of walk alongside them and walk alongside these other entrepreneurs and and just kind of help guide them. Not and if, if they chose to invest in their company or something like that. So now we, for the last two. Well, last year I brought 14 guys over there and we had 35 ugandans and we kind of went, kind of went through a program. We we use Work Matters material for 10 weeks prior just to kind of get to know them, to have a base. It's a faith-based kind of organization that's just really targeted on helping them grow their businesses, how to hire people, how to create jobs.
Speaker 3:But you're not giving them money. At this point, I'm not giving them money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's no money. There's no money involved in this, Other than just like it's expensive to get there. It costs probably about $2,500 for.
Speaker 3:Sure, you guys are giving your valuable time. Yeah, stuff like that.
Speaker 1:But there's no money involved in this, as far as like trying to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, have you seen like those micro lending programs, like I think it's Kiva, is that it Because I give some money to them?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I could see this thing growing where there might be an arm, where there might be some micro lending Right Happening. I mean because even $500 or $1,000. Makes a huge difference, you know, as a new sewing machine or does something right, or buy some seeds or whatever, yeah it makes. Get some a cow that milks and yeah, right, makes. It makes a huge difference. Yeah and so, yeah, I can see that being.
Speaker 3:I mean like an as growth of this thing this is.
Speaker 1:It feels like being limited in the early stage, this non-profit actually right now, because it's real messy and uh it's and we're trying to figure ourselves out. We didn't have, we didn't again, I didn't write out a plan, yeah, you know, but I'm just kind of just doing it. It was last year, went off really well. The guys that went with me believed in me and believed in you know the cause, the mission, yeah, and so now I've got another great group of guys going. Actually, uh, donnie smith, one of the past ceos of of Tyson's, going to come in and speak at one of the sessions.
Speaker 1:So it's, we've got a, we've got a good group of guys going that they're all like just successful entrepreneurs in their own right and they just, they just want to be able to give back. So it's cool. It's really cool, it's really cool to do this. I'm I'll just do it as long as I can, or as long as I. You know how many times you've been over there well, this will be my third time.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's talk. It's going in july again, so is it? You feel like it's safe over there for you as americans? It's very safe.
Speaker 1:You know what you, but you google it and it says that you know about the terrace and all this stuff, about heads going off in churches and all this stuff. But I'm like I know people over there now I talk to them all the time, you know it's like and that's just, it's just a different narrative over there and it is what we hear over here, you know. So it's just it's crazy what you hear on the news it's yeah, you know it. Really it makes you and you just wow, you're asking me to go to Uganda, I mean just in the jungle, and I mean it's, we're staying at nice hotels and have nice Well, ready to level up your show?
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Speaker 3:You know, I don't want to take us too far, of course, but I'm on the board of this company called Miyamoto International, worked with Kip Miyamoto since he started out, basically. But we have offices all over the globe and Kip has done such a good job because he goes't, he goes over to these foreign countries and immediately establishes a rapport with the people, because he doesn't try to impose american prep. You know customs, practices, values. He eats their food, oh yeah, he works on their schedule, he acts like them, he dresses like them. I mean it just, you take all the sort of barriers away and then and he's very well accepted Doesn't matter what country he goes into. He did study anthropology before he became an engineer. Interestingly enough, you know, and I so. Have you found that to be the case yourselves? I found?
Speaker 1:the cases that we're there's we have more similarities than we do differences, honestly, and even though I mean when you go deep into Africa and you go out and you see the different villages and stuff, it's just really just kind of really just poor areas, sure, sure, but it's they have the same struggles and the same. I mean people that are starting businesses, anyway that I'm, that I'm reporting to and working with. I mean they deal with loneliness and insecurities and all that stuff that you know we're dealing with. Everybody thinks you're crazy, go get a job yeah right.
Speaker 1:Exactly, yeah, I mean, they deal with all the same things that we deal with. We're trying to start a business, and so it's real interesting as you kind of get to know them and they go, oh wow, so you felt this way too. Yeah, so it's just a beautiful thing. I'm really loving it.
Speaker 4:So what's it do for you, though? I mean, like you talk about going from success to significance, right, where is that landing with you after this experience?
Speaker 1:I think it's just. It makes me want to do it more. I mean just give back more. I mean it's not like you can only have so much stuff. Yeah, you wrote something on this the other day. Yeah, I did. I commented on it. I was thinking, yeah, I'm just done with stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like we have everything we need, right, and then some.
Speaker 1:When you go over there to see how little they live on and I'm just like they think we're blessed because we have all this stuff, I'm thinking y'all are blessed. You do not know how blessed you are that you know how to live on so little and how joyful and how happy you are. That's right.
Speaker 3:And it's just crazy to see that's what you said.
Speaker 1:That joy, yeah, and just the laughter. I mean you can't laugh if you're sad, you can't sing if you're sad. And these people laugh, they sing. I mean they're just like the most joyful people on earth.
Speaker 4:It's funny you say that, like my wife, tara, she's a nurse practitioner and she's been doing these medical mission trips to, like, guatemala, ecuador. I mean I think she might have gone to Uganda, but she says the same thing. She's like they go to very impoverished areas where they don't have medical, yeah, yeah, facilities. They set these little pop-up clinics but she's, like you know, so gratified. Everybody there is just so incredibly joyful, yeah, and happy and grateful.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's what it's done for me. Honestly, it's really kind of brought me back to kind of like hey, I don't you know just that joy and where it come from.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's great man. Yeah, you don't get it from your house and your gated community and your expensive European cars. You know what I mean it just doesn't do anything for you at some point.
Speaker 4:Not at all. Yeah, it comes down to people, it comes down to culture. Yeah, right, I mean, what you really have done is you've kind of gone back into the like. You've discovered a culture again. Oh yeah, a raw culture. Oh yeah, exactly, that brings you joy. Well, yeah, we're all wanting to be part of the team, right? I mean, we're all wanting to be good group of people, do something significant, purposeful.
Speaker 3:That's what all this discussion's about yeah, and the problem is in our culture today. It's so, everybody's so alienated and we're all just tethered electronically but not actually physically, like everybody's remote working and getting all their news and connection through social media, and it's all bullshit.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry, no, I'm 100, but it is it's like you got to get together with people. It breeds dissatisfaction. It breeds um vilification of other people. It does all these things. Oh, yeah, that if you were just together more right. You know exactly. It used to be one of my tactics if two people don't get along in the office and they're both good people, make them sit next to each other, put them in the same room, yeah, and you know what the odds are that their relationship's going to improve. Yeah, yeah, because they get to know each other actually.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I said this, that I said this at, uh, a couple days ago at an event, but you know, it's funny, there's two things here at play. Like it's, it comes down to work and labor. Right, we're designed to work and you always say that and it's true that it's so true. Like I'm at my cave springs property, I sit up there and I, you know the river's there, and I'm watching this goose right, this, this two geese right, mom and dad, mom's nesting, laying eggs, right and so, but he stays really close. But they're fighting for their survival every day. If they decide to chill and isolate, and like I'm gonna do, you know, no man, you're dead, like everything, if you don't work, some coyotes gonna come along and fight their heads off dude.
Speaker 3:Dude yeah, the water's going to rise and their heads float away.
Speaker 4:Like you've got to be aware, you've got to be intentionally working and for some reason in our American culture we have decided that you don't have to really work. Like the whole goal for a lot of folks is to work as little as possible and enjoy life, hippie out a little bit. It's a disaster, and I think that when we talk about this culture, you can talk about that. I love the fort building analogy. I do too. I love that. We're going to use that. Yeah, because here's what they did. They built a fort, but what were they doing? They were working. Yeah, they were building something together.
Speaker 4:It wasn't hey, I'm eric and I have these cooperate, yeah man, you're in the middle of work, that's where the relationship is, yeah, and so if you isolate and get remote, then you don't have as much of that Like. You basically have reduced the impact by at least 50% if you're not in person. Yep, you know, and you don't work together, yep, I mean we're here to create Exactly.
Speaker 3:We're here to create Exactly.
Speaker 1:We're just like. We just need to always be creating. It doesn't have to be for big money or anything, just here to create, create a path home, create this great, I mean just whatever it is. Just create, you know.
Speaker 4:Yeah, make something, you know this is an inspiring conversation for me. I'll be honest with you, like it really is, because you know, I mean been, I've been creating a couple of different things, you know back with thewagon.
Speaker 2:You are a hard worker. I'm thinking of all these things.
Speaker 4:This brings me back to the root of why I mean, like, why would I do this to begin with? Well, it's because that's what I'm doing. But I mean really what I'm doing is I'm enjoying working with other people to create and build something. And this conversation about the fort and about being limited and you don't have to have all the answers, you don't have, you know.
Speaker 3:I mean, just work and do it and navigate, yeah, yeah, hustling, but this is also how you evolve and stay relevant. Okay, if you just, you know, if you think back and you go, you know, I can't say it's never occurred to me that I thought, oh, gee, gee, if I had just taken all my money at this point in time not done anything else, but what am I gonna be doing, just like? Where are we going out to eat tonight at four o'clock?
Speaker 3:you know, and then just you know, hook me up. What drugs do I need now to stay alive? Okay, it's like you're, you're, you're done. Oh yeah, you're just done. You, you won't be evolving, you won't be learning, you won't be helping anybody. You'll be transcending.
Speaker 1:I'm with you there.
Speaker 1:I told my wife it's not too long ago. I said hey, I said what do we? Uh, I said maybe she just sell everything and just like, and just kind of, just, you know, just live, you know and just not worry about it, right, just. And she looked at me and she points she says you're not going to do that, you're going to work. And she's like I was like okay, what are you talking about? You know like you need more, you know like what. And she's like. She said she said no, no, no, no, you got you. You're misreading me. She says you love to work. Yeah, that's right, you love like you. She says that's your golf. I mean like that's it exactly, so it.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 3:So it's my golf None of us do. I like to create things Me too. I like my hobbies, I like working on stuff, I like improving stuff, I like working with people, helping people.
Speaker 4:It's another societal type of thing. Where you like, somewhere along the way in the 1900s, right, somebody invented this work, retirement, you know, golf course, community.
Speaker 3:I might even have been at this work.
Speaker 4:Retirement golf course community. Yeah, where'd that come from? It's fabricated, yes, and the reality is if you're a freaking goose and you're 80 years old, right, and you decide to quit working and retire, you're going to die.
Speaker 3:Look at Warren Buffett and his partner there who just recently passed away. I think he was what 99 years old or whatever, and Warren's 90-something.
Speaker 2:he doesn't need to work right but he does because he likes it yeah, man, that's what he is, that's his purpose.
Speaker 4:It's your identity. Yes, I mean, and there's nothing zero percent wrong with and we've been taught this there's zero percent wrong with your identity being work. Yeah, like we have. We have acted like that. There's some other identity that we should have.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like somehow you failed because that's the way you continue to operate.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and you got this pressure and you don't want to bring it up. Don't work too hard, Don't you know all these rules? Stress is the cause of it, Right? And so we think that our identity is in a freaking golf course or a tennis court, you know, at some later stage in life, bullshit, yeah. Yeah, if your identity, if you realize your identity, is in work, you know who you are when you're 40, 50, 60, yeah, and you work till you die. Yeah, and you've been happy the whole damn time and you contributed to society yeah, and like what you're providing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, right. I mean I think that's. You're absolutely right, you'll live longer and you'll be happier. You probably won't get alzheimer's as early, probably not.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean, because you're keeping your brain going absolutely the only thing I would, the only thing I would say is don't identify yourself as your business, like, like, yeah, true, and like I should, yeah, your logo says oh, you should put your logo, you know, tattoo it on your arm. I agree, I want to be. I'm not being limited. I said a group of people, but I'm not being right.
Speaker 2:You know it's a problem with that. I don't ever want to be.
Speaker 3:I mean like it'll fail eventually or something you know it's not gonna make it your baby, and then you're good. If it, then your identity is tied up. If your identity is tied up in it and it does falter, then you're going to be very, very depressed.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 3:That's the point.
Speaker 4:That's a good point. I'm glad you brought that up. Somebody might misinterpret that, but really you're working and creating and doing that.
Speaker 1:That's what we were put on this earth for. Yeah, boom, yeah. Exactly, and that wasn't not for a time period, not for 30 years and stop, 40 years and stop. It's just like to do it. You know to die. And when you're two and a half years old, coloring, you know, yeah you're creating a picture.
Speaker 3:I want to bring up one last topic, though, because this is a fascinating discussion. It's always great being with you, Ben.
Speaker 4:Oh, I enjoy being with y'all about me but I do and he's always like one up and he's like I'm the host of the show.
Speaker 2:You're freaking, you're just.
Speaker 4:I can do this without you.
Speaker 3:Like I can't wait to outwork you. Is that how you really feel?
Speaker 1:There's always a little truth to every lie.
Speaker 3:I don't feel that way, I'm just messing with you, bro, I was just going to say, but the three of us.
Speaker 4:My identity is not wrapped up in big talk about stuff.
Speaker 3:I think all three of us, though, would admit one thing, and that is sure we all had these businesses that were successful, that were sort of our foundation, right, yeah, our foundational business. Now, we all do other things too, right? Yeah? Yeah, we have to acknowledge the fact that we may not be as successful in all the ventures that follow. Yeah, okay, but, and you know, if we just wanted to make the most amount of money any of us, yeah, we would just stay what we're doing and just focus only on that. Just keep going on that, because we're good at that, right, yeah, but that doesn't mean that's the whole purpose. Yeah, that's right. There are other things we want to do, right, there's other ways that we can learn. There are other people we can help. There are other things beyond just trying to be as successful as we can be in this one business. Yeah, no, absolutely right, don't you think? Oh, absolutely yeah for sure.
Speaker 4:when you say that, it makes me think about well, why do we not choose that? Because I think there's thrill in building a new fort. Oh sure yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean the people that worked at B, unlimited on their early years. Those were the fun years, right, right, and then now it's more mature. It's like it's not as fun, you know.
Speaker 1:And I'm glad that a lot of the people that work there now didn't work there the early years because they look at it differently. Because, just like that marriage I talked about earlier, you know the guy said he's married 28 times. Your business changes constantly and as it matures it's different. You know, and it was at the early years. Yeah, we don't all like it necessarily. We're not all sleeping on the couch and stuff like that.
Speaker 4:And you shouldn't be upset with that evolution yeah that's fine, that's growth, that's natural what happens. I mean people will say stuff like if it's different at the company that I sold, how does that make me feel I'm?
Speaker 3:like I don't know it doesn I sold like how does that make me feel?
Speaker 1:I'm like I don't. I mean, it doesn't make me feel anyway, right, exactly. I mean it's not my Right exactly. It's supposed to change. It's always changed. It's never not stayed the same. If it stays the same, it dies. That's right, and it gives different benefits at different stages.
Speaker 4:You know now, the people that were with me in the early days are now making a lot more money. Their careers going this way, their chance. You know. I mean you got to look at the positives of the challenge, right, because if you focus on the negatives and you know you'll be, you'll be well, none of none of us would be entrepreneurs and business owners if we focused on the negatives.
Speaker 3:No, I mean, it would. Just, you just wouldn't do the things that you do Exactly. You always believe that, whatever the odds are, you can beat, yeah, and that you're going to overcome any obstacle that hits your way. You may have setbacks, you may have problems, but the longer we do this stuff, the older we get, the more we know we shall overcome yes, that's true.
Speaker 4:Isn't that the truth? Yeah yep, yeah, it's good, and keep networking like this, because whenever my stuff fails then I mean I can lean on you two to bail you out. I was gonna lean on you to bail me out.
Speaker 1:no, bro, wait a minute, I do, I do, I do see, I do see the uh advantages now of just walking along this road together. You know, sure, yeah, even y'all's this podcast, I mean, and the many people that y'all are talking about, you know, small business it just it's helping people walk along together in this journey, which that's huge. That really is huge to kind of be able to just talk about this stuff. Sure, and not try to, you're not alone.
Speaker 4:You know you're not alone. Well, that's when Mark came up with this idea and he started this podcast, you know, and he asked me to be part of it. But you're right, the conversation is so in-depth and so versatile, you have to have something that you're dedicating time with. Hell. We're on episode 70 or something. No, we're on 80-something now. 80-something now. Yeah, can you believe that? I mean, that's 80 at least hours of content. I know, you know, I know.
Speaker 3:We never run out of stuff to talk about. No, I know Every time.
Speaker 1:Especially if we get Ben in here. I'm sitting there thinking I couldn't find anybody else. I guess we'll call Ben. He'll say yes, well, there's some of that too.
Speaker 3:Hey, we do need to call Brian.
Speaker 1:Because he's really successful. Brian has been. Now Brian is.
Speaker 3:Brian is out there. He's out there Now. He's the one. He is a great guy, though, but we do need to get Brian in here too, absolutely, but anyway, well, ben, we thank you for coming today.
Speaker 1:Oh, this has been fun. Yeah, it's made my morning, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3:It's enjoyable it is. We are still continuing to look for sponsors of this show. If anybody has an interest, please reach out to us at wwwbigtalkaboutsmallbusinesscom. We'd love to take your money and promote your wares. As long as there's something we believe in, somebody's got to pay for this state of the art.
Speaker 2:I thank God I got a rich uncle here. This is really niceof-the-art studio. I thank God I got a rich uncle here. I mean right now, this is really nice.
Speaker 3:Appreciate it. This is great, and Eric has been so generous to donate this studio to us and all his talent people he's got out here that make this whole thing work. I'm telling you it's impressive.
Speaker 1:There's a big team at Podcast Videos.
Speaker 4:It really is. That's fun. Yeah, yeah, they're working hard together. It's really cool.
Speaker 3:So, in any case, we will see you all next week, and until then, this has been another episode of Big Talk about Small Business.
Speaker 1:Love it.
Speaker 5: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.