#52 - Shooting the Bull: Business Advice Without the BS

This week, we’re switching things up and just shooting the bull. No script, no fluff—just real, off-the-cuff conversations about the stuff small business owners actually deal with every day. From burnout and hiring to marketing mistakes and pricing struggles, we’re tackling real questions with honest answers. If you’ve ever felt like you’re figuring it out as you go… you’re not alone.

Transcript

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You're listening to Over the Bull, where we cut through marketing noise. Here's your host, Ken Carroll.

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Okay, on this episode of Over the Bull, we're just going to shoot the ball. You know, we sometimes hit topics really hard, and I thought, you know, it wouldn't it be interesting just to kind of sit down and talk with you as though you stepped into the office. You know, it's really different, you know, when you hear advice from people and, you know, they present a certain air or certain context, but you know, you don't really know who you're talking to with these personalities that show up in podcast and and different things. So I thought, you know what, I'm just going to let you get to know me just by kind of walking through some questions that I'm asked on a regular basis, you know, and we'll see if it helps you out or not. And if this does prove to be popular, then maybe I'll do a a uh shooting the bull podcast uh once a month or, you know, periodically or something. Uh but the idea is just to kind of, you know, let's just talk. So what I've done is I've assembled some questions that are fairly common in the business, and sometimes they're related to things that we do, like, you know, we do everything from web development to social media, consultation, videography, building sets, uh, you name it, we do it. We we we go from beginning to end. We're kind of a nose-to-tail kind of company, so to speak. And as we're doing it, you know, we start to run into these questions. But I've also, you know, I've owned a business, I own a business, and I know what it's like to go through and have to struggle with different questions and different processes. And a lot of times our clients, you know, there's a lot of times where you're just kind of talking to them about how other businesses operate and function and how they get through things. And so these questions are kind of pulled from that bank of questions, and it could be kind of interesting. So we're just going to see where this goes today, and I'm just going to basically read a question and then talk a little bit about it, and uh we'll see where it goes. Oh, and by the way, I don't edit the uhs and ums. Uh, you know, there's software that does that kind of stuff. I'd rather you hear me from me. And so today you may hear more uhs and ums because frankly, I'm just talking. Okay, so the first question that's I thought is interesting, and by the way, I'm reading these hot, so if I stammer a little bit, understand I do not have these answers uh pre-thought through, nothing like that. So first question is how do I handle burnout when it feels like I'm wearing every hat? Man, I can relate to that. I mean, I honestly don't think I slept the first 15 years of starting a business. Now, obviously I'm exaggerating a little bit, but man, it's like when you're starting out, it just seems like you get up early in the morning and you you go, go, go, go, you get home in the evening and then you do all the admin stuff for the business. You know, a lot of times you're everything from performing the work to uh sending out invoices to collections to uh everything. You know, you wear every every hat, especially when you start out a business. And it's easy to see why people do get burned out because, you know, not seeing your family on weekends, uh prioritizing the wrong things, thinking you're doing the right thing, and sometimes honestly don't even know what the right thing is. So I would say the first thing when it comes to burnout is you're gonna wear a lot of hats if you start a business. You you just will. I mean, people can give you these little cliches and what to do, you know, it'd give you a perfect uh world scenario, but that's just not how it's gonna work. You know, and well, I remember talking to this one guy, and he was starting a business, and or he wanted to start a business, and he was talking about he wanted to start a business so he could spend more time with his family. And, you know, uh for you guys who want a business, you know, like that's like the opposite of what you would do to want to, you know, have more time with your family is start a business because it's kind of a thankless thing. So I think my best advice, um there's a book out, I believe it's called Scale or Fill. And I'm gonna go with her advice on this question, and that is do something you love, do something you're passionate about, because you're gonna spend a lot of time wearing different hats and doing different things with your business. And if you're starting a business and chasing money and you're wearing all those hats, and you're not doing something you're passionate about or believe in, you're gonna burn out a lot quicker and probably give up. Now, I do want to be clear that, you know, as I talk to business owners, there's not a business. There's not a business owner on the planet who sat down and goes, you know what, maybe I should be driving a FedEx truck. Or it would be a lot easier if I did this rather than that. Every owner of every business has those thoughts. They imagine getting a CDL and just driving and turning their brain off and just existing. Because running a business, especially a small business, is thankless. There's not a lot of uh power in it, uh, you don't have a lot of control over things, and when you're the low guy on the totem pole, uh every contract you sign, every everything you have, you're like a babe in the woods and it'll burn you out. So I would say find something that you love when you're doing it and something that you're passionate about. And I mean that. I mean it sounds weird, but if you chase your passions, then the rest just kind of falls into place. Now, passions is not just what you do, but it's also a psychology. Like at Integris, the reason I do this podcast is not because it rakes in a ton of money or anything like that. I just like helping people out. So I had a person come in here last week and they wanted to do something, and I recommended they go to Etsy. I recommended they didn't even use us because it didn't make sense with where they are. Um I love that. And I love that about the people that work at this company because we do care about the people that we work with. Now, that 80-20 rule does exist. So, you know, the 80-20 rule is 20% of your customers or 80% of your headache. And, you know, you've you've got to weed those clients out and you've got to make some tough decisions along the path. But for the most part, we have really good customers and we have really good people that really care about their customers, and we try to instill that across our company. Now, I'm not big into cliches. Okay, I matter of fact, I hate cliches. So, you know, when someone says, what's the culture of your company? It's like, gosh, that just feels so burned out. It's just like if you go to church and you hear some pastor say, let's unpack that. You're like, oh, really? Seriously, you're going to use that cliche on me? You know, sometimes the cliches don't do justice, but I really do feel that if you can be passionate about what you do and you care about what you do and you try to make a difference, I think it's going to carry you a lot further in life. I would conclude by saying the most successful people that I know are the people that carry high moral and ethical standards. Um I don't know why that is. I mean, I've got my thoughts, but I believe this world's a lot more spiritual than we think. And so when I see people more successful who do carry that ethical high with them and feel like they're doing something in the world that's meaningful, they tend to go a little bit further. And the burnout seems to, you know, it's there. I mean, gosh, it it's there. Uh it's there for me. I mean, this year's been crazy busy for us. We're going through some uh huge growth spikes, we're we're doing a bunch of stuff, you know, just pain points with it. And uh, you know, it it is sometimes hard, you know. But the idea is if you have the passion and the motivations and you instill that and you find the right people to work around you, then the burnout eludes you a little bit more than usual. So not the Miss America answer, folks, but it's the real answer. Okay, so what's number two? What's the most effective marketing move you've made with almost no budget? Man, okay, 20 years ago, the first thing that popped in my mind was knocking on doors. I mean, when I first started uh Integrate design, I spent a lot of time trying to network with people, knock on doors, and talk to people. And you talk about learning stuff. You learn quite a bit. Now, today is much different. Today is crazy because I mean, you have people emailing you telling you they can help you with your marketing, and they do it through sending you email spam. Like, doesn't that clue you in that they don't know what they're doing before they even send the email? I mean, you're bombarded, and everybody's bombarded with all these marketing messages and subscriptions and all this junk, and I mean junk. And today's junk is you slap an artificial intelligence label on it and throw it out the door, and then people would just clamor to it, and it's just more ridiculous than ever. So for me, my my knee-jerk reaction was you know, doing the work, networking. Uh, when you look at word of mouth, people like doing business with who they do business with. And so the idea that you can do anything without tying a little bit of yourself into it and people getting to know you, where somehow you can hide behind the scenes and not network, I think that's really kind of um that's not true. Um so I would argue network, uh, get to know people. There's a reason that high-ranking CEOs and and people of uh larger businesses focus a lot on relationships. And they naturally sometimes do that. And the reason being is they know the value of that in part. So I think that would be probably my best advice to you. I honestly think uh chambers and things like that. I'm not a real big fan of that, because you know, it just feels like this is kind of like LinkedIn. Like it just feels like everybody that emails me from LinkedIn wants to network with me. No, they don't. They want me to they want to sell me something. And I mean, you know that and I know that. They're not trying to get something. Uh they don't they don't want your services, they want to try to sell you what they offer. And so I think the chamber sometimes attracts that mindset too. Everybody's so preoccupied with pushing their awareness on other people that they, you know, they become tunnel visioned. And so uh networking, get to know people, be good to people, and they'll be good to you. And uh, you know, don't be hard-headed, you know. It's uh in life, there are so many situations where, you know, you may be in the right, but that really doesn't matter. And so uh networking, the final answer. Next question. If you could go back to day one other business, watch the one thing you would tell yourself. Man, um that's a good one. Um I think the big thing is is don't lose focus. Uh I spent a lot of years early on in building the business and uh putting people second in my life that should have been first, and putting things first that should have been second. I spent a lot of time trying to appease customers that couldn't be appeased, and I let that bleed into time with my family and my kids and life. And I think that that's a matter of fact, I know that's a huge mistake. Because, you know, you once someone knows that they can get under your skin or push you, there are some people in this world that are just gonna do that. They feel like they uh get what they want by doings, you know, by just being aggressive or or whatever may have you. And uh it does rob you of the more important things in life. Um I can think of a guy off the top of my head, and this guy had uh made a lot of money. We we helped him grow his business. Uh but he was miserable. He was miserable, had no kids, had a horrible marriage, um he was running around on his uh wife, I mean, just horrible, but he had plenty of money. And, you know, as I sit around, we get together once a month uh with our family, our kids, and our grandkids. And there's no price you could put on that. So I would argue think about your family, think about your life. It's not all about money. You can always make more money, but you can never make more time. And uh healing a relationship is uh really hard to do. Those things take time. All right, so next up, uh, how do you know when it's time to hire your first employee? Uh this goes out to a guy named Ralph, actually. Ralph Ralph uh gave me this advice a while back, so I actually asked him this question about 10 to 15 years ago, and he a very affluent guy. And he goes, when you can't handle it. Now that sounds kind of easy, but you know, um when you go back to the first question of wearing every hat and working around the clock, which you will, you're gonna think that you're ready to hire that person out of the gate. Okay, that's not the answer. Okay, the answer is when you are you physically can't get it accomplished. That's when you do it. That's when you start breaking things out and adding more people. Then of course you want to find the right people. So that's kind of an easy answer. Uh don't do it just because you are a little bit burned out, just because you don't want to do something and you want to bring somebody into it, usually that's not the right answer. Right answer is when you need that person, when you legitimately can't handle it, and then you better find the right people. Because finding good people today, oh my goodness. Contractors, I mean, uh, gosh, if you even look at agencies like cars and you look at what they're doing to small businesses, it's ridiculous how abusive um these organizations are. Okay. Next up. What's a mistake you made early on that turned out to be a blessing in disguise? Oh man. Uh mistake I made early that turned out to be a blessing in disguise. You know what? I think that the mistakes themselves are blessings. Meaning that okay, so the reality is is that I've done computer programming. I think this is a good example. And I sit here and I made a mistake on taking on the project. Yeah, that this this'll make sense, I think. I took on a project and it was complicated. And you know, when you're under a deadline and you're trying to figure something out and make it work, it's a mistake to take on the project, but then once you work yourself through the project, you learn a lot. You learn a lot about tolerances, what to do, what not to do, but you also learn how to grow, use your mind, and think. So I would say probably that's um my answer on that one. Uh next question: how do you set boundaries with clients who expect you to be available 24-7? Boy, I made this mistake for years and years. Hand out my cell phone. Um, there's one thing you know about clients who are um anxious, like the anxious clients. Um, they start to feel that anxiety when they go to bed. Because that's when your mind starts to race, because you're thinking of all the things you've got to do. You're anxious about making a payroll, you're anxious about how many clients you have, how how your schedule's not being booked enough, how this, how that. You start thinking about all things that could be wrong. And that's usually when you want to talk to somebody. And as I mentioned, we're we're friends with a lot of our customers, so you can imagine what my phone would do when we brought on a client and they had that mentality. My phone call would ring or I'd get a text message, hey buddy, if you get a second, can you call me for five minutes? And it's 9.30 at night. And the five minutes turned out to be 45 minutes. Um those are hard. Those are hard because, you know, especially if you have a heart where you want to help people out, you want to take those phone calls and you want to try to be there for people. Um but the problem is that when you do that, you're also taking away from your family. And then people who tend to do that, they tend to text you and extend those boundaries even more. And then they start to take it for granted and then start to demand that you should do it and think that's something that should be expected. So in a way, you kind of because you didn't set proper boundaries to begin with. So the the answer is you have your hours of operation. These are the hours that we operate, this is what we do, and you do it that way. Now, I personally don't like the idea of uh using call centers overseas or in other countries because I think that's honestly, I think that's a little bit, it's two ways. It's disrespectful to the client, but you're also putting people in call centers who are poorly equipped and they're just going to be the subject of abuse. And so I think that's really bad. So when I see like big tech companies who uh basically use strong arm tactics to justify why they do it, they're not doing it because they care about people, they're doing it because it's cheap. So uh set your boundaries, have your hours of operation, even if you love people, you know, be careful about it, be very strategic when you extend beyond that. And then remember, anytime you're you're giving to someone else, you're taking away from the people that you love. So I would argue that's the case. So, what's the best piece of advice another small business owner gave me that stock? Um man, that's a tough one. Um best piece of advice another small business owner gave me that stock. Well, um I don't know. I honestly don't have an answer for that. And I'm not trying to I'm trying to think of something that's really kind of like incredibly uh you know elevated in that case. Uh but I don't have it. I'll circle back around on that. How do you stay consistent when motivation drops off? Um Again, passion. Be passionate about what you do. Uh hold yourself to a standard, be accountable and understand that the people that you work for are people that are trusting you with something and they could have made other choices. That's easy. Uh what's something you thought would grow your business but didn't? Oh man. Um for me, see, here's the thing. For me, that's not really a fair question because I'm naturally skeptical because I'm in marketing and advertising. I've been studying marketing forever, going back to Edward uh Bernays when uh they were using uh they were trying to increase cigarette smoking in women and they were using uh manipulation in order to do it. Uh I've seen uh what people think and how people use what uh a perception to sell something that's not based in reality. Like, for example, Google Ads. A lot of people think uh if I pay for Google Ads, business is gonna come, you know, just crashing through the door. No, that's not how that works. Um and so the problem is that I've already been kind of inoculated against the sales pitch. And so I don't come into it thinking that something's gonna work that it's not. I actually put hard deadlines on it before I start it and when I go out, and I don't sign contracts anymore unless I know that I can get out, because those contracts basically said we'll do nothing but you'll pay us no matter what. And uh so I make sure to negotiate contracts right up front. These are just things you learn over two decades. Uh if I think about clients, I would say just about anything. Uh clients have been told SEO will grow their business, but they don't get told the reality of it. They get told paid ads will grow their business, but then they uh they're not set up correctly or managed properly. Uh a lot of people think just having a website's going to grow a business. Business. Absolutely, that's not a true statement. A lot of people think posting to social is going to grow their audience without boosting in advertising. That's absolutely not true. So the list goes on and on with uh with others, but internally it's just because I've seen it, I've got so many years of it. And when I talk to people who own businesses, I typically tell them to err on the side of skepticism. I mean, I've seen crazy stuff. I saw a guy who came with me with uh email marketing from a big company, and they were claiming that they were converting their email marketing at some ridiculous number, like 10 or 20 percent. And it turns out they were just taking credit for all the work they would have already gotten. They just kind of filtered it back through. There's a lot of that that goes on, by the way. So, next question: how do you price your services without feeling like you're guessing? That's experience and that's looking at your competitors. That's doing a lot of homework. Um you basically, I know we do competitive analysis where we'll actually go through and look at what other people are charging in the area. Um, the other thing is there's more to it than just pricing. I mean, a lot of people think oh, everything falls on price. It's not true. Um the uniqueness of your service and the value propositions more important than the pricing. Um then you also have to look at your actual expenses. I mean, what are you really trying to do and accomplish and where are you in the market? Because there are people right now who charge less than$10 a month for hosting. We're nowhere near that for hosting. But we don't do junk hosting with uh shared IPs and a bunch of other things. So we don't offer it on the cheap. Uh we buy good products and we translate that to our customers, and our customers are uh they understand that and they're willing to pay for something better. So value proposition ties into that question. Um next up here, when should you say no to a client or opportunity? If I remember correctly, I think it was Steve Jobs who said they got where they were, not because of the things that they took on, but the things that they didn't take on. And so knowing when not to take on a client or an opportunity is extremely important because a lot of times, first of all, everything that comes across as an opportunity is not usually an opportunity. Uh and when to say no to a client, I mean, from our experience, uh, usually we look for signs in the uh personality of the client. Uh, for example, if they're overly demanding, uh, if there's a lot of ego, a lot of uh issues with the client that we pick up on early, we kind of determine if they're a good fit or not. And my team's actually really good at kind of like sensing those things. And so we look for certain um, I guess, signals uh within the person to see if they would be a good fit. And then if they're not, then you know, we kind of look for those as a signal. The obvious ones are, you know, obviously not paying their bills, things like that. Those are, I mean, no-brainers, but normally you know, you have to work with them in that respect. Um you know, money, you know, money's all uh obviously one of those factors. But for me, the personality and the level of engagement of the client is huge. Because if they're engaged in their business and they're actively helping out and participating in it, then everything seems to go in the right direction. Where where it tends to go sideways quick is when they're disengaged and they make the assumption that something is just going to happen without their help. So I would say just look for your company. Look at your company and what you would want to have in a customer, and then listen to your instinct and listen to your tenant team's instinct, and uh follow that, and then you're going to avoid the 80-20 uh rule more often than not. So uh next up, uh what's one small change that made a big difference in your business uh systems? Man, systems are absolutely huge to build systems and then empowering people. You want to empower your team, cannot say enough about that. I mean, micromanaging or not giving people discretion to make decisions and then work with them and coach them and encourage and just try to be the uh the best person that you can be, I would, I would argue. Um let me look through here at the rest of the questions here. Oh, how do you deal with slow seasons or inconsistent income? This is an interesting one. Um we work with seasonal businesses. Now, most of the time businesses that are seasonal understand their seasons, and you know, they they reap when the uh when the uh time is good and when it's not good, uh they store away their money and then live off that and then recycle it. That's typically what seasonal businesses will do. Um not you know, make sure that you plan for the slow part of the season. Um the other thing that you may want to consider in those cases is when things slow down, people typically pull back on their budget. Now, that could be the opposite, because if you're trying to stay busy and get people work and all those things, you may want to put more money into advertising and then also diversify as much as you can. So, for example, a lot of times there's little offshoots in business that could help facilitate different seasons. And so by thinking through that and then working with a good marketing person, they can help you identify maybe some spots in the market that can help you out. So I think that would probably be the best one to do. Um let's see here. How do you keep things simple instead of overcomplicating everything? Man, businesses are doing this, and I'll tell you the I'll tell you the biggest culprit in this. It's everybody is selling some software, some subscription, some guarantee, some ad campaign, some something. And businesses just keep layering and layering on this complicated software where they use little pieces of it, or sometimes not at all, or sometimes they think they're doing it right and they're not, and they're building these complicated systems. When I was in school, I remember um one of the Briggs Michael, he was an awesome guy. And uh I remember he would first want to throw the kids through at me, you know, keep it simple, stupid. And that's kind of stuck with me. So, you know, the best systems are the most simple. You don't have to make something complicated in order for it to be good. And so if you keep biting on software and solutions and chasing the next thing that's out there, you're going to have a complicated system. You're gonna be spending a lot more money than you need to. You're also going to drive people that work with you nuts as they try to adapt to it. And so the idea is be very diligent and be very careful in what you choose, how you implement it, and be very deliberate in how you do that. And again, your SOPs are incredibly important. Uh a lot of times we help businesses build SOPs just to super keep things simple, streamlined, easy, predictable. Those are the best systems on the planet. Okay, so we're going to wrap this up for this first episode. And let's what's this last question? What's something most small business owners worry about that they should not worry about? Man, that's tough, ain't it? I mean, you know, you worry about your customers, you worry about your reputation, you worry about your people that work on your team with you, you worry about cash flow, uh, you worry about, you know, your marketing, you're you wonder if you're doing the right sales presentation, you know, all these things. We worry about every single thing. Uh that's just the nature of small businesses is to worry. So how do you not worry, or what should you not worry about, or what maybe what you over worry about. Um for me, I would say my faith really kicks in at this point. Because, you know, in my faith, you know, the promise is made that the way will be easy and the yoke will be light. And what I found in my life is that's true. And so I think when you when you get to a certain age or a certain point or a certain whatever, at least for me, you start to realize more and more that worrying doesn't help. I mean, you're not in control of anything. Being in control of something is a perception. This is why some people are are super angry and super intense, because they think if they're angry and intense that they can force what they want to happen to happen, and it becomes kind of a drug, and then they begin to polarize people away from them. Uh so I think the older you get, I think that you naturally just realize that, you know, as uh Leo DiCaprio said in uh The Titanic, you know, you're on the SS God's good humor. And it doesn't necessarily mean you don't worry as, you know, but it does put things in their proper perspective, and you realize you do the best you can do with what you got, why you're here, and you try to do the best job you can and take care of the people that trust you to do that. And always look to a higher power. So that higher power in my world is God, and God has been very good, and God has uh that promise has been fulfilled, but it's not been with a lot of education in my lifetime. So from my perspective, I would say that's you know, what not to worry about, you're gonna worry. I mean, you just start. There's gonna be a situation, a customer who uh makes a threat, doesn't pay a bill, whatever. Uh, you know, there's gonna be something. Uh one of your guys isn't performing like they should be performing. Uh cost increases where you didn't expect it, you know, uh all that stuff, you know. And uh it's gonna happen, uh, but there's I'm not sure there's one single thing you shouldn't that you should not worry about, other than the fact that worrying in itself is just wasted energy because there's not a lot you can do about it. And so uh I think that's that's the way I would look at that. Okay, guys. Well, there you go. This is uh shooting the bull with uh Ken. This is uh the first time we've ever done this, and uh it's completely off the cuff. So um all those ums and all those things thrown in there and the impromptu answers, and uh, I'll still think about that one question I didn't have an answer for. Maybe I'll circle back around in the future on that. Um but but I guess if I had to close on one thing, I would say that running a business is not easy. And people looking at it from the outside in, they often don't understand everything that you do in order to make a business function and try to get it to where it's supposed to be. And then you have people who really do have good intentions to help you out, and they do offer a good service, and then you have other people that are just uh you're just another number that they're just trying to uh accomplish. And you know, being diligent and being careful, being logical, and just paying attention and being involved is huge. So I know what you go through as the owner of a business because I'm the owner of a business. I know the stresses that you go through, I know the different temptations you have, and I know the power of things like fear of missing out, FOMO. And you've got to be really careful because the people who are selling stuff today, especially from marketing perspectives, will try to lure you into something by giving you reports and giving you all this junk. And just keep in mind that everybody's playing a game and everybody's got a motivation. And if you look at it with your uh with sober reality, and then make sure that you assess things from that sober perspective, you're going to be better off in the long run. Okay, guys, thanks so much. I appreciate you tuning in. Until next time, this is Ken with Over the Bull.

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Thanks for tuning in to Over the Bull, brought to you by Integris Design, a full service design and marketing agency out of Asheville, North Carolina. Until next time.