Unfiltered Founders
Unfiltered Founders is a raw, real, and refreshing podcast for anyone ready to break free from the corporate grind and embrace the unpredictable world of entrepreneurship. Hosted by Darren Penquite and Andy Baker—two former corporate professionals turned business owners—this show dives deep into the highs, lows, and everything in between of starting and scaling a business.
Each episode features candid conversations about the unfiltered realities of entrepreneurship: the wins, the losses, the sleepless nights, and the lessons learned along the way. Whether you're just considering taking the leap or you're a seasoned business owner looking for perspective, encouragement, or the next big idea, Unfiltered Founders delivers honest insights and practical advice—with a dash of humor and a whole lot of heart.
Tune in for stories that inspire, advice you can actually use, and the kind of support every founder needs but rarely finds.
Unfiltered Founders
Leap of Faith: From Corporate Job to Entrepreneurial Freedom
What does it really take to break free from corporate America and build a thriving business? In this candid conversation, Andy and Darren strip away the glamorized veneer of entrepreneurship to reveal the raw, unfiltered reality of business ownership.
Andy shares how he strategically transitioned from corporate life by maintaining his employer as a client while building his marketing consultancy. After discovering his marketing agency was growing into territory that didn't align with his strengths, he pivoted to franchise consulting and brokering, adapting his skills to flourishing opportunities. Darren recounts his dramatic exit from healthcare executive leadership during COVID, when ethical conflicts over patient isolation policies became unbearable. Leveraging his 15-year broadcasting background, he launched a media production company that evolved organically into real estate photography and video—a niche he never anticipated but that provided consistent demand regardless of market conditions.
Both entrepreneurs emphasize that successful business owners possess an almost obsessive level of self-discipline. "Most entrepreneurs are on the spectrum," two previous podcast guests independently observed—a revealing insight into the unique mindset required. Contrary to popular belief, many service-based businesses can launch with minimal capital investment. The real requirements are clarity about your core competency, willingness to delegate non-essential tasks, and the ability to distinguish between a hobby and a viable business model.
Perhaps most importantly, they debunk the influencer-promoted myth that business ownership means passive income and beach vacations. The reality? "A successful business becomes a freight train that grabs you by the hair and drags you along behind it." Yet despite the challenges, the freedom to make decisions aligned with your values and the potential to build something meaningful on your own terms makes entrepreneurship worth every obstacle overcome.
Ready to explore your entrepreneurial potential? Join us weekly for more unfiltered insights to help you survive, thrive, and find clarity on your business journey.
We are the Unfiltered Founders. Welcome to another week of raw, unfiltered business talk about entrepreneurship. I'm Darren, I'm Andy.
Speaker 2:How's your week been, buddy? Oh man, you know, I think, the second week in a row. I might have answered my answer the same way. I think it got hit by a train, but you know what? At least I didn't get hit by a train collecting a paycheck too. It's a different way this way.
Speaker 1:For me, because I'm out running around town all day, in and out of my truck all day. This heat man, oh it's brutal. It's brutal. We had 104 degrees the other day. Was it really?
Speaker 2:that bad Got 104.
Speaker 1:I mean that was a day, thankfully I was off work and I got my wife and kids.
Speaker 2:We got in the car and we took an hour and a half drive up to crater lake and it was about 25 degrees cooler and and beautiful up there oh, stunning, love it up there.
Speaker 1:Stunning. If you haven't seen crater lake, I don't care where you are. It's like one of the seven wonders of the world.
Speaker 2:It's, it's one of those things, you just have to go see, oh, and the drive in and of itself is great it is.
Speaker 1:It's a beautiful drive along the Rogue River. We stopped at the Natural Land Bridge where the river goes completely underground in a lava tube for a couple of hundred feet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Just a great way to get your mind off of the stresses of business and just get out in nature and enjoy time with their family. So well, I will say I, uh, I got a weekend with the boys last weekend where we ended up going um, I think I might have told you a little bit about this one. I last minute, on tuesday my buddy calls me. He's like hey, I got an extra ticket. I actually got two extra tickets and uh, oh, to a concert. Yeah, right to a concert went to a mumford and sons and he's like's like, let's go. He's like, if you can make it.
Speaker 1:Where was it Moda?
Speaker 2:It was at the Hayden Holmes Amphitheater in Bend.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, I thought you were going to Portland. Beautiful, beautiful spot.
Speaker 2:Okay, oh, man, yeah, you can't beat this spot. I mean it's awesome. I have never been to that amphitheater been highly recommend times.
Speaker 1:Highly recommend check that out. Yeah, but we just had a blast. You know it's four guys and you know we've known each other for a long time and just had a blast it was.
Speaker 2:It was just awesome stuff four but four guys a few liters of whiskey and hey, yeah, some whiskey was there. Yeah, I was involved.
Speaker 1:Okay, always that you have to uh unwind that's right a little.
Speaker 2:Some good music, a good drink and some good company. What else do you need?
Speaker 1:So this episode we want to just keep super chill, super real, down to earth, just the two of us, Unfiltered, so to speak, Completely unfiltered. Andy, why are we doing what we do? What brought us I mean, well before, what brought us together to do this podcast? What? What made you get out of the corporate world? Why did you do it and how did you do it, Mm?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I, I started by really just an idea is what it was, and a and a desire to do it.
Speaker 2:Um, and I looked at it and I thought to myself and it was actually the realization I hit was I genuinely believe that I can use my same talents and skill sets and probably make more money outside of the corporate world.
Speaker 2:And I actually did it. So I worked in business development, marketing, sales, pretty much my entire career and I thought you know, if I can just get X amount of clients, I can replace my income here. And so I started kind of a side gig of a marketing consulting type agency at freelancers, had the whole system and everything put together, and I was doing this on the side for a while and I thought, well, all I need is a little bit more and I can do this on my own. I'm going to do this. And so I actually pitched my employer and the pitch was basically um, so I'm going to leave, but you're going to keep paying me. You can pay me a little bit less, but not a whole lot less, and I'm going to go do this and pay me a little bit more as a 1099 employee, not paying payroll taxes, not paying benefits, well, and I'd covered it because I had another couple retainer clients already paying me.
Speaker 2:So I'm like, all right, let's do this. And so I went out and got some more, and got some more, and got some more, and your employer was on board, they were, and it kept building. And then eventually I had a local agency come to me and they're like, hey, you know what, we see what you're doing, we want to bring it in forces. It's like, oh, not a bad idea, it gets lonely, right, being an entrepreneur. You're like, yeah, you know what I could use a team and see how much we can scale this and let's, you know, make this a partnership. Um, and so that was really my first attempt at, uh, entrepreneurship. And you know it, it all the emotional ups and downs that you would expect in entrepreneurship. But, uh, that's, that's how I got started, man.
Speaker 1:And you did this out of college. How long were you in the corporate?
Speaker 2:world. Gosh, I was in the corporate world for probably about probably at that point. I was in there about 10 years yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay. So let's talk about this mindset of entrepreneurship, because I'll get into my background.
Speaker 1:I worked for a long time in the healthcare industry and I see a lot of you know, I've had a lot of employees that are extraordinarily talented and I look at them and I think to myself and I don't say it out loud, but they could make a lot more money just doing this privately out loud. But they could make a lot more money just doing this privately, but do they have the mindset to hold themselves accountable to it? And unfortunately, it seems like, especially in today's world, people don't. They cannot hold themselves, they will not hold themselves accountable, they won't show up on time. If they have the opportunity to not go to work today, they're not going to do it unless there's consequences, Right, and I just don't think. You know, and and it's it's funny, our first two episodes of this podcast, our guests said that in their experience, most entrepreneurs are on the spectrum. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know two people who didn't know each other, who had no relation whatsoever, and they both said the exact same thing.
Speaker 1:And it does take a little bit of that kind of obsessive compulsive, you know, you gotta be a little crazy to to really discipline yourself without a boss, you know, hanging over your head saying punch the time, time clock, make sure you accomplish this today before you go home, and just waking up in the morning and saying I'm going to go do this and I'm going to do it for myself because there's nobody else holding me accountable.
Speaker 2:Right. So there there's that, there's that mindset. And if you don't have the, if you don't have the ability to hold yourself to a standard hold, know all sorts of things that I have coming up, forecasting, dealing with all the financials, if you can't manage your own finances, if you're struggling day to day you got to get yourself out of that system in order to be ready to be an entrepreneur If you can't manage your own personal finances, you're not going to manage business finances, because what's going to happen is, if you're in a business, you get a big, huge sale, you're going to probably be the type that wants to spend that right away. And the next thing you know oh shoot, I had that bill coming up, I had those 15 bills coming up and I needed to allocate that differently and budget for that differently. Oh shoot, november and December are slow months and I need, right, and I need some money for that to pay myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right, and it's you know, and that's the part too. And how do you figure out what business you want to go into? I, that was one of the things we were talking about, about chatting about today was how do you know what you want to get into?
Speaker 1:Cause there's a lot of people who think that owning a business requires a tremendous amount of capital and it doesn't Correct. I mean, of course, if you want to buy a McDonald's franchise you know, you got to have some money you know, it's a brick and mortar building, it's you know, there there's.
Speaker 1:There's certain industries, um anything, where you're selling products. You have to buy inventory before you sell it. It's, it's expensive, but there are so many industries out there, um, that require little to no investment. That's right. The only amount of capital you need is well, how am I going to pay my bills? Through the growth, through the startup process of the business? That's right. I mean, literally, for a couple thousand dollars, you can start a business.
Speaker 2:You can get an.
Speaker 1:LLC. You can get an LLC. You can get a decent website bill. You can buy a laptop computer. You can invest in a Microsoft Outlook Microsoft Office subscription. You can get the tools you need to be successful. You just have to have the idea and the drive to go out there and do it.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent, yeah yeah, and you can't go out with half baked idea, right, you have to. You have to plan it out and really, at the end of the day it's had. It has to do with process.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:What's the process that you're going to take people through in order to be that, have your idea and you vet it out. But there's also there's there's a certain point where I remember when I was young and crazy in high school, we'd jump off waterfalls and you've got to get to the point where you know what's under there, Even if you don't know, even if you can't see it, you just got to jump out and know the water's beneath you and you jump Right. And that's what entrepreneurship is. You've got to know that.
Speaker 1:Hey, you know what, you don't walk down there and swim around in the hole to see how deep it is first. No, that's what I call an idiot, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. What are you doing? Yeah, the smart guy's up there jumping off the cliff.
Speaker 1:I noticed you said when you were younger because you're a little bit wiser now and you probably don't do that anymore.
Speaker 2:No, it was just yesterday, but no. But I mean, that's really what you can like in entrepreneurship too is you have to take a leap. You're not going to feel great about the leap, but once you do it, you're going to love it.
Speaker 1:But it's also responsible to do some market research, some competitive analysis hey. I've got this brilliant idea. It's amazing what could possibly go wrong? And then you have to ask. You should responsibly ask yourself the question why hasn't anybody thought of this?
Speaker 2:And if they have, why aren't they doing it? Or if they're doing it, how are they doing it and how can I do it differently?
Speaker 1:Exactly, absolutely. That's a true statement. Don't not get in the business for yourself because somebody else is doing it, right? Maybe they've been doing, maybe they're the only ones doing it, and they've been doing it for 10 years and they're not embracing any of the new technology over the last five or six years, right, right, and those are the holes in the market you want to look for and you can exploit.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely, yeah, absolutely. And you look at something like a business or just a general services business. That goes back to what you're talking about Low investment, right, and I always, you know, franchising happened to be, you know, a segment I'm in right now, and that's the great part about it is it has the systems and the processes that you don't have to put together. So you, you have a franchise, you have a business on day one. It's just a matter of building it.
Speaker 1:So you're an investor and then, aside from being an investor, you have to decide if you're going to buy a franchise, whether you want to be a present hands-on operator or whether you just want to be an investor. We talked about that last week too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the best analogy I've got for that, because I can't tell you I talked to more people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the baby analogy is coming, it's people, people think that and I don't know if this comes from the influencer world of, hey, look at me, I'm on the beach and I'm making all this money. It's like, well, you're probably not, but I get it, I get the, I get. You have to show that, um, but you don't just buy a business and walk away from it, any more than you have a baby, and you hand it off to somebody and say, hey, raise this and let me know when they're fun again.
Speaker 1:To a nanny and then, once your kid, to show up to your funeral and talk about how great of a dad you were. Right, right.
Speaker 2:They're not exactly happen. No, because you, because you have to build that business. You have to care for it. You put all your heart and money. I made it, but I didn't raise it. That's right, and so it's the same thing when it comes to a business. Don't think that there's this, this magic bullet of I buy it and I never have to touch it again and money just comes in there. That's what you call just an interest bearing, bearing account you just make interest off of it.
Speaker 2:Even stocks don't do this. Stocks go up and down. They don't guarantee anything, right. But you can't buy a business, walk away from it and expect to make money and be profitable, right, and so you have to have some level of expectation that you're going to be involved. You can build it to that point. You can get to that point where you're not going to be involved in it every day, but you're not going to buy your way into it.
Speaker 1:So, briefly, let's talk business to business and business to consumer. Yeah, okay, people say I want to go into business for myself to be my own boss. Well, you get rid of the boss within the business, right? But you got more but if your business is successful.
Speaker 1:You have a lot of bosses and those are your customers. That's is successful. You have a lot of bosses and those are your customers. That's right, whether they be the bottom line consumer or whether it be another business. Yeah, you have a lot of bosses and and some of them are going to be great and gracious and patient and loyal and others are not correct, and there's going to be people you be ones that fall everywhere in between. I personally am in the business business, business Right.
Speaker 2:The business is business is business yes.
Speaker 1:I find businesses are more understanding. They set a clear expectation where often, if you're in the direct-to-consumer world, your consumer might tell you what they want but that's not really what they want. Where other businesses tend to be a little bit more concise and clear on what they want, what problem they have and how they want to see it fixed, correct.
Speaker 1:And that's where I thrive you know because I can you know, I take that communication. Communication is key. I work in the media production business, so I do photography, I do video production, I do graphic design, I do full service commercial advertising media production. You could not pay me enough money in the world to photograph your daughter's wedding.
Speaker 2:Well, I guess, take that idea out then.
Speaker 1:I mean, don't take that personally but I just that's. I don't want to deal with a consumer who has a vision that they can't communicate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, A hundred percent and that you know, going back to my story about marketing, that that's one of the reasons why I wanted to get out of it. You know, marketing is there's, there's two different sides to it. It's very, very data driven or very, very subjective, and I didn't like balancing between those two worlds or trying to bridge the gap between those two.
Speaker 1:And I'm like this isn't for me, it's for other people, it just isn't for me. Right and and again between what I do and what a wedding photographer does. What a wedding photographer does is very, very very subjective. It is an artistic form of of media production. What I do is a very technical form of media production. People can say I don't like your work. Okay, well, my work is technically perfect and I can prove that because here's the technical data that stands behind it.
Speaker 1:Where if you don't like your wedding pictures and it doesn't come down to whether somebody did a really great job or not, it comes down to whether you like their style or not Right, right, and that's not something I want to deal with. That's not to mention businesses. Always, no matter what the economy is, have a need to market, and you know weddings have a season.
Speaker 1:Family portraits have a need to market and you know, wedding, weddings have a season. Family portraits have a season. Um, and that's. You know that that's not not a venture. It increases my anxiety when I even think about that. So there's a lot of people, you know photographers are looked at as starving artists. You know, like a musician sitting panhandling in a street corner in Nashville, right, right, there's I'm like. I love photography. How can I make money at it? Where is a niche in the market where there's a demand for it, where I can operate this business effectively, efficiently and have a very large, consistent clientele base and commercial media production, is it? I mean businesses always have to advertise, and not by my own desire, not by my own plan, just by the nature of where the business went and where the market took it. 90% of my business is real estate because when the market's great, people want to buy and sell houses. You know, right, when the market is terrible, people have to sell houses. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:There's always death, there's always divorce, there's always. I lost my job and can't afford this house anymore. Or I got a promotion and I'm moving to another state and I have to sell my house and buy a new. Houses always have to come onto the market to sell and, unlike a real estate agent, I get paid whether it sells or not. Yeah, beautiful, so it's. It's actually a business model. When I went into this business I had no idea what direction it was going to go, how it was going to work, but I kept an open mind and was willing to change and adapt with where the demand was pulling me. But before that I actually worked for 15 years in radio and television. I was on a radio host in Southern California. Really Can't tell by the voice. I've hosted country radio stations, top 40 radio stations, talk radio stations, um I directed tv news for years, including nfl football, sweet, uh.
Speaker 1:and when, when I got married and had kids and I was traveling a lot for for televised events. You know there's TV is 24 seven. There was not. It was not a good thing for me to have a family. Um, I left the broadcasting industry for a lot of reasons. One, because the schedule wasn't good with my family and two, as a director in TV news, especially in larger markets, there was always that fear as a director sitting in the control room telling people what to do. Directing a live news broadcast and this is going out of the over the public airway, so it's regulated by the FCC. So if anything happens on the air that is off script, I have to write a director's report that goes to the FCC for documentation. And I mentioned before, one of my biggest pet peeves is you can't hold somebody accountable for that which they didn't have the authority to have done, different.
Speaker 2:So you say what?
Speaker 1:does that mean, darren? I don't understand what you're trying to say. What I'm trying to say is I'm sitting in a control room. I'm the director. I am in charge of executing this newscast for the next 60 minutes. If something goes wrong on that, who's accountable? You are, I am, so I have scripts that the producers have written. I have a rundown of the stories that are going to be in the newscast. I know I assign what anchor is going to read what story, what camera they're going to be on when they read that story and and you know, organizing the whole show.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of production elements that go into a live news news broadcast. You're in the opening of the show. You're live on the air. The executive producer runs into the control room yelling and screaming and raising and you know waving papers in the air. We have breaking news. We have breaking news. I sent a live van out there ready go to that live shot. And I say no, we'll go to it at the top of the B block in the next segment after the commercial break, because I want to be able to make sure that they can hear me, that I can hear them, that the signal's good. Communication is clear. I want to make sure that they can hear me, that I can hear them, that the signal's good, communication is clear. I want to make sure that we execute this flawlessly. And the executive producer's yelling no, no, no, no, no. This is important, we need to do it right now. Okay, so I go. Okay, we go to it.
Speaker 1:Then there's a talking head on TV and their mic's not working. Is it on our end? No, it's on their end. Okay, do they get in trouble for that? Sure, they didn't have things set up right, but I get in trouble for taking a source to the air that was not checked. I'm responsible for making sure that everything that goes on the air is working properly and I would be held responsible for that.
Speaker 1:But I questioned where my authority was on being able to have made changes or done something differently. Yeah, and that's not a good feeling for any employee to be in. So that's a long story, but it kind of gets you know, kind of gets to what drives me crazy in business and what really stuck with me. And when I got married and had kids, I got my license. I went to some classes and got a license as a health care administrator, ok, and I worked in the health care business for several years in upper management as an executive director, regional vice president of operations, and I hated my job. Every second of it. I hated my job. It was stressful, the money was great, but I'm managing hundreds or ultimately responsible for thousands of employees, cause you've got me. Then you have like general manager level people, then you have department heads, kind of like a pyramid.
Speaker 1:But ultimately the buck stops with me, right, and there's a lot of accountability for things that I don't have the I don't have the power to change a lot of the things that are down line in this pyramid. Right, right, right. I don't have the power to change a lot of the things that are down line in this pyramid. Right, right Right.
Speaker 1:And I applied that, that that idea you know, with with my department heads. I was very conscious to not hold them responsible, not hold them accountable for things, that they didn't have the responsibility to the authority to have done different. Yeah, um and after, uh, you know, when COVID started and we had regulations and laws coming down that were completely unethical I don't care what side of the political aisle you're on, we can all agree that things were done poorly and ethically, the way things were being handled, and not from the part of the corporation that I worked for where I'm talking, you know, government, regulatory side of things I said I can't do this anymore. Yeah, I'm not going to do this. And I talked to my wife and she said, well, why don't you, can't you go back to work in TV? And I'm like I can't support a family of six working in small market TV unless we move back to like Los Angeles.
Speaker 1:And so she's all. Well, why don't you start your own business? And I laughed. I'm like nobody's going to pay for these services in a small town yeah, not at the level of what I need to support my family. And then I thought, well, it's COVID. Everything's shut down, nobody's coming into stores, nobody's coming into restaurants, everybody's turning to online for advertising. I'm going to start helping people out with online advertising. I'm going to start producing web commercials. I'm going to start producing TV, higher end TV commercials, because we all know the local TV commercials are rough. You know they're painful.
Speaker 1:And as I started doing that, it was there, just wasn't. There wasn't enough money. You know people didn't have or the appreciation, I'm sure, or the appreciation, or the understanding, or the knowledge of what high quality media can do for you and how it can set you apart. And then, by the grace of God, I started getting calls from real estate agents saying, hey, go photograph this house for me. I like your work, your work is stellar. Go photograph this house. Hey, can you do a video of this house? Hey, can you do a video of this house? Hey, can you do a 3D tour of this house and I'm like and as a business owner, the answer is never no, I can't, or no, I don't do that. It's um, yeah, sure, and then I go home in a panic going I need to figure out how to do this.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right. It's an opportunity. Let me figure out what I'm going to do about it.
Speaker 1:Let me figure it out, and so that's just kind of how it. How it went and and that's where I'm at here today is I I? I grew this media production business with an extensive background and a fairly decent amount of knowledge and experience in the media production business, um, and having worked in the healthcare business for a while, understanding how to read financials, understanding how important investments are in your team, in your systems, in your equipment, having redundant systems, having worked with $20 million annual operating budgets, um it, I think that laid the groundwork.
Speaker 3:I just you know, moved the decimal point over a few few notches.
Speaker 2:Now I've got. Now I've got my business. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um. But I'll tell you what being a business owner is is. It's hard work. It's not for the faint of heart. I wake up at some mornings and I'm like I really don't want to go into work today. And you know what, if I had a corporate job where I had three weeks of paid vacation and plenty of people at work and going hey, no big meetings, nothing real big going on, today I'm going to call in sick and take today off. As an entrepreneur, I can't do that and I have to hold myself accountable to get up in the morning and go to work. That's right, because failure is not an option. That's right.
Speaker 2:At all. That's right. Yeah, no, and I love that too. And I think the question I've got for you is what in corporate America was that tipping point in your mind? That and I know your story was that your wife was the one that kind of came up with the idea of going in.
Speaker 1:But if you could trace it back. Honestly, my wife said if you don't get out, you're going to have a heart attack. If you don't get out of that business, oh okay. So let's go be an entrepreneur and take on a whole yeah. Well, this is a whole different set of stress, yeah exactly, exactly no-transcript.
Speaker 1:One as a VP of operations, I have the authority to make executive level decisions, having trust that the decisions I make are in good faith and that the corporation will have my back on it. Number one, that's a good one. And number two, seeing the corporations who claim to completely have your back completely turn on you when the local, regional and national politics change. The actual breaking point working in the healthcare business is we had patients in long-term care facilities, skilled nursings, hospitals in the early days of COVID, when everything was shut down, that were dying of things other than COVID, not related to COVID, you know gunshot wounds, stabbings, car accidents, heart attacks, brain aneurysms, whatever the case may be, old age and failing health. We had people in our facilities who were dying alone and not having not being able to have their family members at their bedside to say goodbye and to be with them.
Speaker 1:During that, during that process, and on a personal and an ethical level, I said I can't and I won't do this. I can't enforce a policy that where I have to tell sons and daughters and grandkids that they can't be with mom or dad or grandma while they're passing, that they can't go say their goodbyes. Now, that was only for a fairly short period of time during the healthcare industry. And then they, you know, started putting up these stupid plexiglass walls and saying gown up and wear a mask and say your goodbyes through the glass. You can hold their hand, but you have to be wearing gloves. And you know I was gone before that. I left before that happened. But when we had regulatory authorities on the, you know, county, state and federal levels that are saying visitors can't come in to a hospital or a skilled nursing facility or a rehab facility and be at the bedside with their loved one who's who's dying, um, I, I said I, I can't implement and I can't enforce these policies and so I'm gonna respectfully bow out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I gave, I gave 60 days notice, okay, and you have 60 days to find my replacement, yeah, but so you can now, as an entrepreneur, you can, you have the the autonomy to make those decisions the way you are essentially convicted to do so, based on your own value set and I don't have to care about what my bosses think of my convictions. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and that's, that's great. I mean that's, and if I make a bad, choice.
Speaker 1:Well, my clients will hold me responsible for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah and yeah, you'll figure out one way or the other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but at least I can put my head on my pillow and go to sleep at night you know, and it's funny when people ask about being an entrepreneur and then they contrast it with a job and they talk about the security of a job versus owning your own business. It's like, well, here's one thing I know, it's feast or famine, baby, well, and I'm never going to get fired and I'm never going to lose my job based on somebody above me and their decision they made so somebody above me and their decision they made so it is what it is.
Speaker 1:Well, it's kind of like getting fired when you lose a client. You don't get fired you just. You just got a demotion. That's pretty much it, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean it's just a reality of the business. But you know, I mean that's, that's the, that's the part about it that is, you know, don't confuse the corporate world with security. You know, my, my story is um, it's a corporate world, Don't you?
Speaker 1:you see this all the time and, coming from the TV business, you see this a lot. In the TV business. You can have a host on TV who's making that network a ton of money, but if they say something that doesn't align with the narrative of that organization, they're gone. There is no job security. You know, if you're, if you're a big name TV show host and and you think, oh, I've got all the job security in the world because my ratings are through the roof, if you say one thing that doesn't align with the CEO of that company, you're gone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they don't care about that. They've got so much money they don't care, they can go buy somebody different, they'll go buy somebody different.
Speaker 2:That's right, exactly that's right.
Speaker 1:And cheaper.
Speaker 2:Most likely Right? Yeah, Well, and they'll make a big deal out of it. Yeah, To market and make my story is a bit different. It's probably a little more circuitous than yours, where, you know, like I said, I started out and I went into the marketing agency on my own that ended up merging with another one and didn't work out. So I'd returned back to corporate America and, honestly, I love the job that I did. We put on events for the healthcare industry and, you know, I ended up working my way up, way up to that to a fairly high level and, uh, genuinely enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:Um, there were some things that I did not like about, uh, just some. You know a few more kind of kind of like what you were saying, just some different ethics and things that, uh, that I didn't personally agree with. And, um, you take that with the other part point that you brought up, which is traveling when you have kids and a small family. It was something I loved, but then I thought to myself you know I always wanted to be a dad, but I can't say this job is what I always wanted, more than that. So I got to reassess and prioritize my life a little differently and I got back to the same thing. I'm like, yeah, I'm pretty sure if I go on my own I can make as much as I'm making now, if not more, and with a little risk. With a little risk, yeah, of course. And so I actually had a buddy of mine who had bought an ice cream shop in Florida and he's like, hey, help me franchise this thing.
Speaker 2:Like okay no, and I told him no for two years.
Speaker 1:Did you know nothing about franchising at that time?
Speaker 2:I knew some. I'd been exposed to it for a few years at a corporate level in a previous life and so I did know enough about it. Um, but you know, by no means was I an expert. And so I turned him down for actually about a year and a half, and it was the last six months where things started really ramping up and he basically made it to where a departure from corporate America would be kind of a soft land, and I'm like you know what.
Speaker 2:I'll take that and so I went off and I decided to learn this whole different look at an industry. I started walking him down the whole process of franchising this business, making the connections, and so I decided that I was going to start getting involved by in another way of of brokering franchises basically. So I started doing that, found a different way to do that and have have kind of broadened my service offering as a business to go beyond just franchise brokering and so, um, you know, helping companies franchise to helping people find the right franchise, to supporting franchises, um, through marketing and and you know, somewhat media production, like what you were talking, like what you do, but, um, so that was kind of my launch into that.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, as things went on and and his business kind of started growing more on the corporate side and franchising kind of started fading away, it's like you know what, maybe let's make a clean break and I'm going to do that, um, and so I ended up, uh, you know, going at it completely on my own, and I also had another company, another person, come to me and it said, just for the record of all the opportunities that I have that come across my desk, in a day I turned down it easily 90 to 95% of them. And if that's the fun part too about being an entrepreneur is you hear about opportunities all the time, all the time, and you really have to get very good at saying no. You do. And that took me a little while, me too. Yeah, cause normally like yes, I got to say yes to everything. And after a while you're like, yeah, I'd say yes to everything.
Speaker 1:Because the first year of your business is famine.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:You want every penny you can get. You're grasping at straws for money, but you got to be careful because one wrong decision and picking a client or taking on a job can destroy your business.
Speaker 2:That's right. A guy come to me that I'd known from my previous life in corporate America and he's like hey, I've got an idea. I want you to come along with me. You've got a good Rolodex in the healthcare space still. I'd like to leverage that and I said yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't want to do that, but I've got this idea and I toss this idea to him about, you know, just a different way of running meetings basically, meetings basically and taking all the pomp and circumstance out of them, stripping it down to be just targeted specifically to authentic connection with people. So, hey, at the end of the day, we could solve a problem if we sit and talk together. I am not going to solve a problem by listening to a keynote speech. It's no dig on keynote speeches. They have their purpose, they serve their purpose. But I've walked out of every single one.
Speaker 1:You're a marketing ploy to get people to sign up to your meeting.
Speaker 2:And I liked it, I like it. Great meeting, that was great stuff. And then I walked out and every time it's like now what in the hell do I do with that? How do I apply that?
Speaker 1:Or or it just belittles you.
Speaker 3:Well, there's that too, there's that too A lot of keynote speeches, good old fear, uncertainty and doubt, right.
Speaker 2:But this just strips it down to where let's just talk, let's just have some conversation, let's have some time together, let's get around some topics together and let's take within reason the structure out of it to where something can come of this, just organically. And so we started this, this whole meeting. We called it a retreat, because that's what we wanted to be a retreat from the traditional. And the first year we we made it happen. And we made it happen in the 11th hour. It was. It was great, it went well. And then we had our next one, the next year, same thing. That one went pretty well. You know, we ironed out some more things.
Speaker 2:We go to our third one and I'll never forget, on my dry, on my flight home after the third year I'm I'm actually in the United Club and I'm getting my, my food and everything and and going back to to where I was sitting. But I ran into this guy and he said so. So what do you do? What kept you on the road? For where are you coming back from? We kind of shared each other's stories about where we were and he said well, how long have you been on the road. I said, oh, about a week. He said what have you been doing? I said, oh, we were putting on a meeting. He's like oh great.
Speaker 2:I said how long have you? He said well, I, you know the those devices that your x-rays get stored on. I said yeah, he's like yeah, I invented those. I'm like oh great.
Speaker 1:That's awesome and I mean the actual physical films or the digital or the digital, yeah, yeah and um, and he looked at me.
Speaker 2:He says it's pretty cool, it happens after that third year, isn't it? And I? I smiled and looked at him and said, yeah, it is. And we, we it's, almost without saying it. We were on the same page and it's. You know, if you've ever driven a Corvette or you've watched, you know motorcyclists driving, they'll wave to each other. That's kind of the entrepreneurial world, entrepreneurial world of we all get it we all get it.
Speaker 2:You know we're going our own way, but it's like I'm with you, buddy. I got you and I we might even be in competition with each other, but but we respect, it right, we respect each other.
Speaker 2:Respect the game, right? No, but it's. That was a really kind of a cool conversation for me that I needed at that moment because I was feeling pretty darn good, darn good. We, we had finally gotten to the point where this thing started rolling. And when he said that after you know somebody who'd been at it much longer than I had, it's like, yeah, that is kind of that that year that you get to where it's like, yeah, this is starting to make it happen, it's starting to work, um, and so you know we continue, we, we took that and rebranded it and repackaged some services and really aimed at growth.
Speaker 2:And so far this year we've already exceeded what we expected and done far beyond what we've done in previous years. And so you know it's fun. But I will tell you, when you decide to double the size of something, you, you triple, if not more, your stress and what you got to put into it. And I knew that going into it my thing is I'm kind of a stress and anxiety or whatever junkie. But again back to our previous guests, we all kind of live a little bit differently as entrepreneurs.
Speaker 1:Of course, and we have to. So here's a silly question, back in your first year when you're starting, where we were talking before the podcast how the last two years I haven't dropped off one business card.
Speaker 1:I haven't dropped off one flyer anywhere it's just solely been word of mouth and a little bit of social media presence that's kept business booming um to to the max of what I can sustain without growing, without duplicating myself. When you look back at the first year and you look at all the marketing things you did I mean, when we start a business, sometimes, like me, I'm having to replace an income and support a family Out of desperation I'm trying different things, trying to see what, what people bite at. What was the one thing you look at now in your first year that you just laugh at yourself about and go? That was really dumb.
Speaker 2:And you know exactly what it is when it's asked right, what was?
Speaker 1:the silliest thing I did that that, that that I'm almost embarrassed to share, but I'm going to share it anyway.
Speaker 2:Yeah, doing more makes more. It's not the doing more makes more. It really isn't. As an entrepreneur, as a business owner, you have to figure out how to do more with less, and so when I say that it's it's, you don't go out and you don't find a marketing person to do things for you that you could just damn well do yourself, right.
Speaker 1:Right and people are going to be more loyal if they're connecting, if if you, as a business owner, and the person providing the service are the ones walking through their door saying, hey, that's right, I'm Andy and I would love to have your business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and so so nothing compares to that. No, what you do is you, you work your own system and you have faith in the system you've put together, because you've you've gone through the experience to know what works and what doesn't, and that was what it was for me it's. You know well, we've all been through things that haven't worked.
Speaker 1:Oh, what was the one thing you did? That's almost embarrassing to admit. That hasn't worked oh gee, well, I mean that, that this is where we get to the raw and unfiltered part of it, the raw and unfiltered part.
Speaker 2:What is it exactly? You know what? I would start to get the sense that things were working. It's like, okay, there's some money in the bank. What I'm going to do now is I'm going to find somebody to do what I don't want to do, and that's it. And that's what I'm talking about is doing more with less. Finding somebody to do something that I give up control over. So, marketing, right, okay, find a marketing agency, a marketing partner, and say, okay, this is what I need. And it's funny, I hired a marketing agency and they're like oh, yeah, we can do all these things for you. I'm like, okay, here's what my site's hosted on. Can you guys serve that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, okay. And we went through this process and went through the you know, asking questions and vetting and all this kind of things, and finally comes down to it and three months into, I'm like you guys don't really know what now you're doing. Well, no, we do, but there's some, there's some challenges that we have and I'm like, oh, whatever, those challenges you well, we can't.
Speaker 2:we can't do anything with what your content management system is on your site. I'm like well, I brought that up a long time ago, why are you bringing it up now?
Speaker 1:And at the end, Because you said whatever they needed to say to get you. Get your business.
Speaker 2:And if you're an entrepreneur, I'll tell you one thing Everybody will try to be sticking their hands in your pockets as quickly as they can.
Speaker 1:Oh yes, they do. I get calls at minimum five or six times a day. It's awful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and so that was my mistake and I knew better. And, quite frankly, to make it even dumber, I've done it more than once Because I'm like you know, this time I'm going to do it differently, because I'm going to put more strategic boundaries around it, I'm going to have better, and I've got to just get to the point where it's like you know what? You don't scale by simply replacing tasks that you do. You scale by having processes that work and inserting people into those processes in a way that, if they're already managed, you know pretty quickly if they're going to work or not.
Speaker 1:And with the technology out there and you know where you can have remote workers. You can have personal assistants, virtual assistants, answering services, ai to do email campaigns for you. It you know I'm a big advocate of employing people, but it makes it hard to do that with all the technology out there.
Speaker 2:You're right. But I will tell you, though, I've had a virtual assistant for two years now and she's been great. But it does come down to you, as an entrepreneur, having the correct vision for your business. And for me to be able to give people told me all the time I run into more people than I don't that say I tried the virtual assistant thing it didn't work. For me to be able to give people told me all the time I run into more people than I don't that say I tried the virtual assistant thing, it didn't work for me. I'm like, really, why? Well, I just I ran out of work for her.
Speaker 2:I'm like, well, because you weren't willing to, because you're, you know, on the spectrum, you're a little OCD and you don't want to let go, yeah, well a little bit of that, but I also think that it's more the idea that they're hiring somebody because they feel it makes us feel better, and that's one of the big mistakes, as I've. You know, when you're an entrepreneur, you need to be a student of entrepreneurship too. You need to keep reading the books about it, about business, about entrepreneurship and everything else, and so of the books I've read, it's one of the first mistakes that entrepreneurs can make is hiring an assistant because it's a pride thing. Oh, a hundred percent. So for me it genuinely wasn't a pride thing.
Speaker 2:I was the youngest in my family and, believe me, there's not a lot of pride left here. It's all, it's all gone for the most part. But I look at things and I see these projects that need done and for me it it's like that's going to take me 10, 15 hours. I'll pay somebody eight bucks an hour, I think is what it is 48 hours to do that, because that makes that buys me time back and I can turn that time into money.
Speaker 1:Now that makes a lot more money than eight dollars an hour.
Speaker 2:Yes, and then that and then that project, and then it's all project based. So I've had her working on projects for two years, and now we speak the same language in terms of you know, she knows what I need when I need it, and sometimes there's things where I need sooner. It's like I need you to build this presentation for this client. Or there's other times where it's like you know, hey, I need you to go do an audit of these things online for us and report back this information, and so there's an ongoing project that I have on there for her, and so that's really what it is. If you don't have a business that has ongoing projects, I think you just bought yourself a job or you have a job of some sort, and so that's where I think it's important to have processes in place and insert people into those.
Speaker 1:We talked about this before we started the podcast. But at what point in your career, at what point in your entrepreneurship venture, did you feel like you stopped running the business and the business started running you?
Speaker 2:Well, probably day one.
Speaker 1:That's a good sign of a successful business. I mean, when I started out, of course you know 80% of my time was trying to generate business and 20% of my time was actually doing it. And then it slowly transitioned Right and now I'm not trying to generate the business anymore. The business is a freight train and the demand is high and it's like literally grabbing me by the hair and running me ragged, dragging me along behind it. Keep up, keep up, keep up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and for me it's, uh, it's gotten to the point to where I can't say that just in the nature of the businesses I'm in, um, and hasn't hasn't done a full flip from 80, 20 to 20, 80. Now I think it's more probably on the 50, 50, 60% scale. That's a comfortable place to be, you would think, but I'm never comfortable. I don't know if that's just me or if that's just the nature of entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1:It is yeah, because.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you're always. You know, you're always chasing after something much bigger than you and much bigger than what you're doing today.
Speaker 1:So if you're thinking about starting a business, understand that there's a difference between a business and supporting a hobby.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And I'm going to use my own mother. I love her dearly, but I'll use this as an example. She's retired, she has very limited income. She wanted to, you know, have a job, make, make some extra money, have some spending money, and she wanted basically something to do and occupy her time. So she decided she was going to go start shopping yard sales and buying things and marketing and selling things on eBay for a profit. And she would tell me all the time hey, I bought this for $15 and I sold it for $25 on eBay.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, how much money did you pay to ship that? Well, $5. I'm going okay. So now you're at a $5 profit. How much money in gas did you spend to go to that yard sale to purchase that item and drive home? Oh, well, you know, probably five or six bucks. Okay, well, now we're down to a $5 profit.
Speaker 1:How much money are you spending on your internet account and your computer and how much time did it take to put that online and sell it? Oh, I was probably in it, maybe an hour and a half total, and I'm going okay. So you're making what? 25, 30 cents an hour is what I calculated it out to be, and that was a tough pill for her to swallow. Well, I enjoy it.
Speaker 1:Okay, then that's a hobby that doesn't cost you money. It's not a business. Oh well, it's Okay. Perfect, then that's a hobby that doesn't cost you money. It's not a business? Oh well, it's actually a business. I'm making money. I said no, you're not making money, you're supporting a hobby. And being able to recognize that distinction is extremely important. It is Extremely important. And getting out there before you start a business and deciding what you want to do I mean people like making crafts and selling them online Well, that's a hobby, because the amount of money it takes you to, the amount of time it takes you to make that craft, the expenses and materials it takes to make it, for what you actually sell it for, you're not going to really make.
Speaker 2:You're not going to make a living and at the same, point it could become a business. I mean, you've heard the stories of those turning into businesses. It could, so you've got to start somewhere. Yes, yes, when somebody else starts doing the manufacturing, that's exactly right.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, precisely, and in my business. And and my mom, she asks me questions about my business all the time yeah I have a full-time editor, cost me about 65 70 000 a year.
Speaker 1:And she's like, well, couldn't you just save that 65 70 000 a year and do it yourself? I'm like, good, I couldn't actually, because I did nine jobs. Today, I've been out in the field for 12 hours and you want me to come home and do 12 more hours of editing? Yeah, no, that's not sustainable, that's not doable. And so I have a full-time editor. I've hired a bookkeeping firm who manages and closes and reconciles all of my books and accounts, and I spend quite a bit of money on a crm and content management platform that handles all of my booking, my online ordering, my scheduling, my invoicing, and I've automated pretty much everything in the back office, so I can spend my time in the area that actually makes the business money right.
Speaker 1:And it's out in the field doing jobs.
Speaker 2:It's it's what we would call in the business world the core competency. Right, that's, you are the core competency.
Speaker 2:It's it's what we would call in the business world the core competency right that's you are the core competency and therefore, when you get distracted by it, the business loses its core competency. So, and that's you know, when I'm talking about process and business, and that's that's really where an entrepreneur needs to focus of how am I going to play defense against being pulled out of the core competency, against being pulled out of the core competency, and that's where, you know, we hire on assistants to do our core competency, or we don't have the processes in place, or we don't have the appropriate measures in place, to where we're distracted by everything, because we can be distracted by everything, and that's what happens. And I think you know I've seen a lot of entrepreneurs fail because they lost focus on their own business.
Speaker 1:Wasn't even that they had a bad concept.
Speaker 2:No, it wasn't even that their business wasn't making money. It's just that they took their eye off the ball and expenses got higher than income, or something happened that, had they been paying attention, wouldn't happen.
Speaker 1:Right. But if you're a contractor, if you're a plumber, if you're an electrician and your time is billed out at $175 an hour, which is pretty close to standard in this area for trades, your time is better off spending eight, nine hours a day billing your time at $175 an hour than spending your time doing six hours a day at $175 an hour and two hours doing bookkeeping.
Speaker 2:Yeah absolutely right.
Speaker 1:You're making a whole lot more money if you're paying somebody else to do your bookkeeping and you should be the auditor too. A whole lot more money. It's easier to audit other people's work than it is your own.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent, because you look through a P&L and you're like that doesn't look right. And then you can dig into that and say okay, that's, that's where these expenses got misallocated.
Speaker 1:And one of the biggest things I think you and I are going to bring to the table in this podcast is helping people through that decision-making process of starting a business, making sure that their business model is viable, giving them confidence to take that leap of faith in it and helping them make rational decisions in areas that may not be their area of expertise. That could sink their business if they don't seek help.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you know one thing I understand financials.
Speaker 1:I know how to read a PNL. I don't want to reconcile books. I don't want to balance bank accounts. I don't want to do. I don't want to deal with spreadsheets. I like to look at the result. But it's far more cost effective and I make a whole lot more money billing my time out in the field than I do sitting in the office doing this stuff myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just to save a few hundred bucks a month. Yeah, you're out there a couple more times. You pay for them A hundred percent.
Speaker 1:And then you're not doing things you don't want to do. Several times over, several times over, yeah.
Speaker 2:And you enjoy what you're doing.
Speaker 1:It costs money to make money. That's right, but it doesn't have to start that way. You don't have to be rich to start a business.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:What's the what's a great word of wisdom or advice you can give to Endless Podcast today.
Speaker 2:On the spot. That's what we get for being unfiltered, right? I would really just say, at the end of the day, if you have a sense for something tugging at you and you're good at something, explore that and figure that out, because that could be where your opportunity lies. What does exploring that look like?
Speaker 1:What's some smart research to do if you're thinking about starting a business? One one look, is anybody else doing it. Are they successful?
Speaker 2:what's the market size? What's the market size? Are there holes in the market? Being done right now, you know, and and not only that, like how can you enter that market in the most efficient way, not necessarily offering the least, but where's the low hanging fruit you can pick up right away so you can at least gain credibility as you're building it right and how long is it going to take you to produce the product that you're selling and how much money are you going to make from that per hour?
Speaker 2:essentially, yeah, break it down by hour, break down by what you need, what you need to make, what you need to survive. You know those things and I don't have high expectations look.
Speaker 1:Look at being rich later. Look at surviving right now. Yep.
Speaker 2:That's right? Yeah, don't. And you know what? There's a great quote that I heard Comparison is a thief of joy. So don't go out there comparing yourself to the Mark Cubans of the world, because you know we all have as entrepreneurs, he's well beyond what we've been able to accomplish. He was. Where we are now Doesn't mean that's where we're going to be when we're done, but it's a different story. So don't compare yourself to that.
Speaker 1:And to the experienced entrepreneurs who are doing well, who are maybe in my position, where I'm feeling okay, the business is successful, the business is booming, the business is dragging me literally by the hair, saying keep up, keep up, keep up. Yeah, now we're at that crossroads of do I, do I be content with what I've got, or do I look at ways to simplify, to maybe step back a little bit? Yeah, or start duplicating the business model?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, well and your risk business model, yeah, yeah, well, and your risk profile is changing from what's it going to cost me to step away from it a little bit? If that's what you choose, right, it's a whole different risk.
Speaker 1:Right yeah, because you know, we, as entrepreneurs, we build relationships with our client, as we've talked about with our guests, relationships are critical. Your networking, your circle, your network is so, so important, and when you take a backseat and start putting somebody else out there who's being a face person with your clients, it could bite you. You've got to do that strategically and you've got to do it thoughtfully and you can't rip a band-aid off.
Speaker 2:It's not like that. No, you can't not at all not at all.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm excited. I'm I'm, I'm happy to be helping. You know, I I hope we can help people who are thinking about becoming an entrepreneur. I hope we can, uh, help give some perspective and words of wisdom to people who are experienced and like in my position, going, okay, I, I'm at a crossroads, what do I do? Do I just sit tight? Go hey, I make a comfortable living, I'm happy with what I do, but I'm run ragged. Or do I want to continue making this living, and possibly a bigger living, but taking a little bit of a step back from the business?
Speaker 1:and hiring people to help run things. Yeah. And giving myself a little more time with my family.
Speaker 2:That's right A little bit more clarity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, investing money in some other areas.
Speaker 2:And I'm the guy that you know. I'm not going to give any implication that I'm giving you wisdom, but I am the guy that I'll have a drink with you and tell you what I know. And that might not be enough, but we'll do it together and tell you what I know, and that's.
Speaker 1:that might not be enough, but we'll do it together. That's what we're here to do, so grab a drink with us next week, sit down, listen to the Unfiltered Founders podcast. I'm Darren Andy. We'll see you next time.