How We Almost Went Out of Business and The Moves That Fixed Everything

Want fewer sleepless nights, better clients, healthier margins? This episode is here to help you build a business that not just survives the plot twists, but help you confidently run your business on your terms.You'll learn how to stop "accommodating yourself out of business," switch from half-now/half-later to paid-in-full (without backlash), and why "industry standard" is not a business strategy. We'll show you how to raise prices during uncertainty (built-in excuse!), set non-negotiable boundaries, and politely ditch price-shoppers so you can attract clients who actually value your process. You'll walk away with the mindset shift to run your company your way, the courage (and scripts) to say "no" without flinching, and a simple filter to decide which policies to change today so you never get caught cash-starved again.

Highlights

00:00 

06:00 Lessons from what's worked (and hasn't) in our business.

11:15 How we made the change to charge up front. 

16:30 How we handled clients who didn't respect our time and boundaries.

21:00 The power of having a mentor who's navigated the cycles of ups and downs in business.

29:15 Are you aware of the bad habits hurting your business?

34:00 The difference it makes to be proactive rather than reactive in business.

38:00 The impact of tariffs on businesses and how to adapt to market changes.

41:45 How to push past the discomfort of making necessary changes in business.

48:15 How to handle client pushback and the importance of staying true to your business.

Resources + Links

Apply for Luxury Clothier Collective Mastermind HERE

More resources for custom clothiers HERE

Watch on Youtube

Follow

Appointment Only in IG: @appointmentonlypod

Resources + Links
Apply for Luxury Clothier Collective Mastermind  HERE
More resources for custom clothiers HERE
Watch on Youtube

 Follow
Appointment Only in IG: @appointmentonlypod

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

When you get to that point of desperation where you realize, holy shit, I'm almost out of business. That's when you have to do what other people won't do. This is Appointment Only, the podcast for entrepreneurs building profitable high-end businesses. If you want control, profit, and freedom from the endless hustle, this is for you. We're Kenny and Damie, twin brothers from day one and business partners for 15 years. We're sharing insights from our own experiences running a high-end small business, the highs, the lows, and what we've learned along the way that will help you build businesses you enjoy running that aren't running you. We're here to help you continue creating businesses that support the life you actually want to live. Your appointment starts now. Okay, you ready to do this? Yep, you got the hoppies. The hoppies are set. And did you know that Lagonitas Hopie Refresher also comes in cans? Do you think that's why we haven't been sponsored yet? Because they're like, we're we're waiting to see the cans. They never mentioned the cans. Once they mentioned the cans, yeah. I think that's it. So be expecting a call from Lagonitas today. As we are doing the podcast, we're learning about angles and we're learning about with how I like my chair. There's a reason I'm wearing a vest today. Let me just throw that out there. Oh, it's a lot of uh a lot of tummy time. Full frontal on that tummy. You you you YouTube watchers don't need to clock that much tummy time. Let's just be honest about that. So I'm wearing a vest today for all of you YouTube. Appointment only freaks, really. I mean, there's no other way to put it. Have we decided on what we're calling our appointment only listeners? We're kicking around regulars. Right. We're kicking around regulars because that's how we refer to our customers, clients, really. Our good clients. Our good clients, we we refer to them as like a regular client. So we're thinking you're regular, if you're coming back week after week, you're you know, you're gobbling up what we're what we're giving you. Just gobbling it down. And you're our regulars. And so that's kind of where we're that's where we're at now. That's where we're that's where we're headed. That's what we're thinking for today. We're absolutely headed that direction. So welcome back, regulars to appointment only. Your appointment starts now. We had a bit of a different type of morning for us. We kicked off this morning much earlier than we usually do. We were at a rotary meeting for our our business mentor. He was sharing his backstory, his background, and he invited us to be part of the breakfast. So we attended that, which was a lot of fun. It was at the Minneapolis Club. And as we walked in, I was reminded of the last time we were at the Minneapolis Club, and Danny sharded his pants. I thought you were gonna say something totally different than that. Well, am I wrong? I'd be wrong to if I said that I didn't think about it as well. We were there for some other, some other event, and I remember being at the urinal, and this wasn't, he wasn't five years old. This we were full-blown adults. I was a grown up, and Danny sharded. I was wearing a suit at the Minneapolis Club, which is a very fancy club. It's very exclusive, it's members only, it's just this beautiful mansion downtown. And Danny walks in like poopy pants. What the hell? I I I walked in, I had to use the the restroom before the event. I'm clearly going to. You're telling me. Let's just say I thought I only had to go number one. But turns out that's how it happens. Turns out I also had to go number two. And I was standing at the urinal and I was relieving myself, and all of a sudden, it turned into a stall job. And let's just say the underwear ended up in the trash can. Yeah. Gotta pour one out for that pair of undies. I I feel like we don't have to go into any more detail. I mean, right. I just thought it was funny, and I uh I just wanted to put you on the spot and see what you would what would happen. Well, what am I gonna do? Deny it? No, you can't deny it. I'm that's what I'm saying. And I wanted to share with all of our regulars that, you know, stars, they're just like us.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

It wasn't me, it was Danny King. It was Kenny who did that.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

He's just like you. Danny King, well, actually, he's probably not like you because my guess would be it's uh none of you listening probably have gone through an experience like that as an adult. But I, you know what? I'm gonna throw this out there. I feel like it's more common than you might think. Um I feel like a a a poop your pants story as an adult is more common. It's probably not the majority of adults, but it's more common than that. There are dozens of us out there, Kenny. There are dozens of us. Another thing about getting to know us is I want to clarify one thing. We are saying custom suit, not custom soup. It's it's alarming the number of times that I explain what I do to somebody and they think I'm saying soup, as in the food. That's happened to me a few times. It's not the most common reading. Do you have like a cafe? And then I realize oh, this person thinks I'm talking about soup. Next time that happens, we should just go with it. Yes, I do have a cafe, and any kind of soup you might you might like, I'm your guy. I will I will stew that thing right up. Well, I made last time I was at the Minneapolis Club, I made poop soup. He is quite the chef. Poop soup in my box of briefs. That's a custom soup for you. Yeah, that's exactly right. It's custom custom soup and my custom soup. No one, no one cooks it up quite like this guy. It was the thing was it was marinating for hours. Bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble. Oh, it's ready. Ready or not? I'm surprised I'm not I'm not barred from the Minneapolis Club. I know I was, I was, we walked pretty quick past that security desk. You never know. Where are those photos? Where are the band people? Oh, is this the guy who threw his boxer briefs in the bathroom? Is this that custom soup guy? He must have had too much soup that day. Oh, all right. Phenomenal banter at the top. That's enough toilet talk. Uh let's transition. The reason you're here is to talk shop, right? Not to talk uh shop fax. Could have used one. Do you think sharp is gonna give us an E on this episode for explicit? I don't know. Is that technically a swear word? Because I can't imagine the combo. Oh, shart. Oh well, I think you're not using it correctly, but even if you were using it in the correct terms, is that technically a swear word? Probably not. When I get really worked up, I just I just let the S bomb go the sharp. I'm driving in traffic. Oh, you shart. Well, it's top of mind for you, for sure. I'm always trying to not shart. I've been trying to transition this conversation out of the toilet and into the purpose of the episode. If you would please let the number one host, who's your favorite host, by the way? Who's your favorite host of appointment only? Send us a DM, let us know. My guess would be you want to hear what I think? I think that you think the answer is gonna be you. Well, I was gonna say my guess would be everyone is like, bring Amanda Brinkman back. Yeah, I that's that's probably what people are thinking. Yeah. If you didn't, if you skip past that episode, I would highly recommend you go give that a listen. We wanted to talk today about what almost going out of business can teach you about business. Because unfortunately, we've been there. My guess would be some of you have been there. And for those of you who've never been there, you may be there at some point. And let me just preface this by saying I don't like the idea that you learn more from your from your failures than your successes. This is not what we're talking about today, because I feel like my personal experience in business is that I've learned certainly as much from things that have worked and things that have gone well. Those have a tendency for me personally to be real learning moments, real aha moments. What almost going out of business can teach you about business, because I mentioned this is something that we experienced. Our story is that we ran into this in dun dun dun 2020. I realized that in this, these first handful of episodes, we've mentioned 2020 quite a few times. And it's just because it's a it's a huge part of our business, it's a huge part of our story, it also happens to coincide with when everything shifted in a positive direction for us. Yeah, and that's probably why I mentioned in one of the previous episodes that I like to split our business in half. The, the pre-2020 business and the post-2020 business, just like I have a tendency to look at, I don't recognize the alcohol Danny King. I like to split those in half. I think for myself, it just makes it easier because there, I don't even, there is so much of me that just doesn't resemble that anymore. I was just like relate to that. I felt like I was a different person then than I am now. We are such a different business now than we were then. But the the truth is 2020 is what was the impetus behind so much change in our business. And and there were so many sleepless nights, wondering if we're in business still. And there were so many times where we just felt like we were in the middle of going out of business and we learned so much from that. And we we were able to turn those lessons into something positive that we then saw success from and have continued to learn from the successes. So let's just back it up and we're gonna share some specifics about what 2020 looked like briefly. I really don't want to get I don't want to fixate on it, but being in the business we're in, as you know, we sell custom-made soups that's right in a kitchen and in the bathroom. Bubbling suits S-U-I-T-S. And we often get emails from people that are spelling it as the word sweets, which is also incorrect. But we sell custom made suits like what we're wearing if you're watching on YouTube. And by the way, those of you who watch on YouTube, don't judge when you start seeing the same clothes repeat. I'm doing my best to change it up, and I have plenty to choose from, but I can't always remember what I was wearing when we recorded, so just give me a little, cut me a little slack. We sell custom suits, and you know, so in 2020, when nobody was going to work, everybody's events were canceled for the foreseeable future. We were in a very, very desperate time. Back in those days, we also were not charging up front in full, which we changed. We'll tell you why. But we th we were operating our business in a way that was not optimal for our business health because we felt like it was optimal for our clients. And we were, when everything got canceled, in a position where we were sitting on, I don't know if it was at 30 suits, something like that, because we had we had had a relatively strong start to the year. So we had worked with a number of people, we were collecting half payment on the front end, where when we would see them again, we would we would collect what would be our money that we actually made on the close. And we were sitting on a full rack of pending deliveries, and all of a sudden there were orders from the government that saying if you're not essential, you're not you're not working. And that bugged me. I mean, who's who's to tell me who is or is not essential? I'm essential. I'm essential to myself. I am, I am, I was, I am, I was essential to myself. And it was just you remember, it was that crazy, weird, who knows what's gonna happen time. But we were sitting on all of this stuff that we had already paid to get made, and then we were in the process of being canceled on, you know, kicked down the road from the people that owed us money. And we realized at that moment, you know what, we are not lenders, we are not a bank. Why on earth are we letting people uh shirk their payments? That doesn't make any sense. At that point, we had this light bulb moment where you know what, we sit we're selling something that's custom. Everything else I've ever bought custom you pay when you order it. You don't get to pay for it afterwards. That isn't how it works. I mean, it's the same deal as when you take a vacation. You have to pay for the flight before you fly. Otherwise, you don't they don't you don't pay for the flight after they've safely landed you there. You don't pay for the hotel after you're done staying there, you pay for it to book it. And we decided, hey, listen, I I know that this isn't something that everybody else in town is doing, but we need to do what's best for our business, and what's best for our business is to not have to chase our money around. So we made that decision that day. We are not doing this again. Now, how on earth can we go recover that money that we're owed? Right. And we were operating from a place then of we were so fixated on what was at the time industry standard. I I I've said this before. Just because something is industry standard doesn't mean that it's it's what works best for you in your given industry. Yeah. But we were we were so crippled by these things that we felt like, well, this is industry, this is just the business we're in. This is how it goes. This is just how we have to do. This is just how it works. We don't have a choice. We have to do it this way. And we we were wrong. We didn't have to do anything. That's the nice thing about when you own your own business, is you actually get to decide how you run your own business. So we're at this place in in 2020 where we're we're at this crossroads of do we continue to operate within industry standard or do we change things based on what's best for us and our business. By the way, I don't think that charging half and half is industry standard. We just thought it was because that was most of who we know knew and knew of was doing it that way. And that was the way that uh our mentor had had done it. And so we just decided that was what we were gonna do. And I do know it's very common. And at this point, I know people have adjusted that it's maybe 70 up front and then 30% on the back end, whatever it is, you're not getting that full payment up front. But we we decided we don't care if it's industry standard or not, it that is standard operation for when you buy something. So that's what we have to do. So that was that was the first our kind of our first foray, if you will, into being unapologetic about doing what is going to work best for our business so that we can stay in business. Because if we continue to operate this way, where we're taking our clients' lead on when we get paid, we have this whole rack of suits hanging up, and our client's lead is leading towards never collecting that second half. We still actually have one suit from that time that never got picked up. But what we ended up doing is we ended up sending a series of emails. We were prepared to hire an attorney if it came to that. We didn't have a business attorney at the time, but we were prepared to hire a business attorney if we had to really go after somebody, somebody for the final half payment because we were desperate. I would never do that now. You know, don't spread that around. But I would never do that now. I would also never let somebody leave having not bought what they actually bought or paid for what they bought. But we were desperate. And we fortunately, 30 suits is a lot of suits, but it's also just 30 suits. And a number of them were going to the same person. You know, we it wasn't like 30 individuals. I'm sure, I'm sure there were a number of people. Probably about 15 people multiples in there. And fortunately, most people, most people, uh paid that second half quickly. And we were able to either drop their stuff off for them. I mean, this was still when you're you're wearing kitchen gloves and you're lysoling everything. This was like the second week of it when we thought it was 14 days to slow the spread, which spoiler alert. That came in when. Yeah, okay. It's been 14 days. Why are things getting worse? But that was it was desperate. Nobody knew what was going on. So we were actually, I'm not joking when we're saying, you know, wearing kitchen gloves and lysoling things and you know, walking up to the front door and you know, running away. It was so stupid looking back, like how silly were we? But we didn't know anything. So fortunately, we were able to get out of that immediate problem, having collected what we were owed. But okay, when you bring it back to zero, you're still at zero. So that didn't answer the question of now what? How are we gonna sell another suit? But it but it did prepare us though, because it gave us an experience of what doing something that was best for our business looked like, and a continued reminder that people aren't really gonna push back on that. They understand that. We thought we were gonna have to be answering questions forever about the fact that we changed how we charge. And a few people had a question about it. Oh, I thought I could do half and half. Like as we continued to work with them, and all we had to say is, no, we changed that in 2020. Oh, that makes sense, ha ha ha. And now we're moving on. I think that's a that's a recurring theme in business, is every time we've done something that I've been sort of bracing myself for some sort of onslaught of negative feedback, it never comes. That the second shoe never drops because people, generally speaking, are pretty flexible and pretty accommodating. And they ultimately, especially when you're working with the right types of people, they want you to be successful and they want you to stay in business. When you got a bunch of customers who don't care whether you stay in business or go out of business as long as they get what they want, yeah, those are the ones that are going to push back. And then you'll you'll notice that. And we had to have a conversation that we need to make some unpopular decisions because we had put ourselves in some bad habits. And the way that we were operating our business wasn't light years away from where we needed to be, but there were some things that we were very well aware of that we needed to change. And we decided, okay, those things change today because we are not going to be in a position where we're so busy trying to be nice or be accommodating. We're not going to accommodate ourselves out of business. And that was something that we had to decide, and we had to stick to it because there were many opportunities over especially that calendar year, as we were sticking to our boundaries that we could have fallen back. And we had to decide we are not making exceptions, we are we are putting our heads down and we are doing this because it is what's best for us. And we only want to work with people who are open to working with us in a way that works best for us, which leads us to today and it leads us to being on the other side. And my guess would be many of you have a very similar story where you had to make some changes in 2020. For our mentor, his changes that he had to adapt were the result of the 2008 crash, which is which is interesting because the the more we have conversations with business owners, the the more business owners we're talking to. And it's it's always interesting to me to have a conversation with a business owner who started their business in in like 2022. Right. It always like throws me for a loop, not because I I feel like, oh, you young gun, you have no idea what's going on, but it's like, oh man, that's that's interesting that you started your business after all of that. Yeah, you were able to avoid a lot of issues. And in talking with our mentor in in that moment of 2020, I was so surprised at how chill he was. He's like, Yeah, whatever. Yeah, this will pass. Because he's been through the ringer so many times. He's seen so many changes where he doesn't get bothered by these things in the same way that it was bothering us. Because this was really our first experience with something changing drastically. It was also really encouraging to see that attitude manifest itself from him with most recently. The the most recent thing that brought a lot of uncertainty and and a lot more uncertainty to some businesses than others were the tariffs. And I felt very differently about the tariffs than I did about 2020. It was, you know, the the scare factor was much lower and it it didn't really impact us at all. But that's not the case for a Many people who also sell custom soup. That's right. I think I'm just going to start pretending that we sell custom soup because it's just so much funnier. It's just easier. It's just easier. But for so many other clothier, because when we were doing clothier coaching, it was that's all we were hearing. That's all anybody wanted to talk about. And everybody was trying to react to the tariffs. And our mentor, Kingford, was like, Yeah, okay, we'll figure it out. You know, this is not the first time that we've had to course correct and adjust and and make so those types of changes. So I think maybe for those people who have been started their businesses since, you know, 2021, 2022, that was probably the biggest shakeup that they'd experienced. Yeah, it would be probably the biggest experience, the biggest like economic change that they've experienced. Because if you if you started your business in 2021, 2022, especially in our business, businesses always probably felt really good. Well, and it's just like 2020, disproportionately negatively affected specifically restaurants, but really anyone involved in in-person or event, but restaurants specifically, they were very targeted. Uh I think tariffs definitely disproportionately affected certain industries over others. So that makes sense that some of you in business have had these experiences and have felt the impact of these things. And maybe your quote unquote business rock bottom happened really recently. Or maybe it maybe you're the same way where it happened in two 2008 for you. And it's been relatively predictable since then. Whatever your story is, when you get to that point of desperation where you realize, holy shit, I'm almost out of business. That's when you have to do what other people won't do. And I've said before that uncertainty, when that is in the air, when that's brewing, when people have questions about the economy or about things that are going on in the world, that's the time to, I mentioned specifically, raise your prices because you already have a built-in excuse. But it's also the time to evaluate your business and how you've always done things or how you're currently operating and say, well, what else should I change? What else can I change? It's an opportunity. It's not a bad thing to make changes. It's a it's a great opportunity. It's a great excuse to make the changes. As we're talking about this, my guess would be you probably are thinking of some things that you know you should change, and you've just been making excuses for why it's a bad time or why it's not industry standard or whatever. That's probably the equivalent of it. It it's not industry standard or it doesn't feel like the right time. Right. But it's we've we've said before it's never gonna feel like the right time. And we've also said industry standard doesn't apply to a business that's inside an industry that is far from a standard business in that industry. So so here's what I want to uh prepare you for. What's that cheeseburger in Vegas? It's it's like a $1,500 cheeseburger or $1,200 cheeseburger. It has like go you think that's do you care applying enough where you want me to look it up, or do you want to just acknowledge that there is this cheeseburger in Vegas that costs that much? I think that you want to know the name. Okay. So as you know, as everyone knows, the there's a cheeseburger in Vegas. But let's just say they're not applying the industry standard for what cheeseburgers cost to that burger because it's far from the standard. So speaking of cheeseburgers, and we'll get right back to what we're talking about. Will we? Uh-huh. We will. I had one of the best cheeseburgers of my life in the weirdest place. It was in Heber City, Utah, which is outside Salt Lake City. It was this restaurant bar called it was like Backwoods or Back Roads something. And I don't know why it hit so hard, but oh my goodness, that cheeseburger was insane. And we've gone through the ringer on cheeseburgers over the years. We've when we would do our business trips, we used to be hyper-focused on one thing. So we we were on cheeseburgers for a couple years. We had a fish and chips. I want to say we had a fish and chips kick. Obviously, pizza. Pizza is a constant donuts. Donuts is is always the best donut city in the country is Chicago. Yeah. I can definitively say that. There are good donut places in many other cities across the country. Nothing like Chicago, though. Chicago, you turn a corner, you look at a donut shop, you feel cakes, it's probably gonna rock. Fire cakes, stands, donut vault. No, is donut vault there? Yeah, donut vault's there. Those are all great, but my personal favorite. Do right, do right, yep. My personal favorite is the pistachio old-fashioned from Firecakes. There'd be a sponsor. Actually, no. No, I don't think I want them constantly. I don't want pistachio. I don't want to get sick of them, but also I don't think that I need that kind of temptation. Can you imagine if you always had access to the pistachio old-fashioned donut? It would become like my breakfast. My skin would turn green because I would have so many of them. I wonder what the negative side effects would be of consuming too many pistachios. I'm sure there are some. Anyways, back to what we were talking about. We were talking about the transitions that you have to make. And I was I was about to dive into preparation mode. As people who've been there before and who have almost gone out of business, first of all, I'm hopeful you can catch it before it's inevitable. Because we almost didn't. And if we wouldn't have made the changes we made, we would have absolutely gone out of business in 2020. We were getting contacted from people who were they wanted to use us. There was one guy in particular I remember who he'd re he'd rescheduled a couple of times, so we were already kind of annoyed. And then of course, 2020, uh everything shuts down. And he was trying to kick it, kick the can again. And we were really straightforward with him. We said, listen, we're actually not going to reschedule you for a couple of reasons. First of all, we've rescheduled you a few times and we're not going to do it a third time or a fourth time. Secondly, our calendar is wide open. We this will never happen again where we don't have any days spoken for. So we can literally see whenever. And it doesn't make sense for us to reconvene next season again because we don't think we're going to be in business any longer once that rolls around. If everybody's doing this and rescheduling, but not putting any commitments in the calendar. So we'd love to work with you, but we'd love to work with you now. And if we don't work with you now, we're probably not going to be in business to see you again. You know, it was a little bit of a bluff trying to call his bluff, but we he never came in. We never worked with him again. And, you know, we obviously didn't go out of business, but that's how desperate we were. And he actually died. What? Yeah. How do you know that? I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

I was gonna say, well, we may as well just say his name. No, just may as well torch him. No, but uh that's how desperate we were, and that's how uncertain we were about our own future. So I'm really we're just letting it rip. We were just letting it rip with him, telling him this is the reality of what it is. Sure. Okay, fine.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

It was like Oh, yeah, let's connect in the spring. Let's connect in the fall.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

Let's connect in October. It's like, dude, it's June. I'm not gonna schedule something for October. In our industry, that's how people blow you off without blowing you off, is they say, like, you know, right now would be the fall, and they say, let's connect in the winter, or let's connect at the start of 2026. That would be the that would be the benchmark. And so that's what he kept doing, and we were just sick of it. And, you know, again, we mentioned that children's book, What If Everybody Did? What if everybody did? Chris, that was his name, is his name because he's he's not dead. So it is as he's alive. It's not, it wasn't, it's not was his name, is his is his name still, currently still. Chris. If everybody did this, we would very much be out of business. And we're just gonna kind of point that out and make you decide what you're gonna do with that information. That's where we were at. So I'm really hopeful that if you're feeling like you are currently in a desperate spot or when you are inevitably in that position, I hope you can recognize it for what it is. We're working through something right now in our mastermind group with uh one of the custom clothiers we're working with with, who's having this sort of awakening right now, where he's recognized that what got him to this point is not actually going to be sustainable for much longer. And he's in the process of trying to undo some bad habits that he was given. You know, these aren't necessarily mistakes he's made, but he's trying to be proactive as opposed to reactive. And it's a scary realization. And it's unfortunately a realization that too many entrepreneurs never have, where they live in this reactionary state because they feel like they don't have a say. They feel like, well, I I just I just have to respond to the way that the clients or the potential customers are are responding to to me. I I don't get the ability to be proactive, I don't get the ability to be selective in who I work with. I just have to say yes. And I think that's what changed. That's the the thing that changed the most in 2020 for us was we realized we are actually in control of our business. And when the clients aren't asking us things because nobody's interested in what we have to sell, we have the opportunity to kind of hit the reset button and be really proactive in what the business that we want to run is. And part of that was identifying here are the bad habits that we have, here are the things that really don't work for us. And we've already shared many of those with you in uh episode two, as well as the previous episode, uh, before this one. So we we've already gotten into a lot of those bad habits that it doesn't matter what the behaviors are, a lot of times the issues you're struggling with, they're going to they're going to come down to one of those things that you're doing. One of those mistakes that are being made that we used to make. So it oftentimes isn't rocket science, and it's also not sometimes it's not even that big of a light bulb. It's just about making the that choice and taking that uncomfortable action that sometimes, a lot of times, you just you already know you're gonna have to do. You've just been waiting for some reason because it's uncomfortable. It's just like when you start saying no, that's uncomfortable to do, and the more you do it, the more naturally it will it will it will come. But and that that's one of the bad habits that we had to break. And fortunately, we broke it in 2020, where we had been going for years just saying yes. And the only things we would ever really say no to are things that were literally impossible for us to do. If somebody reached out and said, Can I have something by tomorrow? We of course had to say no to that. But if we would have had an option to turn something in one day, we would we would have been saying yes to those types of things. But that was that was an another example of one of those things that we realized, why are we saying yes to people who don't care about us? People who it doesn't it doesn't matter to them if we stay in business through this tough time. That became really clear that especially that year, was what types of customers are like that? That's a big difference between small business and big corporations is when you buy from a small business, you know you're supporting a small business. I just ordered flowers yesterday from I chose Braggie guy. Braggy guy. Yeah, that's right. I do like to order flowers. You do. I I like to order flowers. And now that my wife is. Kenny is very Kenny is very, you are the very thoughtful. I will say that. A little compliment for you. Oh, very thoughtful guy. He's always thinking, he's always thinking about other people, not all the time. Actually, you're actually you're actually now that I'm saying this, you're actually one of the more selfish people that I know. I actually hate you. But you often have the idea to, hey, let's send flowers to this person. Right. Or let's do something nice for this person. And that's a that's something that I need to be better at. Oh, well, see, see, uh, you I can be your mentor too. Yeah. Let's send Danny a new pack of uh boxer briefs. Yeah, he's uh because he's sharps. Let's go ahead and send him some peptobismal. I ordered flowers because my wife is no longer a wedding florist, so I can do that. That was one thing when I met her. I was like, oh well, I guess I never have to buy her flowers. She doesn't even want to see them, but now she's not a wedding florist anymore, so I can do that. And she just actually launched her podcast, Champagne Social, that it launched today, but it will have been live by the time you're hearing this. So you can go look that up, Champagne Social. But I sent her flowers as like a congratulations on your podcast. And I could have ordered them from any number of large chains online impersonally, but I was at the bank and I decided to walk across the street. Oh, braggy guy at the bank, man, just all these funds. Well, I didn't say I was depositing money or withdrawing, asking for a loan. Asking for another loan, an extension on my loan. I was actually signing my foreclosure papers. So thank you so much for bringing that up. I walked across the street and uh decided to order flowers from the the person in the neighborhood, even though, of course, I'm paying way more and I'm paying a delivery fee and I don't really get to choose what they look like or anything like that. But I, you know, when you're working with a small business, you you the best clients and customers are the people who want to follow their process because they know that this person, they're doing it in the way that works well for them. Have you seen that super cute video of it's it's like CC footage of these couple of women in this boutique? It looks like a boutique. And like a clothing boutique. Yeah, like does this matter to the story? I don't know what they were selling. But the the person who's checking out, they've they swipe the card, the person turns around, walks out the door, and the two women at the desk, they crouch down so that they can't be seen from the windows, and they hug each other. Oh, it's so cute. I feel like getting emotional. That's like, what? I I'm an emotional guy. I was I cried last night watching Andy Richter on Dancing with the Stars. Don't ask me why. I'm just like, sometimes things hit. It's probably related to how thoughtful you were just telling everyone I am. That type of thing is what people expect. And it's real. Oh, yeah. We have dollar amounts. And I I watched that. I can't even remember where I saw that. I'm sure I'm sure it was a it was definitely not TikTok. It was definitely a real something that you see like weeks after it's cool or popular. Have you seen style? Well, I said six seven when you said that. So what's six seven? Okay. Kenny doesn't know what six seven is, so that shows how far behind you are. I don't. What is it? Is it worth explaining? It is. I can't even explain it. Okay. It's gonna take way too long. We don't need that. That's not true. We don't need that here. Not you know, Madeline talks about trends on Champagne Social, so maybe she'll talk about it. I'm sure it's probably long. It's not it's not a current trend, it's been happening for forever. Anyway, whatever. But that type of thing, I saw that and it's like I've been there. I can relate to that. Yeah. But that's the type of person who you want to be gearing your business for, is the person who knows that you have your way of doing things. They could get it for cheaper, but they choose not to. And that was one of the big realizations that we had in this uncomfortable time of almost going out of business where I don't even want to work with somebody who is gonna ask me why I charge what I charge. It's not worth the conversation. I remember having people, we used to do that all the time. I remember having that conversation with you, saying, actually, you know what I'm gonna stop doing? I'm gonna stop entertaining the inquiries where when somebody asks me what makes me different than fill in the blank of this big box place where you can go buy custom suits or soup. Or soup. What makes me different than Eddington's? I'm gonna stop having that conversation because this person doesn't care. They're they're they just want something for themselves. And when you value time affluence, it is a waste of your time to respond. Unless you can tell that they're actually truly curious and your answer might sway their decision. But you can always actually don't know. If they actually don't know, then it's not a waste of your time to just explain a little bit. But usually it's not about an explanation, it's about it's more of a combative. It's more of a prove yourself to me. Why should I use you? You know, why should you be so lucky to have me as a customer? And that sort of attitude is a stinker. You're gonna want to steer way clear of that. And that practice of I don't, not only do I not need to prove myself to you, I'm unwilling to do that. That is something so many small business owners are afraid to do. And that was the customer that as we as we identified in 2020, oh, hey, we're probably out of business. So let's just start operating like we want to operate. Yeah, that was the type of client or the type of lead where we decided, I don't want to run a business where I have to entertain this type of conversation. So I'm just gonna stop. There's so much, there's so much benefit in just being true to yourself and just being organic. And just if you want to do a certain thing and you know you need to, but you feel like you're not able to, forget it. Stop with the limiting beliefs. Do what's best for you. I remember when I was still way, this is way back in the in the time capsule here, but when I was in my last six months of my TV job, our ratings started to skyrocket because I started not giving a shit. And it was relaxed, and I had a new co-anchor, and we were laughing on the air. And I didn't care because I wasn't trying to, I wasn't trying to get a contact contract extension. I wasn't trying to get a raise, I wasn't trying to move to a bigger, fancier job or a better market. I was just living out my last days as a TV news anchor and I didn't care. And our news director's like, the ratings keep going up, keep doing what you're doing. And for the years previous, I was trying to be like so you know, Mr. Serious Newsman. And that's not me. And as soon as I felt the the comfortability to just do what I wanted to do, is that a word? Comfortability? Probably not. Let me look that up. There's one that is worth looking at. Probably not. I'm thinking that's not uh gonna be I think it's a no, unfortunately. And you you'll wonder why I never made it big in TV. Because I'm making up words. But the the that theory is the same. And Danny just said it when we felt the ability, comfortability. Okay. Com comfortability, comfort comfortability, comfortability. So I missed a syllable there. I'm really I'm really sorry, all you regular regulars, all you regulars. I'm sorry to the regulars. When you feel the the autonomy to just do what you know is right and to do what feels natural and to unapologetically operate towards where you know you need to be, great things will happen. If you get one thing out of this episode, I hope it's the permission that you've been first of all, you don't need permission. No, you don't. You don't need permission to do what you know is right and you know is best for you. But if you've been waiting for that permission, this is it. We're giving you the permission now to whatever it is, whatever changes you want to make, whatever new thing you know you want to pursue, start now. And there is a period of time where being comfortable in what you're doing feels uncomfortable because it's it's not how you've been operating. But I remember the the same thing happened for us in our business, where as soon as we stopped trying to run our appointments in a way that catered to the client, and we just started running appointments like we wanted to run them, fast forward. And the people who wanted that is who we work with now. The people who want to come in and experience us for who we are, they're not asking what makes you different from that place over there. They already know it, they can tell. And the experience that they're getting is unique to us because it's who we are and it's what they want. So there is a period of time where when you make that choice to just be comfortable in who you are and just relax. Stop overthinking it. Your performance will be better. It's just like sports where you can tell when somebody's playing up tight, and then as soon as they relax, oftentimes they start playing better. The same thing is true in business. The clients who are working with you, they They want to work with you. There's a reason why they didn't go to somebody else. And it's be the reason is you. It's not because of because you're of your prices necessarily. Although if you're constantly utter undercutting people, you're getting the wrong type of person in. And they're the only reason why price shopping, and that's why they're working with you. But if you're not the lowest priced option that they can find, they're working with you for a reason. And you are that reason. So permission granted if you need it, which you don't, but permission granted to just operate how you want to operate. Take people through the process you want to take them through. Start running the business today like you wished your business was when you started your business. Just do it. Nike. Nike, baby. Just do it. And a couple things to just prepare for is you will absolutely lose people. You absolutely will lose people when you start operating that way. But the thing is, you already are. You already are losing people that you're not speaking to directly because they're going to someone who's doing running the business that you want to run. Those people are not maybe attracted to your business model right now because they don't feel like you're speaking to them because you're trying to either play down or you're trying to play too broad. When we have conversations with business owners about price specifically, and we say, I know the hesitation that you have in raising your prices, just biting the bullet, raising your prices. I know your hesitation is, I just don't want to lose clients. I don't want to, I don't want to alienate people from working with me when I make this price jump. We always tell them, you already are doing that though. There are people who are looking for exactly what it is that you do, and they have associated a value with that thing. And they don't want to spend beneath that value because they think that if they don't spend this amount, they're not going to get as much value from it. Those people aren't interested in what you're offering because your prices are too low. It's the same thing as when you want to celebrate something and you're looking at restaurant menus, you're probably not going to be attracted to the restaurant that's selling a $15 flame. Well, unless you grew up in Wilmer like we did, and every celebration occurred at Applebee's or Grizzlies or Grizzly. Well, that was new though. That opened when we were in, I think, high school. So it was Applebee's up until then, baby. You could probably get a $15 Salisbury steak at Applebee's eating good in the neighborhood. You know what? Give me that quesadilla burger. Now we're celebrating. Now we're now we're talking about top five burger. I'll celebrate at Applebee's for that quesadilla burger. Top five burger. But yeah. But it's the same concept as when you're looking for something to celebrate and you're looking for a restaurant to have this celebration, you're immediately drawn to the restaurant that has higher prices because you assume that the experience is going to be better, even though you know that the they probably buy their food at the same place. The same thing is true of your customers that are out there. You're already losing the right type of client because you're so focused on I don't want to outgrow this person. I don't want to outgrow this budget. I don't customer. I don't want to outgrow this customer. When you could be speaking the language of a client who has a totally different set of expectations for you, by the way. So prepare to lose people. Also prepare to be prepare for pushback, even though I really don't think it's going to happen a lot. You want to prepare for it. And what I want you to prepare for is that feeling. Not necessarily what am I going to say? How am I going to say no? Just like that. You just say no. But what I want you to prepare for is the feeling of uncomfortable, uncomfortable. Oh my God. Discomfort. Discomfort. That's so much easier. Thank you. Prepare for that feeling of discomfort because you're going to be tempted to just say, Oh, yeah, you know what? I'm going to make an exception. I'll just do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That sounds good. Yeah, I can honor those prices from two years ago, the first time you landed on my website. So just prepare for that. And then moving forward, you will be better off and you will be just like we always are when we get to that point where we've finally, you know, gone through with a change. And you never look back and say, Oh, we shouldn't have done that. You look back and you say, Wow, I can't believe it took me so long to make that change. And hopefully you don't enter into a place where you're almost out of business to make these changes. Right. And hopefully it doesn't take something like a another pandemic or something extreme like that. Yeah, hopefully not. But like I've said, these uncertain things can be great excuses, but you don't have to wait for things to become uncertain to make changes. And that's, I think, one of the things that we always are trying to operate with now is being more proactive in the things that we decide to change, less reactive to major things that are going on and more proactive. And, you know, this isn't working. This isn't how we want to do this. So let's change it now before it becomes an issue that almost puts us out of business.

SPEAKER_00 49:29

Right.

SPEAKER_01 49:30

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