In the Loupe
In the Loupe
The Balancing Act Every CEO Must Manage ft. Ross Cockerham
Mike sits down with his boss Ross Cockerham, Punchmark Co-Founder & CEO, about how he balances attending trade shows and events vs. being present at his own business vs. family life.
Every business owner learns to balance these roles on their own, as well as how they fold into their own personal lives, but the journey is important and worth discussing! Enjoy the conversation.
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Welcome to In the Loop. What is up, everybody? My name is Michael Burpo. Thanks again for listening to In the Loop. This week I'm joined by Punchmark CEO and co-founder Ross Cochran. And Ross is my boss, but he also just finished a bit of a tour of going to AGS and the Edge workshop and then comes back and has to be a CEO again. And we talk about the decision of going to these events instead of sending someone in his place, what it's like having to uh lead a team of people without getting involved in every single task, and what that's been like over the course of the years of going from just a two-person company to now, you know, over 20. It's a really interesting conversation. We have these recurring chats occasionally where we've uh talked about the life of a CEO, and I hope to make it as relatable as possible for other people who are running businesses and you know, whether that's small businesses or large jewelry businesses. I think it's a really good conversation. Switch things up a little bit and talk more about business management as opposed to just uh jewelry. I hope you enjoy. Cheers.
SPEAKER_00:This episode is brought to you by Punchmark, the jewelry industry's favorite website platform and digital growth agency. Our mission reaches way beyond technology. With decades of experience and long-lasting industry relationships, PunchMark enables jewelry businesses to flourish in any marketplace. We consider our clients our friends, as many of them have been friends way before becoming clients. Punchmark's own success comes from the fact that we have a much deeper need and obligation to help our friends succeed. Whether you're looking for better e-commerce performance, business growth, or campaigns that drive traffic and sales, PunchMark's website and marketing services were made just for you. It's never too late to transform your business and stitch together your digital and physical worlds in a way that achieves tremendous growth and results. Schedule a guided demo today at punchmark.com slash go. And now back to the show.
SPEAKER_01:What's up, everybody? My name is Michael Burpo. I am joined by my boss, Ross Cochram, CEO and co-founder of Punchmark. How are you doing today, Ross? Doing good, Mike. How you doing? So well. I'm excited to have this conversation a little bit more open-ended. Uh, you've been a busy bee lately and been traveling around, lots of trade shows, um, and then you come back and things are waiting for you, ready to be done. Uh, could you maybe recap? I think it's probably the last two weeks and what you've been up to?
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Um, so first we went to the Converge event, which is um sort of a hybrid between AGS and GIA. AGS is a conclave event, which has been going on for quite some time, uh, basically since 1934. They converged to uh sort of sister organizations together. They had it in Carlsbad, California, which is uh stone's throw from GIA's campus. Um and this time it was it was pretty much the same format as most conclaves, um, with a little bit more juice, so to speak. They had uh slightly more involvement from Susan Jacques, the uh CEO of GIA. Um, and it is my favorite event of the entire industry, and that was awesome. That was early September, um, and then followed by uh the Edge conference in Shelton, Connecticut. Um, and every year the Edge puts on a sort of workshop slash conference where they bring in about a hundred retailers, um they bring in all the partners, all the spokes of the wheel, so to speak, uh to kind of you know promote themselves, announce, you know, introduce themselves. Um, and then they just go really hard with education. Um, education, best practices, tips from technical stuff to hiring and everything like that. So um the partners, we only get five minutes to talk there. Um, but it's a really, really good event because there is just, you know, it's one big sort of wheel, like I said, and it and everyone plays a part. So people genuinely want to know what you have to offer as a partner. Um, and then you kind of, you know, schmooze a little bit and and grab some wine and dinner and stuff like that. Um, so those are those are really some very good events for us to close out our year. We're not doing any October trade shows, um, but it was a whirlwind, you know, just going to both back to back.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And you know, these the speaking circuit, you know, going to these events, and uh there are other CEOs that are doing this as well. And sometimes it's like, ah, I'm sure, I'm sure it's difficult for you to balance. Why are we deciding to go to these? Because both of these actually, not selling events, purely educational events. Um, AGS, especially, is very much like you go there and you're gonna educate and you're gonna give a talk about something that you feel is important, and then the edge, it's it's like a workshop, you know? It's very similar to ours. You're gonna go and you're gonna talk for yeah, five minutes, cram as much in as you can, and then it's just like be present, schmoo a little bit. What is it that you're trying to get out of actually just going to a educational thing that makes it worth going to as a CEO instead of you know, taking care of the home, the home field kind of thing?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's a good question. Um, you know, I actually get a lot more out of these educational/slash networking events than the buying events. And here's why. Number one, um, you know, I know a lot of people in the industry, I have a lot of friends in the industry, and I want to help my friends. So that's like phase one. That's from I know Punchmark as a whole wants to help and we want to educate, but for my personal uh sort of uh you know point of view, um, I just want to help as many of my friends as possible because you know this industry is very much behind. So that's square one for me. But number two, um there's the this when you go to a buying show, there are these walls that are up, right? A lot of a lot of boundaries are up where retailers will even walk around covering their badges up, right, with their portfolios and whatnot. And um, you know, at these shows, it's so much different because um everybody's guard is down and you get to meet people just to meet people. And for me, Conclave and Converge, these are just as much of an educational event for me as they are to the retailer attendees. So look at it as a kind of state of the union on the biggest retailers in the industry, the biggest issues in the industry, um, you know, from you know, anywhere from diamond grading to, you know, ethical and sustainable points that people are trying to make. And so I'll go to sessions, you know, I'll I'll go to sessions, I'll go to panels, um, and not only will I go to them, but I'll also take part in um speaking at them. So I gain a lot there. But the networking aspect is huge. I go to these shows just to be a human being. I don't like to talk about work. I don't like to talk about what I do. If someone asks me what I do, I change the subject and I talk about, you know, like my kids and make it personal, but also ask them about their business and I go to genuinely learn. Um eventually it comes out because people are, you know, interested in what we do at Punchmark. But but that's the thing. I I walk I get home and my brain is just completely sort of rewired with you know what's what the industry is really doing right now. Um there was a panel on Gen Z and even Gen Alpha, you know, like on what their take is on the industry, millennials and Gen Zs primarily, um hosted by a panel of Gen Z. And it was very, very interesting. I can't even tell you how many little mini arguments would happen about lab growing versus natural diamonds and things like that. It was kind of funny. Became almost like political. Um, but there was so much there. So, so for those, you know, my my initiative is, and then sort of the self-serving aspect of it, because you know, you got to look at it like what's in it for us kind of thing. You know, we we we know a lot. We've been around the industry a very long time. We've been uh in tech uh and marketing a long time. And so to get up there and not only help our friends and help the industry a little bit, it does peg us as you know an authority on the subject. And then when people are thinking about, hey, who do I go to for a website or digital marketing, um, we go to Punchmark. So obviously that's sort of a side effect of you know doing all the right things and just being up there, being ourselves and talking about what we sort of nerd out about. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01:Mm-hmm. You know, I I think that the one true thing I've found about this podcast, but also just in general, is I like people who care about things and who are passionate about things. And what is cool is when you go to jewelry shows, well, I've learned more often than not, even the people who play it cool, uh, they're like the jewelry nerds, man. And they love this stuff. They love it. And it's super cool getting a chance to talk with some of these people that they get really into jewelry and talking about, yeah, uh sourcing jewelry and trends and you know that the age-old um argument of lab versus nat right now and and things like that. And hearing you can actually change your business quite a substantial amount based on some of these changes. Um, I'm starting to like come around to uh, for example, with with charms. Like I've I've started listening and reading articles about uh jewelry trends. I'm starting to think like, oh man, maybe maybe charms are having a thing. I personally am not a fan of wearing them, but it's like if we start uh paying attention to what's actually happening, a lot of times, you know, like the old saying, ball don't lie. If you can just go out there and talk to people and look at data, well, suddenly it's like less about your feelings, and suddenly you can start making these uh objective decisions. So you go to these things, is it uh are you talking to other CEOs like vendor-to-vendor, or is it mainly vendor-to-retailer uh sort of aspect?
SPEAKER_00:It's all over the place. Um, and so what happens is, you know, I was making an observation, especially this time, that you go to the shows and you're rubbing elbows with, you know, retailers who are$25 million stores,$80 million stores, um, and you're you're looking at them like, wow, you know, you're here, so you must be awesome. And what's cool about it is they look at you the same way. Whether you're a vendor, whether you're working at GIA, whether you're a marketer, it doesn't matter who you are, they say, wow, they're here, so they must be awesome. And so what that does is it just levels the playing field. Everyone's operating at a very high level, and we all just have a very high mutual respect for one another. So, you know, I'll talk to you know, other CEOs, other founders, other vendors, salespeople, uh, retailers, next-gen retailers, sons and daughters of huge retailers, um, and then small, small mom and pop shops too, right? Everyone has to be recertified. Everyone's going for to upgrade, you know, their titles and keep it up, you know, every year. And a lot of times they have to retake certain exams, uh, they have to make sure that they're on the latest trends and techniques and and to continue their education. So no one is exempt from this in the industry. It doesn't matter how big or how small you are, or what corner you play in.
SPEAKER_01:Is that kind of conversation? Do you find that your path and your journey is very unique? So, like in the end, like what is Punchmark? We are a uh a SaaS-based tech company. Um, you know, we're essentially fully remote. We have and we do websites. That kind of puts us into this very unique niche of like only a couple of companies. Do you find that when you have these conversations with other CEOs or founders and they might be doing, I don't know, like hardware or they're doing um more maybe closer to the consumer? Are you finding that their experiences and their growing pains are very different than what we're experiencing? Or do you find it's like, oh, you had to go over that hurdle? Oh, we had to go over that hurdle uh as well.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, um, I do find a lot of similarities, especially on sort of this side of the glass, so to speak. You know, the other exhibitors, other vendors, other service companies, you know, we find, you know, similar pain points among you know how our retailers are doing, how our retailers are growing and things like that. For our unique perspective, we're a little bit different in the sense that our uniqueness stems from the points where we are, you if you look at the entire industry like a funnel, you know, taking product directly from vendors through the retailers directly to the consumers, we have a unique standpoint where and viewpoint where we can see, we can play a part in all of that, right? We are creating and facilitating relationships between vendors and retailers by having our vendor uh premium vendor program, products that are automated on retailers' websites. Um, a lot of times retailers will say, What's your buy-in? Do you have stock balancing, et cetera? And then, oh, wait, you're a premium vendor with punch mark. Okay, I'm in. And I'm very proud of the fact that we're helping facilitate those relationships. And then on the front end, we're seeing and we're creating the shopping experience of what customers see, you know, our retailers' customers. And so we're looking at it from a unique vantage point because we're able to see sort of a lot more than other just B2B companies. Um, and so we have a unique perspective there, uh, whereas someone might be hyper-focused on like tools for the trade and how the tools affect bench jewelers in that very specific seat inside of a retail store. Um, but I I always love to learn because you learn about you go to a vendor who has like a very complex manufacturing process and the ERP solution and all these things from you know, like people who I met a woman from Brazil who does gemstones and she's all in like the factories and everything else. Uh, and then I met another guy who has this diamond company who has videos of the rough videos of the polished uh and faceted. And so, like you can follow the journey of a diamond, and you look at sourcing in an ERP system and you take a rough diamond, and this rough diamond changes like three times. So in the beginning, you have a rough diamond that you found, right? Or you you might you had someone mine, then you polish it. Now it becomes different, but it's still the same rough diamond, it has the same kind of SKU. Then you put it into a piece of jewelry in a finished piece. So now it has like three different shapes, um, but it's still the same thing that you can track. And that to me is just you know very fascinating as far as like how something goes from you know the mind directly to you know someone's finger as they wear it on a ring. Um and that's that's a vantage point that that we don't get as as tech and service companies, you know. So I like to learn a lot. I like to get down on the ground and learn what how they tick, how these businesses operate. But there are so many different facets of this industry, no pun intended, um, and just watching how everything unfolds and everyone works together and meshes together.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. All right, everybody, we're gonna take a quick break and hear a word from our sponsor. This episode is brought to you in part by Stone Algo's Jeweler OS. If you're an independent jeweler offering bridal in your brick and mortar store, I need to tell you guys about what I recently discovered that will explode your bridal sales. At JTK Las Vegas this year, I came across the most impressive customer-facing engagement ring builder that I've seen so far. It's built by this company called Jeweler OS, like jeweler operating system, and they've basically created a ring builder that's better than what the big box stores have at their disposal, and it's available to independent jewelers. I had the founder on In the Loop a few weeks back, and they've already installed on hundreds of jewelers' websites. And whether they are punchmark sites or not, it fits perfectly onto your site. They also have this mind-blowing feature that instantly converts a picture of a ring your customer wants into a free manufacturable CAD file. Super cool. The best part is there's no contract, no onboarding fee, and they'll install the ring builder on your website super fast. All you pay is$25 per verified engagement ring lead, and that's it, no hidden fees. So if you're tired of not converting your website traffic into bridal sales and you want to grow your store, go to try the ringbuilder.com. Once again, that is try the ringbuilder.com. All spelled normally and play around with it and get it installed on your website if you like it, and maybe mention in the loop if you do. Thanks, and now back to the show. And we're back. Yeah, there's a lot of stops. Uh, that's what I've learned is there's a lot of steps, and then there's these side alleys, and I always think it's so funny. Just at JCK. I mean, we were in the we were in the basement, man, attacking essentials. We weren't even on the main floor, and that floor that we were on is still the biggest show I've ever been a part of. And the fact that above us was an even bigger show, just absolutely madness. And that's all everybody is making their business, you know, selling shiny pieces of stone and and expensive metals, and we're all still kind of working together. Sometimes I feel like people maybe don't want to work together, they want to be like the only solution. And I'm like, I think it's better if we are like coming together as like a like a symphony, as opposed to having our own individual kind of riffs. I think uh in punch mark, we're trying to position ourselves as this kind of facilitator along the way. Uh, just you know, having worked with you, um, I guess maybe we can tease it right now. One thing that's been really interesting is with you gone, would never hold this against you, you have to make the you have to make the decision of is it better for the company and yourself and all of us, because in the end, as a CEO, you're leading us, is it better to be out there doing those things, which is speaking and facilitating and being a part of of the greater industry as a whole? And with your with your brother, our CTO Brian, you guys went to AGS and you guys had to make the decision, okay, we're gonna be gone for a couple of days and go do this. But in the meantime, it's like it's not for free. You know, it's you guys are still there's projects that I'm like, all right, I gotta wait until Ross and Brian come back because I need you guys. Uh, it's not like you're just only making executive decisions. Uh, as a smallish company, you know, with 20 or so employees, you have to be making that decision. Um, that must probably weigh heavily on you when you start to decide: am I going to go to these trade shows? Am I going to skip? Am I going to send someone in my place? Um, what's the uh calculus on a decision making like that?
SPEAKER_00:So it's very interesting you asked that question because I'm at a pretty big crossroads uh in my life. Um, the last couple of years, I've had a lot of uh, you know, growing of my own as far as just as a leader, as a father, as a as someone as an individual, someone who wants to think about, you know, my next phase of life and what I want to do and how uh I want to spend my time and things like that, um, being present for my kids. So looking at that whole thing as it pertains to me as an individual and me as a leader in Punchmark, I learned that when I leave and I sort of leave it up to you and the other directors and middle middle leadership, it's the best thing I could ever do. And here's why. If I stayed involved in my business on a day-to-day for every single little thing, um, I've never been above anything. I'm, you know, almost uh guilty of rolling up my sleeves a little too much. Um and and you know, I say that just because, you know, I I'll do anything from being the CEO to being the janitor or whatever. It doesn't matter. I I will never ask someone else to do something that I myself wouldn't do. But this whole leading by example thing um has become a liability to me because what ends up happening is well, oh, well, that's how Ross does it, so let's just let Ross do that again. Um, and so leading by leaving, right, is a different perspective because what ends up happening is the biggest challenges and issues while you're absent, your team figures it out and becomes autonomous and becomes stronger and becomes empowered. And so I am very keen on this term that I learned recently through, you know, I'm kind of a Taoist at heart, but uh, this term called invisible leadership. And I love this term. I don't need to take credit for anything at all. I don't need to take credit for it. If anything, I'll take credit for the people that we hired. Um, but if anything good happens, the team gets and deserves all the credit for that. If anything bad happens, I'm happy to take the fall and take credit for that. And I I don't I don't say this to to sound like a martyr or something or to get respect for that. I don't, because I again I don't care about the credit. Um, what this does is, you know, if you're an owner of a retail jewelry store and you know you're the biggest sales associate, you're the you know, the bench jeweler, the accountant, the floor sweeper, the manager, everything else, um, you're just going to work yourself into the ground, but you'll never be able to scale that business. It's gonna be you, your name's on the awning, your name's everything. When customers come in, you're the person they ask for. So that's what I like. I like that I'm not the person that everyone asks for. I'm not the person, yeah, in when people say they call and they say, Hey, can I talk to Jason, our director of education? I'm like, Well, he's tied up. Is there anything I could help you with? They're like, No, I I want to talk to Jason, you know? And I take pride in that. I'm so happy that Jason, our veteran employee for almost 15 years, um, is just killing it. So, so anyway, to come back to your question, when I leave and I'm gone on the point of even a vacation, or if I'm at a trade show speaking and being on the on the sales floor, um I'm happy that my team can handle things. And I intentionally sometimes make myself unavailable. Um and when I get back, do I have a couple fires to put out? Sure, always. But I don't like let that you know get to me and and and say things like, You see why I could never leave, right? Because that's like, so so anyway, that I'm very happy with that uh that I've kind of figured that out on my own, of you know, getting into that level of what some people call invisible leadership, letting my team um just do their thing and and let letting my team build punch mark where I'm just kind of like in the background, you know?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. You know, I think just like this most recent one, it's it's funny. You so you you were away and uh and Brian was away. Um so we've been working on this overhaul of our premium vendor system, and uh it is you know, a huge undertaking. And it's kind of funny because my engineers, like the guys who are building the things under the like that I'm hopefully directing, are the CEO and the CTO. And then suddenly you guys are, you know, you guys were gone for a couple of days. Suddenly I'm like, oh wow, I'm so exposed. Like, I don't know how to do this thing. And it it but then you have to figure it out. And there's a couple times like someone's like, hey, um, this uh this vendor is showing no uh no prices, and it's like, oh, that's really not good. How do we fix this? And it's just one of those things you have to you can either say, oh, I'm gonna fix it in six days, or I'm going to fix it myself and like dig a little bit further. And that's the kind of stuff that I think a lot of leaders sometimes have a hard time with. Um, especially because we're we're punchmark, we're not, you know, Ross Cochran and friends or or you know, that kind of thing, or or Ross and Ross and Dan's website company. We have to uh we I think that there's more of this ownership from the rest of us on Punchmark. Uh just yesterday, we have an all hands every Tuesday. And one thing I was talking about, I try my best to share with the company what the rest of the what the field looks like. Because some of our employees don't go to trade shows. Uh our developers don't typically go, and uh our CS reps typ don't typically go. And as a result, they might not know what the field is looking like and why we're doing some of these things. But what's really cool is we sent out a vendor survey and we got a whole bunch of really nice responses back and like really positive sentiments about punchmark. And then we are we ran something else in jewelers helping jewelers and we got all this nice feedback. And sometimes I think it's very important for us to also share the bigger picture and kind of pass it down to the rest of the company and explain to them like, yeah, things are looking really good. Like, I feel really good. Do you guys feel really good? And then, like, kind of explaining to them, like, here's why I'm feeling this. It's not just optimism, it's also data-driven insights on where we and the industry stands. You know what I mean? On that, it's kind of like sharing the bigger picture, which you guys have always been very transparent with me when there was only eight of us sitting in a room. And now, as we have started to sprawl and we have more people, the big picture I feel is very is tangentially related to what you were saying about making yourself unavailable and having people figure themselves out as well.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, for sure. Um, you know, we all kind of need to know what our where our efforts are going, how we fit in. And there's uh a team building exercise that I always wanted to do uh with the team and sitting down where everyone has like a you know a square piece of paper and you draw uh like whatever's in this little square. And ultimately you put all the squares together like post-it notes on a board, and each square becomes like a mosaic tile of a bigger picture. And and I like that exercise and just what that depicts in the sense that you know we have people working so intricately on one very small, what seemingly small part of our platform or of our system, of our communication or our service uh process. And just to hear, right, hear back from the big picture, like wow, what we're doing, like what you said yesterday, Mike, um, is you know, it's the the sentiment, the public sentiment on Punchmark is very good right now. And our team needs to hear that. And, you know, you said this is because, right, um, our our CS reps are getting really good survey scores, and our developers are rolling out releases that matter, and you know, our our vendor side is doing this, and and so it and our design team is doing this, right? And and all that plays a big role. So um thanks for shouting everybody out because it it is important. Like I said, you know, it's it's the team that's building punch mark and making a huge difference in this industry.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I don't know. It's just the more I think about it, uh Punchmark as is being, having been here for eight and a half years at this point, it's it's pretty crazy to me. Sometimes I think about like where were we when I started? Um, you know, and we were so small. There was there was eight or nine of us sitting in a room. And I think the fact that you guys sat uh like six feet behind me, and I could hear you guys making these bigger decisions sometimes, and it was very, you know, it wasn't this big like voodoo thing. It wasn't like, oh, like we're vision setting. It was like, okay, we're gonna do this so that we can get there a little bit faster. And I think though I keep that very internalized, where it's like, why are we spending all this time overhauling the premium vendor system when it's just like a small little aspect, uh facet of our company? And to me, it's just like you guys set the vision of well, if we have a good vendor system, suddenly we become a crossroads and we can start directing things and start um getting people buy-in from all aspects of the company, and we become the center. And it's like when you start to be able to see, we always talk about like looking up from the steering wheel. Uh, that's kind of like a big part of it is we uh in the last like maybe two years, we started to look up from the steering wheel and kind of drive into the distance as opposed to uh, you know, just building little components. Now it's like, okay, how do we actually bring things together? Which I think is a little bit more fun, a little bit more scalable. Manageable, at least for me.
SPEAKER_00:Sure. Yeah. I know I always made that uh you know point that as an owner, as a technical owner, you're sitting there just like looking down and and then you look up and say, Who's driving? Oh, oh, I'm driving, and like you realize that your hands are actually on the steering wheel and and you forget. And that's the you know, the the overused kind of words that you want to work more on the business than in the business. Um, and so a lot of times as a smaller business, we weren't able to do that as much. And now I'm very proud to say that we can, but it's all thanks to our great team.
SPEAKER_01:Teamwork, man. But let's talk about the other kind of part of this, the other team. We had this conversation uh just about one year ago, uh, where we had uh talked about um you had taken like uh I think you're not your first, but one of your midsummer vacations last year. And you came back and you talked about what it was like taking a break and and coming back and not freaking out. Um you are balancing traveling when it comes to you know going all over the place. There's tons of trade shows every year, uh, and even more for us because we're not just going to buying shows, we're going to all the other ones too. We also have our own our own events. Uh how what's the the decisions and like how do you balance things with your own family? Because I'm sure there was a time when we were we were all in on just work, work, work all the time. But since then you've had uh some kids and now you have to balance uh them as well. You can't go all in on one side or the other, otherwise they kind of might um not do as well. How do you have to balance that? Is that just a decision that you or a conversation you make with uh with your wife?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, sort of every day is is a balance, right? Every day you have to kind of make some micro decisions. Um, you know, like uh today, um, you know, usually my wife picks up my oldest son, he's seven from elementary school, and today I I need to pick him up. And so I had to shift like a couple things around, minor things. I didn't have any meetings planned there, but um, but it's it's a constant thing that you need to kind of reshift. I'm very, very lucky in the sense that my mother-in-law lives with us, so it's we have it, we we can do things that a lot of other couples can't. Um, and so that helps me professionally and personally on so many levels. Um, but one thing that's interesting is my wife and I agreed that two kids, we're just gonna have two kids and that's it, right? And we agreed on that like when we first got married. She is uh you know a sibling of of two, right? And I am a sibling of two, at least in our main household growing up. Um and and so that was important to us. Like we can't have an only child, we need a balance. And I remember saying the words, I can't have more than two kids because I run a business. And what I was really saying was, I can't have more than two kids because my business runs me. That's what I was really saying. And so it's it's interesting that we had a third uh bonus baby. I call him my gravy baby. Um, and so now things have changed a lot, and I can't even say like how happy I am, not only that we have another human in the mix, but but that I'm able to do certain things. And so all the decisions that we have to make to kind of make up for things like that, uh, we're we're not even in the mix of it yet. I mean, just wait till all these kids are in sports and we're just driving and soccer moms and baseball dads and football. Like it's gonna be a lot of stuff, right? So right now, only my oldest son is playing baseball. Um, and so I know at some point it's gonna get what a lot of parents call grueling, but also the kind of the best times of our lives while we're parenting, right? Yeah. Um, and I wonder how that's gonna play with all the decisions we're gonna have to make and like missing a little bit of work here to go to a baseball game or practice or um, and I know Brian, you know, my brother, our CTO, he's going through that a lot. He with his oldest, he's 13. Um, and so he had to miss to go up to a uh a baseball tournament in Cooperstown with 83 other teams. And that like to me, that's like how cool is that to be able to do that? And so imagine if Brian wasn't able to do it, if he wasn't present for that, if he had, oh sorry, I gotta work, you know, I'll let my wife take him. Um, so anyway, I'm I'm I'm very lucky. I'm very happy that I'm able to do a lot of the things I can do. And a lot of that is from, you know, because of the punch martine, because my mother-in-law, and because my wife is a rock star, she does so much. Um, I probably don't do enough at home. Yeah, I definitely don't do enough at home, right? I I need to step it up and be CEO of the household, right? So um, and I think a lot of dads struggle with that as well. But, you know, balance is everything, and there's there's no such thing as a work-life balance. It's the the word, the words don't even make sense. You're you're in one world and then you're ripped from one world and you go back into another world. They're two separate lives. And you have to figure out on how to kind of see saw back and forth between them and make each work for for each other. You need to have be present for your family and grow your family and be there, but you also need, you know, to be to have a sense of purpose, to be useful in a community or in an industry or in a company. Um, and obviously you got to make some money. So, you know, it's it's always that balance on how to work it out. And I think uh uh we're doing okay. And uh, you know, I'm I'm very happy about that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. You know, it's like when we were sitting down to to have this episode, I was thinking, why, what what is it that we could talk about that would resonate with these business owners? And I do think that this is just one of those like sometimes my number one tip or one of my big tips for uh managing a website is like if you're the business owner, maybe you should delegate that role to someone else because the website it's like requires so much effort. Maybe you should give it to someone else because you're already managing enough stuff. But then when you have these conversations with people, as I as I've started to, it's like, oh man, they really they can't. They have to do, they're doing so many things. It's like they are down to roll up their sleeves, and the the the jewelers that I know and the vendors that we know are just so like this is their life, and they're balancing it the best that they can. And I figured hearing what you've been kind of balancing as well, and how you've been managing to balance is definitely something that's super important and is super, I think, relatable is definitely the word where it's like, yeah, these people are not just cold, heartless business people, you know, they are humans that are balancing, and it's like, yeah, things could be going really well at uh work. And then if things are not going well at home, then things are just not going well overall, and vice versa, things could be going well at home, and then like if you know the company's doing poorly, like things are not great overall. Like, you need to balance those kinds of things. You have to have both. And uh, I thought that getting a chance to hear from your perspective and someone that I've been seeing uh kind of balance it in real time. Because I remember when I started here, man, you didn't have any kids, and now you have three. So that's uh it's been cool to watch. Very cool. Cool.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you.
SPEAKER_01:Well, Ross, maybe we'll wrap it up right there. I think uh just a little bit more of like an introspective episode. Um, I think that this is more of like the business management side of things. It's not always all about, hey, like what projects are you working on? When are you upgrading your storefronts? It's also how are you managing your personal and and uh they always talk about micro and macro. It's like, how are you handling the uh the macro end of things? So it's uh great to hear uh from you as well. Any final thoughts? All good?
SPEAKER_00:Well, you know, just because this episode was a lot about my uh, you know, sort of points on my life, I just want to say that uh for myself and on behalf of Punchmark and behalf of the industry, um, thank you for being such a good host of this podcast. Um I can't even say, like every time I'm you know, just talking to someone at a trade show about, you know, hey, yeah, Mike is such a great host. They're like, oh my gosh, he's so good. Like he cares so much. He he's so he's so curious. He he he asks the best questions. Um, I was just talking to John from Client Book about that, and he's like, oh, he's he's the best. So anyway, uh it's a it's a kind of uh you know mutual uh perspective that that myself and the industry has. You mentioned earlier uh today that you know you like when people are you know really you know into what they do, and you're one of those people, you're kind of a renaissance man, you know, with your art and with you know all the goals and things that you set for yourself. So I just want to tell you that I'm really grateful for you doing this podcast. It's amazing. I listened to so many of these episodes, and I'm just like, what a great question! What a great way to dig in. So so thanks, Mike. Appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks, man. Oh, wow, that makes you feel really good. You know, I think we've been going for a while on this thing, and I've told you, this is my favorite part of my job, man. I love this. I can't believe I get paid to yap with people and hear about their lives. And in the end, I'm I'm hopefully bettering myself by hearing other people's decision makings, and it gives me a lot of really neat nuggets of information that I bust out at at trivia and at the bars all the time when I tell them about rhodium plating, and people are like, oh my golly. So I appreciate it, man. That means a lot. Uh yeah, we'll end it right there. Thanks everybody. Appreciate you all listening. We'll be back next week, Tuesday with another episode. Cheers. Bye. All right, everybody. That's another show. Thanks so much for listening. This week my guest was Ross Cochram, CEO and co-founder of Punchmark. This episode was brought to you by Punchmark and produced and hosted by me, Michael Burpo. This episode was edited by Paul Suarez and music by you guessed it, Ross Cochram. Don't forget to leave us feedback on punchmark.com slash loop. Leave us a five-star rating on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Thanks, we'll be back next week Tuesday with another episode. Cheers. Bye.
