Episode Transcript
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Here we go.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: All right. You said you had an update. Let's get it going.
[00:00:15] Speaker A: Yeah. So I owe a couple two things. I owe a shout out to one of our dear friends, David Dent, who happens to work for the premier box ceiling tape manufacturer in the industry, who is called Suretape.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: What are they called?
[00:00:29] Speaker A: And I know you know they're called Suretape because you're tight with that crew, as I am. And they've been so gracious to invite us to their sales meetings and to speak and engage with their sales organizations. And as relates to Arnold packaging going forward, that is our box ceiling tape and tape partner of choice.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: I just had to say that I think that you earned additional discount.
[00:00:51] Speaker A: I don't even know. But I know that Dave is an avid listener, and if I forget to make a mention or may inadvertently mention something that's remotely close to a competitor of his, he blows me up real time while he's listening.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: There you go, Dave. Sure tape, 1 million infinite shout outs. Everybody else, negative 30. It's over. All right, good. So a couple of other revelations I had since our last podcast. I was watching back. So we are usually a little bit ahead, not too far ahead, and we get to go back and listen to our prior week before we post it. Yeah, I was listening to the raw footage from last week, and no one knows what that episode is yet, but quick preview, highlight. We were talking about hobbies and different things and other things we do, and I basically realized, I think the thing that punched me in the face the hardest was when I said I get great value out of a spreadsheet and solving data. I mean, I basically said that I like to roll up with a good spreadsheet. I was like, oh, my God, I need to get a life. And then you challenged me. What would it be? And we got back on the top of singing, and I just want to let you know that I actually booked a lesson to go sing. So thanks to this podcast and you, I started it. And the best thing that I've learned so here's back to a business moment is hard stopping things. We talk about it all the time until we hard stop it. Oh, yeah, we need to until we get it on the calendar. So I wake in the very next morning. It was dark, 30, and I thought, oh, it's too early. I was going to give myself an excuse. And I was like, it's too early. I'm like, no, it's not. I can put the ball in their court. They're a sales organization. They're going to wear me out until I book. And that's what I did and that's what they did. And a week from Friday, a week from Friday, I will report back and let you know, let our audience I will let everybody know, because I will how it went, you'll know?
[00:02:52] Speaker B: You'll know, and the best part of this is we are coordinating hobbies. So you're dropping me off at the trail?
[00:02:59] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: So I can run while you sing, then you'll pick me up after your lesson.
[00:03:03] Speaker A: Right. But one of the cool things so the takeaway back though, is that someone remind you of a really funny comment that I heard years ago as related to spreadsheets. And he said that would make you a freak in the sheets. And I said, oh hell yeah, I am completely a freak in the sheets.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: I wish you made that up.
[00:03:17] Speaker A: I know.
[00:03:18] Speaker B: Because we would make apparel.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: It's been out there. It's been out there before. I think I saw it on them. There's like a coffee mug that says.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: Freaking the sheets or something, the dorkiest thing. But it is funny.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: It's amazing. And I just had a conversation with one of my teammates about spreadsheets and their value and leaning into them from a data analysis perspective. So anyway, two updates for me.
[00:03:36] Speaker B: Okay? I'm not doing updates. I'm getting right in here. That's what I do, I get in there.
[00:03:41] Speaker A: No, you know me, updates.
I think I realized what a loser I was when I listened to that raw footage back and I just needed to give myself a little break. So thank you for that.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: Well, sometimes it's a good punch in the you know what?
[00:03:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Wrap up with a good spreadsheet. Jesus Christ. Yeah, I already saw bags of air for a living. I'm gonna wrap up with a good spreadsheet. You'd be well, if you thought decided to leave me, that would be okay. That would make sense to me.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: Okay, on to the topic. So this one, I'm not dropping on you because it needed a little prep work for this to be of good value. So what I discuss with you, and I think the best way to do this would probably be to make it a miniseries because there's too much to talk about to us to wrap in. We're typically like 50 minutes to an hour. I think that's where we like to keep it. It usually just falls that way. So I think we do a one, two, maybe even three part miniseries on this one. And it's what we have taken away. What best lessons we have learned while we've been growing arnold packaging, arnold Automation and Tagler construction and supply. So for Tagler over the last seven years. For automation over the last six, seven.
[00:05:00] Speaker A: Same remember we were talking about startup businesses?
[00:05:03] Speaker B: Seven. And then Arnold Packaging over the last 90, 91.
So those lessons that are just as valuable, if not more for life success. So there's a lot of people listening to this that I'm sure they're interested in business, but not as interested in they don't own businesses, they're not interested in entrepreneurship. Well, this is the perfect topic because I'm picking specific lessons that are transferable and really valuable to every aspect of life. That's what I want to focus on. So today, I think knowing how much time generally we're going to spend, I think we should try to get through four or five of those lessons and we'll continue them through a miniseries.
[00:05:52] Speaker A: Good by me. Let's do it.
[00:05:53] Speaker B: Okay, you start.
[00:05:55] Speaker A: You always do such a good job of starting, and I enjoy that, and I appreciate that.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: All right, I'll start.
[00:06:01] Speaker A: Here's the thing, too. I don't even think we should put a number on it because it would be easy to say four, and that would be 15 minutes ish a topic.
[00:06:08] Speaker B: But man, some of these are we'll keep going.
This is all feel. We do all this and none of it's rehearse.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: Some of these are so good that they could take a minute to really get through and give them the appropriate attention.
[00:06:19] Speaker B: Yeah. The first one I want to go with, and this is probably one that if I just had to pick one, it's what I would go with.
Part of it sounds cliche, but I think I'm going to add some other nuance. Well, you guys can tell me. I'm going to try to add some more nuances to this than what you always hear. And that is the only way to be successful is to put something into action, period. And we have this real tendency, especially now, there's so much trends towards productivity, personal development, just all those genres where we could spend and we do hours and hours reading about things, writing about things, consulting about things, so on and so forth. Nothing actually gets reading about it, journaling about it, consulting about it. It doesn't do anything. Like, you've got to do the thing right first and foremost. And it's not about perfection.
Just get it done, get it out there. Because here's the thing.
Once you start organically, it's going to change. It's going to evolve. You're going to have to refine. You aren't going to get it perfect at first. And if you try and you wait for perfection, you know what happens? Absolutely nothing. It's paralyzing to a lot of people. So you have to be able to figure out what you want, take on the risk, face the fear, and freaking do it. Stop talking about it, stop writing about it, stop learning about it, do it. And then ultimately you're going to learn as you're doing it is the only way. So that is my number one thing. If there is something you want, start doing. If it's running, run 30ft and do that every day and add in it. If it's starting a business, start it and then figure it out as you go. There is no other way. You can read every freaking book in the world for a year and you are not one step closer.
What are your thoughts? I'm out of breath.
[00:08:39] Speaker A: No, it wouldn't matter what you said just now. I would have known you meant I am out of breath, and that's I was, I recall gosh this is probably this is very early in my career. They used to do this great event in Baltimore City where they would bring in some great speakers. I'll give you some. And I attended one in particular that day. Lou Holtz. Great coach. Notre Dame. Barbara Bush. And one of the speakers on stage was Norman Schwarzkoff, the absolute world famous army general and whatever all of his other titles were. But that was his number one message, was exactly what you just said. And he would talk about how frustrated he would get when there would be all of this conversation, and his message was, just make a choice. And he's able to use this terminology that none of these are battlefield decisions, right? That most of the time in what he was doing and you're talking about military and things, that it all matters, but this could literally be life or death in situations. It was just the idea that you can always tweak or you can always make refinements along the way that no decision was much worse than even a decision not being made for the vast majority of those. And we use the one E equals R times C, efficiency equals right times commitment. So if you also are a believer in that, it would be to say that as long as you're committed, right is a little less important. You can't be completely wrong either, right? I'm not saying that you just throw shit at the wall, but if you have a team that has a very high level of commitment and you put something in motion, everybody's engaged, but you.
[00:10:22] Speaker B: Might not have a team when you're getting started, okay?
[00:10:24] Speaker A: And that's fine. And if it's just you, then you better be damn well committed, too. Gosh I would hope that anybody that would get after something would be committed. Betting on yourself, but not necessarily. Good point. Whether it's you or a team of whatever, as long as everybody on that team has a very high level of commitment, you can be a little off or not completely right and still get where you want to go.
The number of times I'll say to my team, let's just make a choice and go right? And let's make sure we have a great feedback loop, and let's make sure that we have a tracking process. Quickie I'll add on to that is don't do anything in the absence of metrics. If you can't measure it, it doesn't matter. Everything else is just feel good. Subjective could be bullshit. Really understand what your metrics are and put some metrics and measure what you're doing, even if they're not perfect either. To start. I mean, we have what I now call a period meeting process 13 times a year, every 20 days. So this is nuts. And Bolty stuff, but you could run your life this way, too, talking about things that you learn in business that are really helpful in life, you could run your life this way, too. And that process has evolved over 23 years. And I know that because I know when we brought the consulting group in in 1999, that helped us start it. And that tracking document used to be monthly. Now it's on a period basis. It used to have this data. Now it has that data. Some of those, you just get them started, and then you can make refinements as long as everybody's completely engaged and you have a high commitment level. But I completely agree with what you're saying, and those are some real life examples of what we've done here. And the same thing carries through to our personal lives, too, right? I mean, we will hard stop stuff, things as simple as we ought to get together with the Smiths for know, if we don't immediately make contact and hard stop that, we'll be talking about dinner with the Smiths forever.
[00:12:19] Speaker B: Yeah, but I think I want to push back a little bit on the metric. On the metrics, not push back. Not that you're wrong, like, I agree with that statement, but I think that's part of sometimes overthinking things. I'll tell you, when I started, I didn't have metrics. I had nothing I was comparing against. I just freaking did it. I went in and I figured it out. Did I develop metrics? Sure. But I didn't even know what my metrics were supposed to be when I started. I had nothing to compare it against. So maybe somebody would say that's irresponsible or reckless, fine, maybe.
[00:12:51] Speaker A: But let me ask you this in retrospect, so help someone out that might be new to it. In retrospect, if you could pick up a metric that would have been helpful, could you think of one? I couldn't even now we said, gosh. I realized after a period of time that this was really important. Let's just say it was networking events. I'm not saying that is or isn't, but it would be. You know what, it's important that I get to two networking events a week. Just a metric of any kind.
[00:13:17] Speaker B: Is there anything you can think of? Such a novel place for me, and things have changed so much.
Not really.
See, everything right now is in retrospect, so it would be unfair for me to say then I knew, no, I'm.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: Asking you to look backward and help someone out that might not even because you're right. I mean, in those moments, if it's so novel that you don't have any idea what you don't know, I'm just wondering if there's something looking backwards, like, man, that was one that really helped me out. And I would suggest anything comes to mind, and if not, no big deal.
[00:13:52] Speaker B: No, there is. I would say, man, I don't want to keep using the word, but I just used it again.
I would say the thing that probably is developing a relationship with a few really solid customers.
Because what I've realized, and I tell my team this all the time, we have probably one, maybe two handfuls of customers that have been with us from the beginning and we're not making the highest profit margin off of them, but they're just so steady and consistent and they really are our sustainability. Now we'll get a ton of big, huge contracts in between from we'll get three contracts a year from customer B and they might be a lot more volume, maybe even profit margin, but it's those like five to ten customers from the beginning and that consistency. So I think if you can develop just those steady eddy customers that you know are going to be with you and then build off that, maybe that would have been I don't know if that's a metric or what you were looking for.
[00:15:10] Speaker A: That's a good one. No, I think that brings me to the idea when we talk about the word value line, I talk about the word value line on here a lot like those customers. So maybe the takeaway for someone that's new to business and just in general. Right, because that value line, I love that term because it can go into every single relationship that you have. It's not just about in business, it's not exclusively or anything closely exclusive to profitability. Right. It would be loyalty, it would be alignment.
[00:15:39] Speaker B: Totally. Is all of that mel value, coal roofing, rough roofing, avena contracting, and sometimes I hate to name because I'm going to miss, but those guys have given us a chance from day one and stuck with us. And those are the ones that just like we have such a good rapport and I know we're going to be doing a ton of work together. And again, it's not like we're crushing profit margins with them or anything like that. We don't need those are our just foundation. I like to think of them as just like our foundation, what we can always rely on. So I think that would be maybe not maybe that's not a metric, but it's good advice for somebody starting no.
[00:16:22] Speaker A: You could build a metric, right? I mean, gosh, you'd think about, all right, how many customers that look like this. One of the first things I remember when I was out in the field with Ed Mackle, who started as our VP of Sales. We walked out of one of our great customers top three, and he was in awe of our relationship and just how we shared resources and how we really had created this great relationship over 25 years. And he walked out and he said, I think I know the answer to this question. Is that what a great customer looks like? So one of those two would be to understand as an early entrepreneur what a great customer looks like. And everything you just said is completely in line with that. And it's not just about return on financial investment. There's all of these other pieces and parts in there that are very valuable to that relationship that you remember.
[00:17:14] Speaker B: Glass Industries is another one. I need to mention them because they've been awesome and to your point, not only great partners and loyal, but so, as we say, frictionless and easy to work with. And that is key. Find people that are easy to work with. And I'll tell you, the vice you hear all the time is like, don't do business with people you don't want to sit across the table and drink a beer with. And that's really sound advice. Except, again, it's so easy for me to say that now when you are starting a business, it's not good advice. Because maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But here's where I'm going with this. When you are starving for work, you will take on shitty customers because you have to keep the lights on.
[00:17:59] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:18:00] Speaker B: And I did that. I took on a customer. It was an electrical contractor and I'm not afraid to say that. And they know exactly who they are. And I was told that they were hard to work with. And the owner was a dick and he was and we went over and beyond to do the work, to get it done. This is when we were in the GC side of things. We were actually doing the labor and we did it. And it was good.
Just and it wasn't a huge job, but they immediately went to a litigious route, right? And I had never I was just getting started. Like being sued in an effort not to pay you. They weren't paying us. And we did the work. We did everything they asked and more. And immediately I was like I was warned about this. I knew this, but I needed the money.
[00:18:57] Speaker A: Criteria one, in new business, you'll consider doing business with anyone that's breathing air, right? If they're breathing air, you'll try to have a conversation.
[00:19:05] Speaker B: You have to. And the truth of the matter is you have to take the risk and hope it works out. And for me, 99% of the time, it did. That 1% of the time. But mind you, we got paid. So, I mean, it was just a battle. And I spent way more hours battling it than what it was worth in the end. But it helped us survive. So I think this isn't novel. This is a concept and something that people are talking about now more than ever. So I'm literally regurgitating things I just heard on a podcast. But it's just the concept of, like, if you're getting started, don't start getting advice from billionaires, right, because they're telling you about what they remember or what works for them. Now, that is not what they did when they started. And I feel like for us, you with Arnold Automation and me with Taylor, I'm close enough where I remember exactly what I did when I started. The advice I would give you. Now what I'm doing now looks way different, but I'm definitely able to pinpoint. But that's not what I did when I started. So I like the idea of us giving this advice because it's still so close to us. Whereas if you're listening to somebody that made it 50 years ago and you're trying to get advice from them to start your business, it's not relevant. Get advice from somebody two, three, four steps ahead of you. Not 30.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. And to your point, gosh in the automation division, we're still at it. Seven years old, like you in construction is infancy in that space versus our competitors and the customers that have been in that space forever. Heck. And I think one of the things I was going to say is that idea of building the plane while you fly it, that's still I mean, when.
[00:20:47] Speaker B: You are ready, fire, aim.
[00:20:49] Speaker A: Yeah, right, exactly. That too. Which could be a human resource strategy too, if you're doing it incorrectly. But yeah, that idea of flying the plane while you're building it and I will still say that I said it this week, I said it yesterday in a meeting where some things didn't go our way.
A big job that we bid, we didn't get. And we were in that meeting doing soul searching around why we've lost. And the customer was great in that they gave us a reasonable exit interview. Well, I'm just trying to understand why it didn't go our way. Because we understood these things that thought had us in good stead right up until we lost and got zero. And that's the really painful thing about that part of the business is you put a million dollar proposal out there and if they go with someone else, you get exactly zero.
[00:21:38] Speaker B: Well, not only that, how much time did you spend?
[00:21:40] Speaker A: The opportunity costs are massive.
[00:21:42] Speaker B: Exactly. Not even getting into on the construction side, it would be like our precon. Like what is all the time we put into the estimating for you, the due diligence and the proposals and all that.
[00:21:53] Speaker A: Yeah. And such a zero sum game. And different than packaging. Just because there's that consumable annuity piece where all right, so we didn't get the boxes bigger thing right today, but they'll be using boxes tomorrow and the market will shift or something will change and we'll be in a better position to compete and we'll go back. Not in this situation. I mean, those deals are done. Not to say that they won't consider automation. Our job then is to make sure we did a good enough job to get a seat back at the table. Because it's all the respect, all the cred just went with A, not B. You happen to be B but when we get to the next step, robotic palletizing that's actually a situation here, then you're going to be right back at the table. Okay. It still hurts like shit and it still pays zero bills, but it is part of that learning process.
[00:22:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay, well, I'll punch you now.
[00:22:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
I will say this one is something that I still working on, but it's the idea of putting yourself in someone else's shoes. And I would say of all of the things that I have gotten better at as I become a more mature, more experienced business leader, it's that human component and trying to understand where people are coming from and doing exactly that. Stopping and saying, well, if I was where you are, what would I be thinking? What would I be experiencing? What do I know? What don't I know? And it could be something as simple as, I don't know, you had a really poor interaction with somebody uncomfortable, awkward, and instead of younger Mcarnold might have fired back or done something that was not very productive and ended up fueling something instead of huh. That was unusual for a very unusual reaction for Britt. We've worked together for a long time. That's not what I expected. Younger Mcarnold would have fired back, probably, and would have added fire on top of fire. Huh. I wonder what's going on. Can't possibly have to do with that work thing we talked about. Because while it's important, it's not that important. So that's something that I paid a lot more attention to, especially now where one thing that I struggled with when I was a younger leader, I was the youngest person in the room all of the time. So think about a situation where your dad dies at 24. You're thrust into this role to try to keep the company from failing. Every single person around you is older than you. They have to be, right? And when you're now in the room with lawyers and accountants, people that were working with us, that were trusted professionals, I was half the age. The vast majority of time, I was half the age, or less than half of the age almost all of the time. So now it's to the point I've finally been at this long enough, 30 years where there are people in the room or involved in the process that are younger than I am. And it's actually taken me a while to get my brain around that idea just because it was the other way for so long. So now I actually have to find myself stopping to think about if it's one of our younger teammates, what do they know, what experience do they have? I can't drop in at level eight when they only ever had the opportunity or the capability to understand level two. They've only been here for this period of time, or they're new to business, or they're new to our business. So really trying to understand, and it might even go back to the story we tell about the Dog Whisper, is understanding your audience and trying to meet them at a level that would have you with a more engaging, more valuable, beneficial conversation sooner than later. Because the opposite of that, I would expect if I'm again putting myself in that person's shoes, it could be frustrating, it could be embarrassing. There's lots of emotions that could come out of that. If I show up at level eight as a 30 year person who also, as I just said, has no hobbies. Right. I mean, I'm doing this all of the time, except for one except for one time when I'm exercising the golden pipes. Is that what you mean? Yeah. I'm not sure how golden they'll be, but that's one of the big things I say, all right, let's make sure. Come in at the right floor. Don't come in on a floor that is so far up there that this person doesn't even have a chance of seeing you or meeting you in that common ground so you can get somewhere together.
That's been a huge one that I still work on to this very day, especially now when I sit in a room and I'll say, raise your hand if you've been here six months or less. Keep your hand raised a year, two years. When I tell you that half of the room's hands go up and stay up. I'm talking about at a director level meeting, an executive level meeting. The Pandemic has created this barbell of sorts where I have people in the room that have 27 years and 27 days. And I'm not kidding, like, 27 days. Did a little exercise the other day. The youngest person in our company is 73. The oldest person, our company I'm sorry, let me do that again.
[00:27:06] Speaker B: The youngest person is 73. We have a lot of wisdom, a lot of knowledge.
[00:27:11] Speaker A: Youngest person is 23.
I'm going to be out of breath, too, after this. The oldest person is 73. See, 50 years. Five decades of people that I am tasked or challenged to communicate effectively with. And I think that's maybe where I started to realize, like, all right, who am I in the room with and what are we trying to get done, and what level of the building am I going to drop in to meet them as close as possible? Or if I'm above, just a little bit above, so I can pull them along into being better, doing better by showing them what that looks like.
[00:27:45] Speaker B: So you're talking when you initially said the topic or what you were getting into, I immediately thought that was referring to communication with a customer or vendor, not necessarily internal. But you just talked a lot about that as it relates to internal communication.
[00:28:07] Speaker A: Yeah, look, I think it's pertinent for all of it. I would suggest that one would do that in every single relationship. That they had everywhere. But I think it resonates most with me internal, just because I have a lot more interactions there than I do. Like, I don't have a lot of direct customers anymore. I only have a few, actually. So I don't have as many of those type of relationships or those type of interactions. Most of them are internal in nature. And whether it's emerging thought leaders, whether it's James who's been who's been supporting and flanking me a lot. And there I am, right, as a 30 year veteran with a guy who's been here for five weeks, and how do I have good conversations and communications with James so he can be effective and feel good about what he's doing and learn and be productive? And then if he'll meet me halfway with the same type of commitment or energy, then he should really be able to go far unless I talk so far above his head that he can't connect anything. And that would be on me. That wouldn't be on him.
[00:29:17] Speaker B: Right. And this is very challenging when you're talking about situations where you've come across a challenge or possibly a disagreement or a misunderstanding with a vendor and a customer. And here's why. It sounds somewhat easy to say, sure, I can put myself in their shoes, but I don't think defend is the right word. But probably I'm going to use it in this context. You have a company to defend and protect, and whatever your position is, you want to protect that at all cost, and so you want to have that hard stance. I know here's, for instance, that happened. I haven't sent the email yet. I haven't even pressed send. But right before that, I was going through this perfect example. So we have a contractor, we've been working on a project for a year and a half, maybe two years, going through every iteration of pricing with them. Finally, the project has broke, right? And we got a PO. We're on a week and a half, and they're saying and it's 120 page contract. And they're saying, where's the contract? Where's the contract materials? Has to be on site in three and a half weeks. We've been going through this job for a year and a half to two years, and we're getting squeezed in a week and a half to go through 120 page proposal. And now you need the material. Seems a little absurd, doesn't it? And unfair at the same time.
I want to explain that to them, and I don't think it's lost on them, but I also, in that same email, are going to be like, listen, but I also understand that you've been working on this contract longer than us. You've been fighting constraints from the owners and probably funding. Did you want to issue us contracts prior earlier? Sure. So I'm trying to find the balance. I think it's really important to state my stance and say, hey, listen, let's be fair and realistic about this, but let them know that it's not loss on me that you guys are trying to do your job and you've been fighting your own constraints. Right.
But to your point, probably maybe just two, three years ago, I would have just fired off, like, you can wait. We've been waiting in two years, something that short.
[00:31:46] Speaker A: Right? Yeah.
I think you even just said it as part of your response. It would be something like, while I appreciate your situation and you do appreciate.
[00:31:54] Speaker B: Absolutely. And it doesn't change our urgency, I'm going to fight to get that contract back as fast as we're working with our vendor and waiting for them to make sure they can comply. If our vendor can't comply, we can't. And we just have to do the proper due diligence. It doesn't change whether we had another year before the material was needed or three and a half weeks. It doesn't change our urgency. We're going to be trying to get this back as soon as possible, no matter what. But I just think you've got to stand up for yourself in your position to an extent, while also being reasonable and understanding of their position. What do you think about that?
[00:32:30] Speaker A: No. Yeah, I do. So you brought up a very good point in that the dynamics are different. Right. I mean, certainly if I'm talking to a newer employee, there is not a defend moment. Right. And even in those situations, you even have to be smart and choose your words carefully in spots, written ones versus spoken ones, because love it or hate it, we are in a bit of a litigious world, and, man, anything can be twisted. So you're right. I think that customer component, the supplier component, just flip it around, right. Where all of a sudden you're talking to the supplier. Now you're the customer. Right, totally. So the dynamic just shifts a little bit, and now you're the customer. But I just would like to think, god, my favorite relationships and best relationships have this very equal feel, and we'll say it internally. I've never said this to a customer, but the idea that your poor planning isn't my fire drum well, that's it. Right, but that's how it comes off. And imagine being the packaging guy. So I can relate with everything you just said, because there's the launch date of the gizmo, and the gizmo needs packaging. Well, all this stuff's been going on forever as it relates to designing the gizmo, building the, you know, all of these challenges, but no one ever moved the packaging guys performance back. And we're going through the exact same thing right now.
But I will tell you, young Mcarnold, again, I would have done a few different things.
One could have been that I would have put so much pressure on us to deliver, where older Mcarnold now will have a conversation and say, all right, let's get our heads together and figure out what we really need to do here. Younger Mcarnold would have been so happy to have the order, kind of like you were talking about and in the earlier. So this was me as a younger salesperson in a 60 year old company. So regardless of the company, right. There was an established business that had decades and decades and decades. But young Mcarnold as a salesperson was running his own brand new business called his sales territory. And I would have probably been racing through, jumping through hoops and inadvertently inviting in risk, not dotting I's not crossing t's missing Q's.
And I would have been moving fast because I didn't know how to see the angles which we talk about.
So whether it's the length of your business or just if you're new to business, you could be doing the same types of things, but yeah, I completely appreciate that, but I still would take the same approach. Right. And I will have conversations because a lot of times I'm dealing with could be big companies and the individuals that are getting pressure from somewhere else, they're in the same position.
[00:35:10] Speaker B: Exactly right.
[00:35:11] Speaker A: Same position. Some guy in their corner office is screaming bloody murder about delivery, trying to do their job. Yeah. And I'm looking across them and going, hey, man, we're in this together, right? How do we collectively keep that guy or girl happy? The one that's in the corner office?
[00:35:25] Speaker B: Well, that's funny you said that because the last line again, I haven't sent the email yet, but my last line was going to be like, listen, I'm on your team and finish it off.
[00:35:35] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:35:36] Speaker B: A couple of points I want to expand on, on this you got into very briefly towards the end there the urgency and the tendency to jump through hoops. And that is something when I first started, even the first couple, maybe few years, everything was urgent. I felt every single email that came in, I was like, it's on fire. Like, get to it.
And I would jump through hoops.
And for me, it's coming from a place of fear that I might lose this opportunity that I really need. Now, again, seven years in, we have the privilege of being able to take the time to do due diligence, be a little bit more selective. When I got started, I didn't have that privilege, so I didn't want to risk losing out on anything. And for me, that meant being so everything was like treating everything like it was on fire. Like I had to get to it immediately.
I could say that there were things I did that were shortcuts I took that I shouldn't have. But I also don't know if it won me some of the work that I needed then. So it would be, again, irresponsible for me to say that's not the appropriate tactic when you first get started, because that has stuck with me to a degree. Now we are urgent about everything, but now we just take the proper amount of time to do our due diligence. Now, I will tell you, I had an employee in particular where had that same mindset, would just get things out without even showing me it. And it was wrong and so many mistakes were made and that was part of my lesson to that employee was like you have a minute, take one step back. Taking the extra 3 hours to get it right is so much better for us in the end because we can't take back that mistake. So now that's me teaching some of the young, not even young, maybe newer employees that come in to take that extra breath or step. But when you get started, that's really hard. And I'm not sure, had I not done that, who knows, right? I don't know what it would have.
[00:37:57] Speaker A: Well, I think it's fair to say that when you were brand new, one of your differentiators was speed to market, right? So if that is and still is, but very much so, right? Because you had absolutely, if not zero, very limited technical expertise. If you would think about all the things you would consider a differentiator, you hadn't built a lot of those yet, right? So for you, speed to market and responsiveness and urgency was the differentiator. And I would agree with you. Having met you early enough and watching that evolution, I would agree with you that you made some very loyal customers and even followers. Customers being one thing, followers being something even more amazing because of that urgency and the care. That urgency also has a certain level of care that comes along with it, where you are back quickly. You are engaged. Not at a poor quality level, not sloppy. That's the danger of the speed that your newer teammate was working. But gosh, there's just something about that acknowledgment urgency. And I think urgency in those moments equals care that really is projected onto prospects, new customers and by the way, we're talking about this friends, family, relating to all of that. Yeah, this is all because we're also dealing with people, right. When you have a business card out at particular time or you're just sitting around watching a Ravens game, those relationships and those interactions, I don't know why they would have to feel different or be different. I mean, you just hit something that's great that I do a lot with customers that I never did when I was younger in business. And just that simple idea of same team, I will say that a lot. Someone will say thank you and I'll say, of course, we're on the same team. It's almost like what else would I have done? You and I are in this together and I know it and you need to know it. And while thank you for saying thank you, I would never have shown up any differently because we are on the same team, especially in the packaging world. Our delivery and your delivery are absolutely in full synchronization. We literally deliver together.
We're not using some willy willy nilly word called delivery. We are delivering stuff together. So that's something that I recognize that's new or just having.
I think the experience and comfort and familiarity has me able to approach back to my piece about putting yourself in other people's shoes, having a better recognition of what other people are doing personally, professionally, and being able to get to deeper understand them more quickly than I did as a much younger human or younger business leader. For sure.
[00:40:35] Speaker B: And to expand on this conversation, same but different. The one thing I can truly say and feel proud of is that I have never, ever compromised on being nice and kind to people ever. My whole life.
Now, that doesn't take away from the fact that hard conversations are had. You have to have a hard conversation. You have to say things that people don't like. But from day one, I have never, at least not that I know of, not intentionally burned a bridge. And that piece, no matter how frustrated you are, no matter what you want to say, I'm sure there are things I've said that I want to take back, but I can't think of one relationship that I've ever burned a bridge or haven't respected the loyalty of a partnership or haven't at least brought it to the table. If I felt like maybe there was something we were doing that would have broken that trust. So I think just keeping that, no matter what you're doing, no matter how you're feeling, just be nice, no matter how you feel about someone, even when we're dealing with total assholes, I'll have a hard stance and then my position will be, we're just not going to do work with them again. Right. But I won't be an asshole about it. And I have stuck to that and it has never let me down.
[00:41:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I think if I've gotten in trouble and still too occasionally at this time as a little bit more experienced person, it's where I was feeling pressure in a particular moment and instead of getting myself under control, I actually let that pressure onto the next person in line. Could have been a supplier, could have been a teammate, could have been someone. But instead of getting that under control and diffusing it, my job as a leader is to diffuse things and make sure that the next interaction comes without all of that heat and all of that pressure because it can cloud the rest of the world. My job is to distill that and diffuse that and then invite somebody into the conversation who can help or help solve. So I would say if I'm looking backwards, if and when I get it wrong, I probably did it last week. I also think the other thing that's different and challenging.
When I was new to the market, there was no written conversation, right? I mean, short of writing a letter. Think about a world and you may or may not tommy, you don't remember a world without email where everything oh, I remember.
[00:43:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Even in High for us, I didn't use email much. We had dial up, we had aim.
[00:43:12] Speaker A: Was starting, but that's really changed the game, because at least when you were talking to someone and it could have been on a phone, but it could have been 2D phone or 1D could have been 3D person. At least you had the benefit of inflection, right? If I told you to F yourself, there's lots of different ways to say that. There's a Chuckling Kidding version and there's a hard hitting I really mean this version.
[00:43:34] Speaker B: Right.
[00:43:35] Speaker A: And at least you had the benefit of inflection in those interactions where, man, now I find myself, whether it's email or text, I am generally projecting my understanding based on either who you are to me and what our relationship generally feels and sounds like, or which is even worse, our last interaction or the mood you're in. Or the mood I'm in. Yeah, absolutely. And I do catch myself know, Mick benefit of the doubt here. Right?
[00:44:05] Speaker B: And that's so relatable to life. Like your personal up, as we always talk about made up stories and I've always said that is such a great way to disarm somebody when you're having, especially in personal life, going into a conversation, that it's a hard conversation, saying, listen, this is my made up story, or this could be my made up story, but this is how I'm feeling. You completely disarm somebody when you say that. And I think that leads to a great open conversation.
[00:44:34] Speaker A: Yeah, no, but that's back to that comment about youngest at 23 and oldest at 73. Think about how much communication has changed in that period of time and it just complicates things a little bit more. And that's before you get into how easy it is to fake and false things now, too right. Whatever all the different methods are, I don't know, the evolution of communication between us as humans and mammals for the next period of time is going to be something. It really is.
[00:45:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:45:09] Speaker A: So that's mine. That is one of mine.
[00:45:11] Speaker B: Wow. We've gotten through a whole whopping, too I told you.
[00:45:14] Speaker A: These are great topics, right? These should take a minute to get rid of.
[00:45:17] Speaker B: Well, we've also expanded on many different routes, and actually we've hit more on several of mine.
Honing in on one topic and then taking little tree branches out. So we've hit on others. Let's do one more because this feels good. And I want to talk about and this is another one I feel so strongly about.
There is this notion these days there's something underlying about we had a whole podcast episode about this, but that hard work as an enemy, as toxic. And this is something that goes like, I never thought hard work would be something that people would start fighting against and this is one of those pendulum issues.
But the reality is that when you are starting, that is all you have. And to take that a step further, there were so many things that I said yes to, like you hear all the time, create a niche. It could be a product or a service. Stay in your lane. Make sure you're only saying yes to things that you know how to do really well. I did not abide by that. I said yes to so many things that so many things were I didn't even know how to get the product yet, right? I'm telling this customer, I will deliver the product. I didn't even know where to get it yet. And you have to be resourceful hungry and scrappy in the beginning. There's no reason for anybody to use your product or your service when you're just getting started. You have no history. You add no value to this person. Yet I'm sure they have a lot of other people to go to. So you have to take what you can get. You have not earned the right to cherry pick and figure out what you want to do. Eventually when you start taking all these things on, you're going to learn what you're good at and what you suck at. And then eventually you're going to have the opportunity and the privilege to hone in on those certain things. But you have to simply outwork it and say yes to a lot of things that are outside of your lane. Period. That's just the way it worked. And it works. And there's something that I was thinking about. There was a LinkedIn post and this is no disrespect for this woman who started a business. In fact, it's incredibly awesome. Started a business in the construction space and she wrote something about she's excited to finally have work life balance. And I wrote something like it was celebrating that she start a business, take the risk on, but you're going to lose even more work life balance than you've ever had in your life. Don't start a business to get work life balance. And then she came back and said, well, I think we're looking at it different. I did this and I was always miserable and I worked twelve hour days. I'm excited now to be able to take like a midday walk and when my husband comes back, greet him and not be totally exhausted. And I'm thinking if you're taking midday walks in six months to a year and you're not exhausted and a little bit angry when your husband comes home, then you're a better woman than I am because I don't know any business owner who's six to seven months in is taking a midday walk like you're freaking working. So do you have anything to interject because I just keep going. No, okay.
[00:48:40] Speaker A: Of course I do. Yeah, I always do.
[00:48:41] Speaker B: So I just think this but I always pick my I'm going in, like two different routes here, but I just think don't expect a hat for it to be you now have this work life balance, and now you're going to be able to select what you want to do. And now you're just going to be able to hone in your passions and not do all the bullshit that you didn't want to do at your corporate job. And now it doesn't work like that. You have to do it all. You have to take on shit you don't like. You don't have a life at all.
[00:49:09] Speaker A: But turn this into a life experience because we always talk about business. The life experience was the life experience.
[00:49:16] Speaker B: So here it is, the life experience being and I'll hone on the saying yes to things.
In life, you have to explore all of your curiosities and different things, and you cannot do that if you're not saying yes to a lot of things, if you're not trying things that are out of your comfort zone, if you're not trying things that scare you, maybe you're not even interested in. So it's about saying yes to a lot of things and exploring them. I think there are so many things that people walk away from in life or even on their deathbed, they haven't tried so many things because it wasn't in their lips. Whatever lane they put themselves in a box or we put ourselves in a box, or everybody else says, get outside yourself and say yes and explore your curiosities and figure out what you like and you don't like. And you can't do that if you don't just say yes to a lot of things. And you've got to put the work in to figure it out. It's not easy.
[00:50:15] Speaker A: Well, I think for some people, too, and I think that's easier. Our personality types are very much that way, too. I would imagine there's a fear component for some people as far as saying yes to things and you will fail. Oh, yeah.
[00:50:28] Speaker B: Hard yeah.
[00:50:29] Speaker A: Well, let's just say, for example, though, whatever all those different experiences are, I recognized I'm going to start with business, but also how it dovetailed into everything else. I would kid and say when I got involved in the business, we were 65 years old, 60 years old, something along those lines. But for a company that was as old as we were, we were known well by certain customers that relied on us. But in the market, despite being a 60 year old Baltimore business with one zip code, we were pretty stealth. I mean, who wants to be a stealth company? Jesus Christ. That's the exact opposite you want to be. And so in that exact vein, started saying yes to lots of things and getting out there and realizing what I didn't know. I mean, I only knew my tiny little shell. But the singing thing that we're talking know, having grown up one way and trying to explore all these different mean last episode was pretty hard hitting. When I went back and listened to the raw data and realized that I was going to wrap up with a spreadsheet, I was like, Jesus Christ. I mean, I'm not going to be here forever. Nobody is. But I'm closer than further now. If you look at the way Brian.
[00:51:37] Speaker B: Johnson is, the way it works, who's going to be here forever? He's not going to die.
[00:51:42] Speaker A: Well, at the speed at which healthcare is working and the dots that AI is going to connect, that could very well be the case. But yeah, no, I completely agree.
Getting out of that whatever that mundane piece would be and not experiencing new things or the other way too is only doing it on a gizmo or a device, not actually getting out into the three dimensional world and experiencing it and all the awesome humans that are there too, because that's really the differentiator when we travel. It's the people. I mean, it really is. I mean, there's lots of pretty things on this big rock that we all live on, but man, the people are what really give it the texture for me.
[00:52:24] Speaker B: But I'm going to pull it back in here as a wrap up. So the one thing I will say when people start businesses, myself included, everybody, you have this vision of what your company is going to be and a lot of people want to stay. They want to follow that vision. They want to pick jobs that are aligned with that vision. Thank God I didn't do that because we've expanded and I took on so many peripheral things that weren't in my direct line of sight that have worked out for us. So hold that vision. I would say loosely, when you're getting started, you've got to take on those opportunities because you might not survive if you don't truly.
And then the other thing I will add is saying yes to things that you aren't quite capable or equipped or knowledgeable about. Doing again can seem reckless to some people or even maybe manipulative to a customer that you're telling you can do it, but if you care enough and if you're willing to outwork it, you will figure out a way. It's just something when you're a starving entrepreneur, you do figure it out no matter how scary it is. Do you get the job done incredibly well and as good as a very experienced company? No. Some of our GC jobs that we took on were, I mean, like restaurant jobs in the that's with all the equipment and they're not easy.
[00:53:59] Speaker A: Codes.
[00:53:59] Speaker B: Codes? Oh, absolutely everything. But we got it done. Now looking back and I'm friends, great friends with the guys we did it with and they know we did everything. We got the projects done. Ultimately we got them done on time and I'd say relatively in budget. Were they perfect? Absolutely not. When I look back now, I would change everything. But you get resource. Something about it I can't explain it. You get so resourceful and you figure it out. So when you're sitting here thinking, well, I just don't want to do that, you have to. And you will figure it out. If you give a shit enough.
[00:54:36] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:54:37] Speaker B: And that's life.
[00:54:38] Speaker A: And just to add on to that and yes. And like always we talk about a lot of times about business being developed by solving a problem. Right? That's a great way. And that could also be akin to identifying demand, if you will. They're closely related, but it doesn't mean it's the only problem that needs to be solved and that you can take on other problems and you might be able to build that muscle into something that is a very valuable part of your offering in the long term. Same thing about life.
You might find something that, man, you just never been exposed to the way you grew up. Your family did this, they didn't do that. Therefore you were generally dragged along because that's what kids are, right? You're dragged along with whatever your family likes and you might find something, break out of something and find it. It's where you should have been all along. Or you have a superpower in that space and you happen to love it too and that would be as good as it gets. Yeah, but you don't know until you try. You don't. Business and personal.
[00:55:37] Speaker B: Absolutely. And a lot of this comes down to if I'm thinking again, I always at the end of our podcast think about common threads and always come back to a lot of this in the beginning. Maybe it's different if you're coming in with a shit ton of money and backing and don't have to worry. But that's not how most of us are coming in. I bootstrapped the business had nothing and I think that's how a lot of other folks are coming in and it comes down to that. Evolutionary survivorship. Just like if you were out in the wild, you figure it out to survive and you will do whatever and you get the job done. Maybe that sounds dramatic, but it's really not. When you don't have anything to fall back on when your feet are to the fire and that's while scary. The best thing that ever happened to me was not having a single thing to rely on. Like your feet are to the fire it'sink or swim. I don't have anywhere to go from here. And that's how shit got done. Sure, if I didn't have that, I don't know if I would have gotten it done. So when you're in those situations, as many of us are, it could be in a relationship. It could be personal finances. It could be a job, whatever that is. Keep swimming. When you have to survive, you will. You'll figure it out. So that's what I got to say.
[00:56:54] Speaker A: Well, that was only three topics, and man, that was as fast as anything we've ever done. That was zippy. Well done.
[00:57:00] Speaker B: Yeah. I think we could turn this into a little miniseries.
[00:57:03] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I've got any number of these that are still on my paper here.
[00:57:06] Speaker B: We could turn this into, like, a.
[00:57:07] Speaker A: Whole to get through whole season.
We can. We can.
[00:57:11] Speaker B: All right.
[00:57:12] Speaker A: Awesome. That was fun.
[00:57:13] Speaker B: Yeah, it was totally fun. Come over to my I love this so much.
[00:57:17] Speaker A: I can tell. I can tell. You almost came across a table at me four times.
[00:57:22] Speaker B: Maybe one day we'll do this full time, because this would just be we'll just sit here all day and record.
[00:57:26] Speaker A: Yeah, we could, but we have got to make sure we're also out there collecting things, because is changing fast.
[00:57:31] Speaker B: No, I'm just going to sit in this room and just talk about things.
[00:57:34] Speaker A: All right, cool. Okay, I'm going to go help.
[00:57:37] Speaker B: Okay, bye. You report back.
[00:57:40] Speaker A: Love you. Bye.
[00:57:40] Speaker B: Love you. Bye.
