Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Cheers.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: Cheers.
[00:00:12] Speaker A: We have our famous, well, it's famous toss McBrick drinking here in our McBrick cups.
A little cocktail celebration going to Memorial Day weekend.
[00:00:23] Speaker B: Yes indeed.
[00:00:24] Speaker A: I think it's only right.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: I think we have all earned it. Domi and John, thank you so much.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: For all the amazing production work you guys do.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: Yeah, cheers.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Listening us blubber on for hours on end.
[00:00:34] Speaker A: So the great thing is we just get to jump right back into it. We didn't have to do much prep work because we have seven tips left from last week. So anybody who's not familiar with last week's episode, we are talking. I surprised Mick. Mick had no. Mick, you had no idea what was to come in the episode. And I came up with 17 tips along the way for entrepreneurs starting a business. And I wanted to go back and revisit them as we talked about and see if a, I still agreed with them and B, what your thoughts were. And I think they're really valuable tips because these are all retrospect of what I learned, but also some of them I disagree with or my philosophy has evolved. So I thought it was really cool to go back and forth over them and maybe valuable insight. So we got through ten and we have seven more to go. So I'm going to hop right back into number eleven. Number eleven, tips for entrepreneurs.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: Square that up.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: Yes, sir.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: I want the audience to hear your brilliance.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Yes, sir. If you're not on literal pause, let me get it ready for this.
Okay. Number eleven. Keep business and personal affairs separate is an outdated philosophy. My strongest partnerships are intimate and extend far beyond work. Shoot.
[00:02:01] Speaker B: Yeah, completely agree. I think I watched my father, who was quite the master, he had incredibly deep relationships. It wasn't until I got to be older that I realized that the Mr. Smiths and Mr. Jones and the people that he hung out with were the purchasing person from or the director of engineering of or whoever his particular target audiences were. And we were at their daughter's wedding. I mean, that was the depth. There wasn't every single customer. And I think certain people are more into it or want to make that time than others. And I think it's very similar to the laws of attraction that you would find anywhere. It just happens that you got connected through business, but if there's things that you share and you likely have certain things in common just by virtue of being in the same industry or whatever, you connect on from a business perspective, that's a great start. And then if there happens to be other things you connect on. You have kids that are the same age or you have interests outside that are similar. My father used golf to connect quite a bit. That was something where a lot of his relationships inside business, they took to the golf course and spent time on the golf course together. That was a big driver. That was where I met a lot of them, too. I was generally caddying or running around the cart or whatever I was doing at seven, 8910, eleven years old. And generally he took those business relationships and they played golf together, or he invited their wives into the mix, and my mom, who worked for the business too, and it just became one big thing. There wasn't a separation or a work this and a personal that. There was that work life, synergy, harmony that we talk about a lot. And he just invited his customers in the same way we do. I think it's changed. It seemed to be deeper then than it is now. And certainly a lot of the rules and requirements, if you will, of big companies have changed. I mean, some of that stuff is just frowned upon because people make dumb decisions along the way, whether that was kickbacks or whatever that was. That had big companies, government organizations, subcontractors of government organizations, publicly traded companies say, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm not sure this is in the best interest of the rest of our shareholders or stakeholders, but no, I think, God, what a great way to do it. If you could spend time with people that you enjoy and it happens to be part of work, I think that's as good as it gets. That's great. Why would you ever want to have to have a this or that? I think humans in general want it all. And if you can mix it all together and have it be incredibly successful. And I think it comes back to the alignment, though, that we talked about. Right? I mean, just because you work with somebody doesn't mean you're going to connect and be like, oh, my God, let's hang out Saturday, or whatever that would be. But no, gosh, I think the tighter you can keep all of that, it just makes it easier. And, man, there's nothing wrong with easy in spots.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: I agree.
But playing devil's advocate, a lot of what I heard and was told as advice when I was starting my business is make sure you keep your personal and your work separate. Right? Don't have those intimate relationships, whether it's a friendship or family. Keep them separate, keep emotions out. Business is business. And I heard that a lot.
[00:05:15] Speaker B: Do you remember from where, just out of curiosity, I mean, I love these. A lot of times you talk about, well, the saying is and it's always like, well, let's drill down on who had that saying is because their brother ran off with all the money and embezzled. I mean, then they'd be like, no, don't do brother stuff. I'd be curious to know where that comes from or what particular experience would have someone make a statement like that.
[00:05:35] Speaker A: No, I don't recall. I can't pinpoint. But it was a lot of different people, and I remember it being from all generations, all different kind of companies.
It wasn't like, okay, this specific group of people is giving that advice. I just remember hearing it a lot and thinking, I just can't subscribe to that because I feel the same so strongly. I've got to connect with the people I'm working with. Again, I'll do business with people that are just great to do business with, and we don't have to be best friends, but the ones that are so much better. And again, that's how I built my business, on just people I trusted so much.
The first contracts, well, you know, with our friend Mike McDevitt, the first contracts I had, and they were just on a handshake, and he knew he could find someone better to do that work. He absolutely knew because I was just starting. But he trusted me so much, and I trusted him that we had a handshake, we had no contracts. And just that loyalty then, that set the tone for everything else I did moving forward. And now, obviously, as we've gotten bigger and there's so much more at risk, we've got to do contracts and all of that. And I've lost that ability to just do a handshake and put my trust in the trust. But it was interesting because I just found the opposite of what I was told. So I don't know. That's our experience. Maybe people would have a great argument otherwise and have seen different things.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think you learn what's really interesting is when something changes about that relationship and then you realize who you're still in contact with. So, Mike McDevitt, still in contact with, even though you don't even get into the general contracting piece anymore, still on speed dial as needed, still back and forth, talking about ideas, business ventures, working with a lot of publicly traded companies or bigger companies. People come and go. The organizations change. You have people that you love working with that leave. Either they leave on their own, or the organization changes and they get jettisoned and you're still talking to them. I saw, I missed a call from one of those very types of people today that we still just talk. I mean, we're not on each other's regular business grid for the moment, but we will be. I mean, the second he's back in that space. And I also know, regardless of where it is in the country, we'll be reconnected in that regard. So I think an interesting indicator is when that situation changes and you're no longer connected by business, even if it's momentarily and they're still in your office, in your life, then you know you were doing something that was right, and the alignment is just there, and the attraction is there. And business just happened to fit in, too, which is great. That was the connector, not the reason for the connection.
[00:08:13] Speaker A: Yeah. One interesting thing, and just an offshoot, last offshoot for this point, the one thing I learned that Mike taught me so early on, he was just a great example and still is.
So here's a guy that has. He's been the CEO of some big companies.
He's just such an entrepreneur, has so many things going on at all times, but he has the same group of people that he brings from company to company to company. So if you look at one of his companies, whether it was in the cannabis business, or whether it was in the food delivery business or law firm, all these things he does, he always has the same group of people. And why? Because he realized very early on it was more about having the trust in a group of people, more so than the skill set. Are they all talented people? Absolutely. But every single one of those people has his back, and vice versa, and they've been able to create a multitude of companies together. I mean, it's amazing. And he brought me in as one of those trusted people, and he'll just go from project to project with you and drag you along or invite you in, whatever it is. But that was such a great lesson, and I think she just does it immaculately.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: Sure. Totally agree. Yeah. And people that are in business, if you do get to make the choices, and I would absolutely love. I mean, I would love it if all of our customers were really close friends. There's bandwidth limitations to it, but I could name 20 right now that are super close. That even to the point where in a pinch or a pickle, if I called them, they'd answer and come and help. I mean, that's how close you can get in spots if you're doing good work together.
[00:09:51] Speaker A: Is immaculately a word?
[00:09:54] Speaker B: I think it's the adverb version of immaculate. Yeah. And anything. Could you put an l, you can check that.
[00:09:59] Speaker A: Put an ly on immaculately. Because I'm going to look back at that and be like, you know, my feeler.
[00:10:05] Speaker B: But, you know, I feel. I feel about grammar.
[00:10:07] Speaker A: I know.
[00:10:09] Speaker B: Yeah. I might have snuck an ly onto something that's not sounds.
[00:10:12] Speaker A: I often think.
[00:10:13] Speaker B: How about adjectivable?
[00:10:17] Speaker A: Here's my true belief. I do think that you can create words that are not in the dictionary that people will generally understand. So even if immaculately, it's not a word, I'm pretty sure everybody knows what I'm talking about. So I think everyone has the freedom.
[00:10:33] Speaker B: You guys working on a fact check yet?
[00:10:35] Speaker A: I think everybody has the freedom to create words. And you can put ly or even. There's some words that just sound a certain way. They don't really mean that, but they sound a certain way. And I'm pretty sure that if I said it, everybody, at least in this room, would be thinking, it means that thing.
[00:10:50] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that's true. I mean, Miriam Webster may strongly disagree. I'd intend to side with him, of course. It's a hymn.
[00:10:57] Speaker A: It's an old book.
All right, hopping to number twelve.
Number twelve, stop focusing on outsourcing and delegating. You're a startup. Do it yourself. Learn it all.
[00:11:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I think early on, I think we've talked about this before, right? You've talked about entrepreneurs who you listen to on other podcasts. Now, granted, they're on the podcast because they made it that their way or whatever choices that they made worked. They wouldn't be interviewing that person from their cardboard box, living somewhere else. So I think that's to a point. And I'm sure John Marsh over here laughing at me right now to a point. If I could go back, and I don't know that I would be as deep in certain things, but it's hard for me to figure out when you start in a business when you're 13, because you get a c plus in math. I don't necessarily know what I learned at 13 versus 14 versus 19 versus whatever. I know that by virtue of being around here for 40 years, there's nuggets of all kinds of stuff. I would say that there are certain things you should know on your own.
There are certain things you can't outsource, right? I mean, your business or your core. You've got to be an expert at your core. But certainly some of the things on the fringe that I learned, there's also things I learned the hard way.
We headed off a cyberattack at the pass this week. I would love to not know about cyberattacks because it means I wouldn't have experienced one. So there's any number of things along the way. You're like, well, how do you have that knowledge? And you're thinking, well, because it was done to me. I got ripped in or dragged into the Teamsters union trying to organize our transportation group. Why do you know about that? It wasn't because I studied it. It's because it happened to us, and we went into mental warfare to try to get ourselves out of that situation. But I would be more than happy to never know anything about national labor relations board negotiations. Be like, what do you know about that? I wish I never knew anything about it. So some of that stuff, you just get pulled in, and if the threat level is high enough like that, like cyber, like whatever, then you have to become an expert. And I'm calling people in from the other side, too. We have a labor attorney or whoever those trusted advisors would be. But, man, in the moment, you are battening down the hatches as fast as you can. And some of that stuff you just have to learn or know some other things along the way that I probably know more about than I would like to. And given the opportunity, if I were starting later in life or wasn't sweeping floors at 13 because of a c, maybe I would have passed on or moved on from those a little faster. But I think at least as long as my duration has been here, it's hard to disseminate when I actually got the knowledge. So I don't get the option of walking it back or saying I should have moved on from that. And then you throw in some of the traumatic events that make you an expert because you don't have a choice. You really can't get past those either. You have to learn on the fly, because survival, in some of the situations, like cyberattacks, your survival could be at risk, and you have to respond with that type of speed.
[00:14:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I wrote these specifically for really, startups and starting entrepreneurs. And I was writing it. I probably wrote these a year or two in. So it was really about startups. And I remember just thinking, when I am so overwhelmed, when can I outsource some of this bullshit that I thought was, and I couldn't because I didn't have the cash to. But there are some that do have the cash and they can outsource, and I just say, don't, as long as you can do it, even to the point where it just feels overwhelming. Do it. Because now I know every single part of my business. It was the best thing I ever did and not, I've talked about this on another podcast, but the second you sort outsourcing stuff, if you bring consultants in, they're giving the same advice to a lot of other companies. So all of a sudden, anything original is no longer original.
And I think there's something to be said for thinking for yourself, getting creative inside your business, doing things that no one else is doing. And the second you start outsourcing, you do lose that.
[00:15:17] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think part of the goal of our podcast is to just have these conversations and hope that people are listening that are in those spots. I think one interesting cutover might be the word opportunity cost. Right? So if when you get to the point that you doing this or continuing that particular activity is hurting the growth of the business because you're not doing that, opportunity cost is what it's costing you by doing this versus that. So in that moment, if you're to the point where you look at it and maybe you're still doing heavy duty accounting, like pick something that's not our superpower, certainly not my superpower, where if I'm still doing accounting and the cost of me doing accounting is starting to cut into growth or whatever the things that I'm really good at are, maybe that's a reasonable cutover point. I didn't stop to think about it until this exact second. But if you're trying to come up with, all right, well, when do I flip the switch and that becomes okay, if you will, right. To say, you know what? I know enough about accounting, because the other thing you have to do as it relates to something like accounting, you have to make sure that your dollars are where they're supposed to be. So without some type of knowledge, how would you know if your dollars are where they're supposed to be? But once you have that type of knowledge and it's keeping you from doing what you're great at, maybe that's a reasonable cutover point.
[00:16:32] Speaker A: Absolutely. And as I told you, I made these very black and white.
When I write on social media, it is to be a bit polarizing, so I don't leave any gray area. Right. There is exceptions once you get past a certain point. Of course, this is more on the startup side of things, but I'm actually there now, and it's almost seven years in, where I'm becoming a bottleneck in a lot of things, and I realize it. So now I'm just getting to the point where full delegation is starting to happen. But I'm still a part of every meeting with our CPA. Like I'm still a part of the meetings where I'm hoping to be. Okay, this is full delegation. I'm not there. Not even close.
[00:17:11] Speaker B: Do you want to hear an interesting one from this morning in our executive meeting? We haven't had a chance to talk about this. It was 5 hours ago. So the question. There's any number of meeting formats we have where we start with a question. The question this morning was, and this was the first time I've seen this from one of my directs and teammates. Split the question up between me and the rest of the room. And the question for the rest of.
[00:17:31] Speaker A: The room was, and these are few.
[00:17:34] Speaker B: My, yeah, my five directs. And the question was, what would you do in the next week that would allow Mick to work more on the business than in the business?
And the answers were fascinating, and I knew what they were. We know the questions. Before we go in, I had to determine who the funniest people in the company were. That's the softballs they give me.
I had pen in hand, waiting anxiously to write down the answers that came back. And there was one that was really simple and it was chain of command would be, well, when you really feel like answering that question, don't. Right? Figure out who. Figure out who in your group owns that ultimately, and push it down through them.
[00:18:18] Speaker A: And I thought, well, what if they don't answer quick enough for your liking?
[00:18:23] Speaker B: Then I should be at least. So I said, laughing, I said, well, maybe I should call it train of command, not chain of command, because there's likely training opportunities. This one in particular was silly, meaning I should not have been involved in it. Silly where something came over. Our ERP system shoots out all kinds of stuff, and I saw a description that was off and the right play would have been to push it down through my vp of sales, and who would have gone to the proper channel and said, let's do a better job of writing these, and here's why it matters. And I could have used that as a training opportunity, but instead I just replied to the group, I was on an airplane, I was moving high speed. But I need to be more intentional about saying, wait a minute. To answer your question, if I had gone through the proper channel or chain, and I didn't think the answer was fast enough, then I probably would get the person on the side and say, maybe a little more urgency would be appropriate there, or something like that. But that wouldn't have been one of those moments and I wouldn't have known anyway because I just would have pushed it to the proper portion of the business and then had all the trust in the world that it got executed. And that trust component, I think, is as important as anything. But you get there through demonstration, right? You watch your teammates do it over and over and you're like, of course I know that's done. Why would I ever spend one more second thinking about it? So that might be something that my team taught me this morning that could be of value, too. Is that chain of command idea where you're trying to delegate? Well, the first thing would be, all right, well, who should really own this, and how do I use this as a moment to train them? Because if I don't, they're never going to learn and then I'm never actually going to be able to unbuckle from this particular task that happened. So that's a one that happened to us this morning, which was a really interesting conversation right up there with executive assistant. We can talk about that one later.
[00:20:05] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, that's very.
They call EA and very common in the UK. I've learned everyone has an EA in the UK and that's like, what the person they rely on that knows everything about them. It's really interesting.
[00:20:19] Speaker B: So could that chain of command idea work with where you are? Because I don't know. That's a side.
[00:20:23] Speaker A: It's my biggest challenge. I can't do it. I mean, I suck at it. I cannot wait if I see it lingering and I know who should own it. And by the way, they have the right. They might be working on something else to take a second, but I have to respond. But I'm getting better at it. At least I'm conscious of it now and really working on it, but it's really hard.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: Try that. Maybe that chain thing will resonate. Certainly resonate with me. It reminds me of days of golf. Right. I would say my best golf instructors said things that my body could understand. When you could articulate something about the golf swing which has a thousand angles in it at any given time, my favorite or best teachers or coaches said things that my body can understand. That was a moment where the team said something that I could understand, like, yes, that I get. I'm compelled to respond now, take the extra second, take a breath, figure out the chain and execute through the appropriate chain. So that's something I can do that makes sense.
[00:21:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:23] Speaker B: And I'm sure some people have said dissimilar to me a thousand times. And part of reason, it just didn't make sense. So I think those are called epiphanies. I got an epiphany today.
[00:21:32] Speaker A: I like it.
[00:21:33] Speaker B: Adjective of that.
[00:21:35] Speaker A: Okay, let's move on to number 13.
The longer you think about it, the more paralyzed you are going to get. Now, here's what people love or hate.
Just start messy. Ready. Fire. Aim.
What do you think about that philosophy?
[00:21:56] Speaker B: Well, first thing I would say is I love how polarizing these questions are. And I know when you wrote them and they were in social, and none of this is about walking any of that back. I still think so many of these. And I've watched the responses. When you post things like this, I watch the responses and some of them create those epiphany moments that I was just talking about. So they're super valuable. Right up there. Shoot first, ask questions later.
[00:22:22] Speaker A: Yes, like this. Ready, fire. Aim. I really thought it was pretty innocent, like whatever that got so many comments about both disagreement and agreement.
[00:22:34] Speaker B: What would you say with the line was heavier disagreement, agreement or 50 50?
[00:22:40] Speaker A: It was 50 50. Or swayed a little bit more on the side of disagreement.
[00:22:46] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, I remember I was really fortunate. This was years and years ago. Baltimore used to have this day of speakers, and this particular one that I went to was Barbara Bush and Lou Holtz, famous coach from Notre Dame.
But the one that I remember most and we'll speak about is, and, you know, Norman Schwarzkopf would laugh, know, he's telling these stories about how they would have these hours long meetings and hours long meetings. And after a while, just like, look, we have to make a choice.
We've, we've talked about this enough. And I think if you're going to do reasonable research into something or you're going to do the discipline, that's fine. But his point was that so few of those decisions that they were talking about were actual battlefield decisions. I mean, even if they got it wrong, it wasn't going to wreck the ship or take out. They weren't going to lose the battle. So I think in that regard, ready, aim. Fire. And you and I talked, too, right. This idea of e equals r times c. Just the idea that as long as that you and your team are committed. Right. Becomes a little less important. So I think if you wrap it in that context, that ready, fire, aim piece is if you fire and you're a little off target, that as long as you have the commitment from your team, you can pivot and still get it right. So I could see why that might be like, oh, my God, that would be terrifying to certain people. Right. The fact that you wouldn't do all of this diligence, the due diligence component, I'm not sure that's what that says. And if you wrap it in the idea that you have a particular commitment level, then I think if that's the opposite of sit around and overthink it, then I'm a huge fan of that.
[00:24:32] Speaker A: I truly believe the biggest thing that holds people back is just the inability to execute or why. I mean, who knows? It could be because you're scared. Whatever that reason is, there are so many people with wonderful ideas. The only difference between the people that do it and don't is just some type of fear to launch. That's it. I mean, that really is a differentiator. You could have somebody that if they could just launch, they would be light years ahead of the next best person who just did it.
[00:25:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:05] Speaker A: That's the difference.
[00:25:05] Speaker B: For some, though, will never be enough information in the world to actually make a choice.
[00:25:09] Speaker A: Drive yourself insane.
[00:25:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
And if you attempt to be an entrepreneur with that mindset or too much of that mindset, then certainly failure could be in the offing for you.
[00:25:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
Okay.
Number 14, there should be no crying in.
[00:25:26] Speaker B: Glad I have great eyesight. From a distance, that one's pretty fun.
[00:25:29] Speaker A: There should be no crying in business. Literally. Take it personal and you'll never make it. Now, here's the thing. There's a large contingency. Wow. Contingency. Of women that have started actually being a little bit vocal about this particular thing recently. I would say recently in the last couple of years about it's important to show your emotions and you shouldn't have to hide that. And that vulnerability piece that a lot of people are talking about.
You're not going to see me cry in business. You're just not. I'm not going to do it.
But I think the general feeling and opinion about this has changed in the last few years.
[00:26:13] Speaker B: Yeah. I think the word that you hit.
[00:26:15] Speaker A: On and this is crying. But of course, it's not just crying. It's probably more about just bleeding open with emotions. And it's not just crying. You get what I. It's an overall concept.
[00:26:30] Speaker B: Yeah. I think representation. Well, there's about a bazillion definitions of that word. Right. Does that mean whining and complaining, too? If that's part of it, then I completely agree. But you hit on the word vulnerability, which I think. I love the idea that the world is more open to vulnerability. I mean, I grew up. I've said this 20 times on this podcast in a short period podcast.
How are you going to start sharpening?
Be careful.
Yeah. My father would be 102 if he were alive. So that idea of stiff upper lip, beat it down, fight it down.
Not a fan of that. I actually think that there's a huge component of the population that if you ask for help, they'll give it to you, they'll welcomely give it to you. And no part of that has anything to do with weakness or lack of capability or anything that's negative that you might align with that emotion. So I love that part.
If that has anything to do with complaining or making excuses, if that's the direction that you're taking crying, then I do have a problem with that complaining. And that part I'm not a fan of. But the vulnerability side, whatever that piece is, I'm a huge fan of and I do see more of it. And we certainly, I know here at Arnold packaging, we encourage it and we have an emerging thought leaders group. And one of the main things, or one of the things I love about and think we are accomplishing is creating that safe space. And I don't know, I just thought that the newer generations coming into the workforce, I think I just thought that was ingrained in them already. It's like, yeah, well, my boomer dad was like, I'll give you something to cry about. That whole mentality from the past, I think I just made the assumption incorrectly in spots or made up story that the newer generations are coming with that built into them. Some are, some aren't. Just like my generation, all of them, some are, some aren't. So it's great that we can create that space to say, yeah, of course you can say anything in here you want. And if the other eleven people in the room have something of value to contribute or share an experience, and that was the whole goal, right? I mean, God, don't do the hard stuff. Jesus, if we've already screwed it up once, then let us tell you about it. So you can miss the pain and agony and most important time, the time that you lose when you're in midst of screwing it up. Let us help you by not wasting that number again. The way you write these questions, that's.
[00:29:07] Speaker A: Why they're good to talk about.
[00:29:08] Speaker B: Yeah, there's any number of words in these questions, like both of these, the word crying, depending on how you read that word, then if you're talking about far, you're like, no, I think vulnerability is good. And then if I'm over here going, if you're showing up to complain, you're not going to be around very long. So there's two ways you could read that.
[00:29:22] Speaker A: One, I see separation in taking things personal and vulnerability. So I think that transparency, as I talk about all the time, telling your story and talking and just being raw, there's no power in your story, there's zero unless you're raw and vulnerable. And I just think that's the only way to connect with people. I really believe that. But then on the other side, you cannot take business personal. You can take it personal in the competitive. Like, wow, I really wanted to win that. I need to get better. But you've really got to separate your personal feelings and your wins and your losses to be able to be, I mean, it's not sustainable otherwise. So I look at those as two very separate things.
[00:30:03] Speaker B: Yeah, agree.
[00:30:05] Speaker A: All right, number 15, you will have to start selling your services or products before you are ready or even qualified to deliver. You better have the stomach for it.
[00:30:16] Speaker B: Yeah, 100% agree. Our automation division was a fake it until you become it. Venture in spots.
We were tons of terrible puns coming at all of you, I apologize. But we were absolutely building the plane while we were flying it.
And that was okay.
That was fine.
I felt like we were taking on the appropriate amount of risk and we're coming out of a period of time in the organization with a lot of financial strength. And we were able to make those types of investments and we were fortunate enough to identify the people that we needed to make them go sooner than later. But yeah, absolutely.
If you wait for perfection, what does that even look like?
That would also be to assume that you know exactly, perfectly or best what the course of that product. You said product. So maybe it's a product, maybe it's a service, it doesn't matter.
[00:31:14] Speaker A: It says service or product.
[00:31:16] Speaker B: But you need to be taking input from the world real time as you are developing that. And you'd be ready to take some hard feedback. We've talked about hard feedback in here. You need to be able to listen to that hard feedback. And that's where I think social channels and any number of things where you have good, well intended people. I mean, dicks, there's haters and dicks everywhere. But if that's coming into your space, that may not be productive, but people that truly care or are interested and say, well, you might want to nudge it this way, or you might want to nudge it that way, or have you considered those are all great things along the way? And if you were so head down that you missed that input or you missed that type of feedback, then you would just be opening yourself up to failure, too. I mean, I've heard someone along the way. I was talking to. I was in a cargated plant a couple of years ago and I was with the owner and he was telling me a story and he said, someone asked me the other day, Mick, what is this place going to be? What do you want this place to be? And he said, my simple answer was, it's going to be what the customers want it to be. I'm going to listen to them and they're going to have demands, and I'm going to listen to where the market is underserved and we're going to pivot where appropriate. But simple answer was, it's going to be what the customers want it to be.
Part of that is picking the appropriate time to start, but far before it's perfect. Like you need that market feedback to get it to where it probably should be and to get it aligned with the particular demand that's out there. Because you think you know. But if no one ever shows up, right, I mean, there's lots of wonderful products that get designed or built that never hit the street, right? They never see the light of day because they were missing something.
[00:32:53] Speaker A: Now, would you say, you said, fake it till you make it, become it. Become it, make it. Is there any false representation or manipulation of the people you're working with?
[00:33:06] Speaker B: Well, that's a very tricky listen. Are there times where you might overextend or over embellish your capabilities to create some credibility? Yes, but I can tell you that while we didn't have the most experience yet, we had the talent.
All of my statements that had anything that sounded confident about them were based in the people that I knew were in the organization. Right, where our vp of automation is a rensalier educated biomechanical engineer. So had he done every single thing? No, actually, he had done very few things. But when I was making a pitch or a presentation, my confidence came from my confidence in that team's ability to solve, invent in spots. So were we stretching in areas where we didn't necessarily have direct experience? Had we built that widget solution? No, but I was out there banking on and even celebrating right when I'm telling stories, it even sounds celebratory when I'm pitching to a customer of what our team's capability and my confidence was. And then I will tell you, in retrospect, the ones that we did win, and there were lots, we never let anybody down. We delivered exactly what we said we were going to, to or above the lever that we said we were going to do it. Level. Yes, level.
[00:34:28] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, I agree. And one of the greatest lessons I had was when I was working with and for my uncle at the lumber company, and the good old legend Lou Grasmic would always pick up the phone. Actually, Lou Grasmic died seven years ago today to the day. He did. So much for Baltimore and what an amazing guy. But he would pick up the phone and say, yep, I got it coming to you tomorrow or Tuesday. Then he'd hang up the phone and be like, what the hell is that product?
He'd make us all run around and try to figure out. He couldn't even pronounce it, but he always delivered. And so much of the mentality that I have as, you know, my philosophy is, just be scrappy.
Figure it out. And he did. He was scrappy, and he would figure it out. Now, you could say, was he lying to the. You could spin it all kinds of ways. No, Lou just knew he'd figure it out, and he did. And that was my first direct observation in a corporate environment. And it made me laugh.
[00:35:38] Speaker B: All this corporate stuff he had built up, because you thought you knew what went on behind the curtain. And then he hung up the phone and said, what the hell is a lumber thing anyway?
[00:35:45] Speaker A: And then he would put so much pressure on everybody else, like, figure it out. And we would.
It was just that lesson. I was like, that's great. And it's fun, too, that chase, but it's ultimately, there's a difference between fake it so you make it, or fake it, but deliver.
They're two different things.
[00:36:04] Speaker B: I used to sit in with my dad, Hulu, and my father. I think.
[00:36:08] Speaker A: I'm sure they ran together.
[00:36:09] Speaker B: Oh, they absolutely ran together. Yeah. And I would love to have been a fly on the wall of those events, but we would have these conversations, and I was very. I mean, he passed when I was young, when we were talking about anything.
And I'd be probably over grinding or over preparing, and he'd finally go, Mick, until we have an order, we don't have a problem. Get your ass out there and get me an order. And then when I did, it would look like Lou, like, I got the order. He'd like, son of a bitch. I didn't think you'd ever get that order. All right, now then we were in figure it out mode. And just like Lou. He did. We did. But, yeah, that was. Until we have an order, we don't have a problem. I heard that a number of times.
[00:36:47] Speaker A: That never changes. Through every evolution of your business. We're going through it now, or whether we're opening different product lines or working with different distributors, you don't just have all this stuff. The minute you create this relationship, it's like, okay, you get your first order. Like, shit, let's celebrate. 30 seconds and you're like, oh, shit.
[00:37:08] Speaker B: Then you realize you have to deliver.
[00:37:10] Speaker A: It's what I live for, though. That is so exhilarating.
[00:37:13] Speaker B: You're looking behind, you're like, oh, that's right. I'm a one person show still.
[00:37:16] Speaker A: Yeah. It's so exhilarating and so stressful at the same time. But that's the beauty of business, and that's so important for an entrepreneur. If you don't get adrenaline rushes out of that, that's probably a telltale sign that probably shouldn't be an entrepreneur because that is the.
[00:37:31] Speaker B: Or what your reaction is to that. Right. Kill adrenaline versus fear. Fetal position. Yeah, exactly. I think your reaction to those early on would be a pretty good indicator of where you might be headed. Or sometimes fear driver is different than fear fetal position. Right. So, I mean, that fear is an amazing driver. Having signed idots, indemnified deeds of trust. Right. Where, hey, sign here. And if you're wrong, your family's going to be homeless. Well, that will certainly get you going most mornings. Yeah. So those are different ways to experience all that stuff.
[00:38:04] Speaker A: Okay.
Number 16, expect to talk to the C suite from the start. Confidence is an absolute requirement regardless of where you are in the process. And I really wrote that from the beginning, as a young business owner, expect to walk into the C suite. What do you think, man?
[00:38:24] Speaker B: I know that I wasn't. And even to this day, in spots, we collectively are not that good at that top down mentality, especially in the packaging side where you can get comfortable selling box ceiling tape to the shipping person. And that's just saying you said c suite, right? That's just not where that is or what that is one thing.
[00:38:51] Speaker A: Expect to talk to them. So it might not necessarily just a change. Let me change this a little bit. So it might not necessarily. You have to identify who the proper person is. It might be somebody in purchasing that's ultimately going to make that decision, but you should expect to, if you need to talk to whomever, CEO, executive, CFO, COO.
[00:39:12] Speaker B: Yeah, look, I agree. So I'll parse this out. I completely agree with what you're saying. I'm saying that as a young salesman salesperson, I started in the sales end of the business.
I don't know that I necessarily felt worthy of. I think what you're talking about there is an attitude and a worthiness of being in or being able to have or hold a conversation in the corner office. I'm not sure that I felt that worthiness. I agree with everything you're saying. I'm telling you that in motion at 245-6789 when I was taking or became responsible, I'm not sure I felt that worthiness.
[00:39:49] Speaker A: Did you do it, though? Regardless, I didn't write this out because I only have so many characters that I can when I'm typing this stuff. But there's a difference between, because a lot of times I still, to this day, there are times I'm like, I don't know if I feel like I should be somewhere, but I sure should have learned how to act like I believe that. So there's a difference. And again, it kind of falls back into that. Not fake it till you make it. I hate that. But sometimes you just have to buck up and act like it. And you know what's interesting? The more you do that, the more you start to believe it.
[00:40:27] Speaker B: Oh, 100%. Yeah.
[00:40:28] Speaker A: And there is. That's true. Absolutely. Put yourself in the uncomfortable position, act a certain way, and then all of a sudden, you start to believe. And I feel like it follows in that cycle.
[00:40:39] Speaker B: Well, I think when you get there, too, you realize that the corner office is just a square room full of humans, just like the lower right office and the lower left, whatever those offices are, that there's just a room full of humans. And if you're at Procter Gamble, that's just a massive company with humans. But there's still humans in every single one of those slots. And you're right. I mean, when you get into those situations, and at some point, you might even get your fur up a little bit and go, shit, I could have always been here. This isn't all that special. I think some of that is breaking the made up story of what the corner office is and how smart. Look, we deal with some really big, really big customers and companies that are wildly successful. Man, when you crack down into the middle of it, it's not all that pretty either. I mean, they by no means have it figured out or execute with anything that looks like perfection. They just happen to do it on a larger scale. That's really all there is to it that segments and groups inside of our organization, despite being exponentially smaller, even operate better in a lot of situations. Part of that is breaking that.
It's insert big company name here in our world of manufacturing, whether that's General Mills or General Motors or Kellogg's or Colgate or. Right. Or you just think there's this perfection that goes around this business, but, man, in spots, it's just a collection of groups of people and they suck as much as we do in spots, and they're as good or better than we are in spots. And once you get your head into that, then you're like, of course, I deserve to be here. Jesus, these are just people, too.
[00:42:06] Speaker A: Yeah, it's actually taken. And this was more on a personal. You as a person, as a human being, have the confidence to walk into every office. But on a bigger scale, I can tell you we are just, me personally, just having the confidence to. We work with really big gcs. Some of these are multimillion, multibillion dollar companies.
And before we got bullied, we just did, and we were thankful to have the job with them. That was our approach. Thank you so much for the job. Whatever you want. Now, if we don't agree with the terms of a contract or there's something that's unfair, I'm the first one. It doesn't matter who it is. Biggest contractor in the world. I will say something because I have realized that although we may be a small cog in the wheel, we are a critical cog in the wheel, and that matters.
[00:42:59] Speaker B: Never seen a wheel work without all the cogs.
[00:43:01] Speaker A: Yeah, right.
[00:43:02] Speaker B: Which makes you as valuable as any.
[00:43:04] Speaker A: Other cog, it gives us some leverage, for sure.
And also since I've adopted that mentality, and I think that it was probably a few years ago where that evolution was starting to happen, all of a sudden, even though you're pushing back and things.
Negotiations become a little bit harder because all of a sudden we're pushing and there are things we're demanding, the respect level actually goes up because all of a sudden, I don't know necessarily why that happens.
[00:43:38] Speaker B: There's a component of it that you are pushing back is more effective because you've been in the game longer, too.
[00:43:44] Speaker A: Oh, I know more and I know what I can push back on.
[00:43:46] Speaker B: But you also know how to push back, right? You do have that basis of knowledge that is more logical and is received differently than that audience that it might have been received on month one or month six or. That's a big piece of it, too, right?
[00:44:00] Speaker A: Yeah, but we don't write that this is all black and white. We don't write about all the. All. Why?
[00:44:04] Speaker B: Oh, I know. That's why we're talking about it because it would take way too much paper. But that's the other big point is because you could say, well, if I had pushed back this on month one, would it have looked different? Yeah, you might have gotten laughed at because your basis of knowledge was stupid and you might have even actually hurt your cred in that moment versus like, I'm just going to shut my mouth, I'm going to fulfill this order and I'm going to keep doing that for a while. And then if I see something you might not have even recognized at that.
[00:44:28] Speaker A: Particular point, there are terrifying things I never recognized that we just went along with. Like anyone that's in construction knows the liquidated damages. Right.
[00:44:38] Speaker B: The bomb.
[00:44:38] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. And that was just a lack of knowledge. Yeah, absolutely. So that does come with time. But I do think my point being, if you're starting a company and you're entrepreneur, you have to have that confidence because people pick up on it and they will walk all over you if they even sense that.
[00:44:56] Speaker B: Or if it hurts your cred. Right. Or anything that would seem like an inability to deliver, that would be just as detrimental, too.
[00:45:02] Speaker A: Yes, for sure.
All right, last one here. Yeah, my favorite.
I don't know how much there is to talk about this one, but we.
[00:45:12] Speaker B: Just scream it and then go to.
[00:45:13] Speaker A: The weekend, get scrappy, stay scrappy.
[00:45:16] Speaker B: I'll just say something quick about this. I mean, one of the great things when we first got together and watching your business, which was in year three.
Two. Year two. Five years ago.
[00:45:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, not a year and a half.
[00:45:30] Speaker B: Right? Year and a half.
And one of my immediate takeaways was just watching how you battled for certain things. And I think we were at a particular point where, again, we're still a very small business, but you can take things for granted in spots or maybe not step up as loud or as frequently. And there were just certain things where I look and go, man, she's going toe to toe. And one of the things that I took away was, despite your resources getting bigger, that doesn't mean that you should lose, that they should lose value. Just because I have more of them, they should be just as valuable as they were when you had fewer of them. And that was my takeaway. When we talked about scrappy or whatever, I was like, man, I need to look into certain parts of the business that I think have gotten away from us, I will tell you twice. We bought companies smaller than we were. And when I got into the books and was starting to do the diligence, I learned that they were better or had done a better job of negotiating certain things. We had mutual vendors. We were doing business with the same suppliers. They, despite being a 10th of our size, had negotiated better deals than we had, despite having volume. Well, that's because those resources were far more important because they had fewer of them. And that sentence or that statement means exactly that to me, what I just said to you.
[00:46:45] Speaker A: So the key is the stay scrappy for you guys. Correct.
And you're right. I have my team fight for a point, just one point, because that is so important. There are several different parts of this, but one, too. I think as you get larger, you can just pass up those really small deals. Well, guess what? The small deals that no one wants to do, those are the deals that your customer, it's like, oh, shit, they went to bat for me and they got to this little bass order, and now there's that million dollar deal behind, and they're remembering, like, you did all this small little stuff for them, right?
And then this just happened today. So it's clearly all in my mind, not going to go into details, but got a call from another business owner, minority business.
And I say that because they have a lot of the same experiences going through a lot of the same certifications they now have three different companies just have done what I'm doing, but done it far better because they've been doing it for a lot longer time. So we had a conversation insight, and they suggested we do some, make some pretty big moves. And I know in my head, I'm like, okay, nine out of ten people that they talk to, that they even bring this to, and selfishly, they said there's stuff in it for them, too, of course, but there's a lot of partnership opportunity and opportunity for just us solo. Nine out of ten business owners are going to put that phone down, be like, that's a great thought, but I can't even fathom doing that. We're doing great right now. And the first thing I thought about is, oh, we're going to do that, and I'm going to figure out how.
And it's that scrappy mentality, because we're going to put the time and effort in, and I'm not going to dismiss that because it is opportunity, no matter how good we're doing right here. And that's the difference. And I always try to keep that in mind. And, yeah, it takes commitment and sacrifice and discipline, and it's going to be hard as hell, but that is the difference. And I just never want to lose that. And it's really important to have that penetrate your entire company. And it starts from the top down. So if you do not demonstrate that day in and day out, you cannot expect the rest of your organization to. You can't.
[00:48:53] Speaker B: Totally agree. It's one of my favorites.
[00:48:56] Speaker A: Well, then, is there anything else you would like to add?
[00:48:59] Speaker B: I don't think so. This has been great. I mean, these 17. The one takeaway for me is I think there's more of this to be done. I like hitting on these types of topics.
I think you put together 17 great ones, and my real hope is that people listening to this will pull away and be like, oh, that's where I am in my business right now. That's interesting. Or whatever that case would be like, no, this has been great. There's a lot of very interesting ideas, and I think if we were to come back in five years or ten years and our lens and perspective is a little bit different, what do they mean then? I think that's the interesting part about this.
[00:49:29] Speaker A: Well, I did put 36 points together for my 36th birthday this year.
[00:49:32] Speaker B: Oh, good. Well, thanks.
[00:49:33] Speaker A: Look forward to that, Chris.
[00:49:35] Speaker B: Could have been worse. I could have put them together.
[00:49:37] Speaker A: That would take us five episodes.
[00:49:39] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll let you do all the numbering. I think our audience would prefer that.
[00:49:43] Speaker A: Well, last tip.
[00:49:44] Speaker B: There's my hundred points of.
[00:49:46] Speaker A: Yeah, no, last tip for somebody that's into marketing for their business or just getting some views. One thing that I've noticed that goes over incredibly well when you're trying to get a post that hits a lot of people is when it's like the 17 things I've learned. When you have these bullet points of things you've learned. But the first sentence is something about what I always do is how we went from zero dollars to forty eight dollars or $48 million in six, seven years. Here's how I did it. And you just bullet point it. Those sites are just the one sentence bullet points, how you did it.
[00:50:24] Speaker B: Right.
[00:50:24] Speaker A: Those posts just go off like fire.
[00:50:26] Speaker B: It's like a sentence thumbnail.
[00:50:28] Speaker A: It's a sentence thumbnail.
[00:50:30] Speaker B: That's your takeaway. You're welcome for all that.
[00:50:32] Speaker A: And then the paragraphs people don't want to read. So I make sure I keep it to just one line. One of the sentences goes over one line, and it's just this magical.
What's the right word? Not algorithm.
Strategy. Strategy.
[00:50:49] Speaker B: Recipe. Like breastfeed? Yeah. I love it. Well, as always.
[00:50:53] Speaker A: Well, let's go drink some more cocktails.
[00:50:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Happy Memorial Day.
[00:50:56] Speaker A: Cheers, team.
[00:50:57] Speaker B: Best production team in the biz.
[00:50:59] Speaker A: Thank you so much for sticking around. All right, guys, you got to tap it.
[00:51:01] Speaker B: Cheers. Cheers.
