Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: How do you go from fired to building what we've built in eight years? And I wanted to talk about this because there are so many people that have been fired or are having challenges at their company or feel down and out, which I did. And here we are sitting on a multimillion dollar company and building. I'm part of building a second one. Like, how does that happen? And yes, it can happen. Or anyone.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Welcome to.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: Welcome to the Love and Business podcast. I am Britt Arnold, president of Tagler Construction and supply.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: And I'm Mick Arnold, president of Arnold Packaging and Arnold Automation. You know what I was thinking about the other day?
[00:00:48] Speaker A: What do I want to know?
[00:00:50] Speaker B: No, probably not. But you're going to have to know, and you're going to have to talk about it. Remember when you got fired? We had just started dating, and we were not together for that exact event, but shortly thereafter, you had just started your business. And I remember one of our first lunches together. You were very quick to tell me that you got fired.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: 2016.
[00:01:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:12] Speaker A: Yes, I remember it very vividly. And at that moment in time was traumatized. And little did I know it would be one of the best things that happened to me career wise or maybe ever.
That's why we met.
We knew each other. Of each other, but it's probably why we spent more time together.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: So, anyway, changed the entire trajectory of my life for the positive. However, I don't want to pretend like that was easy. And I don't want to pretend the seven and a half years, eight really? Going on eight. It's eight now. Between the actual firing and where we are now was smooth sailing or a linear path to getting from there of. To where I am now.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: Yeah, let's stick on. I want to. I do want to stick on that for a second because I love that we get to hang out for an hour or so and talk, and there are actually questions that I ask you in front of our audience that I had never asked you directly. And one of those questions is, how did you experience that moment, right. As someone in general in your life who is generally one, right. Whether it's playing sports or being a division one athlete, you are generally at the top of your game. And probably, besides losing some games where teams were better, you didn't execute on a certain day, probably won most of your life. Getting fired is not one of those days or one of those moments. So how did you experience that?
[00:02:47] Speaker A: It was very tough, to be honest. You're right. I hadn't experienced a ton of personal loss, certainly. I'd went through some challenges and devastating times with family and stuff, but I'm saying from achievement, personally, I had losses here and there, but nothing so big like this.
And the hardest part about it was on paper, I was producing, and it was very black and white. I was getting the job done. If you looked at the numbers statistically, right?
[00:03:22] Speaker B: Statistically, the stats were good.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: Yeah. So that's really hard when you look at that and you're like, well, what the hell? The numbers are there, but there's so much more that goes into it.
You have the environment, whether you fit in with the people, any number of things and variables inside every corporation that come into play. So I really didn't know how to deal with it, and I didn't have any real tools because I didn't have a lot of experience with that.
But what I did have was a lot of confidence in myself.
Mainly we've talked about through sports, and I was able to build a lot of personal confidence from playing soccer for so many years, which really translated and I think helped me in the process. And I did have a very supportive family support system was there in my family.
[00:04:21] Speaker B: I have a question. So I think what you just said was, and I'm going to relate it to sports, that you were hitting 300, but you were a problem in the clubhouse, which, knowing you and knowing that you were the captain of most of, if not all of the teams, ultimately that you played for as you got older, were more tenured on the teams. You were the captain, which would be the opposite of being in a problem in the clubhouse.
Tell the audience how somehow being a great producer and by the numbers hitting 300, but also being a positive person. And I know being there early and outworking, certainly, and likely if you weren't able to out think yet, it was only from an experience perspective, but I know outworking, how did that become a problem? Or why would that have you be a problem in the clubhouse when statistically you were great and you were leading and a leader, but somehow in that individual clubhouse, it didn't play.
[00:05:22] Speaker A: So in my previous experiences, and we'll go back to soccer, I happened to be on the best club team, the number one club team in the nation, going d one playing after that, it was all about being as good as you could be and as competitive as you could be, and everybody else was there to do the same. So really putting your head down and producing and going to work is all that mattered. And if you didn't do that, you were the outsider when you get into the business world.
It's not like that. It's typically not a team of all super hyper competitive people that are very similar in their goals. And you need all types of people to make an organization work. But I was so used to accomplishing by being hyper competitive, outworking, putting my head down, blinders on. I know you don't like that term, but that's what it was. One goal, and that's all that mattered. Nothing else mattered. That that's how I approached business. Not realizing that that doesn't necessarily work in the business world, at least not the environment that I was in. And that can ruffle a lot of feathers.
They value other things than just the numbers.
But for me, that's all I knew. And that had always equated to success. So I was not able to untangle that in a different situation. And there were a lot of other variables, don't get me wrong, but that was part of it. And it gets to the point where people think you're stepping on their toes or you're just going over their head, or those types of scenarios, right, between.
[00:07:03] Speaker B: Which don't play nice silos and sandboxes and all of those words that you get into in the business world. I mean, that is one thing that I do love about the athletic world in general.
You are there as a team, and there is no mincing words about the goal. It is to win. And it's very clearly defined, right? It is to score more goals, points, whatever. Allow fewer, take fewer. If it's golf, right? Fewer shots. It's very clearly defined. But that doesn't always translate into the work world or into the business world. Yes, the ultimate goal is to win, sell, be profitable, any number of different metrics. But I don't know that the goals are as clearly defined as that. Because when you start to put a bunch of humans into the same spot, you do run into all of those different motivations and inspirations, and there are some people out there that are just nasty.
They are willing. The statement that we had said last time was, my candle will burn brighter if I blow yours out. There are people that you will encounter that are like that. And then if you get into some pettiness or some things that would even be along those lines, it's hard as an athlete to be able to parse through that, because you're just like, wait a minute, I scored. We won. What else? What else? Right?
[00:08:25] Speaker A: That's a great analogy. And what I learned is since that experience and now running a company, it's what I needed to do, because I was able to create the culture myself that worked, that I could work in and hire people aligned with that. Not everyone's exactly the same, don't get me wrong, in my company, but I was able to mold it to. We do have a lot of players on our team that are working towards that mission.
Or how do I put this, the approach and strategy that I have that maybe didn't work in the corporate world. Well, now, when you run a company, you can hire people that do align with that and you can set the culture. So that was really a real advantage, I guess, in creating the own company, because now you do set the rules in that regard at least.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: Right. So I always want to ask you that. And that was great. That was a much deeper dive than I think we've ever taken. And even equating it to sports. Right. How diametrically opposed that type of outcome is versus what you had been used to has in your whole life. Right. I mean, do the job, score, win. And by all metrics, whether the different things that I know you were working on and you were responsible for, as you bounced around to different groups and units and were given different responsibilities, you were winning at every turn, but your wins were actually making waves in other parts of the organization, and those waves were getting upper leadership wet. And that's when it became a problem.
[00:10:06] Speaker A: Yeah. And listen, I was young and naive and inexperienced with corporate culture.
It wasn't the first job I had, but even the previous jobs weren't.
They were a different environment that I didn't struggle with.
Again, it goes back to a lot like now. I know, but if you were to place me in that environment now, have I changed? No, but I would probably know how to respond and handle the situation differently.
[00:10:36] Speaker B: Right. With the ability to read the room, take the cues.
[00:10:38] Speaker A: Well, I need to now, as a leader, too, you can't possibly run a company. Certainly you can tailor a culture a certain way. But I also have to understand human nature and more than I did then. Right.
Again, I think part of this is, well, how do you go from fired to building what we've built in eight years? And I wanted to talk about this because there are so many people that have been fired or are having challenges at their company or feel down and out, which I did. And here we are sitting on a multimillion dollar company and building. I'm part of building a second one. How does that happen? And, yes, it can happen for anyone. However, I hate the saying, if I can do it, you can do it, because that undermines so much of what a person works, like the work that a person puts in. Because we've talked about this before. I think everybody in this world thinks they work hard. They do. And I'm not sitting here saying I work harder. I'm putting it out there that I think a lot of people think they work hard when they have no true understanding what hard work actually is.
[00:11:54] Speaker B: Right.
[00:11:54] Speaker A: And when you are in a position like I was, from being fired and having no safety net. So, I mean, I had the savings in my bank account, right. No one to rely on financially, of course, my parents would have helped, but that was not like a long term solution.
I really just had to look at myself and the savings I had in the bank account. And when you're in a situation where you have no safety net, your feet are to the fire. You have to succeed.
You cannot imitate that. That is something you have to experience.
[00:12:30] Speaker B: And you can't simulate that, right? Absolutely.
[00:12:32] Speaker A: You can't simulate it.
[00:12:32] Speaker B: Yeah. There is no simulator for that level of stress.
[00:12:35] Speaker A: And that propelled me to work harder than I even knew possible. That, again, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. I don't think that can be emulated unless you are in that situation. So, although it was so stressful and so scary, and I was very fearful, it's also the reason I think I was able to do what I did so quickly.
[00:13:02] Speaker B: So I just go back to that moment, too. So now you've been displaced from your former employer, but along the way have gotten some really valuable knowledge of the construction and building industry from the two roles that you had had prior. They were good experience, by the way.
[00:13:23] Speaker A: I love that company.
[00:13:24] Speaker B: Oh, I know.
[00:13:25] Speaker A: Yeah. And I had built one of the best things I ever did while I was there is build an incredible network of the relationships I built. And I really worked hard at that.
[00:13:39] Speaker B: Well, the interesting part about that is, as unattractive as some of the things that you were doing and making waves inside the organization was. It was wildly attractive to the people you were working with that were outside of the organization. They loved it and want to subscribe to it. But meanwhile, internally, it was making waves and getting upper level leadership wet in the process.
[00:14:00] Speaker A: And I can say that's absolutely true because of all the relationships that I still have.
And that actually really helped that 100%, as we'll get into this, were what I was able to lean on to get Taylor construction and supply built started. It was those relationships that I had created.
[00:14:22] Speaker B: So, yes, well, I know too, because we've talked about it. Just the idea that as you were progressing and moving along in the industry, regardless of what employer's name was on the building at that given time, as you were progressing in the industry, you were also identifying opportunities that they weren't necessarily interested in leveraging or getting into. Like you saw the amount of money, the amount of public money that was coming into the Baltimore market and that wasn't of any interest to anybody that you were around. They had no ability to leverage it. They were actually in the catbird seat. Right. As very long established, traditional, I'll use a very kind word, traditional type businesses. No interest and really no ability to leverage the things that you are seeing and going, well, wait a minute, somebody look at all that public money. There's going to be a requirement and I'm looking around at the competitive landscape, who's going to do it, right.
[00:15:18] Speaker A: Right. So that takes us from getting fired to not knowing what I'm going to do to figuring out that I want to go in business for myself. And part of that is so if you're in a situation where you're not happy or you were displaced and you are trying to figure out what to do, I think the first question you have to ask yourself, because I want to back up here, the first thing you have to do is self navigate. Do I really want to own a business and take on all that risk? And there's a ton of advantages that go with it. We know that. But do I want to do that or is it not for me? And do I need to look for another job? That's number 190 percent of people are going to say, yes, I'm ready for it. I want to run my own business. But it's not truly what they want. It's what they want to want.
So I think that first introspective, am I willing to sacrifice everything and put in the work? I knew that I was and that I had to because I didn't think I was going to be able to work for somebody else.
Secondly, then you have to figure out what you were getting at is do I have an actual problem that needs to be solved and is there some kind of differentiator, something unique that I can bring to the market? If you're just coming into the construction market, or any industry for that matter, that's saturated as just another player, it's going to be very hard, especially if you're coming in bootstrapping a business like I did.
[00:16:51] Speaker B: Absolutely. Because you're going to compete on what price. Right. I mean, good and fast. If that's already taken, if someone's already in that space, then you're going to be limited in the number of levers that you can pull to be of significance.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: Right. So that was what I did. I identified that there was several different opportunities in the marketplace I knew I wanted to get into stay on the supply side and not the general contracting side. That's what I thought. Didn't turn out exactly like that, but I knew that's what I wanted to do.
And I saw, as you said, there was a lot of money going towards public and federal jobs, particularly in our backyard. Massive, massive projects. Port Covington, trade Point Atlantic, where we're located now. And a certain percentage of that money has to go towards a minority owned business, whether that will be woman, african American.
There's many subcategories, but I saw that, and I knew there was an opportunity to come in and create a hell of a business and also get those certifications. So we had to be competitive and we had to be competent. But if we were and we were going head to head with a competitor and we had those certifications, all of a sudden we have a competitive advantage. How important is competitive advantage in anything in business that you're doing?
[00:18:20] Speaker B: It's the only thing.
[00:18:21] Speaker A: It's the only thing. You have to have it.
[00:18:23] Speaker B: Sure. Yeah. How would you build a value proposition without it? Right. And who is going to invest or buy something that they don't value? So they're all exactly connected to each other.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: And I have a lot of people ask me, in fact, I was doing a mentorship event yesterday, and a lot of. With different women, and they were asking me similar questions about that, like, how did you identify your competitive advantage? And I think part of it, if I'm being honest, was while my eyes were wide open, it was a timing thing. It was a perfect window of time. A, I was single, I didn't have a family, so I had the time to dedicate to this. And secondly, those big projects were just breaking that had these participation requirements on that I saw met with the fact that I didn't think there was very strong other minority companies doing this. And again, I hate to put too much emphasis on that minority piece, because we have a ton of jobs that have nothing to do with that and will continue to. We want to be the best supplier there is, period. Who cares if we're woman owned? But the fact is, if you do want a competitive advantage, those certifications do help. I mean, reality. They do.
[00:19:41] Speaker B: Sure. Yeah. They were created to spur investment and or interest in new business startups. Right. And you are a byproduct of that.
[00:19:47] Speaker A: And that's a good thing. They were designed to help minority owned businesses get started, like myself, that were starting with nothing. Yes. So I don't want to say take advantage of that.
[00:20:00] Speaker B: No, but I know that what you started to say was, and I cut you off, was you identified something that was underserved, and that was before all of that incredibly new and big demand came on. It was undersupplied without that demand. Throw in that demand. You're right. I mean, there was an alignment of the stars that you identified because, by the way, it aligned for everybody, but only certain people saw it and you were one of them.
[00:20:25] Speaker A: Sure. And that's the thing. The value wasn't just for me and the team I was going to build. The value was for who our prospective customers were going to be. They needed a partner where they could get this job and say, well, we've also got minority partners that are going to crush it for us and bring value to the project and will help us get the project. So those customers were out there. Now we work with all of them. So they were searching, as you said, it was undersupply and they had demand. So identifying that after you do the introspection on yourself and then figuring out, moving to the next step, if you decide you do want to start a business, it's identifying that competitive advantage. The problem you're going to solve, the value you're going to bring, then go.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: Into some of the nutsy boltsy stuff that's probably appropriate right now, too, because there is, I mean, if you're a viewer, some of this could have a rah rah feel to it because, yeah, this is great. I think I've got it. But then there's very mechanical things as it relates to getting those certifications. That is a very defined, specific process that has very tight rules of the road and spots. And if you were to mess up either on the early part of the process or not stay in the lane the entire time through the process, you would either risk not getting them at all or putting them in jeopardy if you didn't stay in the proper lane on your way through, as you have the opportunity to build the business and you've established yourself. So what does that part look like?
[00:21:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I will get into that, but really quickly, I do want to point on one more thing, because the advice you always get, especially if you're in like, a product based business is, before you do anything, test the market. Well, a, I didn't have time to test the market, but b, my way of testing the market was unknowingly just getting asked those questions so much while I worked for another company.
But I just wanted to add that in because I think a lot of people. You skipped over that evaluation piece where we have an idea. How do you verify that it's a good idea? Well, I didn't.
[00:22:27] Speaker B: Well, part of it is you got tired of saying no. You've heard me talk about the automation division. It became to be because I got tired of saying no. And you were working for an organization who didn't have that capability, but they were asking you, and you were saying no, and you're looking at the corner office and thinking they have no interest in anything that looks like you couldn't, you couldn't. Short of changing ownership.
[00:22:47] Speaker A: Right.
But an actual formal process like testing the market, I don't even know how you would really do that. But, yeah, I didn't have the time, and there was nothing formalized.
[00:22:56] Speaker B: I think that's an interesting one that maybe our audience could just put in the back of their head. If you keep getting the same question over and over again and you keep saying no and other people keep asking it, there's likely an undersupplied moment that you might be able to leverage.
[00:23:08] Speaker A: That's a good point. That's a very good point. All right, transitioning into, as you said, the nutsy Bullseye piece of it. So you get to the point where you're ready. You're going to start your business. What are the main things you need to do? And I will say, I'm going to generally go over this. There will be a second episode where I cover exactly what you need to file, what the paperwork is, even down to what the cost is, because I'm going through it now. But this is more of a general overview. So I would say, first you've got to figure out, like, we are an LLC. You need to figure out if you want to be an LLC or a corporation. And the great thing is, if you don't have the money to get professional advice, and most if you're bootstrapping a business, you don't. I didn't. Now I do.
And that's partially to why I want to do two episodes, one wherein you're in a position where you do have money to pay the professionals, because that looks completely different now than it did to when I was starting Tiglar construction apply. I had no money to pay professionals. So that's the beauty of technology and being able to research as much as I could and understand as much as I could what I should be doing. Did I research as much as I should have, figuring out if we should be an LLC versus something else? No. Right.
[00:24:21] Speaker B: But you happen to get it right. But you did.
[00:24:23] Speaker A: But I happened to get it right. So creating an LLC is so easy. It's a couple clicks on a computer. It's literally that easy. Again, in my mentorship yesterday, someone was asking, what does that look like?
You google it, you find your state. It's very easy. And the costs are very minimal.
[00:24:44] Speaker B: Startup costs.
[00:24:47] Speaker A: Literally, to create the LLC.
[00:24:49] Speaker B: Right. It's like a $12 filing fee.
[00:24:52] Speaker A: And that's just the start.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: That's right. Because then once you're on the radar, it's a whole new gig.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: Once you're on the radar, yes. You get into taxes and everything else. So I would say if you're just looking at. There's a million things I could tell you, but if you're just looking at the few main things you create your organization, you're going to get an article of organization or articles of incorporation. Articles of incorporation. Depending on what you file as charter.
[00:25:18] Speaker B: Might have to have a charter as part of your filing.
[00:25:20] Speaker A: Your question will be like, how do you get that? Once you create your entity, you can typically just click a button and you basically order or submit to get that paperwork. So that's all done through the state for you. You don't have to actually do anything additional. Then you have to create a EIN, which is a federal identification number. If you're equating it to personally, it would be like your Social Security number, but it's just a federal id number for business. And then you want to make sure you set up your tax accounts.
[00:25:54] Speaker B: Can I say something? I do want to mention just if there's some listeners that aren't completely dialed into technology, obviously everyone knows Google that is now into our entire life is around Google. But generative AI, the chat GPTs of the world. And I will tell you that I have multiple pages here in prep, I use chat GPT.
You can ask a generative AI model like that, these questions that we're talking about now, and Google's a great one, but you can also start to use some of these generative AI tools that are out there that will scrape the Internet and start to serve up this information. And you can ask it a few different times and it'll start to bring in. So I just wanted to mention that to the audience, too, that Google everyone's very well aware of. But if you're relatively new or haven't spent any time around products like chat, GPT, or what is called generative AI, those, that's another just great resource that has even come further than when you had to build it. You probably had Google exclusively six years ago, seven years ago, which is great. Not as good as it even is now. And now take this thing another step further into generative AI and the amount of information it could help in trying to get something like this off the ground. Understand. Your competitors have it too, though.
[00:27:03] Speaker A: Oh, I'm sure you could ask chef GBT, what are the first steps in creating a business? And it's going to list all of this, although I think the anecdotal part of this is what we're doing. Speaking a little bit more life into it is so important.
[00:27:16] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:27:17] Speaker A: So then you create your tax accounts and for instance, like the ones we initially created as a sales and use property tax. And what's the third?
[00:27:27] Speaker B: Sales.
[00:27:27] Speaker A: No.
[00:27:28] Speaker B: Oh, sales and use property.
[00:27:29] Speaker A: Sales and use property.
[00:27:34] Speaker B: Income.
[00:27:35] Speaker A: No, there were three tax accounts and every business is going to be different. But generally speaking. Oh, man, that's going to bug me. We'll put it in, drop in the show notes. Yeah. We'll throw it into the episode like a little bubble, like I forgot, and it'll pop up. Yeah, perfect.
[00:27:54] Speaker B: Me. Tommy, please help. I can always use bubbles, too, by the ever, don't ever hold back on bubbles.
[00:27:59] Speaker A: Just mind blank.
[00:28:01] Speaker B: We'll probably blur it out later.
[00:28:02] Speaker A: But anyway, you definitely want to get those tax accounts filed immediately. So I would say those are like the three things you really want to get up and running immediately. If you can't pay a professional, you're going to be feeling like it's a little foreign. And I can tell you I didn't get it. All right. And I've had to backtrack and I've had to change a lot of things. And that's okay as long as you are not doing anything that is hugely illegal, especially intentionally, and you won't be. If you're just starting small and you'll figure it out.
You have the ability to backtrack and fix it.
[00:28:47] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:28:48] Speaker A: And don't get to the point where you're so scared because you're so confused and you don't know what to do, so you do nothing.
I just did the shit and I had no idea what I was doing. And then I have gone back and don't get me wrong. It was a pain in the ass to go back and fix things. Oh, sure. And luckily I got it somewhat right. I don't know how.
[00:29:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, generally speaking, the legal entities are okay with omissions. What you're talking about, right, is someone that's new, that's starting up a business. Omissions are okay if you're doing something fraudulent that has malice and intention, but if you omit a couple of things because you are new or a neo fight to starting a business, there's room to fix those. And generally without massive penalty of whatever that could be interest or obviously if you don't pay your tax bills, there could be interest penalties. But if it's omission related, you're going to be okay.
[00:29:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
How I fixed it was by eventually getting a CPA and some people that were professionals that could work with me, and they really worked with startups, so they catered to the startup and they knew that we could only pay so much, and I needed just a certain amount of advice, and that's how I fixed some of those things. But again, fear and the unknown, it's going to paralyze you to the point where you're not going to do anything or it's going to propel you, and you have to figure out what kind of person you want to be in that situation.
[00:30:09] Speaker B: And I think the thing that it's important to point out is a lot of this structural work that you're talking about goes on at night. These are usually 07:00 p.m. 08:00 p.m. 09:00 p.m. Because guess what happens from hours of 07:00 a.m. To 05:00 p.m. You're selling your wares. Right. So a lot of things you're talking about that goes into this are generally after hours, and we talk about the hours that we work. Or when you're doing this startup type activity, a lot of this has to go to the outside edges of the day because the revenue doesn't generate itself. You have to be selling while your customers are there to be buying. It's changed a little bit with the Internet and some digital pieces, but still in your business, right, which is very monoimano construction and very face to face type sales, high credit and relationships. That's a during the day process. So if you're filing your tax docs at 10:00 on a Tuesday, you're blowing it.
[00:31:02] Speaker A: Yes. So that is one thing that's very important, is the normal hours of the day where most people are working. When you're starting a business, you have got to be out trying to, and not just trying to sell, you do have to sell, but creating the relationships and anything that looks or sounds like admin work and emails or just the tedious, laborious work has to get done before or after. I'm not lying. I did work 20 hours a day, every day, pretty much for two years. And that is not an exaggeration. 18 to 20 hours, that is absolutely 100% true because you have to do that. And it all comes back to the fact that the only thing that matters, as you said, when you get started and for eternity, but especially when you get started, is your sales and your customers. What are you selling? All I cared about was getting that first job, that first sale. Nothing else matters. The apparel, your business card, your website, all the shit that everybody just locks in on matters. Zero. If you do not have a sale, if you do not have a customer.
[00:32:22] Speaker B: Totally agree.
I mean, you know, my favorite thing, nothing happens until something gets sold. And I think as a new, we're starting a business, there's a lot of feel good activities. There's some glamour. If you happen to put your name on the business, your name on the building, there's a glamour piece of that feels pretty good to print a business card with your name on it, especially if you've worked on your branding. But I agree with you, I think that has gone to a very new level. And if I think back to some of just pick logos for an example, when I got into the business many, many decades ago, and I just think about the logos and that's really all you had. You didn't really have much else. Big companies were able to advertise on television, but there was no YouTube. You didn't have the ability to create. You didn't have your own publication weapon. You didn't have your own tv station, which was what YouTube is, right? It's a tv station. You didn't have all of that stuff. So I don't think that a lot of that effort went into that, which I think right now for a new business owner or a startup can be very distractive. That glamour component can be very distracting. And it's not that glamorous if you can't pay your bills, right? Because with no revenue, you got nothing to do, right. And you're over there spending money. That's the other deadly part, is you're spending money to create whatever it is you're creating. And by that I mean a business card or some Persona instead of getting out and building the value prop and penetrating the market.
[00:33:46] Speaker A: Yes. And that is something I would not spend any money.
I was pinching pennies.
And you hear the philosophy, well, you have to invest in your business, you can't invest if you don't have anything. So for me I was trying to not spend anything, which meant I was not going to do an elaborate website. I was doing just the bare minimum for what I needed and of course getting the legal structure and all that in line. But as far as any, like the glitz and glamour, it was just enough so we looked professional enough to get the work. But really not even then that because I was working with people in the beginning that already knew me and they were working with the company because of our relationship. So they didn't really give a shit about the website that I didn't have.
[00:34:43] Speaker B: Right. And it was the same, and they need the same cell number that you had all the way through, right? So they were just calling Britt Tegler regardless of what was going to be on the invoice when it ultimately showed up, no one cared. Right. They were just buying construction stuff from their trusted advisor at that point, right. And the thing that you have to go one step further is when you're in that startup mode, you're the sales organization, you're operations, you're the accounting organization, like you're all of it, right? You're also legal affairs and HR once you certainly you're HR for yourself, right? Because you do have to take care of certain documents even if you are a company of one. And then those responsibilities just expand as you have 2345 and so on.
But the part of that is that you are in sales and you better be in sales at least those hours when your customers are buying what they're buying. Because a lot of the folks that we work with, you sell to operations people in general, so do we.
A lot of our customers have a generally set day. They're on duty from this time to that time. And if you are not there and you are not in front of them and you are not penetrating, then what are you doing? You might as well not even be out there if you're wasting that time doing something else besides penetrating.
[00:35:54] Speaker A: Yes. And as far as customer acquisition, because certainly the next question will be, well, how do you even go about that first customer acquiring that first customer? And I just want to reiterate, because we already answered that question, which is leveraging your existing relationships, because the truth is when you just start you probably don't have much to offer, and you probably are not better than the next guy. I certainly wasn't. But I had people that believed in me, and I had the relationships that I could tap into where the truth is, I think some of them used us not because they knew they were going to get a better service or product. In fact, probably didn't get as quality of product as they could have elsewhere, but they wanted to help. They wanted to help. And also, I'll never know, but maybe they did believe that one day the company would be able to provide the value that they needed and return that. I don't know if that was really going through the people that held me, really. One person in particular, like Mike Devitt, was the first one that luckily was a total entrepreneur and had a bunch of different companies, and he needed some ti work and let us do it. Literally, like, let us do it. I feel like that he's like, let me help you.
[00:37:18] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And you need friends in that regard. And I think to underestimate the fact that people like helping people, you can ask for help in this world, whether is it from a customer or I have not been too proud to beg in spots for orders or whatever I needed at any given moment. And I'll tell you that I'd say at least majority of the time, and that could be the vast majority of the time people are willing to help. If you are willing to show up at times, hat in hand, and ask for something, and it might be in a pretty vulnerable moment that you have to do it, but you'd be shocked by what you'll learn if you do.
[00:37:50] Speaker A: I agree. And I would say another thing. Know when Mike gave us those opportunities and then Sean White and drew with the restaurant, we got a restaurant opportunity.
The other thing, too, that's really important. If you're in this position and you have your first opportunity, you have your first customer, that's going to give you a chance is we were there. I mean, we spent so much time because that's all I had. So we spent so much more time than the average person was. And truly probably the opportunity cost in time were.
I mean, the amount of time we spent versus what we made was probably not even. But again, you have to value that so much and put all of yourself into that first opportunity you get. I think that's so important, knowing that that is the start and you give everything you have to it. You might not be the best, and we weren't the best, but I do think that we definitely dedicated more time and effort and cared. And maybe that's something they knew, too. Like, we were so hungry, they knew we would make it right and get it right somehow, no matter how we did it.
[00:39:00] Speaker B: I think that's you and I both from the same school of thought here, just in that starting businesses. And I'm referring to the automation piece, but you started to say yes, right? A moment ago. I think we hit on something that I've never actually stopped to think about, that a business got started for both of us because we got tired of saying no and so many of the same or similar questions. When you said no enough, it was, holy cow, why are so many people asking me this? Clearly, if the supply was there, they wouldn't be asking me. It's not this many people. It was one person. You'd be like, well, maybe they like me and I'm here and it's convenient, and I'm doing something for their business. There's familiarity, which is credibility, whatever all those parts are. But after a while, it's, holy heck, there is a hole in the market. And the first step for you, it sounds like, was to just start saying yes to some of those opportunities. It was. I just hung my shingle. My name's on was. It's Tegler's source, as it was in those days.
And the answer is yes. Now, can you ask me those questions again? And then you're beating your brain to figure out all the people that had asked you that question along the way and then blowing it up. Remember that question you asked? Well, I'm here to say yes. And I was so bummed that I had to say no last time that I actually formed a company around it.
[00:40:18] Speaker A: And then part of that, too, is just saying yes, even though it might be outside of what you initially thought your company was going to provide or what you're capable of. I mean, you're going to say yes way before you feel qualified. And it's being able to have the stomach to take that risk. And this goes, I was talking to two females yesterday that have a furniture company, furniture furnish and install company. They're four years old. And they were talking to me about how they have so many things going on. They have government work, they have just so many things. I said, that's exactly right, do it all. Because if I had it now, I'm on the other side, where I'm actually trying to focus and narrow down and figure out what we're really good at and focus in. But I would never have been able to identify what was worth honing in on and going deeper and what I should be getting rid of. Had I not gone through this for 5456 years of experimentation, of saying yes, of testing everything. And I said, your guys are four years old. Try it all. Lose win. That's the only way you're going to figure out yourselves and where you should eventually be. Right. That's so important part of your process.
[00:41:38] Speaker B: Yeah. If you had said to them, you probably did, because we say a lot is, what do you want to be when you grow up? The answer is, we're going to be what our customers want us to be. And I was just thinking, as you were talking about some of our customers that have divisions that would be seemingly very unrelated, you'd say, well, I was thinking about a customer that we do some work with. They make utility tubs, the big utility tubs that you have in your basement, in your garage, and then they also make the behind the seat, over the seat shelves that go over the toilet. Right. I mean, two diametrically opposed things. And I do know they got there because they had a customer called Walmart that they had an in with for one or the other. I don't know which the lead was, but Walmart said, what do you think about making toilet shelves? They're like, great toilet shelves. It is, because Walmart said, how about toilet shelves? And we're already making utility sinks. And any number of customers that we have, you look, they're not in one lane, but they were an expert in their customer, their customer where they had familiarity and credibility and trustworthiness, asked them to do something and it was enough in their lane. And maybe the lane was just customer. You're like, well, I got space. I got people. I got know how. Yeah, toilet shelves. That's it.
So it sounds to me like those ladies are on a heck of a nice path. And done correctly, they'll have the ability to jettison some of that along the.
[00:43:01] Speaker A: Way, but they can't figure out who they are.
[00:43:02] Speaker B: That's right. How would you.
[00:43:07] Speaker A: To take one. I just want to mention this. I'm throwing this not, I'm not sure it really fits here, but I had this thought as we were talking about sales. So I was listening to Cameron Haynes podcast with Ken Rideout. And Ken Rideout is, I follow him a lot now because he's a hell of a runner, but he was a former drug addict turned trader and ended up making, he went from being poor and a drug addict to just making a ton of money at a young age and not knowing what to do with it, losing it, this, this wild story. And now he's just an addict that's turned that love into running. So obviously, this is a story right up my alley. But one thing he said that was very interesting when he was, because Cameron, I think, asked him, well, how did you do so well? I guess he was stock trading. I'm not really sure the ins and outs, but how did you do so well? How did you start making so much money so quickly? And he said, well, I figured out that as a salesperson, you had to be interesting, and that meant getting out and being with your customers and doing things. He's like, so everybody looked at me and know you're on the mountain skiing or ken, you're skeet shooting or you're doing this or that. You're always doing fun shit. How come I'm stuck behind a computer and we're making the same amount of money? And he said it was just a decision he made, and he realized that you have to be an interesting person for people to be. And that's what he did. He created this. So he's like, I didn't sit behind the computer. He's like, self admittedly wasn't the most organized or anything like that, but I was so much better at getting business because I was just out with the people doing things and creating a connection, and I was interesting and they were interested in me. And I think about that a lot because I can find myself even now at times being stuck, like maybe behind a computer when the better thing to do would be maybe to not just get to all those emails that aren't quite as important as just doing something with the customer. And I was really intentional about that when I was first starting the business. I think I've relapsed a little bit.
[00:45:16] Speaker B: But definitely, no question.
[00:45:18] Speaker A: But that was such a great reminder for me. That's so true. That's such a good point.
[00:45:23] Speaker B: Absolutely. And unfortunately, it goes away. Right. I mean, that's, you have to be careful about is that boom and bus feel to it where I know we were both, I'll call it the circuit, right. We were both doing a lot of networking type activities and we were working the circuit. Now, I was doing it for an 85 year old company, right? But that was just something we hadn't done. My father was very active, but networking didn't have that look to it. He was very customer focused. And that part of it has changed a lot. I mean, certain industries and certain customers of ours, you can't do a lot of entertaining or social things with the conflict of interests, especially government, large companies, publicly traded companies. Anything that would have a look to it that would be not kosher is not happening anymore. So that's definitely gone by the wayside. But we were both out there generating interest in our businesses and attraction to our businesses. But it's tiring. It's tiring.
We both came off the circuit together for the most part, right? I mean, we slowed it down a little bit. We're not at the Tuesday, like, you could go to event Tuesday, Wednesday prior to the pandemic. You could go to an event every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday if you wanted to.
[00:46:36] Speaker A: Well, just yesterday I was at the, and I keep alluding to this event because it's the only event I've been to in a really long time. But it was a Baltimore business Journal mentorship event, so I was really fortunate to be invited as a mentor with, I believe, 30 or I think there was 30 or 35 mentors, and then there's a bunch of mentees, which is any woman who wants to come and just get advice. And it was basically like speed dating. So the mentors were all set up in a u shape, and every seven minutes a new mentee came and could ask you whatever they wanted, but they got to choose who they wanted to talk to. And I think that was great because it could be relevant to what they wanted to hear. Where were we going? Where do we start with this?
[00:47:19] Speaker B: We're talking about that networking piece and how we were both very much out in that space and the boom and bust of it. Now we've pulled back in that space.
[00:47:30] Speaker A: I think where I was getting at was, a, it was an awesome event, but b, it really gave me a chance to see a lot of the mentors are business owners and are experiencing a lot of the things I am and just people I don't get to connect with a lot. And I left feeling I had some really great conversations, saw some people I knew that I hadn't seen in a while, also met some new people that I knew through social media or whatever that I actually met. And I just felt so fulfilled after doing that. But I think here's where I was going with this. So on the social media piece, there was actually a mentee that came, and her boss, I guess it was, or mentor, I should say, was a formal mentor. So her boss was a mentor and she was a mentee. And she came to me and said, we're in the digital marketing social media space. She's like, and I wanted to talk to you because everyone I talk, we do a lot for construction companies, and everyone we talk to always says, well, have you seen brits social media? That is what we're trying to do for construction. And I laughed and I said to her, well, the funniest thing is, I know nothing really about social media, but what I did was I just put my personal story out on LinkedIn. I didn't do anything as far as getting really big business social media pages. I don't know the algorithms, I don't know the. I'm learning a lot from this podcast, but at that time, knew nothing. And all I did was really start talking about my journey, and I got a lot of reception. And the more vulnerable and honest I was about that journey, the more response I got and the more connections I made. And that goes to your point where it's about creating the relationship personally with Mick, there's very little, in my opinion, distinction these days between business and who we are as people. So if a customer is working with Tommy, for instance, the only thing they care about is their relationship with Tommy, and that is what they're experiencing. So I think a piece of advice would be, when you're starting a company, remember, it's about your personal relationship and your story. You got to nurture that and you've got to lean into that. And that's what I did. And this is all hindsight. I didn't even know I was doing what I was doing when I was doing it. But, ma'am, it's been so powerful and so many people have commented on it, which was really interesting yesterday that came up.
[00:50:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
If you're doing things that are attractive, the algorithms don't matter. Right. If people are engaging because you're saying something that is interesting or relatable is a word that I love, and we use here a good bit. It is relatable. It's just going to propel itself. The algorithms are built the way they are because they want to share things that are of interest to lots of people. And once you write something like you have, and you've got away from that a little bit, too, talk about the boom and bust cycle a little bit.
[00:50:33] Speaker A: I did one just last week. I think that did pretty well. But, yeah, I'm not as great at doing it.
[00:50:39] Speaker B: Yeah, well, look, that bandwidth, you only have so much bandwidth, and we're still putting in the same number of hours, and they're going in different spots. You only have so much bandwidth, and that's something that could suffer a little bit if you're not intentional. And guilty is charged over here, too. Not as intentional about keeping up with it or if you're oversubscribed to for a moment, it might fall off of the radar. Not seem to be the priority that it was when you were really in growth mode or even starving to survive when you were in survival mode, which is exactly what that is in that startup moment. It's survival mode.
[00:51:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:16] Speaker B: And that's what mammals are hard coded to do, survive. So the idea of can you actually simulate that type of stress or pressure, which is truly financial survival. Right. I mean, it wasn't going to end in your death, but man, it sure does feel like it sometimes. If you can't meet your obligations and let's say you take the leap and you have people that absolutely rely on you, you have kids or you're venturing out a little bit later in life or in your evolution life cycle, and you have people that truly rely on you. Want to talk about sweating it? If you're not just putting food on the table for yourself, but for other people, try that stress on for a second. That's a good one.
[00:51:55] Speaker A: Well, let's get into that financial piece. So if you are starting and you are bootstrapping or have very minimal resources or money, do me a favor, give.
[00:52:07] Speaker B: Your definition of that, because bootstrapping is a bit of a newer term. I had not heard the term bootstrapping when I was a younger professional along the way, and that's a newer term. So I want you to clearly define that for the audience, especially if they're closer to my generation where you never heard the word bootstrapping along the way.
[00:52:27] Speaker A: I'm sure I'm going to butcher the technical definition, but for me, it's starting with zero. That's right.
You don't have investments, you don't have a lender. You're just starting from zero.
[00:52:38] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:52:38] Speaker A: It's simply put, right.
[00:52:39] Speaker B: And I think even where you at.
[00:52:41] Speaker A: Times with zero, I should say not from zero, you're starting with zero.
[00:52:44] Speaker B: With zero. Sure. And even at times taking money out of this hand and scooping a little bit off of it, that was your profitability and sliding it right back out the door to a supplier or whoever. That was so important to start to hit on that. Because I know our parents are viewers of our podcast. I'm not sure that my mom would know the term bootstrapping or how important and significant that is. Certainly there are lots of different tracks you can go out and find investors and we watch what goes on in Silicon Valley where you will have millions and millions, billions, possibly even hundreds of millions thrown at you and your idea. And that doesn't mean it's a good one. It just means that you have gotten everyone else to believe it's a good one. So that bootstrapping idea is honorable, I think is a great word. I mean, that is about as brass tax as it gets.
[00:53:34] Speaker A: I didn't really have many options, to be fair.
[00:53:36] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:53:36] Speaker A: And honest.
[00:53:37] Speaker B: Yeah, true.
[00:53:38] Speaker A: So if you are in that position, okay, how can you possibly get started with little to no money? And there are a couple of ways to go about it. So again, it's leaning in on your relationship. So if you're in an industry that is product based, that's important.
[00:53:59] Speaker B: Right?
[00:53:59] Speaker A: I'm glad, yeah, product based.
Generally speaking, there are terms. So you're going to get paid in net 30 days, which means after you send the invoice, customer has 30 days to pay it or net 45 or net 60. It can look differently. But the point is you're not getting money in hand right away.
However, my situation was when I had to buy material to sell material.
When I was buying material, I had to pay for material right away. Yet my customer, you wanted the extension of terms.
So how do you make that work? How do you pay for material when you haven't got paid from your customer?
[00:54:42] Speaker B: Well, you had to pay for it because you had no credit.
[00:54:44] Speaker A: So that's exactly right. To be able to get credit terms where you have the luxury of having 30, 45, 60 days to pay, you typically have to have some kind of company history and strong financials so that company can say, okay, we trust you enough to give to you the extension of terms. When you have no company history, when you're just getting started, you're not going to get those terms. So how was I able to do it without at this time having any bank lending of any sort?
I went to a couple of really just one vendor that knew me and trusted me and extended net 30 terms just because they wanted to help. Again, going back to that helping piece and maybe not being afraid to ask, and from the beginning, that's all we sold was that product because that's all we were able to do.
[00:55:42] Speaker B: Right.
[00:55:43] Speaker A: That's the only person we could get terms set up with. So you're going to have to get creative and you're going to have to negotiate hard.
There might be somebody that has another way to do it. I'm not sure how you logistically make it work when you have to pay for a material and you're not getting paid from a customer right away, other than trying to negotiate and getting terms with at least one vendor.
[00:56:08] Speaker B: Right. Yeah, no, that's a great point.
You're literally taking your customers payment and racing it over to your supplier as fast as humanly possible. Like one day. Right, the very next day. And I watched you do it. That pay when paid, which was a new term.
[00:56:23] Speaker A: Oh, I mean, the amount of checks I got that I would literally write a check and get in the car and drive it over immediately. That was the story of my life.
[00:56:33] Speaker B: And hoping that your check hit your bank before your check hit their bank.
[00:56:38] Speaker A: Yeah, because I didn't want to risk being.
[00:56:40] Speaker B: You can't overdraw in that moment.
[00:56:42] Speaker A: And that's also relying on your customer to pay you within terms, because we know that doesn't happen often either.
[00:56:47] Speaker B: Right.
[00:56:47] Speaker A: So it's a real hard game to play, and you just got to get creative and you got to be aggressive in negotiating. That's something you're going to have to learn is like those negotiation skills and those hard conversations, because this is the only way you'll make it.
[00:57:04] Speaker B: It still comes back to the people. Right. Because what you were negotiating know with that supplier, you weren't negotiating with some name on a building. You were negotiating with Joe Smith of Smith supply. And you said, joe, I know you, and I'm going to make a run of this, and we trust each other, and I'm going to help blow your business up if you'll just give me a little bit of support to do so. And you have blown it.
[00:57:25] Speaker A: Sounds like that. And everybody I've talked about today, so that vendor we do millions of dollars with, and Mike McDevitt, the first customer that I had, you and I both work with, and we do like, we're doing stuff together that are mutually beneficial. So everyone that was there from day one, seven and a half to eight years ago, it's come full circle.
[00:57:49] Speaker B: Don't forget your big one. Go ahead, go ahead. And name number three wouldn't be a mention without your bank.
[00:57:54] Speaker A: Well, I'm not there yet, but, yeah. My point is, I feel good about making good on all those. And typically, if you care enough and you put the time in, it's all going to come full circle and everyone's going to make out well. So then where your next point was then we eventually did get to the point where we could go to a bank, approach a bank to get some funding. But I don't even know when we first. I mean, it was probably a year and a half in.
We were without a bank for a while.
[00:58:27] Speaker B: Right. Well, I think you had a banking relationship. Right. That's one thing we glossed over a little bit. Just in setting up the business is to create a banking relationship, which usually happens at the branch you started a branch location.
[00:58:40] Speaker A: I don't even know if you know, not. So my bank now is M t. And that's who we created a partnership, and I'll get into that. But that's not who we set up a bank account with. We set up a bank account with bank of America.
[00:58:50] Speaker B: Oh, that's just for atms. That's the only reason.
[00:58:54] Speaker A: I just needed a bank account and it had America in it, and I could walk to it. So I set up a bank account at bank of America.
[00:59:03] Speaker B: That is about as transactional as you get. So it's probably a good start.
[00:59:05] Speaker A: I didn't even know any. That's like the only bank I knew.
[00:59:08] Speaker B: Right.
[00:59:09] Speaker A: Whatever. So that's where I started. That's who I had in a bank account with to start. And I put like the $10 I made in there. And then eventually, when it was time, where I knew I had to go approach a bank and see if we could work out some kind of partnership.
What you will be required to do, although I'm not a proponent of business plans, is typically any bank you approach, especially if you're a startup, they need to see a business plan. So most likely you're going to have to create one. That's just a part of the process. So we basically interviewed with a couple of banks, continued to get no's until M and T Bank said yes. And they gave us a $50,000 term loan and a $50,000 line of credit. Do you want to explain the difference between the two of those?
[00:59:58] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. Yeah. And I don't think, just to clarify, you didn't take anything down on the term loan, right? You actually never used that money, did you?
[01:00:04] Speaker A: I've never touched any of it, yeah.
[01:00:06] Speaker B: So two options, right? I'm not a banker, but certainly we.
[01:00:09] Speaker A: Have paid it off.
[01:00:10] Speaker B: We have some great banking relationships, but term loan is generally fixed in nature. So you're going to borrow money over a period of time. Let's just say it's a five year period. And in that five years, like your home, not too dissimilar from your home, you're going to pay that money back at some type of an interest rate, line of credit, a little bit different and depending on where you are in what you're buying, too, because a term loan is generally normally tied to a longer event and usually tied to what are called long term assets. So again, not to get crazy, and I think it would be great, let's get a guest on here to really get into this, because it would be great for our listeners who are thinking about starting businesses, who are going to sit across from a banker at some point to know what's going through their head, what buttons do they need to push to be able to bring them on as a partner? Because your bank is just a partner and they're a very cost effective partner. That's something that's really important for people to know. Private equity, venture capital, all these different ways that you can get money. Banks, if you can create the relationship either through collateralization or through a very strong balance sheet, which is just a collateral component, is a great business partner. It's very inexpensive money coming out of the last 20 years, the least expensive money you could ever get. So just a couple of different. Lenny line of credit is normally a little flexible, a little more short term. Think credit card now, not to that type of interest rate or that, but where you are generally borrowing money and you're just paying the interest on that money. So let's just say, I'll give you an example. We are in an aggressive growth mode, and we need to buy inventory. So the line of credit is something that we might borrow money as we are putting cash into another asset called inventory. And it'll help with liquidity to bridge that gap. Until you sell that inventory, collect that money, retain your profitability, and then as you start to build your cash basis back up, you repay that money, get that interest expense back down. So just a couple of different options. And then as you become larger, the capital, the financial, the banking vehicles become much more significant, sweep accounts and all of those different things that you can start to leverage. When you do create some assets, liquid or otherwise, and you start to really value or pay attention to asset allocation, then you can get into that. But as a startup, that simple banking, who's willing to give me money to grow my business, because it's about speed, too. I mean, you could do it in a very organic way where you sell something and then you buy it from a supplier and your margin is your margin, and then you pay your bills and you have this left. And that could be a lot, or it could be a little, but that's going to be a slower track than maybe if you borrow money or infuse capital to go buy more inventory, to sell that inventory faster. And you bring on a partner, for example, in the form of a bank, where you would be using their money to invest in assets to help propel your business faster. So that's a banking conversation in a super nutshell.
[01:03:18] Speaker A: Yeah. And that would have certainly been a method. It's not an approach we've taken. I know you have. It's not an approach we've taken to date. As I said, I haven't. We paid off our term loan and we haven't touched our line of credit.
I don't know if that. And we're saying we've continued to increase that as our company has built. You go in, and I hope m t is not listening now because they're on me to get them paperwork to do this.
[01:03:43] Speaker B: We hope m t has been listening to us.
[01:03:45] Speaker A: But, yeah, as you grow and get bigger, obviously your line of credit, what you're able to get is going to get significantly bigger, and you can use. I have never taken the approach where, quite frankly, it scared me a little bit to take on debt. And I've been fortunate where we've been able to be in a position where we have been cash positive and had a lot of cash and been able to do everything we wanted to do. But certainly tapping that line can accelerate, as you say. I mean, why don't you talk about your experience with that and buying inventory or equipment?
[01:04:21] Speaker B: Well, the challenge with it, too, is it's variable.
That's the risk about that line of credit piece coming out of the last 20 years, where interest rates generally were hanging around 3%, just call it that, whether it's prime or software or Libor, whatever, the different borrowing base mechanisms are very inexpensive means of capital. Well, in the last year and a half or two years, that three has become eight. So the challenge with that line of credit is it's a variable cost of funds so it can move on you real time. And if you have not created the cash to be able to pay it back, if you haven't done something productive with that money or with that investment from the bank, then you sit there and watch your interest costs go up. It's not too unlike what's going on with our federal debt right now, for example, where those interest numbers keep going up. Now, if you've done something smart with it, you've paid it back. Along the way, you have been conscious about holding the cash because it's still very inexpensive. You're like, why would I pay that 3% money back, I can go do something productive with this. And if you're in a position where if it starts to get a little rough or bumpy, you can just go pay that line down. That would be a great execution strategy. That's, to me, what right would look like, and that's what we've been able to do is borrow to fund growth, but not get crazy on the credit card, not overspend, get the return on the investment. That's what it really comes down to. And then being able to have those cash reserves to give that money back when it starts to get overly expensive, like 4%, 5%, 6%, now pushing 8%. Actually, short term rates are higher than long term rates, which is called inverted. It's an inverted yield curve. When you hear that term, usually short term rates are lower than long term rates, but that is actually flipped right now, which is rare. But that's where we are. With all of this craziness, with credit markets and all the money that's been pumped into the financial system and all the liquidity, whether it was payments that went out to people for the pandemic and to help people along the way, we're living in some of the repercussions of that now from a banking perspective.
[01:06:34] Speaker A: And I don't want all of that financial jargon, I'll call it to scare anyone either.
I do understand that now. And it becomes more important as you grow and you're going to have the money to pay for professionals to help you. When I was just starting, I didn't know what any of that meant, and I didn't understand the ins and outs of banking or insurance or bonding, nothing. But I still got it done. So sometimes you just have to work through it and you are organically going to learn as you grow and you develop. Don't let it scare you to the point where you don't do anything.
[01:07:15] Speaker B: We'll just go sell, right? I mean, when in, just go sell. Just go sell. If you've hit on something that you agree that you want to risk your life savings on, right? Or if you're going to venture out and you're going to break out of side, hustle it into a full time gig, then go head down on what it is you believe that is of value and that is in demand and possibly undersupplied. Or you believe that you've created a differentiated mousetrap that's better than everybody else's, just go sell it.
But you better be prepared on the edges or after hours to do all the other stuff because it doesn't do itself and it's got to get done.
[01:07:50] Speaker A: Yeah, in a nutshell, it has so much to do with action, taking action and putting in all of the dedicated, hard, relentless hours. And the relationships.
[01:08:06] Speaker B: Just sell, baby. Nothing helps until somebody takes an order.
[01:08:09] Speaker A: Now, I think that's probably a really good ending point, but there are three other topics that I do want to bring up because there's going to be further episodes on that. So if this piqued your interest, if you learn for like, okay, what's next? We will be continuing on this conversation, one being, okay, you got through the initial startup and you're starting to get some business now, how do you hire, how do you build? Because in my situation, we went from zero to 48 million and growing and quickly. So that doesn't just happen. Right. And we're talking about the startup piece, how did we grow and how do you sustain? So that's the next piece of what we'll talk about. I think the second thing that we have identified is bringing in someone from the banking industry, and it would be amazing to bring in a president of bank. We have someone in mind. We got to talk to them first, because I would love to know, and I think anybody on this startup journey would want to know, if I'm sitting across from a bank, which you eventually will be 100%, what are they looking for and why are they going to take a chance on me? And what can I tell them, what can I tell them about the story, what can I sell them? Getting that insider from the person you're going to be sitting in Crossroad, or at least his counterparts, would be hugely valuable. And then the third episode that I don't know if this will all be contiguous, but will be about if you're starting a business like I am now, in DC with a partner, what that looks like, if you are starting it at a point in your life where you're a little bit more experienced, you have some more money and you have resources. Because this journey has been entirely different than my startup journey of Tagler. And I think it's worth touching on that because again, in the mentorship yesterday, I had some very well seasoned women that have been in industries and are really well established that are very interested on going out on their own, and they are going to be in a way different position than I was, and it's going to look entire. Well, not entirely, but somewhat different, a little bit different.
[01:10:22] Speaker B: But the other big thing too is their bandwidth availability will change just like yours did. Right. We were just talking about how you did have the ability to work 20 hours a day, six, seven days a week, and now the startup looks a little differently because you do have some resources because of that work, but your bandwidth is a little bit constrained, just like those women might be a little constrained too. Families or other things that's vying for their time that maybe you don't have as a 20 year old or someone in their 20s starting up, which is.
[01:10:50] Speaker A: Where being able to pay professionals.
[01:10:53] Speaker B: That's right.
[01:10:53] Speaker A: Helps with that.
[01:10:54] Speaker B: I think that war room idea in general, we talked about bankers and just getting, we talk about the importance of the war room and for some of our startups, I think we've got some great friends in the industry that would come and share some of that information and our audience would get a glimpse at what a war room looks like and it wouldn't cost them anything.
[01:11:12] Speaker A: Yes, I was almost going to say absolutely, but I realized I say absolutely like 50 times episode.
[01:11:17] Speaker B: Because you really mean it. That's okay.
[01:11:19] Speaker A: So I do really mean it when I say it. Yes, let's do it. So all of that is forthcoming. I hope you found this valuable. Every single episode, we really are trying to just tell you, show you, make it easier, even just a little bit. It's going to be hard. Don't get me wrong, nothing we can say is going to make it much easier, but maybe a little bit of valuable.
[01:11:41] Speaker B: Nothing else we can commiserate with you. How's that?
[01:11:42] Speaker A: Yeah, not too well.
[01:11:44] Speaker B: Good one, as always. Hopefully our viewers are smarter and want to come back and spend some more time with us.
[01:11:49] Speaker A: Good luck, peeps.
[01:11:49] Speaker B: Good luck, peeps.
[01:11:51] Speaker A: Cheers.
[01:11:51] Speaker B: Cheers. Well, thanks as always for listening. You can catch all of the love and business podcasts on your favorite platforms, and we listed them below for you.
[01:12:00] Speaker A: And if you enjoyed that episode and got something out of it and are interested in the upcoming episodes that are going to be very similar, but expanding on what we talked about, please subscribe. It's the only way you're going to get notified when those episodes come out. We'd really appreciate it.
[01:12:16] Speaker B: See you soon.
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