The Void #10 Getting Customers, Owning Your Job, Leadership vs. Management – Feb 21, 2022
In this episode, we’ll answer a couple questions that we’ve received. We’ll discuss how to get customers soon after you start your business, how to plan to add employees, and the differences between leadership versus management. If you have questions you’d like us to answer, please feel free to email them to [email protected] As always, thanks for listening and thanks for sharing! Enjoy the show!
00:00
[Music]
00:04
hey everybody and welcome to the void a
00:06
show dedicated to filling the void
00:08
between being an employee and becoming
00:09
self-employed most people refer to
00:12
starting your own company as taking the
00:13
leap as if they’re blindly jumping off a
00:15
cliff and into the unknown
00:18
this show is here to help you understand
00:19
that it doesn’t have to be that way
00:22
we’ll share with you the process i use
00:23
for starting my company and you too can
00:25
be on your way to starting your very own
00:28
service based business we’ll work
00:30
through some common issues that are
00:31
preventing you from starting your own
00:33
company and fulfilling your own true
00:35
potential
00:36
as always if you like what you’re
00:38
hearing on the show please do us a favor
00:40
and help share the void with somebody
00:42
who might wanting to be starting their
00:44
own company
00:45
dave and i saw an opportunity to help
00:47
others understand that self-employment
00:49
is well within your reach and just as
00:51
our businesses have grown organically
00:53
and by word of mouth we want this show
00:55
to grow the same way and that takes two
00:57
things for that to happen one is we have
00:59
to put out some great content and two is
01:02
you have to help share our valuable
01:04
message we know that many of you are out
01:06
there on different social media
01:08
platforms and different groups for your
01:09
various trades and crafts
01:11
facebook facebook groups for example are
01:14
begging for this kind of info virtually
01:16
every day
01:17
so if you see somebody asking questions
01:19
about starting their own service based
01:21
company
01:22
please do us a favor and drop a link to
01:24
the show i’m your host mitch smedley and
01:28
with me as always is david hilton mitch
01:30
what’s up buddy hey man
01:32
how you doing i’m doing good yeah i was
01:34
just thinking you know
01:36
my wife when we get home from shooting
01:38
she’s like why are you there so late
01:40
we just
01:41
bs for like an hour right and didn’t get
01:44
anything done didn’t start the show
01:46
didn’t do anything it’s good stuff it is
01:48
good stuff i like it you know catching
01:50
up i’m having a real good time doing
01:51
this show yeah it’s fun i get to see
01:53
marcus once a week hey how’s it going
01:55
guys he’s been on vacation so man that
01:57
was a drive yeah that was a driver
01:59
where’d you go i don’t remember colorado
02:01
springs oh colorado springs yeah
02:03
beautiful it’s beautiful i didn’t get to
02:05
go to um
02:07
what’s the peak pike’s peak pike’s peak
02:09
yeah i didn’t get to see that my
02:10
daughter was kind of sick but
02:12
oh man it was lovely yeah it’s nice out
02:14
there it’s one of my favorite states
02:16
yeah for a little while like like a
02:18
small increment of time and i’m like i’m
02:20
ready to go home i couldn’t live there
02:21
because then you would get complacent
02:23
and it would ruin it for me yeah yeah
02:25
it’s like it’s like having the seasons
02:27
right summer’s all great but it’s only
02:28
great because winter sucks i love
02:30
missouri is we get all four seasons yeah
02:32
sometimes in the same week
02:35
what episode are we on we are on episode
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10. we’re on 10. we just wrapped up all
02:41
of the core episodes which is awesome
02:44
um so dave how about you run us through
02:46
what those core episodes were the first
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nine episodes so
02:50
they’re broke into six steps right the
02:52
prep steps the beginning steps so
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uh the first step was personal finance
02:56
prep that was episode one and two okay
02:58
number two business finance prep that
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was episode three
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number three systems prep that’s
03:04
episodes four five and six those were
03:06
the long drawn out this is how to get it
03:09
off the ground and be organized those
03:11
are the most important episodes probably
03:12
they probably are yeah and then once you
03:15
get through those you’re on the
03:16
beginning steps four is community
03:18
involvement work that’s my favorite
03:20
episode seven uh five wake up do work
03:23
repeat that’s episode eight six evaluate
03:26
performance make adjustments and improve
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uh mitch has in here today’s show
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episode nine that’s not right we’re on
03:32
episode 10. i just i like to bring stuff
03:34
copy and paste it sticks in his crawl
03:36
when i bring stuff up that you know he
03:39
doesn’t like like look at his face right
03:40
now he’s very ready i’m a pro
03:42
but that was episode nine so in today’s
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tent
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so if you’re just if this is the first
03:48
episode you’re listening to you’re going
03:50
to want to do yourself a favor and
03:52
actually go back to episodes one through
03:54
nine and watch them in or watch or
03:56
listen or however you’re doing it
03:58
um uh do those in order
04:01
because they cover a lot of the
04:02
foundational basics that all of the rest
04:05
of this show will cover and they make
04:07
more sense when you watch them in order
04:08
yeah yeah so um on today’s show we’re
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gonna do uh some question and answer
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stuff uh and then we’re also gonna talk
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about the differences between leadership
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and management so
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um q a q a now now in episode nine we
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dropped our uh
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our email address if you would like to
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email in questions that is it i can
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never remember what it is yeah it’s ask
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mitch at mitch smedley.com so
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a-s-k-m-i-t-c-h
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at
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m-i-t-c-h s-m-e-d-l-e
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dot com
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uh i like how i didn’t get in any of
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that it’s just all mitch all the time
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well we could fire up another one that
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says ask dave no i don’t want to go
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through emails if you’re gonna ask dave
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anything it’s ask him for like marital
04:54
advice oh yeah yeah you asked me if you
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want to ask me real life stuff on the
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email yeah ask me i’ll answer that’s
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what the show is about right how to
05:03
succeed in business and in life so yeah
05:04
real life stuff i’ll answer them all um
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so yeah after you’ve after you’ve
05:08
listened to those first nine episodes if
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you have any questions at all feel free
05:12
to shoot them in um the questions that
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we’re going to go over today so on our
05:16
facebook page uh which if you want to
05:18
find us on facebook it is at podcast the
05:21
void
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uh on our facebook page we dropped that
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question and answer email early
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so that we would make sure we had some
05:30
good questions for episode 10. yeah we
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were like on episode seven i think or
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eight yeah seven or eight or something
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like that so we gave we gave the
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facebook listeners a little bit of
05:39
permission to ask a little early so uh
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that’s what today’s questions are over
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so let’s uh let’s jump right into the
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questions um
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today’s questions came from a gentleman
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named um jorge
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um and he was up through episode four at
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the time he asked these questions so
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some of them may have been answered in
05:59
the remaining core episodes but we’re
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still going to cover them because
06:02
they’re really solid questions and
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they’re questions that are probably a
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lot of new
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uh business owners or people that are
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questioning business business ownership
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will have so
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um i’m gonna ask the question i’m gonna
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give dave some un uninterrupted time to
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answer it that’ll be a first uh i know
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um
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and then i’ll get my time to answer it
06:22
as well dave and i have some opposing
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views on some of these answers which is
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awesome
06:27
so uh
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it’s the difference is though my view is
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right
06:31
so that’s that’s hates it the difference
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but
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um okay so here’s jorge’s question
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uh he says what’s up brother been
06:38
listening to your podcast i feel like
06:39
it’s been a godsend at this moment i’ve
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been wanting to make the jump to become
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self-employed um i’ve listened to the
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first three episodes so far
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it says i’m 40 years old i’ve been
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plumbing for 15 years and i’m a union
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member
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i do new construction commercial work
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and have done for my whole career i’ve
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been with the same contractor for 11
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years we recently had a management
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change and the new regime is is kind of
07:03
rocking the boat when it comes to the
07:05
employees
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so more and more guys are leaving due to
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poor morale
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i’ve always had aspirations to go on
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go out on my own but i’ve never wanted
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to take the chance uh it’s kind of hard
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to walk away from union union benefits
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and insurance and a pension um and good
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pay and he’s living comfortably right
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now so
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uh he said uh recently uh i’ve started
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taking on side work to build clientele
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and he knows that we’ve spoken about
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side work in our core episodes and how
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side work isn’t necessarily preparing
07:36
you for business ownership and he
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understands that
07:40
um but his his first question is
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where would you generate where would you
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your customers generate from without
07:47
having a base to pull from uh it seems
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like our business has taken off really
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great which is cool
07:55
um but he’s wanting to know how to
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what’s the best process to get customers
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from the get-go
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i did follow up and ask him
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he’s not looking to go into commercial
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new construction work he’s wanting to go
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into residential
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service and repair plumbing work so it’s
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a completely different style of customer
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base so and and he he’s not opposed to
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doing commercial work also correct okay
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great he’s
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as as a one-man show he realizes it’s
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easier for him to do residential yeah
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this is where mitch and i disagree i
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like side work as far as building
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clientele right because you do get those
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interactions now are they all going to
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be customers for life no i would say
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um and and mitch is going to answer a
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little bit of this too i’m going to
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steal some of this point because we
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talked about this earlier um
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you know you need a lot more customers
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than that okay
08:48
he’s going to go into the detail of that
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i like a little bit of side work to get
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your base going a little bit of
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clientele but
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we hadn’t shot episode seven either
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correct and he hasn’t listened to that
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when we talk about community involvement
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work when you start getting into
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community involvement work and becoming
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part of the community becoming a member
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of the chamber of commerce
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that’s where you’re gonna that’s your
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entry level for gaining customers
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and building that clientele that’s
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really
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where you start yep instead of just
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doing side work you’re not going to get
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all of them from side work no like mitch
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has said and you know i i bring up too
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you know when he says he wants to do
09:29
just residential but he’s willing to do
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commercial he has contacts in the
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commercial field
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beat those contacts to death yeah if if
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you have 15
09:39
and you get a sale great if you have 30
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and you get three sales great especially
09:44
in commercial that’s going to carry you
09:46
for a little bit longer yeah you know
09:48
because those projects are a lot bigger
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than just going to
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i don’t want to say plunge one guy’s
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toilet because it sounds like i’m you
09:56
know uh downing the plumbing industry
09:58
and i’m not but that’s just what came to
09:59
me first yeah i mean i
10:01
those are my initial thoughts on that
10:04
first question yeah so
10:06
my thoughts are obviously it’ll help
10:08
once he hears the other episodes but um
10:12
if you’re going into the residential
10:14
world a residential plumber needs like
10:17
three service calls a day on average
10:20
and so no matter how much side work you
10:23
do
10:24
plumbing
10:26
doesn’t really
10:27
fail
10:28
fast enough
10:30
you you could have a bank of of 500
10:32
sidework customers that you’ve done work
10:34
for over the last few years
10:37
that’s still not enough for you to like
10:40
launch a business off of and i know this
10:42
to be fact because
10:44
um
10:45
one of my one of my previous duties was
10:48
i jumped in with a company that only did
10:51
heating and air conditioning and they
10:53
wanted to add a plumbing department and
10:55
they had 4
10:56
000 customers to pull from and and
10:59
obviously they had done work for a whole
11:01
lot more than 4 000 but they had hvac or
11:04
heating and air conditioning service
11:06
agreements with 4 000 customers and so i
11:09
thought oh this would be great when we
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start on with them i’ve got 4 000
11:12
customers to to offer plumbing to right
11:14
from the get-go
11:16
we struggled harder to start a plumbing
11:19
department for them
11:21
than i did when i started my company
11:24
with zero customers to pull from they
11:27
with a click of a button they could
11:28
email 4 000 customers and say hey we’ve
11:30
added on plumbing and here’s a coupon
11:32
use us
11:34
we started off harder and faster than we
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did there
11:38
and we had zero and and the difference
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is your approach to the community
11:44
um and then also
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how well you express to every customer
11:49
that you go to that their referral to
11:52
their family and friends means more to
11:54
you than anything else so
11:57
um
11:57
jorge mentioned that he’s he’s not he’s
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not afraid to do commercial and
12:01
residential both
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you know another option is
12:05
one of the reasons i kind of like doing
12:06
a little bit of commercial is because it
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puts you in front of a bunch of
12:10
residential customers right you like
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last week i was in a hair salon doing
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some work right well that hair salon is
12:17
full of hair stylists that all have
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plumbing needs and it’s full of
12:20
customers that all have plumbing needs
12:22
and literally while we’re in the salon
12:25
doing some plumbing work
12:27
there were three people that said hey
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can i get your card i’m looking for a
12:30
good plumber hey can i get your card i’m
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looking for a good plumber so if you do
12:34
it correctly you can use a little bit of
12:36
commercial work to get residential work
12:37
as well
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the
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the two episodes to focus on when you’re
12:44
worried about your customer base is
12:46
going to be episode 7 where we talk
12:48
about getting involved in the community
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but then also we talk about it in
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episode nine too um before you start
12:54
your company
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you want to have an endless bank of
12:59
ideas for how you will get customers and
13:02
when you have that endless bank of ideas
13:04
for how you’ll get customers
13:06
anytime you’re slow
13:08
you always go back to that bank and you
13:10
always go back to that bank to do stuff
13:13
for me
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like i had door hangers that i was
13:15
hanging and if i had two hours from the
13:18
time i completed one service call to the
13:20
next service call i would just grab a
13:22
whole handful of door hangers in
13:23
whatever neighborhood i happened to be
13:25
in i would just start walking around the
13:26
neighborhood and hanging door hangers
13:28
and i you know i had a whole bunch of
13:30
other ideas too that i never even needed
13:32
to get to partly because our community
13:34
involvement work worked out really well
13:36
so but there there are plenty of ways to
13:39
get it it’s just side work is not that
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way your side work customer is not an
13:44
official business customer your side
13:46
work customer knows exactly what they’re
13:48
getting they’re getting work on the
13:49
cheap because you’re not a business
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they probably won’t follow you into
13:53
business either especially on the
13:55
residential side they may follow you
13:57
into business on the commercial side i
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have watched guys get a fairly good
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commercial
14:03
customer base and then say okay i’m
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launching my business and then just kind
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of go into that
14:08
residentially they typically don’t they
14:10
kind of want that cheap side work feel
14:12
and the moment you go
14:14
legit so to speak they know that your
14:16
prices have to go up because now you’re
14:18
paying taxes and everything else and
14:20
and
14:21
they they don’t want to use you anymore
14:23
so yeah and just
14:25
just a little
14:27
to add to what mitch said
14:29
when you do go out on your own
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and you start posting on facebook and
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you start telling your family and
14:35
friends and then they start telling
14:37
their family and friends
14:38
that’s a lot of customers potential
14:40
customers so don’t be afraid a lot of
14:42
people i think sometimes are afraid to
14:44
say hey
14:46
this is my business i need help getting
14:48
it started i don’t need help with the
14:50
work i don’t need help with the money
14:52
but i need help with
14:54
the work there is a will you please call
14:58
me people don’t want to say will you
14:59
please call me if something goes wrong
15:01
right
15:02
hit those people up people don’t want to
15:04
say i need help
15:06
there is massive power when you tell
15:09
somebody i need help if i called dave in
15:11
the middle of the night
15:13
and just said hey man how’s it going
15:14
he’d probably hang up on me but if i
15:17
called dave in the middle of the night
15:18
and said hey i need help yeah he’s all
15:20
ears yeah what do you got right people
15:22
naturally want to help and so that’s
15:25
actually one of our lines when we’re
15:27
asking customers for google reviews is
15:29
hey it would really help us out if you
15:31
gave us a google review
15:33
and that gets back to our core values
15:35
too of honesty when if you’re just
15:37
honest with people yeah and tell them
15:39
the truth okay so when i first this is a
15:41
good example when i first started out
15:44
i was real small
15:45
i didn’t in doing heating and cooling
15:47
installs okay not service but when i got
15:49
a replacement to do or a bid to go run i
15:52
did not get the same pricing
15:54
that big companies get right they’re
15:56
buying in bulk okay right i would tell
15:59
especially my like my family and friends
16:01
i would say hey look i’m gonna give you
16:03
a bid i’m not gonna be the cheapest man
16:05
i’m sorry i i i have to pay an extra
16:09
six hundred dollars right or what you
16:11
know x
16:12
um above what these other guys are
16:14
paying right um i can you know my labor
16:16
is a little bit smaller than theirs but
16:18
it’s just i’m not going to be the lowest
16:20
i’m sorry
16:21
nine times out of ten those people would
16:24
say to me dude i’d rather give the money
16:26
to you than somebody i don’t know
16:28
exactly okay so
16:30
don’t be afraid and this is i’m talking
16:32
to here
16:33
don’t be afraid to
16:35
ask for help as far as work goes
16:38
and being honest with people and don’t
16:40
be afraid to get
16:42
we’ve beat this horse to death don’t be
16:44
afraid to get involved in the community
16:47
to get those calls yeah
16:49
yeah the uh
16:51
the the big thing is
16:54
we
16:56
when you’re starting out you have to
16:57
make your business worthy of something
16:59
that somebody would want to shop for
17:01
right
17:02
um
17:03
it like in our in our market there are
17:07
literally probably 100 plumbing
17:10
companies
17:11
in our market right so you have to find
17:14
a way to make your business separate the
17:17
itself out from all of those others and
17:20
the wrong way to do it it’s the easiest
17:22
path you’re going to say oh well i beat
17:23
them on quality and i beat them on price
17:25
everybody says that
17:28
every single person says that exactly
17:30
and they don’t right because they’re all
17:32
saying that and the quality varies from
17:35
company to company so you have to get
17:37
out of the box a little bit and find a
17:39
way to make your company completely
17:42
different than everybody else and and
17:45
people will want to come work for you
17:47
because your mission or your vision
17:49
is not
17:51
like everybody if you have the vision
17:53
vision or mission of oh we’re going to
17:54
beat them on we’re going to earn them on
17:56
price and keep them on quality or you
17:58
know whatever else like welcome to the
18:00
same slogan that everybody else is yeah
18:03
so yeah you’ve got to come up with a
18:05
completely different reason why
18:08
you are so much better than everybody
18:10
else and you might have the same quality
18:12
and the same price it doesn’t have to
18:14
revolve around that it can be like
18:17
like for us we dedicate one day a month
18:20
to members of the community who need
18:22
plumbing right that’s what sets us apart
18:24
from every other company out there yeah
18:26
and and that’s enough
18:28
to put us in a different bracket so and
18:30
i want to just one last thing about that
18:32
first question is you know he says um
18:35
it’s hard to walk away from you union
18:36
benefits insurance he has a family of
18:38
five yep dude that’s scary as hell
18:40
okay now listen in in episode three we
18:44
talk about
18:46
um business finance prep
18:49
if you have to carry the insurance for
18:50
those five kids
18:52
and your significant other
18:54
you need to set money aside for that
18:58
before you start out okay so you maybe
19:01
need it if it costs you
19:03
um
19:05
ten thousand dollars for six months yep
19:08
set that ten thousand dollars aside in
19:10
addition to your business finance prep
19:12
yeah okay it makes it less scary you
19:15
know the money’s there
19:16
if if for some reason
19:18
heaven forbid something does happen and
19:20
you have to go back to work you still
19:22
have that money okay it’s still your
19:24
money
19:24
that’s what we talk about when we say
19:27
be prepared
19:28
for everything right that would just be
19:30
an extra step you need to take yep for
19:33
us it was a very very like that that was
19:37
a real thing for us too so
19:39
um i was being provided insurance for my
19:41
company as well
19:43
um
19:44
i’m not completely savvy on the union
19:46
side of things however
19:48
um
19:49
because the companies i had worked for
19:51
were non-union um but
19:54
what i found
19:56
was that when companies are offering you
19:58
insurance they’re not they’re they’re
20:00
literally just offering it to you
20:03
they’re not kicking in very much at all
20:06
so some are some we were able to buy
20:10
private insurance we went to a private
20:11
health insurance broker um and chances
20:14
are if he’s a union plumber he’s not
20:15
going to be able to get insurance on the
20:17
federal marketplace
20:19
because there’s income yeah caps on that
20:21
so he’s gonna have to go to a private
20:23
insurance broker and um and he’s gonna
20:26
be you know given access to that kind of
20:28
stuff but when he does that
20:30
um
20:31
he’s gonna get some realistic numbers
20:33
and so that has to start to become part
20:35
of his personal financing budget that
20:37
he’s going to need to overcome with his
20:39
earnings from his business financing
20:42
we found
20:43
that buying insurance personally
20:47
through a broker was like we’re a family
20:49
of four
20:50
it was like 200 a month more
20:54
than what i was getting through my
20:55
employer and it was almost identical
20:58
insurance yeah so it was like man my
21:01
insurance my my employer was acting like
21:03
they were doing this great thing by
21:04
offering me insurance and everything
21:06
else and they were really only paying
21:08
for like 200 bucks of it yeah it is
21:10
insane how little they’re actually
21:12
paying towards and bigger companies do
21:14
that because they have so many employees
21:16
like if they paid literally paid for
21:18
half they probably couldn’t do it right
21:20
you know i mean unless it’s just a
21:22
special circumstance
21:24
it’s it’s a it’s it’s for another show
21:26
but in the future we should dive into
21:28
how i do insurance for our guys at our
21:30
company because it it it blows every
21:32
other company out of the water are you
21:34
gonna talk about retirement form too uh
21:36
that’s coming we’re gonna break you’re
21:38
gonna dig into that right now yeah i’ve
21:40
been punching mitch in the balls
21:42
retirement months and i don’t have
21:42
the business on
21:44
retirement set up for my guys yet i’m
21:47
big on it i’m big on it
21:49
there aren’t a lot of little digs i can
21:50
get in on him but he tries i’m gonna do
21:52
that one okay let’s let’s move on so
21:54
question two so question two when i look
21:56
at starting my business i look at
21:58
basically just owning my job was that
22:00
your goal or were your intentions to
22:02
grow as you have uh the reason i’m
22:04
asking is because i’m reading the e-myth
22:07
i’m only on chapter three and it’s
22:08
almost trying to deter me saying the
22:10
technician can’t be the boss
22:13
yes what is the e myth because i don’t
22:15
know what the e-myth is i love the
22:17
e-myth the e-myth is a book and if
22:20
anybody is listening out here you need
22:23
to go buy this book if you have not
22:24
started your company or even if you have
22:26
started your company go buy the book um
22:29
i believe it’s official title now
22:32
because it’s been revised a little bit
22:34
um if you go on amazon or whatever
22:35
you’re gonna you’re gonna search the
22:37
e-myth revisited you know they’re not
22:39
sponsoring us right i don’t care okay
22:42
it’s it’s amazing literature um
22:45
they
22:46
they have
22:48
like tons of books out there they’ve
22:50
made an e-myth book for
22:53
um
22:54
for a lot of different professions but
22:57
you can get the gist of it by buying the
22:59
e-myth revisited what the e-myth stands
23:02
for is the entrepreneur myth and
23:05
basically a
23:07
a two-minute overview of the book is
23:11
you got susie who bakes pies and she
23:14
loves baking pies and she’s really good
23:16
at baking pies
23:17
so she says i’m gonna open a business
23:19
baking pies
23:21
and she starts out and it’s kind of fun
23:23
and it’s kind of fresh and she’s baking
23:25
pies and she’s having fun well next
23:27
thing you know her pies are so good
23:28
because she is good
23:30
that now her phone’s ringing a whole lot
23:32
more and it’s kind of hectic and now
23:33
she’s working longer days but hey she’s
23:35
making money and she’s busy
23:37
and she keeps at it and she’s really
23:38
good and now her phone’s ringing even
23:40
more and now she’s like doesn’t have
23:41
time to do the books because she’s
23:43
baking pies and now she doesn’t have
23:44
time to do the orders because she’s
23:46
baking pies and next thing you know
23:48
she’s overwhelmed by this monster she’s
23:51
created because she’s so incredibly good
23:53
at her craft
23:55
so what the e-myth talks about is before
23:57
you start your company and if you’ve
23:59
already started it it’s not too late but
24:01
they talk about mapping out like what
24:04
the completed version of your business
24:07
looks like
24:08
so
24:09
susie’s pies again i don’t even know if
24:11
the name suzy in there and i don’t even
24:12
know if it’s pies but it’s it’s
24:14
something like that
24:15
um
24:16
susie’s pies for example you’re going to
24:18
have
24:19
a person that’s on the phone taking
24:21
orders you’re going to have a person
24:23
that is baking with you right because
24:26
you can’t bake all of them you’re going
24:27
to have a delivery driver you’re going
24:29
to have a bookkeeper to handle the books
24:31
you’re going to have all of this kind of
24:33
stuff
24:34
and so you map that out as a completed
24:36
version and initially you’re writing
24:38
your name to all of those jobs because
24:40
that’s what you’re doing
24:41
but then
24:43
as you start to get busy and you can’t
24:45
keep up with everything you find out the
24:47
one job that you can carve out of there
24:50
and you keep doing everything else and
24:51
then you hire somebody to do that one
24:53
job
24:55
and then as you get busy some more
24:57
and you you’re running out of time you
24:59
find another job to carve out of there
25:01
and you hire somebody to do that job
25:03
and it all starts with understanding
25:06
that eventually this is going to be a
25:07
lot of people doing these jobs and so it
25:09
allows you to kind of organize it it
25:11
allows you to visualize what
25:13
is actually what needs to happen yeah if
25:15
you’re gonna get bigger and be
25:16
successful right and and so the concept
25:19
that he’s talking about there as far as
25:20
owning a job or owning a business if
25:23
you’re a one-man company of anything
25:25
where you’re answering the phones you’re
25:26
fulfilling the orders you’re doing the
25:28
work you’re doing the deliveries you’re
25:30
handling the books you’re doing
25:31
everything
25:32
you don’t own a business the government
25:34
will tell you you own a business so that
25:36
they can tax you more but you don’t
25:38
actually own a business you own
25:41
a job and it’s a horrible job to be
25:44
tasked with all of that stuff
25:47
in in the way the reason the book says
25:49
it i 100 agree with it you own a job
25:52
because if you don’t come to work that
25:53
day
25:54
the business does not make money
25:56
businesses make money whether their
25:58
owners are present or not
26:01
jobs don’t get done if the person doing
26:04
the job doesn’t show up right so that’s
26:06
their definition or how they how they
26:08
play that out so what they’re trying to
26:10
get you to is the entrepreneur status
26:12
where you’ve developed and created a
26:15
business that can run for
26:18
small or long periods of time without
26:20
you there and and that only happens by
26:23
mapping out how to get people to do all
26:25
of the crafts
26:28
it also really highlights the fact that
26:30
you may be really good at baking pies
26:33
and thinking you want to do that for a
26:34
business
26:35
but once you learn that it takes
26:37
bookkeeping and accounting and phone
26:39
answering and delivery and and
26:41
um you know purchasing and everything
26:43
else
26:44
you might be like i i didn’t want to do
26:46
that i just wanted to make pies
26:49
and so now you like fold the business up
26:51
and you go back and work for somebody
26:53
else
26:54
making pies right so it kind of gives
26:57
you that gut check moment before you
26:59
start everything yeah and i’m gonna jump
27:02
in i like that answer
27:04
um
27:06
i was a one-man show so jorge if you
27:09
want to be a one-man show you can do it
27:11
you can totally do it i did it for 10
27:12
years completely by myself yep okay but
27:16
mitch is right and that book is right if
27:18
if all if if you’re not going to hire
27:21
people to help you and you’re not going
27:22
to try to grow
27:24
to be a bigger entity it is a lot of
27:27
hard work and dude it will wear you down
27:29
now okay it will pay you very well in
27:32
the process yeah you’re going to make
27:34
more money being
27:35
you’re going to make more money being a
27:37
one-man show than you ever did working
27:39
for somebody else yes but you’re not
27:41
going to make as much money as if the
27:43
business was
27:44
was working on standing on its own two
27:46
feet and you were just maybe gm’ing the
27:49
business or
27:51
right i don’t want to say ceo but you
27:53
know
27:54
they’re in the service industry it’s not
27:55
quite the same but yeah and a lot of it
27:57
just depends on your aspirations right
27:59
so so don’t lie to yourself and call
28:00
yourself an entrepreneur if you’re
28:02
starting like a one-man business you’re
28:03
just self-employed yeah and that’s fine
28:05
and what they’re talking about they’re
28:07
kind of giving entrepreneur a different
28:08
definition in their book like what mitch
28:11
listed off there that’s not really being
28:13
an entrepreneur that’s that’s owning a
28:15
successful business they’re kind of
28:17
twisting the word there but if you do
28:19
want to do it on your own
28:21
be be prepared yeah because it’s a lot
28:23
of hard work and it’s a lot of long
28:25
hours it’s a lot of real steep learning
28:27
curves i mean but obviously he’s doing
28:29
his due diligence if he’s already
28:31
listened to those show and we’re you
28:32
know we’re prepping him for that yep and
28:34
his questions i mean
28:36
those are great questions for hey
28:38
they’re they’re amazing they’re they’re
28:39
questions to every new business owner
28:40
yes i you know i had those
28:43
same fears you know granted we it was
28:46
just me and my wife at the time i didn’t
28:48
have five kids you know so i wasn’t as
28:50
scared you know she had a job so it
28:52
wasn’t as big a deal but if if you’re
28:54
not gonna grow it be prepared
28:57
to work a lot yeah okay and i mean i was
28:59
on call so i basically was on call 24 7
29:03
365 for 10 years yeah is what it was now
29:06
listen i had other guys that i could i
29:09
shouldn’t say guys other businesses if
29:11
someone called me and i was out of town
29:13
that i could um you know send business
29:16
their way and get my customers taken
29:17
care of
29:19
i had a good
29:20
friendship network so to say um and
29:23
you’ll have to do that if you’re going
29:25
to be on your own but don’t be afraid if
29:27
that’s what you want to do right if
29:28
you’re prepared you can make it happen
29:30
so another key and what he’s kind of
29:32
hitting at is he’s a little fearful of
29:34
like how do i add people and then how do
29:37
i trust that they’re going to do
29:39
everything i want to do
29:40
you have to prepare those people you got
29:42
to prepare them and you have to vet them
29:44
and you got to hire the right people
29:45
yeah
29:47
that’s how you’re said than done it’s a
29:48
lot easier said than done right
29:51
the the challenge there though is
29:53
if you this is another benefit of
29:56
creating a company that sets itself
29:58
apart from all other companies out there
30:01
when
30:02
if you create a company that’s just like
30:04
everybody else
30:06
then the sa the applicants that are
30:08
applying for everybody else that are
30:09
giving them all the problems are going
30:11
to be applying for you as well
30:14
if you create a company that is so
30:16
superior to everybody else in every
30:18
facet in the in their pricing in the way
30:21
that they talk to customers in the way
30:23
that they service customers in their
30:24
appearance in their delivery in their
30:27
product in everything
30:29
then
30:31
when it comes time to hiring people you
30:33
need to treat your people and pay your
30:35
people better than everybody else you
30:37
need to create a culture that’s better
30:40
than anybody else and when you do that
30:42
you will literally have people come to
30:45
you and you can pick which ones are the
30:48
right ones for you and and when you do
30:51
it really well
30:53
it’s crazy how the riff raft doesn’t
30:55
even knock on your door to come work for
30:57
you
30:58
because
30:59
they know
31:00
they won’t be accepted well and it’s not
31:04
there’ll still be a few
31:05
you know that come in and out but you
31:06
can
31:08
i mean you can weed out
31:09
a lot of bad employees
31:11
before they even get there yeah is what
31:13
mitch is saying there yep and now listen
31:15
if you if jorge works at a company now
31:17
that’s kind of a revolving door yeah he
31:19
talks about the culture going south yeah
31:21
so listen
31:22
if if guys are coming in and out of
31:24
there anyway
31:25
but you know good guys have left call
31:27
them yeah call them up if you get if you
31:29
get rolling and you need help call them
31:31
yep you’re not poaching from somebody
31:33
else nope they might be leaving there
31:35
anyway and so another thing too when
31:37
you’re small you’ll find if you want to
31:38
add people onto your team they’ll be a
31:41
little forgiving with you knowing that
31:42
you’re early and you’re small right you
31:44
may say like i’m working on insurance
31:46
you might not have it for the first
31:48
month and they’ll they may be okay with
31:50
that um you may say like as dave was
31:53
knocking me earlier um we’re working on
31:55
401k we don’t have it just yet and
31:57
they’ll be okay with it you still got to
31:59
be a man in your word and you got to
32:00
come back around and get it yeah don’t
32:02
lie to them right right um
32:05
the um
32:07
they’ll work with you a little bit
32:08
because people kind of get excited about
32:10
getting in on the ground floor stuff so
32:12
we’ll have another episode in the future
32:14
about
32:16
how to set those different things up
32:17
well we’ll have we’ll have it about how
32:19
to set some of that kind of stuff up but
32:20
we’ll also have it about like how to
32:22
create great culture um and how to
32:24
create great um
32:27
um
32:28
a great atmosphere where people want to
32:30
come where the right people the top
32:32
performers want to come work for you so
32:36
and when i say top performers i don’t
32:38
mean top performers
32:40
financially i mean top performers
32:42
emotionally the ones that are like the a
32:44
players for your team
32:46
not just the chauvinistic egomaniacs
32:49
that are
32:50
top performers financially or sales yeah
32:53
right right you mean guys that you just
32:54
want to be that you want on your team
32:57
yeah you know and that can be a lot of
32:59
different things yep it could be a good
33:01
sales one it could be the best service
33:03
tech it could also be three guys that
33:06
keep morale up
33:07
and they’re good at their job that’s
33:09
where they’re cheering that’s when you
33:11
get guys like that that make
33:13
when you get i can’t believe i’m gonna
33:15
say this
33:16
tom brady said that rob gronkowski
33:19
was everyone’s favorite teammate yep
33:22
okay on the on the bucks and the pats
33:25
yep okay
33:26
well guess what
33:27
when you have a guy like that with a
33:29
personality like that that’s driving
33:31
guys and and i hate both those teams
33:33
okay we’re in kansas city all right yeah
33:35
it’s still legit fact travis kelsey is
33:37
better than rob gronkowski i don’t care
33:38
what anyone says no questions no
33:40
questions asked okay his stats will
33:42
prove it when he’s done there’s a rumor
33:44
that they’re the chiefs might look at a
33:46
one-year deal with gronk to come to the
33:47
chief don’t if he comes here
33:49
i will boo him when he’s on the field i
33:52
i won’t boo he’s in the cheese jersey
33:53
now all that the pass to the past no
33:56
i don’t think so don’t get me fired up
33:58
um
33:59
but what i mean by that and you know
34:01
when you have guys like that that
34:04
everyone
34:05
um gravitates to when they come into
34:07
work hey guys well you know high five
34:09
hey you know keeping the morale up
34:11
dude first thing in the morning for your
34:13
company to just start out like that
34:16
every freaking day yeah
34:18
i mean those are those guys are more
34:20
important
34:21
i shouldn’t say more important they’re
34:23
as important as your top sales guys no
34:25
they are more important than your top
34:26
sales guys and the reason why they’re
34:28
motivated because they motivate yourself
34:29
exactly exactly so
34:31
you
34:32
can’t believe i just brought raw grand
34:34
casket stupid time
34:36
i you’re i look to a higher heart
34:39
i hire them for their heart
34:42
and then i either accept them at their
34:44
skill level or i can work on their skill
34:46
level i can teach anybody how to plumb i
34:48
cannot teach you anything but it’s a
34:49
pretty stupid easy craft right right you
34:51
sing
34:52
[Laughter]
34:53
he said right
34:55
caught me
34:57
i can’t teach somebody how to give a
34:58
yeah and so if your shit’s broken
35:01
you’re not working for me right
35:03
i can teach you how to turn the wrench
35:05
better or pipe the thing better or or
35:07
diagnose something better i can teach
35:09
all of that and if someone has heart
35:10
it’s easier to teach them those things
35:12
because they care they care about what
35:13
they’re doing right and that’s and
35:15
that’s not for plumbing that’s for
35:16
everything yeah that’s life yeah but
35:18
ultimately to to to kind of bookend the
35:21
answer of a second question about
35:22
looking to
35:24
add people
35:25
uh and he’s a little nervous about about
35:27
them working for him and everything
35:29
you’ve got to have that that e-myth
35:32
spirit in mind of okay eventually when
35:35
this is done i’m going to have this
35:36
position in this position in this
35:38
position and you’ve got to be willing to
35:40
put trust into those positions and have
35:43
them work for you yeah i don’t want to
35:45
drag it on either but you know the last
35:47
part of that was saying the technician
35:49
can’t be the boss i personally know one
35:51
company
35:52
that
35:53
um
35:54
the guy that started it was a tech okay
35:57
and he grew this company
35:58
and they were very successful and i
36:00
don’t mean huge no i think they had 15
36:03
employees
36:04
um the last i talked to him he hired a
36:06
gm
36:07
yeah literally hired a gm this guy is
36:09
the owner of the company hires a gm you
36:11
know what he does he runs sales calls
36:13
yep or not sales calls um tech calls
36:16
there’s you know why there’s a plumbing
36:17
company in our area that did that he
36:19
hired a ceo
36:20
he loves that’s what he loved to do but
36:23
he loved to take care of customers right
36:25
so when he started out and the company
36:27
just naturally evolved into what it was
36:30
and he didn’t like being the gm yeah he
36:33
didn’t like doing this so he found
36:34
someone he trusted right hired that guy
36:37
they’re doing great he went back to
36:39
running calls yeah and not all day no
36:41
but he likes running two or three calls
36:43
yeah he likes talking to the customers
36:45
and and helping them out and and you can
36:47
do that
36:48
you can totally do that and on the
36:50
e-myth framework where it talks about
36:52
like mapping out all of the positions
36:54
right and what i was saying like when
36:55
you get too busy you find you you find
36:57
that position to carve out and you hire
36:59
somebody to do that that doesn’t mean
37:02
necessarily
37:03
that you have to stay in the uppermost
37:06
position of the company right yeah so
37:09
there’s a guy in town it’s actually a
37:10
plumbing company where he did that he
37:12
hired a ceo to run his company
37:15
and and that’s what he did a pretty big
37:16
company they’re
37:18
mid-sized
37:19
so but but that’s very realistic and you
37:21
could totally do that keep in mind is
37:24
the owner of a company you’re still you
37:25
still have to go to the meetings you
37:27
still have to oversee a little bit and
37:28
you know check in you’re kind of you’re
37:30
kind of getting you get a salary for
37:31
being the employee but you’re kind of
37:33
getting some dividends on the back end
37:34
too and so hiring a ceo doesn’t
37:37
necessarily mean that that person’s
37:39
making more than you yeah on the long
37:40
run so no it doesn’t um
37:43
good questions jorge real quick here i’m
37:46
gonna i’m gonna catch him off guard
37:47
don’t be afraid jorge get after it bud
37:48
we do we’ve got a young aspiring
37:51
entrepreneur that just stepped into our
37:53
podcast studio here
37:55
so it’s actually my son
37:58
let’s see if he’s going to be shy he is
37:59
shy look at him he snuck in the door
38:05
that’s okay he’s thinking about possibly
38:07
starting a poop scooping business in the
38:09
neighborhood oh really he could clean
38:12
house dude do you know how much those
38:13
guys actually make i know i told you
38:15
it’s like sanity i’m like you could do
38:16
five bucks a yard
38:18
like five bucks per week first first off
38:21
i think that they charge like 25 a yard
38:24
well per week no what i what i told him
38:26
is once a week five bucks a yard he
38:29
could do like
38:31
10 yards a week and just make a killing
38:34
you know what would be hilarious if he
38:36
just started making a pile of poop in
38:38
your backyard like there’s just like
38:40
that’s where he gets rid of it it’s just
38:41
out back behind the garage door i am a
38:43
plumber i know how to dispose of poop
38:46
right
38:47
so
38:48
maybe maybe one day we’ll get him up the
38:50
courage to to jump in he’s sitting he’s
38:52
sitting here now he’s like i don’t know
38:54
what to say yeah i’m thinking
38:56
i’ll host the show
38:58
and then he can bring him on as again he
39:00
can be my co-host on the show we could
39:02
do that we’ve me and you’ve sat up here
39:04
a hundred times and done it okay twice
39:06
yeah during the steering wheel great job
39:08
too yeah he did great during our prep
39:10
work he’ll sit up here and he helps get
39:12
the mics going he’ll rattle with dave
39:13
forever oh yeah we can talk we can shoot
39:15
the poop so
39:17
um okay so now that we’re done with our
39:19
q and a section and since yeah let’s get
39:21
into this grant’s not going to talk here
39:22
real quick
39:24
um
39:24
one of the things get after it one of
39:26
the things that we wanted to chat with
39:27
you guys about is the differences
39:29
between leadership and management
39:32
and how that is going to affect you
39:35
either as an employee let’s say you
39:37
listen to this show and you decide it’s
39:38
best that you stay working for somebody
39:40
else and that’s totally fine
39:41
but also
39:43
leadership versus management for how
39:45
it’s going to run in your own business
39:48
so
39:49
um
39:50
as you’re currently employed and
39:51
listening to this show
39:53
you may already understand the
39:55
differences between leadership and
39:57
management they they both play a vital
40:00
role in a businesses success however it
40:03
depends on what side of the coin you put
40:05
the emphasis on
40:08
leadership is present in companies where
40:11
people are empowered to make decisions
40:12
for themselves and when chaos arises
40:16
they’re able to handle that chaos
40:18
without running to their manager
40:20
if they do run to their manager it’s to
40:23
kind of give them a debrief of hey we
40:25
ran into this big old crazy fiasco today
40:28
and this is what we did just letting you
40:29
know right
40:31
companies that thrive under excessive
40:34
management or even micromanagement that
40:36
never happens if you run into crazy
40:39
fiasco it’s
40:41
you’re telling whoever is upset that you
40:43
have to pause and you have to wait and
40:46
and i need to get my manager involved
40:48
and all of this stuff you’ve got to call
40:50
the office there’s a super strict
40:52
hierarchy of stuff right i hate that
40:54
stuff right and so
40:56
you’ve got to decide well for one as an
40:59
employee let’s say you’re listening to
41:00
this show before you took the leap
41:03
as an employee
41:04
um you’ve got to understand are you
41:07
working for a company that puts us
41:09
emphasis on leadership or on management
41:11
right um and and go from there
41:15
the easy way to spot the differences
41:17
between like leadership and management
41:19
are gonna be
41:21
um
41:22
home depot for example
41:24
great company
41:26
they thrive a lot on management and not
41:28
a lot on leadership right
41:31
management is gonna be very small task
41:33
based
41:34
you do these tasks in your department
41:36
you do these tasks in your department
41:38
anything that’s overlapping we got to
41:40
get a manager involved and so on um i
41:43
mean i don’t know if they still do but
41:44
they used to wear like little individual
41:46
badges they still do they write it on
41:48
their aprons yeah to say like what tasks
41:51
they’re certified or been trained in
41:52
doing and everything else that’s kind of
41:55
a management heavy culture
41:57
um
41:58
leadership so like let’s go the other
42:00
way if you’ve ever rented a car from
42:02
enterprise rent-a-car i can guarantee
42:05
you you’ve never had to speak to the
42:06
manager
42:07
because enterprise rent-a-car empowers
42:10
every single one of its associates to
42:12
make managerial decisions
42:14
they empower those associates to do
42:16
whatever it takes to make the customer
42:18
happy
42:19
and and as long as that associate is
42:21
working in good faith of the customer
42:23
and the company they’ll never be
42:24
reprimanded for it and and so that is a
42:27
very management driven culture where the
42:30
the goal is more customer focused on on
42:33
making sure that they’re happy without
42:35
delaying that customer by having to get
42:37
a manager involved or call somebody or
42:39
wait for them to become available or
42:41
anything else
42:42
and so those are kind of the two
42:44
differences between the two
42:46
so
42:47
if you’re at a company where morale is
42:50
very low
42:51
and
42:52
everything is broken up into silos you
42:56
only do this task and if it branches out
42:58
of that you have to involve a manager or
43:00
you have to send it over to this
43:02
department to do this task or whatever
43:05
that is a management or even
43:06
micromanagement driven organization
43:09
and they’re usually not very fun to work
43:12
at
43:13
um
43:14
uh so micro management companies are
43:16
awful to work with yeah yeah i feel like
43:18
you have no freedom to do anything
43:20
exactly exactly and it’s it’s hard to do
43:22
your job it’s hard to be motivated it’s
43:24
hard to make sales if it’s a sales
43:25
driven job
43:27
it’s just it’s really hard it’s
43:28
i find it very funny that you brought up
43:30
enterprise rent-a-car
43:32
mitch and i both worked
43:34
that was one of our first jobs we were i
43:36
don’t know how old do you think we were
43:39
to be 20 18 to 12 you had to be 18 to
43:41
work there so it’s like 18 to 20. now
43:43
listen we weren’t the guys that come out
43:44
in the suits we watched cars yeah we did
43:46
we were the dirty and uh losers in the
43:48
back we drove cars from location to
43:51
location well it’s not i don’t want to
43:52
be in trouble for anything uh there may
43:54
have been some wrecked cars some donuts
43:57
and some races yes run it was always a
44:00
competition you could get there faster
44:02
that you
44:03
that’s not in the notes that you brought
44:05
that up and i just kept thinking i’m
44:07
gonna and in the summer i was wearing
44:08
flip-flops no shirt
44:10
i’m gonna date ourselves a little bit
44:12
they rented chevy astro vans when we
44:15
worked right now
44:16
and for those of you who are wondering a
44:18
chevy astro will do a quarter mile
44:20
burnout
44:22
no weight you know there’s no weight
44:24
there’s no power it’s got a good power
44:27
power plant we had a lot of fun with
44:28
that job that was a great job we did
44:30
also get to hang out with a lot of the
44:32
front desk associates and
44:34
i mean it was crazy how the culture was
44:36
in that place it was very very
44:39
customer and associated and if you it
44:41
and when you were working there if you
44:43
the way they made extra money was
44:45
selling insurance on the cars yeah right
44:46
so
44:47
and basically the manager uh dooley and
44:50
i can’t remember the other guy’s name
44:51
dooley was such a douche yeah um but
44:54
they just sat in the office i don’t know
44:56
what they did i don’t remember them ever
44:57
saying anything to us or doing anything
44:59
but each individual person that worked
45:01
there that was renting the cars i mean
45:04
there was a huge they all made the base
45:07
pretty much yeah and then they just if
45:09
you they sold insurance on a car they
45:11
get a little ticket bonus and they just
45:13
let them they just let those people do
45:15
their thing yep and that’s how it should
45:16
be yep that’s so funny i’ve actually run
45:19
into one of the other managers there
45:20
later on it is a lot of fun to talk to
45:22
him
45:23
um a lot of weird stuff happened at that
45:25
job so a lot a lot of times you’re going
45:27
to find out a lot of girls at that job
45:29
yeah we did
45:30
it was right on no one wrote yeah that’s
45:32
uh that’s a whole different yeah that’s
45:34
a whole difference that’s another
45:35
podcast for another day um so a lot of
45:38
the differences between management and
45:39
leadership are gonna be found in culture
45:42
you’re gonna find some of the best
45:44
culture around in companies that are
45:47
very leadership focused you’re going to
45:49
walk into these companies and you’re
45:50
going to have a hard time even spotting
45:52
who is the manager or who is the owner
45:55
right because everybody’s going to be
45:57
just as happy and you’re going to watch
45:59
everyone work just as hard as everyone
46:01
else
46:02
so
46:03
as you’re working through these things
46:06
understand that understand that leaders
46:09
inspire people to act managers require
46:14
people to act right um one of the guys
46:17
that i just hired i hired him from one
46:18
of the bigger companies in town
46:20
they had you approach him or he was
46:22
looking uh it’s okay either way is all
46:25
right
46:25
it’s kind of full circle this is how our
46:28
culture works people hear about our
46:30
culture
46:31
and they want to come to us right okay
46:33
and so i like it they this is this is a
46:36
very management driven company and they
46:38
have a rule for everything and there’s
46:40
nothing that chaps my ass more than
46:42
putting a rule in place that does
46:44
nothing other than piss your employee
46:46
off or make your experience worse for
46:48
the customer yeah and so they had this
46:51
rule that you’re not allowed to leave a
46:53
job at a customer’s home and without
46:56
clocking out of the job right like you
46:58
can’t even go to the
47:00
like you can’t run to the gas station
47:01
while you’re at a customer’s house
47:04
right okay like
47:06
and okay i can get the overriding idea
47:08
right yeah you want to keep your people
47:09
working yeah well
47:10
he would
47:12
you you have like the way that some of
47:13
our crm stuff works you have to like get
47:16
all the way processed with your ticket
47:17
before you leave the customer’s driveway
47:19
okay so before you leave their call in
47:22
the crm and so what he would do is he
47:24
would get done with the interaction with
47:26
the customer and everything and then he
47:28
would get in his truck and he would
47:29
drive a couple blocks away around the
47:30
corner so it didn’t look like he was
47:31
sitting outside their house right
47:33
because customers get creeped out when
47:35
then you don’t leave yeah it’s it’s
47:36
weird and and so he would leave and
47:38
drive a couple of blocks away and then
47:40
get all of his paperwork done and get
47:41
everything all closed out and everything
47:43
and it was a couple of minutes
47:44
one day he did the exact same thing only
47:47
drove and parked in a gas station
47:48
parking lot
47:49
and they actually wrote them up
47:51
for
47:52
leaving the customer’s house and going
47:54
to a gas station parking lot when
47:55
actually what he was doing was in the
47:57
best interest of the customer and
47:59
enhancing that customer’s experience
48:01
yeah so they find reasons to to drive a
48:05
wedge between the employee and the
48:06
company or the customer and the company
48:09
and and that’s a very management
48:11
intensive
48:12
company you know and at this time when
48:15
you can’t
48:16
um
48:17
find employees to work right like what
48:20
are you running around what are you
48:21
trying to do that right right um
48:24
they had a they had a whole bunch of
48:25
other stuff too like if you showed up
48:27
two minutes late to a customer’s house
48:28
you got they had like this point system
48:30
right
48:32
what if there’s traffic right like
48:35
what if like yesterday it’s not 10
48:36
inches yeah yeah so like he’s not
48:39
setting he doesn’t get to set the
48:40
timeline of when he’s going to show up
48:42
yeah the office promises the customer
48:44
we’re going to be here at this certain
48:45
time and he has to try to stick to that
48:47
well a couple of red lights or maybe a
48:49
gas stop or a bathroom break and now
48:51
you’re blowing your timeline right so
48:53
how about you just set a rule that you
48:55
have a window of time that you can
48:56
arrive in and you tell your guy and your
48:58
customer they’re going to arrive anytime
49:00
in this window that reminds me of holy
49:03
cow it’s a it’s a perfect way to go
49:05
reminds me neil here at heating cooling
49:06
there’s there’s a lot of companies that
49:08
do that and and again maybe their ideas
49:10
start with a good principle in mind but
49:13
the way that they enforce them is so
49:15
micromanaging that it just drives the
49:17
wedge and and so
49:19
those types of policies are management
49:22
intensive organizations whereas like we
49:25
have a we have a very open policy in in
49:27
our our company if you you never have to
49:32
involve me if you don’t want to to make
49:34
a decision with a customer and as long
49:36
as you’re acting in good faith with the
49:38
company and the customer in mind i will
49:40
never free to reign buddy yeah i will
49:42
never like
49:44
did you make the right call maybe or
49:46
maybe not that’s that’s neither here nor
49:48
there i’m not going to be upset with you
49:50
unless you acted out of good faith for
49:52
the company or the or the customer so if
49:54
a customer’s upset and they need a small
49:56
refund or a small deduction on their
49:58
price or something like that the guys
49:59
know they can do it and then they’re
50:01
going to call me up later and say hey i
50:03
had to give this customer 20 bucks off
50:05
they were a little upset
50:06
okay thanks thanks for the heads i’m not
50:08
gonna i’m not gonna yeah thank you for
50:10
doing what it took to make the customer
50:11
happy yeah so
50:13
those are the big that’s how you get
50:15
call backs too
50:16
right they’re gonna call back now right
50:18
now they’re gonna call back and and do
50:20
do work with us again so um
50:22
these are all things to think about as
50:24
as either you’re looking to exit your
50:26
company or or you’re looking to to start
50:30
to stay with your company either way and
50:32
that’s a those are good points for even
50:33
if you’re not
50:34
say you’re just listening to this
50:35
because you like listening to it
50:37
maybe some of these things have deterred
50:39
you from starting your own company
50:41
well those are still things to look for
50:43
if you’re looking for a good place to
50:44
work right
50:46
you know right those are things to to
50:48
look for in your employer keep in mind
50:49
if you’re ever looking for a job
50:51
you’re interviewing your employer just
50:53
as much as they’re interviewing you yeah
50:55
and if you don’t think of it that way
50:57
you need to think a lot more highly of
50:58
yourself yeah um and listen you’re
51:00
checking them out just as much as
51:01
they’re checking you out and we’re not
51:04
you know putting you down here but
51:05
that’s i mean that’s what i did you know
51:07
yeah it takes a lot of years and a lot
51:09
of experience to and that’s why we’re
51:11
doing the show and talking about it
51:13
because you don’t just learn those
51:14
things overnight right you know be aware
51:18
yep grow yep know what you’re doing so
51:20
and the reason we brought this up in
51:22
this episode is is partly because
51:24
jorge’s questions about the the new
51:26
regime coming in and changing the
51:28
culture and changing the vibe and
51:29
everything else if i had to if i had to
51:31
guess i would say before that company
51:33
got bought out
51:34
um they were probably a little bit more
51:37
leadership focused and then the new
51:38
owners are a lot more management focused
51:40
and that happens almost every time a
51:42
company gets bought out as they come in
51:44
with a very impressive management
51:45
schedule and jorge’s been there a long
51:47
time so it’s it’s
51:49
it’s not a giant assumption to think
51:51
that that’s what’s happened right right
51:52
so um and use that jorge
51:55
i hope he goes out on his own i hope
51:57
he’s successful if he does go out on his
51:59
own use that as knowledge to put the
52:01
bank of of hey
52:03
dude don’t be that way right i can
52:05
virtually guarantee he’s going to be
52:07
successful for two reasons um one not
52:10
not necessarily because he emailed us
52:12
and asked questions but because he’s
52:14
thinking on that line of getting
52:16
questions answered right yeah the other
52:18
is because he’s reading the e-myth he’s
52:20
preparing that that e-myth book is
52:22
amazing it is very very amazing take
52:24
your word for it i don’t have it on i’d
52:26
let you read it i don’t have it on
52:27
paperback i listened to it on i love you
52:29
i’m not reading that book no you’re not
52:30
i know you’re not a book reader i’m not
52:31
a book reader so the the but the main
52:34
reason we brought that up is like let’s
52:35
say you’re at a management focused
52:37
company and you’re not left yet and
52:39
you’re considering putting everything
52:40
together
52:41
start taking inventory of all of the bs
52:44
rules that that company has
52:47
and not only just
52:48
take inventory of it to write it down as
52:50
like this is crap
52:52
go go the next step and say how are you
52:54
going to do it in your company
52:56
that offsets that that makes it to where
52:58
that is not a problem right so for
53:02
instance i have zero like you can leave
53:04
a customer’s house as much as you want
53:06
as long as it’s in the best interest of
53:08
the company and the customer right
53:10
you you can drive around the corner and
53:12
fill out your paperwork that’s totally
53:14
fine
53:14
you can you can leave the customer’s
53:16
house and go grab material that you need
53:18
that’s fine like do what it takes to
53:20
make you succeed yeah so and the
53:23
customer to succeed as well so as long
53:26
as that’s your focus you’re fine now if
53:28
you’re leaving the customer’s house four
53:29
times to go to the bathroom a quick trip
53:31
that’s a problem
53:33
that’s not right
53:35
right or take the day off and get your
53:37
stomach figured out yeah yeah so
53:39
we wanted to we wanted to bring that in
53:41
because that’s a that’s a really key
53:43
thing for you to understand as you’re
53:45
going into this um and chances are if
53:47
you’re wanting to start a company that
53:48
is intensely management focused you’re
53:50
probably going to struggle just like
53:52
every other company does and your
53:54
customers feel it they feel it very well
53:57
enterprise rent-a-car went on to be one
53:59
of the most successful car rental
54:01
companies in the in the nation
54:03
because
54:04
of their leadership philosophy
54:07
strictly and solely because of that the
54:09
the owner of enterprise
54:11
i think he’s passed away now but he has
54:14
been interviewed before and asked like
54:16
what do you attribute a lot of your
54:17
success for or to and he says in those
54:20
interviews it’s because i empowered all
54:22
of our team members to take care of the
54:24
customer i didn’t put roadblocks in
54:26
their way to take care of the customer
54:27
yeah so that’s huge yeah um
54:30
guys that that pretty much wraps up our
54:33
show today uh had those couple of
54:35
questions to answer and then we talked a
54:37
little bit about leadership and
54:38
management so remember if you like what
54:41
you’re hearing here please do us a favor
54:42
and share the void uh with anybody who
54:45
might be wanting to start their own
54:46
company
54:47
uh drop the drop a link to the show or
54:49
tag us in the in the show uh on on
54:52
social media feel free to send your
54:54
friends a message uh i just messaged a
54:56
guy the other day started his own lawn
54:58
care company and and so i texted him and
55:00
i said hey first of all congrats on the
55:02
lawn care how long how long has he been
55:04
going two weeks nice so i said congrats
55:06
on the lawn care thing that’s awesome oh
55:08
he’s probably checking out he’s
55:09
preparing for spring right right nice
55:11
we’re in the we’re in the midwest here
55:13
it’s winter so he’s he’s kind of getting
55:14
geared up
55:16
he’s probably pushing a little snow
55:17
right now i guarantee he is um but um
55:20
you know i said hey we started up this
55:21
podcast that is perfect for new service
55:23
business owners like yourself and and
55:25
check it out and he was he was like
55:28
beyond amazed that i even thought to
55:30
send it to him that i thought so much to
55:32
like hey i want to see you succeed so to
55:35
check this out
55:36
um and and then he followed back up with
55:38
me today and he said yeah listen to
55:40
episode one and this is cool i can’t
55:41
wait to listen to more so um your
55:44
friends that are doing this
55:45
they want it they want this info this is
55:47
good info to happen let’s bring up too
55:49
so in the service industry it’s really a
55:52
male driven a lot of it is hand driven
55:56
if you know ladies that want to open
55:58
their own salon or want to have their
56:00
own body sculpting it send it to them
56:03
okay
56:04
we’re going to have some women guess
56:05
what we’ve got some women guessing we’re
56:06
excited
56:07
to have them come on they’re you know
56:08
they’re well spoken they know what
56:10
they’re talking about um don’t be afraid
56:13
to send it to them just because it’s too
56:15
you know stinky dudes here yeah talking
56:17
about stuff this information’s for
56:19
everybody yeah yeah it just so happened
56:21
that dave and i were good friends
56:22
growing up and we have similar views and
56:24
and and opposing views but this isn’t a
56:26
male driven thing this isn’t anybody
56:28
thinking no share it with them so we’ve
56:30
we’ve got a couple of ladies lined up
56:31
cheer them on well absolutely you know
56:33
what i mean we’ve got a couple of ladies
56:34
lined up that are going to knock your
56:36
freaking socks off with how they’ve
56:37
gotten started and how they’ve been
56:39
successful and everything else so
56:41
um
56:42
uh
56:43
if we’re not mistaken i don’t want to
56:44
speak out of turn here but uh this is
56:46
episode 10 episode 11 we’re going to
56:48
have our first guest on um and we’re
56:50
going to dive into the business that
56:52
they started and um and and the
56:54
struggles that they faced preparing to
56:56
start the business and then the
56:57
struggles and victories that they had uh
57:00
once they got started so
57:02
that’s where this show starts to get
57:03
really really cool so
57:05
um we we appreciate you guys helping us
57:07
get that message out there and remember
57:09
if you’ve got questions at all feel free
57:11
to send them in to ask mitch mitch
57:14
smedley.com that’ll get them to us and
57:16
and we’ll be able to answer them so uh
57:19
until next time guys have a good week
57:20
and we’ll catch you later love you guys
57:22
thanks