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Speaker 1: Hey everyone, I'm Jennie Torres.
Speaker 2: And I'm Austin Hankwitz. Welcome to Mind the Business Small
Speaker 2: Business Success Stories, a podcast brought to you by Into
Speaker 2: It QuickBooks and Iheartradios Ruby Studio. In every episode, we
Speaker 2: talk with small business owners as they share their stories
Speaker 2: about the ups and downs of owning a small business.
Speaker 1: And this is a very special episode because not only
Speaker 1: is this a summer bonus episode, but we recorded this
Speaker 1: interview with our guests in front of a live audience
Speaker 1: at the iHeart Theater in Burbank, California.
Speaker 2: Janise, this is the second time we've recorded an episode
Speaker 2: live in front of a real audience in person, and
Speaker 2: the experience is always so so special. Now, in this episode,
Speaker 2: we sat down with Will Lucas, who's the host of
Speaker 2: the podcast Black Tech, Green Money. Will is also the
Speaker 2: founder and CEO of Creatio.
Speaker 1: Will really is doing it all, and we're going to
Speaker 1: ask him how he maintains a balanced ecosystem within all
Speaker 1: the companies he's built and runs. And by business ecosystem,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about how everything works together within the company,
Speaker 1: everything from employees to customers, to quality of products and services,
Speaker 1: to the growth of the business itself. We're going to ask, well,
Speaker 1: how do you consider the impact of your choices in
Speaker 1: your company? How do you define your business ecosystem? What
Speaker 1: are all the things in that ecosystem? And what info
Speaker 1: do you need before you make changes in your company? Austin,
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about this. When did you
Speaker 1: realize that every decision you make for your business has
Speaker 1: a huge ripple effect, no pressure, and how did you
Speaker 1: approach changes in your business plans or strategy knowing this.
Speaker 2: That's a really good question, Jenis, and I think for
Speaker 2: a lot of entrepreneurs listening right now, they might be
Speaker 2: going through this where they're kind of like, wait a second,
Speaker 2: did that decision over here just impact you know, an
Speaker 2: outcome with this project? And I think for me, you know,
Speaker 2: as a content creator and someone who's offering all of
Speaker 2: these different consulting services regarding marketing and things of that nature.
Speaker 2: Whenever I started to diversify my business away from just
Speaker 2: a singular business segment, I realized that they all kind
Speaker 2: of talk to each other, right, And so now when
Speaker 2: I think about taking on new projects, I'm always thinking
Speaker 2: about where the synergies, where are they going to overlap?
Speaker 2: Where two plus two equals five? Right, So I'm always
Speaker 2: trying to figure out how going to be most efficient
Speaker 2: with my time and how is you know, spending time
Speaker 2: or energy on something going to positively impact something else
Speaker 2: I'm working on?
Speaker 3: Denis, what about you?
Speaker 2: Where have you seen sort of experience as it relates
Speaker 2: to making sure that ripple effects are doing good things
Speaker 2: and making sure they're not doing bad things to your
Speaker 2: larger business?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: You know, I have a very lean team, so anytime
Speaker 1: I make a decision to take on a new project
Speaker 1: or launch something new, there is a huge ripple effect
Speaker 1: just because of the number of people who are working
Speaker 1: on the team. So for me, I always have to
Speaker 1: think about is this a good return on investment activity
Speaker 1: for all of us? Because the last thing that I
Speaker 1: want is for everyone to get so bogged down in
Speaker 1: administrative and behind the scenes stuff that we're not actually
Speaker 1: seeing the end result of what that original goal was.
Speaker 2: Now, when you kind of do that return on investment calculation,
Speaker 2: are you looking at it from a time perspective of
Speaker 2: money perspective, opportunity cost perspective?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm looking at it from sort of a trifecta,
Speaker 1: if you will. I want to make sure that we're
Speaker 1: having impact right, that our clients are satisfied. I obviously
Speaker 1: want to make sure that we are making income, because
Speaker 1: that's why we're all in business. And I also want
Speaker 1: to make sure that my team is excited about the
Speaker 1: work that we're doing and we're not just finding busy
Speaker 1: work for folks.
Speaker 2: Couldn't have set it better myself, Gennis, I am so
Speaker 2: dang excited for everyone to hear this interview. So what
Speaker 2: do you say we jump into the meat potatoes of
Speaker 2: this episode.
Speaker 4: Let's do it.
Speaker 1: Oh my, hey, everyone, we're coming to you live from
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio Theater here in Burbank, California. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for being here.
Speaker 2: We could not be more excited that all you guys
Speaker 2: are here right now.
Speaker 3: I'm just so pumped up Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I can't believe we're in two seasons of the.
Speaker 3: Show, seasons of the show already.
Speaker 1: Today we're going to be talking about building and maintaining
Speaker 1: a balanced business ecosystem.
Speaker 4: What does that mean?
Speaker 3: Ecosystem? This is in science class.
Speaker 1: So we're actually talking about how you keep everything in
Speaker 1: your company working together and in harmony, because just like
Speaker 1: a real ecosystem, when you make a change in your
Speaker 1: business ecosystem, that can have an impact on everything.
Speaker 2: Absolutely and too help us talk about that. We're joined
Speaker 2: by Will Lucas. Will is an entrepreneur many times over.
Speaker 2: He's the CEO and founder of Creatio, a marketing and
Speaker 2: production agency, and the founder and CEO of Tollhouse, a
Speaker 2: private member's only social club in his hometown of Toledo, Ohio.
Speaker 4: That's amazing.
Speaker 1: So not only that, but Will also hosts the podcast
Speaker 1: Black Tech, Greed Money, and in twenty twelve, Will was
Speaker 1: appointed co chair of the Ohio Small Business Owners for
Speaker 1: Obama Committee, part of the Obama for America campaign. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we got an expert. Everyone, welcome our special guests
Speaker 1: to the stage, Will Lucas, how you doing, what's up?
Speaker 3: What's up?
Speaker 5: What's up? Hey, it's good to be here. It's good
Speaker 5: to be here.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for joining us. Man, we're super excited.
Speaker 5: Absolutely. Hey, how y'all doing.
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 1: Well, we have a lot to talk about, So I
Speaker 1: want to get right into your story. Tell us about
Speaker 1: your entrepreneurship origin story. What made you want to take
Speaker 1: the leap and being your own boss and start your
Speaker 1: own business.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I always knew that I was going to be
Speaker 5: running my own business one day. I thought it was
Speaker 5: going to be in the music business, though, and so
Speaker 5: I was, you know, one of those kids who wanted
Speaker 5: to be a songwriter and music producer. So I started
Speaker 5: radio before I got into actual business because it was
Speaker 5: the closest thing in my hometown to the music business.
Speaker 5: And so I met a program director for radio station
Speaker 5: at a teen summit and I said, Hey, my name's
Speaker 5: well Lucas. I want to be in the music business.
Speaker 5: And he's like, it's just like that, and he's like,
Speaker 5: you know, the best thing I can tell you do
Speaker 5: is find an internship somewhere. And so there was a
Speaker 5: line of young people waiting to talk to him. So
Speaker 5: he said, come out to the radio station and we'll
Speaker 5: talk some more. So I went out to the radio
Speaker 5: station the next day and he's like, again, next best
Speaker 5: thing I take you to do is find an internship somewhere.
Speaker 5: Matter of fact, we need to intern here. And so
Speaker 5: my internship in radio started that day, and so fast forward.
Speaker 5: I just happened to be good at radio. So I
Speaker 5: did it for two years. And I was in a
Speaker 5: clothing store and they were playing FM radio over their
Speaker 5: sound system, and inevitably the commercials come on and one
Speaker 5: of their competitors came on over the air inside their store,
Speaker 5: and I'm like, this doesn't make a lot of sense,
Speaker 5: you know, like they need their own radio station that
Speaker 5: just talks about them. Slight bulb goes off, and I'm like,
Speaker 5: I just did all these years of radio. I can
Speaker 5: build that. And so that was my entre.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's always that kind of like for most of me.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So that business is creative, the one that you
Speaker 5: created custom radio station for brands. And so what happened
Speaker 5: was I had the idea for it was just a concept.
Speaker 5: You know, what if I created these custom radio stations
Speaker 5: for brands. And I told a mentor of mine and
Speaker 5: he owns six restaurants at the time, and I said, hey,
Speaker 5: I got this idea for this business, this this project,
Speaker 5: and I said, what if I created like custom radio
Speaker 5: stations for brands? And he said, he guys, he was
Speaker 5: not a brief you know guy, he was you know,
Speaker 5: can it will be a little long with it sometimes,
Speaker 5: but you know when I told him the idea, his
Speaker 5: eyes got big and he just said do it and
Speaker 5: that was all he said. So I knew I had something.
Speaker 5: And so that's the inception of creating out there.
Speaker 1: Tell me about one of the proudest moments you've had
Speaker 1: in that journey.
Speaker 5: Oh man, how many guys in the room are business
Speaker 5: owners or you want to be a business owner? You know? Okay,
Speaker 5: most of the room shout out to y'all because this
Speaker 5: road is not for the faint of heart. And so
Speaker 5: I think for me and maybe if you have a
Speaker 5: product out there or a service out there, the most
Speaker 5: joy you can get is when somebody you don't know
Speaker 5: asks to purchase your product because they owe you nothing.
Speaker 5: And so it's different than when like your cousin nuanced it,
Speaker 5: or your neighbor wants to support you, or like your
Speaker 5: mom is like, hey, let me pull out my change
Speaker 5: out in my bra you know. But it's like, you know,
Speaker 5: but when somebody who doesn't know you sees value and
Speaker 5: what you built, it's the most incredible feeling, and I
Speaker 5: wish that for everybody.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it becomes addictive. I would.
Speaker 2: You know you founded the members only social club in
Speaker 2: your hometown of Toledo, Ohio. So what sparked that idea?
Speaker 2: Where do you how do you go from radio to
Speaker 2: hold on, let's all listen to jazz music.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, And so I'm not from LA or New York,
Speaker 5: and so I'm over what do they call the flyover States.
Speaker 5: I'm from Ohio, and broadly, when people don't know Ohio
Speaker 5: or don't know the Midwest, they think it's a going
Speaker 5: to cornfields and they think it is so much agriculture,
Speaker 5: and it's some of that, but it's not just that.
Speaker 5: And so what we wanted to do with Toll House
Speaker 5: was to organize Toledo's doers and so the people who
Speaker 5: were doing the work to help our community be what
Speaker 5: it could be if we got out of our own way.
Speaker 5: And so toll House is a private social club and
Speaker 5: it's five bars, five lounges, a coffee house, there's a
Speaker 5: jazz club in there's coworking space twenty five thousand square feet.
Speaker 5: And so we've got all these amenities to be a
Speaker 5: playground for adult professionals, because where we're trying to do
Speaker 5: is organize the people's the doers. And so I wanted
Speaker 5: a place, you know, that I could go as a
Speaker 5: member or as a consumer, where I knew if I
Speaker 5: walked in, I was going to see somebody who could
Speaker 5: change my life or I could change theirs. And so
Speaker 5: it's different than walking into just a regular coffee house
Speaker 5: where I probably don't need to know who you are.
Speaker 5: But if I'm walking into a place where the people
Speaker 5: here were vetted to be here, that's a room I
Speaker 5: want to be in.
Speaker 2: You know, before the centerview, we're talking a little bit
Speaker 2: on the lobby and I asked you. I was like, yes,
Speaker 2: like where do you live? And You're like, oh, I'm
Speaker 2: actually from Toledo, Ohio, Like I live there, And I'm
Speaker 2: just like someone on your level, you'd think you would
Speaker 2: move to LA or New York or Chicago or something,
Speaker 2: but you didn't.
Speaker 3: You stayed in Toledo. So walk me through.
Speaker 2: The mindset shift that somebody at your little had to
Speaker 2: make of Like, wait, I really want to build for
Speaker 2: where I'm from.
Speaker 3: I want to get people where I'm from. The opportunity is.
Speaker 5: Part of that, but it's also it's about finding the
Speaker 5: white space, like where is the opportunity? Yeah? Yeah, And
Speaker 5: so if I wanted to build a social club, not
Speaker 5: that it's impossible, but if I wanted to build a
Speaker 5: social club in Chicago or in New York or in LA.
Speaker 5: There's a ton of social clubs in Chicago or New
Speaker 5: York or LA. But the whole goal of business is
Speaker 5: to find where the opportunity is. And so I'm not
Speaker 5: going to try to start a business that everybody else
Speaker 5: is starting in that same vertical or the same category.
Speaker 5: I want to find where's the opportunity? Where are the
Speaker 5: people who want this but don't have access to it?
Speaker 5: Those are the lanes I'm trying to feel.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 2: And kind of staying on this topic of toll House,
Speaker 2: I saw you guys just launched an app. You guys
Speaker 2: have a wine club, and I saw on your website
Speaker 2: something about like cigars, and so this seems to have
Speaker 2: evolved a lot over you know, several years now. So
Speaker 2: how has the business evolved from when you started to
Speaker 2: where it is today.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean so toll House. You know, I say
Speaker 5: this twenty five thousand square feet. It was just a big, empty,
Speaker 5: no walls building when I bought it, and you know,
Speaker 5: I kind of just let the buildings speak to me,
Speaker 5: and I say, what should be here? What would I
Speaker 5: want if I was a member? And so as we
Speaker 5: started to build out spaces, I knew there had to
Speaker 5: be a bar, I knew there was going to be
Speaker 5: a coffee house. But we just started to listen to
Speaker 5: our members and like, what are the things that we're
Speaker 5: missing in our community that we used to have where
Speaker 5: we always wanted but we never had an opportunity to,
Speaker 5: you know, participate in those things. And we hadn't had
Speaker 5: a jazz club in Toledo in over ten years because
Speaker 5: they had all closed. And so I just let the
Speaker 5: buildings speak to me. And then as we started to
Speaker 5: hang out and just enjoy the spaces, You're like, it
Speaker 5: would be really cool if we had a coworking space here,
Speaker 5: because what we found was members didn't just want to eat,
Speaker 5: and they didn't just want to hang out and listen
Speaker 5: to music, but they also wanted to work and they
Speaker 5: wanted to be able to collaborate together. And so six
Speaker 5: thousand square feet of the building is pure coworking space.
Speaker 5: So there's five conference rooms slash boardrooms, and there's you know,
Speaker 5: phone booths that you can just take you know, private
Speaker 5: phone calls in. There's a theater in there, so you
Speaker 5: can just relax and just enjoy yourself because you want
Speaker 5: to take that break from being on conference calls all day.
Speaker 5: And so what we tried to do was fill the
Speaker 5: gap for what you missed when you were locked down
Speaker 5: over those that year in COVID, and you want to
Speaker 5: be back around people, but you also want the hybrid
Speaker 5: you know, to where you can socialize and work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really interesting. So you know, obviously you have
Speaker 1: a lot on your plate. You're running a lot of
Speaker 1: different businesses.
Speaker 4: You get a lot of moving parts.
Speaker 1: Can you describe the ecosystems for both Creatio and for
Speaker 1: Toll House, Like how do you structure these businesses for success?
Speaker 5: Yeah? So the great part currently is the Creative Office
Speaker 5: is inside TOEH House. So I get to work and
Speaker 5: you know, I get to have both of my teams
Speaker 5: in the building and I'm creating vertical integration, I should say.
Speaker 5: So my marketing company video production, website development, communication, strategy design,
Speaker 5: app development, built and does the videos and does the
Speaker 5: strategy for a toe house synergy, and so my creatio
Speaker 5: team can work in the spaces that we can have
Speaker 5: our board meetings and there our conference calls in there,
Speaker 5: and they can enjoy, you know, the coffeehouse. So all
Speaker 5: these things are completely vertically integrated.
Speaker 1: Do you think that the way that you envision building
Speaker 1: business is kind of separate from the type of business
Speaker 1: that it is or do you think you have to
Speaker 1: build them differently just based on what type of business
Speaker 1: you're creating.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I do think it's different because the and I
Speaker 5: sort of think about that the way of how you
Speaker 5: deal with people is what you need is not what
Speaker 5: she needs to perform well. And so if I can
Speaker 5: pay attention to what motivates you, then I can get
Speaker 5: the best out of you and you feel best about
Speaker 5: the work that you're performing. But what motivates you doesn't
Speaker 5: motivate him necessarily, and so the same thing for the
Speaker 5: businesses that you build. So just because you do one
Speaker 5: thing well and you perform well, and this makes you
Speaker 5: have to pay attention to what your business is asking
Speaker 5: for because your business is like a child, honestly. And
Speaker 5: so the one thing one things I love. I've been
Speaker 5: doing Creatio since two thousand and seven, and I made
Speaker 5: a lot of mistakes along the way. So I'm not
Speaker 5: here to say, like, you know, everything's great and rosy.
Speaker 3: You're going to get into those, yeah, So like this stuff.
Speaker 5: Is painful, you know, and it's lonely. And so one
Speaker 5: of the early mistakes that I know we're talking more
Speaker 5: about this, but I'll give you one because you mentioned
Speaker 5: this is I was the only employee of Creative for
Speaker 5: so many years, and nobody taught me reinvesting the profits.
Speaker 5: And so I didn't grow up in a wealthy family
Speaker 5: or all these things. And I didn't have a lot
Speaker 5: of business mentors. I had mentors in different respects, but
Speaker 5: nobody said, when you start making money, put it back
Speaker 5: in the business. So when I made, you know, a
Speaker 5: little bit of money, I'm like, oh, and we can
Speaker 5: go put cheese on it now, we can go supersize,
Speaker 5: you know, all these things like we make god money
Speaker 5: now if we can put the squad extraguad, you know,
Speaker 5: so we can do that. And so all those things
Speaker 5: robbed the business of the oxygen it needed because nobody
Speaker 5: taught me.
Speaker 2: That kind of goes into the question I had for you, right,
Speaker 2: which is, if you would ask me the first big
Speaker 2: decision I'd to make as a business owner now of
Speaker 2: four and a half five years, is hiring someone, right,
Speaker 2: Hiring help is Oh, it's overwhelming.
Speaker 3: It is so overwhelming, So it can be.
Speaker 5: It can be. And I think we have this confusion
Speaker 5: about it's overwhelming or I don't want to let somebody down,
Speaker 5: or I don't want to fire somebody, or I don't
Speaker 5: want to want a mispayroll and all these things. It's
Speaker 5: because we don't do it properly. And what I've learned
Speaker 5: is a lot of that anxiety could be reduced. It
Speaker 5: won't go away, but it can be reduced if I
Speaker 5: know what I'm hiring for and it's not just in
Speaker 5: my head, but it's on paper, and I can define
Speaker 5: what success looks like. Because when you hire as an entrepreneur,
Speaker 5: you want somebody who's running around like a chicken with
Speaker 5: their head cut off like you are. And that's the
Speaker 5: wrong way to hire people. Is if you're hiring somebody
Speaker 5: and you're expecting them to move as fast as you're
Speaker 5: moving and do as much as you're doing, they are
Speaker 5: going to fail. I guarantee that because they are not you.
Speaker 5: They were not the person with this idea, They were
Speaker 5: not the person with this vision. They at the people
Speaker 5: with this energy. They here to help you and be
Speaker 5: a lone this and they may not even be here
Speaker 5: to help you, but they here to get something. And
Speaker 5: so if I can set you up for success, the
Speaker 5: only way to do that is to specify and designate
Speaker 5: what success looks like. And not just in my head,
Speaker 5: but it's got to be on paper. How are you
Speaker 5: measuring my performance? Because if you are saying I need
Speaker 5: you to be as crazy and frenetic as I am,
Speaker 5: I'm not crazy and I'm not phanetic, you know frenetic,
Speaker 5: So how am I going to be successful in that environment?
Speaker 5: But if I say I'm hiring you because I need
Speaker 5: five social media posts a day, I need them to
Speaker 5: have these particular sort of pass taxs, I need them
Speaker 5: to have these sorts of images, I can actually look
Speaker 5: and see if you did five those media post a day,
Speaker 5: they have these specific hashacts that you gave me, and
Speaker 5: they have these sort of corresponding images. But if you
Speaker 5: just say go out there and you know you see
Speaker 5: what I'm doing, pick up the slacken, etc. I'm set
Speaker 5: up to fail because I don't know what I'm supposed
Speaker 5: to be doing. And therefore you're looking at me like
Speaker 5: I made the wrong hire. And you might have, but
Speaker 5: you might not have, but you didn't set that person
Speaker 5: up to be successful.
Speaker 2: I want you to double click on that a little
Speaker 2: bit more because I think maybe a lot of people
Speaker 2: listening right now they want to make those hires for
Speaker 2: the very specific tasks and deliverables. Like I totally get
Speaker 2: that that exists, right. You can go check on the
Speaker 2: social media. You can see how many code emails they send, whatever.
Speaker 2: But what about the hires that need to help with strategy,
Speaker 2: They need to help with you know, maybe sales decks
Speaker 2: and pitching and like things of that nature. How have
Speaker 2: you navigated that over the years.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So if it's me, I would start with a consultant.
Speaker 5: And so that's somebody that you don't necessarily need to
Speaker 5: bring on immediately. But I need to make sure I
Speaker 5: know what I'm looking for because the thing about entrepreneurship,
Speaker 5: and you know, we talk about business, business and entrepreneurship
Speaker 5: are corresponding but not the same, and so if you're
Speaker 5: an entrepreneur like I am, I don't always know what
Speaker 5: I need, and so I'm assuming I know what I need,
Speaker 5: and so I would rather bring you on as a
Speaker 5: contractor or as or maybe get an advisor to help
Speaker 5: me accomplish this thing so I can better define what
Speaker 5: I need. And so the worst thing you can do
Speaker 5: is bring somebody on and not know how to define
Speaker 5: success for them. And so if you're not sure, don't
Speaker 5: bring that person on, but contract them out for a
Speaker 5: period of time. And then so when you when you
Speaker 5: need to break part ways, it's a lot easier and
Speaker 5: you know there's no bridges burned and nobody's feelings are hurt.
Speaker 2: Well, I think something else that you breezed over that
Speaker 2: I really want to emphasize is sort of in that
Speaker 2: vulnerability of saying I don't know how to do this.
Speaker 3: Can you help me? Right?
Speaker 2: Because I think a small business owners and entrepreneurs like
Speaker 2: there's always a task or you know, a that we
Speaker 2: have to get over that I don't know how to
Speaker 2: do it. And I've texted Genie before, I'm like, hey,
Speaker 2: what do you do for this? I don't know how
Speaker 2: you've been doing this longing to mean, what's going on, right,
Speaker 2: And I think that's what's so powerful, not just about
Speaker 2: this podcast, but about the conversations we're having. Is like
Speaker 2: giving people the confidence to ask for help, right, it's just.
Speaker 5: Really I mean, the thing about entrepreneurship, you typically, again
Speaker 5: another broad generalization, but entrepreneurs are typically good at something
Speaker 5: and then they want to go make a business out
Speaker 5: of it. But when you're good at something, that doesn't
Speaker 5: mean it's a business. Shit, it's a business when you
Speaker 5: start putting together business practices, when you start operationalizing it.
Speaker 5: And so there's a difference between owning a business and
Speaker 5: owning a job. You're two different things. And so if
Speaker 5: you want to be a business owner, then the job
Speaker 5: is to get out of the machinations of running the business.
Speaker 5: My business is running right now, I'm not there. That's
Speaker 5: the goal. To get to a place to where you're
Speaker 5: not having to be there making the donuts in order
Speaker 5: for the donuts chapter run. Now, if you want to
Speaker 5: do that, if you want to be the artisan, that's fantastic.
Speaker 5: I told my barber this, you know, about six years ago,
Speaker 5: because he was asking me business advice, and I said,
Speaker 5: if you're cutting hair in two years because you have
Speaker 5: to cut hair, you're doing something wrong. But if you're
Speaker 5: cutting hair because you want to cut hair, and he
Speaker 5: owned the barbershop by the way, But if you're cutting
Speaker 5: here because you want to cut hair in two years,
Speaker 5: that's the place that you want to be in, not
Speaker 5: because you have to do it, because you love to
Speaker 5: do it. And so if you're making donuts in your
Speaker 5: donut shop because you have to. The goal is to
Speaker 5: get out of the place where you have to where
Speaker 5: you got to be the one to open the doors
Speaker 5: and turn the lights on and turn the lights off
Speaker 5: at the end of the day and turn the oven
Speaker 5: to and all these things. The goal is to get
Speaker 5: out of that system. You want to put people in
Speaker 5: place that can scale past you, because you, as one person,
Speaker 5: can only do so much.
Speaker 2: Something I learned I think it was last year and
Speaker 2: you really emphasize it here, which was, you know, working
Speaker 2: in the business versus working on the business. This absolutely
Speaker 2: and being able to go from end to on. I've
Speaker 2: not yet done that, but I mean that's the goal.
Speaker 5: One hundred that's one hundred percent goal. The goal for
Speaker 5: business is to build something that's bigger than you. And
Speaker 5: so again I don't want to own a job. I
Speaker 5: used to own a job when the first ten years
Speaker 5: of Creatio, I was the one installing sound systems and restaurants.
Speaker 5: And I don't look poorly on those days because I
Speaker 5: learned so much. But you want to get out of
Speaker 5: You don't want to be stuck there, and so I
Speaker 5: momish you as fast as you can, hire somebody defining
Speaker 5: what you need. It's the best thing you can do
Speaker 5: for your business.
Speaker 2: So kind of thinking back to those days, can you
Speaker 2: recall maybe a misstep or disruption that happened that kind
Speaker 2: of threw off the ecosystem.
Speaker 5: Not documenting those were big missteps. I highly encourage anybody
Speaker 5: who's starting off, even if it's just you, you having
Speaker 5: a board meeting of one. You know it's just you.
Speaker 5: You've got to document. And as tech savvy as we are,
Speaker 5: as technological as we become, as innovative as we become,
Speaker 5: there are certain business practices that you've got to learn.
Speaker 5: And you've got to learn how to pull out a
Speaker 5: pen and write something down. You've got to learn how
Speaker 5: to pull out a iPad and take a note. You've
Speaker 5: got to learn how to get your receipt and scan it.
Speaker 5: You've got. There are certain things you have to do
Speaker 5: as a business person or you end up getting in trouble.
Speaker 5: And so if the business and how to turn on
Speaker 5: the lights is not written down, then you're at risk.
Speaker 5: If what happens when you turning your receipts to your
Speaker 5: account and your bookkeeper and your stuff is all over
Speaker 5: the place, you got a problem. And if you are
Speaker 5: not setting yourself up in an organized fashion, because I understand,
Speaker 5: I'm an entrepreneur. I got four businesses and four buildings
Speaker 5: all over the place. Organization is the work. That is
Speaker 5: the work. Knowing my numbers is the work. And if
Speaker 5: I'm not documenting, and if I'm not keeping records, and
Speaker 5: if I'm not making sure I'm putting operational you know
Speaker 5: SOPs written on paper, we got a problem.
Speaker 3: We'll tell you what keeps me organized into a quick books.
Speaker 5: Absolutely listen, I've been using quick books for twenty years.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, So we've been talking about hiring the
Speaker 1: importance of you know, vetting your employees and making sure
Speaker 1: that they know kind of what is at stake, what
Speaker 1: their mission statement is. Can you talk about how you
Speaker 1: create a work environment where your employees actually feel seen
Speaker 1: and heard.
Speaker 5: Yeah. So number one, I try to be as conscious
Speaker 5: in the interview as I can be, because you can
Speaker 5: see the flags in an interview and if you get
Speaker 5: a little hint like some ain't something like about that answer,
Speaker 5: that's the flag. Listen to the voice in your head
Speaker 5: that says something may write about that one. And so
Speaker 5: I say that to say it's paying attention to the
Speaker 5: little things, paying attention to how your staff or your
Speaker 5: potential staff is responding to things, and not glossing over
Speaker 5: it because you're so busy and you're so you know again,
Speaker 5: running all over the place. Because this is the thing
Speaker 5: about entrepreneurship is when you're building, everything needs you. And
Speaker 5: so then you get into this place to where you
Speaker 5: overlook things that you shouldn't overlook just because you need help.
Speaker 5: And that is the worst thing you can do for
Speaker 5: your business. I would rather grow slower with the right
Speaker 5: people or with just me, then grow fast with the
Speaker 5: wrong people, because if you grow fast with the wrong people,
Speaker 5: the wheels are going to fall off. So you think
Speaker 5: you on a spring and you think you're doing well,
Speaker 5: but you're not really doing well because you're building with
Speaker 5: you know, things that are broken. And so I would
Speaker 5: hire quickly if you can, if you can find the
Speaker 5: right people, but make sure that they know what their
Speaker 5: success looks like, how you're measuring them, and pay attention
Speaker 5: to the small things. Pay attention if something didn't sound right,
Speaker 5: and that response you gave me in this interview, I'm
Speaker 5: gonna pay attention to that because I can tell that
Speaker 5: you actually didn't do what you said you did, or
Speaker 5: something's on your resume is not adding up the dayta
Speaker 5: you're adding up or whatever it is. You got to
Speaker 5: pay attention to those things.
Speaker 1: So we should not hire based on vibes, is what
Speaker 1: I hear say.
Speaker 5: I think vibes matter, but I also think like it's
Speaker 5: understanding truth. And actually I'm going to pick up the
Speaker 5: phone and call previous employer. I need to find out
Speaker 5: are you really who you say you are. I need
Speaker 5: to know if you just didn't go back because you
Speaker 5: didn't want to go back to the job, or but
Speaker 5: did they not want you back at that other job?
Speaker 5: And sometimes that's the case. It's worth it to you
Speaker 5: to do the hard work. You know, my father said
Speaker 5: something when I was growing up. I'll never forget it,
Speaker 5: and he said, everybody in life pays everybody pays. Some
Speaker 5: people pay now, some people pay later. I'd rather pay
Speaker 5: now so that I don't have to pay later. And
Speaker 5: what I mean by that in this context is I
Speaker 5: would rather do the hard work now to make sure
Speaker 5: you're the right person, then pay for it in six
Speaker 5: months when I find out you couldn't do all you
Speaker 5: said you could do.
Speaker 1: Okay, So we obviously, as entrepreneurs and employers, we want
Speaker 1: to kind of strike that balance between building a place
Speaker 1: that's a great place to work at but also be
Speaker 1: able to server clients effectively.
Speaker 3: So how do you balance them listening?
Speaker 5: That's the game, is listening to them, and they don't
Speaker 5: always know what they're asking for either. We don't always
Speaker 5: know what we're looking for as consumers. I mean, we
Speaker 5: don't always know what the solution is. We just know
Speaker 5: we have a need and it is your job as
Speaker 5: the business owner, as the entrepreneur to figure out the
Speaker 5: best and most efficient, cost effective way to solve the problem.
Speaker 5: But the consumer doesn't always know how to define the problem.
Speaker 5: But if you're paying attention to what they say, the
Speaker 5: words they use, how they use the products that they
Speaker 5: have today, you can find solutions. If you're paying attention.
Speaker 5: So the job is to be ears all day long,
Speaker 5: eyes paying attention. The job is not to talk. Your
Speaker 5: job is to figure out what people need and to
Speaker 5: be able to sayciate that need somehow.
Speaker 3: That I need to listen more. That's what's good advice.
Speaker 1: Coming up after the break.
Speaker 5: There are people who live and have never asked themselves
Speaker 5: what they want to be doing. And so if I
Speaker 5: know and I'm clear on what I want, I know
Speaker 5: what doesn't help get me there.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with Mine the Business. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Mind the Business, small business success stories from iHeartMedia's
Speaker 1: Ruby Studio and Into It QuickBooks.
Speaker 2: You know, as we think back to when you began
Speaker 2: building out your ecosystem, was the priority on the customers?
Speaker 2: Was it on growing the business or was it on employees?
Speaker 2: If you had to pick one as the most important
Speaker 2: part of your success, if this ecosystem customers, business growth, right, reinvesting,
Speaker 2: or was it the employees.
Speaker 5: I mean, nothing matters if you don't have somebody who
Speaker 5: wants to buy your product.
Speaker 3: I was hoping you're gonna say that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I can have ten employees, but if
Speaker 5: ain't nobody buying nothing, I got no employee, include me
Speaker 5: real quick. You want to find a need or a
Speaker 5: desire in the marketplace that people are willing to pay
Speaker 5: for at a level that can sustain and grow. That's
Speaker 5: the definition of business. Find a need or a desire
Speaker 5: that people will pay for at a level that allows
Speaker 5: you to be able to consistently produce the outcome for them.
Speaker 5: And so that does not mean employees, That does not
Speaker 5: mean building, That does not mean product. That means fulfilling something,
Speaker 5: satiating it because what you think is the product could
Speaker 5: actually not be the product. It could be something else.
Speaker 5: It could be a service instead of a product. It
Speaker 5: could be a product instead of a service. And so
Speaker 5: the job is to figure out, can I find a
Speaker 5: need in the marketplace or desire in the marketplace that
Speaker 5: I actually am interested in fulfilling. If you can find
Speaker 5: that match and marriage, you will go through the hard
Speaker 5: times when they get hard, because they're inevitably going to
Speaker 5: be hard, but you'll get the energy to continue on.
Speaker 5: I just don't I want people to get caught up
Speaker 5: on Hey, I got the best idea, and everybody in
Speaker 5: here got a great idea. Everybody in here knows somebody
Speaker 5: with a great idea. And some of the people you
Speaker 5: know what a great idea will never do anything with it.
Speaker 5: That's just how it works, because it ain't about having
Speaker 5: a great idea alone. It's about having a good enough
Speaker 5: idea that people are wild going to pay for and
Speaker 5: then a whole bunch of work. That's it.
Speaker 3: I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 2: It reminds me of I'm going to butcher the quote here,
Speaker 2: but Alex Tramosi a guy watch on YouTube, you had
Speaker 2: a quote that was like, success happens as an entrepreneur
Speaker 2: when you do the mundane things for longer than anyone
Speaker 2: imagines wanting to do that. Right, So it's like doing
Speaker 2: those things that you know you're good at and everyone
Speaker 2: else is like, I don't know, I don't want to
Speaker 2: do that, but you do it for so long you
Speaker 2: become so good at it, and then and then people
Speaker 2: start buying products and services from you that I have
Speaker 2: no idea who you are because it's all word of mouth.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's just it's it's compounding, it really is.
Speaker 5: And we live in a day and it's just for
Speaker 5: people and the building, specifically with products, but it may
Speaker 5: also work for services too, Like the day we live
Speaker 5: in the best thing you can do is build a brand.
Speaker 5: In building a brand, that means you become and you
Speaker 5: present yourself as somebody that I will follow you wherever
Speaker 5: you go. If you put out a book, I'm buying it.
Speaker 5: If you put out a T shirt, I'm buying it.
Speaker 5: If you put out a class, I'm buying because I
Speaker 5: dig what you're talking about and I'm into how you
Speaker 5: present yourself to the world. And so it is cool
Speaker 5: to have a product and you will do a lot
Speaker 5: of work trying to sell that product, but if you
Speaker 5: spend the time on the brand, people will buy whatever
Speaker 5: you put out.
Speaker 2: I couldn't have set it better myself. So, well, what's
Speaker 2: next for you and your business ecosystem? Here of as
Speaker 2: call it eighteen twenty four months old, gro.
Speaker 5: I'm doing what I'm living my dream, and the goal
Speaker 5: now is just to continue growing. I don't imagine I'll
Speaker 5: be doing anything different in five years that I'm doing out.
Speaker 5: It'll just be bigger. I like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that, And I love what you said
Speaker 1: about building a brand. You know that you want to
Speaker 1: kind of be associated with being the lead expert in
Speaker 1: your industry, and I think QuickBooks is actually really good
Speaker 1: at doing that because when you think about it's.
Speaker 4: Like, duh, why not?
Speaker 5: And I would say, like this last thing on brand
Speaker 5: and I'm happy to talk about whatever, like, but last
Speaker 5: thing I'll say on brand is stay on brand. Also
Speaker 5: because it is so easy to get compelled, like I
Speaker 5: tell you, Like when I told you, I did radio
Speaker 5: for a period of time, and then I kept getting
Speaker 5: asked to do more radio stuff, and I didn't want
Speaker 5: to be seen as the radio guy, and so I
Speaker 5: had to stop accepting radio stuff, and so I had
Speaker 5: to stop im seeing for a period of time. I
Speaker 5: had to stop, you know, djaying for a period of time.
Speaker 5: I loved the DJ, but there was a I was
Speaker 5: trying to change how my perception was in the world,
Speaker 5: and so I had to divorce myself from certain things
Speaker 5: because they would continue to perpetuate what people saw me
Speaker 5: as I want them to see me and respect me
Speaker 5: as a business person and a technologist. And so you
Speaker 5: have to protect and if you're clear on what you
Speaker 5: want to do. So I talked about being clear on
Speaker 5: how you judge your employees and etc. Are you clear
Speaker 5: on you are you clear on what you want your
Speaker 5: life to be? Like? It astonishes me that there are
Speaker 5: people who live and have never asked themselves what they
Speaker 5: want to be doing. What do I actually want in life?
Speaker 5: So so many of us just do stuff, and we
Speaker 5: take opportunities, and we take things that may be opportunities
Speaker 5: but are not, and we just do stuff. But actually,
Speaker 5: what do you want? And so if I know and
Speaker 5: I'm clear on what I want, I know what doesn't
Speaker 5: help get me there?
Speaker 3: That's powerful.
Speaker 1: That's a great setup for my next question, which is,
Speaker 1: let's talk to the small business owners who are considering
Speaker 1: making a change in their business structure, the ecosystem they
Speaker 1: know maybe they're reaching a point where it's hard to
Speaker 1: scale the way things are right now, or they just
Speaker 1: they're evolving. So what advice would you give to them?
Speaker 5: I think at the end of the day, everything is
Speaker 5: about designing in your mind and on paper what do
Speaker 5: I want the future to look like? And I'm a
Speaker 5: big like AI guy, so so and so like. We
Speaker 5: use chat GPT for a lot of these things. I
Speaker 5: type this in chat GPT the other day. I won't
Speaker 5: tell you what the answer was, but I'll tell you.
Speaker 5: So I checked the answer. I say, if I want
Speaker 5: told house to be at X number, in five years,
Speaker 5: what are the things I should be doing now to
Speaker 5: prepare me for that? And I got remarkable answers. I
Speaker 5: think it's just still that problem. That's a good problem.
Speaker 5: So if you ask chat GPT or friends and say,
Speaker 5: you know, if I want to be successful in five years,
Speaker 5: I want to be at this level in five years,
Speaker 5: what are the things I should be doing now? And
Speaker 5: so I think we live in a day where not
Speaker 5: just information is regularly available, but ideas are readily available.
Speaker 5: And so surround yourself with people who helped to push
Speaker 5: you further than you could imagine you could have gone.
Speaker 5: And if you continue to position yourself around people in
Speaker 5: rooms like this, and it said like y'all should get
Speaker 5: to know each other. If you position yourself in rooms
Speaker 5: like this, you will constantly be challenged and you will
Speaker 5: constantly grow and get better. But to specifically answer your question,
Speaker 5: business is about fundamentals always, all the time. It is
Speaker 5: always about how we're delivering the best product to the consumer.
Speaker 5: At the end of the day, quick book thinks about that.
Speaker 5: The biggest companies in the world think about that. The
Speaker 5: smallest companies in the world think about that is how
Speaker 5: do we do that? And so it's always having that hand.
Speaker 5: The can combat to use that phrase with the consumer
Speaker 5: listening to them, they will tell you what they want.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it kind of comes back to that quote by
Speaker 2: I think it's Jeff Bezos with Amazon, right, relentlessly obsessing
Speaker 2: that's over your customer. Absolutely, So Janie alluded to it earlier.
Speaker 2: In twenty twelve, you were the co chair of the
Speaker 2: Ohio Small Business Owners for the Obama Committee, part of
Speaker 2: the Obama for America campaign.
Speaker 3: What did that roll and tail? That's the real So.
Speaker 5: It's advocating around the state for some of the business
Speaker 5: policies that were alive around the time. And so we
Speaker 5: had a chance to go around the state of Ohio
Speaker 5: talking to small business owners and making sure that the
Speaker 5: campaign at the time was designing policy around what Ohioans
Speaker 5: actually need. So that's what we were doing.
Speaker 2: So what did you I mean, you were surrounding yourself,
Speaker 2: I'm sure with a lot of people that were, you know,
Speaker 2: boots on the ground small business owners.
Speaker 3: What did you learn from them?
Speaker 2: I mean people that you might not have surrounded yourself
Speaker 2: with in the first place, Right, what lessons did you
Speaker 2: take and then apply to your own businesses?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: And I was one of them myself too, So I
Speaker 5: was with my peers people I just didn't know before.
Speaker 5: And so one of the things that you know, I
Speaker 5: found interesting about Ohio entrepreneurs is that we are not
Speaker 5: afraid to get our hands dirty. We are not afraid
Speaker 5: to do the mundane stuff that you talked about. So
Speaker 5: you may not see our businesses, you know, on TV
Speaker 5: and then bright lights, but these are businesses that you
Speaker 5: can't live without. And so a lot of the things
Speaker 5: that get put in to support businesses that get the
Speaker 5: bright lights. I wouldn't much rather, you know, somebody is
Speaker 5: a mentor of mine from a distance, you know, because
Speaker 5: I believe people that I follow are also mentors. They
Speaker 5: just don't know it. You can laugh at that. That was funny,
Speaker 5: he said. You know, like one of the greatest things
Speaker 5: about like the gold Rush is the actual money was
Speaker 5: made by the people who sold the picks and shovels.
Speaker 5: The gold rush wasn't necessarily the people who got rich
Speaker 5: was not the people who found the gold, because everybody
Speaker 5: was looking for gold, But the people who sold the
Speaker 5: picks and shovels were the ones that actually made the money.
Speaker 5: And so I am so when I say like Ohio
Speaker 5: small businesses. To answer your question, we're the people who
Speaker 5: make picks and shovels, and so we make life work
Speaker 5: in places that often get overlooked.
Speaker 3: I love that. I love that answer so much.
Speaker 1: All right, So we're actually going to hop into some
Speaker 1: audience questions, maybe a little rapid fire style.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we got.
Speaker 1: Some really great questions lined up for you. The first
Speaker 1: one is starting from business questions.
Speaker 4: What can get dating advice?
Speaker 1: What do you want to do?
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 1: This first question is for Renee when starting a new business,
Speaker 1: what is the best option, in your opinion, LLC or corp?
Speaker 1: And do you think you need to do this immediately
Speaker 1: or should you wait until money starts coming in.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm not a tax advisor. I'm not a lawyer.
Speaker 5: I'm not so I'm gonna say that disclaimer. So it
Speaker 5: really just depends on the kind of business. So I
Speaker 5: will say that, and that's probably all I will say
Speaker 5: about the structure, because I'm not gonna get myself in trouble.
Speaker 5: There's people with quick books who can answer that. Sure,
Speaker 5: But which is the one to do first? So there's
Speaker 5: different schools of thought of what you should do first.
Speaker 5: I am of the school of thought that says, do
Speaker 5: enough to make sure you're protected, and no more until
Speaker 5: you've got a customer waiting for it. I'm of that
Speaker 5: school of thought. But it also depends on which industry
Speaker 5: you're in. So obviously you're going to be in healthcare,
Speaker 5: and you got to start up in healthcare. You need
Speaker 5: to do certain things. Regulated industries you need to do
Speaker 5: certain things. But if you're you know, creating a new
Speaker 5: shape utter or you doing you know, creating a new
Speaker 5: product or this new service that isn't in the regulated industry,
Speaker 5: the most time you should be spent doing is finding
Speaker 5: somebody who will pay you. Period.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it comes back to what you said before,
Speaker 2: which was, you know, if you don't have customers, you
Speaker 2: don't have employees, you know, everything else oxygen.
Speaker 5: You can't breathe if you don't have a customer one
Speaker 5: hundred percent.
Speaker 3: So this question is from Kristen.
Speaker 2: What is your favorite mistake that you've made early on
Speaker 2: in your career that had the biggest positive impact on
Speaker 2: your success today.
Speaker 5: So, as I mentioned, one of my mentors owned a
Speaker 5: bunch of McDonald's restaurants. I didn't say what they were.
Speaker 5: They were McDonald's restaurants, and when I had the idea
Speaker 5: for Creatio, he let me test this live custom radio
Speaker 5: station in his restaurant. What he didn't tell me is
Speaker 5: this restaurant that he let me do it and didn't
Speaker 5: have a sound system. And so this is my first
Speaker 5: restaurant that I've ever put anything in, and so I
Speaker 5: had to figure out how to install the sound system.
Speaker 5: But also the kicker is the there was no drop
Speaker 5: ceiling between the where the office was in the lobby.
Speaker 5: It was just drywall, and so I didn't know how
Speaker 5: to get the wire above the ceiling to get to
Speaker 5: the lobby. And so I'm legit stapling speaker wire to
Speaker 5: the ceiling through the kitchen of a McDonald's restaurant. And
Speaker 5: it wasn't even commercial great speaker wire. It was like
Speaker 5: car grade speaker Best Buy. So it was like, it's
Speaker 5: such a bad faux pod to be doing, you know,
Speaker 5: in the commercial environment. If the fire marshall would have
Speaker 5: come in, we would have all been bad. But I
Speaker 5: look back at that like, you know, this is I
Speaker 5: was trying to figure it out. And so if you
Speaker 5: see a McDonald's with staple holes through the ceiling, that
Speaker 5: was probably my McDonald's.
Speaker 1: Oh god, that reminds me of my very first like
Speaker 1: zoom training where I was using like a laptop that
Speaker 1: was probably older than me, and the thing just froze
Speaker 1: for like thirty minute it and the internet went out
Speaker 1: and then the battery died and I was like, it's
Speaker 1: got to be better than this, got to be better
Speaker 1: than this next time.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: So this question is actually gonna for all of us.
Speaker 1: I'll let you lead, will So this question is from
Speaker 1: VICKI what was the hardest part of getting your business
Speaker 1: up and running?
Speaker 5: Getting over fear? And so I would say, number one,
Speaker 5: it wasn't hard. But there are so many mental roadblocks
Speaker 5: you've got to get over too, because so often we
Speaker 5: tell ourselves no, We'll say, oh, all that wouldn't work
Speaker 5: because all that, But did you try it? And so
Speaker 5: they're particularly coming from, you know, a family where not
Speaker 5: a bunch of people were entrepreneurs, but they had entrepreneurial
Speaker 5: dreams and just didn't go after them or didn't succeed
Speaker 5: or whatever it was. We ended up getting in these
Speaker 5: cycles of self doubt. And I'm not going to sit
Speaker 5: up here and say I was the most confident person.
Speaker 5: I just knew what I wanted and I was just
Speaker 5: gonna go. And it was out of ignorance, like I
Speaker 5: didn't know what to add. So I'm just I'm a goer,
Speaker 5: and so I just go, not knowing which direction, but
Speaker 5: I know I want something and I'm going for it.
Speaker 5: But when you go on that your head at night,
Speaker 5: I did even mention this. I should I'll say it
Speaker 5: because it's important. Two weeks before I closed on the building,
Speaker 5: which is now toll House, I haven't once had a
Speaker 5: nervous breakdown because I'm like, nobody in my family ever
Speaker 5: bought anything outside of their home, and here I'm in
Speaker 5: about to close in a couple of days on a
Speaker 5: twenty five thousand square foot building, and I'm like, I
Speaker 5: remember sleeping on the couch that night, like because I
Speaker 5: couldn't move, and I'm like, can I cancel the closing day?
Speaker 5: Like I'm like, I'm legit, I'm I freaked out. And
Speaker 5: so there are moments of self doubt, there are moments
Speaker 5: of fear that will keep you stuck. And so there's
Speaker 5: this analogy I like to use in these moments of
Speaker 5: you know, anybody or in room ever played football, and
Speaker 5: I'm not gonna give you a football thing. But if
Speaker 5: you'll appreciate this, So in American football, and you've got
Speaker 5: the ball and you're running with the ball, and you've
Speaker 5: got people trying to bring you down, to trying to
Speaker 5: tackle you, and et cetera, the most important thing to do,
Speaker 5: the most important thing to do when they're trying to
Speaker 5: bring you down is keep moving your feet. It is
Speaker 5: not jukum, it is not spin. It does not run faster,
Speaker 5: it is not none of the most important thing they do.
Speaker 5: And no matter how many people are on you, even
Speaker 5: if you're not moving forward, the most important thing to
Speaker 5: do is keep moving your feet. In the face of fear,
Speaker 5: in the face of failure, in the face of the depression,
Speaker 5: in the face of running out of money, the face
Speaker 5: of divorce, the most important thing to do is keep
Speaker 5: moving your feet.
Speaker 4: I love that.
Speaker 3: That is a mic drop.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think for me, the hardest part of getting things
Speaker 1: up and running is definitely learning how to let go
Speaker 1: so that you can grow right. Because when you're thinking
Speaker 1: about that first hire, you're still in very much solopreneur
Speaker 1: mindset where you feel like you have to have your
Speaker 1: hands in everything, and usually your first hire is also
Speaker 1: going to be micromanaged about you because you just don't
Speaker 1: know how to let things go right. And you're like
Speaker 1: hiring somebody to do something, but you're also doing it
Speaker 1: for them, and you know that level of trust that
Speaker 1: I think is required. You're giving a part of your
Speaker 1: baby to be taken care of by your business, by
Speaker 1: the employee. And I think that was definitely the hardest
Speaker 1: part for me, just learning that I hired so that
Speaker 1: I don't have to continue burning out, and just learning
Speaker 1: that I don't need to be stirring the pod all
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm happy for you, man, I think for me,
Speaker 2: what was you know, the hardest part was getting over
Speaker 2: the fear of failure and failing publicly, right. I feel like,
Speaker 2: back to what you're talking about, building a brand the
Speaker 2: only way that you're going to be a true successful
Speaker 2: big you know, entrepreneur, small business owners like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: you're the guy with the T shirt company. You're the
Speaker 2: guy that's got there whatever, right, and people are going
Speaker 2: to know you from that, and if your business fails,
Speaker 2: everyone now knows you the guy with the failed business.
Speaker 2: And for me that was so hard because I didn't
Speaker 2: want to let down my friends. I didn't want to
Speaker 2: let down my parents. I didn't want to let down
Speaker 2: random people on the internet that I guess found me. Right,
Speaker 2: But it's like getting over that hump of like, no,
Speaker 2: this is me. I really enjoy the process and I'm
Speaker 2: not doing this for them. I'm not doing this for
Speaker 2: anyone but myself. I'm doing this for the journey, and
Speaker 2: I'm in it for the long.
Speaker 5: Hundred percent success is the journey, man, Oh, one hundred
Speaker 5: percentcesses the journey.
Speaker 2: Okay, So our next question comes from Kaylee. Kaylee says,
Speaker 2: how do you define success and what kind of mindset
Speaker 2: shifts did you make that helped you develop your dreams
Speaker 2: to become a reality. So, like, what kind of mindset
Speaker 2: shifts did you make to help those dreams become a reality?
Speaker 3: As you were sort of defining success.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I'll start my saying, so the defining success part.
Speaker 5: I used to think defining success wasn't like a dollar mode.
Speaker 5: But there's an endless doll like dollar, monds always grow
Speaker 5: no matter what scale you at, there was always another
Speaker 5: dollar a mode. And so I like to think of
Speaker 5: success now is do I get to wake up and
Speaker 5: do what I want to do? What did I get
Speaker 5: to choose the direction. I don't always get to choose
Speaker 5: the tasks, because you know, you just have to you know,
Speaker 5: whack a mole. You know, I have to do a
Speaker 5: little bit of that when you run the business. But
Speaker 5: are these problems that I chose because I chose this path?
Speaker 5: And that's how I define success now is do I
Speaker 5: get to work on things that I find interesting, hire
Speaker 5: out the things that I don't want to do, and
Speaker 5: build them for a business that I'm building. That's how
Speaker 5: I define success today. I forgot the second part of the.
Speaker 3: Question, the mindset shift that you had to make.
Speaker 5: Oh so, yeah, I am a I'm a vision boarder.
Speaker 5: And so I before I bought toll House, I had
Speaker 5: buildings like toll House on my vision board because I
Speaker 5: knew one day I was going to have buildings. And
Speaker 5: so I believe that you should keep a vision in
Speaker 5: front of you of what your ideal life looks like.
Speaker 5: And because again, we get caught up in the day
Speaker 5: to day mundane stuff, the stuff that keeps us busy
Speaker 5: and et cetera, and so you can end up being
Speaker 5: so far away from what your vision is for yourself
Speaker 5: if you're not paying attention to what the vision looks like.
Speaker 5: The purpose of the vision board is to keep your
Speaker 5: brain focused on this is the direction I'm going in.
Speaker 5: And if you write it down, you're more likely to
Speaker 5: just put it in the journal, close it up, put
Speaker 5: it in the drawer or whatever. It's on the table.
Speaker 5: You don't even open a thing. But when you have
Speaker 5: a visual of it right by my mirror when I
Speaker 5: get dressed in the morning, it's right there I can see,
Speaker 5: and then I get to audit unconsciously all day long.
Speaker 5: Am I doing the things that helped me get to
Speaker 5: that place I was looking at on my vision board
Speaker 5: this morning?
Speaker 2: Well, I know this is obviously we're interviewing year, but
Speaker 2: this maybe think about something that I do every year
Speaker 2: at the end of the year, which is I write
Speaker 2: down on a piece of paper ten things that I
Speaker 2: accomplished that year, because I think as entrepreneurs, we're living
Speaker 2: so fast, right, Oh, I got to go do this,
Speaker 2: I have to go do this, and you're always thinking
Speaker 2: about the next thing, the next thing.
Speaker 3: When actuality, it's like, no, we.
Speaker 2: Actually accomplished a lot over the last twelve months, right,
Speaker 2: we should reflect and get excited about that.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, agree?
Speaker 1: All right, So this next question is from Vanessa. We
Speaker 1: all know that first year of entrepreneurship is make or
Speaker 1: break for a lot of people. So how do you
Speaker 1: serve the adversity in that first year?
Speaker 5: Realize you're not gonna make it in the first year,
Speaker 5: that's really it. And so if you are expecting to
Speaker 5: be a year in and you struck gold, it just
Speaker 5: doesn't happen like that for most people. And so brace
Speaker 5: yourself for impact. That's what it is. And so I
Speaker 5: was writing on the plane here, I was writing just
Speaker 5: kind of like some thoughts I was having because again
Speaker 5: I told y'all, like I go through these moments of
Speaker 5: like these big leaps, and everyone causes like a different
Speaker 5: sort of reaction. And I was thinking about, like how
Speaker 5: business is war in so many respects, and it's war
Speaker 5: against going broke, it's war against self doubt, it's war
Speaker 5: against most of all of us in your mind. One
Speaker 5: hundred percent. I agree with that. And finding success, especially
Speaker 5: when you're starting to get something going, is a legit,
Speaker 5: like scratching and clawing your way to it. It is
Speaker 5: survival in so many ways until it's not. And then
Speaker 5: once it's not, there's another level because somebody else is
Speaker 5: coming for it. And so there I was telling my
Speaker 5: wife the other day, like, there is no stasis in business,
Speaker 5: like either you're growing or you're dying. That's it. Now.
Speaker 5: You may think, Okay, we're flat, we're revenue neutral three
Speaker 5: years in a row. You think everything's solid, it's legit.
Speaker 5: You just don't see it. And so it's like dying
Speaker 5: slow in real life. It's like I can, you know,
Speaker 5: eat poorly every day and I may not see it
Speaker 5: for the first six months or the first year. You
Speaker 5: just don't see it yet, but it's coming. And so
Speaker 5: we have to put ourselves in the position to be
Speaker 5: thinking about growth at every stage because that's the only
Speaker 5: way business thrives is if it's growing.
Speaker 2: No, I totally get that right, the idea of business
Speaker 2: cycles and secular growth trends, and if you're operating within one,
Speaker 2: you want to be growing within that secular growth trend
Speaker 2: for sure. So our next question comes from Francis, And
Speaker 2: speaking of Francis that what's up, Francis, when did you
Speaker 2: feel like you were fine able to take a breath?
Speaker 3: I enjoy the fruits without.
Speaker 5: I don't do that. Yeah, yeah, I mean I sleep,
Speaker 5: but this is my thing like I love to do
Speaker 5: what I do. I love it, and some people will golf.
Speaker 5: I am mad at you if you golf. Some people
Speaker 5: play video games. I only play video games if I'm
Speaker 5: playing with my son. I love to work and that's
Speaker 5: what I do. And so if I'm chilling with my family,
Speaker 5: then I get moments of breathing. And you know, to
Speaker 5: use that kind of analogy. And so I don't see
Speaker 5: rest how most people see rest. I enjoy, I love,
Speaker 5: I thrive, I find joy all these things off of
Speaker 5: doing the work. And so yeah, I don't know no
Speaker 5: other way to answer that than be honest. I just
Speaker 5: don't do like the you finally can rest on my
Speaker 5: laurels and that the business run itself. Like the minute
Speaker 5: you do that, it is a rap man, I just
Speaker 5: believe it.
Speaker 1: That's just when they say, do what you love and
Speaker 1: you'll never work like that, all right. So last season,
Speaker 1: we asked all of our guests to share their why,
Speaker 1: you know, so that spark that keeps them going when
Speaker 1: times are tough, and even the thing that inspired them
Speaker 1: to open the business in the first place.
Speaker 4: So what is your why?
Speaker 5: Every piece of potential I have I want it expressed
Speaker 5: in the real world. I don't want to miss nothing.
Speaker 5: When my day comes, I want to be like so
Speaker 5: exhausted and so tired because I gave everything to reaching
Speaker 5: my fullest potential. That is my why. I want to
Speaker 5: give every piece of creativity, every idea that is worthy
Speaker 5: to chase, every gift, every word of encouragement, every blessing
Speaker 5: to somebody, every piece of advice, every investment I can give.
Speaker 5: I want to give it all. I want to be
Speaker 5: empty when my day comes.
Speaker 3: We'll lucas everybody.
Speaker 1: We just hopped off this stage. Literally they're breaking down
Speaker 1: the set right now. And Wow, what an incredible episode, Austin.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know there were so many amazing parts,
Speaker 1: but what was your favorite?
Speaker 3: A favorite?
Speaker 2: You can't ask me a favorite from that interview, I'm
Speaker 2: my gosh. I feel like there were countless nuggets of
Speaker 2: information that just blew my mind. But if I could
Speaker 2: pick one, I think the biggest takeaway from that was
Speaker 2: when Will was describing all these entrepreneurs out there that
Speaker 2: he meets and mentors. They find themselves drifting, going from
Speaker 2: one opportunity to the next, not knowing what they want
Speaker 2: to turn into and not knowing who they want to
Speaker 2: be over time and having that time to self reflect
Speaker 2: and then build your own vision board can be very powerful.
Speaker 2: It's something I'm excited to do now after chatting up
Speaker 2: with Will here.
Speaker 3: But man, what an interview. What about you? What was
Speaker 3: your favorite part?
Speaker 1: You know, I love the fact that Will gave us
Speaker 1: permission to be obsessed with our businesses because I think
Speaker 1: there's sort of this like anti hustle culture that's sort
Speaker 1: of popping up in a weird way where we're almost
Speaker 1: being shamed for being like workaholics in a way where
Speaker 1: I'm just like, I don't feel like a workaholic in
Speaker 1: my business because I love it and every day that
Speaker 1: I get to create, it's just such a blessing and
Speaker 1: an opportunity. So I'm glad he gave us kind of
Speaker 1: permission to just be obsessed.
Speaker 3: I'm right there with you.
Speaker 2: And actually I want to double click on that because
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people listening right now, you know,
Speaker 2: if it's their partner, if it's their parents, if it's
Speaker 2: their siblings, you know, they might be getting some negative
Speaker 2: pressure saying, hey, you work too hard.
Speaker 3: What are you doing?
Speaker 2: You know, there's a lot of time and energy and
Speaker 2: focus going into this business, what's coming from it, and
Speaker 2: you know it comes back to that self reflection of
Speaker 2: if this was what makes you happy, then spend all
Speaker 2: the time in the world. Right, this is your baby
Speaker 2: you were talking about too. When you hire someone, you're
Speaker 2: kind of like giving your baby to someone else. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's exactly what's going on. And you are building this
Speaker 2: business from scratching. You should enjoy every moment of it.
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I enjoy being on this podcast with you, Austin, and
Speaker 1: I hope that you guys enjoy listening to it. And
Speaker 1: that's it for today's episode. You can find me on
Speaker 1: social media at jocierrodnetto.
Speaker 2: Podcast and you can find me at Austin Hankwitz. You
Speaker 2: can follow Into It QuickBooks on all social media at QuickBooks.
Speaker 2: To get the tools you need to start, run and
Speaker 2: grow your business, head to QuickBooks dot com today.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to follow this show wherever you listen to podcasts,
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Speaker 3: See you next time.
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