Accountability Leads to Small Business Success

Well, we'll try it a little bit different today. Shannon, here on the Small Business Show. What do you think?

Let's do it. I'm excited. Yeah.

So changing up the format of the show a little bit here, just the. Just the layout of the show really is kind of the way to think of it. This is Small Business Show 234 for Wednesday, July 31, 2019. This is actually the second time we're trying this because change is something that often, well, it pulls you off your game a little bit and sometimes you mess up so bad you got to start over. That's okay. Yep, that's our change. Yeah.

But it introduces new things and changes things for us. You know, we do things the same way over and over and over again. We might get a little stale. So today we're going to have a couple of topics we're going to discuss. One is accountability, how it impacts you and your employees. And what else are we talking about today?

Dave, we have a question from Mrs. X about confidence and starting your business. So these are two topics that I'd love to talk about.

That's great. And that came into feedbackusinessshow Co, where we always welcome those listener questions, right?

Feedbackusinessshow co. That's right. Yeah, that's right. So we'll give you a second to cogitate upon what questions or tips you want to send in. You can send them in. And now we'll start the show. Yeah. Yeah, I like this. This is good. We're here. We're about to do. And Mrs. X writes to us. I have a friend who has a side hustle now that he would like to turn into enough business to employ him full time so he can quit the day job. Okay, we understand that. Sure. It seems, though, like he's been stuck on the verge of actual business for years now. It's a good idea and he would be very capable of execution. But I think he might be afraid to take the leap since this is a new business, not another new business. I get making the transition can be hard, but I think he can do it. How did you guys power through the first time? Well, you know, I think the answer is we. It's no different than the second time. Right.

I mean, we're still doing it.

You. You power through by powering through. And. And actually, I think our conversation, our upcoming conversation on accountability will very much relates to this. But, you know, a few thoughts pop into my head. One, and this is mostly in terms of addressing that fear of making the leap. So Having a business partner can be very helpful, especially for your first business. You may find that you like partners and you want to do that throughout your career, and. Or you may find, wow, that I hated that. Next time I'll do it differently. That that's okay. But having that partner can give you a little bit of, you know, safety in numbers, right? Somebody else to commiserate with, somebody else to share the burden with. Of course, you have to share the spoils with person too, so that doesn't always make sense for business. And speaking of numbers, I like building a spreadsheet of past revenue versus hours worked so that you can help convince yourself that scaling into, like, it sounds like this person's been doing it a little bit. And so look at how much time you've spent on it versus how much money you've made. I realize the money is small, but it sounds like the time is also small. So if you scaled the time with the money, what would the money scale to? And then you ask yourself, well, okay, how do I scale the time? The money will follow. So, sure, you know, I got to trick yourself into being confident.

That's true. And I think there's. On the. On the flip side is I would look at it both ways. One is, what are your absolute minimum expenses to live? Right? Where are you in life that, I mean, what can you cut, you know, to try to minimize your expenses, your outlay of cash versus what this side hustle may be bringing in now, that would make you feel more comfortable to take the leap. The other thing I would share with you is if you go back and listen to our shows. And I asked this question of every interviewer that comes on, every business owner. I asked them what was their best mistake, meaning the mistake that they learned the most from. And you hear over and over and over again, I should have started sooner because, you know, now that you look back, you think, wow, okay, if I would have just taken that leap and it's not going to get easier, you know, the older you get and the more responsibilities you get and the more expenses you get. You know, if you're already at that point, you've got, you know, a mortgage and a car payment, your kids and everything. It does make it challenging. Maybe your spouse, you know, if they're not working, maybe they can go back to work to help subsidize things or get healthcare, you know, that kind of thing. When I first started out, that's what we lived on is my wife's salary. And, you know, we just didn't have very many expenses. So I felt that the risk was very low. Manageable. Yeah, yeah. So try to put in perspective. Break it down. I love your spreadsheet idea on the time and I think on the other, you know, a few columns over, really start listing what your absolute expenses are, you know, using the Dave Ramsey philosophy, You know, can you live on rice and beans and beans and rice for six months or a year to really cut down and make. See if this thing will work? Because I. One thing I guarantee you, if you don't make the leap, you're going to regret it and it's going to be part of your story that you're not going to want to talk about. And we want to reverse that here. We love the concept of creating your own story. We're going to talk about it in the accountability section next. So I encourage you to take the leap, you know, get help you need. If you need a mentor from the, you know, the SCORE, the Society of Retired Executives@score.com is it.com, dave?

I think it's.org right.org.

Yeah, we'll link it. Yeah, yeah, we'll link it in the show notes. So those, those folks are, you know, more than willing to help and set you up. We've had people on the show that have used their resources.

Yeah, just last year.

Perfect.

I, I needed to make a change in the business. I, I need, I needed someone to, that had no daily involvement in the business with whom I could just talk and, and have them tell me, okay, well, you know, you, you've, you've done some great things. Obviously. That's great. But how are you going to do this next thing? Like, oh, yeah, crap, you know, and they're totally right. And the best part is they don't, like, they don't have. The only investment they have in the outcome is, is potentially, you know, either their own egos or their own desire to help or both if they're, if they're mashed together. Right. But that's it. Your success is the only thing they care about. Right?

That's right.

That's it. That's why it's a great resource, donating their time to do this. Yeah, it's great.

Yeah. So I highly recommend it. And, you know, they'll help you with that confidence part too, because they'll help analyze things and you'll see that they've.

Been through it before. And the nice part is it's all confidential because you can, you can talk through, you can show them your numbers, you can show them Anything. These aren't people that you know. These aren't people that you know are your competitors. They've just done enough in their lives that they're at a point where they can take a look at most businesses and identify some general and maybe sometimes specific things that can really help you. Yeah, it's frickin for sure.

Yep. And the fact that, you know, Mrs. X, you're writing in, I mean, clearly this person, you know, asking for a friend here, they've got your support and, you know, someone to talk to. So, you know that that's a huge part of it right there. So getting that support system around you could be the, you know, the most important and possibly, you know, the first step to take, to take that leap.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's it. Yeah. But do it.

And where do we. Where do they send in more questions?

Dave Feedback at businessshow Co. Nice. Yeah.

That's brilliant. That's brilliant.

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Nice.

Yeah.

Cool.

It's time.

Yeah, let's be accountable. We. We talked a little bit about this last week or last episode and wanted to do a full episode on accountability because we talk about it a lot. But I thought it would be great to dig in a little deeper today. And I mentioned to you this accountability, I think, is a solution to so many problems that we have as business owners, individuals, even in our country. And we're not a show about politics or anything like that. But we both started laughing when we were talking, but like, yeah, for sure.

I think personal accountability is something that most people hate. You are probably not going to like some of the things we say in this episode.

Yes.

And the more of us that. That here's the thing, and I'm probably skipping to the end here, but we'll. We'll teach you how to get there. But the thing is, if you choose to take accountability, you get to write your own story. This.

Got it.

This episode was, at least on my part, catalyzed by a friend saying to me, the education system failed me. And I thought, you know what I could say, like, I thought about my story and like, the. Of my story. College didn't work out for me, especially not at first. And I could also say the education system failed me, but then I have no control over fixing the problem. So it just, it never dawned on me to say that what. What I say is I failed within the education system because now I get to change that.

Yeah. And look how far you've come despite it. Right. It's not even. That is the way to flip it.

Because I lear learned that I need to be in charge of my life. Like, that's just how it goes.

Yeah. Yeah. And so as I, as I started, you know, researching for this episode, you know, I really, you know, focusing on accountability has been a huge benefit, a huge plus in my life, and has helped me succeed on so many different levels. And I really believe that's A powerful way to kind of steer yourself and your small business towards whatever success you want, you know, and when you hold yourself accountable, you're in charge of, of the actions that you take and even little small things that you do, how you adjust iterate, correct problems that may have happened to you and then maybe holding you back, you know, so you are in the driver's seat.

Accountability is freedom.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a, that's an interesting phrase right there, because I would say many people would have a hard time embracing that. And as I was looking for information, I came across this book by an author, Linda Galindo, which we'll link in the. The show notes. And it was called the 85% solution. And digging a little deeper into it, I'm going to try to have her on the show in the future. Her concept is if you train yourself to believe that you are at least 85% responsible for your success and just 15% depends on random events, your chances of being successful are just exponentially higher. And on the flip side, people that blame their problems, their mistakes and their failures on forces beyond their control are doomed to fail. Or, and maybe not even. That's a bit extreme, but I would say doomed to be stuck in mediocrity. Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Very. At the very best, Ryan Stuman, who.

We had on the show, talks about, you know, the power of the media, of mediocrity, and, and he talks about ridding your life of, of that thinking because you will, you will normalize to that. And yeah, like, and most of us, like, if you're listening to the show, that's not what you want.

Yeah, no, no. And I, and I think a lot of it really comes down to what, you know, you were talking about, is that you get to write your own story, you know, and, and that is just. Why wouldn't you want to do that? And, and, you know, I don't know. And so if, if there's someone out there listening that doesn't want to do that, doesn't want to be able to write their own story, I would love to hear from you. You know, talk to us and tell us what, what we're saying wrong here.

We, we won't. Well, we might, we might. We will offer our. Disagree.

Yeah.

Yeah, but, but we will, we will take it for, for what it is. And, and if you want it to be anonymous, that's totally fine. Yeah, I would love to understand.

Yeah. Does it not work? And, and now, because I look at it from, is in many ways, if you're not accountable. It's really a cop out. It's a way to kind of float through life, taking things as they come and you just kind of, oh, I got screwed here. That didn't work out. That guy got the promotion or whatever. I mean, yeah, you can have tons of examples, but on the flip side, it's how you react to those things that happen to you.

Those things are all true and it sucks.

Yeah.

Like.

Yes, it does.

Yes, of course.

But we all face them and it's how you. What is your response?

Right, that's it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, and the, the. I have terrific news. You know, this kind of, it can be kind of a downer subject sometimes, but the best news about it is, I'm gonna tell you, is accountability. Accountability is a learned. Yes, it's a learned skill. It's not something you, you know, totally is. Yeah, yeah, you can start today. If, if you haven't taken into accountability in your life and you're not happy with where today's another day. And you can, you know, we're going to talk about some skills here in the next, you know, 15 or 20 minutes that you can implement a little at a time to create a system to program yourself to be more accountable and to attract success to you like a magnet.

So you know how you say you always learn the most out of every episode? Based on that description of what we're going to talk about here, I truly hope today is the day I learn the most because that. I want that. Like, I mean. Yeah.

Why all of us do. And, and like, I, and I, I think I, I'm like super accountable. I mean, I look at everything that's screwed up and I'm like, oh, that I, I, you know, I'm involved in that somehow. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't follow through. I could have done this better. And, and that's just a management thing I've learned over the years because I, I'm control freak, I think is how I got started. And I wanted to be in charge. I wanted to be in control. And I, I learned that if I really want it to be in control, you have to take, you know, responsibility. And, and that's the first part I think of learning about accountability is teaching yourself to be responsible. Constantly remind yourself that success or failure is up to you. And if you can, just remind yourself, print it out, put it on your mirror. Say it, put it in your car. I'm gonna say it again. Your success or your failure, it's all up to you. This making that commitment changes the entire framework of anything you are involved in and it makes you powerful because you're in charge, right? It's, it's scary, right, because you can fail and it's all your fault too. But I'm going to tell you how to spin that failure to make it just one part of this awesome story that you're building for your life in your small business. Right?

Yeah.

And you, you, it goes both ways. So you have to take the, you get to take the win, which is great. And you know, you're like, okay, arms up. And you could talk about it and everything else, but don't overlook the power of failure, right? You're going to gain. If you talk about failure in the right framework, you'll gain respect from other people, confidence, and you'll learn over and over again. I mean, I feel more than anybody I know, but I always, you know, spin it because I'm committed to telling my own story my certain ways. Like, oh, you know, now I can look back on it, go, I really screwed up there. You know, I paid $100,000 for a television one time and I don't know if I've told that story.

I'll try and find the episode so that we can to it. But yeah, yeah, that's a nice TV you got.

I still have that TV and I tell that story when I walk by that room and they go, oh yeah. I go, yeah, that, that, that scent looks good, but it cost me $100,000, you know, and it's, it's nothing. But anyway, so, you know, this whole concept of, of winning and losing is part of it and it's okay. And I'll skip down to the point where I can tell you, you know, how to, you know, spin it is, you know, Nelson Mandela, he said a quote, I never fail. I either win or learn. And man, when I heard that, you know, many, many, many years ago, I was like, that's it, that's it for me. So it freed me from the fear of making mistakes. Because you know what? People love to hear about how you screwed up. If you pitch it the right way. If you're like, oh, let me tell you about, especially when, you know, they see that you've been successful in other ways and you know, you live a really good life when you can talk about your screw ups and laugh about them over a beer or something, it allows you to connect with people on a much better level than when you tell them how great you are and how, you know, you've never Screwed up.

And that kind of thing, people can't relate to that because that's not, not everyone can. Well, if you've screwed up, right? Like, if you never, if you tell the story that you. Wow. Every decision I make is amazing.

Yeah.

And it's tremendous. I, I, you know, no one can relate to that. It may, you may. If you are a really good salesperson, you might be motivational in that kind of speaking. Maybe.

Sure.

Right. But it might be aspirational. Maybe. But if you are that good of a salesperson, you're wasting your breath telling people how great you are because you should be out doing, Selling something else. Yeah, but most of us are not that good at sales, to be perfectly honest. Even those of us that are really good at sales are not that good. Tell the truth, tell people how you screwed up. It's way more relatable because it's powerful.

And yeah, if you're not making mistakes, you're not pushing yourself far enough, you're in your comfort zone, you know, if you're not trying new things, like I always say, you know, try something. Everybody should have a side hustle, you know, some, something they're working on on the side to make some extra money, to learn something. I don't care what it is. But I always say that one of the first things I would tell employees that I hire is, oh, what's your interest? What do you do? You know, what do you do at night? You know, what do you do on the weekends? That kind of stuff. You should have something else going on that you can screw up at because you will learn so much and it will help you down the road.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you know, back to our question at the beginning for Mrs. X's friend there.

Yeah.

Like, that person probably already knows a lot of things not to do. Right. If they've been dabbling in this long enough, they've, they've made mistakes. And some of those mistakes may be fueling their fear to go further. Right. Say that.

Yeah, Right.

But it's, but it's just, it, you learn and that's okay. Yeah.

And those, those mistakes are the stepping stones that are leading you towards success. Right. You may not be able to see it now, but, you know, like Steve Jobs said, you know, you can't, you have to look back, right. To see all the, to connect the dots. That was, that was some kind of like that.

Connect the dots. That's right.

Yeah. But you will, you will be able to look back and to me, when I've screwed up and believe me, I have done it royally, many, many times. The motivator for me was like, well, I can't stop here because this cannot be the last thing I talk about. You know, I have to be able to get to the point where I can talk about, oh, yeah, that time, you know, spend 100 grand on that debt to get in the TV business. Now I can joke about it, right? I learned a valuable lesson. So the other thing that I think is really powerful is that affirmation is that you alone have the power to write your own story. Don't give up that power to someone else. Right. If you don't take accountability for the actions that you take, you're letting other people control it. And, you know, you have to take responsibility for. For your actions, good and bad. Don't give it to someone else. Because if they assign, you know, that you screwed up and maybe you didn't, well, that's not a good part of your story either, right? So affirm your power to do it and make the decisions on your own. And then the other part about responsibility is. Is. And Dave, you say this a lot on the show, which I really respect is, you know, letting go of the past. Right. You can't. The. What's the phrase? The Sun. The fallacy of sunk cost. You know, you can't change the past. It doesn't matter how things could have worked out and should have worked out. Constantly remind yourself to focus on how you're reacting now and how you're being accountable for the situation that is right now.

That's it.

Don't focus on the bad. On this other stuff that I have. Maybe you screwed up. Whatever.

Our human brains can't perceive time all at once, so we've created linear time. Right. I actually don't believe that that's how time works. But our human brains can only perceive it linearly. So we. We march forward through time, and that's just how we are. And so therefore, our feeble brains cannot perceive how to fix a sunk cost. So don't try. You're just not capable. That's just how it is. That's it.

Totally, man.

I didn't mean to get metaphysical here, but.

No, no, it's a good point.

Yep.

And along that same note, you know, don't wait for anybody else. There's no reason to wait. People are not going to empower you. You have to empower yourself. Right. And you're the only one that can empower yourself to be accountable. You're the only one that can empower yourself to take action, which is what we talk about on the show over and over and over. If you're down in the dumps, it's action that's going to pull you out, right? I always say it's a symphony of action. I stole that quote from somebody, but I don't know who it was. But, you know, you're the only one that can empower yourself to take the risks that are involved, to create the system, to achieve the results that you want. Just think about how great it's going to be when you can look back and laugh about your mistakes because you've had so much success. It's a huge motivator, and you can.

Empower and see you're doing it without. You've made telling your own story such a foundational part of what you do every day that you don't even realize it, but that you just did it there. You're like, okay, well, what I want to do is tell this story and laugh about this mistake I just made. And the way I'm going to get there is to be wildly successful in the interim between here and there. And then I can tell that story and laugh like, you've just laid out your plan by default. So for the rest of us, this takes a little bit of intention, but. But hang out with Shannon long enough, you'll start to do this, too. I catch myself now.

I talk about it all the time because it's just my experience. I have made it work for me, and there's no other reason, because I'm just not that smart, you know? I mean, I just do basic stuff. Right. I was talking. We had a pretty big event at our house, my wife's family, this weekend, and, you know, all comes down. Like, what do you do? What do you have? Like, well, I have this business. I have that. I do this, I do that. But. But it's all basic stuff, and you just grind it out. But as you're telling yourself and creating this story, it's how you pitch it.

Don't worry about your idea for your business. If you're this far along already, it's good enough, truly. It doesn't need to be the next. The idea that makes everyone go, oh, my God, that's amazing. Like, if you have one of those. Cool. But also, you need to treat it the same as you would, like an idea that's pretty good. And it's. You got to grind it out, just like Shannon said. You have to just do the work and trust yourself and don't compare Yourself to other people. Especially, like, social media comparisons are worst.

Yeah.

Because you can go online and somebody can post something that shows that, you know, they. They sold more than you yesterday.

Or LinkedIn the same thing. Right? Yeah.

Right. Yeah. I consider LinkedIn part of. It's perhaps one of the social media sites, but it is. Everybody's got their highlight reel there.

Yep.

And they're all. There's always going to be someone that you can find very easily that is reporting something that will beat whatever you think you're doing. It's irrelevant. All you got to do is do your thing and march forward and you're going to be fine. Just compete with yourself. That's it.

Yeah. When I. When I finally gave up even looking at what my competitors were doing, it freed. I can't tell you what a weight off of my chest it was years and years ago because not one of the part was I had a bunch of people working for me that of course left and started competing businesses. Right.

Of course.

And I was like, look, you know, they're doing better than I am, they're smarter than I am. This kind of thing. And I used to just beat myself up about it. And finally, you know, it's like, you know what? I'm just not ever going to go look at their stuff anymore. I'm going to focus on doing the best job I can do here with this business. I'm going to grow it. And, you know, I'm here to tell you that mundane what, and I'm quoting in the air here, boring businesses can create significant wealth if you grind it out and you surround yourself with good people and you create a great place for them to work and you hold each other accountable.

And it'll.

It could definitely happen.

You focus on customer service.

Yeah. We talk about it all the time. You're right.

Those are the fundamentals. Just grind it out every day and focus on customer service. I had a tour this weekend while I was at MaxDock Expo. It's in the same town as Otherworld Computing in Woodstock.

Guys are awesome.

Yep. And I got to tour. They're celebrating, I think, their 25th anniversary still this year. I hope I don't have that wrong, but I get to tour their warehouse and then sat down in one of their conference rooms with one of their product managers. And there were maybe a dozen of us on this little tour. We were. This was a crowd of socially awkward nerds that were doing this tour. And when we got into the warehouse, people were asking the most bizarre questions you could possibly imagine. They were all fine questions. They just weren't anything that you would predict. And so these people clearly weren't prepared for all of the types of questions that they were asked. And every answer that, and you could tell these they were, they were sincere, off the cuff answers. Every answer started with something about how well we do it this way because it's best for the customer. And then it marched down. And it wasn't those words exactly, but it was clear that that was the message and that was the foundation. And then it was. But, you know, we can be more economical about it if we do it this way versus that way. And I mean, they're clearly smart about running a business, but they understand that, number one is making sure you're doing what you feel is best for your customer. And as long as you do that and you hold yourself accountable for when you don't do that, you're going to be in good shape. I really believe.

Yeah, you'll be around for 25 years.

Yeah, you'll be around for 25 years. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So along with that empowerment is I think you have to manage expectations. I have a problem with this sometimes. And, you know, you have to manage them for yourself and you also, more importantly, manage what others expect of you. Right. Because it's an area that can be very difficult if you, if you don't ask questions, if you don't create. I talk about it a lot here, like a working agreement on how this project is going to work and who's going to do what so you can hold each other accountable. Very important that you write it down and that you don't just assume, you know, what they say, assume or whatever, but you just can't assume anything when it comes down to this kind of stuff. You have to go, okay, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. And you know that that one aspect of it right there of writing everything down and coming up with some kind of agreement will just save your rear. Yeah, often.

Often. Yeah. Because you can revert back to it if you get to the point where you need to treat it like it's a, you know, a legal contract you've probably lost, regardless whether. So it doesn't matter in, in that, you know, scenario if, if you actually sign the thing or whatever. But just forming that working agreement, it will. If everybody is still interested in furthering the business having that working agreement, you get to go through and, oh, okay, here's what needs to be done. All right, great. And maybe something down the road you realize, oh well, we thought this had to be done, but really this doesn't. But something else does. You can have that conversation, that's fine. Things evolve, you iterate, like expect that. So yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.

So, you know, one of the things I also, I think it's really powerful is for your personal accountability, is there's no excuses. Right. And I've alluded to this previous comments here today is that people are going to think better of you when you own up to the mistake. When you talk about how much you learned, when you talk about how now we're making these changes to fix that problem.

Right.

So it's constant revolving around I'm accountable, I'm the one who made this mistake. But I'm iterating, I'm changing, I'm creating this better system, you know, really important. And you have to do it when no one else is looking, Right? Yeah. Even when you don't have an audience, you know, you have to ask yourself, you know, how can I help solve this problem? Did I create this problem? You know, and how will I be accountable for the result? So it doesn't matter who's around, you know, you got to do that. So I have a lot more to talk on this subject, Dave, and what I'd love to do is do another episode and really just focus on then introducing this accountability concept to your employees, your team, your contractors, even your suppliers and how that can really help your, your small business succeed. Does that sound good?

I like it, man. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

I love talking about this stuff and I hope everybody finds it helpful.

We're doing a two part thing is, is this is not, we said at the beginning, right. This is not a topic that is necessarily free fun to hear about. So we might get a lot of flack for this and then we're going to do part two anyway because.

That's right. Of course, that's right. And I think next week we have an interview with an awesome business owner. But then the following week we'll be back and we'll do the part two of this. Folks, if you enjoy the show, reach out to us Feedbackus show co or go to businessshow co review or reviews and please leave us a review. You would not. You couldn't imagine how much it helps us to get your review up there on the Apple podcast space.

We'd love it. So good. Thank you so much everyone for everything, for listening, for sending in your questions. Thanks to MintMobile.com SBS and Linode.com SBS see you next time, and we'll all live that charm life together.