Adam Gifford - Founder of TackleHack.com

Greetings, folks. Hey, everybody. Hey, Shannon. How you doing today?

I'm great, man. How you doing?

I'm good. I'm ready to small business here. I'm glad to be back. We had our greatest hits episode last week or one of our greatest hits last week, and now I'm eager. I'm happy to be back. It's good.

Yeah, me too. I love talking to other small business owners this week. I like how you said you're ready to small business. We're really pushing that concept of small business being a verb. And there's no action like getting outside, hiking, if you like to fish, if you like to hunt. And today we have a guest on the show that's built a business around being outdoors and for outdoors enthusiasts, which is all about action. So I'm real excited.

Totally.

Yeah.

Well, I. I've got. And. And this guy has. He's got such a different perspective from most entrepreneurs. He doesn't know it. We'll. We'll go through it with him in the show, you'll hear. But he really brings a, like a wisdom to this. His first small business that most of us, some of us will never get without listening, and certainly most of us don't start with. So I really find his just his approach really refreshing.

Yeah, the framing is powerful.

Is really powerful. Yeah, for sure. What else is really powerful is textexpander, our first sponsor here. Because textexpander allows me to be both efficient and accurate. I know it seems crazy. Usually you want to be efficient, you're running fast, and accuracy suffers, especially when you're writing an email. That can be okay if I'm just writing an email to Shannon, although I don't like to be. I don't even like typos when it's just stuff that no one other than, you know, somebody that would forgive those is going to see. I don't like to have to have that forgiveness, but I especially don't like it when I'm dealing with my customers, vendors, whoever it is, that's not a good thing. And textexpander saves me because I can move quickly and accurately. Because what textexpander does is it allows me to take all of those things that I type on a regular basis. It might just be an address. It might just be an email address. It might just be a phone number, or it could be a big, long customer service, you know, like first sales inquiry reply or, hey, how do I do this? Reply something that you've typed out once and then you go into your sent folder to find the next time you're going to send it, Stop doing that and start using textexpander@textexpander.com podcast because you can put all these things in there. They sync to all your devices. You don't have to go dig through your sent folder. You don't have to copy and paste and worry about did it format right? No, you get it right in textexpander one time and then boom, it's in any platform, any app, anywhere you type. It's so much more powerful. And because you're a listener, you get 20% off your first year. So visit, as I said, textexpander.com podcast to learn more. And our thanks to Textexpander for sponsoring this next this episode. Our next Sponsor is build HR@yourhrsource.com Pricing Build HR is your HR source in your small business. They are your virtual HR department for you and your manager. Managers, right? You don't want to ad hoc your hr. Trust me. You can make mistakes here and those mistakes can be very costly and time consuming to fix down the road. You want to get it right up front and you want an HR nerd. Good news. Kelly Loudermilk, who was a guest on the Small Business show several years ago and the founder of Build HR@yourhrsource.com pricing is an HR nerd. She's the one that you want and she's figured out how to make it work so that her services can work with your business. So you need to worry about, you know, the hr. I mean, they've got complexities in HR beyond just federal and state laws, right? You want someone that has knowledge in all areas of hr. And they've got a monthly HR on Demand membership that gives you and your managers peace of mind with access to a national team of HR professionals. And you can have your handbook and policies custom made to fit your business and gain access to quarterly training for your supervisors in things like sexual harassment, including special California compliance, if that's where you're located. And it starts at only $99 a month and you get a 14 day free trial. So check it out. Yourhrsource.com you can go to Yourhrsource.com pric and learn more. Our thanks to Kelly and the whole team at your HR source at Build HR for sponsoring this episode. All right, Shannon, Well, I am ready to small business with Adam Gifford here if you are.

I'm ready, man.

All right, well, I'm Dave Hamilton, he's Shannon Jean, and this is episode 289 of the Small Business Show.

You know, I've had conversations that, you know, I hang up the phone and I'm like, wow. Like, that's. That was powerful for me to hear. Is, you know, they say, hey, if it wasn't for my duck calls, I don't feed my family. Or if it wasn't for this, I don't. I don't pay my electric bill. So when you look at it in that context and you look and realize, hey, you're helping families and across the country to make ends meet or have another source of income, it's not just fun and games and rainbows and butterflies anymore. It gets kind of serious and brings it all home and makes it all that more special for me to continue building this.

You know, Dave, I'm always excited when I get to combine two topics that I really love. The first, the first being, you know, small business that we talk about here every week. And also anything to do with being out outdoors, outside activities like fishing, people.

Listening would never know that you had an interest in any of this stuff.

It's fascinating.

No.

And so today we get to combine both of those things. I'm really excited because I'm just. I'm just so into it. So today on the show, we get to meet Adam Gifford. He's the founder and CEO of TackleHack, an online marketplace for outdoor enthusiasts, which is really cool, you know, doing some research. What I really learned and what I love about Tackle Hack is there seems to be a focus on, like, small batch craftsman businesses that make products that you just can't find from, like, giant online resellers and stuff. So I really respect that and I'm interested in learning more and I'm sure our listeners as well. So let's meet Adam and learn more about Tackle Hack. Adam, thanks so much for coming on the show today.

Thanks very much for having me, guys. I appreciate it. It means a lot that you even asked me to be on here.

Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk about. Let's go back to the beginning. What led you to start Tackle Hack? Is it something that you always wanted to start your own business or did it come about in a different manner?

There were a lot of factors. Right. So I've always had that itch to start something of my own. But I'm also an avid outdoorsman. So a little known fact about me is I spent a lot of years not so successfully being a pro am bass fisherman. I did it mostly for fun, but I did spend a lot of Time on the road in the southeast and the Midwest, traveling to the mid, mid major tournaments. Nothing. Nothing crazy. No Bassmaster.

That's awesome, man.

Like that? Yeah.

That's cool.

Totally. I envy you even more now. That's great.

It was, it was a lot of fun. You know, it was before the high school fishing and the college fishing stuff hit the scene. So after college I spent a couple years working full time and traveling and doing that. So that kind of gave me my itch for small business in the sense that I was working with small batch manufacturers of fishing equipment and I was on their pro staff or field staff, whatever you want to call it. They all had different kind of names for it, but I started to recognize the pitfalls that they were having trying to break into the market and reach an audience. And so the seeds were kind of planted then. And I've just always been someone that kind of looks for something to start right, trying to find something that satisfies my internal itch and the outdoors and small businesses have always been two of those things. And fortunately for me, a few years ago I was in a position to where the light bulb finally went off and it kind of made sense. And you know, I started reaching out and doing some, some of my own due diligence and some early customer discovery and talking to some of the people that I actually worked with in the past and had since shut down their small business and talked to them and was really kind of diving into those pain points that we're having and you know, all kind of came together for me and this kind of made sense to match the two things that I'm passionate about, being outdoors and tech, really. I'm not a developer by trade. I like to dabble a little bit. Again, kind of the jack of all trades, master or none situation for me. Love to fish, but not all that great at it and I love to develop and not all that great.

Being great at fishing has nothing to do with no being out there having the time of your life, right?

Yeah, it was, it was a lot of fun. So I do enjoy that and the sport behind it. And so, you know, just to be able to take, tackle, act and, and converse and be a part of the industry in the market and talk with the people that I normally would be, you know, working with. Anyways, it's a lot of fun.

So yeah, that's great. Sounds like a great opportunity to do something you really enjoy and to help other people get, you know, their. Grow their businesses and get some exposure so that that's really cool. So looking at like your LinkedIn profile and your background, I see lots of, you know, sales and marketing experience, which is kind of my forte. And you know, whenever I start businesses I always have to bring in a bunch of people, you know, experts, you know, folks that are way smarter than I am in other areas too. Did you partner with other folks that had different talent stacks when you wanted to bring Tackle hat, Tackle Hack to life? And if so, did you bring folks over as partners, contractors? Did you hire people? How did that go down?

Yeah, absolutely. So the one thing I do know about myself is I'm not the smartest person in the room. And if I am the smartest person in the room, I need to find a different room to be in. Right. So yeah, so when I went forward and decided to turn Taclak on per se, there's still a lot of stuff we're actually working on, a lot of stuff that can't really dive into and there's a lot of stuff that you don't see on the surface with tacloc. And there's a lot of really exciting things and changes coming for taclak and for our small batch vendors. But yeah, I had to, early on I went out and found contractors and, and worked with them and now I have people on the team. I actually have someone that's really proficient in digital marketing and print marketing, basically all aspects of the marketing advertising world. She's much better at it than I ever thought about being. Then I have a CFOCOO who wears a couple hats like we all do, but he really understands how to move the needle. So kind of I play coach more than anything and help them keep their eye on the prize, if you will, and see the vision of where we're trying to go and, and steer them the right way. So I don't know what I don't know about a lot of stuff. So I try to make sure that I get all the information I can before I play my hand. And my team has been been a major factor in moving us forward. So kudos to them for, for getting us to where we are. But absolutely, you know, if you don't go out and find the smartest, most talented people and form a team, you're not going to do it by yourself. You know, you need, I feel like you need that team, that support in place, you're never going to go anywhere. So, yeah, definitely we're still building that team in a sense. We're looking for one or two more people and we'll be complete as far as our internal team is concerned. But for now, the three of us are really, you know, hitting our stride. So we're excited for what's about to come.

Yeah, you know what, what you're talking about here seems, it's clear, it seems so obvious to you that A, you don't want to be the smartest person in the room and B, you want to have a team. Those two things are almost 180 degrees counter to what most entrepreneurs at least think when they start. The smart ones get to the point where you are. But not everybody starts there, especially with their, you know, their first business or sometimes even their fifth business. If you're, if you're me and this, I just don't want this to be lost on folks, what you're talking about here and having a team. Did you play organized sports or were you in the military or anything like that? That, that gave you that, that showed you the success of that kind of a model early on.

Yeah, I actually was a collegiate athlete, played basketball through college.

Okay.

And so always kind of had that team atmosphere, you know, captains of teams and things like that. It was very, very clear when a team was meshing, it was a completely different environment and atmosphere and level of success that we all would have. So early on I realized that as far as being a teammate, trying to be a good teammate, trying to be a good leader, at the same time you got to surround yourself with like minded individuals and if you're all on the same path, you know, you can do some really great things. So just trying to pull that over, you know, I'm kind of like glad you brought that up.

No, it's obvious that you, it's obvious that you have that it. And, and I was just curious where it came from because it's not a natural thing for most, most entrepreneurs. So I, I knew it came from somewhere. Yeah, it's a valuable skill for sure.

So, okay, so we have some background now. Let, let's talk about Tackle Hack specifically. Tell our listeners just what Tacklehack is and how it works. And then I would ask you, as a follow up, is the way Tackle Hack and kind of what it is now is what you envisioned it as it would be when you first started.

So I'll start with that last part first. It's not what I had intended to be at first. So we've actually pivoted to where we are now pretty early on my defense. But when I first started this, it was, the idea was kind of going back to my, my past on Being a bit of a, you know, weekend warrior, angular, if you will, and talking with those small brands and trying to help them out, that's kind of where it all kind of stemmed from, is like, you know what, let's just build like a small little online trade show, if you will. And then I started talking to more and more people and I was like, you know what? It's much easier to give the small business the voice and the control and allow them to upload their products, set their pricing and have us in the back trying to help them reach more consumers so they can sell direct to consumer. It's their target audience, it's their target demographic. They don't have to compete with, let's say couch pillows and garbage bags on other marketplaces. But that was kind of the whole idea. So we, we went from just, you know, let's do this little online trade show type deal to like, hey, wait a minute, let's, let's really do a double sided marketplace, meaning let's allow our vendors to come on, upload their products and sell directly to those outdoor enthusiasts that are looking for high quality, custom, unique products. So there's, that's another side. And I'll, I'll save you my bass brain for another conversation. But you know, a lot of times fish get conditioned and you need to find something a little different than they, they've seen before. So that's. Whereas my, I hate to say the word professional fishing career because I, I don't consider myself professional at all. If you saw some of the, the weights that I would weigh in, you'd be like, yeah, this guy's far from it. But any case, you know, at least in the sport of fishing, I understood that, hey, I need to find something a little more unique. So I would, I would purposely go out and see. So I knew from my friends and my outdoor experience that there was a miss, it was fragmented, there was a misconnection. So those unique companies were having a hard time sometimes connecting with the outdoor enthusiasts. Maybe they had a small little circle, 10, 15 mile radius of wherever they were located. But outside of that, no one really knew about them. So the marketplace made sense to help them, you know, expand their business. And we're happy to say now we're selling, businesses are selling across state lines, across, across country borders, and it's, it's kind of cool to see happen.

Yeah, that's great. So just, and kind of how it works. So if, if you're a manufacturer or a craft business, whatever, you're building something you're making lures, you're building duck calls or anything related to outdoors, camping gear, that kind of stuff.

You.

You can then go up there, upload your products, and you manage the relationship directly with the consumer. Is that correct?

Correct. Yep. So a unofficial elevator pitch would be we're similar to Etsy but dedicated solely to outdoor equipment.

I like it. Yeah, that's cool. That's really good. So we really, as all of us are, you know, longtime small business owners, and it always seems to be, you know, one barrier in front of another that you have to kind of work over through. Can you, you know, mention a barrier or something that you've. That's held you back, that you've been able to kind of build a system to break through for, to find success with? Tackle hack?

Yeah, So a lot of things with a lot of, you know, a lot of businesses is, again, I kind of go back to finding the right people and putting. Putting them in the right chair and having them doing the right things. And early on, our biggest hurdle to overcome was to find somebody in the tech world that understood what we were trying to build and trying to create. There's a lot of really good developers out there that are great at building a single product to a single, you know, single vendor, single product, single consumer type website. But to upturn a marketplace, there's a little more detail on that. So early on, being in the Midwest, we struggled to find some of those technical partners that were sound in what we were trying to build. Fortunately for us, we've solved that problem. But that was a big hurdle early on, was trying to create something that was unique and provided the level of service that we needed it to do. And quite honestly, we're still not there yet. Like I said, we got all the stuff that we're working on and to get there, but I feel like we're moving in the right direction. And seems like every time we have one of those large barriers and we get past it or through it, things just seem to open up for us. So almost welcome those because at the time, when you're in the trenches with it, it feels a little daunting. But when you get to the other side of it, you look back and you think, you know, what if it wasn't for that, I don't know that we would have be where we are now. So thankful for some of those. Some of them I never want to go through again, don't get me wrong. But yeah, some. Some of that early tech development was a big hurdle for me. Again, not being technically sound enough to do what we're trying to do, but thankful we had that person in place now.

Well, I like the realization that now that you can kind of look back, even when it's not too far in the, you know, history here, that those barriers and the, the problem solving around that, it does change. It does make you a better business owner.

Right.

And, and once you get to the other side of it, you. You do tend to look at things differently, and it also often opens up new opportunities for you.

That's cool. It seems like every time we have a problem, there's two or three opportunities that come from it. So it's always can call.

Yeah, that's really good. So is this your first business that you founded?

It's my first technical business I found. Okay. I had a small marketing company that a friend and I, we had several years ago. He since passed away, but yeah, this is the first technical endeavor that I've kind of started. That's great.

And what would you. Is there something that really kind of surprised you along the way of building this business? I mean, as entrepreneurs, you know, it all starts with this thing in our head and how it's going to be. Was there something that, you know, if I like what surprised you the most about building the company?

I think the thing that surprised me the most was how, how much pain was in this industry for this batch of people, meaning how many small manufacturers, individual makers were out there who were making really high quality products, but no one knew about them. And I knew that the industry was there. Again, when I first started this, this was not intended for as many vendors and products as we have now and what we plan on onboarding here soon. But that was kind of my, one of my, you know, my aha. Moment for, okay, we can really scale this and, and take it and do something special with it while doing something that I'm happy that we get to do. We get to help families and individuals and in small business, you know, I won't throw anybody's name out there, but, you know, I've had conversations that, you know, I hang up the phone and I'm like, wow, like, that's. That was powerful for me to hear is, you know, they say, hey, if it wasn't for my duck calls, I don't feed my family, or if it wasn't for this, I don't, I don't pay my electric bill. So when you look at it in that context and you look and realize, hey, you're helping families and across the country to make ends meet or have another source of income. It's not just. Just fun and games and rainbows and butterflies anymore. It gets kind of serious and brings it all home and makes it all that more special for me to continue building this.

That's it.

Right.

It makes it more powerful and it. And you know, you can lean on those sorts of things during the times where you have to just grind it out. You know, it's. Grinding it out is always easier in the beginning because it's new and you're happy about it. And then sometimes it feels like a job, but that's okay. You know, it's better than many other jobs. Right. But. But still, you can kind of lean into that and say, yeah, we're helping people today. That's a good thing.

So that's good.

Yeah, yeah. And I think it's a great. We talk about story all the time here and how, as you know, entrepreneurs and small business owners, we get the opportunity to write our own story. And that is a power, powerful part, you know, of. As you tell your story out there and you build your business, that impact on other people's lives is. Is phenomenal. Yeah, that's really great. So what's more challenging, you know, finding sellers to list their products or buyers to come to, you know, and buy on tacklehack.com yeah.

So we have a pretty open strategy about what we are doing and we talk with our buyers about this. Pretty. Excuse me, our sellers, our vendors, our makers. We talk to them about this frequently. But we're staying constrained to sellers, meaning that we are only going after trying to find the sellers. We're not worried about our buyers just yet. There's a lot. There's some tactical reasons for that, but the biggest thing is we're trying to build a inventory of products. Right. To have to even offer to our consumer. So on the flip side of that is we have to make sure that our customer experience, our user experience, as far as the end consumer is concerned, it's pretty fluid and straightforward. This day and age, the consumer has a very small window of error. So any kind of friction that we have on our platform, we're trying to eliminate. And what I mean by that is just the happy path for the consumer. Find product, click the product, buy product kind of deal. So we're really trying to polish that up and get that to very streamlined situation so our buyers feel comfortable and good and have a good experience. So right now we're focused on and staying constrained to getting those sellers. That's actually not the hard part for us, the hard part is again, those buyers, because we'll make sure they have a good experience and at the same time, who's tackle that, right? We're a startup. Can you trust us? Are they gonna steal my credit card information and sell it to someone bad? You know, and it's. So that's what we are faced with is sure talking to the sellers, making sure they understand, hey, we're, we are not marketing and advertising this platform a lot and we have reason for that. But yeah, the. I think the biggest thing for us is to make sure that there's a good experience for, for both sides of the marketplace. Because what we don't want to happen is a boom and bust. We don't want to get a lot of sellers and then it just kind of trickle off and die because we don't have any buyers. So we're being very diligent about the way we, we form both sides of this. And so to answer your question, I've talked around it a little bit, but the more challenging is to find the buyers. But you know, take that word challenging with a grain of salt. It's. Yeah, there's some purpose on why we are.

Yeah, that makes sense. I really love, Yeah, I love how you lean back into the, or lean forward into the, the credibility aspect of it because that is so, you know, critically important. Getting out there, getting the word out, building that, you know, your brand and your name and everything. I think that's critical to recognize. And, you know, and I see you guys on social media, you know, and one thing I always struggle with in my, you know, businesses is, you know, you have at least have limited resources. How are you going to split those things up? I mean, is there a platform out? I know you guys are up on Go Wild. That's how we connected through our Brad Latrell that we had on, I guess it's been about a month or so back. Is there one that works the best for you, that you kind of push more of your resources?

I think that the two platforms that work best for us are Instagram and Go Wild. And I'm not just saying that because Brad's a friend of mine, but Go Wild, that's our dedicated audience. Right. So anybody on that platform are people that we are interested in engaging with on one level or another, either vendors or buyers, mostly buyers, but had some success there and Instagram. But quite honestly, we are ratcheting that back just a touch. Again, a very controlled situation is what we're going after. So we Start to an ad does pretty well and we start to see an increase and we start seeing problems and things pop up on the site, bugs and glitches. So we kind of dial it back so we can have control of that. You know, we're a small team. There's only three of us on it full time and we have a couple contractors we work with on certain situations. So we want to make sure that again, it's a very controlled growth situation. So social media is a very powerful thing. It's a double edged sword though. It can, can really help you, it can really hurt you. So we're trying to dance that line. Just make sure that.

How has social media hurt you? Like, has there, is there anything in particular that you've run into that other people might want to avoid?

Well, for us right now it's traffic, right. So we, we run a certain ad and the traffic kind of gums the site up a little bit. So we're, we're fixing things like that. So we got a, it's a good problem to have. We can turn the faucet on or we can turn the faucet off, and right now we can dripping.

Yeah, you, yeah, you got to get it flowing at the right rate, otherwise you can't serve every. You can't serve anybody when the site's overloaded. Yeah, that's. No, that's a tough, that's a tough thing to manage for sure.

Yep.

Yeah, definitely. So, Adam, if you've ever listened to the show before, certainly our listeners know, you know, we're big fans of mistakes because we kind of consider them tuition. You know, in fact, we wrote a book all about mistakes and we, you know, always ask every guest, you know, if you could look back on things, what would you say is one of your best mistakes? And I'm making these quote signs in the air that you can't see because we're on the Internet. The one that stuck with you and taught you a valuable lesson as you built your business or maybe your previous marketing business, anything like that?

Yeah, I think the best mistake that I've made is it was my biggest learning experience. It taught me a lot about myself and for a short period of time. I want to preface this with there's absolutely nothing wrong with doing this. If it's something that you can personally manage and do, then go for it. It was just something that I couldn't personally manage and I didn't work well with it. But for a short, brief period of time, we took our development to an offshore development firm and when I say offshore, they were in Canada, but we used them for a little bit. But just the, there was just some miscommunications and things that I just didn't have a really good time managing personally. So that was probably my best mistake. That taught me, hey, you know, not that I need to be in their office every day or not that I need them in my office currently we're working remote as is, but I need that contact if there's something I need to talk about. It's much easier for me to pick up my phone and call our in house team than it is trying to get on the docket of a outsourced company. So that was probably something that I learned pretty quickly. And honestly, I'm happy that we're again, nothing against offshore developers or firms outside of the state, or firms in the states for that matter. I just, I like that we're building it all in the United States. We're helping companies in the United States. And for me it's just a lot easier and quicker honestly, to manage somebody on our team opposed to having scheduled meetings just to talk about. That was probably my biggest learning curve and mistake that I made unfortunately, early on in this experience of Tackalack. But that's, that's something that I look back on now and wish that I hadn't, hadn't done that. But in hindsight, you know, now that, now, now.

So now you know. Yeah, and it's, it's very alluring. I mean, as somebody who wants, I could build everything in my head, no problem. But when you got to go implement it and then you, you know, go out and go, well, I can just hire somebody. Go, this, it's cost less, this kind of thing, but there's a whole nother cost structure involved in it. One of which you, you mentioned communication and your time and the quality of work that you get. So you, it is a different skill set to, to manage that.

Yeah, it definitely is. And again, since we, we brought that in house, if you will, things have gotten a lot better for, for all involved. So that's great. Yeah. Happy, happy that mistake happened.

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. And so you mentioned that you're kind of managing your growth right now as you build things. So what are some other benchmarks of success that you guys use to keep on track and know that you're moving in the right direction?

Yeah. So right now, like I said earlier, there's a lot of things that we have in the pipeline that we're working on to come out with. And that's going to change our KPIs completely. We'll focus on a couple different things, but right now we're staying constrained to those sellers. So we really focus on SKUs. So we want to make sure that we have a breadth of product that is something we can offer to our buyers. So we're really focused on that. We're really focused on making sure that the vendor or the individual maker have what they need. Not necessarily what they want, but what they need to transact and digital environment. So those are the two things we're looking at right now. So we look at SKUs and we look at functionality. Again, we're early in this process, so you can almost consider us as a prototype really, or as one of my co founders says, we're held together with duct tape and bubble gum. So our enterprise solution that we're working on is what we're really excited about. As I mentioned, can't really dive into that just too much. But once that's up and going, the KPIs completely switch.

So that's interesting, you giving your vendors what they need out of the gate and then I assume this, you know, the future includes giving them what they want. Have you lost any vendors? And we don't need specifics, but I'm just curious because that's a tempting path to head down. Right. You know, business owners, you always find yourself at that fork in the road of, well, do we do the minimum that, that we know is required or do we go extra on this one? And you know, you could zoom that in or out and you're always making that decision. So I'm just curious how you balance that.

Yeah, it's. So it's an internal discussion. Right. We look at it and what's the pros and cons of, of all those. But yeah, we've lost some vendors. I don't want to dive too deep into why we lost them because that's, that's one of our value props we've got. We are solving those and that's going to open up the doors to a lot of really cool new things that we're working on. But, yeah, absolutely, we, we've had to lose and turn down some vendors at this point before they even onboard it. Sure. Because of the, the functionality that they need, we can't provide at a level that is sufficient to them. So, yeah, we absolutely are. You know, of course we put them on a list. Hey, we'll knock on your door here shortly. But yeah, absolutely. We got to make sure. We're a right fit for our vendors just as much as they are right fit for us.

Well, and that's an important thing to realize. It's very hard to say no, you know, when a customer comes knocking and you call them vendors. But really. And I, and I understand why you have that distinction in sort of your internal lexicon. But your vendors and your customers are all your customers. Right? Like in the, at the end of the day, these are all the people that you're serving. You just have, they have different needs. And you know, knowing that there will be some on either side of that, that equation that you need to say no to because it's, it's what works for your business. And sometimes what works for your business just doesn't work for somebody else's. And that's okay at some level. I mean, if you're saying no to everybody, well, you might want to rethink.

That a little bit.

But, you know.

Yeah, yeah, we like to say it's not no, it's just not right now.

Yeah, that's a good way to look at it.

Yeah, I like that. Yeah, I like it too.

So before we let you go, we have one more question for you. It's real important. You know, we really think of the term small business as a verb because there's so much action involved in creating, you know, building a business and ultimately hopefully being successful. Is there an action item, something that you can tell, you know, our small business owner listeners today, something that they could do today that would help their business based on some action that you've taken yourself in the past with Tackle Hack.

Man, this is going to sound so cliche and almost barbaric in a sense, but you've got to write it down. And I'm not talking just a. You don't have to do a full business plan. I'm not talking a 30 page business plan. I'm not even talking a pitch deck. You've got to write it down, get it on paper. This is what we want to do. This is where we are, this is where we're trying to go, and this is why we're trying to get there. Write it down and make it very clear how you're gonna do it and get it on paper, because you can throw that paper away a hundred times before you start putting it into action. So I'm a big believer in write it down, plan it out, think it out, talk it out, look at all the options before you move. That can slow you down a little bit, but it also keeps you very lean. You don't have to waste time building things or doing things that aren't going to get you to your end goal again. That's kind of taking me back to a little bit of my basketball days. We had a very tight game plan of what we were going to do. A lot of times we knew exactly what we were going to do the first 10 plays of the game, it did not matter what the defense threw at us. We were going to do these 10 plays regardless. And that's kind of. It doesn't really translate all that well, but I think, you know, the premise of it does, you know, make sure that. And it's simple. It's. It doesn't cost you anything. And you can really play around with it on paper a lot easier than you can just by, you know, jumping in into the deep end. But at some point, you gotta do that.

Yeah. With one of my businesses, I have a few, but there's one that's been around for almost 22 years. Two hours ago today, I was saying almost those exact same words in one of our staff meetings. Like, we gotta write this down. We can't just assume that this. And it wasn't like, fundamental to the business, but it was, you know, necessary. This thing that we just were discussing, I'm like, why we gotta get it down somewhere so that it's somewhere. And then like you said, you can play with it, you can see it, you can refer back to it. It's not just this thing that exists as a. As a, you know, figment of everyone's imagination. Yeah, it's good. I like it.

Yep. I'm a big fan of trello and things like that. But yeah, you know, my. My number one and is post it notes and paper. You can move those around. And it's just.

Yeah, we use these. These look. Yeah, it makes sense. We use these. I use this little quartet glass, you know, whiteboard that goes in between your keyboard and your monitor. And it's like, even just listening to you, I'm like, oh, that's a good idea. And I just wr down. Right? Yeah.

Mine started blank before this show and now it's full. Yep.

That's really the main reason we do these shows, Adam, is so we can just glean all this really great stuff. That helps. Believe me, we're better small business owners since we started the show five years ago.

Oh, remarkably so.

Yeah. Yeah. But Adam, you know, thanks again for coming on the show, sharing your experience, talking about tackle hack and, you know, how you got there and what your future plans are. Tell us the best way for our listeners to connect with you and to learn more about TackleHack.

Yeah, so the best way to do that is you can reach out to me personally on LinkedIn. Pretty easy to find on there, or just email us to the site. So you can go to techlike.com and shoot us an email and be happy to answer any questions you have.

Awesome. That's great. I'm going to send some vendors your way that I know need to be up there because I'm tired of chasing these guys down to buy their goose calls and everything else. That's cool. Well, great. Thanks again, Adam. And please, you know, come back and keep in touch and check in with us from time to time.

Absolutely. Thank you so much. I appreciate you guys having a Kentucky boy on. It means a lot to me that you even ask. So thank you. And hopefully something I said was it can resonate with one person and I'll be happy with that.

It already has, my friend. So thank you.

Two people, for sure.

There you go. There you go. Yeah. 100 so far, so. Yeah, that's right. Thanks, man. Have a good one.

Thank you.

You know, there's always something. I always get so excited about these. I love doing the show because it gets me excited about. Me too, about small businessing. So, yeah, yeah, he said something and I, I wanted to dissect it, but I knew if I did, it would take us on a huge tangent and I didn't want to stop him. But when he was talking, we were talking about vendors that he had to say no to. He said something really interesting. He said, it's not a no, it's just not right now. And I, you know, I'm a language guy, right? Yeah.

What a great phrase.

But I started thinking, I started dissecting that phrase because I typed it out, I put it in into our show notes and I thought, what if we. What if it's. It's not a no, it's just not right now. Instead of it being not right now temporally, it's not the right solution now. Right. Like that's that. And you know, presenting it that way to a vendor, when you say it's not right, you know, we're not going to do it now. That sounds like you're putting them off. But when you say it's not. Not the best thing for you right now, now you've just started to build trust with this person that you're going.

To move to the other side, you move to the same side. Of the table.

Same side of the table. That's it. Yeah. And so, you know, that, that, like, that's that when I see those things, it's like, wait a minute, there's a thing here. I'm going to use this. So it's just little.

Yeah, it's a little tidbits that we tease out of here. I loved his comments about, you know, how he was. It really hit him when, you know, these small business owners and. And makers and craftsmen that he's. His site is having an impact on their life, you know, paying their bills, whether it's a side hustle or their main thing and helping them out. That is that impactful moment as a small business owner is one of the best things ever, you know, And I used to always tell our technicians, hey, we're changing the world one repair at a time. And it sounds kind of cheesy and like, wait, honor. But, you know, you impact one student, one parent that maybe couldn't afford to get a new computer in our case, you know, that kind of stuff. Yeah, it could change the world, you know.

Totally. Yeah. It gives them an opportunity that they didn't have. Yeah.

Yeah.

And I love that it works here, too. We know that you're out there listening and we love to hear from you, even if it's just. I love to listen. Keep it up like that. Yeah. I know it doesn't sound like much, but it's an attaboy. And, you know, we're in our. And we're in our studios here. Like, we. We don't hear your attaboys, so we'd love to send them to us at feedbackusiness, show co. Or comment on the Facebook post. Wherever you want to do it, we'll see it. But we, we just, we like, we love those Atta boys. I know it sounds vain, but it's. No, it's really not. It's just that fuel.

Yeah, yeah. Use that. Yeah, yeah. And if you have a spare 99 cents burning a hole in your pocket since our mistakes book is still on sale up at Amazon, Please go to BusinessShow Co guides and buy that book, because not only will you get that guide for $0.99, our partnerships guide is going to launch on September 1st, and you'll get a free version of that one as well. So now's your time to get both those books for link less than a buck and help out the show that you love so much.

All right, well, that's what I got for this week. Shannon, you got anything else that's it.

I'm ready to go out and hunt after talking.

Well, there you go, man. All right, folks. Thanks so much for listening. Send us that feedback. Keep living that charmed life. We'll see you next week.