Adapting to Small Business Cycles

Hey, welcome to another episode of the Small Business Show. How are you, Dave?

I'm good, man. How are you?

I'm good.

Cycles today, huh?

Yeah. We're going to talk about business cycles, at least from my perspective.

I rode my bike to work. I thought it was that kind of thing. Oh, God.

That's a kind of cycle.

It is, yeah.

Works. Yeah, yeah, it's going to be good. We're going to talk about all. From what I've been through, from creation all the way through the grind to, hey, maybe it's time for you to leave, huh?

Okay. Yeah, time to leave, you know, that's.

Huh.

Yeah. I can't wait to. I can't wait to hear all about this.

I've been through all these a number of times and I've struggled with. I, I would say in all aspects of them. So we're gonna do basically a whole show of business therapy today.

Okay. All right. That's fine. You know what? Business therapy has been a popular segment. There's nothing wrong with that.

Yeah, let's do it.

All right.

I mean, things are great. The business is doing really well. But as an entrepreneur that loves new things and change and challenge, you might be getting bored. Maybe it's time for you to do something else. And I think this is a point. I get caught in this all the time. Ask yourself, am I the right person to be running this business?

At the same.

Yeah, because it's hard. It's very hard. I really have struggled with this a number of times and it's really been difficult for me to get outside my own. Really what it comes down to is my own fears of. Oh, wow, okay, okay, well, what, what's next? You know, can I reinvent myself one more time? Can I go start something that's going to, you know, fulfill me and you know, it's like, you got to go get a new job.

Greetings folks. Welcome to the Small business show episode 239 here for Wednesday, September 4, 2019. Sponsors of course include linode.com sps. You all know about that. Zapier.com small business different URL. That's okay, so just bear. You know what, just visit Business show co and you just click on them there or sign up. You come to Business Show. Sign up for our weekly emailer. You know what you get in your email? You get all the show notes, all the things that we mentioned just delivered to your email box, including links. Guess what? You don't have to remember, you just click on the links in the email. You're good to go. So do that, do that.

That's cool. Yeah, I think there's some chapter links on there too, right. So if you want to click. So you can do a specific section of the show that you're interested in hearing, you can, you can do that.

You can do it all. Yeah, it's right there. It's all good. Yeah.

It's a crazy world we live in. It's awesome.

It's a crazy world. It is a crazy world we live in.

Yes, yes. So, hey, as we mentioned, we're going to talk today about adapting to different business cycles and, you know, from everything from getting started to when things end. And, you know, this stuff is really based on my experience in starting, launching, running and killing, you know, a number of. Or exiting. Sometimes killed, sometimes not.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah. And, yeah, so let's. Let's jump right in. The first thing I would say is there's. There's really no timeline. I don't, I don't have a timeline. It's not like, well, creation lasts two years or whatever it is. I, you know, it just varies. And so it could be months or years. It just depends on your specific situation. But, you know, obviously the first part is creation.

Right.

And I think this is some, you know, a tremendously exciting time. You have an idea, you start talking about. But I also think it's time when, you know, 90% of the people that are in this phase don't make it to the next phase.

Right.

They talk about it. Wouldn't it be great, this problem we could solve? But there's. The world is full of people that have these discussions, right?

Oh, you know, it's funny, I. This isn't the only podcast I do. And earlier today, the day we're recording anyway, I recorded an episode of my Gig Gab podcast for musicians.

Oh, sure, yeah.

And we were talking about creating your own event in a manner of speaking. And, uh, and my co host was a little worried. He's like, you know, sometimes you gotta create your own event for the right reasons. And I stopped and I said, yeah, you know what? As long as you're creating a good event, folks, don't worry about the reasons. Because so many of us have those, you know, we're sitting over coffee or over beers and you have a great idea and the idea dies when the check is paid, right? Nothing ever happens after that because you can come up with a thousand reasons why you shouldn't do something and that all that's doing is justifying why you don't Want to have to put in the hard work. Right? That's all it is. Yeah, yeah, that's all it is.

Yeah, yeah. And there's a filter because some of the stuff you think of, you're like, well, that's great. But then you think of it a little more like way. That's, that's crazy. But I'm a big fan of that. But one thing I've noticed is when you do start to follow up and like, okay, hey, we talked about this, you know, last week or whatever, and here's the things I put together for us to see if this has some viability. You quickly separate, you know, the wheat from the chaff. Is it, Is that a real metaphor?

I'll take it. I mean, the kids are going to need to ask their parents. I'm going to need to ask my parents what that means.

Yes, that's correct. That's an old man metaphor. But. And including myself, because sometimes I've been like, oh, you know, that sounded great at that time, but man, I don't have the energy to put into that. Sure, that viable. But I, you know, ask yourself. The question is, you know, how do you turn, could we turn this into a business? Is there really a problem to solve here? Right. Either with a product or a service.

Right.

And then I think the other thing is you have to ask yourself, what do you need to create this?

Right.

What kind of talent do you need? You know, do you have the talent or do you have to bring in people that are different in what they bring to the table? You know, do you need programmers, do you need whatever, you know, you name it. And to get people that have familiarity building products, if you've never built anything, do you need, cat, you need access to some capital. You know, are you going to finance this thing yourself? You can put on a credit card, you're going to go borrow some money, you're going to raise, see, you know, friends and family capital, that kind of thing. How's that going to work? And those are always good. And then I think you need to find some advisors and talk through this kind of stuff. And you know, we've talked about on the show before, you got to be really careful on what kind of advisors you, you bring in. Because saying no or saying something never will work is very easy that you want to, you want to kind of have somebody that has their foot in reality a little bit, but that also believes in your, about your ability to create your own reality.

Can I throw an idea out there?

Absolutely.

I'm volunteering you for something, but. Well, you're going to edit this show anyway, so maybe this segment is never heard by anyone other than you. I know that you and I could sell our services as business advisors together, certainly individually.

Sure.

Right, okay. But we haven't. And we have no track record on that, certainly yet. At least not in any official capacity.

Right, sure.

Why don't we offer that up to the first X number of listeners that ask for it and we'll just do it for free for a little while.

Absolutely.

Okay.

I'd be all over it.

Sounds great.

Feedbackus show co yeah, and let us know. Let us know which kind of, you know, information you want. We could be a, you know, unofficial advisor, give you some feedback based on our experience. All we can do here and all I do here is talk about stuff I've had experience with. I know a lot about a bunch of stuff, but I. But there's so many things I don't know about. But I could certainly steer you in the right direction on how to find someone or some, you know, resource that would help you in some areas that I don't know anything about.

Yeah.

So let's just throw it out. I think it'd be fun.

Feedback. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, this is the reason we do this show. We didn't start to do the show thinking we were going to make any money and all this kind of stuff. It was. I love talking about, you know, small business and. And the creative process and the problems and I. And you really enjoy connecting with other small business owners. That's why we started the show. We'd love to connect with you. Feedbackus show co we can answer any questions. We'd love to help.

Yeah. Cool.

Yeah.

All right. So that idea makes it. Makes it into the show. There you go.

Yeah, we'll see. I mean, I think the other thing in the creation process is you got to think about, you know, are there customers for your product or service? I mean, you know, are there people you think that are going to give you money for this or you're going to get something else in exchange for it? I think it's one of the. The most enjoyable parts of a small business. And I think it also has a certain allure to it that can really distract you. And I. When I say you, I mean me because it's so fun and so enjoyable to create something from nothing. And working to solve a problem is often people like myself, you get hooked on this creation period and that's kind of all you want to do. And I think that's okay. But you need to recognize that, okay, I'm this startup person and I'm going to get things going, but at some point I'm gonna, I'm gonna step out and maybe you, you have to have that conversation with these people that, you know, if you have partners or whatever it is, and we'll talk a little bit more about it as we, as we move through these, these different phases. But it's something I've learned about myself over the years.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

And what I love about it is it you get to be super creative. You're not yet required to have real results. Even though it sounds terrible. I mean, you don't have to make any money yet.

Right.

Other than benchmarks that you're set for yourself. That. Okay, we're, we're moving towards. You're developing this system that is going to reach some point where you're going to have something to sell to, to a customer.

Yeah. You should have an idea of what you're going to sell. I, you know. Oh, yeah. And I should, I should kind of couch all this. When you came to me with the idea, the show was Shannon's idea. Not this episode. The show was Shannon's idea years ago. I've been podcasting forever, but this show was Shannon's idea. When you came to me with this, you said, I don't want to do a show for those businesses that are VC funded. And you said, I want to do a show for people that are doing the work and making it happen. Doesn't mean you don't have investors. It just means that I think by now anybody that's listening knows we're really focused on, on a business that can like support itself and, and, and do that bootstrapped.

Right. Somebody who's really kind of brought it up and built something.

Yeah. And it doesn't need to be huge, but it can be, but it can be small. It can be a side hustle. You only work on one hour, you know, one hour a week or whatever it is. But, but, you know, with that, you do. And, and that's why I'm sort of bringing this up is that we've seen lots of VC funded businesses that show no revenue whatsoever for a really long time. You know, Facebook was that for a really long time. Right. There was no revenue. It was just get eyeballs get eyeballs get. And look, look, that's worked out for them. There are other businesses that that formula has worked out for and then there are the rest. So like, it's A good. I think it's a good idea to have a revenue plan out of the gate. You may well change that plan, be ready to be flexible. More than likely, more than likely, you will not actually make money the way you think you're going to make money. But think about at least one way to make money with the business. It doesn't, like, like Shannon said, you don't have to make that money, but, you know, have an idea that, oh, we'll do this, and then, you know, and, you know, and then money. Right. So. And it doesn't need to be a lot. Like, it just needs to be.

And that's a really good point, that it doesn't need to be a lot when you're getting started. And I always, you know, I talked to a lot of people about small business, and one of the things I always mentioned, and I've said it on the show, you know, a number of times, is, you know, can you walk out the door and make, you know, a thousand bucks? You know, can you make 500 bucks? I mean, whatever. Can you generate some amount of money at your. With your product or your service? It doesn't have to be very much, but it's that process that you say, yes, I can go and I can make, let's say, a thousand bucks. Well, if you can make a thousand, you can make 10. And if you can make 10, you can make a hundred. And I've done this over and over and over. But if you can't make that first thousand bucks, if you can't get. And maybe it's subscribers or something different, if you can't get those first hundred people or 500 people, but what, whatever the number is.

Yep.

Yeah, whatever number is, then you're gonna have to adjust. You're gonna have to. One of the things I'm, I talk about here is.

And I would change the thousand number to 100, figure out how to make 100 bucks, and then just do that 10 times. Now you're at a thousand good to go.

Right?

That's it.

Yep.

But if a thousand seems too lofty, start at 100, you're fine.

I agree.

It's fine. Because I matter.

So many people that are chasing. I gotta, you know, we're, we're. We can't launch until we have 50 grand a month or whatever it is. And you're just like, wow, man. Okay, that, that's great.

But I've had very, very successful businesses that have never grossed 50 grand a month. Right, right. I mean, we had. I think we had One together. I think our deal site did really well.

That was fantastic.

It made us both a lot of money. And I don't think we ever, I don't think it ever grossed 50 grand a month. It certainly didn't gross 50 grand a month on a regular basis.

No, it was not.

We might have had, you know, some month in Q4 or something where it did.

Yeah, we. That's right. That's right. But the thing about the caveat to that is it wasn't our only correct thing. And we talk about the revenue stack here all the time. So your revenue stack could be lots of things. You could have some real estate income, you have some, you know, whatever, a business that does X. We had a publishing business that we were running and it generated that. And so all these things can add up to be significant. You don't have to hit a home run every single time.

No, no, don't try. Just go, go for that hundred bucks. And then, and then you proved it. Prove it to yourself. Because, you know, as we always say, you know, you have limited, I think of think of them as dollars, but it's not really dollars. You have, you have limited discipline points every day, right? And so there's the things you know you have to do and you spend your discipline points doing those things and then you don't have any left. So you need to figure this is why we talk about systems here on this show. Because you, if, if you, it's part of your system, it doesn't cost you as many or any discipline points. Right. Once you have a desire to do something, it definitely doesn't cost you any of those points. So if all you got to do is get yourself to that hundred bucks and then you're going to want to do that again to earn the next hundred. And that's when it gets really easy.

And by developing that system, the next time you do this, you're going to have a process that, you know, works. So when the next idea, the next product, the next service, either within that same business umbrella or maybe a brand new business, you're going to go, oh, I know we need to do A, B and C and D. I know these people that helped me before. I'm going to get them involved. So this system that you're creating over time just becomes more and more robust and you can kind shift its focus into all different areas. And that is really how you build wealth.

Yeah, yeah. Agreed, agreed, agreed.

All right, so we're at here I've got a few more things. And on this Creative process that, you know, it can be really expensive. So you got to watch that and you got to have somebody. We talked about, you know, monitoring progress. You got to have those benchmarks. And so somebody, either yourself or someone else is, is making sure you're, you're moving in the right direction. Really easy to get stuck in this ph and we talked about this on the show last week. Go back and Listen to episode 238 if you missed it. Often people quit right before this area is we're going to talk about launching next and right after the break. And you often lose people. It still shocking but people bail out right before launch. Happens all the time. The last thing I want to say about this section is you want to avoid the trap of perfection and you really want to go for the mvp, a minimally viable product or service. You, you need to get it out the door and then iterate. Otherwise you'll be stuck in perfection forever. And I, I would bet everybody knows people that are still working on this perfect thing they're going to do. And it's been years and years and years. Don't get stuck there.

Don't. Yeah, don't get stuck. Or like we say on my other show, don't get caught. That's right.

You got it.

Hey, I want to take a minute and talk about our two sponsors. Is that good for you, man?

Yeah, yeah, it's perfect.

So our first sponsor is a new sponsor for us, but it is not a new service for us. And it's zapier@zapier.com smallbusiness. That's Z A P I E R. That's where you go to get a 14 day free trial of one of the services that I truly find most valuable in running my business. Business is really Zapier allows you to automate your work in a really easy way because it's built to connect all your business software and then it handles your work for you so you can focus on the things that matter most. When I knew they were coming on board as a sponsor, I was like, oh, this is great. I use Zapier all the time. And then I had to stop and think, wait, what do I use it for? And the reason I had to ask myself that question is because I set up all this automation in Zapier and then it just does what it does for me and I really don't even have to check in on it because it just works so well. But I did go in and that's when it hit me. Oh, I need to be using this even more. For example, you know, with one of my other shows, we have supporters, right? And we use an engine called WooCommerce that. Oh sure, yeah, that's. That is our. Like our shopping cart and manages our subscriptions and all of that. And every week I go into WooCommerce and I manually type in to a spreadsheet the names of all the people that contributed that week so that I can say their names on the show and thank them. And then I realized that Zapier could take those names every week and put them on a spreadsheet for me. Like I'm literally putting these manually on a Google Doc. Zapier could automate that for me, so I don't even have to think. I just sit down to record the show and boom, there are the names. This is the kind of thing that Zapier does and it links with so many things. They say they've got over 1500 apps. Slack mailchimp. As I mentioned, Google Docs, you know, WooCommerce, Google Forms, click funnels. So many things. You've got to check this out and you'll do it by going to our special link zapier.com small business because you can instantly get all of this stuff set up. It's super, super easy. You're just clicking and associating these services together. Super easy to build. It just takes you a couple of minutes and then you just forget about it because it does it for you. So join more than 4.5 million people who are saving an average of 40 hours a month by using Zapier. Go to zapier.comsmallbusiness for your 14 day free trial. That's Z A P I-E R.comsmall business that's now through November. You can try Zapier free by going to that special zapier.com small businesslink our thanks to Zapier for sponsoring this episode. You're going to need a server for your business someday. And that's where Linode comes in. L I n o d e.com SBS that's where you go. And then you use promo code SBS2019 to get $20 free added to your account. That's it. Just 20 bucks added to your account. Your first server is probably only going to cost you five bucks a month because that's what you can start with at Linode. Five bucks a month, $20 free. You get four months for free. If your math works the same way that mine does, or if mine works the same way, I don't know. What I know is that Linode, all of their servers, even the one at five bucks a month, uses native SSD storage so that your servers are running fast and clean. It's great. I love the way this works. You don't have to pay high dollar just to get SSDs. You got them on every server you get with Linode. And you can build anything on Linode. If you're the do it yourself kind of person, go sign up. Within seconds you'll have access to a command line. If the thought of a command line scares you, don't worry. Within seconds you'll be able to use their cloud interface to configure a WordPress server. You don't even have to know anything About Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, WordPress. It takes care of it all for you because they've got these little things that build your servers right there. It's awesome and it's automated and it happens super quickly. And like I said, you get 20 bucks for free when you use our promo code. SBS2019 visit linode l I n o d e.com SBS and our thanks to Linode for sponsoring this episode. All right, what's next, man? Cool.

So, you know, next is. It's time to launch, right?

Oh, gotta launch.

Yeah. Everything. You know, you've got product, you got your service, you're ready to go, your team's in place, your website's done, you've built all this great stuff, everything's new, excitement's really high, and you release all your stuff out into the wild. So, you know, I. We talk, people talk about, well, how are we gonna make any money? Is this gonna work? Well, let's, let's talk about the opposite. What happens if things go craz out of the gate? Are you ready for, you know, is your. Is your server ready to handle this massive influx of, you know, traffic? Maybe you got picked up on product hunt.com or somewhere else or some other website got mentioned in your PR blitz. You know, can you ramp up to handle things? And what controls have you put in place to keep control of things? Have you slowed down your signups? Are you staying in beta? Are you releasing a little bit? Are you doing like Popeyes with the chicken sandwich and selling out and saying we're not going to have any for another two months or something? I think you have to plan for success just as much as, you know, if you plan for things that maybe they don't go as well. And I come back to this iterating, you Know, what do you do if things don't go as planned? Because you know, they're not going to all go just as you planned them. And how do you do? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And your team or yourself, you really have to embrace this iteration. It goes to the development of systems. You don't set this goal out there that we're going to release this product and then we're all going to sit there and wait. It doesn't happen. You know, you're developing a system to, okay, we're creating this thing, this service, this product. Then we're going to go out and we're going to promote it and then we're going to do this. And if this doesn't work, we're going to shift, you know, and do. Do it different and, and test it and see what works along the way. You probably need some new talent, right, at this point. You need some salespeople, you need business development people. Maybe you need start to need managers, right? Because you're going to have people doing all this stuff. Who's going to manage it? Are you going to manage it? And this is where I think as entrepreneurs, we have to get ready to start making adjustments in who we are. Especially if it's your first time, because you're going to have to begin managing. And maybe you were managing during the creation process, but usually in the creation process you're kind of the, you know, you're the champion, right?

You're doing. Yeah, yeah. Managing, you're leading, but you're not necessarily managing. I think that's right. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. So you have to get ready for that. And that was a struggle for me early on. My first time is, is, you know, shifting roles to that day to day stuff. And along that this time you have to begin delegating stuff to other people because you were doing all kinds of stuff, you know, and trying to make this thing. How are we going to get this thing out the door and everything. But now, or even maybe before this is, you know, we've talked about the E Myth book a number of times here and their method or the author's suggested method of creating an org chart, even if you're the only one, is really where you'll start to see with that at this point how valuable it is. Because basically just take everything that's required to run your business and break it up and create an organizational chart, even if your name is in every single box. But at this point, you can start saying, okay, hey, maybe somebody else can do this. Maybe somebody can do this and you'll have this quasi phantom org chart ready to go. At this point, it's really important to help you keep your. Keep your sanity. So for me, the next phase is grow or die, I call it. So since we're all optimists here, we're going to agree that you're successful, your sales are good, you have the cash flow to create the support systems that you need to succeed, help your customers, and to formalize procedures for all these other people that you're delegating to.

Follow. Right.

Things are getting a little more organized. You're continuing to delegate tasks that can be handled by people that are better at it than you are at certain things. Right. Maybe it's customer service, accounting, whatever, you name it. And along this time, I think you have to make another shift is you got to really start thinking about this culture that you're creating. And you want to create a culture that really promotes success within your organization. And that happens in all kinds of different ways. And I would encourage you to go listen to previous episodes of the Small Business show about how to create the culture, how to get people on board to be successful, how to create a path for them to be successful. We've gone over this a ton of times in different ways. Ways. Great things there.

Yeah, I will, I will add one thing to that conversation. You know, you are, as we said, you're probably a natural cheerleader or you've developed that skill by this point. Right? One or the other is true. And that's great. And keep doing that cheerleading. That will help develop this culture. Be very aware of people that are resistant to your type of cheerleading, because those are the people that are going to keep your company from growing. And they might be the best people on paper, but if they are not, if they are not embracing your style, I. E. Your company's culture of promoting good things. Unless you want to change your company's culture to match what those people are bringing to the table. And maybe you do. Like, there certainly are, you know, scenarios where that can happen, but unless you want to change to that, oftentimes you just need to get rid of those people very, very quickly. Hopefully it doesn't happen often.

Sure.

You know, but. But it does happen. And I have, I have carried people like that for far too long in. At various times. It. You know, it's. It. Because it's just how it is. You're like, oh, wait, no, no, this person's good for the company. Like they're doing good things. It's like, yeah, but they're not, they don't fit here. And that's important. And that's really important because what you don't realize, you're like, oh, I can deal with this person, I can adapt around them, I can get value out of them. And that may or may not be true, but let's assume it is. What you are also doing is imposing that on everyone at your company and that can really slow things down. It can be a momentum killer. Even if you. Well, let's, let's assume you decide to change. Right. And say, oh, yep, this person has the right idea. We're going to change. You are also intentionally killing your momentum at that point. Right. You're like, oh, we're going to change. If you're not intentionally killing your momentum and you're not aware of it, that's even worse because you're not managing that process. So just be careful with that.

Yeah, that's a really good point. And I can remember being in a position at one of my companies years ago and people kept bringing this kind of thing up about a particular person who was actually one of the owners of the business partner of mine, and they would say things like, how long can you let this go on, on? And I was just like, what, what are you talking about? You know, because I just, I didn't see it, you know, and so you have to. I, I was just blind to the way this person was treating other people and some of the things that were going on within the organization that was doing exactly that as you described here. I, I was trying to, it wasn't like I was in, you know, I was better at, I was better at being a champion, a cheerleader than this guy was. This guy was an awesome engineering. Sure. Person was great, but he just shouldn't have been in any sort of management position at all. And I was. What, what I think probably a common mistake is thinking that, oh, because I helped start the company, I just move up in the management roles. That doesn't have to work that way. You could just run the, you maybe not even run it. You could just be the engineer guy.

Yeah.

And, and, and still have your equity and make a lot of money when the company does. But you're not involved in managing and creating the culture because you don't know how.

And. Yeah, no, I've, I've had. It's funny you mentioned that as I was, as I was cautioning people here, I was not thinking about it in terms of partners. I have very certain, very definitively had partners like that, and if I rewind back far enough, I have been that partner. I was the wrong guy to be engaging with employees because you might not notice, but I'm an impatient cat, and I've had to learn to really kind of manage that. I'm not great at it, but I'm at least aware of it now, and I'm aware of how it impacts other people now. I was not, when I was in my early 20s or whatever.

And.

Yeah. Involved with a business, with the computer nerds business. I was the wrong person to be managing that office. In retrospect, I didn't want to hear it at the time.

Oh, yeah. Nobody does.

But I definitely, you know, I was like, why? Well, these people aren't doing what's obviously neat, what obviously needs to be done. They're idiots. Like. No, they're not idiots. They just don't see things the way you do, Dave.

Right. Yeah, that's right. And that's okay.

And that's okay. Yeah. In fact, it's kind of part of the deal.

Yeah, I think it's. You know, I love small business, but sometimes it's frustrating when it is. You know, I mean, it's great that it's small, and there's so many awesome parts of that that you have to protect and keep this great culture. But one of the negative things about being small is that maybe you can't really split things up in enough to control, you know, offer that kind of person a role that would be rewarding enough for them. Right. You're not big enough. Or so I, you know, I. I just. Sometimes you can't get to enough scale to give everybody a role that they feel is important. In my case, this. This, you know, partner eventually left because he felt he was undervalued.

Yeah.

And, you know, we just couldn't. Couldn't manage it. And again, super talented guy, unbelievably, you know, smart. Couldn't have started the business without him. But it just.

That's the thing. Right. Is. Is. Yes. The. Everybody at that point, you know, he certainly had proven his value, just not the value he wanted to continue to prove. Yeah.

Not a good. Not a good manager. That was it.

Yeah, that's fine.

Yeah. So the next phase. And again, going back to what I said at the beginning, this could take years. I mean, this could be. I've had this happen in a year, and I've had this next phase take five years to happen. And I call it the grind. And I mean, things are great. The business is doing really well, but as an entrepreneur that loves new things and change and challenge, you might be getting bored. Maybe it's time for you to do something else. And I think this is a point. I get caught in this all the time. Ask yourself, am I the right person to be running this business?

Wow.

At the same. Yeah, because it's hard. It's very hard. I really have struggled with this a number of times, and it's really been difficult for me to get outside my own. Really what it comes down to is my own fears of, oh, wow, okay, well, what. What's next? You know, can I reinvent myself one more time? Can I go start something that's gonna, you know, fulfill me? And, you know, it's like, you gotta go get a new job.

The answer is yes, by the way.

I know that. Oh, yes. But no matter how many times. Yeah.

It's easy for me to tell you that.

Yes. Yes, it's. But you just can't tell Davies.

Yeah, that's right.

Yes.

Yeah.

And we've talked about it here over and over and over about your inner voice and managing your inner judge and this kind of thing. But we all fall victim to this. I hate that word, victim. But we. We all find ourselves in a position where you. You're questioning your ability to. To do this, especially if you've been, you know, pretty successful.

And now you're like, that's the worst.

It's hard. Yeah.

Now the. You perceive the bar to be set somewhere. The bar. The bar of some group of faceless people out there that are expecting something of. Of you. You're like, well, you know, if I made Exit my last business, and at this one, I only make half of X, what are those people gonna think? And the question to ask is, who specifically are those people? Like, what are you? Who are you? What's the problem here?

Yeah. And maybe it's not even money because people don't usually know what you.

That's true.

But it's also. It's a prestige of, oh, wow, I own this building, and there's a big sign on the outside, and I do this. Or I built this website, and I'm very. You know, this. And I talk on this, and I speak at this. Well, that could all go away if you leave.

Yep.

And that can be hard to swallow. It's been hard for me.

Oh, it's really hard for me. It's probably the reason we haven't sold Mac observer the few times that someone has been interested in buying it, because it's like, wait a minute. I have an emotional attachment to the platform because of that business. Not even the. I mean, I do have an emotional attachment to the business and I want to make sure the folks here are taken care of and all of that. But, but beyond that, it's, well, wait a minute, who am I if I don't have that business?

That's it. It becomes part of who we are. And so you have to say, oh wait, it's like having kids. When they get to be old enough, you really have to get out of their way. Right. It sucks and it's hard. Yeah, it's very hard. So it's almost like you can't be a helicopter business owner. Right. Like a helicopter parent.

That's a good way to think of it because I had a much easier time getting out of my kids way. It wasn't easy, by the way.

I would say. Ye, that's probably true.

Not easy at all. But I did it because I knew it was the right thing for them. That's interesting thinking of the business in that light. Like you got to get out of its way. Okay, so we're going to do another episode. We're going to finish this, this episode. But I want to do another episode specifically about what to do when the answer to the am I the right person to be running this business is no, that'll be in the future. Because there's a lot of, like, there's a lot to unpack there. So there you go.

I agree. And, and I've often had a tough time, you know, oh, I have to be there. I have to show up in the morning, they need to see me, I need to be the last one out. I mean, I, I struggle with that a lot when it just doesn't, it oftentimes does not make sense for your business. You know, And I think you really have to ask yourself during this phase, do you have the right people in place to run the business without you?

Yeah.

Okay. Because if you don't, this next phase, which I call the disengagement and also the down cycle, Right. It's much more difficult to deal with. If you have the right people in place, you can step away.

Right.

You can then get, manage it and deal with those personal things and your emotional attachment and all that kind of stuff, you can, it's like, okay, guys, the businesses at this point and Dave, you and I have done this.

Yes.

We stepped away from dealbrothers.com deals on the web.

Yes.

And we let the person we hired run it for I think another year, probably past Its prime.

I agree with that. Well, yeah, you know, like we say, past its prime, but it passed when we stopped paying attention.

Yes, that's correct. That's correct. We got out of it exactly what we put into it. Right?

That's correct. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And. And so. So if you have those good people, let them run the business and think about what the revenue, I mean, is revenue trending down or do you have the energy to reinvent the business or new product, new service. And you have to ask yourself now, maybe it's time to sell. Maybe it's time to find the person who should be running the business. And I will tell you in my own case, with Tech Restore, it took me a long time. And, you know, my wife Renee was telling me, it's like, she's like, you, you know, you're not the one to take this business onward. You've done it. You've done what? You know, it's been 10 years. You've done. You've squeezed every drop of blood from this stone. Right. And yeah, but now it requires someone else that understands and is really more efficient and more analytical and better at really getting closer to the numbers and tracking how things work. And that's not me. Right. I couldn't. There was nothing left to champion for me.

No. That business became a commodity, Commit a commodity.

And that's just not, you know, I'm a lower volume, higher margin type of person. And so fortunately, we found a awesome guy who is just wrote the last check to pay for the business and we're having on the show.

Oh, that's great, man. That's awesome.

Yeah, because I. And I told him that when we, when we struck the agreement for him to buy the company a few years ago or a couple years ago, I said, you know what? There's nothing I would like more than when we get to the other side of this whole thing to have you on the Small Business show and talk about how things went from your perspective and. My perspective.

Right.

Because like you say, I edit the show so I can make it sound good on my part.

I see the method to your madness.

There you go. That's it. That's it. But, you know, it's super rewarding to see it go on and to see.

It continue and that I can. Yeah, just like with your kids, right?

Yeah, it's the exact same thing. So, you know, here I got two companies out there that have continued on and built their own, you know, name and all that kind of stuff, and it's great and the thing that's, I think you have to look back is you're trying to create a system that really maximizes everyone's talent stack, not just your own. So you're putting the right people in the right positions and getting everything ready, including yourself. So you're ready to, like, after this certain time, maybe five years, 10 years, maybe, I don't know, never. But if you, if you don't position yourself right, you know, there's an old saying. You should be running your business like you're. You were going to sell it tomorrow or something like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Always trying to prepare it because it does make you a better business owner. There's no. There's no.

So that's really interesting. You know, as you're describing this, I'm realizing part of the reason I don't want to sell any of my businesses to someone else is part of the hesitation is, well, what if they succeed? Not what if they fail.

That's right. That's part of it too.

What if they succeed? Then it's like, wait, why didn't I.

Why didn't I do it?

Right, Right.

Very hard to deal with.

But that's. Yeah, but, but like, it frees you up to do other things. Right. So. But the reason, the reality is I didn't. Right. So if somebody succeeds more than I did with the business I started, like, I need to look at it like, I look at my kids, like, yes.

Like, shoulders are giants.

Yes, shoulders a giant. Right. Like, without me having started that, he never would have. Or he or she would have never been able to do this other thing that they went and did. Yeah.

And what a great part of your story.

What a story. That's the problem is I never, I never saw how to tell that story until right now. There you go. Yeah.

So when you're sitting around the campfire sometime talking about your business career and people are looking at, you can go, yeah. You know, we built this business up for a decade, did all this great stuff. It created this great lifestyle and did yada, yada, yada. Then we found another person that came in and then look what they did. So it was, you know, that's a huge positive, rewarding thing versus having it go the other way where you're squeezing it so long because you, you can't.

Can't let go. Right.

You can't let go.

Yeah.

And. And you haven't created this system that maximizes everyone's talent and creates a path for them because maybe that person to take it to the Next level already works.

It's already here. Right, Exactly.

You don't know.

Yeah.

So anyway, so that's.

I'm not sure who this episode was business therapy for, to be perfectly honest. I think it shifted somewhere in the middle there, but that's okay.

Yeah, it's good. It's good. Again, that's the reason why I do this show. Right. I always learn the most. I love it. We would love to hear your stories. If you need some feedback, just send an email. Feedbackus Show Co. The other thing I would ask of you is take 30 seconds and go leave us a review. BusinessShow Co review would help us tremendously. That would be one of the best things you could do for us.

Yeah, please do that.

It really helps.

It really does help. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's. It makes a big difference. Yep, Yep. That's good.

Some good stuff today. I have some business therapy, but I think we could maybe do it on another episode because we've gone into this. So. So I. I'll save it. I have some good.

That's fine. Yeah. This question really was business therapy all the way through?

Absolutely.

That's a good thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah.

Thank you for listening, everybody. We really appreciate your support.

Thanks so much. Thanks to our sponsors, Zapier.com Small Bit Business and Lino.com SBS and thanks for listening. Thanks, Shannon, for being the patient, the therapy ER and the therapist. I don't know how that was supposed to work. Yeah, man, it's good. We'll see you next week, folks. Keep living that charmed life.