Best Small Business Mistakes - Part Two

We've made more than just the four mistakes that we talked about last week, Shannon.

We. We certainly have. And so I. I love. I really enjoyed that format, and I'm happy that we rolled it into a second, a part two show all about mistakes, because it's. There's some powerful lessons, especially on this show. There is one that has stuck with me for, you know, it was an early comment from a guest back in 2015 that is. And I know it had made an impact on you as well, and it's powerful.

It is, Yeah. I would say, you know, we always ask guests what are. What their favorite mistake is. I like all three of the ones that we have in this episode, but there is one in particular, and you'll know it, folks, when we get there. If you've listened to the show for any amount of time, it will sound familiar. Even if you didn't listen back in 2015. It's. It's. But this is what I would say certainly is my favorite mistake we've talked about. And. And I think I can say collectively, it's our favorite mistake that we've talked about here. So. Yeah, it's good stuff.

It is. Yes, sir.

All right. Well, in a. In a pre Thanksgiving episode, he is Shannon Jean, I am Dave Hamilton, and this is the Small Business show. More mistakes is what it's time for, Shannon. It is all over each other. That's the right kind of mistake to make. That's right. That's right.

Yeah. So we had, you know, we picked out some of our. What we are, our best mistakes from, you know, previous episodes with some of our, you know, awesome guests that have come on the show, and we had so many that I thought, hey, let's do a part two, because there's some really good stuff in these upcoming mistakes that people shared with us. And like we said last time, it's. It's like tuition, right? You're gonna spend some time or spend some money, sometimes a lot of money, but you're going to learn something. And these. These mistakes these folks made were important enough that it stuck with them when I asked that question of every guest that these are the ones that they shared.

All right, well, who's. Who's on. Who's on deck here? Shannon?

Yeah. So up first, we, you know, I loved having these guys on or, you know, Paul Goodman from Pura Vita, and that story was so great, you know, about going on vacation to Costa Rica after college and coming up and meeting these folks selling these little bracelets, and they turned it into A huge company that they just sold a, you know, a ha. And I, for the life of me, I can't remember the company that bought half of stake, 50% of their company, but it's a massive company and I'm sure they did really well. So one of the things that Paul shared with us is I call the avoid the shiny objects mistake. So let's hear it, Dave.

All right. Avoiding shiny share.

One of those mistakes you might have made that really taught you a good lesson in your business career.

Yeah, I think the biggest mistake is, like, me and my partner very easily think there's always a shinier, brighter, easier way to do something. So, I mean, last year, for example, we got pitched on switching our website and kind of like overhauling our whole back end. And we're promised that it's going to increase conversion rates and more customers, more transactions, more checkouts, higher dollar amount. And we agreed to this make this switch. And with the switch came a, you know, they charged us a percentage of sales and we kind of just got sold. And I think, you know, we're now back on our old platform. But I think you got to realize, like, if something's working and it's working well, like, you gotta really, really, you know, have to make a switch if it's. If it's necessary, if it's working and it's going to. Going how you want it to be, there's no reason to make a switch just like for some other shiny platform, you know?

Yeah.

That'S good advice, man. I. I am constantly under the spell of new shiny, and I need to. I mean, I'm aware of it, so I need to. I temper it. But, you know, there. There are good new shiny things sometimes. And so you don't want to be the one that says, oh, it's new, it's crap. No, not necessarily, but you got to ev everything very, very judiciously, I think.

Yeah, I would agree. And I have this problem as well. Most of these mistakes I have have made one time or another. And it is true because you're always thinking, how do I make it better? That's an entrepreneur. How do I do this better? How do I be more productive? What's the easier way? Or maybe easier is not a right word. But I always have tried to get closer to my customer. And, you know, this really resonated with me when Paul was talking about, oh, I got. We got pitched on this thing and we had a good website, it was working fine. We were taking orders and thought that, oh, if we revamp this whole thing. We'll sell more. Well, it doesn't always work this way. And I've gone down this rabbit hole as well and a number of times to where I finally, you know, on the web, in your E commerce front, I finally just turned it over to another company to. Because I was, oh, I can build this and I can do that. And you spend so much time and effort and money trying to customize something when there are, I believe now there are other great solutions out there and you don't want to always jump at the next thing to try. You know, that's going to be better. Look at your systems and your processes and think you know what's working and what has to be changed. You know, you only change it if it's really not working. Right. If there's some huge benefit. So.

Yeah, well, that's, that's the key is, is you have to convince yourself why you're making this change. And it's, yeah, don't make it just for changes sake and certainly don't make it to prove a point.

Yeah, well, and I think this is in my case, kind of a young business person dilemma is you're kind of hard charging. We're going to do this and I know I can do it better.

Right.

I know I get this kind of thing. So you may not have the ability yet to get take a step back and get some perspective on is this the best thing to do with our time and our money right now. And sometimes you have to step back and look at that dashboard level or kind of a global level of your company and okay, what is the best thing to do now and where do we put our efforts to grow the business if that's what you want to do or stabilize or be more productive and you need to take time and really look at it and not get distracted with shiny objects and shiny projects.

I like it. I like it.

Yeah, me too.

Yeah, me too.

Those are good guys. So go back and listen to that episode. It was a good one.

We do have links for all of these, by the way, for last week and this week are all in the show notes at Business Show Co. So you can go back and listen to the whole episode and, and I want to say thank you, Shannon. Thanks for putting all these together and finding all of these great clips. It's been awesome, man.

Yeah, we have some great content up there at businessshow Co. I mean there' you know, literally five years of, you know, not only just Dave and I talking, but, you know, guest after guest that has some awesome experiences. You know, companies that are everything from sole proprietors that have been around for a long time, new startups to, you know, people that sold their companies for, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars. So it's a great wide array of guests that, that content library on the small business show is, is really worth, worth listening to. And we're going to highlight some more of those as we, as we get into next, next year.

Yeah. All right, man. Well, well, you know, who's, who's next?

Yeah, so this was a really a great one. I loved. It's Brittany. All. All, all were red.

All. All were rude, I think is how rude.

I think. Yeah. Butchering last name. But she started a company first. She started as a dog walker in Poop Picker Upper is how she described it herself. And then over time, you know, and she educated us about that businesses, hey, you making millions of dollars in the dog walking business. And but what Britt realized is that she was a dog walker, not a business person. And so she decided to change that and launched a company called Handler H A N D L R for other service businesses to use their software and their apps to help manage their business. And so I call this one the not launching fast enough mistake and, or chasing perfection. And let's hear what Brit has to say.

All right.

And so, I mean, what do you think is the best mistake that you've made while you're getting handler off the ground? And what mistake did you learn the most from?

Well, I think the, the biggest mistake was not launching fast enough, not releasing fast enough. You know how you just want your product to be perfect.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah. So that took a while, but then at the same time, I did sort of rush it and so we had the typical, you know, when you launch a product the first time, especially software, there's going to be bugs, or not just bugs, but a few different logic flaws that we needed to fix. And so even though it took pretty long to get out, and then even though we kind of launched when the product wasn't fully, fully completed, all the features fully baked, but at the same time I'm glad that we didn't quite have perfect product market fit because it would have been crazy if we had had thousands of people sign up originally. So I'm kind of glad that we didn't do a huge crowdfunding campaign or have a huge push when we first launched because we've been able to really dial in the product in the last year and now we're launching version two which is going to be ready in two. It is kick ass. And it's that product market fit. So we're really excited to just go crazy with this.

That's great.

Wow.

Yeah. The thing I love about this is she's such an entrepreneur, business owner, because she quickly spins it.

Right.

I know it's a mistake, but this is a. And I find myself doing it all the time. But the key point there, the takeaway for me here is that. And you have a phrase that you say all the time. I don't know what it is, but something about perfection is the enemy of.

Whatever, but it's the enemy of good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, that chasing perfection, failure to launch, you know, holds us all, all back. I think we've, you know, I've certainly made that mistake. When you're like, oh, we're not ready, not ready. And I think the important thing is to get to that minimally, minimally viable product, you know, an mvp. And that could be your whole company.

Right.

You're not going to start out of the gate. It's like we had Sarah from Gilded Leaf on the, you know, that we had her mistake that we talked about last week. And you just have to get out there and it's going to take time. Whether your product needs to find, you know, a foothold in the market or your business needs to find that, you just have to start, you know, talk and talk and talk is not going to get you anywhere. Yeah, right. It's that you can't just keep going. Ready, Aim. Aim. Aim. Aim. Aim. At some point, you have to fire.

And I find when I have, when I have potential business partners, you know, starting business, and they. We talked at last week's episode about warning signs, right? And those warning signs were that your partner wants to be an employee. This warning sign to me is. Is one where someone is just afraid, right. And of failure, but also afraid of success. To me, those two are the same thing. They are. They are the fear of change is what they are. And because, you know, the status quo is always good. But when someone comes to me with lots of pro formas and I did all these spreadsheets and look, we can tweak the spreadsheet and look how much money. Look what the company's worth. And all this, it's like the company's worth nothing. It's now worth less because you spent your time building that instead of, you know, like, how much more time are you planning on spending on that? It might be good. Like you, You. I get Anytime somebody does one of those things, unless you're courting some kind of investment or whatever, and even then, I would still make this same argument because most investors that are angel investors don't actually, they know that that stuff is crap because it's. Your business doesn't really exist yet. They just, they're just going to invest in you, not in your paperwork. But anybody that's doing that is doing it to placate their own fears. Right. We all make, I always say that we all make emotional decisions, right? Every, every purchase, or if you want to say buy in is an emotional decision, but you can support that with a spreadsheet sometimes, and that makes you feel better, and then you make the decision. Somebody that's doing those isn't convinced that this business is viable yet. And that is a warning sign to me.

So, yeah, I agree. And you know, your idea, like you, is only worth it, means it's not worth much unless you take some action on it.

Right.

And, and you can talk and I hear it and I, I love talking about ideas and sitting around and having a beer and we could do this and you could do that. It's awesome. But it's action that really solves problems. You know, I use this phrase, a symphony of action. You know, if you've got something in your life that's not working, man, it's action. You know, you've got to take some action and you may not get the result you really, you think you're going to get, but something is going to.

Happen and you might learn that it's not tenable. Okay, great. Now I know. Now I can move on. Yeah, right?

That's right.

Yeah. No, you got to. Yeah. I challenge anyone to find a valuable business that is valuable because they have a great idea, not because they have executed well. Most valuable businesses have relatively, like, good, maybe even mediocre ideas. Very few of them have exceptional ideas behind them. It's just a good idea. And then you execute extremely well. That's the key, right? Bullheaded persistence. Get it done.

Yeah. And adjust. Create a system like we talk about here all the time, and then iterate, you know, oh, that didn't work. Nobody wanted that product. But how do we change it a little bit or nobody, you know, I can't get customers this way. How do I change and try it and test and look at, look at the data. So, yeah, thank Britt for that. It's a, it's a great starting point to have that discussion.

All right, one last one, man, before we send Everybody off to or before we send ourselves off to eat turkey for Thanksgiving here?

Yeah, exactly. This one really is powerful and it has stuck with me because I thought it was, it was a very early interview we did back in 2015 with Brian Fris from Digistore and what I thought was it was so authentic and so it was just real. And it was about fear and it was basically, it's the don't make fear based decisions mistake. But Brian says it the best. So let's hear from Brian.

Yeah, let's go, Brian.

This is a long one, but it's worth it. Do you have something that you could look back at and say, wow, that was at the time was maybe miserable or whatever, but now you look back on saying, man, I really learned a valuable lesson that's helped me move forward.

Absolutely. I mean we could have a whole show just on that. There's been plenty over the last 14 years. But I guess easy way to look at for me is when I look back at decisions I've made or the direction we've gone and it hasn't worked out, you kind of look at the mindset that you had at the time. I look at our biggest mistakes and they're all fear based decisions. They weren't data driven, they weren't in a way that was a little bit more tangible. It was fear based. One that really sticks out to me is back when 2009, 2010, when this economy dropped and we had a really tough time, we were looking for that pivot, we were looking for that next direction. Instead of really extending on to where we've seen success, we took a different turn and we decided we were going to create some retail products, create some software that would be easy archiving software for Blu Ray. It was a really kind of subset of a niche market and went and worked with a consulting firm and spent a ton of money on a horrible website and just a horrible direction and we lost hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars on it. We quickly realized we were wrong. We pivoted again and like I said, now we're doing better now than we've ever done. I love our direct, I love what we're doing. But I look back at that and I go, how the heck did I do that? Why did I make such a stupid decision? And every time I think about it, it's always because you're scared. You make a fear based decision instead of really following the data or following where you've been successful and trying to extend from those success points.

Yeah, I think that's a fantastic comment. And I could certainly attest to making those same kinds of decisions over time. You look back and you go, man, you make some quick decision that you think is going to fix everything and you realize, wow, that, you know, I didn't have enough data to back it up.

Absolutely. I mean, there's no quick fix. Right. And everybody's scared. I mean, you're a small business. It's scary.

Yeah.

And things change quickly and the environment changes and you have, you know, guys.

Yeah, man, that's powerful. The pause that I have so much to say about this one. I know you do too. The pause that existed between when he finished talking and when you resumed with him was so telling. Like, it was, it was like, you know, when like you noticed with me in last week's episode where I. Somebody said something, I went, you know, like, it just like, oh, it takes your breath away. Like, that's. And this one, that don't make fear based decisions is something that I have quoted verbatim hundreds of times since this episode. So much so that I had forgotten who said it. I knew it was one of our interview guests. I certainly knew it wasn't me, you know, but I, it has become such a part of my lexicon and, and it's a mantra of mine. I share it with other people as often as I can because it's such a powerful phrase and it, it's one of those things that you don't necessarily want to hear when you need to hear it, but it resonates and that's kind of the point.

Yeah. Yeah, it, I mean, same here. You know, it stuck with me because I think it was a long time ago and we were just kind of getting started and getting things rolling on this show and we had him on and for him to be so honest and open to make that comment, hey, we're all scared. It's scary. We're small business owners. It's scary. And I was like, wow, this is really going to be a powerful thing, this show for me personally.

Yes.

Because I get to hear this firsthand stuff from all these very successful people and they're open about their struggles. And it, it changed the way I viewed what this show could be and helped me a lot, you know, and where, in what direction it could take it. And I know Brian and I've, you know, kept in touch with him and, you know, it is such a good thing to think about is, oh, you know, follow the data, don't make fear based decisions. Doesn't mean you're not going to be afraid because that this is normal. But most people don't talk about it. You know, most people don't put it out there and say yeah, we were scared that this was going to happen. So you know, we all have this facade.

Right, right.

And you're, you know, out on the front and you know, this, it just cut to the heart of it. And I have so much respect for him for putting it out there to thousands of other small business owners and I, I really felt it was worth hearing again for. I mean our listeners have, you know, we've grown so much in the last five years that it's something worthwhile to hear over and over and over and we mentioned it a lot on the show. Don't make fear based decisions.

Oh yeah. It's become the show's mantra. I, I just, yeah, it weird that to hear that again.

Yeah, it's great. And so I, you know, thank to Brian and to Brittany and to Paul Goodman, you know, for sharing those mistakes and being forthcoming and transparent is really has helped educate so many business owners out there that get to share that knowledge that you've acquired.

I love it.

Yeah. Excellent. That's interesting. Yeah, yeah, it really, it's amazing how many of these things have become just ingrained in what we do here. This is.

They're educating us.

Yeah, well that's true. Of course.

They're educating us. And then we just keep the, the thing I love about this show is that shared knowledge and then we kind of tease out these, you know, powerful pieces of, of these interviews and what happens and things we read and then we internalize them makes us better business people and we hope it makes our listeners better business people as well. And I think it has. We, we all the feedback we get, you know, at feedbackusiness show co or on our Facebook group, it really has made a big impact on people's lives. I can hear I, I listen to or you know, you read people's emails. I had to pull over and write this down that you guys were sharing this thing. I love that. It's the best. So we're all in this together. Everybody has, has those times of fear and we have to just support each other and help each other succeed.

Now this show has been. You say you learn the much the most the much you say you learn the most from each episode. I will say that I've gotten the biggest benefit out of this show. Like I am a much better business person than I was when we started this show. And I attribute so much of that to. Well, I mean, just the fact that we're paying attention to it every week, either by doing the show, which Shannon and I do, or you or you by listening, just paying. You know, what's the favorite phrase? That which is monitored is managed. Right.

Yeah.

So being intentionally aware of these things, sometimes good, sometimes bad, has made me better. But. But more than that, it's the advice that we've gotten from all of the folks that we've interviewed, the advice I've gotten from you, Shannon. The advice that we've gotten from our listeners. So I know, you know, for us in releasing this episode, Thanksgiving is tomorrow, so it's a nice time to say thanks to everybody. Thank you, Shannon. Thank you to our listeners. Thank you to all of our guests. It really, truly has had a profound impact on my personal life, and.

Yeah, me too. And thank you, Dave. The show wouldn't exist without you. You always have taken the risk. When I've reached out to you a couple times in our lifetime, say, hey, I want to try this, and sometimes things work and sometimes they don't. But we've had a couple of. Couple of successes, and I definitely count one as that.

Yeah, this is a huge success, I think. Yeah. Yeah, it just. It's got ripples. And that's the. That's the thing that it's good. It's good. Well, folks, share your ripples with us. Feedbackusinessshow.co. we would love to hear from you. We'd love to. You know what? If all you want to do is say thanks, do that. We really do just love hearing from you. So if you are driven to say something profound, do it. But if you don't have anything profound to say, just say something. It. Chances are it will mean something to at least Shannon and I, and maybe you'll share something that will mean something to listeners of the show as well. So don't. Don't sell yourself short. The advice you have in your head is valuable. I would. I would love to do an episode full of listener advice, but we need, you know, we need your help to do that. So.

Yeah, it's good stuff, man. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends, and we'll be back here next week.

See you next week.