Choosing Accounting Software and the Best Books and Podcasts for Small Business Owners

The Small business show episode 348 for Wednesday, October 6, 2021. Greetings folks and welcome to the Small Business show here here at BusinessShow Co the show and the place where we are always small business ing sponsors for this episode include Bambi B a m b e-e.com small where you can schedule your free HR audit and NetSuite n e t s U-I-T-E.com SBS. Your financial future for your business can be tracked here. We'll talk more about why you want to check each of these out in a few minutes. For now, here in Durham, New Hampshire.

I'm Dave Hamilton and in Lafayette, California I am Shannon Jean. I love me some Bambi. Just some huge HR stuff. It's crazy.

It's crazy for 99 bucks a month too. Oh, by the oh, spoiler alert. That's right. That's coming later in the episode. But I will, that's true. It's.

No, no, no. Because I always feel when you mention that that sponsor is because so many of the, you know, issues you face as small business owner, just HR related. So anytime we have an HR sponsor or guest, I'm always like, oh yeah, how can you solve? How can you fix this for me?

So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Very good. How goes it out there, man?

It goes, it goes. You know, I'm small businessing like crazy. I'm learning a lot. I mentioned last week that we're investigating the possibility of an idea of selling one of the businesses, one of the very newest business. If you work for me and you haven't heard about it, don't sweat it. It's not the business you work for, right? Yeah, no, if I were going to talk about it publicly, I would definitely tell my people first. In fact I was talking to my father in law about this. He sold his business a couple years ago, actually wound up closing days before pandemic lockdown which as he calls it, brilliant. Truly dumb luck. Yeah, exactly. But he was telling me about the, you know, the M and A process and this is a business that he had run for, you know, for almost 30 years. He'd had the business has he had with the business, hundreds of employees, very large deal and when the people came, you know, when the buyers would come to his office, he would actually bring in his senior, your management to meet them. He told his buyers and, and, and management, you know, you can ask each other any questions you want. That's why you're here. The only things that are not on the table to Talk about are the price and some of the other specifics of the terms of what the deal would be. Because that wasn't between the buyer and his employees, because his employees didn't have ownership in the company. Right. Like, they weren't decision makers in. At that level. But otherwise he. He did that and he said every buyer was shocked. Like, we never get to meet with people that actually work here, the people that we would be, you know, employing after we bought the business. And they really liked it. And I, you know, I think it helped, you know, get the deal done. And it also helped the transition, too, because nobody felt like they were out of the loop, you know.

Yeah. That's okay. See the positive side of that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it was.

You're kind of retiring. I mean, it was. It exactly where you're at and how you've kind of set things up and groomed the employees over time, correct their expectations. But that's awesome.

Yeah. You can't do that out of the blue. Right. That. You're right. That's a. There's a grooming process that leads up to that. But. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great. So I'm learning. I don't know if we'll actually sell this other business or not, but it's. It's certainly interesting to consider it and look at, you know, what the. How you value things and all that. So I will have lots to share as. As we progress. It won't be a weekly thing in the conversation, though. But, but, you know, I'm learning. It's fine.

Yeah, no, that's great. I have, you know, I have a business that I'm in the process of selling some rights to to the US Government, which is a fascinating exercise, a very slow exercise and in itself, but I've been working on it for a couple years. Had a meeting just today and.

Interesting.

Yeah. And then, you know, today was like, well, I think we're about nine months away from closing on this deal. And I'm like, okay, well, let's see how it goes. I'm not going to hold my breath since it's.

That's the other thing you and I have learned. You know, certainly the first time I learned it was with you. I'm sure we've both learned it in different ways since then, but, you know, do not cash the check or cash out of the business in your mind.

No, don't even think of the money.

Actually catch the check. That's right.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So that's great. But, yeah, like, you I'll be checking in from time to time. I can start talking about it and see how things go. And it's, it's, it's interesting process, but.

I do have a, I do have a quick tip though. One of the, one of the M and A guys that I was talking with, in fact it was Bob Grewall who we had on the show here told me about, because he was asking, you know, what, what type of entity is the business is an LLC or this or on the other end. This one happens to be an llc like most everything I have. Uh, but I mentioned that we do have one business that's not for sale that is a C corp. And he's like, how long ago did you form the C corp? And I told him, it's like, oh, you know, this is like 20 plus years. He's like, okay, all right, all right. Well, if you ever sell that one. He's like, I think you can. There's a huge tax break on capital gains tax. When you sell small business shares in a C corp and it's called. He's like, just make sure you tell your accountant. 1202, that's the magic number. Yeah. And he said if you formed your C corp in the last, let's say, five years or something like that, you can sell it and pay no federal income tax on the shares. He's like, that's why a lot of these, you know, like Silicon Valley type startups that are going to grow a business but not earn any revenue. No, not earn any income. I mean, they'll have revenue, but, but it'll be a wash. You know, if they, if they're going to be at a loss or at a net neutral, they will form it as a C corp so that, you know, when they sell it to, you know, somebody for $100 million or whatever, they walk away without paying any taxes on that.

Yeah, it's called the small business stock gains exclusion.

There you go.

That's fascinating.

Right?

I know we gotta put that in the, in the show notes.

It's in the show notes. Yep. He's like, just whisper the words 1202 to your accountant and they'll take care of the rest. But yeah, he's like, you know, nobody knows about this thing. You didn't know about it? I didn't know about it. Like, nobody ever told us before. He's like, but this is how these deals are all happening. And it just completely skirts around paying any federal tax. He made sure every time he said it it was federal because states are still going to come in and get their fair share or their share. Whether we agree that it's fair or not is sort of irrelevant.

Of course. That's a whole other show.

That's a whole other show. I don't know that there's actually any hope in even having that discussion. It's just. No, it's just how it be. But like everything with the tax code, not our rules. And so if you can find a way around it, you know, work it out with your accountant. There you go.

Yeah, yeah, that's cool.

I know. Yeah.

Good stuff, man. Always something to learn.

That's what I love about this process. Yeah, yeah. In this show.

Yeah, absolutely. So what are we talking about today, Dave?

Well, we're going to. We're going to talk about our favorite business books and podcasts. But the first thing we got a question in asking us. What accounting software do you use for your business? Bookkeeping?

Yeah, yeah, that's a great question.

It is. And we have a sponsor that this was not our intention, but fits right into this. But, you know, I've always used. I mean, I've started with. When I started my businesses, I kept them in Quicken because they were like, I didn't know any better. And then I moved to Quick the day. Back in the day. Exactly. Yep. When they were schedule Cs and that sort of thing before I had, you know, formed entities or anything like that. But then I moved to QuickBooks and I got pretty astute with QuickBooks. I actually wound up training it for a while, sort of unintentionally, but, you know, I was doing my computer nerding thing and, and out and helping people. And when they found I knew about QuickBooks, they would say, well, can you show me? Yeah, okay, sure. I wound up teaching, wound up doing some classes and stuff on QuickBooks. But, you know, if I were starting something today, I mean, it depends on the size of the business, you know, our sponsor, which we'll talk about in a little bit. Netsuite. It's sort of for the other side of this equation. As you, as you grow, that's where you'd want to go.

Right?

You know, for starting out. I don't. I don't know. Well, I would use QuickBooks because I'm super comfortable with it and I own it. Right. Like, I use QuickBooks Desktop. I don't use the online version, but I'm not sure that that may be a hindrance for me. Like, FreshBooks might be a better option for. Well, for certainly for a lot of people and possibly even also for me, even though I've got this, you know, investment into time and, you know, dollars into QuickBooks. So I don't know.

Yeah, I like that too. See, I used, for years I've used an application called Account Edge. It used to be called mind your own business. Right.

I remember myob. Yeah.

Yeah. And lately though, I'm using an older version on an older Mac because they stopped, they, you know, after. I don't know if it was Big Sur, one of the Mac operating system upgrades, they said, hey, we're not gonna, we're not gonna do it.

I moved at the time both so, you know, Backbeat and Mac Observer. I moved both of our businesses to, to Account Edge probably, I don't know, almost 20 years ago and ran two sets of books for two years in them before I finally decided, you know, I'm not. When I was at Citibank, this is before really before I had any businesses. I mean, that's not entirely true, but, you know, I worked at Citibank in the home banking division. So we, we had an online system where people could dial in. We actually had built this customized phone with Philips electronics that had a keyboard pull out so that people that didn't have computers, it was a computer shoved into a phone with a screen and stuff. But, you know, we, we ran Citibank's online banking. It was called Direct Access. If you look at the URLs for Citibank.com today and you log in, you will see DA in some of those URLs. That's direct access. So this is what I did, whatever, 25, 30 years ago, whatever it was. And MYOB was our first partner with it and, you know, so that we could link in. Because I was like, guys, we have to link it with somebody else. Like, this is crazy that we have this system and it's not, you know, nobody can use it. And I said, we need to link it with, with Quicken because Intuit is the market leader. And they're like, yeah, but we can get a good deal with myob. And like, yeah, but nobody's using myob. Yeah, that's right. And I heard myself saying that after I was doing two years of this double books, I'm like, it's still that way. Nobody uses Account Edge. Yes, in many ways it's better, but what's its longevity? Like, if somebody's going to pick one of these to succeed, it's going to be QuickBooks. I agree. I gave up on Account Edge and stayed with QuickBooks.

Yeah, I think that's a good decision. And we're migrating away and I'm in that process right now of looking like, okay, do I, I'm kind of this standalone desktop guy as well. But there are definite benefits to paying for the service and getting all the latest features and compliance and integrations especially, you know, well, with your different things as they change. So, you know, I, I'm going to lean towards fresh books and actually I have my wife Renee, she's doing an assessment of a few different services, make a decision because her business, she runs our vacation rental businesses. And so each of those is a separate LLC which we can talk about at some point in the future if we ever talk about real estate. And so they, you know, she manages those and needs. There are some real estate specific accounting packages that are really powerful for that kind of business that I like a lot.

Interesting.

We're just going through there. So I think it really, it depends on your business. I mean, if you have a service business, you really have to have powerful, you know, invoicing capacity and mobile capacity. If your techs or service people are out in the field and they need to connect, that's, that's critically important. And I just can't imagine you or I would think that you really need an online service that you can tap into and use all those bells and whistles. You know, if you're a contractor, you want to be sure, you know, building contractor estimates are really important. You know, if you're self employed, solopreneur type thing, then you have different needs. And so I think you really have to break down. The first question you ask yourself is not what accounting package I need, is what features my, my business needs. What are the features that I need and how am I going to use it. Like I love filemaker, I use it for a ton of stuff. But it's not an accounting package. And don't ever try to make it one because you'll, you'll fail.

Because I've tried, you know, I have all of our invoicing for Backbeat Media is tracked in FileMaker because that's great. It makes more sense to have our invoicing tied to our customer records than it does to have it tied to our accounting. However, you know, I export from FileMaker using IIF files so that I can slurp all the data into QuickBooks because otherwise, you know, if you're manually entering it, there's opportunities for human error and also it's, it's, you know, pedantic and slow and inefficient. But it means that my account, like if somebody, like if we're not. But if somebody were, you know, interested in buying that business or something and they said, oh, can you show us what your AR looks like? Be like, yes, that's right, I could, but it's not. They're like, well, you just pull up a report in QuickBooks like, yeah, right. And that'll show zero, which is untrue, you know, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I see my AR in different ways in FileMaker, but not the way that, you know, an accountant would want to see.

Correct. Yeah, so that's, that is a good point is, you know, I have done the same thing and I have and I track all my inventory in FileMaker and I really like it. But there are some definite pitfalls. I think Accessibility can be one as well. Unless you're using like FileMaker in the cloud. But, you know, it might be just us old school guys. The versatility of FileMaker is just unbelievable.

And I highly recommend checking out FileMaker Server, man, like we have been running.

You can manage that yourself?

Yes, yeah. I mean, yeah, so I've done that too. Filemaker server. We pay FMP host right now to, to host our Filemaker server. And it's like 60 bucks a month for the level that we need. And, and it's great. It's. I have, I have managed it internally here anytime I had a power outage or an Internet outage and everybody else that works for me couldn't do their job though. Started to become a huge liability. Was like, okay, wait, 60 bucks a month and I don't have a headache anymore.

Oh yeah.

So that went away. However, there is now with FileMaker 19, there is FileMaker Server for Linux. And you know, we do run a Linux machine series of them at our. Well, not a colo host anymore. It's our host that we keep all the servers on. And so theoretically I could run that there and save my 60 bucks a month because that's a machine that needs to keep running no matter what, that runs all the websites and everything. But I haven't messed with that yet. But it is out there. But yeah, FileMaker Server, that changes everything because then you can access it from your phone or your iPad. And I've done that at trade shows. We keep a contacts database and I'll be walking up to a booth and it's like, wait, what's the person's name? I need to. Yeah, that's their name. Perfect, Great.

And I Also think if you don't need the massive. What's the word I'm looking for? Flexibility. And you're not going to build your own solutions and adjust fields and create calculations, everything else, that, what you just described is a, is a, A huge argument to have, you know, an online service that you're, that you're into. Right?

Yeah. But we do create all those calculations.

You do, yes, yes, correct.

With file business. Yeah, correct.

But I would not say you're the average. Oh, no, you need to have a tech. You got to have somebody who has that capacity, knows what an IFF file.

Yeah, you gotta be a nerd.

Yeah, you gotta be a nerd.

Yeah.

So if you're.

Yeah, but yes, for us nerds. Yeah.

Yes. I love it too. I. I couldn't imagine living without it. But. But yeah, counting things. Make a list of the features that you need and then go. Start visiting sites and go, okay, what do they offer? What does it cost?

Your wife comes up with as she, as she researches what you need for your real estate business.

I'll come back here and, and comment on it after we use it for a couple months, see which one we wind up with.

Yeah, cool. All right, well, I want to talk about business books and some of our favorite business podcasts. The next thing that I want to do though, is I want to talk about our two sponsors, if that's okay with you.

Yeah, sounds great, man.

All right, look, as we all know, tackling your business's finance to DOS can be daunting enough without being slowed down by the wrong accounting software. Have you ever sat like I have at times and said QuickBooks sometimes feels a little bit more like slow Books? Well, NetSuite by Oracle is the number one financial system no matter how big your business grows. Right. It scales with visibility and control of your financials, your inventory, your HR, your E commerce, and more. NetSuite is everything you need to grow all in one place. These people really know what they're doing. And really, Oracle, Netsuite is one of the secrets of Rockstar CFOs because they understand the missions, goals and objectives of the organizations they lead and are often charged with articulating this vision to investors and others. And as cfo, you now have the opportunity to make things happen, not just record what happened after the fact that special financing is back. Netsuite is offering a one of a kind financing program only for those ready to switch today. So head to netsuite.com SBS right now. That's netsuite.com SBS go check it out. Netsuite by Oracle. Our thanks to netsuite@netsuite.com SBS for sponsoring this episode. Next up is Bambi. When running a business, HR issues can kill you. Things like wrongful termination suits, minimum wage requirements, labor regulations, and HR manager salaries aren't cheap. They're an average of 70 grand a year. Bambi, spelled B A M, B E E was created specifically for US small businesses. You can get a dedicated HR manager, craft your HR policy and maintain all your compliance, all for just $99 a month. I know, 99 bucks a month. With Bambi, you can change HR from your biggest liability to your biggest strength. In fact, they shared with us some things that Bambi users have said. One of them wrote in and said, Navigating COVID 19 era has been challenging. Being able to reach out to my HR rep and get a timely response has already been such a stress reliever. It truly gives me the confidence to face any of the new challenges. New knowing that I'm not alone and I have an educated, experienced agent who is in my corner. Alex and the Bambi team are the best. Can't beat having real HR resources at my fingertips so I don't have to worry about local and national compliance. You didn't start your business because you wanted to spend time on HR compliance. Right? And Bambi is great. It's month to month. There's no hidden fees. Cancel anytime. From onboarding to terminations, they customize your policy to fit your business. All for just 99amonth. Go to Bambi.comsmall right now to schedule your free HR audit. That's Bambi.comsmall spelled BAM to the B.comsmall go check it out. You'll get. I think you're going to love it. Really. Just go check it out. Our thanks to Bambi for sponsoring this episode. All right, man, let's get into our favorite books and podcasts. You start.

Sounds great.

Yeah, sure.

So I'm a voracious reader. I have some books here that I really think highly of, and I have some ones that you probably haven't heard of that I will explain why I think they're powerful for small business owners to read. The first one I really highly recommend for you. It's called the Slight Edge by Jeff Olson. And we'll put all the links to these in the show notes so you can come find them. But with the Slight Edge, what Jeff does is his whole focus, is that it's not a massive change or effort that makes the difference in your life. It's the focus on constant small improvements that really make you successful in all areas. Your business, your personal life, all this kind of stuff. And he really makes a strong argument for that with lots of great examples, lots of good stories. You definitely want to have it. It's a great book to be having your nightstand to dip in and out of it. Another thing I really like is he came back and wrote one for young people called the Slight Edge for Teens that explains how to use this concept and kind of lean into making small improvements every day to get ahead. I highly recommend it. Slight Edge by Jeff Olson.

Very cool. I never heard of that book. All right, this is good. I'm making a list and we'll share it with you in the show Notes at businessshow Co. That's where we list all the show notes and everything. You can get those delivered to your inbox. Simply visit BusinessShow Co and sign up and they will. Then every week they'll just appear in your inbox so you don't have to think about it. It's great.

Magic.

It's magic. And where I learned about that trick is actually my first podcast on the list, which is Marketing over Coffee. This is one of my favorite business podcasts. Christopher Penn and John Wall get together. They literally started doing this. I don't think it's still this case the case now, but it actually might be they would get together once a week at like 5am before they went to, you know, their jobs at a Dunkin Donuts and record over coffee. Yeah. And they are. It moves fast. The hosts stay right with each other. Like it is. Like they are quick. These guys are great and they have great stuff in there. They talk a lot about, you know, it's marketing focused, which pretty much, you know, infuses all of business. They talk a lot about, you know, the value and tips about link building, SEO and mailing lists. Like they were the ones that sold me on the idea of don't forget, even though it seems like email is old, it's not. You know, manage a mailing list, it's going to help you. One tip that I got from them recently because I asked about it on this show and that show delivered. Christopher Penn was saying to manage LinkedIn and to tweak your profile so that it's valuable to you. Spend 60 seconds three times a day and after five days, LinkedIn will be tweaked for you. What you do is if you see posts that you don't care about, click the little three dots and choose I don't want to see more of this. It'll ask you why. That's fine. He's like, just go through your list and, you know, spend 60 seconds doing that. Or if something. There is something you, like, click the like button and do that for 60 seconds three times a day for five days. And at the end of those five days, your LinkedIn profile will be fully tuned to you because their algorithm has to adapt. They make a lot of their money based on the, like, the job search there. So they have to keep people engaged. They don't want to send you away. And so they want people to come to LinkedIn. So their algorithm is super adaptive. Do that. And they're right. It totally works.

Yeah. So really good advice.

Yeah, man. Yep.

Very cool. That's good. So the next one, next book that I recommend, everybody read, it's not just about your business. Some of these are. A lot of these books are like that that I really feel strongly about. This one's a little controversial, but. And I'll tell you why. It's the Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. I'm not really a religious person. I am spiritual, but not an organized religion. And so this book, he does reference things that based on Christian values. He mentions the Bible, and that turns a lot of people off, but it sold like 5 million copies. He uses just some great methods and stories and examples to convince you that how you think matters, how you think about yourself, how you think about your life, how you tell your story. This is one of the reasons why I always talk about story on this show for your small business, but it's also about your own yourself. You know, we've. We've always said, what story do you want to tell at the end of the day, at the end of the month, quarter year, your life, you know, what do you want to tell? So you have the power to do it. And. And the Power of Positive Thinking is lots of tips on how to master your inner judge, the inner voice that steers your thoughts. And, you know, if you get past some of the religious connotations or just kind of move through them, it's a very powerful book. The Power of Positive Thinking. Norman Vincent Peale, highly recommend it.

Man, you are making me reorganize my list. I have a new podcast that is on my list of favorites, and I couldn't wait to recommend it to you. But I was going to wait. I was going to make it my last one, but you made me change, because the name of the show is the Business of story Now. Yeah. Host Park Howell is smart because in all of his listings, he does something that you and I might want to consider. There is no the. It is business of story because it shows up higher alphabetically. Right. I know. Yep. But he understands, just like you were saying, understands the superpower of story. And he interviews folks who have lived the same. So many, like, the whole show is people who have, like all of us, you know, met with adversity, made terrible errors in our business lives, and then just stuck with it and decided to tell a better story in the end. And so they, you know, they do what we always talk about here. And it's just so great to hear regularly from people who are, as, as park says, living into your story. That's powerful words. I know.

I mean, look at the, look at the name or the. The title of the most recent show. The powerful sales stories a positive mindset creates.

I know.

Ties right into this positive thinking.

It really works.

Boy.

Oh, yeah. You. You sold me on this concept years ago and, and just hearing about it regularly. This is on one of. I have, you know, I have my podcaster set up, but I, I use Overcast, so I'm able to organize things into lists and groups. And this one is in my. If I'm driving in the car for 20 minutes somewhere group. This show is one of the ones on that list. So. Yeah, it's great.

Really good.

Yeah. Yeah.

Next book that is an absolute essential that everybody needs to read before, during, after running a business is the E. Myth by Michael Gerber. Of course, we've talked about this show on the show ad nauseum over the years. It is the absolute, in my opinion, best book to read about the highs and lows of being an entrepreneur, how to power through, you know, really tough times that you are absolutely going to face. And one of the most important concepts, or a couple of them that I'll highlight, but one of them is that you need to learn how to work on your business, not in your business all the time. And you can get the freedom to do that by reading this book. Another thing I really love this very. These are very simple concepts, but they have a big impact is when you're first starting out your company and you're running everything, or maybe it's you and one other person go ahead and create that organizational chart for every job you do and just put your name or you and your partner's name in every single square on that org chart. And over time, as you grow your business and you start to delegate Those things you're doing, or maybe you're hiring contractors or, you know, outside companies to do social media or whatever, you'll have that box ready to fill in somebody else's name. And that's how you build this organization. And I've done it, and it works. The E Myth by Michael Gerber. If you take away one book to read out of this list, that's it.

Oh, there you go. Perfect. I like it. The next one is a podcast. I guess I'm going to stick. I have a couple of books, but I'm going to stick with podcasts for now. It's called as told by Nomads host Tao Roxanne. He goes and interviews people who have a global sort of big picture to their businesses now. Like they, like the rest of us, also get stuck in the minutia of our businesses. Like it's how it works. But listening to these episodes, he. He makes people sort of zoom out or he brings people on that are already good at zooming out and sharing what they're doing from that larger perspective as well as people that are just working on their businesses from anywhere. So, I mean, like this, as told by Nomads is who these people are. They're just all over the place, physically all over the place. And that allows them to see things from a perspective that those of us that, you know, are kind of in the same spot all the time don't necessarily see, you know, from outside of our bubbles and hustle. Innovation and the importance of marketing are recurring topics on this show. And it's just, it's great for that inspiration of getting out, you know, just reminding myself to zoom out on a semi regular basis and, you know, like you were saying with the E Myth, you know, working on your business instead of in your business. This show, I don't know if that's Teo's intention with this show, but it helps me, reminds me to zoom out because these people are telling these stories from such different perspectives. It's like, right, I got to get out of my own head here. So I love this show. It forces me to think different or think differently. If I wasn't an Apple user, I would say think differently. It's more grammatically correct. But yeah, it's a. It's a great show. So, yeah, I.

So a couple of things at first, you know, all these books I'm talking about, if you don't have the time to read or you don't enjoy reading, they're all available on audiobooks and I highly recommend that you take, you know, one step or another reading or listening to them. I'm a big fan of biographies and I think that they can really have an impact on us as small business owners. And I don't think you need to stick with other small, small business owners or different, you know, lots of aspirational things. And I recently have read two that I really love. One, Andrew Carnegie, a biography by a guy named David Nassau that did it. And the third one, or second one I'm reading right now called the People's Tycoon. It's about Henry Ford in the American century. And the couple of takeaways I have on this Andrew Carnegie thing, you know, he became. Started businesses that eventually became U.S. steel, was one of the wealthiest people on, or was the wealthiest person on earth at one time. And the thing that the. You read his book, it's got a lot of historical stuff going on, if you like to read that. The main takeaway for me was all about how to successfully set up businesses, set up companies, install good managers and then leave them alone. And I had no idea, you know, I just assumed like, oh, this guy must have spent all his time building these massive companies. But really he wasn't involved very much much once things got going.

And I gotta figure out how to do that, man.

Dude, this guy was like in another continent and running. I know he had some great, great people working for him that the, you know, the first Charles Schwab Frick. I forget his first name maybe Andrew two also became billionaires. So he, you know, he really. But he gave up. He didn't need to be in control. He facilitated people, these businesses, help capitalize them. And then realized, now I need to get out of the way, which I think all of us could benefit from.

Oh my goodness. Like, that's, that's one of the things. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like this all the time. Terribly, terribly.

Yeah, it's tough. And the Ford biography, which I'm only about halfway through, but the one thing I really picked up is Ford was very smart with, again, who he surrounded himself with. And their marketing was they're one of the first large scale companies to really get away from promoting the product that they were selling and instead promoting the idea of the product. Right. Their advertising and marketing. You're promoting the freedom that owning a Model T would give you, how the car would bring your families together, help educate your children about the outside world and so on.

Marketing, man.

Absolutely. And these, they were one of the first companies that they didn't talk about the transmission or how fast you could go. You know, they. Anything that was kind of related to the technical side, it kind of reminds me of Apple, you know, Jobs.

I was going to say Steve Jobs. They never talked about the specs. Do with it.

Yeah, correct. What you can do and how it impacts your life. And, you know, they didn't sell on the specifics. They focused on what the product could do for you. So it's a great read. It's called the People's Tycoon. If you like reading that kind of thing or listening to biographies, I think you'll enjoy it.

I love it. I love it. That's great. Yeah. Good stuff. Oh, man.

Yep.

Okay.

You got any more?

I got. I have one more podcast. I have a book that we'll see if we. We need to get there. But my next. The next podcast on my list is a podcast called Focused. It is David Sparks, who has been on this show as a guest, and Mike Schmitz. They get together every two weeks, twice a month. Ish. And, you know, technically, I suppose it's not a business podcast, but you know me, I'm obsessed with efficiency, and I'm especially obsessed with fixing where I am not efficient and where I am. And Focus is such a huge part of that efficiency story. Right. If you can stay focused, you can be efficient and get distracted and, you know, while everything just falls apart, they are like me in this regard. In fact, I was able to be on Focused a couple of years ago, and it was right at the point in time where I mentioned I was. I was beginning my obsession with eradicating busy from my vocabulary.

Oh, yeah.

You know, and as soon as I said that, they said, well, you know, what is it that keeps you busy every day? And it's. Well, you know, I'd rather say productive than busy. And that. I don't even know that I ever answered the first question, because as soon as I said that, they were like, wait a minute, what did you just say? So those are the kinds of things they go deep on. On that kind of stuff all the time, where they're really obsessed about not only coming up with the right workflows to get things done, but the right way of thinking so that you are always approaching those things in the most valuable and efficient way to be productive. So I love what these guys do, and I highly recommend this show.

So Focus. Yeah.

Yeah. And we have links for all this in the show notes@businessshow.co.

Of course. That's great. I have one more book that is definitely Worth hearing about. It's a book that can really change your life, change your business life. It's again read, I think, I don't know, 7 or 8 million copies have been sold. It's written by a guy who's really thought of as the father of persuasion, Robert Cialdini. And the book is called Influence the Psychology of Persuasion. Many of the topics you hear me talking about on the show come from Cialdini's book. Things like reciprocity, social proof, credibility, scarcity, and more. This book is unbelievable. You know, Cialdini, he goes through all these topics and he describes them in detail with a focus really on how to positively impact your life and others as well by using persuasion in a good way and along the way getting what you want and having people do the things that you'd like them to do. And it's especially applicable as a business owner and working with, you know, we talked about reciprocity, adding value to your employees and helping them out and getting them on board, building credibility with your employees. Lots of ways to use these tactics. It's, it's a fantastic book. They just did an update because I think it was, I don't know, it might be the 15th year anniversary or something like that. It was written a long time ago. Influence the Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini. Highly recommend it.

I like it. Okay. Yeah, I gotta put that on my list. Yeah, yeah. I will do my last book and it's the Dilbert Principle by Scott Adams. Scott Adams has gone on to write many other business books, but this really was, I believe, the first one where he shared his sometimes crazy thoughts about how to approach business and how to just approach life and, and you know, he's, he's become sort of a caricature of himself in terms of his public figure these days. He's under. He be. He's always understood this, but he has embraced the concept of being. What's the right word for it? You know, abrasive, if you will, and, and controversial. Controversial, yeah, exactly. In order to, to build an audience. And, and so he's, he's headed down that path. This book sort of came before all of that and, and is what sold me on him. Despite his desire to be controversial. I hate the whole polarization of everything. I realize it's human nature and I totally understand and respect why he has done this. I think if I knew him as Scott Adams today, I probably would be less interested in reading his books. And so if today's Scott Adams is the only Scott Adams, you know, and you have avoided reading his books because of that. Please don't let that influence you. Go back, read the Dilbert Principle. He put it out, I think in 1996. So this is way before he, he may have discovered, but certainly before he implemented any sort of controversy. This was just him saying, look, I'm just this idiot. I decided to do a few things and I believed in myself in a way that other people don't really do. And look where it got me, that there's some great stuff in the Dilbert Principle, especially for solopreneurs. So I can't recommend it highly enough. And I know it might sound strange, but, you know, I love what Scott Adams, the way he thinks it just fascinates me.

Yeah, absolutely. And, and again, a lot of stuff we talk about here, things that I hear him speak about and he talks, he frames everything from a persuasion perspective. And if you can get. And he did that, he does that with politics as well. And that's what polarizes so many people.

Correct.

With him. He's also doing it with the COVID and the pandemic and how the government each. It's been fascinating. If you listen to. He was hugely. He just ripped the previous administration about how to handle Covid because it. I just. They did a poor job. But he's. Then he's good at picking out good things, bad things, but again, not that he's saying what's right or wrong, but from a persuasion standpoint, if you can get above those other issues and look at him and he'll tell you that right away he's got a big thing going on vaccinations right now. And you know, he always says, I'm not telling you to get vaccinated, yes or no. I'm just telling you how the persuasion is not working from a government perspective. You know, so it's, it's, it's interesting.

Yeah, you're right. The issues that he discusses are things that for some people, for many people are hot button topics.

Yes. And that's why he discusses him.

For a guy who's focusing on persuasion, you can understand exactly why he's choosing to these topics, but he dissects them in, in a very intelligent way. And I agree with you. If you can get past. I just stay away from hot button topics because I, I hate the conversations I find myself in because it always becomes a battle. But just ignore that and, and especially go back to 1996 and read this book. It's, it's fantastic. It's really great. Yeah.

Yeah, some really powerful content here, folks, that, that, you know, Dave and I have read, listened to over the years. You know, both of us have, you know, started and run multiple businesses, sold businesses. So, you know, go, go take a look at these things. Tell us what you think and we'd love to hear from you feedback@businessshow co.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much for listening again this week.

Make sure to go to businessshow co search survey and fill out that survey. It really helps us A with our sponsors, but B, there are questions in that survey for you from us that, that are for no one else. We want you to talk to us and tell us what you like about the show, what you want to see more of or less of those sorts of things. Please go fill out that survey. BusinessShow Co survey. We really appreciate it. It helps in so many different ways. Ways. And yeah, that's what I got. You got anything else, man?

No, man. I'm excited. We're onward first week of October. Good things coming our way.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Onward and upward, folks. Thanks so much for listening. Make sure to check out our sponsors. As we said in the show, netsuite.com SBS bambi.com Small keep living that charmed life, eh? See you next week.