Developing a Small Business Revenue Stack and being told when you are wrong – Small Business Show 113

The Small Business show, episode number 113 for Wednesday, April 5, 2017. Greetings folks and welcome to the Small Business show here at BusinessShow Co the show by, for and about small business owners Here in Durham, New Hampshire. I'm Dave Hamilton.

And in Concord, California, I'm Shannon Jean. You know, it's always good when you can start your show laughing. I think that's always a good sign.

Yeah. In our agenda, I had March and then April written and I know what the date is. But when you're reading it and you know it's wrong or something's weird, it's just a little, you know, it keeps me on my toes.

Yes, that's right.

I did something this morning just to derail us quickly. Sure. I did something this morning that put one of my employees on his or her toes. And what I said was, it is now in your job description. One of the tasks you must do at least once a month is to tell me that I'm wrong and be right about it.

Yeah. I read that comment you made in the small Business support group up on Facebook and I had not commented on that yet because I'm like, well, that's interesting. And I liked your kind of follow up comment was, you know, you need to justify or not justify it, but be able to defend it.

Right, to defend it. And defend is sort of the right word. It's not the right term, but it frames it in the wrong context. You have to be able to support it. Right. And I always encourage the people that, you know, I say work for me because that's technically what happens. But really I see it as they work with me. But I get that there's the paycheck signer relationship. So I'm fully aware of that. It is. But I encourage them to tell me when I'm wrong. But I know that I'm a very persuasive person and I am very strong with my convictions. It doesn't mean that I'm closed minded though. The first thing I'll do if somebody tells me we should do it differently is I'm going to start attacking it from different angles. This is no different than what I do in my own head when I have my own ideas. Right.

Sure.

I just attack them from different angles. And I need people around me that are simply comfortable with that.

And that is a key point.

I think that's it.

The people. Because I will tell you, I am like, what's the phrase? The peacekeeper, A facilitator. I always am trying to a Fault. Keep things smooth so they keep moving forward. Forward to ultimately meet my goal. And I usually will wind up getting it to happen the way I would like it to happen. But I may not tell you you're wrong.

Right.

I mean, you know, because I'm just like, ah, you know, it's not worth the effort. And you're right. If I say, hey, Dave, I think you're wrong. I understand. Oh, I really need to have some good backup here to do it. And it's good. It's healthy. It's healthy.

That's the thing, is it's a healthy thing. But I, I guess why any given person in the role of an employee would not necessarily be comfortable. And this is somebody that's worked for me for a long time and lots of people have, but it's like, no, I really need this of you. In fact, this is one of the most important things you can do because I'm not always gonna be right. And in fact, more often than not, I'm not gonna be right. But we need to just be able to have that honesty, respectful honesty, if you want to call it that. But I'm actually kind of okay with brutal honesty as well.

Yeah.

You know, it's efficient. Is really.

It is, it is.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. But it's again, it is. And also it just depends who you're surrounding yourself and what the role, what the rules are. Yeah, I think that's. That, that's an important.

It's true. Yeah. Yeah. But I don't, what I don't need is yes men around me.

No, no, nobody wants that. And I like the, you know. Oh, that's a good idea. But. Or how about what if we did this way instead? I mean, it'. To me it's all about presentation. And I'm probably not as. Again, I say this with, with all due respect and you know, as confrontational.

Yeah.

As. That's just not my style.

That's right.

It's your style. And. And it served you very well. And. And I think mine has served me very well also.

Exactly.

It's just different.

Yep.

And sometimes I think I take the longer term view of, well, maybe I'll just come revisit this later.

Yeah.

And to me. And when with my style, timing is everything.

Well, that's sort of true. Even with.

I guess either way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, if I, if I pick a bat, you know, if I pick a battle with someone or someone picks a battle with me and it's the wrong time, you know, it's like okay, look, this is great. We should do this, but right now there's this other major thing going on, so we have to shelve this. But, but it's, it's not being dismissive, it's being, you know, aware of the reality.

That's correct.

Yeah. Being aware.

That's good. Yeah, that's good. Well, it brings up segue into this or not. But one of the things that, that I would like to talk about today is something that's really been frustrating me tremendously lately. And I, as I thought about it when we were kind of having some pre show discussion, a lot of it stems from I've. After I read the Scott Adams book, you know, how to. How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big. He has this concept in there that I really like. It's called a talent stack. And, and you know, he says it much more eloquently than I can, but basically it's. Look, everything you do, even if you, you know, fake quote, fail, you're learning a new talent and you're stacking, you're building this talent stack over time, whether it's, you know, you've made new connections from a business that maybe didn't work out or you learned how to, you know, get financed or you learned whatever.

Yeah.

And, and I really like the concept because it, it dispels with the, the myth really about how you need to be a wunderkind or an expert, you know, in some field to really succeed. You know, you really just need to be able to keep adding to your talents and it makes you, it can make you more successful.

Totally.

So on, on that note, I've really been thinking a lot lately about, you know, where my life is and my businesses and different things and what I've been trying to do. Looking back over the last few years and maybe five years or so is development income stack, or maybe better. Better called maybe a revenue stack. And what I mean by that is coming up with ways to, you know, not always have to be looking for that home run, but having a stack, if you will, of different revenue streams that are coming in, you know, monthly, quarterly, annually, whatever it is, and spreading that out a bit for a lot of various reasons, part. Part of which, and maybe the biggest driver is my interest level, you know, keeping it really. Because, you know, I, you know, have total ADD when it comes to business and I like to dip in and out and everything. And we've had, you know, we just, we had the show with Bob Levitis and.

Yeah, right.

I sat there going oh, gosh, you know, this is just so me, you know, shiny objects that, that derail me. But what I've realized, if I set up these, these revenue stacks, I can dip into different things and still be productive.

Yes.

But one of the most frustrating things I've come up with is as you spread yourself out and develop these, these revenue stacks you have to use or you come, you get involved with all kinds of other people.

I want to, I want to. Yes, I want to put press pause for one second here because I want to talk about this revenue stack. Okay, let's do a. And then, and then there's this other thing because this is the key that I really think to long term success. Now there's the path of, you know, you come up with an idea, you either fund it or get funding. You build it real big, and then you sell it and you get a huge payday. Right. That's one thing. And oftentimes, not always, but oftentimes, that requires like 100% focus and dedication to that one thing to build it very quickly so that it can be sold to someone who's then going to do something with it. But for the lifestyle business type entrepreneur, this revenue stack concept is huge. It's like, you know, I've always, I've never thought of it as a revenue stack, but I like how you related that to the Scott Adams thing. I've always thought of it as faucets. And you know, you gotta have lots of faucets. You get, There's a bucket that you need to fill up. Right, right. And you have to know that at some point in time, any one of your faucets is gonna dry up.

Yes.

And so.

And they definitely will.

And they will. Now it doesn't matter if you have one faucet or 21 of them will dry up. And it doesn't matter how much attention you pay and how much you shine that faucet and how much you look at the pipes for it. Right. I mean, that'll help keep it alive, but it will dry up at some point. And if you don't have another faucet going, you better be ready to start one. And maybe that's okay. That's your style. You're the serial entrepreneur. Right?

Sure, sure.

But. And then there's the parallel entrepreneur, which has a million things going at once. But the parallel entrepreneur never starts everything simultaneously. It's the serial entrepreneur that gets something going and keeps it going. That actually is called the parallel entrepreneur. That's what you're talking about here. With your revenue stacks, you get something going, it starts trickling water into the bucket. Great. Now let's get the next thing going. Trickle water. Okay. And next thing. It doesn't mean you forget about the first or the second thing when you're up there.

No, not.

You have to have sort of a wide bandwidth for that.

Right. Well, it goes to. And I think that in my experience, one of the biggest obstacles that people starting a business or trying to take an idea and get it to start is that they don't think about, on a very simple level, to how do I get this thing just to generate any money.

Right? Any money.

And we've talked about this before, and I really am a firm believer, you know, and I'm just a very straightforward, nuts and bolts kind of guy.

You don't have to hit home runs every single swing.

Well, you're not going to. So if all your. If all you're waiting for is the home run, you're going to be sidelined. And I know. I mean, I talk to people like this all the time. Well, I'm waiting. This. I got to be able to generate. It's got to make $50,000 a month. It's got to do this, got to do that. And I would say, well, can you generate any money with that? You know, any money, right. And we've talked about here before that concept. Well, if you can make 500 bucks with it, you know, usually if it is scalable at all, you should be able to make 5,000 and on and on and on and on and on. But it's that first 500 bucks, hell, it's the first 50 bucks that most people cannot get it to do. And so this. This revenue stack concept, because I was talking to a guy and he's like, man, I would just love to be able to do this. And this guy loves to fish, and he wants to make these fishing poles, but he's just strung out on this concept that, well, I can never make enough money. And I'm just like, well, how much do you really want to make? And, you know, you love to do this. It's something you're going to do out in your garage in the evening. You know, if you made a couple thousand dollars a month, would you be happy? And, you know, finally like, well, yeah, I would totally be happy. You know, so it's getting it around, like, so, okay, we've got, you know, or your norm. Whatever regular business you're in, or maybe you get. You're working for somebody else and getting a check and then maybe you've got some, you know, investment money and you're gonna. Maybe gonna buy some real estate and get that going a little bit. Yeah, maybe. Maybe you get, you know, your. Your retirement investment or you're invested in the. In the stock market, you know, hopefully with a little bit of your money and, you know, benefiting from that. But it's being able to look out at the stack of revenue coming in at different spots and not freaking out when one of them inevitably will dry up. Because you have pushed these other things that are going well, like you say, you still pay attention to them. It's like the social media experiment that I started here on the show last June. It's to the point where it's generating some good revenue. It's not something I'm going to retire on, but it's something where I'm starting to think, okay, how can I plug someone else in here now that would like to make a little bit of money, work a couple hours a day and I can keep the rest, and that'll be another part of my revenue stack so that I can then go on and find something else to do.

Do the next thing that I'm interested in.

Because when I lose interest is, to me, the death knell. And I know it sounds terrible, but it's just one of those things where I want to be constantly motivated by what I'm doing and interests, and that's what's successful for me. When I lose that interest, I can trace it back. That's when things start to get kind of.

That's when it kind of wonky. Starts to falter. Yeah.

Yeah.

All right. So to continue where I think you were going, the managing these multiple revenue stacks takes time.

It does. And it also takes other people. And if you're fiercely independent, like lots of small business owners, and I'm not just talking about your employees because your employees are a little different. You have a different relationship with them, and you can replace them if they're not performing to the standards of the job. But as you move out into these other areas, you have to hire contractors and service providers. And I have especially recently been extremely frustrated with lack of reliability on the part of these contractors and service providers.

Yeah.

And just. And we start talking about it and realize, you know, we really should do a show about this because, you know, there's that old adage, you know, showing up is 50%, maybe it's 80%.

Well, it depends on the business you're in. Yeah. I've never understood this, that you Know it from. From. From the standpoint of the person hiring a service provider. Now, this could be a service provider that's an accountant to show up and audit your books for you. Or it could be somebody that's coming to, you know, mow your lawn or plow your driveway, whatever it is, right? I mean, it's this. These people are all providing necessary services that. That are part of making our lives run, right? Either our business life, our home life, but really when you're the one running the business, that those two merge. Like if. If you are needed to, you know, if the plow guy doesn't show up when it snows and you now have to take three hours with the snowblower, okay, fine. But that's three hours away from work. It's not just three hours away from home. You know, your time isn't carved like that.

Oh, yeah, exactly.

And this happens for me to my employees too. Right. You know, so. Yeah, I've never understood, you know, when you look at it from our standpoint, it's like, oh, the plow guy didn't come, or, oh, the accountant didn't show up, or whatever. This is like, crap, I got to do it myself. But when you turn it around and look at it, it's like, what are these people doing in their businesses? Like, why would they commit an appointment? I would never do that. Commit an appointment and then not show up or bail out. Like, this is business. Like you're gonna get paid.

It's business. Well, and I. Part of the problem. And I always tell people this, that I hire to do these services or contract to do certain things, I said, you know, I own a small business, I own several of them, and I know how important it is to be reliable. And when you say you're going to do stuff and I'll come off the bat and say something, but usually I'm trying to commend them. I go, hey, man, thanks for showing up, because I know how important that is. Or, hey, thanks for coming through when you said you were going to come through. But if you tell me you're going to show up on a certain day on a piece of property that I own to take care of a problem, and I go out there and you don't show up. Well, it again, and you don't contact me beforehand to say, hey, Shannon, I'm not gonna be able to go, something came up. Of course things happen, things happen. But it's all about communication. So, you know, I always try to talk to people and go, you know, you really, you just, you wasted a significant amount of my time and you didn't communicate with me, so you can't, you can't work for me. I just can't do it. And like a good example, I have this piece of property and there's a pool there. And it's. I don't know where, it may be cold where you are, but it's starting to get hot here. And I know all of a sudden these people, the pool is going to become an important part of this property. And I have been like fighting the battle of, you wouldn't believe to get someone reliably enough to come out, make some repairs and get this thing working to the point where I'm thinking maybe I should start a pool business because, or there's just no money in it. And what I've learned a lot, I know a lot more about the pool business than I'd like is it's. There's very few larger professional companies in the maintenance and, and repair business of pools. There is a lot of larger companies in the construction and, you know, creation and design and, you know, that kind of thing, which obviously there must be a lot more money in that than taking care of your pool every week or whatever it is. But you know, it's just incredible to me how somebody can commit to showing up or, I mean, I can look at my phone right now. I'll have a quote for you on Monday. Well, it's Tuesday and I don't have a quote. And just don't tell me that. Just say, hey, I won't be able to get you anything until sometime between Monday and Wednesday. But it comes back to that under promise and over deliver. It's such a simple concept and you will win your customers support forever no matter what business that you're in, especially if you're providing service. And you know, with, you know, with my electronics business, we always try to tell people, oh, it's, you know, hey, it's going to be tomorrow, whatever, you know, it's going to, we need two days and we want to get it back to them in one day. You know, of course, we don't want the opposite having to make the, the other phone call when you say, oh, I'm gonna have back to you in 24 hours. And then you have to call them.

And say, oh gee, it's going to be three weeks.

Yeah, it's gonna be.

Or even 48 hours. Yeah.

Yes, you've got you really only. In my experience, you only get one chance to have to bump the Customer or whatever. If you have to make a second call, you might as well just forget it because then they're like, what? You've lost their trust?

Well, if you have to make that second call, you need to have paved the way already for that second call to happen. In the tech support business, I'm thinking, for some reason, I'm reminded, I think about it was like two years ago I brought an imac in for repair. And they're like, yeah, okay, it was to the Genius Bar. And they're like, yeah, because it was half under warranty or something. And like, yeah, no problem. And then they call me and say, right, so you know, it wasn't what we thought, but here's what we're thinking, here's what we're going to do next. We're going to replace this part, blah, blah, blah, and then we'll call you back in two days. And they did call me back in two days, but it should be ready in two days. But they called me back and said, so we thought that was it. That's not it. But they had paved the way for that by involving me in the process.

And they managed your expectations.

They did, and they were wrong. But in the end it was obvious they were committed to me even though their prediction of the outcome was wrong. I know, there's no crystal balls, right?

Yes.

Most of us are aware of that. Not everyone is, but most people are. And so as long as you, you know, it's to your earlier point. Communication is key.

Absolutely.

But that, you know, I always call what you, you know, you said under promise and over deliver. I refer to that as the Scotty Principle. Right. From Star Trek. He can constantly tell the captain, this is impossible.

I'm giving it all. If we've got it.

Yeah, that's it. It's impossible. There's nothing we can do. And then it's like 20 minutes later, it's like, oh, it's totally fine, dude.

Yeah, we're good, we're good. We found some more dilithium crystals. Yeah.

We were able to inch more out of them, no problem. And he knew, you know, it was like, that was part of the shtick. But that's the key.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I would love some feedback from, you know, if you're contractor or a service provider of some sort and you've been in this experience or the way you've distinguished yourself and built a successful business is by outperforming your competitors that have this problem. I would love to get some feedback up in the small business support group so we could hear your story and talk about what you've done to overcome. Because this conversation we're having, you could have at a dinner party, a cocktail party, whatever it is, people constantly have this problem.

Right. It's. This is widespread. Yeah. And so then the next conversation is, yeah, I have this guy out to work on my pool computer, whatever, and I still don't have a bill from him.

Billing your customers.

Yeah.

Important, Important part of life.

Well, it's an important part of business. Yeah. I think. Yeah. I don't know. I'm not independently wealthy, so. So kind of that cash flow to keep on flowing. Yeah.

Well, thanks for listening to me rant today, Dave, and everybody else, and start working on your revenue stack and then share with us how it's going, how it's gonna go.

That's right, folks, as Shannon said, the small business support group over there on Facebook@businessshow.co Facebook, that's gonna direct you right to that. We'll get you approved in the thing. It's a public group, so we'll see you over there. Make sure to keep living the charmed life. Hope you have a great week.

Yeah, you too, man. Take it easy.

Everybody see everybody.