Employee Reviews and What to do When You're Stuck

The Small business show, episode 331 for Wednesday, June 9, 2021. Greetings, folks, and welcome to or welcome back to the Small Business show here at Business Show Co, where small businessing is a verb. Sponsors for this episode include streak.comsbs where you can get 20% off Streak's pro plan. Boy, easy for me to say. We will talk more about that and I will untwist my tongue a little bit later. For now, here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And in Lafayette, California, I'm Shannon Jean. How goes it out there, man?

It goes. It feels like spring. Sometimes it actually feels like summer. Things are starting to open up actually quite a bit here, if I'm, if I'm being honest. It's great. Yeah. So it's, it's actually, it's been good. I've been playing a lot of gigs with the various bands I play in. And, you know, which is, which is for me, the sort of. That was the big thing that, that changed in my, in my scheduled life because work was always from home. So that kind of. Right. You know. Yeah.

It's interesting to see the. There's kind of a divide. We're still completely locked down out here in California for some reason, but I think in the next two weeks, I think the 15th, they say they're going to get rid of all the, the. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see who and what organizations or businesses or groups keep sort of protocols in place and which ones, you know, kind of. Okay, we're done.

We're done. Yeah, it's fast.

It's a fascinating experiment.

Yeah, it's fascinating. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My. We went, we went and saw the Bruins, the Boston Bruins hockey team play at TD Garden, which is their home ice rink, a few weeks ago while things were still in like the 30% capacity mode.

Oh, yeah.

And it was, you know, you will keep your mask on at your seat and, you know, social distancing. And one really smart thing I thought they did was they had all the concessions open, but you couldn't eat in the, like in the, the lobbies or anything. You had to bring your stuff back to your seat to eat. That was really smart. It's like, oh, this is where people are not going to be like randomly moving. They're hanging out. Yeah. So, yeah, it made sense. But my son then went during the playoffs and it was right after they had opened up everything. And he said it was all the same. Well, other than the 30% thing, all the same rules were in place, but the place was packed. And he said, like, the mask enforcement and things like that were not lax. We're not the same as it was when we'd been there a few weeks before. So, yeah, it's just interesting to see it kind of. But, yeah, that's how it goes. It's cool.

Well, hey, today we're doing some listener questions, right?

Yes.

I have to say, I love it when people write into feedbackusinessshow co and we get to read what's going on in their lives and how we may be impacting them, hopefully in a positive way. But sometimes you get a question that. We got one this week that really kind of knocked me back on my heels. Uh, and, you know, really, I really sat down and thought about it, and because we, you know, we talk in a certain way, we have a certain tone, we're so optimistic and talk about creating your own story a lot. And I. This. Kevin wrote in and really kind of, I think, brought us back down to earth a little bit. And I'm really. I'm looking forward to sharing his question with everybody.

Kevin calls us out a little bit. It's true. Yeah. Yeah, he does. No, it's good.

Yeah.

Okay. So we will. We will get to Kevin. We promise. Kevin, we are we. This. Like, we've already said, we're going to do it. We're going to do it. I'd like to start with Robert, who asks a functional question that I think is, I certainly struggle with this and have done different things with it in my businesses. Robert asks. He says, we're a small company and we're often moving at a fast clip. I try to stay in regular contact with my staff, balancing my control freakishness with their autonomy, ensuring that they know that I appreciate them and that I value the work that they do for us. But one thing I don't do on a regular basis is any kind of formal employee review. And one of my staffers just asked for one. I've done them in the past, for sure. I've just found them to be almost perfunctory since we're always examining our processes, tweaking things and adjusting as we go. But as you always say on the show, employees don't think like business owners. And it's clear to me that at least some of my employees would like the normalcy of a formal review process. So with that in mind, what do you guys do, and what would you recommend I do?

That's a good question.

Yeah, man. So what do you do? I mean, I know you don't run a business with employees anymore, so that's how you solve this problem.

Yeah, that's right. I, I don't like reviews either as an employer, but I do agree with Robert. Employees like them because it gives them some kind of guidance. I tend to like, make it more informal. There was a time when we used to, when I, when I was a much younger business owner and you know, you get the form and you, you rate on numbers, you know, one through five. Those are terrible in my opinion, because it's. No matter what number you give someone, unless you give them all fives or, you know, whatever scale you use, they're going to think, wait, wait, why am I only getting a 3? Why am I getting a 4? I like to keep them more informal. I like to do them if you have employees that want them, you know, getting together, having lunch, talking it over. But I do think you need to document it. There's some great forms out there or just come up with, you know, 10, 10 areas that you want to discuss or five areas you want to discuss and give them some guidance. But I want to, one of the things we used to do is give them that form blank and ask them to fill it out as well.

Yeah, yes.

And then you get it back first because then you kind of understand the tone. Don't wait and get it back. Right. When you're going to sit down and do your review, you say, hey, we're going to do. And we didn't call them reviews, we called them check ins. Because again, you're just trying to make it a little more casual, even though it's. Can be very impactful. So I would give them the form and say, look, have this back to me by the end of the week. Put your thoughts down there and then we'll meet next week. And then I would get it back and it would help me, it would guide me, if you will.

Absolutely. What do they need?

Yeah, yeah. What are they looking for? And what, you know, some folks that you hire really love structure. And you'll get that when you see how they answer the questions. And other people are just like, hey, leave me alone. You know, I want to do my job and I don't need all this guidance. And I think that the other thing we got away from, which really helped us is we did not do them ever at the end of the year because there's lots of, I think there's expectations and it's kind of like we got rid of end of year bonuses as well, because for our business we were always cash strapped at the end of the year anyway, so we waited and we would spread things out and do things maybe 33rd quarter or maybe first quarter. And so, but, But I do think it is important to do I just have a different, maybe different take on how you do it.

That makes sense. Yeah. I mean, would you, Would you schedule them on the employee's anniversary, like their work anniversary perhaps, or. Or do you find a difference?

I think waiting a year is a long time. I think you ought to talk. Yeah, yeah, you ought to talk at least every, you know, three to six months.

Okay.

And that way it's, it's you, You. You don't let a lot of lead time out if there's a problem, even though, you know, you may call them out.

Sure.

You know, like, hey, we need to come in. We need to have a little quick chat. I noticed this and that. But what I would suggest you do during those times, if you have call an employee aside and talk with them, go back to your desk and write that down so that when you do the review, you can look back and say, hey, you know, back in October, we talked about this, and I just want to either A, recognize that you really improved in this area and. Or B, you're still having a problem with it.

We're still having this conversation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I used to just keep that in a note on my, you know, my Mac, and I just use the notes app and I had a. I had a note for each employee and I would just type it in as I, as I remembered it and just little things to cue me up. Because looking back a year, you know, it's a lot.

Yeah.

I can't remember. I mean, I'm just, just like, well, how was it, you know, three days ago, let alone three months ago?

So would you schedule these or would you let them? Like, like, would it be scheduled in a formal way?

Yeah, we schedule them. I would never do them because I would just keep it casual and talk all the time.

Yeah.

But I got that same kind of feedback that Robert gets is people like, hey, I've been here a year. I'm ready for my review. And what they do see when I say don't do at the end of the year, I guess really what I mean is, I think separating the review from a salary discussion is very important.

Yes.

It's not that. Okay. And we had a lot of young people and had this crazy concept from an employer standpoint is like, well, I've been here another year, so I should get more money. So I was trying to train them of, okay, what, you know, how have you added to. I didn't know this term back then, but I know it now. How have you added to your talent stack? What new things are you doing here? How are you growing and what new roles are you taking on? What new problems have you solved? That's how you make more money here. Not just by being your body here another year doing the exact same job.

Right.

And so we would separate that from the review process. And I let them know that right up front. I go, hey, we do reviews, but we review, you know, or we look at salaries, you know, typically, you know, January, February, if we take a look and we start thinking of, okay, what's going on with everybody? Unless someone came to me and said, look, I'm doing this, that I'm added these skills, I would like more money, then you can have a discussion anytime.

Interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What new so that are you doing for the company? Yeah, yeah.

Or really, I would always phrase it as for yourself, right. Because I would say you don't want to do this job forever.

Right.

And part of that review process, you can do that. So at the end of the review, and I love the compliment sandwich, you know, it works so well for me. You know, you start off talking about, well, here's why you're here. You know, we value you this way. And then in the middle, you talk about, look, here's areas we'd love to see you improve. And then at the end, you kind of say, you know, and then we love how you do this. But the other thing you can talk about is, what's your plan? Okay, what's next? When we meet for this next review, what new thing are you, Are you going to have? What new skill have you. Have you learned? What new thing do you want to do? Because you're going to get bored doing that same job. And it kind of is kind of a soft challenge, I think, if you will, where you're trying to help them. And in turn that helps you, right? In turn, it helps your business.

Oh, but if they leave. Yeah, yeah.

And I always say, you know, if you learn this new skill, even if you don't stay here, it's going to help you at your, your next job. Especially if you have younger folks working for you. I think they really take that to heart and they respect it. It's like, you know, I'm not going to work here forever maybe, but so if you teach me and somebody comes to me and say, hey, I want to get my Apple certification for repair or my A certification or I want to take this UNIX course to learn this or whatever. And I would say that's great. You know, we'll pay for that and we'll help you get that certification. If you know the Apple certification, we would say, look, we'd like you to stay for, you know, 12 months. If you leave for, in the year after we do it, we just would like to be repaid. You know, it's a few hundred bucks.

Sure.

And it was just a very casual thing, so tying that review into opportunities, but I think separating it because I think the, the term. When some people come to you asking for a review, what they're really asking you is for more money.

Is for more money. Yeah, right. No, that's. That I think, I think that's what, what Robert's gonna find is that that's what they, that's the conversation they want to have. So maybe. Yeah, I like this. I mean, there's been so much. I've been taking notes here as you've been saying this because. And these notes will be up at the, on the episode page here at BusinessShow Co for all of you to, to kind of see the. Out of what we're discussing here. But that idea. Now when would you tell people this idea of we talk about salaries separate from performance reviews?

Well, if I was better at it, I'd probably tell them when I hired him. But usually, usually it's during maybe their first, first review. Yeah, but if someone comes to you asking for review, you can ask them, oh, do you want like a, you know, performance check in or, you know, just you want to check in and see how you're doing here or are you asking me for a sal review? Right, you just ask them. And, and if they ask you for the salary like I always do. Okay, let's sit down and look at your. What, you know, what you're doing now, Are you doing more or are you doing different things that require different skills that you've acquired and you put the effort into, to acquiring while you worked here? Because we always tried to give them more opportunities Because I just really feel like that challenging people a little bit, it really helps your business and it keeps it from getting stagnant and it allows you to build your team from within instead of always having to look outside because you know, sometime your general manager is going to leave or retire or go get another job. So who could you bring up? Well, if you haven't done any of that soft, challenging and pushing acquiring new skills is going to be more difficult for you. But if you have someone else that you've taught and sent out to learn new things and helped acquire new skills, you could bring them up into that position. That's how they make more money.

I like it.

That's how. And that's what you get across. You make more money here by helping the business grow, by helping yourself learn new things. And we all do better, you know, together.

Right.

Not just. Not just time. Because the business doesn't always make more money. Well, I guarantee you it doesn't. Doesn't work that way. It's not. You know, the longer you're in business, the more money you make. This is not a natural. You'd like it to be that way.

But that's not always how it is.

Yeah, it's not always how it is.

No. Yeah. You don't just make more money just because you're still here, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. For a long time, I really tried to embrace only doing bonuses so you weren't tied to more salary. And so if you had not a great quarter or a great year, you know, you didn't have to absorb that. But I don't think it works as well.

It doesn't. It doesn't sell.

I wish it as an entrepreneur, I love that. But.

Well, that's how you and I get paid.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. But people that work for you, they don't see. Most of them don't see it that way, so. But it's a great question, Robert. And, you know, I think it is something that you have to address and set up a system for your employees, and hopefully, you know, my thoughts on it help, but let it try it out and let us know how it goes.

No, thanks, man. Your thoughts have helped me. So Even if they haven't helped Robert, but I certainly hope they've helped Robert. That's good. Yeah. No, this is a good. This is good, man. It's good stuff. All right. I want to get to Kevin. The next thing that I want to do is talk about our sponsor today. If. If that works for you, my friend, it certainly does. All right. You know, as founders and business owners and entrepreneurs, we know what it's like to run our entire businesses from our inboxes. Right between. That's what we do. Between all the sales, the recruiting, the fundraising, emails, things can get messy real fast. Well, our sponsor streak is a CRM that is designed to help you stay on top of each part of your process. And your inbox without ever leaving Gmail. It's very cool. Streak gives you tools for email tracking, mail merges and snippets to save you time and scale up your email efficiency, because in just a few minutes, you can set up pipelines right inside your inbox to start tracking your contacts and emails. So through each process, imagine being able to see this without leaving your inbox. This is cool. And Streak helps you collaborate by sharing emails and pipelines with all your team members. That way, whether you work in an office or out in the field or you're remote, it doesn't matter. Everybody gets to see it. All these pipelines are totally customizable. You can track your processes and your details that are specific to your business, and you can see them on desktop, on a mobile app. And you can add and share information in meetings, at job sites. Whatever you, wherever you are, you get to do it. And you, as a small business show listener, can sign up for streak today@streak.com SBS and you get 20% off your first year of their pro plan, which is their most popular option. So that's Streak.comSBS for 20% off their pro plan. One more time. Streak.comSBS please go check it out today. And our thanks to Streak for sponsoring this episode. All right, it's time for Kevin. Shall I read Kevin Shannon?

Sure. Okay. Yeah.

Kevin writes, I'm stuck. I listen to your show, and it all sounds great, but I don't know how to get a business started. I don't make enough money to risk leaving my job, and I have a family to support. You guys are very positive and optimistic, but that doesn't always work for some of us. Could you talk about what you would do in my situation? I'm a hard worker, but I feel trapped where I'm at. Well, I'll start by saying, yeah, that's how the system's built. I don't, you know, I don't mean to sound like conspiratorial here, but. But there is a. Like, like when Shannon talked in the performance review thing about, like, look, you're not going to work here forever. Like, I know you do this, and I do it, too. I encourage my people to have, like, a side hustle going and things like that. And that's not true of every business. In fact, some businesses make it very difficult for you to have a side hustle that. That they don't have their fingers in and things like that. But I would say that that is the way to start. You know, I. And I know you're going to approach this differently. Shannon, I'm a, I'm a services guy, right? That's what I've always done. I figure out where I can take someone's headache away and then I make money at that. And that's, that's essentially what my businesses do. Right? In a variety of different ways. Yep. But if you boil it all down, that's what I'm doing. I'm taking your headache away by, by offering you something, perhaps advice on a podcast or solving your tech problems or whatever that might be. That's what I do. And so what I look at in this scenario and what I did in your scenario, Kevin, is I said, okay, well, I can start a side hustle doing this, maybe not full time because I, you know, do I have the time to do a second full time job? The answer is probably yes at the time I did. But, you know, figure out where you can carve out time. Shannon, you always say, do you watch tv? Great, stop. I just gave you three hours a day back. But you're right. No, nobody wants to hear that, Shannon. But it doesn't mean you're wrong. But that, like, I would, that's where I would start, is like, figure out what can you do in the evenings. And where you can fuel your own optimism is by seeing a little bit of success. And if you get to the point where you say to yourself, if I only had more time to do this, I could make more money, well, now you have a little bit of a safety net, a confidence to take that leap. And it will be a leap at some point, unless, like you said, you're just making way more money than you need and you can, you know, create a huge cushion for yourself if you can't do that. And even then, it's a leap of faith because you're going to stop making that money when you quit your full time job, right? So you've got to take that, that leap into taking your side hustle and making it your main hustle. And, and that is not for all of us. And you may fail. In fact, like I can speak for myself, you know, we talk about mistakes on this show because we make a lot of them and we've made a lot of them and it hurts when you think something's going to work and it doesn't and you just need to try again, you know, And I realize that this perhaps only feeds and supports Kevin's chastising of us, but it is how it is. How, like that's how I see it. And I can only answer the question from my own, of course, you know, from my own perspective here. So figure out a side hustle, test it, get some confidence from that test, and then take the leap.

So I've been chomping a bit here to chime in because I, I. Number one, thank you for sending this question in because it's so easy, based on where Dave and I are at in our entrepreneurial lifespan, if you will, to be like this, we've had some success, we've made a lot of mistakes, but where we're at now. So hearing this is really important. And, Kevin, I would say the fact that you wrote in to us and that you're asking this question is really a powerful sign. And what you're going to hear as I talk, you know, through this and make some observations and recommendations is that you got to start building yourself up, and that's how you get that optimism. And the first part to kind of pat yourself on the back is that you took the time to write this email and send it in when, you know, 90%, maybe 99% of people don't do that. They always just sit and go, well, I can't do it because XYZ and I agree with Dave. It sounds like you need some wiggle room financially and with your time. And I do go back to that. Hey, if you watch any TV or Netflix, you know, streaming or whatever it is now that, you know, the world's evolved, don't do that. Sit with your laptop and research. And the thing I love about doing the show with you, Dave, is you're a services person. I'm really a product person. And we've kind of brought this thing together at various businesses over time, Kevin. And I don't know, you're detailed, but if you have a spouse, you need to get them involved, too, because they have to be on board, not only for moral support, but even just to help. When we first started many, many, many years ago, my kids were little, and I wanted to send them to private school, and I didn't have the money to do that. So we said, okay, we need to start a business to pay for this. That was always my solution. How can I generate that extra? You know, at the time, it was a thousand bucks a month to send my kid to private school. And I was like, how am I going to make a thousand bucks a month? And you hear me talk about that a lot on this show. Little numbers can have dramatic impact on your life. And so I came to you, Dave, and said, look, I want to start this website. And we started deals on the web.

That's right.

And my wife Renee, I said, hey, I need your help. You know, I want to start this thing. We had no time. We had two little kids running another business.

And.

But by 10pm we would both. At around 10pm we'd both sit down at the dining room table and we'd work for two hours. So we. I always joked we should have called it 10 to 12, you know, 10 to midnight. We should have been the name of that.

Name of the company. Yeah, that's right.

And we would prep all this content for the next day. And, you know, we did that for a year or more or two maybe before we generated even enough money to where we said, okay, now we can hire somebody to do this.

Right.

And eventually it generated enough money for a decade to pay for my kids private school and. And more. So.

Way more. Yeah, yeah. No, that. That business kicked off a. Like, that was a nice little cash cow for a while.

Yeah, it was wonderful. So, like, Dave's a service guy, I'm a product guy. So my advice is to look for something to sell. You know, I. I work with people that sell on ebay, Poshmark, Mercari trades, all these marketplaces. And a lot of these folks go to Goodwill on the weekend and buy product or go to a thrift store or look on, you know, whatever, go to garage sales to make that 500 bucks, that thousand bucks, because that will change your life. Start small. The little successes will help you build a foundation to grow, and they help you build this optimism. And the story that we always talk about, like that struggle at the time that I was totally exhausted sitting at the table from 10 to midnight. I didn't want to be there. And I never thought I would tell a story about how it worked out so well for us, but that's kind of what happened.

I thought it was a crazy idea when you came to me, but I didn't say no. It was like, all right, well, let's check it out. It was a side hustle for both of us. Now we both were running our own separate companies at the time and, you know, having whatever success or not success we were having, I mean, we were back, we were doing okay, you know.

Grinding it out, man.

We were grinding it out. And my wife even said to me, because we were about to have a second kid, and she's like, is this the right time to start another business? And I said, yes, this is exactly the right time to start another business. I said, this is how we pay for the next kid. I'm like, here's what we do. And, and it, you know, it worked out, but it was, it was that same. You don't know. You have to just. And what you need to do is figure out how to interpret what your friends are telling you. And, and it might be your other family members. It might be like you need to have, if you're married or you partnered up, you need to have your spouse or your partner on board with you if they're, if they don't believe in it. Like, I don't even know how that's going to work out yet. But, but there's going to be a lot of people that don't believe in it, and you need to ignore them with an asterisk. And the way I do this is, you know, when somebody says, oh, that's a crazy idea, it's a stupid idea that's never going to work. Most of the time they are talking about themselves. They're saying, I'm too afraid.

Really important to take that link.

But you need to hear them because sometimes someone will say something that resonates with you and they might have crystallized a thought that's going to take you another three months to figure out on your own. And it's a skill that I have been able to develop over the years. And I get it from you folks, right? You know, we've had people to all the shows that we do. You write in, you tell us, well, what you did here was stupid, or I don't like what you do here. I mean, we get a lot of positive comments too, but we get these negative ones and a lot of those, it's just like, okay, this isn't the show for you. It's fine, it's great, move on. But every now and then one comes in and it might even be like, full of vitriol, and you just sort of ignore that part of it. It's like, what's the essence of what they're saying that resonates with me? Like they, they're onto something here. And in fact, it was one of you that pointed out that the way we conducted our interviews here was too formulaic. It was too, you know, bland, to be perfectly honest. Right?

Yeah.

And it was like, ah, wait, wait, wait, no, they're onto something. You know, they didn't have the answer, but you had the problem. And it was like, yes, I, I feel the same way. And if you feel, if you notice that when you're hearing people's comments Listen to that. But don't necessarily listen to them. Listen to yourself. They're not the ones saying it, it's you saying it. Right. And so, okay, if it's not you saying it, let it go. Because there's going to be a lot of people saying things, negative things, and you just got to ignore almost all of it.

Yeah, it's hard. It's great advice. And, you know, that's how you remain optimistic.

That's.

Yeah, that's right. And like, if you're not a product person or you don't, you know, know anything about that or don't want to learn anything about it and you're in services, well, then, then think about that. How can I. Who can I go do this services for? And maybe it's your friends and you just do it for free, you know, just like, you know, don't worry about the money. Just, oh, hey, can I come over and help you with this? Or if you're in the landscaping business like I was when I was younger, you know, and the construction thing, hey, I'll just come over and help you learn because you're going to learn more. Someone that's going to go, gosh, you know, Kevin did a great job at whatever. He's a painter. And look what he did. He came over and did this at cost and helped us out. And I'm going to recommend him to every single person. And that's your start. That, you know, the thing is, I think also very important is making and tracking your progress each day. Little things, a small series of small steps that will make the difference. Because if you just think it's this big, it's like that eating the elephant in one sitting. If it's just this big giant thing hanging out there, it's overwhelming. But if you're like, you know what, like, in my case, I want to write another book, so I have to. Okay, I'm working on this outline, but I have reminders that come up in my computer, in my phone every day. It says, you know, I want to be. To be considered an author. I have to do X. I have to write every day. So I go in, it reminds me, okay, I have to do that. But then at the end of the day when I'm sitting there or at night and I create, you know, I call it my two did list. So I can write down what I did that day, and that makes me feel better. But if that list is. Is light, you know, I was just telling myself yesterday, it's like, gosh, yeah, you know, you're just not really getting enough done. Then it helps motivate you for the next day. But I think it's, you know, it's important to have these little things, whether it's, I'm gonna go research, you know, using that goodwill example, which, you know, some people scoff at, but, you know, I know people that make, as a side hustle, 4, 5, $6,000 a month just going and buying this product and selling it on those marketplaces that I mentioned.

And, you know, this is where I will bring up something I said recently on one of our episodes. Being an entrepreneur is a blue collar job. Don't scoff at an idea if you think you can do it. Like, like this is, this is the other part of it. And we talked about it. You know, we use the example of who's going to clean the toilets. And obviously, if you have a business, somebody's got to clean the toilets. That's also true at your house. But, but this is the other side of it, you know, saying, oh, I don't want to be the person that scours garage sales. Well, why not? Like, what's the problem with that? There's nothing wrong with that. And that's.

You're not going to do it for. Yeah, I'm not saying you have to do this forever. I'm just trying to give you a vehicle to make a little bit of money, to carve out a little bit of time, because maybe it's, well, I want to start a carpet cleaning business, and this device that I need to buy is $10,000. Well, okay, I'm going to show you how to make $10,000. And that'll be part of your story when you go, say, man, I started this business selling T shirts that I got it, whatever, you know, but it's not. Doesn't have to be an end in itself, but it just gets you to where, you know, to where you're going.

To where you're going. That's it. Just don't be too proud to start a business.

Absolutely.

You know, you might, you might have a job that's considered. I don't know what Kevin does. And I mean, whatever you're doing, you're making money and you're supporting your family. It's excellent. You know, it might be a white collar job, it might be a blue collar job. I have no idea. But if you are one of those people that's in the position where you're like, oh, I've got a cushy little job, I sit in an air Conditioned office and I do my thing and, you know, I can make my money. If you want to start your own thing, it might require sweating a little bit. And that's, there's nothing wrong. Like, don't, don't cut that out of your options just because it's not seen by, not potentially seen by others as equal. Right. You know, like you said, Shannon, listen to most entrepreneurs. What story do they tell? Oh, I started this, doing that, and like, oh, oh, wait, wait, they started.

You don't have to tell anybody. You don't have to go out and talk about what you're doing. Just do it because you want it. It's. I've said this many, many times. It's way more powerful to talk about what you've done versus what you're going to do. So, you know, you may just really keep this internal that you're like, well, this is not what I'm going to do forever, but I'm going to go hustle and start this and get this going so I can get to, to X.

It.

It's, it's a great question. You're, you're, the fact that you're questioning what you're doing and, you know, how, how your future is going to be is super powerful. And I, I thank you again for writing it and, and pulling us back to the earth, if you will. Because Dave and I, you know, we always look at like, man, we live this charmed life and we want you to be there, too. We want you to look back and go, man, I was stuck and, and I made the, the leap and I did. I scraped and scrimmed and I, you know, I didn't watch TV for five years, and then I did this and I did that because that's, that's a great story. And, and we want to share in your success. So please check back in with us. Ask another question.

Yeah, sorry. Say it again, Shannon. What's the address?

Yeah. Feedback@businessshow.co.

That'S Feedbackusshow.co. i was gonna say, if you, if you're thinking of different ideas and you want to bounce those off of us, please do it. We promise that we will be your champions and your supporters. We're not going to tell you, oh, that's a terrible idea. Just because we wouldn't want to do it. Like, we're, we're going to help you do this, and that's, that's what we're here for. So, yeah, let, let us be your champions. Just ask Feedback at Business Show. Co.

It's great. Stuff.

I hope this helped. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's great to hear from you, Kevin. Thank you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And these are, these are important questions. We, we don't get to them all. We don't do a lot of them because it takes, it takes a long time. But we're going to do, we're going to work more into our process here because sometimes I think answering these questions might be more powerful than, you know, interviewing someone else.

It might be the most important thing we do on this show. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It could be. So please do keep us posted. Kevin, check in with us and talk about your journey and what worked and, and what didn't and, and cheers to your future success.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Thanks so much for listening, folks. Thanks for hanging out with us. Thanks for sending in your comments to feedbackusiness show. Thanks for checking out streak.comsbs and do me a favor this week, do whatever you can to make sure you keep living that charmed life. Thanks, Shannon.

Thank you, Dave.