Fighting Complacency and Regaining your Small Business Edge – Small Business Show 93

The Small Business show, episode number 93 for Wednesday, November 16, 2016. Greetings, folks, and welcome to the Small Business show here at BusinessShow Co the show by, for and about small business owners. Those of you, those of us that just do what we do to make sure we can make a little bit of money for ourselves and our employees and our families. Here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And in Concord, California, I'm Shannon Jean. You know, I like that. I recently saw a description of a small business owner entrepreneur as someone that was willing to work 80 hours a week to not have to work 40.

Yeah.

And I thought that was perfect. Right. Because, you know, we all love working. We love what we do, hopefully. And you're doing it for yourself and you're, you're building your charmed life. So working those extra hours is worth it.

I think so. I mean, I don't know. The other thing I like to say is, you know, when people ask me how I'm doing, I say, well, I'm really busy, but that's better than the alternative. And then I always follow that up by saying, but I've never really experienced the alternative. So I don't know that, that, that's actually true. I feel like it's true for me.

Sure.

You know, I mean, it's a choice I make every day. I could do nothing, I mean, things would fall, fall apart, but I, I could do nothing and potentially enjoy that. I don't think I would, but I have yet to try. So.

Yeah, yeah, I, I, I would argue that you lead yourself into things and the way your life runs based on the feedback it gets to you and the way it makes you feel.

Yeah.

So I would say you've created that because that's what charges you up and, you know, fulfills you. So go underwear. I mean, you know, going to where you're not doing anything, you're probably going to feel like crap. And you wouldn't be doing that very long.

No, I, no, I don't think so.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's nice to try once in a while. You know, you go on vacation, lay on the beach. You know, that kind of stuff is great.

That, no, that's kind of fine. But I'm always thinking about, you know, business. I mean, not, there's always like, all right, well, when I get back, I can do this or that sort of thing. I mean, it's always kind of going on in my head.

Yeah. Well, are you one of those people that walks into a store or a business and immediately starts thinking, how does this work? How does the sock store make money? Yeah. You know that kind of thing. Yeah, I do that all the time. And I, you know, one of the most brilliant sock store. And I use that sock store analogy, but one of the most brilliant sock stores I've ever seen is a store that does not sell any matching pairs. You buy singles. And it was like, well, how does that. What? That's crazy. But everybody was buying mismatched, and it was awesome.

Oh, no. When you wear mismatched socks, I mean, there's that old Steven Wright joke that went, I don't match my socks for color. I match them for thickness. But that's actually like. That was funny back in 1980. Now that's how I like. I don't care. But if I wear one sock that's thicker than the other, I'm all screwed up.

You notice that?

Oh, yeah. I don't notice the color. I'm not looking at them.

You're not looking at them.

If I do, it's like, hey, look, they're different colors. It doesn't bother me. Yeah, yeah.

It's good stuff.

Yeah, it is good stuff. Yeah.

So what's going on out there in your neck of the woods this week?

So I have a topic that. Well, I don't even know how I want to. There's two ways I want to approach this. Scott Jordan yesterday posted something that sort of. That described. He described himself, but in many ways he described me and this Scott, who's the CEO of scottevist. And we're actually gonna have him on the show at some point because he's a great, crazy guy. But he posted this whole big, long diatribe, and if you follow him on Facebook, you have to understand he doesn't say this often, so most people don't know, but most people think he's just grammatically a train wreck. He's not. Siri is, though. And that's how he dictates all of his posts. Right, I got it.

Yes.

So sometimes you have to sort of read as though you're hearing someone just ramble, as opposed to someone that wrote an essay. Once you sort of get past that, that's fine. But he was talking about his strengths and his faults and not really identifying one as the other. It was just like, this is who I am, and I know it. And he was talking about how he dealt with his employees, and he said one of the things was that he hates it when people move too slowly. And. And his natural inclination is to assume that they have the same capabilities he does and they're simply lazy. And he acknowledged in the next breath, perhaps figuratively and literally, but that he knows that's not true. He knows that we all have different capabilities and he is someone that moves at a very, very fast clip. He doesn't have time for idle chit chat. He just, you know, he's focused and driven and, you know, that's why he's built the business that he has. It's sure kind of how it goes. And it reminded me of something that I'm actually in the middle of doing right now. So here at the Mac observer, we've been doing what we do for 19 years. I think it's either 19 or 20 next month. Like I gotta look and find out. It's cool. Yeah. Which is cool. You get stuck in patterns. I don't want to say ruts, but it's very easy to get stuck in patterns, especially when you've got people that you know, are sort of doing the same thing we have. And I consider this a testament to what we do. Without question that we keep employees for a long time. We have very, very low turnover here. The problem. And that's great.

That's a good thing. And I did read that post that Scott.

Okay.

On Facebook and I thought it was pretty insightful. I often read some of his stuff and I'm like, wow, you know that. And that's. I know that he, that's just the way he is, but I thought that one was pretty good. That comment of, I know I'm not right, but this is the way I usually think.

Right. It doesn't change the way I think.

Yes.

Your gut reaction is simply your gut reaction and you should make no apologies for that. But you have to temper it and manage it and interpret it.

If you want to be successful in running a business, you certainly have to be that way. Because the guy or the man or woman that is hustling like you and is really quick and sharp and that kind of stuff and making quick, quick fire decisions may not be the person you want in the shipping department or in your content creation or whatever. Or whatever. Because they have a different set of skills that may take a little more time for them to put together.

That's right. That's right. Yeah. So at tmo, we've been around for a long time. We have essentially the same, like we've had the same team of people, the same core team for 10 years, which is again, awesome. Right. We built a family. It's great. The problem with that is we don't get new ideas, we don't get fresh ideas in house, and everybody gets comfortable with each other. And I feel like our pace has slowed down to the point where it kind of sucks. And I mean that in our ability to get quality articles out in a timely fashion.

I see.

Yep. And I've talked about this. This isn't me talking out of school here. You know, we've had this conversation, but we've had it for a while. And other than simply, you know, cleaning house, which is not my preference, you know, there is the whole concept of, you know, hire slowly fire f. And I'm not following that here. And maybe I should be, but I'm not. And so it's like, how do I solve this problem? And my thought, and I'm going to do this. And I've already talked to someone. I don't want to name the person that I'm bringing in. The staff knows who this person is. I just don't know. I don't know if this person cares to make it public that they're doing some consulting for me. But I'm bringing someone in that has experience in this type of industry. They're no longer in this type of industry, so there's no conflict of interest there. They've worked at various different publications in various different roles, and it gives them a perspective to come in. And certainly there's someone that we could hire and bring in here if they were interested and we were interested in. But really my point in bringing this person in as a consultant right now is to sniff around, take a look at what we're doing, tell us what we're absolutely missing. Tell us what we're doing. Right. Tell us, you know, and at some level, I don't want to poison the well. I want this person to just kind of come in and tell me their honest thoughts. But I have expressed my concern over our pacing.

Sure.

You know that. Because that was really the thing that led me to, all right, I need to fix this. How can I fix it? And we've tried talking to the, you know, we've all tried talking about it, but there's, there's. I don't want to say it's complacency, but there are times when I'm frustrated and it feels like that same, the same thing that Scott said, right?

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that, you know, you, as a, as a business, especially a long term, you know, successful business, you want to keep your edge.

Yes, that's it.

And, you know, and we've lost it.

I think, in some way. I mean.

Yeah, well, no, that's a good. That's a. That's not a. Like, oh, you guys have all screwed up. We've lost it. It's. It's identifying that, hey, we're an older organization. This is really common. We've lost. We've gained a lot of things. We have these huge strengths that allow us to, you know, and people rely on us to produce this and that. Um, but, you know, losing your edge is. Can spiral down to losing other things.

Like revenue.

Yeah, like. Like revenue and not it being as hungry. Hungry, maybe as.

That's what it is, is as a company. We are not acting like we're hungry. Yeah. Yeah. Whether we are or not is irrelevant. We're not acting like that when we sit down to do our work every day.

And I would say, you know, complacency is the enemy. And it is hard, especially when you've had some success, to be vigilant against that complacency. And your ability to kind of step outside what you're doing now and look at it, I think is a really strong, very important thing for the future of. Of your business. And. And as you as a business owner, no matter what you.

Yeah. No matter what happens here.

No matter what happens.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's just because you see it time and time again, that would do it. And. And it's funny that you bring that up is. You know, we. We had, you know, my business is Tech restore is. Are 12 years old.

Okay.

And we've. We've definitely had a lot of success, but we've also, you know, had to fight through some of those things just like you're talking about. And when you start to expect that things are gonna happen over and over again the same way, that is exactly when they stop happening.

Yeah. It's interesting because with tmo, we started out, and it was obviously new for us. The business was. Right. And so it was not only exciting, but frustrating and petrifying and all of those great things that happen when you start your. And then. And there were some changes and, you know, growth and all of that. And then about 11 years ago, 12 years ago, podcasting entered the world for us at TMO.

Sure.

And that, in retrospect, I look back at it and, like, that was a huge thing for us at the time. It just seemed like a natural. We should try this. We should experiment with it or whatever, and that's what we did. But it turned out to be this new thing that we started doing. And so it shook things up internally quite a bit because it was, well, okay, now we do. Instead of spending all of our time doing this one thing, we're chopping up our time and reallocating and doing different stuff. And that was great for us in so many ways. But in the last five years, we haven't really had anything. In fact, I could say even in the last 10 years, we haven't had anything that's really shaken it up like that. And so for not having done that for the last five years, that's where it feels like, okay, wait a minute. We gotta, like, something needs to change here.

And, well, you know, we had that. We just had a recent episode where we talked about changing what side of the bed you sleep on.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know, and shifting things around. And I'll bet you, you know, back in April, we had Bob Gruel of SeaPoint Business Advisors, and he's, you know, consultant and helps, you know, small businesses and, you know, medium and large businesses, too, when they're ready to sell their company. And I bet you dollars to donuts that if you, you know, if you asked him or, you know, if he listened to the show, he would come back and say, oh, you know, this is a very common occurrence.

Yeah.

After a certain period of time that people start to get, okay, what's nothing new. This is what I do every day. And I think a lot of people at that time start thinking about what's next.

Yes.

You know, for. And in your case, you're like, okay, what's next for our business? You know, how do we position ourselves and challenge ourselves? And it may be something as simple. Like you said, you're bringing somebody else in to give you some advice. And I would also suggest that switching people around into different roles is always a very good thing.

Yeah. And we've done some of that. The Switching people around. And then last year, I mean, this is not. It's not something that's a new revelation for me. Hiring an outside consultant is, you know, a new thing, and I'm excited about the prospect, but I've been trying, partially consciously and partially subconsciously, kind of trying to rock the boat a little bit. You know, last year we did a big retreat. We brought the whole staff out to Colorado and just hold up for a couple of days and talk through a couple things, and we had some good stuff there, but the momentum from that didn't stick. And, I mean, it's. Again, it's fine. We have, like, the. The. The sense of family that we have Is. Is great. That's not the issue. It's the. It's. We're too comfortable as a family.

Yeah. And, you know, think. Thinking about this, one of the things that I've always talked to my employees over time is, you know, what do you have going on the side?

Yeah.

What are you doing after work? Or what do you do on the weekend? Or what are you doing time off? And I'm a firm believer. And, you know, the phrase side hustle, you know, is kind of thrown around a little bit. And there's a great blog post up on Help Scout, which is a site that I use for businesses and awesome customer service. But their blog is phenomenal. And I mentioned here a lot, and we'll link it in the show notes, but they did a post about keeping your, you know, your employees kind of invigorated and excited, not just by things that happen within the sphere of your business, but helping them and encouraging them to do something else on the side. And it could be something that, you know, as easy as, you know, working for a gig economy business like TaskRabbit or Uber or, you know, managing a rental room or whatever it is on Airbnb, lots of stuff. Because that gets them out of their comfort zone and gives them a different experience, that when they come back into your business, they're going to be changed. And the risk, of course, is that sometimes you lose people to that side hustle, but that's okay, you know, more power to them. You want to encourage those people to be successful.

Absolutely.

And, you know, if a guy comes and says, hey, I love working more for you, but I can make more money doing X now, and it's really exciting. Well, that's awesome.

No, and you have to let that happen. Because if, let's say the only reason that person went and did that side hustle was because you encouraged him. Fine.

That's right.

Yeah. And so you could blame yourself all day long. Wow. If only I hadn't encouraged him, he wouldn't have done that and he'd still be working for me. But here's the thing. All you did was encourage him. You didn't force him.

Yes.

You just suggested it and he went and ran with it. That means he needed that. Like, you know, nobody starts a business and runs it by accident. You know, sometimes you start a business by accident.

Right, right.

But you don't keep running it and then decide to do it full time by accident. This is, you know, this is the entrepreneur in you coming out. And. And so that person would not Would have. Would have left you anyway, either because they were gonna do something else like they are, or that they had just gotten so horribly unhappy doing the same thing day after day that they just went and found another job.

Yeah, that's right. And, you know, one of the ways you can deal or handle that, those folks taking off. And if you remember back, you know, over a year ago, we had Abby Vakil on.

Yeah.

Back in April of 2015. And he's, you know, this guy's run multiple businesses and all kinds of different things, and he would often comment, oh, you know, I helped so. And so get started. And then they left, you know, so he switched things up to where he would help the, you know, employees get something going on the side and then become an investor in their business and help them. And over, you know, a span of time, he wound up being, you know, an investor in, I don't know, maybe a half a dozen businesses that he knew the people well. He helped them get started, and instead of them just kind of even starting and competing with them, he was involved with them, mentoring them, helping them out. And I think that's a great thing. And I would encourage, you know, anyone that's having these kind of feelings about losing their edge or, you know, being. Not being hungry is to get. To get into those conversations and find out what it is. Okay. Do you feel the same way? Maybe somebody says, no, I don't feel the same way at all. I'm stressed out. I'm hustling. This is what it. Okay, well, then that's a good conversation to have, too.

Sure.

But if they're not like, well, you know, I don't feel challenged. I can't do it. Okay, well, let's come up. Let's try something new. And helping them do that, I think is good for them. And. And maybe even more importantly, it's good for you as a business owner.

Yeah.

To get that sense of, you know, your. Your mentoring and teaching and that. That's a real powerful thing that can help you power through times of adversity in your business when you know that, hey, look at these. These are people I'm really helping enrich their lives. It's not just a paycheck, and we do it all the time here.

Yeah.

And. And I think it's a good thing to try, too.

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. So I'm excited about this. It's. It's good.

Yeah. Well, so you'll have to. Have to report back to us and let us know, because, you know, I'm Always. I'm not a huge fan of outside consultants, and that's probably hurt me or quite possibly could have hurt, you know, my businesses more than, you know, otherwise, in a negative manner.

Dude.

But I feel you, you know, but I just am always like, I don't know, but. But I would love how it works for you.

Yeah, yeah. And this was not an easy decision to make. Once I made it, it was so easy to embrace. I will say that. Yep, that's great. But, yeah, it's one of those things, like, no, I've always done this myself or with my partners or whatever. And so we've always been able to handle our problems in house. Right. And now it's basically saying, no, I don't have the skills that I need, and I want you to identify this stuff for me.

Yeah, good for you. And I think that especially in this kind of case, it could be quite helpful. And, you know, I always just ask, you know, like, if someone is a successful business person and they've done what I need help with. Well, that's a little different.

Sure.

But if they're a consultant working for, you know, something, I was like, wow, you know, they've never had experience with this, but here they are selling me this service.

Well, that's different. I convinced this particular person to be a consultant. I don't. I don't think. I think this is their first time doing this.

I got it. Okay, well, that's good. If you, you know, looking at skill and. And, yeah, yeah, that's great. Definitely.

Yeah. The expertise is there and. And the trust level is there and all of that stuff. So I. Yeah, I think it. I think it'll work out, but. But, yeah, that's great, man. I'm excited and scared and. And it's like, oh, great. Perfect. I like this. This is like. It wakes up that little part of you that's like, oh, good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, that's perfect. That's good. Well, that's great. And I. And I. And again, I. I, you know, I commend you for number one, recognizing it, talking about it, and, you know, putting some change in place to. To, you know, work your way through it.

That's the trick. Yeah. We have to, you know.

Absolutely.

Yeah. I don't want to close the doors, and it's not like we're. That's not imminent or anything, but I don't want that to be imminent.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Not for sure.

Yeah.

Excellent. Very good. Hey, you know, one thing I wanted to mention is, you know, we have thousands and thousands of people that listen to this show. If even just a small percentage of you folks would take a minute and go review us up on the itunes store, we would be forever in your debt. And you can just do that by going to BusinessShow Co iTunes and just give us a quick couple. Whatever you feel, put some comments up there. Let us know if you enjoyed the show. If there's things you should. You think we should do differently, let us know. We'd love to hear from you.

Absolutely. Yeah, those. Those reviews really help. Not only do they. They tell us what you're saying, but they show the itunes store that you're engaging with the show, and that convinces them to do some more features of the show, which brings more listeners in, that brings you more content. It's a. It's a cycle that feeds itself. So please, please. Yeah, we love to have those reviews.

Awesome.

All right, folks, have a splendid week, and we'll see you next week. In the meantime, keep living that charmed life.

Take care, everybody.