Managing Employees of all Ages and Dave Sells a Business

The Small business show episode 363 for Wednesday, January 19, 2022. Greetings folks and welcome to the Small Business show here at BusinessShow Co where we are small business ing every week with you and then separate from that, we're just small businessing all the time. But here with you once a week, we Small Business together. Sponsors for this episode include shopify.comsbs where you can go get your 14 day trial. We will talk more in depth about that shortly here. For now, here in Durham, New Hampshire.

I'm Dave Hamilton and in Lafayette, California, I'm Shannon Jean. I could wish you a happy new year because this is the first show we've recorded after the Happy New Year.

It's right. Yeah. We, we did not. We. The last episode, last week's episode, the final one we recorded before the end of the year.

That's right, yeah. So we can take a little holiday break with the family. And I understand congratulations are in order, Mr. Hamilton, on the sale. Another successful sale of one of your companies.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. Yes, the Mac observer was acquired.

That's awesome, man. If I had some kind of noise sound effect here, you'd be hearing it.

Maybe we'll do this. Even though we didn't do the sale through Shopify, we'll make the Shopify sound. Ah, there it is. I love it.

That's good. That's really good.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm stoked about this. It was obviously we talked a little bit about it last week anticipating that by the time that episode came out, everything would have been said and done, but. And we were correct in that anticipation. But that's great, man. Yeah.

So give us an overview of kind of how it went down. Whether you were out seeking someone to buy or they came to you. I'd love. I think our listeners would love to hear it.

Right. Yeah, that's a good question. Right. So we were not seeking a buyer. We were not even considering putting the business up for sale. It was not on our radar. I suppose the only thing that really wasn't even officially on our radar but was something we'd been kind of aiming towards without a whole lot of intention and in retrospect, probably should have had some intention for this was getting someone installed as a manager of the business because the business was running itself in terms of the content and everything we have. Great. I should say it's because it's not our staff anymore, but the Mac observer has a great staff in place and they generate all the content. Right. And they self Organize and they know how to coordinate and all of that great stuff. But in terms of the business itself and the management of the sort of the overseeing of the staff and all of that stuff was still a shared responsibility between me and Brian Chaffin, who has been my business partner with the Mac observer since day one. And I think we both were thinking about how do we put this business in someone else's hands that is committed to the success of the site that has some ownership in it. Right. Like, these were things that were swimming around in my head, but I didn't really have an answer. I mean, I assume everybody's brains work like mine do, and I know that I'm wrong in that assumption. But you have these thoughts. You know, there's a problem, the solution. You haven't even had a solution crystallize yet. It's just like one of those things that you muse on when it sort of percolates a little bit. But I didn't really have an answer. And so it wasn't top of mind by any stretch. But if anything, that's the only thing that we sort of had in our heads separately. And then this buyer showed up. In fact, he showed up in September, Dr. Sirhat Kurt. And he. His first email went to spam. So I didn't reply right away. Yeah, yeah. And then I. Then I got his second email where he was like, hey, I'm really serious about this. And it was like, okay, you know, and we've run this business for 23 years or ran that business for 23 years. We certainly have had people approach us about acquiring the site in the past, and with a very few notable exceptions, they've all been what I would classify as tire kickers, you know. Okay, okay. Like, you're gonna waste my time and. And it's not gonna go anywhere. Right?

Sure.

And it's. And so anytime one of these shows up, how do you.

I have a question. I don't interrupt your.

No, this is great. But it's a conversation.

How I've had this too. And, you know, I always have mixed feelings when I get approached about this because I'm like, well, is this person just digging for information or, you know, are they serious? I mean, what was it their persistence that kind of gave you the. The notion that, okay, this person is serious. It is worth my time to. To talk with them and put together, you know, data. I mean, you know, you got to prep, you got to do all kinds. It's a lot of work.

It's a lot of work, especially if you're not planning on doing it because, you know, I can't just go into QuickBooks and print out balance sheet and P&LS. I have to then go and massage that data.

Yes, appropriately. Normalize.

Normalize, Normalize them. Yeah. There's a term in business sales, it's called SDE sellers discretionary earnings. And that is generally what is looked at as profits for a small business. So your salary, for example, is included in sde. And if you happen to have write offs that could fall on the line, like was that trip a vacation or was it your annual board meeting for your business? Right. You know, those kinds of things. Or even if it was your annual board meeting for the business, is that something that's a mandatory expense you had to do? Right. No. Is it, is it legitimate? Yes. You know, but so those sorts of things, you, you start doing it all and it's like, okay. And now you're, you know, changing the way it looks. So yes, it is a lot of work. So to answer your question, yeah, his second email definitely showed that he was serious. And again, I'm reading his second email at the same time I'm reading his first one because I didn't see the first one. So I had not had time to get entrenched in my belief, incorrect belief that it was just some tire kicker showing up. Right. And he talked about some financials to qualify himself in this. And I obviously don't want to share any of those details, but, but you know, he, yeah, he, he proved his interest in the business credible.

Right. He.

And he proved his financial credibility, but also just his, his, his credibility in terms of is this someone we want running this thing that we built and that we care about? Yeah. And so going into this, I was not planning on selling. And then very quickly he convinced me and Brian that not only should we sell and is this a good time for us to sell, but that he was the right person to buy it. And that's great. And yeah.

And it really was critically important.

Yeah, critically. Yeah. Yeah. And so I was like, okay, like this is interesting. And then started the process of what, you know, everybody sort of terms due diligence. It's different for everything. It's really driven by the buyer asking questions and wanting details and, you know, being able to come up with a fair price and all of that stuff. And you know, like I said, we have, I have interest in a, several other businesses, but I have interest in some businesses that are more passive than active. So they're not the things that you Know me for. And as I mentioned, in the fall, about two weeks before this showed up on my desk, we had put one of these other businesses, begun putting it up for sale through M and A firms. And I've talked about that, and there's more to come on that. That's sort of in a. In a prep period at this point. We have selected an M and A firm and all that stuff. So. But I'd already had all this in my head, so I knew how to go about pricing a business. I just also knew that we hadn't been running this particular business, the Mac observer, in a way that it would price easily. For sure. That's right, yeah. You know, absolutely. And so it was an interesting process going through all of that. The deal he offered us allowed me and Brian to make a clean break. I mean, there's a transition period that we're in now where we're assisting with a lot of things and Showing him over 23 years, we built a Frankenstein. So there's lots of things, institutional knowledge to impart.

And I think that's an important point, is if you're going to get approached to sell your business or you're interested in selling your, you know, your company, you're just not going to be able to step off on the day after the deal's signed and go away. You want. And you made that point earlier, finding the right buyer is almost, maybe more important even than the price you get for the business. Because you want it to be successful, right?

Yes, it's a factor. Everything's a factor. But the price is certainly not the only factor. And depending on your scenario, and your business's scenario may not even be the most important factor.

Correct?

Correct. Yeah.

And then. But, you know, during this transition, whatever it is, months or years, you know, you're going to be involved so you can help, you know, onboard this new group of people or person that's going to run everything and ensure that this thing you created from nothing continues beyond, you know, yourself. And I think that is the greatest sign of success is when you could look a few years from now and you see Mac observer thriving, and you'll say, wow, look at that. It's even doing better than we did. That's what you want.

That's the plan. Yeah. I feel so good knowing that the business is in the hands of someone that is. That loves it as much as we did. We do, and has a vested interest in its success, both emotionally and financially, and it has the time to drive it forward. And also then there Aren't many really out of the gate? I don't think there are any changes planned. The staff is. I mean, it's not mine to run anymore. So anything I'm saying here is just based on what Sirhat has said publicly and imparted to us through the process. But there are no plan staff changes. They want to learn the business from the inside of the business, from us and the team that's there. And then I assume over time, they will slowly evolve things and make some appropriate tweaks and that sort of thing. And obviously, those aren't my decisions to make anymore. I trust them to do that, but that's the only thing I have. The Mac observer is number one fan. Or maybe I'm the number two fan because Brian and I are duking it out to figure out which one of us is.

Yeah, yeah, that's very cool.

But no, it's. It's. It was an interesting process. I will say this. If you have a business with partners and you are doing a sale or you're going through a process like this, you will probably naturally nominate one person to be the point person for that particular project. Right. I mean, that's what this becomes, is a project. It will take time, it will take energy, it will take focus. That person. And this worked out great with Brian and I. I will also say, you know, when you and I were in the process of our failed deal to sell deals on the web, we did the same thing, and I became the point person on that project then. And you need to, as a group of business partners, you need to let that person's gut drive things. There will be scenarios. Maybe the right way to say it is that person needs to be empowered to make some level of decisions. Yeah. It can't be. Every decision needs to be nitpicked by the partnership. Right. I mean, obviously, the decision to sell or not, I wouldn't call that a nitpick. You know, the decision to accept the price. Yes, yes, that. But other little things, as it moves forward, you need to empower that person to be able to make those decisions on the fly. And it worked out fine this time, but there were moments where I thought, wow, I'm glad Brian trusts me, because if he didn't, then I'd have to be going back and forth to him, and this deal probably wouldn't have come together. Not that he would have killed it, but just that process of time and overanalyzing everything and all of that, you know, it's really easy to do when you get Multiple people together. You know, I say time kills all deals. Maybe, maybe, you know, maybe there's a, there's a, maybe there's an evolution or a corollary to that that, that says too many people kill all deals. Right. Consent committees kill all deals. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think. So that's, that would just be my advice from this is. And if you are in a scenario.

Where.

One of the non interfacing partners wants to do something different, at some level, you got to trust the person that's been dealing with it all the way through. Like there's some point we could do.

A whole show on this topic.

Right. There's some point at which it's like, okay, we're in disagreement on whether to take plan A or plan B. The person that's been, you know, or whether to pitch plan A or plan B to the prospective buyer. It's those moments where I think trusting the person that's been dealing with the buyer all the way through is the one that needs to say, no, I need to be. I'm the one doing this. I need to, I need to present what I'm comfortable with.

Yeah. And I do think two words come to my mind. Significant nuance. Because when, when you're working with the potential buyer and I've done it myself a couple of times, Y. And I'm starting. I have a company I'm working on selling now.

Interesting.

It is, yeah. We'll talk more about that and in the future. Hopefully. It does take a lot, but there is also some power in having. Oh, I have to check with X, you know, that kind of stuff.

If you use it correctly. Yes.

Yeah, if you use it correctly. So this will be great. Hopefully over the, the coming months we'll be able to put together a show and dive into acquisitions as both of us will have, you know, had a company acquired, you know, recently. And we can talk about that significant nuance and all the different things that, that we've.

I like, I like that term because that's it. Yeah. And you're totally right. Using that, that escape valve of. It's. It's like, you know, I get. I need to ask my spouse before I buy this car. Right. Like, that's a very powerful tool to use.

It is.

But, but when you go have that conversation with your spouse or, or whatever, the way you come back from that needs to be something that the person doing the negotiating or handling the deal needs to be comfortable with.

And it's got to be in good faith.

Right, Exactly.

After A while you'll be like, look, we're not getting anywhere, whatever. But it is that significant nuance as you persuade. And I use the word manipulate, not in a negative way, but as you maneuver, maybe that's a better word, maneuver through the deal things. And you and I had some discussions about the, you know, during the process, and there is some things you have to decide when certain things happen, you know, and it just all has to kind of come together. So it's a great topic that we will expand on in the near future.

I like it. The significant nuance of selling a business. This is good. Yeah. So it's really exciting, though. I'm super happy for Mac Observer. I'm super happy for me. I get to keep my MacGeek Gab podcast, which was the one thing that would have been tough to keep there because I would have had to work for them. Right. And that was part of his initial pitch was, well, we could do this, such that you take that with you and it's like, ah, okay, wait a minute, wait a minute. There's an opportunity here. Yeah, Yeah, I. I know we've talked a little bit about. We've talked for 10 minutes about this, but I. The worst part about it is that when you tell. When we told our staff, and I would assume in most cases this is how it would be, it was a surprise to them. Right. I mean, it has to be by definition. Yeah. And I. I disliked that. Yeah.

That's a hard thing.

I agree. Yeah, it was, you know, I mean, it was. It was necessary. It was the only way to do. Can't not be a surprise if they don't know. And they couldn't know because if the deal had fallen apart, a. It's difficult enough for us as the owners, and you and I have experienced this firsthand. So I can speak from experience as I know you can. It's difficult enough to reengage or keep yourself engaged with the business. It's much harder for people, I would assume that that are not part of the ownership structure, you know, of things. I think so, yeah. I don't know. But we did obviously keep it from everyone until the deal was closed. Yeah. Which you have to, because anything can happen. And boy, I'm not going to tell stories, but there's a lot of stories.

And we're going to take a deeper dive into this because I had. You have had this happen, too. And we talk about upper management versus, you know, you know, staffers and all that kind of stuff, but it's a great Topic and you know, something that maybe all of us business owners think of and, and you know, it definitely deserves another episode or two on how to prepare for it. What happens when it comes out of the blue? You know, how to connect with an M and a firm, mergers and acquisition firm, a business broker. And there's just so much to it. We've talked about it a bit before and we actually had Bob Gruel from Man the Company SeaPoint, SeaPoint Advisors.

That's right.

On the show a couple years ago. All about selling your business and whether you have a business that you can even sell. And I learned a lot from Bob same.

Bob's a good guy. We should have Bob in the next three or four months. We'll have Bob back on to have this conversation and more. Yeah, that'd be great.

So, so congratulations again.

Thanks, man.

And now you're on to new things, which is always.

Yeah, I'm pretty much doing the same thing. That's okay.

Got more time now.

A little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, we have, we want to talk about managing employees of, of all ages and, and demographics here. The next thing that I want to do though is talk about our sponsor. If that works for you, Shannon.

Yeah, do it. I love these guys.

You know what that sound is? That sound makes me smile because that sound is the sound of another sale on our sponsor, Shopify. The all in one commerce platform to start, run and grow your business. Shopify is a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere. Giving entrepreneurs like us the resources once reserved only for big businesses. And we get to customize them for our needs. Right. And that way you can bring online a great looking store that brings your ideas to life and they give you tools to manage your day to day and drive sales. Both Shannon and me, we've used Shopify many times in our careers because they make it easy. They are experts at building that and so you get to leverage their expertise while you go do what you're an expert at. No reason to reinvent the wheel because Shopify has already done it. And it's not just us. Shopify powers millions of entrepreneurs from first sale to full scale. It's amazing. They've got all these powerful tools 24. 7 support so you're never alone. So go to shopify.comsbs all lowercase for a free 14 day trial and you get full access to Shopify's entire suite of features. Start selling on Shopify today. Go to shopify.comsbs right now. That's shopify.comsbs and our thanks to Shopify for sponsoring this episode. All right, man, let's talk about this, because we've both had employees that are younger than us. I think we've both had employees that are older than us.

Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah.

And this started with an article you sent me. You know, managing Gen Z Millennials, this kind of thing. And it just got me to thinking, really, managing all different age employees, demographics and what their wants and needs are and how you manage all that stuff. So I think it's a great discussion that it's important that we have it today.

I'll start with a little short story. My first experience with, oh, yeah, some people are different was years ago. We had this person that worked for us, and they were not performing, and we let them go. And we were very clear with this person, like, okay, I gave a very specific task, do this by December 8th. And they did not. It was a very simple task. And also, you know, my door was open. Like, if you have any trouble with it, let me know. It wasn't. It wasn't a task that. That would have required that. And on December 9, I let them go. Not this past year. This was, you know, a decade plus ago or something. And then the person's mother called me. Now, this was a person who was, like, late 20s, maybe even early 30s at the time. Like. Right. Like, this wasn't. Not that this would have been appropriate at any age. That it wasn't like, they had. They didn't even live at home anymore. And the mother called me and said, you know, you need to give this person another chance and this, that, and the other thing. And I said, like, thankfully, I'd had enough exposure to HR issues and litigation that I knew that I really couldn't. That this was an inappropriate conversation. And that's all I said, was, it doesn't matter who you are and what relationship you have to that person, unless, A, you are their attorney, and B, they have given me a letter that says I can talk to you as though you are them or you show me a power of attorney. You and I can't. There's no conversation for us to have. This is inappropriate for me to speak with you. Yeah. And then the conversation ended. But, yeah. Yeah.

I've been involved with some parental things before, too. That really kind of blow your mind. Oh, yeah. And. And a few with younger. I get it. You know, with the younger people.

Yeah.

Things. But it's. It is challenging, but that is exactly the way to handle it. You know, you. You legally, you cannot talk to them.

No.

You know, but.

So didn't want to talk to them?

No, of course not. But you don't want to be. You don't want to hang up or do whatever. You're trying to diffuse the situation.

Yeah. I didn't write. I, I wanted to be cordial, but, like, there was nothing to say and, and she was upset. You know, she started getting right into the details of. It was like, whoa, whoa. I. I can't even acknowledge that any of that happened. Like, that's right. No, no. Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, it's. The thing about it, it's. It's up to us as small business owners to create the culture which hopefully creates a great place to work for everybody.

Right?

Yeah. But the perception of everyone that works for you is different. And, you know, you've. Thankfully, we both had multi. Generational, you know, employees, older ones. I found it more difficult in the beginning to manage older people than I did younger people.

I don't know why. I mean, it probably. Probably a confidence thing, right?

Yeah, that was probably was. I was in my 20s.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why do they want to listen to you? Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And some of them really will take advantage of that. But I think the first thing, you know, after I read that article and, you know, we've talked about this, the first thing you have to ask yourself is, should you really care?

Right.

Should you be thinking about the importance of managing people differently or in unique ways? And I would say yes, absolutely. You need to care.

Yeah. Because you want your team to endure. And one of the things I'm most proud of at the Mac observer, not to circle back for too long to that is we had people. Most of the team throughout our history were people that were with us for five years or more, and we had several people who were with us for 10 years or more.

Yeah.

That's great. That to me, I'm proud of that. Yeah.

Another success indicator right there.

Right there.

Big time.

Big time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And, you know, as our, as owners and managers, we need our team. Right. They're going to help you build a successful business or build it, you know, sometimes in spite of you. But, you know, they need to believe that you at least care about them a little bit. Their needs, what their interests are, their lives in general.

Right.

And even if you, you know, I hate to say this, but even if you don't, you have to use some techniques and tactics here, which we'll talk about to, to persuade them that you do. And I believe most small business owners do. They Tend to, you know, it is really create kind of a family environment.

Yeah.

There is some difficult when you start getting over, you know, some number of employees, but you can, I think, you know, we'll talk a little bit about ways to manage that too. But I have a ton of caveats here too. As I was writing my notes, I was just like, well, you know, and one of those is you have to find a balance between trying to make people happy and. Well, you can't make people happy giving them the opportunity to be happy and.

Right. Yeah. Say it again for the people in the back.

Yeah. You cannot make people happy no matter how much you pay them, no matter what special, you know, fringe benefits you get. All you can do is create the opportunity for them to be happy. Some people are really going to love it and other people are just not going to. They're not. And they'll. And you have to either realize that and go, okay, well, that's just the way they are. They're good at X. I'm happy. They're, you know, that's great. Or they have to leave.

Yeah, no, that's true. Yeah.

And especially like I found myself in these predicaments before where, you know, you can't give one person or one group special treatment just because they demand it.

Right.

You have to know that if you're setting policy or a precedent, it, it's got to apply to everyone. So you can't keep things quiet. You can't say, well, we're going to let you carry over an extra week because of this, a vacation or this or that. You just can't do it. Not only is it not legal and you're setting yourself problems.

Right. Yeah.

But it undermines your credibility, your transparency with all the rest of your employees. And if you have one person or a group of people that are demanding this kind of special treatment, I would say the first thing you have to do is have that open discussion with them about, okay, what you want. How do we apply that company wide. What happens if we give everybody a car or whatever? You know, you pick whatever example. What happens if we let everybody come in a half hour late and don't do anything? And I think that is a good way to sometimes set people back with some realistic examples of maybe, maybe why the thing they're asking for isn't realistic.

Right, Right. Yeah. Few people choose to do something they see as irrational. Yeah, Right.

You have to ask. But sometimes you have to push it back and get them to have that discussion and to see it, to see.

It from a different perspective. That's right, yeah. Yeah. Or for you to see it from their perspective. That's often where I try and start with those things with anyone, employees or friends or really anybody that I care to have a conversation with is I try to start by listening. Okay, how are you seeing this? Okay. And then that's when the problem solver in me comes out and it's like, okay, I see why you see it that way. It's a problem. Say that to somebody and it makes it more difficult to get them to come around. But you can identify, oh, ah, they're missing this piece of information. So let me give that to them in a way that hopefully is constructive and allows us all to at least know the same things, even if we're not gonna see the same things.

Yeah, that's good. And you know, a lot of these conversations take persuasion skills.

Oh yeah.

You know, you may be mentoring to younger people or you may have to kind of do a little self effacing humor if you've got an older person that helped me at the time. And you know, because what you're trying to do is connect with these people and you're trying to, you know, to use a persuasion term, pacing and leading. You're trying to kind of get them talking, make them understand you're on the same side with them. You want to achieve the same things. You're trying to create a great place to work. But we have to get these certain things done. How do we do it? If you don't have that skill set, maybe you can identify a manager or supervisor or someone in your organization that does and you can work with them to do it.

Yeah. I am learning that I am a much better leader than I am a manager. Yeah. And I think maybe there's a whole show to do on the distinction there. But I go do things and pave a path and show people this is how we do it. I do not enjoy and I'm not nearly as good at managing people to do things. And I'm, you know, I don't say that as self awareness.

Yeah, that's great.

Yeah.

It is a very good thing. And that is a good topic for another show.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's some significant nuance in that one, that's for sure. And one of the things I also would advise you is, is to pay special attention when you're interviewing people that could about who they are, you know, what they're interested in about, you know, when they ask questions, hopefully they ask questions about your company. What you're doing and that, you know, putting that your what to look for, but being very aware of, of how someone interacts with you during the interview process can really help you avoid problems down the road or before they start. Because some folks are going to just lay it all out and you're like, wow, you know, we don't have, we can't service that, those types of wants and needs.

Sure.

You know, so I think a lot of this you can't. Some things you can avoid during that interview process. But if, if you have these folks here and you're, you're trying to create this great environment, a great skill that you can work on and develop is learn how to read the room.

Right?

How you talk to people. Each employee has specific way they speak and how they communicate. And you and your manager's role is to try to figure out what these wants and needs are and how your policies can work to address those. At the same time, not jumping through unreasonable hoops to make, you know, thinking you have to make people happy. You know, it's definitely a balance, right?

Yeah, it's a right, it's a, yeah, it's a balance. It's tough. Like I said, I'm not, I'm not good at that part of it. I, yeah, quite frankly, I know that it's something I need to do and get better at, but even as we're having this conversation, I find it hard to stay engaged on this topic. Like, I'm, I'm interesting. Yeah, no, it's just, it's not a thing that I've ever had long term success with. Like I said, I'm a much better leader than I am a manager. But, but I've also, for the most part been able to put people in place that can do the management when that needs to happen.

That, that works great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I have that, you know, my notes here. I mean, I think that one of the easiest ways to figure this stuff out is to hang out with your employees.

Right.

Walk around, ask them questions. We used to do this weekly barbecue thing and the staff all thought it was great and I would barbecue and cook for them and do it, but really it was just a fact finding mission every week for me. What's going on in your life? Oh, you're moving? What are you doing? Because then I would know what was important to them or maybe what stresses they were going through that could bubble up and what resources that we could, you know, ask. Be like, hey, somebody's talking about moving and they're Trying to figure out maybe during the lunch I could say, hey man, do you want to use the company vehicle? Or whatever?

Right?

Come, hey, you need a place to store stuff for, you know, store it in the warehouse for a week or so. And you say it in front of everybody. You know, you connect with them. A little dip at a different level, but you just know everyone. Now to your point, when you get to a certain amount of employees, I mean, if you've got 50 plus employees or you know, 100, maybe you can't do that as much. You can do it with your managers, but then those managers need to take that initiative and connect with their people and their su and the supervisors, the same kind of thing. Just get to know everybody. You will be in a better position to either head off problems or also to offer solutions that they could really, you know, feel like you. Wow. They really listened to. What. How did they even know I was doing this? Because, you know, heard it in a conversation. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

So it's, it's, it's, it's simple. And again, the caveat, don't be a pushover. You know, you get to decide ultimately what kind of culture you want to create.

Right.

And that culture is going to kind of attract like minded people. Some people are not going to be a good fit for what you want to do.

And that's okay.

That is okay.

Yeah.

There's no way you're going to avoid it. And make sure everybody knows this. And sometimes when you let people go, it might be okay to say, hey, you know what, we just didn't have a good fit for what they wanted in the future or whatever. That's okay. I think it's fine. And to understand that like we talked about here, you can't make people happy and you can't please all the people all the time. You'll drive yourself crazy and you'll drive yourself out of business.

It won't work. Yeah, yeah. It took me a while and I still fail at this, you know, because I want everybody to be happy, I truly do. And that may actually be a character flaw to some. It's not to me, I think it's okay. But it definitely has put me in positions where it's like, oh, well, how did I get here? Right? I'm trying to make everybody happy, but I want people to be happy. I want people to be comfortable. I know that that's good for business, but I want that separately. It's not a self serving thing. Right. And where I have run into trouble is when Someone comes to me and asks, usually as a complaint or not in a happy way, how come we don't do this here? How come we don't have that here? And this or that could be things like retirement accounts or things that you'd get at a big company. Those things that if you have your stuff together as a business, you might have these things. And we have some of them and we don't have all of them. We're a small company. And this is true of every company I have. And I hate it when somebody comes to me and says, why don't you have that? Because in that conversation, I mean, A, I like to deliver for people, but B, it puts me at a disadvantage, right? They now have the leverage in this and they're pointing out what in my mind, and presumably in theirs, is a flaw in our structure. And I don't like that scenario. But I've had to learn over time to be okay with it and just say, yeah, you're right, we don't have that here. And if it's something we've looked into and decided not to do for a specific reason, I'll share that. I might not share the specific reason, but I might say, yeah, we've looked into that and it just doesn't work for us. Or you know what? No one's ever asked about that here before. I don't know whether it would be a good idea for us to have, but I'm going to look into it. If I'm going to look into it or.

And if you're going to say that, you better make sure you do it.

Then go do it. That's right, exactly.

Follow up. And even if your follow up is a negative, you'd be like, hey, I looked into this at this time, like using your 401k or retirement example, at this time, it's prohibitively expensive based on our size or whatever. And it's okay, your employees are going to respect that you followed up. Not if you just kind of blow them off and don't do anything that's not a good thing.

And even if you have researched it, that transparency of, yeah, I like that idea. I liked it so much. And you don't have to quite say it that way, but communicate. I liked it so much that we researched it and it turned out it's cost prohibitive or whatever, it doesn't work for our scenario. Health insurance was one of those things that was super difficult for us because we were almost always a remote working company and we certainly always had people in Multiple states to get health insurance, to get a company wide health insurance plan that covered everyone in every state was prohibitively expensive. It would cost double what anything else would cost. Yeah. And so like, I was, I know not every business owner was happy when ACA Obamacare kicked in, but I certainly was because it meant that I didn't. I would never have another scenario where an employee couldn't get covered on their own because of some pre existing condition. And then, you know, looked at me as though, well, you're not offering this here. What are my options? I was like, I don't have any options for you. And that sucks. And I remember having to have that conversation with someone like, yeah, I wish we could help you, but it just doesn't work for us to do that. And with aca, that went away and it was fantastic. I felt really, it was a great thing. It was such a relief. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, for some.

For some of us, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. Which was interesting because I didn't, I didn't entirely get it all the way through the process. I'm like, I'm not sure this makes sense. Then once it came out, it was like, oh, wait, actually, this brings a huge benefit for us.

Yeah, that's awesome.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I think that, you know, also, like, you're talking about adjusting policies and procedures is great, but don't get too wrapped up in responding to every request like it's a crisis or a problem you have to solve. One of my topics, your next thing is, you know, watching for those trends. If you keep hearing if more and more people are asking for healthcare or 401k, you're like, okay, well maybe, let me. Maybe we really do need to figure this out. So watch for those trends. I always like to say you need to be a voyeur at your own company because I guarantee you, all of your employees are, and they're all watching the way you do things and they're watching other employees. And I think it's important to watch how people interact with each other, especially different demographic, different age groups. We had a situation where years ago, in our warehouse, which was staffed by a bunch of young people, they were kind of throwing around words and language that they didn't put a lot of importance to. But every time I walked out there and I heard somebody, you know, cussing or swearing or joking around, I could almost see a few of the older, you know, technicians cringing when they would hear that. And so I sat everybody down and I said, look, this is not good for you. These words do have meaning. Everybody values them differently. So I wrote up this one page contract of respect. We're not going to talk to each other this way. We all signed it and everybody understood it when I explained it and I said, look, we have some people here that you could drop an F bomb and they would laugh and doesn't matter. You could call somebody something and they would laugh about it. Other people are really going to take offense at it. And so we just cannot have those kinds, you know, we can't talk about that. There are talk like that while we're here. So looking at people, that's assessment. Getting out, walking around, seeing how things are going is really important. And it comes back to that connection. I think the key to all of this is having a connection, you or your managers with your people. And it's got to be real because people can smell the BS a mile away if you're not sincere about it and you should want to connect with your people. That's one of the whole reasons to start a company is to build, build this great team around.

It's the most amazing part. And quite frankly, it is at least currently the thing I am missing the most. And I am missing it terribly from the team and the family that we built at Mac observer because I'm sure if I asked they would let me join the daily staff meetings. They would. But certainly it's not good for them trying to develop a new rapport and all of that to have Dave there. It might not come as a surprise to people listening to this show, but I often have things to say, right? So I'm rarely the quiet one in the room at these meetings. I can be somewhat dominant at times, but I miss those meetings. Especially during COVID when nobody was going anywhere. We all really relied on them. In fact, one of the things we did, we used to keep them. We had a policy that we have a daily standup so that everybody can just sync up with each other. But we had a hard 15 minute limit on that because there were many days where there were six or seven people at this meeting. You multiply that by 15 minutes, you're talking hours of time burned. And so we would be really efficient about it. Within about a week of lockdown happening In March of 2020, we decided and explicitly stated that we were lifting the 15 minute limit on the meetings. Nobody had anywhere to go, you know, and at times we each, you know, separately on different days. We each needed just that time with people that we knew and trusted and liked and all of that and, you know, meetings rarely went a half hour, but sometimes they'd go 45 minutes, but most days they were 20, 25. And it was okay. It was, you know, it was the right thing at the time. And I think it really was a good thing for the company. It, you know, it. Everybody, like you said, everybody liked each other and that was a great thing. Yeah. But I miss it. It's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.

Yeah, yeah. So we would love, and we've talked a lot about this, this topic here today. We'd love to hear about how you manage different, you know, demographics, different age groups in your small business. Feedbackusinessshow Co. Also, join us in the small business support group BusinessShow Co Facebook. Share your stories so we can all help each other out to be successful in our small business.

Absolutely.

Thanks for joining us this week.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Thanks for, for letting me use this as a little bit of business therapy as my business life evolves. Awesome, man. Yeah, yeah, no, it's good. It's good. Thanks for hanging out with us, everybody. Thanks for checking out our sponsor, that's Shopify.com SBS and Keep Living that charmed life, eh?