Managing the Growth of your Business with Bryan O’Connell of Meras Engineering – SBS 63

The Small Business show, episode number 63 for Wednesday, April 20, 2016. Greetings, folks, and welcome to the Small business show at BusinessShow Co, the show about, by and for small business owners here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And in Lafayette, California, I'm Shannon Jean. How are you, sir?

I'm doing well, man. It's been. Yeah, it's been a good week.

Yeah. Yeah.

How about you?

Yeah, doing pretty good. You know, we're halfway over and having some awesome weather. Although we're supposed to get a little rain on Friday.

That's good for you.

Yeah, it's always good.

We've talked about that stuff. Yeah.

Yeah. Hey, today we are fortunate enough we've been on a roll with interviews lately. It's great. Nobody has to hear much from you or I.

That's right. We did skip tax day.

All.

We did.

We did. But you know what? A lot of what we said last year is totally relevant. So I think if anybody's interested in that, we'll put a link to last year's tax episode in the show notes for you.

Yeah, I don't think I've paid my taxes on April 15th in about 10 years because we always file for extensions.

But of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, sometimes that happens.

That's right.

In fact, often that happens.

That's it. Hey, well, so we're joined, speaking interviews joined today by Brian o' Connell from Maris Engineering. How are you, Brian?

Very well. How are you guys?

We're good, man, we're good. Thanks for hanging out with us today.

Yeah, well, thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

Yeah, we're excited to have you, too. So we want to start out by talking a little bit about your company, Maris, and tell us. Tell us a little bit about what you guys do and how you get started.

Okay, so our core business is water treatment. So we have two divisions to our company. We have an industrial water treatment division. Which would be the best way to describe it would be if you were a food manufacturer or a power plant or something like that. You use a significant amount of water throughout your process, whether it's for cooling or washing or cleaning or whatever it is. But we put additives in the water to, you know, prevent stuff like corrosion, keep your equipment lasting a long time, keep you from losing efficiencies, keep algae and bacteria from harming your efficiencies. And then on our industrial side, which is our newer business unit, we actually help large scale growing operations manage their water usage. And we do that by keeping their drip Irrigation systems running efficiently.

Oh, that's interesting. I definitely want to talk more about that. I'm a plant guy, so that's good.

Yeah, that's right. I forgot about that.

Yeah, that's really cool. I can remember working at a nursery having constant problems with. With the drip and the micro stuff and so.

So like those problems pictured on a 10,000acre almond ranch. And those are our ideal customers. Yeah, it's good stuff.

Yeah, that's totally cool. So how long have you guys been around?

So we started in January of 2004, so we're working on 12 and a half years at this point. That's great. Yep. Very, very. So. Quite a while. Yeah.

No, it's awesome, man. I commend you that 10 year mark is always a really important benchmark. I think.

It really is. Yeah. Yeah. We survived. It wasn't easy, so.

But yeah, it's always challenging.

It never.

Exactly.

Yeah, it's never easy. No. Anybody that tells you it's easy either wasn't paying attention or. Or is actually just lying.

Yeah. Well, they're probably a consultant.

Yeah, totally.

Well then, yeah, self serving. That's right. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

Each One of those 12 years has presented its own unique challenge. So. But it's been fun. I wouldn't have traded the experience for anything.

That's awesome. So did you work for someone else before you started the company?

So I did, yeah. So I graduated college in 96 in Atlanta, Georgia, and I went immediately to work for a company that built power plants. And so it's a unique type of power plant that's attached to a paper mill. So they use like a byproduct of the paper making process to make power. And that obviously involved a lot of water. So I got tired of traveling to these tiny towns where they put paper mills. At 23 years old, while all my buddies were back in Atlanta going to concerts and having fun, I was in tiny little towns in the middle of nowhere. So I knew that wasn't the long term job for me. But it was a good experience to kind of get out and meet a lot of people and get kind of my feet wet in the business arena. And I immediately attached to the water thing. It just always piqued my interest. And power plants use tons of water. And so then I was able to bridge that into a job that was in water treatment, which is kind of parallel to what we do now. But I did. I worked for another, like the largest specialty chemical company in the world for five years before starting Maris Engineering.

Nice.

I'm sorry. You see, I mean, you really combined these two things together, right. All your experience sort of came to this pinnacle of interest for you around water, and now there you go.

Well, it really did. And you know, there's like this whole technical aspect to it. But looking back on it, like, the reason I took that field service job right out of college is I've just always been fascinated and curious about how people interact and what motivates people. And that turned into like a real sincere and deep interest in selling and sales processes. And so that's kind of been my big interest is like, how selling really works from a consulting point of view is really adding value to somebody else's business has always fascinated me. But really. So the technical aspects have kind of shrunk over the years and the sort of interpersonal aspects have really grown for me. So cool.

You become a manager pretty quick.

Yeah.

You know, rolling out. And was your. Was your plan always to start your own business or did you just kind of. What was the impetus to go out on your own?

So. So the answer is no. I, my, I was never, you know, what, what you'd call the natural born entrepreneur. But I, I've always been very much involved in or interested in solving problems. It's really piqued my interest. You know, I was the kid that took my mom's toaster apart when I was 8 years old and Stu. And I've just always been interested in how things work. And when I was working for that really large chemical company, I thought I was going to work there forever. They had offered a really nice pension program. This, of course, this is like the late 90s when this stuff was actually out there. Right. And I thought, wow, I can work for this company for 25 years and retire in my early 50s. And this is fantastic. And then after I'd been there three years, and it was one of those classic vertically integrated sales organizations where the training was fantastic and the people were really good, the managers are great. So I was learning and really enjoying it. And then a series, they got bought and sold a series of times, went off and on the New York Stock Exchange. And when all that stuff happens, it's such rapid change that I knew I didn't want to be at that company forever. And at that point I decided if I just go get another job, I might have three fun years and be looking at this staring down the same situation again. But at that point I really thought, I want to put myself in the place where I can control my own destiny, win Lose or fail or whatever. I just wanted. I wanted it to be on my shoulders. And that was really the motivation to get going. I mean, that. And also the reality is that I didn't have children and, you know, my monthly expenses were so short that I could take risks without, you know, really being too stressed about it.

You know, it's interesting you bring up the, the transition that we saw in the 90s, right, from this concept of, like, pension is a perfect word. Right. Because it just doesn't really exist right now. But. But that'. It was like back then you took a job at a company and there was this hope that you could find your home there so that you could then be there for your entire career. And I think as that sort of shattered and melted away. And I guess for some of us, it shattered, and for some of us, it melted away. It depends on what scenario you were in. But that, I think, created a lot of entrepreneurs just like you described. You know, this wasn't your plan, but. Well, wait a minute. You know, it's not going to be any better over there or over there. Everybody's in the same boat. That's. That's very interesting.

Yeah, it was exactly that. And I mean, it was the experience of actually being unhappy and not liking how the next five, 10 years looked and then going on other interviews and feeling the exact same way. And I thought, okay, this is not really how I want to proceed. I want to control my own destiny. So, yeah, I mean, that was the point where I decided that. That entrepreneurship was something I was going to take a shot at.

Yeah, yeah, because. Because that was the only way you saw. To control your own destiny. Because previously you just say, well, I'll stay at this company. And that's my control. You don't have when that went away.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, my parents generation, my dad worked for the same company for decades and retired with them. And, you know, it was. It wasn't easy along the way, but I don't think he was actively ever looking for a job. Right, right.

Yeah. It wasn't part of the. It just wasn't part of the. The thought process on either side of the equation. Yeah, right.

I imagine those Freakonomics guys could run some really interesting parallels between the growth of entrepreneurship and the death of pensions and the benefit packages that used to be offered.

I'm guessing my story is not the anomaly.

You're not? No.

That's cool. Okay. So you made this transition, and I want to keep on this for a minute because this is right when you know, it could work or it could go sideways. You know, we've had folks on the show here that have gotten out there and then had to take a step back, you know, go get a job, because it didn't quite work the way they. They thought it would. So you're out there. Did you have any partners or were you on your own?

Yeah, so originally when the company started, I had two partners. And then in 2010, we bought out one of the partners. He wanted to go do something else, so. So we had three partners for the first, I guess seven, six. And then since then, it's been me and one other partner. We each own 50% of the business. Haven't had any investors or anything to date.

And what's your structure?

Are you. So we're a C corp. C corp.

Okay.

Yeah. And people ask me why, and it's because when I started the company, I looked it up online and I thought, hey, C Corp, there we go. You know, company, corporation, 400 bucks. I got a corporation. There we go.

I have one of those. And if I could go back and do it differently, I would do it differently. But, you know, a C corp can work fine.

Sure. It's been fine so far.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. If somebody ever purchases your business, that's where it can start to get dicey. Right. Because an asset purchase starts costing you too much in taxes and nobody really wants to buy stock. Right. Because now you're inheriting not just the assets, you know, the liabilities.

Yeah, you got those two.

It can get interesting. But there's also some tax benefits if you apply.

Right? For sure. Yeah, for sure.

I want to rewind a little bit. Shannon, you mentioned, and you and your current partner are 50. 50 how? And I'm not asking you to air your dirty laundry here, but I have one of those, too. In fact, this podcast is yet another one of those. Right?

Yeah.

How has that ever proven difficult to manage? Or did you guys know each other well enough when you entered into the 5050 portion of this evolution that. That, you know, that got you here, that. That it's okay.

So, yeah, I mean, we. We did know each other fairly well before we started, and then since then, we've obviously gotten to know each other a lot better. And. Yeah, I mean, it has not been smooth every step of the way, but, you know, we deal, like.

Yeah.

Every year, like I said, presents its own challenges. And as much as we see eye to eye and all the big picture stuff, we. We like to do things a little different way. And, you know, There is conflict from time to time, but it's been surprisingly low with us. There's, I'd say that like the really good things about our partnership is we're about the same age. Our, you know, we had, we started having children about the same time. So we kind of share. Our personal lives are almost parallel with a lot of, you know, just a lot of our day to day type stuff. And then kind of on the, on the business front, we both, we both kind of cut our teeth in the sales arena. So we both really understand or we're, you know, always continually learning to understand how to add value to somebody else's business. And I think that's, that's like the common thread there. And then as the business has grown now and have employees and have all this corporate structure in existence, I've taken over more of the selling role, the new customer acquisition in addition to being CEO, and then he's the coo, so he runs the operations, manages our warehouse and our office staff and our service team. And so we kind of meet there and overlap a little bit in the middle. I think we both kind of share the same work ethic and we have the same kind of long term plans. So yeah, we have problems from time to time, but we've never really had trouble working them out.

With your employees in particular, I would assume since you're talking about it here and since you're talking about it here, they're going to know, but I would assume that they know that you guys are 50, 50 in this. Has there ever been a time where unintentionally you've suggested something that sort of goes against maybe what your partner has told them and now you leave your employees again, unintentionally in this scenario of well, which parent do I follow today?

Yeah, that's been an issue from time here and there over the last couple years we've really worked to address that sort of. At our quarterly meetings, we present an org chart that shows specifically who reports to who and how. Even these, you know, there's always, there's the, what I'd call the org chart and then there's kind of like the political org chart where I might know somebody really well that reports to him. And so there has to be other conversations had, but there certainly has been issues like that and there's been confused employees. But I think for the most part people see us getting along really well and you know, we kind of give each other the benefit of the doubt. So I think it's never caused, you know, an employee that we wanted to keep to leave or anything like that, you know, so, yeah, no, I was.

Just more curious about if you dealt with that and then how you. How you solve it going forward. And, and I like that you're, you know, intentional about the org chart in that way. Just sort of embracing the. Not the problem, but embracing the situation and then just dealing with it that way so that everybody knows before there's, ever, you know, an issue or whatever, then it's dealt with. That's smart. That's good because that's.

And it's.

Partners are going to deal with as you're, you know, it's easy when it's just the two of you. As the business grows, it really can take. A 50, 50 partnership can take a toll on your employees, especially if they're both active partners.

Yeah, it really can. I mean, I know a lot of other business owners and typically 50, 50 partnerships do not pass the test of time, you know, due to one reason or another. But, you know, so far, so far we've done really well. I mean, I think even the stuff that he takes care of, of that I don't have time to take care of, I just trust that it gets done and it gets done and it's, you know, it is. We're very fortunate in that way. But I think a lot of it just gets back to we're kind of at the same phase of our careers and personal lives, and we both want to kind of, you know, work as much as we can, you know, over the next 10, 15 years, and really build some value. And that's really where we find that common ground.

That's key.

Yeah, I think that's some great advice. When you're thinking about a partnership and no matter what structure you're in, where are you each in, you know, the stage of your life? And because thinking back, you know, partnerships that have kind of gone sideways, you know, with me often are related to that. You know, I had some older guys that, you know, are great guys, but at a certain point they stopped wanting to grow and invest in the business. And I was, you know, 30 years old and ready to, you know, ramp it up. And they were just kind of ready to slow down and relax, and we wound up up going separate ways. So I think that's great advice is to really step back and look at where you are before you enter into.

That partnership and make sure you have a good buy, sell agreement and stuff. I've known a lot of people that have made those mistakes, and it's never pretty, so.

Yep, yep. And do you, do you guys have like key man insurance for.

We do, yeah. So we, so we. Yeah, we've probably about five years ago, we, you know, we worked with an agent, got all that stuff covered. So like, if anything ever happened to me, the company has money to replace me. And you know, my family obviously gets taken care of with the equity in the business and stuff like that. But you know, once the company got to the size where we had a little bit more cash flow, we started putting those things in place. Just it gives us security.

So smart to take the time and do that, man. Because it, because that's the time when you think, oh, we don't need it. Think, look, things are going well. We've had more money than we ever had. Why would we. Yeah, we don't need to worry about that.

Well, we have an exceptionally exceptional cfo. She's very experienced and has, you know, worked with partnerships before and you know, it's kind of given us the playbook and pulled us aside and straightened us out when we're, when we're going astray. So that's great.

Awesome to have that kind of coach around.

Yeah, yeah, it's cool.

So when you, what point, when you started the company did you start to feel like, okay, you know, hey, this could be a really, a viable business. We're making some headway here. Was there a significant event or would it just kind of over time?

So interestingly enough, so we, we're really classified as a specialty chemical company. So if you're a customer of our selling you a drum or a tote, like a 55 or a 275 gallon container of some special product that is our recipe that you're going to add to your system and it's going to solve your problems if it's done correctly. So originally when we started out, everything was contract manufactured. So it's one of these things where we really didn't need any economies of scale to get started. So we just literally on day one, it was the briefcase in hand and knocking on doors and, and trying to find problems we can solve. And then we'd have our vendor put together our recipe and ship it to the customer. So really the first four or five years, it was more like a consulting job. Right. So it was, hey, you know, it was a lot of cold calling. It was a lot of, you know, trying to use my network to meet people in manufacturing and other things like that. And once, once we, we would get a customer, you. It's it's really, they're sticky customers. It's a lot of repeat business. If you show that value day after day, they want to keep you around and keep from you. So it really, I would say, you know, I didn't, I didn't get a paycheck for the first 18 months. But a lot of that was, you know, all the money we got had to go to getting like insurance and we didn't have an investor. So it was really bootstrapped. But I was prepared to do that. But then like once we started getting paid and it was, I would say it was like the two to three year point when I had enough of, we had enough of customer base where, you know, we were, we were making an income where I could pay my mortgage and have a car and buy groceries and save a little money. I knew at that point I felt like I could do that as long as I wanted. Sort of not necessarily an independent consultant, but really being in charge of acquiring customers, keeping customers. I would go out with test kit in hand and actually run all these tests for people and stuff like that. So I would say the short answer to the question, it was pretty early. I would say that two to three year point I knew if I could do this the rest of my career. And then after a few more years of that acquiring more customers, I got really, really busy and I thought, okay, why don't I just keep acquiring customers and I'll hire people to help fill in all these calendar items that I can't take care of. And then we proceeded over the next couple years to prematurely scale the business and, you know, how'd they sell this? Yeah, it worked out really good. This is where we get to the big mistake section. No, but anyway, I mean that was, but what we really did was we thought this was much easier than it really was. And you know, hiring people and thinking, you know, and we've hired great people and we've been very lucky in that regard. But you know, at the end of the day, like for employees, it's really a job for me. This is my life and I can't expect anybody else to care about this stuff as much as I do. And so that, that was. So I would say early on, yeah, I knew I could do this for a career. Then at that four or five year point I got really concerned because I thought, okay, do really know what I'm doing here or is it time to back up? But at that point I started seeking out help and I joined like a peer group and found out that Everybody else does the same thing, and so was able to kind of spend three, four years working through it. That's cool. But, yeah, very interesting process, though.

So, yeah, so let's. We're not going to let you get off the hook on this one.

Yeah, yeah.

Let's talk about this premature scaling.

Yes.

So you're going. Things are just really doing well. And of course, as most young business people, I'm doing this exact same thing. You think, well, the only good thing is more business.

Right?

Correct. So walk us through kind of how that came about with you guys, and how did you solve that problem?

Well, what caused the problem was, I think it was my personal mindset that, okay, we built what I would call a successful business from the standpoint that it was steady. Our customers are staying with us. We were adding new customers every year, we were paying all our bills on time, we were making a little money, but then taking that and saying, okay, well, pushing it to the, you know, getting, you know, going from a $5 million company to a $20 million company. We just have to do this four times. Right? That's right. But really, I'm sorry, Just multiply.

Yeah, just multiply.

It's easy.

No, well, but that. You need a little bit of that ignorance or for lack of a better term. Right.

Delusion.

Delusion. Yeah, no, that's. That's. That's the right term. Delusion.

Yeah, exactly. And it's funny because we sit here and we laugh about it now because it's so obvious, but, like, at the time, I was leveraging everything I built and my own personal wealth and everything on really kind of just like a roll of the dice. It's pretty weird, but that is what happened. But it did create that experience where I will never do that again. So that's good. But really. So, like, to point out, like, that mindset was a big thing. The other thing is we didn't have solid financial oversight, so we would go out and hire people. Oh, this is a great salesperson. Let's hire this person, put them in a territory. They'll start turning cash the next year. But then I went on, just kept busy doing my own thing and realized three years later that we're just losing money on that stuff. When I joined this peer group and I started discussing the issues and we were having cash problems and I wasn't managing people, I was hiring people and not spending time with them, managing or training them and all this stuff, all the premature scaling things. But so in this peer group, I discuss this and the Group says to me, well, you need to go out and get a cfo. And I immediately go, I can't afford a cfo. And these guys don't know what they're talking about. Then three months go down the road, and eventually one of these guys pulled me aside and he said, look, if you don't have a CFO by the next time we meet, you are really not doing your job. And I thought, okay. I reached out to a recruiting agency and we paid a big recruiting fee to bring in somebody. And she turned out to be perfect. And this is a true story, and it's pretty funny. Like I said, we could not afford a cfo. She paid for herself in the first week. We were doing our taxes wrong, we were buying things incorrectly, we were paying our bills incorrectly. And it was one of those moments where I realized, if you try to do too much, you do everything half as good, and in this case, a fraction as good as we needed to. So now our cfo, we got lucky. We put a lot of trust in her. So if we go out and we do something and requires spending money, we're accountable to making that return on investment. Because even though I'm the CEO and half owner of the company, it is my responsibility to follow the lead of the person that knows the finances. So that part. That's probably a long answer to the question no. That's great, though.

How did you find this peer group? Because this is something. I mean, it's almost like you became each other's board of directors or.

I mean, it's. It's exactly that because, well, you know a little bit more about Maris. It's just, you know, two owners, we each have 50% stock. We have no board of directors, we have no oversight. You know, we don't have anything like that. Actually, it was a cold call. This. It was probably about the year 2000. Somebody. It's the alliance of CEOs that I'm in. It's a Bay Area based group with 400 CEOs. They called. They called the office when I was there, and, you know, somebody put me through and I just answered and I just started talking to this person. I'm like, you know, I need to have coffee. Coffee with you. And I went and had coffee with this guy three or four times. And then I went and sat in one of these groups. And, you know, it was one of those moments where I was, you know, because it's kind of a lonely job, right? Especially if you don't have a board of directors. And it's like, you know, I have my own personal wealth and all my sweat equity involved in this thing, and I don't know what I'm doing, you know, and I thought I went out and got an MBA and I thought that was going to do it, but that doesn't really teach you how to run a business and handle cash like you should.

Not in least.

Yeah, no, no. And, you know, I thought, hey, you get the mba, you know how to do this. And that wasn't the case at all. But this peer group's been, you know, it's been really good on many levels, but mostly it's, you know, it's a bunch of people that they put us in a group where the companies are of similar size and maturity level. So talking through these situations, it has saved years of time. Time and more dollars than I could ever count. So that's great, huh?

Very good advice.

Yeah, very good advice.

So we talk a lot about if.

We had one of those advisors.

Yeah, if we had one of those, Shannon, we wouldn't need each other.

That's right.

What happened to the radio show?

Yeah, that's it. Yeah. You got to have a sounding board. And here, you know, we often talk about it as your, your accountant, your banker, your insurance person, your attorney, you know, kind of roping them into. As those board of advisors, which is what I' done. But the peer group thing is great as well, or maybe more valuable because you're with other business owners that are going through similar things. And, you know, you can certainly get some advice from folks that like, you can now advise some of these other guys that are just talking about growth, growth and growth. And you can say, you know, hold on, partner, you know, what's, what's going on in your business first.

Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah. It's, it's been hugely valuable. I, you know, we, we would not be where we are today without that. That. Yep.

Wow.

That's good stuff.

That's really great. So that's, that's very nice. So let's talk about. How do you, you talked a lot about cold calling. I mean, is.

Yeah.

In networking, is that your primary method that you're marketing your company?

No. So we, we've tried various, we've tried various avenues of marketing, you know, like trade shows or advertising and industry specific newsletters. And I think all of those efforts and all that money we've spent has probably brought us a fraction of revenue and what we'. Spent. So one of the things I really learned over the last four or five years is that we've really worked on our culture just to be customer obsessed. And it's really everything we do is about delivering value for customers. And so our model is that our customers are so happy that they tell their friends. So at this point, 80% of our new customers come from direct referrals from our current customers, which, which is really working out to be a nice model for many reasons. And one is it's. We don't really even have a marketing budget. I mean we still do a couple of trade shows, but a lot of that is just to show our presence for our current customer base. And it, you know, it brings in something here or there. But our most, you know, our best customers that are getting the biggest value out of what we do and you know, our largest volume of revenue customers have all come from word of mobile mouth. So. So we're just like my job right now is just to focus the whole organization top to bottom. Being customer obsessed and really, you know, if we're not making our customers money, we do not want to do business with them. And that's the, that's the bottom line.

So yeah, that added value.

Right?

What, what do you really bring it to the equation. And we talk. Talk about that a lot.

Yeah. And it's one of those tough things because it's like that over abused. So everybody says that. Yeah. Right. But you know, we've, we've almost, we've turned over most of our company over the last three, four years and it's really because we want, we just want people that are there to serve. And it's really, you know, if, if people are selfish and concerned about their needs or their commission check, they're not really concerned about the customer's problems. And those people don't last with us.

Yeah, that, that customer obsession in, you know, the cash should follow that.

Right.

It's not.

Not. It sure does.

Going out to make my numbers and what are our quarterly numbers? It's really you, you turn it on its head and that's that. It sounds like you built this long term, you know, successful business around that and that. I think that's awesome.

Well, building, I would say we're, we're certainly not the, the house isn't finished yet. So.

Yeah. Yeah. No doubt if it'll ever be.

Right, right, exactly. It's, it's a never ending game. I'll never be satisfied. So that's, that's good.

Yeah, I like that. So, so, man, some really great information today. You know, if you could go back when you were Just getting started and, you know, putting all your effort in all your time and everything. What is that one bit of advice that you would, you know, tell yourself 12 years ago that would make your life easier along this path?

So that's a really good question, by the way. You know, so my. My dad was always into woodworking, and when I was a kid, I'd be in the workshop and I'd always be trying to build stuff. And his. His saying, always measure twice, cut once. And the advice I would give myself 12 years ago is to actually slow down a little bit and think through. Just spend a little more time thinking through the decisions that I'm making, even the goals I'm setting for myself and my vision for the future, because I've been more of a cut first, measure second type of thing. And that's where I got myself into premature scaling and other stuff like that. It really is. And then today, as much as I'm very busy, I work a lot, I'm on the road a lot, but I try to go slow with everything I do, and that just involves me stopping. And even if I take a minute of silence to just really step back and think about what I'm doing, I make better decisions. And then if I make a bad decision, I'm not kicking myself as hard because I know at least it wasn't something I rushed through, through and, you know, didn't think through.

So, yeah, it is great advice. I. I do want to point out, I do think that there is value often in that not being afraid to, you know, cut first without measuring, as long as you can fix it on the back end. If you. If you make that mistake, you do pay the price for it. But I think part of an entrepreneurial skill, which I think you certainly have, is, okay, I made the decision, I'm going to be accountable. How do now, how do we make the best of it and move on? Because you learn a lot from that.

Well, it's a balance, right? I mean, you can certainly, you can look back, and I think we all can. In fact, everybody listening probably can and say, oh, wow, I rushed that one. I rushed that one. I rushed that one. But don't tell yourself to wait too long because. Because, you know, not making a decision is far, far worse than making the wrong one.

Yep, I agree 100%. I definitely always that all the time. All the time, you know, so that's. That's great, man. Really excellent advice. And we love having you on to, you know, share your journey here. I had a ton of More stuff. We're kind of running up against the clock a bit. I don't want to keep you too long, but, you know, we'll have to have you back on, on, you know, down the road and check in with you from time to time and, and see how. How things are going. Dave, you have any other questions for Brian?

I. Well, I mean, I like you. I can probably sit here for another hour easily, but we'll save that for another time. It's.

Yeah, that's a good thing. So.

So, Brian, what's the best way for people to learn more about your company?

So if you just go to maris.com so M as in Mary E R A. But yeah, we would love to have you check out the website and drop us a line. I'm on LinkedIn and all those places. But thanks so much for having me on the show, guys. That was a lot of fun and I'd love to do it anytime. So feel free to reach out to me.

Awesome.

Awesome.

Great.

Hey, Shannon, we have a little bit of news to tell people about how to contact us and where to contact us, don't we?

We do. We do. We finally got the Facebook page all set up and now you can go to facebook.com businessshow co just like our web address and take part in the conversation up there. We're doing a lot more activity and talking about some good stuff that we'd love to have you join in.

And we're business show co on Twitter as well. It's all finally in sync. Thank you for. For making that happen, Shannon. That was.

No worries.

That was yeoman's work, I think.

But yeah, that's good.

Good stuff.

We'll see you. I. I was going to say would normally at this point we tell everybody where to contact us, but we've already done that. So we'll see you next week. It's how it's going to work.

Take care, everybod.