Overcoming Adversity – Bryan O’Connell from Meras Water Solutions – Small Business Show 217

The Small business show episode 217 for Wednesday, April 3, 2019 greetings folks and welcome to the Small Business show here at BusinessShow Co the show BFA Small Business. And here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And out on the west coast I'm Shannon Jean. How are you, Dave?

I'm good man. How are you?

Good, I'm fantastic. Good, good. I'm always looking forward to days when we record. I always get to talk and connect with the world, which is something I really enjoy.

Yeah, same good stuff.

Yeah. Hey, and we're kind of, we're starting to do a series where I'm reaching out or back out to folks we had on the show in the past few years as we get, you know, well over the 200 episode. And today I'm really happy to have another guest here that we had, you know, just about three years ago. Brian o', Connell. He joined to talk us, talk to us about managing growth in a fast growing company. His business, Maris Water Solutions. And I'm really happy to go back and check in and see how things are going and thank you for coming back on the show, Brian.

Dave, Shannon, thanks for having me back. It's hard to believe it's been three years, but lots of updates to share. So I'm excited to get going.

Yeah, that's awesome. You sound great too. You must been practicing. I listened to the show the other day just to kind of get familiar before. I sent you some questions and stuff and I think we've all polished up a little bit. I don't know if our listeners would agree, but anyway, so for our listeners that didn't hear your 2016 appearance, which we will link in the show notes, give us a little background on Maris, what you guys do there and how you got started in the business.

Okay. Yeah. So Maris Water Solutions, we are an industrial and agricultural water treatment company. Basically we sell specialty chemicals that our customers add to their to their water systems to achieve goals like operating efficiency or making your equipment last a really long time, basically helping your process and your efficiencies and ultimately making our customers business is more profitable. So the company was originally founded back in 2004. So we celebrated our 15th anniversary at a big party in January, which was a great time.

Congrats.

Yeah, yeah, thank you very much. Still going strong. But you know, I have lots of good adversity stories to share which is I believe the theme of the day. So let's just say in 15 years I have a few battle wounds and a few Scars to show for it, but still going strong and enjoying every day.

That's killer. So tell, tell us about your typical customer. I mean are you in the agricultural business? Industrial or both? I mean anybody that uses water, how does it work?

Yeah, so most of what we do is in the agricultural space. And a typical customer for us is a large growing operation. So say a 5 to 10,000 acre almond orchard where they count water in acre feet, which is three acre feet is a million gallons. So they use a massive amount of water, but for all for a great purpose, to grow food. And with that, most of that water is delivered through drip irrigation systems, much like you and your listeners probably have at their house. And these drip irrigation systems will plug up with mineral deposition or bacteria, algae. Every system is totally different. But we put additives in the water that actually prevent those things from happening or we can remediate and actually recapture efficiency that's lost. So for example, if you have a plugged emitter that that almond tree is not getting any water and it's also not getting any of the inputs, the fertilizers, the beneficial nutrients, etc. So there is a really good business proposition to what we do. But it, it is a very challenging operations and logistics business to say the least.

Yeah, I bet, I bet. And is most of your business in California or are you outside of California as well?

So we do, you know, we have the industrial side I didn't really go into, but we do have some global customers on our industrial side. Our agricultural side is almost totally based in California. We have worked in Canada, Mexico, Nevada, Arizona. But 90 plus percent of what we do is right here in California where about 60% of the food grown in the United States is grown right here in California. So we don't have to travel far to find customers. So it's a good setup.

That's a huge statistic. 60% of the food is grown in California.

Yeah, that's crazy.

I can see almonds, but other stuff too, that's wild.

Oh, it's almonds, pistachios, walnuts, broccoli, berries on down the list. I mean California leads in 50 different categories of foods. So yeah, there's plenty of business out here.

No, that's great. And yet there's a great story how you got started. You can go back and listen to that from when you came on in 2016. I thought that was great. But I do. As you alluded to, we talk about adversity on the show all the time and how being able to, you know, power through adversity really is coupled with how successful, you know, you could, you could be. Every single small business owner we've had on this show, Dave and I included, have been through really, you know, what are awful situations at the time that you have to figure out how to get through. You have to really have some high levels of fortitude. And what I wanted to talk to you about a little bit about today, see if we can get some high level stuff, examples and maybe what you've been through. But would you agree that that is a critical skill set as a small business owner to develop?

I mean, absolutely, because just in the 15 year existence of our business, we originally started the company with two other people. Neither one of those guys is within the company anymore. I can create a long list for you of things that we faced along the way that you know it, when you're going through it and you're in my shoes, it can seem like the world's collapsing around you. But then, you know, you got to look for ways to motor through and push through and just think that tomorrow is going to be a better day. I think for me personally, I've gotten to the point, you know, we all have strengths and weaknesses and I think self assessment to me is probably one of the hardest things to do, to just be honest enough and open enough to look at yourself. But it, if I do have any strength, I have what I call the ability to sleep at night. And that's, you know, just the go home, put it to the side and get some rest and go back at it tomorrow. So I've been very fortunate in that. And probably, it's probably half due to just the way I'm built and the other half is just because I've, I deal with that on a routine basis. So you kind of have to get good at it if you're going to enjoy what you do. Yeah.

You know. Yeah. Self awareness or as you called it, self assessment. I couldn't agree more. Like as I, as I sort of march through my, my career life or life career, I'm not sure what the right term is. Right. Because our lives and. But anyway, as we, as I march through that, I find that the business partners and employees, even that, and, and you know, vendors and all of that, the ones that I work best with are the ones that really do that self assessment and are honest with themselves at some level. And we all try, we all also lie to ourselves, you know, in many, many ways. But, but if we can break down at least some of those walls, that's a, that's a good thing because you got to be able to look. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I also find it challenging too, is, is say you're. Whatever you're doing, it's a project, you're trying to get a new account or you're trying to reorgan you're doing something and it takes a lot of your time and energy and you have to want it to work so bad to do a good job at it and then it just might not work. And then, you know, how do you balance the. Okay, I put everything I had into this for three months and it was a complete failure. Right. And so you have to into these things with that, that level of energy and attention to detail and desire to win, but you have to fully understand that this might be beyond a waste of time.

Yeah.

And that's a wild thing to balance.

Yeah, yeah. Very difficult to. I always struggle with that too. It's like, okay, when do I throw in the towel or shift it pivot or something else? And because I'm always really self critical of like, you know, is this a failure? You know, that's a, a good skill set to have. And one to that I think is very challenging.

Right, for sure.

So we talked about partnerships and corporate structure and stuff the last time you were here. You alluded to it a couple of minutes ago. Has that changed in the past three years? And if it did, how did that go down?

Yeah, so yeah, and just to back up another step was before coming on this show, I started listening to the last time I was on and at first I thought, man, it's only been three years and I don't know how much has changed. And I started listening to that episode three years ago and I just couldn't help but laugh a number of times because yeah, there's. Things are wildly different, most of it for good, but yeah. So to answer your question, when I did the last show three years ago, I was in a 5050 partnership with another person. We worked together as business partners for over 13 years and then came to a point where it was time to part ways. And that was a very diffic thing to go through just from a business sense because this had been somebody that I'd gone through a lot of strikes and gutters, for lack of a better term. But we had been through a lot. We had grown the company from 0 to 10 million over a course of about four years. Things were flying and it was really fun and we made a bunch of mistakes along the way, but we were able to work through it together. And then we just got to a point where it wasn't working anymore. You know, when you have a lot of employees in the balance and a lot of customers in the balance and this 5050 ownership, you know, it was a tough thing to maneuver and it took really an entire year to resolve it, but we were able to resolve it and, you know, maintain an amicable relationship. And he's over running another company now in a similar space and doing pretty well. So I think, you know, it was the best for all involved. But it, you know, to the topic of this show was a daily exercise and, you know, like dealing with reality, you know, really needing to be honest with people in the company and tell them what was going on, knowing that it was not going to make them feel better about working at Maris. Right. But it was very important just to be transparent and honest to the extent that I could. But I think that also was something that helped me get through it a little easier, was to be a little bit more open than I had been in the past, a little more transparent. And, you know, with some people it went great. With others it didn't go so great. But, you know, at the end of the day, at least, you know, I feel like I handled it in a way where I let everybody, you know, make their own judgment on what was happening. So that's great.

Was there anything that you did prior to, you know, going into this 50, 50 partnership that helped when this, you know, situation came up, or, and I'll phrase another way, was there something that you wish you had done that could have helped it when you had to do this separation? Yeah.

So along the way, we, you know, being in business for 15 years, and like I said, we've had various periods of good and bad results, but over the years, we were able to build out certain things that did make this something that could be done, basically, such as we had, within our buy sell agreement, we had very clear, predetermined rules about how something like this would go down, which, of course it didn't cover everything, but at least it gave us the framework to start that discussion and move it forward. We obviously did not think of everything. I mean, it took a year. When I say it took a year, it was actually 14 months. We obviously. And a lot of it wasn't all bad. I mean, we were working together to try to sort through some things, and it was good days and bad days, but we made really good progress. And, you know, it's one of those. We actually sat down we spent several days, but we came to an agreement of dividing assets and kind of rules of the game going forward without any attorneys in the room, which was, I think, pretty. Yeah, I mean, and that, I think in itself would just kind of was speaking to the relationship that we had, because this, this separation was not about trust or anything else. It was just about, you know, some. Just issues that could not be overcome. And with, you know, a lot of employees and customers in the balance, it's. Neither one of us was willing to put all that at risk.

Got it?

Yeah. Yeah. There's a. Answer your question. There's hundreds of things we thought of along the way that we should have and could have done differently. But really, when I look back on the end of the day, it was the right decision. It was tough, but it really. When there's a lot of people depending on you to do your job and do it well, that was the biggest concern. And I think at the end of the day, we have employees. We have a stable employee base still to this point.

Nice.

It wasn't perfect, but I think we did handle it well.

Yeah, that's, that's. There's so much to learn going through those things, and when you have to make those partnership adjustments, a lot of it, you just, you just can't learn until you actually go through it. It's a, It's a challenge and so much personal stuff wrapped up in it as well. So. Let me ask you a question. We've talked off air and stuff for, you know, we both had some legal issues. I think any, any small business owner among time.

If you're.

We've talked about it a lot on the show, too.

Yeah, we. We have, we have. And, and, you know, so I, I know you've been through some things and we don't need to, but again, it's that, you know, I know there are listeners out there right now. You know, we have thousands of small business owners that are hanging on your every word that. And some of them are going through that right now. You know, some huge corporate, you know, giant coming after them for something crazy or another business owner. You just never know a customer. When you went through that legal process, is there a few tips that you could share that you learned and, you know, that helped you get through that stuff?

Yeah, well, I mean, my, my experience was. Was pretty wild. And we actually got sued for patent infringement by a company that, you know, was much larger than we are. And it was a typical business dispute where I thought we were right. They thought they were right. And over the course of four years, it escalated and you know, we found ourselves in an actual trial in Los Angeles county and, and got weirder from there. But we went through one week of trial. Our trial attorney, the first weekend of the trial actually had a heart attack. He resides in Manhattan, a great guy. But obviously we had to postpone the trial for six more months. So we went through this whole exercise of preparing for this trial and of course we thought we were right and we were going to go in there and win and all these kind of things. And then the guy that we had spent six months preparing with has literally a near death experience and he's across the country from his wife and his children. And it just, it was one of those situations where it couldn't get any crazier. So it got crazier, right? And at the end of the day it was like. So we had this six month period where I just went back to work and I was doing my regular routine, but in the back of my mind the whole time it's okay. There is this thing that we need to address down the road. But like I was telling you earlier, it's that I think I've had a lot of practice at practicing the adversity. And I had, this is probably 20 years ago, my first job out of college. There was somebody, I didn't really like the job that much due to just silly reasons, but one of the more senior guys at the company, he just pulled me aside and I didn't even ask him for advice or anything. And what he said to me was, he goes, hey, Brian, you know, things are never as good or as bad as they seem. And at the time I didn't really get it. Right? I didn't really get it. I kind of just said like, okay, that's, you know, that's interesting, right? But then as time, as time goes on and you know, I have that little voice in my head that talks to me all the time and hopefully more times than not gives me good advice, right? But it's really something where, you know, you could be flying high for a month, business is doing well, you're breaking your sales records, you're getting new customers, whatever it is. And the next month it could be completely opposite, but for me, I can look at this as a 15 year journey at this point and I can point to tons of peaks and valleys, but it's absolutely true. I mean, as much as I was had a lot of anxious times waiting for us to go back to trial and ultimately trying to figure out what was going to happen. It really wasn't that bad. Honestly. My biggest concern was just for the, for the employees that, you know, they, they, they go to work every day and, and work hard and they depend on me to make good decisions. And I, I think the fact that I might have ultimately let some people down was probably the biggest stress causer for me. But again, it wasn't as bad as it seems. Looking back. I, I actually wouldn't trade that experience for anything because it, it, it really, you know, it taught me how to maintain and, you know, take things in stride. Good or bad.

Yeah, that's great.

What a great phrase, man. Things are never as good or as bad as they seem. God, it, it is so true.

It is so true. And then I, I did, I mean another like really quick story along this is along the, the advice of dealing with adversity was I got just randomly and this was probably 12 years ago, I got to go see, it was like the College Football hall of Fame and they had five college football coaches up on this panel asking them all these questions, right? And they asked this one, and these are big name coaches, right? They asked this one coach and they said, like, you know, how do you deal with these, you know, like 19 year old kids that are already famous and all that, you know, and it was just about, how do you, how do you manage that? And his response, he didn't really answer the question, but what he did say was he said, you know, I coach kids that their high school and their neighborhoods, they grew up and they were the best athletes that's ever been there. And then they come to our Stage and there's 100,000 people watching and millions of people, people on TV and, and they give up a touchdown or they get run over and we're down 21 nothing in the first quarter. And they come to the sidelines and their eyes are all wide open and they don't know what to say. And, and so they said, all right, coach, what do you tell these guys? And he said, I always point at the clock and I say, look, you know, there's still 45 minutes left in this game. They're still keeping score. We can either decide to keep playing or we can stop right now. What do you want to do? You know, and like in the back of my mind, a lot of times I keep thinking, you know what, I could have a bad day, it could hurt bad, I could be riddled with anxiety. But we're still keeping score. Like there's still a business to run. There's still customers to take care of, there's still operations to improve, you know, and it really, the more you let that kind of anxiety take hold, the worse you're going to do at your job. And that's just a fact, right?

Yeah, that's right. Totally.

Yeah.

People, you focus on it too much. And I hear a lot of what you're saying to me is like keeping things in perspective.

Right.

And you still love other customers. You know, you have this problem hanging out there, but you're going to take care of it. And you know, and it sounds like you're able to go work things out, you know, and settle that, you know, legal stuff and move on and be successful. So I commend you for that.

It's a big deal. Thank you. It wasn't easy, but like I said, you know, I told you earlier, I have this ability to sleep well, night and half of it, I think is just because I've had to practice it so much.

So yeah, that's a huge deal. And, and I don't think you can put too, too, you know, find a point on that. Being able to disconnect, relax, you know, with your family and not be so stressed. And I would say that, you know, I know a lot of people that have been through different partners and the, and the ones that are always there at the end I think are good at that. It's like, okay, well, I'll figure it out. But now I'm gonna go, you know, chill and have a beer and relax for a while. Yeah, that's cool.

Yeah, it'll be here tomorrow. Whatever, whatever you need to. You don't want to get into a habit of procrastination either, but there are moments where you're like, you know what, I can't stress about this all the time because that's not productive. Right. You learn where it's productive to be focused and stressed and where it's productive to be. And, and as long as you can maintain that balance and you don't wind up becoming, you know, to, to take Shannon's example to, you know, an extreme, you don't wind up becoming, you know, a non functioning alcoholic or anything. Like, yeah, you gotta be, you have to be. You know, to go back to what you said earlier about self awareness and self assessment, like, you gotta be able to look at that too. But there really is a balance because working too much or, and focusing and stressing too much about it that often doesn't give you the time to decompress and come up with Those creative solutions to the problems that are inevitably going to be there.

Yeah, yeah, that's a great point, Dave.

Yeah, that's for sure. All right, so let's get on to some other positive topics. Well, they're all positive, but when you came on the show a few years ago, you talked about a group called the alliance of CEOs that you joined that help you a lot. Can you talk about, about, you know, are you still involved with them and you know, if there's pros and cons and you know, connecting, you know, with a group like this, Just, just a little overview.

Yeah, definitely. So, yes, I'm, I'm still involved. I go to one meeting a month and so it's usually, you know, it's a kind of short six hour day and there's usually about six to 10 CEOs from various industries sitting around a table. And so I'm assigned to a group where I'm with the same you6 to 10 people every month and none of them do anything similar to what I do. So it's, you know, we have people that do, you know, business intelligence dashboards for Fortune 500 companies, email marketing and biofuels, all kinds of various industries. But the, the thing I love about, about that forum is that we all have the same problems. And it, and I even say the exact same problems because it, you know, whether it's, you know, organizational execution of strategy or even building a strategy in the first place, we all seem to struggle or look for help with, with the same things. And so having that, it's also a, it's very confidential. So you can go in there and you know, it's like going to your psychologist, you can, you can kind of say anything and, and you're pretty vulnerable. It's also led to some really good personal relationships. And I think that's the reason. But it is something I look forward to. Once a month I always have a list of five to ten things that I can't wait to talk about and get advice on. And I've been going since, I think this is my ninth year. I think I started in 2010. And I mean, it's one of those situations where I can point to 10 times where I had these just really eye opening experiences where it's just, hey, I've got the wrong person in this role. But I can never get rid of them because they do too much for me. And then I would bring that up in the group and everybody would laugh at me like, yeah, I did that last year. I did that Last year I did that too. And I did this and I did. Yeah, you just, you know, you just got to kind of deal with it. And it, it's, it's just interesting because you're, you know, my job, it's, it's a pretty lonely job. Right. It's, you know, I'm a CEO of a mid sized company with no board of directors, no investors. So it's really, you know, I think the, a lot of the success and failure rests on my shoulders. Sure. And having a, you know, that confidential avenue where I can really bounce ideas off people, it has saved me. I know we talked about this three years ago, but I could not add up how much time and money it has saved me being able to really bounce those ideas off people.

Yeah. We talk about getting a board of advisors, even informal one, or something more formal like this, and I can't stress enough how much. Same kind of thing you got to have somebody talk to, especially when you're running things and there's just not a lot of people around. You share everything with and, and have other people look at you and say, oh, I had that same problem.

Right.

Even though it's a totally different business, all business owners are facing, you know, similar issues and coming up with, you know, unique ways and different solutions.

That's great.

How did you find this group, Brian? This is what. Because I'm sure our listeners, a lot of them are sitting there thinking, I want that. So how do I get that right? That's, that's, that's, that's the question.

Right. I would love to tell you I sought them out, but no, we actually, we received a cold call at the office one day when I was there and ended up talking to this person. We had coffee a few times. I sat in on a meeting and I got a lot out of that first meeting and just kept going. And there's the alliance of CEOs I'm in. It's really only a Northern California Bay Area type organization, but there's a number of them. There's one called Vistage that I think is all across North America that has thousands of CEOs and execs, but there, there are a lot of avenues for those types of group settings out there. The alliance of CEOs in the Bay Area is really good though.

That's great.

Cool.

Thanks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Very good. So what do you, what do you think you're the next great challenge for Maris is what, what is there anything on your radar is like, okay, if we just solve this one thing we'd be, you know, more successful or hat whatever, you know. What, what's, what's your, your next challenge?

Challenge? So really, the, the next challenge is, is capitalizing on opportunities. And, you know, we're, I've kind of described to you at a high level what we do. Well, well, now we're entering this, this arena where, you know, potentially the, the value for what we can do for people is, is magnified. And I don't know if you're familiar with, was it the week of Thanksgiving last year, there was no romaine lettuce anywhere in North America. And it was because, you know, these waterborne got onto, onto the leafy greens and some people got sick from E. Coli. Well, the products that we put into irrigation water actually do kill and remove these pathogens from the water. So now, you know, there's regulations on the books coming up where people are going to have to adopt some of the programs that we implement. So basically we're going from what is already a pretty big market where, you know, it's very nice to sell things to people that allows them to grow more of their crops. Then it's something else to enter this kind of, you know, human health and safety arena, which obviously hits a different part of the budget and level of importance. But, but for us, what it means is we have to execute every time, you know, because it's not, you know, if we were to do a bad job in an almond orchard, they might not get the yields they wanted. But if you did a bad job in a food safety arena, you know, people could get sick. It's a really severe, it's very serious deal. So, so what, what, what I've done is really invested a lot in IT and technology really, to have processes, procedures in place, not only to have like a trained staff that knows what to do, but to be able to have a dashboard that knows, all right, are we getting to these places? We're getting from point A, from point A to point B in the right amount of time. Are our customers happy with what we're doing? What does the data output look like? So that's been a real big move over the last year, is getting a strength. And we are going to be a techno technology company that is excellent at logistics. That's the mission now. And really it's to be able to capitalize on these, these new markets that are opening up and they're opening up really fast, so.

Oh, that's cool, man. That's great. That sounds like an exciting time. And, and Certainly, you know, we need, you know, companies like you to solve those problems with this massive distribution and growing of food to, you know, take care of everybody. So.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's, you know, and my job's fun. It's, it's great. I love helping people and helping their businesses and I get to meet, you know, wonderful people all over the place. But, you know, if you're actually making food safer, you know, it's, it's kind of that, you know, extra layer of meaning that we're always looking for that, you know, can sometimes be hard to find, but it's something that really excites our, our entire company. And, you know, we've got some very large scale pilot testing going on and things are looking really positive, but there's, you know, we have to be strong at technology. There is no room for error in this field. But that's an exciting problem to solve. So.

Sure. No, that's cool. One thing I hear you say over and over in different ways is that, you know, your whole business kind of revolves around adding value and helping other businesses make more money, increase their yield, be more efficient. Is that something that you, you constantly focus on, you know, with your, you build your culture, your business, especially like with new people when they come work for you or have you found that it, if you find the right person, they kind of get it and, and they can run with that concept.

Yeah. So that one's difficult to explain. But I, so when I interview people or I look for people to be on what I call the front lines, which are the customer facing people, and it's kind of hard to identify. But when you, after you work with somebody for a little while, you can definitely see it is, it's really the, it's the ability to empathize at a deep level. And it's not only empathizing and saying, okay, look, I understand this problem you're facing and it must feel this way and it's going to cost you this much money, but it goes a little bit deeper than that because not only are you empathizing, but you're putting the customer's needs in front of your eyes own. Right. Because there's one thing human beings are great at, all of them, and that's really sensing whether someone's genuine or not. You know, we've all talked to somebody and got that weird feeling they were lying to us, you know, and more times than not, you're right. Right. But, but if you can really empathize with somebody and, and it's not only trying to make them feel any certain way. But if, if. If you have the ability to empathize with somebody and you genuinely care about a positive outcome for them more than you do for yourself, to me, that's when you got it. And that's the kind of people that our customers want to be around. And that's really the culture of the business. And we have gone through a lot of people at Maris. We have a lot of former employees, but it's one of the things that you can't really tell when you're interviewing people if they have that skill or not. And if they don't, unfortunately, they don't belong long. So.

Yeah, no, that's good. That's a great answer. Yeah. So we're coming here to the end, and I know you're familiar with this. You know, we have a favorite question we always like to ask. And I know you haven't made very many mistakes along the way. Yeah, but I have. So I always bring it up because it makes me feel better. But, you know, if you're talking to people that are just getting started and, you know, what mistake do you think you made that maybe taught you the most during your career? And sometimes it's the same thing. I'm kind of working on combining these questions because then we always ask, what bit of advice would you give for a new business owner? And maybe they're the same thing. Expand on that a little bit.

Yeah. And so this might be a little more general of an answer than you're looking for, but business, to me, I mean, we've all heard the statistics that 99% of businesses fail, and, you know, it's due to all these other reasons. But, you know, at the end of the day, we all spend money on things, right? And whether it's, you know, you're buying a new car, all the way down to which box of cereal. Cereal you're picking off the shelf, right? Businesses are really. At the end of the day, it's about the exchange of money, right? And so a lot of. I've made many, many mistakes along the way of thinking, oh, I've got this cool idea. People are going to love it, right? So. And then I. I throw a bunch of time and money into it, realize that people don't really want it, and it's because at the end of the day, they're not willing to, you know, what we're charging for it is not worth it to them based on what they get in return. So really, the. I mean, the thing that I would Say is you have to really, all your business opportunities, you really have to look at them from the standpoint of it's an exchange of money and these people are going to analyze and spend their money wisely and if they pick their right product, they're going to, you know, they pick the right box of cereal, then they spend three bucks on it. They're going to get five dollars worth of enjoyment or benefit or whatever they want out of really all comes down to that at the end of the day. I mean businesses obviously involve a lot more. The relationships are important and we can make a long list. But at the end of the day, you're expecting people to give you money so they can achieve something and that just has to be number one one. Because if you don't look at it from that standpoint, you're going to waste a lot of time and you're going to waste a lot of, you know, a lot of us have limited time and money and you know, it's, it's important to use it wisely but at the end of the day you're asking people to give you money and that, that's really what the business is.

Yeah, well, it's a value exchange. Right. And, and, and I, I think I'll add to that and say it, it. I was going to say it doesn't have to. It shouldn't be, be a zero or a non zero sum game, right. Like, like people, people should, like both sides can get value out of this. Right. Or it should be a non zero sum game, right. Where both sides feel like, okay, we're better for having done this thing because that way you keep customers long term. And that is the goal, I think. Yeah.

And, and the best way to get more customers is to have your current customers tell their friends you got it no matter what you're selling. That's the best way it.

So yeah, absolutely. Well, man, you know, thank you so much for coming back, giving us the update about everything that's going on. It's really helpful for us to hear it, to share everything for other small business owners about the highs and the lows, how you got through them. What's the best way for someone to.

Learn actually before, before you answer that question.

Yes.

I have one last question for you. You talked a lot about this earlier and so I'm curious, curious. Would you ever enter into a 50, 50 partnership again?

No. Okay.

That was quick. That was quick. I thought it might be quick.

Yeah, Let me think about it. No, I'm kidding. No, it, it, you know, it inherently is a tough thing to maneuver, and, you know, I called it the two headed monster. It's, it's, it's a tough thing to maneuver and, and some people make it work, and I know some people that make it work, and that's great. But most of them fail, and that's a fact. Yep. So it's.

Yeah, yeah, that's good.

Yep.

That's a great answer. All right, so now if folks want to learn more about Maris and to connect with you, what's the best way for them to do that?

So you can find me on LinkedIn. Brian O', Connell, come to maris.comm as in Mary E R A S dot com. Learn about us. Drop us a note. But yeah, we'd love to hear from you.

That's great. Thanks again, man. And what we'll I'm gonna put on the calendar. We'll get together again in 20, 21.

Let's do it. And you know me, I'll have a lot of updates for you.

Yes, you will. Yeah. All righty.

Thanks so much, guys. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Thanks for listening, everybody.

Yeah, thanks so much, Brian. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, Shannon, for everything. It's all good. Thanks for making our 5050 partnership work. Yeah, for sure. Keep living that charmed life, folks. We'll see you next week.