Persistence is Key to Small Business Success – Small Business Show 186

The Small business show episode 186 for Wednesday, August 29, 2018. Greetings folks and welcome to the Small Business show here at BusinessShow Co the show, you know it. BFA small business owners. Sponsors for this episode include gusto. We're@gusto.com SPS you get a free three month trial. And timing, we're@timingapp.com small business, you get a 14 day free trial and then save 10% when you purchase. We'll talk about what all that means to you in a few moments. Here, here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton and out here on the.

West coast, I'm Shannon Jean. How are you, man?

I'm good, Shannon. It's good. You know, it's always crazy, but that's.

Yes, it is.

Just plow forward because that's what we know how to do.

Yes, I agree. We just do. And you know, that's a great. Being persistent and not stopping and always moving forward is a critical part of small business success. And that's what we're going to talk about today. I think that bullheaded persistence is critically important. And if you don't have it, if you're not a person that embraces that, I think over time it's really important to fall in love with it. And we're gonna talk about it today.

It's totally true. I've always said that bullheaded persistence is the key to any success I've ever had. And really what that means is focusing on just the end goal and not necessarily the process. Right. Because you just gotta get there somehow. And I've found this is true. I mean, it was true. Troubleshooting, computers, it was true. I had a. I needed to tow my car today. He came, tow truck driver came. We couldn't get the. We couldn't figure out how to get the car out of park. And then we realized it required like almost taking the transmission apart to do it. And so it was like, well, crap, like, we're not gonna. The car's on the ground. We're like, we can't get underneath it and do it. We need to tow it to do that. Like, that's the chicken and egg. And so the guy's like, well, I have these things. And he slid these skids under the tires and he dragged the car right up onto the flatbed. And it's like. And it's like, oh, you know what? And I said to him, success comes in many forms, but that's the key, right? It's, it's like, doesn't matter how you got there. You've got to just focus on finishing whatever it is, solving whatever it is and getting it done. Otherwise it doesn't get done. And then. Yeah, exactly, it doesn't get done. Yeah.

I always joke around with my kids and I say, you know, 95% of folks don't follow through and don't have this persistent, this part of their talent stack. To quote Scott Adams, you know, persistence is definitely something you need to have. And you know, 95% of people don't have it. And those people work for the other 5% of people that do. And that's fine because, you know, it's okay. Not everybody's cut out. But to be a small business owner. But if you're listening to this even from the get go, when you start, things are going to be obstacles in your path, mentally, financially, physically, all this, all these kinds of things. And like, especially mental in the beginning, you know, when, if you talk about starting a business or this kind of thing, there's going to be people around you that remind you that, you know, most businesses fail some astronomical 90%, some huge percentage fail in the first year, five years, all these kinds of things. And that can take its toll on you. And so I want to spend the next half hour or so talking about it so you can come back and listen to Dave and I, who've kind of been to the other side, if you will, over the last 20 or 30 years and come up with tactics that have really helped us to be persistent and to not let anything get in your way of like Dave says, to your end goal, yeah, you've got.

To just get it done. And that's true every day. You've got to get it done.

There's no alternative.

Right. And yes, you are going hit roadblocks. You're going to hit brick walls. Sometimes it's like, okay, well, figure it out. Don't just say, well, it was impossible because, well, yeah, that's easy. Did you get it done anyway? No.

Well, I think the difference is we've all talked to people and heard stories about, well, I was going to do this, but then this happened. And then we hear stories of, well, yeah, I started this and it was great and it's been successful and now I'm this and now I'm that and now we go do here which story more enjoyable to hear. Yeah, you know, I mean, I hear that story about, oh, I was going to do this and then got stopped. I hear that all the time. I'm like, oh, that's cool, you know, and that's why that person works for somebody else and maybe could be frustrated success, you know, in their life about. About that. And, and the other story is way better, way more enjoyable to tell.

So this is. You might have hit on something that, that perhaps is the most important concept we've ever had on this show in three plus years. You know, I've heard people say when you're, when you're faced with, you know, a path to choose, you know, a decision to make, to choose between two things, always choose, you know, the harder one is often the right decision to make. Right. A way to sell yourself on. That is exactly what you just said. Which story is more enjoyable to hear or which story is more enjoyable to tell? Think about one path and envision yourself getting to the end and then telling someone what you did. And then think about the other path and envision getting yourself to the end and tell. And, you know, tell that story. And the, and. And now it's not just, well, I know I'm supposed to pick the hard one. It's, oh, I get to pick the better one. Right? I mean, and that's a mindset thing. Like, there's a hack there where you're like, oh, that's the story I want to tell. Hell yeah. Like, you know, I want to be a badass. I want to tell that story. So, and then you, then you're driven to pick that path. You're not just picking it out of, you know, discipline and then.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think the story is part of the reward.

Exactly.

It also, it adds tremendously to your credibility. And we're going to talk a little bit about that. But first, you know what I want to just say, you know, the first thing you have to do is believe in yourself. You have to be confident that you can achieve whatever it is you're going out to do. And with your, your small business and those, you know, we talk about goals versus systems here a lot, but, you know, the system that you want to develop, you know, if you set yourself some goals that you want to achieve, that's all personal. It's up to you. You don't have to build a business worth millions of dollars or whatever. You could just want to have a side hustle or a small business that you can go and help support your family. I mean, there's a huge spread in there. Don't let anybody else tell you what that definition of success is, but be confident. It's another life hack. You have to convince yourself mentally over and over and over, daily, at times, and oftentimes hour to hour. Yes, yes. And what I think is that it rolls right into the next thing is, and maybe even before being confident is recognizing the things you've already. Already have achieved, and maybe those are not related to small business. But just think about in your life. And like we talked about the Scott Adams talent stack, you know, we've kind of hacked that a little bit here, and we've talked, you know, about your. Your success list.

Right.

And building on that stack of successes to build your confidence and to remind yourself, okay, what did I do today that was a success and what have I done in my life? And they can be very small things, but you're. You're training your inner judge that we all have inside of ourselves that, for whatever reason, often wants to give you a negative message. And you really have to turn that to help you be confident. And, you know, you don't want to go over the top, be cocky and, you know, inflate yourself, but oftentimes you do have to kind of fake it till you make it. So you have to tell yourself this story internally, at least over and over again until you've been successful enough to. Then you can share it, that story verbally with everybody else. Yeah, you've been talking about your success for, you know, maybe years, but maybe you want to keep it to yourself for a while and then later, till after that success. So, you know, write down.

Wait until someone asks, way, way.

Or someone ask. Or even better, what I found is when you have a conversation with a few people, have someone else tell your story.

That's even better.

Oh, that's powerful.

It's super powerful. Yeah, you look like a rock star.

When you can kind of be humble, which is great, you go, oh, you know, well, I don't know about that. You know, somebody will say, oh, this so successful, and da, da, da, like, well, well, you know, there's more to the story. I was very lucky, you're fortunate, or whatever. So it's always adds to your credibility when, number one, someone else asks you to tell your story. But even better is when a third party tells it for you. I think that's a great. A great way to do it. And so, you know, you're gonna believe in yourself, have that confidence that you're gonna power through what obstacles coming your way and take solace, build your foundation every day in the things that you have been successful at. And there's a book, and I don't know, I Can't think of the name of it off top of my head, but I've been hearing a lot about it. I think it's called make your bed or something. It's a military guy that talks about being successful, and his thing is, start in the morning, make sure you make your bed. That's the critical thing to be successful is little steps, micro successes, if you will, and building on that all day long to program yourself. We're just moist robots. And you're going to program yourself throughout the day building on that thing, on those successes so your business will be successful.

Yeah, make your bed. Little things that can change your life and maybe the world. We'll put a link in the show notes.

Yeah, yeah, it's awesome. Just a great concept. And I think it really goes to, you know, that that idea is that you have to recognize and you have to tell yourself these things over and over again. And it's kind of contrary to, you know, a lot of stuff that we hear when we're growing up and things that we learn about, you know, not being prideful or being humble. You know, these kinds of things.

You.

You kind of have to turn that on its head a little bit, at least internally, because you're all going to meet people that talk verbally about how all these great things are going to do, and they could. You could be hearing those stories their whole life and nothing ever happens. So keep it inside, program yourself, and then later, the story becomes more powerful.

I like it.

That's great, man.

That's great.

Yeah, it's cool.

Hey, I'm going to take a minute here and talk about our two sponsors. So our first sponsor for today is Gusto. Here's the thing. You know, payroll and benefits for your business are hard. It's a skill set that, you know, it changes all the time. The rules are constantly changing, and you don't want to have to keep up with the minutiae on that, but you have to follow the minutiae of it in order to get it right and make sure not only that you're doing things by the letter of the law, but that your employees are properly taken care of. Really difficult to check all those boxes when you're a small business owner and, you know, you just hired your first employee or two, and you still don't have enough people in your company to do all the things that need to be done. Old school payroll providers just aren't built for the way that you work today. And Gusto is making payroll, benefits, and HR super easy for small businesses PCMag and fit small business have called Gusto the best payroll for small business. And they make payroll a breeze. 72% of their customers spend less than five minutes running payroll. That's something I can do. I can carve out five minutes to make sure that my employees are taken care of the right way. This is easy, easy, easy. So here you go. To help support the show, Gusto is offering all of you listeners to the small business show here an exclusive limited time deal. Sign up today and you'll get three months free. Once you run your first payroll, just go to Gusto.com SBS again, Gusto.com SBS and you can join the more than 40,000 other businesses that have chosen Gusto to process billions of dollars annually. Check it out. Gusto.comSPS Huge thanks to the folks at Gusto for sponsoring this episode. Our second sponsor for today, Timing. We're@timingapp.com smallbusiness you get a free 14 day trial and then you save 10% when you purchase on this very cool app. So here is the way it goes, right? You can install this app on your Mac, and it's a time tracking app that watches what you do. It watches the web pages that you visit, the apps that you run. Very, very cool stuff. It looks at what documents you have open, right? And it does all this automatically. And that way by knowing all that information, it then can pull it all together and say, okay, look, you're spending your time doing this and that and the other thing, it can help you be more efficient, right? It can, you can, and you can, you can categorize these things. So you say, oh, yeah, when I'm working on this document, that's actually expenses. Like, I'm not just messing around in Excel doing something weird like this is my, you know, expenses. Or you can have it, you know, categorized for you. And then that way you've got all this data. When it comes time to bill your customers. If you're a consultant or something, right, where you're tracking your time, you can have it do that automatically or manually, right? So you can have it automatically. Know. All right, well, I was working on an email to this person, okay, that's billable. But also, hey, I'm gonna go do this thing and I'm gonna go do some research for this client and write a document. You can start the clock. So that way, either way, you're tracking all the things. Not only can you be more efficient, you can actually make more money with timing because you're tracking your time. That you're spending for your clients and that's something especially when you're doing like quick little things here and there. It can be difficult to remember all those when it comes time to make your invoice for them at the end of the month. So you gotta check this out again. Go to timingapp.com small business and save 10% when you buy. But first get a 14 day trial. Again, that's timingapp.com small business. Have you checked out timing Shannon? It's pretty cool stuff, right?

I have. It is cool. And you know what I love about both these apps and services is, you know, it really helps on the automation front for your small business. And we've been, Dave and I have been working on a show, upcoming show all about automation and helping your business seem bigger than it is or automating it less work for you. And both of these are just right up that alley. I love it.

Yeah, cool stuff. So our thanks to timing for sponsoring this episode. All right, man, what's next on the on the list?

Yeah, for me, one of the things that I learned a long, long time ago was that personally became very important to maximize my strengths but at the same time really minimize my weaknesses. And you know, I know how to do a lot of things, but I'm also terrible at so many other things. So early on I was for to have a business partner that was very, very good at some of the back end stuff and the accounting and things that it really kind of set a pattern for me is I'm much better with a partner that is very strong in accounting. But I was thinking about it as I was writing these notes. In addition to accounting, it's accountability and knowing that like okay, Dave is going to be waiting for me to put show notes together, get things going for the show at this time. You know, it makes you perform. And in any business it may be that it's your employees that are holding you accountable or something like that. But I think that accountability, speaking from my own experience, has really helped me. But look at what your strengths are. If you're a accounting person that really likes to dig into numbers, but you're not a person that wants to be on the phone making sales all day, well then you need to find your counterpart and vice versa. If you're the guy that loves talking on the phone and doing deals like I like to do, but I'm terrible at, we talked about at the end of the month keeping track. I mean that is just absolutely my weakness. So I've always tried to find Either a business partner to offset that or hire someone that could work for me to do it. Yep, that's important. The next thing is really important and something I think that gets overlooked in a lot of, you know, small business websites, podcasts, side hustles. Everybody's trying to sell a quick fix, and I just, there are no shortcuts. You have to be patient. And that persistence to get you through that is critically important. But understand that it's not going to happen overnight. When we first started, I mean, this is my first podcast, small Business show. And I mean, it took two years before we got our first sponsor. And, you know, it wasn't that we didn't start this to make money. We started to give back to the small business community, and that's the reason we still do it. But it's awesome to add that little chink on your success list, like, hey, we got some sponsors that actually want to hear or, you know, sponsor and get out to the thousands of small business owners that, that listen to us. So you have to be patient. Really, really important. I'll give you another example. You know, Dave, while we were.

I, I, I will, I will add an asterisk there, though. It is good to be realistic.

Yes.

You know, patience, you can explain a lot away with. Oh, no, no, no, no. Like, these things take time and they do. Right. Like, that's the thing. But if, if your gut is starting to tell you or, or your metrics, whatever they are for whatever it is you're doing, starting to tell you that either this business or this particular, you know, line of your business or segment of your business is not working, don't explain it away. You can explain it away to other people by saying, you need patience. If you're explaining it away to yourself and, and you know in your heart of hearts that that's just an excuse. Let it go. Because it's really too easy sometimes to just say, oh, no, like, I'll let it go. Or, you know, even could be with an employee. Right. Oh, this person needs more time to develop. That could be true. Or that could be a comfortable excuse. Right. So just, just be aware.

Yeah, well, and I think it goes to, you know, the recent show that we did. What are we talking about? We were talking about measuring.

Yes.

And looking at everything. Well, you should certainly be measuring. You have to be patient and that it's not going to happen overnight, but you need to be moving towards whatever those goals are and achieving things that you've created this system to. If you have not, I'm going to jump ahead on my list that you need to then embrace adjusting and adapting. Don't get so stuck on your path that you started on and without being able to shift left, right, relaunch, change things. It. That doesn't mean you're not being persistent. It means you're plowing through, plowing through and around obstacles that are in your way. So, you know, that's probably the counterpart to being patient. Measure to be sure you're achieving the right things, and if you're not, then you need to make some changes and know that that's okay on your path. It's another reason why that philosophy we talk a lot about is not talking about everything, keeping it to yourself or your partner and maybe your spouse, because people aren't ready to hear how messy this often is. And it's much better to talk about it when you've come out to the other side and you're having some success versus, oh, we started to do this, but we pivoted to do this and now we pivoted again. But look, now that's working great, you know?

Yeah, I think that's crazy. Yeah, yeah. You got to be able. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just gotta be able to just.

And trust your gut. Yeah, yeah. I mean, don't, don't, you know, don't ignore the, the hard evidence, but also trust your gut.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, from a patient standpoint, one of the examples that I want to talk about today is, you know, about 18 months ago, after having a bunch of, you know, awesome people come on the show and talk about running their business and social media and everything is on their phone and all this stuff. I made the comment during one show, I was like, you know, I've got to get something going like this because it's exciting and I'd love to have this business I could really just run on my phone. So I started this, you know, social media business just selling handbags and in the secondary market. And I've talked about it here a few times, and my goal was, or this or the system I wanted to develop was just to move 10 handbags a day to net. After all my fees, 50 bucks a bag. So I could make 500 bucks a day, about an extra 100 grand a year. Right? Those numbers are fantastic.

Those are fantastic.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And now, you know, I'm about 18 months in. I'm about 65% there.

Okay.

I just ran all the numbers, but I spend about 60 to 90 minutes a day on it now, you know, so it's about 65 grand a year. It's netting. I work an hour, an hour and a half. But I will say one of my next comments was about, you know, immerse, immersing yourself in this, your, you know, your business. I'm on my phone often, you know, if it's, if stuff's coming in at 10 o' clock at night and I'm sitting there doing some work and I see a comment on my, you know, feed on one of the social channels that we sell in, I'm going to jump on and answer it because I'm immersed in it and I'm highly motivated to get to this, you know, that, that hundred K point because then I'll have a much better story to tell. And so it's, you know, immersing yourself. It shouldn't be your business, should not be an afterthought. You need to be aware of it. You do need to disconnect, but you know, you gotta be into it. And it's also, you know, some of your best ideas, some of the best things that will motivate you are going to come during quote off hours or you're sitting there doing something or having a conversation that's not related to it. So you want to immerse yourself. That's a key part, I think, of business success and part of being persistent.

Totally. Yeah, yeah. You got to be in it, you got to be committed to it. Even if it's a side hustle. Right. You know where like you said, I mean, you're, you're doing this, I mean. Yeah, right, exactly.

Yeah. I just want to be able to tell that it, you know, oh yeah, this worked. I'm not even sure I'll continue to do it. Maybe I'll sell it, maybe I'll turn it over to somebody to have them manage it. I tend to get impatient. I wish I was more patient, but I tend to get bored quickly. But I want to hit those numbers that I talked about. And one of the things that helps me too is to. Is habit. Make it habitual. When you've adjusted, you've adapted. When you start to see some things work, you just need to do that over and over and over again at the same time you stop doing what's not working. So when you measure things, there's going to be stuff that you've put some energy behind that don't go anywhere. But there's bound to be things that you start to see. Oh, wow, that's interesting. And you may have never, it may never been part of your first plan, but start working in developing those habits. You know, and we've talked about this on the show too, that, you know, it's not about being busy for the sake of being busy and feeling like that's important and oh, I'm working really hard. It's not about that. It's about looking at your well thought out path and making sure you're always moving in the direction that you want to be moving. And that may take more time, more, you may be busier at other times than others, but, you know, it's okay to take time to sit and to study, to learn, but you got to get in the habits of finding out what is working and then focus on those over and over, totally. And then so we talked about adjusting and adapting and you know, I have a few last few things that are, that are a little more philosophical. One of them is commitment. You know, everything has a cost and your business is going to have a cost. Whether that's time away from your family, less time sleeping, more risk that you're taking in your life. Ask yourself, are you truly committed? And I love this phrase that Dave Ramsey, he's a financial guy all the time he says, are you truly committed to living like no one else now so that someday you can live like no one else? And especially starting, you know, your company, it takes a lot of time and effort and just to be in it and immerse yourself. And you have to make that commitment and know that these are the costs. And you may have to talk with your spouse and explain things. You may have talked to your kids, hey, you know, I'm gonna have to work a couple hours extra in the evenings to get ahead, whatever it is. But know that, that it doesn't come without that commitment.

Yeah, you've got it right. You've gotta put in the time. And even not just when you're starting. I mean, this happens over and over again, sometimes by surprise. You can get to a point where things are running and it's like, okay, cool. You get to live a little bit of that charmed life that you've created for yourself. You know, take some of your hotel points and you know, use them here and there, but, but then get back in and, and the commitment can never go away. Right? And, and it is good to know, especially if you're transitioning from, you know, if you, you're an employee, you're working for someone else and you know that this is not the, the long term path for you. If you don't know that, then this, this might not be the long term path for you.

Yeah. But yeah, it's not, it's not a grass is greener thing and maybe I'll dip my toe into it. It doesn't work that way.

No.

You know, success comes from hard work and tremendous persistent sense persistence and that and that commitment for sure.

Yeah. And you just gotta, you gotta be right in it and, and be ready to never be detached from it mentally or emotionally. And, and emotionally. Maybe that maybe be the wrong term. But, but at times, I mean, dude, maybe I don't think it is actually. You're gonna, you know, you're gonna be attached to this thing even when you're not there. Be be aware that, you know, a great example is, you know, you work for the, you work for the bank. You can go take a two week vacation and, and not think about work till you get back. If that is a non negotiable concept that you need to have in your life, then you are not a small business owner. Right. You need to be able to say, yeah, I am going to take some time. Maybe not this year or next year or next year, but maybe the year after that I'll be able to create a path where that makes sense. But even then, you know, you're never out of it. It's always there. Even if it just in the back of your mind. But probably more than that. And if you're resisting that, then that's a bad sign. Right. Maybe this isn't the path for you and that's okay. Yeah, yeah, it's okay.

Or maybe we've got it wrong and maybe you've created a system that allows you to do that and tell us about it. Yeah. And feedbackusinessshow co. Or come Talk to @businessshow co Facebook and come in the small business support group. Tell your story. We'd love to have you on the show. Share your knowledge of what you've achieved and that's a big part of it. And this thing is kind of a circular pattern. All these things that you're working on as you have success in them, add to your success list and it will propel you forward over and over. Remember Nelson Mandela said, you know, I never fail. I either win or learn. And that's exactly what you need to do in your small business is, is really think like that.

I like that. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. Yeah. That's how it goes. That's how it goes. Sweet. Well, that's, that's what I got. The band's already playing but you got it.

That's okay.

Okay. Is there anything else, man? No.

No. Thanks for joining us today. We love sharing our story and we'd love to hear yours. And come. Come find us and talk with us.

Yeah. Find us. Yeah. Feedbackus show. Co we'd really love to hear from you. Thanks to our sponsors, gusto and timing. Visit our website businessshow.co you can click through. You can learn all about them from there. Keep living that sharp life, folks, will you? That's what we're all here about. See you next week.