Why You Should be Attending Small Business Conferences and Let’s Get Vulnerable – Small Business Show 136

The Small business show episode 136 for Wednesday, September 13, 2017. Greetings folks and welcome to the Small Business Show. The show by, for and about small business owners here in Durham, New Hampshire. I'm Dave Hamilton and in.

Shannon Jean. Oh, wow. Let's do this. Let's do this again. In Lafayette, California, I'm Shannon Jean. How are you?

I'm good, man.

I'm running a little low on sleep. If you might. You may be able to tell I rolled in about 2am on a point Chicago.

So nice.

A little groggy. Yeah, yeah.

So it's doing anything fun in Chicago?

Yeah, well, I had a great dinner, I met some great people that I, I do some business with on the east coast. And then I actually was out there for this PayPal conference. As I've talked on the show, I'm a big proponent of PayPal and not just in their service and the payment processing that they offer, but actually in the attention that they paid a small business and what they can do for you well beyond your payment processing. So I was there for a conference called C Now, C for Commerce. And they invited about 50 small business owners. It was just a one day event out there. It was really cool. I really had a great time. I learned a lot. And the focus of this show really was that they were coining it as contextual commerce, basically making it easy to buy for your customers wherever you are with whatever payment method you want. A few years ago, PayPal bought a company called Braintree. And you know, and Braintree is really powerful because. And far beyond PayPal because they basically are building or have built a solution that you can plug in your app or your website to that it just makes payments seamless and it allows you to take any payment. I mean, you know, they, they've got a list of like 30 or 40 different kinds of ways people can pay with Apple Pay, Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, whatever, Android Pay, and it all just goes into your PayPal account and you can manage it there. So they also own a company called Venmo. And if, because I'm an old man, I know what it is, but I never used. Have you ever used Venmo?

I have, yeah.

So you're way more hip than me. You're a musician.

That's what it is.

That's all.

That's the only thing that makes me cool. That's right.

That's right. So, you know, we learned a lot about Venmo and I think I got.

Paid for a gig with Venmo.

You Did.

Yeah, I think so.

That's awesome. And they were talking about, you know, hey, ask your kids. Or, you know, it's. It's like the number three app between from 18 to 30 year olds.

Yeah.

And it's social payments in a totally different way. And it's growing like crazy. And they have just figured out they process like $3 billion worth of payments through Venmo every month, but they don't make a penny. And they've just kind of figured out how to start making money on it without destroying it, you know?

Right. That's always the trick.

Yeah. So we talked about Venmo and how it might work with our small businesses and everything. And it was great days, super productive, made some great contacts. I learned a lot. And I brought back two things that I really would like to talk about on the show today.

Okay.

The first thing is, and we've discussed this a little bit, but I had such a productive day and again, met some great people, made some really good contacts that I thought we would revisit the power of attending events like this.

Oh, yeah.

And, you know, you've always done it, and probably much better at that than I am, but getting out there and you know, as a small business owner, you need to be at these kind of conferences, making connections, meeting these people, you know, that they really want to help you. You know, and whether it's a vendor that you're, you know, whether you, if you're selling on ebay and you go to the ebay live conferences, or if you use PayPal and connecting, you know, the people that you know at those companies, you want to kind of, you want to be involved. And the more involved you get to kind of help them, the more they will help you.

Well, that's, that's totally it. Yeah. You, you. I always say those events allow you to feel to, to, to remind one another, these people that you do business with or whatever, I mean, they're great for meeting new people. But even if you go and just see people that you know, and hopefully it's a mix of both, you're reminding these people that you're both human and you're not just that person on the other end of some email address that's pestering me for money or you know what I mean? Whatever, trying to sell me something, whatever it is.

Yeah, yeah, that's great. And it's true. And even just getting a chance to meet, like your sales rep is powerful because that sales rep knows other people in the industry. And, you know, in my case, with PayPal. Many years ago, I had a rep that I really connected with, and I met her in San Jose. She said, hey, come down. We want to do some. A survey kind of thing. Come down and spend a couple hours at our headquarters. And then I met a few other people and got connected. And since that time, I mean, probably 10 years ago, I have sat on dozens of merchant panels. I spoke at their PayPal Asia Pacific conference, and I've met other business owners that a. I've then asked to be on the small business show with us.

Right.

So it helped me there, you know, because we're looking for that and. And just the exposure. You who. They know who you are. So I constantly get invited to these types of events, and when I go, you know, it's like your parents used to tell you, you know, at school, you need to sit near the front, you need to ask questions, you need to be engaged.

It's totally that. Yeah, yeah.

And so they know who you are again. Oh, you know, hey, there's Shannon. You know, I saw this guy at this other conference and asked questions, and, you know, it's funny, yesterday I went, I found myself asking questions of some of these presenters that I asked here on the show, you know, and the guy who's now the chief operating officer for PayPal, Bill, oh, man, I'm losing it here on this. But anyway, this young guy who used to. He started the Braintree, and I asked him, hey, what was the thing that surprised you the most when PayPal bought your company and you became the COO? And he's like, what surprised me the most? And what I did not, nobody told me was that how large a customer eBay was of PayPal. He's like, I just didn't put it in.

Interesting.

That kind of thing. And so I asked that question. We have this dialogue. His part of the show ends. I get up, I walk over, I shake his hand. Hey, thanks. I really enjoyed meeting you. Here's my name. Here's my card. And then I just jump on my phone and I send him a LinkedIn connection request, of course. And, you know, 20 minutes later, he connects with me. So now he's in my network, you know, so. And you've made that connection. And here's a powerful guy that can be an advocate for you or just you may be able to connect somebody to him.

That's it. Yeah. I mean, right? It's really easy and smart to think about these people as, you know, wow, he might really be able to do something for me. Doug, down the Road or vice versa. But it is important to remember that vice versa can also be beneficial to you. But again, don't feel bad feeling a little Machiavellian, like, hey, I know this guy. Now he might be able to help me because that's how life works. It's okay.

That's how life works. And even somebody's going to look at your LinkedIn profile and see your connection with these guys and like, oh, wow, maybe you go up in their estimation, maybe you go down. I don't know. But again, you're building out this network and I actually went out and I was acting as a consultant for a client I have on the east coast that is just getting into these kind of conferences and things. And. And, you know, he's like, hey, I really want you to show me how you do this. And I said, well, there's no secret, you know, I just talk and I get up and I ask questions and I shake people's hands and everything. So it is really powerful. I really would encourage, you know, you as a small business owner, whether it's something with your local chamber of commerce, if they have us, you know, lots of places have, you know, business conferences and just different things. Just get involved. None of us has time to do this right. But you. It will come back and repay you, you know, exponentially, over and over again. Yeah, yeah.

And don't. And don't feel like. Don't feel intimidated.

I mean, that's easy to be intimidated.

Not attend because you're intimidated. I'm not going to tell you how to feel like. That's. I can't. I can't do that. Right. I can't do that to myself. But it's very easy to feel like, oh, I've never been to this conference before. There's people there that are way above my station in life. Like, I don't belong there.

Yeah. Or I don't have anything to add.

Yeah, I don't have anything to add. And that, I will tell you, is untrue. Right?

It's absolutely untrue.

That feeling of I don't belong there makes it really easy to then justify not spending the money on plane fare, not buying the conference ticket, and not missing time in the office. Right. Very easy things to point to and say. I'm a smart business owner. I made the right decision. And sometimes that is the right decision. If all you're doing is attending conferences and your cash flows in the negative because of it, and nobody knows who you are in your office, that might be a bad Thing. Right. But there is a balance to this. And I'm saying this, and I know that for the past two years I've been really bad at this, but if you're not attending a conference every quarter, you're probably missing something.

I would agree.

Yeah.

And. And that, you know, I will share with you that feeling of, you know, all these people are above my station or whatever it is, and, you know, holding back. We all feel that way at certain points, you know, and you just have to power through it because eventually what will happen? Yeah, eventually, if you become a resource for them, they will start paying you for your time. They will start flying you to these events, paying for your airfare. I mean, I didn't pay to fly to Chicago yesterday. I didn't pay for my hotel, you know, and stayed a really nice place and a great meal because they feel like, oh, this guy adds value.

Yes.

You know, and that takes a long time, but you can definitely get there and it becomes a great resource. Especially, I can tell you from now, I've only worked at home for about a week and a half. And it's not that I feel like the walls are closing in on me, but I know that, oh, this is going to be different, and I'm a little more isolated now. So for me, what I realized maybe the biggest takeaway yesterday was, oh, I really need to make sure I get out there to fuel myself and to have a great. What we've called here on the show, Roe, a Return on Energy. And I came back just totally jazzed. Oh, this is so great. And I've got another story to talk about in a minute from one of the presenters. So that's powerful. And. And I've gone to these shows where I've kind of not felt like I had much to add, and I didn't talk much, and I did it. And you still get a lot out of them.

Even if you meet.

Even if you walk out and you're grabbing a soda or at the end of the day, there's a, you know, reception, there's a beer, and you. You ask somebody, you know, just have. What do you do? Why are you here?

Yep.

Ask questions, man. It's the most powerful.

That's it. Yeah. Just ask somebody about themselves. Yeah, yeah, you have to do that. Otherwise you can waste your time, money, and. And energy going to conferences. If all you do is, like, you know, as soon as a session is over, yet you hole up in your hotel room and get room service, and that's, you know, that's it Right. I mean, sometimes I've been to conferences where I like had work to do or whatever and I've had to, you know, split my time. Like I can't really afford to just, you know, be out all night with all the attendancy attendees at the conference. But that is the best thing to do is just dive in. I don't, I don't want to say treat it like a vacation, but in a sense, you know, as much as you can detach from your office and really just be present at the conference, it will pay off for you.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree. And we'll, you know, we'd love to hear your stories about how going to an event has maybe changed your business or your life and you met somebody. You know, send us an email, you know, feedbackusinessshow co and share your story and you know, maybe we'll have, maybe we can have you on the show and talk about it. We'd love to hear from you.

That would be awesome.

That's cool. So the, the, you know, there was a bunch of panels and speakers and other merchants that, that talked and we did some great stuff. Some awesome augmented reality kind of shopping things were. Just blew my mind. And it's definitely. Yeah, it was, it was really cool. I mean, some of it was a little geeky and over the top. I mean, it sometimes hard to get excited about payments. Right, right. But, but shopping, when you're the merchant and you know, somebody can walk through your store or online, the stuff that, that's coming, you know, with augmented reality is going to be powerful. But the, the last speaker of the day was this guy, Marcus Lemonis. I think I'm pronouncing that right. And you know, he's got a show on CNBC called the Prophet where he goes and helps struggling small businesses. If you haven't seen it, it's definitely worth watching. It's a reality show. And, but, but he's very successful in his own right beyond this show. You know, he started one of the guys that really started autonation to huge. Oh yeah. Car dealership all over the country. Used cars. And then he, he got and built like the largest RV dealership. This is a guy that's probably never been camping in his life, but he built the largest RV dealership in network in the country. And now he's the CEO of this company called Camping World. And you know, if you ever see Good Sam stickers on the back of an rv, he's the CEO of that. And they just bought this company called Gander Mountain, which is a huge outdoor sporting goods store that was struggling at one time, was the largest outdoor sporting, you know, hunting, fishing, camping retailer in the country. And so. And he's the owner or part owner of, like, a dozen or so other small businesses that he's involved in at some point. So he's a very successful guy. And he got up and made a. Or had a presentation that was so different than anything I'd ever seen that I thought it would definitely be worthwhile talking about for a few minutes today.

All right. Yeah. Now I'm. Now you have piqued my interest.

Yeah. So, you know, typically, you know, get up there and they've got a PowerPoint, slides are talking about how, you know, how they've achieved all this kind of stuff, which is what you expect. Sure. But he gets up and, you know, Marcus, and he says, hey, tell me, what's the most important word in business? What do I think? You know, Mark, this guy is the most important one word about business. And everybody's throwing this stuff out. You know, profit, revenue, you know, this. That you're doing all these different things. He's like, no, no, no. And he comes back and he said, the most important thing in business is vulnerability, your vulnerability as a business owner. And everybody's like, wow, that's weird. You know, I'm not sure I follow. So he proceeds then. And I'm not going to share them here because he asked us not to share them on the Internet. And he told us some things about him and his life as a young man and some of the stuff he went through that really left everybody with their jaw on the floor. I mean, this is a very small room. Again, about 50 business owners, small, talking on this little stage up in the front. And we were all sitting there going, oh, wow. And he says, you know, I tell you these things about my life not to get you to feel sorry for me, but to get you to connect with me in an entirely different level than you would if I did not share that information with you. And he was totally right. He had absolutely, within just a few minutes, engaged the audience in entirely different manner than anybody else expected. Right. So then he proceeds to talk about, you need to be more vulnerable in your business to connect with your employees, your customers, and your suppliers on an entirely different level than you have been. And I was like, God, that's really weird, you know, because I've always been, you know, I have this comment I always say to, like, my managers, I would always say, hey, you can be friendly, but you cannot be friends, you know, with your employees.

Sure.

But he's telling me that that's wrong. He, his, you know, his concept is if, if you are more vulnerable and you get involved in their or they know more about your faults and you're not the strong, you know, business leader that's going to pull everybody forward and always fight the battle, that kind of thing. It's like if you're not like that all the time and you show this very vulnerable side of yourself and he's like, you'll get another level of buy in and support from these people that you never would have been able to do otherwise.

All right, so it's weird.

It's an interesting concept.

Yeah, yeah. And I, I definitely fall, I err, on the non vulnerable side of this. I get what he's saying and I actually believe it and I've experienced it.

Sure.

I never would have used the word vulnerable and maybe that's my flaw here. But I've always said honesty. Now there's different degrees of honesty. Like when we do this show, if we didn't talk about, occasionally we'll mention our family members or vacations we took. I mean, we don't spend the whole show on it because that's not the topic, the subject of what we do here. But we let people know we're human. Yes, right.

That's right.

And I think that's really important. And that's led to a lot of success for me in different ways. Just communicating that, like I have a personality and I'm not afraid to talk about these things. But whenever I've had like. And part of that will be, you know, sort of we talk about how we've made mistakes and sometimes we even talk about those mistakes and we do how we've learned from them and that sort of thing. But that's different than being vulnerable. Right? That's being charming. Well, right. And that's okay. But the difference between charming and vulnerable is something is a line that I very carefully don't cross. And I'm thinking, it's funny you mentioned this because recently in like last three to six months or whatever, I've been thinking, gosh, you know, I've built up this Persona for myself where everything I do is like charmed. We say charmed life and everything is great. That's not actually true. Like, you know, stuff happens, of course.

And we don't focus on that and.

We don't focus on it. And I've realized that there have been opportunities that I've lost because people Just assume that it always comes up roses for me because I don't dwell on the stuff that's like, well, whatever, you know, I'll figure it out. But I've lost opportunities because of that. And, and, and so this is, this is it. This resonates with me is.

I guess it does. And I think that you, you bring up a good point. And I'm not sure the word is charm. More that, you know, I think if people always see you in a successful light and always powering through and focusing on the positive. After listening to him, I could see how people are not as empathetic or they don't have as much empathy for you.

That's it.

Because they feel like, oh, Dave's got it all figured out, or Shannon's got figured out. Look, you know, he does this and he's successful and he's this. And. But, you know, I think people look at it differently, and I think that's his point, is that, hey, if you break that down and you are, you know, maybe a little more raw, a little more even, Even, you know, more transparent with these people about the struggles that you've had and things. And, and I, I can say I, I was happy to hear, as I was listening to this, this presentation speech, if you will, I saw a lot of things that I had done right in. Of course, you know, that. Oh, well, this is, you know, my, my people knew who I was and all that I was, you know, when I was frustrated, you're frustrated, and this kind of thing. And, you know, you share parts of your life, but certainly not anything like what this guy shared with us and, and how he, like, you know, his comments like, hey, you know, I'll go to the. I mean, this guy's super successful. I'm not sure he's a billionaire, but he's certainly worth hundreds of millions.

I was going to say, when you say, I'm not sure if he's a billionaire, that alone sort of sets. Yeah. The stage. Right.

Yeah, yeah. But he, you know, he has the knack of connecting with people, you know, on a. Definitely on another level, because by the time he was done, man, you know, everybody was like, wow, this is this. Something, Something unique is happening here right now.

And see, that's just, I mean, there's a lot. I mean, he told you some of his tricks, right?

He did. And, and yeah, you're right. But it is, I, I think it's honest.

You know, it's also. He sounds like a super charismatic person. Have you ever, have you ever Met a president.

No.

Okay, okay.

But I know what you're talking about.

You know what I mean? Like some of these, there, there are some people where it's like, like it takes your breath away.

He is very charismatic. But I think that, I think that for. Well, he uses the, these tools that he is there teaching us. Right.

Yeah, no, of course, but, but it's, you know, to be fair, we all know the mechanics of the brute force mechanics of using a paintbrush and, and, and having a seasoned, you know, professional talented painter come and tell us. This is how you hold the brush. This is how you do this. I mean, I guess those are the tools you use, but like, are they different in your hands than they would be in mine?

Yes, that absolutely right. And I think you could, you could stumble here quickly because one thing I've always been concerned about with, especially with my employees is I never wanted them to think I was, you know, oh, woe's me, you know, this kind of thing. And yeah. You know, and I don't want, because.

Sorry, I'll let you finish. Yeah, yeah.

Because here you are, you know, obviously some level of success. You and you know, you have people that are working for you. And I mean, you have to be aware of that. It's like you can't drive. I mean even though if you, if you have enough money and you want to buy an unbelievable car.

Yeah.

You know that, that's worth a lot of money. I would argue you should not drive that car to your office.

You know, that's.

Yes, that should be. If you want to drive $100,000 Tesla or whatever it is, or a Porsche and you've got the money. That's awesome. I think that's great. And you can reward yourself that way. But you should drive a toyot work.

Here's the thing. You also shouldn't drive, you know, a 50 year old junker to work.

That's correct. Is it? They, they need to see that you are successful. But I, I also, and maybe. And this is just my take on it.

Yeah.

I think you can't rub that success in their face.

No, agreed, totally agreed. But you know, these are people that, especially your employees. It's a little different for your customers and that sort of thing, but a lot of the same principles apply that we're talking about here. But your employees especially rely on you and even your customers rely on you if you are communicating to them. Wow. Man, I am scraping. I am so lucky. I paid my mortgage yesterday. Thank goodness for that. If that. And as a Small business owner. I guarantee you there will be times when that feels like a win. And it. But if you share that. I've always felt like, man, if I share, like, how close we got, I'm not sure that.

Yeah, I don't think you can go that deep.

Yeah. I mean, so confidence erodes empathy, right? That. Like, that certainly. But the lack of confidence. Yeah, yeah.

It's a middle road. Like, you know, he has this thing.

Where I think that's where charm comes into it. Right. Like, let me.

How you finesse it.

How you finesse it. Yeah, yeah.

And he had a, you know, his concept because some people stood up and said, hey, you know, how can I be friendly with these, you know, my warehouse guys or this or my, you know, how do I really connect with them? And then I don't want them to think that that changes our relationship. Right. And, you know, Marcus has a thing where at a certain level, he would tell the employee, hey, I can totally be friends with you. We can hang out, have a beer, do whatever. Whatever. But when it comes to your salary and your job, you have to talk to your manager. I have no control over that. So.

And what if he's their manager?

Well, that makes it more difficult. Right, right. As. As, you know, he's gotten more successful and has these man working for them. But he said, he's like, I can't stand the managers. He said, the people I always connect with are the workers, you know, And. And I love these guys. He's like, the managers are always in my way, and they get pissed when I connect with, you know, the. The workers on a certain level because they think, well, now they're going to go around me.

Yeah.

They're not going to follow chain of command, you know, that kind of thing. So it's an interesting concept of. Of bringing that vulnerability. At the same time, you need to, you know, push forward that confidence that, you know, you're going to help carry everything through and solve these problems.

Yeah.

So it is definitely a, you know, a very sticky thing that. That you need to get through. But it was the first time I had a present.

Sprinkling some vulnerability into the recipe and swirling it around in there is. Is the right thing. But it has to be. It has to be real. I mean, like, the honesty, like, can't change.

Yeah. You can't do it in a calculated manner.

Actually, you probably should, but. But it has to be real. Like, you can't make it up.

Yeah, no, no, no, you can't. But. But to your point, you Know, you can't say, I barely paid my mortgage, but you can certainly say, man, you know, I'm really. I'm. We're struggling here, and I'm work. Doing everything I can, and I really appreciate everything you're doing to save money for the business. And, And. And maybe when you're talking to your suppliers, you say, guys, I want you to know, you know, we. We look at all the business we brought you and everything, but we are really struggling right now. If there's anything you can do to help me or help us, we would really appreciate it, you know, and. And I have always had a hard time with that because I always want to have this. It's. Facade's not the right word, but this, you know, I want to project success and, And. And create my own reality, even in my head, you know, I'm. I'm. I'm telling myself I am successful. I've done this.

It's not just your employees that you are. That you are hypnotizing here. Yeah, yeah.

It's yourself. And so, yeah, it's very interesting, you know, so. But the other thing he talked about, which I thought was great, we've talked about on the show about kind of contracts and things and how, you know, they're not often not worth the paper they're written on, is he does most all of his business deals on handshakes. And he's like, I don't care if it's 25,000 or, you know, 25 million. He's like, I'm gonna shake your hand, and we're going to do this deal. And the only thing he asks and he tells people, if, you know, all I. You get in trouble, you make a mistake, I'll help figure it out. We'll. We'll make whatever, you know, if it works, doesn't work, something fails, no problem. Don't ever lie to me. He said, if. If you lie to me, we're done. I'm walking away, and we're never going to communicate again. And he gave some examples of how he's done this, you know.

Really?

Yeah. And it's. He's like, just my personality. I mean, I can tell. I can say this. One of the things he said that made him vulnerable is he's like, you're one of his vulnerabilities, he says. He's like, I'm not a really good friend. And I thought that was just so to say it. And he kind of pointed out some ways. He's like, I'm not. I'm not A good friend.

I found most business owners aren't. I mean, I. I feel that way about myself. I mean, I have friends and stuff, but I, you know, I never get together with them. And, like, it's so interesting.

And so he told a story about a guy he was great friends with that, you know, was having a hard time not doing much in his career. And so he's like, you know, I gave him 250,000 to help him start his company, and I'm gonna. We're gonna get you set up. And then, same kind of thing. He said, just don't ever lie to me. And he's like, I'm not. He's like, you come to me if you're out of money or you made a mistake or, you know, whatever we need to this. And he's like, you know, he never came to me, and he. And he lied to me. And he's like, now we're. Now we're done. You know? And his concept of doing things on a handshake, he's like, you know, you can't let your previous experiences impact your future experiences in a negative manner.

Totally true.

Yeah. And to think that you're going to write a piece of paper that someone's going to sign that's going to protect you from things happening that may have happened in the past is foolish.

I agree with that. But here's my counter to that. And maybe this doesn't need to be something where it's signed in blood or even in ink, but a handshake is great, because if you don't feel like you can do whatever you're planning to do on a handshake, then you shouldn't do it.

You shouldn't do it.

Right? And I mean, not only do I believe that I've lived it, but only a little bit, because it's a pretty obvious thing, right? Like, if you can't trust somebody, then you shouldn't be doing things with them. But what I found the beauty of having a contract is it spells out what we all think the other one is going to do for this. Whatever it is this venture is.

Well, and I would say that doesn't even necessarily have to be a contract.

No, it doesn't. You're right.

Just a document.

A working document.

Yeah, we've called it, you know, we've talked about here on the show a working agreement where you just laying out, hey, we're going to do this deal. There's going to be some money involved. Here's who's going to put in What? I'm going to do this, you're going to do this. Do we all agree? Let's sign it. And that's all it is. Kind of to your point, recognizing who's responsible for what and who's, you know, this kind of thing.

Yep.

So there's no surprises like, oh, I thought you were going to do that. Right.

I've always said a contract should be the last step of the negotiation. Because it's not. It should be. It should just reflect all the things you've already talked about. If anybody reads the contract and is surprised by something, there's been a mistake along the way.

Yeah. And if you have to get involved, you know, with lawyers and bankers to making it, I think you've already lost because it's miserable. And you know, these people are all justifying their positions and, you know, billing you and everything. And I know that's probably maybe short sighted at some level, but you know, he also said that certainly after some period of time when you've been working together, there needs to be some paperwork because, you know, there's some tax stuff and this kind of thing and everything. But I thought that was really interesting. And, and I have to say, I was sitting next to a customer of mine who I've done millions of dollars worth of business on a handshake. So I hit this guy on the shoulder and I'm like, look, yeah, did it, you know, and this kind of thing. And, and so yes, it, you, you can, you know, certainly make a mistake. But I, I would say by the time you're ready to shake someone's hands, hopefully, you know, all those signs, you know, of, of either things are going to work or things are not going to work have shown up. Right?

Yeah.

And you have, you know, kind of picked up on those. You know, your, your spidey senses have shown you, hey, you know what? This guy's going to be okay. And let's do this dealer, you know, this group, we can try it. And, and maybe you got to start small and see how it works. And you know, this guy's worth a lot of money, so he can take a little bit more risk.

Yeah. But yeah, small means different things to different people.

Correct. Correct. But you know, if you're going to start and do things, I, I have found unfortunately in, in life that people that come to you often that want to do business with you often want you to really work for them and they're climbing on you like you're a horse. And so it's really important to get to know those people first, whether it's over beers or dinner or time, so you can kind of see where their head's at and. And look and see what they've achieved in life. And. And if they. You know, lots of people come to you with a great idea, but as we've discussed here many times, that idea is not worth much more than the paper it's written on.

You know, and I'm going to sing your praises right now because I was thinking about exactly this over the weekend. You came to me with an idea like, we knew each other only because you were a customer of ours. Right?

Yeah, that's right.

And you said, hey, you're the right guys to do this. I mean, like, in retrospect, this has all the markings of stay away. This person wants you to do their work for them. Right.

It's true.

But it didn't turn out that way at all. You did just as much work as we did on the project, perhaps even more. I mean, certainly, you know, it went back and forth, but we, like, even in retrospect, I don't feel. I mean, like, it was a perfect little partnership, even that first one, and it shouldn't have been. We didn't know. Like, that's how we got to know each other well.

And I. Yeah, that's right. And I think that when I was coming to you to start deals on the web, it was because you had a different skill set than I had.

Correct.

So it wasn't like, hey, I got this great idea. I'm gonna go find somebody to do it. It was like, oh, I have this idea, which wasn't very unique anyway, but I needed someone who could bring, you know, a marketing, advertising, technology background. I was a deal guy. No.

And that was it. And you. I think the reason that my spidey sense didn't, like, flare. I remember it FL tearing up a little bit because it's like, oh, what are we getting ourselves into? But. But it was. You explained, here's what I'll do. Here's what you need to do. And yeah, I was talking with some. I had exactly the same thing happen to me actually, yesterday. Somebody had an idea, and it was like, okay, but what are you gonna do?

Yeah.

And I feel like when I have to ask that question of somebody pitching me an idea that gives it a 5% chance of actually working. Like, if you're not explaining that to me before I ask, then we're done.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I. I totally agree. Because, you know, people come up, can come out of the woodwork with this kind of stuff.

So this person had a great idea, and it's like, okay, great. But I. I don't. I mean, from what you just explained to me, I. I could do this all by myself, in fact. Well, that's what you just explained to me.

That's what you want me to do, and then write you a check every once in a while?

Yeah. Why am I a check for this thing I'm going to go do by myself? Yeah.

So anyway, I'll leave you with a couple things, folks. You know, you really want to get out there. You know, get to a conference, get to an event, start small if you want, you know, or start big. You know, if you're in the tech business, go to CES and walk the show and slog through, but go to booths, usually the smaller ones that you make better connections to, and then work your way into meetings and, you know, the. The backroom stuff, and, you know, make those connections. And then your suppliers and vendors, too, and the people that are helping your business succeed. Those service providers, whether it's your bank, your accountant, they can help too. Oftentimes, they're looking for business owners like yourself to promote their own agenda. Right. These people use our service, and look how successful they are. And you want to be in there, then you want to use those connections to help you succeed. So get out there. I think you'll find it really rewarding.

Yeah, it's fun, too. Yeah, it does become like a little vacation, in a sense. I mean, you're traveling somewhere, you're doing something different. I mean, that's sort of the definition of vacation.

Yeah, I'll do it. I stayed in this hotel called the Peninsula in Chicago that I never stayed in. Oh, my gosh. I mean, I was there less than 24 hours. I was like this. This hotel's unbelievable. And, yeah, it was just beautiful. Beautiful. And. And the rooms were huge. And the. I mean, the sheets were like a million thread count, you know, super comfortable. They had an iPad that controlled everything. When I wanted to hit every single light out, I just hit one button.

Wow.

It's nice. It was really good.

And what's even nicer is that it wasn't on your dime.

Yeah, that's right.

I mean, I've had that before, where you go, you know, speak at a conference or, you know, do some consulting for somebody, whatever, then it, like, they cover your. Your trip. It's like, this is nice. I mean, it's just nice.

It's nice. It's just nice.

Yeah, good.

To be loved, man.

It is good to be loved. All right, folks, well, you can come and tell us all your stories, too, in Facebook, our Facebook group@businessshow.co Facebook. We'll see you next week. Keep living that charm life, man.

You got it. You too.