Why Your Attitude about Cleaning the Toilet is a Success Indicator

The Small business show, episode 326 for Wednesday, May 5, 2021. Greetings, folks, and welcome to or welcome back to the Small Business show here at businessshow. Co. We like to treat small businessing as a verb. Taking action is the key and the name of the. And so that's how we do it. Our sponsor for today is a new sponsor for us, which I'm actually really excited to tell you about. It's called streak.com@streakk.com SBS. We'll talk more about it in a few minutes here. But yeah, for now, here and for the entire episode here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And in Lafayette, California, for the entire episode, too, I'm Shannon Jean.

That's right. It's just how it works.

Not on the move today?

No, not on the move. And I'm not changing names. That's right.

Yeah. That's good stuff. Hey, we asked things out there, sir.

Oh, things are fine. You know, it's just trucking along, getting a little more settled in. When my class, I have one more. Well, when we're recording this, I have two more classes to teach. By the time this comes out, I have one more class to teach. That has been an interesting exercise for me this semester.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Have you learned a lot?

I have learned a ton. Yeah. And I am eager to do it again next semester, only because if it were going to be a repeat of this semester, I would happily take the money and run and never revisit it. Well, it's been kind of. The whole Covid thing has given a. It has caused disruptions. There's always someone at least that needs to attend class via Zoom. Now, we all signed up for this class to be in person. Me as the teacher and the students. Like, we, you know, we all made the decision we were going to be in person. Now it's masked and distanced and follows all the university guidelines. And at the university, they, they test everybody twice a week. It's, it's. They have this rapid PCR lab on campus that they built. I mean, it's crazy, but it's great. Like, it keeps. It keeps the number of cases way, way down. But. Yeah, which is good. Like, it's the only way you can make it work. Sure, but. Or it's a way to make it work. It's not the only way, but. But it means that, you know, if someone either has Covid or has been exposed to a roommate that has Covid, they can't show up in class. Like, that's how this works. That's how the. And so we have to, as teachers, provide a way for people to zoom into class and it gets used liberally by some. So. And throughout the semester there have been more and more people sort of, you know, moving to zoom and moving around. If the weather's really nice. I have far more people on zoom than I have in the classroom. Yeah.

And interesting.

You know, if it weren't my. So the class I'm teaching is a. It's a pass fail class. It is. I am meant to not be a real professor, like, like, which is good because I'm not a real professor. But that, you know, the idea is they bring in people. It's this business in practice program that they have and they bring in people that actually do business for a living and don't teach for a living to come in and sort of share what the business world is like. And so I'm. We've created a podcast, it's out. It's called Young, Dumb and Broke Travelers. And they, they have a. There's a bunch of episodes out where the students have like created little travel either advice or stories. It's. They did a great job with it. So that was our, that was the class. And then the idea was to sort of learn the soft skills of, of business and, and have me there as a resource for them.

That's cool.

Yeah. Which is cool. And many of them are super engaged with the class, which is awesome. There are some that I'm sure just there because, you know, they have to do for these business and practice classes. And so it checks a box and it's easy because it's pass fail and who's going to fail me, you know, that kind of thing. And I'm not going to fail anybody. It's my first semester doing this. I don't know how to gauge success in a classroom environment. I'm learning that to your, to your question before, but it's, you know, it's fine. And I'm learning how to engage in a classroom environment which is very different, as I learned from engaging with employees, AKA people for whom I sign checks or fans of mine. Right. Like people have taken a class or paid or even just, you know, I don't charge for like user group meetings or anything, but, you know, like those people that show up at that want to hear from me because they know me, Dave Hamilton from one of those shows that I do or something. Right. Sure. And these students aren't. Aren't that. And so it's a very different thing now. They've paid far more than anybody's ever paid to see me, you know, and. But, you know, they. A lot of them are lazy, and so if they aren't interested, they just aren't interested. And. And I finally got to the point where. Was like, you know, I don't care. And I even explained this to them. I didn't tell them I didn't care, but what I told them was I said, look, you know, this is a. I know what you've paid because I have a daughter that goes to this very school. And so I know what it costs. I know what you've paid to be here. I know what I'm making here. You don't. I said, I'm going to fix that. I'm making three grand for the semester. And. And I said, so? And that's fine. I said, you know, we all entered into this eyes wide open. I knew everything. You knew everything, you know, And I said, so it is what. What that scenario buys US is 14 weeks of opportunity, and we're going to be here together for 14 weeks. We can choose to. To just, like, sleep through it, and that's fine, or we can choose to, like, engage and have some fun and make a thing. I said, so I'm going to engage and have some fun and make a thing, and you're welcome to come with me.

That's good. I like it.

You know, and I. When I said this to them, they looked. I. When I told them how much, you know, I was being paid for the class, it was like, no one's ever treated them this way before.

Yes.

You know, which is sort of the.

Power of having a guy like you there, a small business owner.

That's why they want us there. Exactly.

Yeah.

But. But, yeah, it's been interesting, but, like, my last. The most recent class that I taught, there were two people in person, and then, you know, like 15 or 20 or whatever on Zoom, and it's like, that sucks. And I have to allow it to happen because of the, you know, because of the pandemic and all that stuff. But I told him, I said, for next semester, you know, they asked me to come back, and I said, yeah, I'd like to do it again, but I will not. The only time Zoom will be involved is if I'm traveling and I need to attend via Zoom.

Yeah.

Otherwise, no, you know, it gets used.

As an excuse, I think.

Yeah. It's just too much, you know, and if somebody can't attend class, they will then tell me and be like, hey, I'm sick. I'm this. What happened? Can I catch up? And I'll happily help him. Like, I have fun with it. Yeah, it's fun.

Yeah.

So. But it's been, it's been good. Yeah, it's been. But it's, but it's been a lot. It is, it is definitely a stress point each week as I'm preparing for my lesson and like, how to do it. Because it's new. It's all new to me. Like, I don't, you know, I mean, speaking to people is not new, but.

But in that way.

Yeah. So it's, it's a little bit of a stress thing and I will be, I will be happy to be, to have completed it, if that makes sense. Check the box. And then next semester gets a little easier because I get to repeat a little bit of what I did this semester. So that's pretty good.

That's really cool. Yeah, I like it. Hey, I want to talk about one thing. You made a comment in Slack recently that I thought was kind of interesting about being an entrepreneur is a blue collar job.

I did make that comment.

I really thought about, like, I'm not sure I, I fully grok that concept, so I'd love to talk about it today and see whether I agree or, you know, disagree.

Yeah, this is a concept that I've been trying to, to, to form thoughts around. And so, yeah, I want to do this, the next thing that I want to do. So we will, we will do that.

Perfect.

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Yeah, you're the only one there to do all that stuff. Right.

Yeah. And you kind of, and I Don't just mean toilets, right. Like I mean truly everything at your business. Because there are some jobs that might seem a little more glamorous than cleaning toilets. Cleaning toilets is a very actually meditative job. There's something interesting, but. But there are jobs that to others might seem more glamor than cleaning toilets, but you as the business owner, don't like to do them. You see, it, I guess really is if you ever begin to see any job or function as beneath you.

Yeah, that's a good way to put it.

That's the good litmus test here. Because like I said at the start, you're doing everything right, or you should be doing everything. And so the concept is fairly easy, Right. You're the only one, as time progresses, you get some people in to do that $20 an hour work or even that $50 an hour work or whatever it works out to be fair wages and all that stuff. Then you get to a point where it's probably been a while since you've done any certain jobs because you've always farmed them out. And it probably is jobs that maybe you're not as good at and that's why you farm those out first. Right. Often the people that we hire early on in, in our small businesses are there to do the jobs that we don't like. Right. And usually if you don't like something, you're not that good at it anyway. So it all sort of works out, but that's the hardest one to come back to. And, and it can, it, your staff will take your lead on this in good and in bad, right. So if they see that you are not, if you don't respect the job enough to be willing to do it yourself, they will start to fade away on it too. And that's that, that's.

I don't think you can put too fine a point on that because as they see you do these things, maybe you don't do them all the time, but maybe every once in a while you sit in the customer service department and take some calls. Maybe you help unload, maybe you walk out and help unload the truck with the guys in the warehouse. Yes, that is powerful persuasion for your team, for your employees because it's, it really helps them understand, you know, what the whole concept of your business is and the culture you're trying to create as well as, wow, you know, someday maybe I can have that job.

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. My, my father in law ran. He, he lucked out, man. He, he had, ran this landscaping company for decades. Right. He, he bought it down in Naples. It had like 20 employees or something. He grew it and ran it for decades. And at some, at one point I think he had over 300 employees. Like he really like. And he would now, he came into this with money that he had earned elsewhere. It wasn't, you know, he was definitely a self made man and definitely embraces this concept of, you know, I don't know if he would call it a blue collar job, but he fits the mold with my definition of that. And he, you know, he would routinely, often at like the company picnic or whatever, you know, be like, oh, I'm going to be the one to mow the lawn here before we do this. And you know those, those professional like stand on riding mower things, they are not easy because they can turn like 360 degrees on a dime. Right. You know, they've got, yeah. And, and I think the first time he did it was at a customer's location. I think they, maybe they even had their picnic at like a customer's place because you know, they make, they make these places look beautiful. Why not, you know, use them? Yeah. And he wound up like running over the sprinkler with the thing. I mean it was a disaster. And the staff laughs about it and they would talk about it for years because A, he was willing to do it, but B, he also got off that thing and was like, okay. I think I just unintentionally proved why we have different people doing different jobs here. He's like, because that is not my job. Thank goodness.

Yeah, that's a great way to.

Yeah.

And hopefully they've, they video that kind of thing and put it on your website and use that to tell your, you know, tell your story like we talk about.

Yeah, exactly. I wish I had. I. And I'm sure maybe I do. Of course you remember the mistakes because we're, we're. There are our tuition here on the small business show we love mistakes. But with, with Backbeat Media I got into a headspace where you know, I got the, we got the business running, things were rolling and I, I, you know, I've mentioned before that I kind of let things go a little bit on autopilot and part of that autopilot for a few years was, was feeling sort of letting myself believe that I was above some jobs and it, it really, I think contributed to a couple of really down years for us where you know, I, I would not be involved in the sales process at all. I mean sales is what we do here. And I had, you know, probably because I was a little burned out on it or whatever, I was just like, no, you guys take it. You guys, you know, you guys do it. And I never really, I got disengaged from it. And that's, I mean, micromanaging is bad, but being completely detached is also bad.

Right.

And I was definitely on the other side of that. And, and things, yeah, things kind of went, went sideways a little bit. I mean, we, we obviously we got them under control. We talk about how overnight success takes 20 years and I, I certainly have proved that. But, but yeah, you know, your staff will, when, when I think, I think what happened was with me being disinterested in it, the staff sees it as not all that important anymore. And when you're doing a job, you're.

Sending a message, right?

That's it. When you're doing a job that your boss says or acts like is not important, you're not going to be driven to do that job. Well, it's just how, it's how the brain works. So yeah, yeah, it is important.

And you know, there's a fine line because obviously, like, you know, you said there's certain people that are better at it. And, and I can remember, you know, a tech restore, I could not do some of the work. Right. But I could certainly help. I didn't have the technical, you know, expertise to do a lot of it. But what, you know, I could sit there and go, hey, how can I help you? You got 50 iPads here stacked up behind you. They all need to be checked in. They need to, whatever. And you know, it's just, it gets you on the same, same page and, and really is a powerful form of persuasion. Like I said to, yeah, get, you know, get people going and it, it helps change things up. I'm, and I love that story about, you know, your father in law jumping on the mower and everything, because it's different. It's something new, something. Everybody laugh at something. Even if you fail at it, be like, dude, I could stay. I used to always say I could, you know, ship, you know, way more, way faster than you can with zero errors. And people, they just laugh at me like, no, you can't, you know, it's false.

That's right.

Yes. And so you jump out and you kind of give each other crap a little bit back and forth. And that's another, you know, maybe a blue collar thing is that you can joke back and forth in a respectful manner, but it really connects you with your Employees and I would argue with your customers and I, and I now that you've explained this concept, I really do agree with your assessment and I think it is a powerful and often overlooked, you know, method to bring your team closer together to help build your company culture. As like I said as well, and.

Really like if you want a job, and I'm sure there's a million examples that will prove me wrong here. But, but bear with me on this. If you want a job where you're just like sitting at a desk, you come in every day, you work from nine to five, you're sitting at a desk and you just get paid essentially. If you want middle management, being an entrepreneur is not your thing. Being a business owner is not for you. But thinking about, okay, every entrepreneur I know that remains successful long term is scrappy and they really are blue collar people. Like it like in, in, in that mindset of I have, I'm not too proud to clean the toilet. Like, it's okay, it's a job. Like, it's great.

Yeah. And I think that the concept, you know, I've talked about before of this can you make 500 bucks?

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

I get approached by people all the time and, and lately it seems to be fellow entrepreneurs, you know, kids that are getting into their late teens, early, you know, 20s, that want to get some advice or just talk to somebody that's, you know, run some businesses. And I, I use that concept. It's like, hey, go see if you can make a hundred bucks and you know, then you can work on scaling it. Let's see if you can even, you have the wherewithal if you're a hustler, if you can be scrappy and you know, you don't turn off your computer, don't, don't sit down and watch Netflix. In your 20s, you should never watch television of any type, streaming or anything, in my opinion.

I love it when you. This, this is great.

Yeah, you should always grab your laptop because that's what scrappy hustlers, people looking for extra opportunities do. You should be researching things and things you're curious about. How do I, how can I make an extra bit of money? How can I do this if I'm.

Sitting on the couch with my family even now? And I am not a 20 year old and, and I, I definitely don't have the same energy that I had as a 20 year old, but I think I have more energy than many 20 year olds currently do. If we're sitting on the couch, you know, watching TV or whatever. I always have my laptop and I'm always doing a thing. Like it is rare for me that I turn the switch off. You know, I was telling you before we did the show, the day after I got my second vaccine dose, I was forced by my own body to sit on the couch and do nothing without the laptop open. And it was rare. Actually, to be quite honest, it wasn't a bad thing. You know, I used to look forward to airplanes as being, the airplane rides as being that time where it was like, I'm detached now with wi fi on every plane. It's like, you know, I wind up signing up for it and checking in and, you know, doing stuff. But it is good to detach every now and again. But every day, I don't know. Like, not for me.

Yeah. So I, you know, me, they're probably unhealthy. Maybe this is where my confusion was when that blue collar job term. Because a lot of blue collar jobs are, you start in the morning, you're done at the end of the day, and you go home and forget, or not forget necessarily, but you go home. So as you grow it and, and if you want to be the owner, the boss, the entrepreneur, it, it never ends. You know, we, I, we always say here on the show, you don't have freedom, but you have flexibility.

Yeah.

So if, you know, you, I, I was up in the mountains working on one of our vacation rentals and, and it's like, okay, well, I can go home Sunday, but no, I got to, I got to get home Monday in time to ship product. But I could get home at this time, at that time. And then I worked until, you know, 9:30 last night when I, when I got home. So there's a lot of responsibility, Mass.

It's true. Yeah. You don't get to, you don't get to, you know, at the, at the quitting Bell at 5pm you don't get to just like, it's Miller time and I don't have to worry about anything until I show up again at 8 tomorrow morning or whatever. That's true. Yeah, you're right. It's. There's a blue. My, my. I think why I've been hesitant about doing this segment or why it's even just talking with people, it's like, you know, I've, I've tested this phrase out on some people and it tends to work, but it's the right people. It's like I'm testing it out on people that, that are, you know, entrepreneurs and, and, but I'M not sure that blue collar is the right term to use.

I don't know what it is either. I mean, I like, I consider myself kind of a blue collar person because I do the work.

That's right. It's working man's job. Maybe.

Yes. Working for something like that.

Yes.

Yeah. Is the, the work this, this stuff gets done, man. It is. Every day we grind it out, their highs and lows. You keep coming in every single day. And so it. Yeah, I don't have the correct terminology and maybe it's true, you know. Now the blue collar world is very different. Right. Technology and there's so many different ways. I mean, you know, my UPS driver, UPS driver I would say would be a blue collar, you know, job.

Sure.

This guy's here at like 9 o' clock at night sometimes and he's like, oh, yeah, I can't go back until like I get the truck empty.

Until it's empty, dude. Yeah.

So, so this concept that we have in our head of this world, you know, six or five o', clock, six o', clock, you're done and you're gone. Maybe those.

Maybe, maybe, maybe blue coll$is, is more of an acc is more accurate than you and I think. Yeah, but yeah, it's a working person's job. Right?

Like it's, it's working person.

Yeah, yeah, that. So I'm gonna keep iterating on this, folks. If you have any thoughts about like, if you've been sitting there like screaming at your phone or your car or whatever saying, no, you've got. I have the term for you. Please tell us the term. Feedbackusshow.com co we definitely want to hear from you and we do. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Good stuff.

Good stuff. Yeah, yeah. Definitely want to share. Share those, you know, comments, share questions. Leave us a review at BusinessShow Co review and, and come back next week. We're going to do at least part of the show may turn into a whole episode all about LinkedIn. We have, you know, prompted by a great question about how to get up and running. Why? What's the power of it? How to build your credibility, how to connect and ultimately build your small business using LinkedIn. So I'm excited to talk about that.

Well, you are, you are. Of the two of us, you are the LinkedIn experts. So I get to be the one who learns the most next time.

You throw around that expert term a lot, so loosely, but it'll be fun.

In comparison, you know? Yeah, There you go. Yeah. Yeah, thanks so much. For listening folks. And please do leave us those reviews. Check out streak.comsbs that might be your key to leading a charmed life by all the time that it's going to free up and just check out their website. Really. I meant what I said. It's really well done. See you next time.