https://www.listennotes.com/e/89d9868f56004a9f88c5eab66db3f2df

Hi, I'm Dr. Diane Welsh. I'm the endowed chair at University of North Carolina Greensboro and the founder of Family Business International Inc. And you're listening to EA interviews.

EA interviews episode 525, inspiration, transformation, success stories and the imperfect action round. Seven days a week, join Mario Ficcini for today's Expert Authority effect in Interview Expert Authority world. You know, I love talking about entrepreneurship and business and bringing you the best of the best. And today is no exception. I have none other than Dr. Diane Welsh, distinguished professor of the University of North Carolina Greensboro. And we're going to be talking about entrepreneurship, international business and her, her books. Everything she's accomplished all the years, especially women owned business 10 to help you bring it to your business. I'm going to bring her up right after we thank the sponsor.

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Here she is, ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Diane Welsh. Diane, how are you feeling today?

I'm great. How are you doing?

I'm doing good. I'm doing real good. Excited to hear about your expertise because I can't even fit it all into. You've accomplished so much. What made you want to get into entrepreneurship and help in international businesses?

Well, I grew up in a family business, BOIT division, Welsh Sporting Goods. My dad created the very first soft side of luggage in the world. So I've been around it my whole life.

Oh, no kidding.

Yeah. In a little town called Iowa Falls, Iowa, we had a four story factory and in the early 60s he took gear bags that were meant for hunting and fishing and made square luggage bags out of them. And soft sided luggage was born for the world.

Wow, that's very intriguing. So you wanted to go down the same route inspired by your father and what has been the most interesting business you've been able to help out?

I would probably say that business. And that's because we took it from startup. The title of my book is Entrepreneurial Family Business from Survival to success. Not over 95% of the businesses in the world are family businesses. So all the way from mom and pops starting out to women owned businesses where they have partners involved and family members. And it's true around the world that this is the engine that drives success. So I grew up in that engine and I started selling myself and had my own business when I was 10. I sold black raspberries and red, red raspberries to the grocery stores. My mom saved the little strawberry containers and entrepreneurship was born in me.

Oh, that's fantastic. I started my first business when I was 12. Lawnmower. Not lawn, not a lawnmower. Lawn. Cutting, power, washing, painting, all that type of stuff. And I think it's great. I love seeing people on Shark tank now and just hearing about people, you know, there's 7, 8, 9, you know, you said 10 year olds. What age do you think is the best age to encourage entrepreneurship and someone to start.

It starts at a very early age. So I, I think the earlier the better to model. I started actually working in our family business with my mom and dad when I was 8 years old, sweeping floors for about a buck an hour. Oh, it wasn't even an hour. It was a buck a day, actually. But yeah, I really believe modeling is very, very important at a very young age. And they pick up things you don't even realize. So there's no, I don't think, you know, I think when you get to seven, eight in there, you're, you're good to go.

Okay. It's, it's. Would you say it's pretty established by that point anyhow.

In, in young people?

Yeah, I mean, I know people. I don't think there's a bad age to get started. You know, Colonel Sanders got started at what, 66 with KFC. Literally driving around the country just to demo to. Would it demonstrate chicken? Not demonstrate chicken. What do you do? Sample it?

There's, there's never any age that you can't be an entrepreneur.

I agree.

That's a fallacy. If you believe that. It's all about looking at everything like it's the first day of the rest of your life and running with the ball. And I often tell people, you know, don't wait, do it now. Because there's always going to be something that comes up, whether it's house payments, getting married, you know, children, college, college tuition. College tuition, whatever it is, the sooner you do it, the better.

Are there any better businesses than other ones or do you think it depends on the people?

I think that most of it is looking at ways to innovate around what's already there. And that's what we know is that most businesses start not necessarily from a new invention or a new product, but it's usually a better way to do something that's already done or a product that's out there that they do a little bit better. So it's mostly doing something a little bit better than how it's been done and how you do that and learn from that as you get in that business. And oftentimes people will start a business after they've worked in it for somebody else, and then they realize, wait a minute, there's a better way to do this and new businesses are born.

Are you a firm believer in starting your own business or a merger and acquisition scenario where you take it over from someone and build off of what they already initiated?

Well, right now is a great time around the world to buy an existing business because many businesses, and this has been true probably for the last 15 years, they were started after World War II, and this is true around the world. And they've already got a clientele built up and they want to retire. Usually whoever, you know, they're in that age bracket, you know, even after World War II. And lots of times there isn't family members that want to take it over. And so they're looking for an exit. And so there's some advantages to it. You have to be careful on the financials, how they're figuring out their balance sheets and their income statements. And you know, because. Did they take a salary, for instance? Lots of times business owners, they'll take a dollar a year salary. Well, if you're buying a business to actually have a salary, that's got to figure into your financials. So I think that, you know, there's not one clear answer. A lot of it depends if you can find a business that you want to go into to begin with. And then number two, the location that does that work for you and your family. And number three, you know, is this the path you want to take in an existing business and build it? Because it gives a good foundation if they have clientele. And if that doesn't, if you can't find something, then it's better to start your own. So. But I don't think there's any tried or true right or wrong way to do it. You have to take all those factors into consideration.

Depends more on the person, huh?

Well, it depends on the person, the environment, the country you're in, the state you're in, the, you know, where the, where the technology is, where the marketplaces at the time, you know. But I think that people do ignore the fact that there's a lot of good existing businesses out there for sale that they could start in.

So I, I agree. I've noticed a trend the last few years between my friends And I, where 10, 20 years ago it was should I start a business or not? And now I've noticed a lot of people with existing businesses are buying up other ones or acquiring even a portion of it or something. And like you're saying there's great businesses already set up, they're looking to exit. You don't need to do. You're you, you're going to pay a premium for it, but you just save five or 10 years of having to grow it and get the word out there and all of that. If there's existing clientele and it's turnkey.

Well, you may have to pay a premium, you may not, because many business owners want to retire. And if it's harder to sell a business, I always say to entrepreneurs when they're looking at starting a business, okay, when you're starting the business, also do an exit strategy. So what's your exit strategy? Let's take and have that down for like two or three pages of your, your business model, your business plan so you actually realize where you're going. And the exit strategy is not going to be the same for anybody, everybody. Maybe they want a family member to take it over, maybe they want to keep it in the family. They may say, no, I want to get out this quick, I want to make some fast cash and move on to something that I think has more potential. So I'm just doing this to get, to get through. And for instance, I had a student that started a business selling musical instruments to high schools from China originally. And they were a lot cheaper at the time, this has been 20 years ago, than they were in know US made instruments. So he, he worked something out and got into high schools. And you know, lots of times kids don't stay in bands, right? They stay in it a year because their parents are making them or whatever. They don't end up in the symphony. And so he started this business and the whole purpose was to pay for his mba and then he sold it to another student. The big thing is he found somebody to repair the instruments, which was a big part of it. And, and then that student started another business repairing electronics and musical instruments, you know, altogether. So it ended up spinning off into another business and then he sold the original business to another student and he got his MBA paid and went into something else.

Wow, that's cool. And especially at a younger age too. I mean mergers and acquisitions. I don't think most 15, 20, 25 year olds, that's the Norm. But that's cool as heck to do. I did. I didn't turn it into a full business, but I did pay for some of my college classes by selling books for the class that I actually, this. This is. Date me a little bit. But it was when Amazon was first coming out and the bookstore had one book for 80 bucks. The other books, so the campus bookstore was 80. The bookstore off site, which was slightly cheaper across the street, was 55. And I think I was selling them. I got them on Amazon for 10 or 12, sold them for 25, 30, and.

And there you go.

Covered class for it. I mean, it was just a math equation. I didn't want to turn into a bookstore. It was a means to an end for that thing. But yeah, if you can sell, the product is kind of irrelevant.

Yeah, it's a side gig. And that's what it's. And it's always been about side gigs. That's how you get started. You know, side gigs aren't new.

Yeah, they just got a new name.

Word sort of new, you know, but the concept is not new. That's how people start a lot of businesses and get that experience. And it's partly that selling that's so important to a business.

You had mentioned, I want to talk more about the family businesses and the nuances as to them. But you had said something that most 95% of businesses are family businesses. But you piqued my interest with. And most family members don't want to take them over once the initial people are ready to exit. Why do you think that is nowadays? Caveat. Nowadays?

Yeah, I think it's a phenomena. That's more nowadays. I think the more we educate about family business, the better off those students are ready to take the family business. I teach a family business course and when I started it in 2009, I think I had 14 students. Now it sells out. I have 65 in every class and I can't keep seats in it.

Wow.

You know, so there were two semesters, one semester and then graduate. One that we used to teach too, but it's an undergrad class. And you know, I always tell students it's not about you have to be in the family business. Some of them are and are trying to figure out do I want to take this over. The other group is people that want to start their own family business. I had one student that said, you know, I lived through the recession with my family. Everybody lost their job. My aunts and uncles lost their jobs. And I don't want that to happen anymore. So I'm going to start my own family business to make sure everybody always has a job. So you know, and if you look at first generation college students, they see this as a way to build wealth, way to build legacy. I'm a big believer in family businesses and, and that's why I wrote Entrepreneurial Family Business From Survival to Success. And it's the story of my family business. It's written in the first person. It's about 100 pages, 125 with. And a lot of. I hired a professional photographer. I had all the original spreadsheets for the balance sheets from when we started and all the products and showed actually the innovation and the revolution of creating products. But I write it as first person and each chapter has lessons learned at the end of each chapter. So you know, it's very practical, very hands on. Yeah, there's, there's a few, you know, academic studies in there, but I explain it not like an academic study, I explain it how it's going to help you with your business. So it's a great primer and it talks about the personal side as well as the professional side. So you know, there's my master's is in psychology, my PhD's in business. So you know, a lot of what you have to deal with with family business is the psychology side, especially if you're working with other family members, which you usually are, whether they're cousins or aunts or uncles or brothers or sisters, parents. So it, it's, it's balancing that family side with the business side and the ownership side which may be a different entity all together. So it we talk about that and all those three entities are there. And I tell the story of the family business and how the neck. My, my cousin ended up taking the business over because my dad and uncle owned the business, but my uncle owned more of it than my dad.

Oh, I see.

You know, my cousin took over and then he lost the business. So it tells about a very stable business. The building was paid off in 17 years. We had a lot of money in the bank. We had two product lines of sporting goods and the luggage. And then it tells the story of how the next generation actually lost it and what to do to avoid these things. So I think it's a good read for people that are in a family business, those that want to start a family business. And then my other books about global and the other one that you're probably audience is not quite as interested in is how you feel build entrepreneurship across the whole campus so entrepreneurship in the arts, entrepreneurship in the sciences and that.

That'S intriguing because so many people, you start one business and I've noticed people who go let's do a second one or a spin off or something similar. Like you said, we're selling the books here, but now, no, I'm sorry, the musical instruments. But now you need the repair. Maybe you need a cleaning, maybe you need a rental division. There's all these ancillary like the auto industry. You have the, you know, the big three automakers but you have, I, I would like to find this stat. I just have a feeling all the second tier, 1, 2 and 3 and the third party manufacturers may be bigger than the initial industry. Disney with their movies. I was just telling someone about the example of, you know, whether you like them or not, they have some of the biggest movies around and they were on a hot streak and then all of a sudden they weren't. And the article I read was talking about how the movie was basically an advertisement. They didn't even care. They were losing money in a, as a movie on its own because all the third party, the stuffed animals, the boxes, the lunch things, the toys, it was, I'm like, I can't Even imagine dropping 200 million on an advertisement. Like cool, you get a movie out of it. But how you're talking expanding across the campus, I hear it very akin to how do you grow your business? Do you acquire a completely different one or what ideas have you given entrepreneurs to say, hey, here's how you can expand your business into different areas that are complementary.

Well, first of all, I talked about innovation and being up on the news. I'm constantly saying read everything, see everything. People are like, I don't know how to get an idea. Well, you got constantly have to be feeding yourself information. What we know is the people that are closest to you are probably not going to be as supportive as sort of a, an interest group you have or people that are more.

Why is that? Help me solve this even if it's no one else. Why is this?

Why is that? Because family are family and they always can find something wrong with what you're going to do and you know it's a risk.

And are we allowed to point fingers back and talk about them?

Yeah, yeah. You just, it's good to know to find your support group and usually that's not with the people that are closest to you friends also not your closest friends. There's a lot of doubters. You have to have a lot of confidence in yourself. But I Always say, you know, really get up on the news, really read what's going on all the time, and you'll get ideas, sometimes ideas from other products or services that might apply to something else that nobody's looking at. So, you know, I think that's the, the secret to it. And also figure out when you start that business, like you said, what are some of the auxiliary things that might build off of this, you know, and that right now here in Greensboro, we have Toyota battery factory building a multimillion dollar plant. And there's all these auxiliary companies that are starting to pop up in the area. And some of them are homegrown businesses that say, hey, you know, we're good. They're going to need an HR group to help fill all these jobs and they're also going to need skills, you know, to build batteries and stuff like that. So there's, there's a lot of things you can start thinking if you look at what is going on, where you're at and be constantly aware of that and the economic development organizations and the chambers and what are they doing and where are they at. And there are many, many cities and towns have incubators where you can go into the chamber is paying for, for free and gives you a lot of help I, you know, and access.

Because some of them have the inside track of like, hey, here's what's coming on next year that no one even knows. But we partnered with A, B and C and it's not even going to be public for six months. And then three months after that, we're going to do a press release for this. And I'm, you know, I live in Detroit, born and raised, love it. But the auto industry, there's some things I learned about like, I'm like, this is cool as heck. Like the renovation in different areas. It's like no one even knew about it. And they were already underway of it and it wasn't even going to be access to the public. I think it was at least three months from the time I was there for a private tour. And I'm like, this is sweet.

Oh yeah, yeah. And it's knowing that ecosystem that exists in every town, every city, every region around the world. And that's really where global entrepreneurship fits in. Because, because of the Internet, because of technology, you can sell anywhere, you can have a business anywhere. And that's really revolutionized what we're doing. And so the global issue is, you know, you need to know the ecosystem, be tied into it, get the networking down locally. But then Globally, there's also an ecosystem, and there might be an ecosystem for your product or service, and you need to get networked into that ecosystem worldwide. And then that's where, you know, you can make a lot of money going global, too.

Do you think every business should go national and global? No.

No, I don't. It depends on the industry. It depends on the person. It depends on the infrastructure that's needed. It depends on the infrastructure you have available. So you can only handle so much. If you got two people working in a business to start out versus 150, and one person knows the export licenses and what you have to do with the exports, that, that's totally different. You might have to add that person to your business. But if the market's there, that may be something you want to do. Being in the United States is a great place to be because we have access to so much more and so much more skills and technology that, and I think innovation. We're just a very entrepreneurial, innovative, you know, country. And when you are around the globe and I've, I've been to 72 countries and I've taught and about, you know, close to that and also done research and stuff. And just the way we think and the way we, you know, we need to clone it, we need it all over the world because that's what makes success that we must. Makes economies. That's what builds ecosystems, is, is. But it's like we don't even realize how we think differently here in the United States. But we're born that way. I'm totally believer of that. And just, you know, you, I always ask, you know, did your parents let you get, you know, dirty in the sandbox or did they say, oh, no, don't, don't, don't do that. You've got your good outfit on now. You know, the parents that let their kids explore, they're the innovators, they're the entrepreneurs, you know, and the multimillionaires and billionaires, they're entrepreneurs. And that's, that's, that's what makes the difference. And we, we have a tendency to look at failure very differently in the US Than they do in other countries. In Japan and some of the other Asian countries, if you fail, you're a disgrace not only to yourself, but to your whole family. And for generations, we, we don't look at things.

And even if you are the absolute best, it's just par for the course because that's what's expected.

Yeah, there's just a whole different way. So Risk taking is looked at very differently. And I don't ever think that I don't teach risk taking. I teach opportunity seeking. And there's a different.

I like that. Reframe.

Yeah. Entrepreneurs really don't see risk. I have a.

And we mitigate it too. I mean obviously we know about it, but we don't just randomly like you said for the import export like let's start an international company. The import export laws alone could make or break the whole thing regardless of the product and.

Exactly. And so, you know, get the business built. Then when you look at expanding, where are the better opportunities? Some of them may be international, some of them may be local. You've got to figure all that out. And then you have to have the infrastructure inside the business as well and look at the out infrastructure outside the business and the barriers to are you going to be able to get into it?

Talking about the.

In my wall and this was by Glassman in 1937. He said academia is the last bastion for the troublemaking individual. And entrepreneurship is the last to me is all about people that are troublemakers. They take. Entrepreneurs are not like anybody else. They don't necessarily, you know, they're the ones that can get fired pretty easy because they say something, you know that.

They'Re not supposed to all the time. All the time. Yeah. I never really thought about it that way but I'm thinking of my close friends were all entrepreneurial. Yeah. Uh huh. Rebel.

Yeah.

Enough, enough. Like there's that you have to be. I mean when if I can't even imagine trying to grow a business, someone's like you can't do that. The second I hear that I'm like watch me and basically double down and find an even better way. And most people go oh well they told me I can't. Who's they? Who is this they person and what gave them the right.

It's just entrepreneurs, you know they, they need a lot of encouragement. They need a lot of that networking, that focus group. But they, they usually you can't listen to people like that. You. But you have to take calculated risks. Not you know, entrepreneurs are not people that just oh, we're going to throw the dice. They're not risk. They're not, they're not gamblers.

I was going to say not so much gamblers, but not risk averse completely.

No, no. And they the best thing if you do a feasibility analysis which is idea to opportunity and put it on paper. I teach a whole class in this.

Okay, tell me more success sounds pretty.

Structured it's your cha. From idea to opportunity. If you put something down on paper and analyze that, is it an idea or is it really an opportunity? And that's what we do in feasibility analysis. Is, is the idea really feasible? If you do that before you do the business plan, your chances of success are 60% higher. Most people have never heard of feasibility plans. They go right into business plans and the business plan is opportunity to action. They've already, they say no because I, it's my idea. People are very self centered usually and hopefully they did some research behind it. You know, I know this is going to work. It's an opportunity. I'm not going to do that. You know, is it a good idea or is it really an opportunity? I'm not.

My idea is different. I'm different.

Right, right. So I'm going to go right into business plan. I'm doing, you know, opportunity to action.

Feasibility is idea to opportunity.

Feasibility is idea to opportunity. Business plan is, is opportunity to action. You're actually going to put the management team together. You're going to do that. The problem is most people do just do a business plan. They even heard of feasibility analysis. And the problem with that, when they fail, they're like, I don't know, I did everything right. I did a business plan. No, did you do it?

You were running uphill to begin with and didn't realize it.

Right. So if you, if it's not really an opportunity. No. What. No matter what you do to take it to action, it's not going to work because it's not an opportunity to start with. So you really have to do the research behind it. Well, that's a great point.

I feel like I heard about it, but if you were. It's not something that's commonly talked about even in entrepreneurial circus. And I know a ton of people who never even drew up an initial business plan.

Exactly.

It's. I'm going to start a business. Cool. What are you doing? I'll tell you next week. Awesome. Best of luck.

Well, and the other thing that they do, a lot of people do, is they hire somebody to write their business plan. Nope. You need to write your business plan.

If you can't articulate it, someone else that doesn't have the answers for you.

Right. And you need to know where the drawbacks are going to be and where the opportunities are. And having somebody else do it is not going to get you to understand all that.

So you were covering a lot of great stuff and I'm sure we could go all Day about the nitty gritty and all of it. And I kind of want to, but we were talking international and I know it's a specialty of yours. You're a very sharp woman and I think this won't even phase you, but I want to throw another wrench in this just to keep it interesting. Not that it's not already, but there's few people that can speak intelligently on this and I know you can. How do you feel geopolitical issues are affecting international business?

Oh, there's never a time geopolitical issues don't affect international business. Of course they do. And you know, so much of what business is, is regional. And you know, you, you really have to be on top of it to make sure you understand really what the geopolitical issues are. And right now there's huge amount of geopolitical issues as well.

Do you think it was ever better or. I know there's always been some, but has the world been against entrepreneur, like the ebbs and flows, like, can you imagine a world where it's like, just leave us alone and let the entrepreneurs do the entrepreneur thing and help people. Do you think there was ever a better time or is it all just been uphill and we just choose to climb uphill?

Well, I think that entrepreneurship for many countries around the world is almost like they see it as glamorous. Like they think of, you know, some of our big name entrepreneurs and that Zuckerberg and that's who they think of as an entrepreneur. And we all know that most entrepreneurs don't work in solo, they work on teams. And you know, that's another secret to going international is you've got to have a team over there you're working with and you know that ecosystem again. But the global political, I think the danger is when we become isolationist, when we isolate ourselves. And the danger is because with that thinking then that doesn't let entrepreneurs expand into other parts of the world.

Okay?

And it also limits because what we do, I am very, very aware of this. I just came back from Lithuania in November. What we do affects the rest of the world. What America does affects how the rest of the world goes and how they, they look at things and do things. And well, it's okay for the US to do it, so it must be okay for us. And that's a reality. So we have to always be very aware of whatever we do affects our allies, affects the global trade agreements. You have to be aware of those who's in those trade agreements. So I think the More we're open to look at. It's going to benefit us, right? It's going to benefit us. World trade benefits us. But it, you have to be aware of all the agreements and stuff. But that isolationist point of view, that's the number one thing that'll hurt us.

Number one, business killer, huh?

Yeah.

Yeah. Because I know businesses have been around hundreds and thousands of years, realistically. But I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, you're the professor, and I'm trying to remember what I was taught ages ago, but I believe it was World War II where the economy shifted from, because the US had business prior to that, but it was really, we became a global economy right after World War II because of it. Is that correct?

Pretty much, yeah.

Okay.

That's why businesses grew around the world. And if you look at Germany, you know, great businesses, there are a lot of family businesses after World War II. And I think the big downfall is if we don't, you know, a lot of, you know, in Germany, they don't want to take over the family business. Keeping those family businesses going that are stable, they're great employers. That's very much a key to stability in terms of business. No matter where you are in the world is the key to everything.

We touched on it earlier, but why do you feel, why aren't people excited to take it over? I mean, if the family built it up, I mean, I feel like 20 years ago it was like, oh, third generation bakery or auto place or salon or whatever the case. And it kind of saddens me because now I think there's a lot of people after 2008 who go, let's get into business. And now it's like that, that legacy, that continuing on of it. Why don't people take pride in like, hey, my family built this up and it's good.

And the thing is, you probably. Mario, are you from a family business, if you don't mind?

My dad had one, but not this.

Okay. Most of the time when I work with people and I'm a family firm institute consultant, I've won four national and international lifetime achievement awards, and one of them's from the family.

Congratulations.

And I just won the US association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship lifetime achievement award in January. So that was very exciting for the work I've done. So I, I, you know, I always, when somebody says congratulations, I'm like, yeah, at a certain point in your life, they, they give you these awards.

I know people with patents that are the same, like most people would love to have one patent. And I know a couple people that have hundreds and hundreds.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, that's.

Yeah. And it's sort of like, how many more can I get? And I mean, their mind just works that way. It's great. You know, but the. Most of the time, the reason is that families bring their businesses home. And so they go to the family business, they work, then they go home, and they're sitting around the kitchen table eating daily. And lots of times other people, like their spouse, like in my case, my mother worked there, and she was in charge of sales at Boyd division while sporting goods. So she worked there, my dad worked there. And what did we hear about at dinner every night, the family business? And most of the time it wasn't, oh, the business is doing good. Well, how are we going to solve? You know, there was always stuff they had to discuss and how are we going to deal with this and, you know, materials. And then that's normal. You know, they. They bring it home. And that's the worst thing. That's the number one thing I tell families, don't bring the business home because what the kids are hearing from the time they're, you know, so high is not positive. It's usually negative. And it's. It's always trouble. It's always, you know, what are we going to do about this? You know, it's typical about business, but, you know, so then when they get out of college or high school in this case, sometimes, you know, and the parent comes in, oh, well, I hope you take over the family business. Why don't you come work here? And they're like, no, they've got over.

A decade's work, fourth minimum, if not two of. Yeah, no, thanks.

Yeah. And so. And, you know, so I really try to get families to think about what. What are you modeling? What are you saying? What are you hearing about, you know, when they bring into the family business, you know, bring them in and model the behavior what you're doing that's really good. And get them exposed to the business and all parts of it and working with other people.

But, okay, so they can see more of the good side of it, not just the negative.

Right. And during the recession, by the way, Mario, I had more family, More students go into their family business because they couldn't find a job. And because of that, they're like, oh, wow, I'm really glad that happened. And I did this because I. I wouldn't. I didn't really see it as an opportunity, and it really is.

And they didn't want to take on all the responsibility. They'd rather just show up and get their paycheck.

Well, I don't believe in that and I teach that in class. You've got to have job descriptions and you evaluate them, family members the same as you do others. And, and I, I do that with my consulting job. But the other thing is that a lot of these people have taken that business and done a merger or done another. Started a whole nother business from it. And you know, I'm writing a chapter right now about a family business up in Michigan that was very successful.

What area?

Right around. Well, it's not very far from you actually. It's. It's up. Well, I'll tell. It's. It's in. What's the town in Grand Valley State. It's Grand Rapids. Grand Rapids. It's a family business in Grand Rapids and it's in a book chapter I'm writing right now. And they started out in the distributor soda distributor business. The grandfather.

Sure.

And then the son was going to take it over. I mean the, the second generation took it over. He was sort of training the son to take it over from him and then they ended up selling it and now the son's taken it. The third generation's taking it into the real estate business and, and his son is doing investment. So it's taking that.

Well, shifted.

It's shifted. And that's the story of America. That's what's great about us.

Yeah, there's so many great stories and I love hearing them. I was smiling at that one point, like to make a joke because you're saying don't bring the stuff home. And I also wanted to say I think it's good when people can talk about business because I know people that have high level professions or the husband or the wife is the entrepreneur, the other one isn't. And it's like when you can't talk about it. I don't love that either, but I get your point of don't be talking about all the bad stuff all the time. My joke was like, do what most businesses do for PR and marketing, like only highlight the good stuff. You know, for Facebook, Instagram and all that stuff. Like, how'd your day go? Oh, fantastic. Look like.

Yeah, well, and our, the students now, you know, the young people nowadays are all into social media media. So what, you know, what's the snapshot look like or what's the sound?

Bring that home. Oh, great. You know, we had a good meeting. The other nine hours were Trash. But you know, we had a good meeting.

Yeah. And so I think it's always the messages we give other people and entrepreneurs to be very aware of the messages.

I agree. I talk about it a lot and it's part of our training with the publishing process for our books and authors. Let's do the wheel of whatever. Not like we're not having fun already. And I've already asked you a couple questions I probably should have saved for this, but you want yellow or black?

Oh, I'm a yellow girl.

Yeah. Nice. All right, yellow question. My question for you would be, where do you think entrepreneurship is going to go over the next decade?

It's going to be much more. It's going to be impact and interfaced with chat, GPT and all the other products that are around it. I think this is actually a positive thing. I think we can create huge number of businesses from that. So I think it's just anywhere but up. I'm always believe it's enough. And it.

You have to, you have to.

Yeah, it's more opportunities and you.

But the existing in the feasibility analysis, what are the pros of it? What are the cons? And have, you know, reasonable expectations. Because I know some people that are banking on AI is going to answer everything. And literally just the other night I saw a video of them playing tic tac toe with the robot and it was like the robot was winning, but it didn't stay inside the square and it didn't like play within the parameters. And I'm like, man, I should, you know, I mean, it's like it might win, but at what, at what cost? Are you even following the rules? Is there, you know, I don't think we'll ever lose the human interaction because people are hardwired for human interaction, but all the repetitive tasks that we probably shouldn't be doing anyway.

Well, there's nationwide and actually worldwide. There is a shortage of younger people coming up. The birth rate's really go, gone down. So things like you just mentioned, we can use, you know, the robots and stuff to take up some of the things that are repetitive, but it's not going to replace humans. What it does is make augments.

Right?

It augments, it's, it's using it as a tool. It's a tool. The tool's going to improve pretty fast. So you got to sort of keep up on it and then you have to figure out how to apply that to your business. So.

Absolutely.

Very much for having me.

Oh, the pleasure is mine. I want to ask You. Where would you like people to learn more?

They can go to my website and it's www.entrepreneurship.uncg.edu. and if you Google Diane Welsh, I have a Facebook page, a LinkedIn page, and I think you've got the link to my book.

Yes, I'll make sure that's all on eainterviews.com on your show Notes page.

That'd be great. I'd appreciate it. And you know, they can also email me dhb Welshmail.com but you know, reach out through LinkedIn and Facebook. That's really the best way to, to, to see what I'm up to and very good. I'm happy to share my book information. I publish eight books and 130 journal articles and what an accomplishment. About 350 presentations around the world.

I've done five books, but I have not done all the professional articles and all that. That's amazing.

Well, maybe we can do one together. Thank you so much, Mar Mario, for interviewing me. And we love Detroit. I did some work there. Great city.

Yeah, Michigan's great.

Yeah.

Well, thank you for everything. All right, Expert Authority World. We have another great episode here today. I'll see you on the next one. Have a great day and God bless. You're already the expert, but have you.

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