The Economy Is Worse Than You Think, Here's How To Beat It

I don't know what to do. So I do nothing or it's got to be perfect. And there were so many times I had no clue how to do it. I'm going to figure this out.

Sorry. If you're waiting for the government to solve this problem for you, you're just waiting for the wrong thing.

You either cut your costs or make more money. I lost my job. They shut the door. I'm not an essential service. I got to go make money. How am I going to do this? If you're willing to work, there's ways to make money. That's the secret math. 50% of Americans go to a day job they hate.

I want to be producing and contributing more rather than taking and consuming more.

And this is not get rich. Get rich slow.

You're good at it, like it, and it makes money. You need to hit those three things.

All right, welcome, everybody, to another episode of the Main Street Business Podcast. My name is Mark Kohler. I'm here with the illustrious Matt Sorenson, and we're talking about a serious topic today. This is going to be tough. We've got some good info and some insights, I think, but it's not an easy topic.

Yeah, it's not an easy topic. Of course, everybody follows the news and hears about inflation and the. And all of that, but the reality is people are feeling it in their pocketbook. Every American has had to deal with this in one way or another. And so we want to talk about strategies and how to combat the rising costs that you're facing. There's this YouTube video out there, this social media video with 20 million views. A guy goes to reorder his groceries from a prior order. It was like 100 bucks, and now it's $400. It's insane. And this thing's taking off because people feel it. It is real.

Yeah. And Matt and I are parents. We have kids in their 20s, and they call us up and they costs more. And we're like, really? You know, maybe because we're on the other side, per se, of our career. And yes, things are costing more at the register, at Costco, at Albertsons or Safeways or wherever you do your grocery shopping. But when you're at an income level where that's a bigger percentage of your disposable income, it. It hurts. It hurts a lot harder. And people that are going into retirement on the other end of the spectrum are saying, my Social Security check is not cutting it, and I don't have enough for retirement to begin with. What do I Do. So today's show, we're going to give you a secret weapon, a secret sauce, a silver bullet. A strategy may have is so obvious that sometimes we don't see it.

Yeah. And can I say that the secret weapon is not the decision you're going to make when you go into the ballot box in November. That might be important to you, but that's going to have zero bearing on how this is going to affect you day to day. I'm just. Sorry. If you're waiting for the government or you're counting on some political candidate from one side or the other to solve this problem for you, you're just waiting for the wrong thing. You cannot control the wave. This is a wave of what's happening in the. We can't control it, but we can't control the surfboard.

And I'm going to give you one more. Set this up.

The surfer. And you didn't like that little analogy?

No, I loved it. I'm just like, I'm deep in thought here. Okay. I was actually thinking of what I'm going to say after you. More than a reaction, because I was like, man, because it's just hard because when I talk with people around the country and Matt and I are out on the road talking at workshops and again on other people's podcasts, I was just going to say it's easy to complain and bemoan and get frustrate, but what are you going to do tomorrow morning? And people need to have something that they can grasp and do differently. And I'm going to say it right here. Should I give my first stab at it?

Yeah.

You either cut your costs or make more money. And I know all of you out there are already pinching pennies and trying to cut anywhere you can. So what's the other option? I got to make more money. And people. The side hustle. The small business is an exponential way to make more money. It's not. I'm just going to go out and make more money and pay taxes on it. You might be able to set a structure or take a strategy or a plan or course of action where you actually make more money per hour and it's tax free. I know that sounds weird, but we're going to explain it. That's my. That's my. How would you describe this silver bullet?

And I think a lot of people in their decision making, they get frustrated, they get angry, and they take drastic measures that are mistakes. And we face this a lot. We see people coming here. It's like, I'M so frustrated with this. I need to be a business owner. Okay. And we love that. We want to help clients be business owners. We're entrepreneurial. We're helping new business owners every day on our law firm at kkos Lawyers. That doesn't mean you quit your day job. That means you start a side hustle. Okay. Because we got to work our way through this. And so if you're feeling that frustration, you're not getting ahead and financially you're going negative. Well, how do I get out of that? Well, like Mark said, you got to make more money or cut your expenses, but we're not going to stop the money that's already coming through from the so to speak, day job. So I like you actually said side hustle.

Yes.

And I think that's what we need to start with first. I just want to say that from a financial standpoint, the keyword being side. Yes. Is the keyword is being side. And that doesn't mean it can't turn into your main hustle. So many businesses are side hustles. I mean, even the biggest companies in America that, you know, Apple, okay, it started in a garage.

As a side hustle.

As a side hustle, they had jobs still. Okay. Like we can go down the list from Microsoft and everything else. All right? And so, so that's okay. Feel free to start small in the garage, in the like, you know, kitchen table, whatever it might be to start figuring out ways to earn income. And we'll talk about these. Some are obvious, but we'll talk about a lot of ideas.

Now, I know some of your. I'm trying to preempt some of the thoughts or feelings some of you are having right now. I was literally with one of my kids last night at the kitchen table working on a real estate project. And there was tears because they're like, I just thought this would make more money. And then the next thought was, I don't have any time. I don't have time to go make work money. And then we started to unpack it. I'm sorry, I just get a little emotional about. Because when you start to unpack it, it's this impression that I don't have more time. It's this impression that I can't do this, it's too hard. When in reality it has never been more. There's never been more opportunity. This was during COVID We had the big formation. There was over 20 million side hustles that got started during that two year period in Covid because people said, I, I Lost my job. They shut the door. I'm not an essential service. I got to go make money. How am I going to do this? They started driving Uber. They started doing doordash. They started mowing lawns. They started doing janitorial. I was a janitor for eight years. I know it's not that hard to walk out tomorrow and knock on someone's door, go, can I clean your garage? Can I clean your office? Can I clean your house? If we're, if you're willing to work, there's ways to make money.

Yeah. And I know we want to talk about the other side of this equation too, but maybe we start and we just unpack this, but I want to come back to cutting costs, too, because I do have some ideas there. And again, we might set, you know, you might not like the medicine we're gonna give. Let me just say that. But let's be honest. A lot of people's financial struggles right now are because of debt. It's because of consumer debt. That's why Dave Ramsey is a huge success, is because he's figured out way for people to combat it. That is the number one. That is one of the number one drivers of why people are struggling financially. And we've got massive student loan debt, and there's so many things that have hit from a little bit of a slowed economy. We've got the student loan, you know, payments are back, and people don't get that forgiveness anymore, and they got to start making them like we get it. And so I want back, though, to the cost side of the equation too, because we want to increase the income. And I. That's. That's the most important thing to me. You got to increase income.

Yeah.

But we got to start working on the cost.

It's a. Yeah, it's a two prong approach. Now, let me give you this here. Okay. I'm going to say it this way, too. Here's the secret math of a side hustle. If I go out and work for someone else and make $1,000, first of all, you're going to have a ceiling on what you can make per hour. And you're going to get a W2 where there's going to be withholdings, taxes for state and Federal and FICA, and you're in that paycheck of 1,000 is going to maybe feel like $600. And you're like, what the hell? I went out and worked on the weekend as a second job working for someone else, and that thousand dollars really ended up in my pocket at about $600. And then we even feel worse about ourselves. The secret math of a side hustle is if I go out and create $1,000 on a 1099, where again, let's just say Uber, there's something that everybody understands. I'm going to go out and be a subcontractor and earn $1,000 on Uber because I can now write off my cell phone, some dining, some auto expenses, some home office, some to supply, some equipment, some marketing, who knows what. I can drum up $1,000 in write offs every month for a client called personal conversion expenses. We talk about it all the time here. So I can take those write offs and offset that thousand. The secret, I get to take home 1000. $1000 tax free. I could go work for someone else, which is cool. Get the second job. If it's too mentally difficult to think of, I can be an ENT with this little side hustle. I'm going to go earn a thousand and take home 600. 600. Or I can go earn 1000 and keep a thousand. That's the secret math. So if we're trying to fight inflation, we can do it faster and exponentially better with a side hustle rather than working for someone else. Even though I do keep the day job and the benefits and all that, but I supplement it. I supplement it to make the difference.

Yeah, there's a great quote out there about how to make more money. That's to acquire skills. Skills that are valuable, drive income. Income buys assets. Assets create wealth. Okay, so we got to come back here to the skill side of it. And I don't mind the Uber or the doordash. And I think if you're like, I need something next week, those are readily available.

Yeah.

And that might be something you go out and do immediately is I just need the extra money.

Start the pain, start the bleeding right now.

It pays. Now I can do it next week. I don't need to come up with a business idea. I don't need to get customers. I freaking download the app and I click, you know, go accept ride, you know, or whatever. I mean, my kids did doordash and stuff through college and it was a great way to get a little extra income.

Okay.

What I like better than that though is I like the side hustle. That's a business that can turn into your main business. That's a side hustle that turns into your main hustle. And I think the first thing you should look at is what do you do already? What skill do you have that is highly valuable already. You might be like, well I'm a plumber and I work for Joe's Plumbing. Maybe you do some plumbing on the side.

Yeah. At 200 bucks an hour. Yeah.

And that can turn into your side hustle where you start getting customers and business making relationships that now you have the main hustle and you're making more money. And so just look at what you already know and the skill set you have to go offer at a higher value to others.

And again, two suggestions there, two words thumbtack and upwork. Those are two platforms. Thumbtack being the little craigslist for services. It's on almost every city in the country now where you can say during the week I'm a plumber but on the weekend I can charge a higher rate and be a plumber on my own. You're on thumbtack. Upwork is where I'm at a consultant in bioengineering during the week as a sorry, I'm working bioengineering during the work as a W2 but on the weekend I'm going to do consulting on upwork as a bioengineer consultant. That's upwork. So right there those that's using a skill. I like it. And Matt, I want to add one other one real quick is I'd like how you say hey stop the bleeding, you know, do some Uber or doordash. Cool. But I like your idea of what is your skill. Here's another X factor. I like you starting a business where you're making money while you're sleeping. So if you can create a business model where you're selling something online, you're selling a product or something where you're now doing affiliate marketing where you use a skill strategy. I love that. But I also want to use the I can make money on click with clicks at night by creating something where I can make money even while I'm at my day job.

Yeah. And a lot of people do that. Everybody's situation is different. Maybe you have a large social media following individually. Maybe you're just a salesy outgoing person or you're into marketing. Your day job is in market. I mean those are places where take that skill set to go apply to where there's income opportunities from a side host and affiliate marketing something has grown significantly. Another example, I'll just say this is I have a client that transitioned to become a personal trainer like full time. They make six figures as a personal trainer out of a corporate job because they just got into working out and they realized, hey, I can run this as a business, telling my expertise and what I've done. And it was easy for them to market. And they just, they just the fees that they can charge and the packages they sell, it's like, I can do that. And so you should hire them. I'm just not ready for it.

Yeah, I'm looking at you right now, and I think you could do some things.

I'm just saying, you know, I'm getting pretty jacked. Okay, just watch out, watch out.

I love it.

All right.

And you know what that factor was that you just brought up? I'm gonna put a word to it. Doing something you love. So you might have a skill. You might be able to create some revenue online while you're sleeping or at work, or third, that side hustle, develop something that you love doing. Holy shit. 50% of Americans go to a day job they hate. Not our employees here, they're looking at us. They're so stoked. They're like, totally right. Tristan loves what he's doing here, but so many people go to work and they hate it. So why not start a side hustle doing something? I had a client that was up in Idaho that started doing fly fishing guiding on the weekends, and he got such a clientele, he quit my job working for me. And I was like, dammit, quit listening to my podcast. But he went off and started doing full time fly fishing guiding and. Because he was passionate about it. Remember that?

Yeah, yeah. And that's cool. And I think this will help you get some ideas on what to do. And I think, remember, start with the side hustle. Don't think, oh, I'm quitting the day job, you know, and you want to have that satisfaction and be like, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a business owner now. You still are with a side hustle. Okay. Start small. Be careful about the expenses you go throw into this. Don't go buying some. Getting into more debt and all these other expenses and having create more problems, more stress on the opportunity to create more income, go at it at a measured pace. That's why a lot of those things we've given here are examples of those are very low cost barriers to entry. I'm not like, you need to go get an SBA loan or go raise money, you know, or all these things, which is, which is fine. We're gonna. We talk about those in other ways to start a business. But when you're in a financial struggle that the solution isn't to go to borrow more money. The Solution is how can I create more income and then get rid of the debt, which I do still want to come back to here.

Okay, well, just which I want to come back to. And I'll just set the stage for maybe part three or four of this is. We make it sound so easy that you're going to take write offs. I want to unpack that a little bit here in a moment, too. You're going to make this money. How do you track what those write offs are? How do you. How do you really make that thousand dollars tax free? So I'm going to come to that, too. I don't want to just sound like smoke and mirrors there either. Yeah. So, okay, what do you want to say about expenses? Austerity? This sounds really bad. Can you. Like Mary Poppins? Can you give me a little sugar for the medicine? Well, something is there.

Well, here's. Here's the problem. Here's the big thing. I think one of the largest expenses that have gone up is just housing, right? Home affordability is the. It's the most unaffordable it's been in a few decades. And so people can't buy a home at the same time. Ren. Rents have been going up drastically. Right. And the issue, of course, for home affordability in particular is mortgage rates. And it's the same actually for rent, too, because multifamily apartment owners have to go pay higher interest rates, too, to go buy the properties they have. So we've got a higher home affordability now. There's also some social dynamics happening right now, and one of the big social dynamics is delayed formation, family formation. Okay. And so because our generations.

I love how we can't talk about sex, but we can talk about delayed family formation. This is.

This is what the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls it. Okay? The Bureau of Labor Statistics.

We're still out. We're just not making rabbits. The rabbits are doing something, but they're just not making families.

Okay, all right, well, they're not getting married.

That's the issue.

It's not about the family. Kids cost money. Okay? That saves you money. You're like, you were, like, broke. Don't have more kids. That's the worst thing you could do. Okay? Kids are so damn expensive. Okay, all right. This is from a dad, you know. Okay. I got five, you know, between my own.

We don't let our kids listen to the podcast anyway.

Yeah. So they're okay. But here's. This is serious. Okay? This is serious because it's out there on the statistics, is people in their 20s and 30s are delaying living together now. Living together. Why does that help you cut your expenses in half? Someone else is sharing the rent. Yes. You know, and even like the roommate situation that the percentage of people who like starting to come back. Okay, we actually have roommates again. We're typically at it. And so that's starting to come back to as a. As a way. And I. Not. And again, people might be like, like, well, man, that's not fair. I don't want to have to do that. Well, I know. I'm just saying the stats have gone that way, which makes it more expensive to live by yourself on your own. It's just more expensive.

Okay, so let's give solutions rather than us just. This is a great point you bring up. Solution is the house. That's tough unless you're going to marry a real estate professional. No, here's the solution that I was just talking with some clients that were going to a conference on this two weeks ago is house hacking, where you go buy a house. I said this. Hear me out, hear me out. But you're renting rooms. The room. There's real estate conferences now where they're talking about house hacking and taking a home that's a three, two. And turning it into a six. Three. They're turning it into six rooms, people. They're sharing the kitchen. They're putting in two fridges, two stoves. They're creating smaller bathrooms. And they're basically creating these little homes with that are mini apartments. And it's allowing people to save money on rent, still have a social experience. They're not isolated, they're a loan. And it's. It's happening all over Phoenix right now. And it was just a conference on it.

It was really fascinating called pad split. That's big in that too. That's right. Yeah. They'll like. They go split up the rooms. And that's actually for real estate investors. It's a great little strategy they've been using too, because they realize that there's a. Anyways, there's. So I think that's a great option for you to go in, acquire a property, get some additional income off of it, live in it, have ownership in it. You can also turn it into rental when you leave.

And.

And so that's a great asset strategy and a strategy to build income and save on your own housing costs.

And I want to throw out food, of course. That's one of the podcasts we led with that or YouTube videos that's out there. That's Quite popular, talking about the cost of household goods and food. And I. What I've given my kids the suggestion of, and I've been trying to practice it too. Eating out is so expensive. The problem is to feel better. To buffer is sometimes a term out there. When I'm stressed out about finances, I'm going to go out to eat. And then we go out to eat, eat. And we end up spending more money on food. And it's a vicious cycle where we're. It's almost like an addiction where you're like, I'm trying to feel better, and I made it worse. And so the suggestion I've been talking about more and more, and I'm trying to do more is eat at home, buy more in bulk, make my own dinner, and then in. Look forward to a night out where I can, okay, I'm gonna go out, I'm gonna eat out, and I'm gonna enjoy it. But then I'm gonna go back during the week and cut costs by eating at home more. And I know some of you that are a little incredulous. Mark, we're already doing that. Hey, some people aren't. And so I just want to suggest cutting down on the Starbucks coffee. Holy crap. How about $10 for, you know, grande, tall, whatever. I can never. They always flipped the way they say it. So. Aventi, Aventi. You get a venti iced coffee, whatever, free espresso shots, you're out 10 bucks.

Like, you know, I just refuse. I just say medium, large, small. I make them figure it out, and I know they hate me for it. I refuse to comply with those with those sizes.

These are maybe dumb ideas, but.

Yeah, you know, I think Dave Ramsey would be very proud of us right now for this moment on the podcast, because we don't talk about this topic a lot, but what's out there right now, and you may be feeling it, some of your family members may be feeling it. And if you're like Matt and Mark, I'm crushing it right now. I need all these tax strategies you typically talk about. We'll share this with your friends and family that might be struggling a little bit to give them some ideas. Now, let me say one other point on it, because I just want to put a little bow on it here.

Yeah, feel free to. I love your comments.

I thought this one. That's this. I see if you like it.

Okay.

Okay. If you're really struggling financially, you need to be delivering doordash, not ordering it. Oh, wow.

Right? You like that one? I like that. I like that because.

And I think that's a mindset type thing necessarily. I don't mean it literally, but I mean it could apply to you literally. Maybe you do order way too much

doordash, but maybe you should be driving Uber, not riding in it.

But think of yourself as a producer, not a consumer. I want to be producing and contributing more rather than taking and consuming more. And if you think about yourself that way, that's kind of the good mentality mentality to go out and start really making money and deal with your financial situation.

No, I love it. Now, on the tax write off side, since we're talking about expenses, is that. Here's the concept, everybody, just if this is new to you and you're like, okay, okay, I'm going to think about this side hustle concept. I'm going to make some extra money online services, product, whatever the IRS code code section 62 says, any expense incurred in the production of income is a tax write off against that income. So if I'm going to go out and make $1,000 in my small business, any expense that I have to spend, make that thousand is a write off. So you say, well, I need a cell phone, I need a laptop, I need an iPad, I need a computer, I need WI fi, I need a little space in my house for an office or I need to drive my car. I've got mileage, I've got to buy some pay for dining, to go out and meet with partners or customers or clients or networking. I've got to buy marketing space online. I've got any expense. And this is what we talk about all the time on this show. Track it, put it on a spreadsheet. Yeah, you don't. People, don't rush out and set up an LLC yet. Don't rush out and say, I got to have a business bank account or this SBA loan or all these extra expenses. Before you do this, just go, just go and track those expenses on an Excel spreadsheet. If you have to put the receipts in a shoebox, you'll learn and figure it out along the way. Sometimes you have to build the airplane in the air.

Yeah. And don't feel like you need to go set up an LLC or a corporation. I mean, our law firm, we set up 500 of these a month and we love to set them up, but you don't need that yet. Okay. We'll get there. All right. If you're in this financial struggle right now, don't feel like you, you have to have that. Just go be Matt Sorenson Enterprises or whatever the hell you want to be, just go out there and be a sole proprietorship. This is going to hit schedule C on your tax return. Now, one of the things, I just want to make sure everybody understands the point Mark saying on the taxes is, and I know some people might be listening, like, okay, Mark, I made a thousand dollars, but I had to spend a thousand dollars. How am I ahead? Okay, it's a write off, but I'm still at zero. What we're saying is of that thousand dollars, 500 of it is stuff you're already spending on. It's already the Internet, it's already the home office stuff that you see something in your apartment, in your home, it doesn't matter, matter that's in a write off. You're already expending that money for that space. All right, so this is something that. That's how it's creating that tax free income.

Yeah. And just another example is you may have kids, junior high, adolescent to high school, and you start this little business. What are you spending most of your money on? Helping them get through school and school clothes and all the functions and the cost of housing for them. Well, if your kid is helping you in your business, you can pay them in your business to pay for those things you were going to pay for. And let me repeat that. Quit paying taxes and paying for your kids stuff. Pay your kids in the. Let them pay for their own stuff. They don't pay taxes on that first $14,000 because that's their earned income. And we teach this on podcasts. We teach this in the book. If you're new to our show and you're just popped onto this topic because you're looking for a Solution. We've got 500 episodes, people that unpack all these, you know, hundreds of other ideas. So start consuming a podcast that helps you make money. And this is not get rich quick, it's get rich slow. And that's the secret. So much of life's success is not chasing the silver flashy thing. It's just day in, day out, out. Being smart, taking it slow, being careful. Yeah, it's not sexy, but what does it. I know.

All right, I'm gonna stay away from the sexual innuendos there. I was tempted.

It's not an innuendo.

It was just direct. Actually, there's zero innuendo.

It's not exciting. Okay, so, all right.

We talked about on the income side, the best way to tackle that side hustle. I'm just gonna say it. The best way to tackle is a side hustle. So there might be another way within your work or what you do to try and get a promotion or a job that creates more income. I'll say. One thing to think about is sales. Most organizations throughout every company, sales is typically comp. The highest. And if you can be effective at sales, you're probably going to make more. And so that might be another thing if you're like, well, I like the business I'm at. I'm just in a role that doesn't pay well. Okay. Maybe figure out a way to get into sales and that could be a way to more income. But I would just focus on what you're good at. At what do you have a skill at? I know Mark mentioned like the fly fishing example and that might be attractive to some of you, but you better be freaking good at it. You better not just like, like it. Okay? I know people like, well, I love this and I want to do this for my business.

Yeah. Making pottery and selling it is not going to make you money.

Yeah, maybe.

Yeah. You've said this before. You're good at it. Yeah, you, you've said this before on a prior podcast.

Three things.

Yeah, Making it, being good at whatever.

There's like the three things. This is the Venn diagram that you want to hit. If you get all three of these, it's a no brainer. You're good at it. Like it and it makes money. You need to hit those three things now. You can be good at it and it can make money and that can solve your financial situation. And if you really, if you make a lot of money on it, you're gonna like it, actually.

Yeah, but if you don't like it, is it sustainable? Is it sustainable?

There's a lot of dentists that don't really love what they do, but they're good at it and they make a lot of money on it.

Okay, I know. I get that's the fourth factor. So you're good at it, it makes money and you like it and it's legal. I'm just gonna add that part that helps. You know, you don't want to be looking over your shoulder.

Little caveat. Now, there's some exceptions there, you know, in Oregon and certain states where they've legalized some certain things.

You know, Vegas, you know, who knows?

That's true. Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. But I, I'll add another again. Maybe some of these little golden nuggets that might. Because it's funny how Matt and I will say things five different ways. And then it's just that one statement that just resonates and the light goes on for someone, sometimes for us. I'm sitting here listening to Matt and I love hearing your little examples. I'm going to just say this too. Another key thing is I'm going to go back to building the airplane in the air. That's a term that's used a lot out there in sometimes good ways and sometimes bad ways. And I want to use it in a good way. So many people get into procrastination and take no action at all. They're just like, I don't know what to do so I do nothing. Or it's got to be perfect because I'm embarrassed. I can't go out on social media and say I'm doing this because I'm going to look like a failure. Or we have all these self judgments and issues that hold us back from just taking action. People, it's okay to build the plane in the air in this situation. You've got to. And I'll give one example. So when I was, I said earlier I was a janitor for eight years. I owned a janitorial business when I was going through undergrad and my in law school. And what was funny, and this was pre YouTube. This was back in the 90s, back in the 90s, I'm giving my age here, pre YouTube. But I was still so confident that if someone called up and said, hey, can you wax this floor or can you paint this or can you fix this wall or can you do this? I remember the city would have bids to go out for different things and back then you'd go down to the city and get this report that would say do you want to bid on this TR job and whatever. And there were so many times I had no clue how to do it. But I was like, I'm going to figure this out. So I'd go to the Home Depot and I'd say how do I do this? And learn how to do it on the job. And sometimes it took a little longer but I still made money and I figured it out along the way and so it's okay. You don't have to have the plane built before you get going off here. Go just figure it out. YouTube University. It's pretty cool.

Yeah. I mean that's interesting. You said before YouTube how he'd have to figure stuff out. And now we just. That's. But that's a really important point is like you can figure out so much stuff on YouTube but here, even this podcast, you know, so here's another way that they talk about it. Even in like venture capital funded businesses like, like sophisticated investors that are putting their money into other people starting a business, they do the same thing of building the plane while it's flying. Okay. They call it a minimum viable product. They call it your mvp. MVP is not most valuable player. It's your minimum viable product. What is the minimum thing you can get out that is a viable product that you can sell the best product. Exactly. That gets us going. Don't get the best product out there. We're not telling you to get the best thing. We're saying start with a minimum viable product. And so when you're starting a business, you need to think in that mindset. And like you said, a lot of people get in this analysis paralysis. They're trying to perfect it, and then they do nothing. They don't, they don't have one customer. It's two years in.

Yeah. And you're, you're. For example, you might say one last example, because we have a lot of clients in this landscaping industry is they may say, well, I want to put in sprinkler systems. Sprinkler systems make a lot of money. Okay, cool. That's a great project. And I'm going to do Christmas tree lighting. I'm going to do sprinklers in the summer, Christmas tree and holiday lighting in the winter. Snow removal. We have clients that make well into six figures. Just cracking that code, and it's not that hard. But you don't have to go out and buy the trailer. You don't have to go out and do all this and get five employees and all that. Just start mowing someone's lawn. Can we just start there? Can you just go out with a little business card and go, can I mow you? I'll tell you right now, because I've been working on a house remodel up in Idaho. If you just return a phone call and you provide landscaping, you will be swamped. Just say that. Our place up in Heber and Midway, I've been building, begging for a month to find someone to just come mow something down. And I can't even get someone to do that.

And.

But, but I can't make any money right now. And inflation is this. And it's like on a weekend, go out there with your damn lawnmower and mow someone's lawn. You can make some money. I just, it's just. I just don't get it. I've been There. And I've done it.

My neighbor came over me and he asked for the referral to the landscapers I use. I'm like, you know how much time I have to put into them to do their own damn job? I'm like, they're not worth referring. The problem is I can't find anyone better.

Yeah. I'm not telling you because of my.

I said so. I said so, do you want their number? And he's like, no.

Yeah, that's what. And there's these industries that I think I'm going to put one last twist on it. We have to eat a little humble pie too. Because there's side hustles out there that are ripe for the taking. And you know who's grabbing them? The immigrants, if you will. The people that may not have a full on citizenship or people that are, you would say are down on their luck. So they have to do this. Well, you're not able to pay your bills. Maybe you're in that group a little bit. Maybe you can go in that group and dominate that industry and provide work to others in the long run and be a winner in an industry that needs someone like you. We can be humble about this and go into. I would go out and start doing janitorial again tomorrow. I do not mind getting dirty, going into a building, emptying trash for three hours and cleaning toilets. I've done it. I did it 24 hours sometimes and I go to class the next day in law school with no sleep because I had to do it. I had to make ends meet.

Yeah. I know this is a tough topic and if some of you are like struggling through that because you've really felt like this is a tough time, I think getting engaged in this process and having a plan is something that actually gives you peace. It's work. But knowing that you're working on something and that you have a plan and you're attacking it even though you might fail. I'm going to be honest, some of these even side hustles fail. Some of these small businesses could fail. But the fact that you're taking action and trying to improve it is a little like self respect you get for yourself that you're trying to solve the problem. And I think, and frankly that's one of the things that just makes America great.

It does. And Matt just said get engaged in the process. I think we're going to say go get engaged. So if you want to cut your cash costs in half, go get married. Yeah.

Or just get a, you know, just get in a relationship where you live together, I guess you don't have to be married, but you know, I mean, it's share cost. Yeah, I didn't mean it to come out that way, but that was one of the stats.

You know, it's friends with benefits in a different way. You're friends with the benefit of saving costs.

That's it.

You're splitting costs. There you go.

You can even share like Netflix stuff, the Costco membership.

Now we're bam.

Now we're talking commuting.

Now we're talking. Well, everybody, I hope some of these thoughts were helpful, insightful, motivating something maybe inspiring or a lifeline of some sort. I appreciate you, Matt. These are great ideas. You always bring it. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you. And thanks everyone for listening. We'll be back next week with an amazing episode of the Main Street Business podcast. See you then.