Why Entrepreneurs Fail - The 2 Reasons They Do

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Welcome, everyone, to the Main Street Business Podcast with Mark Kohler and Matt Sorenson. We are excited to be with you today. And I think we've got a pretty important topic we're going to be going in today. We're going to talk about the. Or the.

Yeah, I don't know. The.

The. The. I don't know what sounds more important. This is important. I want you to know that. Yeah. Two reasons entrepreneurs fell.

Yeah. This is darn important. You know, trying. Corey's trying to tell. Can I say the other D? Word on are we going to be okay? He says, okay, I'm okay. I can say the two damn reasons. You know, I just don't want to get that explicit rating. Corey says it doesn't help. You know, people don't see that go with taxes and legal anyway. No, these are legit. So the two reasons. Now, let me say everybody, we come from a place with a little background on this. We from. Matt and I've been doing this for 20 years.

Where you say, like, we come from a place of failure. I don't know. Where are you going with this?

Yeah, don't say that. No, what I meant. Okay. For 20. Okay, let's say. And I've said this before, sometimes I've been that guy. Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, let's say in the day, I was doing three or four consults a day, and that's what most of our attorneys do, three to four or five, because we got to do the work between the calls and all that. So you take 300 days a year, minus weekends and holidays and getting work done. So 300 days times three or four, we're over a thousand calls a year. And Matt and I were in the trenches for years doing that. Now our calls might be a little fewer than three or four. Now we've got administrative duties and that, but we're still out in the trenches, mind you, people. But Matt and I have met with thousands of you. We know you. We feel you. We are entrepreneurs ourselves. And do you think after a thousand calls a year, we might see some patterns of success, patterns of failure? Well, with all of those consults, Matt and I took all this data. Yeah. And we combined it in a massive session of planning on a ski lift. And we said, what are the two reasons? What are these two reasons? I think the ski lift helped and why entrepreneurs fail. And we have it here for you today.

Yeah. And I think sometimes you're on a call, let's say, and this is a consult with a client, something's going wrong. In the business. And it's like, all right, what are the two usual suspects? What am I looking at here? What's the culprit? It's one of these two things. A lot of times, if you just didn't figure these two things out, and that's what we're going to talk about today, we're going to hit those two things. Now, of course, you could have a dumb idea, a stupid business, you know, and there's. There's a lot of other things involved here. We recognize that. But these are really two overriding things you can't let happen to you as an entrepreneur. If these things happen to you, these two, it ain't going to work.

You're not going to make it. Love it. Well said, my friend. Okay, so everybody's dying for the two. Now we're going to. Should we say the two? And then we're going to expound on them.

So let's get them both out on the table.

I'll throw out. Why don't you? Because I liked your analogy with number one. And then I'll throw out number two. So just summarize in 30 seconds or less. Number one, then I'll summarize number two, then we'll deep dive. Number one.

Okay. Number one is expecting too much out of your business too early. A lot of people have the dream of entrepreneurship and an idea and a business, but they expect way too much of it. They don't have the patience, they don't have the perseverance to overcome obstacles. And they basically have this little baby or infant of a business that they're like, okay, walk. Okay, Go out and get a job. Okay, make me money. When I sit home and do nothing. And it's like, no, this. This little business still needs, like, to wear diapers. It's. You got to teach it to walk. You got. You know, and so expecting too much too early is one of the biggest failures.

Okay, love it, number two. And we're going to go back and expound on that. We got some good stories and examples there that'll help you avoid that trap. Number two is not being able to pivot or change your business idea midstream. A lot of entrepreneurs are passionate. We love this. You are passionate. We are passionate. You are passionate about your idea, but you've got a picture of what that idea looks like in this little box. And if you're not making money with that little idea, it's a failure. No, we're going to pivot. We're going to modify. We're Going to change. We're going to adapt. And good entrepreneurs adapt instead of being married to an idea and driving it into the ground and three years later realizing they wasted three years of their life. So we're going to talk about that.

Okay.

All right, number one, Matt. Okay.

All right, let's dig into it. I was going to give one more analogy and then we can get into,

oh, we got to do a bunch. Yeah.

So here's, I think first, and this is always a recommendation we have for someone who wants to go start a new business, new investment idea. Rule of thumb number one, don't quit your day job. Okay.

Yes.

Once you quit your day job, you put a ton of pressure on this business that doesn't have a customer, that hasn't been rolled out, that doesn't have a website, that doesn't have a sales team, that doesn't have a marketing team that does. Hasn't figured out how to do accounting. You know, I mean, all these things, all of a sudden you're like, okay, figure this all out at the same time and make me a bunch of money. And you put a ton of pressure into this brand new business to provide for you today. And when you do that, you start making a ton of mistakes, you start doing things wrong.

Short term decisions.

Yes. Yeah. And you also start swinging for the fences because you're like, I gotta pay my bills next month, I gotta hit a home run. And you start doing dumb stuff. You take advantage of customers. And we see it all the time, people get desperate, they start doing dumb stuff. So rule of thumb number one, which I think really prevents you from getting too desperate, is don't quit your day job. Give yourself some time to get this business going, keep the day job going. And maybe you have a spouse or someone you can rely on or savings. I get it. Some people have different situations. But, but don't quit the day job. I think that really let that business kind of get going off the ground first.

And, and, and, and I'd like to expound on the short term, long term concept in that framework. A good example would be my amazing daughter Sydney, who is a realtor in Orange County. If any of you are looking for a home. Anyway, Sorry, did I really say that? On.

Okay, so anyway, that is a non shameless plug. That's just a plug.

Non shameless, that's right. So Sydney, my amazing realtor at Sotheby's, by the way, she knows what she's doing. So Sydney, she wanted to be a realtor. And I've always dreamed of her being a realtor. She's been on our show before. If you look in the archives, she's great. I think she gave us five tips when you're buying a new home. Anyway, one thing I told her is when you start this, make sure you have another source of income. Because a realtor is a classic example. They want to go out and they, and a lot of realtors think of it as a job. It's not. Yeah, it's a business. A lot of people go to start their new business or their entrepreneurial idea and think it's a job. It's not. It's a living, breathing organism. It's got, it's got to grow, it's got to mature. Billy Ray Silas did not, you know, expect Miley to go out and make money at age 2 or 3. Get her into the system. Disney, you know, get it going.

But music lessons, you know, singing lessons, a lot of legwork happening.

There's a lot of legwork there. Then you produce this amazing musician. But with Sydney, I said, honey, if you don't have a source of income to supplement your business building as a realtor, you're going to make short term decisions that will undermine your long term goals. You want to be with a great brokerage, you want to sell luxury homes. Well, if you're trying to pay the bills, what are you going to do? You're going to take any listing you can. You're going to, if you're. I'm going to go out and list a home that I normally wouldn't want to list or work with a team I don't want to work with or work with a broker I don't want to work with because I got to pay the bills.

Whoa.

Well, what about your long term goal? Well, I got to, I got to make a living. And you can see just in that simple example, a short term decision that undermines your long term vision for your business.

Yeah.

Can you top that one?

I love that. It's, it's not a job. I think it's a business and I think there's a big distinction there from being self employed and having a business than having a job. Having a job. When you start your first couple weeks at a job, you're pretty much worthless, right. Until you're trained and do what you do well. That's how you are in your business too. Like you're pretty much worthless. And by the way, you got to figure everything out in this business and how it's going to work. One thing I. Another way to think about it too is. And I've had some experienced clients that are business owners that start having success where they basically. And I had one conversation with a client that was about basically like starting the business in the first few years. We're not talking years here, guys. We're not sometimes talking like this is not like weeks and maybe it's months, but it could be years. But the first few years was about planting the seeds in the business. Okay, you're planting a lot of seeds as you're starting the business and getting your name out there, figuring out what you're going to do, what's your products, what's your services, how do I market it? Can I bring people in to help me? Do I do it all myself? You know, all these things you got to be thinking about. But you're planting seeds in your business, but later you're going to get to harvest this, but you've got to make it through this seed planting process, which is the hard part, because you're not going to reap the rewards yet. You're putting in the hard work. But there's going to be a harvest later on. The business is gonna. If you're doing it right, the business is gonna grow and there's gonna be a harvest coming.

Yeah, it's the law of the harvest, which I grew up on a farm. I had to move pipe. You know, I walked up a mile uphill to get to school, and I'm uphill mile to get back. You know, I did. I grew up on a farm, not with animals, but it was hay and wheat and all this. But it. When you. But that lifestyle is going away more and more in this country where you kind of understand, oh, if I want to eat, I've got to plant water, pray for good weather. I get to harvest later on. But we're in this microwave society where it's like, okay, I'm going to go start making money tomorrow. No, it doesn't happen that way. And what's sad is you hear these get rich quick stories, which we want to believe. I know, I believe. I want to believe them too, but don't. And now. And here's, here's another concept. And sorry, I just wanted to add that to your point, Matt, is the sad part here is what do our entrepreneurs do? They blame the business. Well, my business wasn't successful. No, no, no, no. Your business was kicking butt. You were just taking out three to four grand a month to live on when your business needed that three or four grand to invest in infrastructure. To invest in another employee. Your business was fast tracked, but you sucked out the profit. You started watering down the soup.

Yeah.

Because you had to pay bills.

Yeah. You starved it of what it needed to grow. And so, so I. What I think is really hard when you start is you gotta know in. For most businesses, the hardest time is just getting it off the ground, getting the ball rolling, getting a little bit of momentum going. That is where you're going to put in the most effort and you're going to get the least payback. But you got to be committed to the idea and concept and your passion for what it is that's going to get you through that period. Because, yes, if you have a successful business, you're getting financially rewarded. Right. For many of us, that's a piece of why we're doing our business. That might not be the only one, but dang, that's a nice one. Extremely. A lot of stress and it pays your bills. And you know, oh, I can just do this. And this could be my passion is just the business. I can quit the day job. Maybe a spouse could quit a job. You know, whatever. It could be. You're getting some of this financial security and independence that we think of when we think of owning a business. But just remember, that is not immediate. You got to pay your dues.

Yep. Yep. And okay, now I'm going to. Maybe this is my summary point for this cause of failure. Maybe not, but it could be. So I'm going to closing. I'm reserving the right to comment. Matt. All right. But Matt and I are talking more about thought, work and, and, and making sure that we have the right mindset going into our own businesses and plans. We've hired a life coach, literally, to help coach our lawyers and our firm. Maybe because we love billions and Bobby Axelrod had Wendy, but we value. Yep. Wendy Rhodes. And you know, here's the thing I really think a lot about this is. It's. It's your mindset, it's your expectations, it's your thought work. And when you go into this business, plant that mindset already that it's okay if I don't make money or take home a paycheck the first six months. That's what's best for my business. Already know that going in. So you're not having a feeling of frustration later because you've already done the work mentally to go. It's okay. That's my plan. That's why a timeline. A lot of people are like, I'm gonna make a million dollars okay, cool. Well, you can make a goal to make a million dollars. It just doesn't have to happen this year. It could happen over two years. Be willing and able to extend the timeline. And then you don't beat yourself up. You don't feel like a failure because you. Your thought or your expectation at the front end was incorrect. Redesign that. Just think about it. And Matt and I won't say what businesses. I'll let you comment if you want, but Matt and I have started a few companies over our time together. We've gone a couple years before we got our first paycheck. Maybe three, four.

Yeah.

It could have been in this most recent venture.

Three. Yeah. Three years on the most recent one.

You told the employees at one point, didn't you? You were in a Snapchat.

You're like, the business had like, 25 employees. And it's like, as the business owner, you're like, I don't want to deprive the company of this resource, of this salary to myself. I want. I want the business to grow and have success. So let me plow that back in. And that's helping grow the business, provide more resources for it. And so think of your business that way if. If you can avoid having to rely on it as a source of income for yourself, even if there's some cash flow on the table. But if you think of it like, actually, how much more valuable is that cash? If I let it stay back in my business, if I let the business take that cash flow, I could otherwise drain it of, and I let that help continue to grow it, you're going to get so much bigger growth, so much more exponential growth, and a bigger ability down the end of the road here to. To use this business to live off of in your future. I will say this, too, you know, and actually, I give an example of another business we have that we had to shut down in the next. In the next one. So. And I think with Mark, and I too, is what Mark, you said at the beginning, too. We're in the trenches on this. I know there's a lot of pressure, guys. I know what the pressure is. And. And we know what it's like to, like, not take payroll. You know, even when your business is operating and you got employees and you're like, oh, living off credit cards for the next month or two, you can't take payroll. We've been there. It is hard, and it's tempting to run up debt or to drain those resources out of your business, but have the discipline, don't rely on it too early for all of your financial stability. I would also say create a budget too. You know, have a stream of income that you have your day job or whatever it may be to, to make sure you can pay your bills, but also have a realistic budget of the business and how it's going to grow over time. So you can have some plans. They'll be willing to adjust that budget too, as the business is developing and growing. I.

And I'm going to allow for my amended final comment. I'm not asking for permission, by the way. No, you know, this is.

Maybe I yield the balance of my time.

Thank you, senator from Arizona. Yeah, this is Dave Ramsey esque. And I was actually talking to a family member about this in the last few months where they want to build a business and I said, you really have two tracks. They have savings and they're like, I'm going to live on my savings while I build the business and I'm going all in.

I'm like, okay, okay.

Or why don't you take a little longer to build the business, don't touch your savings and keep it a part time job. That's okay. You don't have to have your business successful within one year or two years. Take three or four years. And you know what, people? You actually learn a lot during the process. You're not a genius yet with your business. Matt and I learned things every. Wasn't it today day, dude, Wasn't it today in the gym? I was on the treadmill and I told Matt a little strategy I was doing.

Yeah.

A work project. He was like, dude, that was genius. And I was like, oh my gosh. I did kind of feel proud about that. And I. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, what it was,

I, I was complaining about something that I was doing that Mark was also doing. He's like, yeah, but I'm gonna do it this way. And I'm like, oh, that was freaking genius. Why didn't I think about it? So, yeah, sometimes Mark has amazing ideas, sometimes he doesn't. Not all the time. Not all of them hit. But that one hit and you're right, you'll. You'll learn stuff as you go. And I do love, like we talked about the job, you give the example there of savings. Think about a realistic budget. What is this business going to need? What financial support do you need to put it into? Be careful about getting debt to start the business too. That's going to put more pressure on you.

Yeah.

Do you really, do you really want investors that are Going to put money in this. That's another level of pressure that you're going to put on yourself. So ease into these ideas, ease into these businesses. Be aggressive, be passionate, get after it, go for it. I love it. But have. Be a little measured on putting everything else. Your job, your savings.

Savings, Yep.

Your credit, reputation. And with investors all on the line, get this thing going a little bit. Get it going before you jump all in.

Do you know we said savings at the same time? I think we're starting to finish each other. Sentences we tried to. Time.

Yeah, that was good.

All right. Okay. Now we're going to introduce topic number two. My analogy will alienate probably half of our listeners in some form or fashion. Matt isn't used to this. He's like, really? You have to use that example.

Sounds about right.

This is okay. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, sometimes Matt encourages me to think through better stories, but this is a good one. Okay, so the. Remember, we laid this out at the beginning of the show. The second most common reason entrepreneurs fail is they're unwilling to pivot, modify, change, be flexible, whatever word you want to use. And you can think of a. Maybe a service or a product example. Maybe an entrepreneur says, I've got this great service. People are going to love it. And come to find out no one loves it, but they're determined, you know, I'm going to stick with this. It'll catch on. Or a product where you're like, oh, this is a way to, you know, it opens this way, it closes this way. It's a perfect product where in reality, everybody wanted it to slide a different way. Not the open or whatever. And. But they're like, no, no, no. This is the way it should be. And they're. They're determined. And so they stay dedicated to a location too long, a methodology too long, a product design too long. Because they're passionate. I get it. And you're excited about it and you believe in it. But you know what? It's not selling, it's not working, or it's too expensive to produce or too expensive to.

Yeah, And I think whenever you give that example, I always think of Instagram. Okay, this is such an interesting story. So Instagram, when it started, was a location app. It was an app to tell people where you were at. So. And so the founders of Instagram were like, you know, you're at a bar, you could post on Instagram and say. And it wasn't called Instagram. It's called some. You could post, say, hey, I'm here. And it's like, other. All of your friends could be like, oh, John's over at, you know, XYZ Bar. You know, okay, let's go over there, you know? And then what happened is people, they allowed an option on, and it was not doing well, by the way. This business was not doing so hot. It was not a popular app, but they added a feature where you could share a picture of where you were at. And all of a sudden, everybody started using the picture feature, and it didn't really matter where they're at. They were at their house, put a picture up, and it just caught on. And Instagram said, oh, my gosh, we're stupid. No one cares about telling you where you're at. They love sharing pictures and giving a little comment or a little thing about it. And they totally pivoted their business to this boom. I mean, how many of us just use Instagram today? I mean, how many of us use that today? And if they wouldn't have pivoted if they stuck to. No, we want it to be where you share your location. They didn't add the. The photo feature and totally pivot their business that way. It wouldn't be on all of our phones. It wouldn't be the successful business it is. It wouldn't have made a couple of billionaires

for sure. For sure. Okay. I'd love it. I'd love it. Great example. You ready for my analogy?

Yes.

Okay. Buckle up. Okay.

Okay.

I'm going to explain men and women, okay? And their different. And their differences.

Okay? Should I be taking notes here? Because you need this. Have you cracked the code?

I've cracked the code, baby.

Guys, every man, man listening right now.

Pull over.

Get your notebook out.

You ladies, too. You ladies, too. You think you. You know, but. Okay, I'm just, you know, I'm not worried about them.

I'm not. Guys, get your notebooks out. Okay.

Okay. We'll call this the big reveal.

Okay.

Okay.

This better be good.

Okay, now, I. No, I. I'm. I'm actually behind this 100%. Okay? This is the difference.

100%.

Maybe I shouldn't have said that. Out. Okay. All right. I'm gonna. I'm. No, here's my point. This is the difference between men and women when it comes to entrepreneurship, okay? And pivoting, okay? I'm standing behind this 100%.

Okay?

Because I've done those thousand consults. Remember, I went back. Remember the beginning of the show?

I've done thousands of these feet on the box, guaranteed.

Right on the box. Yeah. I've done the research. I've got the data.

Okay, all right.

Okay. On this topic, here's what happens. Should I talk about men first or women? You choose. I'm screwed either way. All right, I'll talk about men first. Okay, so men, AKA I am one. So maybe I have a little more insight.

You're an expert in this.

I better get this one right. Okay, here's the problem with men in this story. They actually can pivot too quickly. They don't stick with it long enough. And so it's kind of funny. Some of you are, like, going, mark, I'll pivot all the time. You know, you guy listeners sometimes aren't. The problem is you're not dedicated too long. You're pivoting too quickly. You're like, okay, I've got my idea, and I'm gonna go out and do it. And then for two weeks, it doesn't work, I better change it. I'm gonna quit. You know, ladies, some of you are like, yeah, he's got a short, you know, thought process. Short mindset. Short term thinking short term. This I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm in for, and then I'm out. I'm, like, not dedicated to the long term. I'm not committed. I'm emotionally unavailable. Oh, sorry. That was a different. Different story. No, but you can see what I'm saying, right? Guys, they'll just.

Yeah, they don't stick with it. I. I see that. I know what you're saying. I see that.

Yeah.

And I know we're gonna go with women on this, too. I'm thinking. I see where you're going.

Yeah, you see where I'm going? Okay.

I see where you're going on this.

I've had so many. Okay. And you're gonna.

I know.

Okay. You expound on these. That's for sure. But I have had so many consults with women business partners or just women solopreneurs, where I'm like, hold it. Do you see this? You've been trying this for two years. You've been trying this for a year and a half or longer, where a

guy

may have tried for two weeks and gave up. And I'm like, no, you know, don't give up. But on the women's side, they stay too long with the project, the idea, the concept. They should have got rid of this guy. I mean, sorry. The business. A long time ago.

Yeah.

They're like, rip that band aid off, woman. You know?

So talking about entrepreneurism, right?

I thought that, yeah, yeah, we're still on entrepreneurism. Sorry, this is cutting a little deep for some of you ladies, maybe. But, but, but it's true. Women are so passionate. They've got this idea, they are emotionally freaking committed. They are going to make this business work. And I get it, I love it. But sometimes you got to modify, you got to, you got to change, get rid of this business or model and it doesn't mean you're a failure, ladies. Oh, isn't this deep? Right? You're not a failure to make a change with what your long term passion and long term goal is. And guys, if you've got this long term goal and plan, give it a chance, let it marinate, let it grow, get, you know, and we find a lot of entrepreneurs that find that balance.

But yeah, yeah. So between the two, with men giving up too quickly and I think trying too many things before letting one really settle in and chasing that one really good idea and letting it flesh out, putting in the hard work, having the rejection, having the failure, having to kind of adjust a little bit. I'm not talking about pivoting, but just kind of make it a little better, improve it, adjust the things. Because sometimes it's just a possible service that there's some mistakes on how you're delivering it, how you're marketing it. It's the same idea. We're not, that's not a pivot necessarily. That's refining it and getting it to the place where customers are willing to pay, where they're going to choose your product or service over a competitor. And so a lot of times I totally see that with men in business. They're, they're like, oh, I've read the signs. It's not going to work. We're going to do this instead. Okay, well, that was actually your best idea. The next thing you're doing actually is a dumb idea. What that one? You know, let this one work its way out first. You got to refine it first.

And hold up before you go to ladies. I know it's, this is the funny, fun part of this is I think many of you can buy into what I'm trying to say. I'm behind this 100%. I've seen it over and over again. But isn't it interesting, the parallel? How many guys could stick with their girlfriend, their partner longer and say, you know what, I need to learn more about her. I need to figure this out. I can, I need to stay with this longer because there's a diamond in the ruff here, rather Than just, nope, it's not working. Gone.

No.

There could be a really neat relationship there, but you give up too quick.

I love the dating parallels.

I'm sorry, I thought that was good.

Okay.

All right, I'm out. I'm out. Okay, we'll come back to.

I was going to, I wasn't going to go that far. I mean, talking about the difference between men and women in businesses, as far as I'm willing to go.

Well, this is really for Corey. Corey's over here, our producer, 20, you know, mid-20s. He's over there taking notes and yeah, this is life changing for him. Okay.

And I, and I'll say there's some personality traits that don't fall into these general stereotypes we're making here, of course. So. But all of us, men and women, have to battle with this in one way or the other in finding the right balance and kind of threading the needle. What's the right thing here? But you've got to find the right balance of sticking it out. Letting an idea and a product, a service, whatever it may be, get developed fully to where you know whether it's going to work or not. But also knowing when to just cut and just be like, that's not going to work. Wasting my time, my effort, my money, my passion is dying. I got to pivot to something else. Knowing that balance is like, if you can hit that and you got it, if you have a good idea, you're going to be successful.

And I've got one last story on the women's side here. Ladies side. This is with my daughter Allison. I was actually talking about her this weekend. Still pretty cold up here in Idaho. And I was talking about ice fishing over the weekend and I took Alice and my daughter ice fishing. And any of you haven't done it? It's pretty surreal. It's so peaceful. It's fun. You're in this little hut out on the ice and this storm or the cold is around you and you've got your two or three little holes in the ice. But Allison is classic for this too. She's got her little two foot fishing pole. They're adorable. It really is.

Yeah.

And she's got a little bait down there, you know, and I've got a fish finder, you know, and so I'm sticking this in the hole and I'm can seeing what fish are around and I'm like. And I'm over there. Okay. Probably not given enough time. I'm like, oh, no. Bite. Bring that thing up. Cut, cut, bait I'm going to throw on some corn or I'm going to throw on a worm. I'm going to throw on some power bait, you know? And I'm trying everything. And she's looking over at me. Give it some time, damn it. You know? And then she's over there. She's had the same bait on for like, 45 minutes. I'm a girl. If they haven't hit it yet, it ain't happening. And it just kills her, like, all right, cut bait, you know? And so it's just. It's just funny. And I know. I like what Matt said, too, that it's not just a male and female thing. There's. It obviously cross all sorts of gender boundaries and. And cultures and age groups and all that. But I'm hoping what all of you here, here are. What all of you are hearing is this takeaway that it's okay. See, again, we have these thoughts in our mind that I've got to do it a certain way. I've got to give up early or I've got to stay too long or I've got to whatever. Just try to find that balance and it's okay. Don't beat yourself up. Set proper expectations that any business is going to make changes along the way. Just know that going in that way, when you make a change, you don't see it as a failure. You see, you see it as a success that you were willing to modify.

Love it. Last thing I would say on this is sometimes you have to totally cut bait. Sometimes you got to wind the whole thing down. It's not the right time. It's not right in your personal life. It's just not going to work. No matter how many pivots you try to make. We've had to do that. We had a title company at one point. We started a title company in 2007, right before the real estate market, like, went in the. In the dumps. And it was great. We started it. We had two offices going, some escrow officers working for us. It was building fast. We had a lot of our real estate clients using it. And then the real estate market went in the dumps. And it was hard because we looked at it and we said, you know what? We could even nurse this business along and be okay, but to what end? How much effort and time is it going to take to nurse this thing? And do you need to just call time of death on something? And sometimes that's a much harder decision to make than starting a business, is when to shut one because you do get attached to it and you want to see it through. But having the ability to say, I'm going to come back, it's okay. We know the stories of some of those successful people. Like, was it Jeff Bezos who started like 10 companies before Amazon finally hit, that failed? How many super successful people in our business world have had more than a. Like three or four failed businesses before the one that they had finally hit? That's okay. That can happen to you. It doesn't mean you're out of entrepreneurship. It just means that one is going down and it's not worth your time or effort. You're going to be back. It's okay. I love.

I. I never heard that quote, man. I like that. Is that your quote, that it's easier to start a business than to shut one down?

Yeah. Having the. Because you. Some way. Some people think, well, I'm a failure. And a lot of people, sometimes that's what stops people from starting a business is they don't want to fail. But a lot of people get going and they, their friends and family have heard about it. Right. They may have had some employees that they've had some customers, and they feel like all these people are going to look at them like they're a failure because they're going to wrap that business down. That's okay. You're not over. You've learned. Take that as a learning experience. What can I do better next time? How can I make a better decision on what business to start? How can I execute differently?

And that's a win. I love it.

It's really a win.

I wasn't going to bring this up because I took a couple of these comments from a podcast. I heard this last week from Brooke Castillo. And one of the things that she did in this recent podcast that she said was I had to shut down one line of business that I was really excited about so that I could do something better. And it was so hard. And she talked about that and, and I thought that was really insightful. That what you were saying there, Matt, is that the emotional decision to stop some business or quit doing it or close it down, whatever you want to say. Is I the word that comes to mind for me and all of you out there? Because some of someone's listening right now that's facing a business that's not hitting on all cylinders. It could be sucking wind big time.

Yeah. And you're done. All the pivots you've seen, you've done all the pivots you've Made all the pivots that can be pivoted.

Yep. And you're like, what do I do next? And the word that comes to mind for me is reframe it. How is this perfect for you? What did you learn in the process? And to reframe it in the sense that you're not the failure. It was a great idea. It was the wrong time for that idea or the wrong location or the wrong this or that. But you don't have to make it personal. And I know a business is so personal. I mean, it's like, it's who you are. You put it out there. But when it's time to shut down a business, reframe it and say, okay, I'm going to shut this down so I can do chapter two or chapter three and I can do something better and it's okay.

Love that.

Boom.

Love it.

I do a pen drop. Is this a pen drop?

Yeah. Let's just end on that. All right, that's it for me. I'm out.

George Castanza.

I'm out. I'm out.

All right.

Been a great audience.

I know. I told Corey, I'm sick of this. This mic that's like stationary because I can't do a mic drop. He's like, it's that for a reason. Do you have any mics you've broken? So he won't allow me to have

a. Yeah, you're not a rock star that can destroy a guitar every performance, you know?

Yeah, you're not there yet, Mark.

Thousand dollar guitar going down every performance.

Yeah. No more road mics for you. No more handhelds, so. Well, everybody, thanks for listening. This. I, I, we wanted to really cover a topic that we felt was beyond the technical planning of tax or legal or a document or a tax return or a deduction. We love both pieces of that because to be successful, you have to understand the yin and the yang. It's the technical and the passion and how you bring those two together. And we're excited to be with you.

Love it. Yeah.

Any final words, Mr. Sorensen?

No, just if you like the show, please share it with your friends. Give us a, like, whatever a heart. Subscribe, Whatever you can do, you know, stars for the show.

Yeah.

Send flowers, whatever. And get over mainstreetbusiness.com you can learn more about the show. And remember, we do an open forum every month where you can submit questions. Tax, legal, wealth building, business, any of those questions, throw them in there. We hit them each month on our open forum show. And yes, we got some giveaways.

Well, I'm not going to do giveaways. We got. We are. We're on a time crunch today. I'll just say this. The new 2022 MJK Monthly Planner has been sent out to all of those that had pre orders. I know that you wanted it January 1st, but we were waiting for tax data from multiple states and the feds. And so this thing is power packed with tables, new tax tables and tax data by state with maps of the states. We've got important tax deadlines throughout the entire year and a space for you to work on your 10 year plan, your five year, your three year plan and 2022 plan. We were sold out by April, May, no, sorry, March or April last year. I've, I've got one more print run coming from the printer this Friday. So if you want to get the calendar, get over to markjkohler.com and the law firm kqslawyers.com Matt's kind of said hold it, don't send them to law firm site. I got it. Matt's going to do a big reveal on the new law firm site. I'm excited about that. But marjoriecoehler.com come get your planner. It'll sell out again. It's so useful, so helpful. Get it for one for every family member and business partner in your organization. You'll love it. So thanks everybody. We'll see you next week for another episode of the Main Street Business podcast.

Until then, thanks Sa.