This is where we started which is let's do this Let's do this crap this entrepreneurship crap with the gang with the gang So we're here with some fellow entrepreneurs So a lot of you if you've been watching my YouTube channel know who I am maybe this got shared somewhere And you don't you don't need to learn like the whole history of my YouTube channel Anyways, I am Tom Lawrence owner of Lord systems and this is I'm Eric Thomas not the owner of Lord systems Yeah And this is Dana Dana white absolutely not the owner And keeping with the theme it's and I'm Anthony Montipano and still not the owner Systems, but we are all business owners and they're all friends of mine So this is all why we're all sitting at this table and we just we just spent like two. Oh god No, three hours. It's almost eight o'clock. We've been at this three hours before we turned the microphones on which we could have turned Three hours ago Entrepreneurs like to complain to each other. Yeah, we're our only friends. Yeah, now we want to complain on video We like to get some sleep today. I think yeah, right um Eric defined entrepreneurship really Simply so your definition of entrepreneurship is so I define entrepreneurship as the talent for Creating processes that allow people to derive value over and over and over again I think that's just a super clear as any one of us have done that You know, I have a process by which you know The inbound leads come in and then the person process it and the task is done and the revenues are collected and Dana owns a a business yes You know, it's all business owners have like PTSD We just say we have a business and we just stare off blankly My name is Dana white and I own a business. Hi, Dana Hi, Dana started seven years ago I had a dream and I thought That if I just wrote it down and just handed the paper out believe strongly enough that they would just come to work And do what was on the paper and no no Everything else to it. Just do what I ask and know what I need you to do without me telling you And that's not working So a lot of this started so in all seriousness a lot of this had started because I did a video of I hate my job is not a business plan. It's not repeated that to a lot of people because I love don't get me wrong I love everyone who you've ever emailed me that you started a business Yeah, you helped me tom with some of the videos you did where you talked about You know different aspects of business how you started and things like that and that's great But I want to be very very real and not just here from me. I'm one of those people like hey I didn't I'm not just making stuff up as one person I talked to people and the struggle is real when it comes to starting it You think you're just going to write down these processes people are going to follow them Or people will just give you business because you started and I think all of us have concluded at at some point that We still hardly make the money we made working in corporate I know there's other two people at the end of the table They both were see I hadn't worked corporate all of these kind folks were corporate. So I've always been broke Yeah, they've had a fall from heaven like Lucifer, but And if you have paused this video and googled Eric Thomas, you may have seen oh, I don't know Ted X on the stage There's two of us. There's two of us. There's yeah, there's a we're both black But there's one yells and I tell jokes. Uh, that's the the main differentiator We're both public speakers though. So it's weird to say Yeah, but Eric has made what you know, if you were looking at from the outside in and some of those things You assume. Oh, you know, Eric's uh, you were up on the stage at what was that big branding conference? I'm sorry. I don't know the name of it. Oh, even though I've been at the digital summit a few times I've spoken for the IDSA. I've spoken all around the country Which is where they put him in planes flying in places. You think oh cool. It's gotta be successful Yeah, but then if uh, it's is your apartment at furniture yet I just I know I got furniture like a year ago I bought my first bed in life like two or three years ago It's feeling like a whole grown-up. You make so many sacrifices to be an entrepreneur I think that's that's someone what started some of this conversation of it's you know, trying to make payroll trying to um, you know payroll I know But it's kind of what we wanted to talk about is there's just a lot of realism It's important to first start with getting your plan together writing it down Make sure you have an idea will that idea fly all that stuff. Hopefully you've gotten at least going I know how to make money. I know how to extract value From the processes I created But we're going to talk a little bit more about that challenge of actually getting people to do things I think would be one of them And you manage quite a few how many employees do you have right now 20? She gets 20 people to do this. We had 10 at the max and that was a lot 20s a lot. I just hired an operations coordinator. Oh, look at you. I know I'm fancy, huh?  Yeah more payroll So, yeah, I have an operations coordinator two managers How did you get to 20? Let's let's talk a little bit about that and how did you not die getting to 20? I know I am dead. I I'm here. She is a spirit. I don't have a pulse No, so You know you I thought I reward myself with a second location Um and say, you know, let's prove this concept, you know, because that's one more location closer to the vision and so Um and wanting to have a vision of a national brand. You need to have a second location So in order to have a second location, you have to staff For that second location. And so I've noticed that in the evolution of my business that I Did every job Um, even though I'm not a hairstylist. I did almost every job that led to the evolution So when I first opened back in 2012, I was shampooing hair answering the phone um, and then closing a thing in the night and doing quick books or you know doing payroll Administrative stuff. And so over time when your business grows you replace yourself, right? And so now that my business is growing. I'm replacing myself And so instead of me overseeing the two managers I now have replaced myself with an operations coordinator who oversees the two managers And then they report out to her about their staff So, yeah, we grew because I thought it'd be a great idea To have a second location But so much of it came from you really I've watched you write you're like organized way more than me You see my color pencils. Do you remember my color pencils and my posty notes? Yes, you were hardcore I ain't got it. Do you want to see it? No, it's too far away. It's over there I ain't got it a side note to what makes us all interesting is we all did this very differently I am not organized as much. I know anthony is more organized than me I've seen some of your process flow I'm probably more like eric that I just kind of have an a lot of ideas and hope everyone falls I just hope for the best honestly I don't have it. My business partner is the organization. What's so difficult is when you actually do put a process together And you realize that like you you have this dream that you're like, this is how I'm going to do it This is how it's going to work out And then you put it in place and you're like that was so far from that That's not reality So then you start to figure out do I need to like bold things or maybe do I need to learn from what didn't work But yeah processes are as easy as it might say to do in theory or on paper Actually putting that in place they're actually trying to see that through is Yeah, and it's it's also you you have to prepare yourself for failure on that If you didn't write the first time you fail you write it again You write it again, and that's something where I admire eric. How many I mean eric has failed a couple times I'm like I'm the king of failure No, you know what I've discovered so I I do branding marketing strategy and communication and so much of it is Instinct and so much of it is just years and years of Absorbing things that it's so hard to create a process around it. You know you How do you tell someone to go be creative? But there are strategies and it's something that we've been working on a lot How do we take out the framework and infrastructure of the way that we tell stories and put that down on paper So that people may not They may not do it exactly the same way But they at least know the perspective at which they need to look at things from and that has been complicated Because it's something about scaling creative sucks the soul out of it You know it's it's like, you know, how do you tell somebody to fall in love with an idea? Or teach someone to fall in love with an idea that they don't actually love And so that's been something that I've been able to successfully do But it's something that's harder to get other people to do and people who are at the level That I'm able to do it are incredibly expensive I don't like My contemporaries are they're in six-figure rate It's like how do you bring somebody on like I work for me for less money because I am pimping myself to myself, but If I was to bring in another one of me, I know what my market value is So all of a sudden you're like, okay. I just need to go find a couple hundred thousand dollars. I'm sure that'll be Easy to do but it's not it's not No, no, and it's in especially in the creative businesses.  How do I scale that out? All of those face a lot of challenges your challenges are a little bit different though It's still finding people to that can do the follow the process you created for how they work at the slot Yes, what is the challenge of finding those people? So they you know, it's also the industry in the market You know a lot of people There are several people who work in this industry who are not certified And there's not a lot of oversight for that. So finding certified operators Can be tough And then I've also found that people There is a culture that doesn't really set up for a lot of business structure So it's come when you want leave when you want You know and the only way I know how much money I'm making is how many people text me what appointment they're going to come to Right.  And so, you know, no place to judge. I mean they are but For me finding the people who have the mindset around the work ethic the business acumen. No, you can't get Money for daycare for your kid outside of your paycheck Well, you're the owner. Can't you just lend me a couple hun? No I I can't no you can't punch in from the parking lot You have to come in and be ready to work So there but they're not in in in this in the hair world for some there is no punching in Well, you've like standardized You standardized a creative space. I always think about that too. Like I could technically do that Yeah, because at the end of the day, none of this stuff is that damn complicated Right. It's kind of like, okay. We need some marketing. We need some pr. We needed to go out of these times You could strip out all of that Extra stuff and just say, all right, I need their graphics to look like this I need the people to do this and we did it at a certain level. We could feasibly scale that up to people with base skills And then go out that way. But it should For me That's not the stuff that excites me Though I always think that maybe I should make a second company that does that because I you know, you have the skill set to do it And then you're just like, all right, you're handling all of this stuff. That's under $2,000. Like that's that company and then all the fun stuff Then we handle that over here. I think too Something and you shared before me share again About how you've had to separate yourself from the staff because they don't maybe like wearing uniforms Or having wearing it was not uniform. It's like a standard Like you say you have to wear a certain clothing a certain way, right? Right.  They don't want to do. No, it's you know, it sounds like No, but you have your customers want it your customers want to know you're going to be open at a certain time Your customers know they're going to get a certain quality of service And so What you have to do is you have to put these systems and processes in place Especially for people who in this industry They will Do your hair and stop and go get their kid and leave you sitting in the chair, right? And you'll be in the salon all day So for me, I'll be in this line What'd you say I'll be in this line all day, right? And they're not having that's my homie, but I'll be there So what happens is for me Again, I was overseeing two managers and I had to replace myself So we're getting to a point where the business needs to grow It needs to grow and I can't do that and manage them right and so You put in an operations corner. I met with my mentor this weekend and he you know has four or five layers between him And he meets with the people in those layers But I've talked to several business owners From our goldman sacks groups and and they've all said daniel at that point in your business Why you're hitting these challenges is because there's no layer between you And your employees you need that layer. So I put that layer in recently and it's working out splendidly. Wow It's and it's great that said, you know the the constantly you've heard it If you've read any entrepreneur book It says you need to be working on the business not in the business and that's allows you to step away And it's um, it's letting employees know that yes I will leave at two o'clock on Friday not because I just own the place and I just don't feel like working But I have somewhere to go go. I had a meeting to go to I had whatever They have to understand that they there is some separation between you and the staff like, yeah I am actively involved and even myself my hands do touch keyboards. I'm not External not involved business owner because I don't want to be But there's there's like these separations You do have to create layers because if every question comes to me and every decision comes to me I wouldn't well be hanging out here with some friends and things like that Like I can close the door and go on this side of the business like the studio side as I call it Making videos doing whatever fun things I want to do because I've got structures in place on there And it comes back to that creating those structures and making people understand it And they don't necessarily apply to you the owner you create the structure other people's have to follow it Well, here's a it's like what Anthony said earlier I was gonna say it's really important you said that you have to not necessarily follow it But it's what everyone else has to do and that's the hard part Anthony said earlier you have to leave at two o'clock because when you're employed You don't think about where the money comes from All you know is every two weeks there's a check when you are the owner You have to think about where the money is going to come from today tomorrow next week next payroll next tax cycle And so that means that if the money is going to come from me going to this event at one o'clock on friday Or not even an event me having a meeting with my marketing people or my finance manager and saying hey How are we doing and what do we need to do to get more as I call it the butts and seats index the biz right They the the staff doesn't necessarily understand that they just see you leaving or they don't see you for three days So they assume that you're sitting at home playing video games Because you haven't been in the salon for three days Or you're waiting for a client to pay you and you need that check because uh the mail is going to take too long Because you need to cover payroll sometimes you've got to just go get the check Going to get to check is a real thing especially when you do work I think like it's actually like uh like Tom anything and I when you have these you know 5,000 10,000 20,000 up type of projects, you know You're you're not just getting these payments. I mean there's small payments sometimes but When somebody has to give you like 20,000 and they tell you something like we're going to put it in the mail But they're just down the street. Oh you drive and get it you drive and get it You just you just walk right out the front door and go get it I'm going to be here and you know I laugh because I like the way they write it When we do our large infrastructure projects We require down payments up front and actually always right on there if we work with the general contractor mobilization money They write that in the memo always makes me happy when I see that because that's what it is It mobilizes all this start I want to get that check right away because you know one of the deposits was 60 grand to get started on the project Well, I wouldn't they're like hey, can you start like next week? Well, it takes a couple days for that check to clear I have to figure out how to get all the materials ordered without the money to order materials because I need 60 g's That you have right now that the bank wants a couple days to get no you can't put that in the mail You need to you need to give me that It was also weird to talking about processes all the time Sometimes you work with a company and they just have these arbitrary processes that makes it harder for everybody involved So it's like oh like we've had a couple where it's like We have to take our check and send it to california Then they have to send it back from california to come back to you it's like let me tell you what we finna do What we finna do is I'm finna come get the check So we can go put it in the bank so we can get the project finna started like what Understanding my baby. My baby. Run me my check.   Oh, we were in a meeting one time We were in a meeting one time and the guy said the guy said it was the scariest thing I ever heard his business owner He said with our contractors Whatever your net is we're gonna add 30 days to it So if you ask for a net 60 we're gonna turn it to a net 90 in some months It was a big like tier one company said some months what we're gonna do is we're gonna hold that money So it could accrue interest so it'll go from a net 60 to a net 120 And you're just gonna have to wait for it. Yeah, I was like did he just say he's not gonna pay you for four months arbitrarily Terrified I swear I've read so many legal contracts or payment terms because I'm always trying to understand like what we're getting ourselves into Yes, it's something that I feel like I have like a minor law degree For the level of of contract It's ridiculous. Let me give you advice if you're starting out do read all those don't sign while you're there Man, you can tell that percent You know, I learned this when I worked in corporate and this is something I I still use 16 years after having my company We had this over a contract. I said I seen things in that contract that I said, no, no, no No, this seems like they could not pay me. I think this is wrong And so we went and this was about 12 page of contract and we went and just highlighted and circled And we even sent them by the way, you can't do this unless you tell them you're doing it We admitted we edited the pdf and we just blocked out sections And we told them but you can do that without telling them But it won't hold up in law because if you have to tell them you altered it because they even They'll assume you sign the pages. They won't necessarily read back all 12 pages That's something you may see in movies. It's a gotcha. You do have to say I modified page 11 sub article 12 I don't agree with that in any way if this is a problem we're getting this project started And we're doing this at 7 30 at night back and forth because they wanted us to start on a monday And this was a thursday and they had to write a check on friday So we had to get this sorted out and these are things that you will deal with And trust me a lot of times if you're new they're going to look to trip you up Important important note Do not let people bully you around payment cards because they will at scale They do this thing where it's like they know you need the money They know you're growing and so people will do things That that make you feel like you have to do it people who have been in business for a long time because we get good at this too You know where somebody is in their skill So you know exactly how far you can push to get yourself the most favorable terms And so people are doing that to you especially when you look young Especially when you look small when you don't have scale and it is It is a business tactic because business is all about getting the most favorable terms for your business It's all about getting the most favorable payment terms But people will try to bully you do not let that happen And if it gets to that point, I would say don't be afraid to walk away and what just let them know There's even though if you may have lost something on that deal It's not worth the fight as much to be for the next deal So like it's important that if anything cut your losses learn from it and uh, Definitely read the contract next night. I participate in a lot of tech forums Especially the business ones and consulting work. I've done related to tech You relate to my industry and it's things I see in the tech forums, you know, I see someone post Hey, what would you I got this contract? It's for you know, fixing 50 computers on a recurring monthly blah blah I'm charging this it'll be like one tenth of what any of us think should be charging like but I'm making money at this I'm like, well, yeah when you're by yourself you are But you just got suckered into it and you have no room to grow You're the only one managing the business you have no margin to hire anymore no margin And that's that is one of those first missed people get caught up in twos I'm gonna do what my old job used to but I'm gonna do it for 20% less 30% less and still make margin on it There's so many more things, you know I got a piece of paper laying over there that says I owe six grand that required me contacting people to figure out Why I owed irs money and then the irs sending me credit monials. There's all the things of business You got to have a little bit of that money back there because that has to happen You have you can't just say I'm just gonna undercut everything and that's that's like one of the first things You do is make those mistakes and giving it away. Can we talk you can we tell the margins for a second? That was the thing that we just like me and my business partner really are starting to get things about We made a chunk of money you can make a lot of money But if you don't have any margins, you ain't made no you're shuffling money I know people with three million dollar contracts and the owner took home 35 thousand dollars out here. Here. He's margins Understand the difference between revenue and profit There's there are different. We did the same thing man We may we may close to half a million dollars and then take no money home You know, it happens You take it a million and you see you just not got furniture, you know, I'm saying like it's a it is a thing That will happen to you because when you're making money It does feel good just on the like if you just come down to the human part of being an entrepreneur Making money feels cool You said a thing you're doing a thing that you love you talk to some people you got them involved They're invested they gave you the money you can make any amount of money You can make a billion dollars, but if your margins aren't there You can't grow. Yeah, and you'll shrink if if your business isn't growing it's shrinking Businesses are never like flat That is that is never a if you consistently made let's say one million dollars year after year You'll just lose through the cost of inflation the cost of growth The cola cost the cost of living allowances that go up year after year So you almost have to be in a state of growth And you know one of the things that we've been doing lately is over the last two years Especially is tweaking the margins a lot more. We raise rates It's just in my business is simple as that we have an hourly rate recharge. How do you make more? Well, I could cut everyone's pay not going to go over.  Why'd you raise your rates because last year this much I'm like we had to cost the living went up Everything has to be adjusted with it. You can't brag go man 10 years later. I'm still charging at same hourly rate Oh, uh, how's it and you watched the buildings all the crap it look in another another way At the same time too with the whole charging for more like you have more experience you have more value Are used to provide so it's not necessarily that you're just raising it purely for cost of living even though that arbitrarily But there is the fact that like every single year if you're doing this can't like day over day You are getting better. You're providing more value for your customers and clients. Well and think about that How long you've been in business Anthony so seven years seven years So a project you did seven years ago a project you today, you know Substantly more you have a bigger team. You can I don't even want to look at my project We just recently reopened up a project with a client that's three years old and it makes me cringe and I'm just like who wrote this code Oh, that was me some cloud name me It's it's different when you look at it from a coding standpoint. It's easy for an artist I love those, you know, I've been an artist for four years, but this is how I started and now I can draw a horse or whatever I was little drawings when you like it. It's like they started with stick figures They draw something really cool. That's easy to visually represent code is it is visual Unless you're in it, you're like, whoa, I did that and even little things we've done from years ago You're just like wow like I'm so much better now which means I should be charging more because I I was doing some Well, I did work that I was skilled enough to do 16 years ago another way to increase margins is efficiency I think people always forget about that too. Like that's another way getting more efficiency A lot of money is lost At the margins. It's right in the inefficiencies. How long did it take for something to get done? Yeah, that was another you know the carrying cost of a project is something another thing me and my partner talk about a lot You know if if you have a project that spans over three months That could have happened in a month You make like you're not just making The same amount of money stretched out. You're actually making less money if it's stretched out because you've got bills that are coming in They're just taking chunks and fees out of it Um and then something goes wrong and then you haven't to do less or you're having to do more You're spending more time. You have more bodies on it. And so you're making more money because you're inefficient That's my process value is in efficiency. I mean, that's exactly what it is. Yeah That's my whole brand my whole brand is efficiency like with our price point You can have somebody in there for four hours Or you can have somebody in there for 45 minutes, right? $40 at four hours versus $40 at 45 minutes You're gonna make there you're gonna make more. Yeah, you've created efficiency with there some of the other things too, especially what you said about the I learned this and I one of the things I really took home from Nasser was a guy I worked for for a long time And I there's something about working with Some of the mentality of the way the arab business mind as he used to call it He's to call him Nasser school of business But there's a lot of things like he used to make these uh, he spoke broken english and he goes tom never get loans from bank I said why he goes noose noose around your neck And I didn't completely understand it when he gave me that advice But now I understand it so much better because as you can finance things yourself And make your own margin on it versus hey, I got this big project I know I can get so much down But I have to finance so much because I got to pay the contractors I got to buy the parts Well, all right, the bank loaning on that is going to be 8% Well, that means if they turn into like he said 120 day pay I'm paying 8% on 120 days. Man now. I'm just wandering away. It's just chipping away at it Well now I do have people who owe me my money right now, but I financed all of it myself So it hurts less and being able to mobilize money yourself means I can get the project I can do it and I don't have to be beholden to the bank Uh, they're scrutiny for getting the loan the process the time consuming this and the eating away at margin And a lot of people when you're starting out small businesses, you're going to say, I'ma throw it on credit cards Been there done that um American Express like choked me, but I had to make payroll So as well as options like I had people to pay I had things I had to get done American Express was hitting me for like 18 or 19 percent whatever that was Yeah, and you're like trying to hustle to because you get caught in this loop in a hole on there And now I can do a project without calling American Express and it's really the the market's so backwards and just Life ain't fair just kind of face this reality when you have money They're going to loan you money at 6% when you have no money. It's 18 and 21 percent Credit advice here Get your line of credit before you need your line of credit Yeah, like the the biggest mistake that we have made that everyone I know a business has made is You don't think you need credit a credit card a line of credit until you do But here's the thing You will Oh My baby you will And when you need it When the little the lights are going off and everything's crashing down around you and you go out and you're like, please I might eye a bit of porridge They're going to slap in the porridge right out of your hand like it's just that's just that's what happens And the more desperate you are the more dubious the the lending system to get They they like I think I think that payday loans are a scourge against humanity. Yeah They are the most dangerous things ever instituted that I still think we I'm about to go on a rampage about the earning app Like like it is well branded payday loans for low income people who need help And and and stuff like that is so dangerous because when you when you're doing a 40 interest on a hundred dollars. It doesn't feel crazy But that's that's four thousand dollars out of ten thousand. I was like, that's a lot of money And you've dealt with I think you had mentioned one before Wasn't there some of those ones that you had looked at us? Oh, man. Remember that? Yeah, I remember you talking about We never looked at us And um, you know, I it will remain nameless for the purpose of this You know, I I want to go on a rant because I got a couple of the messages I don't even know if we can look at say the name But I'll be safe and not say the name And so I think the the the lesson I would say about lines of credit and credit for people You know, you're exactly right. Don't take them. Don't wait to take them when you need them Think ahead of the ahead of the time and so for me I um panicked Because I had, you know, rent that needed to be paid and you know, things that I needed to do so I took what is the equivalent for of a paid day loan for A business and I went to this place that says, hey, we will give you so much money on your merchant Processes, right? So you make oh so much money a month in and credit card payments So we'll give you a loan on that for that came out to 25 thousand dollars Which was the equivalent to what I did per month or the months that they looked at for credit cards And yeah, what you know, and you do the interest rate and you're just signed. Okay. Where do I sign? Where do I sign? Because I want this money. Where do I sign? Hit you when you're desperate? We definitely have been and we've definitely and so at 225 dollars and 49 cents a day Yeah five days a week Excluding holidays in those places will I get so many letters from them I've seen the name of the one you're talking about like they sent me a letter today. That's made me think about it I am down to disparage every single one of them. I mean they are creditors But if you panicked I would have had a conversation with my landlord had I not panicked I would have had conversations I had to go through it to get to it to learn it and that Be patient with yourself and know that there's value in your in the work you do in your business And you can get a line of credit. You can have a conversation And get an extension or get a payment modification before you panic and that's that mind between entrepreneur Dana and Corporate bill paying working Dana working Dana panics and then just works really hard and makes up the money Entrepreneurial Dana has a conversation Oh business tip. This is the most important business tip in the universe You can talk to people you can talk like deadlines. I'm not gonna say deadlines are arbitrary But they can shift This idea that like if the money like if you don't have the money right now Somebody will just show up in your bedroom and just gut you like a fish Is not real and you and you seize up and this is for all any young entrepreneurs starting out entrepreneurs that that are watching This is super important The Tension and anxiety you feel when deadlines are coming and it doesn't matter the amount of money $10,000 $10 it feels the same you feel like an absolute failure and like Take that deep breath and make that phone call like just make the phone call and say hey I do not have it right now I am working on it for you and us because i'm not dodging the worst thing you can do is dodge I've made that mistake in my career as an artist I don't know any artist. It hasn't done it a developer developers do it too. You just Blip out of reality. It's easy to do because you put your head in the sand, right? Oh, yeah There's a shame to it. There's an embarrassment to it. There's an anxiety to it um And you just go you know what not today and then not today and then not today and the next thing You know, it's not this year. Right I would just say like just don't be afraid Of the money or talking about money. I think they're like though the one thing that we all are for some reason You know when you don't have the money, you don't want to talk about it But it's important that you do talk about it because you want to be able to think about like how to solve these problems as a grown-up and not a little hole and say I don't know how this is gonna work So like I would say like face it like headfirst and be honest with whoever you're dealing with And just talk about the money. They're like at the end of the day. Like just have those conversations I have someone not answering the phone right now that owes me 37 thousand dollars They can't avoid me for long as I know where their building is and I will be there soon On my way single friday asking for payment. Yeah, so as much as you can I've been on both sides of that. Yeah, I've had the emails. I've sent the emails My partner sent emails. We've received emails the the thing you'll learn is that like Business is not this other universe. We're all of a sudden in money We've been taught as humans, especially if you've grown up poor That money is like this whole other thing like money in and of itself corrupts people and money in of itself Like slits your throat like it's like money. There's a Stack of dollar bills just walks into your room and beats you up Right, like it's like everybody relax And and because we're so uncomfortable talking about money like Anthony was talking about We don't know how to talk about it when it's bad I know in the hood we do this thing where like even your grandma will like slide you money to your palm I don't know the other community today. We're like nobody like hands money.  It's like chill. Everything doesn't have to be safe Like you like you like slip it into the tithing basket like even this is even like a secret to god You're like 10 percent of whatever you got and you've got to like just like slightly throw it into like A statue what that 10 percent is Right, it's 10 percent of a dollar. He's a dime and because of that conversation We've really we've harmed a lot of people at many levels employees don't know how much their Their their peers are making sitting in chairs right next to them It's given businesses a lot of power because we're so afraid and ashamed of talking about money And people aren't able to strategize around how to get money. No, I'm at I have a labor background So the money's up front. There's a grid. Hey, this is how your level one This is how much you make And this is your level two and this is how much you may I found that was very empowering working in labor relations When everybody knew where everybody was at and why okay, I've been here 10 years This is why johnny makes this amount of money You've been here three months and this is why you make this amount of money So I think in my business it's very up front Yeah, I try to be my my employees know what my checks are like this is I'm very open about all of it It's not open. They don't they assume I'm getting a check My staff thinks, you know, I'm falling out of control. I'm absolutely not Must have knew when we got paid and when we didn't yeah, they knew when they got paid and when we were gonna have our time It was all I get my allowance. I'm drinking Starbucks when I don't have my allowance I'm in the what is that the cup? What are those cup Dixie cups with the lid on it? Yeah, you feel like a solo cup Yeah I have my little at-home water With my Starbucks cup at the gas station because all we're trying to do is make sure that all of you get paid I mean that's here. We are trying to do and sometimes we can't get paid ourselves just so you can get paid That's a small business reality. Yeah I will admit I was uh, you know early in my very earliest of tech for here I was jaded because I did work for two crazy people one particular person was it was a race I learned the second friday. We got paid every friday the second friday I realized if you wanted your paycheck to for sure cash you went to the bank before the other people did Which means they go why everyone went to lunch break.  And sometimes you would have to wait till tuesday and the owner just didn't care And he would say fun things patch you on the back and say you should work harder I'm like, but I did work hard and you paid me on friday, but you told me I can't cash a check till monday now Yeah, the money ran out There if you work that place just because you've worked for the wrong entrepreneur I'm the I think all of us, you know, we shared a lot of stories and uh, we all have done things like I sold vehicles I sold things I had I racked up credit card debt to make sure all of my staff was paid I held paychecks for three months at a time for myself And then racked up personal credit card debt to make sure anything I had was being paid So I could make sure the people they were being paid so I could run out and knock on every door Write every personalized email. By the way, never use a cold script that you bought from someone It's impersonal and I'll ignore it, but I used to read up on someone figure out what they did Hey, I think I can help your accounting firm Blah blah blah and like personally it was like I was hustling hard to try to get that next growth in the business But I had to have people answering the phone and keep butts and seats and oh, yeah, yeah, yeah So it's like I've always cared a lot about that But you know, my staff knows it and some of them have been with me for like 12 13 years. I think it's the longest So but they know it Of course, he also gets me when I give everyone else raises because he'll say things like you're gonna make them think they're people But I'm like that's why you're not in charge of this business And they know that's why he's not You know, I think that I mean the we talked a lot about what we wanted to talk about It was like the reality of being an entrepreneur Is not all doom and gloom and there's some really cool things about it But I do think it's important that if you're this all started with the like Not wanting to have a job is not a reason to go be an entrepreneur If if you think that you are overworked at work And so instead to work less you're going to be an entrepreneur. You are about to be rudely shaken out of your soul Like 12 14 hour days are not strange Especially at the beginning like if you are if you are excited about being an entrepreneur 20 years in or something like that Then fantastic but but the first five years six eight years Can be very long five years is or just one or two years like The amount of a threat like effort that it does go quickly But yeah, when you think about it ain't quick when you in it No, when you're when you're when when when rent is coming towards you but payments aren't coming towards you Oh It literally was just the 15th the other day. You're like, okay. I've got two more weeks. I'm telling you I know I'm so good at eviction I know everything about the eviction process. I know every step of it I I remember going into court I had a public defender that I had to tell to move out of the way So I could take over the case and then dispute some things Um, and and you just get you get real good at stuff. You don't want to be good at Getting good at telling people that you can't pay them is not a thing that I've ever wanted to be good at And I'm not saying and I'm and I'm not good at it But something I've had to do but it feels like crap. It's not, you know, I didn't get successful after You know the first year in business. It's still accumulation or still challenges There's still challenges you face growing it. We just want to talk about that It's kind of what this point of this video was is it's not all fun and games, but it's also I wouldn't trade it for anything. I think all of us have that same answer So dumb we're it's it's like an illness. It's an illness. Yeah, I can't go back.  Yeah, I think like, you know, for me I love the fact that as much as that, you know Bloods what tears I pour into this I feel like I have the opportunity to build something bigger than myself And that is the most exciting thing and the reason why I wake up the next day and say I'm gonna do this again It's exciting to think that you have all these employees that rely on you It's terrifying to think that you have all these people that rely on you Because it's not just your employees. It's like their whole families. Oh, yes. Oh, oh god You're just sold your soul seizes when things are because you're not just going oh man like Because I mean there's this idea that there's just like an entrepreneur or CEO at the top just like Laughing maniacally hoping that people's families suffer It's like when one of my people was sick or depressed or sad or something was going on in their family It's like there was a time when we weren't making a lot of money at all Because I was the one with the lease bills.  And so when I they do great work, it's super exciting It's like I always want to pay everybody more than I can Feel that all the time And as much as we we continue to try to strive to be able to provide more and more for our employees It's it's a lot of work. I know I say I I notice you guys say the people that work for me I always say work with These people work with me. I say, you know They work with me and and and to eris point When something's going on with someone on your staff, that's another reason why I needed a layer. I was living it I was taking it home and you know and and not knowing a lot about The people that work with me, you know, I don't know why your mom kicked you out 17 year old girl I don't know why I know you told me why but I don't know why but it's still something you think about and then As a woman we're taught society You are too care for enable and all this other stuff and as the leader of this organization It is not my job to get you to work every day. I've been tempted to It is not my job to find you housing I have been tempted to yeah, right because as a nurturer as a woman you want to make sure You know, you want to fill the gaps in their lives so they can better produce for you I have found that no, they ever produced bless for you When they when they work with you they work with you less when you become mom and they're not able to When you give permission to allow their personal life to come into the workplace They do less and then they their mindset changes from this is my employer to this is my partner Right and I can do this because this is this is who she is She cares about my son comes back. So you have to have some levels of respect and layers sometimes Yeah, I have to put in a layer. I've gotten caught up. I'm caught up now And you know, thank goodness now that I have a layer who has had to slap me already in month two and said There's no way your business is going to grow if you keep putting Your business on hold because of what they're doing outside of your business and pay them So they come into work.  You did that Yeah, yeah, I did bad thing. You list you lease an apartment. I know We do a lot of stuff. I mean, here's the thing. It's just crazy. I learned 13 years ago I'm torn. I've always been I've learned in case any of my staff's watching. No, no, no more leases. No more. No more apartment. Jeff burned all you get No more so for you But here's the thing this is why I'm always torn So I spend a lot of time employing people from disadvantaged backgrounds, right? People who don't have the opportunities to do some do some of those things and here's the thing When you hire folks who need additional infrastructure It is on you to provide additional infrastructure Because you can't expect them to have vehicles when you know, they don't have vehicles Like you hire them in the first place knowing they may not have the infrastructure In the first place and I had a lot of that when I was bringing people to do design And they may or may not have been able to get some of this stuff. Um And yeah, sometimes it hasn't worked out But I I say this I stand by this I refuse to let a few assholes make me better I Refuse because at the end of the day One of the things one of the great challenges that's happening is that people who don't have opportunities don't have opportunities to get opportunities Like and so if they can't you like when you talk to people who are in Tech or who are in art or in design or the stuff you say well, I'm looking at your portfolio But some people who have great portfolios only have great portfolios because they were hired into a place through sheer circumstance To allow them to build a portfolio and take a risk and take a risk with safety And so you get these folks who they never had an opportunity To create an opportunity And so when we talk about I talk about mental health a lot If you have people who are suffering from depression or who are dealing with all these different things um It is a challenge But somebody's got to do it Yeah, right like in but but the question that that's always been on my mind is what is the business model Do I have 70 percent people who are able to manage the workload in case something happens and in 25 percent people who Have challenges that i'm trying to pair people together and then create opportunities or not because I people always say, you know Make your money then come back and help people But if it takes me 20 years People are gonna die in the middle like who's gonna he's gonna make it in the middle.  What is something that I think about I come from those backgrounds. I am lucky that I got lucky Yeah, no, I think all of us it's something show you taking consideration. Um, you know bill gates, uh Barfit a lot of them are taking giving back quite a bit now that we see but they're Yeah, I know it makes my face a little bit like yeah, I mean, you're right I mean bill I mean bill gates came from upper middle class family mark zuckerberg came from upper middle class Steve josh came from upper middle class family. See josh been charitable at all. I'll just throw it out I mean, right? He went home with nobody, you know people had a lot of opportunities and you hear some of these like These like people love these underdog stories Like I was eating piles of poop and then I had this great idea to change the world It's like that's not normally right. What happens you look at something like uber like Uber is a show for service. Yeah for everybody else Somebody was living a very classy life when they came up with that idea. You know what everybody else needs limousines Everybody needs one of these, you know, it's like what's going on And I think that's probably a good thing about we should always mention we talked about this Don't chase unicorns.  We all have personally met someone who sold their company recently for $2 billion last year True. Yeah, he did. He definitely did. I think he deserves. He works hard But you're one of the best human beings ever if anybody ever deserve $2 billion is the homie. Yeah We actually think he's he's all a good guy, but it's also one of those things like don't start your business plan out Chasing unicorns like it's just so rare to something like that. It's going to happen where we all represent small businesses who've been in business the number of years who Aren't in the three comma club yet Find a way to make money Week over week month over month you're over here. That is like, yeah, it's core. I know this is like that is what business is Make weird money It's weird to think that you actually have to sometimes say that or even think to yourself or like I need to make sure I'm actually making money How do we all make money? We tell that was like part of the conversation we had like while we were eating I was just like is that what you titled this? How do we make money? But we'll ramble on forever if we don't wrap this up So I think there's any closing advice we have because we could probably just keep going on forever, but We'll see what based on the feedback of they need a part two to all this Um, what do you think what is closing advice maybe Eric?  All right. I'm just I'm just I'm just over here or should I go ask him first because you're thinking I'm saying uh, that's so hard. Okay. So what I would say is um Don't fall For the bs Don't fall for the nonsense that says you have to be in newspapers to be successful Don't believe your own hype when you get the coverage that you're getting Um, and I think to time's point don't chase This idea of entrepreneurship being a silver bullet sometimes you can Sometimes you can follow your dream in somebody else's framework If you want to paint if you want to do law if you want to do tech if you want to do those things Sometimes you can allow somebody else to build the entrepreneurial infrastructure for you to do the things you love Sometimes as an entrepreneur you won't be able to do the things you love anymore because your job is to work on the business And so because you're working on the business you're building frameworks infrastructure is back to our definition an entrepreneurs job is great processes by which to derive value If you're not doing that part, you're not doing the entrepreneurial part If you're still doing the graphics still doing the stuff you're not building the business And that is something that it was very hard for me as a designer to really come to grips with I either am going to make stuff Or I am going to make a business And it's hard to do both You can but it's definitely hard to do both. Yeah Uh something I'll say and you get caught up in the hype of someone like Gary v He's just probably the most public person I can think about but it Decide if that's really right for you this whole. Oh, yeah, right, right hook jab Super hyped up over the top, you know He's just running and making meetings and making it happen and busting these deals Is that the life for you something as hard as I do work at entrepreneurship I pick my kids up for school that matters a lot to me And uh because my dad never had the time to and I thought you know what my kids should appreciate some time with me You know, these are things that I even structured around there It even even leads back to why I couldn't even take a job I'm so used to doing things like that like what they need something I've structured a business so I can walk away from it times I had times when I couldn't I mean there was sacrifices made they uh when they were very my daughter was very little, uh Well, it's not as you didn't see me. She was at the office with me I used to like have her in the back and I was fixing computers and Stuff like that. So she didn't get to go maybe some places she wanted to but you know There's sacrifices are made but the other part of it is I didn't want that Gary V style life I see that I see people getting excited. I think he's got some great advice I watched him from time to time where he's got some really and just amazing insights into things The other side though, he has chose to so to speak and he admits in some of his talks He sacrificed parts of his life But that also means trading maybe family life and things like that think about what you value before you get over hyped with someone like Gary so think about what you want to do and if you're single just have unlimited time and don't really have a social life Anyways, you could put a lot of time into it Nobody loves me. So I'm just out of your working What about you dina um focus on the work and the rest will come picking back on what Eric said about don't believe your hype um deciding if you're entering entrepreneurship because You aren't getting the recognition you want at work. You're not getting the praise.  This isn't for you Focus on the work Everything will come with it and the work will change as you grow the work when I started was answering the phone Doing admin work and shampooing heads. Now the work is something else And I think more importantly take care of yourself.  Yeah, we have a d-day for dana shut down the next day open up You know that we have a plan if something happens to me. This is what happens, right? Um, but that's not the plan for something to happen. The plan is To get back in the habit Of taking care of myself like I was able to When I worked a career like I said earlier. I used to read fiction I don't do that anymore, right An entrepreneurial parable. I used to read fiction. I used to read fiction. Um, and so Focus on the work. The work will change as you evolve and through that evolution Take care of yourself know the difference between being self-employed being a business owner being the ceo being an entrepreneur being the Chairman and then being the founder to me that is the ladder I think when you and I met I was very self-employed and we were in class and you said wow I'm actually watching you turn into a ceo Um, so that is and I'm still getting closer to being a ceo three years later But focus on the work take care of yourself and the work will change as you evolve in your process That's it I know we've talked a lot about Many different stories and I know there's might seem like there's a lot of stress and There's no holding back. There's definitely is a lot of stress In trying to build and run a company, but I would say if I were to give a point of advice it would be Tomorrow is another day to make a new decision And I think it's really important that even though you may have had a really rough day The next morning when you wake up Look at what you have in front of you and make new decisions and maybe yesterday you made a bad decision Don't live off of that think about this decision You're going to make today because you can't change what you've already done and I think that it's so important that As stressful as it can be and as many decisions that you'll look back and say why did I do that? Um Use those as learning opportunities. I think that there's so much that we can learn from our own mistakes Sometimes emotions get the best of us. I I know I've said things or maybe have done things out of emotion I You know again can't take those things back, but when I wake up the next morning I try to make a better decision that day and hopefully Over time I can continue to evolve and make better decisions going forward But yeah, I would just go back to tomorrow's another day to make a new decision And um, don't sweat the details really And that's about it man. It's uh, we we could like I said we can go on forever about this but we're going to wrap it up here We have a lot to say we're all exhausted But we're all still here and we all by the way, this is the why are we all sitting here together? Entrepreneurs will help each other don't believe that myth that oh, yeah We want to see you whoever you are on the other side of this camera. We like to see you succeed We like to see why we're all here and the reason why we all I think Talked on your facebook is because we want to help. Yeah, and that's why we all talk together I think anybody who's trying to build a company and they see anybody else who is trying to build a company You want to find a way we all know what it's like to be lonely as an entrepreneur So we all would like to yes have less of that for you for us Yeah, it's so very lonely. It is very lonely That the the no new friends idea is such bs the fact that you can't trust anybody in business There's no friends in business absolutely nonsense I mean that is something that you are told By people who have a bunch of friends and giant networks do not do not fall for that Networks will make your business that helps a lot work that's part of your work Right as your business grows your work evolves and some of my work has been networking get to know people When I first opened I was And I don't know about you guys's opinion, but there's nothing more amateur to me than when somebody says Oh, I have a business idea, but I don't want to tell you And I don't want to talk to you About this like five years ago I don't want to say anything About my driveway cleaning company Ideas are cheap ideas are easy everybody's got ideas executions everything Yeah, it's if it's met what's for you is for you and nothing can come in between that That's laura technology is for time 13 years strong. There's no competitor that's gonna I've been I've been planning on stealing his ideas There's gonna be competitors, but the contracts that are meant to come to him We're meant to come to him by the way this guy wrote some of the verbiage on my website That's also I have hired Eric. He is the one we we focus on technology So you focus on your business put that in brackets find out how many websites have copied it That's how famous that line is now that you wrote is it yes My website has been plagiarized We we started making a list of all the plagiarism sites because it seemed like a fun game So we found one in one in michigan and I called the guy out on it But they all copied they copied your copy. Well, you know, that's how good it was written some If people start to rock and people started robbing you you've done your job That's my career. Do you guys remember when we did that video with Eric? Like mom really were you in a video with Eric?  And I'm gonna go yes, baby. Yes, mommy was I'm a man in a cheap suit I'll leave links to all these people if you want to learn more about them or how to reach out to them or Hire them for whatever. So I'll leave all that fun links and thanks