Be Better at Business Podcast

Podcast 3 Andrew Sokol, CEO, aks.Ventures, LLC

August 01, 2019 Eagle Employer Services Season 1 Episode 3
Be Better at Business Podcast
Podcast 3 Andrew Sokol, CEO, aks.Ventures, LLC
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode, we discuss business strategies with an independent consultant to FanDuel & Draft Kings, and how you can use these strategies to grow your business!

Be Better at Business Podcast, Episode 3.

Podcast produced by https://eagleemployerservices.com/.

Speaker 1:

You have to look at things in that. If you don't master the way to build your business, you're never going to be able to build your business.

Speaker 2:

Everything you mentioned are doable things. Nothing is, Oh, I'm not smart enough or I'm not this or I'm not that. Of course you have to be good at what you do, but everything you mentioned, I mean I feel like if somebody did everything you just mentioned, they could be pretty good at their business and be very successful.

Speaker 3:

Okay. Team Eagle, the you do not want to miss this podcast, this interview that we just did. Andrew, so cool. You have an opportunity as a viewer for this interview to hear a top tier consultant that consults behind the scenes of major companies that you see on the news and you never hear about these guys. This is an opportunity to hear what goes on in the thinking and the promoting and the planning behind the scenes of successful companies listening to successful people. He's one of those guys and we have them. Get Ray to learn something that can bring your business to the next level. Stay tuned with the be better at business podcasts by Eagle in three, two, one go

Speaker 4:

[inaudible][inaudible]

Speaker 3:

welcome to legal employer services podcasts where it's all about graduating from an employer by accident to an employer on purpose

Speaker 4:

with[inaudible].

Speaker 2:

Hello everybody. We've got on the phone here, Andrew Socal. Andrew is a consultant to many of the high up leaders in the sports wagering world. Andrew is one of two consultants in the entire country to some of the more common platforms. We'll let him talk about who he works with and how he does it. So anyways, Andrew, first off, do you want to say hi? So the audience? Yeah. Hey everybody. Glad to be here. So could you tell us a, just your career history and where you are now and how you got there?

Speaker 1:

Uh, yeah, so I started off in traditional banking. Uh, way back when at a college I got into a management training program. Uh, and at the end of that they wanted to put me in to manage customer service group of about 200 people. And I said No. Uh, and that I wanted to get into the marketing side. So I went in, uh, and got to be marketing, uh, on the bank side. I did that for about five years and I was recruited by[inaudible] and moved up to San Francisco and manage relationships for visa for companies like Bank of America and Wells Fargo, uh, in everything and anything that they were doing with the visa branded cards. In. And about 1995, I asked to move to Atlanta and manage the Olympic Games for Visa International. Uh, it would've been about a two year stint there, but at that time, my former boss from the bank became the CEO of mastercard and said, well, if you're moving to Atlanta, wanted to head up our Atlanta office and we'll, you know, beat your salary by x and make you happy and all that kind of stuff. So I did, lived in Atlanta, managed a that office for Mastercard for a period of years. And then I went on to help hold executive positions that, um, uh, public company, uh, first data. Um, I held a executive position at American Express and in 2007 I went to a startup company called revolution money, uh, is still in the banking payment industry. We sold that company to American Express in 2010 and since that time I've been focused on consulting. And about four years ago I was recruited to consult to both fanduel and draftkings and they're still clients today.

Speaker 2:

Wow. Dadgum cool. I did not know that. Andrew, you keep this to yourself. I made a note. I'll tell you one of my bigger questions I think you might have answered it is cause I remember you were like, yeah, I'm kind of looking for work. I'm looking for a GIG A and next thing we know you're a consultant with draft kings and I'll thought man. Cause like it seems like anytime you want to do something you're able to get connected to just top notch people. And there's a lot of people with skills and you have extraordinary skills, but a lot of times people can't get in front of the people like you did to hire them. And was it a recruiting firm you used to, you know, to, to get in touch with draft kings or was there, what, what was the relationship? Was it a relationship? Was it using a top tier recruiting firm? Ha. How in the world are you able to get in touch with the people that you do?

Speaker 1:

Well, I think the number one thing to tell people is don't ever burn bridges that you think you're going to need to have going forward. And that could be in a positive way, in a negative way. And what I mean by that in a positive way, we all know what a negative way is, but what I mean in a positive way is in the business world, you never know where your next Gig is going to come from. And there are a ton of people that I have met over the years and I've just made it a point to never stop talking to them. And that could be an email, that could be a text. Uh, in the earlier days I would just send a letter or a card or a postcard when I was traveling just so people never forgot about me. So you know, if you think about it, you know, your, your next client or your next is going to be with somebody that you're probably working with today. Or in fact, if you're employed and you're servicing other companies, if you do a good job, the company that you're servicing might want to hire you so you always have to put your best foot forward. And I've just always made it a practice to do that. To make a long story short, um, you know, I was, as you guys well know, I was doing something locally in Denison and kind of having fun with that and semiretired and what I was doing. And I happened to get a phone call from a, an attorney who I worked with on several projects probably six years prior to that. And she basically just asked me what I was doing, not, I told her I was doing, you know, I was trying to be a rock star owning a recording studio. And she said, well, she had a client that needed some help and needed some expertise in the payment industry. And I was the first one she thought of. Now this attorney, uh, is well known in the payment field. Uh, she sits on many committees for the American Bar Association and one of her clients was draftkings. So I think

Speaker 3:

told her that, look,

Speaker 1:

I'd be happy to help out and you know, depending on what it was. And it ended up being, um, you know, a consulting position, uh, third party for not only draftkings but for Fandel. That was four years ago. And I'm happy to say that they are still clients today plus our others, uh, in the sports wagering world.

Speaker 3:

Wow. That's a really good story. I, that's it's, it's amazing how, and it's always been my attitude as well, but to always keep a door open and a, in our business, we every now and then someone leaves for whatever reason, but we always want to leave the door open to welcome them back, to let them know that uh, the, that we appreciate their business and we'd like to do business with them again. And more times than not, we have so many times over the last 20 years customer's return. And what you're saying is all of those contexts, whether they were ever a client or not, all of those contexts of people you've met, whether it's by happenstance or not, you've made it a point to keep in touch with them and to send them a note and to have a personal relationship.

Speaker 1:

Well, it's not a, it's not anything, but I think people have to always assess how people perceive you and that your reputation, your reputation should really suit your business and your goals. And again, what I mean by that is that if you, if you want to be stagnant and, and not move forward in your career, then you can do what everybody else is doing. Because it's mostly a me too society.

Speaker 2:

But if you figure out a

Speaker 1:

way how to stand out in the crowd, you know, you do that by doing, being good at what you do. But there's a lot of people that are good at what they do. So how are you going to stand out and be different? You can be better, but someone may be as good. So if you're not constantly, you know, looking at yourself, you know, and even with your employees, right? Your leadership style and, and, and how, how your employees perceive you. It's everybody. And it's not that you have to put on a false front, but it really has to be that, you know, your reputation in your, in your business, in your community, at your place of work really will affect your career. And, and if you're a small business owner, how your team operates. So if you don't check in every now and then to make sure they remembering you or in your own business, if, if you're meeting the perception that you have to match your internal goals, your you fail in a way of making it to the next step. And I only mean that in a way that you don't fail at doing things that you constantly have to look at that otherwise you're not gonna have the respect from your peers as your potential hiring companies, your employees and things like that. If you're not addressing the things, uh, inward

Speaker 3:

well, you're leaving opportunities that you might, uh, the up on the table that you might not ever know about if you missed keeping up with or making conduct or working hard to improve yourself on every job that you do. And then projecting that in a way that's, uh, positive and not self promoting. And you know, when you're doing a good job and you're improving yourself, it, you don't have to be self promoting. You're doing the job that everyone's going to see.

Speaker 2:

You can sincerely reach out to people and connect with people. You probably for years, like sending postcards to people when you're going places, you're not soliciting anything, you're just keeping in touch most, I mean, any mind would interpret that to just be like, wow, that's kind

Speaker 1:

right. You guys know. My sense of humor, I mean, my joke was for many people was I would always, you know, be in touch with them and if I was somewhere I would buy them a snowdome and those little silly things that you find a gift shops right where you shake it and the snow comes down. And I would always ask them to buy me one and I've got a,

Speaker 2:

okay,

Speaker 1:

I've got a box full of snow dms people. And it's still not always, it's just, you kind of have to lighten things stuff a little bit. You don't want to waste anybody's time.

Speaker 2:

I never got to slow down from you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. And if he, but you're not always selling something, you're just being a true person and checking in.

Speaker 2:

Would you say like, so not everyone has a unique sense of humor. I, but man looking at you, uh, who, who wouldn't want to reach out to you? Knowing your sense of humor. You, you find some way to connect with everybody, some way to get a laugh. Dad and I have experienced it firsthand. You, it's, and it's just natural to you as part of who you are. Um, pretty amazing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. But you know what the biggest problem with that as Mike is that I've never received a snow mo snowdome from[inaudible].

Speaker 2:

But see now all of a sudden, every time I see one, I'm going to thank you. You don't think of me. There's going to be one come along. It'll fit perfectly. Right? I've always been amazed listening to different podcasts or like, uh, really very accomplished people. And when you ask them how it is they got to where they are, what are some of the biggest reasons how they did it? You know, you expect some, you know, crazy elaborate answer that they could never do. But it seems like more often than not, it's, it always boils down to something simple, like just something that you would almost forget about. Like, oh, of course relationships, keeping in touch. Uh, people almost expect a bigger or better answer out of you when you reached a certain level of success. Uh, but man, it always seems to boil down to some of the principles, just the basic principles.

Speaker 1:

Well, and it, it really has to do with that. You constantly have to make sure that you're doing the right things and it's pretty straight forward, right? If you're a small business owner that the things that you should be doing to improve, because a lot of people just kind of, you know, unfortunately we'll go in and say, look, I'm going to open up my own business and then wait for things to happen. It doesn't work that way.

Speaker 2:

[inaudible]

Speaker 1:

finances, they don't understand what cashflow is. They don't know how to set goals. They don't know how to increase traffic, you know, whether it's a website or coming in the door to the stores, they don't know how to do marketing. You know, they think if you post something on Facebook that people are, all of a sudden I'm going to buy things from a lot of people

Speaker 2:

that doesn't work. We'll

Speaker 1:

go into a presentation and not know what they're talking about and turn around and read the, the presentation. I mean, you have to look at things in that. If you don't master the way to build your business, you're never going to be able to build your business.

Speaker 2:

Nobody wants everything.

Speaker 1:

Go on.

Speaker 2:

Everything you mentioned are doable things.

Speaker 5:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

Nothing is, Oh, I'm not smart enough or I'm not this or I'm not that. Of course you have to be good at what you do. But everything you mentioned, I mean, I feel like if somebody did everything you just mentioned, um, they could be pretty good at their business and be very successful.

Speaker 1:

Well, and here's the, here's the secret sauce. In today's world, everything I mentioned and more is available in video tutorials on Youtube. Everything.

Speaker 3:

Yeah,

Speaker 1:

I mean there, there's literally, there's for a business to fail, there's a lot of reasons why business fails, right? And it's not always the owner. It's not always a, you know, it could be the wrong product at the wrong time. I mean, a lot of things happened. But the problem is, is that if you go back and look at small businesses and you look at things and, and not everybody's an entrepreneur, but everybody can be, but it takes time. It's a different mindset. And when you realize that you're not going to get a paycheck unless you work card. But over the way, if you think you're working hard, there's a difference between working hard and working smart. And if you don't figure out how to work smart, then your chances of being successful are diminished.

Speaker 3:

Well, and you can't work if there's no business. I mean, you want to work, right? There's people that want to work and then they can't find, well, what does that, how does that learn? You have to learn how to create the business and get the business in so you can work.

Speaker 1:

But in all honesty, uh, and I'll use experience that I've had that you guys know well about, is that people will say that they're working and there's no business. So there's, I mean, yeah, there's really differences. What do you, what are you working at and what are you doing? And it all comes down to setting goals. You know what I've always said, and I still, I say this to clients, is that if you can't, if you can't measure the results, you can't manage anything. You have no idea what's, what's happening.

Speaker 5:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

And it's the same in reverse. If you can't manage it, you can't measure it. So if you don't know what your goals are, how do you know if you're succeeding or not?

Speaker 2:

What was that book you and I talked about? Where, I mean, it was just a, it's a world renowned book, but it's about measuring, modifying and then adjusting the results. And it basically what you just said, I forgot the name of it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. I can't, uh, I mean there's books, it's kind of like change management in a way. If you Google measuring, modifying, you know, things like that, uh, you know, businesses, you'll, you'll find a ton of boats.

Speaker 2:

I've noticed,

Speaker 1:

I know a lot of, some of the trends we're seeing is people will look at, they'll do, they'll find certain advertisements and man, everybody right now can advertise on Facebook, on Instagram, on all this stuff. And if you can do a test and figure something out, put an ad out there. And if you say, okay, I've reached this many people with this message, and if, if you're able to measure it, you're able to look at it and say, okay, I spent$1,000 and made, you know, whatever in return. And if it was positive, you could say, then all of a sudden with more confidence, you can say, well, let's increase the budget. Let's tweak it. Let's this. Let's that. And there's a lot of people right now on social media doing really well with budgets that you'd never thought people would spend. And without, without forecasting about testing, without measuring that. And I know a guy that spins, how much is it? 80,000 a month, 80,000 a month on social media. And I think particularly Instagram, and he particularly likes Instagram, but you don't do that without precise measurement. What's the return on investment? You don't blindly go, well I'll throw money at this. So I mean, the people that we see on that are using, that's a trend right now. People we see using social media, uh, is advertising. You have to measure that, that way you just, if you want to succeed, cause otherwise you could be just throwing money down the drain and you, you don't know what works and what doesn't. Well, in that, that happens 99% of the time these days.

Speaker 2:

No. Well, let's see what it does,

Speaker 1:

right? So they'll buy ads, they don't know how to, they don't know how to read the results. Like you're saying, they don't know how to measure it. They don't even know where to go on Facebook to kind of measure the type of people. And even when they buy a Facebook ad, they're not targeting those ads because they don't,

Speaker 2:

right?

Speaker 1:

So if you're not doing target marketing or for an example, uh, you know, I was on the road the other day and I saw a billboard and is pretty much an odd spot to have a billboard, but it was for a business that's probably 10 miles away in an area that no one ever goes to. And I'm thinking, okay,

Speaker 2:

okay,

Speaker 1:

somebody really sold them, you know, a can of worms or you know, a, a bridge in Brooklyn or something to be able to put an ad, a billboard up there, cause they're not cheap and they'll never see their return on it ever. And it just, you know, it's just, you know, people, I think people have to know their limitations, right? You become an entrepreneur and think you can do everything. But the problem is, you know, you're an expert at, um, you know, I mean you guys are smart and intelligent and, and I know Mike, you study on things, but you know, you're a specialist in what you do before you invested in marketing and advertising. I know you studied on it and I know you looked at a bunch of different ways to do things and in fact, I'm pretty sure before you invested in doing these podcasts, you went and did some research on it to make sure that it will provide a good return. I know you're, I know you're providing a service to your clients and future clients or maybe anybody that wants to listen, but at the end of the day, time is money and money for marketing is money and effort in a way has to show some sort of return that people don't know how to measure a effort versus return. It's not easy to do and you'll hear people saying, yeah, I worked really hard, but I couldn't make it work. The problem is did you work smart and sometimes working smart is getting other people to help you that are experts of what you may not know what to do or how to do it.

Speaker 2:

Your team. Yeah. That is very, thus the importance for a good consultant. Yeah. Someone who can help you get to that next place and some ogre knows what they're talking about. Yeah, we talked with Kristen a win on our last podcast and one of the things we kind of bumped into that just rang so true is one thing that can be so important is to have your team talk to each other. Because a lot of times you know, people will either assume too much on their own and you know you may have a skill but you may not be good at the marketing or you may not be good at this, you may not be good at that. One thing we do here at Eagle is the administrative back room stuff. They may not, some people may not be good at that, some people may be great at it, but what you do is you get your, you get these people if you really want to go to the next level, and that's not for everybody, but if you want to grow, you have to get people, consultants in different areas and then they have to talk to each other. So

Speaker 1:

well I think. I think that brings up a good point, right, is that that an entrepreneur needs to work with their team. You know, and what I say is not just over them, right. You know, the worst situation to be is hearing from somebody what you, what you're supposed to do and supposed to do and supposed to do, but the best leaders really work alongside you and try to understand what your job is even if it's a not always, they do it periodically. So if you're an entrepreneur, you know, this means, you know, okay, you're the owner of the company but you need to get your hands dirty. You know, if you, if you have someone,

Speaker 2:

yeah, absolutely. Media

Speaker 1:

learn what they do and do some social media. If, um, if you've got a blog, help, help whoever's doing it and sit by their side and help them produce that content. Answered customer service calls, speak to customers about, you know, ask, ask hard questions. What do you like about our business? What don't you like? How can we, how can we improve on what we do to make you a customer for the long term? You have to understand the people that work for you, but you have to understand your customers. And if you just, if you do as service and you send them a bill and you don't ask questions, then you're doing the future of your, of your little business a disservice.

Speaker 2:

The hard questions. What can we do better? I would imagine, man, I'm thinking in my mind, man, I'm scared to know that, hey, insert how, how easy, I mean, and yet dad and I do it. Um, but man, it would be so easy to just say, I don't want to know. You know, like I w I could just imagine that that one just goes completely forgotten about. Probably

Speaker 3:

no one likes their weaknesses pointed out. But you need to have your weaknesses. You need to know what your weakness is in your business so that you can get rid of it.

Speaker 2:

Strong people can take it strong. People can take criticism. Uh, what are, what do I need to work on? That's been my experiences. But saying it and doing it can be two different things, right? But the problem is, is that if you don't do it, you know you're, you're darned or damned either way or, right. I mean, it's just that

Speaker 1:

just the way it is is that if you're not always working to improve it and look, you know, my clients are constantly looking at ways to improve the service that they give to customers and being the leaders in their industry. So when a new state opens up to offer sports wagering, none of them, neither any of them, they want to be the first one out there. They know that being the first in a market is going to give them the leg up on the competition. So they are furiously working to be able to go into a new, a new market, which in the u s is a, is a new state and it doesn't happen like that because there's rules and regulations that they have to follow. They have to get licensed, but it's a mad scramble, but it's

Speaker 2:

the end of the day

Speaker 1:

still going to be that, you know, they're working hard to improve their services and oh, by the way, they're not forgetting the other customers in the other states.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

It's really, it's a, it's a, you know what I'll call a concentric circle of things that have to happen.

Speaker 3:

What you're saying is there's the customer in front of you and then there's the customer on the phone, which one do you take care of for?

Speaker 1:

Right. And then there's customers that you lost or didn't get. And, and I have always made it a practice to do two things. If I lost the deal, I'd wait a month and I do what's called a post mortem and I'd reach out to the company, uh, where, uh, to whom I lost the deal, not the competitor, but the company itself. And I'd ask them if they had a half hour to talk to me about what I could do or what my company can do to improve ourselves for the next time. Nobody does.

Speaker 2:

Exactly right. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

You have to put your tail between your legs and, and ask the hard question sometimes. But the, the funniest thing is, is that, you know, small businesses don't know. I don't think they have an accurate idea of their cashflow and I, and, and the problem of that is that you don't know it and you can't keep up the financial aspect of what you're doing that's going to impact you. Uh, today, tomorrow and later on. I what I mean by that, if you're not keeping accurate records and you don't know what's happening, you're going to find yourself in a horrendous tax position. Because as an entrepreneur and self-employed, there's self employment taxes you have to pay that you weren't thinking before. And if you don't know that and just start a business, guess what the IRS doesn't have, you know, much pity on people. They expect you to study up and know these things and not say, well, I didn't know I had to pay these things. And if you don't know where you are on a regular basis, you never know how successful you're being.

Speaker 2:

There's a little bit of a learning curve, but there's technologies out there where you can get a financial snapshot of your, Your Company picture. What, what are my expenses, what are my projected expenses, what are, what's my revenue? Am I gonna owe on taxes or, or what's the deal? How much? And Man, a lot of these are able to be done by business owners themselves or if they don't want to, you can find freelancers that'll help you with it. Get it set up for like extremely reasonable. So I mean it's, it's getting easier and easier. I don't, I think in the past it used to would have cost more, but it's doable. It's not a, it's not a farfetched idea.

Speaker 1:

Again, every aspect of owning your own business, there is a tutorial on youtube for it.

Speaker 2:

That's my problem is I'll look, I'll just be like, well, before I spend, and I'll think, man, this is pretty reasonable though. Like man, I'm, is it that reasonable? Let me look it up on Youtube. And that's next thing I know. I'm like, well let me try it. And if I get stuck, then I'll hire someone and man, more often than not, I just, I've learned something new and I can do it and Lynnwood and I probably should hire more stuff out. But more often than not, I'm like, yeah, I don't, it's not worth it. I, we can, I can do that. But

Speaker 1:

that's okay. And, and I think doing it yourself in the business, you know, you're a, you're a small business, um, and doing it that way, you, you completely understand all the aspects of your business. And I'd recommend entrepreneurs do that. You know, to a point, you may get enough that you have to outsource it, but at the end of the day, what you're talking about is just being educated

Speaker 2:

when you're educated. I've noticed when people are bidding the project, if you know as much as you can about what they're doing, somehow their price seems to come down. Versus someone that's like, I don't know what any of this is. How much would you charge to do it? For me, the price goes up where if they're, if they realize they're talking to somebody with some knowledge for whatever reason, price comes down.

Speaker 1:

Well and I think, I think to the point, if you're making a bid, you know, to a customer and you don't do any research on the customer that you can talk about their business. When you're making that bitter proposal, then you're going to fail. You have to know the customer. And if you don't know, you know, the structure, the ownership or even a, most of the companies I deal with are big enough. You know, I can find the information about them online or they're public companies and I can go and look at their tax returns. Right. Cause they're publicly, I mean, or their annual reports, you know, you respond to a request for proposal and you put in key terms from their annual report. They know that you're really interested in their business because you're doing your homework.

Speaker 2:

Yeah,

Speaker 1:

no, the other thing is for a small business, again, there's, you know, there is um, what we call small business development centers. That's run by the small business association. The US small business association, they provide free services to help you start a business and help point you in a direction to do these kinds of things. And that's a Google away. So

Speaker 2:

yeah, that's one thing dad and I have never dived into. And we know it's out there and we know there's, there's grants and there's resources and this and that. We've always kind of had the attitude of we'll, we'll figure it out ourselves, but we've just seen it too many times. People that know what's out there know what resources are available. You'll hear about, oh, they, yeah, they, they got a grant or they did this, they did that. I don't, I don't know if you actually did something with the city of Dennison when you were doing your media company here. Dad and I were here on main street in business before. You think that, what is that? Is that available? You know, but

Speaker 1:

I mean, we did get a grant and got a grant of about$50,000, um, from the city of Dennison. Uh, you know, that that grant, you know, the way it worked is that, you know, we had to put the money up front. Uh, we bought new equipment for a recording studio and the deal was in the form of a grant that every time we did a session had an artist in, and it could be if we had an artist come in for two hours on a Tuesday and another one came in later that day, it was based on a session. And for every session that we did a, the city gave us the money back in the form of a grant. And the whole idea was that it came from the Economic Development Corporation that we were going to be people into the city of Dennison, which we did, and they were going to spend money there. So, or we were going to spend more money, right? So if they were there for a day or a couple hours, we'd take them to lunch at the local coffee shop. We'd go spend commerce to help, uh, you know, the city grow. And if they were there for a couple of days or three days, we'd, we'd rent a hotel from a local hotel, they'd go out to eat locally and they'd spend money. So

Speaker 2:

they're all going. Yeah. And they, and these people you were having out were influencers. These were musicians. These were people with a center of influence where they're the cool people that you could bring others indirectly that, you know, the city Denison sees the one person, but there's probably a residual of their center of influence. Like, Oh, so-and-so was up at Dennison. All of a sudden they know who Dennison the city of Denison is. And when previously they didn't,

Speaker 1:

I mean, we had people coming in from out of town and you know, they would post and we've been making sure that we posted and asked them to post and did live videos and things of them being here. Uh, you know, we had people from, uh, you know, as far away as Boston, um, you know, come record and things like that. And, and look, I mean, it may not be the right thing for everybody but, and it, and it may not even be a grant, but there, there's always help available. And I know I've mentioned this several times and I don't want to, I don't want to keep repeating myself ad Nauseum, but you know, Google how to manage your books and you'll find people that will give you free tutorials how to do it. And believe it or not, most people don't know how to manage their books because it's not like balancing a checkbook.

Speaker 2:

If you were say, looking at the average typical business owner where they're relying on the, uh, business that walks in the door, maybe little to no marketing, little to no, you know, financial outlook or projecting or measuring. I take it from our conversation thus far that your advice would be, find some way to measure and improve and budget and relationships. Keeping in touch, maintaining a wider circle of influence, which is real easy to maintain. A, anyone can have a small circle of influence, but to do what you do and maintaining a wider circle of influence, would those be the top things? And if there's more, what might you recommend as some of the more important things and a business owner could do to push them to the next level?

Speaker 1:

But I think the secret is, and it's not easy, but it is, find a way to stand out in a crowd. If you're a donut shop owner, guess what? There's 20 other doughnut shops. So what's going to make yours better? Is it, is it your donut shop is cleaner? Is it that your donut shop has the best donuts? Do you have the best deal? Are you, are you the best customer service there? Do you remember clients' names? You know, if you're, if you're serving the same thing that everyone else is serving, why are you different? And why would they come there?

Speaker 2:

We read a book in college, and this may be real old information. Purple Cow. And they documented this, I think it was a barbecue joint. And this, I've read it was 10 years ago. Read it. Uh, and they, it was purple cow and they just, that was the, I think that was the name of their restaurant. And that one of the more different things is they were just, they had a big purple cow at front and you know, just, they were different. I don't know that they reinvented the wheel as far as barbecue goes. But when you went, you, they, they stood out in your mind when you went to their barbecue joint. Um, it's nice if you're different in a way that sincerely helps people, but sometimes just being different, but good enough.

Speaker 1:

Well, look, I mean, I, I, you know, I don't know if you guys know this and may be or forgot. I didn't say, you know, I taught business and advertising at the college level. And one of the first things I had my students do, um, on their own self and what they wanted to do and how they were, is to do what's called what we call a SWOT analysis. And it, that's s w. O. O. T. You can Google it. Uh, and that's, you know, what are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? What are your threats and what are the opportunities? And if you were to sit there and list those as a small business and be honest with yourself, what am I strengths? What are my weaknesses? What am I threats? You know, if I'm a donut shop, my threat to the other 19 donuts jobs, right? And what am I opportunities? And if you real honest, intuitive yourself to do it, you know, you're, you really starting at a strategic planning, they can really help you identify, you know, where you are in your business. If it's doing well, what it needs to improve, where it needs to grow in and what could be its undoing or failure. And there's,

Speaker 2:

there's a man I forgot all about that,

Speaker 1:

right? But it's really a simple thing and you know what, companies and entrepreneurs should do it every year I think. I think the problem is, is that, you know, you asked these questions, which are going great questions, uh, about, you know, what can someone do? And to me is, is, is learn, is that you, you, you, you may be good at making that doughnut, but do you know how to sell them? And that's the problem.

Speaker 3:

That is it. What's the problem? And it's also the solution. So you look at people that never stopped learning. I mean there's people that have an appetite and a, and they never stop learning because the world never stops changing and, and business, it never stays the same. And you always have to be prepared to adjust and you always have to be prepared for what you don't necessarily expect. And how do you prepare for what you don't expect or don't know? And those are things that if you did everything else the way you're describing it, you knew the answers to these things, then when something comes up you weren't expecting, you're better prepared to make a good decision.

Speaker 2:

All I know is, man, we, we touched on a few things, but I know we're going to have to have you back on because there is so much more we have to learn from you and there's so much more you have to offer. I'm like, I would, we could take this for another two hours, but you know, enough's enough. We'll, we'll stop it here. But man, I'm just after this podcast, I'm already waiting for the next one cause we kinda got a free tutorial from you. We need to have you out.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's not free. Trust me.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you'll send us. Thank you Andrew. I appreciate it. You're welcome. Talk to you guys. All right everybody, that's the end of our podcast. You can count on us having Andrew back on this podcast because when it was done, Dan and I were looking at each other saying we need to have him back because we didn't get enough. There's more to learn from Andrew and guess what? There's going to be more to learn from to be better at business podcast. So stay tuned, subscribe, like, comment, all of that. And in the meantime, be better at business with Eagle employer services. That's pretty good. That's good. I like that one.