Dell and he's got another organization called Gotcha
Covered. It's unofficial, but it's actually endorsed by the
mayor because he fills up the San Antonio Food Bank and a couple
of other, the batter women's shelter with
Alright, welcome in to Vision Pros Live. With Jackson Callum,
I'm your show host. We'll be doing interviews for visionary
entrepreneurs and guests, guest leaders who are building
fantastic visions out there. Ultimately, I just want to go
through some of the things that might help you with your vision.
If you have a vision that you're pursuing, drop a link in the
comments and let us know what that is. If that's a business or
a brand. If it's a nonprofit that you run, be happy to promote
it, be happy to talk to you about it. And if you'd like to
apply to be on Vision Pros and be interviewed about that vision,
then by all means, feel free to reach out.
Hey, hey, everybody and welcome to Vision Pros Live. I'm your
host Jackson Callum, founder of First Class Business, co
founder of Able Health, a CEO of Podbooker. And I'm excited to
have everybody here today. Welcome in Vision Pros. So today,
I've got a special guest named Jennifer Glass. And Jennifer has
a company called Business Growth Strategies International.
She's based out of the East Coast. One of the reasons why I
wanted to bring her on is because we're super similar in what
we do for businesses, both in terms of coaching and providing
services. And she's just got a different vibe, a different way
of doing things. And I appreciate that. I know that our
audience will benefit from seeing that too. So we're going to
be debating a little bit about different business tactics and
strategies, but we're also going to be honoring what she's been
putting out into the world. She's got two podcasts of her own,
worth checking out as well. So without further ado, I'm going
to bring Jennifer on. We'll talk about strategy, we'll talk
about vision, and we'll talk about how we help entrepreneurs and
what advice we have for you today. So Jennifer, welcome to
Vision Pros Live. We're glad to have you. Thank you so much for
having me, Jackson. It's really a big pleasure to be here.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, and this is returning the favor
and the honor, right? So Jennifer hosted me on her show as
well, several episodes back. And so as we got ready to launch,
I was like, you know, I really want to bring Jennifer on here
too. It's a great way for the two of us, the audience
understands to get to know each other's business models as
well, and talk about that in an arena where other people get to
see it, we get to test each other's transparency a bit, we get
to find out more about each other's resources, and instead of
doing that behind closed doors, and also helps us with our
distribution. So there's a win win win scenario when we're on
these live streams, which is why I enjoy it so much. So anything
you'd like to add about that?
Now, I think what you said is really interesting. And it's
just, what is it that the two of us can do? How do we help not
only each other, but our joint audiences at the end of the day,
you went into business, I went into business to help people to
be of service. And I know that that is really why most people
do go into business. And it's great when you're really there
and you can say, I am making a difference in someone's life. And
that's exactly why I do what I do.
I love that. That's very reflective of the culture of
first class business as well. So that leads me to this question,
Jennifer, everybody's got different motives for why they
might launch a podcast. What led you to do your podcast? And
when did you start?
So I guess the first question is because you mentioned I've got
two of them. Which one do we want to start with first?
I think the first one. So, you know, really the word.
Yeah, you know,
that's
it.
Yeah, so what I can say is that in terms of my first show, it's
the bottom line that matters. So what basically happened was in
terms of the, it's the bottom line that matters for me, I
think it's the bottom line that matters podcast. Back in the
beginning of the pandemic, during the early days of lockdown, I
created an accounting group, sorry, not accounting, accountability
group. And I got accounting on my head for some reason. But an
accountability group that I was in with a couple of other
coaches. And one day after someone else in the group dropped
out, it was just the three of us that remained in the group. And
I suggested to the two other coaches, I said, you know, one
of the things that really would be good for us to do to help
with thought leadership, to help with helping more people and
really get a little bit more exposure is let's do a podcast.
And so because I had the idea to do the show, they decided to
name it after my book, it's the bottom line that matters. And so
that was how we ended up creating that show. But the one
that I do on my own and that you are a guest on, Jackson is
Mojo, the meaning of life and business. And that is really an
absolutely incredible one. And that one I started towards the
latter part of 21. And in that time, I mean, what I've been
doing is I've been trying to really find what are those
interesting stories that we all have. We all have a reason why
we get into what we do. I want to know what is it that makes
people tick? I am by nature, a very social person. I am an
inquisitive person. And trying to really figure out, well, what
does it mean? I'm also philosophical. And so meaning of
life is one of those major philosophical questions. And so
I try and really get what is it that my guests do? What makes
them tick? Where do they want to go? What drives them? And
ultimately, if I can help my guests get a little bit more
exposure to my network and all of my other guests network, then
ultimately, I'm doing something good and helping more people
find out because as we all know, we're only as good as our
network. And if you have your people and someone else's their
people and someone else's their people, and we're all building
on that, we're all benefiting.
Absolutely. And that's hence the opportunity for podcasting.
Right. So some people are seeing this video right now, they've
no idea that it's a podcast. And or what a podcast is, they see
this as like a TV interview, you know, somebody playing with
social media. And it's a way of distributing your voice. Right.
It's a way of getting in front of more people. When I first heard
about podcasting, I was actually driven very far away from it. I
was I literally like exit off my list of things not to do. The
person who introduced it to the founder I was working with was
fairly sociopathic. Like he scared me. And so when he brought
up, this is 2010, right? So 2010 back then, podcasts were not
well known. I mean, others, again, they're still not but
fast, but rewind 13 years, we had just gone through the
recession. The iPhones had barely come out. We hadn't advanced to
this stage of technology, people weren't going live on their
phones, for instance. And so we heard about this. And I was, you
know, he tells the company, they should start their own podcast.
You know, and they they waved them off, you know, I again,
waved them off. And now, looking back at that, I'm like,
why didn't we listen? You know, we would have been away ahead of
the curve on podcasting. Now, there's millions and millions of
episodes out there. It's still a blue ocean. And, you know, your
insights into being able to drive your network together, and
help people network in a way that's effective. You know,
you're absolutely right. I just hope people who are listening to
this see the opportunity to realize that this is kind of
like the modern day garage band, so to speak, you, you know, not
everybody's going to hit it big. But there is so much
opportunity to win a record label, so to speak, to get
sponsors to be able to promote what it is you do, and, and
really, really grab attention. So with that said, let's talk
about your vision, both from the angle of your vision for
entrepreneurs, and your personal vision to feel free to start
with either one of those. Those who are listening, Jennifer's got
a vision that from what I've heard, what I've seen, you know,
whether it's helping the one individual and caring about that
and I've seen her do that, or understanding that her message
can have a global impact. It's, it's quite powerful, but I'd
love to hear from you yourself, Jennifer. Tell us about your
vision.
Sure. So my vision is tightly tied to my why. And I kind of
mentioned it a couple of moments ago, but in terms of, as
Simon Sinek says, start with the why. And it really is that, you
know, and I'll share the story, I've been accused of being
utopian, because with utopia, there's got to be dystopia. But
in my utopia, I don't see a bad part. But let me explain what I
mean. Every person that has a business, again, went into
business to help others, but also help themselves, they're
helping their family. Right? I open up a store. Why did I open
the store? Because I need a job to feed my family. But if we
help all of these small businesses, really start seeing
more money come in, more value coming in, more freedom, more
time, what ends up happening? They end up hiring more people.
They end up having more disposable income that they can
give the Boys and Girls Clubs, the churches, the synagogues, the
mosques, the other temples that are in town. They've got extra
time that they can be giving to organizations. And all of these
small organizations that come in and ask Main Street businesses,
can I get a donation? Right? All these nonprofits, right?
Whether it's the parent organizations, it's the police
benevolent associations, it's the volunteer ambulance, the
volunteer fire, whatever it is, all of these organizations
depend on our downtown businesses to really help them. And so
when we can make that difference, what ends up
happening is our communities grow as a result. And as our
communities grow, our nations grow as well. And it's not just
our local community. It is our shared community. And shared
community can be looked at as humanity. But it can also be
looked at, though, as I support, as an example, for me, I
support St. Jude Children's Hospital. I've said it to them,
I've said it on many shows, I want to put them out of business.
It's kind of funny saying that, you know, but I want to end
childhood cancer. And I, you know, one of the things I've done
to help is I'm middle of writing a book. And I said, if you want
to get a character named after you, donate at least $5 to St.
Jude, summing the screenshot of the donation, I'll include you as
a character in my book. And if you wanted your business name,
at least $100, and I'll include your business name in the book.
And that's one way that you can really be helping even more
these organizations. And it doesn't cost them anything to do
that. And it's a way that you can really start seeing so much
more. And so what I do for me is also what I do for these
entrepreneurs, because it's tightly tied in terms of helping
everybody, helping our communities, so that everybody
ultimately ends up benefiting.
Absolutely. And let's, let's go ahead and shift into that. So
where is it that most entrepreneurs and business
owners fail? You know, what's, what's got them trapped? And
when I say that, you know, we've got to look at the logic
behind this 96% of businesses are failing within 10 years. And
if you're looking at yourself as an entrepreneur, and you're
asking your question, you know, am I where I want to be? Right?
If you were to honestly answer that the answer is probably
no. So the point isn't to drag down and say, okay, well, that
means you're a failure. Right. But as much as looking at it
and saying, okay, I have goals that I want to achieve. I
haven't learned those things yet. Right. The things that I need
to do to get to where I want to go. And that's what we're
focused on. We're not focused on the past. Right. And what's
what, just digging into the, the things that they can no longer
prevent. But what can they prevent moving forward with
their life? Does that make sense?
Absolutely. And that's a great question. And here's something
really interesting that you want to think about. And
unfortunately, I don't remember which of the Google founders
said it. But one of them is credited with saying, I would
rather fail fast, so that I can learn from my mistakes and grow
from there. Too many businesses go down the path we start
seeing, all right, I'm going to open up a business. Did I do a
business plan? Maybe I did a business plan only to get an
SBA loan. But I kind of forget the whole value of really
looking at the SWAT analysis, strength, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats. Do I really understand what it is
that I'm doing? The other thing is also as I'm going through
my business, is my business plan some that I just always
stick in my desk, or I just put it in my drawer and I don't
look at in terms of reexamining what happens in the future? Or
is it a living breathing document that changes as we're
going through the business? The other thing also is that
businesses or entrepreneurs very often are online, searching
for that magic bullet that is going to translate into
something that they hope is going to be a million dollar
idea. But here's the thing, if you have one person out there,
one talking head that's saying advertise on Facebook, on
Google, and all of these networks, and someone else
that's saying, you know, fake it till you make it, and someone
else is doing all of these other things, what is it that
people are actually doing, right? There's so much competing
information that's out there. Now, if you trust one mentor, and
I'm just going to throw out Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary Vee for
those of you that are in a position to actually know
who he is, you may follow Gary and say, all right, I'm going
to trust Gary top to bottom and I'm going to let him guide me.
One of the things I did when I came out with my new company
and the logo and everything, I asked my Facebook community,
I said, what do you guys think? But then when my coach chimed
in, I said, all right, I'm going with that because I'm
implicitly trusting my coach with my business, and I need to
do the same with the logo, even if it wasn't the one that was
hands down winning from everyone else. And so I looked at it
in that regard. The other thing also though is because of
these talking heads, everybody is also looking, oh, Jackson,
you're doing this, Johnny, you're doing that, Jimmy, you're
doing that, and everyone is doing the same thing. But here's
the thing, everybody doesn't understand, let me actually
take that back. 99% of people do not understand that if you
want to do something different and be that top 1%, you can't
do what everyone else is doing. You need to actually think
contrarian to what they're doing. So if they're out there
and they're saying put money on Facebook and Google, is that
really the right thing? Because everyone else is doing it
and having mediocre at best results, right? I mean, there's
some that are doing better, but most people are mediocre, if
not worse. And you're too late. Yes, it is too late by the
time the winner told you to do it, right? The winner millions
to do it. You'll be second and you're not, you're gonna get
the results of the rest that were too late to the to the
party. Go ahead. Absolutely. And that's the thing, you know,
if you're really paying attention to what you're doing, and
you're really looking at, right, here's what I need to do.
And I'm working with my mentor to help me get there. That's
going to be a great way at starting. The other thing also
though is if you ignore basics of business and marketing in
sales and operations, you don't have a foundation for the rest
of your business to live on. Yeah. And you need the foundations
go back to the basics and start really working at those
become precision in the basics and you'll start seeing a lot
more growth farther down the line. I just told my team
yesterday that one of the hardest things to teach an
amateur athlete to do is to stick to the basics, right? For
instance, basketball, one of the hardest things to give
an amateur to do is practice their layups. But guess what?
The pros do it every day. The pros do it every day. That's
why they're professionals because they're willing to do
what is not necessarily fun that empowers them to be able to
do their fun. Right? So we're gonna we're gonna go into both
of these topics quite heavily both the business plan and
using it to get a loan versus actually using it. Love it.
I'm super glad that you said that and going into this idea
and concept of a mentor. I'm gonna start with that one
because I worry I'll forget. I also worry we'll end up
spending too much time on the first one, the business plan
one because I think we need to spend more time there but I
want to blow some people's minds real quick. I think one of
the most damaging things that entrepreneurs say when they're
seeking out a consultant or when they have an opportunity to
grow and they're not is I already have a mentor. Drives me
crazy. I'm not gonna lie. Drives me crazy. I'm not I have to
remember not to react like myself when somebody says that
word the the mentor word it but it drives me insane and
here's why the most successful people in the world if you
were to look at them how many mentors do they have?
LeBron James. He has his head coach. He has at least three
assistant coaches. He has a dribbling coach. He has a
shooting coach. He has a physical trainer coach. He has a
nutritionist. Right? I wouldn't be surprised if he was
smart enough and I think he does based on what I've seen in
his parenting skills. He probably has several therapists as
well for him and his family as they go through. He's got
business coaches. He's got a business partner. The more the
higher this this concept of mentor is crushing people from
getting their results. We if we want to achieve different
things in different lives, we need multiple perspectives. We
need more leaders around us who can guide us and one mentor
is not God. They're not. They are limited to their sphere of
knowledge and they may have our best interest in play. They
may be able to help but I believe it's so important that
people start to realize they need more help than just one.
However, to go back to your also your thought about the
market and you know, do I just ask my customers? We learned a
very hard lesson at Restaurant Connect to to really
validate what you're saying. We were asking our customers,
what should we do to improve our software? We were getting
answers like, oh, can you make the tables pink instead of blue?
On the software? Really? Do you think that the change of the
table from blue to pink was helping the bottom line for the
restaurant owner? No, not not unless the host team members
were in an uproar about it, right? If it was causing people
to quit, then maybe we should just listen and change the
table color, right? There's a there's a time and place to go
to the majority for things too. But what we realized was what I
realized was we needed to be masterminding with our top 10
performing clients. Yes, we had our our upvote system of
tickets, allowing people to to assess what they wanted and
the majority vote mattered for some things. But in reality,
what really mattered to us was you restaurants that are the
most successful, what are you doing to win? And what areas
do you all need help with? We would then come out with that
solution, right? One little change, whatever it was, that a
top performing restaurant gave us, everybody loved it.
Nobody else thought of it because nobody else had the
success track record to be able to come up with the solution,
otherwise they would have already been doing it themselves.
So yes, there's there's different reasons for getting
feedback from different levels of people. But one of the
greatest problems, one of the greatest signs to me that
somebody is stuck in their growth is when they say I already
have a coach or when they say I already have a mentor,
I'm like, oh boy, I got to get it through to them that they
need to broaden their horizons a little bit. Otherwise, you
know, they're they're going to be stuck with bows or the
clown here, telling them that they shouldn't get get any
feedback from anybody else. But let's go back to this
business plan and the actually using it part. So you're
inspiring business owners to take that business plan and
put it into action. What things do you do to help them
realize the importance of that Jennifer? How do you get
people to to realize that that wasn't just something to to
get a quick 50,000 or a quick 300,000? And which parts do
you start with with them? Is it strengths and weaknesses,
opportunities and threats? Or is it some some other part of
it? So as far as the actual business plan itself, I mean,
the whole aspect is really important, right? One of the
things that you put in there is your forecasted financials.
We're always trying to figure out where we're going to be in
our business at any given time. We say that we're setting
goals. But what are we really doing? Right? I mean, yeah, I
want to make a million dollars. How are you getting that
million dollars? Right? And again, whether that's in the
business plan, it's not in the business plan. Different
story. But how are you getting there? What is it that you're
doing? What is your core business? Part of the business
plan says this is what our business is. And what our
business is not. Too many times we go into business and we
think, well, I'm going to do this too, and I'm going to do
that, and I'm going to do this and I'm, oh, let me do that too.
Look, squirrel. And before, before we get guilty, yes. Before
we get anywhere, we end up saying, all right, we got
nowhere, right? And a lot of people are saying you have to
have passive income 30, 40, 50 times, right? In your
business. If you really want to get somewhere. Is it bad to
have passive income? No. I started my business back in
2005 with a payment processing company. The clients that I
had from that are still giving me residual income in their
credit card processing volume. I still do take on some of
those new businesses, but it's not my focus. One of the
things that I do is I had that really strategically set when
I repositioned my company. And I said, this is where I'm
going. And this is what I offer as an ancillary service, but
it is not the core. So I still take it on, but it all
ultimately ends up in increasing a business's growth,
right? Where are they getting more value? But if I started
saying tomorrow I'm going to sell greeting cards, there is no
connection to greeting cards unless I'm using one of those
robot companies that write the letter and send it out as a
thank you to my customers. There would be the only way that
there would be any kind of immediate connection. But the
whole idea though is is that if we say we're going to ignore
the business plan, ignore everything we put in there,
we're going to lose focus. Then we look at the
SWAT analysis, strength, weakness, opportunities, and
threats. As the industry changes and forget the industry,
if you aren't changing, someone else is putting you out of
business. If you think about this when Reed Hastings and
I don't know why I'm blanking on his partner's name, the
Netflix founders, the name was Blockbuster, and they offered
Blockbuster an idea to work together. Blockbuster left them
out of the meeting because who wants to get stuff in the mail?
It's going to take too long to get there. It is an instant
gratification and we're all, human's instant gratification
is big, but they said no. Uber did the same thing to the
taxi market. All of these services put another mainstay out
to pasture. If you're not killing your own product and
innovating, someone else is going to do it for you. But the
other thing too though is when you're looking then at your
SWAT analysis, what is it that you're doing to watch where
the market is? What strengths and opportunities are really
there as you continue moving forward? If you forecast out
the next three to six months and again in some industries you
can look out 18 to 24 months, but if you're anything in the
tech world, three to six is probably the most you can
realistically go out because it just changes overnight. I
mean, if you go back six months ago, ChatGPT was only like a
little bit being spoken about. In the last three, four months,
it's been all over the place. I mean, now to the point where
the writer's guild is talking about ChatGPT and writing
scripts for Hollywood. So we're talking about...
There it is. I mean, this whole episode is ChatGPT. I'll just
don't know it. I mean, me and Jennifer aren't actually here
right now. Just kidding. Somebody can believe that. That's
not true. Go ahead. Yeah. But the point is as things change,
you really need to be looking at what is really there for us
to look at as an opportunity. What can I capitalize on? Who
do I need to partner with? What kind of resources do I need?
And then where do you go from there? And again, converse is
true too. Your weaknesses and threats. Where do you need to
be aware? Is the Fed going to be raising the rates again when
they meet later this month? Or are they going to keep the
rates where they are? Is that going to impact your business?
For some businesses it will because your customers may not
have the money to pay you. And so you're going to have to
raise this one. I don't know. I think it's different. I feel
like if on that one, there's a lot of fear missing out that
goes along. And I think that there's an important, healthy
level of fear we should all have. Where a child's running
towards a Grand Canyon cliff. There's fear associated.
That should be associated with, okay, I got to save that child.
And I see way too many business owners fall victim of the
smoke screen objection. Oh, I don't have the money for that
because they don't know how to communicate value to individuals
because they never learned how to sell. That's an external
factor that's so broad that I don't feel it's even
appropriate. But on the flip side, there's two audiences that
you speak to. And there's two different audiences. So one of
them, when you said if you're not killing your own product,
then somebody else is going to come along and kill it. You're
right. I'm on that. There's a context of entrepreneurs that
need to be ready for that. So I heard, the first person I
heard say that was Mark Cuban, who was on a rather
controversial interview with Tai Lopez. Hence the
controversy. Now, Mark Cuban said, if you don't do everything
that you can to get ahead of the market, somebody's going to
come along and they're going to kick your butt. You know, and
and so you've got to be relentlessly dedicated and moving
forward, right? And I love the idea that you're talking about
because with established entrepreneurs, you're absolutely
right. Established entrepreneurs, business programs that
have been around for years and decades, we kind of take for
granted sometimes that that the right person's listening. Well,
if you have a brand new product or service, you've only been
out for a year or two and you're worried about killing your
own product and bringing out another product. What are you
doing? You know, like you're in a blue ocean and yes, you have
to learn how to swim in your blue ocean. You have to learn how
to survive and how to thrive. But you know, just because
Jackson and Jennifer today said go kill your product doesn't
mean that applies to you, right? You've got to be able to
realize that some of what we say and back to everything that
we say has a context that's associated with a few audience
listeners here and there. And so that's I just think it's so
important that we address that because I see too many people
listen to a guru, right? Everything that's said in a
generalized conversation and go and apply general concepts to
their very unique brand, right? The the goal is for us to
inspire. My goal for this too is to inspire you. If you like
what Jennifer's talking about, book a call with her, right?
Go go find her on LinkedIn and reach out to her and find out
how her generalized information applies in your unique space
because if you don't do that, if you just try to take the
generalized answers, you're likely going to fail. It's just
it's not the way that you build into it. So Jennifer, you
mentioned the forecasted financials. I'm glad you said
that most entrepreneurs that I've seen are ignoring those.
You also mentioned putting this business plan into action.
I also add on for those for the for maybe it's a few. I think
it's a majority though. Most of that most of the people that
I've seen their business plans, they have put together a
business plan in order to win the confidence of the bank,
right? Win the confidence of those who are going to support
the business. It's not the real business plan. It never was.
It's not in there. That's not actually what they want to do,
which is why they don't rotate towards it. So I would say if
that's you, if you put together a business plan because
that's what you were told to do, then I believe it's also
important to assess, am I actually in the right business to
begin with? Now, I'm not talking about going from, you know,
being a fashion designer to all of a sudden, you need to
change your business model to construct new houses. Right? I'm
not talking about completely changing your identity and who
you are, but most business plans that I've seen are
horrendous and they do check the boxes of a decent business plan,
but if your heart's not in it, if you're not feeling the
purpose of it, you know, if you open that vape shop because
there's a new vape shop on every corner, for instance, and
you're like, man, I should probably open a vape shop too.
You're going to fail. You're not going to win by copying
every other business model out there. You got to find out who
you are. You got to find out what you really want in life.
And if you're not doing those types of assessments on the
front end too, and nobody's taking the time to care about
your actual vision, going back to Jennifer's concept of
Simon Sinek, start with why. Right? That's what that's what I
love about Jennifer's. It sounds like she's also doing that
same thing of of hearing you out, wanting to know where do you
start? Right? Why did you come up with this business concept to
begin with? And then of course, going into the rest of those
elements, but trying to do it alone, you know, to me, it
reminds me of somebody trying to again swim across the ocean
alone. I don't recommend anybody make that that attempt or
attempt that endeavor rather. So can I add by the way on that?
Yeah, where do you want to go from here? Sometimes people use
consultants to write business plans. It may be a great idea,
but here's the problem. When you have consultants writing a
business plan, they don't know your business or your thought
like you. And they certainly don't have the heart. So what you
can do is you can either write your own business plan, or and I
hope Jackson is okay if I make a pitch for the Small Business
Development Center. Oh, yeah, I've been there many times,
Jennifer, I'm with you. Go ahead. Yes. I am an ambassador for
the SBDC. It's an organization here in the US that works with
nearly a million entrepreneurs every year at nearly a thousand
locations across the United States. So if you need help,
Jackson and I can probably connect you with either our local
center to get you where you need to be or give you more guidance.
Sorry. I prefer not to and here's why. Again, I'm a big fan, but I'm
also not a pushover at all. Every single consultant, like you
said, doesn't matter if they're SBDC or not, has their own
nature of bias, right? And it's going to have their own
skill set and how well they do or not. No, I don't trust them.
Come to me. Go to Jennifer you want to. That's my request. It's
come to us. I will set you up with who you want to and there's
no cost on that, but my and I have my own bias too. I'm not
going to deny that, but what I do that's different than most
coaches that I see is I invite you to decide your own answer.
It's your, you're the visionary. That's where I see most
therapists, most psychologists, most coaches, most consultants go
wrong. You tell them, hey, here's a, you know, here's my
business model and that consultant where they do, they
might say something like, well, you should really go this
direction. I mean, are you opposed to that? Uh-uh. That
word should is one of the most toxic words on the planet. Who
are they to tell you what you should do? Right? This is what
others are going to expect of your business. So, you need to
consider going this route. Uh-uh. There's no place in that.
Most people don't have the strength to withstand that type
of guidance. They end up saying, okay, I should go that way.
You know what they do later? Oh, well, he told me to do it.
So, I did it. Well, how old are you? Five? You know, it's
your business. You're the visionary. So, you gotta be
careful who you go to and again, I might, my doors are open.
But you wanna be, you, what I would do, I would seek out the
Small Business Development Center advice. I'd go vet that
advice with three or four trusted peers. Who? One, my mom.
Why? She's a business owner too. Does she know everything
about modern business? Absolutely not. I'd probably take it
to my stepdad. We don't even get along. He's a business owner.
He's gonna scrutinize whatever I do. That's very helpful. Call
him a friend of me if you want to. Um, right, I take it to
other business partners and put it out in front of them. What
do you guys think? People who have no bias on the on the
scenario, right? However, if they don't have a bias and they
don't have a vested interest, then they're not necessarily
going to look at it with a fine tooth comb, right? So, then I
also need to take those concepts to people who are invested
in my success. So, I, I prefer to have several witnesses,
several people, even including my customers, but I'm, I'm
very, very careful as, as forthright as I am, as, as quick
as I am to go shiny ball. I'm also very quick to show that
show that shiny ball to 20 different people and look and
see what do they do with it. Um, because that's that you need
editing. If, if, if, if JK Rowling needed it for the first
chapter of Harry Potter 14 times, then our business models
that are supposed to serve the masses and an often, an often
essential ways needs vetted and scrutinized like crazy. So, I'm,
I'm off my soapbox now. Um, but yes, small business
development center, fantastic. Just be careful. Be careful to
not put your business in the hands of the consultant or the
person who's mentoring you. It's still your job and
responsibility to move your business forward in the right
direction, not rely on anybody, including myself or Jennifer.
It's your baby. It's your vision. My question and where I was
going with that just really quick is that they have a tool
growth wheel that allows you to, um, input your information and
it will help you create the business plan and actually
based on information, but it's then up to you to implement.
So, it's $390 free, right? Yes. That's the other thing. I'm
saying, right, then go into that consultant who's going to
charge you a couple of thousand dollars to do it who is not
vested other than the financial value and you know, I can do
it, you can do it, but I don't want to do it for people. I
just, I feel uneasy doing that. Sure. But the other thing
also, when you were talking, you remind me, I think it was
Jim Ruhm who said you're the average of the five people
you hang around most. Yep. And I think it's more like 10 or
15 now rather than the fly that was when he said that, but
it's exactly like you were saying, who are you talking to
and who are you getting the input from that is going to be
making that difference? You know, who's riding that way of
pretty strong right now is is Gary Vaynerchuk. Yes. You know,
talk, he now carries that torch of the five people, you know,
that you're surrounding yourself and the environment. It's
so important. So, if you don't have that environment, I
believe that the SBDC, that small business development
center at universities, they're available at almost every
university that I know of, you know, you can go to that. Then,
I also recommend your startup hub communities, right? So,
for instance, in San Antonio, you've got Geekdom. And so, if
you're in a big city, there's usually an incubator building
where you can pay like 50 bucks a month, probably a little
higher now that that rates are going up on everything, but
they have their own programs as well. They even do events. You
don't have to be a member to attend and get some advice. Just
be careful, you know, as you as you take the advice, not to,
you know, we've got we've got a entrepreneurs can't
fall victim of meme culture.
Meaning, just because you saw meme that's liked by everybody
and commented and shared as though it's wisdom does not make it
wisdom. You know, you've got to be more selective in what
you're listening to. So, I would take the SBC advice, I'd go
to that incubator, you can come through the Academy of
First Class Businesses, you can of course approach Jennifer
Glass as well. When she says that she's not comfortable, I
don't think that she's saying I don't want to talk to you as
much as she's going to be careful about how she guides you. Is
that fair? Absolutely. Yeah. So, and that's that's what I love.
Like, it's very helpful when you have a consultant that's less
aggressive on, hey, I need to be involved in this and we need
to do this, right? That's a little bit too forceful. You
want to look for consultants who have a standard of, all right,
here's here's what I work with and here's how I work. Here's
my boundaries, you know, as a as a consultant or as a guide. So,
Jennifer, what who is the ideal person, you know,
entrepreneur that would benefit from working with you? What
do they look like? So, the kind of people that are typically
coming to me are those people who are looking at where they've
been in business, maybe the last two, three years, they've
been getting the same income level and they just can't
break through whatever that ceiling is. You know, it's
plus minus a couple thousand dollars a year and they want to
figure out what they can do. They can. They're just stuck
and they don't know why. So, having an objective third set
of eyes is always a good thing in terms of figuring out what's
going on. Another one is a startup business who wants to get
that leg up and save time on the trial and error. We know that
you can go down 10 years trial and error until you finally
find something that's going to work or you can talk to
somebody that's been there, done that, helps other people do
the same thing and goes from there. What I will tell you is
that in terms of what I do, it isn't only in the sales and
marketing, it is in the financials. A lot of people I speak
with, I ask them very often, what are your numbers? They
tell me I have 30,000 sitting in the bank. I say, I'm not
interested in what's cash in the bank. What does your
acquisition cost, your lifetime value cost, your P&L, your
balance sheet? What is your cash flow look like? What is
your receivables look like? A lot of business owners talking
about receivables. We get the bill, we pay the bill.
Massive companies give PO's 90 to 180 days out. You work with
the government very often. It's a 90 to 180 day out payment
also. You have your bills due tomorrow. They're giving you
money way down the line. We need to look at what that
collections is and what you're paying out is. How do you make
that difference? How do you really set your terms to be
making that difference? Then we also look at operations and
strategy two. Do you have the right systems in place? Many
people look at it and they say, well, sure, I've got this
system because I tell Johnny to go do this and he does this.
But what happens if you are in there? Is Johnny going to do
that too? Or if Johnny leaves, do you have a system that is
easily replicatable without you having to do it over and over?
If you look at McDonald's as an example, McDonald's has a
system. You rarely, if ever, see the owner there. It's really
only to ever pick up the money if they're ever there. But it's
because of that system. What are you doing that's different?
And how does that matter and where do you go from there?
Smart. And that's one of the reasons why I see a vision of
us working together in the future too. Vision pros, we're
wrapping up today on this episode. But to talk a little
bit further about that, when we bring people on at First
Class Business, that's also what we start with the why. We
start with two forms, business preliminary evaluation form
and the revenue growth workbook. I start on the marketing side
of things to see as a marketing message in line with what this
business owner wants and needs. And that business preliminary
evaluation, we request the financials as well as part of
that. We do an initial assessment on that and we have
people like Jennifer in place and she's somebody that I
would love to work with on that where depending on the
alignment of the client and how our business is scaling, we're
going to need more people like Jennifer in order to scale
our ability to assess because a lot of times the business
owners are spending on things they should not be spending on.
Right? And we don't say this should not. What we do is we
highlight it on the income statement or on the profit and
loss as green, yellow and red. Right? And that means we want to
talk to this entrepreneur about those aspects because if we
can save a business $10,000 per month that is currently being
utilized towards something that's not effective for their
growth, guess what? Now they have a $10,000 marketing
budget without spending an extra dime. So it's super helpful to
be able to do those assessments in the front end. Jennifer,
you're blessing the business owners everywhere. On behalf of
business owners who started my, I started my career super weak
with the finances and saying things like I don't care about
the money. Only to learn years later that the money didn't
care about me. It took me a long time to bridge that gap. I
know that most entrepreneurs are so caught up in what their
vision is and they're so excited about pulling it forward to
the world that they forget about the importance of the
finances. But we need people like you to be able to help us
stay focused on what's most important, focus in on those
finances because that is our vehicle to get to the next
level. And if we're not paying attention to our vehicle, then
we might just lose that vehicle along the way. And that's
never good for anybody. So thank you so much for being here.
I hope you guys enjoyed the episode. Feel free to reach out
to Jennifer or myself if you need anything and we'll see on
the next show. Thank you. Have a fantastic day. Thank you.
Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you
tuned into Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing
your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.
We optimize them as the months go by. This is going to get
more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as
well. We'll invite people to participate in the show. And
thank you for...