21 Hats Podcast, Episode 9: Why Not Us?

[Music] hello everyone welcome to the 21 hats podcast I'm Lauren Feldman your host every week I sit down with three business owners to talk about the challenges they're facing it's the kind of conversation you don't often hear in public our panelists address difficult topics like why their business isn't making as much money as they think it should why their digital marketing isn't working or why exactly they hired their brother-in-law owning a business can be a lonely and isolating pursuit but at least you'll know that you're not the only one facing these issues got a question you'd like us to address send it to us and follow us on twitter at 21:00 underscore hats or on our website 21 hats comm let's meet this week's 21 hats podcast line up back with us today are Karen Clark call who is CEO of Blink UX a digital research and design firm based in Seattle Dana White who is founder of perrolli Boyd a chain of hair salons based in Detroit and Laura Zander whose CEO of Jimmy beans wool a digital version of a neighborhood yarn shop that's based in Reno Nevada this was bound to happen eventually this week happens to be the first time we've done a 321 hats where our three panelists happen to be the three women among our five regulars my first thought was that this would be a great opportunity to talk about the issues that are particular to being a woman entrepreneur my next thought was well maybe we're past that maybe I should treat this just like any other twenty to one hats episode I went back and forth on it and eventually I decided to just throw it all to you and let you guys decide are we past this issue or is entrepreneurship still of a very different experience for women than it is for men who wants to go first I'll take a stab at it I don't think we're at I don't think we're past this issue at all I think the only way we'll get past it is if you know women keep you know making the same strides as far as you know kind of like what Karen just did and said hey Amen Lauren right you know we have to make it we have to move the group past it there's a part of me that's like oh gosh as women we have to do more work I why is it on us but I think because we have the vision that we'll be able to do it but as it was recently brought up to me about mansplaining I was wondering you know why do I always have to wait for whoever I'm talking to to kind of understand that there of I'm of equal intelligence and that you know I have to wait for them to get me and get it and especially being a minority woman whoa so no we're not past it Lauren not at all can you give us an example when this issue gets discussed publicly it tends to focus primarily on what happens when women entrepreneurs try to raise money but I'm sure that's not the only time I'm wondering you know when you talk about being mansplain - is there a recent experience of that that you might share with us I mean there's that happens you know probably seven times out of ten you know so what happens is you know it's easy to kind of box perrolli Boyd and say okay hair salon done but as you all know it's it's actually rather different as far as like the lean manufacturing component and and just the the data collection and what-have-you and and I found that I have to wait I find that and I hate to generalize but I find that most men when I'm we're doing an introduction and speaking with me about my business and what I do I have to wait for them to get it and get past the box right and it's only been a couple of occasions where the man didn't come to the conversation with I'm meeting with a black woman and let me hear what it is it happened when I talk to you Lauren it was you didn't come to the table with that you came and you immediately got it as you know well as a few others but for the majority of the time oh my goodness it's the oshi and then the light goes off and then the conversation goes back and forth because they realize hey if she is she's capable right you know when you say the the light goes on and they get it what do you mean by get it specifically they take me out of the box right you know they don't think that you're CEO or they're not sure if you're the leader or what do you mean I mean it's not so much that they you know you tell him I'm the leader I'm the CEO whatever but they have this perception of a woman-owned hair salon who she is and what I don't want to say what her intelligence is but how much does she know about business is limited generally yeah generally and then I have to go through the motions with them to kind of get them to understand oh not only is the business different but because the business is different she can speak to a B C and D and then they start to speak to those things with me once they realize that it can be done but upon the initial maybe five to ten minutes it's this me waiting for you to catch up right and also me showing you which I hate that I have to do showing you that you know this is a conversation you can have with me about lean manufacturing data that I'm not just the black female salon owner and you know what I kind of wish that was enough right I kind of wish I didn't have to show more let me ask you data is it possible that some of this is just people's expectations about what a hair salon is exactly it's interesting that we're talking about this right the second because I literally was just sitting downstairs with a guy I'm at a big knitting show in New York City right now and I'm sitting with a guy who comes from a finance background he comes from like the Arthur Andersen world young guy about thirty years old and he recently bought a knitting subscription business but before that he spent a few years working with a beauty subscription business and getting that off the ground it's one of it's not if see in that Birchbox but it's a third-tier to that I guess and he said that when he was raising money and trying to get investors for this beauty subscription box that the men that he would go to because most of the investors were older men would just look at him and they would give their opinion they'd just be like this is ridiculous this is so dumb like why nobody's gonna want to do this blah blah blah and he had this is this young guy from Miami and he's just like he had to get to a point where he's like honestly your opinion doesn't matter go give this box to your wife go give it to your daughter like you are not our target market and you're not our customer and the economics are here the business model is here and quit using your personal experience to make business decisions but immense than that because he is just a regular I mean he's he's a guy and he's talking to guys and so I think sometimes to Lauren's points and me being in a knitting world in a creative world I think sometimes it's less about who the messenger is and the fact that these people they if these businesses are not within their worlds and their world of experience they just don't get it so we started this with my asking where we stand on this issue are we are we passed it or not and obviously Dana's response was a very strong note we are not past it how would you answer that Laura I was actually that's a good question and I honestly have it's not popular to say but I I've never felt like I've just never felt it you know I've never felt discriminated against as a woman I've never felt any barriers as a woman in business you know every once in a while I'll have a woman or a man look at me and not understand what I'm saying or you know kind of be dismissive or be a jerk and but it has never I don't know I've just I have not experienced it you know Dana and I have talked about playing rugby and playing basketball and I think part of it is that I just kind of refused to be intimidated you know so even when somebody is a little dismissive or a jerk I basically either mentally or verbally say okay let's take it out on the court you know and let's see you know if you can beat me in basketball then great I'll you know I'll cede your point you get to a good point I think it's tricky to tell sometimes where somebody's coming from yeah sure Kaz a jerk how do you know why they're being a jerk absolutely great point I agree but I disagree I think she's right there's this resolve that you have from your experience is that certain things you're just not gonna let happen and and quite frankly I don't think any of us would be open if if we let the jerks determine the viability of our business I think for myself I'm keenly aware when there's the I don't understand which is different then okay I don't understand and I'm dismissing you because it can only be so much because of who I think you are I think it's there for me I totally and and that's why I'm nervous to even answer this because I'm not dismissing the fact that it's happening yeah I just I have been fortunate and privileged enough to live in a bubble where I have it hasn't affected my life and my business you know where I've been able to say or I've been able to say you know what I don't want to do business with you anymore then and I have had to do that but a lot of times I feel like those the people that I haven't that if not treated me well sometimes I think it's less about my gender and it's more about the fact that they're just and they're to everybody but I think if I look back kind of intellectually and academically they're probably it probably is because I'm a woman and because this is a woman run industry and so there are these you know old white males that just have these kind of archaic views of how business is done but I'm just naive enough I guess or just like I said kind of live in this bubble and pretend that doesn't exist and I just don't let it affect me I have said the exact same thing as Laura is that I've I feel bad because for many many years I was full-on living in a bubble and I had no idea that there were problems and once I started cluing in I felt really guilty and like wow was I ever living in a bubble but it was to my advantage and so what burst your bubble started in 2000 so we've been around 20 years and in the early years I had I just thought oh yeah this is awesome everybody you know all women start companies and run them and grow them isn't it great and particularly in the high-tech world and so but once we started getting more known probably 10 years ago I started getting calls to sort of graduating them more frequently of you know hey wow you guys are doing great and you know what's it like to be a woman CEO in a high-tech world when you're the only one and or first of all they would say you know what's it like to be a woman CEO in a high-tech world and I would say oh it's really great you know like why are you asking and they would say well you're the only one and I bet like wow I am not the only one because I just had lunch with several others and I would real off their names and I said and when you're done talking to me you should call them up because they're really great and so part of it I think part of it is an awareness and I really believe that you look for evidence to support your beliefs and if people believe that women aren't running companies that's all they're gonna see they're gonna see all the cases where men are running companies and they won't even notice if a woman walks right on by running a company so so my goal in talking to these people then and I actually created a whole nonprofit event series around it because I became so obsessed with my with my years of you know wearing the covers on my eyes and not understanding what was really happening is I became obsessed with pointing out where it's happening it's like if you say look at all the red cars today all of a sudden all you're gonna see is red cars and so it's the same idea and so what I wanted to do is start saying hey there's actually a lot of women running businesses successfully here's some examples now start looking for your own and then all of a sudden everybody will start seeing them we're already doing it and so that's been my approach and I like Laura have been very fortunate in that you know before I started realizing what was going on it was way too late like nothing's gonna knock me down and you know I actually see it as a challenge if I and my favorite thing to do is sit on an airport if I get an pardon my father is an old white guy who I love and they are my biggest supporters so you should know that I have many many men who support me personally and lots of other women and but it's my favorite thing when you get a little white guy and we sit down in an airplane and and I look fairly young as well and so it's - by the end of the flight if I've convinced them that women can do everything then then my job is done Karen I think it all three of you have had the experience of talking to potential investors but I think you probably have been more aggressive and ambitious about reaching out and considering that possible option well in the last year or two what was that experience like for you because because that is where this issue tends to come up the most I'll tell you it was there a little bit and like I said because because it's way too late to get under my skin I just II just see that as a challenge and I tell you I there was one there was one guy who I read the riot act too because I I said to him I will not do business with you if you're going to talk to me in that kind of way and I hung up the phone and and that was it what kind of way wasn't talking to you patronizing I don't look for this so I don't I don't see it very often but it was my belief that he was talking to me like that because I was a woman and based on past experience with him and like I said I don't I don't see this very often because I'm generally not looking for it but in this case it was intolerable I was just not gonna tolerate it so well it's not happen very often to me yeah and but I think Karen you hit on something and said it really well in terms of we're too far you and I are too far along almost being twenty years into the business now that I'm you know as I'm thinking back through this when I was only in you know when I was at the three-year mark or the five-year mark in less than a million dollars I didn't go out you know I didn't I didn't spend a lot of time interfacing you know with the old white men of the world if you will and I'm married to an old white man I mean he's almost 50 so how calm old but so my experience now I just have a lot more confidence because I can just tell people to f off you know I mean we have a decent sized business we've done pretty well so I my business is my confidence and yeah I can't ignore the other part so I tell me I can't do this but I looks like I did yeah exactly Laura you started this business with your husband did you ever have the experience where people assumed that he was the one who was in charge no no but that's because he's never been the public say I mean other than his mom I think she thinks I do nothing so no but he's you know we're in the Knitting industry so of course people are gonna assume that it's me I've been a beauty business and people think my boyfriend is the owner all the time people defer to him all the time I like when you're out for dinner or when so if we're anywhere but it's majority of the time if he is standing next to me and we're talking or the the business comes up especially if he's in the salon with me they defer to him I've literally when I was doing the build out of perrolli Boyd I literally walked in and I was at this point I was like I'm done trying to prove and explain to people that I'm the owner so the subcontractor came in and I said hi I said I'm here for the one o'clock appointment and the guy said okay could you let us know when the owner gets here and I said oh absolutely that's what I'm falling back on the conversation because my experience is very different and so he did you describe him on the spy what it was he was a sub so I just said okay I'll let you know so when he got to 110 and 115 he came up to me who are you I said I'm Dana and he said do you have any idea what time the owner I'm assuming that's your boss and I said I just I'm staring at him and I said well how can I help you and he was you know he goes well I'm not sure you can these are things we're the owner to look over I said again how can I help you and the fact that I've already given in my name and I was done trying to convince or prove or show him you know you have a one o'clock with Dana who is the owner but for some reason in quotes when I walked in he assumed I would the other Dana you know though that's what I was gonna say is I never got that people thought my husband was the owner but everybody has always assumed my employees are the owners and that I just worked there and that's still the case but how does that happen you know when I started I was 27 and I guess I looked probably more like I was 19 because people thought I was the high school help and my employee was 65 so they always just assumed that she owned it and I was a high school help and then that's somewhat understandable it you know it is and they and I drew you know you've seen how I dress I wear a t-shirt and shorts and I you know I look like I'm sure I try to pretend I'm still in high school you know it's dazed and confused I'm Matthew McConaughey so I don't dress professionally I don't have business cards so I walk out very casually and people are always usually typically very surprised so that doesn't really faze me because a little part of that mm-hmm actually today knows using her example is I do a little bit of that on purpose because I want to see how people will treat me yes if they don't know who I am and if they treat me like crap then I don't want to work with them exactly um so I'm very uh I go to events like this I don't wear a nametag or there's the underdog side of it that works yeah favor I love it I do it all the time tell me more even in my salon I had another woman who at the time was my operations manager and you know she was white and they deferred to her and one lady got up and she came in and she overheard another person defer to her they said oh this is white-owned and she was getting ready to walk out and we said no no no no no she's the owner so when I'm in my salon I I'll answer the phone I know I'm the owner every time I pay a I don't need like everybody to know that I'm the owner and and and what's another little anecdote is that I'm in a you know Michigan so I lived here for years and I was here young and I had a bully who came in to the salon and I was behind the desk is a girl from college she was awful and she came into the salon and she said oh hi and I said hi how are you she said oh you work here now and I said I do how can I help you and she you know I checked her in and then I left she said always at the end of your shift I said it is so I left and she you know sauntered up to the front desk and she asked the girl at the front desk what is it like working with her you know didn't ask all these questions and my staff is under their breath laughing and she said you mean working for her and she said what do you mean and she said Dana she's the owner and so and and he was the lady was actually upset why didn't she tell me and so my staff called and told me what it was like after I left well why didn't Dana so the next time I saw it oh she was nothing but roses and friendly and you know and then I'm like Laura okay you shown me who you are the first time I believe you and and you just kind of like flying beneath the radar because it gives you an idea as to who these people are when they think you're the receptionist versus the owner absolutely 100% you nailed it Karen with the underdog and I think this is such a great therapy session because I'm realizing it's not that I haven't experienced this it's that I am narcissistic and arrogant enough to try to spin it so that I'm in control yeah I'm the one that's well and I actually I take secret pleasure in it too I you know I love oh absolutely and they see this company kicking butt and then you know if they find out it's me later on I think that's sort of fun it's 100 percent there's nothing more fun to me you know really especially the ones that treated you about this it's always the rugby in the basketball for me it's like the bottom line is at the end of the day let's go out to the basketball court and let's see what it looks like you know so don't pretend like you're smarter than I am don't pretend like you've got more power than me because when it comes right down to it you know anyway so the other issue that people talk about a lot is whether or not there's something of a confidence gap between men entrepreneurs and women entrepreneurs you sure I can the the context that comes up in is explaining why there aren't more women owned businesses that crack a million dollars in revenue and you get it leads to a discussion about well women just aren't as ambitious as men they maybe they don't have the confidence they don't fake it until they make it they don't push as hard for growth and and I'm interested in this area cuz it there's a aspect of this that rarely gets discussed which i think is is kind of important I think you know some of those men are who are pushing harder and more aggressively are making huge mistakes it's some extent it's the the finance issue the venture capital issue I'm not a big fan of venture capital so when we see the you know we always see those statistics about the percentage of venture capital that goes to women entrepreneurs and it's a tiny percentage and it's it's ridiculous but I also think you know venture capital in my opinion destroys as many businesses as it helps maybe more so I'm sitting here thinking yeah women have the same right to destroy their businesses that men do and they should have access to venture capital but on the other hand that isn't necessarily the smartest way to build a business and you know pushing crazily for growth isn't necessarily the the smartest way to run the business so with all that in mind I'm curious how you guys think about that I think it's a social a societal thing and I'll expand by saying I had a fellow business owner she was very excited about expansion opening up a second and third location she got her funding everything was intact and then at the last minute she changed her mind and when I asked her I said hey what happened and I expected it to be you know what I just really looked at the workload and it was just gonna be too much it was happening too fast no her response was my husband basically is not handling this growth well and if I do this I will lose my marriage that was her quote to me we explained that yeah he sorry to see your marriage go no no not at all because she was really upset about it and I want to make sure I'm clearly her husband was resentful of her success is that what you're saying to an extent what I what I'm saying is and I had this conversation again a couple days ago with another business owner some of the women are married to men who married them when they were the restaurant chef not the restaurant owner the nail tech versus the nail tech business owner the lash you know what I mean so they're okay when you're going to work every day putting on people's makeup doing people's nails but when you become the CEO or the leader or the owner and founder of something you there's a growth that these women have experienced I know I've experienced it and these instances these husbands were not ready to stay married to that woman this is the young lady I talked to you earlier this week she just opened a location her husband his needs are tertiary right they have kids and it's the business now he's tertiary because she has this booming business that requires her to be there more and she hasn't gotten to that point in her business where she has structured it to hand certain things off which is fine as part of your growth but when you're asking about women and the confidence thing I think that can be an individually based thing based on your history and your baggage or whatever your growth in business can be lonely and some women may choose to not be lonely and keep the people around them that are more comfortable with them being the nail tech versus the CEO well that's depressing I'm so sorry you know Doug and I you know we started the business together I mean I worked he still had a different job for a few years so but we've had this conversation many many times and it's so funny on the tertiary cuz Doug says that he's fifth you know he comes after my iPhone and so he comes there's Huck first then the iPhones then the business you know then the two dogs and then comes Doug in our lives together knowing that we have another 50 years or whatever or guessing that we have another 50 years at this period in time we have to focus on those things and dedicate our time to those things and he said one of the smartest things that's really stuck with me in that our relationship between the two of us has never changed in 20 years what has changed is the outside world and what we're working on but the unit between us is still there it's just that we're having to spend time on other things and so I feel for us like we're very very lucky that we're able to have a conversation and say okay we're not having date night this year it's just not I mean this is just not the year to do it like for us to build the life together that we want to build this is what needs our attention yeah are you good with that I mean we have to have this conversation with my son as well before this new acquisition we're like this is a family decision it means I'm gonna be gone five days a week for you know months are we all good with that and Huck said yes I want new Legos you know so we've all got a vested interest and we all opted in Karen I took your point before when you said you know I'm I'm clearly talking to three women who have confidence and I also know that you are not someone who has shied away from trying to build your business ambitiously but you also talk to a lot of other women business owners do you think women in general tend to shy away from that kind of ambitious growth we used to have a problem where women weren't starting businesses so the council for women in business produces a lot of data each year about research about women entrepreneurs and now the research is focused is showing that there are few women there more women starting businesses but few of them are growing them so what I've sort of changed my messaging and a lot of my outreach and when I'm speaking talking mentoring is to encourage women to grow their businesses so I really try to highlight what I've done and and how I did it and really encourage women this is what it looks like it's no harder than starting business in fact I think it's easier starting the business is the hard part you know again for me I didn't really have a lot of women business owners that I talked to honestly I mean I have a lot of friends who are leaders and companies or owned owned businesses just throughout my years of being in business but to me I try to I try not to differentiate man-woman black-white old young I don't care I just get inspiration from wherever I need it if there's something somebody that's doing something that I think is inspiring I don't care who or what it is I try to find mentors in anybody and they may or may not even know me and mostly most of the time they don't it is really important particularly for girls to see their role models looking like them and I'm not undervaluing that at all and I think it's really important and we need more of that but at the same time it doesn't mean you can't have mentors who don't look like you so I've really have looked at other business owners who have grown their businesses and said hey why not me you know I take a lot of inspiration from Russell Wilson actually Seahawks quarterback he's my hero I'm like yeah why not let's go why is he your hero because he he has a whole foundation the name of it is why not me and the idea is somebody's got to do it you know why not me I'm why not and so I I think that about our company all the time and look somebody's got to be the world's greatest UX firm why not us so you know I just can't find a good reason why not that's a great answer do when you ever get tired of being the boss making decisions I don't think that's a woman or man thing is it or maybe it is I just had coffee this morning with a brand manager of a brand we carry and he said okay well where do you want to sit and I'm like David can you please just be my boss for like an hour just an hour like could you just tell me where to sit and you tell me what to eat I would be so stoked I bet there is a male/female thing a little bit there interesting research project I think and to be fair I love the fact that I have the choice to sometimes not want to be the boss I mean I think if we're really gonna dig deep am I do I ever not want to be the boss probably not you know I just happened to have the privilege and the choice to be able to say hey David bossed me around but do I have to be my life you're allowed to be tired one day you're allowed to feel like you've had enough yeah you were the boss to decide that you wanted to get lost sound that's the important thing yes he said that's what I'm yes your decision yes it's the choice mm-hmm yeah so probably you know I probably don't ever get being tired of being the boss I probably really desperately love it I don't get tired enough to not do it but there are days where honey what do you want for dinner not another choice like you decide where we going you decide and they found that people who make a lot of decisions have like a uniform in their clothing because it's one less decision they have to make today and it's Obama said it Steve Jobs said it Mark Zuckerberg said it that there's you know dr. Dre we wear the same thing because it's just one less decision have to make today and I think that's a version of just not wanting to be the boss I think being the boss is making decisions one of the things they'll tell you is in terms of being like within the company I have often said that I think because I'm a woman leader that I get less leeway to be mad oh yeah oh that's so interesting yeah if I'm having a rough day and I'm not my best self and I'm short or I get upset or mad about something or mad at somebody I think the the impact that has on others around me is far greater than if I were a man and that is something that I really believe mm-hmm and I think it's because do well I think it might be because people want to give you permission to be upset and if they haven't given you permission to be upset it's jarring to them does that mean oh yeah sure about that because these are people who have known me for a while but I you know I'm a if I freaked out I don't think you hear that about too many men leaders if they are if they are rightly upset about something and these are things that are legitimate it's not like crazy business this is you know the numbers aren't right or somebody's screwed up and in and there's really a problem you know I take that stuff seriously and it be part of it is you know for me part of my persona is warm and caring and I think I think people expect that more from a woman later so that's what they like to have women in the room because they listen better you know it's known that there can be more warm and more caring and and this is why you need diversity right so we need an equal balance room it's not all women and not all men you need balance so that we get all kinds of types of personalities moods temperaments these kind of things but but I think people expect that more from me because they see it and then when they see the other side they're like oh that's not what we expect I don't have permission to be upset even as a leader I don't have permission what do you mean by that I just I just you know there's always these stereotypes that you know with women when you get when she gets upset it it has nothing to do with about what just happened it's all the baggage that she's bringing with her it's probably a boyfriend argument or something and so I have found that and that's why I really do get upset because I don't want to do the work of being validated and I haven't gotten to a point where I don't care right because if I'm upset it's because something's not happening that I need to happen and I need you to care so we can get done right so I have found that it's easier to get upset when I have the permission of people who know that I'm upset when they agree that I should be upset when they don't agree it can be dismissed and not so much with the people that work with me you know there and I don't really get upset like that but when you're talking to a lender or if you're talking to somebody in your administrative or contract work when you're upset I feel like I need their permission and once they agree with me then we make the changes that we do but if they don't agree with me if they think even though it's it I'm rightly upset it just changes for me how do you deal with it how does that feel well like I said I I don't get upset if I do I deal with it on my own I don't express it to them and when I do express it it comes in in form of questions again trying to get you to see where this is a problem and then they acknowledge it they move on there is no ownership of it outside of acknowledging it where it's just different on my end I've seen with women when men are upset with women they're not only supposed to acknowledge it they're supposed to own it and make it better and so I just yeah I don't I don't get upset outwardly if I do get upset not alot makes me upset I want you say like there's a couple times when I'm like you know what I totally would have said this differently I totally would have expressed myself differently if I felt I was in a space where me being upset was okay and not not okay because they you know I was blowing up for no reason it was obvious I should have been upset but because we just don't want to deal with that we don't want to look at that right now you know we're just well I think it's impressive that you can maintain your cool like that no but I mean honestly Karen look at me I have no choice I have to maintain my cool I don't I don't live in can you imagine I mean the complex of the angry black woman and it's always legitimized it's never validated people don't really want to hear you so you I have no choice but to find something to do with it so we can get something done I don't think anybody wants to have anybody walking around being angry all the time so I think you I think you're far more effective if you can keep your cool so I think it's excellent that you're able to do that and I wish I could do it better all right I want to move on to another topic as as I started last week every week I want to ask you a question that Laura actually suggested which is what's the worst thing that happened in your business this week Laura let me start with you question yeah thanks a lot what's the worst thing that happened in our business this week I would say that the I am trying to figure out how to bring two teams together that work in different states that have a lot of overlapping responsibilities and skills so that's kind of a nebulous answer but a team dynamics and trying to figure out who does what and try to introduce everybody and get everybody on the same page so there's just a lot of friction as we figure this out and I personally just think that it's just gonna take time was there a particular problem that you can share with us you know not pointing fingers by giving us a sense of where this is becoming an issue yeah we have you know a couple of different websites and with one of the websites we are asking that any updates to the site be run through the other team for second eyes for a variety of reasons and some updates were made to the site without running it through anybody and the the updates were not updates that we would have and I hate to use the word approve but their updates that we would have liked to have discussed before they went up and so once we found out they were up then we had a whole conversation about it and then you know of course like feelings get hurt and blah blah blah I hope the answer to this question is is never doing this podcast Dana how about you what's the worst thing that happened to your business this week this is by far the slowest week of the year when you're looking year-over-year so this has been a tough weekend and we're counting down the hours to this impending snowstorm here in Michigan that's gonna start tonight and go through Sunday morning which is always our busiest time the weekend so the hardest thing this week was watching those numbers man oh stuff what do you do during a slow week do you try to make use of it in some way we scaled down our staff we focus on training we did a lot we get a lot of admin stuff caught up on but we're also just getting ready for when it gets busier and and some of the changes we want to make and stuff so there's it's productive but it's not revenue generating directly of course Karen how about you well Lauren I'm sad for you but I'm happy for me to report that nothing bad happened it was a great week I don't believe it nothing not even one thing I can't even make anything up really let's remind our listeners you're on sabbatical out of the office through the end of the month right I am in touch this week I actually worked more than I have the entire spectacle because I'm getting ready to go back so we're working on my re-entry plan and it had a nice all-day meeting with my chief culture officer on Monday sort of walking through my my plan of attack and then I had a great holiday or half a day meeting with my co Oh yesterday and same thing and everything there there's nothing they couldn't even tell me anything bad that's going on at the office so I'm I'm happy I'm super excited I go back after next and I think I'm actually ready I gotta have a little week in Mexico first though hey who invited her question I know but you're still making me look bad all right so for last question I want to ask you about something that we an item that we covered in recently in the 21 hats morning report that I found kind of intriguing it's in Illinois they just legalized recreational use of cannabis and it seems to have thrown a lot of employers they are it's interesting there seems to be some confusion in the sense that recreational cannabis is now legal but it's also legal to to fire an employee who is using cannabis during work hours and there seems to be some confusion about that I'm curious about it all of you it has the change in laws had any impact on your businesses have you ever done drug testing would you ever do drug testing how do each of you look at this maybe Laura why don't you go first you know it's funny that you say that because I think we just my general manager just told me that in Nevada that they it is now illegal to fire an employee for having marijuana in their system I'm I would assume that it's not legal for people to smoke pot or use cannabis during work hours in the same way that you're not supposed to drink alcohol or anything that's mind-altering during work hours right but from a I'll tell you one thing from a recruiting standpoint we had a lot of people who would love to move to Nevada and come work for us because it is legal and when you're working with a bunch of creatives I'm not sure that that's a bad thing but from a Productivity standpoint and from a warehouse standpoint and from the other employee I it doesn't affect us I mean if it makes people's lives better you know on the weekend and that's what they choose to do instead of drinking and sounds great to me so I assume you you don't do any drug testing of employees or potential employees no we have great people though do you know how about you know drug testing at perrolli Boyd you know Michigan just legalized recreational marijuana so I mean even before then I'm with Laura you know what you do on your spare time is up to you and if it's impairing your ability to work that'll come out and you know just by keeping up quality standards and whatever in the salon so we've had a couple of employees who've come in smelling of marijuana and they've been sent home because in the beauty business nobody wants to smell that while you're doing their hair so or we've asked them to go change and come back but you need to tell them about edibles Dana right and well vaping is huge here so but the policy at perrolli Boyd is just no consumption at all I don't want anybody to get hurt we're using scissors sometime it's hot hot irons and such Karen in Washington it's been legal for a long time with no problems and we only ever drug test when a client requires it and it wouldn't be a requirement of a specific person per se but it would be requiring that the team working on their project has to have been drug tested and it's probably there's probably some mechanical reason of something that we're doing that would be dangerous I guess I'm not sure why they would require it yeah that's kind of hard to imagine is it is would this be employees who'd be working on the clients premises so yes I see yeah so it could just be that they have a strict policy and you know that has to trickle down to us so it's very rare though has that ever caused a problem for you no no problems you know Lauren can you ask this same question when William is on sure I'd be really interested to hear his answer as a pastor recruiting guy from Texas that's a great thought I will do that as for today we are at a time my thanks to Karen Clark Cole my thanks to Dana White and my thanks to Laura Zander appreciate your taking the time yeah thank you thanks for listening everybody this episode was produced by Jess Stuber on founder of blank word productions remember if you liked what you heard tell your friends tell your enemies subscribe like us and best of all connect with us follow us on Twitter at 21 underscore hats and visit us at 21 hats calm let us not what questions or issues you'd like to hear our panel of fearless business owners address see you next time [Music]