Dashboard: How Much Can You Fake It Before You Make It?

[Music] welcome to another 21 hats dashboard every Monday Gene marks and I talk about the issues we think business owners should be monitoring this week welcome Jean hello Lauren how are you happy Monday I'm doing great how are you doing good good weekend ready to get off to the start of the week doing a little traveling this week as well so uh posted on where I'm going to uh Dallas and Miami and Colorado Springs CR wow and order uh that that's the order that's the order that's the order that's too bad let you know if I survive you a lot of time in airports all right let's dive in uh Jean in last week you wrote a piece about businesses coping with supply chain problems but you said most businesses could learn from the experiences of your dad filling up his Buick back during the oil crisis of 1973 can you explain that well let me ask you Len you and I are about the same age like what kind of card I'm a little older what kind of card is your family have when you were growing up um we uh we had Chevys we had a uh a biscane for a while and a belir for a while so I think we had the belir when the uh oil crisis hit in 73 that's what I wrote about um we my dad was a Buick guy um he also had an oldmobile you know after you know as well but you know we had a a Buick Estate Wagon one of those big you know station wagons it got something like 12 gallons to the the mile and I was thinking like the guy like just during this whole supply chain stuff because everybody all my clients and so many businesses are scrambling around for different things and you know in 1973 I was 8 years old um and I do remember that you know I mean there was a big gas crisis then you know from OPEC uh I don't even know if you have a recollection but it's you know the you know the you could only get gas based on the um your license plate there were odd number days and even number days based on the last number in your license plate um and there were lines everywhere lines everywhere it was a you know it was just a big you know it was it was a huge thing people getting into fights anyway my dad had a job he had the big Estate Wagon the big Buick he never had a problem with gas like he always was able to get gas like it was just it was never an issue and I never thought about it cuz I was eight years old now you know you know I think about it I'm like how did that guy that was a big supply chain issue what did he do and I tell you what he did he there was a a gas station right right on the corner from us um that was owned by a guy named Bert and uh it was an independent station and my dad went to him all the time that was his go-to guy for gas and repairs and the fact that he owned a Buick 455 Estate Wagon he was in there a lot for repairs so he got to know Bert really really well and they became you know friends and when the when the oil crisis came Bert who ran the gas station he kept a Special Reserve of gas for his special customers and sure enough my dad was one of them so whenever my dad needed gas I mean he paid for it but um he just kind of drove around the back and Bert would give him his supply of gas especially for him no lines no whatever and it was never an issue and you know in the end I swear you know people talk about monking around with their vendors I hate it when pundits and experts are like oh yeah get financing off your vendors no need to go to the bank you know like sure string out your vendors they're only like the most important partner that you could have in your company you know I mean you rely on them for the materials and supplies go ahead screw around with them you know my dad was always was always on a good relationship with Bert and Bert appreciated my dad and he took care of him with Supply and that's the same thing that you know the one of the big lessons I think we need to walk away with you know now in the supply chain crisis I have clients that are still that they're getting materials they are getting them because those clients have had good relationships with their vendors and their vendors put aside stuff or give them special you know special consideration uh when they do get their materials on hand so you got to have good relationship with your vendors don't don't screw around with them don't you know mess with their payments don't be that kind of guy you know you know treat them well and you know I think you said in your piece for entrepreneur you you want to be be their best customer yeah you should be there but they should be wanting to like work with you they should be looking for you know they don't want to be waiting for your payment they don't want to you know because people are human you know and you know think about it that's a big part of it isn't it I mean if you just pay your bills on time um AIG part you might be their best customer it's exactly right and I'm that way with my clients you know I mean you know I I give special consideration to the clients I like the most and the ones I like the most are the ones who pay me the quickest so of of course if your if your stuff is stuck in a shipping container in the Su Canal this may not make a difference but when the stuff does eventually come in or if it comes trickling in you know you want to have that relationship with the vendor that'll say listen I got to you know we can help you out with some stuff you know what I mean so that's where you want to be and it worked for my dad it really did it was it was very very topical for today all right next story uh another problem facing businesses you also wrote uh about businesses uh trying to get their employees back into the office and you had an interesting suggestion for a way to do that yeah was it it pets is is what we're talking about right I mean it is this there's this been this explosion of as we know during covid of of pet owners the puppy boom the puppy boom yeah it's what it's called you know and now now there's it was going on before Co but now it's been exacerbated um because so many people have putts and it turns it turns out that some people like there are there are pet health insurance plans like employers are offering all sorts of crazy plans like counseling for dogs because they're going to have separation anxiety I am not kidding that that that is like a benefit that some employers are now offering they offer pality benefits they've been doing this for a while now where when you get a new b a puppy you get to take days off of work to be with your new puppy and train your puppy and then a lot of companies are stepping up their their pet insurance some of them are negotiating discounts or they're at least just you know paying for it um so that's a big benefit and Amazon has always been a leader here Lauren like they they've got something like 6,000 pets dogs registered on them they have a big bring your dog to work policy which to me sounds like all sorts of issues um and there are I mean if you're thinking of having employees bring their dogs to work that's great um but you've got to get waivers signed you've got to get everybody buying into it you know your insurance you have to have special areas in case they poop you know the whole the whole it's a lot of headache in case they poop in case they yeah when they poop so it's right I mean it's like a whole thing but a lot of employers are are you know are considering those pet benefits and geez you know employees are in such short supply if sitting across somebody and they're trying to juggle between my company and the guy down the street and then you're like if you come to our company you can bring your dog you know or we'll pay for your pet it could be an exciting factor in hiring an employee that's why they become that popular I think it's kind of interesting that you of all people is offering the advice of allowing employees to bring pets to work considering that you've been a remote only office for years now it's easy for me to say God bring I care my as you and I were talking he's snoozing you know right across the room from me I see him right now but uh but you're right it's easy so you you do bring your dog to work I bring my dog to work every day it's exactly right but I do see it as a big issue now I think people you know they've been working from home for you know a year and a half now people are getting back to the office and uh there is you know separation issues with your pets so it's a concern for some employees and they're animals and so employers are responding why not all right Jean next story uh here's a question from The New York Times Sunday magazine ethicist uh the question is is it okay for a business owner to pretend to be a lower level employee on the phone with a customer in order to give the impression that the business is bigger than it actually is what do you think I don't say that again Lauren I I didn't pick you up the first time so this so just to make sure we're clear sure so you've got the business owner that's talking to a customer yeah it's like the call comes in and it's oh the owner is not available right now but I can help you uh let's talk about what your needs are and the idea is to give the impression that there are lots of employees there and it's a big office and an established company that can handle it um I I'll read to you the the answer from the uh don't me the answer I don't want to hear I don't want to hear something let let's let's give each other some you know what first of all look this is a back and for thing let's hear your opinion what do you think of that oh listen to this um you know this is it's an interesting topic right now this the question we're talking about is Faking it until you make it and it's kind of in the news lately you know partially with the thonos trial um and uh and some other situations um it's you know I don't think deceiving customers is ever a really great idea um and I'm to encourage that but um you know this one doesn't seem like a felony to me how about you yeah I feel the same way I mean it's kind of hilarious I think if I was the customer calling in um and then if I found out about that that this guy was doing this at a later date it would definitely impact my thoughts about the guy like okay he was really he was just bsing me you know when I originally called in so what else is he bsing me about you know what I mean um it it doesn't establish a great relationship and there's always the possibility that you're going to be found out so even just from a practical standpoint let alone you know a moral standpoint yeah but you know what I don't you know what in in the scheme of things I'm fine with it um honestly I've done it I've done similar stuff myself in my business career I mean like you know you like you said earlier like we've been you know running virtual offices now since 2005 for a number of years I didn't tell people that because it's it's you know it was weird back then weird yeah and on top of that like there we have a we have a our business address is a post office box in the ballot kinwood shopping center outside of Philadelphia but but for a while when we had like and it's box you know I I would put like our post office box but what I would I would put sweet in front of it so I was doing that so what I'm what I'm not any better than this guy who's like pretending he's a bigger company like I'm saying same ballark yeah so I would be like oh well sweet you know sweet 45 you know with the you know whatever with you know the the street address you know so all right here's another one I I won't name names but I know somebody who had a box storage company and when he got started he had a big Warehouse with no boxes in it or a few boxes in it and he but he wanted to make it look like he was established and if somebody came and inspected they would see lots of other people are trusting him with their you know important boxes this is you know it it wasn't just empty boxes these were boxes with important files uh this is before the internet um so what did he do he filled his Warehouse with a certain number of empty boxes that looked like they were full and then he put up mirrors so that he could walk people through and if they look down an aisle they'd see the mirror and it would double the number of boxes they thought they were seeing what do you think and how's he doing now uh he did very very well there you go very well whatever whatever you got to do whatever you got to do we had well you don't really mean that whatever not not I mean with not illegal but I'm just saying like you know when we set up our phone system when I first started up my company you know we we always use like a a hosted phone system this was even back in 2005 they've been around that long and um dial one for customer service dial two for sales dial three for every call wents A milon it's the same thing as that guy so no it's you know that's what startups do you know they you know they make it you know seem like they're a little bit better or bigger or whatever and um I don't know I it's when I when I look at the list of things that would like you know that you know issues in this world um that's really not in the top 50 so there you go well it's like the customer who finds out might look at you a scance a little bit and wonder what else but they also might just admire your Mox also true I would probably find it pretty funny as long as like you know the guy's producing a good product or a service I would find it pretty funny so um n you know again from an Ethics I listen you're talking to my dad brought me we talked about my dad in the Buick my my dad always told me have very few principles but stick by them yeah I have a wide wide range of an ethical Spectrum we could put it to you that way all right there's one other story I wanted to ask you about um interested piece in the past week about startup Founders and how the life can be exceedingly lonely and the point is that and I think this is true of most business owners but this story focused on Startup Founders but it's true for for a lot of people who don't necessarily have anybody they can really talk to about what they're experiencing trying to build and run a business uh you know it doesn't really make sense to talk to employees if the company is struggling or if they have problems um you may not have friends who have any idea what it's all about you may not be able to talk to your spouse depending on your relationship you may or may not want to share what's really going on uh if you're struggling with something uh the one PE person that these startup Founders in the story turn to are business coaches who often hear the real story and that's the one person that they uh that they lean on um which which raises an another interesting question question which is just sort of you know how do you find the right business coach and can you you know how do you know you're getting someone who really knows what they're doing and give you good advice any thoughts on any of that yeah yeah first of all I'm sorry I've been crying here like it's the startup owner is lonely the business owner now Jean myself with my piles of money and I'm lonely I'm running my business and there's no one to talk to you think startup Founders have piles of money well if they got Venture Capital Money yeah but listen not their money it it does it does seem like you know boy we're having sympathy with you know entrepreneurs these people you know they chose their you know their lot and life like you yeah I mean listen the the fact of the matter is that they are right I mean it's a very lonely world when you start up a business like do not forget that if you have some romantic idea of starting up a business it ain't romantic nobody cares about you all your friends will say oh wish you the best and blah blah blah nobody cares and when you start up you realize that um you know you're out for yourself um I have a lot of clients that are family-owned businesses and even though they they yell and scream and punch each other in the face frequently um they still have other people they do have their family members to talk to about the business and that's really you know kind of that's kind of a big thing I mean my dad passed away back in 2005 and him and I were running a business together and we used to scream at each other all the time well it was me screaming at him but um but I do miss having him around where you know to you to I have nobody to talk about you know my business with like I am all alone on making decisions and um you know and that you know sometimes that's really that that's definitely a hard thing to do I don't know if having a business coach is is necessarily the right you know I guess whatever floats your boat I mean if you find a good coach and they're smart enough and you know whatever and they they they have your interest at heart uh sure why not um but yeah I mean it's yeah it's lonely if you don't have a partner and you know you're forced to do things now the on the good side being alone means you can decide to do whatever you want to do right which works some of the time yeah which works some of the time and you know you're just you're going to you're not you you make more mistakes because you you don't have other people thinking you know or or or looking after you but I don't know like the whole story about it's lonely being a business owner or lonely being a startup owner I mean I don't know if that's like you know like people want to hear that right now you know you're right and especially uh when you put the term loneliness uh to it but what it's really about is what you said it's you know who who who are you going to talk to and uh I didn't know that you felt that uh sometimes that you would like to have somebody to talk to you know that we could use these Monday sessions for that Jean if you have really big problems that you need to discuss we could do it right here no that's not necessarily I just talked to Jack Daniel and always he gives me the best answers not Monday mornings I hope it's usually my best resour but thanks for the offer uh La I'm sure wife it's a standing offer Jean and I'm gonna make it every week from now couch and and just you know like let up you know it's I I I do have to say it it is important and it's good to have other people to um to talk to and bounce ideas off of um so having a network of friends and colleagues and whatever is big but I I don't um um I don't know I I've I've whenever I have to make a bigger decision I usually find a few people like either in my company like employees of mine um or clients to bounce some stuff off of you have to have somebody to talk to about certain things you can't run a business completely in a vacuum so all right thank you Jean Jean Marx is president of the marks group a consulting firm that advises small businesses especially about their technology needs he also hosts his own podcast small Biz ahead with the Hartford Insurance you can find it at ba. hartford.com as always Jean thanks so much thank you Lauren that was fun we'll see you soon take care