I Don’t Hate Regulation, But …

[Music] hello everyone welcome to the 21 hats podcast I'm your host Lauren Feldman this week Shan busy Jay goz and Jackie Russo talk about the new rules that may or may not ban non-compete clauses increase the number of employees who must be paid overtime and eliminate Tik Tock in the US how much would those changes matter to each of their businesses what might the owners do differently do the changes make sense and why does it so often seem as if it's small businesses that get caught in the crossfire when the government tries to re in Abus of big businesses on the question of non competes Sean says he thinks they are often used by lazy businesses that haven't done the real work of building loyalty with employees and customers plus do sha J and Jackie ever regret starting a business have there been times when they thought about packing it in and trying something else and also are the terms business owner and entrepreneur inter changeable or do they carry different connotations might there be a better term Jay thinks there is even in Good Times owning and running a business can be a lonely Pursuit our hope is that these weekly conversations brought to you by our principal sponsor the great game of business will let owners know they are not alone in facing challenges same thing with our daily newsletter the 21 hats Morning Report which Jak magazine named the best newsletter for business owners and which you can subscribe to for free at 21h hats.com where you can also find transcripts of our podcast episodes and lots of other articles and interviews joining me this week on the podcast are regulars Sean busy CEO of Kinesis which is based in Portland Oregon and works with small businesses on marketing culture and strategy Jay goz CEO of the gos group whose companies in Chicago include a picture frame business artist frame service and a home furnishing store Jason home and Jackie Russo CEO of brand Russo a marketing agency based in Lafayette Louisiana the episode is titled I don't hate regulation but welcome Sean Jay and Jackie there's been a lot of regulatory news of late and I want to start by getting your reactions to some of this news I think I would first point out that all of this is subject to court challenge so it's entirely possible that none of we what we discuss here today will actually come to pass but I think it's important to understand the ramifications of these issues uh and who knows at some point maybe it will come to pass so I'm talking about the potential Banning of Tik Tock by Congress the ftc's Banning of non-compete clauses and the Department of Labor's uh increasing of the threshold for overtime pay let's start with that one uh the overtime pay issue um do any of you expect that to have an impact on your businesses absolutely how so Jay well let's just review what it is at the moment you have if you make less than 35 Grand a year you can't be salaried or exempt okay they're moving that to 43888 July 1st and then they're moving it to 58 so in my case or everybody's case here's the issue if you've got someone making more than 58 okay it's not going to affect you at all all right but if you got someone making 3540 it's certainly going to affect you and my argument is yeah that's probably too low of a number but here's the the the problem if you do have someone that makes 50,000 a year and they might be working you know 42 hours a week 44 hours a week whatever you've got three choices you can either raise them to $ 58,60 or you say to them okay um we're going to make you non-exempt leave we're going to make you hourly but you don't have to punch in or out or anything well just nothing's going to change that's a problem it's a problem because you haven't don't have it documented right because what happens is let's assume it's not your trusted long-term employee that's been with you for 20 years you have another employee in the office that's going to be in the same situation and they didn't work out and you got rid of them after six months and now they run to the Department of whatever and they go oh I was working from home all the time he wasn't paying me overtime you have no documentation and it so happens my daughter-in-law is a labor attorney and she said yeah you really need to have documentation so it causes a problem and then also keep in mind if you put one person in the office on salary because they make the 58 656 and then the person that makes 50 is not on salary you're going to have one punching in punching out in one knot and like all it does is Telegraph oh yeah they're making more money than you do it's not great and I understand the problem they're trying to address but I wish they would have called me because I have a much better answer for it so simple if you're salaried and you work more than 50 hours a week you get time and a half done would have solved the problem largely it would have solved the problem across the board right not just based on salary just anybody no no you could leave it at 40 for hourly but if you're salary I mean the people the thing people don't realize all the time is if you're in salary you're also getting paid when you take off for whatever I mean you're it goes both ways so and I have people that are perfectly happy with the way it is and I'm happy they're happy and now the government telling us oh no we have to go change this but if you simply want to get rid of the abuse you could you could simply say if you're a salaried employee at 50 hours you get time and a half that would have solved the problem I believe this is not this is a very clumsy fix you still would have the documentation problem wouldn't you well yeah you still yeah this is it's like I said I understand why they're doing it and I'm not one of these people that hates regul I think they the government needs needs to have some regulations and some stuff but look at what they did they raised it from 35 in 6 months it's going up 65% really 65% they couldn't have taken it to 50,000 and left it there for a while I just think it's overreach Sean Jackie will it have an impact on either of you it won't for me because we work 32 hour weeks could you still have overtime you know I I almost don't talk when I know I'm going to talk about the 4 day week cuz I know it puts day into a tizzy I'm just here to watch enjy right right yeah I don't think we can have overtime if we're not even working 40 hours a week like I don't know how this will affect us but I'm watching to see if something changes isn't it conceivable that you could have a you know a crush and you have people who end up having to work 40 or 50 hours in a given week well the only times that's ever happened and the people who did that work were named Russo and therefore you know they did it to keep their company going and do whatever I do for sure take advantage of the flexibility of my job and so there are times when I'm working at night because I didn't work during the day because I went to a kid School activity or you know whatever I might wait a second this does affect you wait wait let's think this out for a second do you have employees that make less than $ 58,60 yes okay this is saying that you can't just put them on salary you have to pay them hourly which means that there's going to need some documentation out that their hours they're working I mean that is the reality they're going to be very sad is that a problem no I mean the documentation is not that hard we will do it um but the reason why we have the schedule that we have and work the time that we work is that the creative types in my industry aren't real fond of documentation and in the agencies where I work worked before this starting this one it just became a system of Lies where the creative like the graphic designer for example did not track his time all week long like he's supposed to now he has to turn it in to payroll and so he just makes something up and turns it in and I thought well that's just not a good system for anybody so we adapted and and do it this way and it's worked pretty well for us for 23 years but if we have to have documentation we have documentation we're still going to only do a 4-day work week keep in mind though you have exposure not meaning you hired this person you thought they were great and it turns out they're they're terrible and they run to the Department of Labor and whatever state they're in and they say I've been working 60 hours a week for this woman she's not paying me overtime and then they call you and they go well we got a complaint that you've been making people and you go no that's not true they're only working 32 hours a week and they go great send us your records and you say uh yeah I don't really have any records right no that's a fair point so it will affect in the sense that we'll have to have records now you know I'm sure that I could pull the data of everybody's logins for emails and for our base camp and you know for all of our tools and you can see quite clearly no one's logged in and doing any work in those things but I'd rather not have to do that retroactively so yes in answer to your question Lauren it will affect us we'll have to start tracking things differently so you certainly could make documentation saying that you're not allowed to work overtime and if there's an exception you need to contact me you certainly I think could do something to oh like that right my point is this law CH this law is not really affecting you you got the same exposure today that you're going to have then because they're you're you're telling they're not well you're no you are are they salaried they are salaried salaried yeah all right I take it back they are salary now this is going to affect you because now they're going to not be able to be salaried so yeah sure right right Sean any impact on you no because your salaries are too high I mean I um salaries are too high we live in a really expensive city I shifted the company a long time ago from uh we were our interestingly we were hourly for a long time and I sort of had this theory that you know to Jackie's Point getting people to track their time if you paid them by their tracking it would it would create more accurate timekeeping I don't know if that actually held true and it created a lot of other problems so just sort of an overarching change in the company towards greater level of professionalization and doing higher value work meant paying people more money choosing to do certain types of work and not other types of work so I guess in some ways we're fortunate and that this doesn't impact us means my payroll is really high but I guess that's you know and in my case I have 130 people it's affecting two people so it's not the end of the world but it is affecting two people that I'm going to have to decide you know the one guy if you recall they were going to do this a few years a go so I had to have the conversation he goes he's 50 years old he said I haven't punched in since I was 20 years old at a pizza place you know so he wasn't happy about it but then they backed off it so it wasn't an issue so it's causing a little issue it's not the end of the world but I think this is another good example of who's abusing the system right and the the folks that are abusing the system I think by and large are large corporate chains that you know love the idea of having a quote unquote salaried manager at a low price point that they work 60 70 hours a week and what happens in like the case this over and over and again right you got a lot of small business owners some I'm sure who abuse the system but by and large you're getting caught up in a fix that's designed for a different Group which is larger corporations that's going to impact smaller businesses um and this is kind of the theme I think of a lot of Regulation is that the intentions are good but it's it creat creates undue paperwork burden on small business owners and I think that's the frustrating part of it here's another issue this is a national thing how could you have the same number for do you Sean do you think you're in one of the highest income areas in the country uh we're pretty high yeah yeah okay let's say You California New York okay how do you do the same number for you California New York fine and then have it for Alabama Mississippi and where the income is yeah it's crazy it's totally crazy well I think the answer to that it may still be crazy but I think they determin the number based on indexing to the lower cost areas J in your case I didn't realize it's only going to affect two people that makes it sound like this is not really a a money issue for you it's more the bureaucracy is that right no no no it is a money issue what do I let's just go about one person in particular what do you do about the person who's making $50,000 a year it's the market rate they're being paid well they're happy with what they're making I'm happy with paying it they're salaried and now I have to well I guess it is a paperwork now I have to say to them you can't be on salary or I have to go pay them $8,000 more or okay you're no longer an exempt employee you're now on hour you're now non-exempt and you need to document your time and when you're off for a day we're gonna have to you're not going to get paid it it is a problem with one two people I mean it's that's the problem with drawing a Line in the Sand somewhere that's why I say and if they would have made it 50 it would have take there's a lot of people in this country making 50 some thousand a year Lots they could have on from 35 to 48 and it would have taken care of some of the problem but you know like I said I understand they got a problem I don't know that this is going to fix it the the big corporations will here's the problem so now they pay the manager 58,000 656 and they still work 70 hours a week did that really fix the problem I don't think there's an easy answer to this I'm I think from a small business perspective one drawback towards so you can look at it through the like larger cultural perspective of hey we want to do right by people we want a society where people are paid fairly and we need regulation because large corporations are really abusive to their employees for the most part it takes away the competitive advantage that small businesses have where you know we can go and look at like you can work at those large companies and they'll just totally abuse you you can come here and have a great experience and we're really Innovative and how we pay people and so it's sort of like applying a cookie cutter methodology to everybody even though you know I think small businesses like creativity and that's that I think that's that's the problem with all of these kind of Labor and wage laws with that being said there are certainly some small business people who I don't know if taking advantage word but for sure oh yeah we just passed a law not we they they just passed a law in Louisiana that you no longer have to provide a lunch break for miners who work at your business yeah your state is so F Jackie I'm sorry dude tell me about it they is such an abusive State it's crazy it's like a corporatist it's awful yeah oh God yeah which is why I think we all agreed the government does need to have some regul I don't have a problem with that yeah let's move on to uh the next one non-competes the FTC believes that by uh Banning non-competes they will free up uh employees to take better jobs or to start their own businesses they expect uh a lot of uh business starts and new jobs as a result business groups are opposed big business groups in particular they see employees stealing secret sauce and running off to a competitor do any of you use non-competes I have and I think there's so much nonsense in what what you just said repeating what they're doing in that first of all there's a difference between a non-competing and a confidentiality thing the secret sauce I'm not a labor attorney but I believe that can be covered by a a confidentiality agreement they're not the same you're absolutely right yeah that's absolutely true I read some of the stuff they said oh it'll be more free flow of information and more best practices oh great so you can figure out how to do something better and like oh let's share with all your competitor I again it's not going to ruin my life they did carve about people making a lot of money can still get them um have people been abusing those I guess I haven't been again it's the same situation right it's it's these businesses where I mean come on they're making hairdressers sign non competes I mean it's just crazy well you know why they're doing that they're doing that because the hairdresser has a following yeah and when they leave and go to another Salon they take their clients with the question is do you really think you're going to stop that for God's sakes yeah yeah I what do you think Jack Jackie I mean our you know kind of the industry we we're sort of adjacent here you know I I I remember meeting a guy years ago who worked at an ad agency he brought in like a million dollars a year in business to the agency one day he like up and left started his own thing and I promise you a bunch of those clients went with him what's your take on this on this uh idea that's the risk is that you absolutely can have whether it's a agency um business development person who walks out the door with a client roster and starts their own agency I've seen it in my market over and over and over again or a TV newscaster who has a huge following a radio DJ who leaves to go to a competitor I think it's very sticky I think that those non-competes can be abusive but they also in some ways protect the business that invested a lot of resources in building that person's brand mhm but then it gets back to okay but it's their brand I I this one's tricky I part of me thinks okay businesses could use a little protection from from from that but on the other hand I think it's laughable when they go oh it's going to Spur a lot of new business I think that's just laughable oh I would have started a new business but I can't because I have a not I have no non-compete oh now that I don't have a non-compete I'm gonna go and leverage up my house and quit my job and start my new bit really really that's going to be the difference between starting your own business have a hard time believing it's going to make any meaningful effect on that am I wrong I think you might be a little bit wrong just a little though that's my point I'm not saying it won't happen I'm just going I doubt it's gonna be a big engine driver for the country are you aware that in California uh non-competes are effectively banned so uh Silicon Valley hasn't been able to use non-competes and there are a lot of people there who credit it with the success to to whatever extent you consider still Canali a success uh you know you're talking about tech businesses where there there really are secrets there um and it it it doesn't really seem to have put the breaks on there and and certainly you have people leaving companies and starting businesses there I think this is largely a good thing I I generally think it's it's it's something that's abused more than um a a fair a fair situation and I also think it makes for off I don't know I might insult some people here but I think a lot of times non-competes are a representation of a lazy business business meaning that the business hasn't built itself in a way to where the customer is buying the brand it's it's buying a person within the business and and that that can be a hard thing to to change in some businesses but it is something that you can do and should do as a business to not make it about a person but to make it about the company and I think a lot of businesses substitute these non-competes for just for being kind of lazy about it and I I could be wrong on that is that something you think about Sean well yeah I mean I thought about it from the minute I heard this story of you know the account manager leaving and taking all his clients with him and I realized that I have to build a business where the value derived from it is from the team not from a a super smart individual or a super Charming or super charismatic and that I think that's often the problem as the business is you know in an attempt to be efficient uh it creates sort of an Achilles heel um with with the organization I see that a lot in Ad Agency and and marketing firms where you know they say you know this is your point of contact this is Bob he's your account manager and Bob makes himself really indispensable to the client and then when Bob leaves the client's like wait a minute and we just had this happen with our insurance uh broker we had an awesome insurance broker the company she worked for was garbage and when she left you know they actually were really bad they were like we're going to close your account and all this sort of thing I was like whoa you know it's very combative and I was like yeah let's leave these guys they're terrible but our person was wonderful and so I think it's a really good example of like you can have great people operating in bad businesses and the Bad Business will use things like non-competes and threats and so forth to try to kind of keep the status quo and so I like that this prevents that type of behavior Sean have you also found that in a lot of situations that that one person that Cult of Personality tends to be kind of the the way a consultative business goes and so if you're talking about more of a a a process and team approach does that mean you put everybody kind of into pods so you've got multiple points of contact for every client absolutely yeah yeah I've pushed on that hard even even on the account management side for the longest time I would make the case to the client we staff this with effectively to account managers for a couple reasons one is you get diversity of insight and service but the second you get redundancy so somebody can actually take a vacation and things happen while you're while that person is gone you know and then selfishly I also know like that makes the client really think about the company as a team of people not one Superstar and and and so so it's always like a two-person account team and then beyond that we have our team members kind of in and out of the relationship so you might have somebody who's an AR director come in and do a bunch of work for several months you might have a graphic designer participate you might have somebody who's doing writing or analytics so you're kind of constantly cycling people into the client account so that the client really sees that the value is is not just one really charismatic person it's actually a group of people working together and I think ad agencies and marketing firms and a lot of consultancies get that wrong you know and that they build it around the cult of the individual and I know a lot of that is driven by well we need to be more efficient you know we need to spend less hours the less hours we spend with a client the more money we'll make but but it's a vicious cycle because then you get this problem of customers start to perceive that it's one person doing all the work and when that person leaves then they start to question well why am I with this with this company at all so I I think for Professional Services businesses this is really important like really really important that you don't have the cult of personality within your business um I don't know Jackie what do you think no I agree 100% And what's interesting to me is we have some clients who found themselves in this position two or three different companies where they were the founder and they were the face and then they didn't have the time to do the day-to-day work anymore so in order to scale it had to change and then when they wanted to sell it had to change and so I think if you can do it right from the beginning you're going to put yourself in a far better spot you've got your Banker person that you've got a good relationship with they're the ones fronting for you they're the ones making things happen at the bank and sometimes the banks are no good and this person decides to leave I would say that would be a thing that I wouldn't want them to have a a a restrictive covenant to go somewhere else because they had to leave the bank because they weren't given the service that I needed and I want to follow that person and I have so I can see where this is going to benefit some customers for sure I mean if my insurance broker had a non-compete you know I mean that would have sucked you know she's great and I want to follow her I you know cuz like largely we're buying a commodity I don't really care you know it doesn't matter it's healthc care right you know so yeah I think this is often more often than not it's a tool for businesses that that are actually not that great and haven't built a a brand they're relying on individuals and their superpowers or or they haven't been good at treating their employees well the employees want to stay yeah yeah that's true too for sure let's talk about Tik Tock lots of businesses lots of individuals make a living on Tik Tok I never thought it would come to this I I still don't really believe it's going to go away but it definitely seems a little more plausible now it's not going to go away no no no uh it's not going away right and I think the word the Tik Tock ban is such a misnomer well they they're trying to force them to sell or and if they don't then they could be banned right that is not not going to happen there is so much money on the table here that somebody's either going to get a Payday or yeah it's not going to get banned that's the hyperbole being pushed by the media you know I do think it's interesting I mean you know on the one hand you it's being described as a national security issue that whole discussion is very vague we don't really I haven't seen anything concrete about that I don't think there's any evidence that it's happened uh thus far on the other hand as you were saying Sean There's real money being made here and it's just hard to imagine that being uh blown up but just suppose just play along suppose it were problem for you Sean or Jackie not a problem at all for me because I I just like philosophically i' I'm totally opposed to Tik Tok I mean I just what's the philosophy I feel like the National Security threats are not overblown I think the ability to manipulate an audience is massive and I think the fact that you have an owner who is you know not a friendly Force you know in terms of the United States I I think it's super risky and and actually couldn't you say the same thing of Instagram and uh Facebook and Twitter to some extent I mean those are socially corrosive and cancerous but that's that's different than National Security threats and and true Facebook in 2016 was taken advantage of but there's a big difference when ownership resides in the United States versus when it resides overseas and you have an active participant trying to undermine the country so it's it's a different situation and and I think there actually is evidence and I know it's cloaked and veiled but when you see these National Security people in front of Congress saying we can't really tell you the full story but it is bad I think it's really worth paying attention to that's that's my take on it I think it's a huge risk to us and I think it's this is the right legislation I 100% agree with every single word Sean said I'm was marking off my bullet points as he was talking I'm like covered covered covered I would add one small piece to that which is not only is it all that stuff but if you look at the version of Tik Tock that's served in the US to the version of Tik Tok that served in other countries it's bad all right well the two you feel that way I certainly support both you and Sean I think you should run for president of the United States I'm just saying Jackie what were you referring to what's the difference between Tik Tok here and elsewhere so we have some International clients and they talk about what Tik Tok looks like in their countries and I talk about what and now I'm not a heavy Tik Tok user at all I just have never gotten into it felt like it was turning your brain to Mush more than the others so I've kind of avoided it but when they talk about um the how very rarely they see negative things uh controversial things divisive things uh inappropriate things and I look just around at the people you know on a subway car with me now part of it is the algorithm feeding you what you're asking for I don't doubt that I had a client one time say I don't like Tik Tok at all because it is just half naked girls and bikinis and I said not on anyone else's sir but yours you have to click it to get it which is a really awkward board meeting really awward so there is a little bit of you have to click it to get it but there's also it's the divisiveness and you know I don't want to turn this into a political episode and I'm going to try to deliver this piece of information without um oh I don't know how I can when I look at the um the Gen Z approach and and stance on what's happening with Palestine and Israel and how much of it is fueled by their consumption of media on Tik Tok that tells me that there is a concerted effort to cause a generation to have a certain opinion about a political climate that oddly enough is not shared by the mainstream Media or a ton of other people so that's manipulation at its purest sense yeah yeah Jackie let me ask you this one of the big reasons Tik Tok took off I think is because it's um it's got a different kind of algorithm it's you can be more more easily discovered on Tik Tok if you haven't built a following or Facebook or Instagram you got a problem on Tik Tok you could come in uh as a new user and establish uh a following more easily which is why a lot of businesses have uh takeen to using it h have you used it as a as a weapon has it has it been effective for you well um my clients in the B2B space it's not a good match for them so that's how I've been able to avoid having to spend a lot of time on it personally because I would never put a client on something I'm not very um intrinsically familiar with and so because it's not a fit for my clients it doesn't require my time and energy all that to be said obviously I'm aware of it I've used it I have an account I follow the stats I have to pay attention if something changes and it becomes something that would be valuable to one of my clients then I'd have to be all in it so I know as much as I can know without being a daily habitual user all of that to say it's fascinating to me to watch over and over again new users as you referred to them get that immediate first rush and that dopamine thrill of I've gone quote unquote viral and then it drops off and they have to work so hard to get back up again that is baked into the US version system where you take off and then you don't stay there you have to work to get back up there and it is um interesting to understand how much that's manipulation too yeah such a good Insight Jackie I you know it's taking advantage of the human you know it's taking advantage of what's called asymmetric reward which is what why gambling is so successful which is that we when you reward us consistently and predictably we actually get bored with it and lose lose excitement and what Tik Tok has figured out in all the social media channels really is that the asymmetric reward oh my God I'm winning I'm winning wait where did it go where did it go oh I want to get oh wait where did it go and so that piece is just fueling the dopamine response which causes people to say even more addictive to it and this is a larger problem than just Tik Tok in terms of social media and what it's doing to our kids but but I think Tik Tok is particularly pernicious and and I think your example is exactly right been watching that whole kind of thing unfold and going like wow how is it that an entire generation is suddenly so politically aware about Palestine having not cared about it forever like I promise you the protesters had no involvement or investment in the Middle East prior to like a year ago well wait that's not true come on a lot of them are from Palestine and this they've been living with it their whole life that that's that's clearly sure sure sure but the but the the white Suburban kids who are suddenly you know suddenly politically active that just doesn't come out of nowhere and and I get it what they're seeing going on over there is really horrific and the we can just talk about the whole leadership problem over there and Israel but it is so interesting how asymmetric it is in terms of the response and how powerful it is in such a short period of time and I mean this just tells me there's just massive manipulation of the user now whether that's coming out of China or it's that certain groups have figured out how to massage the system I don't know but I think it's so risky Sean that was an excellent I mean it that was truly an excellent other side that I didn't think about you you have an excellent point today which is why you should be running for the president of the United States well only if you'll be my vpj all right let's come back to 21 hats and and reality here for a minute I I think these conversations about each of these changes scores a couple of points one is there aren't enough people who understand what goes into running a business I think you guys will probably agree with me on that and that if everybody did understand it better uh some of these decisions might look a little bit different which brings me around to a question I'd like to ask you guys which is you know we're always talking about challenges here there are always plenty of challenges even when there aren't uh new regulations and government changes to deal with I'm do you ever you ever regret starting a business and do you ever think about what else you might have done or is there enough joy in building a business that that's just not an issue for you anybody absolutely not never crossed my mind it's not easy there's 10 different things challenges that are come up all the time but I've never regretted it I've never thought about doing anything different and I have accepted the fact that it's not simple and you just have to deal with what comes up and there's tremendous joy in owning your own business from taking care of customers to developing a staff and empowering them and giving them security and respect and satisfaction themselves to making money so my answer is absolutely not never never think about it Sean do you ever regret it or uh do you find enough joy in what you're doing that that just doesn't occur to you here's the thing my personality is generally one where I Don't Look Backwards um I I don't find there's a ton of value in looking backwards in order to find regret I think looking backwards is valuable in order to think about how you maybe want to do things differently in the future but that said I mean there have been moments for sure where I'm like what am I doing here you know why this is crazy like I'll say January of 2010 you know when the recession was late to Oregon and Portland and boy when it came it really eviscerated me and you know I really questioned uh doing it I even looked around at taking a job and it was just so depressing I didn't do anything but but what you know what's really funny you know we just I was just at a at an event where I heard the uh from the guy who founded Ugg boots um I can't remember his name off the top of my head but he said something you know really thoughtful especially for somebody who's a little bit older of of like you know every really terrible situation has kind of been the the seed to to grow into a flower of something good for him and so he sort of changed his mindset when something really bad happens to think okay well something Good's going to be coming you know it isn't in the moment but but I think that I try to embrace that mindset these days because uh it is true the the recession totally forced me to rebuild my business in a totally different way that ended up helping it grow in Leaps and Bounds Len 2008 it forced me to buy a big Factory building for super cheap that it's worked out great that without the recession I would have never done that I'm an accidental entrepreneur but I don't regret it for a minute I think it's been one of the greatest Gifts of my life even through the challenging times 911 the financial crisis covid pick a challenge I mean we're in oil and gas territory so every time y'all get cheap gas we get half of our Workforce laid off but through all of those I am so grateful for what it has afforded me to spend time with my kids to build build a business and careers for 20s something people that I get to work with to build the kind of company where I want to work I I wouldn't trade it for anything the time with the kids kind of makes me laugh a little bit because I ever since I became a business owner I'm I'm working twice as hard for about 20% of the money I was just gonna say I would put them to bed and then continue working in the day but I got to have dinner with them at five I got to read them a bedtime story obviously they're in college now this is years a when they were little I got to be able to take off and go have lunch with them at school or go to their sporting events at 3:00 in the afternoon there's a trade-off there I have to still do my work at another time but I wouldn't have it any other way that I could do both there was a worker on the job site that I was at the other day and and his shirt said um the only profit I made today was knowledge I I just I do think that's an like an unspoken value I've gotten out of the business all these years is that the ability to learn and kind of keep learning as an owner is just so incredibly high and and a lot of jobs aren't structured that way you know a lot of jobs are really structured to kind of do the same thing over and over again and I think if you're somebody who's constantly curious and loves learning you can't beat entrepreneurship for that Sean I have a new phrase for you it's called learn it all not know it all yeah that's good that's good good okay but you have to agree the whole definition of entrepreneur is to take risks that some people simply don't have the stomach to do it it's going to be very challenging and difficult and it's just not for everybody I don't think anybody would disagree with that well I have to tell you if you people that are watching sharp tank all the time I'm afraid that the most of the many a lot of the population thinks that entrepreneurship is all about getting the big idea and that's simply not the case I mean and also funding like that that that's a that's something that's really changed in the last 20 years you know for me which is I used to sort of think of like starting the businesses about having an idea and the perseverance to pursue it and you know there's just been especially with Silicon Valley a SW switch of mindset that entrepreneurship is about raising money yeah they think that oh successful he raised money listen just yesterday I think it was in the report boxtrot in Chicago Food upscale food place there's one two doors down from one of my stores my kids in real estate and he was thinking of putting one of those into his shopping center and I said I'd be real careful with that because all I hear about is they keep raising money and then poof they just closed one day overnight and there's a lot of that I was intrigued by what you said Jay about uh a lot of people thinking that entrepreneurship is about the big idea they've had a couple of conversations of late with people who defined entrepreneurship to me as doing something that has never been done before and it kind of set me back CU I've never thought of it that way I mean obviously if you're you know lucky enough or smart enough to be in a position to do something that's never been done before and you can innovate a whole new you know business or industry that's that's a great thing and people make a lot of money doing that but I don't see that as the definition of Entrepreneurship and I think I know a lot of entrepreneurs who haven't done anything of the sort am I right that can't be 1% I mean that might be a tenth of a really I mean most people are better executors they're running a better restaurant they're running a better marketing agency they're doing something better but like how many people can come up with it's just like I said it's it can't be 1% of the businesses started have some kind of New Concept I mean we all hear about them but that's because they're in the news but most people are running businesses that have been around for years and doing a better job at it I'm curious to all of you you know do you see the word entrepreneur and the word business owner is different the same what do you yeah how do you respond when you hear that word different different different for sure different in what way and I say that from being in business groups for years I've been in four or five different business groups and when I look around the room with the 12 people in it and this is just my case I'm sure it's not always the case but I think there's something to this I'm usually only one of one two or three entrepreneurs the rest took over the family business oh so you see entrepreneur as a person who starts something as opposed to took the risk yeah it started okay I would take that and add to it because an entrepreneur doesn't just start one thing I think that they tend to continue to look at how to change Advance grow nurture improve invent it's not a one andone where a business owner owns a business and runs the business but if they started it from scratch bys you can't say they're not an entrepreneur sure I don't use that word to describe myself hardly ever I never do because it's just so filled with I just think it's pretentious on some level if someone goes what do you do I don't go I'm an entrepreneur I say I own a picture family business in a furniture store I I I I've never said that to someone I just find it uh too much which gets interesting because Sean I noticed on your signature you sent me an email you call yourself founder and I find that interesting because my guess is you might have the same issue I have I don't want to call myself entrepreneur and now I'm getting I don't want to call myself CEO because that's got so much negative baggage attached to it yeah you're right there's a lot of baggage in both both ends of that Spectrum I think the thing that I've I've not appreciated about the word entrepreneur especially the way it's manifested in maybe the last five or 10 years this sort of this like hero like cult um like oh he raised you know $10 million or she did X Y and Z and it it gets celebrated in the media and these Publications is this like rah rah rah kind of thing and there's often so much emptiness behind it with all the stuff that happened with Adam Newman and we work you know that's a really good example for me of like the thing that I struggle with when I hear the word entrepreneur and why I don't use it for myself is like these folks who you know hype up the situation and when you when you look behind the the curtain it's just really ugly and so you know it's like I don't know that business owner is the right word but I almost gravitate more towards that because to me there's a sense of I really appreciate building something meaningful that has substance behind it whether it's huge or small or whatever and and I don't know that there's really a word for that no it's a problem and I don't I agree with you business owner okay no baggage with that which is why you put founder okay founder that's nothing wrong with that but you say CEO wow what that means today is not pretty and then like you said that the entrepreneur thing just swash raising money borrowing money going it's like yeah um not so much and I know that's not true for a lot of people who call themselves entrepreneurs a lot of people yeah a lot I mean I I get it I get it I I really do it's it's just an interesting it's almost like we lack the language to describe what I'm talking about when I talk about that type of entrepreneur and I you know I think that's largely who listens to this show honestly I think it's a meaningful people like people who are trying to build something thoughtful that they care about the people who work for them you know the people I've met and what are you calling them who who are those people I don't have a good word for it I I this is what they're called they're called 21 Hatters well as with many issues we discuss here I think we have no solution to this one so I would love to hear thoughts from anybody who listens to this please uh let me know what you think where do you draw the line what's the difference between an entrepreneur and a business owner but but in the meantime my thanks to Shan busy Jay goz and Jackie Russo and to our sponsor the great game of business which helps businesses use an open book management system to build healthier companies you can learn more at Great game.com thanks everybody wait wait don't leave yet if you have a question or a comment that you'd like the 21 hats owners to address send it to me by replying to your Morning Report or by email at Lauren 21h hats.com that's l r n at21 hats.com do it now before you forget and don't be afraid to tell Jay what you really think you can take it and if you got something out of this conversation help us reach more business owners tell a friend subscribe and review us wherever you get your podcasts follow us on Twitter subscribe to the morning report at 21h hats.com this episode was produced by just dubron founder of blank word Productions okay now you can leave thanks for listening everyone he [Music]