When Business Owners Burn Out

[Music] hello everyone welcome to the 21 hats podcast I'm your host Lauren Feldman this week Shan busy and Jay goz discuss a recent Business Journal report that a lot of business owners are feeling burned out why is that and what can owners do to avoid it and have either Shawn or Jay been there plus Shawn brings us up to date on the leadership transition he's initiated and believe it or not Jay has had another Revelation about esops also do business owners need better regulation or no regulation and which regulations are annoying Shawn and Jay the most right now for Shawn it's the nightmare of having employees in multiple States and having to figure out and comply with the various rules of each of those States 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 hats Morning Report which Inc 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 and J goz Who's CEO of the gos group whose companies in Chicago include a picture from frame business artist frame service and a home furnishing store Jason home the episode is titled when business owners burn out welcome Sean and J it's great to have you here I want to start today with a topic that's been in the news a good bit of late and that's burnout and how to deal with it in a survey conducted by Walmart 70% of business owners said they feel burned out as at least once a month of course the survey did not disclose how many of those owners attributed those feelings of burnout to having to compete with or sell to Walmart it is an interesting starting point for a conversation I think have either of you felt burned out as business owners I have to tell you after reading it um the answers were right there I don't think I think it's the wrong question I don't think it's how do you deal with the burnout it's how do you avoid the burnout all of the core problems that are causing the burnout they're not addressing and they think it's inflation they always think it's something else it's out of their control it's inflation it's the labor short no it's it's that certainly hasn't made it easier but the one guy says he's looking to clone himself well there's a problem um no you don't have to clone yourself you have to find someone who's competent to do one of the jobs that you do if you clone yourself that would be an entrepreneur they don't need you so it always goes back to the same basic things hiring delegating pricing things properly so you can afford to pay good people and if you read all of these things these are all the symptoms of not doing those things but Jay it took you a long time to get to that point yes absolutely in the past did you feel burned out as you were finding your way I don't know that burned out's the phrase certainly stressed out I had 15 years of of constant stress because I didn't know what I was doing I had no Mentor I've never had a boss I think there's a difference between stressed out and burned out I think everybody feels stress from time to time burned out is like I can't keep going I think no never had it no I've managed to I have like I always compare it to a sum pump it goes up it goes up and then boom the thing clicks on and it just clears the deck and then in the morning I feel better I've always been able to like reset the next morning and dig in again maybe because I'm stupid and I'm stubborn I just have always hadd the resolve to just dig in I've never said to myself oh I can't deal with this maybe I'll just no never even crossed my mind I that's one of my uh few course uh competencies I think I'm stubborn and have resolved so no I can't say I've had quote unquote burnout to where I actually thought I can't do this anymore how about you Sean you know I had a conversation with a friend of mine the other day that I've known for a really long time and we kind of started our businesses around the same time and sort of went through a very similar trajectory of you know Discovery and learning and growth you know he's on his way out he's uh he's going to turn turn over the CEO role I think January of next year and he said to me I just don't have another turnaround in me and I've heard that a lot actually I read this article and I was like you know I've had that feeling too and and I think that you know we've all gone through periods of in our business where we've we've had just really catastrophic events happen you know a key customer leaves or several customers leave all at once or several employees leave all at once and you know I think the frequency of those events has increased a lot in the last say I don't know five or 10 years and I think that's I think that's what I read in that survey you know it was like okay the pandemic all right we're going to survive that and then it's inflation and then it's you know massive turnover and just on and on and on on supply chain on and on on on and I I do I do hear that a lot from a lot of owners I completely read that thing differently for first of all you said catastrophic losing some key people is that's not catastrophic is finding out you're sick and you're going to die I don't know if it's difficult okay fair enough but when I read this this is what I see this is the big line in there 55% of small business owners surveyed identified inflation and rising cost is the biggest barrier to Growing their business I laughed out loud when I read this part followed by lack of customers and finding and retaining good employees seriously if I just had more business I I mean at some point you need to find out how do you get more business and and these are the same people who don't Market who don't advertise who just keep doing the same thing over and over and over again of course everybody would be better off with more business but is that a new thing is that something that just happened Jay why are you assuming they don't market and don't advertise I mean I know many of them and I've heard this story from a hundred people and when you ask the question I have never had one person complaining about finding people when I say to them wait wait wait stop for a second let me ask you a question did you write a really great add and put it in a bunch of different places and the answer is no they complain about it but like I'm not saying it's not more difficult trust me it's more difficult to hire I'm not arguing with that but it's certainly not impossible and I put an ad out for a graphic designer I got 110 resumés some of them you say to yourself why did you apply for this you're a truck driver okay but went through 110 identified seven good candidates we called seven of them two called back I have no explanation as to what happened to the other so it's gotten more difficult but I don't think this is all outside factors that are wearing people down I believe from talking to hundreds of entrepreneurs they never figured out how to hire people good people they never found out how to price properly it's basic stuff and I contend if you work on the basic stuff in your business it will get easier I don't know man I uh I mean I I appreciate you know you've been at this longer than me I mean maybe you've got another decade or two on me but I've been doing it 20 years and 20 plus and I I just got to say the last five to 10 have been radically different than the prior 10 to 15 and what I mean by that is that the frequency of change and externalities has increased tenfold is it really tenfold I mean it's got worse in some way but is it really tenfold though I'm not saying I'm not saying worse I'm saying I'm just saying change and volatility so I'm not saying it's gotten harder or that the Situation's gotten worse I'm saying that when when I first got into business I was told things like Sean you really need to have a 10-year plan and like I look at that idea today and I'm like you're freaking foolish that always was foolish you can't it was always foolish but what where did that mindset come from that mindset came from an era of of much much slower change of pace and I contend that we are in an era of greater and greater volatility and change and I think that humans really struggle with with change and and that's what's in this survey that to me that's what I read there's certainly part of that I'm not arguing with that but I would ask you the person who told you you've got a for was that actually a small business owner or was that some academic or someone from big business because you can't for forecast 10 years in a small business I I don't know that that has changed yeah I I I agree that was probably foolish for small businesses from the very beginning you read that in in you know yes it's academic literature that's informed by Corporate America and Wall Street and you know small businesses inherit those ideas but I I think my my point being here is that while that was probably never a great idea for small businesses the pace of change has radically changed and I think that this this type of article is a reflection of that I mean just take for example you know the idea like how hiring used to work right hiring used to work in a way like I remember when I first went after jobs it was Sean you are lucky to have a job here now the the mindset is massively different you know employees are like what's in it for me what are you going to do for me and I don't know that they're wrong to say that but that's a that's a paradigm shift that's changed there's no out about it but with the with in the same token though I've hired some lovely wonderful young people who come to work every day and work hard so it's not 100% change yeah it's it's gotten harder I'm not arguing with that it's definitely gotten harder and a lot of things are driven by Baby Boomers the Baby Boomers are now old and retiring and there's less people to hire possibly there's there have been some structural changes and certainly I don't know that any of us have recovered from 2008 I mean I know my business never really did and I I so I'm not saying it's not difficult out out there I'm just suggesting there are still some core basic things that people still aren't doing that would make their life easier I'm sure that's true Jay but you know Sean started with the example of talking to another owner who said he's not sure he's got another turnaround in him I I don't know who Sean's talking about so I don't know if that was a well-run business that just has hit uh a difficult times no no I'm not talking about that guy I'm talking about the article I'm just reading the article well I don't want to just debate the merits of the article okay well that is what I'm talking about though I'm just talking about the fact that somebody would go well if I just had more customers oh for God's sakes that's like oh I would go to the Olympics if I could just run faster I I mean of course we could all use more customers what are you doing about it is the question and when you ask people and I've done it a hundred times they never tell you the right answer like I deal with vendors all day long and I just scratch my head at the fact that there's still people drive here's a perfect simple example you call someone out to your house whether it's a plumber electric whatever half of them just have blank trucks and you say why wouldn't you put ATI you know you see these beautiful trucks with the name on there so all your neighbors can see who's doing the work and they don't want to do it one guy once told me well I don't want to Mark the trucks because then people call and complain about my guy's driving which is pretty sad if I hear you correctly Jay what I hear you saying is that you have to nail the fundamentals and a lot of folks are not nailing the fundamentals yes and that would take some of the pressure off I agree I I 100% agree with that like I think these two ideas support one another so for many years I think owners could be totally lazy and shitty at hiring and their businesses did okay and I think what's happened is the landscape has changed and you can no longer be lazy and shitty at hiring um I I don't disagree with that you could just show up yeah right and so today because of and the change that's happened that has made this a real is the internet and transparency of of work absolutely I'm 100% with you yes you used to not understand like well what do other people make what are working conditions like is this place a good place to work you didn't know as a candidate what it would you were just like grateful to have a job and today the power has changed dramatically and so nailing the fundamentals back then meant you placed an ad for a job today nailing the fundamentals means you need to have an employer brand you need to have clear communication in the hiring process you need to articulate your values and your mission and your purpose you need to actually coach and Elevate team members so they grow in the role you need to get rid of toxic employees fast you know like those things used to not even be part of the Playbook and today I don't disagree with you you're right that the internet has has exposed when when somebody used to not take care of a customer maybe they told a few C now that goes on the internet everybody sees it so right but here's where I laughed out loud I just want you to think about the the people who wrote the survey they said but just 6% of HR leader cited employee burnout is a concern that doesn't mean they don't this not concerned about it what is surprise big Corporate America the HR people aren't concerned about their people burning out are they concerned about anything other than their own jobs I don't know I've never worked a big Corporate America I mean that's that's funny that that only six% that burnout is a concern that doesn't mean that they don't know there's a lot of burnout they're just not concerned about it yeah are you concerned about it I'm concerned about it yeah that was the last line in the article where it essentially cited that 70% of employees are burned out I mean this two-thirds of the workforce is saying they're burned out and then only 6% of HR leaders are actually saying that's something that they worry about and I think you're right I think they're surveying HR leaders within Corporate America I don't think they're surveying small business owners that's what's funny about it they're just not concerned about it yeah because the fact is people don't understand a lot of people unless you've got 100 employees you probably don't have a HR manager that's kind of the magic number and I didn't so whenever you see an HR person speaking it's almost always a larger company what have to be because a company with 15 employees doesn't have an HR Manager yeah that's actually a good point in terms of data Gathering Sean when you were talking about the other owner that you'd spoken with you expressed some sympathy and indicated that you'd had that same sense from time to time or maybe once I'm not sure I don't want to put words in your mouth C can you tell us what you were referring to yeah I mean I I tried to list some examples of like what I call kind of like turnaround moments but but I think the ones that are you know in my mind really significant in my career were at the beginning of my business which was the tech meltdown in 2000 the bombing of the uh World Trade Center the Great Recession of 2008 the beginning of the pandemic like moments that were in many ways like existential threats and crises to the business those are externalities and then there are also like business Lev crises like oh my gosh you know something changed a good example would be somebody who really relies on Google AdWords for all of their business and then Google changes an algorithm and then suddenly the thing they use to get their business no longer works like that's an existential crisis or Facebook I mean you have you know some guests on here that have used Facebook to great effect and then it no longer works for them and are they able to reinvent the business are they able to actually do a massive change to the business to say to save it to literally save it and you know those are hard moves those are really hard moves and I've done a number of them in my career and you know what I 100% agree with you and you are in a far more volatile business than I am um I certainly have had major drops like in 2008 but in your business when business slows down the first thing they're going to cut is maybe people do what you do so I certainly understand you're more vulnerable to the economy probably than I am to some degree but but it it still gets back to there's always a part of this of all we can do is what we can do and there are always things you can do in your business like if you're having a hard time hiring tune up your hiring process but I think if you were to follow up with many of these people they haven't done anything they just say I can't find people really you know I'm finding people it's harder no question about it but well you also have something that a lot of folks don't have Jay which is you have size you know and and size buys you cushion you know uh only to a degree I still have tremendous overhead because of that size so it's very easy for me to go from making money to losing money flick you know all I had do is drop five 10 perent of sales and all of a sudden I went from making money to losing money I just learned over the years all I can do is all I can do and and I'm always just trying to figure okay what can I do about this so I'm trying to stay ahead of it and we're writing better ads we're we're playing around with where to advertise I really have no explanation as to why the five people didn't call back it makes no sense to me and I still haven't hired anyone this has been going on for two months um it's it's it's just remarkable I mean I I think I think this is a good example like kind of both right here you know where I tried for a really long time to kind of get into the construction industry as a client base like we have expertise in that Arena I love buildings you know I wanted to help this group I would go to their you know uh events and I would be a speaker folks would be super motivated they'd be like wow that's really great you know you really showed us how it can make a big difference to create you know a culture that's strong and a hiring process that's great and then some folks would say hey Le give me a call I'd love to talk and I would call them and they'd never call me back you know like like they would identify it's an issue they complain about it but they actually wouldn't change you know I have a phrase for that I call it trade show talk you're there you're hyped up no one's lying they really mean that like they were all enthusiastic and they get back to work oh yeah I don't want to yeah no I the fact of the matter is people don't do what they need to do and I've i' I remember one guy in particular I was doing a business speech and I said you know what one of our jobs as the boss is there are people who can't do the job you've tried you've coached them you've done everything you can whether they're unable whether they're unwilling or they're just unexplainable you know you your job is to fire them and this guy looks at me he goes yeah I've got this woman that's worked me for years I promoted her to be the the office manager she's doing a terrible job she's killing me so coincidentally I run into him I don't know six months or a year later another conference oh how'd it go with that woman he looks down in his shoes yeah I got to do something about that that's what my experience is been talking to people and being in business group same thing like yeah yeah yeah but do they actually go ahead and take action I'm not saying everything's whining it is difficult out there so I I certainly it's absolutely more difficult but there are some things we can do every single day and we need to be doing that cuz we are flying the plane we're not the passenger we're flying the plane make some adjustments figure out what you're bad at I've certainly got some issues I'm working on you know we've talked about my inventory problem yeah I think it'll be okay by the end of the year but I've still got issues I'm dealing with but I've just learned deal with it so okay so two things that I I think might be a little bit helpful in this situation so one Revelation I had many years ago and this is from the world of psychology which is that if you remove the stressor The stressor Still Remains for a while and I think that that survey is to some degree a lagging indicator and I think folks are looking to point at something but I think a lot of owners were just worn out and beaten down by the pandemic and today they're still exhausted even though the pandemic stressor has been removed and so then this be like oh yeah it must be inflation or Supply you know like they're trying to point to something but I I my theory of the case is that it's the exhaustion from the pandemic the second thing this is this is like hugely helpful for me in terms of of employees and burnout which is that employees they have kind of three things going on in their life right they have their where they live their Community their home life their Partnerships their you know spouse boyfriend girlfriend partner whatever and their job and when something is not working or they're under stress and they generally humans like seek to change something and a lot of times they can't change the first two things they can't change their spouse they can't change where they live and so they'll change their job even if the job isn't the source of the stress they'll start to like look at it and go I'm unhappy it must be the job I've seen people do this so many times they be like it must be the job they go take a new job and they're still unhappy and and I think that the last few years have been really hard on everybody and things outside of work and so as a result I think you got a lot of things like the great resignation you get employee burnout that isn't necessarily related to work but it's the one thing that they can change there's no question that though everything you said is true it has gotten more difficult and I certainly have had exams so that my only point is it's half fat and it's half fundamentals that we all need to be working on and I would argue even without the pandemic have you never talked to a business owner that goes ah you can't find people that want to work these days have you not heard that yeah oh sure I mean like you know really then you're doing something that that's a diff you know what I've learned over the years the difference between me and many people especially in the picture frame business I spend all of my time trying to figure out what am I doing wrong and what do I need to fix and they don't spend any time on that they just convince themselves they doing everything right and I I I don't know how you improve you don't continually be your own worst critic Sean you talk to business owners all the time do they go through the process that Jay just described of asking what am I doing wrong why is this not working yeah I I think the folks that become our clients are really open like that and I would say they start from a position of curiosity what can I do better what can change I mean I had a client once where he bought the business from the founder and their uh workers comp insurance they were about to become disqualified for workers comp they had so many workplace incidents and the prior owners just looked at that and was like well you know people just need to be more safe you know and then the new owners were like you know actually I think we could to Jay's point we could Implement some processes that help take this like people just need to be more safe mindset out of it and actually we make the place becomes more safe they like turn that thing around like crazy they're saving a hundred grand a year on workers comp policy because they said what are we what do we need to change what needs what what's what status quo is failing us and and I think like owners who do that you know they're the winners and you know those are the ones I like to work with keep in mind Lauren you asked a trick question you said of your clients his clients are the ones that figured out we need to improve it's the one that didn't hire him that are the issue good point so you know the yesterday I went to a work site for this big building being built down town that my son's involved in and it's their opening of something and it's a raw work site like you know the rickety stairs the construction elevator everything and my son's assistant came with and there's a guy following so I'm in charge of safe he goes the woman's wearing flipflops I want you to imagine walking through a construction site with rickety stairs and I said to her this guy's in charge of safety he should have never allow and she didn't disagree I mean they should have never let her walk around with flip floss and he's in charge of safety so like someone's probably going to get hurt there eventually and it's not going to be uh it's accident it's going to be someone not doing their job all right next topic Jay a couple weeks ago I published a one-on-one podcast episode with you in which I said you concluded that an ESOP probably wasn't for you you corrected me and said an ESOP absolutely wasn't for you is that your final answer um I listened to your podcast last week with you and Sean and Phil the the new ESOP guy it's been more than a week now okay whenever well that's when I listen to it and you know what I realized I have PTSD from that seminar I went to with Shawn because I swear I not the cause of Shawn no no Sean and I went to this thing in Portland I flew out there and I don't think I could have choreographed a worse day of explaining esops from the fact that there were no seats left in the room Sean had to sit in the back and then you find out that the people in the best seats are the vendors to the slides show you can't read to the there was supposed to be half an hour Round Table they skipped there so it was a really horrible presentation turned me off after listening to Phil I realized okay I went to the wrong seminar and there's another part this is my real Revelation when you're 45 and you think about an ESOP that's an option when you're 67 it's a solution like I need to do something and I'm I'm opening up my mind to I'm going to continue to look into it I'm going to another seminar at a different place with a different group of people and I am going to continue to look into that because even though it might be quote unquote a pain at times that there's a lot of paperwork and there's Trust and all that it just might be worth it at the end of the day that's what I've it just might be worth it so um yes I'm taking back the it's absolutely not for me it might be for me I'm I'm gonna work on it Sean it was your idea that we talked to Phil Hayes uh for that podcast you had met him at the event that um that Jay described and I got a lot of really positive feedback so thank you for suggesting that sure yeah that was a really great conversation I I didn't know exactly what to expect but like a lot of things I do in life I had a hunch you know I was like I think I think this guy is is the is the real deal and and what maybe owner operators are looking for and I really appreciated his cander about whether you should be an ESOP or not I think he has a very kind of like you know it's not for everybody but for some it's great and there's and you don't have to make it super crazy and I think you know there's another you know Jim CB who's who's part of the 21 hats Community he's he's es oped his company he's talked about his process and I think he's done it in a in a way that didn't involve kind of like the industrial complex of esops so so yeah I I think it was encouraging because I think it's showing that like there are other paths to doing it that don't involve you know Chase Bank um I mean it was it was crazy it was a crazy event and I have to say you know we left after the first day it was a two-day event Sean did anyone call you to follow up no they automated me of course I have to tell you if I put on a seminar and I had someone fly across the country and they left in the middle of it I'd be pretty concerned and I'd follow up and go hey what do we do because I don't get the feeling like anyone really cares it's like they keep doing their shows they keep getting some people in it I I'm not exaggerating when I tell you I don't think they could have done a worse job with what they did I I have to say I'm since we've H been having these conversations I'm starting to hear more and more people use the term the esa industrial complex and if I accomplish nothing else besides coining that phrase I I think I will have done something good on this in this world AB it also doesn't mean that everyone involved in an industrial complex is bad there's I did talk to another ESOP adviser all they do is esops they're not an investment banker and I was a very encouraging conversation and I appreciated that Phil was honest on there I've watched three three seminars now I have never seen one person who said no I take a back there was one guy that that said he sold to an ESOP he did an ESOP and it worked out well and there was one but the other two of them you'd think they'd put someone out there to give the owner's perspective those people do exist I've certainly spoken they do exist of course they do and you know what I asked a question on there and the guy gave an honest answer I said to him could you have gotten more money if you would have just sold to a private and he's in an industry that there's a huge conglomerate that's buying up everybody for huge multiples and he goes oh I absolutely could have got more money but I got enough and you know what I appreciated that answer because it was honest and and I think his business was big enough enough in his case was a lot of money it wasn't like he got two million instead of four Jay I have two questions for you um you you say that you're thinking about esops again uh your mind is open there were a couple of issues that came up that you thought were kind of deal breakers one was you didn't want to hang an ESOP on your kids if they stayed involved in the business how are you think about that now uh there I have two answers to that one is if I continue working for 15 years which who knows but I'd be 82 I think that's not an that might be the case my kids are going to be 53 and 48 I I don't know that they're going to want to go ahead and just take over and start running it so so there's that and B I think this would make their lives easier for all the reasons that esops are promoted um people are more invested they hang around so yeah I've changed my head on that that that would be a good thing because there's a lot of flexibility with an esap like if you sell your business boom done you're out here I could retire in a year I could retire in two years five years it's flexible you're still running it but there's an infrastructure in place that's in place for when you either by choice or you drop dead whatever the reason is there's a infrastructure in place to continue on so I've recognized it might just be a good uh INF structure to put together because if I don't do it I'm left with the same problem of so then what do my kids do when they've decided they've had enough now what they're we're going back to square one so um I'm very seriously looking into it it's going to take me a couple years to actually get it to work let me ask you my second question then you have said in the past that you don't really feel the need to to grow your business you're not looking at opening new locations or anything like that you've done enough of that can you run any ESOP without trying to grow or do you need that growth to uh pay back the loan or pay you know pay back take get a loan out a lot of the problems you hear is when they take out the bank loan the okay I don't need to take the cash out so I will finance it myself which okay but then they have to pay you so right I believe though is flex okay so the answer is when I say I don't want to grow if I grow at uh 6% a year that's perfectly fine just organic growth from my existing locations now my employees is going to retire with millions of dollar no it's not going to be one of those cases where the business grew you know 10% a year for 10 years but again it also solves my problem which I accept I'd like my employees to have more retirement savings so it takes care of that which this is part of why I turned off in I said this to you I realized I can do a tax deductible way all I have to do is say okay everyone I'm G to give you 2% of your salary in the 401K plan it's a deduction to the company they get it in the 401K so that took care of that problem so that was one solution this solution also takes care of that problem but it has the extra benefit of the whole engagement piece the whole PR piece which doesn't have to be dramatic if sales went up 2% that's a lot that would cover the expenses um if your engagement got just a little bit better none of this I'm not suggesting any of this is going to all be all of a sudden the company's going to dramatically change but just a little change should pay for itself what I have to figure out is what are the complications of this and what is the downsides which I haven't yet had enough experience with talking to the Consultants to find out what the story is that's why I'm telling you I'm not sure I'm doing it but at the moment I'm certainly looking into it because it's got lots of potential upsides Sean you've talked here a little bit about um being in the process of a a leader transition can you give us an update on how that's going yeah Jay's going to come run Kinesis and oh that supposed to be a secret for God's sakes all right yeah yeah I promoted Anya Taylor to the role of President um she's been with us for ah gosh four or five years now really wonderful she started out as um in the operation side moved into kind of a people leadership role she's uh if you do strength finder you know she's a galvanizer you know she's really good at coalescing people around around things it was just uh really well received amongst the team they're excited about it she's excited about it she's really taking a lot of leadership wait so what's her new title she's president really so I'm still CEO and you know essentially doing that TR two-year transition of showing her how to do all the stuff that I do and catching her up to speed on that with the goal of your role becoming what chair of the board you know move to more of a board position eventually do you have a board it'd be just me yeah you'd definitely be chairman yeah for sure wait how old are you 52 so at 54 you become the chairman of the board wow that's that's the goal you know I mean we're still digging out from the pandemic you know it was uh we had we had a pretty predictable machine going into it and it it really screwed all that up and so now we're rebuilding and retooling and so yeah there's still a lot of work to do you've talked about that a little bit Sean you've talked about the tool you were using previously was going to events and and holding events obviously the pandemic interrupted that but you're getting back to it uh you have your own event coming up in September right Catalyst yeah catalyst is September 7th and 8th it's um it's an event for owner operated businesses you know so you know a room full of of business owners basically and this is our second year of doing it in person and our fourth year of doing them we did we did two years of virtual and now we're doing them in person so wait explain this to me because the concepts I'm having a heart and getting my head around this so when you're this the chairman of the board will you be golfing what will you be doing every day I'm trying to get hand on this going for massages and then maybe the stock broker on Friday and then golfing the rest of the days what what's the story I I like golf as much as you do Jay so um no golf yeah no golf um although I hear pickle Ball's huge so I might you know pick that up you know I think the job of a board chair you know in that type of position is to just make sure that the ship is still sailing roughly in the same direction in the right direction you maintain commitment to the values and the vision um but but ultimately you know you're letting other people have control of the rudder and how many employees are there going to be at that point do you see um I think when I leave I think we'll probably be 14 or 15 yeah it was it was very tenable in 2019 um had the path laid out you know I I've handed over a lot of the jobs at Kinesis many years ago I think unlike a lot of owners I never had a strong emotional attachment to being the guy in the room you know like in in Consulting business often times you have to sort of be the owner and the smartest person in the room and I don't know that I'm really the smartest person in the room and I never kind of needed that as part of my identity so I built out a system where I wasn't delivering the work and we've been doing that for I don't know over 10 years now I call that going from a profession to a business that you're no longer the you know the doctor you're the person who hired the other doctor so you made the transition into well that sounds good okay you going to come to Chicago and hang out some what can I count on that can I write that down yeah I mean Jay I sent you an invite to catalyst so I'm just waiting for you to show up Sean are there still slots available and if anybody's listening who's interested who should come yes uh the people who should come are business owners who have employees that's sort of like a lot of the work uh we do at the at the event is collaboration and kind of shared workshops and a lot of it's around you know how to elevate teams how to create a sense of shared culture momentum um so businesses that have employees businesses where the owner is the operator you know not anything private Equity they would never come to this anyway nobody owned by private Equity would ever come to catalyst so who who shouldn't come to this private Equity yeah private Equity yeah I think I think for for solopreneurs it's it's a big investment you know in terms of the ticket price so it's probably not as much for them as it would be for somebody who's who's moved to a place of having employees I think the theme of the the the conference is bold type so it's really about the idea of like challenging the status quo and to our conversation early earlier about being curious about what needs to change and what can be done differently so yeah you're G to you're going to find a lot of owners who think differently and think about Big Ideas as opposed to best practices and you know kind of cranking the wheel in the same way every day all right we have just enough time for one more topic I've had some conversations with Gan Marx of late about regulation Jean's pretty anti-regulation as you know if you listened to any of our Monday dashboard episodes he's told me that he just doesn't like being told what to do by the government that he's insulted when he's told to not do something he wouldn't he probably wouldn't do anyway and that neither he nor his clients would ever do anything that they're not supposed to do out of the goodness of their heart I I don't want to debate Jean I think that's funny in itself that his clients would okay does that mean nobody would do it then I mean really right I mean seriously we don't need some laws to make sure people don't get abused at the workplace and stuff I don't want to debate je since he's not here to make his own case but I did want to ask you that question I mean he's kind of making he doesn't quite go this far but he's kind of making the argument that all regulation is bad or unnecessary do either of you agree with that don't I think that once in a while there's something comes up that is a problem but generally speaking I don't have this isn't this isn't one of the things on my top 10 list of issues I'm dealing with that there's too much regulation I it's not on my top 10 Sean yeah I mean I think Jean's engaged in selection bias you know he he's probably has some good clients and so you know to apply that mindset of like I have good people around me Argo we don't need regulation is just a it's just a cognitive bias so let's just set that aside but in terms of your qu I I'm sorry I had to I had to debate Jean even though he's not here but um but setting that aside you know I think that there are many cases where regulation can help actually level a playing field and make it for make it make it a more actually Fair situation even for small businesses so you know I I just I just think like when we've we've had situations of no regulation you look at things like the tech sector and what's happened there you know children working in meat factories like there's just lots of bad examples we're bringing that back you heard yeah I know well let's let's start with the basic one which I just minimum wage does he not believe in the minimum wage actually he doesn't no he doesn't Okay well that kind of says it all no he would never pay someone minimum wage I I don't think okay but that doesn't mean other people won't I I just think you know so in Oregon and and in some other states you're seeing move towards um pay transparency right and you know there's a lot of strong opinions about this but my experience has been that we've been way out ahead of this long time right we've said hey we're going to actually be transparent and how we compensate people we're going to put that in the job postings we're going to have pretty narrow ranges of what we pay people and honestly it's been fantastic like it's really helped create a more peaceful environment and a better hiring process I forgot which ones they track it and when you put the salary rrange in you get a much better response so this is a case of believe in it or not it's going to help your hiring process if you do that I think there's also a really important conversation around the difference between regulation and bureaucracy and I I in my experience owners are more irritated by bureaucracy than they are by regulation well what would you call this because this is a real problem in the state of Illinois if you hire someone and there 30 working days and you end up firing them because whatever they can't do the job you are responsible for their entire unemployment meaning they could have worked somewhere for 20 years it's all on you and my argument is it makes it difficult to try someone out quote unquote in other states it's 60 days n90 why can't we go to 60 or 90 days it'll help the hiring process and maybe I'll take a little more chance on someone that okay you've never done this but we'll be able to tell in 60 days whether you've adapted to it that's not helping anybody well and and you bring up a really good point too is like okay so we're moving to a world where there's much more remote work what if you have one state that's crazy about stuff and another state that's like pretty hands off you know like that creates huge problems for employers I mean just massive absolutely I never even thought about that I would have to know what the regulations in every state is right it's c i mean we have employees now in two states and it's a freaking nightmare A total nightmare uh even just two states just two states like Maine and California tell me like how I'm supposed to navigate these Waters it is really freaking hard your payroll service should help because I have three other states what's the issue Sean what's the issue everybody does it differently that's the problem even what Jay is saying oh is it 30 days or 60 days is it 90 days how do you do workers comp insurance how do you deal with things like like people uh being laid off and like what kind of benef you it's just it is Bonkers some of them want you to file a tax return that that like they want some of your income for I mean yeah yeah totally got a sales manager in one state I've got two people that moved out of town and then I'm in Chicago which means someone could live in Indiana and work here I've got one employee who lives in Indiana I got one employee who's in Wisconsin so actually I've got four people that are out of state and I don't know that i' call a nightmare but it's a pain and the payroll service certainly takes the edge off of it it's not a nightmare for you this gets back to your scale size Jay yes you're right at a small business size it's a freaking nightmare I'll use one more example there's a river between Portland and Vancouver Washington I have an employee who moved over that River and now because we don't have an office the state of Washington is like she is ours and so now we're having deal with all this bureaucracy from the state of Washington she's literally like three miles from me it's totally insane I I mean so this gets me to like you know we need better National regulation and less State regulation but that's not where that's going to go my thanks to Sean busy and Jay goz 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 every 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 sub 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 Jess Theron founder of blank word Productions okay now you can leave thanks for listening everyone [Music]