When’s This Gonna Be Over?

[Music] hello everyone welcome to the business Advantage TV podcast which just might once again be the 21 hats podcast more about that soon I hope meanwhile I'm your host Lauren Feldman this week 6 months into the pandemic Paul DS Jay goz and William vanderlan take inventory what does the crisis mean for the future of their businesses has it changed them as Leaders has it affected their relationships with their employees as you'll hear they come to some counter intuitive conclusions for one William tells us that he suspects he may one day look back on the crisis and conclude that it was the best thing that could have happened to his business it has been painful he says but in some ways we needed a jolt and this gave it to us Jay says he understands when things get really bad like this we start paying attention to stuff that we should have been paying attention to before plus do the three owners have a plan for how their businesses would operate if they were incapacitated by Co even in Good Times owning and running a business can be a lonely Pursuit our hope is that these weekly conversations will if nothing else let owners know they are not alone in facing these challenges this week's lineup features Paul DS who is founder and CEO of Paul Downs cabinet makers which is based outside of Philadelphia and makes custom conference tables Jay goz whose companies in Chicago include a picture frame business artist frame service and a home furnishing store Jason home and William Vander bluman who is CEO of Vander bloomen Search Group a recruiting firm based in Houston that works with churches and other faith-based organizations the episode is titled when's this going to be over William I'd like to start with you last time we spoke I think you were about to launch a new business did that happen how'd it go it did and it's gone uh better than we expected so we do executive Search which whether it's a church or a school or a relief organization it's essentially the sea Suite of an organization we help them find uh but when you get to middle management the the process and what we do really is not worth the money but we have lots of clients that need middle management stuff fixed and solved and staffed so we've kicked it around a number of different ways over the years and Co finally accelerated our process and um what we've been working on for a long time got sped up in March and April so that we could open as churches and schools and businesses started to reopen in the fall so we went into it uh with realistic expectations and we're only U not quite a month in and we've beaten everything we thought we'd do this quarter so it's good did you have to invest a significant amount of money to launch this business not as much as you'd think I mean if you if you if you're talking about money like writing checks out of your account not a whole lot I mean there was some uh we don't we don't have a supply chain now in human capital and in uh wages paid to people to set it up in central office services yeah we paid for that but but that was where covid sped things up rather than fire people that didn't have a whole lot to do in March or April we put them to work serving churches and then starting this new company well while we're waiting on things to get going again let's get let's go ahead and build the framework we hadn't had time to build and so that the costs were hidden costs or soft costs so they were there but in terms of did I have to go invest a bunch of my Capital back into the business to get it going it was not uh as large as you might think so you're talking about some reallocation of resources uh well yeah some degree J I guess so but you've started businesses so you know nobody knows the Saying A Penny saved is a penny earned more than an entrepreneur nobody so like I very easily could have laid off five or six people in March that I didn't need had we not started this company I kept them I paid their wages so that they could do something that didn't generate any Revenue just got an infrastructure built for a new company that may or may not work and the gamble was in those costs that that could have been a penny saved or a lot of pennies saved or a lot of penes earned so that may sound like a spinster way of dealing with it but the costs were there they were just soft and uh uh not as prevalent as I got to go take out a loan to buy a building or a new Warehouse or some of the things that you might en counter J I think the lesson from that and from what I'm dealing with is I believe that at some point you got to get off a defense and get back on offense because you can't stay in defense forever and I see businesses all around Chicago that I believe are slowly but surely putting thems out of business because they're still in panic mode stop spending money stupid stuff like the ice cream shop on a Major Street that has a that has a awning outside that's just ripped to shred that looks horrible and you say to yourself really for 800 bucks you could look like you're you're back in business and instead you're sending out the impression that yeah we're circling the drain it's it's not good that's very much the attitude we took Jay it was uh in in our industry or our little Micro Niche of the search industry there are very few people that try and do what we do and they they don't use the same approach I don't think they're nice people but I don't think they do it very well and we determined you know if the industry will probably survive but it's going to be uh who's going to be the last man standing at the end of this so we were like you know what rather than go into hide in our cave mode we're going to come out swinging and if we die we die with our boots on William when you say it's doing better than you anticipated uh are you referring to revenue is it yes real real dollars in the bank are already better than we projected through the end of the year and and what are your uh Ambitions for the business do you think this could be as big a business as your uh executive Search or what are you thinking you know that is a great question Lauren it's like you know exec search it's like I've owned a Lexus dealership for 12 years and we've got a lot of it's not a Bentley but it's a Lexus and got a lot of people that are very happy with that and now I own a Toyota dealership as well and so you know you and I were together a couple years ago at at the Ford factory where the Model T was invented and that's when Ford started making his money it was when he a car everybody could afford so maybe that'll be what happens it would have to be a whole lot of volume to surpass what we're doing with exec sech and and it's two different two different value propositions you you name the leader of an organization you can't impact an organization deeper than that but if he doesn't have the rank and file middle management support staff to get a a team put together then they can't execute the vision they have so it's just two different two different value propositions do any of you feel as though you been changed as a leader uh by the crisis we've gone through uh I feel that I was a much better leader going into the crisis so the crisis has been changed by my leadership ability I'm not sure I follow in other words in 2008 when when my world fell apart I was barely equipped to handle it and in 2020 when this thing arrives I feel so much better equipped to handle a crisis that the crisis itself does doesn't feel the same if that makes sense absolutely there's that old phrase a smooth Seas make poor smooth Seas make a poor sailor and the fact is when you've been through stuff like this' 08 was horrendous as you said and I feel the exact same way i' been handling this whole thing a whole lot better than I would have handled it 20 years ago I think it's been know I may kick myself for saying this Lauren but I think one day I will look back at this and say that's the best thing that could happened to me because it got me out of managing a company role and got me back into hey we need to act like a startup and we need to rethink everything and we need to and our agility is better than it was um it's not without pain I don't want to sound polanish but but in some ways we needed a jolt and this gave it to us were you aware that you needed a jolt uh maybe not as aware how's that I mean I knew we weren't in startup mode anymore but I've forgotten how nice it is to have the agility of startup mode it's not it's not sustainable forever I mean that doesn't work and I want a sustainable business but but to have that uh and we weren't shrinking but to have that sort of forced acceleration has has really uh gotten us it's it's like we've hit rewind on our agility to to a place when we were much leaner and faster there's another good saying the sight of the guillotine help sharpens a man's mind so when things get really bad like this we start paying attention to stuff that we should have been paying attention to before so I agree William I think you told us uh maybe months ago that you were rethinking how you use commercial space that uh you had moved into your offices fairly recently but uh you had a subtenant and you were thinking you might give up the space is that part of the agility that you're referring to to now we certainly explored that and just to quickly reframe that um we had enough space for our whole staff to be here then we decided we were going to decentralize our offices all pre-co and we were going to open Regional Offices in major Metro areas where we have a lot of business all set to do that framed up we'd already put in the offer for Orange County and hired the guy and this was the week before Co so we we were de we were scaling down the head count here in Houston at the central office so when Co hit and we all had to go remote for quite a while um you know obviously you revisit the question well do we need any space at all or can we do this all remotely and I I wish the answer were yes we can do it all remotely I'd rather have that rent money in my pocket but I think the the conclusion is is even further reinforced that people work better together for our type of business not true for everybody but for our type of business our central office is going to do better Better Together do we need a A+ rated space and do we need as much no and if if our sub tenants which are growing quickly because they're in Energy Efficiency uh if if they end up saying we want the whole Space y'all move out and we'll move out and figure out something else but I don't think it will be 100% Virtual Office here I'll make a prediction you're going to read articles I already saw one I think it was Jam diamonds it was Jamie diamonds set it from Chase this Panacea of oh no one's going to go to work we're all be working from our house it's all going to be lovely you're going to see lots and lots of stories about they figured out that their occupancy costs were running about 68% in that their efficiencies went down 20% I'm sure there are some businesses wow I'm sure there are some businesses that are going to work just fine from home maybe computer I'm not saying for everyone but I'm sure there's going to be lots of businesses around they're going to figure out that yeah we did save uh X dollar but when you look at your big number it's not rent it's labor so if your labor just slips 5% because they're home with the dog or the kid or the Mother-in-law or the neighbor that wants to show them the new car or whatever distracts people at home it's not going to take much to all of a sudden find out you know what maybe not a bad thing to pay rent and have everybody in the same room yeah don't you think sorry don't you think there's going to be quite a bit of push back for people who don't care for the commute because that doesn't show up on the business owners books the cost the yeah I think it'll be there Paul I think you're I was going to say you perfect springboard our clients particularly our church clients so everybody's like what's Church going to look like after all of this is back to normal whatever that means and it's not going to be will it be virtual church or will it be in person the answer is going to be yes so there will like like before the pandemic 10% of all Protestant churches in the United States live stream their worship okay now 10% don't wow so like so I mean well that's part of the reason we started the new company how many new AV Tech midal management people are needed all of the sudden so anyway um the answer is not going to be we surveyed people that have started their online and particularly the ones that receive PPP money and overwhelmingly they're like no this is here to stay we're now a both and and I think it's going to be the same with office space you you're going to have some people where where we used to hold a number of maybe 10% of our workfor could be virtual because of extenuating circumstances it might grow a little uh and we might have a more flexible work week like you can work one day a week from home or you know I think it'll be a both end but I think and and I do agree there's some businesses that'll be fine going all virtual ours will not and I don't think many will when it's all said and done I think it'll be a both end and as my kids reminded me the other day they said dad you know the bad part about Zoom he said no he said there's never going to be another snow day for school so if we if we have to shut down for hurricanes or whatever we know how to flip the switch and get some productivity at home if we have to it's interesting you do see a lot of people going in different directions I mean you know Facebook took a huge commitment of office space in New York City at the same time just this week I think I saw a story about stripe which is paying a bonus to employees who move away from cities uh where they will take a cut in pay uh but they an initial bonus to to do that so obviously they're betting uh that the work from home thing is here to stay you know what you can even look at real estate so in Chicago the new thing is my kid's trying to sell this one-bedroom condo in the city and like the Market's dead and in the suburbs the houses are flying off the market because between covid and the social unrest which I have to tell every want it's over here it's fine there's not picking every day there's not Windows breaking it was there was certainly a couple of bad weeks there but it's all calmed down these people flew out to the suburbs and what's going to happen is when the traffic gets back to quote unquote normal they're going to wake up and go oh my God what did I do some of them because driving into the city every day is a pain in the ass and they not going to change I believe many things most things are going to go back to just like they were and there will certainly be some things like what you just said William with the churches I'm sure there will be a profound difference with the online stuff but some stuff is just going to go back to the way it was was I'm I'm confident of that have any of you changed your thinking about your long-term Ambitions for your business has this had an impact on what you see as the potential for the business either do you see more or or less potential I think it remains to be seen in my case it could easily swing either way and uh uh one of my guiding principles so far in this thing has just been don't don't try to out guess what happens because the reality is arriving at the rate it is which is different from what I would have predicted and so that uh if I'm trying to see two three years out it just seems to me to be a lot of scaring myself over things that may not happen so you know either it's Jay's right we're all going to go back to normal and then people are going to buy conference tables again or they won't one or the other but it just remains to be seen which one it is and make the decision when I feel like I'm there I think conference tables are very important just so you know well thank you they are that's where a lot of stuff I want you to think about this when you do the off-site stuff and people are at home think of those conversations just one throughout the entire year that you were sitting around with three or four people talking about something and all of a sudden the magic of the collaboration comes together and you all figure it out hey wait a second we should do yeah I love no we should do it this way and all of a sudden you came up with a great great idea or you saw something that was wrong with the business those things aren't happening everybody's at home I mean and don't tell me it's going to happen on a phone with four people on the phone it's not the same thing so I do believe you can't replace collaborative thinking in a room around a beautiful conference table it can happen over Zoom I hear what you're saying but not as much yeah anybody else William do you think it can happen over Zoom oh well I mean Lauren you're you're asking the wrong guy my entire faith is built on the idea that Jesus decided he needed to be here in flesh to make a difference so Zoom doesn't work otherwise he would have just zoomed it in I didn't see that one coming wow yeah I guess I guess he was the only guy who had Zoom yeah I he could have waited right well there's no arguing with that William I think you put that discussion to rest let me ask you about this has this affected your relationship with your employees at all for one thing has this made any of you more sensitive to anxiety uh in your employees I mean it's it's always been there there's been more of it of late for for all of us I suspect um is that an issue you're dealing with more do you look at it any differently I definitely have people that are having anxiety and I'm extremely appreciative of the fact whether they're doing it for me for the company for themsel or for anyone else that everybody's showing up to work and I know some of them having they're dealing with FR customers they're on the front line and I'm totally appreciative to the fact that everybody's toughing it out and doing what they can do but it's it's absolutely an issue because um I have plenty of employees that are having that have anxiety and we're doing everything we can but it's it's a problem when you say it's a problem how does that manifest itself I've got one person who's worked with me for many years who who um is has has been not showing up to work some days because she's got such bad anxiety and since I've got over 50 employees I follow which I would have anyway the FMLA laws so it was suggested you should go on FMLA months ago and the person didn't want to and now Family and Medical Leave and if someone goes on that that means you make accommodations for them and you you know you work with them you don't have to pay them while they're on leave right no it's more a guarant that they can come back is my understanding yes yes so so here's something you wouldn't know if you weren't on the front line so the so then you'd say oh well just go to the doctor and get a note going to a doctor some doctors are getting very sensitive about writing notes like that so the doctor then says to a person you really need to go see a specialist okay oops The Specialist is booked up for two months this is what's going on these the some of these Specialists are just overwhelmed and the system can't take all this so so so then you say Well then why don't you just accommodate them well then you've got a problem with the rest of the employees and violating your company policies of you're either on FMLA or you're not on FMLA and if you're not on FMLA what do you do throw out your employee handbook about you can't miss x amount of days it's it's um it's a little bit of a challenge for the HR department it's not black and white and it's not simple and uh it's stuff you wouldn't have seen and for people that don't have 50 employees is not as big an issue but even if you just want to be a responsible boss and you know want to follow FMLA if you don't have 50 people it's still an issue like how much room can you give people you got to take care of the customers at some point so what if that person's only showing up two days a week out of I mean it's it's not it's not simple has it been an issue for either William or Paul as well I have one employee who's expressed uh so not not so much to general anxiety although I think she has some but it's it's it's mostly around her personal situation absolutely I've got that also where there's people that just have horrendous situations because of this that have nothing to do with my company that's with their husband their wife their family that's a whole another subject they're just in a bad spot because of this whole thing I forgot about that I'm glad you brought that up yeah I mean I've I've certainly experienced that myself when when my family situation became overwhelming and I think that just off the bat anybody who's got kids who who are schooling from home and you're ostensibly being the helper and teacher of that like that's that's a big stress so I got that too my my daughter-in-law's got you know my grandchildren are eight and five and she's at the end of and she's a labor attorney and she's trying to do her job and trying to do with the kids it's it's a problem all the way around and the only reason my wife is sane is because my other kid has a baby and she goes over there and babysits four days a week so she's got something to do cuz it's keeping her out of the house cuz it's this is stressful for everybody or most people so yeah it's uh and unfortunately the disappointing part is it's September and like we ain't at the end of it like when's this going to be over who knows yeah as a boss you end up having to think about all these situations for your people and I think that part of it is then then it gets down to the individual employee are they the type to lay that on you or not um I have a company full of Woodworkers it's heavily male they're not drama people so they don't tend to bring stress to me and the one worker I know about who's been more upfront about it is female so that may just be part of her personality or just the difference between a very male and very female workplace placee I often wonder about this question can you guys be friends with your employees um and has this situation had an impact on your thinking about that William how about you I think that answers changed as the years have gone by and we've grown you know we work with a lot of startup organizations whether it's a new school or church or relief organization or what have you and it seems like they all start with me and my four buddies started this company or this church or this school and there comes a point in their growth where I've said to them many times I've looked at the founder and said hey you know what it's time to move out of the frat house and move into a real house and we've had to do some of that so I started with uh some relatives I started with some friends it's grown and now we're at a different spot so I think just by our our growth and evolution my relationship with them is different the pandemic has put in strong relief for me some real dilemmas like you know as one leader told me he said I don't get paid for all the things on my job description I get paid to make about four decisions a year no one else wants to make right and that is what I've felt like this year and some of them been really painful for people and you ask if I feel um more aware of of fear or anxiety around our office I think I feel more aware that I'm not feeling that fear and anxiety and other people are that that I'm like look guys we're not under persecution we're we're not living in a you know a place where're in prison how about World War II our parent my parents live through World War II well and you know take church for example a lot of pastors who have decided to start meeting again it's like you know we're not living in a place where it's illegal we're not living in a place where you're going to get crucified you know like let's get on with it and and as the leader of the organization I have felt a little insensitive um and I don't know whether that insensitive is I'm out of touch with reality or if the insensitivity is the thing inside me as a leader founder that's called to make the hard decision like we are going to reopen our office I I faced enormous resistance to that and I can still feel it but uh it was the right thing to do and we did it carefully and it's working out but but it's one of those get paid to make four or five decisions no one else wants to make and so so that that's a big rabbit Trail Lauren but it does lead back to you be friends I to some extent yes but the nature of that relationship I think has changed as I have had to make decisions that not everybody else wants to make does that does that make sense I'm I'm figuring it out as I go you know what I've been through that whole transition from being by myself to having 110 people and I can tell you I I think you can but I think it's just like being a parent uh you can be friends with your kids but you have to be the parent first and I think you need to be the boss first and I think I've got key people with me over 20 years I never have to make that call they know it I know it I'm the they know I I never have to pull the the boss card out and and if you've got the right kind of people working for you they don't make you because they're all with you together and I can honestly tell you I can't think of one situation in 20 years with any of these four people where I ever said to myself boy that was that was they shouldn't have done that or whatever they're they're totally with me but but yeah it's a tricky balance and uh uh there's some people you absolutely can't be friends with at all that's for sure I mean I always there's work withs and there's work fors the people that are with you are with you and there's people that are work for us that are valuable but they need to be managed so um I would like to shift the conversation because I feel like we're a little bit in a CEO wait a minute I want to answer oh go ahead go ahead thank you Paul please no I don't think you can be friends with your employees why not because it's a different relationship I mean first of all it's got a direction to it you you're the boss you sign the paychecks you have the ability to say you know what I don't ever want to see you in this building again and and for any reason and there's nothing they can do about it and so um I wish we actually had a better word for the employees that have been with us for whatever length of time that you have a great feeling for and that in a different context you might be friends with and that you enjoy seeing every day I mean I've got got a lot of employees like that but I wouldn't call them friends we just need a better word it's a different what a friend is no I think you have to Define what a friend is you care about them they care for you you look out for each other you help each other out when you need it I you know I think in most categories other than well I can fire you any day I think it walks like a duck it you know it sounds like a I'm not responsible for pain my friends there's there's too much that's that's unique to an employee relationship that I don't think it it's just you can call it friends just because if you feel like that it's just a bad word for it but there's another aspect to it I'm curious about I I know you well enough to know that you don't live an extravagant life but I'm wondering is part of this that you think about what your employees see of your life would you be hesitant to show up uh at work in a flashy new car no I don't really care what my employees see about my life there's nothing very shameful in it um wait wait wait is that to suggest shameful if you did have a nice house and a big car that would be shameful cuz I'm always s you have a nice house and a big carart yes I do and I'm not shameful about it it's okay no I absolutely hear what you're saying I absolutely hear what you're saying maybe you're right that you can't call it a friend simply because at the end of the day you're responsible for paying them and and that there there's some truth to that that there's a piece of it that is not the same as being a friend and I can't argue with that yeah I mean there's another sense of responsibility for my employees too which is that I owe them some kind of future and and I don't manage that with my friends like my friends have to take care of their own career their own future their own opportunities their own decisions about uh this and that what resources they they devote to this employees I'm choosing their health insurance I'm choosing where they go to work every day what's your longest term employee how long 23 years okay I just I just want to throw out there just as an example I hire a 17-year-old kid that that my third employee second third employee and here it is 42 years later and he's 50 seven years old and he's like my little brother and if anything happened to him I would be devastated devastated and and there was a time one time his wife called me a night he didn't come home one night and I thought oh my God he might be dead somewhere and was putting my pants on and I was teary ey thinking about he's his close a friend I hear what you're saying but you know this isn't just an employee either I think we just need a better word for it we just need a better word for it because that's still not a friendship it's it's a it's more like like a uh like a vassel or something it's it's a you have this like the Le Lord responsibility for the Surfs you own or something there's something that's an extrem way to put it but but it's I'm just saying that there's not it's not what we call a friendship it's it's different and we just need better words well here's here's a question mark so the person retires am I going to see him am I gonna call him every six months am I no so I I'm not arguing with you William I think you suggested that you're thinking on this has evolved a little bit is that because you've lost friends people who were friends who were working at the company and and for one reason or another stop being friends oh sure sure I had to part ways with my brother-in-law who is our first employee and you know everybody's first employee is their brother-in-law didn't you know that yeah right exactly no it's just I mean you know and we still do family dinner every week Lauren I think I had a kind of a utopian view of being the cool owner and buddies with everyone and it just doesn't work uh you know I'm not to the place on the Spectrum where it's like officers don't eat with enlisted men like I that's not me but the idea that we can all just be cool and get along and have fun like that's no not really so you know what if I had to pick one there's no question if I had to pick a side i' say no there's no question I would not want to mislead anybody because I've lived exactly what you've lived through all of us have I by no means would want to give the impression of what you're talking about the utopian we're all going to be yeah you're absolutely right so if I had to pick can you be friends with your employees I'd have to say no for sure if it's black think I think where I am now Jay is I rather than being buddies with my employees I I'd love it if they like me I I really want them to respect me I spoke to uh a pretty good friend of mine this week who's an entrepreneur and I hadn't been in touch with him in a couple of months turns out he got covid he spent a couple weeks in an ICU and had it pretty bad um and it was an interesting experience for him in terms of running a business from an ICU I'm curious if any of the three of you have thought about that do you know what would happen if you were incapacitated for a period of time yes tell us uh it's written down it's in a drawer here it's our emergency succession plan we insist that everyone in our company have a plan for what happens if they can't be here for a while it's kind of we since when you write the book on succession you kind of have to have a plan yourself can you copy that and send it to me so I can use it well wouldn't that be great if there were a cookie cutter for succession there is no cookie cutter yeah I gotta say if it would depend on what the nature of it was but uh if I was unconscious for a month that would be pretty bad for the business I haven't I don't even have a plan for that because there's so much well terms I mean we have one if the president becomes incapacitated you know I mean you need one Paul mostly about check signing Authority do you not think that your some of your employees already think there's times where you're unconscious for a month do you don't think that because I'm sure mine do uh no I I don't I don't think that in my case Jay because I'm here snooping around every day yeah William what's the first step how does someone like Paul go about putting a plan like that in place well I think it's actually the easiest first step toward a real succession plan which all of us are just interim owners or interim leaders right and and it no no no not necessarily right some of us think if we drop dead maybe the business will be over and maybe that's okay no that still makes you an interim I mean okay either it ends or the world ends or someone's going to follow you whether you sell to another company or another leader comes in or you let your kid run it or whatever the thing you could just shut the people shut businesses down 70% is just shut down Fair Point fair point so if you want to if you want to end by closing then that's one way otherwise there needs to be a plan for the future and the easiest task to get that going is to say well what would happen if I couldn't be here for six months or three months and so we tell people identify the key uh deliverables that you are doing that no one else can do right now check signing authori is a great example of one of a a long list and where would you then delegate that out if you had to and you say well I can't delegate that well then I guess the options close the business you know that's funny you bring up check signing because I didn't sign checks for years and now I'm signing them every single week and you know what I screwed up I should have stayed signing the checks I totally agree made the same mistake why was it a mistake to stop because I probably have a thousand checks a month and going out I got you know I got all these little vendors I'm and because because once in a while you see a check and you think wow we're spending a lot of money for blankety blank Paul is this giving you pause is there a way that you could divide up your duties and make a plan I could the Financial things would probably be the trickiest because well there's there's a number of Duties I mean we're only a 20 person company so uh there's a number of things like Insurance renewals and various licensing and and state interaction issues and health buying health insurance and there's stuff that I just do I could make a plan uh it would be almost like my wife and I talk about paying the bills like I pay the bills every month and the plan is she should pay the bills but uh to let her pay the bills while I watch for 6 months would drive me insane so I'm sort of like trying to figure out how I would do that in the similar thing in in the business and uh William do you actually let someone take the wheel for a while and do it and yeah and execute the plan I do in many iterations of our business I would not have been able to say that one time I thought I was doing that and the competency that I thought was there was not so I had to take things back over but um yeah they actually execute the plan my my job right now and it'll probably change over the years is kind of like uh if we're if we're an old sailboat an old three mastered you know Explorer ship whatever I'm in the Crow's Nest looking for the next Horizon and then I look down to the guy at the wheel and say I see where we need to go and he says I know how to get there that's that's the most pedestrian way to describe uh how it's set up right now I will tell you an answer that I'm not being flipped when I say this at all for people that own businesses that have a spouse that's not involved and they're worried what happens if I drop dead what's going to happen to the business and I'm I'm a big proponent of have a good life insurance policy because at the end of the day I don't care what your plan is and who you think's taking over we've all seen it I think we've all seen it I certainly have seen it it might not work and I don't want to leave my my wife or hanging out there and life and insurance is still pretty cheap it is cheap I just to give you an example I'm 64 years old I I'm about to take out a million dollar mortgage on something I can buy a 10-year policy for 4,800 for for 3900 bucks for a million dollars so like it's still not expensive even at my age so like people are probably underinsured that Ed businesses because at the end of the day it would sure be nice to know that if all your plans didn't work out nobody's going to starve well I I've got life insurance and and if I died that would actually not be nearly as big a problem as if I was in a coma for right which so maybe the plan would be if if I'm in a coma just put the pillow over my face well that's a given didn't you don't you have that deal with somebody that's a given you know then then you got a couple of million bucks to play with to shut the business down and and retire I just don't have anybody who I believe is capable of doing all the things that I do that's then that's your problem no I'm saying he doesn't have a problem he's at the size business that the owner is running the business no I I don't think that is a problem it's not worth having that person it would cost them too much and all of a sudden is in I don't think there's a problem there is Jay right about that Paul yeah I think that that it's like the cost of of having and training someone would probably be probably some form of insurance policy I could buy I mean I don't know I'm going to get I'm going to think about it because at least leaving a Playbook like here's what I actually have to do during the course of the year in January you better do this and in February you better do that there you go there you that would be start at the end of the day if you got run over by a bus the only way that probably would be working is if your wife could sell the business for for for a decent money because I don't think one of your employees is going to step up and take over the business unless you think your wife can which certainly happens my wife has many virtues but I don't think she's going to be right running this which means this instruction plan should be how to sell the business um well I would be very curious if William if you were willing to share it uh to see what yours looks like I mean is it more about day-to-day operations or more about some Grand here's the here's the like the the airline thing you pull it and you see how the slides go out the airplane like how do we get out we need to uh it's a little it's a little bit of both and it's evolved every year I I you know I used to have one in place where this person would take over everything external like sales and marketing and this person would take over operations and execution of work uh now it goes much more to the COO and then there's a what if he hidden around um for a while it was Adrien would run everything but then what if we're in the same airplane and we both go down or you know so I I could share it but it's not helpful the worst the worst thing you can do is copy someone else's succession plan it just doesn't work especially if you're the found how about this like if if if uh if my father dies he designated my brother as executive like does anybody know of a situation where you have a person who's actually not in the company day-to-day but is just willing to step in as a leader and you say okay call this guy I mean is that a is that a thing do you pay people for that it is well for me it is a thing U but it's like uh if you remember when Reagan got shot and alh said I'm in charge right so it's about fit down the food chain of things that happen like if this and this and this are not in place then you actually call my brother who's executive of our estate and uh oh he he then takes over so I think it is naive and the math would back me up on this to think that if any of us drop dead we can leave an instruction sheet then someone's just going to run our businesses for us I think the math says it 66% of businesses don't get to the second generation I think what we do is is a little more complicated than that and um my guess is our spouses would sell the business well I I agree with your statistics I disagree with your diagnosis of my business my annual review is a one question past fail review this year did you make yourself less necessary to the growth and running of this business and there only one right answer every single year I remove my Essential presence a little bit more me too and I I do very little day-to-day stuff my question is so if you disappear tomorrow that business is still around in 10 years doing fine I don't know if the business is around 10 years from now one way or the other my point I think it has as good a chance as it does with me boy I think you underestimate yourself tremendously yeah you're being you're being humble it's you're being extremely humble and I don't believe that for a second because I've been on this thing with you many times you're very smart and you're very intuitive and you've made really great decisions and I suggest to you that thinking one of the people that either work for you is just going to step in and all of a sudden do what you do you just said it yourself you make four decisions a year that no one else wants to make so but but Jay like so what so he has the plan are you suggesting you know take the plan and throw it away no not at all give it a good shot but I'm suggesting a as important a plan would be to your wife if something happens to me here's the thinking and i' and I've done this I do have a sheet and I've told my three kids I have three adult sons I made it clear to all of them here's some ideas as to what to do but if when I'm gone do what you got to do don't don't go ahead and if you decide the business is shot and it's done don't don't don't torture yourself with oh my god dad turning in his grave it'll be fine do what you got to do if they decide that they don't want to run it and they can't sell it closing the business would not be the end of the world torturing my kids which I've seen I've been in business groups for years with these these people that took over the family business I wouldn't wish that I'm my worst enemy where the kid gets hung around the neck with the business never wanted to be in it is a horrible thing to do to your children or your wife so I don't want to do that so I think it's succession plan's great I just think the other plan should be here's some other options here's how you should sell the business here what I would talk to to sell the business here's what I would try to you know I think that's smart we're out of time here today this was a really interesting conversation as always thank you Paul DS Jay gz and William Vander Bloon thanks for listening everybody this episode was produced by Jess thubron founder of blank word Productions remember we started the 21 hats podcast to help business owners feel a little less isolated to let them know they aren't the only ones fighting these battles if you got something out of this conversation please help us reach more people tell a friend subscribe and review us wherever you get your podcasts follow us on Twitter at 21 hats and let me know if you have a question or a comment or a topic you'd like us to cover Mya email address is L Feldman 21h hats.com see you next time