#373: How To Accidentally Get Your Psychology Degree w/ Adam Sonnhalter and Jack Mencini Pt. 1
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, business, golf, called, talking, brother, years, coaching, couple, retired, understand, volunteering, jack, good, hear, company, big, small businesses, clients, life
SPEAKERS
Law (39%), Adam (32%), Jack (21%), Eric (6%), Matt (1%), Speaker 5 (<1%), Speaker 7 (<1%), Speaker 4 (<1%)
Law Smith
0:00
Have box logos. I've got that Heather ran I think I forget what it's called the tribal in red. Now our guests don't care, that's for sure. But, Adam, you're wearing red. Hey, got some red underneath.
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
0:14
Yeah, we're working on. We're trying to we're trying to fit in. It's all good.
Law Smith
0:18
Well, why don't y'all give us your plugs at the top of the episode as we let the guests do it because we're unprofessional.
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
0:27
All right, well, I'm Adam Sonnhalter. And that's Jackman. Seanie with business coaching firm called Maximum Value partners. We also have a podcast called dirty secrets of small business we've been doing for over six years now about 330 episodes helping folks with the small business world just like you guys are.
Eric Readinger
0:44
We got more episodes though. Yeah, when
Law Smith
0:47
you have 250 years experience
0:55
spent I fake it till we make it to where
Eric Readinger
0:58
these guys are broken. 250 years worth of work. How about that?
MF
Matt Fernandez
1:01
That's a lot. Someone's got to keep this boat moving. You know, we got to keep it between the nautical beacons. We got to keep it going forward. What's it called? I was trying to have listening to the episode I did so love if you're in the best setup that Eric loved. I'm sure I did.
Eric Readinger
1:19
Like no offense. I couldn't bring myself to listen.
Law Smith
1:23
He gets it for free on mic off mic all the time. So you don't need to hear my mind raspy voice. I just wanted to see if there's anything that we we left off. Last time we spoke that you guys wanted to expand on or
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
1:43
I know we covered some you know a good part of our discussion last time was around some just general business but also couples and working with your spouse like it was a big part of what we kind of talked about. But then we got on some tangents which I know probably happens a lot on the show right kind of go with the flow
5
Speaker 5
1:58
structure. We stick with very strict schedule.
Law Smith
2:02
How about this? How about this? For before we get into that? Would you change your answer on the question we asked everybody the first time. What advice would you give your 13 year old self? Is there any answer change from a couple months ago to now?
JM
Jack Mencini
2:18
Oh, I can't remember what I said.
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
2:21
It can be said earlier today you can do this we give new advice right? How about how about get a dog? Dogs great dogs or dogs? A good friend right? So get a dog good companionship.
Eric Readinger
2:36
Remember that you Yeah, you're
Law Smith
2:39
13 get a dog
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
2:41
get a dog. Heck yeah,
Eric Readinger
2:43
that seems interesting.
2:44
Probably my favorite answer. I don't know. Yeah, I gotta really think about it. All right, definitely the
Law Smith
2:49
most esoteric of all the answers I'd say Jack
Eric Readinger
2:57
mind is gonna blow anything Yeah, where
Law Smith
3:04
are you Honey summer are you you're in Ohio. Right? Right.
3:08
You keep that AC chilly.
JM
Jack Mencini
3:10
It's beautiful here right now. Mostly our water we got water to
Law Smith
3:19
what we're not in California. We're in Florida. So we're chock full of water but it's got a thing about my and
Eric Readinger
3:25
I got water. Yeah.
JM
Jack Mencini
3:27
From California is moving to Florida. Right now big big pathway there.
Law Smith
3:34
Yeah, it's kind of crazy. I used to live in California and I get made fun of for being from Florida and then now everybody's leaving that I was friends with in LA and they run out of water and you can't buy a house but there's homeless everywhere. It's crazy. I was just curious if it's cold up where you're at because we're is balls hot down in Tampa.
JM
Jack Mencini
3:58
I know. I know. My son lives in Arizona. Oh, you're Florida's Florida's Yeah. Pretty hot and humid. How long have you been down there?
Law Smith
4:08
Well, we're both born and raised well, whole life. Yeah. Pretty much how we're townies are the rare, televised
Eric Readinger
4:16
78 years of making Tampa
Law Smith
4:19
in Tampa is identities. It doesn't have an identity because everyone really moved down here from elsewhere. Like we're the first real generation that came back to kind of grow up and like come back and raise kids here. Like always
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
4:33
you guys went out the entire time you guys like seen snow I'm
Eric Readinger
4:37
sure we're allowed to leave for you know,
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
4:41
for good behavior,
Law Smith
4:41
right? lived in California didn't stand up all over the country. All that stuff. International, not so much. But yeah, it's one of the things we're not county counties that we haven't left the town. We're not that backwards. We just look like trash, right? Yeah.
Eric Readinger
4:59
I lived all the way up in Gainesville, Florida.
Law Smith
5:03
Pennsylvania. You got West Virginia. Exactly. Yeah. Okay, so Jack, would you change your answer? You give us a new answer. What would you tell your 13 year old self
JM
Jack Mencini
5:13
to get to become an entrepreneur early in life and shut the big company stuff which I did do after a couple of decades.
Law Smith
5:26
You're the guy that left that you were your company man that left that to become an entrepreneur
JM
Jack Mencini
5:32
was in the corporate world right out of college and did it for 20 years before I found the world of small businesses. And we've been doing we've been doing this for 30 years. I've been doing for about 30 years now. buying properties coaching, selling. You know, basically the world of small businesses and made a lot of acquisitions started a nonprofit organization turned over to Mayo Clinic. And you know to get an earlier start on that would have been great. Victory for world war two it
Law Smith
6:09
was that you wish you did more. Board.
6:15
You've done a lot in that time.
JM
Jack Mencini
6:18
Hey, Potaka once I can hear you
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
6:22
all turn for Hold on. They're saying you wanted to do more. More than you've already done. They're impressed by what you've done already jacked and they can't believe that you want to do more than what you've already done. It's just
JM
Jack Mencini
6:30
merging isn't the same thing guys. Versus the same thing. Set in wait that long? I grew up people retire into what I'm doing now. So it you know, can't find anything better.
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
6:44
We have a lot about retirement. We get teared up. How about that?
Law Smith
6:50
Yeah, I was just thinking about retirement and how
Eric Readinger
6:53
behind we're retired.
JM
Jack Mencini
6:56
I retired twice. Oh, no, try it again.
Law Smith
7:00
Yeah, I will. There's that part like my dad's retired and I can I I feel like he's not atrophying, but it's like that thing of like, I don't think I could I look at that and think about myself because I'm a narcissist. And
5
Speaker 5
7:15
I better have something lined up. No, I just think like you better be ready to play golf and I didn't even ever I know but you better find some.
Law Smith
7:23
It's like your dad. Your dad was a pro baseball player,
Eric Readinger
7:26
not pro baseball.
Law Smith
7:29
But he's a stud baseball player and my dad was a pro football player. Right? He can't play golf every day now. Like he's too banged up. He's got no cartilage in between those, like those bones. And so, you know, he's I just found out he hasn't been to walking club and I was like dad dad's like a kill for King of the Hill. Like I don't you know, like,
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
7:55
we want to stay relevant. Your Relevancy is a big deal. Or
JM
Jack Mencini
7:59
elements is huge. Relevance is huge. Yeah. jebra Golf seven days. 10 days in a row. It seems really good could do it for years at a time. Just go every day.
Eric Readinger
8:12
I don't even like to finish a whole round of golf. Like basic damn like how many Why do so many guys Yeah, Top
MF
Matt Fernandez
8:18
Golf is I like golf. Like Top Golf. Okay. Yeah. Big Top Golf is not as
Eric Readinger
8:25
nice like golf. You know?
Law Smith
8:27
Let's give Trump's golf clubs and see what happens
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
8:32
and put them on a tower fall over right
Law Smith
8:34
right right. I always like don't fall in that net.
Eric Readinger
8:37
Don't want to know that happens all you do jail. Yeah,
JM
Jack Mencini
8:39
I tried golf. You know, when I first retired and boy, I'm a bad golfer. So that doesn't help. It's tough to go out and do all that stuff every day.
Eric Readinger
8:51
And it's expensive. To get good to spend your time golfing all the time. You really got to practice in that suck is so depressing.
Law Smith
9:00
It's too time consuming right now that my my part of this like my age right now like I've got too many more important things to do than go golfing. It's exactly what I tell myself. And yeah, and I have a Charles Barkley swing. So that doesn't help but my path is I got to see my dad played every Saturday, Sunday my whole life I can remember and now you can't and I think he's bored. Right? But he's turning into Fox News dad which skier up
JM
Jack Mencini
9:28
there all day. Yeah,
Law Smith
9:29
I said I sent him the Shane Gillis special about that
Eric Readinger
9:32
was very sending
Law Smith
9:34
Cornel. He doesn't he? My mom says like iPhone basically. And she she translates
Eric Readinger
9:41
everything. All the letters out to your mom. Well, he had a secretary
Law Smith
9:45
for 30 years. So he's not like I just look at that and go and this is broader than I've seen in my life. Just when you have nothing going on in retirement to keep you busy. I feel like you can atrophying really quickly. And y'all spoke about kind of I would consider legacy kind of like relevance. Can y'all speak to either of those things?
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
10:10
Sure. It's one of those things that people never think much about, you know, in terms of, you know, when people think about this whole idea of retirement, they think about like maybe their best vacation ever, and taking that one week or two weeks vacation and that also is how permanent vacation right? But to Jack's point most people never tried to do that. You know, if you try to take a year off and just kind of hang out and do whatever you know, and it sounds like a lot of fun, but you get bored pretty quickly. And especially as you get older, you have a lot of knowledge and skills and abilities. And the question is like how do you take those and share those with people versus go sit in a beach somewhere. And so most folks that we know, especially entrepreneurs, most entrepreneurs are good at sitting still. I don't care how old or young they are. So when they get to the point now where all sudden they are they have nothing to do everyday that they're not that you know that job would go to that that company to go to. We've seen it where people come in, they sell their company, to their to their kids, and they show up Monday morning because they didn't know where else to go. Right? And it's like, well, how does that happen? And because again, I have nothing to retire to suddenly retire to besides it's just a rocking chair. Even the golf courses jack and jack tried doing that a couple of times it's it's a miserable existence.
Law Smith
11:16
What doesn't get your it doesn't? It doesn't satiate right? You don't feel content by you know, these extra current, like, entrepreneurship in itself is kind of a game a little bit. That is very satisfying, right? Yeah, cuz it's hard. It's difficult. It's really not fun, right? And like, what do we eat? It's not fun. And if you've kind of mastered it, what I would consider just being successful, you know, in business, you know, that's the thing where you're like, Okay, I know this. I have this. I was trying to pitch my pops, like volunteer, like legal services use attorney for
Eric Readinger
11:58
right yeah, either. Defend. You know what people?
Law Smith
12:01
Well, he did real estate so he can put you in contracts or houses he could do in commercial real estate contracts. Really?
Eric Readinger
12:07
Yes. So big businesses.
Law Smith
12:10
We talked to do a Dictaphone right on a yellow pad. But that thing of like I think I was just volunteering to be a mentee to USF students. And I don't know if they'll accept me, but I'm like your mentor I was thinking about it's like the current mentor, I think, what do you want? For that?
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
12:33
This is take advice from Evans Okay, that's good.
Law Smith
12:36
I will well, that's what I put in the application. I said, you know, I will learn from teaching I always do part of the show, helps, could save. It kind of helps. But they were saying like, what would you tell the mentees potential mentees? I was like, I will be blunt. And, you know, like, I'll be emotionally invested. And that's true. Like my shorts will be short. They said something. I was like, I was telling someone this and they're like, you're volunteering for something you do all the time already. And I was like, Yeah, it's like, yes, I want to selfishly I want to get better at what I'm doing. And then be like, get yourself an intern. Hey, maybe they'll hire me when I'm retired. You know? What do y'all think? Volunteering services. What are y'all gonna do retirement is really a choice.
JM
Jack Mencini
13:27
You identify yourself, your identity is to a large degree defined by what you do. And you know if you can be helping other people and making money off of that in a reasonable way, that's about as good as it can get. And you know, we were saying before we get teared up sometimes when, you know, we've had hundreds of clients. We've been together 20 years. And you know, you just get a tingle when all of a sudden they realize that they've grown with us most of our clients stay with us for years, because they grow and we put together a little program that has seven keys to success and if those seven keys are mastered and so we coach on pretty much they're going to be successful, defined as growing profits. And it's, you know, it's 25 million small businesses in this country. And all of them need help just about all of them. That's why they go out of business after a couple of years. They don't understand business. And so we teach and we a lot of satisfaction out of that, you know, to be an old man and be able to keep doing it. I'll keep doing it as soon as I can. And that is a great partner. He's younger than I am so but yeah, he keeps swinging. You know, that's it.
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
14:57
We have some clients are pretty young, who are in their 40s who have sold their companies and by most standards should be retired, but they're not. So why is that? You know, they're trying to find things to do things that whether we give back through volunteering stuff or they're just trying to find other deals to get involved in. You know, it's people don't think much about it. It's it's this dream that's out there, this idea of retirement. And and most people don't, don't think much about it at all terms, at least in realistic terms. And you often you'll hear folks who are in the financial planning industry, talk about financial independence now instead of retirement as being the way to think about stuff. So again, if you didn't have to work, that's really a question if you'd have to if you didn't have to work to pay your bills today. What would you do? That's really the question to be asking yourself, but that's the question. You know, that, you know, whether you're 2030 5080 You know, that's the ongoing question. So what do you want to do? So if you're financially independent, you have that you have more choices than most people do. Right? You choose to do nothing. Some people choose to do that, right. You know, you could choose the golf everyday, you could choose to volunteer your time. So what we find that with the entrepreneurs, it's harvest entrepreneurs to kind of sit still not add value somewhere. You know, my dad's been retired about five years. He's busier now than he was when he was working a lot of its volunteer stuff, you know, in terms of nonprofits. He has to help helping a charity that helps to make beds for kids who don't have beds, he's doing some stuff with score, which is basically you know, free coaching. And he's helping folks through that, you know, he's doing stuff at his church. He's He's very actively involved because he wants to stay relevant. He has a lot of stuff to share ways to help people. He's not doing it to make money. He's making money, some things he's doing. That's not that's not the reason why he's doing it. That's just the side effect
Law Smith
16:34
of it. Yeah, you, too. boatyards answers kind of are hovering around. We are what we habitually do. And you both kind of book into your answers by saying something to the degree of Know thyself, you gotta kind of know what you're into. It's something you kind of you probably tell every client in the beginning of your process, I'm guessing, is that true? Like know what you don't know, you know, who you are know, as a boss. What kind of manager are you naturally? What were your proclivities were your strengths. And each bit each part of the business. You know, like, I hate, I hate accounting. You talked about financial planning. I was zoned out because I'm learning how to adult be an adult pay attention. Like I was in the mutual fund world and I like and hated it, because I was just like, This is so boring. And I didn't want to be a CFP, or any of that and go down that route because I couldn't I would go nuts I'd be miserable. I knew that then. But I didn't really crystallize it, you know, kind of down on paper or in a goal setting way. How do you start with someone to get them to know themselves?
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
17:53
So we start with a tool called disc. Behavior Assessment, the ISC when people are in one of four quadrants. There are a lot of different tools out there that helps you understand yourself as well as the folks around you from a behavior standpoint. Your point we all have certain things that we enjoy doing or we don't enjoy doing. Type checking it out, search for extended disc, you know, it's a great tool.
7
Speaker 7
18:13
I got it's a compact disc. With an ergo, extended disc,
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
18:19
extended disc. But that helps you again, to be aware of yourself, that's, you know, you have to embrace your style. You can't be somebody else. You see it all the time in politics or popular people try to be somebody else. You can't fake it for a long time. You got to be you have to be true to yourself and that standpoint. There's also the balance of to between finding what you'd like to do and making a career out of it right you know, something might be a hobby for you. If you try to turn it into business all sudden it starts losing some of its joy. Also, yeah, the pressure of trying to make money out of her say this something I used to try to get away from that, you know, so there's often a balance of that too, in terms of people say you have to be very passionate about your business which is bunch of crap. And if you're faced with your business, right, I mean, again, you have to enjoy the business, that part of it, but to be passionate about it. That's usually where your hobbies or interests come in. You aren't actually trying to make money at those things.
Eric Readinger
19:07
So how do you guys how much people's personalities and lives do you get into to kind of, you know, assess them or even I'm guessing the disk report gives a little bit of that but like just their daily habits and things like that or just like how their own spending habits, you know, you might look at them with a really nice car that they can't afford and they're also trying to run a business the $100,000
Law Smith
19:30
millionaire All right.
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
19:36
Well, we try to keep things focused on business but as you might imagine things you know, personal lives get get involved a lot, you know, as we're talking, you know, last time on the show, we we've coached a lot of couples over the years, so you got spouses. So we're talking about that, you know, in terms of what happens what doesn't happen right during the day. I'll leave the room,
Eric Readinger
19:51
you can tell Well, I mean, it's true. That's like young couples, therapy, problems, events, the money.
Law Smith
20:01
He was recently all up in that he's now in a better life but was definitely during the mom and pop shop.
Eric Readinger
20:08
I'd be like, Okay, which one of you two is gonna not be involved in the business because
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
20:15
I grew up with them and my parents worked together for 40 years. I thought it was normal. I never I was not unusual. I don't know if I'll use it once we got in the real world saw that it's it's very difficult. It's difficult. Well, you might be I don't know. Certainly unusual, right to be able to do that. You know, and you know, not every loves being with their spouse 24/7 either, right, but a lot of family that often gets involved in business too. So again, a lot of personal stuff will come up. We try to keep the focus on the business side of it, you know, Jack and I are not you know, armchair psychologist we're gonna you know, take care of all their, their marriage problems or their their kid problems or their or their sibling problems, right. It's more focused on on on in the business and whether you should have those folks in the business or not to, that's a big challenge. Who do you bring into your business and usually it starts with friends. And family and folks that you know, like and trust as opposed to strangers.
Eric Readinger
21:03
You probably have a good story or two though from the couple's maybe
JM
Jack Mencini
21:11
we make our podcast usually the the issues that we we encounter when we're we're coaching they tell us everything I mean, we you know, we have we serve as a buffer with God, we should have a psychology degree but we don't. And they're desperate to talk to somebody there's some good information easy colleges don't provide it the way it should and professional services, lawyers, accountants, they don't either. They're collecting taxes. They might be put out of business stolen, people being added to the budget here, but
Law Smith
21:48
Well, this is their psychology when you really break it down. It's really trying to figure out a lot of behavior. Behavioral kind of management is a lot of it marketing is marketing for sure. Your intra, you know, personal relationships with partners, vendors, all that stuff. You know, that's I always see it kind of that way. And I my buddy called me business therapist, because, you know, he came in wanting to be a client and just spewed all this stuff out. And I if I tell him I'm a comic fraud or they know that already. Good Lord. They will say the most crazy shit like ever, and you don't realize people do
Eric Readinger
22:32
that, huh? I don't need to hear this.
Law Smith
22:36
I like I actually liked it because I want to know, I want to know where their brains at. I want to know, I want to know if they're really invested more than money. You know, when they're working with me. I want to know if they I shouldn't really assess that as risk in a better way. So I didn't get back clients. But we've talked about on the show that we have one thing we've talked about the entire podcast series is entrepreneurships lonely. Even if you have your partner right there, that's where I'm gonna ask you because you guys are dividing and conquering you know? Can you you guys have any but do you guys have any fun the games between your ears like golf called it back? But do we do you have any salacious stories, some fun stuff like what do you all been talking about our podcasts? Please don't talk shit about us on your next episode. We'll do it.
MF
Matt Fernandez
23:30
Actually, yeah, that'd be fine. Yeah, we can use the exposure actually be worse in differences the biggest thing
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
23:36
right now so it's all a couples working together. So I'm guessing you the two of you have been involved at some point where you've had we've had a couple that has an argument in front of you, and it kind of gets out of hand and now depending on your on your style, you might get some popcorn and let's watch let's watch a fight and see how it kind of goes but most people try to get get get out of the room. Right. And so we had a client for we were maybe a week out we were about you know about a month. And a half into it. We go on to meet him this morning. And and when we walk in, the two of them are literally yelling at the top of the lungs of each other in the office building right let's you know that has, you know, 30 other companies in it. And they're yelling at top of lungs about something that happened three years ago at home. He forgot about right and literally like there's a vein popping in the middle of her forehead yelling at this guy who said, what happened. Now again, they told you that was a really and you're bringing this up here now I said you understand how uncomfortable everybody is now in your office. And this entire building that people know about you guys still talk to the manager about US aid the people in office 234 up there. They're very stressful. We could tell when they're in the building. It's always loud noise yelling at each other. It's absolutely crazy.
24:43
How does it happen? Right?
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
24:44
So you can get that on one extreme. The other extreme would be partners walking past each other in the hallways not saying hello to each other. They just can't stand each other anymore and so they've learned to kind of bite their tongues. You know, we've had everything from you know, spouses like that. We've had brothers, right who are a great brothers, but no one says black one says white and they and they you know they're both former wrestlers. And I said well, we almost we almost knocked out
25:10
today. So what I'm gonna do you hear girl
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
25:14
sounds going on. Right? Well, but they're they said like, We're great brothers, but we are terrible business partners. You know, it just doesn't work that standpoint. So starting to kind of understand you know, what you bring to the table fast sampling can be can be very, very helpful. But yeah, I mean, the trouble family in the business so you know too much about them right. You know, the bad stores have also did this and they had a bad weekend and they went off on a bender. Okay, well, you know about that because they're your cousin or their their your sister, not because, you know, it's irrelevant what they're doing day to day. So often those things and getting away from what's kind of going on and not be able to help the business go forward.
Eric Readinger
25:51
Want to know what the guy did three years ago? What was your I was
4
Speaker 4
25:54
gonna say? Something very minor, a woman that something I know.
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
26:01
Somebody with a closet somewhere? It was so I couldn't believe it. That's what she was mad about.
Law Smith
26:07
My friend Liz Newman calls in women will go through the file cabinet. And like they have their Dewey Decimal System of shit. They will state drives just one thing. Yeah, exactly. Neuro link just like yeah, I got this on demand anytime. Like Disney plus or something. Yeah, it's uh, yeah. What I want to hear about the wrestling guys. Yeah. Brother smell with it.
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
26:32
Yeah. The Bushwacker. Yeah. Well, what happens they always knew that, again, the employees much like kids will come to whichever one gives them the right answer, you know, so they would know which one to go to for free for different answers. But it was to the point where the one brother came to us and said, Look, I can't work with our brother anymore. We said okay, we can help you through that discussion. But let us know you have to bring up you know, we can't bring it up. And so he brought up you know, we're about a year into coaching. He brought up during one of the meetings his brother had no idea he could see his brother. I mean, it was very, you know, pushed back in his chair, almost brought the tears like he was a surprise. You know, he's like, he's, I don't care. You can buy me out. I'll buy you out. You know, whichever one's fine, but we can't keep going as we are. So the brother brought to the table is when we weren't selling out, which is fine. And this is like probably 10 years ago. Now. That's been and they both had been separated and that the one got into his own company doing his own thing. The other one's been growing the business that the brother left but they were doing okay. But again, they were very good brothers. But as business partners, it was it was too hard. And I was probably as again, maybe those two alpha males kind of going at it right. It's hard for them to survive together. They have to have their own space to be able to do things and be like, kind of flap their wings. And so it becomes very, very difficult. So again, understanding themselves understanding each other very well helped help them get through that process. For sure.
Law Smith
27:48
Yeah, just sort of a quote from Robert Kelly, a comedian about comedians being married. I was married to a comic didn't work out and he's like, the couples should only have one headshot.
Law Smith
28:01
And a lot of people can't know I think it can work. I just think it is unusual. I think family business. Honestly, if you can avoid it, avoid it. Right. Like if you're not that tight family, or you're you are to Alpha entrepreneur brothers that maybe have the same skill set, right. So they're, you know, they can't really divide up everything.
Eric Readinger
28:30
Yeah, they literally used to do the division of labor, physical stuff, or whatever. Ballerinas do. Are you gonna help me? Yeah, now it's all vaporware. Right. I don't want to do that.
Law Smith
28:41
And like I feel like I see the family business strife. I see it when it's, they're coming together but have the same skill set. So it could be a brother, it could be husband, wife, whatever. Husband husband, wife, life, whatever. Husband wife. Yeah. Yeah. A throttle.
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
29:04
Yeah, well, it's hard harder the discussions with family because with family you have to see him you have to see him at family functions, you know, the holidays, that kind of stuff. And so we have situation years ago where it's transitioning from one generation to the next and they wanted the two kids that take it over the one kid have been working the business since he graduated school. The other one kind of came in a few years, a few years ago. And these two brothers couldn't couldn't quite get along there trying to find place with one brother to your point, it just just couldn't quite fit. And it's hard to have a discussion to fire your brother and talk to your parents about it, especially when you're trying to transition so we found an opportunity where the one brother basically threatened to quit me He called us Hey, the next time he says that, you gotta grab it with both hands and not let it go. So it was about a week later he threaten to quit again. It's it's fine you want if you're gonna quit. That's it. If he said you say it again, you're done. And so he obviously forced brother to quit was his brother gave him the opportunity. So to give him the chance to go on the high road but you're always trying to balance all this stuff, right? So when you're making a business decision, are you often thinking about what mom or dad are gonna say? Well, if you're in a family business, you almost are all the time and so you can imagine how confusing that can be or how that can impact or delay important decisions. And so that's a big part of what we try to push through Jack Jack is very, very adamant about this, you know, I'm more understanding because I grew up with it but yeah, it's you have to have certain conversations to get it set up properly. And also it's gonna go sideways quickly.
Eric Readinger
30:25
spills over you know, all that stress from work. Oh, things aren't going good at work. Normally, things are good at all. But let's build over it and you're both feeling it. The husband wife Forget it, you know, it's like Oh, shit. Yeah. And then it's all big one mushy pile of anxiety,
Law Smith
30:39
but I feel like the best the best. I've seen it with family business management is kind of like compared to like being fluid like, watching hockey, right? Those guys aren't calling plays out. They kind of just know where to where to be. And, you know, some of some of the times they have to take a talk, you know, to the to their body to protect him. Sometimes. They're coming up and setting people up with a shot and they get nailed, you know, trying to get a shot in. It's kind of that thing of like, Oh, they're
Eric Readinger
31:10
getting beat up no matter what you're gonna say score the winning gold
Law Smith
31:14
family backline frontline. If you had a partner that was one and the other. You know, you're gonna get shit either way. You have to concede a little bit but they're playing to the strengths already because they're in the position of defensive person over here in a SAM a win. But the fluidity of which hockey kind of works. I always look at that, like, they don't call plays, they can't really they yell but they can't really say much. They only work
Eric Readinger
31:46
for 90 seconds at a time right? But that's that's an extra 10%
Law Smith
31:50
That's how it could feel in business. Like you can feel like you're under pressure and then all this other shit comes in. If you're not fluid. It just gets in the way and welcome to a file cabinet argument from three years ago.
Eric Readinger
32:05
Closet.
32:06
What what's going on? Remember
Eric Readinger
32:07
stuff like that?
Law Smith
32:08
Well, I've got a good hypothetical for and I split the room with this this hypothetical. What do you think couples all time have thought over? This is all time in history. How to wash dishes, or the temperature in the room.
32:27
I can stumped him.
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
32:28
I'll go a temperature in the room.
Eric Readinger
32:30
Yeah, I will do I thought it I always think museums are definitely temperature.
Law Smith
32:34
I've gotten to 5050 I haven't put it on online as opposed to see what I'm surprised. I want to see these doing the dishes back in the day. And to do dishes in the river. There was a bigger deal. You know, like, maybe you didn't have paper towels, or maybe it was palm fronds if we're going like Flintstone River, right? Like don't use those dishes. Those are for company
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
32:57
because let me just throw throw it as part of the the laundry basket going on the river is thrown in there with that. So whoever's doing laundry does that does additional for you.
Law Smith
33:04
You got to have your head on a swivel like a linebacker like you got to be looking because your baby could float down the river crocodile Yeah, crocodiles and stuff. Typhoid, right. Stuff like that Sumption. Really thought I had your split. I feel like have you seen couples be mired in that get out of it? Is there is there a good it's like, well, they're fighting for eons and then they did die a loss or how did
33:37
it turn out with the couple fighting over the closet from three
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
33:39
years ago? It didn't it didn't work out very well for their marriage or for the business. The marriage failed a couple years later. And then the the business failed right after that. You know, they actually had sold the business maybe longer. A little bit. Yeah, well,
Law Smith
33:51
because it was assets when they divorced.
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
33:55
And they had customers who were paying him for a little while afterwards. But now that they had they had a life coach, come live with them for a weekend got a joke about being a fly on the wall for that and film that and see what really goes on you know, you get a real behind the scenes look.
34:07
Not an astrogation but
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
34:09
yeah, so it's not if the marriage is not solid. Versus is not going to help. It's like having a kid to help fix your bad marriage. Right? That's gonna make it worse.
Law Smith
34:21
They're gonna dog.
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
34:23
Go see my 13 year old self. I'll bring that back to
JM
Jack Mencini
34:29
you guys been together. How long have you been together? Well, I
Law Smith
34:33
wouldn't wouldn't meet on Grindr
Eric Readinger
34:38
on the show together five years
Law Smith
34:40
Yeah, I was doing it a little bit before Eric came on. He came on as a guest we we recorded sketches and stuff done comedy. Stuff. Previous. He came on as a guest and I was like, What are you doing? And then yeah, that was about it.
Eric Readinger
34:55
Happily ever after.
Law Smith
34:57
Listen, longest relationship I've got
JM
Jack Mencini
35:01
five years pretty good.
MF
Matt Fernandez
35:03
Yeah, good. Yeah, you're beating out my ex wife.
Law Smith
35:07
Yeah, yeah. Obviously beating out. Well, you're not she's not Asian to beat her at all. surpassed her any other nuggets of advice before we close this episode out? We like talking to you guys. I want to have you guys back on
JM
Jack Mencini
35:23
like talking to you guys too. A lot of fun. If you
Law Smith
35:26
need scab guests for your show. To come in. Like a real guest falls through and you need some replacement USFL players. I can we can fill in.
JM
Jack Mencini
35:36
Good enough. All right.
Law Smith
35:39
What are any other what's the what? What's been on your mind the most? What kind of last thing and we'll close this out? What's been kind of recently I've been talking about a lot on your show.
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
35:54
Well, we've had a lot of discussion about couples has been one but we've got Just in terms of leading yourself, it's going to get some a little bit earlier in terms of, you know, just kind of knowing yourself and be able to kind of lead yourself set goals, you know, what does it mean to kind of set goals and now have priorities for you. That's been a big part of what we've talked about. We've talked about, you know, off the air, there's a lot of deals going on, you know, people looking to sell or buy companies. So that's a big way to kind of grow that's bigger we help a lot of our clients with and so it's one of the things that involves the numbers though, so I saw a lot kind of goes off for a second but yeah, you know, you have to involve the numbers part part doing the deal, right. So but that's a good way to be able to grow your business quicker, either add more products or services or be able to take folks out from that standpoint.
Law Smith
36:40
Do you see any of the macro economic kind of, you know, news, fear, fear of the fear that's been out there. About I was just really like, not a surprise. We don't have enough houses or something like that. Because of the oh eight recession, the builders didn't want to build. So it's like the lowest supply of homes since like 2014 or something like that. Or competence. I think the competence builders,
JM
Jack Mencini
37:11
there's more real estate agents and there are houses available.
Law Smith
37:20
It's true. It's like a backup job for a lot of people for some of these and I'm like this is it's harder to be a real estate agent now because everybody used to have like, they used to know houses before they like before the internet, like you knew you knew stuff during algo path. And John was like, No way. No, and we're all the speakeasies are. And then now it's all about really just being good at the contract aspect.
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
37:45
Right? It's evolved for the very small businesses, you're wracked by those big picture things going out there but usually there's ways around it and a big part of being a small business and being an entrepreneur is reacting and adjusting. And so whether it be inflation, the people are worried about pricing that seems to kind of cooled down a little bit, but people always have some boogeyman that they're afraid of. And part of the beauty of running your own thing is you have the choice of what you want to do about it. So over the last year and a half, you get a chance to raise your prices. If you haven't raise your prices by Now chances are it's gonna be a bit harder. Hopefully you did. And so part of the beauty of small businesses you're not the you know, necessarily be as worried about those because you can react to them because you can't control them by any means. So but you have the ability to be nimble and to react quickly.
Law Smith
38:29
Adaptability, Yeah. JACKIE anything.
JM
Jack Mencini
38:33
That's hard. It's hard to get excited about the future when it's so uncertain. So, you know, if you're talking about short term planning, you almost can't do it. It's, it's, you know, without a plan, you're dead, and just very simply, and we are talking MBA style type planning with 70 pages. And all kinds of graphs and we don't believe that you know, we you know, are college educated and come through the the Kool Aid basically, you got to understand numbers and you have to basically be flexible and have fun when you get to become an old codger. Then forget about it. You know, it's just not gonna work. You got to instill enthusiasm in your in your company. It's up to you to set the right culture. And we try to teach that because it's so important everything else is going to fail. Unless you have a good plan. Everyone understands that everyone's involved in what's going on in a company. You get to that point and you're successful. You are and again, we define success as growing sustainable profits. The rest of its bullshit anything that you know, you get a marketer talking to you any year you listen for eight hours over a couple of weeks, and they never mentioned the word sales. You know, Oh, no. Oh, can you have marketing without sales? How can you not have an eyeball on sales?
Law Smith
40:03
That's this good. Go for another hour. Oh,
Eric Readinger
40:05
no. I have a question about where you're saying about having everybody in a company know what's going on. Can you speak to that a
JM
Jack Mencini
40:12
little bit more? As well, we have a plan which the owner, the owner understand profit and loss because they know what a balance sheet and the profit and loss statement is, chances are no statistically you know, at least half don't don't understand it. Well as somebody what were you profitable last year? Geez, I don't know. You know, I gotta call my CPA you know, I'll let you know. So you gotta you gotta have that component in it. You have to and if you have that, and you put it in a format that you can quickly, access, assess, and then make decisions on it. You're going to stay out of trouble. You have to. So the culture that's created in a company that we coach, they stay with us for years, which was still a big part of the culture is going to be talking about the profit and loss and the balance sheet. educate your employees, to what profits all about and how it works. They don't know. They just don't know they don't have it figured out and as you can understand, it's pretty complicated. And that's important and bring them into presenting components of the plan. So between a well understood profit plan, and understanding profits, he was the owner especially if you can you get people talking about that. So rather than going on a lunch hour or wherever they're going and they're pitching about the company and talking about stuff that's that's nonsensical misinformation, as they like to call it today. They talk about incentives, small incentives to become the utilities are for example, you pay for electricity and, and water, all utilities, why shouldn't somebody be in charge of that? And why shouldn't they learn presenting skills? By presenting I may be able to talk about a small little carve out of the profit plan and make Susie a, you know, the one who's going to understand the different rates and the different stuff, get them involved and pretty intelligent stuff. Your good employees are going to gravitate to that and love it, because they want to learn and if you get good employees, which is pretty tough. To do, well, you got to cover them, you got to hold on to them. They're gonna make all the difference in the world. We have a lot of fun teaching that both of us have a financial background, but operations background and the companies that bought and before that, too, so we take them through that. You know, owners talk about in big corporations talk about asset, their biggest asset are people and they don't do squat form. It's wrong. So you give me a rant? I don't think
Law Smith
43:05
we're gonna let you go as long as you know. I asked the question. That's the beauty of the podcasts. It's we're not radio we don't have to cut to a commercial. So
Eric Readinger
43:14
London keyword.
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
43:16
Quick, quick question for you. Jack. You mentioned the word the term old codger Is there a young codger? I only hear it referred to right I do.
JM
Jack Mencini
43:23
Gotcha. Gotcha.
Law Smith
43:25
I think by using codger, you're you're automatically and automatically Yeah. That's like 22 seconds or something.
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
43:38
Those are good. Good old phrases, right?
Law Smith
43:41
I'm going steady with my lady I'm
Eric Readinger
43:46
not after that. No. Oh,
Law Smith
43:47
yeah. Thanks for coming on. We'll have you back on to q4 of this year. Probably something like that will benefit q4. I just wanted to sound affordable. Well, it's good to for everyone. Thanks for coming on y'all and we'll we'll wait out hills you know social and website on our description episode.
AS
Adam Sonnhalter
44:09
Appreciate it guys. Glad you could join me yeah, good seeing again, la
JM
Jack Mencini
44:12
Yeah. Thanks. Guys. Have a great night. Thank you.
