Welcome to Business Unscripted

Dave 0:02

Welcome to the Business Enscripted Podcast. We're here to share real life insights, practical strategies, and the honest lessons that we have learned from our own mistakes. Because frankly, we have been in your shoes. So whether you need help with operations, accountability, financial knowledge, sales, or maybe just getting your mindset right, we are here and it is the right spot for no fluff conversations. Cool step. So grab your favorite cup of Joe. Let's jump into the show. Let's jump into the show, ladies and gentlemen. It's another Friday morning, which means it is a beautiful day for another episode of the Business Unscripted Podcast. Hope you guys are having a wonderful and fantastic week. Warren, good to see your smiling face. It's bright and early over here, you know, or me, right? But you know, it's it's 8 30 p.m. over over on your end of the world. But glad to have you join us. So welcome to another episode.

Duarne 0:52

Welcome to today. We've been here for 12 hours already.

Dave 0:55

Yeah, yeah. You you've been in Done and uh Cnet, right?

Duarne 1:01

As I like to we've done Friday. We're moving on.

Dave 1:04

Yeah, yeah. What Saturday, please. But if you're a business owner, aspiring business owner, as that famous gentleman said on the intro, you know, you're in the right spot. You know, we talk about our experiences, things that we've gone through in our journeys, our current journey, our past journeys, but also things that we've helped our clients through or are currently helping them through, as well as kind of staying on top of what's going on in the world right now, in business, different things like that, talking through different strategies. Because man, in today's world, it changes quicker than ever before. And you there's a lot going on, even you know, I don't know if uh we're on top of it all, but we try. Right there, Dorne. So it gets it's a lot happening. There's a lot happening, and ton to happening.

Duarne 1:47

It's there's only so much you can process every day, Ryan.

Dave 1:51

As I say, you know, we only everybody has the same 24 hours in a day, right? So, you know, you can only do so much. It's what are you gonna do with your time, you know? But so, sir, what I know we haven't we didn't get a chance to talk last week, so what what's been going on in your world? Any any big wins? Any anything you've you've encountered lately?

Stop Settling for Daily Friction

Duarne 2:11

Yeah, I bought a new chair, so that's pretty exciting. Always exciting. So your bum is feeling good, got it.

Dave 2:18

Okay, okay.

Duarne 2:19

Yeah, you know, it's it's funny, right? You go through you go through the motions of work and everything, and then something as simple as look, my chair's a bit squeaky. Chair's a you know, leans a little to the left. It's a little bit awkward to use. And you're kind of like, you know what, it's frustrating, but I'm busy. I'm just gonna keep going. Then finally it breaks, and you go, you know what? I need to get a new chair. It becomes a huge problem. So suddenly you're out unexpectedly looking for a chair, and then it's like, well, if I'm out looking for one, do I just settle, or do I get something I actually want? Right. And yeah, it became it became one of those scenarios for me. So it's uh I got something I actually wanted. I got lucky, I found one local. I'd actually ordered one online as well, so now I have a spare. Yes, there you go, which will go in my room next door, which is you know for another purpose. But it's crazy. Something as simple as a chair, a mouse that stops working, a keyboard that's not comfortable to use. You kind of brush it aside sometimes. You don't realize that it can just make life a little bit more pleasant by having that. I've noted my posture is so much better by changing chairs, something I didn't even consider before. I didn't realize how much I was sliding down my chair. Well, you're I mean your environment, right?

Dave 3:37

When you're there, like you work, you know, I think more than me, technically, you know, but when you're in your office for so long, you know, those are the things that that matter and can make a difference, like changing your desk around or you know, cleaning off your desk, like they can do a lot to improve your productivity or efficiency, but your feeling, you know, of just being uncluttered, your that feeling of something fresh and something new can truly you know kind of benefit you. And and you mentioned something really right that I think is important, not just in business, but in life in general. And that was like, do I settle or do I, you know, kind of just like you know, maybe spend a little bit more, but pick something that's gonna be more efficient for me. Reminds me of, you know, my son and I, we went down to you know, Florida for the Browns and Tampa Bay Buccaneers game. And, you know, he was he was debating, you know, he's a he's a teenager, he's got his first job, right? Things like that, and he's saving up, but you know, he was debating on a jersey that he wanted to get, which is a Mecca Abuka, who played at Ohio State. So that's why he wanted to get you know his jersey. But the one that he really wanted that he came down saying, Hey, I want to get his like the creamsicle jersey, they call it, which is like the all-orange jersey. You know, I think it was like $225 or something like that, right? And he kind of price shocked him for a minute. And then they had other ones that were like, I think like $150 or $160. And he's like, I think I'm just gonna get you know, one of the other ones. And I said, Look, I said, son, you you literally at this moment, you have like no bills, you have nothing to worry about, right? I said, This is your only chance to buy this jersey. You're here, your only chance you're gonna be buying it. I said, So in six months, are you gonna regret not buying it? And is that regret gonna be worth more or less than that sixty dollars more you're gonna spend right now? And you know what, you're right. And so he ended up getting the creamsical jersey, and then he actually, like a week, two weeks later, the night, you know, when I when I saw him one of those times, he said, Hey, I just thank you, thank you for for convincing me, right? Or or showing me right and so that I got the creamsical jersey because he would have regretted it and he would have been upset with himself. And then at that point, he would have wasted $170 or whatever because he didn't get what he actually wanted, versus spending a little bit more and getting what he really did want. And at that point, right, you have to kind of weigh those options. Same thing with you. Like, you know, do you just spend a medium price to just make it through, or do you kind of take that look and just say, okay, I can spend a little bit more right now because it's going to get me exponentially more output or whatever it ends up being. So whether it's a process efficiency, chair, new desk, new office, whatever it is, like you know, make those make those as such, and and there's analysis, and and it works in life just as much as it does in business in your per in your in your career.

Hire for the Role, Not the Rescue

Duarne 6:20

So it does, and it carries on to other things too. Like we've had this my team members, my director of ops today and I had a meeting, and we're talking about staff placement. And we have one particular employee.

Dave 6:37

Uncles. Does that mean we're old, right? Uncle, unc unk, like that's in the new term, right? That means you're you're old, right? What age do you become an unk?

Duarne 6:44

I've accepted I'm old.

Dave 6:46

Welcome, brother. Yeah, yeah.

Duarne 6:48

I it's funny. Here they call it Tito's. So if you're if you're the older that's yeah, Tito and you know, and Tito for the unk auntie and stuff, so I'm kind of used to it. I got I got kids calling me Tito all day, so it's not so bad. But you said keto? Tito, yeah, Tito, Tito. I thought you said keto. Okay, Tito. No, no, Tito. No, no, no, not like that keto diet crap. Hey, diet, no, I'm not a diet. Yeah, right. But that's funny. Yeah, like I'm having it, like I'm having a chat with my director of ops today, right? And we're talking about a team member that has been failing some KPIs consistently. Okay. And it's gonna be a tough conversation coming up at some point, I'm sure. And I said to him, I said, Well, what are we gonna- and he's asked me, what are we gonna do? Because we had a conversation a few days ago. HR has a meeting on the books, and I said, Well, we're gonna wait for HR to come back with what you know what the feedback is, and then we'll make it a call from there. And he said, Maybe we can move him into another role. And I'm like, Okay, well, it's an option. Do they have the skills for that role? Oh no. Do you have the patience to train them in that role?

SPEAKER_01 8:09

No, and I said, Do you want them in that role?

Duarne 8:15

You know what? I don't think I do. Let's move on. And I said, Would you rather me put in two people who actually already have the training for that for those roles, like we originally discussed? Yeah, I think that's a better decision for the team. And that was one of those scenarios where it's not settling to move somebody just because we can, but to hire the right fit for the team, for the situation we're in right now. And that's so it's just one of those examples where it's nice to see the team actually starting to see that, like our leadership team actually making those decisions for themselves. They start with they're starting to see the team needs certain people to fulfill our obligations to our clients and our requirements in business. So settling is not an option. We've had a bunch of inquiries for another roller to come through, and we're refusing to settle because what we've noted is every time we've settled, we don't necessarily get the best talent, we don't get the best fit. We find ourselves trying to fit somebody in who's not necessarily the right fit for the role. So I think that goes with everything in life. Every time I've made a decision, you know, to buy something that's maybe not quite right because it was available instead of holding off and getting what I wanted, I tend to regret it. And I tend to be, well, if I just waited, because I'm gonna have to go and buy it anyway at some point in the future. And it's like your son, it's a waste. You know, you can't, you know, in his situation, he couldn't get it. It was a specific time and place that he got to make that decision. And that's something he's gonna remember that he made the choice to get that, and it's gonna be mean even more to him with that jersey because of

Buy for Value, Not Just Price

Duarne 10:05

that.

Dave 10:37

Well, and I think it it's it it is hard for a lot of people, especially when you know you're in business or you're just starting out and you're like, you know, I need to be budget friendly. So a lot of people look great. Totally understand sometimes, you know, budget friendly, you do have to do the analysis, right? It don't just look at, okay, I this is only this amount per month. Like sometimes it does make sense. If it is something you're gonna be utilizing more, right, you know, there isn't a return on investment with it, it might make sense to do you know, like a yearly option or something like that, because you're saving right enough to offset that instead of paying maybe for the monthly option. Uh, so there are times when it does make sense to just have to do that analysis of, you know, okay, this version, let's say you pay $100 for something and you know it's gonna fail after a year, whereas if you spend $225, it's gonna last you five years. Well, it makes sense to buy the version that's gonna last you five years because you know you're gonna save essentially 50% because at the end of five years, you know, it costs you 500 bucks. But you know, it's it is easy to get caught up in that single moment to look at the $100 option versus $225 and be like, well, I don't want to pay double. Yeah, but you're you're really only paying half when you actually think it through, and that's where you know it does take some time to get used to it.

Duarne 11:59

Yeah, then like my chair, for example, since I started with that analogy, the chair that I'm using right now is the one that I picked up over the weekend to replace my broken chair. And I ended up picking up as a used chair, it happened to be the same model, same brand, everything that I wanted that I couldn't buy locally, new and order online, and I ended up getting it for 60% of the new price. And I thought, you know what? Even if it's just a spare that goes in my secondary office, that's cool. I'll get it and I'll keep it as a spare. It was a choice I made at the time. When I went out looking in the malls to try and find a replacement, prices were significantly more, and I wasn't gonna get anything better. And if I'd spent the same money I spent on this chair, the used option, which we'd have to give a really good clean for sanitary reasons, I would have been very regretful. And I almost bought for the same money that we paid for this used chair, just a chair that I would have ended up probably th throwing in the corner and never using again, instead of having two of the same model chairs that I can use in both rooms, and I'll use on a regular basis. So those things really matter, and it doesn't have to always be a you know, a brand new purchase. Like some of these things can be the right choice is just waiting a little longer. Like it turns out my chair turned up on Monday, it turned up a week and a half early. I was like so impressed, yet disappointed at the same time. I could have just waited till Monday for my new chair, but I ended up getting two chairs now over the week, you know, by Monday. But reality is sometimes it's waiting, sometimes it's spending more money. Sometimes it's about placing, you know, buying it from somewhere where you probably need to go out of your way to get, or something. You know, there's gonna be different scenarios. Your scenario is gonna depend on your situation you're in, but it's not always just money either, about making the right decision. You know, we're do we've made decisions on the new office fit out, which have affected delays in the time. In one situation, we decided to put a false ceiling in section of the office because we didn't like the way it felt, it felt too cavernous in that section of the office, and it cost us a week and a half's delay to do it.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

But the result is really worth it.

Dave 14:33

Yeah, I mean it it is we're all humans, right? So we all want to be impatient,

Pause Before You Answer

Dave 14:40

but it kind of brings up you know a little bit what we were talking about pre-show and what we talked about earlier this week in terms of like patience. And I think this is a a patience in terms of your response in business can also be uh important. So for example, you know, I just finished up a a project to do like a feasibility study for a client. And this past Saturday, they, you know, the one partner had sent a a response and kind of a follow-up regarding, you know, some areas that they had thought that we were going to provide answers to that wasn't in our initial report, but you know, it was more of like a first draft, but that they felt that we lacked and that we missed. And so I think old me would have sat, saw the reply, and literally sent a response like immediately back, right? Yeah, just been like, you know, I don't know.

Duarne 15:44

I mean that's a lot of people, not just you, old you, right?

Dave 15:47

Yeah, I think it's a default for a lot because you want to get defensive, right? It's your work, your, you know, it's your reputation, right? Your your your it's your business, essentially. But I but I paused and I said, wait a minute, I'm like, did I miss something? Like, was there something that like I am I that old that I'm like forgetting like from our conversations that you know, because like you know, there's there's a lot of stuff that you know is mentioned that I'm like, man, I don't remember ever promising we're gonna deliver that. And so secondary, you know, kind of importance to you as a business owner, make sure you record every conversation, you know, with a note taker, even in person, which is why I say use granola. This is not a a paid advertisement, but I use granola. So I went back and I looked at the transcripts from our initial two kickoff calls. And third lesson, because we jumped right into it so quickly and it was a quick turnaround, we didn't get a sum, you know, we didn't get an actual like formal written, you know, sort of like, hey, this is what we're gonna provide, anything like that. So the kind of an oversight on both sides.

Duarne 16:51

It wasn't an agreement of the scope written out and agreed to and designed by both parties, right?

Dave 16:56

And so that's why it is important to you know get that as well. Because if you don't have notes, that's what they're gonna come back to. And you know, so you want to make sure that you have that already. So that was the third lesson. But going back to the second lesson, you know, I went back and I'm like, and this is the beauty of AI, we talk about a lot. I went back and I said, hey, you know, go back and review my kickoff, your kickoff session notes with you know the partners, and you know, analyze what we discussed in that meeting versus right what they're saying that we you know either didn't provide or didn't fully provide, and you know, analyze that for me and just let me know if I if I missed something or what's going on. Um, and what I mean what I found was that I would say the majority of their outcomes was not discussed to the level that they expected that there was gonna be an outcome on, right? And it wasn't even discussed that some of those things would even be there in terms of like specific, hey, how are we gonna get to this point? Right? It was never even mentioned. So like they were just making up some numbers, yeah. In in the feedback, and I said, Well, that's I'm like, okay, I didn't miss anything, right? So then I said, okay, well, what can we do now to make it right? Right. And and part of that was, you know, there was potentially gonna be a continued engagement to provide additional services. So, you know, because of their initial response, you know, they they ended with, you know, and we're we, you know, we decided we're not gonna continue. And I said, okay, that's like that's fine, but I also wanted to make sure that you're get your outcome. So I made sure I'm like, what can we do to provide that feedback, not needing to continue services, right? Because I want to make sure that you know they paid for an output and I want to make sure that they're getting it.

Duarne 18:39

So we started between sending that message. How long did you wait between that from getting the first message and reacting?

Dave 18:49

Do we yeah, I think I got the first message at like 9 30 in the morning on Saturday, and I think my response back was maybe at 2 p.m. Yeah, because I wanted to I I wanted to obviously format my response and so I made sure that it was in a partnership fashion because you know I still see it as a potential partnership, who knows? You know, if we can kind of get past the overlook of the you know, the misunderstanding, and and kind of just hit each one of their points and just kind of pointed it back to the actual conversation that was had in the transcript to say, I I might have missed something here, but I did go back and I can kind of compare what you were saying to what we talked about, and I don't see these things being discussed, right? I said, but give me till the end of this week and I'll put we'll we'll I'll go back through all of our information. We'll provide some additional things that we can that will hopefully help you feel like you know you got the output that you expected from this project. No expectations to continue services, and we're just gonna, you know, kind of send it to you because you deserve it, right? It's your project. But the the part of that that's kind of frustrating as a business owner, right, is you never reached out. You never, you never even asked, hey, by the way, can we you know get A, B, and C nothing. No, not nothing in our meetings, anything like that. And what's funny is like one of their uh outcomes was on something that does that their company can't even affect outside of the realm of services, you know, because they rely on another portion of the process to happen, like you can't affect that in your place.

Duarne 20:31

Something relevant to a third party's doing without so you can't provide any and market, like it's like you know, something that yeah, they they don't even control.

Dave 20:41

So it's kind of hard to control that and create an outcome for that. But like, you know, never once I say it was final. Like this was like, hey, this is let's go over this first draft, we'll get it ready, you know, we'll talk through it. If there's anything else you guys have questions on, let me know. Never heard a peep right from them, you know, and then they send this. And so so it's it is kind of the frustrating part of being a business owner is that you can do things like this, you you offer your support, but you just have to be open, and that's why we talk about the patience in the reply. It is easy to just want to immediately send the reply back and just be like, what are you talking about? Like, we didn't do this. Take pause, think it through, calm down, right? Let your emotions sort of you know, kind of seed. For me, how I processed that was I saw the email, I read it, uh, and then I closed it, right? Because I didn't want to like stew in it, you know what I mean? And I think that's what you can do, like read it, feel it, close it, go back to doing something else. And that's what I did. So I really didn't even like address it for the first hour because I was kind of letting my you know myself come down from the initial like what the like the WTF moment of, you know, really, to okay, let's address this now, right? And so I came back after about an hour and said, all right, let's let's go through this, let's reread it again, clear mind, with my goal of hey, I don't care if we're gonna save a partnership or the opportunity here. I still want them to feel like they got what they right, what they what they paid for. So that's where you continue there.

Duarne 22:14

Yeah, when you reread it, was there any cont additional context you got from it that you didn't get in the first read?

Dave 22:24

I I don't really think so. I think it was well, I guess let me let me not say I don't think so. I think I was able to read it from like an outside perspective. Instead of like, hey, this is now an attack, right? Like on me and the work that we provided. Instead of and the second time it was more or less of, okay, what what is there really their their sort of pains that they're they're seeing, right? That they were hoping to get that they didn't get. So I was able to sort of have that sort of analytical overview of the email and the response instead of the initial sort of tone personal effect that you would get when you read an email the first time, if that makes sense.

Duarne 23:09

So you take away it, you took away the emotional layer on this on the second read, effectively. Yeah, I find that happens to me a lot too, especially when you're communicating through an instant messaging platform. Like instant messaging is the worst, especially when you read it, and then you feel obliged to reply with something because you know they've seen that you've read it. And some of that stuff, like you need to process, you can't just reply straight away. And you see, I don't know it's for a lot of people's like, but they can see I read it. I do a lot of my reading on preview on my phone. Like my phone has a preview mode, so I tend to use preview to like read messages and then figure out if it's something I need to reply to straight away. That's my secret. Please don't pull me remember that. Yeah, but seriously, like it makes a big difference. Like when you incorporate just like a quick preview, okay, that's important. I'll get back to I'll get to that straight away. Or that's not so important, I'll look at that later. It's like a mental note. It helps me not to be distracted as often as well. But I've had so many occasions where I misinterpreted something because somebody wrote it quickly, or and then made a mistake, or I read it wrong the first time because I was skimming it and I was in the middle of something else and I wasn't paying enough attention, or I misread the context. And back in the day, I would send I'd send that email off to a friend and or my wife and say, Can you read this and tell me if what that what you think they're trying to say? And nowadays I just I'll rely on my AI agents to say, Hey, look, can you check this and just give me a bit of an idea and what what what what they're feeling here and just verify my own thoughts on it. But you're right, you have to pause, you have to take that pause because that pause can be the difference between you going rah and losing making the situation so much worse or losing my client or turning it all around. In a lot of cases, you know, you can turn these things around like you're doing, like you're saying, well, look, I understand you're not happy, but I'm willing to work with you to get the result that you want. Right.

Dave 25:21

And that's ultimately like the biggest piece is hey, like let's let's figure out what it is we we both kind of overlooked. And I kind of put that in the email, right? I just said, hey, I appreciate you breaking this down for me and kind of you know giving it the thought that it deserves. You know, I wanted to make sure that we didn't overlook something on our end. We went through, you know, the transcript from our two kickoff sessions and in-depth because they were back to back. And I said, you know, we, you know, both sides kind of overlooked the agreement piece where, you know, because we kind of jumped right in and got started really quick. But you know, none of these things were ever sort of discussed. And then, you know, additionally, the follow-up sessions were also recorded. So I want to make sure, like, okay, now did we miss anything in our follow-up sessions that were discussed that maybe we overlooked? And actually, we got found at like Yeah, I was gonna say you're just kind of going up and down, you know, just kind of determine like in the one of the follow-up sessions, one of the things that was an outcome was mentioned that it was no longer a concern. So it's like, well, what is going on? And so if you initially, you know, sort of dive in and make a response, you miss all that context. You miss the opportunity to turn it around. And I think, and I've had this kind of I had this conversation with you know a few clients in the past. When you respond immediately and you're defensive, it's like you're you're taking responsibility right off of them for also their part of the issue, right? It's not because nothing in business is ever just one-sided. You know, there's two sides, you know, the client and your side and your responsibilities together. And if you automatically reply to, you know, apologize, oh, we'll take care of it, like we'll fix it, like you're you're basically saying that you were the one at fault. And you lose all of that credibility with your potential client. Whereas if you take that moment and kind of think through a response, let the emotion go down, and then come back and be like, hey, like I realize that it that's a big issue with you, or that it's a problem going on right now. But I want to make sure, like, I look back to make sure we did everything that we said we are going to, and you know, on our side, it appears that we did. Like, where's the break, like what happened with the expectation, the breakdown, and and then that way they're open up to saying, Oh, yeah, you know what, we actually didn't let you know that, right? Or, you know, it helps them sort of if they're you know good people, they would also think, okay, okay. Yeah, if they're reasonable, there you go, that's a good way to put it. If they're reasonable, they're gonna be like, Oh, wait, yeah, I guess I did overlook that part too. So, because their initial response is never really right how they really feel, it's just they're being emotional in that moment, too. You know what I mean?

Duarne 28:05

Well, let's let's take one step back as well. And how many people these days are using AI to help them generate their

Draft, Review, Then Respond

Duarne 28:12

responses? Now, if their AI is trained on outdated information, or they've given lack of context, or they've simply said, Hey, I don't like how this is written, this is not what I thought it was. Can you create a response? I mean, you might get a poorly written email which wasn't proofread by them properly as well. And I've had that as well, where I've got a client will bring up brought up things in an email that weren't weren't even relevant to the conversation. And when I went back with questions around those topics, it was like, Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that was in there. I didn't read it properly. And it's like, okay, so this was just an AI generation, and my team's done it to me when they've sent me information before. And I'm like, what is this? Oh, sorry. It's AI garbage, it's coming out, and I mean, this is the other thing that I do when I write a response, whether it's with AI or whether it's myself or a combination of the two, which normally it tends to be, I'll leave it in draft for a minute as well. So even if I would think I want to respond straight away, I will write it, leave it in draft, and just come back to it later. Again, I'll pause, but if I feel like I need to say something right then and there, just leave it in draft. Don't send it, just leave it in draft. Or go to ChatGPT and have a vent with ChatGPT about why, and then let it you know tell me you're being a bit of a dick here. Maybe that's not what they meant. Okay, you know me too well. Thank you. Help me draft something that's a bit more reasonable. Yeah, there's always a different way. You know, I'm thankful that I've got people like you and my wife, and I can have call and I've got a couple of other friends in business who I can talk to and bounce those sort of feedback ideas on and go, what do you think they meant by this? And basically come up with that suggestion on next steps. Not everyone has that network of people. So sometimes you've just got to do that pause, reflect, and then come back to it later. Or try and use the AI tools that you might have around you to assist you, but don't but just proofread what they're saying because they may not be saying the right thing either.

Dave 31:08

Well, and and and you mentioned it earlier too, that it's not necessarily just you know an issue being you know fast to respond, but you know, it could even be somebody reaches out to you with an inquiry. You know, I got a couple of questions when we when I've talked about this with other groups and and clients. It's like, well, I'd like being quick, I like being fast to respond. I like to, you know, kind of you know, give them the information right away. And it's like, yeah, but what if their problem isn't really their problem? You know, what if what they initially say, you know, you need to dive a little bit deeper to really give them a better option or you know, understand what they're they're coming up with better. So it is always good to ask some follow-up questions right away. Like, if you want to be a fast responder, like it's great, but like don't be fast to like immediately give a solution. You can you can give a response and say, Well, you know, Darwin, I hear your concern and I appreciate you kind of bringing this up. Can can you let me know, like, you know, maybe where the where you found these objectives or where we talked about this, like if we're using that example, and then you know, two, like, you know, would it be would you be open to me, you know, continuing to provide some additional support here, right? At no cost, as part of the initial agreement, to bring some of these, you know, for you, right? Or put some of these together for you and bring them back for you. Um, and that's kind of how I left that one, right? And so that's a little bit different than just saying, Darren, I don't know what you're talking about. Like, I don't remember any of these things being discussed in any one of our meetings. Where did you come up with these? I don't agree with your feelings and you know, go pound salt, you know, essentially, if that's what you want to do. There's a big difference in both of those. And then obviously the third one of being like, Oh my god, Darren, I'm so sorry. Like, I can't believe we overlooked this information. We're gonna go back and we're gonna correct it for you, and we're gonna make it right.

Duarne 33:00

Yeah, which one do you feel like keeps it's gonna get you the better result? I mean, yeah, it's it's really strange. Like about 18 years ago, I worked for computer tech and he had a small business.

Response Times Set Expectations

Duarne 33:14

I was obviously second tech, him and then me. And we had to give out our personal mobiles back then as or our cell numbers for the clients to call us for emergencies. He and initially I was like, oh wow, okay, that's uh I don't really want to be getting calls all the time, you know, at random times and stuff like that. No, no, no. There's a technique I've employed because I work by myself and I've been doing it for so long. What I've done is I've set up a situation where I don't answer the first call from the client. I let it go to voicemail. And I was like intrigued by this. I'm like, okay. He goes, if they call straight back and don't leave a voicemail, I'll let it go straight. I'll go to voicemail again. Great. If they call a third time and don't leave a and I'll answer it. Because that's clearly something that's you know in an emergency that we've agreed is an emergency. Okay, 90% of the time they'll leave a voicemail on the first or second course, is what would happen. And he had a rule that he would call them back in 10 minutes. You'd never listen to the voicemail, he would always just call back in 10 minutes, and he would call back and go, Hey, Olivia, how are you doing? Sorry, I missed your call. I was with another client. What's what's the matter? You know what, Josh? It's okay. I've already sorted it out. This is what happened. Oh, great. Okay, cool. No worries. Well, if you get any more dramas with that, just give us a call and we'll take care of it for you. And the client was never unhappy that he never took the first call. It was the weirdest thing. They were always thankful that he called back, and he would find that over half the calls that he would call back, they'd solved their own problem. But they were still really thankful that he'd called back to confirm that the problem was solved. And the clients felt that they were getting value for money from his service because of that communication that he had. And that was how he managed running like 400 end user clients in his business offering technical support. So, because I was a bit concerned originally with the whole concept until I actually saw it in action. I implemented it as he instructed, and true enough, you'd get a call and the client go, Oh, look, you know, hi Denise, how you going? What's going on? Oh, look, I couldn't print to the printer. But you know what? I restarted the printer and everything was okay. Great, no worries. Yeah, that tends to work. If you have that problem again, just try doing that again. No worries. Thanks for the callback, Duan. I appreciate it. No worries. It's the strangest thing. Like initially, you would look at that's terrible customer service. But then when you see the process play out, you realize that that pause in answering straight away meant he didn't have to sit there for 15 minutes trying to instruct them to go and do something like restart a computer, trying to get into their computer and try and fix it, restart a printer. They would try restarting their own computer, they would try plugging in their mouse and trying to unplug their mouse. They do their own little problem solving initially because he didn't take their call straight away. And I think a lot of people, it tends to be the case. Now it's not the case for sales, so let's not get like let's not you know confuse ourselves. But for certain industries, sometimes a pause is a good thing. It lets people figure things out, especially for staff. If you're super responsive to your staff and like constantly responding and giving them answers, you're setting a precedent that every time they've got a problem, they can come to you and you'll answer it straight away. Or if you pause and let them try and figure it out, sometimes by the time you get back to them, they've already got to figure it out.

Dave 37:00

Yeah, I mean, that that's that's I think a lot of if you're a first-time leader, your first-time manager, and maybe you're a business owner, you're like, I don't want to give anything away. You feel like you have to do that. And like you said, it's the biggest release because you're training, like you just said, you're training your clients, you're training your employees how to act by how you respond to them, right? So if you're always giving them the answer, they're never gonna think for themselves, or you always immediately respond to your client emails, like it may be fine now. You can have to think like it may be fine now, and maybe you have two, three, four, five clients. But what happens when you grow to 20 clients and those people still expect you to immediately respond? Or you know, you can't do it. So you have to be willing to, you know, kind of set that precedent. I think that's where it comes down to like initially in your agreements, so I have agreements, you know, put like 24 hour response time, four-hour response time, like depending on what their their program is to support level that you're gonna be doing, uh, to be able to set that expectation. I and like you said, I the biggest one I learned for with employees is that same one was about like you know, don't give them the answers, like point them in the right direction, but let them sort of figure it out. And especially because you're busy, like you're not always gonna be available, or you may be in the middle of something, like you may not be with a client, but you may be working on something. And if you take away your distraction, like now it's like 20, 30 minutes for you to get back into the flow.

Duarne 38:37

So that lack of distraction, like the amount of times I talk to business owners back in the early days of our outsourced virtual reception services, and we're talking 15 years ago, you'd get single owner business, single,

Protect Focus With Clear Communication

Duarne 38:52

single man or women businesses trying to run their business, and they'd be doing a service industry and they'd be up a ladder, bang, phone calls. Hey, hey, hey, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yep, yep. They'd be in the middle of something, or they'd be working on a client's computer and get a call, or they'd be driving and have to pull off to the side of the road to answer the call. We put these virtual reception solutions in, and we had these guys able to grow their business, less distractions, just by taking 10, 15 calls a day off their plate and then sending them an email after the fact saying, Hey, look, Mary Jane called, she needs help with this. She said it's not so urgent. That person then knows that they don't need to call straight away. They can give it an hour or two until they finish what they're doing at court. And they were able to get their time back. And it's no joke. If you sat there and you took note how many times you get interrupted in your day, whether it's by instant messages, notifications, emails that distract you, phone calls that distract you, you'd be very, very surprised just how many distractions you get in a day and how much more efficient you can be by going into a highly focused mode. Right.

Dave 40:06

Well, I I mean, okay, I and the change of that today is things that we've talked about a lot, right? That we're doing for clients now is literally the you know, like the implementation of your own agent in in your team. Like an example of that, that you were

AI Agents as a First Line of Support

Dave 40:19

literally just, you know, that I'm thinking about, you know, I have the my VA bookkeeper, right? That that helps keep things aligned and moving forward. She would send me messages multiple times a day to, you know, related to our different clients, etc. Now, because I've trained the agent to write, which they it knows internally every single client, what we're doing, what questions are past history. She goes directly to the agent first in our communication system, and then gets if the agent can't answer it or point her in the right direction, then she comes to me. So just the the number of interactions there have been reduced because she's able to now go there and she knows how to use it. She knows how to find information, ask it questions, and get directed to where she needs to go. That I save a lot of time where I'm not one stopping to answer the questions, or two, feeling like I'm letting her down because I'm not responding to everything right away, you know. So just that in the new world is impactful to people's businesses because you can essentially take like if you think like you have you have a team and are reaching out to you all the time, just implementing an agent that's trained on the company, the policies, your clients, your processes, they can go there first. And then if they can't solve the problem, then they can come to you, right? And then you check in, obviously, with them, see how things are going, you know, that kind of stuff.

Duarne 41:48

I know companies that have introduced for their leadership team second brains, which are AI agents trained on the personality and correspondence of the actual person who they're they're you know they're actually meant to be mimicking. And that second brain is like an agent that can answer respond to the staff initially, and then if it feels like that it's not getting the answer they want, they can escalate that beyond to that manager directly. And it's not about trying to create a roadblock, it's actually about trying to respect the time of all people involved. I love it. Like one of my my director of ops, I introduced a Hermes agent on a second laptop for him to run on his desk. And I check in with him every week since we've done it, and it's about six weeks now, and I say, How's it going? He goes, Well, actually, today, this is a real example today. I have this situation where I have to log into this this flat portal and my email over here, which I don't check very often because it's not much going on. And I have to, every time there's a ticket, I have to go and recreate it over here in this other system. So for our team and then allocate it to our team for dispatching. I've set a rule so every 30 minutes, this new agent I've created, it goes and checks it. If it finds one, it goes and then creates the new ticket in the new system and then notifies me to tell me that it's done it. So I can go and allocate it and dispatch it to the team. And I'm like, that's cool. I say, how much time is that saving? He goes, about 10 minutes every interaction. And I'm like, how many interactions a day normally? He goes, three or five. It's almost a whole hour. 30 minutes to an hour that he's got back of his day previously, because he would have, you know, he would have been a little bit stressed out about trusting someone else with his password because it's two-factor authentication, etc. It's very secure. He's got a second laptop sitting next to him with an agent running on it doing the work that he can physically look over and see what it's doing. So he's he's happy with his level of you know uh protection. He's put in testing and drafting so it wasn't completely automated initially. He would come up and do it in stages. Now he's finally hit the button to make it automated. So this is the sort of thing that we're seeing in the workplace now where there's a lot of automation, there's a lot of combination of AI with automation to help solve little problems that people are having, especially when it comes to communication. And I think a lot of people are realizing you don't need instant replies to everything. And social media platforms, we used to call it instant messaging platforms. We don't call it instant message anymore because it's not about instant messaging, it's just another medium to send messaging to somebody and information to somebody. But there's an expectation because it with when you send an email or you send an instant message. Message to somebody on any platform, oh, they must have seen it, they have to act on it straight away. We need a response straight away. Without taking into consideration that they may be in the middle of something. So I think we should also extend that to other people that just because I sent an email or I sent an instant message and they've seen it doesn't mean that they should be responding straight away. Because maybe they are in the middle of something, maybe they're exercising exactly what we talked about and showing some restraint in response.

Dave 46:22

Um I think the biggest you know, the biggest thing, if you need an instant, right? Obviously, if you need an instant, you call. I mean it's still open. Like if you want an instant answer, you call the person, you know, and then yeah, that's what you still have. I think a lot of people tend to shy away from phone calls, you know, but it's the best way and only way you're gonna be able to get an, you know, if they if they pick up the phone to get a response from them, you know. Everything else, it's out of your control, you know, a DM, an email, anything like that, it's out of your control. You just have to send it and then you're kind of at their mercy. Whereas a phone call, if they pick up, you know, now you have them on the phone, you can you can talk through things, but you gotta you know, also like understand like here's the thing nobody knows 100% of anything, it's just that way. So the expectation that if you have a question, if it's low level, I get it. Like, yeah, you should call your person and be able to get an answer. But in the majority of the time, you should be, you should want them to say, hey, let me look through this and I'll get you some additional feedback so you guys have it, right?

unknown 47:25

Yeah.

Dave 47:26

Versus, oh yeah, go go do this, like with no thought. Like you want a partner or any sort of you know, employee, whatever, that's going to be able to think through a solution, not just give you the answer right away, unless it's low level. If it's any sort of depth, you would want them to kind of confirm it first before they give it to you.

Duarne 47:46

Absolutely, and I totally agree, and I think you're right. You have phone calls for direct channel access, for direct communications. And one thing to keep in mind with DMs and emails, just think about how many emails you get in a day. Think about how many DM channels you're actually getting instant

Set Channels and Boundaries

Duarne 48:07

messaging and direct messaging from, you know, whether it's Messenger, WhatsApp, Teams, Fiverr, Google Chat, and there's all these different platforms, Slack, you know, Discord. There's so many methods of communication these days, it's ridiculous. And I think this is where people are losing track as well, because I've got multiple screens, and some of my screens are just to keep track of communication, and it is insane to the point where I would much rather go back to the days and saying, Look, if you want me, just call me or drop me an email. That's it. And some of my clients, I have an agreement in place that you just email me if you need me. Or I say, Hey, if you need me and it's important, drop me an email and then just give me a call. And if I don't if I don't answer your email within the hour.

unknown 49:01

Right.

Duarne 49:02

But you're right, you have to train people. If you go answering calls at 7 p.m. on a Saturday evening when you're having dinner with family or you're out watching a ball game, and you do that on a regular basis with clients, they're gonna start to feel that's a norm and that's something they can do all the time. You know, if you answer the call and say, Hey, look, if this is if this is an emergency, I can help you. But if it's not, is it okay if I call you back Monday morning? I'm just at the ballgame with you know with the family. Set an expectation. Most people are reasonable and they're gonna go, you know what, this can wait. Or you know what, it's actually an emergency, everything's offline, I can't do what I need to do, and I've got payroll tomorrow. Okay, no worries. Can I call you back in an hour? Sure. Let me look into it. It's all about expectations, and there is so many people out there in business so scared of losing clients, they won't set expectations with their clients. They're terrified that they have to be at the whim and the mercy of what their client wants, but they don't realize if they just pause and push back just a little bit. A lot of clients will generally happily be willing to keep, you know, do what they're asking. That the process they're putting in place. And it comes back to that word process again, right? If you don't have a process for communicating with your clients, how can you train your clients and staff to communicate with you effectively?

Dave 50:31

Right. Well, and I think too, you know, you got to make sure you're actually providing the outcome and the value for them. And you're getting you know, a client who you're you're missing the outcome, it may might not accept you know your terms or you know, because you're not giving them what they expect from you, but uh, which is why it's also so important to you know make sure you over-deliver and underpromise, right? Which I think is a big one for business.

Duarne 50:55

But yeah, yeah. So you've got to ask yourself that question, right? Like, what do you want out of your business and why? And if you're if you want to just be working 100% of the time and taking calls by clients all the time, and we've seen those mems where there's business owners walking around on their cell phone, sitting down, taking the kids to the store, and then standing on in a corner trying to figure something out, looking miserable. And it's like, you want to see a business owner? That's a business owner right there. And it's like, well, that's a choice. They've made a choice to be on the phone all the time and not balance their activities around. And it's a lot of it comes down to what you train except your clients in is acceptable behavior to communicate with you.

Dave 51:38

Yeah, yeah, it's like tell me, tell me your husband or wife is a business owner without telling me your husband and wife is a business owner, right? And it's like you know, in the grocery store standing in the corner on a phone or something like that. You know, I mean, I'll admit that sometimes is me, you know what I mean? Like, of course, but all of us I want to get away, like my goal is to get away

Coach Problem Solving, Not Dependence

Dave 51:58

from that. So, you know, like recently I've I'm trying to leave like my business phone in in the car or leaving the business phone at home and only taking my personal phone with me, right? But with that, you know, there are some differences of talking and handling client situations versus you know developing things that you're working on yourself. There's a difference there, you know, like if you're if you're working on different things, great. If you're the problem solver and the firefighter in your business, not so great. And a lot of times that goes back to if you have staff and you have teams because you didn't train them how to problem solve themselves. And that's part of leadership. Don't get me wrong, like you can learn that. Like that is learnable of how to do that and how to train and talk to them and give them right those responsibilities. And part of them is giving them room to fail and not we're you know, kind of destroying them when they fail. Because if somebody fails one time and they miss your expectations and then you destroy them, they're never gonna feel comfortable like trying to solve a problem again. And you're never gonna be like, you can't get that back. You know, like once somebody, you know, once you reprimand somebody for trying to think on their own and then failing, they're never gonna, especially those employee mindset people. Nope, never again. What will they think outside the box? So you have to be willing to be calm, right? Patient in terms of the first answer. So if somebody says you something that doesn't work, don't respond right away, right? Give it, give it a moment. I don't know why they just gave me a thumbs up, but at least the the the video thinks I'm saying something right, so that's good. Pause for a moment and then ask, hey, just curious, how did you come up with that? Right? Give them a moment to kind of talk through it and then say, you know, and then walk through it with them patiently. You know, talk where did where did you how did you come up with it? What was the policy, right? What have we, what's the understanding? If it was against policy, what made them think that they could go right? And so walk them through it. Don't just like be like, that was a horrible idea. Why would you ever do that? Like, that's not what I told you to do. You should never do that again. Like, they're never gonna think that's out the box. And and try to solve problems. They're always just gonna be like, Oh, I got this problem again, Jay. What do you want? And it doesn't matter if it's 8 p.m., especially depending on your business hours, they're gonna call you because they don't want to fuck up again. Pardon my fact.

SPEAKER_01 54:15

Absolutely.

Duarne 54:16

Yeah, you know, it's interesting. Like, I had a conversation with one of my guys today in relation to some upskilling from one of our devs, and they built an app during their upskilling project project, and they were demonstrating it to me. And I'm sitting there and he's team leaders in the call, and I said, The so your app's missing this, this, this, and this. You self-admitted that those things are missing, and what's so what's your plan? You're gonna put those in, yeah. Yeah, I'm working on those, those are my next steps. And it's like, cool, okay. Well, how does this differ to the app that we already have in place for the company? And there was a pause. And I'm like, You realize we have an app that does all of this in the company, right? And he took a moment and goes, No, I didn't realize that. And then his team leader says, Hang on, you use it every day, it's this one, and told him that oh, oh yeah, and it was like this moment of realization that I mentioned to you the I could have destroyed the guy at the time, but instead, the way I handled it was a situation where I'm like, So, how about this? Tell me what makes your application better or more suitable for our business than what we're using already. And he ended up going through telling us everything that the the app we have already does that he doesn't do instead. And then at the end of it goes, Yeah, I think what we're using is probably okay, right? I don't think we need to have I don't think we need this, and he had a self-realization, and I said, Well, look, you know what? This was an exercise in developing your upskilling your skills on the development side, and this was a project that you chose, and you executed it okay. I would make a strong suggestion that the first part of the processing future be investigate thoroughly what is already in place, right?

Dave 56:21

What are the and try and work out what you're gonna make better before you start building anything, and then build a well, I think the biggest the biggest piece there is is figuring that out, and I say this all the time to people is what problem are you solving? Yes, right? What problem are you bringing and your solution to? So James, you know, fear is a big determinant, being able to grow as an owner. Absolutely. You know, I think in order to be successful at business, you you definitely have to be willing to put aside your fear, which I think is is hard and it takes a lot of effort and repetition and practice. You know, as James said, you know, so many truths being spoken.

SPEAKER_01 57:09

Appreciate it.

Dave 57:10

Appreciate that one, but two, sadly, it's because you know a lot of the stuff has been learned. You know, and our side, we I've I've I've gone through these mistakes, I've gone through you know all the things that that we've been talking about, and you know the thing here too is that you can't you can't force people to listen to the mistakes, to listen and take your advice. All you can do is is give it, you know, from your experience. And eventually, when the time is right for them, they'll they'll listen. So yeah, appreciate it, James.

Duarne 57:42

It's like we're talking about your Sunday. I consider myself as a father, a coach. Great. I'm effectively trying to set out a path and a for my son and now my daughters for them to follow, guide them in the right direction to get the results that they're you know they're looking for. You gave your son some great advice and let him come up with his own conclusion, you coached him on what the options were, and let him come up with a solution that you know was right for him with his jersey. Right. And he came up and thanked you later for it. If you were just told him, no, buy this, you're gonna regret it if you don't, yeah, and then walked away and left it at that. Or hey, look, I'll give you the extra 60 bucks, just get the one you want. There was no there's no lesson learnt there, right? There's no moment of agonizing over a decision, and that's what life is, especially in business. Like those the message there that just came through, the fear, it's agonizing over making the wrong decision. Because, you know, and what does that mean? What is the consequence of that wrong decision that you're gonna make? And that can sometimes, you know, keep you up at night. Uh one of my clients will call calls me the other week and he's like having a moment because one of his clients he didn't know if he was gonna lose them, or because there was a pretty rough conversation from one of the uh directors the day before. Yeah, director misinterpreted a security protocol that was in place and made an accusation and got mad when he was corrected that that was actually an existing policy that was put in place and et cetera, et cetera. And he lost a night's sleep over it because he thought maybe we're gonna lose the account. He was agonizing over that. And then he realized that you know what? No, I'm not gonna lose any sleep. That that guy was just in a you know, he needed he was mad at the time and he needed to vent. And that was just the he was just happened to be the right the person there who got vented at at that point in time. But those are the fears and the agony that we have to put up with as business owners. These are the and if we don't have a community around us to lean on and share advice with, like we have, then it can be a very lonely journey.

Dave 1:00:11

Yeah. Very lonely. And so that's why I think you have to have your network, you have to have people around you that understand where you're heading and the pain, the struggles that you're going through, not just your family, you know, because a lot of them, unless they do know they've been there, they they don't understand it, right? They're the employee,

Lead With Better Stories

Dave 1:00:33

they are the employee corporate mindset. Go get a paycheck, go get a you know, structured job and you know, feel good about what you're doing. You have to surround yourself with people that they understand.

Duarne 1:00:45

They read like, oh, you're so unhappy, you're always complaining about things, you never you always look miserable, you always got no money.

Dave 1:00:52

Well, but here well, here but here's what I'm gonna change about that. So if that's you and that's what your family or the people around you that are saying, change it. Like you have to stop. Like you can't as uh it's Tony Robbins, right? Whatever you say becomes your thoughts, and whatever you think then becomes your reality. So you have to literally stop complaining to other people that don't understand, right? And you know, thinking that you're miserable because you're doing what you want. Stop complaining. Yes, it's hard. I get it, but stop complaining. It's your choice. Now you just man up, woman up, whatever it is. Don't complain. Just be like, oh, yeah, you know, hey, here's what I learned this week. Focus on the positive things every single day, and your journey, right, isn't gonna feel horrible, right? Or people around you aren't gonna be like, Man, you're always right miserable, or I, you know, why don't you just go get a job? Yeah, again, things that I've experienced in my past, like and still learning on this, like you have to outwardly talk just as much as you inwardly talk uh in the positive fashion, otherwise it's gonna affect your emotions, which affects how you then engage with other people, right? So if you catch yourself complaining to you know somebody outside outside of a business meeting, and even you can structure your conversations in a positive manner. Hey, uh instead of saying, oh man, revenue's down, what the hell are we gonna do? Man, we're we're it woe is us. Revenue's off, right, 25% this month. What happened? What could we change? How can we improve it? There's a big difference of approaching it that versus approaching it from the negative mindset way. And it is a shift on how you start having your conversations, which again flows through your entire sort of mental being of thoughts, then emotions, emotions and interactions and outward, you know, sort of actions. And so when you do all that and you start catching yourself and changing these interactions, which is things that I'm continually working on now, drastic effect. So if people around you say, hey, all you do is kind of complain about being a business owner, or all you do is look miserable, that should tell you something about yourself and how you interact with those people as well, as much as what they're saying, right? So listen to that and say, What can I improve and what do I need to adjust to be better and you know experience life in a different way?

Duarne 1:03:19

Absolutely. And it comes down to it's like there's this general question that people tend to ask everyone, oh, how are you going, mate? Or how's it going? And if your answer is, oh, it's so busy, so much going on, you know, I just can't keep up with it. I'd love a holiday, and that's all they ever hear from you. Well, they're just gonna assume you're bloody miserable in what you're doing, right? Or you know what, money's tight right now, really hard to make again. Try instead answering in a more positive way. Like, you know what? Lots of lessons being learned, but I'm enjoying certain aspects of it.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:56

Yep.

Duarne 1:03:57

Yeah, same thing, different message. If you think about the people you interact with, if you've got a favorite coffee shop, and the person behind the counter is the same person. Like, I used to go to a coffee shop when I years and years ago, and Lawrence was the guy who owned this little coffee shop in the mall, and I'd turn up every morning for my morning coffee four or five times a week. He'd give me my coffee, and he would always we'd have a chit-chat while he made the coffee, grab my muffin, and off I'd go to work. And he, I remember he one time he he'd mentioned something about one of my co colleagues that I worked with, and said, Is that guy okay? He's always, you know, he always seems a bit down. And I just happened to be there one day when he was there, and my colleague, and I'd heard the conversations, he was just complaining about everything. Yet in the workplace, he was actually a really happy guy. But his interaction with that particular barista, the coffee shop man, it just happened to be a very negative experience all the time. Turns out that he his routine would get all that crap out in the morning before he got to the office, and then he would be in a and then he would be in a positive mood for the work.

unknown 1:05:03

Right.

Duarne 1:05:03

That was his that was his process. But the coffee shop guy just thought that he was a pretty miserable buddy guy and hated his job.

Dave 1:05:11

I mean the biggest lie, right. Yeah, like like the biggest lie that I think I ever told myself was oh, I can't I can't be productive until I have a coffee. Like, oh, I haven't had my cup of coffee today. I can't be productive. Like, no, like coffee is is is a motivator sometimes to be better, but like I can still be productive before my coffee kicks in, or absolutely oh man, I messed up. Like the today's gonna be horrible. Like, no, it's not. Like, you one thing bad happened, like you spilled your coffee in the morning. Who cares? Like the rest of your day is not gonna be bad. Like, why why are you why are you putting that out there? Why are you putting your mindset that way? So I think it's a good thing to kind of end today on. We've talked about a lot, and I hope you guys have uh you know learned something, can take something away from today's episode, or maybe one or two multiple things, you know, do other fun stuff. But you know, Duarno, I guess what, as we like to end it, what's one of your what something that you from today's episode that you hope they take away from?

Duarne 1:06:10

Yeah, I like that more positive mindset. Try and approach

Key Takeaways and Closing

Duarne 1:06:14

every situation with a positive mindset. So first off, when we started started talking, it was take every time a mess, every time you get a communication that you feel a little bit doubtful about the intent, and just take that moment and give it a moment's thought before responding, but also try and look at what positive notes you could take from it. Where did you, where could you improve the future? Did you pick the wrong customer? Is this the wrong are you picking the wrong customer for your business? You know, there's other ways to look at these situations. It may not be the right fit for you and your business at that time. So there's lots of different ways to approach a situation that don't feel like you've failed in the situation as well. I'm not saying be in denial, I'm just saying appro consider other alternative approaches and try and consider a more positive approach because when you start to feel more positive about yourself, that'll be projected and people will see it. And that is a good way to live, in my opinion, rather than you know, feeling down and miserable about everything going on around you.

Dave 1:07:22

100%. You know, it you know, kind of James here, I think you kind of missed this comment earlier, James, so sorry. You know, creating the rhythms, right? Which is about right, not only work, but you as a business owner, right? The rhythms have it, make you more predictable, helps you remove the fears. You know, and as James said, he has over 30 years of running contractor businesses, fell flat on his face a few times. So we've we've all fallen flat. Like it is a it is the exception to the rule that if you try business, that you're gonna be successful the first time. You know, you're going to make mistakes. So many people try, fail, try, fail multiple times. So if it's your first time and you feel like you're failing, that's okay. Like not everybody gets it right the first time. You're gonna have to get out there and kind of do change something, or might have to get a part-time job sometime, right? And then go back to it. So it doesn't have to be, you know, the first time is gonna be the right time. But but as James said, right, it's all about making the habits for your daily life, making your habits for your week and building them, but it's not just gonna happen after one week. You know, as I mentioned last week, I'm I'm reading the book Limitless, and in there he mentioned a study, I think it was done at Harvard, and it said the average of the group that they were studying to build something into a habit was about 67 days of doing it before it actually became a you know thoughtless habit where they just knew that that's what they were gonna do every day. So, and some people took as much as 280 days from that same study. You know, some people was as less as 14, some was 280, and you know, the average was about 67. So really realizing that you have to be motivated to do it and continually do it until it becomes like a thoughtless process in your day, which is why having a positive mindset is so hard because it is so common and and default for people to be in the negative mindset. And so you have to catch yourself, you have to be willing to, you know, kind of correct yourself and do that. So that's where I'm gonna end it with today. So, with that, hope you guys have a wonderful and amazing week. Hope you guys enjoyed the episode. I know I did take something away. Uh, share it if you did find something, share it with your network. If you can do all the fun algorithm stuff, we're here every Friday morning, 8:30, roughly, depending on how our pre-show goes. Sometime around 8:30, we go live. And every Friday, but we look forward to seeing you guys next week. Hope you guys have a wonderful and amazing rest of your week. And we'll see y'all. We'll see y'all on the next one. Have a good one. See you guys. Thanks.