Beyond The Launch: Managing Employees Podcast Recap

The Beyond The Launch series of the “Small Business, Big Ideas” podcast is designed to give you practical advice from real-world experience so that you can avoid common pitfalls and learn how to run a better business without breaking the bank. 

We discuss financial reports and forecasting, how to stay out of trouble, managing the personality of money, accounting basics, and more!

A life-long advocate for civic leadership and entrepreneurship, Ken's career has included small business creation and ownership, the director of an entrepreneurship center and faculty member of a community college, and leadership in the not-for-profit and community development organizations of his community.

Over the last decade, as founder and President of Distinct, Vince has worked with over 400 small businesses and nonprofits. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from DePauw University and is an MBA candidate with Quantic School of Business and Technology.

Vince Aguirre: Hello everyone who’s tuning in live. My name is Vince Aguirre and I'm the president of the web design company named Distinct. Since 2013, we've worked with over 400 small businesses to improve their online presence through web design, SEO, and marketing. I'm also the host of the Small Business Big Ideas podcast and Facebook group. Today, I'm joined by a familiar face, Ken Eitel.

Ken Eitel: Morning!

Vince: Morning Ken! Ken's career has included small business creation and ownership. He's been the director of an entrepreneurship center, a faculty member of a community college, and has leadership in the nonprofit and community development organizations of his community. Ken, how are you?

Ken: I'm just fine. It's good to see you again.

Vince: Good to see you again. Always a pleasure. Ken, today we're gonna be talking about managing employees, right?

Ken: We are, among other subjects all kind of the same. Same area, but very complex.

Vince: Yeah. Before we get started, is there anything on your mind that you want to share outside of our schedule today?

Ken: I think I had some opportunity to watch the two previous sessions. And felt that Tiffany last week added a great deal to what we're talking about. And would encourage anyone who's a first-timer today, to go back and take a look at those about managing your finances. Because we're gonna talk about.. that we'll touch on that today, that just wants to do everything we talked about.

Vince: And those understandings are important. So I would encourage that. And would say that when I review these things and go through these different sessions, I'm always surprised at everything you have to think about. And for anyone who is watching or listening to this, wherever you are finding it, you can go back in the stream and find the previous episodes, they are going to be available anywhere where you are listening or watching this. And I might encourage also that last week, we did have some question or a question, while live on a question afterward from a listener. So feel free to submit any questions no matter how you're watching this, even if it's past the time of live stream, we'll try to answer it and talk about that on our next stream.

Ken: Yeah, and I really appreciate those questions. You know, it just points out how how how people are thinking about how they can move forward, how they can expand where their markets are. And what are those things, it's so important is that you just continue to you continue to look at those things. Because as we all know, things change and they can change rapidly.

Vince: Absolutely, absolutely. I think it's important. That's why we continue to do these sessions. And maybe next year, we'll kind of recap them and go over them again. You know, because things are ever-evolving. Ken, why don't we jump in?

3:54 For Start-ups, Hiring Can be Scary

Ken: Sure. So I think one of the things that it's important to know about this subject is this probably is, as I've been around people that have done startups and have been in business for a while, probably the number one largest, most difficult decision you can make in a startup, is it time for me to hire people? And there's a lot of reasons for that. There's a lot of reasons for those struggles. It can be scary. You know, those people that work for you are dependent upon you for their livelihood, and the groceries and all of those things. And so, that's the first thing to consider is not only can I afford or do I need employees, but can I serve those employees in a way that enriches their life? And so all those things have to come into play. The other thing that I think is important to point out, when I purchased the family business, they're already employees. So I didn't have to make that decision. It was a business, that wasn't an operation. It had been for decades. That said, you know, I managed differently than the people prior to me. And so over a period of time that was, I'll call it ‘turnover'. But we were able to have just a terrific staff all the way through our 30 plus years, at the flower shop. So one of the things that I learned over those periods of time was that we often talk about managers and employees, and I think back 30 or 40 years ago, management was viewed a little bit differently than it is today. And I think managers really now have to have the ability to lead as well as manage people. It's a very different world. And it's an ongoing debate. It's been a debate for a long, long time. Is it – what is the difference between management and leadership? We're not going to talk about that in great detail today. But I want you to be aware of that is that as we go through this discussion today, it's very, I'll call it muddled. And it requires oftentimes the ability to do both in certain ways. So for me, management is technical in nature. Some people call it transactional, it's much more defined in the way things happen, and the things that need to do to go on. Whereas leadership is more adaptive. You have to be able to react to what's happening at the time, you have to understand all of your employees' personalities, and how they communicate, and how you communicate with them best. And so it's transformational. And you hear that discussion about leaders in the larger world, so to speak, who's been transformational. But then you also have the importance of those leaders who are very technical and are able to deal in a transactional way. So the first thing we're going to talk about today, is that technical piece, of which is management, and what's it mean to you, when you get what do you have to do when you get ready to hire employees, and then all of a sudden, you have one or two, or four or five people who you have to manage? So one of the things that I'm interested in hearing from Vince is you just recently in the last year or so started hiring staff, and you've gone through at least one phase that I know of, of key people who have decided to move on, not necessarily because of something they didn't like, but because they wanted to improve their place in life. So tell me about that process and that decision-making that choice to hire people and how you feel when somebody decides to move on?

Vince: Yeah, so I would say it's quite a unique and terrifying situation. For me, at least, you know, in starting hiring, I've been through a couple of phases now of hiring and then taking a step back, and then hiring and now people moving on where it every time has been unique. And every time comes with its own learning experience. So from what I've learned, you know, you're going to have turnovers, especially when maybe it's an entry-level position and someone who's going to be moving on to a higher level position somewhere else. But, I'm starting to really understand the importance of the phrase “people over process”. And for a while, I thought a good process could really anyone can be plugged in and do it well. But I'm really, especially with this last round of turnover, understanding that having the right person in the right position, and having the right skillset is is the best thing you can possibly have. And the process can be developed along with that to fit that right person. So, I'm not sure if I answered your question, but that's kind of where my mind is with hiring right now. Especially as I start interviewing to replace some of these open positions. And I'm looking with a whole different lens that I didn't have before and in trying to figure out well, is this person good fit that position, and putting them in the right place to be successful? So that's the kind of unique experience I'm going through this time around.

10:57 People You Hire Will Look at the Way You Manage Yourself

Ken: Yeah, I think that's a great, just great insight into what personal experience is, it changes every time. And while team buildings a whole nother session. Clearly, if you have a team of four, five folks, and you bring somebody new in, the atmosphere changes, the dynamic changes. And so from a management standpoint, that's one of the things you have to think about, as you add people expand people. And of course, when you make the decision to hire, you get to make all the decisions and maybe argue with yourself about it. But you don't have to talk about it with anybody else, you could just do it. And if you make a mistake, it's a mistake. And if it's successful, it's successful. But all of a sudden, when people start to come and work for you, and you start to share ideas, and you start to collaborate, it's sometimes not as easy to move things forward the way you want to. So the first thing I have, in a transitional type of model, a technical model, which I kept classifying as management, is the need to manage yourself. I think what you're talking about a little bit Vince when you talk about the experience you've had, and what you kind of got ready for is, you know, people you hire will look at the way you manage yourself, your life, your business. And they're just like, they're like kids, they soak up what goes on around them, they see that they learn from it. And so are you managing yourself in a way that moves the business forward, that treats your folks correctly? Do you have in place the things that need to be there, so that you can appropriately manage the people who are there within the business itself? So I think that's really very important is self-management and how that looks. So once you can feel comfortable with that, and you make this decision that you know, if I'm going to grow, I've got to have other people working for me.

12:10 You'll Never Build Wealth Unless You Have People Working for You

Ken: And one of the things that a wise person told me when I was thinking about leaving a job that I own part of a business to buy my family's flower shop, was that you know, you'll never build wealth unless you have people working for you. And I think that has held true. And so as you continue to grow, there's only so much you as an individual entrepreneur can do. And so it comes to that point, how do I bring people on that that will help us grow the business, make it more stable, more profitable, and all those things? So the first thing to do is to sit back and say, What's this look like? You know, if I started bringing people on, what do I want them to do? Where are my needs? And quite honestly, where are my weaknesses? You know, what can't I do? I don't like to do accounting. I don't like to do bookkeeping. I don't like to do certain things. So, how do I put together a structure that will help me? So I know again Vince, you just completed some of that with a visioning project. What do you see in terms of how you put that piece together?

13:31 Figure Out What You Only Realistically Have Time To Do

Vince: Yeah. So I think it's really important to both not only figure out what you enjoy and don't enjoy doing, but also what you realistically have time to do. You know, it's something I've always kind of looked at it solely from that perspective of, you know, “Is this my favorite part of the business?” And sometimes it is something I really enjoy doing within the business. But realistically, it needs two or three times, the amount of energy I can give it while managing other skills are more important things or things that are going to be really expensive to hire someone to be an expert at. So I think that's a really important balance on top of what you're saying. And something I'm struggling with right now, where you know, I love working directly with clients. But that's also a really easy place for me to hire someone to start working with clients as well. Well, I can work on something that's a little more technical, with technical skills that are hard to hire for or very expensive to hire for that are unique skills to me. So I think it's finding that balance. But absolutely, if it's something that you don't think you're very good at, and it's something you don't enjoy doing within your business, like that's the first thing you need to find someone who's good at it and enjoys it and bring them on to help delegate those tasks to.

Ken: So one of the other things I know you've done, and we didn't do very much but we see, I think more and more is hiring outside where I'll call it consultants, people that you would pay as a fee or as an outside contractor to do some of these things. Do you feel that's a first step option to actually bringing staff on?

Vince: I think it absolutely can be. You know, there's some pros and cons, the pros are, they're often highly talented, and they want that flexibility in life. So you might be able to get them at a more affordable rate than you would if you were hiring them full time with benefits and salaries. But you know, some of the cons are as a contractor, you don't really have much control over when they work, or how they work. You know, that's a trade-off for a contractor. And oftentimes, they can have a higher hourly rate than they would if they were a salaried employee. So you have those trade-offs. But right now I'm going through a phase where I have a pretty core group of contractors who are helping us transition through this hiring phase. And very likely, we'll keep some of them on as specialists. So we don't have a high salary, we just have an hourly rate. And even though it is a larger rate than it would be, you know, we don't we're not paying them for 40 hours a week. So it works out well for everyone. And even though we lose some of that control, we gained a lot of skills. So it's definitely a good step, especially in transitional periods, or maybe for that first hire to bring someone out as a contractor, and then grow from there.

16:37 Having Job Descriptions Are Critical

Ken: So one of the things that I know, we've talked about, and I think you've done, I know I did, was to have an organizational chart, that may be flat, it may be hierarchal, and those are, again, are terms for other sessions, but and in that organizational chart, you have job descriptions. And so what you do when you put job descriptions together is you set up a framework of knowing the skills that you need for the people you want to hire or even the outside contractors you want to use. Who can I find? And what best way can I get this job done? In a timely goal-setting way profitably? And all of those things. What kind of person am I looking for? And so having job descriptions are just critical. In terms of how you're going to manage the people that you hire. The other thing that we had in particular with all employees, is some type of goals. You know, in a year, where we would like you to be? Or what type of training would you maybe want to have, during this period of time? How can we help you grow as an employee so that you'll become more valuable, not just us, but also be more satisfied with your own personal growth?

17:47 Are You Busy with the Right Things?

Ken: But there are other things to consider I think too. First of all, you need to do a market assessment. I mean, before you hire, yeah, you're busy. But are you busy with the right things? And so is the market there to for me to pay somebody and all the expenses that go along with it that we've talked about in some of the other sessions? You know, what's the financial impact? Have I plugged into my budget? What is going to cost me to hire somebody? Or two people? Or whatever. And will that show a return? Will that bring more money? Will my customers be more satisfied? And can I add more customers, because I've brought on people in these particular areas, you know, what we've talked about and having an accountant, attorney, and an insurance guy, they don't work for you? But they allow you to free your time up to do management, and to deal with, what you needed to do to grow the business, the same things true of having good staff, and good employees is that they free you up to grow the business which ultimately, is what has to happen. So the markets are important, the financial impact on your business is important. And when you have all those things in place, then then you're able to take a look and manage where you place people, the type of responsibilities that you give them. From a technical side, you're able to set some goals that will give you kind of a performance review. If you do those kinds of things. And you're able to take a look at is really working.

19:30 “I was trying to make my employees like me.”

Ken: Then the other piece of management is managing people's communication styles. And quite honestly, their personalities, their gifts, their talents, you know, you'll have people who dislike yourself are talented in one area and have abilities but not in another. And the first time I did one of these types of profiles. I realized that I was trying to make my employees like me. And I didn't need that. And it turned out that out of luck, I had one person who was very, very technical, who was doing all my buying and pricing. And I gave her everything to check it. And I always got upset when she found all my mistakes. Because she was technical. But she was a very, very important piece of the business. And so how do those, how can you fit those things into your job descriptions, into your business plan into your structure? So that you have the right people. And don't hesitate to think about how you can shift somebody from place to place to where if they're not gifted or talented in a particular area – how can you move them? In our case, we have very talented people who were great with folks. But they sure could design a flower arrangement. It could sell it. And that's an important piece of that. So those things are important to have in place so that you know that you're managing people in a way that is productive. But they're also satisfied with what they're doing.

21:29 You Can Have Someone Who is Extremely Talented in the Wrong Position

Vince: Absolutely, absolutely. And that's one thing I learned, you can't see it on screen. But there's a book on my bookshelf called ‘Traction'. And it kind of defines ways to manage a small business. And one of the biggest things they have on, that book is a matrix you can use to find out if it's the right person in the right position if they have the skills to do it. And if not, you can find a way to move them around the organization, as you said, or unfortunately, sometimes you have to part ways. But it's a really good metric if anyone's looking for ways to kind of measure that within their organization. And it's really helped me realize that you can have someone who's extremely talented in the wrong position, and not adding value to the organization because they're not in the right position. Or sometimes they no longer have the desire to do what it takes in that position. So I think that really complements what you just said.

22:20 You Will Grow and You Will Learn as You Work to Manage People

Ken: The other technique you can use to explore those talents and gifts, is what we might call ‘Cross Training'. And while this, you know what may happen is this individual who just isn't really happy in what they're doing, when you quote, cross-train, it's not saying I'm going to shift your position. But I'm trying to look for that position that you're most satisfied with, where you can do the best you could do. So there's a lot as you said, there's a lot of publications out there. And I think I've said it several times, just read, read, read, read. And you won't take you will take everything in a book. But you'll get some nuggets as you call them Vince that will help you as you move forward in your growth as a manager because you will grow and you will learn as you try to work to manage your people.

25:10 Everybody Leads Somebody

Ken: So, let's talk a little bit about Management and Leadership. You know, leadership is a word that's used a lot. And it's become a kind of a catch-all for a lot of different things. And I think that it's very complex, it does go back to what are your gifts and your talents? It does go back to how you interact and how you communicate with people. And what I want to talk about as much as anything today is what I call situational leadership. You know it's been said, ‘Everybody leads somebody'. You know, whether you realize it or not just because you're active, somebody is watching you, and they're taking from you an example of how you act and how you don't act. And that's leadership. And, you know, I've always talked about my biggest challenge with leadership was when we had a dog trying to get my dog to do what I wanted him to. And so that's kind of, an off-side offshoot to this, but yeah, you need to be able to take situations and do it through inspiration. Because if you're not doing it through inspiration, it's management. If you're doing it by saying I want it done this way that's management. If you're doing it by inspiring somebody to complete a job, then that's leadership. And every situation is different. And I think we could talk a lot about leadership and management. You know, some people find themselves in a manager's position. And particularly in middle management, where they're being, quote, managed by someone above them, yet they have to manage someone below them. And that requires a specific talent to be able to lead or manage both sides of that. In this case, I think we're talking about people that are owners of businesses or startups who have just launched and management's important. But you also have to figure out how can I lead and inspire those folks that work for me? So just like management, the first thing is to be able to lead yourself, you know, are you able to, you know, see the future are you able to put in place a plan, a mission statement so that you kind of know where you're going. Cause it's pretty hard if someone who is a manager or an owner, who's leading an organization, to do all of that if people sense you don't know where you're going. And so, it is important to do that first. Secondly, it's important, I think, to talk about being employees, or partners, or team members, and there are all sorts of different ways to state this. Generally speaking, you know, team members or partners or associates, those are just current words for employees. You know, a partner implies to me that you have a financial stake in what's going on. So you know, you can partner and we're talking about business here now. You can partner but do you, what kind of stake do you have in the future of the business? One of the keys of leadership in this area is to give people the feeling of being stakeholders and let them make decisions, let them have the freedom, and delegate to those folks so that they can accomplish things on their own leaving you to do the other things that you need to do that will require leadership and not management. Because it's very hard to manage people you want to delegate to. You need to be able to help let them have that freedom.

Ken: What do you think about situational leadership, Vince? What have you seen in terms of the difference between management and leadership? And how does that do with what you're doing and where you are?

Vince: I would say, I'm learning rapidly, that they are very unique skill sets. And it's easy to not consider them unique. So in my specific situation, you know, I think the inspirational kind of leadership, and coaching, if you will, comes a little more naturally to me, than managing and managing expectations and managing tasks and timelines. And I tend to be a little more ‘lax on those, and I'm working really hard to find that balance in and execute more on managing. And, you know, I've always thought of myself as a results-based manager, right? You know, I don't care how you get to the finish line as long as you get there. But what I'm realizing in improving my leadership skills is that not everyone can work under those circumstances. And some people need very strict steps in order to execute. And sometimes even really talented people need really strict steps in order to execute. So finding that balance of both what works for you, as a leader, and what works for your employees and your team is a really unique skill set that I definitely underestimated going into my latest round of hiring.

30:38 Make Sure to Clearly Communicate Your Expectations

Ken: So I think there are people who can be both transactional and transformational. And the ability to move back and forth between those is, unique not the right word, but it's a skill set that is, it's it can be very important to have, especially in small business, or startup because you're doing a lot of both. So how do you practice Is that how do you know? You've got to know your strengths. You've got to know what your weaknesses are. And how do I move back and forth between looking at the financial statements, which is pretty much transactional unless you're forecasting to leading people and doing what you're talking about, which is allowing them to reach certain places? So one of the things that are transactional is the development of goals. Develop, you know, encouragement. And then the other piece is discipline. And, you know, one of the things I think you touched on, is how do I communicate clearly what my expectations are? I was not very good at that, in many cases. And I did a lot of writing things down, and a lot of putting things on paper. Because it looked a lot different on paper than it did in my head. And so, before I set goals before I did performance reviews before we did any of that, I had to have some kind of sense of the idea. And I had to make sure that I knew how to communicate clearly what my expectations were. Because if I didn't, when the product was done, it didn't look like I wanted it to look like it should have looked like. And so you need to have the ability to communicate clearly, your expectations. And at the same time, you need to be able to hold people accountable. And that skill in itself as well. And how do you, I found it was best to try to do it in a teaching way. In managing certain outcomes, and this is the way we need to do it. And this is why we need to do it this way. And so it was very important to set that teaching model in terms of trying to have discipline within staff so that things will produce the way the customer expected them to. And so I think the last thing on this list at least, and I think you've talked about this, and I'd like to hear how you feel but is the importance of being open, often, and consistently. I think a lot of businesspeople take the word confidential and think that means holding everything in and don't share anything with anybody. So how do you deal with that, Vince? How do you deal openly and consistently and often?

Vince: Yeah, so I try to be as is open as possible. And I think in a lot of ways that holds me accountable, whether that's setting goals, or whether that's reaching revenue targets, really, whatever it is, unless it's something that is that needs to be confidential for an employee’s sake, or a client sake, or maybe something that's proprietary, I want to be open and honest about it. And I think that benefits the clients and building trust with us, I think it benefits other people who are looking at us as maybe guidance for starting their own business or doing something entrepreneurial. So I see no downside. And, you know, I know it's a stigma in business, you know, don't talk about this or don't talk about that. And in most cases, again, if it's not going to impede on the employee, a team member or clients ability to do their work or their comfort, I see no downside and sharing something that's, you know, some people might keep close to their chest. So, to me, it's just a part of the way I've been raised, it's just being open and honest. And as long as you have nothing to hide, then there's nothing bad gonna come from that.

Ken: What's the benefit of the business?

Vince: Well, to me, excuse me, I'm sorry, to the business and what?

Ken: To the business and in relation to employee relationships. And so on. What's the benefit?

34:17 Trust is a Really Important Part of Our Business

Vince: Yeah, to me, it continues to build trust. You know, everyone's on an equal playing field. And clients know what they're getting, and they know who we are. Trust is a really important part of our business. You know, when you're passing over a website to a company, and you don't know much about websites, you have to trust that they're doing what they say they're doing. And to us, it all comes back to that. And that's an easy way to build trust by being open and honest about everything. Again, as long as it's not going to be a negative impact on one of our customers or one of our team members, then there's no reason to not be open, at least in our culture.

35:07 It's Important to Share The Good Times and The Bad Times

Ken: So we started, weekly staff meeting meetings or monthly staff meetings, it varies depending on the time of year and what was going on. But in those staff meetings, we shared, you know, performance. But I use percentages. And so rather than necessarily talk about specific dollars related performance to those percentages, we've talked about that are on earnings statements. You know, the income relative to the cost of goods sold, how much we were throwing out, and fresh flowers that we weren't using that were old, what our total payroll cost was percentage-wise, and how we stood up with the industry and our peers. And, well, not everybody was interested in that. It's always good. And it's important to share the good times, and the bad times, so to speak. Or I'm not sure that ‘bad times' is the right word. But the time when you don't have as much business during those walls, every business has in our case in July, or whenever that might be. So that it's understood that these things go up and down. So that's one thing that's just very, very important to be open about. The other thing that does is it oftentimes means there are no surprises. And so, you know, we had about half our staff is part-time. And so when all of a sudden we start cutting part-time hours, those part-time folks understand that there's just not as much business right now. And that's the reason that we just aren't able to do that. And we've gone through some of those times where the economy changed. And we had to make some adjustments that were painful.

Vince: Absolutely. And yeah, that kind of goes back to my point that is being open about it, it makes it you know, it's never easy, but it makes it easier when people understand like I've seen the decrease in sales. I know this is coming.

Ken: So I think you have anything else. Any other thoughts about this subject?

Vince: No, you know, I will go back really quickly, when we're talking about the difference between transactional and transformational leadership that again, I'll put this in the notes wherever viewers are watching or listening to this. But there's a really good, good self-assessment I took that came out of the book Traction, and it really figures out if you are an integrator or a visionary within the organization. And, you know, to me, I always thought I was the integrator, I thought I was the person who manages and sets the goals and sets the process. But when I took it, I realized that I was much less integrator and much more visionary. And I don't like the term visionary. But really what the book describes it as is that person, it sets the long term vision, the person who sets the long term expectations but isn't necessarily the person who's skilled in setting the step by step process of getting there. So for me finding someone right now, one of the contractors we're working with is a really strong integrator, and she's really managing the team in a way that I could never do, while I'm setting that longer-term vision, helping get us all to that vision, but not necessarily doing the daily scheduling of tasks. So I'll make sure I put that self-assessment in the description.

Ken: And, you know, there's a lot of those self-assessments around. Yeah. And some of them are more quote, scientific than others, you know, so to speak, more accepted than others. But, you know, we all have many of the same personality traits, but we're just more dominant in other areas. And, you know, one of the things that I think I often struggled with was that I couldn't be all those, you know, you say you're a visionary. And I can see that, I call it a long-term thinker. You know, but there are times that you watch these employees during very transactional work, that it's just tedious. And, you know, you really want to you want to try to do that too, but you know, you can't do as good a job with it. It's sometimes hard not to be everything to everybody. Particularly when you're a forward thinker or a visionary. Because oftentimes, those things don't have immediate results. And sometimes, individuals who are transactional don't quite understand transitional. And so it's part of beginning to understand people's communication styles as part of beginning to understand what the differences between us are humans. And how we interact is and how do we communicate? You know, someone who's not a detailed thinker, it's pretty hard to communicate accounting to them. On the other side, it's pretty hard to communicate a vision to an accountant. And I'm not sure Tiffany agrees with that. So yeah, this is a subject that's just going endless and it's what I really enjoy. So I could talk for a long time, but I would encourage anybody, if you have a chance to take a DISC or the I think I might have mentioned it off-screen last time, there's a little exercise on the Internet called Kingdomamlity.com. And you'll discover which one of the medieval guild halls which you belong in, and whether you're a White Knight, a Black Knight, Shepherd, Musician, and learn a little bit about each one of those areas. It's fun, it's not very significant. But it will begin to expose you a little bit if you've not been to why I'm the way I am and why they're someone else's the way they are, and how do I interact with those folks?

Vince: Absolutely, absolutely. I took Kingdomality after our last call, and I really enjoyed it.

Ken: Yeah. It's good. I will suggest that people ought to give it to their spouses to this. It's a very good conversation starter.

Vince: Yeah, I have I haven't done that yet. But I'll make sure I do that before our next video.

41:40 Management is All About Structure

Ken: Well, these are complex subjects. Because we're working with people. For me, the transition over a lot of years was moving from more authoritarian management, leadership style, whatever you want to call that into a servant leadership model. And as we began to move that way, we were really fortunate and blessed by that. And I believe we had a staff that was a lot happier, and a lot more productive because of that. But there had to be those management things in place to provide some type of structure. And there has to be a structure someplace. And that's what management's all about.

Vince: Absolutely. Well Ken, before we wrap up here, is there anything else you want to discuss that we missed today?

Ken: I think we've talked about a lot of things that we didn't have time for, I think would be, would be the answer with that. And a lot more detail, and, you know, many of these subjects are really well developed in focus groups. And those types of things. I would just encourage anyone who's listening, if you're interested in joining focus groups, you're interested in getting online with Vince and I, and maybe even Tiffany and anyone else has participated and just talk a little bit about instead of, you know, sometimes people don't want to put things in writing. Well, let's just get together kind of off offline. And cause that's what I think both of us want to do. We want to help you and after the launch, so to speak beyond the launch, as you begin to find out some of the realities of your business.

Vince: Absolutely. And anyone who is listening, or watching and wants to connect with us, you can message us on whatever platform you're on, you can go to our website at becomedistinct.com or you can contact me directly at VincentAguirre.com. So there's a lot of ways to reach out, you can also join our Facebook group that is titled Small Business Big Ideas. You can find that on Facebook, you can find the recordings on YouTube as well. But we're trying to build this community for small business leaders, entrepreneurs, and anyone who kind of identifies as a business entrepreneur or an entrepreneur or business owner. So definitely feel free to reach out to us and we can dive deeper offline as Ken said.

Ken: I think we're going to try to talk about another, I'll call it misunderstood or very complex subject, which is Marketing. When we come together again, although I think we've talked about taking a kind of a break until the first of the year. We may do that. We may not, but marketing is justice with management and leadership is, it's very transitional. And there is a transactional piece to it. But it requires a lot of forward-thinking and just getting in touch with what's going on. So I look forward to that. It's so that's one of the things that I just like a lot.

Vince: Absolutely. I'm excited about that as well.

Ken: Well, great holiday!

Vince: You too! Thank you for your time and as we close it is just a reminder for anyone who is watching or listening. The best way to connect and stay involved with other business owners and entrepreneurs is by finding the Facebook group titled Small Business Big Ideas. You can also find us on YouTube and subscribe there or on our website becomedistinct.com. So thank you all very much and happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas if we don't see people before then.

Vince: All right. See you later, Ken!