Breaking Down Business | Ken Wentworth a.k.a. Mr. Biz

A lot of time business owners are really good at the widget they produce or whatever service they're providing but they're not really good on the business side. It's increasing sales, increasing your net income, increasing the value of the company, especially now you get a lot of baby boomers that are considering exiting in one cell of the company. How do I improve the value of my company? This is right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over one million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping necks and cash and checks? Well, it starts right about now. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to right about now. We're always getting right. We're always right now. We're taking the BS out of business and hey, what better way to take the BS out of business than talk to Mr. Bizz himself. Ken went worth an author of three best-selling books and a known radio master. What's up, Ken? Good to be here, man. We like, hey, you know, it fit the narrative, man. We're taking the BS out of business. We got to go straight to Mr. Bizz. That's right, man. That's right. I'm here. I know. I do. I know we talked pre-upset. I do respect the registered trademark on Mr. Bizz as a marketing guy. Hey, you got to lean into that brand, baby. Yeah, honestly, I was very hesitant initially and enough people kind of pushed me. This is several years ago and I finally said, am I as well lean into it? Like you said, it was catchy, it was memorable. Actually, and I see on your wall back there, actually, the first time I met Grant Cardone, someone introduced me to him as Mr. Ken Wentworth, he's also in the Mr. Bizz. I saw him. I was in his office eight months later. Eight months later now. How busy of a guy is he, right? He comes in and then in my last book is Don't Fake the Funk. And he's been on my show a couple of times as well. And in the intro, my show, it says, you know, if you're something about, you're ready to stop faking the funk, something like that. I come in his office and Brandon Dawson, one of his business partners with me, he comes in and he goes, I don't know if you remember Grant, you met him. This is Ken Wentworth. He goes, you didn't tell me you're bringing Mr. Bizz by. And he said, you know one thing I know about this guy, this guy doesn't fake the funk. And I was like, holy crap. Eight months later, you know, he remembered it. I'm like, it's definitely something catchy that people remember. People remember stories. And they also remember like catch phrases and things. It's, there's, there's mastery and simplicity. And Mr. Bizz is simple. But it's straight to the point, you're Mr. Business. And you know, you talk about business, you own business. The brand is aligned. So, yeah, it is what people remember, you know. So, I get, and our network, our show was called the Radcast. We've changed the name, but we're not the Radcast Network with multiple shows. But I get the Radcast guy, you know. They remember simple naming. So, there you have it. I love it. Let's set the table. We go down the path. You know, Ken and I talked pre-episode. Like, we wanted to make this juicy. I think we just talked, you know, I guess we'll table this as the state of the state of business. But let's at least, for our audience, Ken set the table on who is Mr. Bizz. Depends who you ask, Ryan. Depends who you ask, you know. Now, I worked in, I had a corporate career for a long time. I worked at J.P. Morgan and was able to send a pretty high level there. And I always want to do my own thing. And, you know, I was being promoted in the top 1% of the company. And it sounds great. But then I knew I was going to need to relocate, uproot my family. Probably have to move to New York City or maybe London. And I had young kids at the time. I was like, I don't really want to do that. And so, I'm like, this is the time. I'm going to take the leap. I didn't know what I was going to do. I didn't know what I do now as a fractional CFO business strategist. Again, I'd been a corporate world my entire career. So I had no idea what that was. I got a mentor, walked through things. And he said, you need to be a CFO for six or eight businesses. And I'm thinking, how the heck do you do that? Because being a CFO and my corporate world for one business in J.P. Morgan is a 60 to 80-hour-a-week job. How can you do that for multiple? Are you going to clone yourself? Like, what the heck? He's like, no, you do it on a fractional basis, part-time basis. Once he explained it to me, it made a lot of sense. And I got to tell you, Ryan, I left. J.P. Morgan. And again, nothing. I, corporate career was great. Loved it there. I didn't leave like an out of anger. They mistreated me or anything like that. They treated me very well. But I got my first client. And I was about two weeks in. And my first client was driving home. They were local here around me. And it was driving home. And it was just like one of those corny moments you see in a movie. Where like the sun, the clouds part and the sun comes out and you hear this like heavenly music. You know? Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Like, it is, it's not work for me. It's like my, what I do for a living is like a hobby now. It's like a hobby you enjoy to do because I love it so much. Someone asked me one time, a bunch of times, but the first time they're like, how many hours a week do you work? And I go, I mean, I don't know. I don't punch clock. And they said, what do you mean you don't know? Like, you don't work a certain, I'm like, no, I don't. I mean, I flexibility. My kids got a game. I take off and I just quit work at 2.30 now. Afternoon, go to the game. And, you know, I might work it from 9 o'clock at night. So one in the morning or something too, right? And they're like, the people understand that. I'm like, I do some form of work almost seven days a week. And I don't say that the brag or like, oh man, I'm this big hustle grind or whatever. It's just because I like it. You know, a lot of times my wife and daughter will go to bed. And in the evening, I'll pop into my home office, because I've got something I'm working on. I'm excited about. I'd rather do that than sit and watch TV a lot of times. So, and people are like, man, there's something wrong with you. That's a true entrepreneur. Like, I think whatever it is, entrepreneur, the biz, whatever. Whatever it is. I mean, but I'm the same way. Like, I own multiple companies, but, and I might be gone at 11 a.m., you know, to do something that no one else has the fuck's ability to do. But just like yesterday, you know, basketball's on. The wife's on the couch, chilling, she'd had surgery. And is doing nothing since it's down top. So I had two hours. So I'm writing. I'm doing business. I'm, you know, like, it's not because she had to, but, you know, you enjoy it. You got an idea. You want to flush it out. So, same thing. I think that's the, I don't know if it's an entrepreneur or a gene. I don't know what it is, but, you know, it helps when you, when you do what you love. Yeah. I mean, I just, yeah. I just, I'm very grateful, blessed that I'm in a position I'm in now. Like you said, with that flexibility, I had a client who had, I had been working with for a while and they had, they're getting the point where they need a full-time CFO. So I said, okay, I hope you transition. I hope you find someone. And then, you know, we'll do the transition or whatever. And she said, well, why don't you just come work for us? And I said, and I love working with them. They're a great client, great people. I just, I don't want to do it. Like, I can't imagine ever again working with one company, going to one office, all that, you know what I mean? Like, I just, even though I did that for, you know, 20 years in my corporate career, I just can't imagine now being kind of locked down to that now to just working with one company or whatever. It's one of the things I love about what I do is I'm different challenges of different companies, different personalities, different industries. And she said, well, there's got to be a price. Give me a price. And I said, five million dollars. She said, for what? Like for like a 10 year contract or I said, no, for one year. She said, you know, I can't afford that. I said, right. So that means the conversation's over. So let's move on. So, but now it's, it's like I said, it's just, I'm very, very grateful that to be in a position I'm in now to be able to do, you know, it's pretty rare. I mean, how many times you talk to someone who actually loves what they do for living. And they're not just checking the box. You know what I mean? They're not on Wednesday going, oh my gosh, is the weekend here yet. You know, I, you know, I'm not that way. Sunday nights a lot of times I have trouble sleeping. Because I'm excited about, I start playing on my week on Sunday. And I get jazzed up about what I got going on during the weekend. So I'm laying in bed on Sunday night going, man, on Tuesday. That's going to be awesome. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. Wednesday, I'm going to talk to someone. You know what I mean? So, you know what I mean? So, yeah, I know there's not many people that are in that position. So I don't take it for granted, but I'm definitely very grateful for that. I know you have a popular radio show. Talk about that and, you know, that's sort of where the Mr. Bizz came. I guess through that, but maybe talk a little bit about that journey. Yeah, so I was a, we've known the show for about seven and a half years now. Originally, say it asked me to be a guest on another, someone else's show is to come on as like the business expert, right? So they take collars. So there was me. I think there was an attorney and there was like a marketing person. So business owners will call and ask a question. And depending which one of us, it was in our wheelhouse. We would, you know, answer their question, try to give them help. So I was on the show two different times. Did a couple of different segments. And the GM of the show or GM a station said, hey, man, I've been looking for someone to host. A business related show for almost a year now. He's like, you're my guy. You got to do it. You got a host of show. I'm like, that's not, I don't do that, right? This was fun, but that's not in my wheelhouse. And he said, what I'm finding is I'm finding people who are either super knowledgeable. But they have the personality with thumbtack. Or they don't have any depth of knowledge. And they're just super charismatic and sound like you use car salesman. He's like, you're a combination of both. I'm like, wait a minute. I'm not sure how to take that. And so I said, they finally wore me down. I said, I'll do eight shows and see if I like it. And probably about three or four shows in. I was like, this is pretty cool. I really enjoy it. And so yeah, it's been, like I said, seven and a half years now. We've been doing it and expanded and done a much different things over the years. But yeah, and it's funny. I think a lot of people think like, oh, you're a radio show host. I'm like, that's like this much of what I do. Right? That's just like one. That's almost like a little side project thing that I do. I mean, I do enjoy it. But yeah, it's a lot of fun. I get to meet a lot of cool people and talk to a lot of cool people and learn from a bunch of different people as well. I guess I want to show and things like that. So yeah, it's another avenue creating content and be able to put content off of people and things like that. So I definitely enjoy it. What's the, you know, as a fractional CFO, define what, like, not, I think, you will lose things. Probably know what a chief fan is. But like, when you step in, what are people looking for you to help with? And maybe what's some of the most practical outcomes that come from your expertise in what you end up helping businesses with? Yeah, typically I come in as very strategic. So I'm, you know, my, my undergrads and accounting, but I would just, it's bored me to tell you. I worked for the first couple of years in my career in accounting. And I'm like, oh my gosh, this is like way too far in the weeds for me. But typically coming in and helping a business. A lot of times they're businesses that, I mean, probably a lot of people can relate is they've been a business for eight, 10, 15, 20 years. And you kind of start to get a little bit of tunnel vision, right? And you start to get the, this is the way we've always done it mentality. And having a fresh set of eyes that come in and say, wait a minute, guys, why are we doing this? Like, it's so often I come into a business and there's so much, I don't mean this in a bad way against any business owners, but there's so much low hanging fruit of ways to improve and make like massive changes where, you know, managing their margins better. So they're in a nutshell, meaning that for every dollar you're bringing in and say, oh, you're keeping more of it. More of it standing up in your pocket in the day. And that's not just cutting expenses and things like that. It's a lot of other strategic things to do and making sure you're pricing things. I mean, a lot of people just kind of, you know, do that, you know, kind of thumb in the air like when you're pricing things a lot of times without considering, you know, what your margin, what should your margins be on? There's different things and managing through some of that stuff, ways to increase sales. I mean, you know, this stuff's in your warehouse as well. It's like, there's so many times again, I think I think you get, so I don't say pigeonholed, but you get that mentality. Like we've kind of always done it this way. And kind of, you know, picking their head up out of the weeds to like see the forest a little better and a little clearer. But yeah, I mean, the outcomes we've had is just, it's, when I first started doing this after I left my corporate career, I was like, can I really do this? Can I help people? Can I really make a difference? And then like the first client I'm with like in 90 days, like, you know, the chains, you could see the transformation in just the first 90 days. And then obviously beyond that. And then the next client I got and, you know, that's like, holy crap. Like, and again, it gave me a lot of confidence to say, yeah, I am pretty good at this. And it's easy for me to go in. And I just always thought because that everyone has this knowledge, you know, I was in the corporate world. I was in a financial company. And there's a lot of financial smart people around me. So I just kind of thought, well, everyone has this knowledge. Everyone thinks this way. And, you know, a lot of times business owners are really good at, you know, the widget they produce or, you know, whatever service they're providing. But they're not really good on the business side of things. And so I think that's another way that I can come in and be able to help people, you know, really transform their business. And, you know, again, increasing sales, increasing your net income, increasing the value of the company. Especially now you get a lot of baby boomers that are considering exiting and wanting to sell their company. Like, geez, how do I, how do I improve the value of my company? So I can get out of it. You know, the more I get out of this better and things like that. So, um, yeah. That was kind of a long answer to the question. No, basically it was actually a lightning. I was sitting here thinking in my agency now, my role of a lot of times with the client is what you just described. You know, because that's my expertise doing this for 22 years in marketing and branding. But it's really almost more of that business consultant type role. And I was just thinking, I'm going at this from because some of the challenges we have is we're kind of always on the agencies out of the fence. So they want to listen to me. But unless you're like on the team, even if fractionally, it's hard to get implementation to happen. And so I was sitting here going, you know, like I have the time we were working with the client. I'm like, if they would get this, this and this out of their way, you know, or do this. A lot of times that's more than one ad, you know, is going to save the day. It's like this ad could do it. And we can write you a great campaign. But that's just going to be a lipstick on the pig. You know, yeah. Yeah. But you know, you bring that up, Ryan, it's very important. Like when I'm talking to someone who's a prospective client. And I found this out early on and I said, you got to have someone who's willing to listen and willing to implement. Because I had one client. This is how I learned it that, you know, I'm giving them all these different things to do and change in their business. And they're not implementing anything. And I really took a step back and thought, I tried some different approaches. And then I'm like, I really have to make sure that when I'm talking to someone who's a prospective client that they are going to listen. And again, I'm not saying everything I say is gospel. Like I mean, I write every great idea in the world. But when we do agree on something that they're actually going to make the change. And so for me, having someone that's an ally in the business that's not just a CEO, but someone under the CEO that's CEO, or something like that, that's actually going to be implementing some of these things. It's critically important. And, you know, one of the things I do that I require for a client. Like you have, if you have a staff meeting with your leadership team, I'm in it. Because I want to be part of the team. I want to be perceived as part of the team. And that way it helps me keep my finger on the pulse of the business. And it gives me a voice at that table. To push some of the initiatives that I'm trying to get, you know, some of the changes I'm trying to think like, who's picking up on this? Like how come, have we made any progress on this? And that made a huge difference, really making sure that I'm involved in some of those key meetings. When they have, you know, quarterly planning off sites, I'm there. And a lot of the clients are like, like, you'll do that. You're, you're not even an employee of ours. You know, I'm like, no, I got to be part of this. Like I want to. And it's going to help me be able to help you better. And so it's, it's critically important. Like you said, to be involved. And like you mentioned, like, it's so frustrating to have someone who doesn't implement it. Right? You're like, man, if you just, like you said, if you just did these two other things, like it could be explosive. Well, the name of our agency is radical. And that was intentional because I, I think of myself as a progressive marketing guy and progressive thinker. And, but it was also to give license to ideas. And because, you know, I'll pull the card on the client. You hired a fucking agency named Radical. And you're telling me that's that idea is too crazy. So, you know, like, I don't want to hear it. Yeah. So I, yeah. I've done the same, I've done, I don't have the, I don't have the name to be used. Radical or anything like that. But I do the same thing. And I tell people, you know, I had the last big client I brought on. It was a company they've been in business for almost 40 years. Um, doing pretty well. They're doing 20 million a year. And I, they gave me their books and I'm looking them over and I went back and I had a second meeting with them. We get to end the meeting and I said, look, if you want to see a fo that's going to help you maintain your 20 million a year, 22 million a year. I'm not your guy because this company is a 50 million dollar company. If you hire me, I'm going to push your ass to 50 million. And if you don't like that and you don't want that, don't hire me because you're going to frustrate the crap out of me. And I'm going to frustrate the crap out of you. You want someone to push you to 50? Then hire me. Then let's go. Let's roll. And the guy with, the guy stood up. He pounded his hands on the table and he's like, you're my guy. That's fine. I was like, okay. I love it. But again, I wanted to be very clear. I knew that company and the potentially have it. I'm like, man, they're going to drive me nuts. Like if they want to just chum along at 20 or 25 million, that's going to drive me crazy because I can see the potential for it. So again, just put the cards on the table. If that's not going to work for you, then we probably shouldn't work together. Exactly. Talking with Mr. Bizz. Kit. Went worth. Again. I mean, before we transition into the state of business, like. Talking with you, you've had you have experience you James Morgan corporate thing like you said. I'm always fascinated like because you talked about I thought everyone you say you made the statement early. I thought everybody knew this or I didn't think what I was saying was insightful. What is what is formulated, Mr. Bizz. Like is this nature and nurture like is this. Are you a student of, you know, some form of business technique or like, you've read a billion business books and you've just distilled it into your own thing or is this just innate like practicality? I think it's a little bit of a combination. Almost a little bit everything. A lot of it was just the experience I got in the corporate order, JP Morgan, working in a lot of different types of businesses. At one point in my career, I worked in the private equity group and we had, you know, we would go into businesses and, you know, private equity. We would go in and turn businesses around. And I love that. The only reason I didn't stay with that is I started a family and I was traveling a lot. And so I don't want to be on the road and missing out on my kids and all that kind of stuff. So I pulled out of that group. But, you know, I called my three pillars of financial success. So this is what I start with with every business. And it's, you know, kind of one of those things where is I start with every every client I start with, we start with cash flow, you know, cash flow business. And there's almost always ways you can improve your cash flow, subtle, usually things are very simple to implement to improve your cash flow pretty quickly. And then I need to say this Ryan, not everyone's going to like this. It's the B word, not that one though, budget. If you're not going to have a budget, you can't work with me because a budget is so critically important on making sure you're measuring how you're doing every single month. That way you see what the heck is working and what the heck is not working. And you could fix it right away and not get six months into the year and go, holy shit, we're not going to hit our sales goal for the year. Now what do we do, right? And then the last part is, is I caught mine in your margins, you know, talking about your pricing and your margins and everything. I touched on a little bit earlier. But again, there's always, almost always subtle ways to improve that. I don't mean just cutting expenses and things like that. But ways to improve those things. So I start with those, I think those are the foundation of any financially strong company. You have to have those three things, right? Once you have those, right, you got three strong pillars to set the business on. And then we can start, you know, talking about other things. But really for me, foundation, you got to start with those. But yeah, I think it's a combination of my experience, just seeing a bunch of different businesses. And you know, that's what people will see. And again, now I look at it and I go, man, you know, like I said, I'm not sound like a braggar. I'm like, I am pretty good at this because someone will give me their P&L and I'll look at and I'll be like, you know, I bet you guys, your sales have been declining for the last six to six to nine months or so. I can see here, you know, they're like, how can you tell that from looking at that? I'm like, I don't know. You know, I remember, I remember, if anyone remembers the baseball player Barry Wands, right? Infamous, right? I remember seeing him interview, just when he was still playing. And they were doing a slow mo of the pitcher. And they said, tell me what you're thinking. And they show a pitcher and he's winding up and they literally to give him the remote control. And the pitcher like starts to rock back in his stance and it was wind up. And he paused it. And he said, did you see how he rock back on his left foot? He's took a step back further than he did last pitch. He said that probably means that it's going to be a fastball because he's he's dipping back further to get more. And they're like, you saw that. And then he's like, he gets a little bit further. And he's like, you see how he's got his glove held. It's probably a change up because of this, this, and this. And they're like, how do you know that? He goes, I don't know. You know, he's like, I just, I don't know. I just, I see it. And I think why can't everyone else see it? You know, it was interesting. Yeah. And Barry Bond had a few home runs. So I think he did all right. It was without the juice. Right. You know, yeah. He was amazing. He was amazing. He was a natural for sure. Ken, what the hell's happening in business these days? You know, it's 2024. The headwinds of a million different. We're just to have politics. But I don't know whether we're in a good economy, bad economy. It's who you believe. What is Ken Whitworth's belief is the state of business right now? I think things overall aren't nearly as bad as a lot of people are portraying it in the media. I think there are sections that are bad for sure. But I think overall, it's not as bad as people think as far as, as for business owners. And I know we are talking a little bit before the show. You know, one of the things that I see this year, Ryan, but this year, in any time, there's kind of a down economy or whatever. I think a lot of business owners start to think about shrinking and about preservation and, you know, cut all my expenses and especially for something like, you know, with your agency, like, man, I cut my marketing in half. And, you know, I think that's absolutely the terrible thing to do, the wrong thing to do. I think in times of tough economy, it's a huge opportunity for growth because a lot of your competitors are thinking that way and they're shrinking and they're cutting their market. And it's an opportunity for you to seize market share like crazy. Now, you got to have the wear with all, right? So if you got, you know, some great CFO that's helped you build a strong balance sheet that would stand at economy. But no, seriously, like even like during COVID, with a couple of my clients, we were able to not only get market share, but we were able to buy some competitors that were not ready to withstand that terrible time, right? And so it sounds like a bad thing like, oh, man, so we were, you know, end up buying assets for dimes on the dollar and expanding our business. And when people go, oh, man, you know, a lot of people go, oh, you're taking advantage of somebody. No, not at all because what happened was a lot of these, or at least these two business owners I'm talking about, they weren't doing well. They're probably going to fold all these people and lose their jobs. We buy the company, we buy the assets, and we keep people employed. We grow like crazy. The owner leaves, it has an exit plan, doesn't have to just fold up and not get anything out of it. So it was actually a win, win. But that's another example. Like if you, if you've got a strong balance sheet, heading into difficult economic times, man, there's tons of opportunity. You should come out of this thing like just fly and high. But you can't, you got to think abundance. You can't think of like, oh my gosh, it's time to just really batten down the hatches. If you're, you know, in bad shape, that's one thing. But you got to make sure you're heading into it not in that direction. But I think, you know, overall, like I said, I don't think it's as bad as people think. I think like you'd mentioned, it depends what media source you're, you know, is you're getting your news from of how bad it is or whatever. But I think it's, you know, things are better overall on business than most sources are portraying to be. That's what my opinion. I mean, but I'll say this, have we ever in history, you know, I'm talking like 12 months ago, the beginning of last year and like the first half, have we ever been tried to be talked into a recession by media, by the government? I mean, I felt like, and I'll be honest, I'm not with my show. I say out of the prognostication like future telling, you know, I'm just sort of a tried true. But there's certain things that I will get on my soapbox. And last year I was going, I don't think the economy's going to be bad. And all the, a lot of gurus were saying, oh, it's going to be bad, you know, it'd be, be ready for the bad and the government's something like we really got tried to be talked into this recession. But somehow we stayed ahead of it. Did it not feel like we were kind of being tried to be convinced that we were going to be even though the data didn't necessarily support it? A hundred percent. And again, think about it. You know, if that's what, that's what people were hearing every day. This is bad. That's bad. You know, gas prices are up and, you know, milk prices and eggs and whatever. If you hear that constantly, you start to really believe it. And it starts to become an echo chamber, right? Then you're talking your neighbor, and your neighbor's like, oh, man, you know, the HOA fees are going, you know, whatever, right? And so it's like, it's just piling on another thing after another thing. Oh, this is going up, that's going up. This is going up. It's like, how about your income? How about your wages? How's that going? You know, like, you got to consider the whole picture and not just, you know, certain aspects of it. Yeah, I grew with a hundred percent. I think there was so much push to that of, like the gloom and doom, like, oh, my gosh, things are terrible. It's economy's terrible and everything. And again, there were parts of it that were, and there were peaks and values here and there. But again, overall, I think we were really just kind of being pushed into, you know, hey, this is a recession. So what do you think? You know, you talked to a lot of business owners. And, you know, like you said, there's parts that are up, parts that are down. We can agree that it didn't turn out as bad as we were tried to convince to be. But what is the, what's the general sent like you, you talked to people that call you on your show and you've, you've got a pulse out there. But what is the general sentiment of most of the business owners and people that you talk to? Is it like, you know, they ambitious? So they excited or they still a little hesitant, you know, what is sort of that general sentiment you're seeing and feeling? Yeah, it's, so I'll answer your question. But it's a little bit difficult, not not difficult. But so I, I pretty much try to associate myself with people that are like-minded, i.e. abundance, thinkers. So I'm probably not the, you know, I'm probably hearing more from people like that. So I might not have as balanced of you. That's okay. We like positivity on this show. You know, yeah, 100%, right? If you're if you're Debbie Downer, man, I don't shouldn't be a business anyway. I just suck for life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I probably, I'm probably stewed a little bit because I hear probably I think for more people who think along those lines. But you know, a lot of people that I talk to are really thinking along lines of what I mentioned earlier, like this is a time of opportunity, you know? And I think it's like anything else, Ryan, right? So if you think about, if you think as a business and a right now is a time for opportunity, you start looking for opportunities. If you think, man, this economy is in the shitter, I'm in trouble. Then you're going to find reasons that you're in trouble, right? Or that's bad or whatever. So I think it really makes a big difference. But the pulse generally for me is pretty, from what I hear for people, is pretty on the positive side. And again, thinking of growth and thinking of, of, you know, seizing opportunities and things like that, you counsel companies that want to scale. You know, like, there's obviously, and you've mentioned it, the path to scaling, sometimes buying other companies, sometimes growing, you know, sales force and growing, you know, internally and extra, you know, like business development. But did, do you have, is it just company to company or do you have, you know, specific path that when you have these scaling discussions with companies that you like to take? Yeah, it really depends. It depends on the industry, you know, for example, if you've, you've got a professional services firm, you're, you know, let's say you're an attorney, you're a consultant, you're marketing agency, something like that. Completely different than if you've got a broken mortar, right? You got, I don't know, restaurants or something like that. Or if you've got a service-based company, a plumbing HVAC type of thing, I mean, really they're, you know, it kind of all depends, and it's all, it's different for each one industry, specifically. But, you know, generally speaking, I think the biggest thing, and you, I'm sure you'll relate to this, the biggest thing I find with companies that, that hire me or I work with, and they go, you know, we just haven't been able to grow. It's like because they're, their mindset's not right. You know, they're, they're still doing things the same way they've been doing them. And so, yeah, well, we're only grown 3% a year. Well, that's because you're doing the same stuff that grew 3% a year for the last 10 years. Like, we got to shake the tree a little bit here, right? Guys, like, we got to do some different things and try some different things. And so, again, that's another way that I was alluding to earlier is that when I help companies, this is just kind of shaking the tree of saying, guys, that's the old way of doing stuff. What has that gotten us? That's gotten a 3% a year. You don't want 3% a year. You want to grow 30% this year? Well, we got to do some different things. And so, just, and it's funny, a lot of times when, you know, we have that type of conversation with somebody, the owner like will be like, man, I feel like an idiot. Like, you say this stuff and it's super obvious. He's like, why couldn't I figure this out of my own? I'm like, it almost everyone does it. So don't feel bad. You know what I mean? It's, it's, it's like human nature almost. But so I don't, I'm not trying to be evasive, but it is, it really depends on, you know, the industry and things like that of really what the key things are and the financial position they're in. You know, if they're sitting on a bunch of capital and like, especially right now with a lot of baby boomers getting saying, I don't want to, I don't want to do this anymore, right? I was thinking about retiring in a few years, some of my business, let me, let me just sell it now. There's a ton of opportunity that's going to happen. Happening already is going to happen over the next five to eight years. So if you've got the capital and where with all, yeah, let's start, you know, beat the bushes a little bit looking for some opportunities of, of maybe some acquisitions or some complimentary businesses, it's, it's instant growth, right? But I'll mention one other thing. One thing I see, especially with companies that have multiple locations that I see is a huge mistake, is when people want to scale and they, they want to grow from, you know, three locations to 10, let's say, is they, they don't, they don't ensure that the original is working at a nine out of 10 or 10 out of 10. And then so when you make a copy, you know, I'll go back to the, the old copy of machine days, right? So you got to cheat a paper and you make copy of it. You see the copy and you're like, it looks pretty good, right? You make a copy of the copy and you compare it to the original and you're like, that look, now it's kind of see a difference. Then you make a copy of the copy of the copy of the copy, right? The further you get away from the original, the crappier it looks, right? And I think that's one of the mistakes I see a lot of businesses when they're expanding locations is they're making a copy of a copy of a copy and it's, the copy they're making is not a 10 out of 10 to start with. So, you know, when businesses, they're like, yeah, I want to go from three locations to 10. I'm like, we got to get these three perfect before we do anything else. And they're like, I thought you were a growth guy. I like, I am, do you want to grow to grow or do you want to grow comfortably? It's sustainably, right? That's one thing I see is everyone, when they do get that growth mindset and they want to hit the gas pedal, which is great, but sometimes they do it prematurely. And without, like I said, they're making those copies of copies and it ends up, location eight is performing so shitty and you're like, why? You're like, well, look at the original where you're at all every day all day, you're running it the way it should be and you look at eight, what's different, right? You're not running the business the same way. They're not going through this, they're not treating customers the same way. They're not pricing, whatever, right? All those different things. So that's one of the things I see often that's, you know, people swing and miss on, I think, when they do try to grow and they just don't grow, you see they go from three to 10 and then a year later, you see they're back down to five. You're like, what happened? You know, what, you know, I'm going to get what worth Mr. Biz. It's got to be some similar ingredients for you of what makes a great business. You know, like, you've worked with enough, you've got the experience, you've got the innate, you know, like, what are, you know, two, three, four, what are some of the, like, absolute key ingredients that define great businesses? Well, first, again, you got to have cash for you, you got to do the budgeting, you got to do the, you know, you make sure your margins are tight. Those are the first three, but, you know, beyond that, honestly, any successful business, you got to have, first of all, you got to have a strong leader. Sounds obvious, but you also have a leader who is not afraid to take feedback. You get a lot of these owners that are big ego maniacs and think that they are the smartest person in the room and maybe they are, but they're not willing to take feedback from their employees who are customer facing. And they go, you know, the owner's not facing the customer ever and they're trying to give you feedback and they don't want to change, they don't want to make changes. You know, a non-self-aware business owner is going to be a failed business owner at some point. It's just, it's just, and again, I know it's kind of a, a machine thing, you know, as far as, you know, what it's to me, but it's so critically important. And again, I see this all the time business, and like, like I said, when I'm talking to a prospective client, I want to know, is this guy hiring me because he's checking a box, like, oh, I should bring in someone to help me, but this guy's not going to listen to me, guy or girls, they're not going to listen to what the heck, I'm going to, you know, they're just hiring me to hire me to say, oh, yeah, I got this guy, you know, and so being willing to make changes, not sticking to things too long, right? If something's not working, let's fix it. Like, don't wait six, eight, ten months, like, and again, you know, financially, you see those things with a budget and things like I mentioned, but, you know, and the other thing, I talk about this all the time, and again, it's kind of one of these mushy things, Ryan, but it's, I'm thinking of these core things that I see in successful businesses. If you have happy employees, you're going to have happy customers. You got happy customers, you're going to have a happy owner. It's like, you know, the dominoes, right? And so I think that's another thing is a lot of business owners don't think of their employees as their biggest asset, their best asset. And again, you got to get that right. If you got employees who are not satisfied, first of all, you're going to have turnover, retention issues, you're going to have trouble hiring people because we're just going to get out, going to get out that you're, you know, you treat people crap or whatever. And then that's going to, you know, reflect in their dealings with your clients, your customers, and things like that, right? They're not going to go that little extra mile. And maybe that doesn't hurt for one client or two clients, but over two, three, five, 10 years, the cumulative effect of that, you know, again, like I said, it's kind of a mushy thing again, but it's, it's, you got to have, you got to do those things. You got to be an employer of choice. You know, you got to do things that in your industry, you got to be a little bit better. You got to do something for employees that's a little bit better than what your competitors do. If you do that, you're never going to have a retention issue. You're never going to have trouble finding people. You're going to have a weightless people. People are going to be wanting to come and work for you, which makes a huge difference. And then, again, you, you indoctrinate them into your, you know, philosophy and to your vision of your company. Everyone starts thinking alike, treating customers consistently and all that kind of stuff. So, um, again, it's probably not that the, you know, financial related answer you were, you were probably expecting. But, you know, I can say that I think a malleable leader, that's willing to take feedback and willing to have, make changes and then, you know, making sure you're treating your cost or your, your employees, you know, really well. I think it's practical, but it's real. I mean, it's like, I'm sitting here thinking about clients we work with and, you know, the ones that aren't, you know, seemingly have upside and headroom. And a lot of it is driven by those variables a lot. You know, Ken, what's your perspective? I, you know, I know you don't, not like a per claim tech guy or anything like that is a civil to business. But you have to be hearing the word AI. Uh, you know, is that hitting your radar? Are you the businesses you talk to council? You know, where, where do you fall on the AI train? Is it relates to business and, uh, are all the robots taking our jobs? Yeah, definitely not rare screen. I think if you, if it's not on your radar screen, you're probably behind. And you, you probably should at least have a foot on the train at this point. I mean, depending what, you know, industry you're in, but, man, it's, it's, it's going to be a competitive disadvantage for you if you don't get on it, especially in certain industries, a thousand percent. And it's funny. You mentioned, you know, or robots can take our jobs. You know, you hear a lot of people complaining about AI and saying, you know, those type of sentiments like, oh, it's going to take your job. Look, I'm going to go back, right? When they invented a tractor, a tractor took jobs because before that, it was a horse or a mule and a dude with a, you know, a thing trudging through the frigging, uh, you know, the fields, right? Oh, a tractor took his job. Like, this is evolution. And this has, this has happened a million times. Like, um, over the years and everything, um, when they invented a car, like, oh, taking a horse and buggy and taking, taking a horse's job, like, it's, it's evolution. And look, you can, you can stick your head in the sand or you can pout about it or whatever. That's great. It's going to fly by and you're going to be way behind if you don't, you know, start thinking about those things. I've got one client who's manufacturing and we're, we're testing stuff out now with, with different types of robots and things like that. And some of stuff out there is absolutely amazing. I'm sure you've seen some of it. It's mind-blowing. Um, we're waiting on some of the costs to go down. We're trying to, you know, uh, kind of weigh the cost and the benefits and all that kind of stuff, just like anything else. But yeah, it's, it's critically important, especially, I mean, almost any industry, but, um, some specific ones, especially anything that's, you know, information based, I'm sure your agency, you're probably, you guys are probably super deep into it. Um, you know, I'm using it a bit on my side as well. It's, it's just crazy. I mean, I was talking to someone, I dished one of my shows recently. I had someone on who's like an AI expert, expert, quote unquote. And she was amazing. And, you know, some of the things she brought up too, of ways to use it. Um, one real quick thing that's, I'll mention that she mentioned that I had never thought of Ryan in regards to AI. As she said, uh, you know, I, it's female. And she said, you know, one of the things that's a little bit, and she's not some, you know, super feminine, you know, pro, I mean, she's pro woman, of course, but she's not some, you know, wild and crazy radical person on that side of things. She said, AI is developed by men. 80% of people who use AI right now are men. So AI is becoming more and more male focused, because, you know, AI continues to grow with the feedback it gets. And she's like, so I'm trying to get more women into it. So there is some female influence, and it's not just thinking like a guy, right? It's going to have a more balanced, uh, you know, thinking things. I hadn't really thought about that. I'm like, holy crap. Yeah. It learns from the input it's getting. If it's getting input only from, you know, a certain aspect, you know, a certain gender, a certain type of person or whatever, it's, you know, it's going to start to skew that way. So it's kind of interesting she mentioned. I'm like, holy crap. I hadn't really thought about that. I had to have thought about that either. And, uh, it does learn a generative learning, you know, from, uh, everything else. Um, yeah. What do you think, you know, as we close out here, Ken, um, you know, not to get into politics. I don't want to get into politics, but, you know, we are an election year. Um, are we going to be able to stay sane as a company? Are we able to keep with this coming? And we're going to keep it out. The politics is going to impact business one way or another. I think it definitely will. And I think the main reason, uh, the primary reason I would say that it will, uh, regardless of who wins, is that I feel like now things politically in the United States are so, uh, black and white. Like there's not, there's hardly anything that's modern anymore. So I feel like it doesn't matter what you left or right, Democrat, it probably doesn't matter who wins. They're going to be beholden to their parties, you know, more extreme side than in the past. I feel like, you know, in the last 30 years, we've kind of been heading this way where there's more and more divide between the two parties. And then now the candidates to have support from their party have to be sort of more on the, on the stronger side or more extreme side of their party to continue to get funding, support from other people within the party. So I feel like, yeah, there it's going to be, it's going to have an impact again, one way or another depending, you know, who wins and who ends up controlling the House and Senator or whatever. But, you know, I think it's because there's so much divide there. I think, you know, if you're a Democrat and you win, you're going to have to lean a lot more left than maybe 30 years ago, Democrat would have, you know, maybe they have some moderate views, whereas now I feel like you kind of got to be more, if you're a Democrat, you got to be more, you got to skew more the left or if you're a Republican, you got to skew more to the right. So the party's going to be putting pressure on them to do that. So I definitely think there'll be an impact. It'll be, it's going to be a wild ride. Sure, no doubt. Ken, working everybody keep up with everything you're doing, your books and, you know, maybe as a final closeout segment, you know, talk about don't fake the funk, you know, your your latest book, you know, like what can people expect from that and where can they find it and all that stuff? Yeah, the easiest way to find everything we got going on is MrBiz.com, all the stuff's out there. Have a radio show, the books, all that good stuff. But, you know, the book was, it's different. I mean, first two books were business related books. This one was completely different. It's not business. It's more goal oriented. So I had unbeknownst to me just kind of going along. I used to be a competitive powerlifter and had a lot success there. And, you know, a lot of the goals I tackled in life, I wasn't even fit. I developed this sort of four-step approach on on how to tackle goals and achieve like big goals. And, you know, I was talking with someone who I mentor and was kind of walking him through. He was trying to do something. I'm like, well, I would do this. I was kind of walking through and again, not even knowing and he's taking notes and he's like, really? Let me make sure I got this right. It's basically just like four steps, right? Yeah, I guess so. A couple of weeks later, I had going through the same process with someone else I mentor. Same thing. The woman's like, it really sounds like it's kind of just like four steps. And I was like, so I started thinking I'm driving home from that second of meeting. And I'm like, yeah, it is kind of four. And they're like, you know, this is great. So I do a lot of speaking engagement. So I was doing it. It was this guy, the speaker backed out on it. It was it was early December and it was like a holiday party kind of thing. And he's like, hey, can you come and talk? I'm not going to tell him about business at a holiday party. Like, people don't want to hear that crap. Like, people are having some, having some adult frescoes. They don't want to listen to someone talking about cash flow or whatever. I said, I got this new topic. You know, let me, let me, can I talk about this? I've never talked about it. You know, oh, yeah, great. Talked about it. Everyone loved it. You know, standing ovation, all this sort of crap of people coming backwards. And they're like, please tell me you have a book about this that outlines all this. I'm like, no. So I'm like, maybe you need to write a book about it. So then I, that's, that's what it ended up becoming. Don't fake the funk. And the subtitle you might appreciate is F being average. And so from marketing branding, so you'll, you'll appreciate this Ryan. So we were testing out subtitles for the book. I knew don't fake the funk was going to title, but like what's the subtitle, right? We came up, we came brought it down to four options. And we did it. We hired a company. We did, we surveyed a thousand people that were in the demo for the book, right? F being average had more than the other three options combined. It had like 55, 54% of the votes. And the other three combined had 46%. I was like, no, hey, let's go with it because people were like, you can't, you can't put, you know, profanity let alone the F word in a subtitle your book. And I'm like, I mean, the people are spoken. Let's go, you know, yes. Does not surprise me. You know, I mean, yeah, it's, you know, it's, it's funny. It's like I said, I was surprised by the results. And we put, you know, we put the districts, right? It's not spelled out, but still. I mean, I was very surprised. And I caught some heat, you know, people will say, you know, I know what kind of person you are. You put that word in the subtitle of your book. And I'm like, hey, man, if that offends you, you probably don't want to read the book. You probably won't like people. I, you know, I mean, we can, I, some of the people get caught up on the cussing thing. I mean, I, I don't, I don't think I have a potty mouth, but it's just natural. Like it's this words, man. It has emphasis, like, I don't, yeah. But man, the amount of people that really get in their paintings in a lot of that shit is like, it's mind blowing, you know. Yeah, who decided, you know, a hundred years ago that, that the F word was like some terrible word. Who decided what the profanity words were and which, which ones are bad and which ones are good? What if all of a sudden, I say desk is a bad word. Like, oh, my god, you said yes. Yeah, you can't say desk. You know, oh god. I don't know. It's like, anyway, I love it. Don't fake the funk. Fuck being average. And look, let's be honest, with or without the fuck, it's like, it's empowering, you know, like and motivational. That's why people like it, you know, and, you know, and I'm assuming from the premise, and I did skim through it, but admittedly from showbooking to getting you on, I haven't read the full book, but yeah, I have to assume you're kind of saying, you know, don't fake it till you make it. Like, you got to live it, you know, to get there, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, it's, I'm not a fake it till you make a guy at all. I think that's, I think that's trash. I think that's trash. You can't just, if you're faking it till you make it, it's always fake. You know, it's like, you can't, right? It's kind of like you said, making the photocopy, it's really the premise I thought to back to, if, if what you're making a copy of isn't great, then what you get out of the other, it's not going to magically have higher resolution. If you make a copy of a bad photocopy, right? It's almost the exact same thing. Yeah. I think if you listen to this full episode, there's a lot of subs that's Ken and a lot that speaks to your ability and your expertise. I really appreciate you coming on. Yeah, I'm honored to be here. I mean, I appreciate it. It's good. Absolutely. You could find him at mrbizbiz.com and at mrbiz solutions on Instagram. You don't find us. Ryan is right.com. You'll find all the highlight clips and the full episodes from today, including the YouTube video. We got some exciting things coming on the video side and I'm always at Ryan Alfred with that blue check before you can buy it. We'll see you next time. I'll ride about now. 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