Paul Konrardy:
[0:16] Well, hello and welcome, everyone, to Monsters of Curiosity.
Paul Konrardy:
[0:20] We are delighted you're here. We are three very curious individuals, and we also want to share that curiosity with the world. I don't think there's enough of that in these days. So, starting off with me, I'm Paul Conrarni, but working around our screen, we have Jenny Evans and Susan Evans. So I think our topic today is what are the two most important things you've learned running a business? And the sub topic can be whatever you learned that you shouldn't have done. Maybe there's more than two. I don't know. But who wants to start off this thought process? Susan?
Susan Evans:
[1:04] I was just going to say, the thing, I learned this late.
Paul Konrardy:
[1:09] If you didn't see the video, she wasn't looking at the teacher, so she got it.
Susan Evans:
[1:12] Yeah, I was looking at my notes. Okay, this is just like when Harry Potter, when Snape, he's writing down and Snape comes at him. It's like, I'm just taking notes dude.
Paul Konrardy:
[1:23] That's exactly why I did it to you.
Susan Evans:
[1:25] You said, here's a perfect Harry Potter moment I can recreate. I think I learned this late. Well, no, I knew the first part. The phrase is hire slow, fire fast. I knew the first part. You hire slow. You look at people. You put them through the ringer because that's what we had to do because people had to work very, very hard and be very, very smart, agile, curious. There were a lot of things that we demanded at the company. And so the hiring process was slower than I would have liked, but necessary to get the right people. It was like panning for gold. What I did not learn was fire fast. And that took me a longer time because I kept thinking either the person would get it or I would get better at helping the person or some magical thing would happen to make the situation better until there was a situation where someone came in to me and said,
Susan Evans:
[2:25] This one person's going to bring it all down if you're not careful because they were so unhappy. And no matter what happened, they were unhappy. And I was like, oh, I see what's going on here. And that was, but that took me years. That took me years. Nothing terrible or entour happened, but I, there are a couple of situations earlier on. I was like, I wish I would have let that person go because sometimes it's a favor, certainly better for the company, sometimes a favor to the person to say you're not going to work here you will find something that's better suited towards you so you will be happier somewhere else so i would say that was my the first thing was higher slow got that fire fast was not my not my best work
Jenny Evans:
[3:09] I love, Susan, that you talk about, like, at what point in your journey did you learn that? Because my first one took me a stupid long time to realize I was constantly complaining about, you know, you just there's so many things that you have to figure out how to do as you grow and you evolve. But there's like, okay, but this is what I do for my job. But then there's like how the business runs.
Jenny Evans:
[3:46] I didn't have this until the last few years is my job is not to be a speaker. My job is not to be a coach. My job is not to be an entrepreneur. My job is to solve problems one after the other after the other you're never done, solving problems and so that was such a huge mindset shift for me instead of being, irritated and like surprised of like well here's another thing that I don't know how to do I'm to have to figure this out. Like, yeah, that's your job. That was a huge shift for me. Just more like mental and emotional.
Susan Evans:
[4:31] Mm-hmm. That's not uncommon because people get into work they get into what they do and run a business and start a business and have successful businesses because they love the aspect that you see it's like the iceberg underneath the iceberg is the chore of keeping that business alive it's like that takes so much fucking time i that stunned me i was like i'm spending 30 to 40 percent of my time running the business, not doing the work. And one of my advisors early on said, that's about right. I'm like, well, that is goddamn depressing because I thought that part was magic and somebody just did that and it happened. Yeah. But it's like, they're like, no, no, it doesn't. And it's like, that's a huge thing to realize.
Jenny Evans:
[5:21] Yeah.
Paul Konrardy:
[5:23] I like magical thinking sometimes. I think one of my top learnings has been i can never assume the client knows what they're asking
Paul Konrardy:
[5:37] Because sometimes they're asking for something and i'm thinking they understand what they're asking and they don't so it takes a lot of listening and a lot of questions to figure out what is it that you are actually trying to do here what is actually your goal because you're using words that don't necessarily add up to the problem you're having. And that has taken me a long time to figure out. Because when someone asks me a question about something that I do in my world, I think have taken it's taken years to figure this out i assumed that they knew what they were actually referencing and they're not so that that takes a more holistic view of what is it that they're what is the goal that we're going to both try to reach together and to that problem solving uh thing is you can't really solve it unless you understand what the problem is to begin with so yeah that was that's a big learning for me is to take a big step back and the way i manage it take a step back and ask a lot of questions and listen very carefully. Because sometimes they don't know until they get the data that actually points to the decision they're going to have to make. But if we don't have the data
Paul Konrardy:
[6:55] to begin with, that's a different set of problems we have to solve. So there's, in my world of marketing technology in particular, that's what I'd find to be the case.
Susan Evans:
[7:07] That's i just did that with somebody because i took it from i saw some interview so if you're getting interviewed for a job and i think this thing circulated about six eight months ago on reels and tiktok and all of this where um they said one a final interview question to an employer whomever you're talking to is so you hired me and it's been a year what have we accomplished? And it's that forces them to lay out their goal. And you go, okay, I know what you want of me. And I just did that with somebody, they called and asked a question. And there's this wonderful, really condescending line that is, I can tell by your question, you don't understand what you're talking about,
Susan Evans:
[7:56] Which is, I think that sometimes like I can tell by your question, you don't understand what you're asking for. So I used that interview line and said, in six months, we finished this. What have you got? And they described what they had and what they wanted wasn't what they asked for because they assumed that these three things led you to that? And it's like, none of those things do. And I said, okay, well, let's solve it this way then and do it. And they're like, oh, I can do it that way. I'm like, that is actually the way business is done. And so, but it's really interesting. I'm asking, it's all done. What have you got? And it was like, oh, that really opened it up. So it's like, Paul, what you said, it's like, if you ask the questions, what does success look like? And we would have people say that in the old days, I'll be on the front of the daily paper. And I would say, who was on the front of the daily paper three days ago? Nobody could answer. I'm like, so how did all that money work for you? And they're like, oh, I see how this works. It's like, what you want. And I said, if you want a vanity project, yes, do that. Great. I'm all for it. But if you think it's going to save your business, that is something else entirely and a different strategy. And usually people reach for the thing they think will make them successful, not the thing that will make them successful. It's kind of a dream versus reality world.
Paul Konrardy:
[9:22] Right.
Jenny Evans:
[9:25] Susan, I asked that, I just wrote down, we've worked together for six months. What do you have at that time that we don't have now? Because last week, a discovery call with a client who also had no idea, none, what, you know, and it, yeah, it didn't go super great.
Susan Evans:
[9:48] Well and it's hard because if they don't know and they're exploring still it's like part of the job which is not your job is to say okay let's take a step back so i can counsel you on your business so we can both have a successful outcome here and i can either say yes i can do it or no let me give you a name of somebody who can and that's how i start a lot of calls it's like i can't do it i'll find somebody for you because no skin off my teeth i don't want to waste anybody's time mostly mine you know it's so yeah
Jenny Evans:
[10:17] Yeah it just took me a while to realize in asking a lot of probing questions that they had no idea yeah no idea but i'm like okay now that's it was a great, it was a great learning moment.
Susan Evans:
[10:31] Yep yep
Paul Konrardy:
[10:32] Hopefully for both sides of it
Jenny Evans:
[10:34] Yeah
Susan Evans:
[10:37] I would, you know, for the second thing I learned, this was the first thing.
Susan Evans:
[10:41] I can't remember the guy's name. And that is sad because I still tell this to people. He said, I have two words that you will need to know if you are going to run a business. Two words. Cash flow. And I was like, cash flow. Okay. And I was like, I don't even know what that means, you know. And then I looked it up and I was like, oh, this is going to be tough. Yeah. Yeah. And so that was a big thing. That was a big learning experience for me to understand that if somebody says, I'll pay you in 30 days, it usually means 45, 90 days means 120. You know, it's like all of this is like, if I did this huge chunk of work, I still have to hit payroll. I have to hit insurance. I have to hit rent. I have to hit everything before the chunk comes in. What do I have in the bank to cover this? And it's like that cash flow piece was huge. And that I learned early on. Fast and fast in ways where it's like line of credit. You know, I was just like, oh, my God. You know, it's like that was that I was anybody doing a business, depending what you're doing, cash flow. That was the best advice. It's like you have to understand cash flow.
Susan Evans:
[11:51] And I was like,
Susan Evans:
[11:52] OK. And nowadays it's easier, I think, because you've got so many programs that will say you're about to fall off the cliff here.
Paul Konrardy:
[12:00] Oh, yeah. The notifications of horror impending.
Susan Evans:
[12:03] Yes.
Susan Evans:
[12:04] Your bank account is $5.
Paul Konrardy:
[12:06] It's still the same concept. You just have different warning mechanism.
Susan Evans:
[12:10] Yes, yeah. It doesn't solve the problem. You just know it's coming faster.
Paul Konrardy:
[12:16] It's more real.
Jenny Evans:
[12:19] Okay, here's another one.
Susan Evans:
[12:20] What's the second thing?
Jenny Evans:
[12:23] Again, well, maybe I'm just saying, why did it take me so long to learn these things? I think these are the most recent things that I've learned. I've learned so many things over the last 30 years, but one that jumps out to me is...
Jenny Evans:
[12:41] In an attempt to grow the business, I've hired many people who are like, I can help you with marketing. I can help you with branding. I can help you create an online offering, you know, like, it's there's like two and a half people that are running this business and i often think oh sweet jesus somebody who knows more about this than me that i can just hand it off to, and it has never worked out and you know i you could say it was like the wrong hire i don't think so um, what i've really taken away is that nobody's coming to save me, nobody knows my business like i know my business people can say they do and then once we kind of start working i realize, you know a lot about a lot of things but your tactics in how you've applied those in other businesses don't work in my in my business and that, i can't just like outsource things and then just be like okay that's all you um, and i know that's not true for every business but it's kind of like when when i'm the product, i it can't be outsourced. i can't i can't hot potato things unfortunately no.
Susan Evans:
[14:10] No it yeah that's true for every business you can't say i'm done with it it is rare that you can say i gave it to you and i don't have to think about it i the thing that i learned because we had anywhere from depending on what was going on three to ten various vendors freelancers whatever they called themselves who are all very very good but it was essentially another employee there wasn't it wasn't like i don't have to deal with it i get well what about this what about this what about that it's like okay as long as you saved me I could do it or have somebody else do it in 20 hours. If you save me seven of those, it is worth it because it's seven hours that I can apply to something else or have that employee apply to something else. But there was an overlap there of, oh, oh, oh, fuck. How many questions? How many redos? How many this? We started having contracts that said, well, one contract came in to me and I thought, it's smart. You get two revisions and a final and then i'm charging you by the hour because it means you as they were pointing to us saying if you can't do it in two drafts and a final you don't have your shit together enough to do it
Susan Evans:
[15:29] And i'm not going to take
Susan Evans:
[15:30] 10 hours for you to figure it out.
Paul Konrardy:
[15:33] Yeah then the vendor's starting to deal with your policy or whatever your product is instead of it being the other way around.
Susan Evans:
[15:37] Yeah that was smart yeah that was one of the smartest things i saw early on i'm like oh that'll solve of a problem because it forces... It forced our clients to, we would have to ask smarter questions and they would have to ask smarter questions. Right. And we would have to, because I would say, do you understand two drafts and a final? And then I'm charging you by the hour and it's not a friends and family rate. It's a, as one of my dear friends would say, it's an asshole tax or an asshole rate because you're looking for a solution that is not our business. You're looking for a solution for your business and that's not what we do and so there has to be that halfway point and so it's it's that was something i learned too yeah it's like nobody can do your business like you right which is why it's my last boss the piece of advice he gave me was never hire anybody because it'll take too much time and they won't do it right and it's all wow and and i finally got to the point i was like i gotta fucking hire somebody but it was the onboarding which is why they say it takes three months to figure it out in a year to be comfortable that is an employee thing which i believe is also kind of a vendor thing in some ways we can have the vendor do it.
Paul Konrardy:
[16:54] No, I agree unless you've had a longer uh relationship with them you can't you you can't really think of it any other way.
Susan Evans:
[17:01] Yeah, it's an employee and it takes time.
Paul Konrardy:
[17:04] My second one is related to that because it's like, I can't care more about your business than you care about it. And that's, that's in my opinion. Relationship to the um if you don't know what your business is you can't really get somebody to help you with it but the alternative is like i can't stay on top of you as much unless you tell me what you need you know if you don't care about your business succeeding by these deadlines and you don't meet the deadlines yeah then you're you're in a situation where i can't care more than you do so you know i can't implement the plan that we have in place if you aren't responding and that for me was i used to take that as a very personal affront like i can't get this to move uh i can't get you to do this so then it turns into me as the vendor going i can't care more about your business than you do i don't mean that to be sounding as cruel or whatever as it could potentially be but it's like if you're not responding there's not much i can do so that's that was if i had told myself that earlier in my entrepreneurial uh i think i would have had a lot less sleepless nights
Jenny Evans:
[18:29] And your head wouldn't be so flat because you're just like yeah.
Paul Konrardy:
[18:33] Against the wall well sometimes i get the divot from the inside corner but you know But it's like, yeah, I can't make this happen magically without your help. So, yeah, but that's, I think that's one of my second biggest learnings.
Susan Evans:
[18:56] The other thing, I learned a third thing is that Michelle Obama said it really well about her kids. She can't be friends with her kids because she has to parent them. That is a really crappy paraphrase for what she said. But somebody told me this was kind of a policy I had anyway, just in my gut. Don't be, and we did it with clients too. It's like, you can't be friends with the clients because if you're too friendly with them, the kind of work we did was
Susan Evans:
[19:37] A lot of it. We were, you know, there were NDAs and there was, you know, a lot of comm slash legal slash HR. And if you got drunk, grew up together, you're not the lawyer anymore. And, you know, and so it's, we were not, we were very friendly with clients, but we were never friends. Afterwards if you know the project was over or whatever like yeah now we're friends you know or i would have friends work for us in the relationship or work with us to come and say hey i need your help and right off the bat it's like okay here's what we're gonna do then and here's how we are and we had so we were never hang out with clients for shits and giggles on a Sunday brunch that was we did not allow that because we it just wasn't I'm sure behind my back it happened all the time but but that's not what we did and I didn't do that with the employees either because I had to have a I had to have some authority there and that we had the same thing with clients where we could have no more i can't remember what it was now one or two glasses if it was one it wasn't one glass it was one one alcoholic beverage with a client and then you were done because you did not get drunk in front of a client
Paul Konrardy:
[20:53] You had you had
Paul Konrardy:
[20:53] You had to milk
Paul Konrardy:
[20:54] That sucker or switch to something else
Susan Evans:
[20:56] Yeah that was that was a hard and fast rule is that you do not do that in front of a client it's our reputation your reputation and it is just polite for christ's sake i mean it's like well we hired this firm and they threw up at dinner, you know?
Paul Konrardy:
[21:11] There's a common sense thing there in my book, but those are the, those are the ethics that don't necessarily transfer generationally. And those, those have to be spelled out almost as a, as a, if you're going to work with me, you're representing me or my brand or my company.
Susan Evans:
[21:28] Yeah. And yourself for christ's sake.
Paul Konrardy:
[21:31] Yeah. Well, you know, that's where the common sense comes in because I actually, it should fit for your own personal brand your own personal reputation but many people don't put that in that's why there's so many social feeds out there with things that future employers really shouldn't have access to but they do because you're being an idiot um yeah it's that kind of stuff yeah
Susan Evans:
[21:54] That that i would go say that when we had more than four or five employees in the early days, we had policies written out on a piece of paper that was probably filed in my desk somewhere, but I would have shared them more. I just told people and expected them to remember, but I think having policies... Whether you're a person of one or overseeing, you know, 4,000 of these are the expectations, because what I learned was my expectations and benchmarks were not everybody else's. And it's like, well, then I better tell you what they are and so.
Paul Konrardy:
[22:37] Yeah there's a fine line with that, because sometimes that depends on the corporate culture. Am I going to hold you accountable because it's the right thing to do? Or am I going to hold you accountable because of a policy? And then there's, there's the corporate culture piece that I think has to fit into it. But then again, I think that's a long hire decision too, because you will, you will hire people who will follow that moral guide that may not have to be as written down, but from an HR perspective, you have to blah, blah, blah. But I think there's a, there's a fine line there of being too policy driven. So there's, you know, all depends on delivery.
Susan Evans:
[23:16] Yeah
Paul Konrardy:
[23:18] Maybe that's what i've learned not to do is be overly responsive to oh in the handbook number 5.632
Paul Konrardy:
[23:27] You can't do that um i mean who wants that that's like that shushes you all the
Susan Evans:
[23:33] Time i will say though that i did learn when to fire a client Which was where we have policies of If they lied to us It was like you're dead to me I'm not going to work I'm not working with you Again because it becomes too dangerous To know if you're telling the truth or not If it overtaxed The team Mentally Because it becomes abusive It's like yep You're dead to me I will not work with you And so we did a lot to protect the company's reputation and to protect the team. And so we fired I think it was only four in the entire time.
Paul Konrardy:
[24:21] So did you have to go all mama bear on them?
Susan Evans:
[24:26] Oh, no.
Paul Konrardy:
[24:27] How is that managed? I'm kind of curious about that. I had a letter. I've never run into that situation other than I've had to extract myself. That's been different. But that I'm curious about when they've been rude to your team. I haven't run into that.
Susan Evans:
[24:42] Oh, I would just. I had a note and depending on how annoyed I, there was a client where, um, whenever I would go there and it was a letter that was dateless, but it had the name on there. And so it was, it was in an envelope and it just said, uh, I, I don't even know if I have it anymore. I'm sure it's in the server somewhere, but it was after careful thought and consideration, we will be parting ways and in the next 30 days we'll give you everything you need and we'll do this we'll do this and this if you need anybody to for referrals we are happy to help you otherwise this will be and so it was and then they would say why in the world are you doing this and i would just say it's been too tough for the team you know and it's like there's been some issues and some way the team was treated my team that i it just doesn't our cultures don't match and we're not going to do this. And so I would, it's a standard letter with a verbal on top of it. And I would carry, I had two or three of them at one point for about three or four years with me constantly, because if they pissed me off, I'd just go, fuck you. You know, I would think, fuck you and hand the letter over. I wouldn't say that to a person, but I had three letters going at once, just ready at any given moment if they tip just too far to the left or right.
Jenny Evans:
[25:59] It was like, and let me guess, Were those the high stress part, you know, years of the business where you're like, I don't just have one in my bag. I have three.
Susan Evans:
[26:10] I had three, three at one time. And every once in a while I'd be like, oh, if it happens, I'm like, which order are these in so I don't hand the wrong envelope so much? I would have to go, okay, it's on the top. I got it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Paul Konrardy:
[26:24] I'm just glad you didn't do the, it's not you, it's me.
Susan Evans:
[26:28] Yeah. No.
Paul Konrardy:
[26:30] And a breakup, which is like, oh, that's such a.
Susan Evans:
[26:33] No, it's always after careful thought and consideration. This is what we're going to do. But I learned that it was because at first it was like, no, you never fire a client. Clients are always right. And I was like, no, no, they're not. Sometimes they simply aren't. And this doesn't work. And.
Paul Konrardy:
[26:49] Tipped into the other direction.
Susan Evans:
[26:50] Yeah yeah and and it took nerve to do it because it was like i'm i'm stopping cash flow i am stopping money coming in but i thought it's scary it's you know it's like that's what lines of credit are for and that's but it's it's like to save to save the business it's like save the cheerleader save the world you know to save the business i got to get rid of this yeah it's like and and it's like who's who's around me every day it's like the people who are really smart and really good. And my job is to make sure they're happy.
Susan Evans:
[27:20] And when they weren't, it's like, I'm not doing my job so.
Paul Konrardy:
[27:25] Well, I love this topic. We've done two, haven't we? Did we make the assigned task? I love it. I love it. Lots of good luck. Well, I think, I don't know that we've said this enough, but for all that listen to us, please subscribe. Please hit that like button. Please join us whenever we, on our two-week schedule, you know, we try to get something out. And please let us know what you'd like us to be curious about
Susan Evans:
[27:56] Here's something for next time The like button I just saw a headline that said Is the like button dead Because it's not measuring What it's supposed to be measuring anymore And there are new rules of How to measure what people are interested in And I've not read the whole thing But literally it was Is the like button dead We're scrolling but not engaging like we used to And I was like what the what
Paul Konrardy:
[28:19] Well I'll take a like anytime But that's just my personal opinion. So it's about me and my own personal validation. But subscribe, please.
Susan Evans:
[28:32] And more people will now because that's my job.
Paul Konrardy:
[28:37] Well, thanks for listening.
Jenny Evans:
[28:38] All right. Thanks, everybody.
[28:40] Before you go, a friendly reminder that the people on this podcast are curious, not certified. Nothing you just heard is professional legal, financial, or business advice. It was a conversation, a good one, but still just a conversation. And if something they said makes you want to rethink your entire business model, maybe you should sleep on it first and then call someone with a license. The hosts bring the ideas and you bring the judgment. And if it all works out, they'd love to hear about it. If it doesn't, well, then they've never met you. All content is copyright monsters of curiosity and may not be reproduced or distributed without permission.
