Employees Still Have the Leverage

This week, Jay Goltz, Liz Picarazzi, and William Vanderbloemen discuss how their businesses are holding up and whether they’ve gotten past the labor shortage (short answer: No). The conversation veers into a discussion of how to finance growth and what to do when your bank is unresponsive (find another one!). And then Liz explains her intense distaste for dealing with lawyers, accountants, and insurance agents and how she’s trying to cope with it. “Believe me,” responds Jay, “I haven’t paid enough attention to certain things that I should have, and it’s cost me. But yeah, we can’t every day just do the inspiring, cool, fun, oh-my-God, we-had-a-big-sale, look-at-the-problem-I-solved thing. It’s all part of the package.”

— Loren Feldman

Guests:

William Vanderbloemen is CEO of Vanderbloemen Search Group.

Jay Goltz is founder and CEO of The Goltz Group.

Liz Picarazzi is CEO of Citibin.

Producer:

Jess Thoubboron is founder of Blank Word Productions.

Full Episode Transcript:

Loren Feldman:
Welcome, Jay, Liz, and William. It’s great to have you all here. Somehow we managed to have completed half of the year. So I’m kind of curious to check in and see how’s business, how things are going, especially with everybody predicting a recession looming. William, how about you?

William Vanderbloemen:
Well, Loren, I’m going to risk alienating clients saying this, but a good bit of our work is with churches. And one of the more crass things that’s been said over the years is: Churches and liquor stores both do well in bull markets and recessions. Everybody needs comfort or religion or security in turbulent times and in times of plenty.

And I don’t want to jinx things, but historically, when the economy is down, our church clients are actually busier, which is a good thing, and that can often lead to needing more staff, more help. The church moves a little slower than the business world, and it’s still coming out of whatever kind of lockdowns and pandemic things that the rest of the world has kind of come out of a little quicker. So I’m cautiously optimistic that things are really good.

Loren Feldman:
Are you seeing any signs of change at all? Is there anything evolving there that you’re concerned about?

William Vanderbloemen:
Well, I’m always concerned. We’re a startup. We took the kids to Europe. This is our spring break 2020 trip that got reworked to ‘21, and then reworked later ‘21, and we finally went in ‘22. We had dinner in a restaurant that started in 803. It was toward the end of June, and we sat around, and our kids are old enough to have a real conversation. We talked about how we really are the great experiment, as a country. I mean, we really have not been around very long. And then you think about my business. Well, yeah, 14 years. That’s not that long. So am I concerned? I’m always concerned. We’re still an experiment as a company in a country that’s kind of still an experiment. So I think the day I quit being concerned, I ought to get really concerned.

Loren Feldman:
But you’re not seeing any signs of recession?

William Vanderbloemen:
Not yet. I mean, it’ll be interesting to see what happens if we really do enter a recession, which maybe we do, maybe we don’t. Private school, particularly on a secondary level, has across the board been in the biggest rush of new business that they’ve had in my lifetime. I think no matter where people were on opinions about mask or no mask, or vax or no vax, the one thing everybody really agreed upon is the public school system failed children during the pandemic badly. And so there’s a lot of people who are like, “It really would be worth the money to get into a private school where there’s a little more latitude to make decisions independently.”

And if we go into a severe recession, or maybe even a moderate recession, maybe those dollars won’t be available to do private school. That would be the place that I’d see harder times. On the nonprofit side, I don’t know how to predict. I’ve seen so many studies that show that the most generous America ever was, in terms of charitable giving, was in the early 1930s. So I don’t know, maybe I’m being pollyannaish, but will people have money to pay private school tuition? That’s probably a place that we ought to keep an eye on.

Loren Feldman:
Liz, you told us a few months ago that you were seeing some softening. That was fairly early.

Liz Picarazzi:
So with the residential segment, we’ve felt it. In terms of numbers on it, I would say it’s maybe between a 15 and 20 percent reduction. But meanwhile, we’ve had a lot of growth among two other segments. One is repeat customers. So we tend to work multiple times with property managers, architects, developers. They’ve continued to order from us. We haven’t seen any softening in that. And we’ve also focused on that, really generating more revenue from that segment.

And the second one, as I’ve discussed here, is any sort of government work. So the business improvement districts in New York City that are doing the trash containerization, which is a Department of Sanitation project, we’re rolling that out to multiple neighborhoods in New York City, and it’s just kind of the beginning. And in addition, nationwide, any other cities that saw those articles—and there were many of them, when the mayor announced it in April—have contacted us as well. So we’re working with Hoboken and Philadelphia and D.C. and Chicago. Jay, you’ll find that interesting. Chicago contacted us. So that’s definitely made up for the softening in regular residential and then some, but that was also not sort of a spontaneous thing. I’ve had an obsession with this clean curbs program in New York for over two years, since it was announced pre-pandemic.

And we did a lot of legwork and marketing to the business improvement districts, as well as to the city, so that when the program actually took off, we were really the main player in the space. So I’m not feeling worried about a recession, because whether it be our hard work in advance or some sort of higher power at the time we needed it, we are feeling like we’re in a good place right now. And I know in downtimes, having government contracts is always the way to go. And that also comes out of my time at American Express. I know that, in the 2008-2009 timeframe, we did a lot of marketing and program work with businesses that wanted to get government contracts, because it’s a more reliable source of revenue. And I always kind of had that in the back of my head: If I can go out there and get some government contracts in down times, that’s going to help me.

Jay Goltz:
Don’t you have tremendous exposure, though, with getting paid from this? I know people who are waiting for money from the city, and it’s bad. I mean, isn’t that a huge potential problem?

Liz Picarazzi:
Ah, yes it is. It is. We actually have submitted our first invoices, and we are wrestling with not only their policies, but also their actual payment technology systems.

Jay Goltz:
Will the bank lend you money against that?

Liz Picarazzi:
No, I already tried that as well. So I got a very wimpy line of credit. It’s like $200,000. So we’re dipping into that to finance the production, which is on its way, with our factory.

Jay Goltz:
Are you with a big bank?

Liz Picarazzi:
No, I’m with a local bank. And I switched to them because I experienced the B.S. from Chase and thought that if I went with a local bank, I could avoid that. But they’re just as procedural. They just plug numbers into their program, and it spits out what you’re eligible for. I even asked them, “If I bring in a P.O. from the city of New York, would you be able to raise this?” And they said, “No,” for no reason. “You need to wait for your 2022 tax returns.”

Jay Goltz:
I have a lot of experience with the whole bank thing. And I can tell you, it’s a job, which isn’t terrible. You’ve gotta shop banks. You made a good move from going from the big bank. Chase is not in the business of helping small businesses. They might say they are in their ads, but that’s not where they make their money. They’re in retail, and they do huge business.

Okay, so there’s a ton of banks, though, out there—not a ton. There’s usually, in every city, at least in Chicago… I’ll just talk about Chicago. There are eight banks in Chicago that are hungry for small business, because that’s where they make their living. And it depends on where they’re at, in what cycle, and how well they’re doing, how busy they are. But you’ve got to work them all. And one of them rises to the top and says, “Yeah, we want that business.” So I’m not sure. I think you can find a bank that will be more flexible, because the money’s coming. It’s a city contract. I would put it on your to do list of just checking some other banks out. I think you’re gonna need it. I think.

Liz Picarazzi:
Yeah, I guess I just get so discouraged from the attempts that I’ve made and talking to other small businesses that also tried to make a move to a smaller bank. And I can’t find anybody who’s had a good experience—like, literally not one small business. And I know many of them.

Jay Goltz:
Okay, you’re talking to one. People get discouraged, and they stop. You have to say to yourself, “Okay, I’m just going to talk to four banks, and one of them is going to…” I just helped a guy I know in a business group. He had three different banks. He’s got this incredible opportunity. He does business online, and he needed a huge line. And he told me the three banks that he was dealing with, and I said, “Yeah, they’re gonna play nice with you, and they’re gonna leave you at the altar.” And exactly what I thought was gonna happen. He called me. I called the one bank I know who’s aggressive, that’s looking for business: Boom! He got the loan. I mean, there’s a bank out there that’s looking for business. You just might not be at that bank. So, don’t get discouraged, is my point. There’s always a bank looking for business, usually.

Liz Picarazzi:
I’ve never experienced that hunger from them.

Jay Goltz:
Well, because you haven’t talked to that many banks. That’s my point.

Loren Feldman:
By the way, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a bank in your location. Ami Kassar, the finance expert who’s been on this podcast, talked about how he, for years, told people to bank with small banks but didn’t follow his own advice—until he got the runaround from his big bank and finally gave up on them and found another bank that’s on the other side of the country. And he’s banking with them and having a very good experience. So that’s one other person, Liz.

Jay Goltz:
You’ve gotta find a bank that doesn’t just check the boxes. Because lots of them, that’s all they do. They just check the boxes, and there’s no personal judgment. And I’m not talking about, “Oh, I’m a good guy, you should lend me money.” No, I’m talking about, you’ve got a contract that’s worth money. Somebody should lend against that. If you didn’t have that, I’d say, “Yeah, you’ve got a problem.” But I don’t think you’re going to have a problem finding a bank that’s going to say, “Wow, that’s good. She’s got all these government contracts. She’ll get paid.”

Loren Feldman:
Liz, how are you doing with supply? You’ve had some supply chain issues throughout this period. It sounds like you now have a lot of business in the works. Are you able to get enough product to deliver on all these new clients?

Liz Picarazzi:
So I think that we did a better job of purchasing inventory the last time we did, which I think was in March. We’re going to be getting a very big shipment in August of four containers coming over.

Loren Feldman:
Do you know for sure they’re going to arrive in August?

Liz Picarazzi:
I feel fairly certain that they are. I don’t don’t know any businesses that are clogged up. And I’m really surprised by that, because our factory was shut down for four weeks.

Loren Feldman:
In Shanghai, right?

Liz Picarazzi:
In Shanghai, yeah. So the other reason supply hasn’t been as much of an issue is that I won the argument with Frank about how much to purchase.

Loren Feldman:
That’s your husband.

Liz Picarazzi:
Frank is my husband. He usually comes to me with a buying plan. And I look at it, and I usually say, “Double it” and sometimes, “Triple it.” We argue about it for a little bit, then I remind him about the impact of being sold out to customers that want to buy. And it’s not just the potential lost business. It’s the time that gets sucked up of staff time, chasing the factory, chasing containers, going through customs. Every little thing, when you’re in a supply chain clog, is also time-consuming for the business.

So right now, we’re not experiencing those blockages, at least we haven’t detected it yet. We actually placed another order this week that’s going to be delivered in November. And we once again had a little bit of a quarrel about quantities. And this time, I think he actually kind of won it, for a number of reasons.

Loren Feldman:
Why’d you let him win?

Liz Picarazzi:
I mean, I’m still feeling a little bit cautious. I’m still feeling like it’s been just a year and a half or so since we kind of got out of the pandemic, from a business perspective, that I thought, “You know, what if people want to order and they have to wait two to three months? Let’s do that.” People are willing to wait. We really don’t have any competitors. We did it for over a year during the pandemic. People were paying us 100 percent in full and not getting their bins for six months. And we weren’t losing business over that.

Jay Goltz:
Loren, there’s another answer to that, which we just talked about. She doesn’t have an unlimited fountain of money, so she could end up with tons of inventory and not be able to pay her bills. So it is a balancing act. You’ve got to have inventory, but you also have to be able to pay your bills.

So that’s why I’m saying, part of it is, if you could find a good bank that will lend on contracts, you’ll have some more cash. But that’s a constant problem in business. Luckily for you, your product doesn’t get stale, which in some businesses, it does. Look at what happened to Target and everybody. They bought all their spring merchandise, and oops, they got too much. Your boxes aren’t gonna go out of fashion in three months.

Loren Feldman:
How are you doing, in terms of shipping? Is that still as expensive and fraught as it had been?

Liz Picarazzi:
No, it’s been completely liberated. I actually have no worries about it. The price of containers has come down. At one point, we were paying $32,000 per container. And on our most recent buy, it was about $11,000 per container. It’s insane how much the cost has come down. And the $32,000 per container also was with a really long wait time and getting caught up in the shipyards and in tariffs. And so I’m feeling a lot better about shipping. We’re not getting the runaround from all the intermediaries like we were getting before.

William Vanderbloemen:
Liz, what was the pre-pandemic cost of the container?

Liz Picarazzi:
Pre-pandemic was about what it is now, actually.

William Vanderbloemen:
So it’s not even really affected by inflation.

Liz Picarazzi:
It isn’t. And it’s also weirdly not affected by China’s shutting down, or the Shanghai area shutting down for four weeks.

Jay Goltz:
It’s simple supply and demand. They had more people who needed containers then they could take care of, so somebody there just figured, “What the hell? Let’s triple the price.” And they got away with it.

Loren Feldman:
How are you doing, Jay?

Jay Goltz:
Clearly, business is getting a little softer, and I’m just paying attention to the details. Because what I’ve learned is: When you’re in a recession, nothing really changes—except doing stupid stuff.

Loren Feldman:
What do you mean, “Nothing really changes?”

Jay Goltz:
Nothing really changes, in that you’ve still got to take care of customers, you still have to take care of employees.

Loren Feldman:
But if your business softens, that’s a change.

Jay Goltz:
Yeah, but I’m saying, it’s a change, except that doesn’t mean if I wanted to give good service before the recession, I can just throw up my hands and go, “Well, it’s a recession. We don’t have to worry about taking care of customers anymore”. And I see lots of companies that make what could be fatal errors going along in the three buckets. I’ll just give one example from each: On the marketing side, if your marketing was working before, if you can afford to keep doing it, cash flow wise, I usually just keep doing it.

Because if you built up a market presence in a certain medium, and it was working, cutting that off for a year or two could be very costly. So I’m still spending money on advertising. On the management side, this is where people make mistakes of, “Oh, I’m not giving any raises out.” You can lose some great employees like that. And this is a bizarre maybe-recession, in that I’m still having an extremely difficult time finding people to work in my warehouse. And I can’t figure out why they call, they make an appointment to come in for the interview, and they don’t show up. So at the same time, the labor shortage is still profound.

Loren Feldman:
I don’t think you’re alone with that.

Jay Goltz:
Well, two years ago, we all thought it was the unemployment payments that people were sitting on. Well, those are all dried up now. So I have no explanation for it anymore.

Loren Feldman:
William, are you seeing anything like that?

William Vanderbloemen:
Everywhere. And I don’t know quite how to make sense of it. I do know that, talking with some friends who are in banking, that the… whatever the right words for it are: the debt-to-asset ratio for households right now is the lowest it’s been in a long time. People just aren’t in debt like they used to be. I don’t know if that’s lower credit card spending or if Dave Ramsey is actually making a dent in the budgeting problem people face, but there’s not a, “Man, I’ve gotta make that payment,” that’s going on. And maybe that’s part of it.

On the higher end, I do hear people, we still get the “I can work from home,” or “I want this many PTO hours,” or “I want this many amenities at the office.” The pendulum of the employer having the leverage or the employee having leverage is still definitely on the employee side right now. Jay, I’m with you. I don’t know, how do people feed themselves?

Jay Goltz:
Right, no, no, that makes sense. You’re right with the pendulum thing. The part I don’t get is, why did you call for the job, have a pleasant conversation on the phone, say, “Okay, I’ll come in for an interview,” and then not come in for the interview? I don’t understand why people—

William Vanderbloemen:
Or get all the way—I just had this happen in a really big search for a very high level position. All the way down: reference checks, background checks, done, done, done. And then at the last minute, the candidate wanted double the salary that was put through the whole interview process. And when the employer says, “We can’t do that,” they said, “Okay, well, I’m out.” And I mean, that’s still happening. So I don’t know how to explain it, Jay. I’ve got to think that, like you say, supply and demand. Eventually, people’s personal supply and demand will warrant them not being so demanding.

Jay Goltz:
I just hired back somebody who left to go to work at a big company. He needed to pay off his school loans. He hated to leave, but they offered him way more money. He’s coming back for a pay cut—for a substantial pay cut—because he wants to work here. So it’s not all bad. It’s just the warehouse, in particular, though, is where my problem is.

And then the third category of the recession bad ideas is to stop spending money on stuff that you should be spending money on. Maybe your truck looks terrible. And you think, “Oh, we shouldn’t buy a new truck.” Well, if you need a new truck, you need a new truck. I’ve got an issue with I need a mason to come out and fix some of the bricks on the building. And my kid says to me, “Well, maybe we should wait till business is better.” I go, “The leak doesn’t know the difference whether there’s a recession or not. We don’t need a leaky brick or leaky roof.” So I think you still have—not think—I’m confident you still need to maintain your buildings and maintain your business. But every one of those categories—whether it’s management, finance, or marketing—I see companies making mistakes.

Loren Feldman:
William, about I think six months ago, but before the year began, you introduced us to the memorable phrase, “the vomit list.” And you talked about being proactive about trying to lock up your most important employees. I’m curious, halfway through the year, with the labor shortage continuing, has that strategy worked for you?

William Vanderbloemen:
So far, so good. It’s not bulletproof.

Loren Feldman:
Remind us quickly what you did.

William Vanderbloemen:
Yeah, so what is the vomit list? Ask yourself this question: Anybody who owns a business with employees has had the employee walk in and say, “Hey, can we talk for a minute? It won’t take long.” And it’s usually at the end of the day, and you go, “Oh, man, okay.” Or maybe you say, “Well, finally.” I don’t know. But what would happen if someone walked in your office to resign, who in your company, when they said, “I want to resign,” it would make you want to, first thing, reach for a trash can and throw up? Because, “Oh, boy, this is really going to be bad.” It’s probably not a long list. It’s probably two or three people. And my suggestion was: Figure out what that list is, and do whatever you can to lock them down for whatever period of time you need to be able to find a replacement.

So for me, it was sales. I really needed my head of sales to stay through the end of 2021, and I paid her a retention bonus to stay through 2021. And I knew it probably wouldn’t last, and on about January 3rd of 2022, she came in the office and said, “Okay, I’m leaving.” She’s going to work for a mission agency. She’s actually taking a pay cut. We’re still very good friends. She still trains my salespeople. But it got me through the day that I knew I needed.

So that worked well, even though she left. Other people, it has worked well, and they’ve stayed. Because I think the whole looking for other jobs is sometimes like dating around, and then you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. Sometimes people look around, and they end up coming back, saying, “You know, this is better than I thought it was.”

Loren Feldman:
That’s what Jay just said.

Jay Goltz:
My guy loved working here. He was sick leaving, but they offered him so much money. He owed a bunch, he had to leave, and I got it. And I called him. He’s thrilled to come back.

William Vanderbloemen:
That’s the kicker. I lost a head of marketing who did a fabulous job for me for a long, long time. But another company that really needed a marketing person was like, “We’re just going to pay anything to get her,” and they did. And I don’t really fault her for leaving. I hate it. But I couldn’t have kept her. So you say, “How’s it working?” I think about as well as it can.

And I’m not looking to sew people up forever with me, and no one’s a permanent employee. And my goodness, I’ve had to learn, they’re not my employees. They’re humans who have their own lives and their own dynamics. I think what I’m trying to do with the vomit list suggestion is just plant an idea in my own mind first, and then in other business owners’ minds: What do I do to keep people long enough to create room for a replacement strategy? Because every employee is an interim employee.

Jay Goltz:
Okay, wait, I’ve gotta stop you on that. That’s simply not true. I have 15 people who have been here for 20 some years, that will be here till the day they retire. So I don’t buy that everyone’s interim.

William Vanderbloemen:
And then they will retire.

Jay Goltz:
Well, okay. That’s true. That’s true. They will. No, I always liked your line that, “Every clergy is interim.” That was brilliant. Okay, you’re right, they will. But I’m just saying that there are people who will stay with you their whole career.

William Vanderbloemen:
And then their career ends.

Jay Goltz:
You’re right, you’re right, you’re right.

William Vanderbloemen:
I’m rebuilding my lead team. I lost a couple of them during the pandemic, and no bad leaves. I’d serve as a reference for every one of them. But in rebuilding, I’ve been very intentional in saying, “Okay, we’re not going to discriminate, but if I have a chance to build out a younger team, I will.” Because everybody gets older, and everybody’s interim. So when I have a chance to replace someone, I want to give somebody a chance who might not have as much experience and rebuild something that might last a little longer next time.

Loren Feldman:
Can you talk about wanting to hire younger people, William?

William Vanderbloemen:
Can I talk about it? You mean, legally can I talk about it?

Loren Feldman:
Yes, that’s my question.

William Vanderbloemen:
I don’t know the answer to that.

Jay Goltz:
I’m gonna say no. I’m gonna say you can’t make a statement that, “I’m gonna hire younger people.” Because that implies you’re not going to hire older people.

William Vanderbloemen:
Well, I tried to couch it very carefully.

Jay Goltz:
You failed. [Laughter]

William Vanderbloemen:
I’m not going to discriminate. Well, how is that any different than saying, “I’m not going to discriminate, but if I have a chance to add diversity, I will”? It’s no different. So I’m not gonna—

Loren Feldman:
That’s an interesting question.

William Vanderbloemen:
I’m not going to discriminate, but if I have a chance to give the younger person a chance and build a younger team, I will.

Jay Goltz:
I think just saying, “I’m going to try to get a younger person who I’m going to give a chance to,” okay, that makes sense. I find this interesting: If you look at my company, all these long-term employees, I got every one of them at 22-23 years old. I grew them all. None of them came from the corporate world and came here and made the conversion.

William Vanderbloemen:
Let me interrupt you, Jay, and say: One of the biggest nightmares we have in succession is when—I’ll use the church as an example—a senior pastor comes in young, and does a 30- to 35-year run, all the way to retirement, and hires young friends with them. They all age together, and then the entire ecosystem has to get replaced when the pastor retires. That’s a mess.

Jay Goltz:
Absolutely. No, for sure.

William Vanderbloemen:
If you’re not constantly rebuilding and replenishing your team with people who will last, you’re doing a disservice to your company.

Jay Goltz:
No question, no. And I do have different layers of… well, I have the ones that are in their 50s now, or 40s. I also have some in their 30s who are coming up. So no, you’re 100 percent right.

Loren Feldman:
Liz, have you had issues with labor?

Liz Picarazzi:
Um, no, not really. And I have hired four people in the last couple of months. Because of the growth in the government work, we’ve hired a couple of installers. And I have had—I don’t want to say luck, but—I have a couple of employees that are from Venezuela who have a ton of friends who have also moved to the U.S. all completely legally, completely on the books. But what I’ve found is that most of these men—and they are men—coming from Venezuela have technical handy skills that the average American man doesn’t have.

And so I essentially have an employee who’s recruiting people who have been incredibly reliable, require very little training, and actually are very loyal, because they like working together. It’s also a way that we can give them better work than maybe they would have gotten if they were doing Seamless deliveries, as some of them had been before. So I think there will come a time when—this sounds awful, but I’m gonna say it anyway—my Venezuelan pipeline, it’s gonna go. But for the last few years, we’ve gotten some incredibly good employees through employee referrals.

Loren Feldman:
Some business owners worry about taking the recommendations of friends. I think the concern is that if you hire too many people who are friends, you risk the situation where if you annoy one of them or have a problem with one of them, you end up having a problem with several people. Have you had any concerns about that?

Liz Picarazzi:
Very little. I think that in some of the issues that we’ve had, we’ve just been able to deal with them through better communication and kind of playing the hierarchy card. So if one of my managers is having an issue with one of the installers, he can bump them up to talk to me, and that means something if Liz needs to step in and kind of reprimand or look over things. That’s been pretty effective.

Jay Goltz:
I can tell you, I’ve been living in that world for 40 years, and I have lots of family members working for me. And while there can be an occasional problem, the upside is way bigger than the downside. And if you run the company properly, which I’m not saying I always did, they know when someone’s doing something they shouldn’t be doing. And they don’t just stick with them because it’s their brother. They know the guy didn’t show up on time. He didn’t do a good job. We’ve managed it. And it’s worked out just fine.

I have lots of people working for me who we fired their brother, but they know their brother wasn’t doing what they were supposed to be doing. So I believe if you have a strong corporate culture, they all understand what you need to do for the business to be successful and they’ve bought into that, they might not be thrilled you fired their brother, but they understand and accept it. And I’ve heard people say, “Oh, I never hire relatives.” Wow. If that was the case, in my case, I’d say a third of my employees have a relative working here.

Loren Feldman:
William, do you agree with that?

William Vanderbloemen:
You know, the bulk of the U.S. economy is built on family businesses. So I’ve got a client who hired a nephew, and I told Josh, “It’s only nepotism if you suck.”

Jay Goltz:
Smart. That’s a good line.

William Vanderbloemen:
I am learning that there’s a higher probability of—I’ll call it “familial myopia”—everyone thinks, “My son is awesome,” because their son is a direct reflection on their own gene pool. So there’s maybe a need for, it sounds like sales, but outside counsel to take a look at family candidates and give you not a “hire” or “don’t hire,” but more like a, “Here are the known strengths and here are the risks you need to work around if you’re going to make this move.”

Loren Feldman:
I want to move to another topic. Liz, during the week, we emailed and you talked about an issue that you have that you sometimes—to your detriment, in your words—try to avoid doing certain tasks. Can you tell us what you were referring to and why it’s an issue?

Liz Picarazzi:
Sure. So in both of my businesses, as all businesses need to do, you need to talk to lawyers, accountants, and insurance agents. And as I’ve grown, I realize there’s more and more need to talk to those people. And I find it really unpleasant to talk to people who are gonna remind me of the risks of being in business. It’s definitely a little bit of, I don’t know, maturity. It’s kind of a juvenile reaction. But when I meet with a lawyer or an insurance agent, those two in particular, I sometimes have such an adverse reaction that I need to go home and take a nap. It’s so draining.

Loren Feldman:
Literally?

Liz Picarazzi:
Literally. Like in my old business, everyone knew that if Liz meets with an insurance agent, she’s going to be exhausted and check out early. And that’s why I say it’s juvenile to have such a visceral reaction to having a conversation with someone about your risks. And I know that they’re only doing their job. They’re talking about the worst-case scenario. But I compare that to the feeling of like, this morning, I went over to Queens to talk to someone who we’re working with on locks and various hardware. And I so enjoyed that that it put me in a good mood, because it was creative. It was problem-solving. It was moving forward.

I recently had an experience where I needed a fairly simple subcontract done. And the people I talked to seemed very salesy, and I often have not thought that lawyers are that way. But when I really look at it, and I look at some past experiences, I do realize they sometimes sell you more than you really need. Or they freak you out to the point that you’re willing to almost pay anything, and that was such a negative feeling. This is with a lawyer who I haven’t dealt with yet, so it was a new person. But I felt like there was potentially some overselling. But you need to get it done, so then you feel like you’re forking over the money, and you have a bad taste in your mouth. And then that lingers for a while.

Jay Goltz:
Listen, I give you credit for recognizing there’s an issue with this, and it’s a problem. So good for you. You’re halfway there. The question is; This is the symptom of the problem. And what’s the real problem? I’m not a psychiatrist, but I play one on TV. Are you a control freak? Would you call yourself a control freak? And you just can’t deal with stuff that you can’t control? Is that a possibility? I’ve got two options.

Liz Picarazzi:
I don’t think it’s that. I think it’s more…

Jay Goltz:
Let me tell you the second one.

Liz Picarazzi:
Okay, go to the second one.

Jay Goltz:
Okay, so the second one with the lawyer in particular: Lawyers, I’ve found, are not particularly good salespeople, but they spend their entire days dealing with problems. So for them, “Oh my God, you know what just happened? My other client,” that’s all they see, are problems, which is why you’ve gotta be careful to take advice from a lawyer. Because all they ever see are problems, because that’s what they do for a living. I don’t think they were selling you. I think they’re just telling you, “Look at all the problems I’m dealing with.”

I mean, if you worked in an emergency room, you probably would never ride a motorcycle, is my guess, because you’d be seeing all the people coming in. So if you’re a lawyer, and you see all these problems, that’s all they ever see. But they don’t see the people who don’t have any problems, because they’re not calling on them. I mean, the guy who didn’t get sued by an employee is not a client of theirs. Every single one of their clients, if they’re a labor attorney, is somebody being sued by an employee, so they think that all employees sue people. So I don’t think they’re selling. I think you’ve gotta get the perspective of, “Yeah, whatever.”

Liz Picarazzi:
I mean, with this recent interaction, I think I kind of was. I could just kind of tell by their intake process that there was a little bit of, “Here’s what we’re going to do first. And then you’re going to need the second bit of work too, but we’ll get to that later.” And they wanted me to kind of commit to that second level of work, and I didn’t want to. I really wanted to just see how the first level went. And that made me feel like it was kind of a sell.

And then the other thing I don’t like—and I’m sure we’ve all experienced this—is that there’s sometimes a front person from the firm who brings in the business, does the sale, and then they farm the work out to some subcontractor in God knows where. And then suddenly, that’s the person who you’re dealing with on your patent, which is expensive and time-consuming and you want to have done completely right. I mean, I know that’s the way that they do their business. But I would love it if I could go to one firm and have all of my contractual employment, all of my IP, all done in one place. Like if someone, as a business idea, could make that happen, I think they would do really, really well.

Jay Goltz:
I think that exists. I don’t know, I think there’s a lot, but I think that exists. You probably know more about it than I do. I’m surprised that that doesn’t exist, because I just, for the first time ever, hired a trademark/copyright/IP guy. And he seems to be taking care of everything. Maybe I’m dumb, and he’s farming it out. I never thought that was a possibility. Let me ask you this, this is my third one: Do you have trust issues, do you think?

Liz Picarazzi:
Yeah, I think a little bit. I definitely have that a little bit, because I have been kind of swindled by people in the past. I mean, I think the core issue, I don’t know if it’s exactly any of those three, maybe a little bit of each. I think that I just, as an entrepreneur, like to be in a certain headspace. And I hate it when my headspace is robbed by tasks like renewing your insurance policy. Like it affects me so much more than it should.

Loren Feldman:
It’s not a productive activity. You’re not advancing the cause of the business in a tangible way. And you have to do it, but it’s not fun. It’s not creative. It’s not leading to the outcomes you’re—

Jay Goltz:
Okay, so then number four: You haven’t accepted yet, yeah, it’s all part of the entrepreneur thing. I mean, I don’t like doing it either. But I do what I’ve got to do, because …

Loren Feldman:
You guys all find ways to delegate. Maybe the question, Liz, is why haven’t you assigned these duties to Frank?

Liz Picarazzi:
So that’s something I’m in the process of doing, because he saw what a foul mood I was in for literally three days after my last interaction with a lawyer. And he knows that that’s something that needs to come off of my plate, or at least us do it in tandem for a little bit. And I mean, he’s aware that I guess I’m just sort of this entitled entrepreneur where I only want to be doing creative, inspiring things.

Jay Goltz:
Aha, the breakthrough! We’ve had a breakthrough. Yes, that’s pretty much the story. Okay.

Loren Feldman:
Well, what does that suggest, Jay?

Jay Goltz:
You know what, I totally appreciate and respect that you know this about yourself, that you know it’s putting you in a funk. But I’m hoping that you will process this. You just said it: You have to accept, “Whatever! I’m gonna have to deal with the lawyer.” And I mean, it is what it is. I don’t love that stuff, either. But I accept it. And believe me, I haven’t paid enough attention to certain things that I should have. And it’s cost me. And I myself have to pay more attention to that stuff. But yeah, we can’t every day just do the inspiring, cool, fun, Oh-my-God, we-had-a-big-sale, look-at-the-problem-I-solved thing. It’s all part of the package.

Liz Picarazzi:
Yeah, well, maybe it’s a mental health issue, and I’m totally accepting of that. But my brain chemistry is such that when I work with any of these people, it can take up my brain for days. And if I could take a pill to get rid of that, I would. But it’s the nature of whatever it is I’m working on, I’m really pretty obsessive and focused on it. And quite frankly, I don’t want to be focused on my trademark or patent. I mean, I should be. I should be and I know that. But I don’t like my brain cycling on those issues.

Loren Feldman:
Let me bring William into this. Are there parts of the job of being the owner, the boss, that you just don’t like dealing with?

William Vanderbloemen:
Oh, it’s easy being the owner, the boss. You just work whenever you want to. You don’t have to report to anybody.

Jay Goltz:
You play golf. Throw that in.

William Vanderbloemen:
No, it’s such a tightrope walk, Loren. It’s the best job or position or role I’ve ever had. And it’s also one that there’s never a greater sense of freedom, and at the same time, a responsibility and humbling that the decisions I make are going to affect other people. I don’t think they’re things I don’t like. It sounds arrogant, but there are times where we hire an expert to help us with something, and then Adrienne and I sit down and end up figuring out a better way to do it.

Loren Feldman:
Adrienne’s your wife.

William Vanderbloemen:
Yeah, why are we the ones coming up with the best idea? We have a religion degree and a biology degree. This is so stupid. Why is there not somebody smart… You know, that sounds totally, totally arrogant. I guess what I’m saying is, I love having people who are smarter than me. And it’s frustrating when we hire someone who doesn’t come through on that promise.

Jay Goltz:
I’ve had that. It’s unbelievable that I’ve had to tell a lawyer, “Wait, why are we doing this?” And I was right. I mean, it blows my mind that, yeah, that does happen.

Liz Picarazzi:
Yeah, I have a couple of instances where the lawyer wasn’t very creative about solutions. For instance, with my trademark, there was someone who held a very similar trademark to the one that I wanted. And we were going through all these legal means, and the lawyer even wanted me to change the entire name of my business, which had already been in operation for a while. And I basically looked up the guy who owned the trademark, contacted him on LinkedIn, and he very graciously sold me his trademark, which he wasn’t using. He knew how important that trademark was to me, and I’ll forever be grateful to him. But the lawyer advised me not to do that.

And then there was another spot where there was kind of a bump in the road with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and I just went in, and I emailed the reviewer at the USPTO and asked my question. The lawyer also didn’t like that, that I did that, but I ended up moving the thing forward in a way that he didn’t. And so in both of those instances, I did something that they wouldn’t have advised, and I got exactly the outcome I wanted.

Jay Goltz:
I’ve had that exact same situation just last year, and it was with a trademark thing: I wasted $8,000 in legal bills that I should have spent zero.

Loren Feldman:
All right, we’re just about out of time. I want to ask, basically, one more question, which is, William, you mentioned taking a vacation recently.

Jay Goltz:
Wait, what’s that? What’s that?

Loren Feldman:
Well, that was my first question. Jay, Liz, are either of you taking any vacations this summer?

Jay Goltz:
I haven’t had a vacation in three years.

Loren Feldman:
Why?

Jay Goltz:
There has been this pandemic thing going on.

Loren Feldman:
Oh yeah, I heard about that.

Jay Goltz:
Yeah, maybe two years.

Loren Feldman:
Are you thinking about it?

Jay Goltz:
I am. I’m going out of the country in October, hopefully.

Loren Feldmn
Good for you. Liz?

Liz Picarazzi:
Well, we did cancel the vacation we had this summer due to all the work we’ve brought on. But we have a trip planned for Japan around the holidays that keeps getting bumped because of COVID. And, fingers crossed, we’re going to have it this year. So we’re all really looking forward to that. My 16-year-old daughter actually planned the whole thing: found the flights, found the Airbnbs, found the excursions we’re going to go on. So she made it very easy for us to say yes to that vacation, which is probably more expensive and more time consuming that we would have planned, but it made it very easy.

Jay Goltz:
There’s your answer! She needs to deal with the accountants and the lawyers and the insurance people. Done. Family business.

Loren Feldman:
All right. My thanks to Jay Goltz, Liz Picarazzi, and William Vanderbloemen. As always, thanks for sharing, guys.