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Episode 225: I’m Out of the Valley of Death
I’m Out of the Valley of Death
TIME TO LISTEN: 46:30

This week, Shawn Busse, Jennifer Kerhin, and Jaci Russo talk about how their businesses did this year and what they’re planning for 2025. Jaci and Shawn have been surprised by a surge of new clients in December, which they say never happens. And Jennifer is excited because she’s confident that in the first quarter she will finally exit the Valley of Death—that transitional period growing companies experience when the people and processes that made them successful stop working (AKA No Man’s Land). Along the way, the owners discuss the relative merits of promoting from within vs. hiring from without, how long it should take to onboard senior-level hires, whether it’s better to err on the side of budgeting for too little growth or too much, how they’re training employees to use artificial intelligence, and what Jennifer can do to stop spending so much time writing and pricing proposals.

 It’s Not a Circuit-Board Business. It’s an Asset
TIME TO LISTEN: 51:26

This week, special guest Karla Trotman explains, step by step, how she has managed to navigate the challenges and opportunities that only a family business can offer. Karla grew up around a manufacturing business, Electro Soft, that her father started, but she never intended to make a career of it. Instead, she found success in corporate America, but over time, she also came to realize the true wealth-building power of owning a business, any business. “It's not a beauty salon,” she says. “It's an asset. It's not a shoe-shine store. It’s an asset.” That realization sent her back to Electro Soft, which thrilled her father. They agreed to work together for three years after which he would retire and she would buy the business. And that’s pretty much what happened—although, as Karla tells us, thanks to some family dynamics that had to be negotiated, the transition didn’t take three years. It took 11 years.

 It's a Pathetic Budget, But We'll Hit It

This week, Shawn Busse, Jay Goltz, and Sarah Segal talk about why they’re not going to hit their numbers for 2024 and what they’re expecting from 2025, especially regarding tariffs, immigration, and regulation. Shawn says his business has been producing and closing fewer leads. “Clearly,” he says, “we’ve gotta change something.” Jay doesn’t think furniture sales will recover until mortgage rates come down, and he’s bracing for tariffs and deportations that he hopes won’t actually come: “I have to believe,” he tells us, “that somebody in government is going to figure out this isn't a good thing.” Sarah, meanwhile, says her revenues are down, but she’s taking solace from the fact that she is ending the year with a stronger book of business than she ended with last year. Plus: the owners discuss what it means that a judge in Texas has blocked the new overtime law. And they offer guidance to a cafe owner who raised her prices only to get hit with another 25-percent price hike from her main supplier, leaving her to wonder whether she should raise prices again or “eat the loss and pray for a miracle.”

 For Years, We Thrived Without Marketing. Now What?
TIME TO LISTEN: 52:00

This week, we bring you another Entrepreneurial Fish Bowl with Chris Hutchinson. These Fish Bowls are our virtual brainstorming sessions where we offer business owners the opportunity to pose a challenge they’re facing to a group of owners and entrepreneurs from the 21 Hats community. This time, our volunteers are Alvin Elbert, founder of A.R.E. Manufacturing, and his daughter Megan Perona, who explain that their company had its best year ever in 2022 but have seen business fall off since then. For 40 years, A.R.E. grew slowly but steadily on word of mouth. More recently, however, the Elbert family has concluded that it’s time to do some real marketing. Like a lot of owners, though, they’re a little overwhelmed by the options, unsure where to begin, and wary of wasting money. They also happen to be going through a family ownership transition. The 21 Hats brainstormers begin by asking a lot of questions, including whether the owners have invested in search engine optimization, whether they’ve gone back to some of the customers they lost to China, and whether they’ve considered hiring a marketing agency.

 The D.E.I. Backlash Hasn’t Changed Mel Gravely’s Story

In 2021, Mel Gravely wrote a book, Dear White Friend, that was aimed primarily at fellow business owners. In the book, Mel tried to make it easier for owners to have genuine conversations about race. He suggested strategies for those, perhaps motivated by the murders of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, who might want to engage. He acknowledged that emphasizing diversity can be hard work. He acknowledged that some of his own efforts had failed. But he also pointed out that he himself had been, in his words, “an affirmative action baby” and that that investment had paid off for his college, his previous employers, and the city of Cincinnati. It’s been less than four years since Mel published Dear White Friend, but of course that was a very different time. This week, he talks about the backlash that has ensued and the strategies he still believes can work for those who don’t consider diversity a dirty word.

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Managing the Unexpected Risks of Entrepreneurship
TIME TO LISTEN: 45:09

This week,Paul Downs and Jay Goltz talk about the risks they didn’t see coming. While everyone knows there’s a risk that a business can fail because it just doesn’t work, there are lots of other, less obvious risks. These are not the risks you lose sleep over, but they’re real, and if you don’t manage them, you can expose yourself needlessly to a slew of problems. Because most people learn about these risks the hard way, Jay and Paul set out to create a top 10 list of them, but I think—for those of you keeping score at home—we actually hit 11. Which led Jay to caution: “I by no means am telling anybody, ‘Oh my God, I don't sleep at night. I'm worried about all these things.’ I'm not worried about them. I just keep an eye on them.” Wait, says Paul. That’s another one: “The risk is that you let this thing live in your head and that it destroys your ability to focus on what you should focus on.” Okay, so that makes 12. And by all means, please let us know which ones we missed.

 I'm Not Building Wienermobiles My Whole Life
TIME TO LISTEN: 47:16

This week, special guest Travis LeFever shares the unusual journey he and his co-founder wife, Amanda, have taken to build Mission Mobile Medical, which makes mobile health clinics in Greensboro, NC. That journey started with Travis partnering in a construction business by taking out 39 credit cards to borrow $250,000. The business did well, and he eventually bought out his partner, but when Travis’ father died unexpectedly, he was moved to sell the construction business and look for something more meaningful to do with his life. That extended search led him, somewhat improbably, to overseeing sales for a company that manufactured specialty vehicles, including the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. It was there that Travis had another life-changing experience when a nurse with a federal grant asked if he could build a mobile clinic to reach patients in underserved communities. That was the spark that led Travis and Amanda to cash in their insurance policies and start Mission Mobile Medial in 2020. The company, whose remanufacturing process allows it to create clinics in less time and for less money than its competitors, expects to hit $60 million in revenue this year.

 A Few Good Plumbers
TIME TO LISTEN: 53:00

This week, special guest Rich Jordan tells Shawn Busse and Jay Goltz what it was like buying a small plumbing business in 2020 despite having very little experience with either plumbing or business—but having spent 10 years in the Marine Corps. “When I reflected on my time in service and what I did well and what I enjoyed,” Rich tells us, “it was when I was on a small team with high stakes, far forward, far from the flagpole, responsible for making decisions and sustaining ourselves and figuring things out. So when I thought about that—small team, high stakes, self-sustained—small business kind of fit that bill.” Not surprisingly, it took Rich some time to figure out what he was doing with the plumbing business, but in just four years, through organic growth and a few acquisitions—while taking no outside capital—he’s gone from three plumbers and $1 million in annual revenue to about 90 employees and $20 million in revenue. Which is why, Rich tells Jay and Shawn, he keeps moving the goalposts, reassessing just how big he wants the business to be.

 'Things Are Going to Suck’

This week, Laura Zander tells Shawn Busse and Jay Goltz about her approach to buying businesses. Laura says she simply recognizes that for a period of time, life will be miserable for her and for her team. That’s what happened almost a year ago when she bought two businesses that were a challenge to integrate. And now, just as things have calmed down a bit, she expects it to happen again as she eyes another acquisition. It’s also what she expects to happen as she and her husband Doug proceed with their ongoing migration to Shopify. “Our sales are going to go down,” says Laura. “SEO is going to be rough. My biggest concern, honestly, is Doug's mental health. This whole process has been so stressful for him.” Shawn, Jay, and Laura also discuss how they feel about the possibility that the 20-percent Qualified Business Income deduction could go away next year, when it’s set to expire. You might be surprised by their answers.

 ‘Being Civilized Ain’t Gonna Do It’

This week, Shawn Busse and Jay Goltz talk about the trendy job interview strategy of trying to get beyond canned responses by asking candidates unexpected questions along the lines of, “If you were a superhero, what powers would you have and why?” Or, “What animal best represents you as a person?” Not surprisingly, Jay isn’t a big fan of those questions, and he offers an alternative strategy that features four questions of his own design. Shawn does like to ask unexpected questions, but specifically those that help him figure out whether a candidate is likely to work well with others. Plus: Shawn talks about what it was like attending the recent going-out-of-business sale of a company he had declined to take on as a client three separate times. Also, Shawn and Jay respond to a Reddit post, where a business owner asks what he can do about a large commercial client who simply refuses to pay a $40,000 bill. “Did I just learn a $40,000 lesson?” the devastated owner asks. “What now?”

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