Help Me With Sign Nevada Banking Word

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welcome to today's webcast my name is Erica and I'll beer event specialist today if you should need technical assistance please type your inquiry into the tech support box on the left side of your screen and click the send button if you are disconnected from the webcast you can log on again using the login instructions provided to you if you cannot log back in with these instructions please call support at eight six six two seven one seven five nine two it is now my pleasure to turn the webcast over to your first speaker sukin shah from nevada state bank mr. Saul you have the floor thank you and good morning everyone and welcome to our June webinar series this morning we have steven s little the business business growth expert steven has written several best-selling books his latest book is duck and recover the embattled business owners guide to survival and growth steve has also been a senior consultant for inked magazine and he regularly speaks for some of the world's leading organizations including UPS Microsoft fedex and the National Association of Homebuilders and the Consumer Electronics Association so we're very excited to have steven this morning even we're going to turn it over to you and though we'll let you get started well great and thank you soo good for that great introduction and good morning to everyone here in Nevada I'm actually calling it from North Carolina today opposite side of the country but it's a pleasure to be with you and thanks for joining us I'm hoping to keep this very informative and I'm hoping to keep it actionable I want to talk about things today that you can actually do to help grow your business and let's get to it but before we do we have a couple of poll questions that I'd like to start with we're only going to ask a couple of questions we're not going to use poles the rest of the time but the first questions have to help me better understand who is joining us today so if you would please take a moment just to fill this out whether your business owner and employee may be just getting started or maybe the transition is you don't know what you're doing I've got some friends like that these days and the numbers keep coming in it looks like we've got over half business owners and I guess is some people are working with small businesses that are listening in but even if you're starting a new business and you're just kind of a one-person operation and either looking to make the leap or have just recently made the leap everything we're going to say today pertains but we are going to be talking about some areas that might be down the road on the horizon for you I still think it will be apropos and helpful to you so thanks for taking the time to fill out that first question our second question on the pole is uh just help me better understand geographically within the state where are you from with you from the south or from the north but maybe you're not even from Nevada as the numbers come it would appear that we have maybe half the people are from the southern area of Nevada but to have her from other places and a good mount over a third or from outside of Nevada and so welcome I'm glad you're here and I think we're going to go ahead and get started I was I appreciate you doing that just to help me better understand who I've got on the call with me today the title of our presentation my presentation is about owning your opportunity and business strategies for the coming recovery I'd like to start today with a story in 1959 was actually April twelfth 1959 john f kennedy was then running for president of the united states he was on the campaign trail in indianapolis indiana at the fairgrounds and he was delivering an address and he told that gathering in indianapolis that night that there was a word in Mandarin Chinese for crisis and that that were was actually a combination of two words and two characters in Mandarin Chinese the first character was the character for the word danger and it looks something like this and it's pronounced something like this I pronounces we sure it's wrong but something along those lines it was the second character that was interesting that night he explained to the room that the second character maybe you've heard this before it's not the first time I've heard it it's not the first time I've told it but the second character was actually the character for opportunity which looks something like this and it's pronounced something like G so the word crisis according to John F Kennedy 1959 was a combination of both danger and opportunity I wished on that fascinating and I've heard that many times throughout my life I can tell you that everyone from The Wall Street Journal to reuters has used this on number of occasions and both sides of the political aisle have used it from Richard Nixon to Condoleezza Rice to Al Gore have invoked this valuable lesson only problem with the lesson is that it's untrue that the actual characters do not represent exactly what it said the first character does represent the word for danger according to a linguist I spoke to at the University of Pennsylvania but it's the second character that was wrong the actual character is that G but it doesn't mean opportunity it is closer to the word critical point in time or a critical juncture a critical moment in time so what's the point it's a good way to start is simply this any type of business leader understands that danger is dangerous and is to be avoided at all costs and a crisis is certainly fraught with danger but what danger also brings is a critical juncture in time a critical moment in time it isn't danger that creates opportunity it is in fact change that creates opportunity and we certainly have plenty of change over the last few years the last two or three years have been nothing but change in our economy and change in our world and as a result opportunities are being created but dangers to be avoided at all costs but leveraging the opportunities afforded by change is the opportunity I think that you should be looking to own and the way to do that I think is a su can just told you I I wrote a book about it I said you need to first duck that is to avoid the near and present dangers but what you've got that taken care of then you look to recover duck and recover is the title of the book and we're going to be talking about the second half I'm going to assume that if you're on this call you've done a pretty good job of ducking and you're still up and taking nourishment and you're able to think about the road ahead it could be your industry or your geography is well into recovery my guess is for many of you that still has not happened quite yet but we're going to be talking about ways in which you can indeed recover that in what you're looking to do is to first get your ducks in a row and then look for the best ways to own your opportunity and we're going to talk about the ways i recommend that you should own that opportunity in today's world the first of those is to get out of that bunker mentality to get out of your bunker to get out of the siege of mentality and start doing things that are proactive rather than reactive there's reasons why staying in a bunker makes sense when times are dangerous keeping your head down so that you can then explode back with urgency when conditions are right I think it's time to get out of those bunkers and start doing the things you need to do things like seeking more opportunities for face-to-face no matter how good we get at technology there is no substitute in my opinion for face-to-face face-to-face is the highest value contact possible between two human beings in the world of Industry and Commerce that has been never been more true than it is today get out and see your vendors get out and see your customers I'd even go so far as to say look for your vendors vendors and your customers customers go see them invite them or encourage them to come see you nothing can take the place a face to face you'll never know what you're missing if you're not there I'd also recommend that you start getting more involved in your community I mean it most literally in your physical community things like the school systems of chambers of commerce economic development corpse and the light it involved in those kinds of things perhaps even in associations in the local political process and then of course you can take it to a broader meaning of community with social networking we can do different things in form communities of our own within our industries and within our companies even so getting involved in that broader idea of community I think is important let me give you two ideas on where I'd start if I was a business owner in Nevada today first and foremost I would go to my chamber of commerce I'm not already involved and a member become a member and if I'm already a member ticket the next level and start really participating I'm a big believer in the power of chambers for those of you that live in Southern Nevada which is about half the people the call today if you're anywhere close to Las Vegas I can tell you from personal experience but there are five thousand chambers in the United States of America and without question the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce is in the top ten without question and so you've got a resource there that is tremendous but other cities of your size would love to get their hands on there's some other great chambers in Nevada I just happen to be particularly familiar with the chamber in Las Vegas I've spoken there twice and they are some outstanding people it's a great organization another thing I would do as a business owner is I would get very involved in community colleges I'd be going to community colleges and say here's the kind of people i am looking for right now community colleges are still one of our great strengths in this country and in the state of Nevada I know there's a system that is strong get in there and tell them and explain to them the kind of people that you might be looking for in the future so they can start working with you and and getting the kind of employee that you're going to need long-term so those may be two places i would start i'd also go see a show there's nothing like a good trade show at the local level the regional level the national level and so most people on this call today you're one of the epicenters for shows the ability to get to people of influences is so much easier for you than some people in other parts of the country so i could go see us trade show even if it's only ancillary to what you do of course if you're a if you're a boat dealer there's shows for you and you can go see a boat show close by somewhere driving distance but there's also the ability to talk to people that are closely related and aligned physically going to see a show I can tell you I never go to a show a trade show where I don't learn something meet people of influence and that it doesn't end up paying for itself in the end and finally I talked about getting out of your chair in terms of seeing the world through information gathering sometimes we can leave our offices just through the internet and we have a powerful tool that allows us to monitor ongoing information that helps us gain wisdom and my guess is you didn't think you're gonna hear from me about this but but if you're taking any notes I'd ask you to write down that leaders are readers leaders are readers and readers are indeed leaders and it is my opinion that there's nothing more important for a business leader right now than to gain information that gains the wisdom to help you make the decisions you need to make to help grow your business I know that when times are tough and that we're under stress and that there's it appears as as time has become compressed that we feel like we don't have time to gain wisdom I would turn it around and say what is possibly more important than gaining wisdom in a time like this in a time of economic challenges being the smarter person is going to be the winner the winning formula and we have the ability to get it through information like never before when I started my career 20 years ago it's a big advertising agency in chicago if my boss wanted to know the price of tea in china that might take a day today take a couple seconds to get information training into action all information that is wise is a good thing for a business leader to do next area in which i would look to concentrate my time my money's my efforts in this recovery would be to fill market vacuums filling market vacuums in the 5th century BC Greece great thinkers much greater thinkers than I came up with a notion that i was taught in my 11th grade physics class and there's a simple idea but one that's always stuck with me and that is to say that nature of bores or hates nature abhors a vacuum hates it and will look to fill it at any time nature does a bore vacuum and so does your market don't allow a bootstrapping startup to fill a market voi that has been created by change margaret voids are happening all over the country all over the world as people fall out of business new needs of consumers and of other businesses are created voids are created don't allow new people to fill those voids don't allow bundling behemoths great big companies who think they might want to get into your thing to get into what is rightfully yours I would proactively scan the horizon for the unmet needs of the customers I seek to serve and I would look to best fill the needs as best I can as quickly as I can identifying what the new needs will be will be one most important things business leaders will do when we look back 10 years from now it will be the proactive business leaders that looked out slightly to the future just a bit out and said that as a whole that is going to be bigger and it needs to be filled and we're perfectly positioned to fill it I purposely didn't spend a lot of time on this one because I can summarize it this way that the status quo is the opposite of grow and sticking to what has always worked could be your downfall I'd be looking for ways to fill the vacuums that are being created in every market look at your market specifically and say what can we do to fill the market vacuum before someone else does because someone will the next thing I'd look to do is to partner for profit partnering with others is a great way to build your business and in when its troubled times it's particularly a good time because people are more apt to be looking for partnerships ways in which they can work with you to meet mutually beneficial goals the kinds of things I'm talking about in terms of potential Parcher partners would be distribution partners I once was the manufacturer of safety products I was president of a company and manufactures safety products we sold them throughout the United States indeed throughout the world we were small most of my competitors were much larger and I first got into it and it wasn't my company I was brought in to manage a small manufacturing company when I first got into it I noticed that our large competitors were selling to large safety distributors and try as I might the first year or two I realized that my little company could not compete on that level they were too entrenched my competitors were too entrenched and they were all kind of in bed together our strategy was a simple one we created a new distribution channel there was a group of people that were called the specialty tool and fastener distributors of America they're called staff de especially tool and fascinating distributors of America these are smaller usually in office parks that are have a front desk that are selling to roofing and and drywall and contractors of those types and I realized that they wanted to be in a safety business but they couldn't they couldn't compete the big boys wouldn't sell them and they'd been effectively shut out of a market when I started putting hard hats in their locations and said you have to pay for them until you sell them we were able to gain a whole lot of customers real fast created a whole new distribution system we partnered with those people and created a win-win for both of us distribution strategies can matter I don't know where you are in the distribution chain perhaps i'm tal ing about finding new distributors if you're a retailer if you're in hospitality perhaps you're talking about someone else they can be a supplier distribution strategies can be one of the best ways in which to partner the next notion would be partnering on the idea of product and service every product that i've ever been involved with has a distinct service component and every service offering can be turned into a product things like life insurance is a service but there's whole life and there's term life two different products of a service so there's a product and service component to everything if you are a service provider think about ways in which you could partner on the product side and vice versa if you are a product if you offer a product perhaps there's a service component that you can partner with someone to help provide I was just in Las Vegas two weeks ago spoke to 800 people there at the finest Hotel I won't say which one but in my opinion the finest Hotel in Las Vegas who can maybe later you can ask you what the finest Hotel in Las Vegas's and at that event there a group there that provides what they call software as a service they're in the business of helping software manufacturers and software providers give their products out and as a service software the services if those on the phone right now they're nit they're saying who doesn't know that and the answer would be probably anyone outside of IT doesn't necessarily know that yet but for having software as a product and a service is a winning strategy for them I think for anyone on this call thinking about how that replies to you could be important next area in which I would look we be in marketing marketing partnerships all kinds of ways whether it's co-op advertising trade out and bartering pricing partnerships pricing partnerships are one of my favorites I don't work for priceline I don't know priceline I have other than I'm a customer who really believes in their product i love the priceline product if you've never played with it i would encourage you to do it but the idea is a pretty simple one I think they looked at the model and said you know if the hotel can make money at sixty percent or seventy percent occupancy and we can give them extra ten or twenty percent without hurting their brand by doing it blindly and help them fill a rooms that are going to go to waste it's money that goes right to the bottom line the great model the pricing strategy the pricing partnership it's a marketing partnership it works for everybody I want to make mention of the idea strategic alliances and joint ventures only to say though of course these are other more formal ways of partnering a strategic alliance would be two organizations coming together and working duh and branding together to go form something new and different joint venture is actually taking it a step further and actually creating a third party a legal third-party if there's attorneys on the phone I apologize I I know no more than that done it a few times but usually I leave it to the attorneys to figure out but strategic alliances and joint ventures are both perhaps even further uh types of partnerships greater amount of partnership and they're important I would do my homework in my research before entering into either one and again I'm sure there's some attorneys on the phone today that would love to help you with that in fact i'm sure nevada state bank could probably help point you in the right direction on that next area which I would look is what i would call catch a falling star the notion here is a simple one and that is there are great people available right now we've got great people available and it's a rare event just like falling meteors is a rare event this is a rare event unemployment remains high I know that grain the bureau of labor statistics unemployment is still relatively high in Nevada how high still the highest in the country according to the guesstimate they made for the month of April May has not come out to my knowledge still at 12 and half percent you were bumping up against fourteen percent not too long ago and of course those numbers are we could argue for 30 minutes about what those numbers mean for some reason Nevada has the highest unemployment according to the bureau of labor statistics in the country and as a result I'd say this opportunity of course it's also a threat because it is hurting people's ability to buy your services and your wares but it also is opportunity for a business leader because it is still a buyers market for talent and talent is at a premium ten years ago the bureau of labor statistics told us told you and I told business leaders but the greatest threat to the American economy would be the labor shortage that would happen by 2010 they told that over 20 million skilled workers would be missing by the year 2010 the great crisis the great recession the whatever we've just gone through and still dealing with perhaps has changed those numbers but I can tell you as someone who's been in dozens of markets in the last 12 months that everywhere I go big businesses small business alike tell me that their greatest barrier to growth right now is still finding the trained people they need the right people people with the right skill sets so right now there are we have a rare event unemployment high good people are available it's a buyers market you're the buyer they're the seller I'd go find one proven people are prowling they're out there looking they want you you want them and i would spend time i would spend money trying to take advantage of this rare event understand that big biz uh is not your is your is anything but your ally as you look into this also understand that the majority of people the majority of good people majority of bad people more if workers at any level would rather work for a smaller company than a larger company all things being equal but sometimes not all things are equal and so you have to understand what it is that you have to offer against big business against a larger company right now with everything changing from health care benefits to compensation plans to what the meaning of work is in our lives you've got to really get good at understanding your competitive advantage as it relates to the best and the brightest people because it is my opinion this is going to be a winner for you there's a bigger risk for you to consider as well the greatest risk here in my opinion is this I have had tremendous success in my past having run three companies all of which were smaller than 15 million in revenue some as small as a half million in revenue in all three companies I was president of prior to doing what I do now I had success hiring away great talent from big business but on the whole in general terms it has been my experience both in my my own businesses as well as working with literally hundreds of others it's been my experience that on the whole that is a tough thing to do people that say they want to work for small business can't always do it people want work for privately held businesses they say they want to do it and they get in there and they find out that their 20 years or their 30 years or even their 10 years of having worked at a big company has made it difficult for them to understand the needs of a smaller organization and my guess is that many people in this call would understand what I'm saying if people had any experience I was just with the group where they had 25 employees three years ago today they have a hundred employees and elite they need 20 employees yesterday they were behind on hiring they can't get enough good people and I asked him the leader of that organization not the owner he's the president I asked him had he made any hiring mistakes and he said yes nice they could you tell me more about those hiring mistakes that's what's led to them being cautious and being behind on the 22 he said the three hiring mistakes to be made the three biggest ones were he high-level positions with people coming from much larger companies that couldn't understand what happens at a hundred person organization they were coming from organizations of twenty or forty thousand and they couldn't relate to our organization I then asked him what was the best hire he made and he explained to me the best Harry made was also a senior level position from somebody came from a very large company and it's proven to be his right-hand person so it's not a tried-and-true rule I just be very cautious did I look at the person who they are what they're saying and make sure that the I'm taking the right risk you want the skill set you want the experience you want the desire and then there's some intangibles you're looking for their people coming from bigger companies to your little company or your smaller business it's a it's a risk for you to take but it's one to take cautiously next area unless I've got those good people and look around where I am and you move you've I've got one person or I've got a hundred people I'm looking around I'm saying how can I train the talented is my opinion of course everything is just my opinion today but is my opinion that everything of everything we are going to talk about today this is the best area for you to allocate your resources right now is my opinion this is where you should concentrate your time your money your effort as a leader because nothing in is going to be more important than getting people up to speed getting them trained so they can take advantage of the opportunities afforded by change if they ever were to create but I would call the hollow business phrase Hall of Fame let me say it again the hollow business phrase Hall of Fame the winning entries for the hollow business phrase Hall of Fame would things like your call is very important to us that might be number one but number two would probably be something like people are our greatest asset people are our greatest asset I see emblazoned on people's business cards I see it on websites and I hear owners and managers of growing organization saying it every day I don't always see evidence of it especially in a downturn sometimes training investing in our talent new and old gets pushed aside speaking of pushing my recommendation is is that you look to become customer eyes or have it be customer training as opposed to what most people do most people do what I call push button training this is how you push the button on the phone system to make it work this is how you push the button on the machine to make it work this is how you push the button on the computers to produce the reports some of that internal training is necessary of course but usually it comes with time where I would spend my money my time my effort if I were you would be to help those that work with me those that work for me and the new hires that were coming into my organization to better understand things like who buys from us who buys from us now what do they look like where they care about and why would anyone ever buy from the other people the other people that say they do what we do what is our clear differentiation in this marketplace how do we do things differently around here what's our reason for being you're going to look for proving players and they're going to have new needs they've proven themselves but they're going to need new skill sets well they've proven themselves for you or they've proven themselves in other places no matter who you are there is a new skill set needed to meet the changing marketplace and that's where this customer eyes training putting the customer first customer centric training is when i'm asking for calling for and suggesting but there are two things to which we cannot train no matter how hard i try there are two things i have never been successful training for see if you agree with them one would be the notion of a mind I cannot train someone to be smart conversely i can take a smart person and train them to do just about anything a great mind is what I'm looking for and I'm not suggesting that we put genius level people on third shift maintenance crews I'm not what I am suggesting is on that third shift maintenance crew within a range i would want the smartest people possible and if i had few people that i was looking at i would want to have it be the first and foremost qualification it's a baseline it is the first thing I'm looking for is better abilities for problem-solving better problem-solving ability is measurable now not every HR director is going to agree with what I'm saying I'm just telling my personal experience my personal experiences is I can test for gray matter I can test for problem-solving ability and once I know that they have the right kind of mind to work with and for me then I can move on to the things that matter perhaps even most it's the baseline but then there's things that matter most and the second thing I can't train for it's harder to evaluate but it's every bit as important as gray matter and that is the notion of what I call manners I can't train someone to be nice I can't train them to be respectful I can train them to be nicer I can train them to perhaps be more respectful than they were when they entered but if they're not naturally inclined to be this way my experience has been is I can't train them to be or an express the importance and I can take people to have great minds that are also pleasant pleasantness I and and work well with other people and have a proven record of doing that you give me nice people that have proven ability to solve problems I can do anything with them I can put them anywhere I can make them into the force I want and it's advice that I hope helps you I don't mean to offend anyone there will certainly be people today that will take exception to what I've said I've already volunteered that HR directors do not agree with what I've just told you I'm telling that 20 25 years of doing what I do has been my experience that these are the two things I'm looking for great minds and respect for others manners or what helped me find the best and the brightest people and build winning teams finally the last area I would spend time money and effort is in an effort to see the future more clearly clearly seeing your future is the job of a business growth leader it's not necessarily the job of everyone that works with and for you but it is the job of a leader and if you're on the phone call today and you are a leader er indeed the leader of a team you're the leader of an office staff you're the owner of a business you are a leader and you need to look at the future is the future is changing of course so let's talk about what i mean by looking at the future you know i'm talking about a new factor that a rapid change that has come into our world and we haven't learned yet how to adjust to its economic or social or technological or flat merits political it achill environmental a factor of rapid changes come into a world we haven't learned to keep up with it I find that most people can agree to this my guess is most people on our call state would agree with it what's fascinating to me is that it comes from what I consider to be a reliable source that would be the Harvard Business Review it was in 1932 1932 we perceived the world to be changing so rapidly that we could not keep up with social and economic consequences and the like here's my advice take it for what it's worth business growth leaders spend over half their time on the issues of tomorrow let's say that again in this country business growth leaders spent over half their time on the issues of tomorrow what do I mean by the issues of tomorrow let's describe the issues of yesterday the issues of yesterday are things like quality control and accounting these are things that normally I can outsource for I'm to do the minus to understand them I've spent time on periodically but certainly no spend the majority of my time on things like quality and accounting I hire for it and I outsource it and I it's important but it's not something a business leader spends their time on they prioritize it but they don't prioritize their time on it then there's the issues of today the issues of today are things like sales operational issues internal issues things are happening right now I hig er for those things they're important to me but the daily monitoring of the business is what I a leader hires people to do it isn't what a leader spend their time on again I'm talking about a division that's just over half over half your time should be spent on the issues of tomorrow a leader in this country should be spending on their time on the issues of tomorrow issues up tomorrow for businesses or things like marketing technology being proactive on what we call this people problem everyone's going to have a people problem if you don't already you're going to have one and so getting proactive on that people problem those are the issues of tomorrow it's where I suggest you spend the majority of your time over fifty percent it's not to say you're not going to spend a lot of time on the issues of yesterday and today I'm just saying that business growth leaders find ways to spend their time the majority of on the issues of tomorrow it's the job of a leader so the United States of America is changing dramatically fact I'll leave you with just a couple of thoughts and then we'll get to some questions first is this here we are looking at the flag no US president has ever been born and died without the number of stars on the flag changing I'll say it again lest there be confusion no US presidents ever been born lived served and subsequently died without this flag changing in some fundamental way the number of states where they are what we call them is my belief that the United States of America in my lifetime will change geographically in fundamental ways what you and I think of as being I States will change my question will be have you anticipated that have you thought it through what could it possibly be maybe when we get questions people ask me my opinion my opinion doesn't matter doesn't matter what I think will be the changes I'm asking you to challenge your most closely held beliefs challenging most closely at the hella beliefs about what it is to be an American what it is to be in the United States where is the United States what is the United States and then get it down to the specificity of your business what is it to be the owner of an advertising agency what is it to be the owner or the manager of a dry cleaning operation what if I'm a wedding planner what we're wedding is going to look like in the years ahead compared to what they used to be how are things changing in the market how are things changing your geography how are things changing in the world change that's where opportunities being created one last thought before we go and we're going to get two questions I've got a hero maybe you've got one too but my hair has been consistent for a long time my grandfather introduced me to Samuel Clemens or Mark Twain a number of years ago whenever I'm unsure of something I'm sure of myself or I'm sure of the future I go to Mark Twain I find he's usually right he's right about most things late in his life Mark Twain said this he said I am an old man and I have known a great many troubles you know anything about his life later in his life he did have a few troubles susama old man I've known a great many troubles but most of them never happened it's in my experience through 30 years of being in business that the things we worry about the things that happen or two different things and of course we have to be open and honest with ourselves about the varying forces of change that represent threat but we also have to be equally open to the notion of opportunity and the idea that some of our greatest fears are never realized I have no idea what's going to happen in the future and I understand how difficult things are or could be perceived to be right now in your specific geography i'm there a lot i'm in Las Vegas a lot I've been to Reno in the last six months I've been throughout the region I've certainly been in the Phoenix area I was recently in Northern California so I've been in the region I know times are tough it's tough in Detroit it's tough in Naples Florida it's tough around the world but I can look at the bright side too and it isn't just a half-full mentality is not just rose-colored glasses there is reason for optimism all kinds of reasons for optimism and my job today to make you feel better about the future it's my job today to say those of you that have the ability to look at the opportunities afforded by fundamental change will be the winners 10 20 years from now in the year twenty twenty just right around the corner once you try have a 2020 vision of the year twenty twenty what that's going to look like what that's going to represent those that are have the determination to stick to where the marketplace is headed and not try to react to what it's doing right in the moment are going to be the ultimate winners in the game of Industry and Commerce no question in my mind now I'm gonna finish up by saying that I'm going to take some questions but I'm I'm hoping you'll do me a great favor it sounds very self-serving and I recognize that I have a few hundred people who follow me on my twitter account the vast majority of which I have no idea why they follow me I look at who they are and what they do it would appear to me they are either students well that's great I understand them but the vast majority of them just appear to want to collect other people who are sending tweets I don't know if you're somebody follows this before the call I was actually talking to Susan about i'm not sure what the application is I would just love to have some people that actually I could help I could actually send information to I said I tend to send one a day sometimes two you know usually one that's business and sometimes it's just a personal observation about sports or life or a movie but at least one a day but I think will help you grow your business and again sounds self-serving because i'm going to do with i'd love to have an audience that wants to hear what I have to say so I haven't been promoting my my Twitter account this is it if you want to reach me that's how you do it if you want email me or you can visit my website my website I can promise you there's nothing to buy there but it will make you laugh if you have a moment when we get done just pop in there and in about a minute and a half you'll uh you'll say well it's that's a pretty interesting use of Internet technology and sitting really if you remember I said I wanted to go something less than 45 minutes get these folks on their way but i do want to take any and all questions i'll stay on this phone just as long as as people would like to stay on the phone and answer any questions that might be out there d thanks so much we do actually have a few questions coming in a couple of folks have asked you know what is the number one problem holding small businesses back from growth what is the what what don't they do that they should well it's a great question and when i hear a lot the the question again being you know what is the greatest barrier to growth for most small businesses and at various times over the last 20 years of me studying it it has been things like access to capital it has been things like big business washing my my competitiveness and you know recently it has been i would say recently mean last five to ten years most people would say it is the inability to find the skilled workers that i need at any level so that is the kind of a historic on it here's my other take on it so can i would say this the greatest barrier to growth for most small business owners is their inability to not let go of what used to work i I say sometimes I have to say to people I consult with you got to get your head out of your past the past is just that I congratulate you on the success that's gotten you to this point and the wisdom that you've derived from it but your market has changed so fundamentally that you have to understand that everything that you've built and you've learned and it is now is holding you back so all in on this second on this question for so many business owners that I know it isn't that they don't know enough is that they know too much they rely too much on their past although they used to know but you maybe once was true is no longer true or maybe it was never true but they were successful anyway the greatest barrier to growth tends to be between our ears and less to do with market forces or availability of capital or availability of people the greatest barrier to growth it is ourselves excellent a couple of other a couple of other questions you know sort of relating to folks that have had to reduce their staff over the last couple of years and now you know that the job market is is getting better and you know how what do you think what is the best way to to either you know go out and find these these quality people or potentially train the ones they have to fill in the role that you know maybe they've had to let go in the past what are your suggestions were your thoughts around that well you know I I have to be honest uh the honest answer to that question of what can I do to I've let some people go and now I need them I need people again and the honest answer is this hiring and training are never programs they're not initiatives they are something that you never stop doing even if you're reducing staff you are constantly seeking that the true all-stars the greatest players the very but you want the best players possible for your team and you know sports analogies are overused by people and do what I do for a living but in this case it's so apropos it's so right on target if you want to win more games it takes better players and the ability to always be looking for those better players here's been my experience as hard as it seems during the toughest of times uh the best higher I ever made the person the one person who took my business to another level was when I hired away a gentleman who was at that time managing a thousand people for a very large sewing machine uh company and I hired him away to come run my little shop of 50 people and it was the greatest higher ever made he made me wealthy he's now healthy I lost it he's still wealthy and we're still friends uh a point is simply this I turned him into an entrepreneur but he turned me into a manager and there's a need for both and so as you look forward that true answer is is that you never can stop even if you're letting people go looking for the best and the brightest i courted this gentleman for something over three years and it took a downturn in the economy for me to finally be able to get him it was the downturn that happened encounter Lee 90s and it was the first moment in his career where he saw that maybe things worth pharmacy thought so you know one of the points is simply this never shut off the effort to find the best and brightest regardless what's happening in the marketplace because they are so few and far between now having said all that of course there are things you can be doing right now and one of the things I pointed to was find out what it is that really resonates with the people you want to attract because what a 50 year old middle manager wants out of life and work is different than 25 year old computer programmer and understanding those differences is critical to success or failure in your hiring efforts people work for different reasons but the one thing that's a constant is that increasingly in our world today people work to make a life they don't work just to make a living and if you can start to better understand the nature of work the meaning of work for the type of person you're looking for are the type of people you're looking for you're more likely to be able to first attract them court them as i call it it's like dating and it's not about running an ad in the paper and looking at resumes and sorting them out and finding the best three yet my experience is is that i want the best it takes hard work they're usually not looking i gotta look I have to be proactive and then I start the process of saying I'm not gonna let up until you come work for me because I know you and I can do great things together so that would be my advice is to right now start the process of always being in the hiring business and start courting the true all-stars uh out there in whatever it is whatever your hole is whatever your need is start it even if it takes two years don't hire somebody who is not great it's just it's just too expensive it takes too much time take the time to hire the greatness whenever you can thank you a couple folks have asked you you've outlined you know six great strategies for us today what can i what kind of small business owner do to sort of execute your strategies and also understanding that there's quite a bit more to learn about each strategy water some potentially some you know some quick tips or ideas and in order to get some of those strategies implemented well you know i'm i'm a big believer that that reading is absolutely necessary and so i am a big believer that there are books there are pdfs there are white papers that can help and there's a number of places to to seek those out and as i said your local chambers won the national chambers another score which is a group of retired executives the SBA is a great source of information on financing needs and and of course there are people like me but who write books that offer advice and and quite frankly i've had two of my three books be best sellers and and the one that wasn't the best seller is actually the best written of the three and and you know i wrote books and i love reading business books but i'm not so sure that business books are the answer but they usually reinforced that which we already know I'd be the first one to tell you that my first book should be reinforcement of what we already know to be true it tells us better ways to plan for instance of going to hit and who doesn't know they should be proactive in planning the question is why don't we do we know would be good for us just like in our personal lives we know that better exercise a better diet is going to make us healthier and make us better people and I don't know about you I'm not always as good at that as I want to be and in business it's the same way there's very few people I run into that think planning is a terrible idea most people agree it's a good idea being really good at written well communicated updated plans but the sexiest thing but we have to be reminded these things are important find ways to do it so uh I don't believe that you're going to read or by any book or any download anything to your your pads that are going to change your life they do have the ability to help you better understand that there are priorities and those priorities are things you need to focus on it helps you double down refocus on that which matters especially when it feels like there's so many priorities and so that's what I would suggest is is there are books and then there are experts I know some experts in your area that are available to come in of course they charge fees that's how they make their living I use consultants a lot in building my businesses they're not for everyone not everyone necessarily can get value from them and again I found the consultants did what I wanted them to do which is to reaffirm that which I already knew to be true but helped me find new ways to do it and to do that those things that I knew would build my business but I couldn't quite find the best path to it that that's what they're good at so you know those those are some ideas there are free sources there are cheap sources and there's expensive sources of information and I've just thrown out a few of them absolutely thank you thank you a couple more questions and we'll wrap up here real quick but in your experience can you give an example of an economic situation other than the current recession that has really drastically changed the way you do business and really for you how did you change and how to do with that yeh i think that the the nature of capitalism is one of what they call creative destruction there was a guy named joseph schumpeter come up with that i went up on pronouncing it right but he was an intellectual an economist won the first economist some and he came up with the idea that apitalism is creative destruction and so the the the history of four or five thousand years of capitalism is one of constantly changing whether it's because of changing technologies because of changing power structures and the like history is filled with the examples of dramatic shifts whether it's from the printing press all the way to the computer and yeah in my lifetime there have been significant things that have happened that have changed the way in which we look at how to do business and you know the most recent example is without question the we look back a hundred years from now and five hundred years from now the advent of what we're now calling the internet I'm not sure what we'll call it by then but the idea that I have as much power of gaining information as anyone with my screen or with my pad or with my phone to have access to information is incredibly enabling for a small business and I think history will prove that it was a critical moment in time one that surpassed television in terms of its importance with regards to industry and commerce so so we've just witnessed one that has changed the way i could tell you sukin that i was an early adopter of all things internet and i'm not particularly technologically savvy I was in manufacturing but I I saw it for what it was somebody showed it to me in about nineteen ninety-four before we even had browsers and there wasn't and I looked at the world wide web and I said you know this is going to be incredible it's going to change everything and I was early it was an early adopter of the technology and from there I got to be able to speak about it because people I can remember in the mid-90s talking to groups of business leaders where I would say to an insurance group i was in Hartford Connecticut talking to a group of insurance people from various companies and they explaining to them that in my opinion it wouldn't be too long before people were actually going to buy insurance online and they laughed and they patted me on the head and they said you're a cute kid I was younger then and you know you're you don't know have any idea what you're talking about because there's no way that's going to happen and they had the arguments they actually did like they kind of had me half convinced okay well I didn't understand your industry you're right but well what we now know is that in things like auto insurance which is the point of entry for the insurance game some of the bigger players have been handed their lunch because smaller upstarts have usurped them and built on line models that have put them in effect out of the automotive insurance business and in automotive insurance critical because that's how you get a young person who's a young adults is trying to build their lives and their careers my guess is we've got some people on the phone today that work for some of the bigger insurance agencies and they're not going to like what I'm saying I'm just telling you the truth that the leaders of large insurance companies didn't want to hear that the disruptive technology called the internet was going to change the game forever they should have been first with an online model would have cost them literally nothing to just see if it worked and instead they fought against it and wouldn't do it they didn't want upset the distribution system their independent rep network as a result other people have done it for them and now they're struggling at how to do it that's one story of we go on and on netflix netflix versus blockbuster the notion of what is a retail experience the single greatest retail experience that you could have right now and as a result the greatest retail story of the last 10 years bar none without question the greatest retail story is Apple and I don't even own an apple product I may have an ipod around here somewhere but I don't compete with with them but no one can deny that they are the greatest retail story of the last ten years if not to let me perhaps of my lifetime if you don't believe in numbers look at the numbers look it's unbelievable they're doing more revenue in those little stores than most anchors are doing whether it's a Macy's or JC Penney's they're doing more revenue in a tiny little store they've reinvented retail those types of disruptive things are omnipresent in our marketplace I'll give you one last one zhuk a nice can see were count up against one o'clock I was just worth a group of people in the parts business the replacement parts business doesn't matter what kind of replacement part this is a the replacement parts business and I was their keynote speaker at their annual internal event and I had another speaker who was from a company that they were not doing business with and this company didn't exist for years ago they're gonna do 300 million in parts and they didn't exist a few years ago and this company that keen to speak to them said the reason we aren't doing business with you is because you haven't done business with us you haven't been easy to do business with you haven't made your parts available as easily as the competition they missed a three hundred million dollar market now they're trying to make up for it but just because they didn't have the right person to do the right skews to put in the right format to put in the right system and the gentleman from that company that spoke said something I've written down that I think may be a good thing to end on and he basically said I am NOT in the parts business I'm in the search engine optimization of business you're in the parts business help me succeed uh that's what volumes to me I'm not suggesting that search engine optimization is the only thing I am suggesting is so many people don't define themselves properly and for you to look at what is business are you really in what are you really good at what should you be really good at those are the kinds of things that are going to lead to growth on going again i challenge my most closely held beliefs challenge was closely held beliefs about how your product how your service is delivered to the marketplace because I know of no market right now that is stagnant I know no market that is sticking to the status quo my experience is there changing more rapidly than we even predicted they would and I also believe that you're going to look back at 2011 wheat by the year twenty twenty you're going to look back to 2011 as back in the good old days when you actually had a handle on what was coming next so I find it exciting and I find it invigorating I find it interesting if you find it frightening maybe being the leader of a privately held company is not the best thing for you or maybe you need to be looking to something else because it is going to be a choppy choppy ride is going to be fascinating it's going to be interesting it's going to be invigorating and it'll be a little frightening but ultimately I believe that those that keep their heads will prevail and I also believe that small business in this country especially by 2020 will be deemed never stronger that we will be stronger in our small businesses than ever before I believe it's true it's not just pollyannaish thinking I have evidence of it and I i encourage everyone today to look into it to find out that ultimately of the United States will be still the entrepreneur leader of the free world there's no question in my mind well if that takes us right up to a ten a.m. pacific and we appreciate your your webinar and your insights today we encourage everyone to visit nevada small business comm to listen to this webinar on-demand and we will be back july 12 with Jennifer Rudy who has helped start several several online companies related to forming and incorporating your businesses and she'll be back on July twelfth with some great information for us so please stay tuned to Nevada small business for that information and we'll also be sending out emails again I'd like to thank Steve and for your participation today and we we really really appreciate it thanks everyone and have a great day