Todd KrauseHow Fear, Failure & a Cleaning Company Changed Everything | Todd Krause | Undiscovered Entrepreneur

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is an Undiscovered Legacy production and proud member of Pod Nation Media Network.

SPEAKER_02 0:08

I was marched out the door. It was so humiliating. But I found next opportunity. About ten days later, on a business broker's website, there was a cleaning company for sale. I showed it to my wife. I said, Oh, look at this, huh? She says, A cleaning company? I said, Yeah, yeah, look at this. So I went ahead and I bought it. Now she's making a daily deposit. She's going, a cleaning company. And everybody who works for me is from Latin America. I have people from 14 different countries working for me. I just remember the first time I ever showed her the office because we have all the flags up for every single country. That somebody on staff comes from. And the business has grown and flourished, and our relationship has grown and flourished. And all this bad stuff that was happening. Pre-March 6, 2020, and I was I was drowning in a job that was wrong for me. With a company that's culture was actually toxic. I took it because I needed a paycheck. I took it because I but it wasn't right for me. But in the end, it was like this this phoenix rose up out of the ash juice, and it's it's just it's so much better and so much more beautiful now.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Are you ready to unlock your entrepreneur potential? Are you ready to break free from all the barriers holding you back? Then you've come to the right place. Welcome to the Undiscovered Entrepreneur, your first step in getting across the start line. Let's get across that start line together, right here, right now, on the Undiscovered Entrepreneur. Salutations, Scooby Leavers, and we are here again with another amazing entrepreneur. Today we're here with Todd. Hey Todd, how's it going?

SPEAKER_02 2:05

It's going great. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 2:07

I'm fantastic. Thank you so so much for taking the time out of your day to be on the Undiscovered Entrepreneur. Get across the start line. Super appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

Thank you for inviting me to be a guest.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

All right, awesome. All right, so before we get started here, I have a semi-serious question to ask you. Okay, you ready? I am. All right, here we go. Are you a school believer?

SPEAKER_02 2:32

I am.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

All right, thumbs up. I love it. Thanks, Todd. Thanks for being a school believer. I super appreciate you. All right. So what we're gonna do here right up the top is just kind of give me an idea of who you are, what your entrepreneur adventure is, and how you got across the start line in your entrepreneur adventure.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

Okay. My background really starts with a family that owned and operated businesses. So I had that in my background, and it always was part of my thought pattern. If you look at my resume, it's filled with all these big titles, and it looks like it did all this corporate stuff. I really worked on the alternative side of the investment world in hedge funds, private equity, venture capital. Every single one of those deals that they did was a startup business. It had to be created, it had to be set up. For years I did operational accounting and finance. That meant I was the person setting it up. I was the person creating the operations and putting it in line. When they no longer needed it, guess who got to liquidate it and sell it? Along the way, I've had several of my own companies. Starting as far back as the early 2000s, when I was literally spun out of the back of a small investment advisor to create a fund administration firm. Pretty genius on their part. Let's get rid of all these expenses, let's park it in this other company that's in a service company, and then we'll pay them. Better yet, we won't pay them. Our investors will pay them. I got thrown into that um pretty quickly, which led to a similar opportunity for Avian Emerald, Bank of uh LaSalle. Since then, I've had my own cleaning company, and I now have my consulting company where I do consulting with entrepreneurs and public speaking. So I've walked the path a number of times throughout my life.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

That's quite the whiplash going from hedge funds and all that stuff you're talking about. There, I'm not a technical guy, sorry. Uh all that stuff you're talking about to go to a cleaning company and then uh consulting, that's that's quite the whiplash, Todd.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

It looks like it on paper, but but the real theme behind it all, if if you peel back the layers and take back, take all the fancy labels and stuff off of it. I've always been helping people, I've always been guiding people, whether they worked for me or alongside me. And it's just it's very natural to flow into some sort of a business that just where I go out there and I talk to people and I help them, either in front of a group or one-on-one with a consulting type of arrangement.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

That's great. I love that consulting. Then and speaking too, I love that because I just did my first speaking engagement like ever on a stage not too long ago. So I know that when we were first getting on stage or anything like that, we can feel some kinds of fears and imposter syndrome, especially I did, because I gotta tell you, that positive syndrome really got to me before I got up on stage. After the stage, I was okay. I actually felt pretty good about it. But do you do you come across a lot of that when you're talking to people about getting uh getting up on stage for the first time?

SPEAKER_02 6:14

Oh yeah. Oh my god, yeah. You have the butterflies in your stomachs doing flip-flops, and you get up there and you start talking, and all of a sudden your mouth is as dry as the desert, and like water, water, I can hardly get the words out. But I always remembered a couple of things that people had told me. Instead of focusing on the 50 people sitting in front of you, you you focus on this lady who's to your left, and you're talking to her, you're having a conversation with her for a bit, and then you're focusing on this gentleman over here to your right, and it's like you're talking to him, and and and you're imagining them being your friends. And little tips like that really helped me get through it. But I had to really resist the urge to go and try to spit it all out and run off the stage.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Yeah, sometimes we need sometimes we do that where it's like we want to get it done and over with and get off the stage as fast as humanly possible because we're so nervous about being there in the very beginning of it. But we got to remember that they need to understand what we're saying, first of all, because if we just spit it out as fast as we can, nobody's gonna understand what the heck we're saying. So we need to pace ourselves a little bit and that kind of thing, too. So I I definitely was like, okay, I only I did something called a pinchacucha. Um, I don't know if you know what that is. It's basically five minutes, it's only five minutes, but there's slides behind me, and every slide's 15 seconds, and I have to match everything up exactly so it makes sense with the slides. And you know, I was like, okay, I can do that, but as I was going along practicing and that kind of thing, I said, Well, that's hard to match up slides with what I'm trying to say. So um we got to make sure that we're we're getting ourselves prepared for that.

SPEAKER_02 8:08

I had it all down in practice, and I get out there on the stage and the cameras are running and the lights are on, and I'm clicking to the wrong slides. I'm going, oh, excuse me a moment while we back up.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Yeah. Make sure you do do some practicing before you did. I did a lot, I did, I think on the flight out there, I practiced like five or six times on the airplane. By the time I actually got to the stage, it was completely different anyway.

SPEAKER_02 8:34

So my life went with me, and it was the biggest help. We practiced and practiced and practiced in the the hotel room, which actually had a full-length mirror, instead of being in the bathroom, it was on one of the walls out near where the bed was. So I had room to walk around and and could actually see myself. And she it's it was a very kind of safe, supportive way to do it. And and to have her say, Well, you're looking a little stiff here, and you're rushing through things there. So I had to get myself into this cadence where it was say a phrase, breathe. Say some more, breathe. And then that's how I slowed down. And I was a little over my target time, believe it or not. And so I thought I was rushing, but I came in maybe 20 to 30 seconds over my target time. Yeah, that's that's my really first big on-stage appearance was TEDx Stage in Austin, Texas, on the PBS stage in Austin, Texas.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Wow, that's awesome. And boy, I hope I could do that someday too. What was your talk about on the TEDx? What was that about?

SPEAKER_02 9:57

It was about thriving workplaces and the three things that are so important that you have a caring workplace, a positive workplace, and one that is culturally competent. And then I dove into what each of those three pillars are and how they create the workplace that taps into what's really largely an untapped potential in the world. Because we're so focused on systems and automation and AI, but we're forgetting about people. And how would you excite them and and you you see them as real people? They bring their heart and soul to the workplace, and suddenly how much they produce and the quality is just so different.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

Yeah, absolutely. You know, um, that brings to mind a book that I've read um a couple of times, actually. Um I I'm I don't I can't remember the title right off the top of my head of exactly what it is, it's but like the five love languages of the workplace.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

And oh, that's by the same guy that writes the original five love languages and talks about how people show affection to each other. He's got a whole series. I I love his books.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Yeah, it's great. I've read most of them. I have a teenage son too, so I read his teenage version of that too. So, you know, I had to do that. But it's interesting how we could take those same things and apply it to our to our workplace, to our companies and things like that to make a better a better um workplace environment for us than what a normally, you know, the corporate thought of the workplace usually is. Um, I definitely highly suggest that book to any of my school believers out there that want to look into that. All right. So out of just out of strict curiosity here, I mean, when you think about new entrepreneurs that are just getting started, what do you think stops most entrepreneurs from getting across the start line in their entrepreneur adventure? What do you think?

SPEAKER_02 12:00

They're afraid. The number one thing is they're simply afraid. They want to do it. They're having trouble letting go of the what feels, and we can come back to this, feel safe working for somebody else. And what I always tell them is when you work for somebody else, you have exactly one client. That client either loves you or they don't. That client is either in a financially secure position or they aren't. And if something happens to that one client relationship, it's just a big huge event in your personal life. When you get over the hurdle of starting and you build up a client base, yes, we don't like it when Mrs. Smith calls us and cancels her service, but we're not going to lose sleep when one of 100 clients cancels service because we still have the other 99. Well, what do we do when Mrs. Smith cancels service? We go and replace Service Methodist Jones and Mrs. Michaels and six other clients, and we keep growing. Those types of fears go away over time. It's getting over that initial fear and taking action because fears can be very paralyzing.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, a lot of people say, I want to go to a secure job, but how secure really is that job? If you really think about it, in a split second, you can lose that job whether uh the the company goes under for some reason or the manager doesn't like you for some reason or another. That one That's just that one instance, one thing can change your entire life. So as secure as that job really, as secure as that job really is, it's not as secure as most people think.

SPEAKER_02 14:03

No, it's not. Your boss, your manager can love you. You things can be going along great, but if somebody three levels up in corporate decides we don't do that anymore, we don't need this division, we don't need those those locations. We're we're we're pulling out of this physical location, then it's bye-bye job.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Exactly. Exactly. And you hit fear right on the head, too. There's something I always think about when I hear the word fear, too. It's an acronym for fear. Have you heard of that before?

SPEAKER_02 14:38

I remember something, but right now I'm having trouble recalling exactly what it is.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

That's okay. It's uh false evidence appearing real.

SPEAKER_02 14:48

Yes, that's it.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Yes, and it's something I learned a long time ago when I was selling cars. I had a um a sales manager tell me that and what that actually meant. When we're experiencing a fear, it's not, you know, a saber-toothed tiger that's gonna bite us in the rear end or anything like that that's gonna kill us. It's something that's in our heads that if we could get over that fear and understand what's on the other side of that fear, there's something great for us on the other side of that, but we have to be able to overcome that fear first.

SPEAKER_02 15:19

That is so true.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

All right, awesome. Thank you so much for that. In your experiences, I'm sure you've been on a lot of podcasts before and answer a lot of different types of questions, and you always hear, what was your biggest problem? What was your biggest pitfall? Blah, blah, blah, blah. I'd like to put a little bit of a spin on that. And I'd like to know what your biggest pitfall that you experienced that you're proud of. What's one experience that you had that was like really bad at one point, but you're like, I'm glad I had that negative experience because this positive thing came out of it. Have you ever had anything like that before, Todd?

SPEAKER_02 15:52

Yes, I have more than once. Out of desperation, I accepted jobs that I knew in my heart weren't right for me. But I needed a paycheck. I had family to support and they did not go well. But I met people who've become lifelong friends in those places, and even though those places weren't the healthiest places to work, they were in fact, I would say they were rather toxic. We supported each other through the hard times. And as we've gone through life and we are roles in life have changed and evolved, we've gone from one of us being the advisor and a counselor to the other to flipping it around, and they're now counseling and advising us, and a support network came out of that. And I learned more about myself. I I learned really to be more honest with myself about what I'm good at and what I like and what I really don't like and I'm not good at. I was I was kidding myself, but oh yeah, I can do this, I can do this, no problem, no problem. And the hiring manager, I remember them going, are you sure? Are you sure now? Oh yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

Yeah. But on the other side of that, even though we're experiencing something that's that negative, we there is a reason why we're there. There's got to be a reason why we're we made that choice, or that choice has made us. And a lot of times it's because we're we're meant to either meet somebody or learn a new skill that we can use later on in life. So, I mean, a lot of times out of desperation, we we we look for that job, we look for that paycheck. Heck, I still work two full-time jobs myself while I'm doing this at the same time. But I'm supposed to be there because there's something I'm supposed to do, or somebody I'm supposed to meet that's gonna make a big difference in what I do, or a skill that I'm gonna acquire that's gonna help me in my my new business that I'm starting real real soon, or I've started now and just continuing on with it. There's always a reason why things happen to us, and I think that's a big part of it.

SPEAKER_02 18:26

I can give you an exact example that's fairly recent if you're interested.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

I I had worked at LaSalle Bank for a gentleman who who ran the CDO department. Securitized securities of what they are. They were fairly complex. And then LaSalle got broken up and he started his own firm called Cortland. And then he rehired me. I was very excited because he wanted to tap into my knowledge and my experience. He said, help us make it better, help us do what we do better. I thought, what and a fantastic opportunity. It's got creativity, it's it's it uses all of my experience. But then in the end, that wasn't what they wanted. They're like, just help us grind it out, help us do more. Grow, grow, grow, grow. And they were acquired by Alter Domus. So I struggled in the Chicago office for a couple of years, and then finally I realized we were part of this little group, and we were supposed to be the process of improvement group, but one by one, everybody left the group. We because we were not able to get anything done. So then I took a job transfer to Indianapolis managing a credit team, and I hated it. I was supposed to literally double check every single one of the thousands of numbers they touched, and the system they used was mind-boggling and confusing to me, and I was drowning. I got fired. I got told I was on probation on my birthday. Happy birthday to me. Wow, and then let go on March 6, 2020, at 11:30 a.m. I was marched out the door. It was so humiliating. But I found next opportunity about 10 days later on a business broker's website. There was a cleaning company for sale. It had decent financials, and the owner wanted out. I showed it to my wife. I go, Oh, look at this, huh? She says, A cleaning company. I said, Yeah, yeah, look at this. So I went ahead and I bought it. Now she's making a daily deposit. She's going, a cleaning company. Well, she had health issues, and she passed away in July of 21. But then I met my current wife at the beginning of 2023. She contacted me through Facebook dating January 7th, 2023. And she's from Mexico. And everybody who works for me is from Latin America. They're from I have people from 14 different countries working for me. I just remember the first time I ever showed her the office because we have all the flags up for every single country that somebody on staff comes from. And it was like that was like the moment our relationship changed, and it got deeper in that moment. She saw a different side of me. And the business has grown and flourished. A relationship has grown and flourished. I'm not lonely anymore. And all this bad stuff that was happening pre-March 6, 2020, and I was I was drowning in a job that was wrong for me with a company that culture was actually toxic. Some of the departments had 100% turnover every year. I took it because I needed a paycheck. I took it because I but it wasn't right for me. But in the end, it was like this this phoenix rose up out of the ashes, and it's it's just it's so much better and so much more beautiful now.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

What a fantastic story. Thanks, Todd, for sharing that with us. Yeah, it's it's amazing how something so positive could come out of something that's in such a horrible area at that particular moment. But if you didn't go through that, if you didn't accept that job that you hated and and went through those experiences, you never would have came out with, you know, uh your wife that loves you, obviously loves you. The diversity that the diversity, wow, I love the diversity. I love diversity in any type of uh any type of business that can support many different types of people from many different parts of the world to make their lives better. Um, but none of that would have happened if you didn't go through that hard that hard stuff first.

SPEAKER_02 23:26

Yeah, if it had been easy, I would have just coasted along. I I wouldn't have even thought about what possibilities were out there. At this point, we have more than 960 customers. So, yes, I don't want Mrs. Smith to leave. But if when Mrs. Smith decides to leave or cancel her service, I'm not losing sleep over it. I'm going and I'm finding Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Michaels and six other people.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

That's a great way to find it.

SPEAKER_02 24:01

That's what people who are thinking about entrepreneurship should keep in mind and see that was that future out there.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

Awesome. Yes, we all have to keep that in mind. Thank you. That that's definitely a good reminder about about things like that. So thank you, Todd. Thank you. Um if uh if you came across a brand new entrepreneur that's just getting started in their entrepreneur adventure, they kind of said, Hey, I'm gonna start something new. What is one good solid piece of advice you'd give them? What what's their first step?

SPEAKER_02 24:38

First of all, you have to break it down into bite-sized pieces to try to think of it all at the same time, everything you could possibly need, whether it's systems, whether it's services, whether it's tools, equipment, that's a lot. Just start with what do I need to do right now? Take that one step. And then what do I need to do next? Take that next step. But move and take action, make decisions. Don't worry about it being perfect. Because what tools and systems and services you have when you're just starting are not gonna be the ones that you have after you've done this for four or five years. You're gonna outgrow those tools, you're gonna outgrow those things, and you're going to find better ones. You're gonna as you grow, you're gonna need things that can handle more volume. But don't worry about that now. Just get the tools and the services that meet your needs today. They don't have to be perfect. Don't worry about perfection, just movement, forward movement. Yes, there will be mistakes, but they are fixable. You can recover from that and you learn from that. So you say, oh, okay, it was just like us where we use these green scrubbies for a while, until we realize that it's actually possible to scratch shower glass with these green scrubbies. No more green scrubbies, we're all done with green scrubbies. But for a time, they were one of the tools that worked for us until we realized that there was a downside to them. Then we got a better tool, and it's and we found suppliers for our chemicals, our cleaning chemicals, and then we realized well, hey, wait, these guys are actually expensive. Well, if we buy from these other guys over here, we're saving a lot of money. Well, don't even beat ourselves up about paying the higher prices. We just didn't know about the other supplier at first. But as we learned more about the marketplace, as we learned more about the world around us, we found better tools and better suppliers and things that worked more effectively. Like, okay, well, we're all done with this chemical, we're now using a different one. Or the customers would say, Well, I don't like the aroma. All right, fine, we're not using that anymore. A couple of customers have said, I don't like the smell. So we switched to a different one. But nothing was perfect. What it did is it helped us move forward. You've got to I don't know, the the journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

Oh yes, definitely. I love that. Yeah, you know, you gotta understand is what got you here won't get you there. That's really what it breaks down to. We have to continue on with what we're doing and understand that there's gonna be changes. It's not gonna be perfect the first time we go through it. We're gonna have we're gonna learn new things, we're gonna learn new ways of of doing things, new products, new, new green scrubbies, or no green scrubbies like you're talking about before, um, to give us where we're going. But we've got to understand too is we can't learn everything all at once. We'll just completely overwhelm ourselves. So we have to do what's called what I what's called on-time learning. We have to learn about what we need right now. Because we're not gonna learn about other things that we're probably not even gonna use, but we took the time to learn these things, and you don't even need them. So learn about the stuff that will get you moving forward now. Um, there's a great book that uh one of my uh virtual mentors wrote called, I got it right here next to me, Lean Learning by Pat Flynn. And it talks about exactly that learning things now that you're gonna use now to move on and make those next few steps instead of learning everything all at once, hoping you're gonna need those things, which you really probably won't. And you're stuck, you're stuck learning all these different things that you're not even gonna use, that you're stuck not going anywhere. Learn about what's gonna keep moving you forward. And breaking it down so you're not overwhelmed by all everything that you need to learn. Like you said, break it down into little chunks that you know you can handle, otherwise you start overwhelming yourself and then you start doubting yourself, and then everything stops.

SPEAKER_02 29:42

But there's there's also one other thing that has to be connected right side by side with that piece of advice. Learning is great, but if you don't take action, nothing is ever gonna happen. And I'm struggling with that with a couple of my clients. They're so busy building, building, building the foundation and trying to make everything just right. Um I keep tell pushing them. You gotta get out there and you gotta talk to customers. You have the business is not gonna grow if you don't do something. You can keep setting things up and fine-tuning things and adjusting the knobs and dials, but if you don't get out there and do the work, if you don't get out there and actually talk to the first customer, it doesn't go anywhere. You never get the business off the drawing board and into reality. At some point, you have to say, I've done enough setting up, I've done enough preparing. Now I'm gonna go do the work. I'm gonna talk to the customers.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

That's what I call getting across the start line. You have to get across the start line because if you don't get across the start line, nothing's gonna happen. You're you're not gonna go anywhere with it. You're gonna be so busy trying to make it perfect or dialing the dials, like you said, or anything like that. You're so busy doing that, you're not really making any progress at all. That's a that's actually a tall tale sign of perfectionism. Making sure it's perfect before you get forward. Instead of finding out going forward, seeing what the customer wants and then adjusting it that way. At least you know you're adjusting it to something the customer wants and not to what you think the customer wants. Because a lot of times if you think if you adjust something to what you think the customer is going to want, that's not how they want it. That's how you want it. But that doesn't say anything about how your customer is going to want it. So get across the start line and learn as you go instead of the other way around.

SPEAKER_02 31:35

But the reason people sit there and focus on making it perfect is because that's easier than actually going out and doing the work. That's easier than actually going out and finding the customers. It's that fear thing again, coming back into their life. Well, it's safe sitting here and setting up the systems and creating the processes. It's scary going out there and talking to prospects because oh my god, we might fail. Well, this customer, that customer saying no, thank you is not failure. Salespeople know that you keep talking to one after another after another after another. Every no gets you one no closer to a yes. Somebody's no today is a yes tomorrow or a yes next week. Part of it is timing. Maybe the first people you talk to don't have a need for what you do today, but they will next week or next month. Or they'll remember you. And when their neighbor or their relative asks, Well, who do you know who does X, Y, or Z? They'll go, I talked to Jim over there, and he might be the guy that you need to talk to to solve your problem. Oh, thank you very much. And your phone rings. So it's fear and fear of failure that because it's safe, it feels comfortable to always tinker with the system rather than to go out and do it.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

That's right, because we don't want to face the rejection of people saying no or no, it's not good enough, or anything like that. It's so much, it's you you're staying so much in your comfort zone that you're not actually applying anything. We got to get out of that comfort zone, we've got to make that movement so we could see where it goes. And yeah, fear of failure, man, that's a huge one. That's that's two of my hurdles, all wrapped up into one right there. Fear of failure. So let's get over that. Let's do that and just go out there and see what happens. That's one I think I'd like to do. I like to just do something just to see what happens and learn from it, and then then to make the adjustments, and then the next one could possibly be a yes. No is not so much a rejection as a not yet kind of thing, or you need to make this one tweak or thing like that to shovel that piece of gold to get that yes. So don't be too hard on yourself when you do get that no.

SPEAKER_02 34:07

And I think the most helpful thing that is an entrepreneur can do is listen to their customers. Because when their customers give feedback, oh, this was great, but like, oh I didn't know. Maybe I should be doing something a little bit differently. That helps you guide your path forward too. So it's always very, very helpful to listen to the feedback. That's gonna tell you, show you directions to go with your business too. Getting out there and listening to why some of these customers say, Well, no, thank you because, and that'll usually give you a reason. Is it not quite the service that they are looking for? Is it about pricing? All of this is valuable feedback to to help you navigate going forward.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

And if you make a presentation to a customer with your product and you go through the time and and you still get to know, you almost deserve the feedback. Yeah, I took the time to be with you. Just all I'm asking is for a little feedback why it didn't work for you. And it it's almost like it's still payment in some some way, shape, or form. If you think about it, if they do give you that feedback, because now you have the tools, do you have the experience, do you have the information that you need to possibly make the next one yes? Uh I was uh I'm a 16-year car salesman before I well, it was a long time ago. But I definitely dealt with the rejection, but it's just like you said, there's it's it's just the next one to yes, or it's the learning process, so you the next customer that's in front of you, you know what to do or what even not to do. Sometimes to find out what not to do is more important, even to find out what to do. So you always keep that in mind.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

Plus, it's practice. Every time you explain who you are and what you do, it just becomes smoother and more refined, and it it starts to become more natural and sound less scripted. You learn how to adapt to different personalities and different situations. That you can't overlook the huge benefit that you're getting just through this repetitive practice, a chance to present yourself and your service to one person after another.

SPEAKER_00 36:52

And you're and the more practices you get, the more knowledge that you get, the more things that you find out about, then suddenly you start getting yeses. And you start getting yeses more often, too, because now that you've put in the effort, you put in the reps, you put in the practice, now things are starting to click for you. And that's when then everything just kind of goes goes from there to something that you really are meant to do.

SPEAKER_02 37:16

It gives you practice with objection handling. You you start to recognize when the objections are something real and tangible, which which means it might not be a fit, or if it's more of a misunderstanding about what the service or product really is. Again, it's practice, it's helpful.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

Yes, that makes perfect sense. I love that. Thank you, Todd. Amazing. All right, I have a tradition with all my guests in the next six months. Where do you see yourself and your company? Do you have any goals for yourself in the next six months?

SPEAKER_02 37:53

I do. I am working to get on 100 podcasts because I have a message inside of me that I'm trying to get out to the world. I am looking for several more speaker opportunities over the next six weeks in order to have enough material to produce a well-produced, well-refined speaker reel. I find that I can get the message out to larger groups from the stage, but I also enjoy doing it one-on-one with consulting clients. In in a round and all of that is the goal of having uh 15 to 20 additional consulting clients over the next six months, along with the speaking part.

SPEAKER_00 38:51

All right. So, how many pod do you know about approximately about how many podcasts we've been on so far for this year for for now?

SPEAKER_02 38:59

It's between 12 and 15.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

Perfect. Good start. I love it. So here's what I'd like to do with you. I'd like to follow up with you, have another interview in six months, and see if you've reached those goals.

SPEAKER_02 39:12

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 39:13

Let's do it. So that means you've been on let's say 15 podcasts already. So, you know, 85 more podcasts, which shouldn't be too hard. You're on a roll there so far, Todd. So that's good. And I want to see 20 more uh consulting clients. Does that work for you?

SPEAKER_02 39:28

I would love to see that.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

All right, because now you're not just accountable to me, you're accountable to all my school believers out there, so no pressure.

SPEAKER_02 39:36

Oh, none at all.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

All right, all right, Todd. This is your time to shine. This is the time where I want you to advertise yourself, how we get a hold of you, and all that good stuff. Okay, ready, set, go.

SPEAKER_02 39:51

Please go to www.silversunconsulting.com. That's S-I-L-V-E-R-S-U-N Consulting, C-O-N, S-U-L-T-I-N-G. On the adult about page is my email address. There's also a phone number there. That phone number will ring right here. I am not sending you to an assistant. I am not sending you to some automated voicemail. I am sending you to me because I like talking to you. I like helping people. Even if we don't do business together, I like talking to people and helping you. Call me. I'll talk to you.

SPEAKER_00 40:39

All right. All right, Todd. Thank you very much for being on the Undiscovered Entrepreneur Get Acosta Start Line. It's been an absolute pleasure talking about you. Some great, great information for my Scooby Leavers. Thank you so, so much.

SPEAKER_02 40:51

Thank you for having me on your show.

SPEAKER_00 40:53

All right. All right, Scooba Leavers, make sure you stay tuned for the wrap-up. Okay, everybody. Thank you. Bye-bye. All right, Scooby Leavers. That was Todd. What a fantastic episode and conversation we had with Todd. I love how he got really kind of like inspirational and how he got really excited right towards the end there because he had such a powerful message that he really believed in. But I do have two major takeaways I want to make sure that you got in the conversation. Getting fired or failing isn't the end of your story. It's often the exact moment your real story begins. I mean, Todd was marched out of his job on his birthday. And then within 10 days, he found a business that gave him financial freedom, a diverse team he really could be proud of, and on top of all that, a second chance of love. Really love that. But that's where we have to get it together when we have a difficult time like that, when we come across maybe getting fired or failing. We gotta realize that this really is not the end. It can be, if done properly, the beginning of something amazing. So keep that in mind when we come across those hard times. The job you think is safe is actually the riskiest bet you ever made. Because you're putting your entire livelihood in the hands of one person's opinion. When you build your own business, you lose it 20 clients out of a hundred on Tuesday. Not that detrimental. But disappoint the one person that can fire you for any reason, and it's over. So a lot of times when people tell you, go get that secure job. How secure really is that job? You have to appease that one person. And if you lose the trust of that one person, your entire career is over. Instead, let's run our own business and be accountable to the one person that's most important. You, yourself. And then if you disappoint yourself, you're not gonna fire yourself. I certainly hope not anyway. But at the same time, we can take the lessons that we've learned in the failing or in the disappointment and turn it into something positive. You can't really do that with a regular job, because once you lose that trust, once you have that disappointment, they just let you go. So keep that in mind. And with that, Screwbelievers, I want to say thank you very much for another great episode, and I will see you in two weeks. Goodbye, everybody! And there you have it, future entrepreneurs. We've taken a vital step on the journey across the start line. Remember, every great business begins with a single idea and the courage to pursue it. And you've already shown that courage just by being here today. That's a wrap up this episode of the Undiscovered Entrepreneur Get Across the Start Line. I want you to reflect on the path you have to recognize the four hurdles of stock. Is an imposter syndrome holding you back? Is it perfectionism failure or fear? Identifying which one affects you the most is the key to unlocking your momentum. But here's the real secret: the hurdles are not in the way, they are the way. Every time you clear one, you're building the exact strength you need for your journey ahead. Until our next episode, keep pushing, keep dreaming, and keep jumping over those hurdles. This is Scoob, your guide across the start line. Remember, your future is waiting. I can, I am, I will, and I'm doing it today.