E311 | A Day In The Life Of An Entrepreneur: The Highs, Lows, And Realities

Welcome back everybody to another episode.

Today I wanted to talk about day in the life of an entrepreneur.

I also age myself, hit a big milestone coming up this year from an age standpoint, talk about that and kind of, you know, is it every what everyone expects it to be or what is it?

And I have a very close friend who I went to high school with.

And again, we live in other parts of the country and haven't stayed too connected with them, but not close, but still connect.

And this other individual is also launching a new business after selling one at other businesses.

And now we share the war stories of what it's like to be a business owner.

And first and foremost, it's hard.

People who tell you it's easy, it's not.

And those types of people, typically, you'll see them online, driving fancy cars, wearing fancy clothes.

As you can see, I'm top of the line clothing outfit today.

I'm recording this on a Sunday and I'm dressed comfortably as I am and sitting here recording podcasts and getting this done and cleaning up, getting ready for the week ahead and what am I expecting to conquer as an entrepreneur this week?

And I kind of chuckle a little bit and when I don't, again get into politics.

Rumblings came out about, you know, people in government had to answer five things.

They did that last week or whatever.

Now most businesses are always asking people, you know, not exactly in that same tone, you know, what'd you get done this week?

But it's like, what are you working on?

What are your challenges?

What do you need help with?

That's part of being a good leader in any type of business.

So what does that look like?

And I look at just this last week and like everything that I have accomplished in this past week and what does that mean and so forth.

And as I mentioned, we're able to close on a large portfolio of loans over this past week.

So as an entrepreneur, I had to provide a lot of support to our asset management team, making sure they're on top of things, making sure we're answering questions.

What does that look like?

We probably over the last week spent close to four hours a half a day in meetings with our asset management team for that specific purpose.

As an example.

Now, Lauren on the investor relations side had set up some really good meetings with some potential new clients who have some significant funds behind them.

Now I'm just looking and, you know, we had two meetings this past week in regards to presenting to clients, you know, potential clients.

So you'll constantly see as an entrepreneur back and forth in between business development and operations.

And this is one of the areas where when we started the company, you know, when Lauren came on board, we both kind of joked it was kind of proverbial match made in heaven.

Because she comes from that sales background, I come from the engineering analytics background and let me run the business and let her be out there, you know, shaking hands and kissing babies.

And that's kind of how we've segregated a lot of things.

But she helps a little bit on ours.

I, of course, is the owner of the company.

They'll have to present is people want to know who you are.

And that's something that I think is really important as an entrepreneur, as any business owner.

When you're seeking to sell any type of product, you need to be in front of it.

People want to know who you are, what you do and how you do it.

And not just the generic stuff, but they really want to know like the type of person you are.

You know, what's the energy, what's the plan of the business?

When people ask me, where do you see yourself in five years?

My answer is sitting in the same chair running the company.

Now I'm not building a company to turn around and sell it.

I'm building a company for long term growth.

I'm building a company doesn't only have me as a leader.

I learned this from EOS system.

I learned it when I worked at a large commercial contractor.

I learned it when I was looking for a real estate developer.

There needs to be some type of plan where it's not run by a dictator.

There's got to be a long term plan where it's not just run by one person because if something happens, that person and everything falls apart.

You know, it needs to be run by people and you need to let your people grow and flourish.

And I think that's one opportunity with my team that we do, I think very well.

We bring in the right people and also give them the opportunity.

We don't basically just push them down the slide, but do give them a little bit of a push.

You know, that's something to consider.

And I think a lot of people, when they think of an entrepreneur, they're like, oh, I'm just going to tell people what to do and go out and golf and so forth.

But typically what ends up happening is you start out working 100 hours a week because you try and do it all versus bringing in people or trying to figure out a way.

And if you bring in the experts and it's going to cost you something money.

But it gives you time and just realize that, hey, look, on day one, you're probably not going to be profitable.

But what is your plan to get to profitability?

Something important to understand, something to consider.

For example, for me, my week consists of starting early because it's two days a week.

I go to my kids sports.

That is the benefit of being an entrepreneur and a business owner.

Previously in the W2 world, that was very challenging to do, but now I can do that.

We are in the process of, I'll say, some slight adjustments within our company and now that has a person coming on board to assist in one aspect of our company.

So we spent a good amount of time, for example, this week and prior weeks.

But my operations director.

Okay, are we set up?

We ready?

This person's starting on Monday.

We good to go?

And let's make sure they just get out on the right foot.

I remember when I was working at a company, my first day there, the person was supposed to meet me there, said, hey, what time do you get in?

I'm like getting around 8:00, 8:30, whatever, but early.

And I got there, I was the first person there.

I couldn't even get in the building because pretty much half the nobody really showed up till 9.

So I sat in the lobby for about a half hour and I was brought upstairs and like, here's your.

I knew where my office was and then I'm just sitting there waiting and I called the person.

I'm like, hey, where are you?

And he's like, oh, I'm not going to be there till about 1.

Okay.

And basically people came in, got to meet people, you know, when I was managing some people and stuff.

But it was really awkward because I knew what I was going to be doing, but I needed to be downloaded.

I knew what my role was.

But there was a specific construction project we're going to be working on that add some information.

But it's like, okay, like, you know, where do I find stuff?

You know, where's.

How do I systems log into the computer?

Like, where are all the files so I can start digging through stuff completely unprepared.

And as a business owner or anybody in management, you need to be prepared.

And the most important thing is if you have a team, you need to make sure your team has the necessary tools and everything they need to continue to move forward.

Something to consider.

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Thank you.

Another interesting component of the business is understanding the capabilities of your team.

So we have some we'll call high priority loans now within any portfolio, basically you have a roadmap of how loans will go and certain ones you kind of put on a watch list and we have a watch list slash high priority of loans and our asset manager still manages those.

But there comes times where it's hey, we got to get an attorney on a call or we're in a mediation session.

And it's one of those things where, hey, you know, I run the company.

I kind of need to be there as the final decision maker.

Now let's get on that call.

This past week we had mediation with a borrower actually went very, very well.

Honestly, I didn't need to be on the call.

Looking back, Larisa, who runs our asset management side could have handled it, which she did handle it, but something that we weren't sure which path it was going to go.

So for me that was an easy one.

But then I had another one with a borrower who there's kind of three different options and involves some really business decisions in regards to how we want to handle this.

So it wasn't a straight specific, okay, this asset type of thing.

It has bigger, I want to say ramifications but implications on which path do we want to go down?

Neither path is bad.

We win in every single one.

But which one do we win where it's the lowest risk that also is the most beneficial to the company and that's information that honestly this person wouldn't have because one of them is example like okay, a payoff versus this.

And they're not privy to every little insider information within the company.

So again, another aspect of things to understand is again those limitations.

One of the things also that I really appreciate as part of being an entrepreneur.

And again everything I say it's, you know, you think that it's hard but then you're like, this all seems sounds pretty easy.

But you're always focused on growing your business and how do you grow that business and how do you maximize your time.

And as I've grown as a business owner, you know, I used to allow myself to be used and I mean that like freely in regards to I'd have people set up a call with me, no problem.

I love to chat and talk, you know, and I used to spend time doing that.

Today, I really don't have the time to do that.

You know, somebody wants to get in touch with me.

Like, I'm recording this.

It probably a week and a half to two weeks to even get on my calendar because I'm just so slammed.

And my main focus focuses on my people, my company, and growing the company.

It's not that I don't want to help you, but just realize I can't drop everything I'm doing.

I set certain time per week of stuff I enjoy doing, whether I'm posting online, in a forum.

I'm in part of a group that we have a monthly mastermind as an example, that we meet for an hour.

I enjoy that.

That's fun.

But that doesn't grow my business.

So it's one of those things where as you grow, it gets to that point and you just have to be upfront to people, but make sure you're also not being a dick about it.

Excuse the phrase, but also it's going to be important.

This is where I see a lot of entrepreneurs make this mistake, which is you spend a lot of time, what they'll call networking, but it's the same people are always talking to, is that person bringing you business?

Are they moving the needle?

It's good to hear ideas from people, but you need to hear ideas from a lot of people.

So, you know, for example, I got connected with an individual about a month and a half ago who now built us a relationship with another company who might buy loans from us, huge opportunity for us.

And then on LinkedIn, somebody was connected to that person, connected with me.

And now this individual has a program that kind of has an affiliation with several other larger firms that could even take what that first person did.

And.

And now I'll call it supersize it.

And over this past week, I probably spent two hours on phone calls with them and partners, building new relationships with them.

And this is one of the things what I loved about what I used to do is I would always go to work the next day not knowing what it is I'd be doing.

Construction is like that.

Something happens on job site, it just completely blows up.

In your day, what you thought was going to happen isn't.

That's what I love.

I still love that.

And this is just this past week, for example, talking with several of these people, and they're all like, oh, yeah, you're Going to be in Miami in two weeks.

I'm like no, you know, and stuff.

And all of a sudden I'm like, you know what?

I need to be in Miami.

So the wife let her know I'm going to be gone for two days and basically heading to Miami because literally just over a span of week, four different people all are interested and now these people that I'm going to be there, have dinner, have lunch, have coffee with them, gonna expand my network, the people I've never met and hopefully grow the company.

Now you also have to be honest with yourself in the sense of, hey look, it's first time meeting these people.

It's not like it's immediate business, not like you're gonna blow up or expand, but it's about building long term growth and relationship which goes back to that question of where do you see yourself sitting in five years in the same seat.

So I'm looking to build these long term relationships with these people.

So there's more things to understand, more things to consider as part of that.

And as I look to again this week talk about some of the things that occurred last week, this week I had to set some certain time away because again we have one specific asset that is extremely challenging that I'm taking the lead on.

And I still love managing assets, but I can't do that in the day to day.

I gotta focus on growing your business.

As an entrepreneur, that's what people got to realize is you can't always get caught in the weeds.

But you have to focus on what's going to grow the business which this specific asset A is going to not grow.

The business will be very positive for the business, but it's something that okay, do I have.

This isn't a knock against my people, it's a little kind of outside of their box because it involves more than just note investing to manage, but also it's something I love to do, but I'm going to kind of manage it and do it in my free time as part of that.

So I wanted to just really focus on kind of day in the life of where you spend time, where you shouldn't spend time because it's really a hard balance and I make it sound like it's easy, but if you grow a business, you have employees and managing people is hard.

You know, not everyone's like you and you want everyone to be like you, but people have different skill sets, different personalities, fitting right people on the right seat and on the right bus.

Adding people, sometimes getting rid of people that's a hard part of business.

And, you know, at the end of the day, it's not personal.

It's gotta be what's best for the business and what you think can make it grow.

And, you know, hardest thing that I struggle with is, you know, really that balancing of that networking side of things.

You know, like I said, typically, you know, once a month, I'm part of one mastermind.

There's another one I kind of just joined that they're meeting once a month as well.

And that one is already.

It's different than the other.

So first, there are two very different groups that I'm part of.

They're small.

Each one's five to 10 people.

And I think that's important to understand and grow.

I used to be a member of GoBundance, which was, again, a great group to be a part of.

I recently just did not renew because it was too much of a time commitment and I needed to focus on that business.

But how much time me is balancing on the networking versus sales versus managing.

It's hard.

And the other hard thing is giving up, I'll say the work and making sure you rely on your people.

It's always hard.

As an early entrepreneur, I think the hardest thing.

And then I'll wrap up this episode that I see people do and the biggest mistakes people make, and that is focus.

And people know I have a lot of crazy ideas and I throw a lot of things out there.

And I have a team that tells me no, which is awesome.

You know, I'm not a dictator.

You need to have people who can tell you focus.

Or where are we headed?

But as kind of eos, I'm the visionary and I have my implementer, who Lainey, who is awesome at basically managing me, I guess probably the best way to put it.

But no matter what ideas I come up, they still are based off of our core mission.

And now it's real estate, being a lending fund, you know, debt, and pretty much our primary focus.

We are not out there growing, I don't know, a crypto fund.

We're not out there investing in credit card debt.

We're focused on real estate.

And that's kind of our main focus.

And that's where we're looking to grow our business is doing what we do now.

I'd rather be an expert at one thing and then be average in multiple things.

Hope you enjoyed this again.

I just want to really unfiltered share life as an entrepreneur of everything you have coming and going on.

And now, as I like to say it's awesome, but don't think and go into it thinking it's easy and that you're going to run through instant success.

Most of the biggest growths you typically have come after your biggest failures.

So thanks everyone for listening.

Take care and we'll catch you on the next one.