Episode Transcript
GLENN HARPER 0:01
Hello, everyone. Welcome to another edition of the Empowering Entourage podcast. I’m Glenn Harper.
JULIE SMITH 0:05
Julie Smith.
GLENN HARPER 0:06
Go on, Julie. You’re early today.
JULIE SMITH 0:08
I mean, apparently I’ve got not enough sleep and too many opportunities.
GLENN HARPER 0:12
I mean, if the shoe fits.
JULIE SMITH 0:14
So we might as well just have a therapy session, right?
GLENN HARPER 0:16
Right now, everybody give us your. Please vote on the bottom of the screen.
JULIE SMITH 0:20
Not about me, about you. GLENN HARPER
0:21
Yeah, of course.
JULIE SMITH 0:22
But I think, you know, one of the things that comes up is, like, what is the hardest conversation as an entrepreneur that you have to have?
GLENN HARPER 0:30
That’s a good one.
JULIE SMITH 0:31
I think we just had it off air, just so you know.
GLENN HARPER 0:33
Well, I’m mixing it up a little bit, but I think probably one of the hardest ones to have is when you are ready to become an entrepreneur, whether it’s buy a business or. And quit your real job or quit your real job and start a new business, that conversation that you have to have with probably your employer, that I’m out of here, that you probably liked working for, that you had a very good career with, probably having with your spouse to say, hey, you’re not going to believe this, but I just had this epiphany. I got to go do this thing. And then to tell your kids, tell your friends, nobody can understand what you’re going through. They. They don’t really know how you can come up with this conclusion or solution that you want to go do this thing. It’s a very hard conversation because it’s really hard to put that into words for people. So that’s.
GLENN HARPER 1:24
That’s a hard conversation to have.
JULIE SMITH 1:26
Well, I think you no longer become relatable, right? So you can’t complain about your boss. You can’t complain about your benefits or how much your health insurance is increasing or how much overtime you have to work or you have to do the job of two people because of xyz. So now the conversation suddenly is. Is a little bit different.
GLENN HARPER 1:43
You’re just carrying that entire backpack of bricks up the mountain by yourself. And. And with that conversation, the reason why it’s probably hard. Hard is because it’s how you approach the people who support you and love you and how that works and have been there for you is if you present it to them like, well, I’m kind of thinking I might want to do this, and I don’t know how it’s going to turn out. Like, that’s probably not a good way to start that conversation. It’s got to be like, hey, I’ve been doing some thinking. I went on this mountain Trip And I figured out what I want to do. This is how I’m going to do it.
GLENN HARPER 2:17
This is what I need from everybody around me. This is what I’m going to go do. This is how the budget’s going to work. And, and you take all those objections and those fears off the table, that becomes a very easy conversation because you know the answer.
JULIE SMITH 2:29
Well, I think a lot of that stems from that fear of failure, right? So if you go into it with not a lot of confidence, everybody else is gonna drink the same Kool Aid, I guess, where if you come in confident and you know where you’re going and you know what you’re doing, right? That vision that we talk about or purpose, everyone’s like, oh, I can get on board with that train. If the train. Train isn’t really moving and you can see it derailing, are you going to get on that train?
GLENN HARPER 2:54
Well, and it’s true. There’s two parts of it, like, here’s what we’re going to do and how we’re going to do it. Sometimes you got to burn your boats and go. And everybody’s either going to get on board or that’s just like, this is what we’re doing. Or it’s going to be like, hey, if something goes wrong or if this doesn’t work quite right, here’s how much reserves we have in the bank. Here’s how long we can live as a family. This is how long we can do what we need to do. This is the budget we have.
GLENN HARPER 3:17
So we have X time frame to give X effort to get X results. And if everybody sticks with me on this and supports in this way, we can get there. But that conversation is hard to have because like you said, nobody wants to put themselves out there and it not work. It’s a very. It shouldn’t be embarrassing, it shouldn’t be humiliating, but it’s very. It’s a. I don’t even know if it’s an ego. I don’t know what it is.
JULIE SMITH 3:4
It’s a noise that we talk about, right? And it’s that noise that’s always, always surrounding you in regards to what those decisions are. But I think then take a step further. You make this and you go do this. The next hardest conversation is again with your spouse, right?
GLENN HARPER 3:55
Oh, and well, it’s that not only your spouse but your, your team. Because one of two things are going to happen, right? You’re either going to be like, oh, things are turning south in a non good, non well way. It’s not not the way it’s supposed to go. If things aren’t going very well, it’s sort of like you have to actually go and admit that things are bad and we’re not going to plan and we’re not, and you’re not sure what’s going to happen. And the hard part as an entrepreneur is you don’t really recognize when that is. And so when it does happen, and you have to then come back to everybody and say, hey, we gave it my best shot, but it didn’t work. That is very, very emasculating for both dudes and chicks to have that conversation with the people who support them. Because it’s like, I told you this wasn’t going to work.
GLENN HARPER 4:40
You’re like, I don’t want to hear it. It’s got to be like, hey, we did our best. Didn’t work. Here’s the new plan is what we’re going to do going forward. So you got to, again, spin the conversation. That’s the one conversation you’re going to have. Then the other conversation you’re going to have a hard one. Is this the business, Pops.
GLENN HARPER 4:56
Like, things are going aces, Life’s good. And then you’re like, wait a minute, I made nothing last year. This year I’m making a million dollars. Can I maintain this? The money’s there. Can we. Should we spend it? You know, the spouse, the staff, the people, they might see all this money and go, oh, my God, we’re rolling it. Let’s go spend it. And you’re like, no, no, no, we.
GLENN HARPER 5:18
We can’t spend. I don’t know what tomorrow’s going to look like. I can’t predict it. And so the conversation of, hey, we look like we’re doing well, but yet we don’t maybe want to take that money out of the business and spend it. That’s a very hard conversation to have sometimes. So, again, it has to be like, hey, here’s what I think we can spend at home. This is the number. The rest we’re gonna leave for funding for capital for future growth and weather the storm.
GLENN HARPER 5:42
That’s a different type of conversation. It can’t be just like, oh, my God, we made a million dollars. Let’s go spend it. Right? You just really can’t do that.
JULIE SMITH 5:49
Again, I think going back to the original question, all these conversations surround the hard conversation with your spouse in regards to one, going to be an entrepreneur, one, succeeding as an entrepreneur, and two, three, failing as an entrepreneur. Right? And I think those three are just tough conversations. No, matter which way you spend it.
GLENN HARPER 6:10
And it’s sometimes, you know, again, it can be the spouse. A lot of times it could be your parents because you might have to borrow money from your parents. And you’re trying to tell your parents, hey, I got this great idea. I’m going to go build this. And they’re like, what are you talking about? You have this great union job. Why would you stop doing that and go do this? So your parents are going to judge you. And so you’re trying to get monies from different places. You might have to go to a banker.
GLENN HARPER 6:29
You might have to get private funding. You’re going to. You’re trying to share your dream with somebody. This is what you want to do. And the naysayers just come out of the woodwork. So it’s really hard. It’s loud, very loud. So again, if you move with purpose and your conviction of what you’re going to do, again, if you don’t go all in, you’re never going to be successful.
GLENN HARPER 6:49
You have to take the full nesty plunge in. Well, there you have it. Another edition of the Empowering Entrepreneurs Podcast. I’m Glenn Harper.
JULIE SMITH 6:57
Julie Smith.
