First Generation Entrepreneurs, with Randy Gerber, Gerber Clarity

[00:00:00] Betty Collins
Well, this podcast is going to be about something that I love, which is the importance of the marketplace in our country and the small businesses, when those employers, you know, can have employees. That means there’s households taken care of and those households have provision. And then that, you know, forms our communities. So small business is so important that it works and that it works well and there’s more than just provision as well, right? There’s it’s it’s finding what you do, finding your purpose, finding living out that why and I can’t think of a better person than Randy Gerber with his company, Gerber clarity. I mean, he is an optimistic person and loves the marketplace. And the last time we were together, he was so optimistic about twenty twenty two and what we’re going to go into, and I think we need to hear more optimism out there. So I wanted to really have a time with him where we could talk about, Hey, let’s be optimistic. Let’s look at what the opportunities are out there for small business owners, because that’s who he works with. And he really is about living out his why. And he’s really about leading with great passion. And he works hand in hand with those clients and understands not just their business, but what do they want out of life, and he puts a holistic approach to things. So Randy, welcome to my podcast. I’m so glad that you’re here today, and I’d love for you just to talk that 30 seconds to a minute about about your company and the Gerber team.

[00:01:32] Randy Gerber
Sure. Well, first of all, Betty, thank you for having me. I’m flattered by the introduction and super happy to be here. And yes, I am very optimistic about 2022. Our team we work exclusively with and I really did try to say primarily used to stay exclusively. We have a few exceptions now, but with first generation entrepreneurs. And part of the reason why is, you know, first generation entrepreneurs in my experience, which you know, spans 30 years now, are optimistic cup half full people to begin with. And we really helped them understand how to grow their business with purpose. And obviously, that word purpose can be defined several ways, and we do define that several ways deliberately. So it’s fun. It’s exciting. It’s it’s the baseline of of America, as you said, and these are people that are moving the needle for us every single day.

[00:02:31] Betty Collins
Yeah. And in and what I don’t think people, you know, they underestimate that small business owner and what it means and people think that business is all like Apple or big. And that’s really a small segment in our marketplace. And so those that first generation that goes and takes the risk, yay to them, right? It’s always

[00:02:53] Randy Gerber
Good. And you know, we’re living in a period of time right now of of great opportunity. I mean, you know, this is really, truly the fourth industrial revolution we’re living in right now with the amount of innovation and change that’s happening. And you know, I think a year ago, people kept saying, you still hear it, but people look the same when COVID hit or COVID induced this. And I really been thinking about this a lot lately that I don’t I think COVID just just it actually exposed the fundamental issues that have been out there in our economy and our society have been lingering for a while. We needed a catalyst. So. So COVID was a catalyst. And so I think that that, you know, the amount of people are willing we were changed, was induced upon us, was forced upon us because of COVID and we all got comfortable to some degree with change. And so you’re you’re seeing people make tons of changes. And one of those dynamics is investment and innovation, which is that it’s staggering what’s happening right now and exciting. And I think it’s going to be it’s going to be very, you know, great for our country and our society. And in fact, I think that a lot of the social issues that we have will get solved via innovation and change as well versus government and politics. And it’s going to take a little time, but there’s just so much happening right now. It’s it’s impressive, right?

[00:04:29] Betty Collins
And you don’t want to miss the opportunity. You don’t want to miss what you can seize right now. And you know, people ask me all the time, what’s a great client for you, one who’s engaged and if there is an engagement is so prevalent everywhere right now, people are engaged on what’s going on and what should they be doing. And that makes your in my job as professionals so much easier when you have that. But we don’t want them to miss opportunity. But you’ve done some amazing things and one of them is you wrote a. Look, can you give us some insight on why you wrote the book and let’s do a plug for it’s the integrated entrepreneur achieving happiness in relationships, business and life. Can you talk a little bit about that?

[00:05:12] Randy Gerber
Sure. Yeah, I wish I had a really exciting story to why I wrote the book. I should. I should fabricate one. But the the truth of the matter is that when I made the, you know, when I started my business back in 1991, I was doing general financial planning for anybody. And the distinction? I’m not from Columbus. So I had to really work hard just to make introductions with people and cold call and et cetera. And so anybody was a client. And then, you know, in 2000, 2001, 2002 really had for a whole bunch of reasons that from having our first child to 911 to market crash that really examined who I wanted to work with as clients, and I realized I had a real affinity of working with entrepreneurs. And then after a few months of consideration, it was not just entrepreneurs, people who start the businesses. And and so, you know, the recognition was that if I’m going to really work with these first generation entrepreneurs, I have to help them with things other than traditional financial planning because they have unique needs and unique perspectives. And so and this is, you know, like people kind of forget this, but you know, back in, oh, one, 102, two 03, Google wasn’t quite so prevalent back then and the amount of content and research available on first.

[00:06:38] Randy Gerber
If you if you were spending the time to research first-generation entrepreneurs, there just wasn’t much content out there. And so, you know, I became committed in my head to that marketplace and said, Well, look, if I’m going to understand these people and I’m going to help them grow their biggest asset, I really need to understand them. So we ended up. I decided, you know, naively, I suppose, to the best vehicle to do the research and organize it as a book. And so, you know, started to outline the chapters of what I wanted to talk about. And it is primarily relationships with, you know, your parents, your siblings, your children, your friends, your employees, et cetera. And and we hired a woman out of Houston to do all the research. She actually was a child therapist, research expert. And so we felt like she had the background to do the research. And so she did. And we, you know, interviewed a ton of our clients and she interviewed a ton of people. And so we started and we started paying attention, you know, asking once we had a series of questions that we wanted answered.

[00:07:48] Randy Gerber
We started paying attention more and more in society itself. The I mean, the good news, bad news. I don’t know which one it is still, but we started the book in 05 and I finished it last year in 2021. So and and with the exception of about three or four year period in there, I did work on it all the time. From what I mean by that is I was evolving my thoughts and being more refined and what we were writing. So I do feel that it’s a, you know, reasonably long period of time, a thought. So it wasn’t like we wrote the book in six months and published it at all was, you know, and you know, we went back and some of the things I wrote in 06, 07 08 we modified and I’m using that word deliberately modified. So it wasn’t abandoned the change, but rather modify and refine some of our thinking. And so as I reread it after it was in print form and an actual book, I feel really good that what was written is how we feel today, and there’s really no changes to it. But it was an accident. It’s a long story.

[00:08:51] Betty Collins
Well, no, it’s I mean, to write a book. I look at anyone that does that with a lot of admiration. I know what it’s like to try to write a podcast, and I and I, you know, go I whine and and cry over that, you know, let alone writing a book and going through that process and getting your thoughts down. So and then someone edit and change it, and it’s a process. But I it’s a great, great something for someone to read. The integrated entrepreneur achieving happiness in relationships, business in life. You should check that out by Randy Gerber. So let’s let’s talk a little bit about, you know, businesses in general. But what’s the biggest misconception that business owners have about growing their business?

[00:09:34] Randy Gerber
In my experience, it’s they think they need to grow too quickly, and particularly if the questions rephrase is what are the biggest misconceptions for small businesses or emerging businesses? I am just convinced that businesses grow too quickly and the I was asked. Recently by a CPA firm, which I thought was really an interesting question, he said, yeah, what percentage of your clients are lucky and what percentage of your clients are strategic? And I thought about it for a second and thought, You know what? That’s a wrong question. Um, the question is, what percentage of my clients are permanent grinders? What percentage of my clients are lucky and what percentage are strategic? And I think the answer to that is that in the beginning, everybody is a grinder because you have to be. And in that in that grinding process, I think entrepreneurs, the misconception is they have to grow very quickly to have to chase revenue. And I think and then there’s, you know, there’s certain certain entrepreneurs that get lucky for sure that the right place right time for a whole variety of reasons and their business propels because they’re lucky.

[00:10:49] Randy Gerber
But the ones who really, really figured it out are the ones that they can transition to strategic thinking. And so they really begin to understand that, hey, we we need to grow properly. We need to grow the right rate. We need to grow profitably as quickly as possible. And so to me, that’s the biggest misconception. And I think there’s, you know, when people are starting businesses or early in stages in business, they actually they seek counsel from lots of folks. But in my experience, not the right people. They’re not talking to folks who literally had done it themselves, whether they were successful or not. They talked to business community business leaders, but it is such a unique, a unique journey to be to start a business from scratch. And then, you know, get it to a point where it’s sustainable that there’s very few people have done it and you really need when you’re in that stage, you need to identify those folks and try to get. In my experience, most first generation entrepreneurs are very happy to help others who are in that same, you know, on that same journey.

[00:11:55] Betty Collins
Absolutely. I find that all the time and you and really you should be connecting those people together with your client because it can be so beneficial, so beneficial. But one of the things when we talk about the misconceptions and growing your business, I like that you use the word purpose a lot. So you know, how should how should business owners grow with purpose?

[00:12:18] Randy Gerber
Yeah, I mean, in my I’m going to answer this question very literally. And of course, I need to disclose I’m a, you know, I’m completely biased in my answer. And so and it is rooted in my experience. So it may not be for everybody as my point, but I really, you know, in our experience, what we’ve figured out is if you could sit down and really understand how you want to live your life, you know what? What do you want to do? How do you want to do it? Where do you want to do? Who do you want to do it with? And you can be vulnerable and honest with yourself. You get, you know, we can. Then you know, we know what that’s going to cost you. We know it’s going to cost you, whatever, $10000 a month or $20000 a month in 2022 dollars. And once you understand what the economic needs are of the way you want to live your life and these are all very much this is an important distinction. Want based questions versus need based questions? I think all of us are are able to or most of us are able to make adjustments in our lives if we need to. But but you know, again, first generation entrepreneurs being optimistic and and cup half full, you know, the question is really good in how do you want to live your life when you understand that we can, we can identify what that cost looks like and then we can say, OK, this is what you want, then you need your business to look like this, whatever, whatever that is, $20 million of sales, 12 percent net income that that we can craft, that looks like.

[00:13:48] Randy Gerber
So now you have a clear map of, OK, I need to get from point A to point B and then the purpose part of it gets into because, you know, if if you’re I mean, if you’re single, no kids, that’s a little different. In our experience that people like that are generally wrapped up in the business, that’s it. We have a few of those clients and that’s good. And you know, eventually most folks end up wanting to have a partner, get married, have children. And so the purpose question gets much more, much more relevant because now you, you know, people want to have, you know, most people, I think, want to have a happy marriage and they want to they want to be in an apparent relationship with their children that they enjoy and they want their kids to respect and enjoy them.

[00:14:34] Randy Gerber
So when you start thinking about that, you know, time becomes part of the equation. So. So you know, what’s your relationship with the business at that stage? And that’s really where we can help our clients understand what needs to happen economically, you know, from a from a pure math perspective, then also, how do you evolve your relationship with the business to be happy and peaceful and be present and positive for your spouse and your children and your friends and your parents, et cetera, et cetera? And again, based on how you want to live your life, in my opinion, my experience, I think if you’re willing just to work your rear end off and just really. Grind it out, you can be financially successful, you might be miserable, like miserable, miserable, but you’ll you’ll you’ll achieve financial success. And I think most successful, we define in our client base successful entrepreneurs as people that, first and foremost, are happy at peace. Secondly, they are leaders in their their existing market space. And third, they’re financially successful. And so, you know, I do feel that entrepreneurs that are enlightened that way, it really the purpose question becomes very relevant, right?

[00:15:49] Betty Collins
It definitely does. I mean, I’m a person who loves to go to Naples, Florida, and I love to live someone else’s life for that seven to eight days, right? But I certainly would never want to work that hard to have to live that life. And so I think it’s really important that you understand it, even though they’re all driving boats to dinner because they go from their yacht club over to here. But but you have to really know what that would mean to have that life and and and the purpose thing is so behind it. So that’s really, really good, right? We just had a phone go off. So we’re OK. So so let me take us a little bit further because this is about inspiring women and women. Business owners are the ones who are starting more new businesses than anyone and pushing forward. But in terms of innovation, because you are, you are so correct right now is a time for a lot of innovation and people are really pursuing it. What are the what are the top three things that women should be considering or putting in place with their business today?

[00:16:56] Randy Gerber
Excuse me. You know, so I think, you know, from my vantage point, I think women entrepreneurs have always been empathetic to the needs, the unique needs of women. I think it became much more pronounced during COVID. I mean, the last I looked, which is probably been a few months that six million women left the workforce through COVID, primarily due to childcare issues. And you know, now what we don’t know is how many left permanently, how many left temporarily, how many left and a part time basis. But you know, one of the things that is more important than ever is flexibility. You know, the press right now is calling the the mass exodus of people leaving their jobs a great resignation. And I think that what’s going to change and in fact, this podcast inspired me to write an article on this topic. It isn’t the great resignation. It’s a great realignment. And I think that people are really aligning where they want to be and how they want to go, where they want to work, how they want to work, what they want to do. You know, all that, et cetera, et cetera, with women entrepreneurs, specifically the number one. I think it’s, you know, double down on your values and your company because because in this alignment, you want to find people who are aligned with you.

[00:18:29] Randy Gerber
And in my my opinion and more importantly, my experience direct experience that people want to find homes where they’re working. And, you know, we were able to do that where we had folks that were aligned with our values at a reasonable level. And when COVID hit and people ask those deeper questions, we realized they weren’t as aligned as we hoped. And they’re not here anymore. And we’re. But we were able to find replacements that very much were aligned at a very deep rooted level with our values. And so I think it’s not necessarily an innovation, but I think it’s a practice that every entrepreneur needs to drill down on it and women specifically understanding that they have. There’s a unique problem that women face in the workforce and particularly in small businesses, because you don’t have the luxury of extra bodies to help do the work. And so the innovation I think that has to happen is really focus on outcome oriented results versus time based solutions. So what I’m saying is, you know, invest in your systems and very clearly and there’s, you know, there’s lots of these technology solutions out there, such as Salesforce as one example that was unattainable for small businesses five years ago in terms of cost.

[00:19:54] Randy Gerber
That is very affordable today, relatively speaking. And so I think investing in systems to transition your business to be outcome oriented versus time oriented is an enormous and it sounds simple, but it’s not. Yeah. And when you like, you know, our whole pay, our whole pay. Systems based on hours, right, 40 hours a week, you make an hourly rate, you work so many hours. You know all that it’s hours oriented and that outcome oriented. So it’s a massive shift in thinking. And I think along with this and the great realignment, and we definitely have evaluated ourselves as, you know, who are you serving as a, you know, in a business? Who exactly are your customers? And more importantly, who are your best customers? And how do you double down and making them, you know, really making that relationship even stronger? So I know that I’m seeing this with our client base across the board, that the technology solutions are out there and they’re staggering. And so, you know, from an innovation perspective is really figure out what is available and strategically, what’s the best, you know, what are we, you know, what do we execute? What are we initiate? What do we adopt technologically to make us more efficient and make it a better business?

[00:21:08] Betty Collins
Yeah, I mean, and you just said a lot. I’m going to recap two things that really stick out, though I love the realignment, not resignation. Love that. And I wish. I mean, that’s how we need to be thinking, you know, because resignation immediately is negative, right? And realignment is, no, we have opportunity. And second, we double, you know, doubling down women, business owners double down because time is one of those things that they struggle with. And so becoming that outcome oriented. But boy, what a massive shift. We could do a whole podcast on that right, for sure.

[00:21:48] Randy Gerber
So we just picked up a we just picked up a really great new employee. It’s interesting, you know, and and she was with a nice company here in town that grew exponentially. And, you know, I just got lost in the shuffle and I don’t I don’t identify with this company anymore. And she literally she got referred to us and we interviewed her and two weeks later, she’s starting, you know, and it’s just and we did we did her a normal interview process, which is extensive and just actually she’s itching to get here. And I’m excited, you know, so I really think it is a realignment, not a resignation, right?

[00:22:23] Betty Collins
And you also are looking at I mean, the employers who are looking at flexibility is first and foremost because that’s what people are looking for are not having the shortages. You know, some some industries are just having shortages and it’s going to take its time. But but flexibility is really huge in that and you probably were with her. But there is that lost in the shuffle business, especially when you aren’t connected because you’re not going into an office and it’s big and all of that.

[00:22:51] Randy Gerber
So, you know, it’s interesting. The flexibility is even more complicated because when you say flexibility, that means different things to different people. And I’m really beginning to see now that, yeah, my team wants flexibility, but my team wants other people on the team that are committed to the cause we’re on. And so, so with with that in mind, it’s not unlimited flexibility. And there’s definitely one of the one of the challenges small businesses have is that, you know, the perception that working for Google and Apple and all these big, huge tech companies, there’s, you know, it’s vacation every day on Google campus and it’s it’s ultimate flexibility. You can come and do what you want to do and you want to do it. None of it’s true, but that’s a perception, right? And and so small businesses specifically get get whacked with that. And I think in this alignment that you really, really need to have your team want the same type of flexibility, right? Because it’s different. Different people have different dynamics. And we had two employees that, you know, were willing pre-COVID. You know what their, you know, worked hard they’re supposed to do.

[00:23:56] Randy Gerber
Covid came along and they both really did didn’t want to work more than 35 hours a week, but they wanted all the benefits of full time. And sure, you know, but they just didn’t want to work that much anymore. And that’s not the flexibility that we needed. And so we’ve really we’ve been we’ve certainly continued to add more and more flexibility to our relationship with folks. And when I say I work only 35 hours a week, they it was a time, but they weren’t concerned about their outcomes, either. They they, you know, they they were only going to work so much time and the outcomes didn’t matter to them. And so, you know, and now today we have we replaced those folks with full time. We also have more permanent part time people who definitely want flexibility, but they’re very outcome oriented. Mm hmm. Right. So when you’re building your team, you’ve got to have like minded people around that term of flexibility and wanting, you know, great results for your customers, right?

[00:24:50] Betty Collins
The outcome is the bottom line. And in many respects, and what I tell my team is your flexibility is right in there, but it cannot cost chaos to the team.

[00:25:02] Randy Gerber
That’s that’s a great way to

[00:25:03] Betty Collins
Articulate, you know, and so how do we make that work? How do we make that work? And so we talk about that through quite a bit because there just needs sometimes to be this flexibility. But the outcome has to be the same. The chaos cannot. There for the client or your peer, so. Right. But let’s go into the question. Everyone asked this question a lot and we always need it, and I heard you refer to you and you started your business in ninety one, then you went through nine eleven, then you went through 08 nine time period. And now we’re in a pandemic time period. But what have you learned about being a leader during times of uncertainty in your business or, you know, the world in general and and want business leaders to know what from your perspective?

[00:25:48] Randy Gerber
I think that it. Um, in hindsight, in hindsight, when I think about the leadership and particularly as an entrepreneur, particularly, you know, I view the shareholder as the fiduciary of the business, right? And I think that it’s really making sure that the culture is current. And I see I see too many people entrepreneurs who who get sloppy with the culture let go of it. I mean, admittedly, we we start we struggled a little bit during during COVID, where I lost sight of the culture for a period of time and it gets hijacked. And I think that I think that you really have to be super as a leader, be super cognizant of that culture during times of duress. And one of the things that I’ve preached to our clients all the time male, female doesn’t matter is again, if you’re a first generation entrepreneur, you’re a unique breed. To begin with. You’re you’re willing to accept variability risk volatility. Uncertainty unknown. You’re OK with it. And in fact, some people embrace it, right? Ninety nine percent of the people out there do not. And so, so, so even though you might be okay with it, you have to, from a cultural perspective, really be thoughtful around providing certainty and safety to your, your, your team, your company. And so I think during times of difficulty, times of uncertainties doubling down on your culture to provide that certainty and safety to your employees the best you can.

[00:27:43] Betty Collins
Yes. And I think that’s where there’s there’s a tremendous amount of people love and being at home and they’re in their sweats with a nice shirt on for a Zoom call. And they love not having the stress of the morning with kids or the pickup and on and on. But they are missing a culture and an atmosphere by by being secluded. Now, culture is more than just being in your office, but I think that’s where you can easily lose sight or we have lost sight in this pandemic. And and then when you don’t own something and are connected and you’re not going to be engaged, it’s kind of like when you when you use a rental car, you never wash it because you don’t own it. You return it, right? So culture is kind of that same thing when it’s not kind of we own this. This is who we are. I’m engaged with this and and I think it’s really easy to lose culture right now with the disconnect of not having community, but just my opinion. Maybe it’s because I like being in the office too, and that helps me be with my, you know, my people, is what I call it. So. But but leading during these times is so important and the advisors like you and myself getting our clients through this is so crucial to to the the stability of the country. I just look at it that way. So but but I know that you’ve had a lot of success with that, and I will tell you if if I worked for Gerber, I would go to work because you have the coolest office I’ve ever seen. I love your office in your view. It’s very, very good there. But you had so many takeaways today, so many great questions. But what would you want to leave the audience with? You know you’re you’re so optimistic. You really see, twenty twenty two is an amazing year and we’re going to have some opportunities. What would you want to leave my audience with today?

[00:29:41] Randy Gerber
You know, I think this is one of these unique times in the world, in America where you know the old adage make hay when the sun shine, and I think it’s time to make some hay. And I think this is I think this is a really unique opportunity. I’m not going to say it once in a lifetime that could be too aggressive, but I really do believe that we’re living in unusual times and this is a time you can improve the foundation of your business. Really, really engage your customers and clients, improve your product. If you’re a manufacturer or something and and really just just get the best people on your team because because I mean, that’s a I guess the number one is work hard to get the best people on your team because they’re out there and they’re available and people want to associate with greatness. I mean, there’s all sorts of proof around this that the reason why a person goes to work for the company, first and foremost, the mission the company’s on the mission, the company is on a line with them. Number two is the quality the people they work with. They want to work with great people. And a great great people and work with great people, and so the third is the respect they get from the company and their manager and forth as compensation, and those top three things are in play right now in a way that we just may never see. And so I think embrace it as a short answer.

[00:31:09] Betty Collins
No, that’s great. And if you’re an entrepreneur out there and you’re struggling with what he just talked about, I would replay that and write it down because because that that can just make or break how you’re going to navigate through all the opportunity that’s there. So but the last thing I would like to bring this up. You know, you volunteer for the Columbus chapter of entrepreneurs, organizations. You want to just do a plug for them.

[00:31:36] Randy Gerber
Yes. You know, you know, it’s one of the best things that I have ever done personally and professionally. It’s, you know, being an entrepreneur is a very lonely thing. It’s a lonely place. There’s not many out there. You know, it was a group of all entrepreneurs, and Columbus chapter has somewhere in the 80 to 90 member range. And it’s super interesting, exciting people. And I think it’s just a great way to really get your arms around where you’re going and why you’re going and with really great people around you.

[00:32:08] Betty Collins
Yeah, it sounds. It sounds like a cool organization. Everybody should be involved in something, especially if you’re a professional adviser to business owners. You should be in something that connects you to to your community, for sure. Randy, we just want to thank you for being here today. You know, you’re a busy guy. You took the time to be here and and give us your insight. And to my audience again, I would check out the book The Integrated Entrepreneur Achieving Happiness and Relationships, Business and life. Learn from somebody who has a lot of success and that would be randy. So again, thank you for being here and come to my podcast the next time.

[00:32:44] Randy Gerber
Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. It’s been fun.

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