John and Connie: Hello, and welcome to another episode of

Celebrating Small Family Businesses.

It is, yes.

Wow.

Where we celebrate passion in action.

And today we are celebrating Hank and Sharyn Yuloff of Yuloff

Creative Marketing Solutions.

Good morning, how are you?

Hank and Sharyn: How do, wow.

It's your voice changes from not on the podcast to, on the podcast,

you're using your FM radio voice.

John and Connie: Oh my goodness.

I didn't know I was doing that.

That's that's fun.

Hank and Sharyn: I'm going.

I It's okay.

I'll use my f radio voice too.

John and Connie: I might only do that for the introduction.

I don't know.

We'll, we'll see.

Hank and Sharyn: Y'all, you have to, you have to interview that.

You have to talk to they're not on podcast.

John and Connie: There we go.

Oh, well.

Hank and Sharyn: up.

John and Connie: gonna be one of those podcasts.

We're gonna fun.

We love those.

Fun.

And that's the kind we like.

Yes.

somebody stuck.

I, so we were at a gathering, since you're mentioning that.

So we were at a gathering last night and like a Christmas party and, uh,

and, somebody stuck a microphone in my hand and, you know, said, you

know, tell, introduce yourself to the group of, you know what you do.

It's um, it's a networking group where we have multiple groups and I lead one and.

I just, you know, started talking and, I don't know, 50 to 100 people.

And usually I, history has been speaking in front of a group is I'm not comfortable

and I mean, he's behind everybody.

And I was just like, totally myself and messing, messing around

and, and I realized afterwards, oh my God, what a change.

So didn't use

Hank and Sharyn: Excellent.

We, we have a, we have a client that, uh, she's been a client for

several years and when we started, we were in a, a networking group

together, and when it was her turn to stand and do her elevator speech.

It, it sort of became a, a thing within our group.

We're just gonna let her go as long as she needs to, to get her

story out, because she was very shy and, and it took her a while and

she might read it, which is okay.

No, but the eyes were always down.

Now, uh, she regularly wins the speaker of the week.

It, it's, that's been true for this year, I think last year as well.

Yeah.

So like she's come a long way.

A few years.

It, it, it's practice.

John and Connie: Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Hank and Sharyn: is practice.

Yeah.

John and Connie: Yep.

Hank and Sharyn: Go back and watch.

John and Connie: made it safe too.

Hank and Sharyn: Know how you like it.

John and Connie: You really made it safe.

You said, when you know we're gonna let her go and as long

as she needs to to get it, and

Hank and Sharyn: She, she didn't know that.

John and Connie: Uhhuh.

Hank and Sharyn: Let her go.

John and Connie: Oh, that's special.

I love

Hank and Sharyn: Don't add the pressure of time on her.

She's already enough pressure with I.

John and Connie: exactly right.

The internal pressure.

Well, it's a test, test anxiety.

Remember those.

So you guys are business coaches.

I know this because we've talked, um, but it's also u Loft

Creative Marketing Solutions.

So I, I, I want to, want to get to like where your, your origin

story, but also what it is you guys focus on with your client.

So take that however you want.

Start either one.

for it.

Hank and Sharyn: 30 years now, uh, to Thanksgiving.

Uh, my family was one of those that went around the table.

What are you thankful for?

And I was working as a one of 14 regional sales managers for a national company.

Uh, we had just had our regional sales managers meeting in Minnesota,

and here's what had happened.

The week before

our national sales manager quit.

So the, the 14 of us are in a room waiting for the owner of the company

to walk in, knowing that this was gonna be part of the conversation.

And about half of us, kind of in a straw poll, were gonna go for it, you

know, that job because we figured who else, you know, from from, um, from, he

walked in, uh, his son who had joined the company a couple months ago and was

in the accounting department, walked in with him, the door was still open,

and he said, I wanna introduce you to your new national sales manager.

And we all looked at the door and no one walked in.

And we realized, yeah, your, your, your mouth is open.

That's exactly the look.

John and Connie: Yeah.

Hank and Sharyn: Uh, so our new national sales manager has no sales

experience and he's an accountant.

Oh, this is gonna be fun.

So I got to share this story with my mom.

And she said, well, what would it take for you to just start your own, you

know, company and do the same thing?

And sarcastically, I know it's hard to imagine me being sarcastic, um, I said,

well, I need a new fax machine because the one I have belongs to the company.

And she looked, you don't have youngsters that we need to explain.

The fax machine.

John and Connie: Who knows

Hank and Sharyn: Fax machine used to be the magic way here and handed

And she looked at my dad and said, write him a check.

And that was her way of saying, you know, uh, it's time.

Just, just start.

And two weeks later, uh, company was started.

Uh, I didn't lose any clients.

In fact, most of 'em said, it's about time you started your own company.

How can I help best help you?

And my question to 'em was, wow, you never said that before.

You know that sort of thing for business help.

They said you weren't ready and now you are.

Let's go.

Like that one after another.

That was the story.

And moving ahead, uh, a bunch of years, I, I stole my wife

from the entertainment industry.

Yes.

That's the story.

And we've, we've never looked back and had a much better life for sure,

because we, we no longer have the, "How was your day, dear?" conversation.

And we can really just kind of tell our desks are, are not, they,

we don't face each other word.

Uh, perpendicular.

Perpendicular.

And we can tell how the other one's day is going by the number of curse

words we hear, and that's okay.

So that's the, that's our, our origin is, you know, my, my mom blame my mother.

John and Connie: There you go.

I wouldn't blame your mother.

What was the bus, the nature of the business that you were working for As

the na As a regional sales manager.

Hank and Sharyn: Uh, we put logos on stuff.

John and Connie: Okay.

Okay.

So is marketing

Hank and Sharyn: Promotional products.

Yeah.

And, and we

John and Connie: promotion and marketing?

Hank and Sharyn: we still have that company.

We just don't promote it because, and this'll this, this will probably

resonate with a lot of listeners.

If your business changes, don't you, by bringing up something else.

If you try and have 2, 3, 4 businesses, this especially happens in network

marketing, you lose your focus.

We're business coaches, we're small business coaches.

Well, not only do we lose our focus, but it, it mixes the message for the audience.

John and Connie: exactly.

Hank and Sharyn: So do, are you, do you sell promotional products?

Do you sell whatever, pick your MLM or do you do business coaching?

Right now I'm confused and it confused.

Mine doesn't buy, so we stick to our lane.

Our lane is business coaching.

Yes.

If you happen to know us and you have a need and you mention it,

well, we can certainly help you with promotional products and

our clients get the benefit of.

John and Connie: So when you were, you, you had all these clients that were buying

promotional products with from you and they, when, when you went on your own, you

were going to shift to business coaching.

Is that right?

Hank and Sharyn: No, he, he shifted first to just being a distri, just, just being

a distributor for promotional products.

The morphing to business coaching.

It was always part of the vision to actually, actually the

vision was marketing coaching.

'cause his background's in marketing.

John and Connie: Okay.

Hank and Sharyn: We didn't shift to business coaching until I joined about

13 years ago because my background in business is office and HR management.

So what that means to our clients is we help them with marketing and sales, Hank,

as well as HR and office management.

Now, when when he floated that, I joined him in coaching and, and make more of a

business coaching, um, I, I described it kinda like I described it to you, right?

There's this, it, it sounds like there's this really clear division, right?

He's marketing and sales.

I'm HR and office management, but that's because I. The market guy,

I'm the HR person, I, anything about marketing, but as part of the, the

conversation, just the evolution of the business, I was able to overhear

his conversations and the way would to clients, and I realized, wait, those are

the same conversations I have in my hr.

So because I was working for small business, it was all small business.

I, I never worked for a company that was larger than 60 employees in.

So it was all small business.

What that, what we learned from that is that HR for small business

is just internal marketing.

I mean, unless you're putting an ad out, right?

'cause you're hiring, okay, now it's external marketing, but

otherwise it's internal, right?

It's the employee comes to HR and says, I have this idea, but

my manager won't listen to me.

Okay, well, so how do we message it?

So that the hiring manager hears you, right?

Or the owner comes to to HR and says, I wanna do this new initiative,

but I want employee body in.

Okay, well how do we message it?

So the employees, it's all marketing.

John and Connie: That's true.

That's

Hank and Sharyn: So you see, she really doesn't need me.

John and Connie: in a 5-year-old, right.

Hank and Sharyn: She doesn't really.

John and Connie: It is.

That's wonderful.

Uh, so two things I wanna make,

make sure we bring out.

One was going back to Hank's story about the son coming in.

So there's family dynamics, even in a big company,

Hank and Sharyn: Oh yeah,

John and Connie: this nepotism happening in a

Hank and Sharyn: yeah.

John and Connie: setting, which is, you know, that's a common

thing in small family businesses, but, um, it's also everywhere.

Hank and Sharyn: Growing up I worked at one of my summer jobs.

I worked for, uh, a company in Los Angeles that was a ticket reseller.

You know, we, we'd buy 'em for face and charge you a hundred dollars more.

And there were three of us that, that weren't family.

There was a, a father, uh, excuse me, father, son-in-law, daughter,

mother, so those four plus another brother, those five family members.

And the root, the build business, physical setting was not that big, you know?

Square feet, something like that.

So if all five family members were there, the three of us who weren't just kind

of went to the front, dealt with the phones, because we knew there was going

to be some sort of explosion every time.

If all five were in the room, it was just, oh, here it comes.

John and Connie: Perfect.

Yeah.

Hank and Sharyn: Well, the, the national company.

Yeah.

Was it more than 500 employees?

Oh yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

John and Connie: And the the other thing I, I heard there, I

wanted to make sure that you're talking about HR and, and where.

I think there's a difference is I had the experience of working in a major,

you know, like a Fortune 500 company, HR department, and my perception is that

in a big corporation, hr, the purpose of HR isn't so much to develop and help

the employees like you were describing.

It's more to protect the company

Hank and Sharyn: Absolutely I would, I would concur with

the company that I worked for.

It's a, in my experience, again, it was small business, right?

So in my experience, it was, uh, it was a balance and, and I was

blessed that every place I worked.

Felt that way until the last one, until before I joined Hank the last one.

They didn't see it that way, but um, but every other one, they saw it that way.

That it's a balance.

Yes, we want the, the humans, right?

Hr, human relations.

Right?

So human resources, right?

It's humans.

So the humans that we hire, we.

We want to make it better for them, but we also wanna make the business better,

and how do we make them better and in order to make the business better?

And that was always the vision.

So, um, it, yes, I did have to walk a tightrope, um, but

she was really good at that.

But it wasn't 12 feet up in the, it, it wasn't that hard because I only

worked for owners that saw it that way.

John and Connie: Yeah.

Saying that.

Oh, that's wonderful.

Yeah.

The big businesses that we've worked with,

Hank and Sharyn: Right.

John and Connie: was always CYA it wasn't mine that they were covering.

Well, I, I was, I was really shocked the first time, so

I came from a small business background, little family business.

It was three of us.

And I'm in this corporate environment and all of a sudden

I hear people talking about FTEs.

What?

What's an FTE?

You know, I whisper to somebody.

Full-time employee and, and then, you know, we need three

and a half FTEs for this.

And, and then there was another, you know, instead of people, it was resources.

It's much easier to d to, to get rid of resources than it is to fire people.

Right?

So there's this whole language mindset that, and so, um, I, we, I saw hr,

you know, as a, there was a lot of.

A SA anyway, but hr, it, it's, it, it serves an incredibly important function.

And I, I know you guys wrote a book even about like how to

do a HR in a small business.

Look at there.

All right.

Awesome.

Hank and Sharyn: Yeah, we've, we've written eight and I'll tell you, um,

this is one that's like 95% Sharon because as a regional sales manager,

my, my solution, if the employee, what?

It's not working out.

You're probably not really happy here are you?

And that got rid of most of them.

And you know, I can find others.

That's great.

And their, and their numbers pretty much documented the

fact that they couldn't sell.

You know, look, you could, you could walk down a busy street in any town.

In any town, and walk into any store and say you wouldn't wanna buy some

pens with your name on 'em, would you?

And my theory is that every week somebody would say, well, yeah, I might.

I'd have some reps that wouldn't have sales for a couple weeks.

It's not Whatcha doing?

Done?

We're polluting the world T-shirt calendar and coffee mug at a time.

It not difficult.

People like this stuff.

Heck run five get t-shirt.

Seriously,

John and Connie: I, I know.

Yes.

Hank and Sharyn: don't we?

We walked to 5K one, so we came in last, but we still got the T-shirt

and we stopped for Starbucks.

Along way.

Yes,

John and Connie: it.

It's always that

Was there an ice cream shop on the.

Hank and Sharyn: It was, it was a Disney, it was a, um, Disney's great adventure.

So yeah, there, there were, but it was early.

It was pre park opening.

We were lucky there was a coffee shop open.

John and Connie: so

Hank and Sharyn: didn't expect me to walk 5K without coffee, do you?

John and Connie: No, God no.

Not in the morning Uhuh.

Hank and Sharyn: Oh.

John and Connie: So what have you learned about each other that you didn't

know before you started this process?

Hank and Sharyn: Uh, We know, I, were pretty pretty good

at before I'll But

I'll

tell you watching Sharon work with clients

uh, I I just get more impressed all the time

Uh, it, it confirms that I married way up.

Uh.

She, she is excellent with people and seeing other sides of things.

Uh, I, you know, I, I'm just, you know, more in awe that I get to

work with my best friend every day.

That's the the coolest thing.

It's the coolest thing.

I agree.

That is the coolest thing.

I dunno that, I dunno, that don't know that I don't know that I've learned

anything that I didn't already know.

I think it's just cemented Wow.

Right.

That he's, that he.

The marketing brain is always going, and I knew that before and now it

just made it more obvious because now we see it more often, right?

I, I wasn't going to work and then coming home and seeing it later, right?

I get to see it all day every day, 24 7, 365, unless we happen to be

able to be, to sleep that night.

Um, so I, I don't, I don't know that it's anything new.

I think it's an amplification of things I already knew and reinforced,

and it's pretty cool to watch.

John and Connie: It is, isn't it?

Hank and Sharyn: A pretty cool watch.

John and Connie: And it is always fun to watch 'em grow in an

area that you may have thought.

they ever going to grow in that area?

Hank and Sharyn: Look, you if you, if you,

John and Connie: No.

Hank and Sharyn: if you really want that, Sharon as a public speaker, uh, has,

has been this, you know, blossoming.

Um, one of, one of my favorite stories, uh, we do a, we do

a small business breakthrough bootcamp a couple times a year.

And every two or three years we will have it videoed because the content

changes a lot and we want the most UpToDate info in our vault for

our coaching clients to refer to.

And when we do a bootcamp, most of the time I'm center stage.

Sharon is off to the side sitting with a microphone in.

Please don't put me on stage.

And we were, we were teaching a section on social media and Sharon was off to

the side and, and contributing a lot.

I said, you know what, babe?

We're recording this.

Why don't you just come up here and, and, and talk from here?

And as she came up, I left

and I left her up there for a half an hour and.

I could've killed him.

It was, there were, there were, we had several clients there and, and me and

the clients are sitting off to the side just having a great old time because we

know how uncomfortable this is for her.

But she held the room, she taught wonderfully, I mean, she has, her

first job was, was being a teacher.

So it, it was just a matter of nudging her gently.

And now it's sometimes, you know, she's the first one up there, so it's great.

Presenter it.

John and Connie: So you're touching on, you know, one of the, the

themes that we see, which is the, how personal growth works into

the growth of the business, right?

The, the, I've heard the phrase said, you know, the, the business growth, the

growth of the business, small business is often limited by the growth of the owner.

Um, would you agree with that?

And, and, you know, have you seen that, uh, in your own business?

Hank and Sharyn: Founder syndrome is a thing.

I mean, they don't, they don't call it that for nothing.

It's a thing.

Um, some businesses succeed despite the, the founder.

We see it more in nonprofits than small business.

Um.

Yeah, I think we see it more nonprofits, just in our experience.

They, they don't realize that a nonprofit is a business.

And the only difference between a for-profit is that, you know,

they have tax ramifications.

Uh, but most of 'em, we wanna do something really good in the world.

And, and God bless 'em.

Sharon has a master's in nonprofit management, uh, but they don't

understand completely sometimes.

You need to make money in order to do the things that you wanna do.

There's, there's nothing in the tax code that says that a,

a nonprofit can't make money.

It's just that they can't make money to the benefit of one sole owner, right?

Like a for-profit can.

John and Connie: Mm-hmm.

Hank and Sharyn: a nonprofit is just a tax status.

You just made an agreement with the government.

I'm gonna provide these services so that you government don't have to do that.

And in exchange, I'm not going to pay taxes.

It doesn't mean you can't earn money, it just that it has, the

money has to go back towards the mission of the organization and we've

John and Connie: brilliant description and, and you know, really clear

and yeah, that, that a nonprofit, um, they, they, they've got such

a passion for something, right?

They,

Hank and Sharyn: Yeah.

John and Connie: they, they want to, they feel like they, they want to

give, and it does, it does give, but it's gotta make money or to grow.

Hank and Sharyn: When we, when we speak to, to be sustained.

Yeah.

When we speak to groups of nonprofits, um.

Whatever our presentation is, I always begin with a two or three

minute description of, you know, in the next couple of minutes,

some of you're going to love me and some of you're going to hate me.

Um, as we I go through that description of look.

You deserve and you have to make money.

And there is a difference for it.

And some of you, when you're marketing yourselves, it's, you know, if you've

seen the play, Oliver, most of you come to a chamber with the, they all have

some more, sir, you know, you're begging for it as opposed to coming there with

a, a list of things that you do and do, you know, saying, look, without us.

These don't get done in your, in your neighborhood.

So this is why you support us.

And if you can make the shift from to this is what we do, your nonprofit is gonna

become far more successful, far faster.

So when we, when we coach nonprofits, that's always one of the, one

of the things we're looking at.

John and Connie: Oh, I love it.

And wow, another feather in your cap Sharyn Masters in nonprofit

Hank and Sharyn: just.

John and Connie: I know.

Wow.

What other little surprises do we have?

Well, I've seen on your YouTube channel, um, I think by the

same name, Uloff Creative.

Is that right?

that you have done quite a few, uh, webinars for score, either I saw that

on your website or your YouTube channel.

So is is score, what's your, I don't know, interaction or relationship with score?

Hank and Sharyn: Um, that we, we do webinars for a few chapters.

You know, SCORE has, SCORE is national, but then they have chapters.

So, uh, because we, our business started in Los Angeles, our strongest alliance.

For lack of a better word, there's probably a better word,

but I can't go up with it.

It's Thursday.

I've run outta words.

Um, we, the belief that you only get so many words in the, in the week and

by Thursday I'm running outta words.

John and Connie: Yeah, there was an old joke about men and women like that too.

You know, women had a, a, a larger supply of words for the day, and so

Hank and Sharyn: I don't, I don't agree with you.

John and Connie: I I wouldn't.

Hank and Sharyn: with you.

Uh, so our, we do more webinars for score in la.

Um, but we've also done them for Florida and Delaware.

That might be it At the moment.

We, we tried, we for Arizona, in person, Arizona doesn't score,

did not when we were there.

I won't speak for how they're now, but when we were there, they

did not have their act together.

We look, we, we like doing it there.

It's part of it's give back.

We know, we know what we're doing is we're helping a lot of like nation.

Early, still deciding if they want to have a business.

Are they even already a startup or not yet, even yet a startup.

Yeah.

Uh, we help them get to the point of, okay, I'm gonna make a go at this.

Or, or not.

Yeah.

But it's fine.

Get off the fence, make a

John and Connie: Okay.

Hank and Sharyn: choice.

And sometimes, you know, it's rare with score, but sometimes we'll have somebody

come back and say, yeah, you know, I, I'd like you as a business coach.

Uh, and, and, but even then there's the discussion.

Where are you in the process?

Uh, and it's fine either way.

I mean, we we're, we're good with startup, um, love startups because then

we don't have to fix things, right?

Even, even those that are still on the fence, we're happy to

have that conversation of do they wanna become a startup?

And like said, right.

If we could start from the beginning and not all the better.

Get your social media, your website, and your messaging done right.

Well, and the first thing really is that you don't even need those

things to get your first client.

Many small business owners, small, those, those want entrepreneurs,

they're not even yet entrepreneurs.

Um, they think, oh, I can't, I can't launch until I have

social media and a website No.

Or a logo.

That's the other thing, right?

I need a logo for You don't need any of those things to get your first client.

You don't get your first clients.

Use some of that, those funds, put them in a savings account to, to build up

your website, logo marketing bank so that then you can continue to scale as you do.

But you don't need those things to start.

Like no one ever looked at a logo and said, oh, I'm not hiring them.

'cause I hate that lo, it's not like, seriously, if they do that, you

didn't want them as a client anyway.

Right?

They don't go to the website and go, they don't have a website.

I'm not gonna work with them.

If they meet you in person and they wanna work with you, they're gonna work with

you whether you have a website or not.

Let that passion out, baby.

Go get

John and Connie: more about message.

I love it.

I love it.

The, the message that you're, that you're conveying, if it's clear, you

know, that's what people are hoping to do with a logo on a website, right?

But

Hank and Sharyn: right.

John and Connie: not, you've gotta have it clear before you can put it there.

Hank and Sharyn: Thank you.

John and Connie: I have another question.

What, what do you know now that you wish you had known when you started all this?

Hank and Sharyn: Um, you know, one of the things that we, we do talk to

those early startup folks, those, those that are still on the fence, right?

Do I wanna leave my job or do I, um, if to, to leverage that, right?

Stay, stay in your job until your side gig is now making more that right?

And then you can let that go.

Um.

So we tell them, you're gonna, when you, once you, once you launch, once

you really, you're for real, right?

You're gonna work harder.

You're gonna work longer.

Yes, you built this business so you would have freedom.

But the freedom isn't the freedom to not show up to work.

Like if you don't show up to work, you don't make an income.

And then businesses faltering, right?

So you're gonna work harder and longer than you ever

would work for somebody else.

It's just more rewarding.

You can work to build your dream or you can build work to

build somebody else's dream.

Whose dream do you wanna build?

Yeah.

You know, for, for me it was, I am amazed at how many people decide,

yeah, I can do it all myself.

Because when, when we were, when I started this business, um.

First, I, I chatted with all, you know, a whole bunch of people that have been

in this business longer than I have some in the industry, some not, and,

and got some tips and got coaching.

Um, and we've had business coaches ourself and always found it useful.

But, but folks that say, no, I'm, I can, I can do it all myself.

I'm pretty, I think I'm pretty good at this.

I took a marketing class once and I am, I am amazed at that.

Um, the.

Wealth of information that is out in the world if you ask for it, uh, or

if you're willing to, you know, pay for it, uh, speeds up the process.

John and Connie: No.

Hank and Sharyn: So, uh, simple example.

When CO hit we, we did a whole lot more.

Right.

You know, a lot more webinars and, and podcasts and such.

Um, our studio was set up differently, uh, and we got coaching as to

how you come across on video.

And, and it, what I love about you guys, she, you have the, you

have the exact same kind of a background and there's no ghosting.

It's totally.

But how we set up our studio mics and lighting and us together as

opposed to, we had a table between us before, so the angle was, you know,

wider and taller in a bigger shot.

But getting the coaching from someone who knew what they were talking about

with it, you know, which microphones to use, was saved us so much time.

John and Connie: Mm-hmm.

Hank and Sharyn: fact, if you go on, if you go onto our YouTube channel and go,

go scroll down far enough, you'll see, uh, some of the, the changes we went

through, because those videos are still up

John and Connie: Mm-hmm.

Hank and Sharyn: and it's a, it's a very different look, and that was purposeful.

John and Connie: Mm-hmm.

Hank and Sharyn: We, we feel that improving, you know,

continuously improving is important.

Um, we moved into this studio when we moved to Maryland two years

ago, and we're not quite there.

You know, I even, as I look now, it's like, okay, I need some to adjust some

lighting and there's just things, um, but.

There, there's so much to learn and it, and, uh, getting coaching is, is

gonna speed up the process so much.

Learning from your, your mistakes is a hard and way to go.

John and Connie: Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

I, I would say you, you need some of both.

I mean, right.

We need, we need to make the mistakes to learn from them, but at the same time

Hank and Sharyn: Please don't.

John and Connie: we can go way faster.

Yeah.

I don't have to make all of them.

We can go way faster.

Hank and Sharyn: Don't make them twice.

John and Connie: I say learn.

Well, yeah, learn from mistakes, but also learn from experience.

I mean, it doesn't have to be a, a full mistake to, to look at something we, we,

we just did, and okay, what worked about that, what didn't, and what do we tweak?

Right.

Hank and Sharyn: Well, well, marketing is all about testing.

Right.

You, you do something.

Oh, that didn't quite work the way I thought it would.

I didn't quite attract the right audience.

I didn't, I didn't get as many conversions as I thought.

Right?

All those things.

So what do I need to change?

Is it the image?

Is it the words?

Is it the headline?

Is it the tagging?

Is it, I mean, there's so many different variables, right?

So change something

John and Connie: Yes.

Hank and Sharyn: then test it again.

John and Connie: and then run it again

Hank and Sharyn: Yeah.

John and Connie: and, and don't put it at $50 a day or

Hank and Sharyn: Good.

No.

John and Connie: Yeah, yeah.

Hank and Sharyn: Five

John and Connie: but that's, and you

Hank and Sharyn: dead.

John and Connie: right?

I mean, it's just like songwriters.

I, I liken it to songwriters.

You know that a lot of the song, the artists, they're, they write a song

and they're absolutely sure it's gonna be a hit and it's a total bomb.

Or like, uh, Tina Turner, she hated "What's Love Got To Do With It".

She didn't even want to release it.

Hank and Sharyn: Wow.

John and Connie: she was stuck singing it for the rest of her

Hank and Sharyn: I know

John and Connie: Get off.

I think

Hank and Sharyn: I have to ing a song every

John and Connie: started

Hank and Sharyn: damn night.

John and Connie: But

Hank and Sharyn: come on, don't you think, Keith?

Don't you think Keith has found a little satisfaction by now?

John and Connie: I think so.

so.

I hope so.

Hank and Sharyn: Don't you think you two, you know,

John and Connie: know.

Hank and Sharyn: has found what they were looking for by now?

John and Connie: But it's not as gonna work as, I can't get

as much satisfaction as I want.

It's too many words.

Hank and Sharyn: Some point.

John and Connie: You

Hank and Sharyn: At some point we have to.

John and Connie: Well, and that is, you know, coming back to the small business.

So

how do you help your clients maintain their, that balance of, they're working

harder, you know, in, in a small business than they were working for somebody else.

And, and not fall into the trap of, you know, making their business

more important than their life.

Uh, in other words, they're serving the business instead

of the business serving them.

Hank and Sharyn: Yeah.

They all, they all start the business, uh, to serve their life.

Life will be so much easier when I have my own business.

'cause I don't have a boss.

It, it's universal.

Um, the, the challenge is, and Sharon mentioned it earlier, you will be

working harder, you will be working longer with your own business.

Whether you have employees or not, that you do have to keep an eye out

to, you know, the reason you started your business was to serve your life.

And here an example, um, we had to figure out when we go on vacation

that the business is still running.

Our clients still need us, but we have a rule.

Uh, we check email twice a day, morning, and then at night and the

rest of the day we put it away, but we had to learn, you know.

You know, Hank, uh, you've been dealing with that for like three hours.

This is a vacation.

We're on You're on a cruise ship, sweetheart.

I know, babe.

But, but, but nothing.

She's right.

So, thanks sweetie.

And trying to do graphics on a ship.

Oh, good luck.

Yeah.

So we, we, we've learned, you do have to take vacations.

One, you know, we, we have a client, um, they just took 10 days in in France.

And it was their first really far away trip they had taken.

So we had, we went through our process, uh, and because he was, it's a, he,

it's a promotional product business.

I was able to say.

Okay, look.

Um, if, if you need some backup Yeah, I can make some calls for you because

John and Connie: hmm.

Hank and Sharyn: Your face on.

John and Connie: want eating, eating stuff.

Oh, you all

Hank and Sharyn: There you go.

This is David, our cat.

John and Connie: show.

Hank and Sharyn: Yeah, he He's part of the family.

John and Connie: They, our fur babies are part of our families.

Hank and Sharyn: Yeah.

John and Connie: I think they're a stress magnet.

I think they pull the stress out of us, and they take it

Hank and Sharyn: Really.

I know This cat comes over here and steps on our keyboard and messes up our image.

Then you'll see stress.

John and Connie: Well, that's a, they also caused some stress

Hank and Sharyn: This cat has knocked the camera out.

Has has knocked the camera loose before, so

John and Connie: Oh my goodness.

Hank and Sharyn: Yeah.

John and Connie: Hocking up hairballs on stuff is not fun either.

Hank and Sharyn: No, it's not, you know, I don't think that's happened.

I don't think that's happened yet.

I don't think we've had the on camera.

Not on camera.

I don't, but it does happen, but not on on you.

Yeah.

You all don't wanna see that anyway.

John and Connie: no.

No, no, no, Well, so the, the, that's.

Something that, that your client was able to take a 10

day vacation out of the country

Hank and Sharyn: Yeah.

John and Connie: is really something to celebrate.

I mean, that's one, that's like a goal for a lot of people mm-hmm.

Is, you know, when can we take a vacation from this

Hank and Sharyn: Well, and, and some of it is, is,

John and Connie: a vacation.

Hank and Sharyn: well, the benefit is you don't have to, there's no boss to ask.

Right.

Right.

That.

John and Connie: It's just gotta be able to run without you

Hank and Sharyn: Or

John and Connie: of

Hank and Sharyn: at least less of your time.

John and Connie: Mm-hmm.

Hank and Sharyn: Right.

I mean, look, one of the, when I was working a job, I, right, I

was working in financial services office and HR management, or even

in entertainment, Bo both times, um, Hank and I would go away, right?

Hank had his own business.

I was on a job.

It's a lot easier when you have a job to say, well, I'm not here.

Like,

John and Connie: Mm-hmm.

Hank and Sharyn: Go figure it out.

You've got other people here, you've got more other employees.

I dunno.

Figure it out.

Yeah.

Um, he can't, couldn't do that.

But it was always frustrating to me, like, why can't you,

like, we're, we're not at home.

But once I joined them, I'm like, okay, well I realize right, well, if

we're not there, it doesn't get done.

So, so then we, then we made this rule.

Okay, well we check email the morning, we check in on the

evening and in between it's not,

John and Connie: Mm-hmm.

Hank and Sharyn: um, but it was, it had to, it was a realization that,

oh yeah, if it doesn't get, if he's not doing it, it doesn't get done.

And then, then what?

Then it's just more stressful 10 days from now.

John and Connie: Right, and you guys have designed, you pur, purposely

designed your business you don't have employees or VAs or everything.

You do

Hank and Sharyn: Correct.

Correct.

John and Connie: you know that's, that's a choice of the life you want.

So then you adjust for that, right?

Hank and Sharyn: Yeah.

Well, it's the benefit of having two, right?

If it were just him or just me, we may have made different choices as far

as do we want a VA and do we, right?

Because now we, you need more of a team to get right.

Can't, one person can't do it all.

You can't do the bookkeeping and the selling and the marketing and the ad.

I mean, it's only so many hours in the day you can't do it and be profitable.

So if it was just one of us,

then we might have made a different choice.

But there's two of us, so there's there's more division of labor.

Yeah, we can, we can lean on each other.

John and Connie: Yeah.

That's wonderful.

Smart, smart.

Well, we're just about at the end of our time here.

Um, what's, uh, uh, what's next?

Where's for you guys?

Hank and Sharyn: Let's see.

Um, I, I will, I will share.

Oh, man, uh, this goes, this is public.

No deadline.

No deadline.

Alright, so you've heard when the, when the universe tells you

something, you should pay attention.

Right?

And, and quite often, if you're supposed to do, the universe will

tell you again and again and again.

Um.

One of our books.

In fact, the reason you found us was our book.

It's called Partners in Everything.

Um, was it your, your Couple's Guide to Running a Successful

Business Without Ruining Your Life?

Uh, we have in the last couple of weeks been the, the universe

has given us several signs that we need a second edition of this.

John and Connie: Cool.

Hank and Sharyn: Uh, I'm not going to tell you when it's going to publish because.

We've learned why, you know, I've learned that lesson before.

Uh, we're gonna set up some ducks in a row first.

Uh, but that, that is next.

Also, there's a, another book we've wanted to publish forever

called the Physics of Marketing.

That's the working title.

Yeah.

It may change.

And, and we couldn't write that one ourselves because I got a B in physics

and I'm pretty sure it was the biggest gift I ever got from a teacher.

Thank you, Dr. Paley, wherever you are.

Uh, but we have a, a friend that used to teach physics, so he's gonna write

the side, write the marketing side.

And that book got got sidelined because of his medical challenges.

And, um, thankfully, he's, he's on the mend finally.

Um, we've wanted to put that book out for five years.

It's been on our list of things.

So those are two things that are next.

Uh.

And of course we, we still do our boot, our boot camps twice a year.

I guess the next ones are sometime in March of next year or September.

John and Connie: And those are virtual or are they, are they in person?

Hank and Sharyn: They, they're both, we usually do a virtual

one and an in-person one.

There are some folks in Maryland that want to be in person and, okay, that's fine.

John and Connie: Yeah.

Hank and Sharyn: Why, take away from them the pleasure of

spending the day with Sharon?

John and Connie: That's right.

right.

Hank and Sharyn: I share that pleasure with them.

John and Connie: those, both of those books.

Hank and Sharyn: Both of us.

Yeah.

John and Connie: and um, yes, I'm, this has been so much fun.

Love to attend the Thank you for joining us.

Yes, thank you.

Hank and Sharyn: for the invitation.

John and Connie: Is there any other words of wisdom you'd like to give

a small business owner before you,

Hank and Sharyn: Yep.

Tell you what.

John and Connie: it

Hank and Sharyn: If you need a half hour of time, we'd love to give it to you.

Uh, our, our scheduling link is how to get there faster com,

because everyone wants to know, well, how do I get it done faster?

So how to get there, uh, or if you just want one of our books,

uh, be happy to send it to you.

You know, you can, you can, all eight of them are on Amazon, but then just

reach out to us and we'll let you know which book, you know, let us know

which book you, we'll just send it.

Uh.

I'll email you the pdf.

Yeah, there's

John and Connie: Cool.

Hank and Sharyn: we love giving out info.

Um, the, it's, it, the, the giving back is important.

Uh, and one of the reason, ways we created our, our coaching program by figuring

out the things other coaches didn't, wouldn't, couldn't, or didn't wanna do.

And we wished we had had it.

So we put into ours.

Being of service is important, so remember it.

Our motto is, "If everything happens for a reason, be the reason things happen."

John and Connie: There you go.

I love that.

Fabulous.

Make sure that goes in the show notes, right?

Right near the top.

Thank you so much.

Yes,

Hank and Sharyn: Thank.

John and Connie: it.

Well, know this will last for years, but we are in the holiday season, so

wish you Happy holidays upcoming and

Hank and Sharyn: in June, happy holiday,

John and Connie: That's right.

Yes.

There's a holiday 'cause it's coming months.

Especially in

Hank and Sharyn: there's

John and Connie: That's

Hank and Sharyn: By the way, everybody, Happy Birthday!

John and Connie: There you go.

Wonderful.

And happy anniversary of whatever

Happy

Hank and Sharyn: a to celebrate.

John and Connie: something to celebrate.

That's right.

All righty.

Alright.

Thank you so much.

This is fun.

Hank and Sharyn: Thank you.