30 Years, 8 Books, Zero Regrets: How Hank & Sharyn Built Yuloff Creative

Host: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Celebrating Small Family Businesses.

Co-host: It is.

Host: Yes.

Sharyn Uloff: Wow.

Host: Where we celebrate passion in action. And today we are celebrating Hank and Sharon Ulof of Ulof Creative Marketing Solutions. Good morning. How are you?

Hank Uloff: Howdy. Wow. Is your voice changes from not on the podcast? Who on the podcast? You're using your FM radio voice.

Host: Oh, my goodness. I didn't know I was doing that. That's. That's why.

Hank Uloff: It's okay. I'll use my FM radio voice, too.

Host: I might only do that for the introduction. I don't know.

Hank Uloff: We'll see, y'.

Sharyn Uloff: All.

Host: You get.

Hank Uloff: You have to. You have to interview that. You have to talk to them when they're not on podcast.

Co-host: There we go.

Hank Uloff: Oh, it's gonna be one of those podcasts.

Host: It's gonna be one of those podcasts.

Co-host: We love that.

Host: And that's the kind we like. Yes. Uh, somebody stuck. 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, introduce yourself to the group of, you know, what you do. It's a. It's a networking group where we have multiple groups, and I lead one, and. And I just, you know, started talking and I don't know, 50 to 100 people. And usually I, uh, My history has been speaking in front of a group because I'm not comfortable.

Co-host: And I mean, he's behind everybody.

Host: I was just like, totally myself and messing. Messing around and. And I realized afterwards, oh, my God, what a change I did.

Hank Uloff: We have a client that, uh, she's been a client for several years, and when we started, we were in a networking group together, and when it was her turn to stand and do her elevator speech, it sort of became a thing within our group. We're just going to let her go as long as she needs to, to get her story out, because she was very shy and it took her a while, and she might read it, which is okay, but the eyes were always down. Now, uh, she regularly wins the speaker of the week. It's.

Sharyn Uloff: It's like that's been true for this year I think, last year as well.

Hank Uloff: Yeah.

Sharyn Uloff: So she's come a long way in a few years.

Hank Uloff: It. It's practice. It truly is practice.

Co-host: Uh,

Hank Uloff: let me know how you like it.

Host: You really made it safe. You said, when, you know, we're going to let her go and as long as she needs to. To get it.

Hank Uloff: She didn't know that it Was kind of a let her go.

Host: Oh, that's special. I love it.

Sharyn Uloff: Don't add the pressure of time on her. Like, she's already got enough pressure with. I gotta say this thing, right?

Host: Internal pressure.

Co-host: Was that test. Test anxiety?

Sharyn Uloff: Yeah.

Host: Remember those?

Sharyn Uloff: For sure.

Host: So you guys are business coaches. I know this because we've talked about. Um, but it's also you loft creative marketing solutions. So I want to get to, like, where your origin story, but also what it is you guys focus on with your clients. So take that however you want. Start either one.

Sharyn Uloff: Okay.

Hank Uloff: If I do the origin, you have to do what we do. Okay. Uh, going back 20, almost 30 years now, uh, to Thanksgiving, Uh, my family was one of those that went around the table. What are you thankful? And I was working as one of 14 regional sales managers for a national company. Uh, we had just had our regional sales managers meeting in Minnesota. Here's what had happened the week before our national sales manager quit. So the 14 of us are in a room waiting for the owner of the company to walk in, knowing that this was going to be part of the conversation. And about half of us, kind of in a straw poll, we're going to go for it, you know, that job. Because we figured, who else, you know, promote from within? Um, 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 want to 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 mouth is open. That's exactly the look. Um, so our new national sales manager has no sales experience, and he's an accountant. Oh, this is going to 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.

Sharyn Uloff: And she, you don't have youngsters that

Hank Uloff: we need to explain a fax machine. Fax machine used to be the magic way. We took a piece of paper from here and handed it to someone else. 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 them said, it's about time you started your own company. How can I help? Best help you. And my question to them was, wow, you never said that before, you know, that sort of thing for business help. They said you weren't ready. Now you are. Let's go like that. One after another. That was the story. And moving ahead, uh, a bunch of years. I stole my wife from the entertainment industry. Yes, that's the story. And we've never looked back and had a much better life because we no longer have the how was your day, dear? Conversation. And we can really just kind of tell our desks are not. We don't face each other, uh, 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 origin is, you know, my m. Mom. Blame my mother.

Co-host: There you go.

Host: You blame your mother. What was the business, the nature of the business that you were working for as the, as a regional sales manager?

Hank Uloff: Uh, we put logos on stuff.

Host: Okay. Okay. So is it marketing, part of motion marketing?

Hank Uloff: We still have that company. We just don't promote it. Because 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.

Sharyn Uloff: Well, not only do we lose our focus, but it, it mixes the message for the audience. Uh, so 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 a confused mind doesn't buy. So we stick to our lane. Our lane is business coaching. And yes, if you happen to know us and you have a need and you mention it, both, we can certainly help you with, uh, promotional products. And our clients get the benefit of that because we do give them a discount since that's not our primary business focus.

Host: Yeah, so when you were. You had all these clients that were buying promotional products from you, and they. When, when you went on your own, you were going to shift to business coaching, is that right?

Sharyn Uloff: No, he shifted first to just being a distributor. Just being a distributor for promotional products. The morphing to business coaching, it was always part of the vision. Actually, actually, the vision was marketing coaching because his background's in marketing.

Host: Okay.

Sharyn Uloff: 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 tank as well as HR and office management. Now when, when he floated that I join him in coaching and make more of a business coaching. Um, I, I described it kind of like I described it to you. Right? There's this, it sounds like there's this really clear division, right? He's marketing and sales and I'm, I'm HR and office management. But that's because I thought he's the marketing guy, I'm the HR person, I don't know anything about marketing. But as part of the, the conversation, the evolution of the business, I was able to overhear his conversations and the way he would talk to clients and I realized, wait, those are the same conversations I have in my HR office. So because I was working for small business, it was all small business. I m never worked for a company that was larger than 60 employees. In fact, when I started there it was 10 and then it morphed to 60 and then it shrunk again to below 50. So it was all small business. What that, uh, 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, because 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 HR and says, I want to do this new initiative, but I want employee buy in. Okay, well how do we message it so the employees, it's all marketing.

Host: That's true. That's like skills in a five year old.

Sharyn Uloff: She doesn't really, I just learned.

Host: That's wonderful. So two things I want to make make sure we bring out. One was going back to Hank's story about the sun coming in. So there's family dynamics. Even in a big company, you had this nepotism happening in a corporate setting, which is, you know, that's a common thing in small family businesses. But um, it's also everywhere.

Hank Uloff: Growing up, I worked at one of my summer jobs. I worked for a company in Los Angeles that was a ticket reseller. You know, we'd buy them for face and charge you a hundred dollars more. And there were three of us that, that weren't family. There was a father, uh, excuse me, father, son in law, daughter, mother. So those four plus another brother, those five family members and the route, the build Business physical setting was not that big, you know, 300 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.

Host: Perfect.

Sharyn Uloff: Well, the national company, we have more than 500 employees.

Hank Uloff: Oh, yeah.

Sharyn Uloff: Okay.

Hank Uloff: Yeah.

Host: The other thing I heard there, I wanted to make sure you're talking about hr. And where I think there's a difference is, uh, I had the experience of working in a major, you know, like a Fortune 500 company, HR department. And my perception is 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 Uloff: Absolutely. I would, I would concur with the company that I worked for.

Sharyn Uloff: 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 human. So the humans that we hire, we, we want to make it better for them, but we also want to 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.

Hank Uloff: Um, but she was really good. But it wasn't 12ft up.

Sharyn Uloff: It wasn't that hard because I only worked for owners that saw it that way.

Co-host: Yeah. Saying, yeah, uh, the big businesses that we've worked with, no, it was always cya and it wasn't mine that they were covering.

Host: Well, 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 then 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 then, you know, we need three and a half FTEs for this. And then there was another, you know, instead of people, it was resources. It's much easier to get rid of resources than it is to fire people. Right. So there's this whole language Mindset that. And so, um, I saw hr, you know, as a. There was a lot of. Anyway, but hr, it's. It serves an incredibly important function. And I know you guys wrote a book even, about, like, how to do HR in a small business. Look at there. All right, awesome.

Hank Uloff: 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.

Sharyn Uloff: What?

Hank Uloff: It's not working out. You're probably not really happy here, are you? And that got rid of most of them. And I could find others.

Sharyn Uloff: Great.

Hank Uloff: Um, 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 and walk into any store and say, you wouldn't want to buy some pens with your name on them, would you? And my theory is that every week, somebody would say, well, yeah, I might. And I'd have some reps that wouldn't have sales for a couple of weeks of, like. It's not that. What are you doing, brain surgery? We're polluting the world. One T shirt calendar and coffee mug at a time. It's not difficult. People like this stuff.

Sharyn Uloff: Heck, they run 5Ks to get a free T shirt. Seriously.

Co-host: I know

Hank Uloff: we walked a 5k once and we came in last, but we still got the T shirts.

Sharyn Uloff: And we stopped for Starbucks along the way.

Hank Uloff: Yes, we did.

Co-host: It's always at rewards.

Host: Was there an ice cream shop on the. On the route?

Hank Uloff: It was, um, Disney's Great Adventure. So, yeah, there.

Sharyn Uloff: There were, but it was early. It was pre park opening. Uh, uh, we were lucky there was a coffee shop open.

Hank Uloff: You didn't expect me to walk 5k without coffee, do you?

Co-host: No.

Sharyn Uloff: God, no.

Host: Not in the morning.

Hank Uloff: Oh, no. No.

Co-host: So what have you learned about each other that you didn't know before you started this process?

Hank Uloff: You know, I. We were pretty good at it before. But I'll tell you, watching Sharon work with clients, I. I just get more impressed all the time. Uh, it confirms that I married way up. Uh, she's excellent with people and seeing other sides of things.

Sharyn Uloff: Uh,

Hank Uloff: I'm just more in awe that I get to work with my best friend every day. That's the coolest thing.

Sharyn Uloff: It is the coolest thing. I agree with. I 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, right, that he's that he, uh, 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, uh, 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. It is pretty cool.

Co-host: It's always fun to watch them grow in an area that you may have thought, are they ever going to grow in that area?

Hank Uloff: Sharon as a public speaker, uh, has, has been this, you know, blossoming. Um, one of, one of my favorite stories. Uh, we do, we do a small business breakthrough boot camp a couple of 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 up to date info in our vault for our coaching clients to refer to. And when we do a boot camp, most of the time I'm center stage. Sharon is off to the side sitting with a microphone in case she wants to add something.

Sharyn Uloff: That's how it was. It's not how it is now, but it is how it was.

Hank Uloff: 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 talk from here. And as she came up, I left and I left her up there for a half an hour and I could have killed him. It was there, were, there were. We had several clients there 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 being a teacher. So it was just a matter of nudging her gently. And now sometimes she's the first one up there. So it's great. She's an awesome presenter. It was so much fun.

Host: So you're touching on one of the themes that we see, which is the how personal growth works into the growth of the business. Right. Uh, I've heard the phrase said, you know, the business grow, the growth of the business, small business is often limited by the growth of the owner. Um, would you agree with that? And you Know, have you seen that,

Sharyn Uloff: uh, in your own business, founder syndrome is a thing. I mean, they don't call it that for nothing. It is a thing.

Hank Uloff: Um, some businesses succeed despite the founder.

Sharyn Uloff: We see it more nonprofits than small business.

Co-host: Um,

Sharyn Uloff: yeah, yeah, I think we see it more nonprofits.

Hank Uloff: 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 them, we want to do something really good in the world. And God bless them. Sharon has a master's in nonprofit management. Uh, but they don't understand completely sometimes that you need to make money in order to do the things that you want to do.

Sharyn Uloff: There's nothing in the tax code that says that a nonprofit, uh, can't make money. It's just that they can't make money to the benefit of one soul owner. Right. Like a for profit can. A nonprofit is just a tax status. You just made an agreement with the government. I'm going to 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 has the money has to go back towards the mission of the organization.

Host: And that's a brilliant description and, you know, really clear and yeah, a non profit, um, wow. They've got such a passion for something, right. They feel like they want to give, and it does give, but it's got to make money to grow.

Hank Uloff: When we speak to groups of nonprofits, um, whatever our presentation is, I always begin with a two or three minute description of in the next couple of minutes, some of you are going to love me and some of you are going to hate me. Um, as I go through that description, look, you deserved 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 may I have some more, sir? Uh, you know, you're begging for it as opposed to coming there with a list of things that you do and, and saying, look, without us, these are the things that don't get done in your neighborhood. So this is why you support us. And if you can make the shift from I have some more to this is what we do, your nonprofit is going to become far more successful, far faster. So when we coach nonprofits, that's always one of the things we're looking at. Oh, I love it.

Host: And wow, another feather in your cap, Sharon.

Hank Uloff: The onion just keeps on.

Sharyn Uloff: I know.

Co-host: What other little surprises do we have?

Host: I've seen on your YouTube channel, um, I think by the same name you love creative. Is that right?

Sharyn Uloff: Yeah.

Host: That you have done quite a few, uh, webinars for score, either I saw that on your website or your YouTube channel. So is score. What's your. I don't know, interaction or relationship with score?

Sharyn Uloff: Uh, m. We do webinars for a few chapters. You know, SCORE has. Score is national, but then they have chapters. So, uh, because 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 come up with it. It's Thursday. I run out of words. Um, words of beliefs that you only get so many words in a week, and by Thursday, I'm running out of words.

Host: Yeah. There was an old joke about men and women like that too, you know. M. Women had a larger supply of words for the day. And so

Hank Uloff: I don't. I don't agree with you.

Sharyn Uloff: And yet it's only 10am No, I

Hank Uloff: wouldn't agree with you.

Sharyn Uloff: So our. We do more webinars for SCORE in la. Uh, but we've also done them for free. Florida and Delaware, that might be it at the moment.

Hank Uloff: Arizona in person.

Sharyn Uloff: Arizona. SCORE did not when we were there. I won't speak for how they are now, but when we were there, they did not have their act together.

Hank Uloff: So it's.

Sharyn Uloff: Look, we.

Hank Uloff: We like doing it there. It's part of its 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.

Sharyn Uloff: Are they even already a startup or not yet. Even yet a startup.

Hank Uloff: Yeah. Um, we help them get to the point of, okay, I'm gonna make a

Sharyn Uloff: go at this or not. Yeah, it's fine. Get off the fence, make a go.

Hank Uloff: Uh, and sometimes, you know, it's rare with score, but sometimes we'll have somebody come back and say, yeah, you know, I'd like you as a business coach. Uh, but even then there's the discussion. Where are you in the process?

Sharyn Uloff: Uh, and it's fine either way. We're good with startups.

Hank Uloff: Um, love startups. Because then we don't have to fix things.

Sharyn Uloff: Right. Even, even those that are still on the fence, we're happy to have that conversation of do they want to become a startup? And like Kate said. Right. If we could start from the beginning and not have to fix things later. That's all the better. Okay?

Hank Uloff: Your social media, your website, and your messaging done right at the beginning.

Sharyn Uloff: Well, and the first thing really is that you don't even need those things to get your first client. Many small business owners, those wantrepreneurs, they're not even yet entrepreneurs, um, they think, oh, I can't, I can't launch until I have social media and a. 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, because I hate that. Look, 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, well, they don't have a website. I'm not gonna work with them. If they meet you in person and they want to work with, they're gonna work with you whether you have a website or not.

Hank Uloff: Let that passion out, baby.

Host: So much more about message. I love it. I love it. 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 it's not. You've got to have it clear before you can put it there.

Co-host: I have another question. What, what do you know now that you wish you had known when you started all this?

Sharyn Uloff: Uh, 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 want to leave my job or do I, Um, is to leverage that, right? Stay, Stay in your job until your side gig is now making more that. Right?

Hank Uloff: And then you can let that go.

Sharyn Uloff: Um, so we tell them you're gonna. When you, Once you, once you launch, once you're 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 going to work harder and longer than you ever would work for somebody else. It's just more rewarding. Right? You can work to build your dream, or you can work to build somebody else's dream. Whose dream do you want to build?

Hank Uloff: Yeah, you know, for. For me, it was. I'm amazed at how many people decide, yeah, I can do it all myself. Because when. When we were. When I started this business

Sharyn Uloff: first, um,

Hank Uloff: I chatted with all, you know, a whole bunch of people that have been in business longer than I have, some in the industry, some not, and got some tips and got coaching. Um, and we've had business coaches ourselves and always found it useful. But folks would say, no, 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 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 pay for it. Ah, speeds up the process. Um, simple example, when Covid hit, we did a whole lot more like this. Right. You know, a lot more webinars 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 what I love about you guys, you have the exact same kind of a background, the black because. And there's no ghosting. It's totally.

Sharyn Uloff: It's.

Hank Uloff: You're there. Um, 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 and a bigger shot. But getting the coaching from someone who knew what they were talking about was it, you know, which microphones to use was. Saved us so much time. In 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 and it's a. It's a very different look. And that was purposeful. We feel that improving, continuously improving is important. Um, we moved into this studio when we moved to Maryland two years ago, and we're not quite there. Even as I look now, it's like, okay, I need to adjust some lighting. There's just things. Um, but there's so much to learn. And, uh, getting coaching is going to speed up the process so much.

Sharyn Uloff: Learning from your mistakes is a hard and long way to go.

Hank Uloff: Yeah.

Sharyn Uloff: Better to learn from other people's mistakes and speed up the process.

Host: Yes. I would say you need some of, uh, both. I mean, right. We need. We need to make the mistakes to learn from them, but at the same time. M. We can go way faster.

Co-host: Yeah. I don't have to make all of

Host: them go way faster.

Hank Uloff: Yeah. Don't make them twice.

Host: I say learn. Well, yeah, learn from mistakes, but also learn from experience. I mean, it doesn't have to be a full mistake to, uh, look at something we just did. And okay, what worked about that, what didn't, and what do we tweak? Right. That's.

Sharyn Uloff: That's marketing is all about testing, right?

Host: Yes.

Sharyn Uloff: 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. All those things. So what do I need to change? Is the image? Is it the words? Is it the headline? Is it the tagging? Is it. I mean, there's so many different variables. World. Right. So change something. Yes. And then one thing and then run it again. And.

Co-host: And don't put it at $50 a day.

Host: Yeah. You can't guess. 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 going to be a hit and it's a total bomb. Or like Tina, uh, Turner, she hated what Love Got to do with it. She didn't even want to release it.

Hank Uloff: It.

Co-host: And then she was stuck singing it for the rest of her career.

Host: I think she probably came to like it after she checked damn night.

Hank Uloff: Yeah.

Host: But

Hank Uloff: don't you think Keith has found a little satisfaction by now?

Host: I think so. I hope so.

Hank Uloff: Don't you think you a little, you know, has found what they were looking for by now?

Host: But it's not as gonna work as, uh, I can't get as much satisfaction as I want. It's too many words.

Hank Uloff: At some point we have to talk about that you've reached your goal.

Host: Well, and that is you, uh, know, coming back to the small business. So, uh, how do you help your clients maintain their. That balance of, uh, they're working harder, you know, in a small business than they were working for somebody else and not fall into the trap of, you know, making their business more important than their life. In, uh, other words, they're serving the business instead of the business serving them.

Hank Uloff: 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 because I don't have a boss. It's universal. Um, 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, you do have to keep an eye out to. 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. Fine, but, but nothing. She's right. So.

Sharyn Uloff: And trying to do graphics on a ship. Oh, good.

Hank Uloff: Yeah. So we, we. We've learned you do have to take vacations. What? You know, we, we have a client. Um, they just took 10 days.

Sharyn Uloff: Ah.

Hank Uloff: In, In France. And it was their first really far away trip. They take it. So we had, we went through our process. Um, 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

Host: you don't want him eating. Eating stuff. All right.

Hank Uloff: This is David Arkham.

Host: It's a family show.

Sharyn Uloff: David, he is part of the family.

Host: They. Our, uh, fur babies are part of our families.

Hank Uloff: Yeah.

Host: I think they're a stress m magnet. I think they pull the stress out of us and they take it on themselves.

Hank Uloff: Wait till this cat comes over here and steps on our keyboard and messes up our image. Then you'll see stress that's.

Host: They also cause some stress.

Hank Uloff: This cat has knocked the camera out of. Has knocked the camera loose before, so.

Host: Oh, my goodness.

Hank Uloff: Yeah.

Co-host: Yeah. Hocking up hairballs on stuff is not fun either.

Sharyn Uloff: No, it's not.

Hank Uloff: 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. During on camera.

Sharyn Uloff: Not on camera.

Hank Uloff: I don't think.

Sharyn Uloff: But it does happen. But not.

Hank Uloff: Yeah, right.

Sharyn Uloff: You all don't want to see that anyway.

Co-host: No, no, no.

Host: Well, so the, uh, that's something that, that your client was able to take a 10 day vacation out of the country is really something to celebrate. I mean, that's one that's like a goal for a lot of people is, you know, when can we take a vacation from.

Co-host: Or I'm scared to take a vacation.

Sharyn Uloff: Well, the benefit is you don't have to. There's no boss to ask. Right, Right.

Host: It's just got to be able to run without you for that period of time.

Sharyn Uloff: Less of your time. Right. I mean, look, one of the. When I was working a job, I. Right. I was working in financial services, office day job management, or even in entertainment. Both. 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, I don't know. Go figure it out. You've got other people here. You've got more other employees. I don't know. Figure it out. Um, he 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, like, okay, well, I realized, 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 in the morning. We check in the evening, and in between, it's not, um. But it was. It had. 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 with potential loss.

Host: You guys have designed. First purposely designed your business that you don't have employees or VAs or anything. You do it. So, you know, that's. That's a choice of the life you want. So then you adjust for that. Right.

Sharyn Uloff: 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 things right. You 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 just. There's only so many hours in the day. You can't do it and be profitable. So if it was just one of us or saying, then we might have made a different choice, but there's two of us, so we. There's. There's more division of labor.

Hank Uloff: Yeah, we can. We can lean on each other.

Co-host: Yeah, that's smart. Smart.

Host: Well, we're just about the end of our time here. Um, what's. What's next? Yeah, where's for you guys?

Hank Uloff: Let's see. I. I will. I will share. Oh, man. Uh, this goes. This is public.

Sharyn Uloff: No deadline.

Hank Uloff: No deadline.

Sharyn Uloff: All right.

Hank Uloff: So you've heard when. When the universe tells you something, you should pay attention, right? And quite often, if you're supposed to do it, 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, your. Your couple's guide to running successful business without ruining your life. Uh, we have. In the last couple of weeks, the universe has given us several signs that we need a second edition of this.

Host: Cool.

Hank Uloff: 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. We're, uh, going to set up some ducks in a row first. Um, but that is next. Also, there's another book we've wanted to publish forever called the Physics of Marketing.

Sharyn Uloff: That's the working title.

Hank Uloff: Yeah.

Sharyn Uloff: It may change.

Hank Uloff: And. And we couldn't write that one ourselves because I got a B in physics and I'm pretty sure was the biggest gift I ever got from a. From a teacher. Thank you, Dr. Paley, wherever you are. Uh, but we have a friend that used to teach physics, so he's going to write the physics side. We write the marketing side. And that book got, uh, got sidelined because of his medical challenges. And, uh, 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. Um, and of course, 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.

Host: And those are virtual or they. Are they in person?

Hank Uloff: They.

Sharyn Uloff: 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.

Hank Uloff: Okay, why. Why take away from them the pleasure of spending the day with Sharon?

Host: That's right.

Co-host: That's right.

Hank Uloff: Well, I share that pleasure with them.

Host: Both of those books.

Sharyn Uloff: It is both of us.

Hank Uloff: Yeah.

Host: And, um, yes, I'm.

Co-host: This has been so much fun.

Host: Love to attend the.

Co-host: Thank you for joining us.

Host: Yes.

Sharyn Uloff: Thanks for the invitation.

Co-host: Is there any other words of wisdom you'd like to give a small business owner before you.

Hank Uloff: Tell you what, um, if. If you need a half hour of time, we'd love to give it to you. Um, our, our scheduling link is how to get there faster dot com. Because everyone wants to know, well, how do I get it done faster? So how to get there faster dot com. Or if you just want one of our books, uh, be happy to send it to you. You can put.

Sharyn Uloff: You can.

Hank Uloff: 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 want. We'll just send it.

Sharyn Uloff: Um, we'll email you the PDF.

Hank Uloff: Yeah, there's. We're. We love giving out info. Um, it's the. The giving back is important. Uh, and one of the reason ways we created our coaching program by figuring out the things other coaches couldn't or didn't want to do. And we wished we had had it. So we put them into ours. And, um, being of service is important. So remember our motto is if everything happens for a reason, be the reason things happen.

Co-host: There you go.

Host: Oh, I love that.

Co-host: Fabulous.

Host: Make sure that goes in the show notes right near the top. Thank you so much.

Co-host: Yes, we appreciate it.

Host: I know this will last for years, but we are in the holiday season. So wish you happy holidays upcoming and even in June.

Hank Uloff: Happy holidays.

Host: There's a holiday. It's especially in Canada.

Hank Uloff: Always some holiday. And by the way, everybody, Happy birthday day.

Sharyn Uloff: There you go.

Hank Uloff: M. Whenever you're wonderful.

Co-host: And happy anniversary of whatever.

Hank Uloff: Exactly.

Co-host: Happy Grand Hall.

Host: Always something to celebrate.

Co-host: That's right. All right.

Host: Thank you so much.

Sharyn Uloff: Thank you.