#53: The Unsexy Path to Building Wealth: Nick Huber on Why Boring Businesses Beat Tech Startups

Speaker A: I have a vivid memory of me in 2017, 2018. Business was starting to go. We had a couple of our real estate projects underway. Things were starting to get a little easier, not less stressful, but we were just doing a little bit better. And I remember thinking, like, man, this is the way every single person should be an entrepreneur. Everybody. There's no excuse why you shouldn't go out and start your own thing. Over the last eight years, I have dramatically changed my mind on that. I, uh, do not think entrepreneurship is right for everybody. I think it's actually right for a very small portion of people who are okay with chaos.

Speaker B: Hi, I'm Nick Haig, and welcome to the World's Greatest Business Thinkers podcast. Today's conversation is a compelling counter narrative in an age dominated by headlines about AI breakthroughs, unicorn startups, and the distant promise of the metaverse. We turning our attention to the ground, to the tangible, the local, and the decidedly unsexy. We're talking about the businesses that power our daily lives but rarely capture our imagination. The storage facilities, the landscaping services, the boutique moving companies. Nick Huber is an entrepreneur, business owner, and author of the Sweaty Startup how to Get Rich Doing Simple Things. Nick has built a following by championing a radically pragmatic path to entrepreneurship. One that swaps venture capital for sweaty equity, scalable disruption for predictable cash flow, and Silicon Valley dreams for Main street control. He argues that the surest path to wealth, autonomy, and genuine satisfaction isn't found in a pitch deck, but in a pair of work gloves and a direct relationship with the customer. But is this philosophy just a niche strategy, or does it reveal something fundamental about value, work, and human psychology that our broader economy has forgotten? We'll dig into the mindset, the mechanics, and the sometimes uncomfortable truths of the sweaty startup. Welcome to the World's Greatest Business Thinkers podcast.

Speaker A: Nick. Nick, thanks for having me so much

Speaker B: to talk through today. Um, but I think a good starting point, uh, for today's episode would be to time travel back to spring 2011. Um, you were a junior at Cornell University and you were taking an entrepreneurship course. Uh, you stood up to talk your business idea through, um, but it was greeted with shakes of the heads and doubts. I'm just interested on what that idea was. And why do you think your professor and classmates didn't have that vision that you had?

Speaker A: Yeah, the year before, I had, uh, stumbled upon my business idea, which I think we can get to in a second. But when I spoke in front of that class about my boring service business, that was already done before by, you know, 10 different businesses. It wasn't groundbreaking. It didn't change the world. Um, everybody kind of looked at me sideways saying, that's not a real, you know, that's not an exciting business idea. How are you going to scale that? How are you going to go to a billion dollar company or, you know, what's your moat? Or how are you going to build your, you know, your blue ocean, you know, your monopoly? And um, I just said, look, guys, I don't care about any of that. I think I can make a little bit of money here doing some math on how much the competitor in our town is making. They're not very good at what they do. I think I can do it a little bit better. And they're making a ton of money. That's the recipe, in my opinion, for an opportunity. And, um, didn't go over too well.

Speaker B: Well, I think people need to think they need to dream up the next big idea, don't they? That doesn't exist yet. Or, you know, and that's obviously risky and expensive. And I'm pretty sure from the other presentations your fellow classmates gave, none of those actually were born out into a proper business.

Speaker A: Whereas with a bunch of apps and, you know, you know, uh, you know, things to do to increase efficiency and little bitty things on your, on your phone or on social media.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And, uh, yeah, I don't know, I think maybe a couple of them went on to do extremely well in entrepreneurship. All of them went on to do well in life. But yeah, those business ideas that they founded in that class were, um, you know, given up on shortly after.

Speaker B: Yeah. And you flipped your thinking straight away into a business that was making money, uh, from the get go. And that business was called Storage Squad, which you ran for nearly 10 years before selling out. So can you give, uh, the listeners an overview of what Storage Squad was and also therefore what your business looks like today?

Speaker A: Yeah, so we picked up, we did pick up and delivery storage for college students. So when they went home, they had no place to put their stuff over the summer. Here in America, our semesters have a three month gap in the very middle where everybody goes home and then you come back the next year and it's a different location, different apartment, different place. You got nowhere to put your stuff in the middle. Um, there's a company in Ithaca called Big Red Shipping and Storage that, you know, did $300,000 a year of revenue in one town. This is back in 2011 is when we founded and uh, yeah, so we exactly did what they did. And there were 10 other companies across the country that we studied. And we took the best bits and pieces of all these different companies and we started doing pickup and delivery storage, renting box trucks, renting warehouses, hiring part time, short term staff during finals week and move in week to, um, do pickup and deliveries. First year we only had 30 or 40 customers. The next year we went pretty big and got 255 customers. Um, and today I think at the time when we sold the business, we were well over 3,000 customers and a million and a half dollars of revenue a year. And uh, you know, yeah, it was a pretty healthy business. 25 colleges in 12 states or 10 states and you know, 12 cities. So a lot going on. We learned a ton about business and it was a very hard business.

Speaker B: And uh, like I just said, you know, you sold that business after 10 years and your business has evolved since then. So what does that look like now?

Speaker A: Um, what I do today or Storage Squad. Yeah, so I have shifted into the real estate business and I own a recruiting company called somewhere.com. um, I own a construction engineering firm. Um, all the companies have, you know, the storage business. I think we're about 60 employees. We manage 65 properties across the country with I think we've raised about $50 million of capital to buy $120 million worth of storage on, um, the recruiting company. We've got 170 employees. We do three, 300 placements a month. A pretty big business. Um, and then the construction engineering firm is growing fast as well. We've got, you know, a team of over 100. And uh, yeah, so a lot of irons in my hands are in, you know, into different things. But it's all the same fundamentals of business, man. It's solving problems, it's making decisions, it's management, it's sales. And uh, those skills I learned in storage squad have served me extremely well as I've moved on to better businesses.

Speaker B: Well, and from small acorns grow mighty trees. And uh, uh, it's a nice mixed portfolio you've got yourself there now, Nick, haven't you? Covering many different parts of business. Storage, real estate, recruitment. So, uh, wide and variable.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'll say that. Everybody wants to own a holding company. There's this sexy term out there today where you own multiple cash flowing businesses. And whether they're passive or not is another thing that I have pretty strong opinions on. Um, but I'll tell you, it's very difficult. Like most of the people that I know that have gotten very wealthy in entrepreneurship and in life. They do one thing and they grow that one business to pretty large. I think it's quite rare to dip your hands in multiple companies and not advisable until you really know what you're doing.

Speaker B: Ah, well, on that point, then, what do you think makes a good entrepreneur?

Speaker A: It's, it's, it's a combination of things. I think one thing early on is I was delusionally confident. I thought that I could do anything. I was ambitious, I was sure of myself, I had charisma. People around me was infectious. They thought, oh, you know, Nick is so positive that this is going to work, that I better, you know, I'd be okay taking the job. He's going to be able to make payroll next month. Um, but then it's decision making. You're making micro decisions and decisions all day, every day. From how you say and what you say to your employees, to how you approach structuring your company, to the types of products and services that you offer. You're making decisions all day, every day. And, uh, you know, they compound. So if you make a couple bad decisions, you find yourself in a lot worse of a situation. Um, and nobody's perfect. You're going to make a lot of poor decisions. But I think if you get about 70, 70% of those decisions right, and a couple of the big ones right, you can do really, really well in entrepreneurship. Yeah.

Speaker B: In 2026, it's so important to grow visibility and CEOs and, uh, leaders are a great channel to do just that. First though, you need a system and strategy in place. And that's where Triangle come in. They drive audience growth, engagement and commercial pipeline opportunities on LinkedIn. And I can vouch for the great work they've done for me and the team here at the World's Greatest Business Thinkers podcast. They've driven over 100 million impressions and 10 million in pipeline for clients in the last 12 months. However, the most important thing is that they actually care about their clients. They pay attention to the details. They understand your goals, industry and, um, voice and go above and beyond in their service delivery to make sure you're happy and seeing the very best impact. As sponsors of this podcast, they're currently offering a podcast listener a complimentary strategy consultation where they'll audit your LinkedIn and put together a roadmap so you can start getting hundreds of thousands of eyeballs on YouTube and drive new conversations. You can book using the link in the description or search www. Triangle-branding.com and I think we'll come onto it. Your book, where you've documented somewhat of your journey, at least. But I think it's important to state at this early stage that being an entrepreneur definitely isn't for everyone. In fact, for most people, just, uh, having a good job, a good boss, and having that weekly or monthly pay packet is enough. Because it's hard, isn't it? It's the unknown. It's chaos. You're risking everything a lot of the time, and you're definitely uncertain about the future.

Speaker A: In a lot of your podcasts, you ask people what they've changed their mind on. Um. Uh, I have a vivid memory of me in 2017, 2018. Business was starting to go. We had a couple of our real estate projects underway. Things were starting to get a little easier, not less stressful, but we were just doing a little bit better. And I remember thinking like, man, this is the way. This is the way every single person should be an entrepreneur. Everybody. There's no excuse why you shouldn't go out and start your own thing.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Over the last eight years, I have dramatically changed my mind on that. I do not think entrepreneurship is right for everybody. I think it's actually. I think it's right for a very small portion of people who are okay with chaos. They're good salespeople. We can talk about sales as you know, that's a big concept in my book. Um, they're comfortable and uncomfortable situations, which very few people are. These are the situations where people are coming to you. If you're an entrepreneur, people are coming to you every single day with problems. They're coming to you wanting more money. They're coming to you to talk about uncomfortable things. And your job as the entrepreneur is not to reap the lavish praise that all your customers put on your business. Every problem comes to you. You only hear about it if it's negative, if it's a bad thing. Um, so I think that's right for a very small portion of the population. Less than 1%.

Speaker B: Well, I run an agency for 25 years before, uh, selling and backing out. But I do know that, you know, and I loved being surrounded by the team and the, you know, the people that I had in the company. But your time is mostly made taken up by people and HR issues and dealing with those instances. And then you're dealing with supp. And yeah, it is. It's you're firefighting or. Or dealing with issues a lot of the time. It's not the glamorous nature that's portrayed in the, uh, well, on social media, on the Internet these days, I think

Speaker A: handling stress is a, is a muscle. Dealing with stress is a muscle. You have to exercise that. You know, if you want to build muscle in the weight room, you're not going to just sit back and watch YouTube videos and read books about bodybuilding and watch the Arnold Schwarzenegger documentary over and over again. No, you got to go to the gym and lift weights. I think dealing with these uncomfortable situations, whether it be sales, whether it be people problems, whether it be all the different things that can come at you as an entrepreneur, it's a muscle. You have to exercise it. Your tolerance for stress increases. There's some people who could get a flat tire on the way home from the grocery store and it could ruin their whole week. They're going to have a panic attack on the side of the road, they're going to call their parents, they're not going to know what to do and they're going to be thinking about that moment for the next M week and telling everybody in their life about how they, oh my gosh, I got a flat tire. It was a horrible experience. And then there's people who get a flat tire on the way home and they forget to tell their spouse about it at dinner because it's a non issue. Um, you got to flex that muscle, build that muscle so that when a roof collapses on one of your storage facilities and 15 tenants are affected, it's a big issue. Um, it's not going to ruin your whole week as a human because if that happens, you're not going to make it.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So your book's called the Sweaty Startup. Uh, you champion the sweaty startup business. Ah. And for the listeners, these are unsexy service based businesses. They require physical hustle, uh, mental hustle. Um, and we talked about the storage business that you set up. And in this era that's obsessed with tech scalability and venture capital, what fundamental human need or even economic truth do you think, uh, your business model taps into that the Silicon Valley playbook often misses?

Speaker A: Well, I think it's all about choosing who you compete with. If you're going to go after those tech startups and try to change the world, you're going to compete with the big dogs. You're going to compete with venture capital money, you're going to compete with very smart people who go to Stanford and have that cash behind them and can afford to lose money and all those different things. If you try to solve a fundamental problem in your town, if you close your laptop and look around you and try to figure out what problem is happening here. Where's an opportunity? Where can I carve out just a little piece of the pie? Business starts to get a whole lot simpler and more approachable. You can go after something and try to solve problems with your time. You can trade your time for money at the beginning. You don't have to go invest and quit your job and take all this risk. It doesn't have to be a super risky thing. You can try it out. You can actually get paid to try it out by actually servicing some people. I think there's a lot of needs in this world and the people who sit around on a computer think those needs are a new app, uh, new technology, AI. Things get dirty and they need cleaned, Things need delivered and they need picked up and they need moved, things need repaired, things need serviced. There's a lot of things in people's physical world that aren't scalable and AI will never impact that are real problems in people's lives and they'll pay real money to get those problems solved.

Speaker B: Yeah, and I think, you know, you mentioned AI, of course, Nick. Maybe more so than ever. You know, these, these dirty trades, plumbers, construction workers. You know, AI can't take that job. Uh, you know, we've seen a lot of white collar people being laid off recently. But uh, you know, this opportunity, this moat that we've got in terms of being able to use our hands and do manual, uh, jobs, it's uh, it's, it's something new that maybe people need to start looking at.

Speaker A: I think so. I think there's, you know, there's a lot of businesses that make a lot of money and have a fax machine sitting on the, on the desk of the secretary. In your town? In my town, yeah. There are businesses here in Athens, Georgia where I live, and all over Atlanta where a 70 year old owns the business. It's highly profitable and we can talk about how those folks are very good at business. I don't want to discount those people and make it sound easy, but they don't, they don't know how to. There's a couple things that maybe they're missing. They had, they, they're still using a fax machine, they're not using a software, they're not collecting credit cards, they're not optimizing their sales and leasing team, whatever it might be that, uh, some of the folks who are technologically savvy can come into those businesses and have a pretty big advantage. Yeah.

Speaker B: And, uh, Some of the younger listeners probably don't even know what a fax machine is. But I know from live speaking, uh, you know, I was in the research game, but, uh, you know, dealing with some of those manufacturers out there, when we're doing research for them, they still place orders through fax machines some of the time.

Speaker A: Yeah. So one of my metrics for how to look at an opportunity, and I know we're going to talk more about this, find a business that has two things, a fax machine and a lot of profit.

Speaker B: Yeah, I like, makes a lot of common sense. And I think going back to the Silicon Valley obsession, they're all about scale, they're all about disruption, aren't they? But they miss this fundamental need that you're talking about, Nick. Uncertainty, you know, this sweaty startup, whether it's a storage facility, a lawn care, uh, you know, gardening service, a boutique moving company, you know, they, um, they trade in this nebulous potential for real, tangible control. So we'll talk about it. But, you know, you're all about getting customers straight away, doing the work, getting paid, and just seeing that it's, you know, it's. It's a tangible business that way.

Speaker A: Exactly right. I think there's opportunity all around us. We just have to sometimes close our computer, go outside, walk around, think about our local economy. What needs the people have in the wealthy neighborhoods that can afford to pay for quality upgrades to their surroundings. Find a way to get a piece of that pie.

Speaker B: Yeah. Okay, well, let's do that then. Uh, let's say we're starting a new business today. Um, in your book, you split it into three key sections. So the first being about spotting this opportunity. Do you have a framework or process? Well, you've just talked about finding a company that uses a fax machine, but, you know, is there a process that you do go through where, you know, decides which niche to pick? And when starting a business, do you. Do you look at market demand? You look at your skills and how you. Or mix of the two or something else?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think the. There's a story that I tell in the book. I think it's chapter three. Um, I have a lot of friends that are entrepreneurs and a lot of friends that have the dream to become an entrepreneur. And one of those friends called me up and he's like, nick, I've been working on a business idea. I want to come over, let's have a beer, let's talk about this business idea. Um, he comes over, we're sitting on my back deck this is a Sunday afternoon. He says, nick, I've done three months worth of work on this. I've bought the web domain, I've built the website, I've registered my llc. I've done a ton of market research. I've built my. You know, this is how I think I can run the. He started showing me pro formas. He had done a ton of work on what is a very good business plan, very well thought out business plan. And he's like, okay, so we're gonna. The business idea is that we're gonna paint. I'm gonna paint houses. I'm gonna. I'm gonna start a painting company here. I've reached out to franchises. I've seen their projections. I know what I can do. I know how much the equipment is. I've priced a rig. I. I know how much I gotta pay for a cargo van. I'm like. He's like, what do you think of the business? And I go, it doesn't matter what I think of the business. And he kind of looks at me sideways. And I said, it matters what the market thinks of this business. Would you like for me to tell you what the market thinks in five minutes? You've done three months worth of work. I think I can tell you whether this is a good business idea in five minutes or less. And he's like, yeah, okay. Yeah, right. So I, uh, pull up my iPhone and I type in house painting near me on Google maps. And, you know, there's a lot of red dots on my map. And I click the nearest one in my house and I hit call. This is Sunday afternoon, not during business hours. Second ring. The owner of the business picks up. Super nice guy. He tells me that he's available to come out to my house to quote a painting, the painting of my house this afternoon. Like, I can be there in a little while. And I actually have a crew available on Monday to start. Yeah, I'm like, okay, um, thank you so much. I'll talk to my wife. I'll see you later. Call the next company on the list. No answer. Call the third company on the list again. The owner of the company answers. Super nice guy. And this guy, like, knows how to run through a sales process. He's saying, you know, okay, what's your email? Can I get your email? Like, okay, what? You know, wow, it looks like your house was last painted in 2006. He pulls up my house on Google Maps. He starts to measure my house. He starts to talk about how much it would cost on the call and says, Yeah, I have a crew and I'm actually, you know, I can get started this week. I can do. I can do it this week. Like, oh, okay, thanks. Really appreciate it. I'll talk to my wife. See you later. Third guy I call, fourth call that I made answers the phone, and again, super pushy, really wants the work, says he's available the next day to come out and quote the job, and they'll beat any price in town. You tell me, you know, if you're getting other quotes, I'm happy to do it. I've painted this building, I've painted that building. I'm trustworthy, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, I'll talk to my wife. I hang up the phone, I look at my friend. I said, okay, that's who you're competing with. Do you want to go compete against these guys who are hungry for work, answering the phone on Sunday afternoon? And he's, you know, dejectedly, we make. Make small talk for another 30 minutes and he goes home with his tails between his legs.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, to that point, I mean, it's. It's about that mix, isn't it? It's about, it's about market demand. It's about knowing the competition. It's about knowing your personal tolerance, I suppose, in terms of what you're willing to put into business, too.

Speaker A: Go out and make some money. When I started my company, it was business idea. One week later, we had $3,000 cash sitting on the bed because it wasn't, oh, uh, I'm going to build this business plan. I'm going to think about it. I'm going to study it. I'm going to think about it. I'm going to study it. I'm going to analyze it. I'm going to analyze it. I'm going to analyze it.

Speaker B: It's.

Speaker A: I'm going to go see if the customers want to give me cash.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And it turned out they did. And I did the work. I went out and sweated. I used the things I had at my disposal to go pick up boxes, and I put them in my own house and stored them and what had to do. And the next thing I know, I was like, okay, I've done enough research to know that there's real demand here and I could build a real company. Yeah.

Speaker B: I think one of the interesting things is, you know, we all think when we're starting new business, you know, we've got. The world is small now, you know, with, with online and websites and being able to sell and, uh, but you talk about the fact that actually uh, you know, you don't have a natural moat, uh, if you uh, know if you're going online, something like that. And I uh, think having this tangible non digital service, it requires that physical presence and therefore, you know, it's all about that local area. And if you can be better than those local uh, competitors, then you've got one upmanship on them.

Speaker A: Geography is a great moat. Yeah, there's no competitor. You know, if you're selling on Amazon, there was a huge, you know, Amazon, uh, gold rush 2016, 2017 where people were reselling on Amazon and making a ton of money. Well, guess what, the world is flat. And all of a sudden people in China, people in India, people in Latin America, people in Canada, people in Mexico, people all over the United States could compete in any niche on Amazon. They could find a way to drop ship and they could find a way to run ads and they could find a way to compete with you. And sure enough, Amazon can actually come in and compete with you as well with Amazon Basics and ruin your brand. You're competing across the entire world with everybody. You own a plumbing business in Athens, Georgia. You're competing with the seven other plumbing companies in Athens, Georgia.

Speaker B: Yeah. So the second part of the book is about skills and you emphasize that at ah, the heart of your philosophy is this simple uh, transaction. You solve a problem, someone pays you, uh, and in the sweaty startup, the founder is the sales department. Beyond just being good at it, what is the fundamental mind shift, that mindset shift that uh, maybe reluctant founder must make to embrace this sales as their primary job?

Speaker A: So I was very early on I had a, I had a super influential conversation on my life. I had a conversation with a mentor of mine who's still a good friend of mine. His name is Dan Cohen. He's the head of entrepreneurship at Wake Forest. He was the entrepreneur in residence at Cornell and Ithaca. He had sold a foundation repair business for high seven figures, still did a ton of consulting, had a bunch of investments in the real world. And I, um, told him I was excited about my business. I just showed up after the summer we had delivered the stuff and I'm like, I'm an entrepreneur now. I'm an entrepreneur now. Like, let's go. How can I go get advice from smart um, people on how to get better? So I sent Dan Cohen an email. Hey, I'd like to get coffee. Can I talk to you about my business idea? He says yes. He invites me. We sit down in Ithaca, New York for coffee and he says, first thing, we sit down, we just got our coffee. Doesn't ask me what my business idea is. He knows very little about me. This was one of our first conversations. He says, nick, nice to meet you. How you doing? Do you like sales? I'm, uh, like, excuse me. And he goes, do you enjoy sales? Tell me more about how you feel about sales. And I knew what I needed to say. I kind of got this sense that he wanted me to say, oh, I love sales. I'm a great salesman. But I decided to be honest with him. I wanted to get the most out of the conversation. I was like, Mr. Cohen, I don't like sales. Like, I'm uncomfortable. I'm the visionary. I'm the operator. I want to be the person making the strategic decisions. I like marketing, but I don't like sales. And he looks at me and I could just feel him wanting to roll his eyes. He didn't roll his eyes. He was very respectful. He said, nick, every single part of entrepreneurship is sales. If you do not like sales or you are not committed to get good at sales, you need to go get a job now and stop wasting your time. I look at him, I'm m like, oh my gosh, are you serious? He just like, made me, I feel like I was one foot tall. He spent a lot of time building me up. It ended up being a phenomenally productive conversation. But I walked away from that just like, what is he talking about? And he went on, he said, you know, every single part of being an entrepreneurship is sales. And I asked questions like, what do you mean? How could that be? And he goes, nick, your business. We talked a little about the business. You need a warehouse. You need a warehouse to store your stuff when you're running storage squad. How are you going to convince anybody to lease you? What are you, 22 years old? You're going to lease a 22 year old? How much money do you have? You have less than $10,000 in the bank. How are you going to convince anybody to lease you a warehouse in Boston, Massachusetts, or in Ithaca, New York for that matter? You're going to, you're going to go talk to a person who owns a multi million dollar commercial piece of real estate. How are you going to convince them that you're going to pay rent? How are you going to get them to trust you? Sales. He goes, oh, you need boxes, Nick. You need the boxes before you get the revenue. You got to give them boxes before they even pay. How are you going to get credit? How are you Going to get the 60, 70, 80 grand to pay all these box suppliers to deliver boxes around, you know, to send you boxes. How are you going to convince them? Yeah, sales. Like, oh, you need a couple early employees, Nick, you understand that these employees, they have an option to go work for big businesses. They got an option to go work at Chipotle or a local restaurant where they got tips and the restaurant's been in business 10, 15, 20 years. How are they going to, how are you going to convince them to go work for you when you have a ragtag business idea? You don't even have T shirts, you got no labels on your vans. How are you going to convince them to trust you? Sales. And he goes, and I'll take it a step further, Nick. Every single part of life is sales. You want to convince a pretty woman to marry you and trust you to guide her life. Sales. It just goes on. You want to convince your 5 year old to get in the car when he doesn't want to get in the car. Um, and it hit me, I'm like, oh my gosh, he's right. He's like, your ability to sew will determine how much money you make in this world.

Speaker B: It's such an important point. It's such an important point that we don't talk about enough. I mean everyone loves marketing, don't they? You know, the sexy world of marketing and branding and I know you know it's hand in glove with sales and marketing but uh, we don't talk enough about marketing. Dan Pink was ah, a previous guest on the podcast. Uh, and we talked of many different things but uh, we did touch on one of his books To Sell is Human. Uh, and you know he, he talks that you know exactly the same point that you're talking about Nick. And that you know, everybody sells. In fact, you know, even when you're in non sales, you're selling as you say, you know, for he, he talks about 40% of the time at work, you know, is a non selling, persuading, influencing others. What's crucial to success, success regardless of the job. So we, we do need to grasp this fact that we're all in this sales Sal. We're trying to persuade, I suppose it's the human, HM act of moving people. Persuade them to do what we want them to do.

Speaker A: Uh, you want me to tell you the key shortcut secret to getting good at sales?

Speaker B: Let's go.

Speaker A: There is none, unfortunately. It's just like what I was saying about being comfortable in uncomfortable situations and handling stress, getting Good at sales is a muscle. If you just tell yourself that you're good at sales and you make the calls and you get a shitty sales job where you're going to get beat down every single day and you get used to that rejection, you get used to that uncomfort. You bring a positive attitude, you show excitement, you show genuine interest in people. You are good at sales. Yeah, that's it. So how do you, how do you end up doing those things? You practice and you practice and you practice just like how you get good at golf, just like how you get good at marketing, just like how you get good at anything else. You put in the time and you do the work. So there's no, there's no secret. I hate the pushy sales. There's, there's a, I don't think we have time to dive into it here. The next chapter. I talk pretty deeply about the strategy of sales and how to add value and how to build trust and how to go through the reps. But uh, the one thing that people who are listening to this need to understand is that it's a mindset. You tell yourself you're bad at sales, you will be bad at sales and you have to practice and you have to put yourself in those situations and you have to get comfortable.

Speaker B: It's about, yeah, it's, it is, it's a numbers game, isn't it? It's about having thick skin. I, I as a 16 year old I, I worked in a market research call center.

Speaker A: Ah.

Speaker B: And so calling busy people, whether it's plumbers and construction workers through to people sat at the desks and trying to persuade them that I needed 20 minutes of their valuable time and, and the amount of knockbacks and you uh, know, phones put down on me. But it's the numbers game. You get there.

Speaker A: I bet you're super thankful for that experience.

Speaker B: Absolutely. And you learn on your feet therefore what works, what doesn't. Try the next call. And slowly you get a little bit better.

Speaker A: Here in the States, uh, we have a lot of Mormons who live out in the M. Central west and uh, they go on one year, two year missions to sell their religion door to door and it's a ton of rejection. I've had friends travel to places in the, you know, in the, in the world where they go do two years of this work with zero conversions and they just get used to rejection over and over and over again. And they are phenomenally successful as a culture and as a people. Yeah. Uh, every part of life like as you advance in business. You know, now I'm selling investors, now I'm selling executives on trusting me with their next big career move. I'm selling, you know, and every part of what I'm doing is selling. And look, I haven't even talked about selling customers once yet. Um, it's just my one piece of advice, especially for a young entrepreneur. If you get good at sales, the world will be your oyster. If you practice sales and call yourself a salesperson very early on, it will pay you dividends. And the more, the better you are at sales, the more money you stand to make in this world. If you're money motivated, I highly recommend getting good at sales. And yeah, uh, go out and do it and practice it and call yourself a salesperson. If you don't have a job and people ask you what you do. I'm in sales.

Speaker B: Well, to that point where, you know this sweaty startup as a path to a solid living, you know, many can see that point that you're making. But building a significant, enduring enterprise is different. And that's where part three of the book focus on about sales, but more so about systematically how you transition from just not just a one person, but a founder doing the work to a, uh, manager to building a team and finding and hiring the right people. And you've talked to about how you might need to persuade people to come on board. So what are the unique pitfalls in service businesses during that shift on how they grow and how do you go about finding those right people?

Speaker A: Well, there's two mistakes that entrepreneurs make. One is that they assume everybody else is like them. You hear it's actually glorified on social media and in podcasts that employees want autonomy. They want to make their own schedule, they want to make their own decisions. They want to have control over their day to day. And I think entrepreneurs take that as, oh, they're just like me. They like chaos. They like waking up in the morning and not knowing what the hell they're supposed to do, going in and figuring it out, solving problems as they arise, prioritizing on the fly. And that's what entrepreneurs thrive in. We thrive in that opportunity, you know, in that environment of chaos, those opportunities to solve problems. 99.9% of people, Nick, are not like that. Yeah, they, of course they want to feel like they're contributing and making decisions and adding value. I'm not talking about micromanaging your people, but they also want to be told how to show up to work, how to do a good job, what a good job Looks like. And then they want to go home at 5 o' clock and watch Netflix or hang out with their friends. Yeah, they don't want to show up trying to figure out, oh, I don't even know what my freaking boss wants of me today. No, they want structure. They want to be told what to do. They want to be told how to do it. They want to be told how to win. They want to be told that they've done a good job. So as an entrepreneur, build that structure for people. Chaos is bad. Structure is very good. It's frowned upon in media, but it's actually very good in real life, is to tell people how to win and what to do. Yeah. So. And the second major pitfall is delegation. And, you know, a big chunk of my book is about delegation and how to replicate yourself and how to, you know, okay, you and I are going to spend an hour here together, talking, getting to know each other, but across my businesses, we're going to get 700 hours of work done, because there's 700 people, whether they're contractors or on my team out there working right now, because it's business hours here in the States. Um, so how can one hour of your time be worth three hours of work and then five hours of work and then 10 hours of work? It's proper delegation. So I think there's. If you'd, like, maybe I could give the main concept, uh, and the main pitfall around delegation. But, yeah, we can go any way you want with this.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, just, uh, in terms of delegation, then what would you expand on there just for the listeners to know a bit more on that?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think the main pitfall, and I use this monkey on the back dilemma inside the book. And this is something that has been popularized by many entrepreneurial writers over the years. And I kind of have a unique spin on it. An employee comes to you with a problem. Say you've hired your first employee, or this is your hundredth employee. They're going to come to you as the boss with a problem that they don't know how to solve or that they want you to help them solve. Imagine they walk into your office with this problem and it's a monkey on their back and it is jumping around, raising hell. That's the problem on their back. They come to you, they come in your office, and even if, you know, even if it's virtual and you're having a video call or they're on the phone, whatever it is, imagine that they come in your office and they tell you the problem. Hey, Nick, we're trying to rent storage units. I got a customer that's at the storage unit that they rented right now, and it's locked and they can't get in. It's a big problem. They called me. They're mad. Boom. The monkey jumps from their back onto my desk. Now, as the business owner, it's my problem. You have one of two options. You can solve the problem and take the monkey yourself, or you can send the employee out of your office with the monkey. If you choose option number one, it's easier in the short term. Solve the problem. You're better. You know how to solve the problem. You can think on your feet. You've been doing this your whole life. It's your business. You care about it. Get out of my way. I'll solve the problem. Nick, 5 o' clock will come around and you got 20 monkeys on your desk and you can't go home.

Speaker B: Me too.

Speaker A: Okay, option number two. You're going to make that employee leave with the monkey. Now, just telling them to get the hell out and neglecting your employees is a horrible way to run a company. That's how a lot of people delegate. Figure it out. Go. No, it's our problem. First it's your problem, now it's our problem. Then it's your problem again. I'm going to show you how to fix it, and then I'm going to watch it. Um, so, yeah, you got to ask the right questions. You get to look into their mind. You get to see how they think about things. My employees go nuts when they come to me with problems because I ask them. It's a long conversation. I ask them a lot of questions and I give them absolutely no freaking guidance unless I determine that, okay, they're incapable of solving this problem themselves and making a good decision. Get out of my way. I'll solve it. And I'm going to make sure the problems go to somebody else besides you next time. Um, but yeah, send the, Send the employees out of your office with their own monkeys.

Speaker B: I mean, it's probably the wisest piece of advice I think you could offer to people when growing a business and, uh, growing the team. And I didn't do that early on. I was looking, looking to, to take things on myself that, you know, the problems grew. You can't manage everything. Uh, and, and I suppose you learn through, through time that you, you need

Speaker A: so many pitfalls inside that pitfall. There's, you know, the fact that you have to recruit good employees.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: If you don't have good people. You gotta fire them or they're gonna make bad decisions and they're gonna be B players and C players and the culture of your entire organization falls. And you can't send them out with the monkeys because they don't know how to handle them. That's a big part of it. Like that's a, um, that's a huge struggle, is that you don't. You get stuck with mediocre people around you or even bad people around you. And then you, as a business owner, you have no choice because your people can't solve the problems. They're going to keep costing you money and your business is going to fail. And then there's the problem of over delegation. Like I said, people think delegation is cool. So I'm going to just quickly tell somebody how to do it and then ignore them. That's not really how it works. It's like telling your kids one time to brush their teeth and expecting them to brush their teeth morning and night every day for the rest of their life. No, you have to consistently follow up. You have to watch them, you have to check on them, you have to listen to their phone calls, you have to check their work. And then over time they build your trust. So people think delegation, they're shortcuts. There's really not. You have to invest in people, you have to teach them, you have to work with them, you have to be patient. And then over time they build trust bigger and more and bigger and more problems can go to them. And before you know it, you as an operator, owner of a company are shielded from more problems that are minor that your team does know how to handle?

Speaker B: Yeah, cash is another thing. I mean cash flow is king in the business world. Um, ah, do you have one or two non negotiable financial disciplines or uh, metrics that you insist a founder needs to follow up from day one?

Speaker A: Man, I was so incredibly frugal as a kid. I think my mom's side, her parents were depression era super frugal. That was rubbed off on me. Very thankful that that was rubbed off on me. Um, so I recommend that those early days, you get frugal as heck, you marry the right woman. My wife supported me a little bit in those early days for sure when we were building that business. Um, but I think cash flow is so nuanced, it's so hard. I'd say my piece of advice around that is don't beat yourself up. It's way harder to make money than the Internet tells you. It Is.

Speaker B: Yes, it is.

Speaker A: You get on the Internet and everybody's like, oh, I'm making this much money doing this much things and I'm on social media in front of a Lamborghini or I'm doing m, whatever the hell else. And I'll tell you, it's very difficult to make money. So don't be too hard on yourself. Be frugal. Don't be too proud to do the work. Go make 30, 50, 80 bucks an hour doing work for people. When it, you know, when, as the business grows, you hire people, watch your cash tightly. But, yeah, it's a very nuanced subject.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, keep an eye on exactly what you've made, what you've spent, and just keep that close eye on the cash balance.

Speaker A: There are a lot of entrepreneurs who just ignore the balance sheet, and that is not a good, uh, winning method.

Speaker B: No, I mean, that's your oxygen, isn't it? You're not in business unless you keep a close eye on that. Um, we've just touched upon it there, actually, Nick, talking about what we see on social media. And I know you've been critical of, uh, maybe what you call Instagram entrepreneurs or the work of online branding. Um, because I get it. We see it all the time with the guys in front of Lamborghinis, uh, and especially this comment around. Everyone's talking about passive income these days. Um, what are your thoughts around passive income and is it misleading for all these aspiring entrepreneurs out there?

Speaker A: Uh, I think a lot of people do not succeed in entrepreneurship because they're too good to do the work, they're too good to suffer, they're too good to grind for a little bit of money. They get bored of it very quickly. They're not willing to put in the work long term because they see these folks who are selling this get rich quick form of entrepreneurship. It's not that way. Like I'm here talking to you. Fifteen years into my entrepreneurial journey, um, the first five, I was making less money than all my friends who had jobs.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah. So that, you know, it's not, it's not what you see online. Don't believe it.

Speaker B: Well, and hopefully that's come across from some of the conversation we're taking today. But it, yeah, it's, uh, it takes grit, doesn't it? It takes determination. It's a lot of sweat, lots of pressure, lots of stress.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And if you post in a Day in the Life video online and no system to turn that into, you know, those viewers into phone calls, then I think you maybe need to reevaluate your marketing somewhat.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker B: You, um, you make a salient point with the final chapter at the end of your book. It's called what's, what's this all about? Ah. And I think it's such an important point because at the end of the day, businesses is a means to an end for a good life. And actually success and wealth isn't always about money. Uh, you talk very early on in the book about, you know, the importance of freedom, being able to do what you want to do. So in, in this final section you talk about the importance of geography. We've touched on that a bit. But also friendships, marriage, parenting, and building adventure into your life in order to keep yourself grounded in business. So all important. I know, but is there one of these areas you think that's more important to you when building your businesses or are they as important as one another?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think, uh, a lot of folks that I talk to, I talk to a lot of 50 plus 60 plus year old entrepreneurs just for wisdom and for advice. I've noticed a trend and a pattern. Almost every person over the age of 60, they care about one thing and one thing only, and that's their kids and their family. Mhm. But yet we're sold by society that the only thing that matters is building your career and being independent and making money. So the average age of the first time upper class person who gets married and has a child is 34, 35 years old. We've all of a sudden delayed those amazing things about life 10 plus years. And there's a lot of people who are towards the back end of it and realizing that, holy cow, I might not have time to do a lot of this. So my North Star, I think everybody, I encourage everybody to make a goal. Where do you want to be when you're 80? What do you want to be doing when you're 80? And very few people can get the things done unless they have ambition and money. And of course we have a lot of, um, material things that can make our lives better. I'm not saying that money is not important, but my North Star, where I want to be When I'm 80 years old, I want to be an old man in a chair who just walked. I want to be healthy enough to walk 18 holes of golf as an 80 year old and I want to come home and I want to have a house full of absolute chaos on Christmas. Yeah, Chris, it's Christmas Eve. I'm sitting in my chair, I have a whiskey in my hand. And I'm hanging out with my son in laws and my daughters and my sons and my daughter in laws and my house is just absolutely chaos with grandkids everywhere. 20 plus grandkids. That is what I look at as a successful life. And to get there, of course I need the money, of course I want to build. And uh, I have ambition to do big things financially, but family is super important. And the culture that I instill upon my family and my kids about how important it is to have kids. And so yeah, I think, man, I just think people need to wake up, especially if they're. I talked to a, uh, I think I Talked to a 29 year old at a conference. This was a couple weeks ago. So, you know, not much in this, in the book, but talk to him at a conference and I'm like, hey, are you, he was telling me he's killing it. He's building a really big business, he's successful. And I said, hey, are you married? Do you have a woman? And he's like, oh, no, I'm not ready for that yet. If I meet the right one, maybe it'll happen. But I'm not really serious about that. And I was like, okay, well how are you going to meet the right one if you're not serious about that? Let's do some math. Let's work backwards. You meet somebody tomorrow, you date him for two years, then you get engaged, then a year later you get married. Then a year later you have your first kid. How old are you when you have your first kid? You're 35 years old.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Wake up, brother. Wake up.

Speaker B: Well, I think that's the problem with society these days that we see it, isn't it? And you know, people are, people are just feeling, you know, that they don't have this purpose, uh, in life, you know, because business isn't everything. I think it's so important to finish on this because sometimes do people get caught up in the business world, you know, losing sight of what's important in life. I, um, I know I, I, I couldn't have done what I've done in my career without my wife. She juggled everything in those early days from a career through to looking after the kids, keeping an amazing home going, and not sure how she did it, but, uh, you know, we, we've come through that other side there. They're a bit older, our kids now. But, you know, you do, you do need to juggle life. And, and life definitely isn't easy. But I am, um, yeah, I'm an advocate for all that you say there. Ah, Nick.

Speaker A: So you don't need, you don't need a bunch of money, you don't need to get rich, you don't need to be accomplished from a career perspective to start accomplishing some of those other things in life. Don't wait.

Speaker B: I think another important point, uh, before we go to the final questions is, is just that, you know, business, it doesn't always need to be serious, does it? Neither. I mean, it's. It injecting a bit of fun into it. I, um, you know, that comes from surrounding you yourself with good people, of course. But, uh, you know, I've, I've sold, uh, my previous business. I'm here setting up others, running podcasts, and uh, but it's. Because if you, if you love it and you build some fun into it, then it just becomes addictive. And I, uh, I, uh, you know, here I am still doing that. So, uh, it's, uh, it's a point that we've. You touch on in the book a lot, but it's about running your business, but making sure that you can balance life around it and giving yourself some of the freedom to, uh, to enjoy life, uh, you know, for what it. All that it is against us.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's a lifelong game of. Building businesses is a lifelong game. It's like golf. You can play it your whole life and you never master it.

Speaker B: Well, I'm still mastering it, so, yeah, long, uh, way to go, hopefully in my life. Um, right. Last few questions. Nick. Um, my last guest was Adrienne Adami. She's, uh, a wellbeing expert, thought leader, and her latest book is called Decisions that Matter. And her question to you is, entrepreneurship is not for everyone, as we've already discussed today, but it's definitely put on a pedestal at the moment. If there's one thing that's the most important character trait that someone needs to have to go into the world of, uh, starting their own business. What is that character trait?

Speaker A: I think if you are comfortable getting good at sales, not saying you have to be a born salesman. I wasn't. If you're willing to do the work to become a good salesperson and you're willing to handle the stress, I think you could be a very successful entrepreneur.

Speaker B: Yeah, I know I am. I had to present a lot, you know, in terms of it was a market research agency, so pretending findings, and you've got to put yourself in that position sometimes. And actually, although I was uncomfortable with standing up in front of audiences and presenting over time and doing that, it actually became the most enjoyable part of my job. So you just don't know when you need to try these things out and you need to put yourself in these uncomfortable situations.

Speaker A: Very well said, Very well said.

Speaker B: Right now, a couple, uh, of questions from the listeners. Uh, firstly is from Adam Sullivan in Seattle who asks, you've built a multimillion dollar business, but in your journey or even now, have you ever personally grappled with imposter syndrome? And if so, how did you overcome it?

Speaker A: I think, uh, obviously you should not be delusional. If you are bad at making decisions and you're losing money and it's not working, I'll put that out there. But if it is working and you are making progress and you are getting a little bit better every day, you almost have to instill a sense of delusional confidence. I look back at how cocky and confident I was as a 22 year old and it's cringe, it's cringe worthy how much I thought I knew, but I wouldn't trade it for the world because that is what got me through those, those moments of doubt. If I would have let the anxiety creep in, if I would have let those, that negative self talk take over the positive self talk and, and, and realize, oh, who am I? Like, why is this farm boy who, you know, his dad was a construction manager and mom was a school nurse, why is he qualified to build these big businesses and do all this stuff? Of course I never would have done it. I would have gotten imposter syndrome. And of course it does creep up. Absolutely. Um, you have to, you have to put it, put it aside. You gotta put it aside.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, work through it. Secondly, from Simon White, he's in Vermont, uh, and he asks what a belief you held strongly about in business early on in your journey that you've since reversed or you think differently about now?

Speaker A: Yeah, I used to think that everybody should be, uh, an entrepreneur and now I realize that it's not right for everybody. And it's perfectly okay, by the way. It's perfectly okay to go get a really good job where you can be productive and you can make great money and you have an amazing boss and you have amazing co workers and you have a good quality of life. That's a very respectable way to live. And you can use a lot of the stuff that you learn from entrepreneurs to make more money and succeed in your career. It's not an all or nothing thing. You can take risk, you can manage people, you can do sales. And it doesn't have to be. If you don't kill, you, don't eat. You know, you got a boss that can pay you and take that risk of being an entrepreneur and solve the big problems while you can be in your zone of expertise, whether that's sales, engineering, whatever it might be. So, um, listen closely to the entrepreneurs. Learn a lot from the entrepreneurs, but not everybody has to be an entrepreneur. Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, what's the best piece of business advice you've ever been given?

Speaker A: That conversation in Ithaca, ah, around sales was. Was the biggest, I think. I think, um, it's funny that you mentioned that some of these questions, and I've heard you ask these questions to previous guests, so I did a lot of thinking on them, and that's why a lot of our conversation earlier was designed around these concepts. But, yeah, it's, uh, get good at sales. If you get good at sales, you can conquer the world.

Speaker B: Who'd you like me to reach out to, Nick? Who would you like to hear as a guest on this podcast?

Speaker A: I think my business partner is a brilliant person. His name's Dan Hagberg. I ran into him in college. We were best friends, co captains on the track team, and we were college roommates. And, um, he's an operational genius. He knows how to manage people. He knows how to make decisions. And, uh, I'm kind of the hard driver, the presser, the growth, growth, growth. Take risk. Take risk. And he is my right hand in helping us keep the trains on the tracks.

Speaker B: Well, I'll get you to do the introduction there, Nick. After the show, then. Uh, finally, my next guest is Andrew Winston. He's a writer, speaker, uh, uh, consultant on corporate strategy, been voted number one management thinker in the world by Thinkers50. And his latest book is behind me as well, called Net How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than they Take. What question would you like to ask to Andrew?

Speaker A: Yeah, he's amazing. I think going to a deeper level with him on how an individual entrepreneur running a small company can balance the constant societal pressures to add value and philanthropy and make people's lives better. How do you balance that? How do you balance making lives better with making money? Um, I feel pretty strongly that money is simply a result of how much value you add to the world. But it is also. It's a struggle for a lot of people, especially folks who are really interested in social causes and really interested in adding value to making people's lives better. What are some tactics and tips that early on in the entrepreneurial journey, one, uh, can really feel good about making profit.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, great question. I'll, uh, ask Andrew that next week. Well, I think, Nick, that the key message from speaking to you today is, um, well, nobody's going to give you permission to do what you want to do. You need to take ownership of your own destiny. Uh, and in order to do that, you need to figure out what you want to do and give, uh, it a go from there. There is no playbooks, but I think you've guided us in some of those. How to find the opportunity, how to then grow it, how to delegate and build your team around it, uh, uh, and how to scale it. Ah, so there's so much in the book. Uh, it's, uh, it's a fabulous book. So I do need to, uh, you know, advocate that all the listeners go out there and buy it. And I love how you, you actually finish the book, uh, because I think it, it neatly covers off everything, uh, we've talked about today. So I'm going to finish this podcast with the, the same mantra. Uh, so it's I will not reinvent the wheel. I will copy what works. I will use proven methods to make money in boring ways. I will do common things uncommonly well. If it isn't broken, I will not try to fix it, and I will keep it simple. I think that says it all. Um, if listeners do have any questions, where should they go for more information on you, Nick, Uh, the book or the businesses that you run?

Speaker A: Yeah, I check my email nickweatystartup.com um, I check my Twitter DMs on X. I'm sweatystartup. And yeah, if anybody has a question, a thought, um, way to give, you know, the way that I can help make their life better. Reach out. Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Nick. I know you're juggling a lot with your businesses and wishing you all the luck for, uh, your businesses in the future.

Speaker A: I love your show. Thanks for having me on.

Speaker B: Thanks, Nick. Here are my three key takeaways from speaking to Nick about entrepreneurship. Firstly, look for the opportunity. We see it on TV each week, whether it's Shark Tank in the US Or Dragon's Den here in the UK that budding entrepreneurs come on with a new idea aimed at changing the world and creating a new uncontested market space. This is often coined as a blue ocean strategy. Whereas Nick says that's the wrong approach. He says you should just start small, do something simple, and copy a proven strategy that you can see works in your local area and where the competition aren't that good at it. Instead of looking for this blue ocean strategy to guide your startup, you need to look to compete in a crowded, already existing marketplace. And instead of swimming in that blue ocean, you should swim in the red ocean instead. Secondly, Nick talked about the importance of being able to sell. Life's all about selling, whether it's in your work or in life itself. It's not the traditional sleazy sales we talk about, but more so the persuading, convincing, influencing others to exchange their time, effort, effort, attention and money for coming with you on your business journey rather than choosing someone else. And finally, as your business grows, it's about building the team around you. And look for people with energy, people that get things done but give them structure from which they can grow into their role. The pitfall many make is hiring someone just like themselves too early. Don't hire a mini me entrepreneur. Hire a reliable person who can follow a checklist, the person who can do the least skilled part of the process that allows you your job to shift from doing the work to selling the jobs and managing the quality of what your company delivers. So many lessons to take away from today's conversation. So please go out and, uh, buy Nick's book. Next up is Andrew Winston. He's talking about his new book, uh, that he wrote with Paul Polman, who's ex Unilever. And they're talking about how courageous companies thrive by giving more than they take. I can't wait for that one. See you next time on the World's Greatest Business Thinkers podcast.