Manoj and Chris discuss what “captain obvious” means to them, some of Manoj’s business lessons around common sense, working with urgency and how evaluating risk can be the most important step before investing.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00:00As an old saying, and this is not from India,
00:00:01this is from here.
00:00:02Is that first class people hire first class people,
00:00:07and second class people hire third class people.
00:00:09Welcome to the next in a series of podcasts
00:00:12about the business of everything with Manoj.
00:00:16This is the question and answer podcast series
00:00:18with answers from Manoj Bhargav,
00:00:20the man who built Five Hour Energy
00:00:21and two other billion dollar companies.
00:00:28Just a thought came to my mind.
00:00:30Look at medicine, okay?
00:00:31So you're an intern.
00:00:35And you're gonna work a 24 hour shift.
00:00:38Now, tell me, do you learn more on that 23rd hour?
00:00:44And more importantly, do I really wanna be a patient
00:00:49when you're on your 23rd hour?
00:00:52I mean, really, in a way, if you make a mistake,
00:00:55the whole system should be sued.
00:00:57Because-
00:00:58It's a system issue.
00:00:59It's a system issue.
00:01:00But the reason they do it now is because
00:01:03every doctor said, well, I went through that.
00:01:05I don't know why we shouldn't punish you.
00:01:08Really?
00:01:09The idea is to train you, right?
00:01:13Which, what part of working 24 hours is helping you?
00:01:19Right.
00:01:20Right, to be a doctor.
00:01:22And yet, no sense to it whatsoever.
00:01:25Nobody will ever.
00:01:26And if you ask doctors,
00:01:27they'll say, no, no, that's how it should be.
00:01:29You know, because I did that.
00:01:31And then these guys are taking drugs,
00:01:33they're taking uppers and all kinds of stuff
00:01:36to be able to function for 24 hours.
00:01:39Right.
00:01:41And you're looking at it and going,
00:01:42God, I hope, I don't wanna see any interns.
00:01:45Because I don't know how many hours they've been working.
00:01:48Is his brain even functioning at this point?
00:01:50Well, and you-
00:01:51And you operate on the wrong arm.
00:01:53You've also had a lot of experience with the FDA.
00:01:56Yeah.
00:01:57The FDA is actually probably the most sensible
00:02:02of the agencies.
00:02:04Wait a minute.
00:02:05Are you actually giving a compliment?
00:02:08I try not to.
00:02:09But once in a while, it just slips out.
00:02:12It's a mistake.
00:02:15No, actually, it doesn't mean the FDA is great.
00:02:19It just means the other guys are so bad.
00:02:20Okay, there we go.
00:02:21All right.
00:02:22Now we're back on track.
00:02:23I squeezed that out of there.
00:02:24Right.
00:02:25No, every large organization has issues.
00:02:32And they're created over time.
00:02:34And there's a reason for that they were created.
00:02:38And then you get to a point where you don't know
00:02:41what the hell is going on.
00:02:43And you go, oh, this is ridiculous.
00:02:45So I'll tell you a story, it's a story in India.
00:02:48And so there was a family,
00:02:55and the tradition was, you know, when you eat your food,
00:03:00they were gonna put this stick next to your food.
00:03:03So every time you were served in lunch or dinner,
00:03:06there was always a stick put there next to your food.
00:03:11And so somebody decided,
00:03:13well, where did this tradition come from?
00:03:18And so they look back, right?
00:03:22So what happened was,
00:03:2610 generations, eight generations ago,
00:03:30they used to put a toothpick.
00:03:32Oh, okay.
00:03:34So after a minute, you get a toothpick.
00:03:36Right.
00:03:37So a new person came in, you know,
00:03:40a daughter-in-law came in from another family
00:03:42and they didn't use toothpicks.
00:03:44And then the mother-in-law died.
00:03:46And so she thought, well, if she puts this little,
00:03:49I'm gonna put it a little bit bigger.
00:03:53Two generations later, it was a stick.
00:03:57And you go, well, what are you doing?
00:03:58Right.
00:03:59And nobody knew why, but you had to have a stick.
00:04:02Otherwise you weren't part of the family.
00:04:04Oh my gosh.
00:04:05So a toothpick became a stick.
00:04:07And this is what happens to almost every large organization.
00:04:11There's a purpose and the purpose sort of disappears
00:04:17and it becomes, you know, regimented.
00:04:21Right.
00:04:22And then you don't know why you're doing it,
00:04:23but you're doing it because the last guy
00:04:24taught you to do it.
00:04:26Right.
00:04:26So every agency is like that.
00:04:29The entire government is like that.
00:04:31Yeah, I'd like to have you highlight one idea that you,
00:04:36that I'm not saying you came up with it necessarily,
00:04:38but that has been,
00:04:40cause you brought up India and you brought up medical.
00:04:43How did you come up with the idea of having boats
00:04:46on a river to serve a community?
00:04:49And can you talk about that a little bit?
00:04:51It's very unusual.
00:04:53Not really.
00:04:54I mean, let's get into the philanthropy side
00:04:55some other time.
00:04:56Okay.
00:04:57But I'll answer this one really quick.
00:04:58Okay.
00:04:58If villages don't have roads to get to
00:05:00and their only road is the river.
00:05:03What do you do?
00:05:04What do you do?
00:05:04No, I'm gonna have a truck.
00:05:06So this fits under the Captain Obvious category.
00:05:09I'm a big believer in Captain Obvious.
00:05:12Okay.
00:05:13That's very fair.
00:05:15So of the business rules,
00:05:19if you had business rules for business,
00:05:21what might be a couple of them that you would tell people
00:05:25that are gonna listen to the podcast
00:05:26that they should start with?
00:05:30I mean, obviously the first one was don't do dumb stuff.
00:05:33Yeah.
00:05:33Well, that's the really hard part is always way.
00:05:38So there's only a few things that a person needs
00:05:41to be successful in business.
00:05:43One is some common sense, a sense of urgency
00:05:49and the other parts are sort of,
00:05:56there's a bunch of stuff of what not to do.
00:05:58Okay.
00:05:59There's a lot of stuff that's not to do
00:06:02is more important than what to do
00:06:04because what not to do will kill you.
00:06:07If you-
00:06:08And it minimizes risk.
00:06:10Well, there's a ton of stuff that if you make it,
00:06:14the problem with business is this,
00:06:16if you have to be lucky that you get your product,
00:06:20people like it and so on.
00:06:22You have to be somewhat lucky.
00:06:23You have to have a good product
00:06:24and then you have to be lucky, right?
00:06:27But the other problem is if you do one thing wrong,
00:06:31you're out because the risks kill you, right?
00:06:36So it's sort of looking at it from a point of view
00:06:40of what not to do.
00:06:42Okay.
00:06:43There's a ton of stuff.
00:06:44That's not easy for a lot of people to do.
00:06:45No, it isn't.
00:06:46First thing they'll do is get some money
00:06:48and buy fancy computers
00:06:50because that's what you're supposed to do
00:06:51when you have a business and-
00:06:53Or like the company across the street
00:06:55that you were referencing,
00:06:56they bought a bunch of furniture and a fireplace
00:06:59with somebody else's money.
00:07:01Right.
00:07:01Well, that's a whole different-
00:07:02And what did they have to do with building cars?
00:07:04Exactly.
00:07:05And so there's a lot of that,
00:07:06but even in a small business,
00:07:08you spend money where it's going to give you a benefit,
00:07:13profit.
00:07:14Okay.
00:07:15Don't spend money.
00:07:17I mean, if you've-
00:07:19Feed the opportunity.
00:07:20Starve the problem.
00:07:21Well, yeah, and also be,
00:07:22have in the company such
00:07:24that nobody else thinks it's important.
00:07:26For example, I got this desk,
00:07:28which when we started up this five hour,
00:07:31so I didn't want to spend any money.
00:07:34So I bought this desk used
00:07:4020 years ago.
00:07:41I still have that desk
00:07:43and it's got some strips that are missing,
00:07:47but one time our CFO said,
00:07:49when we were making pretty,
00:07:52really ridiculous amounts of money,
00:07:54he said, shouldn't we change our furniture?
00:07:57So I said, look, no,
00:07:59I'm not going to make the company
00:08:00about who has the best furniture
00:08:02that you're regarded as important
00:08:04because you have better furniture.
00:08:06So nobody in our company,
00:08:08you know, complains about furniture
00:08:10because I have the worst desk of any.
00:08:12It's a surface.
00:08:14But you work on it.
00:08:15That is a very valid point.
00:08:19Don't spend money on things that don't bring,
00:08:21don't help sell the product
00:08:23or don't bring you closer to bringing things to market.
00:08:26Desks don't necessarily do that.
00:08:28Not fancy ones, not $2,000 desks.
00:08:31Yeah.
00:08:33Get a surface.
00:08:33I mean, my first business,
00:08:35well, not first, but another one,
00:08:37we just took whatever it was there.
00:08:38I mean, my first desk at the business before,
00:08:41which was the Prime PVC business,
00:08:43was a fold-out typewriter desk.
00:08:45You know, it was like, it went like this
00:08:47and the desk became this big.
00:08:49And we worked on it.
00:08:50And we had 10 chairs.
00:08:53Every one of them was completely different from the other.
00:08:56They were all old.
00:08:57The only common thing was they were old.
00:08:59Talking about your first, your original desks,
00:09:03where did you start 5-Hour?
00:09:05It was in a little, it was in a unique place.
00:09:08I wouldn't recommend duplicating what I did.
00:09:12So I looked around,
00:09:12I said, oh, I'm gonna get a little office, right?
00:09:16I looked at the pricing of offices and, you know,
00:09:20and you get an office, you get one room.
00:09:23And then, you know, the restaurant is down the road
00:09:27somewhere.
00:09:28You go over there, you have no control.
00:09:31You know, you have no, you have no little break area.
00:09:35You have nothing like that.
00:09:37So, and they were expensive.
00:09:39So I thought, why do I need to be an office?
00:09:44So I looked at an apartment and I talked to them about it.
00:09:48I said, look, I'm gonna put an office there.
00:09:50We don't have a lot of visitors
00:09:51because it's all phone and computer and so on.
00:09:55And so for half the price of an office,
00:10:01I got, you know, a kitchen, living room, two bedrooms,
00:10:06two bathrooms.
00:10:09I thought, okay, this is a good deal.
00:10:11And the only problem was there wasn't,
00:10:13I mean, there was a downside to it.
00:10:15The first time somebody came
00:10:17and we were interviewing this lady
00:10:20and she told me later,
00:10:21because she was with us for more than a decade.
00:10:27She goes, you know, she's standing in front
00:10:30of this apartment going,
00:10:32I don't know if I go in there, this is an apartment.
00:10:35This is not a business.
00:10:38So finally said, okay, I'm gonna just see, you know.
00:10:42So recruiting is kind of, that could be a problem
00:10:44because they're especially,
00:10:46they're looking at what's behind that door.
00:10:50So, but in terms of common sense, it was like,
00:10:54yeah, it's cheaper.
00:10:56And I get all this stuff for free.
00:10:57You know, why would I not do it?
00:10:59In fact, I use one of the bedrooms as a guest room.
00:11:02So if somebody visited that was outside the company,
00:11:04you know, in the company,
00:11:05but it was in another town,
00:11:07when they came in, they stayed there.
00:11:08Okay.
00:11:10Save money on hostels.
00:11:10Save money on everything.
00:11:12So first, of course, I'm a cheapskate.
00:11:14So first, if you're gonna be in business,
00:11:16start up something, be cheap.
00:11:18Okay.
00:11:20Don't spend money on stuff that isn't giving you money back
00:11:27or isn't providing value.
00:11:29Because there's only a few values, right?
00:11:32You, the product, the customer experience of the product,
00:11:38cost of the product, or people that work with you,
00:11:42they should be comfortable.
00:11:44I mean, they should be not, you know,
00:11:47like not without air conditioning
00:11:50in a hundred degree temperature or something.
00:11:53But other than that,
00:11:55if you aren't spending for those few things,
00:11:58what are you doing?
00:11:59You know, and I've seen that all the time.
00:12:01They go, I'll blow whatever money they have.
00:12:03And then three months later, they go, okay.
00:12:07There's so many little rules about that, for example,
00:12:10and they're old.
00:12:11The funny thing about thing is that we,
00:12:14most people think we're smarter now
00:12:16than we've ever been.
00:12:17Okay.
00:12:18And it's complete hogwash.
00:12:20Why do you say, give me an example of that.
00:12:22I mean, we keep coming up with stuff that, you know,
00:12:28some professor has to write another paper.
00:12:29Some consultant has to write another new thing.
00:12:32New guy has to do another new thing.
00:12:34And then what happens is they throw away
00:12:38the baby with the bathwater.
00:12:39In other words, there was something good and they just.
00:12:42For some new strategy.
00:12:43New strategy, new, you know,
00:12:46because, you know, we haven't even started on the jargon.
00:12:50Yeah.
00:12:51Outsaving that.
00:12:52Yeah, right, right.
00:12:53So the jargon, you know, we have to apply this jargon.
00:12:56What's the ecosystem?
00:12:57What's the strategic initiative?
00:12:58What's the.
00:13:00I go.
00:13:01Bilateral or.
00:13:02Yeah, right.
00:13:03It just goes on and on.
00:13:04It's unending and it's complete nonsense.
00:13:07You know, it's like, why don't you just use
00:13:09your common sense a little bit.
00:13:10Right.
00:13:11You know, and don't let people,
00:13:14if they're against the common sense,
00:13:18you may lose one out of 10 times,
00:13:20but nine out of 10 times, you'll be a winner.
00:13:22If you use common sense versus some expert.
00:13:25Okay.
00:13:26Right, because if he's going against common sense,
00:13:28where's he going?
00:13:29Right.
00:13:30What's he doing?
00:13:31And you also have pointed out,
00:13:34you can sell something once, but you've got to sell it.
00:13:37You need repeat customers.
00:13:39Right.
00:13:40So you can try things once, but it won't.
00:13:41That doesn't make it a successful business.
00:13:43Right.
00:13:44You've got to keep.
00:13:45Yeah, there are so many questions that people could have.
00:13:48For example, if I say that you should sell a product,
00:13:55if you're gonna sell a product, it has to be quality.
00:13:58Mm-hmm.
00:13:59Question then becomes, what is quality?
00:14:02Right.
00:14:04You could kind of do it the German way,
00:14:06which is keep fixing it for 20 years.
00:14:09Right.
00:14:10We've seen that a lot where, I don't know anymore,
00:14:15but a while ago, Mercedes was like the second worst
00:14:19in terms of maintenance, but it would last forever.
00:14:25Like, don't like a tank, but if you know the old tanks,
00:14:28they broke down every half mile.
00:14:29Exactly.
00:14:31Right.
00:14:32So quality is in the mind of the customer.
00:14:36Perception is the quality.
00:14:39In other words, if I think it's quality
00:14:40and I'm the buyer, it's quality.
00:14:42Mm-hmm.
00:14:43And if I think, what is this?
00:14:44I don't, I mean, this table.
00:14:46If I have legs in it that can stand a nuclear blast,
00:14:52okay, it's really high quality legs, but it's not.
00:14:55Nobody cares.
00:14:56So you gotta look at all of these,
00:15:00all of these things, all of these words we use,
00:15:06we don't know the definitions.
00:15:09And if we did, it's not like,
00:15:11because you should broaden your mind
00:15:13and you should know the definition.
00:15:14No, no, no.
00:15:15It changes what you do.
00:15:18Well, let me ask you a question about one of the things
00:15:20that you'd like to say is keep it simple.
00:15:23Give me an example of what you do to keep things simple.
00:15:27How do you do that?
00:15:28Well, unfortunately, everybody says that.
00:15:31Mm-hmm.
00:15:32And they proceed to do complicated stuff, right?
00:15:36So, oh, keep it simple, stupid, you know,
00:15:38that all those rules,
00:15:40then proceed to do something which isn't.
00:15:42I mean, talking a good game isn't gonna do the job, right?
00:15:48Keeping it simple, it really is a discipline to say,
00:15:52you know, there's a thing called,
00:15:55so I didn't come up with it, obviously,
00:15:57is Occam's razor.
00:15:59What I understand from that is,
00:16:01it's like somebody asked the guy who,
00:16:04I don't know if it's Michelangelo or whatever,
00:16:06created a statue of David, right?
00:16:09And somebody said, this is probably a myth,
00:16:11somebody said, well, how'd you do that?
00:16:14How'd you make it so amazing?
00:16:16So the answer was, well, I took away everything
00:16:20that wasn't David.
00:16:23So Occam's razor basically says that,
00:16:26I think, is that you took away all the junk
00:16:30that isn't required,
00:16:31and what you have is really good, is simple.
00:16:37And if you get somebody, you know, an expert,
00:16:41they are experts at making it complicated.
00:16:44Because otherwise, why would you pay them?
00:16:46Let's say you hire an expert, right?
00:16:48And you're gonna pay them, you know,
00:16:50I was a good story about that.
00:16:53It's a reverse of that.
00:16:55So, you know, lawyers get paid by the hour.
00:16:58So, lo and behold, sometimes, somehow,
00:17:00they have a lot of hours.
00:17:03So one guy who was a brilliant lawyer,
00:17:06his company was, you know, had a problem with the government,
00:17:10the government was suing him for this,
00:17:11and, you know, normal stuff.
00:17:14And so they weren't winning, whatever, whatever.
00:17:19And so they went to this guy
00:17:21who was supposed to be a brilliant lawyer.
00:17:24So, he wrote one letter,
00:17:30and sent it to the government's lawyers.
00:17:34They said, okay, fine, we're done.
00:17:38Wow.
00:17:39And they billed the customer $250,000.
00:17:43It was the result that they paid for.
00:17:45No, no.
00:17:46What happened is the customer went ballistic.
00:17:49He couldn't have spent this much time.
00:17:51How dare you charge us $250,000 for one letter,
00:17:55making one letter out?
00:17:58Anyone has a response for us?
00:17:59No.
00:18:00He says to the customer, he says,
00:18:01I can write another letter,
00:18:05and send it to the government.
00:18:07Oh.
00:18:08And the customer goes, no, no, no, no, no.
00:18:10Don't do that.
00:18:13So there's just a lot of stuff
00:18:16that's complicated,
00:18:20because if somebody's selling hours,
00:18:23do you think they're gonna make it complicated?
00:18:25Yes.
00:18:26Why haven't you?
00:18:27I gotta sell so many hours.
00:18:29And the actual, in lawyers, in the law firms,
00:18:33they make you, if you don't have this many hours,
00:18:36nobody says this many successes for a client.
00:18:41They say-
00:18:42Which is what counts.
00:18:43Not to them.
00:18:44Right, right.
00:18:46And you can't blame them.
00:18:47If you're getting paid by the hour,
00:18:48I'm gonna stretch those hours.
00:18:49Right.
00:18:50It's like really long, long, slow, whatever.
00:18:54So there's a story about that.
00:18:55It was some guy, Texas, he was in England,
00:19:00and he was trying to say how big Texas is.
00:19:04And talk about slow, right?
00:19:08So he goes, Texas is so big,
00:19:11it takes two days for a train to get across
00:19:15from one end to the other.
00:19:16And the English guy goes, yeah, we got slow trains too.
00:19:19So basically, how slow do you wanna be?
00:19:25Or how long, this table, how long does it take to make one?
00:19:28Well, maybe a month, maybe 12 years.
00:19:32Depends how slow you go.
00:19:33So if you're paying by the hour,
00:19:35you're getting what you paid for, which is hours.
00:19:38Right.
00:19:39You're not getting.
00:19:40They don't do it on purpose anymore.
00:19:42They don't stretch it on purpose anymore.
00:19:44It's so ingrained, they can't help it.
00:19:47They're not being dishonest.
00:19:48They're just, this is how we do things.
00:19:52You know, you'll have one thing,
00:19:54and he'll get five rookies, you know, kids out of school,
00:19:59and they'll all be doing research.
00:20:02I mean, I talk to-
00:20:03You're paying for their research.
00:20:04And then you pay for all of those hours,
00:20:06and then you pay for my hours.
00:20:07That's the process.
00:20:10One guy, you know, I asked him a question,
00:20:12one lawyer, it was,
00:20:15relatively, you know, he should have known the answer.
00:20:18And he goes, well, I'm gonna have to get back to you.
00:20:22I have to do some, you know,
00:20:23have to get my guys to do some research.
00:20:25So I talked to him, and I said,
00:20:27if you have to do research on this, why am I hiring you?
00:20:31You're the wrong guy.
00:20:32Yeah, because you should know the answer.
00:20:35If you don't know the answer, I can do the research.
00:20:37I don't need you.
00:20:40But it's the process.
00:20:41They go, well, no, I gotta get five guys,
00:20:43and then they'll do the papers, and this and that.
00:20:45And I'll wait two or three weeks.
00:20:47I'll wait two or three weeks
00:20:48because I have to have so many hours.
00:20:50I can't have 100 hours in one day.
00:20:53Therefore, I'm gonna take my time.
00:20:55And they don't do it consciously.
00:20:59So they're not bad guys.
00:21:01It's just built in.
00:21:03And there's so much of that goes on
00:21:06that were just built in to us
00:21:08of whatever we've been taught,
00:21:10whatever we've been told to do,
00:21:14or what the process should be.
00:21:18Like meetings everywhere.
00:21:19Oh, they have a meeting about it.
00:21:21Why do you need a meeting?
00:21:24Nobody asks that question.
00:21:26And they get, like you were saying before,
00:21:28if you don't get invited to a meeting,
00:21:29you're like, oh, am I gonna get fired?
00:21:32Well, it's sort of like,
00:21:34how many people do you need to screw in a light bulb?
00:21:37Exactly.
00:21:38Right, I mean, remember that one time you told me,
00:21:43because I'm kind of short on the patient side?
00:21:48Oh, I hadn't noticed.
00:21:50Okay, all right, fine.
00:21:54So I remember, and you were actually at the meeting,
00:21:58and you said, with these bankers on the wall,
00:22:01you know, with all the eight bankers, whatever it was.
00:22:05And you said to me,
00:22:08could you cool it for about 10 minutes?
00:22:11So I go, yeah, absolutely, I can do 10 minutes.
00:22:13No, you can't.
00:22:14Yeah, right.
00:22:16So then they start introducing themselves
00:22:18in the way they went to school,
00:22:19where they went to their last job, their, blah, blah.
00:22:23I mean, and I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
00:22:27I don't care where you went to school.
00:22:28I don't care about any of these things.
00:22:30What do you got that's relevant
00:22:32to the conversation we have?
00:22:34I don't want to know you guys.
00:22:35I just want to know what you got.
00:22:37And I know it's funny, it's because you turned to me
00:22:38and said, that was two minutes.
00:22:44So it's sort of-
00:22:44Where do you think you've learned that?
00:22:46Where does that come from?
00:22:50I definitely learned that to cut through all the nonsense.
00:22:54If I see something, it's obvious,
00:22:57why would I put up with all this other stuff, right?
00:23:01So if you're going to bring me stuff that's just nonsense,
00:23:05it's kind of insulting to me.
00:23:08It's like, what am I, two years,
00:23:10five years old or something?
00:23:12Well, it sounds like that also goes back
00:23:13to the fact that it's got to be one page.
00:23:16It's got to be bullet points.
00:23:18Because why do you need more than that?
00:23:20So it all ties in.
00:23:22It does, it does.
00:23:23I mean, I remember when we got big,
00:23:27big investment bank,
00:23:28vice chairman of some major investment banker showed up
00:23:33and they always have to have an entourage.
00:23:35You know, they have to have four or five people,
00:23:38even though none of them are going to say a word,
00:23:40but they still have to have four or five people
00:23:42because they look important, I guess.
00:23:44And then he had this big fat book,
00:23:49this thing, I swear to God, it was this thing.
00:23:52And I'm in a hurry, you know, I got things to do.
00:23:55So I came in and he pulls this book
00:23:59and he starts to open it.
00:24:00I go, whoa, whoa, you can't open that.
00:24:03And he's looking at me like, what do you mean?
00:24:06I said, look, I know you're a wonderful company.
00:24:09I know you're a top at something.
00:24:11You're the best at something.
00:24:13You're highest rank at something.
00:24:15You got great people.
00:24:17Now tell me, what do you got for me?
00:24:20And this vice chairman guy starts sweating.
00:24:23I wasn't trying to be mean.
00:24:26It was like, what do you got?
00:24:29Let's go.
00:24:32They're so used to wasting time
00:24:34and they probably have some kids out of school
00:24:38put together that book, working 16 hour days
00:24:43to put together these pictures and all this stuff,
00:24:46which is like telling me about my own industry
00:24:51and telling me how wonderful we are
00:24:53or how much they are wonderful.
00:24:57But no, you know, what do you got?
00:25:00Nothing.
00:25:01People call me like that all the time.
00:25:03And I go, unless you have something specific.
00:25:05And they go always, as you know,
00:25:08patience is not a strong suit for me.
00:25:10That is one of the things.
00:25:11If you're gonna start businesses,
00:25:15you gotta go, let's go now.
00:25:18One thing, I mean, I put that down somewhere.
00:25:20I said to some of the guys
00:25:22that are fixing one of the companies we have.
00:25:25And I said, once a decision is made, go today.
00:25:31You know, it sounds like, of course, no.
00:25:34Almost every company will say,
00:25:37well, now the decision was made.
00:25:39Let's wait a couple of weeks and see how things go.
00:25:41Have a plan and have a this and a that.
00:25:44And I'm going, did you not hear the first part?
00:25:47The decision is made.
00:25:49Go today, you're wasting everybody's time and money.
00:25:54So paying.
00:25:54I remember, I have to tell a story on you
00:25:57that I remember very clearly.
00:25:58Go ahead.
00:25:59I was, I came to you to hire an employee, an analyst.
00:26:05And I explained to you why we needed an analyst
00:26:08on the finance side.
00:26:09And you said, fine.
00:26:10And then about two weeks later,
00:26:12I came back to you and I said,
00:26:13I just wanna let you know I need to hire an analyst.
00:26:16And you said, is this the same analyst
00:26:18that you already asked me about?
00:26:19Or is this another analyst?
00:26:22And I thought, no, it's the same analyst.
00:26:26Because I work for a big company,
00:26:27I had to get permission to get permission.
00:26:30And you just made decisions.
00:26:32And that was a, that was mind blowing
00:26:36to realize that decisions could be made quickly
00:26:38and appropriately without PowerPoint presentations.
00:26:43You forgot about the rude part that I said.
00:26:46Trying to cut you some slack.
00:26:49Remember I said, you're just gonna ask me
00:26:51the same question over and over again?
00:26:53Oh, you might have said something along those ways.
00:26:56I chose not to hear it that way.
00:27:01What do you do, how do you make,
00:27:04how do people try to make work fun?
00:27:07I mean, cause if it's a drudgery, they don't wanna do it.
00:27:10How do you make work fun?
00:27:11I mean, you work, how many hours a day do you work?
00:27:14I don't work that many hours as such.
00:27:17Now stuff is in my head, I can't get rid of.
00:27:20So that's that.
00:27:22Tell me what happens on Monday mornings.
00:27:24Oh yeah, well, then my, it's, this isn't normal.
00:27:29This is, this reminds me of the, you know,
00:27:32that movie, Young Frankenstein.
00:27:33Okay.
00:27:34Where the guy takes this thing,
00:27:38bottle of the brain in it and puts it into Frankenstein.
00:27:41Frankenstein's crazy.
00:27:42So, and he goes, what was the name of the person?
00:27:47He goes, it was an Abby something.
00:27:49And he says, what's the last name?
00:27:50He says, normal.
00:27:52It was Abby normal.
00:27:54So what you're getting at now is Abby normal.
00:27:58Okay, okay.
00:27:59So,
00:28:01So how many hours do you, let's go back to that.
00:28:03How many hours do you?
00:28:04No, I work, you know, eight, nine hours, let's say.
00:28:08Okay.
00:28:09Yeah.
00:28:10I found out a long time ago that, you know,
00:28:13if you're working, not all of us,
00:28:15there are some of us who can work much longer hours
00:28:17and they're productive.
00:28:19Most humans, if you work with your brain,
00:28:24if you're doing rote, you can do 10 hours, 12 hours.
00:28:27I mean, I drove a taxi for 12 hours a day.
00:28:29You could do that.
00:28:30But if you're working with your brain
00:28:31and actually being productive in terms of thinking,
00:28:36you know, in other words, a change, something,
00:28:39then you're probably productive eight, nine hours,
00:28:4310 hours tops.
00:28:44It don't get better.
00:28:46Okay.
00:28:48Not everybody's like that.
00:28:49I mean, I read something where Elon Musk said that,
00:28:51you know, everybody should work a hundred hours.
00:28:53It'd be more productive.
00:28:55Actually, that's not really true.
00:28:59Most of us are productive a certain amount.
00:29:01I mean, I did that already.
00:29:03You know, I used to work a hundred hours.
00:29:05And then one time I took a few days off.
00:29:08But oh my God, the brain started really working
00:29:10and I changed the whole business
00:29:13because I had time to think about stuff, right?
00:29:16To be, so working really, really long hours isn't really,
00:29:21there are times when you have a project
00:29:23and you got to do it, you know, that's just life.
00:29:27But normally, if you're going to be productive,
00:29:31you should know where your limits are.
00:29:33I mean, I think everybody can work eight hours a day.
00:29:35It's not a, yeah.
00:29:38And we're not in, you know,
00:29:40I know there's some people saying,
00:29:42well, I think we should just work four days a week.
00:29:46And I know you're not trying to get into all that discussion
00:29:50but tell me, what are the sayings you've got
00:29:53that kind of touches on something you just talked about is,
00:29:56why do you say it needs to be done by three o'clock?
00:30:03Well, I know.
00:30:04I'm telling you.
00:30:05Yeah, right, right, right, right, I know.
00:30:06Thanks a lot.
00:30:08But it's whenever we've,
00:30:12let's say we did have a meeting and we decided to do this.
00:30:15People always ask that question.
00:30:17Well, when is it gonna, when is it due?
00:30:21And their view is, I mean, good God.
00:30:24I mean, if it's a medical industry people,
00:30:26they're like a year or two years or five years, right?
00:30:30If you're another industry, you're like,
00:30:32okay, next month, three months, four months, six months.
00:30:36And I got to get them to understand,
00:30:38no, no, no, no, it's now.
00:30:40So I always say, I look at my watch and I go,
00:30:44three o'clock, it's due three o'clock.
00:30:46Everybody chuckles, but the gist of it is to say,
00:30:51no, no, no, it's now, right?
00:30:55So to me, it's like this.
00:30:57If you're gonna have a project and you say,
00:31:00well, I've got three weeks to do it.
00:31:03I remember the old days in school.
00:31:06I got three weeks.
00:31:08I'm gonna wait two weeks and six days,
00:31:10cram at the end of that time.
00:31:12It's a natural thing.
00:31:13It's a natural thing.
00:31:14I got time, no problem.
00:31:17So there's an inflation for most people to say,
00:31:20I got plenty of time, don't worry about it, right?
00:31:24So I go, no, no, the way we work is you get up
00:31:26in the morning, you run like hell,
00:31:29you do everything you can to get it done today.
00:31:32And next project, same thing.
00:31:35So if this takes three weeks
00:31:39and then something else takes another,
00:31:41then you have to do another thing after that
00:31:43and another thing after that.
00:31:44You could delay something you could do in a month
00:31:48could take a year and a half
00:31:50because you keep adding this time to it.
00:31:54And so I go, no, no, three o'clock.
00:31:57So it's a joke, but it sets the tone in terms of no.
00:32:02Nobody ever has to ask, when is this due?
00:32:05Because they know what the answer is going to be.
00:32:07Yeah, well, I mean, it's a bad habit for me a little bit
00:32:11because I'll tell somebody something on a Friday afternoon
00:32:15and then Monday morning, I say, well,
00:32:18and I forgot it was Friday, there's a weekend involved
00:32:23and they'll just laugh at me and go on.
00:32:26I mean, we don't, I don't actually expect that.
00:32:29Let me ask you another question.
00:32:30You've got a strategy that I think is unique
00:32:33that obviously other people have done it at different times,
00:32:39but you have a unique way of looking at things.
00:32:41When you want to start a new product or a new business,
00:32:45you do two things.
00:32:46You look at both starting it and buying it.
00:32:50Kind of goes back to very early in our discussion,
00:32:53how do you get something started?
00:32:55Or should you buy a business or should you just get started?
00:32:59And it's a, you have a very,
00:33:00cause it looks like you'd be spending money
00:33:02doing both things at once, but that is not the case at all.
00:33:06And how did you come up with that?
00:33:08What made you think to be doing both at once so you don't?
00:33:12Well, I think the fundamental question
00:33:18or the issue really is,
00:33:20there's only one thing that you can't buy.
00:33:24That's time, right?
00:33:27Whether you're a billionaire.
00:33:29So you're telling me if I could have answered,
00:33:30asked the question better, that's what I should have said.
00:33:33Yeah.
00:33:34So we look, I look at everything as time.
00:33:38So can I, if I spend twice the money
00:33:42and I get it done half the time, I do it, right?
00:33:49Now, if I had, you know, two pennies are up together
00:33:53and that's all I had, then I have plenty of time.
00:33:57So it's a judgment call as to how much money you've got
00:33:59and how much time you've got.
00:34:01If you've got the money, you should reduce the time
00:34:05because time is, you don't get back.
00:34:07And also one of the things with time is even in the market,
00:34:12you have a product.
00:34:13If you take your time, you know, just slow it down.
00:34:17Somebody else may come in.
00:34:19Circumstances may change.
00:34:21The laws may change.
00:34:22God knows what will happen.
00:34:23You know what I mean?
00:34:24I'll give you an example.
00:34:25In India, I talked to this guy
00:34:28and it used to be worse than it is now,
00:34:31but he wanted to start this factory, this business.
00:34:37It took him seven years to get all the permits.
00:34:40Wow.
00:34:41The local, this, that, you know,
00:34:43everybody had a reason why he couldn't do it.
00:34:46The land guys, the forest guys, you know, it was unending.
00:34:51By the time he got the permit, the business was gone.
00:34:55Then he probably didn't need the business.
00:34:56No, the business was gone.
00:34:58He wasn't going to put up a factory.
00:35:01All those jobs, all that stuff that he would have created
00:35:03didn't because time killed it.
00:35:06Time can kill anything, right?
00:35:08So you really want to take time as a precious thing, right?
00:35:14I mean, I know people who go, you know,
00:35:17and it's a big project and they're working on it.
00:35:19And then they got to send something over to another company
00:35:22or another person.
00:35:25And they'll say, well, it costs $25
00:35:27if I do it overnight it, right?
00:35:30So I'm not going to overnight it.
00:35:31I'm going to have a two or three day thing, right?
00:35:36Do you know what that time cost of that project?
00:35:40Could be $1,000, could be $10,000, but they saved $15.
00:35:44Right.
00:35:46It's in your head.
00:35:47That's real cash, but time is not important, right?
00:35:51So I try to tell people, look, you know,
00:35:54I mean, I kind of do business a simple way,
00:35:56which is every business has what the old,
00:36:03what we used to call the nut.
00:36:05Okay, what does that mean?
00:36:07The nut is money that is due
00:36:10is going to be a cost every month.
00:36:13Doesn't matter what you sell or don't sell.
00:36:16Cause you have so many people, you have the rent,
00:36:18you have the utilities, you have this, you have that.
00:36:20That we used to call it the nut.
00:36:23You have to make your nut.
00:36:25You have to make your nut.
00:36:26If you don't do it, you're going to go out of business.
00:36:29So you have to have that cash.
00:36:31So then you break it down.
00:36:33I sometimes tell people that I break it down to a day.
00:36:36So if it costs, you know, $25,000, that's your nut, right?
00:36:45So it's costing you on every weekday, it's $1,000.
00:36:48So if you delay something that isn't your earnings
00:36:53are delayed by a day, right?
00:36:57First of all, it costs you $1,000
00:36:59and you save $15 on FedEx.
00:37:01Really? That's what you saved?
00:37:03Yeah.
00:37:04And the human mind that says, yeah, but I saved $15, right?
00:37:09I'm not gonna pay $25 for that or $50 for that.
00:37:13So you gotta still train people to say, no, no,
00:37:16it's still costing you.
00:37:19It's costing you way more than you think, right?
00:37:22So I am always with, let's go now, time.
00:37:26You're also very specific about when you have, do have,
00:37:30you want to meet with somebody, it's on time
00:37:33because you don't want to waste time.
00:37:36Well, yeah, well, that's another reason for that.
00:37:40I think to get, that's a personal,
00:37:42you might say it's personal or whatever.
00:37:44To me, it's like, if I have a meeting with somebody
00:37:46at 10 o'clock and I get there at 10, 15, it's just rude.
00:37:51Okay.
00:37:52It's sort of saying your time is worth less than mine.
00:37:56It's arrogance.
00:37:58To me, when some people show up late,
00:37:59to me, it's just arrogance
00:38:00that you think it's okay to have me wait, but not.
00:38:03Time can cost you in a lot of different ways.
00:38:05Yeah, I mean, that's a, to me, that's a towel
00:38:09from their side if they come in late.
00:38:12That you're not important.
00:38:13That you're not important.
00:38:14Or they give you excuses.
00:38:16And I used to joke, I mean, there's a really nasty joke,
00:38:18but I'd say, if you're dead, it's a good enough excuse.
00:38:22Other than that, be here on time, right?
00:38:25So it's sort of, it goes to show you,
00:38:28I always get there on time.
00:38:29I always get there.
00:38:32I was used to get to places 15 minutes early
00:38:34and I'd wait outside
00:38:36because it was just rude to not be on time.
00:38:40That's it.
00:38:40But that's good for a lot of people listening
00:38:43to understand that there's some habits
00:38:47that if they're not adopting them,
00:38:49they need to be ready to adopt them.
00:38:50If you're gonna be successful,
00:38:51you need to be doing certain things.
00:38:53Well, there's a risk.
00:38:55Let's say if you have an interview and you show up late.
00:38:58Okay.
00:39:00You might find there's already a check against you.
00:39:03A big one.
00:39:04Is it worth limiting your opportunity just for that?
00:39:08And you're just strolling in.
00:39:09It's like nothing, no problem.
00:39:11Well, the guy scheduled,
00:39:13whoever the person has scheduled that time for you.
00:39:17And you're just being rude, right?
00:39:21So there's a lot of things
00:39:24what I call canary in the coal mine.
00:39:26Most people don't know what that means
00:39:27because it's a really old saying.
00:39:28Can you explain to us what that old saying is?
00:39:31The old.
00:39:32Old person.
00:39:34Absolutely, no doubt about it.
00:39:36I'm not that old that it was.
00:39:37I'm not gonna say that I know what it means,
00:39:39but could you explain it to others?
00:39:41Well, the other part is
00:39:42I really haven't been in a coal mine.
00:39:47So in the old days,
00:39:48I'm told that the coal miners used to take this canary
00:39:52in a cage with them inside the coal mine, right?
00:39:57And why would they take the canary in?
00:39:59So what happened is there are gases sometimes
00:40:02that leak in the coal mine, right?
00:40:06And the gases have no smell, but it can kill you.
00:40:10So what would happen is if there was a gas leak,
00:40:14the canary would drop dead.
00:40:17And as soon as the canary dropped dead,
00:40:20you need to get out of there.
00:40:22That was, it's called,
00:40:24so it became a saying, canary in the coal mine.
00:40:26So it became, if somebody gives you an indication
00:40:28of who they are, what they are, take it.
00:40:33I always say, well, people who cheat me or something,
00:40:35I go, thank you.
00:40:37You cheat me early, not a problem.
00:40:39I got away with it.
00:40:41You know, I got away with being cheated slightly.
00:40:44Whereas if it had been a couple of years
00:40:47and then it would have cost a lot more.
00:40:50So to me, it's like, that's the canary in the coal mine.
00:40:53Then I go, see ya.
00:40:56That's a great example.
00:40:57Yeah, and we all do it.
00:40:59I mean, you know, I've got my own little ideas on stuff,
00:41:03which people may agree with or not, or get offended by.
00:41:07I think I wrote somewhere, it's just,
00:41:09you know, the old saying,
00:41:11to err is human and to forgive is divine.
00:41:15I just added one other thing to it,
00:41:17which is to err is human, to forgive is divine,
00:41:21but to forget is stupid.
00:41:24Don't forget.
00:41:25No, in other words, if you do me wrong,
00:41:28that's okay, I forgive ya, but I ain't gonna forget it.
00:41:32Right.
00:41:33Because I don't want this happening to me again.
00:41:36You bring, it's very clear,
00:41:38you bring a lot of experience as well as,
00:41:44you have some background in,
00:41:46some of the Indian fables are fabulous
00:41:50that a lot of us don't know.
00:41:52And some of those, some of the Indian fables
00:41:56really go way back in time.
00:41:59Yeah, these are just, you know,
00:42:00it's a canary in a coal mine, that's here.
00:42:03So there's a lot of stuff from everywhere.
00:42:05I mean, I get it from all over Europe or whatever,
00:42:07where, you know, a thing I really liked from Japan,
00:42:10and there's, you know, so I just,
00:42:12in my head it's collected, you know,
00:42:14it's like, I'll give you another one
00:42:16when you're talking about it, it says,
00:42:18and when you say that, oh yeah, that's obvious,
00:42:20you know, those are the best.
00:42:22The ones that are obvious are the best.
00:42:24And those that are not obvious, stay away from those.
00:42:26Right?
00:42:28So there's a saying, let's say it goes,
00:42:31if you buy expensive, you cry once.
00:42:34If you buy cheap, you cry every day.
00:42:37Oh.
00:42:38That's an old saying too.
00:42:40So it's like, you know, I mean, it's kind of obvious.
00:42:44Yeah.
00:42:44You buy junk, you're gonna regret it forever, for every day.
00:42:51And if it's really good quality stuff,
00:42:54then you'll cry once when you pay for it,
00:42:56but after that it'll be fine.
00:42:57Well, we were, I gave India props,
00:43:00and there's some reasons for that,
00:43:02because so many of the CEOs today are Indian backgrounds,
00:43:08but I gotta give props to China,
00:43:10because of a book that you like to reference
00:43:13every once in a while.
00:43:14Can you talk about The Art of War?
00:43:16Yeah.
00:43:17And how that applies to business.
00:43:22So The Art of War is, what most people don't know,
00:43:26that it was written on 30 bamboo sticks.
00:43:30That's it.
00:43:31It was just 30 things.
00:43:33Now they write big fat books about it,
00:43:35but those are mostly interpretations.
00:43:37And some of them are, I mean, look,
00:43:38wherever you can find wisdom,
00:43:43wherever you can find principles that help, should go there.
00:43:47I mean, it doesn't, I always just laughed
00:43:49at whenever they said Eastern philosophy
00:43:53and Western philosophy,
00:43:55because unfortunately, my school, the fancy one,
00:44:00made me take Greek.
00:44:03Oh, that's pretty unusual.
00:44:05Ancient Greek, right?
00:44:06It went way back.
00:44:07Yeah, so the word philosophy comes from love.
00:44:11Philos means love, and sophos means wisdom.
00:44:14So love of wisdom.
00:44:16Okay.
00:44:17Right.
00:44:17How can there be an Eastern wisdom and a Western wisdom?
00:44:20It's either wisdom or an ink.
00:44:22There's not like, okay, well, no, it's wisdom in the East,
00:44:25but it's not wisdom in the West.
00:44:25And didn't most of Western wisdom come from the East
00:44:28to begin with?
00:44:30It doesn't, but it doesn't matter.
00:44:32I mean, a lot of stuff that's said is nonsense too.
00:44:35So we could say Eastern nonsense and Western nonsense.
00:44:38Okay.
00:44:39You know?
00:44:40They don't.
00:44:40There's that.
00:44:41Yeah.
00:44:42So how does the art of war apply to business in your-
00:44:45Well, there's something.
00:44:46I mean, people think of it as war.
00:44:48It's really not, it's fundamentals.
00:44:50Like, there's only a few things I remember.
00:44:53One is, if you know everything about your enemy
00:44:59and everything about yourself, you can never lose, right?
00:45:03So, but if you look at it
00:45:05from somebody who hasn't experienced anything,
00:45:08they go, oh yeah, well, kind of obvious.
00:45:10Yeah.
00:45:11But they don't get it.
00:45:14The, when he mentions the enemy,
00:45:15then he is somewhere else.
00:45:16He says, enemy and ally are almost interchangeable.
00:45:20Okay.
00:45:21So if you, ideally you turn an enemy into an ally,
00:45:24not the other way around.
00:45:25Right.
00:45:26We seem to be wanting to do now.
00:45:30And it's sort of like, if you say customer instead of enemy.
00:45:37Okay.
00:45:38Okay.
00:45:38So if you know everything about the customer,
00:45:40what their needs are, how they behave,
00:45:42what their psychology is, what, you know,
00:45:45everything about them.
00:45:47And then, you know, everything about yourself,
00:45:49meaning what do I have?
00:45:50What do I don't have?
00:45:51What don't I have?
00:45:53What am I weak at?
00:45:54What strong at?
00:45:55And then relate it between those two.
00:45:58Chances of winning are really high.
00:46:02Instead of thinking, it's all about me,
00:46:05tell you what I want to sell you,
00:46:07and you need to buy it.
00:46:10Right.
00:46:11Much, anybody good in sales knows that's a bunch of.
00:46:14That doesn't work.
00:46:14It doesn't work.
00:46:15You have to know what is it that motivates them.
00:46:18You know, I always say, so in a way it's psychology.
00:46:21It's, you know, for me,
00:46:25somebody said one time, I think,
00:46:27oh, well, General Motors will buy it.
00:46:29You know, whatever they were selling.
00:46:31I said, do you realize there is no such thing?
00:46:34He goes, what do you mean?
00:46:35Yeah.
00:46:37I said, there's no General Motors.
00:46:38He goes, what are you talking about?
00:46:41I go, there's a guy at General Motors who's the buyer.
00:46:47You need to know everything about that guy.
00:46:50Right.
00:46:51How, what motivates him?
00:46:52What motivates a large company buyer, right?
00:46:55That can be very different than what it's good for.
00:46:58In other words, it may be great for the company,
00:47:00but it really sucks for the buyer.
00:47:02It's not happening.
00:47:03Right.
00:47:04Again, examples are, there's an innovative product,
00:47:07and, you know, in the old days,
00:47:10it used to be computer manufacturers, right?
00:47:15And so there was DEC and IBM and, you know,
00:47:19all these other big guys were there.
00:47:22The buyers would always buy IBM.
00:47:25Why?
00:47:26Because even though it was the most expensive,
00:47:29it wasn't even innovative, it was whatever,
00:47:31but it was IBM.
00:47:32Nobody could blame them for buying IBM.
00:47:35For buying IBM.
00:47:36But if you bought something else, which was better,
00:47:39and something went wrong, you'd be out of a job.
00:47:41You'd be criticized for it.
00:47:42Yeah, or you'd be, certainly your bonus is gone.
00:47:45Right.
00:47:45But if you bought IBM and something went wrong,
00:47:49you'd say, but I bought IBM.
00:47:52You know, so it was called the IBM sale at that time.
00:47:56We used to talk about that.
00:47:57He said, that's what it should be.
00:47:59It should be where they shouldn't buy from anyone else
00:48:03because we're the best.
00:48:05We're perceived as the best.
00:48:07Right.
00:48:07So there's a lot to understand amongst who's buying.
00:48:14You know, if you think about a bureaucrat,
00:48:18he's worried about his job, he's worried about his bonus,
00:48:25he's worried about not getting yelled at.
00:48:29That pretty much covers most of it.
00:48:31That's right.
00:48:33That's after he's counted his ceiling tiles
00:48:36to figure out how big his office is.
00:48:38Exactly.
00:48:39But none of those things have anything to do
00:48:41with the benefit of General Motors.
00:48:43No.
00:48:44Right?
00:48:45No.
00:48:47You have to understand all of this
00:48:48and somehow get through to somebody
00:48:50that it's good for General Motors.
00:48:52Because there is no such thing.
00:48:53Now, part of it you were just talking about was,
00:48:55okay, it was involved purchasing.
00:48:59What is it that younger people are doing in sales
00:49:02or not doing in sales that you're seeing
00:49:05that didn't exist before or?
00:49:09Look.
00:49:10Is there guidance or wisdom that you can give people
00:49:13on how to sell products better?
00:49:16No, I think the thing to do is go old style.
00:49:19Okay.
00:49:20And what does that mean?
00:49:21Besides looking like you?
00:49:24Not that old.
00:49:27So it means that there's a lot of good stuff
00:49:34that was already there that we learned.
00:49:38And then people say, no, but this is the new stuff.
00:49:42And the new stuff is not that good.
00:49:43Okay.
00:49:46The old stuff also was based on the training, really.
00:49:49The funny part is you get an MBA or whatever,
00:49:52but the biggest part of business is psychology.
00:49:56And it's a simple part also.
00:49:57It's like, look at it from the other person's point of view.
00:50:02It's like Captain Obvious again.
00:50:05But it's sort of like, I'm selling to you
00:50:08and I'm not looking from your point of view.
00:50:10I'm just throwing stuff out there.
00:50:14Not gonna work, right?
00:50:17So look at it from their point of view.
00:50:18Do your homework.
00:50:19I mean, it's fundamentals again.
00:50:21Look at their point of view and not their point of view
00:50:23as the entire company, but their personal point of view.
00:50:26What are they?
00:50:27Which is motivated.
00:50:28Like you just said, it could be very different.
00:50:30Very different, very different.
00:50:34The company head or whoever the boss is
00:50:37motivates that person to do things a certain way.
00:50:42Whether it's right or wrong.
00:50:44But if they don't do it that way,
00:50:47they could lose a job or they could never be promoted again.
00:50:52So you have to, the fundamentals of sales
00:50:55is look at it from the other point of view.
00:50:58It's the Sun Tzu again.
00:51:00They're across the way from you.
00:51:02Whether it's you're hiring somebody
00:51:04or whether you're a customer, you're the vendor,
00:51:09whoever you are across the table,
00:51:12that's what Sun Tzu kind of meant, the enemy.
00:51:16It's just somebody who's across from you.
00:51:18When you change enemy to customer,
00:51:20it completely rewrites the book.
00:51:22Right, it's not meant to be.
00:51:24It's a simple thing.
00:51:25It's like, know everything about the customer.
00:51:28I mean, people come in and they apply for a job at a company
00:51:32and there was one time it was hilarious.
00:51:34It was tragic, but hilarious.
00:51:37So we're interviewing these
00:51:39public relations company in New York.
00:51:42So we narrowed it down from 30, 40 down to like five.
00:51:47And we go in there and this guy starts with this spiel about,
00:51:53well, the demographic of women
00:51:55and this age and that age and whatever.
00:51:58And somebody pulls out a five hour and the guy says,
00:52:03oh, that's what it looks like.
00:52:05And there's three of us and we all looked at each other
00:52:12and I said, okay, let's get the hell out of here.
00:52:17The amount of research he did on us
00:52:19was he didn't even know what it looked like.
00:52:22Wow.
00:52:24But he was just regurgitating all the fancy stuff
00:52:27about demographics and expert talk.
00:52:31And this is how you do it.
00:52:33If you really think about it,
00:52:34how long would it have really taken him to do the research?
00:52:37He probably could have walked downstairs
00:52:39into the area of his building.
00:52:41No more than 50 feet.
00:52:43Right.
00:52:43Every 50 feet, there's five hours.
00:52:45Yeah.
00:52:45In New York.
00:52:48So basically it's not rocket science.
00:52:52No, doing customer research doesn't have to be huge work.
00:52:56No, no.
00:52:57But if you figure you're gonna come work for us
00:53:00and you haven't even done anything about us,
00:53:08again, the question would be,
00:53:09why would I not hire that person?
00:53:11Well, my brain would be like,
00:53:14yeah, first of all, he doesn't care.
00:53:16And he's not gonna work at it.
00:53:20What have I got here?
00:53:23So you're applying for a job,
00:53:24but you don't know anything about us.
00:53:26And why would you want to work here?
00:53:29You don't even know that part either.
00:53:32You're just doing this interview like, okay.
00:53:34And they talk a good game.
00:53:36A lot of them.
00:53:37Wow.
00:53:41We have a great example of hiring an employee
00:53:44that was in a meeting that came in with four people,
00:53:48three, I'll call them suits,
00:53:50just to be kind to them, bankers, and another guy.
00:53:56And we asked questions.
00:53:59And by the end of the meeting,
00:54:01you had already decided who the best one was
00:54:04and why we should hire him.
00:54:06What did he do that made him stand out in your mind
00:54:09in the meeting?
00:54:11Oh, you're talking about John?
00:54:12Yes.
00:54:13Yeah, so.
00:54:16Could we walk out of there?
00:54:17This is, in a way, that's an unfair question.
00:54:20Here, I'll tell you why.
00:54:21Okay.
00:54:21Because I am Abbey normal.
00:54:26So I may not be the best,
00:54:28but I look at it this way.
00:54:29Are you straightforward?
00:54:31Are you honest?
00:54:32Are you gonna hide stuff?
00:54:34Are you just, here I am, this is me, right?
00:54:40If you do that, then my thought would be,
00:54:42okay, I can trust this guy.
00:54:44If you're gonna be weaselly and,
00:54:46well, I won't tell you that until I'm hired.
00:54:49And if you're gonna be all this other stuff,
00:54:53say yeah, because I don't need the politics.
00:54:55I don't need the drama.
00:54:58So I definitely look at people and say,
00:54:59am I gonna get drama here?
00:55:01If that's one of those things,
00:55:03I go, oh, God, no, please, no drama.
00:55:06So, because it'll wreck the whole place.
00:55:08It's not just one person.
00:55:10It'll wreck the whole place
00:55:11in terms of how everybody will start behaving.
00:55:15And the amount of time that that person,
00:55:17if you hire the right person, in his case,
00:55:20they can save you a massive amount of time
00:55:23because they answered your question.
00:55:25They didn't spend time dancing around it.
00:55:27Right, or giving me the line that they read in a book.
00:55:35If they started giving me that,
00:55:36then I go, look, I'm sure you're a nice guy and everything.
00:55:39I can't do it.
00:55:42I don't get an honest answer.
00:55:43I want the answer from an honest answer.
00:55:48I get that everywhere, even in interviews at times.
00:55:51I'll get questions where the interviewer
00:55:55is trying to look smart.
00:55:56Well, that's not an honest question.
00:55:58I got nothing.
00:56:01So, I go, ah, yeah.
00:56:03Right.
00:56:04Or one time, I'm sure you've had that before,
00:56:08where one guy goes on and on
00:56:10about asking questions from the audience.
00:56:12And I did say it, because I'm not polite.
00:56:14I said, was there a question in there somewhere?
00:56:16And everybody cracked up, but it was like, no.
00:56:21It's, do you have an honest question?
00:56:24That's probably a perfect segue to say
00:56:27that we would really like questions from people.
00:56:31And we would like them to write in
00:56:33to whether it's the website, the email, Twitter,
00:56:38whatever the different ways that we're gonna,
00:56:40all our socials, because we'd love to get their questions.
00:56:43So, it'll help create the content
00:56:45that we're gonna provide people.
00:56:46Right.
00:56:47And look, I mean, definitely not the smartest guy out there.
00:56:51However, most of our stuff, most of my stuff anyway.
00:56:55By the way, that was a Captain Obvious comment.
00:56:57But, nice, nice.
00:57:00Sorry.
00:57:03But, it'll be a different perspective.
00:57:07So, you can at least think of it from a different approach.
00:57:10You want at least two perspectives,
00:57:11not the rote MBA speak, or expert speak,
00:57:16or what everybody else does.
00:57:19You get to at least find something from practical,
00:57:26because in there, done that, almost everything.
00:57:28And I would take it one step further.
00:57:30You're gonna give it an honest thought.
00:57:33You're not gonna just give a rote answer.
00:57:35So, people are gonna get some thoughtful answers.
00:57:37Yeah.
00:57:38I don't have rote answers.
00:57:39It may not be the right thing.
00:57:41I don't have rote answers.
00:57:42And there's not, there's always more
00:57:43than one way to do everything.
00:57:45Right.
00:57:46But at least they'll get one perspective
00:57:49from a billionaire that they don't get every day.
00:57:52Right.
00:57:53And so, we'd like to ask everybody to write in.
00:57:55Yeah, yeah.
00:57:55I mean, to be straight, if somebody asks me a question,
00:58:01I don't know the answer.
00:58:02Mm-hmm.
00:58:03It's not a question I'm gonna take,
00:58:06because it doesn't make any sense.
00:58:07Why am I gonna talk about something
00:58:08I don't know anything about?
00:58:09If you say, well, how does nuclear fission work?
00:58:12I go, uh.
00:58:14You got me.
00:58:15Yeah.
00:58:16I might say, why?
00:58:20Why nuclear fission?
00:58:21Why not something better?
00:58:23But that's a very important question.
00:58:23That's a different, we won't get into that for now.
00:58:26We'll get into that later as to,
00:58:29a lot of the questions are wrong.
00:58:32So, you have to go one step before that and say, why?
00:58:36Why did you do that?
00:58:37Why do it at all?
00:58:41You know, and there's a ton of them.
00:58:43There's a ton of things that, as you know,
00:58:47you know, everything from you should hire people that are,
00:58:50there's some things in the world,
00:58:51which is, you should hire people in any position
00:58:54that are better than you.
00:58:55Mm-hmm.
00:58:56Yeah.
00:58:58But it doesn't always happen.
00:59:00You know, as an old saying, and this is not from India,
00:59:03this is from here, is that first-class people hire
00:59:07first-class people, and second-class people
00:59:09hire third-class people.
00:59:11Oh, interesting, okay.
00:59:13It's sort of like, if you're insecure about it,
00:59:18you'll hire people that are worse than you.
00:59:20Mm-hmm.
00:59:21If you're like, no, I want people smarter,
00:59:24people who, you know, I mean, in this case, as you know,
00:59:27people who make fun of me, you know, fine.
00:59:32You know, if they can figure out something smarter than me,
00:59:35I'm happier if I get corrected.
00:59:38And if you really think about it, you've saved time,
00:59:41you've made money, or whatever it happened to be,
00:59:42you can't move things forward.
00:59:44Right, and you have somebody that you can rely on,
00:59:47you know, at that point.
00:59:48So there's a lot of little, little things also
00:59:51that are, that you, that I know will say,
00:59:55where you're gonna say, oh, you know,
00:59:56I didn't think of that.
00:59:58You know, or, yeah, that's a different perspective.
01:00:01So, now, I can't say, I am not the smartest guy,
01:00:07I am not the smartest guy, but I can say
01:00:09that I have a lot of experience,
01:00:12and that we have built several businesses
01:00:16in completely different industries.
01:00:18None of them are tech, by the way.
01:00:20So, tech is a different animal.
01:00:24Sometimes it's, I don't like true technology companies
01:00:28because if somebody else comes up
01:00:31with a better technology, you're dead.
01:00:33They get out of tech, yeah.
01:00:34Well, you're dead.
01:00:35All of a sudden, you're, it's a rocket.
01:00:37Right.
01:00:38Didn't quite get past the atmosphere.
01:00:40It goes straight down, which is not happening yet,
01:00:44but it's kind of like what happened to NVIDIA's stock
01:00:47because somebody else came with a technology
01:00:51that was better.
01:00:52Now, you have people like Apple or whoever,
01:00:55they're really not, they're more services
01:00:58and appliance sales, and then they're based
01:01:02on such a large platform of users.
01:01:06Their distribution is bigger.
01:01:08So, they have different things that are,
01:01:10they're really not tech.
01:01:11I mean, to say tech is somebody who uses a computer,
01:01:14well, everybody uses computers.
01:01:15They're all tech companies.
01:01:17Yeah, it's silly.
01:01:19Yeah.
01:01:20So, the perspective have to be correct.
01:01:25I bought some stock that has been dumb,
01:01:27and I learned that, yeah, whatever.
01:01:31And then I looked at, you know, years ago,
01:01:32a few years ago, I looked at Apple
01:01:34and I was talking for 10 times, whatever,
01:01:37and they were growing.
01:01:39I go, this is an appliance company, not a tech company.
01:01:43It can't be dislodged by tech
01:01:45because it's an appliance company.
01:01:47It sells these appliances.
01:01:50Yeah, that's a good point.
01:01:51I got lucky on that one.
01:01:52I think it went up like 12 times since then.
01:01:58Well, in later discussions,
01:02:01we're gonna talk about how you break down
01:02:04the value of companies like you did with Exxon.
01:02:07And because certain companies,
01:02:10you have this tendency to think of them in one way.
01:02:13An example is Exxon is known as a petroleum company,
01:02:16but you also had a different perspective on them,
01:02:18which I thought was very fascinating.
01:02:20Yeah.
01:02:21Yeah, it's, again, back to the same thing,
01:02:25which is how do you evaluate risk?
01:02:27Right.
01:02:29Where if you don't understand the enemy
01:02:31on the other side, customer, vendor,
01:02:34even people you're gonna invest in, companies,
01:02:39if you don't understand them completely,
01:02:42then you're not investing.
01:02:44There's three grades, investing, speculation, and gambling.
01:02:48You could be just gambling at that point,
01:02:50which is, I mean, it's fun.
01:02:53Otherwise, Vegas wouldn't exist.
01:02:56But you have to know you're in Vegas.
01:02:58You're not in an investment world, you're in Vegas.
01:03:01And have fun.
01:03:02This Q&A podcast will cover investing do's and don'ts,
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01:03:18Please send in your questions,
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