REAL AF with Andy Frisella - Be An Ethical Entrepreneur, with Andy Frisella - MFCEO3

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, what's up? It's Andy Frisella. I'm here with the MFCEO Project Podcast.

00:00:14.200 A little about me. We're just getting going on the podcast, so I want to kind of let you guys

00:00:18.460 know if this is your first time listening, what I'm about. I started in business 16 years ago

00:00:24.120 with no money. We started a retail store. We lived in that first store for two years.

00:00:30.000 It took us eight months to have a day over $200. And 16 years later, our companies gross

00:00:37.280 over $100 million in gross revenue every single year. So we wanted to bring a message to you guys

00:00:44.660 that was different. Something that just tells the truth. We're not going to sit here and powder coat

00:00:50.180 things. We're not going to make it nice and fluffy and dreamy. We're going to tell you what the real

00:00:55.660 deal is. So I want to welcome my co-host here, Vaughn Kohler. Hey, I'm glad to be here. This is a

00:01:02.640 beautiful weekend. Yeah, it's like perfect weather here in St. Louis. Yeah, I've got lots of plans

00:01:08.760 for the next week because I'm batching it. Oh, you are? My wife's going on a conference and my

00:01:13.680 daughter's going with her, so I've got to figure out what I'm going to do with myself. Well, you were

00:01:19.660 going to get crazy and have all the girls over? Yeah, right. No, no, I don't think so. So what

00:01:25.960 are your plans? What are you going to do this weekend? I think I'm going to hit the farm, man.

00:01:31.280 We've got a farm about an hour away. I think what we're going to do is go out there and try to get

00:01:37.180 it cleaned up for the spring, which is more like relaxation for me than it is work. So you like

00:01:43.160 manual labor. Yeah, we do. Yeah, that's good. It's what I always did until I really got into

00:01:47.700 business. I poured concrete, did construction, painted the stripes on parking lots, which is a

00:01:56.260 lot harder job than what people realize. You push a 400-pound striper filled with paint across

00:02:01.420 asphalt all day in 100-degree heat. That's what you and Chris did in college? That's how we got the

00:02:05.380 money to start a company. Yeah. We were able to put together about 12 grand over the course of a

00:02:11.140 summer. And then during the fall, we made a business plan, and then we were able to open

00:02:18.720 our first business in January. That's awesome. Basically, the end of December, 99, January 1st,

00:02:26.740 2000, I think was our first day of business. So how does that work? When you do the striping,

00:02:32.000 are you a contract employee or are you an hourly employee for some company? Yeah, you work for a

00:02:37.160 company. Yeah. Yeah. So they go out and bid the job, and then you go and, you know, basically do

00:02:44.320 the mule work, which is, that job is one of the hardest things I've ever done. I've heard that

00:02:50.640 roofing is pretty hard, too. Yeah, roofing is definitely hard. I've not done it, but I know some

00:02:57.620 guys that do it. It's hard on you, and it's a tough job. And, you know, I respect anybody that works

00:03:03.100 like that for a living day in and day out, man. It's just a different kind of work. Yeah. You know?

00:03:08.960 Well, what are we talking about today? Today, you know, one of the things that I get a lot of

00:03:13.940 questions about and that I'm big on is doing the right thing. You know, a lot of people don't

00:03:19.860 really understand how important doing the right thing is in business. And in fact, I feel like a lot

00:03:24.620 of people think that to be successful in business and in life, it's about not doing the right thing.

00:03:32.000 It's about stepping on people. It's about, you know, taking advantage of people. And the reality

00:03:36.460 is, is I feel like that's a stereotype that's perpetuated on unfounded facts. You know, I've

00:03:45.160 had this lesson literally pounded into me from the time I was about five, six years old by my mom.

00:03:53.460 Um, I, uh, it's kind of funny because when I say literally pounded, I mean, literally pounded. Um,

00:04:01.500 we were grocery shopping at the local grocery store here. And I remember we were going down

00:04:06.920 the Kool-Aid aisle and I wanted to get, uh, mountain berry Kool-Aid. I remember the flavor

00:04:12.800 because that's, that's how severe, uh, the lesson was, was instilled in me. Um, it was mountain

00:04:18.520 berry, which I don't remember how good it was because I never actually got to try it.

00:04:24.600 It's pretty good. Is it? Yeah. Yeah. Cherry's a little bit over the top. It's a little too

00:04:28.800 sweet, but what is it like a mix of berries? Yeah. It's just really smooth. Yeah. Well,

00:04:33.400 I never got to try it. So this is, this is why, um, we were going down the Kool-Aid aisle

00:04:41.720 and I wanted to get some mountain berry and I said, you know, Hey mom, let me, let's get

00:04:44.940 mountain berry. And, and, uh, she said no. And I, you know, I went on and on and said,

00:04:50.180 Hey, you know, let's get mountain berry. Come on, mom, please. Let's get mountain berry. 0.97

00:04:54.100 No. No. Was there a reason that she didn't want you to, I like, we didn't really have,

00:04:58.440 uh, I'm assuming, I mean, we didn't have much money when we were younger. So like, um, I'm pretty

00:05:04.420 sure it was a financial thing. Unnecessary expenditure. Exactly. Yeah. And, uh, so anyway,

00:05:10.420 we didn't get it and I decided I wanted it anyway. So I actually just stole it. Um, I

00:05:15.460 put it in my pocket and then when we got home, I didn't think the whole thing all the way

00:05:19.040 through because I didn't know how to make Kool-Aid, you know? So when I got home and

00:05:24.700 I wanted to use the Kool-Aid, I had to have somebody make it. So I had to go to mom and

00:05:27.640 say, Hey mom, you know, make me some Kool-Aid. And, uh, when she saw that I took the Kool-Aid

00:05:32.760 home, uh, she unleashed the fire and brimstone of ass beatings upon me. Um, I had to go back.

00:05:41.360 I had to go in and return the Kool-Aid to the store. So you didn't just get in trouble.

00:05:46.040 Oh no. You had to actually make restitution. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We went right back to

00:05:49.800 the store. That's how she is, man. Do the right thing. Do the right thing. Do the right

00:05:52.880 thing. And that, that got, that's, that lesson was so, um, first of all, like I said, the

00:06:00.700 ass beating was enough to like make you remember, but then the embarrassment of, it's one of

00:06:05.760 my first memories, honestly, cause I was like right in that age where you start remembering

00:06:09.040 things. Right. And, um, you know, that was something I've always remembered and I'm 35

00:06:14.520 now. I still remember that like clear as day. Um, and I was lucky enough to have parents that

00:06:19.460 instilled, you know, do the right thing no matter what in me. And I, and, and I think how that

00:06:25.880 ties into the, to the subject we're talking about is how I feel about successful people

00:06:32.280 in business that I've been able to, you know, been fortunate enough to be surrounded with

00:06:35.960 and, and get to know and call friends. Um, the people who are truly successful understand

00:06:41.680 what that means in the business setting. And I want to basically go through some ideas

00:06:48.120 and some topics to, to break up that myth of, you know, you've got to step on people to get

00:06:54.740 ahead or you've got to, you've got to fuck people over. If you've got to do bad shit,

00:06:58.100 you know, to people or take advantage of people, it's just not the truth. That's what people

00:07:01.940 tell you or tell themselves for their lack of success. And it goes to something like,

00:07:08.420 you know, Oh, you know, I'd like to be blah, blah, blah, blah too, but I'm not willing to 0.59

00:07:13.520 step on people or I'm not willing to take advantage of people. And, you know, they have all these

00:07:18.500 stories based around, you know, it's not morally right to, to run a business or to be

00:07:24.540 successful. And it's just, it's just not the truth. Right. Cause the truth is, is you've got

00:07:28.620 to do the right thing for people to get to that point. Right. So I'm, I'm going to be a little bit

00:07:34.560 maybe too deep or philosophical, but obviously when you talk about doing the right thing,

00:07:39.700 the implication is that, uh, there is a moral right and wrong. And I know, you know, you get into like

00:07:46.360 philosophical writings and different people and they would say, well, you know, everybody's got their

00:07:52.160 truth and everybody's got their morality. But what you're saying is that deep down, everybody knows

00:07:56.500 that there is a right and wrong thing to do in a particular situation. Is that, I think people

00:08:01.080 know that. Yeah. I mean, you know, if you don't know that you're probably in jail, you know what I

00:08:08.300 mean? I think most people understand the concepts of right and wrong on a basic level, no matter how

00:08:13.320 much they pretend to or not understand those concepts. So how does that flesh that out then a

00:08:21.920 little bit? Cause I know you and I've talked about this and there's no question you, this is a drum

00:08:26.840 that you bang a lot, which is do the right thing in business. Right. So what, I mean, what does that

00:08:32.040 mean? You know, there's a number of different ways. I think what it comes down to is just always doing

00:08:37.640 what's right. You know, I'm a firm believer that, that what you put out comes back to you. Some people

00:08:43.080 call it karma. You know, I don't know what exactly, you know, I haven't studied karma or, or I just know

00:08:50.260 that what you put out comes back. And I feel like when you do the right thing for people, um, good

00:08:55.140 things happen. And I've, I've seen that with far too much in our own company. I've seen that far too

00:08:59.620 much in other people's companies to know that that's how you build great things, you know? And

00:09:06.060 I, it's something I live by something. I believe you may not believe it if you don't good for you,

00:09:11.920 but I can promise you this. Um, you're going to, you're going to be one of those people that the

00:09:17.340 bad shit's constantly happening to you. Right. You know? Right. So, uh, so social psychologists talk

00:09:23.360 about the law of reciprocity. I mean, they even talk about that within sales, you know, it's, it's the

00:09:28.640 whole thing of, you know, you give somebody something and there's sort of this innate human, uh,

00:09:36.060 we're hardwired to say, Oh, I I'm obligated to give back. So is that kind of what you're

00:09:40.840 talking about? There's, I mean, yeah, there's two aspects to it. I mean, that's, that's one

00:09:45.020 way to look at it. Right. Um, that's not necessarily the way I was speaking about it a moment ago,

00:09:50.760 but that's definitely one way to look at it. One way to look at it is, you know, Hey, if I treat

00:09:56.260 people right, I do good things, they're going to feel, you know, a sense of obligation or loyalty

00:10:03.100 to you to repay you for those good things. Um, I would say 90% of the people in the world

00:10:11.340 that I've come in contact with operate under that. Some people don't give a fuck, you know,

00:10:15.400 some people will just, just take, take, take. And, and, and I've had that happen to me a couple

00:10:21.060 of times, you know, um, in business and those people don't work here anymore. Right. But I feel

00:10:27.040 like if you're going to build a great culture, um, which you might be starting out, you might be a

00:10:31.460 one man operation, but the reality is, is if you're not focusing on your management skills,

00:10:37.520 now you're going to have a very, uh, hard knocks learning lesson about how to manage people and

00:10:42.440 build a team, uh, slash culture within your business. And you, the reality is you can't do

00:10:48.840 it alone. Right. I mean, you can only do so much work and if you have a good team behind you, you can

00:10:53.620 accomplish a much more. And if you want to have a good team, you've got to treat them right.

00:10:57.020 Otherwise they're going to come to work and show up for a paycheck instead of come to work and,

00:11:01.620 and basically go to battle with you to accomplish something great. Right. But your, your general

00:11:06.540 experience in life is that if you, if you put, if you engage people in a positive way,

00:11:11.820 that's what you're going to get back. Yeah, I think so. I mean, what do you think?

00:11:15.960 Yeah, I think so. I agree with what you say. There are some people that are just total losers.

00:11:20.380 Yeah. Um, and it doesn't matter if you're, you know, to use a poker reference, if you're,

00:11:24.960 if you're an ace and they're a joker, it's still a bad hand, but, but yeah, I think generally

00:11:29.920 speaking, if you treat people well, they're going to treat you. I've had a few, I've had

00:11:32.920 a few that I can count on one hand over the course of 16 years that have worked for us

00:11:37.220 that didn't, they don't care what you do for them. They don't care how you treat them.

00:11:41.660 They're going to take, take, take, and, and they're going to try to, to do whatever selfishly

00:11:47.200 benefits them. And those people get weeded out. The thing about those people is, is they,

00:11:50.960 they're going to fuck you over. Then they're going to fuck the next guy over. Then they're

00:11:53.460 going to fuck that next guy over. Yeah. And eventually they're not going to have anybody

00:11:56.540 and they're, and they're going to be sitting at home, you know, basically wondering what

00:12:01.980 the fuck happened to themselves. Right. You know, I think another way of looking at it

00:12:05.320 is that you, you, you mentioned, you know, do you call it karma? What do you call it?

00:12:10.000 But we are all on some level connected. You're a country music fan, aren't you?

00:12:15.480 Yeah. What's that song? I don't know if we're going to figure out what the name of the song

00:12:19.000 is, but there's some song where it basically starts out with somebody doing something to

00:12:22.480 somebody else. And the whole song is like this cause and effect. It's a great song. I don't

00:12:27.280 know. I think it's Brad Paisley or somebody sings it. But anyway, anyway, the point being

00:12:31.340 is that. I mean, every, every country song is what it's about losing your dog, getting

00:12:35.720 drunk or losing your girlfriend. Right. Right. Big trucks. But the idea is that, yeah, I mean,

00:12:40.560 what goes around comes around. If you, if you treat somebody well, hopefully that's going

00:12:45.020 to be what comes back to you. But so that's, that's your, that's your basic principle in

00:12:49.660 life. Yeah. How you operate. Yeah, for sure. And I think in business, I, you know, I've

00:12:55.440 seen it too, too many times, you know, you have a guy who looks for every opportunity to

00:13:01.300 take from his employees or take from his customers as opposed to give. Okay. Those are always the

00:13:09.580 guys that are struggling in business. They're always the guys, you know, who can never really

00:13:13.600 get it going. I mean, they operate on a breakeven level. They, they barely get by, you know,

00:13:20.080 they might be in business quote unquote, but they're not succeeding in business. Right. And

00:13:25.360 those are always the guys that are looking, you know, to like figure out how to screw their

00:13:29.180 employee out of his commission or, you know, not take care of the customer when he has a

00:13:34.400 problem. They're doing all these things to like save a penny today, you know, and it costs

00:13:39.540 them millions tomorrow. And you have to look at it from the opposite point of view, you

00:13:45.520 know, the successful people, the businesses that grow and have abundant, gigantic, huge

00:13:52.800 success. They look at their employees and they say, Hey, how can I help this guy become a better

00:13:59.460 employee? How can I help him have less worries at home? How can I make this easier for him?

00:14:04.040 You know, they become a servant leader to their, to their staff and it's the same for their

00:14:09.220 customers. You know, um, when a customer has an issue, they, they don't just resolve the

00:14:14.600 issue and they definitely don't do it begrudgingly. They do it with enthusiasm. They're happy to

00:14:19.860 take care of customers. It's about losing the attitude that everybody's trying to like take

00:14:23.740 from you, which is kind of ironic because you know, the people who have that attitude are

00:14:30.060 the same ones that are trying to take from everybody else. So it's like, you know, you've

00:14:33.820 got to change your mindset, right? You know, if you have a tremendous customer service policy

00:14:38.680 and you're, it's costing you money, you have to look at that as an investment in customers,

00:14:43.500 not as like, Hey, I lost five bucks today because I went above and beyond for this customer.

00:14:48.700 You know, what's that customer going to say about your company when he leaves, right?

00:14:52.000 You know, and those all come down to doing the right things, you know?

00:14:56.160 Now, you know, I don't necessarily want to challenge you on this, but I mean, I think you would

00:15:01.400 agree though, that there are guys out there who are totally shady, who, who totally mistreat

00:15:08.460 their, their employees, who the only thing that motivates them is money, not people.

00:15:14.700 And they make a lot of money. So it's possible to do it, to be shady. Yes.

00:15:19.180 I mean, yeah, it is, you know, there is aspects to business that I feel like people that don't

00:15:26.240 really give a shit about anything but themselves can be successful. And I mean, you know, um,

00:15:30.820 the financial sector is one of them, you know, look at the collapse they've had, uh, over the

00:15:36.200 last five, six, seven years. And you know, those are guys, you know, that's almost like a perfect

00:15:42.840 example of it. You know, how much, how many of those guys got fired, how many of them got

00:15:46.220 prosecuted, you know, it's a very selfish money driven thing, but, um, I don't think

00:15:51.720 that's most people that we're going to listen to this podcast, you know, are there exceptions

00:15:56.000 to anything that I say? Absolutely. Right. Always will be, you know, I'm just kind of speaking

00:16:00.020 from my own experience. Um, I feel like those people also, you may be able to make a lot of

00:16:07.940 money in a very short term, but I think eventually, you know, those people, as they climb the ladder

00:16:13.020 of success, the people at the top are not the people that have been the most selfish. They're

00:16:16.540 the people who have gave the most, you know, there's, and those people will recognize those

00:16:21.560 qualities that are negative and they don't do business with people like that. So there's a

00:16:25.480 ceiling to where you get, you know, I mean, you look at guys that have, let's say the top of the

00:16:31.640 financial ladder, Bill Gates, one of the most, uh, philanthropic people on earth, you know,

00:16:39.020 Warren Buffett, same thing. You know, you look at these guys who are just massively huge, wealthy,

00:16:46.440 their companies have some of the best, um, employee benefits programs. They have some of

00:16:52.080 the best pay, right? Okay. They have some of the best cultures. They give some of the,

00:16:56.760 they give most, they give the most money away. Yeah. I mean, you've got to be able to connect

00:17:01.720 the dots there. Yeah, I agree. I mean, it's a, I think Starbucks was one of the first companies

00:17:07.100 to offer their hourly employees insurance. That's right. I could be wrong. Yeah. And that's

00:17:11.540 why when you go into Starbucks, every single person is smiling and happy that you're there.

00:17:15.640 Yeah. You know, as opposed to being standing in the back room and saying, fuck man, there's a

00:17:21.520 customer. I don't really want to wait on him. You go wait on him. Yeah. You know, it's different.

00:17:25.740 It's a different mentality. Yeah. And you've got to trust that people are going to reciprocate

00:17:29.860 for the most part. I mean, are you going to have people that are going to dick you over? Yeah. It's

00:17:34.240 going to fucking happen, man. But you can't change your whole business to cater to that

00:17:40.240 small percentage of people and then treat the 90% of the people that are great and want

00:17:46.480 to be great. Like they're trying to take something from you. And that's where people really mess

00:17:51.620 up. They like get jaded by a bad experience or on the customer side, they get upset because

00:17:57.820 they ran into that one customer who's trying to take advantage of them. And then they create

00:18:01.200 this policy that, you know, basically says without saying that all customers are trying

00:18:08.200 to take advantage. When in reality, most customers just want their issue solved. Right. You know,

00:18:13.800 they like you, they just had an issue and they're bringing it to your attention. Right. A lot

00:18:17.380 of times customers bring it to bring issues to your attention because they care about you.

00:18:20.640 So if you treat that person has brought an issue to you because they care about your business

00:18:27.780 and they're, they're, they're trying to do the right thing and you treat them like they're

00:18:30.440 trying to fucking scam you. Think what that's going to do to your business over time. Yeah.

00:18:35.420 You know, and that comes, those principles come down to doing what's right. You know? Um,

00:18:41.420 I mean, I, I've heard some crazy shit in like business, man, even just like locally here where,

00:18:46.560 where I'm from, where, you know, somebody's grandma dies and they give them like one day off.

00:18:52.940 Right. You know, like why not like let that person just take care of their, their, their issues and

00:18:58.200 come back when they're ready. I mean, there's just things that don't really matter that people

00:19:03.120 assume are lies. You know what I mean? Like, you know, I, I, like, like some of these guys that

00:19:12.420 own businesses, Oh, that guy's want an extra day off. Cause he's trying to take advantage of me.

00:19:16.080 And that might be true, but most people will not take advantage of you on that, on that. You know what I

00:19:20.680 mean? If you're doing the right thing consistently, they're going to say, Oh man, you know, Andy's a

00:19:24.940 good dude. He let me come back when I want, you know, I'm going to try to get back to work right

00:19:29.060 away. Right. Whereas if you always are treating them like shit and trying to take something from

00:19:32.180 them, you know, customers or employees, they're going to do the same to you. Right. They're going

00:19:37.440 to say, fuck, I'm going to take an extra day off. Cause I don't want to be around that prick.

00:19:40.140 Right. So I heard probably the most comical, but also just insane story the other day,

00:19:46.140 a young woman that I know, she was going for a job interview and at the interview they were

00:19:50.300 meeting at St. Louis bread company. And at the interview, the potential future employer,

00:19:56.000 actually this happened several months ago. Uh, the potential future employer said, um,

00:20:01.700 Hey, I'm not going to get you a drink cause I don't really have it as part of my budget.

00:20:08.280 Not going to get you a drink.

00:20:09.460 Meaning, meaning when they sat, when they met for the interview at St. Louis bread company,

00:20:14.160 company, the future employer actually said, Hey, I'm not going to buy you a drink cause I

00:20:18.540 don't have it in my budget. What's that say about your business? Well, as this,

00:20:23.960 as this young woman pointed out, she said, I was a fool because I should have known better

00:20:29.400 three months later. It's like the worst boss she's ever had. She took the job. Yeah. She

00:20:33.220 took the job. She took the job. So I mean, yeah, but, uh, in any case, so the way that you would

00:20:42.560 describe that then would be, uh, just to kind of summarize what you're saying, give what you want

00:20:47.680 to get. Yeah. And people, people choose to not believe that as truth. They choose to believe that,

00:20:53.720 you know, it doesn't matter. There's no karma. I'm not going to get back what I give. So I'm going to,

00:20:59.100 I'm going to do whatever the fuck I have to do today for me. Right. And dude, that's a very

00:21:04.420 selfish way to look at it. And when you look at it that way and you choose to believe that that's

00:21:09.620 the way it is, that's what you're going to get back, man. And it's almost like a self-fulfilling

00:21:13.760 prophecy because other people see you as selfish. They see the decisions you make as selfish. You

00:21:19.600 become labeled as selfish and somebody who looks out for themselves and then nobody wants to fucking 0.91

00:21:24.620 work with you or for you or buy from you. Yeah. You know, so you have two options. You can either do

00:21:32.560 the right fucking thing and people can look at you and see you in a way of a generous, caring, loyal

00:21:37.980 employer, business owner, or you could be a fucking asshole and always look out for yourself and 0.91

00:21:45.040 nobody will ever work for you. No customers will ever feel grateful to have you as a business,

00:21:49.800 whatever it is you do, and people will avoid you. And the people who make it in business choose the

00:21:56.940 first path. The people who get by in business choose the second path. And I'm not talking about,

00:22:01.880 I'm talking about everything. I'm not talking about one little thing like, oh, I give my

00:22:09.120 employees insurance. I'm talking about everything that you do. Right. You know, everything that you

00:22:13.940 do, you have a chance to do the right thing or the thing that probably benefits you today. Right. And

00:22:19.920 you have to be able to become, make doing the right thing a lifestyle. It's not a decision that you make

00:22:27.940 on a case by case basis. It's a mentality that you adopt, you know, do the right fucking thing,

00:22:34.520 man. That's what it comes down to. Whether it's helping, um, you know, an older lady cross the street,

00:22:40.660 helping somebody get groceries in their car, they're struggling, you know, sweeping the floor when it

00:22:46.980 needs to be fucking swept, emptying the trash can when it needs to be emptied. I mean, we're talking

00:22:51.520 about basic shit. Right. But you know, most people, when you, when you think about like, what it takes

00:22:58.760 to be a quote unquote, good person. And I realize, you know, people are like, well, what taking out

00:23:02.820 trash doesn't make you a good person. You know, it actually, in my opinion, I think it does because

00:23:07.660 it shows that you're willing to just do the right thing. And it also shows that to, to an employer that

00:23:12.500 this guy does what needs to be done. It's, it's a, it's a little bitty thing that shows that you

00:23:16.780 care. You know what I mean? Absolutely. And the problem I feel like with the do the right thing

00:23:24.940 mentality is that so many people are brought up under parents beliefs of, you know, maybe a guy

00:23:32.020 has a shitty boss, you know, and he's so beat down by that boss that he comes home from work and the,

00:23:38.400 and the little kid, you know, who's growing up, all he ever hears is, you know, successful people

00:23:43.280 step on everybody. And you know, I'm not going to fucking do that. Cause I don't get paid to do

00:23:48.380 that and blah, blah, blah. You know, and they have all these negative things that come home,

00:23:51.960 that come home for years and years and years. And they adopt that mentality. I'm not, I'm not

00:23:56.340 going to take out the trash cause that's not part of my job description. Well, dude, if that's your

00:24:00.100 fucking opinion, if that's the way you operate, you are never going to make it in life. Right. It will

00:24:04.780 never fucking happen. Right. It just won't. Right. You know, like, dude, if you're not willing to do

00:24:10.940 the little things, if you're not willing to put attention to detail, if you're not willing to take

00:24:14.940 pride in the things that you do on a daily basis, no matter how fucking small that is, dude, you're 0.88

00:24:21.260 never going to make it. Right. It's not going to happen. So I, to me, those things tie into like

00:24:26.980 doing the right thing. You know, what's something else, what's something else that you would

00:24:30.540 talk about in terms of doing the right thing? You say, you talked about, we're fleshing this out.

00:24:37.100 We're fleshing out what you mean by doing the right thing. You talked about giving what you want to get,

00:24:40.160 putting it, I mean, you kind of added just now, putting in a really solid effort. Right. Well,

00:24:46.000 it's just doing what needs to be done. You know, those things kind of go together. You know, like

00:24:49.940 here's where the, like an example of like doing the right thing. It's five o'clock. All right. And

00:24:57.540 you're getting ready to leave work and you say, Oh man, I got to go to the bathroom real quick. You go

00:25:01.640 to the bathroom, the trash can in the bathroom is just like overflowing. Okay. There's two things you

00:25:08.420 can do. You can look at the trash can and say, Oh, fuck it. I'll leave it here for somebody else to 0.73

00:25:13.980 get it. Or you could just do it. Right. Right. Because it needs to be done. Right. What do most

00:25:21.600 people do? It's at the end of the day, they just want to get out of there. Right. Yeah. And I feel

00:25:27.360 like that's why most people struggle financially. And I feel like that's why most people live in an

00:25:31.960 average home, drive an average car. I feel like that's why most people are buried in debt

00:25:36.280 because it reflects the fact that they're not willing to do the small things perfectly that

00:25:43.880 need to be done. And the things that need to be done in business are usually fall under the guise of

00:25:48.960 quote unquote, doing the right thing. You know, it's taking fucking pride in what you do. Yeah.

00:25:55.040 You know, and, and that's, that's something I believe in. It's something that, you know,

00:25:59.900 our culture is built on here. And I think all great businesses are built upon, you know,

00:26:04.560 you don't walk into Zappos or Amazon or Google and find people that don't fucking care about the 0.83

00:26:11.680 company, you know, that, that hide under their desk when there's something to be done, man.

00:26:15.840 You think that Steve jobs walked into Apple and said, Hey man, you know, I need a, I need three

00:26:23.160 volunteers to go sweep the parking lot. You don't think that every motherfucker in there would jump 0.99

00:26:26.460 up and go do that. Right. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Greatness is built on, man. We're

00:26:30.640 talking about basic shit. Absolutely. You know, and people just don't have pride in doing those

00:26:36.460 things. And, and so, you know, we're getting a little off track because we're talking about

00:26:40.040 doing the right thing and coming back to you. But, but what does that say about you and you're

00:26:45.460 willing to do those small things in your career? You know what I mean? Yeah, no, it, it makes total

00:26:51.520 sense. It gets noticed. And people like to tell themselves all these little lies about, you know,

00:26:55.620 Oh, I'm not going to do that because he's not going to notice. And no, I'm not going to do that

00:26:58.740 because so-and-so won't notice. Dude, your job and your career, whether it be an entrepreneur or

00:27:04.240 whether it be somebody who's working inside a company or whether it be somebody who is, um,

00:27:10.500 you know, just trying to, to get by, um, is to do it the best that you can, you know, create the

00:27:18.580 most value in yourself that you possibly can. And if you're somebody working up in a company,

00:27:24.100 your, your mentality shouldn't be, Oh, I'm not going to do those things because so-and-so is

00:27:29.860 not going to appreciate it. It should be, dude, I'm going to do so fucking much that they can't

00:27:33.240 afford. They cannot afford to not have me. Right. You see what I'm saying? Right. Absolutely.

00:27:39.380 Well, I, you know, you mentioned getting off track. I don't, I don't, I don't really think

00:27:42.480 we are getting off track because you talked to, we're talking about doing the right thing.

00:27:45.140 The first thing you said is give what you want to get. The second thing you said is essentially

00:27:49.020 do the best possible job you can do. That is, that is one of the things that I'm, I'm kind of

00:27:54.860 curious about though. And, and tell me if you don't want to go this direction, but as a, as a

00:27:59.140 multimillion dollar company, part of a huge part of that is your marketing. Right. Right. And I,

00:28:04.400 you know, I know Seth Godin has the, has the book that, you know, I think it's a tongue in cheek

00:28:08.520 title, but it's all marketers are liars. Right. Right. Well, I mean, talk about that,

00:28:13.220 Andy, because what does it mean for you and, and first form and in your personal business,

00:28:17.900 what does it mean to do the right thing in marketing? Well, for, first off, I think he

00:28:25.500 changed that book to all marketers or storytellers. Is that right? Or the one was the first title,

00:28:32.140 but regardless, I've read that book. Yeah. So the book's title is, is the book's title is a little

00:28:36.920 misleading. Yeah. It's, it's meant to get you to like put your eyes on the book. Right.

00:28:41.500 Um, basically, doesn't it actually have like an X over the liar? I don't remember. Yeah. I read

00:28:46.280 that book three or four years ago. Yeah. But the point of the book is not that all marketers are

00:28:51.820 liars. It's not like this tattletale book. The point of the book is teach you how to market.

00:28:56.300 Right. Okay. And crafting a story around your brand is what's interesting to people. You know,

00:29:03.680 people don't want to just buy your product. The book is about how to create fans of your product

00:29:13.000 as opposed to just people buy your product. That sounds like a future podcast episode.

00:29:18.640 Yeah. I mean, Oh, for sure. I can talk about that for a long time. If you haven't read Seth Godin's

00:29:22.600 books, I mean, every single one of them is solid gold. Yeah. I mean, the guy's, the guy's just,

00:29:26.960 he's genius. Yeah. Um, but that's a great book. I don't know. You know, I think that here's the

00:29:35.100 reality. This is one of the greatest things about social media. Social media forces you to tell the

00:29:41.440 truth if you're marketing, because if you don't guess what happens, people find out. Right. You

00:29:47.360 know, it used to be 30 years ago before the internet, before social media, before anything,

00:29:52.820 dude, if you fuck somebody over in business, you know, they might tell a few people, but 0.58

00:29:58.200 the chances of it getting out to everybody are very small. So companies cared less. You know what

00:30:04.380 I mean? Right. But now you have, everybody's got a platform. Okay. And you don't know who has what

00:30:09.700 platform. You don't know who has a great platform, who has a small platform. It doesn't really matter

00:30:15.080 because if somebody sees something from somebody that has a small following that has a big following

00:30:20.120 and shares it, people are going to know. Right. So social media has improved business. I feel like

00:30:26.700 and it's kind of funny because the good companies, the companies doing the right thing, embrace social

00:30:33.620 media and love it. And, and the companies that don't do the right thing, they, they fucking hate

00:30:38.620 social media. You know what I mean? Cause it works for you or against you. Yeah. So it magnifies who you

00:30:44.340 are. Exactly. Yeah. So, um, you know, people can't lie anymore. If you lie in your marketing,

00:30:53.200 people are going to find out and they're going to find out today. They're not going to find out

00:30:56.540 six months from now. They're not going to find out two years from now. They're going to find out

00:31:00.640 today. You know, it's easy for me to post something online and have people all over the world,

00:31:04.980 see it instantly. Right. Which means your product has to be good, which means you have to treat people

00:31:10.260 good, which means you have to have great service. You know, the business world is changing. It's,

00:31:15.680 it's the days of having a huge advertising budget and throwing shit out there on TV and cable and

00:31:22.540 radio and then sales pouring in. It's not going to be that anymore. It's going to be,

00:31:27.480 how good do you make your products? How good is your service? Right. How good are your employees?

00:31:33.900 How much, how do, how well do you treat your employees? You see what I'm saying? Right. Absolutely.

00:31:38.080 It's, it's, it's made, it's made everything transparent, you know, and it's, and if you're

00:31:45.140 not authentic, like, and what I mean by that is if you're not who you say you are and it's going to

00:31:50.320 show. Right. You know, and if that shows people are not going to be attracted to your brand. Right.

00:31:55.340 You know, so if you, if you're one of these guys who treats your employees like shit, but stands out

00:31:58.780 in public and acts like you love them, dude, people are going to find a fuck. They're going to find out

00:32:02.680 and you're, you're going to have a bad reputation instantly. Right. You know?

00:32:06.880 So in terms of telling the truth and being honest and not lying to people and that being part of what

00:32:12.740 it means to do the right thing. Um, I know you have told me before, because I know that anybody who's

00:32:18.140 selling products, like your, your company sells products, anybody telling, selling products,

00:32:22.700 I'm sure is on some level tempted to exaggerate the results or the benefits. But I know you've told me

00:32:29.280 before that when, when a, when a guy or a girl, whoever, when a guy or girl comes into, to a

00:32:35.360 supplement superstore, uh, branch and wants to do all this, you know, accomplish all this stuff,

00:32:44.260 you know, like get, get big and lose a bunch of weight. You, you kind of put them through a battery

00:32:48.440 of questions and if, and you, you, there are situations in which you'll actually turn them

00:32:52.800 away or discourage them from buying things. So talk about that because it goes against like

00:32:57.840 every business principle there possibly is. But the reality is, is that it's too easy for people

00:33:02.820 to find out the truth now. Okay. So you can't lie to them. So whereas like we're in the supplement

00:33:07.640 business, if you weren't aware, um, I mean, we own a number of companies, but the companies that we

00:33:12.900 show publicly are nutrition, sports supplements. There used to be a time where people would advertise

00:33:18.560 for fat burning, quote unquote, fat burning products. And they'd say, Oh, you don't have to do

00:33:23.320 anything. Don't judge your diet. And you lose two, three, four, five pounds a week, blah, blah, blah.

00:33:27.520 Well, that's fucking bullshit. Right. And, and it's too easy to find that out. If there was a

00:33:32.100 product that did that, everybody would know about it. Okay. And every person that comes in for weight

00:33:37.960 loss knows that that is the truth in their heart. Can products help? Absolutely. Are there, are there

00:33:46.780 products that scientifically proven to help increase calorie expenditure and more fat? Yes, absolutely.

00:33:52.500 But if you're not following a good diet, they're not going to work. Right. So you have to question,

00:33:56.620 okay. And this is a big problem with a lot of settlement companies. They want the sale today.

00:34:00.960 So they'll tell people what they want to hear to sell today. Right. But you have to adjust your

00:34:05.140 thinking. Your thinking should be, what is the long-term result that's going to come of this?

00:34:14.160 And if you think that way, it becomes very easy for you to understand that you, there is much more

00:34:20.380 benefit for your company to solve whatever your customer's problem is, whether that be in our

00:34:25.600 business, somebody who's wanting to lose weight or get in shape, or somebody who wants a tire on

00:34:31.560 their car, that's going to last 50,000 miles. Right. So instead of worrying about that customer

00:34:36.660 and telling them, yes, that tire is going to last 50,000 miles and selling them a 20,000 mile tire

00:34:41.820 today, what's he going to do at the end of that 50,000? Right.

00:34:47.780 You know, what's that conversation going to be? You know, that your goal should be to own the

00:34:51.700 conversation of, Hey, um, where'd you get your, where'd you get your tires at? And the guy says,

00:34:57.620 Oh man, you know, I went over to Vaughn's tire shop. That guy always tells me the truth, man. He,

00:35:02.060 he, he sold me a pair of $50,000 tires. They last 70,000 miles. Okay. You see what I'm saying?

00:35:08.880 Yeah. So the word of mouth that you're, you're trying to control, um, needs to be long-term

00:35:16.040 oriented. And when you, when you think long-term you're, you're much better suited to solve the,

00:35:21.460 to solve the problems that creates positive word of mouth, people become happy, your business grows.

00:35:27.080 So is that doing the right thing? I think it is. Yeah. Yeah. You know, people cut every

00:35:32.980 fucking business on earth. It's, it's designed to do one thing. It's assault a problem. Yeah.

00:35:37.360 That's it. It's still pretty amazing to me. I mean, I, I don't know why I'm amazed by it,

00:35:42.640 but the idea that, you know, somebody comes in to a supplement store, you have the potential of

00:35:47.960 selling hundreds of dollars in supplements and you're going to tell them, dude, the reality is

00:35:53.520 if you don't eat right and you don't exercise, these aren't going to help you at all.

00:35:57.920 That's the truth. Yeah. It's the truth. But, uh, I gotta tell you, I've gone in, I mean,

00:36:03.340 I've never had a weight problem, but I, I've gone into other supplement stores before and

00:36:07.120 that's, they don't even get it. Yeah. But the thing, yeah, but here's not yours. I know,

00:36:11.020 but here's the thing. You sell that person at $300 today, right? $400. That person goes

00:36:18.500 home, doesn't get results. Right. When that conversation comes up about weight loss, which

00:36:25.700 it comes up for people who have weight problems, you know, almost on a weekly, probably a couple

00:36:31.000 times a week basis. Do you want that person to say, Hey, I went there and that, and they didn't

00:36:35.740 help me or I went there and that what they told me didn't work. Or do you want that person to say,

00:36:39.740 Hey, I went in there and I tried to buy shit and they told me to not buy shit until I got my diet

00:36:44.880 right. Those guys, you go in there, they're going to really help you. They cared about me. You see

00:36:48.800 that? Yeah. It's a different conversation. Absolutely. So what would you rather have for

00:36:52.680 your business? Oh, the, the, they cared about me enough to turn me away because that's how people

00:36:57.100 buy. People don't buy because of advertising. People buy because of word of mouth. Okay. There's science

00:37:05.160 out there that shows that, that the, the companies that advertise on the Superbowl don't sell one

00:37:10.160 extra unit for those ads. Not one. Wow. How, dude, you, you drink beer. I do. Okay. Well,

00:37:17.460 not anymore. Cause I'm gluten free. All right. Pastor Vaughn, Pastor Vaughn drinks beer. All right.

00:37:23.140 So here's the deal. Vodka is really bad. All right. Let's pretend you still drink beer. Okay.

00:37:26.980 All right. Budweiser, $30 million on Superbowl campaign. Yeah. Did you buy any extra Budweiser

00:37:33.520 because you saw those ads? I did not. All right. So I did not. Why are they spending that money

00:37:40.100 doing that? Well, I do like the horses. Oh yeah. They're cool. Yeah. But that's not resulting

00:37:45.320 in sales. You know, I would say if I, my point in saying this is this, my point is, is that

00:37:49.600 that's not why people buy. Right. You have to think about the conversation that creates opportunity

00:37:55.380 for your company or your coal or your anything to be brought up. And the only way to control those

00:38:00.220 conversations is to do the right fucking thing. Right. That's the point. That's how we're

00:38:05.140 tying this all together. So if you don't do the right thing by your customers, you don't

00:38:09.180 do the right thing by your employees. Let's take two conversations. Let's take the employee.

00:38:13.660 We just talked about the customer conversation. The customer conversation becomes, Hey, um,

00:38:18.240 I'm thinking about getting some new tires from where should I go? And they're going to say,

00:38:23.640 fuck, do you go see Vaughn? That guy, he tells me the truth. Right. Or they're going to say,

00:38:27.340 Hey, go see Andy at, at, at, uh, the supplement superstore, you know, or first form because he's

00:38:32.600 not going to bullshit me. Right. People feel comfortable because you're telling the truth.

00:38:36.160 But let's take that from the employee standpoint. You need good employees to grow, right? You have

00:38:40.900 to have it. Right. And the hardest resource for companies to find is good employees. Right.

00:38:45.520 So how do you find good employees? Well, people hear about companies that treat them well,

00:38:51.680 I guess. Exactly. Yeah. Your company, your, your employees go out into public in their lives

00:38:57.420 and they say one of two things. They say, I love my job. I love what I do. My boss is the

00:39:03.560 man. He takes care of me. He cares about what's going on. It's fun. Or they say, dude, this place

00:39:08.740 fucking sucks. I hate my job. I can't wait for this next blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right.

00:39:12.960 That's it. Right. So you're talking about sales and you're talking about manpower. Both are controlled.

00:39:18.440 The conversations are controlled by doing the right thing. Right. Right. You see what I'm saying?

00:39:23.160 Yeah. I mean, it makes a lot of sense. But you've got to tie it all together mentally. And like,

00:39:26.320 I don't care what you say. You, I don't care what you say, who you are or anything. You will never

00:39:31.940 be able to convince me otherwise. So yes, that's my opinion. But here's the reality. If you don't do

00:39:36.940 the right fucking thing by your customers, you don't do the right fucking thing by your employees, 0.98

00:39:40.020 you're not going to be successful. It's not going to happen. You've got to do the right thing.

00:39:43.980 You've got to treat people right. And if you don't, you're going to be broke. Period.

00:39:47.560 Right. Okay. So playing devil's advocate, what if a guy says, listen, I mean, on some level,

00:39:51.960 I understand what you're saying, Andy, but I pay all my employees extremely generously.

00:39:58.160 That's really all I owe them.

00:40:02.340 I, you know, I think people are short sighted in thinking that. I think that you've got to give

00:40:08.820 your employees sense of purpose. You've got to, you know, those, those employees, if that's all

00:40:13.300 you value in your, in your employment opportunity is money, then you're going to have people,

00:40:21.120 you're training your people to always look for the next best thing that offers them $1 more than

00:40:25.500 what you're paying. You see what I'm saying? Absolutely. So if you don't treat them well,

00:40:32.540 like, can you take the, you, I think what you're saying is taking the perspective of,

00:40:36.820 I pay them to do a job, they better do it. And I overpay them to do the job so I can mistreat them.

00:40:41.580 Right. Right. Because like a lot of people think that a lot of, I see a lot of guys thinking that.

00:40:45.100 Yeah. It's kind of, it's kind of like the guy that beats his wife, but occasionally gives her

00:40:49.560 flowers. Yeah. Or buys her a Mercedes. Or buys her a Mercedes. Oh, well I can beat her up. 1.00

00:40:53.320 And she stays. Exactly. It doesn't buy you the opportunity to mistreat your employees. Right.

00:40:58.360 And a lot of people think that they say, Oh, I overpay them. That means I'm going to overwork them.

00:41:02.580 Right. That means I'm going to treat them like shit and blah, blah, blah. But the reality is, is dude,

00:41:07.160 people care more about their purpose and about what they're doing and about the way they're treated

00:41:13.260 and about what their company stands for. Then they care about money. That's just the truth. Yeah.

00:41:18.960 And the reason is, and the re and this is where people fuck up like that are because CEOs,

00:41:24.320 I speak for a fair amount of CEOs. Most of them are very financially motivated. I am as well.

00:41:32.880 Okay. I'm not going to be the guy that sits here and says, Oh yeah, I, I'm in business and you know,

00:41:38.820 I don't care about making money. No, I fucking care about making money, but I've just learned that the

00:41:43.140 way that you make money is by doing Pete, the right by people, every fucking chance that you get

00:41:49.540 right. Creating the most value you can for people. Now, if you're one of these people who thinks, Oh,

00:41:54.820 I'm going to pay a guy who's worth 40 grand a year. I'm going to pay him 80. I'm going to treat him

00:41:57.900 like shit. That guy, that guy has the guy in that position. It's going to get so sick of coming to

00:42:03.860 work that it becomes torturous and miserable to where the point he's considering like killing

00:42:08.560 himself. He will leave and go back to a $40,000 job. I've seen it not in our company, but I've seen

00:42:14.240 it plenty of times. Right. You know, I've, I've had friends that have left great jobs to come work

00:42:18.320 at a better work environment. You know, if you don't create a good work environment and a good work

00:42:23.060 environment comes from doing the things that you can for your employees, quote unquote, doing the right

00:42:27.360 thing, you don't create that. There's too many other companies out there creating that they're

00:42:32.080 going to attract all the good employees. You're going to be left with the guys who only care about

00:42:34.880 money and they're going to fuck you just as bad as you fucked up. Don't you think it works the other 0.79

00:42:38.920 way too? I think people are very tempted. I know I've done it. I took a, I took a job, even though in

00:42:45.540 my heart, I knew that the guy that I was about to work for probably wasn't a great guy, but I took the

00:42:50.800 job because it promised a $20,000 increase in my salary. And boy, was that a mistake. And isn't it true that on

00:42:56.940 the flip side? I mean, on the one hand, you have the owners who think if they just pay people more,

00:43:01.040 they can, you know, treat them terribly. But then the other hand is people think, well,

00:43:06.140 I could deal with more because I'm making more. Right. Yeah. I think there is some, there's some,

00:43:10.040 there's, that's how you justify that short-term decision. You know what I mean? Um, that is

00:43:15.420 getting into a totally different subject, which I think is like why it's important to follow your

00:43:21.500 passion, which is a conversation that most people can't understand, you know, um, and needs

00:43:26.740 clarification. That's, you know, we have an episode coming up on why it's important to do

00:43:30.620 that. Yeah. Um, but I think that comes down to, you know, what you're saying. I think people do

00:43:35.960 justify that. I think the reason people justify that is because they think, Oh, $20,000 is going to

00:43:40.620 change my life when in reality it doesn't fucking change anything. You're going to go out, you're

00:43:44.800 going to, you're going to buy a car that's $200 more a month. You're going to, you're going to

00:43:48.220 fucking buy a bass boat or some bullshit that you don't even need. Right. And you're

00:43:51.680 going to be in the same fucking position that you were in before. Right. Only you hate your

00:43:55.120 job. Right. You see what I'm saying? Right. Absolutely. You know, it's just, it's, it don't

00:43:59.860 make short-term decisions in business, man. Make long-term decisions. You know, the best

00:44:03.640 thing I ever taught, the best thing I ever taught all of our employees, everybody is to see

00:44:11.620 a customer's lifetime value, no matter what. Don't think about today. Think about what

00:44:17.440 they're worth over the course of time. Think about what conversations they're going to have

00:44:22.580 about you. Think about what conversations they're going to have about your business. And when

00:44:26.800 you could train people to think that way, and you could train yourself to think that

00:44:30.440 way, dude, you, you, you just hit like 80% of what it takes to be successful, you know,

00:44:38.220 because we're in a weird position right now in, in society and business, the cultural shift

00:44:43.560 and business in general, because of social media has become one where it used to be short-term

00:44:54.040 thinking, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell all fucking day. Right.

00:44:59.220 And if you don't sell your fucking fire. Right.

00:45:02.460 To now it's almost that the business, you're not in business to sell a product. You're in

00:45:08.820 business to acquire and retain customers. And if you acquire, retain customers through

00:45:16.260 great culture and through good service, they'll buy, they'll buy anything that you sell.

00:45:22.200 You know, if we came out with a brand of first form tires right now, every fucking person

00:45:27.000 that buys first form supplements would order the first form tires. Yeah. They have nothing.

00:45:31.640 They would. Yeah. I don't doubt it, but that's because those people understand what we're about.

00:45:36.220 And then people want to buy from good people. Right. You see what I'm saying? Absolutely.

00:45:39.980 Do you not want to buy the things that you buy from people that you believe in as people?

00:45:43.620 Absolutely. You know, there's a humanization effect happening in business right now because

00:45:47.500 of social media, you know, the faceless, nameless, gigantic corporations that existed for years

00:45:53.380 and years and years and years. Those are, those are slowly fading away. Yeah. You know,

00:45:59.720 you hear about it every day. Fortune 500 companies down 40%. You see that shit every day now. You know why?

00:46:05.480 Because people want to buy from fucking people. Right. They don't want to buy from

00:46:09.860 some faceless, nameless organization that they can't relate to. Right. You know, and they want

00:46:16.860 to seem real, you know, they don't want to see some polished. There's a reason reality TV is so

00:46:21.640 popular, man. It's why, why are there not TV shows anymore? Why is it all reality TV? Because people

00:46:26.920 want to see the real shit. Right. And if your real shit is not appealing to look at, you're fucked.

00:46:32.520 That's it. Right. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So you better work on your internal culture. You

00:46:36.680 better work on being authentic and you better work on doing the right fucking thing. Because if you

00:46:40.840 don't, you're going to get smashed. Right. That's just it. What you're saying is making me think of a

00:46:46.640 conversation I recently had with my wife where I have like the best insurance guy in the world.

00:46:53.040 He lives in Kansas city and he deals with my spaciness. And like literally when I forget to,

00:46:58.840 to sign something, there are times where he's actually driven to St. Louis and just track me

00:47:06.020 down to get me to sign something. And the other day, uh, I don't know, somehow it came up that we

00:47:10.440 might be able to get a cheaper rate on our insurance. Right. And I said, my wife, I told her, I said,

00:47:15.480 honey, there is no way I am ever, ever going to get another insurance guy. Right. And it, and, and frankly,

00:47:22.180 I may be paying too much for my insurance. I'm not sure, but I don't really care. That's right.

00:47:26.800 Because he makes it easy. He makes it easy. And he just, he treats me well and he cares and he

00:47:31.460 goes the extra mile. Dude, people will pay more for that. He does the right thing. That's right.

00:47:34.920 Yeah. So he does the right thing. So when you think about like doing the right thing,

00:47:38.940 you know, at the beginning of this, of this podcast, some people were saying, Oh yeah,

00:47:43.360 everybody who's is in business is a fuck and they step on everybody and blah, blah, blah, blah, 0.99

00:47:47.780 blah. Dude, if you run your business like that, you're going to get fucking steamrolled 1.00

00:47:50.780 by companies that don't. Right. There is no longer an opportunity for you to step on people,

00:47:58.000 to take advantage of people, to sell people shit. They don't fucking need. If you do that,

00:48:02.900 you're not going to make it. Right. You know, the reality is, is you have to care about people

00:48:08.400 because people know now they could see you, they can find you, they can come talk to people that

00:48:13.580 know you. That's the power of this network that's been created. And if you haven't figured this out as a

00:48:19.560 business owner, an entrepreneur, that that's how you get ahead, you're, you're in trouble, man.

00:48:24.460 Right. Right. Right. So you're going to have to bear with me. Let me, let me, let me, let's just

00:48:28.800 take this to a basic entrepreneurial level. Yeah. I'm just sitting here. I'm just sitting here.

00:48:34.340 These things are running through my mind. Cause I could talk about this for hours and hours and

00:48:37.460 hours. Did you ever have ever in your life a lemonade stand or similar? I did. Yes. Okay.

00:48:46.320 They were very popular in the eighties. So let's talk about lemonade stand. Cause I had one,

00:48:50.560 you had one, you know, we're roughly the same age. So maybe we were competitors at one point,

00:48:56.020 we just didn't know it, but here's the reality. Lemonade stand. Simplest business ever. Yeah.

00:49:01.120 All right. You don't even have to pay fucking taxes. It's awesome. Well, the IRS did go after

00:49:05.020 one kid one time. I got in the news. I saw it on Fox news. I kid you not. They, they, it's the IRS.

00:49:10.660 I have nothing against the IRS by the way. I love you. We love the IRS. All right. But here's the deal.

00:49:15.600 Actually, that might've been a satirical story. You were a fine tax paying lemonade stand as was

00:49:23.700 I. Yes, exactly. All right. So we paid our lemonade tax. That's right. All right. Let's

00:49:28.480 edit out what I said a few minutes ago. Here's the thing. Lemonade stand. Basic you make, let's assume

00:49:38.500 that your lemonade and my lemonade are exactly the same. Right. Okay. Cause lemonade is lemonade. I mean,

00:49:42.520 I've had some good lemonade and I've had some bad lemonade, but let's assume that we're both expert

00:49:47.240 lemonade makers. Okay. And you have a, you have a lemonade stand on one side of the street and I am

00:49:53.280 on the other side of the street. And let's assume that, you know, I'm not as, you know, handsome of a

00:50:00.220 fella as I am. And let's just say we're equally as good looking. All right. All right. We'll say,

00:50:04.520 we'll say that. No, basically my point is, is this no competitive advantage, right? No,

00:50:09.520 no better product, nothing. Right. Level playing field. Totally level. Yeah.

00:50:16.120 Customer comes to my stand, tries, tries my lemonade. Says, Oh, that's great. You know,

00:50:22.080 comes back the next day, goes to drink lemonade and spills it. And I say to him, Hey, no problem. You

00:50:31.460 know, um, here's another one. Just, you know, do me a favor and let your friends know, you know,

00:50:39.960 come by my lemonade stand. All right. What's the conversation going to be between the, the customer

00:50:48.760 and his friends later in the day? Well, if, if, if he has a brain in his head, it's going to be,

00:50:54.360 I was an idiot and I spilled my lemonade, but the guy hooked me up with a new one. Yeah. Right.

00:51:00.100 Guy hooked me up with a new one at no cost. He did the right thing. Yeah. Hey, it was an accident.

00:51:04.340 No big deal. Here it is. Did it cost me a little money as lemonade stand owner to do that? Yes.

00:51:09.840 All right. Do I see a return on that today? No. Did it affect my, my bottom line for today in a,

00:51:16.080 in a negative way? Yes. Okay. Now let's take the same situation. He comes to your lemonade stand,

00:51:25.520 same guy. He goes to your lemonade stand and let's say he had never been to mine. Okay. So

00:51:31.000 we're backing up in time. Goes to your lemonade stand, gets lemonade. He likes it. He comes back

00:51:36.160 the second day. He goes to get his lemonade from a guy that he likes and he spills it. And he says,

00:51:43.860 Hey, can I get another one? You say no. Or you can, but you're going to pay for it.

00:51:48.260 All right. You got to pay for it. Yeah. All right. So the guy's like, are you serious? And

00:51:53.780 you're like, yeah, I got, I got a business to run. Yeah. No, I can't just do that. That

00:51:56.880 was your fault. If I did that for everybody. Right. Right. Exactly. If I did that for everybody,

00:52:01.120 I'd be broke. Yeah. All right. How many times we heard that stuff? Right. Okay. So that guy buys

00:52:08.800 another lemonade today because he wanted lemonade. But then later in the day, he goes to his friends

00:52:15.200 and he has the conversation. Hey man, I went to the Vaughn's lemonade stand today. I accidentally

00:52:20.800 spilled it. And can you believe what happened? That kid made me pay for another lemonade.

00:52:25.080 I can't fucking believe that shit. Right. Who do these kids think they are? Yeah. All right.

00:52:29.660 Yeah. So if you look at it from today, did I sell two lemonades when I should only sell

00:52:35.780 one? Yes. Yep. Did I make double the money I should have made? Yes. But what happened

00:52:43.600 when the conversation was told about my company and how many customers did that cost me? Yeah.

00:52:48.720 Okay. Yeah. That's the value of doing the right thing in business. Right. That's awesome.

00:52:54.120 And if people can't, if you can't think that far ahead, you're going to have a very, very,

00:52:59.520 very hard time in business. I mean, there's a lot of things we could say about that, but I could

00:53:03.560 tell a million stories just like that. And I mean, I think, I think one way to look at

00:53:08.160 that is what you're saying to people is when you're a, when you're a business person, I

00:53:11.860 mean, yeah, you have to be guided by, you know, sound principles of economics and all

00:53:15.120 that sort of stuff, but be big hearted, be generous toward people, be, be, you know,

00:53:20.480 do the right shit. It's not that hard. You know, we're talking about basic concepts of life

00:53:26.900 here. Right. Right. So you might fire me for this because I have this obsessive compulsive

00:53:34.800 desire to constantly rehash what you've said, but I want to, I want to just, for the sake

00:53:38.700 of our listening audience, I want to go through again, what you said about, about doing the

00:53:44.060 right thing. So basically it's give what you get, be honest, you know, in your messaging,

00:53:48.260 when you're talking to people about the results, you talked about treating people well, don't

00:53:53.500 cheating them, be fair and generous. Uh, don't steal from people, give them, go the

00:53:57.620 extra mile. It's very fucking simple, man. It's all it is. This is simple. Let's sum

00:54:02.280 this up. I'll sum it up. You, your job is usually keep my scrambled brain intact, but

00:54:07.680 let's just sum up that episode, do the right fucking thing. That's it. That's all

00:54:12.500 you got to do. Period. You got to live that way. Every little thing that you do should

00:54:16.260 be, you have a choice. A, the right thing. B, the not as right thing. Choose A.

00:54:22.800 If you choose A and you keep choosing A and you make that a lifestyle, success is

00:54:27.580 going to come to you. Right. It has to. Yeah. Because people are going to recognize

00:54:32.220 that and they're going to talk about you and they're going to bring you more

00:54:34.360 people. Yeah. And the more customers you have, the more, what happens? The more

00:54:39.380 fucking money comes into your business. Right. You can't succeed without A. If you go B,

00:54:45.640 you might make a living. If you, if you go A, you build an empire. Right. Okay. That's

00:54:52.580 it. Do the right thing builds an empire. Do the not so right thing for me today builds

00:54:57.160 a small mom and pop business. Yeah. Well, I'm sure there are a lot of people out there

00:55:01.620 who want to build an empire. So why don't you take a second to, uh, I know we're always

00:55:05.160 asking for feedback or if anybody has questions, so tell them how to do it.

00:55:08.600 This is a podcast new thing for us. You know, our whole goal here is to bring you the unconventional

00:55:14.060 truths of business. Uh, if you guys have questions about business, shoot us an email. Um, the MFCEO.com

00:55:20.580 is a website, go on there, contact us, hit, hit an email. It comes directly to Vaughn and

00:55:26.200 I, we don't have a staff. It's just us. If you want your questions answered on the air,

00:55:30.740 let us know. We're always looking for content. We always want to help. We always want to do

00:55:35.000 the right thing. And we want to bring content that you guys are interested in. So if you have

00:55:40.500 a question, if you have a criticism, if you have an opinion, we'd love to hear it because,

00:55:44.680 uh, unless it's negative, we don't want to hear that shit. No, I'm just kidding.

00:55:48.280 No, we do. That's a whole nother podcast, you know, learn from your critics. The people

00:55:52.140 who criticize you are criticizing you for a reason. Is there, you know, how to decide whether

00:55:55.580 it's really criticism or if it's just bullshit, you know, um, constructive criticism. But

00:56:01.460 the reality is, is guys, I don't know if I caught, if you said it or not, but did you

00:56:04.940 give the, uh, the website or your Instagram account? Yeah. Oh no. Uh, Instagram. I'm at

00:56:09.880 Andy Fursello. Vaughn, what's your Instagram? At Vaughn Kohler. Yeah. Um, hit us up, let

00:56:15.860 us know what you think. And, uh, you know, website is www.themfceo.com. Yeah. Yeah.

00:56:23.160 What's that stand for Vaughn? I'm not going to say it. Hey, listen. Oh dude, I got the

00:56:27.960 funniest story. This is so funny. Okay. Okay. Before we quit, this is a funny story. So I

00:56:32.980 got, uh, pulled over, um, on my, on Saturday night with my good friend. Uh, we were driving

00:56:39.680 and what were you driving? I was driving, uh, my Rolls, my Rolls Royce. This is the

00:56:44.440 brand new one that you said you were going to let me sit in, but you haven't done it

00:56:47.880 yet. The lights played on the car is MFCEO. Okay. So, uh, I was driving down the highway

00:56:52.560 and I got pulled over. It's like 1130 at night and they, it was two, two cars ended up

00:56:57.460 showing up and, uh, the cops came up to the window and they were like, Hey, you know, this

00:57:02.040 is after they wrote me the ticket and they were, they ended up being cool. I just told them

00:57:05.900 to write it because I was speeding. Um, I mean, you did the right thing, dude. Here's

00:57:10.800 the thing though. Those two cops ended up getting my information and they ended up coming to the

00:57:15.860 store to shop. They wanted, they, they, you know what I'm saying? I made two customers

00:57:20.520 out of it because I was polite. I made jokes and I took the ticket without bitching. But

00:57:25.360 here's the reality. They looked at the MFCEO plate and they're like, Hey, I just, we just

00:57:29.840 want to know what we, what's MFCEO stand for? We, we think we know, we're not sure.

00:57:35.900 And when I told them, dude, they were just dying laughing. That's great. So, and they

00:57:39.540 still gave you the ticket. Yeah, they did. They had already wrote it before, but it was

00:57:42.560 cool. You know, I was speeding. I was doing like 20 overs. So yeah, but anyhow, yeah, just

00:57:47.680 a little funny story. Hit us up the MFCEO.com and, uh, we'll catch you up next time.

00:57:52.560 All right. Anything else? No, that's it. Final word. That's it. All right.

00:57:55.400 The word is do the right fucking thing.

00:57:56.680 Come on.

00:58:01.120 I'm never going to settle.

REAL AF with Andy Frisella - June 23, 2015

Be An Ethical Entrepreneur, with Andy Frisella - MFCEO3

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