No SBA, No Investors: The Liquidity Access Line

So I really see the, the, the attracting. What I learned is opportunity is, is a lot of work. Growth is a lot of work.

So, yeah, that, that's an accurate picture of how things that had been when I came into the, into the business. But it's, it's been an adventure since.

For a business like this, where the previous owner is just not applying themselves like they once did or could. They're kind of resting on their laurels. And if you just, you know, take their 20 hours a week and make it 40 hours a week, you should be able to see a lot more results.

On the other hand, the, there's this concept of, of sort of seller hours. So one hour of his time might translate to three of yours. Just because he knows this business like the back of his hand and so, so he just does everything more efficiently.

It sounds like some of that crept in as well. Why did your calculation of like, well, if I just put in the same amount of time I was putting in, in my corporate job, I'll take this to the moon. There, there was something there that you'd overlooked. What was it?

Yeah, well, it's actually one of the more interesting things is market testing the ideas I had. Right. So there's a couple challenges. One, I was, I'm just so ignorant on how exactly the dynamics of implementing some of these ideas would work.

I assume some level of infrastructure that's there in corporate and it's simply, I can have an idea and I can roll it out and then the next month it will be live ideas. Take infrastructure where it's technology infrastructure or it's people and process infrastructure, that what, that didn't exist. Um, people. And even on the client side, people have been used to doing it that way for many, many…

So also, you know, when I, when I bring ideas to clients, are they always going to be open to innovation? There is a, there is a period where I'm just getting a hold on things I'M I'm actually having the business in my tracking for the first time under recalculating the costs now that I'm actually having invoices come in and at some point saying wait a second, I thought your costs were this.

It looks like they're this that takes up a lot of headspace in focus as I'm learning QuickBooks for the first time. So but on the also on you know, let's say all that's cared for there's a culture when in a business is coasting. There's a culture of expectation for the client that that business is going to coast.

And so when a new person comes in and change is introduced, no matter how positive I think that changes even if I come out in my one thing I struggle with is a CMO speak right Fortune 100 C level executive presentation is a lot different than you know, local painter, plumber, business owner presentation on how we're going to deliver value. The language is different.

And so that culture shift in myself okay there's actually going to be a time period where number one, I got to understand what the hell's going on here. Then I need to gain the trust of the client base and then I need to understand how to articulate that properly in a way that this market will be receptive.