The Sweaty Startup

In business and in life, small habits build success, and one of the most important habits is time management. Beyond being efficient in your work, the most successful people invest their time in activities that deliver value over time. The four quadrants of time management, a framework made popular by The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, can help you determine how to invest your time to help you grow your business and your life. In this episode, we'll explore another book that cover this topic.

I want to talk about something that I think is pretty important. It is understanding the difference between value and money. And I think that is what separates the really good businessman, the really good entrepreneurs, the people who are really good at personal finance from the people who are not. It's understanding the difference between value and money.   Find out the importance knowing the difference between value and money in this episode!   Check the show notes here! https://sweatystartup.com/the-sweaty-startup/ We have a reddit community: https://www.reddit.com/r/sweatystartup/ Join our Real estate the community: https://sweatystartup.com/rec Special thanks to the sponsor: https://supportshepherd.com

In this episode of The Sweaty Startup, I was invited to sit down with the guys from Acquisitions Anonymous. It is run by Michael Girdley, Mills Snell, and Bill D’Alessandro. All are great entrepreneurs, and their podcast talks and breaks down business’ deals anonymously that are for sale and evaluate if it's a good investment or not. We tackle two exciting deals today, a $900k Moving and Storage Company & a $500k Rural Mini-Storage. Find out more how to analyze businesses for sale in this episode! Check the show notes here! https://sweatystartup.com/the-sweaty-startup/ Special thanks to the sponsor: https://supportshepherd.com  

I attended a conference last week called Capital Camp in Columbia, Missouri. This is by no means a promotional ad for that conference, but I walked away with a clear head and some amazing insights into my strategy, my mindset, and how I manage the emotions and ego every entrepreneur deals with, especially with the Sweaty Startup Podcast and The Nick Huber Show. Everything was organized by my friend, Brent Beshore, and his partner Patrick O'Shaughnessy, both extremely accomplished investors. Just to give you an idea of the caliber of what I’m talking about, the average net worth of this conference was probably $10 million, roughly 280 attendees, and if I’m willing to bet, there were eight or nine billionaires. In short, there were a lot of bad-ass people that I had the opportunity of being around.   Find out more how successful people think in this episode!   Join the community: https://sweatystartup.com/rec Special thanks to the sponsor: https://supportshepherd.com

Lately, I’ve been reflecting on what I'll be most proud of at the age of 85. That made me think about the lives of my grandparents, and realized that ultimately what I want is to provide a better life foundation for my children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and beyond just like my grandfather did.   Find out more what's the best business lesson my grandfather taught me.   Special thanks to sponsor: https://launchkits.com/sweaty 

I'm going to talk about hiring your replacement. Maybe you're growing. Maybe there's an opportunity to scale up, do more, go to the town next door, do more stuff, different stuff, whatever it might be. I've been there, and I’m going through it now with our real estate private equity company that we're building. And I just want to talk a little bit about some mistakes that I see people make all the time when it comes to hiring executive level management.   Find out How to hire a CEO for your small business on this episode! Check the show notes here! https://sweatystartup.com/the-sweaty-startup/   Check it on apple podcast here   Join the community: https://sweatystartup.com/rec Special thanks to the sponsor: https://supportshepherd.com  

In today's episode, Nick talks about three sales strategies that most people don't talk about. These are strategies that can really make your company stand out from others as desirable, credible, and sustainable. 

Way back in early 2015, I planned and developed my self-storage business with my partner Dan. It took a total of 2 years to prepare and set this thing up right. From finding property and looking for the right deals and LPs, in May 2017, we opened our doors for business with 5 outside investors. Fast forward to today, we have 4,930 self-storage units, 24 properties, 642,000 sq/ft all in properties in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Connecticut, and aren’t stopping there. With four acquisition employees, we are making offers in Georgia, Kentucky, and Indiana, and our goal is to have 50 units in 30+ states. Find out more on how self storage investing work in this episode!

When it comes to entrepreneurship, big or small business ownership, you hear the same advice all the time: Do what you say you are going to do, and you will succeed as a business owner. It sounds so easy, but the real problem is that most of us are terrible at managing expectations. It’s bad business advice to just do what you said you’d do regardless of the evolving circumstances. Find out in this episode on what to do instead!

The painful truth is that not everyone is cut out to be a business owner. Another hard pill to swallow is that people cling to ideas, and concepts they think will get them ahead. I've said it before and I'll say it again, but my fear through all of this is that people who are listening to the show 10 years from now, will wake up one day, having started a business, are underpaid, overworked, and have a business that's not worth very much--that they just gave themselves a job. That's my fear, because the bottom line is that owning a business is tough.   Roughly 95% of business owners fall into the rhythm of owning a business that they're involved in, where they work and get paid. Sounds easy. That’s because they're not entrepreneurs. They own a job. Or, to put it frankly, that job owns them--they are the property of their business.   Being a business owner is often glorified while we shame W2 employees. However, a lot of business owners are working 70 or more hours a week. They hardly ever see or know their children. Many haven’t made it to a family dinner the last four nights in a row. Many are divorced, unhappy, alcoholics, or have some other addiction. All this is sadly a big problem with entrepreneurship--not knowing how to have a balanced work-life relationship.    So how do you achieve success? Better yet, how do you achieve happiness? If you have a job, how do you avoid being one of those people that complain about their work-life balance, their crappy bosses, and what they're doing? How do you avoid that? Well, you delegate.    Every business owner will lean on their best employees to get the job done. They’ll hand more clients and problems over to their best producers and problem-solvers, and most employees will just trudge along and accept it all. But, the next thing you know is the employee is working 80 hours a week for 5 years straight, making good money for their company, but they likely are not making much money for themselves.    Whether it be a business owner or a solid employee, both need to understand the power of delegating--how to assign work to other people within the organization or team and know when to say that they have too much on their plate. This is why surrounding yourself with solid people is essential when building a business or hiring the right employees for your team because then you can properly delegate and still get the job done.    So let me tell you one more time that if your job or business owns you and you have no work balance, it's your fault--you need to know when to say “no” and delegate, managing the expectations of your customers, your boss, and your coworkers.   You always hear about the successes of running a business. But the truth is, being an entrepreneur is not for everyone. You have to make hard decisions. You need to figure out where you're most comfortable, what your strengths and weaknesses are, and build on and around them. You need to figure out if you want to get paid building a career working for somebody else, possibly doing what you love, or if you want to start a business and see if you have what it takes.