The Sweaty Startup

Nick and Max talk about their 10 favorite business books and what they like about each. https://sweatystartup.com/booklist/

The shift was the moment we stopped pointing fingers and started taking the blame for things going wrong within our business. Instead of texting the employees the night before about their shift we scheduled them out a week in advance. Even if we weren't sure exactly what they'd be doing. We overemphasized their schedules and set up automated emails and texts to constantly remind them as the day approached. Instead of training them by walking around the warehouse pointing at things we spent time recording training videos with perfect voice overs. We quizzed them at the end of the training videos with real on-the-job problems.

You wouldn't expect to be able to pick up a basketball and play for an NBA team day 1. So why do we expect to start a business and get rich or make good money on day one? It's a skill. You get better at it by PRACTICING. Making decisions. Communicating. Selling. You can read all the books you want but it just takes getting out there and doing it. Starting small and working your way up. Stop reading this and start putting yourself out there. Start something.

Dan Nick and Max sit around and talk business once again to discuss trends and businesses they would love to start right now and how they would do it.

This book outlines and reinforces the fact that business, negotiation and any human interaction is inherently very emotional. It's centered around negotiation but this book has so many solid management and leadership principles. Mirroring, tactical empathy, starting with no and labeling are all phenomenal. https://sweatystartup.com/booklist/

Nick, Max and Dan get together to brainstorm business ideas and how they would launch and market a lawn care, Christmas light installation and mobile locksmithing company. This episode was a ton of fun.

You have to be really good, have money, and have a lot of luck to make a new revolutionary idea work. There are a lot of bad businesses out there right now making good money. Some of them suck at sales. Some suck at recruiting. Or marketing. Or SEO. Maybe they run their businesses like its 1980. Some suck at many of these! Yet they still make really good money. Don't try to reinvent the wheel with a revolutionary idea. Its expensive. The odds of success are low. Its risky.

Nick discusses the recent events in Erie and Pittsburgh with his self storage acquisitions.

Andrew Huber owns and operates The Lawn Squad, a lawn care and weed control company based in Bloomington Indiana. Show notes with photos here. How much profit does a lawn care company make? What is the initial investment? How much of a time commitment? We answer all of these questions and more as Andrew comes on the show to discuss his 2019 season and share his revenues, expenses and customer numbers for the season. We dive deep into the profit and loss statement to find out how profitable a lawn care company really is. https://thelawnsquad.com/

Kevin Graham, the SEO master and founder of sitearrow.com joins us on the podcast today to talk about local search engine optimization and how to get found on Google.