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Money Doesn’t Care
I’m about to do a three-part series on money, the take on money. I’m going to start it this way. Over the years, Kerri and I get asked more often than anything else how do we work together every single day and still clearly love each other and not kill each other? How do we work from home? How do we travel together? How do we do this seven days a week and maintain a killer relationship? That’s by far our most asked question. Second though, and it’s a very close second, when we get into an intimate spot, especially another couple where we’re having a glass of wine or we’re going out to dinner or lunch, or even a small setting of eight people or less, the second most often asked question is around money. What’s our take on money? Did we start with money? Did we ever come into money? If we had money, have we ever lost money? Quite often, you can get a very quick reader, a quick sense about what their current challenge is based on the questions they’re framing. Sometimes we get a bit emotional because in our years, for those of you that are regular podcast listeners, you know a couple of different background stories on Kerri and I.
Keeping Up With The Joneses
There was one brief stretch of seventeen years where we used what’s called delayed gratification. We had all four of our children burst in one-bathroom, three-bedroom, very small, very old falling apart bungalow. We never got around to doing the outside, but the inside of the home was quite nice. We redid the walls and the carpets. It wasn’t until right before we moved out of that house that we put a second bathroom in. The point is there are certain laws around money that if you’re not into keeping up with the Joneses and you don’t care what other people think, you can apply delayed gratification. You can pour whatever money you’re making back into your business. That’s one thing that we did that shocked people until they see the pictures of our home and the proof, based on how Kerri and I changed in looks. We were there for close to twenty years. Some people also know that in the year 1998 and 1999, we had three different businesses, all doing a million-plus and a chain of video stores was one of the three. We got hit hard as the industry shifted from VHS to DVD to direct streaming. We literally got wiped out.
We spent nineteen months where our average bank balance was negative $3,000. It was under zero. It was in the red. We were robbing Peter to pay Paul. It was so bad, Kerri had a miscarriage. We had a sales rep die of a heart attack in my arms in a sales meeting. When I say it was brutal, it was brutal. In our current position, some of you know that we paid cash for a 22,000 square foot corporate office building. We paid cash for fourteen months for a complete remodel of all three floors. Right now, it is a stunning building. That building sat vacant for nine years. We’ve had two offers on the property already. We have a beautiful waterfall outside that is a very point place to the city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. There are a lot of questions that come to Kerri and I that are centered around money. If you don’t have a good take on money, if you don’t have a good understanding and if you don’t understand how to apply money, there’s no way you’re going to stay married doing the type of business Kerri and I does. You’re not going to go 25 years in a row always profitable. It would be statistically difficult.
Business Growth Techniques And Fallacies
I have a book called Growth: 19 Business Growth Techniques You Have Never Heard Of. I keep tweaking it because technology is changing and I want it to be a technology-free type of book but still have it based on technology. I’m also right in the middle of another book, which is what these three podcasts are going to be. I’m going to do a series because people are craving the real details of how to grow a business using money as leverage and have a family and stay sane and profitable. Over the years, I’ve scratched out some clear laws and fundamentals as well as some large misunderstandings about money. In the next few podcasts, I’m going to pull out some snippets of the book and then see what everybody’s take. I would love some feedback on this series. I did a previous series a couple months ago. I’ve got a ton of great emails. My email for those that have emailed, I reply to every one of them. It’s not always immediate. I travel a lot but I reply to every email. If you have any feedback, just hit me up at Ken@IncomeStore.com. If you think one of these podcasts hits you and makes a difference in your life or your business, please go on to iTunes. You’ve got to be on a real computer. You can’t do it on your phone and give me an honest review. We’re at 96. I need to get to 100. If I get 100 reviews, I heard iTunes puts us back in the rotation of whatever they call the new and newsworthy.
Your success is independent of anybody else's success or failures. Click To Tweet
The book is currently titled Money Doesn’t Know or Care. The working subtitle is going to be tweaked, but it’s going to be something like, Money Doesn’t Know or Care About the Heart of The Person Holding It or Using It. The big idea of the book is it explains why some people grow revenue and everything they touch and some people never make a dollar. The hope of the book is that for those that read it, you can understand some of your prior failures through your use and leverage or lack of leverage of money. I hope you’ll have a clear path and a roadmap to the principles that can be applied for future revenue. The underlying theme of the book, it’s part of the title, is money doesn’t know or care about the heart of man. The growth of money, the growth of business comes from the application of rules and more importantly is ignoring fallacies. Let me give you one.
Money Laws In Business
One of the biggest fallacies is you don’t want to start a business without a business plan. That flies directly in the face of don’t get good, get done. I don’t know any current business now, a really fast high flying one to 200-person company that’s growing fast. This is coming from a five-time Inc. 5,000 company, the founder, myself. I don’t know anybody managing a business that truly sits down, takes two to three days to go to a facility in Costa Rica and map out a ten to 30-page business plan like Thomas Watson, the Founder of IBM, used to do. Like Peter Drucker and many of the greats have taught for years, you need to take those corporate retreats. I do think you need to do those for some annual visioneering, to quote Peter Diamandis. Do I think you should stop and write a one-year plan, went sixteen weeks into that plan because of the market, the product marketing platforms? It’s going to get changed 20% to 30% and then four months later, it’s going to get changed to another 60% and then your plan doesn’t look anything like your plan. Here are some laws about money in business. Money is to be applied, never saved. Money is to be leveraged, not sheltered. How can you say money is to be applied, never saved?
For those of you that have read the bestselling book of all time, what did God say to the guy that stuck the money in the ground? He scolded that person. Here’s the third law. Money is to be forever moving, never standing still. This fly in the face of a lot of what’s taught now. Think about a fast-growing company, could you imagine if it started tucking money into a savings account at 0.25 of 1%? What is the point of that? A big reason many businesses fail, especially startups, is they simply don’t understand the application of money. Simply put, money is to be applied to things. How about more and better employees? How about multiple, various and continually changing types of advertising? How about multiple S-Curves or research and development arms? Here’s a quick self-diagnosis. In the past 90 days, have you hired or upgraded an employee or a vendor? In the last 90 days, have you tried one or two new marketing platforms or methods? In the last 90 days, have you tested a new product or strategized a new product line? If you cannot answer yes to at least one of these, my guess is that you are not clear on the application of money. This book and podcast series shed some light as to how and why to change your thinking regarding the application of money and its direct correlation to business growth or stunting your business. This has sixteen working chapters. I’m going to go over a couple of chapters in each of the next three podcasts.
First, money is inanimate. What’s the big idea of this chapter? Money doesn’t care who runs the ad. Think back in the early ‘80s. You put an ad in the newspaper, there was no internet. You may put an ad on the radio. Bottom line is there are people reading that newspaper and there are people listening to the ad. The money that went into the cost of the ad doesn’t know if the person that ran the ads is a good person, a bad person, an evil person or an ex-felon. It doesn’t know. It doesn’t care. Money is inanimate. Money is a tool that exposed a message to a body of people. The hope of the chapter is that you will realize you aren’t that special. You can’t screw up these principles. If you run the ad, people will read it. If you run the ad, people will hear it. If you run the ad, people will share it. Run the ad. You’re not that special that applying money into advertising, assuming the product is good, the service is good, it is going to be exposed and people will probably buy it.
Here are some nuggets inside this chapter. Money has very different meanings to different people. Were you taught to save, don’t leverage your risk? Were you taught to bet on yourself, put everything back in your business? I remember reading the autobiography of Elon Musk. In a few short years, Tesla was launched and SpaceX was launched. He was broke sitting on his friend’s couch because he had no money. They were doing billions but he had no cash. Why? He was taught to leverage everything you have into your business. He was not taught to save and not to leverage. People carry these feelings. The bottom line is money and/or lack of or abundance causes many people anxiety. When you think about money, do you feel anxiety or excitement? I need to stop and slow down here because this is the single most underscored, under-talked about, under-taught, under-corrected challenge with entrepreneurs. When you think about money, do you feel anxiety or do you feel the excitement? The reason this is critical, it sheds a light on the fact of how you are or are not going to grow your business moving forward.
When you come into money, if you get anxious, you’re likely to save it. When you come into money, if you get excited, you’re likely to leverage it. If you get very excited about money, the core of you knows this is a tool to be leveraged. It isn’t to be saved. If you get anxiety, “What do I do?” You’re going to be inclined to probably save it because you’re anxious. I want to go to this point. Why do you see all over the internet, all over YouTube, sensations of fourteen years old, with no education, kicking butt and a millionaire? A 92-year-old, no saved money, had an idea and a millionaire. Warren Buffett, Richard Branson, mob bosses that go semi-legit, killing it and becoming billionaires. How can a criminal, a 35-time murderer, go semi-legit and launched the city of Las Vegas, which turns completely legit overtime, at least majority legit overtime? How can countless teenagers and young kids become incredibly well off?
It’s this simple, money that was leveraged by Warren Buffet, the fourteen-year-old, the 92-year-old, that sowed in time until he made some money and then put all his money back into the little trinkets he was selling. Richard Branson, the mob boss, these people had no and have no emotional attachment to money. It’s a unit that is meant to be leveraged to get more money. They leverage money. That’s the underlying reason for their success. They have no emotional attachment to money. They viewed it as a tool. They forever leveraged it. Here’s the takeaway. You aren’t that special. That the application of money leveraged for a good quality product or through a good quality product or service offering won’t work. Money is meant to be leveraged. Are you sitting on money right now that can be put to a series of Facebook ads, YouTube teaser ads or a direct mail campaign or maybe designing a new product? If you’re sitting on that money, you may have a deep-rooted emotional attachment to money. You may need some mentorship to rebuild that attachment or relationship with money.
I’m going to jump into a different chapter here. It’s similar, that’s why I’m rolling right into it but it is by far not the same. Another chapter title is, “The thought of money is daunting.” I’m not talking anxiety. I’m not talking about excitement. I’m talking about it is physically daunting. It causes nightmares. The big idea of this chapter is there is a good portion of people, I’m going to say 10% that when they give a severe thought about money or if they ever come into some money and they see it in a checkbook, they literally panic. It’s daunting.
I will never forget the time that my wife came into my room. She lifts open the checkbook. This is back in the day when you wrote in a checkbook and kept a ledger and a balance. She goes, “What is that number right there?” I said, “Are you being sarcastic?” She goes, “No, what does that number?” I said, “That’s the balance.” She goes, “I know it’s the balance. Whose money is that?” I said, “That’s our business account.” She goes, “Just answer the question. Whose is that?” I said, “That’s our money. It’s a sub S-corporation flow pseudo.” She goes, “You’re telling us we have over six figures?” We were in our young twenties, “We have over six figures in our bank account? How long have you known this?” I’m like, “I’ve known this for quite some time.” She goes, “What are we doing next week?” I said, “What would you like to do?” She booked us on a cruise that day. We got into our Nissan Altima that night and drove to Florida and got on a cruise.
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What Is Your Take On Money?
We have a different view or take on money. For Kerri and me, it’s not daunting. It’s not crippling to me. I could have gone months and not told her the amount of money we had in our account because all I was doing was leveraging it to make more money. Here’s the question or the hope of this chapter. The key is you’ll understand your success is independent of anybody else’s success or failures. What your parents had shared with you or didn’t share with you is so visceral, it’s currently paralyzing you. If you have panicked over money, whoever mentored you, whoever raised you, there is some book you read, some story that was put in in a very emotional way, something was shared or quite frankly wasn’t shared that is visceral. It literally releases that adrenal hormone that moves you. Some of you know the concept of adrenaline. I’ve had three experiences in my life. We were hit by a semi and we rolled our car. A couple of other incidents where when adrenaline is released, it’s painful. At first, it’s soothing. It’s meant to move you. Some people get an adrenaline rush with the thought of money.
Another point, what you saw your parents do or not do was so obvious, you can’t visualize anything else. I have to say this again. My father was not around when I was a young person. He was never home. He worked and worked and worked. Overtime, the stories were, “I’m doing this for you. Mom and I are doing this for you.” Overtime, they retired and spend a lot of time with us. The point was he taught a lesson that when the children are small, now understand only one of my parents worked, they’re not going to remember. Dad wasn’t around seven days and seven nights a week. He was at the restaurant every day, every night. That’s what I saw and it was so obvious. It was so real, I can’t do anything else. I can’t work half a day. I can’t let my kids see me because I need them to see what it took Kerri and me to do to make it. What did we do to make it?
The third part is what determinations or decisions did you make early about money and the way you know you did is along these lines. Kerri and I meet so many people and when we get to the topic of money, as soon as it comes up, we ask them the phrase, “What is your take on money?” Immediately we hear things like, “You can’t take it with you. It’s meant to be saved, invested or used or given away. It’s a tool. It’s evil.” The point of this is when we say, “What’s your take quickly on money?” there’s no pause. They don’t look down and up or up and left and think, it’s guttural. They saw something that either needs to be corrected or taught to their children. It can be positive or negative.
I need to ask you to start doing some thinking. What is your take on money? Here it is, one of the largest psychological challenges that money gives birth to and understand it’s an inanimate object. It gives birth to the thought that money in abundance comes with a haunting amount of responsibility. This creates extreme self-doubt in many people. I want to say this again. The thought that money and abundance comes with a haunting amount of responsibility that can only come from something you lived through or witnessed. The takeaway that Kerri and I try to share to many is that whatever movie you saw played out in your home, whatever nightmare you envision over and over about having money and abundance or an extreme lack of money, that’s your parents or your friends’ nightmare, not yours. Don’t make their movie your own. Money truly doesn’t know or care about you. It’s inanimate.
Here’s the best news. Money gives everyone a do-over every time. Even when you fail miserably like we did in the video store industry by not closing out our video store franchise fast enough. We had too many stores and we waited and we thought we could make it. No, it crushed us but here’s the cool thing. We had two other businesses cooking and when we went back into those business and stayed away from the video store business, money gave us a do-over every time. We could stop all businesses now and start a new business. Money’s going to give us a do-over. It doesn’t attach itself. If you take a chance on yourself and you leverage money into and through a quality product or service offering, the odds are fantastic. That you will succeed and break any and all curses or negative feelings you have around money. Please take a chance on yourself and go leverage some money somehow, some way through a good product or a good service. I hope this helps. Take care.
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