The Sweaty Startup

Standardizing the material that new employees use to get onboarded and trained is a powerful tool that you should do right now during the slow season.

A customer in the loop is a happy customer. Set up all of your interaction in advance and spend some time thinking through how to get your message across to customers as efficiently as possible.

Nick and Jim talk about more businesses that Nick wouldn't start in if his life depended on it.

Nick and Jim dive into a few business ideas that Nick hates.

Jim Flannery is a founder and professor of entrepreneurship at University of Georgia in Athens GA. He gives his thoughts on big ideas and why they shouldn't be overlooked.

Coach Keppner runs a successful boxing gym in Athens GA and is also host of the Coach Keppner Show on a local radio station. In this episode he shares his story along with his principles and self help concepts that guide him towards a successful life.

We have a caller from Kansas City who is looking into purchasing a business. We talk about some of the questions to ask and what to look for!

Its an expense. They depreciate fast. In this episode we talk about the difference in buying a 10 year old car and a brand new car. Nick shares his cost of car ownership breakdown over the past 14 years and he compares it to the numbers if he had bought new every 5 years.

How do we find a balance in life? The media and the hustle mentality are driving us to crazy lengths. Its about enjoying life.

What is wealth to you? What are your goals with entrepreneurship? I lay out what is important to me.

Nick and Max talk about businesses they love and how they would start them. https://sweatystartup.com/businesses-i-love/

How would I start a window cleaning business? In this episode we lay out the steps of exactly how we'd do it. https://sweatystartup.com/essential-tools/

What makes an entrepreneur better? What sets them apart? What makes them more likely to succeed? Mindset. Nick and Max discuss it.

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.

Sam graduated from Penn State in May (less than 6 months ago) and is on pace to do $180k in 2019 in revenue hauling junk around Harrisburg PA. We hear from him on how he did it!

Nick and Dan get on the podcast together for a long form podcast on the current developments in their self storage expansion efforts. They discuss the first deal that has been so successful, how they structured their first real estate partnership, how it has appreciated over time and the new plans for expansion.

Moses comes on the podcast to tell us how he has built a real estate empire in southern California. He also shares his thoughts on the status of the local service business environment and where there are opportunities today!

Justin Peterson from Peterson Automotive joins the show to talk about his mobile mechanic company and the ways he has drummed up early business. Google My Business, Craigslist and handwritten notes have been some key strategies for him in the early days.

The opportunities are endless. What business should you start? What opportunity is worth chasing? Here is the framework for dealing with analysis paralysis.

Nico from Vancouver is 21 years old and he is crushing it. He brings in nearly $10k a month in revenue managing marketing for several high end businesses including Farrari, Maserati and a high end real estate developer. This is a great episode about time management and focusing on what you are best at to get your business ready to scale.

Paul Jarvis is a personal hero of mine. He joins us on the show to discuss his book "Company of One" and why he believes that staying small could be the right decision for many entrepreneurs.

Ahmed was so kind to call in from the Twin Cities in MN to talk about his moving company concept. We talk a lot about partners and how to start a lean business.

Add this to your interview structure. You won't be sorry you did it.

A lot of gold nuggets in this episode from a good friend of mine who is crushing it in the local real estate game.

We get a live call from an entrepreneur who has had a lot of success washing windows in Southern California.

A caller is interested in a few things that are tough to monetize. How should someone approach that situation? Nick gives his thoughts.

Casey Walsh is a special dude. He joins us for this episode of the sweaty startup to talk about founding his junk removal business and building it up to 6 cities in 5 states and $4MM a year in revenue.

I tell the story of a thank you note I wrote to my grandfather in 2016.

Some Q and A.

Jacob from Gainesville Florida calls in to discuss taking his aquatics service business to the next level.

Lawyer Todd Stanton comes on the show to talk about how service business owners can avoid getting sued and hire and pay employees the right way.

Ben calls in to discuss his current situation and how he should approach entrepreneurship.

Ashlee calls in from Tacoma Washington to discuss her furniture refurbishing hobby she would like to turn into a business.

J Scott is a bestselling author and host of the BiggerPockets business podcast. He interviewed me on the show (ep 14) and I was lucky enough to get him on mine. This is an action packed interview on how one can go about finding deals in today's tough real estate market.

A little look at what my partner and I are doing right now. I'll be documenting the entire journey.

Cam Hoover calls in from Atlanta and Nick talks about the importance of sales when building a videography business.

Nick Bradley hosts my favorite podcast - Scale Up Your Business. Today he joins us to talk about the massive opportunity when it comes to buying a business and how he goes about doing it.

Don't just read a book. Study it. Thats how you get the most out of what you hear here and what you read elsewhere.

Today we talk to Dan the Window Man about his window cleaning company in Crawfordsville Indiana.

Ryan Ramsey joins us on the show for a great episode with a ton of wisdom. Enjoy!

Customers can be down right mean. How do you deal with it? This is how I handle it.