[00:00:02] Speaker A: Ramping up your business. The time is near. You've given it heart, now get it in gear. It's Passage to Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart. I'm Richard Gearhart, founder of Gearhart Law, a full service intellectual property law firm specializing in patents, trademarks, and copyrights.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: And I'm Elizabeth Gearhart, not an attorney, but I do marketing for Gearhart Law and I have my own startups and podcasts.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: Are you one of the two in five Americans wanting to start your own business or already a business owner? Stay tuned. This show is about starting and growing your business. Welcome to Passage to Profit the road to Entrepreneurship, where we learn why and how ordinary people just like you started and grew their businesses. And we also talk about the intellectual property that helps protect your innovations.
[00:00:48] Speaker C: Well, are you one of the two in five Americans wanting to start your own business? Lots of times new business owners ask other experienced business owners, what challenges have you seen in your journey? So I'd like to ask our guests, what unforeseen challenges have you seen when you were starting and growing your businesses? Let's start with Brent.
[00:01:08] Speaker D: Challenges. You know, there's a lot of noise out there that comes along and people are telling you like different things. So you really need to keep an open mind about what people are telling you. I mean, I'm always a big believer that God gave me two ears and one mouth, so I should be listening twice as much as I talk. I'm still, still working on that.
[00:01:27] Speaker C: Joe, what do you think about that? What was a particular unforeseen event that happened in your career that threw you off?
[00:01:36] Speaker E: I was in the middle of a very large startup transaction between a established company and their factory in China. And I thought, oh, gosh, what a great thing for me. I'll be in the middle and I'll hold the money in the middle between the transaction and make my little cut on the side. Well, gosh, not only did I go from being the collector, but now I'm the payee. So I was getting pressure on both sides of the fence. And this would go with any startup as far as, you know, suppliers and incoming payments. So all of a sudden, I learned really quickly that you can grow a business fast with revenue, but my gosh, payables and your margins are important too.
[00:02:12] Speaker C: Arnold, what's the unforeseen situation that you had in your entrepreneurial journey?
[00:02:18] Speaker F: Everything.
I'll echo what some of the guests have to say, but, I mean, no plan goes according to plan, right? And I think as an entrepreneur, you constantly are Sort of pivoting and you're making hopefully quick decisions with half, half data. But hopefully those decisions tend to be reversible.
[00:02:36] Speaker C: Joe, you're nodding your head there. Do you have something to add to that?
[00:02:39] Speaker E: I do it maybe. Think of a couple of things. One is when you're starting a business, there's a couple pieces of advice that I've gotten over the years. One is that you can create a product and try and sell that into a market.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: Right.
[00:02:52] Speaker E: And create a market or look at the market itself and see what it needs and then create a product for that. I've always found it's much better to find the fit in the market for your product. And that way there's already a built in customer base for you to sell to.
[00:03:10] Speaker A: That kind of makes sense.
[00:03:11] Speaker C: Brett, what do you think?
[00:03:12] Speaker D: Yeah. So even though a lot of us are in sales. Right. The thing is, is I don't like to consider myself a person that sell, a salesman. I like to consider myself as I am finding a solution to somebody else's problem. And a lot of times they may not even know that they have a problem or need that solution yet. But we're bringing it just to light to. We're saying, hey, here's the problem and we have the solution that can solve this for you.
[00:03:39] Speaker C: That's great.
[00:03:40] Speaker B: So, Elizabeth, I think my big mistake has been thinking that other people will think like I think. And I started this video directory for business coaches thinking, oh, being on video, everybody's on zoom, it's no big deal. Everybody's comfortable on video and they'll all do these little 30 second commercials for themselves. And I could put together this great website and even people that teach people how to be on video and teach people about business don't want to do videos of themselves. So I, I misjudged that part of the market. I did a focus group on people that would watch the videos. They were like, yeah, that'd be pretty cool to see a video of somebody before I call them up. But getting people to do the videos, I misjudged that.
[00:04:19] Speaker C: Ah, that was unforeseen. But I still think it was a good idea and I do think it's time will come. Your answers were all amazing.
[00:04:27] Speaker A: I learned a lot.
[00:04:28] Speaker C: So thank you for sharing.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: Passage to Profit is a nationally syndicated radio show appearing in 31 markets across the United States. In addition, Passage to Profit has also been recently selected by Feedspot Podcasters Database as a top 10 entrepreneur interview podcast. Thank you to the P2P team. Our producer Nova, Noah Fleischman and our program coordinator Alicia Morrissey and Rishiket Busari. Look for our podcast tomorrow anywhere you get your podcasts. Our podcast is ranked in the top 3% globally. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram X and on our YouTube channel. And remember, while the information on this program is believed to be correct, never take a legal step without checking with your legal professional first. Gearhart Law is here for your patent, trademark and copyright needs. You can find
[email protected] and contact us for a free consultation. Consultation. Take care everybody. Thanks for listening and we'll be back next week.
