[00:00:02] Speaker A: Ramping up your business.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: The time is near.
[00:00:05] Speaker C: You've given it hard, now get it in gear.
It's Passage to Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: 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 D: And I'm Elizabeth Gearhart, not an attorney, but I do marketing for Gearhart Law and I just opened my podcast studio.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Welcome to Passage to Profit, the Road to Entrepreneurship, where we talk with business owners and celebrities about their business stories.
[00:00:35] Speaker D: Next we're going to be talking to Rick English. He's the founder of UpAdvisors, a business consulting company. Go to his website, see what he does. I mean, he'll explain it here too, but I really feel like he can put the finger on what's bothering you with your business and how to make your business run better. So welcome Rick, and please tell us.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: What you do at UPAdvisors. We, we consider ourselves to be business consultants and coaches. So we like to dig in, get to know a business. We like to start with a discovery call, and then we'll, we'll go from there. If it makes sense for us to work together, we'll go to what we call a deep dive. So we're going to dig into five buckets of business people, process product, profit, and customer experience. So we dig in, get to know where the issues are, get to know where the opportunities are, and then we prioritize action to address the issues and maximize the opportunities. And typically we do that in either a weekly or bi weekly coaching call and consulting call. But we'll also take on projects to really tackle those issues or to maximize the opportunities.
[00:01:34] Speaker C: So what are the most common issues you run across working with entrepreneurs and businesses?
[00:01:39] Speaker A: I would say there's three core Number one is not knowing your numbers, so not having your books up to date, not tracking those key numbers in your business. One of my very first clients I served, he was managing what I doing what I call manage by bank account. So he's paying $800 a month over here for a bookkeeper. And then he wasn't actually getting the financial reports and using it to make good decisions. He was just, oh, I got enough money, so I'm going to do this.
He ultimately went bankrupt. And so I really encourage you to know your numbers. The number two challenge is hiring the right people so that you can maximize your time value.
[00:02:13] Speaker C: Can we go back to the numbers thing for a minute? Because I'm a big numbers person and I think knowing your numbers is Absolutely key because you need to know whether you're making a profit.
[00:02:23] Speaker A: Right.
[00:02:24] Speaker C: So what do you tell people though, who are just, they say, I'm not a numbers person, I don't understand this stuff. So how do you get them to understand the numbers of their business well enough that they can make the right decisions?
[00:02:36] Speaker A: I usually just let em know that it's really not an option either. You gotta have somebody help you get those numbers. But generally speaking, you really need to just learn. If you want to be in business and you want to have success, you got to take a small amount of time to get those numbers right. Otherwise it's just going to be a challenge. It's going to be a challenge to make good decisions. It's going to be a challenge to have good information. And so we're all about teaching. Some people are scared of QuickBooks. QuickBooks is the number one business bookkeeping software out there. People are scared of it, but once they get comfortable moving around and if they have a bookkeeper, we get the bookkeeper to partner with them and to also help educate. And over time I found, you know, a lot of people that I work with don't know their numbers when we start, but they're generally very comfortable after a relatively short period of time because they've gotten comfortable with the software and they understand what they need to be looking for.
[00:03:26] Speaker C: What's wrong with managing through your bank account? Why can't you do that? You just look and see, oh, I've got $3,000 in there. This new piece of equipment costs 500. Why not just buy it?
[00:03:35] Speaker A: There are certain situations where you probably could get away with it. But generally speaking, if you don't know what your obligations are. So how much money's in your bank doesn't tell you how much you owe 20 vendors that you owe money to and so or what other expenses are coming down the line. So if you don't have good visibility into that, you might spend the $500 and find that you, you owe 5,000 and now, now you're 2,500 in the hole.
[00:03:57] Speaker D: I used Quicken for our household expenses years ago and it used to frustrate the heck out of me because the way it was set up, I could not get the information I wanted in the form I needed it. And now being much older and maybe wiser, I found that basically any software you use is going to have deficits. You're never going to get everything you want from a software. Right.
So do you really feel like QuickBooks is the best one is it the easiest one? I know there's other softwares for managing money, but really you said QuickBooks and I kind of agree because there's so many people that know how to use it that you can find a consultant easily. Or would you recommend something else?
[00:04:32] Speaker A: Yeah, QuickBooks does a really good job. It's not perfect and they're constantly improving it. I don't recommend the desktop version, it's kind of dying out. But I think the QuickBooks online version is pretty easy to use sometimes. And you're right, I mean, accessing help is super easy whether it's from QuickBooks or from a consultant or from a bookkeeper. Yeah, I think it's the best. I guess it just depends too on size of business because there is a point at which QuickBooks becomes insufficient. But for most small business owners, small, even medium sized business owners, QuickBooks is probably the best option for business financials.
[00:05:06] Speaker C: Yeah, I think there's a lot of softwares out there in the accounting realm and other realms too. And there's kind of the more established brands which tend to be a little bit more expensive. And then there's also new entries to the market. Sometimes the new entries though, they're still kind of buggy, they don't really work that well. And if you go with the established brands, then you have the advantage of a large support network like Elizabeth mentioned. But also they're stable, so they're going to be there. We once hired an HR company that went out of business after two years. They were a startup and they were a company client of ours and so we wanted to support them. And they're like, okay, why don't you use our HR software? And we didn't have that many employees, but it turned out that when they went bankrupt, we had a hard time getting some of our payroll records out of that. And the software never quite worked. Right. Everybody got paid, but there were some glitches there. So I do think that staying with sort of the standard brands is not a bad idea.
Whenever you pick a software for a company, you have to do your research and understand what are the pluses and the minuses, right?
[00:06:11] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing about QuickBooks at this point, because it's so widely used, all the integrations that you can, everything that it integrates with is, you know, you'd be missing out quite a bit if you, I mean, Xero is out there. Zero is probably the next most common, but it's a distant second. And so you've got all these integrations. Quickbooks will integrate with so many different platforms that.
And sometimes it does it well, sometimes not so well, but generally you have that ability to make it work pretty well. So everything kind of talks to each other and simplifies your technology overall.
[00:06:42] Speaker D: So there's a little bit of a learning curve, but it's a learning curve an entrepreneur has to climb, right?
[00:06:47] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:06:48] Speaker D: So number two was people.
[00:06:50] Speaker A: Number two is people. Yeah. So it's really hiring the right people. I was on a call with a client of mine out in Colorado this morning who owns a window film business. They apply window film mostly in the commercial, in commercial spaces. And he needs to hire an assistant. I mean, it's the first thing. This was our third call today.
And it's really clear he's spending all of his time on administrative stuff when he needs to be spending his time on sales marketing. So that next step for him is to really hire an assistant who can move the needle and enable him to focus on what he does best and what's most needed in the business.
[00:07:22] Speaker C: So a question that a lot of business owners have, who are startups? When do you make that higher? Because on the one hand, you're trading time for money, right. And so you need more time, but it's going to cost money to pay this person and it's also going to take time to communicate with them. Right. So how do you make that decision?
[00:07:42] Speaker A: There's not a simple checklist necessarily, but I think there are a couple things to really look at. One is you need to have sufficient working capital, that available money to spend the $500 that you talked about earlier to buy that item. But you need to have that working capital because you know you don't want to do is pull somebody away from another company into company and then find out you only have three months of Runway and now you got to let them go. I always say you're not getting. You don't get married to your employees, but you do want to treat them fairly and you don't want to put people in a tough situation.
So you got to have that working capital and you got to have the right. The trajectory's got to be there in your business. So if you are going to trade your time for money in the form of an employee, you also got to have a real clear path. And we talked about that this morning. It's like, what are you going to do with that time? In his case, he said, I'm going to focus my time on sales marketing and making sure I'm following up on emails because he gets behind on his emails all the time. So being able to have a clear plan and a clear path to utilize that time so that you can make more money to pay for your, your person is super important. So those would be the number one and number two things for me.
[00:08:46] Speaker D: I just want to throw something in here that I just recently experienced with the studio. I went to a seminar on grants and this is New Jersey. Other states probably have something similar, but I said, well, what if I want to hire somebody and I don't have the money to do it? Is there money available to help me hire someone? And they said yes. The labor department go on their website, they have grants. So I know it's hard to think of parting with that hard earned cash to hire somebody, but there is government help in a lot of places.
[00:09:13] Speaker A: There are definitely in a different state to state. It's, it varies also depending upon the nature of your business. There are programs for people that are getting out of. I just know it sounds crazy getting out of prison. I mean they may not have committed some crazy crime, but that transition process where you can literally get thousands and thousands of dollars over, over many months to fund a new employee may not be best for say an office person necess. But you know these people, they're going through training and while they're incarcerated and they get opportunities, there's also grants. There's, there's a lot of different opportunities that you can take advantage of. So yeah, highly recommend that.
[00:09:48] Speaker C: Excellent. Yeah, I love your point about having a clear direction for what you're going to do with your time. So if you hire somebody and just spend your extra time watching YouTube videos, that probably is not going to move your business in the right direction. Unless you're watching a passage to profit YouTube video in which case you're learning.
[00:10:06] Speaker D: Every second honing your skills. But I do think the sales and marketing is a good. I said I feel like a business owner should be out there in the community getting to know people and talking to people about what they do, spreading their brand information. Right. Speaking of which, Jed, did you have a question or comment?
[00:10:21] Speaker A: Be interested to know, Rick, from your perspective and experience, what are the mindset shifts that entrepreneurs need to make to grow their businesses? One of the big things is you have to promote yourself and you also in promoting yourself, you have to understand the value of, of an hour of your time. So one of the very first things that I'll do with new clients is I'll ask them what is an hour of your time worth? Not what do you pay yourself. But what is the value of an hour of your time worth so that impact? Some people will say, you know, $50. I have one guy say 5,000. Well, he obviously has already figured out that he's already made the mindset shift. But so many are, they're stuck. Oh, I got, I gotta, I can't turn it over to somebody else. Cause I don't trust them or, or I have, I'm the only one who can do it. Well, you're doing $20 an hour work and your time is worth minimum $150 an hour. I say everybody, every business owner's time is worth at least 150 an hour. So you have to change your mindset from I can only do it to I need to trade my work for value, my time for value. You got to switch from doing $20 an hour work to $150 hour work as much as you possibly can. That's one of the biggest things that I see. You have to be in a place where you are maximizing the value of your time. And that can look different ways. Some people think, well, I gotta go hire a full time employee. They gotta be able to do all these different things. Well, you could hire a virtual assistant. I don't know how many people on this call are familiar with virtual assistants. They're a good resource. You can hire somebody part time, hire fractional people. We're talking about QuickBooks and bookkeeping. A bookkeeper can make a significant impact and you might pay somewhere between three and $500 a month. They take that burden off of you. But you're trading your time for real value and so it's huge. That's why it's in the top three for me.
[00:12:06] Speaker D: We're out of time for this segment. I feel like we've barely got started.
[00:12:09] Speaker C: Yeah, but lots of good information though.
[00:12:11] Speaker D: How do people find you if they want to pick your brain some more, get your services?
[00:12:15] Speaker A: Yeah, they can reach me at myupadvisors. Com. They can find me on LinkedIn. They can email me renglishyupadvisors.com. and I'm also pretty active on social media, so they can find me on Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and all the others.
[00:12:30] Speaker D: Well, thank you, Rick. You know, you've really given me some food for thought because I was going to do some low level work and I'm thinking I should push it off on the marketing assistant.
[00:12:39] Speaker A: Appreciate it.
[00:12:40] Speaker B: Passage to Profit is a nationally syndicated radio show appearing in 38 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 Noah Fleishman and our program coordinator Alicia Morrissey, and our studio assistant Rishikat Bussari. 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. Gerhart Law is here for your patent, trademark, and copyright needs. You can find
[email protected] and contact us for a free consultation. Take care everybody. Thanks for listening and we'll be back next week.
