#368: How To Achieve Maximum Value For Your Small Business w/ Adam Sonnhalter & Jack Mencini
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Episode Description
Adam Sonnhalter and Jack Mencini began Maximum Value Partners (MVP) back in 2003 as a business coaching practice dedicated to small businesses. Based in the greater Cleveland, Ohio area, the duo takes a different approach to coaching, employing their MVP Playbook—featuring the 7 Keys to Success and the 3 Circles—while helping small business owners get unstuck from the endless “how” questions that come with running a business. This formula has elevated the games of business ranging from landscapers to IT consultants, body shops to marketing firms.
Since their inception, MVP has worked with hundreds of small businesses with a myriad of issues: improving efficiency, increasing profitability, defining management structures, buying/selling a business, preparing for transitions and more.
For more information on MVP—including Adam and Jack’s long-running podcast, Dirty Secrets of Small Business—visit https://maximumvp.com/
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unedited Otter.ai transcription
Adam Sonnhalter 3:00
Hello I can't hear you I heard that
Law Smith 3:12
sorry about that. Can you hear me?
Adam Sonnhalter 3:13
I gotcha now Yep.
Law Smith 3:39
Hey guys so we're an unconventional show already. And I had a makeshift setup in my home office because as I was driving to our studio to meet my co host, Eric, he was like, I can't make it. So we had a scheduling conflict, but no worries. I didn't want to reschedule with some esteemed gentleman as yourself. And so it looks a little weird on my side, I look a little shiny. I've just been running around in this floor.
So I can't have the background of the mountains, the canyon, like Adam has. But we, I we try to do the show real tight. So we're rolling. Why don't you guys instead of me fumbling through your introduction. Why don't y'all introduce yourselves to our audience.
Adam Sonnhalter 4:41
Okay. So, my name is Adam Sonnhalter, and I'm a partner with Jack Mencini here in a cupboard call maximum value Partners is a business coaching firm. We've been doing this for almost 20 years. We've also have a podcast called dirty secrets of small business. We've been doing that for over six years. We have about 320 episodes there we help to kind of talk about small business stuff and, and help provide provide some practical advice to small business owners across across the world.
Law Smith 5:08
And Jack, anything to add,
Jack Mencini 5:11
oh, he told us about maximum value and the dirty secrets. Yeah. And 20 years for my first 20 years in business who are big corporations, they broke off that after about 20 years, they've been missing the world of small businesses. And we define that as under 25 employees, companies that have under 25 employees, and bought and sold 16 companies, since probably about 30 years since I left the big corporate world. Hello, and operated and started a nonprofit which turned over to the Mayo Clinic about four years ago, four or five years ago, taught patients how to deal with their doctors. And I love this small business world. It's just Adam and I are kindred spirits at this we we absolutely love helping them and we do we help them we've had hundreds of clients and if they stay coachable, and we got a little criteria that that determines that. If they stayed coachable, we'll be successful with them. And that means sustainable profits. We'll teach them how to do that. And we have a lot of fun. Well,
Law Smith 6:25
I mean, what you're you are is what I want to become. I love the small business atmosphere as well. Not to I won't butter your bread too much, you are a bit long in the tooth. You know,
Jack Mencini 6:39
I got a mask on. Right? Let me take
Adam Sonnhalter 6:44
a different kind of mask, right?
Law Smith 6:45
We all wear some kind of mask. But that's that's a different podcast. That's right. But you with that kind of resume, it seems like you don't need to do this. It sounds like you love doing it. You know,
Jack Mencini 7:00
tried to retire and try it twice. And I'll never do it again. I know try to try. I will never try to retire again.
Law Smith 7:09
Well, I selfishly think about that as well. My dad's retired last couple of years. And I think he's bored. He was an attorney for 35 years. And it was one of those things where, you know, I feel like the people that keep working in something fulfilling their let's call it advanced age. You know, I feel live longer they live a more satisfied, you know, kind of twilight years. Is that, is that kind of why you unretired like Tom Brady?
Jack Mencini 7:40
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yay, stop and look at your options. And they aren't desirable. This, this switch to small businesses years ago, decades ago, was probably the best decision I ever made my life. And I got a great partner here. He's, you know, he's fast. And he's good. And you worked on Wall Street for 10 years. So I learned all the evils there. And, you know, we were a good team. And we have a lot of fun with this. And we think of, you know, we would like to help these these small business owners and advocate for him. So
Law Smith 8:14
how did you meet Craigslist.
Jack Mencini 8:17
I used to golf. Yeah. I used to golf, and I met him. I used to caddy for me. We have a little
Adam Sonnhalter 8:27
long time. But yeah. During my high school, and college years, I used to caddy and so I can't forget quite quite a bit. And we, we got reconnected again about 20 years ago when I was moving back from New York to Cleveland. And we kind of got caught up at that point. And that point, he was transitioning out of his latest company that he just sold. And he had started maximum value partners with a couple other guys. And so we just kind of hit it off very, very well and just had a lot of fun doing this for the last 20 years and your points very well taken law he's doing because he he loves doing it. Absolutely loves doing it. He's great at it. That's why keeps doing it.
Law Smith 8:57
Yeah, if you're well, if you're if you're an expert in your field, and you are stay shaded by the work, why not? Why would you stop right? And it sounds like your podcast. I listened your podcast a couple weeks back whenever we first scheduled this, I think this is a reschedule. And, you know, ours is kind of a poor man's version, you guys actually give a lot of wisdom out there because you have a lot more experience. But in a similar way. I like that, that y'all are almost in a way giving back. And no one's forcing you to do it. You know, y'all this podcast is a way to get that wisdom out there. And I tried to do the same thing with our show, Eric and I both do it. You know, here's how we failed. And here's here's the cheat code to getting out of your own way. Speaking getting out of your own way, small business owner so we're kind of cut from a similar cloth. I love helping small businesses. I love being a part of that story. From getting them to successful goals, and being just a tiny ingredient in that recipe, what do you find? is kind of a two fold question. What do people reach out to you for? Like, what do they think they need help from you with on the coaching side? And what do they really need coaching with, but they don't really, they don't know that when they reach out.
Jack Mencini 10:27
I'd say it's a numbers oriented net, okay to add stuff here to obviously, we always add stuff to each other, and not understanding the financial aspect of a business. And we often say, which is true, most small business owners don't know what they don't know. So the challenge of teaching them has to start with something very elementary. And we do that it's creating a profit plan, that not getting into debits and credits with accounting and keep it keep it understandable for as long as you possibly can. And then you gotta quit doing that and get a little serious about this stuff. So we, we had a run lately and helping people buy companies or sell their own and buy a run, you know, that's Adams, early expertise before he joined the small business world with an investment banker, and Wall Street. So he does that very well. And we've helped, just in the last couple of months, people sell their business. And it's proven very, very lucrative to them. And obviously, we get a cut of that and, but more importantly, they they have newfound freedom and a lot of money in their pockets. And that's fun. That's a lot of fun. It's all it's all been fun. Everyone's probably get a bozo, but not usually.
Law Smith 11:54
Well, yeah, the the type of person that comes to you all with intent, I assume, is, is one that is willing to concede that they need some help, right? Yeah,
Adam Sonnhalter 12:07
yeah, they usually get stuck somewhere, you know, a couple of common places that they get stuck, they make it sucks kind of bumping along, maybe they've been in business for 10 or 12 years, they're kind of stuck at the same level for a number of years, they aren't sure why we aren't sure to kind of break through that. Or they often get overwhelmed at times, you know, it's growing so fast, you aren't sure what to pay attention to. And so a lot of times, they'll come to us and say, hey, help me get organized, you know, or something like that helped me you know, know what to focus on. Because as an owner, you've got, you know, 1000s of things, you know, vying for your attention every day. And if you focus on the wrong things, it can be very tough. So yeah, so folks usually come in, and they realize that they don't know what they don't know is, you know, kind of what Jack was saying little bit law, they start to realize that they're sure how to articulate until they sort of got to meet us and kind of talk about it. But we learned early on that not everybody is coachable. And so so we kind of create that coachability criteria, because we're, you know, we're a couple years in and we're having some great success with people, and some folks not so great success. And so we're we're looking internally trying to figure out well, what can we do different? It may be something that we're doing wrong, and what what we kind of concluded was, were we weren't screening people out well enough, you know, in terms of a not everybody's gonna be coachable and take it to it. Sometimes people just want to be like, Hey, I know. That's it. I'm gonna do it my way kind of thing. Yeah, we call those old steel guys what we call those folks.
Law Smith 13:19
Yeah, I run into a similar problem. When I had my agency and I was running that full time. And I find this this rhythm of there's a certain percentage that would come to me for help. And then we go, alright, here's, here's the strategy. Here's the, even a business plan, sometimes I collaborate with and they just wouldn't want to follow through with it. And I'm like, This is why why would you come to me? So everybody has that friend that asked for advice and non business advice. And they just really are going to do whatever they're going to do. Anyway, I kind of bucket like a buddy that was always asked him about, like romantic advice. You know, he's dating all the time, wasn't married for a long time. And I had to go like, hey, but I think you're just asking to say this out loud, but you're gonna do whatever you're gonna do. Do you? I guess, how do you qualify those kinds of people now?
Adam Sonnhalter 14:23
So when we're first talking to somebody, we tell them, Look, we're interviewing you as much as you're interviewing us. So So as we're asking questions, Jack alluded to comment, we have a 14 point criteria that that we kind of go through, it's kind of a pass fail thing. And some of those 14 points are more heavily weighted. One of the key things though, is is just overall curiosity. You can be folks who are constantly trying to learn trying to get better. So that could be again, just in terms of that they're asking questions and actually listening to people. They're reading books, whether they're listening to podcasts, or they're going to conferences that they're currently trying to kind of get better. So if somebody has that kind of insatiable curiosity, that's usually a good a good sign of either current or potential success for him. We also look for some past success, you know, so it doesn't necessarily mean in business, it could be just in, you know, maybe they, they were in athletics growing up, or they're in the debate club, but if they don't know what success looks like, it's often hard to kind of show it to him, you know. And so we often look for that we have one of our clients who had some very successful, athletic careers in the past, you know. So again, they know what success looks and smells like that standpoint.
Law Smith 15:24
The dirty secret about entrepreneurship is it's lonely. That's been a theme on this show, we've talked with a lot of people and that, that's kind of the thing no one wants to talk about. Or a lot of a lot entrepreneurs are so busy with all these things in the queue, they have to do that they don't even take 10 minutes a day to kind of sit back and analyze the unanalyzed life is not worth living, all that kind of stuff. I find that, you know, my, my buddy, who runs a scout it company, an apple IT company here in Tampa Bay. You know, he was like, he basically dubbed me a business therapist. And I feel like I'm getting the vibe. That's how you'll sit down in discovery meeting. Is that
Jack Mencini 16:15
on point? Oh, yeah. Good way to look at That's right.
Law Smith 16:19
Well, because you know, it, especially when I tell him, I'm a stand up comedian as moonlighting career, that kind of what that that opens up the conversation a lot faster, I would say, because they feel more comfortable to say, whatever, a little bit too much a lot of the time. But I would say like, when you're even if you're a mom and pop shop, and you grew a business, and it's doing well, you still don't have that, that Mom, if you're the pop to talk to, because they're doing there, it's a delegation of duties, right? It's light is so it's so like within the the entrepreneur itself. And I feel like a lot of it, a lot of the coaching aspect in the office field has to be more psychology than anything like, you can definitely you can definitely teach about p&l. And you can teach about profitability. I mean, that's almost, you know, as as standard as it can come sitting with them. And maybe you can understand it's one part but it's got to you got to be breaking down psychology a lot. It's really interesting. You tap in on curiosity, why is curious, but why is curiosity the thing that? Okay, this is the indicator for us on someone that is coachable? I mean, I know you said a little bit earlier, but I've never heard anybody qualified anybody by curiosity. I find that interesting.
Adam Sonnhalter 17:42
Yeah. Yeah, up as we went back and analyze not only successes that we've had, but also with clients of ours, just in our, in our past life, as you start to look at those qualities that we found to be very key indicator for somebody to to be successful that curiosity was was one of them. And again, the folks that feel like they kind of know it all, or they're there, they aren't willing to make those changes, again, that just shows Hey, it's a time to kind of get out of business, you know, for those folks. You know, it's funny, he talked about, you know, the psychology part of it. And one of the things that we that we tend to specialize in is working with spouses. That's something that I grew up with my parents started a company when I was like, three years old.
Law Smith 18:19
Yeah, that's a different upbringing. Yeah, well,
Adam Sonnhalter 18:22
I thought it was normal. Because, you know, you're they had a successful company for 40 years, that's successful marriage for over 50 years. But I figured that was just kind of normal stuff. And then I got into into the real world and realize how unusual my parents were to have to have success. And both of those were, most folks will, will lose one or the other. And so we had some clients early on, where they, you know, they didn't bridge that gap very well, in terms of, you know, the home versus versus work, right, are you talking about, you know, the fact that the partners, you know, they don't know, if they talk about all the right things, or they don't have kind of that structure in place to to make sure that they don't lose themselves or lose their personal relationship as well. Also starts can be all business, it's a big part we help them do is understand, here's where to make some dividing lines, make sure hey, here's business versus here's at home. And here's ways to kind of handle stuff. And as I look back on my parents, I was one of the keys for their success was, my mom was very good at saying, hey, you know what, it's six o'clock this wait till tomorrow, right? Let's, let's, let's have family time right now. Now, it's a true emergency. Yeah, we can handle it. But you know, the rest of them, we can kind of hold on to it. And so as I was growing up, my dad always keep a little note, like a little note card in his pocket. I always see him kind of grab and convert, you know, write something down and stick it back in there. So as a young kid, I'm thinking, you know, the old man's like losing it or something right here. He's got to put stuff in? And he said, No, so what happens is, I realized that I get ideas all the time. And I don't have to say if I don't write it down and capture now, I'm not gonna remember tomorrow morning at eight o'clock, you know, he goes, so the the idea is just don't come from eight to five. They come all the time. So I learned to kind of capture those things and make sure that they're there. So you know, if your mom says, Hey, let's talk about to the market. I put a note down we'll talk about at breakfast tomorrow when he was getting ready to kind of plan our day and They're very good about kind of doing that and be able to kind of separate, you know, who was in charge, you know, one place versus another. So they talked about these things. We realize, as many couples don't talk about these things, or it's like they, they get into business together, because I think that'll fix us, right? If we're together all the time, it'll make us better. It's kind of like having a baby to kind of fix a bad relationship, and it's not a good idea. We've seen a lot of those kind of things start to happen, right?
Law Smith 20:26
To save the marriage, yeah.
Adam Sonnhalter 20:27
Or if you're gonna, if your spouse is to all times, like, you're not having discussions you should be having as business partners, because you want to get laid tonight. Right? So it's also you still talk about it. It's like, wait a minute to kind of cover these things. You know, doorman, sleeping on the couch, right? You know, this is this is important to make sure you guys have had these discussions. So a lot of times we become that facilitator. Or when we have partners like that, too, they're often come to us in between, and talk one on one, because often they'll talk differently one on one, and we'll be that conduit to kind of deliver the message or be able to hear from a different voice that standpoint. So we have a lot of couples that we also have a lot of partners, we know that they were over the years. And with us being a partnership, too, we can relate to those kinds of things as well, because we've been together like I said, about almost 20 years now it's been crazy.
Law Smith 21:08
Yeah, that's a tough dynamic because I've had to walk business owners entrepreneurs through that when they go, Oh, my, my wife is, you know, partner with BM this as well she handles XY and Z. And I go, Okay, now we have to pivot into talking about work life balance, because you're number one, let's call it I know, it's a partner, I know it's unknown or two, but let's call it your number one, employee two, as well. Like if they're handling all the things you don't like to handle, which is typically administrative, clerical, accounting, you know,
Jack Mencini 21:44
more stuff, that's
Law Smith 21:47
tends to be more of the soft skills stuff. But, you know, are you putting down getting laid in your iCal? You know, making sure cuz it works the other way too. It's not getting laid, he's gonna be irritable, unfortunately. Unlike just be a grumpy asshole all the time, and you go, well how this happened. And it really I am kind of, you know, admirer, it sounds like your parents relationship was really good at them. Because it's not easy to to really be around each other that much. And, and then you're gonna manage a house, like a business, that's how I looked at it. Like, you know, I tried to grit it out every 15 minutes, my dad to do list, you know, every morning there. So I'm kind of structured, because I was way out of whack, trying to play catch up all the time. And I go, I don't want this life. And I, I wanted to be present when I have my kids. I'm a single dad with two kids. And so it's kind of like, I got 50% of the week, I want to be present. So I have to cut off work when I've got him because he just, they're just all over me. But like, in the same respect. You know, how you grew up in Cleveland and your parents had an advertising agency? Is that correct? That's correct. Yep. So you didn't know any different I find that so like, my family is the opposite. I grew up and a lot of non entrepreneurial like a lot of like, get your gold watch, when you retire, you know, put in stay with one company as long as you can, if you can, you know, very risk averse, I would say. And not that that's a bad thing, either. It just not my personality. And I've always been kind of entrepreneurial. How did what was that household? Like?
Adam Sonnhalter 23:39
Well, we, you know, it was just part of the dinnertime discussions, you know, if something was kind of going out, you know, it was a big deal happen, or things were happening in the company, or there was some cutbacks happening, or if they're, if they're looking to buy another company, and we were just kind of aware of it, you know, it just not realizing until I look back, I go, wow, you know, this was kind of interesting discussions. Because, again, I thought everybody kind of had the same the same talks, but I had some friends who had, you know, had parents who had jobs and they didn't talk about business at all. Or if they did, it was all bad stuff at the man's keep me down doing it was all this victim stuff, I think, Wait a minute, no, you know, you can control your, your destiny, you know, and so, and it's looked back at all the jobs I had growing up, whether it be Caddying or, you know, setting up bingo for different stuff, or, you know, I was always attracted to those positions where there's, there's upside, there's more of an entrepreneurial bent to it. And when I went to Wall Street, that the place I chose was Bear Stearns, so it was more of an entrepreneurial place and everybody I met there was different. So I said, Hey, it's a chance to get to come in someplace to kind of just be yourself versus you kind of fit some sort of mold. And so I guess it's kind of growing up, you know, it kind of gave me that, that quiet confidence to kind of know, and again, on folks, I met Kenny two were entrepreneurs, you know, guys like Jack who reinforced all those things and talked about and they were always the happiest guys, you know, they're, they're kind of doing their own things. Look, if you want control your own destiny, you got to work for yourself. If you work, if you work for somebody else, they're gonna move you around. If you're successful, they're gonna move you here and do that. It's gonna be very, very difficult and you're going to control yourself. So a lot of those folks when I was in New York, you know who were, by outside means you judge or be successful, but to me, they're going on vacation taking their nannies with them. I'm going, Wait a minute, you know, you had kids why just so you can reproduce, because you're so wonderful. I mean, again, you know, I want to have a family. I see.
Law Smith 25:17
I'm cool with the nanny thing, because I was just talking, I've just been complaining about going on vacation with your kids is worse than it's harder than normal life. It's not cool. There's no chill. It's like, Please don't die in the water. Please don't let a firework without me. You know, like, if he's gonna die in this other area environment. Jack, what what was your environment growing up? Presumably, your parents best.
Jack Mencini 25:46
Dad, my dad was a steel worker, you were blue collar all the way. My mother homemaker worked department store, you know, 2030 hours a week kind of thing. So it was typical Cleveland, rustbelt kind of upbringing. didn't know any better. I thought we were rich, but we weren't. So that's a good grounding. I never knew we were poor, not really poor. But you know, that low, lower workaholic kind of situation where, you know, he was a factory worker. So that was my that was my experience. I have an amateur amateur athlete to us real good. And so I played football and basketball. And I play a lot of sports as a young guy, and lucked out, you know, and a nice career and a publicly traded company, vice president and he wanted me to move on to Canada as president of our Canadian operation. And I said, No, I didn't want to do it. No, victimhood or anything, I just didn't want to do it, I knew I was pretty good. And I could land on my feet, no matter where I was. Plus, I was a lot younger than I am now. And works out well. No complaints.
Law Smith 27:05
How do you tune do do anything to tune yourself to to make that decision? Meaning like, a lot of people in that position would just take it, because it's the next rung on the ladder, right? I feel like we talked about it on our show. It's for entrepreneurs, or people the side hustle, but it's also all the same rules apply. If you're trying to move up a corporate ladder as well, you have to kind of be entrepreneurial and that way, in a way of like, you know, you're, you're your own boss, you need to excel more than, you know, 100% kind of thing to get where you want to be. Do you what, how did you know like, this wasn't the right move for me? What was it it in your bones that you felt?
Jack Mencini 27:53
You know, it's funny people, people asked me, How could you leave a big corporate spot as a VP with all that good stuff I had here wasn't good stuff. It wasn't or anything, but it wasn't right for me. You know, people who do what I did, will give a story. Give a reason why they did that. And that's bullshit. I don't know why I didn't know why. But I knew I was okay. I know financially, I had stalked away enough and data VT in a public company and a lot of perks. So I was okay with that. So as my wife, and so it took some time off, it was, it was great, yes, 39 years old. And it was, it was just a good time to do something like that. So I got two sons, we did stuff together. And I got, you know, talk to people I hadn't talked to in years, and just the whole putting my feet up and just relax for a while. It was great. So and when I got into business stuff, I did it again. When I was buying companies and I saw one, I sold another and bought a couple more, did some consulting and just kicked around a lot of things. And I said, Hey, I like these guys. They're blue collar guys, for the most part. And I know, I know that world. I know. Well, and I'm comfortable with it. So it was it was just done without I can give a reason. But I don't. I wasn't thinking like that when I left. That's totally on my own terms.
Law Smith 29:26
Yeah, and a lot of people don't set themselves to be up to be able to do that. Right. That's part of being
Jack Mencini 29:31
out. I'll disagree with you because they can, but
Law Smith 29:36
yeah, a lot of people don't is what I'm saying. Yeah, they got
Jack Mencini 29:39
this sense of false security that working for a big company or taking a big position is going to be worth it. That's bullshit. But I didn't know that because I never did it. I never knew anybody who did it. And you know, but I liked entrepreneurs and I like blue collar guys. So I don't like the suits and Uh, nonsense that goes, it's all that and, you know, the office politics, you gotta be assertive and you got to be aggressive. You really do with you know, you got to hone the edge a little bit, but for the most part, that's how you make it and big corporations. It's cutthroat. It's not fun. You know, in that sense, it's not fun. I don't know what fun is.
Law Smith 30:24
It's not satisfying at the end of the day, right?
Jack Mencini 30:27
That's, that's for sure. That's for sure. I don't live it.
Law Smith 30:33
I don't talk about being happy. I talked about being satisfied. I think copy is a goal. That's unachievable. Almost in one way. I agree. I agree with like being 10, satisfied, satiated. What are the things that get you up in the morning, I think myself like y'all, I love being able to be part of that engine that helps, you know, a small business owner that needs help, you know, that little jigsaw piece to help them kind of get on their way. And then, and then it's the best one, I see. clients that I had sell their business, you know, sometimes the big conglomerates, that's fine. That's what they wanted to do. That was their end goal. There's nothing prouder, there's no better dinner to go have with that client. Once they're done, you know, with that sale and kick your heels up and just go, I don't know, there's some community communal kind of acts of service with it feels like,
Jack Mencini 31:31
we get teared up when when we have a success. Yeah.
Law Smith 31:35
Oh, I'll start crying if I keep talking about it right now. But we do
Jack Mencini 31:39
it to like that, you know, some people especially it's just
Law Smith 31:46
you're, you're taking their lives and their employees lives in a lot of ways.
Adam Sonnhalter 31:50
Absolutely. One thing is that, you know, I've worked with a lot of entrepreneurs over the years, even when I was in New York, a lot of the folks we advise were entrepreneurs. And like I said, some of that really stuck with me. So look, if you go into work every day, and it feels like work, it's a time it's a sign, you have to do something different. You know, it's probably something different. And I was coming into work at that point. And it felt like work and I started looking ahead, guys are 1020 years older than me to kinda look at the path ahead. And I was like, I don't want to be on that path. And it takes a little bit of courage to step off. You know, there's a famous quote in the movie Wall Street were the the old guys talking to Charlie Sheen about looking at staring into the abyss, right? So if you picture somebody on this ledge, taking that take that step off, going to going to do your own thing, you know, the folks in corporate America not encouraging you that they're trying to try to damage your psyche. So you need us, right? Yeah, you don't know how good you are. So you take that step off. And so the key is to take that step. And usually what you do is if you're good, you find out just how good you are. And you realize that you don't have all the answers, but you can figure stuff out and come back to that the whole curiosity thing, you'll figure out the answers, you'll tap into people, you'll find a way to not to not go back to that place. And it's rare that folks leave the corporate world and go back. And that was once in a while. But it's very usually once it goes to go, why did I wait so long? You know, so I didn't want us 30 years old, because I said, why wait till I'm 60 to do what I want to do. I want to do it now. So let's go do it now. And so that's why I started looking around for for people. When I was looking to do that's when Jack and I got reconnected, it just it was good timing, you know, I didn't know we're gonna start a coaching company, we we kind of evolved into that, that's, that's part of just kind of going find people who you like doing stuff with, and you start to start to discover, but the freedom there is fantastic, you know, the shackles of corporate American and the bureaucracy I want to taste get stuff done. And it's like, Give me a break. It's like the seventh idea today. Let's go try it out. Let's see how it goes. Let's learn from that, you know, and but it's, it's so much more fun to be to kind of try those kinds of things. And it's much more fulfilling. And we have a lot of fun. So yeah, you know, it's been 20 years of hard work here. But we we enjoy it. So it's not work. It's it's very fulfilling.
Law Smith 33:53
Yeah. And, you know, in the pandemic they talked about, I read an article, I think this Wall Street Journal was talking about how, in the pandemic, it really showed how much mayors in every city, you know, really had to react and really step up their game and be agile. I feel like the small business lifestyle is about being agile is about okay, this isn't working. We tried it, let's go this way. We're if you're at Bear Stearns, like when were you at Bear Stearns
Adam Sonnhalter 34:27
in the mid 90s? So 9597 So it was for collapse.
Law Smith 34:32
Okay, but after the crash at seven, yep. So yeah, you're there in a crazy time, Wolf of Wall Street era, I guess. Thrown midgets on a dartboard pretty close. But I mean, it was one of those things were just, I just watched that movie the other day and I was like, I don't that environment isn't good for me. It's it's nice to walk through the hallway. If you saw that be cool or seen in a movie, but that didn't work for me. I want to be agile with your life as well. I, so we try to keep these episodes about 33 minutes. So I'm going to, I'm going to I got two questions, and we'll definitely have y'all back on because we barely just peel the onion at all. And so one question I have, I have a disdain for business coaches. And you guys are coaches, I know that. So I'm not. I'm setting this up to put Foot and Mouth in a way. But there's a lot of like, in the same regard. There's a lot of motivational speakers that I don't I don't have a trust for. It's good. It's temporary. How do you guys separate yourselves as a real legitimate business coach, because I can tell just by talking to you this short amount of time, you're legitimate. Whereas I get a bad evangelical preacher feeling out of a lot of business coaches in quotes.
Adam Sonnhalter 36:04
We've gone from 20 years ago, I first started doing this, people were saying what types of business coach to about five, eight years into they're like, well tell me why you're different. These are those six people that I met here in the last month, right. And so usually what we saw the reason we got into this business, we saw people that were coaches that had no idea about business, you know, and so usually we find the folks that are life coaches, or career coaches that similar coaching is coaching, and it's like, okay, that's not the case, it comes to business, or they've only got one area of expertise, maybe they're a salesperson, or maybe they're more of a marketer, maybe they're more of a numbers person, but they don't bring that kind of complete picture from that standpoint. And so, you know, with Jack and I, what we focused on is trying to help create those owners to become CEOs. To be able to run the business, we joke, he said, Look, the goal is is is you get the company to a point where Jack and I can run it. Either way, I have no knowledge at all, but your product serves the company that that level, then we can be able to kind of run it from that standpoint. So we've we've been able to bottle up our combined almost 100 years of experience here to kind of put it down and say, here's how we simply be able to apply it to the owners of small companies. And having two of us together, we coach our clients together. And we started doing that very early on and realize it's very helpful to have different eyes and ears on stuff to make sure that we don't miss stuff. And we're very straightforward with how we coach our clients. It's always it's a flat monthly fee, we're available 24/7 We're there as partners for them. We aren't nickel and diming with stuff. So there's a lot of things that people do that that really annoy people, we, we you know, we don't do that. That's not how we are, but we're there to be able to deliver value. And it's always month to month, you know, we are making people sign six month one year contracts. Most of our clients stay with us for years or longer term clients, but been over 10 years with us. And as long as they want to keep getting better and growing, we know what it looks like to be the startup phase, we know what it's like to be a multibillion dollar company, and everything in between, right. So no matter where you're at, or where you want to go, we can help you get there. If you stay coachable, and if you kind of follow our guidance, if you don't, we can always walk away. It's been it's been a it's been a great couple years. Now we're gonna kind of part ways and see how things kind of go. So we're always very focused on that part of it to make sure that we're helping them it's the focus on helping them get better, not on us. It's always on them.
Law Smith 38:08
Well, all those principles you just laid down, maybe shit, maybe I'll be on your careers page on your website soon looking for some ah, the last question we asked and the question we asked everybody the first time on the podcast, what advice would you give your 13 year old self? Who wants to go first?
Jack Mencini 38:28
Me I would what today was what I know I have a grandson. And I've been trying to subtly drive entrepreneurism into him. And he's got it. He's a graduated college about a year ago. And he's he's a guy who gets up front takes charge. And he's he's doing things that I wished I would have done. I don't have any regrets, really. But if I were to answer this question, you know, it's to go back and become entrepreneurs at an earlier age, and have had an advantage of that. But we often miss the advantage, we often miss those opportunities, I would start sooner.
Law Smith 39:11
But what do you think?
Jack Mencini 39:15
Well, just just the environment, you know, if you don't know what you don't know, how do you start it? And that's, you know, that's why it's impossible to really grasp it quickly unless there's a mentor kind of driving it into you driving it in a negative way, but just subtle hints and encouragement and set things up for him unbeknownst to him and that kind of thing.
Law Smith 39:40
So you grew up. You grew up in an era where entrepreneurship wasn't as prevalent especially in the region, right is a lot more like like I was saying, like, you go to work, you get to go and watch and retire. It's that kind of lunch pail kind of
Jack Mencini 39:57
taper routes and things like that. I mean Go back. Hey, when I was a kid, we walked 10 miles in the snow, that kind of thing. It's
Adam Sonnhalter 40:07
uphill both ways. Yeah, we know, I like I'd
Jack Mencini 40:09
like to, I'd like the awareness of, you know, have a good mentor, someone who's working with you and encourages you and all sudden the light can go on, I think that would have been said wouldn't like to sidestep big corporations. I'm sure it gave me good training it did. I mean, I got great insight and learn business and, and learn organizations pretty well. So I don't know, it's a tough question asked, really?
Law Smith 40:36
I know, it's a brilliant question. I feel like a genius.
Adam Sonnhalter 40:41
Well, I have a 19 year old, a 16 year old. So I keep telling the same kind of things that here's the goal of school is to help you find what you like and what you're good at. If you can figure those things out, you can always find a way to make money at it nice. Also say no school does not have everything in it, school has a very limited number of things in it. And so this whole idea of having to go to college, it's a bunch of BS, right? I mean, college is great for certain people, not not everybody needs to go to college, lots of ways to kind of figure yourself out. So I'm trying to encourage my kids from a very young age. So it's my daughter who's 16 is very good at art and drawing and painting. So I've been encouraging her to try to monetize that, you know, versus just go, go get a job somewhere and be miserable. Look around, look all these signs around her. So make crazy science. Imagine, you can create a sign like that and get paid for it. And once you see them start to earn some money, and how they kind of light up. That's what you get that entrepreneurial spirit, kind of making your money and seeing that you can you can adjust the value not to go work for a certain dollar per hour, you can go, you know, kind of almost kind of name your price. But so the idea of entrepreneurship, even today still isn't being taught in schools much again, that they're being trained for jobs. I don't know if they a lot don't exist these days. But that's why it's the gap in terms of, you know, jobs available versus, you know, lack of people who are qualified for him. But you know, to me that they encourage the kids to try to find what you like, what you're good at, you always find a way to make money, especially today, there's a lot more ways to be able to make money today than ever were before. And so to be able to kind of focus on that versus just trying to, you know, get your get your degree, and hopefully get a job somewhere and just be miserable for the next 40 years. Yeah, we're trying to keep as many folks like that as we can.
Law Smith 42:12
Yeah, like you could. There's a lot to chew off of what you just said, and I definitely want to have you guys on selfishly just to ask you, you both in a longer form, interview, how I can foster my kids entrepreneurial, kind of vibe, if I can, but it's like you're saying with your daughter, you know, you know, get that Etsy store, go and get your Pinterest going. That's where the moms are moms buy a lot of this stuff. And it's not icky if you need me to come in and do like a halftime speech to get riled up. Because I get a lot of people that think I'm a creative in the professional world, because of the stand up. And it's vice versa. The other way, when I'm in stand up world, they think I'm like a buttoned up professional. And I'm like, these worlds aren't separate. There's they're both entrepreneurial. And just because you're creative doesn't mean you can't have a business.
Adam Sonnhalter 43:10
We lost them. Well. Let's wait to see if it comes back. It's still recording Jack.
Jack Mencini 43:21
Is it? Yeah.
Adam Sonnhalter 43:25
We'll give him a minute to come back. If not, I guess we'll we'll hang it up. And then he'll come back at us. Last only two of us here. It looks like well, however and the meeting and then he'll he'll reach back out to us. Maybe we kind of kind of finished up to where he wanted to get through. We already went over 33 minutes he was looking to get through so yeah. All right. Let me hit End Meeting for all. I'll see you tomorrow.
Jack Mencini 43:56
You don't have his text. Yeah. No.
Adam Sonnhalter 44:02
Just an email. But I mean, he has he has the blank to get in here. Right. Good thing is recorded in the cloud is still recording in the cloud. I can see it you see the cloud on your screen?
Jack Mencini 44:17
No, where should I see it?
Adam Sonnhalter 44:18
Well, I see the top left of my screen. But well, let's wait to hear from him again. This is what kind of the sky finalizes that. You know this episode. He wants to reach back out. So we'll we'll wait for a lot of reach back out to us. We'll get another time scheduled sounds like
Jack Mencini 44:34
good. All right. That was fun. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. All right. I'll see you tomorrow. Yep. All right. Bye. Bye.
