Nobody buys your product, they buy your business

Hey, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Well, I mean, ePlaybooks is just a w one one of the ventures that I have. What what got me here, you know, I can give you the story from way back or I can give you the story from you know, briefly back. I can do it all quickly though. so I've I've always been into just having my own companies. and I think it came from my my father. he had his own construction company, we're originally from Iran. And I'm used to from from the time I was a five-year-old. I'm not sure if it's considered safe today, but when I was a five-year-old, my father would actually take me to construction sites. I would climb all over those the equipment. And I always thought, okay, you know, I'm gonna do like my dad did. I'll I'll probably have a construction company. I never actually had a construction company, but I did always start my own business. So when I went through college and and everything, people were applying for jobs and things like that. I never did that. I actually never applied for a job that way. I wanted to form my own company. so from very early on, from a teenager, that's what I did. when I started my first company, it was quite by accident. It was really to help my dad. and I ended up helping him in a in something that wasn't working for him, and that ended up being a business that he actually marketed then to his friends. He said, He said, hey, look, my son did this. You guys want to use the same tool. and so it became a business out of really that. so fast forward, you know, over time, I've I'm a serial entrepreneur. I've started more than a dozen companies from the ground up with me as employee one and grown them to eight nine figure businesses. I not everything has been a resounding success, plenty of failures along the way. And that's something I actually tell people. You're gonna have failures. And part of being an entrepreneur is to fight through those things and move on and and learn from them. those are companies that I've bootstrapped, obviously. I've I've been an investor, I've also fundraised for for you know different companies, different ventures that I've done. Over time, what happened was people would come to me just because some of my businesses were more public than others. Always in a time of crisis, either something terrible had happened or something great had happened. and they would say, Hey, help me with this. I'm sure a lot of entrepreneurs get this, where someone comes to you and says, Hey, you did this, can you help me with it? Right. And maybe it's a good thing or a bad thing, but I was one of the ones that said, Yeah, I want to help. It was interesting to me, it was a puzzle every time. And I would actually would pull executives and team members from my companies to work on these puzzles that I would get. and that sort of mushroomed into what I considered a mentorship type of a group, where I had all these different small and medium sized companies that had come to me, that would come to me from time to time. Out of that grew obviously a lot of business ventures. I ended up having equity stake in a number of different companies. not all of them again. went great. Some of them went great. Some of them didn't go so great. but over time what I noticed was one, this was a great way for me to get into business ventures. was this mentorship group that I was having. two, I really enjoyed doing it. And three, it was extremely un unwieldy. I would see these businesses in different places and it it they would come at me from different directions and with different attitudes and all of those things. and so it was very, you know, madman type of a thing. You know, everything is coming at you like this. the other thing that had happened was after as as would happen with anything, after you deal with something a hundred times, two hundred times, meaning helping these people, you end up developing system for it. You you see something, you go, that's the kind of problem it is. this is the kind of problem it is. So I developed this what what I call a three-bucket system. And I said, Okay. you know what I'm gonna do and as I've done over and over is I'm gonna you know make this into a business. But part of it was because I wanted to organize it and make it a system that I'm that where I operate in you know in a set protocol. so that's ePlaybooks. so truth be told, that's where it started. It was just sort of you know organizing this mentorship group, putting it together, having a system for working with small and medium-sized businesses. and I used my three bucket system. I said, I'm gonna pick one of my buckets, I'm gonna start from there, and I'm gonna expand. so what what what it really was was I I wanted to get more into those ventures that I was getting into, but the company developed to be something a little bit different, as again, most businesses that I get into end up being. so I can go into that whenever, but that's kind of the backstory of how. this came to be and then I can tell you, you know, how we we do things if if that's of interest.

Well, so I I'll tell you the way that we we sort of standardize what we do here is I said I said I'm gonna I'm gonna use one of those buckets, right? That might have my three bucket system. that's that would be a starting point. And that was for me to organize these things. So w the the bucket I pick was really sales channels. the reason I did that was threefold was because one, sales channel sales is what every You know, especially small and medium-sized businesses that they're focused on, so it would be attractive to them. Two, my other buckets were not nearly as interesting. logistics and supply chains include those. and so I I that's quite literally and figuratively the back of end end of a business. And three, I saw a very widely shifting landscape which made it meaty enough to work with. one of the pri primary things that that happens, I mean, you you you start with every company that you you you look at, you kind of look at what what are they doing? What you know, what what is the the the vision of the founding team or the or or the or the leadership team, whoever you're dealing with. what is the product catalog look like? What are the offerings look like? what type of historicals do they have? What what have they done with this? where they've gone with with it. and you start kind of a lot of times this the these I I have these common things that are very general things that I want to start with because that that's where we we go with it. The first thing I I make sure they understand is as founders, business owners, company owners, whatever they are, leadership, their job, their only job is problem solver. That's it. Problem solver. And every day that's what happens. You get problems, you solve them. And if you're not ready to do that, you're not ready to be the owner of a company. Number two is you're a problem solver to this degree. Not to just solve every problem that comes up every morning you get up, but if you don't see any on any particular time any morning you get up, you go look for them because they'll be there. Find them, solve them. That's your primary job. and so we we start from there, and then we we we we start getting more specific about the business.

Okay, Mikolas. So I I'll tell you this. You don't know me well enough. So so you don't know what an accomplishment it is for me to actually write a book. I have the attention span of a gerbil. so so for me to sit down and actually write about a given subject for two hundred pages, that that that's part of the reason I did it. I said, Okay, it was it was a it was a challenge to myself.

to to do that. So I I wrote my first book coming out of the pandemic. And I s you know I I I started but that was that was what I would brag to people. It's like I actually managed to put 200 pages of writing out there. and so what you the book you mentioned is my latest book which is The Business is the product. that comes out of a kind of a concept that I actually share with a lot of small and medium-sized businesses that I deal with, a lot of founders. is is something we we just naturally and keenly understand as a consumer, and that somehow we largely forget when become we become the owner, we become the the the the leader inside of the The company. And that's the business is the product. When we're as a consumer, when you're making a purchasing decision, you look at the different products that are out there, you look at the companies that sell them, you look at the catalog, the other products that that same company or those companies may have. You look at what they do on social media, you look at their reviews, you look at them as you all you do all of these different things before you make a purchasing decision. And that's on very simple things. you know, something you buy for a dollar, you know, it it you you you actually look through and make those decisions. As soon as we you know switch the side of the table and we sit on the other side, we seem to then get a very narrow focus. So a consumer has this broad focus of what they want when they're making that per purchasing decision. And as as as company owners we become very narrow and we start focusing on what we consider to be the offering, which is maybe a a given product that we're putting out or a given service that we're putting out. And that becomes in our heads the business. That to me is the entirely wrong approach to to running a company. and so I what I try to do and what I did with that book, you know the the the it the general concept of it is behind that is is focusing in on the entire business because the entire business is what you're offering is to the world. That's the thing that you're putting out to the market. And that's how they make purchasing decisions. it in involves a lot of different factors. so you know I managed to write another you know 200 pages on another subject but but I I what I also did

was I have all these little sayings and I I I was telling you before we started recording. I I you know I have these little sayings. Some of them are just minds, such as and I haven't heard anyone say the business is the product. it's actually the full the full version of what I say is the business is the the product isn't the business, the business is the product. Okay. But but and then some of them are common sayings like I mentioned to you, you know, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. A lot of times what happens is we sit there and we're looking to perfect whatever process we we're we're doing before we present it to the market. you know, let's make sure it's this, let's make sure. And that pursuit of perfection, while it is absolutely important to have that, the perfect is the goal. We want to have the perfect thing. But It should I I I hate it when it becomes the the enemy of the good, the enemy of actually taking action and doing things, putting the product. And you know, it there's a lot of bad things that come out of that, right? When you when you're looking for the perfect, right? You're you're sitting there and you're saying, Okay, let me make the perfect whatever widget you're making, right? And you have in your mind what perfection is. You you have, yeah, and then you develop other things. people will want this, people will want that, the customer will the market will demand this. All these different things. At that point, yes, some of those are educated guesses. Some of those things are things you know and they're absolute truisms. And some of them are total hogwash. They are total fiction. You are you believe the market thinks that, but you don't really know. and so what what happens is even when you do that and you say, Okay, now I I feel like I have the per perfect product, let's say you did all that. When you put it out, the market will tell you all kinds of things that you didn't know. And so anyone who puts out a product, a service into the market, they will always tell you, No, you gotta put it out because you don't know what the market is. You believe, yes, you should do the best guess you can. But also you need to hear from these customers because they will either say something, they will either actually go against some of the things you believed. I bet you they'll come up with all kinds of things that you never thought about. and some of them will need addressing and some of them will need to to be dealt with in in all kinds of different ways. So that's that the again, you know, the there are all these different sayings that I have that that that I sort of put together. into a book and so different topics that that mean something, you know, like I I say I said you know keep a tight budget but don't be cheap. You know that that you know is is incredibly important in my mind. people a lot of times they they don't understand the difference between keeping a tight budget and being just cheap. Being a being cheap will be will be bad for your business. Keeping a tight budget is vital to your business. so two separate concepts that way. Anyway, sorry, I'm bending your ear a lot all kinds of ways.

You know what I we don't.

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's very similar to when you go to school, a lot of those concepts you you you you hear, they're very good concepts and they're important to incorporate in life altogether. But there are practical things that you learn as you go along that are also vital, that you know, are in addition to or sometime very different than what you learned in school.

so again it's just s similar things. But you know, and I get this across all kinds of businesses. So so one of the one of the companies that you know we've worked with for for a number of years and you know, it's it's more one one of those that ended up being an equity arrangement. But when when we got together, the company was in existence. They were experienced at doing their business. but when we when we started, for example, th but they were used to having a wholesale and and a distributorship type of a network and they wanted to sell their products direct to consumer now which was a completely different thing there were things that even though they were excellent at what they were doing excellent at what they were doing they knew their products they knew the things that that customers were buying they were not at all prepare to do the things that they needed to do in order to directly sell to a consumer. For example, they didn't have a customer care department because they had no direct contact with a consumer that way. So they they their customer care was completely different. Their warehousing, they very quickly figured out, you know, if they're selling directly to consumers, they were used to big trucks coming to their warehouses and then picking up big pallets of things and leaving. Okay. And so one of the first things I did was they had put up a consumer website and I said, You gotta take that down. And they said, No, no, no, no, we're good with this. We you know, we know what they're doing. We've been doing this for decades. And and and it's like, no, you haven't been doing this. and so but I I said, I'll prove it to you. I put it in order. I said, I want one of these, two of those, five of those, and I want it at my house tomorrow. and that's when they first figured out that they had no mechanism for even picking each. one unit of anything. They they knew how to put things on a palette. They didn't know how to take one unit of something and put it in a box and send it out. They didn't understand the the type of consumer expectations there were there. It completely different. And so what what ended up happening was a learning curve for for for them and for me of course. But but it was a it ended up being a very successful venture because they they knew what they were doing in a lot of different ways that I could draw from and my team could draw from. And then we were able to translate that into the business unit that they wanted. so so it it it's you you will find that the that there is a learning curve, no matter how experienced you are. and one of the most important things that you have to do w wherever you sit is you know make sure that you're absorbing everything that has to do with with the the the the universe that you're dealing with.

Ha ha.

I think what what happens is they they feel like they have to hit a home run every time. you know, and I mean and what you just said kind of reminded me of that, right? they feel like they have to hit a home run every time. So they feel like the product that they put out th this product has to be, you know, the revolutionary and crazy great. And then the next one has to be that way too. Which what what ends up happening in that situation is you don't develop product two and you don't develop product three and you don't develop product four and you don't put together a catalog, which I believe a list of offerings, some sort of a catalog is one of the things that's required for growth and scaling. You know, you you're gonna have to do that again, every and and this is what you always get. As soon as you give someone a rule, they give you examples of the exception. Right. So so and then they they they because then they say, well, your rule must not be true. No, that doesn't make the rule not true. so yes, I'm sure there are anecdotal stories of various things, but as a rule you want to develop multiple offerings, you wanna keep expanding and widening your catalog. and not every product needs to be revolutionary, you know, but You know, that that that's something that I I find that people do a lot.

I'm doing it. This is it. I I love I love doing doing exactly what I'm doing. I I s you know I run multiple companies. The company that I you know it's funny because ePlaybooks does not necessarily take all of my energy and certainly isn't the largest company I'm running, but but it's w w one of the areas that I enjoy spending the most time on. mm a lot because you keep getting all these different issues to solve, all these different puzzles to solve. I love it a lot because the the people I work with, the founders I work with, you know, hopefully I'm bringing a lot of benefit to them. you know, and and maybe, you know, resolving some anxieties that they have and and helping them be successful. That's always extremely enjoyable. So you know, it it this this kind of a thing, I I started I I made it into a business. It was something I really enjoyed doing. But the funny thing was w we we didn't even start it like you would start with a lot of businesses, which is figuring out how you're gonna market the product. We actually didn't have a marketing budget. It wasn't part of it because of I had an ongoing, you know, grouping of people that would come to me constantly. but so I i it's a lot of fun and I love doing it.

No more books. No more books. I cannot concentrate for two hundred pages. Okay. So that if you ask me what not to do for me, no more books. But who knows?

I'm I'm obviously on LinkedIn. I you can find me at ePlaybooks if you contact our company, I'm sure they're gonna be able to grab me. And someone told me a while ago to hey, w you know, since my last name is a little bit difficult to spell and pronounce I I said they said why don't you just get connectwithshawn dot com? And I didn't know it was available, but it is available, so you can go to connectwithshawn dot com. and and hopefully that ends you up at where I am.

depending on what our team has done, it might it may end you up at our website, it may end you up at a at a place at a at a at a website that where you can contact.

I'm here.