Entrepreneurship with Mitch Waks
CEO, Author, and Consultant Mitch Waks exhibited the gift of entrepreneurship at a young age; elementary school to be exact. He realized the profit to be had in making is own cinnamon toothpicks and selling them to his classmates.
During his college years, Mitch quickly realized his side-gig in a band would not pay the bills, therefore he established a “party planning” business, using his sociable personality to his advantage. Mitch may be the only college student who did not eat ramen noodles during that time.
During his experience as a student-teacher, Mitch understood he made a grave mistake in his career choices. Sticking with it until after graduation, Mitch went into sales instead of teaching. Mitch eventually met and married his first wife whose mother owned a home tutoring business with around 12 students.
During his time as an investment salesman discovered investing in senior care to be a lucrative move. Mitch spoke with his mother-in-law who agreed, and thus, Cooperative Home Care was born. Under Mitch’s leadership, Cooperative grew from a small tutoring business to a leader in the home healthcare and hospice industry with offices in two states.
After 35 years, Mitch expressed a desire to share his knowledge. He took a sabbatical, hid out in the woods, and wrote his soon-to-be bestseller On Entrepreneurship. Mitch continues to share his business acumen through consulting start-ups and established businesses alike.
Visit Mitches website or give him a call at 314.368.9445
Hear more episode of The Business of Business Podcast here
Full Transcript Below
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (00:04):
Hello, and welcome to the business of business podcast. I’m your host Roy. Today we have a fascinating guest with us, Mitch wax. He is in the, uh, with cooperative home care out of St. Louis, Missouri, uh, in the home care business, but also an entrepreneur. Um, I’ve talked with Mitch a few times and, uh, the fascinating thing is he’s been in business for 35 years.
And so longevity now is something you don’t see a lot, so we’re going to get in and, and he’s also in the process and he’s, I think he’s completed all the writing, but doing some editing, trying to get a book out. So we may even get to talk to him a little bit about the whole writing process, which fascinates me, but Mitch, thanks for taking time out of your day to be with us a welcome to the show.
Mitch (00:52):
Well, thanks so much. We’re about to talk about, uh, my favorite topic, which is business. Yeah.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (00:58):
Yes, yes. Yeah. So let’s just start there, uh, 35 years. I mean, that, that’s amazing. You’ve grown your company. I mean, I’m sure you started out and I know that you’ve got offices in two States, uh, in what seven, six or seven different offices now. And so let’s talk about that. How, how, what is the secret to staying in business for 35 years?
Mitch (01:23):
Well, Roy, I wish I could give you one silver bullet, um, because if we could, uh, it would sure be easy. And, uh, the, the answer, the short answer is there is no one reason, right? Um, I will tell you a lot of it can be luck. A lot of it is going to be the people that you surround yourself with.
A lot of it’s going to be, uh, do you have the right, um, marketing and business plan? Do you solve a need? There are so many things that we can talk about, but there is no one reason that a company can last a long time.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (02:02):
Well, and I think, uh, I’ll just say it for Mitch. I’ve talked to him enough to know that he’s very modest because I think some of the key things are, you know, providing customer service, providing a good service, uh, following up, making sure your customers are happy.
Number one, but being able to hire good people, like you said, surround yourself with good people. Those are no small feats in today. And then, uh, you know, kind of keeping that sales and marketing machine out there going, we’ve talked a lot about that, but, um, is there one of those that you feel is more, has been the most beneficial for you?
Mitch (02:40):
Hmm, well, I, boy, I, no, I mean, I, I hate to keep dodging that question, right? It sounds like, uh, I am just dodging. I think it’s, it’s a package you have. If you’re going to be successful, you have to have the whole package. If you’re going to be for one or two years, you don’t need much more than an interesting product or service.
Right, right. To catch people’s attention. Right. Uh, let’s take a look at like, um, well you’re too. Maybe your audience maybe way too young, but when I was little, uh, somebody came out for Christmas with, uh, something called the pet rock. And you could Bali, literally a rock in a cardboard box with instructions on how to care for your new pet. Well, great. That’s a novel idea and it lasted a year, right? What was it going to last 35 years?
Mitch (03:34):
No. Right. So it’s, it’s pretty easy to have a business that lasts a year. It’s really hard to have a business that lasts a long time. And for that to happen, you need a lot of things to come together. Uh, that is actually the reason that I wrote my book rowing.
I have come across so many young entrepreneurs and by young, I don’t mean chronologically their age. I mean that they’re new to entrepreneurship. They had an idea or a product or service yet. They knew nothing about business, nothing. And so they would ask questions or they post questions in places where you just shake your head. Like, what are you doing in business where you don’t understand some of the basics. Right. Right. So I really believe if you want to last a long time, you have to be a student of the art of business.
And that encompasses a whole lot of different things and a good entrepreneur. I’m the one that wants to last needs to always be learning, always be improving their own skillset and the skillset of everybody around them. Yeah. Now go,
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (04:53):
No, no, no. I was just going to, I didn’t mean to interrupt. I was just going to say that is the main reason that I started this show is because, you know, so many people, um, maybe they fall into business, they were doing something as a hobby. They were forced into it with the layoff or a company going out of business.
And then all of a sudden they find themselves to a point that it’s like, you know, they need that knowledge to grow more and more. And I think that’s important to always be, uh, learning. I mean, we can’t ever stop. Um, I try to read something new every day and guests such as yourself. I learned something. And that’s why I love doing this so much because I take away so much from these it’s, it’s such a pleasure. But anyway, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt your train of thought there.
Mitch (05:38):
Now, if I stopped dodging your questions and I can talk to a few elements that I think are really crucial for longevity, I will tell you, first of all, you have to know your why, why are you wanting to start a company? Is it because it’s romantic to be your own boss? Is it because you just got, let go after 30 years at a large company and you can’t find a new job in this marketplace, or you’re going to take your 401k money and buy a franchise because you got nothing else to do, right.
That’s not a good reason. That’s not a good why. Uh, often what we’re going to find is those people are going to waste their 401k money and see it just go down the drain because they don’t understand how to run a business. Right? Perhaps you were great at a particular department in your company and now you’ve left and you want to start your own.
Mitch (06:33):
You say, I can do this better than my boss. And maybe you can, maybe though all you can do better. Is that one aspect, right. Maybe you’re really good at fixing a manufacturing line and you know, you could do it better than your boss. So you’re gonna, you’re going to go into manufacturing of, I dunno, at any widget. Right. But do you have any marketing experience? No. Hm. Do you have HR experience now?
Hm. Well, when you start to realize all the things you don’t know, it’s often too late and your business will last maybe a year, a year and a half, and now you’re back to square one. So you have to understand what is your why, and as the why good enough to solve a problem in the community that you’re opening up your business.
So you need to solve a problem. And what is the problem you’re solving, right. Does that make sense? Yes. Another aspect that I think is crucial is, um, you have to be willing to work a lot of hours early on, and I need, you have to be willing to sacrifice, sleep, um, family time, um, friends, your hobbies, because if you’re going to make a go of it as a brand new entrepreneur, you are going to be spending so many hours trying to work, um, getting your business launched up and running and viable to the point where you actually have cash flow.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (08:09):
Right? And I think that’s an important part of why passion plays into that because of the hours, the commitment it has to typically, in my opinion, it has to be something that you feel some sort of passionate about, or you just run out of gas, you will hit the wall with, uh, the extra hours. And the other thing too, I’m very lucky.
I get a lot of support from my family. And, um, it’s, it’s good to have everybody on board pulling the wagon in the same direction, because I spend a lot of time that, um, you know, if I had somebody in my ear telling me, you’re spending too much time doing this, it wouldn’t be fun. And then all of a sudden, when the fun wears off, it’s like, it just goes away.
Mitch (08:51):
Yeah. Now it’s a job. And you might as well just have a job where at no risk. Right? Because being an entrepreneur means taking risks. Right. And you have to be comfortable with that, but I love your point of passion. Um, I will reiterate the fact that I believe you’re a hundred percent, right. What you don’t know about me, Roy yet is I’m a big fan of the grateful dead. Oh. And one other, one of their lines in a song is without loving the dream. It’ll never come true.
Now. That is absolutely true with entrepreneurship. You have to love what you’re doing. You have to have a passion for it, as you said, or it just isn’t going to work. Right. Because you’re going to have to put in those hours the sacrifice. Exactly. And, uh, so another element I feel was crucial to the success of entrepreneurs is the idea of, do you know your numbers?
Mitch (09:46):
I find so many young entrepreneurs don’t have a clue how to read a balance sheet, how to read an income statement, how to tell if that balance sheet is unhealthy, how to know when your ratio of debt to equity is out of whack, how to understand your days outstanding.
They just don’t know the simple, basic terms. Right. And they just think, well, if I, if I work hard, if I have a good product, I can succeed. Well, that the path to success often has been foiled by people who just didn’t know or understand how to measure numbers and how to read numbers. And you don’t have to be a CPA or a finance major, Roy, but you better know some basics or you better have somebody on your team who can read them and tell you, this is what’s happening.
Here’s a trend. Right. And who can explain it to you? Yeah. Often people can’t afford early on a good, you know, CPA or finance guy. Right. Right. But, but, but they need to, they need to budget for that and they need to pay that person before they pay it themselves. Yeah.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (11:00):
Yeah. Because I think another point to this is that if you’re not careful, you can find yourself just supporting a minimum wage job for yourself. Instead of being a true entrepreneur with the, uh, uh, you know, all that comes with that, the time and the luxuries that we can afford.
And a great point. I tell this story all the time, people probably get tired of hearing it, but, you know, I worked with a guy years ago, he had fallen into this business and he charged the price. And I’m like, so when I started working with them, the first thing I said was how, how do you arrive at this price? It’s like, well, my competition charges $5 more.
So I just cut their price and I’m like, well, but what’s all baked into this, your labor, your equipment, the time, travel time gas, you know, just started going through everything.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (11:49):
He’s like, wow, I didn’t even think about that. And when we put it all together, you know, he was probably $10 underneath, uh, the cost of what it cost him to provide that service. And, uh, it was a revelation and, uh, you know, uh, it’s kind of get into a lot of things, but then it’s got, okay. So PR being price sensitive is not always the best, uh, Avenue.
It’s like we got to sell the value. And when I tried to teach him to, let’s talk about, you know, process that where you need to be, and let’s sell the value. Uh, his income statement turned around immediately.
Mitch (12:28):
Well, that’s a great lesson. You taught them Ben. Yeah. Um, and that just radiates to my thought, which is you better understand numbers. And if you don’t, you better have somebody on your team that doesn’t explain, right. And you better know them before you open up on day one, you need to know exactly how many units you need to sell at what price so that you can one earn a living, but eventually do more than just, you know, earn $12 an hour.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (12:58):
So the other thing I see with entrepreneurs is trust. And, uh, you know, like yourself, you can’t be selling every customer. You can’t be crunching every number. You can’t be, uh, marketing to every prospect. Hire good people and then you have to trust them to go out and do the job. And there’s an old saying, you know, trust, but verify. So, uh, what, what’s your take on being able to, you know, hire people and trust them to go do the job the way that you want it done.
Mitch (13:33):
Yeah. Well, um, let’s unwrap that a little bit. Um, hiring great people is incredibly difficult. Yeah. Keiring great. People that stayed with you a long time is even more difficult. Right? Right. So the first thing you really have to do is understand what is it that your company stands for? What are your values? What, uh, do you believe in, what is your mission? Once you really have that and you, boy, you better have that before you draw up a business plan to take to a bank or take to a funder or a lending agent.
Um, you better know this stuff cold. Um, once you have that and by the way, that’s constantly evolving over time. Now, as you’re looking to hire people, you’re not looking just at their skillset, you’re not looking to say, Oh, you have an accounting degree. Great. I’m going to hire you because I need an accounting person.
Mitch (14:33):
No, that’s absolutely wrong. The accounting is the last piece. You’ll check. You’ll just assume they got their CPA. They know how to balance the general ledger. Right? Right. What you’re going to hire for Roy is you’re going to hire people that share the same values that you do as a dad, understand and buy into your mission and who understand and appreciate your why and are willing.
And this is a big part to get behind your why, your mission and your values, because it, it lines up with theirs because if they, if it doesn’t line up, one of a couple of things is going to happen. They’re going to quickly figure out they don’t belong there and leave. And now you’ve invested time and money into them. And that’s too expensive for a young entrepreneur work to waste. Right. The second idea is they stay, but they’re not being an ideal employee and you don’t want to get rid of them.
Mitch (15:34):
Right. And again, same result. I wasted six, nine months trying to train, uh, and bring them on board. Right. I don’t have that time to keep making these mistakes. Yeah. So start with those aspects. When you put together, um, an interview sheet, uh, at the top, you should put your mission statement, your value statements and beliefs, your why statement. Um, these are all things I talk about and you can go learn how to do them the best way possible or be happening, uh, teach people as you put those on the top of every interview page. Now you can start to match people up.
If you get 10 people that you’re interviewing. Now, you’re going to try to ask questions, to see who lines up with those pieces. Right. Right. And if they do now, you’ve got something to work with. Oh, by the way, do you know how to do accounting? Yeah. I got an accounting degree from Indiana. Great. Yeah. Right. That’s the last thing I care about, right?
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (16:36):
Yeah. Then there’s an old saying, uh, I don’t remember it exactly, but it’s basically, you know, hire the person and train to the train to the job. It’s like, we can train most people to do what we need them to do, but we have to have that cultural fit that we’re all moving in the same direction. And unfortunately, especially starting out, entrepreneurs can get on this, uh, the merry-go-round of hiring bad people and then trying to replace them instead of paying attention to the business, they spend so much time focused on, uh, the revolving door of employees. So it’s such an important aspect to make sure that you make it.
Mitch (17:16):
Yeah, absolutely. Right. Roy, I recommend your listeners pick up a copy of Jim Collins’ book. Good to great. And go directly to the chapter that talks about getting the right people on the bus, stop one, and then putting the people in the right seats because often we’ll hire people we think are great, but they’re doing the wrong job. Right. So it’s not just getting the right people on the bus ride, it’s getting them in the right seats on your bus. Right. But that all starts with making that, as you talked about the fit match. Yeah. They have to align with you. Yeah. So start with that piece and then worry about the skillset. Yeah.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (17:56):
Yeah. And that, that’s a good point. Uh, when we start talking about promoting people as well, I, I work for a very large corporation and, um, that was the way we promoted people was, you know, he’s been here the longest or you’re the last man standing, whichever, you know, it’s kind of like a battlefield promotion. It just because the, you know, and you spoke to this a little earlier, but, uh, just because you’re good at making widgets doesn’t mean that you’re going to be good at overseeing people that make widgets.
Mitch (18:26):
You’re absolutely right. Boy, what you’re talking about, you know, uh, the Peter principle, you keep promoting people until they have no skill left to do the job. Right. Um, because they were great at something, uh, on the front lines. Yeah. The, uh, the thing that I bet has kind of helped me is the phrase that I learned from a mentor a long time ago, which was, um, hire slowly and fire fast.
Yeah. As soon as you realize someone’s not a fit, let them go immediately before they do Dan. Yeah. Yeah. But take your time to hire the right person. Don’t feel like, Oh, I’m desperate for somebody in the seat. I need to hire somebody quick. Yeah. That is just a recipe for disaster. So hire slowly fire quickly.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (19:14):
Yeah. We used to be in a field personnel. We used to kind of joke that when somebody was not a good field hand and be like, they promoted on the, get them out of the field to quit making mistakes. If we don’t, we don’t want to take that. Uh, we don’t want to take that path. But the other thing to kind of think about through all of this is that, um, they are our brand ambassadors, especially if they’re customer facing. And so we, that’s another great reason to think about the culture. Do they match with our vision and our mission because, um, you’re sending them out into the world to represent you.
Mitch (19:49):
Yeah. And that’s true for everybody, Roy, isn’t it. Even your receptionist. Yes. And I will tell you, most people overlook the importance of that very first voice. That is the very first exposure to your business. And that’s who answers your phone. Yes. Uh, often people think, Oh, I don’t have to spend too much on that. Uh, I just need someone with a good phone voice, right. That is so wrong.
Again, they have to line up with your mission state. They have to agree and share your values. They have to buy into your why they have to believe in you and your service and product. And then you can teach them how you want to answer the phone. Right. But if they, if they line up with those things I’ve talked about now, when they answer the phone, they want to help that person achieve what you want them to help them achieve breaths.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (20:40):
Yeah. I talk a lot about that as managers, we failed to, um, let people know the, of that position. And, uh, you know, I’ve done a lot of mystery shopping. And so that is another soap box of mine is the, the receptionist. You know, you don’t want to walk in and have them grow up into the other employee about what Betty Jane did at lunch, or, you know, I’ve had them pick up the phone with a mouthful of, you know, lunch trying to talk to me or anyway, it’s so important.
But I think the other thing is that we have to deliver that message and say, you know what, you’re the most important person on this team because you’re going to be the very first contact by phone or, you know, by walking in some businesses.
Mitch (21:25):
Yeah. What we say is, uh, to our receptionist is you’re the voice of cooperative home care, right. And that has to be a very special position. You have to express, uh, all of our values in your voice. All of our mission in the questions you ask, you have to make sure whoever’s calling is helped. Uh, no matter what you have to do, you’ve got to help that person. Right. And that’s the attitude, uh, everybody needs to take. So it’s not just the, uh, um, it’s not just the customer facing people really well.
What about your payroll person? Don’t they have to buy into the idea that boy, all of your employees need to get paid on time so that they’re happy because they have responsibilities too. Don’t you want them to buy into your mission and understand your values. Right. Right. I think it’s everybody in your company has to be on board.
Mitch (22:23):
And as a leader, as an entrepreneur, they’re going to look to you to deliver that message and remind them on a regular basis, why they’re doing their job. Getting back to the very beginning over and over again, if I’m going to teach a class about entrepreneurship, it’s going to be, get back to your, why now are you sharing that? Why with everybody in your agency, you’re a company you have to. Yeah.
If we can move on. Another thing that I think is crucial is for entrepreneurs is to get involved with a peer group of some type. And there are so many types, but I will tell you the percentage of success has a direct correlation to an entrepreneur participating in and being involved in a peer group. And there’s three that I have been at various times involved with. Uh, I’ll share those with you, uh, that are incredible.
Mitch (23:24):
Again, not a pitch for anything that I’m doing, but I actually pay people to be involved in these, right? The first one is entrepreneurs organization. It’s called EO entrepreneurs organization. There’s a sister organization called YPO, which is young presidents organization, but that’s really for presidents of larger companies, not are not true entrepreneurs. If your audience is entrepreneurs, they need to check out EO entrepreneurs organization.
The next one is Vista, which, uh, uh, and the third one is tab or the alternative board, all of them, the three of these put you in a situation where you have your own board of advisors that don’t have, um, anything other than your best interests at heart. Uh, and you’re helping each other as a small business board of advisors and you meet monthly basis and you learn from each other. And what you learn is a very gestalt approach to understanding business problems.
Mitch (24:29):
What does that mean? Well, the gestalt idea of psychology talks about experience sharing, right? So I’m going to get together with one of my advisory boards and I’m going to say, I’ve got a problem. It’s my turn to present. As I go around the table, I’ve got an HR problem. Um, we got somebody who spends all day on religious sites and they’re incredibly religious. They’re taking up too much time. They’re starting to bug other people around them.
Who’s happened to hear these religious speeches in the cubicle next to them. Um, and I know we have religious freedom and auto want to step on the rights and they’re not doing anything bad, but it’s, it’s causing an issue. Right. I then present that to my board of advisors. If they’d had an experience similar, they’re going to share that experience with me and what they did.
Mitch (25:21):
Did it work? Did it not work now? What is the difference between an advisory board and just calling up your high school buddy and saying, what do I do? Well, your high school buddies never owned a company. He doesn’t know what to do. He’s got an opinion. And that opinion is worth absolutely nothing. Now, what is your advisory board? Uh, all for you? Well, they are other entrepreneurs.
That’s all, that’s invited into these and they’re only going to speak if they have an experience to share, like, Hey, I had a guy in my company who was totally into, uh, music. Yeah. He wanted to play it loud on his computer and it started to bug the people around him. It’s not an exact match, but it’s close enough. And he’s going to say, here’s what I did. Here’s how I solved the problem. Here’s how it worked out.
Mitch (26:08):
I wish I would have done this earlier. I wish I could. It wouldn’t have done that. So they’re going to share their whole experience. Now. I don’t have to understand how to fix it. I have to understand and know who do I go to to learn how to fix it. And this is the big difference. I want to make a point. I want to make Roy Good. Yeah.
Entrepreneurs. Don’t ask how they ask who, what I mean by that is don’t try to reinvent something. What you need to figure out as an entrepreneurs. Who’s had to fix this problem before I need to go to them and ask them how they did it. Right? Yeah. So your, your audience needs to write that down. If they’re a young entrepreneur, don’t ask how, ask who. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (26:54):
No Tom spending, spending the time reinventing the wheel when somebody else has already been through that.
Mitch (27:00):
You’re absolutely right. And so, uh, and there’s a whole lot of who’s in these peer groups. Right? Okay. There are other types of peer groups too. Just there are homogeneous ones like, uh, do you belong to an association of, uh, uh, um, let’s say, um, it people, well, you can all talk about it problems, right. That you all share.
Right. And there’s heterogeneous ones where it’s just a bunch of owners getting together of all different types. I like the heterogeneous ones, but both play a part. So I think entrepreneurs have to be a part of a peer group to have long-term success. Yeah. It’s invalid.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (27:38):
We need to surround ourself with good advisors like that. But also, um, I think it’s very important that we do not take it a sign of weakness that we have to ask the question because a lot of times, you know, we get caught up with our own, maybe our own egos or our own self-importance as like, well, I can’t ask anybody because then they’re going to think, I don’t know the answer to that.
Mitch (28:02):
Uh, Roy, you are so on target. Uh, I am, um, a lot I could learn from you. You are absolutely right again. And I keep finding myself saying that, but you’re absolutely right. I have a whole chapter on a book called, uh, mentors, because it is so important for an entrepreneur at every stage, especially early on. But even as we grow right, to have a mentor, and usually that’s someone who is much more successful, they can be in your industry or other industries.
And, uh, and what I try to share with people is find a mentor, find two mentors, meet with them once a month, once a quarter, and, uh, share their, your problems with them, share your opportunities, ask them how they grew, learn everything you can from these, uh, older, often older, but sometimes younger, more successful entrepreneurs, right? Uh, you and your audience should know that they will be surprised how many really successful business people.
If you call them, email them, they’re happy to be a mentor. Now some of them will say, get lost. I don’t have time, but many of them will say, wow. Yeah. You know what? I had a mentor when I was coming up, I’m happy to teach you. Let’s meet once a, once, every other month, you buy me coffee and I’ll share my knowledge with you. Yeah. You got to have a mentor, right?
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (29:26):
Yeah. I’ve got a great story about taking a chance and reaching out is, uh, you know, years ago I was, um, on, uh, the, the business team of a small church that I went to. We had differing opinions on, you know, what a budget actually did. And, and so, uh, what I did is I reached out to this guy, he’s a very well-known name in the business. I mean, one of the largest guys on TV evangelists now and out of Houston.
So I reached out to his business manager and he was a nicest guy. Cause I really didn’t think I would hear back from him. But I reached out and said, Hey, I’m having trouble showing, uh, other team members how these budgets should really work and help us. And so the gas sent me like three different books, followed up with me with some emails, had a phone conversation, but all it took was me sending them an email saying, I’ve got a question. And he was more than happy to share his years and years of knowledge in this area.
Mitch (30:31):
Well, that’s a perfect example. That’s a great story. And that’s exactly what I’m talking about, but I’m also talking about the idea of a long-term mentor that may stay with you for years and years. And, um, uh, the other thing I will tell you is, uh, as, as you grow in your entrepreneurship and your business offers you a little bit more time, I would recommend that you flip the, the table and you become a mentor to a new, younger, uh, entrepreneur.
Now you can do both simultaneously, currently, even though I’ve been in doing this for 35 years, right. I am doing both. I am mentoring a younger entrepreneur and I still have my mentor that I talk to on a regular basis whenever I need help. Yeah. And I get knowledge from both awesome from mentoring. Here’s what happened? This, this is a really cool right. I find that I am teaching things that I, of course used to know, but forgot, and I no longer implement.
And I got away from, and I’m like, wait, I’m teaching them to doing something and how come I got away from that myself? Like, darn it. I gotta go put that back in place. Exactly, exactly. So that, it’s great to go both ways.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (31:47):
It is. Well, Mitch, uh, I want to say thank you so much for, uh, imparting your knowledge. It’s always great to talk to you. I love your enthusiasm and you have got so much wisdom that, uh, definitely. I need to have you back again, like I said, we could talk for hours and hours. So, uh, first before I let you go, though, what is one tool that you use in your, uh, either in your business, daily life, a habit or ritual, what is something that you do every day that you couldn’t do without? Um,
Mitch (32:20):
I will tell you, um, if we’re talking about business in general, um, I love the concept of management by walking around. And that’s the idea of having the entrepreneur, the CEO, the leader of your company, and that’s all your audience, right? Um, it, um, it’s imperative that they see you and that they see all your staff and team see that you care. So just by walking around every day around the office and saying, Hey, good morning, how’s it going?
I don’t grill them on their KPIs. I don’t drill them on, Hey, did you get that thing in their deadline? That’s what their manager will do. Right. But I ask open-ended questions about that. And often I’m going to learn about how they’re doing and they may open up, but it’s, it’s important that your team see that you care about them. Yeah. So the idea of, uh, of what I can learn as an entrepreneur, by just walking around, doing one lap around the office and just saying hello to everybody, man, that’s invaluable.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (33:21):
Yeah. Yeah. I like to tell people, you need to be the mayor of your space. You’ve got to get out, kiss some babies, shake hands, Pat people on the back. You’ve got to stay engaged. Not only for them to see you, but also for you to be observing as well while you’re out there. So, great advice. Yeah. So Mitch, if somebody wants to reach out to you, um, I know that if you’re in the St Louis area and you have a loved one that may need home health, you can certainly help them out there. But also if somebody might have a business question, uh, entrepreneurship, uh, how could they reach out and get ahold of you?
Mitch (33:58):
Well, um, it’s pretty easy. I’ll give you two options to your listeners. The first is they can email me at mitch@cooperativehomecare.com, all one long word. Okay. But cooperative home care.com and two, I’m going to give them my cell number. So if you got a business question, an entrepreneur question, um, call me and let’s talk about it. Three one four, three six eight, nine four four five. That’s my personal cell. I will pick it up and we can talk business. Cause I love the talk business.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (34:35):
All right, well again, thanks Mitch. Uh, this is Roy. We are the business of business podcast and you can find us at thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com, Facebook, Instagram, and also we will have this recording up on YouTube until next time. Take care.
Hear more episode of The Business of Business Podcast here