FIR 122: What I Don't Know - IS HURTING MY SMB !

Financial Investing Radio

What I didn't know that I didn't know cause my very first startup company to fail.

Thanks for joining, this is Grant. So we started this company, I was right out of college. And as you probably recall, I turn to my wife and said, Hey, I'm not going to take the secure job, I'm going to go do this, this startup company. So we headed to Chicago, and we started working on this company, the focus of the company was to deliver some technology solutions to the healthcare world. That's that's honorable, right? Well, as we all know, in the world of all possible knowledge, there's the sliver of things that you know, and then of course, there's there's the section of, you know, the things that you know, that you don't know, and then there's this big wedge of the things that you don't even know that you don't know. Well, what we did know was that my main partner, he had years of healthcare experience and tons of connections.

So we knew that. All right. And then what we knew that we didn't know, was we weren't familiar with the healthcare payer details, right? We were focused on health care providers, right and the solutions around there. But what we didn't know that we didn't know, that was the level of investment that these health care providers were putting into technical solutions. It far surpassed our ability to support, right, so just a couple of us guys coming in saying, Hey, we're gonna go solve this serious healthcare problem for you. Yeah. Now, the other thing that I didn't know, that I didn't know, was that my partner was unwilling to accept input, he was unwilling to change course, and align with the market better, right. And so that unwillingness to change, that's a common challenge for many SMBs. Hackett's common challenge in big companies to, but the ones that pivot both the large as well as the small companies, that pivot, right, that shows some willingness to adjust course, with some market input. That's a critical skill set for business survival and growth.

So of course, the key is to be open to change. And there's a few things to consider there. Number one, commitment, right, make a conscious commitment to be open number two, trust, trust that you're heading in the direction. Not that you want to say is right, but you're always heading in a direction of new knowledge, right? second, or third curiosity. So allow yourself course to experience the curiosity of not knowing, right, some that sometimes we get uncomfortable with that we want to stay safely in the things that we know. But curiosity is actually critical to the business pivoting and growing. And then fourth, is around freedom. And that's basically the freedom of experiencing something new and unexpected. So getting open to change is a critical part of any SMB. Now, you know, dive I have plenty stories of things that I didn't know that I didn't know, one of those was even years before the startup that I did. This was well before college. But before I went into college, I had an opportunity to run a business for a friend of mine, and he was going to be away from his business for a year so and so on paper, this looked great with like a great deal. He had set up about $100,000 in business contracts, all I needed to do was to fill on those and you know, keep the profit. Now, the team was small, and this was back in the 80s. So everyone had big hair Anyway, you know, to a young pre college age kid this this looks like a lot of money. So I'm thinking hey, how could I pass up such great opportunity?

Oh, and by the way, I could use that money later for paying for college. So in my mind, it was a win win win. So I told him, yes. Well, I got a few weeks into this and he hadn't left yet. And one day I got this pit in my stomach, right? Something just did not feel right. And this not at me for several days. So I eventually got some alone time, right? Just ponder and think about this right? What is going on. And during that time, I got some clarity. And I went back to my friend and I turned down the opportunity. Now I thought the story would end there. A few months later, he reached out to me, and he informed me that, that the other business partners that were involved had embezzled a bunch of money, and the company went down. And he was tied up in in legal matters. Now, certainly, I didn't know what I didn't know, right? I didn't know that these potential partners were planning to do something like this, right? We're right in the middle of when I was trying to make make this decision. Now, in this case, gut instinct, some inner voice right gave me some reason to say, to pause and reconsider, right, which I did, of course, and, and I'm grateful for that. Right. It didn't tell me of the impending scheme that was about to unfold. But it's so how we learn about things that we don't know that we don't know, that tends to vary, right? Sometimes, it's got instincts, right? Other times, it's some AI insight, we need all of that when we're running our SMBs.

Right, we need to understand and be open to the change of constantly learning and, and constantly not knowing and have that curiosity for that. That's a critical aspect of running our businesses, of course, well, there's some techniques around this right. One of those is if you want to practice with your brain, allocate some time on a regular basis to learn something new, right. And so that's literally it could be set aside 10 minutes a day, or whatever it might be. Maybe it's while you're driving in your car, you're listening to a podcast, or whatever it is put in some time to learn and to expand what you're what you know, and what you don't even know that you don't know. Because there's incredible cross pollination that takes place from other industries into yours. So recently, we were working with a group who had been in business for quite some time. And they made the statement, they made the following statement. I'm paraphrasing, but they made the statement about receiving some insights from AI. They said, Look, we know enough to keep the business going. And if we don't know what we don't know, how's that gonna hurt us? By the way, they paraphrase, I'm paraphrasing them. We've been in business 10 plus years. And so you know, we actually don't need this, we already know the business.

Alright. So in contrast, we were working with another group. their mindset was different from the beginning, it was more like, hey, what is our business information mean? And what is it that we don't know? And what changes should we make? They were, of course, informed of many things in their sales that were both effective and ineffective. And many of the insights were things that they didn't know. And they didn't even know that they didn't know. All right, well, they approach the insights, the AI insights much different than the other group. And as a result, they actually experienced a different outcome, a great outcome. So here's something to think about. One is find new ways to solve some of your problems by looking at other areas, right, by encouraging or bringing in additional ideas or insights. It turns out back in the feudal days of Japan, the samurai, they were not only warriors, of course, and I'm no expert on this, but I discovered that their mindset, and their approach was that death was not to be feared, right. They wanted to die honorably.

Well, that's interesting, right? That's amazing. But one of the cool things about them is that they were cultivated in many areas, like the arts, so they took classes and calligraphy and bonsai cultivation and tea ceremonies and origami and flowers and painting and so forth. And they, these, each of these areas influence their fighting skills, right to ensure that they, they could be this Ultimate Fighter, right that ultimately develop them and their abilities as as a samurai. That's amazing as they tried to live the Bushido code. I'm amazed with those kinds of stories, right, where they're willing to be open and look outside of areas. So mindset is a key, certainly not only with AI, but with most things. And so in our SMB businesses adopting a mindset, like the samurai, right to learn from other sources, that's real similar to the AI insights and applying it in your business fight.

Hey, everybody, join me on Thursday for a web class to discover what you don't know that you don't know about your SMB.

Go to ClickAI.com/BreakTheTrap

Looking forward to seeing you there.

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