Ep. 45 Why Your Big Plans Are A Bad Idea

Why Your Big Plans Are A Bad Idea

Sean starting Miles Through Time Automotive Museum with one car. One. If he would have waited until he was ready it may never have opened.

Torie Mathis and her cohost Sean talk about how to take all of your big ideas and big project and make them a reality, without becoming overwhelmed or over-extended.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION –

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SAF 45 

[00:00:00] Torie: You can’t be a small company with only so many customers. And then just all of a sudden want thousands of customers.

Hey, Hey, welcome to smart AF I am your host Torie Mathis. We’ve got a great show for you today. So let’s get started. I think a lot of people get very overwhelmed in doing. And it doesn’t really matter what getting overwhelmed in starting a business. Like it seems like a huge thing to do, right. Overwhelmed with losing weight or starting to work out overwhelmed with saving money.

Like all of these things seem so big and I think it makes it so that a lot of people don’t do. The key, however, is that you’re not making one gigantic change, but you’re making what you’re doing is a whole lot of little tiny, teeny things that add up over time, really big. And when you look at it as those little things, and you’re not so overwhelmed, right?

What I think about like the museum right now, you have. You moved into the new location, right? And so you brought over some stuff and you had already been collecting, you had already been doing these things and putting things together. You already had some displays. You already had these connections of people, right.

With people’s cars because Sean’s museum is not just his collection. It’s actually a collection of a lot of different people’s things that are all on display, which is something that makes it really unique. So you already had these people because you’ve been doing it for what? Two years. Okay. So going on three years, but it wasn’t like all of a sudden, like you waited until you had all this stuff to open it.

Right. You had one car to start a museum, one car. So your partner right now. Truett, I know that. So he came in at the new location. So there were some things that were hard for him because he didn’t work on all those incremental little things. Right. I think he wanted things to be perfect before you opened.

[00:02:24] Sean: Yeah. I had three years of experience going from one car to slowly building and creating over the course of three years to make the museum what it was at that point. And then when we moved locations and I brought Truett on board as one of the executive directors he took an actual professional role in the museum and had responsibilities as far as creating pretty much all, all of the custom built displays in the museum are all out of his head and his skills and all that kind of stuff.

And, and I think he realized how much work all that was gonna be and what all was involved with that. And he wound up getting himself a little overwhelmed a few times and at probably still a little bit today you know, to me it was just it didn’t really phase me at all because I was used to it.

Little by little, mainly because I didn’t have a choice now. Truett and has the skills to go out there and build all this stuff that’s out of his head. If he had the time and the money to just do it all, he literally could. I, on the other hand can think of it. But I, I don’t have the time or the money or the skills, which means I have to then do extra steps to go find the person to help me do it and then get the funding to do it and find the materials to make it happen.

And time I’m used to all those little steps where. It was so much, you know, cause we essentially started over from scratch and I brought the one car that we originally started with and a couple other cars and a couple of things that we collected as the museum. But not everything came over and the space was so much larger. Like we, we had to start over from scratch. 

[00:04:24] Torie: But you had gone through all those little teeny things. Oh. You know, and Truett came in in the middle. And I think it’s really easy to look at anybody’s journey and you’re coming in, in the middle or you’re coming in at the finish line, you know, and you don’t see all those little teeny things. That went along to get to that point because it starts with one car. 

[00:04:49] Sean: So even now, like somebody that just visits the museum and walked in there and could, could see everything that there is, and not really understand how much work went into it in, and really a relatively short amount of time. Whereas now Truett because he was involved with it from the beginning to what it is now in the new location, like he’s got a better understanding that like, there’s a lot of little things that need to be done.

We understand there’s still things that still need to be done. But then at the same time, there’s, you know, you can look into the future and you know, think about the things that you want to still do and work towards those types of goals. 

[00:05:35] Torie: Well, there’s a difference though, and I think this goes with anybody. For example, you look at a movie star getting ready for a role, and you’re like, they spent two months and they’re like, perfect. That’s their damn job. That’s how much money did they put in that? How much time did they put in that? And yes, they had to do that day by day by day. But there’s all this other stuff going on with the museum you don’t have an unlimited budget and a big ass crew. Like it’s your, whatever your is, is, you know, your little by little, so it’s easy to look at somebody else’s and not see exactly what’s going on or how much money or how much. Other people sometimes are involved. I know for me, it’s really easy for me to compare stuff that I do to other people that are also marketers.

Some of these other marketers have huge teams. Like I just don’t have that team, but I try to keep my, I try to put myself up, you know, I want to be at that same level and put out that same type of quality and put out that same type of content and, and do all these things. And then I have to remember that, you know, what I do for my little by little is different because they’re not the same they’re not in the same. They don’t have the same team. They don’t have the same skills. Everybody’s different. And that’s okay. Right. So whenever you’re looking at starting a business or starting to take on something, it’s best to look at it in little, teeny, tiny chunks, rather than trying to do everything all at once.

I think that you have to have everything perfect and you don’t have to have a full museum. At museum quality, all filled and displays, you know built before you can open you start before you’re ready and Miles Through Time is a very good example of start before you’re anywhere near. 

[00:07:24] Sean: Yeah. You can have that, that end result goals, but you can’t go from a to Z.

Like it just doesn’t work that way. You’ve got to, you’ve got to make those small, no wins is just a little bit and then a little bit more and a little bit more. And the next thing you know, you’ve got, you know, a lot of time behind something that, yeah, you probably aren’t going to be up there ways, but it didn’t happen overnight.

No, it’s those little steps that are going to get there. It’s like building your email list, you know? Cause you had to start with one, you had to put the, the first little sign up on the website, starting with nobody, you know, and that website wasn’t as great when you first started. But it had to be something and then it evolves into something a little better and something in a little better, but we couldn’t have come out from the gate, you know, being this full museum with this giant website and trying to do a world record, like that’s where we need to be four years in. 

That’s where we have clients that, you know, they think they need just gigantic website you know, 5 million pages on it and it’s huge. They don’t have the budget to pay for it, but they think this is what they need. In reality, like we can build them a website that fits their budget and our current need with the expectation of being able to add additional aspects of the website, whatever those may be when they’re ready for. And it’s like, you know, back in the day, when, when people would buy all the fancy furniture and all that kind of stuff, and they don’t have any clients. And so they’ve got this, you know, immaculate, impressive looking office and then go bankrupt because they blew all this money on all this stuff that didn’t serve any actual purpose.

You can easily do that in a digital world as well. And all the marketing, advertising and stuff today, you know, what do you actually need at this point in your business? Because you may not meet that kind of stuff. And even what is the what is the company that would sell all of your like coupon type stuff in the need to have so many of them?

No, no, no. Businesses were going out of business because it was sell so many of them 

[00:09:50] Torie: Groupon

[00:09:51] Sean: Groupon. Yeah. The taco like overextending, like they’re, they’re not, you can’t do that. 

[00:09:59] Torie: You can’t, it’d be a small company with only so many customers. And then just all of a sudden want thousands of customers. 

[00:10:06] Sean: You don’t have the infrastructure for it. There’s no. There’s no employees being able to handle it. That there’s no stock for it. 

[00:10:13] Torie: You know, what else did that? It was like called the Oprah effect that sometimes these little companies would go on Oprah on her favorite things or whatever, and it would kill the company. It was just too much. Yeah.

Well, you know, and for you to talk about websites, I’ve always tried to tell clients again, like with the web, like you don’t need this whole big thing, especially if you’re a new business, you may need to pivot. Like this may not even be a hundred percent the right direction. Let’s not make you 5,000 pages on what you think let’s make you some basic stuff.

And then over the next year, let’s add on in the direction you’re going, because that might not be what’s right for you. What did I say? 95% of businesses that are successful have at one time. I have pivoted. You have pivoted, if you go look at any successful business, like there was probably a pivot in there.

Like Amazon started selling books and books only. Like they could not have got to where they are if they like held so tight to only sell books. So you have to th those small incremental things allow you to have that wiggle room to pivot, because if you grow so fast, so big, or if you, you know, insist on having all the, you know, buying an office in furniture and all this stuff, and then it turns out that there’s some type of change, like you haven’t left yourself any room to pivot any room to grow in a different way. That’s scary.

[00:11:48] Sean: Even though, like the museum, I’d love to go get a huge building and make this immediately impressive like in my mind, what I envision it being in the end and doing it right now. But the thing is, is like the only way to do that would be to take out a huge loan. And in order to pay that back, like I I’ve got to have.

I’ve got to have the traffic admission that people coming into the museum, like the volume of it, I needed immediately. Like it, it’s not going to happen. I’d love for it to, but it’s not. And then all of it would just go back into paying for this building, whereas how we do it now. Like it can, it can naturally or organically just continue to improve and get better and better.

And when we can go bigger, we go bigger and you know, and the traffic that comes into the museum will relate to all that. Like, it will naturally get bigger and bigger. 

[00:12:51] Torie: I had to change locations. Like imagine if you made the first location in. Yeah, like that change of location was one of the greatest things that actually happened. You know, looking back on it. 

[00:13:03] Sean: One thing inside there, permanent, which is a bummer, but you live with it. We’re not gonna let it not let us move forward. 

[00:13:11] Torie: But it wasn’t like we spent a whole bunch of money on buying half of a building. You know what I mean? Something like that, that instead we took it that little by little and let things happen a little bit organically. So that you’re ready for. So to tell it’s supposed to be sometimes that organic growth is better.

[00:13:29] Sean: And just little things like, just do a little bit and then just do a little. 

[00:13:37] Torie: But like working out. Okay. So we both work out, we work out multiple times a week. We both have been weight training and we both have been like really crushing our goals and moving forward, but it’s not like you can walk in there the first day and expect to do any of this.

Like some of the stuff that I’ve lifted and I have a back injury, I work with the trainers and I’m very very very careful. And I could never imagine the things that I can do right now, the weight that I can lift. And I, you know, I would work out before, by myself and I would always hurt myself and I would end up being jacked up for weeks.

And ever since I started working with my trainer and ever since I started doing my classes and I do like a limpic lifting type stuff, like I would’ve never imagined two years ago that I would be where I’m at right now. But it’s because of that little incremental. Like it’s a lot to take on if you’re like go and, you know, squat this many pounds when I’ve never done anything close to it.

If people expect that with all kinds of stuff with a business, like I want to open my business tomorrow and I want to make, I want to make $10,000 a month and it’s like, you’re not ready to make $10,000 a month. Sorry. Like you’re not ready for groupon, you know, thousands of customers at one time. Like there’s a reason it starts small and grows up. And then it’s like that, you know, bell curve, you need that curve to not kill you, not kill you financially. Like even just like to be able to handle that kind of stuff. And we talked about that with even I researched a lot of people that podcast or make YouTube videos. And they’re like, if you look at my first ones, they suck, which is like, everybody has to go through that suck phase.

And you don’t want a lot of traffic on you when you suck, because you need to get through that crappy phase in order to get better, to be ready for that kind of traffic. You know, you gotta go through that. You got to go through the incremental. I think that’s hard for the kids too, because both of our kids have their own talents.

Like they’re super talented at stuff, which I’m sure everybody kids are, but because they’re good at stuff and they catch onto stuff quickly. When there’s stuff that they don’t catch on quickly, they don’t want to do it. Maybe that’s all kids. I don’t know. I don’t know every kid, but it’s almost like a curse that they just want stuff to be easy.

Like yeah work it stuff that not everything is going to come, you know, you’re not going to be a YouTube star tomorrow. You going to make a bunch of crappy videos first. Right. And one kid said, he’s not making any more crappy videos. The other girl is still making them. And she realized that she’s got to keep making videos.

And so she’s trudging along, making her videos, editing your own videos and putting them up there. You know, you got to start somewhere, but they see these YouTube stars and think that like, if they’re not in, you know, a month super famous, And they’re comparing themselves to these people that have millions of views.

What you go high is, oh my gosh. Some of these kids have so many views on their YouTube videos. Like it is amazing. And some of them are really good. Like you can see that they’re, they’ve really gotten good and, and are putting out good quality. And some of them were good dog crap. Like, do you see what your kids are watching, man?

But letting them know that like you gotta go, you gotta start somewhere. And everybody started. Everybody started with one subscriber. You know, everybody started with just an idea, but I think wanting to have these big, big accomplishments right away are not the best way to do it. Like you need to be able to have that wiggle room. 

[00:17:28] Sean: When you get out, you gotta have those goals. It’s good to have the goals to, to have that in result, whatever it is that you want. But who knows when that’s going to happen and who knows that that goal doesn’t change as, or you just keep trudging along working towards that goal. And then when the goal changes, it’s fine. If it doesn’t happen enough, you know, in the timeframe that you thought it should, and it’s not what it was supposed to so you just keep going. 

[00:18:00] Torie: You know, when I first started my business, I just wanted to. I wanted to print as much stuff as possible and make a bunch of money printing. You know what I discovered predict sucks. Pretty freaking scary. It’s final. 

[00:18:15] Sean: Plus, it’s not really relevant nowadays. It’s not, not relevant, but it’s not how it used to be.

[00:18:27] Torie: So I was printing renew, schooled school, new school. That’s funny. Yeah. So is there a printing like 15, 16 years ago? And we would print. 400,000 copies of a magazine every single month. And so when I ended up going out on my own, like, that’s what I had. Like I just wanted to print. And one of the guys that I worked with, he printed brochures for like the colleges and stuff like that.

And I’m like, man, I want to do that. I’ve got some really big print jobs. And man, when I had my first mess up print job, not because of me, but because print isn’t perfect. Like it’s thousands of dollars and time and reprinting, you know what I like digital stuff. Digital is awesome because if there’s anything ever, like you just go and change it to make it not as final.

And obviously like I’m a totally different person now than I was, you know, 15, 16 years ago that now I have, I would be a lot more I’m comfortable in my skill level, not to screw up print jobs. Not that I screwed up a bunch of print jobs, but I just give her that, that wasn’t what I wanted to do. Like I still like printing and we still do do some big print jobs, but like that is not the mainstay of what we do.

We decided there was other stuff that we liked better and I couldn’t have put myself where I am right now, who I was 15 years ago. Like, I didn’t even know how to do websites back then. I didn’t know what a funnel was. I didn’t know how to make a podcast or anything like that. Little by little, little by little.

And you can’t compare yourself to the people that are even a couple of steps ahead. You just want to get one step ahead of yourself. One step ahead yourself. Right? 

[00:20:07] Sean: Just always be improving compared to yourself. 

[00:20:11] Torie: Be better than you were yesterday. Not trying to be better than somebody else on the outside. Like when I go and weightlift, I’m not looking at people that like are bigger than me or who I want to be. Like, I just know what I lifted last time. And I want to try to go a little bit higher and that’s what I try to do with everything. That’s what I want our kids to do. That’s my goal. Make those kids like, that’d be awesome.

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