Full Transcript for The Trapped Operator: Why Small Businesses Fail | Peter Bergeron

doing it themselves. And so that was the company I grew up in and around. through the years as we it Jerry Brazie: You talking race you're talking race boats and things like that, just generally Peter S. Bergeron: Really your in Tennessee's a perfect place for it. Yeah, your river your river racer type guys, the guys the bat think the bass boat guys, but think of them twenty, thirty, forty years ago when it was Hydro Stream, Allison Boats, Chrisscraft, that small little go Jerry Brazie: Mm-hmm. Peter S. Bergeron: fast. Sixteen to twenty foot boat. Like that was that was the crowd. and no, no, no, it's great. Jerry Brazie: And I don't think I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I just want to give some perspective for the people that listen. A lot of a lot of the listeners are young men. So the world we live in today was very different from the world that we lived in in 1970. I'm I was born in 1969, so I remember all of this very well. And picking up a a or going to the internet and ordering a part for a boat or a car or anything that you want to strap on was just, you know, there was no internet. And we used to get I don't know when they started coming out the the summit magazine, right? The big the catalog. Now this wasn't Peter S. Bergeron: Yes. Yep. Jerry Brazie: marine boats, but it would come and it was that thick and you literally, had to find your part in the back and what page it was on for the thing you were doing, and then you just saw that and then you could order it. All of this was very early on. So for your dad, particularly in such a niche, how did he see that there would be demand for something like, I would think cars, that makes sense, but boats. Peter S. Bergeron: Well, see, and that was the thing. He was a car guy first. He was a he grew up working at a speed shop. So he was naturally did that, and that actually was a secondary storefront that he had on the front end to start that initial thing. But that's what he noticed. He was in drag racing cars and things like that and saw all those high performance parts that were being sold to the blue collar, gray collar crowd. He knew those same people went boating, but didn't have that opportunity for that go fast. So he said, We can do this same thing. And it's funny you talk about the catalogs and all of that. His first order, his whole first thing is he had a drawing of an idea of a part. It was a nose cone. Basically put, take a lower unit of a boat. They're very rounded. So as you go faster and faster, the water displaces. You put a nice little nose on it, aerodynamic, and you you move the water back to the prop. Just that aerodynamics, the same thing we see in cars. He placed an ad in the back of a catalog, back of a magazine, no clue even really how to make the product, just a concept. And his first order came from, I think it was New Zealand or Australia. So he was like, crap, how do I make it? And how the hell do I send something outside the country? How do I collect money? How do

I do this? And that's what it was. That that was it. That one ad led to the launching of the company. Like so many things that we do today. Like you just said, now it's a random product on the internet that launches somebody's company. Jerry Brazie: let's not let's not gloss over that. I got a lot of entrepreneurs and people on the outside looking in. I don't want to gloss over that. I wanna I want people to appreciate how difficult what you just said w is to even do that today. And today it's easy by the standards that your dad did. But here's the takeaway for anybody looking for success from my perspective. You tell me what you think, Peter. Your dad sold the thing before that he had the thing. Do you know I was sitting at a lunch yesterday telling a young entrepreneur he's got this this thought and this thought and this thought, but it never lines up. And I kinda reach you I watch your videos and I've heard you talk and he's here in Tennessee and he bought me a steak yesterday and I was like, Yeah, dude, you just gotta go. You just gotta go. And then you figure it out. So many entrepreneurs wait for the perfect time so that nothing ever happens. Dude, nineteen seventy-seven, your dad's selling something to Australia or New Zealand or whatever wherever it is. That is entrepreneurship one one because he didn't even have the product yet. Peter S. Bergeron: Right. And we've got to step back and put it in even a little bit more in context. My dad was only twenty years older than me. So nineteen seventy-seven, he's all of twenty-five at that time. I turned five at the end of seventy seven. Like his birthday's January, I'm October, so he's twenty and years and nine months, ten months, whatever it is. I I should be better better with math for a finance guy. But anyway, it's more on the fly. So like Doing all of it from a true entrepreneurial of what we would think of an entrepreneur today, in that same way of a college dropout as well. Had gone got his associates in electrical engineering, had a scholarship to go mechanical engineering, and was bored with it and quit. just that same self-taught, all those things that so many entrepreneurs are like today. So we fast forward a little bit. That Company, that product goes, he's got more products behind it, another product, another product, not another product. He's creating a whole marketplace that doesn't exist. He's got competitors now coming in. He he has created something, and it's at that point the automotive side of land and sea at the time disappears altogether. I get fired at 14, I tap away. There's times I don't even want Jerry Brazie: Why'd you get fired? Peter S. Bergeron: to typical Jerry Brazie: Mm-hmm. Peter S. Bergeron: It's easier at that small company, blame the boss's kid. The mom's no longer there as well. She's already moved on. It's really dad's company. Dad and the son are a little bit too much alike for twenty years apart. dad's a get in the office at seven AM. Son's not like that.

So it's just all those normal Gen X things that we had growing up. The latch key kid, the only child, just so many of those pieces together that It was the right time to kick me out and say, Go do something else. and the go do something else was more small business stuff. I went worked at gas station for years, like through high school, went to college, got out, again, went that family business working route. While that's happening, excuse me, my father's still got the company running on the side, you know, obviously growing and doing all he's doing. There are times and there's It's funny as I revolve back or you think back on it, where he did pull me in and test me along the way that I didn't even realize was happening. Senior year, I needed to do a project in college. I worked with him a little bit on it, on looking at what the marine industry is like. A few years later, as I'm finishing my MBA, he calls me up and says, Hey, can you do an a a a research project for me? That really was my interview I didn't know I was having at the time. And so at that point as I'm finishing my MBA and I've done this project for him on now this new company because along the way while I was in college ninety-three, ninety-four, that marine industry is dying and he needs another new product and he needs a complementary product. Marine products sell from February to March, April ish. maybe June, then you you switch seasons. And so he came up with again yet a whole new product, a whole new industry of high performance testing equipment for two stroke snowmobiles. Historically you always have to take the engine out to do the testing. He comes up with a way, leave the engine in the body of the sled, pull off the two clutches, primary secondary, and test away. Again, this is ninety three. He comes up with the idea We send away these things. They cost about three thousand dollars each to make, maybe fift twenty five hundred dollars. We're just gonna randomly send them to twenty of the top people in the snowball industry, magazines, erasers. Here you go. Test it. Try it. We want nothing in return. Just don't sell it. If you're never gonna use it, send it back. That was it. Jerry Brazie: Forty, fifty grand worth of product. Peter S. Bergeron: With the idea of maybe if it's good each year, we can sell 35 to 40 of these. Again, you're talking at a selling price of 5,000, maybe. So not a lot of gap, but this is what we can do. And that first year he ends up selling like 120, 150. He's four times the market. That was the beginning of the end of the marine industry. and the evolution to the new company that I ended up joining in twenty one two thousand one, which was more along the lines of it was still land and sea, the corporate name, but now the company was Dynamite Dynamometers. It was a whole new company. Jerry Brazie: Hey everybody, quick break. I want to tell you about something I'm doing for the first time. I'm putting together the first Kronos Group Cohort. That's 10

business owners max. And understand this is not a course. It's a peer level work with other operators and direct access to me on a month to month basis. We're to go deep on what actually moves the needle for businesses like systems and sales and leadership and staying sane while you're building something real, fitness, mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually. This group is for you. The people who get in on this first cohort get founder pricing and that's the trade for going first. And it won't be open long and it's not going to stay at this price for sure. If you've been listening to this show or me and thinking you need a room like this, you probably do. 10 spots founder special, check it out. The links in the show notes. How big, what how large was it at its biggest? How many people did it have? You know, was it successful for years? Peter S. Bergeron: Yeah, so we jumped in, you know, you you figure in two thousand one jumped into that industry and the company itself was these marine products weren't high volume. It was high volume, but not high dollar. So it was a one point five, two million dollars company internationally selling product. Again, very high in volume, to the point at one point at one time it was UPS's highest. utilization of shipments in the state of New Hampshire. Now again, it's New Hampshire. It's not like the Jerry Brazie: Mm. Right. Peter S. Bergeron: manufacturing capital of the world. But still you're not expecting this little marine accessory company to be its highest volume. And that was kind of almost a trap when we went to this new company. We got up to 7.58 plus million 50 plus people, two plus shifts, you know, we were running two full shifts plus overtime weekends. So we were like close to utilizing two and a half. The whole problem was our peak was right at that 2008, 2009 time. That's when we moved into the new building. That's when we moved into the new h overhead. That's when we we had changed the company substantially right as the financial world was changing. So those two things aligned at an awesome time for us. Jerry Brazie: So the comp two thousand eight, two thousand nine, you had bought real estate, the we're the the warehouse you were in was real estate that you were purchasing? Peter S. Bergeron: Yep, so that was one thing that they my father did well along the way and some of the things one of the few times he act more acted more like an owner than an operator, in that he was how can the business be an investment return? And at times he was more thinking of it as how is the business my tinkering, my fun, my shop, my enjoyment. And so he kind of along, I think you a couple of Not too long ago you had a guest on and you were talking about do you follow your love of your passion personally or do you follow your love of business and what's gonna be successful? And when times you follow your passion of love, you can forget the business side. And that would happen from time to time with dad, Jerry Brazie: I preach as an entrepreneur who has done it for as long as I have, that I I think following your passions is a fool's errand when it comes to being an entrepreneur because it's just so difficult already. Just find something you're good at that you can sell at a profit, go do that and then take that money and go follow your passions. But I also say, and so to your dad's credit. That I would run a break-even operating company in order to build a real estate empire. Right? I I don't think that operators take advantage of the real estate part. And I have, I should, I shouldn't say I will or I would. That's exactly what I did, although I was making money for years in my operating companies. But they should, you should look at your operating company as a vehicle to then expand into other things. And buying a building for yourself is just paramount. So good for him on that. Peter S. Bergeron: Right. And so he had done that both times. He had that was one of the things he definitely early on said, Okay, this leasing thing is is is not for me. And even more so, he was smarter when he had moved. So the first building that he built, I was in third grade. So that would have been that was late eight mid eighties. at that time he built it even more so. He's like, I'm gonna build it oversized and I'm gonna have a a rental side and I'm gonna have tenants and things like that. So he had some of those things right. But then as time went along, he went away from them again and got more into the passion and the fun of what he was doing. It got more fun to get better and better equipment. And let's go to a five axis machine and now let's look at how we can manufacture this even quicker. And now if we get to volume and all of that, while having a product line that we were never going to get back to volume of. So he was Jerry Brazie: Mm-hmm. Peter S. Bergeron: thinking along the lines of how did we make the marine products? How did we get to that point where we could turn them quickly, low cost to hold you know, low overhead, low carrying cost, all of that. Orders filled almost immediately, as long as you called in by one, it was going on the UPS truck by five. Like that was same day shipping. Now he was looking to do that with durable equipment that didn't need that same approach, but that was what he was good at. That was what he liked. So now he was trying to meld a product line that didn't fit with his specialty on how to run a small business. And it was that Jerry Brazie: Did he? Peter S. Bergeron: aspect. Jerry Brazie: Did he have mentors or did he belong to any entrepreneurship groups or did he have a, you know, a I run a Kronos group, which is you know, the whole basis of this podcast, which is for seven figure and eight figure entrepreneurs. And so mine was just critical for me. You know, in my early days, I did four million, eight million, twelve million, or fourteen million in the first four in the first four years. Dude, I had no idea what I was

doing other than how to sell and how to work. And that group was just really these the the group that I was in all those years ago is the reason why I started this these ones now is because they're so critical. Did he have anything like that? Because it sounds like it would have just worked wonders for him if he had. Peter S. Bergeron: no, not at all. he did have a couple of really good ones along the way that helped. we had a fantastic business accountant for years because he was a true small business accountant. He was always pushing his owners as they made the money. To make sure they were pricing right, to make sure they were taking that and investing it in right places. Yes, sometimes it is the right investment back in the company. Sometimes, like you just said, the right investment is land around the company. Control the neighborhood, control this, control your location. That might be a Jerry Brazie: Mm-hmm. Peter S. Bergeron: much better investment than a new machine inside the building. And that was how he managed as a or how he worked as an accountant. So he had that. And then he had, I don't even call it a sale, but he kind of did. So during that time I was on my senior in high school till like right after I graduated college, he didn't own it. He had actually sold it for a short period, but he stayed t on as president. He stayed on as CEO. He was in office every day. His mentor at that time w was very good because it was a Cornell. engineer and a Harvard MBA. That that was the guy's background and all that. His real background was in those life alert type companies. Like he was in that founding. He was in software companies. His thing was when he met my father, I didn't think you actually had your financial controls as good as you said you did and should have believed you because I thought there was more that could be made with this marine product. He thought there would be more b more Opportunity to cut manufacturing costs, to he assumed my father was taking, the typical entrepreneur, taking exorbitant salaries, this and that, extra rents, all that. And my father did none of those things. So he ran the business in that way you talked about, in that break-even mentality, because he was always chasing this volume thing. He was always chasing that aspect. He wanted more to help people go forward, then he did want to make money, if that almost makes sense in a way. Jerry Brazie: Yeah, and that I think that there's a good lesson here too. for being an entrepreneur, you are not an average person. It takes a a completely different personality to even begin to think about what your dad was doing. Driven by passion makes it a little bit different. Makes it a little bit different. But the reality is, is that your story that you're telling about your dad is a more typical story than it is the average. Or than it is not typical. I think that a lot of entrepreneurs throughout the years start the companies for those same way for those same reasons.

And then they never really, I'm raising my hand, they never really learn how to run the company unless they run into people who can I learned this early fort fortunately. that doesn't make it wrong necessarily. There's a lot of companies and his company was around for a long time. but when you look back on it, you see what you could have done differently that probably would have impacted the business significantly in in in in particular in its legacy and you just learn from it and that's all you can do. And this is a story as old as time. So I don't want anybody to take what you're saying like it was something your dad ultimately was doing wrong. The company was around for 40 odd years. That's by itself is Fantastic. But this is the game. This is the challenge. This is the work. many times. The critical part is, and I think what we'll get to next is what can we learn about it today that your dad built that that we could do differently if we found ourselves in the same situation? So to that point, your dad, you're working in the company for years, your dad dies. that was it sudden? Peter S. Bergeron: completely Jerry Brazie: So he d Peter S. Bergeron: unexpected and yeah, just out of the blue. Jerry Brazie: So he dies out of the blue. This is what, five, six years ago now, and now you everything at that point then I'm guessing the books are all open, you're there sitting at his desk day one, trying to figure out what the hell you're going to do. Did you have any context for what kind of shape the company was in at the time? Peter S. Bergeron: Yeah, mean we I knew everything about where we were, all that. We had tried in twenty seventeen a generational transfer. That was the first indication it wasn't going to work. At that time, I was less taking it as the norm of how the businesses are structured and all that, and more a thing on him and I, misalignment of passions, misalignment of technical expertise. He's got that engineering side that I don't have. We don't really, as we're looking at it, now start and realize, okay, this whole way of pricing, his desire for volume, we don't have any extra money. He's wearing two hats. So wait, we can only fill in one. All of that starts to become evident when we start that tra generational transfer. So we stepped back and said, Let's try to sell instead. So at that point, everything had been known. Already was working with brokers. And already was getting into some, the first LOI we had was indicating they were seeing a similar problem that the upside may not be there because how we fill in both these roles and all of these pieces. So it became quite evident quite quickly that there was something there, or not something there, but it came evident that it was going to take a very special match to be the right buyer. And not saying it would have been impossible to find, but that meant we were gonna need a lot of time because it wasn't going to be your average coming out of the corporate world, e you know, entrepreneurship through acquisition type person. It's gotta be a very specific type of person coming into that, almost even more so another manufacturer that's adjacent that can technically touch upon it. So it became a very difficult fit. just because of the way he had wrapped what became a job around himself and I had wrapped it without even realizing that was the very same thing I was doing. I was help making it so in the way we were operating. Jerry Brazie: Was the business profitable? Peter S. Bergeron: Yeah. But just at that very low break even level and it was profitable because my father loved getting up first thing in the morning, getting on his laptop, working all day, getting done at the end of the night, and going to bed and just closing his laptop and going back upstairs, maybe driving into work to spend some time in the office, which really was just sitting at his desk in front of his laptop, like didn't think about how he was proud of the fact I can run the whole company just here at all times in front of this laptop. Wait a minute, we don't have an operating manual for you as laptop operator. That's gonna be a problem here. That was that first Jerry Brazie: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Peter S. Bergeron: indication. Jerry Brazie: So this is my Oprah question. I forget, I gotta look. What was the date? January 13th, 2020. Peter S. Bergeron: Yes. Jerry Brazie: Yeah, Peter, that's my Oprah question. Tell me about January 13th, 2020. But that's the that's Peter S. Bergeron: Yeah. Jerry Brazie: the date so many business owners just absolutely dread. tell the listeners what does January 13th, 2020 mean to you? Peter S. Bergeron: The reality that I was at the end and it was one of those things that it probably should have happened long ahead of that because by the time January thirteenth came it was me telling the people I'm not sure how I finished this week's pay for you. I'm not sure how I continue like we've got some receivables that are due on stuff that went out and I'm really hoping it comes in in time because I need to make payroll full last week. I can't make this week. I'm doing everything I can. I don't know what to do. So I thought at that moment that was my low. I thought that was the bottom. And it wasn't yet, but I thought it was. it was the hardest thing I probably ever had to go and say to people. And even more so was they knew it was coming. Like they had been fighting along with me all the way because I have this thing about being sometimes overly on open. I don't I talk out loud, I think out loud because I know I don't have all the answers and I do it so others can help me say, I think you misunderstood this situation. So they knew that it was going to happen, but it still was just like a a dreadful moment and a feeling of utter failure. there's no other way to say it. Jerry Brazie: Mm-hmm. Peter S. Bergeron: And I think it's part of to your point on why, yeah, the story's more the norm than the exception, but we don't hear it

because people don't want to share it after. And even when people have somewhat good MAs after, they don't always want to share their personal side because someone's gonna be judging. You could have gotten more, you should have done more. Well, look at all the mistakes you made and look at all these things after the fact, you know, should have seen it coming. Yeah, you're right, I should have. And so I didn't. So let me lay out what was the path for others, what was going on, what was happening, so that they have a better chance when if and when they have to go down that same road. Ideally they don't because they've heard some of these things and they go, Ooh, I'm heading towards that. Jerry Brazie: Yeah. Peter S. Bergeron: I'm in that situation. Maybe I should back up. Jerry Brazie: in that attitude, and a lot of people on the outside looking in love to, they love to pass that judgment. And I will tell you, Peter, what I tell so many people and have over the years from my own experience is I have done deals and I have made mistakes that cost me eight figures, $10 million. But you know what you have to do, Peter, in order to lose $10 million? You gotta make $10 million, right? And I didn't, it didn't crush me either. It didn't end my career, it didn't do any of those things. So there was a lot more money than that. So I always say to somebody, you want to pass judgment on me on what I did. No one's gonna be harder than Peter is on Peter, I'm sure. No one's gonna be harder on Jerry than Jerry is, for sure. But from the outside, it takes a small mind to say somebody, and this is for all listeners, you judge somebody for their failures, that's your mistake because you're scared of failing. And failing is a part of this program. So if you can stand back up after having what you went through, in particular the legacy of losing your dad and then losing the company, regardless of whether or not it was his fault or your fault, I can't imagine what that felt like working side by side with him since you were four years old. And so people just need to step back and understand and appreciate that somebody trying and losing is better than having never tried, which is what most people do. Never try. Peter S. Bergeron: No, I completely agree with that and it's why I continue to come out and talk about it. and like that legacy part, all of those pieces, a lot of what I'm doing with the framework, the stuff I think about, even this idea of that whole second job, is reflecting on so many of the things shared with my father along the way. Like his idea there's only so many small business problems, just eliminate those and you'll be okay. Yeah, writing concept, but elimination, no, not reality. And that was his perfectionist engineering mind that yeah, we can get the absolute perfect system and everything's gonna be right. No. Cause Dad, you're also the one who tells me constantly we don't know what we don't know. So we can't make a perfect system. We can make a good enough system for the moment with some flexibility and looking ahead and staying agile. Because the next unknown, the next upset condition, how do we contain that? How do we make sure that stays in our realm without bringing down the company? And it's that idea. Jerry Brazie: When did your w when did your dad die? Peter S. Bergeron: Twenty nineteen. May seventeenth. They May twenty second. Yeah. Jerry Brazie: Twenty nineteen. So a year and a year and a half later you close the d you make the decision to close the doors, roughly. Eight eight Peter S. Bergeron: Not it not even. Eight months. Eight months. Jerry Brazie: eight twenty twenty. Yeah. Wow. Okay. All right. Peter S. Bergeron: Yeah, because and right yeah. and then add everything else to it, yeah, with COVID coming down, not even knowing COVID was coming around the corner on top of it and Maybe could have if I had known COVID was coming, hung on long enough and maybe got some PPP money or whatever what that was and backed Jerry Brazie: Yeah. Peter S. Bergeron: in. I don't know, but that would have been playing more games. That would have been not the type of stuff I think of. That's not the world or realm I am. I guess that's what I go back to a lot of the times. My dad was more small business owner than he was entrepreneur. And I know that sounds like nuance. But there is a fine there is a difference between those two. The entrepreneur, I find them to be more targeted, more idea driven of here's my band, here's what I I come in here, I operate to this point, I get out here, I look for that next opportunity, I move to this, I move to that, I build the systems, the teams around me to keep growing to my next entrepreneurial investment. And that's that's Something the small business mind could look to and and gain some leverage, some value from. The small business owner got into it more because of just delivering a product or service, and everything they think about stays more around that one product or service. And how do I make that product or service better? How do I make everyone who works with me on that product and service better? It's just a slight difference of what it is of that personality type. I and I I gotta get better at defining that difference because there really is, again, while it's nuanced, there is a a significant difference in their thinking. Jerry Brazie: when I was younger at twenty-eight, I started that my first business. it failed after the first year. I started it 17 days later and away I went. And for me it was an epiphany that said, shut up and listen. And so I I was this hot shot kid from the streets that had, you know, by my estimations, I had far outkicked my coverage relative to where I would have been, where I should have been at twenty-five, twenty six, twenty-seven years old. So I find myself, my son was born at twenty-eight, and all I wanted to do was make sure that he had a better life than I did. And in that context, then, I told myself to shut up

and listen. It was one of the best epiphanies I ever had, best piece of advice I ever got. And what that led me to do was find people who were smarter than I was and learn from them. And I think that back to this isn't a commercial for the Kronos group, but this just lends itself so well to every entrepreneur, every business owner should have a group or a person or somebody that they can go and they can. They can hammer things off of who will be honest with them and push back on them so that they can see the business. I always, you know, you're digging a hole, man, and you need somebody that's outside the hole to give you some advice because it can seem like you know everything in those four walls and what's underneath of you, right? But the reality is you just can't see what's outside of the hole. And I think that maybe that's a good I had never heard, never really thought about small business owner versus entrepreneur, but that might be. a key difference, I don't know what you think about that, might be the entrepreneur is the guy who not only is looking to push his business, but goes along and is looking for the advice and the experience of people who know better than he does to help him navigate waters that he hasn't been through. Because by nature, we're like, we can do anything, we'll get it taken care of. But my superpower Peter S. Bergeron: Right. Jerry Brazie: was taking advice at 30 years old from dudes who had been at it for 15 years longer than I had. Peter S. Bergeron: And again I go back to we just happen to be in that right generation, I think, because I have that same mentality, that same aspect, that same whole thing about it of taking coaching and knowing that coaching can make me better and then afterwards going in more through my athletic career and all of that, but the stuff I did on the wrestling side and seeing how much better my athletes were than I ever was, because they could take that coaching. made me realize, yeah, there's that there's value in passing that on. There's that mentorship. There's all those pieces. And then we got a little bit helicopters par parenting. I got lucky. My kids were of a that older Gen X age group, 'cause again, like you, we had our kids younger. I was twenty eight, my wife was twenty three type thing, so that they could have it. But as I coach or as I taught later or spent more time with students later, you started to see that change in that student. That athlete, all of those things, and so I'd see the parent coming in and being more involved in it, and the kid losing that way of finding their way of finding how who's a mentor I can look to to go. Think about it when you were growing up, you had maybe one parent in the town who was coaching on each team. Now Jerry Brazie: Yeah. Peter S. Bergeron: it's every parent on the town is coaching every team. It Jerry Brazie: Yeah. Peter S. Bergeron: so we lost that way. But yeah, the small business owner No, they they don't look to that other. They

don't change management. They don't bring in a lot of people. They're small niched. So those who have been there are going to be more of the yes types and everything. And I I agree with you. If you've got a business partner using any third party partners, because so much of us now start again behind a screen by ourselves, and those third party partners aren't saying, Well, that's not such a good idea. That's not a good partner because you can't be an expert in everything. So you better be wrong with some of these people you're talking to, or you've got the wrong group around you. And yeah, it it you need more. Jerry Brazie: I the older I get, the more fortunate I feel. I don't know if you feel like this, Peter, that I grew up when I did, that I'm a Gen X kid because the skills I learned again, I was a street kid. So but the str the skills that you learned and I learned, people don't understand. You go to baseball practice. I mean, don't know about you, but we take a bus. There wasn't no parents dropping us off at nothing, right? And when you're done, you get back on the bus or you walked home or you drove your bike or whatever it was. we had to work with each other as kids, neighborhood kids, family kids, whatever it might be. There was no parental influence, there was no parental advice, there was no parental supervision. And I do not say that as a pejorative. I say that as I I mean, I feel blessed to have grown up in that environment pre-internet. where we became self sufficient at you know, I mean, kids today, adults today can't imagine what we were doing at ten years old. Right. It's just and so I really see a lot of entrepreneurship abilities for me came out of that upbringing. Peter S. Bergeron: I laugh when I really think about if we tried to do the stuff that that we did back then. Like I was an only child, my parents were all 20 years older than me, launching a company. The company was the most important thing. It was the lifeblood of the family. Like it it it paid for everything. I it was why at age six, you know, I'm on the shop floor. That was where summers were. There were no iPads. I literally to have fun, it became a match game. You take this packing list thing that comes in and you look on the boxes and you you try to find matching numbers. that was what I was doing. you were learning inventory. Yeah, I was playing the match game, but yeah, that's what I was doing. I was five years old by or seven years old, whatever kindergarten was. I got picked up by a taxi. My mother called the school and said, Yeah, a taxi's coming to get him. Think about trying that today. Like Not for a million years. No, Jerry Brazie: No one cared. Yeah. Peter S. Bergeron: it it was like, well, we never know who you're sending anyway, because it might be one of the employees. It might be my uncle who looked who had a broken down truck where you could see through the floorboard of his truck and see the ground as I was driving up the highway. Like I remember

those things and that was who I'd get picked up by. I was a latch key kid in first grade. It was just I had a bat phone. I literally had a phone in our dining room. that I would pick up, I didn't have to touch anything, and it would ring my mother's desk at the shop. It literally Jerry Brazie: Love it. Peter S. Bergeron: was just a s a dedicated line. And it was constant Jerry Brazie: I love it. Yeah, I forgot I forgot those direct lines they used to have. That's right. Yes. Peter S. Bergeron: Right. And that was what it was. It you know why? Because the neighbors were around and if I tried to F up, they were gonna tell on me. so it didn't matter. But Jerry Brazie: Yeah. Yeah. Peter S. Bergeron: it's just such a different way. And no, I wouldn't want to grow up in any other time. Like I'm happy my kids got some of that because I forced it on them. Like, no, go do this. Get out of the house. Jerry Brazie: Yeah, that's right. Peter S. Bergeron: You're gonna ride your bike to work and all right, it's now nine thirty at night. I'll come pick you up to drive you home. But no, it's two o'clock in the afternoon on a summer day. Go ride your bike. Like get over it. So yeah. Jerry Brazie: Right. My my daughter graduated from high school and she and her girlfriend went to the graduated, they both that she went to high school with the two of them, and off they went to Europe for three months, which is the longest you can stay. Now I had a rule about it though, Peter, is that if if if I'm sending you to Europe, you can stay, you can know where you're gonna stay the first night. They stayed in hostels for the entire actu the the the the her friend that she had grown up with a girlfriend went home after two months, and And her little brother, who at the time was 16, had finished school. I took him out of school a few weeks early and he flew over and spent the 30 days with him. But my rule was you could stay in, you can know where you're gonna stay when you land in London, but you have no other plans. That's my only rule. And I'll pay for it, you'll do your thing. And so my wife took more crap about you're sending your Peter S. Bergeron: Yeah. Jerry Brazie: little girl to Europe and she's gonna be in London and doesn't know what they're gonna do and no supervision. I was like, She'll be she'll be just she'll be just fine. And she to this day, they went, her and her little brother went to China. My three kids have been to China more times than I can count without me, without us. to your point, right? I was like, y'all don't understand. They'll be fine. They're not, they're not idiots. They're not this idea that people are getting snatched off the streets and all that. You know, again, it's just that you know about it. In my day, it wasn't any more than it is today. In fact, it's probably less because there's so many freaking cell phones everywhere. Anyway, I I just wanted to say that because I I I I just think we were fortunate. I see a lot of videos today about

Gen X bitching about getting older and and and life's harder and and and nobody approach appreciates me and all this other garbage. And I'm like, what happened to you people, man? Y'all have the thing you love to comment about, you love to talk about how tough times were and now you're like, my knees hurt and you're bitching about getting older. Peter S. Bergeron: I think really what was so fortunate about it, and it is also changes and I c you're I can tell you that same way, is we were a learn how to fish generation. We were not a give me a fish generation. And at the time I was and I it some of it was our parenting's the parenting style. I mean I I was annoyed by how much my father would do it. I'd come up to him and it would be always at the shop and it would be or even at home, I got a problem with the motorcycle, I got a problem with the snowmobile, I got a problem with the boat, whatever it is. And he wouldn't get out of his chair. It would be, okay, well, did you do this, this, and this? no, can you come look? No, go do this, this, and this. Go do that. All right, it's still a problem. Well, how about can you just help me out? And all of that, and all the time, you know, obviously I'm getting more and more annoyed. And now years later, I'm doing it to my daughter. She calls me up. Jerry Brazie: Yeah, that's right. Peter S. Bergeron: Google it. Cause I'm gonna Google it. You're Jerry Brazie: Yeah. Peter S. Bergeron: gonna Google it. You need to know how to do this. You're independent enough. You're not stupid. You've you're graduated with you know high honors, with dual degree in the engine, you know, mechanical or biotech and chemistry, whatever. You don't need me to do this thinking for you. And foster to be independent in that same way. And it was so much my father just teaching me how to do the thinking, how to process, Jerry Brazie: That's right. Peter S. Bergeron: how to have a system. And now I, you know, at times I feel like I'm ad nauseum and I say, Well, my father taught me this, my father taught me that. Or or if I'm doing anything with wrestling, well, Mr. Lane, Mr. Lane, Mr. Lane. Well, at those mentors were so much of what I am. It's like I want to, you know, here's the information I'm sharing, but here's where it came from. Like, this isn't just me. This is legacy information. So So listen, this wasn't just my life, this was somebody else's, and here's how you learn from it. And I think that's We're in that last little time where where it's still happening. Now people are again, they're afraid to do it because, well, someone's gonna think I did something wrong. I'm gonna look stupid. I'm gonna look foolish. I'm gonna look that. Yeah, I am. I cause didn't know what I didn't know. And you won't either unless I stand on the top of the mountain and go, Your business is not going to sell. You're not going to have the retirement you have. You're not where you think you are. Sorry, but someone's gotta be that, the the pee in the pool type thing of that moment. And I'm not doing it to say I'm so much better. I'm doing it because I wish someone was screaming this to us before it happened. So don't have it happen. Jerry Brazie: I think Peter S. Bergeron: Again, never from regret. Jerry Brazie: between the two of us, and I know there are many others like us, w I I I I I see parts of it where it's coming back because I think that it is one of the critical parts to success is being able to think for yourself. I've always said I will take I've hired ten thousand people in my career, and I will take common sense and a little bit of street smarts over an education anytime. Now, if you've got those two things and you got an education. Now you really got something powerful. But education by itself, I'll take Street Smarts and Common Sense because I can teach those people and they'll figure out problems. and I think that that's real helpful. Let's go to because I want in in in the last time we got left here, spent a few minutes here on the book, The Trapped Operator. And I we may have some disagreement here. So I wanna, I wanna I want my listeners to hear your take on this and then find out. I don't think it's gonna be quite what it appears to be on the outside. because I have said to my listeners and to the entrepreneurs that I work with that this idea that you are supposed to work on your business only and not in your business. And if you're working in your business, you're a sucker and you're supposed to be spending, you know, only four hours a week and live on the south of Fran live in the south of France, you know, that's just internet and social media BS. Most of that advice is Peter S. Bergeron: Corrupt. Jerry Brazie: all terrible advice. 80% of the advice I see relative to business, in particular small growing businesses. is wrong. And so I want to give you give us an opportunity, give you an opportunity to explain what's in your book and where your perspective or your perspective comes from because I don't think that we are I think you and I are on the same page. We may just be talking about it differently. So tell us about but let's have that conversation. Tell us about the trapped operator. Peter S. Bergeron: I knew that was coming because I remembered you said that in your email. I'm like, no, no. You you heard the name. Nope, it's not. And we're actually way more aligned than I think the title it implies. And that's the secondary title of it's about building a business that actually outlasts you. And that's that part of where are you intentionally an owner? Where are you intentionally operating? The real concept of the book, the real framework, what I'm describing is what I call the business of running a small business. That secondary job that isn't related, it's the below the gross profit line. All of those pieces underneath, that's what I'm talking about as where owners can get themselves trapped. Now there are very important places where owners absolutely have to

stay inside their business at all times. One in particular What is it you got in? What did you want to do? A product, a service, something along the way you wanted to deliver. We want to make sure you continue to get to do that enjoyable part. What we want to avoid is when you're filling in those gaps that don't fit with your normal operating role inside that company. And you're only filling them because you have that ownership role. There will be times as we're growing, as we're starting out. Yeah, we are the it all. We backfill everything because it's our company we have to backfill. But as the company evolves, as the company grows, as we bring in individuals into that company, are we properly structuring them into the place both for them to succeed and for the company to succeed? So I'll use our own problem with it. We would bring in engineers and we would think we have a hiring problem and we have a selection problem and all of that with the type of engineer we are having. But we had actually a leadership problem in that those engineers were coming in to do something more than just be the drawing arms of my father. But he wanted a drawing arm, he wanted complete control of that, which meant our engineering was always 100% going to be wrapped around his designs, his push, which works as long as he's there, but never evolves us out. So we needed to start transferring some of his thinking, some of his product specs, some of his ways of qualifying those things and what he, had for standards as what we did. So that eventually he could step out. But it's not saying anything in this idea of a one size fits all fix or anything along those lines. It's actually the opposite. The book says the solution is gonna take a while to figure out because we gotta figure out what you built. Why did you build it? You built something that made you feel secure. What is that? What's your personality? What's your risk tolerance? What are you, how are you managing these regular issues, these regular pressures that come along in the business of running a small business? How are you handling cash management? How are you handling capitalization? How are you handling financial controls, which all sound like the same thing, but are three different ownership disciplines? And every owner is going to do it a little different. Just like every household runs their manages their household slightly different. So does every small business, so does every owner. And that's what the book is really. The framework's trying to get at, first and foremost, what did you build and why? What is landing on your desk and why? Is it properly landing on your desk because that's the company you want? Or is it landing on your desk by default because In nineteen seventy seven, when you launched the company, that landed on your desk. And it's that area that we're looking at. Jerry Brazie: man, I got a lot of thoughts on this. I had a group in my operating company. We had designed software dispatching

in my day. I cut my teeth dispatching t you know, five hundred orders a day with a foot pedal and a mic that I would talk into and calling out, go here, go there, filling out pieces of paper. And it wasn't a job anybody wanted. And then beepers showed up and so then I could send them the order, but I'm still doing it via voice. And then voice and dispatch in a transportation company is like the hub, right? And so I was like, this is exhausting. I started my own company. So I designed in my own, designed out my own software. so I had a silent dispatch, and I was the biggest company around. And so this the operating system that I was using that my operate that my software worked inside of had a convention every year. And so everyone came to Portland, Oregon, and everyone came to my office. And my dispatch was in a was in a a glass kind of structure in the front office. And they would stand outs outside of this office and stare inside and there'd be two people, a primary dispatcher and a secondary assistant. And in all of their businesses, which may or may not even been as big as mine was, They would have five or six people doing that same thing and the phones ringing and things going and pop talking back and forth. And Peter, this is a true story. Two guys, two different guys said, That's fantastic. But I like hearing, I like going into my office and hearing the phones ringing. I like going into my office and hearing all of the noise and the people arguing. That's how I know I'm busy. And I go, I know, but I'm doing it with two people. One is an assistant, so it costs me half as much as the main dispatcher. The main dispatcher does does it, and I have half as many customer service people as you do. And they're Yeah, but I like it noisy. Is that that's what we're talking about, right? Peter S. Bergeron: I a hundred percent is right. Why are those decisions what they are? and it comes down to when the answer is because that's how it always has done. And Jerry Brazie: Yeah. Peter S. Bergeron: that was one of the things we would teach on day one, you know, part of the orientation of land and sea. If while you're asking questions, if the the answer gets to be, because that's the way it's always been done, do not continue, go find someone else who gives you the actual answer because that's not an acceptable answer in the company. And but that's what happens in so many places. I like hearing that. It's how I know. Like, okay, we can change your high water mark. And it's one hundred percent those things. Well, I stay attached because I need to know. Can I give you a dashboard? Can I give you a green light? And in your Jerry Brazie: Mm-hmm. Peter S. Bergeron: office at all times it's green and it will go red the second you need to jump up because the phone stopped working. Can I can I do that? It I'll even make the green Noisy. Is that okay? But I can Jerry Brazie: Yes. Peter S. Bergeron: still give you that. and we're joking about it, but eventually, yeah,

you gotta get them to that. it is so hard when it's that small business, because my father would still at times talk about when he would work at the electronics company back in the early 70s and the alarm going off, and that's how he knew it was break time and everyone would go, and that was the only time there was break. And why do we not like how did we get away from that? And Okay, but we can't be managing in the 2000s like it was in 1976 just because Jerry Brazie: Yeah. Peter S. Bergeron: that makes it secure. And again, it's that security feel. Why did you build it? Why did I need that? They needed that noise to soothe their risk. Yeah, that's what we're we're dealing with. Jerry Brazie: I want to ask you about your twelve fatal issues framework that's also in the book. to your point, though, it's funny, I'm laughing as soon as you said dashboard, because I told that story, I don't know, four or five days ago on a podcast. And the experienced entrepreneur that I was sitting across from, just like you, literally said exactly what you said. Why didn't they just have a dashboard? And I said I had 45-inch television screens. All over the office, you could see everything that was going on. You could see colors and lights and blinking and all of those things. And the guys were just like, Yeah, I like the noise. And I'm Yeah, but that's $150,000 a year that I don't have to earn. And then I would turn around and go, But what's your profit margin? Five, seven, eight, ten percent, right? The average profit margin. Let's call it 10% for easy math. I'm like, that's a million one million one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. contract that you got to go earn the money or you could just not have six dispatchers. So the the you can hear the frustration in my voice because it's so impractical. But what you're talking about is the emotional, I built it, this is my thing. So I'm going to run it not in a manner that a business should be ran, but in a manner that makes me comfortable, which puts the business at risk. Okay, before we continue, I'm opening the first Kronos Group Cohort. 10 business owners, that's it. There's a founder special for the people who get in front on this very first round. Who's it for? If you're running a real operation and you want to work through it with other owners alongside me, the link is in the show notes. Peter S. Bergeron: So the very first thing we have them do is we call it a fatal snapshot. It's a quick little thing, six questions. And I cringed at like that, like, no, it can't work, it can't work. But luckily to having done enough courses and stuff like that and seeing like disc diagnostics and how quickly you can get that personality feel. I I was shocked we got it to work. And we put them in one of eight business profiles. And it's just for them to tell us how do you feel about your business today? First and foremost, I just want your fear. I want to know that. Because we then have a secondary diagnostic that we

work one-on-one with. We actually diagnose what operational state you're in. So what is the business actually saying you're in? What are the financial results? What are the statistics say versus that emotional feel? Because that gives us that first little bit of whereas person have their own natural fears inside of them. Jerry Brazie: Mm-hmm. Peter S. Bergeron: Because as I said, these are disciplines of how we act personally and how we feel about ourselves in those three areas. so we talk about the twelve fatal issues. It's really a matrix of issues because it also we talk about is how they're interconnected. But we have three types of groups of issues. We have foundational developmental and transitional. Foundational is what it sounds like, the bare foundation that we build everything upon, which again is our cash side of things, capitalization, cash flow management, and financial controls, and then regulatory compliance, because any of those things can instantly take out the business if you don't have, you know, your eye on those, obviously. So they also fit with the foundation, and then what are most often stressed if the business is in what we call the survival state? Our developmental issues are that customer developmental side of things, the growth side of things. So revenue diversification, customer service, marketing effectiveness, and then market presence. Again, sounds the same, but they're slightly different things. You have great marketing and everybody knows your name, but go to the website and it still shows you 1985 hours because that was when you built the original website and no one's done anything since. It still says MySpace. Jerry Brazie: Mm-hmm. Peter S. Bergeron: Your presence matters differently. And then last Jerry Brazie: Mm. Peter S. Bergeron: group is our transitional group, which is really that leadership side. Our strategy or lack thereof, our HR issues. Do we adapt? Are we evolutionary? Are we staying current? in knowledge and then our last thing is our management effectiveness. They are all just again the disciplines we have to have inside any small business on that S G and A side of things. And how do you personally handle it? Because it's going to be different from owner to owner. It's going to have developed it differently, more so because so few of the businesses I deal with actually came from that business side of life. They just aren't. They're what I call the accidental. So Jerry Brazie: Wait, wait, wait, wait, Peter. You're telling me that we're not supposed to, when the money's rolling in real well, we spend it. And when the money's not rolling in very well, we go out and we hammer for our receivables or we go try to sell more. And then when the money's coming in real good, we go spend it and we just do that cycle forever. You're telling me that's not the way to run the business? Peter S. Bergeron: it can for a bit, it's as long as you're always making sure that you're growing, yeah, that can work. It's that contraction part that makes it a little hard. So yeah, it's those things and just i the nuances of it. You know, that idea of yeah, but my cash account is good. My profit, my income statement says really good things. Yeah, but your balance sheet say, I what? yeah, that's not stuff they talk about. That's not stuff they care about. I don't know, it says Ask my accountant. Yeah, your whole income statement says ask my accountant. That's a bad thing. Yeah. Jerry Brazie: Yeah. And the I I say that s you know, making a joke sarcastically, but it's based on reality. That is a lot of entrepreneurs need to hear this because and if you're on the outside looking in, it's the old adage, it's cliche, but it's cliche for a reason. What's the most the three most important steps in running your business? The most the three most important rules. Know your numbers, know your numbers, and know your numbers. And in order to know your numbers, you need a balance sheet and you need a profit and loss statement. And you live off of those. And then you have this little thing that called the blood running through the body, known as cash flow. So there is no selling something to someone and then they pay you for that thing, and then you finish that thing and then you spend that money. That's not a business, right? A business is what I just described: a balance sheet, a PL, and a and and a cash flow analysis that comes from it. And I think that this is where people's eyes roll back in their heads. And honestly, I try to avoid having some of these conversations, but I think it's so relevant here because and I and I have to point out, I know these rules. I haven't always followed them. So I just want to be crystal Peter S. Bergeron: Same. Jerry Brazie: clear. This isn't one of these internet deals where everything's perfect for the guy on the no, no, no, no, no, no, no. my God, no. I'm as guilty of that. So even when you know the rules, you'll still break them. Even when you know the rules, you'll still fall down on them. But I said that somewhat as a joke, which is what it was, but I'm making fun of reality, which is so many entrepreneurs, so many business owners, small business owners in particular, listen to bad advice if they're not taking any advice at all or they're running it off their gut when the right way to do it, the way to make more money, to be more efficient, to maybe Work less and make more or work harder and exponentially make profit is to follow really an oldest time set of rules. Peter S. Bergeron: Completely. But we live in an age of hot take, do this and it'll be better. We live Jerry Brazie: Yeah. Peter S. Bergeron: in an age of, as you talked about, you know, what you what you were worried, not worried, but first when you heard the name of the book and thought I was coming at, of that idea of, no, you shouldn't be working, you should only be owning this or that. No, that's not reality. Business is hard, small business is harder. Like small

business starting business. Extremely hard. It's why 50% fail. And it's actually more than 50% fail because you got all the side hustles that nobody's saying I'm launching a business. There's no official registration for all these side hustles that get started and go nowhere. So the failure rate is so much greater than 50%. Jerry Brazie: Yeah, I think I saw drop shipping and things of that nature. The failure rate's ninety nine percent. Right. Peter S. Bergeron: Right. Because it's just yeah, it's just so easy. It's it's write a bad book, throw it out, hey, I'm an author the first time. No, no, you weren't. You you threw a book together, you had a learning process that made it so when you went the next time you had smarter people to work with, you you learned what to do. So I was able to take the first book failure and make it a misstep. Learn to that next piece. But these rules How business is done for again, for all the things that change, for all the sophistication, for technology changes, it's the same thing. Like you said, know your numbers. That's what matters first and foremost. If you don't know that, you can't make any good decisions. You shouldn't make any decisions. You don't know anything. Jerry Brazie: two more questions for you and then we'll we'll shut it down. Of the twelve fatal issues framework, if you had to apply one or two to your father and your business that that caused it to to fail, what would they have been? Give me two. Peter S. Bergeron: Yeah, they're the bookends and they are purposely bookend. And in reality, all twelve are part of it. And there is no ands, ifs and buts about it. All twelve have either been a part of were either part of that failure or other pieces I've been through in my life. But I bookend them with inadequate capitalization because that's what we all do. We launch very, very, very thin. We get successful at launching thin, we start to believe that we can continuously do it in this manner. We continuously believe we can bootstrap it. Now again, maybe not entrepreneurs, but the small business owner continues to believe that. The entrepreneur says, ooh, that worked. Now I'm going to use somebody else and some leverage the next time. And the small business owner says, well that's overhead. That's an extra interest payment. That's an extra percent I have to charge my customer. I don't want to do that. I'll bootstrap it. So that's why inadequate capitalization is our number one and ineffective management bookends the other side. That inability to realize you're at a point where you have to start transferring some of this intelligence, some of this responsibility to the organization itself to make sure the organization can carry it so it can move forward after you, so it can outlast you, so it can have the legacy. That you really wanted when you set out to launch your company. Because we are all doing that. We all would love to have our name on the, be great. So I go and visit the Edison complex, in Fort

Myers, the next town over, and the Henry Ford thing right next to it. That'd be kind of cool to have your name like that. You know, we don't all Jerry Brazie: Yeah. Peter S. Bergeron: say it when we launch our business, but it is what we would love to have. Like who wouldn't want that legacy? Jerry Brazie: I I like those and and I would in in between those bookends, I would add just from my own experience, making the difficult decisions. I can't tell you the number of people that have managers that have been that that continue to have five and six figure jobs that they can't tell me what they do, but they've always been around as an example, right? And so that's all good when you're making money. Just got to realize how much it costs. I always would do with my sales groups, my sales teams in a meeting, I'd take a $20 bill out and I would throw it on the ground. And I'd say, if y'all were walking down the street, would y'all pick this $20 bill up? And of course, everybody picked the $20 bill up. And I'd say, Well, then why would you discount some piece of business you're giving to a customer without talking to me first, without it going through the proper steps. And the reality is because it's not your money. You'd pick the twenty dollar bill up off the ground, but you would spend twenty bucks because you don't ever see it, right? It's not coming out of your pocket. And I would say, you know, you're spending money on these people. You need to figure out whether or not you legitimately need them. And they would think they did based on the fact that they were their brothers, sisters, aunts, uncle and they've always been with the company, and this is just the way it is. And I'm like, yeah, but you need a million dollar account to to to at your current rate. To afford them. And so I think, I think those are good bookends. And in the middle, there's a hundred examples just like that that somebody on the outside looking in might be able to help the business owner understand that. But the the the underlying to all of this, the foundation to all of this is a willingness to hear these contradictory points of view. That you're not going to like. And I think that being able to do that is critical to being a successful entrepreneur. Peter S. Bergeron: hundred percent. I I think the first time I really got that was really that two thousand nine time I was talking about. We had worked or gotten in touch with the SBA, s talked with someone from SCORE, they came out and we're talking through and as my father's talking, the two of us together, we're talking about once the market returns, this and that, this is what we're gonna do. And I hate the phrase now, but the gentleman instantly the guy's name was Saul, I still remember Saul just went, but what if this is the new normal? Like that again, the Jerry Brazie: Mm-hmm. Peter S. Bergeron: phrase became so horrible and all of that. But at that Jerry Brazie: Mm-hmm. Peter S. Bergeron: moment it was that reality of can you operate now? Because this is where you have to operate forever. This is what's changed on you. This is what's there. This is what you have to be able to evolve to. And it wasn't anything anyone wanted to hear. no, we just have to maintain till we get back to the n that level of sales. Well, you may Jerry Brazie: Right. Peter S. Bergeron: never get there. crap. And so that's why the very first question we ask, what do you do if you have a fifty percent drop in sales? we have multiple times in the past twenty years where we've seen almost that dramatic of a drop in revenue. So we have to start talking about it. That's contradictory to how anyone wants to do any planning. again, Jerry Brazie: That's right. Peter S. Bergeron: that's w it's not always the funnest to talk to me 'cause I'm like, Yeah, but have you done this critical test? Have you looked at this failure? But it's reality. Jerry Brazie: No. I I think it's illogical to live in a world where everything is roses. I don't worry about again, I've done half a billion dollars in revenue across a dozen businesses. I never worried about what I was doing right. I never did. I always worried about what I was doing wrong. And I was and I still made gigantic mistakes. And but all I did was concentrate on what I was doing wrong. I live in the uncomfortable, and I think every entrepreneur needs to challenge themselves and live in that uncomfortable. Because if you're co unc if you're comfortable as an entrepreneur, something I'm telling you, something's wrong. Here's my last question. Knowing Peter S. Bergeron: Yeah, yes. Jerry Brazie: all that you've done, all the research that you've done, you've written the books on it, you inside knowledge on small business and why they fail. You went through it with your dad and his death. the business closing down, all of those things. If you could do it all over again, knowing what you know today, would you? Peter S. Bergeron: Yeah. Because There's nothing I have today that I would give up, if that makes sense. So when I look Jerry Brazie: Mm-hmm. Peter S. Bergeron: back at this, when I share all of this, when I share these cautionary tales and talk about it, it is never from a place of regret. That doesn't mean I don't wish I could relive some things, you know, like anyone. Would it be great to talk to dad again? Yeah, obviously. Would it be great if the company had lasted forever? Yeah, obviously. But what am I giving up? And are my kids gonna still be healthy if I went back and did anything different? Would I have the same kids? They're kinda good. I mean, hopefully they don't see this. I like I don't tell that very often, but I kinda Jerry Brazie: Yeah. Right. Peter S. Bergeron: do like You know, I got an amazing wife who, good lord, she carried me through so much of that. And so With it all, yep, I would dive back through it again because Jerry Brazie: Let me change. Peter S. Bergeron: it has to be on the other side. Jerry Brazie: fantastic answer.

I love that. I love everything about that answer. I agree wholeheartedly. Let me change it slightly. Would you if the environment knowing what you know today and you go back ten years, would you have kept the business and could you have saved it? Peter S. Bergeron: So ten years would have been twenty sixteen, yeah, we would have had time if we knew what it was there, because it was tr it was at a point where we needed a major price change. It was too late at twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, my father gone for a new owner to come in to have that runway. But in twenty sixteen, really stepping back and going, we can't fill all these hats. with the revenue we have here. This will never work. Jerry Brazie: Mm. Peter S. Bergeron: we need to s reset now. We need to step back and look at do we get rid of a couple of different machines? Do we look at a different product line? Do we start to be more business owner like and saying what really should we be carrying? Not, hey, I want to have everything 'cause dad wants to have the product line that covers from RC vehicles to ten thousand plus horsepower diesels. Yeah, we probably should specialize. yeah, there'd been some changes that way. Jerry Brazie: I love everything about your story, and I think you understand the context in which I say that because your story is life. This idea that social media tells us that, your guy sees a Lamborghini on the side of the road and snaps a picture with him next to it and then yells at everybody about being stupid because you work. eight, ten, twelve, fourteen hours a day trying to make something that is impossible to make happen, happen, to do something that if it was so easy, everyone would do it, to try and accomplish a thing that 50% or better, depending on how you identify the business, go under from people trying. This thing is massively hard. And and and the fact that your dad built a business that lasted the all of however many years, 45 years, how many years that is, is just absolutely a testament to him and to you, even though it ended the way that it did. And I think that people like to, they like to point to the ending and when it goes down the way that it did, rather than look at, look, man. You gotta make $10 million to lose $10 million. And so before you're gonna pass that judgment, you gotta have a 45-year company in order to have a 45-year company die. So a lot of kudos to you and your dad. I love everything about your story. I love what you're doing. And I'm happy that we got to have a conversation about the book in particular. Cause, like I said, the reason why I come at it so aggressively about on versus in is that's all the internet tells people to do. And it's such terrible business. Because you don't want to compete with me because I'm in my business every single day. Now I have people that do all of the work, but I know how to do it. I know what they're doing. They report to me. If it doesn't work right, I'm on top of it, right? So yeah, I'm not out mowing the grass every day. I got somebody that comes and does that for me. But if there's a big strip down the middle of it, if I have to, I can go mow the grass and then I'll replace the guy that I hired to mow the grass because you can't get the strip in the middle and bring somebody else in new. That is working in your business and on your business. Peter S. Bergeron: And it's even worse because so many give that advice of on the business without knowing what that even means. And they're not ever never even a follow-up of what it really means. And Jerry Brazie: Yeah, it's a good point. Peter S. Bergeron: what are the opposite? Like my thing is those moments where you feel calm, yeah, that's your on the business time. That that's your opportunity that you have a few extra hours in your normal operating day to be going through this list of things. And it should be a list you're making constantly. What is still in my lane that shouldn't be? I can't give it up today, but it's still in my lane and it shouldn't be. And I still have it and I have it notified every week. Yep. Eventually this has to go. And where does it go? It goes to HR. But I don't have an HR team. So it owns on me. But good lord, Jerry Brazie: Yeah. Peter S. Bergeron: I never want to sit with another benefit renewal. I just want the dollars in the sense at the end to go, Yeah, that one sucks. Take that because all insurances suck. You know, but Jerry Brazie: That's right. And particularly all insurance sucks. That's 100% true. But even more so today, because you have AI and you have tools and there's there's apps and there's technology. So there's just no, there's just no excuse. I I I I enjoyed this conversation. Everyone, obviously, Peter S. Bergeron: Me too. Jerry Brazie: Peter has the experience. I tell everybody, if you know this, listeners, you've heard me say it before, if you want to know how to do something, go find somebody that's done it before and Go find somebody that's failed trying it. That is powerful. The trapped operator is Peter's book. Peter, how do they get ahold of you? Peter S. Bergeron: so two different ways. You can get me directly at peter@wrestlingagainsttime.com That's the overlying company. And then information on the book, the landing page, the bonus materials is thetrappedoperator.com Jerry Brazie: Fantastic. If you guys are I'm telling y'all, if you're a operator and an entrepreneur and this sounds like you and you're hating what you're listening to us talking about because it's you and that's a lot of operators out there, reach out to Peter, my man can help you here. Peter, I appreciate you coming on. This was a lot of fun. Peter S. Bergeron: Jerry greatly appreciated it, enjoyed it. Thank you for having me.