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Dennis Collins:
Welcome back to another episode of Connect and Convert. Yes, you’re on the right channel. Connect and Convert the Sales Accelerator podcast where small business owners tune in every week to learn insider tips, to grow sales faster than ever. Leah Bumphrey. Good morning, good afternoon, wherever we may be.

Leah Bumphrey:
Absolutely. You know what, I’m laughing because you don’t have to be a small business owner. You can also be tall.

Dennis Collins:
That’s a good point.

Leah Bumphrey:
You know what? We might be offending people. I have a girlfriend and she’s an accountant and she’s kind of a little bit short. *cymbals* Thank you, I’ll be here all week.

Dennis Collins:
We’re getting sound effects now. Producer Paul. Thank you for that. So what’s the definition of a small business owner? Five, two or less?

Leah Bumphrey:
I think so. I think so.

Dennis Collins:
Five. We don’t want to offend those who are six, two or seven foot.

Leah Bumphrey:
We’re open to all sizes of business owners.

Dennis Collins:
Okay. I’m glad you made that point.

Leah Bumphrey:
It’s been bothering me, keeping me up at night.

Dennis Collins:
You’re going to like this one today, Leah. I’ve been pondering this and today I want to share it to the world of what I’ve been thinking about. It’s not just my thinking, but it’s somebody very famous who said, I like to study failure.

Leah Bumphrey:
That’s bold.

Dennis Collins:
That should get you, right? Can you imagine anybody who’s got any sense of positivity or optimism or success saying that?

Leah Bumphrey:
Well, because he’s not saying or she’s not saying it’s important to study failure, but they like to. Okay, I’m listening. You got my ears.

Dennis Collins:
Any idea who said that? I know it could be any one of millions of people. I’ll tell you. You ever hear of the Oracle of Omaha?

Leah Bumphrey:
Absolutely.

Dennis Collins:
Warren Buffet.

Leah Bumphrey:
Warren Buffet. My son Jonah, that’s one of his heroes. He’s read and has all of his books. Very impressed by him.

Dennis Collins:
He has good taste. If that is one of his heroes, clearly financially, he’s certainly successful. 120 billion. I think as of this podcast today, that probably goes up 10 or 12 billion a day or down. It’s a roller coaster. One of the greatest investors in history, no doubt, but that’s what he chooses to study. He said that I want to see what causes businesses to go bad. That makes sense, doesn’t it?

Leah Bumphrey:
Yeah, it makes sense at his level. It’s interesting because last week he released a letter publicly that was designed kind of towards his kids and about his foundation and gave a bunch of money, and I was very intrigued by that because he is sharing his success, but this is how he got there, what you’re talking about.

Dennis Collins:
Speaking of how people get where they’re going, we have a special offer from our valued audience, our listeners, our viewers, and maybe now would be a great time before we get started in this study of failure.

Leah Bumphrey:
And we guarantee returns. Maybe not Warren Buffet style returns, but we guarantee returns to–

Dennis Collins:
— at least return phone calls.

Leah Bumphrey:
Yes, exactly. But you know what? We have a free 60 minute discovery call where business owners can give us a shout. Salespeople can give us a shout. If there’s something really specific that you would like to hone in on that we’ve talked about or to get our take on it, email us, LeahBumphrey@wizardofads.com. DennisCollins@wizardofads.com. We talk besides during the podcast, so we’ll connect with each other and we’ll get a zoom call going and see how we can help you. There might be opportunities to work even further. We always do have the chance for you to send in a one of question that may be of interest to other listeners, but really the discovery call is your chance to see how the process works, how we help you build your business, this totally free.

Dennis Collins:
Thank you, Leah, and please let us know. We’d love to talk. So here’s a scenario that you see all the time. The CEO stands up at the podium, another record breaking year. She announces to the audience, our successful product launches have increased revenue by 42% this year. A massive screen is in her background, displaying all these green arrows pointing up up. The company’s success dashboard showed really only what the management chose to show, which was all positivity, new customer acquisition, new customer growth, their positive media mentions, but missing were any kind of warning signs or maybe customer retention rates, employee turnover, employee satisfaction rates. Psychologists have a term for this. I know they have a term for everything, don’t they? Those pesky psychologists. It’s called toxic positivity. You never heard that before?

Leah Bumphrey:
Oh, you know what? Yeah, I haven’t heard that term, but I like it.

Dennis Collins:
We usually think of toxic as something negative, right? In this case, when you overgeneralize the happy, optimistic, Hey, everything is lovely in all circumstances, that becomes toxic positivity. The mandated phrase that we all share at a company like this, we don’t have any problems. Are you kidding? We have opportunities. Anybody who voices a concern is just not a team player. You’re not playing by the rules or you’re a negative influence. So the conscious avoidance of unpleasant facts that might require some investigation or something to look into. That’s the way of life for some of these companies.

Leah Bumphrey:
It kind of reminds me of social media posts, people who are all over and all you see is them smiling and the perfect kids in the perfect world and the perfect promotion and the perfect awards and oh, that’s not real.

Dennis Collins:
No. And so therefore, the wise Oracle of Omaha, Mr. Buffet says that he likes to study the failure. I found that interesting. What do you think, Leah, in his discoveries and God, he’s invested in, I don’t know, hundreds if not thousands of different companies. Some of them have failed miserably. There was one shoe company, I forget the name of it. Your son would probably know this. Ask him what it is. They bought this shoe company. It was a billion dollar transaction, and the thing cratered, the business failed.

And so Warren, you learn a lot from your failures a lot more than you do from your wins. But what do you think is the number one thing that he found that causes business to fail? There is one thing above all others, there are a number of things. No business failure is one thing, but there is one thing that he found as the common thread in all the businesses that failed that he met.

Leah Bumphrey:
I mean, I think this makes me think of the story of, I think it’s Babe Ruth who was a home run hitter, right? He had more home runs than anybody, and I’m not a bias.

Dennis Collins:
Well, he did at one point.

Leah Bumphrey:
At one point, right? But he also struck out more than anyone else.

Dennis Collins:
Yes he did.

Leah Bumphrey:
And he acknowledged that because he kept swinging. You got to take a swing at it. You got to take a swing, and sometimes you’re going to miss and sometimes you’re going to connect. So to answer your question, I think that the number one cause of failure is people either not trying, so afraid of failure. We’re not talking about when they fail.

Dennis Collins:
Interesting. I think that’s related to what he found, what Buffet found in his study. The number one reason that businesses go bad is complacency. Complacency. We call it sometimes the status quo bias. We have all these cognitive biases floating around in our head. One of the strongest biases is the status quo bias. I ain’t changing it. It’s fine. Let it go. It’s too hard to fix.

Leah Bumphrey:
It ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Dennis Collins:
There’s nothing wrong here. Move along. There’s nothing going on here. And you want to see complacency in action. This makes me crazy. So downtown Orlando is a, most people don’t even know Orlando has a downtown because they think of Disney, which is about 20 miles south and west of Orlando.

Leah Bumphrey:
I have been in Orlando downtown, so I know you’re not teasing us

Dennis Collins:
Downtown Orlando is a very quaint atmosphere of small business owners, restaurants, shops. You know what? I was down there the other day and walking around and you see the shutters on the door, business closed restaurants that I’ve been frequenting for years out of business. It’s shocking, but it shows you the lack of concern about status quo bias. You cannot stay the same and expect to continue to win. It’s not feasible.

What’s the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. That’s complacency, and I see it as I walk through downtown Orlando, you read about it every day. Another one going down. There are a lot of reasons for it, but Buffet says the main reason is complacency. Complacency. I kind of call it the complacency kill zone.  You get a taste of victory and you relax. You think you’ve made it? Dead wrong. I don’t know. Did you guys have in Canada a company called Sears Roebuck?

Leah Bumphrey:
I think it was a Canadian company, if I’m not mistaken.

Dennis Collins:
Oh, was it? I don’t know.

Leah Bumphrey:
But yes, I remember Sears very much, and I remember when they started going downhill and they’re done. It cost a lot of mall owners a lot of money and rent when they ended it.

Dennis Collins:
How about Blockbuster? Did you ever hear of them?

Leah Bumphrey:
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

Dennis Collins:
Do you have any Blockbuster stores there in Saskatoon?

Leah Bumphrey:
I think there’s just a couple in the whole of North America, and there’s none up here anymore.

Dennis Collins:
Used to be in every strip mall, we had a Blockbuster.

Leah Bumphrey:
We actually had a local business family video here in Saskatoon that competed directly, and he sold. He must have had someone tell him that Netflix was coming in five or six years because he sold just at the primo time.

Dennis Collins:
Again, complacency abounds and people say, it’s not my fault. I mean, business changed, but what are we in business for? We’re in business to see the warning signs, to have an early warning system built into our business to alert us to the changes that could affect us. I see producer Paul popping on. I’ll bet he has something that he needs to add to this.

Paul Boomer:
I feel like I should have a sound effect of me swooping in or something. I don’t know.

Dennis Collins:
Yeah, you need a little buzzer or something.

Paul Boomer:
Yeah, there you go. I’ve been researching the pendulum and the era that we’re in right now, and actually, I just wrote a blog post about this exact thing. I advise business owners to create their own network of people who are willing to not just be your golf buddies, but to actually once a month get together and share what they see as possible warning signs. Hey, what do you think is going to be changing here in the next six months or a year or two or whatever? And have those honest conversations with each other and challenge each other to do that.

Because while we’re going through the zenith of the We or Me, when the up upswing of the We, things are about to get even more crazy and innovation and the speed at which you change and adapt and pivot your business is critical because it’s going to change like that. And you’re not going to know what’s up until, oh, it’s too late and I don’t have a business anymore. And a crisis can be as small as, oh crap, I don’t have money to pay my payroll.

What happened? That’s a crisis. I would be considered a crisis. But a lot of people, when you say crisis, they think of a big investor issue or this or that. No, it is a what you and I or what the general public might think of, oh yeah, it’s not a crisis. Not to a small business owner. What is a crisis? And writing those things down is critical, and so creating your network of people to help you find and discover and dream up of those warning signs is even more important. Now, the status quo is not going to work in the coming years, and it never did.

Dennis Collins:
And it never did, but it particularly won’t work now. Is that the message?

Paul Boomer:
Absolutely.

Leah Bumphrey:
And then it gives you the opportunity as a business owner to help create change, to actually get onto the edge of, what could we do to… this looks like this is coming…. How could we pivot? What could we do to make a difference in our small world? Because your small world is everybody’s small world.

Dennis Collins:
So let me quote the Oracle of Omaha again. Someone is always after you, always be on the move. That sounds a little paranoid, but it kind of dovetails in with what producer Paul just said that if you think you can just sit there and continue to succeed, think again. Buffett says, A hungry competitor is plotting to steal your customers right now. A new technology. Hey, in one of our former episodes, we talked the whole episode about AI and the implications of AI in today’s business world, particularly in sales. If you didn’t hear that one, go check that one out. That was a good one.

Leah Bumphrey:
Yeah.

Dennis Collins:
And we’re going to have several more on AI, but what is the new technology, particularly AI, what does that mean for your methods? Are your methods obsolete? And as producer Paul just said, yeah, they’re going to get obsolete faster than ever. A new market shifts, something is shifting in the market that’s going to erode any advantages that you had a warning from the Oracle of Omaha.

Leah Bumphrey:
But there’s no such thing as just staying where you are in anything. In business, in fitness. I mean, think about how someone, an athlete, if they don’t keep working at it, it doesn’t matter in what great shape you are, you’re not going to stay there, and I’ve seen that happen with a lot of people who retire. They think, okay, this is where I am and I’m happy with this, but if you don’t keep working at it, you’re going this way.

Salmon, you guys probably eat salmon down in Florida, even though it’s not a native fish. They swim upstream. If they’re not moving and shaking and trying to get up there, they’re not making it up. They can’t just sit there and have a little rest. Then you’re going to go back down and there’s great YouTube videos on that. Same thing with business.

Dennis Collins:
If you’re not growing, you’re failing… or something. I forget how that saying goes, but I think that’s what you’re saying.

Leah Bumphrey:
If you’re not growing, you’re not going to stay the same. Go back. There’s no such thing as move forward. You’re going to go backwards.

Dennis Collins:
There’s no such thing as living in the status quo, particularly in this day and age. So I have a simple test that the Oracle of Omaha asks us to ask ourselves and our business partners. Simple test. Does tomorrow excite you? Really excite you? Do you believe that your tomorrow must be better than your today?  Or are you totally comfortable with today? Are you just hoping to maintain what you have? His quote is, maintenance is death, growth is life. He has a whole bunch of things that let’s share with this. Our last thought for this edition through this episode. Let’s share some questions, some brutal questions, as I call it, the time for honesty.

Are you still studying? Are you still learning or just coasting? Are you still hungry or just feeding off your past success? Are you still concerned about the competition? Are you falsely secure? Are you still excited about tomorrow or just hoping to survive? Remember, a Buffett got rich by being right. Yes, he studies failure because failure leaves tracks. Failure leaves marks. Failure leads him to understand why businesses win by losing, they lose, and he studies that to see how businesses can win. I love the Oracle of Omaha. Your son is a bright man. To have him as an icon. I hope to talk about Warren Buffett more. Maybe we should have your son on as a guest, huh?

Leah Bumphrey:
Yeah, that might be interesting.

Dennis Collins:
We would like an expert on Warren Buffett.

Leah Bumphrey:
We’ll get the mechanical engineer’s view of all things investing.

Dennis Collins:
That might be interesting.

Leah Bumphrey:
I’ll ask Jonah. I mean, we are sponsored by wizardacademy.org, so I always have a little bit of fun. That’s how you can tell that we don’t rehearse these things, but when Jonah went, that was one of the things that really impressed him was that continuous learning that is so emphasized.

Dennis Collins:
Continuous learning.

Leah Bumphrey:
If you’re not learning, you can’t just rest on your laurels. Whether you’re a business person, whether you’re a salesperson, whether you’re just starting out or you are a manager that’s trying to keep your team together. If you’re not teaching, if you’re not learning, if you’re not finding what’s next or even looking at what’s possible, it all goes this way and that’s not what we’re about, which is why we’re proud to be sponsored.

Dennis Collins:
Study failure. I know it sounds weird, but it worked. That’s it for this edition, for this episode of Connect and Convert, but never fear. We’ll be back with new stuff next week. See you then.

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