How to make lemonade!

(upbeat music) - Oh yeah, oh yeah. - Happy Friday everybody. (upbeat music) We're back. (upbeat music) She's back. Hey, hey, hey. (upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to the 4-day work with We're Business Me Sarcasm. I'm Nicole, your virtual CFO and business coach. - And I'm Eric, your solar panel training that's actually doing some training and-- - Doing some work, doing some work. - Yeah, man, it's time. I had to go back to that nine to five. - I had to go back to that. - She's a-- - A, so life been life in. - Yeah, absolutely. Updates, updates. We had a beautiful wedding. - We did, back in June. - Back in June. - And you can see it is on my NP consulting stream website, the video is there. And it's under Briarford Bride. - What's Briarford Bride? - Briarford Bride is my new pivoting venture because I'm sick of y'all in the county. (laughing) Briarford Bride is basically bridal support. So we're gonna have a launch party pretty soon. Coming up in December. - Oh yeah, exciting. - So more to come on that. But today, we are talking about the first things first. - First things first, we are, well, we are in the middle of a particular time. - Got less than a few days left. - A few days less. We're not gonna go deep into that, but you know the guy is working for Agent Orange. - Selling lemons. (laughing) - Selling lemons for Agent Orange. - Hey, by the way, fuck you, lime musk. - Fuck you, lime musk. - I've been talking about that for years. - It's nothing new. - Nothing new. - Same thing. - Told you guys back then, he was problematic. But it's a perfect pivot into top of good today. - Yeah. - We're talking about how to make lemonade. - Yes. - How to make lemonade. That's the top of good by show. Now you think, you know, four day work week, lemonade, how does that go together? Stick around, we're about to tell you. All right. So the first thing I wanna talk about in how to make lemonade is crafting the perfect product. - Yes. - As a seasoned business owner, what role do you think the four day work week plays in crafting high quality products? - Well, the four day work week is similar to that of lemonade. If it's too bitter, it's not gonna be something that you can sell, and that goes into customer service. - That's true. - For all you bitter betties, do better. - Do better. - If your product is great, but you know, it's bitter, nobody's gonna wanna buy it. If your product is too sweet, you're giving out too much, you're gonna give people cavities, you're not gonna come back. - So you need the perfect balance of actually a little bit of sweet, a little bit of sugar, a little bit of bitter, but you also need the water, which is the hydration. And people need to stay hydrated by keeping their energy up. - Yeah. - And the best way to keep your energy up is to have four day work week. - Four day work week. - Because it's so important right now, I think, you know, one of the buzz words is recharge. - Yeah. - Oh, you know, that's a hard word to use. And we hear so often it's kind of a little jarring at times because when you use the word recharge, you make it sound as if you're a battery in a car. And then you take your-- - And the Tesla, oh. - No, nobody's driving those, the T word, the Tonka truck. It looks like something off a TV. But any who, the point of it is, yes, you need to quote unquote, re-ignite yourself, but not to recharge to fill your battery up so they can drain it all out again. You know, you need time to use your battery so you can spend time with your family and doing the things you wanna do. So you shouldn't have to spend your days off recharging. You should already still be charged up when you get your days off. Your days off should not be spent sleeping all day or, you know, crying in the corner having Sunday's carries. So the goal is to get past the Sunday's carried and back into like loving the work you do. - Yeah. - And actually not needing to recharge because you actually stay charged up and that's what the four day work week is gonna give you. - Oh wow, yeah, that's, imagine a level going to work. But, some people still do love going to work. - That's true, the business environment matters. The business environment, absolutely matters. Can you elaborate on how the four day work we can improve the overall business environment? - Well, it can improve your business environment by creating a more inclusive space of like, using AI, using certain tools that are gonna help you get to that four day work week. You cannot be efficient if you're spending all your time on meetings and then you have to turn around and spend the rest of your time doing the work. So if we can cut down on the meetings, spend less time on that and more time on using AI tools, actually cutting down those meetings and maybe condensing them, you'll find out that you really don't need all that time. And so having those focus times where you don't actually do anything but just drill down the work, it's better for you. And we still know that remote work does breed productivity. - Oh yeah, absolutely. - You're able to just get things done a lot faster and a lot more efficiently because people aren't always in your ear. And I think it's easier because you're not spending time with the water cooler, you're not spending time chit-chatting as much because you're able to literally focus on the work. And so creating that environment within the work spaces is key. Not only just in the work space as far as like, in office and remote, but also just as a whole. Because if your workers are happy in a hole, they're not gonna call off. They're not gonna need to because they already got a four day work week. They've got these extra days every year. And then also they just feel better overall. I think the whole goal of the four day work week is to feel better. You want to feel better. - Yeah, absolutely. Customer service is important. How does the four day work week impact customer service? - You know what, it impacts it probably by making it a little bit better. I would hope so because I think if you're happy your employee, you're gonna talk to your customers better. If you're happy with what you're doing and you're a little bit more cheerier, I do feel like you would be better at talking to people and being a little bit more attentive to details. And you know what I mean? As a customer service person, maybe they're throwing a little ice on the glass, you know, made the glass a little bit better. They won't just serve you lemonade. And presentation is key. And I think with customer service, you always want to lean into making sure that you're listening to the people that you're serving. Because if you're not actually listening to the people you're serving, you're not actually serving them, you're serving yourself. And so it's so key and important to listen, take notes, listen more than you speak. And I think that's hard for a lot of us to do. Even me, I struggle with it all the time. It's like sometimes I'm like, oh, just shut up. Don't judge us. Nothing else. Just listen to what they say. Don't say anything. And then just take notes. I think for me because I like to talk, I myself now taking a lot of notes. And then when I get to the end of when they start talking, scratching off the things that they actually answered or actually figuring out, okay, do I really need to know this info? And sometimes I don't. - Okay, yeah. One concern that business people have is that, you know, if I have a foot, they work, we gotta have enough people to cover, you know. - Listen. You got more than enough people. And if you don't have enough people, that means that you are not working your plan properly. And that also means that you need to sit down with a business coach to do strategy to make sure that what you're doing is not gonna impact your business in a negative way. And you having the space to still provide, you know, adequate services is important. So say, for instance, if you feel like your services aren't gonna be as great because you're down to four days, then maybe it's shifting the four days to like split four days where you're still offering services five days a week, but you split who gets what days. Or you get into a situation where, you know, your customers aren't being served, you know, during certain hours of the day or slowing it down where like, hey, you may not get the four day week instantly, but finding out ways to like shift your clientele to know, don't contact these people on Monday or don't contact them on Fridays. That way they know too. So you can't just abruptly do it, but you can slowly and gradually like train your clients to know, hey, I don't do business on Mondays anymore. I don't do businesses on whatever day you pick. Me, Wednesday is usually my go-to day of like, just don't talk to me. I don't really want to talk. And the reason I say Wednesday is because it's usually at pivotal point where it's like, okay, I'm in the middle of the week, I'm really getting my grind going, but I really want to grind things out. And I feel like sometimes I get caught up in like, oh, God, I got too much to do, but I find a way to push through it. But it's so much easier to like, if I could split my week and be split right at Wednesday. So you do too long, too off all the time, instead of having to force that. That's interesting. I mean, what you're talking about goes right into the next thing that I want to talk about is that quality is better than quantity. You're saying cut back on those days, but then you're absolutely giving more quality. What are your thoughts on the importance of quality over quantity in the four day work week? Well, if you see a cup of Newman's own lemonade, and then you see a cup of some old stuff just sugar and water, which one are you going to pick? You're going to go with the Newman's own if you have money. The reason behind that is because you know it's a quality product. It tastes good. You know the quality. They've built their fan base. They've done the work. They did the marketing. They've done the research. They know the product. Now, if Newman's or any other one decides to change the recipe, then you may stop using the product. But the thing is, if you know you have a good quality solid product, no one's going to deviate from your product. They're not going to try to cheapen it. They're not going to ask you for a discount stop asking people for this. Stop asking for discounts. What is that? The price is the price. If you don't like the price, go down street. Go down the street somebody else and call it a day, because if you're not selling, that's why with the price, they're always as someone who is. I just think people get so locked in to thinking that when they give that they're the end of be honest, like, do there's a thousand of you. Like, no, and unfortunately, yes, your customer is very important to you and loyalty is very key, but sometimes your loyalty can cost you money because you're not expensing at the rate you should be and your realization rates are too low. Now, when I mention where realization rate, that's one thing that people don't always get. So basically, the realization rate is the rate at which you are actually drawing a profit from what you are expensing. And it's usually a percentage. So say, for instance, the work you're doing, you're gonna get $100. What cost you $35 to do it? 65% is your realization rate and that includes whatever fees or whatever. So like, say, for instance, your actual rate of cost and expenditures is $35. 65% is your realization rate. That's kind of high, but it depends. You wanna know what your realization rate is and try to strive towards the best one that you can have for your industry. Some industries are better than others, but looking to your industry specifically and find out what your realization rate is. And so we kinda get a little bit mixed up sometimes with seeing people's, oh, I made a million dollars this year. It's like, yeah, but what is your actual realization rate and what are your expenditures? So sometimes you have people make a million dollars, but they had a million five and freaking expenses. Or you know, you get in a situation where they're like, yeah, we just made a new line item where we're selling hoodies 'cause it's wintertime. It's like, yeah, but you gotta have money to support that hoodie. So do you have a casual support inventory? Yeah, inventory is a big thing. And size, size matters because everybody wears different sizes. That's the thing, yeah. So this is where things like drop shipping, which is a good AI style tool can help you and benefit you to make sure that you're able to not hold inventory, still make a profit while you're sleeping. Yeah, oh, absolutely, absolutely. That was a freebie. Sustainable success, you gotta stay balanced in order to get that. So how do you see the four day work we contribute into a sustainable business to say it's like a longevity. We're talking about longevity. You know, I think the longevity leads into the loyalty and I know loyalty is hard to come by now because people are so disloyal. But I do feel like if you truly value your employees or if you value the work that you're doing, you're gonna have sustaining success. And even if you don't feel like a success 'cause you're watching others, you don't know what your success looks like. So I think we have to really get out of the shift of my set of seeing other people do things, not realizing the struggles that they're going through, that they're not showing you. We all have our struggles. We all are going through things. Everybody has their thing that they need to work through. No one's perfect. So I think giving yourself grace and learning how to pivot when you need to, like for me. Accounting isn't where it's at for me when it comes to doing other people's books. I'm ready to shift. And so a part of that shift is I need to find a niche or a network or a group that works with something where I can still do some accounting but also shift into doing more things that make me happy. So I think having that bridal support group is really gonna be good for me because it has nothing to do with accounting, but I can use my accounting understanding and I can also use my business understanding to make it successful. - That's true. And then the whole thing is, when you're buying a product, I think it's gonna get lost. It's about the experience. People are loyal to an experience. - They are loyal to their feelings and they don't care about the facts. - Yeah. - Unfortunately sometimes that's true. People have lost their way when it comes to facts and they've really turned into feelings. And it's all about how do you make people feel? If you don't make your clients feel wanted and feel good about what they're doing. - Not a nation, yeah. - They're not gonna come back. And I think that's very key. And those are soft skills. So I think because we're in a shift of like, rudeness has been really like rampant. Having that customer service experience, being good to the customers that have, and even to the ones that are new, like not treating them bad. And if they're having a bad day, don't add to it. You know, sometimes clients will come to you and they may not be in the best of spirits. You know, you don't have to be in the dumps with them. You can listen and be empathetic, but you don't have to stand in the dumps with them and give them a chance to vent, but also find them a space to like pivot into what can make things better. So like being strategic and being able to problem solve things is always gonna be the answer. And that's what's gonna lead you to your sustainability because people are gonna always come back when they know they can. - Well, this has been a good conversation. - Yeah, I need a glass of lemonade. - Refreshing glass. A lemonade. I mean, it's like a perfect picture of lemonade. It's a big rating. And you know, if you got a good business strategy, you can lead the great results. - It absolutely can. And you know, if you got some lemons, you could squeeze that shit in the E-LiMOS guy. Okay, you guys, I'm sorry. - It's from the lima, it's an E-LiMOS. - Tomato to mayo. We replaced the baby. - We'd better be back. - It's been cool. We're gonna drop more. - Yeah, man, we're back. You know, we got a few more episodes left. And you know, we'll start out to the supplier of our new mics. I don't know if you guys can know this. - Yeah, we got new microphones and they are freaking awesome. And that conversation will happen one day. You guys are gonna crack up laughing, but when I tell you, I got these mics on some old, yeah, I got them. They were F-O-C. And it was very well done. So, you know, one day I'll tell that story about how we got these wonderful microphones. But in the meantime, between time, go back to work. - Yeah, don't forget the cloud bank. - Yeah, cloud bank thing, y'all. Have a good weekend.