EP199: Overcoming Entrepreneurial Fear: Insights from Brian Hamilton

All right. That's going to take a while, but all kidding aside, I've been an entrepreneur since I was about 10 years old. I was one of these annoying kids selling door-to-door at a very young age. Had a lawn-cutting business, did landscaping to pay my way through college. When I got out of graduate school, I started a chain of coin laundromats. I sold that in my 20s. And then I started what was my big play, which was Sageworks, which I sold in 2018, a tech company. I'm running a live switch now and sort of that's where I am right now. But I've been doing this stuff my whole life.

That's a good question. A lack of capital, actually. I got out of grad school and my... My dad worked in a factory, Sikorsky, and he was shocked because he had never had the benefit, Brad, of going to college. And, you know, he was shocked that I would go into the laundry business, but I needed capital. And they did financing of the equipment. So not only would they give you financing, but they would give you money for UpFit. So I was like, that's for me because I needed the money. So it worked.

No, great question. So I started my first one on New Bern Avenue in Raleigh, North Carolina. And I actually put in the cement bulkheads by hand with other people, obviously. But I started that business and then I grew that into like about five, a five store. chain, which I sold, I think I was about 29 when I sold that business. And then I started Sageworks. So yeah, I've been involved in the very grassroots stuff that a lot of your listeners are probably doing.

Financial tech company. We claim to have been the first fintech in the U. S., but I developed a system that basically took financial statement numbers and then converted those numbers into language, plain language. And the idea was to help small businesses understand their financials and how to run their businesses better. That was a tough one because it took about eight years to really get. We were definitely first to market, Brad. So it took. time to get recognized and get adoption. But of course that, that went on to become a very, you know, successful, you know, kind of large company. So, but it wasn't easy. That was 20 years. And I sold that in 2018 to the guys at KKR, they bought it. And that was a great event.

Right. Sure.

Yeah. You know, I have been interviewed like a lot of times. I can't remember when anyone has started with that topic. And the reason that's so powerful, and I'm serious, I commend you on it, is because that, we could talk about this, as you know, for like a week, and we would never run out of room for content. But fear is the biggest prohibitor of people starting businesses. And worse than that, expanding them. Because we operate, all of us operate out of fear, scarcity, what's going to happen if I do something wrong. Story real quickly. When I was in, I got out of college, I couldn't cover my whole background because there's too much. But when I got out of college, I worked for a bank for about nine months. And, you know, you go from college and you have freedom of your schedule and, you know, your life and all that stuff. And I get put in this little, what do they call it? Not incubator, cube, little cube. And I got, I'm staring at a computer all day. I hated it. I was there nine months. And if I didn't quit, they would have fired me for sure. And I'm not being modest, man. I was, I was out the door. They did not like me. I didn't like them. We were all even, you know what I mean? So I get out. And my old man did landscaping when I was a very young kid. I'm like, you know, five, six years old. I used to go around with him. And I learned how to, you know, cut lawns and weed gardens and do mulching and plant plants. I knew that. So I got out of the bank. I'm going to get to your point. I got out of the bank and I started a landscaping business before I went to grad school. because I knew how to do that. I mean, I did all that stuff during college. I'm sitting in a 1978 Volvo station wagon. I will never forget it in Westport, Connecticut. I really want to nail your topic. It's a great topic. And I'm sitting in that Volvo station wagon. And all of a sudden, it just hit me, man. I just, oh, my goodness. Everything I've ever done in my life before this, I was associated with something. I played football in high school. I was president of my student government. I was in a college, right? I went to a high school. I had affiliation. And I am sitting in this Volvo station wagon, which I'm repurposing as a dump truck, by the way. Those things were big, if you remember. Oh, yeah. And you remember that. So I'm in Westport, Connecticut. I'm on the side of the road. I'm like, holy crap, I got fear. I'm like, oh, my goodness. So I want to say this. I love small business people. I can't believe we do what we do. We're all nuts. But I want to say this. I think one of the biggest prohibitors for people starting a business is that lack of affiliation to something. You know what I mean? You're on your own. And that hit me like a pall, man. It was like a, I'll never forget it. I remember the weather when this happened. 1986, like June. I remember everything about it. And I'm sitting there like, whoa, it's just me. So one of the big things, and you can tell I like this topic, but one of the things. that I would say to everybody listening, right, is whether it's this podcast or something else, as entrepreneurs, we got to get affiliated to other things, else you're going to feel alone. And you kind of are alone, right? So one of the big issues is just that sense of I'm alone. It's only me. I'm not tied to anything else. But that holds us back. But fear generally also does. But that's a big one. Like, hey, man, I'm afraid because I'm on my own.

Yeah, that's a great question. I always say this. I say your desire for success, your desire, something inside of you, it's lacking or you want something better, you're striving, but your desire has got to be up here and your fear has got to be there. If your fear is here and your desire is here, you've got a big problem. But we've got to keep your desire up here. So for me, I had incredible desire, like public speaking, like even this, like I get tight sometimes. I've been doing this for years. It's great. I don't know why, but it's hard. You've got to speak in public and you're putting yourself out there. But the more you do it over and over again, the better you get. But more importantly, it just becomes. Oh, it's not a big deal. So I really want to answer your question day by day. What am I going to do today? You know, what's the obstacle right here, right in front of me? If you start thinking about things too far out, man, it's overwhelming. So maybe it's this whole thing of resilience. Why are some people resilient? You know, some people don't like to sell. They don't want to talk or speak. They don't want to start a business. That's a big, you know, fear is a big one around that. But let's focus on what's right here today, day by day. My dad used to say, eat the whale one bite at a time, right? I mean, starting a business, I don't know. much about podcasts, to be honest with you. I don't know if it's video and maybe it's just audio. I don't really know, but it doesn't matter. You are crazy to start your own business. Let's just get, let's get that out of the way. You are crazy. Who does this? You're trying to start a business. You don't really know how to run a business. Maybe you do, but the risks are way up here, right? And I think the point is that if you get caught too much in the fact that you're crazy, And Brad, I don't know, you seem like a good guy, but you're crazy too, right?

Anyone who starts a business is a little insane. It's, you know, because any rational person would say, wow, I don't want the hassles of payroll. I don't want customers yelling at me. I don't like on this podcast, right? You put yourself out here, Brad, going out to your community. I don't want to put myself out there, right? So there's incredible fear and uncertainty. So the way I deal with it, and I've been good at it, is just one day at a time, you know, and one obstacle at a time. And I've done landscaping, laundromats. I've painted houses. I did window washing. You know, I ran a, you know, a sizable tech company. You know, it's a pretty big company, actually, right? I've done it all. But it always starts with what's in front of you right now today and focus on that. And I don't know where you get that from, but you need it.

Yeah. I mean, I know, by the way, my dad was, uh, was in the Marines. So when I was 18, I was going to join the Marines. He's like, you don't need to join. You've already been in the Marines 18 years, you know?

your point though, like every single day I write out. this, like my, I guess you can't see it, but my to-do list on, Hey, what am I going to get done today? And once you get motion, right, then you can get over that fear, but you know, but you, you got to just focus. Yeah. Like a bootcamp. Absolutely. Yeah. If you think, Oh my God, it's going to be 12 weeks or 16 weeks or whatever. That's overwhelming. But it is, I got to get from here to lunch. We can do that.

like, how do we get people through that? And so for me, yeah, today I focused on day by day what I, what I need to do, but I do make goals. You know, I know this is just basic stuff, but even it's like going to church, you know, we've all heard the sermons before, but we. We go and we need to be retaught, right? I make goals, like one-year goals, five-year goals. You see, I want to get that vision and I want to get that drive up here because all my risks, I've got tons of risk. I got fear. I got all that stuff here. And I don't want that stuff over my drive. So, you know, I've done a lot of visioning in my life and like trying to picture myself maybe in a better house or whatever. I know you focus on contracting, but I can tell a man. or a woman, you know, hey, look, if your labor dollars are 10 bucks, you're going to probably charge about 30 bucks. You got to cover your labor. You got to cover your overhead and you need about a 30% margin. I can teach a contractor that, right, to bill on labor dollars. What I can't teach, well, we want to teach them, right? How do we get over the big obstacles around fear and sort of what's in here in your mind? You know, you got to have those types of visions, but I don't know if you know it, but I started an outfit. 32 years ago. It's probably the only thing I'll ever be remembered for, frankly. It's called Inmates to Entrepreneurs. And the idea is that people get out of prison, it's hard for them to get a job. As an entrepreneur, let's help them start their own small business. Makes sense to me, right? I started that with Reverend Harrison, I was about 27,28. My point is this. As Rev used to say, you know, you don't have to be in prison to be locked up. There's prisoners walking, inmates, you know, whatever, right? Judicially involved people walking all around us, right? We're locked up over here. So that's where the game is. When I'm working with the people who have been in prison, Brad, just like the rest of us, they're just like the rest of us. But I can teach them how to advertise. I can teach them Google AdWords. But you got to get beyond that psychology of that you are an inmate. And how are you going to not think of yourself that way? So this stuff is what you're doing is very important. Getting the information out there. Then people feel community with contractors. But yeah, it's all up there. And you know this. All the obstacles you're going to get, especially if you try to grow your business. I always say to people, look, man, have a one-person business or a thousand-person business. Don't do anything in between. Oh, my goodness. You can do the work. And over here, you've got scale out of your company. But between one and a thousand is no man's land. That's hard, right? And many of us have 5,10,15,20 employees. That's super hard. And that's risky and all that. But what I'm trying to say is if you're working all the time on how do I envision myself having a big business or selling that business or profitable with... Maybe you want a new house. Maybe you're someone who has been in prison and you want to be viewed differently by your friends. You've got to keep that high. So it really is a mind game.

Yeah. Wow. I don't like the word blue collar, you know, but lower middle class, whatever it was. But when I was growing up, we didn't have money. My father didn't go to, he didn't even graduate from high school, you know, but he had something better than a college degree. And they don't teach this in college, unfortunately, a wisdom. My father had wisdom. He said, look, man, you can be the smartest person in the world, but you don't have wisdom. They don't really always teach that in college, as you know. Example, he used to say, because of my environment where I was raised, you know, we had it all, man. We had a lot of stuff over there, out there to stay away from. And he's like, look, he goes, stuff he'd say to me, I never thought about until I got old. the devil's playground is idleness. The devil's playground is who you hang out with. But you're right. Like get in a reference group of people who are going somewhere. And again, when I'm working with people who are getting out of prison, we all have this challenge, but sometimes they have a bigger challenge around the street. Going back to the old crowd, they're going nowhere, or actually they are going somewhere, but you don't want to go there. Right. And I always think back to my dad. Hey, hang out with people who you want to be like. And, um, and I, my kids don't listen to me. No kids listen to their parents, you know, but, but I, I tried to drill that into them, dude, you know, you can say what you want, but you got to get around people who you want to be like, you're right. I never heard that, that we're the sum or the average of the five people we hang out with, but it's true.

That's true. Learn, you know. And that's the other thing I'd say is being open, right? Like what I have learned in my experience, I'm a little bit older than you, but are you open, right? Do you really want to get better? Like I have people come to me in IDE and like they're coming out of prison. Like, well, do you really want to get better, man? Do you really want to do it, right? Then you're going to be open to feedback. And I can tell real quickly when people are not open. And a lot of people are closed. So you got to be open and willing to learn. And then if you are, you'll get through it. I want to say this because I don't know, you know, obviously I don't know all the people in your audience, but I'd say if you work hard and you're open, you're learning, you're working hard, you're going to make it. I have seen very few examples of where people have failed. If they're open, they're working hard and they're around the right people and they're gaining knowledge. But if you ain't open, Forget it.

Yeah. Actually, play the movie a little bit further. That's fascinating. I never thought about it. So again, I've been doing this like a long time, a long time, right? Muscle memory, like hitting a tennis ball or a baseball, throwing a football, it's muscle memory. My mind is fascinating. I never thought of this. I mean, through many years of experience, hard experience, especially like you said in the beginning, right? My mind, you ask me anything, Brad, like anything, right? My mind now automatically goes to who else has solved that? I don't want to solve that. I want to save time. So honestly, I'm learning here. I'm learning because I don't even think about that. Like if you, if there's a business challenge, I'm like, well, somebody else has solved that, right? And go to them. I imagine you have some guys probably in your audience. I think I'm a guy, you know. You never know these days, right? But I'm a guy. So men, wow. We got this thing called ego and testosterone and all this crap that we're dealing with every day. And it locks us up, right? We don't want to take directions from somebody, right? We want to go do it ourselves. And I'm like, eh, not good for an entrepreneur. So I didn't think about that. But I would say your first starting block, whenever that you're faced with something large, right? Oh no, I don't want to solve it. Somebody else has solved that. Let's leverage that. And I never thought about that, but that that's a great point.

So again, suppressing the ego. And again, like, is my ego here and my desire for success here? Oh no, we want our ego down here. We want our drive. And if we're open and we're really driven, we're going to seek advice from other people. So that's a good point. But that's where I start with everything, you know.

Yeah, well, customers. Wow. That's a huge thing. And let's talk about that. That's massive, right? We all like to think we all do this. We're human beings, right? But we like to think that when we're dealing with customers, we can fool people or we can mouth out the words, but they won't know who we are. So if you build a deck for somebody or whatever, they're not happy with it. First of all, we're not going to argue with the customer. That's stupid. That's the person paying you the money. My goodness. And I'm lucky because of my background where I've always been so – I've appreciated customers so much, giving me money that it's hard for me to think any other way. But that's not the point. I'm hoping that everybody who's listening to this or watching it doesn't argue with their customers. Let's assume that's true even though it's not. It's when you're communicating with them, right? They can read what you think of them, no matter what you say. As people, we all want to think, you know, we're all smarty pants, especially if you go on and get educated. And we're all smarty pants. And we want to think if we mouth out the words, right, but our heart is not right with regard to that customer service that the customer is not going to know. And people always know whether you like them. They always do. You cannot fool people. I'm telling you. You think you can. But that element of service, man, unbelievable service. Do you know, I don't want to talk about, I guess I have to talk about me a little bit. That's the whole point here. But every company I've been involved with, yes, massive customer service, obsessive customer service. The customer is always right. It is true. And I have to teach this at my company all the time. I taught at my last company. The customer's always right. No, they're not always right. I know they're not technically right, but they got the money last time I looked, right? And think of it this way. Did that customer force you to do business with them? Did they force you to do that at gunpoint? Probably not. You made a decision to select that customer. Isn't this kind of, it's a little aggravating, right? Rad people are listening to, I don't agree. I don't, whoa. You cannot agree, but you're wrong in this case. You selected that customer. You own that while you're engaged with that customer. Now, afterward, if you never want to work with them again, no problem. But you have to take ownership of that relationship. And listen, Brad, the whole contracting thing, I'm from a family,46 cousins, Irish, you know, we're good at having kids. All my uncles, my dad, all my, we're contractors. I'm like a fish in the water. Like the water's hitting me everywhere. It's all I know is contracting because I was part of it. And what I'm trying to say to you is, man, show up on time. Do what you say you're going to do. And like your customers, please. If you do that, you're going to grow your business. These are not complicated formulas. No, they're

They wanted the job. Yes. Go ahead.

Yeah. And unfortunately, but by the way, I don't want to be patronizing. I really don't. I don't mean it that way from my heart, but I've made every single mistake under the book. And I could tell you stories all day. You could tell me stories all day, but screening your customers is really important in contracting, especially you're right. If it's more than two weeks, oh my goodness, you got to view it as a marriage. But while you're in the marriage, you're freaking married. And your job is to make that customer happy. And by the way, newsflash, some people are never happy, right? And you're going to run into those people. But we own that while we're in it. And can I just tell a really quick thing? Sure. Little ditty here. Yeah, yeah. So the guy gets out of prison. Nice guy, Ron. Big guy. He's got the tattoos everywhere. But strong, tough guy out of prison. He was in there for 15 years. I don't know what he did. I was working with him. And he used to have a painting business before he was in prison. So he's starting a painting business. He's got to get his first job. So I say, well, go out and instead of painting that house for $5,000, do it for $3,000. I'm going to keep it very short. So he goes out and he does the job for $3,000. He probably makes the equivalent of $40, $50 an hour. You know, pretty good, right? It's all attitude, man. You know, Brad, good guy. I really like him. Tough guy. very in your face, my kind of person, right? He could never get beyond the fact that he could have gotten 5,000 instead of 3,000. He couldn't get beyond it. It's all he kept talking about. I'm like, dude, this is your first customer. You got a reference. You got some money. You made pretty good money per hour. You had to do the work yourself. But having gratitude, I've done this hard work, by the way. I mean, I really have. So do you understand what I'm trying to say? Focus on what you did get. And that will... change your attitude toward that person. And that said, there are difficult people.

I do. And especially with customers, because again, we cover so much in half an hour, man, it's hard to cover it all. But when you start it the way I did, it's like, oh my goodness, someone's giving me money. It wasn't even really gratitude, Brad. It was more like, wow, I was more shocked that people would give me money to do work. So I was conditioned for that very early on. But if you've been given a lot of things, I think it's hard to have gratitude, if not impossible. So, but yeah, like that sort of, I mean, the love of the customer. Contracting, sometimes I wish I could go back to it. I miss doing the landscaping. I actually miss the... physical work. I've got a farm. You can't see it here. I do a lot, a lot of it with the crews out here, but contracting is something, you know, you're working with your hands, you know, you're I'm in technology, man. It's like abstract, but having the gratitude for that customer and doing that work, you know, it's essential and just getting that money, you know?

Oh yeah. And making profit. Yeah. By the way, last one, I don't know what you want to cover, man, unless you have other things, but be careful the way you price. It's amazing how many contractors are out there working for free and they don't know it.

Yeah. I mean, surveys. I always like to meet with the customer. Hey, what did we do? Well, what did we not do? Well, you know, how can we improve service? How can we? And I got to say, I know people here don't know me, so I don't want to be too preachy, you know, but. But I got to tell you, man, I'm on this farm, built a house out here. I've got contractors all the time. It never happens to me. It never happens to me.

And I'm like, hey, guys, you know, come on. So I'm just saying that can set your business apart. But getting that feedback, and you'd be surprised. I'll give you something. And I don't know. I don't want to offend anybody here. But I was raised with a big. Cigarette smoking family. Oh, my God. There's cigarettes everywhere, right? They're just everywhere. I mean, when I was growing up and I was one of these people, I didn't gravitate toward it. I gravitated away from it. I was just like, oh, man. So anyway, I get people come out the farm and they're dropping their rats all over the place. I'm like, dude. But the point is, that's okay. But if some of these contractors came to me, right? Hey, is there something we could do better? Yeah. Hey, just watch the guys dropping the cigarettes probably because someone has to pick up after them. My point is if you interview the customers afterward, maybe a survey, something, you'll pick up things that you never, maybe you're a smoker, you know, it wouldn't occur to you. But if you're not asking that question post-job, how do you get better? You know, it's such a simple thing, isn't it? Like some of you folks are married. Oh my goodness. Talk about tough relationships, right? Do any of us go home and say, hey, honey, What can I do better to be a husband or a wife? Does anybody do this? No. But that's the essence of the relationships, right? And I'm fanatical about customer feedback. Just fanatical. And think about...

Well, I think you'd shock her. So you wouldn't have to worry about it. Really? You want me to do that? But it's always in the specific things. You know what I mean? Like little things that you don't see. And so, yeah, do a post-job interview. Hey, I need five minutes of your time. What did we do well? What can we improve on? And you're going to get so many referrals that will just knock your socks off.

Yeah, just the beautiful thing about business. It's so beautiful. Show up on time. Make sure your pricing is good. You got to make money. If we don't make money, this ain't fun. You know what I mean? I don't care what anyone says. By the way, I've done that. I've done it, right? Not making money, not fun, right? But you price the right way. You get feedback from your customers. incorporate that into your business, keep your vision strong, right? To get over your fears and work hard. It takes freaking hard work too. But yeah, these are the basic things. But I would say, again, I've been in real estate. I didn't put everything in here because I've been all over the board, except for my last company. I spent 20 years dedicated to that, but I used to do home renovations to pay my way through college. And so I've dealt with a lot of contractors, but yeah, people don't ask that question. How can I do better? And you're right. That elevates you to a whole different level.

Yeah. And maybe I don't know you real well, obviously, but my desire for from feedback, my suppression of ego has come because of massive failure. When I was 20, I thought I knew everything. I ain't 20 anymore, but I thought I knew everything. So I was not open. But then I had to fail at things and have my my head slammed into the cement. Probably multiple times. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. And that gets you more open. So I'm like you now, but it took me a while to get there and I had to have my ego just smashed into the ground.

And, and I think that, you know, I mean, I, my kids say, Dad, you're always talking metaphysics, and so I can't understand what you're saying. I'm like, well, welcome to the club. Neither do my employees, right? But on a serious note, I'd say to you that ego is about serving you. What's important to you? You said you were a husband, right? What's important to you? And the opposite of that is how can I serve you? How can I serve you? And, man, if you can be... on how you serve people, the world is going to be a path to your door. And so again, it's an internal game. So that's just the way it is.

Yeah, that actually makes me feel better, by the way, because the guys come on the farm. I've got a big farm here, but my house is here too. And they come on and we get them, the guys here, we always get them like, you know, cookies or lunch or something like that. But I can relate to them because I did this type of work. You know what I mean? Yeah, I didn't think of that. But by the way, if you ever get customers listening to like, you know, hey, man, the work's hard, you know, like I wish I could do another podcast for the customers because sometimes I, you know, you got, I'm just being honest, right? You wonder if they've ever like picked up a hammer in their life, you know what I mean? And been through the struggles, but some of them haven't, we just have to deal with it. But, you know, having some appreciation as a customer too. And I see these guys, I live in North Carolina. These guys are working on this. They're putting in this tennis court over here and a bunch of landscaping. I'm like, oh, my goodness. I used to do that, so I can appreciate that. But obviously, not all your customers are going to be that way.

Yeah. Interesting. That's fascinating.

Yeah, me too.

Yeah. I could tell some stories on that one. Oh my goodness. So there's bad customers out there. I

So it's Live Switch and we help. Well, we're on here. Just to be honest, if you look at my career, you can Google this. I mean, I help small business. I love doing it. But we're also partly on here, I guess, you know, I'm in live switch. And we have video technologies and tools to help contractors to do estimates remotely or quickly or virtually, we call it, and document their work and stuff like that. But I'm not going to go further than that. I don't want to do an advertisement. I sold Sageworks in 2018. I'm in live switch now, and I'm proud of some of the stuff that we've developed. And what I really love is that it's specifically for small businesses. I love

So yeah. And ours is ours. We don't compete with zoom, but I'm not, again, I'm not going to advertise it. Yeah. Contractors and home service businesses use our product. So I appreciate the plug. Yeah.

Yeah. And I appreciate your starting with that, by the way. That's literally the first time I've done all these formats. But that's number one right there is fear. So you nailed it.

Yeah. Isn't that fascinating? So you actually do become what you think of. Absolutely. Yep. Best book I ever read as a man thinketh 16 pages as a man thinketh 16 pages.

I think you can grow rich by Napoleon Hill. You know, that one thinking grow rich. I love that one. Um, how to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie. Powerful. You've probably read that one too. Yeah. And, uh, that's something, those are, you read those three, you don't need any other one.

Tracy? Highly effective people. That's a good one. Yeah. Yeah. But I, but I'm going back to your point. I'll, I'd like to, I guess afterward I'll get a copy of your book. I'll order it wherever it is, but I like the way you're thinking because it starts with the mindset and at inmates to entrepreneurs, that's what you've been teaching for 32 years. I mean, if you don't get that right, forget it.

absolutely. Brian, my, I got an easy one because I have a foundation, Brian, B-R-I-A-N at Brian Hamilton. org. Brian at Brian Hamilton. org. And of course, the company I'm with now and invested in is lifeswitch. com. But if you want to reach out to me directly about anything I said today, I always love to hear from people.

Thanks a lot, brother. Good stuff.