Is a college education necessary in order to be successful? The Maker of Kings discusses the truths about education in business, entrepreneurship, and success.
About the Maker of Kings:
The Maker of Kings is documenting the journey of these young entrepreneurs through the trials and tribulations of starting and running small companies and growing from small businesses into large businesses and teaching the tricks of the trade along the way.
Behind the Mic:
Jim Keener, Rick Hamada, Andrew Compean, Corey Cazares.
Transcript:
Rick: Welcome to the most compelling hour of radio, ladies and gentlemen boys and girls, moms and dads. Special edition of the Maker of Kings Radio is now live in studio and I want to thank each and every one of you for joining us. And for those on Facebook Live, Aloha to you too. We will get to see you three incredibly handsome, attractive, compelling men in studio and then there’s a fourth. I’ll leave judgment to those who are watching to make that call. We’re going to do call-ins later. [Everyone laughing and talking] I’ll be judging this contest. Love it, MOK is on and I’m delighted that we’re here on a little bit of a different day, on Monday. But it’s a great way to start the week and I want to say aloha to everyone started to get back over here with our brother Drew. Aloha to you my man.
Drew: Aloha Rick, good to see you. How was your week off?
Rick: Well I was kind of working too.
Drew: Well your week away from Hawaii?
Rick: Oh week away from Hawaii.
Drew: You rest up?
Rick: I did actually to be honest with you this is one of the few times that I travel to the mainland and I was eager to come home.
Drew: Good we’re eager to have you.
Rick: So it’s good to see you fellows. Thank you for that Drew. Brother Jim Aloha to you my friend.
Jim: Aloha buddy, nice seeing you.
Rick: Good to see you too. Corey Cazares.
Cory: We hear we got to be here on a Monday. I just dropped everything let’s go. Let’s do it especially you were interviewing some colorful people on your last week. You had some pretty interesting interviews over there from like four different locations.
Rick: Well they all congregated over. We were at the Phoenix Park, which is two blocks away from the Capitol and Fair put together this contingent of great guests and I just had to schedule them in for our program. But my brothers I’m going to take—
Jim: You did a great job.
Cory: I love the immigration piece. It was spot on, spot on.
Rick: Talking with and I’ll never forget her. She and I are now BFS But Michelle Route in talking about her daughter Sarah, who lost her life to the hands of an illegal alien. It was so emotional. It was such a close conversation as a parent to a parent you know that’s what got me and then all the conditions that surrounded her daughter’s path that day after she graduated from college horrible. But it was rife with these types of folks that are dedicated to this and I’m glad that we’re able to be invited to go because we can bring those voices directly instead of just reading and having quotes.
Jim: An informed electorate, most important.
Rick: Amen.
Cory: And it was it was really, really cool to hear something that I think everybody can agree on. On the immigration because it’s such a, such an–
Jim: Not everyone agrees. [Everyone talking at once]
Cory: What they did is they separated immigration from criminal activity so people like to say: oh if you’re not pro-immigration we’re for immigration. Heard this so many times. We’re for immigration. Obviously, we’re all immigrants. I’m for immigration, legal immigration. There’s a criminal component that gets ignored in that whole thing and I heard it reiterated and reiterated and reiterated and it landed for me and I hope it landed for a lot of people too.
Rick: I’m very sure that it did. At least having a conversation that has a representation of the other side because the dominance of media today clearly is for one particular side and I’m just hopeful that we were able to bring that. So thanks for that Cory because that’s the objective to travel there to do that.
Jim: You did a great job.
Rick: Thanks so very much for that thank you. And of course having the Cubs get rained out two games. Anyway so that [everyone laughs]
Drew: What happened to the Bears yesterday?
Rick: Oh! I’m going to need a moment fellows if you don’t mind. [Everyone laughs] Oh my gosh! I haven’t seen, oh my gosh! I haven’t seen anything blown that badly since Clinton lost to Trump.
Jim: I thought you were going to say something else.
Cory: You said Clinton and I really was we were going a different direction for now.
Rick: I’m down this street and somebody else made a turn over the other lane.
Jim: It’s like where’s the button?
Cory: There’s a saying my dad taught me, know your surroundings.
Rick: Yeah do understand exactly where I am right now but thanks for that guys and thank you for taking the time today of course on a Monday. What I’d like to do is reiterate and restart with Jim, our mission.
Jim: Our mission is to document the journey of these young entrepreneurs through the trials and tribulations associated with running and building small businesses to large businesses and practicing conscious capitalism. Which is be good, do good, do no harm to yourself or others of the environment.
Rick: Excellent. So that’s laying the ground because every time I promote and tease that we’re going to come on here I try and let people know there is a mission to this program. We’re all dear friends but this is why we’re here. I also open it up at 5-2-1-8-3-8-3 speaking to those who may be entrepreneurs. Those in business, those who care about what Jim just described you can embrace it, learn more and be affected by it. What I’d like to, if you don’t mind, go through a couple of things. Before we even came on the air the name Hielan Musk was invoked and I have that as a name as well because it’s not just with Musk, Tesla and that’s a separate component. But it’s when you’re in the world of business, you’re comportment, your reputation. When there are those that rely upon you and invest in you. What is the level of expectation that we should either consider or even subscribe to? Jim, I start with you.
Jim: Well I think with the Juan specifically, we share a building in Hawthorne California. I have Chapman aerospace and it’s on Rocket Road which is between Tesla and Space X. And so a lot of those engineers are rock walking around and I like to say there’s two types of mines that we look for as far as investing. We invest in sales men and engineers and Neil is definitely an engineer. And if you’ve watched the current podcast in his last his behavior as radical as it can be, that’s all in line with his engineering mind. And if you see how he thinks and you see how he operates his businesses and everything, it’s completely an engineer’s mind. He’s not a very good salesman he’s definitely not a good spokesperson but as far as his analytical capacity there’s probably very few that can match that and so he serves this purpose. He does a great job for what he’s supposed to be doing. I think people don’t understand the detail of expectation of what’s expected from him and as you see a reactionary market in any publicly traded company is going to be driven money follows management. Management acts crazy money goes away. Management secures themselves, money comes. So it’s pretty much– it’s exactly what I would expect from my perspective, it’s probably a different perspective than these two other guys.
Drew: Well it was definitely humanized. I think Joe Rogan had this idea of what he was going to be like, like a super genius who was just like too smart to even talk to. But he’s like a normal guy, a little bit weird, little bit eccentric.
Cory: Yes and I think you have to be. We’re not looking for a normal guy. We don’t need a normal guy, there’s so many normal people. We need somebody like that and it’s one of the reasons I’m so grateful to be in this room. If we can do this twice a week, I do it five days a week. It was because it cracked my mind open. What we do when we become successful, in our own minds, is we think we’ve got it figured out because we’ve done well at one thing and I felt successful doing my one thing. What I learned when I came into this company in this group to include you Rick was that I didn’t know anything. But what that does is, it opens you back up to knowledge. It opens you back up to learning. The first time I read Elon Musk’s book and I heard that the underlying principle of all these companies was not to make money, was not to do to be crazy rich, it was to colonize Mars. I was like, ‘what a freak, what a weirdo. Can I even finish this book now?’ But now we’ve got some history and we’ve seen what he can do. Now it doesn’t seem crazy so you need that outlier to say something crazy and then build us up to where he’s at, not putting him on a pedestal, but saying he’s an outlier and that’s what we needed in this company. I’ve seen the same thing. I thought I knew a thing or two about business because I was doing well in the Business sector. Didn’t know anything but that rock doesn’t crack with a friend, it cracks with a hammer and people like him are the hammer that society needs to open us back up to new knowledge. New ways of thinking about things whether it be business capitalism or just the future of the human race and that’s what I like about Elon Musk. He’s a hammer to society.
Rick: So is there the more practical side with his tweets of taking the company private with what his conduct was on the podcast. Some of the things said which can scare off those who are supportive of him and those he supports himself.
Jim: Well I don’t think it’s the individual. I think it’s the money manager who’s deciding and it’s not their flavor of individual. Therefore, they don’t like that flavor. They like slow and steady. They like consistent growth. They like all those things and he’s none of those things. And so it’s the money manager putting people in those positions and then trying to hold a value system in line with an individual who doesn’t share that value system, super difficult to do. And if you’re investing in Tesla, like I am, you’re betting on Elon and you’re betting on him winning and I’m betting he does win. I bet on Jeff Bezos. Like I speak about my strategy. My strategy is similar to my horse racing strategy. When people say, how do you win when you go to the horse racing track?’ And I said, well it has nothing do with horses that’s how I win’. They say, ‘well I don’t understand’. It’s the same thing with the stock market. I invest in the person, understanding their thought process, their policies, their understanding. I don’t invest in what I see today because it will change. When I go to the horse racing track which I hate to do and I don’t know if that’s if
Cory: I was surprised to hear that. [Everyone laughs]
Jim: I hate all of that stuff but I will do it. When I go I bet the jockey. I look at which jockey is the highest earning jockey, I see what mount they get, I watch them, and I bet the jockey. I win more than anybody I go with and they say, ‘Man you’re so good, and you could do this for a living’. I say, ‘this is boring and I don’t like doing it’. But the end of the day, it’s very pragmatic to me. I understand it. I understand that the person who’s winning, is winning more because of the mounts not because of selecting a certain horse. Because a certain horse can have a bad day so and so forth. But the jockeys know the mount. The jockeys when disproportionately if you bet the jockey you’ll win. So for every horse guy out there, there you go. There’s your winning strategy.
And it’s similar to the stock strategy. I mean if the goal is just to make as much money as you can as fast as you can, that’s not the best bet. So if you’re looking for a long term hold position and you’re betting on a person that you believe is going to win then you go with that. I mean if you drink Coca-Cola own Coca-Cola stock. If you drink Pepsi own Pepsi stock. If you buy Chevron gas whatever it is, you invest in the things that you support and that’s a good indicator of the type of individual.
Rick: Tremendous. Well Drew I know that you’re also involved with traditional business school experience right now. Has this type of conversation come up in your class with those who embrace that more traditional view of business and if so, what has been mentioned? And if not, do you think this could be a topic for you in your class?
Drew: It has not come up yet but tomorrow in class hopefully I could be the one to try to probe it to see what’s in the minds of everybody else. We haven’t really talked about current affairs and you know.
Rick: Do you think people in your class are passionate about to internalize things like this that are in the news or is it just something that they’re doing?
Drew: I think maybe the older crowd, maybe.
Rick: They might be able bit more like there for a reason?
Drew: Yes.
Cory: Or purpose not just Snapchatting in class. [Everyone laughs]
Rick: Which is important.
Drew: They like taking selfies in class, taking pictures of the teacher.
Rick: They brought that up? And that’s what’s going on in the class?
Drew: Yeah.
Rick: No kidding.
Cory: I must said ten percent happier you deleted the social media except for Twitter because he needs to have a way to communicate if he needs to. Ten percent happier is what it did and so he said.
Rick: Well I have a little bit of a story here that I’ll share with you fellows about higher education. We’ll venture into that a few short moments after this break. Drew how do we keep up with them? Ok. What do you suggest?
Drew: It’s makerofkings.com and from there you can find of us on social channels or you can give us a call at 8-0-8-2-0-2-2-9-2-2.
Rick: Handy Andy is a centerpiece of course of MOK and when we come back maybe we can do a brief about another incoming storm fella’s, unbelievable. We’re going to be back with MOK right now very short break we’ll return in just a moment.
So we’re going to continue on with a conversation but I want to be with only about five minutes before the bottom of the hour. Hurricane Lane, couple of weeks ago quite a bit of activity. Now we have another storm that’s knocking on our door. Jim preparedness and how MOK can help.
Jim: Handy And Hawaii is our local handyman company and Rescue one Restoration is our restoration, mitigation, water save your life company. And so what we’re doing is, we’re preparing just like we did for the rain and we are staging people around and where we’re prepared in the event that something comes up you can reach out to us and we’ll we provide sandbags board ups everything that’s needed. And then after affects, we are ready to help work in the community.
Rick: You know this storm, a little bit different–
Jim: Direct hit.
Rick: –than Lane. Is there anything that you’ve heard before coming in about Olivia? There’s an update coming up at eleven but you’re right the tracking is directly for all Islands.
Jim: Sure. Let’s just hope that wind— wind is the main concern when taking out power and that’s our chief concern. Water if it dumps, like if it stays. It’s moving at twelve miles an hour. If it slows to three four or five miles an hour, we’re in trouble. Because it’s going to hover and then we’ve got the flooding issues. So where you’re living right now here, like each of us, we know what the likelihood of a situation happening at our location and take care of yourself first. Take care of your kids and elderly second and then go from there.
Rick: Drew walk us through again. The company’s names, contact, services provided. Things people should know not only during this period of time but also beyond.
Drew: There’s a rescue line on Handy Andy. The rescue line where we can be contacted at 8-0-8-7-4-5-1-6-0-8 and what that we could do is sandbag your property we can board up and just prevent from wind damage and same with Handy Andy so the two companies will work hand in hand. And Handy Andy can be reached at 8-0-8-2-8-5-3-4-4-3 with a no look by the way, if you’re not watching those numbers came with a no look.
Cory: I was like, right. Everyone laughs]
Rick: Did he write anything that is I said hello to him this morning with that little cue card on the forehead I know but that’s wonderful. And again just a couple minutes before. But these are two companies Jim out of several that you have a presence with your team here in Hawaii.
Jim: Yes. You want to know about the other companies as well?
Rick: Yes.
Jim: We have Armor Home Warranty which is Cory’s chief responsibility which is our home warranty product. We have Handy Andy Hawaii, we have a construction division and a service division, service and maintenance division and then Rescue one Restoration. Those are the three companies. I have more companies but I think we’re just describing those correct? I could keep going.
Cory: Yes, for the home care. But I think I’m coming up on the year of knowing Jim. [Everyone laughs]
Jim: I kind of go, ok as long as we are on topic.
Rick: Well if we’re ever going to describe all the companies that’s why we have two shows this week. So there we go, you have all the time. Bottom line though is this, be sure and be safe be secure be very responsible. This whole hurricane fatigue business that I keep hearing about. Can you help dispel that before we take our break gentleman?
Jim: Well it is the calm before the storm is the perfect scenario. In that the first one came through with all the hoopla, all the pressure. And then everybody, we over prepared I did as well. You saw, I boarded up my house went through the whole thing and then now this time coming around everyone’s like hey, ‘we’re going to board up?’ And I’m like, ‘no’. And I said that myself. And we have a company that does it. So I believe that most people are probably in line with my way of thinking and I still have all of the stuff I bought for the last one. So I’m not planning on going out and buy anything else.
Rick: We just called the hurricane and said it wasn’t really concerned about whether we believe in it or not.
Drew: The thing is people here never live in places that get smashed by hurricanes on a regular basis. I lived in Florida and North Carolina Oh so you know how many times we had a board up go drive to Atlanta to try to get out the way and you go back and nothing happened. Because you had to leave. It’s a convenience but you still got to take the necessary steps for safety.
Rick: Well speaking of which, Florence right now.
Drew: And I just said I just got a message from a property manager in North Carolina saying that they’re going to do roof inspections before the hurricane that’s headed towards my home over there.
Rick: Goodness gracious.
Drew: It could be good. My home here, my home there.
Jim: Double whammy.
Drew: Double whammy. Two hurricanes, I’m like what!
Rick: I love that. MOK it is the most compelling hour of radio, it returns in just a moment stand by.
We’re together with the Maker of Kings radio. We’re delighted that you’re with us or give us a call 5-2-1-8-3-8-3. Our last part of the conversation preparedness of course with the upcoming storm and the services under MOK’s umbrella. But we’re also talking a little bit about Education and what is being discussed and what the comportment is within classrooms. And I have yet again another story that says that, employers now: less importance, less priority on college education and degrees.
Jim: Amen.
Rick: And this is something we talk about for ages. You’re on the program. So I got to ask you. So why go through all of this with School of Business and Drew if perhaps it’s not going to be a key to future success?
Drew: Well. So that’s not entirely true because there’s a technical component which I could take a lot of information apply into the business. So if you’re going to a guy who has a traditional senior maybe twenty one twenty two he’s going to go out get a job after and he’s going to forget all the information he’s been taught. I get a good piece of information. I have several different business entities that I can apply these things that we pay attention right down there and I can go back tomorrow and say this is garbage. So it’s a different experience. And I have life experience all the things mature enough to actually learn not worry about the grades but I’m not A.B.C. that I’ll be fine regardless. Now I want to take this information and be able to do something with it.
Cory: From an employer standpoint, we had an opportunity to hire somebody so the only time I bumped into this personally was looking at somebody they said, yeah you know I’m going to do this but I am going to have a side job.’ So I said, ‘cool’. I said, ‘well you still have a degree and I’ve got a lot of student loans in a commission based industry I can’t count on my paycheck so I need to have some so I can continue to pay my student loans.’ But then I’ll be doing this: ‘and I only hire full time guy, I’m real sorry.’ So in that instance his degree actually hurt him because it had a component of student debt that came along with it. The degree was in a field that had nothing to do with sales or real estate in that capacity. So that was one experience where it hurt him and it was only because his employer at that time who was US was looking for full time people not somebody who was delivering pizzas.
Rick: Not doing what we are doing.
Drew: So here’s an interesting thing some of these professors they see thousands of students throughout the course of their careers as a professor. Well, recently I had a professor who doesn’t understand the concept of Lana expectations. So if you can hold somebody accountable whether it’s grades or whatever you have to lay out proper expectations. So you know how you are going to rise to the occasion if you don’t know what’s asked of you and then you punish them and give them bad grades and then lay out expectations after the fact. Well that tells me, as a student, is that you’ve never had an employee because how would you hold an employee accountable?
Jim: That’s exactly correct. I mean that’s the philosophy though it’s that it’s the wall of the school versus the law of the farm. The law the school is, short term memory cram, learn as much as you can. Forget all that, you’ve got new stuff to learn. The law of the farm is, you can’t plant your seed twice as deep, water twice as much fertilize it twice as much, jump up and down scream and yell at it and it’s going to grow twice as big and produce twice as much produce. It doesn’t happen. My philosophy has always been the law of the farm not the law of the school. Because you can fake being smart you can dazzle people with brilliance and baffle of them with the stuff you don’t have to hit the button. But the reality is, that a lot of the school you can’t fake being strong you, you can look strong but if you can’t pick up a three hundred pound rock you’re not that strong. So it’s the same thing. It’s all an illusion and it’s just like it’s a big illusion. You’re going to get this useless education from this useless university that’s heavily subsidized. You’re going to never use what you learn, a very small amount. Now if you’re a technical professional; you’re a lawyer, a doctor, an engineer, an architect, somebody who has that marketable skill set then, by all means, that’s something that’s appropriate for you. But by and large, the number of individuals that are highly educated that can’t produce anything, is the concern that I have. It’s unbelievable how many people have an education and this is what I say if education was the solution then every person with an education would be successful. Education is not the solution because I know a lot of educated people that are sitting home with mom and dad.
Cory: And at the end [both Jim and Cory speaks simultaneously]
Jim: Go ahead.
Cory: I’m not the guy to interrupt. [Everyone laughs]Nope. Sorry.
Jim: But that’s just how I feel. I feel that it’s just and then you saddle a kid with debt. It’s like having a mortgage on a home you can’t live in. You still got to pay the mortgage but you can’t get any value out of the home. Same thing I feel with your education. You have a mortgage you have a 200 thousand or 150 thousand dollars loan against an education that if you apply what you have learned, effectively make 100 thousand dollars a year you’re going to spend 60 – 70 to live, now what? Or if you can make 30 – 40 then, now what? Now you’re done. If you’re in Hawaii you’re living on the beach, which isn’t bad, but you know.
Cory: I think a lot of people put the value on a college education because it costs so much they put it in high regard. They put that education on a pedestal because it’s so expensive. The reason college is expensive should be looked into and should be broadly told. If you want to know why education’s expensive, it’s because the government federally backed student debt. So then if it’s government-backed debt now guess who wants to give student loans? Everybody and their grandma. So student loans became way more prevalent, way easier to get. So what do schools do? They raise their tuition. When the schools raise their tuition, those lenders don’t care. They just lend more money. The students don’t care because they don’t have the choice to care. It was the federal government putting their hand inside the education system federally backing those loans. That’s why education’s expensive but the public thinks it’s 250 thousand dollars. That’s the value of that product and the value of the product is subsidized by the federal government which derails the entire process evaluation. And no Chapter seven.
Jim: No Chapter seven and that’s the next bubble, prepare. It’s the same thing going to happen again, it’s going to happen again.
Rick: There is the perception that if you have Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, just off the top of your head. That’s the guarantee of success. That if you can get a full ride you’re set for life. If you can get scholarships you’re great, grants wonderful. Even if you have to take out a student loan because that’s a guarantee you’re the cream of the crop, you’re top of the shelf.
Jim: That works for them. Those top-shelf schools, yes. That’s probably ideal but what happens if you go to you know Scooby Doo University? [Everyone laughs] Or the University of Phoenix or one of these other places that are just providing you these educational components and somehow calling that knowledge? Knowledge is different than education and that’s what these people are confusing.
Drew: And so Doctor that’s what you have Professor have you know that it doesn’t allow expectations.
Jim: Well it is an MIT degree P.H.D.
Drew: But that doesn’t help you. You can be smart but if you know how to communicate effectively and get results of your students. They just never get results and actually care.
Rick: But I think this all start to diminish. Because they get it, more companies dropping degree requirements. If this continues, continues, continues and continues then perhaps that solution to an affordable if not relevant education will become more.
Jim: I think we need to move it down the chain. I mean in the middle-high school, you know whether you’re going to be you can excel in academics or not. You already know that and that’s the opportunity to transition into the trades and go out and become a plumber or electrician or something of value. Not that the other trades are not of value but I mean very few. We need doctors, we need nurses, we need health care all that stuff is true but if you look at the amount of people going to– I mean I can’t tell you how many people that I talk to that there is a plumber and he’s seventy-five years old and his son is a computer science major and he can’t help them in the in the plumbing company. And the kid that has a computer science major and now he’s being pushed out with AI automation robotics. He doesn’t have a job and he says, ‘well you need to become a plumber.’ He says, ‘I don’t want to. I want to do this.’ The same problem it’s going to happen over and over.
Rick: I’m going through this just briefly with you fellows when we’re not on the air. But we had a recent conversation I said, ‘Passion. What is it? What is it that’s in here? I don’t need to know all of this up in the brain. What does he want? You know what he would love to do? Auto mechanic. He’s been drawing cars for years,
Jim: He’s got an engineer’s mind.
Rick: That’s his thing. Now he has declared what he has come up with through his schooling, is mechanical engineering. That’s where he would like to go but he also has music as part of that which is complimentary either way. But his desires; I want to work on cars, I want to build them, I want to fix them, I want to market them. We can make some model watches and that’s our show. So we go through and we watch all of this, that’s his passion. I said, ‘Son you follow that passion. Don’t let anybody make a determination that if you’re not going to have that four-year degree in mechanical engineering at a bachelor Masters after all this if you’re doing what you love to do the rest is going to follow. Trades, hands-on, work hard, do.’
Cory: And then when we have him at your house we’re going to talk to him about the difference of the two things. He said working on cars and designing cars as a mechanic for twelve years we’ll talk about working on cars. Nudge them towards designing.
Jim: And I’ll talk to him about how to build a business to make money with those skillsets.
Rick: And that’s exactly what I meant by. I said listen this is self-direction, this is something you will own. And he’s already going through that process. This is what I’d like to have, this is the shop, and this is what I like.
Jim: I already have a model for him. I’m looking for somebody, the right person. I find them in my view.
Rick: Know what? We’ll will be over on Friday to spend some time. Anyway, I appreciate this part of the conversation. Because it affects so many people that are dialed in either attending or having kids.
Jim: Can I say one thing?
Rick: Please, sure.
Jim: I believe that most kids that are going to college their parents are saying, ‘you need to go to college’ and the parents don’t have a college education. And so what happens the parents don’t have a college education so they go, ‘oh this must be nice. I need to have this so I’m going to have my kids get this college education’. It’s still not going to solve the problem. That’s what the problem is. Is people value things they don’t understand the value, ‘oh this guy’s got a college education, he must be smart’. Wrong. Have you ever spent any time with a college graduate at all? You can’t even talk to them until they’re forty five, they make no sense. Because they think they know everything and they haven’t done anything because they’ve been spending the last ten years in college and before that they spent twelve years in another institution. Education it’s all education. It’s the lack of knowledge. It’s the library of useless knowledge.
Rick: Wow love that. Listen. You are fired up. Tremendous. You are dialed in together and I’m glad you’re with us here. Let’s see. Let’s take a call before the break. Gentleman, headphones if you would. Just to make sure you can hear you’re dialed in. Maker of Kings radio here on a MOKKHVH and we head out to Jane here in town. Jane we wish you a little hug Good morning.
Jane: Aloha and good morning. Just a quick comment. Well two quick funny quotes ‘don’t let schooling get in the way of education’ someone said that a long time ago. And something I remember from years ago: ‘the five minute university thinking is that what you remember from college is about five minutes of information.’ But that being said, I actually I wanted to comment that my son graduated from a ATC, automotive tech program, and got his degree and followed his dream he was in Liberal Studies and not quite so excited about it. But once he figured out what he really loves and went for the automotive program. He never missed a day and he graduated. He’s totally happy with his decision and he and a friend are opening up a shop.
Rick: Beautiful.
Jim: Awesome.
Jane: It’s a great program so anyway have a great day.
Rick: All right. Thank you so much and we all do Jane thank you so very much for that.
Jim: I agree
Rick: Yes, I love that.
Jim: It’s what I said all along.
Drew: Information, confirmation, social proof.
Jim: That’s it.
Cory: It’s nice to not be in act out chamber to hear people believing on the phone.
Jim: I think more people believe it than say it and I think it’s this politically correct to say you know follow it go get an education go do it it’s just the waste of time.
Rick: Maker of Kings Radio has returned triumphantly [everyone laughs] One of these days if the mikes are on during the breaks that could prove to be good. All right, we’re dialed in together we have a few minutes remaining. You want to join us 5-2-1-8-3-8-3 with us here. Other topic aplenty that is on top. Would love to see what is on your mind too. All right I want to go through something you mentioned before Jim if you don’t mind. You had mentioned earlier this small market cap businesses have the same issues and challenges it doesn’t matter which business you go to. At a certain level they’re all going to have shared challenges.
Jim: All business is show business.
Rick: Would you mind breaking that down for us a little bit for those listening?
Jim: Yes. I mean people think that these large businesses have some type of competitive advantage because they have a bigger bank account but in fact it’s all the same thing. You’re looking for the size and value of the market, you’re looking for the areas of penetration, looking for client acquisition cost and I think it comes down to who can pay more for their client acquisition than the next guy. So if your client acquisition costs are fifty dollars and you can afford to pay one hundred dollars then that means you have a competitive advantage than your competition. If your competition can’t they can pay twenty five dollars then they’re going to have less opportunity. So it’s how do you put yourself in a situation where you can afford to pay more for a client acquisition whether it be time or money? And what we look at is multiple penetration points and the ability to create a ladder of value that we can offer to the client. And when we’re doing consulting for small businesses, it’s typically the same thing. They’re looking for the same thing. They’re looking for how to get their clients and what the lifetime value of a client is. And then the second thing is, how to manage cash flow. They don’t know what their burn rate is, they don’t know what their operating costs are and so those are illusions. Like this guy, don’t know their personal budgets, they don’t know how to operate their life with a budget and so they just willy, nilly wing it and when you wing it you inherently run into cash flow problems. Because you end up holding a longer receivable, you’re paying your payables too early, you don’t manage your cash flow properly and then it leads to the same problem. Happens in every business I look at. The same problems.
Cory: Cash flow is King. Yeah [everyone laughs]
Drew: About extending out your payables as far as you can and you’re receivables as early as possible.
Jim: Yes. Cash, discount deposits. There’s a lot of ways to fix a lot of those little problems and you know eventually we’d get callers with those types of problems but most people don’t want to expose their weaknesses on the radio. So that’s kind of what we’re here to do. Is to draw this out and to discuss those and talk about those. Talk about some of the situations that we’ve had and what we’ve done to fix it. We’ve had every one of those problems. When we first built this business, we acquired a company. And when you do an acquisition, they have their systems and processes management style. And we institute our systems and processes and management style and in doing that we fix a lot of the problems that they have fundamentally and once those are fixed then it shores up lays the foundation so we can start to develop the growth and start to build on top of that.
Cory: And just right now for our listeners. If you’re listening in, you’re at your shop or whatever you’re doing we started out this conversation talking about Nike. We’re not talking about Nike. That’s what introduce the conversation, we’re actually talking about you. So if you’re listening right now and you’re wondering how this applies to you, it’s all the same. If you’re Nike or if you’re at your haircut salon or if you’re at your–
Jim: It’s all the same.
Cory: It’s all the same. Business is a religion.
Jim: One hundred percent.
Rick: Love that, love that. I notice you’re nodding a lot when Brother Jim gave Cory [everyone laughs]
Cory: I fall into the last category, guys who don’t want to expose their business.[everyone laughs] For all of you who saw him looking straight, his ears were looking at me. I saw it, he was talking to me and it’s absolutely true. But I’m not here to teach, I’m here to learn and then once I’ve got that down I’ll be teaching as well but you know it all comes back to what I talked about earlier. It’s being open to new knowledge. You know this is new knowledge.
Rick: Love that. Go ahead Drew.
Drew: Being vulnerable in that sense doesn’t make you weak. What makes you weak is not being honest.
Rick: So let’s go to our lines and we’re going to head out to Theresa, who is on the road. Theresa you’re on MOK radio and good morning to you.
Theresa: Aloha, good morning. I just wanted to make a comment about the discussion about college diploma and I wanted to share that I really feel that we’re very fortunate in the state of Hawaii. And that a lot of our trade programs are vocational programs are actually at the community colleges. And we need to really change the conversation with our high school students and families to share with them that when they go in the trades they will be enrolling in college. And many students are very pleasantly surprised to find out: oh, I’m going to be a Diesel Mechanic by going college here. Yes, you are going to college. You’re going to enroll in ACC, you’re going to enroll in there and you know you’re going to go to college. It’s going to be a certificate might not be a diploma or a four year or a doctorate or anything like that but they’re still going to go to college. And I’ve seen a lot of families and students faces light up and realize that they’re part of this national conversation that’s just really is saying that students need to go on to some kind of post high education or training. So if we can educate our students and families with that, we shouldn’t so flippantly just say that a college degree is worthless.
Rick: I don’t believe there’s any flippancy. I think it’s just a difference of analysis and priority but Jim you want to respond.
Jim: I never said it was worthless. My point is, is that I think that higher education is definitely needed but I think that when you saddle somebody with college debt that’s associated with this degree and this expectation that it’s going to make a tremendous amount of money with this degree it’s not going to happen. I’m the biggest fan and we built a trade school so I completely agree with the caller. We built the National Academy of Construction Trades as a program to do exactly what she describes. So the community college definitely a good choice. Going into all of the trades, definitely a good choice. I’m a hundred percent supportive of trade development and trade schools. My concern is, even vocational schools I love those. What my main concern is to getting a four year education at a university where you have to spend a tremendous amount of resources in order to accomplish that and get out and not be able to apply that and make a decent living, that’s my main concern. And I see that more often than I see an individual going to a trade school, vocational school. I’m on the biggest supporter of those.
Cory: And I think we’re actually talking about the same thing with the caller and I think what she’s hinting at is the pride aspect of it because you said oh somebody gets excited because they get to say they’re going to college which is a point of pride. It brings pride to them and it gives them a purpose. And I think that you have a very good point there. It gets those people through what we call the Pause. They get out of high school and then there’s this Pause. Trying to figure out what they want to do. And that vocational school fills that pause and gives them a mission and a purpose that will actually give them gainful employment afterwards. So I think we’re actually talking about the same thing and I appreciate the call.
Therese: Yes I totally agree with you. And I think the more we connect Hawaii students with gainful employment in the future in those programs, we’re going to see a lot of success around. Thank you so much.
Rick: We thank you Theresa, we hope that you will join us again. And tell your friends, tell your neighbors. Well I can’t thank all of you enough. What an invigorating program again.
Jim: Again.
Rick: Again. We’re going to get together a regular time on Wednesday. If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to do a couple of things perhaps in preparation. Let’s get a status on our two young fine gentleman in our studio from beginning to where we are now because as you said in our mission this is what we’re tracking and what we’re doing. And the other part two, veterans. If we could have our conversation about how MOK is directly connected with the advocacy and help of veterans.
Jim: Of course.
Rick: All right that sounds great. We have just a few seconds remaining. I want to thank Drew, I want to thank Jim and I want to thank Cory. Go to makerofkings.com. You’ll be able to learn more and we’ll see you on Wednesday morning fellas.
Everyone: Aloha