Video Transcription

Hey, this is Allen Kopelman with a new episode from B2B Vault educational information for business owners and merchants. The payment technology podcast brought to you by Nationwide Payment Systems today, Thanksgiving reflections. So what am I thankful for this year? So I’m thankful for my business partner, Dave, I’m thankful for my family, my children. I’m thankful for my employees, Justin, my guy who helps with the website and the podcast, Samantha who helps with all the graphic designing and making all of our PDFs and art that’s used on the website. Everything looks cool, looks great. And Rocky, he said, let’s see, where is this Rocky? Rocky’s what are you doing? Rocky, Rocky dam. Rocky, say hello to everybody you’re on the podcast today. So a little fun. So, you know, always I’m saying like funny stuff around the office. So I said, oh, just put Allen’s favorite saying

So the first one, uh, figures don’t lie, but liars sure can figure. So I learned this when I was going to culinary school. So previous to being in this business, which I started in 2001, I was a chef. I was a food and beverage director. I was a consultant. I was executive chef at hotels, country clubs. And when I was going through culinary school and hospitality management, one of the teachers he’s like figures don’t lie, but liars sure. Can’t figure. So that played into a lot of different things throughout, um, my business career. So how does that, how does that play out? So you receive a proposal in the mail and you know, sometimes you look at the bottom line on the paper and it looks good, but then you go look at, actually look at all the figures and things don’t add up. Do you know? So I saw that many times, like, especially like buying food, hotels, buy an enormous amount of consumable product every month. And as the chef, believe it or not, I was controlling millions of dollars of purchases that were going through the hotel was, I was in charge of the purchasing department, the purchasing departments, purchasing food, liquor, beer, wine, uh, all the paper goods that were being used in the food outlets, all the linen, all the equipment, uh, dishes, silverware. I mean, it’s unbelievable the amount of pro amount of things that are being purchased. Um, all the chemicals being used for cleaning and, and all of that mops burps, you name it. So you have to make sure that the vendors are giving you their quote sheets and that the quote sheet matches the invoice. And if it doesn’t, if you don’t catch it, guess what? You just got ripped off. So figures don’t lie, but liars, shirk, and figures. So you want to make sure that you’re getting, you know, the right price, the same thing in merchant services. I had a merchant once they sent me this proposal, this guy’s going to save me like $500. Uh, so the sales rep, one of my sales reps showed me the proposal and I started looking at it and I said, oh, you know, let me take my calculator out. So I started calculating and none of the figures and some of the spreadsheet added up and the merchants didn’t check it. And the sales rep didn’t check it. So nobody checked it and then had no clue. They were like, wow, unbelievable. So figures don’t lie, but liars sure. Can’t figure it applies everywhere. Everything, anything you do in business that’s you can be for sure to count on that one. People do what you inspect and not what you expect. This is a conversation I had with my son the other day. I tell this to everybody that manages people. You know, when you’re managing people, you need to have a way to hold them accountable. So, you know, no matter what that is, it could be a vendor. It could be an employee. It could be someone who’s a 10 99 independent contractor for you. You know, people do what you inspect, not what you expect. You just can’t expect somebody to either know what you want to do the right way. You got to make sure you inspect what you give them to do. So you get what you expect. Very simple. My son asked me about that. How can you know? Cause I told them that with you had an, as employees and works at a retail store and he’s like, oh, they don’t get it. And I said, well, you have to give them, uh, you know, the expectations. And then you have to inspect what they’re doing so that you get what you expect. And then my brother and I were my brothers Richard all the time. We always say, and it’s all good. It’s all good because it is, it’s all good. Listen, we’re all, you know, I always say that like, Hey, everything is great. And it’s all good because you know, listen, I’m blessed to be in the business that I’m in. That I run a successful company and my business partner, we’re running a successful business. This is our 20th year in business. Next year will be 21 years in business. And it’s all good. Believe me, it’s all good Carpe diem. You know, I used to say Carpe diem all the time, because when I first started cooking, I worked for a guy and on the bottom of the menu. So at carpe diem, I didn’t know what that meant. So I had to go ask somebody. There was no back in 1983 when I first went to work at this fine dining restaurant. And I was like, I don’t know. What does that mean? Carpe diem. So I asked, somebody, told me to seize the day. So Carpe diem is a great saying. And I used to put it on my menus all the time, seize the day. I should put it at the end of every podcast because that’s what you need to do to seize the day.

So that’s it with favorite sayings now, favorite books. This is always something I love talking about. And I’m always giving people books all the time. I’m all the time giving out books to my, uh, the people who work with me. I bought the books. The people who Justin is messing up the podcast today. He can’t get the thing moved, but that’s okay. No, no worries. It’s all good. It’s all good, Justin. No. So I’m always giving out books to people. So I buy like, you know, I’ll buy like two or three, four or five, 10 of a book. And then I’m all the time given a mat. So like who moved my cheese? There’s a great book. It’s a great story. Everybody who owns a business should read this book. It’s been around forever. I mean, this book is been around for a long time. I think Spencer Johnson wrote this book. I don’t even know when this book was written. This book is somebody gave me this book in 2001 and I was in 2001, I was at a business meeting and this guy was talking about check conversion. People are going to be able to walk into a business with a check, stick it in this machine, the machine was going to take a picture of it, send it off to the bank. And the merchant was going to get the money magically deposited in their bank account, just like a credit card. I was like, wow, amazing. How cool was that? So, you know, so the concept, you know, he was trying to tell us is, is just like in the book who moved my cheese, that things change in business and you got to go find new cheese every year. So we’re constantly all the time searching for cheese. And in this business payment processing payments, payment processing payment technology, uh, FinTech payment types are changing at a very, very fast rate. How you pay, where you can pay the equipment you can use to pay QR codes, texting, emailing, invoicing, electronic invoicing, payment portals, it’s endless cryptocurrency buy now pay later. I’m sure we’ll post this video and soon there’ll be more payment options. So I read about them all the time. I talked to the banks that we work with. It’s all done. So another great book is the strangest secret. This is a great book. I’ve given it to probably almost every employee that works for me. I tell them, read this book. It’s really good. And you get some good feeling for yourself and understand like, you know, you can do anything. You want a great book, short read, take it home, read it done with it in a couple of hours, the masters of networking. So that book, one of my friends, Sandy wrote a chapter in there. And in 2001, 2002, me and two friends of mine decided I didn’t know anything about BNI. And so we had lunch with this woman, Sandy, and then we gathered up a few more people and we had 10 people and we launched a BNI chapter, which grew to a very large number about 50 people. And that was a great way to get business back in the days when I was just starting and sales and is, you know, I love BNI is a great book, great concept givers gain. Um, so any books were written by Ivan Meisner. That was the first one masters, uh, networking. I’d still look at that book every once in a while. And you know, or I go to their website BNI and absorb that five-second rule. Okay. This is a great book. This is a lady who tells a great story about her life and what happened in her life and how she made, you know, made decisions. So she said, one day I just laying in bed and she was watching the, uh, one of the moon launches or something, or a space shuttle, whatever was taken off from the space center. And they said 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And she decided that was the day she got out of bed and made a lot of changes in her life. But when also think about the five-second rule, I think back to the days when I was in the hotel business, and I never forget this, this, this lesson, we were, I was in a room and I had to do a presentation on what I was going to do in this hotel and the food and beverage department and how I was going to transform this foreclosed hotel into a more dynamic place that people were going to want to come and eat breakfast, lunch dinners, have catering parties, weddings, Sunday, brunch, everything. What was I going to do? And I had to do an extensive, um, report about the menu I wanted to put in there. And I had done some previous presentations to the owners and the finance company who was financing the bank, the bank, who was the finance company on the Dell and other executives in the company now presenting to the executive board, what I’m going to do and what I propose. And there were drawings and all kinds of stuff about different things. We wanted to do. Pasta stations, how the Sunday brunch was going to be laid out all these different things about how to bring in more business. So, and also some branding, new branding in the restaurant and you know, all kinds of different stuff. So, you know, I did my presentation and then after the presentation, the few of the people that are were in charge of the hotel said, okay, well, we got to think about it. I’ll never forget. The owner was listening behind a wall that I didn’t know about that at a two-way mirror. And the owner walked in with a couple of the other people that were the owners of the companies on the board. And they said, no, we don’t do that. We have a meeting and we make decisions. And, and he had like a, a price limit. Like there was a price limit on making a decision. So I think that people need to absorb that into their business and say, okay, we’re going to have a meeting. And then we’re going to make a decision and we’re going to do something. We’re not going to table it and go, okay, let’s think about that. Oh, we made this marketing material, and now, uh, are we going to print it or we’re going to make a few more changes. No, let’s work on it. And then let’s get it printed and try it out. It doesn’t cost, it doesn’t cost that much money. So you have to kind of have a ceiling on what that’s going to be. Is it going to be a thousand dollars, $2,000? Like how is that going to translate into, um, into business, right? So you have to, you have to, um, work on what you’re doing and how you’re doing it and make sound decisions and your business. So these are, uh, things that I like. Hopefully, I gave you some great information on Thanksgiving reflection day, and enjoy the podcast. Check us out on your favorite podcast network. Also on YouTube, the B2B Vault the payment technology podcast, Carpe diem, have a great day. Enjoy your Thanksgiving with your family.