Mike master

The Beauty Pro Elite podcast is hosted by Jeanne Ann Kenning. She aims to help beauty business owners succeed in areas like marketing, mindset, finance, and social health. In this episode, Jeanne Ann interviews her husband, Mike, to get a male perspective on owning a business. Mike shares his journey of starting his own business in the marine industry and discusses the differences between males and females when it comes to taking risks in entrepreneurship. They also touch on the importance of a strong work ethic and the challenges of leaving a secure job to pursue a side hustle full-time. Welcome to the Beauty Pro Elite Podcast. I'm your host Jeanne Ann Kenning and my mission is to help beauty business owners create a dynamic business they can be proud of with marketing, mindset, finance, and social health so you can start attracting those dream clients and building a brand you always wanted and deserve. If you are ready to explode your beauty biz then this is the place for you. It's time to get started. All right so we're going to preface this introduction and everything. The sound quality is not that great. I do have the flu and Mike was banging on the desk a little bit so sorry about that but you get what you get on this podcast. Secondly you're going to get a raw real conversation with somebody who has been a business owner and self-employed for almost 30 years yeah I'm pretty much 30 years so I really wanted to have an honest raw real conversation about the difference between females and males and why there's gender roles and Indy just to get his perspective. I keep it real on this podcast I don't like to bait the guests I'd like to just have conversations and see and it was very interesting to hear the things that comes out of his mouth that I was surprised about and to see so enjoy and I'll let Mike take it away. Well hello welcome to the Beauty Pro Elite podcast my name is Jeanna and Kenning we have a special guest today episode 5 titled meet Mike that's the episode. So who are you? I am your husband. Oh my husband so my husband Mike is here today to give us a male perspective I'm going to ask him a few questions about owning a business being in business with somebody who owns a beauty business and also for yourself so he has like a dual-sided perspective are you excited? I'm excited. Would you be so kind as to put your phone on do not disturb sir is that okay? For you here I'll do that. Okay so for those of you that don't know Mike and I have been married 12 years on Sunday yes I'm gonna write that down on Sunday we have two children Joseph 23 and Riley 13. Mike this is going real well. Mike owns his own business and when did you have you always been self-employed? No it's my business started as my side hustle yeah around 2000 and became my full-time job. Was that your first like job that you had? No I started my career in the brain industry in 97. You're old. I know moved up to the dealer in our area yeah 98 started my side hustle. So let's let's just be clear though when Mike says side hustle he really means he made enough money for a full-time hustle like a full time job your side hustle was a full-time job. Yeah it was two jobs. Yeah exactly so when you started tell us about your journey when you started into entrepreneurship what was it that made you want to start that side hustle? When I started in it I was working for a company so just a little background I'm in the marine industry I have a the business now primarily focuses on transport of boats around the province. When I first started I was heavy into the service and storage and transport I was heavy into everything. When I back in 2000 I was working for a dealership I was doing all of their new boat deliveries and stuff and handing them off to the customer and then doing service and stuff as well. That dealership just wanted to sell boats they did not want to do anything else they were leaving a lot of work on the table someone needed to take it so I decided I was going to take it. So that's when I stepped up and started a service business that ran into transport that turned into storage and it just snowballed there from there. So you started it then like how old were you? 20? 22 I think. 22 and how so it's the interesting perspective and why I asked Mike to be on here was I find there's a different perspective between males and females as far as jumping into starting a business because at 22 years old most females would never start that large of a business like how much like it was a fairly large investment when you started obviously so but most females have are very fear-based but males are not. Why do you think that is? That's a good question I don't know how to answer that. Yeah you kind of stumped me on that one. Even how you operate now you operate very much differently than most females like obviously a female wouldn't own a marine transport business if there is somebody out there good for you but like it's very fearless like if you want an investment a large investment you do it if you want to buy a new truck you do it if you buy the new trailer you do it but most people that own a business as females are very reserved in their investment in their what they put in for time how they you know if they scale and open a brick-and-mortar business like whatever it looks like for them is very different. That I will say when I was a 22 year old guy starting this business I was balls to the wall and I wasn't afraid of anything. Do you think you're more afraid now? To be honest with you I don't know. I might be more comfortable now and because I'm comfortable I don't know if I see a need for the risk you know when I was 22 years old and I didn't have anything I had nothing behind me I wasn't putting anything at risk. I built a truck from pieces and parts I had about $20,000 tied up in that. My first trailer was $29,000 I bought that when I was 22 years old. My grandparents at the time lucky for me they were fortunate they supported me they gave me $10,000 when I got started and my grandma wrote that check and handed it to my papa so he could hand it to me so that was kind of special. I still have the copy of that check in my dresser. So that's how I got started there I did have $10,000 behind me which was nice and I was good at saving money you know so that was good too but at 22 years old you know it didn't even phase me to jump in there and do that. I think after I bought that $29,000 trailer I think I was in business for less than a year and I decided I needed more truck went out and spent $30,000 and didn't even think twice about it you know at 23 or 24 years of age it just didn't even phase me because you didn't you weren't putting anything at risk you know now I look at us and our bills are paid and stuff like that and I'd love to know what the next adventure is but you know 47 year old me I'll admit that I'm a little bit caught up right now do I coast that's not the right answer are we comfortable yes do I want to go like the next step for me would be a million dollars for the debt you know do I do I want to go and do that oh my god yeah what the answer is but in terms of I don't think you know getting started as a girl versus boy aggressive thing I think it was a young person thing you know okay so let's back that up even further then because how what was it like then without going to like in depth being in your house when you were a child that you were raised to be comfortable enough to make those risks I guess is the question like what was your upbringing like that you felt comfortable just going and starting I mean at 22 years old fifty thousand dollars is yeah I came out of a good strong household I wasn't spoiled you know when I turned 16 my parents didn't buy me a vehicle right they they co-signed a loan for me so I borrow the money to buy a vehicle to write it you know when I was 16 years old I had a job at a truck shop and then I had a job at a truck dealership and a Ford dealership and I just kept on going and going from there the work ethic was ground into you pretty young I always had a work ethic my dad my dad was a worker worker worker you know yeah and you know probably too much at that point yeah I'm trying to look back at myself and wonder if I'm following the same footsteps but no you're not this is going to be like all tears and fears on this podcast okay so you start your business and you're running a side hustle it flashed forward to midlife so now you're still working for marina at a very large level and you're also running the side hustle which is now like three jobs because it's got all sorts of facets of components yeah talk to us without getting too in depth about the pivot from the security of a full-time job because a lot of people that listen to this podcast and this is why I want to get you on here are working a full-time job have a side hustle and are afraid to go all in on themselves so talk to us about that moment when you left the security of a full-time job and went into a fully on your own which is like what two years three years ago two years ago wow it's not been that long yeah so so talk to us about how that happened without going into the gory details but like what that looks like for you now so the dealership I worked for when I started my side hustle they were leaving service on the table they were they just wanted to sell boats and that was fine they had no problem with my side hustle because when I would take a customer after they sold them a boat I kept that customer in house so to speak you know that customer didn't go somewhere else looking for service and if they wanted a new boat four years down the road well guess what I just sent them right back in the door where they came from the first time instead of them dealing with someone who was on their lake who maybe sold another brand of boat so that was always good that dealership was bought by another dealership in 2008 things were good there for a long time and then I guess two years ago that dealership was going to be changing hands restructuring again they assumed all of my I guess you say liability as a employee when they bought us out they didn't pay me out when they bought out that company they assumed me so I had 23 years ish of seniority within that company so if they needed to get rid of me without cause or whatever that turns into a sticky situation in terms of dollar amount and stuff like that so they decided that they didn't like the fact that I had a side hustle came after me for that and it was a very traumatic 30 30 days of my life you know you and me both yeah we went from you know here's your job everything's good got your side hustle to oh by the way I don't have a job anymore and what the heck am I going to do and leaning on my side hustle and you know probably within about 24 hours I had decided you know why the hell did I put up with those people so long you know and sucked it up and moved forward and it just took off at the speed of light it happened at the right time of year it happened in May and that is when our business is busy in May so there was no looking back there was more work to be done in May than you could shake a stick at so that was perfect rolled right along with that it went full circle that company came back to me and said you know we kind of made a mistake and I said fine I'm a subcontractor I'm not going to burn any bridges also work with you not for you yeah and we get along fairly well these days got a lot of work for them in the last two years a lot of work for other marinas in the last two years so it would just it was a decision I was pushed into I was probably too comfortable in that job to say I need to go out on my own I need to do my own thing and I think the reason why I wanted you on too is because we were both in the similar position yep you were comfortable we were both comfortable and then we were both pushed into a decision yeah was that a positive in the end in the end yes was it a positive it burned for about 24 hours you know but but in the end yeah it was yeah it was the best thing that's ever happened to me yeah so paint the picture what the two years have been like because I want people to see that sometimes like we were talking about the scariest decisions are hard and sometimes the universe pushes you which we both were but talk about what the last two years have been like for you um good you know so um no the last two years have been good um now you got to keep in mind when you're going to go make the decision am I going to go do this on my own is this going to be my side hustle that is a decision you need to make for you I can't make that decision for you our conversation today isn't meant to sway you it's just meant to help you um we were in a very fortunate circumstance um our house was paid for our house was almost paid for you know um so if my side hustle turned into whoops only made 25 grand last year um we would have been eating beans but we would have lived you know what I mean um there's a lot of people who can't look at it that way so um it has to make financial sense to make financial sense for you yes you know doing your own thing being self-driven there's not much that's going to push you any harder yeah um when you realize that holy crap if I don't hustle I'm not going to make rent next week you have to be self-motivated which was a hard lesson for you yep yep and I'll be honest I enjoy the summertime when people are calling and saying hey can you pick up my boat yep I'll see you Wednesday morning at nine o'clock and I'll pick up your boat yeah um because I can't not be there at nine o'clock right if I told them I'm going to be there at nine o'clock I'll be there at nine o'clock during the winter right now it's winter no one wants to do anything you know um I just finished you know rebuilding the brakes and bearings on my trailer should have taken three days took eight you know yeah because it's hard to go hey I'm going to go out to the shop and do something and then you turn on the tv and then you spend three hours working six hours not working you know um so that's a little bit hard so self-motivation you really need to look yourself in the face and say am I self-motivated enough to make this happen you know um and have you financially it's been very good for you financially for sure yeah very very good for you would you say that you want to grow more I don't think you could physically do more but I have an inkling to grow more because I sit back there and just Sunday night I met a customer that I've known in the marine industry forever and I told them I says I got something in the back of my head that I'm interested in they're all I don't even know I want to do that you know but at the same time I'm 47 years old it's not time to coast so I'm going through a little bit of uh up and down right now myself not trying to figure out what the heck to do with the future um but yeah I don't work what were there how would I get there what was the question okay but that's the life of an entrepreneur right it's like do I go or do I go up and down like do I what so the last few years have been phenomenal for you like that pushing into that direction was a blessing in disguise um you've made massive investments in your assets like all those things happened but like you said it has to be the right time it has to make financial sense it has to you know feel good it has to make sense now let's flip the script a little bit okay yeah so talk to me about what life is like in a house where every single person that is a breadwinner we won't we'll discount the teenager um is self-employed what is that like from your perspective when both people are self-employed entrepreneurs what does it feel like to be in our house and be kind please well no I'd say it feels great I mean we we are in control we have flexibility yeah I mean um you've heard me you know get into an argument or two with a customer over the phone about something silly you know maybe they think something's too expensive or maybe they don't like something the way we did it um you may not like what I'm going to tell you but it's going to be the truth yeah whenever I'm trying to look after a customer who's getting something serviced or something like that you know um you've heard me blast people over the phone and you're like oh my god you can't talk to a customer I'm like that it's my business I can talk to anybody however I want to that's one of the advantages you know no one's going to walk in the door and say you told Mrs. Smith that she was a raging you know what and now you're in trouble I'm not in trouble and if a customer pulls in the driveway at three o'clock in the afternoon and I want to have a beer with them I can have a beer with them I'm in control I am in control of my destiny I'm in control of the situation I'm in control of the money and it doesn't get much better than that okay but let's flip it even more what's what is probably would you say is the largest struggle being in house house with just self-employed people definitely like I said the motivation yeah you know yeah right now it's wintertime it's cold it's miserable and when you're not motivated then it affects my motivation for sure 100 and vice versa you know if one of us is under the weather and you know isn't getting out of bed early in the morning and the other person isn't getting out of bed early in the morning I am sick right now also that's why I'm saying that yeah what about um flip it to busy season yeah so now you're working 100 hours a week and okay well let's call it does that sound like my brain doesn't work right now let's say 60 you're working 60 hours a week and we have two children one doesn't need us one does and I'm also self self-employed that's where it gets difficult yeah it can I mean our kids are older so it's a little bit easier for us a little bit more self-sufficient than when you know they were younger but um it is definitely more pressure now I'm going to ask you a loaded question and I want you to just take it with a grain of salt and an answer honestly do you feel and this is going to this is where I'm going to bring it all back around and into a capsule for everybody that that fear that women face whether it be starting their own business when they're young start leaving a job when they're older do you feel that there's pressure on females in business because they have pressure from children household taking like there's that added pressure men can just go and work and do their thing but the women have to almost reserve themselves a little bit because they have children I would say there's more pressure on a woman that she has this maybe image in her mind and I'm not trying to back things up to the 50s you know but maybe a woman has more of an image in her mind that you know I want women are generically genetically how do you want to say that um I don't what's the word nesters I guess you want to say like they want the home they want the kids they want this they want that you know um men genetically going back to our roots I mean we're the bread we're the hunters yeah right our job is to go out and hunt the animal money whatever the heck it is so we are internally wired different right you know to take the nester um the woman is it maybe and say hey you know what you need to go out there and uh you know start shooting things start hunting things start you know going after the money so to speak you know and that's why there's she's not yours she whatever the the woman in the house isn't typically wired that way right you know so that doesn't go to say that you can't do whatever you want but flash forward it's 2024 yeah the rules have changed dramatically in households yeah right so do you understand I guess is the question that why females would be scared to hold back you know or to move sorry to scare to move forward in their business because they're worried about well what happens if I can't be there for my kids or what happens if the house isn't clean or I can't make dinner or whatever yeah I would say if you've got a business if you've got a role if you want to do she may have nailed it on the head just so everybody's clear you can go out there and you can get it done you don't need to worry about uh the public's perception of what your role should be you can go out there and get it done right you know there's nothing holding you back go give it your all hunt down that job that career that money that customer that you're going after and go at it with both barrels and get her done okay so that's all fine and dandy right what you're saying and I totally appreciate that but let's pause for a second being the large breadwinner of the household how would you as a male feel if a if your wife came to you and said I'm going to grow my business and I'm going to turn it into a million dollar business something's got to get at some point yeah right like there's children there's house there's whatever right so this is what I'm saying is there's so you're going to grow your business and we're going to put the kids up for adoption oh okay so what is so that's what I'm saying is that's why so many women have that pedal and brake pedal and brake because they have that responsibility based on them that they have to do all these things and if they don't do it you're working 60 hours you can't do it either right if you think you're going to go out there and if you think you have the client base the ability the knowledge the drive the know-how yeah to go out and do something like that then you do it for yourself right you can get babysitters you can hire a house cleaner exactly you can do small things like that you know you're not going to sit back and limit yourself and limit what you think you're capable of you know um because you're worried that the house is dusty you know right now every man your husband's not going to your husband's going to love the house dusty you know what I mean like share get it done and anything that isn't getting done find someone to get it done right I go out and I do what I do you don't see me friggin well I mean we're not going to use the bathroom bedroom flooring as an example but you don't see me doing work around the house because it's not my forte yeah you know I don't do trim I don't do paint I don't do woodwork when I get angry enough that if something pisses me off I'm going to hire someone to do it you know I hired someone to put a water heater in the fall it only takes three there's so many things on this podcast that I will be editing out y'all are going to be like why is there so many gaps in the audio okay so so the moral I guess is the story is there's two aspects if you can't outsource help then there needs to be an honest conversation like obviously if you have young children I can't go to you and say I'm going to grow my business so I need help taking care of the kids that just doesn't jive in a marriage like or a partnership or whatever your end of the day if there's too much going on in your life that means you're going to bed too soon and you're waking up too late oh say that again if there's too much going on in your life and you're overwhelmed and you think oh my gosh I can't get through this you're going to bed too soon and you're waking up too late right so your priorities are off yes your priorities are off get done yeah if you can't get it done and then you can say oh my gosh I gave myself 16 hour days all week I'm still not getting it done then yes you need to go and hire someone well if you're at that point you're working 16 hours then you can afford some help exactly but if you're if you're a beauty business owner and you're out there and you're working full time and you're like okay I'm ready I'm going to take this thing to the next level but we can't afford a babysitter we can't afford a house cleaner there's so many things like y'all for the longest time I used to trade trade services all the time you've traded with people before for we trade for propane so trades are a great way to do it as well so if you're just doing that because whatever you can get help with at home will allow you to have more time to focus on growing your business the other thing and I've said this a million times on this podcast the effort and the drive and the expansion that you're putting in right now will will not be like this forever you will not be working 60 hours a week well Mike might but I will not ever work 60 hours a week for the rest of my life that's just not how the world works you have to put in the time to build and scale and then once you do that things will level out in the long run another thing that's very vital I think and I can we can kind of bring this home for us that's worked for us and our house is and I might just well up thinking about it ever since Riley was a baby he he would go like you have to work everything has to meld together so Riley would go with Mike when he was working Riley was a newborn do you remember this and Mike wore a baby Bjorn carrier with Riley in it and he was out moving boats in the yard do you remember that he well I remember when I was moving stuff in the yard you got him that fluorescent safety vest so I could see nobody over him in the yard and we got what was called the safety chair yeah and it was a little chair and I told Riley sit in this chair don't move because if you're in that chair I know where you are I can buzz the chair in the truck I can back up past it I won't run over the chair and I definitely won't run over you if you stay in the chair so that would be the dog sorry we had to get the dog stop barking okay we're back okay so the incorporating your family into like Riley still at 13 goes with Mike do you I'm not going to paint the picture I don't want to paint the picture in this discussion that it's sunshine and rainbows all the time because it's definitely not the case but it's possible yeah 100% no matter you know I just saw an old student of mine it was a PA day on Friday and she runs a nail and lash business she took her daughter with her to work is that ideal absolutely not but you do what you got to do to make it work right so would you have any parting Mike-ism that you could share with a young or older budding beauty entrepreneur who's looking to grow their business put your head down get it done every red light eventually goes green you know like I said if you're feeling overwhelmed and stuff like that look in the mirror and say well did I sleep 10 hours last night you know or what did I do after supper I can honestly look back and I'm 47 years old and I can tell you when I was 30 I got more done after 6 p.m than I do all day now so you know if you're 20 can afford to put some risk out there you know and and go for it you know if you're sitting there and you're 45 years old and you just came out of a dead-end job and you want to go put your energy into yourself you know maybe you don't jump in both feet first maybe you turn it into a side hustle maybe you grow it slowly and then you get it which most girls do that with what we do most girls do do that yeah which is great and not be afraid to let the gender biased roles down in the household a little bit would be you know not be so focused that I have to be this person listen if I can make a million dollars a year well I could so when I make a million dollars a year I'm sure Mike would love to not work as much right Mike oh yeah if you make a million dollars a year I am exactly so don't be afraid to take make those big moves and not look at and it all comes down to like we're talking about about how you were raised and what the roles were right the roles are changing and they're evolving so don't be afraid to do that um thanks for being here no problem I'm going to come back you're going to come back I'm going to bring a rum and folks and we're going to have a discussion about taxes where they're going and yeah that's going to be Mike has really good tax advice if you want to know um what is your Instagram name so they can follow you oh at 1251 trucks right yeah one two five okay so if you want to follow Mike and you want to be entertained you can follow him if you're looking for please you can it may not be politically correct I'm just going to warn or legal one two five one truck on Instagram and you have Facebook too as well yeah there's nothing good on there because my name's attached to it oh okay there you go well thank you for being here and thank you for having this amazing inspirational conversation um okay you're like I'm done with this conversation can I go now yeah okay okay thanks guys we'll see you next week bye hey thanks so much for tuning in today it means everything to me to have your support my mission is to help thousands of beauty business owners grow as big as they possibly can so if you found today's episode valuable the best way to share the love is to screenshot this episode share to your socials or even better share with another business owner perhaps you could leave me a review however you're listening to this podcast and if you are looking for additional support please reach out to me at beautydefinedcoach on Instagram can't wait to see you next week you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you