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What is a Scott Martineau?

You heard Clate’s side of the Keap story. Now hear it from co-founder and CCO Scott Martineau. Scott talks with director of content Carey Ballard about getting started in his dad’s business, suffering from “entrepreneurial seizures,” and holding on to business when you probably shouldn’t, only to reap the rewards later.

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Mentioned in this episode: 

“The E-Myth” by Michael Gerber 

Want to get a leg up on your small business strategy? Check out our 2017 Small Strategic Planning Kit.

2017 Small Business Marketing Trends Report - Download Now

Transcript:

Scott Martineau:         Most entrepreneurs are not entrepreneurs at all, they're technicians, which we were.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         Who are suffering from an entrepreneurial seizure. You know -

Carrie Ballard:           [Laughing]

Scott Martineau:         - and they wake up and realize they don't - they haven't really built a business, they have a job and they're working for a lunatic. And that was just exactly how we felt.

[Music]

Scott Martineau:         Welcome.

Carrie Ballard:           [Laughing]

Scott Martineau:         Welcome to this episode of the Small Business Success podcast. I'm Scott Martineau, co-founder of Keap. And today we have returning in her glory, Carrie Ballard, our Director of Content Marketing. Carrie, welcome.

Carrie Ballard:           Thank you so much for having me. So glad to be here today.

Scott Martineau:         Well, see when I was out of town, you and Clate - I haven't actually listened to the episode yet.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah. You have to --

Scott Martineau:         But I hear I need to.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         And I'm excited today. We get to get back at Clate a little bit.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah. We do.

[Laughter]

Carrie Ballard:           You have to le - you should have listened to it before. Now you don’t know how to give him a rebuttal.

Scott Martineau:         Yeah.

Carrie Ballard:           That's unfortunate.

Scott Martineau:         Um, I'm gonna actually just mention this. I don't know if Clate did.

[0:01:00]

But Carrie really is the mastermind behind - her - her and Ellis and Jimmy are the masterminds behind this whole show. And Ducey -

Carrie Ballard:           Yes.

Scott Martineau:         - who's not with us in this po - episode. But, um, really this is where all of the innovation around the Small Business Succ - Success podcasts come from. We're just Carrie's puppets.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah, right. [Laughing] I'm like Oz behind the screen telling --

Scott Martineau:         But nothing is better than seeing you here out from behind the studio.

Carrie Ballard:           And nothing makes me -

 

Scott Martineau:         This is fantastic.

Carrie Ballard:           - more uncomfortable.

[Laughter]

Carrie Ballard:           We were joking earlier that this is Scott's revenge for making it - for me asking him to be in front of the microphone to begin with.

Scott Martineau:         Everybody's so tough -

Carrie Ballard:           [Laughing]

Scott Martineau:         - when they're behind the camera or behind the control - look at Alice over there. Yeah, I - I would never be nervous on.

Carrie Ballard:           [Laughing]

Scott Martineau:         Ellis is coming on. Yes, you did.

Carrie Ballard:           She's coming on next. We'll have her next. Well, I'm excited today because the last time we had Scott here - or Scott wasn't here and we had Clate here, we talked about the story behind the story for Keap. And now we get side two of this story.

Scott Martineau:         Yes. The real - this is the real story.

[0:02:00]

Carrie Ballard:           It is the real story. So okay, my first question is. Alice and I were talking about this before. What were you doing before Keap? Tell us about -

Scott Martineau:         Oh, baby.

Carrie Ballard:           - Scott - Scott before.

Scott Martineau:         All right. Well, so I guess maybe it probably starts back in college. I - I actually started out going to school as an engineer. Thought I wanted to be an engineer.

Carrie Ballard:           Really?

Scott Martineau:         Got through all my calc and then I was like I don't want to be an engineer. I don't know why I didn't figure that out before calculus.

Carrie Ballard:           When - when you were thinking about being an engineer like ho - what did you imagine yourself working on?

Scott Martineau:         I don't know.

Carrie Ballard:           Didn't really think about it?

Scott Martineau:         Maybe that's why I stopped. 'Cuase I never could quite -

[Laughter]

Scott Martineau:         - you know I don't know. Some form of mechanical engineering. I don't even know. So, uh, but - but I switched and decided to do computer information s - computer information systems, uh, because of kind of a budding interest in that.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         But interestingly throughout school I didn't - I never - I never had interest in having a resume updated, going to job fairs.

[0:03:00]

I was never really even thinking about that. Because at the time, I was working in small family businesses, uh, two specifically. My dad, who's an attorney by trade, was always dabbling.

Carrie Ballard:           Hmm.

Scott Martineau:         And when I came home from serving my church mission in Canada, my dad had built up this whole company and it was called Balloon Attractions. I'm sure you've heard of it.

Carrie Ballard:           I have.

Scott Martineau:         Oh, y - well, only from me.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah. [Laughing]

Scott Martineau:         You're the - y - you're the fifth person.

Carrie Ballard:           [Laughing]

Scott Martineau:         You're one of five. Anyways. So we were, uh - and I can't remember if we talked about this on the show or not but -

Carrie Ballard:           Uh-uh.

Scott Martineau:         - basically -

Carrie Ballard:           No.

Scott Martineau:         - we - he would send balloon entertainers into restaurants. They'd go make clown balloons at the tables and annoy the guests. And work for tips. It was a great high school job.

Carrie Ballard:           I'm sure.

Scott Martineau:         And, uh, he had it in - he had expanded the business and it was in 15 or 16 states. And he had sponsoring trainers that would train people in the local area and all these contracts with restaurants. And so he had a vision of - and he wanted to work with his sons and we wanted to work with him.

[0:04:00]

And he had this vision of this business taking off. And - and you know essentially we worked in the business but never rea - our heart was never really in it. You know we were - he had us doing sales and all sorts of things that we were completely uncomfortable doing. But what happened is actually, uh, we - Eric and I decided we were gonna automate a part of his business and that's actually what kind of kicked us into our very first technical project that kind of - you know it gave us the bug that --

Carrie Ballard:           Was it work that you guys were doing? You were trying to automate your work -

Scott Martineau:         No.

Carrie Ballard:           - or his work.

Scott Martineau:         It was actually his.

Carrie Ballard:           Okay.

Scott Martineau:         It was his. So he - there was a - there was a scheduling process where - where the balloon twisters, they were called.

[Laughter]

Scott Martineau:         It's so amazing.

Carrie Ballard:           [Laughing]

Scott Martineau:         They would, uh - they would call in and request their schedule.

Carrie Ballard:           Okay.

Scott Martineau:         And - and leave - this is back when voicemail technology was really expanding. So they would leave voicemails. He'd go pull off 300 voicemails and punch this data into an access database.

Carrie Ballard:           Ugh.

Scott Martineau:         Yeah.

Carrie Ballard:           Ouch.

Scott Martineau:         So we're like dad, come on, the internet's coming around. Let's go - this is probably I don't know '99 in that area.

Carrie Ballard:           Uh-huh.

Scott Martineau:         '90 - yeah, '98, '99.

[0:05:00]

So we put that thing online and it was just remarkable for us to see what that did. You know -

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         - and dad didn't have to spend his two hours pulling these stupid voicemails off -

Carrie Ballard:           That's awful.

Scott Martineau:         - and entering them in the database. And, uh, it was fantastic.

Carrie Ballard:           And pretty advanced technology for that time. I mean you -

Scott Martineau:         Yeah.

Carrie Ballard:           - like --

Scott Martineau:         Yes.

Carrie Ballard:           That's pretty cool.

Scott Martineau:         It was a little janky the way we set it up but nobody knew that -

Carrie Ballard:           [Laughing]

Scott Martineau:         - but us.

Carrie Ballard:           Nobody cared 'cause it took all the time off their hands.

Scott Martineau:         Yeah. So that - that, uh - that sort of never really went anywhere. But it - but in all reality, we still thank dad for sort of funding that part of our development and growth.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         He kind of kept us alive at the time. And then I spent a year - my dad and I formed another partnership. Which basically meant he continued to pay my salary for us - for me to go build - and I built an entire - I was a - I was a - an eng - a software engineer I suppose. Maybe more of a software hack. But I built this entire software program for law firms. It was a - it was a case management system.

Carrie Ballard:           Okay.

Scott Martineau:         And, uh, you know a lesson for listeners, we started with the product.

[0:06:00]

And we didn't do any market research, didn't do - we had no budget or plan for the marketing of it. We just sort of figured it would kind - it was kind of an if you build it, it will sell -

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         - strategy.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         We sold to a grand total of three customers.

Carrie Ballard:           [Laughing] Less of a field of dreams than you imagined?

Scott Martineau:         Yes.

Carrie Ballard:           [Laughing]

Scott Martineau:         And this is not a high priced ticket. And one of the three firms is my dad's -

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         - law practice.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         So, yeah, a little bit painful. But great - great lessons. Uh, you know I think that - I think that actually added to my understanding of what it was like to own a small business. You know I - my dad growing up was always - he was always working a lot.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         And I - I saw the burden of having his own practice and - and, uh - and I'd say maybe attorneys might have it even a little bit less difficult -

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         - than some of the other small businesses. So --

Carrie Ballard:           But even him, he needed help.

Scott Martineau:         He did.

Carrie Ballard:           And so you came to the rescue.

Scott Martineau:         [Laughing] Well, he kept us alive.

Carrie Ballard:           [Laughing]

Scott Martineau:         He - he really probably deserves most of the credit.

Carrie Ballard:           Well, it sounds like a good tradeoff. So - so then you find yourself here and you think to yourself what?

[0:07:00]

How - how does the next step of the Scott Martineau story go?

Scott Martineau:         Well, um, definitely wasn't - we didn't find ourselves here. We found ourselves one step from where we were. [Laughing]

Carrie Ballard:           Got it.

Scott Martineau:         Which wasn't very pretty.

Carrie Ballard:           [Laughing]

Scott Martineau:         You know before we brought Clate on board, we were just kind of elated that we could be off on our own. And we - you know I finally had to break the news to dad and say hey dad, I don't think this is gonna work out.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         You know we're not - we're not really - our heart's not in Balloon Attractions. I think that was challenging for him. Um, and Eric and I and another - another guy that I had met - another friend of mine, we decided we're gonna go do this custom software thing. So we just went off. And it was - I mean if there was ever the blind leading the blind -

Carrie Ballard:           [Laughing]

Scott Martineau:         - we did not have a clue what we were doing. And --

Carrie Ballard:           Clate said there were a lot of videogames involved.

Scott Martineau:         Th --

Carrie Ballard:           Is that --

Scott Martineau:         Yeah. Every Friday.

Carrie Ballard:           [Laughing]

Scott Martineau:         It was Unreal tournament baby.

Carrie Ballard:           [Laughing]

Scott Martineau:         Oh, man.

Carrie Ballard:           [Laughing]

Scott Martineau:         Yeah, we had time.

Carrie Ballard:           Okay.

Scott Martineau:         We had lots of time.

Carrie Ballard:           Lots of time. But you had something that was driving you. Was it the freedom, was it - what was it?

[0:08:00]

Scott Martineau:         Yeah. I think - I think that's exactly what the fumes were that we were living on.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         It was just that - it was just fumes but it was all right, we're on our own. This is --

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         This is what - and by the way, I do think there's a - there - it's probably common for a - a honeymoon period -

Carrie Ballard:           Uh-huh.

Scott Martineau:         - for every business owner. We just thought this was - this was all the rage, you know. We could do whatever we wanted. We were -

Carrie Ballard:           No one --

Scott Martineau:         - we were free.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         And it didn't take long for us to wake up and you know run smack headfirst into that wall and realize, okay, we actually have to be - you know this the book, The E Myth really resonated for us is because Michael Gerber just put it you know in - in perfect terms. It's like most entrepreneurs are not entrepreneurs at all, they're technicians. Which we were.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         Who were suffering from an entrepreneurial seizure. You know -

Carrie Ballard:           [Laughing]

Scott Martineau:         - and they wake up and realize they don't - they haven't really built a business. They have a job and they're working for a lunatic. And that was just exactly how we felt.

Carrie Ballard:           Seriously?

Scott Martineau:         Yeah.

Carrie Ballard:           So how long did that take between like this you know honeymoon videogame phase to there's a wall in front of me and I might be terrified?

[0:09:00]

Scott Martineau:         Um, I don't remember just to be totally blunt. And I - I'm not really great with my time -

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         - you know my -

Carrie Ballard:           That's okay.

Scott Martineau:         - Clate - if Clate's here he could tell you the exact months and dates. But it - it felt like, uh, we had a really great honeymoon for a few months.

Carrie Ballard:           Uh-huh.

Scott Martineau:         You know picked up a little odd - odds and ends jobs. And meanwhile we're trying to get Cl - convince Clate to come and join the company. But it was - you know I'd say it was a few months of honeymooning.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         And then a lot more months of - of frustration and struggle and -

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         - you know questioning whether we had done the right thing.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah. Did you ever have a side plan? Like a - an exit strategy? At that -

Scott Martineau:         An exit strategy.

Carrie Ballard:           - yeah.

Scott Martineau:         [Laughing] An exit strategy.

Carrie Ballard:           At that stage. Yeah. Like -

Scott Martineau:         Uh -

Carrie Ballard:           - parachute if you will.

Scott Martineau:         - exit strategy. Um, no actually.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah. You might be -

Scott Martineau:         I - I think --

Carrie Ballard:           - a true entrepreneur.

Scott Martineau:         Yeah. I think maybe that - I don't know just kind of was always blessed with maybe ignorance in that regard. Just idealism, thinking this is gonna work out -

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         - even though all indicators were s - were saying otherwise, you know.

[0:10:00]

Carrie Ballard:           [Laughing] You are the ultimate optimist. It's fine.

Scott Martineau:         Yeah.

Carrie Ballard:           It's gonna be fine.

Scott Martineau:         Yeah. Everything's gonna be fine.

Carrie Ballard:           [Laughing]

Scott Martineau:         But you know at the time, you - you have to - that's a - that's a two part conversation when you're married and you've got kids at home -

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         - you know.

Carrie Ballard:           Totally.

Scott Martineau:         And so Eric was dating Beth you know in those early phases and they didn't have as any responsibilities. I didn't - I think Andy and I had Jerome, um, and then Clate is always a couple children ahead of me so they felt it the most.

Carrie Ballard:           Got it. Yeah. So you had the responsible one at the top, you know.

Scott Martineau:         Right.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         Yeah.

Carrie Ballard:           There you go.

Scott Martineau:         Exactly.

Carrie Ballard:           Okay. All right. So then fast-forward. When did it feel like it went from being a - I guess maybe like a garage enterprise to feeling like a business. Like you said I have - I have a business. I'm - I'm running a business.

Scott Martineau:         Yeah. Well, I think - I think, uh, Clate came and brought some structure to what we were doing. And confidence too. You know just having -

 

Carrie Ballard:           Uh-huh.

Scott Martineau:         - somebody on board that has some business savvy I think always helps. And, uh, I'd say even those years where it was really challenging for us, I think we s - definitely started to feel like a business probably the first time you k -

[0:11:00]

or maybe - maybe after hiring the first or second employee you start to feel the responsibility.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         And you're like man, this is - all right this is serious.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         You know we can't just play videogames and go home, not have a lot of money on the weekend.

Carrie Ballard:           Right.

Scott Martineau:         It - it - it affects other people. So I think it probably felt that way. But in terms of maybe getting to a place where we started to feel stable and comfortable. 'Cause in that - in that - you know after the honeymoon before it started to get comfortable there - you know now it shifted to crap man, we're so close to not making payroll. Are we gonna have to tell our employees and you know like that - all - I mean just kind of a constant dance with that line.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         So frustrating. But when we finally made the jump from a custom software shop to a - to r - really having an actual product that we could sell in a recurring basis, that was the - you know that was the thing that started to create some stability in the business. And it really started to feel like man, this is - all right, this is why people get into this.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         You know we were making payroll consistently. We were taking home money. You know 'cause in the early days it was always - we were the last ones to get paid.

[0:12:00]

Carrie Ballard:           Right.

Scott Martineau:         And finally, we're just kind of like no, we're gonna - we're gonna make this work. So anyway that - you know it got - that was - that was 2000 - probably 2004 or '05 before we started really feeling stability.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah. And then it felt real?

Scott Martineau:         And then it felt real. Yeah.

Carrie Ballard:           Okay. So you're here now and it feels really real, which I'm grateful for. I said the same thing to Clate. What - do you have any moments that you say I completely regret this move, this moment, this reaction, this response, this something? One that stands out at all?

Scott Martineau:         Hmm.

Carrie Ballard:           That's a tough one. I know.

Scott Martineau:         I think - I don't know. Some - somewhere in the combination of my optimism and my horrible memory, I just don't have a lot of thoughts around that.

Carrie Ballard:           That's good.

Scott Martineau:         But ma - maybe the one thing that I wish could have been different is we - we bought out our f - that first partner. We ended up buying him out. It wasn't a - it wasn't a pretty situation. And I just think the way we handled that and -

[0:13:00]

and - I don't know I just feel like we could have done it in a way that didn't create such a wedge in the relationship. Because it -

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         - it changed it you know forever -

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         - and - so I - you know I guess I've thought about that and feel like we could have done things differently. But at the same time we were kind of in survival mode trying to figure it out. Didn't have the - you know we'd never done that before. And -

Carrie Ballard:           Right.

Scott Martineau:         - you just kind of do what presents itself to you.

Carrie Ballard:           Well, and there's always a danger going into business with friends or family is that there's gonna be - there's gonna be tough decisions and sometimes it's not gonna end up the way everybody wants it to, right.

Scott Martineau:         Yeah.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah. That's true. Okay. So moving onto - to lighter subjects.

[Laughter]

Carrie Ballard:           Let's get the optimistic Scott back out. What is your - what are some of your favorite moments so far in the business?

Scott Martineau:         I love it when - we've always had - we've always had kind of an ambitious goal setting culture.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         You know we put big goals up, we write 'em on the whiteboards or put 'em on a screen, or whatever.

[0:14:00]

Carrie Ballard:           Yep.

Scott Martineau:         And I love the thrill of sitting there looking at a number and being like there is no way we're gonna get that -

Carrie Ballard:           [Laughing]

Scott Martineau:         - you know. And then somethin' clicks and - and people rally. And a plan comes together and people dig deeper than they thought they could. And they have ideas they didn't have before. And - and somehow you look - you get to the end of that and you hit the finish line, you're like holy crap -

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         - we just did that.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         And we get to drop a banner and say man, we did that.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         And I think - you know I could - the - the - the revenue numbers that we had in each of those years are burned into my mind.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         You know because we - we just put so much energy on it and cue fo -

Carrie Ballard:           That you remember -

Scott Martineau:         - cue forward --

Carrie Ballard:           - really well.

Scott Martineau:         Yeah. Cue forward. Come around. And - and plus I have t-shirts for it.

Carrie Ballard:           [Laughing]

Scott Martineau:         You know the 39 million t-shirt.

[Laughter]

Scott Martineau:         Ah, but I - I - you know that's - that's fantastic. Um, I think Icon - Icon is always an amazing experience for me just to go and to be and w - be there and watch people.

[0:15:00]

And just see what happens when entrepreneurs come together. I think --

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah. It's - it's amazing.

Scott Martineau:         Yeah. I just think that is so fun and to know that we had a little part of that.

Carrie Ballard:           Uh-huh.

Scott Martineau:         You know and - and realize that if we had - you know 'cause back in the - in the - that 2005 time period we were feeling pretty dang comfortable.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         And didn't have any intention to go raise money or do anything. And - and it was a couple years later that we really decided you know what, we've - it's sort of - that was when the mission of what Keap is all about, to help small businesses succeed really settled onto us.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         And that was the time when you know we really started to get serious and say okay, we're gonna have to - we're gonna have to amp things up a little bit you know. But, um - and - and we had to kinda make a choice and say do you want to give up this - this life that feels really comfortable right now.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         You know -

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         - to go do that. But it's - it's just worth it.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         You know it's worth it when you see customers comin' together and - an getting success and you see the impact.

Carrie Ballard:           So do you think that w - when I talked to Clate about this a couple weeks ago, he said that there was a moment where he felt like -

[0:16:00]

there was a moment where it went from this is something we're gonna sell, we're gonna build up, we're gonna sell it.

Scott Martineau:         Yeah.

Carrie Ballard:           And this other opportun - you know like then you realized you just could never sell it. And when we we're talking to Clate he said something that I - I asked if it had a part to do with his identity. It had become a part of who he was.

Scott Martineau:         Yeah.

Carrie Ballard:           And he said that was probably a part of it. Do you feel - do you feel like there was a moment in your mind that this became not an external thing anymore an internal thing or was it always internal for you?

Scott Martineau:         Yeah. I t - no, I think you're totally right. Um, I don't think it - I mean it was internal all the time in the sense that it was selfish - selfish goal. And then - and I think it - I think it became a goal that was - you know our - when I described the mission kind of settling on us it wasn't - by the way, Clate wasn't actually there when it happened. That was an interesting dynamic.

Carrie Ballard:           wow.

Scott Martineau:         Me and Sam and Mark went off to this Dreaming Room experience with Michael Gerber. And I came back and I was like Clate, dude. You know and he's just kind of in the regular rhythm of things.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         And I'm like I --

Carrie Ballard:           I think it's different.

[0:17:00]

Scott Martineau:         I think - yeah. Like I think this is much bigger than what we've been saying. And we have a responsibility here to - you know and he's kind of like -

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         - [sound effect] you know.

Carrie Ballard:           [Laughing]

Scott Martineau:         Like well dude, you gotta go to this event. And l - you know and so it probably took three months before the two of us and I don't remember if Eric went with Clate to that one or if Eric didn't ever end up going. I can't remember. But it - it took three months or so. We were a little bit off kilter and not totally aligned on that.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         So, anyway. That - that was kind of the moment and we all had to make that decision together obviously.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         And did. And it feels great.

Carrie Ballard:           And look where you are now. And look where all of our sp - small businesses are because of it. Which is great. Okay. Great. Well, are there any - what do you think - we always ask our guests this. What is the characteristic that you think makes you - helped get you here. Helped you kind of persevere through all of that. What - what do you think is the thing you hold onto?

Scott Martineau:         I think - honestly I think it's, uh - I think it's grit. I think it's - there's a - there's a tenacity in almo - you know I don't know -

[0:18:00]

maybe some people would call it naivety. But the fact that we just didn't give up.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         A lot of people will come to me and say Scott, I - you just feel so proud of what you've created here. And I'm kind of like honestly I didn't create most of what you see. And what I can say I did is I just kind of held on -

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         - when we probably shouldn't have held on.

Carrie Ballard:           You pushed you.

Scott Martineau:         And I just kept going. Yeah.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         And a little bit of pushing. And I think that a - you know the - the mental battle that entrepreneurs and - and their team frankly, have to face are just so real.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         That if you're not - if you - if you don't kind of like build up that tank. And we talk about this in Conquer the Chaos, but if you don't build up that emotional bank account then you know when those - when those experiences come calling, they take all you've got.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         And people fold. So I think if business owners can just realize - you know Mark - Mark Chesley used to say - probably still does. H says, I - I have a hundred percent success rate at getting through a bad day.

Carrie Ballard:           [Laughing]

Scott Martineau:         And you know sometimes you just have to think about that at the end of a day.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         It's like ah, this sucks.

[0:19:00]

Why are we doing this? I don't know. We'll figure it out tomorrow.

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah.

Scott Martineau:         Let's go home, you know. [Laughing]

Carrie Ballard:           I actually think sometimes it's a good thing to think about before you go into your day. And if you think you're gonn -

Scott Martineau:         Yeah.

Carrie Ballard:           - have a bad day like well, worst case scenario is it’s gonna end eventually at the end of this day.

Scott Martineau:         Right.

Carrie Ballard:           And there's -

Scott Martineau:         Right.

Carrie Ballard:           - gonna be another one.

[Laughter]

Scott Martineau:         Yeah. So you know that's - I think that's an important characteristic. Um --

Carrie Ballard:           It sounds like a good one.

Scott Martineau:         Yeah.

Carrie Ballard:           The gritty optimist.

Scott Martineau:         Yeah.

Carrie Ballard:           Well, thank you for going through kind of the story behind the story. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk about it today.

Scott Martineau:         You bet, Carrie. Thanks for being here. I - I was hoping we'd make fun of Clate a little bit more but we'll -

Carrie Ballard:           We can do that next time.

Scott Martineau:         - have to do that some other time.

[Laughter]

Carrie Ballard:           Yeah. We'll do it another time. Next time Clate goes on vacation. You have to - to save up some stories for that one, okay.

Scott Martineau:         Yeah.

Carrie Ballard:           All right.

Scott Martineau:         Will do. I'll - I'll think about.

[Music]

Scott Martineau:         All right. Well, thanks everybody for tuning in. We're gonna call this a wrap for this episode of the Small Business Success podcast.

Thanks for listening. Don't forget to rate us, write a review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

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