Tag: Theresa Pride

I was given $200 I could spend on anything. Here’s what I bought with it.

Three years ago $200 fell out of the sky and into my hand. No, it wasn’t 20,000 pennies from Heaven. That would have been cool. But life-threatening.

Gusto, the online payroll processing vendor that The Weaponry uses to pay our people, ran a referral promotion that allowed us to share our referral code with others. If someone we referred signed up for Gusto we would both get a $200 gift card. And when my friend Theresa Pride, owner of Pride Physique Pilates and Physical Therapy in Atlanta ran her first payroll we both received our Amazon gift cards.

This created a fun opportunity. Because Amazon sells almost every product under the sun. (Or under the moon if you shop at night.) So I could buy practically any product on the planet that costs $200 or less. I felt like I was at Chuck E Cheese’s and got to choose anything on the prize wall valued at $200 or less. It was a little kid’s dream come true for this big kid.

What Will I Do?

As I pondered my opportunity my mind returned to my favorite childhood book, Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I have read that book more times than any other book.

One of my favorite stories in the book recounts a time when Almanzo Wilder was at his town’s 4th of July celebration and his cousin dared him to ask his Dad for a nickel to buy a lemonade. Nervously, Almanzo asks his father for the nickel. After a long thoughtful moment, Almanzo’s Pa pulls a 50-cent piece out of his pocket (not out of Da Club) and reminds Almanzo about all of the hard farm work that goes into earning 50 cents. He hands Almanzo the coin and tells him he can buy the lemonade, drink it up and it will be gone. Or he can use the money to buy a suckling pig, raise it up, and sell it at a significant profit. You know, farm stuff.

Almanzo quickly recognized the opportunity to turn his 50 cents into far more value by investing it, rather than spending it. He bought the pig.

150 years later Almanzo inspired me to do the same thing. Only not with a pig.

Investing vs Spending

I could have used the $200 Amazon gift card to buy practically anything. But I chose to invest it in books for my library.

I invested the money in my own education. And I learned far more than $200 worth.

I learned lessons that make me better at my job. I learned lessons that make me a better person. I bought books that inspire me to do more, to recognize opportunity, and to think bigger.

Here are the books that I bought and added to my library and to my personal knowledge:

Grit by Angela Duckworth

Never Split The Difference By Chris Voss

The 4 Disciplines of Execution by Chris ‘Don’t Call Me McKenny’ McChesney

The Richest Man in Babylon by George Clason

Principles by Ray Dalio  (This is not about people who lead schools)

Start With Why by Simon Sinek  (I heard this inspired The Carpenters to write the lyrics to Close To You)

Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff

Estimating Rehab Costs by J Scott. (This is about rehabbing properties, not going to rehab.)

So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport

Cashflow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki

The Book on Rental Property Investing by Brandon Turner

The Innovators Dilemma by Clayton Christensen

The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz

Call Me Ted by Ted Turner

While I spent $200 on these books, I couldn’t possibly calculate all the value I have received in return. I highly recommend all of these books.

Key Takeaway:

Remember not to just spend on yourself. Invest in yourself. Invest in your education, your skills, and your motivation. I hope you get to experience a fun and revealing test like this. And I hope you put thought into it, so you get a great deal out of it like I did.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.

+For more of the best life lessons I have learned check out my book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.

The really easy way to pay people over the table.

Have you ever dreamed of owning your own business? I have. It’s easy to dream about the fun you would have being in charge. It’s fun to dream of a cool company name, the bazillion dollars you would make, and the crazy company benefits you would offer. #EveryoneGetsAPony

The Details

But on the other side of the dream are the details. It is the details of owning and running your own business that scare most people away. And the more people you have in your organization the more details there are to figure out. That’s why so many people decide to simply freelance, or become consulting cowboys and cowgirls, rather than deal with the complexities or paying other people.

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Look how serious this dude is about taking care of business!

I have seen far too many freelancers, consultants and business-of-one types become so fearful of hiring additional help that they hurt their own business and limit their own income. They never take advantage of opportunities for larger projects. And they never scale up. Because they don’t know how to handle employees, freelancers, contractors or outside vendors. And that’s a real shame.

The Weaponry

When I launched my advertising and idea agency, The Weaponry, I had a dream. #MLKJr I dreamed of growing The Weaponry into a large, amazing organization. Which meant that we needed to be able to easily add to our team. Luckily for us, there has never been a better time in history to launch a business. Because there are so many digital resources to enable you to easily do big businessy things as a small startup.

All Rights Reserved
Some of The Weapons.

Quickbooks

We use Quickbooks to run our accounting. It makes it hyper-easy to create and send estimates and invoices. It allows us to track our accounts payable and accounts receivable. We can see our profit and losses anytime. We link Quickbooks to our bank accounts and credit cards. And it makes it easy to track everything.

Paying People

One of the challenges a business owner must be able to handle is paying the people who perform work for the business. Some business owners decide to pay people under the table. This typically means you pay them in cash to avoid officially tracking the payment. Which means no one has to report the payments or the income to the IRS or state or local taxing agencies.

But this is not how real businesses operate. If you want to have a legitimate business, which you should, you pay people real wages, report the payments and income legitimately, and pay the appropriate taxes and withholdings. (Cue the national anthem and soaring eagle.)

Gusto

Making all of your payments legally and correctly is actually really easy. We use a great payment app called Gusto. Every time we hire an employee, freelancer, contractor or vendor, we set them up on Gusto.

gusto logo

Here’s how it works:

  • Individuals enter their social security numbers.
  • Businesses enter their tax ID numbers.
  • Everyone enters their address.
  • Everyone enters a bank account where they want their payment directly deposited.
  • Everybody Wang Chungs tonight.

gusto-employee-management

Trust The Process

We then process all of our payments through Gusto. And it works like magic. Based on factors like location and type of work performed (employee vs contractor vs vendor), it knows what type of payment needs to be made. I think it even knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake.

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Gusto automatically figures out taxes, social security, unemployment insurance, workers comp details and the types of things that would otherwise keep you awake at night wondering why you decided to start your own business.

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Dream Team

Together, Gusto and Quickbooks, along with our accountant, Sally Bretsch, make our accounting one of the least stressful parts of owning my business. We have an easy-to- follow system for onboarding employees, contractors, clients and vendors. We get people set up quickly and we pay them on time. All of the difficult calculations happen automatically. And we spend more time doing the important work that helps us grow our business and keep our clients happy, like Pharrell Williams.

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The Price Is Right

The fee structure is simple. You pay a small monthly fee. And then you pay a small, increment cost per-person-you-pay-through-the-system each month. It is highly affordable and totally worth the sanity it preserves.

gusto roster

A Great Time To Sign Up

Recently, my friend Dr. Theresa Pride, who owns a great business in Atlanta called Pride Physique Pilates and Physical Therapy told me she was going to switch to Gusto based on my recommendation. She asked me if there was a referral code she could enter to make sure Gusto knew I sent her. I looked in my email and sure enough, right now Gusto offers a referral bonus to both the referrer and the referree (that could be you you).

Here’s the information:

  1. Use the referral link: https://gusto.com/e/adam1529 by January 31, 2020 to sign up.
  2. My email associated with the account is still my startup-stage email: adamralbrecht@gmail.com (not my I-started-up email which is adam@theweaponry.com)
  3. When you run your first paid payroll, you’ll get a $200 Amazon gift card. And I will get a $200 Amazon gift card, too.

 Key Takeaway

Don’t be afraid to start a business. Don’t be afraid to hire contractors, employees or vendors. Gusto makes it easy to pay everyone you work with over the table, tax compliant, like a real, legitimate business. And because you don’t have to worry that you are paying people the right way you’ll have more time to think about the real business of your business. Which is what you have dreamed about from the beginning.

*If you know someone who owns, or would like to own their own business, please consider sharing this with them. #ThatsALotOfOwnsInOneSentence