Blaze Your Own Trail - Episode 12: Becoming "Mr. Biz" With Ken Wentworth

Episode Date: March 3, 2020

In this episode you'll learn: Ken's corporate journey. How he jumped into entrepreneurship How sports translates to business What he is up to now Connect with Ken "Mr. Biz" Wentworth: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-mr-biz%E2%80%8B-wentworth/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MrBizSolutions/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrbizsolutions/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrbiztweets Website: https://www.mrbizsolutions.com/ Installing strategic sales systems & processes will stop the constant revenue rollercoaster you might be facing which is attainable through our 6 Week Blazing Business Revenue Coaching ProgramBook a discovery call with Jordan now to learn more! Are you an entrepreneur?Join my FREE Group Coaching Community where we have live calls, Q&A and more! Our Trailblazer Ecosystem also enables you to network with other entrepreneurs and creator hub eliminates multiple subscriptions and logins creating a one stop shop to take action!Use code: FOUNDING100 for 12 months access FREE and Founding pricing for life! (While Supplies Last)Join now! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In today's episode, you'll learn about Ken Mr. Biz Wentworth and his journey into entrepreneurship and really how he used a lot of the lessons working in the corporate world to get him to where he is today. So I hope you enjoy the episode and we will chat right after. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. I'm your host, Jordan Mendoza. And I've got a very special guest today. His name is Ken Wentworth. And he also goes by Mr. biz and I'm going to go ahead and let him give us a little introduction about itself. Hey Jordan, thanks for having me on. Yeah, excited to be here. Yeah, brief intro, I worked, let's just say 20 plus years without dating myself too much in the corporate world at

JP Morgan Chase and I was able to get into the top 3% of that company, Fortune 15 company, before I decided I was going to blaze my own trail and start my own business and I didn't exactly what that was going to look like. And so I have been forced to, no pun intended, blazed my own trail as I sort of figured this out and gone down the entrepreneurial path and ended up, you know, getting in a few different partnerships now and, and opening a few different types of businesses. So it's been a really cool journey and I absolutely love what I do. And yeah, I think that's probably a brief of an intro as I can give for the long career I've had. Well, I should mention.

So now I'm a on-demand CFO, fractional CFO, so I help small business owners with their business and help them operate more profitably, more efficiently in their business. That's awesome. And I really appreciate you sharing all that info and definitely give some more insights into you. So you mentioned that you were in the corporate world. So before the corporate world, where did you go to school? I went to school at a small private school. here in Ohio, actually here in Columbus, Ohio, Capital University. And then I did my,

my postgraduate, my master's, I went to Regis University. So my undergrad's an account. So just to give you, so my undergrad's in accounting, but I'm thankful for my background in accounting, but I absolutely hate accounting. I figured out pretty quickly it's just too much in the weeds for me. I'm a big blue sky type of person. very strategic and that nitty-gritty of accounting was just a little bit too much for me. But it's absolutely helped give me a great base and foundation for what I do. As a matter of fact, I should mention, even though I don't like accounting, I got some really good advice.

I had an internship, which, you know, if you are going to school, I would strongly suggest get as much experience as you can because this advice I received as an intern was absolutely been critical to the success. I've had in my career, and that is I was a business administration major. And the reason I was originally was because I knew I wanted to do something in business, but I didn't know exactly what. So I thought, man, business administration would be perfect, right? I'll learn a little bit about several different aspects of business. The guy I interned with who had a lot of respect for, highly educated, very intelligent guy. I asked him one day, we were at lunch, and I said,

you know, what's some advice you would give me? And he said, what do you? And I said, I'm not sure something in business. And he said, you have to change your major. I said, what do you mean? This is going to give me all this great experience. He said, no, it's going to give you terrible experience and here's why you're going to get out of school and what are you going to get a job in you're going to have a little bit of accounting but not enough to get a job in accounting you're going to have a little bit of marketing but you know et cetera et cetera he's like you're going to be a jack of all trades master of none and and this is what he said this will definitely date the conversation but he said you'll be a manager of pay less shoes uh you have a college degree and to be a manager

of pay less shoes he's like that's not going to do you get you where he won he said if you know you want to do something in business go the accounting route because that'll give you be a really strong foundation and a base of knowledge that you can apply no matter what you want to do in business. Having that pension for numbers and having that skill set will help you no matter what you want to do in the business world. And it turns out that was the like maybe some of the best career advice I had ever received because as I look back, if I would have continued in business administration, you know, I may have followed that path and been a manager at Payless Shoes, which there's nothing wrong with that, but that's not what I wanted for my career. So

I should mention that as a sort of a backdrop. That's really, really important. If you are going to go to college before you go the entrepreneurial route, make sure you get a good base. Think ahead and think of what you want to do and think of what, you know, don't think of the immediacy because, again, I looked at it and said, I know I don't want to work in accounting though my whole career. It doesn't matter.

It's going to help me down the way. Awesome. Yeah, and I think that's definitely really, really great advice to get that foundation. I think most entrepreneurs, when they start, they think about, you know, how can I get the money, but then they don't know what to do with it when they have it, right? So I think that's definitely some really, really great advice. So I know we talked off air and you had mentioned that you played basketball. So can you tell me a little bit about that?

How was that playing in college and, you know, what position did you play? Yeah, so I loved it. I mean, I've always been very athletically inclined, and, you know, I was a guard, mostly off guard, but I absolutely loved it. And that's another thing that helped shape the foundation for a lot of what I think has made me successful as athletics is not just being, you know, again, I was never fantastic when I went to a Division III school and all that kind of stuff. So nothing, you know, major, nothing to write home about per se. it, but I think, and this is what we encourage, you know, we've got three daughters and, you know, encouraging them to be involved in activities like that because you learn so much more than just, you know, how to shoot a free throw and how to attack a two, three zone.

It's, you know, you learn so much about teamwork and about loyalty and character and all those sorts of things that go into being on a team or even being in an individual sport, you know, the hard work and discipline that's required. And so I think it's really important to really establish those. And I see, you know, you see a lot of parents nowadays pushing their kids in certain directions. And I say pushing. And I think that's part of the problem, too, is, you know, none of our daughters have played basketball, nor will they, I don't think. Because, you know, I'm not, I don't want to be that parent that says, well, I played basketball.

So you should, too. So I didn't start handing them a basketball when there was three saying, hey, let's go play basketball. Of course, I would have loved it if they did. But, you know, they need to forge their own path. But just having that path and being involved in athletics. and on a team, so important. Again, I feel like there's so many life lessons that I learned, you know, along the way in athletics.

And I've been continued to be athletically involved as I've gotten into my adult life and competed in the powerlifting world and I was able to, you know, use some of those things I learned, you know, playing basketball and things like that that that I mentioned, you know, having that discipline and that perseverance, I call it consistent perseverance. You use consistent perseverance you're going to be successful. no matter what endeavor you choose. And so I've been fortunate enough even in the powerlifting world. I mean, I've broken six world records, which, you know, is a lot of times is a conversation

piece with folks because they're like, what the heck? What are you talking about? But, you know, I think those things are really important. And sometimes parents nowadays, it seems that they're so focused on their kids of, hey, I'm going to send my kid and really push them to play, fill in the blank sport. And they're going to get a college scholarship and they're going to play professionally. And, you know, as we all know, the percentage of kids that play, you know, even collegiately that are going to play, you know, professionally in whatever chosen sport they have, it's such a small and contestable amount. That's not the path to go.

Even college scholarships are very hard to come by. I mean, so competitive. But think of the things that your child is going to learn, you know, like I mentioned, some of those things of character and work ethic and discipline and loyalty and teamwork. I mean, those are the things that are going to carry them into an entrepreneur. or in the corporate world, it doesn't matter either way. You're going to need those things. And if you can do those well, I know when I was in the corporate world, and I would hire.

I mean, I would give preference to people who I know played sports in college, especially because, number one, I know they know time management, because that's a huge challenge of playing athletically in college while balancing your college coursework and whatnot. And then, again, all those other things in tangoes I just mentioned. I mean, I know that they're going to be strong in those characteristics. and those are typically characteristics of someone who's going to be successful. No, I completely agree with that.

And I think that sports and business, they really coincide with each other. You know, for all the things that you mentioned, and then you go to something like mindset, right? Like they've already have a strong mindset, right? And they can have that translate to the business world, especially if they get into a role like sales, where sales is all about mindset because especially if you're doing something like cold calling, you have to have the ability to let the nose just kind of roll off and move on to the next

prospect, right? So, yeah. So, you know, my oldest is 15 and he played freshman football this year. I didn't play football in high school. And he wanted to play. So I was like, cool, let's do this. Let's go ahead and have him play. and you know you mentioned a lot about character and you know teamwork and all those things and it was

really interesting to kind of see him at the high school level learn some of those things right because as a parent you know you try to talk to your kids and and sometimes you know having three kids they listen to some things right but they don't always listen to everything so it's nice when you know they get to be around a framework and a system like that that gives them these skills and you start to actually see them implement them. Yeah, no, definitely. One of the things we preach along the way is, you know, whatever activity you're going to do, we're going to do it full bore. I mean, there's no, there's no half in. We're either all in or we're not in at all. And, you know, as an example, so our oldest is 19. And I remember when she was in middle school, she wanted to

run track. And, you know, I ran track through high school. And so I, she wanted to do the high jump. well, I remember kind of dabbling in the high jump in middle school or something like that, but I never did it in competition, I think maybe once or twice, but, you know, certainly not a skill set that I was comfortable with and knew well. And I said, okay, she was, she did her first meet and did terribly, and she was upset about it, and she wanted to get better. And so she and I sat down over a weekend and watched like 9,000 YouTube videos on high jumping. and her coach wasn't particularly adept at coaching high jump either.

And then she and I went out over the weekend. We'd watch a bunch of YouTube videos, take notes, and then go out to the track and practice. And then we come back and, okay, what went well, what didn't go well, you know, sort of troubleshoot. And then find videos, okay, the plant foot, what she would be doing with the plant foot, really breaking down, you know, the high jump. And, you know, and trying to show her that that's the example. you know, if that's what you're going to do, we're all in. We're going to do this. We're going to figure it out. And again, there's going to be bumps all in the way, but you're going to have to blaze your own trail, as you say, to be successful. And that's, it wasn't just about the high jump

in that situation, Jordan. It was, you know, again, as you mentioned, teaching her, like when you get into a new endeavor, that's what you need to do. You need to learn and you need to, you know, model yourself after someone who's already been successful in that area. I'm not saying copy someone, but If someone has already blazed their own trail, right, have been successful in whatever you're trying to do in this example, the high jump, why not take advantage of that and learn from them and help make your trail a little bit less cumbersome, perhaps. But, you know, teaching that, you know, through sports,

that that's what's going to take, you know, now that she's in, she's going to Ohio State University right now, and she's on an MD, PhD path in neuroscience of all things. Like, I'm a numbers nerd, and she's a science person, right? clearly a lot of differences there but you know now she's there and I see some of these things you know and one of my you know she's she's she's been a fantastic daughter and I've had a lot of accomplishments and I'll tell you one of the things that at least at this stage of her life that she's accomplished and completed that's been probably my most proud proudest moment as a father is

when she was a junior in high school she decided she wanted to graduate early and she had this plan all along but she wanted to graduate high school early and her senior year, she wanted to go to college. Her senior high school, she wanted to already begin college. And there was a pathway to do that at a local community college, which was close to her high school. And she said, well, look, I'm going to a large school for neuroscience after I, you know, get out of high school. I don't want to have a community college. I don't know if it's going to transfer. So she said, I want to go to Ohio State. We were, you know, we live here in Columbus, Ohio. And her guidance counselor, who's been a guidance counselor for, you know, whatever, 30 years, said, yeah,

well, you know, you really can't do that, but you can go to this, you know, community college. You can go there full time, blah, blah, blah. Well, on her own, she didn't take no for an answer. And she went and figured it out. And she came downstairs one day without telling me or her mom or anyone. And she came downstairs and she said, Dad, I think I figured out a way that I can go to Ohio State full time my senior year of high school. You know, let me, let me show you what I found. And by golly, she was right. And she had to go back to her guidance counselor, who had been a guidance counselor for 30 years and tell him, hey, for future students, the answer isn't no.

This is how you can do this. And so, you know, during her senior year of high school, she was driving down, commuting to Ohio State and going full time, as a full-time student at high state university at 17 years old, not, and I don't say that to brag that, oh, my gosh, she's so smart. It was the perseverance that she used that she didn't take no finance. And she, on her own, without me telling her, without me encouraging her, said, by golly, I'm going to figure this out.

I'm not going to take no finance. I know there has to be a way I can do this, and she figured it out. And so those types of things, it was a really proud parenting moment to say, man, you know, we have instilled some really strong things in her that she would figure that out and think to do that on her own. No, yeah, that's absolutely grit, right, determination. You definitely should be proud of that. And honestly, I would brag about that.

I would tell everybody about that, right? Because, I mean, those are some of the things, some of the values that you were trying to, through sports and through just conversations trying to instill. And then you get to see that come to fruition down the road. I mean, yeah, you should absolutely be proud of that. That's awesome. Yeah. And so let's talk about the corporate world now.

So if you finished up school, you had two stops, and then you got into the corporate world. So what was your first role? And if you can recall, what was your first corporate role and what was that first day like? My first corporate world was in accounting. I did work in accounting for a couple of years to start my career because, again, that's what I had gone to school for. And because I had been immersed into it, I'm like, well, I should probably give this a shot.

But the first day was, I guess, in a word, I would say, overwhelming. You know, as they say, there's things they just don't teach you in school. And, you know, just simple things about. I had the internship, but it was a completely different experience than going to the corporate world and figuring things out and, you know, trying to assess, you know, constantly assessing during the day. Am I doing the right thing? Am I in the right place? So it was overwhelming for sure. No doubt about that. Okay. And so how many roles did you have in the corporate world prior to deciding, you know what, I want to blaze my own trail. I want to do my own thing. I want to start my own business. Oh my gosh. Heck, I don't even know. I mean a whole bunch. So the thing that was great for me, and this was a purposeful decision, I should say, when I was coming out of school, I had offers from a couple of different companies. And I want to be a, this was a purposeful decision, I should say, when I was coming out of school. I had offers from a couple of different companies. And I want to,

to choose the company, frankly, that was the largest and had the most breadth. So, you know, I grew up in a small town that was a steel mill town. You know, I was a first person of my, my family that went to his college. Because in our steel mill town, you graduated from high school, you got a job in the steel mill, you work there for, you know, whatever, 30 plus years, you retired with a nice pension, et cetera. And all was good in the world. And so that, that was the, you know, sort of the normal path, career path of people that, you know, grew up where I did. And so leaving and going to college, I was thinking, you know, in the future. And again, I say this all the time, but I'm strategic to a fault. And what I mean by that is I'm thinking three, five, 10 years out. In the meantime, it's to a fault because I trip over the curve that's right in front of me. But, you know, coming out of college, I was thinking, what company gives me, has the most opportunity that I could be there and stay there. I didn't want to have the job hop around. I wanted to be able to stay. I wanted to be able to

stay at a place where I could be loyal, they would be loyal to me, and I could, you know, have a long career, you know, in my mind and being slightly naive back then, of course, I was thinking, geez, I want to find a company that I could go and be there for 30 years and retire, or 40 years or whatever it takes and retire. And so that's why I chose where I did and went to, at the time it was Bank One and became Jacob Morgan Chase. So it allowed me and enabled me the opportunities, a boundless opportunities to do different things. I mean, I went from accounting. I became, I became a financial analyst and a senior analyst and a finance manager

for different groups. And then a CFO for, I couldn't even tell you how many different businesses under the J.P. Morgan umbrella. I worked in an operations group. I was a CFO for the group. Actually, I visited pre-CFO days. I was a finance manager in a group. And their head of operations left.

And the head of the business came to me and said, hey, you know what? really love it for you to jump into this role. Sounds awesome. Let's do it. And that gave me a bunch of great experience, of course. And then came back on the finance side and again with CFO for several different businesses, learning each and every role, you learn different things. And as I tell people, I mentor people for many, many years now and still mentor folks.

And I tell them, every job is a good job. Even if it's a pain in your butt, even if you don't like it, even if you're boss stinks. Here's the thing. If you pull from each and every role you have, the things you know you like to do and the things that you don't like to do. So then when you choose your next role, you can choose more wisely. And so I've used that philosophy throughout my career and it's helped get me closer and closer to what I wanted to be doing and needed to be doing. And that's where I'm out now. I mean, I've been able to forge this place, blaze my own path, I should say, to get to this point. But yeah, tons of different roles and a lot of things that's set me up.

to be able to do what I do now because I've had so much broad experience in so many different areas that allows me to, you know, when I'm working with a business owner, really help in a lot of different ways. I mean, I've hired, I don't know, an interview, well, definitely hundreds, if not into the thousands of people over the years in my corporate career. So, you know, I've gotten as anything, any task or any skill, the more you do it, you become better and better, hopefully, right? And so, for example, I had a business owner that she had fired three COOs in a month period and I happened to pop by her office I just was in the neighborhood and pop by and said hey she said oh you caught me I'm in the middle of interviews and I

checked my calendar I said do you mind if I sit in and interview and she said why is that I said well I'll be honest with you I don't think you're a very good picker because because you're 0 for three in the last nine months so at least allow me to to be part of this and I can give you another opinion but that's an excuse CFOs do that I said well this one does so you know and that drives from my experience I had in a corporate world and having all those different roles and hiring and interviewing and all those different types of roles has been able to, you know, said, help me, you know, develop the skill sets and everything. So, you know, my career at JPMorgan was fantastic.

I mean, nothing bad to say about that company whatsoever. They treated me very well and compensated me well. And then, you know, when I left, they treated me very well. And I still have, you know, tons and tons of friends there. And I still own a lot of stock. So I hope they keep going really well. That's awesome. And really, to me, what it sounds like is,

you know, every role that you had in the corporate world, and again, whether you enjoyed all of the process and all the intricacies of it, you really pick all the things that you enjoyed, turn those into skill sets, and then you've taken all of these years, the years of experience, and now you translate that into exactly what you're doing. Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. Like, for example, my very first job, I know you had mentioned, you had asked about that earlier, my very first job out, I had what, looking back now, was the worst boss I've ever had my entire career. She was absolutely terrible. And I got to the point where I wanted to leave. I wanted

to leave the company. And my uncle, I had a conversation with him and he said, you can't do that. You cannot let one person drive you out of a fantastic company. Basically gave me the suck-it-up buttercup speech. And he told me that. He said, use it as an opportunity. Use it. you see how she treats people and how she is not a good boss. Keep those in mind for when you become a boss. So now you learn what not to do as a boss, right? What are the things that she does that make her a terrible boss? Don't do those when you become a boss, right?

And so, oddly enough, it was a terrible experience, and in some ways it was a very good experience because, again, I was able to draw from that and figure out, and a lot of it was an EQ type things, emotional quotient type things, you know, just how do you treat people? and the things that you say and the impact it has on people, I think it helped me tremendously.

As I got a few years along further in my career and began managing people, I think I know that it helped me tremendously. Having that experience of having a really, really bad boss right out of college, oddly enough, ended up being something that helped mold and shape me and I think become a stronger leader down the way. Absolutely. And you brought up EQ and that's actually something that, I get an opportunity to teach an EQ class to use about 15 participants every year.

It's part of a six-month leadership program that I teach. And it's so interesting, especially for people that you maybe have heard of the concept but don't actually have a grasp on the different competencies and the boxes of EQ. But it's very interesting to see how easy it is for us as humans to identify someone that has low EQ, right? And I mean, there's some very, very easy signs to identify. It's, you know, has those micromanaging tendencies where they're constantly worried about you and not themselves. And maybe doesn't realize when they're saying something to somebody that might be rude. You know, all those little things, but, you know, that's the first bucket of it, which is self-awareness, right?

It's actually understanding how to manage those emotions and how you show up. And then the second one's self-management. So now that I understand that these emotions are happening, now I actually know how to control these. Do I get up and walk away? Do I need to take some deep breaths? What is it? And then, you know, you jump into the social aspects of it, right? How do I show up in social situations and then how do I manage relationships? And it's so interesting to have to see participants have this light bulb go off and they're like, wow. Yeah, no. I didn't realize that I did some of these things, right? Because I think that's the one thing about EQ that I enjoy is everybody can build those muscles, right? We all do things that are detrimental to our EQ at certain points of our

day or a week or a month or even, you know, in our life. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I think that's super important. And another thing that I help, I think, and it's indirect and a bit tangential, but did tie in some of the other advice I got, and I would 100% pass this along to people as well, whether you are in school right now or even out of school, considering additional training and things like that, EQ, massively important. If you don't have EQ, you're not, I promise you,

you will not be a good leader. You will not be a good leader without developing and having a high EQ. The best leaders in the world have high EQs 100% every single. single time. But the other advice that I got from this this internship that I had, which again was just amazing, but as he told me, when you're in school, he said, take every communication class you can. So no matter what it is, for your electives, take communication classes, whether it's, you know, presentations and oral, whether it's, you know, written, because that's going to be what separates you in your career. You can be, there's a lot of people, you know, you're going

to go work with people. There's going to be a ton of people that are really, really smart. the thing that's going to separate you is communication. And then, of course, that ties in again tangentially to EQ and not only being able to communicate, but determining how my communication is going to be received on the EQ side. But that advice, and it's funny, is the same sort of thing as, you know, it's almost like getting advice from a parent to where, you know, when you're a teenager or whatever, and your parents give you advice, and you're thinking, oh, my gosh, this old man or old lady doesn't know what the heck they're talking about. And then 10 years later, you're like, holy crap, they knew exactly what

they were talking about. You know, here I am in my undergrad, taking all these communication classes. I'm up at two in the morning working on a presentation I have to give the next day. And but then fast forward, you know, I'm 25 years old and I'm a few years into my corporate career and all of a sudden my career just absolutely rocket ship takes off. All these people who I had started at around the same time and around my age are left in the dust. And the main primary reason was my communication skills, especially in today's day and age, with so much communication being via email, you know, that's absolutely hugely important, right, to be able to have strong written communication. Again, as you had mentioned, we all know when we

see people who have low EQ, we all know someone, when we get an email and you're like, oh my gosh, this guy even higher or even go to school, like, do they know what, any grammar or punctuation? And not to be like, you know, the grammar police about it, but you know, you know, You know what I mean. When you get an email that's very poorly written, for me, it distracts me from the message. And so I might not get the message as well. And then the other part is being able to present your ideas, you could be the most intelligent person in the world and in your space. But if you can't articulate those in a way and relate them in a way to your audience, no one will ever know. We had a guy one of my jobs during my career at JP Morgan. I was an investment analyst. And we had a guy who ran one of our

Mutual funds who went to MIT and was probably the stereotype that most people think of someone from my that goes to MIT like massively intelligent, probably the most intelligent person I've ever been around. However, his communication skills were terrible. We couldn't take him on client meetings because he was completely incapable of communicating at a quote unquote normal human level. Everything he said, you know, he would lose you two sentences in because, you know, he's talking about like quantum physics type things, you know, he's throwing out terminology that no one knows.

And so it was, you know, we couldn't take him, you know, even though he's just so intelligent and we wanted to kind of show him off, we couldn't take him because people would just get completely lost. So that, those communication skills, which in my opinion lead to being a higher EQ and being able to communicate more effectively are massively important. And it doesn't matter. Again, if you're an undergrad, do that and take those classes because they will pay off for you, no matter what you're going to do later in life. But even if you're 25 or 30 or 35, it's never too old, right? You can always teach an old dog new tricks is go back.

You feel like your communication skills are lacking. Go back. And that's something that will pay dividends for you. I promise as you go forward in your career, whether it's as a business owner or entrepreneur or even in the corporate world, it will definitely help you. Absolutely. I 100% agree with that. And, you know, I feel fortunate.

and most people, when they hear the rest of what I'm about to say, wouldn't probably feel fortunate to be able to have this job. But when I was in eighth grade, I had a job where I literally went around to neighborhoods and apartments, and I knocked on people's doors, and I got them to sign up for a newspaper subscription, you know? And so for the younger listeners that are out there, newspapers are, no, I'm just kidding.

No, but like I literally, me and my brother, our buddy Steve from down the street, we got hired by the Oregonian newspaper, one of the distributors, and he would take us, give us a neighborhood, drop us off, we would have to go and knock on people's doors. You want to talk about a training ground for communication, right? You know, 14-year-old, I mean, I've heard everything that can come out of a human's mouth when they've been interrupted for dinner. I've heard it. I've heard, you know, any time, like, please, you just woke my baby up. You know, no soliciting, right? I got to hear all of those things.

And I almost quit after day one because it was tough. Like, knocking on 100 doors and having everyone tell you know is not a fun night. But one of the things, can you mention, you know, things that people say to you that show back up 10 years later. So the guy I'll never forget his name. His name is Jim Franks. And I got back to the little office, the distribution center, and we were settling up. and I didn't sell a single thing. And I was not very excited about it.

And I was, like, hesitant to give my clipboard over because everything was still there. You know, so he said, hey, what happened out there? I said, well, apparently nobody reads a newspaper, you know? I don't know. No one wants to buy anything for me. And he said, hey, Jordan, I know you're probably not going to understand this right now, but I want to tell you something and hopefully one day it'll make sense to you. And I was like, all right, whatever, what do you got to say?

And he said, the sale doesn't start until the customer says no. And I said to him, yeah, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. And I walked off, right? And I thought about not going back for day two, but I'm glad that I did because I kept learning. I used that as a training ground for effective communication. I figured out how I can relate the flag that's outside to them when they opened the door to break the ice. You know, I learned so many different skill sets that I could do. And then years later, I became a sales trainer.

And I had a kid that went out. And you could tell he had that same type of day that I had. And I walked up to him. I said, hey, what's going on? He's like, well, apparently no one wants to buy the product. You know, man, this sounds exactly like me. You know what I said to him? I said, the sale doesn't start until the customer says no.

And then I got it. You know, I got that we're as human beings. We're actually wired to say no. I mean, if you think about it, back to our childhood, our parents are like, hey, no, don't touch the stove. No, you can't have dessert. No, you can't go outside. Say no to strangers, right? All these different things.

And so I think we're actually wired for this. When someone cold calls you, what's your natural instinct? No. No, yeah. No, I'm going to just say no right off the bat. And so I had to figure out what do I do? What can I say to someone that? will not have them immediately tell me no, right?

Or what response can I give them that makes them actually stand there longer to have a conversation? Like, hey, what do you? Oh, I'm not buying anything. Oh, I'm actually not selling anything. I'm just trying to give you some information, right? Like different things that you can do because, again, it doesn't mean no. It just means like I'm busy or I don't really want to talk to you right now or I don't understand.

Or maybe I just said it because this is what I normally say. When strangers come knock on my door, right? So I absolutely agree with that. You know, there's these lessons that we get that really set the foundation for our growth. And so I think that was so spot off. Yeah, no, it's funny. And I promise those of you listening, this was not a setup. But literally, one of them, I do a Mr. Biz tip of the week every week.

And we, you know, send them out on social media and everything. And literally this week, the Mr. Biz tip of the week, I'm not kidding, Jordan, is start with yes. Start with yes with ideas, with customers, with employees. Change your mindset to begin to think how it can work, not all the ways that it can't work. Because I think that, you know, that's, as you mentioned, that's a mindset. As you mentioned, as we're growing up, you know, that's what you hear from your parents so often is no, no, no, no, no. So you, it becomes ingrained in you. And so, you know, even in my corporate career, looking back and, you know, someone would say, you know, we need to do this project.

They said, well, we can't do that. And we had this one example where, you know, Jamie Diamond, who's still the CEO at J.C. Morgan Chase, and we had this project. And the guy who was going to be leading the team to do it, said, yeah, we can't do that. And I questioned him because in my vocabulary, can't is another way of saying, I won't. And so I wanted to delve into that. Like, what do you mean can't? And he said, well, you know, it would take, you know, whatever, five of it.

actually when I went on, I said, well, if you went back to your desk right now and your phone rang and it was Jamie Diamond. And he said, Paul, I need you to do this. What would you say? He's like, well, I mean, yeah, we could do it, but it would take five of us working 20 hour days for the next week to get this done. And I said, aha. So it can be done. Now, do we want to have five people work 20 hour days? No, we don't.

But what if we had five people work on it for three weeks? Is that more reasonable? Right. Now, now we're figuring out how it can be done, not, oh, this is ridiculous. We can't do this, right? And so that, it sounds like a silly example, but that mindset, you know, begins to proliferate in your career. Again, even if it's on the corporate side or on the entrepreneurial side, because especially as an entrepreneur, I mean, holy crap, if you are faint of heart, entrepreneur is not, being an entrepreneur is not for you. I mean, you are going to get kicked in the head. And no matter how smart you are, no matter how successful. you are, you will get kicked in the head a whole bunch. And if you can't, as you did with that job of signing up newspaper subscribers, if you can't get back up and handle no, you will not be successful in the entrepreneur world. And I tell people this all the time, you could have a really good idea and be really smart, but you might be a terrible entrepreneur. I mean, it is, in my opinion, to be successful entrepreneur, it is 100% about mindset. Give me someone who has the right mindset

and has, you know, is average intelligence or even below average intelligence for that matter. And I'll make them successful. They will be successful because mindset is way more important, in my opinion, than just sheer intelligence. That mindset, that using that consistent perseverance, as I always say, I think is the absolute key. And you obviously demonstrated that. And I will say a funny note that is I, too, had a job. I was delivering newspapers back in the day a million years ago. That was my first job when I was 12 years old is delivering newspapers.

So I feel you with that and especially with some of the younger listeners now. Like you said, a newspaper is actually something that you know. But I can't imagine trying to sell them, you know, especially like you said, going on the evening and things like that where, you know, you're bothering people and things. It was a different time back then. That's it. Yeah. really had to get creative, right? That's where a lot of the creativity comes from

is just thinking about like, all right, well, I'm out here. So might as well figure out how I can get people to stand at their door for longer than one second. You know, so right. But yeah, it's all about mindset, you know. And what really helped me out is I shifted no from its standard meaning to next opportunity, right? This person says no, the next,

I got a next opportunity next door, right? And so when you're able to kind of shift things that way, and you can develop that tough skin, then to me, the sky's the limit, right? Because most people's biggest roadblock is their mind, right? Is that battle within that tells them that no one's going to want what they're selling, you know? And then, as you know in sales, if you're not confident about your product, it doesn't matter what your presentation is. It doesn't matter, like people can literally smell it on you. And so, you know, you have to have that confidence.

and you can't be afraid to hear somebody tell you no, right? Because, you know, to me, I love no is because it's that I'm actually getting closer to the next yes now, right? So you just have to shift that. So I mean, there's a gazillion examples of this. But think about some of the most successful people, depending how you define success, but people that are typically seen as being successful, Bill Gates. You know, and I don't remember the exact numbers. I'll probably get it wrong. But as I recall, I think it was, he was told no 53 times when he was trying to pitch Microsoft.

Oprah Winfrey was turned down and said, you'll never work in television. Imagine if those folks would have just said, oh, crap, okay, well, I guess I'm not good at television. I'll just give up. What would have come of Oprah Winfrey, if she would have taken that note to heart and just left at that? you know what would bill gates have done if after 52 times he said okay that's enough i'm done this isn't going to work um you know and again that consistent perseverance knowing that you're going you're going to get you're going to get some bumps in the road you're going to get bumped in the head as i said earlier um and you got to be able to brush it off get up brush yourself off and keep going

um just like you know tying it back to what we were talking about earlier with sports i mean you're not going to go undefeated. You're not going to play every minute of every game, right? There's going to be someone playing ahead of you that you want to play in front of and you want to get minutes and earn your time on the floor or the court or whatnot to field. And there's going to, you know, your team, you're not going to win every game. So how do you respond on to that? And I think that's just so, so important. And that's those are the types of things that I look for. You know, even when I'm mentoring someone, they say, hey, you know, what I'm thinking about. I got a corporate job now, but I really want to do this and they went sort of diving in the entrepreneur world. And not to be

negative, but I'll tell them, hey, you know what, you can do that. But here, I think the skills that you're going to need to develop to be able to be successful in that, in that space. So I don't tell them no and say, that's a terrible idea. You'll fail. But it's, you know, you flip it around to the positive and say, okay, you know, here are the things that I see, at least my own opinion of what you need to develop to be successful. Because, again, as I said, I think that is the most important thing in the entrepreneur space is having that, you know, some of those intangible skills that are just critically important to success. Absolutely.

And that's a perfect segue into, you know, wrapping up here and just, I want to give people some insights into your show. So you host a radio show called Mr. Biz. Can you give us a little bit of details on that? Yeah, Mr. Biz Radio. It's, as we say, it's biz talk for biz owners. And so what we do is we, you know, actually, I don't do many solo shows anymore. It's a half hour long.

so they're kind of easily digestible. We cover, we have guests on who talk about, you know, areas of things, different areas that would be important to either an entrepreneur slash small business owner, you know, all sorts of different things. And we have, we just had a guest on. It was actually a fascinating show about the art of storytelling and how important that is and the different aspects of your business that you don't really think of that, you know, having, having a strong skill set in storytelling.

line is important. So, you know, different things like that. Of course, your normal things, marketing, cash flow, budgeting, things like that. And we try to cover things in a fun way. So it's not just, you know, when I first started the, they talked me into starting this show, Mr. Biz Radio. It's like, I'm like, I would rather watch paint dry than hear someone talk about, you know, more in business topics, you know, all the time. And so, you know, trying to make it a funer show and, you know, have some humor in there and some comedy and you have some normal features we have to kind of jazz it up. But yeah, we've, the show, we release, technically release one half hour show every week every

Friday. Again, follow me on social media. You can check those out. They're all free, of course. And it's also on an internet radio network on DCN. So it's on for two and a half hours a day, actually during East Coast drive time. So from 4 to 630, you get a two and a half hour dose of Mr. Biz Radio, whether you like it or not, on DCN. So you know, you can definitely go out there and check that out as well and see if

hopefully we'll cover some topics that will be good information and good insights for some of your listeners. Awesome. Well, definitely thanks for sharing that. And I will definitely make sure to put all of Ken's social links in the show notes. So you can connect with him on all of his social channels as well. So listen, Ken, I really, really appreciate your time today. I thank you so much for being on as a guest and sharing your story, your insights, and your knowledge to the listeners. Yeah, Jordan, I really enjoyed it. Thanks a lot for having me on. I appreciate it. Thank you. What an awesome episode with Ken, Mr. Biz Wentworth. It's so awesome to see all the things that he's doing now, helping early stage entrepreneurs really get their business going. So I hope you enjoyed the episode.

If you did enjoy it, make sure to subscribe and tell all your friends about it. I really, really appreciate all the support, and I cannot wait to share the next episode with you soon.