Mike Tash, Serial Entrepreneur

Mike Tash owns several businesses including a Point of Sale company, a promotional products business, and a successful blues band. Mike and I talk about his “serial entrepreneurship” and some of the things he has done to be successful. Spoilers — There are no secrets to his success other than doing the basics and doing them really well!

Adam Lowe:     Good morning. Today’s guest is Michael Tash. He owns several businesses as well as a successful blues band. Mike, want to introduce yourself? Tell me a little bit about you and how you got started?

Mike Tash:        I grew up in silver spring, Maryland, and I never thought I would have a real job, own a house or a car

Adam Lowe:     just a little bit from there, right? A little bit.

Mike Tash:        Yeah. When I was a, when I was a kid, you know, my first job, I wanted to be in kiss. I was one of those kids jumping up and down on the bed with a tennis racket, sticking my tongue out and um, you know, after a little while I realized that that job was taken. It didn’t, it didn’t quite work out that way. I, uh, just naturally started working somehow and just kind of evolved from there.

Adam Lowe:     You told me at one point that you were mowing lawns at the age of seven or something ridiculous like that,

Mike Tash:        something like that. Yeah. I don’t know how that things were different back then. Your parents let you do things that they probably don’t let you do now, but yeah, I was, I was cutting lawns when I was about seven, eight years old and um, before I was 10 I remember I had my own lawn mower and I was just doing neighbors yards always kind of work in figuring out ways to, to earn some money and have something to do.

Adam Lowe:     Well, I’m just trying to figure out when the best time is to get along better in his hands. So it works for you then I’ll use that as a benchmark,

Mike Tash:        you know, one less thing you have to do.

Adam Lowe:     Exactly. I mean I’ll start them off with dishes and then we’ll graduate to maybe shoveling snow and then there you go. Try to keep all the limbs in tact as long as we can. That’s the hustle. Work Ethic, you know, just get out there and do something and make some money. And I think that’s something that’s seriously lacking these days.

Mike Tash:        Yeah, it’s interesting because I think back at some of the, some of the jobs and some of the things that I did as a kid and you know, in junior high school in high school and I worked at a magic shop, I worked at a drug store. Yeah, when I was 15, I was a lifeguard. I did that for a couple of years

Adam Lowe:     and ended up, uh, you know, that’s a fantastic way for kids to get into, to having responsibilities. I loved hearing that. My wife also lifeguarded when she was, when she was a teenager.

Mike Tash:        Crazy to think about it. I was like, uh, you know, 16, I think I weighed like maybe a hundred pounds and I’m the guy in charge of saving people.

Adam Lowe:     Exactly. Well, just thinking about you in charge of saving people as terrifying enough. Um, well, so tell me a little about what you do today and how you help people.

Mike Tash:        I do, I do a bunch of things. We, my partner and I, we have a couple of different companies. We um, restarted. I mean, my first company that I really like, legal entity company that I started was, was the band and you know, I formed, I formed my band bad influence in 1989 and soon afterward learned about incorporating the business part of it and why, why there’s a good reason that, you know, companies owned companies, not individuals necessarily and you know, one of the big issues in that world was, was liability and I didn’t even know at the time, but one of the club owners were, I was playing mentioned a band that had been playing there and the leader of the band was in some kind of legal issue and they came in and garnished all the money if the, if a corporation was the one who owned the band, that really couldn’t happen. So I started my first company in 1993, which was mlt productions and that’s the company that owns the band, so to speak. And then coupled along that same timeline, I was managing the video store. If you remember what that was, where we would go and rent out videotapes and you can even rent Vcr, BCRC could bring it home and watch a movie at home.

Mike Tash:        Exactly, exactly. From that. Um, I ended up going to work for a company that repaired vcrs and from that that company had a contract with Mcdonald’s to repair their vcrs that they use for training. And the owner of that company was kind of an entrepreneur and Mcdonald’s said, well, if you can fix these vcrs, can you fix and install these point of sale systems? And he said yes. So in 1989 I started installing point of sale systems in Mcdonald’s restaurants. And it was a really small company. I mean that was, there was three employees in that company. They did about $200,000 in revenue, you know, I was the third employee and started installing pos systems. And I learned that I kind of suck it installing, but I’m better at talking. So I kind of took over without even really knowing. It took over the sales and marketing side of that company and just kind of grew it. And we started doing repairs, we started doing local service and then we expanded our size, the size of our service area over the years. It evolved where we do nationwide service and we went from $200,000 a year to about, at, at the peak, about $10,000,000. And we had close to 100 employees

Adam Lowe:     that settled down at some point.

Mike Tash:        It did, it did. I mean it was there, there were some issues with that company. And we kept growing it at the same time I was learning about marketing and selling and everything and I kinda took that over to the band side and I learned about endorsement deals and I learned about, you know, the value of the brand versus just the music aspect of it. So, so on the band side, you know, we have an endorsement deal for pretty much every piece of equipment that we play. So when you look at the website, it looked kind of looks like Nascar with all the company logos. But that’s, that’s Kinda how that music business has evolved where, you know, before they wanted to know how many people came out to see you nowadays, it’s like how many youtube views do you have and how many facebook friends and instagram followers and that sort of thing.

Mike Tash:        And so the, the pos system, is that the same one that you own today or is that a different one? It’s a similar company. What, what happened was with that company, we grew what we were doing nationwide installs it, it grew to, like I said, about $10,000,000 and they were two owners and they had two different ideas of how they wanted to go. So basically one owner bought out the other owner, um, around that time that was about 2007, 2008. Um, my partner and I were looking at something else to do because we saw how things were going and we were like, well, you know, we might need a backup plan. So as part of the band and using my corporation within the band, I have set myself up as a screen printer and that way I could get tee shirts made for the band at cost and be able to resell them.

Mike Tash:        So we formed a company called the logo shack and that’s the one you’re familiar with, the, you know, our logos, any kind of crap with your name on it with that company we make shirts, hats, pins, um, flashdrives cups, you name it, anything with your name on it, you know, we can do exactly, exactly. There have been songs printed with a certain company names on them at times I will say. And so, so that company we started, like I said, kind of as a backup plan and that was um, formed, you know, the, the office and warehouse of that company was my house. So there was no, we didn’t have a physical location, it’s just kind of weird. That’s kind of where it was based out of. So we were working there and then in 2011, um, I was, it’s October 27th, a matter of fact, 2011, I was at a Blues Award show at Buddy Guy’s club in Chicago and my now partner called me and said, our last day is in two weeks, they’re closing the company and um, you know, we’re done. And I said, cool, I’m going to play music full time. I’m done this crazy pos world. But at that time there were, there were 24 employees, company was doing about $2,000,000 in revenue and I’m, neither one of us had any cash. So we decided the next day, you know, we’re going to start a new company, we’re going to hire 24 employees. And um,

Adam Lowe:     here we go. Oh Wow. That’s got to be one of the most terrifying decisions ever.

Mike Tash:        So what we did was we, you know, he, he’s the operations side of things. I was the relationship side of the, with the old company. So I had all the, you know, I was the face of that company. So I went to a couple of our key customers and told them what was going on and ask them if they could pay us in advance for services for the next three months because we only really need to make the first payroll

Mike Tash:        and then after that it should all work out. So that being said, we made the, we made the first payroll and that was 2011 and we’re still, we’re still doing it. We’re up to 40 employees right now and we are growing the different areas that we didn’t do with that old company. So what I mean by that is with the old company it, we did the, um, primarily nationwide install for other places like for restaurants like McDonald’s, Taco Bell, steak and shake, Burger King, um, any place that’s bad for you to eat is potentially one of our customers for installation. And then we’re growing the local side, what we call the local side. We’re based in the Washington DC area and we’re growing the sales of local restaurants. So we’re selling point of sale systems to local, you know, mom and pop restaurants all the way up to chains and that’s something that we really hadn’t done before.

Adam Lowe:     So. So you have a house, you have a car, a wife and kids.

Mike Tash:        Uh, I don’t have kids but it ended up with. Yeah, I have a, I have a couple, you know, we have a couple of cars. Um, you know, each business, the band has a car. This business has a car. Um, yeah. I have the house that I live in and I have the, my rental house, which is the house that I used to live in.

Adam Lowe:     So you’d never have a. oh yeah, it’s funny.

Mike Tash:        I thought I’d live in a, uh, in a van just driving around the country playing music.

Adam Lowe:     But you still don’t sing in tests, so, uh, you haven’t reached all your life.

Mike Tash:        Exactly. Exactly. And the one thing that we’re talking about the whole, but the one thing I talked about, the whole reason why all this, all this happened in all the way we were able to do this, you know, is just based on the two things. I think, number one, my partner and I share a similar drive where we just keep them growing things.

Mike Tash:        That’s, that’s one of it. The other is that we are very aware of the value of the relationships that we have. And it wouldn’t be, yeah, if it wasn’t for some, for some of the customers that we have and had that helped us out and for, for the relationships that we’ve had with the bank, the, you know, our, our accountant and certain key players like that because, you know, there’s plenty of banks out there as an example. But if you’re dealing with a bank lake, you know, a big bank like bank of America or Sun Trust, you know, they don’t get it. The personal attention. They don’t, they don’t help you, they don’t work with you generally. Okay. And, you know, we dealt with our local bank here and six months into the business they kind of looked at our stuff and they said, hey, you know what, if you do this, you know, this will happen.

Mike Tash:        And we kind of listened to them and thanks to them, I mean, just give you an example. We charge between 40 and $80,000 a month on credit cards because we do a lot of traveling and we do a lot of business that, you know, that’s how, that’s how it’s paid. We haven’t paid a dollar of credit card interest since 2012. And that was, that was thanks to some advice, you know, that the bank gave us, you know, it, it, it’s Kinda nice that we don’t have any outside money. We’re not, you know, we’re, we’re not in debt. Um, and that’s a, that’s a nice way to, to live and, you know, I credit our bank and, and part of our other teammates, you know, for that kind of, that kind of stability. That’s really helped.

Adam Lowe:     So talk to me a little bit about, you kind of alluded to it that, that having relationships with your customers and with your vendors and relationships in general really is key to running a successful business. So what have you done to create and build and foster and maintain those relationships?

Mike Tash:        I’m one of the things that I learned a long time ago and that that’s Kinda been foremost in our growth is just having someone, you know, the face of the company and that’s been me for the most part. You know, as an example. I went to a BNI meeting in Frederick, Maryland yesterday with one of our people here who I want her to go join a group and, and I knew half the people in there already and it’s just from constantly being out, constantly going to networking events and constantly, you know, getting your customers to introduce me to other people or my, you know, like my banking relationships to introduce me to some of their other customers. And you just kind of get known in that world. And then my goal is I want to be the guy that people call whatever, you know, if they need a plumber, they call me if they need a car mechanic, they call if they need an electrician because all that eventually turns into business. And if you’re the guy that knows everybody, you know, you kind of put yourself in a very valuable position.

Adam Lowe:     So how about on the Pos side? You know, you have some, some pretty big contracts there. How did you, how did you manage to get into those?

Mike Tash:        We ended up, I mean we got known because of the work that we did with Mcdonald’s, you know, Mcdonald’s is, is pretty much the beast. That’s the biggest one. And when you’re in that circle, okay, all the other players know each other. So we just kind of got a good. We got a reputation for doing good work and yeah, we still work with some of the, the vendors that work in that arena because they, they like us do other large customers. So it’s just by building the relationship in that world, in the installation world that we got known and now we’re kind of, um, you know, we’re, we’re on most of those other guys are the people, what’s the best word for them, the contractor’s list, so to speak, because for what, for what we do, we’re known as a third party installation company and then we’re, you know, we’re like on that approved list so that when they need somebody, they uh, they knew who to call

Adam Lowe:     rocket science. It’s, you know, build relationships and do good work essentially.

Mike Tash:        Pretty much. Pretty much. I mean, I kind of look at it like with the band, um, you know, it takes about 20 years to be an overnight success.

Adam Lowe:     Okay.

Mike Tash:        And, and you just, there’s, there’s no, yeah, I wish there was a secret to getting rich quick, but you know, are getting rich and general. Okay. If you, if you work hard and you do what you say you’re going to do, you know, things generally work out for you.

Adam Lowe:     Yeah, makes a lot of sense.

Mike Tash:        So we also, we also kind of looked at things differently. Um, you know, some of the things, you know, we have, we have, when I say we, I mean the culture of our companies, we kind of look at things like, you know, we, we don’t want to have salespeople, you know, we, we want to have consultants, we want people to come to us to buy. We don’t want to be pushing them as a salesperson and you know, we kind of figured that out a long time ago. People don’t like to be sold to, but if they have something that’s they, if they see the value in what we do, they come to us to buy it.

Adam Lowe:     Yeah. And I think a lot of businesses feel that way now. Especially everyone’s constantly getting bombarded with sales and things like that. So, you know, aside from going to things like networking meetings and just being known in the industry, what do you do to put yourself out there so that people, people know of essential system solutions and people know to come to you.

Mike Tash:        We do, we do a fair amount of marketing. Um, you know, now we know the efforts and things like instagram and facebook, you know, online marketing. Yeah. Because of what we do in the market that we’re in, there’s, there’s key people who are, who buy that type of product. So it’s just a matter of making sure, you know, using things like linkedin and blogs and marketing too. Okay. You know, those people, that’s how they find us. The, the thing with what we sell with the point of sale systems is it’s, you know, it’s a decision once every three to 10 years that they make. So it’s not something. Yeah, that, you know, they’re constantly buying and I kind of look at it, it’s, it’s Kinda like a toilet. You have to have one in your restaurant, but it’s not fun and it’s not glamorous and no one gets really excited over it. What we try to do is make it a little bit more exciting and show, you know, like some of the point of sale systems that we sell. Yeah, they have things like online ordering built into it. So as soon as you go live with the system you have online ordering, your customers can go online to websites, place an order and there’s no additional charges. That’s kind of a unique, are unique benefit in some worlds because some of the other systems they charge extra for that.

Adam Lowe:     Gotcha.

Mike Tash:        I was just going to say things like that. Things like loyalty programs, um, you know, the restaurants want to be able to get the data from their customers as far as what they’re buying. And then there’s also things like apps that come with our pos system so that we, that we also sell that are relatively inexpensive, but they can make, you know, Adam sub shop look like starbucks because you can have the same type of app where a customer can order on the APP, they can recharge their balance, they can check their points, all that kind of stuff. And you know, you’re a little mom and pop restaurant.

Adam Lowe:     Exactly. So, so tell me about some of the biggest challenges that you run up against in any of your businesses and how you’ve overcome them.

Mike Tash:        Um, a lot of times the biggest challenge is, I mean, I think it’s the same with, with just about every business is, and I hate to say it this way is, is the customers, you know, with the logo shack for example, where, you know, you would think making something as simple as a pen with a customer’s logo on it, it would be really easy, but just getting them to understand the art requirements and, and why we can’t use a really low resolution jpeg file. Um, you know, it’s like speaking a different language to them. The, the other issues that we run into with the other, with the pos company is it is, um, anything from, you know, on the small side when we’re dealing with a mom and pop type restaurant, it’s a too many chiefs or in that case, too many chefs kind of situation where the, um, no, it’s like 10 different decisions and there’s like, you know, right now, you know, they’ll say one person will say one thing, one person will say one another, you know, they’re like, I want this register here.

Mike Tash:        Now I want this register here. Why did you put it here? Um, those types of things. The programming, you know, when we program in a menu, when we program a menu for items, for example, I’m trying to think of a kind of a combination. So you go to a restaurant and you order a cheeseburger and you can get that cheeseburger medium, well done, rare, and then you can get any number of modifiers or condiments on it. Well, programming that is, it can be very challenging, especially when you have eight different people involved in it. Um, so we run into challenges like that. Another, another example is like we have a customer that they own 43, a senior citizen living facilities and if you think of it like a dorm, they have a, they have a dining hall and part of your plan, your rent include your food.

Mike Tash:        So they have the equivalent of like a meal card and they’re trying to set up a self service kiosk that they want their, their residents to use. That’s a little bit challenging because you know, you’re, you’re getting people who, you know, when they were in the business world, their life revolved around a Rolodex, payphones and um, obviously I think teletype machine and, and now we’re, you know, we’re trying to train them to use an IPAD, right? So, so it, it’s kind of, you know, there’s, there’s all kinds of different scenarios that, that caused issues. The way we get around it is we kind of have a couple different mentalities. One is we try to overcommunicate, we try to make sure we, everybody knows what’s going on at all times on the customer side and, and that goes a long way. We try to do everything via email with everybody copied so that there’s a record of it. Um, the, the other thing that we do is we kind of, we kind of have to, two sayings that we think about. One is we always try to remember that we’re selling stuff to people. We’re not selling people stuff. So we try to remember that and keep in mind that we’re dealing with people. We’re not dealing, it’s not the pos system, it’s the people that we’re dealing with and we want to make the system, our pos system work in their world, not have them change their world to work around our pos system.

Mike Tash:        And then one of the other things that we kind of try to do, and, and you know, you’ve probably heard me say this before, that you know, if you’re a jerk, your people will be jerks. So we try, when we hire people we can train them to do anything but you can’t train someone to be nice. So we kind of look at that and people who are nice that way they can, we can train them the skills because yeah, we’ve run into situations. I mean there was one last week where, where I’m, the installation went about three to five days longer than it needed to because the customer was just not happy and you’d be surprised how much saying, you know what, I understand I’m going to take care of you. The value of that, you know, I was personally down at, at this site and you know, I’m telling the customer, don’t worry about it, we’ll take care of you. I have no idea how to fix any of this stuff. I’m not a technical person, but I just know we’re going to take care of the customer and, and he just knows, you know, by hearing that, you know, someone who, who knows what they’re doing because I luckily no one step more than the customer usually. At least I can tell them, yeah, we’re going to take care of you. It’s going to be okay. And, and that goes a real long way.

Adam Lowe:     Yeah, definitely. So just to recap a little bit, you know, it sounds like some of your challenges are that educating the customer beforehand on what to do to work with you properly. Setting expectations and having that one point of contact rather than trying to let you know all the, having too many cooks in the kitchen and then to over to overcome that. Uh, you know, really good communication and solid customer service is really what it boils down to. So none of this stuff, you know, again, this is all easy stuff. This is, this is customer service and sales [inaudible] and, and it’s, it’s nothing hard. And, and I think people when they, when they look at running a business, they try to make things too hard. Um, and you know, here you are with several successful businesses and you know, you’re doing the basics. So I guess what I’m trying to say is focused on the basics and get really good at that and don’t get fancy. Um,

Mike Tash:        pretty much, pretty much.

Mike Tash:        It’s one of those things that you do, um, you know, you, you just take care of the customers if you do what if you do what you say you’re going to do when you do what they need. Um, it, it, it will work out. You don’t have to be crazy, you don’t have to be fancy. Um, it, it’s nice, but you just have to understand what their expectations are and that’s, that’s Kinda can be the hardest part. Because, you know, example, we’ve had salespeople before where they would essentially tell the customer, well, if you buy the system, you know, you press a button and it’s gonna make their French fries for you. And, and it’s the, you know, they were the kind of sales people that would say whatever they needed to say to get the sale done and then they would pass it over to the operations people and you know, kind of wash their hands of, in the operations people would be screwed.

Mike Tash:        So the way we fix that in was it July of 2016, um, we fired anyone who had anything to do with sales and our company and basically took six months off and started fresh. And it sounds really scary, but what was, what was crazy was we sold more in that six months. Then we had the previous year and we had, we had no salespeople. So I mean we had people who were talking to customers, don’t get me wrong, but we didn’t have salespeople. And then we hired new people with a different attitude. We wanted, we wanted people who come in as a consultant and who, who tell the customer upfront and who truly understand and believe that we may not have a solution for you. We hope we do. And if we do, you know, we’ll, we’ll show you what we can do and show you how it can help you.

Mike Tash:        But we’re not a fit for everybody. We don’t, we don’t have something that that’s going to work for everyone. And you know that that’s been pretty successful. I mean, we’re not, we’re not, you know, W, we don’t have to sell something to everyone. We’re not afraid to walk away. I’m one of the things that we also learn, okay, applies to you. Any kind of business. So you know, we’re selling a pos system and let’s say it’s a medium to large size system and it costs $10,000 and the salesperson comes to me and says, well, if we can get the price down by $200, you know, the guy’s going to sign it today. Well, if that $200 makes the difference between the him signing it and not, chances are we don’t want that customer because it’s going to be a problem down the road and it’s not that we’re trying to, you know, we’re, we’re not willing to negotiate or work out deals or make it so it’s a win win situation. It’s more that, you know, when you, and I’m sure everybody’s been in that situation where you put your best deal out there and then it, it’s like a nickel and diming situation that, that never ends well.

Mike Tash:        And we learned that by going down that road and seeing what happens.

Adam Lowe:     Exactly. You not going to be problems down the road.

Mike Tash:        Right. Exactly.

Adam Lowe:     I’m actually interested in, I realize we’re kind of running a little bit short on time here, but um, so you mentioned having salespeople that aren’t afraid to say no and aren’t to let a customer go. Um, how do you motivate a salesperson like that? You know, she helps people are typically driven by numbers and making their numbers and making sure that they get their commissions and things. How do you, how do you motivate a salesperson to get the right customers instead of just getting any customer?

Mike Tash:        Well, there are a couple ways. Number one, all the sales people, they are paid a base plus a commission and the commission is based on what they sell obviously. However, it’s also based on when we get paid. So if it’s a customer that is going to be an issue and we’re not gonna get paid, they’re not going to get their commissions. So they see that and they also understand the culture of the company and the customers that we’re going for, if that makes sense.

Adam Lowe:     No, it don’t make sense.

Mike Tash:        So that they, they, they understand that, you know, we want longterm customers. We weren’t customers that are um, that are good solid businesses and kind of blend in and, and their cultures match what, what, you know, what we want,

Adam Lowe:     right? So you really have to identify, you know, what the process is that you’re selling, you know, what it’s capable of doing, but also who your customer is and who you’re looking for. And not just taking any customer that comes by. Just for the check.

Mike Tash:        Yes, exactly.

Adam Lowe:     Great. Yeah, I mean one, right?

Mike Tash:        Pretty much. Pretty much. I mean

Adam Lowe:     especially new businesses really struggle with that though because they’re, they tend to be strapped for cash and they, you know, they, they want to take any customer that comes their way, not realizing that certain customers may end up just being time sucks for them or you may end up costing them money on the support end because of the fact that they require more attention than they probably should.

Mike Tash:        Right. Right. And we’re set up now where we have someone who does, her focus is existing customers and making sure everybody’s happy. So there’s, you know, there’s others, there’s other people who are involved now where it’s not just the sales person following up, but that being said, we want to make sure, you know, we’re, we’re having, we’re having the right customers, you know, we meet the customers. The other thing that’s a little bit different with our business than others is it’s a longterm relationship and you know, once, once someone buys the point of sale system from us, they’re, they’re basically a customer of ours for three to 10 years or longer. So we want to make sure it’s set, you know, it’s starting off on the right foot and, and everything is going the right direction.

Adam Lowe:     Yeah, absolutely.

Mike Tash:        So real quick, you know, do you expect to make any big changes or where do you expect your business to be in the next 12 months or do you expect to be opening up a new business in the next 12 months knowing you? Yeah. You never know with that, um, that, that could happen. But we are with this business. We’re, we’re moving this year and about three months we have to move to a new location and we’re all excited about that because now, um, I don’t think you’ve ever seen her our office, but

Adam Lowe:     hmm.

Mike Tash:        Our office is in an older warehouse and it’s two floors and it’s, it’s the one building that we’re in, used to be a model helicopter business. Every office has chopped up in a weird shape and it’s not real conducive to working together because he had no one is really close. So with the new building we were able to. I’m kind of set it up how we want it, so it’s going to make it a lot easier to work in a orderly fashion, so to speak. And then, um, know the technology keeps on changing and one of the things, like, as an example, one of the really cool features and in our pos system is you can pay your check, um, on your phone. Well, I mean, that doesn’t sound that cool because you know, everybody has apple pay or google pay or any of those.

Mike Tash:        What makes us different is when you go to the restaurant and the waitress brings over your check. It has a Qr code on it. When you scan that Qr code, that’s how you pay number one. But number two, that’s also an exchange of your loyalty and your information between the restaurant owner and the customer. So it wallet, it’s a great customer. Convenience. It’s also great on the business intelligence side for the restaurant. Yeah. Yeah. So there, there’s technology that is changing that way and you know, some of the people on the customer side May or may not see it that way, but it’s um, it’s pretty cool nonetheless.

Adam Lowe:     Yeah, definitely with all the security problems that everyone has, when you hand over a credit card, you know, you go to Europe and they bring the little terminal over to you.

Mike Tash:        Right. And we have that as well. But the other, the other option is with your phone is even more secure.

Adam Lowe:     Exactly. It’s more secure and you get the analytics there.

Mike Tash:        Exactly. Exactly.

Adam Lowe:     That’s really cool. Technology. Um, so real quick, I know we’re, we’re definitely running short on time. Let’s hit these lightning round questions and uh, we’ll get you off to your next meeting. How does that sound? Sure. All right. So, uh, if you could give one book to everybody that you meet, what would it be and why?

Mike Tash:        Um, can I get one? One, one, one would be the right now today’s book, The e myth revisited,

Adam Lowe:     love it

Mike Tash:        and, and that one. And the reason why is because a lot of people don’t realize that,

Adam Lowe:     okay,

Mike Tash:        if you’re the guy doing it,

Adam Lowe:     okay,

Mike Tash:        then you can’t do, you can’t grow. And that’s a really hard concept to, to kind of understand. And it, it, it takes a little while, but it makes sense. And the good thing about that book is you don’t even have to read it all. You can read half of it and you’re like, wow, this guy makes sense and you know, you can start looking at how you do things and kind of change it and it works in pretty much any aspect of your life. And then the other book would be the fountain head just because it’s just such a good book.

Adam Lowe:     I’ve never read a business book or a good.

Mike Tash:        No, no, it’s, it’s like a philosophy. Uh, I never know how to say the lady’s name is Ann rand or eyeing or something like that, but it’s, um, yeah, it’s a book about architecture and I think it’s set in the thirties or the forties and it’s just, it’s a really good book.

Adam Lowe:     What’s the biggest mistake that you see other business leaders make?

Mike Tash:        I’m thinking thinking they know everything and, and not having, you know, not understanding the value of certain relationships. And again, I say that meaning like in my world, the biggest relationship that that’s a life changer for us was the relationship, the personal relationship with the bank.

Adam Lowe:     That’s, that’s huge. Um,

Mike Tash:        it, it, it is. And they don’t understand it because, you know, when, when you say that, it’s like, um, well, yeah, I mean I bank at bank at Sun Trust and I know, you know, my head teller or whatever. And that’s not the same. I mean with some of the local banks. The fact is if you need, you know, you have an opportunity and you need $100,000, you know, tomorrow you can talk to the person that actually makes that decision. And, and that, you know, that’s huge. There’s, there’s,

Adam Lowe:     you can’t put a price tag on that. Yeah, you’ve got the relationship, they understand your business, they understand that. Exactly. And they know you once one tool or a process or a methodology or something that you feel like you couldn’t live without.

Mike Tash:        Um, well I would say my, my iphone

Adam Lowe:     just,

Mike Tash:        you know, I, I think about it and it’s like, you know, if I leave the house and I leave my wallet and my phone on the counter, which do I go back for and you know, or, or even worse is like, how many times have you reached in your pocket where your phone normally is the snap there and you’re, you practically have a heart attack,

Adam Lowe:     break out into a cold sweat.

Mike Tash:        Yeah, it’s stupid. It, it, it’s just that it’s just that stupid. But it, it’s, it’s Kinda how we, you know, how we are. And, and I think the, um, you know, just to go about deeper, you know, we, we and me personally, we kind of live and breathe in outlook and it’s like if I, if I don’t write it down, if I don’t put it in my calendar, you know, I, I won’t remember. So that’s a good tool and a bad tool

Adam Lowe:     more that way too. That they live. They live and die by their calendar. So if you could have lunch with anybody dead or alive, who would it be and why?

Mike Tash:        Um, it would probably be, oh God, bb King.

Adam Lowe:     Cool. Why is that?

Mike Tash:        Um, just because, you know, he’s the guy, I met him once, but it was, you know, we sat and hung out for about half an hour. Wasn’t a one on one kind of thing and it would just be, you know, there, there are certain things. I mean being a musician and playing the blues, you know, he’s the guy that kind of invented it and just the life just to, just to hear the stories.

Adam Lowe:     Yeah.

Mike Tash:        Yeah.

Adam Lowe:     Last but not least, tell me a fun fact about yourself that people might not know.

Mike Tash:        Oh Geez. Um, I like filling out forms,

Adam Lowe:     so that’s a weird fact.

Mike Tash:        Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, I guess a fun fact that people would not know is I have about four boxes full of horror movie action figures that, yeah, I somehow purchased years ago and have never even been opened. So you might find that on Ebay one day.

Adam Lowe:     So how can people reach out to you and say thank you or work with you or anything like that? What’s your email address or website or what’s, what’s the best one?

Mike Tash:        Well, the website, the website for the point of sale company is m e s s p o s.com. If they need any kind of crap with their name on it, it is my logo shack.com. And for the band, if you want to check out what we do, we’ve been playing the blues in the DC area for over 30 years. That is bad influence band. Okay. Okay. Dot Com.

Adam Lowe:     Awesome. So I’ll make sure that I get those addresses in the show notes as well.

Mike Tash:        Awesome. I’ll give you one, one of my favorite quotes that that applies to anything. I’m just always. It’s a short walk from the penthouse to the outhouse, so be nice. It goes along way. Okay, well thanks for your time today and I guess I’ll see you Friday morning. Take care. Bye. Bye.