Top 10 Stories for 2023!

[00:00:07.540] - Dan Paulson

Hello and happy New Year. It is now 2024, and Books in the biz is back for season two. Rich, can you believe it? We are going for season two. There are a couple of fools that have no business doing this. Let's just be honest with that. So you got 20 some seasons under our belt the first time, and as many of you noticed, while we've continued to make improvements, I don't know about you, Rich, but I have no intention to become a professional podcaster. I think our goal here is to provide good information, hopefully make some people aware of some things going on, or maybe what they can do within their business to really help it grow, or help fix some issues that are going on. But we're not looking to monetize this in any way, and hopefully we do get more listeners, we would love to see more people listen or watch it, but we're going to keep this organic. Also another thing we should announce for Season 2 is we're going to start interviewing guests. In fact, we have two guests coming out of the gate right away. After this episode, you're going to get four more episodes, two guests in two parts, I guess, if you could say.

[00:01:23.090] - Dan Paulson

We're going to be talking with different people in the industries. First one is going to be about cryptocurrency and blockchain and all that fun stuff. I think that's where we're going to show our age a little bit rich. We were talking with somebody who is decidedly younger than we were and a lot more versed in crypto than we are. So if we look like people with a deer and headlines, then so be it. That'll be it. Another one, we're talking actually with another podcaster as well who works in the automotive industry, and they are going to be sharing with us maybe a little bit about what we need to learn about technicians and auto dealerships and what's going on in their world, because there's some good parallels with a lot of stuff that we've been talking about here over the past year. Rich, do you have anything to add to that?

[00:02:16.970] - Rich Veltre

No, I'm excited because I think the listeners are really going to enjoy not only the things that we have been coming up with because people are saying that we're hitting the nail on the head with what's going on out there and to have some interesting new perspectives. It's really cool. People are really going to enjoy it. And I don't think it has to be a professional podcast to get the information that you need out of it. So I'm right on the target with you there.

[00:02:47.920] - Dan Paulson

Yeah, I think it's a little more entertaining if we're just including some of our goof-ups and whatnot. Like I said, no intention to become a professional podcaster. But hey, as long as we can have some fun doing this, let's do so. So let's get rolling because we want to buzz through this fairly quickly. So if you probably saw the posting on it, we are actually going to be talking about the top 10 stories for 2023. I would broach this by saying it's not only stories as people or as people in those stories. So some of the things here, there are certain people on this list. For example, we got a picture of Elon Musk on here. I don't know if you can encompass him in one story that really made a big impact, because I believe there were several things that Elon Musk has done. We also have a picture of Sam Bankman-Fried on here. We have a picture of Budweiser on this. So you'll get to learn a little bit about what's going on in our head as we're talking about some of these stories. But you're ready to kick it off? Kick it.

[00:03:56.320] - Dan Paulson

All right. Now I will say I put together the Slideshow. Rich, you have no idea what order these are in. And I took a complete shot from 10 to 1 of what I thought was important. So you can shoot me down and say, no, this should have been number one, but we'll go there. And by the way, if there's anything you guys see that you disagree with or you think we should have covered, let us know. We can always cover it in a later episode. We'd be happy to do that. But let's get started. So number one, first of all, again, technology fails me every time. Here we go. Number 10, Rich, here's the reason why I included this. This is my logic. I know nothing about this. I couldn't even begin to comment until you share with me what this story is all about. So take it away.

[00:04:44.550] - Rich Veltre

Well, I think in everything that we talked about from a lot of our previous episodes, we were constantly talking about the status of the workforce in the US. And I grew up, my initial job was with the Big Four. And to be.

[00:05:02.680] - Dan Paulson

Clear for those who aren't familiar with what the Big Four is, in non-accounting terms, what is the Big Four?

[00:05:09.940] - Rich Veltre

The four largest accounting and consulting firms across the entire globe. So that is always referred... When I was there, it was the Big Six, and they came down to Big Four because E&Y was it used to be Ernst & Ernst and Arthur or Young and they merged way back when... I'm really aging myself now, Dan. Thank you very much.

[00:05:36.380] - Dan Paulson

You're welcome. Well, what are some of the other ones that would be included in that list? Is Deloitte one of them?

[00:05:42.580] - Rich Veltre

Deloitte is one of them. Deloitte was one of the ones that went from, I guess, eight down to six. So there used to be eight, then it went to six, then it went to five, then it went to four. So way back when you included things like companies like Arthur Anderson that got in trouble for Enron. Then you had Deloitte, you had KPMG, Price Waterhouse became Price Waterhouse Coopers. That was two of them there. So the thing was I came out of that world. That's where I started my career. You never heard about them laying off workers. Never. They were always on a path. Knowing there was attrition, they managed it. Meaning that they would bring in a certain number of people every year, knowing that a certain number would retire or go to other careers within two years once they had their licensure work done. So you never heard about layoffs from these size entities. So when you come across a year-end article like this, which I think was tough to see, but I believe it's Wall Street Journal, and you're sitting there like, Whoa, wait a second. All the things that we've been talking about now, you're seeing it even in the largest companies.

[00:07:03.080] - Rich Veltre

And I think if you read down into the article, it says that their announcement of the layoffs is, hey, it's time for us to do what we've been telling our clients to do and we have cut cost. So shocker to me, just because of who it was, but it lends us to what we've been talking about for a long time now about what is the real status of the US workforce.

[00:07:26.200] - Dan Paulson

So help me understand this, because I know a number of accountants, partners in I would say anywhere from small to middle to fairly large regional accounting firms. And not once have I heard them say that there is an abundance of accountings people, abundance of CPAs. In fact, most of them are struggling to get people in the door to actually fill these roles. I know with one client even, he has trouble getting his monthly reports on time because they don't have enough accountants to actually do the monthly totals and get them together. Now you're talking about a very large accounting firm laying off people. Is that really going to change anything? I mean, why is this going on? I would think there would be more than enough work for these guys to do that, but really the cutting cost factor shouldn't even be considered.

[00:08:21.760] - Rich Veltre

I think that the shocker is still who it was, who it was that's making this announcement. And you're correct. Everything I've heard is the exact same that the accounting industry specifically is actually going to get worse because they keep saying, as these partners want to retire, they don't have people to take over. They don't have succession plans, believe me. More things we've been talking about. So there's a problem because there's not enough people coming up in the ranks from the lower levels to come up and actually take over for people who retire. So there's a clear problem there. And then the other big problem with somebody like EMY, somebody who came up from a different path, a smaller firm path, can't take the position of someone at EMY because there's actually a split. And it's funny. If you look at the top ranked 100 accounting firms and you look at their supposed revenue, because a lot of them are not publicly traded. So you don't know the number.

[00:09:34.830] - Dan Paulson

But.

[00:09:35.230] - Rich Veltre

There's a vast difference between number four and number five. There is a chasm between the size of the Big Four and the rest of the accounting for below. The Big Four are usually the guys that are doing the big publicly traded companies on that SCC listings. So their experience level is entirely different than somebody who's from five down.

[00:09:59.080] - Dan Paulson

I see.

[00:09:59.610] - Rich Veltre

So you're not going to be able to put one through four and five through the rest. You're not going to be able to put them all in one bucket. You almost still have to put them in two. There's definitely still an issue with all the people below the fifth rank firm... And now you're saying, Guess what, guys? There's an issue in the top four that they're actually overstaffed, and now they're going to make a correction. I think there's a little bit more to the story because you don't know what else EMY did or tried to do or why the restructure now, I think you probably have to dive deeper. And I'm sure I could speculate as to what it was. But it's pretty clear when you start looking at that, you say, whoa, that's just a surprise. What else is going on that we just don't know about?

[00:10:50.250] - Dan Paulson

It could be a canary in the coal mine, could be a sign of things changing for this year. So we're going to have to really watch that. Let's go on to number 10. So this is one I picked. Of course, me being a car guy, I might own a GM product or two, but I've always found the story of GM interesting. And this has been interesting as well, because this has really been blowing up in the news feeds from the end of 2023. You know, Mary Barra, CEO of GM, has been there now for 10 years, and there really hasn't been a big change at GM. They went through their structuring in what was it, 2009 or 2010? She came on in, well, it'd be 2013. I remember reading in this article, the difference between stock price when the IPO, when GM relaunched his IPO to now, there's only like a what, $60 difference, I think, if it's even that. You think of all the investment that GM has done. Some of these stories, I think, tell a bigger picture. I'm going to make some speculations with this one. Ev is not working. If you look across the board in the automotive industry, there's been this big push for EV.

[00:12:14.790] - Dan Paulson

A lot of that's been pushed by government regulations because supposedly electric batteries are going to save the world. I can go into my opinions on that at a later date. But I think while there is a spot for electric vehicles in this world, and there are definitely certain uses for them, they're not going to be the end all, be all. I think Toyota is probably the one that's really step forward and say, We're not going to make huge investments in EV. We're going to focus on hybrid, and I think hydrogen technology, and that's the direction they're going to go. Because for all these companies, with the exception of Tesla, and we can talk about why Tesla actually profits in their EV market, but all the other big three automakers are bleeding cash right now because of their EV position, because of what they're trying to do. My expectation is that while they're saying 2035, they're going to be fully electric or almost fully electric, I don't see that happening. I don't think that's going to be possible for them. There's a number of reasons why that by the way, science dictates and also our ability to mine and get the materials needed to make this stuff.

[00:13:25.530] - Dan Paulson

It's just not there. I believe you're going to see a major shift these companies are going to survive to try and figure out the balance between EV technology and internal combustion, and there's going to be some variable in there for that.

[00:13:43.640] - Rich Veltre

It's a daily topic now. Not so much GM, but EV. And the part that leads me back to supporting this article or this topic, I'm not as big of car guy. I haven't grown up in the automotive industry, but because I get my news feeds from the same place, I don't hear GM ever. I hear Tesla and Ford. And yes, I heard Toyota. But even Toyota doesn't get as much press as the things that I'm reading. And all I hear are Ford and Tesla.

[00:14:19.210] - Dan Paulson

And Ford shutting down a lot of their EV lines because their vehicles aren't selling.

[00:14:23.100] - Rich Veltre

They're figuring it out. They're showing that this is going to kill us. They're not coming out in the headline saying this is going to kill us, but they might as well. Because if they keep doing what they're doing, it's going to kill it. You can't sell a $35,000 truck that costs you $65,000 to make. You just can't do it.

[00:14:44.690] - Dan Paulson

By the way, they're not $35,000, they're $100,000 and it's probably about $130,000 or $150,000 in actual building cost.

[00:14:52.250] - Rich Veltre

I was trying to be nice.

[00:14:54.150] - Rich Veltre

But.

[00:14:56.670] - Rich Veltre

You don't hear about GM. And GM was always the one that everybody said this is the United States largest automaker. Back in the day, it was the largest automaker. So for you not to hear about them at all, it's really odd that you just don't have the news. You don't have the same following. And yes, I think the EV is just an entirely enormous topic with, like you said, the resources that it takes to actually make the batteries. And then nobody's actually talking about the one that always bothered me, which is what do you do with the batteries when they're no good anymore? There's no nuclear power. Where do you put all the spent rods when the nuclear power is done?

[00:15:40.090] - Dan Paulson

We don't talk about it ever again. We have a place for that. It's in a mountain in Colorado. I think we're good there. The batteries are a little bit different story, and they cause all sorts of other issues. Just to keep us moving along here, but I think this is something we do need to follow throughout the course of this year because this does impact all businesses. Because transportation, as far as I know, virtually every company has to deal with transportation in some way, shape, or form. Transportation costs are going through the roof right now. Let's go on to number eight. Rich, I know you brought this up in past episodes, but let's talk about WeWork. Wework was supposed to be the shining star of how people were going to use commercial property. Then And then?

[00:16:31.970] - Rich Veltre

And then, Adam Newman happened. So yeah, WeWork became a very big story, continuing to be a very big story. This year became a big story because even after trying to fix it and ousting the CEO who was running things on, we can call WeWork, like La-La Land. They finally arrested him and then they tried to give a go of it to actually make things work and they wound up in bankruptcy recently. For me, the story really comes down to who's minding the shop? Who's watching what's going on with these things? Because you go back and look at any of the postings on LinkedIn, anything article-wise, everybody was talking about community-adjusted EBITDA. Now, so for anybody who's listening who doesn't know what is, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. That is what those letters stand for. And that commonly is where you build a valuation from. And that number for reality was always negative for WeWork because it's just for spending money like it was nothing. But then they would just adjust it with no reasoning, really, other than making up numbers. Anybody in the profession who's looked at it now is looking at it, Wow, I can't believe that nobody stopped this guy way earlier.

[00:18:08.270] - Rich Veltre

And other people just kept giving him money. They kept loaning him more, putting more into investment. And then finally, it just was a house of cards. So really to me, the entire story comes down to who was mining the store?

[00:18:24.500] - Dan Paulson

Just goes to show history repeats itself. This is a lot like the dot com bubble and burst of the early 2000s almost. You could cook the books however you wanted to and people would just look at the numbers and there was so much positive news. Everyone just assumed that this was the next gold rush. I think this the gig economy, we're seeing some transitions there with a lot of different situations. Now I will also add that right when everything's hitting the fan for we work, we also had a small change in how people work caused by a very big health issue in this country, well, in the world. I think that just sped the process up. But yeah, it's definitely going to affect us in the long term. Probably more so in larger cities where, again, WeWork has a lot of property that now is going to be sitting vacant. Last I checked, commercial real estate people really don't like property sitting empty without collecting any rent. It's probably not so good. All right, let's go on to number seven, and this one could probably be higher up on the list as well, but this is something I had put down because, again, we're hearing a lot about artificial intelligence.

[00:19:40.200] - Dan Paulson

It is becoming the main, I guess, either helper or hurter of business today. Help in some ways where you can utilize artificial intelligence to speed up processes to compile maybe redundant reports or put together information that would normally take a long time to compile. I will put an asterisk by it. Sometimes AI, especially ChatGPT, has a tendency to fudge numbers a little bit and make up stuff. So you can't fully trust that your AI is going to be giving you the legit on what's going on here. But I will say as AI starts to evolve, especially for small and medium businesses, you really need to be looking at this because there are tools here that I believe once they get to a point where they are trustworthy and reliable, are going to allow you to save on labor issues. It's not so much the labor costs as it is finding the body to fill the spot. And you would probably see this too rich in accounting. If you can get the AI dialed in right, maybe the accounting is done. The basic tasks are done by AI instead of by a person somewhere.

[00:21:03.540] - Rich Veltre

Yeah, I think there's definitely been a lot of strides in accounting and the AI connection. What worries me all the time is the fact that I think people have seen, oh, well, it's AI and they run instead of walking. They run to use it and they have to realize my commentary here, definitely have to realize that you still have to watch what's going on. You can't just say, well, it's done because AI took it over and it's off my plate. You have to watch and see what AI does with it. So for me, I see some of the things that are really showing the efficiencies that can come out of AI. But my concern comes to you still have to watch it because otherwise you're going to put things out that are definitely not quite correct.

[00:21:53.710] - Dan Paulson

Definitely not. And I believe there's also several movies out there that show the effects of AI when you just let it do its own thing. Anyone heard of Skynet? Who knows? We don't need that living. All right, let's go on. Employees back in the office. We actually talked about this in one of our, I think, November or December episodes that businesses are trying to get people to come back to the office. They're finding out that this whole virtual thing full-time isn't really working that well. And I believe our episode was talking about some of the crazy benefits and perks that companies are trying to implement just to get people to show up at work. And it's not really working too well.

[00:22:42.510] - Rich Veltre

Yeah, I think that employers are trying to find a way to get people back in with some crazy perks that don't necessarily cost them a lot of money. But realistically, this is to me just a big dollars and cents reset that people have lived on a three % growth rate of their salaries for so long and then all of a sudden it becomes, look, I can go somewhere else and there's opportunities to do so. So if you want your people back in the office, you got to figure out what is the right balance. What can you give them to get them to do the way you want to do it? Or what can you concede so they can still do some of what they're doing? I think the crazy perks are not going to work. You just got to figure out the best way to go with your particular employees, how to get them to do what you would like them to do, what makes your business grow the way it's supposed to?

[00:23:37.490] - Dan Paulson

And the impact I constantly hear from business owners who do have people working remotely, they just don't know what they're doing. And what I mean by that is they don't have a clear way to measure productivity from a person who is not in the office. Now we could say they probably don't have a good way to measure productivity from somebody who is in the office, but they have the confidence when somebody's sitting in that seat that they can see them working and that they can at least go to them, ask questions. I know a number of issues with some of the virtual workers is the owner, the boss would try to get a hold of somebody, and they couldn't get a response during work hours, or they couldn't get a response right away. It might take maybe several hours for them to get back to. Well, as a business owner, you have to ask yourself some questions then. Is this person doing their job on the clock or are they doing something else? Now, there's an advantage to flexibility and allowing people are living at home, it could be taking care of the kids, it could be doing laundry.

[00:24:34.810] - Dan Paulson

It could be getting lunch or whatever it might be. I think there needs to be that flexibility. I don't think we're ever going to go for people that have the ability, we're probably not going to go back to in the office full-time all the time. But we really have to figure out ways that we measure productivity, especially when that person is not visible in the office or easily accessible. If they're producing, I could really care less what a person does. But when you reach those situations where you just don't know and you're looking at your cost, costs are climbing, revenue doesn't seem to be going up, people just don't seem to be getting the work done, that's a pretty good sign that something's got to change. I think that's going to be a big push, especially for the next several years here, is trying to figure out that balance between working in the office and working from home. Now we're getting into some of the people stuff, and there's always stories behind the people stuff. And this is similar to the whole we work thing that we were talking about, Rich, is we put a lot of trust into numbers and what people tell us.

[00:25:43.660] - Dan Paulson

And sometimes we look past the things that maybe we should be putting question marks on. But you had added Elizabeth Holmes to the list. Tell us more about that.

[00:25:54.580] - Rich Veltre

Well, if you don't recognize the face, she ran Theranos. She was going to change the way that lab testing was done for health care. And like some of the other people that we're going to talk about in this episode, it turned out to be a fraud. I'm using that word pretty loosely because I seem to remember that that was not what she was finally charged with. I think she got a wire. Maybe it was fraud, but it was wire fraud or something. They didn't actually get her, I don't think, on the lab testing part of it. I think it was some other way that they wound up putting her in jail. But she went to jail finally this year for something that they've been fighting over for years because she raised a ton of money. And again, it comes back to who was minding the store. So I think it's pretty funny that, if I remember right, Forbes had a cover on one of its issues that was Adam Newman from WeWork, Elizabeth Holmes from Theranos, Sam Bankman-Fried, who we'll get to, I think, at some point in the rest of this list. And I can't remember who the fourth one was, but it was like an up and coming episode, like these three out of four of the people we just talked about.

[00:27:14.000] - Rich Veltre

So it comes back to me also like, who was binding the store? Who's paying attention to what these people are actually doing? With this one, I had an article that I had read that I shared with everybody. And I said, what would have happened if Theranos had a CFO? If they had a chief financial officer, why didn't they have a chief financial officer? And it probably became because they didn't want anybody to know what they were doing. So the person who usually reports the numbers was absent at this company. So big key factor for me for this year.

[00:27:54.530] - Dan Paulson

Yeah. And there seems to be a pattern with these. And of course, until the end of time, we're always going to find somebody who is a snake oil salesperson, a huxter that's going to find some way to attract a bunch of people in. But it amazes me, especially for the three people that you mentioned, again, I don't remember the fourth one either, but I remember reading that article, is they all have very similar personalities. They're dealing with things that are new and exciting. And I believe a lot of investors don't really understand. All of them have fuzzy or questionable accounting practices, which you would think would alert some people. But again, it's that whole gold rush mentality. The emotion takes over the rational side of things. And I mean, we should do a whole podcast about emotion over rationality, because most people don't make decisions on rational thought. This is a perfect example of somebody who is... I mean, she really was trying to be the next Steve Jobs. She was changing her personality to match that. You can see in the image here, she's wearing a black turtle neck, and she was trying to do things to give herself that trendy, cool tech vibe look.

[00:29:12.070] - Dan Paulson

And that's what you see with some of these. Now we'll talk about the next one. There was nothing cool about his look. He was like a Stony College dude. And all of a sudden, Crypto pops up. And as I mentioned, we're going to have a guest rolling out next week who's going to talk a little bit more about crypto and blockchain. But Sam Bankman-Fried. This guy was a multibillionaire almost overnight. He had created his own tech fund using crypto. He created his own cryptocurrency. And I guess this is another one where you would say, where was the CFO in this? Now I believe he did have a CFO, right? I think so. But I think the CFO was helping cook the books because they were basically moving money from one pot to another, but that money really was not real money.

[00:30:07.320] - Rich Veltre

Yeah. This one really comes down to, they're going to be talking about this one forever. Again, fiduciary responsibility. When you take investor money, when you take client money, and you're supposed to be putting it into an account that's earmarked for them, then that's what you do. You don't do anything else. There's no gray area. There's no question mark. If that money was supposed to go into an account and be held there, then it has to be there and held there. And so when he dipped in and started taking client money and investing it in venture capital or whatever, we'll find out that he actually did. Some of it's already out and I'm not going to go too far into those details. But he was essentially taking that money and playing with it. So that's just a no, no. So he's getting everything he's supposed to get. So I just wish they would have caught it earlier because I think, unfortunately, it gets tainted with what could be good, as we'll talk about in our other episodes where we talk about crypto and blockchain. We're going to talk about the benefits of it. And he just tainted it with a bad headline.

[00:31:23.920] - Dan Paulson

Exactly. Well, I think another thing to watch here that might be a bit of a red flag, he set the the operation up in the Bahamas, not in the US. I believe he did that because the rules in the Bahamas, I believe, were a little bit, well, I think a lot more lax than they were going to be here as far as regulations go. And that was also another issue that maybe you need to consider where people are setting up their business. Now, that doesn't mean that if there's a business set up in the Bahamas that's not legit and all good and whatnot. There are many companies that are set up there as well. But it should cause to pause when really one of the financial centers of the world is the United States. Why are you putting it into the Bahamas? I would also question if you put it in the Grand Caines. There's that. Let's go on to the next one. And again, in our people in business as far as news stories, I don't think you can pin one news story on Elon Musk. It was actually 2022 when he bought Twitter, which is now X.

[00:32:27.020] - Dan Paulson

But he basically started the EV car revolution, and he figured out how to get those darn things to actually make money and actually innovate battery technology to make what improvements can be made on them. A lot of credit in that area to him. And some people argue, Well, technically, he didn't create Tesla. Tesla was a company beforehand. It was a struggling upstart. And he had taken, I believe, his money that he got from PayPal and started pumping it in there and then eventually pushed the original owners out and took it over because he saw a grander plan for it. But that's really where people got to know who Elon Musk was. And for many, many, many years, people were very happy with Elon Musk. Well, then he goes and buys Twitter, and he makes some comments, he makes some changes. And he's not on the side of the people that typically buy EVs anymore. They still to buy them. I guess. Cancel culture doesn't work with the EV. But yeah, and that's just some of the things. I mean, he's SpaceX, he's working on robotics, he's working on implanted AI. He's trying to wire your brain differently.

[00:33:46.740] - Dan Paulson

I'm not so keen about that. But he is really an influential person. And even for all the money you spent on X, he is still the richest person in the United States anyway, at like $254 billion, that's with a B, so he must be doing something right.

[00:34:07.120] - Rich Veltre

Yeah, I think that what he's trying to accomplish, which I don't know if there's one particular thing that is the common goal for him? I'm not really sure. And I saw somebody else was writing an article the same way that what is he really trying to accomplish? Does he have an ultimate goal of what he's trying to get to? But I think that controversy is going to keep him in the news for a long time. So he's got a definite longevity there. 2023 was a big year still. He's still all over the EV. And I think thatI'm hoping that the rest of this stuff is just touching the surface. Let's put it this way. I always looked at Apple versus Windows, right? Yeah. And my big thing for Apple, and one of the reasons I'm a huge fan is just the battery life. The battery life on an Apple is just that much more superior than something else, my opinion. So when I look at Elon Musk, I like to think that the battery work that he's done will be the thing that will last because that will translate to other things. The thing that always interested me was when they started talking about roof solar and the translation of the battery power to a solar power on the rooftop.

[00:35:30.980] - Dan Paulson

To.

[00:35:31.710] - Rich Veltre

Me, that's where all the innovation goes. And at that point, it doesn't matter whether it's Elon Musk or anybody else. You start talking about those types of things. That's sustainability to me. And that turns me into, okay, I really like what you're trying to accomplish.

[00:35:45.330] - Dan Paulson

Yeah. He definitely has, I think, where he thinks differently than most of us do. I think when people see the episode that we're doing on cryptocurrency, they'll see where maybe our thinking limitations show up because of how we were brought up and what we've dealt with over time. But he seems to think in a bigger picture, I think that's what makes him who he is. He's one step ahead of a lot of other people on this. So it's going to be interesting to watch over the years. We will continue to follow on X and see what happens in 2024. 2023 was interesting with that. But we'll see if that's something that continues to go or dies on the vine. Don't know where that one's going to go. Let's go to number two. So this is talking about labor shortages. And this circles back to some of the other talks we've had on here. But the bottom line is we're still short on help. We still don't have enough people to fill the jobs that we have. And regardless of what recession symptoms are popping up, it seems like labor is invincible. We just don't have enough bodies to fill the jobs that are out there.

[00:37:04.420] - Rich Veltre

Yeah, I think this has been a common theme definitely for us and definitely for what we've been reading for 2023. I think this is something that, as I think we've alluded to, you're looking at potentially decades of being short and not having a clear solution for the problem. And I think different industries are going to hit it at different times. Some of them are already seeing it, and that's why it's such a popular topic.

[00:37:37.390] - Dan Paulson

It's really a sign of where we not to get political on this and we have to look at our immigration policies and how we bring people into the country. Now, I will say right now, it's not the way we should be doing it. It's not working. And we need to find ways to bring more bodies in that are capable of doing not only, I would say, the entry level tasks, but also more of the technical skills. We don't have enough engineers, we don't have enough doctors, we don't have enough, a lot of skilled trades. So there's huge opportunities here with dealing with some of the immigration issues we have, but it's going to change how we do that and how we bring people into the country. That said, I believe there's also a lot of people that are capable of working and that there are certain systems that prevent people from being able to move past maybe the situation they're in right now. That again, is a whole another issue for a whole other time. But there's really things that business owners need to do and look at differently going forward over the next several decades if they're hoping to fill key positions in their company and keep them viable.

[00:38:50.970] - Dan Paulson

Some of that's going to come through automation. Some of that's going to come through things like AI, technology. Still, a lot of it's going to be required by a workforce, actual people doing a job. So we need to consider that as we move forward into 2024, and we'll see where that goes. Number one, I put this as number one because there are so many different directions and so many different companies, I believe, are getting caught up in this. But Bud Light, and to be clear, I do not drink Bud Light. I'm more of a whiskey and scotch guy myself. So this is not something that would affect me so much, but I know it affected a lot of people. And why I think this is a new story, and I believe there are other companies cross the board that are getting caught up in this. I could have put Disney in here as well. There are numerous other companies but I think the lesson to learn here is know your damn audience. And sometimes appealing to a different group of people isn't always the right thing to do, and it can cost you. And I think Bud Light is the perfect example of...

[00:40:02.180] - Dan Paulson

They took a product that was already in some ways had reached a maturity level and was flattening out. And then they said, well, we're going to reinvigorate this product by appealing to a completely new audience. I remember the chief marketing officer, whoever it was over Bud Light, talking on a podcast much like this going, Bud Light drinkers are fratty, truck driver, blue collar people, and we just don't see the need for that anymore. So we're going to change the brand. And lo and behold, then comes the whole Dylan Mulvayney thing where you have somebody who is a trans person who is now promoting a drink that is typically drunk by truck drivers and frat boys. And then to their surprise, there's a bit of a backlash. But like I said, I don't think they're the only ones. I think there's unfortunately in big business, there tends to be a lot of pandering that goes on to try and get new clients or try to appeal to a certain base that they think would help them in getting new sales. And unfortunately, what you often do is you eliminate the core audience that pays for your product already.

[00:41:29.040] - Dan Paulson

And to me, that's the bigger issue here, and that's something that any company should learn. Does it mean you can't take a political stance on something? Definitely not. If that political stance aligns with your core audience, it might actually help you increase sales and increase revenue. If it goes against everything that your core audience is about, you might want to question whether or not that's a wise decision to do. What's your thought?

[00:41:56.940] - Rich Veltre

You know, these stories that came out over the last year or two. They were just shocking. And the reason I say that is I remember trying to do things with companies that had big brands. Case in point, we had a contract with GE over, and it was literally a small division of GE. It was their alarm division. And we had a contract with them to sell their product. And majority of the contract had nothing to do with our performance. It had to do with protecting the GE logo and brand. So contract like this to talk about our side, which is like this size. So I can't imagine what had to go into getting that ad even out that would tarnish a brand the way that it did. And it wasn't just Bud Light. It was across the board. So to your headlines, or point, it has to do with advertising and marketing. And it comes down to knowing your brand, knowing your audience, like you said, absolutely, a hundred %. I mean, so who allowed that to happen that left the Bud Light brand, which is multibillion dollars exposed in such a way that makes you say, who allowed that to happen?

[00:43:31.830] - Rich Veltre

I go back to my, Who's watching the store? Who's minding the store?

[00:43:36.130] - Dan Paulson

It's a key failure of leadership, in my opinion, because this is an example of we delegate something and we trust that person to do a job, but we never verify that what they're doing is in the right direction. We can go back to core values, we can go back to mission, vision. There's a lot of core components on here that obviously dropped the ball, whether it's Disney, whether it's Bud Light, whether it's any other company that's taken a, we'll call it a trendy stance to a particular social topic, and then realized that it didn't align well with who was actually using their product. And this is something that really every company out there needs to be aware of. I don't care if you're a company of 10 or if you're a company of 10,000. There is always that trust and verify that needs to go into leadership. You need to really say, does this align with who we are? Does this align with what we do? Who's checking on this? Who's signing off before this goes live? Do we all agree with this? Does this all point in the direction we want to go? It's so easy because, as you know Rich, we're both business owners, you get busy with a thousand different things.

[00:44:55.920] - Dan Paulson

To be able to hand something off to somebody else and say, Okay, they're just going to take care of it. I don't have to worry about it, can be a very refreshing thought. It works well when it works well. It doesn't work, though, when there isn't that back check to make sure what they're doing is actually what you want them to do, and then they go ahead and do something, and now you amp your stress load up tenfold because they've done it the wrong way, and now you've got to cover their tracks. This is something to me that, and this is part of the reason why I put it as number one, because any business can get caught up in this. Any business can see something that seems like a good idea but really doesn't align or follow through with what their core audience wants or needs. Now, if you want to change your core audience, by all means, go ahead and do that. Understand the risk, though, because you have to basically create a whole new market and open the doors and understand that the moment you go one direction, you're going to leave somebody behind.

[00:45:59.740] - Dan Paulson

If you leave too many people behind, then are you going to remain profitable? Now getting back into the financial side. There's a lot of factors that you need to weigh here. I just believe that companies should be watching what's going on and learning from it and in some ways capitalizing on it.

[00:46:19.040] - Rich Veltre

Yeah. It's just to me, the other thing is you really do have to stay as focused as possible. And when you're not going to be focused and you have other people that are supposed to fill your focus, I'm saying this the wrong way. We talk about airplane and when we talk about airplanes that crash, it's because of multiple failures, backup systems that didn't work. When you get to a brand this size, you have the backup systems. But as you've.

[00:46:52.550] - Dan Paulson

Said- You should.

[00:46:53.310] - Rich Veltre

You should. You should. And they didn't, which is a little crazy. But then to your point, the smaller companies don't have that infrastructure. Smaller companies are even more at risk to this, because at least in my mind, the dollars might have been bigger, but as a percentage on a smaller company, it puts people out of business. Definitely. It kills reputations. So this is very concerning. And I'm actually very glad that you made it number one.

[00:47:24.660] - Dan Paulson

Well, so as you're talking about that, it just goes to what most marketing thinks is, well, it gets people talking about our brand. They always used to say, well, if somebody's talking about your brand, no news is bad news in some situations. Creating controversy gets people talking about it, maybe gets people interested and maybe gets people using your brand. The problem is that's not working now. That doesn't work 100 % of the time. And you're taking a pretty big risk if you're taking something as controversial as what Bud Light did, rolling it out, especially looking at the audience, the current audience that uses the product and not being conscious of their belief systems and what they want. So yeah, I do believe that's why this one's the number one story of the year and why a lot of companies should look at it. Now the question is, do you guys agree with us? I'm sure there are people we have missed or there are stories we have missed that maybe you thought we should have been talking about here. Feel free. Let us know. We'd be happy maybe to talk about them later on in 2024.

[00:48:32.620] - Dan Paulson

So we'd be happy to address that. And who knows if maybe if you want to come on and talk to us about it, love to have an interview with you. So Rich, how can people get a hold of you?

[00:48:43.750] - Rich Veltre

Best way is by email. Send me a note at rveltre@veltregroup.com.

[00:48:48.710] - Dan Paulson

And you can get a hold of me at danpaulsonletsgo.com. This has been Books and the biz, our first one for 2024. You can check out all our 2023 episodes. I believe there are 27 of them sitting out there. If you go to booksandbiz. Com, that is B-O-O-K-S, the letter N, B-I-Z. Com. And Rich, we will see you in the interviews that start up next week. Take care.