Speaker 1:

Welcome to today’s episode of David vs. Goliath, a podcast dedicated to helping small businesses leverage technology to not only help them compete against their large competitors, but win. Your host is currently the CEO of Anthem Business Software, a FreeTime Inc. 500 recipient and a serial entrepreneur with a passion to help small businesses everywhere find, serve, and keep more customers profitably. Please join me in welcoming your host, Adam DeGraide.

Adam DeGraide:

Hey everyone, it’s Adam DeGraide with a fantastic super special edition of the David vs. Goliath podcast. As you know, I’ve been breaking some of these episodes out into shorter segments. I don’t want people to miss the wisdom and things that I’ve learned in these episodes, and this is so profound. The original link to the original interview will be in the actual comments in the description below, so make sure you check it out, the full one. But I’m going to take a small segment of episode two, which was actually, it was episode six, part two, of an interview I did with Bob Tasca, where he talks about the one thing businesses have to know about to succeed. While today’s episode is brought to you by automatemysocial.com, where if you’re a small business, you can automate up to 100% of your social media. The creation, the posting, the scheduling, the distribution, everything.

Save thousands of dollars, get better results with automatemysocial.com. You can also visit us online today at davidvsgoliathpodcast.com, where you can apply to be on the podcast and also subscribe to be on the podcast. Well, let’s get right to it. This is such wisdom and so fantastic. I hope you enjoyed as much as I do. There’s a difference between knowing and hoping. Let’s get to it. Here’s Bob Tasca.

And we’re back for part two with the illustrious, the handsome, the way better in shape person than me, Bob Tasca III. Bob, welcome back to David vs. Goliath podcast. Thank you for joining us again.

Bob Tasca:

Oh, great to be on, Adam. Anytime

Adam DeGraide:

For those who are watching this one for the first time, stop. You got to go back. You’ve got to see what he said last week because it’s fantastic. We’ve already talked about plans with goals. We’ve already talked about how the Tascas try to find, recruit and train great people. We talked a little bit about the tools. We talked about CRM, we talked about some marketing. Is there any other tools, Bob, that you want to have that if you were thinking to yourself, this small business is thinking to themselves, “Man, I just need to have one critical thing.” One tool in their business. Would you say it would be CRM? Would you say it would be email marketing? I mean, what would you say to that person who is either A, just starting, they’re small, they’re growing. What is the one essential tool you couldn’t live without?

Bob Tasca:

Well, I can tell you, I don’t think there is one, Adam. I think there’s a couple because you can’t live live without a CRM, okay? You can’t live without some way of measuring success internally, whether it’s financial, whether it’s closing ratios, you name it. So you need to have some form of software to be able to measure your business. Because a number is only good or bad by comparison.

Adam DeGraide:

That’s true.

Bob Tasca:

You certainly need a CRM to manage your customer database on how frequently you target your customers, how you look at that data. And then for us, on a marketing standpoint, we have tools that go out and run our Google campaigns and our search engine optimization, and those are critical to know where your business is placed online because that’s where all the eyeballs are today. So I couldn’t say there’s one. I think you need all three.

Adam DeGraide:

It’s interesting that you say that because when I think about the type of people that listen to David vs. Goliath, you’ve got aspiring entrepreneurs, you’ve got small business owners of various sizes, you’ve got a sole proprietor, you’ve got someone who’s got 50, someone who’s got 150 employees. When it comes to marketing and management of your business, you said something very, very important. You have to know what you’re measuring and why, and you have to have a target that you’re going for and you have to have something to compare yourself to. It can’t just be some nebulous idea. We talked about this last week where you can’t just say, “I think we’re doing good. We hope we’re doing good. We’re not too sure if we’re doing good.”

You have to know we’re doing good. And these tools absolutely help small businesses absolutely achieved that. CRM, marketing automation, anything that you can think of to make your life easier, more effective and efficient, and to give you a window into what’s happening on the other side with your customer, makes all the difference in the world. Bob, as the owner of your business, as the vice president, one of the owners, how often do you and the other owners look at this information?

Bob Tasca:

Daily. I mean, daily. We’re looking at key reports every single day to get forecasts. So I think you start with a forecast. So at the beginning of the year, beginning of the month, we set our forecasts. So what do we want to do this month? And then we track it. And there’s reports that go out to our company weekly, so we know. It’s not like we get to the end of the month and say, “Oh my God, it was a shitty month.” Like, “Wow, it was a surprise.” There’s no surprises.

Adam DeGraide:

You know it’s coming, right?

Bob Tasca:

We know five or six days in that it may not be a good month. And by having that data in that timely of a fashion, you can do something about it. You can do something about it 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15 days into the month. You can’t do anything about it 25 days into the month. So tracking the data against the forecast is critical because I’ve always believed the number is just a number unless it’s compared to something. And the best way to compare it to is a forecast on what you are projecting goals that you need to hit, whether it’s monthly, quarterly, or yearly. And you track it and then you look at a number and you either do one of two things when you look at a number. Celebrate it like, “Yeah, we’re doing good.” Or two, “We got a problem, we got a problem.” Otherwise, don’t waste your time looking at numbers if you can’t look at it in that perspective.

Adam DeGraide:

You know, said something really interesting too that you know early on, because if you wait too long to know, too late, you’re dead. I have some great friends of mine that have started businesses over the years. Some have grown their businesses to be 15 times more successful than mine, and others are still trying to get off the ground. And if I was going to say what the key difference really is, I think you just nailed it, is they know early that something’s not working so they can change it effectively.

And we got to take a quick break from a corporate sponsor, Automate My Social, will be right back after this message.

Speaker 4:

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Adam DeGraide:

I want to switch gears and go back to the family a little bit, for those that maybe are starting on part two with your interview. Can you think of a time, one experience or maybe a handful at the dealership when you were watching your grandfather, watching your dad, your uncles work, where that hits you like a ton of bricks and inspired you?

Bob Tasca:

Yeah, I think my whole life, work ethic, I think just seeing how hard they worked and how much passion they put in. They loved what they did so you never work a day in your life and that sounds good, but it’s work. I mean, you got to go to work and you love it, you’re passionate about it, but you got to go to work. And the work ethic that they put in early on was very inspiring. My grandfather also had a very inspirational way of looking at success from his perspective. He said his secret to success was simple. He asked the right people the right questions and remembered the answers. And that’s such a profound statement because when I met to speak to high schoolers around the country, I first talked to them about work ethic, which I learned at a very early age from my family.

The second thing I look at is I tell people all the time, be responsible with your life. And when I mean your life, not drugs, alcohol, if you haven’t figured that out by now, you’re already in trouble. I talk about your time. Being responsible with your time is the most precious asset you’ll ever spend in your life. And you have a choice. Do you want to hang out with the winners or do you want to hang out with the losers? See me, I always want to hang out with the winners.

Adam DeGraide:

Me too.

Bob Tasca:

Since it’s early on because I figured that if I can hang out with the winners, if I could ask the right people the right questions and remember the answers, I get a really good shot of winning like, they’re winning. When I started my race team, I didn’t call up every single person out there that lost and say, “Hey, what do you think I should do?”

I went to people like John Force, Don Schumacher, Tony Pedregon, some of the winningest people of all time. Because those are the guys that I wanted to learn from and it’s so important. And then back in episode one, Adam, you and I talked about goals and goals without a plan is a wish.

Adam DeGraide:

That’s right.

Bob Tasca:

And I don’t want the wish. My family, all along, they had goals, they had plans to achieve those goals, and they worked hard at it. And I tell people sometimes, “You know something, hard work does not always equal success. You’re going to work really hard at something and you’re going to fail. But the truth is, if you don’t keep working hard, you’re destined for failure.”

Adam DeGraide:

That’s right.

Bob Tasca:

One way that I know to overcome failure and obstacles is to continue to put that work in, to continue to follow your dreams and plans. Because the truth be told, plan B in life sucks. I don’t like plan B, I want plan A to work. I don’t wake up every day say, “Gee, if plan A doesn’t work, I’ll just go to plan B.” Well, I may have two plan As, but I’m going to make damn sure one of those plan A’s work. And that’s been my mindset from early on and certainly picked up a lot of that from my father and uncles.

Adam DeGraide:

Yeah, you must… First of all, I’m getting getting goosebumps. That’s how pumped I’m getting from this man. You fired me up.

That was so profound. I get chills every time I hear Bob talk about his family and the things he learned from his grandfather and his fathers and his uncles, and now what he’s imparting to his own children. And the family business just continues to grow and expand. But think about that. If you ask the right people the right questions and you listen and you pay attention, you can learn and you can do just about anything. Well, this week was amazing. Next week you’re going to learn about what it’s like to be in the front seat of an NHRA Drag Race Funny Car with Bob Tasca. Make sure you tune in next week. Thank you so much for watching the David vs. Goliath podcast. Be sure to subscribe, like, share. Let’s go guys. Thanks for everything. Have an awesome day. We’ll see you next week.