Words That Win: Language of Leaders With Andy Weins

Introduction:

Andy Weins is the Founder of Camo Crew Responsible Junk Removal, a veteran-owned business based in Butler, Wisconsin, that specializes in eco-friendly junk removal, hauling, and demolition services. Under Andy’s leadership, Camo Crew has gained notable recognition, including features on The Morning Blend, and has become a leading force in its industry, while Andy himself is a sought-after keynote speaker and author. A fourth-generation entrepreneur and 20-year military veteran, Andy is passionate about sustainability, financial literacy for small business owners, and the power of intentional language.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[3:22] How Andy Weins planned his business exit for early retirement
[4:41] Why writing a book instantly elevates your authority
[6:34] Turning scattered ideas into powerful thought leadership
[9:29] How small language shifts can transform your mindset
[13:06] Why your words shape actions and drive real results
[15:07] The mindset shift to stop labeling things as good or bad
[18:43] Why Andy’s new book title matters and what it reveals
[25:05] Making business finance less intimidating with “hillbilly math”
[40:46] Avoiding the trap of tripping over dollars to pick up dimes

In this episode…

If you’ve ever wondered how to transform your unique experiences into stories that captivate and drive action, you’re not alone. Many people struggle to find focus amid their varied interests, talents, and life chapters, making it tough to zero in on what stories will resonate most powerfully. Is there a secret to identifying the “sticky” themes that can shape not only your narrative, but your future career?

Andy Weins, a fourth-generation entrepreneur, seasoned military veteran, and keynote speaker, shares how he found clarity through storytelling — despite juggling multiple successful ventures. Working with a coach, Andy discovered that his attention to language and word choice was the common thread connecting all his pursuits, leading to his signature keynote, The Language of Leaders. He reveals his journey from being a jack-of-all-trades to a focused thought leader, explaining how writing forced him to distill his experiences into actionable insights. Andy delves into the ways he helps business owners confront the intimidating world of finances, using accessible frameworks like “hillbilly math” to make data-driven decisions less daunting. His stories demonstrate that small, simple changes — rather than sweeping overhauls — can spark dramatic results for entrepreneurs and leaders alike.

In this episode of Sticky: Stories That Stick, Amelia Forczak talks with Andy Weins, Founder of Camo Crew Responsible Junk Removal, about harnessing the power of words and numbers to build a lasting legacy. They explore why language matters so deeply and how shifting your internal dialogue can lead to real-world transformation. Listeners will learn practical strategies for reframing limiting beliefs, rooting business decisions in data, and developing confidence by facing uncomfortable truths — whether it’s through cleaning up your business finances or rewriting your mental scripts. Amelia and Andy’s dynamic conversation is packed with actionable wisdom and memorable sayings, making this a must-listen for anyone ready to write their own sticky story.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Andy Weins on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyweins/
Andy Weins Website – https://andyweins.com/
Camo Crew Junk Removal – https://camocrewjunkremoval.com/
Trash Talk Business Podcast – https://trashtalkbusinesspodcast.com
Words Fucking Matter: Retrain Your Brain to Use Language That Serves You by Andy Weins – https://www.amazon.com/Words-Fucking-Matter-Retrain-Language/dp/B0C7T5FY3P
Pithy Wordsmithery – https://pithywordsmithery.com/
Alex Hormozi books – https://www.acquisition.com/books

Quotable moments:

“When you write a book, you automatically become a subject matter expert — because you wrote a book and nobody else did.”
“Words matter. The path to hell is paved with good intentions, so adjust language to take ownership and become the victor of your story.”
“The only thing worse than making decisions without data is making decisions with incorrect data.”
“Every decision has a dollar value. You’re either making a little more money or not — there’s no neutral.”
“Don’t trip over dollars to pick up dimes — sweating the stuff that doesn’t matter often costs you far more in the end.”

Action Steps:

Audit and adjust your language: Replace limiting words with ownership-driven language to strengthen your mindset and turn intentions into commitments.
Write down specific goals: Put your goals on paper to clarify your vision, stay focused, and move into the top tier of achievers.
Regularly review your numbers: Consistently track your financial or performance data to understand your reality and make informed decisions.
Embrace “hillbilly math” for data-driven decisions: Use simple, approximate calculations to gain quick insights and avoid analysis paralysis.
Focus on simple, actionable changes: Implement small, practical adjustments that build momentum and drive meaningful progress.

Transcript:

SPEAKERS

Amelia Forczak

Andy Weins

Amelia Forczak 00:13

Hi. I’m Amelia Forczak, the host of sticky stories that stick, where I sit down with successful executives, entrepreneurs and thought leaders to uncover the pivotal moments that shape them and explore what transforms personal experiences into stories that truly stick with audiences, whether you’re crafting your next keynote, writing a book or simply want to connect more authentically with others, you’ll discover the psychology behind memorable storytelling and learn how to turn your own life experiences into narratives that resonate and inspire action. This episode is brought to you by pithy word smithery, a Chicago based boutique firm founded by yours truly. Amelia Forczak, I’m New York Times bestselling ghostwriter, and I love helping people write and publish their books. Since 2011 my team and I have helped many executives and entrepreneurs turn their stories into bestsellers and their brands into thought leadership platforms. Our readership is in the hundreds of 1000s, so even if you haven’t heard of us, there’s a decent chance you’ve read something we’ve written. If you’ve ever thought about writing a book, check us out online at pithywordsmithery.com

Today I have Andy wines with me. Andy wines is a fourth-generation entrepreneur. He spent 20 years in the military. He’s a keynote speaker, and he’s also the founder and owner of camera crew, responsible jump removal. He’s passionate about sustainability, and he speaks on the national level. He’s written one book, and he’s currently working on his second Andy, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. Amelia, when I started this podcast and I was thinking about stories that stick, I thought of you because I think you’re a great storyteller, and it’s been great to see kind of like over these past few years, you speak to more audiences and really figure out, like, what stories to tell and how to bring that out. So I thought today we could chat about all that. Let’s do it awesome. So when we first started working together, you weren’t doing that much speaking, right? Yeah, it

was, it was, it was, it was hit or miss. It was coming out of the pandemic. I did a TEDx in 2019 2020 or 2020 I started to get some gigs, and then they went away, and then life, and then it really dried up. And then working with you, I was ready to do some speaking, the challenge I had was I was the Hey, I’ll speak on whatever topic you want me to guy, and writing the book, collecting my thoughts, really has now put me in a different place, because now I have a North Star, an idea of what it is I speak on, versus before, where I wanted to be all things for All people.

Amelia Forczak 03:00

Yeah, that can be tricky, because when you’re good at a lot of things, it is kind of hard to figure out where to focus. So you you have quite a few things going on, just to sort of give everybody the lay of the land here. So you’re a business owner, first and foremost, I feel like that’s the biggest thing that I like, how I know you, you run a very successful business, and you know what you’re doing with that for sure. You’re also really good with numbers, so like the financial side of things, you’re in the military, it’s your other job. What else,

03:13

03:32

really the biggest thing is keynote speaking. Keynote speaking is people ask, Well, why do you do all these things? It all comes back to that owning a company full time. I’ve made my exit plan over the next three to five years. So we’re training up the team, a lot of people, all the same my family, I’m a fourth generation entrepreneur. So my grandfather, my great was good. My great grandfather’s one in a scrap yard. One had a farm. Two of them had farms. And so they were they were they were married to their business. That was their business. My two grandfathers. One was the farmer. He took over his father’s farm, and he worked until he retired. My other grandfather was a dentist, and he was the dentist, and he had a hygienist and a secretary, and like he was owner centric business. My father’s owner and modeling business for 35 years. He’s 69 years old. He still works. I’m 40 and I’m looking at what does 45 look like to be retired, and what is my next career? And that’s really why I got into writing my first book three years ago. It is setting myself up for the next career to over 20 years in the military. Same thing, one thing I learned in my military experience is the day you start planning for your retirement from their military is the day you join the military, and chances are you didn’t start then. So today is good, because a lot of people the military do 20 plus years and all of a sudden, six months out, it’s like, well, what am I doing next? And so for me, I’ve always been excited about what does next look like. So I want a business coming on 10 years. So the first five years was, let’s figure this out, and then the last five years is, what does my exit look like someday, and I wrote a book. You know, I started writing a book because I wanted to write a book. The NC was writing a book, and now it’s really propelled me and really made me a lot more grounded, focused and seen as professional, because now I have something. I was talking to someone one time, and they said, when you write a book, you automatically become a subject matter expert. Like, why it’s like, because you wrote a book and nobody else did, that’s it, because writing a book takes a lot of time energy, research, right? So the reader, you can read the book at 90 minutes, maybe two hours. To me, I have hundreds of hours invested into that 90 minutes that you read, and so that’s what’s allowed me to become an expert, because thoughts that I had going into the book never made it to the book because I found new data, or I had new ideas, a new perspective that shifted over time even working with you. I mean, you are the catalyst behind how I got on the speaking gig. You know what I speak about now? Right? Because we started with all these ideas, and we were able to focus it down to one thing.

04:43

05:28

Amelia Forczak 06:12

Yeah, it’s interesting when we started talking about you potentially writing a book, like as a lot of people, when I talk to them, they’re like, I want to write a book. I’m not really sure exactly what it’s going to be about. And then so we try to figure out, okay, what makes the most sense for what do you know? What are you passionate about? Where do you want your career to go? And you had so many things going on that it was like, how do we sort through this and figure out, like, what really makes sense and what the common themes are, like, what story are we telling? And that’s what

06:42

it was when, you know, a lot of people thought I was gonna write a book on recycling or sustainability, because that’s for, you know, 10 years, 10 plus years, that’s what I was known as. So I’ve been in full time business over 10 years. I had for seven years before that was the side hustle, side gig. So I’ve been and also work for the big, big company, W I’m formerly waste management. So, you know, when I started, first started writing the book, I had 15 years in the waste industry, and people thought, Oh, you’re gonna write a book about that. It’s like, oh, no, I’m writing a book. What am I writing a book about? And then that was, that was the start. So when we first started, it was a collection of bits. Essentially, I’ve done a lot of keynotes. I was like, Oh, I’ll talk about this. They’ll talk about that. And we had all these bits, and almost, like, three or four months into our outline, thought provoking or thought look at which we’re looking forward. Thought Leadership, thought leadership, we were looking for. What was my thought leadership? And you’re never sitting here on a zoom call and you’re like, handy, you have all these bits and they’re good, but there’s nothing that keeps them together. So I’m like, Oh, the book is called hustle, struggle, grind. 13 lessons of life. This is just 13 different lessons, but none of those stories connected. There wasn’t a logical jump from one chapter the next. And then you said something that was extremely profound. You said one thing about you is you’re particular about words. And I go, Yeah, because words fucking matter. And you go, that’s the thought leadership. That’s the book we’re writing. And then from there was like, Oh, we have a title, and the title everything from there also, we wrote a back jacket that made sense for all the other things we’re talking about. And then that’s turned into my first keynote, which was the language of leaders. Because I took all this time and energy to understand, why do words matter, right? Why am I so particular? So I went down the neuro linguistics programming, and I learned all about that, and the research by manifestation, the research behind changing language, and then shifted into, well, how do I teach this to others? You read the book, it’s interesting. Well, how do I teach it to others? And now that I’m writing my second book with you. It’s like, well, what is the common theme between the two books? So there’s this constant mountain valley, mountain valley, right? When we’re growth mind. It’s like, I wrote the book, I’m on the mountaintop, and I was like, I started coming down the mountain, also down this valley. Like, what am I doing now? And so the book writing process has triggered for me a creative place in my brain that I didn’t know I had.

07:09

07:31

Amelia Forczak 09:03

I love that. Yeah, the evolution of that book was so interesting, and figuring out what the through line is just so everybody listening knows. Andy is very particular with words like there’s certain that most of us use on a regular basis, like the word, but, like, I’m gonna go do this, but blah, blah, blah, Andy will not use that word. And it’s like, it’s almost also, what else just you don’t like, just, I get that

09:37

just, just justifies, right? Plus,

09:46

okay, so what you’re saying is, okay, you want to be a Titan. So why? Right? The path to hell is paved with good intentions. So, so how do you adjust language? Take ownership, so become the victim or the victor, rather, the victor of your story, no longer the victim of your circumstance. And so when I hear the words, I’m thinking, I’m talking, I’m trying, all you’re doing is lying. So that was a bit, right? That one thing was a bit. I was like, Oh, my child, this big thing about it, like it’s not really that busy. Well, why are you so particular? And I talked about my all my own little limiting self beliefs, right? Because I am the person that used all these Bs words to justify why I wasn’t where I wanted to be in life. And I love blaming other people. Huge fan of blaming other people, like, oh, personal responsibility. No, let me tell you why you suck. And so when I started looking introspectively, it’s like, Oh, what am I telling myself, and what does it tell me about the journey I’m taking? And you, you pointed it out at me, right? I know it was particular,

09:52

10:40

Amelia Forczak 10:50

yeah. I mean, you’re also right, like, when you’re saying, I’m trying to, I want, it’s very soft, right? Like, are you gonna do it? Because I catch myself now, even now, like years later, when I’m seeing something and I’m like, I don’t really mean that I’m not now I’m not trying that hard. I have it in the back of my brain that it might be something I want to do, but I can’t really even be like, try. I’m doing that thing. It’s not,

11:16

can’t. Oh, okay, I can’t, I can’t, I won’t, I don’t, because what it is, is you’re, you’re, you’re drinking your own poison. Yeah, right. And now there’s a difference between I’m saying I can’t do something and I am not, I am not as in a declaration, right? So, for example, I I stopped drinking alcohol two and a half years ago, right? So when people say, Oh, you want to drink, I was like, Oh, I don’t. I don’t. I don’t want to drink. I don’t drink. I just say, Hey, I stopped drinking alcohol two and a half years ago. Then people, they’ll, Oh, that’s interesting. So it is a declaration. I made a decision, and I stand by my decision, not Oh, I don’t, right, or I can’t. And a lot of people, I’ve seen some things, were like, well, turn your cans into cans. Oh, I can’t work out. Oh, I can work out. It’s like, no, no. What can you do? I don’t, I don’t get into the whole, let’s just reverse the words, hold on. What can you do? What do you mean? Well, can you go for a five minute walk? Okay, and I can go for a five minute walk. Okay, do that actually? Actually, probably go for like, a 15 minute walk. It’s like, okay. So we went from I can’t work out today. I don’t have time, or I can’t Don’t two I can do a 15 minute walk. And then what ends up happening is, now you’re starting to get on this path of positivity in your brain. You’re starting to look at the world of what you can do, and then that 15 minute walk, all of a sudden, it’s like, oh, actually, I can do 30 minutes. Oh, I can actually switch this appointment and I can make to the gym, because when you start with can’t, that’s a conclusion, and you don’t think beyond that, all of a sudden you’re like, Oh, I can’t do it. And then you absolve yourself of the responsibilities that you have for yourself to achieve the goals that you want for yourself. It all comes back to you when you tell the role, I can’t, I won’t, I don’t. The only person that hurts is you.

11:24

11:46

Amelia Forczak 13:03

Yeah. So so much of the language is about how you your thoughts are tied to your behaviors, absolutely, and actions and outcomes, and how it’s this whole train. And so if you can start to speak differently and use different words, it retrains your brain to help you get the outcomes that you want.

13:25

That’s exactly it. And what I do when I want to consult and work with people like you, they start catching themselves saying words like, if, like, well, if this happens, Oh, stop when. When this happens? Often people like, well, if this happens, it’s like, okay, well, when? And they’re like, well, it’s not actually going to happen. It’s like, Why? Why are we wasting time talking about it, right? And, and it’s not just a rhetorical question. There’s no such thing as a rhetorical question. So why are we talking about that? It’s like, well, that’s why I feel okay. So we have a limiting self belief. Yeah, maybe I do okay. What can we what can we do within your language to to attack that? Because what ends up happening. There’s a woman that was on Joe Rogan, like, a year and a half ago or so. She was a psychologist counselor. She would talk about one of the reasons why we have so much anxiety in our society and so much trauma is because we’re over counseled. Because people talk about their trauma, and they talk about their trauma, they talk about their trauma, and all of a sudden, everything they look at is through the lens of trauma. And me too. I have this wounded inner child in me that says I’m not good enough. I can spend all day talking to this wounded child that doesn’t feel good enough, or I can work on my competencies and build up my skill set so I’m confident and move forward. Is the child still there? Absolutely right? That’s the wolf of fear and hate versus the wolf of love and abundance. Now I still love that part of me, it fuels me, and I’m going to do something about it. I’m going to do the opposite of where I feel I started, right, and that’s a stretch goal, okay? So I’m going to stretch myself beyond my normal Mo, my method of operation, because it no longer serves me. That’s the key word I use in the book. Is, serve. Does this serve you? Because people like, Well, is it good or bad? It’s like, Well, does it serve you? Does this language serve you and where you’re going?

Amelia Forczak 15:12

That’s another that’s another quirky thing. Nothing’s good or bad, which is, which is also correct, right? It just is. Things aren’t good or bad – it’s just more information and what you do with it.

15:23

Things are my first, my first or second year in business. I was a big ball of fuck. I was a mess, and I went to my mentor. He’s 15 years my senior, and he goes, Andy, I’m just real. And he goes, Andy, there’s no such thing as good news or bad news, only new information and what you do with it? Light bulb moment, like, Oh, you’re right. And now I do fractional CFO work, right? And my clients would like, hey, is this good? It’s like, well, right? If you said, Hey, I made a million dollars this year, top line revenue. So was that good? Well, what was your goal? If your goal was a half a million, that’s really good. If your goal was 2 million, that is not good, right? And so it’s not question of good or bad. It’s a question of, what does it look like compared to your goal? And then this is what people say, Well, I don’t have any goals. Okay? 83% of Americans do not have goals. 14% of Americans have goals and do not write them down. 3% of Americans have goals and write them down. You could be in the top 3% of Americans by having goals and writing them down. It’s that simple, and yet they don’t do it. Look at Lynn, my business partner in this new book we’re writing. Lynn is, what, 20 years my senior, almost 15 or 17 or whatever it is. He’s in his mid to late 50s. Probably, he told his college professor when he got his master’s degree at 24 that someday he was gonna write a book. That was 30 years ago. He never wrote the book. Now we’re writing the book. We’re doing the thing all because we made that shift and said, Okay, now we’re gonna write the book. And finally, action part, because he wrote the goal down. He finally wrote the gold out. He said it I’m gonna write a book for 30 years. He had a goal. He never put pen to paper.

15:42

16:02

Amelia Forczak 17:12

So many people are like that, though, because I talk to people all the time who want to write books like I’ve got multiple calls a week with with people who say that they’ve been thinking about a book for a couple years, a couple decades. It’s crazy.

17:26

I always told the joke whenever I would do a bit like, Oh yeah, it’s in the book I’m writing in my head. And finally, someone called me on my bullshit. They’re like, maybe I should write a book. And I go, yeah. And then I reached out to you with I was like, Amelia, I want to write a book, mostly because I talk a lot of shit, and I need to back it up with a book now, right? I mean, we spent six months, and the idea was, Andy’s gonna write a book that was our book, Andy’s book that is right? And again, I had a working title even this book, we’ve spent, actually, we’re one year, almost one year to the day, since we started our second book. And we changed the title three days ago, two days ago, right? We changed it out two days ago. So for a year, for three years, two years, we’ve had a working title for a year, we’ve been working with that working title, and we changed the name of the book two days ago. And I absolutely love it. I love the direction we’re going. Because we all we settled, we settled with the other title. It was good enough to get us going fine. And there we are today. Today I had a call with the art director to go over the the cover of the book. Yeah. So a week, two weeks where I booked the call, we had a different title. It’s like, okay, we changed the title. So what? Now we have a better title. And everybody I’m title too. They’re like, Oh, right. And again, because,

Amelia Forczak 18:45

because I know that I love it. But right now I’m like, wait what it did?

18:48

Stop awarding your numbers, the guide to financial confidence or small business owners. There you go. And I’ve told this title to several people, my mom, my mom and dad doing they’ve owned their business 30 plus years now. I said, what title to my mom? She goes, Oh, yeah, that’s your dad. Every Tuesday we’re doing bills, and he gets frustrated and walks away. Why? Because for 30 years, he gets frustrated because he doesn’t know enough. He doesn’t want to know enough. He feels ignorant. He feels stupid. And for him, the answer is, I guess I got to work more. It’s like no. And other people, I told my fiance, she’s a small business owner, right? We’re very entrepreneurial in this family. And she goes, Yeah, I was embarrassed that I didn’t know what to look for. Okay, so you were avoiding it out of embarrassment. My dad avoids it out of frustration, because it overwhelms him. It’s like there’s an emotion attached. Sometimes you’re angry. I know that I have written checks. I was angry. I was like, can’t believe I’m paying these people. This was terrible. This is a waste of it, right? I used to get angry about paying taxes. So out of government, they’re just wasting money on these social programs. I don’t want to right? And then I saw a video a couple years ago. He was immigrant. He came over during the Vietnam War. He was a refugee for Vietnam, and he said his favorite day of the year is April 15, because he gets to pay taxes, because he gets to pay the country that allowed him to come here. Not only that, he knows that the bigger his tax bill every year is, the bigger his tax bill is every year. It shows how much more money he made you. Right? All about perspective, right? And so avoid your numbers. People do that. And again, there’s a lot of reasons why people do we can spend all day focusing on the problem and say, Okay, let’s, let’s talk about that we’re in a child and why you’re avoiding your numbers. Or we can focus on the solution. Because what most people the most common answer, I hear that the first thing as a fractional CFO, I sit down with people, people tell me the same thing all the time. They don’t know where to start.

18:58

Amelia Forczak 20:50

Yeah, I I’ve been there. So okay, this is something that Andy’s really good at. And Andy, I feel like you guys stumbled into it. Because I think when people have people are really good at something, it just is, like, normal for them. And then when they’re talking about it, they’re doing it for other people. Other people are like, Hold on, I need help with that one thing. And then you realize that you’re actually really good at that. So you’re all, you’re focused on this whole words thing over here. And then we’re chatting, we’re chatting about my business, I think, and he’s like, just show me your numbers, which is like, as entrepreneurs, like a little like, you know, which is part of the deal where, like you you avoid them, you don’t have a confidant, like you don’t have somebody who, unless you have a CFO, your business is bigger. You have full time CFO who’s helping you. If you have smaller business, it’s not like you’re showing your books to your whole team, probably, and like, you know, so I showed Annie my numbers, and it helped me so much, because he was able to look at exactly what was working and not working. And there were a couple things that let me tell you guys were really not working, and I made a couple super small changes, and everything like fell into place. It’s crazy.

22:03

So okay, look, I’m gonna pick on some of the words you said. They were not small changes, because small is subjective. They were simple changes. Simple like, oh, justice to that. The other thing is, you said a lot of people, I hear all the time, right? This is the emotion coming. I’m working more than ever. I’m making I’m bringing in more money, and I have where is it? I don’t know where it is right, because again, we saw some simple gaps. Again, as a third person perspective, the less I know about your business looking at it from the start, actually, the better off I am, because I can objectively look at the data and then start asking questions. Because at the end of the day, I didn’t make any of the decisions as a CFO. We do not make decisions. Our job, like it says in the book, is to guide you. Ask the questions. First off, Amelia, where are we going? Where do you want to go? What does success? Success look like? And then, okay, this is what the data tells us we’re going. Here. This is where the data is. This is the gap. And now here’s a couple strategies. Here’s the three strategies that get us from where we’re at to where we want to go. Pick the one you want, and I’ll follow you along the way, right? And that’s my job as a CFO, is to interpret the data. And I really like what you said there, too, about when you’re really good at something, you don’t even recognize it, because I’ll sit there and I’ll talk about numbers, and for years you even you bug me to, like, forget this whole words thing. You’re great at numbers. Like, words was this stretch. I research, I did numbers, this thing. I did normal and natural. Like, well, I own a business. I was a bookkeeper. I was the accountant. I do my tax planning. I talk about them. When I watch Shark Tank, I’ll sit there and someone’s like, All right, we want $500,000 for 10% of our business. Oh, my God, the work business is worth $5 million it’s like, well, how? Because math, right? Like, obviously, it’s a very simple example that my brain, it goes there, and so because it comes normal and natural cycle, how is that? How does that happen? And how can I teach others? That’s been the best joy of this book is where we’ll be sitting there writing. And I have a co writer, Lynn, and he’s 30 years as a financial health analyst and now a CFO, so he’s rallied things off. And at times, Amelia will sit there with playing. So it’s like, Okay, guys, i We’re not even on it. We’re not even on the train anymore. Like, we the train left the station and we are already up.

22:45

24:10

24:15

We’re like, way too deep in the way too deep. Like, fall asleep or close.

24:18

24:23

We’re nerding out about accelerated depreciation versus straight line depreciation. It’s like, hold on,

Amelia Forczak 24:32

yeah, the not knowing as much about it again, like objective third third party is kind of helpful. Coming in where I’m like, I am lost, and this is boring, no offense. But like, how do we, like, we’re back on track, right? But, yeah, one of the, one of the things that I love about the book is, like, we are trying to make it so accessible for people, and you have this thing called hillbilly math. And I love that because it already makes me feel like I don’t have to have the exact right answer. And that’s empowering. So tell them. Tell everybody about hillbilly math.

24:44

25:08

So I have a podcast. I have the number one podcast in the jungle industry, the trash talk business. Podcast, 80 episodes. I’m quasi hiatus. I’m shifting it from virtual to in person, more to come. Little teaser. Call that marketing, no big deal. And so what happened is, I would have guests on all the time, and they’re like, Okay, I have this and I have this, and I’m like, Okay, well, your your average job is this right? Or your dollars per hour need to be that, or your customer acquisition costs cannot exceed right? I would give them $1 amount, a ratio amount or a percentage, because my brain does all the same things, right? A five to one ratio, right is I get $5 back for every $1 spent. Right is also $20 customer acquisition cost is also $100 per customer when your average job size is $500 so I give you the same number three times, depending on right and my brain, brainstep Right. And then, and then my question is, like, going back to good or bad? It’s like, well, is that good or bad? It’s like, hold on. But our question is, what is the industry average? Okay, now we should break and so people would be asking me these questions, and I would get us danger close. Oh, my God, just hillbilly math, right? And then people like, wait, what do you mean? Hillbilly? It’s close enough for us to start. When we say our customer acquisition cost in our industry is typically eight to 10% is the goal up to 15% where you’re accelerated. So when I say, Okay, your customer acquisition cost is we’re about 10% 11 to 10, 11% we’re good. Let’s move on. And then we say, okay, disposal should be between, or should is, on average, between six and 8% and then also disposal is 12% like, Oh, that’s not good. That is double, or one and a half times industry average. Let’s, let’s dig into that. So people, people are trying to solve the wrong problem all the time. And so with simple, basic hillbilly math, we get closer. And so I would say hillbilly math, and then people are what I’m essentially saying is, let’s make data driven decisions, and the data does not have to be perfect. The data has to be say, Okay, we’re good. Even major companies. I’ve gone through some business evaluations for myself and my clients. And one of the questions, there’s five other questions, one of the questions they always ask is, How accurate is your data? And some of the major corporations are like, that’s probably 90% accurate, because inventory might be off here, accounts receivables might be off there, right? And it’s like, oh, man, you’re a huge company, and your data maybe is 90% correct. And I’ve said with confidence. I do this for a living. I do the books in my own company. My Data probably 85% accurate. And I do this the average business 10% accurate, 15 and 20. Maybe their tax filings are close enough. But when I talk about data, I talk about your customer lists. I’m talking about your customer acquisition cost. I’m talking about your scorecard, right? It’s like, what do you mean? Scorecard? Right? Like, what is your dollars per hour? What? There’s some level of efficiency rating, right? Customer, customer ticket cost, right? In retail, it’s how many customers came in today and how much on average do they spend? You figure those two things out. That’s how you that’s really tell.

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