Below is a transcribed version of The Nail Hub Podcast, Episode 86: Are You Ready to Be Your Own Boss? To listen, click here, or click here to download on iTunes.

The Nail Hub Podcast: Are You Ready To Be Your Own Boss? With David Valentino

Elizabeth Morris: I like how you have a D cup.

David Valentino: Oh yeah! (Laughs) That was courtesy of Tom. I went to use his cup and he was like, “No! You have a D cup in here!” I’m like, “Ah, well, give me the D cup.”

EM: That’s awesome. All right, cool, well, hey, thanks for doing this today, I really appreciate you making the time.

DV: I was actually, Tom saw my email and he says, “You know you have a Skype or something at four o’clock today?” I’m like, “I do? It’s the seventeenth already?” ‘Cause I was thinking next week was the seventeenth. Good for him.

EM: I know, this month is like, blowing by. I have no idea what’s going on, so, it’s pretty crazy. So, you and I always talk about business, and that’s our favorite topic, probably. And one of the things that you recently brought up to me was this whole idea of, some people just shouldn’t be their own boss, and some people it’s the perfect opportunity. So I wanted to see if you could explain a little about what you mean about that.

DV: Okay, so let’s take it to sports. There’s A players, and then there’s B players. There’s guys that are there to assist, and then there’s the captain of the team. Not everybody’s meant to be the captain of the football team, the captain of the basketball team, and so forth and so on. Or even the coach, for that matter. You know, at the end of the day, a lot of people fail to realize, especially now in 2017, it’s all of a sudden “cool” to be an entrepreneur. Or, maybe it’s just the way of the times now, where there aren’t enough jobs and people need second jobs and they’re like, “Well, I could do it better than you.” So if we’re speaking about business as far as nail salons… or are we speaking about business as a whole? Like if they want to be a manufacturer, if they want to be a nail salon owner…? There’s different avenues I could go down so I can target who I’m speaking to, and then I’ll go in a broader way.

EM: Yeah, I mean I think the target is really individual nail techs, because the same business rules apply — a lot of people don’t think that they do, but whether you’re an individual service provider in your own salon suite, or you’re someone’s employee thinking you’re going to make that big leap to owning your own place, I mean I think those are the people that are really having this issue where they’re thinking, “Why would I work for someone else when I can work for myself?” And that’s, I think, where some people go wrong. So I wanted you to explain, you know, because I think you feel the same way.

DV: Okay, so basically, in the last four-five years, I’ve been around this country, I’ve helped numerous salons, at least a thousand salons I’ve helped in the last, probably five years. And out of the thousand salons, only twenty of them are successful today. The rest of them all went out of business. And, you say the 80/20 rule applies to everything in life, meaning that 80% of the work is done by 20% of the workforce. So, when you guys get out of school, right now, everyone’s being programmed, thanks to independent booth renting, that you come out of school and all of a sudden you’re your own boss. Well, that’s not gonna work, unless you’re some superstar nail tech who already knew how to do nails before you went to school and just did it for the piece of paper, and already have a clientele. But if you’re going to school, and you’re looking around, and you’re comparing yourself on this phone to all these Instagram people and social media people, you’re gonna fall into a big trap. So like, there’s a few guys that I watch online that give me motivation, and their biggest fear is all of these “fake” entrepreneurs running around with Ferraris and flashing their watches, and they’re in a different city every day, and painting this magical picture, but meanwhile, they’re broke. I’ve met hundreds of them, they’re all broke.

EM: Living on credit cards.

DV: Yeah, so there are a lot of guys putting on fronts, and then everyone gets wrapped up in it through social media, and then it causes you to be like, “Hey, I could do that myself.” Well, you guys don’t take into account the few things that you look at before you go into your own business. One is your financial assets, two is the workload you’re going to take on. Three… I wrote down some notes here, sorry if I’m looking… three is people management, if you’re going to open a salon and not a booth rental suite. Four are the external conditions that you have no control over, such as market trends, hurricanes, storms, whatever the scenario is. And then fifth would be self-care, or lack of self-care. Because once you become your own boss, there is no default. There is no pointing fingers. It’s you, twenty-four/seven. There is no nine to five, there is no more nine to three. When you go to work for somebody, you go into the office at nine o’clock, eight o’clock in the morning. Takes you an hour to get there, by the time you get to work, you go to the water cooler, you hang out with your friends, talk, bullshit, by the time you start working it’s already 10:30. And then another hour and a half of work, so you did an hour and a half and all of a sudden, you’re going to lunch. And then you’re coming back, now it’s two o’clock, now you have three more hours, and the last hour of the workday you can’t wait to get out of work. It’s five o’clock now. But you have that cushiony paycheck. That every week, you get paid the same amount of money, you can schedule your trips and all of this. Once you decide to take that leap and go into your own business, all of that is out the window. Would you agree or disagree with me?

EM: Totally agree. My life is twenty-four/seven, yeah.

DV: Okay, well in our business, unfortunately, because of what you see. If you’re lucky enough to find someone like Liz, or someone who has a salon who basically will take you under their wing, there’s a cost of doing business. So just like you go to college, you get programmed to work for somebody. You go there for four years to be programmed to be an employee for a major corporation and climb that ladder. In our business, it used to be set up that you went to school, you come out of school, you got trained for a year, sometimes two years before you got put on the floor. But you were guaranteed that work experience: how to deal with customers, how to deal with your time, how to deal with basically everything including your services, and then you’re put on the floor by yourself and you’re guaranteed a book. So there’s a tradeoff. Right now, people are coming out of school thinking hey, I’m going to rent my own booth suite, and I have no money in my pocket, but I’ll figure it out. I’ll borrow some money from my mom, borrow some money from my dad, and I’ll pay the booth rent for the month up front. Great, you just spent $800 for booth renting up front. You have no clientele, you have no money in your pocket, you have no employees, you have…nothing! But you have booth rent, and now you’re “in your own business.” So people fall in love with this fantasy of, hey, I’m going to make this beautiful place, and they’re in a honeymoon stage. I’m going to make this place look amazing, it’s going to be the best looking salon ever — meanwhile, you have no clientele nor know how to get that clientele.

EM: Yeah, I feel like they’re doing it, like you said, to be able to take pretty pictures and go, “Look how pretty my salon is,” even though there’s no one coming to it.

DV: Well, back in the day, it was “Build it and they will come.” In 2017, it’s not “Build it and they will come,” it’s build it, and you have to go out and get them and make them come. Even back in the day you had to get them to come, but it was easier, it was a different market. You can sit at home in your underwear and order clothes, you can order nail services to come to your house, there’s all kinds of things going on. So, a lot of people don’t take all these factors into consideration. And they look at the fluff instead of what’s really going on. They don’t take into account hey, I have to spend $5,000 on products to open up, just for me. Now, if I want to have employees, they don’t take into consideration, hey, I’m an alpha female. I’m a lone wolf. If I hire another alpha female, are we going to clash? Or do I hire somebody who’s not an alpha female? You have to learn how to manage people. And a lot of the problems I do see in the industry is the lack of management of people. And they think that, oh, we’re best friends, we’re both alphas, and I’ve seen so many relationships get burned to the ground over money. People say “oh, money doesn’t matter,” but when it comes down to it and you’re both broke and you have to pay the bills, then all of a sudden, money matters. With me, I say money doesn’t matter all the time. We’ll figure out a way to get it done there. But I have my certain personal characteristics that I know when I say “money doesn’t matter,” it’s not like I have millions of dollars to share it out, I’ll just find the angle to make it happen. You know what I mean?

EM: Right, you have experience doing that, which a lot of these chicks don’t. It’s one thing to know you can figure it out because you’ve done it a million times, it’s another to have no clue how to run your business and then immediately start signing up for all these expenses and overhead without having any idea how you’re going to pay this stuff off.

So we’re running into a catch-22 right now in 2017, and maybe you have the answer to this: all these girls that are coming out of school or starting, they’re looking for salons to go work in, and they’re not willing to drop their pride and start on feet, you know, because they’re artists or whatever. And I don’t even know where to send them because so many salons, and especially in the hair industry—I started out in California and then I was shifted out to the east coast, where no one’s building full-service salons, even hair salons, everyone’s booth renting or kitchen techs, so it’s become more difficult to become a mentor now. And also, it’s more difficult finding a mentor who’s willing to teach you knowing you’re going to leave them.

I’m going to give an example. When I started this business, I went into this industry, I sold my other businesses—I’m going to give you a real hard knock, hard life story real quick, if you don’t mind. When I started in 2012, this business, I sold my prior businesses, and I had some money left, my father was like “So what are you going to do?” and I was like “I’m going into this business, this business,” and he was like “No, you’re not,” and he was like “Let’s go do this.” And he was like “I’ll guide you, but I’m not going to help you.” I said fine, you want to do this, I want to make you happy, I’ve caused you enough grief in your life, I’ll do this for you. So I came into this industry, and at the time I came into the business, I didn’t make any money for the first six months.

So — and I was the big shot or the big player in the area that I lived, and one of the biggest bars that were there, a night club, this is one of the top 100 in the country — I went up to the owner and I said “Hey, can I work for you for a little bit.” He’s like “For what, David,” and I’m like “Well, to be honest, I actually want to open my own bar down in Florida when I move there.” I had plans to move there, I was going to do this business, but also had plans to open a bar with my partner. But I didn’t know enough about the bar business. Even though I’m from the restaurant industry, I didn’t know enough about the bar business.

So went to the owner, he looked at me, laughed dead in my face, said “You’re not going to work here,” he’s like “do you want to manage it?” I’m like “No, no, no, I want to work here.” He’s like “What do you want to do?” I’m like “The lowest totem pole job in here.” He goes “You want to be a dishwasher?” And I’m like “No, that won’t teach me anything about the bar.” I’m like “Not a bartender...” and he’s like “A bar back?” I’m like “Sure. What do I have to do?” And he’s like “You’ll learn everything about the bar.” So I went backwards.

So now I’m the boss of my area at a young age, I was already at the top in perceived value to all my friends — “Oh, David’s making money,” this and that, and I was very lonely. Now I go to the bar and I’m at the bottom. I’m a bar back now. Do you know what kind of balls — excuse my language — it takes to go into your own town, which is a small town, and become a bar back after you owned restaurants and ATM machines? It takes balls. And guys I used to think were my friends would come into the bar and pour beer all over the counter and say “What’s it like to work,” you know, “to do the dirty work now?” And I’m like “No problem, I’ll wipe it up, here’s another beer.” They’ll do it again. And I wouldn’t let it get to me. But I had to swallow my pride for a year to work in that industry. Also, it gave me money, but it wasn’t really the money that I was looking for, I was really looking for the experience to open a bar down south.

A lot of people that I see in this industry aren’t willing to do that. They’re looking at it like “I’m coming out of school and I’m a superstar.” You have to swallow your pride and eat shit — excuse my French — for years. You don’t just become famous and make money overnight. And unfortunately there’s a false presence in the community that “Hey, I can be rich doing nails and it just works out like that.” Before I keep rambling, help me, guide me somewhere.

EM: I think what you’re saying is absolutely correct, which is this sense of entitlement that we’re seeing. In a way, it’s kind of like a double-edged sword because I feel like the entitlement that comes with the newest generations of nail technicians in a way is driving us forward because they aren’t willing to just accept the status quo, right? They’re like “We want to be the best, we want to have the best photography and the best social media, the best products,” and everything looks very glamorous, which I think is helping the industry in a way, but is it authentically successful? I mean, that’s the piece that’s really missing. And you and I have talked about this a lot as well, which is, the image of success is very important. I mean, it’s important to dress a certain way, talk a certain way, operate a certain way when you’re trying to emit a presence of being successful because that’s how you become successful, partially. But the other issue is, if there’s no money actually being driven through these businesses, it’s not long before they close. And so that’s kind of the problem that you and I have discussed a lot, which is, there is this entitlement factor which is good and bad at the same time, but it’s that negative side effect that you’re talking about which is not being humble, not learning, not actually becoming a master of your craft and having the knowledge to run a business — that’s the sickness that is really eating away at the industry from the inside. And that’s something that a lot of people aren’t seeing, they’re not paying attention because they’re so deep in frickin’ Instagram that they’re not even realizing what’s happening. So I think you’re absolutely right, I think what you just said is what people should be doing, because there’s lots of time to be glamorous, it’s those experiences and the knowledge that takes a long time to put together.

DV: Here’s what I see coming out of the business: a lot of girls that are on different platforms are artists and they see they can make money in our business, and they’re painting perfect pictures on nails and all of this jazz, but they’re not charging what it would take to do that for an hour and half service or a two hour service. They don’t realize the structure of the nail is the most important thing, so they’re painting Picasso on your finger and then it’s falling off as soon as the customer leaves and then that’s giving you a very bad rep because when somebody gets the job done good, they usually don’t tell anybody, but when something’s done bad, they tell 10, 20, 30 people immediately, “Oh, this sucks, she’s the worst, dadadadada,” but they don’t want to tell you that this girl is the best nail tech because they want to harvest it for themselves. That’s what I’ve noticed in the last 30 years of me growing up in this industry.

So like you said, a lot of people, let me get this self-care. So when people go in this business and they think opening up their own spot is just going to get them money and they realize, hey, I might not have clients for the first three weeks, four weeks, whatever it is, and then they start getting booked and now they’re over-booked and they have no time for their personal life, now they start complaining like “Hey, I have no time to go out, I have no time for this, I have no time for that,” but this is the job that you signed up for, and in the beginning stage of your business, you can’t afford to hire all these people to do your job for you, you have to do it yourself, physically. So you might lose your friends, your friends might talk shit about you, your family might talk bad about you... you have to literally block out every single negative thing that’s coming at you and continue to drive forward for your dream. If you don’t do that I promise you someone will steer you the wrong way. That one little weak moment that you’re having, when you’re like “You know what, I can’t pay my bills this month, I’m having a bad time,” and all of a sudden your friend takes you out to the bar and convinces you to quit, come work with us, you get a steady paycheck... like, if you really want it, you gotta remain hungry, you gotta be really, really, really willing to eat ramen noodles or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches... No, for real! EM: No, it’s funny because I agree with you!

DV: If you don’t have somebody funding you and you’re going into this business, you better be prepared to eat at a taco truck every day, you better be prepared to eat peanut butter and jelly... I did it! I didn’t have nobody helping me. My dad was the perfect person to help me, and he says “Here, jump in the water and figure out how to swim.” And I’m like “Thanks, Dad, I know nothing about this side.” I’m like “Hair, I know about. Nails...” He’s like “You’re going to figure it out.” He’s like “’Cause if you don’t, you’re gonna die.” And he’s the type of man that would take me out into the ocean, and literally he’s not the one that will say “Give me a theory,” he will throw me off the boat and tell me to swim to the sand. And if I asked for help to get back on that boat, he’s going to say “David, you just failed in business. Keep going. I'm 230 pounds. Keep going. Keep going.”

So it’s that hard in business, and people don’t realize it. They think it’s easy, they think it’s sexy, they think all of a sudden they get Ferraris, they get money, they get all this jazz — doesn’t work that way. It takes time, and there is no such thing as overnight successes. I’ve met a lot of successful people in their life and it usually takes five to 10 years for them to even start to feel successful. For the first five years, you might be successful, but not to the success that you’re going out and buying Lamborghinis and buying Ferraris and all this jazz that you see 25-year-old kids  renting cars online, posing in front of them for $400 bucks, and saying “This is my car, this is my Rolex, this is my...” whatever. And basically teasing you to come into our industry. Or any industry for that matter. So there’s a lot of false pretenses there and it needs to be corrected. So hopefully me and you can do that.

EM: Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, and that’s, you know, that’s kind of leading into what you and I are working on, which is coming up with some ideas as to how we can... I mean, obviously, you know, for the first part of this interview we’ve been just talking about what exists, what the current problems are, but you and I are working very diligently to try and come up with some ideas as to how do we fix this going forward, because that’s very important. And, I mean, I think you and I both have that experience, because I also left my nice cushy job where I was making serious dough and decided to start from scratch and learn by myself with no help whatsoever, and my first 12 months of being a salon owner, I was at work every single freaking day, from 7a.m. to like 11p.m. for a year. So yeah, it looks glamorous and everything, which, I mean, it can be, there’s definitely parts of this lifestyle that I love and that I’ve work hard for, but at the end of the day, even the fact that I have Nail Hub license plates on my Mercedes took a lot of sweat to get that. So hopefully people understand, even when you post all this glamorous stuff, anybody can buy a Rolex on a credit card, but being able to earn that and being able to pay cash, you know, is important. I want to be able to write a big fat check in cash for a Rolex, not put it on credit.

DV: It doesn’t count if you put it on credit. Rolex is not a credit purchase.

EM: It’s not a credit purchase, it’s a cash purchase, and it feels much better when you can earn it that way.

DV: So the idea of the artist when I went with the artist coming into this business, and I mean, this is my dad’s line that I’m going to steal... he usually asked the artist “What kind of clientele are you looking to, you know, get?” And they’re like “Oh, I want the high end women, I want this, I want that,” you know, like all the high end stuff. So he’s like “Okay, you want the high end, 5th Avenue, Madison Avenue woman. Okay, what kind of music do you listen to?” “Oh, I listen to hard rock.” So when your client walks into the salon, you’re going to have hard rock on for this lady coming in from 5th Avenue, who might like Sinatra. So you’re going to have to eat your own music to just cater to that customer. You’re going to have to start reading—whatever that client is interested in, before they walk in, you better have read the newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, something that they’re interested in, before coming in the door, and say “You know what? Liz, you know what, I saw this stock, Shopify is going up, how do you feel about investing in it?” Now I don’t have to speak anymore. I’m the nail tech, I just gave the ball to your court, you speak for the whole next hour, I just nod my head and agree, say “You’re the pro,” and now I just got you an hour of a high clientele woman. Now if you’re looking to attract somebody who’s blue collar and middle-class, which is actually the best customer base to grab because they come in, usually very loyal, they’re usually on-time, they come in and pay cash, so in my experience, in the salon business, having your Hermes bag lady and your Chanel lady is a very difficult customer to have. Having the lady that’s in the middle, that has Coach and Michael Kors, is usually your easier customer to deal with. So you have to understand even before you go into your own business who your target audience is and how you’re going to capture them. Or if you’re an artist you’re usually looking for people like yourself to come service, but guess what, most people that are looking like yourself don’t have enough money to spend $100 on a set of nails. So you better re-evaluate who you’re looking to target. And that’s where I see a lot of girls making a mistake is thinking that they’re going to attract themselves and they’re attracting 5th Avenue or they’re attracting Beverly Hills and they don’t know how to deal with it because they’re in a high end location and the next part is, they don’t even know what their rent is.

EM: Oh yeah, that’s a whole ‘nother ball game.

DV: That’s a whole ‘nother thing is like, the only thing that doesn’t lie in this world is math, and two and two equals four, and if you think you open a salon at $8,000, $10,000 in rent, and you have five or six chairs in there, and the average turnover time is two hours, guess what, you’re out of business before you even start it. There is nobody on this earth that can save you. But unfortunately I see time and time and time and time again, people doing this. Somebody yesterday called me up to buy a salon. I know they’re not from this business — it’s for TV. I called them up and I said “Listen, let’s go out to dinner next week, because I want to let you know what you’re walking into. You have other businesses but they’re not like this one. This is very labor intensive, a lot of egos — it’s very, very labor intensive. You don’t have time to do it. Unless it’s a write off for you, there’s no point of you even going into this business. And now he wants to purchase furniture from me, but I’m willing to tell you, look, this is what you’re walking into. The customer appreciates that much more. I’m not just taking your money, because I don’t want to see you go out of business, I want you to be a life-long customer. I don’t want you to come in and then—you know what I’m saying? Then you fall off. So that being said, you have to know your audience, and a lot of people don’t even know where to start. And we’ll figure out this year on how to streamline that, at least.

EM: Totally. And a good example of that is my salon — one of my favorite, favorite clients was this woman who was beyond wealthy, I’m talking old money, okay, and she would always show up dressed to the nines, Chanel suits, beautiful bags, beautiful shoes, and she used to talk to me about stuff like how frustrated she was that she couldn’t find an apartment in downtown San Diego with a doorman. And I’m sitting there going “I’ve never even lived in a building with a doorman, but I’m going to totally hang on with this conversation and no problem,” right? So I remember that no one else in the salon ever wanted to do her nails. And I was like, “Why? She’s the nicest lady, she always shows up on time, she makes biweekly appointments, she tips great, she pays cash, and she’s the most wonderful person — why wouldn’t you want to do her nails?” The number one reason was, they had no idea what to talk to her about. Because she would talk about she had to fire her driver, or her maid didn’t show up, or her doorman was being a pain in the ass, or she had to get her Chanel suit taken in and how frustrating that was, and blah blah blah, right? So the type of topic she would bring up were stuff like, these girls have no freaking clue. And instead of learning about that stuff and being able to communicate and have a conversation, they just said “Uh uh, this intimidates me, I’m not going to go there.” So I agree, I think that’s one of the things that’s interesting is understanding your audience, and like you said, you can’t expect to get people that are willing to spend $120 every visit on their nails if you’re playing, you know, whatever, rap music. I mean, I even have that in Ubers, I’m like “Really, you want a five star rating and you’re playing, like, this ghetto-ass music and there’s no water, there’s no service, your car’s dirty...” I mean, it’s like anything; you gotta take into consideration the type of image that you’re giving your customer.

DV: The best advice for that customer is, do a little bit of homework on her and then let her do all the talking, and just agree with her or disagree. Like, if you don’t know what they’re talking about, just do some homework. When I started this business I remember this lady called me up and said “David, I bought a Valentino, and it makes a little noise when I turn it on, and my horses start jumping in the air and bucking!” And I’m like, “Your horses?” And she’s like “Yeah, my horses.” And I was like “Okay, where do you do nails, in a barn?” And she’s like “Actually, yes, I took out a stall next to my two horses, or five horses, and I do nails in between them.” And now I’m a city boy, I’m completely like “What?” I didn’t even know what... this is the first time... look, you know me, everyone that knows me knows I have a big mouth. But this time the cat got my tongue. I didn’t know what to say. I’m like “You’re doing nails in a barn. I can’t help you. Like, you have horse manure in there and... there’s nothing I can even do to save you. You might as well just quit being a nail tech.” Or maybe it was a hobby for her, I’m not really sure, but I didn’t know what to say. I was completely confused

EM: Yeah, there’s a lot of situations like that. Yeah, so I think all this stuff is great advice, I really appreciate you giving all this stuff out there, and I’m excited for what you and I are going to work on, I think if we put our brains together, we’ll be able to come up with some really cool solutions for people so I’m very excited about that.

DV: All right, so are you guys ready for us to join up? Because me and Liz are gonna bring some noise to you.

EM: We’re gonna bring some reality! Reality and solutions, because I mean I think they go hand in hand, right, one of them is addressing the problem and talking about it openly, and I always tell people it’s like ripping off the Band-Aid. You gotta look at where you’re failing. You have to be self-aware enough to go “I suck at this particular section of my business,” but once you can do that, and you understand your weaknesses, then the sky’s the limit because you can completely improve upon almost anything. So I think this will be really cool to work with you on some projects and put together some solutions for everybody in this industry because I think you and I both agree we want to be able to see these girls stay in the industry. We don’t want to see people just, you know, being here for a year or two and having to bow out because they can’t financially afford it.

DV: That drives me crazy that I see them quitting or getting a second job because they’re not willing to just put that extra step in. They’re not willing to go forward. One lady, and I’m not mentioning any names—I was in a class somewhere, and she showed me, she’s like “David, I can’t afford $100 a week in booth renting,” and I saw her nails, her nails are great, she seems like a person who can get a clientele, and she’s like “I just can’t afford the $100 a week to booth rent. And I’m like “Why not?” And I tried to break down everything. You drink Starbucks every day? You cut the coffee out, make it at home. Whatever it was, that $5 a day goes a long way. So, she’s like “No, I don’t have that problem.” The next day in class, she shows a picture to everybody in class of where she ate dinner the night before, and I know she was by herself. So I said “Can I see your phone for a second?” Looked at her phone, I could tell she was at like a five star restaurant with this fancy cake and whatever. So I looked at her and I said “So that piece of cake was probably $25, that drink was another $5, so that’s $30 just for your cake, I have no idea where you ate for dinner, but I’m going to guess your meal was over $100 bucks. You just told me you couldn’t afford to be in business.

So you really have to self-evaluate, you have to see who you are, if you’re meant to be in this business or not. If you can’t sacrifice that piece of cake for one week to have freedom... like, yes, they say entrepreneurship gives you freedom — it does, but not in the first five years. If anyone tells you otherwise, they’re lying to you. It’s 24/7. I mean, even seven, 10 years down, if you’re especially hands-on... there is freedom, it has its benefits, but it also has its side effects that, you know, you can’t do whatever you everybody else does on Friday night, because you might be working. And a lot of people aren’t willing to give up that sacrifice, you can’t have that $30 piece of cake.

And I wanted to touch on one thing real quick before we end this. Going back to when I said to you, people wanting to join up with partners and they’re going into business — I joined forces strategically with people and I’m a very alpha male, okay, but I pick people that are better than me in certain areas. So like Tom for example — he’s the best computer guy I have found around this country. I have looked high, low, everywhere. But we don’t butt heads. He does his thing, I do my thing, and there’s no... he stays in his lane, and I stay in my lane.

So when you pick partners, you have to make sure that they’re better than you in areas that you’re weak in. So if I’m weak in doing gel extensions, I’m going to hire a girl who’s great at doing gel extensions. If I’m an acrylic girl, I’ll focus on my strengths, and let her focus on my weaknesses. And a lot of people are focused trying to grab people that are identical to them, and both focus on their strengths, and that’s where everything starts to turn bad. And any business — it doesn’t just mean this one. Any business. You need to find people that are better than you in areas you’re weak in. I tell that to everybody. And a lot of girls that are going into business always grab partners, so make sure you find out that person’s better than you in something you’re not good at.

EM: I completely agree. That’s excellent advice. All right, David, thank you so much for doing this. You’re the bomb. Can’t wait to put together our stuff and get going. And you guys can expect a lot to come from us. David and I are working on some both in-person events that you guys are going to get invited to, to come learn some business stuff from us, and then we’re going to be working a lot together as well, this is not going to be the last of the interviews we do, so we’ll be doing online and in-person stuff, and David’s got a secret project that he’s working on in Florida which, I’m very excited, and so hopefully it’s soon.

DV: A couple secret ones.

EM: Yeah. Awesome.

DV: And also, you know what, girls, this is the first time someone’s got me on camera to do a YouTube video.

EM: Yeah!

DV: They’ve tried multiple times, this is the first one to successfully get me to sit here on YouTube, not shaking. I hope I came off confident, but I just want to let you know, three years of people pushing me to speak, and I’m like “No, no, no.”

EM: You’re good at it!

DV: Well, I chose and went with you, so.

EM: I love it! Yay! Thank you so much, and hey, I’ll be in touch with you later this week, but thanks again for doing this, all right? DV: All right, you got it.

EM: Bye!

DV: Bye, girls!

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, Click here.