The Entrepreneur's Playbook

Scott:

Alright, hello everybody. I am speaking with Kelvin Abrams. He calls himself a “serial entrepreneur.” I love that. “Where will he strike next?” Serial entrepreneur. He's got 17 years of experience as a business owner. He has a book that's called Get Uncomfortable or Change Course: Understanding What it Takes to Be an Entrepreneur.

I am an entrepreneur myself, so obviously I am interested in what Kelvin has to say.

He teaches new and aspiring entrepreneurs how to be more successful. He also presents a seminar called “Set Up Your Business for Success.” He does that at local libraries. Where are you located, Kelvin?

Kelvin:

I'm located in Western Howard County, Maryland. The town is called Glenelg, Maryland.

Scott:

Great. Small town, just like me. Kelvin, your book is called Get Uncomfortable or Change Course. What does “getting uncomfortable” mean to you and why is that so critical for entrepreneurs to understand?

Kelvin: 

Oh, great. Thank you for allowing me the time to explain.

Scott:

Oh, yes.

Kelvin: 

Get uncomfortable to me basically means that, you know, growing up, you know, you hear stories about people saying, “oh, I want to be a business owner. I want to be a business owner.”

You know, it's all about handing out your business cards and thinking that you get to take a vacation whenever you want and that you're your own boss. And, you know, all the myths about being self-employed.

So the reality of it is, you know, you have to get uncomfortable and used to being uncomfortable as a self-employed person. And what does uncomfortable mean? Uncomfortable means living without a paycheck for a period of time.

Uncomfortable means paying your bills late. Uncomfortable means maybe dodging a few phone calls from bill collectors.

You know, uncomfortable is sleepless nights and restless nights and the stress that you go through.

So getting uncomfortable is a lot. I mean, you know, it's open-ended. It's missing vacations. It's missing birthdays. It's missing holidays. It's truly getting uncomfortable.

And the or change course part portion of that, is basically if that's not for you, then now's the time for you to change course and move on just because being an entrepreneur is not for everybody.

And, you know, I knew early on I was going to write a book. I just didn't know what the book was going to be about. And it was during the pandemic that it really hit me hard.

And a lot of sleepless nights during the pandemic, like everyone else. And the title came to me right then and there one night when I was sleeping. So that's just how we entrepreneurs are. We're creative all the time.

Scott:

And it's interesting. The whole idea of getting uncomfortable was so weird to people.

They said, well, “I'm supposed to be happy.” I'm supposed to be, you know, this is supposed to be the land of opportunity. This and that. And we have so many things that we come across every single day in social media. It's just like be a voice artist. “Do this.” “Change your life.”

Become this thing. And it's just that it's worded in such a way that it sucks you in.

Like it's going to be easy and it never is. And it never has the immediate payoff that

people seem to be expecting. 

So you've done this for 17 years, multiple businesses that you've owned. So what is one lesson that you wished you had learned earlier when trying to be an entrepreneur?

Kelvin:

Oh, boy, that's a great question. And there's so many of them. So I guess I have to kind of sit back and think about which one is the best one. 

I would probably say the best advice I could give that I really wish I could talk to myself 17 years ago is when I sat down there with the banker and took out that loan from the bank, the terms of that loan, you know, at the time I was happy, you know, it was a honeymoon. I was like, oh, I'm so excited. Someone is funding my business. I'm so excited. I'm so happy. I can't wait to hand out my business card. And not really looking at the terms of the loan and, you know, how detailed it was. 

So if there's one thing I can redo is I would redo that loan and potentially take other bids or other options for that loan. And of course, I would have brought my CPA in with me, which I didn't. And that's what I talk about when I go to the libraries and I speak to people. I let them know when you go see a banker, you want to make sure you have two people with you, your business lawyer and your CPA.

Your business lawyer is going to look at the contract and make sure everything's okay.

Your CPA is going to run the numbers. Yes, it's going to cost you. But if you don't invest in yourself, why should the bank? 

Scott:

That's a great point. There's so much about doing this yourself.

And, you know, we even have the term now “solopreneur” or solo entrepreneur. And we think it means I'd have to do everything myself. Well, yeah, there's a lot of stuff, but you can you still need the people that know the people that's their profession is to know all of that stuff. 

And I mean, it's so weird how our culture conditions us to, you know, do it yourself or you can't do it or you can't get help. 

Kelvin:

Yeah, I agree. I mean, earlier, early on, sorry, to  interrupt, Scott. 

Scott:

No, no, go ahead. 

Kelvin:

I've had friends and family tell me for the entire 17 years that I've been in business

that you should be doing more. You should be doing this. You should be exactly what you just mentioned. And from the very beginning, I'm so happy I didn't listen to them. 

From the very beginning, I felt the need to put the certain things in the people's hands that deal with it every day. So for example, I know QuickBooks and I do a little bit of QuickBooks, but I have a bookkeeper, I have a CPA, I let them do QuickBooks. Do I know how to do it? Yes, I should know how to do it. And I do.

As far as marketing, I have I have and still have a marketing professional that helps me with marketing. Do I add to that? Of course, I add to that. I have a lawyer. So the thing is, is people try to escape paying money for certain services and they do their serves in injustice, because those people, this is what they do 10 hours, 12 hours, 15 hours a day. So you need to trust those people.

And then again, it goes back to what I just mentioned is if you're not going to invest in

yourself, why should someone else invest in you? And investing in yourself means get the professionals, build your team around these professionals that can help elevate you and not bring you down.

So I agree with your statement. I totally agree with you.  

Scott:

That's great advice. We've talked about this already. Many people are having that dream of starting a business. But it can be overwhelming where to start. So where would you recommend a person start when they have this dream and they want to start a business? 

Kelvin: 

Oh boy, another great question, Scott.

I started at a place called SCORE. SCORE is a part of the Small Business Administration.

And SCORE, I don't know what the exact acronym stands for, but it's SCORE: S-C-O-R-E.

And basically it's made up of volunteers, business owners, former business owners,

but it's just made up of volunteers or what I refer to as mentors. And what their sole

purpose is to help you go through the process of what you need to start a business. And that's exactly where I started.

I believe I was working with a gentleman named Ed for about a year and a half at SCORE. And let me tell you, he would rip and tear up my business plan and rip and tear up my mission statement. And I can't tell you how many times I wanted to quit and how many times I called Ed all these names behind his back. 

And I tell you what, the very first banker that I met and saw and knew who I worked with offered me the loan. And it this still resonates in my head. She said, “Kelvin, we would not be giving you this loan if you did not work with Ed.” They knew Ed, they knew he had a track record. And the only reason why I got that loan was because I work with Ed at SCORE. And she basically looked at my business plan and didn't have a negative thing to say about it. And in fact, I walked out the door in an additional $250,000 that day.

Scott:

That's incredible. Wow.

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Scott:

I'm talking with Kelvin Abrams. Your motto, sir, is learn, earn, return. What does that look like in your work, in your life today, where you are now? 

Kelvin:

Oh, and again, another great question is, you know, growing up, I had things kind of tough, you know, it was kind of tough growing up in college, put myself through college, things like that. So it's been kind of a tough road for my entire life here. And especially in being in business, you know, it's like, like you mentioned a solopreneur, everyone thinks you do it alone, but I don't do it alone. And I haven't done it alone for 17 years. 

And so my learn, earn, return is I've learned and I'm learning still from the professionals and my team around me. So I'm learning. And then at the same time, I'm earning, and I'm still learning how to earn. And I say “learning how to earn” because that's tricky. You know, you have to learn how to earn the money. Anyone can say they earn money, but you actually know, you need to know how to learn how to earn your money. 

And then return basically is giving back. Again, I've had several people help me throughout this process. So I feel it might do to pay it forward and to give back. And so by me giving back, it looks like me doing free courses at the library, giving free speeches at the library, me trying to do podcasts and get the word out there about my book and just give back to people and to help them. And the one thing that I would love to accomplish by doing all of these podcasts and writing a book is for someone someday to return a favor that I'm doing for them. That's what my ultimate goal is to have somebody that I've worked with, to have somebody that has listened to me, listened to my book, read my book, listened to my online course, and then do the exact same thing for the future.

Scott:

That's great. We want that legacy. You want you want someone to succeed

for themselves and you want to be a part of that success and you want to be part of their success as well. Just the legacy of putting that work in and having it pay off and learning something about yourself and about business.

And that brings me to my next question, profit and purpose. How do you balance that? And how do you frame that when there is no profit, when you're spending a lot of time not making anything? How do you balance profit and purpose, especially when there's no profit? 

Kelvin:

Yeah. Well, you know, that's a daily struggle. I still struggle with that today. And the only way I can, the only way I can really, truly, truly, truly answer that is you have to have this unwavering belief, this faith, this unwavering trust in yourself and a higher power that you're going to get it done no matter what. 

And there's this great book that I've read before from David Goggins called You Can't Hurt Me. So David Goggins is, he's like an ultra-marathon runner. He was a Navy SEAL, Green Beret Green Beret or Special Forces guy, just really awesome guy. And one of the things he likes to say in his book You Can't Hurt Me is he's “taking souls” and taking souls to him at that time was when he was going through the SEALs training course, you know, the instructor's job is to break you down and bring you back up. And so the instructor's job of breaking him down, breaking him down. And he had this mental attitude that “I'm taking your soul” and taking your soul was “you are not going to take anything from me. You are not going to hurt me. I'm going to stand here no matter what you do to me. And I'm going to stand here and I'm going to get back up.”

So every single day when I wake up, I thank the Lord for giving me another day. I thank the Lord for all the many opportunities that may or may not come my way. And I get up and I just continue the fight. 

Scott:

And just keep getting up and getting up and getting up. And is there is there something about, you know, feeling by yourself in this whole endeavor, everything's coming out of you. Is there a way that you can frame it where it's like you're almost breaking yourself down and bringing yourself back up as well as letting those business professionals break you down and tear your business plan apart, all of that stuff? How would you how would you describe maybe a way that you might do that? 

Kelvin:

So how I do it is I refer to this as “The Boardroom” in my book. I call it The Boardroom and I have a business mentor. He's about 75 years old and you know, he's been through some tough times and he's a self-made man. And so he's my mentor and he's been my mentor and friend

for the last six or seven years. 

And so we coined this phrase “Going to the Boardroom.” And what I do  is I sit have a cigar maybe sit outside. I meditate. I look out the window. I may have a glass of bourbon. And I sit back and I break things down like I break down the day. I break down my goals. I break down where I'm at. I break down where I want to be. And I kind of mentally take note of that. And then I write it down. I have a journal. So I keep a journal and I write my journal.

And the key thing is for me is when I break myself down is and that happens a lot. You know, we all get disappointed in ourselves. We all think we can do things a little bit differently and we break ourselves down. But the key thing for me, what brings me back up once again is that unwavering faith that there's nothing anyone can do to stop me. And there's nothing anyone can do to hurt me because failure is a part of life. 

And like I tell people all the times, Scott, is I've been failing my entire life, whether it be failing at missing a kick at the soccer game, whether it be failing at striking out at the batter's box or or not getting a touchdown or failing in class. I mean, Lord knows at college, I failed a couple of classes, too many parties. But yeah, I've been failing my entire life, you know, so failure to me is nothing new. And I'm not afraid of failure. I welcome failure. 

And so, you know, that's the kind of motto that I live by. And that's kind of how I break things down. So I do break myself down every day. But then again, I praise myself when I bring myself back up knowing that I have faith. And that's that unwavering faith that gets me through. 

Scott:

And it's so it's just incredible how we… we really do have to expect failure. And like you say, look for failure, like because that's how you're going to learn. And all of these things that condition us or all those things that people are trying to sell us on social media is taking all of that out of there. You know, you can be this thing. And they don't even mention failure. They don't know because they're selling something and we'll buy it. We'll buy it, especially if we're feeling desperate or if we're feeling hopeless. They know exactly how to get and that's you know, that's that's business too. But people like us, we don't feed off of people's desperation. We want to we want to show people that especially me, you know, I'm an actor. I'm a director. I have kids that I work with at the theater. 

And we want--we're so happy when they come out of themselves and and break through their conditioning that they have to be a certain thing or they're not going to be successful that when they come out of them, you know, it's a it's an incredible thing. 

You've mentioned you've mentioned some serious setbacks that you've had to work

through. Can you talk about those a little bit? 

Kelvin:

Oh, absolutely. So the biggest setback, biggest two setbacks would be out of my hands completely. One would be the financial crash in 2008, 2009. That's when I first started my business and asked when President Obama came into the office and the housing crash, just the market just crashed. So that was one that I really had to deal with early on. And quite frankly, you know, during that period, my house went into foreclosure three times. I had to borrow money to get my house out of foreclosure. I went a whole two years with not a single salary because everything went to paying bills. 

And a second time would be during the pandemic. And at like everyone else during the pandemic, you know, I struggled, I struggled with getting unemployment for months during the pandemic. And finally, I got the unemployment. I struggled with staying open, my business is staying open and paying bills. So those are some challenging times.

But also during the times of the 17 years, I've had four or five major surgeries that have really complicated things. And one would be I've had hip surgery, I had back surgery, I've had two hernia surgeries. I've had, let's see, carpal tunnel syndrome surgeries, two of them, and rotator cuff surgery. So all of these things have happened during the 17 years. And there's that one point in time, Scott, there's the one point where every year I was having major surgery. And you know, my mom would take me to the hospital every time. And she's like, well, “when are you going to stop having all these surgeries?” And I'm like, Mom, I know it's taxing on me is taxing on my body. 

But the thing is--is that again, there goes that unwavering faith, there goes that “I'm taking souls” mentality. And I can remember one time clearly where I had back surgery, I'm sorry, hip surgery, I walked out of the hospital on a Friday and Saturday morning, I was making coffee in my coffee shop on a brand new hip walking around making coffee in the coffee shop. 

So again, this is one of these things where I say get uncomfortable or change course. I could have taken it easy, I could have laid up in my bed for a while. But you know, the thing is, is get uncomfortable, you know, being an entrepreneur is not easy, being an entrepreneur is not comfortable. And like you said, when people sell, you know, their books and they sell you a mentality, they're selling you something like you mentioned for profit.

And what I'm looking at doing is the complete opposite is I wrote the book because I want people to realize that this is hard as hell. So the book is called “get uncomfortable or change course, understanding what it takes to be an entrepreneur,” because I want people to realize that, Hey, man, don't do this. Do not do this unless you will in a sacrifice. Do not do this unless you're willing to go a year or two without a salary. Do not do this if you have to have all your birthdays and vacations and funerals and holidays. Do not do this if you have to do all those things because it's not for you.

Scott:

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Tell us about your seminar, Calvin. “Set up your Business for Success.” What can participants of your seminar expect to gain from it? Is this something that's now you do this at libraries? Do you do this online as well? 

Kelvin:

No, just at the libraries, but I created an online course. Oh, that's right. Of course, these calls get uncomfortable or change course. And we also have a workbook. So the online course coincides with the workbook. And basically, it takes people through the basic steps. I mean, it's not like your basic business course where people say, “Oh, this is what you need when you do a business plan. Make sure you have your mission statement.” No, it's not really that. It's it's about what to expect when you go to a banker, what you should come to the table with, what questions the banker may ask you, what the banker is looking for, the importance of having a good credit report and how they read your credit SCORE and your credit report. It talks about collateral and what you should and shouldn't do for collateral. So it just kind of goes through someone to pitfalls of being an entrepreneur. That's what the online course does.

And then not only that, it gives people an opportunity to through the workbook is to use it as a journal. So the the course that I teach when I go to the libraries, “Set yourself up for Success,” that's more or less talking to the younger generation, the youth. And the library that I talk to is not in one of the most affluential areas. So it's really trying to build confidence in the youth and let them know that, Hey, look, you know, I'm up here standing here telling you how I've done it.

And I usually am very honest and straightforward when I speak to these kids is because I want them to realize that life is not easy. I want them to realize that nothing is going to be handed to them. And I want them to realize that they have to fight for everything they get just because life

is not that easy and life is not easy at all. 

So I really try to reach them and resonate to them because you know, part of me wish someone at that when I was that age, part of me, which I had someone to talk to me and teach me and show me the way out instead of going to route that I did go.

Scott:

And again, I'm sorry, I keep taking I hope I'm not beating a dead horse with this, but it just reminds me so much of the conditioning that not only adults, but kids are subjected to all the time and feeling like they're entitled to something. And it's not often because they're a bad kid or that they're spoiled. It's because they're conditioned by all the things

that they're exposed to. And they need people like you to step in and say, “Hey, you know, this is all great and fun and all the all the flashy lights.” And it's almost like you're in a casino at the slots, you know, it makes you feel like you're you're you can take on the world. But you know, there's a there's a reality there that that there's there's hard work that all of that stuff covers up.

Tell me about your greatest success, what you see as your greatest success in business as a person anything. 

Kelvin:

So I think my greatest success, but I really just don't see it as a success. But I think my greatest success is being in business 17 years. And I say I don't see it as success, because I have miles to go before I sleep. And that's part of Robert Frost poem, is that I have “miles to go before I sleep.” So when people sit back and say I'm successful and congratulations on your success. I generally stop them and say I'm not I appreciate it, but I'm not successful yet.

And I think it's my greatest reward, because growing up, you know, there are times when, you know, you had low self-esteem, there were times when financially there were some problems going on towards the latter part of my years, like 16 17 18 growing up, some financial difficulties. And I just really didn't see a way out. 

And I did go to college, but the first year in college, you know, I basically flunked out because I partied and my brain wasn't right. My mind wasn't right, because of all some of the financial difficulties that had happened in high school and, and you know, as a young teenager. So I want to say my greatest success is 17 years, because if you would have asked me at a 17 or 18, I would have told you I don't think I would be here today. I don't think I would be alive today. Not that I would have, you know, done something drastic, like take my life. No, not at all. But I just didn't see myself being where I am today, because it was just a rough way growing up. Again, the last couple of years. And I just didn't see, I had no goals. I had no dreams. So again, long, long answer to your question, but it is being in business 17 years, I think is my greatest accomplishment. But again, I have miles to go before I sleep. And I'd love to have this conversation in 17 more years.

Scott:

Absolutely. And it, to me, ambition is such, it's a weird word because it can have negative connotations, but having ambition for yourself, like you said, having goals and, and seeing your successes as another opportunity and seeing your successes as not a finish line, that you still have all your, your…you've still got a business, you've still got the rest of your life to retirement or whatever goal you have set. And there's so many years of that. And there's no resting on your laurels. There's no…there's no giving up after success. 

Kelvin:

Not at all. 

Scott:

Kelvin, just an incredible interview today, incredible information. I thank you so much for being part of BizVox. And I hope you come back and do another interview with us. 

Kelvin:

Absolutely. Thank you very much. I enjoyed it. Thank you. 

Scott:

My thanks to Kelvin Abrams for lending his insight and his knowledge to this episode. If you've been wondering what Kelvin's business is, he runs a doggy daycare in Glenelg, Maryland called Tiki's Playhouse, which includes an onsite coffee shop. So you can drop your pet off at the daycare and enjoy a cappuccino. 

Again, the book is called Get Uncomfortable or Change Course. You can find the book and information about his online course at kelvinabrams.com.

And if you're interested in learning more about SCORE, the organization that gives you expert mentoring to help you start and grow your small business, you can find your local SCORE office at SCORE.org. 

Thanks for listening everybody. Let's get to work. 

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