my name is Gary Shotton and today I’m going to talk about wearing many hats you know that’s just kind of a slogan or a saying because at times as a business owner and as an entrepreneur I have to deal with a wide range of subjects and issues and have a wide range of knowledge now that didn’t happen overnight and i’m not making this sound like it’s over night i’m just saying through the process of time we have to and you will have to wear many hats you know you could have a baseball hat you could add a fireman’s hat you can have a a hard hat you could have all kinds of hats well in business the first half that i had to wear was to be a salesperson a salesman and I’d learn how to make a sale because that my first business ownership was a moving and storage company the problem was I had only a car pulling a horse trailer and I has used my home phone for people to call me and I had no sign no no no advertisement at all how am I going to have someone call that number so i had to both market and sell i had to wear that hat and I had an idea and I said well I noticed in the newspaper that there are services and one of them I could put my head in there says let me help you move I have a trailer and I I did that the right next to that was the houses for sale section wow they’re giving me a signal everybody that moves everybody that sells a house most likely there’s somebody moving out of that house and moving back into that house wow that’s a tip I now have the ability to market target market my people with my phone now I didn’t have a cell phone back then I just had to set at my desk and I used my home phone I just started taking these newspapers when they had these pages and I didn’t even buy the newspaper because I could always find a day old paper old news doesn’t cost anything and I would take it and I made myself some some cards like recipe cards so I didn’t call some people twice and I had a little system i filed them according to their phone number and I took notes in pencil so that I can erase and change on these cards and I just started calling people I said ma’am I noticed all right somebody to answer and say sir I noticed your house was on sale in the newspaper for sale oh yes I said well if that’s the case most likely you would be maybe considering a moving f when the house sells oh yeah I might be doing that so i would go ahead and give them a little pitch on think of us as the moving company that could move them in some way or another and probably half the time they were actually sort of pleased that i called i was a telemarketer and and so I would keep track of that and before i hung up i’d say would you mind if I called you back in about a month and they said no no no don’t bother me though well how about two months okay well that’d be all right so i put my note I had a little filing system and in two months i’d call it back that’s how I learned to market and sell then I had to explain our services I mean I’m talking nobody explained this to me I had to wear the heart hat of marketing the half of sales then guess who did the moving I did when I made a sale I got in my car with my buddy because we needed two of us and we went out and moved these people so I learned how to load the furniture I learned how to handle the furniture I learned what to be careful about I learned a ton of stuff so I’m now in charge of operations I’m not only in charge of operations i’m also the mover so one step at a time one step at a time i got the opportunity to deal with the hands-on with my customers well they paid me now i have to learn about accounting how does accounting work now I’m great with numbers because i’m a graduate engineer but those are different numbers designing a steal team that will hold up the weight on a design of a building is different than putting numbers into your accounting system and understanding how do you make a profit or are you making a profit I had to understand and I went to my account and I said I don’t understand how these numbers really work will you train me so they trained me then I had to figure out how to start using a computer this is way before our fast computers now these were old cumbersome slow very slow basic computer but I’m on top of it I’m creating now a training system so this idea of wearing many hats I’ve done it I have to train people because now I am hiring people and I trained my salesman this is in the moving business I had five sales people I had a sales manager I I managed myself the sales department then I hired a manager I had to 10 people how to get there special driver’s license that allowed them to drive this big simo semis these big trucks legally on the roads I had to learn how to drive that I had to get my own drivers license and later on I had to be agent for a major Vann line so I had a certified to be able to drive across the country one step by step by step I’m still wearing all of these same hats in one degree or another because I’m dealing right now with my insurance I have to know enough about my insurance to be sure that i’m getting the insurance policies that are covering all the aspects i need at a fair price I’m dealing with my accountant because we’re ready to pay taxes are at a time period where our taxes are just next week I’m going to be dealing with that I wear that I sometimes tell these people as well you know haven’t had this hat on for about a year but i think i can make it fit again and i get familiar with it again I’ll never do somebody else’s taxes I don’t hardly even want to do my own but it’s got to be done so I put that hat on you know one thing after another now I’m putting on a half of other things how to how how to do these videos see nobody showed me how to do these videos I’m wearing the hat on how to be the videographer that’s me I’m also doing the editing that’s me I’m also putting it on in YouTube that’s me I’m also because I’m getting ready to have someone else do that as this grows and expands you understand it’s continually learning it’s continually wearing more than one-half if this is not pleasing to you you may want to consider not trying to go the route of an entrepreneur because you will probably have to wear a lot of hats and I’m not saying other people don’t but you have to be quite diverse in your ability and that doesn’t mean you do all these things I don’t do the bookkeeping somebody else does the books keeping but I’m the one that makes the decisions and I help solve the problems if something not right so you’re going to have to be diverse where more than one hat you’re not stuck in one little cubicle that’s why I like this I like wearing one more than one am and if you’re a true entrepreneur you’re going to like that it’s going to be times that you’re not it’s going to be a tough but at the end of the day at the end of the month at the end of the year you’re going to be happy that you followed God’s plan for your life and you provided jobs for others and you’re going to be a success I hope these help share these if you would we are happy to be a part of your life thank you