In this episode of Hello Chaos, John Barnes, founder of Pendleton Street Business Advisors, shares his journey from banking to building his own business. He opens up about the courage needed to change careers, the power of embracing the unknown, and the valuable lessons learned through both wins and setbacks. John emphasizes the importance of planning, reaching out for support, and recognizing how business decisions impact lives. He also sheds light on the realities of entrepreneurship, from the value of small beginnings to debunking myths about success, and underscores the role of community in the entrepreneurial journey.
Key Takeaways
Courage is Key
The Importance of Structure
Understanding the Impact of Decisions
Timestamps
00:00 The Entrepreneurial Journey Begins
06:13 Navigating Challenges and Transitions
12:18 The Reality of Entrepreneurship
18:10 Lessons from Loss and Leadership
24:11 Finding Rewards in the Journey
25:39 The Purpose Behind Challenges
27:12 Courage in the Face of Fear
31:09 Aha Moments in Business
37:09 The Weight of Responsibility
41:20 The Mission of Impact
46:53 Vision for Growth and Change
53:58 Introduction to Chaos and Order
Connect with John:
Website: https://www.pendletonstreetadvisors.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/%F0%9F%93%88john-barnes-aa22747/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pendletonstbusinessadvisors/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjFuoR-nFhM8MHSf4Er8IrA
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (00:14)
Well, hello and welcome to Hello Chaos, the weekly podcast exploring the messy and chaotic lives and minds of entrepreneurs, founders, and innovators. Today we have John Barnes, president and CEO of Pendleton Street Business Advisors with us today. John, thank you for coming on to our podcast and this episode, chatting with me about your founder and entrepreneurial journey.
John Barnes (00:37)
Yeah, well thanks for inviting me. Glad to be here.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (00:41)
Well, I'm excited to hear all of it I followed your information and love what you guys do. So just start us out. How in the world did you get into entrepreneurship and with Pendleton Street Advisors?
John Barnes (00:55)
Yeah, you know, it kind of like a lot of things. was sort of a roundabout way. It was certainly not a straight line.
I was in banking, I graduated university and went into banking for about nine years and I did like it. I learned how to work. I had great managers. I was probably grossly overpaid relative to my experience and contribution. But I knew that one day, I just didn't want to do that for 30 years. That was almost scary to me was to just continue doing that. But I also was not sure of what I really wanted to do.
I knew if I wanted to make a career change, I needed to probably get some more skills, be willing to make a lot less money. In other words, didn't want to, a lot of people can't make changes because they can't afford to. So all that took a lot of preparation. All that led to in 2007, I left the bank and went to work for the predecessor firm to ours that does the same amount of work where we are basically financial advisors to business owners.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:43)
Great, great.
John Barnes (01:59)
where the business is their largest investment and we help them understand it, grow it, get more out of it, just like you would other types of investments with other types of advisors.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (02:09)
Right?
That's fascinating. So was it a hard transition to go from kind of banking and working in that very structured environment to then kind of running your own company?
John Barnes (02:25)
Yeah. So some things were hard and some things were really easy. I mean, one thing that was hard was taking a 60 % pay cut. That's hard. I was married, still married, thankfully. And yeah, had two little children then. And then another one came along during that process. And so, you know, just...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (02:35)
yeah.
Like did she allow that?
John Barnes (02:50)
It was hard to see where you were at a point in your career where your peers were really starting to advance because they weren't newbies anymore. They were about 10 years in. And it felt like we took, you know, 87 steps backwards in terms of income and stress and things like that. As people were beginning to get more comfortable, we became very uncomfortable.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (02:58)
Right.
Yeah, well they always say get comfortable with being uncomfortable, So is there anything that you look back to go, whoa, should I have not done that? Have you ever had those moments?
John Barnes (03:14)
Yeah.
Not really. mean, and that's not to say that everything was perfect. just dwelling on regret is a complete waste of time. We all make mistakes. We all wish there were do-overs. But you posing that question to me, I mean, nothing really leaps out to say like, man, like I really would have, would have changed that because really all those things are what conspire in everybody's entrepreneurial journey. You know, if you take one part out and sub in a better outcome,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (03:29)
right.
It is.
That's right.
John Barnes (03:57)
I can't imagine getting to the present from that. It literally would change everything.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (04:00)
That's right. And it's just when we had a conversation, talked to another business owner yesterday, and we were talking about the same thing of, do I, I look back and go, man, I could have done that better, or man, I flubbed that, but don't look at those as failures or mistakes. They're just lessons. But it really has, at least for me and my founder journey and kind of running a business,
you take a deep dive on self-reflection and self-discovery of like, know myself more and also be able to know people better and have a better relationship and connection with people. But I don't think I would have been able to do that level of work, I guess humanity work or brain sweat work, I guess, of people if I...
didn't experience what I've experienced.
John Barnes (05:03)
Yeah, I mean, I feel very similarly about.
you know, the, the meander and the twists and turns are all part of it. I think we're led to believe that success is very linear and very, you know, one, two, three, four, you know, there's no do-overs or loop to loops or anything like that. And, and it's a lie. It really is a lie.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (05:15)
Yeah.
Right, that doesn't exist. That's right. You know, we always talk about like the big myths of running a business or entrepreneurship and I think that's a big one of, yeah, you think it's just gonna be, and it's not. It is all over the place.
John Barnes (05:45)
Well, and people will tell you their stories. I mean, we're kind of doing it here. People will tell you their stories in 10 minutes. And that 10 minute story is a 15 year journey. But when you get it in a 10 minute bite, you can certainly believe that, it just seemed like it was just like one, two, three, four. And I think people, because they aren't going to give you sort of their whole life story and take you all the way through it, that that's kind of tough. But yeah, I mean, nothing really sticks out that
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (05:55)
Right, yeah.
Right.
John Barnes (06:13)
I would really have wanted to change. mean, I guess if I could have started out making more money, okay, maybe I would have changed that. But honestly, going to work for someone else in an entrepreneurial setting, because that's what I started out, I worked for someone in a predecessor firm and being willing to take that pay cut and also drag my family along with that.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (06:28)
Yeah.
John Barnes (06:37)
there was a lot of good things that came out of it, even though it was very uncomfortable and sort of counterintuitive. But for taking that step, we would not have encountered those things.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (06:44)
Right?
That's right. So what do you think you have discovered most about yourself in that journey?
John Barnes (06:58)
that you most
that I think that people are pretty durable.
You know, you.
You're made, or I believe that people are made to do about 20x more than they're doing at the current moment.
But most people are afraid. There's an epidemic of fear in our culture. It's a disease, it's a sickness, it's contagious. That people are afraid, and I think a lot of what they're afraid of when we're talking about entrepreneurial journeys is they're just afraid of discomfort. In other words, hey, I like to go to Starbucks every day, and so I may not be able to do that because I have to save money to do X, Y, and Z, and I don't want to give that up. I deserve.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (07:28)
That's a power statement.
Yeah.
John Barnes (07:57)
you know, this lifestyle or things like that. And I think that's keeping so many people from doing a lot of things that they were probably made to do, but they're being held back by this, by lies and fear that are actually, like the lies are very believable. That's what makes it so insidious.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (08:15)
Yeah. Yeah.
What do you think is the biggest lie? Like that people either tell themselves or what they have heard that has stopped them.
John Barnes (08:30)
I think the lie is that unless you're making, you know, $10 million a year, you're unsuccessful. Or unless you sell your company after two years for $500 million, like you counter-blued it. Or unless you don't have a private jet in the background of your LinkedIn photo to support your post, that you're not, you know, crushing it or whatever that means.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (08:36)
Ugh, yeah.
Right? Yeah.
Yeah.
Right, right.
John Barnes (08:58)
A lot of it's just kind of materialism and stuff like that. And don't get me wrong, I like my stuff. I'm not like a monk or a hermit, but.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (09:02)
no, no, yeah.
But you're right, that is a, I didn't even think about those kind of lies. I'm like, Chandler produces kind of laughing at me because I was on a podcast with, talking about marketing and branding and stuff, but it was, you know, it was with a bunch of other founders that had, that were, I was like, I don't live that life. was, you know, I call it baller energy, right? He had somebody who,
He was like, on their picture, was like coming out of, know, and sitting in a jet with their eye candy and their arm candy. they were in a yacht with their arm candy, and they were coming out of a limo. And I'm like, okay, what can I do? I have my little EV electric car? I was like, no, I'm washing toilets.
John Barnes (09:50)
Yeah. Yeah. Hey guys, courtside again at the Lakers game. know, like, gosh, this is getting so boring. All these courtside seats.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (09:59)
Right. And I was like, my founder journey, like my been like, I'm over here cleaning toilets. So we thought about making like a parody video of like, no, this is the reality of, you know, as you're scaling your business, is not the norm to be the jet, the yacht, the, and don't be afraid of that. Like it's, there's a lot of positive things. Right, right?
John Barnes (10:21)
Right. That doesn't mean it doesn't mean you're a loser. And I think like again, kind of with, you know, is it social media? it this? But I think it's that we are aware. We are more aware. We have way more information at our fingertips than even a decade ago, much less before the internet really kicked in and mobile and all that stuff. But
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (10:34)
yeah.
John Barnes (10:42)
We're just aware of what more people are doing and so FOMO and things like that. We're like, well, gosh, I'm not doing that. Should I be doing that? I mean, they're doing that, but it looks fun. I mean, I'm not doing any of it. Just kind of get in these loops and it's just like, it's just garbage.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (10:45)
Mm, yeah.
Right.
Right, or you know, one of the reasons we started OrangeWIP was because all you heard and you really see out there in news and really out in the media space, true or not, it's like you only see the highlight of like that 1 % of those big success stories. And you didn't see really the broad spectrum of what made up as founders and entrepreneurs and I would say business owners out there of,
They're not, the norm is not the exit in three years or the you're gonna make, you're gonna go from startup to 10 million in 60 seconds. It's just, sometimes entrepreneurship and startup journey, your startup journey might be five years, 10 years while you're figuring out product market fit, while you're figuring out your go to market strategy, you're figuring out how do you scale your business and the operations.
And you might not get there in a year. And I think it's like you said, it's those kind of lies also that people get to go, the norm is I'm not failing because there's other people that are in it doing it just like me, that are in the grind, that are in that, I'm gonna say the hustle, but it's more of like that persistence of just, yeah, yeah.
John Barnes (12:18)
Well, I think you're even just in the ordinary, you know, it's just regular stuff. You know, you're, you're, you're taking care of customers or clients. You're paying your bills. You're meeting payroll. You're having a Christmas party for your team. You're congratulat- like that's just the regular stuff. That does not make a highlight reel, but I think you and I understand like that's actually more running the business than, you know, the, the highlight reel and certainly the highs and the lows come and go, but there's a lot of
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (12:35)
Right.
Right?
John Barnes (12:47)
space in between the high and the low, which is where most things happen. But we only focus on the extremes because we just give it more airtime.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (12:50)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, no, that's a point. So as you know, when you entered this, you worked for somebody, an entrepreneur, and then you ended up taking over. What was the most challenging part about that?
John Barnes (13:10)
Well, we ended up taking over my co-founder now because the owner of that business died.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (13:17)
well that's an shit moment right there.
John Barnes (13:19)
And it certainly was, and it was accidental. He was in a rock climbing accident and here one day, gone the next. And there was also no plan, no by cell, no nothing. And so we literally were having to pick up the pieces of broken glass from all that, plus our own grief. I mean, we were all very close as you can imagine this.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (13:25)
my goodness.
Wow.
No succession, no not like,
Yeah.
John Barnes (13:47)
small team environment, you know each other really well. I was the third employee of that firm and at that time I think we had eight or nine people. And so a lot of growth had happened during the time that I had been there and then he was gone. So the sole owner. So we had to pick up those pieces both on the client side as well as on the legal side. There was all kinds of
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (13:55)
Wow.
Wow.
John Barnes (14:14)
unnecessary trouble and ugliness because of a lack of planning.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (14:18)
Yeah.
And when you talk about like, was there challenges in terms of, I mean, not just dealing with the, mean, obviously grief and then how do you react? is it, it, how did you guys choose on like, okay, who's doing what? Like now who picks up this ball? Who, like what are the roles? Like the succession plan of, okay, you're gonna take over this. Was there infighting between the team of, with Ego's and like any of that or was it, did you guys all gel together?
John Barnes (14:41)
Yeah.
Well, there certainly was initially, I think, a bonding of like, hey, we got to pull together and everybody's got to do their job to keep this thing going. And there was lots of almost reflexive agreement on that. So that was good.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (14:58)
Yeah.
That was good, yeah.
John Barnes (15:06)
I think over time what happened is because of the level of uncertainty of, well, who really is going to own this? Of course, because he died without a plan and he was married, his wife sort of inherited, if you will, those assets. She was put into a position she never asked to be in, and it was sort of unfair to her. She was trying to also pick up lots of other pieces. They had children. They had all kinds of things going on, as most people do.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (15:22)
Right?
John Barnes (15:36)
And a whole lot of things happened that just led to a lot of really poor decisions being made by someone who really should not have been making those decisions. But because of all the legalities and all those things, it was hard to point those things out. So I ended up quitting. I resigned from the business after about 18 months of no man's land.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (15:45)
Right.
Right.
John Barnes (16:03)
And that led to a whole host of legal problems and lawsuits and things like that, that we, the employees became defendants in a lawsuit. We, we settled it and the settlement was my co-founder and I bought the assets out of the old company and started Pendleton Street.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (16:26)
That is an incredible story. mean that like...
John Barnes (16:29)
Yeah. And it's like we said earlier, like I told you that in maybe, I don't know, two minutes, and that was an 18 month period of my life that sucked.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (16:39)
Right, I'm sitting there going, I can totally feel the mud pit you were probably in. yeah.
John Barnes (16:48)
Yeah, it was also very expensive. I mean, financially, it was extremely expensive relative to how easily it could have been prevented. But again, I think that's part of life. I mean, you pay a lot of tuition, if you will. In other words, literally, yes, I mean, you pay money and we call it tuition to learn lessons that you will never, ever, ever repeat.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (17:00)
Yeah.
That's right. We've had a lot of financial lessons.
Right.
John Barnes (17:16)
because of literally how expensive it was. And sometimes as adults, I mean, that's adult learning model. You you learn when you have to, you know. And so when we started Pendleton Street,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (17:22)
Right?
I was like, so what was the first thing you did? Did you guys say, okay, we're not going, like, we're gonna make some clear plans.
John Barnes (17:36)
So we signed an operating agreement that laid out how we were gonna be structured and organized, and then we immediately signed buy-sell agreements and all that stuff, funded the life insurance so that if that low likelihood but highly catastrophic thing happened, at least our families and the team would be taken care of and there would not be nearly the level of uncertainty and.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (17:54)
Yeah.
John Barnes (18:02)
anxiety and just lack of direction if something happened to either of us.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (18:04)
Yeah.
And just as also a lesson learned of, mean, you guys had to go through that through a massive tragedy and like the lowest of low. But I don't know, I had somebody give me that advice as I was looking for, I had a team partner and how do you structure that? How do we start sharing in the business? Let's make this more.
more legal, but it was interesting even to go through those questions of, how do we form our partnership? How do we form this? We need to think through what are our roles? How we gonna pay, how do we exit? And it was interesting of going through that with somebody that we were clearly not on the same page and that forced that, like, we're.
We have different visions for how to run a company and how to make it a scalable company. And that led to someone on our team that was just like, you know what? I just like the gig. I don't want to be an owner. I don't want to be a manager. But it forced kind of that self-discovery of forced me to kind of go, OK, you're not the type of person that I wanted to get into business with.
John Barnes (19:33)
Yeah. And that's the right. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (19:37)
And then it also forced that person to go, I kind of now know what I, I just want to just give me a, I don't want to build a team. really, my LLC is really just more of a sole proprietor, you know, let's, that's right.
John Barnes (19:52)
Yeah. Well, and that's the right time to find that out. mean, I think a lot of business owners or entrepreneurs, they react to things more than they decide things. And sometimes we have to react. mean, something just comes across your desk or a big change that you didn't really know about, you couldn't anticipate. And so you have to react. But that's how so many things I think are left in business world is, well, let's just cross, know, cross that bridge when we get there.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (20:02)
Great.
Right?
Right? No, do not. I mean, like I had to force those conversations in because it was, okay, we're never gonna scale. Here we're three years in. We kinda have this more of a unwritten, basically a verbal or even just like a, not even a handshake deal. It was like, no, I don't feel secure. And we just went through within our first couple years of it.
John Barnes (20:21)
It's like, no. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (20:49)
We had a no pay client and we had to go and pursue that and because we didn't have our processes and systems buttoned up, was a very, it was tuition that we learned of. We gotta get our contracts in place. I need to have more structure on this business, but it forced those conversations not near like what, through what you guys did, but it was more of a, it was from a legal,
battle that we went through with a client. But it made me look at everything, legal-wise, to protect.
John Barnes (21:27)
Yeah, No one, yeah, you're never gonna hear a great presentation on that. I mean, it's always gonna be the cautionary tale. It is the most unglamorous side of business that there is. A lot of it's morbid, it's just stuff that you don't, it can maybe bring up conflict, if you will. And so a lot of times it's just avoided. what I've seen, what I've lived through and what I've seen in my professional work is,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (21:37)
Right?
That's right.
Right.
John Barnes (21:56)
That's actually where the good stuff is and that is where you create that infrastructure in your business that you can't scale without it. You can be fooled or believe a lie that you can pick up that stuff along the way or cross that bridge when you get there. That's a lie.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (21:59)
That's right.
No.
Right?
It doesn't, it is a lie. It is a complete lie. And the things that we learn, especially like I learned about, just because people say things, until you force those conversations to go, we gotta put this on paper, you really learn of, no, that's not, know, their actions speak differently. But it will protect you.
John Barnes (22:31)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (22:42)
and your business and actually help, like you said, it scales you. And yes, it's a place of discomfort, but that's what my kind of mantra is. I gotta get comfortable with being uncomfortable because I enter uncomfortability a lot in this. As you're innovating, you're growing, you're scaling, you're entering a different stage, you're gonna be having
uncomfortable conversations and environments all the time and just be ready for it. Well, one, I hate that that happened to your partner, your predecessor. That's terrible, but I'm glad. It all seemed to work out positively. Yeah.
John Barnes (23:31)
It did, thankfully. I mean, there were so many things that helped us that we couldn't have imagined, but for needing to help and things like that, it certainly was not, you know, just kind of a, you know, keep a stiff upper lip and push through. I mean, that certainly is required, but that's not all that you need to go through things like that. And it really made me have a much deeper sense of gratitude for those kinds of things in people.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (23:46)
Yeah.
That's right.
Yeah.
John Barnes (24:01)
people were really amazing to us and our team, not just our clients, our clients were, but outside help, things like that. I also learned how to ask for help. That's a skill. It's very difficult for people to do, at least for me, it was difficult. But again, so many great things kind of came out of that, that again, I wouldn't have drawn it up that way. I wouldn't have asked for it, if you will, but that's...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (24:11)
that is a skill, it's hard.
John Barnes (24:30)
That's how it went down.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (24:32)
So you've had this like, that's big challenge. Like you were, you talked about the highs and the lows. Obviously that journey was a low. What's been the most rewarding? What's been the high point?
John Barnes (24:44)
I mean, honestly, I'm grateful that there are many of those that come to mind. I mean, there's been high points with client successes in terms of our process of helping business owners get more out of and from their largest investment. There have been families that have been changed because of our work for that. But also, I think about team members who...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (24:50)
Uh-huh.
John Barnes (25:08)
grew and changed and had to overcome sometimes some big stuff outside of the office, sometimes some challenges inside the office with gaining skills, gaining confidence and things like that. It's been really rewarding to just see people get better, to see people get rewarded financially for that. Also to be able to look back on things that I went through and
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (25:13)
Yeah.
John Barnes (25:39)
Not only just to kind of pat myself on the back, but to also wonder, what's this getting me ready for?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (25:46)
Yeah, because it's paving a path, right? Yeah.
John Barnes (25:50)
because that was really hard. So what is coming around the corner? Again, not from a, like I'm not worried about it, but I do.
This could be a hot take for you. Like I don't believe in luck. I don't believe in chance or real randomness that lead to these amazing things. I think that there's purpose in everything, even if I don't understand what it is or don't like it or things like that. But it does make me think about what's coming next. Yeah, yeah. I hate it when people
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (26:22)
We're same page. Yeah. I don't believe in coincidences at all. think I'm the same way. have like everything is done on per it's it's what's a designed life, right?
John Barnes (26:32)
I hate it when people attribute great things to, I'm just lucky. I cringe at that because it's like, no.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (26:40)
Yeah, no.
I'm saying, yeah, no. Everything happens for a reason and you're right. Because I've hit some really low, low, low points and I'm like, okay, I'm starting to see why I had to go through something. And now I'm starting to see some of that to go, okay, I wouldn't have been prepared for that. So that's, I'm with you.
John Barnes (26:59)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (27:12)
Not a hot take, I think that's a wonderful take. All right, so I'm gonna ask you my big question. If you had to sum up your journey in one word, what would that word be?
John Barnes (27:30)
So one word, I think it would be courage.
because I've had to do a lot of things scared.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (27:41)
Yeah.
John Barnes (27:42)
And I don't enjoy being afraid. I don't like letting people know that I'm afraid. Being vulnerable is just not, I don't love that. I don't love when other people are. Not because I don't enjoy the display of emotion, but I want them to be encouraged. I want courage to be in them. But yeah, a lot of this stuff, mean, when Bill died, scared.
When I got served with a lawsuit, scared. When certain clients came and went, scared. When tough conversations with teammates, scared. Tough conversations at home because of lack of balance, scared. When my partner exited the business at the end of last year, scared. Still scared on some of that, you know, honestly.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (28:17)
Yeah.
Wow.
John Barnes (28:37)
but you have to do it anyway. Like that's courage. Courage is not where, nothing bothers me, nothing, you know, that is not courage. That is delusion. Courage is just doing it scared.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (28:39)
That's right.
Great.
my gosh. We've asked 1,000 or so founder, and I get a different answer every time. That's why I like to ask it. But we haven't heard this word, and just the way that you expressed it is, my god, that's an aha. Because we talk about we need to be more fearless as leaders and as business owners. But you're right.
John Barnes (29:00)
Yeah, that's a question.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (29:22)
There's a lot of things that we do scared, but we still have to just continue to do it. No, no, uh-uh.
John Barnes (29:25)
Yeah, yeah. I don't think it means you act foolishly or you don't do your diligence or that you don't try to alleviate some of that fear, but to expect it to all go away is unreasonable.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (29:39)
Yeah. And that's not, and like you said, that's a myth, that's a lie. It's not gonna happen. mean, like, it might get, you might be in that middle zone, but you're gonna either, for a lot of us, it's like, you will have those extreme highs, and then you also have the extreme lows. And even, I don't know, I'm a introvert by nature, so I, even just doing this podcast.
John Barnes (29:44)
That is a lie.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (30:09)
was one of my ways of like, gotta overcome just getting out there. Or when I go and sign up for a networking event, those are little mini moments of courageousness that I've gotta go, because it's not comfortable for me. But yeah, or having very uncomfortable conversations with clients or teammates, is, we do live in that space a lot, and yeah.
What a great, what a great word. I love it, John. We've talked about the lies and the, so as you've talked, now you've entered, you're owning this business. What's been your biggest like the aha moment of that was, you know, some kind of significant thing that you've learned that really made an impact in how you do business or,
how you run your business. Has there any been kind of like a aha reflection?
John Barnes (31:18)
You know, it's interesting. So all of our clients are business owners. And so you get a backstage pass into dozens, maybe at this point, hundreds of businesses. Some that are doing great, some that are, a lot of them that are in the middle and some that really, really need some help and they're in a tight spot.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (31:23)
Right.
John Barnes (31:44)
I think what I've learned is that.
So this is a lot, that there are 10,000 right ways to do things. Nope.
There's maybe 10, but there's not 10,000. There are certain things, especially when we're talking about principles, that are kind of evergreen that when you begin to violate them, your business will fail. And I think that one of the ah-has was not necessary that, any old way will do. You have to do it the way that you're comfortable with. Sometimes that coincides with the right thing.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (31:57)
Right? Right.
John Barnes (32:23)
Most of the time it does not because you can't possibly know it all.
comfort.
Again, I sleep on a bed, I use hot water. It's not that you have to always be uncomfortable, but for that to be a constant, for comfort to be a constant in your business life is unreasonable and unrealistic. And so I think that aha was that, there's not really a bunch of ways to do things well. There's maybe 10. And
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (32:39)
Right.
That's right.
John Barnes (32:59)
you can tell yourself or get all the, know, attaboys or all the, you know, kind of keyboard courage from people that you're doing the right thing, but it's not.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (33:08)
rate.
Right? I mean, there's just some fundamentals of starting and running a successful business. There's some foundational elements that if you don't do these things, know, systems and processes or understanding business math and the language of accounting and I call it the language of business.
John Barnes (33:19)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (33:40)
You're never going to scale and grow.
John Barnes (33:43)
Right. you know, kind funny you say it that way. We tell our clients like, listen, you don't need to be an A student and all that, but you need to have a 3.0. You might need to hire people to be on your team that are, that are 4.0 students in HR, in finance, in operations. You know, that's what you hire for the A student, but you as the owner, you've got to be a B student in all those things. And there are some things that to get that B, you got to work really hard.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (33:57)
Right.
That's right.
John Barnes (34:12)
Some things, the B's gonna come natural and in fact be an A plus. Usually that's around marketing, that's around product development, that's where a lot of entrepreneurs, that's their happy place. So they wanna be good at it. But even us as business advisors, we'd say, look, there are things that we can do and we can help you with it. And you can kind of outsource if you will. But the buck stops with you, sir or madam, and you have gotta be a 3.0 student in this stuff.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (34:18)
Yeah.
Right.
John Barnes (34:42)
somehow, someway.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (34:42)
Right, right. I mean, we, you know, I mean, that's a, I think that's a great way of referencing that and talking about that. I don't know if we've heard that before, so that's a good, that's a good little sound bite that we'll have to push out because, you know, I mean, I have OrangeWIP, but I also run a marketing firm. We, and I've been in marketing for 30 years working with businesses of all shapes and sizes, and I think, you know, especially in the startup scale-up world,
I'm amazed at the lack of fundamental understanding from CEOs or just the business leaders of companies that have 2,000 employees, 8,000 employees, or even 25 to 200 employees, the basic fundamentals of business operations. They know whatever they were.
If they came in from sales they get sales, but they don't know how sales links to everything else or if they were a software engineer They get software engineering, but they don't really understand the fundamentals of and I'm like How like you're you've been in this for five plus years or ten years you've got and You're well funded and you're you're a significant like you are making money Like I don't but you're struggling
Like we come in and we're like, you got a lot of friction. We call it like, so we come in and we're like, where's the rub? Like where, and I'm sure this is probably what you do too, like where's the friction in your business? How do you come in and sometimes it's, you know, it's branding, sometimes it's marketing operations and processes or people or whatever. And a lot of times it's like, the last thing is it might be advertising or it might be people are choosing where to spend time, money and energy. It's in the wrong place.
John Barnes (36:21)
Yeah.
Yeah, well, I people know what they know. And so they kind of stick to their strengths, which is understandable. But, you know, I kind of talked to our clients, you know, I have sort of a love hate relationship with the word entrepreneur. I love it because I understand what that means. And it is a thing. I hate it because a lot of people that sort of consider themselves to be entrepreneurs are not very competent at the things you're talking about.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (36:40)
yeah.
Right? Right?
John Barnes (37:10)
And what I tell people when I'm speaking and sometimes the clients is like, listen, business owner, somebody is making their mortgage payment that works for you based on your decision making.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (37:23)
Great, that's good.
John Barnes (37:25)
Someone is putting their child and paying for super expensive daycare because of your decision making. This is way bigger than you. Yes, you've got to take care of yourself. There's all those kinds of things that we're helping you work on. But a mentor of mine who, not a client, but years ago, he asked me this question. He said, John, how many kids are supported by your business? I was like, what? He was like,
how many children, or he's like, how many parents of children are working in your business and how many children are represented by those families? And I was like, he's like, you better find that out. Well, now I know it's 13. His business was very large. He says, I have 237 kids whose parents work in my company.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (38:06)
That's a good one.
John Barnes (38:21)
And I go to bed at night wondering if I made good decisions that are going to help those parents take care of those children. He's like, you better learn that number and never forget it.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (38:30)
my God, that's like the best, I think that's the best piece of advice I have ever heard for every business owner, founder, entrepreneur. They need to like, because I remember when I first started, like people would say what's the most rewarding thing, you when I started the company, you know, 10 years ago. I remember saying like, I've, you know, I help support 27 different families. I feel good about that number.
John Barnes (38:58)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (39:00)
But I never, I was like, I remember internalizing that, but I never even took it to the next level of the children. And internalizing that from the decisions, yeah.
John Barnes (39:11)
And someone will comment and say, not everybody has kids. Yeah, someone will comment, well, not everyone has kids. I understand that. But the point is, is that he was saying, listen, your actions affect way more than, quote, the company. And that's where I help our clients understand, like, hey, we need to graduate from just being entrepreneurs that are just going all over the place and doing stuff and doing the fun. You need to be a business owner. You need to own that business.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (39:25)
Right.
Yeah.
John Barnes (39:41)
which means you become a 3.0 student in a lot of the major categories. It means that you understand that here's another lie, that it's not personal, it's just business. Wrong. It's always personal, know, it's unlevel.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (39:52)
wrong. That's right. Yep. It feels personal too. mean, like, if you're a, if you are, have the right mindset of being a founder running a business, it should be personal. It should feel personal when you make decisions. Yes.
John Barnes (40:09)
Absolutely. It should be intensely personal. And I think that's another lie out there to say you can distance yourself. And so even if it's not knowing the number of kids, how many mortgage payments or how many rent payments are people making that are under the org chart? Those are real things. And again, not that you are completely responsible for them.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (40:30)
Yeah.
John Barnes (40:35)
But again, your actions as an entrepreneur, like for instance, if you don't understand that revenue is not cash, you know, like that's something that can affect the kids that are supported by the parents who are working in that business thinking that you know your stuff when really you're kind of shaky.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (40:41)
Right, right.
Right, my God, that was, that's profound. That's a good statement. John, I'm curious of like, what, what do you wish, is there something about you that you wish people knew more about you? Like, or that you wish that people would recognize about you more, that maybe you're like, I'm this type of person, but no one sees that.
Is there something?
John Barnes (41:22)
I don't know. mean, you know, what I...
That is, I don't know. mean, I feel like I do put a lot of myself out there in my posting on LinkedIn and videos that I shoot and with my team and with our clients. I'm not a person of nuance. It's kind of pretty straightforward. Yeah, at least I really hope so.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (41:46)
Yeah.
You're like, what you see is what you get.
John Barnes (41:55)
I think I would want people to know that I really, in this firm, is on a mission to impact hundreds of thousands of businesses across the United States. That the work that we get to do when our clients hire us, where we help them understand the personal financial elements of their business decision and vice versa, the business decisions that, or the personal financial decisions that impact their business decisions.
I want them to know that that's a thing. want the business community to know that you don't have to be a business the size of say Chick-fil-A with the Cathy family. At a moment's notice, they can get the world's best strategic financial advice with a phone call. Goldman Sachs would load up a plane full of their best bankers to go see them. JPMorgan, they would all fight each other at Teterboro Airport, getting on their private planes to go meet them.
I want the businesses out there that are between five and $50 million to get almost the same caliber of advice and service on the most strategic financial decisions that they're trying to make. That's what I would want people to know that I am dead serious about doing that. And there's nothing wrong with the big guys and the big banks. Like they've got a market and they've got a model and that's necessary. I'm not trying to compete with them. I'm just trying to help.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (43:12)
Yeah.
Right?
John Barnes (43:23)
people that really probably need to help more and to really get it in a way that's comprehensive and approachable and actually helps them.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (43:27)
Yeah.
Well, and also if you give the same advice and counsel, just like what you did here, you need to be at least a B plus student in these things. These are the foundational and the fundamentals. You need to know. Your actions affect other people than just yourself. To really internalize and personalize their role as founder, as owner of a company.
And I love, you know, it's so funny that you have the love-hate, whatever, love-hate relationship with the word entrepreneurship, we've heard from, and why we use founder a lot is because we've heard back from people who are like, we're like, come on the podcast, let's hear your, you know, your entrepreneur, your founder journey, and they're like, I'm not an entrepreneur. And I'm like, well, yeah, you are, you founded this, you did this, and they're like, uh-uh, that, I,
John Barnes (44:20)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (44:35)
I've built something, I've made something, I've scaled something, I've owned, like, that's not what I see, because again, that's what's played out in media, this is what being an entrepreneur is, and some are like, I'm 50 years old, I'm a black woman from Oakland, California, and I've done this, and then they're like, I don't fit that description of what an entrepreneur is. You know, like I've.
John Barnes (44:36)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (45:02)
I've created something and I've founded something pretty special and I've grown. I'm really an owner, I'm a founder. And it's just, to hear even you say similar of like, there is this, that myth of, or I would say, whatever, dichotomy around that word of either people connect with it or they're like, no, no, no, no, that's not me.
John Barnes (45:27)
Yeah, yeah, it is sort of polarizing, I think, in that way that, like you're saying, I think people really resonate or they don't. There's not a lot of middle ground there. But I understand why we use the word and sort of founder, business owner, entrepreneur. I've interchanged them myself, but sometimes with some of our higher growth companies, you know, I'm sitting with that CEO who is the founder, who is the majority owner and saying like, no, no, no, like, let's just, you are a business owner.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (45:35)
Right.
John Barnes (45:56)
You've got a team of 10 and they all live somewhere and they're making rent payments or mortgage payments. This is serious. And that kind of straightens people up.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (46:06)
Yeah, yeah, that's good. So you talk about, you know, your purpose and the value and what you want for people to recognize about you and the company. If you could change two things right now about your business today, what two things would you change?
John Barnes (46:25)
I would have a bigger team in order to more people. I want to have a much bigger team. I guess it's almost goes without saying that the revenue to really support that. But that's coming along. I we keep doing what we're doing. mean, scaling a professional services firm is sort of hard. You can add more people to build capacity, but then you have to have the clients backing that up.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (46:48)
It's so hard.
That's right.
John Barnes (46:53)
So it's kind of that, so maybe we'll consider that as one. And the second one would be.
know what the second one would be. I think I would change where I wouldn't want to be.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (47:00)
You
John Barnes (47:05)
as integral, you know, and not to put myself in the center of it, but you know, it is.
I want more people to do more things. know, with a small team, everyone's job description is this big. You know, when you're in a large company, you get these nice, concise job descriptions. And I want to be able to position people to be way more within their strengths than having to stretch as much, if you will. Our team that we have right now is, they're masters of improvising and stretching, which is a skill and it's good.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (47:20)
Yeah.
We all, we wear a lot of hats, yeah.
Yeah.
John Barnes (47:45)
But I want to be able to have people that can be more specialized also.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (47:52)
All right, okay, so John, if I come visit you and I take you out for coffee or cocktails to celebrate something, what would we be celebrating a year from now? I come to you where I'm gonna take you out to celebrate, what would we be celebrating one year from now?
John Barnes (48:11)
I think we'll be celebrating that we've added to our headcount.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (48:16)
Very good. All right. And that means also new clients, right? All right. Yeah.
John Barnes (48:21)
Yeah, yeah. Well, and I think again, that's one of those decisions that yes, it ought to mean more clients, but also I think it's about reinvestment in the business. You know, it's an owner. You know, we tell our clients, like, you've got three decisions you can make with the money in your business. You can take it home. You can pay down debt or you can reinvest. So sometimes that reinvestment button means you can't do those other two. You know, you can't take it home and buy a sailboat or something or
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (48:45)
Right?
Right.
John Barnes (48:49)
you know, if you've got debt, you know, whatever, that's a thing. But the reinvestment means that you're doing that. And so that's something that in my own journey is like being more comfortable, having also having the ability to reinvest more, but we're, we're in that mode now, thankfully. And so I'm looking forward to reinvesting in, in my thing, cause that's what I, that's what I help my clients do.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (49:14)
Yeah, yeah, like I gotta walk the talk, right? What's the best piece of advice before we go? Like what's the one thing that if you, like what's your go-to advice that you feel like, and you've given a lot, so I don't even know if there's more that you can add to what you've, but for business owners and founders out there, what's like the greatest piece of advice you could leave?
John Barnes (49:47)
I think it kind of goes back to you, and this is something I learned from Bill and our predecessor firm. He taught me this.
And it comes from an old story in the Bible, and I won't even go into what the story is, but the main character in this story tells people, and he's kind of getting mad at this group of people. And he says, do not despise a small beginning. Because what was happening was the crowd was kind of grumbling about this kind of dinky thing that used to be really great, but it was being rebuilt in a much smaller way.
This wise person would just sit like, don't despise the day of small beginnings. And that's what I would tell people is like, listen, everything starts tiny. We start tiny, know, little babies. And they're cute and they're cuddly and messy and all that stuff. Businesses start the same way. They're tiny, they're insignificant. You think you're just barely a blip on the radar. Well, that's how Chick-fil-A started.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (50:39)
Yeah, right.
That's right.
John Barnes (50:57)
I mean, that's how Goldman Sachs started. That's how Google started, Facebook, know, everything had to start really, really, really, yeah, everything you've heard of started really small. And so I think again, part of those lies that we, that seem really true is that, well, if it's not big and it's not, you're not crushing it or whatever, then it's nothing, it's insignificant.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (51:00)
Right.
Apple, everything, you know, every big brand started tiny.
Mm-hmm.
Right, that's good.
John Barnes (51:25)
And that small beginning can turn into something that you, in your wildest imagination, you could not have seen it at that time because you had to start small.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (51:36)
right. my goodness that's great. I love it. I love that. Such good advice. You you've been amazing and I hate that we're out of time. It's like I love these conversations and and I wish we could talk all day. We will have to figure out another time to to continue the conversation. But before we go where do you want people to find you connect to you learn more about Pendleton Street business advisors how
John Barnes (51:53)
Sounds good. We'll do a part two.
Yeah. Yeah. So we're, like everybody, we have a website and it's actually Pendleton street advisors.com. probably the other place to find me is on LinkedIn, under my profile for John Barnes. I write there almost every day, about business, about what I see from clients, what they're doing, what we're doing. I try to tell halfway decent stories. Sometimes there's videos, sometimes there's not.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (52:05)
Tell us your stuff.
Okay.
John Barnes (52:34)
and that's probably the best way to find me. You can send me a direct message or something through LinkedIn, it's probably the best. Also, if we're connected, my email address is there where if you wanna shoot me an email. There's also, we're like everybody to contact us on our website. We're not hiding, so.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (52:50)
Very good. Well, we'll make sure that we tag you and everything as we publish this episode, which is our podcast episodes are on all podcast platforms. So please give us a like, a comment, a share, review, help us build a more connected entrepreneurial community. Thanks for everyone for hanging out with us today and listening.
Hello, chaos is one of the many resources brought to you by OrangeWIP. That is OrangeWIP WIP for work in progress, because that's what we all are. OrangeWIP is a multimedia company dedicated to serving founders and entrepreneurs in affiliate cities. We are in three cities in South Carolina today, looking to expand to other cities, because every city needs an OrangeWIP. We're a one-stop content hub just for founders and an innovative digital zine experience.
And if you'd like to be a guest on our podcast or support us, send us an email to hello at orange wip dot com. Y'all thank you for tuning in to Hello Chaos. It is where I meet so shit. I'm your host, Jennifer Sutton, JJ, and I'll see you again next week.