Winning at Work and Home with Mike Holba

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. Excited for today’s episode. We are talking to the owner of Academy Consulting and what he does is he helps entrepreneurs and business owners win at work and at home.

Hey, Mike, you ready to rock?

Mike Holba: Definitely, Tim.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by.

Mike Holba: I grew up in a home where my parents were just like, You can do anything you think you can do. Like, if you dream of this, you should just do it. If other, they kind of had this theory, like if other people can do it, so can you.

And so I just grew up with that. It’s not like I had to get straight A’s or anything like that. But there was just this assumption in the home that you could do what you dream of doing. so That’s how I started out. I went to college as a teacher. I was a basketball coach.

I thought that was my career dream. Started college basket as a college basketball coach. and loved it and was finding success. Now I look back and it’s like, I don’t even know what I was doing and somehow it was still successful and ended up teaching and coaching for a while. But at some point it really felt like God said to me, this sounds a little strange and why I didn’t hear a voice or anything, but like you should start a church where [00:01:00] people don’t like church.

I didn’t like church at the time, but I believed in God, right? So I just said, you know what, I’m going to do a place for people that have given up on church, but haven’t given up on God. And I did it. I moved to a town where I didn’t know anybody. Okay. The town of just 8, 000 people didn’t know a soul took about a year to get it off the ground, quit teaching and coaching.

over time, 2000 people became part of that church. one fourth of the whole city. it was an amazing experience. I loved it. And it was great. Cause like. I think God digs everybody. So we need to hear that more, right? You don’t need to go to church for God to love you. So anyway, that went really, really well.

And because of the success, places around the country start saying, wow, you started this church and now you’ve started all these other churches. Maybe you could help us. So I started doing some coaching sort of business coaching, but specifically for churches that went really well. And then businesses or business owners start to say, maybe you could help us.

And so I kind of slid into business coaching kind of in the back door by accident. it was super fun because I worked with a [00:02:00] variety of businesses. They’re all completely different. And I love the variety. So that’s how I got into business coaching from there.

I’ve been at it for 15 years, a thrift store that funds a food pantry. Everyone in the city eats for free. If they don’t have food, just so a variety of sort of entrepreneurial, but also things that kind of help the world be a better place. As that happened. Others came forward and say, can you help us too?

So a few years back, I left the church and I just started this, this business coaching and really leadership as well. It depends on the individual, right? Is it more specifically for an entrepreneur or a larger business that needs to treat employees better? or is it just personal? Because I really believe we just all want to win all the time, right?

you want to win at home. You want to win in your personal life. You want to win in your job. Everyone wants to win. And I think we can. so that was the beginning of it for me. And I’ve just loved the journey. It’s exciting.

Tim Melanson: That’s cool. You know, it’s interesting that you say that, you’re working with all these different diverse businesses, and we even talked about this in the pre show, I thought when I [00:03:00] started my business, the thing that I was good at was going to be the main focus of the business, but it turned out to not be all these other things and it kind of sounds like that’s why you’re able to work with all these different, you don’t need to know the ins and outs of that specific thing that they do.

That’s cool. In order to coach them on how to be better at their business. Is that what I’m hearing?

Mike Holba: Yeah. If you have a business that has a number of employees, your success is really determined on how well your employees are doing. So it becomes purely leadership.

You have to be a leader. So the leadership that supersedes any sort of business that you have, or if you’re a solopreneur, there are certain choices and things you need to do that will help all entrepreneurs, solopreneurs do their thing, and it doesn’t matter. You could be a realtor or you could be a life coach or a plumber.

It doesn’t matter. But there’s certain structural things. You’ve got to get right to be successful in any area.

Tim Melanson: Okay. Then I remember having this one guest on my podcast a long time ago, who I think it was a tech business that he had and he was not a tech person. [00:04:00] And I was like, how do you become a, you know, have a business, but it was all about what you just said.

he had a team. He’s like, no, I don’t need to know how to do that. But I’ve got a team that knows how to do all that stuff. And I just got good at finding the right people.

well, let’s talk about your world for a second. I could be a great musical event organizer. I can barely play the guitar and I can’t sing at all. But if I get the right musicians in place, have the right sound person, the right lighting person, the place is going to rock. Yeah, yeah. And that works well for people who are band leaders. Cause I mean, you know, you might be the singer, but you have a drummer, you know, you’re not the best drummer. You just need to have a guy that, you know, knows how to do that. Right.

Mike Holba: can trust, right?

Tim Melanson: can you share with us a bad note, something that didn’t work out that, you know, we can learn from?

Mike Holba: Yeah. sometimes I have too much confidence. And I really trust in someone and I’ve been burned. I, I, the listeners should be listening to this very carefully. I’ve been burned a lot over the years where I know I’m helping someone. I’m excited about them. [00:05:00] And then they kind of flake out or they don’t pay.

And now I’ve spent all these hours, you know, my time invested and then there, there’s no financial return for me. And frankly, I’ve learned that lesson again. And I would just say for anyone listening, have expectations written out. Have requirements written out.

So there’s no guessing down the road because down the road that someone can say, I thought this, you thought that it’s all got to be everything. Expectations should all be very clearly defined on paper. Are you going to get burned? And I’ve been burned a bunch to know.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. and I would imagine that, there are definitely some malicious people out there for sure, but also It’s possible that there just could be a miscommunication,

Mike Holba: Exactly. Oh, yeah, I don’t think they’re all malicious, but there’s a miscommunication, or they get extra stressed out in life and they just kind of forget about something. There’s all sorts of reasons. That’s just why it’s got to be clearly defined. You know, on paper beforehand so that not only do I know what they can expect of me, but they, you know, back and forth.

I know what I can expect from them going [00:06:00] both ways. It’s super important. So no one’s ever disappointed.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And it tends to be that I think that the vague language, well, actually, what do you think would hold people back from actually, being less vague and being more specific about their requirements?

Mike Holba: There’s work in being specific. you got to put it all on paper and you think, oh, it’s all going to be fine. It’s a piece of cake. A simple one, you understand the tech world and websites and such. I’m great at business coaching.

I’m not great at creating websites. I have no interest in it. I would find someone else to do that, right? But I had a very upset client saying, well, I thought you told me you were building my website. Like, I never said that. I’ve never done that, but that’s why it’s so important to put it on paper, but it does require some work to get it done.

And that’s where you’d say, well, you know what? It’s going to be fine. That’s a mistake.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. it does require some work. But then on the other hand, I think probably another big benefit of doing something like that is that, you make your life easier. You make their life easier because now everybody knows exactly what they need to do. And also you [00:07:00] probably, uncover some things during that process, too, of doing that work and figuring out what has to get done right.

Mike Holba: Sure. Agenda harmony is really, really important. It’s obviously important to music. It’s important everywhere that you have to harmonize with someone. You have to have the same idea. So, for instance, you have a certain way that you think an experience at the grocery store should go.

But if we’re going to go to the grocery store together. We have to understand what we’re both trying to accomplish there. And it’s the same way in a business relationship. Like what is the agenda? What are we trying to accomplish? Let’s be super, super clear about it.

So I know if I can actually provide for you, the value that you’re paying for, and you can trust in that. And then I can also trust in like this person gets it and they’re going to do the work. Because as an ex coach, I only win if my clients win. Like, I only won as a coach if the team won, right? It doesn’t matter how shifty you are, great strategy.

You lose, you lose. The scoreboard tells all. It’s the same, the beauty in business is the same. If I have a client who’s making a ton of money, together we won. If they’re not making a ton of money, together we lost. So, I love that being clearly defined.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, for [00:08:00] sure. So let’s talk a little bit about practicing and, getting good, I guess, staying good at what you do, what’s your philosophy on that?

Mike Holba: I think you should always be improving. I mean, that’s no big shock to anyone that should always be improving, but there’s so much out there for me in business coaching and leadership coaching. Basically, the 2 things, right? Business and leadership. There’s so much great material out there. You never run out of.

material to consume, whether it’s a book or a conference or whatever. But if you’re not pushing yourself all the time, you’re making a mistake. And the way I explain it to clients and trying to share with them practice makes perfect. I always describe a business as like a barrel, like a whiskey barrel.

go up to make the barrel. Those pieces are called staves, S T A V E S. And the lowest one is where all the whiskey is going to leak out. It’s the same way in your business. So if you think of right now, the 8 or 10 most important aspects of your business, maybe it’s marketing, maybe it’s administration, whatever, right?

And you put those in a barrel, [00:09:00] What’s your weakest one? That’s the one to focus on. Too often, businesses get, or individuals get like, I gotta do this, I gotta do this, and then you do nothing. Instead, I always say, pick your weakest one, you know, like weakest link, weakest stave, where’s all the money leaking out?

And let’s just work on that one thing. Let’s improve your marketing. And then once we improve your marketing, you can look at your marketing and say, my website’s great, my advertising’s great, whatever. Now I’m going to work on customer relations or whatever’s next. one thing at a time is what I practice myself and I encourage other people to practice as well, that this perfection in one area of your business, you find success.

And frankly, winning breeds winning. That’s what it is. People that win a lot, just win by accident sometimes. And you look at somebody like, how are they always so successful? They’re just used to winning. They win by accident. And that’s what I try to teach people is getting the small wins and then stacking those wins.

So you just kind of get in the habit, the mindset, the action set of winning. And you just win more everywhere, including at home, not just in business.[00:10:00]

So now, okay, we’re talking about like improving on the weaknesses. What about playing to the strengths though? Yeah, well, frankly, you make your money on your strengths, right? like if you’re a tremendous communicator, for instance, you got to lead with your communication skill. So, that’s where you make your money is with your strengths, where you lose your money is with your weaknesses. so that’s why you have to balance both.

you’re always kind of improving your greatest strength because that’s what attracts people to you. But on the back end, you’re also improving your greatest weakness so that you’re not losing anywhere, whether it’s clients or financially or whatever it might be.

Tim Melanson: So, you know, if we’re trying to be as kind of like generic as possible, you’ve discovered a weakness. what do you do about that? Do you find somebody to handle that? Do you throw money at, like, what do you do?

Mike Holba: Here’s my few things when I speak to larger groups about being successful as an entrepreneur. I’ve done it for years now, and there’s a few common characteristics that they all have. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing as a business. The [00:11:00] first one is, are you willing to work hard? And people say, of course I am, of course I am.

Let me check that, okay? Like, how many hours a week? Because, you know, frankly, I’ve worked with people that said, I’d like to make 300, Okay, fine, people do. How many hours do you want to work? Well, like 20. Okay. If you’re dreaming of starting a business working 20 hours a week and making 300 grand, there are people online that will tell you that that will work because they want your money, but it doesn’t actually work.

You have to work super hard. Are you willing? Do you love your ideas so much you’re willing to work super hard? And then what is super hard for you? 20 hours a week, isn’t it? I wouldn’t work with you. If you said, I want to build my business, I want to work 20 hours a week, I’d say, I don’t think we’ll be successful together and I don’t lose.

So I’m very cautious of who I work with. So number one, working hard. Number two, being wise. And by wise, I don’t mean intelligent. I don’t mean your ACT score, your grade point or anything. I mean, very simply, can you see what’s working in your business and do more of it, recognize and do more. And at the same time, can you see what isn’t [00:12:00] working And cut it out quickly.

Don’t keep losing the same way. There’s only so many mistakes a person can make. And once you make one, if you just are wise enough to go, okay, that didn’t work. Be smart enough to end it before pushing and pushing and kicking a dead horse.

Right? So that’s wisdom. So working hard, wisdom. The third thing, super important. Are you actually all in? And by all in, I mean, what are you doing? What you would know you would do if you wouldn’t fail. So if I said to you right now, tell me, what is it in life you do for business? If you knew you wouldn’t fail, are you all in for that?

And by all in, I mean, do you believe in yourself that you can actually do it? You’re a musician, right? We talked earlier about playing out and doing contemporary music and you’re passionate about that. you know, your skillset, you can do it, right? That’s what people need to do in their business.

They need to be in. They need to know they can do it and they need to be all in on that vision. Contemporary music played at local clubs. That’s my vision. I love that idea. I’m going to make a living. It’s beautiful. [00:13:00] And then finally, the last thing is, can you find someone who’s already done it and get them to help you?

That’s the last thing. I, a couple of people came along in my life that, like when I was coaching I used to tou around the country and I was really successful, wa out of it and he wasn’t a stuff. So can you find so you want to do and will t you can put all those thi Well,

Tim Melanson: So how would you go about finding that person then?

Mike Holba: ideally it’s someone, you know, in your life, right? Like, that’s the perfect thing. You would, you’d like to start, an ice cream shop, you know, someone who started an ice cream shop or something similar, and they just volunteer to help you. That’s actually how I started out in business. Like, I was just helping people because it was fun.

And they loved it. And I was like, wait a minute. They’re making a ton of money and I’m not. Maybe I should start charging for this, right? So if you can find someone to help you for free, that’s ideal. If you can’t, then?

you have to find someone like [00:14:00] myself or others out there that you can pay to help you.

And you have to assess before you pay them. This is where people make mistakes. Assess what they’ve actually done before you pay them something. Like, if you’re going to get someone to help you with business, how many businesses have you helped so far? What were they? What was their success rate?

But you got to get someone who’s already done it. It saves you thousands of hours of work and tons of mistakes.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. I think like that, that’s kind of important to focus on because right now there is, it’s very easy to find someone, right? Like there’s lots of people out there. There’s people, coaches everywhere, especially with. Zoom now doesn’t have to be in your local area, but the downside of that is that there’s probably a lot of them that never really did anything for themselves.

so how do you go about figuring that out? Because I mean, they have a website and it looks like they have testimonials and stuff like that. Like, do you have sort of like an idea of what you can do to test somebody to make sure that they’ve done what they say they’ve done?

Mike Holba: Yeah.

you basically interview them. And I want to [00:15:00] know exactly what businesses have you helped. Okay. What were they? Were they solopreneurs or were they a large business? It’s two completely different things, right? who have you helped?

How have you helped them? can I contact them or not? And I might not even make the contact, but if they’re afraid to share contacts, that’s a problem, right? If they’re telling you it’s going to be easy, get out. It’s never going to be easy. It’s going to be super stinking hard. It’s going to be really, really hard.

So you need someone who’s honest with you, right? It’s a ton of work, but if we work hard and we work smart and we do the stuff that’s correct, we can be successful. But never, never believe that kind of the smoke in the air is like, Oh, I’ve seen people on like in three hours a week, you can start a six figure business.

you want to interview them. You want to connect with people that actually helped before to be before you invest your hard earned money and getting them to help you.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. I think that’s a really good thing. And I mean, one of the other, benefits, Cause the competition is so huge out there in coaching. they have to stand out. They have to put this stuff out [00:16:00] there. They have to, have references and they have to put out free content in order to attract people.

So you do have the opportunity to really get to know a coach before you even get on a free call with them to find out a little bit more about them.

Mike Holba: Oh, exactly. you just need to be so cautious. there’s two ways to sell something, right? There’s an emotional sale or an analytical sale, and there’s different types of purchasers, Some people are emotional buyers. Don’t buy business coaching emotionally.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Mike Holba: The commercial can be super dynamic and they look great in their webinar.

They’re standing there in front of their Lamborghini, which isn’t even theirs. You know, it isn’t. They’re standing at a restaurant and it’s in front of someone else’s Lamborghini. Don’t believe any of that crap. figure out exactly what you want and ask them step by step how you’re going to achieve that What’s our first step? How do we get started? What do I need? Like if you were to work with me and I’d say, well, you need a website. Okay, am I going to do that for you? No. But there’s others out there that can, then I’ll help you find someone good, right?[00:17:00]

But I don’t do that. So get the details down very, very clearly.

Don’t spend money until you know the details. Okay.

Tim Melanson: So, you know, I’ve, I know quite a few people that have quite good incomes. And I find it interesting that it seems as though the people with great incomes are modest about their lifestyles. And I think that that’s kind of like a bit of a hint. If someone’s, you know, flashing around, you know, a really expensive car or something like that, like, I don’t, okay, fine.

They might be rich and have that car. But There’s more likely another reason why they have that car maybe to Try to use it as a promotion for their business Maybe they don’t necessarily have the money to be able to be for that that car and now they’re trying to get it, you know so I do think that That the flashiness is usually a sign right.

Holy cow. Yeah. here’s one funny story and I don’t [00:18:00] want to name drop and I want to appear bigger than I am. I’ve met with one billionaire ever in my life. It was a business meeting that someone else asked me to come to. They were connecting us. And so I had all these expectations, right? And we flew to their city and then drove to their home.

Mike Holba: And, when you got to their home, you knew their private airstrip left off to their front door. Okay. But, but, but, other than that, I would have never known. They had like Wrangler jeans and a flannel shirt, everything, it was never all about them, or they never talked about their money.

I knew going in, but they never once mentioned it. A number of times they said, Oh, would you like to do this activity? I won’t even say what the activity was. Would you like to go do this in the two days here? Nope. I don’t want to do that. later they said, Oh, you could have met Bill. Oh, okay.

Who’s Bill? Bill Gates. They never talked about it. I didn’t know. And that’s, that’s how super successful people are. They don’t need to break it all. they’re securing themselves. He doesn’t got to impress me. I’m nobody, right? He doesn’t [00:19:00] have to impress me. The people that are trying to impress you, that’s, that’s the one you got to be wary of.

Tim Melanson: I would agree with that. So, okay, now let’s talk a little bit about getting fans to your business. And I mean, we’ve been talking about this, the audience is there. I mean, there’s people, it’s easy to get out into a crowd, but how do you get them to like you?

Mike Holba: Sure, to get people into your world. I do some work with 10x. Okay, Grant Cardone’s 10x stages, Pete Vargas. And what they teach there a lot is getting on other people’s stages. Okay. Or your own stage, which could be your own podcast, could be your webinar, whatever.

So there’s, there needs to be a shift in how you market yourself. And one of the best ways, honestly, I’ll say three things is using people’s stages. Maybe you speak at the local rotary club. The local business group, whatever it is, the local mops, mom’s group, whatever, there’s all sorts of groups of people gathering fishing club.

There’s all sorts of people gathering are always looking for people to come in and speak. So this is a way to get [00:20:00] yourself out there in a more organic way. That doesn’t cost you anything other than your time to go speak. oftentimes entrepreneurs spend so much money on marketing on the front end and never see a return.

if you?

go into a group of moms, for instance, and you love teaching something about wellness. If none of those people are interested in talking to you afterwards, you shouldn’t be paying for advertising just yet, right? Because you don’t really have something worthy of selling. So first of all, getting in front of people in organic ways is really, really good.

Using the people that you know, in the 10x world they call them champions, but connecting with people that you know, just sharing the excitement of what you do. So it’s super simple. If you’re starting a business right now, you either believe in yourself or you don’t, but if you do, you can take your phone and you can send a note to everyone on your contact list.

I want to tell you, I’m super excited what I’m doing. I just started this new yoga studio, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I tell you all about the yoga studio. And then you send that out to everyone you know. Here’s what happens. The people, like, you might know someone that owns three yoga studios, and you’re like, oh, they’re going to help me. They don’t. Never assume [00:21:00] anything. But someone you barely knew that you used to work with three years ago will be like, oh!

I’ve got this friend who has this empty place. Maybe you could rent it for your yoga studio and you get all these crazy connections. So in addition to speaking in front of groups, you really want to make connections. First of all, everyone, you know, not, not weird, not trying to sell them anything, just being excited about what you do later.

When you have a website, you can share your website. Hey, I just started a new website. I’d love for you to take a look at it. Tell me what you think. Or if you do a webinar or something, share it with them. Never trying to sell, just. Sharing your life. That’s what people are into.

If you get a one minute video from an old friend, you’re going to watch it. Simple as that. Right? So those are, those are the key things. And then finally referrals. Almost all of my work is done through referral. You help one person and you just ask them to tell their friends you help them. And they do if they’re really grateful.

So not, not tons of marketing advertising money. No.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, same with me referrals is the majority of my business, And I think that’s probably [00:22:00] something to push on a little bit because We’re talking about how easy it is to send a video or put a Facebook post up The market is kind of saturated with that kind of marketing.

you’re not really going to stand out by, your new post on Facebook, But what I’ve noticed from many of the guests on the show is that almost all of them have a portion of their business through referrals. You do a good job. And someone’s going to tell someone about it. And that’s the way it should be.

And so that kind of like is a good. I guess for, you know, going back to the last topic we talked about, about how to find a coach and all that stuff. If you’ve been referred by somebody, then chances are pretty good that there’s going to be a good connection there because they’ve actually helped somebody else in your network.

but that kind of goes back to the whole thing of you do a good job and people are going to know about it. People are going to talk about it.

Mike Holba: Yeah. And here’s a good example of [00:23:00] that. you mentioned academy consulting. When I first left the church, the biggest need I saw in the church world was for counseling. Like I had a couple thousand people in the church. I couldn’t counsel them. I didn’t have a big enough staff to counsel them. So I was always referring people to counselors.

And there’s just not enough counselors in the mental health crisis we have right now. So I knew a pastor, she was super talented. And I said, I will help you start a counseling office. she has this called Academy Consulting is super successful. and the way I give back is I’ll maybe take five at the most counseling appointments a week because it’s like the old pastor in me.

And I just, it’s fun. I don’t need to get paid for it. And it’s a way to help people that maybe can’t afford a counselor. Right? So it’s that marriage of your passion in life. and your business acumen. And sometimes you can do that all in one, like for you, you love music. And so it’d probably be super fun to help.

If someone paid you 10 grand to put a band together, you’d be like, yeah, I’ll help you put a band together. I know how to do that. Right.

That’d be super fun.

Tim Melanson: So now it’s time for your guest solo. So tell me what’s exciting your business right now that we [00:24:00] can be inspired by.

Mike Holba: Yeah.

What’s super exciting. My business is now is this through my work with 10x. I work with like 30 different businesses and what really excites me is kind of nuts. Cause you should really have a very specific niche to do super well. I don’t. So what excites me? Number one is I love working with first time entrepreneurs and helping them take their dream and turning it into their business and then making a living.

And when I working with someone that’s now making a living doing what they dreamt of, It’s just super fun. I go home feeling good about myself, right? So I’m excited about that. But on the other side, what really intrigues me as well, and this is where I’m a bit conflicted is so many businesses cannot hire the right people, cannot keep the right people.

And it’s often through just the culture of the business. So I love working with businesses and I always tell them this for 1, 000 per employee. It doesn’t matter if the person makes 50 grand a year or a hundred 1, 000 for per employee. You can hire the best people and keep the best people and it’s really simple.

So that excites me because it changes the whole [00:25:00] culture of a business. If the owner or manager or whatever says, Yeah. Once you do it, whether they have five employees or 50, everyone loves their job more. And it’s fun for the owner too when they realize it’s not really that hard.

When you got a great, for example, you got a great employee. It’s their birthday. Give them a 200 gift to get for them and their friend or spouse or whoever. to a really good local restaurant. You never get that at work. It’s like, wait, my boss just gave me a 200 dinner. It’s a lousy 200 bucks. The person makes 50 grand a year.

What’s 200 bucks. So there’s so many ways that you can take care of employees. you know, I’m in, I’m in the Milwaukee area. If someone loves the brewers, you give them a couple of brewers ticket or a couple of bucks tickets for a couple hundred dollars, that’s super fun. So just very simple ways to perk employees, to create a whole different culture in your business.

It makes a world of difference.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. It’s funny that you say that too. you could give them a raise,

Mike Holba: Done work.

Tim Melanson: but it’s funny that the gift certificate probably means more.

Mike Holba: Well, I found this out the hard way myself back when I was a pastor and had a very large staff, [00:26:00] I was able to raise the budget and I was able to give everyone some more money, but in the end it turned out to be just about a thousand dollars per person as a race.

So, you know, whatever, a thousand dollars is something everyone liked to make a thousand dollars more, that’s 20 bucks a week.

You know, after taxes, like 15 bucks a week, you don’t even notice that in your, in your check. Right? So I was thinking like. I want these people to understand how much I value them. What else could I do? So out of desperation, I said, you know what, I’m going to put 1, 000 aside for each person on the staff and throughout the year, I’m going to do special things for them.

And it worked. And in one silly thing, if you’ve got a business somewhere, tell you what, put some really nice glass jars in the office area somewhere with breakfast bars, a couple of different types of candy, and they’re just there. And you know what, if you’re hungry during the day, there’s breakfast bars, there’s some peanut mix or whatever.

Something literally, it costs like a dollar a week per employee, and they’re like, wow, this is great. So just little things like that can make a world of difference, well beyond a 1, 000 raise. [00:27:00]

Tim Melanson: know that makes sense too because I can picture myself, you know, walking around the office and going, Oh, cool. Grab, grab that. Right. it’s just those extra little bits. And you do hear, I’ve been seeing like surveys on LinkedIn and all that stuff that people don’t typically leave jobs for money.

They leave jobs usually because of environment or people, right?

Mike Holba: And as the owner, you create the environment. For yourself, first of all, as a solopreneur, you should be creating an environment you love to live in. But then as you grow and have employees, you get to create the culture for all of them. And what a gift! You know, for all of your employees to send them home and they think, Wow, I really enjoyed my job today.

Their whole life gets better just because you created a better culture at your work site. It’s amazing.

Tim Melanson: who would be the best people that would get the most out of working with you?

Mike Holba: I would say, you know, frankly, if you?

went to my personal website, I would say it’s the solopreneurs just trying to start out, and then it’s the person who’s working on their own and the businesses started, they’re making money, but they really need to grow it, maybe hire somebody.

and then [00:28:00] finally the larger place too, that we were going to talk about workplace culture. And then for any of those people, if they want to really advance to take that home, to really lead your own life. More fruitfully, you know, so you’re happier. It sucks. Like there’s people happy in the job and they go home and they’re miserable, right?

I want people to be happy everywhere. You got one shot in life. You got one and you better enjoy it because this is it. So what I really love doing is helping people really enjoy all of their life, not just their work hours.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And you know what? It tends to bleed into each other too, right?

Mike Holba: If you’re miserable at home, it’s hard to have a good day at work. And if you have a miserable day at work, you come home and take it out on your family. You don’t want to, but it’s just what we do because your family’s going to love you anyways. but that’s a mistake. It ruins relationships.

Tim Melanson: So how do we find out more?

Mike Holba: I would say, the easiest way would be just to go to my personal website, which is my name, Mike Holba, H O L B A dot com.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Thank you so much, Mike, for rocking out with me today. This has been a lot of fun.

Mike Holba: Same here, Tim.

Tim Melanson: make sure you visit [00:29:00] workathomerockstar.Com for more information.