Good morning, everyone! I hope you had a FANTASTIC long weekend! I had to pop out to Vegas for a few days to meet with a WHOLE lot of trial attorneys. I'm actually writing this to you on Friday, so the team can take Monday off. For some reason, they want a LONG weekend. That sounds pretty awesome to me!
I got to host something last night that I'd like to share with you. It was a dinner for our clients and friends we work with. Naturally, the invite list kept expanding, until we had 16 people attending. That's a LOT of people for a dinner I'm hosting. But, I was able to afford that dinner because of YOU, our amazing viewers!
Just a few years ago, we were getting 250,000 viewers a month
on the website. I was here in Vegas for a conference and asked my friend Jeff if I could buy him dinner. He said "heck yeah, man! Come on! Let's go!" Well, Jeff brings his whole family with him to these functions (wife, kids, mother-in-law, aunt, nanny) AND he has a LOT of friends that show up as well (which I didn't know, I was new to that event). All of a sudden, we were at dinner, and I was panicking when I see 15 people there, bottle after bottle of wine coming out, and I said, "Jeff, I love ya buddy but I can't afford this!" He replied "What are you talking about??? I wouldn't ever put my whole crew on your dime! Enjoy yourself Scott, RELAX! I've got this! I'm glad you could be with us!"
PHEW! I enjoyed the rest of dinner. I was so used to hosting corporate dinners
from my corporate job, where senior executives would just smile at me as they ordered the most expensive bottle of wine, and say, "You're expensing this, right Scott??" I wasn't used to fellow entrepreneurs understanding the plight of growth, and the pain of paying for everything YOURSELF, not a huge corporation.
Circling back to last night, it was really cool! We've grown now from 250,000 viewers a month to more than a million and a half. We went from just a handful of investigations to 50 - 60 per month. Now, I can afford to host a big dinner, with really great people, and NOT panic. And you know something? Every person there offered to chip in. They offered to help pay for the dinner. They offered to go in on the big items "family style" to lower costs. They weren't focused on getting the fanciest
Japanese Kobe beef at $55 an ounce (no one opted for that one). They were attending dinner not as my clients, but as my friends.
I think that's key to every successful business relationship. No one is taking advantage of the other person. Yes, we all have to make a profit, pay our people and ourselves, and live happily, but if you take care of each other and treat each other like family, you'll do REALLY well! I'm truly blessed to be able to run a company that has such an amazing team supporting me, millions of amazing viewers around the country supporting all of us every month, clients who financially support us (and give me lots of entrepreneurial advice as we grow the business), and of course to have an amazing and supportive family to come home to every day.
Thank you, super awesome TCA viewers, for making all of that possible! Without our viewers, we have no business. I appreciate you!
On that note, on to more lawsuit and settlement updates!
That's all for now! Make it a GREAT week!
Warm Regards,
Scott Hardy
President & CEO