179: The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber

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1. 00:00:00 All right, so welcome back to Bookworm.
2. 00:00:02 I've got a very special guest here filling in for Joe
3. 00:00:07 Bealig till we figure out what this is going to look like.
4. 00:00:10 Well, filling in for this episode.
5. 00:00:11 So welcome to Bookworm, Sean Blanc.
6. 00:00:14 Yay!
7. 00:00:15 What's up, guys?
8. 00:00:16 Gals, happy to be here.
9. 00:00:18 Thanks for having me.
10. 00:00:20 I'm really excited to chat with you.
11. 00:00:21 Number one, because the book today,
12. 00:00:23 I feel like this is kind in your wheelhouse.
13. 00:00:26 So I think that we'll have a real great conversation
14. 00:00:29 about this.
15. 00:00:30 But also, I know you are an avid reader.
16. 00:00:34 I've seen your bookshelves.
17. 00:00:35 And while I may disagree with the way
18. 00:00:37 that you organize your books on some of your bookshelves,
19. 00:00:41 I know you read a lot.
20. 00:00:42 So you're the first person I thought of when
21. 00:00:45 I was thinking about, who could I get to fill in here?
22. 00:00:48 And glad to have you on the show.
23. 00:00:51 Oh, awesome.
24. 00:00:51 Thanks.
25. 00:00:52 Yeah, I feel like even just going through--
26. 00:00:53 I read the e-mail years ago.
27. 00:00:55 But even I was kind of going through it again in prep for today.
28. 00:00:59 I was like, oh my gosh, I have gone through this journey,
29. 00:01:04 the hard, painful, slow way.
30. 00:01:07 And so I think even just the chance
31. 00:01:09 to bring just some personal story into this book,
32. 00:01:14 talking about it, but also just the hard experiences
33. 00:01:17 of being a technician.
34. 00:01:20 But from the creative side, instead
35. 00:01:22 of from the baker's side or from the plumber's side.
36. 00:01:24 But as a quote unquote, an indie creative.
37. 00:01:28 And then learning how to transform that into a business.
38. 00:01:31 And then actually learning how to be a business owner
39. 00:01:34 and running and managing a business and thinking
40. 00:01:37 with systems and not thinking in wartime leadership,
41. 00:01:42 abdication, all that stuff.
42. 00:01:43 So I'm excited to get into some of this stuff and whatnot.
43. 00:01:46 I've never listened to the show.
44. 00:01:47 So if I completely derail everything, sorry in advance.
45. 00:01:52 Or you're welcome.
46. 00:01:53 So who knows?
47. 00:01:54 And just for clarification, Sean had told me this before we
48. 00:01:57 get record, you don't listen to any shows.
49. 00:02:00 It's not that Bookworm didn't make the cut.
50. 00:02:02 It's just that you don't listen to podcasts,
51. 00:02:04 which I got to respect that.
52. 00:02:06 I mean, you're the polka sky.
53. 00:02:08 I did well, I don't have a commute.
54. 00:02:10 And I have like a three minute commute.
55. 00:02:14 And so all of my commuting time is either silence
56. 00:02:18 because it's my chance to think.
57. 00:02:20 Or I'm on Marco Polo catching up with friends.
58. 00:02:27 I'm now like a Marco Polo guy.
59. 00:02:28 So nice.
60. 00:02:31 I like podcasts though.
61. 00:02:32 I should start my own podcast, but I'm not a podcast listener.
62. 00:02:37 You totally should bring back Sean today.
63. 00:02:39 I'd subscribe.
64. 00:02:40 Yes.
65. 00:02:41 Oh my gosh, old school.
66. 00:02:42 Yeah, so a little bit of context here.
67. 00:02:44 The reason I think that you were the obvious choice
68. 00:02:47 when you were thinking about EMITH, which is all
69. 00:02:48 about business systems, is I have seen you go through this.
70. 00:02:53 And the reason I picked the book is I'm starting to go through it
71. 00:02:56 myself as an independent creator recently
72. 00:03:00 in the last several months.
73. 00:03:01 But I worked full time for you for a while.
74. 00:03:04 And I've kind of seen you go through this journey.
75. 00:03:06 And I respect the way that you did it.
76. 00:03:07 So I'm kind of curious your perspective on the lessons
77. 00:03:10 that you learned and maybe I haven't got some distance
78. 00:03:13 from this book.
79. 00:03:15 You know, what are the things that you have gleaned from it?
80. 00:03:19 What maybe didn't line up with your expectations,
81. 00:03:21 stuff like that.
82. 00:03:22 But before we get into that, just a couple of quick things.
83. 00:03:26 I have to announce because it's my last opportunity
84. 00:03:28 before it goes live.
85. 00:03:30 The Obsidian University cohort.
86. 00:03:32 I'm kind of terrible still at this self-promotion stuff, Sean.
87. 00:03:36 So I've dragged my feet on announcing this.
88. 00:03:38 By the time this goes live, you'll
89. 00:03:39 have a couple of days before it starts.
90. 00:03:41 But the cohort, too, is significantly upgraded.
91. 00:03:45 Some of the feedback I got with the first cohort was,
92. 00:03:47 we want more of the values-based, productivity stuff,
93. 00:03:51 going deep on certain things.
94. 00:03:52 So I've kind of revamped the whole thing
95. 00:03:54 and broken it down into four different weeks, which
96. 00:03:57 talk about the PKM stack, idea and information management,
97. 00:04:01 task and project management, and then journaling and reflection,
98. 00:04:04 which I think is kind of the key.
99. 00:04:06 You've got to take a step back and realize what's working,
100. 00:04:08 what's not, make adjustments, stuff like that.
101. 00:04:11 So if you're interested in that at all,
102. 00:04:13 you can go to obsidianuniversity.com/cohort.
103. 00:04:18 I will have a special code in the show notes, probably bookworm,
104. 00:04:22 but I haven't made it yet, which will get you 50 bucks off.
105. 00:04:26 The price is raised this one.
106. 00:04:29 But it also includes a year of access
107. 00:04:32 to the obsidianuniversity community,
108. 00:04:34 and then also an obsidian 101 course
109. 00:04:36 that I'm putting together, which is basically
110. 00:04:38 adjust these settings and do this so you can hit the ground
111. 00:04:42 running when you join the cohort.
112. 00:04:44 You can get access to that self-paced course immediately.
113. 00:04:48 The other thing I want to mention here
114. 00:04:50 is that it's September, so that's childhood cancer awareness
115. 00:04:52 month and our friends over at Relay FM
116. 00:04:55 do this fundraiser every year.
117. 00:04:57 Well, this year I figured out how to set up my own campaign
118. 00:05:00 for bookworm.
119. 00:05:01 I have no idea if anybody else is going to contribute to this
120. 00:05:04 or not, but I do every year.
121. 00:05:06 I know Sean, you do every year.
122. 00:05:07 This is definitely a worthwhile cause.
123. 00:05:09 We know somebody who has benefited
124. 00:05:12 from the hospitality of St. Jude personally,
125. 00:05:15 and just kind of a heart-wrenching story
126. 00:05:17 of what they had to go through,
127. 00:05:18 and the really amazing thing about St. Jude
128. 00:05:21 is that they don't charge their patients a dime
129. 00:05:24 for any of the treatment, any of the travel,
130. 00:05:27 which when you've got a kid who's got cancer,
131. 00:05:29 like you don't want to have to worry about that stuff,
132. 00:05:31 I can only imagine what that would be like.
133. 00:05:34 I don't want to have to go through it,
134. 00:05:36 but for people who do have to go through it,
135. 00:05:38 St. Jude is a phenomenal place.
136. 00:05:41 And they share all their research.
137. 00:05:42 That's the amazing part.
138. 00:05:43 I mean, like there's all these companies
139. 00:05:44 that patent their medications,
140. 00:05:47 they can make a bunch of money on it.
141. 00:05:48 Well, St. Jude does all this research,
142. 00:05:50 and they've made a huge impact in the survival rate
143. 00:05:51 for kids with cancer.
144. 00:05:53 And then they just share it for free with everybody else,
145. 00:05:55 'cause they just want to eradicate the disease,
146. 00:05:58 until no kid dies from cancer.
147. 00:06:00 So really amazing cause.
148. 00:06:02 There'll be a link to that in the show notes as well.
149. 00:06:05 Sean, I'll give you an opportunity at the beginning here.
150. 00:06:08 I know you're working on something special
151. 00:06:09 for business owners if you want to plug that.
152. 00:06:12 That's cool too.
153. 00:06:14 Want to just share briefly about focus like a boss?
154. 00:06:19 Yeah, focus like a boss.
155. 00:06:20 If we got anyone in the space here,
156. 00:06:24 if you are a small business owner,
157. 00:06:25 especially like professional services
158. 00:06:28 and client services like your freelancer,
159. 00:06:29 you run an agency,
160. 00:06:31 running a small group in October
161. 00:06:34 that's helping small business owners
162. 00:06:36 run their full time business on part time hours.
163. 00:06:39 And so if you're interested in that,
164. 00:06:40 you can go to thefocuscourse.com/boss.
165. 00:06:44 And there'll be a link there to kick me an email
166. 00:06:48 to let me know that you're interested
167. 00:06:49 and happy to chat with you about it
168. 00:06:51 if there's still some space in the group.
169. 00:06:52 It's gonna be small group, so we'll see if there's any spots.
170. 00:06:55 But we're doing another one in January too,
171. 00:06:57 so we can always sneak into that one.
172. 00:06:59 But Mike, I want to say something too
173. 00:07:00 about your obsidian university thing.
174. 00:07:02 I heard recently, and this might even be a segue
175. 00:07:05 into what we're doing.
176. 00:07:06 This isn't in the EMET,
177. 00:07:07 but this is related to entrepreneurship.
178. 00:07:10 I heard it recently kind of related to the space
179. 00:07:12 of the professional creative
180. 00:07:14 and kind of the creative entrepreneur.
181. 00:07:16 You usually have like two genres,
182. 00:07:19 so to speak, of entrepreneurs.
183. 00:07:22 One of those genres is the idea, "prinure."
184. 00:07:25 And these are the people like the big thinkers
185. 00:07:28 and the big dreamers who like invent
186. 00:07:32 and come up with ideas.
187. 00:07:34 And then you have the how-to-prinure,
188. 00:07:37 who are the ones that like,
189. 00:07:38 "Well, here is how we can make this happen."
190. 00:07:40 And they're the systems thinkers and the idea dot connectors.
191. 00:07:45 And you need both.
192. 00:07:46 And a lot of times, like we are magnetically drawn
193. 00:07:50 often to the idea-prinures,
194. 00:07:52 because they're the ones that are casting these big pictures
195. 00:07:55 and these big visions of the future.
196. 00:07:56 And what if this and wouldn't it be cool if this?
197. 00:07:59 But then when you get to like what it is
198. 00:08:02 that they're offering you or you're kind of connected to them,
199. 00:08:05 it's very, very difficult to now apply
200. 00:08:07 any of their stuff to your life.
201. 00:08:09 You're like, "Wow, that's awesome."
202. 00:08:11 Now what?
203. 00:08:13 And the how-to-prinure is like,
204. 00:08:15 "Here's this idea, right?
205. 00:08:17 "Like that exists."
206. 00:08:18 And I have created the system and the process
207. 00:08:22 to help get you to that desired end result.
208. 00:08:25 And of course, like when you combine both of those,
209. 00:08:28 big ideas with clear how-to processes,
210. 00:08:30 then you truly have the greatest change in people's lives
211. 00:08:35 because you're able to then walk them through it,
212. 00:08:37 not just like talk about a bunch of ideas.
213. 00:08:39 And Mike, you strike me like just knowing you
214. 00:08:42 for the last close to 10 years now,
215. 00:08:45 you are a how-to-prinure.
216. 00:08:48 And one of the best ones I've ever worked with
217. 00:08:50 and known because you are so great at breaking down
218. 00:08:55 these steps and these processes and communicating them
219. 00:08:58 in a very like kind but opinionated way.
220. 00:09:01 And so I think with your Obsidian University stuff,
221. 00:09:05 people are gonna get to sit under you
222. 00:09:08 and like experience the beauty of like how well
223. 00:09:11 you can communicate and teach people
224. 00:09:13 and get people to this desired end result
225. 00:09:16 that they're trying to get to.
226. 00:09:17 And I know for you, like Obsidian is like a tool
227. 00:09:20 for getting to certain end results.
228. 00:09:21 And a lot of that is just like,
229. 00:09:23 "Here, here's the best way to do it.
230. 00:09:24 "We're gonna use Obsidian,
231. 00:09:25 "but there's so much more that you're gonna be able to impact."
232. 00:09:27 So all that to say like, you know,
233. 00:09:29 folks who are gonna be going through your stuff
234. 00:09:31 are in for a treat.
235. 00:09:35 - Thanks, man.
236. 00:09:36 I'm blushing.
237. 00:09:37 I really appreciate that.
238. 00:09:39 That's the goal obviously is to not just teach you
239. 00:09:44 how to do something but kind of the why behind it.
240. 00:09:48 So you can figure out what pieces of the systems are
241. 00:09:51 really gonna make sense for you.
242. 00:09:53 But yeah.
243. 00:09:55 - Awesome.
244. 00:09:56 Well, let's jump into the Emith.
245. 00:09:59 So this was the last book I picked before Joe had to go on
246. 00:10:05 hiatus unfortunately.
247. 00:10:06 And we're hoping that he can come back at some point.
248. 00:10:09 And in the meantime, I'm gonna try to find a few people
249. 00:10:13 who can step in and talk about books well.
250. 00:10:17 And I knew Sean could do this.
251. 00:10:18 You had mentioned you had read this before.
252. 00:10:21 But this is by Michael Gerber.
253. 00:10:23 And I don't know when it was originally published.
254. 00:10:26 It's the Emith revisited.
255. 00:10:27 So I assume there was an original Emith,
256. 00:10:29 although I didn't actually find it when I was looking online.
257. 00:10:34 But even this one, it is a little bit dated.
258. 00:10:37 Well, I shouldn't say that the principles behind it
259. 00:10:41 that are contained in the book are not necessarily dated.
260. 00:10:43 But if you're gonna judge a book by its published date
261. 00:10:47 on the inside cover, this one is not new in novel.
262. 00:10:52 But sometimes those are the best books.
263. 00:10:54 I mean, some of the books that I've gotten the most out of
264. 00:10:56 that we've read for bookworm are things like
265. 00:10:58 Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
266. 00:11:01 and Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends
267. 00:11:04 and Influence People, stuff like that.
268. 00:11:05 More than more Adlers, How to Read a Book,
269. 00:11:08 Written in like 1940.
270. 00:11:10 I mean, that just has become more and more important
271. 00:11:13 in the digital age.
272. 00:11:15 But Emith is all about business systems.
273. 00:11:18 So if you're not interested in a business type book,
274. 00:11:21 I guess you can turn this one off right now.
275. 00:11:25 'Cause that's what we're gonna be talking about
276. 00:11:27 the rest of the show here.
277. 00:11:30 It is, it follows a basic format,
278. 00:11:32 like a lot of the other productivity books that we've read
279. 00:11:35 in the 179 episodes now.
280. 00:11:38 There's an introduction.
281. 00:11:39 Then their part one is the Emith
282. 00:11:41 and the American Small Business.
283. 00:11:42 There's six chapters in there,
284. 00:11:44 which kind of talk about business cycles.
285. 00:11:46 Part two is the turnkey revolution,
286. 00:11:49 a new view of business, which has three chapters.
287. 00:11:51 It talks about kind of the franchise prototype.
288. 00:11:53 And then part three is the big one,
289. 00:11:54 building a small business that works.
290. 00:11:56 This has, let's see, chapters 10 through 19 here.
291. 00:12:01 And most of them are about the individual pieces
292. 00:12:04 of a specific system that Michael Gerber talks about.
293. 00:12:08 And this is the part that I'm really anxious to get into
294. 00:12:11 because he talks about kind of like the key areas
295. 00:12:13 of a business, the org chart and the areas that people,
296. 00:12:16 you gotta have people in the right seats, right?
297. 00:12:18 And you're a different organization.
298. 00:12:19 And how do you do that when you've got a small company
299. 00:12:22 and you don't have a person for each
300. 00:12:26 of those seven different departments or whatever, right?
301. 00:12:30 So really excited to talk about your experience there.
302. 00:12:32 But let's, before we jump into the book here,
303. 00:12:36 Sean, I'll just ask, you know,
304. 00:12:37 the first time you picked this up,
305. 00:12:39 if you could go back four years ago
306. 00:12:41 or whenever you first came across this book,
307. 00:12:44 what intrigued you about it
308. 00:12:46 and kind of like what were you expecting
309. 00:12:48 to get out of it if you can remember?
310. 00:12:52 - Yeah, well, okay.
311. 00:12:53 So I'll show you here 'cause you're on a video call too,
312. 00:12:57 but I have a little pink sticky note in the front of my book.
313. 00:12:59 I do this for all the books that I buy
314. 00:13:02 and I put in there why I bought the book
315. 00:13:06 or like who I heard from it or whatever.
316. 00:13:08 And so in here, you know, it says, you know,
317. 00:13:12 recommended to me by my friend Bob during a lunch
318. 00:13:17 at a certain restaurant here in Kansas City
319. 00:13:18 that doesn't exist anymore, room 39.
320. 00:13:21 On June 2016.
321. 00:13:22 So this book was recommended to me on June 2016.
322. 00:13:24 So I bought it.
323. 00:13:26 Or then I said, you know, later recommended to my cousin
324. 00:13:28 when I was at a wedding for our other cousin.
325. 00:13:31 And so I wrote in here,
326. 00:13:32 hoping to learn about how to stop working in my business
327. 00:13:37 and to start working on my business.
328. 00:13:39 So at this point, I was about,
329. 00:13:42 when I bought this book, I was about six to nine months in
330. 00:13:46 of having my first full-time employee.
331. 00:13:48 And I was about four and a half years in
332. 00:13:51 as a full-time business owner.
333. 00:13:53 At first, I was an indie creator.
334. 00:13:56 I took my blog full-time back in 2011.
335. 00:13:59 And so the thing that struck me about the book
336. 00:14:03 was this idea of actually like the role of the business owner.
337. 00:14:08 And I'm like, I'm kind of now reframing this now,
338. 00:14:12 you know, eight years later or so in the context.
339. 00:14:16 But that the role of the business owner
340. 00:14:19 is not to do all like the worst jobs
341. 00:14:23 that no one else wants to do.
342. 00:14:25 It's to actually create this system
343. 00:14:30 that is, you know, this business, this machine, so to speak,
344. 00:14:33 that is built of assets and people and processes
345. 00:14:38 that is able to produce a consistent result
346. 00:14:43 for its customers on a consistent and regular basis.
347. 00:14:47 And like this just kind of like kind of blew my mind of like,
348. 00:14:51 okay, my job isn't necessarily like to do all the work
349. 00:14:55 inside the business, 'cause I, you know,
350. 00:14:56 I've been solo pernure for a long time
351. 00:14:58 and then like had one employee.
352. 00:15:00 And I often would feel bad like delegating stuff to him
353. 00:15:02 because it was like, well, I don't wanna do this.
354. 00:15:06 And well, gosh, it sucks that I'm gonna ask you to do it
355. 00:15:08 'cause you probably don't wanna do it either.
356. 00:15:09 And that's actually a very immature approach.
357. 00:15:11 And I've learned quite a bit since that time.
358. 00:15:13 But that was the feel.
359. 00:15:14 So for me, it was the big like motivating factor
360. 00:15:18 and the kind of the big aha moment was like,
361. 00:15:21 I need to literally think, I'm thinking about it all wrong.
362. 00:15:25 I'm thinking about it in terms of I own a job,
363. 00:15:28 which is great.
364. 00:15:29 Like I'm like, oh, cool, I have autonomy for my time.
365. 00:15:31 I can work whenever I want, but I'm still working all the time.
366. 00:15:34 You know, where is that real freedom?
367. 00:15:36 But it was, it was that mindset shift
368. 00:15:39 of actually creating like a functional machine
369. 00:15:44 that is built of systems and assets and individuals
370. 00:15:47 that we're able to do, you know, work that we're proud of
371. 00:15:50 and truly like impact our customers and our clients
372. 00:15:53 on a predictable, repeatable basis.
373. 00:15:57 - That's funny that you wrote that note about working
374. 00:16:01 on the business instead of in the business
375. 00:16:03 because when I was reading this book
376. 00:16:05 and I came across that, they used that exact phrase
377. 00:16:08 multiple times throughout the book
378. 00:16:09 and I immediately thought of you.
379. 00:16:11 I think I probably heard that like,
380. 00:16:13 I don't even know how many times during the couple of years
381. 00:16:16 that I was working with you.
382. 00:16:18 But it's interesting that that is something
383. 00:16:23 that you were looking for from the beginning
384. 00:16:24 and obviously that has stuck with you throughout the years.
385. 00:16:26 I love your idea too of like writing the actual note
386. 00:16:30 on the sticky and putting it in the book
387. 00:16:31 about where you heard about it from.
388. 00:16:33 I may need to steal that.
389. 00:16:35 I always read the physical books too.
390. 00:16:38 Physical books are better.
391. 00:16:39 Sorry, not debatable, just is.
392. 00:16:41 - Hey, not debatable, agreed.
393. 00:16:43 Well, 'cause I'll buy a book and then I feel like,
394. 00:16:47 I feel like someone recommended a book to me the other day
395. 00:16:49 and it's like, I went in to Amazon to buy it
396. 00:16:50 and I was like, you bought this book September 2018.
397. 00:16:53 I was like, oh, it's on my shelf somewhere.
398. 00:16:56 I've had it for five years.
399. 00:16:57 - That does happen.
400. 00:16:58 - That happens all the time.
401. 00:16:59 And so that's why I like to write in the sticky notes.
402. 00:17:00 Like, this is why I bought it.
403. 00:17:01 This is where I heard about it from.
404. 00:17:03 This is when I bought it.
405. 00:17:04 And there's something about like picking up
406. 00:17:05 the book and then seeing that initial motivation again.
407. 00:17:09 Like it kind of helped.
408. 00:17:10 I don't know, it's fun.
409. 00:17:12 And then how's it getting me into like,
410. 00:17:14 being remotivated to dig into the book again as well.
411. 00:17:16 So it's, yeah, it's just fun.
412. 00:17:19 - Yeah.
413. 00:17:20 All right, let's jump into the actual content here
414. 00:17:22 of the book.
415. 00:17:24 We'll tackle this by part and the first part,
416. 00:17:27 we'll just touch on real briefly.
417. 00:17:28 That's the introduction.
418. 00:17:31 It basically puts forth the four key ideas
419. 00:17:35 that he wants you to get by the end in this introduction,
420. 00:17:37 which is the EMIF, the turnkey revolution,
421. 00:17:39 the business development process.
422. 00:17:41 And then these can be applied by any small business owner
423. 00:17:44 is the last one.
424. 00:17:46 So I really just kind of hammering home that this book is
425. 00:17:49 for you if you are a small business owner.
426. 00:17:51 And I think that's important because it's easy.
427. 00:17:55 Maybe this is a, it'd be cool to get your perspective on this.
428. 00:17:57 But it seems to me that it is very easy
429. 00:18:01 to make excuses why some of these business books,
430. 00:18:06 specifically the ones that are like,
431. 00:18:07 don't make it too complicated,
432. 00:18:09 just kind of follow this format.
433. 00:18:11 And I do have my own issues with systems books.
434. 00:18:14 I think you can't just like apply them verbatim.
435. 00:18:17 You have to understand the principles
436. 00:18:18 and ultimately the best version is one
437. 00:18:20 that you tweak for yourself and you figure out
438. 00:18:21 what works, what you're gonna keep,
439. 00:18:22 what you're gonna get rid of.
440. 00:18:24 But when it comes to business systems,
441. 00:18:27 businesses, business and systems are a big part of business.
442. 00:18:30 And so I've seen over and over and over again
443. 00:18:33 with people who think that they are smarter
444. 00:18:36 than the people who have achieved the results in business.
445. 00:18:39 And they look at the system and they're like,
446. 00:18:41 "Well, that's great.
447. 00:18:42 "That works for you, Michael Gerber,
448. 00:18:43 "but there's no way that would work for me because."
449. 00:18:46 And they fill in the blank as to why their situation
450. 00:18:50 is different.
451. 00:18:51 And that's the biggest battle is convincing people,
452. 00:18:54 like, no, this does actually apply to you.
453. 00:18:57 You do have to do the hard part, right?
454. 00:18:59 You can't just continue to do what you wanna do
455. 00:19:02 because your situation is special and unique.
456. 00:19:05 And yeah, you are special and unique
457. 00:19:07 and your situation is different than a lot of other people,
458. 00:19:10 but there are still principles that can be gleaned here.
459. 00:19:13 And so more often than not, try them and see if they work.
460. 00:19:17 - Yeah, absolutely.
461. 00:19:19 And I think too, for a lot of business owners,
462. 00:19:24 like when you reach kind of that breaking point
463. 00:19:26 where you're like, okay, do more, be more, work more,
464. 00:19:30 like this isn't working.
465. 00:19:32 Like I, you know, there reaches a point
466. 00:19:34 where you can no longer grow your business by brute force.
467. 00:19:38 And you kind of just get overwhelmed
468. 00:19:40 and exhausted and tired and frustrated and angry
469. 00:19:43 and irritable and you go, all right,
470. 00:19:46 well, I need to figure out how to like,
471. 00:19:48 what am I gonna do in this business?
472. 00:19:49 And that's where the e-mail comes in.
473. 00:19:50 And it's like, well, okay, you need to start thinking
474. 00:19:52 about your business as like a, you know,
475. 00:19:55 a collection of systems and assets
476. 00:19:58 and stop thinking about your business
477. 00:20:00 as you putting in your 60 to 80 hours a week
478. 00:20:05 and brute force pushing this thing uphill.
479. 00:20:09 So it's like realizing like even just that, like, yes.
480. 00:20:13 Like you can now, you need to think about this fundamentally
481. 00:20:16 from a different perspective.
482. 00:20:18 And I know for a lot of like, you know,
483. 00:20:21 the people that the e-mail is interested to, you know,
484. 00:20:24 it talks about like, hey, making the transition
485. 00:20:26 from being in it, like you just are this solo proprietor,
486. 00:20:30 so solo for newer, to now wanting to build something
487. 00:20:32 that's more sustainable.
488. 00:20:34 Like you have to give up control.
489. 00:20:36 You have to like actually make decisions
490. 00:20:39 about this is how we are going to do it.
491. 00:20:41 You have to be opinionated.
492. 00:20:43 And it's just hard.
493. 00:20:46 I don't know.
494. 00:20:47 Like that's just my point there.
495. 00:20:48 It's hard to do that.
496. 00:20:49 It is hard to make an opinionated decision
497. 00:20:51 and it is hard to give up control for those of us
498. 00:20:55 that are like, well, I do it better.
499. 00:20:57 My way is better, you know?
500. 00:20:58 And oh, I'll know when I see it
501. 00:21:00 and I'll make that decision,
502. 00:21:02 but when I need to make that decision,
503. 00:21:04 instead of making a decision that can then be repeated
504. 00:21:08 over and over, like we wanna, you know,
505. 00:21:10 we wanna lead as if it's wartime,
506. 00:21:13 which is just, you know, unsustainable.
507. 00:21:15 - You're hitting on the big thing here,
508. 00:21:16 which is that if you view business as a system,
509. 00:21:20 that means that you can optimize that system.
510. 00:21:24 And the view that you were just kinda talking about
511. 00:21:27 is the one that sounds like he deals with,
512. 00:21:29 with most of the people that he works with
513. 00:21:31 as a small business is, well,
514. 00:21:34 I am this entrepreneur and no one can do it
515. 00:21:38 the way that I do it.
516. 00:21:39 So I can't possibly trust anybody else with this.
517. 00:21:42 And if you just naturally extrapolate that
518. 00:21:45 as your business grows,
519. 00:21:46 what that means is that there is more and more
520. 00:21:48 and more work for you to do.
521. 00:21:49 And pretty soon you're working 50, 60, 70, 80 hours a week
522. 00:21:53 and it's not sustainable.
523. 00:21:55 So you have to get to the point where,
524. 00:21:58 okay, this business has a turn key.
525. 00:22:01 He uses the analogy of like a franchise,
526. 00:22:04 which at first, like, I don't like that
527. 00:22:05 because I don't like franchises.
528. 00:22:08 I want something that is unique and local and bespoke, right?
529. 00:22:12 But his point is with the franchise,
530. 00:22:15 you have to have a model that works,
531. 00:22:16 regardless of the people that are working it.
532. 00:22:19 And you can apply that principle to a small business,
533. 00:22:22 even if you're not trying to create separate franchises.
534. 00:22:25 And what that does is it frees you up
535. 00:22:27 because you know that things are gonna get done
536. 00:22:29 in a consistent way.
537. 00:22:31 But ultimately at the beginning here,
538. 00:22:33 if you want to stop working the ridiculous hours,
539. 00:22:38 if you want to enjoy working in your business again,
540. 00:22:42 ultimately if your business is to change,
541. 00:22:44 you have to change.
542. 00:22:46 And there's a whole hour and a half conversation
543. 00:22:49 just on that.
544. 00:22:50 Like I've heard it said this way,
545. 00:22:52 the characteristics of the kingdom emanate
546. 00:22:55 from the character of the king.
547. 00:22:57 That's a small business.
548. 00:22:59 Like if you're disorganized and you don't have
549. 00:23:02 the processes identified, like you can't just hire somebody,
550. 00:23:06 okay, this is your area now.
551. 00:23:08 You go fix it.
552. 00:23:10 You're gonna reproduce what you are,
553. 00:23:12 even if you've got some really wicked smart people
554. 00:23:15 who are able to help you solve those problems,
555. 00:23:17 ultimately change begins at the top.
556. 00:23:20 Which can be hard to hear sometimes,
557. 00:23:22 like whoa, you mean like I'm the problem?
558. 00:23:24 Yeah, yeah, you are.
559. 00:23:25 But ultimately that's good news
560. 00:23:26 because it also means that you're the solution.
561. 00:23:29 - Yeah, it's huge.
562. 00:23:30 I love how you play that.
563. 00:23:31 If your business is going to change,
564. 00:23:32 you have to change.
565. 00:23:33 - Yep.
566. 00:23:34 - And way easier said than done.
567. 00:23:36 (laughing)
568. 00:23:37 - Absolutely.
569. 00:23:38 - And I think too, the challenge,
570. 00:23:40 the challenge there is, at least I know in my experience,
571. 00:23:43 is it's not a fast change.
572. 00:23:48 Even realizing that you need to change is like a great step,
573. 00:23:53 but then beginning to implement it
574. 00:23:55 and then just the slow process
575. 00:23:59 of becoming systems oriented
576. 00:24:02 and being okay with having repeatable structure
577. 00:24:06 instead of just on the fly and the spontaneity.
578. 00:24:09 And that stuff, it's very, very difficult.
579. 00:24:12 Being okay to delegate.
580. 00:24:13 Like these are all muscles that you have to build
581. 00:24:15 and you have to answer.
582. 00:24:17 And it requires, you know,
583. 00:24:18 as we're going to get into in part three,
584. 00:24:20 but it requires clarity.
585. 00:24:22 And you got to get clear on like what you want to do
586. 00:24:25 and where you're going.
587. 00:24:26 And I know he talks about this right at the end.
588. 00:24:28 Maybe I'm getting ahead Mike.
589. 00:24:30 Mike slapped me if I'm like screwing up your podcast here.
590. 00:24:33 I know you've got like a flow.
591. 00:24:35 (laughs)
592. 00:24:36 That's all right.
593. 00:24:37 You have like a fancy like mind map.
594. 00:24:40 I have like my 15 year old copy of this book
595. 00:24:43 with like dog-eared pages and highlights.
596. 00:24:46 And I'm like, where?
597. 00:24:47 Where's the thing?
598. 00:24:48 Okay.
599. 00:24:49 So chapter six, I'm probably screwing your whole thing up.
600. 00:24:52 Sorry, but we're going with it.
601. 00:24:54 It goes this, it goes a mature business,
602. 00:24:56 knows how it got to be where it is
603. 00:24:59 and what it must do to get where it wants.
604. 00:25:02 And so he talks about like,
605. 00:25:03 this is the entrepreneurial perspective of like,
606. 00:25:07 you have clarity about what got you here
607. 00:25:09 and what will get you where you're going.
608. 00:25:11 And so he's like, you can be,
609. 00:25:13 you can have a mature entrepreneurial perspective
610. 00:25:17 even when you're going through the early stages
611. 00:25:20 of business adolescents and business growth,
612. 00:25:21 business development, right?
613. 00:25:22 Like you can still be like an early stage.
614. 00:25:24 You're not quite sure what you're doing,
615. 00:25:25 but yet a mature entrepreneur with this perspective
616. 00:25:30 around entrepreneurial maturity.
617. 00:25:34 And that, but that is like the hardest thing to do.
618. 00:25:38 Like that right there, a mature business knows
619. 00:25:39 how it got to be where it is
620. 00:25:41 and what it must do to get where it wants to go.
621. 00:25:45 Like there is clarity, like where do you want to go?
622. 00:25:49 So many business owners have no idea.
623. 00:25:51 They're like, well, I want more, more what?
624. 00:25:54 More customers, more time, more money.
625. 00:25:57 Like, okay, like we need a little bit more clarity
626. 00:25:59 than that.
627. 00:26:00 Like just, I want more money.
628. 00:26:01 I want more time.
629. 00:26:02 I want to be more comfortable.
630. 00:26:03 I want to be more successful.
631. 00:26:04 Like you've got to be clear.
632. 00:26:05 Like where are you actually going?
633. 00:26:06 And what are you going to do?
634. 00:26:08 What is required to get you there?
635. 00:26:10 That is like the hardest job of the business owner.
636. 00:26:14 And no one else can answer that question.
637. 00:26:16 Your team cannot answer that question for you.
638. 00:26:19 Your friends cannot answer that question for you.
639. 00:26:21 Your customers, like you have to decide.
640. 00:26:24 Like that is the hardest job.
641. 00:26:25 And so like even just coming at this,
642. 00:26:28 like when you just realize you want to make the shift
643. 00:26:31 and like, I want to work on my business,
644. 00:26:34 well then it's like, oh crap.
645. 00:26:37 I have to make a decision about where we're going
646. 00:26:40 and I have to make a decision about how we're going to get there.
647. 00:26:42 And very, very difficult to do.
648. 00:26:47 - Yeah, I can tell that part really resonates with you.
649. 00:26:50 Let me-- - How could you tell?
650. 00:26:51 - Let me back up just a little bit
651. 00:26:53 because you're talking about the end of the section here
652. 00:26:57 in part one, which is ultimately the moment of clarity
653. 00:27:00 that everyone needs to get to.
654. 00:27:02 But he talks about at the beginning,
655. 00:27:04 the EMITH itself is the belief that most small businesses
656. 00:27:07 are started by entrepreneurs.
657. 00:27:08 And I think he would say that actually they're
658. 00:27:10 started by technicians.
659. 00:27:12 You had mentioned this a little bit earlier.
660. 00:27:14 A technician is basically the person who likes to do the work.
661. 00:27:18 They don't like thinking big picture.
662. 00:27:21 They just, well this is the job that needs to be done
663. 00:27:23 and I'm going to be doing this.
664. 00:27:25 So Michael Gerber describes what he calls an entrepreneurial
665. 00:27:29 seizure, which is this moment when you're like,
666. 00:27:31 I'm going to be an entrepreneur, right?
667. 00:27:33 And you go and you start this business,
668. 00:27:35 but then immediately the technician goes and starts
669. 00:27:38 doing the work.
670. 00:27:39 And a technician following an entrepreneurial seizure
671. 00:27:43 follows a pattern he says, exhilaration, terror, exhaustion,
672. 00:27:47 and despair.
673. 00:27:48 (laughing)
674. 00:27:49 Right, does that resonate?
675. 00:27:51 - Yep.
676. 00:27:52 And he talks about how the real battle is balancing
677. 00:27:56 this entrepreneur, the manager, and the technician
678. 00:27:58 and figuring out who's working on what when
679. 00:28:01 and putting right people in their places.
680. 00:28:03 And when you do that, your business
681. 00:28:04 goes through these different phases,
682. 00:28:05 infancy, adolescence, and then hopefully eventually maturity.
683. 00:28:10 But yeah, let's go back to that technician
684. 00:28:14 following the entrepreneurial seizure.
685. 00:28:15 I'm kind of curious, Sean, what was the moment
686. 00:28:18 of your entrepreneurial seizure?
687. 00:28:19 And did you follow that pattern?
688. 00:28:21 - Oh my gosh, I think I've probably had
689. 00:28:23 a dozen entrepreneurial seizures over the years.
690. 00:28:26 (laughing)
691. 00:28:27 So for those that aren't familiar,
692. 00:28:28 so I started my business in 2011
693. 00:28:32 after my wife and I actually had a miscarriage.
694. 00:28:34 And I was a blogger, I was blogging for part time
695. 00:28:37 on the side, just kind of writing about Mac stuff
696. 00:28:39 and whatnot.
697. 00:28:40 And then realizing we were going to be parents
698. 00:28:42 and then losing the baby kind of gave me some perspective
699. 00:28:46 that my current job at the time,
700. 00:28:48 I was the director of marketing for a large nonprofit.
701. 00:28:51 I was like, I wanna make a transition in my career
702. 00:28:53 and I like to have more flexibility of my time
703. 00:28:55 and be able to work from home.
704. 00:28:57 So I started working from home as an indie creator
705. 00:29:00 and I was just blogging full time
706. 00:29:01 and had some folks that supported me
707. 00:29:03 and I had that podcaster talking about,
708. 00:29:04 you know, Sean today was a podcast and whatnot.
709. 00:29:06 And then over time, like as I had all these ideas
710. 00:29:11 of like, ooh, here's a new project I wanna start
711. 00:29:13 and here's a new project I wanna start.
712. 00:29:14 Suddenly like I had expanded out
713. 00:29:17 and I had more like more going on
714. 00:29:20 that I could keep up with on a regular basis.
715. 00:29:22 And so I needed like some help.
716. 00:29:24 And so I hired like Steven Hackett actually
717. 00:29:27 who's co-founder with Relay was the first person
718. 00:29:30 that I ever gave money to to help me like work on the blog
719. 00:29:34 and on the business, so to speak.
720. 00:29:36 Just kind of part time.
721. 00:29:37 So that was probably my first entrepreneurial seizure
722. 00:29:40 was like, I need help.
723. 00:29:42 Can I give someone some money
724. 00:29:44 and can they do something that I'm doing?
725. 00:29:47 And then in the process of them doing it,
726. 00:29:49 can it generate at least as much money as I'm paying them?
727. 00:29:53 But maybe even enough for me to pay some taxes
728. 00:29:56 and keep a couple bucks in my pocket
729. 00:29:58 and still pay them what I'm paying them.
730. 00:29:59 Like, and I remember it was just,
731. 00:30:01 I felt like I just like agonized over that decision
732. 00:30:05 for like a week that I called my dad who like my parents,
733. 00:30:08 my grandparents were business owners,
734. 00:30:10 my parents were business owners.
735. 00:30:11 So I called my dad and was like kind of talking to him
736. 00:30:13 about it and was like, do I hire this person?
737. 00:30:14 Like, I don't know.
738. 00:30:15 You know, I think I was like gonna pay Steven.
739. 00:30:17 Like, I can't remember what it was.
740. 00:30:18 It was like a couple hundred bucks a month.
741. 00:30:20 It wasn't even very much money.
742. 00:30:22 But I just was like, so like, oh my gosh,
743. 00:30:25 that's huge risk.
744. 00:30:26 And then like lo and behold, like he was brilliant, of course.
745. 00:30:30 And was able to take over a bunch of stuff that I was doing
746. 00:30:33 and made not only enough money for himself,
747. 00:30:36 but made enough money for the business.
748. 00:30:37 And for the owner of the business, I E.M.E. to make a little bit.
749. 00:30:40 So that was probably my first entrepreneurial seizure.
750. 00:30:43 And then I've had a dozen cents then of continuing
751. 00:30:45 to like hire people and find new projects
752. 00:30:48 and stuff like that.
753. 00:30:49 So.
754. 00:30:50 (laughing)
755. 00:30:52 - Well, that is one of the things that I jotted down
756. 00:30:54 as an action item from this first section in chapter six
757. 00:30:58 was learning to ask what is the opportunity.
758. 00:31:00 And I feel like that's probably linked
759. 00:31:03 to the entrepreneurial seizure
760. 00:31:05 is when you can see the opportunity,
761. 00:31:08 it's exciting.
762. 00:31:11 It's exciting to the entrepreneur anyways,
763. 00:31:13 maybe not the technician or the manager.
764. 00:31:17 I guess let's go back to those three of those three roles.
765. 00:31:21 Which one do you feel like you most easily operate in?
766. 00:31:25 I'm probably more easily the technician or the manager,
767. 00:31:28 but I'm learning to think like the entrepreneur.
768. 00:31:31 And I do enjoy it, I have to admit.
769. 00:31:32 - I really, yeah, I'm probably right there with you.
770. 00:31:36 I definitely, I'm very comfortable with risk
771. 00:31:40 and like the new ideas and try new things.
772. 00:31:42 So I definitely have like a strong entrepreneurial chip
773. 00:31:44 of like wanting to start stuff and figure it out
774. 00:31:46 and like go for it.
775. 00:31:47 And I don't like to, yeah, I enjoy the autonomy.
776. 00:31:51 But then within my business,
777. 00:31:53 I am perpetually kind of coming back to like the default
778. 00:31:58 of like being the technician or being the manager
779. 00:32:00 where I'm frequently like either telling people what to do
780. 00:32:04 as opposed to just going, hey, here's the outcome.
781. 00:32:06 You know, and so like it's been a huge muscle for me
782. 00:32:10 to work to be able to delegate to my team and say,
783. 00:32:13 here's the outcomes that you're in charge of.
784. 00:32:15 And here are the resources at your disposal.
785. 00:32:18 And here's what I'm expecting of you.
786. 00:32:20 All right, now go do it.
787. 00:32:21 And then the technician, of course,
788. 00:32:24 like I'm very good at holding onto control and going,
789. 00:32:26 oh, I'm the best at this, no one does this better than me.
790. 00:32:29 I'll just do it, I'll just do that, I'll just do that.
791. 00:32:32 And it's very easy to slip into that
792. 00:32:35 as opposed to trying to focus on the actual systems
793. 00:32:39 and the things that will keep me out of the day to day.
794. 00:32:42 It's very easy to absorb the day to day for sure.
795. 00:32:46 - Yeah, I've got another follow up question here
796. 00:32:48 around the entrepreneurial perspective
797. 00:32:50 'cause I feel like this is very nuanced.
798. 00:32:52 This is again from chapter six.
799. 00:32:55 I have heard it said before that like when you are building
800. 00:32:58 a business and you need to figure out
801. 00:33:00 what are the jobs to be done.
802. 00:33:02 And that term jobs to be done, like you can unpack that.
803. 00:33:05 And I don't think it's quite what Michael Gerber
804. 00:33:07 is equating here, but he says that you shouldn't think
805. 00:33:10 about what work has to be done.
806. 00:33:13 And I think he would say it's because that anchors you
807. 00:33:16 in maybe some low leverage tasks
808. 00:33:18 while this is just what we've always done.
809. 00:33:20 So someone needs to do this.
810. 00:33:22 And he says, instead you should be thinking
811. 00:33:24 entrepreneurial perspective is how must the business work?
812. 00:33:28 Do you have any examples of shifting your mindset that way?
813. 00:33:33 - Yeah, I have a fantastic example.
814. 00:33:35 So I worked a couple of years ago,
815. 00:33:37 I hired a business coach to kind of help me
816. 00:33:40 like figure out literally exactly that.
817. 00:33:41 And like what are the jobs to be done inside the business?
818. 00:33:46 And so what we did was we kind of went through
819. 00:33:50 and he helped me just look at what is it like,
820. 00:33:54 what is our business model?
821. 00:33:55 And what are we doing that generates customers?
822. 00:33:58 What are we doing that attracts new leads or new prospects?
823. 00:34:02 What are we doing to deliver our product to our customers?
824. 00:34:06 What are the things that have to be done?
825. 00:34:08 And then like I remember him saying like,
826. 00:34:10 okay, you're not allowed to list any of the people
827. 00:34:13 that work for you, you're not allowed to list
828. 00:34:15 any of their names.
829. 00:34:17 We're not allowed to talk about what they're currently doing.
830. 00:34:19 You have to pretend that they don't exist right now
831. 00:34:21 and what they're responsible for does,
832. 00:34:23 is they're not responsible for that,
833. 00:34:25 like turn all that off.
834. 00:34:27 And then he's like, what we just talked about here,
835. 00:34:30 your business model and how you, you know,
836. 00:34:32 your marketing engine and your customer,
837. 00:34:35 the delivery engine for your product delivery,
838. 00:34:37 all this stuff.
839. 00:34:38 Now, what are the jobs that are required for this to run
840. 00:34:43 and to happen?
841. 00:34:44 And so we kind of like worked through it's like,
842. 00:34:45 okay, somebody has to be in charge of the community.
843. 00:34:49 That's all that someone has to be in charge
844. 00:34:51 of new product development.
845. 00:34:53 Someone has to be in charge of the marketing.
846. 00:34:56 Someone has to be in charge of customer support.
847. 00:34:58 And so it's like we kind of identified these like
848. 00:34:59 four or five like primary areas of responsibility.
849. 00:35:03 And then we list it out.
850. 00:35:04 What is the number one metric of success for each of those?
851. 00:35:08 And so we had like a, like in terms of four disciplines
852. 00:35:12 of execution, we had like a lead measure of like,
853. 00:35:15 this is what they need, if they are doing this,
854. 00:35:17 then it will be indicative of success.
855. 00:35:20 And then we had like an economic metric of success too,
856. 00:35:24 of like it's, you know, this level of churn
857. 00:35:26 or this level of revenue or whatever it was.
858. 00:35:30 So like there was an economic driver as well.
859. 00:35:32 And then then we got to like,
860. 00:35:35 we took the veil back off of the org chart.
861. 00:35:38 He's like, okay, now with your current team,
862. 00:35:41 does anyone fit in these roles?
863. 00:35:43 Does anyone, you know, make sense here?
864. 00:35:45 And then we kind of just went through and said,
865. 00:35:47 okay, well this person would do great here.
866. 00:35:48 This person would do great here.
867. 00:35:50 Okay, we have a huge gaping hole here.
868. 00:35:52 And like no one's doing that.
869. 00:35:53 And then also with my coach, he was like,
870. 00:35:55 Sean, you're not allowed to put your name on this list anywhere.
871. 00:35:59 You have to, someone else's name for all of these.
872. 00:36:04 So then it became very clear,
873. 00:36:06 like where some of the big gaping holes were
874. 00:36:08 in terms of like the org chart for stuff that I was doing
875. 00:36:12 that we needed to find ways to delegate or to remove
876. 00:36:15 or, you know, things like that.
877. 00:36:17 So that was kind of like my big, you know,
878. 00:36:20 aha moment related to the jobs to be done in that regard.
879. 00:36:23 I love that. And the nuance there,
880. 00:36:26 'cause you mentioned some examples of like the community
881. 00:36:28 and things like that.
882. 00:36:29 It's not that you were personally attached to the community.
883. 00:36:33 It was because it was a part of the economic engine
884. 00:36:35 of the business.
885. 00:36:36 It was important.
886. 00:36:37 It wasn't just something that had inertia.
887. 00:36:40 We send out, we do this thing.
888. 00:36:41 We publish this post, you know, every Friday.
889. 00:36:43 And so I guess I better just find somebody to do that.
890. 00:36:46 But really it's figuring out what are the high leverage
891. 00:36:49 activities that drive the business forward
892. 00:36:51 and then putting people in the right positions
893. 00:36:53 that they can do that work and they can do it successfully.
894. 00:36:56 - Am I like completely derailing your show?
895. 00:36:59 - No, I love this.
896. 00:37:00 (laughs)
897. 00:37:02 I actually, I'm trying to find the balance here
898. 00:37:07 because part of me wants to just run off
899. 00:37:09 and talk about the tangents,
900. 00:37:13 but also trying to follow a little bit of the format.
901. 00:37:15 I guess let's go into part two here.
902. 00:37:18 I think this one will actually be pretty quick,
903. 00:37:21 famous last words, but this is the turnkey revolution,
904. 00:37:26 a new view of business.
905. 00:37:27 And so this is kind of getting into the value
906. 00:37:30 of the systems.
907. 00:37:32 So essentially what you were just describing,
908. 00:37:35 like why that works.
909. 00:37:38 And this is where you made the comment,
910. 00:37:42 you can't put your name in any of the boxes, right?
911. 00:37:45 This is where Michael Gerber would respond directly to that.
912. 00:37:49 But let me just kind of share a little bit
913. 00:37:51 about the turnkey revolution here first.
914. 00:37:54 So chapter seven is the turnkey revolution
915. 00:37:57 and this is where he talks about the story of McDonald's.
916. 00:37:59 Now I've heard the story of McDonald's before,
917. 00:38:03 but this added some new details.
918. 00:38:05 Essentially it was a hamburger stand
919. 00:38:08 that was owned by two brothers,
920. 00:38:09 Mac and Jim, Mac Donald, M-A-C, right?
921. 00:38:13 And then Ray Crock, famously the milkshake salesman,
922. 00:38:16 goes to see them at their hamburger stand
923. 00:38:18 in San Bernardino, California.
924. 00:38:20 He's impressed by the operational efficiency
925. 00:38:22 and that anyone can make a good hamburger,
926. 00:38:24 even high schoolers.
927. 00:38:25 Those are Michael Gerber's words, not mine,
928. 00:38:27 so I'll get mad at him.
929. 00:38:29 And then he convinces the brothers
930. 00:38:31 to let him franchise their method.
931. 00:38:33 12 years later he's bought them out
932. 00:38:35 and it's a $40 billion per year business.
933. 00:38:38 Now I know the story of McDonald's
934. 00:38:41 is gonna be polarizing for people
935. 00:38:44 because there are people who are like,
936. 00:38:46 well I don't want a McDonald's business.
937. 00:38:49 I don't wanna make cheap hamburgers.
938. 00:38:52 I wanna be on the high end of that,
939. 00:38:54 I wanna make quality things
940. 00:38:55 and really what he's talking about here is
941. 00:38:58 it doesn't matter the price point,
942. 00:39:00 really when he's talking about a franchise,
943. 00:39:03 it's the predictability of the customer experience.
944. 00:39:08 And then in chapter eight he kinda talks about
945. 00:39:10 the University of Hamburgology,
946. 00:39:11 that's where they talk about the specifics.
947. 00:39:14 Like French Vires aren't in the warming bin,
948. 00:39:16 more than seven minutes.
949. 00:39:18 All the patties are turned at the same time,
950. 00:39:19 the pickles are placed by hand,
951. 00:39:21 so they're not gonna slide out.
952. 00:39:22 And this part reminded me of,
953. 00:39:23 I've heard some stories of the training
954. 00:39:26 that goes on at Disney resorts and theme parks,
955. 00:39:29 to make sure that the customer experiences
956. 00:39:32 exactly the way that they want it to be.
957. 00:39:35 That's the big takeaway here,
958. 00:39:37 is you are a successful business
959. 00:39:39 when you can identify a customer's perceived needs
960. 00:39:43 and wants their desires,
961. 00:39:45 and then meet them in a very specific and systematic way
962. 00:39:49 so that it doesn't deviate from their expectations.
963. 00:39:52 Is that a fair summary?
964. 00:39:54 - Yeah, absolutely.
965. 00:39:56 - Right, so the big challenge then is like,
966. 00:39:58 how do you do that?
967. 00:39:59 (laughs)
968. 00:40:00 I don't know, you have any examples of things
969. 00:40:03 that you have done in order to guarantee
970. 00:40:06 that experience in your businesses,
971. 00:40:08 because I remember back in the day,
972. 00:40:10 one of the first products I bought from you
973. 00:40:13 was a book called The Light is in the Details.
974. 00:40:15 (laughs)
975. 00:40:17 Very much in line with what he's talking about
976. 00:40:20 in this section.
977. 00:40:21 - Yeah, I think, so I think even just like that perspective,
978. 00:40:25 right, so like you were saying,
979. 00:40:26 some people don't want to own
980. 00:40:29 a bunch of McDonald's franchises, right?
981. 00:40:31 I know there are,
982. 00:40:33 and there's different motivating factors
983. 00:40:35 for entrepreneurship and business development.
984. 00:40:37 Like it's like some of us is like,
985. 00:40:38 yeah, I wanna own a bunch of McDonald's
986. 00:40:40 because I wanna just make a lot of money.
987. 00:40:44 But some people will have like a different approach.
988. 00:40:45 Like I want to create something
989. 00:40:47 and I wanna build a relationship with my customers,
990. 00:40:49 or I want to do,
991. 00:40:50 you know, like there's all sorts of different layers
992. 00:40:53 of the motivate,
993. 00:40:56 like what motivates us behind the entrepreneurship.
994. 00:40:58 And I think at some level,
995. 00:41:00 it's usually like a blend of obviously like time,
996. 00:41:04 autonomy, money,
997. 00:41:05 impacting people's lives,
998. 00:41:07 making their lives better,
999. 00:41:09 you know, working with the team, leading a team,
1000. 00:41:11 like, you know, there's a blend of those.
1001. 00:41:12 So when you look at it from that perspective of like,
1002. 00:41:17 okay, now you own a business
1003. 00:41:18 that should be able to be turnkey
1004. 00:41:19 that you can deliver these quality results
1005. 00:41:21 on a regular basis.
1006. 00:41:22 It kind of, it softens, you know,
1007. 00:41:25 the palettes that I speak when you're,
1008. 00:41:27 we're talking about it in context of like a franchise.
1009. 00:41:30 So for me, I think the most recent,
1010. 00:41:32 I would say probably the best example
1011. 00:41:35 is with one of our core flagship programs,
1012. 00:41:39 it's called the Focus Academy.
1013. 00:41:41 And it's this four week program
1014. 00:41:43 that takes people through
1015. 00:41:44 to build their ideal weekly schedule
1016. 00:41:46 and to establish their life mission.
1017. 00:41:49 And this is something that like,
1018. 00:41:52 for a long time, I was teaching it personally.
1019. 00:41:56 And so it was me and the team
1020. 00:41:57 and like the three or four of us,
1021. 00:42:00 it was like all hands on deck for this four week program
1022. 00:42:03 where we'd have hundreds of people come through at a time,
1023. 00:42:05 well not hundreds, but we'd have like,
1024. 00:42:06 usually about 125 people would come through at a time.
1025. 00:42:09 And like taking them through this process
1026. 00:42:13 to help them just, you know,
1027. 00:42:14 reset their schedule and kind of get all their stuff together.
1028. 00:42:18 And I would lead a class on Mondays,
1029. 00:42:20 I would teach another program on Tuesdays,
1030. 00:42:23 we would have these small group get-togethers on Wednesday
1031. 00:42:25 and Thursday, we'd do group Q&A on Friday,
1032. 00:42:27 it was like very time consuming.
1033. 00:42:29 And we did several of these in a row
1034. 00:42:31 and it was just like, this is untenable for me
1035. 00:42:33 and even for the team.
1036. 00:42:34 And so we're like, how can we still get results for people
1037. 00:42:39 but in a more sustainable, systematic, repeatable way?
1038. 00:42:43 And in fact, how can we even do that?
1039. 00:42:45 So their experience and their results are even better.
1040. 00:42:49 How we not only improve on the process for them,
1041. 00:42:51 but also do it in a more scalable, sustainable way.
1042. 00:42:53 So what we did was we took all the training
1043. 00:42:55 that I was doing live and we prerecorded it.
1044. 00:42:58 And that allowed it to go from a 90 minutes worth of training
1045. 00:43:02 down to like 40 because it was way more like just concise
1046. 00:43:07 and I wasn't rambly.
1047. 00:43:08 And then the videos were much more polished
1048. 00:43:12 and so it was easier to follow along
1049. 00:43:13 and the slides were better.
1050. 00:43:15 And there was that dynamic.
1051. 00:43:17 And then we were able to create like certain processes
1052. 00:43:21 for like at these stages in the program,
1053. 00:43:25 like these are the questions that we're asking.
1054. 00:43:27 And so then my team had like this manual,
1055. 00:43:30 like a facilitator's guide, so to speak.
1056. 00:43:32 So they were able to then take people through.
1057. 00:43:34 And then what we found is that then by my team
1058. 00:43:37 doing some of the Q and A,
1059. 00:43:38 they were able to give their unique perspective
1060. 00:43:41 'cause I had already told my stories in the training videos.
1061. 00:43:44 And so then when people ask me a question,
1062. 00:43:46 I like have the same answer on repeat.
1063. 00:43:48 So they're just getting the same thing they already heard.
1064. 00:43:50 But by having my team answer the question,
1065. 00:43:52 they're able to get a unique new perspective.
1066. 00:43:55 So it elevated like the overall experience in that way
1067. 00:43:59 because now they're getting a different answer
1068. 00:44:01 that resonated for people in a different ways.
1069. 00:44:03 They're hearing two unique approaches
1070. 00:44:06 to something not just my same thing over and over.
1071. 00:44:09 So that was one of the ways that we took something that
1072. 00:44:11 I thought was so unique and so special
1073. 00:44:13 and had to be done this laborious way
1074. 00:44:15 and involve me able to completely systematize it
1075. 00:44:18 and delegate the entire thing.
1076. 00:44:20 And so like earlier this year,
1077. 00:44:22 when we had our last training,
1078. 00:44:23 I wasn't involved at all.
1079. 00:44:25 My team led the whole thing without me.
1080. 00:44:28 I was there at the beginning to welcome everybody
1081. 00:44:30 and I was there at the end for the graduation
1082. 00:44:31 to like high five and congratulate.
1083. 00:44:34 But I didn't host any of the calls.
1084. 00:44:35 I didn't do any of the Q and A or any of the training.
1085. 00:44:38 And the results that we heard from people in the feedback
1086. 00:44:41 was just as good as any of the other times that we had done it.
1087. 00:44:44 - Mm, that's awesome.
1088. 00:44:46 And it kind of hits that something that he talks about
1089. 00:44:49 in this section that the true product of a business
1090. 00:44:54 is the business itself, right?
1091. 00:44:56 The experience that you're able to deliver,
1092. 00:44:58 even if it's detached from your personality,
1093. 00:45:01 which if you have a personality driven content business,
1094. 00:45:04 that can be a little bit hard sometimes.
1095. 00:45:06 It's like, well, obviously people are joining
1096. 00:45:09 because they wanna be with me live.
1097. 00:45:10 (laughs)
1098. 00:45:12 No, not necessarily.
1099. 00:45:13 They're there because you can deliver a solution
1100. 00:45:17 to a problem that they're facing.
1101. 00:45:20 - Yeah, yeah.
1102. 00:45:21 - And there's, I mean, the live sessions
1103. 00:45:22 aren't necessarily good or bad either.
1104. 00:45:24 I mean, it's really just how can you meet
1105. 00:45:26 the needs in the best way possible?
1106. 00:45:28 That's, there's some nuance there.
1107. 00:45:30 But also he talks about how your business is not your life,
1108. 00:45:33 right?
1109. 00:45:34 And it's cool to hear you talk about that
1110. 00:45:36 because it feels like that model that,
1111. 00:45:39 or that experience that you just described
1112. 00:45:42 where you're able to systematize this in a way
1113. 00:45:45 that's actually better for some of the people going through it
1114. 00:45:48 because they're able to get the multiple perspectives
1115. 00:45:49 and things like that.
1116. 00:45:50 The business is now set up to support the lifestyle
1117. 00:45:55 because he talks about how your primary purpose
1118. 00:45:57 of your business, a primary purpose of your life
1119. 00:46:00 is not to serve your business,
1120. 00:46:01 but the primary purpose of your business
1121. 00:46:02 is to serve your life.
1122. 00:46:03 - That's huge.
1123. 00:46:05 Mike, you should say that again.
1124. 00:46:07 - Yeah, the primary purpose of your life
1125. 00:46:08 is not to serve your business,
1126. 00:46:10 but the primary purpose of your business
1127. 00:46:12 is to serve your life.
1128. 00:46:14 And on the surface, that kinda sounds like,
1129. 00:46:16 well, yeah, work, life balance, I get that,
1130. 00:46:18 but it's not quite that simple.
1131. 00:46:20 - It's huge and I think that this is a,
1132. 00:46:22 I know for me,
1133. 00:46:25 this was a huge mindset shift.
1134. 00:46:29 And I've talked about this before.
1135. 00:46:32 Yeah, I think with you guys,
1136. 00:46:33 even on a recent podcast that we did for Focus
1137. 00:46:36 on your show of like the difficulty
1138. 00:46:40 as the business owner to delegate tasks to my team
1139. 00:46:44 and this feeling that like,
1140. 00:46:46 well, I don't wanna do this certain task.
1141. 00:46:48 And so if I delegate it to my team,
1142. 00:46:52 well, that stinks.
1143. 00:46:52 And so there's like, there's kind of like this old OG work ethic
1144. 00:46:57 in my mind that's like, well,
1145. 00:47:00 I'm never gonna do something that,
1146. 00:47:02 I'd never ask anyone on my team
1147. 00:47:03 to do something that I'm not willing to do.
1148. 00:47:05 And so that translates into the business owner
1149. 00:47:07 does everything.
1150. 00:47:09 And then everyone else on that team that works for them
1151. 00:47:11 like has it easy and like isn't doing anything.
1152. 00:47:14 And that doesn't honor your team, it doesn't honor you.
1153. 00:47:16 And like this perspective of like,
1154. 00:47:18 oh yeah, the point of this business
1155. 00:47:20 is to support and serve my life.
1156. 00:47:22 And like just even shifting to like this business,
1157. 00:47:26 it's not a thing, it's not a person, it's not a baby, right?
1158. 00:47:30 Like it's an organization.
1159. 00:47:33 And the whole point of this that this exists
1160. 00:47:36 is to better the lives of my team,
1161. 00:47:38 to better the lives of all the customers that we interact with,
1162. 00:47:41 to better the lives of all the vendors that we deal with
1163. 00:47:43 and that we have relationships with
1164. 00:47:45 and to better the lives of the owners of the business.
1165. 00:47:49 And like realizing that is so like just empowering.
1166. 00:47:54 And I remember like I was talking to some friends of mine
1167. 00:47:58 about just some, you know, challenging decisions
1168. 00:48:00 that I was facing and a few things like that.
1169. 00:48:02 And they're like, well, you're the owner.
1170. 00:48:04 What do you want?
1171. 00:48:05 What do you wanna do?
1172. 00:48:05 Like what, you know, this is your thing, you know,
1173. 00:48:09 that's your money, you're spending on that.
1174. 00:48:11 What do you wanna do about it?
1175. 00:48:13 And just the like, oh yeah, this is here for me.
1176. 00:48:17 Like this is, this is, this is here for me.
1177. 00:48:19 It was here for my team to like serve us
1178. 00:48:20 and to make our lives better.
1179. 00:48:22 That's such a, I don't know, for me,
1180. 00:48:25 that was a huge revelation that I still,
1181. 00:48:27 like it's still a hardship sometimes to feel like,
1182. 00:48:30 I don't know, like I wanna, I wanna be noble
1183. 00:48:33 by being a martyr on my business.
1184. 00:48:35 And I was like, that's stupid.
1185. 00:48:37 That's not noble, that's stupid.
1186. 00:48:39 That's what that is.
1187. 00:48:41 - Yeah.
1188. 00:48:41 And one of the things you're kind of hinting at
1189. 00:48:44 is that it's not just about you.
1190. 00:48:45 You've got shareholders or stakeholders
1191. 00:48:47 however you wanna describe it,
1192. 00:48:49 who are gonna benefit from this as well.
1193. 00:48:51 So actually disconnect, like in some ways,
1194. 00:48:55 trying to make the business support a better lifestyle
1195. 00:49:00 for you can feel a little bit selfish,
1196. 00:49:02 but it's really not because there are other people
1197. 00:49:04 that are connected to you who are gonna benefit from it
1198. 00:49:08 as well.
1199. 00:49:09 So it's important that you, you make that mindset shift.
1200. 00:49:12 And then the other thing that's kind of related to this,
1201. 00:49:15 is you were talking about how I don't wanna force my team
1202. 00:49:18 to do anything that I don't wanna do.
1203. 00:49:20 And ultimately that's gonna lead to,
1204. 00:49:24 not, it's people not pulling their weight.
1205. 00:49:27 And ultimately it's gonna put a straight on the organization
1206. 00:49:29 and that's gonna hurt everybody in the long run.
1207. 00:49:32 Your team would most likely say, you know what?
1208. 00:49:34 I'll help out, let me do that thing.
1209. 00:49:37 But there's another version of that I think,
1210. 00:49:39 which he kind of talks a little bit in this book about too,
1211. 00:49:41 which is the delegation by abdication.
1212. 00:49:44 So you could go all the way the other way
1213. 00:49:46 and be like, I am the owner
1214. 00:49:48 and I am not going to do this anymore.
1215. 00:49:49 Now you go figure it out.
1216. 00:49:51 That's not a great way to do it either.
1217. 00:49:54 - Yeah, like the, oh my gosh, yeah.
1218. 00:49:55 Derek Sivers talks about that as well.
1219. 00:49:57 Probably my all time favorite business book ever
1220. 00:49:59 is Anything You Want by Derek Sivers.
1221. 00:50:03 - It's a good one.
1222. 00:50:04 - And he talks about that too.
1223. 00:50:04 He's like, if you delegate by abdicating,
1224. 00:50:09 he actually is like, you'll end up with mutiny
1225. 00:50:12 because then they'll end up just figuring something out
1226. 00:50:15 and they'll figure it out without you
1227. 00:50:15 and then they'll realize they don't want you.
1228. 00:50:17 And that's actually kind of partly what happened with him
1229. 00:50:20 and CD Baby in the early days.
1230. 00:50:21 And he ended up moving to California.
1231. 00:50:23 He's like, I'll just code the next version of the website
1232. 00:50:25 and you guys just kind of run everything else.
1233. 00:50:27 Yeah, so it is the hard work.
1234. 00:50:30 And that's part of where the, I think coming back to that,
1235. 00:50:32 just the point of like the hard work of the business owner
1236. 00:50:37 is to provide clarity to their team.
1237. 00:50:38 So it's not just like, hey, I'm going to delegate this
1238. 00:50:40 to you, I want you to do it.
1239. 00:50:42 But then it's also, I'm going to make sure
1240. 00:50:45 you're able to do this.
1241. 00:50:46 I'm going to give you the resources
1242. 00:50:48 and I'm going to give you the support that you need
1243. 00:50:53 to get this figured out.
1244. 00:50:55 But then there also comes a point where it's like,
1245. 00:50:56 okay, you know what, you've had enough support.
1246. 00:50:58 You've got enough resources.
1247. 00:51:00 Now you've been able to figure it out to this point
1248. 00:51:03 and you can take it from here
1249. 00:51:04 or maybe you can even take it to the next level
1250. 00:51:06 from here beyond what I could do.
1251. 00:51:07 Like I've given you the point to now where you're able to do that.
1252. 00:51:11 But that's in a like a healthy, nurturing mentorship
1253. 00:51:16 position, not abdicating.
1254. 00:51:18 So a lot of work in that regard to provide the clarity
1255. 00:51:21 to provide the help.
1256. 00:51:22 - Yeah, absolutely.
1257. 00:51:23 And that kind of gets into part three.
1258. 00:51:25 So let's go there.
1259. 00:51:27 - Well, it's like, I think it's this, right?
1260. 00:51:29 I'm sorry, I really, there's a lot in chapter nine here,
1261. 00:51:31 which is the very end of part two
1262. 00:51:33 that really stuck out to me.
1263. 00:51:35 But it's this like, how do I get my business to work
1264. 00:51:38 but without me?
1265. 00:51:40 And then he goes, how can I get my people to work
1266. 00:51:42 but without my constant interference?
1267. 00:51:46 And I think like so often, like there's again,
1268. 00:51:49 like just coming back to that mindset of like,
1269. 00:51:50 I don't want to do anything that I wouldn't ask them
1270. 00:51:52 to do anything that I want to do.
1271. 00:51:53 Like it really is your job to get your people
1272. 00:51:56 to be able to work without you.
1273. 00:51:58 And there is like, I know for me that has been such
1274. 00:52:02 a mindset obstacle.
1275. 00:52:05 And the harder that I hold on to that mindset
1276. 00:52:08 and the more difficult it is for me,
1277. 00:52:10 like to let go of it.
1278. 00:52:12 Like those are all like the points where it's like,
1279. 00:52:14 yeah, we're not growing because of that,
1280. 00:52:15 we're not growing because of that.
1281. 00:52:17 And when you begin to realize that by delegating
1282. 00:52:19 to your team and getting out of their way,
1283. 00:52:22 like in a healthy way, that is the path toward growth.
1284. 00:52:26 And that is the path towards scale for things
1285. 00:52:29 that can be done on repeat without you,
1286. 00:52:30 for serving your customers and getting the best for them.
1287. 00:52:33 And it really does honor your team.
1288. 00:52:36 And it dignifies them as being capable
1289. 00:52:38 of doing good work and not being treated like little children.
1290. 00:52:42 But it's such a, I know for me,
1291. 00:52:44 I don't know if anyone else listening can relate,
1292. 00:52:46 but it's like that has been such a mindset obstacle.
1293. 00:52:49 Like as I've slowly learned how to do that better,
1294. 00:52:52 I've seen the impact that it's had in a good way.
1295. 00:52:56 - Yeah, well, that's the next section.
1296. 00:53:00 Part three is really about the system.
1297. 00:53:01 And that's why I think this is probably connected,
1298. 00:53:06 is that in order for you to be able to hand this off
1299. 00:53:10 to your team, you have to have thought through
1300. 00:53:13 this whole business development process
1301. 00:53:17 is how Michael Gerber packages this.
1302. 00:53:19 But honestly, this is gonna be an interesting part
1303. 00:53:22 of the conversation because I've read lots of books
1304. 00:53:25 in my integrator role that talk about business systems
1305. 00:53:29 like this.
1306. 00:53:30 And I've got like four or five different versions
1307. 00:53:32 that are bouncing around in my head
1308. 00:53:34 compared to the pieces that he has here.
1309. 00:53:37 And honestly, if you laid them all out side by side,
1310. 00:53:40 they probably are all very, very similar.
1311. 00:53:43 But I think this is an important concept.
1312. 00:53:47 And I guess I tend to think in systems anyways.
1313. 00:53:51 So I've sort of naturally gravitate towards this sort of stuff.
1314. 00:53:55 This is the longest part of the book,
1315. 00:53:57 but it's also by far the longest section of the notes I have
1316. 00:54:02 just because I find all the details about this
1317. 00:54:06 kind of fascinating.
1318. 00:54:07 So maybe let's jump into the business development process
1319. 00:54:11 here.
1320. 00:54:12 Now he's got a couple chapters at the beginning,
1321. 00:54:15 your business development process,
1322. 00:54:16 which is really about how your business development
1323. 00:54:19 process has three phases, innovation,
1324. 00:54:21 quantification, orchestration,
1325. 00:54:23 and how it's not just thinking up new things to do,
1326. 00:54:27 but how do you actually do those things,
1327. 00:54:29 quantifying everything related to your business.
1328. 00:54:32 And then in the business development program,
1329. 00:54:33 he lays out his seven step process.
1330. 00:54:36 Before we get into the specifics of the process, though,
1331. 00:54:39 I'm kind of curious this innovate,
1332. 00:54:43 quantify, orchestrate piece.
1333. 00:54:45 This is kind of what you were talking about.
1334. 00:54:48 One of the things he mentions is that you should quantify
1335. 00:54:50 everything related to your business.
1336. 00:54:53 I'm not sure I agree with that as it's written.
1337. 00:54:57 I'm curious what your perspective would be.
1338. 00:55:00 I know that for us, I mean, we're a small team.
1339. 00:55:03 If we tried to quantify everything in the business,
1340. 00:55:08 we would just be drowning in data and drowning in reports.
1341. 00:55:13 So everybody on my team has one specific metric
1342. 00:55:18 that they are responsible for.
1343. 00:55:19 Like they own, you could put it like, they own a number.
1344. 00:55:23 And so one person who's in charge of our membership,
1345. 00:55:26 their metric, their number, their quantifiable thing,
1346. 00:55:30 their in charge of is membership churn.
1347. 00:55:33 Our growth person is in charge of our return on ad spent.
1348. 00:55:38 I'm in charge of overall membership growth.
1349. 00:55:42 Like that's my, as the director of marketing right now,
1350. 00:55:44 as well as the boss, that's what I'm in charge of.
1351. 00:55:47 It's like we all have a very specific,
1352. 00:55:49 this is the number that we can quantify
1353. 00:55:52 that you're in charge of.
1354. 00:55:52 And so, and then with those,
1355. 00:55:55 each person has a clear number they own.
1356. 00:55:56 And then there's usually like two numbers or three maybe,
1357. 00:56:01 quantifiably, that you use to support and get the data from
1358. 00:56:05 and help you make decisions for your big metric that you own.
1359. 00:56:10 But it's like past that, past like one clear metric
1360. 00:56:13 that you own and then the two or three supporting
1361. 00:56:15 like numbers and data points to help you make decisions
1362. 00:56:20 around improving what you're responsible for.
1363. 00:56:23 After that, it's like, man, that now we're just getting lost
1364. 00:56:25 in the weeds and we're just, this is too much.
1365. 00:56:27 So we only quantify a few things that matter the most.
1366. 00:56:32 And then the few things that support the,
1367. 00:56:34 help us to actually make decisions to grow,
1368. 00:56:36 but we're focusing on.
1369. 00:56:38 - Yeah, I 100% agree with that approach.
1370. 00:56:42 - I knew you would.
1371. 00:56:43 - I don't know.
1372. 00:56:44 Yeah, I don't know what the point is
1373. 00:56:47 where you have enough resources to actually quantify
1374. 00:56:50 everything and where that could be useful.
1375. 00:56:52 I mean, I worked with you and small team.
1376. 00:56:55 I worked with a bigger team as an integrator.
1377. 00:56:56 Where literally this was my job was to make sure
1378. 00:56:58 that all the trains are running on time
1379. 00:57:00 and is the company growing?
1380. 00:57:01 Are we gonna be profitable, all that kind of stuff?
1381. 00:57:04 And so I've kind of experienced firsthand the problems
1382. 00:57:08 with trying to quantify everything.
1383. 00:57:10 And in my opinion, what it, more data points,
1384. 00:57:15 what they do is they give you more opportunities
1385. 00:57:19 to tell stories that aren't true.
1386. 00:57:21 Because the human part of you is going to look for reasons
1387. 00:57:26 why what you're doing is working or not working.
1388. 00:57:31 But I think most people will,
1389. 00:57:33 their confirmation bias will kick in
1390. 00:57:35 and they wanna show how smart they were
1391. 00:57:37 when they decided they were gonna do this thing.
1392. 00:57:38 And so they'll find a data point and says,
1393. 00:57:40 oh, well actually, you know, the critical number,
1394. 00:57:43 the key number is going down,
1395. 00:57:44 but there's some positive signs over here
1396. 00:57:46 with this other stuff.
1397. 00:57:47 (laughs)
1398. 00:57:48 So that can get in your way and it can stunt
1399. 00:57:52 your business's growth.
1400. 00:57:55 But also I think like as a small business,
1401. 00:57:57 if you're just starting to quantify data,
1402. 00:58:00 the more things you try to quantify,
1403. 00:58:03 the harder it is to get a grasp on what's actually going on.
1404. 00:58:07 So maybe if you're starting from the very beginning
1405. 00:58:10 and you're crafting your business engine,
1406. 00:58:13 this maybe makes a little bit more sense,
1407. 00:58:17 but even then I have a hard time thinking
1408. 00:58:19 that this is a good approach.
1409. 00:58:21 I've done a little bit of operational consulting
1410. 00:58:24 since I left the integrator role.
1411. 00:58:26 And with all the people that I've talked to,
1412. 00:58:29 they've kind of fallen into this trap
1413. 00:58:31 and they're trying to,
1414. 00:58:32 they feel overwhelmed by their business
1415. 00:58:34 and they don't really know what's going on.
1416. 00:58:36 And I've forced them to do the same thing
1417. 00:58:39 that you were talking about,
1418. 00:58:40 the person that you worked with,
1419. 00:58:41 it's like, okay, so what is the actual way
1420. 00:58:43 that your business makes money, right?
1421. 00:58:46 For a creator business, it's something like,
1422. 00:58:49 well, they watch my YouTube videos
1423. 00:58:52 or they read my blog post,
1424. 00:58:54 so they download my podcast episodes.
1425. 00:58:57 And then from there,
1426. 00:58:58 they're gonna go to email newsletter or something.
1427. 00:59:01 Okay, so the key event there is that
1428. 00:59:03 we're transitioning from watcher, reader, listener
1429. 00:59:07 to subscriber.
1430. 00:59:09 And then from there, we're gonna download,
1431. 00:59:12 you know, a tripwire product, a small purchase
1432. 00:59:15 and then a certain percentage of those people
1433. 00:59:18 will go on to purchase the big thing.
1434. 00:59:19 Okay, now we can see, like,
1435. 00:59:21 the big thing is where we make our money
1436. 00:59:22 and we have a clear path now for how people get there.
1437. 00:59:25 And at each point between those different stages,
1438. 00:59:28 there's an action that happens.
1439. 00:59:30 So I tell people, those are the critical numbers
1440. 00:59:32 you need, chuck everything else.
1441. 00:59:34 Just look at the ones that are indicating
1442. 00:59:38 how people are going from one stage to the next,
1443. 00:59:41 'cause that's where the bottlenecks are
1444. 00:59:42 and that's where if you're able to solve those problems,
1445. 00:59:45 it's gonna have the biggest impact on your business.
1446. 00:59:50 And just like, what are the few data points you need
1447. 00:59:55 that will help you make informed decisions
1448. 00:59:59 around those bottlenecks?
1449. 01:00:01 Yep.
1450. 01:00:02 And that's the biggest thing, like,
1451. 01:00:03 sometimes you just have so much data,
1452. 01:00:04 you're like, I don't even know what to do with this.
1453. 01:00:06 And so it's not helping you make a decision.
1454. 01:00:08 So it's like, give you enough to make decisions
1455. 01:00:10 and then move on.
1456. 01:00:11 Yeah, let's talk about the bottlenecks for a second
1457. 01:00:13 because I could be wrong here.
1458. 01:00:15 I have limited experience with running a small business anyways.
1459. 01:00:19 Been involved in lots of them.
1460. 01:00:21 My dad was an entrepreneur.
1461. 01:00:23 He ran a small business.
1462. 01:00:24 So I've been around it my entire life,
1463. 01:00:25 but seems to me that there are always problems to be solved.
1464. 01:00:30 And the big, the big struggle for an entrepreneur
1465. 01:00:34 is not figuring out what are the problems to be solved,
1466. 01:00:39 but focusing on which problems to solve.
1467. 01:00:41 (laughing)
1468. 01:00:42 Right?
1469. 01:00:43 So that's where the bottlenecks come in handy,
1470. 01:00:44 is like, this is the important problem to solve
1471. 01:00:48 as opposed to, well, this thing is broken over there.
1472. 01:00:50 Well, yeah, but how much of an impact does that really make?
1473. 01:00:53 Mm-hmm.
1474. 01:00:54 Oh, for sure.
1475. 01:00:55 That is, it's, again, like,
1476. 01:00:56 and that's coming back to your job as the business owner.
1477. 01:01:00 It's like, you've got to decide
1478. 01:01:02 what is the problem that we're going to focus on,
1479. 01:01:04 like identifying what is the single biggest problem
1480. 01:01:06 in the business right now?
1481. 01:01:07 What's our single biggest constraint?
1482. 01:01:08 And usually, I mean, honestly, it usually does boil down
1483. 01:01:12 to just like one of a couple of things.
1484. 01:01:14 It's like your lead engine or your product engine, right?
1485. 01:01:18 Like, you don't have enough customers coming in the door
1486. 01:01:20 or you're struggling to deliver to your customers
1487. 01:01:24 that are paying you.
1488. 01:01:24 And it's just like, usually it's in one of those two buckets.
1489. 01:01:27 And so basically like, okay, well,
1490. 01:01:30 what's the biggest bottleneck for these
1491. 01:01:32 and then what are we going to do to solve it?
1492. 01:01:35 And a lot of it is just like, okay,
1493. 01:01:36 let's, what about this?
1494. 01:01:38 Here's a guess.
1495. 01:01:39 I'm going to hypothesize here
1496. 01:01:40 and then let's see what happens.
1497. 01:01:42 And if that doesn't work, okay,
1498. 01:01:43 let's try this other thing.
1499. 01:01:44 And okay, is that working?
1500. 01:01:45 All right, well, then let's keep doing that on repeat.
1501. 01:01:48 And now, okay, now what's the next new bottleneck
1502. 01:01:51 that we've just discovered?
1503. 01:01:52 - Yeah.
1504. 01:01:53 Let's talk about the org chart for a second here
1505. 01:01:55 because the one that he shares,
1506. 01:01:58 I've seen lots of different versions of these,
1507. 01:02:00 but at the top are the shareholders
1508. 01:02:03 and primarily that would be the CEO visionary.
1509. 01:02:08 If you're talking about EOS would be
1510. 01:02:12 in that spot.
1511. 01:02:14 And then below that,
1512. 01:02:16 you've got the chief operating officer or the COO.
1513. 01:02:19 And then below that, there are basically three boxes
1514. 01:02:22 on the next level,
1515. 01:02:23 the vice president of marketing,
1516. 01:02:25 the vice president of operations,
1517. 01:02:26 vice president of finance.
1518. 01:02:28 And then from there, there are additional boxes,
1519. 01:02:30 which those I think can kind of vary based
1520. 01:02:32 on the business that you're running.
1521. 01:02:34 But that those three boxes,
1522. 01:02:37 which is really like sales and marketing,
1523. 01:02:39 operations and then finance,
1524. 01:02:42 do you agree that those are the critical areas
1525. 01:02:47 in a business and why or why not?
1526. 01:02:51 - Yeah, and this is, I mean,
1527. 01:02:53 Sean, do you agree in this time tested,
1528. 01:02:57 organizational strategy?
1529. 01:02:58 - Well, I guess what I'm trying to get at is,
1530. 01:03:00 have you noticed any other boxes in your org chart
1531. 01:03:06 other than those three?
1532. 01:03:07 I think probably they might be below that,
1533. 01:03:10 but maybe there's another one on the side could be.
1534. 01:03:13 And then do you have any trouble figuring out
1535. 01:03:16 who's gonna sit in those spots?
1536. 01:03:18 And then kind of what are the gotchas
1537. 01:03:20 that come with filling out this org chart?
1538. 01:03:23 Like one thing that I think maybe could be a mistake
1539. 01:03:25 is having people in too many of those boxes.
1540. 01:03:28 I kind of fell into that as the integrator.
1541. 01:03:30 It was like, well, you could probably help in this area.
1542. 01:03:32 So I became vice president of operations.
1543. 01:03:34 And it's like, well,
1544. 01:03:35 someone needs to get a handle on finance.
1545. 01:03:37 So I guess I'll do that.
1546. 01:03:38 And now I'm filling too many boxes
1547. 01:03:40 and I'm spread too thin and things break down.
1548. 01:03:42 So yeah.
1549. 01:03:45 So for sure, I think in small business,
1550. 01:03:48 that is one of the big challenges is reaching a point
1551. 01:03:51 where it's like you have enough scale
1552. 01:03:53 to be able to use this,
1553. 01:03:56 but like there's usually like a middle ground
1554. 01:03:57 where it's like, I have,
1555. 01:03:59 I'm big enough to not be able to wear all these hats
1556. 01:04:03 without it destroying me,
1557. 01:04:04 but I'm not so big that I can now outsource
1558. 01:04:07 these hats.
1559. 01:04:07 And so there is like that really difficult ground.
1560. 01:04:10 And for a lot of businesses,
1561. 01:04:11 right around like that $750,000 mark where it's like,
1562. 01:04:14 oh my gosh, we're big enough that we need help.
1563. 01:04:18 So anyways, so when you're like wearing all these hats.
1564. 01:04:20 So this one, the three different main roles,
1565. 01:04:24 finance, operations, marketing.
1566. 01:04:26 I know for in the creator business,
1567. 01:04:29 there is another one which is product development.
1568. 01:04:33 And there is, you know, or product delivery.
1569. 01:04:36 And you could like put that under operations,
1570. 01:04:39 you could put under marketing,
1571. 01:04:40 but I wouldn't like, I know like if you went over to Apple,
1572. 01:04:44 you know, like they're not developing the iPhone,
1573. 01:04:48 the marketing guys are not the ones developing the iPhone
1574. 01:04:50 and the operational guys are not the ones developing iPhone.
1575. 01:04:53 There is a product, you know,
1576. 01:04:55 you know, chief design officer, that role that is, you know,
1577. 01:04:59 developing and designing their product suite.
1578. 01:05:03 So a lot of times, I know EOS talks about this,
1579. 01:05:06 a lot of times that's actually just a CEO.
1580. 01:05:08 The visionary CEO guy, they're the ones out there
1581. 01:05:11 building the products, creating the next version
1582. 01:05:14 of the future for the business,
1583. 01:05:15 and then they're handing it down to their COO.
1584. 01:05:18 And going, okay, here is the thing that I've made.
1585. 01:05:20 Now go like systematize its delivery and market it
1586. 01:05:23 and sell it, here you go.
1587. 01:05:25 So sometimes that's what is happening.
1588. 01:05:28 But if in that context, it's like, okay, well then
1589. 01:05:31 the CEO needs to be recognized as like vice president
1590. 01:05:35 of product development as well as being CEO.
1591. 01:05:38 And so like having that, that obviousness of like,
1592. 01:05:42 not only are you the owner, okay, like you're helping set
1593. 01:05:44 the vision and the direction for the business
1594. 01:05:46 and telling us where we're going and being clear,
1595. 01:05:49 you're also because you're kind of like the visionary
1596. 01:05:53 and you're coming up with the products,
1597. 01:05:54 you sit in two seats.
1598. 01:05:56 And when you're over here in product as, you know,
1599. 01:06:00 vice president of product development,
1600. 01:06:02 well that seat on the org chart is actually
1601. 01:06:04 underneath the COO.
1602. 01:06:07 - Yeah, that's the hard part.
1603. 01:06:09 That was the biggest struggle for me
1604. 01:06:11 because the CEO who technically is above me, right,
1605. 01:06:14 is also the vice president of sales and marketing,
1606. 01:06:17 which is below me.
1607. 01:06:19 And so there were so many times like, okay,
1608. 01:06:21 so as the CEO speaking to the vice president
1609. 01:06:24 of sales and marketing, your numbers aren't where
1610. 01:06:26 they need to be.
1611. 01:06:28 - Exactly.
1612. 01:06:29 That is very, very like, that's a very
1613. 01:06:32 precocious spot to be in and a small business like that,
1614. 01:06:35 where, and it takes a very healthy, mature team
1615. 01:06:40 to be able to relate to each other in different contexts
1616. 01:06:43 like that.
1617. 01:06:44 It's like, okay, with my CEO hat on,
1618. 01:06:46 here's the vision direction that we're going.
1619. 01:06:48 Now with my VP of sales hat on, you know,
1620. 01:06:52 what's my budget for, you know, marketing or whatever?
1621. 01:06:56 And that can be very difficult to navigate for sure.
1622. 01:07:00 - Yeah.
1623. 01:07:02 I'll back up just a bit here to talk about the pieces
1624. 01:07:06 of the business development process here,
1625. 01:07:07 but I don't really care to talk about the whole process here
1626. 01:07:11 'cause I don't think it's packaged real neatly.
1627. 01:07:13 So he talks about how you need to have a primary aim,
1628. 01:07:18 the story you want told about your life essentially.
1629. 01:07:22 And then from there, you've got your strategic objective
1630. 01:07:24 and that is not a business strategy and plan.
1631. 01:07:26 It's a list of standards that you want to maintain.
1632. 01:07:30 Then you've got your organizational strategy,
1633. 01:07:33 which is really kind of the org chart
1634. 01:07:35 that we were talking about, your management strategy,
1635. 01:07:39 which this is like the operations manuals
1636. 01:07:42 and the checklist, things like that, your people's strategy.
1637. 01:07:46 And if I were to summarize this,
1638. 01:07:47 it's kind of like your culture.
1639. 01:07:50 And it's, there's an interesting point in this chapter
1640. 01:07:55 where he talks about a business is like a dojo,
1641. 01:07:56 a place where you can practice being as good as you can be.
1642. 01:08:00 I'd like to come back to that in a second
1643. 01:08:01 because I know you are a black belt, I believe.
1644. 01:08:05 But the other two pieces here are the marketing strategy
1645. 01:08:09 and then the system strategy, which I agreed,
1646. 01:08:12 those are important pieces, but again,
1647. 01:08:13 not packaged super, super well,
1648. 01:08:15 I feel like in this system.
1649. 01:08:17 So let's just nitpick a couple things here
1650. 01:08:19 and before we wrap up, let's talk about the dojo.
1651. 01:08:23 So how is your business like a dojo
1652. 01:08:26 or is this completely off the wall?
1653. 01:08:28 - I think this is a great perspective
1654. 01:08:29 and again, it kind of comes back to that mindset, right?
1655. 01:08:33 Of like, oh, I feel bad delegating work
1656. 01:08:37 that I don't want to do, right?
1657. 01:08:38 And I know you've got some highlights here as well.
1658. 01:08:40 Whereas like there is no such thing as undesirable work,
1659. 01:08:43 only people who see certain kinds of work as undesirable.
1660. 01:08:47 - That's a big one.
1661. 01:08:48 - And I remember the first time I experienced this
1662. 01:08:51 and sorry if I'm stealing your thunder here, Mike.
1663. 01:08:53 But I remember the first time I experienced this
1664. 01:08:55 for myself with the team, we were hosting a live event
1665. 01:08:57 in Atlanta and we're taking a group of people
1666. 01:09:00 through our material.
1667. 01:09:01 And like I had my office manager who like planned
1668. 01:09:06 the whole trip booked the venue, ran the budget,
1669. 01:09:11 booked our flights, had our rental cars,
1670. 01:09:14 ordered all the material, had it shipped to the venue,
1671. 01:09:16 like did all the like she's doing all the back end
1672. 01:09:19 behind the scenes stuff.
1673. 01:09:21 I have like Isaac who was working with us as helping
1674. 01:09:25 with all the products, kind of like a manager,
1675. 01:09:27 project manager at that time.
1676. 01:09:29 This is several years ago.
1677. 01:09:30 And he was like in charge of kind of helping like MC
1678. 01:09:34 the thing and lead some of the Q and A.
1679. 01:09:37 And then like he was also in charge of like all the technical
1680. 01:09:41 stuff like setting up the slides and the sound system
1681. 01:09:43 and all that stuff and the audio visual equipment.
1682. 01:09:46 And then my job was to like teach the workshop.
1683. 01:09:49 So we all fly in and like they drop me off at the hotel.
1684. 01:09:52 I order room service.
1685. 01:09:53 I'm going over my notes.
1686. 01:09:54 Well, they're running around the city like gathering
1687. 01:09:56 all the stuff for the snacks and the print material
1688. 01:09:59 and like setting up the venue, doing all the chairs,
1689. 01:10:01 whatever the next morning, like they go there early
1690. 01:10:04 to make sure everything's good to go.
1691. 01:10:05 I sleep in, I do a workout.
1692. 01:10:07 I eat like a healthy breakfast.
1693. 01:10:09 They come and pick me up.
1694. 01:10:10 I get there like 30 minutes early.
1695. 01:10:12 I deliver, but then I'm on stage all day long,
1696. 01:10:16 teaching the workshop.
1697. 01:10:18 And then when it's done, I get to leave and go home
1698. 01:10:19 and they have to clean up.
1699. 01:10:20 And I remember like, I'm like, man, this is awesome.
1700. 01:10:24 This is my favorite thing.
1701. 01:10:25 Like all I got to sleep in.
1702. 01:10:26 I got to hang out at the hotel.
1703. 01:10:27 I got to do my workout.
1704. 01:10:28 I got to like order room service.
1705. 01:10:29 And then I just got to stand on stage and teach all day,
1706. 01:10:31 which was like literally like, I loved it.
1707. 01:10:33 Like that's my favorite thing to do in my job.
1708. 01:10:35 And they're like, oh man, thank God I didn't have to teach
1709. 01:10:37 all day.
1710. 01:10:38 I just, all I had to do was, you know, I was like, man,
1711. 01:10:40 I got to sit in the back and like, you know, hit play
1712. 01:10:42 on the sound when we did the pause for like everyone
1713. 01:10:45 going through some of the questions in the workbook.
1714. 01:10:46 And Jan was like, man, I'm so glad all I had to do
1715. 01:10:48 was like plan the thing and like book the venue.
1716. 01:10:50 But then once we got there, I just got to hang out and like, have fun and like, you
1717. 01:10:53 know, make sure everything was running smoothly.
1718. 01:10:55 And so like everyone got to do exactly what they wanted to do.
1719. 01:10:59 And I remember for all three of us during our debrief after that event, it was just
1720. 01:11:03 like this like mind blowing experience of like, oh yeah, there is no such thing as undesirable
1721. 01:11:09 work, only certain tasks that are undesirable to certain people.
1722. 01:11:13 Yeah, that's, that's a really cool example.
1723. 01:11:17 I'm glad that you you shared that that's kind of the gold standard of the pinnacle that
1724. 01:11:22 he's kind of talking about, like all this stuff coming together.
1725. 01:11:24 When you've got the right people in the right seats, there is a lot of, a lot of synergy
1726. 01:11:28 there as people are able to focus on their strengths.
1727. 01:11:32 I'm kind of curious.
1728. 01:11:33 He does talk about in the marketing system section that you have to get everybody to
1729. 01:11:41 think this way.
1730. 01:11:44 It might be related to like the sales piece, but essentially every function of the business
1731. 01:11:51 needs to learn to ask these marketing and sales questions.
1732. 01:11:57 Do you agree?
1733. 01:11:58 And if so, how have you seen that play out in your small business?
1734. 01:12:02 Ask me that question in a different way.
1735. 01:12:04 Sure.
1736. 01:12:05 So in chapter 17, the marketing system, he talks about how most small business owners
1737. 01:12:11 suffer from willful disinformation.
1738. 01:12:13 They don't care to find things out, right?
1739. 01:12:15 So the goal is to find things out, the important piece of information.
1740. 01:12:20 This kind of tied back to the critical numbers and things like that that are going to help
1741. 01:12:23 you make the right decisions.
1742. 01:12:25 However, with the marketing piece specifically, essentially everyone needs to learn to ask
1743. 01:12:31 those marketing type questions.
1744. 01:12:34 You can't just say, oh, the marketing guy is going to figure out what people want because
1745. 01:12:38 customer service is going to be talking to people and they need to be able to have their
1746. 01:12:41 antenna up and say, oh, this is what people want because I've heard this sort of stuff.
1747. 01:12:45 Right?
1748. 01:12:46 So I'm just kind of curious how you've seen that play out in your business and how you
1749. 01:12:49 get people to think that way maybe.
1750. 01:12:51 Yeah.
1751. 01:12:52 So for us, this is huge.
1752. 01:12:53 And I realized early on, it's like, okay, I'm not like, I'm not a subvant when it comes
1753. 01:13:01 to marketing my products.
1754. 01:13:03 I think especially for creative businesses and for the professional creator, there's
1755. 01:13:08 this feeling of like, well, if I build it, then they will come.
1756. 01:13:12 And I've made this product to scratch my own itch and there's a market for it because,
1757. 01:13:18 gosh, if I want it, then surely other people want it.
1758. 01:13:20 And sure, we see some of those success stories, but those are one in a million.
1759. 01:13:25 And so the other 999,999 of us have to do market research and customer research.
1760. 01:13:32 And we need to serve the needs of our customers.
1761. 01:13:35 And there should be an overlap with like what you want to do.
1762. 01:13:38 Or maybe you do just honestly like want to own some McDonald's.
1763. 01:13:41 And it's like, okay, cool.
1764. 01:13:42 The customer research has been done for that.
1765. 01:13:43 Just like buy a McDonald's or buy a Chick-fil-A.
1766. 01:13:46 And there you go.
1767. 01:13:47 I would probably buy a Chipotle or Chick-fil-A or maybe both.
1768. 01:13:50 I would never buy McDonald's.
1769. 01:13:53 But for the rest of us, it's like, we need to do the customer research.
1770. 01:13:56 And then we need to do the hard work of like, who actually is buying this stuff?
1771. 01:14:01 Why are they buying it?
1772. 01:14:03 What is motivating it?
1773. 01:14:04 Like, what are they hiring us to do?
1774. 01:14:06 Like, what's the actual problem that we're solving for them?
1775. 01:14:08 We think it's this, but we actually don't know.
1776. 01:14:11 And it's hard work to do the research.
1777. 01:14:13 It's hard work to summarize the research.
1778. 01:14:17 And then it's a huge, usually it's a huge hit to the ego of the business owner.
1779. 01:14:23 Exactly.
1780. 01:14:24 To then go, okay, well, actually this is the truth.
1781. 01:14:26 This is who our customers are.
1782. 01:14:28 This is what they're asking us to help them with.
1783. 01:14:30 And we need to double down on that instead of like, no, we're going to do it my way.
1784. 01:14:35 And we're going to market it like this.
1785. 01:14:36 And we're going to tell my stories.
1786. 01:14:37 It's like, you've got to get into the hearts and the minds of your customers.
1787. 01:14:42 Because not only is that like how you're going to grow your business through marketing,
1788. 01:14:46 but that's how you're going to actually help your customers and serve them.
1789. 01:14:50 Not giving them what you want, but giving them what they actually need through understanding
1790. 01:14:56 what their needs are.
1791. 01:14:57 And I know there's like all, you know, Henry Ford.
1792. 01:14:58 But you know, like if I asked my customers what they wanted, it was at a faster horse.
1793. 01:15:02 Right.
1794. 01:15:03 And so like there's not, you know, it's like, so I made what they needed and I made the
1795. 01:15:07 future and I'm awesome.
1796. 01:15:08 I'm brilliant.
1797. 01:15:09 Right.
1798. 01:15:10 Like there, but like none of us are Henry Ford, like Henry Ford was Henry Ford.
1799. 01:15:13 And there's so much more to that story.
1800. 01:15:15 And so yes, asking the hard questions and getting the clear data and then being willing
1801. 01:15:20 to do what it takes to grow your business and to systematize the marketing and to actually
1802. 01:15:25 serve your customers.
1803. 01:15:27 It's not easy.
1804. 01:15:28 It's not easy to do for sure.
1805. 01:15:29 Yeah.
1806. 01:15:30 I feel like Joanna was really good at this.
1807. 01:15:32 I think she called it like a customer heartbeat or a pulse or something like that.
1808. 01:15:37 Yeah.
1809. 01:15:38 Which was great.
1810. 01:15:39 It's just a place every single meeting to bring up.
1811. 01:15:41 This is what I'm, I'm hearing.
1812. 01:15:42 So the rest of the team was, was aware because if you're just going to go create the marketing
1813. 01:15:46 materials in a vacuum, you know, you're going to create a sales page that hits on things
1814. 01:15:51 that nobody cares about or wants.
1815. 01:15:53 And ultimately that's death of the business.
1816. 01:15:56 So yeah.
1817. 01:15:57 For sure.
1818. 01:15:58 Cool.
1819. 01:15:59 Well, let's start to wrap up here.
1820. 01:16:02 Normally we've got action items and style and rating.
1821. 01:16:06 I'll share a couple of my action items.
1822. 01:16:08 If you have any action items that came up during the course of the conversation, feel
1823. 01:16:10 free to share those as well.
1824. 01:16:12 But I got two specific things that I want to do from reading this book.
1825. 01:16:17 Number one, going back to chapter six is to learn to ask what is the opportunity.
1826. 01:16:23 Just the stage that I'm in, I've looked at some of the data and basically what kind
1827. 01:16:29 of drove me towards Obsidian University was everything obsidian related that I created
1828. 01:16:34 or talked about did like 10x the other stuff when I was talking about, well, creativity
1829. 01:16:42 or productivity or productivity or things like that.
1830. 01:16:44 And that doesn't mean that that's bigger than productivity or creativity, but it means
1831. 01:16:48 that those are the people who are following me.
1832. 01:16:50 Like that's what they want to hear about.
1833. 01:16:51 Right.
1834. 01:16:52 That's what I kind of lead into.
1835. 01:16:54 But if I just follow that forever without stopping to think about what are the opportunities
1836. 01:16:58 that are available to me, I could build something that ultimately nobody wants.
1837. 01:17:03 So constantly looking around and asking where I'm at currently, what are the opportunities
1838. 01:17:09 and not assuming that the opportunities that were there before are necessarily opportunities
1839. 01:17:12 now.
1840. 01:17:13 And then related to that, going into my transition into full time creator, I just kind of fell
1841. 01:17:21 into it.
1842. 01:17:22 Like I've been doing the podcast and stuff on the side.
1843. 01:17:23 So it was a bunch of people who've kind of been following me and I had some people on
1844. 01:17:26 my newsletter list, but there was no direction with it.
1845. 01:17:29 There was no, this is what you're going to get from my shmit when you sign up for his
1846. 01:17:33 newsletter.
1847. 01:17:34 Right.
1848. 01:17:35 So who is my customer?
1849. 01:17:36 I have no idea.
1850. 01:17:37 I just show up and talk about stuff.
1851. 01:17:40 So I need to figure that out too with the go back to like the strategic objective and
1852. 01:17:45 figuring out, you know, who am I able to help?
1853. 01:17:47 And I feel like I'm making some progress on that, but still got some more work to do.
1854. 01:17:51 Yeah, that's, that's huge.
1855. 01:17:53 It's hard to do that.
1856. 01:17:54 So Mike, like good job.
1857. 01:17:55 You're asking the hard questions.
1858. 01:17:57 Thank you.
1859. 01:17:58 I think, you know, something about this too is just in my experience over the years of
1860. 01:18:02 business ownership, it's like these things are cyclical and you know, like you were saying
1861. 01:18:06 earlier, it's no like, it's, it's not like, Oh, what is the problem that needs to be solved?
1862. 01:18:11 It's like, well, of the 20 that are in front of us, we're going to focus on this one right
1863. 01:18:15 now.
1864. 01:18:16 And then you'll solve that problem in 18 months later, two, three years later, that problem
1865. 01:18:21 is back again, but at a new level.
1866. 01:18:24 And so just with more at stake.
1867. 01:18:26 And so you're coming back and constantly revisiting these, these challenges, these issues, the
1868. 01:18:31 people systems, the marketing systems, etc.
1869. 01:18:34 And so he was, I'm even kind of looking here, we didn't get into the chapter 18 here, the
1870. 01:18:38 systems strategy.
1871. 01:18:39 But one of the points in here is like, you need a system for selling.
1872. 01:18:43 You need to be able to grow and market your business on repeat that, you know, quote unquote,
1873. 01:18:47 the top of funnel stuff to overcome awareness and to get in front of people and to attract
1874. 01:18:54 your ideal customers and also to them, like repel the wrong customers.
1875. 01:18:58 And you know, like if you are trying to attract everybody, you're going to attract nobody.
1876. 01:19:02 And so just for us over the years, as I've been in the online creative space since 2011,
1877. 01:19:07 like things have just changed drastically over the years with SEO, with blogs, RSS, newsletters,
1878. 01:19:14 social media, all of this stuff.
1879. 01:19:16 And so for us, like right now, like we're coming back to that very, the biggest problem with
1880. 01:19:20 us in the business right now is like redesigning and rebuilding our own selling system of,
1881. 01:19:27 you know, we, you know, getting deeper and like even more clear on who our ideal customer
1882. 01:19:31 is and the ideal outcome that we have for them and the way that we speak to them and
1883. 01:19:36 attract to them and, you know, help serve them.
1884. 01:19:39 So building that selling system for us is an action that's, that's very top of mind right
1885. 01:19:44 now.
1886. 01:19:45 And we're actively, you know, we're working with a coach actually to help us solve some
1887. 01:19:48 of that stuff, even like right now.
1888. 01:19:51 So that's where I'm at.
1889. 01:19:52 Awesome.
1890. 01:19:53 Yeah.
1891. 01:19:54 I feel like we could have talked for two hours about some of this book, but I know you've
1892. 01:19:58 got a, you got limited time.
1893. 01:20:00 You plan to talk for two hours and it's like, I'm sorry, I can only do 90 minutes.
1894. 01:20:04 That's okay.
1895. 01:20:05 Before you go though, I do want to make sure we get to a style and rating.
1896. 01:20:09 So I'll just briefly go here and then I want to hear what you think about this.
1897. 01:20:13 I like this book.
1898. 01:20:14 I'm going to rate it four stars.
1899. 01:20:16 I don't think it's a great business systems book.
1900. 01:20:20 Maybe it was when it was originally written, but I've read several since then that I like
1901. 01:20:24 better.
1902. 01:20:26 And can you guess the one that I would recommend to people instead because I brought it up
1903. 01:20:30 when I worked for you?
1904. 01:20:32 Scaling up.
1905. 01:20:33 Yeah.
1906. 01:20:34 Exactly.
1907. 01:20:35 There's a lot more meat on that one and it takes a little bit more work to apply that
1908. 01:20:41 to your business.
1909. 01:20:42 And it maybe is geared a little bit more towards bigger businesses, but I think it applies
1910. 01:20:45 to small businesses too.
1911. 01:20:46 I've gone through that with a bunch of a bunch of companies and every single time we go through
1912. 01:20:50 the worksheets that are in there, like the seven strata and the strategy section essentially,
1913. 01:20:55 there's so much clarity that comes from that format.
1914. 01:20:59 So I really do think that that is more practical, more actionable.
1915. 01:21:03 And then if you just want the conceptual stuff, there's another one which is kind of like
1916. 01:21:06 a mashup of this and traction, which is like the EOS stuff.
1917. 01:21:10 It's called the Pinnacle Business Systems or something along those lines.
1918. 01:21:14 Basically Pinnacle is like a brand of business development coach that kind of picks and chooses
1919. 01:21:20 from the different systems based on your individual needs in your small business.
1920. 01:21:25 And I worked with a Pinnacle coach at the last job and I do like their approach.
1921. 01:21:31 And the book is actually pretty well written and it's easy to grok and lots of stuff in
1922. 01:21:35 there that I feel like is actionable.
1923. 01:21:37 But there's some really good stuff in here.
1924. 01:21:39 Really help me kind of ask some important questions and wrestle through some things.
1925. 01:21:44 So I will rate it four stars.
1926. 01:21:46 How about you?
1927. 01:21:48 I'm also going to go four stars.
1928. 01:21:50 What I really love about this book, well two things.
1929. 01:21:53 One, it's very simply written.
1930. 01:21:56 So it's written in like, you know, fifth, sixth grader language.
1931. 01:21:59 It's easy to read and understand.
1932. 01:22:01 And it hits on like a lot of just the mindset shift.
1933. 01:22:04 I know like this was kind of my like, you know, theme of the show today, Mike was like
1934. 01:22:08 the mindset shifts.
1935. 01:22:10 But like that is like it has to start there for as you transition.
1936. 01:22:15 If you want to be like a serious business owner and actually have that mature entrepreneurial
1937. 01:22:20 perspective, you have to think differently about it.
1938. 01:22:23 And I love the way that this book illustrates the shift in those mindsets and helps you
1939. 01:22:28 understand like how you're just like literally approaching all of it wrong and why you're
1940. 01:22:33 frustrated in your business is all these things.
1941. 01:22:35 But yeah, when it comes to actually outlining business systems and giving you like approach,
1942. 01:22:42 I'll add two more to that list.
1943. 01:22:44 My two favorite that I've read recently.
1944. 01:22:47 One is work the system by Sam Carpenter.
1945. 01:22:53 Yes.
1946. 01:22:54 I keep looking behind me because it's on the bookshelf there.
1947. 01:22:56 And then free time by Jenny Blake is a phenomenal book.
1948. 01:23:01 Free time is one of the best books I've read in the last year.
1949. 01:23:03 She is James become a good friend and she is a phenomenal writer.
1950. 01:23:09 Her like in a sea of like drab, sterile business writing, Jenny writes with like buoyancy and
1951. 01:23:18 joy and delight that is just so refreshing in that space.
1952. 01:23:22 And her book is just a beautiful, beautiful book about systems thinking specifically towards
1953. 01:23:28 the entrepreneur.
1954. 01:23:29 So I would, I recommend those books as well.
1955. 01:23:33 But sometimes you got to be in the right headspace to read those books.
1956. 01:23:36 And Emith can get you in the, Emith will get you hungry to build your business systems
1957. 01:23:42 and then you go read some other books on how to actually do it.
1958. 01:23:45 Or it will completely turn you off to the genre because it's not right for you.
1959. 01:23:49 Yeah.
1960. 01:23:50 Awesome.
1961. 01:23:51 Thanks so much for being on here today, Sean.
1962. 01:23:53 This has been a great conversation.
1963. 01:23:55 Where can people go to connect with you and learn more about what you're doing?
1964. 01:23:59 Yeah.
1965. 01:24:00 If any of you like any of the stuff around business, go to the focuscourse.com/boss and
1966. 01:24:06 sign up over there for email.
1967. 01:24:08 I sent a me mail and then you'll find out about our group program training that we're
1968. 01:24:12 doing to help full time business owners run their business on part time hours.
1969. 01:24:16 Thanks to systems and clarity.
1970. 01:24:19 Awesome.
1971. 01:24:20 Well, thank you.
1972. 01:24:21 And thank you to everyone who listened.
1973. 01:24:24 Not quite sure exactly what's going to happen next episode yet.
1974. 01:24:29 So I guess the next book will be a surprise.
1975. 01:24:31 The next guest will be a surprise.
1976. 01:24:33 But thank you for listening and we'll talk to you in a couple of weeks.