Building a Business that Lasts

The Benefits of Having Your Own Podcast with Steve Gordon

March 11, 2020 Jay Owen Season 1 Episode 75
Building a Business that Lasts
The Benefits of Having Your Own Podcast with Steve Gordon
Show Notes Transcript

As a business owner, you have more knowledge than you actually know — and that’s why you should have your own podcast. In this episode, we talk with Steve Gordon, the founder of The Unstoppable CEO™ & Unstoppable.Agency. He explains how business owners can grow their businesses using a podcast and other helpful business tips. If you want to build a successful business that lasts, then this episode is for you! 


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Listen to other episodes and see videos of the podcast at http://buildingabusinessthatlasts.com

spk_0:   0:00
getting attention in today's marketing world can seem almost impossible. Getting in front of lead prospects that you've always wanted to talk to can be really hard. On this episode, I talked to Steve Gordon. He runs unstoppable CEO. He is a best selling author, has written hundreds of articles on growing your business with this particular method that I can't wait to share with you without any further ado. Here's my conversation with Steve. Hey, Steve. Thanks for being on the show.

spk_1:   0:34
Jay. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here,

spk_0:   0:36
so I'm really excited to have you because you have a long history and business. You've done all kinds of different things. Your best selling author. You published hundreds of articles and I think you're gonna have a lot of insights for folks out there who are trying to grow a business. You're kind of self proclaimed title. At least Website Tunnel is the unstoppable CEO. What does that mean?

spk_1:   0:56
Well, so it's important to note that that is not my title, because I think that'd be pretty arrogant if I gave myself that title. But I was having a conversation with a buddy of mine and we were. It was early on after it started this business back in 2010 and he was asking me like Who you want to really serve? And the person that I had in mind was the small business over the CEO that, you know, I had known in my first business of my first business was an engineering company that had been around for about 25 years and, you know, and so I had all these contacts with all these business owners who had been in business for a while, and we got talking about you know who they weren't all that. And I said, You know, the guys that you know, that that they just kind of there pretty successful. But But it's been a challenge, like they've just slogged through. There's, you know, they've been through recessions and they've been through business divorces, and they've been through all these challenges over time. And he looked at me, said, Oh, you mean so They're unstoppable and I was like, we have our word, we got our name, and so that's what we that's what we serve. That's really kind of an aspirational thing. You know, when we look at working with a business owner, you know, that's one of the qualities that they've gotta have it. We want to work with him because that gets us really excited about being in a relationship with collaborating.

spk_0:   2:20
I love that idea. I mean, I think people always ask, you know, where the key attributes of leadership questions like that. And I think one of them is persistence, especially if you're gonna last in business for a long time and unstoppable kind of lines. With that, you need said that you had been an inch engineering business for 25 years. That's a long career in one industry and a long track record. What made you change gears and say All right, well, now I want to do something a little bit different.

spk_1:   2:46
Well, so I have been in that business for about 12 years. Business had been in existence for about 12 or 13 years before that and what I came in, I was fresh out of college and wet behind the ears still, but when I came into the business, I didn't know it at the time. But the founder kind of have this intention that you know, He was looking for a successor and he was kind of forward thinking he was still fairly young at the time and I was that guy and I didn't know it until about four years later when he asked me to take over and then I ran business for the for another decade and, uh, you know, and it was right. It was a wonderful business. Enjoyed it. We had two problems with that business, and I didn't really understand them until until a particular day in 2009 and our problems were that are about 50% of our business came from land development work in Southeast Florida, and you know, it's all real estate, and then the other 50% came from government agencies, and I didn't really think about the government agencies. They were always sort of our edge against a big downturn in the economy because we thought, well, their funding is going away. But all the projects we worked on were funded by the bond market, and I'll never forget the day that the market, the bond market, just totally imploded in 2009. We're actually moving into a new office. I was getting all of that organized and working through that day. Anna didn't. It was a couple of days for it, Really realized what that was gonna mean. But for our government contracts have met that the agencies that we worked with in the state, we worked for the state of Florida. They couldn't even though they had a great credit, they couldn't go out and get any money to fund the project. So all of a sudden that about a six month period of time, we lost about 90% of our business and biggest challenge I've ever been been in business and way were faced with a decision. You know, where we're gonna continue and throw money into the hole because it was gonna be a big hole and probably a decades long hole, which is about what it turned out to be. Or do we, you know, go kind of in different directions and you take the money to be made in and restart? I took that option and really decided that the thing that I love to do is work with other professionals in service businesses who are selling it, you know, really high ticket and help them kind of figure out this whole sales and marketing problem is it's a big problem.

spk_0:   5:10
Yeah, a lot of people struggle with sales and marketing. I always say marketing could be confusing and expensive. It seems like it should be easier than ever to get attention and acquire customers. But the problem is that there's so many options. A lot of people will just take this shotgun approach and start firing things against the wall. And usually that's not very successful. And they say things like, Well, this doesn't work. This tool over here doesn't work is this athlete doesn't work. I'm like, That's like me saying like a backhoe doesn't work toe Thio dig a pool because I tried it and didn't work. But I want to drive the backhoe. You know, I'm curious from your perspective. Like, what are some of the tools? Just roll tactically speaking into other business owners that you found that have been really successful for the people trying to grow their businesses?

spk_1:   5:51
Well, you know, I always try and really reverse engineer what you're you want to accomplish and then simplify it down because one of the things that we found when when we're working with real world business owners that are, Internet marketers are there. They're not professional marketers and don't want to be that, you know, they got a lot of other demands on their time, and so you've got a you gotta get this simplified down to the point where they can actually operate it. Otherwise, what's the point of the system? And so we have found a couple of tools that were pretty effectively for that. The most important one is podcast. And so one of the things that we really advocate to our clients is that they have a podcast, and the reason we like that as a tool is because it allows them in a very short amount of time, commitment for the business under maybe 4 to 6 hours a month. It allows them to get the vast majority of their business development work done, and it's already using a skill that they know how to use. They already know how to have a conversation with another human being. We tried other ways of getting them to do. We've tried content marketing. We tried to get him to write things. We've found all sorts of stuff, and what we found is that it's really difficult to change people's habits. But if you could give them a system where all they've got to do is show up and you're gonna guarantee that they're gonna show up because they've got an appointment scheduled with a guest that's gonna be on their podcast, right? So there's that built in accountability. They're never gonna put that off because it would damage their reputation. And then at the end of that conversation, they've got a team in place that takes care of everything else so they don't have to do anything. We have found that to be kind of the winning formula and so we can get into, you know, if you want to get tactically in tow all the different ways that we take that little time investment and repurpose it on and the you know the reasons we do that we can certainly get into that. But that's what we found is one of the primary tools that we use and one easiest to get success with for our clients.

spk_0:   7:58
Yeah, I love that idea. I think it's one of those things. I mean, that's what I'm doing on this show. Essentially, like I think a lot of times people think, Well, I don't I can't have a podcast because I don't have any content for it. And I always tell them, Look, the best way to have a podcast is just have a conversation. Get somebody else in the show that has interesting ideas that you want to talk to and talk about. And it's been amazing to me, you know, some of the opportunities I've had and just conversations that I had just because I have this show and I think some people get so caught up in, like the metrics of it, like how many people are watching the show and they were listening to the show. I should say it was podcast, and what I said from the very beginning was, You know, if I have the opportunity Number one, just to talk to another business owner who's built a successful business, that's a benefit for me so selfishly for my own education, saying the fact that every single week or every other week at least I'm talking to somebody else who's had decades of experience in business. That's a real big pro for me, even though I've been in business for several decades, to you could always learn from somebody else. That's a big thing for me, is trying to learn from somebody else. So that idea of just having a conversation with somebody, especially if they're an ideal prospect, is this huge? So you missed some examples of, like, maybe different industries of different types of people that you've worked with that have been able to make this work because I think some people out there might be thinking, Well, I'm not sure how that would work for my industry or and I think you can actually work for most people. So what's an ideal fit for somebody to go? Say, maybe podcasts and this type of marketing might work for me?

spk_1:   9:32
Well, t the low hanging fruit type of business for a podcast who business that could make this work really, really easily is the one that is selling a product or service that is is pretty expensive. You know, we're in the first year that a client works with you. They're gonna be spending thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars with you, and it's not that they don't work in other situations. It's just that you need a much bigger audience to make it work in those situations. And as I'm sure you know, J, it's tough to build a big listener ship in podcasts, and it's kind of tough toe move those people from listening into taking action. We could talk about how it fits in your conversion process is minute, but so so that's really who we kind of focus on people who are selling something fairly expensive, so a really great example that is an accountant, that is a client of ours. He's got a virtual CFO business and that he came to us and yet basically just a local kind of practice. He had been goingto be an I and some other local, like chamber networking events and and doing that for several years and been fairly successful at it and had a a little bit of a book of business. But it was taken a ton of time and he felt like he wasn't getting the payoff for the amount of time investment that it was requiring, and he wanted to be able to grow the business beyond his local area because he could work with people anywhere. He didn't need to have them be local. And obviously networking in all sorts of different cities becomes pretty problematic if you're, you know, if you're a small business like that. And so he actually was a guest on our podcast and we got to talking at the end of that interview about what we did. And he's like him. I'd be really interested in that so way had a conversation he came on, and the first thing that we did is we looked at. But who are your existing contacts? And we kind of mapped out the list of people that he knew. And when we did that, we noticed that there were some people that had pretty good networks of potential clients for him. And so we positioned that podcast to go and and be attractive to those people to be interviewed. And then we reach out for him to get him booked, his guests and part of what our strategy is. Once you build the relationship through the interview, the purpose of podcast is really to have a conversation like this, where you're hiding somebody else's expertise. They're gonna feel really good about that and feel really good about you because you're giving them a platform to talk all about themselves in their business. And then at the end of that conversation, you know, the recording stops, you've got the opportunity to engage them for. And what we tell our clients to do is look, all you gotta do is figure out where they're going one of their goals, and then that will tell you how you can kind of plug in and head butt. And, uh and so you know, he did that. He had that conversation and then what we had to do is offer an opportunity to help that person give value into their network by having him come in and give a talk on you know how to increase the profitability in your business. Well, for these business owners who all had lots of business owners, his clients, that was a really attractive thing. You know, most of them were doing a whole lot to nurture the relationship with their with their network, and this was a way to be a real hero toe. All the people in their network kind of be the impresario where they're they're bringing an expert him and he was the expert. And so he did. Out of the 1st 9 interviews he did, seven people agreed. Toe have him come to a presentation. He generated about 250 leads, which was a ton for him, and he closed out of that eight clients within about a two month period, which he said was his best two months since you started the business. And now he's got all the rest of those 250 leads that are gonna continue to hear from him because every time he records a podcast interview, our team takes that when you put it in his email, marketing and social media, that goes out to all of those people. And so he's little by little creating relationship with those people because they're hearing his voice. Yeah, we're hearing him kind of talk to another business, and they're getting to experience what it would be like to be in conversation with its a powerful, powerful strategy.

spk_0:   13:55
Yeah, I just love this idea. I think the whole concept of even perceived authority in some of these scenarios where because you have a show if you will or because you have a podcast that has value. And the reality is most people have no ID, no way of knowing how much viewership you get on your podcast or anything else anyway. And and I think for me it's that reality of there's so much opportunity just building that relationship. And if you're doing it with somebody who's a prospective client, think this kind of flips It's on flips, flips the idea of a podcast on its head because a lot of people, I think, start a podcast on the continent, have this awesome show, and then I'm gonna get sponsors and sponsors were gonna pay me and all this kind of stuff. Maybe that will happen, but it's so that's a lot harder road to really grow success. But we're already having established business, and you're able to build a place where you can essentially set up a conversation that is gonna benefit the other person, cause you're exposing them and their business and telling their story and everything else. It's just absolutely huge. Want to circle back a little bit because one of the things that you talked about that I think is really important is you're talking about giving them a system and then having a team in place to help take care of those, take care of them and the podcast. But think something like a podcast is one of those things somebody might start and maybe they read a couple articles and they buy a microphone and get plugged in, and they do a little bit of work than they realize. There actually is a lot more to running a successful podcast than just recording the episode. But what you're talking about is putting together a way that they can show up in a microphone, have a conversation, and that's it. Talk about the power of having a good system and the right team in place, whether it's an in House team or in your case on out of House team that you're hiring to do things. That power of team in system together is really something big

spk_1:   15:40
is huge. Well, I'm guilty of doing exactly what you describe some 2012. I started my first podcast, you know, we were sort of on the early end of podcasting, and we did it for a year and 52 episodes, one a week had interviewed experts all over the world, build great relationships through, and we were executing the strategy at that time, then worked really, really well. I got opportunities to present to their networks to their audiences. We got a lot of it is inside of that. I got really busy and I didn't have a team who could do this. And so it ended at the end of that year because I got too busy and you know that it took me a little while to really learn that lesson because, you know, I went just to show you the value of those kinds of relationships. Two years after that podcast ended, I wrote a book, my first book called Unstoppable Forwards. I went back to the 50 people that I'd interviewed and out of 50 15. So a small number of them So yeah, I'd love to help you is promote the book, and they shared it and those relationships that people had stayed in touch with for those couple of years. Those relationships basically put our business on the map. We had a tiny little following of about 1000 people in our database before the book these 15 people help me promote the book. And we had 5268 copies of the book leave Amazon the first week. I mean, five times the number of people we know who've never been exposed to close before. That's the power of building some of these relationships. Now, you know, when I started our current podcast a couple of years ago and really started to double down on this, I actually delayed for about six months because I knew that if I had started it, I tried to do it all myself. It was just gonna fail again. It was gonna fail faster because I didn't have as much time. And so I spent about six months building the team and thinking aboutthe systems and getting all of that in place before we launched. And then we launched. And now we've been going, you know, we're entering our fourth year this month of the podcast. You know, we're somewhere in the ballpark of 160 170 episodes completed. I could not have done that without the team that we have that phenomenal and without the systems in place so that I can just show up and talk. You know, that's kind of our goal for our clients. They if they could just show up and talk there, the town and they need to act like the town to too many business owners. Special small business owners think they have to do it all themselves, and they don't they don't invest to go get the team in the systems and you can. You can get, you know, team and systems a lot of different ways. You can buy, you know, somebody's system through a course or a book and then hire the team to implement that. That's totally great way to do it. You can go out and you can hire. You know, a company like ours, which has got the systems and the team packaged for you. There's lots of ways to do it, and there's I'll never tell anyone. There's one right way, you know it's whatever way it gets. It done for you is the right way. But those two things together put you as the business owner in position to make this sustainable, and and I think that's really the critical thing. You know, J the beginning. You talked about folks to try a Liza for tools and, you know, they they don't get very far with it. We call those rattlers. That's our kind of lingo for this. And we see him try something, and then you know they'll they'll see some ad on Facebook for something else, and they'll jump to that. No jumping, no dabble in this and that and the other thing. And I don't think you can build a business that lasts by Dad. So, you know, having been a part of the business that was around for 25 years and grown it and then now having a second business that's were in our 10th year right now. And the thing that I really focus on her, what were the few things I could do that are gonna change over time? Because that really simplifies things for me. And you know, this podcasting thing sounds like it's all new, but we actually did this in my first business in kind of get a podcast. Podcast didn't exist, but we would interview people that we wanted to be in a relationship with. We would record those. It was really complicated at the time. Were recorded. We put him on CD, who we would mail them in. The U. S. P s out to our network. You know, that was a pain in the rear, so it's all gone a lot easier, but the strategy was the same. It's I'm using this energy to get in relationship with somebody that strategically important, neither prospect or a center influence that can refer me. And I'm using that as the door opener because I can count Paris, shoot over the walls for the prospect. You know, I get past all the gatekeepers because if I go to a business under that, I wanna do business with and try and sell them. Something that I'm showing up is a sales person I won't do that won't show up as their friend as their trusted advisor, as the expert that they turn to as an authority and the podcast allows me to do

spk_0:   20:47
Yeah, I think all of this is really important for people to think about it. They're listening not just from the podcast standpoint, but really business as a whole, because there's so many times I think that business owners get stuck in the trap of doing it all themselves. And I'm of that personality to you. Talk about dabblers. I call it Sometimes S O s, a shiny object syndrome. And I could be guilty of that for sure. It's in my personality and my nature. But when I started this spot guests, for example, when I started it on the kind of person that wanted to kind of do it all myself, they're going to get a feel for it. But I knew very quickly there was no way that I could do that all the time, as far as sending out reminders and setting up the actual zoom call and then actually recording it in saving it and editing it and creating like all the stuff that has to be done for a podcast. There's a lot of pieces to the puzzle you don't realize is that you get into it, and now it's gotten to a point where I show up. I have this conversation and then that's it. Like I have a team in place that takes care of all those other pieces. But that's true for so many parts of business. One concept but uncle, he overheard this part out. Remember where I stole it from, but it's probably not mine. I love this idea of when you're trying to figure out if you should do it or not. Question is, one doesn't need to be done and if not, delete it. Number two cannot automated because there's some pieces, like sending out a meeting reminder of Hasty. We've got a podcast tomorrow. Hasty. We've got a podcast in an hour that's gonna greatly increase the number people that actually show for the show and that will be done by robots. I don't need people to even do that. Number three. Can I delegate? Is there somebody else? A now outside team like yours that I can hand it all to an inside person or a contractor? There's a lot of different options. As you said, I always tell people ignore the system, but have a system. You've gotta have a way that works for you just because you know you, Steve, do it a certain way and I do it a different way. Either one of those is necessarily wrong, unless I'm completely worn out, stressed out, ready to quit, Then I am doing something moment exit, so I just love these ideas that you're sharing with regards to creating sustainability. In fact, you've been in business now for 10 years and growing that over time has real impact. I'd love to hear thinking about those relationships. You talked about having a network of 1000 people. And then when that book at released, you know, literally five Xing the sale number. Which means really based off that the network of people that because the network of people that have got expanded too, was exponentially larger than that because they're not all gonna buy. We know that concert conversion rates, regardless of can be pretty low. Let me Ju Yoo added multiple zeroes to the number of people that actually got exposure. So how did you leverage that network of connections? Well, without then feeling like you were using them because you had a longer on your show one time, what are some of your strategies around kind of developing and nurturing those relationships? Well, not using people, if you

spk_1:   23:40
will. Well, it's like any any human relationship. Okay, you have to actually care about the other person, you know? I mean, it seems so obvious, but a lot of times we get kind of caught up in our underwear around what we want out of it, and that's generally counterproductive. I've never failed to find the opportunity to ask for what I wanted, but I had to create the conditions where that ask was gonna be, you know, positively received. And so far that's just being a good friend. I mean, it's not any more complicated than that. So, you know, when I when I meet somebody, I always ask questions, and, uh, I'm sure we'll have this conversation at the end of the podcast here. Once we turn the recording off, I want to know about Like what? I'm truly curious. Jane, what are you up to? Will enter your goals. You know, one of the great things about having the podcast 1/2 is a interviewed over 100 entrepreneurs, and they all are doing really amazing things. And I'm at the point now and actually got there very quickly with podcasts. And I'm sure you can relate to this where I'll hear you may tell me an idea today and I go, Oh, you really need to know So and so do you know when you'll see, I don't know. Let me get you connected, you know? And so just being curious about what's where somebody's going allows you to leverage all the other relationships that you have. You know, people are always looking for a connection that can move them forward, turn towards their goal. They're always looking for ideas that can help move them forward towards their goal. Okay. And so you may have an idea that that would help somebody, and I'll just shoot somebody, you know? Hey, I was thinking about what you told me last month and have you thought about this and it doesn't matter if they have or if they haven't. It's the fact that you thought about them. You cared enough to give them some of your attention when you weren't in front of them, and then you were thoughtful enough to send them. You know, the that little thing, you know, we'll email. So I do that one of the other practices that I have is that every day I send out a card. You know, I've got a stack of here on my desk of stacking note cards and envelopes, and, you know, I get these things printed up just with my name on it, and I return address so I don't have to do any work other than address the thing and write a note. And sometimes it's just a simple as Hey, Jay was thinking about you today. Hope you're doing really well. Let's get together soon, Steve. You know, it's, you know, people get all this trouble to clip out articles and do all this crazy stuff. I used to do that to, to try and add value. And sometimes you don't even need to do all that. You just need to show up and show that you care. So that's, I think, the first thing and then the second thing is, you know, if you're gonna show up and ask somebody to do something, you've gotta ask them to do something that's aligned with their own interests. And this is one of the things I discovered. A ZAY was putting together the unstoppable Referrals book. It's one, actually, it's the number one area that keeps people from getting referrals. You're asking somebody for for what you're asking them to do, something that's not in their interest, because if they refer you, it's not that they don't want to help you, but there's almost always to them. And it's almost all the benefit goes to use very little benefit for them. But if you change it up a little bit and you align your interests with their interest now all of a sudden you unlock that well, if you approach that with anything that you're asking for of your relationships, it just works so much better. So with the book, I was able to go out to those people and say, Hey, I've got this book can send first Can I send you? Ah, pre release copy. And I did that and they got it. And there happened to be some ideas that they thought were powerful in there and helps to have good ideas. I'm a big believer that ideas should do the same for you. And then I came back and said, Well, great, I'm glad you like it. Would you be willing to share it with everybody when we launch even share with all the folks shoot out when they go? Oh, yeah, This would be great. You know, my network would love this. Okay, So I was giving again giving them the opportunity to be a hero to their network by being the one who connected all of the people that were in their network with a valuable resource.

spk_0:   27:52
Yeah, I think those two things are really big. The idea of actually caring for somebody in the lining with their interests. I was always told a long time ago. When it comes to selling, selling is not part. It's just a matter of helping somebody else. And if you honestly believe that your product or service is going to help them in the end, I always say you're almost morally obligated to convince them to buy it because you really are trying to help them like you actually do care. And the only reason sales gets a bad rap is because there's sales people out there that are selling things. They're not actually in people's best interests. But if what we're selling, we believe, is gonna help, um, I mean cash. It's a no brainer, and I love that idea of thinking about that individual in aligning it with their interest also is something as simple is sending out a physical card and mail seems so. I don't know old school, but I think that makes it even more valuable today. I mean, how many of us didn't get bombarded with lengthen message requests and e mails and everything else, and it's so easy to delete those. But if I get a physical piece of mail in my office and it has my name on the front of it, that piece of mail is gonna go on my desk because nobody else is gonna open because it just has my name on it. And so, like that, it looks like a personal note. It looks like it's a personal letter and it looks like that's gonna come to me and I'm gonna open it. I'm gonna see it even if I just see your name and I don't do anything else with it. I don't reply to it. I don't email you back. I think it falls it straight in the trash can. That is a that is a serious like physical connection on. I think we undervalue that culturally right now, and it's a huge opportunity for people to really just write a card and send it to somebody and say, Hey, I really appreciate the time. Get off last week or whatever you know. And I think that matters, too.

spk_1:   29:34
Yeah, it's it's super easy to do. It takes me less than five minutes a day, and, uh, you know, I don't do it on the weekend. So you know, I get 210 or 15 cards out a year and that so far in my business career, that's been enough. You know, nurturing those relationships over time has been enough to drive the business forward and open up other opportunities.

spk_0:   30:02
Yeah, absolutely. I love that Elektra, and just just a little bit too final things I always like to hit on before we wrap up the show. One is the question of work, life balance, and the second is kind of any parting thoughts you have for people who want to build a business that lasts, I said, There's two is exiting the three, and the third is where people can find you online. So let's start with the 1st 1 That is the question of work, life, balance. I know I am a recovering workaholic. Sometimes I'm still in the middle of it because I love the work that I get to do But I also have bunch kids and wife and all kind of other stuff friends of, like keep friends. And I think as entrepreneurs, we all struggle with this because most people who are in business for themselves hopefully actually like doing the work that they're doing. If they don't like what, you could do something else. And over the years, I think for me the seasons of life change that. But what does number one work life, balance even mean to you? I mean, something different. Everybody, I think, and then to How has that changed throughout your life and career?

spk_1:   31:00
Yeah, you know, it's funny that phrases has become such almost like a charged phrase over the last decade. And sometimes I wonder I have these conversations with entrepreneurial friends of mine, you know, Does it even mean anything anymore? Because one of the things that I found is that I'm almost always out of balance one way right up, you know? So I go through these periods of time where you know where work is, is needing to take priority, and it's sort of eating more time. Now, I I do have some limits that I put on that every week. But but then there are other periods of time where family and other things kind of lead the way and and and so I've never tried to get it, like in balance where week to week, I'm perfectly balanced. It's always sort of thinking over the course of 1/4 or a year. Am I in my kind of balancing things out? And have I said really specific goals in all the areas of my life and am I moving towards us because I find that that's kind of what What helps me move forwards feel like for this year's one of my goals is to cut my work week down to actually just be Monday through Thursday. And I do that for two reasons. One, I believe it's gonna really increase productivity because, you know, work. It expands to the time you lot. It's if it's got less time apart. We were done. But I also wanna have Fridays for a combination of three days, where it's totally free and those days where I can either go play golf, hanging out with friends. My wife and I had had one day back in New November of last year where we're both, we both happen to be off, and she's got a pretty intense job as well. We both have to be off. We went to this local brewery here in town. It was kind of Iranian, misty and a cold, unusually cold November day here in Florida and we just sat there and we drink probably too much beauty or read too much food. And we talked for like, eight hours straight. I mean, there wasn't a break in. It was a best days I've ever had with my wife and our entire marriage. And And I knew at that moment I gotta figure out How do I create more of those? Because it was awesome. And how do I create him with our kids? And how do I create those with my friends? And the other thing that I've found is that because it started experimenting with this, you know, over the last several months where I could fit it into the already packed schedule that when I'm taking that time off, business actually benefits dramatically because I come back fresh. I got like, all this creativity is unleashed in that time off and so it's been really interesting to see that. So that's how I do it. I set these goals and say, Okay, well, now I got something to track towards that will create the balance.

spk_0:   33:45
Yeah, I think that's awesome. I think the idea of setting goals across all areas of life is something that can be a little bit of a pain point for a lot of entrepreneurs. They think I've got business goals. I only have like family goals, only have marriage, goes on friend goals on spirituality, Bulls. I don't have health goals, you know, other than like, I need to still lose that same £15 you know, And so I think that idea is really important because it's a gauge where you can go, all right, I'm 1/4 into the year. I'm I'm moving towards that goal. I'm am I moving away from and what do I need to do in order to move towards it? And I totally agree with you that sometimes those days off, I think people think I can't afford to take a day off. I've got too much work to do. One that's good problem to have. If you're really that busy. But number two, If we don't take those days, I have found it only creates pain. It is much better. At least have some sprinkling of those days where there's nothing scheduled. There's nothing land that our brains need, that freedom to roam and turn our phones off internal laptops off because because sometimes that actually is the best thing for business to which is kind of seems counter intuitive. But it's true. It's when people come for the best ideas when they're in the car or in the shower because their brains have freedom to roam alone. Now people are on their funds in the car,

spk_1:   34:57
too. Well, I'll tell you what won t fame there is that the the block that people run into with how to create some of that balance when they're too busy at work is that they think, Well, how do I don't get out from under this? And I was right in the middle of that last year. We grew a bunch towards the end of 2018 and going into 2019 and I had to do two things going back to the your comment on systems and Team I had add somebody to my team who could act as a kind of, ah, operations manager. And then I had to work with that person for about three or four months of pretty heavy lifting to get systems really well documented and get everybody trained up on them. And then once I did that, I was like, Amazing How much time that free to be able to go and and do other things within the business and out of the business? And so that's unfortunately that's where you know, I said earlier, Things kind of swing out about sometimes. Sometimes you need to swing it out of balance so that you can kind of push that rock over the hill and be okay with that, you know? So when I was going through that, I had a conversation with my wife's like, Hey, I've got a really, like get this done over the next three or four months, and once it's done, it's gonna be really great and got her to buy into that.

spk_0:   36:10
That's that's key right there. The fact that you kind of told her, Hey, look, I got this thing I gotta work on. I got this season is gonna be about this long. That's communicating upfront. The mistake. I think a lot of us, Meg, I know I've made over time. It's not communicating that entering into that season and not been able to get it done. Also, think just right now I've been saying this a lot lately. Culturally, we love extremes as a society, it seems, lately, and as a result, one of those in business is the hustle 24 7 lifestyle and the like, extreme self care lifestyle. And both of them seem to wanna shame people into some particular scenario the hustle lifestyle. If you're not working still two o'clock in the morning and you don't have your laptop all friend and you're not responding to texts every 15 seconds, then you're not working hard enough, and the other lifestyle says if you're not taking a nap every day, you don't have yoga at least four times a week and you're not drinking green smoothies at least three times a day, then you're not taking care of yourself. And I think so often the truth is somewhere in the middle and and sometimes we pivot this way and we gotta just really put the pedal to the metal. It's another pivot this way when you go handle extra rest. And I think having people around you to kind of hold you accountable in that has has real value.

spk_1:   37:20
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely

spk_0:   37:21
so to final things up. Parting thoughts. So when you think about talking directly to an entrepreneur, a business owner or even an executive who is trying to build a business that lasts, what is that kind of parting idea that you would want to leave with them?

spk_1:   37:38
It can't be all about you. You can't do it as a Lone Ranger. And, um, you know, one of the things that has really cropped up over the last decade is this three idea of the A millionaire Sola ProTour, and it's not that they don't happen. But I know actually, a lot of people who put themselves out there publicly as the millionaire solo preneurs and the truth is they got a pretty big team. They might not be employees, you know. They've got a pretty big team supporting him. You know, I think I see this this trap a lot where you know, business owners as they're kind of starting in the 1st 5 years of the business. They really has it Tate to invest in getting help when they need it, and I think that's the most valuable investment that you can make. And I got this in my first business. I had a mentor who happened to be at one point the CEO of the Boston Whaler Boat Company. And he said he said the best advice he ever got from one of his mentors, Waas, that any time you feel like your schedule is too full, then you need to take a pay cut and hire an assistant. And he said every time he did it, within about a year he had doubled his income and I started doing that my first visit. So my first business, we had three offices and I had two full time assistance, one in each of our two bigger offices where I spent most of the time and I travel back and forth, and it was just a a boon for productivity, which meant I could focus on the stuff that actually made money. So we made more money, and then in this business, you know, within the first year I hired my first assistant and having that person, and now I've got a couple of people that just focus on supporting me. That's transformation. And, you know, in today's economy and with all the D A's and all the opportunities to get part of a person's time, there's no reason not to do so. I think getting that team in place early and then thinking strategically as you grow, how do I build a really great team around me? Because your job is to be the CEO, not to be everything. And you can't be the CEO If you're doing all this. All these other roles? Yeah, I think that's how you build. This is the last.

spk_0:   39:59
Absolutely. I think that that is absolutely critical. And it's so easy sometimes to feel like, especially if you have AH team of employees already to bring an assistant on to help you. Personally, I think some people see that as like, I don't know, I've actually felt like this before where I'm like, kind of selfish for me to have this extra helper and all this kind of stuff. It's just for me, and but it's not. It's in everybody's best interest because so many times it's easy to get strung up in the things that really are just not the best. You see your time, and when you think about what your time should be valued at in the work that you're doing, sometimes it just doesn't make sense. I think that's really good counsel toe to realize that it's just not all about you, and you need toe put the right people in place, and those might be an internal team. It might be an external team. Of the contractors were might be even outsourcing to companies like yours. So speaking of that, where can people find you if they want to learn more about this idea of running the podcast, literally kind of dig into this concept of being an unstoppable CEO? Maybe that's an aspirational identity for them. Where can they find you? We're working to get some more information and get educated.

spk_1:   41:02
Well, thanks. I actually wrote a book that kind of describes how a podcast fits into your marketing, and what we've done is we've set up a page just for your listeners. So if they get unstoppable, ceo dot net slash build, they could go there and get a copy of the book. It's called the Exponential Network Strategy and then get booked for free. It's, you know, in, uh, downloadable form and an audio book, and and it tells him all the different things they need to think about to get a podcast started. So whether you want to start it, you know yourself with your internal team or or work with someone else or you just curious about. You know how it could work in your business to help you attract new clients and build the strategic relationships that you needed a little lay all of that.

spk_0:   41:47
That sounds like a great resource, so unstoppable. Ceo dot net slash build that right,

spk_1:   41:52
That's it.

spk_0:   41:53
All right. Unstoppable ceo dot net slash buildup with Lincoln to show notes as well. Steve, thanks so much for being on the show today. I think a lot of these ideas would be really helpful for aspiring entrepreneurs, current entrepreneurs and business builders all over the place. We're working really hard to build a business that last thanks for being here.

spk_1:   42:10
Thanks to you, it's been a pleasure.

spk_0:   42:13
Hope this episode has given you some ideas or inspiration that will help you grow your business if you found it helpful and you know somebody else who might benefit from it as well. I would greatly appreciate it if you would take the time to share this with him, maybe on Facebook or Twitter were linked in, or even shoot an email over to a friend with a link to this podcast in it. And if you haven't already, make sure you sign up for email list at building a business that lasts dot com.