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The Small Business Safari
Have you ever sat there and wondered "What am I doing here stuck in the concrete zoo of the corporate world?" Are you itching to get out? Chris Lalomia and his co-host Alan Wyatt traverse the jungle of entrepreneurship. Together they share their stories and help you explore the wild world of SCALING your business. With many years of owning their own small businesses, they love to give insight to the aspiring entrepreneur. So, are you ready to make the jump?
The Small Business Safari
[Revisiting] How to Launch Your Business to the Stratosphere with Chris Hanks
On this episode of the Small Business Safari we welcome Chris Hanks! Did you know 11,000 businesses are started every hour in the U.S!? That is only one of Hanks's GOLD NUGGETS. We dive into this captivating discussion about leveling up you as a leader and your business. Hanks teaches us to learn the differences between a successful start-up and a not so successful start-up. Take a listen to how to - not only keep yourbusiness going but - Scale Up!
GOLD NUGGETS
- The Biggest Obstacle to Success is YOU!
- How to Fight Burnout as an Entrepreneur
- Courage and Faith Doesn't Help Without a Plan
About Our Guest
Chris is the founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Entrepreneurship. He also serves as the Entrepreneur in Residence for theRussell Innovation Center for Entrepreneurs (RICE). Prior to this, he was the founder and Executive Director of the entrepreneurship center at Kennesaw State University and the University of Georgia. Before becoming passionate about creating entrepreneurs, Chris was passionate about creating businesses. He has owned multiple businesses, including music, e-commerce, publishing, and export ventures.
Important Links
From the Zoo to Wild is a book for entrepreneurs passionate about home services, looking to move away from corporate jobs. Chris Lalomia, a former executive, shares his path, discoveries, and tools to succeed as a small business owner in home improvement retail. The book provides the mindset, habits, leadership style, and customer-oriented processes necessary to succeed as a small business owner in home services.
So what makes the difference between a successful startup and an unsuccessful startup?
Speaker 2:So that's a question that if you Googled it, you're going to get different answers right, and I know what the traditional answers are. But I will argue all day long that the difference is the person. The biggest battle we fight as entrepreneurs is the one in the mirror, and so the idea that, because people will complain that you know what? No, it's lack of capital. That's, you know. That's the thing that caused me to fail. You know. But you know, if you can't learn to make money without money, then you probably won't make money with a lot of money, you know. So a lot of the things is like is the individual right?
Speaker 2:My, I really believe that one of the fundamental things that makes a successful startup is their faith. I have to believe Doubt has killed more dreams than failure ever will. The idea that I've because I won't even attempt to do things I don't believe is possible. A lot of people say, well, I'll try it and see if it works. Well, just even that language alone is setting you up for failure. I'll try. You've already given yourself subtle permission to not complete it and to not succeed versus. I believe that this is possible. I believe I can do it. I believe that this is going to happen, then I will act in accordance with that belief. It's not facts that move mountains.
Speaker 1:I know Alan's over here dying. Actually, I just had to pick him up back off the floor. He had a fan in him. He just got done. He's got snakes coming out. He's like Lord save me, lord save me. I can't believe. I just came to the mountains.
Speaker 3:The word that's coming out of his mouth is gold.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Small Business Safari, where I help guide you to avoid those traps, pitfalls and dangers that lurk when navigating the wild world of small business ownership. I'll share those gold nuggets of information and invite guests to help accelerate your ascent to that mountaintop of success. It's a jungle out there and I want to help you traverse through the levels of owning your own business that can get you bogged down and distract you from hitting your own personal and professional goals. So strap in adventure team and let's take a ride through the safari and get you to the mountaintop. Welcome back to the Small Business Safari, alan. We are going to be jacked today because we're about to go way up that mountaintop of success. You look like you're going to pop. I am going to definitely pop, brother. I have one of my favorite people in the world in studio with us today and we're going to be talking all things leadership.
Speaker 3:What about our guests?
Speaker 1:though. Oh right, alan, I do love you, but you want to learn how to lead. You want to learn how to be a better leader. You want to know how to grow a business. You want to know how to scale a business. This guy has the ticket and he has the best first name ever. Welcome, chris Hanks.
Speaker 3:Let's go you like. That one Makes it really easy on me, that's for sure, right.
Speaker 1:So let's get this party started with cheers, cheers. And today we're drinking beer, and Blantons. Because I broke out the big stuff for Chris because I wanted to make sure he felt good about what we were about to do, and he says, okay, let's do this.
Speaker 3:This good about what we're about to do and he says, okay, let's do this. This is a. This is going to be a cerebral episode. I have a feeling chris has like notes. He's got the, the high-end bourbon, so you have actually tapped into who we have today.
Speaker 1:Um, I am not going to let chris introduce my. No, I'm going to introduce him for everybody, chris.
Speaker 3:That's a big sign of respect right there.
Speaker 2:I feel respected.
Speaker 1:You should Chris Hanks. I got to know him because he is the one who facilitates my CEO group, who has helped me move up the mountaintop to success in my own business. But as I learned more about his background and his history, he went to Georgia, graduated, came out, started working and then started in the franchise world, actually starting in the painting business and did that stuff and then kept moving around and then he started to work with people and then somebody said hey, you're such a good teacher of people, why don't you come teach? He starts teaching at Georgia state here in Atlanta and they said wow, you're such a good teacher, why don't you do it full time? He goes no, I can't do that. I got you know, I got to run a business, I got a family to grow and they're like you're such a good teacher here, why don't you go start the Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Georgia?
Speaker 1:So if you go to Georgia today and you go into their entrepreneurship program that is brought to you by Chris Hanks who originated it, he would never tell you that he's going to give other people credit and I'm going to say 100% bullshit, because this guy did it. I know he hates it. We have a way out, punted our coverage today. Oh, we have. And then he keeps doing that.
Speaker 1:Kennesaw State, another company, another college, here university now says hey, you know what, since you did that at Georgia, can you come do that here? And he was like sure, why not? So if you go to Kennesaw State today, which has, I think, 50,000 students today, and you go into the entrepreneurship program that's brought to you by Chris Hanks, and we have him here on podcast, a guy who not only has run businesses, started businesses, but has taught not only in one school but three schools, started two schools, entrepreneurship programs, and now I get to bask in his knowledge every month and you get to bask in his knowledge on this podcast. So with that welcome introduction and I know I completely embarrassed the shit out of him Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3:Why is he here? You must have some dirty pictures on him.
Speaker 1:I know, you know what I did. Beg him I'm like, please come, please come. Yeah, I can't, I can't, I can't.
Speaker 2:Hey, remember that one night when we were no, I can't say that yes. Well, thank you so much, and I appreciate that awkward, uh, making me feel awkward right from the beginning, um, but, but I really appreciate that. But you know, all stories of transformation always involve other people, right? You know, tell me a great story. And a great story of success and a great story of transformation, there's always others involved.
Speaker 3:That's a good point Go ahead. Alan, Don't you feel like you're just sitting at the feet of the master? I do once a month. I mean he's teaching us in little parables and questions.
Speaker 1:But think about that. He's right. I mean, every transformation involves others. And when we've listened to other people in the podcast and talk about, hey, how did you get into this business, it's because I really thought through it and I just believed in myself and I came up with a business plan. I did it all myself. No, it was hey. This guy told me hey, why don't you do this and why don't you come do this with me? And you go okay, let's do it. And he gets involved.
Speaker 2:And then boom, and she gets involved and boom, and there, yeah, absolutely, because if you think about it, you know, when you mentioned the franchising, you know and and I know you've had some guests on here that who are experts in franchising, but that's really all franchising is is it's like, hey, let's, let's look at the success of others and let's copy that so that others can benefit from it. Right, hey, what are the successful people doing? Let's systematize that and so we can grow. You know, like people like me have done, I think students are real disservice. You know, because you know, like in the classroom as a professor, you know, if you catch a kid looking at somebody else's paper or an MBA student looking at somebody else's paper, they fail.
Speaker 2:But in entrepreneurship, if we don't look at each other's papers, we fail. Right, I've got to look at what you're doing and what others are doing and say, wow, that's interesting. How can I adapt that to my business? How can I use that to grow? We can strip years off of our learning curves if we're just looking at each other's paper. How about?
Speaker 3:that one.
Speaker 1:You should have cheated more.
Speaker 3:You encouraged cheating. Did you get one of those jackets with the patches on the?
Speaker 2:elbow. No, I never patches. I did get a jacket and I stayed away from a pipe. But yeah, I was, you know, but uh, but yeah, I do have a.
Speaker 1:I do have a tweed jacket so actually I you know to translate what chris said and everybody had to pick that one up and I don't have to translate much. But, um, that's the thing I had to learn the most when I got out into the court, off the corporate world and into that wild world of small business ownership, is that people were willing to share. And if you sought out people, they would tell you the answers like Whoa, corporate America? We never did that. We held everything close to the vest. And back to our schooling. Our school is all about you. Sit there and you can look at somebody else's paper, mr Lalamia, bam you, you get the ruler across the knuckles.
Speaker 3:You're getting that in the CEO group. Yeah, not that you ever got spanked right, Not with the ruler.
Speaker 1:And definitely not by a nun and not across the knuckles, definitely not. Not over and over again and not over and over again for saying shut up, but that's a different story.
Speaker 3:You told a nun, shut up. I didn't tell her to shut up directly-ish.
Speaker 1:Oh, there was a there was, in fact, back to the catholic faith. I had a little, I had the rosaries, I had three rosaries, brother. Wow, yeah, that was that's. That's 60 minutes, right there, in case you're counting, all right where were we?
Speaker 3:uh, I think chris is awesome and not you, the other one exactly right, chris hanks yeah, chris hanks is is awesome.
Speaker 1:Lalamia.
Speaker 3:Jury's still out. You said something. Can I just get right to what you said before we actually hit record? Absolutely, you just dropped a mind blower on me. What did you say?
Speaker 2:Well, we were talking before the recording and I just mentioned that by the time we get off of this podcast and it's done, and by the time anybody's done listening to this podcast, there'll be 11 000 startups created.
Speaker 1:It's about 11 000 every hour let's drink that in for just one minute I just can't even fathom that yeah and that's worldwide, nationally, united states, god dang, just in the united states, 11 000, 11 000. Yeah, and I guess my point in this is.
Speaker 2:You know, starting something is a lot easier than growing something right. You know, like, like, like. Having children is a lot easier than raising children right. Getting married is a lot easier than everything is the same thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the process of making a baby. I forgot to tell chris the uh that we're. We're actually not about uh reproduction in this podcast, but but anyway I like since you brought it up.
Speaker 2:But but back to your point starting something a lot easier than scaling a lot easier right, because only four percent of those 11 000 per hour will ever make it above 1 million in sales. Right, that's a really hard thing. And then to get to 10 million in sales, only 0.4 will ever make it. So growing is the really hard thing. Starting, you know is is kind of like look, I respect it. I know it's hard to go from nothing to something, but it's a lot harder to go from something to something great something to something great.
Speaker 1:This in in allen is just.
Speaker 3:I can see the wheels are turning I think smoke's coming out of your ears. I'm trying to do the math. I've ran out of fingers. But 11 000 an hour times 24, times 365, is what chris nope, you got me.
Speaker 1:I was doing good, until there I was, I was, I was at two. Uh, was that two foot two, 62, 86, and then I lost it at another 12 I'm, you think I could use the calculator. But you're right, that is a magnitude that is so big. There are so many people listening to this podcast going. I got an idea.
Speaker 3:You know what I'm going to start something 11,000, just one hour, just in one hour as you listen to this thing, I don't know if I should feel good about that or bad about that, or just not anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I think it's. I think it's a good thing. And then also, and I think about when we started our business, how much harder it is now I'm sorry, the reverse of how much easier it is than when we started. When we started, it was a lot harder. Why is that? When you think about it like it's never in the history of the world been easier to start a business it's in the history of the world, has it ever been easier? Why? I think about um like well, a couple examples, then I'll go into some reasons. Like the largest hotel in the world owns no real estate the largest hotel in the world.
Speaker 2:No owns, no real estate and the the largest um retailer in the world owns no inventory. You know the the largest, uh, you know taxi service in the world owns no vehicles. I mean if you think largest, you know taxi service in the world owns no vehicles. I mean, if you think about those kinds of things where it's just it's mind blowing because I never thought that would be possible when I first started my business, you know, in like 97, right, like you couldn't imagine these things. Think about access to capital. There's less gatekeepers. I mean, it's still hard, for sure it's hard, but it's never been easier to open your laptop and now, all of a sudden, you have access to capital that you never had in, you know, five or 10 years ago. Access to management teams via LinkedIn that's pretty amazing, right. Knowledge Where's the knowledge on starting a business? Google starting a business, and it's endless. You can take every course that Stanford ever offered on entrepreneurship online for free, but where do you go for the answers? That can't be Googled.
Speaker 1:So you listen to this podcast and if you're like me you go to the Small Business Safari and that's on your Apple podcast or anywhere you listen to your podcast. But if you're like me and you're driving down the road, you're probably trying to figure out how to Google on your phone. Drive down 285, go an 85 miles an hour, listen to the show at the same time going. What did he say? Well, who is the largest re? Who is the largest innkeeper? It is I. I said airbnb, right, is it?
Speaker 3:airbnb yeah, all right number one, so and number two what was the question.
Speaker 1:The next question retailer largest retailer is well amazon amazon and they have no no inventory, no inventory.
Speaker 2:can you imagine that? And if you have imagined, that doesn't even make sense. If someone says, hey, you know what, I'm going to build a large retail organization but I don't want to own inventory, that doesn't make any sense. And my only point in that is how much we've accelerated the rate of change so much, and it's just easier to start a business now than it's ever been. I can open up my laptop and have access to customers worldwide.
Speaker 1:You couldn't even conceive of that back in the 90s or whatever 90s, so I started my business in 2008. And even then the internet was not full of how to start a business. It was hard to find anything of real relevance. I actually used Score to begin mine, and that's eight. Now we're in 22 and you think how fast that and how rapidly it has become. So I'm I'm the one who's going to back up his point, Alan. I think it is the easiest time ever to start a business.
Speaker 3:Let's dive into that All right.
Speaker 1:So starting a business not saying you're going to be successful at it? So what makes the difference between a successful startup and an unsuccessful startup?
Speaker 2:So that's a question that if you Googled it, you're going to get different answers right, and I know what the traditional answers are. But I will argue all day long that the difference is the person. The biggest battle we fight as entrepreneurs is the one in the mirror, and so the idea that because people will complain that you know cause, people will complain that you know what. No, it's lack of capital. That's you know. That's the thing that caused me to fail. You know, but you know if you can't learn to make money without money, then you probably won't make money with a lot of money, you know. So a lot of the things is like is the individual right?
Speaker 2:My, I really believe that one of the fundamental things that makes a successful startup is their faith. I have to believe Doubt has killed more dreams than failure ever will. The idea that I've because I won't even attempt to do things I don't believe is possible. A lot of people say well, I'll try it and see if it works. Well, just even that language alone is setting you up for failure. I'll try. You've already given yourself subtle permission to not complete it and to not succeed versus. I believe that this is possible, I believe I can do it. I believe that I you know that this is going to happen, then I will act in accordance with that belief. You know, it's not facts that move mountains.
Speaker 1:I know Alan's over here dying. Actually, I just had to pick him up back off the floor. He had a fan in him. He just got done. He's got snakes coming out. He's like Lord save me, lord save me. I can't believe I just came to the mountains.
Speaker 3:Every word that's coming out of his mouth is gold.
Speaker 1:It is so many gold nuggets, so let's dive in. So, number one you have to have faith, not faith in God.
Speaker 3:Okay, I thought about it.
Speaker 1:That was hard, wow, boy. That was really transformative for me. Oh, transformation for Chris Lala man.
Speaker 2:All right, so faith, faith in yourself and faith in where you're going. Leaders always have to be first believers, right? In fact, the question I asked a group of CEOs last night was what is it that you believe that would make me want to follow you? We have to be first believers because you're taking me to a place that doesn't exist. That's what faith is. I can't see it, but I need to believe it. Well, I'm taking you into tomorrow. I'm taking you into the future that doesn't exist yet. So tell me, give me a picture, a picture of the future that would produce passion in me. That would matter to me. That's worth the sacrifice, right? You know, we all barter our life for something. So what's worthy of my time and my talent and my energy, dude?
Speaker 1:alan, I gotta pick him up again. Now we're on smelling salts, I'm like, dear god, son, you gotta stay up. Will you come on, stay with me this is so good.
Speaker 3:Chris hanks is gonna need a restraining order. I know this is so good, all right soanks is going to need a restraining order.
Speaker 1:I know this is so good, all right. So faith and belief and belief, and then transforming that belief, and so you got to have that when you're starting a business, what else do we need to have?
Speaker 2:So maybe I'll just I mean, there's a lot, but to summarize, I guess I'll just stick with the F words.
Speaker 1:Yes, my favorites. I got to feel it's not that one.
Speaker 2:But I think I will argue all day that the most important F word is faith, but there's two others that and I believe if we have the combination of these three Fs, we're unstoppable.
Speaker 2:The challenge is sometimes, you know, like my faith is high but the other Fs are low, or vice versa. But faith is big, important, and that's why I love what we do when we get together. Because faith gets bigger in community right, and our faith expands. And that's why I love what we do when we get together. Because faith gets bigger in community right, faith expands. And so if I say, well, you know what, I'm really struggling right now, I don't think I can grow, I think the recession is going to hit me, I don't think I can really grow by 25% or whatever it's like. Well, why can't you? And so we challenge each other, we lift each other up, and if you see other people doing it, your faith gets stronger. If you see other people doing it, you know your faith gets stronger. The other is one of the biggest enemies we fight as entrepreneurs is focus, right Focus is a big.
Speaker 3:I'm looking at you. Why did everybody?
Speaker 1:You know we don't have an audience on this podcast, but why do I feel like all eyes are on Chris? Follow me, not, you know? In fact, I'm just going to say, oh, because I'm on Facebook live. Yeah, you know. I'm just going to say, oh, because I'm on Facebook Live. Yeah, you know, I don't have a fuck-its problem. Focus, focus Right.
Speaker 2:Well, if you think about it because when we start up, it's so easy for us to confuse activity with accomplishment right, I'm busy. I went to all of these meetings. In fact, most entrepreneurs, most organizations spend about 21 and a half hours per week in a meeting. Right, the average 10-person meeting costs $23,400. And think about all of those meetings and you feel like, wow, I've had a long day because I responded to all my emails and I went to all these meetings. That's activity, that's not accomplishment.
Speaker 2:What's the most important thing that will drive my business forward? And I have to stay focused on that, because most entrepreneurs uh, you know they're the risk to their growth is not I didn't work today. The risk of their growth is I worked on the wrong thing today. They're so busy being reactive versus focused on the important things. You know, there's a lot of people who call themselves ceos. Um, and I disagree with that because you know the CEOs do very few things. Right, it's a chief executive officer. Executives do few things and they're hurting their business by doing so many things. There's only three things at the most that most people do well, so what are your three things? And spend 80% of your time in those lanes versus doing chief everything. Officer, I do all things and I have to do this and I have to do that and I have to do that. You can't grow like that.
Speaker 2:So, the idea of focus, what matters most. And if I only did one thing today, what is it? You know, like I can give any business owner listening right now, any CEO listening, I can give you 45 minutes extra each day. Uh, just based upon this, the, uh, the, the, the idea of focus, I can give you 45 minutes each day. And here's what you do you get up in the morning and you do not look at email. Yep, that's been proven in research. To give you 45 minutes a day, because what happens is if I check email first thing in the morning when I get to work, then all of a sudden I'm reactive, I'm responding to other people's priorities and if you, there's no such thing as other people's priorities. If I'm focused on growth, right, there's no. You know, like I've got to focus on my priorities.
Speaker 1:Easy to say, hard to implement, and this is where I love it, because I subscribe to this process all the time. But when you're in the customer service business and you're not checking your emails and checking your voicemails right off the bat to make sure you're getting the fuses have been lit, yeah, and so you're trying to get those things put out as fast as possible so they don't blow up in your face. However, when I'm at my best, he's right. When I don't look at my email or my voicemail for the first hour of every day and I say, okay, what am I trying to accomplish today? What do I want to have my team accomplish by the end of the week? Wow, different things happen, but it's easy to say, hard to do, and this is back to training.
Speaker 1:This is back to you, know, you just don't fall into shape. You get into shape and you get into shape by following habits and getting into it. So what Chris just said, and I'm going to reiterate that focus and I can absolutely be accused of not having focus because I am still a hummingbird, but when I'm at my best, you're right, you're in the morning and you're in the moment, and you got to do that, and so you're like I can't do that. Yes, you can Guess what? There are more hours in the day than you think there are there and you got to get up early before the day starts, and then you can go out there and start fighting fires. But I'm more well equipped to fight those fires at 8am when I did this other work at 6am.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and firefighters make really horrible entrepreneurs. They do. I mean, if I'm constantly fighting fires, you can't grow businesses. You know, and and that's that's not you. We have to spend our most valuable time doing the most valuable thing, and so if we're constantly fighting fires, we're never going to do that. And and then we get burnout. Burnout, you know like. You know like. So so many entrepreneurs struggle with burnout, and burnout never comes from overwork. Burnout comes from lack of impact. When I'm feeling burnt out, it's because all I've been doing is dealing with customer problems. All I've been doing is dealing with staff problems. That's being reactive and that's fighting fires. We don't get burnout from. Hey, I did something really cool today and I made this huge impact and we're growing like crazy and our impact is being felt and we're contributing more to our community and we're hiring more people. Those aren't the things that burn us out.
Speaker 3:What's the?
Speaker 2:third F. Third F is fire, which I know sounds weird.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, the fourth F for me would be fail because I had the third.
Speaker 3:F is a totally different word, so your third F was the same as the first two Fs in your mind.
Speaker 1:It never came up. I thought there was only one.
Speaker 2:So that third F was yeah, fire, which sounds a little bit strange. So. So I've got to have faith, right, I have to believe, I have to believe, and then I see, right, and so I have to really believe. I need a picture, not not a words, like we're going to be premier, we're going to be successful, we're going to the next level. No, I need a picture of the future that produces passion in me, because our subconscious mind doesn't remember words, it only sees pictures. And so I need that belief and I need it to be graphic and I need to see it, and I need to focus on the most important thing.
Speaker 2:What's the most important thing? And that's a hard discipline, because sometimes we don't know, and that's why we need to be around. Other people say, look, I think it's this, no, I think it's that, and there's a whole bunch to go along with that. And then the other is fire. Right, you know, I always liked that Ralph Waldo Emerson quote that nothing great was ever achieved without flaming enthusiasm and and first Emerson quote in the history of the small business safari.
Speaker 1:I have to say we've definitely elevated, not only our totally outkicked our pub we totally outkicked our coverage.
Speaker 1:And oh, by the way, in the hair club for men he still wins. And I just found out that when the most attractive thing with uh, with men, is to have a full head of hair, I heard that on the radio today and I went, oh yeah, click. I went to the next station. So, anyway, all right, we're we just. We just quoted emerson. No, we didn't. Oh, we didn't chris hanks did, I? In fact, I would never record it again. I'm gonna have to go back to this, the podcast, just so I could write it out.
Speaker 2:All right, we can continue to say it again well, because, like, like you know that that quote, um, like, I have to be on fire with enthusiasm, and I like that. If we translate enthusiasm literally, it really means the spirit of God within me, the thing that is special and unique about me. I'm transferring it to you and I'm fired up about it. I'm excited. Enthusiasm is contagious and I need everybody to catch it. I need to make sure that everybody I'm around is inspired with the same vision. I've got to be on fire with what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. So many times we're not following people because they're not excited about where they're going. So why should I get excited about where you're going? Great cultures are felt and I need to feel that right. I need that fire. We are excited about what we do and why we do it. And here's why, if you're not excited, you should be. And I need to be able to translate why I'm excited. Because the reasons I'm excited may be different from the people that I hire, because they don't want to work hard to make me wealthy, so but what is exciting to them? What's the like? Okay, I can identify our mission, but what's their role in that mission and what's at risk if we don't do it? And what do they gain if we do accomplish it? And those kinds of things get us on fire. We catch on fire and we're excited and we need to breed that.
Speaker 2:John Maxwell says that a leader's best friend is momentum. So we have to create momentum. Well, we do that through fire. And then we have to maintain momentum, which is a really hard thing to do. It's like wow, now that we have all this momentum, we can't lose it. So how do we keep? You know, we need to create and maintain momentum Hard, hard thing. But according to Maxwell, that's a leader's best friend.
Speaker 3:It's interesting to me we're talking about entrepreneurship, but what you're really talking about is leadership All three of those things and you know, and sometimes I use those words interchangeably- to me a lot of times, which I know.
Speaker 3:Technically that is not correct, but to me it feels like a synonym sometimes. You know, entrepreneur, leader, um, it's certainly more effective if it is, but I mean, I think there's a lot of people that go into business that don't have those kinds of leadership skills. So maybe that goes back to your original question what makes a successful entrepreneur? Great point, yeah, I agree with you. Oh, damn it. I just gave him a point.
Speaker 1:I just gave him a good point, chris Darn, I can't believe you suckered me into that one. So faith, focus, fire, got to have those three, and I don't care if you're running a one-person business and you're a solopreneur or you got 150 people Of know. Of course I don't have 150, I have 32, but still you have to have that faith, uh, focus and fire.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's also one of the things, like you mentioned, it's easy, it's simple, so it's easy to talk about, really hard to implement, just like you know. Hey, you want to lose weight? Well, just eat less and exercise more. Well, that's really simple, but it's not um simple to execute. Some days my faith is really low. Sometimes my faith is low, but my focus is good. Sometimes my focus stinks, but my faith is high. These things constantly fluctuate, and so one of the big reasons why I'm a fan of being in community and saying, look, you know what I don't know if I'm focused on the right thing, can you help me? I need outside eyes on this, because I have the curse of knowledge and I, you know, I'm used to seeing it. Can you, can you show me? Can you help me? So those kinds of things you know like. Sometimes, you know, my fire is like look, I'm just not excited. You know, I'm just not that excited about what we're doing. You know, like, like, I need somebody to help me with that.
Speaker 3:I can't wait to hear him talk about business plans.
Speaker 1:So let's dive into that, all right. So he has a great line that he's used before and when. You don't have those urgent activities in front of you as an entrepreneur and you're used to those urgent activities in front of you as an entrepreneur and they consume every thought, every day and every minute. As an entrepreneur hypothetically, of course, course it happens to me chris says if you want to plan for next year, this is like the olympics and this is the hard work. So tell us more about your exact quote and then talk a little bit more about why, in those dead times where it's quiet, you know like hey, man's happening, I don't know what to do you should be doing this. What's your quote?
Speaker 2:Well, I don't remember, but I do remember the concept. So let me just sort of like that but hard thinking always beats hard work in this world. Harder thinking beats harder work, but thinking is really hard and they do say planning is the Olympics of thinking. There it is, planning is the Olympics of thinking, and so but, but you know, like thinking is really hard and they do say planning is the Olympics of thinking there it is yeah, planning is the.
Speaker 2:Olympics of planning is the Olympics of thinking, and thinking is hard. That's why so few people do it. It's easier for me just to do like I'll just react to this email, I'll just do this. I'll just do that versus no. I am going to take my most productive time and work on the things that advance my business the most, gets me farthest, the fastest. If you're like most working adults, your most productive time is between Tuesdays at 10 to 12, but everybody's different. So whatever works for you. But the idea is like, look, I'm gonna block that off. I'm not doing Zoom meetings during that time. That drains my energy. I'm not gonna do any kind of email response.
Speaker 2:I am going to use my most valuable time planning and thinking because I'm moving startups, you know as checkers right, I'm just moving pieces. Now I'm moving into chess eight moves ahead right, I've got to think about eight moves ahead. Now. That's super hard. Again, why so few people can make a break that $1 million in revenue barrier? Because now we have to change our roles. I can't be the doer of the thing that I do. I have to become the owner of the thing that I do, and that's a really big transition and it's a hard shift, it's a it's a hard you said hard shift.
Speaker 1:I just dropped the F on that one. So I says hard shit, it is hard, but the Olympics are the planning of thinking. I can't tell you how many times I'm coming to the end of our year and I'm starting to plan for next year. And I had a big goal for our team at the beginning of this year and I said we're going to get to 10 in two, 10 in two years. We're going to get to 10 million in two years. We're going to get to 6 million this year and get to 10 million in 23. And this year we're going to fall short of six, but back for gap versus gain, we're probably going to be close to five too. So I'm close, close.
Speaker 1:But now I've got to really double. Can I really double next year in the headwinds of recession and that's hard or can I just go back and answer this email, or go out there and do this bathroom estimate and just go ahead and win one, a couple, or do this, or or go in the back and help a guy load a tree or load a window up into his trailer to take off that day. And I went, I'm going to go load that window, because I got a lot of hard work to do, because I've got to go back and I've got to sit there and plan, because my team needs to believe in what I'm going to show them, because we're going to try to double next year and that's going to be hard work.
Speaker 2:It's going to be hard. And going back to the faith issue, right, you're saying, okay, we're going into a recession. I don't think it's going to be easy to grow. Well, already, that's a that's a faith issue. That's not a real issue. That's a faith issue, right, versus you know what? I am somebody's miracle. I am going into somebody's home and I'm making it more beautiful and I am going to make that husband look good in front of his wife because he can't do it, you know, or whatever it is. So I, you know what and how many of those customers do I need to attract for me to grow? It's not that many. There are enough people, recession or not, there's enough of those people out there.
Speaker 2:Now, both are different belief systems, right, but which one is more impactful to your business? And you say, look, you know, the recession or not, we are growing, impactful to your business? And you say, look, the recession or not, we're growing. In fact, I'm not even going to I've been experimenting with this thought but the idea of we're not even going to grow 20% this year or 10% this year. We're going to grow 1% per month. I'm going to find 1% either in revenue growth or expense reduction. But we're going to grow 1% on the EBITDA and if I do that you're not growing 12%, 12 a year, you're growing more like 25 a year because it compounds and it accelerates so what if I just focus on?
Speaker 2:one percent per month. How empowering is that? We will grow one percent a month recession. What do you mean? We're just gonna grow one percent a month, dude. It's fine recession or no recession, we're growing one percent a month.
Speaker 1:this is the podcast you're gonna go back and listen to at least twice, because if you're not slowing the sucker down, you are missing out on so many gold nuggets you do listen to your podcast at like two times speed, don't you?
Speaker 3:I do?
Speaker 1:Yeah, not this one, not this one, not this one. It's slowing way down. Yeah, and we had one lady on the episode and I tried to listen to it One and a half speed is what I do and I was like she talks faster than me. I even had to slow that down just to make sure that everything was going all right. So I want to back up further though Go.
Speaker 3:So planning is the Olympics of thinking, which you said all three of them backwards last time, by the way, I just want to point out. But let's go back even further, because a lot of our target audience here, our listeners, are people who are in the corporate world, who are thinking about leaving and starting their own business. So let's talk about that thinking and planning that business plan. That first one how important is it? What? What are people focusing on that they shouldn't be focusing on? And vice versa.
Speaker 2:So you know, the only antidote that I've ever found for fear is faith. I need to believe in something or someone that's bigger than my fear. And so if I'm in a corporate America and I'm so afraid to leave my job because what if I don't get paid? What if I can't support my family? What if I I lose money you need that, and that is a very valid fear, and we can never really get rid of our fears. But we only do things when faith exceeds fear. Right, we'll jump off the high dive. We're afraid, but we have enough faith that you know what. I'll be okay at the end when I first make that jump off the high dive. So a plan helps me have more faith than fear. It's like okay, why would I not make more money? Let me put a pen to paper. Let me create a marketing system that generates a consistency of revenue. Let me develop an operation model that actually delivers the promise we're making to customers and does so in a systemized, pretty predictable process, because a good system will make a bad leader into a decent one. So that's okay. So a plan helps me, like with that. So I need to plan this out and start thinking it through and it can really help.
Speaker 2:People says, okay, why would you not make more money? You're taking more risk by not taking any right. You know, like, you have one source of income by working for corporate America that you don't even control, and you're arguing that that's less risk versus. You know, as you know, going out on my own, I have many sources of income. In fact, you know, in your business, chris, I would argue, everybody who owns a home you know in in these certain neighborhoods, that's, that's your potential money for you, exactly Right. You know now who's it controlled by? Well, it's controlled by you. You are in control whether or not you go get that money or not. Now, I know it's hard. I know it's hard, there's no question. In fact, being an entrepreneur is the hardest job in business. It's the hardest job in business, but I'm actually glad that it's hard because it keeps all those wantrepreneurs on the sideline. The wantrepreneurs.
Speaker 1:Get in the game, baby. Get in the game, baby, get in the game, get in here, jump in. You'll be one of the ones. 11 000 need to get out of the game. Oh, that's right, damn it, I'm sorry yeah that's right, because I want them.
Speaker 1:I don't want them to fail, though. Uh, chris, you said something early that I want to reiterate, because I've had a lot of I've been on other podcasts and people ask me why did you have the guts to make the jump? I said I was more afraid of being 60 years old and not having taken that chance than being 60 years old and having all the trappings of life, wondering if I ever could have.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I read that, so I did it. I read this in a quote in a book a long, long time ago. It says, you know, it's the definition of hell. What's the definition of hell? It's God showing you what you could have been had you just trusted.
Speaker 2:I believe that the most wasted of all resources is our potential, and so wondering what could I have been, what could I have done? And you know what? Courage is way harder to find than knowledge. I can Google knowledge, like what makes a successful startup, how to do a business plan. I can Google all that, but courage is way harder to find and really I'm afraid that's what's holding you back. It's not your lack of knowledge, because I can Google that, and for the questions I can't Google, you can get in community with other successful driven entrepreneurs. But the idea that courage, I'm afraid. But courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is feeling the fear but doing it anyway. You know like I. You know what? Yes, I'm still afraid, but I'm freaking doing this because we have to pause for a minute because I gotta alan's had a moment.
Speaker 1:He has to leave the room for a second I'm bowing and lighting candles, right because, uh, chris, he just said so many lines. You're gonna, you're gonna want to go back and listen to this episode so many times. Actually, my hairs are raising in my arms. I am ready to go out there and knock down everybody's houses so I can rebuild them for them, I mean.
Speaker 1:I'm going out there to sell more, but you talk about that. It's still hard, but we're still going back to courage and faith is good but a plan helps you achieve that. So you're going through your plan and talking about that. Talk a little bit more about the you know, not the detailed components of the business plan, because people can go out there and find it all out.
Speaker 1:But what do you think the best outcome of a business plan is? And then when do you say, boom, I've got it, because you can polish the churn forever. And that was the thing I was afraid of too. So what are the components? How far do you think you got to get what feels like a paper that you say, okay, I can jump off, and I'm going to jump to do this thing now?
Speaker 2:So I don't want to sound redundant, because my first gut reaction to that was the redundant answer of like I, when it makes me believe that it's more possible, like there's more risk in me not doing it than risk of me doing it something that matters versus doing something that doesn't.
Speaker 2:And, and you know what, I believe that it's possible because I've looked at the, you know, I've looked at the revenue possibilities, I've looked at my expenses, I've looked at, you know, like what's what's possible.
Speaker 2:And so now I'm starting to believe, and now I'm ready to go, because the idea, if I'm going to plan everything out, you know what they say, you know, with a battle plan, as soon as the first shot is fired in combat, battle plans are used, you know, completely irrelevant, right they're?
Speaker 2:You know the first shot has been fired, but that doesn't negate the, the, the importance of battle planning, you know. So the in the same way, like, look, there's no way I can plan out every aspect of my business and it's going to go according to plan, but by going through the mental exercise of understanding a marketing system that generates consistency of revenue, understanding operations and what that will take, understanding financials and what is really the financial statements telling me. And what's the story? I don't need to be an accountant and I don't understand everything. What's the story that it's telling me? And a plan will help me understand those mechanics and then my belief in what I'm doing and and what will rise, and then that will get me the courage to jump off that high dive, because the water is fine I love that.
Speaker 3:Go ahead ellen, because I'm gonna play a little devil's advocate here right gotta be the kid in your class raising their hand because entrepreneurs in my opinion, a true entrepreneur is almost fatally optimistic. Yes, and so you're telling me that when your business plan is to the point where it your, your faith outweighs your fear launch. But there are some people who just totally believe in themselves, who've got a horrible plan, and then they crater and dumpster fire and supernova. So there's got to be some sort of a balance, because there are a lot of people who have very, very inflated egos Very true and they don't listen to other people saying, hey, maybe that's not the best idea. So talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you're right, entrepreneurs, by their nature, tend to be more optimistic than the average person, and that makes sense, right, cause nobody says, hey, you know what, I think I'll start this business. It's going to totally fail, though, you know, you know, like nobody says that. So you're right. A lot of people who, who go, you know who, finally, you know, take that jump. They tend to be a little bit more optimistic than average, right, and you're right, the inflated egos, absolutely. Well, you know that won't happen to me. I know the odds are against me, but I can do it.
Speaker 3:It's like marriage. Absolutely Nobody goes into a marriage thinking well, you know, I got a 50-50 shot at this.
Speaker 2:Here in the Southeast the small business failure rates are actually less than divorce rates.
Speaker 2:And so and that's true, but nobody says that like when someone says you left really hard and I know people at google stuff, but anyway, I like there's a long-winded way I could support that because I know to some people they may win, so they go wait. I don't know if that's exactly true. It is true, um, but it would take a little bit while. Uh, too long, too nerdy to explain. But my point in bringing that up is when somebody says you know I'm getting engaged, we tend to celebrate that we don't go. Oh my gosh, you're taking such a huge risk. Are you kidding me?
Speaker 3:Right. Have you really thought about this? If?
Speaker 2:I work for a corporate America and I says you know, I'm thinking about starting my business. That's what people say. Is it risky? Well, possibly, but what's the risk of you going through your entire life with untested potential, right, yep, the risk of you going through your entire life never knowing what it's like to go to bed, you know, fulfilled, and wake up inspired. You know, like, when you think about that same. With getting married, like or me, the biggest risk I've ever taken was having children. If something happened to my two children, I'd never be the same person again. But that like, would I allow that risk to keep me from experiencing the joy of being a?
Speaker 1:parent. So cool, all right. My last thing I would. And so the tall, skinny kid raised his hand. So the fat other kid's going to raise his hand and say in the class. The other thing I would tell everybody take your business plan, you're optimistic. Have that optimism're optimistic, have that optimism, believe in that optimism, go ahead, believe it and die, just die on that hill with it. But I just want you to do one litmus test. I want you to have your revenue productions over your first three years and I want you to double your expenses and then tell me yes, I can do it and I'm still going to go kill it.
Speaker 3:Good one, then go I'm giving you a good one on that one, all right hey, you're back up even.
Speaker 1:Hey, thank you out of the hole. So do that. All right, chris. So going back to, because I'm gosh, there's just so many things we can talk about with you. Oh, it's so cool, all right now. So we're off and we're starting and we're running the business and we're trying to scale our business, and we talked about faith, focus, fire, um, but when you're in the beginning, it's probably just you, unless you acquired a business. So, and then you're starting to bring people on, and then the group continues and continues and hopefully things start to work the right way. What are some of the most important things you need to do? Those first three, six, nine months?
Speaker 2:Wow. Well, a couple of conceptual things, I think that will help sort of lay the foundation here. We assume that growth is automatic, and that is a faulty assumption. It is not. You just assume that, well, I got one customer, I'll just get another, I'll get another and I'll get another. Absolutely not. You know, growth is always a fight, right? Growth is not automatic. It is a conscious choice and it is a hard choice and it is an uncomfortable choice.
Speaker 2:60% of the fastest growing you know companies on Forbes don't make the list the next year. It is a very, very difficult thing. It sucks cash, it becomes not fun. All of a sudden, you're a loyal employee couldn't keep up with the growth of the company. There's all kinds of real problems with growth. So I would recognize that and say, okay, am I up for growing this into an enterprise that I can be proud of? If so, you're signing up for the hardest job in business, and so are you ready for that. So I'd want to just set that foundation, knowing that, hey, I'm signing up for a fight Growth, always growth demands a temporary surrender of security at some point.
Speaker 2:Right, I'm going to have to invest in that employee, I'm going to have to invest in that office, I'm going to have to invest in that CRM, I'm going to have to invest in whatever. But growth is sucking cash like crazy. Yes, but I have to invest in that, right? So you have to sort of be able to say, look, I'm signing up for this growth. That's a really, really hard thing. And then I have to sort of okay, what are the enemies to my growth and what are my tactics to defeat the enemy? You know there's so many enemies of growth. I would argue number one, it's you. You're the biggest enemy to your growth. Number two comfort. You know the price of growth is always discomfort, right, Comfort zones are a great place to recharge. Comfort zones are a great place to sort of, you know, rest, but the idea of growth, it's always outside the comfort zone and I'm going to have to constantly get better and learn because, you know, the CEO of a $1 million organization is not the same person as a $20 million organization. I have to change. That's really hard.
Speaker 2:Complexity is a big enemy of growth Because there's a weird. There's so many paradoxes in entrepreneurship. But one of them is, you know, like, okay, so like, as I grow, things get more complex. You know, think about it Like if I hire my first employee, I have one employee, I have two lines of communication. Then, all of a sudden, I have five employees. I have 120 lines of communication. I have 50 employees. Well, I can't do that math. I don't know what that is, but you can see just in communicating alone how complex it gets. The complexity, Like, as I grow, things get more complex. But complexity kills growth. That's why uh, you know, there's that saying that great leaders simplify. Like I know we have 400 things going on. Here's the thing that's most important, you know. You know you are constantly going to be simple and easy to follow, because the enemy of growth is complexity. It's a killer.
Speaker 1:What a great nugget right, and let's go back and unpack that one just for a minute, because that's what I went through as I grew my business. Um, I had my bath, uh, my, my, my cast of maryfits. I got it out there and we grew and there was the three of us, there was four of us, then we had five technicians, then we had six technicians, then I had an operations manager and then I got to that level where I thought you know what growth is going and I'm going to keep going. And I put this in my book. And I came in one time and I went blah, blah, blah, boom, boom, boom, walked out the door, did my thing and hi-ya, out there, back out there, just kept selling. And I came back and a week later nobody did one word I said, because all they heard was blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, hi-ya, here I go Like uh-oh, and I realized that I had to change my methods, my communication style, and I had to slow it back down because I had come from a world where I was communicating with 400 people that I never saw in a distributed workforce and I was very thoughtful and methodical about my communication of our culture, knowing that I will never see Jane in Hollywood, florida, who was docking a loan for a commercial loan officer, and so I realized at that point I was like, wow, I have to go back and rethink it.
Speaker 1:I don't need all that bureaucracy. But I got to rethink this and I got to again to your point. You said this too. I didn't say simplify, but I had to be more direct and succinct in my communication, instead of just saying yee-haw, let's go grab your swords, we're going to go out there and slay the dragon and that's as grow. You know, in the beginning my focus was a hundred percent on what cash?
Speaker 3:flow sales cash flow sales.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sales sales so and I came in, I would sell my operations. People blah, blah, blah, hey, hey, hey, here we go, boom, and they heard what?
Speaker 2:yeah but here's the good news in all that, because, like, there's a lot of enemies to growth and I could go on and on about and I don't want to be sort of like this, this, you know, you know negative voice of entrepreneurship Um, in fact, I'm the opposite, I'm a big evangelist for it. Um, but all crisis of growth are predictable, all of it. And so, like, the idea is like, look, look okay, so, um, uh, you know, like, like, uh, I, I think you maybe have heard Doug Tatum, no Man's Land, that book. He calls getting through that crisis of growth, meaning when you're too big, you're too big to be small, but you're too small to be big.
Speaker 2:And how do you get through that difficult journey? Because it does get easier when you come on the other side. It's easier to go from $20 million in sales to $50 million in sales than it is from $200,000 to $500,000 in sales. And so you know, you're going through the no man's land, or is it Jeff McCowan, I think? He calls it going through whitewater. I use the phrase of minefield. I like minefield for my own reasons, but what's the secret or what's the best way to cross a minefield? In my opinion, if we're going to go through a minefield. I want you to go first, and I'm just going to follow your footsteps.
Speaker 1:I was just thinking you just shove the guy next to you in front of you. No, I'm thinking you get an Abrams tank and you go with a .50 caliber machine gun Dug-a-dug-a-dug-a-dug-a-dug-a-dug-a-dug, because we had David Raymond on the episode who was an Abrams tank commander and, uh, he talked about you know what? What did everybody love to do? Grab a 50 calorie machine gun. And we learned, in fact, the biggest nugget we got from the whole show. No, actually use a million nuggets, but how do you say, how do you make a 50 caliber sound off an abrams tank? So, all right back to your minefield.
Speaker 2:So yeah, minefields, whitewater whatever it is it is that's that crisis of growth it is, and but as long as I'm following the footsteps of those who came before me, it's a lot safer. Still dangerous other papers, but it's exactly going back to that same analogy. Good, thank you. Way to tie that back, wow nicely done, bring it all back home on today.
Speaker 1:Hey, I am, are you kidding me?
Speaker 2:focus with hanks, here I have got fire. Are you kidding me?
Speaker 1:yeah, I mean every month we get together, and I want to do a plug real quick before we keep going. So, chris, the Institute that we work with is is found on the internet and it's called. We call it our CEO group, but it's the Center for Entrepreneurship. We have it here in Atlanta. It's the Institute for Entrepreneurship. I had to look at my book because I have his book. We get together once a month and you might know it as like a Vistage group or maybe a peer group forum or maybe something like this. But the groups that we are involved in and there's only two of us here in the Atlanta area have been transformative for me. It's helped me with my business. I've shared more with them than I've ever shared with my wife about my business. I have learned more.
Speaker 3:It's a good thing she doesn't listen to this podcast.
Speaker 1:And she will never because she's still on chapter two in my book. So get that going for me. So the group has helped me realize that. You know, I never felt like I was alone in business, but I didn't realize how alone I was because I was really starting to share some deep stuff which I've shared with you. Of course, but this is in a more formal setting and what we do is we get in there and we talk like this and you hear the fire and the focus that Chris brings to the table, but then we also start to talk about our own businesses and start to issue process and help each other and try to raise each other up in each of our businesses, because we're all trying to go up that mountaintop of success and get up there and be that small business entrepreneur.
Speaker 1:And I still in way more time than I should for Chris, because we're running out of time in our episode. But I want to get back to. So, chris, you, you get to that certain point in a business and we don't even have time to talk exit planning. I'm going to beg you to come back and talk about that. But you get to that point in a business where you think okay, I'm in that inflection point, I'm in the whitewater. How do you get out of it? How do you move to the next level?
Speaker 2:Well, uh, cause, here, here's, here's, uh, the simple way to sort of describe it. You know when, when you're doing a startup, it's how you're wired right. I'm a good sales person, I'm going to go out and sell. I'm good at fixing stuff. I'm going to go fix stuff. I'm good at problem solving, I problem solve. But to go from startup to grow up right, to grow an organization, it's not about how you're wired, it's how you wire the organization. And so for you to come on the other side, you have to start wiring the organization. Because here's what I know about every business owner that's listening to this is all of your results that you're getting. Your business is perfectly designed to get the results it is getting. It's perfectly designed. You created something so wonderful, but yet you're complaining about something that you designed. You're like well, I don't like this, but you created it. And so if I don't like something, I need to rewire the organization. And I start thinking about it differently versus, I got to go do, no, you don't. You're rewiring an organization.
Speaker 2:I used to think, when I was growing businesses and all that stuff, I thought you know what I struggle with growth and you know what I struggle with growth and you know what. I failed too many times and I thought okay, I'm failing because I didn't master the numbers. And I'm going to master the numbers because there's certain things you think you're making money and you're not. You think your gross margins are high enough, but they really aren't. You think you have a sustainable growth rate, but you really don't. I'm going to master the numbers. That's one of the reasons I became a certified business appraiser and I can go to expert. You can do expert witness testimony in court on how much businesses are worth. Okay, master the numbers, that's still failing.
Speaker 2:What's going on? Oh, no, it's the people. Right, it's people, because, like you know, all business problems, most of them, maybe all is an exaggeration, but I will argue. Most business problems are people problems disguised as business problems, and it's people issues. Our people problems disguises business problems and it's people issues. So, let me master the people stuff. Let me get people to think, act and behave in the way that I need them to. Let me master the people stuff. And you know, in our groups we talk about people stuff a lot of the times, right, how do we?
Speaker 1:fix people. I would say it's the majority.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So okay, let me master that. Well, okay, that helped, but there's the other piece that I was missing, and it's the systems and the structure of the business. I have to wire the organization. What is the best organizational structure? What is the best cadence of meetings? Because bad meetings, big, bad organizations and so so that's my best opportunity to influence people. So what do I do about that? What's my best rhythm as far as setting priorities and not, you know, most best business practices point to every three months. So, so, all of a sudden, I'm starting to become thinking about the systems and the structure of the organization. But I would argue, if I get the finance, the numbers right and again I don't I don't mean to overwhelm anybody listening who doesn't feel comfortable with numbers.
Speaker 2:I'm talking about a very simplistic basis numbers on the people. There's just a few key rules of engagements on the people, and then, all of a sudden, the systems. Then I can start moving out of this no man's land where it feels like I'm on a hamster wheel, because here's what I know. I have so many people that says you know what I want to change, I want to change, but they do nothing to change. If nothing changes, then nothing will change.
Speaker 3:Definition of insanity right, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So if I don't start, doing things differently, my business won't perform differently Because, just to reiterate, your business is perfectly designed to get the results that it's getting. And if you don't like the results, if you don't like the fact that this part takes too much time or I'm feeling burned out, you created it. Let's redesign, let's talk about what could be different next quarter, and we do it in pieces, just small pieces over time. It takes a while, but just small pieces, like okay, there's one thing that you're going to stop doing this quarter. There's one thing you're going to continue doing and there's one thing that you're going to like start doing. What is it?
Speaker 1:my god, we could be here for hours. Unfortunately, I'm gonna have to call it on this one, because I know you guys are listening and if you have the attention span that I have, you know that you stayed with this one and you're gonna go listen to it again. I got it because I will, but you should um, I have to, not not just you, I mean everybody listening yeah this was awesome, chris. Thank you so much for coming in.
Speaker 2:I'm going to plug the intro, the I can't even say it because I always called the CEO group I know it's not the the Institute for entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1:It's the Institute for entrepreneurship.
Speaker 3:I'm going to work with.
Speaker 1:Institute for entrepreneurship.
Speaker 2:We can go out to find it. How else can somebody else find you online? Um, well, uh, since I I not a big social media guy, um, you know, I guess you can linkedin at, uh, you know, chris hanks or christopher hanks on linkedin um the email is uh, c hanks chanks um at institute, um for entrcom institute, and then F-O-R-E-N-T-Rcom.
Speaker 1:Screw it. I'm going to be his publicist. You call me. You find me, chris, at the Trusted Toolbox and I will get you in contact with this guy because I'm a huge believer. He has helped me so many times over the last three years at Buying Business. I'm thrilled that you came on this podcast. I'm not gonna let you get out of here because he usually grills me every time we get together and holds me accountable for my goals and what I've said. Give it to him, chris, let's go all right. Number one, what's the favorite feature of your house?
Speaker 2:favorite feature of my house basement, why, um, it feels a little bit more like a man cave than any other portion of my house.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:So you get to feel manly. I get to feel manly, which is rare for me. I don't get to feel manly very often.
Speaker 1:Nice, are you kidding me Especially?
Speaker 2:in our groups. You guys don't make me feel bad because I say things that you guys want to punch me in the face. For, Like I said one time, I said feelings are an income accelerator. This is not Oprah's book club, so you guys want to punch me in the head.
Speaker 1:That's true. I have to admit, we definitely are not de-manning him, but we definitely are not up-manning him. If that's even worse, all right. Number two when you're out there in the marketplace, you're going to a restaurant, you're going out to a hotel, you're going to get something at a grocery store or wherever, what is a customer?
Speaker 2:service pet peeve of yours, customer service pet peeve would be not caring, you know, not caring, right, you know, like, like, how do we make the other person feel important and when they just don't care and they don't seem like they care about you or why you're there? You know, I think indifference is is one of our biggest competitors in every business, and it's just when you feel that indifference it just doesn't feel good and doesn't make you want to come back.
Speaker 1:This is going to tie right into Alan's roots of being in the Northwest Nordstrom. Oh yeah, Nordstrom makes you care. One of the best stories I've ever heard and Alan has related is about caring. That guy cared, he cared that he got you the bat suit.
Speaker 3:Yep yeah, I got a couple of Nordstrom stories that are just awesome.
Speaker 1:They are awesome, but we're running out of time. We're going to tease for the next time because his Nordstrom stories. But you know what those guys cared and they had no reason to care. They weren't getting commissioned.
Speaker 2:They weren't making some money off of them, they just did it because they cared, all right. Lastly, give us a diy home repair nightmare story. So, going back to the theme of me not being manly, I don't have one because I know my lane. He's too smart. I don't know how to fix stuff. I don't know how to, so I stay out of my lane. And you know what, if something's broke, I call something like the trusted toolbox and I have them come over and take care of all my needs.
Speaker 1:Best answer ever and makes me look good in front of my spouse.
Speaker 1:This has been the best episode and the best answer ever and I love gracious kissing up and pandering to the host. Does that work best? Yeah, hey, everybody, I know you love this episode. I love this episode. Keep listening. Go out there, follow rate review, give us a follow man, tell your friends and if you didn't like it, don't tell anybody. But go out there and evangelize. Tell everybody how great it is to go up that mountaintop success. Go out there, run your own business and make it happen. We gotta go. Cheers everybody.
Speaker 3:We out of here.
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