330. How to Build a Business That Funds Your Life, Not Consumes It

A lot of entrepreneurs start a business for the same reason: freedom. Freedom to set their schedule, choose their clients, and build something meaningful. But for many owners, the reality flips suddenly the business can’t function without them, and the very thing they built to create flexibility becomes the reason they feel trapped. In this episode of A Wiser Retirement® Podcast, we sit down with Marty Paradise, Certified Business Coach of Paradise Business Coaching to unpack a tough question: If your business can’t run without you, do you truly own a business or does the business own you?

Related Podcast Episodes: 

Ep 207. What are the biggest struggles of a small business owner?

Ep 247. Why It’s Crucial to Separate Your Business and Personal Assets

Ep 293. Retirement for Business Owners: Selling Your Business or Passing It On

Related Financial Education Videos:

How do I minimize taxes as a small business owner?

What financial steps should I take before starting a business?

Other Links:

Paradise Business Coaching

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This podcast was produced by Wiser Wealth Management. Thanks for listening!

Transcript

Do You Own A Business Or A Job

SPEAKER_04 0:00

What if the very business you built for freedom is the reason you feel trapped? On today's episode, we are diving into if your business can't run without you, do you really own a business or does the business own you? Stay tuned.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Welcome to a wiser retirement podcast, where we cut through the noise and bring you real, honest conversations about investing retirement and building lasting wealth. No sales pitches, no gimmicks, just everything your financial advisor won't tell you.

SPEAKER_04 0:28

I'm Casey Smith. Today I'm joined with Marty Paradise, certified business coach of Paradise Business Coaching, to talk about how to build a business that funds your life, not consumes it. Hey Marty. Hey, how you doing, Casey? It's been a while. Yeah, but this is, I think it's your third time here. We're uh episode 330 now for us here on the Wiser Retirement Podcast. So and you have done probably you may have done three or three already. Three or four probably.

SPEAKER_06 0:57

That's a lot of podcasts.

SPEAKER_04 1:00

It's a lot of talking. Um thank goodness I have we have a great team. Uh Shauna and and uh William and the whole team here have been uh Michaela have been taking turns hosting. So it's been uh not all me. Take takes a takes a village, you know.

SPEAKER_06 1:16

Takes a team.

SPEAKER_04 1:18

Which which actually kind of falls into our theme today, right? If you're if your podcast depends on you, is it is it a really good podcast?

SPEAKER_06 1:26

Podcast depends on you. You're probably not doing 330 podcasts. Right.

Meet Marty And The Frameworks

SPEAKER_04 1:32

Right. All right. Well, uh Marty has worked with some wiser clients in the past, uh, all of which have been uh very successful thanks to his advice. And I met Marty uh many years ago because I was I was searching uh for a business consultant, uh, wanted to be a part of the podcast, maybe run some ideas through myself that understood uh really Michael Gerber's um eMyth revisited. And then I I came across the eos system uh traction, the book traction, which has a certification program, and then and then eventually Donald Miller's Business Made Simple. And Marty was certified in all three, I think. In the search that I did, you're one of the few people that knew all three, all three systems, which have some similarities.

SPEAKER_06 2:19

Umilarities, and so yeah, I was certified certified emyth, certified business made simple, took a lot of the EOS training, and I've I've you know used that framework with all the clients with the principals from that. So yes, I would have written the book one time. We didn't we've never met in person. That's right, that's right.

SPEAKER_04 2:41

Marty's over in uh Charleston. Yes. We're here just north of Atlanta, so we've never actually met in person, but we've we've done a lot of calls together. Um, but yeah, I've if if I knew that I could write a business book that just referenced other business books, that's essentially what traction is. It takes the best of the books, puts them all into one. I would have written so many business books by now. Um, but uh all right, well let's let's get started. Um so Marty, when you start working with clients, what are signs that uh the business depends on them in order to run?

Signs The Business Depends On You

SPEAKER_05 3:17

Um well first of first of all, this this um problem is apparent with every single client I talk to.

SPEAKER_06 3:29

One of the reasons they come to a me or is something that all business owners want to change, regardless, they would love their business to be less dependent on them. So that's uh I think that's the dream of every small business owner, entrepreneur is how can I make this thing work with less of me and less of my involvement? So how do I how do I know, or what are their signs? Um initial consultation, I'll ask them, how much does your business depend on you? And they kind of look back and I say, um, yeah, we're just you know, if you're not there, how does the business work? How in you know, I'll get if I ask them to rate on an eight to uh zero to ten, I'll get um usually an eight plus. A lot of times the answer is the business is entirely dependent on them. And that's not where you want to be in. So that's often what times they're looking for help. But signs, um, an initial sign is how long it can take for someone who's interested in looking for a business coach to schedule a 45-minute intro consultation. If that takes like two or three weeks, I can just tell there's that's just a sign. I've never even met them before. I kind of know kind of who I'm dealing with that this might be a problem for them. Um signs, I ask them what they do during a day, and most of the things they come back with are things that employees should be doing versus the owner of them. Um I can sense kind of an over a state of just overwhelm because they have to kind of be everything to everyone. Um, even just how many times they may even get interrupted during a 45-minute call is another sign. Um ask questions about their life, last vacation, things they like to do outside of life. Usually um, those are all kind of indicators that their business depends on them.

SPEAKER_04 5:37

So you know, in that case, you you think they've built they've built a business. Uh well, I guess what's the difference between building a business and just building a job?

Business Value And Owner Dependence

SPEAKER_06 5:49

Most businesses should be able to produce to to produce without the owners getting back to the dependency, but a a business is something that can kind of work kind of on it on its own without the owner being there, you know, for everything. And so a a job is um a high high-paying most business owners start like I want to create a business, but they end up creating a hate a high-paying job or a lower paying job, but they have a job now that has all the the overhead and the people responsibilities, the financial all that kind of mixed in or whatever. And so it's um it's uh kind of an interesting kind of, you know, it gets back to the you know, owner-operator type of of mentality, but um and owning a business that's that's a job, for example, my business, I'm a one-person business, and so I treat my business as a business, but my business depends on me. And so it's just a little bit different way of um thinking about it.

SPEAKER_04 6:58

We have a lot of clients that are business owners, and there's been a few times that I've had to say, you don't have a business, you just created a job for yourself. You should either sell the business or in some cases shut the business down and just go work for somebody. Uh, especially when it gets bad where they can't make uh uh the the payroll tax liability, you know. Right. They're getting in trouble with the government and they're just they're disorganized. And and and in this one particular case, it was a dry cleaning business. And I was like, if if you just love talking to people and that's what you love about your job, go work the window at someone else's office. Right. Right. It's it's it's uh a few times you have to kind of tell them the truth. But I'd say in most, obviously, you know, we run a wealth management firm, so the people that are here are mostly pretty uh pretty successful.

SPEAKER_05 7:45

And uh it's it's amazing.

SPEAKER_04 7:47

We have we have a couple of new clients now that uh don't aren't required to be at their business every day. They're just kind of out doing their thing and the business runs on its own, they check in for payroll and they check in for uh handling the finances, but that's about it. And I think that's the dream of of any business owner is to have something run. I I what I always say is that that's when the business has real real value. That's a business that you could actually sell someday. Where if there's a business that relies 100% on you, and if you're not there, if you and if you're not taking care of the relationships of the business, um, the business is not worth as much.

SPEAKER_06 8:21

Right. No one wants to buy another job.

unknown 8:25

Right.

SPEAKER_06 8:27

You back to the the you know, whether you have a business or no one wants to buy a job.

From Technician To Leader

SPEAKER_04 8:32

So so what do you think that is the root of that? How why does that happen to business owners? I mean, in in the e-myth book, you know, they they say they have entrepreneurial seizure and then they become a great hit technician, but they never become a manager. Um, do you think it's it's systems, it's leadership, or it's it's just the mindset, you know, like uh uh you got to do everything yourself mindset, can't delegate. Because initially, when you start a business, you you are everything, and then you you are and then you grow people, right? You have to grow out of that, right?

SPEAKER_06 9:03

So what do you think there's I think it gets it gets down to kind of you referencing kind of emith calls it the entrepreneurial seizure, you know, and the premise of that book is you know most businesses start as technician as technicians who then go to build a business. So, you know, dentists start dental practices, you know, CPAs start, you know, tax advisory firms, right? Pilots like you, Casey, you know, pilots start wealth management firms. But the idea is the idea is they're good at a technical skill. And then there's a time where they're like, I'm gonna create a business. And early on, the business relies on their technical skill. Their value in what they do is very much tied into the that technical work. Usually they're the best at it. They're the authority at authority at it. But where they get trapped is they continue doing that technical work, the tactical work that other people should in the business should be doing. And if they if they just stay in the middle of that the whole time, the business isn't gonna scale, the business isn't gonna grow. And it just business gets complex because they're the the everything depends on that that business owner. So that technical work, it's a it's a big shift. And eventually that shift needs to be um be made. I have um a client I've been working with for nine years. He's a civil engineering firm. But back when we started, yeah, every Wednesday night, and I look at his time logs, and every Wednesday night, he's approving, stamping all these, all these plans and and just doing the work. And probably for the last five years, he couldn't, he probably couldn't even do a civil engineer design because he doesn't, he's got a whole team doing that. So it's kind of a good example of how you start doing the technical work and then you move from doing the higher value add strategic work, which um that's a journey every business owner needs to make. I'm sure you've made the same journey yourself.

SPEAKER_04 11:17

Do you find that most people you work with are willing to make that journey, or do you find that some just aren't willing to let go and they they're kind of stuck in their in their ways?

SPEAKER_06 11:26

Um it's it's it's challenging. First of all, there's kind of a a mindset that how could possibly anyone do this better than I can? And so if you're stuck with that mindset, yeah, it's gonna be hard. Um it's gonna be hard to think about investing in systems and delegating responsibilities and not being the only person there, but it it's a they get stuck in that. Um I guess it's it's kind of a my it's like a mindset. And then they just eventually just need to, if they're not gonna make those changes, they're gonna have a business that's dependent on them, which we already talked about. That's not what most people want.

Building Repeatable Processes

SPEAKER_04 12:09

I think I think that's where aviation helped me in the fact that you have one airplane type, and any anybody who's qualified can get in and fly it, but it it's a crew, right? So how is it that that a captain and a first officer don't know each other, never met each other, can hop in and fly the airplane the same way as all the other people, right? And so it's a process. It's a it's a repeatable process. And so that's that's what we built at our firm, where a lot of repeatable processes. There's there's almost a hundred of them uh that live inside our software. So if somebody wants a wants a withdrawal or someone wants to go through the financial planning process, that that checklist, it's a checklist of items that that uh are done over the course of the meet three meetings or four meetings, however many, however many it takes. Uh so I think for a lot of business owners, what is your process? What is your repeatable process? Um, I had a professor in college one time used to call it uh in my operations class, I think he called it mistake proofing. How do we mistake proof our our processes or how do we manage uh to have the same quality every single time? And then who's accountable if it's not not the right quality? Um so th I think those are probably good takeaways from uh a business owner perspective is you you should be able to repeat what you do over and over again. Otherwise, you just have a business that you make a good living at, you need to be saving for your own retirement, but the business itself probably doesn't have value. But if you you can make it not about you, your business now has value and you can sell it uh hopefully for for good money and it changes your life and future future generations um uh lives potentially. Um so what do you think the first mindset shift is that an owner needs to make uh to start making their business less about them?

SPEAKER_06 14:00

We talk we talked a little I've talked a little bit about that, but it it is it is a mindset shift, and um it's a mindset shift about kind of just even believing um that they they need to kind of eventually kind of get out of the the the tactical or the tech the technical. So even just that alone um mindset shift is eventually reducing technical or tactical work, doing more strategic work, kind of leading leading the business, architecting systems, putting in processes kind of in place that are are truly needed and being more of a thinker versus a doer.

SPEAKER_05 14:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:48

Um is there is there any one thing that you see in a repeatable business uh in different businesses are kind of the same? Uh you talked about you know the person's so busy they can't they can't uh take a 45 minute call with you. Uh but are once they're once they're in your system, is it kind of is there like a one go-to thing you'd say, okay, you gotta stop doing this.

SPEAKER_06 15:14

It's um the the problems are all all the same, but all the owners are different. I don't know if that makes sense. Yeah. It's the problems are there, are largely the same, but the the the owner, and that's what makes it kind of rewarding what I do. Because this isn't just like uh A, B, and C type of thing, because you got kind of the the owner's own skill, the owner's personality, the owner's mindset in in working with the client. But um, I I always um I think getting to kind of your your question is that um all all businesses really operate around kind of major functions. You need you know, you need to have a kind of a leadership systems of your business established. You have need to have financial system, kind of financial systems, you need to have kind of management and operational systems, you need to have sales and marketing systems, and you also need uh systems around different products and services for the business, but all that kind of put together in most businesses, they they start with that kind of common denominator, but then depending on the business, it gets different, um, especially um different types of business. It takes a little bit more detail and more nuance on and the actual business, but you kind of start off with the overall frame like that and drill down from there. But yeah, you have a hundred systems.

People: Hiring, Culture, And Fit

SPEAKER_04 16:51

Well, I'm gonna say a hundred systems, a hundred workflows. So they're they're centered around client um uh client needs, whether it be financial planning, whether it be withdrawals or deposits, uh even just hiring, hiring. We have 18 people here now. So hiring a person, we've gotten better at having an onboarding workflow because different people we have now have an HR person, right? And we now have we have a payroll person, right? So it's it's um everybody there's different people touching the same project. So you have to understand where everyone is, not just yell down the hall, right? So you need to have a software that that supports that. That that's one of the things that I've seen with uh in our industry is with even with AI, everything's very segmented. There's a different software for every every single function and they don't talk well together. And no one's really solved that yet. Uh and so it for us uh internally, we you know, we still have spreadsheets and things that we have to use that are not probably the most efficient, uh, but we we need we need those um we need those things to mesh together. And I'm hoping in the next maybe three or four years that we'll start to see some new tech that will marry all these systems. Um like our financial planning software won't talk to our our estate planning software, so it's double entry, right?

SPEAKER_06 18:11

Yeah, interesting.

SPEAKER_04 18:12

So it's little things like that that were always going, huh. If we swapped, if we swapped this software to this software, then they would talk. But the software we'd swap to is inferior to the software we currently have. So we do we want it to talk or do we want it to to do the work better? Right. So it's it's a constant, it's a constant battle. And and there's uh and then there's new um uh all the startups, they they work really, really well. And then a few years later, next thing you know, they sold to the big guys in the industry, and then innovation stops. So it's it's a constant, uh, it's a constant um, they call it a tech stack. So our tech stack is constantly being monitored and and and this stuff's expensive. It's probably uh the tech technology is the second biggest line item to payroll. Wow. Um to help us make help us to be working efficiently. I mean, we grow 20 to 30 percent a year. That's a hundred and seventy-two new families just last year. So that that's a lot of um that that's a lot of planning, right? More so than most firms. So we have to find ways to be efficient, but also uh also very detailed, and then have quality control. Uh so for us, you know, the the assembly line, so to speak, is the three client meetings, but in the middle there's senior advisors are looking over plans, uh, even though they're not always in the meetings. Uh especially especially me.

unknown 19:37

Right.

SPEAKER_04 19:37

I can't be in every single meeting. So so I have people here that uh no I I would say personnel, people who you hire. Um Marty, I think that's a big key too. Because you can hire a liability. I've done it. Oh yeah. You gotta hire as a business owner, you gotta hire people that are smarter than you.

SPEAKER_06 19:55

Yeah, and and you can you can have all kinds of s system, you know, hiring systems, applicant tracking systems, onboarding, uh all the all and do doing all the things, right? But um, yeah, you know, by far, um the the biggest kind of challenge that all all my clients have are just you know attracting, attracting and developing and can kind of keeping good people, you know. By far, that's usually the biggest kind of frustration point. But if you have a business with good leadership, strong, you know, other other people on the team, strong systems, kind of a great vision for where the company's going, all these things kind of lead to attracting that and keeping that um great employee. Um so, but yeah, it's a something the the people asset is is huge, which I also think sometimes might be a surprise for most small business owners as they start growing and scaling their business because five-person company versus a 15 versus an 18, I think you're at it.

SPEAKER_04 21:04

Yeah, it's a big difference. It feels different.

SPEAKER_06 21:06

It's a huge difference.

SPEAKER_04 21:08

You start having to have uh, you know, employee manuals and things that you don't really think about when there's three or four people there, you know.

SPEAKER_06 21:15

It also puts a lot more um focus on on the owner or the leader of the business, and because eventually with that many people, you're becoming obviously less of a doer. You're actually becoming probably less of even a manager, and your your business or your your function becomes more around leading the organization and inspiring the organization and charting where you're gonna go and what you're gonna do.

SPEAKER_04 21:44

Yeah, Donald Miller has a good template for that. It's mission made simple, uh part of his um university, online university thing. And I s I still use that. We update it every year. Oh, you do good. But it it but it helps us it just helped helps.

Org Charts And Roles That Scale

SPEAKER_06 22:00

us hire too does this person does these does this person fall into what our identity as a firm is and and and helps us sometimes terminate people too because they don't quite fall into what the identity of the firm is and yeah he uses a different he uses key characteristics yeah instead of core values or whatever but they're likely the same thing and then um I also love in miller in Miller he has the the critical the key characteristics and the the critical three or four critical actions these are the things everyone in the firm does every single day and they could be little things like thank you say thank you. Right I mean just those little kind of and but it's a grounding thing and it's simple and it kind of helps uh build culture around us a certain set of um factors.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

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Career Paths, Reviews, And Retention

SPEAKER_04 23:19

All right let's get back to the episode yeah when you're interviewing people it's always good to review um your your key characteristics just because uh in wealth management so many people come into the industry for money themselves and there's nothing wrong with making money yourselves with that if that's your primary focus you're not gonna be in a good fit here at Wiser because about I don't know 10 to 15% of our client base probably really can't afford us but we're we're here to help them uh out of their situation. Uh and I find that that the more um driven individuals in our industry would never pay attention to that person. Even with the person probably with less than a million dollars, they probably wouldn't help them. And so you have to make sure those people don't get into our firm because that's not the heart of the firm. You know we have we have really big clients right and that that's great. That's what wealth management firms are here to do. But there's also the heart of the firm where you it's like if your brother or your sister needed help, well you're gonna you're probably gonna help them you're not gonna say I'm sorry you're you're below my my threshold. And so so that finds it it's it it's hard to find people who are already in our industry who who can think like that. And so we we were very successful with bringing young people out um of of CF programs in college and our finance majors that that totally get that. And again that's a whole process that we had to we had to school of hard knocks here uh we made we need some wrong hires who weren't good fits and and because you know ambition is is typically rewarded but sometimes you can have the wrong ambition and be on being on a separate mission inside a firm that that you think that would be moving that same direction. But that that's where as leaders we have to make sure that that everybody at the firm understands what what we're doing. Sometimes you have to um you you have to lead and I think sometimes a lot of business owners forget how to lead because they they do get too heads down. Even even my own self sometimes uh I have great people here who've been with me for 13 14 years and occasionally they have to walk into my office and say hey uh don't forget about this or hey this is happening uh you and and then I can nip it in the bud you know and say hey let's let's go back to our mission is here guys let's let's remember this um so it's it's um uh it's tough it's tough but I you know most business owners I think that someday they could sell their business and they can walk away into the sunset and retire. And one of the reasons I want to do this podcast with you is help them understand that your business doesn't have as much value if if you're in there getting your hands dirty every single day. Like you have to be able to create a business that had that can run um not it doesn't have to run completely on its own. You you could still be a relationship person, but you you need to have a business that can run on its own. Even for your own health quite honestly I've seen a lot of business owners have very poor health in their older years because they because they just uh burnt the candle that both ends at the stick for so long that there's just nothing left.

SPEAKER_06 26:24

You know right yeah that's interesting um in this this might surprise you well if you've read the E myth this probably won't but one of the kind of important um lessons or things on you know the first time I read that book is you know before you start going to build a business a business um build a business ask those important life questions so I was like hey first piece of advice is like when you're thinking of thinking about um starting a small business or kind of if you're in a small business is to really take some time to say hey what do I want my life to look like over the next three to five years and that's some soul searching and and and and some it is writing down and then there's the follow-on question of what is my what do I want my business to look like in the next three to five years. Because the fundamental mistake kind of you're talking about the people who have burnt the candle on both ends is that um your business should serve your your business should serve your life your life shouldn't serve your business and that sounds very straightforward and simple but that is so true and I see that all the time and it's somewhat painful sometimes too so yeah I I think I see that um I can see that with I well I don't know I've seen it with my with my clients but just growing up being around other business owners there's typically uh second marriages third marriages there's kids that are pretty disconnected from either mom or dad because the business always came first and and I totally get that um I've made sure to try to make sure that my kids feel like that I can always be there when they when they need something and I think I do that.

Two Lines Of Business And Growth

Profit First And Financial Systems

SPEAKER_04 28:20

I probably I'm so conscious of that I lean more toward making sure I'm at activities and and and things of that nature and supporting them what they do. But um but the business also provides for me to support them and and what they do. So it's it's a two way street. If I have to take a call on on the beach uh well you know I've been known to say you're on this beach because I took this call right um and and I think the one week a year I truly get to rest my brain is probably between Christmas and New Year's because no one needs me during that time period. Right. It's unfortunately it's the world's most expensive time to travel but that is that is kind of uh 15 days or maybe a little less than that that I I feel like that I can truly be be off the clock but um but I think I think all business owners should probably feel that way you know but I think really it comes down to uh I think we've heard this from from other people coaches in our industry but people processes and profits right there's the three P's uh the we got to hire the right people if we don't have the right people we need to come up with a formula on how we interview our system on how we interview people what are we looking for uh we have to hire very slow find the right person if we have a person that is not cutting it and then and I mean I I'll be honest with you over the years I've been doing this for 26 years there have been times when I didn't want to come to work because an individual uh was just not performing and then and I'm just like oh I have to go deal with this today. And then I would stay home one day and then I'd go oh right like I have the option I can handle this like I can take care of this situation. The other people who work with me don't have that authority. So I need to go in there and take care of this situation. And in the two times that it's happened the person wasn't happy here either you just got to kind of you know have that hard conversation cut them loose and go go find the right person. Um why was that so hard for you? Well I I think my nature I'm I I I avoid I avoid confrontation I'm a people pleaser right which is why we have such a high service business is I want to make people happy okay but uh you know you're when someone joins your group your firm you're I've it's a it's another family member it's someone else that that I proudly get to feed because they're helping helping our firm right and so you so in a couple of cases uh for me um it was my fault that they got hired here okay I didn't have the right process I shouldn't have hired them it was I took it on me and I gave them a good severance to go find something else uh in in my my conscience that that's what that's what the solution was like well I don't want them here they're they're causing they're causing uh a culture change which is not good um and so we we should we should probably uh part ways but I'll give them a little bit of a runway to go find the next thing uh some people some people may find it's easier to hard uh to fire people i don't it's not something that necessarily enjoy uh enjoy doing because you're affecting someone's family and someone's life so exactly that that's why you want to hire them uh have a process in place I think that there's a book I read the title is Who uh oh yeah um I've seen that one I haven't read I modeled I'll model a lot off after that it's it's a little harder to hire college people uh with the premises in the who because um they just don't have any work history there's not a whole lot of people you can you can call and say how was this person this in this situation you know uh one one thing I've had I have kind of learned is that people that badmouth their prior bosses and their prior their prior establishments uh will come to new establishments to be fine for maybe a year or two but then eventually they start badmouthing the new establish establishment too they're just negative people uh and so that that's a sign that I've I've picked up on in some interviews is is if they can't be professional in the interview then then maybe you know yeah what's gonna happen two years six months year two years down the line is certainly that would you don't want that with clients either because they're no no you're client facing most of your team is client facing a lot of us are yeah not everybody um yeah it also people like the whole drama thing so our office is is mostly women it's just kind of happened that way uh it's not something I set out to do necessarily but people think oh there must be a lot of drama and there's there's really not we did we did have a couple over the years that brought some drama uh with them and didn't really but didn't really know it until they were gone. After they left we're kind of like oh wow this place is so peaceful. We thought it was okay before but this is even better you know um but the the airline pilots who are listening uh if there are any listening to this episode they'll know what I mean when you're a first officer and you walk in you sit in the cockpit and you meet the captain for a first time and he goes hey I do everything by the book uh meaning that he's that just means he's gonna he's gonna fly the airplane just as the company is instructed. We all do little things a little differently you know nothing crazy. And and anytime that someone would say that you immediately go okay this guy's not by the book. Like anytime they say that this guy's gonna be you're gonna be reeling him in the whole time you know it's the same way with drama. It's like I'm not drama at all. I don't like drama I've learned this my daughter rides horses I've learned this in the barn life too anytime a mom says I hate drama I'm not drama at all she's the cause of the drama 99% of the time so same with employees if I'm not drama we've we talked about this in the past like with our our heart our our horses daughters who are in the horses like there's drama all around horses oh yeah there is yeah yeah horses and drama definitely get together especially with but but the uh um but yeah anytime uh anytime I uh I'm interviewing someone they're like I'm not drama I just don't like drama uh in my mind I always go back but maybe you are the problem of maybe you're the problem you know but but getting the right people finding the right skill sets uh you know one thing the emyth talks about is building out an org chart let's build out an org chart even though you can't afford necessarily to hire every single position dig out build out an org chart as to what your company you want your company to look like over the next five years yeah and then you have a vision of where you need to hire and and initially what you're doing is you're circling multiple jobs like this person might do these four jobs and this person might do these two jobs. And then as the as the company grows you know exactly how to split out jobs. So if a person's at capacity you say okay I'm taking these two things away from you and I'm gonna hire a new position person to do just those two things and that's that's solely how you scale uh I've had to update that really a lot because my my org chart from when I first writ written one looks nothing like it is today because we've grown so fast that the the org chart keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger right you actually need to kind of create like back creating a picture of how you want your bus what you want your business to look look like and act like and perform like a key piece of that is just um you know what's our org chart today it might have four you know may have four names in it but they're in eight different boxes just that's what it looks like today.

Building Value For An Exit

SPEAKER_06 35:46

What could it look like a year from now? Yeah two years from now and three years from now but you having that organizational strategy or picture of you know kind of how you how you line up people and positions and there is a lot of it gets confusing because you know the owner typically is in box one box two box three and eventually that just owner gets into maybe one box instead of four boxes and just thinking about who kind of does what and um there's a another accompanying process after we do that that I I do with every client but you just have to get clear who does what and so you know roles and responsibilities I we I don't you necessarily use that term but it's basically the the same thing. But just what's this position's highest level result? What's the the work they do which are the standards by which they do it but just a lot a lot of clients will have kind of some glorified job descriptions that might be ancient or they've like pulled from the internet or whatever they've done. But like doing that really that thinking about that work of what's this position, what it who are they accountable to what's the result what is the work they do and the standards by which they do it for their for their role is um absolutely key.

SPEAKER_04 37:18

Yeah that makes sense and that makes it clear to them as to what their job their job role is. We we also do a career progression um plan. So when they come in so I do review meetings every three months. So every three months an employee sits down and we get to have a conversation of really it's for them um what are you happy about what are you not happy about what are things we could be changing here. You know do you like coming to work here still? These are all important things to me. I want to know that you enjoy uh you enjoy uh driving in every morning, right? Sure. And but at the same time for the young people it'd say okay this is where you are today. This is where you want to go and these this is your career progression. You're gonna get the CFP next and after CFP you're gonna focus on uh specializing in tax and estate and then after that you're gonna you know you're gonna take on these clients and and so it it makes it very clear um as opposed to more merit-based system where it's just like oh you get it if you get it and if you self-study and figure this stuff out and you see that you you know make your you should always make yourself useful as an employee. You always should find ways to improve but some people don't do that naturally and so this is a like a roadmap for them.

Marty’s Work And How To Reach Him

SPEAKER_06 38:32

So I I think that's important on on the people part that there's expectations um as as I'm I'm impressed you have like you have a HR manager with 18 employees. That gives that's actually a testament to what you believe in developing young people and and leveling in career progression because um about 20 about about 30 is usually where most um companies maybe make that jump to get in bring in a people a pe you know HR director or um chief people officer my wife that's what my wife does that's what she calls herself a chief people officer yeah she's she's part time a billion dollar company but anyway yeah she's a she's a she's part time um okay we yeah we find that we have we do a lot of things earlier uh and it's really because everything kind of settled in on one person and that one person's overwhelmed uh so where I took everything off of me I put it on one person and that was fine.

Lightning Round And Closing

SPEAKER_04 39:28

But then that one person gets overwhelmed. You have to start breaking things out right so so that's that's what we're going through right now is um compliance and HR um marketing these are all things that that typically firms my size don't quite have yet but because we're growing so fast um we we need to we need to have that we're really two firms in one we have the traditional planning and assets management side which is how everyone thinks of wealth management but then the other side of the business is more one time plans. So and so the one time plan business uh can be a bit demanding at times and so that that's why we carry a little more people um it doesn't really show up our industry projections because they don't count that income that income's not counted as as as uh uh as value it is not value valued in our industry I think it's great for the client um but uh but our industry they take that revenue and they throw it out uh when they look at valuations but uh anyway again that goes back to the heart of the firm and what what are we trying to do to help people and not everyone has a million dollars to invest right there thousands and thousands of people who need who need help who are willing to pay for it uh which is kind of the second side of our of our business um so uh let's let's just talk real briefly we talked about people we talked about uh we've talked about processes I guess at the very beginning um but then we we also got to make money what what is your best tip for a like a money management system what have you seen that works really well for business owners money management system so um so you know Donald Miller has this thing or these open up these separate accounts I tried that one time and it was so confusing to me. I'm a finance guy and I'm like I don't understand how this is it but it must be for a different type of business than mine.

SPEAKER_06 41:21

I think what you're referring to is um um a kind of a book um by Mike McCallowitz pronounces right but it's called Profit First but it's uh oh yeah that's what I think you're referring to yeah uses that for his business and actually um I have several clients using modified versions of profit first you know where you take your can't explain the whole thing but it's taking your profit out first and setting up different accounts um setting up different accounts and putting kind of the the money away but it the the the concept is taking your profits first he's like he keeps keynotes these conferences I I can guarantee everyone in this room is gonna make a profit next year if you follow my system I've seen that yes well you well you take your profit off first because and you make everything else work and so and sometimes that's how we tell people to budget um not too many people come to wealth manager firm to learn about budgeting they've they've done that successfully already but a lot of times with younger people I say just pay yourself first just say what you got to save in your 401k and your emergency fund and then the rest after that I mean it matters but not not that much because you've already paid yourself first.

SPEAKER_04 42:41

But essentially what you're saying is you know these are the profit margins that you want you you put those those profits into the bank and then everything else you just have to make work like you get to let people go you let people go you got to cut out things that don't work right and it gets into like how what you should pay yourself and it it's a it's a it's a great it's a great book.

SPEAKER_06 43:03

But I think the overall point is whatever you you whether it's profit first you need just all small business owners really just need to it's probably the second kind of area in a business after leadership is to really get into your financial systems and clean chart of accounts and having um someone who you can trust to to to do your books and making sure you've got the review processes of looking at your numbers and not not even just waiting till after the month's close and kind of looking back but also just tracking you and I talked about this before you know tracking KPIs which are tracking your progress day to day or week to week which is giving you that picture of where my business is going to be where's my business headed and so you're always kind of keeping that pulse your business. Um those are some financial systems, but but but you know but you know budget what great I mean I started when I first got out of school I sold up comedy and software and just amazing like how far that's gone. That was a while back ago too. But anyway just a few years ago. Just a few years ago.

SPEAKER_04 44:20

Yeah okay so I think that that's a great resource. I'd forgotten about that book. Um so I I I think in the end if if we want our businesses to be more profitable uh we want to de stress our lives we have to have systems in place we have to have the right people we have to be able to manage um companies resources well which is all on the leader to do that um and then ultimately if you want to sell our businesses that's a whole nother podcast uh business brokers are hard to find good ones a lot of these guys are a little slick uh but but selling selling a business that is running more turnkey without you in there every single day is going to have a higher much higher multiple and much many more buyers lined up you know uh to be able to to buy that business and that that's what could set you free ultimately is is being able to take reap those benefits from your hard work over all those years. A lot of business owners aren't aren't funding 401k plans they aren't funding savings because they everything's wrapped into their business. And if that's the case then you need to protect yourself with with um with making sure that you're building things in the correct way. Marty you're you're probably one of the best guys to help guide people through that process. Tell me tell me more about um your company and and uh how people can get a hold of you.

SPEAKER_06 45:47

So I'm um the name of my company is Paradise Business Coaching you can find me on the web. You can also I think you'll probably put something in the in the what's in the show notes in the show in the show notes but I'm Marty at mpparadise.com but best best thing to if any of your listeners are interested I love talking it's I love talking to small business owners this is all I I do I came from a big company background I was 20 years at Microsoft and I've been doing this um for 15 15 years and I just love working with small business owners I love just the whole the whole thing of it and I love talking about small business owners as well as helping them my day-to-day job today so and I I do I do really feel lucky that I have a business that serves my life at this point in time this is what I love to do. Absolutely and you're and you're great at it uh Marty we have uh three questions we always ask our guest are you ready for these uh what's a money mistake you're really glad you made is there a money mistake that you you're glad you made weirdly glad you made this weird weirdly glad we're glad you made yeah my my my brain my brain goes to selling a lot of Microsoft stock options for fractions of what they're worth now so that's where my brain goes now and um weird a weird a weird um okay I have one weird one a weird one is I uh four years ago I bought a big Mercedes Benz sprinter van which looks like uh yeah jet in inside it so people thought that was kind of weird for me to do I had friends like you'll never use this thing it's expensive I am not mechanically inclined because they're maintenance heavy um I didn't really know I've never really been in one before but um that was a kind of I don't know something weird and you know now I have Starlink high high speed internet my clients get a big kick out of uh me when I'm in a Walmart parking lot somewhere in Oklahoma or where we're taking a call. That's awesome. Well you're using it so I mean I am using it but so I'm glad I I'm glad I did that but yeah at first I'm like this is gonna be a weird mistake but I'll anyway um if there is if you could only travel to one place where would you go and who are you taking I'm into cycling I would probably go to probably go to um probably Spain or Portugal and bring my bike with me and likely that'd be a a trip I would go with one of my biking buddies.

SPEAKER_05 48:42

Maybe my wife joins me at the tail end of the trip so that's the sprinter van there is going to be difficult but you can't do that in the sprinter van what's something that you strongly believe 10 years ago that you don't believe anymore I was one of those guys that felt everything had to be detailed, eyes dotted complex planned out in advance.

SPEAKER_06 49:10

And I guess um ten years later I I just kind of believing more and just keeping things simple and and just keep keeping things simple and the the simpler I can make it for myself or for clients um usually serves me better and it's something I believe more strongly in of just kind of keeping things simple.

SPEAKER_04 49:34

The KISS system.

SPEAKER_06 49:35

Kiss system yeah I I I've I've spent months doing strategy work at Microsoft and I'm like yeah all right yeah I kind of spent a week and probably got something just as good from that anyway so but keeping things simple I think is something I've learned over the years.

SPEAKER_05 49:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 49:54

My wise old age of 65 I just turned the the big six five the sprinter brands make you look younger.

SPEAKER_00 50:02

Yeah there you go all right uh well thanks for listening today's episode right appreciate it well we'll have to do this again yeah well well we'll keep you rolling in here uh thanks for listening to today's episode if you uh want to learn more about paradise business consulting uh you can find that in the show notes and um all right Marty go conquer uh go help other people conquer the world I guess you've already conquered it we'll see you later all right take care thanks for listening to a wiser retirement podcast we hope you enjoyed today's episode make sure to subscribe wherever you're listening that way you don't miss any new episodes we'd also appreciate if you could leave a rating and review. If you have any questions about anything that was discussed today head to wiserinvestor.com and reach out. This podcast is strictly for informational purposes only and is not to be considered as investment advice or solicitation to buy or sell any financial products, securities, digital assets or any other investment vehicles or a basis to make any financial decisions. Wiser Wealth Management Incorporated is a registered investor advisor with the SEC the host and or guest may personally own securities, digital assets or other investment vehicles mentioned on this podcast. Neither the host nor guest of the show are compensated for their participation and no referral fees are paid to or received by any host or guest for clients, listeners or similar interests. Investments involve risk and unless otherwise stated are not guaranteed, be sure to first consult with a qualified financial advisor, tax professional, insurance professional, andor legal professional before implementing any strategy discussed herein past performance is not indicative of future performance