Unfiltered Sessions
Unfiltered Sessions Podcast
Raw. Real. Unfiltered.
Building a business isn’t just about numbers and strategy—it’s about long hours, sacrifices, and the relentless pursuit of something bigger than yourself. Unfiltered Sessions is where we strip away the fluff and talk about what it really takes to scale a business, balance life, and delegate like a pro.
From personal updates on the journey of growing my own business to candid conversations with entrepreneurs and industry experts, this podcast is about the real stories behind success—the struggles, the wins, and the lessons learned along the way.
If you're a business owner trying to do it all, wondering how to scale without burning out, or just looking for honest conversations about life and entrepreneurship, you're in the right place.
No filters. No sugarcoating. Just the truth about business, life, and the power of delegation.
Unfiltered Sessions
Resilience and Leadership in Business and Family with Richard Walsh
What if you could navigate the demanding world of business while maintaining a fulfilling personal life? Richard Walsh, CEO of Sharpen the Spear Coaching and a former US Marine, joins us to share his journey of balancing multiple roles and responsibilities. From experiencing the lows of the 2008 financial crisis to rebuilding his life, Richard offers invaluable lessons on achieving true work-life harmony. His insights on resilience and leadership will leave you inspired and equipped to tackle professional challenges and personal obligations.
Join Richard as he transitions from city life to rural living, building a fitness business and a contracting company while balancing faith, family, finances, fitness, and friendships. Discover why focusing your energy is more crucial than just managing time and how involving family in business can lead to a harmonious life. Learn the critical elements of strategic planning and communication, the importance of having a clear vision, and the magic of automation, delegation, and elimination. Richard demonstrates how aligning family and business visions creates a cohesive support system that thrives on mutual understanding and shared objectives. Don’t miss this episode packed with actionable strategies and heartfelt wisdom from a true leader.
NOTABLE QUOTES
"[My kids] they don't care… what I do, they don't care what I drive, they don't care how big or small the house is that we live in, they just want me around." – Richard
"More is caught than taught when it comes down to kids." – Richard
"Communication at home is so important, especially between a husband and wife." – Philip
"[Business building] is ugly, it is hard work, it's even more work than I was doing to start again." – Richard
"Mentoring, that's when you do things for free. Coaching, that's when you get paid" – Richard
"I don't need a lot of friends, that's just kind of how I'm built, but I need super high-quality friends." – Richard
“At the end of the day, you can't do 50-50. Even if you somehow could manage to do business, 50, family, 50, at some point one or the other is going to feel like they're being neglected. So really, to me it comes down to that harmony. " – Philip
"You have to persevere at things if you want something worth having. " – Richard
"The best time to do an exit strategy is before you launch your business. The second best time… is right now." – Richard
"I don't want to buy a business and become a slave to it." – Richard
“People want to know that they're doing the right thing and that they're going in the right direction" – Philip
"You put people in the systems, not systems in the people." – Richard
"You have to share this stuff with your family. They'll be your biggest cheerleaders if they know what you're doing." – Richard
RESOURCES
Richard
Website: https://sharpenthespearcoaching.com
Email: richard@sharpenthespearcoaching.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-walsh-866ab237
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/richard.walsh.9231
Philip
Digital Course: https://www.speakingsessions.com/digital-course
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamphilipsessions/?hl=en
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@philipsessions
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-sessions-b2986563/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therealphilipsessions
What's going on, guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Speaking Sessions podcast. We've got Richard Walsh here. He is the CEO of Sharpen the Spear Coaching. He is a 30-year seasoned entrepreneur. He's the bestselling author of Escape the Owner Prison the contractor's new way to scale, regain control and fast-track growth while loving life. A speaker, a podcast host, he's a husband and father of six children. A US Marine champion, boxer, black belt and internationally recognized steel sculptor. Richard is on a mission to help 10,000 business owners create freedom, profit and impact in their business. And besides all these titles, just talking with Richard offline here, really quickly, you can tell this guy is super down to earth. He's very mission driven, go figure being a Marine. But, richard, first of all, thank you for your service and welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thanks, phillip man. It's great to be here. I'm excited.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, this is really exciting. So one of the things we were kind of talking offline about was the fact that in I saw the post was in May, but even currently you're still number five right now, but you've been between number four and number five on Podmatch Guest and as we were talking about that, you were just like oh yeah, and this and this, and like, oh my gosh, there's more things that you're doing while having six children, while running a business, while helping people out, while being married, and so many people tend to say I don't have enough time, I'm just struggling, especially small business owners, and I'm going to open this up super broad, but I want you to unpack a little bit of how you can do 45 podcast guest episodes in 50 days, have a happy marriage, run a successful business and have your kids going in a great direction in life all at once.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a big one. I don't think I can do that in one sentence, though, Phillip.
Speaker 1:That's okay. You can use a couple of sentences.
Speaker 2:No, it is a. It's an unusual thing and I know you stack the bio and people hear all this stuff, but one, one cab. I tell people go. I've been doing this a long time. Okay, accomplishment isn't overnight. It all takes time and I've been through and I've been through great success, lost everything in 08, 09, including my house with six little kids at the time, had to rebuild from there. So once you and then you like, get back on track and you start succeeding again, you do different things and I'll tell you the big epiphany. So I'm going to jump right to that 08, 09 thing get great success, award-winning, nationally recognized, internationally recognized steel sculptor building, world-class projects, doing all this great stuff. And really about you know, business first, drive, drive, drive all the time. That was my whole thing. Like everything was my business, it was my name, it was me, and it's about me getting the awards and me, me, me, a lot of I's in my speeches, all. And it's about me getting the awards and me, me, me, a lot of eyes in my speeches, all the wonderful things that I do.
Speaker 2:And as everything was kind of collapsing with the economy happening in 08, 09, all that the financial crisis, my business was affected in a big way. I mean, in one day November 5th 08, I lost half a million dollars and I just kept going off the cliff from there, right so? But one thing I do say is, you know, it wasn't the economy's fault. I did that. It was what I didn't do in my business, Right so I was producing, doing great things, but I wasn't taking care of the house, if you will, right so one day I woke up, philip, and it's like you know my kids. So I got six little kids under four years old at this time, and I'm like they don't care, like what I do, they don't care what I drive, they don't care how big or small the house is that we live in, right, they just want me around. I come home late, they come and they attack me. All the little kids run up to you and they just love to see it because you're doing that. And then one time, my son's chasing me down the driveway as I'm leaving in my truck, crying, screaming, like oh man, you look at that in the rear view mirror. Man, it's just too much. And if it doesn't affect you, well, that's beyond my pay grade. I can't help you. But I'm like, I'm like, okay, like you know what, none of this matters.
Speaker 2:And if I keep doing what I'm doing, you know going to be number one being first being great at business I'm going to destroy my children's future. They're going to have failed marriages, broken relationships. They might be successful at business, but in all the other areas and I call them the five F's in their life they're going to fail right. And that's because they watch me do it, because, remember, more is caught than taught. When it comes down to kids. You can tell them all the wisdom you want. If you aren't doing it, if you aren't living it, they're going to do what you do and live. You know, no matter how much you want to bloviate, okay, how about how you should be? They're looking dad, will you do this? I'm going to do that.
Speaker 2:So that was a big epiphany for me, and that's when I really shut the doors and said yeah, I'm losing everything anyways, let's just get on with it and start going forward. Let's relocate, let's begin again. So, with that in mind, that's when I understood balance right, because you hear work-life balance right, that's what we're talking about. How do you get work-life balance? I really don't like that term because people come and tell you that and they walk away and they don't tell you how to do it. Nobody can tell you how to do it, okay, so you save the cliche. Okay, unless you're going to give me actionable steps, I'm not really interested in you telling me I should have work-life balance, but your life is a hot mess too, okay, so I can be a little rough on that.
Speaker 2:So I said well, how do you do this? How am I going to do this? Because we want to homeschool our children. I'm going to homeschool six kids, be around for them. I mean, I'm not going to be a stay-at-home dad, Don't get me wrong, that's never going to be me. But I want to work, I want to be successful. I love business, I want to continue.
Speaker 2:But now I have to build it differently. First, do the things I didn't do so I don't set myself up for failure. But secondly, how do I delegate properly, right? So it's three things. I call it automate, delegate and eliminate. How do I make those three things work in my business? So if I want to run home, I can run home. If my wife needs me, ok, I'll see you in 10 minutes and I fly home, or before. Are you kidding me? I'll see you at like eight o'clock tonight when I get done. I'm building stuff. You know I'm busy. So that was the big challenge, philip. It was really trying to figure out how does that, how does that happen, you know? And I started figuring it out little by little and I made it happen yeah, man, so so many things there.
Speaker 1:One of the things I couldn't help but think about when you talk about the kids, that they, they catch stuff more than what you just teach them and everything. Of course, one of the things that we're trying to do with our daughter she's two and a half is not say the word butt, so it's like fanny or anything else. Well, my wife said something and I forgot exactly, but she ended up saying butt, like saying like oh man, you're being such a nosy butt, or something like that. And then my daughter in the back of the car is like fanny mama, like sitting there trying to correct my wife on that too and everything. But they I mean they just catch so much.
Speaker 1:But then you talking about your journey here, obviously in 08, you lost everything. I can only imagine what your wife's going through right now. Clearly you weren't at home, so there wasn't. There probably was a relationship, but it probably wasn't as near as good as it is today, because you started changing that. So talk to us a little bit about that dynamic, because I really think that communication at home is so important, especially between a husband and wife, that if they are not communicating on the same page, especially for us as men. It's easy for us to just go off and do things. We're going and killing and trying to bring back home, and for us that's showing love, but for our wives that isn't. So what was kind of that dynamic whenever you were just going out working saying I'll be home at eight instead of oh okay, give me about 10 minutes, I'll be home, and maybe it's not literally 10 minutes, but you're like going to figure out how to get home right away. So talk to us about that dynamic shift and what you did to make that change.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it was, you know, the first five years it's her and I, you know, and then that's all good and I'm working a lot, I'm very successful. She came into the marriage. So I was a little older when I was 34 when I got married. She's about nine years younger than I am and we're going along and like everything's good, I'm making lots of money, we're getting this, we're here, we're going to move, get a house and this stuff's going. And then children started coming, boom, boom, boom, and we had like six kids in like three and a half years. Okay, so now it's like, okay, we're doing that. Now I'm still working a lot, right, cause she was being a teacher and doing stuff. So now she's home, now the I think the saving grace in that, phillip, was she's got six kids to take care of. Okay, she's, she's distracted.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very, very I wonder when I'm going to come home. Okay, she's trying to get to the next hour, you know whatever it is, and changing 1100 diapers a month, you know, but. But whatever it is, and changing 1100 diapers a month, you know, uh, but. But so that was it. But then, when things started getting tough and the economy started to squeeze okay, because we weren't communicating, it's like, hey, we got kids and she is the master of like field trips, like she was all, like she's not afraid to take six kids anywhere oh man she got the five, the, the five person wagon.
Speaker 2:She's pulling out the botanic garden with another kid in her arm. I just always did. We traveled across the country. She didn't care, so she's unbelievable. So that helped me just focus on business.
Speaker 2:And still was wrong. I'm like well, she's not complaining, complaining, so I'm going good things collapse. Here's the problem too. A lot of people don't realize when someone like so I got married, right, so I came in and I've been doing business for already 10, 15 years, whatever, and she came in when everything was good, right. So oh, this is nice, yeah, we're going to these big awards thing, hanging out with the mayor of chicago and doing all this stuff, you know, and that's neat.
Speaker 2:But then when things get bad, and then you watch all this stuff and then you have to start over. Well, she hasn't been through the business building process. It is ugly, it is hard work, it's even more work than I was doing to start again. So and you're figuring it out too, because you don't know what you're going to do, because I wasn't going to do what I did, I'm going to start something completely different. So that was one of the harder dynamics because we had to relocate. So I'm dating myself. I kind of went what I call green acres on her. You know you go from the city to the farm. We kind of did that because she born and raised in the city of Chicago, so you can imagine the adjustment right. So that was a little tough. So we kind of she's like there's no friends, there's no people here. You know she's going to Chicago all the time with all the kids you know, just to be around people and and okay, that's all good.
Speaker 2:But again I have to build this home. Like, well, I'm going to build this business, so I'm going to open a gym next. Right, so I'm training people because I really love that stuff. So I opened up a boot camp style training gym and I create this whole unique program. I'm building up and I go okay, but I still got to be able to get home. So, okay, first thing I'm going to do is get trainers. I'm the trainer, but I'm going to get the trainers. I'm not going to be training seven classes a day. So that worked well.
Speaker 2:And then I started to systemize it do this, do this, I go okay. This is working pretty well, you know. So I did it for a number of years. It's really good. I'm like, okay, I think I got this figured out. Now you know, my business doesn't really need me. That's what I figured out. Now I think how can you have a business Cause everyone knows that one guy who runs a business so well, he always seems to be doing everything but his business and he seems happy and goes to lunch with his wife and he's golfing, and like I want to be that guy.
Speaker 2:So I'm like I need to go that direction. So how do you build a business to do that? So a lot of steps to that. Obviously we're not going to hit every one of them, but I figured that out and said, okay, I now want to go another level. So I wanted to start a contracting business. So I'll do roofing, contracting, siding, windows, stuff like that because I want to make more money. The gym thing was good, like well, that's good, but if I can do this with another business that makes more money, then I'm doing the same thing. I've got my time, I've got margin in my life and I'm making more money. So I did that, did the same thing, I was able that. So that was like, okay, I got this down. Then people started to ask me how I did it right? How do you go from nothing to this and this? I'm like well, you just do this and then started mentoring people. Uh, doing that? I always tell people you know mentoring, that's when you do things for free.
Speaker 2:You know coaching, that's when you get paid okay so I'm like, as an entrepreneur, I think I'm going to move into the coaching space because I'm really helping these other businesses, like maybe I'll make it a business. So I got out of the contracting business and went directly into coaching so I could help more businesses. Right, because what I found I mentioned this earlier the five F's. So the five F's, as in Frank, is faith, family, finances, fitness and friendships. Okay, take those five things. Now, when someone comes up and tells you work-life balance, you say you mean, so I need to balance my business and my faith and my family and my finances and my fitness, my friendships Is that what you mean? And they won't know what you're talking about because they just have the cliche yeah. And they go yeah, well, how do I do that? Okay, now we can get down to business. How do you do that Right and still have a successful business? So it's easy to say it comes down to time allocation, but it really doesn't. It comes down to focus, which is different than time allocation. I'm not going to block out an hour to work on my faith. Okay, faith is something I live, right. So what I believe in, you know, I'm a Christian. Right, I'm a believer. I wanted to. That's all the time. So I make sure that that doesn't get a put away because I'm in business, right. So it's like I should leave that at the door because I got to do business. Now I weave it into my business because that's who I am. My family, I can go home when they need me. I can do this.
Speaker 2:I brought my kids to work as they got older. I mean the gym especially. I loved it. You know all the birthday parties were at the gym. I mean I incorporated them into it. So we're homeschooling them on the learn business. What better way to learn it than do it, you know? So now they understood what's going on. My daughter would sit with me when I'm signing people up, you know, doing memberships and doing other work, and it was really cool to see all my kids were like that. So that's how I got to weave in my family, right. So my wife, I could go home, I could do this. We could take vacations, because everything was handled. So we could leave for a week, we could leave for two weeks. We did a 40 day road trip with all six kids.
Speaker 2:You know, come back and everything's running and the finance part was a biggie. Right, because, well, the finance part was a biggie. Right, because, well, money's the number one thing, right, that breaks up marriages. Finances are huge. Oh yeah, right, I got my idea.
Speaker 2:I'm running and, as an entrepreneur, you're like the worst of everything. You just, you have a. You know where the money's going. I got to build this business. I will sacrifice everything. I'm paying my people before I pay me, and that whole mindset that a lot of them get into, which is a really terrible mindset.
Speaker 2:Well, I had to change all that. It's called Parkinson's law, right? If your money doesn't have a predestined place to go, it'll evaporate. So, philip, I came to you, I hand you a hundred bucks. Well, here you go, philip. You go take a buddy out and you grab some lunch, take your wife out. A hundred bucks is gone in like three days, never even know where it went. You just know what's going on. Well, that's Parkinson's law when you don't have that place.
Speaker 2:So I had to start laying out where is this stuff going to go. You know how am I going to create assets, I'm going to build my finances, how am I going to create passive income, you know, and get tangible assets I can build and help grow me so I'm not dependent on my business for income, right. So that was the finance part. Really started to build that out really well. Then with the fitness, because I've had my, I've been super fit, I'm a boxer, black belt Marine, I've trainer, I've done all this stuff. But I've also got three meals a day from a window, okay, and like got up to, almost became a 300 pound land tuna, you know, and I'm just like I can't live like that, you know, but you have these kind of ups and downs because stress and business and everything else.
Speaker 2:So I really got focused on nutrition and health. Of course, working out is easy. It's the nutrition part that's hard. So I just started bringing that back into my life and raising the kids Same thing. My kids never even had a soda until they're like eight. You know my wife would go to McDonald's Phillip, and just get coffee from the drive-thru. Swear to you. My kids thought it was the coffee store. They had no idea McDonald's served food.
Speaker 1:Everybody found out they're like they have food, because we never ate there, right.
Speaker 2:We don't watch a lot of TV and all that stuff either, so they don't really see this stuff. So it was kind of funny. So we there, right, we don't watch a lot of TV and all that stuff either, so they don't really see this stuff. So it's kind of funny. But so we had a very healthy environment at home. It really created that their friends would come over and open the fridge and the fridge is full just of greens and you know, like real food, you don't have any food. Well, we got a lot of food. We make all our meals, right. We don't eat out, we do all that stuff. So that's another part of it, right. So there's my fitness and nutrition and stuff. And last one is friendships.
Speaker 2:Now, I don't need a lot of friends that's just kind of how I'm built but I need super high quality friends. So I might have like three friends who I'll spend more than like five minutes with, but they're what I call my trench buddies. There's guys I go to war with. They got my six all the time, no matter what and same with me, right. So I'd rather have three of those guys than 10 of anyone else, right, because I know I'm going to make it because of them. So I focus on that too. Development, I mean I wouldn't give certain people time Sounds kind of harsh, but it's you kind of don't fit in the outer circle and and uh, and that's how I did it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and and I totally understand that not giving that time because you had to protect that and obviously you're very busy with all the things that you do. We're all busy in some way, shape or form and we really had to protect that time. And that's really cool way of making sure you've got the five things that you're doing to make sure. Hey, am I doing these things essentially at all times? How am I bringing them all together to make them? And of course, you're not doing necessarily all five at once, but you really found ways to weave those in and everything. And that to me.
Speaker 1:I've heard the work-life balance. I like to call it a harmony and I heard that from somebody and I like that. How do you create that harmony? Because there's times where your family needs you more than the business and there's times where the business needs you more than the family. But what are you doing to make sure that it's all still in harmony? Is there's not really that true balance? Because at the end of the day, you can't do 50-50. Even if you somehow could manage to do business 50, family 50, at some point one or the other is going to feel like they're being neglected. So really, to me it comes down to that harmony.
Speaker 1:And then, yeah, how can you bring that in? And I like that you were doing that, bringing your daughter in for the sales conversations there when you're working in the gym doing sales and everything. And I've done that with networking events for my older daughter now. Now I'm starting to do that more. So, like, hey, I want to go do that. I need to get out and just at least take one daughter out of my wife's hands so she's not dealing with both. I'm doing that like trying to take them there and, depending on the event and time, maybe I'll start taking the other one as well. I'm not as brave as your wife to go out with six kids. That's some crazy stuff right there, yeah.
Speaker 2:It is awesome and I really encourage entrepreneurs like involve your kids in your business, because I don't and I tell entrepreneurs I'm very transparent but I go don't think you're going to hand your business down to your kids, because 99% of the time they want nothing to do with it. Okay, a lot of times because they, because all they know is you're gone all the time and that's why they really don't want your business, because they don't want to do what you did. You're never around. They don't want that. But also they have their own interests.
Speaker 2:I encourage my kids. You're all going to do great things, whatever they are. You don't have to work a day in your life for me and you don't ever have to work a day in your life for me, but there is opportunity there if you want it, if you're interested, you want to come in, but you're still going to do it like everybody else does. You don't start at the top, but I think the exposure of it and them understanding the hurdles, the challenges and things like that and why you persevere, because a lot of people will not do what we, as entrepreneurs, will do. You know, they just kind of quit, they give up, they don't have the perseverance or the grit to get through that. And for me, if my children don't do it they saw what it takes I want them to take that away. That's what I want them to catch. You have to persevere at things if you want something worth having.
Speaker 1:That's the big thing. So talk to us about this delegation. You talked about the second business. As you started building out the fitness business and the contracting business, you really just started putting people in place, and you mentioned there as well that there were times where you were paying the people but you weren't paying yourself necessarily. So what, besides the fact that, obviously, from 08 09, where you lost your business because you were the one doing all the work, how did you manage to be able to do that and get these people to come in and still manage to grow a business, even though maybe you weren't necessarily getting so much money for your personal self, but you were like just delegating it out? And how did you go about really building this team, communicating, communicating with them and everything like that?
Speaker 2:So it actually all begins with exit strategy, which is really counterintuitive. Okay. So I tell people, the best time to do an exit strategy is before you launch your business. They're like what? Because no one thinks about that. They want to start making money, they want to sell. They got to do all the hard work. The second best time, I tell people, is right now.
Speaker 2:Okay, so whether you think you're going to retire in 10 years or you want to sell it, you have to build a plan. So you got to go out to the end. Okay, I want to do this for 10 years. I want to get this much money when I exit. I want to sell my business for X amount of millions or whatever you want. And that's great. And this is the timeframe. That's what I want to do.
Speaker 2:And then what else am I going to do during that time? Well, I need to create that passive income we talked about, right? So let's say, my business is doing really well and now I am getting paid. I make a seven-figure salary. I built something great. I'm a seven figures out. I built something great, I'm making seven figures now.
Speaker 2:Well, if I sell it, I sell for $10 million. Oh, that's good, but now I just I'm losing a million dollars a year now. So I'm no longer in the business. Well, that kind of hurts, right. So I have to reverse engineer from the exit strategy, go to the end and work your way backwards, right? So what does that mean? Well, I need to buy $83,000 a month coming in passively. So, okay, what kind of assets am I going to acquire? Is it going to be real estate? Am I going to buy businesses, you know? Am I going to be in the markets? What am I doing and how do I do that? What do I have to do every month to stay on track over the next 10 years, to be able to replace my active business income with passive? So you figure that strategy out. Whatever you're into, you do that Now. Also, at the same time, you're thinking okay, well, if I'm going to get 10 million unless I'm just picking a number for your business what does my business have to be for someone to offer me that kind of money? Because most people will run their business for 20 years and they'll want to sell it for whatever $5 million People go.
Speaker 2:All you have is a bunch of depreciated assets. You got a bunch of old trucks. You got some tools, you got this, you got some people, you got a client list. That's it. I'll give you $30,000. And that's all you're going to get. You think you're going to be walking. You ain't going very far with that. You got to go get a job at the Home Depot or something, but that's the problem. So now we're going to build a business.
Speaker 2:Well, what does someone actually want, right? They want a business that is systemized, that runs itself. If I'm going to be a new owner, I don't want to buy a business and become a slave to it. You know, I don't even want to come in and turn it around, really, you know there's a place for that market search, right, and you can do that when you've got the skills to do it. But I want to come in hand. The guy, the $10 million check. He's out. I'm in, nobody knows. The business sold, that's a well-run business, right? So you think about it that way, like, wow, that's really good, that'd be a great way to go. So now I have to build my business.
Speaker 2:Since I reverse engineered, philip, when am I going to put the first person on? Now, you know when it's viable to put the first person on, because you've built a strategy you understand. So when does the second person come on? It could be both a dollar amount hey, when I'm making $250,000 a year, I can hire someone. Then I can do it again and again, and again. Or I'm at the certain point where I need someone on the team, because we talked about the automate part too. There's a lot. There's virtual assistants, a lot of really economical ways to take things off your plate, which is really important to do, but the actual physical person in your business. Now you know when that happens, right.
Speaker 2:And the great thing about the exit strategy, philip, is it becomes an incredible business filter, because when you start doing well, little opportunities tend to pop up and people have these great ideas for you to make more money. Just do this right. And they want the shiny object syndrome. You want to do this Well, business filter. You go okay, give me a second. Is that going to get me closer to my exit or get me further from it? It gets me further? It's a hard no. If it can get me closer, I'll entertain the idea because I want to get to my exit, right.
Speaker 2:So that's the importance of the exit strategy and that's how you're actually going to regain your time. You're going to build margin in your life because you know when that's coming and you share that with your wife, you share that with your family. Say, okay, guys, here's the plan. I actually have a plan. This is the end Working back. So you can expect in the next two years I'm going to be really busy, but I still have time for you. We're still going to do things but, like you were saying, I may get pulled a little more this way for a while. Then I'll be back over here, but you're all important, so we're going to make this happen. So that's the beauty of the exit strategy. If people can incorporate that as soon as they can, that's what's going to give them the margin in their life to get those five Fs and be able to balance things out with their business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's so good. And it goes back to your analogy used with the $100. If I give you $100, it's going to get spent some way, unless if you made a plan for that $100, once you receive that and everything. So I really want to dissect this just a little bit. So it's two sides to this. One let's go with the business side of this.
Speaker 1:So how do we, if we don't have an exit plan, what would you suggest for us to do to really create that vision? Because I know for myself I struggle with this sometimes. Okay, what's that exactly going to look like? I've got some ideas and everything, but when I go to take them from my brain and put them down on paper, it doesn't exactly make sense. Or maybe even the fact that it's like wow, it's a lot bigger number than I thought. Or maybe I'm thinking, oh, I can make a million dollars next month and I haven't even made $10 yet, that kind of thing. So these numbers are just so drastically big and it's hard for us to think that that's actually going to happen. So how do we go and start to create that actual exit plan?
Speaker 2:I think the first thing you got to remind yourself is and we all do this, okay, All of us overestimate what we can accomplish in a year and we underestimate what we can accomplish in five years. Like you said, I got $10, but next month I'm going to make a million. That's kind of an overestimation, right?
Speaker 2:I ain't going to do that. But in five years that million is a very doable thing. It's relatively easy, okay. So how we're going to do it in the business is now we have to look at where we're at what we're going to do. So what's the actual vision for the company?
Speaker 2:So we do a thing called strategic vision and we build it out. How are you going to have a vision-driven business? Because you've heard the old mission statements right, we've all seen them on the wall. We're going to be the best, blah, blah, blah. We do this. We're going to have satisfied customers. That feeds one ego and that's the owner of the business. That doesn't do anything for anyone on the team. No one cares about your mission statement because it's all about you. Okay, nobody cares, they don't care about that. Why would they even want to fulfill your mission? You know, and they just don't care, right? So we need to be purpose-driven, but we need a vision. So the challenge with that is and we do it with all our clients but we do what we build a strategic vision and it's called future casting. So we look at what we want our business to be in the next 18 to 24 months. We do smaller sections. We're not doing five or 10 year plans because those just never work. Too much change is too fast and you can't stay in that.
Speaker 2:But if I can build this out and I call it an internal document, you start at the very beginning of the customer experience, or customer journey, right? The first call that comes in all the way through every single person in your company, whether you've got three or 30 or 300, what does that look like? And then to the outcome, to the customer and beyond, and you create this whole thing and it's part story form is really cool when you see it and you're explaining. You know where so-and-so came from and now they're in this position. They do this and this is how we do it, and you're telling them how the business runs. Right, you're breaking down every one of them in these stories. You know, with fact and this and the projecting forward, this is what we're all here to achieve. So everyone understands where they fit and where they're the hero in that journey, right?
Speaker 2:So now, when someone wants to work for me, I go okay, here's my strategic vision. Read this first. Then we're going to have a five-minute phone call, so I'll call you in three days. They read it. I get on the call, they read the strategic vision. If they say, no, well, you have a nice day and I hang up the phone, okay, because they already can't follow directions, all right. But if they, I said, okay, where do you see yourself fitting? Oh, dude, I'm the warehouse manager man, I love it, I kill it. Now where I'm at, dude, I can run a warehouse man. I keep things down, you know.
Speaker 2:And they give you the whole thing. They're like they've been brought into the culture, right, that's the person who's called to do it. Like, okay, that's awesome, that's what we're. But now you also know that everyone in the company is working towards this vision, accomplishing this vision, right. So, and you'll just do it once, it's like you review this every month, every two weeks, you go back with people Well, where are we at on completing your portion of the strategic vision?
Speaker 2:Right, when people can't perform, what we say is well, you're not fulfilling the strategic vision. So I'm going to let you go and replace you, you know, because we have a vision to get to. So now everyone's working with purpose, right. So now let's take all that, and that's pretty high level.
Speaker 2:I know there's a lot more details, so now let's go back to automate, delegate and eliminate. Let's dive in that really quick. So we're talking about automating. You want to do all that for your business? It must be automated, whether it's call services, virtual assistance, accounting, all that stuff that someone can automate and do. Very simply, it takes it off your plate. Okay, delegation this is where everyone goes wrong, philip. So they just tell people you do this, okay, this is your job. Now you do that. And what do they forget to tell them? They forget to tell them what all is involved in that job. We call them job functions. They forget to tell them how to do that job and they have no training to show them how to do it Right. So that's where everybody drops the ball is in delegation. They just think they can tell someone to do it and they're never going to do it right. Then they actually get mad when they don't do it right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they fire them and they say you're a VA's, and I found that's the biggest culprit right there that, oh, I just get a va.
Speaker 2:and then you get them and they're like I'm, I'm basically doing all the work because I have to tell them what to do, yeah right, and say right in line here. So we call them job functions. So whatever the position uh, office manager, site foreman, whatever it is you have a whole list. Could be seven things, be 15, could be 30 things that they do as part of their job, not every day. It could be Wednesday for 10 minutes at 8 o'clock. This is when your job functions. You run this report, that's it. But you have all this for them. Then you have the how they do it in the next column and then, third, comes the training on how you do it. So we actually have a training system. So if you come on board, we train you five to seven days. You're up to speed a hundred percent. This way I can pull in top talent.
Speaker 2:Everyone wants A players, everyone wants top talent to work for them. Of course we do. We don't want the C players. We don't want, you know, we don't want slackers, we don't want that. But how are you going to? First, you know, entice them to come, even look at your company. But then, once they get there, why would they work for you? And then why would they stay, because they'll stay, because they can thrive If they're great at what they do. They don't want to build your business in the sense of they don't want to systemize it. They don't want to tell you how to make it better. That's not what they're hired for.
Speaker 2:If I have a great salesman, a player killer, you know what he wants to do. He wants to close deals and make money. He wants to run as fast as he can to get to the goal line and if you've built this out properly, he can drop right in and go. Where's he going to go? He's not going to leave, he gets to work. He's got authority to do his job. He knows exactly what the boundaries are. He understands all the expectations. He understands the consequences. They can thrive. But if you think they're going to systemize that portion for you because as an owner, you think, well, you do it, you're really great. No one is doing that Nobody, phil. So people have to understand that. Entrepreneurs need to understand that. You know, no one is like us. Yeah, we think we're in that little 2%, 3% of people who are thick enough to go into business. We like to be tortured and we want to go into business. Right, so everybody else isn't, otherwise they would be.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and they want that direction. That's the thing that when people try to become leaders or get in those positions of leadership, I believe that's the thing that they fail on the most. They think, especially if they went from being a peer to now a leader, especially in the corporate world, that's the hardest thing for them because people want to be led. Even if you're a peer, people still want somebody to give them a direction and to me, that's one of the key things of being a leader is about giving direction, giving clarity, giving a vision of where we're trying to go. It's not about putting your foot down and you're doing this and being a dictator, but about giving people a direction. People want to know that they're doing the right thing and that they're going in the right direction and yeah, a lot of entrepreneurs miss that boat by a long shot when it comes to delegation especially.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think what people also misunderstand as entrepreneurs, a lot of us are not actually driven by money, right, we're driven by building a business, being successful, serving people, stuff like that. Money's kind of a by-product, like that's not our end. All Some guys are don't get me wrong Some people, that's all they care about. That was never my thing. Money was never my. My reason for getting up, you know, I wanted to do great things, as I realized on this other podcast I was on. I'd never said this publicly or even thought about it. But cause he asked well, why do you do it? I wanted people to tell me I'm great, I just wanted to do the next great thing. And people would just be wowed by it and just say no one can do what you do. And I realized for 20 years that's what I did. I'm just working for Affirmation, which is, you know, probably not a great business plan, but it's just like that really drove me. It was kind of eye-opening. But what they also don't realize is people aren't driven by money. Even employees, everyone wants to make money, don't get me wrong. But the number thing, number one thing, is driven by his purpose. They want to work somewhere for a purpose.
Speaker 2:I actually had a young, a young man the other day I think he's 22 telling me that it's like listen, I want to go somewhere where it matters. I want to help people. I want to do that. He goes. I don't care if I make 19 bucks, 18. I'm like there it is. The next thing they want is quality, feedback and recognition. That's what I want. Am I doing a good job? Can I be better? Can you help me with that? Can you do that? I want to be better as a person, so you give them that. Then money kind of slides in there. And that's the number one thing you have to understand if you're going to build out a vision-driven business. You have to understand who you're working with. No one wants an every-month turnover of people. No one wants massive turnover. But the also reality is everybody leaves. It might be five years, it might be 20. It might be five days, but they're all going to leave.
Speaker 2:So we need to systemize the business to slide people in, because you put people in the systems, not systems in the people, right? So we don't build a system around a person. We put a person in a system so they can function quickly and get up to speed and do what they do best, right? So I think when people understand that aspect of it, philip, now you can create a vision that everyone can grab onto, and we do this all the time.
Speaker 2:When we roll it out to the teams, I mean people cry it's wild, because there's like purpose and they totally get it. It's 100% clear. Everybody knows that, everybody does, and it's one of those little thing we started doing was trying to get our owners to take people from different departments in the business, like one or two hours a week, drop them in the sales position, drop them in the ad position, watch them, watch and help so they understand what everybody has to do in the business not cross training, but having an appreciation for what they have to go through. You know that changes the culture as well. Now everybody works like a team because they get what the other person has to deal with, you know. So you're building like additional empathy, right A?
Speaker 1:lot of fascinating stuff.
Speaker 2:We could talk a lot about this.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, oh yeah. And I think it's funny you mentioned that because I know my engineering days. I've always thought of that, especially when I was designing motor control centers. We had the salespeople that would just sell something and of course their job is difficult because they have to build a relationship, they have to actually get somebody to pay money to the company. But then from the engineering side it sucked sometimes because they're selling stuff that we're having to do, all sorts of stuff to make work, while we still have our other jobs to do, and we're like, why would they sell this? We don't really make this.
Speaker 1:And yes, you could say, well, it helped us innovate some, it helped us come up with a newer system, whatever. But it was still such a pain for the engineering side and it was just like for the salesperson oh, they sold it, they're gone, they got their commission, didn't have to worry about anything else, and we had to deal with all the headache and everything. And so I've always kind of said the same thing Well, I think there would be a better appreciation for both sides if they went and sat in the other seat. Obviously the sales guy may not be able to do the engineering and the engineering person may never be able to do the sales, but still to be able to sit there with them for a couple hours and understand what that takes would show a lot of that appreciation. So I think it's a great thing that you're doing there and so you've talked a lot about sharing this vision, casting this vision within the business.
Speaker 1:But I do want to ask how you did that for your family? I think this is something, especially as men, that sometimes it's hard to do that, especially if you have a spouse or family that they just don't understand it. They don't really care, maybe even be a part of it, but you still need to share that so they can understand why, when you are gone for 50 or 60 hours, working a couple of weeks or however long it is, or having to work on weekends and stuff, they can understand why is otherwise there's just that, that disgruntledness at the house and everything. So how did you share that vision with your family of the business?
Speaker 2:So I have a name for it. It's called personal strategic vision.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you actually do the same thing.
Speaker 2:But now put yourself at the home. You have kids of different ages, which they're your team. What are they doing? You know them individually. Right, let's build this out. What does this look like for the next 18, 24 months Same timeframes what do you want to do as a family? What's our goal? What do we try? Let's build this vision out using the same framework. You know who are we. How vision out using the same framework. You know who are we. How do we serve it? Why do we do it? Build out the same framework at home.
Speaker 2:Include everyone, because the big thing I talk about in the program too that you have to share this stuff with your family. They'll be your biggest cheerleaders if they know what you're doing. But we, as entrepreneurs and I did this I'm like it's business. They're not interested in business. They don't care. They're playing soccer, they're doing this. My wife's homeschooling them. They don't want to hear about this. Yeah, they do. They want to know what you're doing. You've got to bring them in, because when things get rough at work, at 50 hours, they totally understand. They know why. They understand you go through this sometimes, but they know there's an end to it too. They're going to work that 60 hours this week, so next week you can work 25. They understand it goes back and forth that way and they understand the ebb and flow of business. But now you take that home and now you're training them to do what Same thing. Right, you get a family. This is part of family planning. You're literally laying out here's what we're going to do the next two years. Tell me the family that has just a two-year plan. They might have this big. You're going to go to college. You're going to do this. Well, no one cares about that. When you're four, I mean, what are we doing next week? You know, what are we doing next month? What am I going to do? You know? Am I going to get a private coach because my daughter's playing volleyball? How do we get her better? Hey, we're going to get you a private coach. We'll get you some one-on-one lessons so you can be better. This is part of our vision. You want that? Oh, I'd love that. Okay, we'll do that. Music lessons You're going to go to voice and piano every week. We're getting a great teacher. That's part of what we're going to do. You're going to compete. You want that? We lay it out in the vision right Now. Everybody knows where they fit. The brothers know what the sisters are doing and vice versa.
Speaker 2:My wife and I know we're transparent in what we're doing, what we're trying to go ahead with, just like in the business. In my business strategic vision, I tell people I make this much, I do this, I do this. This is what I do with my money. I tell them all that I'm not some mystery ivory tower guy. You know, I don't care if I'm making a million and a half a year. Well, I earned it. I built a business for that. But here's what I do with it. You know, this is what I build and this is what I'm doing. Here's the charities we give to, here's the people we help, right. Same thing in the family. So if you take the same concept and apply it to your family, it's really powerful as you get to scale. So your business grows, philip, and now it's time to scale, right. Okay, we've prepared, we've systemized, we can scale comfortably. You sit down with the family, okay, we've reached that point where it's time to scale now. This is what we're predicting it to look like as we scale.
Speaker 2:I built a social relationship with Comfortable, but in the beginning, the first six months, I may be pulled away a bit more. Okay, I may be on the phone a little bit more, because we're going to the new markets, we're getting a new market share, right. So you guys need to understand that. So for this time period, understand, we're going to go with that. But it just needs you to understand and we're going to work with this. I'm still going to make the time for you, I'm still going to be around. There's bought into the vision. Yeah Right, they can cheerlead you, they can go. I know it's hard because you'll come home like I don't know, I might have made a mistake, and they can comfort you and say, well, what happened? And you can walk it out. I've learned to walk it out with my kids, so they hear it and I want to get their opinion. It doesn't mean they need to hear right now. That could change the direction of what I'm doing. So that's how I balance it.
Speaker 1:I like it. Yeah, really just creating that vision, having that end goal and then just continuing to communicate it. If I could really summarize what you just said, there is really what you're doing both on the business side as well as the family side, and I think that's a great thing. Usually, we'll have that vision on the business side Some people do, some people don't but on the family side, I think that's where a lot of us lack it, especially those of us that are married with kids. We really lack on that. But, richard, this has been awesome. I've really enjoyed this conversation really, at the end of the day, talking about vision and communication and everything with you, and I think the audience really took a lot from this, and if they want to be able to reach out to you, be able to follow and see what you're doing on social media, where is the best place for them to do that?
Speaker 2:SharpenTheSpiritCoachingcom that's my website. You'll get a ton of information there. You? Sharpenthespiritcoachingcom that's my website. You'll get a ton of information there. You can reach out to me through there. You can find Richard Walsh on LinkedIn and Facebook and all that stuff Find me there as well. But really my website is a great hub and let me do this for your audience, Philip. If they go to my website, sharpenthespiritcoachingcom, send me a one-sentence email. So go down to the contact, Say hey, I heard you on Phillip's show. Can I get a free copy of your Escape the Owned Prison book on audio for free? I'll shoot it off to you. Awesome, Because they listen to your show, they get the free audio book and here's the good news they get to listen to me for two and a half more hours.
Speaker 1:If you didn't get enough, you get another two and a half hours if you go to Richard's website. So make sure you do that. I haven't read the book yet, but I'm definitely going to go get it because just hearing you now, richard, I'm sure there are a ton of nuggets in that book and everything. But, richard, really appreciate you coming on the podcast today.
Speaker 2:Thanks, philip, it's a really good time. I appreciate you having me.
