ISI Brotherhood Podcast

106. 3 Reasons Why Your Business Won't Make It

• Aaron Walker & Kevin Wallenbeck

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"Without vision, the people perish." Ever wonder why some businesses end up flushed down the drain? We discuss how to avoid the most common traps entrepreneurs find themselves in that often lead to dead-end companies with no way to scale or grow. 

We lay out the ways of maintaining a consistent vision and a direction in your business and how that lays the groundwork for passionate and talented employees that keep the business running smoothly. 

If you're ready to change these 3 things, your company will flourish. Learn how to keep your team aligned and motivated, ensuring everyone is clear about the destination and the route to get there.

Key Takeaways:

  • Watch out for these traps that lead to a failed business
  • How to delegate to your team wisely 
  • What's a Chief Reminding Officer? 
  • #1 Reason you're not going to scale your business


Through examples like Chick-fil-A's success, we highlight why identifying where your time is best spent can amplify your impact. Discover how understanding your customers and adapting to market trends can significantly elevate your business, keeping you relevant in today’s ever-evolving marketplace. Tune in for a treasure trove of insights to help you minimize the risk of failing.

Iron Sharpens Iron Community: https://isibrotherhood.com/community
LinkedIn Group: https://www.viewfromthetop.com/group

Resources:

  • "Traction" by Gino Wickman
  • "The E-Myth Revisited" by Michael Gerber

If you want to hear more speakers like this every month and be with the guys on the call, join the Iron Sharpens Iron Community today: https://www.isibrotherhood.com/isi-community

Connect with Big A:
View From The Top Website: https://isibrotherhood.com
The ISI Newsletter: https://www.isibrotherhood.com/newsletter
Big A’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronwalkerviewfromthetop/

Speaker 1:

Hey everybody, welcome back to a View From the Top podcast, where we help growth-minded men who desire momentum in their business, their family and their finances get through the valleys and up the mountain to their very own view from the top. Hey, a question for all you listening out there today have you ever had a business that didn't make it? I'm sure some of you have hopefully not too many of you, but maybe. How many different businesses have you started but never really got momentum? Is that you? That's been me. Well, the good news is we're going to deep dive today into three reasons why businesses struggle to make it. So stay tuned, buckle up as we dive in. Let's get the man the legend in the studio. Welcome, big A.

Speaker 2:

Come on, wally, how's it going? You doing good, it's a great day to be alive, man. Hey, it is raining leaves at my house. You know I live in the woods, obviously the audience doesn't know that, but fall time of the year, man, it looks like it is raining leaves around my house. You know, what's funny is is I keep everything picked up really good in my yard and these leaves draft me out of my mind.

Speaker 2:

It's like, oh my gosh, there's millions of leaves covering my yard, my driveway I thought well, I blow them off I know because you've got that backpack jet, blow it like, create a hurricane, kind of thing yeah, I got two, two uh two recliner chairs, it says on my patio, that are missing because of that thing. This thing is serious. But man, this is a beautiful time of the year. You get to get the grandkids together and grill those hot dogs and eat s'mores and just start hanging out outside.

Speaker 1:

I actually had our first. We had our first fire, not fire like as a house fire or anything, we had our first like kind of campfire outside the other night. It finally got cool enough to where that made sense and it was great.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's really nice. Wally, I want to talk about something to be honest with you. I don't even know that you and I have ever talked about this. In light of our conversation today around three reasons why your business might fail, I really enjoy talking about businesses that I've built that have succeeded, and rarely do I talk about businesses I've started, found or bought that didn't succeed. But I want to talk about a couple of them today and I don't even know that you and I've had a conversation about this?

Speaker 1:

I don't think so. No.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I started a company years ago called American Diamond Exchange. Okay, and it was a miserable failure, miser, miserable failure. I don't know how much I lost in that business, but we were trying to compete with diamond brokers from Israel and from New York and I figured out really quick that I didn't have a clue what I was doing at that scale. And there was a partner He'll remain anonymous for this interview. He was a great guy, but he was far more interested in competition baseball. He was an all-star athlete and he coached and I found out later he was investing the majority of his time coaching and doing those kind of things. And I'm like, dude, we got a business to invest. We rented an office on the top floor of an office building. It was beautiful. I mean, windows, corner office. It was one of those kinds of places we wanted to invite people up, like Nashville or New York, or what.

Speaker 2:

Here in Nashville, okay, here in.

Speaker 2:

Nashville, and so I had a corner office. The only problem was there was no customers. I mean, it was terrible. And I finally went to him one day and I said hey, you can buy me out, I can buy you out, we can close it, I don't care what we do, but I'm not going to keep fueling this thing. And so we got out, we closed it. So I'm like okay, so I learned a valuable lesson there Stay in your lane, right. And I was outside of my lane. I'd been in the jewelry business for years and we'd been successful in the pawn shop industry and I thought I would try my hand at this. The other one was a company that I started called WIC W-I-C, hyphen B-E-E, wic-b.

Speaker 1:

Well, the problem there is that you got a hyphen. Yeah, you got a hyphen in the name, right there.

Speaker 2:

I did. I did. That was a critical error and what it stood for is what it could be, and we would buy distressed property and I thought I was being cute with the name. Nobody knew what it meant and you certainly don't use a hyphen in the name, but I did and that was also a miserable failure. I tried to do something with some family members and I found out really quick the amount of resources that you needed at your disposal to invest in these projects, to turn them around at a pace that was acceptable. I just didn't have allocated and I was short on the team, I was short with the people that could do the work, and I caught myself involved in doing some of the work and I'm like I don't want to do this, I don't want to physically go in and rehab, and so we closed that pretty quick as well. I really wanted to tell that for a couple of reasons. First of all, I want to be real, I want to be transparent.

Speaker 1:

I've never heard that before.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we've committed to doing that on these calls, and I just want to say that, yeah, it was an expensive education but I learned what not to do and that was kind of the catalyst for this show is three reasons your business might fail. So I just wanted you to hear from somebody that had had a measure of success in some things. It's like everything we do, sometimes it doesn't work, but in this episode we're going to be tackling kind of a hard truth and that's why some businesses really don't succeed. I mean, they don't and we see it day in and day out with people that are trying new, innovative things, and so it's just sometimes they don't work. There's a lot of reasons, but today we're going to focus on three reasons and there's more, there's multiple, there's hundreds probably the reasons that they don't succeed. But we're going to focus on three of those today, and Wally and I are committed to helping you during this episode, because we're determined to build a thriving business ourself and we want to help you align your values so that you can also accomplish those things. And so there's going to be three very succinct, and so pay attention to those.

Speaker 2:

There's others, and we know that there's others, but the first one that I want us to really kind of dive into a little bit is the lack of vision and clear direction.

Speaker 2:

And so I know, as an entrepreneur, as a visionary myself, that I can get caught up, you know, and like, oh, we're going to do this and we're going to have all the success and we're going to do these things, and that's true, and you need people to help you, to support that vision. But the other thing that we need is clear direction, because I can come oftentimes and I'm going to give kudos to you here a little bit, wally that I can come with the vision and it sounds grandioso and it sounds amazing, but you always tap the brakes and say, all right, that's good, but what is the clear direction Like? How are we going to get there right? Scripture even teaches us where there is no vision, the people perish, and so we've got to have that, but we've also got to have the person that aligns with that in giving the clear direction. So yeah, wally, you've been in business a long time as well and you know how important vision is. Talk about that just for a second for you.

Speaker 1:

I want to. It's interesting that you put vision and direction together and, man, I've been in business a long time and just never put those words in the same sentence. What is the? I think I can guess, but like from your perspective, what is the difference between vision and direction, or is there a difference?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think there's a little bit. I think that we can see it. We have this dream, and even with Iron Serpent's, iron Mastermind, we have a big vision right, and today it's not what we hope it's going to be and what we're forecasting it's going to be, and the vision that we have. But with that vision we've got to have a sense of direction. It's like, yeah, there's tasks that's got to be accomplished along the way and we can't go straight to the vision. We have a big vision and so today that's not going to happen. But the direction, the pathway by which we get there, is implementing these tasks along the way, and if we focus on those tasks, the vision will accomplish itself, the goal, the dream will happen. And so I think it's important to have a roadmap along with your vision that gives you the right sense of direction. That's good.

Speaker 1:

I think about. I think my most recent, one of my most recent experiences with vision was in the company that I sold, and so, 2019, I sold a business and essentially it was. We did a website, software, websites, marketing, had a suite of services data as a service in the RV industry, so the recreational vehicle space and we built that up over 18 years and had a great team in place and we had a good vision, pretty solid. This is what we want to accomplish and so, going through due diligence, in 2019, we come in and we sold the end of the year I think it was November 4th, I think of 2019, which has almost been five years, which is crazy to think about. Man, that's right. But so we're already starting by November to look at what things look like for the next year.

Speaker 1:

And so I just, you know we sold the business, but we're still there, we're, we're, we're acting as our own business unit, if you will. We were told to hey, run like you guys run, cause you're doing well. We just we want to be able to assimilate and create some um synchronize where we can, Great. So I go ahead and I just continue being me in the lead role of figuring out where we're going, casting that vision to people, where we're going to go, what we're going to do. And then January, february rolls around and we're like on our way and all of a sudden we start hitting these roadblocks with the company that bought us and they start like putting these things obstacles in the way and like, well, you can't do it this way, you can't do this. Like what in the world? And so very quickly within I mean say very quickly in their 18 years, and so within six months, I'm like this is not working Right. I became a lame duck.

Speaker 2:

It wasn't their vision.

Speaker 1:

Well, this is what's interesting is that I'm just telling you from right now, like they don't still today, they just laid off a bunch of people. Just laid off a bunch of people, unfortunately, a bunch of people that I knew, that we had hired, and a bunch of other people, other businesses that they, because their vision is so messed up, and I just, I think people don't know with with vision, like when you have it, without it there's no. Like people don't know what to look toward. They really don't, they really just don't. It's like. It's like, I think it's like, uh, you watch these shows where you'll have people that are out hiking in the woods or whatever, and they'll they'll look at a compass, whatever, and they'll find like a high point in the right. They'll find a high point off in the distance and that high point becomes like kind of how they start to navigate right to that next section and then, once they get to that high point, then they'll get their compass back out again and kind of reevaluate.

Speaker 1:

And I think in life, in business especially, but even in our families, that we should be doing the same thing that we get that compass out, we get our core values out, we get our mission out. We get this, we look at that, let's say, you know, every year, and then we're kind of looking at what that high point, that vision is we want to do for that next year and we start working toward that. And then the next year, quarter six, whatever it is for you then we come back to that, we get the compass back out and that's. I see that, like the company that I sold, I see in other companies you've seen it that that we fail to do that, we fail to like have a vision based on the compass, and then we don't have anything to look toward and it's like it. It just it's just blah, like it doesn't work. People don't get excited, they don't come along.

Speaker 2:

You know. What happens along with that, though, is that we don't remind people often of the vision.

Speaker 1:

The communication.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the communication is on the front end, everybody's hyped up, they're excited, and then we get two, three months in and if we haven't reminded them of the vision, it's like where are we going? See, we forget what we've got to traverse between where we're at and the high point. And there's a lot of caverns, there's a lot of creeks, there's a lot of valleys, there's a lot of obstacles that we've got to overcome. And that takes a sense of momentum and encouragement and excitement and the chief reminding officer has to come back and go. No, no, here's where we're going, here's why we're going to go there and we've got to keep.

Speaker 2:

It's exciting for me to get on with our team and even say hey, now listen, lives are being changed, these guys are being encouraged, they're a better husband, they're a better dad, they're scaling their business. These are the successes. And they're like and back up again. They're like oh man, this is why we're doing what we do, and we've even got a place on Slack that we can share those wins with our team. And we do it in these quarterly meetings with our team on Zoom. It's like no, no, no, here's why we're doing what we're doing. It's not just to make money. These lives matter. This is transformational experiences that are going on.

Speaker 2:

So I want to encourage those that are listening today. You can't just set it and not revisit it. You've got to share it, you've got to put out a State of the Union, you've got to go to the people, you've got to encourage, you've got to remind and it's tiring, honestly, but it's necessary and, quite honestly, it even helps me in the vision to reread it. Scott Beebe is huge on this in his organization, constantly sharing the vision, right. And so that's why the scripture even teaches us where there is no vision, the people perish, and we've just got to keep reminding them. Just remember that, as Wally has said, that a vision is more than just a set of goals, right, it's that compass that guides every decision, every step, which goes hand in hand with some of the things that we teach here at ISI, like the core values and the mission statement and the vision. You know the purpose of doing what you're doing. It all is encompassed inside of that vision. It's like here's why we do what we do.

Speaker 1:

So before we move on to the number two, I just want to you know there's guys listening today that they're anywhere from solopreneur up to you know, hundreds of team members and employees listening right, it doesn't matter the size of your team. No, when you talked about being a chief reminding officer, that sounds so big and it's a play on words, but it's true, it doesn't matter. If you have yourself, you need to remind yourself.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you do.

Speaker 1:

And if you have one person or two people or three people or five people, I've been guilty that when I started my company I I did not think the vision I needed to talk about it that much with that few people. Somehow I thought that having more team members it mattered more and I think I think I probably got, as as I had more team members and as I got better at it. I think there definitely is a is a higher value add there, right? But man, that those, those first few team members really miss out and I probably missed out. You know, as a company we missed out on a lot of opportunity just because I wasn't faithful at reminding and putting that in front of them of where we were headed all the time.

Speaker 2:

Well, this wasn't intended to be part of this episode, but I think it's important to talk about this and that's the alignment with your team, with your vision, because you can't have a team that's misaligned. You can't have someone pulling right and you're going left or vice versa. It's like we've got to be in alignment and that may take some time to get everybody there. It's like everybody's not completely on board, especially if you have a small team, if you have a small team man. We really need to be in alignment with that vision. Now, there's different parts of the vision that's more important to some than others. You as the founder, you as the owner, you as whatever role you're playing as a C-suite level executive, your vision may be a bit different for a bit of reasons, but overall, the overarching principle of the vision I think it's important to communicate it and we've even learned through that, hearing feedback from those that are on the front line. It's like even our facilitators today give us great feedback because they're on the front lines, they're leading the calls, they're with the men. They see exactly, and it's like hey, have you guys thought about doing this? And it's something that we certainly can incorporate into the vision. You hear that repetitively and it's like I need to pay attention to that. A one-off you're not going to pay any attention to, but when you start seeing a consensus of guys and the things that are important, we really need to take time to think about that being in that compelling vision that we're doing. And so I think the communication is paramount, probably even more so with the small than the large, and so there's tons of places in ISI that we have seen guys. We've built, I should say, a framework that helps you really understand what it is that you're trying to accomplish, and we put these aspirational goals out there in front of us and you print it. We've got documents that you can write it digitally or you can print it. We have a guidebook that you can keep up with this inside of it that you constantly are reminding yourself. You're like now, what did I say, what did I say that I was going to do and what is it that I'm trying to accomplish? And then, if you can keep that vision in front of you, you can easily make decisions. It's like does this help me accomplish the vision? And so then you can either eliminate it or adopt it. It's like this is not going to help me accomplish this, so I'm going to discard it. Those shiny objects come without fail and we need to be able to tell is this going to help us accomplish our vision? And if there's a unanimous vote that it is and we adopt that, then everyone is on board. And so, yeah, I just think we've got to communicate it well. We've got to have a clear vision.

Speaker 2:

Here's the thing, too, that I think is important to mention. It's not the Ten Commandments, so when you write it, it's not necessarily etched in stone. It it's not necessarily etched in stone. Life throws us curves, things happen along the way, relationships change, desires change. It's okay to alter it and modify it, but you need somewhat of a vision that's written, that you can pay attention to, so that it doesn't distract you when these shiny objects do come along. I can't tell you how many times I've tweaked mine along the way, because some unexpected things happen in life and I'm like that's no longer desirable or that's no longer possible, and so, in light of that information, this is how I need to modify my vision and stay on track. Here's what I've seen over and over is that with the vision, most people accomplish far more than they would have without it. You may not have accomplished it completely, but your chances are far greater with a written vision of accomplishing that than without it. It's just a guidebook, it's a direction. It helps you accomplish the things that you want 40%.

Speaker 1:

Studies say that you're 40% more likely to accomplish something just by writing it down. Wow.

Speaker 2:

That's a huge leg up 40%. That's a big gap to overcome, if you don't write it down.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Number two the inability to delegate and scale man. Again, I'm so guilty of this early on in my career because I always thought I could do it better, I can do it faster, I can do it better and I didn't want to delegate that out because I felt like it's going to take time to teach somebody. There's a mathematical equation and we won't get into this today, but it's a 750% return, no-transcript and the mathematical equation says that you can spend 40 hours teaching that one-hour delegation and, as a result of doing that, you gain. I believe it's 750%. What? Because you don't have to do anything. Really, 750%? Yeah, that's insane. Yeah, but we don't want to spend the 40 hours to teach someone to do it in one hour.

Speaker 1:

40 hours, you don't want to spend 30 minutes. I know If we're honest about it right.

Speaker 2:

So, if you look at it mathematically, though, if you were guaranteed that if you invested this much, you're going to get a 750% return financially, you would do it without a question. So I'll look up where I learned that I think I've got my. It's either 30 or 40 hours, so it's one or the other. It's a 750% return. So delegating is something that's tough, and you and I just talked about this prior to this recording. There's a task that needs to be done in our business, and we were trying to determine who is best suited to do that, and we walked through this. It's like, yeah, this person could do it without a question, but would that be the best use of the time that is going to require of the person that's doing it? And so it's like delegating. You can't scale anything if you're not willing to delegate. It's just impossible. You're just not going to do it. And so, wally, this was a real skill that you had to learn because you had about 50 employees, I believe, at your last company.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, we're at 19, counting all of our facilitators, our team, our staff, and we're still learning today how to do it effectively, but we're able to scale greater now as a result of that. You just have to admit the people that are making the decisions that you can't do at all and trying to do everything yourself, I promise you will burn you out. It'll stunt your business growth because at some point you're going to hit the wall, you're going to get tired, you're going to get burnt out on it, you're going to get tired, and so that's the second thing that really will cause your business not to be successful, I think, long term.

Speaker 1:

I want to speak into the idea of delegation a little bit in scale. I'm a big believer in trust, but verify in trust, but verify. So you know, often when we go to delegate things, there's numbers of things going on in our heads. Right, we're just concerned that we're not going to, the job's not going to be done as well. Or, you know, we're just we don't want to lose that control ourselves. You know, sometimes it's like, well, if I delegate, it's going to cost me something. And so we have these reasons, which are all valid in their own right. There's some of them create limiting beliefs for ourselves. But it is important to trust but verify. By that is like hiring the right people to do the right job and then trusting them to do that job, but also having a feedback and a verification loop that works for you. Otherwise it will create more problems down the road than getting keeping not tabs on it. It sounds like micromanaging.

Speaker 2:

It's not a distrust.

Speaker 1:

This is not a distrust thing, you're trusting them to do it, but you're also verifying that you're the business owner man, so you're accountable, at the end of the day, for what goes on. There's some scripture I'm probably taking out of context a little bit, but I think the Psalms talks about what David was talking about keeping track, like um, keeping track of, like our herds and our flocks, like there's. There's a level of responsibility that we have to do that and and verifying that through good communication and things like that is super, super important. As you delegate. And if you don't delegate, if you can't, obviously you can be a solo printer forever, right, but people not delegating and not their ability, limiting their ability to grow, is one reason why your business won't make it.

Speaker 2:

Wally, I will say a word of encouragement related to the Trust but Verify. There is a point in time and it's different for every person, it's different for every task that you don't have to verify as often, and once there's complete ownership of that task, it becomes ingrained in that person. That's their role and their responsibility, and the verification is a lot less frequent than it was originally. And so I think it's the same with children, when you're raising them and you let them go a little distance, when they first start driving.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, and then maybe next time it's the bypass, and then next time it's the interstate, and then next time it's the next city, and I think after a while they've proven themselves and you're like, you're good, like you're mature, and I think it's the same here. I think that we're foolish not to trust, but we're more foolish not to verify. Initially, one of the big things in this aspect is the fear of letting go. That's what most business owners. They're like man. But what if they don't do it this way? I'm a big Shark Tank fan. I love to watch Shark Tank Robin and I watch that a lot.

Speaker 2:

One of the commonalities among the people in Shark Tank is they all say no one is going to do it like me, no one. And they've been able to buy multiple businesses because they say 80% is good enough if you're going to scale. Now, everybody has to deal with that in whatever fashion. They have to deal with it. But if Truett Cathy had always put the chicken on the bun, we wouldn't have 3,000 Chick-fil-A's today, right, doing multiple billions of dollars in resources, having hundreds of thousands of employees. They wouldn't be there. And so you've just got to determine for yourself where you're willing to kind of let go a little bit and say okay, I'm having this discussion with one of my one-on-one clients right now. His number two guy is not him, he's not the founder, he doesn't do it exactly the same way. And this morning I was on a coaching call with him and I said you have got to get to a place where you're okay. Here's the reason, here's the reason this is so cool. And so I'm glad this happened this morning because it's fresh on my mind.

Speaker 2:

Happened this morning because it's fresh on my mind. He was upset and he took an hour of his time away because the new building that they're building, the person that is in charge of it, he didn't like the way that he was making some selections. In the very next breath he told me. He said oh, by the way, when I was involved in the sales day before yesterday, I think I sold $3 million worth of product and I'm like well, where was your time best used? In helping the selections of the light fixtures or in the $3 million sale? And he started laughing. I said is it really that important? So we have to decide, we have to go. What is most important that's going to move the needle Like you can't be involved in every decision, that's a good word, and so just don't be fearful. Just determine what's important, that you need to be involved in and what you don't. Last thing, number three ignoring the market and customers' needs. Man, you're going to sink faster than anything when you start ignoring the market. Man, you're going to sink faster than anything when you start ignoring the market.

Speaker 2:

Collins wrote a great book talking about all the excuses that we use. Mine just went blank for the name of the book. I'm sorry. Maybe I'll get it and we'll put it in the show notes, but he talks about in there that we're always using these excuses rather than paying attention to the market. And so I think it's imperative, man, that we do our market research. Wally, you're a champion at this. I'm not so good at this. I know it needs to be done and in the past I've gotten people to do it. I personally am not that good at doing the market research. I'm not as tech savvy as you are, wally, and you do a really good job at that, and you do a really good job with assimilating that information. A lot of mine is intuition or maybe experience, but we really need that. Where I do feel like I play a great role is hearing the customers.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the folks I really, really pay attention to the customers, right, because relationships matter most and what they're saying is paramount to them. It's important. That doesn't mean you can meet every need. That doesn't mean that you can change your model to meet every single customer's needs. That's not what I'm saying. But things change, right. I mean the market changes, customers' needs change, their desires change and I think if we ignore that, I think we're going to be in trouble. What are your thoughts around that, wally? Because you had to adapt a lot being in the SaaS business. When you were in that space, were y'all agile? Were you able to adapt? Were you quick? Sometimes it can take too long if you ignore the market too long.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's true, we, we, uh, and we do this on the iSlide today too. One of the things that we did, um, that we learned, I should say, uh, we didn't always do it effectively, but we continued to learn was that, uh, in the mark in your marketplace, wherever you're at right now, was that in your marketplace, wherever you're at right now, there's going to be fads and there's going to be trends, and so being able to understand the difference between those two things with your customers makes a big difference in the type of business model that you want to have. So there's probably competitors that you have. You guys are listening right now, there's a competitor that always follows fads, and so they're. They're always out there like taunting the latest, greatest. It's going to.

Speaker 1:

You know, slice bread five different ways and this thing, that thing, depending on what market and vertical you're in, right, whether you're in marketing and it's this new fangled way of doing this, or you know you're in marketing and it's this newfangled way of doing this, or you know you're in I don't know, maybe you're in mosquito spray business and there's a newfangled spray with a new name that's come out, or something you know. I don't know, but there's probably something in your business, where you're like hey, this, this other, this one company out there has always come to this newfangled, crazy stuff. Burger King is this way. So if you look at fast food places not that I don't go to Burger King, I mean maybe once a year but if you pay attention to any of the advertising that Burger King does, they call it the craziest stuff. They sell the craziest things. Sometimes it doesn't even make sense, like chicken fries, what the heck is that? I don't even know. I won't know, okay, but, but they come up with the weirdest concoctions of things, right, right, and they try, but they're known for that, right.

Speaker 1:

So in your business, though, the long-term is going to be following trends yeah, so you want to find out like okay, fads passed, it's a trend, because that's what creates trust with your customers, and you're going to lose a customer or two with a fad. Someone's going to lose a customer or two with a fad. Someone's going to have a new thing, it's going to be a shiny object, and they're going to be like ah, the promise, right, of not having to do any work and getting a better result is so high for some people they just can't resist it. It's not going to serve you well, though, and the longterm it really doesn't. Um, it really doesn't. So I think that fads versus trends thing for me is paying attention to your market in that way. You do like relationship-wise and personally, like you said, like you do way better than I do at that, but understanding what like in the personal conversations I'm definitely more operational, technically minded, but in the actual market fit, go to market. We have to understand that about our customer.

Speaker 2:

Hey, let me give you a great resource. I think this is a must read. When you graduate from either high school or college, you should read the EBIT, revisited by Michael Gerber. That is such a classic book. He's done a great job. You really learn why many small businesses fail and how to avoid those common pitfalls that we've been talking about of running a business, especially when it comes to delegation and scaling. I think this book is a must read. If you've read it, go read it again, because it heightens your awareness to how to scale and how to delegate, how to run a business. Listen, guys, thank you for being here today. We hope that it's been helpful. I hope that it's been beneficial in talking about your business.

Speaker 2:

Your business may be running on all cylinders. You may be like, hey, man, there's no room for error for me here. But there may be somebody that's like, hey, I don't do these things well, I haven't created a clear vision. I mean, I don't regularly revisit the company vision, I don't share it with others, I don't enlist the company to follow the vision, I'm not communicating it properly. I think that is one strong way that you could fail as a business owner. The second thing was start delegating today. It's like I don't have anybody to delegate today. Well, if you're going to scale, you're going to have to be preparing for that. Start small. Make it a habit to delegate these tasks. Give your team the responsibility to own specific areas of your business. There's no way that you can grow and scale if you're going to do this all personally.

Speaker 2:

And then, finally, you've got to know your customer. You got to spend the time Wally and I were talking about. He's more technical and he really does great in data research and he can put it together. That's not my area of expertise, and we need that in our business. Mine is the customer service.

Speaker 2:

I'm all about the customer, listening, really hearing from them, because relationships matter most to us, and so we need to have other people that complement our skills. We have a zone of genius, we have a zone of competence, but that doesn't mean you need to be doing it, and so you've got to really think through who that person is to get them to compliment you. You've got to know your customers well, so, whatever that takes for you to do that, to stay relevant so that you can stay with the trends that's going on today that's what you need to implement today, and I think, if you'll focus on these three main points, the probability of your business succeeding, I think, is extremely high, wally, and I desire for you to succeed so that you too can have that much sought-after view from the top.

Speaker 1:

Hey, today's episode is also sponsored by ISIbrotherhoodcom. If you want to get connected in a community where you can connect and engage with other growth-minded businessmen so you can transform into the leader, husband and father you desire to be, Go out to isibrotherhoodcom to learn more and join in that community there. Thanks again for listening in. We will see you next week.