EP21 - Coach Reggie: Growth Strategies for Small Businesses in 2024

Welcome to Season 2 of Toucan Talks! We are excited to be back and are looking forward to bringing you more insights from business owners in the Wilmington area. Season 2 is going to be all about business strategies to help you start 2024 off on the right path.

In this episode, we're thrilled to have Coach Reggie, owner and business coach at Business Growers, share his advice and experience on helping businesses growing. He shares about his journey from the Marine Corps to the dynamic world of sales and business strategy.

Coach Reggie guides businesses towards growth with precision. From hands-on workshops to the sales masterclass and management training, Reggie guides business owners through the ups and downs of business ownership. 

Join us as Reggie shares strategies for navigating the challenges that businesses face and how to strategically grow. Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or in the first steps of creating a business, tune in for wisdom that can steer you toward success!


Find Coach Reggie on Business Growers:

https://www.businessgrowers.co/ 

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/coachreggie 

Facebook Business Page:

https://www.facebook.com/BizCoachReggie/

//

Get more from Kickstart Your Week!

Watch on YouTube
Follow on Instagram
Subscribe to our email list

//

Meet your hosts and learn more about Kickstart Collective at kickstartcollective.co

Kickstart Collective is a creative marketing agency based in Wilmington, NC. We offer our clients a creative advantage through creative content and marketing strategies. 

Transcript

Business Strategy and Growth With Reggie

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to the Two Can Talks podcast brought to you by Kickstart Collective . Join us as we talk to local Wilmington business owners about what has led to their successes , challenges and more . No question is off limits as we bounce from topic to topic .

Speaker 2 0:14

And this podcast is brought to you by Kickstart Studios . Kickstart Studios is Wilmington's newest video podcast studio , equipped with multiple camera angles and an in-house producer . Creating a high quality video podcast has never been easier . Don't let the tech and gear learning curve hold you back from jumping into podcasting or creating video content any longer . Our team takes care of it all for you , so you can focus on the message you want to share . You simply show up record and receive the final product . No more wasting time setting it up and breaking down the gear , setting up lights or doing sound checks on your own . Our in-house producer will have everything set up and ready to go for you . Check us out at Kickstart Studios .

Speaker 1 1:03

Welcome to season two of the Two Can Talks podcast . We are excited to be back in what will be the new year when this episode comes out . It is currently December , but we'll be launching season two and it's going to be all about business strategy and growth . So fun way to start off the new year if you are a business owner and looking to develop some good strategies to get you through the year . So , with that being said , we are excited to have coach Reggie on the podcast today , so welcome .

Speaker 3 1:32

Thank you , excited to be here .

Speaker 1 1:33

Awesome , we're glad to have you . I think this is a good way to start off season two because , like we were talking about before , not only do you obviously have your business and so all this applies to your own experience but this is actually what you do is strategy and help other businesses grow and scale and get their acts together . I assume that's right .

Speaker 1 1:51

I'm front . So we are here . I don't know , joshua , what else ? Housekeeping , oh , we have new tricks for this . So , season one , we had this lovely board . A few things that would happen is the coin would occasionally get stuck and we're like just keep going , you know , but this time we're going to mix it up . If it gets stuck , there's a stack of questions actually on the bookshelf over there that we can grab , and then you get to choose one of those to ask me or , in the future , whoever's the guest and the host because I'm not always the host , that'll be that and then the coins also fly off the board sometimes . Okay , so if you start to hit a record , we're going to start a ticker That'll count to see if it flies off the board like more than five times .

Speaker 2 2:41

Okay , it's a little frightening .

Speaker 1 2:42

All right good .

Speaker 2 2:43

We'll be ready to get you from getting bored , all right so .

Speaker 1 2:47

I think it's for housekeeping . I think that's it . Same same . Can same board a few new questions . It's going to be fun . We're going to dive in Awesome . So if you want to start off and just tell us a little bit about your business , where you got to where you are today , we can go from there , right .

Speaker 3 3:01

Little how I got here today . I was born and raised in Oklahoma City , oklahoma . Came out here via the Marine Corps at Camp Lejeune , the serve . There Right before I got out I met my wife who was a Wilmington native . She was actually going to school in East Carolina and so I met her up there through some mutual friends . When I got out I decided I was hanging out and see where this thing goes and we had started dating about a year before that . So want to see where that went actually . So that's kind of worked out pretty well . Come to find out that she was a Wilmington native . We knew that . But the so we moved back down here about a year after I got out and the so .

Speaker 3 3:41

So that's kind of how I got to Wilmington in 1997 was doing when I got out of the Marine Corps I did what I did in the Marine Corps . I was a supply guy , so I worked in warehouses and supply logistics and did those kind of things . So I actually kind of fell right toward that . When I got out , realized that I wasn't going to achieve my goals , dreams and aspirations . Driving forklifts working in a warehouse Felt like I had more in me than that , so got into sales and I was voted the guy most likely not to be a salesperson by all my friends , yeah , yeah .

Speaker 3 4:15

I got the guy that my buddy . Schmidty , like he is never met a stranger . You know life at the party , always the you know very , very personable Like Schmidty , like he's a sales guy . I come to find out , he's now an IT guy . I believe it or not .

Speaker 1 4:34

But yeah , we're like takes you .

Speaker 3 4:38

But , but now he's , you know , like he's a sales guy , right , yeah , and you're ready , I don't know . And I went out and told my buddies I went out and got a job and I bought like $300 worth of slacks , shirts and ties and they just laughed , got a laugh apart . Oh , yeah , yeah .

Speaker 1 4:48

And they were like I can't give wasted your money there .

Speaker 3 4:50

What come to find out that sales didn't all about you know , shuck it in , jive in and you know slick talking , but which really isn't my MO . Yeah , and the and it was all about , you know , being able to discover what people's needs are and being able to fulfill those needs and follow through with and follow through and had a lot of those skills . So I did pretty well in sales . It's a big ticket item . I was in the manufacturer and modular housing business , so that was , and there was a real boom in that industry in the late 90s . So did really well in that , thought I'd found the greatest thing ever , but realized that a lot of industries have their peaks and valleys and it , um , and it did great for a while . So I learned , cut my teeth , did really well in sales , became a sales manager within a year and then became a general manager .

Speaker 3 5:33

I am 24 , 25 years old running a , you know , multi-million dollar location . Have people nobody that worked for me was , um , everybody was at least 10 years older than me and beyond . So did really well in that , um , you know , kind of got promoted to kind of a bigger store with bigger responsibilities and bigger , um , you know , bigger scope and that went really well and and and learned a lot about operating a business , because you really had the autonomy of running a business . You're kind of doing it with somebody else's money , which the whole cash flow thing , um , didn't matter , right , you just sold stuff and managed that operation . It was a very complex business with a very um , what tended to be generally a little simple buyer , that um , and so I performed a lot of roles similar to what you have to do , you know , looking forward as a business owner , to be able to juggle a lot of balls and do a lot of different things . So that was a great um training ground for me , the business owners , the um , and also to help business owners . Real concentration in sales , um , you know , management , management of people , leading people , getting them to operate , managing and operations . Uh , you know , we did scattered site construction development with people within a 60 mile , 70 mile , 80 mile radius in town , um , and it was on scattered site and so , while the product , you know , wise , was somewhat simple , the completion process and the operations process was a lot to it . So the uh sort of learned a lot .

Speaker 3 6:56

Um , unfortunately , that industry somewhat imploded . Um , it was a real peak , had a real boom and then had a real downside . So I , um , was jumped off the roller coaster in 2004 . And then wanted to figure out what I want to do in my life , um and but what I really enjoyed about that industry and being kind of in that sales manager general manager role really was a general sales manager was taking people . I had this one guy that worked for me , or a handful of people that worked for me that really struggled and being able to one in particular , a real talented person , had a lot of potential but he was struggling , he was getting ready to jump off the bridge and I was about to kick him .

Speaker 3 7:32

Yeah , it was it was it was it had a lot of talent and I uh , but I um and coached him really hard on kind of growing , developing , and he um took that challenge , grumbling away like you do when your boss challenges you , and I'll show him . And , um , and it was a turning point for him . It was one thing that I did . What I did was I handed him a set of sales trainer tapes . Yeah , yeah , I went to a sales seminar and Tom Hopkins was there and he's um you ever heard of Tom Hopkins , by the way ?

Speaker 1 8:05

Nope , yeah , I didn't figure it out , it's a crusty old reference .

Speaker 2 8:07

You gave him some VHSs .

Speaker 3 8:09

He surely was a um , sales , um , you know the authority of the day back in the 80s and 90s . All right , so he , um , he was one of the top gurus , the uh , so gave him a set of like audio tapes .

Speaker 1 8:22

Oh , nice yeah yeah .

Speaker 3 8:23

And he was like you took him , he was like , ah , my , uh , he listened to it and he started to and he but he listened to it over and over again and it started to fix some of his issues and it made a change in him and he became a real top performer . Um did really , really well , became my sales manager there at that store before long . You know , he went off to do great things in other industries as well and really out performed his peers . He went to work for a well-known car dealership here in this town and he um outperformed a lot of his peers that had been there for decades . And he called me one time . He said , man , these guys like you would run circles around these , these sales manager here , Um , you would do really well .

Speaker 3 9:04

So that was um , he's like you , taught me so much , you know , thank me , and I watch other guys go out and see , so to watch people that were struggling and be able to make that turn and really change his life . Um was , it's a really cool thing to do , so you know . And so when action coach contacted me back in 2004 , um the uh , it was early 2005 and said hey , you have a great background to be a business coach . We're the world's largest business coaching organization . We've got a great system for how the business owners grow . And I didn't have the idea of what a business coach was or what that is , and so the more I found out , the more I liked , and so I started my practice . Um bought an action coach franchise in 2005 and started practicing then . So here we are , 18 years later , celebrating my 18th anniversary . This just this last .

Speaker 2 9:50

November .

Speaker 3 9:50

Yeah , so it's been a yeah , that's right , it's been a lot . Yeah , finally legal . So it um , it's been a lot of fun . It's been a lot of journey . We've helped a lot of business owners grow over the last 18 years . Of course , I've grown a lot over those last 18 years , so , you know , it's really great to be able to , you know , find an owner who's struggling , who's stuck , who's plateaued , and be able to find out who they are , where they want to go , why they want to get there , and then help , you know , create a plan and then , you know , guide them there . So that's , uh , that's the story of how I got started um 18 years ago , and it's been a lot of fun helped a lot of business owners and uh the uh .

Speaker 3 10:28

it's been a fun journey . It's a pretty cool way to live life , so for sure .

Speaker 1 10:31

Awesome . Well , yeah , Thanks for sharing on the background . I think that'll give us a good jumping point for some of these other questions we'll dive into .

Business Growth Coaching and Training

Speaker 1 10:39

Um , I think in terms of I know you touched on this , but in terms of what business growers does , I guess maybe just the different coaching aspects are going to touch on those just briefly so people have an idea of where we're going .

Speaker 3 10:52

The succinct way , the 30 second , you know speech is that is um . You know . The headline is we grow , you know , business owners and their teams so that they can grow their business . That's kind of the headline .

Speaker 3 11:04

So , we do that through a multiple different ways . We do , you know , public workshop seminars , uh , edge , and that's kind of an entry point into some of our education programs . So we do education for business owners and their teams . Uh , you know business and you know training as well . So we also do um you know , sales and management training . We've got a really , really strong um very , very cost effective and very powerful um sales masterclass that we do . It's 12 weeks that , uh , most people have gotten into sales and not really . They're kind of like the schmitty's right when they fell into it .

Speaker 3 11:42

Yeah , they kind of got you know they don't do administrative tasks well and they're like yeah , maybe you should be in sales . Uh , they , you know they can't . They . You know they're people oriented , they're distracted by brought shiny objects and like hey , you probably got some .

Speaker 3 11:54

Yeah , I'll try sales , um , but they haven't been formerly trained in sales . Uh , most business owners have found themselves in um sales positions and scenarios and haven't been formerly trained in sales . So we , um , we've seen that need in the marketplace and there is a we put together a very , very high level 12 week sales masterclass we've done . I can tell the same story about managers . Yeah , most people have um are that are in management positions more times than not almost all the time , are just high performers Technically , yep .

Speaker 3 12:25

They do their profession well and they performed really well . They're really high performers and they get elevated up because of their high performance or whoever is above them . They may they may be , you know , medium performers , but they the person above them left , so it's the next man , next woman up Right , so they follow that position and they've never been formerly trained on how to effectively manage people and how to get results from others . Now they know how to get results from themselves , right , but you know , what they realize once they get promoted is , uh , there's a reason they were promoted and the other people are , and how do you get performance out of those people to be able to , uh , guide , direct ? And there's a system we teach , a very highly effective system toward that . So , uh , that's an element of what we do for my training and development perspective , those 12 week masterclasses .

Speaker 3 13:12

Our flagship product that I've done for 18 years is , um , you know , either group or one on one coaching . So we'd have some group programs for emerging business owners . That , um , you know , and we use kind of a peer to peer model where business owners kind of help each other , we facilitate and lead , guide and direct and help them through the complex waters of building a business . So we've got that . We also work with business owners one on one Um , that's what we've done for that's really kind of the flagship product that we work people up to that . Um , that that we do to help kind of guide and mentor , to be a one on one guide and mentor to uh and a coach real similar .

Speaker 1 13:49

A lot of people confuse what .

Speaker 3 13:50

I do . They're like when I say you're a business , I'm like I'm a business coach . Um and I by title yeah , and when I lead with that they go oh well , you're like a motivational guy , yeah . And I would say to them it's funny , you would never go to a sporting coach .

Speaker 3 14:06

Like a football coach , basketball coach , soccer coach you never go to those folks and go . You're like a motivational guy , right , you know . If you think of all the mentors or teachers and all those people in your life that really challenged you , that helped you grow , would you consider them motivational as a characterization ? Usually not . Actually , you grumbled at the about how , and you know , I remember football coaches I had growing up . I remember like one coach was really really tough and he , he was like the heavy that the head coach got and brought in , you know , and he came in and man , I remember guys you know crying like you know 14 , 15 year old boys in high school crying . I hate him , I hate him . I hate him in the locker room after the , after he wore us out , right , I mean , like you know , wore us out physically right and exhausted us and had us doing drills , and I hate him , I hate him , I hate him .

Speaker 3 15:01

And then he kind of went away for a while and then we saw him like toward the end of the year , you know and everybody was like . I love you man , I miss you , I love you so . But that guy's not motivational at the time like he was . You know he provided that , so most coaches aren't , so the so be able to provide that .

Speaker 2 15:17

And I'm not surely the .

Speaker 3 15:18

I try not to build situations to where people hate me , but but I surely know that , just like my coaches , that when I they need to push me , when I need to be pushed and poked , that and challenge me where I need to be challenged , that always doesn't tickle .

Speaker 1 15:32

Yeah .

Speaker 3 15:32

So motivation guy would be far less . I'm much more of an education knowledge guy , yeah , and some things that we do do motivate some folks , yeah . But more than anything , I think , more than motivate folks , I challenge folks , yeah , and also make them think , which always doesn't tickle .

Speaker 2 15:49

Right .

Speaker 3 15:50

So there's that , and and we also , in addition to not just doing one-on-one work , but we also do work with teams . Cool , because some businesses need help and support . I found over the years that there's often a bottleneck that exists between me , the owner and their team .

Speaker 1 16:09

Yeah .

Speaker 3 16:09

Like I can , you know , give the team guy , I can give the owner guidance and they can get their team . And then the team , yeah , and , but everything . And when we open up that bottleneck sometimes and I get in front of the team , I find out what's really going on and and I'm able to have some foresight and insight , because I don't have the same emotional attachments and the same subjective view that the owners have with their team . So I'm able to see some things and make some guidance and be able to kind of help a business . The things that we do that really really help businesses grow exponentially is not just coaching the owner , but also getting in there and working with the team as well . So so , anyway , that's a handful of things that we do .

Speaker 3 16:48

So , anyway , a lot of fun and a lot of different ways to grow businesses by hooker , by crook .

Speaker 1 16:53

Yeah , get in there . That's right , sweet . So we're going to dive into some of the more like strategy questions . Again , most of the audience are probably small to medium size business owners , mostly , I think , here in the Wilmington area , which is cool , so we've got that fun local aspect . So when you're working with a new client , where in this probably might tie in a little bit to the bottleneck , but kind of what is your process for discovering where they are in their business , like what , and determining what strategies they need , like what's that kind of initial step to peel back the layers ? That's right .

Speaker 3 17:26

You know you have to get first step . You know when our process is finding out . You know who they are , where they want to go , why they want to get there and what has them stuck . So you know we've got a discovery process that goes through usually on a and it goes in different layers and initial conversations . You know the first engagement meeting , you know it's , you know , very , very light .

Speaker 3 17:47

Yes , and then if they do decide to engage with us on a deeper level , then we go , you know , in varying deeper levels , but but you could , you know the high level is , you know , to help somebody get to a goal .

Determining Business Fit and Success Strategies

Speaker 3 17:59

Or you know , if you're trying to , you know , decide whether or not somebody's a fit for your programs . You know whether they're a fit for the programs and you're a fit to work with the programs Right , Because you got to do both yes and the .

Speaker 3 18:12

Because life is too short to work with somebody that there's not a fit .

Speaker 1 18:15

It's not going to work . It's not good for anybody .

Speaker 3 18:19

Yeah , we want to find out if there's a fit . Yeah , we want to make sure it's going to be fun yeah . And then also , it's a business that we can work with , that has the it has high upside yeah , Because you know we can work with a business and we can help them . You know , one of our things that we work hard toward is that we work hard to not only be cost and you know , like cash flow neutral , but whereas , like that , coaching doesn't cost anything .

Speaker 1 18:44

Yeah .

Speaker 3 18:45

Like that we find our fees and earn our fees . Yeah , but we , we don't just want to find our fee , we want to be like a money machine to where businesses put a few dollars into us and then more dollars come out the other side . So for other , wouldn't it ? You know , and so we've been . It's really been really fun to operate a business that is a money machine that they put a dollar into us and seven to ten dollars comes out the other side yeah .

Speaker 3 19:07

And once people , if they fully engage in the process and go all in and do what they need to do to grow themselves in their business and follow our guidance , we really are a money machine for folks , which is a lot of fun , yeah so . But not everybody fits for that . So not every business is ready for that . Not every owner is is is . So we want to make sure that we do the jills up front to make sure that they've got enough upside in their business that an untapped potential that we can be that money machine for folks . So we make sure all that's there as well . Kind of the thing we're looking for is is this a business that I can help print money ?

Speaker 1 19:41

Yeah .

Speaker 3 19:42

So , that is you know , something that we're kind of doing along the way , but we find out who they are , where they want to go , why they want to get there . Then we create an action plan made up of sensible strategies that make sense not just for the business . It's got to make sense for the business , but also has to make sense for the owner . What I found is I can take two different owners in a similar stage in a business .

Speaker 3 20:01

Yeah , and I would the action plan are , is two different sets of strategies . That because you know the dynamics of the individual , and that's the difference between , by the way , a consultant and a coach . Okay , and a lot of new emerging business owners will hire consultants and sometimes consultants that had bad experience with those yeah . Because often what consultants do is say here is my model , here is my process , yeah , that makes sense . And they kind of say like this is the way to do it yeah , and if you don't do it , that's on you .

Speaker 1 20:34

Yeah , because this worked for me . This worked for me . It's worked for others yeah , but it didn't work for them .

Speaker 3 20:39

So yeah , it's a very structured , but the problem is that not everybody's the same .

Speaker 1 20:43

Yeah .

Speaker 3 20:44

So being careful and you got to be careful as an owner , by the way , not to play consultant either to say , this worked for me . Yeah , this is the only way that it can work , or that this worked for so and so that worked here and it should work for you too .

Speaker 1 20:59

Yeah .

Speaker 3 20:59

Well , you know , those two people are likely quite a bit different or have a different way of doing things . So you know what a good coach will do is be able to help somebody identify strategies that make sense for the individual , so you can make those kind of modifications and course correction adjustments . You got to take a look at the player you have and go what are their strengths , what are their weaknesses , you know what can you play to and that you can have two people with two different sets of skills or two different sets of makeup that can be successful .

Speaker 3 21:26

It's just , you know , being able to get there so that's one of the things that we do is see what makes sense for the individual and then , lastly , what makes sense now . Yeah , and that's really where a you know good coach earns his you know his fear is where he is . And earns the right to be a coach is being able to call the right play right now , because there's plenty of good things . I'm sure you get suggestions all the time on hey , you can do this .

Speaker 3 21:52

You know there's employees say , hey , we should do this on our business , we should do this on our business , and sales people come and say you should do this in your business and this in your business and you have customers and family . Yeah , you know like everything you should do this in your business on . So do this . You should do this too , right ? Everybody's got opinions , but but and some of those are very valid .

Speaker 1 22:08

Yeah , they're good .

Speaker 3 22:09

But , but , the thing is being able to look at the lay of land and help them understand what do they need to do now . What's the right play to call them now ? So the right coach not only knows there's plays to call .

Speaker 1 22:20

Yeah .

Speaker 2 22:20

But what's the right play right now ?

Speaker 3 22:22

Yeah , so helping people decide that what's the right next steps to handle . Cool , you know . And then then we have regular meetings . We set up regular meetings . You know frequency really depends on you know how fast they want to get to where they want to go . So regular meetings provide , you know , knowledge transfer , support , deadlines , accountability , and you know we figure out what level that makes sense .

Speaker 3 22:45

Yeah , figure out where we need to keep , score and keep you know business metrics like KPIs , performance indicators , KPIs , KRAs there's different terminology and acronyms for that but the being able to measure outcomes and results . So you know what Course corrections that you need to make them . Often feelings lie , yeah , but the numbers never do . They don't and so hard to look at the numbers .

Speaker 1 23:06

I've had .

Speaker 3 23:07

I've had business owners that have gotten real , subjectively emotional about their circumstances and it's been nice to be able to look back at the numbers and go when they're stressed and frustrated and upset and go yeah , hang on a minute , Look at the numbers .

Speaker 2 23:24

Yeah .

Speaker 3 23:24

It's okay , yeah , and then realizing it is okay .

Speaker 3 23:27

Or when they're fat , happy and satisfied , there's money in the bank , but the pipelines dried up and they don't feel it because you know they've got plenty of money , everything's okay . But I'm like , look , you have a problem coming . It's not okay . Yeah , because it's not uncommon that business owners can get into a certain level of delusion and so the numbers don't lie . And so being able to see those and look at that and get some real time reporting on that , as opposed to just managing the business by their bank account , so we keep score , make sure that we have a steady stream of knowledge . What's the knowledge plan ? What are the knowledge gaps that exists from where they are to where they want to go . The more knowledge they have , the easier it is to get there and then also helping them determine what are the time constraints that exist , because usually a business owner I very see very few growing business owners that are underworked and that are bored and have things to do .

Speaker 3 24:20

They have way too much . So we got to figure out what to clear up and deal with the time issues . Because I can I talk with them about . I watch them like we start talking about double in sales double in , you know , increasing customers . And then you just see them . You know , I thought when I first started my practice or teaching this stuff , I was like oh they're gonna be excited , man .

Speaker 3 24:39

We got a easy way , simple way for them to do 46% more business next year . And I thought , man , they would see this as great and all they see this is there's . No , I can't handle the business I have now . Yeah , much less , you know , 46% more like that just makes me nauseous just thinking about it . So the I'm already working 70 , 80 hours a week already , so how am I gonna be able to squeeze in more ? Well , one of the things that I emphasize is understand , but there's constraints that you have that are keeping you . So we got to loosen those up so that we can be able to handle more , so you can do . One of the keys to business tree You've learned this over the years is , you know , gaining leverage . And how do you get more with less ?

Speaker 1 25:18

Yeah .

Speaker 3 25:18

How do you devolve them ? How do you divide to multiply and those things ? So so that's the . I don't know if that's more than you wanted , but that's , that's you know , we determine at differing levels . Yeah , when we first meet someone , you know all those things . That's kind of the path of discovery Cool .

Speaker 3 25:34

And that's also the coaching plan , yeah , that we go through to actually help them get to their goals at an accelerated rate and faster than they would left to their own devices , so , and also avoid some of the landmines that will sometimes push out yeah . If you're not careful . So it's been really fun to help and especially if I got a few years behind me , yeah , being able to quickly see a problem Business owner think it's unique to them . They can't solve it .

Speaker 1 25:59

Yeah .

Speaker 3 26:00

And then being able to work with them and go oh another and and and be able to show them something or teach them something and then go , trust me enough to go apply it . Cool , and it have an instant . You know impact and and solves the problem . Yeah , we've even done that recently in hiring Nice .

Speaker 3 26:20

Somebody had a hard time getting applications and we did a in one of our group coaching programs where we asked business owners for they can , we can , they can bring an item the rest of the group can bring feedback to . Oh cool , and and so we mass , we do kind of a little mini speed mastermind on the on one particular item of business owners wants feedback on . It could be something they're struggling with or something they're trying to do and they were struggling with . They want a critique of an ad , okay , so I you know .

Speaker 3 26:45

So everybody kind of took different pieces of feedback on the ad that I kind of went to town and gave like a little mini masterclass on how to write a good job advertisement and the and she came to me . This was we did this on a Thursday . She saw me in an annual planning session I had with a group on the next day the next day yeah .

Speaker 3 27:08

And she said oh my goodness , I took right after our session that ended at 1115 . I took it , I revamped the ad , I put it up and I put it up on . Indeed , Typically we get 13 , 14 applications over a three week period . We've gotten more than that before eight o'clock this morning . That's awesome , right , and in like a 12 hour period they got more following those best practices principle and when she went to business ownership school that she never went to .

Speaker 1 27:44

Right , that's right but when she got her .

Speaker 3 27:47

I'm in business .

Speaker 1 27:49

Yes , proud that LBC , LBC from the Secretary of State .

Speaker 3 27:51

What she didn't get along with , that is a masterclass on how to write a good job ad . Yeah , who knew , like you , just thought you know , you taught me that .

Speaker 1 28:00

Yeah , yeah , no , you're right .

Speaker 3 28:02

And so you know , nobody's ever given her that , so she didn't . That that's one of the hundreds of skills that you need to have to be able to progress and grow in business , and so to be able to provide that to folks , provide a solution and then being able to see it get instant results I wish they all had that you know , great of a fast , of an impact or feedback and result .

Speaker 3 28:22

But it was really cool to see that , within a short amount of time , that something I was able to give her made such an immediate difference . So which is you know when you get , you know hirings of numbers game . And so now she has the bait and to be able to track not just a higher volume of candidates but also higher quality candidates . And now she's cherry picking Cool , which is a real good place to do Especially in this environment .

Speaker 1 28:49

Yeah .

Speaker 3 28:50

When it comes to finding good employees . So anyway .

Speaker 1 28:52

Yeah , that's really cool . That's what we do . I love it .

Coin Drop

Speaker 1 28:55

Okay , so what we're gonna do is shift into I'm gonna call it a game . It's not a game . But , the coin drop version of the podcast .

Speaker 2 29:04

That's right .

Speaker 1 29:05

So all you'll do is you'll take one of these . You can drop it anywhere on the board . If it lands on a one , we have more business questions . If it lands on a two , these are more get to know you questions . We call it the party can surprise , can it has ? Lots of names .

Speaker 3 29:19

You don't really know what you're gonna get , and these are questions for me , or questions ?

Speaker 1 29:22

Oh yeah , they're for you . So I'll drop you'll drop , I'll draw it , I'll read it , you answer , and we'll just roll through these coins and we'll see what happens . Okay , good , good , good , Starting with a fun one , okay , all right , fun questions , let's see .

Speaker 3 29:42

All right , I'm really nervous . By the way , here you should be . I'm nervous because of one of the things that I'm not great at is thinking on the fly . My best ideas . So the chances are I'm gonna answer and then on the way home I'm gonna think of the better answer than I should have gave , Because it takes me a minute to process .

Speaker 1 30:08

So let's do a disclaimer in the show notes . If you come up with better answers , we'll put them in there .

Speaker 3 30:13

There's my soft thunder belly that I'm not quick on the fly . I used to do a radio show years ago , but the business coach radio show . So I did that years ago and I but I never took calls .

Speaker 1 30:25

Oh , okay .

Speaker 3 30:26

Because I was always worried about being able to get caught flat footed . Little more equipped now , but then we'll see . So anyway , let's see how this goes .

Speaker 1 30:34

Let's see . This one actually took me a second to answer . What is your favorite thing that comes out of a can , any kind of can . It can be a drink , it can be a food item . One person said hairspray . Favorite thing that comes out of a can .

Speaker 3 30:48

My newest one . It's actually the latest and greatest Is little backstory , all right , so pace . Enchilada sauce Okay .

Speaker 1 31:00

Pace enchilada sauce . Okay .

Speaker 3 31:03

Have you ever had a wet burrito before ?

Speaker 1 31:06

Like that's a sauce on top Like El Cerro style . No , no , no , no , no .

Speaker 3 31:11

Wet burrito .

Speaker 1 31:12

Like yeah , yeah , probably you would know if you've had one .

Speaker 3 31:14

So not just a little sauce on ?

Speaker 1 31:16

top .

Speaker 3 31:16

I'm talking about like , and not just like a little tomato we like a little tomato sprinkle sauce or that kind of thing . No . It's like swimming in it or like queso no , it's like , and I don't know , you're probably , you may not be old enough . I'm finally becoming old enough to like . Usually I was a younger guy in all the crowds right .

Speaker 3 31:32

Now I'm the older guy , so Taco Bell , you said this thing . The older listeners that you had maybe familiar with the incharito , I don't . So your incharito used to be a thing . It was part of Taco Bell's original , like when they used to sell five things .

Speaker 2 31:45

Oh nice , Okay , so original yeah it was one of those OG things , so look it up .

Speaker 3 31:51

But Taco Bell incharito , they brought it back . That's why I think you might know about it . They brought it back and they take it away .

Speaker 1 31:56

It's one of those retro things that come back .

Speaker 3 31:58

But one of the things that they used to have is this incharito . That was a burrito but it was covered in their incholotis . It's the same sauce that's inside the burrito , but then they would just soak it on the outside , had some hamburger on it . You used to eat it . It's really , really good . It's kind of gone away so , but as you go to like up , like Michigan or different places I think I'll have it in New Mexico , Like regionally , you will find people that regions that have wet burritos .

Speaker 3 32:25

And they say the home of the rest . Yeah , wet burrito is in Grand Rapids , michigan , which I didn't know that till . I visited there recently for a wedding and I found out that this one place is the home in creation .

Speaker 1 32:37

So we went there and Did it live up to the hype ?

Speaker 3 32:43

It did . It was pretty good , but it was a little bit , so it was a little bit Dry it was caked on top of . There was sauce in the bottom it was still really really good , but what I've come home and did is I made bone wet burritos at home and we found that the pace incholotis sauce is like really mimics kind of what the Taco Bell vibe was , and so they sell it at Harris Teeter .

Speaker 1 33:11

Perfect .

Speaker 3 33:12

And we have like cleaned out the Harris Teeter stock .

Speaker 1 33:15

So y'all aren't gonna be able to buy it .

Speaker 3 33:17

You're trying , that's just one store just our little store inside the bubble at the beach . But now they have it in stock . But we keep it pretty healthy because they'll stop having things and I guess we'll have to Amazon or something in the future .

Speaker 1 33:30

But if you keep buying it like that , they'll probably keep stocking .

Speaker 3 33:32

Yeah , maybe Supply it to me , yeah , but so anyway , burrito Love it . Or make some good incholotis . But something about that sauce and the flour tortilla and the . You get the beans right on the inside , so anyway , favorite thing , in a can is the pace incholotis sauce . Really , really , it's not authentic .

Speaker 1 33:54

No , it's not really authentic . It's not really .

Speaker 3 33:56

Although paces of Tex-Mex brand .

Speaker 2 33:59

And it's made . It's from Texas , it's legit .

Speaker 3 34:01

But it's definitely north of the border , Mexican food versus it's not . You won't find anything like it in . Mexico . But I'm telling you the incholotis sauce , man just good to know it's just right .

Speaker 1 34:13

I do like to keep like incholotis sauce stocked in the cabinet because I feel like if we have like rotisserie chicken but I'm tired of just eating rotisserie chicken , then it's so easy to just make incholotis and it's like feels new . That's right the same chicken I've been eating all week but it feels new .

Speaker 3 34:28

The pace and the incholotis .

Speaker 1 34:29

Okay , I'll add it to the list there we go . All right , we'll drop another .

Speaker 3 34:33

Okay , oh , we're gonna do this again .

Speaker 1 34:34

Oh gosh , I got through that one good . Yeah , I nailed it . I think I sucked the landing . I think that was good . Yeah , no , that was good . We're gonna do it four times now . You gotta give me a little signal , though .

Speaker 3 34:40

Sometimes my answers are long-winded . I don't know if that fits the format of the thing . So if you can give me that little bit of , because I no , it's good .

Speaker 1 34:51

Ooh , more fun questions .

Speaker 3 34:52

More too .

Speaker 1 34:55

All right , I like fun questions , all right . All right , I don't know if you'll have an answer to this one . It's a new question for season two . Congratulations to the first person ever . All right , what is like the wildest or craziest or just like head scratching moment you've had as a business owner ? If you have one you like to share or you can pass , it's okay .

Speaker 3 35:17

As a business owner or a business coach .

Speaker 1 35:20

Oh , coach , yeah , either way it works .

Speaker 3 35:23

Man , I get some great stories as a coach , so the funniest thing I had , or the most wildest- like the most surprising thing is . So we do . You know back to that first step that I said and find out , you know , once somebody comes in , engages me , we do an alignment session , and that alignment session is a real deep dive into who somebody is , where they want to go , what they want , where they get there .

Speaker 3 35:56

It's a little in a sales process or the discovery process . It's very light , but we go a lot deeper Right and they've , you know , generally invested , they've made a pretty serious mental , emotional and financial investment together at that point .

Speaker 3 36:11

So they're really bought in and so , and you know , I ask deeper questions and they become more comfortable and I can ask the same question and discovery that I do in the actual onboarding and alignment session and those answers become a lot more real because you're not talking to the guy that's trying to sell you something anymore perception Like you've trusted this person to your goals , dreams and aspirations and kind of help you get there . So anyway , so I kind of positioned that way . So they go a little deeper and so it's a husband and wife and I meet the husband separately and they and I often meet them together and kind of go because they , especially with a husband and wife that are working the business together and making sure that there's proper alignment . Often there's misalignment and dysfunction . I don't know what you're talking about , yeah , I'm sure you know .

Speaker 3 36:57

So the so in order to kind of bring that together and you find out some stuff that you wouldn't find other way . This guy's told me I said what's ? And he started telling me something stuff and he's like , yeah , I've slept with over a hundred women , what ? And that was his , that was his like , that was kind of the get to know him , like his fun fact is , I slept with over a hundred women and I'm well more more than a hundred women Really .

Speaker 3 37:28

I just I don't . I've got to lost count at a certain point and there was a reason how that tied together with the story and he's like , don't tell me why for that , but I said all right , okay , no problem , I'm like a confidentiality agreement .

Speaker 1 37:40

No problem , I can't be sick because it's fine .

Speaker 3 37:42

But but the you know you have situations like that . You have there's a lot of wild employee stories . So the things you find out and that are the darndest things that happen Once you're involved with business owners , with employees , and then find it out Some of the things behind the scenes , but but having , I guess , somebody coming to office and kind of give me that stat that I think you need , I think you need to tell somebody that he's like it was his badge of honor

Discovering Favorite Local Food Places

Speaker 3 38:12

.

Speaker 3 38:12

And , and that so it was , you know surely , is one of those piece of information that do bring a certain sense of intimacy and connection in the relationship to where he's shared that deep , dark secret . I don't think he's been able to tell people that very much in his life and it was part of a bigger story . The nice thing is he , you know , he became a very , you know , happy and faithful man .

Speaker 3 38:37

That's all that matters , and and I had a good person and you know and and you know got surely developed relationship with his creator and got you know and he kind of got right when it comes to he was explained his kind of crazy lifestyle in the past .

Speaker 1 38:53

So anyway , fun things you find out about people Love it . Anyway , well , my great I was Luke wasn't here for our team meeting today and we were testing out different setups for this and one of my ideas I had originally told him Luke wasn't so sure about like the chair setup , and I was like , well , he's not here today , so we're going to do it .

Speaker 2 39:11

There we go .

Speaker 1 39:12

And it kind of worked . That's right . It wasn't wrong . It wasn't right , that's right , big forgiveness .

Speaker 3 39:17

That was as crazy as we got it worked . We just tested out some new chair arrangements . All right , we're excited , here we go .

Speaker 1 39:25

All right , let's see if we're going to get more fun . Well , business ones are fun too , business ones are fun too . Let's see if we can get it . Is that the business one ?

Speaker 3 39:31

Nope . No more fun ones More fun .

Speaker 1 39:35

All right , let's see .

Speaker 3 39:39

I'm drawing like I'm attracting fun .

Speaker 1 39:42

Yes , all right , what ? Sorry , I'm not talking to the mic . What is your favorite local go-to place ? So this can be for food fun . Favorite Wilmington place ?

Speaker 3 39:55

Favorite Wilmington place . Hmm , the . What's my favorite ? Well , I'm a foodie .

Speaker 1 40:03

Yes , okay , we love food suggestions Okay .

Speaker 3 40:07

And probably one of the most . So you know , grabbing authentic , especially ethnic , bites is real important . And Los Portales , oh yeah , los Portales , tacarilla , the , the , not only the Tacarilla , but the Super Mercado . On the Caravano I walked in and the first time I walked into there and I'm again from Oklahoma originally , so , and fun fact , I'm half Mexican .

Speaker 1 40:33

Okay .

Speaker 3 40:36

I'm half Mexican . I'm half Mexican looking at me like either on camera or on you know , you don't know , but I'm half my mom's Mexican football in my you know . So the side on me , that's real freaky because people white guy named Shropshire and like this guy , voted most likely not to be a Mexican . The I could never . Yeah , the I could never , check boxes .

Speaker 3 40:54

That got me because nobody ever believed that , but the so good we learned is you know a good hole in the wall and you got a lot of good at the restaurant where you got grandma on the back or fins back or the kids running around like working in it .

Speaker 3 41:09

Like it's . You know that , have run around there and then you later you come back to see him working the car , but the man from a authentic Mexican food place and when I came to North Carolina being , you know , half Mexican and having a and loving that type of food .

Speaker 3 41:26

And then you know that just when I came here in 1991 , I came to each of the , you know Hispanics weren't a very prominent part of the culture and even when I moved to Wilmington in 97 , you know it wasn't you know much of he had just kind of the what I would call called Cajunified Mexican restaurants that appealed right the enchiladas with that sauce in it that you never find in Mexico .

Speaker 3 41:49

So the so to see more as times evolved to see more Hispanics move the area and have more prominent culture and then having food place to serve them . So I walked in there for the first time and I walked in there and I was the only white guy in there I was like , this is my jam .

Speaker 3 42:04

I don't know that anybody in here speaks English . There's not , you know . And to include the counter help , I know how to order in Spanish . I don't speak . I speak survival Spanish , but survival is food , so I speak , so I can definitely order in Spanish . So I walk in there . I see you know nothing but Hispanics and Keith Rhodes , you know that , owns Catch and the most one of the most popular , probably if not the most prominent chef in town . He's over there eating , you know , a bowl of something .

Speaker 2 42:32

Would like crabs crab legs hanging out of it and shrimp , and prawn .

Speaker 3 42:35

And so when you see but none of the Mexicans and Keith Rhodes in one somewhere , you're like I'm in the right spot .

Speaker 1 42:40

I found it , so that's right .

Speaker 3 42:42

So you know , I found so that is my , that's kind of my comfort food spot to get a good , you know , basole or taco zapato . You know they got them on the spit and it's been really cool to watch that . And the same thing over you know the restaurant is cool .

Speaker 1 42:58

Yeah .

Speaker 3 42:59

But also the super marcado that they have on Curran Avenue . You know we can walk up the . They got a hot bar in there , oh , cool . And you can just get pull off like very authentic so so it's really like eating in a taqueria in Mexico City or something like that . So and it's really been cool to watch those two , you know , business owner guys that have just come here .

Speaker 3 43:18

You know they were working at his weight staff and you know at El Sar Grande when I first came to town and recognize that , and then for them to be able to kind of come back and and , and you know , stake their claim and work really , really hard . And the little bit of watching them kind of build their little empire .

Speaker 1 43:33

Yeah .

Speaker 3 43:33

They've had multiple restaurants , multiple locations , and what they've done has been really , really cool and you see , them in there . You know , you know working hard and doing the work . So it's funny I told that store actually was at a networking event not long ago to where the owner of Los Portales and who I know kind of recognized over the I've kind of gotten to know over the years a little bit , just very lightly , and and Keith Rhodes were both there .

Speaker 1 43:56

Oh cool .

Speaker 3 43:57

And , and I got to tell the story . They were talking to each other .

Speaker 1 44:00

And .

Speaker 3 44:00

I got to say hey , chef Rhodes , I think you need to know . This has just been a couple of months ago or last month . I was like you need to know . I have told your story . I've used your name in vain on the story of the first time I walked into Los Portales , and here's the story . And I told him a story that I've told on him for 10 years . And I was kind of a cool moment . That is a ?

Speaker 3 44:21

oh , by the way , is your taking

Setting Goals and Planning for Success

Speaker 3 44:23

tips ? So the thing that is the I named it , a couple of dishes that , but if you want to be wowed , the torto cubano torto cubano is probably one of the best sandwiches you'll ever have . Man , it comes out in this piece of bread that's soft and hot like a football and it's got like ham and cheese and al pastor meat and chorizo , which is Mexican sausage , and like onions and mayonnaise and tomatoes and a little bit of cheese melted on the ham and , like I said , it's about the size of a football . But you talk about a sandwich that like you bite into it .

Speaker 3 45:00

Everybody I've had try it and they melt that into it . They're like , oh my goodness , like , didn't know that , it's like , so that's the , that's the if you don't want to go wrong and you like . You like a little meat .

Speaker 2 45:11

And that's overloaded .

Speaker 3 45:13

It's got a nice layer of mayonnaise and lettuce and tomato and sandwich like to a little cubano Sounds good , I'm going to do it . Add it to the list .

Speaker 1 45:19

Put it on there . All right , let's do another one .

Speaker 3 45:21

Okay , let's see if we get a business question .

Speaker 1 45:24

If or not , we'll see .

Speaker 3 45:29

Oh , it jumped off the board you get to drop again there's no punishments .

Speaker 1 45:33

There's no punishments , okay , okay .

Speaker 3 45:39

Finally a business question . Let's see , all right .

Speaker 1 45:43

Oh , we already kind of talked about this . The question is , how did you get into your current line of work ? Now we got to pull another one . I feel like we talked about that in detail .

Speaker 3 45:54

Please don't make me go Rewind , if you want to , okay .

Speaker 1 45:57

Um , this is , we'll be a good one . So what is your process , either for you or when you're working with um , a coaching client , for setting goals at , let's just say , at the beginning of the year , since this will be out January , but they're going to set like a 12 month goal . Like what is that process of deciding and action steps to get there ?

Speaker 3 46:14

Great question . Um , and it's a great question . I don't like when people do that on interviews , Like interviews . It sounds so fake to me .

Speaker 2 46:20

Like , yeah , Like .

Speaker 3 46:21

well , you know , like for people you know um people , like interview , like in the interviews .

Speaker 1 46:25

I guess it's in the being interviewed school that you're supposed to go Well . Thank you so much . That's a great question .

Speaker 3 46:31

That's a really great question . Thanks , come on man , let's cut it . But , but let me tell you this authentically is a great question , because we just came off um an annual planning day .

Speaker 1 46:42

Oh perfect , that's Friday .

Speaker 2 46:43

I mentioned earlier the other situation .

Speaker 3 46:45

We had an annual planning day . I gathered my clients together , a few people that are kind of um , involved in our programs throughout the year . We invited them back and um all had them get together and do annual planning . So part of that annual planning process is to take a look back at key areas of the business . So if I'm whether I'm doing that um individually or um and we did this in a group setting we had about 40 , um , you know , business owners , some of their key team members , some of their leadership team members , um and um , we're all there and gathered together and they , you know , we really take a look back at the year . That was do a nice year in review . Look at things like hey , what were the successes you've had over the first year ? We celebrate those . It was really cool to hear the successes around the room as well . But find out what the successes are . Also identify what some of the challenges they're currently facing .

Speaker 3 47:37

We don't need a history of challenges all throughout the year , but what are some of the lessons learned that they've had ? And so it's a good review . For if I did one-on-one , we did that exercise , we did that as a . It's a nice one-on-one conversation . You get me up to speed . It's really cool when you have that conversation in a group setting , especially with different businesses or business owners , or even whether it be even we had one team that had like eight people .

Speaker 3 48:03

I had the owner and eight of their and seven of their key team members there . So they learned stuff on that day that were successes and lessons learned that they didn't know about and they employed those people .

Speaker 3 48:13

So , having that , you know , here in challenges they're currently facing . Some of that was news , so it's also cool . When we also had a couple of tables of individual business owners , they had team members there . They just came themselves and so from that group that they're learning best practices , you know from the successes and they're also catching lessons learned . Isn't it cooler to learn lessons from others Instead of you having learned them themselves ? And also when they talk about their challenges kind of what happens at the breaks or those kind of things are they're ?

Speaker 3 48:43

like you know what I used to have that challenge and they help support each other and give each other feedback on that kind of thing . So it's really neat so anyway , so you know , kind of doing a little bit of a year . That was also we had to help identify and go through . The next parts of the questions are you know what were some things that you know unfinished business ? What did you think you were gonna get ?

Speaker 3 49:03

done in the year . And , by the way , this is an exercise . You just you know you're hearing my bullet points here .

Speaker 3 49:07

Feel free to do this you know on your own to the you know watchers and listeners . Feel free to steal this if you'd like . I'd love to say it was an original thought and me putting it all together is somewhat original , but the parts and pieces and the inspiration , I just borrowed it from some . I just learned it from somebody else , guy named Taki Moore , who , by the way , says that there's a special place in hell for people that don't credit other people for their feedback .

Speaker 3 49:30

So all right , so I was like all right , well , we don't wanna deal with any of that , so anyway . So Taki Moore taught me this process of a few of these questions and it kind of grew from there yeah , also , you know what are . We also take a look at what you need to get better at Cool . What do you need to get better at Also , and so there's a list of three or four things there , knowing what your personal and selfish goals are for the next three to five years , kind of what is the business ? What do you want it to ? What do you wanna do personally ? That your business is a tool for Cool Also you know . And then , once you kind of get all that , you get a good idea of what are some aspirations for the upcoming year , and so usually that's you know .

Speaker 3 50:12

So you can usually boil all that down , find out what they wanna get better at what they need to improve , what some of the current challenges are , and usually at that point there's enough clarity on what they want for the year . And then from there kind of take a look at all right , what do we need to do ? First , you know what are the first quarter goals and just kind of wash rinse , repeat Cool Every quarter , yeah . And then , but also one of the real keys are making sure that you're visiting those quarterly priorities every week .

Speaker 1 50:40

Okay .

Speaker 3 50:41

And make sure that you've got an action plan as part of your weekly planning . What am I gonna do to move forward ? Because what I find is the mistake a lot of folks make , even if they are business owners operate a couple of different directions . More times than not , they're either gonna not make a plan and just wing it .

Speaker 1 50:56

Yeah , show up , that's where we're going .

Speaker 3 50:59

Yeah , we kind of have a general idea and they just show up in what I call follow the puck .

Speaker 1 51:03

Yeah .

Speaker 3 51:04

Like in hockey , they just kind of follow the puck around and you know , as opposed to having a orchestrated business where they and they orchestrate all these parts and pieces . But now , generally most business owners are just not have a plan , they're winging it and the following and planning is a good idea . They know that's a good concept but I don't got time for that . I just wake up and go to work . On January , the second , hit it .

Speaker 3 51:27

I'll do some planning later in the week . I'll do it blah , blah , blah , blah , blah , blah blah , and they just never get to it . And then you have the ones that plan . Yeah , they do a good job of planning the next plan . No plan makes sense and then they don't do the regular week in , week out , moving forward on the parts and pieces of the plan and then they get stuck in certain places and they don't get the help and support they need to be able to help overcome the constraints , challenges , road bumps , barriers that get in the way , and so they don't .

Speaker 3 51:57

And they often need help and support in that , in a lot of cases , in direction and guidance and where to go to and some help either be told what to do or where to find sources of knowledge to be able to help them push through , and so it just kind of gets put on the yeah , that'd be a great idea , but it just gets , and as things start to pile , up and then that's where owners get stuck .

Speaker 3 52:17

So back to your original question , though what do they need to do to plan , look back , see what you can learn , and then be clear on what you want , and then there starts to be strategies and tactics that you need to deploy within those areas . To have that , so the nice thing is , in my arsenal I have a lot of tools , strategies , tactics , how to do things beyond , just all right , what are your goals ?

Speaker 3 52:50

And then you're on your own . From there we have a pretty good arsenal of , so one of the things that we handed out to them is some of them wanted to increase profits , so we went through our profit calculator on how they can pretty easily increase their sales 46% over the next year by making a few small changes .

Speaker 3 53:07

And then we have this list of 344 different things they can do to do that within the five different ways to increase profits , and we teach them how to go . Because you say , whoo right , that's the common reaction I would assume if I laid those out in front of you , it would be overwhelming right . And you're like that's , all I need is 300 more , 44 more ideas . I've already got a bunch of ideas already , and so , but what we do is teach people how to comb that list down to about a dozen things that really will make an impact for their business , for them .

Speaker 3 53:38

And then back to what I said earlier what makes sense right now or this upcoming , what's the business ready for and what would make the biggest impact ? So , being able to have not just a goal setting session but also have very tactile and very specific tools that they can select from , or different strategies that they can pick from , so that they're not just like okay , play paper or want more business .

Speaker 2 54:03

What do I do ?

Speaker 3 54:05

And that's really where what we do kind of differs a lot of people's image of what a life coach or maybe a therapist would do , which is just like all right , what do you want to talk about ?

Speaker 2 54:16

today .

Speaker 3 54:18

And so we've got to making sure they have the , not just the why to do's , the what to do's , but also how to do it .

Speaker 1 54:27

So I guess almost one of the most important .

Speaker 3 54:29

That's right , and to make sure that you're visiting it every single week and that those action items are generating your weekly to-dos as well as your daily to-dos , which are all really cool components of that management masterclass that I talked about earlier . I almost sound like I'm plugging it .

Speaker 1 54:47

That's fine , here we are , here we go . This is not a question , but I did buy a new planner , a paper planner also like my phone calculator . I also have a dry erase board in our house . I love a calendar .

Speaker 2 54:58

That's right .

Speaker 1 54:59

Do you have a favorite planner or tool or calendar thing that you like to give people or point people to in terms of writing out goals ? Are you gonna hate planners ?

Speaker 3 55:11

No , not that I hate them . I found there's some people that love planner and again , not to be too . I gotta be careful of this . But I have found that women love them some planners to a much higher percentage than men do Men tend to . Honestly , women love a planner . Men tend to mute if they have a thing they tend to have , just like a book with pages .

Speaker 1 55:36

That is literally Luke and I .

Speaker 3 55:38

Right .

Speaker 1 55:39

I have a planner . I have lots of planners and they all have different purposes . He has a notebook he's probably had for five years that he's like mm-hmm .

Speaker 3 55:48

That's right Blank pages and like a journal , like a phone , something , and depending on , that , depending on the complexity of the human being , they can have different levels of things , but generally more men tend to have blank pages and women have very structured things , and that's what makes y'all special and awesome , by the way , yeah .

The Spicy Opinion

Speaker 3 56:11

I don't , because I have again a lot of my own sense of well , yeah , that's right , and so , and to say this is the greatest thing ever and I have a lot of tools that I've either used from the arsenals that I have- within .

Speaker 1 56:28

The .

Speaker 3 56:28

Action Coach toolbox or the Scaling Up toolbox I have . They have some things that I often use , but I've also had to create my own Because I think to be able to use something universally and across the board , that to have something that's simple . So , honestly , me making things up via like spreadsheets , boxes and squares and I'm a boxes and square I'm not a mind map person , I'm a spreadsheet person , and when I say spreadsheet , it doesn't have to have data and it's like squares in boxes , like things that line up .

Speaker 3 57:02

So I create a lot of things within . So the tools I have are either things from within our , our methodologies that we use in our toolboxes that I have to pull from to help plan , or I have . I mentioned that whole . I just walked you through that planning thing for the year and I've created a one page plan that's very simple , that you could not just use on yourself but also teach owners how to use that with employees .

Speaker 3 57:30

So I don't know if that's ever useful for you as a planning tool . If you just walk your way through it in like five minutes I can explain how to use it , and I don't know if a business owner . That's out there , that's ambitious and committed to growth and would like to have access . They feel free , they can coach Reggie . I'm not hard to find Reach out and I'll be glad to shoot it to them . And it's pretty self-explanatory a little quick call and I'd be glad to walk them through how to use it .

Speaker 1 57:57

Okay , perfect , Because it's simple and we'll put all your links and stuff too in the show notes so they can like they'll find you , but some I like things that are simple and universal and big fan of boxes and squares Perfect love it , love this spreadsheet . All right , let's do this last one . Let's see where we land , and then we'll go from there . Woo , more fun , more fun . Double fun . I know .

Speaker 3 58:19

That oughta be a thing .

Speaker 1 58:20

I know We've been like today we're talking about ooh , we're trying to come up with different like things to do if things happen , because you know there's not enough going on this podcast .

Speaker 3 58:30

That's right , let's make up some more games .

Speaker 1 58:32

That's right , they'll have to add that to this . Okay , we're gonna end it with probably one of our more popular questions Uh-oh , hot , take what is your spiciest opinion that most people disagree with ? Woo-hoo-hoo .

Speaker 1 58:46

I like to disclaimer this I will say this is on the internet , so don't say anything like too crazy . That's gonna get you canceled or something nuts . That's right . Other than that , it can be anything you want . It could be . I don't believe in the moon landing . Or somebody said a hot dog is actually a taco , so or it could be a spice .

Speaker 3 59:06

Yeah , it's a hot dog of sandwich . That's the only way to come up , all right , so .

Speaker 1 59:11

Or it could be business related spice . Yeah , whatever you want .

Speaker 3 59:16

My spicy hot take that I haven't gone very public with . I've done this in safe environments .

Speaker 1 59:22

Okay .

Speaker 3 59:23

That are within my circle of clients , or those kind of things that people that believe in me . So I haven't , here we go . I've gotten agreement reactions , but I don't know , because they're part of my tribe Okay , that they're just kind of going along , and or they're like are they know me ? And they're like , oh , that's just Reggie being Reggie . So I believe that .

Speaker 1 59:44

Well , nervous .

Speaker 3 59:46

Maybe I'll ask you this . I don't know if I should do this or not .

Speaker 1 59:48

No , you can do it , it's fine .

Speaker 3 59:50

I don't know what it is , but I think it's fine . Do you tell your kids that ? How old is your oldest ? Five , five . Do you tell your kids ? Or do you plan on telling your kids you can be whatever you want to be ? No , that's good . That's good because people that tell kids you can do whatever you wanted life , you just need to try . You can be anything you want to be . That's a lie . Yes , you can be anything you want to be is a lie .

Speaker 3 1:00:22

So I'm in the airport not long ago and there's this little girl that was going through airport security , you know , and the little girl was probably five , six years old . She was a young girl , five , seven , five , seven somewhere . And she looked up at grandma and she said I want to be a pilot when I grow up . And that grandma looked down and said sweetie , you can be anything you want to be . And I'm like grandma , you're lying to that child . You know you're not old , I don't think . And grandma , you may not be old enough to be able to , like them , call you on it later in life . Because here's the truth . I do believe that that little girl can be very special and very exceptional at a handful of things and I could only hope that she discovers those things in her life , that she can be truly exceptional at that , she can be in flow .

Speaker 3 1:01:15

But the lie that we often tell our that the society or that it's been told to kids in different ways , like different venues , that you can be anything you want to be , they can't , you're just not wired for it . I had a I kind of told this in my annual planning session and my I've got an associate coach that works in my firm and he owns a business locally and he's a pretty successful entrepreneur zone , right , and but he was a well , you know him , it was Derek . It's Derek , it's our , you know he's Derek owns the battle house tactical laser tag and he , he was an attack helicopter pilot and I , just off the cuff , I'd never known this , but I looked over at him and I said , derek , how many people wanted to become attack helicopter ? He's a black-hall helicopter .

Speaker 3 1:02:02

I was like how many people wanted to become black-hall helicopters and how many made it . He said there were 19 people in my class besides me and one person made it . One person made it besides him , one person made it in his class and but there were 19 people , that or other people , the 18 other people that their mamas and grandmas told them all their life , you can be in a tack helicopter you want , you can be anything you want to be . If you just tried . What they told him is you just try hard enough , you can be anything on you and I've seen me any of . I watched my wife go through nursing school to where the wreck prerequisites to get into the program is hard , and she went to Cape Fear Community College , which , by the way , if you're a little like PSA , if you are ever at the hospital yeah and you have a choice between somebody that went to the Cape Fear Community College nursing program .

Speaker 3 1:02:56

You want that person .

Speaker 1 1:02:57

Yeah , I'm not gonna spare you any of the other local programs , but I'm telling you , I'm telling you that colleges friends went through Cape Fear and they were just in the hot like they were in , I feel like in like real-life situations , like almost day one that is a difficult program .

Speaker 3 1:03:11

Yeah , that the drop rate was more than 50% in her class , so with hard prerequisites , and it was . This was like the . This was like when she went through it . There was a rush on being a nurse and it was like 2009 , 2010 , post like the economic , 2008 and the , and a lot of people were driven toward like so the like to get in .

Speaker 3 1:03:31

It took her like she had to go to get into being Ariane . She had to go and she became an LPN , first because she couldn't get in the R&B program and then so , after she graduated the one-year LPN program , she finally had enough like points or whatever . She got the R&B program after and but 50% of the people that started in that class didn't . They got dropped , they didn't graduate . There were people that on the day that we had the final test and graduation party , they found out that day when they were supposed to . This was like a Thursday .

Speaker 3 1:04:06

We had the Wednesday or Thursday and we had at our house and they and then and then some of them didn't come that were on the bubble and they said I'm not gonna make it . I did , I'm supposed to graduate on Saturday , I have a job and they found out that she did . They didn't make it by like tenth of a point or something like it was like , and there was no like , but so yeah .

Speaker 3 1:04:28

So my point is that there were a lot of people and there were a lot of people that weren't that close , yeah , that didn't make it right . So those people that qualified for the program and that went through , yeah , and they couldn't be a registered nurse and not to say like , it was a tough thing to do , I watched them study , I watched them work , I watched them go hard and I watched them drop because they just didn't have that special something and you know , their brain wasn't wired for it . And there are people that don't make it to become surgeons and there are people that don't make it to become . The drop rate on some of those specialized fields are very , very high and all the want to in the world is not gonna help it if you're not wired for it . Yeah , there are just certain things you're wired for .

Speaker 3 1:05:08

So this , so let's not , let's don't be telling them , little kids , they do anything , they want to do that line . Look at them and tell them you can be special at a handful of things and I and I and I and I hope that you , and I hope that you , I would love to help you , I'd love to help you find those and be partners supporting you find those , but there are certain things that you're gonna find that you're gonna be really bad at . Yeah , and it's okay , it's okay because there's something else that you are perfectly and wonderfully made for .

Speaker 3 1:05:38

Your creator made you for something very , very special . It just may not be what you want it to be , yeah , or what's glamorous or what looks good , so make sure you find something in your flow and nothing worse . Nothing worse than living life and something you weren't built for , yeah , and weren't wired for so that is my but when you put it in the context of like telling your kids you want to do . That's when it becomes controversial like my kid , that's right .

Speaker 3 1:06:02

Oh , no , now I will say that I will say that I had the discernment not to you're doing damage your little granddaughter . Right now . Let me tell you why . I've learned that you got to want to be coached , you got to invite coaching and to you know volunteer unsolicited opinions , probably in the case yeah , let's hope I continue to have that filter . Yes , and as it starts as I get older , that filter starts to go away piece by piece .

Speaker 3 1:06:29

Yeah , I could see myself in my 70s going excuse me not caring yeah , I've got a legacy to leave and , yeah , this is gonna be the moment taking my claim so anyway , that's funny , cool .

Speaker 1 1:06:44

Well , thanks for doing that part of the podcast

Business Strategy and Growth Tips

Speaker 1 1:06:48

. If there's any like final tips you wanted to give someone in terms of , you know , setting strategies up for the new year or business advice , any closing thoughts you want to drop on these listeners business advice is if you're depending on where you're on the lifecycle of your business , know that business ownership's profession .

Speaker 3 1:07:11

It is a profession with the highest failure rate out there . Some of you that are in the pre-launch phase probably don't believe me , because you think that you could do anything . You want to do . If you just try hard enough , you could be anything . You want to be gonna be a bizarre new , be so busy , be right , but the stats tell you wrong . Different , because 80% of people don't make it to five years yeah , numbers don't lie .

Speaker 3 1:07:31

Let's make it . The emotion of you can do it is great , but numbers don't lie . Odds are you're not gonna make it . By the way , don't do what everybody else is doing . They're failing there . Most businesses are failing , they're going to fail and they won't be there in five years .

Speaker 3 1:07:43

And ones that do make it off and wall or mediocrity and throw their hands up here between year five and ten and goes easier , go get a job .

Speaker 3 1:07:51

And some of the ones that exist aren't , you know , committed to growth and ongoing .

Speaker 3 1:07:56

They've just kind of given up and just kind of taking what comes and staying where they're at .

Speaker 3 1:08:00

So anyway , being clear , that business ownership profession and it's a profession that and more time , I mean like probably 99% of time that you probably didn't have the right training , mentorship , guidance , you didn't go to the school of business ownership . You probably , even if you had some on-the-job experience in business ownership , you probably didn't work for an amazing business owner that would really was awesome at it . They may have told you what not to do , but probably a lot more what not to do is instead of what to do , and so the so know that business ownership profession and that you've got to develop yourself in that profession that when you start your own business , you not just do your technical yeah thing , you know the technical part of what you do , but you also have now started in this profession of business ownership , and that is the heart as a very , very hard profession . How do you overcome those very , very high odds of failure ? Well , you make sure that getting the knowledge you need , not just to be successful at this level but staying ahead yeah where you get stuck now .

Speaker 3 1:09:02

If you found yourself to be stuck in plateaued where you're at , there's probably something you're missing from a knowledge perspective of business ownership of the next level . So make sure that you've got a steady , you know regimen of learning so that you stay ahead of your incompetencies business ownership- is a constant step into new levels of incompetence . Yeah , figure out what you're doing .

Speaker 3 1:09:25

You grow and you get to the next level and you're like oh , I don't know what I'm doing and then and everybody sees that , so it's full of public shame and embarrassment mess ups and then the and of course you're like I don't want my team to know , I don't know what I'm doing , like they know they trust me .

Speaker 3 1:09:42

And so then you , you know you and , by the way , you work hard , you figure it out , you know thanks gets guys advice and you work your way through and guess what's waiting for you at that next level , another another new level of incompetency right a new level , and so it's a constant step through that .

Speaker 3 1:09:57

That's the game . By the way , be okay with the game of growing to new levels , of not knowing what you're doing at that new level , and so how do you stay ahead of that , making sure that you get the knowledge you need . Go get the support , yeah , go look for a guide to help you along . Go look for resources . There's a lot of those resources around . You just got to pick those up and look for it . And you know , don't ? I only thing I would say to business owners is there's don't try to do it alone . The best in so many the top performers in most fields , they don't go it alone . Yeah , and it's funny that as an owner , it becomes a little bit of a badge of dishonor , yeah , a disgrace , that they have to go help and get support when you do not see a professional athlete , olympic athlete , going . You know what ? I'm just gonna figure this out on my own . I'm just gonna wing it . I don't need to . I don't need a coach , I don't need a .

Speaker 3 1:10:52

Imagine a boxer that would go at the highest level and go I got this , I can . I know how to do it . I know how to fight , been fighting my whole life . Let me go out there and just I'll train myself , I'll push myself , I'll strategize for myself , I'll see , like you know that gets works good until they got some the ring and you know he'll get that person that would never fly , because that person knows that they'll get pulled . So because he needs that , that outside eye , that support , that push it , all the things that a good , you know coach and trainer would do . So the so .

Speaker 3 1:11:25

Don't try to go it alone , don't do it , don't let pride yeah , get in the way of being able to seek outreach for help , get a guide and make sure that you're doing all you have to get a , to not become a statistic . And , by the way , so , side note , a little plug on something that we do . Yeah , and then we'll do it multiple times next year , but we run a . I call it a plug , but I don't know , is it a plug when you don't charge for it ?

Speaker 3 1:11:50

no , okay , so we run this great resource to provide to people , oh yeah , so you know , we , in order to help kind of overcome some of that lack of training and knowledge , we've got a program that we call 30x , which is a almost like a 30-day NBA quote on 30 day NBA , that in business ownership , that is actually applicable and it can something you can do while , by the way , once you figure out you don't what you're doing , yeah , reset level and competency too late cars already going around the track yeah , right , yeah now where do I stop ?

Speaker 3 1:12:22

yeah , I stop and go to the school of business , right , and so we've got a program that's that really is business owner friendly , who's somebody who's operating , and so it's a 30-day , very intensive , 30 minute a day , high level of education , training for I'm not doing the teaching .

Speaker 3 1:12:43

Actually , we have one of the top business coach , business builder trainers , teachers , mentors in the world Brad sugars . That runs that , that does that it's , it's pre-recorded . We facilitate it locally , but and but . We open up . Technologies allowed us to kind of open up the pipeline . This is a course that used to pay five , six thousand dollars for to see him live . Yeah , it's something that we're , it's recorded and that we offer to the community as a training tool to kind of help them . You know , build a solid education base , yeah , and we've done that over the last several years made a huge difference . And helping people know the what to do , yeah , and give it to him in a real fast . Real , a real fast paced away . I'm a bit of a storyteller if you all ain't figured out .

Speaker 3 1:13:32

So Brad gets the information far more concisely and more pointed . He can get through a lot more information faster than I can , not just second , so he so he's a great trainer , teacher in that , in that aspect . So we'll do that three times next year .

Speaker 3 1:13:48

We'll kick one off in February , so anybody here , just in January and you know what I want to learn everything that I need to know to grow a very profitable business very quickly how to hire great team members , how to market , how to you know it . It's a great course . Reach out , you know , via the links , and reach out to me and the team and we glad to get you part of that 30-day thing . The only thing that we we and we also provide , we don't just give you the lessons , but we also do some support . Look at the taste of coaching , if you're , and we don't charge anything for that , but we do only only only investment is the individual's commitment . Yeah , somebody's willing to commit to watch one lesson a day , 30 minutes a day , and then we don't .

Speaker 3 1:14:31

We don't charge anything for 30 acts the we just , you know , we just ask you come in and we have some accountability measures around that to make sure that you're actually doing your lesson a day . Yeah , so it's really cool . A lot of local business owners have done that and have gotten a lot from it , so that's kind of our way to do what we can to increase the success rate of local business owners .

Speaker 3 1:14:54

So if we can help reach out to us and we will do this , they'll do that 30 X program as long as it makes sense so , yeah , our closing question really is where's the best way for people to reach you or find you or get in touch ?

Speaker 3 1:15:07

yeah , business growersco is our website , so that's probably an easy way to get up with us . You'll be fine . You can search coach Reggie on Google and get to us pretty quick . So coach Reggie Wilmington will get you to our web pages and socials and all that kind of stuff .

Speaker 3 1:15:25

So the and you know , check out our upcoming events . We do a lot of local . You know classes and events and information are upcoming master classes and we do previews of those master classes . So if you want to preview and sample the goods so we do a lot of things we want you to experience value first . We do our our sales and marketing via offering value , yeah , and letting people have the goods . So come out and see all the cool things we do love to help anybody that has a business that's ambitious and committed to growth . If you fit that category , we probably can help them . So a lot of cool things to help you along the way . So hope we got . Thanks for having me of course .

Speaker 1 1:16:08

Yeah , we'll put all those yeah links in the show notes so people can find them . But yeah , this is fun . Thanks for sharing all the knowledge of playing along that's right cool , thanks , thanks thanks for tuning in to another episode of 2k and talks brought to you by kickstart collective . If you loved this episode , be sure to subscribe wherever you watch podcast and follow kickstart collective on Instagram at kickstart collective .