Welcome to the Virtual Antics podcast , where we help entrepreneurs streamline their business to six figures and beyond . These short , sweet and info packed episodes will inspire , educate and leave you feeling motivated to take one more step forward in your business . So put down your never-ending to-do list , because in this podcast we are interviewing the best of the best in the entrepreneurial world as they spill their secrets to success . This podcast is sponsored by Nandora , the all-in-one software for entrepreneurs to grow their business , with unlimited landing pages , automations , emails and text campaigns , and so much more . I'm your host , natalie Guzman . Now let's get into it . Hey guys , welcome back to Virtual Antics podcast . As always , I'm your host , natalie Guzman , so excited to have Robert Poole on the call with us . He is the co-founder of Total Business Results . He helps entrepreneurs who are tied to their businesses make the transition from operator to owner in their business so they can finally achieve the freedom they got into entrepreneurship in the first place . Welcome , robert . How are you doing today ?
Speaker 2Oh , perfect . Great Thanks for having me on the show , Natalie .
Speaker 1Yeah , I'm so excited to have you . You're coming all the way from Arizona super cool . So tell us a little bit about how you got started . Especially . This is such a cool thing , so unique , and I think a lot of our listeners need to understand and hear about how they can really be the operator . So how did you get into this ?
Speaker 2Yeah , absolutely . I've been in sales and marketing for many years , started as a young man back in the 90s , dating myself a little , and I started a B2B marketing firm with my best friend right around I think it was around 2000 . And so we took it from just nothing , didn't have any money no seed money to start off with , and grew it into multi-million dollar business focused mostly on B2B cold calling . That was our expertise and so we were really successful . We were making a lot of money and , because I had a business partner , a lot of partnerships don't work out that well , but I was very fortunate . We complimented each other very well and we were best friends , and so we went along and , as I said , had all these employees and had a good company making a lot of money .
Speaker 2I had freedom to take time off . I took a three-way honeymoon , he took vacations . I took vacations because we could cover for each other . There's that mental crutch of having somebody else at the company . He handled , he was sort of the public face of the company and I worked behind the scenes doing operations around the sales teams , things like that , and so it was a great situation .
Speaker 2And then , 2017 , day after 4th of July , I came into the office like normal and he didn't come in and I thought that wasn't completely strange . And then his fiance started calling me and saying I haven't heard from 24 hours . And I thought , well , he'll go MIA for a while , not a big deal . But as a favor to her I said , okay , he was not interested , so I'll just run over to his house real quick . And unfortunately I found he passed away from a heart attack the day before . And so I've got this personal tragedy , of course , because he was my good friend and then business wise , all of a sudden I'm in charge of this multi-million dollar company and I'm trying to do his job , my job , and then I'm thrust into the being the public face of the company , being the leader , which I wasn't used to .
Speaker 2I was starting working at four in the morning until seven at night , seven days a week , trying to hold things together , and I realized I couldn't even take a morning off , much less a day or a week , and I'm tied to this business , that we had gotten to that point where I had all this freedom and so— you know , I realized that . You know this is killing my family , my personal life , and it's not a sustainable model in business , and it's something that a lot of people in business struggle with , you know , and so I figured I've got to figure out a way out of this . So I've spent , you know , about two years trying to figure out how do I get myself out of the business where I can get that freedom back , and so I was able to do that . Like I said , it took me a couple years , a little trial and error , and so since then I've been helping other business owners kind of achieve the same thing , and so it's a long answer to your question , but that's kind of where I got to where I am now .
Speaker 1Yeah , and I think it's really important that we have that background and I'm so sorry for your loss . It's definitely not something easy , you know . You're kind of thrust in that situation where it's kind of like survival mode . Right , you're just trying to figure out , and the fact that you pivoted and try to figure out a way to fix that and get out of that survival mode super , super impressive . We , I know like I've gone through that .
Speaker 1I struggled with that . I had a lot of clients say , oh , you're always going to answer the phone because business owners work 24 seven , right . And I was like no , I got this business . I got into this business to spend more time with my kids . My husband's a first responder and so I have to be the main caregiver , the main parent , and so I need to be the one that shows up to all the different you know activities and school events and doctor .
Speaker 1We have a child that goes through a lot of health issues and so going to all the doctors appointments and keeping track of that , and so having a business that would take all my time , it just it would not make sense , right , and my business was my passion , but I didn't want it to be my whole life . So we I took on a partner to kind of help that load and then us together kind of did this operation thing that you talked about , where we're not really working in in in the business , we're working on the business , and I think there's a very , very important then distinction . Distinction between that . You know , we're not doing the every day , we're not working one on one clients , we're not working on the everyday tasks . We're really we do strategize and things like that , but we also have figureheads . So what does it look like to you to be an operator versus , you know , someone that's just working in the business ?
Speaker 2Yeah , absolutely . And you know . And your description of what you said you know . You know it's so funny because all of us pretty much get into entrepreneurship . For you know the reason that . You know , we want to be our own boss , we want to set our own schedule , we want our income not to be limited by you know what somebody else says . And then you know you check in with somebody two or three years after they start and and they're working 60 , 70 hours a week and can't get away all those things you know . So it's kind of funny how that works .
Speaker 2But you know , I think for me the realization , you know , the real difference between an operator and owner is how necessary you are for the business to not only run on a day-to-day basis but to grow . It is , I always say , if you can , you know , leave tomorrow . And you know , go to Tahiti for three weeks or whatever , and not take your phone and your computer . And you come back and your business is , one , is it still there ? And two , is it still growing ? Then you become a full business owner .
Speaker 2Of course it's a spectrum , like everything . You know you can't always 100% get there unless you're , you know , become sort of an investor , where you're completely out the hands off . But you know you go from being task oriented , doing you know , you know for lack of a better term low level things to doing what you're talking about now the strategy , the bigger picture , working on the business itself . You know what kind of clients do we have , what kind should we have . You know how do we serve them the best . You know what do we need to do and make a difference . You know those types of questions . So to me that's really the difference between the operator and the owner role .
Speaker 1Yeah , I 100% agree . And it's such a nice feeling too once you're there . You're like you can breathe , and the fact that you've hired a really because you can't get to that position without having a really good team behind you . And so once you realize , oh , I have an amazing team and I am relying on them and you gotta make sure you nurture them too . Right Is nurturing an important part about being the operator and handing your business over to your team .
Speaker 2Oh yeah , I really teach four main principles , and that's a big one . The building a team and it's one of those things that I struggled with for many years because I came from a military background and I went to West Point . I was an army officer for a while when I was younger , and so that environment is very top down , sort of you tell somebody what to do , they have to do it , whereas the real world , in business , people don't have to do what you say . They can go get a job somewhere else , and so it takes a different skill set and we have to learn to . If we really wanna have that autonomy and be able to walk away from our business and leave people that we trust and charge , then we've gotta create what I call a set of many owners , and it doesn't necessarily mean they have to have equity in the company . I mean they can . But primarily what I'm getting at is you wanna build a team so that people have a vested interest , that they almost feel like an owner of the company , and that way you don't have to worry about watching what they're doing on a daily basis . You don't have to be micromanaging over their shoulder . I remember this was probably 2010-ish or something like that . I mean , the technology is way outdated . But we even had basically a spy program that was installed on all the work computers to track what people were doing and everything . And I look back at that now I think , oh my gosh , but creating that team of people that you trust and that have that vested interest is just probably the most critical part of any business as far as how to grow .
Speaker 2You always talk about , from a business valuation standpoint , an outside investor that considering buying your company . What do they look for ? And a lot of times they're buying your customer list . It's like Facebook when they bought Instagram , it wasn't because they couldn't do the technologies , because they wanted the user base , but from a small business owner's perspective , I believe that your team is your absolute single most valuable asset that you have . So if we create that right team , create that culture of nurturing like you're talking about , let's say , you get basically sued out of business or you lose your biggest customer or any number of things . If you have the right team in place , those people are gonna stick with you and you can recover from that . And I will take that any day of the week over any customer , any situation because it really is businesses about people , life is about people . So , absolutely , I totally agree that that is one of the most critical things in making that transition .
Speaker 1Amazing . Yeah , so my partner actually started out as one of my very first hires and so she was actually just hired as an admin assistant and then going to like website and funnels , creating programs , operations manager , and at one point I was just like you've given me so much value and we worked so well together and we both had a passion . That's when the business became more than just me and I was like this is actually like a living , breathing thing that's giving other people passion , and then she eventually became business owner .
Speaker 1So that was kind of it was a very don't recommend it for everyone . It just really worked for us . Her personalities worked in . The fact that we're both moms was like very helpful . That's awesome . Thanks , yeah .
Speaker 1But I realized with her that nurturing and also giving them responsibility you don't think they're necessarily ready for . She used to yell at me because I would not really yell at me but she would make fun of me because I would throw her into the ocean is what I would say . I'm gonna throw you in , see if you can sink or you're gonna swim . And I would give her scenarios Like first time she ever had to upsell a client , I put her we were on a call together with the client and she had me their support to in case to try to upsell the client on something that they really needed . Like it was something that their business , like , was really absolutely needing .
Speaker 1We both were really passionate about that and we knew it would be easy sell . So I was like I texted her on Zoom . I was like , hey , you're gonna handle this , you're gonna bring up the offer . She was like you can just see her eyes widening while she was reading it . But she killed it . She got the upgrade , which was super cool , and then she felt comfortable doing like discovery calls and things like that . So I added even more skills to her list and I feel like that's although nurturing is giving them some about the benefits or the support they need , but I think it's also giving them challenges , cause when you're given a challenge , you get really interested and you want to accomplish it and then you feel really good after it Once you accomplish it . And I think it's just a really really cool way of nurturing your team and I love to do it , even though they don't always necessarily love it . Yeah , yeah , oh , yeah , you're absolutely right .
Speaker 2You know and I'll just make one comment on that Cause I think that you're so onto it there , Natalie you know , if you look at surveys of employees and again , I did this wrong for many years , which is why I can speak to it I used to think that , hey , we'll just pay above market , we'll give them lots of benefits and they should be happy . It's all about the money . But if you look at any kind of study about employees and people who work for companies , money is like third or fourth on the list
. Growth is probably the number one thing . And so what you're talking about , Alice , is kind of forcing people into growth , because human beings normally were status quo creatures . Let's face it , if we're not pushed sometimes we won't do it . And so what you did to help your partner grow by pushing her into those situations , actually that's what she really needed and wanted , and so that's why it's so powerful . So , whether you knew it or not at the time , that was brilliant , so yeah .
Speaker 1I've always tried different things . They don't always work out good , but I say that was definitely one of my favorite things . Now you said that's one of the things that you teach out of four . What were the other three ?
Speaker 2Well , I always yeah . The first one I always start with is you know and I hate the word you know . It's just pet peeve of mine . I hate the word mindset , but that's what people use . It's a mentality of becoming . You know who you have to become .
Speaker 2Because we have this idea that , well , you know , I want to grow this company into whatever , and we forget that the only way that company is going to grow and become the company that we're dreaming about is for us to first grow . We have to grow as business owners first in order to get that growth . You know , I always use the example of you know somebody famous like you . Look at Mark Zuckerberg . You know if I am . I forget an exact story , but you know when he started Facebook at Harvard or wherever he was , and you know . So imagine him starting that little company and then , if you took that kid at that age and you put him into running Facebook today , it would be bankrupt in three months because he's not , he did not become and grow into the person that can handle that kind of company and deal with it . So so we first have to focus on us as a business owner . We have to realize and learn the skills that an owner has , because we usually get into business because we're good at something and we want to serve people with that . You know particular skill , but the problem is that that's that's a skill , that's an employee type of skill . Business ownership is different . You know all the things you were talking about , the high level strategy and the working on the business . Those are skills that were generally not taught , so we have to learn how to become that person first . So that's long . That's what number one . Number two is we talked about building a team and how critical that is . And I'll say one thing on that too Some people , when they hear that they'll zone out and think , oh well , that doesn't apply to me because I'm a solopreneur or whatever , don't have any employees . But that counts just as the same if you have contractors that you work with on a regular basis . That culture that you're talking about , natalie , that is so critical , whether they're employees or contractors , it's how you do things as a business . So so you've got you know yourself working on you sort of you ink , if you will . You got the HR , the team building aspect of it .
Speaker 2And then the third thing is what I've found is that we need to really have our company . It needs to sales and marketing needs to permeate the whole company and a lot of companies siloed in the sense that you know if you have a marketing person , you have a few salespeople , you have one . Whatever doesn't matter . Those people are skilled in that area , understand marketing , they understand human psychology , things like that , and somebody who's doing an administrative task may not have that skill set . They don't understand the overall company , what they're trying to achieve . You know they may not have the personal skills that that a salesperson's learned personal psychology you know . And so what I did was I started teaching everyone from at our time , you know , receptionist to people who are in IT , those skills . You know basic stuff how to , how to sell somebody , how to deal with people , how to understand what's going on the sales and marketing process , and when everyone starts to understand that they get together and it just explodes the company because everybody's on the same page versus being siloed in their own little thing , and so I think that's a critical part of it . And then the final thing is what people usually think of when they think of making the transition from operator owner , and it's really kind of a lot of the stuff that you're very good at , natalie .
Speaker 2Obviously the systemization , if you will , of a business and you know , a lot of times people confuse systemization and automation to Automation is awesome . I love technology . I'm a geek , you know . I want to play with every new shiny object I can . But sometimes we you , we take automation and we forget that it's just a tool to help us implement systems .
Speaker 2So systems are basically processes of how we do things , how we can scale the business . So , if we have , can we repeat this at a higher level than just one person , one customer ? What are these standard operating procedures they would call in the military ? And then we use tools like automation and other tools to help us implement those things . So , so that's the final step . I would say . So it's really those four things Again , you know , you think , as the business owner , growing , growing that team . You know helping sales and marketing permeate your whole company . And then you know the last part , systemization . You know the company . So those are the things that I personally found in my transition that I think had been really helpful with a lot of business owners I've worked with . So so those are the big four , if you will .
Speaker 1That's amazing and , you know , I really feel like that is just . Those are kind of like the tiers to a really healthy business . I talk about SOPs a lot on my podcast , probably too much , probably every single call . I am a systems and processes girl and SOPs , your standard operating procedures , are super important . I even go as far as where I have I actually redid my tracker today for the podcast . I have a tracker with every single step that you take within a certain system .
Speaker 1So , for instance , you know my podcast right . So you have to , they have to . I have to have the interview , I have to write the person's name in the episode and then everyone else has tasks . So it's like editing the long form , editing graphics that were part of a template and I have it linked . I have a tutorial and I have the name of the person that's doing that task and then they have to check it off . And I love
it .
Speaker 1It's so easy and we're hiring three people today and the only reason I'm able to hire three people and onboard them all within just like an hour or two is because I have the trainings , I have the SOPs and I'm able to just kind of add their information into a couple of systems and they kind of do the rest . I'm not gonna have to take as much time training them one-on-one , and so when we do have meetings , they'll be more about nurturing them instead of teaching them , which I think is really , really important . Plus , everyone learns differently . So if you give like a video or like an SOP where it's written and very detailed , they can go back , they can take their time , they can review it in the future , whereas if you just have a call with them for an hour , it's not recorded or written down . They're gonna forget . Oh , yeah .
Speaker 1And then there's gonna be mistakes that happen . So I think it's really . I love SOPs . I'm so happy you mentioned that , because every business owner needs one . They need one every aspect of their business . I personally think so .
Speaker 2Yeah , no , and I'll reiterate your point , what you said there . Now I think it's so critical again from my past experience when it comes to onboarding employees , cause , again , people think about systems , they tend to think in the terms of sales and marketing , they don't tend to think in terms of internal operations , particularly they don't think in terms of people and training . And Wade again did this wrong for so many years where we have a lot of technical things that are in-house , proprietary , not really something that somebody learns , that another company pops in and already knows how to do it , so we would have to teach somebody and it would take three months , six months , a year before they were actually productive in making the company money by accomplishing things . And eventually we changed to what you're talking about now the creating tutorials , doing all the documentation , doing all that stuff . Our most recent employee she was up to a job that the same job for the previous employee took her almost a year to get it down . This person got it down at less than a month , like a few weeks .
Speaker 2And it's because of exactly what you're talking about . And what was interesting is I'm not a very good person when it comes to creating systems . I love systems , but that's not my gift . And there wasn't really anybody in our company that I felt was that anal and that good at creating those kind of things like training and all that to pass that knowledge . So we actually hired an outsider . We just some way we found an upwork and I didn't even know what to call it . I don't remember the search terms , to be honest with you , but it was like policy rider or something like that .
Speaker 2But Basically , we paid her as a contractor . She basically interviewed the person in the job . She had them screen record everything they did and ask them some questions , and she created all these SOPs , all these tutorials for us and they're awesome and , just like you said , now somebody can walk right into that position . So I think that's so awesome . You know what you did and you know the huge relief , like you said , to be able to onboard three people at once . I mean , my gosh , try to do that when you're teaching them one by one . You know I mean .
Speaker 1So that's just totally awesome . Yeah , I used to do that and it would just take way too long . And then I stopped hiring for a while because I was getting so exhausted and the point where I needed to hire a lot more people I stopped because I was scared on that it was going to take up all my time . And you get in this place and that's when I was working in my business I wasn't the operator at that point and so you're trying to do all the client work because you're trying not to hire . And sometimes you get in the point where you're like , oh , I need to save money right now , so I can't hire .
Speaker 1You're doing all these client tasks and then your business isn't growing . You're stuck in the cycle of you're doing client work and you're not growing . You might get one or two new clients , so it feels like you're growing , but you're really not . And then you , your home life gets neglected , your team starts failing . It's like don't get in that cycle . It's very , very easy to think if I hire some , especially payroll is your biggest expense . It's like if I hire someone , I'm going to lose money . It's not true . You actually have the opportunity to make more money and that's , I think the really cool thing about business .
Speaker 2Yeah , yeah , absolutely . Now that's why I think what you do is so cool . You know the stuff they put together , because you know , it's all I think . Like you said , we think , oh geez , you know , if I hire somebody I'm going to pay them X amount per hour , you know , or salary , whatever . But we don't realize that we , as the business owner , we have an hourly two , whether we know it or not or want to admit it , and so if we're doing it ourselves , then we're paying the company's paying us that hourly , and that might be 50 bucks an hour , when you can hire somebody for 30 bucks an hour to do the same task . So we're actually losing money trying to do it ourselves . So I , like I said , I know from past experience , but that's why , like I said , I think it's so awesome what you do .
Speaker 1Thank you , I think it's amazing what you're doing , because you're helping entrepreneurs with , I think , an area that we all tend to struggle with , that one prayer or another . So how can we find out more about you and your services ? Yeah , absolutely .
Speaker 2Of course you know I'm on most of the social media channels see , usually under the Robert pool , and a lot of YouTube videos and that's worth uncovering the subject . And you can go to our main website , total business resultscom . Reach out to us that way . Or I always you know on podcasts that I like that I talk to people . I always like to give out my personal email as well , so I'll do that .
You can reach out to me at Robert , at operator2ownernet , so it's operator to ownernet , and just you know , put in the subject line hey , I was , you know virtual antics , you know podcaster or something . So I know where you came from and I'll reply and we can set up a time to chat . You know and you know and we can kind of go through your business , see where you're at , you know , and see if I can help you with any ideas and if I can't , maybe I'll refer you to somebody else . And you know , if you want my further help , we can talk about that , certainly , but no pressure or anything . But I'd love to help anybody who's who struggle with that , just because you know I can relate and I know a lot of business owners can 100% .
Speaker 1Well , I'll make sure I put that in the show notes . Thank you so much , robert , for giving us so much knowledge and I really hope that we're going to start creating . You know everyone is going to sit down , put , implement this , put it into their business so they can actually have their dream business and not just be working 24 seven . So thanks again , Robert , and we'll talk to you guys next time on the virtual index podcast .