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 Nadora, 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.
Natalie GuzmanHey guys, welcome back to Virtual Antics Podcast. As always, I'm your host, natalie Guzman, and I'm so excited because today I have Richard Walsh on the call. He is the CEO of Sharpen and the Spear Coaching. Richard is a 30-year seasoned entrepreneur, best-selling author of Escape the Owner Prison, the Contractor's New Way to Scale, regain, control and Fast-Track Growth While Loving Life. Welcome, richard, how are you doing today?
Natalie GuzmanThanks, Natalie, I'm doing awesome. I appreciate you having me on.
Natalie GuzmanI'm so excited, especially your fellow podcaster as well. I didn't mention that in the intro, so I always love having fellow like podcasters and entrepreneurs on the call, because one it's usually means you're pretty extroverted like myself, and it's always makes for a great conversation.
Natalie GuzmanYeah, I think I'm extroverted on cue only.
Natalie GuzmanYeah.
Richard WalshYo u know, I have a switch, so, which is good, so I can go both ways.
Richard WalshAwesome. Well, I'm so excited. So can you tell us a little bit about what you do? You have a huge 30 years as an entrepreneur. That is absolutely amazing. I think I'm going on year 10. So that's super exciting. But tell me about what you do and kind of how you got there.
Richard WalshYeah, so it. So I was in the Marine Corps. I got out like 87. So, yeah, we're going back a bit, got out, started working because you have to make money. So I got a job and I'm working and I was literally swinging a pickaxe, digging trench all day, okay for five bucks an hour, and that was very exciting and I kind of didn't really see a future there. So I'm looking for things to do so I get side work right, like only thing I had was work ethic and muscle and like I can work hard. What can I do?
Richard WalshAnd this was in Arizona and someone needed me to. Hey, can you do this job for me? I got this granite I need to have in the backyard that's what they do instead of grass and all that. You spread granite so they'll dump it on the street. If you can just bring it all back and spread it, I'm like, yeah, I'll do that. So he told me how much it was and it was going to, in like 100 degrees, one wheelbarrow at a time, go around. I did it, knocked down a day but I made $1,000, Natalie, for the same thing I was doing, to make $5 an hour Kind of a light bulb, they said you know, I think I'll work for myself. They could do like two of these a month and still be making more money. So that was kind of the birth of entrepreneurship for me. Plus, after four years of taking direction from everybody, I kind of was not into taking direction from people anymore. So I'd like to tell people I'm the best employee you could ever want.
Richard WalshI s hoot early. I do everything without being told. I do above and beyond. I'll stay late, but at the 12-month mark I need to run your company because I'm just going to do it better. I need to run your company because I'm just going to do it better. Okay, so I become a very bad kind of move on. So so that grew into a. I created a water feature business a custom water feature business waterfalls, ponds, streams, things like that incorporated steel sculpture into that, ended up becoming an internationally recognized steel sculptor, did these world-class projects and I came on the one of the finest water feature builders in the country and doing stuff and it was awesome. That was great, right, I did that for almost 20 years and then 08, 09 came and there's kind of a financial collapse. Now I don't blame the collapse itself, but it crushed my business. Everything evaporated basically overnight, like it started with this one day and it was November 5th of 2008. I lost a half a million dollars and it just kept going off the cliff.
Richard WalshIt was over. So that was kind of a big deal. And so for me what happened was and I lost everything house. I had six small children, six kids under four, that's my marriage, right. So we lost the business, had to be shut down. I lost my house, we had to relocate, do all that stuff and that was a little traumatic, you know, on the whole family. But the big thing was I learned that.
Richard WalshOkay, let's figure out what I did wrong. First, like how could I not weather even, yeah, as bad as that collapse was, it's like I shouldn't have, I shouldn't have had to have closed, right, I shouldn't have had to have closed, right, I shouldn't have to shut down. So I really connected all the dots and there was a lot of them and I figured that out, put it all back together, started a new business, grew to scale. That Now a big thing. What I did was I didn't want to be owned by my business, right, I wanted it to serve me, not me serving it. So that was a big part of my drive. And I did that because I had six small kids. We're homeschooling them, I want to raise them, I want to do the whole thing. So, and we did it Took them all through high school. Now the last three are graduating, so it's really great.
Richard WalshBut that's kind of the the backstory.
Richard WalshTh at's a wesome, and so now you're coaching correct?
Richard WalshYeah, so I got so good at like fixing my business and helping other people ask me. I'm like asking coaching was birthed about 10 years ago, so now it's sharpen the spirit. Coaching yeah, it's awesome.
That's awesome. Yeah, I've noticed like I feel like businesses they kind of all have their time and place, but the entrepreneur you know, entrepreneurs, we're always thinking of ideas, right, so it's kind of really easy to come up with a new business idea or a new direction, but it's just making sure I love that you said that you took the time you evaluated what you did wrong to. You know, make sure that didn't happen again and that's one of the things I think sometimes entrepreneurs forget is like okay, figure out what you did wrong. So when you, if you do want to open a new business or you want to take your business in a new direction, figure out how you can avoid those mistakes. So that's super, super insightful. I love that. So what type of people do you coach? Is it like service-based, ?
Richard WalshI would say, if you want to put it in the niche, it's a service and trades industry. Yeah, construction guys, I have your plumbers, your HVACac guys, although those are like my super niche now. I work with manufacturers and real estate people and all that too, but who I'm really? I mean, I just kill it with that service and trades base because I know the industry so well and I know every single thing they run into. Because here's how it works natalie, everyone gets in business right, and we all know we have to work really hard when you start. I have not figured out a way not to do that. Okay, so you're going to work really hard. You can wear a lot of hats. You're going to first two years, but I will say the easiest thing to do is make money.
Richard WalshS o, you'll make money, you'll get going. It's everything else that's difficult. But all of a sudden, that first two years you're at the 10 year mark and then you realize I've just repeated the first two years five times. Okay, so that that's where they're trapped, that's escaped the owner prison. Right, they're trapped in the owner prison. So we come in and break that and fix that and bring the freedom and the profit and the impact back into their business. So that's what I had to do. Like I can't do that. You know, if I have to open the door every day, something's not right.
Natalie GuzmanYeah, do you notice that?
Natalie GuzmanI, that I, I I see a lot of times entrepreneurs you know I work with entrepreneurs and hundreds of industries, right, we actually have a lot in like the trade service and tree industry and electricians and things like that. And then we have coaches and um, even like, uh, veterinarians or like homeschooling moms are teaching other moms how to homeschool, which is super cool. So it's like all across the board, right. But the one thing that I noticed they struggle with is like delegation and like being the CEO. They're like trying to be the admin, assistant, the sales, the marketing and they're trying to keep it all to themselves. But I think a business is really more of like an organic thing, and I got lucky because my business was a virtual assistant agency, was my not my first business, but the you know, my first lasting business, which is super cool, and so I kind of got lucky with that because I learned really quickly how to delegate, how to make sure that I'm not doing everything. Do you notice that a lot of your clients are trying to do it all?
Richard WalshOh, absolutely, that's it's. It's the nine hats. So that a lot of your clients are trying to do it all. Oh, absolutely, that's, it's the nine hats.
Richard WalshDelegate the right people to do it and don't just delegate give them authority to perform that task right, Put them in charge, have them do that. And then elimination, of course redundancies, inefficiencies, and the most important thing to eliminate is you, okay. So you really need to eliminate you from all this day-to-day stuff so you can focus on what we call the 5%. 5% of the business is only you can do the vision, the growth, obtaining new market shares, perhaps buying other struggling businesses who didn't do it right, and you can go purchase this for pennies on the dollar. You come in, systemize it, automate, delegate, eliminate. Bam, now you've got a whole nother expansion in your business. I love that.
Natalie GuzmanYeah, and you know, I see I've been thinking a lot about that, like buying other businesses and things like that, and I've talked to a lot of my clients about it and I've noticed that, you know, it's kind of like a scary thought if you've never done it before.
Speaker 3Find a business, yes, yeah. So here's what I want you to do. I'll tell you exactly what you're going to do. You're going to practice, okay. So you're going to go find a business broker, whatever it is. You can find a business for sale and you're going to go check it out. And you're going to look at books. You can see their operation because you're going to learn a ton you don't have to buy. No one's going to make you buy it, but you're going to see Is it worth what they're asking? Is it worth 10 cents on the dollar? Is it worth it? Do they have automation? Because here's the goal If you're ever going to, if I'm going to sell my business, so it does for your entrepreneurs who actually want to grow their business, scale it and build it, and we're all probably going to sell at one point.
Speaker 3You know, or hand it down, but that never really works. You're going to probably sell it. Okay, don't think your kids want to do what you do, Except yours, who wants to be in the podcast. Yeah, but. But so what you want to do is you want to build it to sell. So what I want is I want someone to come in and say, hey, man, I love your business and they give me what I'm on, what I want. I want X amount, right, okay, they hand me a check, we shake hands, I go out the door, they come in but nobody else knows.
Speaker 3The business sold because it's run so well, it's not dependent on me, right? That's what someone's really looking for. If they're going to expand and buy a business, they don't want to come reinvent what you do, okay. So when you go to these other businesses, look at them for purchase, look for that. Is that what you're buying? Are you going to buy a done, finished runs itself? Or are you coming in hot mess, a couple of used trucks, a couple of this, a bunch of depreciating assets, and you're going to say, well, I give you 30,000.
Speaker 3Okay, and that's the reality for most businesses, because they haven't had any future thought, any exit strategy. You know designs and programs to go to. So that's what I would do Practice it, go tell what you're looking at, don't just go buy something because you're going to get burned.
Richard WalshYeah, yeah, I love that and I kind of think of it like an open house, right. We go and when we're trying to buy a house, we look at it, we evaluate it, we see, you know it's false, are there any crack in the walls? You know, especially if you live in a hurricane state like I, do all these little things that we look at to evaluate. I love the idea of, like, comparing that to looking at your business. Um, because yeah, that is such a good, you know thought that you just put in our heads. It was like, you know, if it's not running on its own, there's going to be so much more work, so much time that you have to put in probably money. You're going to have to maybe hire the right people or reinvent the systems. Um, does the business have sops? Was my first question. When you're saying that, if it doesn't have a standard, standard operating procedure, uh, it's like I feel like that would be the biggest red flag.
Speaker 3Yeah, it's just a hot mess you're buying. You're buying a mailing list that's some past customers, that's what you're going to get, and a bunch of broke down used equipment or whatever it is, and it's or maybe one the incredible office manager that's actually holding the whole business together walks out the day after you pay for it. Yeah, now, now you have nothing. Okay, all you have is a an empty office.
Speaker 3That's basically all you have. So it's a lot, a lot of stories like that out there. But you know, but but again, if you like, like when we coach our clients and now they know and we don't make them. There's a whole. We want to get into the whole process, but they know how to systemize right and they run their business that way. They can go and it's smart to go find those people who aren't doing that, because you are getting the list, you are getting a business and they've been there for 10 years. Right, you have a name, you have a presence and you can that and you can come in and make your. You can systemize that thing. I have a client doing it now. He picked up a business for a song. He's already doubled the profits, systemized the whole thing in six months. There'll be, you know, 100 percent profitable next year.
Speaker 3You know it's unbelievable because he knows how to do it. Yeah, that's going to become multiples, so it's. There's so much opportunity. But you've got to focus on your thing first. Get your thing dialed in. Running self-sufficient doesn't really need you working that 5%. Then start looking. Yeah, in the interim again, if you want to practice, go practice once a year like go try to buy a business, go look at stuff you know as you're building and perfecting yours, just kind of get in the groove of what this actually looks like. It's really helpful.
Richard WalshI love that. That's so cool. Yeah, I'm definitely going to keep that in mind. That is awesome. Now, what are some things that you see the entrepreneurs that are, you said, wearing the nine hats, right. So what are some things that you biggest mistakes maybe that you see them doing?
Speaker 3biggest, the biggest one, and again, my, my niche is kind of the service and trades tree is they won't put the hammer down, they won't put the drill down, they won't put the saw down, they won't put the tape measure down. They just like they're great at what they do and that's why they started the business, because they're doing it better than the guy they work for yeah okay, but they can't let go of that.
They have a death grip on it and they think that, well, no one's going to do it as good as I do. My customers expect my listen. I'm going to clue you in here. Okay, Most of the people can probably do it at 97% at least as good as you can, and I guarantee you your clients don't know the difference. You are putting yourself on a I'll call it an ego pedestal, Like, just put the ego in the box, put that away, let your guys work and then work on their competency. How about you train them to be as good as you are? Work on that. Do that so they can get out and get it done, because that's why they can't scale. They have to be there. They're running and picking up materials. They're going to do this. They don't. They truly don't understand delegation. They're afraid, and some of you have the money, but then they haven't planned their business correctly.
Speaker 3Natalie, If they're planning, they go. Ok, when I reach this point, I got to put on this person. Now, when I reach this point, I'm going to need these two people. I'm going to need this right. So if they know the steps, they can kind of take a breath. Yeah, you're going to do a lot of the work in the beginning, but then you have to have that exit. Okay, who's taking my place now? Because you are a really high paid carpenter, You're doing the work because I'll do this a lot in seminars I do. I ask all the owners, well, what's your hourly worth? What are you worth as an owner? And you'll hear $100 an hour, $150 an hour. I'm like you got to be kidding.
Natalie GuzmanThat's all you're worth?
Speaker 3I mean really like if you had to replace you for all the things that you do right now, would you, if someone came to you with all that to do and you're just this person, would you accept it for only $150 an hour? They're like I guess well, I don't know You're worth like $1,500 an hour. Yeah, but why are you cleaning the toilets? Yeah, okay, who would you pay? Like, understand all. We all devalue ourselves.
Speaker 3None of us you, me, everyone does not have the right value assessment for ourselves. You have to get that from someone else, but you have to understand like this is why you delegate, this is why you automate, because I mean you are, you are the driver, you're the visionary, you're what, you're what keeps all this together, but at the same time, you can't be doing everything every day. So that's the biggest thing I run into.
Richard WalshAnd I'm going to call up my ladies on this, because that's the biggest thing that we like to do is we as moms, wives, business owners, we take everything on ourselves and we really don't have to. So that's just something I would keep in mind in your day-to-day practices just making sure that you're doing the things that are worth the $1,500 an hour and not the stuff that you know and someone else on your team can do. And I know it's really scary, like um, I actually went with um a house cleaner. I went, I traveled to her, I went from Florida to Texas to she was having so much trouble writing um, standard operating procedures and training herself and she was just having so much issues basically cloning herself, right. And I think what I saw the biggest, her biggest mistake was she was expecting someone to do it exactly how she did to the very T, even, like you know, not putting certain toys away until the very end and leaving them right outside, like things that were just so minuscule in the big picture, but she wanted someone to do it exactly like that and so she was not able to hire anyone and replace her Um and because she kind of held onto that so tightly, so I would say you know.
You know it doesn't always have to be a hundred percent exactly how you do it or a hundred percent perfect. Sometimes it's. You know, is it getting the job done? Is it really? Does it really worth that much for you to keep on doing? I don't think it is, especially if you're being an entrepreneur. You didn't get into this job for it to be a job. You got it to have that freedom for whether it was time or control or whatever it was. So that's awesome. I loved having you on the call today. Richard, can you tell us where we can find you and more about your services?
Speaker 3You get simple sharpen the spirit coachingcom. So simple, great website. Go on there. You can shoot me a message. My escape the owner prison book you can get on Amazon, especially if you're in the service and trades. That book will just it'll be a lot of light bulbs going off for you Give you great direction on how to really get out of that prison. We love coaching people. Sharpenthespiritcoachingcom. Go to that. Send me a message. Book a call. Take a look at the information. Love to talk to you.
Richard WalshAwesome, and we'll talk to you guys next time on the Virtual Index Podcast.