The Truth About What’s Breaking Your Business

Smooth sailing is a myth—real business is built in headwinds.

In this episode, we get practical about what actually breaks companies (and how we fix it). We start where most founders stumble: the “unknown unknowns.” Frozen cash, stalled deals, and messy hiring aren’t flukes—they’re normal. So we pull apart the moments where plans fail, decisions stall, and people problems masquerade as process problems.

We talk action over theory. Books and YouTube help, but nothing replaces getting in the arena. That’s why we use the 40/70 rule: less than 40% info is guessing; waiting for 100% is paralysis. At 70%, we move—then let feedback sharpen us.

From there, we build what actually scales: playbooks, clear ownership, and simple guardrails. Not corporate fluff—step-by-step systems anyone can run at 10 p.m. on a Friday. We get into culture that’s both human and high-standard, accountability without ego, and the “vacation test”: can the business run the same (or better) with us gone for three months?

This is straight talk for owners who want freedom, not just a fuller to-do list.

📌 Key Topics:
 ✅ The myth of smooth sailing—and why chaos is normal
 ✅ “Unknown unknowns” and making decisions with imperfect info (40/70 rule)
 ✅ Action > theory: learning by doing without burning the house down
 ✅ Building playbooks: turning emergencies into repeatable steps
 ✅ People vs. process: how to diagnose the real issue fast
 ✅ Ownership of results (not tasks) and tiered decision authority
 ✅ Culture with a spine: standards, empathy, and clear expectations
 ✅ The vacation test: designing a business that runs without us

If you want more freedom, start here: document one messy task today, hand it off tomorrow, then measure what breaks—and fix that next.

Chapters: 

00:00 The Illusion of Smooth Sailing in Business

05:01 Navigating Unknown Unknowns

09:49 The Importance of Action and Experience

15:03 Building Systems and Processes

19:59 Managing People and Expectations

25:04 Creating a Culture of Accountability

29:56 The Role of Systems in Business Success

Transcript

Ryan Miller (00:54)

So Tanner, you get in business and everything's easy from there. Smooth sailing, paychecks come in, no cashflow problems. No one's getting hurt. No one's getting stabbed. Nothing. ⁓ Smooth sailings. That's what people think at least. Everything's perfect. Nothing ever goes wrong. The truth is, world like, worldly difference. Like you go on Instagram, X, Twitter, whatever, know, Facebook. All you hear is the highlights.

You used before we started recording this, said your last two weeks have been nothing close to that. Well, what are some of the true stories of business? Yeah. So, I mean, we've talked a lot about the known knowns and the known unknowns. And I feel like when you get into a venture, it's the unknown unknowns that that burn you. And what I mean by that is the known knowns is like if we're underwriting a property, I can see how much.

rental income it's been bringing in or a business. know how much gross revenue is being reported. We can check and balance that with their tax returns to make sure those numbers match and you know there's no discrepancies. The known unknowns is you know I don't know what the utility bills are going to be next year. I can estimate for it but I at least know what to expect in a general range. The unknown unknowns is the problems that come up that I was not expecting.

like with this trucking company where the last couple of weeks have been a challenge because I'm trying to scale my business and buy more equipment. so I think it's as easy as get the money, find the truck, give the money to the seller, pick up the truck, get it registered, get it on the road like that. To me, it makes sense. What I didn't realize is that if I process that, that money through QuickBooks, which in my mind made sense, cause that's my bookkeeping software. want to have good

you know, good books, but QuickBooks flagged the large investment as a suspicious activity because it was outside of a range of my normal transacting volume. And it's a new business. And it's a new business, right? So because it's used to me seeing me fluctuate between a certain amount. And when I have one huge spike, it froze my account. So I had no more income coming in and

So even though we're getting work done and stuff, still gotta pay my guys, I still gotta pay for fuel, I still gotta pay for insurance, I still gotta make my loan payments, I still gotta pay for all those things, but the income's not getting processed to my account. And I call, I call, I call, I call, I call them 15 times in the last two weeks. This happened on September 23rd, today is what, October 5th? 7th. 7th, okay, I don't even know. And I've called them every single day asking for updates on

Like, do you need more information? you need more? Like what, what can I do? And every time I get the, it'll take 24 to 48 business hours to, to, process this and 48 hours comes, they say, we need more information. I give them six months bank statements. give them contracts showing this is a legitimate transaction and all this stuff. And what is the use of the funds and all this? Like I give them everything. And then 48 hours again, but it's business hours. So this happened on a Friday. I gave them all the information. Now it's Tuesday.

just finally found out they're releasing the funds and they said the funds will be available in 24 to 48 business hours. So those are the unknown unknowns that it's creating a significant cog in operating my business where now I'm having to float the costs of fuel, keeping my guys moving, but I can't have them going too far because then I got to cover too much fuel expense and I don't have operating cash. So luckily I had enough buffer where I've been good with my reserves that I can float that for a time. But

If this was to happen for a month or two months, like I'd be screwed. I'd be underwater and I wouldn't be able to pay my guys. I don't expect them to stay, you know, working if they're not getting paid. So it's just part of the growing pains of you just, you don't know what to expect. And we've had it so many times and rental properties where people, they get stuck in the analysis paralysis and not wanting to buy a first deal. But like, I mean, you can speak to this too. How many lessons did you learn just by doing it?

that on the next purchase makes it that much easier because you already know what to expect. You know, on my first purchase, everything under the sun went wrong, but I learned how to deal with floods. I learned how to deal with insurance. I learned what not to say to insurance, you know, to get them to deny your claim, like mold remediation, everything. You name it, I've gone through it on properties. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing is.

People try to sit here and read a book. try to listen to a podcast. They've whatever, go on YouTube and watch something. But no one's ever learned to ride a bike reading a book. No one's ever learned to drive a car watching a YouTube video. No one's ever learned to fly a plane by TikTok. yes. ⁓

Can it teach you some things? Absolutely. But it has no replacement for doing the task. And I think in society right now, we think those are the easy buttons. Those are, oh, I just watch a YouTube video. Yes, if I'm repairing my dryer, the belt fell off my dryer, YouTube is a great resource to tell me, remove this screw, do this. the thing is,

I can't just watch it and it fixes itself. I have to the actions. And so nothing replaces the action and being in the arena, like the whole, what you want to call it? Men in the arena, Tom Brady documentary, know, men in arena thing, like blew up all that, but nothing replace being in the arena and doing the work. So.

We talk a lot about like Cody Sanchez and her whole philosophy on speed and getting things done quickly. But I don't, think that too much talk about just do it, just do the thing. It's almost introducing people to make decisions before they're ready. And like when you bought this plumbing company, were you a hundred percent certain that nothing was going to go wrong? Of course not. No, you did enough due diligence to know and

I think that one thing that we've learned in the MDMP process, do you remember going through all that? The ⁓ military decision making process. So we did a lot of MDMP work for in the army side. It might have a different name in the air force, but one of the most memorable parts is the 70 % certainty is if you are 70 % certain that you, that a plan will work out, then that's enough to at least start.

making. So that's actually misquoted. And I was actually going to say that before you kept going. So it's actually, I think it's Colin Powell that initially it was using military concept. But he said, if anything less than 40%, you're just guessing anything more than 70%, you've waited too long. So it's actually called the 70 40 rule.

And so that's the sweet spot. 40 % of information, you can start making the decision. 70 % you waited too long. So, I mean, it's at a high level. Yeah. And I think that that's a good rule of thumb for rental properties, for business buying, for taking on a new job, like whatever, whatever it may be is if you're in that sweet spot, that's the take action sweet spot. And I think people get burned because they try and take action when they're sub 40%.

confident and the analysis paralysis is between 70 and 100. Yeah. And just to be clear, I'm not saying at 40 % you go buy a house or buy a business or something like that. But at 40 % I have enough. I've done initial underwriting of the deal. I could put an offer out. Okay. Where's that offer go? Okay. Now I can have the, have it inspected.

And you can slowly work your way up to that because you will never be at 100%. You know, but you have your pro forma, you have all that stuff. Yeah. But you might be able to get to 90 % of the time you close. And the majority of that due diligence happens on the front end. Like the same as with hiring employees. Like I just hired on two new drivers and from, you know, I do my initial screening, I do the interview. I did it all through indeed. Like I found people complete strangers, not referrals and

Like typically our hiring in the past, it's always been a referral base. Like this is the first time that I've really gone outside our network to find top talent. I did all my screening. did background checks. I checked their driving records. I have to do all that stuff for the trucking industry anyways, but did as much of that. I interviewed them. I also brought them into an interview with my wife and our 13 year old son who helps me with the dispatching just so he could talk to them, ask them questions and, and

One of the most important things is I'm judging their answers when they're, he's like, I do a lot of the dispatching. Like, are you going to be okay with me communicating loads? And they were like, yeah, by all means. And their family people, if they would have been like, yeah, whatever, you know, then I probably wouldn't hire them because that's not how our business is structured right now. So I did all that initial screening. They, had references, they have experienced everything checked out. And then.

This morning I get a notification because I have AI cameras in all my trucks and it notifies me if they're smoking in the truck. And I made it very clear. They have a contract signed with me, an employer contract. It says you will not smoke in the truck. And I got a screenshot and I sent it to them and I said, please not smoke in the truck again. So things still go wrong even when you do all the processes right. And of course it adds a little bit of panic because I mean if I got to fire these guys because they're smoking in a truck but they're making a lot of money, it's like

Do I roll over and just let them smoke in the truck because they're making me a lot of money or do I hold firm on my values? And I choose to hold firm on my values because if they're gonna go against what I want them to do here, what are they gonna cut corners on later that's gonna leave me burned? So what are some other of the issues that you've run into in the last couple of weeks or? Well, a lot.

that I can't talk about yet, but once that's all closed out, then I will definitely bring up, but a lot of legal problems. ⁓ I mean, in every industry, there's nuance difficulties, but I mean, some of the experience I've got from rental properties is helping give me a little bit of an advantage in the trucking industry.

and my experience in the military and the types of organization and like I was a mechanic. Being a mechanic doesn't have much to do with real estate, doesn't have much to do with trucking. guess it does a little bit more, but the systemizing, I can copy and paste into different areas of what I'm doing that helped me be more organized in those areas, but it doesn't protect you from every blind spot. Like there are still things that like in, ⁓

rental properties where we have tenants that say, I'm going to be a little late on rent and you know, I'll get it in next week. And we go, okay, great. Don't think about it again. Keep, you know, chugging along. And then you realize they're a month behind. You're like, I thought you said last week. So we have to fix our note taking and make sure that we're updating and we're checking back on those units and issuing notices is like, okay, well you're still going to get served with a notice that says you are late on rent. I understand you said you're going to pay it. So make sure you do that.

So we fix our systems to make sure they don't happen again. And I really liked the book, The Goal. I think we talked about it before, the ones about systems, because what they're doing is identifying bottlenecks. And every time that you address a bottleneck, which is essentially just a blockage in the flow of process, you open that up, it creates another bottleneck somewhere else. And so it's like you become whack-a-mole.

just keep trying to knock out these things until they get better. Yeah. And so that's been my number one thing lately since taking over the plumbing company is systems and processes. Like I'm not there every day. not, I'm have a team, hiring team, managing the team and systems and processes is what's going to keep it running. Like I can't be there every day. I can't do everything.

Company would never grow if I had to. And so making sure we get systems processes and by getting system and processes, then you can identify the bottlenecks. If you don't have any systems and processes, you're just guessing. Like you have to get some kind of initial system. We'll use this podcast as an example. How do we get guests? How do we schedule guests? How do we record?

How do we do the post-recording production of it? And it's the same thing in business. You break it down to those larger parts and then you systematize it and you just run it through the conveyor belt. And now you're like, okay, the production, like putting the video together. Okay, ⁓ what is the bottleneck for this? Okay, it's me because I need to do X.

Okay, how do we do that? How do we put system processes in so that this gets taken care of next time? Then it's going to, by nature, it's going to create another bottleneck. And then how do you remove that bottleneck? And so that's all, all a business is, is coming up with systems, identifying bottlenecks and moving them forward. And so we hired a business coach this year, just with us doing acquisition and merger and all of our existing business and all that stuff.

Like we figured it was important for us to invest into more, you know, real stuff. We've invested in education and all that stuff, which I think is great. But like, like we talked about before, it only gets you so far. It doesn't get you quite to the 40 % of just knowledge. And so we needed someone that helps us with the implementation. And, ⁓ one of the things that I really like is he talks about them as playbooks is every

every aspect of your business needs to have a playbook and you know, if this, then that and create it as stupid, simple as you can so that you can hand that off to an employee. And when this thing happens, they don't panic. They just open the playbook first, do this, then do that. And he was, ⁓ I don't know what the term is, but he was like a regional manager for target for many years. And he said, their systems are so dialed in that

There's nothing that can go wrong in that business that they aren't prepared for. They've seen it all. We've talked about this guy on the podcast before, Logan Rankin. But that's where he learned. So he worked for Target. And that's apparently was his job or something to do with his job. I've never talked to that guy, but that's where he learned. He systematized the hell out of his whole...

Well, why do you think the Kouris are doing so well right now? You've seen how much they've been growing to go from they owned like 300 units to now they're managing like I think 3000 units in two years. They've grown because I don't remember if was Andy or Alex is a systems engineer. That is what he does is he builds systems. And I can't remember who said the quote, but ⁓ your business doesn't rise to the level of your goals. It falls to the level of your systems. Yeah.

Yeah, kind of last week.

lost my mind a little bit for this and my, ⁓ assistance will, as they're editing, this can probably attest to it, but like, aren't systematizing things properly. Like we're, I guess I do play books as well, or trying to get there. I do a little bit different. So you have a hundred tasks or a hundred jobs that need to be done.

everybody needs to own one of those tasks. Like you might own 10 tasks, but those are your 10 tasks. And then you create the playbook or that's your playbook. So in theory, if leasing a rental property is your job, but then I'm taking it on, I can just take that portion of the playbook and move it over to one tweet that we've made. And this comes from Logan ranking. Cause I watch a lot of his content. I really love the way that he does business.

He preaches each employee should own a result, not a task. There are different tasks that are around that result and you can delegate tasks, but you cannot delegate a result. So every employee has ownership of a certain responsibility. if like the way that we're restructuring everything, we're traditionally... I packed that somewhere. guess I'm not understanding. So what you said agrees with it. Just the terminology I believe I'm using is differently. So you said that if...

If I'm in charge of leasing, my result, the result is we call it lead to lease. So from when they become, or when they start as a prospect, showing the units, getting them through the application process, I own that entire result. Now I can delegate showings. can, I can, there might be other employees that I might say, Hey, can you go meet this person for showing or can you own it? But it doesn't mean you have to do all the work. Exactly. So I own the leasing process.

but it doesn't mean that I'm doing every single task that's involved in it. But what it does is because I own that result, when something goes wrong, and this comes from extreme ownership, is if I delegate out to one of our employees to go do a showing and he doesn't show up or he shows up half an hour late or whatever like that, then that's on me because I didn't make sure that he got there on time, which means that we don't get enough applicants through the door to get our, a good tenant place. Yeah. And this goes back to the bottleneck thing.

So ⁓ Dan Mortel says you have, you either have a pupil issue or you have a process issue. You can't have both. It's either it's not documented and you need to get documented or you have a document and the people aren't following it. And there's a good litmus test to decide if it's a people problem or a process problem. Well, yeah. Where did it break down at? Or if you remove the person. So you might, let's say that you're, ⁓

your plumber manager is a freaking rock star. Never have problems. They problem solve everything like that. Take them out of the equation. You give them a two week vacation. Is everything going to continue to run as smooth as if they were there? then that's where you're testing that no, you just have a really good employee that is a good problem solver and can handle all these things. But if you remove them from the equation, if you can't continue operating, then it's a process problem. And if your process is squared away and you have someone

that is struggling or they're not getting reports on the time or they refuse to take responsibility, that's a people problem. And we've, we've had both in business and when it's a people problem, if it's a good employee and the way that I always say it, if they share our values and they share our goals, then there's a spot for them somewhere in our company. And it might, I've done it myself. When, when we took over this property management company, I came in and started helping out with, we call

the field ops, is overseas maintenance and unit turns and all that stuff. I took over that role. That was not a good seat for me. And my wife being, you know, head of operations now was very quick to say, Hey, can you go help over here instead? Because I was not the right person for that seat. So she found someone who was a good person for that seat. The same is true about people problems in business is if they're not performing in the role that you have them in, you might just have them in the wrong role.

And someone who's extremely analytical and good with numbers, but is socially awkward does not need to be doing your first touch stuff. They don't need to be fielding leads because that's not their strong suit. Have them doing back office numbers. So I just think that's a good test because I can think of many people in businesses that if you were just remove them from the equation, the whole thing would crumble. And we still have many, many people like that.

they are the glue that holds everything together. And if you remove them, like that's a process problem. Yeah. I mean, it's, I mean, that's one of the arguments for everybody having a mandatory two week vacation every week, or at least a week vacation, you know, remove them, have somebody else run everything. I think the hardest part is getting the systems and processes the first time, the initial time, because

No one wants to create them. mean, this should be real. so, so talk about that. How do you create your playbook? How do you know when a playbook needs to be created? Well, if you're doing a task, I think there should be a playbook. I mean, obviously managing people that's a little bit different. Yeah, I don't think it is. I don't think anything in your business should go without a playbook and, and to break it down as stupid, simple as possible. Have you seen the videos online of, um, there there's,

Like elementary school kids have the task of ⁓ write down an instruction manual of how to make a peanut butter jelly sandwich. And they'll say, you take the bread, you put jelly on it, then you put peanut butter on the other one, and then you put it together. And so then the teacher or the parent or whatever will go take a loaf of bread, they'll put the jar of jelly on it, and then they'll put the peanut butter jar on top of the jelly, and then...

they'll put another loaf of bread on top. Like, so did I do it? And if you think about as ridiculous as that sounds, everything that we do in business can be broken down that simple. Is if someone who has an IQ of one is trying to do this process, can they just follow the steps and do it right? And if they're leasing a unit, do they know, go here, make sure that the bedrooms and bath match the records, make sure that we have 15 pictures of every unit.

The first picture should be of the kitchen. Make sure that there's no pictures with toilets in them. know, because it's, for whatever reason, people want to see the bathroom, but they don't want to see the toilet. It's discouraging to see a toilet in a picture. So make sure the lighting's on it. Make sure our watermark's on every single one of them. And then make sure it's posted and syndicated out to X platforms. And then daily check in on leads.

when a lead comes in, contact them with an X amount of time. Like have it broken out so stupid, simple that, I mean, for lack of a better term, an idiot could do it. I guess my point is the emotional side of it that I don't think should be or needs to be documented. How do you deal with...

You have two different people, okay? You have person A and person B, both of their dogs died and you have to deal with it. They're different personalities, they're different emotional levels. And so having a clear cut procedure when it comes to something like that, like you just become robotic and stale and people see through it. So I guess that's what I'm saying. Yeah, but I still think that you can create a system around it.

I still think that it could be our company policy. And this is how it was when I was in the army. It's like every time a problem would come up that you didn't think of, the unknown unknowns, you should create a policy around it. And where does the policy come from? Commanders and 10. And if the commander's intent is we value, which goes back to our last conversation about values, we value home time. And so our company policy is if you lose a pet, you can take one day of PTO. And that's our policy. We're going to offer that to you.

I'm talking about more dealing with, and I just made up something, you know, crazy or whatever, but.

How do you deal with the emotional side of things? guess is like the people person, the people aspect, keeping people happy at work, guess. That's the part that I think is the hardest. I think as the CEO of your business or as the chairman of the board, whatever you want to call it, your job is to create a culture in the workplace, but it's a culture of work. And Evy Pampouris, have you ever heard of her?

She is a, I think she was FBI and now she's a public speaker and motivational speaker and stuff. She had one the other day that my wife sent me and ⁓ the video was about bringing your genuine self to work. And she's like, I don't want to know your genuine self. I want to know your working self. You're here to work and you can have feelings. Like we can talk after work, but when it's time to work, you know, that's what we're here to do. And

I fully believe that is like, yeah, I get that things go on. So we have a policy around it is like, if you have the person who's answering the phones, it's having a bad day and you can tell that they're not performing, then the policy is that we send them home for the day. You know, that that's now a policy. So I think that one that is also managing the culture in the office. You know, if you have someone that's just becoming a cog in the wheel, that's your job to step in, take over the phones for the day to send them home so they can get a breather. Like you just created a policy right there.

So I don't think that there's any room in business. And I agree with what you said about not becoming robotic. We don't want to look like these are just expected to be robots that just carry out. We're only looking at the numbers they're producing. Like I get that when you're dealing with people, but we need to have policies around everything. Yeah, I mean, I guess.

I would say guardrails more than definitive policies would be my... But in the army, all the rules are made to be broken. There's a waiver for everything. I mean, so all these policies we got written waivers for. So it's like, yes, those are guardrails. This is how we operate. And when this happens, this is how we act. But there's sometimes that we got to pivot and take a different route.

And so what's the approval process to take that different route? Well, it's commander exception to policy. So I think I just think in more absolutes about it where the emotion, emotional side is more of the subjective because there's different problems that come up every day. But I think that it all can be solved. And I think that that's.

I mean, we've talked before the two biggest problems in business is communication and managing expectations. And I think that having clear policies in an employer book that says, this is how we respond to these things when they happen. You're just managing the expectations. This is what I expect of you. If you're having a bad day, I need you to let me know and I will let you go home for the day. You still keep your job, but I need you at your absolute best because being the front facing person, I can't have you answering the phone going what?

that just ruins my business. So my policy is if you're having a bad day, I don't want you on the phones. And that is a guardrail. Now, in the example of if your dog died, I give you the option to take PTO. Like normally PTO, need a two week notice before you take any PTO, but your dog died one day notice, you know, or same day, whatever it is. That's my exception to the two week PTO policy. So I think that there is,

a way to systemize it without losing your humanity. And I think that's more of what you're talking about is you don't want to lose your humanity in order to preserve the culture in the workplace. Yeah, I guess because when I when I look at

task related systems and processes. think of clear cut like step by step. Yep. It's just in that and the people aspect isn't the same. Yeah. And like we said, it's either a people problem or it's a process problem. And if, we're building a house from scratch and it starts raining, are we going to tell our guys to continue pouring that foundation?

Well, no, we're gonna tell them to wait till it's not raining. And if the framer says, I don't really feel like framing today. Okay, well, my process is you're out, the next guy in. I'm hiring another contractor, whatever it is, because we're here to do a job. And if you look at it on that big of a scale, it's like, I'm paying you to frame the walls. You don't wanna frame the walls like.

I don't care how you feel about it, that's what I'm paying you for. And I think the same is true in the workplace. When you take emotions out of it, you're here to do a task. Yeah. What other issues, not necessarily with you or whatever, talking to people you see come up?

⁓ the more people is a more process is a more, I think most of the problems are people problems. I think when we, had a call with our coach, our business coach today and he talked about, ⁓ when employees start out good and then they start to, ⁓ do little small wrongdoings and stuff like that. He's like, sometimes it's as simple as they saw an indeed ad for another job that was

similar to what they're doing, but it's paying more. And so they justify it to themselves to start cutting corners or to start skimming or whatever it may be. And he's like that there's no process that you can put to stop that from happening. Like we can do as much as we want to control the culture and promote positivity in the workplace and all that stuff, but it's not going to stop those things from happening, which is where it comes to a people problem. So I think that a lot of the problems is

People go into the workforce with a grass is greener mentality. They're always looking for the next best opportunity, which isn't always better than what they've got. I fully believe in overpaying for top talent, but what comes with that is high expectations. I'm gonna overpay, like if right now we're hiring for new maintenance guys, because we need to scale up our maintenance side of the business. So we posted an ad and if a base level,

maintenance guy is making $18 to $22 an hour, we're paying $22 to $25 an hour for the same level talent because we are going to have higher expectations for them. And if the next tier, someone who has ⁓ MEP experience or ⁓ mechanical electrical plumbing, HVAC, some kind of base knowledge of for anything that doesn't need to be permitted, of course, then they might typically be in $22 to $25. I want to pay them $28 to $32 an hour because that's the level of expectation that we're going to have for people.

I would rather operate with a smaller, high efficient team that is capable of handling a lot more than having the cheapest labor possible and having more employees. And I get the benefit of that if we have three $18 an hour employees versus two $25 an hour employees. I know that math doesn't quite make sense, but I would rather have the higher paid employees because you're going to make more money here with us than you'll make anywhere else. And what I ask for return is peak performance.

So same on the trucking side is holding a steering wheel is not hard, but where overpaying for good talent comes in the safety and maintaining the vehicle, letting me know, smoking in the truck. ⁓ letting me know when there's problems, like having some kind of base mechanical knowledge where if, you know, a part needs to be changed, I don't have to hire it out to a shop. I would rather overpay my guys that are capable of handling those things than have to pay a thousand dollar bill to a shop.

So that's kind of, that's my philosophy on it. Maybe that'll change over time. I don't know, but it's like, I have processes set up for the trucks. Like every day before my driver starts driving, and this is ⁓ not a law, it's a rule with the FMCSA, you have to do a pre-trip inspection of your equipment. So check the oil, check the fluids, check every hose clamp, check every belt, every tire, tread depth, brakes. Like you go through the whole truck. ⁓

The app that I use, which is connected to my dash camera, which is also another process to help us for insurance claims if there's ever an issue, but all of that is controlled by an app. So it takes a lot of the thinking out of it. Before, like back in the 80s, pre-trip inspection was like on the top of their head or like ⁓ write it down in your notebook. But with this, I have an app where they just go one by one. It takes all the thinking out of it. There's no missteps.

Oil. Yep, it's good. You know, tires. If I have a tire issue, they say issue and then it requires them to post a picture and type a description of what the issue is so that I know now in the back office, I need to go order a tire. So and I'm saying tire because that's what came through today. So I have a tire that's getting low. So I know that I've got I've got them going around right now. They're actually doing a pickup up in Sioux Falls and I have them coming down to stop in Omaha to drop off the spare tire so I can get them swapped out.

So it's just, that's a process for every single step that takes the thinking out of it. And if there's any way to generalize, what we've talked about for the last 45 minutes, is try to take the thinking out of all the steps. Like we said about removing that rockstar employee and seeing how the system operates, a lot of times that's the owner of the business.

And people that start off as a small business, they're so used to being the doer of everything that they don't really have a business. They just have skills. And if you take yourself out of it and see how it operates without you, that's when you have a true business. Yeah. When I took over, I actually before Jason and I had that conversation, I was like, I'm not scared to rip the bandaid off. Like it might hurt a little bit, but we're gonna find out what the bleeding is coming from and be able to go from there. So, yeah.

I mean, you did most of the talking, I mean, per usual. Anything you want to add before closing out? No, I think that it's something that should be evaluated in every business. Even as a W2 employee, you should be evaluating the processes. How simple can you break it down? Yeah, because I mean, if you want to scale or get out of business, remove yourself as the owner from the business to be able to pursue other endeavors.

you have to make sure all the issues are taken care of and systems and processes. And that's the litmus test is if I can go on a three month vacation, come back and my business is doing the same or better performance than it was when I was there. That's when you have a true business. That's where you'll find success. Because as, and right now in a lot of our businesses, we are very involved in the business, which means I have less time to work on the business and make those tweaks and adjustments. So by

creating these systems around every role and we hire for the role, like making sure that that person has the right skill sets. do not Myers-Briggs, one of those tests for all of the positions to make sure that it's the right seat for them because there's nothing worse than putting a good person that's a hardworking, loyal, integral employee into a seat that is not conducive with their skill sets. So, and on the whole target conversations, like he talked about

something as simple as a toilet going down on a Friday night. Like what is the process? Do they call a plumber to come out there and pay extra hours for them to swap out a toilet at 11 o'clock on a Friday? Or do they seal it, it as inoperable, and then call the plumber on Monday during normal business hours? Well, that's a significant difference as a plumbing guy. What's the difference in your pay from Monday at

10 o'clock in the morning versus Friday at 11 o'clock at night. Yeah. You're talking double. Yeah, triple. Exactly. So that simple decision, like it takes all the problem solving or all the decision making out of it is target says this is our process. And the CEO of Target doesn't need a phone call to say, Hey, what should we do for this store in Omaha, Nebraska? They already have a playbook that says, if this happens, do these things and then handle it. And that's a

whatever, 30 % of the cost of if someone was just like, oh, I'm going to call a plumber. I know exactly what to do. And that's not conducive with commander's intent. yeah, think the moral of story is there's always going to be problems. can only systematize and move so much stuff, but as the owner or the CEO, CEO, manager, whatever decision-making person like.

That's what you get paid for. But I think of it. think of the systems as a filter of sorts is

As the business owner, I don't need a phone call or a text message with every single problem that saying when something falls outside the norm or whenever a decision needs to be made, like I just did this this morning, issue, like what is the issue? What do you recommend? Or what are our options and what do you recommend? And what I'm saying about the filters is if...

You can have the lowest level employee handle the big, the, the, I say big rocks, you know, then the no, don't need a phone call for every single problem that happens. Like I want to be made aware of it, but that's why I like hierarchical level of management so that like with extreme ownership, no one person is overseeing more than three or four employees. And then that person along with.

two or three other people or three or four other people, two or three other people is being overseen by one person. And every layer has different levels of empowerment in the restaurant industry. was like the wait staff could comp up to $10 without needing manager approval, the hourly key, who is an hourly employee. So the key could comp things up to $50.

And then anything more than $50, it needed to be handled by the service manager. And if there was more than a thousand dollar problem, needed to go to the general manager. And if there was more than a $10,000 problem, it goes to corporate. So if corporate was getting a call over a $10 check saying, hey, can I comp this $10 check? They would get so many calls every single day. Think about this scaled over larger business. But if you can filter each level, and that's where I think building these systems,

with different levels of empowerment for each employee is how much are you comfortable for that role handling? Like you won't have your plumbers going out and making $10,000 decisions. Like that should probably come to you. So if you have those different layers, then you're only handling the highest and most important decisions and getting feedback, regular meetings, which is why I like the ⁓ weekly level 10 meetings with staff talking about EOS model.

to understand how is it like, tell me about some of the problems you've had to do. I'm doing it right now with our accountant is we're meeting every Friday at four o'clock and I'm trying to hear because we just brought on a whole new VA staff for her to oversee. And so I'm not, I don't communicate with the VAs at all. I am teaching her how to delegate to them. And then I'm talking to her about how did this delegation go and are you trusting them with more stuff? And so I have her giving them tasks and we've talked about the four levels of delegation.

you know, um, giving them tasks and then coming back and showing it's completed. And then eventually it's going to get to the point where she can give them a result and say, I need this done. They get all the stuff done and just let her know when it's done. So it's all just part of the level of comfortability. if we just give that the, um, I would say bookkeepers is probably a better role for them. We give the bookkeepers everything just cause we want to delegate and not let handle it. We're not going to be happy with the end result. So

And the best example of this is when I first got a VA, like a personal assistant, and he went through and filtered out all my emails. And I had a folder for stuff that needed my attention. I had a folder for stuff that wasn't urgent, but I needed to look at at some point and the filter out the rest of the stuff that was not relevant. That is the best example of what these systems and processes can do. Because then I was only focusing on the most important stuff, which allowed me to be more efficient in my business.

So I think I'll get off my soapbox now. Yeah, that was a big one. So well, on that note, ⁓ yeah, I you covered everything and then some. All right. my word count for the

day. Yeah.