Only 1% of Owners Make it Past $1M. Will You?

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If you look at some data, it looks like 9% of overall businesses get above a million.
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Roughly say one out of 10 get to a million, one out of 100 get to 10 million.
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Otherwise you run out of ammo when the business plateaus or if it starts to even start dropping off because the economy or whatever, you want to be able to pull that lever.
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And if you don't have that in your arsenal, it's not only a matter of business stalling out or not growing.
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It's also like it's very hard to sell.
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We got to stop this machine.
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So you call your marketing agency.
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Hey,
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Can we pause our $1,500 a month SEO this month?
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Like we're, you know, I can't take all these phone calls.
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This is the problem.
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And it's been the problem forever.
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Nobody has a marketing problem.
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Everybody has a hiring problem.
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Keeping the wrong person for too long slows down the growth massively.
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It will be the difference between a business growing quickly or not growing quickly, a business being a nightmare to run versus being a great business to run.
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A huge component of enterprise value is, is the owner required to be there to keep these two engines like you mentioned running?
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If so, the enterprise value drops dramatically.
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Well, last week we were talking about how do we get you to a million dollars?
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We talked about the six ways to do that.
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And there's infinite ways to do it.
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But we talked about six we thought were pretty important.
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This week, we're going to go a different direction.
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Now you're at a million.
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How do we get you past a million?
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We're going to get greedy.
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We're going to get greedy.
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You know, millions are enough.
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Exactly.
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Is it two?
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Is it five?
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Is it ten?
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I don't know.
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Whatever you want, these principles, what we're going to talk about are the ways that you go about getting to that next level, that next number.
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Mike, I've heard you talk before about how few people get there.
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And I remember back in the SA days looking at data, kind of thinking about how many people get to a million or two million.
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Do you have any numbers or current numbers on what percentage of companies get to a million and what percentage get passed?
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It's super blurry.
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I've looked at this a lot and...
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If you look at some data, it looks like 9% of overall businesses get above a million.
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It's lower generally in home services because there's so many solo operators and people are just out there doing their own thing.
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But yeah, it's probably, I would roughly say one out of 10 get to a million.
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One out of 100 get to 10 million.
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And so if you're in those echelons, it's pretty exclusive.
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Yeah, I know that it's a small number that even get to a million.
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Yeah.
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Cool.
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So let's start.
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We're going to do six again, just like last week.
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So why don't you kick it off with your first question?
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way to get us to 10 million bucks or whatever your number is.
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So I had this one as my third one.
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I was like, you know what, this one's the sexy one.
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So I'm gonna put this one to the top.
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Oh, okay.
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All right, we're gonna try to hook them early so they don't turn off the video.
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There you go.
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So I put paid ads are fuel to go faster.
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And it's hard to use word of mouth only and get to $10 million inside of a decade.
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And so I'm sure there's someone in the comments to me, like, I build a $10 million business in two years.
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Awesome.
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You are better than I, but for most people, it's hard to do it based on word of mouth, I kind of think of it like a sailboat versus a motorboat.
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A sailboat is kind of at the whim of the wind and the currents versus like a motorboat, like you don't even think about the wind is like, okay, it's choppy, but like, I'm just going to gun this thing and put more fuel into it.
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And so if you have the fuel to be able to spend, i.e.
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cash, and you can deploy it against paid ads, you can just go so much faster and you can control the speed versus waiting on the wind, i.e.
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referrals, word of mouth, people seeing your truck.
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Those things are all good and we all want those things because your customer action cost is the lowest.
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But to do it in any meaningful
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window of time that most of us want to, you know, before we retire, it usually requires paid ads.
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And so even with Five for 50, it's like, it's five years of focus.
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It's very hard to build a $10 million business in five years.
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And so I would say figuring that out is like, is a key element.
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Yeah, I'd agree.
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Yeah, it's just too slow.
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And that's what you see a lot of companies that get really big or even get to a million.
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You see that it took a very, very, very long time to get there.
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And so- And if you start being profitable, even say you're two or three years in, you're really profitable, where do you put that cash?
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Otherwise it's gonna get taxed, you know, 25, 30%.
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It's a tax advantage way to actually know, okay, if I put dollars and cents into my business, what is the return on invested capital based upon me knowing my CAC,
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knowing my lifetime value, and hopefully being in the market, but also being able to avoid taxes.
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Yeah, boy, I agree.
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And I think you started by saying Facebook.
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Maybe I'm misremembering, but when I think about Facebook,
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the things you tend to advocate for.
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It does see, it seems to be of course website and SEO, but it very much paid ads.
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And Facebook seems to be the one I hear you talk about the most.
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Is that where you kind of stand right now?
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I didn't say Facebook in here.
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Oh, you didn't?
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But you've been hearing it in your dreams because I heard a lot of your videos and you're the first line was like, Mike Andes has been pestering me to do Facebook ads.
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I'm like, I've been doing my job.
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I've been doing my job.
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And Jonas Olson, I just wrote a 5 for 50 video just came out.
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Jonas Olson today.
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I spent two days with him.
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He's like, Facebook ad, man, they're killing it.
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They're killing it.
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And so that's what I heard for two days.
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So I think I did tell you, it's like Facebook ads for me were a 2027 initiative at some point.
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And now I'm like, I keep talking to people are like Facebook ads.
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So I'm questioning myself now.
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So, okay.
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Like you said, I'm imagining things.
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I think the big thing- So what did you say at the very beginning?
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You just said paid ads?
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Just paid ads in general.
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I think whether it be postcards or door hangers, I don't care if you've got knock on doors, whether it be Google ads, LSA, like if you're on a paid strategy because otherwise you run out of ammo when the business plateaus or if it starts to even start dropping off because of the economy or whatever, you want to be able to pull that lever and if you don't have that in your arsenal, it's not only a matter of-
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business stalling out or not growing it's also like it's very hard to sell if someone coming into this business if you're building a 10 million dollar business assuming you want to sell this thing or pass it along very hard for them to have confidence that they can maintain or grow that business if there's not a solid customer acquisition strategy and that includes some form of paid ads
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And so I would encourage everyone to figure that out, whether that be door hangers or flyers or every door direct mail.
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I don't really care if it's online.
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It's just figure out what that strategy is.
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So you at least have a dollar and cents of a, I put money in, I get money out.
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And knowing what that equation looks like.
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Yeah, and similar to what you're saying,
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If you look at the math of these businesses, especially... Well, it doesn't really matter.
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I was going to say, especially if it's a low transaction size business.
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Like you're selling mowing, something that's $50 a week versus an $80,000 job.
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But this actually applies to both.
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Where I'm going with this is, if you look at the math, if you're not marketing, that business will slow down and it will eventually... We'll call it...
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level out or plateau simply because if you don't have tons of lead flow, your churn, your just natural churn, no matter how good of a job you're doing, will start to equal out to your conversion.
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So you get all these leads, you convert this many, starts to equal out to the churn, just a natural loss of clients.
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And that's how most businesses... One of the big reasons the bigger businesses just plateau.
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And they often think,
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What are we doing wrong?
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What are we not getting right?
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It's a marketing problem.
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It's not...
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Sometimes it's not even a retention problem.
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You might be doing everything right.
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It's just a marketing problem.
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And that problem doesn't just suddenly one day appear.
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As the business is growing, it grows slower and slower and slower because that problem is starting to happen to the business.
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And that's why it just takes forever to grow these businesses by word of mouth to any size.
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And I think...
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We assume here that you have built a million dollar business and you're getting trying to get a 10.
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I think that's the part that we, we gloss over here is that most people don't go to a million.
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And the reason is because they don't do the basics that don't cost them anything.
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Like if you don't have SEO and you don't have a website, you don't have your trucks wrap and you don't respond to Google reviews, you don't collect those reviews.
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Then yes, we are absolutely not even getting like those are table stakes after that.
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scaling past a million, that's where you have to have this lever.
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And right now I feel like there's this wave of like against ads and hey, I'm all for doing the basics.
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But if you're trying to go from a million to 10 and you have that kind of ambition, it's not just about the growth, it is the ability to be able to pass this as an asset to someone else with confidence knowing that you can acquire customers, even if something does happen to the wind of referrals and word of mouth.
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When you say this is a wave of not doing digital ads, is that on social media right now that people are talking about that or what?
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Yeah, just a lot of like, hey, don't pay ads.
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And I agree with them, but then when I look at the people that are in these communities, a lot of them are under a million or two million, like the vast majority.
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And so, again, we are talking to the person that's trying to scale beyond that.
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And that's where I think you've changed the belief of, it's not just gonna be a word of mouth game, unless you're willing to do it for,
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20 years because ultimately to your point it's like you can slowly get more leads every year by word of mouth getting more slowly more reviews You can increase you reduce your turn So allowing the business to continue growing, but this is a long and most will just they quit like When just such a slow growing business
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It's back to what I keep saying here and in other places.
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The biggest problem in these businesses, people get tired.
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They burn out.
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And you get tired and burn out because you went too slow and it was too hard for too long.
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You don't get through that really, those difficult phases fast enough.
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And so just you grind into the ground.
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And one day, you kind of like throw in the towel.
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You can't.
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You're mentally done.
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I want to go back to this no ads thing.
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I'm stuck on this.
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So what are they, are they saying do SEO, do something else?
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What are they saying if, if you're not, and I, there's all kinds of ways to market your business.
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Ads is just part of it, but what's the core argument?
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I'm not understanding.
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It's, it's doing the basics.
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And again, doing the basics is for the 90% of people.
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And so I'm, I'm trying to differentiate those things are important.
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Getting to a million, but getting from a million to 10 is a very different equation.
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And,
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if you're not doing the basics do them first you can't just go run facebook ads but then not have your google business profile set up correctly not have an address verified but like what a lot of them are saying is actually factually true for most people but that same logic doesn't apply once you've done all those things and you're trying to get to the next level i see okay that makes a lot of sense to me i was
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I was trying to figure out what we were.
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It's also good clickbait.
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It's good clickbait to say, don't pay Facebook.
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Don't pay Mark Zuckerberg.
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That's true.
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The $400 million yacht needs some fuel, you know?
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Okay.
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Yeah, I'm more of an advocate of do it all.
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Do the basics first, but just keep on marching.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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All right.
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What's your first one?
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So I'm going a little more macro on these because we're going from 1 to 10 million.
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So what are the big, big things that move the needle?
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And so I'm going to bring up what I brought up last week again.
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But it's like a core theme that I have.
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It's so critical.
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I mentioned it last week.
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It's this idea of these two machines running in your business.
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living this and thinking about it.
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And you have one machine, which is your growth engine.
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It's got to be spinning and firing and working to bring in clients and bring in work.
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So it's not just clients.
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It's like bringing in enough work.
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And then we've got this other machine that's, we'll call it recruiting or people.
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And this is the capacity to do the work.
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And what happens in almost every business in every industry around the world of any size doesn't matter.
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These two machines do not spin together.
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This one's spinning really fast over here, the growth machine.
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And I love working on the growth machine.
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It's so much fun.
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I love it.
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I love a big engine in my car with lots of horsepower.
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We're all wired some way.
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A lot of entrepreneurs love this part of the business.
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Then there's this other machine over here.
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It's just barely moving.
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And that's the one that brings in the people to do all the work.
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And so what happens?
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What happens is like, well, we got to stop this machine.
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So you call your marketing agency.
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Hey, can we pause our $1,500 a month SEO this month?
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I can't take all these phone calls.
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Like there's some, something that happens because this machine's spinning and this one over here is not working properly.
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You don't have enough people.
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You don't have enough capacity to serve all the people or you're trying to serve all the capacity and you're doing a lousy job.
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Now you're getting callbacks.
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You're having problems.
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You're getting bad reviews.
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Like it's just, there's a lot of symptoms in a business where I can look at them and say, ah, your engines are not spinning together.
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This engine is spinning really fast and this one's not.
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So,
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A little deeper.
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What happens when the growth engine is just spinning full speed?
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It's killing it.
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Back to my point.
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You call your SEO company.
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Hey, let's stop this.
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Hey, let's stop the door hangers.
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Hey, we can't run any ads this month.
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Whatever.
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You put brakes on everything because you live in fear you won't have enough people to do the work.
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Well, the inverse is also true.
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And that is that you have enough people.
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and the growth machine, you're not doing the ads.
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You did the basics.
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Good, great.
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You did the basics, but the basics only got you so far.
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You have enough people.
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You're one of the few people and you're one of the lucky people that can find enough people to do the work.
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Now you've got more people you could even hire.
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You could do more work tomorrow, but you haven't done the ads.
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You haven't done the extra stuff.
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You're not spending enough time thinking about this machine.
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So now you live in fear of the growth.
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So you can't keep your people busy.
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So back to last week's episode, you're bleeding profit.
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in the middle of the year, in the winter, whenever.
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You can't keep them fully busy.
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Or you've got all these people you could hire, but you can't hire any of them.
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Because it's like, well, I'd love to get Bob on my team.
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He's awesome.
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But I don't know if we can bring in enough clients.
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So you always live in fear of one of the other clients.
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one side of the business.
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Either we're not going to get enough clients and enough revenue or enough work, or we're not going to get enough people to do the work.
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And this concept, these two machines, is just imperative so that you can constantly be thinking about how well are these machines spinning and are they spinning in unison?
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If we're going to really start doing the marketing, are we thinking about this other side, which is producing the capacity, the people to do the work?
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And this is the never-ending state of business.
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And they're never spinning perfect.
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That's not the example.
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It's not like they have to be in perfect balance all the time.
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It's this constant awareness of, hey, based on everything that's going over here on the growth side of the business, we're going to be needing to spin up this recruiting machine a little bit faster.
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We let it run all the time.
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We're always looking for people, but we really need to dump a little more money in this and go faster.
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Or we're about to have a big bottleneck
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going back to this idea, I want to go from a million to 10 million.
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And we all make up stories and like, hey, next year, I'm gonna grow the business by $2 million.
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We just make stuff up and say, this is what we're going to do next year.
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But we never back into it to think, okay, that means we're gonna have to get this many leads.
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If we get this kind of conversion, we're going to need this many people.
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When you think about your machines like this, or you think about your business like a machine, you're constantly thinking about which one needs more fuel right now.
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it's going to make the whole process stop.
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If we can't find the people, that we can't do the marketing, and that $2 million goal we made up that we're going to grow the business by this year, we're not going to hit it.
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It was just talk.
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So this is, to me, one of the single most important concepts.
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And that's why I bring it up again this week.
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I think the part that makes that so difficult for home services is that the speed of the growth engine changes throughout the year.
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It's not like it slowly increases and you slowly get more, you know, okay, we need one more employee.
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Okay.
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Three more months, another employee.
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It goes really fast and then it slows down and that natural demand, I think it kind of ties into the ability to have paid ads to keep that growth engine turning at a similar rate.
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to be able to govern how fast it goes because it's harder to hire and fire people as fast as you get and leave customers leave.
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And so the growth engine can move much faster and change acceleration, negative or positive, much faster than the supply or the labor engine.
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Yeah, I agree.
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And
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But I would also argue that this happens in most... You're not saying the opposite.
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But it just happens in so many industries.
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I've always thought about the businesses that we're in and I think about the seasonality.
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And I've looked at so many deals and so many other companies and got to know so many other people.
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It's like, wow, I'm always amazed by the seasonality or the selling season across every business.
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I had no idea there was such a selling season in that, whatever your business is.
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So everybody kind of feels this.
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And the most basic argument for the recruiting engine is it's not that people are struggling to
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keep the thing spinning at the right pace.
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It's that the thing is completely shut off.
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It isn't even spinning because we don't even think about it.
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It's like, oh my gosh, we need some people.
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We need some people.
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What do we do?
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What do we do?
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And then you spend an hour on it and you find a guy and it's like, okay, we'll never think about that again until when we have a fire.
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It's like emergency.
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We need another person.
305
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That's almost the bigger problem.
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It's like we, it's back to, I think I said this last week as well.
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if you think about what's important, or you could say whatever you want to say about what's important in your life, but just look at what you do.
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Like, look at your calendar.
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We all moan and groan.
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We all, all of us.
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We moan and groan about getting enough people to do the work, but look at how little time we're spending on this day
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part of the business.
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This is why I frame it as this core thing.
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They're the two most important engines of the business.
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Growing to getting the clients and the work and having the capacity to perform the work.
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Two most important engines.
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If one of them never runs, you'll never build a company.
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Period.
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And so the recruiting one is the hot topic because it's the one we all, all of us talk about it.
320
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We all say there are no good people.
321
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We all say I can't find enough good people.
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We all say it, but we're spending no time on it.
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Nobody's spending enough time on it.
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And that's why I love to talk about this concept.
325
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Yeah, like I talk about the 4L framework where labor can become the constraint to growing the business.
326
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And whenever someone points out like they can't find good people, what I usually like to do is I like to pull up their P&L and just compare their ad budget versus what they're spending on Indeed.
327
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Now, are there better ways than Indeed to help the recruiting engine?
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Yes, absolutely.
329
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But it's a good proxy for like you spent.
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$3,000 last year on Indeed, and you spent $60,000 on Facebook ads and Google ads and door hangers.
331
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And why are we wondering why we can't find any good people?
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And so I think it's a good sometimes check that if you actually say those words, like I am supply constrained, I cannot find good people, no one wants to work for me, I can't find any employees.
333
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Look at your P&L and be like, where am I spending money to get attention from either customers or prospective employees?
334
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And it's a good just reality check of where are you spending your money?
335
00:19:27.553 --> 00:19:27.793
Yeah.
336
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And I don't talk about this to sound like I'm preaching.
337
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I assure you.
338
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We're here for it.
339
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We're here for it.
340
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No, no.
341
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I've looked at our business, our city turf business.
342
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The number one problem with that business is this problem.
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It has been.
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It's getting better, but it has been this problem.
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It's like mowing capped because we lived in fear of H2B visa, or we lived in fear of finding enough people to do the work without carrying them on our payroll for a long period of time.
346
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Or we lived in fear of finding enough people to do the work that we were only going to keep on payroll for, you know, not our normal years and years and years like we do people.
347
00:20:08.812 --> 00:20:09.693
And so it,
348
00:20:10.453 --> 00:20:13.655
put us in a place where we didn't grow that business.
349
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We didn't try to grow that business anymore.
350
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We got to a place where like, hey, we don't want to grow this anymore.
351
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It's not worth the people problems.
352
00:20:19.780 --> 00:20:21.161
So this is not preaching.
353
00:20:22.141 --> 00:20:28.526
Also, looking at so many businesses of people that are past a million and they're going.
354
00:20:28.746 --> 00:20:30.807
They have a lot of the right stuff in place.
355
00:20:31.748 --> 00:20:33.850
Over and over, this is the problem.
356
00:20:34.680 --> 00:20:35.881
And it's been the problem forever.
357
00:20:35.941 --> 00:20:36.902
It's not a new problem.
358
00:20:36.922 --> 00:20:38.443
I remember I did it started Academy.
359
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Basically, it launched in the end of 2014, officially started January of 2015.
360
00:20:45.889 --> 00:20:53.775
In 2015, a decade ago, 11 years ago, I was telling the Academy members, nobody has a marketing problem.
361
00:20:53.895 --> 00:20:55.136
Everybody has a hiring problem.
362
00:20:55.457 --> 00:20:56.918
The marketing is the easy part.
363
00:20:57.418 --> 00:20:59.720
Like I want to talk about marketing all the time in Academy.
364
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That's the easy part.
365
00:21:00.641 --> 00:21:01.942
We could solve that like that.
366
00:21:02.482 --> 00:21:04.904
It's a getting people problem.
367
00:21:04.924 --> 00:21:06.245
This has always been the problem.
368
00:21:06.285 --> 00:21:07.866
This is going to be the problem for the next decade.
369
00:21:08.246 --> 00:21:12.089
And so that's why I just can't help but bring this up over and over again.
370
00:21:12.109 --> 00:21:13.230
I agree.
371
00:21:13.330 --> 00:21:13.610
All right.
372
00:21:13.650 --> 00:21:13.991
Let's go.
373
00:21:14.885 --> 00:21:15.966
Oh, Bally, back to you.
374
00:21:16.346 --> 00:21:16.806
What's next?
375
00:21:16.866 --> 00:21:20.888
All right, so this is the one I actually think is the big one, but it's not as sexy, so I put it second.
376
00:21:21.429 --> 00:21:21.949
All righty.
377
00:21:21.989 --> 00:21:27.392
And I think the difference when you're going from a million to 10 million is really learning the skill of leadership.
378
00:21:28.312 --> 00:21:34.796
And creating a clear vision that allows other A players to fit their goals inside of the vision you put forth.
379
00:21:35.596 --> 00:21:40.558
And it's funny, a few years ago, I didn't really listen a lot to Jocko, I know who he was.
380
00:21:41.658 --> 00:21:44.479
But one of the things that he would always say is leadership is a skill.
381
00:21:45.240 --> 00:21:51.502
It's interesting that people think you'd be able to fight without training, but you, why wouldn't you be able to play guitar without training?
382
00:21:51.922 --> 00:21:54.523
People think, oh well, you can't really learn leadership.
383
00:21:55.244 --> 00:21:58.308
It's like, no, leadership is a skill just like guitar is a skill.
384
00:21:58.568 --> 00:22:03.295
There's moves that are just like playing chords and people don't understand that.
385
00:22:03.636 --> 00:22:08.723
And that's one of the reasons I am able to have, that's why I have a company teaching leadership.
386
00:22:09.573 --> 00:22:10.874
And I didn't really believe that.
387
00:22:10.934 --> 00:22:14.117
I was like, he's saying that because then he can sell me leadership training.
388
00:22:14.938 --> 00:22:24.065
And I think my mind has changed dramatically as the business has grown to a certain size where it only becomes about leadership because I physically can't do all the tasks in the business.
389
00:22:24.626 --> 00:22:30.150
And I kind of think about the evolution of the entrepreneur going from doing to teaching to leading.
390
00:22:30.771 --> 00:22:31.551
And I kind of feel like,
391
00:22:32.432 --> 00:22:48.162
from zero to 250 000 in annual revenue you just have to do the work really well like you do good work quality talk to customers good you work hard you put in the you can get to 250. then to get to a million you really have to be able to teach like be able to take those skills and teach it to someone else
392
00:22:48.842 --> 00:23:02.690
And I think the last part that so many people beat their head up against is teaching is a very different skill than leading, because now there's someone else that's teaching the technician how to do the work and you're removed to two different steps away from doing of the work.
393
00:23:03.090 --> 00:23:07.453
There's the teacher mid level managers and those mid level managers are the keys.
394
00:23:08.093 --> 00:23:09.595
Going from a million to 10 million.
395
00:23:09.635 --> 00:23:16.123
Because you can be the genius with a thousand helpers or a genius with 20 technicians and run a two or three million dollar business.
396
00:23:16.443 --> 00:23:19.607
But to get to 10, there has to be that mid-level manager.
397
00:23:20.008 --> 00:23:27.197
And in my opinion, that is the person that is able to be the link between the leader and the person doing the work and make sure the work gets done correctly.
398
00:23:27.497 --> 00:23:32.262
And that's a teacher, the person that loves pouring into their team, loves pouring into the clients.
399
00:23:32.483 --> 00:23:36.307
Like you've mentioned before, like a killer in operations of doing the work.
400
00:23:36.447 --> 00:23:39.410
Really, it's the person that teaches the people how to do the work.
401
00:23:40.071 --> 00:23:41.733
And that frame has always helped me.
402
00:23:41.753 --> 00:23:44.756
And when I've talked to entrepreneurs, okay, where are they at mentally?
403
00:23:45.377 --> 00:23:46.358
And what does their business need?
404
00:23:46.618 --> 00:23:47.479
Are they doing the work?
405
00:23:48.020 --> 00:23:49.641
Are they teaching other people how to do the work?
406
00:23:50.041 --> 00:23:53.723
Or are they actually leading so that the entire organization can move forward?
407
00:23:53.923 --> 00:23:58.626
They create the systems for teachers, managers, mid-level managers to help the technicians do the work.
408
00:23:59.066 --> 00:24:02.768
And I feel like this is where people beat up their head because they have a successful business at a million, two million.
409
00:24:03.808 --> 00:24:05.289
And it's because they're a really good teacher.
410
00:24:05.649 --> 00:24:14.134
They know how to manage their technicians, train them to do the work, but then they can never get other mid-level managers to stick inside the organization.
411
00:24:14.555 --> 00:24:17.696
And that prevents them from going past three, five, and all the way up to 10.
412
00:24:18.417 --> 00:24:19.057
Yeah, I agree.
413
00:24:19.337 --> 00:24:20.878
This is very similar to my number two.
414
00:24:21.098 --> 00:24:22.839
So a lot of crossover here.
415
00:24:24.120 --> 00:24:27.162
How do you talk to people about learning to be a leader?
416
00:24:27.462 --> 00:24:28.443
Man, it's so hard.
417
00:24:29.502 --> 00:24:37.068
I think I've tried to encapsulate more and more, but I think it just keeps coming back to humility, especially when you realize that it's the constraint.
418
00:24:37.128 --> 00:24:41.671
Usually you've built a bigger business and you're doing probably the best of anyone you know.
419
00:24:42.191 --> 00:24:43.392
You're running a $2 million business.
420
00:24:43.412 --> 00:24:52.018
You might not have anyone you know in your local area or your family that has made as much money as you, been as skilled as you in a trade, has the house that you have.
421
00:24:52.899 --> 00:24:54.360
You might not know other entrepreneurs.
422
00:24:55.741 --> 00:24:58.083
And a lot of times it comes down to that has been your,
423
00:24:59.556 --> 00:25:21.644
identity that you do know everything and it takes a level of that humility and sometimes public failure to realize I Lack something that I is preventing me from attracting great talent And if someone else was able to do it, they have they know something I don't and I've got to figure out whatever that sauce is and that's why I kind of tied it into having a clear vision because the thing that
424
00:25:22.084 --> 00:25:26.087
finds those great mid-level managers, wants them to stick with you, is learning the skill of leadership.
425
00:25:26.747 --> 00:25:29.349
The thing that always is like the first step is like, well, where are we going?
426
00:25:29.569 --> 00:25:32.151
Because if you're gonna lead, you're out in front, you better know where we're going.
427
00:25:32.751 --> 00:25:38.835
And if that's not clear, we're just gonna, we're gonna make a bunch of progress, but never make actually directional progress towards a certain goal.
428
00:25:40.416 --> 00:25:46.700
You mentioned Jocko, I've never read his book, but did you get anything of high value from it?
429
00:25:46.760 --> 00:25:48.842
Is it something you would point people to?
430
00:25:49.729 --> 00:25:53.192
I like the Extreme Ownership, that's like his first book.
431
00:25:53.512 --> 00:25:58.796
But the book I love the most, we give it to all of our owners, is Leadership Training and Tactics.
432
00:25:59.556 --> 00:26:00.637
And it's an- Is that by him?
433
00:26:00.757 --> 00:26:00.917
Yeah.
434
00:26:00.937 --> 00:26:01.738
That's by him, I take it?
435
00:26:01.818 --> 00:26:02.959
It is, but it's more like,
436
00:26:04.124 --> 00:26:06.025
built for like a handbook.
437
00:26:06.065 --> 00:26:07.606
It's like, if this happens, do this.
438
00:26:07.946 --> 00:26:08.727
If this happens, do this.
439
00:26:08.907 --> 00:26:09.787
It's a shorter read.
440
00:26:10.348 --> 00:26:10.988
I really enjoy it.
441
00:26:11.008 --> 00:26:14.430
It's less, not high brow, but it's less theoretical.
442
00:26:14.470 --> 00:26:16.371
Like extreme ownership is more of a concept in life.
443
00:26:16.871 --> 00:26:20.914
This is specifically for like leadership training and tactics and I really enjoy it.
444
00:26:23.015 --> 00:26:24.536
I can't recite this book to you.
445
00:26:24.556 --> 00:26:25.497
I read it a long time ago.
446
00:26:25.517 --> 00:26:29.199
A book that comes to mind that I always really liked was What Got You Here Won't Get You There.
447
00:26:30.115 --> 00:26:31.037
Can't remember who wrote it.
448
00:26:31.057 --> 00:26:33.681
I can't recite many details.
449
00:26:33.701 --> 00:26:35.043
I've read too many things over the years.
450
00:26:35.644 --> 00:26:37.647
But I mean, there's a few things I remember from it.
451
00:26:37.667 --> 00:26:42.115
But that may be a book for some people to look up as well that I just remember thinking was a top book.
452
00:26:42.599 --> 00:26:45.060
You know, I think the thing that you brought up here too is the key part.
453
00:26:45.080 --> 00:26:58.886
Like if you become humble enough to say, I need, I lack something, you open yourself up to this idea that, okay, what books, what podcasts, where can I go around people that can potentially give me some critiques that show me the next level?
454
00:26:59.567 --> 00:26:59.847
And- Yeah.
455
00:26:59.867 --> 00:26:59.987
Yeah.
456
00:27:00.907 --> 00:27:09.735
It's very different than the pride of doing the work, the pride of teaching someone is, I've gotta change myself to be able to attract the type of people that I can never attract.
457
00:27:09.795 --> 00:27:18.301
And this was like my big humbling thing a few years ago, to be able to attract talent when it comes technically from really good software companies,
458
00:27:19.142 --> 00:27:23.784
And to like what to thought of them was like, it's a influencer run business.
459
00:27:23.804 --> 00:27:25.324
It's like, oh, like whatever.
460
00:27:26.144 --> 00:27:29.526
And to be able to track them, it's like, oh, my goodness, I've got to get really clear on it.
461
00:27:29.566 --> 00:27:30.206
What is our vision?
462
00:27:30.226 --> 00:27:30.926
What are we doing?
463
00:27:30.966 --> 00:27:31.746
Why are we doing it?
464
00:27:31.766 --> 00:27:32.927
How does this all play together?
465
00:27:33.387 --> 00:27:34.827
How does their role play into it?
466
00:27:34.927 --> 00:27:36.108
What's the metrics of success?
467
00:27:36.348 --> 00:27:37.388
How long is this going to take?
468
00:27:37.928 --> 00:27:40.329
And that forced me to like it was very humbling.
469
00:27:40.369 --> 00:27:46.391
It was also publicly humiliating because like it was publicly showing my my incompetencies.
470
00:27:46.992 --> 00:27:47.212
But
471
00:27:48.472 --> 00:27:57.780
I wish to anyone that is hitting their head up against that $1, $2, $3 million marker to be able to find great people that can work inside the organization and take on that management from them.
472
00:27:59.029 --> 00:27:59.229
Yeah.
473
00:27:59.770 --> 00:28:14.243
This whole idea of, and I have this recollection, maybe in the very beginning of doing this podcast together, we talked about this idea that some people, and I don't even know how to word it, but they're just apprehensive or they feel like it's wrong that they've got to do all this learning.
474
00:28:14.303 --> 00:28:22.551
I don't, I, I, there was some way that you worded it where people kind of shy away from it or feel like they're underperforming or something.
475
00:28:22.671 --> 00:28:22.751
And
476
00:28:24.058 --> 00:28:35.809
Where I'm going with this is when it comes to leadership or it comes to anything around growing the business, this idea that we should somehow just know what to do or just figure it out is just nonsense.
477
00:28:36.630 --> 00:28:43.637
And I think one of the things that we forget is that everybody else running an incredible company...
478
00:28:44.878 --> 00:28:46.279
went through the exact same process.
479
00:28:46.300 --> 00:28:48.121
They didn't just figure it out.
480
00:28:48.161 --> 00:28:49.223
They learned from somebody.
481
00:28:49.283 --> 00:28:56.330
And an example that I might've used the first time we talked about this is you take somebody like a Mark Zuckerberg who founded Facebook, who started really young.
482
00:28:56.790 --> 00:28:58.913
His first investor was Peter Thiel.
483
00:28:59.313 --> 00:29:01.315
Peter Thiel had done PayPal and so many other things.
484
00:29:01.335 --> 00:29:07.101
Like these guys didn't just come in and say, hey, Mark, here's half a million bucks, which I think is what Peter invested.
485
00:29:07.121 --> 00:29:07.822
They're,
486
00:29:07.902 --> 00:29:08.682
Good luck.
487
00:29:08.742 --> 00:29:14.304
No, he had guys that had already built massive things right there coaching him.
488
00:29:14.584 --> 00:29:15.225
Like, do this.
489
00:29:15.305 --> 00:29:16.065
Think about this.
490
00:29:16.445 --> 00:29:17.626
Maybe you need to handle it this way.
491
00:29:17.686 --> 00:29:18.986
Probably wouldn't talk about it that way.
492
00:29:19.306 --> 00:29:21.367
Then he had a coach.
493
00:29:21.687 --> 00:29:23.968
These guys have coaches, executive coaches.
494
00:29:25.098 --> 00:29:33.967
In even corporate America, people have executive coaches that coach them into you become a senior VP, you get an executive coach.
495
00:29:34.127 --> 00:29:35.228
This is how the world works.
496
00:29:35.288 --> 00:29:37.370
If you're a sports person, you get a coach.
497
00:29:37.851 --> 00:29:40.733
Everything's done by all the highest performers have coaches.
498
00:29:41.594 --> 00:29:55.074
And so anything that if you ever have this feeling like this is a waste of money or this is dumb, I should just be able to figure this out or should be able to muscle my way through it or I'm a lesser person because I'm asking for help.
499
00:29:56.896 --> 00:30:05.183
There's almost no model in the world of high success that didn't also come with some version of coaching and learning and reading, etc.
500
00:30:05.223 --> 00:30:13.630
So that's just a critical idea to cast out of your brain if you feel self-conscious about going down this road of learning.
501
00:30:14.049 --> 00:30:20.430
I think the other thing too is identify that your circle that you might be in might also be capping you because you don't see a good leader.
502
00:30:21.011 --> 00:30:28.292
And so one of the biggest things I have to do is I had to consciously ask myself, what are lead, what are examples of leaders that I know that I want to emulate?
503
00:30:28.912 --> 00:30:31.193
And so there was five or six that I selected.
504
00:30:31.313 --> 00:30:38.775
One of you, you were one of them that I identified certain traits that I was like, that is a key ingredient to what I think a leader should look like.
505
00:30:39.615 --> 00:30:43.936
And for you, it was your even keelness, whether or not it's just on the surface or in hut.
506
00:30:44.276 --> 00:30:45.197
No, no, it's legit.
507
00:30:46.278 --> 00:30:48.439
I think I told you my wife thinks it's too even kill.
508
00:30:49.400 --> 00:30:50.341
She wants more emotion.
509
00:30:51.662 --> 00:30:57.466
So, so like identifying those traits and then being like, I will be a student of that trait for, from that person.
510
00:30:57.786 --> 00:30:59.167
Cause I need that skill.
511
00:30:59.787 --> 00:31:02.770
And, uh, sometimes it means looking outside of your current group.
512
00:31:02.790 --> 00:31:07.773
Cause a lot of times if you're the biggest one in the, if the biggest fish in the pond, you might just be in the wrong pond.
513
00:31:08.394 --> 00:31:08.614
Yeah.
514
00:31:08.974 --> 00:31:09.775
That makes a lot of sense.
515
00:31:10.215 --> 00:31:10.475
All right.
516
00:31:10.495 --> 00:31:10.936
Number two,
517
00:31:11.873 --> 00:31:13.694
Yeah, my number two's got a lot of similarities.
518
00:31:13.714 --> 00:31:15.394
So I'll kind of do this.
519
00:31:16.034 --> 00:31:20.756
Well, I'll end up saying some similar things in maybe just a slightly different way.
520
00:31:20.816 --> 00:31:33.020
But on this one, I went with this idea that an operations manager, which is something we've talked about a million times, but again, there are truths.
521
00:31:33.240 --> 00:31:35.340
There are things that are just the facts.
522
00:31:35.380 --> 00:31:36.201
This is how you do it.
523
00:31:36.501 --> 00:31:37.741
But I want to make a bigger point.
524
00:31:38.121 --> 00:31:39.822
I think the operations manager...
525
00:31:41.050 --> 00:31:47.892
the COO, those roles progress, is the single most important hire to get you here.
526
00:31:48.492 --> 00:31:55.175
And the operations manager, and then you have an operations manager, and then you even have a head of operations of the whole business.
527
00:31:55.435 --> 00:32:03.057
I believe generally the head of operations of the business does more of the running of the business than even the CEO.
528
00:32:03.217 --> 00:32:07.759
And I tend to think the COO is the most important person in the business.
529
00:32:08.219 --> 00:32:15.003
I mean, clearly, the leader, the CEO, the visionary, bringing in the deals, like critical.
530
00:32:15.063 --> 00:32:17.564
It's a partnership between the CEO and the COO.
531
00:32:17.604 --> 00:32:18.885
But the COO is imperative.
532
00:32:19.365 --> 00:32:24.128
And for all of us, it starts with an operations manager.
533
00:32:24.188 --> 00:32:29.651
And the reason I bring this up, and we've talked about 100 times, is because not getting the right person...
534
00:32:32.528 --> 00:32:37.356
just means you go slower because that stuff's all on you or their mistakes being made.
535
00:32:37.376 --> 00:32:38.258
There's inefficiencies.
536
00:32:38.278 --> 00:32:40.021
There's less money available to grow the business.
537
00:32:41.443 --> 00:32:45.991
Keeping the wrong person for too long slows down the gross growth massively.
538
00:32:46.849 --> 00:32:53.075
Getting the right person, that hire is probably the single biggest unlock in the entire business.
539
00:32:53.155 --> 00:33:00.962
I don't think there's any more valuable role that if you get it right, it will be the difference between a business growing quickly or not growing quickly.
540
00:33:01.242 --> 00:33:05.045
A business being a nightmare to run versus being a great business to run.
541
00:33:05.486 --> 00:33:09.510
A business that attracts great people and keeps great people versus one that doesn't.
542
00:33:09.850 --> 00:33:12.612
It's all around this person, this role.
543
00:33:12.632 --> 00:33:13.213
Yeah.
544
00:33:13.633 --> 00:33:17.515
And this person, eventually, as the business gets bigger, becomes more than a person.
545
00:33:17.835 --> 00:33:23.778
It becomes maybe the equivalent of ops managers at different divisions that run different parts of the business.
546
00:33:24.139 --> 00:33:26.160
And it becomes that COO type person.
547
00:33:27.072 --> 00:33:28.853
And so this is the hire.
548
00:33:29.494 --> 00:33:42.702
And if you don't make it, you make the wrong one, you keep the wrong person, you try to fill this while you're also doing everything else, your business will go way slower in the way it manifests itself as you feel stuck for way longer.
549
00:33:43.362 --> 00:33:44.503
So this is the unlock.
550
00:33:44.843 --> 00:33:46.704
It's the single most important hire.
551
00:33:47.125 --> 00:33:49.887
The reason it doesn't get made a lot of the times is because it means...
552
00:33:50.787 --> 00:33:53.732
that your income has been growing, growing, growing.
553
00:33:54.273 --> 00:33:55.915
Oh no, got to hire this expensive guy.
554
00:33:56.136 --> 00:33:57.217
Your income is going to take a dip.
555
00:33:57.918 --> 00:33:59.902
And a lot of people don't want to take that dip.
556
00:34:00.242 --> 00:34:00.903
Totally get it.
557
00:34:01.624 --> 00:34:03.567
Or they're like, well, I'll hire a...
558
00:34:05.648 --> 00:34:08.490
a kind of okay, kind of good, not much experienced guy.
559
00:34:08.811 --> 00:34:10.652
So my income won't take that much of a dip.
560
00:34:11.233 --> 00:34:13.314
And it's, you just pay the price in a different way.
561
00:34:13.334 --> 00:34:17.578
It's like, so at some point you've got to just, this is a line in the sand kind of higher.
562
00:34:17.778 --> 00:34:22.302
This is the, I'm either going for it or I'm not going for it in my mind.
563
00:34:22.982 --> 00:34:26.904
moment in the business and the go for it is I'm going to eat this money.
564
00:34:27.424 --> 00:34:28.324
I'm going to spend it.
565
00:34:28.745 --> 00:34:30.525
I'm going to spend up to get the right person.
566
00:34:30.906 --> 00:34:37.008
And if I make the wrong decision, they're gone fast because it will hurt me bad financially and I'm going to find the next one.
567
00:34:37.689 --> 00:34:39.770
And you just you get this right.
568
00:34:40.030 --> 00:34:40.910
And if you get it right.
569
00:34:42.091 --> 00:34:42.851
The business works.
570
00:34:42.951 --> 00:34:46.413
If you get it wrong, businesses generally don't don't grow.
571
00:34:46.453 --> 00:34:47.313
You can get the millions.
572
00:34:47.613 --> 00:34:48.914
Just it's a lousy business.
573
00:34:49.374 --> 00:34:50.875
So this one, this one's a big one.
574
00:34:50.895 --> 00:34:51.735
Um.
575
00:34:52.770 --> 00:34:56.696
I got a few more things to say on that, but anything you'd offer up on that thought there?
576
00:34:56.776 --> 00:35:02.805
Yeah, I think even a couple of weeks ago when you were talking about the location I'm starting in Texas, like when you asked, like, what's the one thing that could happen that could knock it out?
577
00:35:02.845 --> 00:35:05.149
It's like my operations person doesn't work out.
578
00:35:05.389 --> 00:35:08.494
The only thing that can really derail it is something happening to John.
579
00:35:08.794 --> 00:35:09.775
Yeah.
580
00:35:10.075 --> 00:35:11.555
And if that is the crucible.
581
00:35:11.575 --> 00:35:13.176
That's why I was going to hire him away.
582
00:35:13.276 --> 00:35:13.817
Exactly.
583
00:35:13.877 --> 00:35:14.817
As fast as soon as you get it.
584
00:35:14.837 --> 00:35:15.657
That's like my whole strategy.
585
00:35:15.677 --> 00:35:16.078
That's right.
586
00:35:16.138 --> 00:35:16.898
Forget Facebook ads.
587
00:35:16.918 --> 00:35:17.518
$15,000 bonus.
588
00:35:17.538 --> 00:35:17.879
That's right.
589
00:35:18.139 --> 00:35:20.220
You're trying to run Facebook ads to attract that talent.
590
00:35:20.240 --> 00:35:20.560
Let's go.
591
00:35:20.880 --> 00:35:21.320
Exactly.
592
00:35:21.380 --> 00:35:26.183
I figure for like 30,000 bucks, if I do this to you twice, you'll just go back to Washington.
593
00:35:26.203 --> 00:35:27.583
At least drive up my cost per lead.
594
00:35:29.384 --> 00:35:36.709
And so if that is the crucible, kind of like your point, like if you can't find good people, that should be where your focus and your attention and your money is being spent.
595
00:35:37.270 --> 00:35:47.437
If that's the thing that's keeping it one, two, three million and you're like, I wanna get to 10, why are we so A, unwilling to spend the money, but also B, unwilling to put the work in?
596
00:35:47.937 --> 00:35:52.538
I just see consistently people take three or four applications or a couple of interviews.
597
00:35:52.958 --> 00:35:56.379
And like when I was finding John, because I knew that was the most important thing.
598
00:35:56.619 --> 00:36:01.660
I'm talking about over 100 applications I went through and dozens and dozens of interviews.
599
00:36:01.861 --> 00:36:05.802
And then once I found the ten, I did more and more with them, like multiple layers.
600
00:36:06.282 --> 00:36:07.402
And if that is a
601
00:36:07.742 --> 00:36:35.422
identifying it is the constraint i think for anyone that's listening it might be that wilderness of one two three million you're feeling like hey i am i'm making good profit but i do understand this is the hire that cuts that profit potentially by 30 or 40 percent for the next year or two so i can get to the next level is the amount of effort and money that you need to spend on this hire is the unlock but most people underestimate the amount they'll have to spend on that person and the amount of time and energy that needs to be deployed to that thing but if it is the constraint that's where all your time and attention should go
602
00:36:36.352 --> 00:36:36.532
Yeah.
603
00:36:37.113 --> 00:36:37.954
Boy, I couldn't agree more.
604
00:36:38.595 --> 00:36:41.659
Now, the inverse of this one is maybe you're an operations person.
605
00:36:42.180 --> 00:36:43.081
That does exist.
606
00:36:43.561 --> 00:36:47.447
We always talk about the operations manager being the best, but maybe this is your thing.
607
00:36:47.907 --> 00:36:49.609
You're built as a process person.
608
00:36:49.629 --> 00:36:50.931
You love optimization.
609
00:36:50.951 --> 00:36:51.492
You're built.
610
00:36:51.812 --> 00:36:53.855
And it's like, well, this is kind of the role I want to do.
611
00:36:53.995 --> 00:36:54.717
I'm the best at it.
612
00:36:54.817 --> 00:36:55.117
Okay.
613
00:36:55.498 --> 00:36:57.120
That means there's a gap.
614
00:36:57.721 --> 00:37:01.186
So if you're me, my gap is operations.
615
00:37:01.527 --> 00:37:02.228
I can do it.
616
00:37:02.428 --> 00:37:03.129
I could do it.
617
00:37:03.930 --> 00:37:05.312
I just don't want to do it all the time.
618
00:37:05.592 --> 00:37:06.794
I'll just slow us down.
619
00:37:08.116 --> 00:37:09.537
It's not what I'm best at.
620
00:37:09.577 --> 00:37:12.179
There are people that are absolutely going to be better at me than this role.
621
00:37:12.199 --> 00:37:16.882
So if I can partner with an operations manager, now me and that person, we're a great team.
622
00:37:17.042 --> 00:37:21.166
I'm the push, push, push, gas, marketing, sales, let's go guy.
623
00:37:21.446 --> 00:37:23.087
They're the slow it down.
624
00:37:23.647 --> 00:37:24.388
Let's make it right.
625
00:37:24.448 --> 00:37:25.069
Let's fix it.
626
00:37:25.209 --> 00:37:26.329
Let's not blow up the business.
627
00:37:26.370 --> 00:37:27.370
Let's not get bad reviews.
628
00:37:27.410 --> 00:37:28.211
Let's deliver the quality.
629
00:37:28.291 --> 00:37:29.452
I believe in all those things.
630
00:37:29.952 --> 00:37:30.613
I agree with them.
631
00:37:30.653 --> 00:37:30.813
But...
632
00:37:31.353 --> 00:37:33.094
I am naturally going to want to push, push, push.
633
00:37:33.514 --> 00:37:34.914
And so I need that counterbalance.
634
00:37:34.974 --> 00:37:39.456
And I describe it this way to say, well, maybe you're my counterbalance in my example.
635
00:37:39.476 --> 00:37:41.616
Maybe you're that killer operations person.
636
00:37:41.636 --> 00:37:42.236
You love it.
637
00:37:42.296 --> 00:37:44.877
You just want to constantly improve the process.
638
00:37:44.897 --> 00:37:47.438
Those are, again, the most valuable people.
639
00:37:48.229 --> 00:37:50.450
Okay, so then you need to hire your gap.
640
00:37:50.751 --> 00:37:51.651
What are you not?
641
00:37:51.771 --> 00:37:54.773
Maybe you're not the, I love marketing.
642
00:37:54.993 --> 00:37:55.794
I love selling.
643
00:37:55.974 --> 00:37:57.135
I love doing the deals.
644
00:37:57.355 --> 00:37:59.937
I like motivating the team.
645
00:38:00.797 --> 00:38:03.399
There's a whole list of things you don't love doing.
646
00:38:03.739 --> 00:38:05.500
So you need to find that person.
647
00:38:06.020 --> 00:38:13.425
And this is just like, if I hire an ops person, massive amounts of trust gets deployed into that person.
648
00:38:13.565 --> 00:38:15.526
They could screw the whole thing up.
649
00:38:15.947 --> 00:38:16.167
Yeah.
650
00:38:16.447 --> 00:38:18.708
Well, they could destroy it all.
651
00:38:19.528 --> 00:38:22.230
It's exactly the same on the sales and marketing side.
652
00:38:22.290 --> 00:38:24.871
And so you'll feel exactly the same fear.
653
00:38:24.891 --> 00:38:26.091
It's like, how do I get the right guy?
654
00:38:26.111 --> 00:38:35.835
So you're going to... Maybe if you're a high process person and you like perfection and order and systems, you're like, these sales guys, all they do is sell stuff.
655
00:38:35.855 --> 00:38:36.956
They sell stuff we can't do.
656
00:38:37.376 --> 00:38:44.699
You may be a little turned off to this idea of salespeople, but the sales and marketing function is just as important as your function.
657
00:38:44.919 --> 00:38:46.120
They need to be paired together
658
00:38:46.500 --> 00:38:48.181
And you need to find your co-equal.
659
00:38:48.381 --> 00:38:49.742
You need to find your person.
660
00:38:50.463 --> 00:38:52.564
And generally, we've talked about this in the past.
661
00:38:52.744 --> 00:38:56.467
I tend to be a little bit of a fan of really great partnerships.
662
00:38:57.448 --> 00:38:59.549
That's not the point of this, but partnerships.
663
00:38:59.829 --> 00:39:05.994
Because a great partnership is one guy or gal is an operator and one is the sales and market vision side.
664
00:39:06.594 --> 00:39:08.776
Paired together, those teams are amazing.
665
00:39:08.796 --> 00:39:09.236
Yeah.
666
00:39:09.536 --> 00:39:10.837
They can be amazing.
667
00:39:11.277 --> 00:39:18.201
And those partnerships make all this stuff come together when the business is tiny versus when it's $4 million.
668
00:39:18.661 --> 00:39:26.045
And they just get through stuff so much faster because they had both those people that are very expensive from the very beginning.
669
00:39:26.085 --> 00:39:28.947
So I just want to make sure the frame is clear.
670
00:39:29.147 --> 00:39:34.990
Much like my two engines, growth and recruiting, we've got two really key engines when it comes to people.
671
00:39:35.904 --> 00:39:40.828
One is the sales marketing growth side person, the CEO side, and one is the operations side.
672
00:39:41.308 --> 00:39:44.371
And the magic is having two really strong people in that area.
673
00:39:44.411 --> 00:39:45.311
So which one are you?
674
00:39:46.092 --> 00:39:47.133
Find the other person.
675
00:39:47.313 --> 00:39:50.756
And hiring both roles, incredibly scary and expensive.
676
00:39:51.276 --> 00:39:58.622
But they are, as I said, the line in the sand that once you cross it with the right person, things go and your life gets better.
677
00:39:59.355 --> 00:40:01.739
The other thing that I wanted to say, actually, I'll pause there.
678
00:40:01.980 --> 00:40:03.362
Anything you'd add about that one?
679
00:40:03.402 --> 00:40:03.863
No, go ahead.
680
00:40:04.264 --> 00:40:04.925
All right.
681
00:40:04.965 --> 00:40:10.555
The other thing where I felt like there were some similarities in what you said is your number two and then mine is
682
00:40:11.933 --> 00:40:16.974
I was thinking about these phases that you go through and you alluded to it.
683
00:40:17.014 --> 00:40:26.657
So I think about in the earlier days of the business, you run everything, you answer everything, you do all the work or you do all the work with your team.
684
00:40:26.977 --> 00:40:30.658
And you get programmed to live your life that way.
685
00:40:30.678 --> 00:40:31.678
This is what you do every day.
686
00:40:31.918 --> 00:40:32.679
You are the hero.
687
00:40:33.019 --> 00:40:36.360
I think you've said it that way or some version of that, Mike.
688
00:40:36.380 --> 00:40:37.100
You're the guy.
689
00:40:38.060 --> 00:40:39.161
And it's all on you.
690
00:40:39.601 --> 00:40:41.042
And there's a lot to be proud of.
691
00:40:41.582 --> 00:40:47.985
And then the next level transition, I like to think of it as you're transitioning to more of a player-coach scenario.
692
00:40:48.005 --> 00:40:51.967
Again, this is where I thought we both had some similarities in our number two.
693
00:40:52.607 --> 00:40:55.709
So you're shifting to this role of you're a player and a coach.
694
00:40:56.269 --> 00:41:00.491
So player being you're out in the field, you're on the field, you're doing some of the work.
695
00:41:00.952 --> 00:41:02.953
But you also now also have to play the coach.
696
00:41:03.393 --> 00:41:06.895
You're the teacher, you're the trainer, you're the encourager.
697
00:41:07.655 --> 00:41:08.735
You're a coach.
698
00:41:09.456 --> 00:41:19.078
And so you've got as quickly as you can, you want to take it from being playing in the field the majority of the time to spending most of your time doing the coaching work.
699
00:41:19.318 --> 00:41:21.139
You still have a somewhat smaller business.
700
00:41:21.499 --> 00:41:24.580
Part of being the coach right now is also being a little bit of a manager, of course.
701
00:41:24.640 --> 00:41:26.200
I'm lumping them together.
702
00:41:26.460 --> 00:41:31.822
But you want as fast as you can get to this place where you're like 80% of the time you're coach, 20% of the time you're player.
703
00:41:32.902 --> 00:41:36.486
And the example of when you'd be the player, like you're in the field is just the emergencies.
704
00:41:36.947 --> 00:41:39.930
It's like you it's just like as fast as you can get there.
705
00:41:40.650 --> 00:41:45.936
It's in my opinion, this is if you want speed, you can decide how fast you want to do these things.
706
00:41:46.456 --> 00:41:48.478
This is the formula for going faster.
707
00:41:48.678 --> 00:41:51.601
If you want to get there faster, this is you have to do this faster.
708
00:41:52.262 --> 00:41:59.146
And so the faster you're in a position where you only have to jump in and be the player in the field is when there's an emergency.
709
00:41:59.586 --> 00:42:04.469
And then you start to look for like, well, how do I get rid of the emergency so I can be in the field even less?
710
00:42:04.569 --> 00:42:07.131
And now I'm living as a coach all the time.
711
00:42:07.611 --> 00:42:17.277
And then I think the next jump in and what will probably happen is for most companies, if you kind of think how this works, you get to being a coach over those in the field.
712
00:42:18.603 --> 00:42:22.004
the majority of time, almost a hundred percent of time, but you're probably now the player in the office.
713
00:42:22.565 --> 00:42:24.585
You're the, you're the player selling.
714
00:42:24.605 --> 00:42:27.167
Like, so then there's the next, you kind of move into the office.
715
00:42:27.487 --> 00:42:28.387
You're doing a lot of that.
716
00:42:28.427 --> 00:42:30.528
You're doing all the selling, you're doing all the estimating.
717
00:42:31.048 --> 00:42:34.149
And you, again, want to go through the same process there.
718
00:42:34.810 --> 00:42:39.992
You want to start getting to, okay, how can I start bringing people in contractors, uh,
719
00:42:40.652 --> 00:42:53.317
employees, high contractor work with agencies, whatever the case is, where now you're shifting more and more of even the other side of the business off of you and you're as much as you can becoming more of a coach there, less of a player there.
720
00:42:53.837 --> 00:43:01.680
And then the next and the final shift that you'll live the rest of your life is kind of this shift from what we'll call a coach to a leader.
721
00:43:01.900 --> 00:43:03.741
And this is very much what you were talking about.
722
00:43:04.541 --> 00:43:05.702
Even as a coach, you're a leader.
723
00:43:06.322 --> 00:43:06.722
Absolutely.
724
00:43:06.742 --> 00:43:10.985
But what I mean here is now you're a coach or a leader of leaders.
725
00:43:11.786 --> 00:43:22.053
You're developing yourself and now you're developing your leaders that will be the coach in the field, the operations manager, the office manager, the sales manager, depending on how big you want to take the business.
726
00:43:22.394 --> 00:43:24.075
And so it's a frame I like to think about.
727
00:43:24.095 --> 00:43:29.019
You start out doing everything, then you shift to just being a coach.
728
00:43:29.839 --> 00:43:31.399
most of the time to the people in the field.
729
00:43:31.419 --> 00:43:33.320
But now you're kind of the player in the office.
730
00:43:33.620 --> 00:43:38.201
Then you shift more and more of your duties in the office to being the coach over the team.
731
00:43:38.481 --> 00:43:40.522
And then you shift to building the managers.
732
00:43:41.222 --> 00:43:43.042
And the managers build the company.
733
00:43:43.682 --> 00:43:44.943
And that's when it goes.
734
00:43:45.183 --> 00:43:48.003
If you don't build that, the thing never goes fast.
735
00:43:48.043 --> 00:43:50.424
You have to eventually build all the people under you.
736
00:43:50.804 --> 00:43:52.464
And you're the coach just to the leaders.
737
00:43:52.864 --> 00:43:54.105
And the leaders build the company.
738
00:43:54.405 --> 00:43:55.345
That's what a company is.
739
00:43:55.545 --> 00:43:57.325
Other people build it, not you eventually.
740
00:43:57.345 --> 00:43:59.526
It takes a long time to get there, but that's the progression.
741
00:43:59.766 --> 00:44:06.652
One of the things you said in the past too is once a business gets past like around $10 million in revenue, it's almost hard to slow the momentum down.
742
00:44:06.992 --> 00:44:13.978
And I think a lot of times I see from taking the revenue dollar amount away at that size, though, typically it's when this occurs.
743
00:44:14.358 --> 00:44:20.304
And that is when those mid level managers have been installed, there's a leadership team, the business can run without that genius.
744
00:44:20.924 --> 00:44:34.572
that is always there, always able to do everything, and it can just operate and it can continue to grow because that momentum now is not just the owner or the CEO, there's that mid-level management that has been established and can actually drive the business forward.
745
00:44:35.395 --> 00:44:44.418
100%, the magic isn't the 10 million, the magic is what had to be built to get to the 10 million, and the thing that got built is what keeps it going or keeps it growing, 100%.
746
00:44:44.898 --> 00:44:46.439
It ties a lot in my number three.
747
00:44:46.939 --> 00:44:47.839
So- Okay, great.
748
00:44:47.859 --> 00:44:55.802
So for number three, I put morphing from a manager into an architect, and what you're building as the architect is enterprise value.
749
00:44:56.682 --> 00:45:03.325
And I've been using this a lot recently, and that is like, especially once the business starts kicking off cash, is like, even if you're never gonna sell,
750
00:45:05.221 --> 00:45:11.947
It is a valuable metric to know because it really is just grading the business as to how well is it run?
751
00:45:12.587 --> 00:45:13.388
How is it systems?
752
00:45:13.808 --> 00:45:18.852
How have you been a leader and been able to establish these mid-level managers inside the organization?
753
00:45:19.233 --> 00:45:20.974
It really reflects in your enterprise value.
754
00:45:21.555 --> 00:45:25.178
And so enterprise value is simply your earnings times some multiple.
755
00:45:25.818 --> 00:45:36.583
And so the goal as you get, you start growing the businesses, you're, you're yes, growing your earnings, but the multiple part is really where you have a lot of leverage to grow the enterprise value of the organization.
756
00:45:36.963 --> 00:45:40.344
And this actually ties back to a video you made a few months ago on five for 50.
757
00:45:40.784 --> 00:45:45.767
And that is sometimes you, your cashflow might be the same from year to year over the next over three to four years.
758
00:45:46.067 --> 00:45:53.650
But if the business has been growing it, you've been installing systems, adding in managers, improving it, your enterprise value or the net worth.
759
00:45:53.770 --> 00:45:55.771
of might have gone double or triple.
760
00:45:55.811 --> 00:46:03.474
And so you're like, well, I only went from a million to 3 million, but my take home profit because I got my operations manager has still been around 10%.
761
00:46:03.534 --> 00:46:04.555
It's just still been the same.
762
00:46:04.695 --> 00:46:06.116
Okay, great, that's your earnings.
763
00:46:06.416 --> 00:46:15.420
But now the multiple might've gone from a 2X to a 4X, for example, and you've doubled the enterprise value, but that doesn't show up on a profit and loss statement.
764
00:46:15.880 --> 00:46:31.834
And so one of the things that I've been really encouraging our larger operators to start doing is like you have your revenue, you have your profit, and then you have enterprise value and that enterprise value in the multiple that is assumed with it, I don't really care what metric you use, but it's going to be some synthesis of questions around.
765
00:46:32.870 --> 00:46:42.774
the quality of your revenue, how involved you as the owner are, do you know your customer acquisition costs, there's 10 or 15 questions that you can come up with a decent range of what that multiple should look like.
766
00:46:43.275 --> 00:46:50.978
And that's a really good benchmark for am I actually improving the business, even though as I'm growing, my earnings might be somewhat the same.
767
00:46:51.842 --> 00:47:06.388
And I think the biggest part going from like a manager into an architect and like, how do I build that is finding the people that can do what you've always done in a smaller business, which is identify a problem, identify a solution, and then go and execute on it.
768
00:47:07.148 --> 00:47:07.308
And.
769
00:47:09.019 --> 00:47:21.702
You cannot build a $10 million business if you're the only person that can walk into your business, see all the problems, be the only person that can then be like, here's how you fix them, and be the only person that can actually push the ball down the field and get execution accomplished.
770
00:47:22.323 --> 00:47:30.525
And so whether it be an operations manager, a sales manager, someone in the office manager, there needs to be people that when you're not there, they walk into the business, they can see all the problems,
771
00:47:31.925 --> 00:47:36.368
the things that are wrong and why you're getting better views and why there's customer complaints and all the issues.
772
00:47:36.828 --> 00:47:42.611
They can also identify a solution like without having to bring you as the owner in there was a this is what needs to happen.
773
00:47:42.651 --> 00:47:43.892
It's going to take me six months to fix.
774
00:47:44.172 --> 00:47:44.913
But here's the solution.
775
00:47:45.413 --> 00:47:47.094
And this is like next level.
776
00:47:47.114 --> 00:47:49.135
If they can do all three, actually go and do it.
777
00:47:49.896 --> 00:47:51.697
And when you're able to find those kind of people,
778
00:47:52.708 --> 00:47:59.570
and switching from being doing the work, managing the work, but then architecting the business in a way where I'm increasing enterprise value.
779
00:47:59.850 --> 00:48:07.272
And a huge component of enterprise value is, is the owner required to be there to keep these two engines like you've mentioned running?
780
00:48:07.892 --> 00:48:10.513
If so, the enterprise value drops dramatically.
781
00:48:11.253 --> 00:48:19.238
And another part that I've been thinking a lot when it comes to enterprise value is a lot of times you had mentioned a few weeks ago about the thesis when it comes to private equity.
782
00:48:19.939 --> 00:48:21.220
Does your business have a thesis?
783
00:48:21.680 --> 00:48:24.041
Does your business have a vision that everyone's driving for?
784
00:48:24.081 --> 00:48:26.243
We know where we're going, what we're trying to accomplish.
785
00:48:26.503 --> 00:48:32.767
We know the size of business we're trying to go for, what service we do and what we do not do, what we stand for, what the values of the company are.
786
00:48:33.047 --> 00:48:38.171
That's the story that gets you the talent that allows you to step into the architect role.
787
00:48:38.871 --> 00:48:41.072
And so I almost think of it as like a compounding machine.
788
00:48:41.092 --> 00:48:43.712
Like I need to have this vision to attract the talent.
789
00:48:44.212 --> 00:48:50.334
That talent then allows me to step into architect mode so they can push the business forward without me being in that manager mode.
790
00:48:50.714 --> 00:48:52.234
So, sorry, I rambled a little bit.
791
00:48:52.554 --> 00:48:53.134
No, it's great.
792
00:48:53.194 --> 00:49:01.316
From an architecture standpoint, you said, you know, you don't want to be the sole architect, like maybe you cast the vision, but you need other people.
793
00:49:01.336 --> 00:49:03.377
They're going to help architect the business.
794
00:49:03.517 --> 00:49:04.417
I think I heard you correctly.
795
00:49:05.613 --> 00:49:06.553
Do you build these people?
796
00:49:06.773 --> 00:49:08.354
Do you buy these people?
797
00:49:08.474 --> 00:49:09.174
Or do you hire them?
798
00:49:09.214 --> 00:49:10.475
Like how do you think about that?
799
00:49:12.035 --> 00:49:16.357
I don't think I have a perfect answer on this because I think we're still so far away from where I wanna get.
800
00:49:17.017 --> 00:49:24.640
But like I try to reverse engineer for like, okay, if we hit this goal, would this person have the skill to be able to be in their current role at that size?
801
00:49:24.900 --> 00:49:25.801
Can they get me here?
802
00:49:25.941 --> 00:49:29.222
If not, I need to either A, invest into them, get them a coach,
803
00:49:29.722 --> 00:49:33.705
it pour into them, educate them, get them around the type of individuals they need to gain those skills.
804
00:49:33.925 --> 00:49:41.530
Or I have to be really clear with them that, Hey, your skills are here and I'm happy, but unless you upgrade those, I'm going to have to eventually hire above you.
805
00:49:41.910 --> 00:49:47.354
And that was a mistake I made early on is giving people's titles way too high in the organization before it was necessary.
806
00:49:47.374 --> 00:49:54.618
And then actually have to say like, I'm gonna have to bring your title down because there's another skill here that is required for us to continue growing.
807
00:49:55.539 --> 00:49:55.739
Yeah.
808
00:49:56.319 --> 00:49:57.040
Makes a lot of sense.
809
00:49:58.590 --> 00:49:59.051
Fantastic.
810
00:49:59.551 --> 00:49:59.752
All right.
811
00:49:59.772 --> 00:50:00.192
What about yours?
812
00:50:00.252 --> 00:50:00.493
Last one.
813
00:50:00.513 --> 00:50:00.993
Ready for my next one?
814
00:50:01.013 --> 00:50:01.374
Go for it.
815
00:50:01.614 --> 00:50:01.875
All right.
816
00:50:02.395 --> 00:50:06.000
So my last one is you are doing all this stuff.
817
00:50:06.902 --> 00:50:10.847
Hiring people, buying trucks, growing fast, doing your marketing.
818
00:50:11.007 --> 00:50:11.969
How in the world do you pay for it?
819
00:50:12.770 --> 00:50:14.272
So when I...
820
00:50:15.208 --> 00:50:19.631
there's a number of things that are required in my mind to really be able to pay for this growth.
821
00:50:19.651 --> 00:50:21.913
Cause I think obviously growth costs a lot of money.
822
00:50:22.593 --> 00:50:24.675
And we've talked about this idea of complexity.
823
00:50:24.715 --> 00:50:32.420
Complexity is I'm doing a lot of different services or complexity is I'm serving a lot of different areas or I'm serving a lot of different types of clients.
824
00:50:32.680 --> 00:50:36.423
All those things are complexity and complexity eats even more money.
825
00:50:37.304 --> 00:50:40.326
It eats more time and it eats more money than a more simple business.
826
00:50:40.346 --> 00:50:41.267
We've hashed that out.
827
00:50:41.567 --> 00:50:43.488
We're both in agreement on that.
828
00:50:43.848 --> 00:50:44.329
And so,
829
00:50:46.116 --> 00:50:49.698
every business is going to have a different appetite for money and cash.
830
00:50:49.778 --> 00:50:53.440
And so how are the ways you pay for all this growth and especially fast growth?
831
00:50:53.760 --> 00:50:58.202
That's what's really more at risk here is fast growth.
832
00:50:58.242 --> 00:51:00.223
A lot of companies might even be able to do it.
833
00:51:00.303 --> 00:51:01.303
They just can't pay for it.
834
00:51:01.323 --> 00:51:02.284
So they don't get the fast growth.
835
00:51:02.564 --> 00:51:05.905
So last week, we talked about this idea of getting paid super fast.
836
00:51:06.266 --> 00:51:13.649
I won't rehash all that, but how do you get your money as close to the moment that you actually perform the work as possible?
837
00:51:13.769 --> 00:51:15.550
And ideally, before you pay the people
838
00:51:15.690 --> 00:51:16.330
that did the work.
839
00:51:17.371 --> 00:51:19.171
So, because that just solves so many problems.
840
00:51:19.191 --> 00:51:32.155
If I got to pay Bob today and then I'm going to get paid in 30 days, I am floating all that money that I could have used to spend on marketing or buy the next truck or have less debt on my line of credit.
841
00:51:32.635 --> 00:51:36.556
So how do I get paid for Ms. Smith before I pay Bob?
842
00:51:36.936 --> 00:51:44.200
Just that one change because your labor is in most companies, 40 to 50% of the business or more.
843
00:51:44.581 --> 00:51:47.422
Because you think about, we'll just think about cogs and gross.
844
00:51:48.143 --> 00:51:53.826
The field work is probably, we'll call it for most companies, 35 to 50% of revenue, the labor.
845
00:51:54.287 --> 00:51:57.929
And so if you could just solve that one problem right there, you change everything.
846
00:51:58.189 --> 00:52:02.692
But that's just part one of thinking about how do you pay for all this growth?
847
00:52:03.589 --> 00:52:08.071
The other one that's incredibly important, and what I just said is a version of cash flow.
848
00:52:08.591 --> 00:52:13.013
It's like, it's the flow of money into the business and the flow of money out of the business.
849
00:52:13.553 --> 00:52:16.894
So we've got income coming in, we've got expenses that have to get paid.
850
00:52:17.414 --> 00:52:20.596
And I just gave a perfect example of that.
851
00:52:20.996 --> 00:52:27.678
I have income coming in from Ms. Smith, and then I have an outflow, which is paying Bob, the fellow that did the work.
852
00:52:28.439 --> 00:52:31.480
And how do I get those as lined up as possible
853
00:52:32.267 --> 00:52:34.748
Where, again, what I said, I'm either...
854
00:52:35.909 --> 00:52:42.172
I'm bringing the money in right before I have to pay it or I'm bringing the money in really, really close to when I have to pay it.
855
00:52:42.392 --> 00:52:44.353
But that cash flow isn't just about labor.
856
00:52:44.393 --> 00:52:52.077
That cash flow then spreads across your expenses throughout the business that are not labor-related.
857
00:52:52.378 --> 00:52:54.459
The purchasing of equipment, materials.
858
00:52:54.919 --> 00:52:57.880
Are you pre-buying materials at the end of the year to save money?
859
00:52:58.161 --> 00:53:00.182
But that's putting you into a financial jam?
860
00:53:01.302 --> 00:53:09.666
Or the cash flow of you do pre-pays, but you don't really understand how much money you really have at any one moment because we had all this money.
861
00:53:09.686 --> 00:53:14.348
It seems like we have tons of money, but then somehow we get to the middle of the year, we have like no money.
862
00:53:14.388 --> 00:53:15.229
Where'd all the money go?
863
00:53:15.249 --> 00:53:20.611
That's understanding the cash flows of your business or you take deposits on big jobs.
864
00:53:21.032 --> 00:53:29.456
Then there's a misunderstanding of how much money do we really have to grow the business with versus how much of the money we have in the bank is already committed to future payroll and future materials.
865
00:53:29.796 --> 00:53:29.916
Yeah.
866
00:53:30.636 --> 00:53:39.498
All that stuff right there gets really confusing for a lot of companies that are growing really fast or are running non-simple businesses.
867
00:53:39.758 --> 00:53:46.120
I like, as an example, construction-based or design-build type companies.
868
00:53:46.380 --> 00:53:49.721
It gets really confusing around deposits and...
869
00:53:51.086 --> 00:53:58.552
around phase billing, around material purchases, around when the work's actually going to get performed, how much money do we really have.
870
00:53:58.873 --> 00:54:08.921
And so unless you have data to understand the cash flows of your business, you are flying so blind, you will get into a world of hurt.
871
00:54:09.061 --> 00:54:11.023
I have seen it so many times.
872
00:54:11.623 --> 00:54:14.948
And so if you want to go fast, you got to get paid fast.
873
00:54:15.468 --> 00:54:22.538
If you want to go fast, you have to really understand how much money do I really have at any moment that is not committed capital to the future.
874
00:54:22.558 --> 00:54:24.100
Committed as I'm going to have to pay people.
875
00:54:24.300 --> 00:54:25.622
I'm going to have to buy materials.
876
00:54:26.283 --> 00:54:28.986
It's money we can actually use to grow this business.
877
00:54:29.707 --> 00:54:30.808
You got to understand that.
878
00:54:31.408 --> 00:54:35.630
And then it's the general data, which I won't go into the weeds on that we talk about now.
879
00:54:36.031 --> 00:54:36.771
How's my CAC?
880
00:54:37.111 --> 00:54:38.652
Like, what's it costing me to acquire people?
881
00:54:38.692 --> 00:54:39.573
What's my conversion rate?
882
00:54:39.913 --> 00:54:48.037
Understanding all that data is imperative to being able to make predictions and to make bets and to make decisions about how to spend money.
883
00:54:48.538 --> 00:54:50.879
And then the other one I'd add to this, how do you pay for it is...
884
00:54:52.380 --> 00:54:55.843
There's no way you can not underprice.
885
00:54:57.004 --> 00:55:00.207
It's very rare that any one of us is going to start a business.
886
00:55:00.547 --> 00:55:06.492
It's going to be priced perfectly from the beginning because you can price one way in the beginning and you're making great money.
887
00:55:06.692 --> 00:55:11.816
Life is good, but you can't really yet see all the costs that are coming to the business.
888
00:55:12.497 --> 00:55:15.759
Mary in the office, the operations manager...
889
00:55:16.800 --> 00:55:19.044
The trucks don't last as long as I thought they would.
890
00:55:19.244 --> 00:55:21.307
The mowers don't last as long as I thought they would.
891
00:55:21.828 --> 00:55:24.552
I'm buying equipment and materials and I have to...
892
00:55:25.593 --> 00:55:29.074
I have to have all this money up front to buy that stuff and I get paid for it later.
893
00:55:29.114 --> 00:55:29.874
Back to the cash flow thing.
894
00:55:30.054 --> 00:55:33.115
There's all these ways that it costs a lot of money to run a business.
895
00:55:33.415 --> 00:55:37.976
You can't possibly understand those things until you get experienced them.
896
00:55:38.396 --> 00:55:39.696
And then you're like, wait a second.
897
00:55:40.236 --> 00:55:42.617
Apparently, I wasn't pricing quite right.
898
00:55:42.677 --> 00:55:47.778
So as this business grows and grows and grows, you have to make pricing adjustments as you learn.
899
00:55:47.998 --> 00:55:49.879
That's why I said you have to understand your cash flow.
900
00:55:50.079 --> 00:55:51.979
That's why I said you have to understand your data.
901
00:55:52.239 --> 00:55:54.640
That tells you what's going on in the business.
902
00:55:55.700 --> 00:56:00.706
will have the confidence to like, oh, this business is costing more and more to run.
903
00:56:01.066 --> 00:56:04.550
We need to keep our prices up so we can hit our gross margin target.
904
00:56:04.950 --> 00:56:05.591
It's that kind of thing.
905
00:56:05.611 --> 00:56:07.013
So those are the four legs I think about.
906
00:56:07.233 --> 00:56:15.342
Getting paid fast, cash flow, data across the business, and then constant pricing adjustments as the business gets to its next level.
907
00:56:15.979 --> 00:56:23.803
Yeah, I think your point too about being profitable at certain size might not necessarily mean as you grow, you're still profitable because the business demands more overhead many times.
908
00:56:24.104 --> 00:56:27.786
So the reason I don't get that operations manager is because the drop in profit.
909
00:56:28.006 --> 00:56:38.732
Well, that might be more of a pricing situation where I need to take a 10% price increase and pass that extra cost along to my customers to be able to afford the thing that allows me to get to the next level.
910
00:56:39.638 --> 00:56:39.798
Yeah.
911
00:56:40.058 --> 00:56:44.259
It's why the big companies are generally more expensive.
912
00:56:44.860 --> 00:56:52.342
It's why when you're a small company and you're entering the market, you're like, they're charging $60 for that or they charge $10,000 for that.
913
00:56:52.362 --> 00:56:54.062
Those people are just ripping everybody off.
914
00:56:54.362 --> 00:56:56.003
Yeah, it's because you don't understand the numbers yet.
915
00:56:57.223 --> 00:57:01.645
One day, if you get big enough, you'll be like, okay, I understand why you need to charge that money.
916
00:57:02.145 --> 00:57:05.426
And so it's just a part of the learning process.
917
00:57:05.486 --> 00:57:05.706
And so
918
00:57:09.689 --> 00:57:10.009
I agree.
919
00:57:10.329 --> 00:57:11.490
Well, that's been one hour.
920
00:57:12.250 --> 00:57:16.091
There are, there are taxes in this world and we have payroll tax, we have income taxes.
921
00:57:16.411 --> 00:57:17.231
We have all these taxes.
922
00:57:17.291 --> 00:57:25.954
The one tax we have here on the channel is that at the end of this, you put in the comments, what you learned and what your takeaway is and what you're going to execute on this week.
923
00:57:26.234 --> 00:57:30.636
Like in the next seven days, what are you doing based upon what are the things that was talked about in the past hour?
924
00:57:30.956 --> 00:57:32.516
That's the one tax for today.
925
00:57:32.716 --> 00:57:37.658
JP, any closing thoughts before we wrap this up, getting to $10 million, since everyone watching this is going to get to 10 million.
926
00:57:39.338 --> 00:57:39.739
everybody.
927
00:57:39.759 --> 00:57:39.979
Yeah.
928
00:57:40.359 --> 00:57:40.940
You don't know.
929
00:57:40.960 --> 00:57:45.523
I, uh, no, it's just like, this is where you put your address for those royalty checks.
930
00:57:45.923 --> 00:57:49.666
Cause once you hit 10 million, that's when you get the real, recurring revenue.
931
00:57:49.826 --> 00:57:50.887
Well, I'm waiting for those.
932
00:57:51.487 --> 00:57:51.808
All right.
933
00:57:51.868 --> 00:57:53.869
Yeah, no, I, nothing just, it's the basics.
934
00:57:53.929 --> 00:57:58.353
It's showing up in every day and just doing the work and, uh, yeah.
935
00:57:58.413 --> 00:58:01.715
And we will continue to show up on the podcast another week podcast.
936
00:58:01.735 --> 00:58:02.516
Thank you all for watching.
937
00:58:02.536 --> 00:58:02.656
Yep.
938
00:58:03.356 --> 00:58:03.997
See you next week.