#90: Stop Avoiding Your Numbers: Leading with Clarity with Andy Weins

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The triple S score how simple is it to work with this person?
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Do they respond to emails?
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Do they pay you on time?
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And measurable, one through five, how simple are they to work with?
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Again, it's subjective and yet I can come up with some objective data to your emotions.
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Second thing, how stimulating is the work?
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Is this the work you wanna be doing or is this the work you're doing because you're doing it?
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And third, how satisfying is the relationship?
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Is this like a mom and pop where they're like,"Oh my God, we love you.
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Thank you so much.
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This has been great.
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It's impactful.
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We're impacting the community." Or is it a big company that says,"Hey, thanks.
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Send an invoice." We took her dollars per hour, multiplied it by her triple S score.
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Of her 17 customers, we fired eight on the spot.
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She was getting paid ranging$127 an hour from one customer down to$8 an hour from another customer
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How's business?
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It's a simple question, but if you're honest, how would you answer it?
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Pretty good.
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The phone is still ringing.
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We're up from last year.
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Here's the follow-up that stops most leaders cold.
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Up compared to what?
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What was the goal?
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Welcome to the Learning to Lead show.
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I'm your host, Mark Cundiff, and today's guest knows that conversation well because he's had it with hundreds of business owners who could feel something was wrong in their gut, but couldn't find it in their numbers.
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This is episode number ninety, Stop Avoiding Your Numbers: Leading with Clarity with Andy Weins.
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Andy is a twenty-two-year Army veteran, a fourth-generation entrepreneur, and the founder of a junk removal company in Milwaukee with thirty employees that business started after Andy came home from Iraq in two thousand and nine, found himself laid off, and began picking up scrap metal to cover a twelve hundred and fifty dollar mortgage.
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Today, he serves as a fractional CFO, consultant, and he's the co-author of Stop Avoiding Your Numbers, a book written for the ninety-nine percent of businesses that never reach two million in revenue.
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In my conversation with Andy, he shares, number one, the wall-to-wall conversation that changed how he led and why military leadership doesn't always translate to the civilian world.
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Number two, his one rule for entrepreneurs: Don't run out of money.
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Number three, his triple S score, a simple tool that helped one business owner fire eight of her seventeen customers in a single hour and take her first vacation in years.
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And number four, why avoiding your numbers isn't an accounting problem, but a leadership one.
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Andy says it best, business owners would rather sit in the comfort of ambiguity than the discomfort of vulnerability.
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Today's episode is your invitation to choose the discomfort and to lead with clarity.
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In just a moment, Andy will join us on the Learning to Lead show to discuss these key topics.
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First, I invite you to make sure to download Leader Notes.
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That will give you a great reader's digest version of everything discussed today, with the resources and the key topics that we discussed and covered today.
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Those help us show up more prominently in the search engines so that others can learn about the great conversations with great leaders that we're having.
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Now join me in welcoming Andy Weins to the Learning to Lead show
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hello, Andy.
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Welcome to the Learning to Lead show.
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I appreciate being on here today.
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Excited to talk about something from a leadership perspective with you today about people understanding their numbers, and we'll get into that in just a moment, because it is a critical issue for people leading organizations, leading companies.
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Share with us your leadership journey.
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I know you served in the military and had a number of different roles throughout your career.
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When did you first see yourself as a leader?
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Yeah I, so I've been 22 years in the military, and it wasn't until I joined the military that I wanted to be a leader.
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I was definitely more of a introvert as a kid.
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There's three types of people.
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There's gonna be leaders, there's gonna be followers, and then there's gonna be individualists, and I'm a individual contributor.
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That's where I kinda do my best work.
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And in the Army, I realized that there's no room for individual contributors.
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I was told early in my military career, you got three options.
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You lead, you follow, or you get in the way.
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And I knew I didn't wanna get in the way, and I knew I didn't wanna follow people, so I became a leader by way of a lack of options.
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Throughout my military career from basic training on, I thought, in order for me to control my own destiny more," in a million-man organization- Yeah Leadership is the way to go.
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Picked up the tips and tricks in the military, came back to the civilian world and realized that a lot of what we use as leadership in the military does not work in the civilian world.
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So my a-ha moment in the civilian world was when I realized that here in the civilian world, people can quit.
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In the military, that's not a lever they have.
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So I learned to lead one way and then realized that whether you're gonna be a coach on a team, you're gonna be a supervisor in the civilian world, or you're gonna lead troops in combat it's not always the same.
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So some principles remain the same.
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The tactical execution is always gonna be different, and that's where, as leaders, it's our opportunity to adapt and overcome.
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So how did you make that transition?
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'Cause that is a challenge that a lot of people that have served in the military they come and realize it's a different environment if you're whether you're working in a corporate world or in a small business.
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What did you do to transition away from that type of leadership?
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I failed.
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It wasn't, I, it wasn't like,"Oh, I need to change the way I do things." It's,"Oh, I'm getting yelled at again.
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Oh, people aren't responding to the, my tactics.
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Oh, okay." We call, in the military, we call wall-to-wall conversations.
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In a wall-to-wall conversations, you grab somebody up by the collar and you put'em to one wall and then the other wall, and that's a wall-to-wall conversation.
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I had a staff sergeant.
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We were the same rank.
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I was the platoon sergeant, he was a squad leader, so I was his superior in that situation, Staff Sergeant Sanchez.
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And we went into the laundry room one night and we had a wall-to-wall conversation- And he was doing the conversating.
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So he was putting me wall to wall, and he let me know exactly what he thought about my leadership and the way I was conducting my business.
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And he was also 10 years my senior in life, so he had different experience, and it ended up being one of the best things for me.
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Because what he was saying it was true.
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Now, how he was saying it might have come across a little bit different.
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It, getting physical isn't exactly something you can do in the civilian world either.
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A million stories I got, right?
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And when I worked for a big corporation, I was known as the angry emailer because I did what I do in the military, which is BLUF, bottom line up front, B-L-U-F.
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Civilian world it's, feelings and details and blah blah blah, and then you state what the email is all about.
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I put it right up front, bottom line up front,'cause that's what I was taught in the military.
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And so it was wall-to-wall counseling, it was employees quitting, it was being labeled an angry emailer, it was, I had a driver when I worked for WM get up in my face right here and, again, told me what he thought about my leadership style.
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In all those situations, I can look back at those people, the ones that accused me of this, that, or the other thing, they weren't wrong and neither was I.
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We had a different perspective, and we had that coming to Jesus moment, that conflict that was necessary for me to grow as a leader and for them to grow as a follower.
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Because chances are I'm having a conversation with them because there's a gap between expectation and reality.
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And now how I cover that gap might have been wrong, absolutely.
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The fact is I covered the gap.
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And a lot of leaders, in today's society especially, don't cover the gap.
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They'd rather play it safe.
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They'd rather worry about PC, DEI, name that acronym, and either the work doesn't get done or they do the work for their reports begrudgingly.
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And doing work for others isn't leading.
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Let's transition over to where, I saw where you described yourself as a fourth-generation entrepreneur.
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Yep.
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What kind of lessons did you inherit from the previous generations that still guide how you lead today?
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I remember one story you telling about how you started helping your parents with the books at the age of 10, I think it was, if I remember correctly.
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And- Some- somewhere, yeah, somewhere in there.
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Yep.
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Real young to be diving into something like that.
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But you said that you learned from your grandparents one way of doing it, like I think it was your grandmother that- kept every penny till the day she died, and then your parents had a little bit different methodology.
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And that's kinda led you to where you are today because you reacted to what you saw in those environments.
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Tell us how that impacted you?
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Yeah.
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Growing up on a farm, I realized quick, fast in a hurry that you could either be outside with Grandpa in the heat, or you could be inside with Grandma doing the dishes and doing...
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and both jobs mattered on a farm.
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Yep.
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And I realized that the inside job was more befitting of what I did, right?
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And you can be either strong or smart.
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You can be both, but I'd rather be smart.
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I had a little bit more control over.
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So early on with my grandparents, understanding the business was interesting to me.
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I can remember talking to my grandmother about how the price of milk affected- what bills they could pay when.
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And those are the kind of conversations we're, I'm having at six, seven, eight, nine years old, right?
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When the milkman came on Tuesdays, Fridays, that's when he came to pick up.
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I wo- I was interested.
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I'm like,"Oh, this is interesting." And then come, yeah, somewhere nine, 10, 11, somewhere in there my dad started pulling me aside to start typing.
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He, my dad w- couldn't type, and my mom wouldn't put up with him, so I got nominated and selected.
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And then we got a computer, I learned how to type on a typewriter, carbon copy invoices.
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And I started asking questions like we quoted them this much, and now this is the price.
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What happened?
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What changed?" Once we got a computer, my dad saw me copy and paste something for the first time, and he was blown away.
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I went in, I had Microsoft Word 93, and I went in and changed the word quote to invoice, and then I didn't have to retype all...
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He was just blown away.
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And I said okay, this job is a$1,000 basement job hanging drywall.
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What's the difference between 1,000 and$1,200?
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Like, why, is it the square foot number of sheets of drywall?" I've always been curious about that, and I got that from my grandmother.
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And now to this day I run a pretty successful business and I'm obsessed with the data.
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I wrote a book about data because I realized that most business owners that struggle are struggling.
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And when you ask them simple questions, they never have an answer.
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You ask a simple question like,"Oh, how's business?""Oh, we're doing pretty good." The phone seems to be ringing." I'm still in business today." Or they might say,"Yeah, we're up from last year." What are you up?" About 10%.""Okay.
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What was the goal?" Be up, right?
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And how do you know when you arrived if you didn't know where you were going?
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And so that's the truth about data.
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Most business owners say,"My goal is to become and be getting in business," right?
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Be- have a business.
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And then it's quit my nine to five and be a full-time business owner.
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That's the next step.
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And then once they quit the nine to five, once they're in business full time, it's almost like their goals stop.
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What's the goal and what's the number?
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My wife asked me the question the other day,"Hey, how many clients..." She owns a business.
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She does a consulting.
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She goes,"How many clients do I need so I can quit my job?" That's a great question, and there's a, there's an Excel spreadsheet with that answer on it.
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It sounds like you leveraged that knowledge that you gained from working with your grandmother and working in your parents' business, and you went from being a laid-off combat veteran in 2009 to starting multiple successful businesses.
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What was the mindset shift that you went through to becoming your own owner-operator, so to speak, being an entrepreneur?
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I realized when I come home from Iraq, I worked for my father's company, and then I started down the process of getting a job.
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And for those of us that were working in 2008 and 2009, that wasn't the best of times to get a job.
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And I realized at that point that I was unemployable.
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I was unmanageable.
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I was uncoachable.
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I was, 24, 25 years old, pissed off at the world, and I had a mortgage.
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So it wasn't this aspirational thing.
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It was, operating out of desperation.
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And so I knew what I knew how to do.
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I knew how to process metal.
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So I started driving around the northwest side of Milwaukee, picking up scrap, processing it, separating ferrous from non-ferrous metal, your brass, your copper, your stainless.
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And I knew I liked doing it.
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I grew up doing it in my parents' driveway.
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I enjoyed doing it.
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I was good at it And then one day someone said I'll pay you to come down in my basement and pull my water heater out." I go,"Let me get this right.
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You're gonna pay me to go down a flight of stairs to pick something up that I'd be willing to pick up for free?"'Cause that water heater's worth 12 American dollars all day, right?
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Knock off that brass fitting, the little,$14.
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That's a one pound, a two pound.
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At one pound at$2 a pound, I went from$12 to$14.
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That ain't bad for 20 minutes worth of work, right?
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You multiply that over, I'm making$45 an hour.
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And you're gonna pay me 50 bucks to go down to the basement and pick it up?
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We got ourselves a business here, boy.
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There was no plan.
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The plan was my mortgage was$1,250.
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That was my plan.
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My plan was make$100 a day.
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I wanted to average$100 a day.
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That was$2,000 a month cash money.
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I could pay all my bills and live on$2,000 a month.
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That was the grand plan.
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And then I realized I could make a business out of this.
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Here's where I got s- caught up, though.
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I convinced myself after those first six months of doing all right, I convinced myself that I needed a degree, I needed a plan, I needed a business partner, I needed money in the bank, right?
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I convinced myself.
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And that convincing cost me seven years.
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I went from having a business that made money and made sense, and I was good at, seven years before I said,"Okay, now I'm gonna commit." And I tell that story because people look at me now and they're like,"Oh, you just went after it and you got out." No, seven years.
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Now, in that seven years, I got a bachelor's degree.
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My brother got out of high school and became my business partner.
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I deployed, come home with a few dollars in my pocket, give us a runway to get things going, right?
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That's my journey.
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It's not right or wrong, those are the facts.
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And so what I tell people now is it ought not to take seven years.
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This is what I tell people, entrepreneur, I came up with this about two years ago when I was speaking to a group of college kids.
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Entrepreneurship is the intersection between what are you willing to do for free and what is someone willing to pay you for, right?
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Because if you're willing to do it for free, it's a hobby.
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And if someone's willing to pay you for it, it's a job.
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And when you can do those two things together, you got yourself a small business.
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And that's what I realized.
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Whether it was picking up scrap on the side of the road, writing a book, I've written two books now speaking in front of groups, workshops and keynotes.
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These are all things I'm willing to do for free.
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And when I find someone that's willing to pay me for it, now we're onto something.
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The challenge I see is people go backwards.
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They say,"Okay, what can I make money doing?" And all of a sudden they start a business doing something that they don't really want to do, no amount of money is gonna get you out of bed in the morning, right?
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Yeah.
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The right hobby, the right dream.
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To this day, I drive around my truck, I see something on the side of the road.
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I drive a Tesla Cybertruck.
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I drive a nice truck.
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We run a nice operation here.
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I got a 30,000 square foot building, 25, 30 employees.
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I see a vacuum on the side of the road, you best believe, wife and kids in the car, I'm pulling over, I'm grabbing it, I'm cutting the cord off, I'm gonna go get my$4, that mindset has not...
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I drive by a dumpster, there's not a dumpster in Milwaukee that I don't wanna see inside, I wanna see what's going on in there.
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I wanna see what someone else threw away that I can recycle, I can recover, I can make right.
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You're literally the picture of the one man's trash is another's treasure.
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You're like the commercial for that, I can see.
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Absolutely, 100%.
00:16:17.865 --> 00:16:36.830
You talk about that seven years, and that transitioned us into another question about the leadership lessons that you learned the hard way what do you think are some of the things that you learned the hard way that when you're coaching somebody or you're speaking to a group of business owners, what are some things that you learned the hard way that you try to help them skip?
00:16:37.429 --> 00:16:42.340
When making money isn't your number one priority, you're already out of business and you didn't know it.
00:16:42.750 --> 00:16:45.539
Those first couple years in business, I was gonna be philanthropic.
00:16:45.759 --> 00:16:47.299
I was gonna pay my guys the best.
00:16:47.450 --> 00:16:50.679
I was gonna do whatever it took to donate every item to every charity there was.
00:16:50.809 --> 00:16:57.049
I was gonna put everybody else above my business'cause I was selfless and I was humble, and I thought,"You know what?
00:16:57.110 --> 00:17:01.820
By doing all the right things, the money will follow." And for some businesses, that work.
00:17:01.830 --> 00:17:03.779
You talk to Jesse Cole, Savannah Bananas.
00:17:03.990 --> 00:17:05.410
They got themselves a nice little business.
00:17:05.410 --> 00:17:06.410
I saw a video the other day.
00:17:06.549 --> 00:17:13.920
He said that his financial meeting is one hour- or was one, one meeting a year for two hours, because he knows that fans first.
00:17:13.920 --> 00:17:15.589
You take care of the fans, the money will follow.
00:17:15.990 --> 00:17:17.789
I would say he's the exception to the rule.
00:17:18.420 --> 00:17:24.430
That worked for him'cause he is one of one, when you're that dialed in and you have such a unique product, and you...
00:17:24.579 --> 00:17:30.849
That guy, if I'm an entrepreneur, he's a thousand x what I am when it comes to vision and tenacity, right?
00:17:30.849 --> 00:17:31.380
He's got it.
00:17:31.599 --> 00:17:38.970
The average business owner, you gotta keep track of where the money's coming in from, and making money has gotta be your number one priority.
00:17:39.190 --> 00:17:40.680
And then you can have all these other priorities.
00:17:41.130 --> 00:17:43.230
I had a gentleman about three months ago come up to me.
00:17:43.240 --> 00:17:47.569
We were doing electronics collections event, and he said,"Hey, I'm an aspiring entrepreneur.
00:17:48.130 --> 00:17:49.349
What's your number one rule?
00:17:49.380 --> 00:18:04.150
What's your number one lesson you can tell me?" I said,"Don't run out of money." He goes,"Hot damn." He goes,"I had a business for about three years and I ran out of money." And I said how'd you do that?" I had number one customer I lost, I combined my personal and financial money, I bought a motorcycle," got it.
00:18:04.160 --> 00:18:05.079
You ran out of money.
00:18:05.880 --> 00:18:08.460
Businesses, there's all these contributing factors.
00:18:08.460 --> 00:18:12.190
I made the wrong hire, I invested here, things got tight.
00:18:12.839 --> 00:18:14.079
Supply chain issues.
00:18:14.339 --> 00:18:18.079
The fact of the matter is, businesses die'cause they run out of money.
00:18:19.559 --> 00:18:26.279
That's a good segue into talking about your book, and what inspired you to write Stop Avoiding Your Numbers.
00:18:26.279 --> 00:18:28.490
I think you're already dancing around that right now.
00:18:28.720 --> 00:18:29.039
I live it.
00:18:29.039 --> 00:18:29.460
But, yeah.
00:18:29.460 --> 00:18:29.720
Yeah.
00:18:29.750 --> 00:18:38.400
Yeah, I'm not even, I'm not even trying to get us to that point, but that's the reality of my leadership, is when you are informed, you can make data-driven decisions.
00:18:38.859 --> 00:18:52.640
When you choose to be ignorant- You're gonna be making ignorant decisions tell us a l- little bit about the journey that you and your co-author went through to, to write this book and who it's for, and why it's such an important aspect from a leadership standpoint.
00:18:53.299 --> 00:18:54.730
We'll answer the simple question first.
00:18:55.109 --> 00:18:58.019
99% of businesses never make it to$2 million.
00:18:58.160 --> 00:19:02.140
90% of businesses never make it to a million dollars.
00:19:02.670 --> 00:19:11.230
When I look at a lot of financial books that I've read, good ones, you might have a couple right behind you, they're typically written for businesses that are over$2 million.
00:19:11.700 --> 00:19:14.990
They're written for businesses that have a profit and loss statement.
00:19:15.359 --> 00:19:21.316
They're written for businesses with people that with some level of financial acumen This book ain't that.
00:19:21.925 --> 00:19:27.135
This book is written for the 99% of businesses under$2 million.
00:19:27.135 --> 00:19:32.986
This book is written with the expectation that you can't spell profit and loss statement, and that's in a nice way.
00:19:33.175 --> 00:19:36.306
Saying it's probably something you're not looking at, it's probably something you're avoiding.
00:19:36.526 --> 00:19:43.205
So this book is written for the average business owner that is stuck and doesn't know where to start, and the truth is in the details.
00:19:43.256 --> 00:19:44.705
My journey started eight years ago.
00:19:44.705 --> 00:19:48.875
I started consulting businesses primarily in the junk removal space, home services space.
00:19:49.316 --> 00:19:55.806
And what happened was I was like,"I will consult on all types of business." And then I realized, that didn't work, so I niched down to operations.
00:19:56.105 --> 00:20:03.056
And every time I asked a question about operations, the next question is what is the financial impact of this?" People looked at me.
00:20:03.925 --> 00:20:04.796
They had no idea.
00:20:05.286 --> 00:20:07.605
As a business owner myself, I was obsessed with my data.
00:20:07.655 --> 00:20:11.526
I got a degree from the University of YouTube in QuickBooksology, right?
00:20:11.526 --> 00:20:12.516
I know it inside and out.
00:20:12.806 --> 00:20:18.365
I got a B minus in accounting in college, and I got A plus in University of QuickBooks Online, right?
00:20:18.365 --> 00:20:19.165
That's my jam.
00:20:19.165 --> 00:20:20.465
I know that system inside and out.
00:20:21.135 --> 00:20:22.155
Most business owners don't.
00:20:22.756 --> 00:20:25.705
And so that was my aha moment, that most businesses were struggling.
00:20:26.026 --> 00:20:31.185
Then I had a woman about four years ago say,"Hey, can you be my fractional CFO?" And I was like,"Sure.
00:20:31.185 --> 00:20:36.506
What does that mean?" So I Googled it, and I go, you want me to interpret your data." So I went into her numbers.
00:20:36.506 --> 00:20:44.665
I go all your numbers are jacked up." So then I started realizing there's a lot of bookkeepers and accountants that, yeah, they press the numbers, they know how to file your taxes.
00:20:44.695 --> 00:20:48.486
Beyond that, those financial documents aren't serving the business owner.
00:20:48.635 --> 00:20:51.185
They're unable to make decisions based on those documents.
00:20:51.566 --> 00:20:53.046
So let's develop scorecards.
00:20:53.105 --> 00:20:57.875
So I started doing all this stuff instinctively within my business and then bringing it to others.
00:20:58.566 --> 00:20:59.875
Now, let's look at Lynn's journey.
00:21:00.046 --> 00:21:02.026
Lynn went to school.
00:21:02.266 --> 00:21:03.526
He's got a master's degree.
00:21:03.526 --> 00:21:04.455
Lynn is my co-author.
00:21:04.685 --> 00:21:07.115
He's got a master's degree in finance.
00:21:07.336 --> 00:21:09.796
He spent 14 years working for Procter Gamble.
00:21:09.885 --> 00:21:13.526
He spent 14 years as a CFO for a big company.
00:21:13.945 --> 00:21:17.026
So he's got the pedigree, he's the technical expert.
00:21:17.465 --> 00:21:23.246
I know it from the business owner perspective, not only as a business owner, working with business owners.
00:21:23.425 --> 00:21:30.935
And so we combined our forces, his tactical and technical proficiency with my, what we call hillbilly math, right?
00:21:30.935 --> 00:21:35.915
Which is it's gotta be interpretable by the average business owner, and we started writing this book.
00:21:36.125 --> 00:21:43.576
One of the things we're really proud of with this book, we're 185 pages into this book before we talk about financial documents.
00:21:44.365 --> 00:21:50.816
Because too many people think that their finances are profit and loss statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement.
00:21:50.836 --> 00:21:52.465
They think that's what their data is, right?
00:21:52.516 --> 00:21:53.115
Their numbers.
00:21:53.115 --> 00:21:53.816
All those are my numbers.
00:21:53.816 --> 00:21:54.435
I avoid your num...
00:21:54.665 --> 00:21:54.976
All right.
00:21:55.266 --> 00:21:56.105
Let's just break this down.
00:21:56.576 --> 00:21:57.816
How much money is in your bank account?
00:21:58.516 --> 00:21:59.726
How many customers do you have?
00:21:59.786 --> 00:22:00.826
How many employees do you have?
00:22:00.925 --> 00:22:02.316
How many times did the phone ring today?
00:22:02.695 --> 00:22:04.695
How long does it take you to drive from A to B?
00:22:05.455 --> 00:22:11.175
Those are all numbers And so you embrace those numbers, and your financial numbers are no different.
00:22:12.006 --> 00:22:13.705
They're numbers, they're not intimidating.
00:22:13.875 --> 00:22:17.826
I've had customers tell me,"Oh, I look at my QuickBooks four times a year." All right.
00:22:17.865 --> 00:22:18.776
That's our starting point.
00:22:19.096 --> 00:22:23.105
I had a lady, she didn't know her QuickBooks login when we started working together.
00:22:23.405 --> 00:22:29.026
Within two months she goes,"I was on QuickBooks the other day and I noticed this." Because we're bridging the gap.
00:22:29.036 --> 00:22:43.445
The reason why this book exists is because most business owners don't realize that the day they start a business, not only do they become a CEO, president, whatever the title is, they also became the chief financial officer, and they are under-qualified for it.
00:22:44.056 --> 00:22:44.715
No different than me.
00:22:44.746 --> 00:22:47.935
10 years ago, I was under-qualified to be a CFO of my own company.
00:22:48.746 --> 00:22:50.145
So I learned the hard way.
00:22:50.786 --> 00:23:15.314
The book, 300 pages later, you got 10 years of everything I learned executable within the book one thing that I've always discovered when I went in to help business improve turnaround is that it's one thing to have the profit and loss or having your operating income and those different things, but it's another to understand what the triggers are that impact- those numbers.
00:23:16.243 --> 00:23:30.364
And so can you talk to us about how you help owners and business leaders connect the dots between understanding the numbers and what is actually impacting those numbers, whether it's positive or negative?
00:23:31.304 --> 00:23:37.554
Yeah, I like the word that you used called triggers,'cause triggers are typically a reactor, re- you know, re- oh shit, something happened.
00:23:37.564 --> 00:23:38.294
What did it trigger?
00:23:38.814 --> 00:23:41.233
And so that's a great word because we talk about levers.
00:23:41.394 --> 00:23:45.263
Levers are the proactive turn it up, turn it down- left or right?
00:23:45.523 --> 00:23:49.084
Proactive approach to telling your own story.
00:23:49.453 --> 00:23:54.074
And the first part of telling your own story is knowing what happened and what, like you said, triggers are.
00:23:54.503 --> 00:23:56.023
And so that's what we do with businesses.
00:23:56.144 --> 00:24:01.604
All too often I meet with business owners and they'll say things like,"I think we should raise our prices." Okay, what came to that conclusion?
00:24:01.874 --> 00:24:05.334
"Oh we don't have enough money in the bank." It's okay, why don't we have enough money in the bank?
00:24:05.384 --> 00:24:08.193
Sales are down." Okay, what's causing sales to be down?
00:24:08.243 --> 00:24:11.463
The phone isn't ringing." Okay, what does it take or how does the phone ring?
00:24:11.864 --> 00:24:15.653
And then you break it down, you realize, oh, we turned down Google AdWords and we stopped this.
00:24:15.713 --> 00:24:17.294
Or hey, we lost a customer.
00:24:17.394 --> 00:24:17.804
Okay.
00:24:18.134 --> 00:24:22.554
So you lose a customer, the question is, okay what was it about that customer you loved, right?
00:24:22.624 --> 00:24:23.604
Or customers.
00:24:23.973 --> 00:24:25.223
Who is your ideal customer?
00:24:25.534 --> 00:24:28.324
When someone says,"We need more sales," I say, okay who's your ideal customer?
00:24:28.564 --> 00:24:33.624
I don't know." Okay until you identify who your number one customer is, how are you supposed to identify how you're gonna sell to them?
00:24:34.304 --> 00:24:43.173
And so your bank account being low is a symptom in where we gotta sell more, we gotta hire more, we gotta change prices seem like the right levers.
00:24:43.463 --> 00:24:48.294
Until we understand, to your point, the trigger, you can pull a lever and it might work.
00:24:49.513 --> 00:24:50.653
Going back to the business.
00:24:50.703 --> 00:24:54.213
The thing about the book and my consulting is I don't give any answers.
00:24:54.243 --> 00:24:54.953
That's a fact.
00:24:55.403 --> 00:24:56.874
There is no answers within the book.
00:24:57.653 --> 00:25:04.213
The book has information to consider and questions to ask Most business owners have the answers.
00:25:05.354 --> 00:25:12.594
Yesterday I was working with a woman, she's a book writer, and I said how much, how do you charge?" And she goes,"I just make it up on the spot." I go,"Okay, fair.
00:25:13.114 --> 00:25:18.013
How much did you charge for the last book?" And we got it down to word count'cause that's the measure within her, right?
00:25:18.153 --> 00:25:18.894
I do junk removal.
00:25:18.894 --> 00:25:20.844
Everything's cubic yardage, right?
00:25:20.894 --> 00:25:24.993
Consultants sometimes do it based on hourly, sometimes they do it on profit, right?
00:25:25.034 --> 00:25:26.884
A percentage of profit saved or whatever, right?
00:25:26.943 --> 00:25:28.963
What, how do you charge is a great question.
00:25:29.243 --> 00:25:32.054
So with her, she charges on word count because that's what her industry charges.
00:25:32.074 --> 00:25:32.493
I said,"Okay.
00:25:32.693 --> 00:25:39.294
How much did you charge for your last book?""Okay, these dollars.""How many words was it?""This.""Okay, boom." Now we have a word count cost.
00:25:39.354 --> 00:25:40.723
At least we have a starting point now.
00:25:41.834 --> 00:25:47.503
And so that's a, the prime example to answer your question of how do we use numbers and data.
00:25:47.653 --> 00:25:48.903
They have the information.
00:25:49.953 --> 00:26:02.983
What they're missing is the questions to ask themselves to now interpret the data into a lever or trigger to better understand what control they have over their business I'm sure you can relate to this.
00:26:02.983 --> 00:26:07.953
I worked for one company and we didn't have a really good costing program and we got that improved.
00:26:08.134 --> 00:26:10.824
We started cost analysis on our customers.
00:26:11.483 --> 00:26:18.294
And we found out some of the best ways for us to improve profits was either to raise prices on certain customers or fire them.
00:26:18.703 --> 00:26:23.394
You can actually lose top line revenue- Yep but gain in profitability.
00:26:23.394 --> 00:26:30.473
Can you talk a little bit about how business owners don't understand that sometimes because they don't understand whether or not a customer is actually profitable?
00:26:31.074 --> 00:26:36.653
One of the first customers I ever worked with, before I was even a fraction C- fractional CFO, she had 17 customers.
00:26:36.653 --> 00:26:37.804
She was a graphic designer.
00:26:38.193 --> 00:26:39.614
She was meticulous.
00:26:39.624 --> 00:26:42.554
She knew exactly how many hours she worked with any customer.
00:26:43.003 --> 00:26:43.394
Perfect.
00:26:43.743 --> 00:26:45.314
Like a lawyer, she tracked it by the minute.
00:26:45.763 --> 00:26:46.084
Perfect.
00:26:46.114 --> 00:26:47.604
So that was good, really good data.
00:26:47.604 --> 00:26:49.243
She knew how many hours she put into the customer.
00:26:49.534 --> 00:26:51.574
She also know what she got paid by the customer.
00:26:51.743 --> 00:26:53.403
She never compared those two numbers.
00:26:54.003 --> 00:26:54.993
Here was her challenge.
00:26:55.044 --> 00:27:05.943
She had some customers that were hourly, she had some customers that were project-based, and she had some customers that were on a retainer and she would work for them throughout the month and, they would send her the$500,$1,000, whatever it was.
00:27:07.104 --> 00:27:13.624
In one hour, I took her 17 customers and we laid out how many dollars per hour are you making on every customer?
00:27:13.673 --> 00:27:15.163
That was the first metric.
00:27:15.513 --> 00:27:18.473
The second indicator we took was the triple S score.
00:27:18.473 --> 00:27:19.673
I talk about in this in my first book.
00:27:20.513 --> 00:27:21.644
The triple S score first.
00:27:21.663 --> 00:27:23.463
How simple is it to work with this person?
00:27:23.834 --> 00:27:24.884
Do they respond to emails?
00:27:24.884 --> 00:27:25.943
Do they pay you on time?
00:27:25.943 --> 00:27:29.513
And measurable, one through five, how simple are they to work with?
00:27:29.653 --> 00:27:34.634
Again, it's subjective and yet I can come up with some objective data to your emotions.
00:27:35.284 --> 00:27:38.144
Second thing, how stimulating is the work?
00:27:38.453 --> 00:27:42.124
Is this the work you wanna be doing or is this the work you're doing because you're doing it?
00:27:42.913 --> 00:27:45.733
And third, how satisfying is the relationship?
00:27:46.473 --> 00:27:49.023
Is this like a mom and pop where they're like,"Oh my God, we love you.
00:27:49.023 --> 00:27:49.703
Thank you so much.
00:27:49.773 --> 00:27:50.394
This has been great.
00:27:50.483 --> 00:27:50.703
It's impactful.
00:27:50.703 --> 00:27:54.644
We're impacting the community." Or is it a big company that says,"Hey, thanks.
00:27:54.653 --> 00:28:00.453
Send an invoice." We took her dollars per hour, multiplied it by her triple S score.
00:28:01.034 --> 00:28:04.173
Of her 17 customers, we fired eight on the spot.
00:28:05.753 --> 00:28:18.094
She was getting paid ranging$127 an hour from one customer down to$8 an hour from another customer I can believe it one hour.
00:28:18.253 --> 00:28:19.854
She'd been in business 20 years.
00:28:19.903 --> 00:28:20.733
She had two goals.
00:28:20.953 --> 00:28:24.203
I wanna make over$100,000 and I wanna go on two vacations a year.
00:28:24.854 --> 00:28:26.173
That was what she said.
00:28:26.284 --> 00:28:35.114
Within one hour of our very first interaction we got rid of half her customers and I said,"Okay, now we're down to nine customers.
00:28:35.763 --> 00:28:38.134
These bottom three, we'll let them leave when they leave.
00:28:38.173 --> 00:28:39.163
Let's not replace them.
00:28:39.483 --> 00:28:44.213
These middle three, good to keep, don't go get more, but we're not, we'll keep our eye out.
00:28:44.473 --> 00:28:48.023
Your top three, what other companies look like your top three customers?
00:28:48.874 --> 00:28:54.624
And let's go get a couple more than that." The next six months, not even a year, next six months she went on her first vacation.
00:28:55.094 --> 00:28:56.663
She used to work 52 weeks a year.
00:28:56.663 --> 00:28:58.253
We broke it down to 48 weeks.
00:28:58.263 --> 00:28:59.304
Simple things.
00:29:00.653 --> 00:29:10.644
And all- You created a cust- created a customer avatar basically of, what it was that's gonna give her the life she wanted And then she was so excited to go chase down a couple more customers that looked like her ideal customer.
00:29:11.124 --> 00:29:21.064
Then we asked the question how'd you get these three customers?" This is how I got them.""Okay, let's go find similar lead channels." I am incredibly curious how we got where we're at today.
00:29:21.433 --> 00:29:22.743
I seek out the truth.
00:29:22.923 --> 00:29:25.804
And when you pull back all the layers, all the answers are there.
00:29:26.203 --> 00:29:29.513
I've yet to meet a business owner that doesn't wanna talk about their business.
00:29:30.513 --> 00:29:31.763
They don't wanna talk about their numbers.
00:29:32.094 --> 00:29:33.663
They love talking about their business.
00:29:33.673 --> 00:29:33.693
Yeah.
00:29:33.703 --> 00:29:40.284
The wins, the losses, the best customers, the worst customers, how they got started, where they think they're going, they love.
00:29:41.124 --> 00:29:42.544
And all I'm hearing is data.
00:29:42.713 --> 00:29:45.334
And how do I take this data and tell the story?
00:29:46.334 --> 00:30:01.074
Love that scoring system you had there, one about the the difficulty factor in- Yeah with dealing with customers because I used to work for this one company, and I would tell you that we tried to make it as hard for people to do business with us as possible.
00:30:01.074 --> 00:30:04.794
It was a large- multi- multibillion company, around 100 countries in the world.
00:30:05.314 --> 00:30:11.703
But they would do incredible things like not pay you for 120 days.
00:30:12.213 --> 00:30:29.564
And sometimes, as a small entrepreneur or a smaller company, we chase the big name, or we chase some of these bigger companies that, one, are harder to do business with, two, they don't pay timely, and three, they cost us extra frustration- and time out of our days.
00:30:29.564 --> 00:30:35.334
Can you talk a little bit about that part of the score system that you have there, and how that impacts you emotionally and financially?
00:30:36.003 --> 00:30:36.374
Absolutely.
00:30:36.374 --> 00:30:42.163
So remember my number one rule, don't run out of money, and when someone owes you money and they haven't paid it, you ran out of money.
00:30:44.013 --> 00:30:45.743
I don't care what your accounts receivable say.
00:30:45.884 --> 00:30:47.544
I'm more interested in what's in your bank account.
00:30:47.663 --> 00:30:49.193
I can't spend accounts receivable.
00:30:49.784 --> 00:30:52.064
Maybe I can get a loan against it at a percentage.
00:30:53.653 --> 00:31:02.743
Cash is the lifeblood of business, and when you've got a small business that's waiting 120 days from either a big, Fortune 500 company or a government entity, you're out of business.
00:31:02.903 --> 00:31:04.443
And I'm coming from a place of knowing.
00:31:04.443 --> 00:31:09.263
At one point, I had 10 franchise locations across the country, and so I knew what scale meant.
00:31:09.463 --> 00:31:12.263
I had 10 times the headaches and twice the profit.
00:31:12.713 --> 00:31:13.523
Wasn't worth it.
00:31:14.253 --> 00:31:15.834
I learned this early in my business career.
00:31:16.544 --> 00:31:18.114
Mentor Carl Munkwitz told me this.
00:31:18.114 --> 00:31:20.094
He said,"Andy, if you're gonna be big.
00:31:20.163 --> 00:31:27.693
If you're gonna be small." The challenge is there's a lot of small companies that want to go swim with the big fish, and they don't realize that they're getting played the whole time.
00:31:28.693 --> 00:31:31.554
At one point, I had 51% of my business.
00:31:32.223 --> 00:31:33.263
Came from one customer.
00:31:34.683 --> 00:31:37.913
In 2022, in-- Oh, I'm sorry, that was'22.
00:31:38.084 --> 00:31:41.844
In'23, in February of'23, I had the contract through June.
00:31:42.574 --> 00:31:44.384
In February, they called me on a Tuesday.
00:31:45.294 --> 00:31:47.493
They said,"Hey, Andy, we wanna wrap this contract early.
00:31:47.544 --> 00:31:49.134
We're gonna-- We outsourced it.
00:31:49.134 --> 00:31:51.223
Now we're gonna bring it back in-house." I said,"Good.
00:31:51.223 --> 00:32:00.773
Can I see it till the end of June?" They said,"No." I said,"How about the end of the month?" They said,"No.""How about the end of the week?" On Tuesday, I found out 51% of my revenue was going away.
00:32:02.193 --> 00:32:13.114
I had spent 18 months building my business around this one customer, and as soon as they got a new operations manager I was gone.
00:32:14.634 --> 00:32:15.784
I was chasing the money.
00:32:15.874 --> 00:32:18.673
I know another company they were doing$15 million in revenue.
00:32:19.114 --> 00:32:21.614
12 million was from one customer.
00:32:22.213 --> 00:32:24.544
They went from 15 million down to 3 million.
00:32:24.614 --> 00:32:30.693
They lost$3 million in revenue, and their profit, EBIT, EBITDA, however they measured it, went up the next year.
00:32:32.503 --> 00:32:36.753
Going after these whales when you're a minnow ain't gonna get done.
00:32:37.074 --> 00:32:42.334
I know other companies that, especially ones that work for the government, they only work for the government, and it works for them.
00:32:43.963 --> 00:32:47.884
What ends up happening, though, is they cater all their systems around that one customer.
00:32:48.263 --> 00:32:51.713
And so again, with that being your play, that's your play.
00:32:51.723 --> 00:32:51.743
Yeah.
00:32:52.824 --> 00:33:02.124
So whether it's government agency, a special federal government, or it's a Fortune 1000 company or whatever, a big player, know the implications.
00:33:02.743 --> 00:33:05.523
I'm here in Milwaukee and we got Harley-Davidson here.
00:33:05.693 --> 00:33:10.753
There's machine shops all in my industrial park that make one part for Harley-Davidson, right?
00:33:11.104 --> 00:33:14.304
When Harley-Davidson goes slow, they struggle.
00:33:14.394 --> 00:33:17.513
Now, it's great for operations, pretty good for cash flow.
00:33:17.854 --> 00:33:21.554
It's not great for marketing when you only have one customer,'cause who else knows you even exist?
00:33:22.183 --> 00:33:31.124
And so the whole goal here with business is to know where you're going, decide what you want, and then find the customers that get you where you want to go.
00:33:31.394 --> 00:33:33.044
The challenge is people do it the opposite way.
00:33:33.394 --> 00:33:34.574
Who's willing to pay me?
00:33:34.614 --> 00:33:36.713
Oh, I'm willing to do what it takes to work with them.
00:33:36.983 --> 00:33:40.554
And then all of a sudden, they're no longer in control of their own destiny.
00:33:41.034 --> 00:33:44.344
They're attached to bad payment terms.
00:33:44.874 --> 00:33:46.594
Attached to a one-sided relationship.
00:33:47.144 --> 00:33:57.443
Sometimes they're attached to a person at a business, and once the person leaves, the business goes with them I love that because a friend of mine, he's got a mantra for his small business and he calls it peaceful profits.
00:33:57.503 --> 00:34:04.913
In other words, he wants to run that in a way that is not causing him psychological and- emotional damage.
00:34:04.923 --> 00:34:08.284
So he chooses who he does business with, and it's working out really well for him.
00:34:08.284 --> 00:34:12.934
So I think sometimes if you think about, like Stephen Covey would tell us, begin with the end in mind.
00:34:13.403 --> 00:34:16.804
If you could set your business up the way you wanted it, what would that look like?
00:34:17.594 --> 00:34:21.534
And then start having an avatar for the customer, like you said earlier.
00:34:21.534 --> 00:34:26.733
That lady that went through, went from 17 down to eight, and then she had a clear avatar of what she wanted to deal with.
00:34:27.514 --> 00:34:30.983
I see you've got highly effective people there, that f- bottom right there.
00:34:31.204 --> 00:34:32.414
I saw that when we first sat down.
00:34:32.414 --> 00:34:35.164
Sharpen the saw, begin with the end state in mind are my two.
00:34:35.643 --> 00:34:41.974
And to your point about beginning the end state in mind, define what success looks like to you and then figure out the people that get you there.
00:34:41.974 --> 00:34:45.273
One, the one way we look at it, we hire based on values.
00:34:45.273 --> 00:34:49.164
We have our four values: hunger, dependability, camaraderie, and esprit de corps.
00:34:50.063 --> 00:34:54.954
We also decide on our vendors and our customers that are the same.
00:34:55.824 --> 00:34:57.344
And especially vendors.
00:34:57.543 --> 00:35:03.853
When we have vendors that aren't working right with us, chances are there's something within our values that doesn't align.
00:35:05.244 --> 00:35:06.333
Same with our customers.
00:35:06.423 --> 00:35:09.003
We want our customers that wanna get their projects done, hungry.
00:35:09.094 --> 00:35:12.954
We want customers that are gonna be there when we show up and pay us on time, dependable.
00:35:13.123 --> 00:35:14.923
We want customers, camaraderie.
00:35:14.923 --> 00:35:17.914
Our definition is people wanna work with us, we wanna work with people.
00:35:18.213 --> 00:35:21.914
We want customers that are excited for us to come in their home, not,"Ugh, these guys," right?
00:35:22.204 --> 00:35:23.284
And then esprit de corps.
00:35:23.934 --> 00:35:26.463
That's our shared loyalty and commitment to Camel Crew and the community.
00:35:26.753 --> 00:35:28.074
We are a top service.
00:35:28.193 --> 00:35:32.153
We are the highest priced junk removal company in Southeast Wisconsin.
00:35:32.554 --> 00:35:38.934
We want customers that care about the environment, care about the community, care about our processes.
00:35:39.143 --> 00:35:41.724
When someone says,"I want the cheapest guy in town," guess what?
00:35:42.403 --> 00:35:43.304
They're not my customer.
00:35:43.474 --> 00:35:44.423
And that's fine.
00:35:44.594 --> 00:35:46.704
Not everyone's for me, and I'm not for everybody.
00:35:46.983 --> 00:35:50.563
So define your val- Again, this, let's go back to data.
00:35:51.224 --> 00:35:54.284
Your values are data points.
00:35:54.804 --> 00:36:01.114
And do your customers, employees, and vendors line up with your values is a yes or no.
00:36:01.873 --> 00:36:08.114
When I ask that question to somebody, they'll be like,"Yeah, no." Okay, then go get a new vendor,'cause you can be in control of that.
00:36:08.123 --> 00:36:08.193
Yeah.
00:36:08.284 --> 00:36:09.934
You got vendors that aren't paying you on time?
00:36:10.563 --> 00:36:11.503
Go get a new vendor.
00:36:11.563 --> 00:36:13.634
Or your, vice versa, aren't invoicing you, whatever it is.
00:36:13.733 --> 00:36:14.523
Go get a new vendor.
00:36:16.192 --> 00:36:23.311
I like that because when you establish these values and the parameters, the guardrails, you become proactive versus reactive.
00:36:23.391 --> 00:36:32.481
And so many- 100% I think you would probably go into the ones that you're coaching and consulting with a high percentage of them are on the reactive side, I would imagine.
00:36:33.311 --> 00:36:34.581
Yeah, that's why they're calling me.
00:36:35.081 --> 00:36:46.842
No one's ever called me before they started a business said,"Hey, Andy, I want to pick up on your your fractional CFO work or consulting- Yep before I get started." The best time to hire a CFO is the day before you start your business.
00:36:47.862 --> 00:36:49.041
Today is the second-best day.
00:36:49.922 --> 00:36:57.172
People already know it's broke you talk about that avoiding your numbers isn't really an accounting problem, it's a leadership issue.
00:36:57.331 --> 00:36:58.271
100%.
00:36:58.271 --> 00:37:00.242
Dive into that and tell us what you mean by that.
00:37:01.132 --> 00:37:01.382
Yeah.
00:37:01.382 --> 00:37:03.132
Accounting is looking back- backwards.
00:37:03.141 --> 00:37:04.981
It's an actual, it's an afterthought.
00:37:05.012 --> 00:37:05.922
That's all accounting is.
00:37:05.931 --> 00:37:08.842
Bookkeeping, accounting, it can only tell you what happened so far.
00:37:09.561 --> 00:37:14.791
When it comes to your financials are future-focused, and this is what paves the path.
00:37:14.851 --> 00:37:20.402
And again, leadership is all about determining where you're going what you're gonna do, and then how you're gonna get there.
00:37:21.492 --> 00:37:26.922
Your numbers are the stepping stone and the mile markers, I ask companies sometimes how do you know when to hire the next person?
00:37:27.501 --> 00:37:29.532
How do you know when to buy another truck?
00:37:29.862 --> 00:37:39.552
How do you know when your office space is too small?" Questions like that, when answered, start to develop your leadership and your plan.
00:37:39.702 --> 00:37:42.981
'Cause as a leader, not only do you have to figure out the what, you gotta figure out how we're gonna do this.
00:37:44.181 --> 00:37:47.711
So for us, we average about 100 projects a week this time of year.
00:37:47.722 --> 00:37:48.972
100, 120 projects a week.
00:37:48.981 --> 00:37:51.822
Okay, how are we gonna service 120 projects a week?
00:37:52.532 --> 00:37:53.092
Let's use 100.
00:37:53.132 --> 00:37:54.922
Let's break it down Barney style, right?
00:37:54.922 --> 00:37:56.771
All right, we're gonna do 20 projects a day.
00:37:57.021 --> 00:37:58.121
All right, 20 projects a day.
00:37:58.282 --> 00:37:59.902
How many projects can a crew do?
00:38:00.481 --> 00:38:00.891
Five.
00:38:00.902 --> 00:38:02.262
Okay, so we need four teams.
00:38:02.351 --> 00:38:03.351
How many people on our team?
00:38:04.431 --> 00:38:04.831
Three.
00:38:04.922 --> 00:38:06.452
Okay, we need 12 employees.
00:38:06.641 --> 00:38:07.302
All right, 12 employees.
00:38:07.302 --> 00:38:14.661
The employees only work four days a week, so now we need at least 15 employees, so I got 12 every day and everybody gets one day off.
00:38:14.871 --> 00:38:15.121
All right?
00:38:15.222 --> 00:38:16.512
How many people are gonna take a vacation?
00:38:16.541 --> 00:38:18.141
Probably one or two employees a week maybe.
00:38:18.141 --> 00:38:20.061
Okay, now I need 17 employees.
00:38:20.181 --> 00:38:23.641
Okay, what happens if someone gets sick, injured, wins the lottery?
00:38:23.661 --> 00:38:24.481
Oh, I need some more.
00:38:24.601 --> 00:38:27.521
All right, so I need 17 employees plus a bench opera- right?
00:38:27.592 --> 00:38:31.461
And of the employees I hire, how many are probably gonna get fired, or quit?
00:38:31.811 --> 00:38:33.311
Now we got a percentage there just, right?
00:38:33.331 --> 00:38:34.581
That, a natural attrition.
00:38:34.791 --> 00:38:37.132
All of a sudden I need 20 employees to fill 12 spots.
00:38:38.291 --> 00:38:40.541
Not,"Oh, we got 12 employees.
00:38:40.541 --> 00:38:41.152
That's what we need.
00:38:41.172 --> 00:38:42.581
Oh, someone called in, now we got 11.
00:38:42.632 --> 00:38:46.422
All right we'll just run that crew with two and they'll just work late." And then you wonder why they quit.
00:38:47.422 --> 00:38:58.461
Leader hey recruiter, HR, or if I'm the recruiter in the case with small business owner when you're typically the guy, how many people do I need to hire now so that I can fulfill the 100, 120 orders I got this week?
00:38:59.771 --> 00:39:19.362
That's your job as a leader to answer that question and execute versus, ah, we hire people when we get busy, or we hire people when we get overwhelmed, or we hire people when three people quit because it was too much work do you wanna lead your organization or follow, in the sense of follow your customers, follow what's happening, and always be behind?
00:39:19.532 --> 00:39:20.431
Those are your two choices.
00:39:21.891 --> 00:39:26.961
I love how you unpack that, talking about people being out sick, vacations and stuff.
00:39:27.081 --> 00:39:32.512
I took over a company that's been around a long time, had many people that had five weeks of vacation.
00:39:33.032 --> 00:39:42.152
Yet the corporate people wanted us to keep the numbers as low as possible, but we could have, in certain departments, 20% of those people out on vacation every week.
00:39:42.581 --> 00:39:43.411
Quick hillbilly math.
00:39:44.072 --> 00:39:48.762
When people have five weeks of vacation, for every 10 employees, you need an 11th to cover vacations.
00:39:49.052 --> 00:39:49.072
Yeah.
00:39:49.952 --> 00:39:51.121
And scene.
00:39:51.251 --> 00:39:53.371
So if it's a department- Yeah of 20 people, you need 22.
00:39:54.541 --> 00:40:02.382
And they're like how'd you come up with that?" And you explain it like that, you're like,"Oh, yeah." But they still wanna prove the head count at some of those corporate cultures.
00:40:02.391 --> 00:40:02.902
It's amazing.
00:40:03.101 --> 00:40:04.081
There's the hillbilly math.
00:40:04.112 --> 00:40:05.402
No spreadsheet needed.
00:40:05.842 --> 00:40:06.061
Yep.
00:40:07.061 --> 00:40:08.722
But then they wanna know why you didn't hit your numbers.
00:40:08.771 --> 00:40:12.211
Two people were out sick- Yeah five were out on vacation and, et cetera, et cetera.
00:40:12.242 --> 00:40:14.092
Five weeks of vacation is 10% of the year.
00:40:15.931 --> 00:40:17.862
This is a s- story I know that you've heard.
00:40:18.081 --> 00:40:20.702
My accountant says I'm profitable, but I have no cash.
00:40:22.242 --> 00:40:22.702
Yeah.
00:40:22.871 --> 00:40:24.021
'Cause profit on- What does that mean?
00:40:24.021 --> 00:40:25.652
You can't spend profit on paper.
00:40:26.731 --> 00:40:28.161
There's a company out of Florida.
00:40:28.282 --> 00:40:29.612
They're e- economists.
00:40:29.612 --> 00:40:30.581
I wanna give them credit here.
00:40:30.791 --> 00:40:34.362
They do a presentation called Profitless Prosperity.
00:40:35.021 --> 00:40:35.992
Have you ever heard that before?
00:40:36.181 --> 00:40:36.501
No.
00:40:37.231 --> 00:40:39.121
Profitless prosperity.
00:40:39.211 --> 00:40:43.351
It's where you're growing and you're building, and yet there's no money left over.
00:40:43.722 --> 00:40:45.161
Because your accountant can say...
00:40:45.172 --> 00:40:45.952
This is a simple example.
00:40:45.972 --> 00:40:48.041
Let's say your accountant says you made$100,000.
00:40:48.041 --> 00:40:48.791
Okay, sounds good.
00:40:49.092 --> 00:41:00.052
50,000 of it is in your receivables, people owe you money, and 50,000 of it was written down in depreciation because your profit and loss statement doesn't show your assets, which are on your balance sheet.
00:41:00.202 --> 00:41:01.422
So you have no money.
00:41:02.943 --> 00:41:07.204
So you did a million dollars in business, you are 10% profitable in your P&L, accurate.
00:41:07.764 --> 00:41:17.403
You gotta pay taxes on either the 100,000 if you're accrual based when you generate, or you pay tax on the 50,000 cash basis when you get paid.
00:41:18.164 --> 00:41:24.494
And yet, depending on how you write down your depreciation on your assets, you might be paying taxes on money that you don't have.
00:41:25.603 --> 00:41:30.893
Then you got the opposite, where people are doing bank balance accounting, and they operate based on what their bank account says today.
00:41:30.994 --> 00:41:33.793
I can tell you right now as we record this podcast, today is Thursday.
00:41:34.233 --> 00:41:35.554
Payroll is on Friday.
00:41:36.034 --> 00:41:46.994
So the money that's in my account really isn't my money, because the last two weeks, the guys have been working and it f- and earned the hours to the paycheck that they're getting tomorrow that is coming out.
00:41:47.824 --> 00:41:52.304
So you can have profit on paper and no money in the bank.
00:41:53.684 --> 00:42:01.693
And so understanding your profit and loss statement, your balance sheet, and then your cash flow statement, which is a combination of the two.
00:42:01.943 --> 00:42:07.943
The challenge is most businesses, their profit and loss statement or balance sheet it's either dirty data, we call it, right?
00:42:08.173 --> 00:42:12.123
It's incomplete, it's inaccurate, it's out of date, right?
00:42:12.123 --> 00:42:25.503
So the data's no good, or they never look at it So that's like saying,"Hey, I'm gonna go for a drive," and you turn your headlights off and all your dash goes out, and you're like, can you drive with no headlights and no dash?
00:42:25.684 --> 00:42:32.134
Yeah, probably for a while, till you get pulled over, lost, or run into a wall, right?
00:42:33.693 --> 00:42:35.653
That's what it's like operating a business without data.
00:42:36.054 --> 00:42:37.143
You can do it for a while.
00:42:37.264 --> 00:42:39.043
You can do it under ideal circumstances.
00:42:40.594 --> 00:42:48.364
Eventually it's gonna catch up with you So when you walk into a struggling business, what are some of the warning signs that leadership is avoiding reality?
00:42:48.364 --> 00:42:52.443
What are some things that stick out to you that say,"This place needs some help"?
00:42:54.353 --> 00:42:54.963
They tell me.
00:42:55.373 --> 00:42:56.414
There's no doubt about it.
00:42:56.454 --> 00:42:59.233
This is so in junk removal I clean out hoarding houses.
00:43:00.074 --> 00:43:01.494
Hoarders almost never call me.
00:43:01.793 --> 00:43:04.523
Their family members do, the state does, social workers do.
00:43:05.353 --> 00:43:08.434
Business owners that are key on their numbers never call me.
00:43:09.123 --> 00:43:13.503
It's the business owners that know something's wrong and they don't know where to start.
00:43:13.664 --> 00:43:19.333
There is yet to be a business owner I met that didn't know they're about to run out of money.
00:43:19.963 --> 00:43:20.603
They all knew.
00:43:21.034 --> 00:43:22.784
They could feel it in their bones.
00:43:23.114 --> 00:43:30.114
They were losing employees, they were losing customers, the bank account didn't feel just right, they didn't feel as comfortable going on that vacation, right?
00:43:30.114 --> 00:43:33.284
There was all these indicators and yet they didn't dig into it.
00:43:33.773 --> 00:43:43.463
Business owners know it and they feel it, and once you start asking questions, we can get objective data to go with those subjective feelings.
00:43:45.074 --> 00:43:47.034
When a business owner says,"Oh yeah, we got a dashboard.
00:43:47.034 --> 00:43:50.793
I'm looking at my profit and loss statement, and I got a pretty good idea where we're at," sounds good.
00:43:51.184 --> 00:43:54.324
When someone says,"Oh, I know my numbers inside and out," they don't.
00:43:55.204 --> 00:44:03.054
Because even me, I do this for a living, my wife asked me a question yesterday I didn't have the answer to, and it had to do with my numbers in my consulting business.
00:44:03.204 --> 00:44:08.684
And I was like,"That's interesting." Because a business owner that's always curious and digging in knows they'll never know it all.
00:44:09.123 --> 00:44:13.074
They know enough to make decisions and they have enough flexibility.
00:44:13.293 --> 00:44:17.534
You also don't want someone so rigid that they only make decisions based on data.
00:44:17.724 --> 00:44:21.773
'Cause if that being the case what is it 85% of businesses fail in 10 years?
00:44:22.083 --> 00:44:26.914
That being the case, no one would start a business because the chance of you failing is high.
00:44:28.393 --> 00:44:30.813
The indicators I get from other people are simple.
00:44:30.833 --> 00:44:32.434
They tell me something's wrong.
00:44:33.054 --> 00:44:40.414
I was at a CEO roundtable earlier this morning and the guy goes,"We need to raise money'cause we're gonna be out of money in six months." Okay.
00:44:40.813 --> 00:44:42.443
Like that was his opening line.
00:44:42.443 --> 00:44:49.853
'Cause I said,"How are cash flows?" Because two months ago he said,"Sales are down and we need to sell something quick'cause we're gonna run out of money." That's it.
00:44:49.893 --> 00:44:57.014
He has a six-month runway of cash till it runs out, and he knows right now he needs to raise money or get sales.
00:44:57.083 --> 00:45:00.994
'Cause in 90 days he's gonna be 90 days out of being out of business.
00:45:01.213 --> 00:45:01.284
That's good.
00:45:01.284 --> 00:45:02.054
Business owners tell me.
00:45:02.143 --> 00:45:04.583
And the ones that don't tell me, they go away quietly.
00:45:04.643 --> 00:45:10.054
Because again, the title of the book, Stop Avoiding Their Numbers, they're avoiding it and they're avoiding the conversations with others.
00:45:10.523 --> 00:45:34.896
Once people start reading the book or start asking questions, oh, the weight of the world gets off their shoulders because it's the ambiguity that's killing them, and they'd rather sit in the comfort of ambiguity than the discomfort of vulnerability you mentioned earlier about sharpening your saw, so I wanna pick your brain a little bit about what are some things that you do as Covey challenged us to do to sharpen your saw.
00:45:34.896 --> 00:45:37.655
What are some books, maybe podcasts masterminds?
00:45:37.655 --> 00:45:39.246
What are things you do to sharpen your saw?
00:45:39.985 --> 00:45:40.436
Books.
00:45:40.476 --> 00:45:41.795
I'm a avid reader.
00:45:42.186 --> 00:45:45.706
For every one book I read, I probably buy five, so I'm way behind.
00:45:46.025 --> 00:45:47.126
And which is a good place to be.
00:45:47.235 --> 00:45:49.045
Reading is my number one medium.
00:45:49.106 --> 00:45:51.385
I listen to podcasts watch videos.
00:45:51.385 --> 00:45:52.266
That's more entertaining.
00:45:52.286 --> 00:45:53.615
That's definitely on the psychologist side.
00:45:54.016 --> 00:45:56.795
On the how to be a business leader, it's books.
00:45:57.085 --> 00:46:02.735
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, that's my, like that is the book for me in self-improvement.
00:46:03.036 --> 00:46:08.036
And then there's other books where I'm like, so like business leaders, Dan Sullivan, 10X Is Easier Than 2X.
00:46:08.175 --> 00:46:09.246
That's top tier.
00:46:09.485 --> 00:46:10.436
It fits everybody.
00:46:10.835 --> 00:46:12.675
Five Dysfunctions of a Team for leaders.
00:46:12.726 --> 00:46:16.335
Patrick Lencioni's work, and I've read all the other parables that he's written.
00:46:16.385 --> 00:46:20.996
Ideal Team Player, that's another great one when it comes to building and recruiting teams, another Patrick Lencioni.
00:46:21.786 --> 00:46:23.096
So for me, it's book books.
00:46:23.166 --> 00:46:24.846
Good to Great, Jim Collins.
00:46:25.036 --> 00:46:26.576
I'm literally looking at your background like,"Oh yeah.
00:46:26.635 --> 00:46:32.615
Oh, Atomic Habits, James Clear." You can tell I'm not cheating- Yeah'cause I'm actually seeing the books and then telling you the author so you know I'm not full of shit.
00:46:32.965 --> 00:46:35.965
Find what you're bad at and buy the book that does that thing.
00:46:36.476 --> 00:46:38.175
And then I do two or three things.
00:46:38.175 --> 00:46:39.365
Like habit-- oh, here we go.
00:46:39.476 --> 00:46:40.695
James Clear, Atomic Habits, right?
00:46:40.726 --> 00:46:42.626
I-- habit stacking, right?
00:46:42.726 --> 00:46:45.735
Put the thing that I avoid between two things I already do.
00:46:45.835 --> 00:46:46.356
That's good.
00:46:46.565 --> 00:46:52.715
Or give myself the reward for doing the things I don't wanna do after I do the thing I don't wanna do.
00:46:53.045 --> 00:46:58.115
So in every book it's a waste of time to read a book and not change your life.
00:46:58.766 --> 00:47:01.175
Every book has taught me something.
00:47:01.626 --> 00:47:06.505
I read a book recently on self-deception, and it's r- oh, it hit me deep.
00:47:07.226 --> 00:47:10.835
Because I am really good at blaming other people,'cause I love data.
00:47:10.885 --> 00:47:14.985
I can find the data that supports my argument that is, it's you, not me.
00:47:15.576 --> 00:47:29.126
And so this book on self-deception, I was like,"Ugh, no longer can I claim ignorance that my perception of the situation you know, isn't at least 1% responsible- Yeah for the situation we're in.
00:47:29.295 --> 00:47:36.766
And so that book I read on self-deception recently is really it hits, it cuts deep'cause I'm not reading books for my own entertainment.
00:47:36.815 --> 00:47:37.556
What was the title of that book?
00:47:37.735 --> 00:47:39.416
Leadership and Self-Deception.
00:47:39.686 --> 00:47:40.036
Okay.
00:47:40.076 --> 00:47:43.076
The Secret to Transforming Relationships and Unleashing Results.
00:47:43.235 --> 00:47:45.076
It was written by the Arbinger Institute.
00:47:45.335 --> 00:47:46.766
I saw them speak on it.
00:47:47.606 --> 00:47:48.936
And the thing, I do, okay, I do keynotes.
00:47:48.965 --> 00:47:52.856
I like keynotes and workshops- Yeah like in person, so I go to a lot of conferences.
00:47:53.155 --> 00:47:55.226
And what ends up happening, there's no, I speak.
00:47:55.326 --> 00:48:08.096
You get the one-hour, 90-minute version and then you're like,"Oh, I wanna go deep." And then you buy the book- Yeah and you're 25 hours committed- Yeah and three or four hours of your life and then you're like,"Oh, I actually now, I kinda understand what the person on stage was talking about." Yeah.
00:48:08.755 --> 00:48:12.195
Talking of books, we wanna plug your book, which we've been- thank you talking about, Stop Your Numbers.
00:48:12.686 --> 00:48:24.025
Tell us a little bit about what you do and how people can connect with you if they want to engage you to help them stop avoiding their numbers and maybe get their business out of a ditch if it's in it.
00:48:24.476 --> 00:48:25.170
It's real simple.
00:48:25.266 --> 00:48:26.710
Website andyWeins.com.
00:48:27.065 --> 00:48:33.666
Also, as of today, my new website, thebattlereadybusiness.com is live and hot and doing the thing.
00:48:34.525 --> 00:48:35.416
I'm simple to find.
00:48:35.436 --> 00:48:39.206
LinkedIn is probably the place people normally find me, and it's really simple.
00:48:39.306 --> 00:48:46.956
Numbers, my, my second book is about numbers, my first book is about words, and when you lean in on the words and you lean in on the data, you start to get clarity.
00:48:47.996 --> 00:48:50.186
Conflict is what I do, right?
00:48:50.186 --> 00:48:52.476
We talked this whole time about leadership and- Yeah numbers.
00:48:52.565 --> 00:48:53.775
Ultimately, it's conflict.
00:48:54.206 --> 00:49:03.255
Because to that point of that business owner, you asked the question of,"How do I know a business owner is struggling?"'Cause they finally said it out loud and they're willing to actually bring that conflict to the surface.
00:49:04.295 --> 00:49:13.518
Years of military, I said earlier about how I knew when I was over the line- Because I was willing to have the conflict to learn about that.
00:49:14.097 --> 00:49:14.887
You and I, right?
00:49:14.887 --> 00:49:15.797
This is conflict.
00:49:15.898 --> 00:49:17.217
We're having a new conversation.
00:49:17.217 --> 00:49:18.438
It's a growth-minded conversation.
00:49:18.577 --> 00:49:24.268
We easily could've sat here and done our own business, and yet you've taken the time to come up with the interview questions for us to come here.
00:49:24.978 --> 00:49:27.338
New ideas have sparked during this conversation.
00:49:27.347 --> 00:49:28.987
That was conflict, right?
00:49:28.987 --> 00:49:31.878
Because now I'm having conflict with how do we lead?
00:49:31.887 --> 00:49:36.608
What have I learned in last 20-plus years that is relatable to your audience?
00:49:36.907 --> 00:49:38.938
And so I lean in on conflict.
00:49:38.987 --> 00:49:45.637
And when you lean in on productive conflict in your life, personally and professionally, you start to grow and get the things that you want.
00:49:45.867 --> 00:49:51.018
And so that's my overall message, and that's what, when you look at my website and my social media, that's what it comes down to.
00:49:51.297 --> 00:49:54.277
Understanding your numbers, monitoring your words.
00:49:55.068 --> 00:49:58.307
I talked about self-deception, and obviously it's fresh in my mind with the new book I read.
00:49:58.878 --> 00:50:03.318
You'd start to see the conflict you're having internally and how it manifests externally.
00:50:04.318 --> 00:50:05.387
Man, this has been great.
00:50:05.398 --> 00:50:12.648
I appreciate your time today, Andy, and we will put those links in the show notes so people can connect with you and follow you in the future.
00:50:13.108 --> 00:50:14.208
Thank you for your time today.
00:50:14.547 --> 00:50:14.958
Appreciate it.
00:50:15.057 --> 00:50:15.467
Thanks, Mark.
00:50:16.266 --> 00:50:22.797
Thanks, Andy, for providing such great insights about how our numbers can help us be successful in our business.
00:50:23.583 --> 00:50:29.228
We appreciate you joining the Learning to Lead show, and if you would, make sure that you go and download Leader Notes.
00:50:29.228 --> 00:50:36.293
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00:50:36.978 --> 00:50:43.413
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00:50:43.780 --> 00:50:53.786
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00:50:54.360 --> 00:51:02.876
Now, make sure that you go out this week and learn, grow, and lead and take your organization, your team, your tribe, your family to the next level