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And without being in there with the battle scars, it's really different to understand that, you know, the founder who got you to ten million turnover, he's the exact or she's the exact bottleneck that's gonna stop you getting to fifty.
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Welcome to The Scalability Code, the podcast that helps you get out of the sh*t show and start growing your business.
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And now for your host, Matt Haney.
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Here we are, another episode of The Scalability Code.
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Today, we've got Christopher Burke with us.
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Christopher, thanks for joining us today.
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I did learn in the pre-meeting that Christopher is an Aussie living in London, which completely threw off the whole accent to me,'cause I was like,"He sounds like an Aussie, but he lives in London.
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Am I gonna offend him by saying he's an Aussie or a Brit?" And, uh, I haven't offended him yet.
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So Christopher, thanks for joining us today on The Scalability Code.
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Great.
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Great to meet you, Matt, and thanks for having me on.
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Awesome.
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So here's what we do.
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Every time I introduce myself to someone, I feel like I have to rush through the intro.
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I have to get straight to what we're talking about.
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No one wants to hear about me.
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and that's kind of the opposite today.
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Today, I'm interviewing you.
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You get to tell us about your journey.
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So what I like to do first is learn about, how you became an entrepreneur.
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That can be all the way back to when you were a young kid, or recently, whatever.
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Um, and then, uh, as that, maybe there's someone that influenced you as an entrepreneur or that, that was your first glimpse into entrepreneurship.
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So, uh, those two questions I'd love to have answers to.
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Yeah, that's a great question.
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Uh, thanks, thanks very much.
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So my father was a, was a great eccentric and entrepreneur.
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he was very much a gentleman.
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He ran pubs and frozen fish business, and, uh, at one stage he was a bookmaker as well and, loved the horse racing and, all cash businesses which he sort of loved to do.
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he was very kind, maybe a bit too kind for some of the businesses he got into, and honest, but he was always sort of looking for new ways and new, I guess, endeavors to make money and to, help people.
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Awesome.
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Uh, so he's the one that taught you about entrepreneurship or, or that exposed it to you, I should say.
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Yeah.
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I mean, he was always like, you know,"You don't wanna get a job, you wanna sort of have the freedom.
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Go out there and start your own business, find your own way, put your own stamp on something," which has been, which has been amazing, uh, amazing to sort of watch him in, different businesses along the way.
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That's awesome.
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And is he still an Aussie?
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Is...
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unfortunately, he passed away, fourteen years ago, but, um, but I, I, I'd say he lived his best life right up until, uh, till, till the end of his, uh, end of his days.
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You
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something, to be said about that.
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as my, my close friend says,"You gotta get busy living.
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Gotta get busy living."
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Exactly.
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do me-- Okay, awesome.
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tell me about your entrepreneurial journey and give me a little bit of kind of where you came from and, hit along some things, and then we'll get to your current, current world today.
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so look, I've spent the last twenty-five years in London, uh, building businesses.
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been studying them, or advising them.
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I've been actually inside building them from inside the machine.
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So the first business or the m- first major business I had was called Brickenden, which serves the largest banks in the world, the JP Morgans, the City Banks, the UBS's.
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We sort of do, the kind of, complex programs that can't fail, credit systems, regulatory systems, or rescue projects that have gone off track.
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And I did that for sixteen years.
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and that, that generated a quarter of a billion dollars of sales, in that time.
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with no funding.
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Second business I launched into was in twenty eighteen, which was called Hybrid Hero, and it's a workplace management system.
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And again, learning a very different business.
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that's a software business and a product, where the other one was all about the service.
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And it's live in forty countries, eleven languages, has clients like Dyson, BMW, Pepsi.
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and we l- launched it two years before COVID, and then COVID validated the thesis about needing to understand remote working, hybrid working, all those different things.
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So I'm pretty proud of that So yeah.
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So that's, that's I guess the start of my entrepreneurial journey they're the two big chunks that I've sort of had along the way.
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That's awesome.
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And those got you to where you are today in the businesses that you own and operate today.
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Yeah.
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I think they sort of taught me a lot about it that, that actually there isn't really a bad business, a bad idea, a bad market.
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Generally, as you sort of look at these businesses, and particularly ones like that have grown as rapidly as, my two did, is that, you know, it's the systems, the processes, the people architecture that struggle to keep up as you grow.
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And I think that's a really hard lesson.
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And without being in there with the battle scars, it's really different to understand that, you know, the founder who got you to ten million turnover, he's the exact or she's the exact bottleneck that's gonna stop you getting to fifty.
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And you don't see it'cause you're in there and you're in the weeds, and you just don't see the problems.
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Yeah.
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No, it's so true.
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and you and I are in a very similar line of work and in a very similar founder-led business where, you know, not most times, but every time the founder's the problem.
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but the founder's also, the founder's also a huge resource and asset and getting that founder in the seat that allows them to be that visionary leader is one of the most empowering processes I go through and have gone through 15 different times with my clients, is seeing that person doing what they're best at and not stressing over the things that they're generally not good at.
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Yeah.
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Don't wanna do, but still do them.
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Yep.
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Exactly.
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And they just don't know any better.
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They had to...
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Obviously you were, you were the, the head chef, the head janitor, you know, the, the, the head CEO, the maitre d', all of it, and you're good at a few of them.
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Let's go figure out how to make you good at one or two of them instead of all of them.
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Um, so let's go back a little bit to, to the businesses you created previously and, and as they...
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You know, this is a podcast about scaling a business and growth.
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it's always fun to look back at your own business And, and, you know, recall or recollect on times that you were the problem.
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So I don't know if, if any specific moment comes to mind during the scalability of your early businesses that you were like,"Well, shit, I am the problem." how did you get there?
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How did you get to that realization, and what did you do about it?
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Did someone in the business bring you and have that come to your religious figure meeting with you or did you get there on your own?
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So tell us about a time where you were the problem.
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I think one thing I did just at the start when I set the businesses up is I did an org chart, and I put my name into all the different roles that I could think about up to, you know, a hundred people So you're doing all those different things, and the idea early on was to try and scrub out the ones that I didn't like.
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I think part of the challenge here is that, I've definitely been a bottleneck in trying to take control of areas that I wasn't good at.
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So, for example, social media marketing and marketing, and trying to do that at the same time as you're coming up with the solution, at the same time as you're serving clients, and it, it's been a disaster when I've, when I've done that, and it's something you learn very quickly.
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If you are-- If you're at the coalface trying to deliver for a client, and you're also trying to do posts and make up, graphics and all that sort of thing, really, really did it and, and, and really held up and, and, and caused major issues in my business.
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Yep.
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Well said.
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I too am not a marketer.
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Um, but I always feel like for me it was so hard for me to acknowledge the need for the marketing expense internally for my practice.
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For my clients' work, I could look them straight in the eyes and say,"You're spending half a percent of revenue on marketing.
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You're not gonna grow.
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You've gotta increase that expense that...
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We gotta find a subject matter expert." But it-- when it's time to eat my own dog food and spend my own hard-earned money to grow my own practice, it was complicated because it's like I can...
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Surely there's a way I can, you know, outsource this to someone.
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But the reality is, is that, you know...
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I was like,"Oh, they'll just run it.
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I won't have to do anything.
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I'll, I'll delegate and elevate my way out of this, and they'll run it." But the reality is, is that you're gonna have to provide oversight and, and commitment and dedication to the message that's going out the door for your practice.
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Um, and to your point, I'm not the best at building decks, presentations.
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It's just not what I'm good at.
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and, you know, getting out of the way of that is a, is a very empowering thing.
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Well, that's cool.
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Any other issues that came up operationally or things that you saw during scale that was like, man...
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And maybe you're looking back on it now and you're like, you know,"Marketing was definitely not my skill set." But anything else?
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I think looking at your business and trying to run it, holding on to the wrong people for too long.
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So again, as you sort of, know, the person who can do three or four roles maybe in a finance department, as you grow, you need each of those individually.
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And if you keep that jack of all trades or that person who's a generalist, you generally tie your hands.
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You also, also found that when you're so busy running your business, you're maybe not positioning it, for sale, acquisition, investment.
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And that also can be a real problem because when you're churning along, sales are coming in, you're trying to do all those different things, and that's just the time when you wanna be able to get the investment to keep growing.
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You then get to a point where you plateau, and, it's really difficult then at that point to try and reposition yourself because the pressure's on and to get yourself restructured so you can get investment to scale to the next level.
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And again, all those mistakes I've made.
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I'm dancing over here in my chair hearing what you say, and it resonates because that's very similar to what I say, just without a cool accent.
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What I say to my folks is, it's very hard to consciously work on the business while you're working in the business.
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And the point is you get fixated on delivering a product, a service, a value, whatever, and it's really hard to step out and look at it from the outside and think,"How do I build this thing to something that I want it to be?" Right?
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"What is my vision for it-- Where do I want to go with it?" And to your point, which hits me right on the head, which is what's the end goal, right?
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What do you want to do?
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Is this something that you want to exit?
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And if you want to exit this business, um, in whatever time period that is, you have to start thinking about that in terms of today.
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Because you know this, having exited companies and working with clients who are also on that journey, when you're ready, it's too late to start preparing.
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You've already should have been prepared for that time when you're ready to move to the next level or the, or the sale.
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Absolutely.
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Absolutely.
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Yeah.
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It's a hard thing to see, though.
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I think it's very hard'cause you do that dance or that balancing act because you need that structure, that discipline, that process to be able to effectively move yourself out of the business as a founder.
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But that costs money, takes time.
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that whole adage, I don't know if you know the saying, where you spend an hour to save five minutes.
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So you've gotta spend that hour over and over and over again to get those five minutes back.
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and setting that process up when you're not yet there, it's really, really hard to do.
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and you're focusing on keeping the clients happy, getting things delivered, trying to get money in, you know, all these different things,
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Well, here's what I can tell you.
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The title of this podcast is what this episode will be, When You Spend an Hour to Save Five Minutes.
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It's such a poignant point that says, how do we do better about, being strategic with our time and process and resource so that- We spend five minutes to save an hour instead of the other way around.
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Very, very cool.
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Okay, I want to go back.
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You mentioned uh, your father being an, a figure for you in entrepreneurship.
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You also mentioned letting the wrong people stay in the right seat for too long.
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Um, is there anybody that comes to mind in one of your businesses, you can name he or she or not, where you were able to grow them into that right seat?
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Meaning they started at one position and they grew for the right reasons into a different seat.
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Uh, a-absolutely.
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it took a long time.
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It took a lot of training.
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But there's a gentleman...
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I, I won't, I won't, I won't name him, but if he listens to this, he'll know who he is.
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And he worked his way up from being very junior in my business over eleven years.
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worked his way up through different roles, got him managing people because he was that, uh, concept of being an operator, you know, still with a tool belt, I think you used in one of your previous podcasts, which I'd listened to.
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And, uh, yeah, and, and, and moved into then managing and training people.
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And then we had to move him on to the next side to actually then be able to speak and to be able to talk to clients.
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And, you know, he'd go in there and he'd panic, and he'd literally-- We'd have an hour meeting where we're trying to find out what the client needed, and he'd speak for fifty-eight minutes.
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At, at, at, at-- withou-without a pause, without literally...
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And we're like,"We learned nothing.
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We have no idea what the client wants because you just spoke the whole time." But he moved all the way up to being a partner, ended up leading one of the countries for us.
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and then moved on to do something completely different.
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He's moved on into a sports field now.
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But he was a very, very good leader, very inspirational, and moved that whole way up through the organization.
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do you still have a relationship with him or friendship with him
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yeah.
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he messaged me last week, so yeah, he's doing all right.
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So yeah,
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That's awesome.
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No, I think one of the most rewarding pieces of what we and I, what you and I do for a living is, is impacting lives positively, right?
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And just being able to allow people to have that journey, because I think as a founder and an operator, which we both are, you know, giving people a path to what their goals are is incredibly rewarding.
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Absolutely, absolutely.
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We, um, we, we, we did this thing, and I've done this in multiple businesses, where we do life coaching, and the idea is can we actually get you on what it means for you to actually get something better for you as an individual.
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So the idea there is I don't wanna know what you go through in that session with a life coach, and we do different ones.
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Sometimes it's two, three, ten sessions.
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But the i- the idea is, is you find out why you're working, why you're doing this.
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you're coming to work for me to earn money, right?
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Is that to buy a house?
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Is that to effectively retire?
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what is it you're doing this for?
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what really juices you, gets you going?
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and that's been a big thing to sort of invest back in.
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and just last night, I got a text message from one of the guys who went through that program who actually he did buy a house and, he doesn't work for me anymore, and gonna catch up next week.
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We haven't seen him for a while.
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So it's really...
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Those kind of things are really, really exciting.
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That's special.
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Very special.
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All right, this is one of my favorite topics, um, and I've had a lot of different answers.
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So take a minute to think about this.
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the general theme is delayed decision-making.
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and delayed decision-making cuts both ways, right?
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that's all I'm gonna say.
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So I'm gonna let you tell me about an example or an instance of delayed decision-making and what the outcome was from delaying that decision.
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think about it.
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I don't know if you have anything that comes to mind, and I'll, I'll give you just another few seconds to think about it.
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But delayed decision-making.
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Any scenarios or targets or things that you're just like,"Oh shit, that was..." I'll l- I'll leave it to
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I remember the episode where I heard you talk about this previously.
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So I think it's a fantastic concept and, I think I've been bitten both ways.
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We've, delayed making a decision to restructure an organization, where it actually cost us probably in about year seven in the big consultancy business.
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it made us our worst year ever.
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We made an enormous loss'cause we didn't restructure because there was some rather big political changes going on around Brexit time, if you remember UK and
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Oh, absolutely.
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Sure.
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and they couldn't make up their mind which way they were going, and we decided not to restructure and to stay as we were.
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And yeah, it literally wiped out eighteen months of cash balances and profits.
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It was a absolute disaster.
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But we sort of knew it wasn't gonna happen, but we were kinda hoping it would, and so we didn't make that decision.
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and that was a disaster for the business, really.
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You are listening to the Scalability Code.
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I'm your host, Matt Haney, founder of Sinclair Ventures, and we help visionary entrepreneurs like you get out of the shit show and focus on growing your business.
00:15:32.600 --> 00:15:39.000
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com.
00:15:41.600 --> 00:15:42.221
Now back to it.
00:15:43.366 --> 00:15:54.537
And, there's probably one the other way as well, where we, we haven't cut and, uh, we looked at staying in a market which, which again, we probably were a bit inertia and then ended up landing a big deal which was fantastic.
00:15:54.537 --> 00:15:56.407
So it can cut both ways
00:15:56.437 --> 00:15:57.057
Isn't that
00:15:57.192 --> 00:15:57.662
very hard.
00:15:58.101 --> 00:15:58.471
Yeah.
00:15:58.682 --> 00:15:58.971
Yeah.
00:15:59.067 --> 00:16:07.756
it's some of the hardest things to deal with as an operator is, you look at these decisions and you're like,"Man, it's gonna go one way or the other, and it's gonna go fast.
00:16:07.976 --> 00:16:09.736
Am I making the right one?
00:16:10.006 --> 00:16:11.417
Is this the right time?
00:16:11.417 --> 00:16:12.787
Are these the right people?
00:16:12.787 --> 00:16:15.386
Is this the right subject we should be focused on?
00:16:15.767 --> 00:16:17.447
Are these the right goals?
00:16:17.846 --> 00:16:22.476
Ah." And it's interesting'cause it's like you can see both sides of that coin, right?
00:16:22.476 --> 00:16:24.417
You've seen it, I've seen it, everyone's seen it.
00:16:24.517 --> 00:16:29.697
But, it's always interesting to hear other entrepreneurs' version of how that coin flips.
00:16:29.746 --> 00:16:30.836
So that's really cool.
00:16:31.256 --> 00:16:37.461
okay, so a couple other questions that we'd like to get to, um- You and I manage people and process for a living.
00:16:38.231 --> 00:16:49.142
so, so, in the vein of good and bad decisions, tell me your best hire and the attributes that that person, brought to you guys, and then tell me your worst hire.
00:16:49.491 --> 00:16:59.682
and you can pick the worst before the better or whatever, but give me an example of folks, And you mentioned it earlier, maybe it's the same person that you helped grow through that journey, or it's someone different.
00:17:00.442 --> 00:17:01.902
No, someone, someone different actually.
00:17:01.902 --> 00:17:03.792
he was my CFO for a very long time.
00:17:04.251 --> 00:17:05.612
he'd definitely be my best hire.
00:17:05.612 --> 00:17:08.392
He, he came in and took away...
00:17:08.721 --> 00:17:15.041
You know, I, I've, I, I studied law and I'm an accountant by trade, but I still don't like all that work.
00:17:15.071 --> 00:17:20.622
I much prefer being out there solving problems for clients and being very much on that, sort of side of things.
00:17:21.021 --> 00:17:23.902
So he came in, just restructured all the back end.
00:17:24.332 --> 00:17:33.832
He'd come from a business that was probably fifteen, twenty times the size of what we were, and felt very lucky that we'd managed to get him to come on board.
00:17:34.362 --> 00:17:42.142
And stayed with me for a very long time until he retired, and he was an absolute gem in terms of anything I could throw at him.
00:17:42.142 --> 00:17:44.423
There's a contract in Polish.
00:17:44.423 --> 00:17:46.304
We've got an issue with our office in Hong Kong.
00:17:46.304 --> 00:17:50.263
We've got Canada, what on earth is going on with the filing over there?
00:17:50.263 --> 00:17:51.933
We've got an employment issue in New York.
00:17:51.983 --> 00:17:56.183
He was able to just come in, sort the whole thing out, and took that whole thing away.
00:17:56.213 --> 00:18:00.794
And he was, without a shadow of a doubt, best hire and, and would be, would be, Yeah.
00:18:00.794 --> 00:18:03.844
So John, if you're listening, you're, you're a superstar, and I hope you're enjoying golf.
00:18:03.844 --> 00:18:12.263
Every time I see a picture he's got-- He seems to be-- His beard seems to get longer and his tan, his tan seems to get better, and he's, he's always got a, a stick of golf clubs in his hand.
00:18:12.314 --> 00:18:14.943
the question is, is he getting to be a better golfer?
00:18:14.973 --> 00:18:16.233
John, are you getting better?
00:18:16.233 --> 00:18:18.064
Or are you just playing all the time?
00:18:18.294 --> 00:18:19.074
Absolutely.
00:18:19.263 --> 00:18:23.894
All right, now you gotta tell us the bad decisions you made and, and what those came out to be.
00:18:24.104 --> 00:18:29.933
so we, looked at hiring and trying to build, So, so again, when you don't have the prestige of maybe your bigger competitors.
00:18:29.933 --> 00:18:40.473
So we were coming up against, you know, Bain, McKinsey, Big Four consultancy firms, and we're, we're pitching in that circle with these sort of tier one banks, and we're sort of fighting against them for business.
00:18:41.104 --> 00:18:47.798
we- poached someone to come on board and sort of announce before he'd started that he was joining and all this sort of thing.
00:18:48.249 --> 00:18:56.689
And it turned in to be a, be a disaster because he asked, I guess I can say, it's probably not gonna get me in any legal trouble, but he asked to be paid in a certain way that was outside of the normal way.
00:18:57.108 --> 00:18:59.699
and then he basically, he left before he started.
00:18:59.699 --> 00:19:00.409
He didn't start.
00:19:00.848 --> 00:19:06.719
but he was able to keep the sign-on bonus and all that because it had been routed via a different company, which he'd asked to do.
00:19:06.719 --> 00:19:17.108
And I guess it was one of those things of, uh, you know, again, early lesson of, being stung by someone who maybe didn't have the ethics and that, we were sort of hoping to have within the organization.
00:19:17.233 --> 00:19:17.763
one, man.
00:19:18.163 --> 00:19:18.913
That's a tough one.
00:19:18.913 --> 00:19:23.064
Spending money and giving someone a bonus and then to sign and they don't show up.
00:19:23.064 --> 00:19:26.134
it was the biggest, biggest, biggest salary we'd paid to date at that point.
00:19:26.134 --> 00:19:28.574
So yeah, that was a very painful decision.
00:19:29.338 --> 00:19:31.118
a total kick in the teeth, right?
00:19:31.628 --> 00:19:32.388
Oh, man.
00:19:32.449 --> 00:19:33.638
I'm so sorry to hear that one.
00:19:33.689 --> 00:19:34.868
That one's tough.
00:19:34.919 --> 00:19:35.229
all right.
00:19:35.229 --> 00:19:38.828
As an operator, you and I build people and systems.
00:19:39.298 --> 00:19:45.519
Um, what, what are some of your favorite systems you've produced or created?
00:19:45.519 --> 00:19:54.409
And that could be a software you've implemented or a cost tracking mechanism you've put in, or a onboarding process.
00:19:55.144 --> 00:20:00.814
So, Well, I put all those in because you have to start building out process and start getting people on board to do that.
00:20:00.814 --> 00:20:06.344
And when you've got hundreds of employees, you can't manage that obviously on a napkin and so forth.
00:20:06.753 --> 00:20:09.463
I think probably the best one we have is we put together a...
00:20:09.884 --> 00:20:17.364
And it became a beast unto itself, was an Excel modeling spreadsheet that enabled us to both model future projects and past projects.
00:20:17.763 --> 00:20:25.114
And before we had proper accounting systems, and even after we did, we were able to just run very, very quickly numbers.
00:20:25.114 --> 00:20:41.104
You could go in there and punch in a few numbers, and it would model what things look like and give you your best case, your most likely case, your worst case, the case you're tracking, and it would give you all these kind of data and enable you to sort of figure out,"Okay, if A, B, C works, this is where we are.
00:20:41.104 --> 00:20:46.513
And if none of them work, this is where we are." And it really helped us model that really quickly.
00:20:46.554 --> 00:20:52.463
and as you're pitching for work, you, you would-- we were able to lite-literally sit down and go through that process.
00:20:52.794 --> 00:20:53.443
I modeled some of that.
00:20:53.443 --> 00:20:56.173
We built some of that into the main accounting system, but It still exists.
00:20:56.173 --> 00:20:59.874
It was built in, like, fifteen, twenty years ago, and it still runs,
00:20:59.983 --> 00:21:00.364
Yeah.
00:21:00.453 --> 00:21:00.644
That's
00:21:00.648 --> 00:21:01.298
in some form.
00:21:01.409 --> 00:21:01.608
Yeah.
00:21:01.778 --> 00:21:01.959
Yeah.
00:21:02.013 --> 00:21:03.203
In some form or fashion.
00:21:04.144 --> 00:21:11.943
Well, to follow that, you know, to follow that, like you, you build the system and the process and it's still humming in some capacity today.
00:21:12.233 --> 00:21:19.423
how are you able to, to measure that, you know, that success or that efficacy of the process?
00:21:19.903 --> 00:21:37.023
can you give us an example of some of the dashboards or metrics or KPI, key performance indicators, data measuring that allowed you and your clients to kind of at a, at a quick instance measure the success of said process or department or, or whatnot?
00:21:37.489 --> 00:21:37.919
Yeah, yeah.
00:21:37.919 --> 00:21:41.419
So that, so that was a people business, just like, accounting firms, law firms, that.
00:21:41.729 --> 00:21:46.068
So what you're really looking at doing there is trying to assess how billable your staff are.
00:21:46.409 --> 00:21:49.729
So eighty, ninety, a hundred percent, sort of bill rate have they got?
00:21:50.159 --> 00:21:56.138
But then also, measure it back against clients and target revenue and margins and be able to build that back.
00:21:56.138 --> 00:22:00.459
So, so you could slice it by country, by client, by individual person.
00:22:00.459 --> 00:22:05.909
We could see what sort of money we were making, what sort of margin we were making all different directions and very quickly.
00:22:05.959 --> 00:22:13.538
so I think the data that we put into the back end of that was, quite substantial and enabled us to make all those decisions and, and on the fly, which was really good.
00:22:13.669 --> 00:22:14.148
I think it's,
00:22:14.304 --> 00:22:14.763
Yeah.
00:22:15.128 --> 00:22:27.118
but able to see that, I think is someone--'Cause if you don't know what the money is, where the money's coming in, you end up getting a whole bunch of pressures that come down the track and, uh, and you end up in-- you end up making very tactical rather than strategic decisions.
00:22:27.784 --> 00:22:28.574
Absolutely.
00:22:28.644 --> 00:22:31.794
And both of those decisions are important, tactical and strategic.
00:22:31.913 --> 00:22:39.483
But, um, I think the time to use which versus, one versus the other is also a skill that we learn.
00:22:39.483 --> 00:22:51.683
And, um, I coach a lot of my clients, uh, to, you know, pick three to five core metrics that they can measure on a weekly basis to determine the health of the business.
00:22:52.064 --> 00:22:56.703
And it's easy to go down the rabbit hole and create 76 different metrics that we're all looking at.
00:22:56.703 --> 00:23:04.054
But the reality is that if you don't have some large scale metrics to measure against, you're gonna get lost.
00:23:04.144 --> 00:23:16.223
And to your point, you start thinking tactically around, you know, oh, our collections are, 80% of our collections are 33 days past due instead of, well, at 30, It's like you just get micro-focused.
00:23:16.223 --> 00:23:28.634
So, um, what are your favorite macro measuring tools that you've seen either in your businesses or other businesses that you'd say,"Hey, if you could focus on these things, these three to five," or whatever?
00:23:29.628 --> 00:23:34.219
we had a thing which was, which again, I think in any business I've been involved in is look at maintainable revenue.
00:23:34.759 --> 00:23:39.939
So, so if, for example, if you're doing half a million a month, let's just say of sales.
00:23:40.449 --> 00:23:47.259
If you're not generating half a million a month going forward, so maybe four hundred of that is ongoing and a hundred's gonna drop off.
00:23:47.749 --> 00:23:51.058
If you're not able to generate half a million and looking forward, you're gonna shrink.
00:23:51.058 --> 00:23:57.259
Now, it sounds really, really simple, really obvious, but the number of people who don't look at that and they don't go,"Hang on a minute.
00:23:57.548 --> 00:24:06.838
If-- Okay, this month we did four hundred, this month we did three hundred, this month we did two hundred." And then you find out in quarter three, all of a sudden your, your business is in a terrible state.
00:24:06.838 --> 00:24:09.048
You've gotta make redundancies, you've gotta start doing those things.
00:24:09.318 --> 00:24:17.439
So that kind of forward-looking, if you're not, if you're not generating more revenue this month than, you know, in new sales and everything, including recurring revenue.
00:24:17.832 --> 00:24:25.112
you end up in a situation where you get to a point where you fail, You know, I have seen that again in my businesses when I didn't have that, how that quickly gets to that point.
00:24:25.622 --> 00:24:29.192
I think also putting metrics back onto the teams about what they think they're doing.
00:24:29.241 --> 00:24:31.172
sales guys, how many clients should you talk to?
00:24:31.172 --> 00:24:32.211
How many meetings should you have?
00:24:32.521 --> 00:24:39.102
Trying to get those things out and that focus, again, very much on the client side to take care of them and touch points with them regularly.
00:24:39.102 --> 00:24:41.521
Otherwise, you very quickly, um, um, disappear.
00:24:41.741 --> 00:24:47.221
so I think on that side, and then the operations ones can be-- they can have their fifty metrics if they want, that's all good.
00:24:47.372 --> 00:24:53.301
but I think, uh, I think looking at that sort of front end and the top of the funnel and what you're doing at that end'cause if you don't have that coming in, you don't have a business.
00:24:53.301 --> 00:24:54.612
You have a charity or you have something else.
00:24:54.612 --> 00:24:55.561
So you gotta, you gotta
00:24:55.567 --> 00:24:56.436
You you have a hobby.
00:24:57.561 --> 00:24:57.961
You have a hobby.
00:24:57.961 --> 00:24:58.372
Yeah, yeah.
00:24:58.372 --> 00:24:58.791
Or yeah,
00:24:58.866 --> 00:25:10.027
yeah, one of them that came up this week for me was the importance of customer satisfaction and understanding that we need to be asking our customers what their opinions are, of our service.
00:25:10.237 --> 00:25:23.136
Um, I had a client just this week that had a poor customer satisfaction response to this, particular service, and they triggered a lot of interesting things that brought a bigger conversation back to the leadership team, right?
00:25:23.237 --> 00:25:30.309
And, make a really long story short, some of the issues that this client was upset about are issues that we'd already resolved.
00:25:30.849 --> 00:25:39.539
But the leadership team and some of the delivery team spun around these issues and kind of really wrapped their head around them and over-rotated, on the response.
00:25:39.599 --> 00:25:42.750
And we as a leadership team said,"Wait, we've already solved for those.
00:25:43.200 --> 00:25:51.750
Let's not create a bigger issue when we've already solved for the problem moving forward." We create a better system, a better process, it was all about communication, surprise.
00:25:52.289 --> 00:25:54.349
But not over-rotating on the metric.
00:25:54.430 --> 00:25:59.220
But that metric also forced, another conversation internally that we could solve for.
00:25:59.220 --> 00:26:05.289
So customer satisfaction is one that I think, maybe it's not a top five metric, but I think it's, it's pretty close.
00:26:05.380 --> 00:26:05.980
It's pretty high.
00:26:05.980 --> 00:26:06.509
It's pretty high.
00:26:06.509 --> 00:26:08.630
I mean, I mean, Amazon have built a business on it, haven't they?
00:26:08.630 --> 00:26:11.759
So there's like obsessing about customer happiness.
00:26:12.089 --> 00:26:12.819
So I think, yeah.
00:26:13.759 --> 00:26:14.109
Yep.
00:26:14.109 --> 00:26:14.619
that's awesome.
00:26:15.160 --> 00:26:24.079
Well, um, as we sort of come to the end, I do think there's a couple things that I wanna ask you a question and, and one specifically around, you know, advice.
00:26:24.430 --> 00:26:31.539
We as advisors and founders and successful business owners, uh, receive and give a lot of advice.
00:26:32.039 --> 00:26:46.785
Um, take a minute and think about, a-any advice you received over the years that were either simple or profound That, impacted you and changed the way you see a certain topic, person, thing, process.
00:26:47.144 --> 00:26:48.174
anything come to mind?
00:26:50.400 --> 00:26:55.140
when you haven't run a business and you get into a business, you don't realize how much time you spend with lawyers.
00:26:55.619 --> 00:27:00.059
And, uh, whether that's good or bad, um, uh, you generally get into that point.
00:27:00.089 --> 00:27:04.910
And I've been very lucky to have had a commercial lawyer for, fifteen, twenty years in London.
00:27:05.259 --> 00:27:07.789
he's a Canadian and a British chap, and he's, he's fantastic.
00:27:08.190 --> 00:27:14.779
But he always sits down when we've got an issue or discussing something, and the very first thing he says,"How would I argue this from the other side?
00:27:15.109 --> 00:27:16.259
How would I position it?
00:27:16.589 --> 00:27:28.160
How would I position myself in this situation from the other side of the argument?" over, you know, the number of disputes that we've had in different situations, it's prompted us to either go,"No, you know what?
00:27:28.160 --> 00:27:29.019
We're not gonna settle.
00:27:29.119 --> 00:27:29.910
We're strong here.
00:27:30.180 --> 00:27:32.430
There's they've got nothing." Or,"You know what?
00:27:32.430 --> 00:27:33.349
They could argue it that way.
00:27:33.349 --> 00:27:49.769
Let's work a settlement and just get it off our list, get the focus back on the business, and just accept that we're gonna have to pay something and there's a cost of doing business." So I think that, that's a really big one, particularly for people who haven't been in business, that the amount of time you spend with lawyers and that idea of just let's look at the other side of the argument.
00:27:49.769 --> 00:27:54.589
If I was coming at your business in this situation or you'd done that to me, how would you see and how would you argue it?
00:27:54.589 --> 00:27:58.460
I found that to be of the best advice, and I always now look at that,
00:27:58.515 --> 00:27:59.164
comes out, so you better
00:27:59.170 --> 00:28:00.150
any kind of situation.
00:28:05.734 --> 00:28:07.644
thought of the other side.
00:28:07.980 --> 00:28:08.630
Exactly.
00:28:08.759 --> 00:28:09.220
Exactly.
00:28:09.220 --> 00:28:09.930
So which is great.
00:28:09.930 --> 00:28:10.450
It's fantastic.
00:28:10.625 --> 00:28:16.505
That's a really sound piece of, of advice as you start to defend your case in your mind.
00:28:16.505 --> 00:28:17.755
How could I be wrong?
00:28:18.174 --> 00:28:19.944
Well, you can-- you could...
00:28:19.944 --> 00:28:21.914
This is how you could be, and he's seeing it from the other side.
00:28:21.914 --> 00:28:22.394
It's special.
00:28:23.112 --> 00:28:32.832
I, I'd love to ask you a personal question, which is, as an entrepreneur and an advisor, how do you, you know, turn off the computer, close the screen, lock the iPhone?
00:28:33.162 --> 00:28:34.971
What makes you tick outside of work?
00:28:37.037 --> 00:28:37.176
Yeah.
00:28:37.176 --> 00:28:38.946
Well, I get pretty excited by any sport.
00:28:39.237 --> 00:28:42.126
Like, love my American, football a lot and, uh,
00:28:42.182 --> 00:28:43.602
American football.
00:28:43.791 --> 00:28:45.682
What kind of an Aussie Brit are you?
00:28:45.781 --> 00:28:46.162
I, I...
00:28:46.451 --> 00:28:48.511
For, for my sins, I became a Packers fan.
00:28:48.771 --> 00:28:49.152
So,
00:28:49.201 --> 00:28:49.521
That's
00:28:49.547 --> 00:28:58.656
so I, uh, yeah, so, uh, so I was, I was sitting in a bar in New York years ago and I, uh, and someone said, you know,"Who's your team?" And I said,"I don't have a team." And they're like,"You gotta have a team." And I'm like,"Okay.
00:28:58.656 --> 00:28:59.926
I'll take the green team.
00:28:59.926 --> 00:29:01.547
They look all right." So, uh, yeah.
00:29:01.547 --> 00:29:05.207
So for the last ten years I've been a-- I could have picked the Jets, which would have been a whole different
00:29:05.592 --> 00:29:07.771
that would've been a different vibe for sure.
00:29:08.011 --> 00:29:08.521
That's funny
00:29:08.686 --> 00:29:09.626
Um, yeah.
00:29:09.626 --> 00:29:11.517
And I, and I think just trying to take some time out.
00:29:11.626 --> 00:29:13.366
I think a few years ago I was really bad.
00:29:13.366 --> 00:29:14.606
I was doing eighty hours a week.
00:29:14.606 --> 00:29:19.507
I was literally all weekends, you know, nights, shutting the laptop at midnight, one in the morning.
00:29:19.987 --> 00:29:22.076
But I'm pretty good now at turning off on the weekends.
00:29:22.076 --> 00:29:25.527
I think that's, you know, I just trying to get some time out to do something else.
00:29:25.846 --> 00:29:30.166
It makes you a lot fresher and I think I'm probably more productive, which is the irony of that situation.
00:29:30.865 --> 00:29:31.516
That's funny.
00:29:31.685 --> 00:29:34.955
All right, who do you follow, both rugby and football?
00:29:35.375 --> 00:29:36.395
Who are your teams?
00:29:36.557 --> 00:29:39.446
I follow Australian rugby and in football I'm a Chelsea fan.
00:29:39.446 --> 00:29:42.027
So that's, uh, been a very, uh, interesting one.
00:29:42.277 --> 00:29:48.247
Like, again, without putting too much dated content into this, it's, uh, we're not going through a very good phase at the moment.
00:29:48.576 --> 00:29:48.797
So
00:29:49.036 --> 00:29:50.925
I'm a Liverpool fan, and I concur.
00:29:50.965 --> 00:29:52.425
we're in a very similar position.
00:29:52.425 --> 00:29:58.056
We had, we had some very shining moments at time, but now we're on the struggle bus, as my son says.
00:29:58.215 --> 00:29:59.685
So we'll hopefully grind through it.
00:30:00.365 --> 00:30:10.236
Well, listen, I really appreciate your time today and cherish the conversation and, wanna say you're the first international guest I've had, and, it's been a great start.
00:30:10.236 --> 00:30:15.726
And I love that you and I sh-share so many similarities in terms of, our experience and our current careers.
00:30:15.726 --> 00:30:20.746
It's nice to see, folks going through the same journey that I'm going through with my, my business and my clients.
00:30:20.746 --> 00:30:27.256
So Christopher Roark, thank you for joining us today on"The Scalability Code." I really enjoyed our time, and I hope to have you back soon.
00:30:29.630 --> 00:30:31.700
Thank you for listening to The Scalability Code.
00:30:31.730 --> 00:30:37.220
If you made it this far, please follow the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:30:37.309 --> 00:30:39.769
We'll see you next time on The Scalability Code.
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:10.880
And without being in there with the battle scars, it's really different to understand that, you know, the founder who got you to ten million turnover, he's the exact or she's the exact bottleneck that's gonna stop you getting to fifty.
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Welcome to The Scalability Code, the podcast that helps you get out of the sh*t show and start growing your business.
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And now for your host, Matt Haney.
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Here we are, another episode of The Scalability Code.
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Today, we've got Christopher Burke with us.
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Christopher, thanks for joining us today.
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I did learn in the pre-meeting that Christopher is an Aussie living in London, which completely threw off the whole accent to me,'cause I was like,"He sounds like an Aussie, but he lives in London.
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Am I gonna offend him by saying he's an Aussie or a Brit?" And, uh, I haven't offended him yet.
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So Christopher, thanks for joining us today on The Scalability Code.
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Great.
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Great to meet you, Matt, and thanks for having me on.
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Awesome.
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So here's what we do.
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Every time I introduce myself to someone, I feel like I have to rush through the intro.
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I have to get straight to what we're talking about.
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No one wants to hear about me.
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and that's kind of the opposite today.
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Today, I'm interviewing you.
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You get to tell us about your journey.
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So what I like to do first is learn about, how you became an entrepreneur.
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That can be all the way back to when you were a young kid, or recently, whatever.
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Um, and then, uh, as that, maybe there's someone that influenced you as an entrepreneur or that, that was your first glimpse into entrepreneurship.
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So, uh, those two questions I'd love to have answers to.
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Yeah, that's a great question.
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Uh, thanks, thanks very much.
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So my father was a, was a great eccentric and entrepreneur.
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he was very much a gentleman.
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He ran pubs and frozen fish business, and, uh, at one stage he was a bookmaker as well and, loved the horse racing and, all cash businesses which he sort of loved to do.
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he was very kind, maybe a bit too kind for some of the businesses he got into, and honest, but he was always sort of looking for new ways and new, I guess, endeavors to make money and to, help people.
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Awesome.
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Uh, so he's the one that taught you about entrepreneurship or, or that exposed it to you, I should say.
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Yeah.
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I mean, he was always like, you know,"You don't wanna get a job, you wanna sort of have the freedom.
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Go out there and start your own business, find your own way, put your own stamp on something," which has been, which has been amazing, uh, amazing to sort of watch him in, different businesses along the way.
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That's awesome.
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And is he still an Aussie?
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Is...
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unfortunately, he passed away, fourteen years ago, but, um, but I, I, I'd say he lived his best life right up until, uh, till, till the end of his, uh, end of his days.
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You
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something, to be said about that.
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as my, my close friend says,"You gotta get busy living.
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Gotta get busy living."
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Exactly.
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do me-- Okay, awesome.
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tell me about your entrepreneurial journey and give me a little bit of kind of where you came from and, hit along some things, and then we'll get to your current, current world today.
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so look, I've spent the last twenty-five years in London, uh, building businesses.
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been studying them, or advising them.
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I've been actually inside building them from inside the machine.
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So the first business or the m- first major business I had was called Brickenden, which serves the largest banks in the world, the JP Morgans, the City Banks, the UBS's.
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We sort of do, the kind of, complex programs that can't fail, credit systems, regulatory systems, or rescue projects that have gone off track.
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And I did that for sixteen years.
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and that, that generated a quarter of a billion dollars of sales, in that time.
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with no funding.
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Second business I launched into was in twenty eighteen, which was called Hybrid Hero, and it's a workplace management system.
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And again, learning a very different business.
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that's a software business and a product, where the other one was all about the service.
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And it's live in forty countries, eleven languages, has clients like Dyson, BMW, Pepsi.
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and we l- launched it two years before COVID, and then COVID validated the thesis about needing to understand remote working, hybrid working, all those different things.
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So I'm pretty proud of that So yeah.
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So that's, that's I guess the start of my entrepreneurial journey they're the two big chunks that I've sort of had along the way.
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That's awesome.
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And those got you to where you are today in the businesses that you own and operate today.
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Yeah.
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I think they sort of taught me a lot about it that, that actually there isn't really a bad business, a bad idea, a bad market.
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Generally, as you sort of look at these businesses, and particularly ones like that have grown as rapidly as, my two did, is that, you know, it's the systems, the processes, the people architecture that struggle to keep up as you grow.
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And I think that's a really hard lesson.
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And without being in there with the battle scars, it's really different to understand that, you know, the founder who got you to ten million turnover, he's the exact or she's the exact bottleneck that's gonna stop you getting to fifty.
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And you don't see it'cause you're in there and you're in the weeds, and you just don't see the problems.
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Yeah.
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No, it's so true.
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and you and I are in a very similar line of work and in a very similar founder-led business where, you know, not most times, but every time the founder's the problem.
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but the founder's also, the founder's also a huge resource and asset and getting that founder in the seat that allows them to be that visionary leader is one of the most empowering processes I go through and have gone through 15 different times with my clients, is seeing that person doing what they're best at and not stressing over the things that they're generally not good at.
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Yeah.
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Don't wanna do, but still do them.
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Yep.
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Exactly.
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And they just don't know any better.
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They had to...
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Obviously you were, you were the, the head chef, the head janitor, you know, the, the, the head CEO, the maitre d', all of it, and you're good at a few of them.
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Let's go figure out how to make you good at one or two of them instead of all of them.
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Um, so let's go back a little bit to, to the businesses you created previously and, and as they...
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You know, this is a podcast about scaling a business and growth.
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it's always fun to look back at your own business And, and, you know, recall or recollect on times that you were the problem.
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So I don't know if, if any specific moment comes to mind during the scalability of your early businesses that you were like,"Well, shit, I am the problem." how did you get there?
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How did you get to that realization, and what did you do about it?
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Did someone in the business bring you and have that come to your religious figure meeting with you or did you get there on your own?
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So tell us about a time where you were the problem.
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I think one thing I did just at the start when I set the businesses up is I did an org chart, and I put my name into all the different roles that I could think about up to, you know, a hundred people So you're doing all those different things, and the idea early on was to try and scrub out the ones that I didn't like.
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I think part of the challenge here is that, I've definitely been a bottleneck in trying to take control of areas that I wasn't good at.
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So, for example, social media marketing and marketing, and trying to do that at the same time as you're coming up with the solution, at the same time as you're serving clients, and it, it's been a disaster when I've, when I've done that, and it's something you learn very quickly.
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If you are-- If you're at the coalface trying to deliver for a client, and you're also trying to do posts and make up, graphics and all that sort of thing, really, really did it and, and, and really held up and, and, and caused major issues in my business.
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Yep.
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Well said.
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I too am not a marketer.
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Um, but I always feel like for me it was so hard for me to acknowledge the need for the marketing expense internally for my practice.
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For my clients' work, I could look them straight in the eyes and say,"You're spending half a percent of revenue on marketing.
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You're not gonna grow.
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You've gotta increase that expense that...
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We gotta find a subject matter expert." But it-- when it's time to eat my own dog food and spend my own hard-earned money to grow my own practice, it was complicated because it's like I can...
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Surely there's a way I can, you know, outsource this to someone.
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But the reality is, is that, you know...
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I was like,"Oh, they'll just run it.
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I won't have to do anything.
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I'll, I'll delegate and elevate my way out of this, and they'll run it." But the reality is, is that you're gonna have to provide oversight and, and commitment and dedication to the message that's going out the door for your practice.
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Um, and to your point, I'm not the best at building decks, presentations.
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It's just not what I'm good at.
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and, you know, getting out of the way of that is a, is a very empowering thing.
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Well, that's cool.
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Any other issues that came up operationally or things that you saw during scale that was like, man...
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And maybe you're looking back on it now and you're like, you know,"Marketing was definitely not my skill set." But anything else?
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I think looking at your business and trying to run it, holding on to the wrong people for too long.
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So again, as you sort of, know, the person who can do three or four roles maybe in a finance department, as you grow, you need each of those individually.
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And if you keep that jack of all trades or that person who's a generalist, you generally tie your hands.
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You also, also found that when you're so busy running your business, you're maybe not positioning it, for sale, acquisition, investment.
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And that also can be a real problem because when you're churning along, sales are coming in, you're trying to do all those different things, and that's just the time when you wanna be able to get the investment to keep growing.
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You then get to a point where you plateau, and, it's really difficult then at that point to try and reposition yourself because the pressure's on and to get yourself restructured so you can get investment to scale to the next level.
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And again, all those mistakes I've made.
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I'm dancing over here in my chair hearing what you say, and it resonates because that's very similar to what I say, just without a cool accent.
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What I say to my folks is, it's very hard to consciously work on the business while you're working in the business.
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And the point is you get fixated on delivering a product, a service, a value, whatever, and it's really hard to step out and look at it from the outside and think,"How do I build this thing to something that I want it to be?" Right?
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"What is my vision for it-- Where do I want to go with it?" And to your point, which hits me right on the head, which is what's the end goal, right?
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What do you want to do?
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Is this something that you want to exit?
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And if you want to exit this business, um, in whatever time period that is, you have to start thinking about that in terms of today.
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Because you know this, having exited companies and working with clients who are also on that journey, when you're ready, it's too late to start preparing.
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You've already should have been prepared for that time when you're ready to move to the next level or the, or the sale.
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Absolutely.
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Absolutely.
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Yeah.
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It's a hard thing to see, though.
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I think it's very hard'cause you do that dance or that balancing act because you need that structure, that discipline, that process to be able to effectively move yourself out of the business as a founder.
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But that costs money, takes time.
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that whole adage, I don't know if you know the saying, where you spend an hour to save five minutes.
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So you've gotta spend that hour over and over and over again to get those five minutes back.
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and setting that process up when you're not yet there, it's really, really hard to do.
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and you're focusing on keeping the clients happy, getting things delivered, trying to get money in, you know, all these different things,
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Well, here's what I can tell you.
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The title of this podcast is what this episode will be, When You Spend an Hour to Save Five Minutes.
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It's such a poignant point that says, how do we do better about, being strategic with our time and process and resource so that- We spend five minutes to save an hour instead of the other way around.
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Very, very cool.
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Okay, I want to go back.
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You mentioned uh, your father being an, a figure for you in entrepreneurship.
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You also mentioned letting the wrong people stay in the right seat for too long.
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Um, is there anybody that comes to mind in one of your businesses, you can name he or she or not, where you were able to grow them into that right seat?
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Meaning they started at one position and they grew for the right reasons into a different seat.
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Uh, a-absolutely.
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it took a long time.
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It took a lot of training.
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But there's a gentleman...
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I, I won't, I won't, I won't name him, but if he listens to this, he'll know who he is.
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And he worked his way up from being very junior in my business over eleven years.
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worked his way up through different roles, got him managing people because he was that, uh, concept of being an operator, you know, still with a tool belt, I think you used in one of your previous podcasts, which I'd listened to.
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And, uh, yeah, and, and, and moved into then managing and training people.
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And then we had to move him on to the next side to actually then be able to speak and to be able to talk to clients.
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And, you know, he'd go in there and he'd panic, and he'd literally-- We'd have an hour meeting where we're trying to find out what the client needed, and he'd speak for fifty-eight minutes.
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At, at, at, at-- withou-without a pause, without literally...
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And we're like,"We learned nothing.
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We have no idea what the client wants because you just spoke the whole time." But he moved all the way up to being a partner, ended up leading one of the countries for us.
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and then moved on to do something completely different.
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He's moved on into a sports field now.
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But he was a very, very good leader, very inspirational, and moved that whole way up through the organization.
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do you still have a relationship with him or friendship with him
00:12:38.823 --> 00:12:39.203
yeah.
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he messaged me last week, so yeah, he's doing all right.
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So yeah,
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That's awesome.
00:12:42.528 --> 00:12:50.828
No, I think one of the most rewarding pieces of what we and I, what you and I do for a living is, is impacting lives positively, right?
00:12:50.828 --> 00:13:04.019
And just being able to allow people to have that journey, because I think as a founder and an operator, which we both are, you know, giving people a path to what their goals are is incredibly rewarding.
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Absolutely, absolutely.
00:13:06.293 --> 00:13:18.874
We, um, we, we, we did this thing, and I've done this in multiple businesses, where we do life coaching, and the idea is can we actually get you on what it means for you to actually get something better for you as an individual.
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So the idea there is I don't wanna know what you go through in that session with a life coach, and we do different ones.
00:13:24.528 --> 00:13:26.739
Sometimes it's two, three, ten sessions.
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But the i- the idea is, is you find out why you're working, why you're doing this.
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you're coming to work for me to earn money, right?
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Is that to buy a house?
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Is that to effectively retire?
00:13:38.349 --> 00:13:39.489
what is it you're doing this for?
00:13:39.509 --> 00:13:41.389
what really juices you, gets you going?
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and that's been a big thing to sort of invest back in.
00:13:43.428 --> 00:13:50.609
and just last night, I got a text message from one of the guys who went through that program who actually he did buy a house and, he doesn't work for me anymore, and gonna catch up next week.
00:13:50.639 --> 00:13:51.339
We haven't seen him for a while.
00:13:51.339 --> 00:13:51.938
So it's really...
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Those kind of things are really, really exciting.
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That's special.
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Very special.
00:13:56.443 --> 00:14:01.264
All right, this is one of my favorite topics, um, and I've had a lot of different answers.
00:14:01.264 --> 00:14:03.063
So take a minute to think about this.
00:14:03.514 --> 00:14:05.754
the general theme is delayed decision-making.
00:14:06.953 --> 00:14:10.933
and delayed decision-making cuts both ways, right?
00:14:10.933 --> 00:14:11.774
that's all I'm gonna say.
00:14:12.134 --> 00:14:19.274
So I'm gonna let you tell me about an example or an instance of delayed decision-making and what the outcome was from delaying that decision.
00:14:20.793 --> 00:14:21.504
think about it.
00:14:21.634 --> 00:14:27.563
I don't know if you have anything that comes to mind, and I'll, I'll give you just another few seconds to think about it.
00:14:27.563 --> 00:14:28.764
But delayed decision-making.
00:14:28.764 --> 00:14:35.553
Any scenarios or targets or things that you're just like,"Oh shit, that was..." I'll l- I'll leave it to
00:14:35.568 --> 00:14:38.288
I remember the episode where I heard you talk about this previously.
00:14:38.288 --> 00:14:43.708
So I think it's a fantastic concept and, I think I've been bitten both ways.
00:14:43.788 --> 00:14:53.408
We've, delayed making a decision to restructure an organization, where it actually cost us probably in about year seven in the big consultancy business.
00:14:53.839 --> 00:14:54.879
it made us our worst year ever.
00:14:54.879 --> 00:15:02.788
We made an enormous loss'cause we didn't restructure because there was some rather big political changes going on around Brexit time, if you remember UK and
00:15:02.903 --> 00:15:04.033
Oh, absolutely.
00:15:04.033 --> 00:15:04.553
Sure.
00:15:04.668 --> 00:15:09.859
and they couldn't make up their mind which way they were going, and we decided not to restructure and to stay as we were.
00:15:10.379 --> 00:15:14.609
And yeah, it literally wiped out eighteen months of cash balances and profits.
00:15:14.609 --> 00:15:15.969
It was a absolute disaster.
00:15:15.969 --> 00:15:20.259
But we sort of knew it wasn't gonna happen, but we were kinda hoping it would, and so we didn't make that decision.
00:15:20.808 --> 00:15:22.589
and that was a disaster for the business, really.
00:15:22.629 --> 00:15:24.293
You are listening to the Scalability Code.
00:15:24.293 --> 00:15:32.462
I'm your host, Matt Haney, founder of Sinclair Ventures, and we help visionary entrepreneurs like you get out of the shit show and focus on growing your business.
00:15:32.600 --> 00:15:39.000
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com.
00:15:41.600 --> 00:15:42.221
Now back to it.
00:15:43.366 --> 00:15:54.537
And, there's probably one the other way as well, where we, we haven't cut and, uh, we looked at staying in a market which, which again, we probably were a bit inertia and then ended up landing a big deal which was fantastic.
00:15:54.537 --> 00:15:56.407
So it can cut both ways
00:15:56.437 --> 00:15:57.057
Isn't that
00:15:57.192 --> 00:15:57.662
very hard.
00:15:58.101 --> 00:15:58.471
Yeah.
00:15:58.682 --> 00:15:58.971
Yeah.
00:15:59.067 --> 00:16:07.756
it's some of the hardest things to deal with as an operator is, you look at these decisions and you're like,"Man, it's gonna go one way or the other, and it's gonna go fast.
00:16:07.976 --> 00:16:09.736
Am I making the right one?
00:16:10.006 --> 00:16:11.417
Is this the right time?
00:16:11.417 --> 00:16:12.787
Are these the right people?
00:16:12.787 --> 00:16:15.386
Is this the right subject we should be focused on?
00:16:15.767 --> 00:16:17.447
Are these the right goals?
00:16:17.846 --> 00:16:22.476
Ah." And it's interesting'cause it's like you can see both sides of that coin, right?
00:16:22.476 --> 00:16:24.417
You've seen it, I've seen it, everyone's seen it.
00:16:24.517 --> 00:16:29.697
But, it's always interesting to hear other entrepreneurs' version of how that coin flips.
00:16:29.746 --> 00:16:30.836
So that's really cool.
00:16:31.256 --> 00:16:37.461
okay, so a couple other questions that we'd like to get to, um- You and I manage people and process for a living.
00:16:38.231 --> 00:16:49.142
so, so, in the vein of good and bad decisions, tell me your best hire and the attributes that that person, brought to you guys, and then tell me your worst hire.
00:16:49.491 --> 00:16:59.682
and you can pick the worst before the better or whatever, but give me an example of folks, And you mentioned it earlier, maybe it's the same person that you helped grow through that journey, or it's someone different.
00:17:00.442 --> 00:17:01.902
No, someone, someone different actually.
00:17:01.902 --> 00:17:03.792
he was my CFO for a very long time.
00:17:04.251 --> 00:17:05.612
he'd definitely be my best hire.
00:17:05.612 --> 00:17:08.392
He, he came in and took away...
00:17:08.721 --> 00:17:15.041
You know, I, I've, I, I studied law and I'm an accountant by trade, but I still don't like all that work.
00:17:15.071 --> 00:17:20.622
I much prefer being out there solving problems for clients and being very much on that, sort of side of things.
00:17:21.021 --> 00:17:23.902
So he came in, just restructured all the back end.
00:17:24.332 --> 00:17:33.832
He'd come from a business that was probably fifteen, twenty times the size of what we were, and felt very lucky that we'd managed to get him to come on board.
00:17:34.362 --> 00:17:42.142
And stayed with me for a very long time until he retired, and he was an absolute gem in terms of anything I could throw at him.
00:17:42.142 --> 00:17:44.423
There's a contract in Polish.
00:17:44.423 --> 00:17:46.304
We've got an issue with our office in Hong Kong.
00:17:46.304 --> 00:17:50.263
We've got Canada, what on earth is going on with the filing over there?
00:17:50.263 --> 00:17:51.933
We've got an employment issue in New York.
00:17:51.983 --> 00:17:56.183
He was able to just come in, sort the whole thing out, and took that whole thing away.
00:17:56.213 --> 00:18:00.794
And he was, without a shadow of a doubt, best hire and, and would be, would be, Yeah.
00:18:00.794 --> 00:18:03.844
So John, if you're listening, you're, you're a superstar, and I hope you're enjoying golf.
00:18:03.844 --> 00:18:12.263
Every time I see a picture he's got-- He seems to be-- His beard seems to get longer and his tan, his tan seems to get better, and he's, he's always got a, a stick of golf clubs in his hand.
00:18:12.314 --> 00:18:14.943
the question is, is he getting to be a better golfer?
00:18:14.973 --> 00:18:16.233
John, are you getting better?
00:18:16.233 --> 00:18:18.064
Or are you just playing all the time?
00:18:18.294 --> 00:18:19.074
Absolutely.
00:18:19.263 --> 00:18:23.894
All right, now you gotta tell us the bad decisions you made and, and what those came out to be.
00:18:24.104 --> 00:18:29.933
so we, looked at hiring and trying to build, So, so again, when you don't have the prestige of maybe your bigger competitors.
00:18:29.933 --> 00:18:40.473
So we were coming up against, you know, Bain, McKinsey, Big Four consultancy firms, and we're, we're pitching in that circle with these sort of tier one banks, and we're sort of fighting against them for business.
00:18:41.104 --> 00:18:47.798
we- poached someone to come on board and sort of announce before he'd started that he was joining and all this sort of thing.
00:18:48.249 --> 00:18:56.689
And it turned in to be a, be a disaster because he asked, I guess I can say, it's probably not gonna get me in any legal trouble, but he asked to be paid in a certain way that was outside of the normal way.
00:18:57.108 --> 00:18:59.699
and then he basically, he left before he started.
00:18:59.699 --> 00:19:00.409
He didn't start.
00:19:00.848 --> 00:19:06.719
but he was able to keep the sign-on bonus and all that because it had been routed via a different company, which he'd asked to do.
00:19:06.719 --> 00:19:17.108
And I guess it was one of those things of, uh, you know, again, early lesson of, being stung by someone who maybe didn't have the ethics and that, we were sort of hoping to have within the organization.
00:19:17.233 --> 00:19:17.763
one, man.
00:19:18.163 --> 00:19:18.913
That's a tough one.
00:19:18.913 --> 00:19:23.064
Spending money and giving someone a bonus and then to sign and they don't show up.
00:19:23.064 --> 00:19:26.134
it was the biggest, biggest, biggest salary we'd paid to date at that point.
00:19:26.134 --> 00:19:28.574
So yeah, that was a very painful decision.
00:19:29.338 --> 00:19:31.118
a total kick in the teeth, right?
00:19:31.628 --> 00:19:32.388
Oh, man.
00:19:32.449 --> 00:19:33.638
I'm so sorry to hear that one.
00:19:33.689 --> 00:19:34.868
That one's tough.
00:19:34.919 --> 00:19:35.229
all right.
00:19:35.229 --> 00:19:38.828
As an operator, you and I build people and systems.
00:19:39.298 --> 00:19:45.519
Um, what, what are some of your favorite systems you've produced or created?
00:19:45.519 --> 00:19:54.409
And that could be a software you've implemented or a cost tracking mechanism you've put in, or a onboarding process.
00:19:55.144 --> 00:20:00.814
So, Well, I put all those in because you have to start building out process and start getting people on board to do that.
00:20:00.814 --> 00:20:06.344
And when you've got hundreds of employees, you can't manage that obviously on a napkin and so forth.
00:20:06.753 --> 00:20:09.463
I think probably the best one we have is we put together a...
00:20:09.884 --> 00:20:17.364
And it became a beast unto itself, was an Excel modeling spreadsheet that enabled us to both model future projects and past projects.
00:20:17.763 --> 00:20:25.114
And before we had proper accounting systems, and even after we did, we were able to just run very, very quickly numbers.
00:20:25.114 --> 00:20:41.104
You could go in there and punch in a few numbers, and it would model what things look like and give you your best case, your most likely case, your worst case, the case you're tracking, and it would give you all these kind of data and enable you to sort of figure out,"Okay, if A, B, C works, this is where we are.
00:20:41.104 --> 00:20:46.513
And if none of them work, this is where we are." And it really helped us model that really quickly.
00:20:46.554 --> 00:20:52.463
and as you're pitching for work, you, you would-- we were able to lite-literally sit down and go through that process.
00:20:52.794 --> 00:20:53.443
I modeled some of that.
00:20:53.443 --> 00:20:56.173
We built some of that into the main accounting system, but It still exists.
00:20:56.173 --> 00:20:59.874
It was built in, like, fifteen, twenty years ago, and it still runs,
00:20:59.983 --> 00:21:00.364
Yeah.
00:21:00.453 --> 00:21:00.644
That's
00:21:00.648 --> 00:21:01.298
in some form.
00:21:01.409 --> 00:21:01.608
Yeah.
00:21:01.778 --> 00:21:01.959
Yeah.
00:21:02.013 --> 00:21:03.203
In some form or fashion.
00:21:04.144 --> 00:21:11.943
Well, to follow that, you know, to follow that, like you, you build the system and the process and it's still humming in some capacity today.
00:21:12.233 --> 00:21:19.423
how are you able to, to measure that, you know, that success or that efficacy of the process?
00:21:19.903 --> 00:21:37.023
can you give us an example of some of the dashboards or metrics or KPI, key performance indicators, data measuring that allowed you and your clients to kind of at a, at a quick instance measure the success of said process or department or, or whatnot?
00:21:37.489 --> 00:21:37.919
Yeah, yeah.
00:21:37.919 --> 00:21:41.419
So that, so that was a people business, just like, accounting firms, law firms, that.
00:21:41.729 --> 00:21:46.068
So what you're really looking at doing there is trying to assess how billable your staff are.
00:21:46.409 --> 00:21:49.729
So eighty, ninety, a hundred percent, sort of bill rate have they got?
00:21:50.159 --> 00:21:56.138
But then also, measure it back against clients and target revenue and margins and be able to build that back.
00:21:56.138 --> 00:22:00.459
So, so you could slice it by country, by client, by individual person.
00:22:00.459 --> 00:22:05.909
We could see what sort of money we were making, what sort of margin we were making all different directions and very quickly.
00:22:05.959 --> 00:22:13.538
so I think the data that we put into the back end of that was, quite substantial and enabled us to make all those decisions and, and on the fly, which was really good.
00:22:13.669 --> 00:22:14.148
I think it's,
00:22:14.304 --> 00:22:14.763
Yeah.
00:22:15.128 --> 00:22:27.118
but able to see that, I think is someone--'Cause if you don't know what the money is, where the money's coming in, you end up getting a whole bunch of pressures that come down the track and, uh, and you end up in-- you end up making very tactical rather than strategic decisions.
00:22:27.784 --> 00:22:28.574
Absolutely.
00:22:28.644 --> 00:22:31.794
And both of those decisions are important, tactical and strategic.
00:22:31.913 --> 00:22:39.483
But, um, I think the time to use which versus, one versus the other is also a skill that we learn.
00:22:39.483 --> 00:22:51.683
And, um, I coach a lot of my clients, uh, to, you know, pick three to five core metrics that they can measure on a weekly basis to determine the health of the business.
00:22:52.064 --> 00:22:56.703
And it's easy to go down the rabbit hole and create 76 different metrics that we're all looking at.
00:22:56.703 --> 00:23:04.054
But the reality is that if you don't have some large scale metrics to measure against, you're gonna get lost.
00:23:04.144 --> 00:23:16.223
And to your point, you start thinking tactically around, you know, oh, our collections are, 80% of our collections are 33 days past due instead of, well, at 30, It's like you just get micro-focused.
00:23:16.223 --> 00:23:28.634
So, um, what are your favorite macro measuring tools that you've seen either in your businesses or other businesses that you'd say,"Hey, if you could focus on these things, these three to five," or whatever?
00:23:29.628 --> 00:23:34.219
we had a thing which was, which again, I think in any business I've been involved in is look at maintainable revenue.
00:23:34.759 --> 00:23:39.939
So, so if, for example, if you're doing half a million a month, let's just say of sales.
00:23:40.449 --> 00:23:47.259
If you're not generating half a million a month going forward, so maybe four hundred of that is ongoing and a hundred's gonna drop off.
00:23:47.749 --> 00:23:51.058
If you're not able to generate half a million and looking forward, you're gonna shrink.
00:23:51.058 --> 00:23:57.259
Now, it sounds really, really simple, really obvious, but the number of people who don't look at that and they don't go,"Hang on a minute.
00:23:57.548 --> 00:24:06.838
If-- Okay, this month we did four hundred, this month we did three hundred, this month we did two hundred." And then you find out in quarter three, all of a sudden your, your business is in a terrible state.
00:24:06.838 --> 00:24:09.048
You've gotta make redundancies, you've gotta start doing those things.
00:24:09.318 --> 00:24:17.439
So that kind of forward-looking, if you're not, if you're not generating more revenue this month than, you know, in new sales and everything, including recurring revenue.
00:24:17.832 --> 00:24:25.112
you end up in a situation where you get to a point where you fail, You know, I have seen that again in my businesses when I didn't have that, how that quickly gets to that point.
00:24:25.622 --> 00:24:29.192
I think also putting metrics back onto the teams about what they think they're doing.
00:24:29.241 --> 00:24:31.172
sales guys, how many clients should you talk to?
00:24:31.172 --> 00:24:32.211
How many meetings should you have?
00:24:32.521 --> 00:24:39.102
Trying to get those things out and that focus, again, very much on the client side to take care of them and touch points with them regularly.
00:24:39.102 --> 00:24:41.521
Otherwise, you very quickly, um, um, disappear.
00:24:41.741 --> 00:24:47.221
so I think on that side, and then the operations ones can be-- they can have their fifty metrics if they want, that's all good.
00:24:47.372 --> 00:24:53.301
but I think, uh, I think looking at that sort of front end and the top of the funnel and what you're doing at that end'cause if you don't have that coming in, you don't have a business.
00:24:53.301 --> 00:24:54.612
You have a charity or you have something else.
00:24:54.612 --> 00:24:55.561
So you gotta, you gotta
00:24:55.567 --> 00:24:56.436
You you have a hobby.
00:24:57.561 --> 00:24:57.961
You have a hobby.
00:24:57.961 --> 00:24:58.372
Yeah, yeah.
00:24:58.372 --> 00:24:58.791
Or yeah,
00:24:58.866 --> 00:25:10.027
yeah, one of them that came up this week for me was the importance of customer satisfaction and understanding that we need to be asking our customers what their opinions are, of our service.
00:25:10.237 --> 00:25:23.136
Um, I had a client just this week that had a poor customer satisfaction response to this, particular service, and they triggered a lot of interesting things that brought a bigger conversation back to the leadership team, right?
00:25:23.237 --> 00:25:30.309
And, make a really long story short, some of the issues that this client was upset about are issues that we'd already resolved.
00:25:30.849 --> 00:25:39.539
But the leadership team and some of the delivery team spun around these issues and kind of really wrapped their head around them and over-rotated, on the response.
00:25:39.599 --> 00:25:42.750
And we as a leadership team said,"Wait, we've already solved for those.
00:25:43.200 --> 00:25:51.750
Let's not create a bigger issue when we've already solved for the problem moving forward." We create a better system, a better process, it was all about communication, surprise.
00:25:52.289 --> 00:25:54.349
But not over-rotating on the metric.
00:25:54.430 --> 00:25:59.220
But that metric also forced, another conversation internally that we could solve for.
00:25:59.220 --> 00:26:05.289
So customer satisfaction is one that I think, maybe it's not a top five metric, but I think it's, it's pretty close.
00:26:05.380 --> 00:26:05.980
It's pretty high.
00:26:05.980 --> 00:26:06.509
It's pretty high.
00:26:06.509 --> 00:26:08.630
I mean, I mean, Amazon have built a business on it, haven't they?
00:26:08.630 --> 00:26:11.759
So there's like obsessing about customer happiness.
00:26:12.089 --> 00:26:12.819
So I think, yeah.
00:26:13.759 --> 00:26:14.109
Yep.
00:26:14.109 --> 00:26:14.619
that's awesome.
00:26:15.160 --> 00:26:24.079
Well, um, as we sort of come to the end, I do think there's a couple things that I wanna ask you a question and, and one specifically around, you know, advice.
00:26:24.430 --> 00:26:31.539
We as advisors and founders and successful business owners, uh, receive and give a lot of advice.
00:26:32.039 --> 00:26:46.785
Um, take a minute and think about, a-any advice you received over the years that were either simple or profound That, impacted you and changed the way you see a certain topic, person, thing, process.
00:26:47.144 --> 00:26:48.174
anything come to mind?
00:26:50.400 --> 00:26:55.140
when you haven't run a business and you get into a business, you don't realize how much time you spend with lawyers.
00:26:55.619 --> 00:27:00.059
And, uh, whether that's good or bad, um, uh, you generally get into that point.
00:27:00.089 --> 00:27:04.910
And I've been very lucky to have had a commercial lawyer for, fifteen, twenty years in London.
00:27:05.259 --> 00:27:07.789
he's a Canadian and a British chap, and he's, he's fantastic.
00:27:08.190 --> 00:27:14.779
But he always sits down when we've got an issue or discussing something, and the very first thing he says,"How would I argue this from the other side?
00:27:15.109 --> 00:27:16.259
How would I position it?
00:27:16.589 --> 00:27:28.160
How would I position myself in this situation from the other side of the argument?" over, you know, the number of disputes that we've had in different situations, it's prompted us to either go,"No, you know what?
00:27:28.160 --> 00:27:29.019
We're not gonna settle.
00:27:29.119 --> 00:27:29.910
We're strong here.
00:27:30.180 --> 00:27:32.430
There's they've got nothing." Or,"You know what?
00:27:32.430 --> 00:27:33.349
They could argue it that way.
00:27:33.349 --> 00:27:49.769
Let's work a settlement and just get it off our list, get the focus back on the business, and just accept that we're gonna have to pay something and there's a cost of doing business." So I think that, that's a really big one, particularly for people who haven't been in business, that the amount of time you spend with lawyers and that idea of just let's look at the other side of the argument.
00:27:49.769 --> 00:27:54.589
If I was coming at your business in this situation or you'd done that to me, how would you see and how would you argue it?
00:27:54.589 --> 00:27:58.460
I found that to be of the best advice, and I always now look at that,
00:27:58.515 --> 00:27:59.164
comes out, so you better
00:27:59.170 --> 00:28:00.150
any kind of situation.
00:28:05.734 --> 00:28:07.644
thought of the other side.
00:28:07.980 --> 00:28:08.630
Exactly.
00:28:08.759 --> 00:28:09.220
Exactly.
00:28:09.220 --> 00:28:09.930
So which is great.
00:28:09.930 --> 00:28:10.450
It's fantastic.
00:28:10.625 --> 00:28:16.505
That's a really sound piece of, of advice as you start to defend your case in your mind.
00:28:16.505 --> 00:28:17.755
How could I be wrong?
00:28:18.174 --> 00:28:19.944
Well, you can-- you could...
00:28:19.944 --> 00:28:21.914
This is how you could be, and he's seeing it from the other side.
00:28:21.914 --> 00:28:22.394
It's special.
00:28:23.112 --> 00:28:32.832
I, I'd love to ask you a personal question, which is, as an entrepreneur and an advisor, how do you, you know, turn off the computer, close the screen, lock the iPhone?
00:28:33.162 --> 00:28:34.971
What makes you tick outside of work?
00:28:37.037 --> 00:28:37.176
Yeah.
00:28:37.176 --> 00:28:38.946
Well, I get pretty excited by any sport.
00:28:39.237 --> 00:28:42.126
Like, love my American, football a lot and, uh,
00:28:42.182 --> 00:28:43.602
American football.
00:28:43.791 --> 00:28:45.682
What kind of an Aussie Brit are you?
00:28:45.781 --> 00:28:46.162
I, I...
00:28:46.451 --> 00:28:48.511
For, for my sins, I became a Packers fan.
00:28:48.771 --> 00:28:49.152
So,
00:28:49.201 --> 00:28:49.521
That's
00:28:49.547 --> 00:28:58.656
so I, uh, yeah, so, uh, so I was, I was sitting in a bar in New York years ago and I, uh, and someone said, you know,"Who's your team?" And I said,"I don't have a team." And they're like,"You gotta have a team." And I'm like,"Okay.
00:28:58.656 --> 00:28:59.926
I'll take the green team.
00:28:59.926 --> 00:29:01.547
They look all right." So, uh, yeah.
00:29:01.547 --> 00:29:05.207
So for the last ten years I've been a-- I could have picked the Jets, which would have been a whole different
00:29:05.592 --> 00:29:07.771
that would've been a different vibe for sure.
00:29:08.011 --> 00:29:08.521
That's funny
00:29:08.686 --> 00:29:09.626
Um, yeah.
00:29:09.626 --> 00:29:11.517
And I, and I think just trying to take some time out.
00:29:11.626 --> 00:29:13.366
I think a few years ago I was really bad.
00:29:13.366 --> 00:29:14.606
I was doing eighty hours a week.
00:29:14.606 --> 00:29:19.507
I was literally all weekends, you know, nights, shutting the laptop at midnight, one in the morning.
00:29:19.987 --> 00:29:22.076
But I'm pretty good now at turning off on the weekends.
00:29:22.076 --> 00:29:25.527
I think that's, you know, I just trying to get some time out to do something else.
00:29:25.846 --> 00:29:30.166
It makes you a lot fresher and I think I'm probably more productive, which is the irony of that situation.
00:29:30.865 --> 00:29:31.516
That's funny.
00:29:31.685 --> 00:29:34.955
All right, who do you follow, both rugby and football?
00:29:35.375 --> 00:29:36.395
Who are your teams?
00:29:36.557 --> 00:29:39.446
I follow Australian rugby and in football I'm a Chelsea fan.
00:29:39.446 --> 00:29:42.027
So that's, uh, been a very, uh, interesting one.
00:29:42.277 --> 00:29:48.247
Like, again, without putting too much dated content into this, it's, uh, we're not going through a very good phase at the moment.
00:29:48.576 --> 00:29:48.797
So
00:29:49.036 --> 00:29:50.925
I'm a Liverpool fan, and I concur.
00:29:50.965 --> 00:29:52.425
we're in a very similar position.
00:29:52.425 --> 00:29:58.056
We had, we had some very shining moments at time, but now we're on the struggle bus, as my son says.
00:29:58.215 --> 00:29:59.685
So we'll hopefully grind through it.
00:30:00.365 --> 00:30:10.236
Well, listen, I really appreciate your time today and cherish the conversation and, wanna say you're the first international guest I've had, and, it's been a great start.
00:30:10.236 --> 00:30:15.726
And I love that you and I sh-share so many similarities in terms of, our experience and our current careers.
00:30:15.726 --> 00:30:20.746
It's nice to see, folks going through the same journey that I'm going through with my, my business and my clients.
00:30:20.746 --> 00:30:27.256
So Christopher Roark, thank you for joining us today on"The Scalability Code." I really enjoyed our time, and I hope to have you back soon.
00:30:29.630 --> 00:30:31.700
Thank you for listening to The Scalability Code.
00:30:31.730 --> 00:30:37.220
If you made it this far, please follow the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:30:37.309 --> 00:30:39.769
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