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

do my best work. 00:04:27.444 --> 00:04:30.625 And in the Army, I realized that there's no room for individual contributors. 00:04:30.735 --> 00:04:32.944 I was told early in my military career, you got three options. 00:04:32.944 --> 00:04:34.685 You lead, you follow, or you get in the way. 00:04:34.685 --> 00:04:42.634 And I knew I didn't wanna get in the way, and I knew I didn't wanna follow people, so I became a leader by way of a lack of options. 00:04:43.165 --> 00:04:53.324 Throughout my military career from basic training on, I thought, in order for me to control my own destiny more," in a million-man organization- Yeah Leadership is the way to go. 00:04:54.574 --> 00:05:03.504 Picked up the tips and tricks in the military, came back to the civilian world and realized that a lot of what we use as leadership in the military does not work in the civilian world. 00:05:03.504 --> 00:05:10.004 So my a-ha moment in the civilian world was when I realized that here in the civilian world, people can quit. 00:05:11.435 --> 00:05:13.545 In the military, that's not a lever they have. 00:05:13.564 --> 00:05:26.654 So I learned to lead one way and then realized that whether you're gonna be a coach on a team, you're gonna be a supervisor in the civilian world, or you're gonna lead troops in combat it's not always the same. 00:05:27.485 --> 00:05:29.095 So some principles remain the same. 00:05:29.324 --> 00:05:35.334 The tactical execution is always gonna be different, and that's where, as leaders, it's our opportunity to adapt and overcome. 00:05:36.875 --> 00:05:38.295 So how did you make that transition? 00:05:38.295 --> 00:05:48.095 'Cause that is a challenge that a lot of people that have served in the military they come and realize it's a different environment if you're whether you're working in a corporate world or in a small business. 00:05:48.735 --> 00:05:51.855 What did you do to transition away from that type of leadership? 00:05:52.584 --> 00:05:53.165 I failed. 00:05:53.415 --> 00:05:58.555 It wasn't, I, it wasn't like,"Oh, I need to change the way I do things." It's,"Oh, I'm getting yelled at again. 00:05:58.634 --> 00:06:00.634 Oh, people aren't responding to the, my tactics. 00:06:00.704 --> 00:06:04.225 Oh, okay." We call, in the military, we call wall-to-wall conversations. 00:06:04.274 --> 00:06:11.074 In a wall-to-wall conversations, you grab somebody up by the collar and you put'em to one wall and then the other wall, and that's a wall-to-wall conversation. 00:06:11.605 --> 00:06:13.004 I had a staff sergeant. 00:06:13.035 --> 00:06:13.915 We were the same rank. 00:06:13.975 --> 00:06:19.884 I was the platoon sergeant, he was a squad leader, so I was his superior in that situation, Staff Sergeant Sanchez. 00:06:20.264 --> 00:06:26.312 And we went into the laundry room one night and we had a wall-to-wall conversation- And he was doing the conversating. 00:06:26.452 --> 00:06:34.463 So he was putting me wall to wall, and he let me know exactly what he thought about my leadership and the way I was conducting my business. 00:06:34.923 --> 00:06:41.252 And he was also 10 years my senior in life, so he had different experience, and it ended up being one of the best things for me. 00:06:41.343 --> 00:06:43.733 Because what he was saying it was true. 00:06:44.362 --> 00:06:47.343 Now, how he was saying it might have come across a little bit different. 00:06:47.973 --> 00:06:51.622 It, getting physical isn't exactly something you can do in the civilian world either. 00:06:51.892 --> 00:06:53.492 A million stories I got, right? 00:06:53.492 --> 00:07:01.153 And when I worked for a big corporation, I was known as the angry emailer because I did what I do in the military, which is BLUF, bottom line up front, B-L-U-F. 00:07:01.512 --> 00:07:08.723 Civilian world it's, feelings and details and blah blah blah, and then you state what the email is all about. 00:07:08.903 --> 00:07:11.642 I put it right up front, bottom line up front,'cause that's what I was taught in the military. 00:07:12.142 --> 00:07:26.812 And so it was wall-to-wall counseling, it was employees quitting, it was being labeled an angry emailer, it was, I had a driver when I worked for WM get up in my face right here and, again, told me what he thought about my leadership style. 00:07:27.122 --> 00:07:33.583 In all those situations, I can look back at those people, the ones that accused me of this, that, or the other thing, they weren't wrong and neither was I. 00:07:34.153 --> 00:07:43.742 We had a different perspective, and we had that coming to Jesus moment, that conflict that was necessary for me to grow as a leader and for them to grow as a follower. 00:07:44.862 --> 00:07:50.423 Because chances are I'm having a conversation with them because there's a gap between expectation and reality. 00:07:51.223 --> 00:07:54.862 And now how I cover that gap might have been wrong, absolutely. 00:07:55.903 --> 00:07:57.103 The fact is I covered the gap. 00:07:57.723 --> 00:08:01.752 And a lot of leaders, in today's society especially, don't cover the gap. 00:08:02.213 --> 00:08:03.562 They'd rather play it safe. 00:08:04.023 --> 00:08:15.322 They'd rather worry about PC, DEI, name that acronym, and either the work doesn't get done or they do the work for their reports begrudgingly. 00:08:16.262 --> 00:08:19.593 And doing work for others isn't leading. 00:08:20.163 --> 00:08:26.122 Let's transition over to where, I saw where you described yourself as a fourth-generation entrepreneur. 00:08:26.463 --> 00:08:26.702 Yep. 00:08:27.112 --> 00:08:32.613 What kind of lessons did you inherit from the previous generations that still guide how you lead today? 00:08:32.613 --> 00:08:40.923 I remember one story you telling about how you started helping your parents with the books at the age of 10, I think it was, if I remember correctly. 00:08:41.682 --> 00:08:43.072 And- Some- somewhere, yeah, somewhere in there. 00:08:43.082 -->

00:08:43.342 Yep. 00:08:43.423 --> 00:08:45.822 Real young to be diving into something like that. 00:08:46.263 --> 00:08:58.432 But you said that you learned from your grandparents one way of doing it, like I think it was your grandmother that- kept every penny till the day she died, and then your parents had a little bit different methodology. 00:08:58.982 --> 00:09:04.263 And that's kinda led you to where you are today because you reacted to what you saw in those environments. 00:09:04.332 --> 00:09:06.253 Tell us how that impacted you? 00:09:06.903 --> 00:09:07.153 Yeah. 00:09:07.153 --> 00:09:15.812 Growing up on a farm, I realized quick, fast in a hurry that you could either be outside with Grandpa in the heat, or you could be inside with Grandma doing the dishes and doing... 00:09:15.863 --> 00:09:17.832 and both jobs mattered on a farm. 00:09:18.293 --> 00:09:18.423 Yep. 00:09:18.452 --> 00:09:23.373 And I realized that the inside job was more befitting of what I did, right? 00:09:23.373 --> 00:09:25.113 And you can be either strong or smart. 00:09:25.212 --> 00:09:27.102 You can be both, but I'd rather be smart. 00:09:27.102 --> 00:09:28.342 I had a little bit more control over. 00:09:28.503 --> 00:09:32.592 So early on with my grandparents, understanding the business was interesting to me. 00:09:32.592 --> 00:09:38.623 I can remember talking to my grandmother about how the price of milk affected- what bills they could pay when. 00:09:40.102 --> 00:09:44.342 And those are the kind of conversations we're, I'm having at six, seven, eight, nine years old, right? 00:09:44.393 --> 00:09:47.332 When the milkman came on Tuesdays, Fridays, that's when he came to pick up. 00:09:47.462 --> 00:09:48.523 I wo- I was interested. 00:09:48.523 --> 00:09:56.003 I'm like,"Oh, this is interesting." And then come, yeah, somewhere nine, 10, 11, somewhere in there my dad started pulling me aside to start typing. 00:09:56.202 --> 00:10:02.393 He, my dad w- couldn't type, and my mom wouldn't put up with him, so I got nominated and selected. 00:10:02.682 --> 00:10:06.842 And then we got a computer, I learned how to type on a typewriter, carbon copy invoices. 00:10:06.993 --> 00:10:10.653 And I started asking questions like we quoted them this much, and now this is the price. 00:10:11.102 --> 00:10:11.702 What happened? 00:10:11.702 --> 00:10:17.923 What changed?" Once we got a computer, my dad saw me copy and paste something for the first time, and he was blown away. 00:10:18.062 --> 00:10:25.572 I went in, I had Microsoft Word 93, and I went in and changed the word quote to invoice, and then I didn't have to retype all... 00:10:25.883 --> 00:10:27.153 He was just blown away. 00:10:27.442 --> 00:10:30.582 And I said okay, this job is a$1,000 basement job hanging drywall. 00:10:30.633 --> 00:10:32.832 What's the difference between 1,000 and$1,200? 00:10:33.072 --> 00:10:39.123 Like, why, is it the square foot number of sheets of drywall?" I've always been curious

about that, and I got that from my grandmother. 00:10:39.623 --> 00:10:43.582 And now to this day I run a pretty successful business and I'm obsessed with the data. 00:10:43.582 --> 00:10:49.493 I wrote a book about data because I realized that most business owners that struggle are struggling. 00:10:49.493 --> 00:10:52.102 And when you ask them simple questions, they never have an answer. 00:10:52.102 --> 00:11:02.793 You ask a simple question like,"Oh, how's business?""Oh, we're doing pretty good." The phone seems to be ringing." I'm still in business today." Or they might say,"Yeah, we're up from last year." What are you up?" About 10%.""Okay. 00:11:02.793 --> 00:11:05.722 What was the goal?" Be up, right? 00:11:05.722 --> 00:11:08.342 And how do you know when you arrived if you didn't know where you were going? 00:11:09.643 --> 00:11:11.072 And so that's the truth about data. 00:11:11.143 --> 00:11:14.173 Most business owners say,"My goal is to become and be getting in business," right? 00:11:14.173 --> 00:11:15.322 Be- have a business. 00:11:15.332 --> 00:11:19.082 And then it's quit my nine to five and be a full-time business owner. 00:11:19.082 --> 00:11:19.763 That's the next step. 00:11:19.993 --> 00:11:25.003 And then once they quit the nine to five, once they're in business full time, it's almost like their goals stop. 00:11:26.822 --> 00:11:28.293 What's the goal and what's the number? 00:11:28.293 --> 00:11:32.192 My wife asked me the question the other day,"Hey, how many clients..." She owns a business. 00:11:32.243 --> 00:11:33.342 She does a consulting. 00:11:33.562 --> 00:11:40.753 She goes,"How many clients do I need so I can quit my job?" That's a great question, and there's a, there's an Excel spreadsheet with that answer on it. 00:11:41.753 --> 00:11:56.062 It sounds like you leveraged that knowledge that you gained from working with your grandmother and working in your parents' business, and you went from being a laid-off combat veteran in 2009 to starting multiple successful businesses. 00:11:56.602 --> 00:12:04.043 What was the mindset shift that you went through to becoming your own owner-operator, so to speak, being an entrepreneur? 00:12:05.143 --> 00:12:12.413 I realized when I come home from Iraq, I worked for my father's company, and then I started down the process of getting a job. 00:12:12.413 --> 00:12:17.452 And for those of us that were working in 2008 and 2009, that wasn't the best of times to get a job. 00:12:18.092 --> 00:12:21.293 And I realized at that point that I was unemployable. 00:12:21.352 --> 00:12:22.332 I was unmanageable. 00:12:22.342 --> 00:12:23.302 I was uncoachable. 00:12:23.482 --> 00:12:27.602 I was, 24, 25 years old, pissed off at the world, and I had a mortgage. 00:12:27.952 --> 00:12:31.192 So it wasn't this aspirational thing. 00:12:31.202 --> 00:12:33.673 It was, operating out of desperation. 00:12:34.092 --> 00:12:35.962 And so I knew what I knew how to do. 00:12:36.033 --> 00:12:37.952 I knew how to process metal. 00:12:38.092 --> 00:12:46.133 So I started driving around the northwest side of Milwaukee, picking up scrap, processing it, separating ferrous from non-ferrous metal, your brass, your copper, your stainless. 00:12:46.513 --> 00:12:47.452 And I knew I liked doing it. 00:12:47.452 --> 00:12:49.403 I grew up doing it in my parents' driveway. 00:12:49.932 --> 00:12:50.822 I enjoyed doing it. 00:12:50.852 --> 00:12:58.910 I was good at it And then one day someone said I'll pay you to come down in my basement and pull my water heater out." I go,"Let me get this right. 00:12:59.260 --> 00:13:08.341 You're gonna pay me to go down a flight of stairs to pick something up that I'd be willing to pick up for free?"'Cause that water heater's worth 12 American dollars all day, right? 00:13:08.370 --> 00:13:10.181 Knock off that brass fitting, the little,$14. 00:13:11.140 --> 00:13:12.451 That's a one pound, a two pound. 00:13:12.451 --> 00:13:16.120 At one pound at$2 a pound, I went from$12 to$14. 00:13:16.500 --> 00:13:18.341 That ain't bad for 20 minutes worth of work, right? 00:13:18.341 --> 00:13:20.410 You multiply that over, I'm making$45 an hour. 00:13:20.410 --> 00:13:24.191 And you're gonna pay me 50 bucks to go down to the basement and pick it up? 00:13:24.301 --> 00:13:25.681 We got ourselves a business here, boy. 00:13:25.980 --> 00:13:27.350 There was no plan. 00:13:27.640 --> 00:13:30.451 The plan was my mortgage was$1,250. 00:13:30.451 --> 00:13:31.461 That was my plan. 00:13:31.740 --> 00:13:33.750 My plan was make$100 a day. 00:13:33.791 --> 00:13:35.350 I wanted to average$100 a day. 00:13:35.500 --> 00:13:38.431 That was$2,000 a month cash money. 00:13:38.471 --> 00:13:41.400 I could pay all my bills and live on$2,000 a month. 00:13:42.561 --> 00:13:43.961 That was the grand plan. 00:13:44.360 --> 00:13:47.321 And then I realized I could make a business out of this. 00:13:47.721 --> 00:13:49.510 Here's where I got s- caught up, though. 00:13:50.321 --> 00:14:01.490 I convinced myself after those first six months of doing all right, I convinced myself that I needed a degree, I needed a plan, I needed a business partner, I needed money in the bank, right? 00:14:01.490 --> 00:14:02.390 I convinced myself. 00:14:02.410 --> 00:14:04.480 And that convincing cost me seven years. 00:14:05.100 --> 00:14:20.760 I went from having a business that made money and made sense, and I was good at, seven years before I said,"Okay, now I'm gonna commit." And I tell that story because people look at me now and they're like,"Oh, you just went after it and you got out." No, seven years. 00:14:20.860 --> 00:14:23.311 Now, in that seven years, I got a bachelor's degree. 00:14:23.750 --> 00:14:26.431 My brother got out of high school and became my business partner. 00:14:26.691 --> 00:14:31.350 I deployed, come home with a few dollars in my pocket, give us a runway to get things going, right? 00:14:31.390 --> 00:14:32.030

That's my journey. 00:14:32.030 --> 00:14:33.640 It's not right or wrong, those are the facts. 00:14:34.020 --> 00:14:38.321 And so what I tell people now is it ought not to take seven years. 00:14:39.995 --> 00:14:44.024 This is what I tell people, entrepreneur, I came up with this about two years ago when I was speaking to a group of college kids. 00:14:44.455 --> 00:14:53.044 Entrepreneurship is the intersection between what are you willing to do for free and what is someone willing to pay you for, right? 00:14:53.044 --> 00:14:54.825 Because if you're willing to do it for free, it's a hobby. 00:14:55.575 --> 00:14:57.934 And if someone's willing to pay you for it, it's a job. 00:14:58.345 --> 00:15:01.644 And when you can do those two things together, you got yourself a small business. 00:15:02.254 --> 00:15:03.524 And that's what I realized. 00:15:03.904 --> 00:15:11.825 Whether it was picking up scrap on the side of the road, writing a book, I've written two books now speaking in front of groups, workshops and keynotes. 00:15:12.184 --> 00:15:14.014 These are all things I'm willing to do for free. 00:15:14.955 --> 00:15:19.585 And when I find someone that's willing to pay me for it, now we're onto something. 00:15:19.735 --> 00:15:22.945 The challenge I see is people go backwards. 00:15:22.945 --> 00:15:32.735 They say,"Okay, what can I make money doing?" And all of a sudden they start a business doing something that they don't really want to do, no amount of money is gonna get you out of bed in the morning, right? 00:15:32.735 --> 00:15:33.195 Yeah. 00:15:33.195 --> 00:15:35.144 The right hobby, the right dream. 00:15:35.254 --> 00:15:38.294 To this day, I drive around my truck, I see something on the side of the road. 00:15:38.674 --> 00:15:39.855 I drive a Tesla Cybertruck. 00:15:39.884 --> 00:15:40.794 I drive a nice truck. 00:15:40.904 --> 00:15:42.225 We run a nice operation here. 00:15:42.394 --> 00:15:45.955 I got a 30,000 square foot building, 25, 30 employees. 00:15:46.554 --> 00:15:56.355 I see a vacuum on the side of the road, you best believe, wife and kids in the car, I'm pulling over, I'm grabbing it, I'm cutting the cord off, I'm gonna go get my$4, that mindset has not... 00:15:56.774 --> 00:16:01.784 I drive by a dumpster, there's not a dumpster in Milwaukee that I don't wanna see inside, I wanna see what's going on in there. 00:16:01.875 --> 00:16:06.745 I wanna see what someone else threw away that I can recycle, I can recover, I can make right. 00:16:08.355 --> 00:16:14.235 You're literally the picture of the one man's trash is another's treasure. 00:16:14.235 --> 00:16:15.664 You're like the commercial for that, I can see. 00:16:15.715 --> 00:16:17.215 Absolutely, 100%. 00:16:17.865 --> 00:16:36.830 You talk about that seven years, and that transitioned us into another question about the leadership lessons that you learned the hard way what do you think are some of the things that you learned the hard way that when you're coaching somebody or you're speaking to a group of business owners, what are some things that you learned the hard way that you try to help them skip? 00:16:37.429 --> 00:16:42.340 When making money isn't your number one priority, you're already out of business and you didn't know it. 00:16:42.750 --> 00:16:45.539 Those first couple years in business, I was gonna be philanthropic. 00:16:45.759 --> 00:16:47.299 I was gonna pay my guys the best. 00:16:47.450 --> 00:16:50.679 I was gonna do whatever it took to donate every item to every charity there was. 00:16:50.809 --> 00:16:57.049 I was gonna put everybody else above my business'cause I was selfless and I was humble, and I thought,"You know what? 00:16:57.110 --> 00:17:01.820 By doing all the right things, the money will follow." And for some businesses, that work. 00:17:01.830 --> 00:17:03.779 You talk to Jesse Cole, Savannah Bananas. 00:17:03.990 --> 00:17:05.410 They got themselves a nice little business. 00:17:05.410 --> 00:17:06.410 I saw a video the other day. 00:17:06.549 --> 00:17:13.920 He said that his financial meeting is one hour- or was one, one meeting a year for two hours, because he knows that fans first. 00:17:13.920 --> 00:17:15.589 You take care of the fans, the money will follow. 00:17:15.990 --> 00:17:17.789 I would say he's the exception to the rule. 00:17:18.420 --> 00:17:24.430 That worked for him'cause he is one of one, when you're that dialed in and you have such a unique product, and you... 00:17:24.579 --> 00:17:30.849 That guy, if I'm an entrepreneur, he's a thousand x what I am when it comes to vision and tenacity, right? 00:17:30.849 --> 00:17:31.380 He's got it. 00:17:31.599 --> 00:17:38.970 The average business owner, you gotta keep track of where the money's coming in from, and making money has gotta be your number one priority. 00:17:39.190 --> 00:17:40.680 And then you can have all these other priorities. 00:17:41.130 --> 00:17:43.230 I had a gentleman about three months ago come up to me. 00:17:43.240 --> 00:17:47.569 We were doing electronics collections event, and he said,"Hey, I'm an aspiring entrepreneur. 00:17:48.130 --> 00:17:49.349 What's your number one rule? 00:17:49.380 --> 00:18:04.150 What's your number one lesson you can tell me?" I said,"Don't run out of money." He goes,"Hot damn." He goes,"I had a business for about three years and I ran out of money." And I said how'd you do that?" I had number one customer I lost, I combined my personal and financial money, I bought a motorcycle," got it. 00:18:04.160 --> 00:18:05.079 You ran out of money. 00:18:05.880 --> 00:18:08.460 Businesses, there's all these contributing factors. 00:18:08.460 --> 00:18:12.190 I made the wrong hire, I invested here, things got tight. 00:18:12.839 --> 00:18:14.079 Supply chain issues. 00:18:14.339 --> 00:18:18.079 The fact of the matter is, businesses die'cause they run out of money. 00:18:19.559 --> 00:18:26.279 That's a good segue into talking about your book,

and what inspired you to write Stop Avoiding Your Numbers. 00:18:26.279 --> 00:18:28.490 I think you're already dancing around that right now. 00:18:28.720 --> 00:18:29.039 I live it. 00:18:29.039 --> 00:18:29.460 But, yeah. 00:18:29.460 --> 00:18:29.720 Yeah. 00:18:29.750 --> 00:18:38.400 Yeah, I'm not even, I'm not even trying to get us to that point, but that's the reality of my leadership, is when you are informed, you can make data-driven decisions. 00:18:38.859 --> 00:18:52.640 When you choose to be ignorant- You're gonna be making ignorant decisions tell us a l- little bit about the journey that you and your co-author went through to, to write this book and who it's for, and why it's such an important aspect from a leadership standpoint. 00:18:53.299 --> 00:18:54.730 We'll answer the simple question first. 00:18:55.109 --> 00:18:58.019 99% of businesses never make it to$2 million. 00:18:58.160 --> 00:19:02.140 90% of businesses never make it to a million dollars. 00:19:02.670 --> 00:19:11.230 When I look at a lot of financial books that I've read, good ones, you might have a couple right behind you, they're typically written for businesses that are over$2 million. 00:19:11.700 --> 00:19:14.990 They're written for businesses that have a profit and loss statement. 00:19:15.359 --> 00:19:21.316 They're written for businesses with people that with some level of financial acumen This book ain't that. 00:19:21.925 --> 00:19:27.135 This book is written for the 99% of businesses under$2 million. 00:19:27.135 --> 00:19:32.986 This book is written with the expectation that you can't spell profit and loss statement, and that's in a nice way. 00:19:33.175 --> 00:19:36.306 Saying it's probably something you're not looking at, it's probably something you're avoiding. 00:19:36.526 --> 00:19:43.205 So this book is written for the average business owner that is stuck and doesn't know where to start, and the truth is in the details. 00:19:43.256 --> 00:19:44.705 My journey started eight years ago. 00:19:44.705 --> 00:19:48.875 I started consulting businesses primarily in the junk removal space, home services space. 00:19:49.316 --> 00:19:55.806 And what happened was I was like,"I will consult on all types of business." And then I realized, that didn't work, so I niched down to operations. 00:19:56.105 --> 00:20:03.056 And every time I asked a question about operations, the next question is what is the financial impact of this?" People looked at me. 00:20:03.925 --> 00:20:04.796 They had no idea. 00:20:05.286 --> 00:20:07.605 As a business owner myself, I was obsessed with my data. 00:20:07.655 --> 00:20:11.526 I got a degree from the University of YouTube in QuickBooksology, right? 00:20:11.526 --> 00:20:12.516 I know it inside and out. 00:20:12.806 --> 00:20:18.365 I got a B minus in accounting in college, and I got A plus in University of QuickBooks Online, right? 00:20:18.365 --> 00:20:19.165 That's my jam. 00:20:19.165 --> 00:20:20.465 I know that system inside and out. 00:20:21.135 --> 00:20:22.155 Most business owners don't. 00:20:22.756 --> 00:20:25.705 And so that was my aha moment, that most businesses were struggling. 00:20:26.026 --> 00:20:31.185 Then I had a woman about four years ago say,"Hey, can you be my fractional CFO?" And I was like,"Sure. 00:20:31.185 --> 00:20:36.506 What does that mean?" So I Googled it, and I go, you want me to interpret your data." So I went into her numbers. 00:20:36.506 --> 00:20:44.665 I go all your numbers are jacked up." So then I started realizing there's a lot of bookkeepers and accountants that, yeah, they press the numbers, they know how to file your taxes. 00:20:44.695 --> 00:20:48.486 Beyond that, those financial documents aren't serving the business owner. 00:20:48.635 --> 00:20:51.185 They're unable to make decisions based on those documents. 00:20:51.566 --> 00:20:53.046 So let's develop scorecards. 00:20:53.105 --> 00:20:57.875 So I started doing all this stuff instinctively within my business and then bringing it to others. 00:20:58.566 --> 00:20:59.875 Now, let's look at Lynn's journey. 00:21:00.046 --> 00:21:02.026 Lynn went to school. 00:21:02.266 --> 00:21:03.526 He's got a master's degree. 00:21:03.526 --> 00:21:04.455 Lynn is my co-author. 00:21:04.685 --> 00:21:07.115 He's got a master's degree in finance. 00:21:07.336 --> 00:21:09.796 He spent 14 years working for Procter Gamble. 00:21:09.885 --> 00:21:13.526 He spent 14 years as a CFO for a big company. 00:21:13.945 --> 00:21:17.026 So he's got the pedigree, he's the technical expert. 00:21:17.465 --> 00:21:23.246 I know it from the business owner perspective, not only as a business owner, working with business owners. 00:21:23.425 --> 00:21:30.935 And so we combined our forces, his tactical and technical proficiency with my, what we call hillbilly math, right? 00:21:30.935 --> 00:21:35.915 Which is it's gotta be interpretable by the average business owner, and we started writing this book. 00:21:36.125 --> 00:21:43.576 One of the things we're really proud of with this book, we're 185 pages into this book before we talk about financial documents. 00:21:44.365 --> 00:21:50.816 Because too many people think that their finances are profit and loss statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement. 00:21:50.836 --> 00:21:52.465 They think that's what their data is, right? 00:21:52.516 --> 00:21:53.115 Their numbers. 00:21:53.115 --> 00:21:53.816 All those are my numbers. 00:21:53.816 --> 00:21:54.435 I avoid your num... 00:21:54.665 --> 00:21:54.976 All right. 00:21:55.266 --> 00:21:56.105 Let's just break this down. 00:21:56.576 --> 00:21:57.816 How much money is in your bank account? 00:21:58.516 --> 00:21:59.726 How many customers do you have? 00:21:59.786 --> 00:22:00.826 How many employees do you have? 00:22:00.925 --> 00:22:02.316 How many times did the phone ring today? 00:22:02.695 --> 00:22:04.695 How long does it take you to drive from A to B? 00:22:05.455 --> 00:22:11.175

Those are all numbers And so you embrace those numbers, and your financial numbers are no different. 00:22:12.006 --> 00:22:13.705 They're numbers, they're not intimidating. 00:22:13.875 --> 00:22:17.826 I've had customers tell me,"Oh, I look at my QuickBooks four times a year." All right. 00:22:17.865 --> 00:22:18.776 That's our starting point. 00:22:19.096 --> 00:22:23.105 I had a lady, she didn't know her QuickBooks login when we started working together. 00:22:23.405 --> 00:22:29.026 Within two months she goes,"I was on QuickBooks the other day and I noticed this." Because we're bridging the gap. 00:22:29.036 --> 00:22:43.445 The reason why this book exists is because most business owners don't realize that the day they start a business, not only do they become a CEO, president, whatever the title is, they also became the chief financial officer, and they are under-qualified for it. 00:22:44.056 --> 00:22:44.715 No different than me. 00:22:44.746 --> 00:22:47.935 10 years ago, I was under-qualified to be a CFO of my own company. 00:22:48.746 --> 00:22:50.145 So I learned the hard way. 00:22:50.786 --> 00:23:15.314 The book, 300 pages later, you got 10 years of everything I learned executable within the book one thing that I've always discovered when I went in to help business improve turnaround is that it's one thing to have the profit and loss or having your operating income and those different things, but it's another to understand what the triggers are that impact- those numbers. 00:23:16.243 --> 00:23:30.364 And so can you talk to us about how you help owners and business leaders connect the dots between understanding the numbers and what is actually impacting those numbers, whether it's positive or negative? 00:23:31.304 --> 00:23:37.554 Yeah, I like the word that you used called triggers,'cause triggers are typically a reactor, re- you know, re- oh shit, something happened. 00:23:37.564 --> 00:23:38.294 What did it trigger? 00:23:38.814 --> 00:23:41.233 And so that's a great word because we talk about levers. 00:23:41.394 --> 00:23:45.263 Levers are the proactive turn it up, turn it down- left or right? 00:23:45.523 --> 00:23:49.084 Proactive approach to telling your own story. 00:23:49.453 --> 00:23:54.074 And the first part of telling your own story is knowing what happened and what, like you said, triggers are. 00:23:54.503 --> 00:23:56.023 And so that's what we do with businesses. 00:23:56.144 --> 00:24:01.604 All too often I meet with business owners and they'll say things like,"I think we should raise our prices." Okay, what came to that conclusion? 00:24:01.874 --> 00:24:05.334 "Oh we don't have enough money in the bank." It's okay, why don't we have enough money in the bank? 00:24:05.384 --> 00:24:08.193 Sales are down." Okay, what's causing sales to be down? 00:24:08.243 --> 00:24:11.463 The phone isn't ringing." Okay, what does it take or how does the phone ring? 00:24:11.864 --> 00:24:15.653 And then you break it down, you realize, oh, we turned down Google AdWords and we stopped this. 00:24:15.713 --> 00:24:17.294 Or hey, we lost a customer. 00:24:17.394 --> 00:24:17.804 Okay. 00:24:18.134 --> 00:24:22.554 So you lose a customer, the question is, okay what was it about that customer you loved, right? 00:24:22.624 --> 00:24:23.604 Or customers. 00:24:23.973 --> 00:24:25.223 Who is your ideal customer? 00:24:25.534 --> 00:24:28.324 When someone says,"We need more sales," I say, okay who's your ideal customer? 00:24:28.564 --> 00:24:33.624 I don't know." Okay until you identify who your number one customer is, how are you supposed to identify how you're gonna sell to them? 00:24:34.304 --> 00:24:43.173 And so your bank account being low is a symptom in where we gotta sell more, we gotta hire more, we gotta change prices seem like the right levers. 00:24:43.463 --> 00:24:48.294 Until we understand, to your point, the trigger, you can pull a lever and it might work. 00:24:49.513 --> 00:24:50.653 Going back to the business. 00:24:50.703 --> 00:24:54.213 The thing about the book and my consulting is I don't give any answers. 00:24:54.243 --> 00:24:54.953 That's a fact. 00:24:55.403 --> 00:24:56.874 There is no answers within the book. 00:24:57.653 --> 00:25:04.213 The book has information to consider and questions to ask Most business owners have the answers. 00:25:05.354 --> 00:25:12.594 Yesterday I was working with a woman, she's a book writer, and I said how much, how do you charge?" And she goes,"I just make it up on the spot." I go,"Okay, fair. 00:25:13.114 --> 00:25:18.013 How much did you charge for the last book?" And we got it down to word count'cause that's the measure within her, right? 00:25:18.153 --> 00:25:18.894 I do junk removal. 00:25:18.894 --> 00:25:20.844 Everything's cubic yardage, right? 00:25:20.894 --> 00:25:24.993 Consultants sometimes do it based on hourly, sometimes they do it on profit, right? 00:25:25.034 --> 00:25:26.884 A percentage of profit saved or whatever, right? 00:25:26.943 --> 00:25:28.963 What, how do you charge is a great question. 00:25:29.243 --> 00:25:32.054 So with her, she charges on word count because that's what her industry charges. 00:25:32.074 --> 00:25:32.493 I said,"Okay. 00:25:32.693 --> 00:25:39.294 How much did you charge for your last book?""Okay, these dollars.""How many words was it?""This.""Okay, boom." Now we have a word count cost. 00:25:39.354 --> 00:25:40.723 At least we have a starting point now. 00:25:41.834 --> 00:25:47.503 And so that's a, the prime example to answer your question of how do we use numbers and data. 00:25:47.653 --> 00:25:48.903 They have the information. 00:25:49.953 --> 00:26:02.983 What they're missing is the questions to ask themselves to now interpret the data into a lever or trigger to better understand what control they have over their business I'm sure you can relate to this. 00:26:02.983 --> 00:26:07.953 I worked for one company and we didn't have a really good costing program

and we got that improved. 00:26:08.134 --> 00:26:10.824 We started cost analysis on our customers. 00:26:11.483 --> 00:26:18.294 And we found out some of the best ways for us to improve profits was either to raise prices on certain customers or fire them. 00:26:18.703 --> 00:26:23.394 You can actually lose top line revenue- Yep but gain in profitability. 00:26:23.394 --> 00:26:30.473 Can you talk a little bit about how business owners don't understand that sometimes because they don't understand whether or not a customer is actually profitable? 00:26:31.074 --> 00:26:36.653 One of the first customers I ever worked with, before I was even a fraction C- fractional CFO, she had 17 customers. 00:26:36.653 --> 00:26:37.804 She was a graphic designer. 00:26:38.193 --> 00:26:39.614 She was meticulous. 00:26:39.624 --> 00:26:42.554 She knew exactly how many hours she worked with any customer. 00:26:43.003 --> 00:26:43.394 Perfect. 00:26:43.743 --> 00:26:45.314 Like a lawyer, she tracked it by the minute. 00:26:45.763 --> 00:26:46.084 Perfect. 00:26:46.114 --> 00:26:47.604 So that was good, really good data. 00:26:47.604 --> 00:26:49.243 She knew how many hours she put into the customer. 00:26:49.534 --> 00:26:51.574 She also know what she got paid by the customer. 00:26:51.743 --> 00:26:53.403 She never compared those two numbers. 00:26:54.003 --> 00:26:54.993 Here was her challenge. 00:26:55.044 --> 00:27:05.943 She had some customers that were hourly, she had some customers that were project-based, and she had some customers that were on a retainer and she would work for them throughout the month and, they would send her the$500,$1,000, whatever it was. 00:27:07.104 --> 00:27:13.624 In one hour, I took her 17 customers and we laid out how many dollars per hour are you making on every customer? 00:27:13.673 --> 00:27:15.163 That was the first metric. 00:27:15.513 --> 00:27:18.473 The second indicator we took was the triple S score. 00:27:18.473 --> 00:27:19.673 I talk about in this in my first book. 00:27:20.513 --> 00:27:21.644 The triple S score first. 00:27:21.663 --> 00:27:23.463 How simple is it to work with this person? 00:27:23.834 --> 00:27:24.884 Do they respond to emails? 00:27:24.884 --> 00:27:25.943 Do they pay you on time? 00:27:25.943 --> 00:27:29.513 And measurable, one through five, how simple are they to work with? 00:27:29.653 --> 00:27:34.634 Again, it's subjective and yet I can come up with some objective data to your emotions. 00:27:35.284 --> 00:27:38.144 Second thing, how stimulating is the work? 00:27:38.453 --> 00:27:42.124 Is this the work you wanna be doing or is this the work you're doing because you're doing it? 00:27:42.913 --> 00:27:45.733 And third, how satisfying is the relationship? 00:27:46.473 --> 00:27:49.023 Is this like a mom and pop where they're like,"Oh my God, we love you. 00:27:49.023 --> 00:27:49.703 Thank you so much. 00:27:49.773 --> 00:27:50.394 This has been great. 00:27:50.483 --> 00:27:50.703 It's impactful. 00:27:50.703 --> 00:27:54.644 We're impacting the community." Or is it a big company that says,"Hey, thanks. 00:27:54.653 --> 00:28:00.453 Send an invoice." We took her dollars per hour, multiplied it by her triple S score. 00:28:01.034 --> 00:28:04.173 Of her 17 customers, we fired eight on the spot. 00:28:05.753 --> 00:28:18.094 She was getting paid ranging$127 an hour from one customer down to$8 an hour from another customer I can believe it one hour. 00:28:18.253 --> 00:28:19.854 She'd been in business 20 years. 00:28:19.903 --> 00:28:20.733 She had two goals. 00:28:20.953 --> 00:28:24.203 I wanna make over$100,000 and I wanna go on two vacations a year. 00:28:24.854 --> 00:28:26.173 That was what she said. 00:28:26.284 --> 00:28:35.114 Within one hour of our very first interaction we got rid of half her customers and I said,"Okay, now we're down to nine customers. 00:28:35.763 --> 00:28:38.134 These bottom three, we'll let them leave when they leave. 00:28:38.173 --> 00:28:39.163 Let's not replace them. 00:28:39.483 --> 00:28:44.213 These middle three, good to keep, don't go get more, but we're not, we'll keep our eye out. 00:28:44.473 --> 00:28:48.023 Your top three, what other companies look like your top three customers? 00:28:48.874 --> 00:28:54.624 And let's go get a couple more than that." The next six months, not even a year, next six months she went on her first vacation. 00:28:55.094 --> 00:28:56.663 She used to work 52 weeks a year. 00:28:56.663 --> 00:28:58.253 We broke it down to 48 weeks. 00:28:58.263 --> 00:28:59.304 Simple things. 00:29:00.653 --> 00:29:10.644 And all- You created a cust- created a customer avatar basically of, what it was that's gonna give her the life she wanted And then she was so excited to go chase down a couple more customers that looked like her ideal customer. 00:29:11.124 --> 00:29:21.064 Then we asked the question how'd you get these three customers?" This is how I got them.""Okay, let's go find similar lead channels." I am incredibly curious how we got where we're at today. 00:29:21.433 --> 00:29:22.743 I seek out the truth. 00:29:22.923 --> 00:29:25.804 And when you pull back all the layers, all the answers are there. 00:29:26.203 --> 00:29:29.513 I've yet to meet a business owner that doesn't wanna talk about their business. 00:29:30.513 --> 00:29:31.763 They don't wanna talk about their numbers. 00:29:32.094 --> 00:29:33.663 They love talking about their business. 00:29:33.673 --> 00:29:33.693 Yeah. 00:29:33.703 --> 00:29:40.284 The wins, the losses, the best customers, the worst customers, how they got started, where they think they're going, they love. 00:29:41.124 --> 00:29:42.544 And all I'm hearing is data. 00:29:42.713 --> 00:29:45.334 And how do I take this data and tell the story? 00:29:46.334 --> 00:30:01.074 Love that scoring system you had there, one about the the difficulty factor in- Yeah with dealing with customers because I used to work for this one company, and I would

tell you that we tried to make it as hard for people to do business with us as possible. 00:30:01.074 --> 00:30:04.794 It was a large- multi- multibillion company, around 100 countries in the world. 00:30:05.314 --> 00:30:11.703 But they would do incredible things like not pay you for 120 days. 00:30:12.213 --> 00:30:29.564 And sometimes, as a small entrepreneur or a smaller company, we chase the big name, or we chase some of these bigger companies that, one, are harder to do business with, two, they don't pay timely, and three, they cost us extra frustration- and time out of our days. 00:30:29.564 --> 00:30:35.334 Can you talk a little bit about that part of the score system that you have there, and how that impacts you emotionally and financially? 00:30:36.003 --> 00:30:36.374 Absolutely. 00:30:36.374 --> 00:30:42.163 So remember my number one rule, don't run out of money, and when someone owes you money and they haven't paid it, you ran out of money. 00:30:44.013 --> 00:30:45.743 I don't care what your accounts receivable say. 00:30:45.884 --> 00:30:47.544 I'm more interested in what's in your bank account. 00:30:47.663 --> 00:30:49.193 I can't spend accounts receivable. 00:30:49.784 --> 00:30:52.064 Maybe I can get a loan against it at a percentage. 00:30:53.653 --> 00:31:02.743 Cash is the lifeblood of business, and when you've got a small business that's waiting 120 days from either a big, Fortune 500 company or a government entity, you're out of business. 00:31:02.903 --> 00:31:04.443 And I'm coming from a place of knowing. 00:31:04.443 --> 00:31:09.263 At one point, I had 10 franchise locations across the country, and so I knew what scale meant. 00:31:09.463 --> 00:31:12.263 I had 10 times the headaches and twice the profit. 00:31:12.713 --> 00:31:13.523 Wasn't worth it. 00:31:14.253 --> 00:31:15.834 I learned this early in my business career. 00:31:16.544 --> 00:31:18.114 Mentor Carl Munkwitz told me this. 00:31:18.114 --> 00:31:20.094 He said,"Andy, if you're gonna be big. 00:31:20.163 --> 00:31:27.693 If you're gonna be small." The challenge is there's a lot of small companies that want to go swim with the big fish, and they don't realize that they're getting played the whole time. 00:31:28.693 --> 00:31:31.554 At one point, I had 51% of my business. 00:31:32.223 --> 00:31:33.263 Came from one customer. 00:31:34.683 --> 00:31:37.913 In 2022, in-- Oh, I'm sorry, that was'22. 00:31:38.084 --> 00:31:41.844 In'23, in February of'23, I had the contract through June. 00:31:42.574 --> 00:31:44.384 In February, they called me on a Tuesday. 00:31:45.294 --> 00:31:47.493 They said,"Hey, Andy, we wanna wrap this contract early. 00:31:47.544 --> 00:31:49.134 We're gonna-- We outsourced it. 00:31:49.134 --> 00:31:51.223 Now we're gonna bring it back in-house." I said,"Good. 00:31:51.223 --> 00:32:00.773 Can I see it till the end of June?" They said,"No." I said,"How about the end of the month?" They said,"No.""How about the end of the week?" On Tuesday, I found out 51% of my revenue was going away. 00:32:02.193 --> 00:32:13.114 I had spent 18 months building my business around this one customer, and as soon as they got a new operations manager I was gone. 00:32:14.634 --> 00:32:15.784 I was chasing the money. 00:32:15.874 --> 00:32:18.673 I know another company they were doing$15 million in revenue. 00:32:19.114 --> 00:32:21.614 12 million was from one customer. 00:32:22.213 --> 00:32:24.544 They went from 15 million down to 3 million. 00:32:24.614 --> 00:32:30.693 They lost$3 million in revenue, and their profit, EBIT, EBITDA, however they measured it, went up the next year. 00:32:32.503 --> 00:32:36.753 Going after these whales when you're a minnow ain't gonna get done. 00:32:37.074 --> 00:32:42.334 I know other companies that, especially ones that work for the government, they only work for the government, and it works for them. 00:32:43.963 --> 00:32:47.884 What ends up happening, though, is they cater all their systems around that one customer. 00:32:48.263 --> 00:32:51.713 And so again, with that being your play, that's your play. 00:32:51.723 --> 00:32:51.743 Yeah. 00:32:52.824 --> 00:33:02.124 So whether it's government agency, a special federal government, or it's a Fortune 1000 company or whatever, a big player, know the implications. 00:33:02.743 --> 00:33:05.523 I'm here in Milwaukee and we got Harley-Davidson here. 00:33:05.693 --> 00:33:10.753 There's machine shops all in my industrial park that make one part for Harley-Davidson, right? 00:33:11.104 --> 00:33:14.304 When Harley-Davidson goes slow, they struggle. 00:33:14.394 --> 00:33:17.513 Now, it's great for operations, pretty good for cash flow. 00:33:17.854 --> 00:33:21.554 It's not great for marketing when you only have one customer,'cause who else knows you even exist? 00:33:22.183 --> 00:33:31.124 And so the whole goal here with business is to know where you're going, decide what you want, and then find the customers that get you where you want to go. 00:33:31.394 --> 00:33:33.044 The challenge is people do it the opposite way. 00:33:33.394 --> 00:33:34.574 Who's willing to pay me? 00:33:34.614 --> 00:33:36.713 Oh, I'm willing to do what it takes to work with them. 00:33:36.983 --> 00:33:40.554 And then all of a sudden, they're no longer in control of their own destiny. 00:33:41.034 --> 00:33:44.344 They're attached to bad payment terms. 00:33:44.874 --> 00:33:46.594 Attached to a one-sided relationship. 00:33:47.144 --> 00:33:57.443 Sometimes they're attached to a person at a business, and once the person leaves, the business goes with them I love that because a friend of mine, he's got a mantra for his small business and he calls it peaceful profits. 00:33:57.503 --> 00:34:04.913 In other words, he wants to run that in a way that is not causing him psychological and- emotional damage. 00:34:04.923 --> 00:34:08.284 So he chooses who he does business with, and it's working out really well for him. 00:34:08.284 -->

00:34:12.934 So I think sometimes if you think about, like Stephen Covey would tell us, begin with the end in mind. 00:34:13.403 --> 00:34:16.804 If you could set your business up the way you wanted it, what would that look like? 00:34:17.594 --> 00:34:21.534 And then start having an avatar for the customer, like you said earlier. 00:34:21.534 --> 00:34:26.733 That lady that went through, went from 17 down to eight, and then she had a clear avatar of what she wanted to deal with. 00:34:27.514 --> 00:34:30.983 I see you've got highly effective people there, that f- bottom right there. 00:34:31.204 --> 00:34:32.414 I saw that when we first sat down. 00:34:32.414 --> 00:34:35.164 Sharpen the saw, begin with the end state in mind are my two. 00:34:35.643 --> 00:34:41.974 And to your point about beginning the end state in mind, define what success looks like to you and then figure out the people that get you there. 00:34:41.974 --> 00:34:45.273 One, the one way we look at it, we hire based on values. 00:34:45.273 --> 00:34:49.164 We have our four values: hunger, dependability, camaraderie, and esprit de corps. 00:34:50.063 --> 00:34:54.954 We also decide on our vendors and our customers that are the same. 00:34:55.824 --> 00:34:57.344 And especially vendors. 00:34:57.543 --> 00:35:03.853 When we have vendors that aren't working right with us, chances are there's something within our values that doesn't align. 00:35:05.244 --> 00:35:06.333 Same with our customers. 00:35:06.423 --> 00:35:09.003 We want our customers that wanna get their projects done, hungry. 00:35:09.094 --> 00:35:12.954 We want customers that are gonna be there when we show up and pay us on time, dependable. 00:35:13.123 --> 00:35:14.923 We want customers, camaraderie. 00:35:14.923 --> 00:35:17.914 Our definition is people wanna work with us, we wanna work with people. 00:35:18.213 --> 00:35:21.914 We want customers that are excited for us to come in their home, not,"Ugh, these guys," right? 00:35:22.204 --> 00:35:23.284 And then esprit de corps. 00:35:23.934 --> 00:35:26.463 That's our shared loyalty and commitment to Camel Crew and the community. 00:35:26.753 --> 00:35:28.074 We are a top service. 00:35:28.193 --> 00:35:32.153 We are the highest priced junk removal company in Southeast Wisconsin. 00:35:32.554 --> 00:35:38.934 We want customers that care about the environment, care about the community, care about our processes. 00:35:39.143 --> 00:35:41.724 When someone says,"I want the cheapest guy in town," guess what? 00:35:42.403 --> 00:35:43.304 They're not my customer. 00:35:43.474 --> 00:35:44.423 And that's fine. 00:35:44.594 --> 00:35:46.704 Not everyone's for me, and I'm not for everybody. 00:35:46.983 --> 00:35:50.563 So define your val- Again, this, let's go back to data. 00:35:51.224 --> 00:35:54.284 Your values are data points. 00:35:54.804 --> 00:36:01.114 And do your customers, employees, and vendors line up with your values is a yes or no. 00:36:01.873 --> 00:36:08.114 When I ask that question to somebody, they'll be like,"Yeah, no." Okay, then go get a new vendor,'cause you can be in control of that. 00:36:08.123 --> 00:36:08.193 Yeah. 00:36:08.284 --> 00:36:09.934 You got vendors that aren't paying you on time? 00:36:10.563 --> 00:36:11.503 Go get a new vendor. 00:36:11.563 --> 00:36:13.634 Or your, vice versa, aren't invoicing you, whatever it is. 00:36:13.733 --> 00:36:14.523 Go get a new vendor. 00:36:16.192 --> 00:36:23.311 I like that because when you establish these values and the parameters, the guardrails, you become proactive versus reactive. 00:36:23.391 --> 00:36:32.481 And so many- 100% I think you would probably go into the ones that you're coaching and consulting with a high percentage of them are on the reactive side, I would imagine. 00:36:33.311 --> 00:36:34.581 Yeah, that's why they're calling me. 00:36:35.081 --> 00:36:46.842 No one's ever called me before they started a business said,"Hey, Andy, I want to pick up on your your fractional CFO work or consulting- Yep before I get started." The best time to hire a CFO is the day before you start your business. 00:36:47.862 --> 00:36:49.041 Today is the second-best day. 00:36:49.922 --> 00:36:57.172 People already know it's broke you talk about that avoiding your numbers isn't really an accounting problem, it's a leadership issue. 00:36:57.331 --> 00:36:58.271 100%. 00:36:58.271 --> 00:37:00.242 Dive into that and tell us what you mean by that. 00:37:01.132 --> 00:37:01.382 Yeah. 00:37:01.382 --> 00:37:03.132 Accounting is looking back- backwards. 00:37:03.141 --> 00:37:04.981 It's an actual, it's an afterthought. 00:37:05.012 --> 00:37:05.922 That's all accounting is. 00:37:05.931 --> 00:37:08.842 Bookkeeping, accounting, it can only tell you what happened so far. 00:37:09.561 --> 00:37:14.791 When it comes to your financials are future-focused, and this is what paves the path. 00:37:14.851 --> 00:37:20.402 And again, leadership is all about determining where you're going what you're gonna do, and then how you're gonna get there. 00:37:21.492 --> 00:37:26.922 Your numbers are the stepping stone and the mile markers, I ask companies sometimes how do you know when to hire the next person? 00:37:27.501 --> 00:37:29.532 How do you know when to buy another truck? 00:37:29.862 --> 00:37:39.552 How do you know when your office space is too small?" Questions like that, when answered, start to develop your leadership and your plan. 00:37:39.702 --> 00:37:42.981 'Cause as a leader, not only do you have to figure out the what, you gotta figure out how we're gonna do this. 00:37:44.181 --> 00:37:47.711 So for us, we average about 100 projects a week this time of year. 00:37:47.722 --> 00:37:48.972 100, 120 projects a week. 00:37:48.981 --> 00:37:51.822 Okay, how are we gonna service 120 projects a week? 00:37:52.532 --> 00:37:53.092 Let's use 100. 00:37:53.132 --> 00:37:54.922 Let's break it down Barney style, right? 00:37:54.922 -->

00:37:56.771 All right, we're gonna do 20 projects a day. 00:37:57.021 --> 00:37:58.121 All right, 20 projects a day. 00:37:58.282 --> 00:37:59.902 How many projects can a crew do? 00:38:00.481 --> 00:38:00.891 Five. 00:38:00.902 --> 00:38:02.262 Okay, so we need four teams. 00:38:02.351 --> 00:38:03.351 How many people on our team? 00:38:04.431 --> 00:38:04.831 Three. 00:38:04.922 --> 00:38:06.452 Okay, we need 12 employees. 00:38:06.641 --> 00:38:07.302 All right, 12 employees. 00:38:07.302 --> 00:38:14.661 The employees only work four days a week, so now we need at least 15 employees, so I got 12 every day and everybody gets one day off. 00:38:14.871 --> 00:38:15.121 All right? 00:38:15.222 --> 00:38:16.512 How many people are gonna take a vacation? 00:38:16.541 --> 00:38:18.141 Probably one or two employees a week maybe. 00:38:18.141 --> 00:38:20.061 Okay, now I need 17 employees. 00:38:20.181 --> 00:38:23.641 Okay, what happens if someone gets sick, injured, wins the lottery? 00:38:23.661 --> 00:38:24.481 Oh, I need some more. 00:38:24.601 --> 00:38:27.521 All right, so I need 17 employees plus a bench opera- right? 00:38:27.592 --> 00:38:31.461 And of the employees I hire, how many are probably gonna get fired, or quit? 00:38:31.811 --> 00:38:33.311 Now we got a percentage there just, right? 00:38:33.331 --> 00:38:34.581 That, a natural attrition. 00:38:34.791 --> 00:38:37.132 All of a sudden I need 20 employees to fill 12 spots. 00:38:38.291 --> 00:38:40.541 Not,"Oh, we got 12 employees. 00:38:40.541 --> 00:38:41.152 That's what we need. 00:38:41.172 --> 00:38:42.581 Oh, someone called in, now we got 11. 00:38:42.632 --> 00:38:46.422 All right we'll just run that crew with two and they'll just work late." And then you wonder why they quit. 00:38:47.422 --> 00:38:58.461 Leader hey recruiter, HR, or if I'm the recruiter in the case with small business owner when you're typically the guy, how many people do I need to hire now so that I can fulfill the 100, 120 orders I got this week? 00:38:59.771 --> 00:39:19.362 That's your job as a leader to answer that question and execute versus, ah, we hire people when we get busy, or we hire people when we get overwhelmed, or we hire people when three people quit because it was too much work do you wanna lead your organization or follow, in the sense of follow your customers, follow what's happening, and always be behind? 00:39:19.532 --> 00:39:20.431 Those are your two choices. 00:39:21.891 --> 00:39:26.961 I love how you unpack that, talking about people being out sick, vacations and stuff. 00:39:27.081 --> 00:39:32.512 I took over a company that's been around a long time, had many people that had five weeks of vacation. 00:39:33.032 --> 00:39:42.152 Yet the corporate people wanted us to keep the numbers as low as possible, but we could have, in certain departments, 20% of those people out on vacation every week. 00:39:42.581 --> 00:39:43.411 Quick hillbilly math. 00:39:44.072 --> 00:39:48.762 When people have five weeks of vacation, for every 10 employees, you need an 11th to cover vacations. 00:39:49.052 --> 00:39:49.072 Yeah. 00:39:49.952 --> 00:39:51.121 And scene. 00:39:51.251 --> 00:39:53.371 So if it's a department- Yeah of 20 people, you need 22. 00:39:54.541 --> 00:40:02.382 And they're like how'd you come up with that?" And you explain it like that, you're like,"Oh, yeah." But they still wanna prove the head count at some of those corporate cultures. 00:40:02.391 --> 00:40:02.902 It's amazing. 00:40:03.101 --> 00:40:04.081 There's the hillbilly math. 00:40:04.112 --> 00:40:05.402 No spreadsheet needed. 00:40:05.842 --> 00:40:06.061 Yep. 00:40:07.061 --> 00:40:08.722 But then they wanna know why you didn't hit your numbers. 00:40:08.771 --> 00:40:12.211 Two people were out sick- Yeah five were out on vacation and, et cetera, et cetera. 00:40:12.242 --> 00:40:14.092 Five weeks of vacation is 10% of the year. 00:40:15.931 --> 00:40:17.862 This is a s- story I know that you've heard. 00:40:18.081 --> 00:40:20.702 My accountant says I'm profitable, but I have no cash. 00:40:22.242 --> 00:40:22.702 Yeah. 00:40:22.871 --> 00:40:24.021 'Cause profit on- What does that mean? 00:40:24.021 --> 00:40:25.652 You can't spend profit on paper. 00:40:26.731 --> 00:40:28.161 There's a company out of Florida. 00:40:28.282 --> 00:40:29.612 They're e- economists. 00:40:29.612 --> 00:40:30.581 I wanna give them credit here. 00:40:30.791 --> 00:40:34.362 They do a presentation called Profitless Prosperity. 00:40:35.021 --> 00:40:35.992 Have you ever heard that before? 00:40:36.181 --> 00:40:36.501 No. 00:40:37.231 --> 00:40:39.121 Profitless prosperity. 00:40:39.211 --> 00:40:43.351 It's where you're growing and you're building, and yet there's no money left over. 00:40:43.722 --> 00:40:45.161 Because your accountant can say... 00:40:45.172 --> 00:40:45.952 This is a simple example. 00:40:45.972 --> 00:40:48.041 Let's say your accountant says you made$100,000. 00:40:48.041 --> 00:40:48.791 Okay, sounds good. 00:40:49.092 --> 00:41:00.052 50,000 of it is in your receivables, people owe you money, and 50,000 of it was written down in depreciation because your profit and loss statement doesn't show your assets, which are on your balance sheet. 00:41:00.202 --> 00:41:01.422 So you have no money. 00:41:02.943 --> 00:41:07.204 So you did a million dollars in business, you are 10% profitable in your P&L, accurate. 00:41:07.764 --> 00:41:17.403 You gotta pay taxes on either the 100,000 if you're accrual based when you generate, or you pay tax on the 50,000 cash basis when you get paid. 00:41:18.164 --> 00:41:24.494 And yet, depending on how you write down your depreciation on your assets, you might be paying taxes on money that you don't have. 00:41:25.603 --> 00:41:30.893 Then you got the opposite, where people are doing bank balance accounting, and they operate based on what their bank account says today. 00:41:30.994 --> 00:41:33.793 I can tell you right now

as we record this podcast, today is Thursday. 00:41:34.233 --> 00:41:35.554 Payroll is on Friday. 00:41:36.034 --> 00:41:46.994 So the money that's in my account really isn't my money, because the last two weeks, the guys have been working and it f- and earned the hours to the paycheck that they're getting tomorrow that is coming out. 00:41:47.824 --> 00:41:52.304 So you can have profit on paper and no money in the bank. 00:41:53.684 --> 00:42:01.693 And so understanding your profit and loss statement, your balance sheet, and then your cash flow statement, which is a combination of the two. 00:42:01.943 --> 00:42:07.943 The challenge is most businesses, their profit and loss statement or balance sheet it's either dirty data, we call it, right? 00:42:08.173 --> 00:42:12.123 It's incomplete, it's inaccurate, it's out of date, right? 00:42:12.123 --> 00:42:25.503 So the data's no good, or they never look at it So that's like saying,"Hey, I'm gonna go for a drive," and you turn your headlights off and all your dash goes out, and you're like, can you drive with no headlights and no dash? 00:42:25.684 --> 00:42:32.134 Yeah, probably for a while, till you get pulled over, lost, or run into a wall, right? 00:42:33.693 --> 00:42:35.653 That's what it's like operating a business without data. 00:42:36.054 --> 00:42:37.143 You can do it for a while. 00:42:37.264 --> 00:42:39.043 You can do it under ideal circumstances. 00:42:40.594 --> 00:42:48.364 Eventually it's gonna catch up with you So when you walk into a struggling business, what are some of the warning signs that leadership is avoiding reality? 00:42:48.364 --> 00:42:52.443 What are some things that stick out to you that say,"This place needs some help"? 00:42:54.353 --> 00:42:54.963 They tell me. 00:42:55.373 --> 00:42:56.414 There's no doubt about it. 00:42:56.454 --> 00:42:59.233 This is so in junk removal I clean out hoarding houses. 00:43:00.074 --> 00:43:01.494 Hoarders almost never call me. 00:43:01.793 --> 00:43:04.523 Their family members do, the state does, social workers do. 00:43:05.353 --> 00:43:08.434 Business owners that are key on their numbers never call me. 00:43:09.123 --> 00:43:13.503 It's the business owners that know something's wrong and they don't know where to start. 00:43:13.664 --> 00:43:19.333 There is yet to be a business owner I met that didn't know they're about to run out of money. 00:43:19.963 --> 00:43:20.603 They all knew. 00:43:21.034 --> 00:43:22.784 They could feel it in their bones. 00:43:23.114 --> 00:43:30.114 They were losing employees, they were losing customers, the bank account didn't feel just right, they didn't feel as comfortable going on that vacation, right? 00:43:30.114 --> 00:43:33.284 There was all these indicators and yet they didn't dig into it. 00:43:33.773 --> 00:43:43.463 Business owners know it and they feel it, and once you start asking questions, we can get objective data to go with those subjective feelings. 00:43:45.074 --> 00:43:47.034

When a business owner says,"Oh yeah, we got a dashboard. 00:43:47.034 --> 00:43:50.793 I'm looking at my profit and loss statement, and I got a pretty good idea where we're at," sounds good. 00:43:51.184 --> 00:43:54.324 When someone says,"Oh, I know my numbers inside and out," they don't. 00:43:55.204 --> 00:44:03.054 Because even me, I do this for a living, my wife asked me a question yesterday I didn't have the answer to, and it had to do with my numbers in my consulting business. 00:44:03.204 --> 00:44:08.684 And I was like,"That's interesting." Because a business owner that's always curious and digging in knows they'll never know it all. 00:44:09.123 --> 00:44:13.074 They know enough to make decisions and they have enough flexibility. 00:44:13.293 --> 00:44:17.534 You also don't want someone so rigid that they only make decisions based on data. 00:44:17.724 --> 00:44:21.773 'Cause if that being the case what is it 85% of businesses fail in 10 years? 00:44:22.083 --> 00:44:26.914 That being the case, no one would start a business because the chance of you failing is high. 00:44:28.393 --> 00:44:30.813 The indicators I get from other people are simple. 00:44:30.833 --> 00:44:32.434 They tell me something's wrong. 00:44:33.054 --> 00:44:40.414 I was at a CEO roundtable earlier this morning and the guy goes,"We need to raise money'cause we're gonna be out of money in six months." Okay. 00:44:40.813 --> 00:44:42.443 Like that was his opening line. 00:44:42.443 --> 00:44:49.853 'Cause I said,"How are cash flows?" Because two months ago he said,"Sales are down and we need to sell something quick'cause we're gonna run out of money." That's it. 00:44:49.893 --> 00:44:57.014 He has a six-month runway of cash till it runs out, and he knows right now he needs to raise money or get sales. 00:44:57.083 --> 00:45:00.994 'Cause in 90 days he's gonna be 90 days out of being out of business. 00:45:01.213 --> 00:45:01.284 That's good. 00:45:01.284 --> 00:45:02.054 Business owners tell me. 00:45:02.143 --> 00:45:04.583 And the ones that don't tell me, they go away quietly. 00:45:04.643 --> 00:45:10.054 Because again, the title of the book, Stop Avoiding Their Numbers, they're avoiding it and they're avoiding the conversations with others. 00:45:10.523 --> 00:45:34.896 Once people start reading the book or start asking questions, oh, the weight of the world gets off their shoulders because it's the ambiguity that's killing them, and they'd rather sit in the comfort of ambiguity than the discomfort of vulnerability you mentioned earlier about sharpening your saw, so I wanna pick your brain a little bit about what are some things that you do as Covey challenged us to do to sharpen your saw. 00:45:34.896 --> 00:45:37.655 What are some books, maybe podcasts masterminds? 00:45:37.655 --> 00:45:39.246 What are things you do to sharpen your saw? 00:45:39.985 --> 00:45:40.436 Books. 00:45:40.476 --> 00:45:41.795 I'm a avid reader. 00:45:42.186 --> 00:45:45.706 For every

one book I read, I probably buy five, so I'm way behind. 00:45:46.025 --> 00:45:47.126 And which is a good place to be. 00:45:47.235 --> 00:45:49.045 Reading is my number one medium. 00:45:49.106 --> 00:45:51.385 I listen to podcasts watch videos. 00:45:51.385 --> 00:45:52.266 That's more entertaining. 00:45:52.286 --> 00:45:53.615 That's definitely on the psychologist side. 00:45:54.016 --> 00:45:56.795 On the how to be a business leader, it's books. 00:45:57.085 --> 00:46:02.735 Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, that's my, like that is the book for me in self-improvement. 00:46:03.036 --> 00:46:08.036 And then there's other books where I'm like, so like business leaders, Dan Sullivan, 10X Is Easier Than 2X. 00:46:08.175 --> 00:46:09.246 That's top tier. 00:46:09.485 --> 00:46:10.436 It fits everybody. 00:46:10.835 --> 00:46:12.675 Five Dysfunctions of a Team for leaders. 00:46:12.726 --> 00:46:16.335 Patrick Lencioni's work, and I've read all the other parables that he's written. 00:46:16.385 --> 00:46:20.996 Ideal Team Player, that's another great one when it comes to building and recruiting teams, another Patrick Lencioni. 00:46:21.786 --> 00:46:23.096 So for me, it's book books. 00:46:23.166 --> 00:46:24.846 Good to Great, Jim Collins. 00:46:25.036 --> 00:46:26.576 I'm literally looking at your background like,"Oh yeah. 00:46:26.635 --> 00:46:32.615 Oh, Atomic Habits, James Clear." You can tell I'm not cheating- Yeah'cause I'm actually seeing the books and then telling you the author so you know I'm not full of shit. 00:46:32.965 --> 00:46:35.965 Find what you're bad at and buy the book that does that thing. 00:46:36.476 --> 00:46:38.175 And then I do two or three things. 00:46:38.175 --> 00:46:39.365 Like habit-- oh, here we go. 00:46:39.476 --> 00:46:40.695 James Clear, Atomic Habits, right? 00:46:40.726 --> 00:46:42.626 I-- habit stacking, right? 00:46:42.726 --> 00:46:45.735 Put the thing that I avoid between two things I already do. 00:46:45.835 --> 00:46:46.356 That's good. 00:46:46.565 --> 00:46:52.715 Or give myself the reward for doing the things I don't wanna do after I do the thing I don't wanna do. 00:46:53.045 --> 00:46:58.115 So in every book it's a waste of time to read a book and not change your life. 00:46:58.766 --> 00:47:01.175 Every book has taught me something. 00:47:01.626 --> 00:47:06.505 I read a book recently on self-deception, and it's r- oh, it hit me deep. 00:47:07.226 --> 00:47:10.835 Because I am really good at blaming other people,'cause I love data. 00:47:10.885 --> 00:47:14.985 I can find the data that supports my argument that is, it's you, not me. 00:47:15.576 --> 00:47:29.126 And so this book on self-deception, I was like,"Ugh, no longer can I claim ignorance that my perception of the situation you know, isn't at least 1% responsible- Yeah for the situation we're in. 00:47:29.295 --> 00:47:36.766 And so that book I read on self-deception recently is really it hits, it cuts deep'cause I'm not reading

books for my own entertainment. 00:47:36.815 --> 00:47:37.556 What was the title of that book? 00:47:37.735 --> 00:47:39.416 Leadership and Self-Deception. 00:47:39.686 --> 00:47:40.036 Okay. 00:47:40.076 --> 00:47:43.076 The Secret to Transforming Relationships and Unleashing Results. 00:47:43.235 --> 00:47:45.076 It was written by the Arbinger Institute. 00:47:45.335 --> 00:47:46.766 I saw them speak on it. 00:47:47.606 --> 00:47:48.936 And the thing, I do, okay, I do keynotes. 00:47:48.965 --> 00:47:52.856 I like keynotes and workshops- Yeah like in person, so I go to a lot of conferences. 00:47:53.155 --> 00:47:55.226 And what ends up happening, there's no, I speak. 00:47:55.326 --> 00:48:08.096 You get the one-hour, 90-minute version and then you're like,"Oh, I wanna go deep." And then you buy the book- Yeah and you're 25 hours committed- Yeah and three or four hours of your life and then you're like,"Oh, I actually now, I kinda understand what the person on stage was talking about." Yeah. 00:48:08.755 --> 00:48:12.195 Talking of books, we wanna plug your book, which we've been- thank you talking about, Stop Your Numbers. 00:48:12.686 --> 00:48:24.025 Tell us a little bit about what you do and how people can connect with you if they want to engage you to help them stop avoiding their numbers and maybe get their business out of a ditch if it's in it. 00:48:24.476 --> 00:48:25.170 It's real simple. 00:48:25.266 --> 00:48:26.710 Website andyWeins.com. 00:48:27.065 --> 00:48:33.666 Also, as of today, my new website, thebattlereadybusiness.com is live and hot and doing the thing. 00:48:34.525 --> 00:48:35.416 I'm simple to find. 00:48:35.436 --> 00:48:39.206 LinkedIn is probably the place people normally find me, and it's really simple. 00:48:39.306 --> 00:48:46.956 Numbers, my, my second book is about numbers, my first book is about words, and when you lean in on the words and you lean in on the data, you start to get clarity. 00:48:47.996 --> 00:48:50.186 Conflict is what I do, right? 00:48:50.186 --> 00:48:52.476 We talked this whole time about leadership and- Yeah numbers. 00:48:52.565 --> 00:48:53.775 Ultimately, it's conflict. 00:48:54.206 --> 00:49:03.255 Because to that point of that business owner, you asked the question of,"How do I know a business owner is struggling?"'Cause they finally said it out loud and they're willing to actually bring that conflict to the surface. 00:49:04.295 --> 00:49:13.518 Years of military, I said earlier about how I knew when I was over the line- Because I was willing to have the conflict to learn about that. 00:49:14.097 --> 00:49:14.887 You and I, right? 00:49:14.887 --> 00:49:15.797 This is conflict. 00:49:15.898 --> 00:49:17.217 We're having a new conversation. 00:49:17.217 --> 00:49:18.438 It's a growth-minded conversation. 00:49:18.577 --> 00:49:24.268 We easily could've sat here and done our own business, and yet you've taken the time to come up with the interview questions for us to come here. 00:49:24.978 --> 00:49:27.338 New ideas have sparked during this conversation. 00:49:27.347 --> 00:49:28.987 That was conflict, right? 00:49:28.987 --> 00:49:31.878 Because now I'm having conflict with how do we lead? 00:49:31.887 --> 00:49:36.608 What have I learned in last 20-plus years that is relatable to your audience? 00:49:36.907 --> 00:49:38.938 And so I lean in on conflict. 00:49:38.987 --> 00:49:45.637 And when you lean in on productive conflict in your life, personally and professionally, you start to grow and get the things that you want. 00:49:45.867 --> 00:49:51.018 And so that's my overall message, and that's what, when you look at my website and my social media, that's what it comes down to. 00:49:51.297 --> 00:49:54.277 Understanding your numbers, monitoring your words. 00:49:55.068 --> 00:49:58.307 I talked about self-deception, and obviously it's fresh in my mind with the new book I read. 00:49:58.878 --> 00:50:03.318 You'd start to see the conflict you're having internally and how it manifests externally. 00:50:04.318 --> 00:50:05.387 Man, this has been great. 00:50:05.398 --> 00:50:12.648 I appreciate your time today, Andy, and we will put those links in the show notes so people can connect with you and follow you in the future. 00:50:13.108 --> 00:50:14.208 Thank you for your time today. 00:50:14.547 --> 00:50:14.958 Appreciate it. 00:50:15.057 --> 00:50:15.467 Thanks, Mark. 00:50:16.266 --> 00:50:22.797 Thanks, Andy, for providing such great insights about how our numbers can help us be successful in our business. 00:50:23.583 --> 00:50:29.228 We appreciate you joining the Learning to Lead show, and if you would, make sure that you go and download Leader Notes. 00:50:29.228 --> 00:50:36.293 That will give you a great reader's digest version of everything discussed today with the resources and the key topics that we discussed. 00:50:36.978 --> 00:50:43.413 Also, make sure that you go and subscribe so that each episode, as it is published, arrives in your favorite podcast app immediately. 00:50:43.780 --> 00:50:53.786 And lastly, if you got value out of today's episode, make sure that you go and give us a rating and let others know about the great conversations with great leaders that we're having here on the Learning to Lead show. 00:50:54.360 --> 00:51:02.876 Now, make sure that you go out this week and learn, grow, and lead and take your organization, your team, your tribe, your family to the next level