1
0,00:01,000 --> 0,00:32,000
Welcome to the Never Been Promoted podcast, where we're all about helping you cut the tie to all that holds you back. The excuses, the fears, the people, that sense of entitlement. Cut the ties so you can unleash your inner entrepreneur. Your host, Thomas Helfrich, is on a mission to make more entrepreneurs in the world and make them better at entrepreneurship.
2
0,00:32,000 --> 0,01:59,000
Hey. Welcome to Never Been Promoted. Hi. I'm Thomas Helfrich, your host. We are live again. Today, we're Steve Chiama. He is an action coach. And an action coach, these guys have a whole system of how you take, small business, and you make it into a multimillion dollar business. Steve really knows this game, and I'm excited to have this conversation because I'm a small business. I wanna become a multimillion dollar business, and I don't know how to do it. I'm pretending I know how to do it, but he does. And despite his best efforts, I just I have not signed up as a coach with he I just I'm this is me. So don't don't be like me. Listen to Steve when he gets on here in a minute. If this is your first time here, thank you for coming and listening and watching. Our mission is really clear. We wanna help, millions of entrepreneurs, just unleash themselves to the world. We wanna help them cut the tide, all the crap holding them back. We want you to learn from the journeys of other entrepreneurs, learn about what they're doing for the world today, and how they kinda see the future happening so you can get some little nuggets and get a little better. So, before we get going, check out never been promoted.com. Also, subscribe to youtube.com at to never been promoted. We've always got new content coming out, you know, with a 1000000 subscribers and growing. It's, seems to help a few people. So with enough shameless plug to always bring Steve on to the stage. Steve, how are you? Great. How are you doing, Thomas? I'm doing well. It's Chiamma. It's c h I a I a m a. We could say Chiamma or Sihamma.
3
0,01:59,000 --> 0,02:05,000
No. Chiama. My mom my dad said Kiama, so I'll go with that one. Chiama. Yeah.
4
0,02:05,000 --> 0,02:16,000
I like that too. C h. Do you guys that's the marketing technique, by the way. I just keep saying his name over and over so you remember it. Steve? Chiama. Chiama.
5
0,02:16,000 --> 0,02:20,000
There you go. Got it. Winner. Let it sink in. Winner winner. Good.
6
0,02:20,000 --> 0,02:21,000
How are you?
7
0,02:21,000 --> 0,02:23,000
Good. Good. Good. Good.
8
0,02:23,000 --> 0,03:04,000
You you're a so for those listening, I I've known Steve for a while now. So we so so I will try to avoid any inside kind of jokes or conversations. We've had to make this a net new conversation. But but you're an incredibly experienced with helping people transition businesses. You have we'll talk about some of your use cases where you've taken companies from, like, you know, small revenue, you know, few 100000, low million to 10 and plus or even more. And so then and you're you're part of the action coach teams and you're, but so this is this is, like, known methodology. You didn't make this stuff up. But I did not make this stuff up. This has been around for over 30 years.
9
0,03:04,000 --> 0,03:51,000
There's about a 1000 coaching offices, some with multiple coaches. This stuff has been tested and tested and tested and wrung out and wrung out, and we talk. We compare notes all the time. In fact, just this past weekend, I was at a conference of Action Coaches where we were a small smallish group of us were comparing notes and learning from each other how to make things easier, how to make things more effective, and how to help people get what they want from their business more quickly. So that and that's really what the focus of the of the entire process is. It's how can we help people get what they want from their business
10
0,03:51,000 --> 0,04:01,000
much more quickly than they would ordinarily on their own. Yeah. And we're gonna dive into this. And and one of the challenges I know we've spoken about is, there's so many coaches out there.
11
0,04:01,000 --> 0,04:02,000
Yes.
12
0,04:02,000 --> 0,04:34,000
And you have coach fatigue, so you don't trust anyone. Right. Because, like, I don't know what to trust. Everyone's a freaking coach, and I don't have time for that. I'm just gonna go back to doing what I do with my business. Yeah. Because there's there's no there there's this implicit trust, and then that means your sales cycle's on there. But before we get all to that, do you wanna set it up like listen. You know, I I think, you know, you help businesses grow. Start with where you are today and and back up wherever you'd like to and and just kinda take us on your journey of how you kinda got there. And I'll I'll jump in here and there where where where inappropriate.
13
0,04:34,000 --> 0,07:42,000
Yeah. You know, I guess it it really started I finished college with an engineering degree, an electrical engineering degree, and I took a job as a field engineer for a manufacturing company that manufactured huge equipment. And I spent about 12 years essentially learning that it wasn't about the the equipment. It wasn't about the product. It was about what made money for the customer. And it was really about helping them see things, essentially coaching them to see things about their product, their system that they didn't really understand clearly enough to know how to get the most out of it. So in a in a way, it kinda started there. I spent about the next 25 years of my corporate career, running business unit activities in one way or another. I literally was the entrepreneur making this business unit grow. The corporation was the bank. My boss was the board of directors, and my job was to lead a team in an endeavor to make cash grow for that particular unit. Yes. We had guidelines. Yes. We had product. Yes. We had systems, but we had to go out and develop customers. We had to help help customers decide to buy from us more often than they ever had. So I spent 20, 25 years learning how to make a business grow, learning how to lead a team. Someplace along the line in there, it dawns on me that I've been making a lot of money for a lot of other people. It's time to do that for myself, and exploring some of the different options that there are out there. It made sense to teach other people what I already know how to do. I've done it enough times. I've got, an incredible number of history of I made my own mistakes along the way, so I have a bunch of applications. And ActionCOACH has done a fantastic job of putting a really good set of systems in place and helping us figure out how to get the most out of them. So coupled with their systems and my experiences, I put those two things together to help people learn to get the most from what it is that they're working on. So, the the the vision of ActionCOACH is world abundance through business reeducation. We work to that vision all the time. Everything's about how do we get the customer to where he wants his business to be. And that's just a matter of which steps do we need and cherry pick the pieces that make the most sense for them at the moment and drive that forward.
14
0,07:42,000 --> 0,09:01,000
I mean, right, business is pretty simple if you think about it already. It's you're either getting more customers Yes. Or you're you're finding a way to get more value from the customer. Pretty much. Yeah. It's like it comes down to those 2 things. And then the backside of that is how do I reduce costs so I can increase profitability like that? Yep. Very efficient. So a friend of mine used to say, if you're not focusing on 1 or 2 things, you're focusing on the wrong thing. 1 is where I'm getting my revenue today, and the other is where I'm getting my revenue tomorrow. And if you're not those two things, he's like, that's all you should be focusing on. And then at some point, you'll figure out where to cut the fat. Now for you guys, though, you're not looking for startups that are, you know, year 1 that they're, you know, they're they they haven't broken $10,000 a month doing something like they're you're you're you're you work with companies that have found a solution to a problem and a business model that seems to be holding, but they're having troubles taking that model or that business to a scalable model that becomes not an 800,000 or a 1000000 to business, but a 8,000,000 or a $12,000,000 business, which is only done through scale. Like there's just unless you're unless it's a personal brand thing and there's other things involved, but like businesses that have people and employees, that's where you guys focus is that company that's kind of hit the threshold and there's bottlenecks everywhere and you just can't get out of them.
15
0,09:01,000 --> 0,09:28,000
I can do the most good help the most people that most quickly that have revenues above 500,000 because they have a little bit more cash to do more things. But I have worked with and I am currently working with 1 business that is down in the $100,000 bracket. Interesting. And it is kind of a case, though, because I would have to guess. Yes.
16
0,09:28,000 --> 0,09:37,000
That have because, like, either they are on a like, done that in 6 months or something. They're they've done that. You're like, clearly, this one's gonna take off. You're just gonna help them organize it correctly.
17
0,09:37,000 --> 0,11:03,000
Yeah. Well, you know, it's not we like to think it's what we do, but it isn't what we do. It is what we do, but it's, being the person that'll do the right things. So a lot of people really get stuck because they aren't yet ready to do the right things. And it becomes a case of, helping hold their hand and helping them through the fear to do something that they've never done before and and helping them do it over and over and over again because that's what brings the results that they need. That particular case, that person's been stuck in that position for about, I don't know, 15, 20 years. Really? Yeah. And it's a matter of he asked, he asked for help. He knows what he needs to do. He's just not been able to get himself to do it. And, we're working him through that fear right now and getting getting him started in it. In the next couple of weeks, I think, we will start to see some activity in a in a different sort of way. So, I'm I'm actually pretty excited. I can see a path for him. I think that he's got a little bit of fear still wrapped around it, but it's a for in his particular case, it's getting marketing going. He's got a a really good product. He's got a really good idea.
18
0,11:03,000 --> 0,11:54,000
It's a matter of actually ad letting people know he's there. Right. I I believe marketing is the hardest part of entrepreneurship. You can you can have the best work ran company. You can be the best salesman in the world. But if you can't get people that understand your value or see what you do, you don't get to do either of the other things. Yep. And there's a lot of noise in in there. Do you think, maybe, contrast the the $100,000 like, you know, a a good small business for an individual lifestyle business, let's say, versus a $1,000,000 business, which is also probably someone just running it with a smaller team still. The expectations for growth, is it incremental where they're like, hey. Listen. It's good to get that 8%. You you may not see that, like, you know, that extra little bit, or is it should you have the expectation of something way more aggressive? Like, what's the mindset, I guess, going into that?
19
0,11:54,000 --> 0,12:46,000
Yeah. What you should have and what you do have are 2 different things. Yeah. People people almost never reach out and get assertive enough to go after what it is that they really want in any kind of an, energetic sort of way. I like to show people a 5 step formula. We call it the 5 ways. It is 5 ways, and if you work your way through it, you can drive revenue up 46%. You can drive profits up 61% per year if you do everything in there all at the same time. That's where a business with a little bit more than a 100,000 revenue has a little bit more resources to do that with a little bit more effectively, but, you can start anywhere and and make though you can make those kind of results happen.
20
0,12:46,000 --> 0,13:18,000
It would the point was that if if you had explosive, you know, 200, 1000% growth, that's not should be your unit. I think we've been sold That would not be a good plan. Yeah. Well, I think we've been sold the Shark Tank unicorn lie that people have this idea that, oh, if I just do this, my business is gonna explode. I gotta get money or the and it's the truth is if you can grow your business 8 to 10% every year, you're not growing or dying. We'll start with that premise. But if you're if you could grow your business 8, 10% a year, you have a fantastic business.
21
0,13:18,000 --> 0,14:30,000
You're you're going in the right direction. The key to growth is cash. If you and and this is where a lot of people miss it is they they don't want to pay attention to the financial side of this game because it's difficult and doesn't seem profitable to spend time there. But that's your clue. Do you have enough cash to keep growing? You can outrun your cash reserves and that's the fallacy for those 2,000 percent growth gains. You've gotta have a real infusion of capital before you start and you've gotta have proof that you can make that happen in order to justify that capital. If you can do those those things, you can do that kind of growth. I think 8% or 10% growth is very, very, very conservative. I think it's legitimate to go after 20% growth. I think it's legitimate to go after 30%
22
0,14:30,000 --> 0,15:35,000
growth on the revenue line. Is there is there a law of small numbers on that where you you might or is that just a function of scale at that point? And what I mean by that is if you're a 100,000 in scale you know, like, because if at a 100,000 you're like, hey. Listen. By yourself, you should be able to get to 250 without having to think about scale. With scale, you could just you keep doubling down until you fit your addressable market cap. Right? I mean, like, at some point Yeah. And and so part of what you look at as a coach is are you in a dying market? So if you're in a dying market, 8, 10% growth is fantastic. I mean, but if it's gonna die. So I think understanding some I think there's some pieces that people just don't look at first. Like, oh, you started this business, but, like, it's newspapers. They're dying. Like like, don't sell it to a newspaper anymore. Like, I think, like, you know, my point is you have to understand the market you're in. If the market's growing at 3000% and you're only growing at 8, you're losing. You're gonna you're gonna die. So Right. Right. Yeah. I was on I was on a call with a client just this morning, and we were talking about,
23
0,15:35,000 --> 0,16:43,000
this very thing. Some months ago, we did a rough market size study for one of his main product areas, and we determined that he was someplace in the, 15 to 20% market share for this area that we're in. We still got room to grow, obviously. We could probably run that up. But we've he's got other parts of his business, other product categories in his business, so we're not even close. So we we we looked at it and said that the total market for that first product was in the 40,000,000 bracket. Well, he's got a product that he's could probably cover the same size market, and he's barely he's he's extremely profitable in it, and he's barely touching it. And so are we gonna are we gonna just gonna sit there and watch that go by, or are we gonna do something about it? And that was kinda today's conversation.
24
0,16:43,000 --> 0,16:55,000
Same market size, extremely profitable, ignoring. Like, excuse me? Is this Yeah. Yeah. By the way? I don't know. If this business isn't for sale, maybe we should talk about how we can get that divestment.
25
0,16:55,000 --> 0,17:12,000
You know, one one of the conversations that might be fun later is franchising it, because it's it it it of all of the things he's doing, that is a little niche that is intensely scalable, and he's got a unit that is self sustained
26
0,17:12,000 --> 0,17:15,000
now. He's highly fund that.
27
0,17:15,000 --> 0,17:18,000
Yeah. Yeah.
28
0,17:18,000 --> 0,19:16,000
Yeah. We and if we could expand just right here in the DMV, we could expand. You know, the if if he doesn't want that business, I I'll sign up for that one. Because the ones I have aren't for scalable. Alright. Let me ask you. So alright. One of the problems with, transforming a business, right, is getting the right advice. Because because you only know what you know unless you had a mentor as a father or a mother or someone in your life that shows you how to go to that next level. The chances you actually getting that next level will likely be an accident. And and I'll say that way because there are differences. There's things you're gonna have to really fundamentally do to scale a business that you probably wouldn't have thought about because you're running your business. You're in And and and sometimes it's like, that's fine, by the way. Sometimes people, I think, are okay having whatever size business they have and just be happy with that. Yeah. But if you wanna do more, it is a different it's it's a different business. So part of that is the advice, and it's the mentoring and piece. And what I'm leading to is and this is something I and you know I've talked about this probably too much. It's it's the trust factor of 2 2 things is trust and time, is to understand what my actual time commitments are if I hire a coach. But, also, there are so many coaches. You know, it's almost like marketing. It's what it's where you go when you were done with whatever career you were in. And I don't mean that in a mean way. Just, you know, it's just that there's a lot of people who who are A lot of that. Yeah. Yeah. And and so it's it what it creates is noise, and then I then I don't buy from anyone, because I'm just a confused buyer at that point. And I also don't know what my time commitments are to really do this. So if I wanna take my business and scale it, what are the realities of of of time? So maybe take a few minutes to say, okay, address the the trust thing. I think you actually have because you guys are part of a bigger system. That's why I saw the ActionCOACH is there. But what are the time commitments in your system? Because you guys are an effective and efficient model for coaching as opposed to just making it up, which is what you'll get with a lot of coaches who don't know what they're doing. So take take take that's a lot of words, but you don't know how to What I
29
0,19:16,000 --> 0,21:23,000
suggest to people, wherever they're starting from, is start with a commitment of 4 to 5 hours per week to work on the business. Now what constitutes on the business? Working in marketing is not working on the business that's working in the business. But looking at how well is the marketing performing, looking at strategy, looking at what works and what doesn't work, it constitutes working on the business. Drawing up plans and keeping score on how well we're working through those plans, how well the strategies are performing, that's working on the business. Reading, studying, learning more about what the next step is and how to go forward, that's working on the business. So I tell people focus in that kind of a way, take it one little chunk at a time. If we can help the business perform enough so that you can delegate more than you could before because you've got more people to delegate to, then we can talk about shifting to a larger number of hours per week because you can make it effectively possible. There's a real process of working through how how you use time, so that you make your time more dollar effective. Yep. And then we can sit down and say the more dollar effective you become, at a certain point, it becomes wise to shift this task, this task, and this task to somebody else. Let them get really good at it while you get really good at the next phase of your business, and then just work it up. Once you get to 10 hours, then we can start to think about 12 hours, then we can think about 20 hours. And by that time, maybe you don't have to be there very much.
30
0,21:23,000 --> 0,22:36,000
I like so so so well, part of what you guys do though. Right? I know you like, just part of the system. You have to do an assessment of what kind of business model you have. Absolutely. Uh-huh. I'll start with because I know, like, with in in in with you know, restate this because you've you and I talked about it. I have a marketing business around LinkedIn that takes a lot of my time, and I love doing it. It's just where we started. But I also know that if I want to go to, you know, a 5 or $10,000,000 business, I cannot that's not the right model. And so we've we what we did instead of nuking that, you know, 4 or $500,000 business, we just said, hey. Let's add a different service line. Yeah. That's one way. And and so where you could also come in is an existing business with some kind of cash operation model, limited as it may be, but you could say I have a new business line. I don't want to do what I did on the other one. Can you talk about when you you help somebody say, hey, let's take something you you found something that worked to make money. Do you help them discover an ancillary I I think I've discovered my own, but do you help them with an ancillary line to say, hey. Listen. This is how you could scale your business that given you have a cash engine, do you help them think through that? Where where what would your role be in that to help them come up with a new line, a new way to do it? Well, in a way, that
31
0,22:36,000 --> 0,22:49,000
that business I just talked about a few minutes ago that he's got the product line and he's only got one little little niche, that's that's a perfect example of where we really are.
32
0,22:49,000 --> 0,22:51,000
Just a bit there. I'm just kidding.
33
0,22:51,000 --> 0,24:18,000
We really are sitting and saying, okay. What could this look like? Right. And where would it go? And and and so he's got a little I'm gonna call it a retail shop kind of situation. And it has reached capacity for all practical purposes. Or it's it's not at a 100%, but let's call it at 80%, which effectively is. So we could expand it 20%, and that would bring in more profit and more cash, and that becomes a kind of a nice profit slice. Or we could look around the area and say, gee. What's another I'm gonna call it a hot spot around the DMV that we could, similarly position a similar kind of, unit, get that one up. We have a perfect working model. We use that perfect working model as a template. We build the next one out, then we get that running, and we find another hot spot in the DMV area. We open that up. We could start kind of expanding just within the local area, build up enough cash flow, set some cash aside, and then start looking at what's another city we could do the same thing in. There you go. So that that was my question.
34
0,24:18,000 --> 0,25:20,000
On a new line, you you you do small experiments is what happens. Right? You build, measure, learn, build, measure, learn. Build, measure, learn. Yes. You just keep doing that. And and that might translate into let's run some Facebook ads. Let's see if anybody replies. Now they could all be like, no. Thanks. Did it by accident. Yep. I'd like to do more. But do does anyone even care at all? And and then you just say, okay. Cool. Now let's this is where the cash piece comes, I guess, what I'm getting to. You're gonna need you're gonna spend a lot of money initially sometimes learning the right words, the right way to market it, the right way to position it. Right. But once you do, then if if it's a localized piece like this, now your scale is only new market, new market, new market. Yes. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Right. Now transpose that. Does that change, let's say, like, we're a marketing agency that can do this anywhere. Do you still take the same approach? Like, hey. Just focus Tom on Atlanta initially, or just, you know, like, just go out for ready. And go go smaller city and and get it right for that first. Like, how do you do that when it's more of an online presence business versus maybe, like, you know, brick and mortar?
35
0,25:20,000 --> 0,26:58,000
It depends entirely on your personal goals as owner. So each owner has a different set of goals and different set of values, and we'll start with those. But in in a in a in an online marketing scenario, you've got a whole totally different universe. There's there are no boundaries that limit you except maybe currencies. I mean, you can even operate internationally if you wanna go that way. So it's kind of a matter of what's your personal flavor. You could you could choose to dominate. You're in Atlanta. You could choose to dominate Georgia. And then from Georgia, expand out to all the, adjacent states and then choose to branch out into all the adjacent states. That brings an advantage of, proximity, and people are more likely to provide referrals because there's more local buzz. But it isn't there's no there's no obligation to go at it that way. You can go on it. You could North America becomes your your your your universe or at least the English speaking part of it unless you want to add some languages into your team. So thinking about your scenario yourself, I can't think of anything that holds you back from where you can go. Oh, I can. It's between that camera and the back of this chair. Well, yeah, there's that side of it too. It's got his left ear and his right ear. Yeah. And, well, does the family let you out the door?
36
0,26:58,000 --> 0,27:07,000
There's a door? What the? I'm out. There's a door? Sorry. Though they encourage me to get out.
37
0,27:07,000 --> 0,27:10,000
Yeah. Okay.
38
0,27:10,000 --> 0,27:36,000
Are you I wanna start with so so working on versus and I wanna back up to something here. I think Yeah. Listen, if you're, you're, you know, at this point, what the hell are these guys talking about? Here's something I do, and I protect pretty viciously unless it's, like, unless it's an existing customer or it's a new business. So it's that today, tomorrow revenue idea is on every Wednesday. I block the entire day, and it is working on business time. So this this week is gonna be golfing.
39
0,27:36,000 --> 0,27:39,000
Yeah. Well, now Well, it's working on your handicap.
40
0,27:39,000 --> 0,28:38,000
It's a it's a it's actually a podcast guest that head on. We met in person, and he he invited me out and so it's networking business oriented to build local networks of some influential people. But it's also the afternoon's all content creation for the website because I own that copy because it's strategically a directional change that I have to own. And though you said it's working in in your business, I am the only one in the business that can set that strategy. And so I have to work through a content plan for the new website to be more in line with where I'm going. If I don't do it, no one else on my team will be able to. It's just I it's very like, that's the one thing that I have to do. But now once it's written and done, the team can take it and improve it. Alright. Are you in agreement that that's working on your outside of the gulf, working on your business, or is it in when I'm talking about a strategic change that I have to say, this is how I wanna present this value and I would I would call that working on the business. That's a it's anything that's strategic
41
0,28:38,000 --> 0,29:12,000
that where you're you're changing a strategy or defining a strategy, I would call that strategic. That said, in time, you would wanna develop somebody on the team who's capable of doing much of that for you, where you bring them the challenge where you are, where you wanna get to, and they help you by presenting to you options, optional strategy changes, and then you work out the details.
42
0,29:12,000 --> 0,29:42,000
I have I have that. It's called GPT. Yep. Exactly. Model GPT, by the way. It's probably 2 k. Pay it. It's gonna be worth it. You cannot pay the point what that thing can do. Yeah. It's a lot cheaper than paying people, isn't it? It is way cheaper. And people I won't pay 2,000. Are you kidding me to have superpowers at your fingertips? You won't pay. Don't sign up for Steve or my services if you're not willing to see the value of what GPT can do for you or any other thing for $2,000 a year. Anyway, I'll leave it at that. That But but the the concept
43
0,29:42,000 --> 0,29:57,000
is, I would say, working on the business. Anything where you're ringing out a new strategy, setting up how you're gonna test it, setting up how you're gonna in implement it. Now the implementation most of the implementation
44
0,29:57,000 --> 0,30:15,000
is working in the business. Yeah. And and, but you're not saying don't don't do that. Because when you get something, like, a new factory line, so the owner will probably be there to say, hey. Yes. You're telling me it looks good. I'm at least gonna do a once over on this thing I'm installed. But you'd probably pay some people to go do this.
45
0,30:15,000 --> 0,30:36,000
It depends on how big your team is. So let me play with you a little bit. You're a, 25 person manufacturing business. Yeah. Probably. Let me change that out. You're a 20,000 person manufacturing business.
46
0,30:36,000 --> 0,30:39,000
Nah. Probably not. Probably not. No.
47
0,30:39,000 --> 0,30:45,000
Probably not. No. Some place some place in between, will there be a place where you will or you won't?
48
0,30:45,000 --> 0,31:09,000
The, the point I I think I'm trying to make with this is you have to assess where you are. I would not give up things that are strategic in nature to anyone while you're a small business. Good. I would say if you're less than a1000000, you're probably on the hook for it, unless you have a partner that's the strategic one and you're the execution of something else. I I would say that you're probably going to be heavily involved at least.
49
0,31:09,000 --> 0,31:14,000
I would speculate that even up to 10,000,000
50
0,31:14,000 --> 0,31:15,000
Oh, wow. Okay.
51
0,31:15,000 --> 0,32:34,000
You're still partially at least in the business. I have a client right now that's hovering between 6 and 7,000,000, 2 partners. They are still working a lot in the business. Now they're in kind of a transition phase. That's a uncomfortable zone for both of them. They've never been in this place before. They they literally started this up in the garage, one of their garages, and they did the work. They did the sales. They did the marketing. They did everything. So this is a scary transition for them, but they are hovering on the cusp of building out a leadership team, and we've had conversations in this. How do they do that? Building out a leadership team that they then have to delegate authority to and let go of that authority. They still got some responsibility, but they have to delegate authority to allow those people to do the job so that they get they can go take a break and go take a vacation someplace.
52
0,32:34,000 --> 0,32:36,000
Yeah.
53
0,32:36,000 --> 0,32:45,000
For guys like that, I kinda like to tease them as to setting a date for when they're gonna take a 3 month vacation.
54
0,32:45,000 --> 0,32:51,000
I mean, I it's called unemployment. I've done it, like, at least 6 times in my career. Oh, no. The the the the requirement
55
0,32:51,000 --> 0,32:56,000
is that they can take a 3 month vacation and come back, and the business
56
0,32:56,000 --> 0,33:56,000
has grown. Has grown. It's not not that it's not burned down. It's better. So I was at this entrepreneurial, filming for a week. Right? And one of the guys there, he builds barns. And, and his name is Richie Yoder. So he he's, like, you know, born Amish, 18 there's no longer Amish, but he builds barns still. And and he has this video where he builds a barn by himself in, like, a week. It's not it's by himself. Like a like, you know, interesting like, a £130 guy that you would be like, no way in this guy's anyway, the point was he came in, and he was like, one of the problems we're having with sales, this and there's something. And and while he was while he was there for the week, they closed $450,000 of barn sales. And I go, maybe you should travel a bit more. So I said, it's, like, maybe you should get out of the way. Exactly. He's closed a third of your revenue for the year while you're out of town. Maybe you should go out of town more often. And do it again. Right. Like, you can you can come show me how to do that, because I would love to go out of town and disclose more than people. And you still it's just a funny guy.
57
0,33:56,000 --> 0,34:02,000
And and you just defined what scaling up is is.
58
0,34:02,000 --> 0,34:59,000
It it's making money while you're out. I mean, that's it. Right? That's it. Alright. I'm gonna put this conversation, though, to something. For scale with intent, it's not to get more stressed and be even more in your business and just have more shit to deal with and more people. For me, I'll give you my own personal account. The way I wanna scale the business is not just more bodies and people. I wanna find a way to exit at 10 x. So my only intent and and I would love to hear how you you personally work with this, because this is the promotional time of thing. But I'd like to do it in context of, I wanna find a business model that I don't and I'm not looking for a $100,000,000 exit. I wanna go find a repeatable model that I can do a 1,000,000 or a 1,000,000 to a year in business that somebody could see the bigger market with money they can go put in, put their own teams in, and they have a 10 or $15,000,000 business plus. Right? A year over year. How important is that, a, in the beginning or when you're rethinking your scale? And and, b, is is that the right way to think of what's your exit strategy as part of this?
59
0,34:59,000 --> 0,35:03,000
You start with the end in mind.
60
0,35:03,000 --> 0,35:13,000
How do how do you do that then with with your when you're working with a client? Like, is it sometimes come to Jesus like, hey. You you wanna get there, but you're thinking about it all wrong? Or what's the
61
0,35:13,000 --> 0,38:24,000
talk Yeah. It being processed a little bit. Yeah. Okay. So the question is it's not about what I think is the right thing. It's what do they want from their business. And if that's not even on their radar screen during that early phase, we don't talk about it. What what we talk about is what do they want, why do they want it, why is it important so that we make sure we're working on the steps that get them to where they wanna go. Now whether they wanna get to an exit strategy like you've expressed, that's one thing. If they just want to get to double of what they're at, then we'll work at the things that will take them to double of what they're at. So it it's entirely about what it what are their goals. Now then, we get to somebody who really, really wants to get to a exit strategy with, I don't know, $10,000,000. He gets $10,000,000 out of the business. I'm not talking about 10,000,000 from income. I'm talking about it's an asset sold for 10,000,000. Then we have to sit down and define what does that look like? What does the business look like at that stage? And then we it it's like building a a building. We build it out so that it looks like that. So it's it's really kind of a case of reverse engineering, what it needs to look like to get the outcome that that person's looking for with whatever business model he's working in. Now if we decide that the market isn't big enough to support that, then we have to do some other thinking about what do we add into it, what changes do we make to his market, how do we redefine his approach to the market, what new products do we need to, bring in that will bring it to a, a market size that looks good enough to get to that whatever number that is. And I've seen people I've talked to people in all kinds of places in their lives. Some are just happy with getting double their own personal income, and we'll do that. Some want to build an empire, and we'll do that. But I've actually talked to people that have a $100,000,000 businesses and were happy with where they were at even though they didn't have them in a sellable space and hadn't really figured out what they were gonna do other than they had a child, and that child was going to inherit it. Now that said, I'm not entirely certain the child knew he was gonna he or she was going to inherit it, but that's a different story altogether. It really comes down to what does that business owner want from their experience. On a personal level, I would think if they're gonna do that kind of work, that maybe that building out for an exit strategy of a sale at some point in time is desirable. But if that's not on their radar screen, then that's not what our topic of conversation is. We stick with what their radar screen is about.
62
0,38:24,000 --> 0,38:49,000
From so from advice, though, you're still saying it's probably better to have an end in mind. Like, you know, like, hey. What's why do you wanna double? Because you wanna be able to pay for a second home. You wanna Yes. Give your kids a a core half of the business, and and I wanna give them to California or whatever it is. It's better to have the the the idea in place. That way, you're you're aligned around something besides just revenue because you might get to revenue and be like,
63
0,38:49,000 --> 0,38:52,000
now Yeah. Now what? Right now. Yes. Yeah.
64
0,38:52,000 --> 0,38:55,000
I love that. And Yeah. Go ahead.
65
0,38:55,000 --> 0,40:18,000
You know, there's there we talk about a thing. We talk about a system we call an entrepreneurial ladder. There's 6 rungs and there's 6 steps in that ladder. 1st step is you're an employee or you're learning about business. 2nd step is you're self employed. You are you are the business and you got a couple of people doing some work for you. The next step is you are a manager. You built out a team. They're doing a bunch of stuff, but you're in those three places. You're still working for money. You don't become owner until you've transitioned to the place where the other people are doing the work for you, and then your money is working for you. And then you can take that money and get to the next step and become an investor in other businesses, and then you can take the next step and actually buy and build businesses and become an entrepreneur. Those top three rungs, the the the money is working for you instead of you working for it. Where do you wanna be in that scheme that that those those six different levels? And we can find a place that'll get you there a little bit more quickly than what you're doing right now. Well and that's maybe kind of just kinda conscious of time a little bit. Like, what's the,
66
0,40:18,000 --> 0,40:34,000
what is the timeline for I know it varies, but, like, you know, as part of your program, is it 90 days, 17 weeks, every week, we can meet? Like, what what do you what do you recommend? What do people do? And I would probably give an options, but, like, what's the what's the most effective option you've seen?
67
0,40:34,000 --> 0,41:37,000
Alright. So the question is is where are you starting from and how fast do you wanna go? I would say that if I'm working at my, what I call, silver level, we're working in a way that we're working weekly, 1 on 1. And you could depending on where you're starting from, I'm gonna guess 5 to 7 years to get to a place where you're out of the business, out of the in. You're on completely on the business. On the other hand, we could have you all the way down in a group or a a group scenario where you're working with 2 or 3 other business owners. You're sharing an hour a week, and that's gonna take years to build your yourself out because it's a much slower pace that we're working at. You're probably also your budget's a lot less. So you're starting at a lot smaller place. 10 years could be reasonable.
68
0,41:37,000 --> 0,41:40,000
Do they ever have the ones that go much faster than that?
69
0,41:40,000 --> 0,41:48,000
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I had one business owner go from 700,000 of revenue to 3,200,000 in 3 years.
70
0,41:48,000 --> 0,42:23,000
How how much, in those scenarios is it market driven? Meaning, like, if you were building, you know, industrial warehouses and you were and you were in position to be that guy or that team, you know, in the last during COVID, you would have exploded. Right? You so you had you needed 2 things. You had to be in the position with the business model to do it, and you had to have a giantly growing market. Or mortgage would be another example. I think it's it's the one that we're talking about sometimes too. You have a mortgage boom. You have to be in a position and in a market. So what what's probably more important, be in the position or the market, or is it both?
71
0,42:23,000 --> 0,44:08,000
I would say both. You have and and and it depends entirely on what the economy is doing. So you you brought up mortgage, and, I have worked with a handful now of loan officers during a period of time that the interest rates were really, really low. I took a loan officer from selling about 35,000,000 to selling a 153,000,000 in 3 years. Now at that the end of that 3rd year, their market changed rather drastically, and he's backed down to about 45,000,000 of sales at this particular point in time. But on the other hand, he has grown, if you will, his market share and has been performing at the top 1% of loan officers in the country. So the things he has done has positioned himself so that when the rates come down, the the the real estate market changes around, he's in a really good position to be right back up above a 100 significantly above a 100,000,000. That's you know, the so it it there's a bit of an economy issue here, but there's a lot of mindset. It's there's an awful lot going on between the ears. Somebody who wants it and is willing to step out of their comfort zone can get anything, any kind of results they want. Somebody who's really gonna really gonna let his fears drive his decision making and takes it in just one one half quarter inch at a time,
72
0,44:08,000 --> 0,44:24,000
then it's a lot slower process. Yeah. Well, and and sometimes too, I think it's, there's it's focused too. Right? So it's so many hours you can put into it to do it. So if you can, Yeah. You know, of all, you know, you know, law, small numbers. If it's important,
73
0,44:24,000 --> 0,44:25,000
you'll find a way.
74
0,44:25,000 --> 0,44:37,000
You know, I have the same conversation with my wife when I forget to do the thing that she's asked me to do 50,000 times. She's like, if it was important to you, remember. And I can't argue.
75
0,44:37,000 --> 0,44:38,000
Yeah.
76
0,44:38,000 --> 0,44:54,000
Yeah. That's not true, because sometimes things are important. I forget all the time. I'll forget my putter on a green. Okay. And it's very important to me that I have that putter. Here's the thing, honey. I haven't lost that putter in 20 years, so, I will eventually get it back.
77
0,44:54,000 --> 0,44:58,000
As long as you keep the credit cards in your pocket.
78
0,44:58,000 --> 0,45:16,000
That's right. Here we go. You know how many times I've gone to the golf store and held that Scottie Cameron in my pocket and hand them, like, oh, I'm gonna buy it. And I'm, like, $600. Yeah. So we're gonna help. Little details like that. Then I'm, like, I've broken 3 of these in my life already. So
79
0,45:16,000 --> 0,45:19,000
it's Can I take this one out and practice with it?
80
0,45:19,000 --> 0,45:59,000
No. It's not. Come back bent. Yeah. It didn't work. Yeah. I'm not sure how it got bent, but Yeah. For and that tree may have something to do with it. Yeah. Well, that that guy ran over it. Steve, Chiama Kiama dot action coach dot com. I've put it on the screen a bunch of times. That's how people should get ahold of you. Fair enough to say someone that's in a growing business, they're starting to feel maybe the pinch of non scale figuring out how can I scale to take it to the next level? And it might not be a $1,000,000 business. You might just be like, hey. Listen. I'm doing, like, a couple 100 a year. Looks like I'm gonna do 3 this year or 4, but I'm also seeing I'm out of time. What where where and how you find those little pockets to help them
81
0,45:59,000 --> 0,46:54,000
scale. I can I can help them find ways to get time? And it's a matter of sitting down and understanding them enough, learning about them. We'll find a way that they can they can make the time to take one step and then the time to take another step, and they can build it. It's like I like to tell construction people it's like building a wall of bricks. You start with brick 1, and you work from there. It's more of tiling a floor. It's like putting the first tile in and going from there. You do it 1 at a time. You make sure it's in the right place, then you put the next one in, then you put the next one in. You don't start in the middle. Yeah. It's also a very good analogy because the first layer of bricks always takes longer. It's because you gotta get the foundation and get it all set up. And then you hire someone
82
0,46:54,000 --> 0,46:56,000
to do all of it.
83
0,46:56,000 --> 0,47:01,000
Now then, we have just discovered where time comes from. I
84
0,47:01,000 --> 0,47:18,000
didn't I didn't even know if I need a wall. You know also didn't build a wall. Just kidding. I'm gonna leave it out there. We're not gonna go down that path. We'll leave we'll leave that one out. Yeah. Yeah. That's if anybody got to this part in the podcast and heard that, they're like, oh, god. Don't do that. I'm just having fun with it. It's an election year. I had to say something because why not?
85
0,47:18,000 --> 0,47:33,000
Watch the Not to Look. A a interesting place to think about where to get time from, and you brought up one tool, and that's chat GPT. Another tool is virtual assistant, where you only pay for what you need, and you can work from there.
86
0,47:33,000 --> 0,48:10,000
I will tell you that the biggest thing that saves me about 9 hours a week on one inbox is my AI that I use. And so for and I have a couple active inboxes. My personal one, I don't even apply it to because it would just be like because I'm not in there enough. But it saves me truly between the 2 inboxes about, on average, a full workday plus a few minutes every week because I'm not doing email. Yeah. And I and more importantly, it brought my stress levels down. So I'll tell you that's probably the biggest time consuming Saver I've had is Perfect. In in it's called SaneBox. I don't care if people use it. I'll put it out there, but it's it's I don't get any money for it, but it does keep you more sane.
87
0,48:10,000 --> 0,48:13,000
It does. It does. Cool. Awesome. Thank you, Steve.
88
0,48:13,000 --> 0,48:24,000
I'll I'll, I'll put you in the periwinkle room here. There's no snacks. It's digital. So you know how it is. Why no snacks? Oh, come on. Ice cream? I scream. You scream. We all scream for custard.
89
0,48:24,000 --> 0,48:26,000
There we go.
90
0,48:26,000 --> 0,49:32,000
Thank you, Steve. Everybody, thank you so much for who made it today. You if you wanna know how to scale your business next level, just have quite get in touch with, Steve. He's he truly is super knowledgeable, and and I I get to meet with him almost weekly just because, we know he's such other outside of, the podcast here, and he is truly brilliant in the space, and and does really good sincere work, like, no bullshit, like, actually knows what he's doing, really good coach. I don't get anything for promote. I'm just telling you if you want a coach that I would trust, that's who I trust. So, listen. This is all about helping entrepreneurs get better in entrepreneurship. Scale is a big piece of it. Growing your business is hard enough. It gets even harder when you realize, oh god. I can't scale it. And and then it's kind of kinda like unraveling a if you go fishing the rat's nest of of your fishing line because you're like, oh gosh. I love fishing, but what is this mess I've done? You need people to help you know how to unravel kind of the mess sometimes that you create by creating success, and Steve is one of those guys. Get out there until we meet again. Go unleash that entrepreneur. Thank you for listening to the Never Been Promoted podcast.
91
0,49:32,000 --> 0:49:34,000
Thank you for listening to the Never Been Promoted podcast. If you liked today's show, subscribe at youtube.comforward/at never been promoted. Until next time. Get out there and go unleash your inner entrepreneur.