Growth, Hiring, and Imposter Syndrome | Ep 288

Summary

Build with Leila Hormozi: Growth, Hiring, and Imposter Syndrome | Episode 288 Summary

In Episode 288 of Build with Leila Hormozi, host Leila Hormozi delves deep into the intertwined challenges of scaling businesses, effective hiring strategies, and overcoming imposter syndrome. Through insightful conversations with entrepreneurs navigating growth pains, Leila offers actionable advice to build unshakeable businesses.

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1. Scaling Fast: Navigating Team Constraints

Guest: Peter Livingston
Timestamp Highlight: [01:00] Peter discusses scaling his faith-based nonprofit from $6 million to $15 million in revenue.

Peter Livingston shares his struggle with scaling his nonprofit organization, which serves men aged 24 to 54 with practical life assistance. The primary bottleneck he faces is growing faster than his team can manage, leading to challenges in deciding when to invest in coaching versus hiring more skilled team members.

Notable Quote:
Peter Livingston [01:00]: "We're scaling faster than our team can handle from a pacing perspective. So we're hiring, which will help. But how do we know when we need coaching for the team members that are on the bubble..."

Leila's Insight:
Leila emphasizes the importance of hiring individuals who come preloaded with the necessary skills to minimize training time. She advises defining clear skill requirements in job listings to attract candidates who can hit the ground running, especially crucial during rapid growth phases.

Notable Quote:
Leila Hormozi [01:45]: "When you're hiring somebody, I'm thinking, what skills do I want them to already come into the job with? Because I think that they'll take too long to train."

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2. Hiring for High Growth: Skills and Cultural Fit

Discussion Points:

• Transitioning from generalists to specialists to elevate team performance.
• Importance of leadership experienced in high-growth environments.
• Setting clear expectations and fostering a culture of urgency and efficiency.

Notable Quote:
Leila Hormozi [06:21]: "In a company that's fast growing... you want to look for people who do not have old career energy... I can sense it when they get a little ruffled during feedback."

Leila stresses the need for leaders who have navigated the growth journey themselves, highlighting that the pace and challenges of scaling a company require a different mindset than what is typically cultivated in large, established organizations.

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3. Overcoming Burnout: Delegation and Diversification

Guest: Michelle Haynes
Timestamp Highlight: [11:29] Michelle outlines her mortgage brokerage's reliance on referrals and the exhaustion from managing all aspects solo.

Michelle Haynes discusses her mortgage brokerage’s growth from $300,000 to a projected $600,000 this year, aiming for $2 million. Her business heavily depends on referral partners, with minimal involvement in advertising. The primary challenge lies in scaling without burning out, as her first employee handles administrative tasks, leaving her stretched thin.

Notable Quote:
Michelle Haynes [11:29]: "Our entire all of our business comes from referral partners. We've never run an ad. I don't know how to run an ad."

Leila's Strategy:
Leila advises hiring additional personnel to handle lead generation and sales operations, potentially allowing Michelle to focus on high-impact tasks. She suggests training new hires closely by shadowing to maintain conversion rates and ensuring consistency in business development.

Notable Quote:
Leila Hormozi [14:00]: "I would bring someone else in... have them learn exactly what you're doing and then find a way to get one more person to call the leads."

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4. Balancing Passion and Operations: Insights from a Tennis Academy

Guest: Tom
Timestamp Highlight: [28:30] Tom seeks strategies to scale his tennis academy while maintaining the quality of coaching.

Tom runs a tennis academy generating approximately $515,000 in revenue with aspirations to reach millions. His challenge is balancing the operational demands of scaling with his passion for coaching. Leila emphasizes the importance of defining clear business goals and duplicating successful processes without overcomplicating them.

Notable Quote:
Leila Hormozi [35:41]: "Raise the price, duplicate a different one. You're going to have enough problems between now and then."

Leila suggests focusing on expanding existing successful models, such as increasing pricing and replicating the coaching structure in new locations, while meticulously planning the financial and operational aspects of such expansions.

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5. Managing Multiple Offers and Reducing Content Burnout

Guest: Taline
Timestamp Highlight: [39:25] Taline discusses her dual-business model of supplements and an app for women with PCOS, striving to reach $10 million.

Taline and her husband operate a supplement company and an app aimed at helping women with PCOS lose weight, collectively earning $3.2 million. They face challenges in managing content creation across both products, leading to burnout and a lack of cohesive marketing strategies.

Notable Quote:
Leila Hormozi [43:48]: "You need to define your roles and have it written down. Everybody on our team knows who's doing what."

Leila advises Taline to clearly delineate roles within the business to enhance efficiency and reduce overlap. She also recommends hiring a dedicated marketer to amplify their brand through paid ads, thereby reducing the content creation burden and increasing revenue streams.

Notable Quote:
Leila Hormozi [42:15]: "You need to redefine your roles... and bring in a person that can help with the paid ads piece."

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6. Addressing Imposter Syndrome and Leadership Challenges

Throughout the episode, Leila touches upon the pervasive imposter syndrome among entrepreneurs, where despite visible success, leaders feel uncertain about their capabilities in navigating new business heights. This sentiment is echoed by guests who fret over scaling, managing teams, and maintaining quality without adequate support.

Notable Quote:
Leila Hormozi [12:02]: "Success doesn't create the feelings you want. Success and happiness and contentness and certainty. Also different."

Leila emphasizes that feeling out of depth is a natural part of growth and advocates for seeking mentorship and building a supportive network to bolster confidence and decision-making abilities.

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Conclusion: Building Resilient and Scalable Businesses

Episode 288 encapsulates the multifaceted challenges of scaling a business, from hiring the right talent and fostering a growth-oriented culture to managing burnout and overcoming internal doubts. Leila Hormozi provides strategic insights, advocating for clear role definitions, strategic hiring, and the importance of maintaining personal well-being amidst business expansion.

Final Notable Quote:
Leila Hormozi [59:10]: "If you keep letting that fear control, you also stall your progress... It’s going to be okay, and the business will survive."

Listeners are left with a reinforced understanding that strategic planning, delegation, and self-awareness are pivotal in transforming burgeoning businesses into resilient, scalable enterprises.

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Key Takeaways:

• Strategic Hiring: Prioritize candidates with pre-existing skills suited for rapid growth and a cultural fit aligned with company values.
• Clear Role Definitions: Ensure team members know their responsibilities to enhance efficiency and reduce overlap.
• Delegation to Prevent Burnout: Offload tasks that drain core leaders to maintain focus on high-impact activities.
• Embrace Uncertainty: Acknowledge and manage imposter syndrome by seeking mentorship and building supportive networks.
• Operational Duplication: Replicate successful business models meticulously to sustain growth without compromising quality.

By addressing these elements, entrepreneurs can navigate the complexities of scaling, fostering environments where both business and individuals thrive.

Transcript

[Laila]

I do think in a company that's fast growing, in a company where you have things that you like to do more your way, you want to look for people who are not, don't have old career energy, which is if somebody's already had like the pinnacle moment in their career and they are looking to come in and they're like, I just want to find somebody who I can basically tell them how to do it my way. I try to give people feedback on interview and when they don't accept the feedback or they get a little ruffled, then I'm like, all right, this is one of those people. What's up? How you guys doing? You guys good? Energy? Yeah, Feeling good. Okay, great. So we will. Yeah, we're gonna get right into it. Right into it.

[Peter Livingston]

Let's do it.

[Laila]

All right. Amazing.

[Samuel]

So my name is Peter Livingston and I work for a faith based nonprofit and we sell classes and books and education to men 50, 24 to 25 to 54 who need practical help in life. And we're about at 6 million in revenue. We're trying to get to 15. And the thing that's stopping us is that we're scaling faster than our team can handle from a pacing perspective. So we're hiring, which will help. But how do we, how do we know when we need coaching for the team members that are on the bubble and just to give them more time versus when have we passed the threshold that we're outpacing or out or not able to coach those team members into becoming what we need them to be?

[Laila]

A tough question because I think it comes down to the business model and what you want to do now and in the future. So let me explain. When you're hiring people, so you're hiring people for a position, you want to think, okay, what skills does this person need to come in already like preloaded with like, I'm not going to take the time to train them on these skills. And that's where we list requirements, right? It's like you want to come in with these skills. Like I think degree, all that, it's bullshit. We just want skills, right? We, we approximate a degree approximates to a skill and that's why we put it on there. But really we want someone to have skills. And so whenever I'm thinking about hiring somebody, I'm thinking, what skills do I want them to already come into the job with? Because I think that they'll take too long to train. That's the first thing I think about when I'm hiring. Now, then when somebody comes in, if everybody is taking too long to train, then maybe we don't have the right type of mix of the teammates or maybe we don't have the right level of skill of the person. The other way that you could look at it is like, okay, well how much do we want to invest in the people? I think that it's a ratio more than like, do we want to or do we not want to? Which is like, I think as a team, when a team's small and you're not growing fast, it's easier to invest in people. There's less people to invest in. You have more time and you have more resources. And then when you're scaling, you need to be doing the thing and then it's like everyone's just trying to find extra time to pour into people, which is usually when people have to switch into. Okay, now I need to hire people who come with more skills.

[Samuel]

Yeah, that's our problem. More the second.

[Laila]

Yeah. Okay, so you're at the point now where would you say coming in, like, what are the skills? Let's be like super specific. What are the skills that are missing in the teammates or that you're working on training into them?

[Samuel]

Yeah. So I, I would say we're a young team. So like there's a level of polish that we're trying to instill into the team and drive culture. Like, but I think that we're kind of going from generalists more to specialists. And so on the leadership team we've got guys that have talent, but their ability to manage a team and deliver on their job, that's one of the things that we're really working on. And then we're just trying to bring in more specialists that can raise the bar professionally of like what the expectations are.

[Laila]

Yeah. So there's no straightforward answer. It's like multiple golden BBs here. Um, how what's your leadership team look like? Like, what's it comprised of and how experienced are those people?

[Samuel]

Yeah, so C CEO Landon, CEO myself, and then we've got a head of sales and marketing and then operations. And operations for us is producing content. So we do a lot of content. We have one content provider that produces about a billion views last year. So we have a wide end of the funnel on social. Um, and so everything we do is digital and kind of a one to many system.

[Laila]

And have you ever grown a business like this before?

[Samuel]

I've worked for large brands before, so I haven't been from the ground floor at this level. I've been From I worked for a lot of billion dollar brands, so I've done larger things, but not from this level of scale to, you know, from one to six is where we've gone from the past two years.

[Laila]

Yeah.

[Samuel]

And then trying to get to 15 in the next couple.

[Laila]

So let me ask you this. How do you guys train people?

[Samuel]

Right now it's a lot of on the job training. We're implementing more of a robust onboarding system which is focused on a lot of culture and then a one on one onboarding for the actual job and the role specifically. Um, and so that's one of the things we do want to improve is like our onboarding process. Because I know there's tons of good data on retention and how much that matters for, you know, what that employee is going to end up being in their tenure and whatnot. But that's one of the areas we definitely need to grow in.

[Laila]

Okay, let me ask you this. So if you're like, how, when do I know I've put too much or I've put enough time into training somebody, what does the mechanism of training look like? Like are they watching a video, Are they watching you do something? Are they sitting? Like what does that usually look like?

[Samuel]

Yeah, it's usually on the job training with someone who has either done the job or is overseeing them.

[Laila]

So they're shadowing them.

[Samuel]

Yeah, exactly. And we do a, we do a crawl walk, run a phase with most things. So it's like, I do it, you watch, then I do it, you help, then you do it, I watch, so on and so forth.

[Laila]

That's fantastic. I think based on everything that you're telling me, where I think that you would get the most is the onboarding for sure. Like one of the first things I did when we went into high growth in gym launch, which was like eight years ago maybe when that happened was I just was maniacal about the onboarding and how much time you put into people in that and how it's structured and how many touch points there were and how much context transfer. So structuring that out as ruthlessly as you would if you were, I looked at like this, I just used this frame as like, okay, so let's say that you just sold an enterprise client that they're going to make the company $150,000 a year. How are you going to onboard that person? Okay, well let's look at the employee and think about how much revenue they're going to help generate. Why would we not onboard with that kind of vigor and So I think that's a good frame shift. The second piece is that it's kind of like there's two ways that you have to do it, which is like one, I think at the leadership level maybe you need to consider that you need to bring in even just one person who has a little bit more experience in a high growth company. It's very different to have operated in a large company and to have operated in a small or medium company. But to have gone from small to medium to large is completely different. So something I look for constantly in people that I'm recruiting. When I'm in, I'm in high growth is like it's not good enough that they've just been here. I need people who have been through.

[Samuel]

The journey, ascended to there.

[Laila]

Yeah, exactly. Because it's a different pace that you have to take. And the reality is this is that you will not be slown down by most likely your marketing or your sales or your market, but your people. So slow people slow business. And it's not for everybody. It's like, it's just not. And so it's like if you want your business to go faster, you have to look at people who like have a sense of urgency and work with a bit of intensity. Like I look for people who have a little bit of a chip on their shoulder. I do. Right. And it's like Alex does like we're a little weird and so like I'm just being honest. So like I look for people like that to join the company because I see the people that come and they apply and they, they're like, oh, I've been at the companies where it's 80. I was like, you don't have enough anxiety for this. So like there's not a little, like you just don't have that drive, it's just not there. And like this isn't going to work. You're not going to like this. Right? Right. You're not going to like it, you're not going to go fast enough. And so I think it's a little bit of looking for that, especially with leaders that you're bringing in. The second piece is setting the expectations for people on the team, which is like how you want to work. And I think constantly reinforcing to them what high growth looks like and how you act in accordance with it. And what's normal is something that you have to continue to embed in the team. Because here's the thing, for example, like I just made a podcast on this because I think it's really important subject, which is why a company is growing quickly and they have a really potent culture. I don't view hiring, I don't view firing people as bad because I'm letting go of people who are clearly not a culture fit and clearly dragging down the other hundred people in this company. I'm doing us a favor by getting them off the bus so I can protect everybody else who's on here. Most companies firing people like that means, oh, the company's not doing well, oh, the person, the company didn't give them a shot, the company didn't. There's so many instances like that that have to be a reframe. The other one is change. Change in a lot of organizations means things are bad, things no longer work things when in high growth things are constantly changing. And so the change management has to be normalized to people like, this is good. This is just how we do business. So for what you're asking, there is not one cookie cutter answer because it's a million little things. But I'm curious which one resonated.

[Samuel]

Yeah, I think that the. They all resonated. Like we've been, we've been doing a lot more cultured talk or conversations and lunch and learns and whatnot on pacing because we've realized like in the hiring process that's a differentiator of like not only asking pacing related questions, but then asking experiential questions to show if they really are that or not. We've also thought about doing the Colby just to kind of see where people are on the quick start in terms of like the hiring process. But I think, I think I really like what you were saying about because we, we do have a lead team slot that we need to hire. And thinking about someone who has been through that growth journey, I think that is, that's something I hadn't thought about quite in that way. That's super helpful.

[Laila]

I also think it's the frame which is so many people, especially like as an employer, people are fearful of setting the frame for the people on the intake call or like when you're setting like this is what we're looking for in the job because there's been, there's so much regulation and there's HR bullshit and all this stuff. But like the most powerful thing that I think about is like my job is not to sell you on the job. My job is to tell you exactly what it's like inside this company. And if you don't fuck with that, then you don't take the job and I almost look at it as like, you know, I'll say to someone, I'll be like, I don't know, I scared the fuck out of that guy and he still wants a job. So, you know, like, I mean, you know, it's just like, I mean, it's the honest truth. Because when you're grow going fast, I'll give you an example. Like, there's two roles I just hired for and I was like, dude, it's so fucked up. Like, that's why I told them. I'm like, I don't know. It's really fucked up. So, like, you're gonna have to fix all that and I can't really help you cause I don't have the skill. And then they're like, great. I actually like fixing that shit versus, like people who have just like been at this level in a company forever. They're like, oh, God, how do we fix that? You know, I don't want that right now. So I think a lot on the front end can help set the tone for how people act. Because culture is just the norm of how people interact. Like act in your company. And if your culture was one of speed, they would act with speed right now. But it's not yet. And so that tells me it's like the front end is the main piece that you've leveraged at. And then even telling people, I don't think I've reinforced this enough. Guys, we have to act with urgency. We need to go fast. We're not making haste decisions, but we're every day in the micro going quickly. I think it's just more of that messaging will help a ton, especially if it comes from know the sea level. Yeah.

[Samuel]

Awesome. Thank you so much.

[Laila]

Of course.

[Michelle Haynes]

Hey, Lea, how are you?

[Laila]

Hi. Good. How are you?

[Michelle Haynes]

My name is Samuel and I'm a mortgage broker from Sydney, Australia. We did 300,000 last year. I say we. It was just me, I first employee.

[Laila]

Me and my imaginary friend.

[Michelle Haynes]

I did 300,000 last year and I and my first employee as of a couple of months ago, on track this year so far to double last year. And I would like to get the business to 2 million in revenue ASAP. How quickly I can do that? I guess my question is I feel like I have a million questions. But the main thing is, and selfishly, if you were me, how would you get the business to 2 million revenue? Our entire all of our business comes from referral partners. We've never run an ad. I don't know how to run an ad. It's just been from referral partners and then existing clients referring business. So I guess, yeah, that My question would be, have you worked with mortgage broking businesses in the past and what's worked, if anything?

[Laila]

Yeah, it's specific to the business. There's a million ways, just like any business that you could grow it. So the question is this, which is like, why are you not at 2 million right now? Is it that you don't have enough leads from the referral mechanism? Is it that you don't know how to convert those leads? Is it which one of those?

[Michelle Haynes]

Not enough leads. And almost all aspects of the business, I feel like I don't know what I'm doing.

[Laila]

That makes sense. With where you're at right now, that's normal though, so just like get used to that. Okay.

[Michelle Haynes]

I feel just as confused now as when we did. I did zero dollars. Like, I just thought it would feel different. Doesn't feel any different.

[Laila]

Success doesn't create the feelings you want. Success and happiness and contentness and certainty. Also different. No, because it's just like new problems at a new level. You know what I mean? Like at every level in business, unless you've been there before, you're going to feel like you don't know what the fuck you're doing. And people will tell you this and that and this and that, but it's just like everyone's just trying to do their best. I mean, I can say that even like at the level with acquisition.com, it's like, of course there's an element of like, well, now I haven't been to this level. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing now. You know what I mean? It's like you can accommodate for all the levels below now. I think the more you learn, the more you like pattern recognition. There's the same cycles at different levels. Just a different magnitude of problem or magnitude of the cycle you have to go through. Of like, all right, it's leads, it's customer success, it's retention, it's employees. Whatever it is for you, if it's in terms of getting leads, it's just you, right, doing all of this now?

[Michelle Haynes]

I have one employee with me full time helping because I needed the help.

[Laila]

I was okay. And what are they doing?

[Michelle Haynes]

Like administrative stuff, inputting data and documents, et cetera? Yeah, just all the stuff that takes up a lot of my time, really.

[Laila]

So how do you get leads right now?

[Michelle Haynes]

Referrals from accountants.

[Laila]

Like how do you ask them for leads?

[Michelle Haynes]

Oh, I can just get either introduced to them through my existing network or I'll just call them and say, hey, I'm coming into the office to chat. And then I tell them I'm really great.

[Laila]

And then I like, fuck off.

[Michelle Haynes]

No, I do some research on them before I call them and I, you know, build some rapport over the phone and then I just say, I'm the best, you should work with me. And then, and then they give me something and I don't know what I'm doing. I have to figure it out.

[Taline]

So.

[Laila]

Okay, and so here's my question. Are there no more accountants left to call or is it that they're not referring business to you or is it that you don't have time?

[Michelle Haynes]

I think it's a mixture of both. And I partly part of me feels like I know the answer, which is just like, just call more people and just get in front of more people. More or less. Oh, yeah.

[Laila]

Also.

[Taline]

Yeah.

[Michelle Haynes]

I wanted to ask if you've, if you've worked with a mortgage working business in the past and what's worked, has it worked to kind of just call more people, get more relationships and more referral partners, or is it better for me to onboard more brokers?

[Laila]

You need to stop asking this question because this is the thing. Every business has their own unique advantage. So like, yes, I've worked with mortgage brokers and so some of them use referrals, some of them use paid ads, some of them have an organic following. It doesn't matter. It's the same as any business.

[Tom]

Okay.

[Laila]

And so it's just what is already working for you? We don't want to say, you know what, I don't know if we can get more referrals. So I'm going to run paid ads. It's like, what a fucking waste. You're going to give up on this thing that's already making your company to where it's at. Now the next logical step is that you've been doing it and it's been working. But. But it's just you. So my first thought is like, okay, so you're calling them, you're doing these things. Why don't we get somebody else that can sit next to you, learn how you call them? And then all they do is fucking dial all day. And then maybe what you do is first they dial all day, you go into the office and have the conversation. And over time that person can train so that they can make the dials and go into the office and have the conversation and then you're just facilitating and overseeing everything on the back end. That's the area where I think you're going to get the most leverage. Now the key is this. For you to keep conversion at the same percentage that you convert people at. You need that person to literally like be tied to your hip. Like, they need to watch you, they need to sit with you for like weeks. They need to hear everything you say. They need to draft a script out of what you say on the phone. They need to come with you in person and follow you and listen to what you say to that person in the room. And then they need to understand somewhat what happens after. That's what I would do. If I were you, I'd be like, well, you've not run ads before. You don't have an organic following. You've been doing referrals. It's working. But the constraint is that's just you. So it makes sense that you would bring somebody else in. You would have them just learn exactly what you're doing and then you would figure out how to get one more person to call the leads and generate business from the referrals. That's what I would do.

[Michelle Haynes]

Okay, perfect. Thank you very much.

[Laila]

Of course.

[Michelle Haynes]

Thanks.

[Laila]

So quiet. That's a new stage.

[G]

It does feel like we should clap after someone's done talking more for you, for them. I don't know.

[Laila]

Don't clap for. It's quiet.

[G]

Not you. Okay.

[Laila]

No, it's just. I think it's actually a new AB system. It doesn't buzz anymore. It's nice.

[G]

There's no hum. Right. Leila. Good to meet you. My name is Michelle Haynes. I sell software services. More specifically partnership. Long term, vested partnership when it comes to technical implementation.

[Laila]

I don't know what that means. Can you explain again?

[G]

Yeah. It means I don't want one project. I want to be with you for 10 years and anything you need, technically, I want to do that for you and provide that service.

[Laila]

So you're like outsourced tech for a business.

[G]

You got it.

[Laila]

Okay, that makes sense.

[G]

We do about 35 million in revenue right now. We'd like to be at 50 million by end of 2026. And we've been at 35 million for three years in a row. I'm going to reframe this question. It's less about what's stopping me, it's more of. I know that the problem is focus. I would love to hear more from you. You lived this, you experienced this. Running at 35 million is not what was required when we were running at 10 or 15. And none of us really know what the fuck we're doing either. Like, we just wake up every day, what needs to be done, we get it done. We look at is it gonna work long term. What's your advice for creating that focus when you're needed everywhere and you don't have the training to do the things that you necessarily are responsible for doing, but you care.

[Laila]

Sounds like you let other people dictate where your focus goes rather than you. That's a problem. You're accommodating. So this is what happens, and this is for everybody in here, is that you are the founder, the CEO, some of you the coo, you're at the top of the company, every single person. This is never gonna get less. It's always gonna get more. They all want something from you. They want your time, they want your resources, they want your money, they want your attention, they want your approval. And what you have to recognize is that that only becomes a scarcer resource. And if you don't make it a scarcer resource, then it is the reason the company doesn't grow. And you have to treat. This is the hardest thing for so many people. You have to treat your time differently than what you did a year ago, two years ago, three years ago. I say this all the time. If my calendar looks the same quarter over quarter, I'm doing my company a disservice because it means I'm not gonna grow. So if you're, if your calendar looks the same, are you accepting the same conversations? Are you saying yes to the same hour long bullshit meetings? Are you still allowing other people who don't know what you're focused on or don't know how to grow a company to dictate where you should spend your time.

[G]

Yes, I am. I'm doing that.

[Laila]

I want to make you angry about this.

[G]

I'm feeling very passionate.

[Laila]

Yes, I get passionate about it because it is. Really think about it. Right? So there's people in your company who have less context than you on what's important and what's happening. And you are allowing them to dictate where you spend your time, rather than you just dictating where I need to spend my time. And with what I have left over, I will spread those resources to the people who are asking for it if I think it's worth my time, because it might not be. So I look at it like this. The way that you dictate how you spend your time and what you prioritize is also how you train Your team on how they do their time and how they use their time, and you train them on how to use you. And so like, there's two things with this, which is like, one, you become the reason that the company can't grow because they're constantly. One of my mentors says on the teat, like, they won't let go. They're still. They're not even on bottle feeding yet. You know what I mean? And that is a terrible analogy that I will take off of my recordings.

[G]

But that on the Internet, it really lands.

[Laila]

But it was men that use this analogy, not women. And I didn't think about it. So anyways, you. You're allowing them to be dependent on you. And so it's very common with people, especially if you're more empathetic and you care about people. I'm the same way. It's very common for me to be like, I understand you're having a hard time.

[G]

Figure it out.

[Laila]

I still can't. You have to figure the fuck out.

[G]

Still no.

[Laila]

Right, Exactly. And so the question is, you've known this. Your company hasn't grown, and it's still not enough for you to change it. So what else is in.

[G]

I would say delegating, allocating, giving those responsibilities over to a team that's capable. And I'll share a little bit more context because context is decisive. We have a really high success rate with homegrown leaders.

[Laila]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[G]

And when we hire in people with experience, they tend to pee in your Cheerios. Right? It's like, here's. That's just what it is.

[Laila]

Right?

[G]

It's just, here's the way to do it. Here's how you should fix it. This is the process. And I say off like you have no idea.

[Peter Livingston]

Right?

[Laila]

We.

[G]

We've gotten to where we are today. That doesn't mean I'm attached to the structure we have. I'm open. We all have to learn and grow, but we're not gonna just swap out bodies for skill sets to get to some arbitrary number. It's like we're in it for the people. We care and we wanna grow. So it's an and conversation. People come first. And yet we can't take care of people unless we're taking care of the business.

[Laila]

Why does taking care of people mean that we don't change what we've done? Or open to testing things.

[G]

Can I use a real example? I'm going to use a real.

[Laila]

Yeah, use a real example, please.

[G]

And we're. This is a little strange. I'm not the founder of the company, so I want to say that where I didn't start it, and yet it feels like mine. And that's why I'm here, and the CEO is not. And I've got two colleagues with me, and we've been having some. They can keep me honest, so anything I say is bullshit. They can stand up and say, oh.

[Laila]

Geez, are you guys gonna, like, overthrow the crown?

[G]

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It's up to them. Well, can fight for it. Take it.

[Laila]

I don't want any part in this.

[G]

You're the tiebreaker, Leila. No. So Skyler comes to me. He's doing business development, and he's like, listen, if I'm not the leader, you need to get to 100 million. You do what you got to do to get to a hundred million. And my commitment to business and people is to say, you're the guy. Now, you might not have the skill set, but I'm not going to do this without you being a part of becoming $100 million companies. You're not a commodity. I'm not like, hey, you're out. You didn't get the job done. Let's go. It's like, how can you he get the skills he needs so that we can go far together? So that's where the business and the people part. Sometimes they grind a little bit.

[Laila]

Yeah, well, if. If you look at it like that, like, why would it be bad to bring somebody above you who knows more than you, who can mentor you, invest in you, and you can stay with the company and learn from that person? I would love to. And that means the whole company would succeed.

[G]

How do you find those people that don't want to pee in your Cheerios, you know?

[Laila]

Well, there's. You're gonna have to try harder, for one. Meaning. I think the issue a lot of companies have is that they don't frame. Like, so much more is trainable than people think. And so much more is about how you frame somebody coming in. So when I have somebody new come in. Actually, when Ed came in, Ed came in and he was like, oh, I see all these. And I was like, nope, nothing. Don't touch. Fucking shit. I need you to build relationships with people. I know you have great ideas, but for the first two to three months, I don't want you to touch anything because then you, you know, you just piss everybody off. This isn't, like, abnormal. It's what everyone wants to do because you hire somebody who's competent. Why? Because of the skills they have. So what do they assume if you don't say anything? They assume that they should go change the thing.

[G]

I have to go fix it.

[Laila]

Right. But if you're communicating consistently, then why would they do that? So where's the communication gap?

[G]

Yeah.

[Laila]

Do you get what I'm saying?

[G]

Totally.

[Laila]

The second piece to it is that I do think in a company that's fast growing, in a company where you have things that you like to do more your way, you want to look for people who are not at, I would say, like, don't have old career energy, which is if somebody's already had, like, the pinnacle moment in their career and they are looking to come in and they're like, I just want to find somebody who I can basically tell them how to do it my way. And you can usually sense that because I try to give people feedback on interview, and when they don't accept the feedback or they get a little ruffled that I'm like, all right, this is one of those people you're trying to be like, oh, I'm going to tell young little Layla what to do. I'm like, I'm good book. So your advice. Right. And so it's not that I don't want your input. It's not that I want your opinions, but I don't want somebody trying to be my boss. And so I think that you don't want that, of course. But I think a lot of this is just the frightening when you're speaking to people like, there's. This is a communication issue, in my opinion, from everything you're telling me. And it's a belief problem, which is like, you don't need to boot somebody out of your company in order for them to be there to get to a hundred million. But you can pro. You can place somebody above somebody who can mentor them and get the company to a hundred million. They get to learn. The company will grow you unbottleneck. What's going on now, does that mean you might have to use, like, a recruiting firm and tell them exactly what you're looking for? Tell them, I don't want this. I want this. These are kind of people I'm looking for. Here's the culture we have. Here's what I want the person to come and do. Here's what the first 30, 60, 90 days are gonna look like and what I want them to accomplish, which literally can say, don't do anything for the first 90 days. Provide your observations like it's whatever you want. I don't think that these things are impossible. I think it's just that at the end of the day, if the company doesn't grow, eventually it will die. Being honest. And so trying to prioritize it to the detriment of the company is going to just bite you in the ass later. If it's stagnating right now, the next thing that happens is it declines. You guys know that. And so, like, I say this because I. I want you to win and I want you to break past this, and that means that maybe all of you need somebody else to help you. Because what you're explaining to me sounds like something that even, like, if the CEO's not translating that to you, then both of you lack an experience there, which then says, do we need to reach out for mentorship? I'm working with multiple people to help mentor me. Now, I don't have one mentor, but I have different people to help me with different aspects of my job who have been there, done that in any one area of my CEO, founder responsibilities. And so it's like, how do you build your board of directors unofficially to help you guys continue to level up and grow? Some of them you'll hire, Some of them you might place above yourself. Some of them you'll put below you guys. But, like, even look at, gosh, Ben Francis Gymshark, he was out here, and I thought it was so noble of him. He was like, I realized I was not a good CEO, so I hired a CEO and I took a backseat, and I just learned from him for four years, five years. I don't remember how long it was as he was young, and he was like, you know, I just don't have the experience doing this. He's like. And then I realized I learned enough. I stepped back in, put him in a different role. Here we are. So I think it's also just like, there's so many different ways that you can facilitate the skills. It doesn't mean that you guys don't exist in the company. It's just, I think you need to expand your vision for the type of horsepower it's going to take to get to the next level. How many C suite executives are in the company right now?

[G]

Four.

[Laila]

Okay. How many do you think have the skills to be in the company right now? Let me. Let me define a C suite. They need to be aligned with the CEO and founder, and alignment is the number one thing they need from that person. They need alignment, and they need the CEO or founder to clear the way for them to work on the things they aligned on. They do not need help with doing their job. They don't need like daily management. They can align with a once a week call or every two week call. And they can do exactly what they need. Because let me define intelligence. Intelligence is being able to take vague direction and then execute on it. Right. And so you want people at that level that are smart and they can take a 30 minute call and they know what to do for the next month because they're aligned with the person at the top. And so if you guys have people in the company who are C level and they're, they need to speak every day and they need all these things and maybe don't actually have a C level. Maybe you've over titled.

[G]

That fits too. I mean with the, with you defining it that way. I would say we have a larger team that we can really count on who has that initiative and that vision and who can just go figure it out once they're given a directive. And we need more. We've got 1200 people. So it's not enough.

[Laila]

That's not enough. And I think you all need to be looking at like you need to bring in people that. There's an analogy where it's like barrels and ammunition and, and I can't remember who wrote this article, it was such a good one on most companies bring in ammunition. And the reality is that a company's constrained by how many barrels it has a barrel, you could just point in a direction, it will just fire the fuck off. As long as it has ammunition, it will clear the way, it will build a product, it will build revenue. Right. Ammunition, they need a barrel. And so what happens is a lot of people hire for the ammunition and they back up all the barrels and the barrels aren't as effective because they just have so much ammunition because you just haven't got enough barrels on board. Or the worst when you try, you think that ammunition is a barrel. So it sounds like you guys need.

[G]

More barrels, we need more barrels.

[Laila]

It sounds like you need to say no, say no. Ridiculous. I need you. This is what I think you should do is you should honestly just cancel all your meetings, start from scratch, see what breaks. I seriously, I, I have people do this when they have this tendency. I'm like, okay, great. So it's like all these people really need you. Cancel it all. And I think the other piece too is like if people want your time and you know it's not the priority, you can't feel bad when they're upset. Like you have to willfully tolerate the upsetness of people on your team in order to grow your company. Because at first, when you grow a company and start a company, it's like, you see your friends and family are like. And then it's like, maybe your content, your audience is like. And eventually it's your team. It's like, ugh. Because they're too far away from you. They don't understand what you're spending your time on, and you have to be okay with it.

[G]

Absolutely. I'm good with that. I'm great with that. I think that's a great result.

[Laila]

So delete the calendar.

[G]

All right. Thank you, Layla. I appreciate it.

[Laila]

Yeah, absolutely. Hi. Hi.

[Tom]

So, first of all, I have a ton of respect for you and what you've done here with this team. This team is incredible. Like, the. The empathy in. In Frank's eyes and. And what Ed has said to us, the. The team here is truly a team. Like, as an athlete, this. I've seen a few teams that have, like, players that. That do their role and do it really well. This team does that. And so what I would like to do is I would like to do something like this with tennis. We have a tennis business right now. It's an academy. We do lessons, we do camps. But the same way business owners come to you, and you're able to put this on and develop. Develop them and change their frameworks and change their mind. I would like to do that for tennis. And so where we're at right now is Jeremy and I, we were teammates in college, and we've been doing it for two years, and we were just super opportunistic about everything. We found courts that we could rent. We used the university that we play at or played at to give lessons and to run the camps. And so now the eight courts that we rent are basically full. And the question is, where do we go from here in order to develop? And then with this big end goal in mind, what are the next couple steps? And really what I was looking for is a strategy for the next 612 months. Just put the head down and do, like, two or three things. And I'm trying to figure out what those two or three things are.

[Laila]

What's your revenue and what's your pricing model right now?

[Tom]

Well, thanks, Ed. It's about to change. Our revenue right now is a little over 500. It's 515,000. Okay.

[Laila]

And what's the margin on that?

[Tom]

About 70%.

[Laila]

Okay. So is it just you two? Do you have instructors?

[Tom]

Just us. And then two part time coaches.

[Laila]

Okay, so that's exciting.

[Tom]

And the players are pretty good. So that part was done well. We focus on ages 9 to 13.

[Laila]

So how do you get the business?

[Tom]

They're young. I started with a couple players and they became really good. And then people asked where they trained and then they came to us.

[Laila]

That's all word of mouth. Yeah.

[Tom]

We've done no sales, we've done barely any marketing. We're trying to figure that part out. All we did was learn how to teach tennis and start teaching. And then we started, we tried to fix business on the side. And so when problems would come up in the business, we would teach six hours, eight hours in the Texas heat and then come back and try to fix the business side as well. So, you know, that's kind of where we're at. It's going fairly well, but where we go from here is kind of tough.

[Laila]

Right. Well, right now you're supply constrained, not demand constrained. Right. And so I'm sure what the team said when you talked about the pricing model was like one of the shorter term things you do is you would raise the price. Right. And test the sensitivity of people in terms of like. Because that's the first thing is like you can't just keep overextending yourself and doing 15 because you're not gonna be able to grow the business. So it makes sense as well just to raise the prices. So that's the first thing I would do, is I would raise the prices. The second thing I would do is I think that you have to zoom out. And let me ask you guys this. Did you start this out of college? Like opportunistic for sure. But is it like we want to make a bunch of money, we want to sell the business, we like doing this because we're passionate about it. We want to grow it into an empire. Because if I don't know your goal, I don't know how you make progress towards it.

[Tom]

Yeah. So when I would get super mad when I was a player, I would think in the match it's like, okay, it's fine, I can lose this match. I'm going to be a better coach than I am player because I have to stop playing when I'm 22, 23, 24 years old, and I have an unlimited time horizon. Well, basically to, to be a coach. So if, if I'm doing things wrong, I'll be able to figure it out. And so for me it's, I want to coach, I want to coach tennis.

[Laila]

So you want to be out there coaching them. You don't want to just be building the business.

[Tom]

I like both.

[Laila]

Okay, that's fine. So this is more of like make money lifestyle. Like lifestyle as in you want to do the thing you like and make money while you do it. Okay, cool. I'm a maximizer and a big impact. So like, for me, it's like I'll sacrifice everything. So I have to recontextualize my advice. Um, so very helpful. So I think a great question for you is, do you know, for example, like, you're saying that spaces was limited, right? So you've had to continue renting out those courts. Are there other courts that you could rent out? Have you specked those out?

[Tom]

There are, yes.

[Laila]

Okay. And is the. Does it make sense, pricing wise, time wise, space wise?

[Tom]

Yes. But part of our deal with the, the school that we're at now, is there a state champion high school team? And our deal was we run our program out of this facility and we produce players for you. And so he wants us to be the main coaches at that site. So if we, we could do another facility, but we would have to hire and train coaches, give them the system, and then put them there. That's one way. Actually, the team told us to go this way because we already do it and it works and we can just kind of copy the system. We were also thinking about doing school because we have a very strong in person community and taking them to school. I think it would be a good option. Um, so we, we're thinking about the different ways that we could go from here. And renting more courts is one of them.

[Laila]

I mean, I, I prefer the first thing you do is just duplicate what already works. It's like when you find something that works, the first thing people want to do is they want to fuck it up. They want to make it more complex, they want to change it because they say, well, I don't know how to scale that. And it's like you've got to keep doing what's unquote unscalable until it's not. So I would prefer that you guys duplicated with the other courts first. It's like raise the prices for the ones that you're at and then duplicate with the other courts, see how that does first. And that will take you six to 12 months. I don't think you should do anything else besides those two things. Plus, like minor improvements. We always say, like in anything that's especially like a physical location or anything you're doing physically, like Nail it before you scale it. It's just a lot of there's so many intricacies to doing the in person location model. And it's so hard to scale that compared to. Because you have to go and you have to watch them do things. You have to watch on the camera versus like if it's remote, it's like you can listen to a call, you can get recordings, whatever. Right. It's a little more isolated. So I think that that makes the most sense for you guys to do right now. I do think that you're gonna have to make a decision which is like, okay, so if that works, then what, you get another court? Because one more court and you're not coaching.

[Samuel]

Right.

[Laila]

So you have to decide really what you want out of this. I mean, you found something, you guys are young, it's making good money, it has a lot of potential, you're doing good. Clearly people really value it. Do you want to scale it and lean into more of the business side for the next five years or do you want to continue to just remain close by doing the coaching piece? And I think that's a decision you're going to have to make in the next 12 months that will dictate everything else. This is the thing. If you don't have a goal for the business, how do you know if you're making progress? Just by like arbitrary measures of like okay, money views, whatever it might be. But it's like if that's not getting you towards a greater goal, it becomes very difficult to keep going at some point.

[Tom]

I think I would stick with the coaching then and do it that way. So increase the pricing and then stay heavily involved in that side of it.

[Laila]

It's good that you know that maybe.

[Tom]

A couple other locations locally would be good, but scaling beyond that would be like you said, it would take away from the tennis part and then it would just be, you know, you're putting all of your time into training the coaches and then putting on making sure that the facilities are running properly.

[Laila]

Yeah. If you have more than one more location, you'll pretty much be full time running the business.

[Tom]

How could we end up with a super location so where we have all the courts, you know, you have fitness facilities, you have all of that stuff in one place. We would need a lot more money for that.

[Laila]

I was gonna say, what do you. How do you think?

[Tom]

Yeah, you build it. I think that that would be the end goal. Cause then instead of scaling and having facilities all over, you scale and you have a facility all in one place, and then hopefully people come to that.

[Laila]

So here's the thing. I think what you have right now is you have an opportunity. You have something that's working well, and you're making really good money from a population that typically isn't willing to pay a lot of good money in something that's, like, not worth a lot to a lot of people, just being honest. And so, like, you have an opportunity right now if you have that vision for wanting that in the future. I always say, like, we can have everything we want, but probably not at the same time. And so I do think that you have the opportunity. Like, you're never going to be younger. You're never going to have more energy than you do right now. If you really want to open up that kind of location. I might say, you know what? I'm going to take the next three years. I'm going to try and just scale this and, you know, create as much profit as possible. So then four years from now, five years now, we can invest it in creating this location that we really want and dream of. I don't think that's a bad idea. But it would mean that in the short term, you might sacrifice some of the coaching.

[Tom]

Yeah, okay. I. I would be willing to do that if it led to it in the end. And then still keep some of the coaching.

[Laila]

Sure, whatever. Figure that out. It'll become impossible, and then you'll be like, oh, she was right. Um, the only thing I'll say is this. Scope out. You need to do the scoping out of understanding what it takes to build something like that. Because I want you to understand what it would take. Talk to people who have found the founders of those kind of super locations. I know people have built facilities like that. Understand how much money it takes to do that. It's important.

[Tom]

And where it could come from.

[Laila]

Well, hopefully you make a decent amount of it so that you're not beholden to people for the rest of your life.

[Tom]

Yeah, that's the goal. And that's. That's what we were trying to figure out, is how we can take the next couple steps. Basically bring all of the. The make a lot of money and then also have a way of making a lot of money so that once we have the facility, you know, it's kind of already filled with the business that. That works.

[Laila]

You already know what to do. Raise the price, duplicate a different one. You're gonna have enough problems between now and then. And then see if you can do it one more time. And one more time and keep saving the money. And while you're doing that, the behind the scenes is trying to figure out, okay, well, how much would it cost? What would that look like? How long would it take? That's the biggest thing. Like, I mean, if you look at everything going on the market right now, I don't know what that's going to do in terms of, like, affecting cost of goods. Import, export, all that stuff. We just don't know. So there's a lot of stuff you have to take into consideration when you're talking about building something.

[Tom]

Okay.

[Laila]

All right. Homework. Thank you.

[Peter Livingston]

Hi, Laila.

[Laila]

Hi.

[Peter Livingston]

My name is Taline and I, my husband and I have two companies together. One is a supplement company and one is an app. And we help women with PCOS, a hormonal condition, lose weight. And we, we make 2 million from the supplements and 1.2 million from the app. And we would like to be at 10 million revenue. And we feel like what's stopping us is probably we spend so much time making organic content. We've never run ads. It's exhausting. And we have a team of a few employees. They're like VAs, essentially, they handle our inbox or DMs or our community. But we don't have someone who does, like, operations and like, helps us move the needle on things that would move the needle.

[Laila]

Can you explain, like, your actual team structure, like, how many people are full time versus part time and what are the buckets of roles?

[Peter Livingston]

Okay, so there's one employee who does part time and she answers DMs and commenting and posting and everything on socials. And then there's another employee who is in our community who answers questions for our app. The community that's part of our app. And then there's another employee who does email customer service and then another one who helps with the creatives.

[Laila]

That's it.

[Peter Livingston]

Creative stuff like blogs and stuff like that? Yeah. And we just film produce content all the time.

[Laila]

And the fulfillment for the app and the supplements, is it white labeled? Is that why it's so minimal?

[Peter Livingston]

Yeah, the supplements are white labeled.

[Laila]

Okay.

[Peter Livingston]

And then the app, you know, it's in the App store, so you just sign up.

[Laila]

Got it. Okay. And so the problem is that you are feeling burnt out on making the content.

[Peter Livingston]

Burnt out on making the content. We. Our offer isn't like we haven't merged the two in a way where our offer could be strong. It's like some people know we have an app and don't know we have supplements. Some people know we have supplements. Don't know how we have an app. It's like there's not like one cohesive, cohesive offer.

[Laila]

Well, did you build them together?

[Peter Livingston]

No, we built the app for. We built a website membership first and then it was successful. So we built an app and then that was very obviously challenging to build an app. Lots of tech problems there. Still are we, you know, so expensive to fix. In the meantime, we built the supplement company which became more successful faster and yeah, our time is just torn apart.

[Laila]

Yeah. Well, one, it seems like you don't have any sort of leadership on the team whatsoever.

[Peter Livingston]

No. Whatsoever.

[Laila]

Yeah. What are your margins?

[Peter Livingston]

Our supplements are 36%, which is low. We heard. And then the app.

[Laila]

Gross or net.

[Peter Livingston]

This is my husband, CDAC. Gross.

[Laila]

Okay.

[Peter Livingston]

And then this, the app is 90.

[Laila]

Okay, that makes sense. So you have the money to hire a human.

[Peter Livingston]

We do. Finding someone, like, are they good or not? Like, that's also a lot of time to like vet people. And I'm it. I've never done it before, so it's intimidating. And like we, we've made bad decisions in the past, so it's like all very.

[Laila]

It's like, I mean, imagine you guys together. Yeah.

[Peter Livingston]

You said, huh.

[Laila]

Married.

[Peter Livingston]

Yes, we're married.

[Laila]

Yeah. Oh, imagine if your ex boyfriend, it was so bad that you decided to never date again. You never met him.

[Peter Livingston]

Okay.

[Laila]

That's what you're doing right now. Yeah, let's not do that. I just wanted to make the point to you. It'd be tough, right? You might not be making any money either. You can't let that affect you. If you're going to let that. Like, I just want to, I want to reinforce this to you. That will keep happening. And so if it really bothers you, I, I just, I, I actually think this frame is very helpful. Like that's gonna continue. And so the circumstance of you like hiring people and they're not working out isn't going to change. You have to change your perspective and how. And how you manage the emotion around it. It's. It sucks. But if you keep letting it stall you, you also stall your progress for getting better. As if you keep. Every time you say, you know what? We tried, but it didn't work out. I'm not gonna hire that person. You just. Back at ground zero. You never actually accumulated the skill. Yeah, that's the first thing I would say. The second thing is it sounds like you guys would probably benefit from getting somebody who's like a. I don't think you need just like an operator for the business because it's ops light. I think you need like a marketer who can help you guys amplify the organic brand with some paid ads. That would make a lot of sense to me. I would not stop making the organic content. I would just also run paid ads to increase revenue and I would have that person probably do that and possibly take some of the management of the part timers off your plate if you could. If they're that multifaceted, like if you found somebody who they had run a small agency or been the operator for a small agency marketing agency, I think that would be like probably the perfect hire for you guys. And then they could probably have the skill of like managing some part time contractors as well as running the marketing. Because for what you're doing, like the marketing is not going to be overly complex. Um, it's not. So I think that's the first thing that I would probably suggest, but I think the second thing is like, how are your roles split?

[Peter Livingston]

They're not split very clearly. We're both on the creative side. We both make the video content together. We have a podcast together and everything. And then for as for like data, that's his stuff and creative stuff I do, you know, in terms of like creative writing, nurture sequence, like email, you know, marketing, stuff like that. So it's really blended.

[Laila]

Okay, so it sounds like you guys make the content together, but everything else doesn't need to be blended. Right?

[Peter Livingston]

Right.

[Laila]

Or is it blended?

[Peter Livingston]

It, it is pretty blended. But he does do like data and analytics, like way more than me.

[Laila]

So I think what you need to start with before you bring anybody else on is you guys need to define your roles and have it written down. Easy to understand. Like me and Alex do this all the time. I think everyone on our team knows who's doing what. And if things change, we let them know that things have changed. But like, you can't let your relationship influence your business partnership. You have to treat it the same as you would if you were not in a relationship. Otherwise it becomes like very murky and unclear. And when you're hiring people, they're also gonna be like, I don't know who the fuck does what right? And they're gonna get confused. And nobody likes working for a couple if they feel like the couple hasn't, hasn't had it dialed because it's already a red flag. Tell you that. Well, it's like one of the first questions I get if I ever ran a senior. They're like, wait, so you guys are married. I was like, listen, we've never not worked together. I don't even know how. So it's easy for us. But, like, I think. I think that's probably the underlying thing that you two should figure out is just separating your roles, dividing those up, then bringing in that person that can help with the paid ads piece. I think that makes sense. But the thing that I don't like is that you keep saying they're feeling burnt out with the content. Yeah. Is it not? Let me ask you this. Is the business growing?

[Peter Livingston]

Well, no, because our offer isn't super strong. Like, it's not like interrelated. So if we're. If we're advertising or if we're like constantly talking about our app, the supplements go down. If we're talking about the supplements, the app goes down. So it's like sales aren't like merged together or like married together. So it's challenging. So then we kind of like stay the same.

[Laila]

Have you ever created a bundle that has both of them in one and.

[Peter Livingston]

Pitch that I've been over the past 24 hours, like, understanding that we need to do this and.

[Laila]

Yeah, yeah. One idea that we had was the solution just has not panned out.

[Peter Livingston]

Right.

[Laila]

I want you to understand something, is that business isn't perfect. You are never going to have it where you feel like all the offers are growing all at once and all of our audience is evenly distributed and all the. That's. It doesn't work that way. It. It's. It takes and it does it. If it ever works that way, it takes so long to get there. And it's a ginormous fucking company. Eight things will be working. Three things will be breaking. Two offers will be doing great, one will not be doing great. There's such few times in business where it's all just exactly the same time. And typically when it is, it's when it's new and you just haven't seen the shit yet. I mean, we all feel that way, right? It's like the first eight months, it's like you don't see the downside of anything you did. And it's all like, oh, so nice. And then you're like, eventually it ends and all the problems occur. It's like, it's also not. This is not abnormal. This is not that you're doing something wrong. I think it makes sense to try and put a bundle together. But I also wouldn't feel bad about the fact. I think what you might feel bad about is that it feels like, you're having to make more content just to push more products. Yeah.

[Peter Livingston]

You know, and it's like this never ending hamster wheel. And on top of it, you're like managing employees and like coming up with needle moving things that you can't execute because you're making content, you know, and.

[Laila]

Then what do you want to do?

[Peter Livingston]

Well, let's see. I mean, there's just so many things we wanted to come out with. Protein powder.

[Laila]

No, like, what do you want to do?

[Peter Livingston]

What do we want to do?

[Laila]

You don't seem like you like what you're doing, but you own the business.

[Peter Livingston]

Oh, oh.

[Laila]

So you decide what you do.

[Peter Livingston]

Okay. I mean, I love making content and. But I don't want to, like, do. But it's a. It's a lot of pressure, you know, like, we need ads. Like, I think your point was kind of correct. Like we need ads to bundle that with the content.

[Laila]

So you don't like the pressure to perform?

[Peter Livingston]

Yeah, I don't like the constant pressure. I cannot like forever have this pressure. Like there needs to be ads or like something working other than us.

[Laila]

Well, let me ask you this. If you cancel a shoot one day and you don't do a podcast or you don't do content for a week, what. What's the worst thing that's going to happen?

[Peter Livingston]

Nothing. I mean, sales go down.

[Laila]

But I think you need to, like. Because I'm more concerned with this. This. Which is like, you can't. The thing is, is if you're in this for the long run and you want to have. Because you're pushing a product right now, but you have a brand and you want to have a brand that lasts, then you can't treat it like, you can't be looking at it as a daily and weekly thing. You have to look at it over a long time horizon of like, if I want to stay in this for 20 years, how do I have to show up right now? How do I need to make content? If that means you need to make some changes and maybe you need to make some changes, I'd rather that you stay in business than you just continue to gas it for whatever reason. I don't know. Maybe he has a different cadence than you. Maybe that's the issue. Maybe you want to make more than her. That's very typical with couples in business. So, like, I think that you need to figure out what is going to work for you, because I will ask you that actually now, which is like, are you guys trying to make all the content in the same way, the same format, the same cadence.

[Peter Livingston]

I mean, we're. We're both on the same page about, like, the content being too much for both of us, like, and just kind of streamlining and scaling back a little bit.

[Laila]

And when it sounds like you guys just need somebody else to take some off your plate.

[Peter Livingston]

I think so.

[Laila]

And I also think, like, maybe just take two days and just, like, get the fuck out of content or take a week and just don't do content. Because here's the. What I don't want is being driven by this fear of, like, what's going to happen. That's actually, like, the fear controlling you is so much worse than anything that's actually gonna happen in the business because, like, the more that you allow that fear to control that you have to make content tomorrow and the next day and the next day, it's like, it's gonna be okay, and the business will survive. I can. I'm more concerned with that than anything else in this conversation.

[Peter Livingston]

Right.

[Laila]

Yeah.

[Peter Livingston]

We can definitely scale back.

[Laila]

And I'm just saying. Yeah, just take.

[Peter Livingston]

Or, like, take a minute off. Yeah.

[Laila]

And just, like, pull out. Because I'm even wondering, with the stuff you guys are talking about, to grow the business, like, if you just had a week where you went into a hole and focused on it, how much would you get done? Well, like, couldn't we just do that once a quarter? Yeah, we could seriously, like, go somewhere else, get an Airbnb, focus on the business for a week. I'm so much a fan of sprints. Rather than trying to mesh it all together, like, the way I plan my week, even, like, I'm not trying to mesh everything into one day or into each day. I'm trying to chunk it where it's like, this day would be content. These days. I'm not fucking talking to anybody. I'm in a hole this day. I have meetings all day from. You know what I'm saying?

[Peter Livingston]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Laila]

And so I think that might also help with you guys.

[Peter Livingston]

Yeah, I think so, too.

[Laila]

Okay. You seem a little lighter.

[Peter Livingston]

Was I heavier? I'm sorry.

[Laila]

You seemed heavy. Yeah, I was concerned. Are you okay?

[Peter Livingston]

Yeah.

[Laila]

Okay.

[Peter Livingston]

Thank you.

[Laila]

Of course.

[Taline]

Hi, I'm. I'm Tom. My wife and I, we do online exam prep for a. For. For the Australian version of the MCAT. And our revenue, we've been stuck at about the 400,000, 500,000 for a few years now. We'd. I'd love to get to 3 million. That'd be amazing. What's Stopping us is we're burnt out on the sales process. It's a multi step phone sales process and it's pretty much at this point because it's so seasonal, we can't keep the salespeople on. And so it ends up being my wife on the phone. And. And yeah, we're just thinking of other ways to bring in revenue.

[Laila]

What could you do? Okay, well, let me ask you this. After doing this, what did you identify as your constraint that you don't have a salesperson?

[Taline]

Well, I spoke to Ed about it and there's, you know, we could probably shorten the process from. So right now we do from a Facebook ad to a webinar to a triage, so like a discovery call to a closing call and we could shorten that to add to discovery to South Core, but then we won't get people who know us and who are pre qualified. Well, that's what we're concerned about. The other constraint is potentially getting enough leads through the process.

[Laila]

So when you say it's seasonal. So how many like months of the year do you guys. Are you active with the sales?

[Taline]

We try to keep sales going all year round, but the busy time is from around November through to March.

[Laila]

So it's more seasonal in the sense of like you get more sales during a certain season.

[Taline]

Yeah.

[Laila]

You don't keep people on because their commission goes down.

[Taline]

Well, there's not as many people who are interested in studying at that time, students being students, that kind of wait.

[Laila]

Till the last time. But you do still make sales.

[Taline]

Yeah, they're just very slow.

[Laila]

Okay, and then how do you pay.

[Taline]

Your SalesPeople A base plus commission?

[Laila]

Have you considered just doing base? I'm just wondering if. Because it's like, okay, so during the high seasons they're making all this money and then during the low seasons they're quitting. Is that the reason they quit is because commission goes down?

[Taline]

Yeah, but also we, we can't keep them long because we're not making any money.

[Laila]

Because you're not making money?

[Taline]

Yeah. There's not enough.

[Laila]

So you are letting them go.

[Taline]

It's a mixture of both depending on.

[Laila]

So it's like if they don't quit, you fire them.

[Taline]

Well, if we're not, if not making enough sales, if we don't have enough coming through, we have to let them go.

[Laila]

Okay. So if, if an enough are not coming through, either they leave or you get them out. Okay. So the problem is not that they necessarily are quitting. Are there some that would still be here if you had not fired them.

[Taline]

Even the good ones don't stick around for that long. Maybe the longest has probably been about 18 months. So by this point, probably not. I don't think they'd be.

[Laila]

How long has your wife now been take. Has she, like, taken over the sales?

[Taline]

Oh, that's been probably four years now.

[Laila]

So she. You haven't had a salesperson in four years?

[Taline]

We've had appointment setters. We've tried to be on salespeople. They've kind of. Some have worked out for a short period of time and they've dropped off, and then she's just kept going.

[Laila]

And so right now she hates her life.

[Taline]

Yeah, pretty much.

[Laila]

And you're here because you're like, my wife is unhappy, therefore I am unhappy.

[Taline]

We need to. Yeah, we need. We need to break through the plateau there. Yeah, let's make a change.

[Laila]

I mean, the obvious answer to me is that I would keep them on when sales were slow and I would pay them a flat salary to avoid the ups and downs on their end. And then I would just be okay with the fact that I'm paying them in lower months because I've budgeted for it. I don't think it's like a huge. This isn't like a huge problem. It's like, not a. You don't need, like, to take a chainsaw to it. Um, but I'm more concerned with, like, it's been this many years and nothing has changed. I'm sure you've thought of this.

[Taline]

So we've. We've had sales people. We haven't. No, we never. We never thought about paying them a base without commissions because we thought it's always, you know, salespeople want to make sales and make extra cash.

[Laila]

I think there's different types of people. I've paid sales teams just based on no commissions plenty of times. I mean, it's more security for them. And you just explained, like, during these months, you're not going to be making as much commission because it's slower. I still want you to work your ass off. Just because you don't pay somebody a commission doesn't mean you cannot base their performance and, you know, give them accolades for, you know, hitting metrics or doing a job. You know what I mean? Like, there's lots of positions that aren't compensated for the output, but they are measured on the output in terms of, like, performance reviews, in terms of extra bonuses at the end of the year, in terms of, you know, getting awards in the company. Like, there's lots of different ways you could recognize people's efforts besides commission. I think that's, I mean like, easiest thing to change is just pay them base pay, throw out the commission. I think that you'll probably get somebody who's also more security driven, so they're probably not going to dip out. And then I would think during the slow times, what else can I add on their plate when things are slower that they can do in the business, like when they have excess capacity, what are they going to do that can generate revenue for the business or at least help maybe take things off of your plate? And I would just be upfront about that.

[Taline]

Yep.

[Laila]

You don't seem satisfied.

[Taline]

Yeah, well, we've considered also just moving away from cell phone sales as well. That's. I think that's part of it. It's just the constant grind on the phone.

[Laila]

That's only because your wife's doing it, otherwise you wouldn't give a fuck. I'm serious. Like, come on, what would you go towards? Like, it's already seasonal, it's already a smaller market. So then you're going to get less efficient with the sale. If you move towards like online, a webinar, I don't think you should change the sales process. You just need somebody else to be doing it besides your wife.

[Taline]

Okay.

[Laila]

That's the problem. It's just so painful that it feels. I know, I know. It feels like I remember because guess what? Guess who did the sales. In the beginning of gym launch, I didn't have time to shower. I took sales calls from the bathtub. And it's exhausting because I literally was like, Alex was like, I don't give a fuck. I was like, 6am to 9pm like, here we go, double booker. I had a guy at the end of the call, he was like, I have to ask you a question. I was like, what? He was like, are you in the bathtub? I was like, I don't have time to shower. So I get it.

[Taline]

My wife's closed deals on the toilet.

[Laila]

Yeah, yeah. You do what you gotta do. But I think you need to get your wife out of sales. You don't need to change sales.

[Taline]

Okay?

[Laila]

This is a very clear problem. Get a salesperson. I think the best thing, pay them the base salary and get your wife out of there.

[Taline]

And we sell a one offer and we're thinking of doing a smaller kind of offer page just to get people in the door. Like a low end offer.

[Laila]

What problem would it solve?

[Taline]

It would kind of pre sell people a bit, warm them up on us. So make the sales process a bit easier.

[Laila]

What would you sell them that would be so good that it would make them like you more? Oftentimes people create an LBO type thing like that and then it actually is just not good enough and then people just don't want to buy it and they actually close less. So that's what I'm asking.

[Taline]

So the exam split up into three sections and one of the hardest ones, kind of the science a bit. We could just really narrow in on one specific element of it and teach that to them really well. We already have a course on that, so we just offer like a small snippet of the program and once they've done that, they're like, great, that's been amazing. Where's the rest?

[Laila]

What would the result be from them going through that part of the program? Like, what would the end result be? What would happen for us? For them?

[Taline]

For them, they would know some of these topics a lot more effectively. It's not enough to get a great score on the exam, but it's enough to build their confidence and show them that they can do this and that we can help them with it.

[Laila]

Why not just send that to the leads as like a nurture?

[Taline]

It's quite a extensive, like 40, 40 hours of.

[Laila]

Then don't send that to anybody.

[Taline]

Well, we sell. Yeah, we sell that. That's what we want to sell.

[Laila]

That's. No, because here's the, here's what's going to happen. This is. Happens if you do it and it's that long, they're. It's going to take them that long. So you're never. What's going to happen is this, it's just like, okay, so this happens a lot with books. People are like, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to put a book out and then I'm going to get all these customers from the book. And then they put the book out. They're like, why the fuck is going to be buying? And I'm like, because you know how long it takes people to read a book. And it's like, oh, I'm not going to. I'm not going to hear from them until they get value from the book. Which means they have to start the book, they have to finish the book, they have to get the value and possibly implement it into their business. That could take a year. 40 hours is. I mean, I've been putting out something that was like, it's. You want value density. So like if you could give them something that's an hour that they could get an immediate result from because it's so dense with value that would go farther than this other thing. But I don't even think you should change that. I think that you should just not have your wife do this.

[Taline]

I get it. I get it. She'll love that sound. That, too. Yeah.

[Laila]

And if you get her out of the sales, imagine all the time she'll have to think about all these other things you guys could do.

[Taline]

Sweet. Thank you.

[Laila]

Of course.