Transcript
A (0:00)
In this lessons episode, explore why leadership often becomes the primary barrier to growth and how stepping aside enables scale. Discover how getting out of daily operations empower stronger operators. Understand how choosing the right leaders for each growth stage prevents costly mistakes. And uncover why systems and ownership driven models allow businesses to grow beyond the founders limits. So let's, let's do some like leadership lessons. Some things that you know, you said when I was in it it wasn't so clear but hindsight is more or less 2020. So what are some leadership lessons? That particular one I thought was a great story. So getting out of your own way as a leader, why is that an issue with people? How did you solve for it?
B (0:43)
Oh, it's, it's the biggest thing, Scott. It's. Entrepreneurs get in their own way all the time and we are our own limiter in terms of the ceiling of growth I think we can experience because an entrepreneur has a great idea and they have this predetermined way that they see the world. But we can't build things alone. I don't imagine you're building what you're doing by yourself. You're out there raising money, you're raising awareness. You're trying to build something with the help of others. That's what entrepreneurs need to do is get out of their own way. There's that quote, if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. Most entrepreneurs I've met over the years believe that they are the smartest person in the room. I've worked hard to be the least smart person in the room so that I'm always surrounded by someone who can contribute bigger, better ideas. Our president Eric church, who runs O2E brands, Ordinary to exceptional. He's been with us for almost 11 years and the guy is a rock star. And, and he can do things that I couldn't possibly ever do. And so I had to get out of my own way to empower Eric to grow the business now proof that he was the right person and that he's done it the right way and I couldn't do it. I got the company to about 100 million in revenue. Once I got out of the way of the day to day operations, Eric took it to 400 to 500 to 600. He'll get us to a billion. I couldn't grow our other brands. Wow. One day painting where we paint people's homes in a day and shack Shine where we shine people's homes, their windows, their gutters, power washing the whole bit. Christmas Lights. Those brands are growing like crazy through our franchise model. Finding great people and helping them build on a playbook. We couldn't do that and grow those brands. If I was in the day to day at the same level that I was with 1-800-got-JUNK. We had to find other leaders. I'm not scalable. No one is. And so it's a big lesson. I'm glad you highlighted that one because we get in each other's way all the time. Not you and I, but ourselves.
A (2:51)
I'm sure we work together. I'd probably get in your way too. But we got to work. We gotta work through that event. Everybody has this issue. It's not just one entrepreneur. It's not an individual case. Everybody gets in their own way. I think that the most successful entrepreneurs. And like now I see, it's like it's your, it's your hat. My goodness. It's like it's your brand. It's people. It's. How do you find the right people? And you've done that a few ways. You've done that in your own organizations. You probably got a really harsh dose of that when you had to get rid of 9 of 11 people at 500k. That's not an easy thing to do. And then now you're hypersensitive to how do I find the right people? But then it's also in your franchise model where again, you're finding the right people. So let's, let's break down both. Let's talk about finding the right people in an org. Let's talk about how you found somebody. Scale it from 100 million to 4 or 5,600 million. What is the right person and how does an entrepreneur look for that so they don't end up in the spot where they have to let go of like 80% of their team? And then let's also talk about the franchise model because there's also a right person concept that you're, that you're trying to solve for. When you look for a franchise, there's a reason why you're doing franchises versus just scaling out operations internally. So none. So let's do internal first.