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Welcome back to the Business of Beers podcast. Your daily dose of strategies, tools and tips to help you build an eight figure business. Today's episode is a clip from one of my YouTube lives. If you'd like to hear the whole thing, there's a link below in the description. Cheers.
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There's a reason that you're doing all these things, right? There's a reason that you are handling all the marketing. Maybe you are the one who is like dictating every marketing. Maybe you are the one who is selling every job, hiring all the employees, disciplining everyone in the day to day. There's a reason because you don't have somebody else doing it. I mean, it's as simple as that. And so you want to figure out though, so why are you still doing it? And it's usually two reasons. One is, one is like, you legitimately should not be doing that thing and you want to instead be able to hand it off to somebody. And maybe you have that person on your team and you just can't let it go. Maybe you have a person who should be doing all the hiring, but you've always done it and you just, you're afraid to let it go. So you want to think through, why am I not letting go of this thing? Is it because the person that I would hand it off to just truthfully isn't the right person? Could be, totally, could be a problem. It could be that, you know, you just haven't given them a chance to succeed. Like, you've made it part of it, but you haven't let go. It could be that your system's broken, that you don't have a system, you're doing all the hiring because it's all in your head. And you have a gut reaction of, oh, I know how to recognize talent, right? Which, you know, I mean, is one of my, like, I'm really good at recognizing talent. Like, and you feel that they can't do it because they don't, they can't see what you see. So you want to think through what are these things that you are doing that you need to stop doing. But then what is the constraint? And our goal is going to be able to solve the constraint. And those are going to be the 90 day goals. Those are going to be the bottlenecks. Let's go back into this hiring example, which is if I said I am really good at hiring talented people, and I think that is the number one thing for my business to succeed is the ability to hire talented people. So then we want to Break this down. So your goal by the end of the 90 days is that you have systematically gotten everything out of your brain and into a tool that allows somebody else on your team, like one of your managers, to be able to hire the quality person that you would. And I would make it to the goal as if by March 31, someone else has completely taken over the hiring system and hired somebody just as good, if not better, than you would have found. So that's how I'm thinking through goals is we not only think of the constraint that, oh, I need to get better at hiring, but we want to break it down. Like, what does success look like? That's really what we want to think through. I'm going to edit this doc here. What does success look like? And you want to be as detailed as possible. So in that example, it's like, all right, I need number one. I'm good, but we need to translate my. If I want to be able to let it go, I got to get it out of my brain, and I got to get it into a framework, a system, a process that I can document. That is the way that I do something. Because honestly, that's like. This is like, at its core, this is the biggest problem that almost all business owners face is. I call it the hero trap. But basically, you're the hero of the business. You're the one that does everything. You solve every problem, you fix everything. You're all in on saving the day. And that is really. It's the best way to get started. Being the hero is the best way that you can go from essentially zero, where you build this thing from nothing, to a profitable business that is like, providing for your family and doing all the things it should do. But the trap is that that hero can never scale a business because you can't just be the hero. More like, at the certain point, you run out of time and energy and focus and all these things. And so you need to go from what's called the hero to the architect. And the architect is the person who builds, right? It's the person who has the vision. Even in my business, I was the hero for many, many years. I was, like, from zero to building the company to about $5 million. That I did literally everything. My phone would heat up and eventually shut down in the middle of the summer because it got so hot. But I was proud of that and was successful. But then I realized to scale the company, I could never. I had to get out of that being the hero, and I instead needed to hire the heroes to hire the people who are better than me at doing all these things. This is like the big thing that almost every single person struggles with is we start from hero and we have to change our identity to be the architect to the person who builds the system, who hires the people who like gets out of the way, totally out of the way, to be able to let the heroes save the day. Even in my company, Like I'm not the. I promoted our COO to be CEO last January. So like he is totally in charge of the auto repair, auto repair business. And we had a record setting year. We're up 30% in December, we're up like 12 or 13 for the year. It was the best year we ever had with me not in charge. Right. And like many people would think that and feel like negative about it. And I think it's awesome. Like, I love the fact that the business can grow without me because otherwise you become this bigger bottleneck and your company can't grow, your people can't succeed. Because if everything has to run through me and then I'm the constraint. And the truth is there's other people that bring perspectives to things that you don't have, that I don't have who are better than me. And you have to be able to good at whatever, identifying those talented people, hiring them, getting them on board, enabling them and doing all the things. And so a lot of the constraints back to this that you're going to identify are going to be related to being the hero and things that you need to stop doing if you truly want to build a scalable company. And a lot of that starts with this idea of I do everything, the success, the frameworks, everything's in my brain and I need to get it out of my brain. And, and we start that first is by looking at what are all the things that I'm really good at. And then you should spend some time to put that into a framework or system. Okay, so if we go back to that hiring example that says, hey, I'm really good at hiring, I can identify talent really well. So then what we want to do is you have to figure out. And we could use ChatGPT, you could use Claude, you could use AI to talk you through this. But essentially you're gonna go through and say, what do I see in people that other people don't? So I'm really good at hiring people. And my thing is I personally, I want to look at core values. I care more about the person than I do about the resume. And what I care about is their energy. If I pick you up, if I call you and you pick up the first 30 seconds, honestly, first 10 seconds, I'm gonna know if I like you or not because of, like, the energy. Are you excited to talk to me? Do you seem. Do you seem like you, like, want this job? Are you pumped up? Are you or you do you sound like you just woke up, like enrolled out of bed with like cheetahs all over you and you have no interest in talking to me, right? So, like, so those are the things, like, I'm looking for people's energy. So that's like what it sounds like. Well, what does that look like I'm looking for people's energy. I'm looking for, do they seem to have drive? Do they seem accountable? Are they gonna do the things they said they're gonna do? What is the future vision of their life? You know, and for humans, like, that's what we want. We wanna make progress in our lives in, like, all aspects of it, whether it's relationships, your business, and, you know, your fitness. And so, like, when I'm talking to people, I ask them, like, what are some of your bigger goals in life? Like, where are you going? What does success look like for you in five years? And. And if someone's like, has no goals and they have no, like, drive and they're just like, gonna live on repeat mode versus, like, I can talk to somebody else who has this very clear plan of what they want and where they're going and then how this role with me can help them, get them there, man. Like those. That's the kind of talent. So as you think through, like, how do I go replacing myself? And I'm really good at these things. Document as much as you can, the things that you are good at, why you think you're good at them. So we can create a system in a playbook. And the, the best way, honestly, is we use ChatGPT to then have something that someone else on your team could run through. Like, it's you, right? That is like the end result. That would be like the constraint that I would want to solve within the 90 days is saying that, like, you know, we have a hiring system, for example, that, you know, our team can run without me, which equals we've hired someone. Okay, because that's the second part of this is we don't want. You don't want to set a goal. That's just like, oh, a hiring system that team can run without me. Like, that is like, kind of vague and that's not outcome driven. We want all of our goals to be outcome driven. So the outcome that we really looking to achieve is that we've hired someone, you know, who I approve or like, who I would like, I'm impressed with, I am impressed that someone else on my team has hired this person. Because if you can, if that is your biggest constraint, it's like I spent all my time hiring people and I can't focus on any of this growth. I can't focus on our margins, I can't focus on our marketing, I can't focus on X, Y and Z because I spend all my time doing this thing. That is your constraint. And at the end of 90 days, if you have a proven system that is working to hire people better than you would have found on your own, think about how much relief that would put to you, which totally unlocks a new level to the game. Because if you think through franchising, because it's all about copy and paste, it's all about how do we have a system that we can be successful in a single location and then we can copy it and we can run that same playbook at a second location and a third, a fourth, a fifth and then once we have five or six, then we have a market and then we can have that market and we can have a district manager, right? We can have that regional person who oversees the market. Once we can successfully operate one market, there is almost no difference to go to two markets, three markets, four markets. It's like, you know, the restraints, the constraints that you have then at that level are like, you know, you obviously you're going to need money. How do you find money? You're going to have back office, like make sure people get paid. Like you're gonna have different constraints as you go. But the core constraint that most owners have that I talk to and that we help with an eight figure franchisee are like constraints around hiring, the constraints around sales and people. So hiring sales and people, that's where I would first look at to diagnose and really get like you have a solid system. So if your constraint is that you sell everything like you are the number one salesperson in your company and then if you stop making calls that the money stops. That is a constraint that honestly that would be like one of the ones that I would look to solve as quick as possible. And so then it's like, well, how do I consolidate that? Well, I need to go hire somebody who's better than me, who's a better salesperson than me. That would be the constraint that I would look to solve. Now you may say, well, I have people on my team and I'm going to work to train them. But the truth is with sales that people generally can sell or they can't. It's riding a bike. They either know how to ride the frickin bike or they fall off. And so it is much, much quicker to just go and hire somebody who knows how to sell and knows exactly what you want to get done than it is for you to focus on. I'm going to spend 90 days to develop a sales training program. When it's like, just go hire somebody and it's solved, those are the ones. So it's sales marketing people. Those are going to be the number one things that I would recommend you look at to figure out where can you go then the second part of this is how would you spend your time if you solved that? We want to think through that because it's not only I've hired somebody, I have a hiring system, but how are you going to spend your time? Once again, we're all trying to go back to being intentional. I'm intentional in how I set my goals. I'm intentional in the habits and the things that I'm going to change about my life and my style and who I operate with and the level that I play at. I'm intentionally going to put myself in rooms with people like me and other people operating at a high level because I think I can learn from them way quicker than I could on my own. That's being intentional. I'm going to figure out these constraints. I'm going to go as deep as I need to and not just pick surface level constraints because this is the big thing. Because if we're going to say for the next 90 days, all my attention is going to be focused on solving this one thing. We have to pressure test it. And a couple of the things we can do to do that are first, make sure it's something that you can control. If it's something external, you're going to drive yourself crazy. So don't do that. For example, can I control who I hire? Yes, 100%. Can I control my ability to identify the salespeople? 100%. Right. All that stuff. The weather, we can't control the weather. So if it's all about the weather, the economy, I don't know things your franchisor does, like, oh, I want to be able to open this new location by this date. But like if there's, if there's A bunch of things that other people that you have no control over, you're going to be really frustrated with that. And so focus on the things you can control. Number two, for this constraint, if you solved it tomorrow, would that big goal, the 10x goal, whatever you want to call it, would you actually be closer? Like, does this thing that you're looking to solve, does this actually move the ball or is this like, yeah, that'd be nice to have, but like, it's not one of the critical rocks you have to move in order to hit that big goal. Can you solve it in one to two weeks? If you can, it's a task, it's not the constraint. So if it's something like, I don't know your constraints, you're spending all your time doing the books, like you do all the admin work, the accounting, the credit cards, and you hate it. You just have to know what to do. So I would go through there and then we ask yourself, is this a real constraint or is it comfortable? Is it something you're already like 80% done? You're like, hey, this is like a checkbox, or is this. You're picking this because it's real and you really want to drive it forward. All right, so we got that. So we fixed the thing. So from this hiring example, the constraint, the success is I've built an automated or semi automated system that allows our team to hire high quality candidates with minimal interaction from me. And now I don't have to be scraping on indeed. And I don't have to be like, calling all these people who don't show up. And I can focus on growing the profits of the business, which is what I need to do in order to have enough cash to be able to expand. Right. Whatever that looks like. So then we want to go into the intentionally say no to a lot of entrepreneurs, driven people, high performers. We tend to say yes to a lot of things that honestly, we really shouldn't do. And so what this looks like is a business, another business. You say, hey, I've got this business. But, ooh, you hear me talk about auto repair shops, you hear someone else talk and Cody Sanchez talking about laundromats or car washes or whatever, and you're like, oh, that sounds good, I would love to do that. I want another source of income. So all of a sudden now you're going down this rabbit hole, like on biz by sell, looking at laundromats and stuff and not focused on your main thing. And so I have that habit. It's a very bad habit of getting. You know, I look at all these businesses, you know, we have a lot of people who run other things. They make a lot of money. I see it and think, oh, it'd be cool to be in that business. Like, I could just build a team, just like the team I've got. But then, you know what? Every time that you say yes to something, it means at the same time you're saying no to. To something that you're currently doing. Okay? So every yes equals a no. And so if you start saying yes to all these things, like, hey, I'm going to get into this other business, I am going to go buy real estate, I am going to start taking a bunch of these meetings, I am going to take over the sales process because my team sucks and I got a blah, blah, blah. All these things that you start saying yes to that you are going to start doing, it means something else in your life or your business is going to say no to. You're going to spend less time with your kids, you're going to spend less time. You know, if I bought another business, I'd spend less time on this business, right? If I started buying real estate, I'd probably, you know, in rental properties and deal with Airbnbs and whatever. All the stuff that would be less time that maybe I could spend just buying another Midas shop. Like, I'd just be working with Midas real estate people if I want to buy real estate, right? To go find shops. And so the best approach, and you may not have this problem, but I do. And the thing that I found best for me is to create a list of all the things that normally totally derail me. The things that, like, it's a honey trap and I'm gonna write all those things down, and these are gonna be the things that I'm gonna say no to. And so when I'm going through my. What my big goal is, what the constraint is and what the roadmap and all the things I'm gonna talk about in a minute, I'm gonna make sure I review, okay? We're not gonna look at other businesses to buy. We're not gonna look at this. We're not gonna look at that. Or, like, it could be stuff in your work life where, for example, maybe you micromanaged too much, right? And you're like, I'm building this team. I wanna delegate. But I just keep getting into the weeds. And I know that if I keep getting into the weeds, I'm never a. My team's never going to learn what to do because I'm just doing it. And then b, I need to be focused on all these bigger things, like future. Brian running this massive company isn't going to be micromanaging how assistant manager at store number 34 picked up the phone and you, you know, didn't answer the call the way they should. And if you spent all your time because you would go crazy, right? You would go absolutely crazy if you tried to micromanage to the t every little thing in the business and it's going to keep you from growing. I have the saying that progress is more important than perfection. So progress over perfection. So what I'm looking for and I have for my entire life, and it's honestly, I think a pillar of how I've grown is that I'm looking for progress. So. So it's like, yes, he could have done better, but maybe that call is 10 times better than his call from the previous week. And in another week or two, he'll have it down. If he's making progress every week, that is more important to me than the perfection of did we nail it to every little point. And so anyway, go through this list as you go and you say, maybe I'm going to knock chase shiny objects. I'm not going to micromanage. I'm not gonna buy any real estate. I'm not gonna get, like, try to put my money in all these things that distract me. I am not gonna get into random fights on the Internet with strangers that make me angry. I am. I don't know all these things that, like, normally you do that you know, you shouldn't do to be very intentional. Cause that's all what 26 is about for me. It's how I'm gonna create success, is I'm gonna be extremely intentional in everything I do. And saying no is just as important as the things that you're going to say yes to. And your future self is going to thank you. Like, future self in five years or two years, when you've hit this massive goal is going to say thank you for not getting derailed by doing all that dumb stuff that you used to do.