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ISI Brotherhood Podcast
A podcast for growth-minded Christian businessmen who desire momentum and accountability in their business, family, finances, faith, and personal wellness. Each week, Aaron Walker, also known as Big A, shares authentically from decades of business ownership, marriage, and raising a family. He takes on listener questions and deep-dive into FORGE episodes with tried and tested co-hosts. Subscribe and visit our website https://www.isibrotherhood.com/podcast
ISI Brotherhood Podcast
101. “I Can Do It Better Than Everyone Else” (said every failed business owner ever)
“If you want time and freedom, you have to lead others to get there.” Seth Buechley joins us to define the crux of business failure and crappy leadership. There is truth that you can faster alone, but you can go farther together.
Today we talk about practical positives to delegating and how to delegate WELL. We need to create systems and processes, define specific Key Result Areas for our employees, and cultivate a mindset that serves the success of everyone. We cannot scale without empowering our people well.
- How do successful businesses scale?
- Long term benefits of entrusting tasks to capable team members
- How to implement KRAs well
- Recipes for burnout and failure
Discover how effective delegation can prevent burnout and transform your business from merely surviving to truly thriving. For solopreneurs and small business owners, we address the tricky balance between managing revenue growth and navigating the risks of hiring and delegation, sharing personal strategies and anecdotes for transitioning to effective leadership and management.
Finally, we delve into building a business that operates independently of its founder. Drawing on principles from John Warrillow's "Built to Sell," we discuss structuring your business with the potential for future sale in mind, even if selling isn't your immediate goal.
Iron Sharpens Iron Community: https://go.viewfromthetop.com/community
LinkedIn Group: https://www.viewfromthetop.com/group
Connect with Seth Buechley:
Seth's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seth-buechley/
Seth Buechley is a serial entrepreneur and business founder who has achieved several multi-million dollar exits. He is the host of the Business Done Right Podcast, which seeks to help faith-driven entrepreneurs build valuable businesses. His book, "Ambition: Leading with Gratitude," was written as a leadership manifesto to help driven people understand why they struggle to find satisfaction and what they can do about it.
If you want to hear more speakers like this every month and be with the guys on the call, join the Iron Sharpens Iron Community today: https://www.isibrotherhood.com/isi-community
Connect with Big A:
View From The Top Website: https://isibrotherhood.com
The ISI Newsletter: https://www.isibrotherhood.com/newsletter
Big A’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronwalkerviewfromthetop/
Hey everybody, welcome back to View From the Top podcast, where we help growth-minded men who desire momentum in their business, their family and their finances get through the valleys and up the mountain to their very own view from the top. Hey, quick question for you guys out there listening to this episode have you ever considered what it means to go next level? I mean, frankly, sometimes it can seem like you know that hocus pocus kind of stuff when some talking head is kind of sharing their great wisdom in front of a big mansion and a Lamborghini. Right, you've all seen that Well recently in the ISI community we have a monthly roundtable event and Quentin Hefner was in there and he was sharing how to go next level based on his own experiences really some gritty down-to-earth personal experience he's had, as well as just the hundreds of entrepreneurs that he's coached over the past few years. It was epic and I took so much away and the actionable feedback from members was amazing. Man, it was just a reminder to me how important it is to have men I trust around me that I can learn from.
Speaker 1:So if you too want to be connected and engaged with a growing group of growth-minded Christian businessmen and leaders, go check out the ISI community for yourself at isibrotherhoodcom. That's isibrotherhoodcom, and if you use the code POD30, p-o-d-3-0, you'll get 30 days for free to check it out for yourself. All right, so without further ado, let's get the man, the legend in the studio. Welcome, big A.
Speaker 2:Man, I don't know about all that legend stuff. You know, I was thinking about Quentin when you were talking a little bit in the introduction. Really, when I got to know Quentin was at the Summit. Yeah, For those that are listening, we do a Summit once a year. It's kind of an invitation only and we invited Quentin to come and, man, that guy's got deep roots. I mean, he's a deep, deep thinker. I love that guy and he crushed it. You're right For the roundtable man. He absolutely nailed it. Wally, how you been.
Speaker 1:I've been great man. Hot here in Tennessee, of course. It's been hot around the country in many places, a little dry where we are, but man, summer is going to be over here soon, looking forward to fall. Yeah, I'm ready to fall.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm ready. We had some unseasonably cool days a week ago, and so that was pretty nice. And then we get these 100-degree days, and so Mother Nature is teasing with us. It'll be here. Hey, I'm pretty excited about today's episode.
Speaker 2:We're going to tackle one of the biggest misconceptions. I think that holds business owners back, and that's the idea of I can do it better than everyone else. You know, we've all been there. When I start thinking about the business owners that I coach, and the guys in the mastermind, the guys in the community, we've all been there at some point in time in our life and for me it's humorous now to kind of look back and see that every single business that I've owned over 45 years now I've had this mindset at some point in time during the course of that business. And when I think about it now, I think that that was one of the recipes for the burnout, and I've experienced burnout a couple of times over the course of my career. But in business we've got to learn to delegate, and that's the reason that we were to get together today. We wanted to bring our good friend Seth Buechle from out on the West Coast. Seth, welcome to the podcast today. Man, how's it going?
Speaker 3:Hey Big A, it's going really well. Got a nice sunny day here in late summer in Oregon, so thanks for having me on Great to be with you and Wally.
Speaker 2:Pretty early for you out there, right.
Speaker 3:You're a few hours behind us. You called me earlier, Big A.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have. I've called you a lot earlier. Yeah, man, I hope you enjoy this fall season as much as we do. We were just talking earlier about how it's hot here right now, but you guys are a little further north than us, so you're going to get a little seasonably cooler weather faster than us, and I bet you're excited about that.
Speaker 3:It's a great time to be here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hey, man, let's dive in and talk a little bit about this topic. I think I can do it better than anyone else. You guys feel that Am I the only one Like? I was putting together these notes and I was like well, maybe I'm the only one that feels this way.
Speaker 3:But what about you guys? Do you think that you can do it better than anyone else? Some things I think in our strengths, you know, maybe. But I kind of want to stare at the question a little bit. You know, as an entrepreneur, I like to solve problems. So the problem you've kind of framed it as this idea that I can do it better than anyone else, and I'm wondering is that the real issue? Like, is that the pain point? Or is it really that, because we're saying I can do this better than anybody else, there's some other pain that's coming? And I'll give you an example of that, example of that.
Speaker 3:So you know, in the world of business there's people who have a job and they maybe they think it's a business, but really they don't show up every day, they don't eat, so in some ways it's kind of like they own their job Right. And then you have other people who have this, this lifestyle business, but in their mind they're thinking that they're building a business that maybe has value and maybe someday they can sell it. And then you have people that actually have what we would call like an enterprise, and so I think I'm trying to understand is like what's the pain point? Is the pain point here that that that the person who's having these thoughts like I can do it better than anyone else is is frustrated? Like, what are they frustrated about? Is kind of like something I wanted to kind of get on the table first, and then maybe we can dive into the question after that.
Speaker 1:Hey, before we dive into that, you know we brought Seth in and right away Seth jumps into what he does really well. So tell us real quick, like what's, give us like a one, one minute kind of backstory of like kind of where you come from, what you do, and I think it's going to make a lot of sense to what you just said especially right.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm an entrepreneur. My dad was a very intentional mentor, and we had a chance to grow some businesses and sell, and over the years, as I've scaled, you know, I've kind of gotten clear about what I'm good at and what I like to solve problems. I like to help people, I like to connect and communicate. I own a management consulting firm called Cathedral Consulting, and so we help, you know, entrepreneurs who have some sort of scale with strategy and like mergers and acquisitions and I was thinking about this this morning, kevin is it's easier to diagnose other people's problems than our own. You know this is going to sound terrible, I'm going to say it anyhow, though.
Speaker 3:We're in election season and Kamala has this phrase, which is we want to envision the future detached from the past, or something like that. Like she said it a thousand times, and it sounds really arrogant to say that sometimes, but in a lot of ways it's true Meaning we have to be able to look at the problem without all the emotion of how the heck we got into this problem, and it's actually a lot of wisdom in that statement, and so I get to solve problems for other people, which is a heck of a lot easier than trying to solve them in my own business in my own life, to be honest, and I have lots of problems in my own businesses in my own life, but I get the privilege of walking alongside leaders who are wrestling with problems around strategy and whatnot. So that's kind of where I come from and I've had a chance to work with you and partner with Big A over the years. It's been a blessing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Hence the reason that you do these mastermind groups, these peer advisory groups, right Is because we're too close to it to see our own. We have these blind spots and kryptonite and superpowers. It's easier for people that have been around you for a decade to see those more than you can evaluate it yourself.
Speaker 3:Without all the baggage that keeps us locked into our problem. Right, they can just come in and just say it clearly, and sometimes it hurts, but it is a gift if we can tolerate it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right, so let's swing back around to. The question that you posed was what is the core? Reframe that question for us. What is the core?
Speaker 3:What's the pain point Meaning? Somebody is coming to this mindset or they're wrestling with the. I fall into the temptation of thinking I can do this better than anybody, and I think that there is. There are people who feel that way, that are I would call them a little bit more control oriented, and there's a fear there. Right, I would say that's a fear of letting up, letting go.
Speaker 3:It's, it's this illusion of control, like I've got this Sometimes it's because, man, I'm just really good at this and I know I'm really good at it and it's so easy for me. Why would I let anybody else do it, right? But then it's kind of like but what's on the other side of that Like, what problem am I trying to solve by by starting to let go and give up, and meaning give up control? And where I was going with this was, if the problem is I'm trying to grow a business and it's not happening and I'm coming to grips with, well, it's because everything runs through me. Now I think we have to step back and say, well, why is that? Because it's not always just that they think they're better at it than ever, that we think we're better at it than everybody else. I think we can. We can stare at that scenario and say, yeah, that is one of the reasons people don't do it, but I actually think there's other reasons.
Speaker 2:I think there's two or three things as a result of that, because sometimes it's difficulty in trusting others. Yeah, like at the core, it's like, no, I don't trust these other people to do that, or maybe it's, they don't have the time to train them, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the other.
Speaker 2:thing they don't have the perfection mindset and they're like nah, it's not as good as I would do it, so I can't let go of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and what their mission is. I think there's an interesting quote that I've come across recently that evidently came out of the halftime ministry, and it was that sometimes your fruit, the fruit of your life, will grow on other people's trees. And I think the essence of that idea is and this is a problem for people who have a lifestyle business, it's a problem for people that are solopreneurs is you started the thing, you got it to a certain point, but in order to take it to the next step, you actually have to involve other people, and you have to involve them in a way that is meaningful for them. And sometimes the thing you mentioned, that this kind of this fear, letting go of control.
Speaker 3:Sometimes, you know, we look at the other people and we're like I can't even ask them to do this because there's not enough upside in it for them, I can't pay them enough, they're not equity partners, so therefore I've got to carry all this myself because I'm the only owner. And so sometimes it's not just that we think we're better at it than others, which I think is true for some people I think sometimes it's actually that we feel like this is our burden to carry and we're not willing to put that burden on other people. And then, if we were to put it on them, then you have to do the work of, like, managing and really engaging them and you mentioned it earlier, big A, like there's no system to even hand it off to them. Right and so. But the problem is you can only do so much as a person and then, as you become a leader of other leaders, you have to shift your identity and actually figure out how to lead other people right.
Speaker 1:A question, that there's a word that keeps coming to mind. I don't think we've used it yet and I don't think we're talking around it, but I wonder if it's the same thing or it is vastly different is delegation. Is that what we're talking about Like? Is this strictly up, straight up, a type of delegation, or is it deeper for you?
Speaker 3:I actually for me personally. I actually think it's there's two things that I fall. I fall down on this Number one. I'm reluctant to ask for help.
Speaker 1:So is that just a personality thing for you? It is for me too. I can get it done faster, right, I can do this thing. It takes me a second.
Speaker 2:It doesn't really take me a second. Maybe you couldn't get it done faster.
Speaker 1:That's what we don't know. Maybe somebody else. I think I can, I think I can right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but maybe somebody can do it twice as fast.
Speaker 3:Well, they can't eventually. And this is a little bit of a short-term long-term. In the near term you're right, it's faster for you to just bang it out, but long-term that's a chunk of your time that you don't get back. You know there's a book out there. Dan Martell has a book out there called Buy Back your Time. One of his principles I really like it is 80% done by somebody else is 100% freaking awesome.
Speaker 2:But what if you bring in somebody else that's already twice as fast as you? You bring in somebody that has they're more competent, they're more capable. That's their zone of genius. You pay them for those services? Uh, but the truth is, is there's? I'll give you an example. We're going through this right now with view from the top, and I've got it to a certain level. In order for us to go to the next level, I've outpunted my coverage. It's like, hey, this is what I know to do. So obviously we brought on other people to help in those things. They can do it better than me. Now it's not I've got to train them up. These are competent, capable people that can do it better and faster.
Speaker 3:And so then it's just the psychology of letting go which is really hard. I know that ISI has a very, you know, christian roots and Christian orientation, and I was in John 13 this week, and as Jesus is getting ready to, you know, he's washing the disciples' feet, he's talking to them, and it says this when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end, and what struck me was each of us has a certain cast of characters that have been given to us Like we're trying to take over the world, we're trying to do all these ambitious things, but even if we look to our example of Christ, he doubled back and he poured into and invested in this small little community of people that were literally right around him and, as business owners, those are the ones that we're given responsibility for. They're not our literal family, but for some reason they've come into contact with us.
Speaker 2:They're in our sphere of influence.
Speaker 3:And kind of having that mindset of it's my job to pull them into community to ask for help, to let it be maybe less than perfect for a season while we work together. And you know, kind of grow it up. What do you guys think of that idea? Kind of grow it up, what do you guys think of that idea?
Speaker 2:You know it's funny that as we're recording this, the movie the Forge just came out and it really dawned on me and watching that movie where this gentleman took this young man and radically changed his life. He wasn't interested in scaling that, you know, and but then they would take somebody and they would mentor them and the impact that it had on that young man's life and later even that man's business as a result of his mentoring, really emphasize what you're talking about right now, seth, is sometimes I get out over my skis and I'm looking, you know, the other side of the world, rather than the people that are right around me currently that I can impact, and so, yeah, I think that's a good word.
Speaker 1:I think there's a interesting dynamic with, uh, when you think about business owners, entrepreneurs, somebody starting, like a lot of the all the guys, a lot of the guys listening to this, are in that, uh, startup, uh, solopreneur, lifestyle, business, right, Um, anywhere from a hundred thousand to a few million dollars in revenue. That's pretty much what you know, the guys are listening and and you think of, like, the makeup of a business owner. Like even on this call today, there's three of us, but we probably have a pretty good like there's probably more personality types out there blends, but like between the three of us, like we, we approach things differently.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But so I know, for me personally, one of my challenges when I think about I can do better than anybody else is, uh, time and money.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's what I think about when, right, it's like I know these people are around me and maybe I've got one person, two person, and you know, as a solopreneur, it's like hiring your first person. It's a big stinking deal, like it's.
Speaker 3:It's a risk, and this is something I've been thinking about lately. As we get in routines, at some point we're we're playing for comfort, we're playing for the things that are controllable and we stop taking risks. I'm not talking about irresponsible risks, of course, but asking for help is taking a risk. It's kind of an emotional risk, right, delegating to somebody else something that they're not quite there but can be made to get there if you manage them to results. There's a phrase manage them to results.
Speaker 3:Sometimes the reason we don't delegate to others is we're lazy managers. I'm a lazy manager, I don't enjoy management. I like visioning, I like ideas, I like problem solving. But I've had you know, lencioni had a great quote one time he goes. You know, we talk a lot about micromanagement and people are like oh, I'm not a micromanager, I'm not a micromanager. And he's like well, of course you're not, because you've completely abdicated your responsibility to manage the people that that you've been entrusted with you know. So sometimes we say I'm not a micromanager, which is code for I'm just a crappy manager because I don't actually engage with the people that I'm supposed to be helping mature into leaders so that I can have the time and the freedom that I think I want, and so if you want time and freedom, you have to lead others to get there, and I'm preaching to myself, by the way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm listening to this, feeling like all kinds of guilt, like it's totally me. So you mean, seth, that I can't just say it once?
Speaker 3:No, you have to be the chief reminding officer.
Speaker 1:What are you talking about? I said it once like I'm good, oh, I struggle with that so much.
Speaker 2:Wally, you do. Even in our one-on-ones you're like ah, I told him to do this or I told him to do that. You know, it's like well okay, once is not going to get it, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's hard.
Speaker 2:Wally, you said something earlier that I just wanted to touch on for a second. You said it was time and money. Where do the listeners get to a place to where they've got to make the decision of I'm going to have to give up some of the profits in order to do this, and I think a lot of the times we hold on way too long. It's like we get ourselves in a frame of mind that we've got to have that revenue in order to increase our lifestyle and it never allows us to get to a place that we can bring on more people. So, wally, in your business that you sold back in 2019, how did you determine for the listener to get to a place that they can afford it? I hear that all the time. Well, I don't know if I can afford that. Like, how did you work through that at Interact?
Speaker 1:There's definitely complexities in this right. There's different parts of this that play into it. Seth mentioned one about risk. It's just the risk of, like man, if I get the wrong person right, if I get the wrong person. You might think that's not time and money, but it is, because if I don't get the right person in the right seat, then I'm investing time and money away from the business to help them and then they're not going to work out and something move on. Then I got to do. Well, I hear that all the time from people that don't hire the right seat and you never can get a hundred percent guarantee in hiring for the right seat. Like, let's just get that out there. Like it's a risk, it happens and so that's a big part of it. Money's the other part. Like for me, going back, I remember I waited way too long, even when I had some money. I was talking to a guy, what?
Speaker 2:was the obstacle. Stop right there for a second. You had the money, but what was holding you back?
Speaker 1:I'm going to go. I'll go there right now. That's where I'm going. So I had a guy I was talking to the other day. He's an ISI member and we're talking about his business and he said, hey, man, like I'm struggling financially, I'm actually bringing more money in than I have in a while, but I'm struggling financially.
Speaker 1:And what happened was in his business, was he never changed, like he went from a high paying job to starting a business. He never changed his lifestyle, his output of funds that he needed to run his life. And so what happened is there was a miscommunication, not miscommunication, a fear of conflict between he and his wife. He had to bring in this certain amount of money to feed this. There was lack of communication there, no change in lifestyle. And so now he's doing, getting good money for his business, but he can't afford to hire somebody because he's feeding the beast. You talk about this all the time, about and again, it's not that it's wrong or right, it's just a reality, a fact that you've made these decisions. You know whether it's and again, I'm not picking on people who have boats, it's just have the boat, have this, have these. You know wonderfully awesome momentous.
Speaker 1:You know vacations that you take, but is it the time Right? And so that's part of it for me was I had started to build up, like, okay, I'm making decent money now and there's this. There was this thing that do I hold back from that? How much more do I have to make before it's the right? It's the right play? Every guy I've ever talked to I don't know if you guys experienced this or not I have maybe one person out of, let's say, 50 has ever said to me I should have waited longer. No one ever says that, never. But it takes risk.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it also takes an awareness of what you're trying to build.
Speaker 3:There are seasons when you're the startup mode and then you're trying to build the business to the next phase, where you're even at a lifestyle business, and then you have to swallow hard and take those steps to become what we like to call an enterprise, like to call an enterprise right.
Speaker 3:And you know, when you're trying to build something of value and so let's kind of cast this back in the value phrase is, in order for somebody to want to buy your business, they have to be able to see the value, they have to see your systems and see your people and they have to believe that it's going to run without you.
Speaker 3:And so I mean, if people just kind of kept, if leaders just kind of kept that simple mindset of for this thing to be valuable, it literally has to run without me. And so you hold that up to a test of how many of these things that I'm dealing with every day can I just slowly get off of my plate to where I'm just kind of in my zone of genius. And then even those things have to get handed off eventually, Otherwise it's going to be very difficult for somebody to write you a big check to buy your business and expect that that business will even make more money for them with you because it's totally reliant, dependent on you currently, and so but around that idea of selling, a lot of guys listening to this are going.
Speaker 1:I'm not even there yet, like I'm just starting. I've been doing this for a couple of years. Seth, is there a difference? I have my own opinion on this. Is there a difference between running a successful business for yourself or running a successful business to sell in? In general theory, is there a difference?
Speaker 3:I don't think so. I don't think there should be. I think there is. At a practical level, I don't think there should be Because the reason is, if you have a profitable, healthy business, you got all sorts of choices. There's nobody saying I'm not even saying you should be thinking about selling it. You keep it. Hand it to your kids, enjoy it right, use. You. Keep it, hand it to your kids, enjoy it right, use it as a platform for ministry, for giving, for impacting your community. There's all sorts of reasons to never part with it. Right, if it's healthy and profitable. But once you are healthy and profitable, you have it's going to be attractive to others. And so when people get to a certain season of life or they want to explore, all right, it's time to figure that out. You know that's just kind of the lens we tend to look at it because of the work we do. Is that helpful? Is that how you see it?
Speaker 1:I'm curious how you see it. Yeah, I see it the same way. It's that decision, though you said something earlier. I think Big A alluded to this earlier as well. It's just like what's the goal, what's the awareness of what you're trying to accomplish as a solopreneur or a small business owner or whatever? Like what is it that you want? Right, and and knowing what you want helps you to be able to figure out, hey, am I willing to lean into the communication and the conflict that's necessary within myself, within my relationship with my, with my wife, potentially within the relationship with my people that are working alongside of me and my team? Like that's all part of it, right? But I wholly agree with you. The as a John Warillo built to sell has a lot of great principles of. In 2011, I think, or 13, I can't remember I read that book and I decided then I was going to learn how to build, build a business to sell, and those principles, whether I decided to sell or not, were valid. That's what I think. I think you need to.
Speaker 2:you need to build it to sell. John Warlow is who you're referring to. Yeah, Since you butchered his name, I wanted to be sure that people listen to it.
Speaker 3:He's Canadian, he butchesers words he does and everybody butchers my name.
Speaker 2:That's why they call me Big A now. But anyway, I think that we need to build all businesses as though they can survive without us, because we never know what's coming. I'll give you an example, just a health scare. I talked to a thought leader yesterday. He's 31 years old. If I called his name, everybody would know who he is. He's got cancer. He's 31 years old. If I called his name, everybody would know who he is. He's got cancer. He's 31 years old and he found out six weeks ago he's got cancer. And now he's called me and he said Big A, we need to talk. And so we're talking through. So if he didn't build his business to sell or build his business to run on its own, he would have a much larger problem that he's currently got.
Speaker 2:I think of Brett Barnhart Barnhart excavating out in Tulsa, oklahoma. He just did a stress test on his business. He took a month off to see if they could run without him. No communication whatsoever, no email, no phone calls, no chat, no anything. And he came back and he goes well. I'm excited and disappointed at the same time. I said what are you excited about? And he goes well. I'm excited and disappointed at the same time. I said what are you excited about? He said well, they had more sales than when I left, and I'm disappointed because they don't need me like they used to need me, and it was a really he prepared for that, though I just want to throw this out there.
Speaker 1:No, he did, absolutely. That wasn't like hey, I'm going to show up and not come in for a month and see what happens no month and see what happens.
Speaker 2:It wasn't a burnout thing.
Speaker 1:He prepared, he prepared his people prepared his systems, his processes to even get to that point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this is why we should do it. That's what I want to get to is like how would we summarize in a sentence or two why people would consider delegating let's eliminate some of the things that we've talked about and implement here a few reasons why you would do this. Seth, you do a lot of M&A deals. You're always working with people. What would you tell them to do in regards to delegation? And then I want to get to a few practical steps of how we would do it like teaching people a little bit more how to delegate.
Speaker 1:So the question is why it's important first. Is that right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, why it's important? Why should you do it?
Speaker 3:Well, I would say why it's important. Why should you do it? Well, I would say, first, it's important because we are not made to carry the world's problems alone. They say, if you want to go fast, go alone. You want to go further, go together. Right, I think this is actually one of these go slow to go fast things, meaning we don't want to slow down and engage and train and get our fingers dirty in the weeds of delegating stuff and defining what success looks like in the various roles of our people. It's basic management and entrepreneurs. That's not a natural skill for many entrepreneurs. We're very good at a lot of other stuff, so let's just start there.
Speaker 3:But why it's important from the perspective of mergers and acquisitions is it's actually one of the very first things that a smart money buyer will be looking at is how much of this business is built around the unique personality, relationships and efforts of the founder. To the extent that the founder is still intertwined into the business at the time that they'd like to buy it, they're going to discount the value, no matter what they say. It's 100% certainty. They're going to believe, particularly if it's an entrepreneur, that that entrepreneur is going to bounce out of that business after they buy it within two years, and so they're going to see whatever part of the business that that owner is still intertwined in. They're going to see that as the risky part of the business, and so it will impact the value of it. Just full stop.
Speaker 2:So I was 27 years old and at the closing table physically at the closing table I was selling to a Fortune 500. At the closing table, physically at the closing table, I was selling to a Fortune 500. And the president of the company showed up, because this has been years ago now, obviously. But he said, hey, I wanted to come and see the businesses that were buying in Nashville. Well, I started to tell him all the things that I do personally in the business. I was 27. I didn't know any better. And he goes you do that personally. I said, yeah, and I call these people and I do this, and I do.
Speaker 2:And I went through a list, really feeling like I was showing him what an asset and a value I was to the business. And he goes we have 300 locations, we can't do that. Maybe we need to revisit this. And I'm like, oh my gosh, what did I just do? He did exactly what you said. He was evaluating all the things that I bring to the table. And I look back now and I wished I had had a mentor. I wished I had had a mastermind group, trusted advisors that could walk me through what we're sharing today and I wouldn't have made such a horrific mistake during the closing they went on to buy it. But yeah, it can be problematic for sure. Wally, I wanted you to kind of go into a little bit of some of the practical things that we can do, like how do we find the right person, how do we make the decision to delegate, and you can even share some things that we've done here in Iron Sharpens Iron about how to delegate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love for you guys interrupt me as I go as well. I've just got a couple of things. I mentioned this before and I can't overstate it because I'm continuing to learn. Right, this isn't something I've got all buttoned up and I'm super successful at it 24-7. That is not the truth. I'm still learning and one of those things I'm continuing to learn is over communication. Uh, primarily because I want to say it once and like yeah, you got it, so that's not how it works.
Speaker 1:Um, not everybody's wired that way. There are people, right, that you can do that you can do that with, and, um, you know there's, but there's most people you can't. It's just not wired that way and so it's partly not the responsibility. And you look at how their KRAs, their key results areas or their job descriptions however you want to label those are set up. They have a different function, they think differently and so over-communicating to the point of like being very intentional about when you're looking to delegate, especially if you already have. There's two different types, right, if you're just starting out hiring your first person, that's a little different animal because you have no one around you that you're working with. There's just you. So having that mentors, having the mastermind groups, having those people around you is super important there.
Speaker 1:But let's say that you've got a little bit of momentum in your business one or two people and you're looking to take that next delegation step.
Speaker 1:Getting your people involved and communicating of what you're doing super important. Number one because as soon as you start as a business owner, like offloading things like again they don't think like you do they. If you haven't told them why and shared with them why you're doing it, if you haven't told them why and shared with them why you're doing it, there's a whole bunch of emotional like pent up fear and anxiety that they can start to build up and that affects your culture directly. So communication about what you're doing and why you're doing it super, super clear, super, super important. I think that process of delegation is also like really clearly defining what it is you're looking to accomplish, and saying it out loud is one thing Like super easy for you, big A, like I know you best, and super easy for you to get into a meeting and just be like rattle off a bunch of stuff. But now for someone to take that like they need to, they need to have it written down.
Speaker 1:Right and for yourself to be able to remember what you said in the first place.
Speaker 3:Let me ask you a question. Or actually, wally, let me ask you a question. Yeah, I was just looking at KRAs the other day because, for a CEO, I'm the chairman of a board and he, he doesn't have KRAs for himself and neither does his team. And as I was actually referencing Ramsey's teaching on this, which I enjoy, I'm pretty sure he said talk about the outcome, like tell the person that's being delegated this is the outcome.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Right, this is the definition of done, as Martel would say.
Speaker 1:Key results areas is what a KRA is.
Speaker 3:But give them the latitude to craft their own and this is how they're going to do it. I mean, you work with them on that, rather than come to them and say this is what I want and these are the exact steps I want you to take, because that's in my mind, that's disempowering. I'm like, hey, you get it For me personally, I'd be like, no, tell me the outcome, let me go figure out how to do it. Because that now you're going to get buy-in, it's been said. People won't buy in until they weigh in. Well, if we come to them and say, here's the outcome, now they feel like a robot, you know. But if you say, hey, here's the outcome, why don't you take a stab at some of the things that you would, you would pursue to achieve this outcome? And, by the way, they talk about, with key results, areas like three, not not 10, right, three, right. So give me three to five ways that you might achieve this outcome. And then you wrestle that down to the ground together, you get aligned on it and then they own it Right.
Speaker 3:And so what I do after that, um, in a perfect world, is I use a 4P model for my meet, my management meeting. So I have a leader and it's like tell me what your progress has been, tell me what your priorities are, what are the problems you're wrestling with and what's going on with your people. For me, whenever I just need, like, how do I have an effective meeting, it's like let's just talk about those things. You know, what'd you get done? What are you working on? Like, where are you stuck?
Speaker 2:That covered it all. Right there, that covered the whole. I think so Bang Right.
Speaker 1:Question for you, though. When you're starting to delegate especially small team, like if you got a bunch of people and you're shifting some things around, I think that makes perfect sense. If you got a small team, for that guy listening today that's like hey, I got two people on staff and I'm actually hiring for a third role implementing some of these KRAs this idea of what they're going to be doing, how engaged.
Speaker 3:When you're thinking about hiring a new person. How engaged do you have them in what you feel like the needs of your business are? I think there's two steps. I think you have to frame it up enough to have enough clarity about the role so that somebody coming into your company knows this has been thought through. They don't feel at risk Like these guys don't have a clue what they're doing. Right, you know it's not an attractive environment to come in where somebody you know it's yeah. So you have to have it framed up enough that it's more general.
Speaker 3:And then I think, once they're in the seat for a while, that's the appropriate time to say okay, now, in light of what you know, in light of what we see about your personality and skills, in light of the problems we're trying to solve as a company. Now the leadership team gets together again and which is a healthy practice anyhow and you kind of reshuffle the deck right, because if you think about it, you know that should happen in moments of time. Anyhow is like the world changes and the key is somebody's got to own literally everything in the business, but it doesn't have to be the one guy owning it. You sit there and you say these are all of our priorities. I think you guys just probably recently did redid this I saw an org chart with ISI. You're working on that. Right, somebody's got to own every part of the business, but but that can move around a bit based on a lot of factors.
Speaker 1:Does that help? Yeah, yeah, no, I, I love that, especially that four Ps. That's really good.
Speaker 2:Just a little quick pro tip, those that are listening to this today it's helpful if you can record the session and then the person you're training can go back. They can rewatch it multiple times. You can train once and they can watch it multiple times, so yeah, let's be very clear.
Speaker 1:We're talking about training, not conversations around like exactly performance and responsibilities. Yeah, I don't know, never record anything like that they'll never be honest with you, yeah I've really enjoyed.
Speaker 3:Uh, with uh zoom, has this ai companion feature like. I don't think people will watch an hour-long video, but they'll read the notes that the companion comes up with, which are pretty darn good good.
Speaker 1:You think that's pretty good. I said that the other day. I haven't tried it yet.
Speaker 3:I like it a lot, in fact, I find you know, because what happens is people, especially when you're you're riffing, they're like trying to take all the notes, it's like, no, let's just riff, let the AI take the notes, right, and then they're good yeah.
Speaker 1:I told you. I was like okay, I'll do it, but I'm going to try it side by side. I don't trust it yet. I got to learn to trust it.
Speaker 2:Well that might you need to delegate that out and let somebody else come up with your five shining for the uh we do some assessments and things. Talk about those just for a second. I want to come back to a couple of things there.
Speaker 1:First of all, when you're looking for the right, you know that that next best person, if you will, for the role of the business, what you're trying to accomplish. You can be creative. A lot of times people jump right to I got to hire someone and then they start thinking about especially if they've come from a corporate or another business environment where they were an employee employee they think of all the things that that that were involved with that right. Like not saying health insurance isn't part of it, but there's all these benefits and things that people think they have to wrap up, when you're just starting and beginning got a couple of team members, you're probably most business somewhere don't have that full suite of things that maybe you know a larger business is going to have. So be mindful that, like, it's okay to like just communicate what you have. Be creative with how you, how you get the resources that you need.
Speaker 1:You don't always have to hire someone full time. Find some part time. You could find some contract work that you trust, as long as the contracted work be very intentional, about very specific tasks, very specific outcome. Seth, you've had some experience with that. What would you say to that? Like how that person hires someone. How can they be creative?
Speaker 1:with who they're looking for.
Speaker 3:To be honest, I think it starts with you know. I heard a good quote the other day, which is awareness is curative. You've probably heard that, like, if you just acknowledge I need help, I can't keep doing this. Here's the problem I'm trying to solve. And you start to verbalize that, which is very hard for some people that have you know us, that have an ego like we're. We got all of our stuff together, we don't want to share it.
Speaker 3:I actually think it starts with things like an ISI. We have the man in the middle. We're being honest. This is what I'm wrestling with. How would you guys solve this? Right? Um, sharing to your network, posting on LinkedIn or whatever. Hey, I'm trying to find a solution for this. What do you guys have To me?
Speaker 3:I don't ask for help early enough. People are willing to help us. There's a coach I like and he says on Fridays he calls people and he just asks them for help. I mean, this guy's a stud and people actually want to help you, particularly if they respect you. They do, sure they do, and so I think, both of you guys. I think that it starts with just being honest. I need help. I need help in this area, and then whether it's part-time, full-time I have a cousin who can do this. I mean, then the magic can happen and you're like, wow, I would have never figured that out. But I think it starts with just acknowledging it. And then, yes, hiring systems and being really diligent about the kind of people you bring onto your team. I actually think that's huge, because culture matters more than anything else in business.
Speaker 2:I think that's something that you and I and Wally have all cultivated over the years by being in mastermind groups, because it's a culture that we've built. It's like it's what we do. This is why we're here, and that's the reason these guys have so much more success, so much faster. They have a team of advisors trusted advisors that walk with them through every one of these, so now it's nothing for us to go. Hey Seth, hey Wally. I need help on this.
Speaker 3:And you're more than willing and happy to dive in. This won't be a plug fest for ISI, unless you want it to be. But I have one of the guys in my group is trying to figure out how to do a hundred million dollar deal and I'm like whoa, that's a big, big dog. I'm like this and you know I was able to say that's not my domain, but I know here's my attorney, she's ideal in these specific areas you're focusing on. They got on a phone call like that didn't happen until he came and said hey, I'm trying to figure out how to do this thing, which seems like it's impossible and insurmountable to me. What do you guys got Right and then we were able to connect him Um, and I hope it works.
Speaker 1:I had a similar situation this week. Uh, in one of my groups guy says on his accountability weekly check-in, his weekly check-in progress report, he said my number one thing this week is to is to offload, uh, um, a podcast production, that, that that he's been doing and something so simple. But yet and he can go search for a million of those companies. But he's like, hey, who do you guys know that I could trust?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, it's just like bam, it's like, it's just uh, you can, you can leverage and get there faster. I want to circle back to one thing before we get done here. I know we're coming to the end of our time. Um, there are some. And again, if you guys jump into the community again, use that, um, you know, the ISI community, the Brotherhood, isibrotherhoodcom, and use that pod 30, p-o-d 30 to get in the community. There's some great resources in there, including things like this, because we can't spend a lot of time on the call today.
Speaker 1:But when it comes to like frameworks, systems, assessments for who you're hiring, they are important because they really help you understand a lot better, very quickly, right and at very low cost, about that person that you're hiring, not even if they're the great fit for that specific task that you're asking them to do, but how they go about doing that task and how they fit into your culture and into your communication environment within your business.
Speaker 1:And so some of those are things like working genius is a great, simple, low cost helps you understand how that person fits into your team, what their geniuses are, what their competencies and frustrations are. So working genius DISC is popular Myers-Briggs, of course, Colby, strengthsfinder, and I'm sure there's other ones out there too, but those are the ones that I'm most familiar with, and then I work with guys as well. Those are great simple tools. They give a lot of you. Have someone go through one or two of those assessments. They spell it all out for you. Like, you don't have to be, you know, a genius at personality trade assessment to understand what it is that you're trying to accomplish there. So utilize some of those tools. Don't overutilize them, but utilize those tools appropriately and it'll be to your benefit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, this has really been fun today. Seth, I know your time's really valuable man. Thank you for hanging out with Wally and I today. Wally, it's always fun. Guys, listen, if you're that person that's always striving for perfection, that really could, as we talked about today, lead to burnout. It stifles our growth. We don't want to do that right. Perfectionism is frequently rooted in fear of failure, and I know that I've been guilty of that so many times. So think about some of the reasons that you are not delegating. The belief that you believe you can do it better is often rooted in that desire for control, and we need to let that go. We need to build our businesses, as we said, to sell even if we don't. Successful businesses scale by empowering others and trusting competent team members to take on key responsibilities, and you know it as well as anyone. The reason that we want you to do this is so that you, too, can eventually have that view from the top.
Speaker 1:Hey guys, thank you so much again for listening in today. What a great topic and I don't want to overstate this. But as we said at the beginning I think I mentioned it in the middle and at the end community is really important for all of us. Especially as a Christian, you know that you have community within your church, but as a business owner, you also need community around the things that you're trying to accomplish as a business owner, and they are unique and different at times. And the way that you can do that is to go to isibrotherhoodcom, check out the community and again one last time, there's a free trial offer for you to get in, no cost to you. We give it to you for 30 days. Use pod30, p-o-d-3-0 on the payment page when you check out and you get to check that out for 30 days. So thank you again so much for being here and we'll see you next week.