Latest / The Start, Scale & Succeed Podcast / The Problem with Being Too Good with Lacey Newman (stage 3) - Ep. 434

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The Problem with Being Too Good with Lacey Newman (stage 3) - Ep. 434 · The Start, Scale & Succeed Podcast

• 0:00
  Scott Ritzheimer: Hello, hello, and welcome, welcome once again
• 0:02
  to the Start Scale and Succeed podcast-the only podcast that
• 0:05
  grows with you through all seven levels of your journey as a
• 0:08
  founder. I'm your host, Scott Ritzheimer, and if you've hired
• 0:12
  your first handful of people, you know it's-it's not
• 0:15
  necessarily one, maybe it is, but it's not necessarily two,
• 0:18
  maybe it is, but it's not quite 10 yet either. Somewhere in
• 0:21
  there. There's this messiness that happens because you realize
• 0:24
  that instead of making your life easier, they've made your life
• 0:27
  busier. And this is something that happens to virtually
• 0:31
  everyone in level three. And here's the trap, and it actually
• 0:34
  has a lot more to do with you than you think, because being
• 0:38
  the best one in the room at the actual work is-it's exactly
• 0:42
  what's keeping your team dependent on you. And my guest
• 0:46
  today has lived on both sides of this problem. Lacey Newman is
• 0:50
  here with us today. She's a founder, coach, and keynote
• 0:52
  speaker who's helped 1000s of high-performing women build
• 0:55
  lives and businesses that are truly their own. Over two
• 0:59
  decades, Lacey built and scaled a real estate team to nearly 1
• 1:02
  billion in sales volume, hosted an Emmy-nominated TV show, and
• 1:07
  grew her personal income to seven figures, all while raising
• 1:11
  two children of her own, and on her own, proving that ambition
• 1:16
  and motherhood do not have to compete. Today, she helps
• 1:19
  ambitious women break the cycle of over functioning, untangle
• 1:22
  their identity from productivity, and reinvent their
• 1:26
  work from a place of clarity instead of burnout, so they can
• 1:29
  build wealth and freedom without sacrificing themself. Lacey,
• 1:33
  that sounds wonderful. I hope you can show us how to do that.
• 1:36
  But this is-I just want to start because I think it's-it's
• 1:40
  important for folks to recognize that it's not just you,
• 1:43
  listener, who feel this way. And and Lacey, I'm wondering how how
• 1:48
  universal you think this is. Is something that everybody goes
• 1:50
  through, or or is it something that only affects a select few?
• 1:54
  Lacey Newman: Well, it's interesting. It's an interesting
• 1:56
  question because I think it is something everyone should go
• 2:00
  through. But I do think that there are a number of founders.
• 2:04
  I call them overwhelmed operators, people who are kind
• 2:08
  of in what you describe as level three. I think that there are.
• 2:11
  This is a stop on the way to scaling your business, but it's
• 2:15
  also what I've seen where a lot of people get stuck because they
• 2:20
  enter this phase of business, and then they kind of like touch
• 2:23
  the hot stove, and then they never want to touch the hot
• 2:26
  stove again. So a lot of people, it is a place that you should
• 2:28
  travel through, but a lot of places, a lot of people will
• 2:31
  turn around and kind of hold themselves back in this spot.
• 2:37
  Scott Ritzheimer: When you touch a hot stove and it hurts, right?
• 2:39
  That's clearly something wrong, and and and I think we have this
• 2:43
  interesting relationship with pain, where pain can indicate
• 2:46
  just something new, right? And it can also indicate something
• 2:50
  wrong. How do you help your folks figure out the difference?
• 2:53
  Because maybe they maybe they hired someone and it didn't work
• 2:56
  out. Well, there are probably lessons to learn in there as
• 3:00
  well. They probably did part of that at least wrong. How do you
• 3:02
  separate the pain from "Hey, this is just new. I'm learning"
• 3:05
  from the pain of "That was stupid. I shouldn't do that
• 3:08
  again.
• 3:10
  Lacey Newman: That's a wonderful question. You know, I I have
• 3:13
  seen this post on social media a lot recently that says, you
• 3:17
  know, entrepreneurship is basically realizing how dumb you
• 3:20
  were six months ago, over and over and over again, and so
• 3:23
  that's the whole thing. Is that in in when you are a founder of
• 3:27
  a company, whether you're a solopreneur, a small business
• 3:29
  owner, growing a team, failure is the curriculum. You are going
• 3:35
  to constantly do things that don't work out, and so where I
• 3:40
  see people get hung up is they let that pain be the thing that
• 3:45
  holds them back, rather than letting it just be information
• 3:48
  that allows them to make a better decision moving forward.
• 3:51
  So you know the the distinction for me is not so much like how
• 3:56
  do I know if the pain means no, it's that the pain is always
• 4:00
  information, and so what are you learning from it? And we have, I
• 4:05
  believe that a lot of us, especially if you are, would
• 4:07
  consider yourself a people pleaser. If you would consider
• 4:10
  yourself that you know I have to, you know, perfectionist type
• 4:15
  person, somebody who wants to achieve and is really failure
• 4:18
  averse. Those types of people, and I can identify with this
• 4:21
  myself. And so many of the women that I work with do this as
• 4:24
  well. We are so afraid of failing that we don't embrace
• 4:29
  failure as just part of the journey, and and really treat it
• 4:33
  as the curriculum that it really is.
• 4:36
  Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, I think one of the reasons why this
• 4:38
  shows up so profoundly at this stage, is because when you start
• 4:42
  building a team around you, the very same things that might have
• 4:47
  been dysfunctional might not, but either way, served you
• 4:49
  really well in the past, right? The people pleasing. If you'll
• 4:52
  bend over backwards to serve your customers, customers like
• 4:55
  that. The perfectionist. If you do a better job than anybody
• 4:58
  else, your customers like. That and and in some ways we're
• 5:02
  rewarded for that, right? Completely, and then we get to
• 5:06
  where we have a team, and they need stuff from us as well, and
• 5:09
  we don't want to let them down, and we feel the need to please
• 5:12
  them, and they're between us and the perfectionism. It seems like
• 5:15
  adding other people to the mix really complicates this for that
• 5:19
  that style of person.
• 5:21
  Lacey Newman: It absolutely can if you don't change who you are
• 5:24
  and how you operate. Because in the way that you just described
• 5:28
  it, if I'm the founder and I am people pleasing my clients and
• 5:33
  I'm showing up perfectly all the time and I'm really managing the
• 5:37
  entire experience on my own, and then I bring some people on the
• 5:40
  team to quote unquote support me slash help me, but instead of
• 5:45
  letting them take some of some ownership off of my plate, I end
• 5:50
  up like mother henning them instead of letting them really
• 5:54
  support me. Then I have just added to my own chaos. I just
• 5:57
  have more people to serve at this point. So I tell my
• 6:02
  coaching clients sometimes, and they laugh at this. But I tell
• 6:05
  my I tell my clients that when you hire someone, you need to
• 6:09
  act a little bit incompetent. You need to you need to really
• 6:14
  ask yourself: Is this something that I can do, or is this
• 6:18
  something that I truly should do? And really drawing that
• 6:22
  distinction between what can I do, what should I do, is really
• 6:27
  that line. And you've got to be willing to go. I know I can do
• 6:31
  it. I know I can do it amazingly well. But if I continue to do
• 6:35
  it, I'm standing not only in the way of the growth of my
• 6:38
  business, but in the growth of this person that I just hired to
• 6:42
  support me, and so you kind of just have to take your hands off
• 6:45
  the wheel and trust in some areas. And one great rule of
• 6:49
  thumb that I use is that if somebody can do a job at least
• 6:53
  80% as well as you can, then you need to let them. And so, but
• 6:58
  this is hard because especially people who have built our
• 7:02
  businesses through grit, through doing everything on our own, we
• 7:05
  have those perfectionist tendencies. It can be really
• 7:08
  hard to allow someone to not do something as well as we know
• 7:14
  that we could do it. But not only do we stand on our own way,
• 7:17
  we don't give them the opportunity to shine. And what I
• 7:20
  have discovered so many times is that when I take my hands off
• 7:23
  the wheel, I let someone own something. A lot of the time,
• 7:27
  more often than not, especially if I've hired well, they will
• 7:30
  actually outperform me in this new task, and that is where it
• 7:34
  gets really exciting.
• 7:36
  Scott Ritzheimer: Let's talk about that. Let's talk about
• 7:37
  hiring well because it is, in some extent a prerequisite
• 7:42
  because if you have the wrong person and you do the right
• 7:44
  things, you can still get the wrong result. Which then again,
• 7:48
  how do you like? What was the right thing? What was the wrong
• 7:50
  thing? It's really hard to tell. So, yet, how many entrepreneurs
• 7:53
  do you know that went and had any type of formal training on
• 7:56
  hiring at all? I mean, it's almost none. And those that do,
• 8:00
  it's almost this equal but opposite problem. So let's just
• 8:03
  talk with the the average, normal, typical founder. She has
• 8:08
  she has found out that she has to hire and figured out how to
• 8:11
  hire or maybe how not to hire just by having to.
• 8:14
  Lacey Newman: Right.
• 8:15
  Scott Ritzheimer: What? How can we help pave that road a little
• 8:18
  bit clearer for them so that they can hire well as opposed to
• 8:22
  just hiring because they have to.
• 8:23
  Lacey Newman: Sure, I've got a few steps to do this that are
• 8:25
  really, really easy to follow. I mean, step number one is hire
• 8:29
  before you need to, but nobody ever does that. So let's not
• 8:32
  pretend that's a reality. We don't do that. Normally, we hire
• 8:37
  when we are already in significant pain, and we will
• 8:42
  often throw out some sort of job description. Put out, put out
• 8:47
  the signal. We need some help. We bring a couple people in, and
• 8:50
  we look at who we have in front of us, and we go, okay, any,
• 8:53
  miney, moe. Which of these people is probably the best out
• 8:57
  of the ones that are in front of us? And then we hire them, and
• 9:00
  we bring them on board, and then often we are so busy doing what
• 9:03
  we do that we don't actually onboard them, train them, and
• 9:06
  support them properly. Much less the conversation we just had
• 9:10
  about actually letting them support us, and then it doesn't
• 9:12
  work out. And then we go, "Oh, I touched the hot stove. I don't
• 9:15
  want to do that again. That was a mess. But really, it was
• 9:18
  because there was no process that was really followed. So the
• 9:22
  way that I do it, and when I'm working, especially with my
• 9:24
  one-on-one clients who are are really in this position, I say
• 9:28
  first of all, you have to start with what what truly is the job
• 9:31
  that you need. You need to look at what is mine, and what should
• 9:36
  I not be doing. And then now we used to have to go, okay, what
• 9:41
  needs to be done by me? What needs to be done by a system?
• 9:45
  What can a system take over, or what needs to be done by another
• 9:48
  human? Well, now there's a fourth category, which is what
• 9:51
  can AI do? So before in if you lose someone on your team, or
• 9:56
  you're creating a new position on your team, you need to first
• 9:59
  begin. With where can this be tackled with AI? Because there
• 10:04
  is so much that can be automated and can be done by AI now.
• 10:08
  That's really exciting, which then allows you and the other
• 10:12
  humans on your team to do really important work that only a human
• 10:16
  can do. It's better for you. It's better for the people and
• 10:19
  their growth on your team. So you've got to ask yourself that
• 10:21
  question first, but you put out okay, this is what I truly need.
• 10:25
  This is what the rule the role truly requires, and then I
• 10:29
  always have people submit a video with applications. So I
• 10:32
  have you fill out my application, and at the bottom
• 10:34
  of the application it says, please submit a three minute
• 10:38
  video. You know, couple basic questions like, why do you think
• 10:42
  you're a great fit for this job? What do you see yourself
• 10:44
  bringing to the role? You know, don't. This is not rocket
• 10:46
  science. Just something. But what I do is that by having them
• 10:51
  submit a video, number one, you rule out a lot of people
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  instantly because lots of people will not submit a video. Okay,
• 10:58
  if you can't follow instructions, you're not going
• 11:00
  to be on my team. A lot of times, people will email me and
• 11:04
  say, "I can't figure out how to submit this video. Okay. Well,
• 11:08
  if you can't figure it out without coming to me, you don't
• 11:13
  belong on my team. So then, of the people who followed
• 11:17
  instructions and figured it out on their own, even if they
• 11:20
  didn't quite know how to do it, I then get the opportunity to
• 11:24
  see how people communicate. See, you know, get their thought
• 11:26
  process. I really go into my interviews with them coming from
• 11:30
  a more informed place, and then I always like to give people a
• 11:34
  test project, a paid test project, because a lot of times
• 11:37
  we will make assumptions about a new hire and what their
• 11:41
  capabilities are, or you know what they know or they don't
• 11:44
  know. But I love to give people a test project and I pay them,
• 11:48
  you know, equivalent of what that project might be. A lot of
• 11:50
  times I'm working with independent contractors, so I'll
• 11:52
  just say, okay, this is the this is the job I want you to do.
• 11:55
  Let's negotiate a fair rate for it, but this is not a big
• 11:57
  contract, and then it gives me the opportunity without a ton of
• 12:01
  instruction to see what they bring to the table, and then if
• 12:05
  you've done that, if you know that you found, if you've really
• 12:07
  done your own due diligence on what are you truly looking for,
• 12:11
  you do a really nice streamlined vetting process of the right
• 12:15
  candidate. You give them an opportunity to show you what you
• 12:18
  can do before you make a commitment. Then you have really
• 12:22
  done a lot more in creating an environment that allows for that
• 12:27
  person to be the right fit on your team. But then you really
• 12:31
  have to take it to the next level, and you have to show up
• 12:33
  for them and give them your time and attention, give them
• 12:37
  proximity to you, because you can give somebody an SOP and a
• 12:41
  job description, and say go figure it out. But they will
• 12:44
  learn so much more by being around you and being in your
• 12:47
  presence, and really learning how you think, not just how to
• 12:50
  do the job. And if you follow those that set of instructions,
• 12:54
  the the success rate that I and my clients have had with making
• 12:59
  a great hire that lasts a long time and truly does add value is
• 13:03
  is really really high.
• 13:05
  Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, one of the things that I kept thinking
• 13:09
  about as you're going through this because those are really
• 13:11
  wonderful and simple steps, and it makes sense, especially why
• 13:13
  you would need to start hiring ahead to give yourself time for
• 13:16
  this process to see its way through. But one of the
• 13:18
  challenges I think listener might be thinking as they're
• 13:21
  sitting there, like Lacey, you seem super, super confident.
• 13:23
  It's easy for you to just say, "Oh, they're the they're not the
• 13:26
  right fit. But there's this imposter syndrome that sneaks in
• 13:30
  on us that kind of tells us, "Who do you think you are? Why
• 13:34
  do you think they would work for you, or or why do you think
• 13:36
  you're so special that they should have to jump hoops for
• 13:38
  you? What would you say to you know a client of yours that was
• 13:42
  wrestling with that imposter syndrome at this stage?
• 13:45
  Lacey Newman: Well, the right person for you would never think
• 13:50
  those things. So the number one thing that founders who are like
• 13:55
  me, who are often you know solopreneurs, small team
• 13:58
  leaders, small business owners-I'm not talking about
• 14:01
  like 10 person teams, as you know. The number one quality
• 14:05
  that I'm looking for in someone to bring on my team is a "I will
• 14:10
  do whatever you need" attitude. Somebody who comes in and is
• 14:14
  like, "I am here to learn. No job is too big. No job is too
• 14:18
  small. I'm here to show up because that that level of
• 14:23
  appreciation for what you do and engagement in the process is
• 14:28
  something that you can't really teach. So that's what I'm
• 14:32
  looking for first and foremost is somebody who's just like I'm
• 14:35
  excited for this opportunity. I'm willing to roll up my
• 14:39
  sleeves and do whatever needs to happen to get it done. That that
• 14:42
  is a really good indicator that you have the right person. And
• 14:45
  so you know if you if you are hung up on I don't deserve to
• 14:50
  have support or I'm not ready to have support or you know I don't
• 14:56
  have well I hear a lot of times well when I get all these
• 14:58
  systems in place. Then I'll be ready to bring someone on. I
• 15:03
  mean, it that that is a mentality that will keep you
• 15:06
  stuck in exactly the place that you are for so long. You bring
• 15:09
  someone in who will help you create the systems. Bring
• 15:12
  somebody in that will help you untangle the mess that you have
• 15:18
  made by trying to do it all on your own. And so it's really
• 15:21
  it's really not achieving perfectionism that or achieving
• 15:24
  a perfect spot in your business where you now deserve to have
• 15:28
  support. It's bring that support in and let them help you get to
• 15:32
  the place that you want to get.
• 15:33
  Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, to to just totally let that fear go
• 15:36
  away, and I think you you would speak to this as well. I
• 15:39
  remember thinking I was the only person who had a screwed up
• 15:42
  business, and then I remember walking into my first like other
• 15:45
  $10 million business, and I was like, "You guys are more screwed
• 15:48
  up than we are. And then I remember the first time I
• 15:51
  consulted with $100 million organization, I'm like, "This is
• 15:54
  terrifying. You know, how could I teach them anything? And in 30
• 15:58
  minutes, I'm like, "They're just as screwed up as we are. And
• 16:01
  then the same thing for a billion dollar organization and
• 16:04
  and a $7 billion like everyone screwed up so yeah I love that
• 16:07
  like don't wait for everything to be great it's always going to
• 16:10
  be messed up but that doesn't mean it can't be better I really
• 16:13
  really love that Lacey there's this question that I want to
• 16:17
  make sure we make time for because it's a question ask
• 16:19
  every one of our guests, and I'm very interested to see what
• 16:23
  you'd have to say. But the question is this: What is the
• 16:25
  biggest secret you wish wasn't a secret at all? What's that one
• 16:29
  thing you wish every founder watching or listening today knew?
• 16:32
  Lacey Newman: Well, you kind of just stole my thunder on this,
• 16:34
  so I'm going to have to come up with another answer because the
• 16:37
  first thing that came to my mind, as I know you ask this
• 16:40
  question on this podcast. Is when I have clients come to me
• 16:44
  and they say, "When I I thought that when I had a multi million
• 16:47
  dollar business, it would all be organized and it wouldn't be
• 16:50
  stressful and it wouldn't be a mess. And I was like, "Well, why
• 16:53
  would you think that? You know, the bigger your business
• 16:56
  becomes, the bigger mess there is. So I'll piggyback on that
• 17:00
  and say the thing that I really wish people understood is that
• 17:05
  the current the the business that you built that will get
• 17:10
  you, let's say, to earning six figures, that will get you
• 17:13
  earning multiple six figures, that is not the same business
• 17:18
  that's required to get you to seven figures and multi seven
• 17:21
  figures and eight figures. Your business has to look completely
• 17:25
  different at every major jump in its size and structure. And so,
• 17:31
  one the moment that I really had that realization in my previous
• 17:35
  career as a real estate agent, all of a sudden, I mean, we'd
• 17:38
  been we'd been clicking along for a very long time, things
• 17:41
  were working beautifully, and then there came this point in
• 17:44
  time where everyone on my team started crying, and I was
• 17:49
  crying. the The support staff was crying. My business partner
• 17:53
  at the time. I mean, it we the wheels fell off. We were not
• 17:56
  happy. We were really stressed out. And what I came to realize
• 18:00
  is it wasn't a cultural issue on our team. It wasn't because I
• 18:03
  didn't have the right people on the team. It wasn't the clients.
• 18:06
  It wasn't anything other than the fact that the systems that
• 18:09
  we had created, that had worked beautifully up until a certain
• 18:13
  point, could no longer hold the business that we had then. And
• 18:18
  so that's that's really the thing I wish that people
• 18:20
  understood more. Is that you cannot hit your next level? I
• 18:24
  talk to I talk to the women I work with a ton about capacity.
• 18:28
  You can't hit a you can't carry a bigger business on your own
• 18:33
  capacity. You have to add additional structure. You have
• 18:36
  to add additional systems. You got to add additional support to
• 18:40
  really get to that next level, and I think that I think that so
• 18:43
  many of us believe, especially if we built our business by
• 18:46
  white knuckling it ourselves, we believe that if we just work
• 18:50
  harder, if we just learn a little more, if we work a little
• 18:54
  bit longer, we can get to that next stage. But that's not it at
• 18:57
  all.
• 18:57
  Scott Ritzheimer: all. Yeah, yeah, so true, so true. Well,
• 18:59
  Lacey, before I let you go, I know there's some folks
• 19:02
  listening who just they've loved this conversation. They'd love
• 19:05
  to hear more about you, the work that you do, who you help, and
• 19:08
  how you help them. Where can folks connect with you? Where
• 19:11
  can they find more about the work th at you do?
• 19:14
  Lacey Newman: So you can find more about the work I do at my
• 19:16
  website, LaceyNewman.com, or I hang out on Instagram. That's
• 19:20
  my. That is my favorite social media. That's where I'm posting
• 19:23
  a ton of free content. My Instagram handle is
• 19:27
  heylaceynewman, and reach out to me if anybody has any questions.
• 19:31
  You know, one of the things that I really enjoy helping people
• 19:34
  with is time management because so many people want to work on
• 19:39
  their business, but they're so busy working in their business
• 19:42
  that they never really have time to do it. And I've created a
• 19:45
  super easy framework that will help you find the time in your
• 19:51
  own schedule to work on the things that will truly move your
• 19:55
  business forward. Even if right now you say I don't have any
• 19:58
  time to do it, and that's one of. My specialty is one of the
• 20:00
  things that I love helping people do the most because
• 20:03
  you'll never you never find time you have to go make the time and
• 20:08
  that's what I've really solved for. So if anybody's interested
• 20:11
  in learning a little more about that, I've got a totally free
• 20:13
  training that you can get from me. Just go and text me reclaim
• 20:17
  on Instagram, and I'd be happy to send it your way.
• 20:20
  Scott Ritzheimer: Brilliant, brilliant. We'll get that in the
• 20:21
  show notes for all you, both the handle and the keyword. Lacey,
• 20:25
  this was a wonderful conversation. I really, really
• 20:28
  enjoyed it, and appreciate you coming on. And for those of you
• 20:30
  watching and listening today, you know your time and attention
• 20:33
  mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this
• 20:35
  conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you
• 20:39
  next time. Take care. Hey everyone, Scott Ritzheimer here.
• 20:46
  Thank you so much for listening to the Start Scale and Succeed
• 20:49
  podcast. I hope this episode gave you exactly what you need
• 20:52
  for the level you're in right now. If you want to discover
• 20:56
  what level you're in, take our 10 question Founders Evolution
• 20:59
  quiz for free at foundersquiz.com. That's
• 21:03
  foundersquiz.com. It'll pinpoint exactly where you are and give
• 21:08
  you tailored tips to move forward and reach that next
• 21:11
  level in your journey as a founder. If you got something
• 21:15
  out of today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, rate, or
• 21:17
  review. It helps us reach more founders like you, and let's be
• 21:21
  honest, it means a ton to me, my team, and all our incredible
• 21:25
  guests. So keep starting, scaling, and succeeding, and
• 21:29
  I'll see you in the next episode.