Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / How to Scale Your Small Business with Jeff Chastain
Transcript
- 0:01Hi.
- 0:02This is Melinda Emerson, the small biz lady host of
- 0:04the small Bizchett podcast.
- 0:06I want to serve you.
- 0:07This pandemic has been so hard on America's small businesses and on just America in
- 0:12general.
- 0:13If you're ready to start your dream business, boy, do I have a great offer for you?
- 0:17I am giving away 1000 copies of my best selling book, become your own boss in 12 months.
- 0:23Over a hundred thousand people have this book is been printed in multiple languages around
- 0:28the world, and I wanted to find a way to serve America's small businesses in this pandemic.
- 0:33And so I am giving away a 1000 copies of my book.
- 0:37All you have to do to get your copy is head over to beginmybiz.com/ free offer to sign up
- 0:44for your copy.
- 0:45All you have to do is pay shipping, and we will mail one out to you.
- 0:48I am so excited about this.
- 0:51I wanna serve you, grab your copy today.
- 0:54I left off.
- 0:56Ending small business failure.
- 0:58Welcome to the small biz chat podcast with a number one small business expert, Melinda
- 1:04Emerson.
- 1:05Melinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you information you
- 1:09need to succeed and live the life you dream of.
- 1:12Now here's the small biz lady herself.
- 1:16Melinda Emerson.
- 1:18Hi.
- 1:18I'm Melinda Emerson, the small business lady, and welcome to the small business chat podcast.
- 1:23I want you to know that today's show is all about developing the leadership and sales
- 1:29systems to scale your business.
- 1:32We're also gonna be talking about wealth.
- 1:34What is it?
- 1:35How can you contain it, especially if you're a woman or a girl?
- 1:39And, also, we want you to know that they're gonna be sharing some great insights tonight.
- 1:45And if you've been thinking about these things, if you've been trying to figure out how to
- 1:48scale or what you needed to put in place so that you could scale your business.
- 1:52You're in the right place.
- 1:53You're struggling with feast or famine sales in your business.
- 1:57We've got some great information for you tonight.
- 1:59The small business chat podcast is a peer to peer interview show where we get you invaluable
- 2:05information that you would otherwise have to pay big dollars for.
- 2:09The mission of small business chat is to end small business failure.
- 2:14Tonight's guests are business transformation coach, Jeff Chastain.
- 2:18He's gonna be talking to us about getting your business ready to scale.
- 2:21He's led multiple businesses himself.
- 2:23He's the CEO of Adventist.
- 2:26They work with growth oriented leaders and their teams to gain clarity and get the most
- 2:31out of what they want from their business as they build a plan to scale.
- 2:35For more information, you can go to Adventus dotcom.
- 2:40Jeff, welcome to the small bitch chat podcast.
- 2:42Hey.
- 2:43Thank you for having me on.
- 2:44So tell me about you.
- 2:45Like, you know, how did you learn all this great knowledge about how to scale a business?
- 2:50Have you done it?
- 2:51Well,
- 2:52yes.
- 2:53And that's that's kind of the story of most business owners.
- 2:55A of trial and error and and and a lot of books and other things like that, but, yeah, a lot of
- 3:00trial and error through through several businesses myself.
- 3:03So it's It's definitely a little learn knowledge for sure.
- 3:06Now I know that I have read that you say that you rarely see businesses operating at their
- 3:13full potential.
- 3:14When you think there's everybody's leaving money on the table, Jeff, what's going on?
- 3:17Tell me why you say that.
- 3:19They and, honestly, they really are.
- 3:21I I deal with a lot of businesses that are are profitable, but the thing that most business
- 3:26owners don't see, and we may touch on this later on with the the financial side is they
- 3:30look at the business overall and say it's profitable, but they may have 5 product lines
- 3:34here, and they don't know one of those product lines is carrying the business.
- 3:38And the other 4 potentially dragging them down.
- 3:40It's like, okay.
- 3:41If you really knew the numbers, if you knew what was going on in the business down to that
- 3:45level, you might say, hey.
- 3:46Let's get rid of those other 4 product lines put more resources into the one that's actually
- 3:50moving forward.
- 3:52And I've seen businesses literally do a ten times increase in top line revenue without any
- 3:57change in head count or anything else just by saying, okay, let's actually operate a little
- 4:01bit more efficiently here and figure out what can we do better with the same team, with the
- 4:05same people, And it's it's amazing.
- 4:07Some of the turnarounds, some of the the hidden nuggets that are really inside that business.
- 4:11That's really fascinating.
- 4:13I wouldn't have thought that, but they're people that you you, like, you have to convince
- 4:16them to stop doing something to make money.
- 4:19That that
- 4:19It really is.
- 4:20It's the the old saying of, I think it's the worst phrase in English language is we've
- 4:24always done things this way.
- 4:26And a lot of times there's entrepreneurs.
- 4:27We just get those blinders on, and this is the way we do things.
- 4:30This is what's going on.
- 4:32And I I it sounds self promoting.
- 4:34I try not to try not to go that way, but it's like, to me, the the business leaders that I've
- 4:39talked to both my clients and not, have said the biggest turning point is when they bring in
- 4:44an outside coach, an outside advisor, a board of directors, something like that, somebody
- 4:48that is outside has potentially climbed the mountain before them, but understands and can
- 4:54see and ask, really, why are you doing things that way?
- 4:56Because a lot of times when we're down in the trenches, we don't see it at that point.
- 5:01I definitely have worked with businesses that are, like, at a 1,000,000, and, like, they're
- 5:05trying to get to, you know, like, 5,000,000 And one of the biggest things that I've always
- 5:10heard people say was when we hired a CFO, everything got better in the business, because
- 5:15they them in their account were meeting, you know, quarterly.
- 5:19They were getting financial statements monthly, but people don't completely know how to read
- 5:21their financial statements, and they're not tracking profitability down to the nitty gritty
- 5:28like what you're talking about.
- 5:29So I believe what you're saying.
- 5:31Now if somebody is thinking about scaling their business.
- 5:35What do you think the first thing is they really need to do?
- 5:37Well, it really kinda depends upon the business in my perspective that it's I look at it as the
- 5:43adage, the parable of of how do you build a a building a house on the rod versus house on the
- 5:47sand kind of a thing that obviously hopefully, we're on the tailing edge of this this
- 5:51pandemic, but whether it's a pandemic or whether it's a a key employee leading,
- 5:54whatever, there's gonna be storms.
- 5:56There's gonna be shifts in the market, and it all comes down to the foundation of the
- 6:00business.
- 6:00And so does the business have a strong foundation, or is it still running effectively
- 6:05in that startup phase where the owners wrapping more duct tape around the business, wrapping
- 6:09their arms around the business, trying to hold it together.
- 6:12And until that owner can say, hey.
- 6:14Let's actually put the people in in place, put the systems in place, things like that to build
- 6:19out that foundation.
- 6:20It's really effectively never gonna scale because honestly, the owners sitting there
- 6:24strangling the business, right, thereby trying to keep their hands wrapped around and in
- 6:28everything at that point.
- 6:29So it's almost To me, it's a mindset shift of the owner and the leadership team 1st and
- 6:34foremost to say, okay.
- 6:36We don't necessarily know everything.
- 6:37We're not the experts in everything.
- 6:39We can delegate and trust our people and then help effectively grow out the company at that
- 6:44point.
- 6:45So what do you think are, like, the 4 key pillars successfully scaling a business?
- 6:51Well, I look at it in 4 different areas, like you said.
- 6:54It's looking at the overall strategy.
- 6:56So you've gotta have your your roadmap, your end goal, where are we trying to go to with the
- 7:01company?
- 7:01I look at it and say, okay.
- 7:02Again, climbing the mountain.
- 7:04What's our pinnacle?
- 7:04What's the point of the mountain that we're going to?
- 7:07And it's gotta be a a bigger picture goal that gets everybody excited about, honestly.
- 7:11It's if I forget what the saying was that if if your goal doesn't doesn't at least partially
- 7:15scare you.
- 7:16It's not big enough kind of a thing.
- 7:17So having that strategy to reach for what's what's our goal and how we're gonna get there,
- 7:22And then the second part of it, the complimentary part is the execution side.
- 7:25And it doesn't matter how great of a plan you've got if you're not executing in a a
- 7:29strong manner, never gonna reach it and then vice versa kind of a thing.
- 7:32If you're executing with no plan, you're going nowhere.
- 7:35So those two keys there And then, obviously, the third piece is the people site.
- 7:39You've gotta have the right people in the business, right, functions, the right
- 7:42processes, things like that, but it all comes down to people almost any time I'm dealing with
- 7:47a a business and there's issues going on, there's a there's a people issue somewhere at
- 7:51the at the root of that.
- 7:53And then the last side we kinda already touched on is simply the cash side.
- 7:55You've gotta understand the cash flow through the business.
- 7:58You've gotta understand your your time to close on deals.
- 8:01How how quick can we get profitable, things like that, that everything's gotta be driven on
- 8:05the numbers.
- 8:06That if you're not paying attention to the numbers, if you're just looking at, hey.
- 8:09We've got money in the bank account, that works in the early days, but it doesn't work in a a
- 8:13scaling growing business at that point.
- 8:15So it's really looking at all four of those areas together, making sure that they're all
- 8:19built up together, rather than focusing solely on one one piece or one component of the
- 8:23business, which I I see a lot of people because that's they they work in their expertise.
- 8:27They work in their lane.
- 8:28If my my lane is numbers or my lane is strategy, then that piece is almost invariably
- 8:33gonna be the stronger component.
- 8:35And the other area is the business suffer.
- 8:37So you gotta keep a an eye really on all four pillars right there.
- 8:40Make sure your foundation's supported across the board, not just on one one corner or one
- 8:44edge.
- 8:45It's amazing to me, like, how many times I feel like, you know, business problems are, like,
- 8:52not so well hidden personal problems.
- 8:54You know what I mean?
- 8:54And so and and I and I was wondering if that has been your case as well as you go into
- 9:00businesses And you because I don't know about you, but I can go into a business and be there
- 9:04about an hour and ask enough people questions, and I can tell you what's wrong.
- 9:09Usually, usually, on my first day, my first visit.
- 9:12And so and a lot of times, you'd come into businesses sometimes that are a cultural
- 9:17personality of the business owner.
- 9:18And and so I was wondering how often are you kind of seeing some of those things.
- 9:22Oh, it's it's it's almost every time.
- 9:24It's it's the ones the the big red flags to me always are sitting down in front of the
- 9:27leadership team, and you ask one of the other leaders, a question, and their first glance is
- 9:32at the CEO.
- 9:33Okay.
- 9:33Can I really answer this?
- 9:34Can I really say what's what's going on?
- 9:36It's like, okay.
- 9:36There's there's a first problem right there is we've everything again is driven off of that
- 9:40CEO, that visionary, which in some respects, it's hey.
- 9:44They're the big ID the person, but at the same time, you gotta be able to have the full team
- 9:48environment right there in order to grow it.
- 9:49That's one of the that's where I see.
- 9:51Okay.
- 9:51That's red flag.
- 9:52You're not growing right there until we can separate some people here and actually have
- 9:55some independent minds and some independent ideas.
- 9:58Right.
- 9:59So what do you feel like?
- 10:01Or in order to have an effective sort of like business vision, business leaders have to make
- 10:07that vision actionable.
- 10:09I almost feel like You you know how everybody's website says they're gonna save you time and
- 10:15money.
- 10:16Like, that's kinda how I feel about business vision.
- 10:20Right?
- 10:20I mean, it's like, my vision is, you know, it's like it's like these.
- 10:24It's almost one of the things that super makes me crazy is when people talk about annual
- 10:30revenues.
- 10:30Like, we're gonna make 2,300,000 this year.
- 10:34You know what?
- 10:35I don't care about that.
- 10:36What I wanna know is how much money did you have to make this week?
- 10:39And did you make it?
- 10:40And if you didn't, do you know why?
- 10:43And what are you gonna do next week?
- 10:45To make up for the revenue you didn't make this week.
- 10:47That is the conversation I have with people.
- 10:49I don't let people tell me, oh, we're gonna make $50,000 as much or or, you know, Okay.
- 10:55Well, where where is that coming from?
- 10:57Is that just, you know, some aspiration that you just you know, I mean, so I try just I add
- 11:01you that question knowing my own sarcastic self is on my head is going, yeah.
- 11:06Right?
- 11:06I can't wait to hear this answer.
- 11:07Right?
- 11:07Because I'm always, like, business vision.
- 11:10Let me take out my mini violin for that.
- 11:12So so tell me what does that say to you?
- 11:15And what do you how do you work that, you know, with the people that you work with?
- 11:19Yeah.
- 11:19To me, vision, honestly, is something separate.
- 11:22It's it's to me, it's the the story of JFK back when we were pre tripped to the the moon.
- 11:27And he's walking through touring NASA in the middle of the night kind of a thing late after
- 11:31hours comes across to janitor in the hallway, and the janitor's cleaning the floor kind of a
- 11:35thing.
- 11:36But just being friendly, asking, hey.
- 11:38What's your name?
- 11:38What do you do here?
- 11:39And the janitor instead of saying, yes, I'm cleaning the floor or, yes, I'm cleaning up
- 11:43after the The idiot that spilled his coffee through here last night says I'm helping put a
- 11:48man on the moon.
- 11:49And that's the vision.
- 11:51That's the say of, okay.
- 11:52What are we gonna be on the as a company to say, okay.
- 11:55What's our moonshot goal?
- 11:56What's our long term goal there?
- 11:58And getting the entire team bought into that, that he's not sitting here looking at, yeah,
- 12:02I'm a $10 an hour janitor cleaning the floors here after hours.
- 12:06And, oh, wait a minute.
- 12:07Somebody else is gonna go pay me $12.
- 12:09I'm jumping over there.
- 12:10He's got a much bigger picture buy in to say, yes.
- 12:13I'm part of something bigger.
- 12:14And that having that with your team pulls everybody in the same direction and say, okay.
- 12:19We're actually gonna pull together and work towards this.
- 12:21We've got more buy in than just saying, it's another job.
- 12:24Because if it's just a job, honestly, that's corporate America.
- 12:27That's not everybody's there just for it's a paycheck.
- 12:30It's it's a 9 to 5 Why am I here kind of a thing?
- 12:33It's health benefits.
- 12:34Right.
- 12:34Yeah.
- 12:35We we don't have that luxury in in small to midsize business.
- 12:38We've gotta have people bought into this and really pulling that way And to me, that's the
- 12:42vision that says, okay.
- 12:44Who are we as a company, our culture?
- 12:46Where are we going?
- 12:47What's our big moonshot goal and how are we gonna get there?
- 12:50Then we take what you're talking about and say, okay.
- 12:52From the execution standpoint, we've got this big elephant goal out here at 10 to 15 years.
- 12:58How do we are we gonna eat that elephant?
- 12:59That's the point we start backing it down and saying, okay.
- 13:02One bite of time.
- 13:03What's your bite this week that's gonna get us close are there and we didn't make our buy it.
- 13:07We didn't get there.
- 13:08Okay.
- 13:08How are we gonna make it up?
- 13:09But it's getting down to that point of execution to say, okay.
- 13:12One bite at a time.
- 13:13How are we going to get there, but your vision's gotta be the big picture to say, okay.
- 13:17What do you what's your team excited about?
- 13:19Why why are we on this journey?
- 13:20Why are we out there Were we just to be another CPA firm, another IT firm, or is there
- 13:26something bigger in mind that we're pick pick your goal kind of a thing And that's that's
- 13:30really where I work with clients to say, hey.
- 13:32We gotta get something bigger here than just being another CPA firm here.
- 13:36But why is your team wanna come work for just an CPA firm here.
- 13:40We've gotta get something bigger here that they really buy into and they really feel a part of
- 13:44at that point and wanna work towards.
- 13:46Sounds good.
- 13:47Sounds good.
- 13:48You are watching the small biz chat podcast.
- 13:50I'm Melinda Emerson, the small biz lady.
- 13:53Stay with us.
- 13:53We're gonna talk more about how to position your leadership to scale your business when we
- 13:58come right back.
- 13:59Stay with us.
- 14:05People always ask me, how can I become my own boss?
- 14:09With multiple features in the New York Times Forbes on ABC News as America number one small
- 14:14business expert.
- 14:15I know a thing or 2 about how to do it.
- 14:18Hi.
- 14:18I'm Melinda Emerson's small biz lady.
- 14:21And I've been coaching small business owners since 2008.
- 14:25That's right.
- 14:25I've been helping small business owners plan for success since the last recession.
- 14:30And I'm still here reaching over 3,000,000 small business owners a week online.
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- 14:40I even broke it down into a 6 step system, and my best selling book become your own boss in 12
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- 15:30Welcome back to the small bitch tech podcast.
- 15:32I am here with my guest, growth expert, Jeff Chastain, and we're talking about how to boost
- 15:37your leadership to scale your small business.
- 15:40Alright, Jeff.
- 15:41So let's talk about, you know, okay.
- 15:43I wanna scale my business.
- 15:45It costs money make money.
- 15:46Right?
- 15:47Where where are you gonna find this money and and and how what kind of money do you need to
- 15:51be thinking about even when you wanna make investments in your business to scale?
- 15:56Oh, it definitely, the the saying or whatever is it takes money to make money kind of a
- 16:00thing.
- 16:00And it definitely has some truth to it, but most of time as business owners or as people in
- 16:05business, we're looking at that and saying, well, that means I need to go get it a loaner.
- 16:08That means that we need to go get investments, something like that.
- 16:11But kinda going back to what we talked about before, I I've yet to really run into a
- 16:16business that was operating at its true potential kind of a thing that there's there's
- 16:20almost certainly money in terms of profitability, things like that, efficiencies,
- 16:24etcetera, in the business already that you can maximize right there to say, okay.
- 16:29Let's Again, get more profitable, get more efficient with our team, making sure
- 16:33everybody's pulling the same direction there.
- 16:35We can get a lot more accomplished just with the same resources without saying, hey.
- 16:38We're gonna go double counter something like that.
- 16:41And then really the other side of it these days is there's really been a, to me, a big shift in
- 16:46the market with a lot of the fractional and virtual kind of expertise out there that you
- 16:50don't have to go pay a $120,000 to bring in a CFO, especially at a small business, you
- 16:56honestly don't even need a full time CFO or something like that.
- 16:59You can go find a a fractional person that's just there for 1 day a week or something like
- 17:04that.
- 17:04Provides you the expertise that they've got, but still at a much smaller fractional kind of
- 17:09cost right there.
- 17:09So to me, the the ability to go build a business these days with resources with virtual
- 17:15kind of, it's called virtual or referred to it as virtual, but still the the remote workers
- 17:20kind of a thing.
- 17:20I was dealing talking with a staffing firm earlier, actually just today, that is based
- 17:24specifically for the legal industry of pulling in remote work, especially these days since
- 17:28everybody's used to doing Zoom work right now.
- 17:31You can basically it really doesn't matter as to, okay, is your marketing rep over here on
- 17:36the the west coast versus you're on the east coast, or are they down in Central America kind
- 17:39of a thing and working at honestly a much less pay scale right there just because of their
- 17:44locale.
- 17:44And there's a lot of different resources right there that you can scale without having to have
- 17:48the really big cost there.
- 17:50Well, let's talk about staffing because I do think that's one of the things that comes up.
- 17:54Sometimes you you have your team you started with, but then you can outgrow your team.
- 17:59Right?
- 18:00And so how is it that you sort of, like, start looking at your staff and then sort of looking
- 18:05at what you might need to outsource strategically to grow?
- 18:09Yeah.
- 18:09It's definitely a case that as the business grows, you you've I've I've seen a lot of
- 18:13businesses outgrow their staff.
- 18:15Like you said, it's the it's the person that was, yeah, all we gotta do is handle the books.
- 18:19We gotta keep quick books up to date.
- 18:20No big deal kind of a thing.
- 18:21And now all of a sudden, we're handling full accounts receivable for a 100 clients.
- 18:26And it just gets literally beyond them at that point.
- 18:28So it's it's definitely a case as you continue to grow to sit there and honestly reevaluate
- 18:33the roles and figure out okay, do we have, use a system called top grading that's sitting
- 18:38there looking at each role to say, okay, what are the different responsibilities for this
- 18:42role, having them to find out, having really measurables from a both a a culture standpoint
- 18:48as well as a actual skills kind of fit to say, okay.
- 18:51Are you still meeting these goals and having quarterly conversations or so at that point to
- 18:55be able to realize and say, because a lot of times those kind of people that it's it's the
- 19:00the friend that's doing your books or whatever for you.
- 19:02They're they're wishing you would let them out of that job that they they've really realized
- 19:06themselves that this is way beyond them, but they feel indebted to you to say, hey.
- 19:11Well, we're gonna keep doing this.
- 19:12And having that conversation, having that realization there to say, yeah, I really am way
- 19:16over my head here.
- 19:17Let's let's go look for something else is it it's a tough conversation, but a lot of times
- 19:23if you can put the metrics and everything behind it to realize having a quantifiable
- 19:27conversation that, okay.
- 19:29We're not getting the annual reports or we're not getting the the monthly reports on time,
- 19:33what what's going on, or we're not meeting our our company values of being open and honest all
- 19:39the time.
- 19:39What's going on?
- 19:40And it gives you that opportunity to have those conversations better at that point, honestly,
- 19:44yeah, you gotta move some people around or potentially re replace some people, but it's so
- 19:49many times I deal with business that just doesn't they're not clear.
- 19:52They don't have the clarity.
- 19:53That's find clarity is one of my biggest pieces right there.
- 19:55It's like you just don't understand what's going on in the business because you don't have
- 19:58the numbers.
- 19:59You don't have the data.
- 20:00You don't have the metrics there.
- 20:01And, therefore, it just causes stress confusion really across the board at that point.
- 20:06Mhmm.
- 20:07Well, this is my question for you, Jim.
- 20:09A few years ago, I had the opportunity to speak in South by Southwest.
- 20:13And one of the other speakers down there was Mark Cuban, and and it was interesting because
- 20:17that was the first time I ever saw him interviewed when it wasn't like this high
- 20:21pressure shark tank, like, kind of situation.
- 20:23He answered the question, and he said that there are no shortcuts in scaling a business.
- 20:30And I was wondering what what your thoughts are on that.
- 20:32I don't know that I would necessarily call it a shortcut.
- 20:35I was gonna say I I would disagree because a lot of times I'll talk with clients or business
- 20:39owners, like, say, okay.
- 20:40Do you wanna go the fast route, or do you wanna go the slow route?
- 20:43Because most business owners technically can figure this all out themselves.
- 20:47Today, there's to me, it's almost information overload.
- 20:50There's so much information out there.
- 20:51The information, the tools are out there.
- 20:53Do you wanna spend the time?
- 20:54Do you wanna spend the money?
- 20:56Do you wanna spend the trial and error to go figure it out all yourself, which you probably
- 21:00can do, or Do you get the outside resources?
- 21:03Do you bring in the coach?
- 21:04Do you bring in the fractional CFO?
- 21:06Do you bring in the the board of directors kind of a thing?
- 21:09And honestly speed that up quite a bit because they're gonna be the ones that says, hey.
- 21:13I've been down this path.
- 21:14Why are you doing that?
- 21:15Why are you making this decision?
- 21:17Have you looked at this X Y Z here?
- 21:19They're gonna help you move it a lot faster.
- 21:21So whether you call that a shortcut or not, there are definitely ways to leverage people
- 21:26that have been there before you that have gone that guide that's been up that path before you
- 21:30and make it be a lot smoother, a lot faster, a lot less painful journey than figuring out
- 21:34yourself, but I don't know whether you call that a shortcut or not.
- 21:38Well, no.
- 21:39I mean, I think it's perspective.
- 21:40Right?
- 21:40So I think that when you build something from the ground and it takes you X number of years
- 21:45to scale it will feel like, you know, every every inch was a mile.
- 21:49Right?
- 21:50I do think that we've gotten into this society, especially it's, everybody wants to be a boss,
- 21:54right, until they actually have to be one.
- 21:56And so because we're we're into this mentality of Getrich, everybody can be a boss, you know,
- 22:04people listening to Grant Cardo, all these people, and I'm like, stop listening to those
- 22:08people, please.
- 22:08Anyway, so, you know, There Tim Ferris's book was a lie.
- 22:13I'm tired of telling people that, you know, like, the 4 hour work week, he didn't start out
- 22:17working 4 hours a week.
- 22:19Yeah.
- 22:19So, Aylet, I I digress, but my point simply is is that I worry about just shortcut and the
- 22:26word business being in the same sentence.
- 22:28Right?
- 22:28I do think that you can go faster with help than you can alone.
- 22:33Right?
- 22:33Sure.
- 22:33We can all figure it out.
- 22:34We can order all the books off of Amazon or listen to a mall or an article or whatever.
- 22:38But why do that?
- 22:39I mean, I think we should do some of that, but I do think that we need to make sure that we
- 22:45are being honest you know, about what we can handle and what we can't.
- 22:51And the first person we have to be honest about being above water with skill set is the
- 22:55business owner.
- 22:56Like, you gotta be able to be honest with yourself about whether or not you're the person
- 23:01to lead a business $10,000,000 in revenue versus $1,000,000 in revenue.
- 23:06Like, are you ready to go there?
- 23:08And and I and I think that kinda comes it comes back to all of that.
- 23:11I definitely agree with it.
- 23:12I think it's really the the key point of, like I said, moving to that next level.
- 23:16Are you are you willing to step back?
- 23:17Because the reality is the systems and tools that got you to $1,000,000 business or a
- 23:22$5,000,000 business are not gonna take you to a 10 or a 50 at that point.
- 23:26You've got to change.
- 23:27You've gotta grow.
- 23:28And whether that's completely stepping back for another CEO or whether that's simply saying
- 23:32I've gotta bring smarter resources, honestly, around me.
- 23:36It's it's the saying of you're the smartest one in the room, you're in the wrong room kind of a
- 23:39thing there.
- 23:40And that's true with with business right there.
- 23:41You you can't be CEO shouldn't be the smartest person in the room.
- 23:44Now they've got their lane of expertise, but they should constantly be putting additional
- 23:49resources, additional expertise around them.
- 23:51Definitely.
- 23:52Definitely.
- 23:52Well, Thank you so much, Jeff.
- 23:54That was such great insight.
- 23:56What is your favorite podcast?
- 23:59Oh, boy.
- 23:59There's I've got so many on there.
- 24:01Business made simple.
- 24:02Just talking about the structures and the capabilities that need to go build building a
- 24:06business and they tie it into a it's an it's an airplane metaphor that they're using really
- 24:10really great visual on it, but, yeah, just a a fun podcast.
- 24:12A lot of just lively talk right there with their group, but I think they're they're pretty
- 24:16much brand new this year bringing that one out.
- 24:18Okay.
- 24:19Alright, Jeff.
- 24:19What is your favorite business app?
- 24:211, it's it's only sort of business app, but it's called pocket cast.
- 24:24It's actually a a fairly new app just an aggregator, really, for a bunch of different
- 24:29podcasts, but it brings in the podcast for you, queues them all up for you.
- 24:32It shows you you've got new episodes up to listen to it.
- 24:34It's just it goes back to productivity side of a time saver there just to keep track of of all
- 24:39the different podcasts you wanna listen to and make sure you're up on the latest ones there.
- 24:42Alright.
- 24:42So what is it called again, Jim?
- 24:44Pocket Cas, c a s t s.
- 24:47Oh, Pocket Cas.
- 24:48Okay.
- 24:48Cause I thought you said Pocket app, and I'm like, they Okay.
- 24:52Got it.
- 24:52Well, got it.
- 24:53It's closed.
- 24:53That's why she worried me there, but, no, it's different.
- 24:58Well, next question for you is Jeff, what is your favorite old school marketing tip?
- 25:03No.
- 25:03I would say it's more.
- 25:04It's almost an extension off of Sherice, but it's more the conversation.
- 25:07Can you have that conversation?
- 25:09It's all about conversations of just being with them, being in their life, understanding what's
- 25:14going on, not coming out with a direct hard sales pitch.
- 25:16And so it's it's literally a conversation about business, about life, whatever, and just having
- 25:21those conversations, having real relationships there rather than constantly being in the sales
- 25:25mode.
- 25:26Right.
- 25:26So just calling somebody and just ask them how they're doing versus, like, the hardcore sale.
- 25:32My my favorite old school marketing was actually handwritten letters.
- 25:35I love sending handwritten notes.
- 25:37That's my favorite.
- 25:38Alright.
- 25:39Last question.
- 25:40Best business book you ever read.
- 25:42Go.
- 25:43Oh, I've got a whole bookshelf for.
- 25:45I don't know about picking a best one, but the the one I'm reading right now, the newest one
- 25:49I've got is called 212.
- 25:50It's the the degrees of change of the the degree is what it is.
- 25:54And it's the idea that, okay, the difference between a pot of warm water and a pot of
- 25:58boiling water and steam that can go power out of locomotive is simply one degree of change
- 26:02one degree of action.
- 26:04So you don't have to go reinvent the world.
- 26:05It's literally one degree change can make all the difference there between something that
- 26:10works and something that doesn't work.
- 26:12Listen.
- 26:12Thank you guys so much for being my guest tonight on the small business chat podcast, and
- 26:16thank you all for joining me for this episode of the small chat podcast.
- 26:20For more information about how to start and grow a successful small business, head over to
- 26:25succeed as your own boss.com, or you can check out one of my brand new courses on small biz
- 26:30lady university.
- 26:32Thank you all.
- 26:32The mission of small biz chat is to end small business failure and I'll leave you with this.
- 26:37You never lose in business.
- 26:38Either you win or you've learned.
- 26:41Good night, everybody.
- 26:43Thank you for listening to the small biz chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
- 26:48For more resources and small business success strategies visit succeed as your own boss.com.
- 26:54Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcast and join us next Wednesday.