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Systems That Scale · The Leader Mentality

• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Leader Mentality Show with Rob Clemens.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: We are back in the studio today.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: We have with us none other than the one and only Nick DiStefano.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Nick, what's up, bud?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Who's that?
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Hey.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm happy to be here, man.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's a thought I might catch you off guard there for a second.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, where am I?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm having an existential crisis here.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Here we are.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, look, Nick, you know, one one of the things I like about having you on the show is you've been doing business training for many years, you know, helping people build the business, motivate their business, all kinds of seminars and and you know, uh, even at Coastal Carolina, correct me if I'm mistaken, but you are um kind of involved with uh leadership training as a as a course, right?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Which I think is amazing that Coastal Carolina invested in leadership training.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like when did they start doing that?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man, there's been a need for it and discussion around it for a long time.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: And there's been different areas of the the university that are doing certain coursework around leadership.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Probably like at least the past 10 years, they've been doing something.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's a lot of extracurricular things around leadership, but to have it part of actual the curriculum and right discussion around what does it look like in a course, not just in business, but everywhere, it's it's exciting to be there and do it.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it it it's cool because it ties into all things business.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we are gonna talk.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Guys, we have a topic for today, but before we get into the topic as we like to do, we're gonna banter for just a moment.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because uh so last week I and look, if you're if you have teenage children, college children, anybody did you no you didn't, Nick.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Mine are not there yet, so I've I've only heard heard from others what they're doing.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Send send your hate mail care of Nick D.Stefano at coastal.edu.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: No, but seriously, so uh Coastal Carolina, I I got asked by one of the professors, as they yearly do, to come in and speak to students at the law school.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, I talk to people about team building, professional development in uh professional settings quite a bit, Nick.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I and and people are paying to hear me talk in a lot of cases.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: So you have this engaged audience and you you kind of get you want to be there, they're motivated.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: You start to feel like, man, this is really good.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And and I guess get overconfident.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: My overconfidence was completely shot by talking to a bunch of college students.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, welcome to my daily existence.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: I talked to probably 150 different college students across five different times.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: And but what what why why do you say that?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: What what caused you to feel like that?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: Because I know you and I were texting about and talking a little, but I'd love for others to hear like what's the reason that your confidence was kind of shot.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: I I mean I gotta say, and and I'm probably over-exaggerating a little with my confidence being shot, but but what I mean is that you know, I'm used to getting in front of a crowd and these people are like ready to soak up everything I'm about to tell them.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: They're trying to, you know, hey, look, I want to grow my business, I want to be a better leader, I want to all these things, right?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then when you go in front of a group of college kids, you realize their goals of coming to this meeting are way different than what I am used to.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: You're telling me they weren't like, oh my gosh, Rob, tell me Rob clean this.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: I need to know more.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me they weren't hanging on every word.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Trust me, I will tell you that's not a you problem.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, sometimes we find, and it's it's different.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Every student is motivated differently, just like every employee is motivated differently.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: However, some of it depends on right where they're at, you know, maturity-wise level, where they're at in terms of their journey and their career.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: What you know, were you talking to first year students or juniors and seniors, and it depends, and I say that because I talk to all of them at different ages every day, and you know, some of them are super engaged, and they are hanging on everywhere, and some of them I feel like I'm pulling teeth to even get them to just look at me.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's I I never take it personally, but I also am always trying to think of creative ways in the classroom every day to make sure they're engaged and learning.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it's been fun, it's been a challenge, but a lot of fun.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the goal of any public speaker is you're just trying to get through to your audience and not just one or two people.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: You you want to get the max group of your audience to come away with something.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so, my last speaking appearance of the day, I I had a little clicker in a presentation.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: I I put that thing right down.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: I I had Yeah, yeah, I did I went off the cuff, man.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I don't know if they learned anything, but they sure were paying attention to the last one.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's not a bad thing.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes that's not a bad thing, and it and again, it depends on on who they are, where they come from.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I agree.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, I was fun.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: I will tell you this, something I learned years ago, and uh and I don't have an exact statistic because this is just something more that I've observed.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've absorbed uh observed it across multiple domains, businesses, teams, everywhere.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, might even be at your local church, people who are volunteering.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: But there is this thing that like two to three percent of the people within any domain are what you might call a superstar.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean somebody who is they they get it, they're engaged, they're motivated, they're lifting up others, and then the other um maybe like 70% of the people are just there, you know, they're just here for the day.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh unfortunately you have a danger zone, which is there's like another 20 or third, 25 percent of people who are absolutely unengaged and they're not doing anything.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: And and and that's a shame.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: So we as as leaders and and managers, we need to find ways to try to get to everybody.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's not always possible.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: No, you know what?
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if there's actually an a statistic about it because you know 60% of statistics are made up.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's obviously made up.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Is that true?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's obviously made up too.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: But uh when you talk about that, Rob, it reminds me of um one of a speaker who I used to uh work with more in my in my in a past life.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: He wrote a book called Motivating the Middle.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: So shout out TJ Sullivan if he ever listens to this.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: But it's this exact idea.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: And we talk about it, he wrote it initially for college student organizations, and it's this idea that there's the top third of organizations that are your superstars, okay, your bottom third that cause you all sorts of problems, and then the middle third, who are the ones that often are forgotten about because we focus on the bottom or we do we promote and we work with the people that are in the top third.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: And we need to rather than worry about so much about the bottom third of the organization, maybe we need to move forward from them, or the the group, or the church, or the whatever it is, the business, we should work on how do we motivate the middle third.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: So the book's called Motivating the Middle, but it's exactly what you're talking about.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: I I I like the whole concept of motivating the middle, and I thought you were gonna go a different direction, but but I think they're both powerful things to remember.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: I I think we as uh people that are uh and I'm gonna say manager specifically, and again, I'm using the term manager because a manager can make the final decision on hiring and firing and things like that.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: So now I'm I'm shifting away from leader talk to manager talk.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: But um I one thing I really hate that organizations do is we cater to the squeaky will.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: All the time.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And we do not like so you have that loyal like person that's just busting their butt every day, not causing any trouble, they're doing their thing, and and we don't even hardly I don't mean we as in you and I, I mean it's it's natural to be like, oh yeah, they're doing their thing.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not that you are taking it for granted.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: You literally just because they are doing their job, you don't notice it.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's like an NFL tackle on an offensive line.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: If they're doing your job, you won't hear their name all game long, right?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: So uh so we need to actively look at our whole group and say, superstar performer, they need to be recognized, and uh, and and you know, sometimes you got to prod them a little bit.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: What what do you need?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: And and and superstar performer in whatever it is they do, because you know, to take the example of a football team, when you do your job and you follow the procedure and do what is expected of you as an offensive lineman, that's not the sexy, exciting thing that people are like, oh my gosh, look at this person.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but they're still following it, like the organization, the team is not successful without that individual following what is expected of them because if they don't do their job, it impacts the rest of the team.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: But yet we oftentimes it's let's recognize the person who has the most sales because they're out front and everyone sees that person and or they're the loudest and they are the most right, I think that's ambitious, so to speak, and that's just teams in general.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think that's a team killer too, you know.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like when there's that person is really vocal about things, and sometimes that's a team killer because you're like uh this person's getting like commanding so much attention, you're going, well, now if I'm commanding all that attention with this one person, and what about everybody else?
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: If if I have ten people, I'm gonna give the exact same amount, 10% to each person if I could or whatnot.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: But but you know, hey, that that's a great saveway because I I just made a statement about I'd like to give 10% to each person, but we know that's not exactly how it works.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: I can't manage a team.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, right.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: You get 10%, you get 10%.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: But here's what really we're talking about today.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're talking all about how to build a consistent workforce within our organization, our team.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: And here's why that's important.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so when's the last time, Nick, that you went to Kentucky Fried Chicken?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: I could not tell you.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a long time.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like you should want if we're like improving, I should say I was there yesterday.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a long time.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't know, probably a year or so ago, if I had to take a guess.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's finger-looking good.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, this has been brought to you by KFC.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, I'll no, the the truth of the matter is uh where I was going with that is when I lived in England, we actually had a KFC in the middle of a little town um called Newmarket, which is crazy.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um in fact, uh it was a little close to Newmarket.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: It was actually in Milton Hall, but but regardless, here I am in the middle of another country, and I'm I'm a little American kid.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just like, I just want something that's a fried chicken.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, give me some fried chicken.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I go in there and and it's the Colonel's original spices, man.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's exactly what you get when you're over here in the United States.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: So if I walked in there that day and they said, Oh, we don't do that over here.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Over here, we have fish and chips and all the other weird things.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, Kentucky fried fish.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, so, but what's happening there?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they've created a consistency that brings comfort to the buyer.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that can be translated across multiple locations, and how do you do that, right?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: So we're talking about how you do that.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what do you do that you're expanding your business?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you went from one person to 10 people to 100 people.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: How do you keep it going?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: So we're we're talking a little bit about the ways to do that.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: What are your, you know, your hierarchies of a company who's struggling with the scaling up process and what they should be doing?
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think one of the biggest things that gets in the way of scaling up processes and organizations like Kentucky Fried Chicken and places that are franchises, they have like a franchise only exists because of those standard operating procedures, right?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm not the owner of them, I'm buying into their standard operating procedures and their brand.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: That didn't happen if there wasn't someone who set their ego aside way back when.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so anyone that's struggling with figuring out how to scale, I would ask you to set your ego aside.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: And what I mean by that, so here I want you to hear me out, is that oftentimes as entrepreneurs and as business people who are trying to grow an organization, we are the process, right?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so if the process is in your head, that's a problem.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: You can't grow anywhere if the process exists up here, if it is not written down, if you think, well, it's easier for me to do it, or I can't have this person do it.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: So we we have to set our own ego aside and create these standards of how something gets done.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: And oftentimes that starts with the person who's running the business setting their own ego aside and saying, huh, am I the process here?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like if I got hit by a bus tomorrow, God forbid, what happens to this organization?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: Is there things written down?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what what do we do?
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: Do they know what to do without me?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well, it's it's a great point, man, because I'm there, you know, and and really what happens is I'm that guy.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: But but you you understand it too, because I've got an organizational chart at my company, and um I believe in this.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, even if you only have two people at your company or one person, make an organizational chart.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is a visual thing I'd like you to do.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'm I'm being dead serious.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you're listening to this show right now, go home, take an organizational chart, put CEO up at the top and put your name in it.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then underneath it, you might put things like um production team and marketing team and sales and accounting and put your name in all those too.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: And what I'd like you to do is as you're building out and you're growing your team, uh, sales manager, and then write sales up underneath sales manager, write your name in all those slots.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And as you're growing, you want to start filling other names into those slots.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it's something I actually do.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: You can go in my office right now and look on the wall, and it's start off with Rob, Rob, Rob, Rob, Rob, and now it says Rob, and now and then it says Lauren, and then it says Jeremy, and we have different names on there.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so, so yeah, exactly.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's what Nick just did.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a Nick, Nick, but but there's a visual to that, right?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: But but Nick, right.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: There is a visual because what it's doing is it's saying, I'm a real company, I'm not just gonna be one guy forever doing this, and I'm going to have people working under me.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I I love this process of just even creating the structure of here's who we want to be.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: But now I'm wearing all those hats, so how do I know to take them off?
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: And when I'm serving like six different spots, how do I know to hey, this is sales, Rob talking to production Rob, bringing in marketing, Lauren?
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we got to be able to make sure not only are we differentiating between positions, yeah, but who I'm playing within that role.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and and then what are you doing within that role?
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: If it's just you, what are you doing?
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like if I know that my greatest opportunity to grow my business is in marketing, well then I should be writing down the things that I do in marketing.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: What are my operating procedures?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: What are the things that I'm doing, the tasks that I do regularly, on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, on a monthly basis, on a yearly basis?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: And and what does that look like?
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I would say also with that, too, if you're looking at creating those operating procedures, does it have to be just the way you done you've done it, or are there other ways to do it?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right now, when we talk about op standard operating procedures from a large-scale company, it didn't just we can't just say, well, this KFC can do it this way and they can do it that way.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, it it doesn't work like that.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're trying to scale your business and you're the one that has all the things up in your head, you should write down what you do, but also what pieces of that are non-negotiable.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: What has to stay there because it relates to our values, we've talked about this in past shows, but what's this necessary because we say that we are customers first, and so you have to do this piece of it, but you have the option to do this task or that task, whichever is more comfortable with you.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: So what you're saying, and I agree with it, I'm gonna go that next step down then.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: So within that organizational or organizational chart, you said writing down what you're doing.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give you an example of how I did that the other day with something.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: But before I get to it, I want to tell you one of my things I love about being at a small business that's growing and also knowing how to grow a small business.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like some people, this might be your first time, and you're like maybe a first-time parent or a first-time riding a bike.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: You're what are we doing?
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm like a person who's, you know, metaphorically had a kid and now I'm raising my second kid.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of have a little guidelines of what I'm doing, or my third kid.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm doing this part today where I go into my one of my other people, he's my project manager at my company, and I said to him, I said, Listen, man, you know, I I we just had this cost come in.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: I saw it come across my desk.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: And how do we prevent this cost, which should be paid for by the customer?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: How do we prevent it from getting missed?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to get too deep in the weeds with it, but what I'm saying is it's the kind of thing that if a guy like me is not all over it, we're gonna miss it and we'll end up paying the cost, but not billing the customer, right?
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's a little more complicated than what some, you know, some people are like, well, you just invoice the customer.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going, no, it's it's deeper than that.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so let's do it.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: You get that though, from your perspective.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew it was a confusing thing.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm sitting here talking to him, and I said, Look, when I'm in the middle of everything, I can catch this stuff.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: My fear is when I bring in somebody else who's gonna be in the in this role, somebody else.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: So we sat down.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: What you just said, I literally sat down, I went through it step by step.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: How can we prevent this from happening?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end, you know what I came down to?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: I said, This is the job.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to create a process where multiple people can do it.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, this is the job.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: I am playing the production manager role right now, and I've got to catch this so I can make sure it gets tabulated.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's crazy.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: But it but it goes back to when we're talking about like standard operating procedures, yeah.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: It it has to be tied to like each step of it, whatever the tasks are.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's tied to people's job descriptions.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's having the right people in those roles, right?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: And you can create better standard operating procedures, more efficient procedures when you've had people in those roles.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you've had multiple production managers in that role, you would figure out what works and what doesn't work, and it wouldn't all just be up here.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: It would be things that you've learned over time so that then you hire the person into that role that can easily jump in and follow the steps, yeah, right.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then take those steps and improve them.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like KFC, Chick-fil-A, pick the the franchise.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't get to where it is in creating the efficient SOPs that they have without mm constantly changing them and adjusting them.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't just like you know, let's just make Chick-fil-A like this.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't just get like that overnight.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and and and even that's what I'm going into.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like you don't want somebody to come in and uh hey, I make I make chicken.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's not even Kentucky fried chicken, but all of a sudden again you cook, and the cook comes in and says, you know, I got this idea for how we can do this chicken differently.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, we we want to embrace ideas, but that's not what we're doing here, and you might totally change our standards of excellence here by doing it.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's another layer to this that that I would tell you though.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes in doing that, I'll find out this is a process that should be distributed to people.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I'll find out it's a process of a job.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: Where we came out with that was very clearly, so this person's gonna review this report and this is how we're gonna prevent it.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: But there's another thing, and that is that you have to look at your organization and figure out do you just want to be working in the business for the rest of your career?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to me if you're at home, and I really want you to think about that.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Do I want to work in this business for the rest of my career?
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so using a terrible example, but if I'm a painter and I just love painting one painting at a time, that might be a business I want to be in the rest of my career, and there's nothing wrong with that.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe I want to sell paintings in a store, and therefore I need to, you know, cultivate other skills within myself, and it's not gonna be that.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think as you start to embrace that you're gonna be one or the other, then you gotta be prepared for the results.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you do have to be prepared for the results and also the uncomfortable piece of it too, because and I say the uncomfortable piece of it because if you don't want to be the painter anymore and you're going to bring in other painters so that you can sell their art plus your art and grow this store, you're gonna step into the business side of things and the employee management side and the all the operational pieces of running a storefront, the marketing, there's a lot of other things that you're gonna need to take on, which is uncomfortable, one, because you have to learn them.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: But two, it's uncomfortable because now the thing that you did so well as a painter and the thing that brought you joy if your goal is to move forward with this store, you have to trust other people to do the thing that you did, which is one of the hardest pieces about creating SOPs, is I now have to trust somebody else to go out there and be the speaker or the consultant when for years I'm the one that's done that, and now I have to let somebody else teach my content.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm literally doing this right now.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm just I'm doing a train the trainer with three different healthcare facilities, and I've put together all the content and I've given them on every slide the things that they should say, the things they should ask.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, I'm not gonna be the one delivering the content.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'll see the results of it at the end, but they're the ones who are gonna be delivering it.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so it interesting.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: I had a guy come in the other day and he wanted to uh talk to me about starting his own business.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it was interesting, man.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm telling you, this is an authentic story that happened right here in this conference room uh about three days ago.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: He comes in, really great guy, great personality.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think he's gonna be a good business owner.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: But um, you know, we were talking, he goes, Man, Rob, he goes, I just want to be, you know, I want to have success like you had.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is what he really said.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, I want to I want to have success like because I don't I want to just have to work all day all the time.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: And he said something along those lines, I'm paraphrasing a little bit.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Listen, man, I'm gonna tell you one thing.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: That is not the one goal that you're walking in with.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's not how I operate.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I'm gonna tell you, if anything, I worked hard when I started it, and I'm working way harder now.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, success breeds hard work.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and and my tip to him was I said, you know, just find something you're passionate about, and so when the grind happens and the grind will happen, that you're passionate about it, so you'll dive through it and you'll continue to go through it.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um but so important.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: With that being said, I I want to talk about I want to start from the beginning, and then we're gonna take some takeaways for you at home if you're trying to standardize your business.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: How do we how do we do this?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so let's start off with the top.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to uh standardize your operations, here's what you're gonna be able to do you're gonna be able to grow your business more effectively.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you can't do it if you're the one in.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: In your business.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: So you're going to grow your in your business much more effectively.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: You're also going to find ways to do more profitability, more profitable work, because through your processes, you're going to make sure you're not hemorrhaging money and those little things you tend to hemorrhage money on when you're not paying attention.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to be able to make a bigger community impact.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean both uh philanthropically and also in a method of just getting your own exposure out there.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: What I mean by that is sometimes we have a message to the public and um we want them to know what that message is.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: The bigger we are, the more we're able to get that out there.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: So if I believe I'm the best home builder, sunroom contractor in town, my growth allows me to get a bigger platform to be able to do that.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: We need more people to know that.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: But also the more you're you're standardizing, the more money you have, the more profit you have, the more you can affect your community.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, give money to charity, reach out to others, help others.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I think there's a power to it.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: So now you're bought in.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: I want to standardize my business, I want to grow my business.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh let's do, you know, two or three takeaways that somebody can start with today to get their business growing in a very standardized way.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Love it.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: So a couple things I would say right off the bat, someone can do.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: So the first thing I would do is literally just if you're not sure where to start, just write down what you do for the week.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: Just one week worth of time.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: What did you do every day?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, just make a list of some of the things you did.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: So you can start to, to Rob's point, look at if you're a one-person show or a two people organization, what are we doing?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: Where are we spending our time?
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: And where what is the biggest use of our time?
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe where are we wasting our time?
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: You need to actually be able to see it, observe it, put it on paper.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: Rob said, write down an organizational chart.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: You can start with that and then start writing down what you do.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's an easy way for someone to just figure out where are we?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then maybe from that you can reflect on what's the area where we can make the largest impact?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: What's the area where we could cut some waste, where we could be more efficient?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: How do we start to actually figure out what are the things that we're doing regularly?
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna see it.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: So when you start to visualize it, create your own actual like chart of your organization and then also what you're doing, if it's just a small team, or even if it's a multiple people on your team, have everybody do that.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: Where are they spending their time?
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: And could we be more efficient?
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, standard operating procedures make your business more efficient.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: They allow you to grow because you can bring someone in, and that person doesn't have to spend six months learning how Rob does what he does because it's already here.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's written down, it's not just in your head.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: You you I so I'm gonna do a quick uh if I can jump in now, I'm gonna do a quick, like just basically.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Just gonna summarize what I said.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, yeah, yeah.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Let me just say what you said also.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I agree.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: No, what I was gonna say is write your mission statement out, make sure you understand it.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Write your vision statement, make sure you understand it.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Vision is who we want to be, who we see ourselves being.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's a great book called Traction.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: I was trying to look that up while reading traction.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great book.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: I I know one of my friends, uh, he he runs a great business in town.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: He said traction changed his whole business.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're a reader, do that.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: But there was something I was gonna say, and uh so when we get past the vision statement and you know, our quarterly goals and things like that, here's the one that I think is is really important about standards.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: I believe, Nick, and you're not gonna like what I'm gonna say at first, but then you'll understand what I'm gonna say.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: I believe we we need to make rules be where we don't talk too much.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's here's Were you trying to say I talk too much?
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly I didn't know how to say it, but here we are.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean the truth.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, when I when I say we talk too much, any rule, any system you build which involves a whole lot of old school talking is probably not that great of a system.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Let me explain.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Sports fans out there, can you hear me?
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh all right, so you're in the NFL, you're in your high school football team.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Do you go into the huddle and go, hey, you're gonna run this way, you're gonna run this way, you're gonna block this guy, you're gonna block?
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: No, we we have one play call, and everybody knows what to do within that play call.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it should not be a whole bunch of explaining and things, but that's the standard in practice, guys.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: We create uh uh structures so that we know what to do when the things happen.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I would say try to create more processes where you understand, hey, look, if the building is burning, run through the sign with the exit on it, right?
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: And you're gonna grab the fire extinguisher and you're gonna call the fire department.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: That is the way we do it, but we don't we shouldn't have to say it.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: We should know it through our processes.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: But that that then becomes a habit.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like when you know what it is and you know what to do, and people don't rise to like the like their training level, it's it's it's you rise to like whatever your your standard is.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like this is the standard of what we do.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so if I know this is what's supposed to happen, it's why you know that the exit time's there.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I go leave when the building's learning.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's it's known, it's the standard, it's it's expected across the board in the building.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: But if you don't have a standard of what you do when this contract comes in, it goes to this person, then what happens with it?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think it should go to the other person.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, now it's it's it's left up to your judgment, and that's why entrepreneurs struggle with this because I can trust what I know is the right thing to do, but for me to trust someone else to do it is really difficult if I don't say you need to do this when this happens, but then still there's a level of judgment that comes with this, and standard operating procedures generally take that out of the mix and give us the grips of what to do.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, you know it.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then, like you said, it starts off as a training manual and it becomes habitual, and now we're all doing the same thing, hopefully.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's the goal.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so so you said write down what you're doing, in other words, create your job description in a sense through the processes of what you're doing.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a great place to go.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about doing a vision statement, a mission, a mission statement.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I love a company manual.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: I was out at the we have one of the great Chamber of Commerce.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: We actually have a lot of great Chamber of Commerces in our area.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: We're in the Myrtle Beach area, but Conway has a great one.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: North Myrtle has a great one.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to name them all because they all have great ones.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: But over in Myrtle Beach uh Chamber of Commerce, and and I uh they have Visit Myrtle Beach and the Greater Collaborative.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: The Greater Collaborative.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: And uh but one of the things is they have a business uh section where they're they help young businesses get going.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: They said one of the first things that they tell people is write your company manual up.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: It has what's important to you, some of these things we just mentioned.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it's amazing to see because one of I heard a business owner talking.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: He said he had been business like three or four years, and he said when he started writing his company manual, he started realizing gaps in what he wasn't doing.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it it and he said it was a real epiphany moment for him because he said, as I'm sitting here trying to fill out like what are my processes here, what do I do with this?
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I realized I didn't have anything there.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, So I'm always winging it.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: Just figure it out as we go.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: Winging it is to go back to the sports analogy.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's like the the quarterback going out and just saying, I'm gonna wing it every time.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: Bring Peyton Manning in and talk about it.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, I I love that you say that because I think a lot of times businesses create a business plan to bring it back.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like when I'm talking to my students right now, I have two different courses where I they literally are as teams creating business plans.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: And for them to realize all of the different operations that go into business and to put it down on paper, it's extremely eye-opening for them.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: They're not actually running real businesses, but they're creating a solution to a problem where they're then having to say, rather than just, well, we think this would fix it, well, how the heck do you do that?
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: What is that gonna look like from day to day?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: You want to, you know, offer tailgate running rental services at this many of them.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: What how are you gonna do that?
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: What is that, what's required to do that?
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so, like you're saying, the company manual is if you don't even know where to start with that, go back and look at your business plan.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't have a business plan, go create a business plan.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: And if you have one, use it to fully flesh it out and create a company manual out of it.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that that's interesting stuff, man.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I I think those are some good takeaways for today.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, because I I do like what these are, but I'm gonna do one last thing with you, and then we're gonna sign offer today, okay?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds good.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean to put you on the spot, but it's but I'm going to it's okay.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm used to it by now.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're in the first year of your business, you just started, you've got maybe yourself and maybe your wife working with you, nobody else, what would you do for a standard operating procedure?
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what's the biggest one for you?
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: The the standard operating procedure I would have for myself.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: It would, I think it would depend on the business I had.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: But if it was a sales-driven business, I would have a standard operating procedure for how often I am pitching clients or marketing myself in terms of like outreach.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: I would have a standard and if the standard operating procedure could simply be every day at this time, I spend one hour doing this process, right?
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: I have my leads that I've I've generated via however you do it, right?
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever the process is for that, wherever they come from.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then my standard operating procedure is every day at 12 o'clock from 12 to 1, I'm gonna pick up the phone and I'm gonna make 12 phone calls.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then from that, I'm gonna so it it is it is a a process of how I'm going to generate leads, pitch leads, follow-up on leads, whatever that looks like.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's like if you're trying to grow your business, one of the best ways to do it, I think, is is actually the way you're marketing and generating leads and bringing people into your business and people learning what your business is.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: That is where I would start a standard operating procedure if it was just me, myself, and I, or me and one other person, is and it could just be a daily thing.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: All right, I got you.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and and and again, we're doing this under the presumption somebody actually does want to grow their business.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: And and I don't think you have to go into this thinking you're gonna grow.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I will kind of wrap up with my thoughts on it, and I would make it very, very quick.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna cheat a little bit because I'm gonna do two.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say, number one, make your mission statement.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: It should be your mission statement that's true to you that you think will always stay true to you.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, mission statements do change over time, but that's probably the clearest operating procedure you can make.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, young person that just got into real estate, just got into life insurance sales, I don't care what you're doing, make a mission statement.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: Figure out what that core thing is.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is what makes me special, this is why I'm in existence.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that's the big one.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: You can build off of that whether you got one person or a hundred people in my mind.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: The second part is I love what you said there, sales procedure.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: I would start off with, what's the biggest challenge for a new business?
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have any people to sell to usually.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, nobody knows who we are.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: So we start off with what do we do when we get the first customer?
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I would do my sales procedure would be how do I handle a new customer?
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: And uh at Carolina Base, of course, the company I own, one of the things, well, in addition to leader mentality, but I believe every single person here has to answer the phone the same way.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean a little bit the same way.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um well, it seems simple, but I guarantee you you go to companies all over America, it's not happening.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's one of my biggest pet peeps.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: If your if your answer should be thank you for calling BJ Enterprises, then thank you for calling BJA Enterprises for everybody.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: It shouldn't be one person's like, hi, good morning, whatever.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that seems very robotic, but you need to create that standard early on.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, with that being said, we're a little light on time now, but we do want to thank everybody.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you're out there trying to standardize your business, you've got great tips, you have anything you'd like to add, feel free to write us mentalityleader at gmail.com.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's the easy way.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Go to our social media.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we'd love to have you on the show if you're an expert on the subject by any means.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: And make sure to like and share us all of your social media preferences online, and we'll look forward to seeing you next time on the Leader Mentality show with Rob Clemens and guest speaker, Nick D.Stefano.