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School Bus to Seven Figures with Phil Risher · The Heart-Led Business Show

• 0:01
  Speaker: Welcome to The Heart-Led Business Show, where compassion meets commerce and leaders lead with love.
• 0:09
  Speaker: Join your host, Tom Jackobs, as he delves into the insightful conversations with visionary business leaders who defy the status quo, putting humanity first and profit second.
• 0:20
  Speaker: From heartfelt strategies to inspiring stories, this podcast is your compass in the world of conscious capitalism.
• 0:29
  Speaker: So buckle up and let your heart guide your business journey.
• 0:36
  Tom Jackobs: Welcome, welcome, wonderful listeners to another exhilarating episode of the Heart-Led Business Show.
• 0:42
  Tom Jackobs: So get ready to meet the maestro of Marketing Magic Phil Risher.
• 0:47
  Tom Jackobs: As the brilliant brain behind Phlash Consulting, Phil doesn't just help local service businesses shine.
• 0:53
  Tom Jackobs: He's like a sales spark plug firing them up from 3 million to a roaring 5 million in just 24 months.
• 1:01
  Tom Jackobs: Today we'll dive into his heart-led journey, exploring the symphony of success that resonates through his consulting expertise.
• 1:09
  Tom Jackobs: So grab your headphones and prepare for a heartwarming chat that could spark your own business brilliance.
• 1:15
  Tom Jackobs: Phil, welcome to the show.
• 1:16
  Phil Risher: Yeah.
• 1:17
  Phil Risher: Thanks so much for having me.
• 1:18
  Phil Risher: I love the intro.
• 1:19
  Phil Risher: Thank you.
• 1:20
  Tom Jackobs: You're very welcome.
• 1:21
  Tom Jackobs: And try to get through it in one take usually.
• 1:25
  Phil Risher: Exactly.
• 1:26
  Tom Jackobs: Phil, I'm really excited to, to talk to you today because I know, marketing is a big thing in helping small businesses and service-based businesses, and a lot of people think how's the heart come into that?
• 1:37
  Tom Jackobs: But we're going to definitely get some heart in into this one.
• 1:40
  Tom Jackobs: But of course the first question I always like to ask is, what's your definition of a heart-led business?
• 1:47
  Phil Risher: For sure.
• 1:48
  Phil Risher: So Tom, I would say that there are three main wins that I look at that I strive for every day.
• 1:54
  Phil Risher: I want our clients to win.
• 1:56
  Phil Risher: I want our team to win.
• 1:58
  Phil Risher: Team members to be successful and win.
• 2:01
  Phil Risher: And I want the business to win and be profitable.
• 2:03
  Phil Risher: And those are the three things from a heart-led business.
• 2:06
  Phil Risher: If you can do those three things, there's no way that you don't feel like you're operating from a place of abundance and purpose.
• 2:12
  Phil Risher: And for me, that's what I strive for every day.
• 2:15
  Tom Jackobs: I love that.
• 2:16
  Tom Jackobs: I have not heard that yet.
• 2:17
  Tom Jackobs: But win, win a across the board.
• 2:19
  Phil Risher: You go.
• 2:19
  Phil Risher: Three wins.
• 2:20
  Tom Jackobs: Three wins.
• 2:21
  Tom Jackobs: And yeah I mean you, a lot of people don't really think, they think about, okay, winning for the customer, winning for the business.
• 2:28
  Tom Jackobs: Not necessarily always the employees, but they're the ones that are taking care of the clients.
• 2:32
  Tom Jackobs: So it totally makes sense.
• 2:35
  Tom Jackobs: How did you come up with that philosophy?
• 2:38
  Phil Risher: Yeah I was doing about, I was two, three years into my business we were doing about 200, 300,000 revenue, a virtual assistant and I was like, okay, I was making a hundred thousand dollars personally, and I was like, good, decent living, right?
• 2:52
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 2:53
  Phil Risher: I was like 30 years old and I'm like, okay, this is good.
• 2:55
  Phil Risher: One of my friends that I worked with for 10 years at Enterprise Rent A Car, were both branch managers.
• 3:01
  Phil Risher: We were in the training program.
• 3:02
  Phil Risher: She was doing pharmaceutical sales, and she reached out to me and said.
• 3:05
  Phil Risher: Phil can I put you down as a reference?
• 3:07
  Phil Risher: I'm looking to apply other places, like I haven't had a good situation and I'm looking at it and I'm like, what if I could create a situation where she could experience what I'm experiencing, which is flexibility in my schedule, making six figures, helping people grow their business, and I already know that she has the work ethic and can do it.
• 3:26
  Phil Risher: So she came on as a consultant and she scaled up to, making six figures at plus and having all this great things.
• 3:35
  Phil Risher: So I guess what it came about was like I had this great thing that I had built personally, but then I knew that I had someone that I knew that could do it and I could help them build it.
• 3:43
  Phil Risher: And then slowly it evolved from there.
• 3:44
  Phil Risher: Like I had a team member that came on making 60,000 at the last position and now she makes double that.
• 3:49
  Phil Risher: And so it's like you have the case studies of your clients, but then you could also have case studies of your team members as well.
• 3:55
  Phil Risher: And it's like both, you can have both.
• 3:58
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 3:58
  Tom Jackobs: That, that, that's brilliant.
• 4:00
  Tom Jackobs: And again, and when, like I said when those employees are well taken care of, they're taking care of the clients.
• 4:08
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 4:09
  Phil Risher: Yeah, exactly.
• 4:10
  Phil Risher: A big unlock for me was implementing performance pay in my company.
• 4:14
  Phil Risher: Everyone in our company is performance pay.
• 4:15
  Phil Risher: When we get new clients, everyone makes money.
• 4:17
  Phil Risher: When we lose clients, everyone loses money.
• 4:20
  Tom Jackobs: Oh.
• 4:20
  Phil Risher: And it allows it to have almost like this self-managing company where they're incentivized.
• 4:25
  Phil Risher: They want clients, they want to keep clients, they're excited to get new clients, and they're fighting for that all the time.
• 4:31
  Phil Risher: And it's a beautiful thing as a business owner to have that.
• 4:34
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 4:35
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 4:35
  Tom Jackobs: That's hard to kind have a salaried employee to really feel the pain that a lot of business owners feel when there's that ebb and flow and I love that.
• 4:44
  Tom Jackobs: And that everybody shares, yeah.
• 4:46
  Phil Risher: Yeah.
• 4:46
  Phil Risher: One of the conversations that we have when they first come on is that we all get to participate in the upside.
• 4:52
  Phil Risher: We get to participate in the win, and they have no downside.
• 4:55
  Phil Risher: I'm the only one that's taking on the downside, right?
• 4:57
  Phil Risher: Like they get a base pay plus they get all the upside.
• 5:00
  Phil Risher: So it's a great opportunity for them to come in and win and make all the upside, and I'm taking all the risk on my side, and I acknowledge that right up front with everyone.
• 5:08
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah, no, it's good to be, transparent like that too, because I think a lot of employees have that employee mindset and so they're like yeah, if I get a steady paycheck owner here, must get a steady paycheck as well.
• 5:22
  Phil Risher: Yeah, so we just talked about this actually in our quarterly kickoff meeting.
• 5:25
  Phil Risher: We do every single quarter where we have a kickoff and I share with them our reserves, so our retained earnings, and I let them know that we have three months of expenses.
• 5:33
  Phil Risher: Set aside for the business.
• 5:35
  Tom Jackobs: Nice.
• 5:36
  Phil Risher: So you may think we're generating all this money over here, but I'm building a healthy business.
• 5:39
  Phil Risher: We have to hire new people, we have to have reserves so that way everyone can stay paid if we lose clients.
• 5:44
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 5:45
  Phil Risher: So just so y'all know, imagine do the math.
• 5:47
  Phil Risher: There's a lot of people here, 18 people do the math.
• 5:49
  Phil Risher: We have three months sitting aside for that.
• 5:53
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 5:53
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 5:53
  Tom Jackobs: And it's, somebody sees that, it can be it and having that transparency is really important because, if they have never owned a business of their own before it, it's difficult to conceptualize what that really means.
• 6:06
  Tom Jackobs: It's just, oh, you got all this money what are you doing?
• 6:08
  Tom Jackobs: You should pay me more.
• 6:09
  Phil Risher: Yeah, exactly.
• 6:10
  Tom Jackobs: Awesome.
• 6:11
  Tom Jackobs: So tell me about your journey into the current situation that you're in right now.
• 6:16
  Phil Risher: Yeah, I started outta college at Enterprise, like I mentioned in their management training program.
• 6:21
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 6:21
  Phil Risher: I worked there for seven years and I was a branch manager, so I ran a branch.
• 6:26
  Phil Risher: It was about$3 million business.
• 6:27
  Phil Risher: I got paid off the bottom line off the P and L as a branch manager through their trainee program.
• 6:32
  Tom Jackobs: Okay.
• 6:32
  Phil Risher: I was about 25 at that point.
• 6:34
  Phil Risher: I read Rich Dad, poor Dad,
• 6:35
  Tom Jackobs: Okay.
• 6:36
  Phil Risher: He said the number one skill you can learn is how to sell.
• 6:38
  Phil Risher: And up until that point, I learned how to manage a business and get paid off the bottom line.
• 6:42
  Phil Risher: I was one of the top branch managers, so I went to Enterprise and I said, I wanna learn how to sell.
• 6:47
  Phil Risher: So they said one of the best sales programs that we have is in our corporate office where you sell to home service businesses like hvac, plumbers, electrics, electricians, you sell them fleet management services, so they have fleets of vehicles.
• 7:00
  Phil Risher: Enterprise will help them manage their fleet.
• 7:02
  Tom Jackobs: Nice.
• 7:03
  Phil Risher: So my job was to set up appointments with these$10 million home service businesses, a hundred million home service visit, and pitch them on fleets.
• 7:11
  Phil Risher: The same time my background that I love, my passion is personal finance.
• 7:15
  Tom Jackobs: Nice.
• 7:16
  Phil Risher: So I paid off my student loans.
• 7:17
  Phil Risher: I actually bought a condo with cash when I was 25.
• 7:20
  Tom Jackobs: Wow.
• 7:21
  Phil Risher: Yeah, so I was like getting after it.
• 7:22
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 7:23
  Phil Risher: So my wife is a kindergarten teacher, and her friends were like, how did you pay off your student loans?
• 7:26
  Phil Risher: How did you do all this stuff?
• 7:27
  Phil Risher: So I started a blog about personal finance, and I had no idea.
• 7:31
  Phil Risher: This was in 2015.
• 7:32
  Phil Risher: I had no idea about building a WordPress website, doing SEO email marketing, like none of this stuff.
• 7:36
  Phil Risher: So I started just writing no ChatGPT back then, right?
• 7:39
  Phil Risher: I started writing three blog posts per week, like by hand.
• 7:42
  Phil Risher: This is how you budget, this is how you do this.
• 7:43
  Phil Risher: I would share my spreadsheets and everything.
• 7:45
  Phil Risher: And I stumbled upon something, which was, if you wanna get recognition, if you wanna get people to your website, you need to get recognized places.
• 7:53
  Phil Risher: So I got featured in Forbes and CNBC and Yahoo Finance and all this cool stuff, and I had 30, 40,000 people from my website every single month.
• 8:00
  Tom Jackobs: Wow.
• 8:00
  Phil Risher: I would go to these meetings with these home service business owners and they would say.
• 8:04
  Phil Risher: Tell me a little about yourself.
• 8:05
  Phil Risher: I'm like I got a lot to say.
• 8:06
  Phil Risher: I was just on Forbes, I just featured on Forbes.
• 8:08
  Tom Jackobs: Oh my gosh.
• 8:09
  Phil Risher: This is an interesting sales call.
• 8:10
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 8:10
  Phil Risher: And I started building a relationship with these guys and I actually, I didn't like what I was selling, so I left my job at Enterprise and I bought a school bus and I made a little tiny home.
• 8:20
  Tom Jackobs: Oh my gosh.
• 8:21
  Phil Risher: I traveled around the country making content and sharing my story and just doing fun stuff for a couple months.
• 8:26
  Phil Risher: 'cause I was like, debt free, having fun, whatever.
• 8:29
  Phil Risher: Making content, doing the influencer thing.
• 8:31
  Phil Risher: This was back in 2017 before influencer type stuff.
• 8:34
  Phil Risher: Yeah, so I didn't even know what influencing was.
• 8:37
  Phil Risher: Yeah.
• 8:37
  Phil Risher: In my bus.
• 8:38
  Phil Risher: Yeah.
• 8:38
  Phil Risher: My dog and I in a bus traveling around this blue bus making content just like living life.
• 8:43
  Tom Jackobs: Hiking, you know all that.
• 8:44
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 8:45
  Phil Risher: So my wife is a kindergarten teacher.
• 8:47
  Phil Risher: Mind you, she's like a rule follower.
• 8:49
  Phil Risher: So she's what are you doing?
• 8:50
  Phil Risher: You are like, you're crazy.
• 8:52
  Phil Risher: You're crazy.
• 8:52
  Phil Risher: As most business owners site, that's how it.
• 8:54
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 8:54
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 8:55
  Phil Risher: So when I came back into town from that trip, one of my clients that I sold fleet management to was a$3 million home service business and he was like, Hey, I need someone to help me grow my business.
• 9:04
  Phil Risher: And you seem like you're getting after it.
• 9:06
  Phil Risher: So could you come help me?
• 9:08
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 9:08
  Phil Risher: So I went to work there, and then in the first like month, all my worlds collided.
• 9:12
  Phil Risher: My enterprise experience of running a$3 million business and getting paid off the bottom line, plus my marketing experience of getting website traffic, turning it into leads, email marketing and everything.
• 9:21
  Phil Risher: It was just like he had been stuck at 3 million for three years, and within the first year he went three to 4 million and 300,000 profit to 900,000 in profit.
• 9:29
  Tom Jackobs: Wow.
• 9:30
  Phil Risher: And so it was basically like takeoff time.
• 9:32
  Phil Risher: So that's how I I got into home service and marketing and what we do.
• 9:36
  Phil Risher: The part that I switched over to phlash was after a year, so he was four,$4 million.
• 9:42
  Phil Risher: Ebitda a profit was around a million dollars.
• 9:45
  Phil Risher: I'm like, I wasn't even paid any performance pay.
• 9:47
  Phil Risher: I just, whenever I go into something, I just get after it.
• 9:50
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 9:51
  Phil Risher: So I'm like on his tail buddy, we need to get more technicians.
• 9:54
  Phil Risher: We need to do this.
• 9:54
  Phil Risher: We need to, and he's i'm making a million dollars.
• 9:56
  Phil Risher: Leave me alone.
• 9:57
  Phil Risher: What?
• 9:57
  Phil Risher: This is a dream come true that I'm actually making money.
• 10:00
  Phil Risher: I'm like, this is working.
• 10:01
  Phil Risher: So leave me alone.
• 10:02
  Phil Risher: So he actually, we had a meeting at Chili's, and he's Hey you're fired.
• 10:06
  Phil Risher: You need to go start your own business.
• 10:09
  Phil Risher: You're gonna call it Phlash Consulting, and I'm gonna introduce you to two of my friends and I'll be your first client and they'll be your two friends.
• 10:16
  Phil Risher: Charge them$50 an hour and you'll make a hundred thousand dollars and you're all good.
• 10:20
  Phil Risher: And that was seven years ago.
• 10:21
  Phil Risher: Wow.
• 10:24
  Phil Risher: Wow.
• 10:24
  Phil Risher: What, what a story and journey as well.
• 10:27
  Phil Risher: Yeah, man.
• 10:29
  Tom Jackobs: That, that must have been quite, quite a lunch at Chili's.
• 10:33
  Phil Risher: We, we would meet at Chili's, but it, to be honest with you, it was like, someone, you're doing$4 million and you're making a million dollars a year, and if you don't want to go for the gusto and you have someone who's roaring on your team, he did me a huge solid, which was he was like, Hey, go out and start your own business.
• 10:48
  Phil Risher: I'll be your first client and I'll give you the icing on top.
• 10:52
  Phil Risher: He was my client for the next year or two and he went to 5 million and then sold to private equity.
• 10:57
  Phil Risher: And I sat in all the conversations with the private equity company and explained everything that we do to the T.
• 11:02
  Phil Risher: So like he did right by me and I did right by him.
• 11:04
  Phil Risher: And it was like a perfect, you know, we're still friends to this day and I think it goes to show like that whole team mentality of everyone can win here.
• 11:11
  Phil Risher: Everyone can win here.
• 11:13
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 11:14
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 11:14
  Tom Jackobs: And I'm sure obviously profit is a big part of that, but if that was the sole thing that you were looking at, it probably would've come out a little bit different or do you agree with that?
• 11:26
  Phil Risher: Yeah the thing was like I knew the impact I was making on his business, right?
• 11:29
  Phil Risher: And I was not making, I wasn't even making six figures.
• 11:31
  Phil Risher: So I'm like, Hey, like I know that I should be making more than this, right?
• 11:35
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 11:35
  Phil Risher: But I also know that you don't necessarily have to pay me'cause you own the business.
• 11:40
  Phil Risher: Let's figure out how we can make this a win-win situation.
• 11:42
  Phil Risher: And he was like, Hey, you should be a consultant.
• 11:44
  Phil Risher: Charge 50 bucks an hour.
• 11:45
  Phil Risher: You make a hundred thousand dollars and here's your clients and go do this and you can help me still.
• 11:49
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 11:49
  Tom Jackobs: That takes heart and courage and yeah, all of that.
• 11:53
  Tom Jackobs: So what makes your business now heart-led?
• 11:57
  Phil Risher: Yeah, so a big focus for us over the last two years was buying back my time, and it's something that I struggle with a lot, which was, how can I be heart-led when I'm not touching all the clients?
• 12:07
  Phil Risher: How can I be heart-led when someone comes to me and says, I need something?
• 12:10
  Phil Risher: And I'm like, I can't help you.
• 12:12
  Phil Risher: Is
• 12:12
  Tom Jackobs: that heart-
• 12:13
  Phil Risher: led or is it not?
• 12:14
  Phil Risher: So it's something that I really struggle with a lot.
• 12:16
  Phil Risher: And now where we're at is that I have a team of people that I care about, but they also have the ability to act on their own.
• 12:26
  Phil Risher: And so some of the things that we do, like I have a weekly one-to-one with the team members and I ask them about their personal goals, their actual business goals, like what are we doing?
• 12:32
  Phil Risher: And we set goals for them and they know that I have their back.
• 12:36
  Phil Risher: But also just like in my opinion, my business is like a kid where it's like I need to let them fail so that way they grow up my business and being heart-led, it doesn't just mean coddling them and trying to like make it all kumbaya, just like a kid.
• 12:51
  Tom Jackobs: Right.
• 12:52
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 12:52
  Phil Risher: It's like I've had to shift that a lot in my mind.
• 12:55
  Phil Risher: It was usually like around when I got to around a million dollars, the hustler had to die and the leader had to be born.
• 13:00
  Phil Risher: Leader for me was like, I need to let this thing fail, and if it fails, I need to be there to catch it just a kid would.
• 13:06
  Phil Risher: And you can still love the kid, but let it fail.
• 13:08
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 13:09
  Tom Jackobs: That must have taken a lot to make that shift from hustle to lead.
• 13:16
  Tom Jackobs: What was that like for you and how long did it take?
• 13:19
  Phil Risher: Yeah, there's two parts to it.
• 13:21
  Phil Risher: One is the personal finance piece because I I paid off my mortgage and then like set myself up personally so that way I did, I could come from a place of abundance.
• 13:30
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 13:30
  Phil Risher: So, I did that before I killed the hustler.
• 13:33
  Phil Risher: People are going through all this and there's the money part to it that feels oh my gosh.
• 13:37
  Phil Risher: So for me, I did it.
• 13:38
  Phil Risher: It took me seven years, right?
• 13:39
  Phil Risher: But I got the personal stuff outta the way first, and then I shifted.
• 13:43
  Phil Risher: It took me a good two and a half years to fully get to the point if you've ever, there's a great book called Buy Back Your Time from Dan Martel, and he has this five rung replacement ladder of hire, an executive assistant.
• 13:54
  Phil Risher: Get delivery in place, get marketing in place, get sales in place, get management, and I just hired a salesperson about six months ago, so it wasn't founder led sales anymore.
• 14:03
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 14:03
  Phil Risher: But it took me a good two years to get to that point.
• 14:06
  Phil Risher: The two big hurdles for me were, one, I had a scarcity mindset and I was nervous that I could take this money and put it into an index fund, and be wealthy, right?
• 14:15
  Phil Risher: More, more wealthy.
• 14:17
  Phil Risher: Or I can take this money and invest it in my business and buy back my time and build a business that was wealthy as well.
• 14:22
  Phil Risher: But I don't know if that's gonna work or not.
• 14:24
  Tom Jackobs: Right.
• 14:24
  Phil Risher: So, I have to overcome that and make that decision.
• 14:26
  Phil Risher: And then the second thing was, since everything was founder led and like I didn't, I had systems, but they were in my head and on paper, every single person that I hired took a good six months to get them up to speed.
• 14:37
  Phil Risher: Like a director of digital marketing, six months, a salesperson, six months'cause I didn't have any systems for anyone to like even train on or fall back on.
• 14:44
  Phil Risher: We were building them as we went.
• 14:46
  Phil Risher: And so that's why it took so long to do.
• 14:48
  Phil Risher: But now it would be a lot faster if I needed to replace them'cause I have the systems built.
• 14:53
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah, so getting the systems is, would you say, is like the number one thing a business owner should really focus on is systemizing the business?
• 15:02
  Phil Risher: Yes, but you can't, when you build a system, it's almost like you have to have someone who's there to execute the system to know if it works.
• 15:08
  Phil Risher: I could tell you, build the system.
• 15:10
  Phil Risher: Build the system.
• 15:11
  Phil Risher: But then unless you have someone executing it and it's not working and you can't like fix the system, in real time.
• 15:16
  Phil Risher: It's hard to, it's hard to say.
• 15:18
  Phil Risher: Yes, build a system, so
• 15:19
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 15:19
  Phil Risher: Of course build a system, but take the next step and execute the system with someone else and see how they do and get that feedback loop.
• 15:26
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 15:27
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah, that's typically, that's how we build out our SOPs is the person who's doing it will.
• 15:33
  Tom Jackobs: And now obviously with AI and screen recording and all that makes it so much easier to build out SOPs.
• 15:40
  Tom Jackobs: that's one thing that I learned.
• 15:41
  Tom Jackobs: Early on probably not early enough for me, but when I had my fitness business that I sold in 2018, it was I took a lot of time off near the, in, in the last half of owning it.
• 15:54
  Tom Jackobs: And it was only because I had systems in place that the business was able to run and grow without me There all the time.
• 16:03
  Tom Jackobs: One thing that really stuck in my head of why systems are so important.
• 16:08
  Tom Jackobs: I got a call one morning from one of the trainers that opened up the gym at 5:00 AM and I get a call at 5:00 AM Hey Tom how do you turn on the AC?
• 16:18
  Tom Jackobs: It's really hot in the gym.
• 16:21
  Tom Jackobs: I'm like, how do you not know how to turn on the ac?
• 16:26
  Tom Jackobs: I was like.
• 16:28
  Tom Jackobs: We need a process.
• 16:29
  Tom Jackobs: We need a opening checklist.
• 16:31
  Tom Jackobs: So that was my first process, is an opening checklist.
• 16:34
  Tom Jackobs: Unlock the door, turn on the radio, turn on the ac.
• 16:38
  Phil Risher: Yeah.
• 16:38
  Phil Risher: We had a similar situation.
• 16:39
  Phil Risher: We just hired a automations engineer and she made a mistake in her first week.
• 16:44
  Phil Risher: And so of course you could go to that person and say why'd you not do this?
• 16:47
  Phil Risher: How'd you do this?
• 16:47
  Phil Risher: But what we do is we go through and say, question one, did we have a process for this?
• 16:52
  Phil Risher: And in this specific situation, we did not have a process for this.
• 16:56
  Phil Risher: So I went to her and apologized.
• 16:58
  Phil Risher: I said, I set you up to fail.
• 17:00
  Phil Risher: I put you in a Michelin star kitchen and I didn't give you any recipe and I expected you to make what I wanted.
• 17:04
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 17:05
  Phil Risher: So do you have a process?
• 17:06
  Phil Risher: Is the process correct?
• 17:08
  Phil Risher: How you'd gone through the process with them?
• 17:10
  Phil Risher: Then it's like, why did you not follow the process?
• 17:12
  Phil Risher: But you can't.
• 17:13
  Phil Risher: You gotta start with the process instead of getting mad at the person.
• 17:16
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 17:16
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 17:16
  Tom Jackobs: That was a mentor maybe.
• 17:18
  Tom Jackobs: It was a book that I read was always when you're having a, a difficult discussion or performance issue always start with process before people.
• 17:28
  Tom Jackobs: Because it's usually the process and or the people aren't following the process.
• 17:33
  Tom Jackobs: So then you can make those you can have those better conversations.
• 17:37
  Phil Risher: Exactly.
• 17:38
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 17:38
  Tom Jackobs: When you're growing the business and you're stepping away or you're getting out of the hustle and you're instilling other people, how do you make sure that they have the same values in the heart-led philosophy that you have as the, as a founder?
• 17:52
  Phil Risher: Yeah, I would say one is performance pay.
• 17:57
  Phil Risher: First and foremost.
• 17:59
  Phil Risher: It was very important because it allowed me to step away, and then we still had aligned incentives, which is do great work, make sure the customer's happy.
• 18:06
  Phil Risher: Like that's like on the forefront of a lot of people's fear is that they're not gonna care as much as me.
• 18:13
  Tom Jackobs: Right.
• 18:13
  Phil Risher: When you give them skin in the game, you, there's a quote on this from a guy named Tommy Mello, and he says that if you want to put a cap on someone's performance, then put a cap on their pay.
• 18:22
  Phil Risher: If you don't wanna put a cap on their performance, don't put a cap on their pay.
• 18:25
  Phil Risher: And it allows you to think differently.
• 18:26
  Phil Risher: So that's the first thing.
• 18:27
  Phil Risher: The second thing, I would say core values, but a little less fufu than what most people say with core values.
• 18:33
  Phil Risher: And it's more like the act of inserting core values into your business.
• 18:37
  Phil Risher: The act of not just like labeling them and saying them, but like a perfect example.
• 18:42
  Phil Risher: We just had to fire someone.
• 18:44
  Phil Risher: And the reason was because they did not show a core value that we have as a company.
• 18:49
  Phil Risher: And when we fired them, I did a Loom video and put it in our all team Slack and explained why that person is no longer working here, and it's because they were not exhibiting this core value that we have as a company, and it allowed us to reinforce the core value.
• 19:04
  Phil Risher: Also every Thursday in our all team, the company gets a video or message from me about one of the core values and how they can show that.
• 19:13
  Phil Risher: And same thing we shout people out on core values.
• 19:16
  Phil Risher: So what we've done is try to bake it into our thing.
• 19:18
  Phil Risher: Not just say, oh, core values foo, whatever.
• 19:20
  Phil Risher: But it's like if you are a we, if you work here, then this is what you do.
• 19:25
  Phil Risher: And if you don't do these things, then you're not a we.
• 19:27
  Phil Risher: So you can't work here.
• 19:28
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 19:29
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 19:30
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 19:30
  Tom Jackobs: I love that because you we see, in companies all the time, you see the poster up on the, in the break room of these are our core values.
• 19:37
  Tom Jackobs: But if you ask an employee outside of the break room where they can't see it, most of'em aren't gonna know what the core values are.
• 19:44
  Phil Risher: Yeah, exactly.
• 19:44
  Phil Risher: We put in an acronym for phlash, so the first one is partnership, for example.
• 19:48
  Phil Risher: And then it's easy to remember and then people can call it out and then we shout people out.
• 19:53
  Phil Risher: We actually just had our leadership meeting right before we recorded this, and we're launching a quarterly core value award.
• 19:58
  Phil Risher: Where we're gonna recognize someone on our quarterly meetings.
• 20:01
  Phil Risher: So trying to just make it fun, bake it in, that kind of stuff.
• 20:04
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 20:05
  Tom Jackobs: No, that, that's brilliant.
• 20:06
  Tom Jackobs: That's really good.
• 20:07
  Tom Jackobs: Good advice.
• 20:08
  Tom Jackobs: As you're building, a heart-led business and profits are coming in, there's certainly times I'm sure you've had where you had to make a choice between making a profit or leading by your heart.
• 20:20
  Tom Jackobs: How do you make those hard decisions?
• 20:23
  Phil Risher: Yeah, we use Profit First.
• 20:25
  Phil Risher: Mike Michalowicz has a great book.
• 20:26
  Phil Risher: Profit First.
• 20:27
  Phil Risher: Which, Yeah, essentially you have different buckets.
• 20:29
  Phil Risher: You put your money in different buckets, and you have profit, now we about six months ago, we hit our three months reserves, fully and then we have a surplus of profit on top.
• 20:43
  Tom Jackobs: Nice.
• 20:43
  Phil Risher: Before I would take a percentage of the distribution of profits, usually I'd leave 30% in retained earnings, take the other distribution out as the owner.
• 20:51
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 20:52
  Phil Risher: But now I'm at the point personally and professionally where I'm analyzing does it make, what makes the most sense to invest in the business or outside?
• 20:59
  Phil Risher: And how do I split that up?
• 21:00
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 21:01
  Phil Risher: Right now, I'm actively taking that profit and redistributing back into my business.
• 21:05
  Phil Risher: And doing things.
• 21:07
  Phil Risher: To help me grow the business.
• 21:08
  Phil Risher: Because what has happened is that I've brought on these people that are very hungry into my business on performance pay.
• 21:14
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 21:15
  Phil Risher: And so I have to feed them, right?
• 21:16
  Phil Risher: I gotta feed the monster that I created and it's a good thing.
• 21:20
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 21:20
  Phil Risher: But I can't say one thing to them and then not execute the other way.
• 21:24
  Phil Risher: I can't tell them like, your performance pay, but I'm taking all this money out and I'm not gonna, reinvest back in the business.
• 21:29
  Phil Risher: So hopefully good luck.
• 21:30
  Phil Risher: It's a balance for me.
• 21:32
  Phil Risher: So that would be the one part.
• 21:33
  Phil Risher: The other thing would be that when you have profit lemme say it like this, something that I struggle with was that I thought that making money was a sin or bad.
• 21:45
  Phil Risher: And I thought that it was bad to say that I wanna make more money because I'm good, right?
• 21:49
  Phil Risher: I can be.
• 21:50
  Phil Risher: I'm content.
• 21:51
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 21:52
  Phil Risher: There's a really good book on this.
• 21:53
  Phil Risher: It's called Thou Shall Prosper.
• 21:54
  Phil Risher: It's by a rabbi.
• 21:56
  Phil Risher: What it helped me reframe in my mind is that it's actually, I'm a Christian, but it's as a person of faith, it's my job to make money.
• 22:04
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 22:05
  Phil Risher: Like it's not about, it's not about that making money's bad.
• 22:08
  Phil Risher: It's that you make money and then you can do whatever you want with it.
• 22:11
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 22:11
  Phil Risher: Right?
• 22:11
  Phil Risher: You're actually called to make money.
• 22:14
  Phil Risher: You're called to multiply your talents and not hide them under a rock.
• 22:18
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 22:19
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 22:19
  Phil Risher: So when that unlocked for me it was like, oh, let's go let me go make as much money as possible, and then I can do whatever I want with it.
• 22:27
  Phil Risher: And I say all that because one, you have profit, you can do extraordinary things for your team.
• 22:31
  Phil Risher: One woman has a bad back.
• 22:32
  Phil Risher: We sent her a thousand dollars chair to help her with her back.
• 22:35
  Phil Risher: You can do things for people.
• 22:36
  Phil Risher: Someone else had surgery.
• 22:37
  Phil Risher: We sent them some nice stuff, right?
• 22:39
  Phil Risher: We had to fire this woman we gave her, and she's not even in the us we gave her a month severance pay.
• 22:44
  Tom Jackobs: Wow.
• 22:44
  Phil Risher: Like we can act with grace for people that would never even come in contact with, it's not even in the US that don't even all this stuff.
• 22:51
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 22:51
  Phil Risher: I think that it just allows you to do so much when you have profit.
• 22:54
  Phil Risher: So you don't feel tight, can't give without, with when your hands clenched like this.
• 22:58
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 22:59
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 22:59
  Tom Jackobs: That, that scarcity mindset just really messes with people.
• 23:03
  Phil Risher: Exactly.
• 23:04
  Tom Jackobs: I grew up with the same kind of money mindset of, money's the root of all evil, and it's oh, rich people do this, rich and that it's hard to get, get that out of your soul and out of outta your mind.
• 23:17
  Tom Jackobs: But it's yeah, yeah.
• 23:18
  Tom Jackobs: It's definitely something that people need to really work on is the relationship with money and knowing that when you make more money, you can do better things for more people because of that.
• 23:30
  Phil Risher: Yeah, the impact that you can make when you actually have money is what it's about.
• 23:34
  Phil Risher: And one of the big things for me was I paid off my student loans.
• 23:37
  Phil Risher: I bought a condo with cash.
• 23:38
  Phil Risher: I paid off all this debt.
• 23:39
  Phil Risher: I was in the very defensive mind.
• 23:41
  Phil Risher: Always playing defense.
• 23:42
  Phil Risher: I never was really playing offense to maximize the money potential.
• 23:46
  Phil Risher: So it was a beautiful thing.
• 23:47
  Phil Risher: 'cause when I'm good at playing defense.
• 23:49
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 23:50
  Phil Risher: and a lot of people are not good at playing defense, so when I switched to the other side of offense, it was like, okay, this is all go mode.
• 23:56
  Phil Risher: And I think when you think about money like that, it's maybe I gotta play some defense, maybe gotta play some offense, what are you better at?
• 24:01
  Phil Risher: And then get some roadblock, some, checks and balances in for you.
• 24:04
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 24:05
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 24:06
  Tom Jackobs: Oh that's brilliant.
• 24:07
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 24:07
  Tom Jackobs: Cool.
• 24:07
  Tom Jackobs: Phil, this has been just a fascinating conversation and I'm really glad that we connected and were able to get you on the show.
• 24:13
  Tom Jackobs: How can people learn more about Phlash Consulting and all the great work that you guys are doing?
• 24:18
  Phil Risher: Yeah, for sure.
• 24:18
  Phil Risher: So we do digital marketing consulting for home service businesses.
• 24:22
  Phil Risher: Hvac, plumbing, electrical that same company that I took from 3 million to 5 million, then sold to private equity.
• 24:27
  Phil Risher: We help companies that wanna sell or build great businesses that wanna scale multi seven figures do that.
• 24:33
  Phil Risher: So I took all those playbooks and then now we do that for home service businesses.
• 24:36
  Phil Risher: So if that's you can go to Phlash Consulting, it's P-H-L-A-S-H consulting.com.
• 24:41
  Phil Risher: You can click discuss Your Business.
• 24:42
  Phil Risher: We have like over 55 star reviews from discovery calls with us.
• 24:46
  Phil Risher: So it's like we're not trying to sell you the dream or anything.
• 24:48
  Phil Risher: But also if you're like, Hey Phil, you're a cool dude.
• 24:49
  Phil Risher: I hang out on LinkedIn, Phil Risher and Instagram Phil Risher.
• 24:52
  Phil Risher: You can always connect with me there.
• 24:53
  Phil Risher: I'm happy to be a resource.
• 24:55
  Phil Risher: Awesome.
• 24:56
  Tom Jackobs: Thanks for that.
• 24:56
  Tom Jackobs: And thank you so much for being on the show and sharing your wisdom and your thoughts with us today.
• 25:01
  Tom Jackobs: I really appreciate you.
• 25:02
  Phil Risher: Yeah, for sure.
• 25:03
  Phil Risher: Thanks, Tom.
• 25:04
  Tom Jackobs: Absolutely.
• 25:05
  Tom Jackobs: And thank you.
• 25:06
  Tom Jackobs: Show audience for tuning in for today's episode.
• 25:09
  Tom Jackobs: Check out everything that Phil's doing and we're gonna put that down into the show notes.
• 25:13
  Tom Jackobs: So make sure you go down there and check that out in the show notes.
• 25:15
  Tom Jackobs: And while you're down there, there might be a little button for a review and I certainly would appreciate if you would give us a, a rating and review so that just spreads a word more about the Heart-Led Business Show and for those that are wanting to have a heart-led business, but not quite sure how to do that.
• 25:31
  Tom Jackobs: And until next time, lead with your heart.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: You've been listening to The Heart-Led Business Show, hosted by Tom Jackobs.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: Join us next time for another inspiring journey into the heart of business.