Latest / The Relentless Pursuit of Winning Podcast / Stop Being the Bottleneck: How to Delegate Effectively and Reclaim Your Freedom | John Nieuwenburg

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Stop Being the Bottleneck: How to Delegate Effectively and Reclaim Your Freedom | John Nieuwenburg · The Relentless Pursuit of Winning Podcast

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85% of what happens in a business ought to be routine.
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Here's the system, here's the SOP,
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this is how we do it.
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Mm-hmm.
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15% of the time stuff happens,
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we don't look for a people solution,
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we look for a system solution.
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You didn't start this business to get wrapped around the axle.
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You did start it because you wanted some form of freedom,
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time freedom, money freedom, freedom to make choices on your own terms.
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Mm, yes.
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The results
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you get in life are a perfect reflection of how you spend your time.
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Do you have a default diary?
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We think we have to be available.
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And the truth is you shouldn't be available.
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You should be accessible.
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Mm.
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And the difference is accessible means on your terms,
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when it's right
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Mm-hmm.
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for you.
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Hey folks, thank you for watching or listening to another episode
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of the Relentless Pursuit of Winning Podcast.
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My name is Rick Meekins. I am your host today,
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and in our studio we have John Nieuwenburg.
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How are you today, sir?
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I'm terrific. Thanks for having me.
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absolutely. This is gonna be a fantastic show,
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folks. It's gonna be a fantastic show.
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Before we get started though, if you haven't done it,
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we would be honored if you'd like,
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subscribe, and hit the bell so you can get updates every time we drop a new episode.
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And without further ado, let's get to it.
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So John, give our audience a little bit a little bit of a background,
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who you are, what you do, and why you do what you do.
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Well, I'm a business coach. I started as a business coach in two thousand and four.
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So twenty two years worked with four hundred and fifty clients.
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small business owners typically in the trades or professions.
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one way I could answer your question is when I started as a coach
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in two thousand and four, shortly after I had an epiphany.
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It was Steve Jobs who said you can only connect the dots going backwards.
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And my epiphany was some dots I connected,
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and I realized, my gosh, I've always been a coach.
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So let me describe just three of them.
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the first of which is I'm the eldest of eight children.
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You can imagine the role you're cast into when you're the eldest of eight.
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hardwired to be a teacher, and I knew that in high school.
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but in those days that meant wearing a Harris tweed coat with elbow patches and
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That sort of bureaucratic
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Mm-hmm.
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institutional style of teaching didn't appeal to me very much.
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In the early 80s, I was blessed to learn something called the Socratic method
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of leadership. So Socrates had it the best way to help somebody is
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to help them figure it out for themselves.
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And in essence, that's at its core what coaching is.
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And so I've been practicing a coaching style of leadership since the early 80s.
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Mm, mm. Was is there is there a why behind it or is it just this is what
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you were born to do?
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This what I'm born to do. this little symbol i is kind of representative
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of that idea that I was born to help other people.
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And even at the age of about fourteen,
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I was collecting my brothers and sisters' library cards and going
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to the library three mile on a bicycle,
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pick age appropriate kinds of books,
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and and three weeks later when it was due,
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I would do the same thing and no one ever asked me.
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It's just I'm wired that way.
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Mm, mm-hmm. I love it. I love it.
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And what what what led up to you,
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I guess professionally, what led up to you becoming a coach?
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Well, I was the president of a very large retailer,
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about four billion in sales, two hundred locations,
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four thousand full timers. and I decided I wanted to do my own thing.
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And for a while I did a lot of retail consulting with some national brands.
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I'd usually step in and and get something solved for them.
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And that was a three or six or sometimes nine month kind of project.
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And
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What I discovered is that's a very difficult business model.
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You're like you're working real hard against something and six months go
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by and the gig's over and you're like out on the street.
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And by coincidence, I went to a trade show or a c a conference and there
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was a booth with business coaching and I thought,
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well, I'll go and chat with these guys.
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And of course that was the door opening that led ultimately to becoming a coach and
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Quite by accident, discovering what my purpose in life is.
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Mm mm. That's that's I like that.
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I love that. I love that. That that epiphany moment you mentioned.
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What is what is a coach and what would one expect from a coach when when bringing
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one
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in?
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Wow. Well that's it depends who you ask is the short version.
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And what I mean by that is that if you go to,
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you know, some of the coaching academies,
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they'll tell you a coach is kind of a business version of a therapist
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or a counselor. We ask questions,
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we help people uncover, they discover the answer for themselves,
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and that's part of what coaching is,
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but I think it's broader than that.
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I have
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Mm-hmm.
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some gray hair, so it's about being a mentor and an advisor.
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Sometimes it's a teacher and sometimes it's,
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let me kick you in the backside because you need to do something.
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So ~ it's
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Mm-hmm.
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it's a blend of all those things.
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coaching is really about helping the business grow,
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systems tools and strategy in business.
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It's about helping the owner grow mindset,
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communication leadership, delegation skills.
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And the third
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Mm.
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is performance or holding you accountable for the stuff you say they're gonna do.
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So
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That's my two second
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Mm.
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rant on what's a coach.
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What's what's a what's a what was a great great project that you worked
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on that just you know you always go back to and say,
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you know what, this this was this was a great project.
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This was a company, a leader that,
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you know, was really struggling and you know,
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now they've got a very successful company.
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Well, the one that
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Or sold their company.
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sticks out for me is a client named Fred.
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Fred owned a factory, two shifts.
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Started at six in the morning and ended ten at night.
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And he was very much a hub and spoke manager.
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So let me take a minute to explain what that is.
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So if you think of a bicycle wheel,
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it's got a hub, and the wheel is supported by the spokes.
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Mm-hmm.
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~ if you take the hub out, what happens to that wheel?
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Flattens.
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It falls apart.
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He was that
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Yep.
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kind of a leader. Nothing happened unless someone made a call or hey,
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got a minute, or rings, pings,
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and dings. And so he had an hour's drive to to the factory.
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so he'd leave it around 10 o'clock and get home at 11 and then had to be
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on the road like at 4:30 or 5 to get back to the to the factory.
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And he did this for like 10 years,
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just relentless, stubborn guy,
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persistent guy. I'm gonna do what it takes,
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kind of guy. And he would have paid that price for some time,
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but at one point.
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Along that way, his wife said to him one day,
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Your business is your mistress.
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If you don't do something about it,
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I will. That's when Fred had an epiphany because he was prepared to pay
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the price of 80-hour weeks, but he was not prepared to pay that price.
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Mm-hmm. Yeah.
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And that's
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the important thing. we're often prepared to do the things it takes in the work.
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but when it has some consequence,
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emotional or personal consequence,
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that's when we realize, gosh, I need to get some help because what I'm doing
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is not working and it's become important enough to me.
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I'm not going to my kids' games.
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I'm not there fully present for my family.
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my health is at risk sometimes.
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it's some aspect of their personal their life that ultimately drives people to say,
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you know what, I need some help because I can't figure this out.
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By myself.
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Yeah, yeah. How how did he how did he end up what was the resolution
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for that project?
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Well, we worked at it for some time,
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but he got to a place where he recognized that what he needed to become
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is what I call the leader owner.
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So he was an operator owner. He was the hub.
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And the
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Mm-hmm.
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leader owner has a different mindset.
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What they recognize is everything that the business has to do has to
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be done by someone else. It cannot be me.
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My job is to lead those people who do the doing of the doing.
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So
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Mm.
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that's a
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the hub and spoke guy gets a big juice out of it,
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right? you're important and you're getting these endorphins and the rings,
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pings, and dings. and what happens when you become a leader owner
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is the environment is different.
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It's quiet. And you're able,
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Mm. Mm. That's a that's a complete mindset.
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yeah. and instead of being the product of the environment
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The tail wagging the dog, you now get to a place where you get to work
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on things that are important but not urgent.
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the building the business or introducing something that'll save money
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or produce more money. And that's a hard thing for for an owner to make that shift
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to recognize they're actually doing more valuable work,
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even if it doesn't feel quite as pressing or urgent or doesn't have
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all that all those endorphins attached to it.
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And so you're right, it's a skills question,
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planning question. but more than anything before it happens is a shift in mindset,
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how you identify what you think your job is.
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You're not the doer anymore, you're the leader,
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and that's a different set of skills.
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And you know, I was working with a guy in a different practice,
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he was a PhD.
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And what he came to understand is it took me a long time to get that PhD,
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but I did not get a single hour's worth of business training.
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And I'm really good at my practice.
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I'm really good as a lawyer. And of course I'm
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Mm.
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not gonna help you be a better lawyer,
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but that's not where you need help.
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You need help understanding how to run a better business.
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Mm mm. It's interesting talking
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And that's the
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about talking about like a person that has a specific profession or skill.
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You know, they start the business with their skill or with their trade
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and then suddenly they're not in that role anymore.
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You know, there's a re identification.
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Yeah, so
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yeah, so they usually start as what I call the technician owner.
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So they're still very much on the tools.
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And, maybe there's another truck and they've got two guys and and a helper
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and that kind of thing, but they're still very much on the tools.
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and they're doing payroll on, you know,
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Friday at eight o'clock 'cause it has to get out the door and and then they
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go from two trucks to ten trucks.
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And now, my gosh, they're at the hub of everything and
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The thing they haven't learned is what happens when you go from three people
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to ten people and what breaks.
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And the story I like to tell about that is how many handshakes does
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it take for three people to shake each other's hands?
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the answer to that is three. So a and b,
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b and c, a and c. So three three handshakes,
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everyone does two. So there's a formula for this.
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three times three is nine, less three is six divided by two is three.
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X squared less X divided by
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So let's make it 10 people. So 10 times 10 is 100,
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less 10 is 90 divided by 2 is 45.
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What's happened? Well, the group grew by a factor of three.
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Complexity grew by a factor of 15.
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And you're still trying to run the place as if it was just three people.
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And when worked at three people,
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it doesn't work anymore at 10 people.
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And first of all, you got to see that.
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You got to recognize, you got to,
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my gosh. And then you got to know what to do about it.
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Yeah.
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And if I may, what what has to happen is with three people,
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we rely on personal trust. I can trust you.
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I know what you're gonna do. I saw what you did yesterday.
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When it gets to ten people, we have to start shifting and thinking about
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it as structural trust. So what's structural trust?
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We're relying on systems, processes,
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protocols. So let me give you a simple example.
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How does the air traffic controller know that the pilot's done everything necessary?
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To make sure the plane is ready to take off and they've never met.
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They can't trust each other. Well,
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Mm. Right. Right.
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they've replaced personal trust with structural trust.
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So what's that? Well, each of them three,
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five, ten years of training, they've passed some kind of board exam.
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Each of them know that there's protocols,
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you know, checklists and SOPs,
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and and if each follows their
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Respective protocol, each can trust that the system will produce the right outcome.
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Or I'll
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Mm-hmm.
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put it in a more personal way.
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Hey, would you get on an airplane if you knew the pilot didn't
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do the pre-flight checklist? Would you do that?
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Mm-hmm.
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Of course not. No one would. And so that's the shift that I have
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to create a structure or a system that everyone can then follow,
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which then ensures that we get the right outcome time and again.
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Mm. Mm. You know, I I I always think about like with with sh you know,
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buying a new system or something like that.
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You know, there's one it's one thing to to buy a system,
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something else to actually learn how to use it.
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You know, and
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Mm.
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I I think about that, you know,
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as I'm thinking about the entrepreneur,
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I'm thinking about the leader.
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You know, it's one thing to say,
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Hey, I'm gonna implement these processes,
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I'm gonna stop being the hub and something else to,
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you know, really step outside of that.
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What is what is the how do you guide people through that?
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mental transition to really let things go,
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to put the phone down at five o'clock or,
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whatever that's going to be.
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Yeah.
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So there's a bunch of parts to that question,
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but I'll start with this idea.
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A well-run business is the product of a three-legged stool.
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Three-legged stool, and the first leg has three components of it.
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So a well-run business is the first leg is the systems run the business,
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people run the systems, you lead your people,
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your job is leadership. So
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I'll give you a simple example,
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just tease you a little bit. How do they get those French fries to taste
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the same in your town or mine?
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And the fries are made by a 16-year-old,
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and the parents of that 16-year-old can't get him or her to clean their bedroom.
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How do they do that?
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Mm.
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They got great systems. They have great
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Mm-hmm.
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recipes. Just follow this process.
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Mm-hmm.
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So the second leg of the stool is about 85% of what happens in a business ought
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to be routine. Here's the system,
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here's the recipe, here's the SOP,
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this is how we do it.
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Mm-hmm.
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15% of the time stuff happens,
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something breaks. And so one
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Yeah.
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Saturday night, 10 o'clock, we run out of potatoes,
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we don't know what to do, we have to phone the owner.
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Hey, what do we do? We don't, and we fix it,
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we do something to make it work.
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but the third leg of the stool is that when something like that happens,
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we don't look for a people solution,
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we look for a system solution.
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So,
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Mm-hmm.
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what would this system have to be?
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First of all, to prevent that from being a problem running out,
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or
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If it did, we'd know how to solve that within without having to make that phone
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call. So it's essentially building systems for any aspect of the business.
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How do we take a a call from a customer?
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What's the system for doing that?
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What happens after that? Well,
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we put it into some kind of order process.
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Okay, well, what does all that look like?
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one of the pushbacks I get on this question a lot from people is,
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well, I'm, you know, I make like
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I'm I'm I I'm a general contractor.
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I'm I built these five million dollar homes.
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I'm not making French fries. You're right.
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You're not. It's not a repeatable product that you're producing.
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The product is unique, but what has to be systematized is your process.
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The process
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Mm-hmm.
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of producing that home is the system.
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The actual output is whatever's on the blueprint,
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right? and so in
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complex environments, it's the process,
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it's the SOP, you're relying more on checklists and less on SOPs.
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Checklist ought
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Right.
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to kind of initiate a familiar routine that causes you to do the right things.
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And you know, without a checklist,
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there's story of a surgeon who started with
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thirty scalpels and then buttoned up the guy and then they went to count there
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was twenty nine. Oops. What happened?
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maybe we should have counted
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before we decided that let's close it up routine.
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Yes.
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Yes, yes, yes, yes. I I that's a really good example of of what happens though.
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it's it's like, we create these processes as as leaders,
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and it's really hard sometimes to,
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you know, just create the process and and step away.
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You know, because you know the sorts of things can go wrong.
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And then the other thing is when we create processes,
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sometimes there's things that,
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you know, we know intuitively that may not translate into into that process.
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And so we have this this fear of letting go.
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and and we've got to
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Yeah, that's
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learn intentionally how not to do that.
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Exactly. That's one of the skills,
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one of the mindset shifts that has to happen between being an operator owner
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and a leader owner. And thing it will break sometimes.
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And you but what has to be understood is delegation often for many owners
15:28
th they think about delegating tasks.
15:30
I'm just
15:30
Yeah.
15:30
getting
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a pair of hands. That's not really what delegation is at all.
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What delegation is is delegating autonomy and authority.
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autonomy and authority. You're delegating to a set of brains inside a set of rules.
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So I'll give you an
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Yeah.
15:42
example. I have a HVAC client,
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large business, 80 million. they produce 250,
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300 invoices, service ticket invoices,
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a month. And of that, you know,
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sometimes 10, 15, 20 need some kind of adjustment.
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So my my my
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Client, the owner was getting interrupted 10,
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15, 20 times a month. Hey, can we make this adjustment?
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Here's the reason. And
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Mm-hmm.
16:04
very much a hub and spoke kind of response,
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right? Something's wrong. Gotta talk to the boss.
16:09
Knock, knock, got a minute. This boss is disrupted.
16:12
So he was delegating a task. but instead he shifted the approach.
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And he said to her, You can do up to a $250 adjustment without asking me.
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Just do it. If I'll rely on your judgment.
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And her response, by the way, was like,
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I don't want to give away 250 bucks.
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And that's when he learned, I've got the right person.
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and instead, now he he the thing you're afraid of is letting go.
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The thing you need is line of sight.
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So, what does that mean in this circumstance?
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Well, once a month, let's sit down with the 20 that you made an adjustment on,
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help walk me through what the reasons were.
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I'm probably gonna agree to like.
16:48
18 of them. Yeah, that's great.
16:50
There might be
16:50
Yeah.
16:50
two that I might have handled differently.
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I won't criticize you, but together we'll agree what ought to
16:56
be more appropriate for next time.
16:58
And you're still, you're not letting go in the sense that you don't have
17:01
any insight or you're just kind of blind to the thing.
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You're just transferring
17:05
Yeah.
17:06
or changing the way in which you get insight,
17:09
the way in which you get control.
17:11
It too becomes
17:12
Mm, mm.
17:13
a system. There's a routine, and around once a month we check in.
17:16
Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. I have a team member that I've delegated,
17:20
certain things to. And I find every once in a while I don't agree,
17:24
with a decision that she's made.
17:25
and I've made it my commitment though to support her regardless.
17:30
You know what I'm saying? a lot of what we do,
17:31
especially engaging with an audience it's kind of a guess.
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So it's like my instinct. What do you how do you how do you feel about that
17:38
approach?
17:38
There's a couple of aspects to it.
17:44
One of the best ways to delegate is a thing called the 10–80–10 rule.
17:47
The 10–80–10 rule. So the first 10% of the task is you,
17:52
the leader, explaining what good looks like,
17:55
what you want the outcome to look like.
17:57
The 80% is the work done by that person.
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And the last 10% is you putting your special sauce on it,
18:05
or otherwise commenting on it,
18:07
or tweaking it, or finessing it.
18:09
And so that's a different way that you can still be in control.
18:12
That
18:12
Mm-hmm.
18:13
you start the project, make sure it gets started in the right way.
18:16
The bulk of the work gets done by someone else.
18:19
And the last 10% is it doesn't go out the door until it's satisfactory
18:22
to you in some way. Or if it needs some tweaking or some kind of finessing,
18:26
you're in a position where you can coach that person.
18:29
And so what you really do in that method is you're teaching people how to think,
18:33
not what to do, how to
18:34
Mm.
18:34
think.
18:35
Because the feedback you're giving them is the feedback that helps them
18:38
do a better outcome the next time because they've understood your methodology,
18:42
your the way in which you think about that situation.
18:46
Yeah, yeah. I I always find it important for them to be able to express themselves,
18:51
just find, bring their creativity and their,
18:53
impression to things. And and,
18:55
it's it's like you said, every once in a while we just go through and say,
18:58
Okay, here's five things, why do what made you make this decision versus this
19:02
is wrong or ~ and and it empowers
19:03
Yeah, ~ ~ I've got a
19:04
them.
19:05
it does. I've got a great example though for you.
19:07
I have a client who owns a home staging business.
19:10
And that business employs a full-time social media person to
19:15
Mm-hmm.
19:15
do social media work. And my client was complaining to me that
19:20
the social media person that got crazy and was using fonts and music
19:24
and totally sort of off.
19:25
Brand. And that's when I said,
19:28
well, that's because you haven't set the guardrails.
19:30
Show me your brand guide. What is the font that what is the range of fonts that
19:34
are approved that you agree with?
19:36
What would be out of bounds? Well,
19:38
now you've got protection and agreed upon expectations.
19:42
You know, this kind of music's not appropriate.
19:44
The kind of music we're looking for is we're luxurious and elevated.
19:48
That was the two words she used.
19:50
So, how would that look in music?
19:51
What's elevated mean when it comes to music?
19:53
What does elevated mean when it comes to fonts?
19:55
Okay, let's write a rule book.
19:57
And ultimately I said to this person,
19:59
why is the Ten Commandments written in stone?
20:01
Because we don't debate them. Thou shalt not kill is a commandment.
20:05
Well, where's your brand
20:05
Yeah.
20:06
guide commandments? You don't have one.
20:08
Well, that's why you're not getting the results you want.
20:10
You don't have an agreed upon idea of what good means.
20:14
Mm, mm. Good stuff, good stuff.
20:15
And so this person
20:17
was operating with a different premise of what good looked like compared
20:20
to my client.
20:21
Mm-hmm.
20:21
And because they didn't have this agreement,
20:24
that's where the you know the conflict or the tension or the where
20:27
she wasn't satisfied with the results that was she she was getting.
20:30
And so it really the fault was in the leadership or the system that didn't really
20:35
exist.
20:35
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's that's that's really interesting.
20:38
I I see that a lot of times with with entrepreneurs.
20:41
They have this big idea and they don't really communicate it effectively.
20:45
Or I guess they're
20:46
Mm-hmm.
20:46
waiting for people to, start asking questions or,
20:49
and it and it may be a situation where they're looking for some level
20:52
of collaboration on what that final product would look like.
20:55
so with with an idea like that,
20:57
we're bringing a new idea to the table.
20:59
do you have a an approach, like perhaps like a team approach or an approach that
21:03
you recommend to your leaders to help bring this,
21:06
you know, this new idea to life with with a team?
21:09
So the example I'd like to use is let's think about a strategic plan.
21:13
So would you ever show up with your leadership team and you've got a blank sheet
21:17
of paper and let's spend the whole day doing a strategic plan?
21:21
That's a bad use of a day because not much
21:22
Danger.
21:24
is gonna happen. Not much. Not much of it will be helpful.
21:28
So you gotta arrive with a strategic plan that in your mind's eye
21:32
is about ninety percent good.
21:34
Mm-hmm.
21:34
But
21:35
how it gets presented is I you know,
21:37
I've been working on this. I think I'm in the ballpark,
21:39
it's probably like sixty percent good.
21:41
Why don't we spend
21:42
Mm-hmm.
21:42
the day getting some input from everybody around this table?
21:45
And when we leave today, our goal is to make sure we're 100% on the same page.
21:50
Let's let's spend the day doing that.
21:52
So you start from a known point.
21:55
You've got pretty clear ideas,
21:56
but you start also open to the idea that there are other ideas on the table.
22:01
Mm-hmm.
22:01
Number one and number two, the real purpose is to get everybody on the same page.
22:06
Mm-hmm.
22:06
~ a strategic plan, as an example,
22:09
is five percent vision and ninety-five percent alignment.
22:12
The goal is to get everybody on the same page,
22:15
not you know, of course you're looking for some crazy map of the future
22:18
and what we're trying to do, but if everybody's going off in their own direction,
22:21
you don't really have a strategic plan.
22:23
So the more important goal is alignment.
22:24
Yeah, yeah. Absolut.
22:28
Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense.
22:30
One of the things, one of the other difficulties,
22:32
we have as entrepreneurs is I'm I'm sure and and you you're actually using
22:35
one of your examples, is creating a business.
22:37
Many of us go into business for a level of freedom.
22:40
we want to do things our way, et cetera,
22:42
et cetera. But we lose often lose that balance.
22:45
You know, we've got family, we've got church,
22:47
we've got these these other things,
22:48
and you know, they often kind of get pushed to the side.
22:51
How how do you work with how do you advise folks with that?
22:54
What what you say to us as leaders,
22:56
as entrepreneurs that are that have gotten ourselves in that kind of that web
23:00
Let's start from a bigger picture.
23:01
Let me ask you something. What's the purpose of a small business?
23:04
What's the purpose of a small business?
23:06
And the answer I want to give you is a bit counterintuitive.
23:09
And it wouldn't be the answer you'd give your customers or your vendors
23:13
or your leadership team. But the real purpose of a small business is to give you,
23:18
its owner, the life you want. The purpose of a small business is to give
23:23
its owner the life you want.
23:25
And what happens is what you're describing,
23:26
we get so wrapped around the axle of the business that we lose sight
23:30
of what we're trying to do. And nobody was born to business.
23:33
We were born to live.
23:34
Mm-hmm.
23:34
So, first of all, let's be clear about what you want out of life,
23:38
and then let's build the business that gives you that.
23:41
What would have to be true about your business so that you are living your life?
23:45
If we keep that as our North Star,
23:47
we'll be doing the things it takes of that.
23:49
Ultimately you get that. You were
23:51
You didn't start this business to get wrapped around the axle.
23:54
You did start it because you wanted some form of freedom,
23:56
time freedom, money freedom, freedom to make choices on your own terms.
24:00
Well, let's work towards that goal.
24:02
Yeah, that doesn't happen in two months,
24:04
most cases. that can be two years or sometimes more than that.
24:08
and but ultimately along the way,
24:11
you're also building your wealth.
24:14
So, what I mean by that is we often as business owners get very focused on profit.
24:18
That's what we're doing. We're here to build profit.
24:21
And
24:21
Mm-hmm.
24:22
let me give you an example. So let's say Acme Corp,
24:25
and it does about a million in profit each year.
24:29
Mm-hmm.
24:30
and someone will pay a five million dollars for that business five times EBITDA.
24:34
Okay, that's pretty good. well,
24:36
let's work real hard for a year and we add 10% to profit.
24:40
Well, that's a hundred grand, that's pretty good.
24:42
Well, what happens if we actually spent as much effort on building
24:47
the asset value of that business?
24:49
Well, that's five hundred thousand.
24:51
Well, you can do both those things at the same time.
24:53
And what it takes to make a business attractive to be sold is exactly
24:58
the same things as it takes to make the business give you time and money,
25:01
freedom. Or I'll put it a different
25:03
Mm.
25:03
way, since I'm a McDonald's guy,
25:05
or not really, but
25:06
That's
25:06
the
25:07
Th I use that example. How often or how much is the owner of a b
25:10
of a McDonald's restaurant required to be in that restaurant?
25:13
Hmm. Okay.
25:13
As much or as little as they like?
25:16
Because they're
25:17
an investor owner. So there's the operator owner,
25:20
there's the leader owner, and now there's the investor owner.
25:23
And the investor owner, their job is basically how to allocate capital,
25:27
how to think about strategy, how to think about growth.
25:30
But the operational day to day is now someone apart from them.
25:34
Mm.
25:34
And that guy
25:35
often has true true freedom. and what's interesting often for crafts people
25:40
is they go back and do the craft thing that they started off doing
25:43
in their business, because that's the thing they enjoy,
25:45
but now they get to do it on their terms.
25:47
It isn't a requirement, it's a a thing that provides them joy.
25:52
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can picture that.
25:54
What is what does that journey look like?
25:56
I I I know it's different, you know,
25:57
for every company, for every leader,
25:59
but you know, just to just to kind of conceptualize,
26:02
you know, hey, I want to be able to XYZ,
26:05
you know, in you know, whatever time frame.
26:07
So the first place to start is how you spend your time.
26:12
And the first thing I ask a business owner,
26:14
I'm going to use a term here, is tell me what's on your shit list.
26:18
My what? Your shit list. What's that?
26:20
Well, tell me the things that cause you to say to yourself,
26:23
shit, I have to do payroll. ~ shit,
26:26
Mm-hmm.
26:26
I have to do receivables. Well,
26:28
that's a clue. If your intuition's telling you that,
26:31
it means that.
26:32
you should no longer be the person doing that work.
26:35
There's other more
26:35
Mm-hmm.
26:36
important, more valuable work to be doing.
26:38
Okay, well now if I need my receivables done,
26:41
how do I organize that in a way that I can delegate that to somebody
26:46
and they're gonna do it at the level that I require.
26:48
And once you get that kind of administrative things going,
26:52
well what's the next things on your shit list?
26:54
Well now it's it scales up. It might be something more like
26:58
I don't like client having to take phone calls from clients.
27:01
Maybe that's what it is now. okay.
27:03
Well, you'll need a sales department,
27:05
it sounds like to me. Okay, how do we get a sales department?
27:08
Let's build that thing for and so ultimately,
27:10
if you think about reducing or eliminating your things on your old shit list,
27:15
you've eventually get to the place where you're the investor owner.
27:18
And so it really starts with this.
27:20
internal question of tell me the things that you don't want to be doing.
27:24
And that often is a clue that you know,
27:26
the the the kind of like the receivables kind of work.
27:29
~
27:30
Mm-hmm.
27:30
you can hire someone to do that for depends where you are in the country,
27:34
but let's say 20 bucks an hour.
27:35
So why are you the owner doing work that someone will do better than
27:40
you for twenty bucks an hour?
27:42
Yeah.
27:42
and what do
27:42
you do instead? Well, let's think of some work that's worth a hundred bucks
27:45
an hour or five hundred bucks an hour.
27:47
We're let's think about work that produces more value for the business.
27:51
Right now you're jumping over dollars to get to nickels.
27:54
Dumb.
27:54
Yeah.
27:55
Let's stop it. Get that stuff off your plate so we can focus on
27:58
the dollars instead of the nickels.
28:00
It's a metaphor, of course, but it's just a way to help you think about how do I,
28:04
it's a way to think about how to answer your question.
28:06
Every circumstance is different.
28:08
every business is different, but that's the the the the framework,
28:12
that's the mental model that says,
28:14
why don't we continue to examine what produces value in the business,
28:17
the work that only you can do and what's the work that someone else should be doing.
28:22
And that's as you scale, the questions you're asking yourself become different.
28:26
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The the the challenge I I think one of the challenges I
28:30
th I think we face is looking at the looking at the time investment.
28:34
You know,
28:35
Mm.
28:35
in we talked about developing systems and processes and you know delegating work
28:40
and training and and all of that good stuff.
28:42
And you know, at the same time,
28:43
you know, we've got client delivery and you know,
28:46
it it really becomes a it it can become overwhelming.
28:49
You know, you're you're
28:49
Yeah.
28:50
sitting here and you're looking,
28:51
you know, you're looking at a mountain,
28:52
you know, from the bottom side up and it's just like how do
28:54
do how do we how do we get there?
28:56
How do we stay focused? How do we commit to each step of this,
28:59
each step of the process?
29:00
Well, that's where having someone to help you with structure
29:04
and discipline is useful, i.e.
29:06
a coach, because we often get stuck in the way that you're describing,
29:10
and the role of the coach is to help you find that path and continue
29:14
to define the path as you go forward.
29:16
you just said something that reminded me of something and it's a thing
29:20
I call delegation debt. What's delegation debt?
29:23
It's easier if I do it myself.
29:25
It's faster if I do it myself.
29:26
It'd take much longer for me
29:27
Exactly.
29:28
to explain this to somebody. Okay,
29:30
well, so right now in the minute,
29:31
you're right. It it'll take you 10 minutes to do,
29:34
it'd take you 30 minutes to explain to somebody.
29:36
But how about the second time,
29:37
the 20th time, the 50th time, and you've paid that debt 50 times now,
29:43
and you're still doing it yourself.
29:45
So what's what's an investment?
29:47
I'm gonna put a little effort up front in order to get a bigger return later.
29:51
Stop paying debt, make an investment.
29:53
Yes, it takes more time in the immediate future,
29:56
in the in the short term, but ultimately that's what frees you up to
30:00
do more and more and more important work.
30:03
but that's the that's the you know sort of the hurdle that a business owner
30:08
has to overcome is to recognize.
30:09
the the the the investment in the coaching or the training or the system building
30:13
or whatever it takes produces a benefit but it won't be in the immediate
30:18
f it won't be today. It may be tomorrow.
30:21
It'll likely be in a month. Stop paying delegation debt.
30:24
It's faster to do it myself. Yeah?
30:26
Yeah, yeah.
30:26
How long
30:27
how long you want to say that to yourself?
30:29
Next year, next 10 years? do it yourself.
30:31
It's faster? Yeah it is.
30:33
Yeah, that's that's one of those that's one of those loops.
30:35
It took me I I think I remember years ago,
30:36
it it just took me forever. my my wife would say,
30:39
You need to hire somebody I'm just like,
30:41
No, I don't I don't I don't wanna pay the money.
30:44
Well, you know,
30:45
I'll I'll put it to you this way,
30:47
or not to you, Rick, but many times to business owners,
30:50
I'll ask this question. Do you have a virtual assistant?
30:53
You know? Okay, well then you know what?
30:55
You're the virtual assistant and you're crappy at it.
30:57
You're the virtual assistant and you're lousy at it.
31:00
so what's leverage? What's the definition of doing more with less?
31:04
And a VA isn't an expense, it's leverage.
31:07
It allows you to get a return on that investment.
31:11
If you think of it as an expense,
31:12
you're doing it wrong. If you think of it,
31:14
if I spend two thousand a month on a VA and that allows me to create
31:19
ten thousand or a hundred thousand or a million dollars of value,
31:22
well, that's a
31:23
pretty good return, thank you very much.
31:24
So don't do the work that a VA'll do better than you,
31:29
so because you're so in stuck on thinking about,
31:33
it's an expense. That's not how to think
31:35
Yeah.
31:36
about it.
31:36
Yeah, I I that was it was definitely definitely a a a fantastic investment.
31:41
I I think about my VA now and she's fantastic.
31:44
And I can't do what she does. You
31:46
know, she's very, very detail oriented.
31:46
Exactly. Exactly.
31:47
I'm very big picture oriented.
31:49
Perfect example. They often offset or supplement or complement areas that need
31:56
attention, but we're not the person best suited to do it.
31:59
Yeah, yeah, yeah. If someone wanted to so so one of the one of the things
32:03
you talked about was investing time in a coach.
32:06
we talked about, having that person to kinda go along with you.
32:10
How is how does one go about doing that?
32:12
there's, a lot of coaches out there,
32:14
and you have to work with someone that,
32:16
you know, obviously you can trust and is going into,
32:18
you know, sh I guess shared values or
32:20
What what what is that what does that checklist need to look like?
32:23
What does that process need to look like to find a great coach?
32:26
Well, to me, that you arrive at a meeting with that coach and that coach helps
32:31
you articulate and define what your current set of problems are.
32:35
And for many times it'll be the first time the owner's actually said it out loud,
32:40
said it to someone else, here's the challenges I'm facing.
32:43
And that that coach then helps you think about how what would what you would need
32:47
to do in order to solve
32:48
it.
32:49
if you can find someone that can help you in that way,
32:51
that's the resource you're looking for.
32:53
I was working with a client named Brad,
32:55
and after about four meets I said to Brad,
32:58
hey, what do like most about having a coach?
33:00
And he said to me, It's great to have a friend.
33:02
At the time that answer embarrassed me.
33:05
I was like, my God, this guy's paying me to be his friend?
33:07
wow. but as I reflected on it,
33:09
what I came to understand is that being a business owner is lonely.
33:13
Who can you talk to? Your banker,
33:16
the lawyer, the accountant, your second-in-command.
33:19
in my case, if I want to talk to my wife about something that's business related,
33:23
it takes me 30 minutes to explain it what by which time she's bored.
33:26
Or she gives me advice in five minutes and it's not very helpful.
33:29
So even at home, there's not anyone who really truly gets it.
33:33
And that's the purpose
33:34
Mm-hmm.
33:34
of a coach. Someone who understands the world that you're in and allows
33:39
you to to basically think out loud.
33:41
There
33:41
Mm-hmm.
33:42
so much of the stuff that we need to do is just kind of rolling around in our head,
33:46
rolling around in our head. I'll tell you,
33:48
often I meet I have an hour's meeting with my coach.
33:51
I'm I'm
33:51
Finish the coaching session in 10 minutes.
33:53
Because what happens in 10 minutes is I start articulating the problem to him.
33:57
It's the first time I've really actually said it out loud.
33:59
And as soon as I'm saying it, I'm almost embarrassed,
34:01
okay, I got it. I know what I need to do.
34:03
Thanks a lot. And great. See you next time.
34:06
~
34:06
Mm-hmm.
34:07
and so you want to back to your question,
34:10
is you want the kind of person that can assist in that process.
34:14
to help you think out loud to articulate what's on your mind
34:18
to define the challenges to to to agree on what needs to be done next.
34:23
Mm, mm. Okay, a thought partner.
34:25
Yeah, that's a good way to think.
34:26
Now, if you've never had a coach,
34:27
you're thinking, Man, I'm paying this guy to like think with me.
34:30
Like I can't believe that that's worth anything.
34:33
well, that's because you haven't experienced it.
34:36
~
34:37
Yeah, yeah.
34:38
and so let me let me invite anyone to there's lots of ways to find good coaches.
34:43
but if you're struggling with something and kind of vexed or don't know what
34:47
to do next, that's a clue.
34:48
That's your intuition telling you,
34:50
I need some help with this. Where can I get some help?
34:52
Hmm. Is is there a point at which someone would be would be ready or
34:57
not ready to work with a coach?
34:58
Well, there's a number of things,
35:00
but here's the thing. I can't do your push ups.
35:03
You need to do the work. Now, if you expect me or talking to a coach as some kind
35:08
of magic wand, that's not going to work out.
35:10
so you have to recognize that a coach is not a consultant.
35:14
I'm not there to do the work. I'm helping I'm here to help you figure
35:17
out what needs to be done. And so
35:19
Mm.
35:20
coaching really requires a commitment to that session and to come prepared
35:24
and ready to deal with something.
35:26
And it also depends on or
35:28
relies on having a session with yourself,
35:31
an hour with the coach and at least an hour a week to do whatever it
35:34
is that you said you're gonna do.
35:36
Otherwise there's lots of, lovely conversation and all of that might be fun,
35:40
but you're wasting our time and your money.
35:43
Mm mm. That's very wise. That's very wise.
35:45
That's very wise. Any any other tidbits you have for us?
35:47
a million of
35:48
What's the most important?
35:50
that the effort, the results we get in life is a perfect reflection of
35:54
how you spend your time. The results
35:56
Mm, yes.
35:57
you get in life are a perfect reflection of how you spend your time.
36:00
So here's the clue. If you're not getting the results,
36:02
it's because you're not using your time.
36:04
And the one of the common questions I like to ask is,
36:07
Do you have a default diary? What's that?
36:09
in that case you don't have one.
36:11
And you're not getting the results you want in life.
36:13
So a default diary basically answers four questions.
36:16
What are the most important results I need to get this week or this month?
36:19
What are those
36:19
Mm-hmm.
36:19
results? Number two is what do I do?
36:21
What work do I do? Number three,
36:23
how much of that work and then how do I match my time to the answer
36:27
to those three questions? Used to do that once a week.
36:30
And the thing is, we're so busy that we never really take time to organize.
36:35
And what I've come to understand is organizing work is different than doing work.
36:40
And we're
36:40
As entrepreneurs usually not very good at organizing,
36:43
and that's the most important thing an executive assistant will do.
36:46
They'll organize your inbox, organize your time,
36:49
help you organize your priorities,
36:51
because you're now having to articulate that to somebody,
36:54
your EA. And the EA takes notes and then puts it in your calendar.
36:58
And the next day you're meeting with your EA and you say,
37:00
Well, I didn't do what I said I was going to do.
37:02
Well, that's not going to last very long,
37:04
is it? So your integrity gets
37:06
You get to keep the promises you make because you've actually expressed it out loud.
37:10
That's one of the great values of an executive assistant,
37:14
they help you stay organized. The most important thing we have
37:18
as entrepreneurs is how and to what you pay attention to.
37:23
It's the most valuable thing you've got.
37:25
And usually it's the least managed resource.
37:29
And so We think we have to be available.
37:31
And the truth is you shouldn't be available.
37:33
You should be accessible.
37:33
Mm.
37:34
And the difference is accessible means on your terms,
37:38
when it's right
37:38
Mm-hmm.
37:39
for you. Instead of the phone ringing,
37:41
pinging, dinging, someone knocking at the door got a minute.
37:44
Well now the you the tail is wagging the dog,
37:46
man. So back to your question.
37:48
your results are a perfect reflection of how you spend your time.
37:51
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's good stuff.
37:53
one last question for you. The name of the show,
37:56
of course, is the Relentless Pursuit of Winning podcast.
37:59
winning is something that we're pretty good at defining normally.
38:02
The challenge that we have a lot of times is maintaining that relentless pursuit.
38:07
So what would you recommend to our audience on how to maintain that relentless
38:10
pursuit?
38:11
know why it matters to you. A guy named Viktor Frankl wrote a really terrific book
38:16
called Man's Search for Meaning.
38:17
And the backstory is he was a professor of psychology in the University of Vienna.
38:23
So he studied human behavior. And as it happened,
38:26
he got thrown into Auschwitz. And in Auschwitz,
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he came to discover that on any given day he could tell who was going to die.
38:33
And what was peculiar is healthy people died,
38:35
sick people lived. What was the what was going on?
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What was causing that? What he came to understand is those people who
38:40
had a why would figure out a way to live even in the worst of circumstances.
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If you didn't have a why, it's like,
38:46
what's the point? I'll just give up.
38:47
And the second
38:48
Mm.
38:48
thing that's interesting about it is it doesn't matter what the why is.
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It just matters that it matters to you.
38:53
So for some people, it's I want to smell green grass,
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I want to get back to my village,
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I want to see my spouse. Whatever matters to you.
38:59
Because that's the thing that'll com that'll pull you through or compel
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you to do the things, the hard things that are necessary.
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Gotta know why it matters. Gotta know why what it all adds up to.
39:10
it can be hard to define that,
39:12
and that's often why we live unhappy lives,
39:15
because we don't know exactly what purpose we have in life.
39:18
Once you do it becomes clear, things that don't get me to my purpose,
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I just won't do Doesn't matter.
39:23
I get to say no. If you don't have that,
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everything seems important.
39:27
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You gotta know your why.
39:29
I love that. I love that. John,
39:30
thank you so much. If someone wants to get in touch with you,
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what's the best best way to do that?
39:34
Well it's pretty easy. W5 Coaching.
39:36
I told you about the Socratic method based on questions.
39:39
What are the five core questions?
39:40
Who, what, when, where, why? So W5 Coaching on the internet
39:44
and john@w5coaching.com gets you in my inbox.
39:48
Fantastic, fantastic. And we will get that on your show notes.
39:51
Sir, thank you so much. This has been an enjoyable conversation.
39:54
My pleasure. thanks for having me.
39:56
Absolutely, absolutely.
39:57
And folks, thank you so much for watching or listening to another episode
40:00
of the Relentless Pursuit of Winning podcast.
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We'll catch you next time.