Latest / Big Talk About Small Business / Ep. 110 – Strategy Is Not a Spreadsheet

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Ep. 110 – Strategy Is Not a Spreadsheet · Big Talk About Small Business

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_04: As you said it, the business is going to evolve differently.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_04: Whereas the small business, they may start out maintaining yards.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_04: They're going to be maintaining yards.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_04: As they grow.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_04: Whereas we may start out with some idea that it's going to morph into something else, as you just pointed out.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_04: Eric, we're back for another episode of Big Big Talk about small business.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_04: I'm looking at our sheet, our talk sheet today on a strategy.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_04: And it's already pissing you off, isn't it?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_04: Well, it is because I see this stat sided here.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_04: Which one?
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_04: 65% of companies with strong C-suite involvement in strategy report much better financial performance than their peers.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_04: What kind of research is that?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_04: You can delegate your strategy to somebody that's not at the top.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_04: That's the goofiest damn thing I've ever seen in my life.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_04: Of course, the C-suite dictates the strategy, right?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_04: That's the philosophy of everyone's.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_04: That's why they're in C-suite.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_04: That's why they're in this.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_04: If they're not doing that, what are they doing?
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_03: I have no financial performance at all.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_03: I guess there's probably, you know what that makes me think is that there's somewhere along the line, there is this someone, maybe a group of consultants, were coming across the fact that there are some C-suites that are out there that weren't doing strategy.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_03: And so they have to generate some statistics to prove to them that no, they are supposed to be focused on the strategy of this company.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_04: That's the goofiest thing I've ever heard.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_03: That's pretty bad.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_03: When it comes to like department of the obvious.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_03: So today we're talking about strategy for strategic planning.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_03: And again, for entrepreneurs and small business owners, right?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_03: That's the focus.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_03: That's what we're called.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_03: Big talk about small business.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_03: It's not big talk about big ass business.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_03: Or small talk about big business.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_03: No, it's not.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_03: It's big talk.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_03: About small business.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_03: And I think this kind of relates to our previous episode where we were talking about the difference between there is a difference between strategic planning for small business versus large business.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, there is.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_03: And you actually taught me this a long time ago about the balance or when do you cut off strategy versus taking action.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and I think that it's just kind of like I really feel like if I was to generalize it for small business, I feel like it's 80% action, 20% strategy.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I don't disagree with you.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and I mean, like in in so, but I think that in maybe a big business in the C-suite, it's 80% strategy, 20% action.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_03: Most likely.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_04: Well, they've got, well, if you look at like big business versus small business, they tend to have such a big chunk of a market.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_04: A big business has a big chunk of the market.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_04: Whereas a small business typically has a micro, micro percentage of a market.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_04: So it's a totally different thing.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_04: Like the big business can drive the market to a certain extent, whereas a small business can't.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_04: Typically, right?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_04: We just sort of participate in it.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_04: We can carve out our little piece of it.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_04: But we're not going to go out there and dictate what the market has.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_04: Like you look at like the big automakers, right?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_04: Now they're all in a tizzy over whether they spent all this money developing electric cars.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_04: And now suddenly electric cars aren't so great without the tax credit or whatever, right?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_04: And so, you know, they so if they all decide we're going back to internal combustion, they're driving the market.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_04: Whereas we could have a car company over here, we're not going to drive the market.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, their strategy, their strategy considerations and discussions are a lot different looking than what we're just trying to get some piece of the market.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_03: Our strategy is how do we get new business?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_03: How do we get business in the door?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_04: How do we first off get enough business to survive?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_04: And secondly, get enough business to grow this thing.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_03: Do you think that profits should be considered as a strategy for the small business owner in the very beginning?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_03: As a goal.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, uh, well, this is one that gets a lot of people upset.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, obviously, it depends on how much money you have to lose.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_04: If you if it's not important to you, then you gotta say, can I afford not to be profitable?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_04: Circumstantial.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's circumstantial.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, truthfully, like if I had a small service company that doesn't take a lot of overhead to make it, yeah, I'm not gonna be that worried about profitability.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna drive my revenue growth.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_04: Because I'm not gonna just lose a whole bunch of money if I, you know, but if I got a business where I got to invest in infrastructure and fixed assets and stuff, then profitability starts becoming more important.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_04: Unless I just have a lot more capital to pump into the thing.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_03: It just gets a lot more important.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and then on the tech business, you know, top line revenue is absolutely critical.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I'm much, I'm much more interested in that.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_04: I always my basic philosophy is if I have enough top line revenue, yeah, I'll figure out a way to make money.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_03: I agree.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_03: It's always been my profit profitability to me is a is a something I'll figure out.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: I'll figure it out.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_03: I just want one just give me the revenue streak.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_03: Where's the bullseye?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_03: It's the sales, it's revenue.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_03: Everything else is just a good problem to have, man.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's so profitability is like it's a bad problem if you but it's only a bad problem when you don't have revenue.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_03: For the most part, right?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_04: The problem is when people start microanalyzing what makes profit and what doesn't, and then they use that as the basis to make decisions to cut things off.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_04: That's where I always depart with the financial jocks.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and the same thing with pricing, right?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_03: My my philosophy on pricing is what will the market pay for?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_04: It has nothing to do with the cost.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_04: I totally agree with that.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_04: Do you agree with that?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_04: Oh my God, always.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_04: Listen, I learned that when I was 13 years old.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_04: Uh-huh.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_04: I worked at Kirkwood cycle shop.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_04: And my boss bought an enormous trailer load of old bikes from this guy who had a bike shop in the east side of Illinois over there in St.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_04: Louis and went out of business.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_04: He'd been in business for like 30 or 40 years.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_04: And Larry, my boss, paid$40 for an enormous.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_04: It was one of these trailers that they used to haul kids around in at the drive-in during the intermissions.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_04: It would seat like 60 people in little metal benches.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_04: Piled as a mountain of bikes and frames.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_04: So I took all those parts and I got a kid that worked for me, and he'd sand down the frames that I'd spray painted them, and I'd order new decals and emblems from the manufacturers, clean the wheels, true them up, throw tires on there, put bikes together on the parts.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_04: And then we sold them as used bikes.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_04: And I'd get done with a bike, all right?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_04: And I'd say, Larry, okay, Larry's the boss.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_04: I'd be like, Larry, what do you want to charge for this?
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_04: First thing, what do you think Larry said?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_04: How much do we have in it?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_04: And I at 13, I was at the wherewithal to say, doesn't matter.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_04: Makes no difference.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_04: What do you think we can sell it for?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_03: What do you think somebody would pay for this?
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_03: What's the value that this product has for somebody?
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_03: I do that at 13.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_03: It's irrelevant.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_03: It drives me nuts when we get into pricing discussion.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like, well, how what's the amount of hours?
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_03: And I want to know what the you sort of want to know.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_03: I kind of want to know what that is, so I'm not like an idiot.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_03: You know, but right.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_03: But I'm like, okay, if it if if it's costing us 100 and everybody wants to have this margin of 25%, 50%, whatever it is.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_03: And so therefore we charge this.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, well, wait a minute.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_03: If this product line, if if I'm like, A, what will the customer pay for it?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_03: B, what are my competitors doing?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_03: And how important is this?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_03: Is this a crack rock?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_03: Is this my sample crack rock?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_03: My 10 rock?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_03: I know.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_03: Because I want my 10 rock to give me 100 rot.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I'm saying?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_03: Am I making sense with the crack analogy?
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_03: But like it like this is my teaser, this is my my entry, my price.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_04: So it doesn't really so much matter.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_04: The point is, it gives me the the relationship.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_04: That that's the thing.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_04: It's not a single transaction that my whole business is based on 100%.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_04: Lots of single transactions.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_04: No, it's based on the relationship.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_04: I used to get into this for years in the architecture and engineering business.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_04: The the philosophy of all the brilliant people was, well, if we make money on every project, we'll make money.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_04: I'd be like, no, actually, that's not true.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_04: Because if I don't do enough projects, then I don't make money.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_04: Then all my calculation of what the profitability was.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_04: It's the same thing with the motorcycle business.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_04: I go through this all the time.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_04: Well, if we make$2,000 on every bike, then we make money as a whole.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_04: No, not if we sold 12 bikes, we don't.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_04: That's right.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_04: Our overhead is not spread out over all those bikes.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_04: And you gotta hit a certain volume level.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you do.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_03: And you need to get people in so you can you're stirring the pot with clients and you're figuring out.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_03: Like I mean, most it's a gateway.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_03: It is.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_03: Most of the time.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_03: And the other thing to me is I want to work with you so I can learn from you.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_03: And I learn with you.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_03: And I find something that I can provide to you that has been having greater value to you that no one else absolutely.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_04: But the only way I'd ever figure that out is if you're working with you.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_04: I know.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_04: No, you're so right about that.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_04: Oh my God.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_04: In the consulting business, that's the whole point.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_04: The the one thing I appreciate.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_03: Here's what I'm enjoying.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_03: Like we've talked some smack about VCs and all that type of stuff in Silicon Valley.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_03: Not necessarily about Silicon Valley, but that's where a lot of the VC activity is going on, obviously.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_03: What I'm appreciating in today's time with this AI stuff is that they finally the VCs are understanding all right, you are these people with these skill sets, and you want to do a business in this sector.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_03: This is what you think is the product fit, but you actually are admitting you don't know.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_03: And I as a VC am admitting, I know we don't know, but I'm still investing in this because you have faith that you'll figure it out.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_03: I have been reading a lot about that, and that's that's something magical that Silicon has going on with them is that they're not actually trying to invest in things with product fit, they're investing into the people in the industry.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I get it.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_03: In their ability to figure out, and they're giving them the funds to make it through to find the product fit, which could take a year or two.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_03: And millions and millions of dollars.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_03: We don't understand that in the Midwest.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_03: No, I get it.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_04: In the heartland.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_04: That's where the real entrepreneurship comes into these VCs you're talking about on the West Coast.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, they get that.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_04: I understand.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_03: Because the straight the strategy for those small businesses is to get to work.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_03: And that it uncovers itself as you get start diving the weeds.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of these companies, and it's that's been like Cursor, which is a huge company now, killing it.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_03: They didn't have a product fit for a long time.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_03: Neither did uh did FICMA.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, FICMA took a long time to figure it out.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_04: Amazon didn't have a business model that worked exactly for 20 years.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_04: It took them a long time to get to that.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_03: It's been a long time.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_03: And that's just the reality.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, sure.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_03: And so if you think you can strategize a product fit and it's gonna work out, oh, and then by the way, you're spending all this time on profitability and all this stuff type of stuff.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_03: You need to be focused in on what does the market want and need?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_03: How do I go get more of that?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_03: And draw that top line.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's so true.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_04: Gosh, it just uh, but I've got to be able to in in these businesses that take a lot of capital.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_04: I've got to be able to sell that vision and that ability out there to potential investors.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_04: No, you really do.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_04: Now again, we're we're departing from the majority of the small business people that are listening to this and small business world where they're not getting outside capital.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_04: Well, and it's that's that's a you know, that's a different animal.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it's just like the corporate track for them.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I mean, it's just a way to to like how do you want to start your business?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_03: You know, what are your goals with it?
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_03: What's the market that you're trying to solve for?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_03: Because some markets require a significant amount of capital.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, this is so we've made a distinction between corporate America and small business, right?
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_04: Now we're talking about the distinction between small business and entrepreneurial ventures.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_04: It really is.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, the small business has to make sufficient profit in order to be able to stay in business.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_04: It's fair.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_04: But the entrepreneurial venture, they've got a big goal they're going after.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_04: And it's not going to be I'm making money all the way along the way, probably.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_03: No, because the pathway for them is to exit and get another series and exit.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_03: You know, there's all kinds of different ways that that infrastructure works.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_04: And you, as you said it, the business is going to evolve differently.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_04: Whereas the small business, they may start out maintaining yards, they're going to be maintaining yards.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_04: As they grow, right?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_04: Whereas we may start out with some idea that it's going to morph into something else, as you just pointed out.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_03: If you're starting a landscaping company, yeah.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you know, you need to you need to maybe we'll add Christmas lights or something, right?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_04: But it's still, yeah, it's not going to change that much.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_04: That's right.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_03: Unless you go autonomous.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you know, you buy some AI-driven lawnmowers.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_03: And I actually, you know what?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_03: I saw a really interesting landscaping company.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_03: They're all ledger.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_03: I know.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_04: I saw you gonna mention that.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_04: I've seen them.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_04: So they say they're silent.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_04: They're silent.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's a big deal.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_04: It is a big deal.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_03: It's a great niche.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_03: I love it.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_03: Smart for them, but that's a good example of somebody having a specific niche.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I love your cats.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they're a great neighborhood.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_03: And I mean, hell, even like neighborhoods that are compact.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_03: Like, who wants to hear kill a lum?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it seems like that's all you hear anymore, especially on Saturdays or whatever.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_03: Drives my brother crazy.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_04: He said all he hears in his neighborhood is freaking leaf blowers just all day long.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_04: Everybody's like obsessing over their lawns.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, God, you know.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_04: Lives in a nice neighborhood.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_04: You know what I'm talking about.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_03: I can't stand it, dude.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I can't stand it.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_03: I can't I can't stand the the the attention to lawn care that we have as a society.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_03: I know it's also fake.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_03: I like give me some poison ivy, baby.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_03: Give me a snake, give me something that bites and that might hurt thorn bushes.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_04: You're insane.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_04: I've got some guy in my neighborhood.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_04: I was talking to my neighbor last night, texting with him.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_04: I'm like, who the hell is it who is sawing and drilling at friggin' 10 o'clock at night?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_04: I can't figure it out where it's coming from.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know if it's reverberating off his house.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_04: We all have like acre lots.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_04: It's very hilly and wooded, and yet it sounds like all friggin' night long.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_04: What the hell is going on?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_04: Did you ever figure out who it was?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_04: No.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_04: Neither of us knows who it is.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_03: It's driving me bananas.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_03: You know what's crazy is like like the the amount that we have been taught about this landscaping, this beautiful landscaping stuff we have in neighborhoods.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_03: And I know I have my property out there.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_03: I like it.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I was, and I'm I'm sitting there trying to figure out like what's the best grass to use for erosion control and all this stuff.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, somebody's like Bermuda or it's fescue or sod or you know, do all this.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm sitting there figuring all this stuff, and the whole time I'm all pissed off at my hillsides because they don't look like, you know, like what I'm used to seeing.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_03: But then I start doing some research and I realize every one of those grasses that I think are weeds are actually native grasses and bushes that are absolutely 100% perfectly designed, critical to maintain erosion.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yeah.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_03: It's like it, and guess what?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_03: They survive in that environment.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_03: And the whole time I want to, yeah, I want to, you know, to burn it all and like replace it with this fake ass Kentucky bluegrass, you know, uh, don't do that.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_03: No, have it to stop.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_03: Like, and so now like I just let it go.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_04: I have it's beautiful.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_04: I've done so many yards with fescue, and I love it because it stays green in winter.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it just doesn't hold up.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_04: It doesn't hold it.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, and you will be fooling around with that stuff forever.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_03: What we've what we've been calling weeds, and is on the back of like the Roundup containers is like kill all this, kills this, kills this, kills all these weeds.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_03: They're not weeds, they're native grasses.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_03: No, I know, I know.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and that that are good for your lawn.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_04: Well, let's not get obsessed about that.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_04: I I love that stuff, that Roundup.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_04: But anyway, um, I know it's terrible.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_04: It's absolutely terrible.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_04: It's no good, you know what?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_04: Roundup used to be really powerful and it's terrible for the groundwater, right?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_04: But today it's it's they've changed the formulation of it, but now it just doesn't work.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_04: So yeah.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_04: Well, they're not gonna sponsor us.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_04: You might as well, no.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_04: So you might as well just let the weeds grow.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but no, let let's get back though on the topic.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, we can we can obsess over our lawns um anytime.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so 90% of organizations fail to execute their strategies successfully.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_03: I think that why do you think that's I think that's because 90% of the time what you have strategized, it gets changed on you because of the way the world works and the way business works and the market works and your clients work and your competitors.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_03: Like you can strategize all day long.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think there's a good majority of that 90%, is because I could sit here and plan out what's gonna happen this quarter, right?
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_03: And inevitably, there are so many things that divert from that plan sure as we get down and we get to work.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_03: Like you think that you well, let's go get five clients at$5,000 apiece, right?
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_03: So we can hit a$25,000 revenue by the end of the yeah, and you go out there in the market and you end up finding that one client wants$50,000 worth of work.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_03: Or you got 20 clients that want, you know,$5,000 or whatever.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah,$1,250 for the right, right?
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's like, but and so that that right there disrupts your entire strategy.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I see that.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I I guess the only thing I disagree with there is I don't know that it's a strategy to get five clients at$5,000.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_04: I see that more as a goal.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, my strategy to me is more the philosophy or approach I'm gonna use.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_04: Now, you could build a case and go, well, but your strategy is to have these five clients of a certain volume that make up your business, right?
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_04: Well, because you want that balance or whatever.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_03: And you want you know how to staff against that and how to resource against it.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_03: And so that in that sense, it is a strategy.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's what I was meaning.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_04: So you don't have to like push me down for a podcast and like like I just want people to be clear on the difference in a strategy and a goal.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_04: Because I my I because I do find a lot of confusion over that.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_04: My my old point about strategies is really they should be enduring.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_04: Um, it's your philosophy.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_04: Your philosophy doesn't change, but your actions, your goals, your practices can change.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_04: So I think, you know, to go back to why 90% fail, I think personally, the reason for that is that companies, it starts with they're not really committed to the strategy, or at least the people in there aren't, right?
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe the CEO or the founder hasn't sold that strategy very well to their people.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_04: So they don't really understand why it's critical or to follow.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_04: That's probably a really big part of it.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_04: Secondly, is maybe the founder or the CEO's not committed to the strategy themselves.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's a bad one.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_04: They thought it sounded good, or that's what they had to do.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_04: Because of books they read or whatever.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_04: But it's not really what they want to do.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_04: Then we have all the other stuff that you mentioned about the distractions, the in things that happen in the environment that make us go, oh, maybe we shouldn't do that, or now we can't do that.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_04: That's another factor, right?
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_04: It's the doubting.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_04: The doubting, the, the, the, the, oh, gee, you know, these other things happened, or our priorities are different.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, they're not meeting their goals.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, we're not, we're not meeting our goals.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_03: So kind of your point, like you your strategy should outline director goals.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_03: And so if you set out your goals and your goals aren't being met, I can that now that the way you're talking makes sense because we have goals that are against our strategic sure, you know, deployment.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_03: And we do them by like halves, and we don't meet two or three consecutive halves of certain goals, then sure.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_03: Therefore, the strategy's off.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_03: But I've done maybe it's the implementation, though, in reality.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_03: So that's that's what I have been really actually.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_03: I have done a decent job.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_03: I hold strong to the strategy from day one.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I figured you would.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm just like, no, no, no, we're not.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_03: Because I get the request we should change these targets and these goals.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_03: All you've are because you didn't meet them last half, it means that you're behind for this half.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_03: So right.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_03: What are you gonna do to implement and execute to catch up with that?
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, usually it comes down to the actions, right?
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, that's why we're not hitting the goals.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_04: We're not doing, we can have the strategy, but we're not taking the action necessary to really implement it.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_03: It's all there is to it, right?
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and so where's that?
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_03: Where's that bottleneck at?
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_03: Where's that, why is that being disrupted?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_04: Well, that's a 67% of well-formulated strategies fail due to poor execution.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_04: Well, maybe it's the we're not holding our people accountable.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_04: Is that a possibility?
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_04: As the business owner and manager?
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, for sure.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_03: I would say that that's I would say accountability, clarity.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_03: Clarity, okay.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_03: Ownership.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_03: That's the one that I've been struggling with a lot lately.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_03: And that's my fault.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_03: My fault from not assigning clear ownership, which is part of clarity.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_03: Boy, that's so true.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, isn't it?
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's I'm thinking it's understood.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_03: I'm actually thinking that somebody's gonna be like, oh shit, I got an opportunity to own shine, right?
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_03: It's like I don't want to take it out.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_03: Or no, I or there's the the uh the aftermath owner where it's like I don't own it, but then I want to own the the the failure of it because I didn't own it to begin with, but now I want to own it because it wasn't done right.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_03: So now I'm the owner and I can be the savior.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I mean it's this twisted thing.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_04: Heroics.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_04: Heroics, heroics.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_04: That's it, that is a problem in a lot of companies.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I don't do what I need to do every day, so problems develop, but I can be the hero and solve it, even though I never should have had it in the first place.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_03: And the best one is okay like I told you so about six months ago.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_03: And like, hmm.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_03: Just if you really feel strongly about something, you have the freedom, and I'm empowering you to take action on that, you know.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_03: But but I think that the clarity, the ownership, um, you know, you know, and the accountability are really big deals as to why you're not, you know, hitting those things.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I mean, as a business owner myself, I think if anything I ever failed at was accountability, because I don't like holding people's feet to the fire, and I don't like having a lot of meetings.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_04: I don't either.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, and I don't like keeping a strict schedule.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_04: No, all those things go against what I'm my normal behavior is.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_04: I agree.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_04: I just want people to get it and do it.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and if they don't do it, I'll get mad at them.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_03: That sounds really familiar.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_03: Here's the problem, though.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_03: It doesn't really work, does it?
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_03: No, it works for you.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_03: It doesn't work, it works for you, it works for me.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_03: Like when I worked with you, I liked it.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because you're you're an entrepreneur, though.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_03: I know, because like you're just like you come in and wig out, yeah.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_03: And I'd be like, oh shit.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_03: But then I would own it.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_04: Because you figure it out.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_04: You're that rare person who who you don't think like an employee, and that's why you aren't one now.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm unemployable.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_04: I mean it it it's but but that is that is a problem.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_04: I think we don't hold people accountable, yeah.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_04: And it's it's due to our resistance of of being held accountable.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, of being held accountable ourselves.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_04: No, it's we don't want somebody on our butt.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_03: I don't want somebody on my butt, right?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_03: Right, and coming in and checking in with me all the time about crap.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_03: And I certainly don't want to do that to somebody else.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_03: But that's kind of a uh it's not a smart move.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_04: No, it's not.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_04: Only 2% of leaders are confident they'll achieve 80 to 100% of their strategic objectives.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_04: Wow, that's not good.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_04: Is it 2%?
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_03: I don't, I don't, I mean, I don't that might not be.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know what that is.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_04: Says it was from Cascade ClearPoint 2025.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_04: 50% of leaders rate implementation as equal in importance to strategy.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_04: Oh God, yes.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_04: Or more.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, again, it's like these people that do these business plans, but they don't do.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, at some point you got to stop planning and you have to start acting, right?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_04: And the action's what we're short on, not the ideas.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_04: That's right.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_04: Ideas are a dime a dozen, but at people who act and get things done, that's much less common.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, again, 80-20 rule.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_03: 80% action, 20% planning.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's really true.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_04: 61% of respondents say their firms struggle to bridge the gap between strategy formulation and day-to-day execution.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, and that's not an easy thing to do.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_03: I think that that's in the crux, like what how you create and build a really great business is being really good at in in You need to answer that.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just doing to you what you get to me.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_04: Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_04: No, it's the difference in how you build a really great business.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_03: And I mean, like in into yeah, there is a really good magic right there.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_03: If you can figure out how to plan well and then most importantly, execute well, if you can bridge that gap, you have a really good business.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_04: I think where the problem comes in is let's say as the owner slash founder slash CEO or whatever, maybe we can come up with a good plan, right?
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• 29:43
  SPEAKER_04: So hopefully we have the ability to do that.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_04: But where it it fails is and we can do.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_04: So we're out there doing too, right?
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_04: But where it fails is the implementation of longer term systems.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_04: Related problems or systems that usually falls into strategy, right?
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_04: There's certain things we need to do.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_04: There's a philosophy that implies these 10 things have to happen.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_04: Those 10 things don't happen because we're preoccupied with delivery, acting, serving our customers, creating the revenue, doing what we have to do on a daily basis.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_04: We don't make progress on the longer-term initiatives.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_04: That will really help drive our business to a new level.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that that's that's a really challenging thing in business.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_03: But if you can if you can figure out how to make sure that you're touching base, that's I love that that explanation because that's what really helps the business continue to be successful.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_03: It does.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_04: But see, that's where people get confused, I think.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_04: They go, oh, you need professional management.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_04: No, not necessarily professional management, but I need somebody who can advance long-term initiatives.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_04: You and I were both lucky.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_04: If you look at the businesses that we had that were our primary businesses, we had that person.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_04: Working with us as a partner.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_04: That's right.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_04: Now you switched to your primary partner along the evolution of your company.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_04: But in a sense, they both were people who knew how to get these longer-term things done.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_04: No, they did.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_04: And we're the front end out there.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_04: That's right.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_04: And you know, I had my Fred White and you had your Alex or J.S.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_04: Paul.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_04: Not to say they're the same, they're totally different.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_04: But nevertheless, they complemented us 100% in the ability to advance longer-term initiatives.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_04: 100%.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_04: Gotta have those people.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_04: I think if you want your small business to grow, you better have somebody like that.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_04: Or you will have a hard time implementing your strategy.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's it's uh I would I would find it really, I mean, this is I would find it really difficult if you tried to start a small business today without any capital to afford to pay other people that aren't like you.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_03: Or you're but if you don't have that capital that you don't partner with somebody that's not like you.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_03: Well, the only thing it's really hard to do it all solo without any money.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, it is.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_04: It is.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_04: But the only way you can make it happen, as we both also understand, is you just can't take any real money out of your business, or you take the very least that you have to.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_04: And you're willing to reinvest it.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_04: Whereas a lot of small business owners don't think like that.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_04: They think, oh, I made 150 grand, I can go spend 150 grand, or my personal overhead.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_04: You can't do that.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_03: I've never done that.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_03: Never three.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_03: I don't understand how somebody would that's why your business grows.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_04: You end up with something at the end.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_04: Again, the entrepreneur is the investor.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_04: They're not trying to harvest, they're not eating their seed corn at the crop.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_03: You got to see down the road.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_03: You want repetitive year-over-year crops, and it's got a healthy soil, like you're just building this thing.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but most people can't delay the gratification in order to make that happen.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_03: I think the pitfall is that is that people think that they start a business for money.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_03: That premise to make a living.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_03: That's a bad premise.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_04: It is.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_04: It's a bad.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_04: I again, I deal with this with so many students.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_04: Do you really?
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_04: It's like, what do you have a passion for?
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I don't really have a passion for anything.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_04: I just want to make money.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_04: I hear this all the time.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_04: I like business.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_04: I don't have a particular passion for anything.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_04: Bad deal, man.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_04: It's a bad deal.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_03: You got a problem there.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_03: There better be there's no way you'll sustain on like number one, you don't have a vision to even start out with.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_03: That's bad.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_03: Because your vision is about making money.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_03: Bad vision.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_03: That's not a vision.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_03: That's like that's called maybe greed or I don't know what you would call it, but it's not vision of business.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_04: It's a fantasy.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_04: It's just get a bunch of money.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_04: That's greed.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_03: That's what it is.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_03: You know?
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_03: And so that's a bad vision.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_03: And then you don't have the, then you don't have the if you don't have a vision, then you can't even can't sustain the obstacles that are going to come in your way.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_03: You won't have energy.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_03: The inevitable.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_04: Terrible thing.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because you're going to kick it off, and there's going to be less and less money and a lot more risk.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_03: And you're going to be the first thing you're going to do is like, this doesn't matter.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_03: Why am I doing this?
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_03: Why am I doing this?
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_04: I'm out.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_04: And you give up.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_04: You give up.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_04: But hey, failure's great.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_04: We learned a lot from it.
• 34:59
  unknown: Fail.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_04: Fail early.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_04: Fail off and fail a lot.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_04: Fail, fail, fail, fail, fail.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_04: Expert one-man band never had a real business telling me that.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_04: Great.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_04: Keep telling people that.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_04: I had seven businesses go bankrupt before I started the one that I made money with.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_04: How many people did I screw along the way?
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because you're calling damage with that shit.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there is.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of collateral damage with that.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_03: Like you got.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_03: I've seen a lot of these.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_03: Like you can't.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_04: We all know there's a cast of characters that are associated with one of these phenomenal, spectacular failures after another.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_03: Because I think that when people say fail, it's okay to fail.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's okay to give up.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_03: It's okay.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and the context is it's not equal, depending on the person whose ambition it was.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_03: Like, yeah, I will say that I've had businesses that have failed.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_03: However I have too.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_03: I could say I've been involved with things that failed.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but I mean like but but the failure to me was that the the that the up that the the the vision didn't come to fruition.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_04: It wasn't my people didn't get paid and you just went belly up and lost everything.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I get it.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_03: That's a different thing.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_03: That is a different thing, right?
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_03: And I'd say that it's okay that I've had that happen because I learned a lot from it, because then but but my premise again had a vision to it and a market fit.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_03: And I just didn't do all the right things and I didn't see enough in the future.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_03: So therefore, now when I start my new one.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_03: Or you changed your mind.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_03: You didn't think it was worth it.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_03: As you got into it, it became clear that it wasn't.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_03: But now this next time I can see further down the road.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_03: So I don't really fail.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_03: Because I'm taking that knowledge with me to the next thing.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_03: You just took it to a certain level and stopped and then moved on to the next thing.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_03: But if I started a business to begin with for financial reasons, yeah, and it didn't work out, what would I learn?
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_03: You'd learn that you probably should just go get a job.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_03: You should get, or you should raise more capital next time.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_03: If I had unlimited money to lose, my God.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_03: I just didn't raise enough my first round.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_03: That's why I failed.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_03: That's not good, man.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_03: No, it's not.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_03: You're you're you're hurting people on the way.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_03: Just because it's not all your money.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_04: 65% of companies with strong C-suite involvement.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_04: You read that one in the very beginning.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah, I did.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_04: Much better financial performance.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_04: That's from the Department of the Obvious, is what I would call it.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_03: So um so what is the strategy for strategic planning?
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think that you know the question we're supposed to answer.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_03: It it is.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_03: Like the the I would here's what I would I would recommend is that as the entrepreneur, you have a especially you know, in the small startup business, you have 100% responsibility for the strategic planning.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_03: Amen.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_03: 100% totally it's not 99, it's not 80, 100.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_03: So with that kind of ownership that you have to have with that, you have to be insistent on, in my opinion, finding time to work on that strategy.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_03: Meaning not easy at all.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_03: I found that Sunday mornings for a block of six hours or so while everyone else is sleeping and not working, that's when I do some good work with that.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and then because the week starts up on Monday and it's just hell.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_03: It's a hairball of hell.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_03: And then you don't have enough time because you really do, you have to get into a um into a zone and think and really consider because it's it's not just tied, it's it's the business, but it's tied to you personally.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_03: You know, there's a lot, it's pretty complex in that strategy.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_03: And then you got the market, you got clientele, and you got all your native.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the business.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I get it.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_03: It's no, you're right.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_03: So you have to.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_03: I I think if I would practice that even more myself, and when I have that six hours, that I'm really like I've I've learned a time block.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_03: 90 minutes.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_03: I can survive 90 minutes without being distracted.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I'm saying?
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_03: And so I can get that hit of dopamine from your distraction.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_03: Right, exactly.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_03: Like, yeah, you know, and I would call going to the bathroom and distraction.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, I get it.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_03: So you got 90 minutes.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_03: I can hold it and I can put my phone down and I can not look my emails and just sit there and think, and when I do that, it's golden, isn't it?
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_03: It is so golden.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_03: And that is all your strategy right there.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_03: That's my strategy for strategic training.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_04: You're absolutely right.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_04: If you're just so, and that's where the wisdom comes into the expression of work on the business and not in it.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_04: It's not that you do one or the other all the time.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_04: You've got to do both.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_04: You've got to do both.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you do have to spend some time working on your business and and what you're really trying to accomplish.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_04: 100%.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I I get it.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_04: And and you're absolutely right.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I I and this is the balance back to the 80-20, 80%, and throughout the entire week, I'm working in the business.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_03: In the business.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_03: Sundays, yeah, I work on the business.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_03: Every it just rotates like that.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you're right.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I'm always working in the business, but maybe for me, it's going to be that 5 30 a.m.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_04: or whatever time.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_04: But yeah, I get exactly what you're saying.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_04: And so you do need to devote some time to thinking, to articulating.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_04: Um, this is why it's good to be a regular writer, it's good to be a blogger, it's good to be a podcaster, whatever, because you constantly refine your thought process when you try to communicate it to other people.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_04: Agreed.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_04: Agreed.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_04: Teaching all these things help us refine that thought process, get our message out, helps us get our strategy formulated, helps us sell it to other people.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_03: And that helps make that a reality.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_03: That's the that's a great, that's a second part of the strategy is communicating the communicating the vision, communicating the strategy.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_03: Because it's true.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_03: Like I will work on a Sunday and I developed a strategy, and then I come and present it to the team on a Monday, the very next day, and I'm like really prepared to communicate it.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_03: Inevitably, the questions come.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_03: The objections.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I and I'm I'm speaking highly of the team, and I'm I appreciate it because like those objections and that those questions are actually making the strategy more sound and fine-tuned because I didn't think about that.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_03: They're raising stuff you didn't think about 100%.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_03: And so what you have to do then is capture that, yes, work on it again on Sunday or as soon as you can, refine and then recommunicate questions, objections, refine, communicate.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_03: It should go in that cycle.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_03: That's an excellent strategy for strategic planning.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I agree with you.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_03: Use leverage your team, listen to your team, and listen to your customers.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_04: Well, that's what I was gonna say.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I think in my experience, doing a lot of strategic planning, yes, you've got to get the input of the team.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_04: They don't decide the strategy, though.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_04: That's fair.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_04: They do help you with implementation.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_04: And implement it.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_04: So I've got to get their input, right?
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_04: I do need to have the input of clients and customers.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_04: They're ultimately the decision makers, right?
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_04: I gotta listen to them.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_04: The last thing I gotta do, in my opinion, is do the secondary research to understand what's going on in the industry.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_04: What are the big drivers out there that are impacting that industry that sort of helps us define our place in it, right?
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_04: So you can't ignore that either.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_04: The industry knowledge is is really critical.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_04: That's that that goes back to me with having a passion for doing something, because if you do have that, you're naturally going to be constantly scanning that, right?
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_04: 100% know what the heck's going on out there in your industry.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that's what you said before when you were talking about I don't want to listen to the news, it's it's horrible, it's distracting.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_04: But I do want to follow what's going on in my industry.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_04: 100%.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_04: You do?
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_04: And that's where I spend all my time.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_04: You've got to know that.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_04: You've got to, you do have to know that.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_04: So that's our strategy for strategic mining.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_04: We always come to the consensus, don't we?
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, we do.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_04: It's so weird.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_04: It is weird.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_03: What a weird show.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_03: And this, listeners, has been yet one more brilliant discussion with me to talk about small business and entrepreneurship.com.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Big Talk About Small Business.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_02: If you have any questions or ideas for upcoming shows, be sure to head over to our website, www.bigtalkaboutsmallbusiness.com, and click on the Ask the Host button for the chance to have your questions answered on the show.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_02: Stay connected with us on LinkedIn at Big Talk About Small Business.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_02: And be sure to head over to our website to read articles, browse episodes, and ask questions about upcoming shows.