Fire Yourself First: Jeff Russell’s Guide to Successfully Growing Your Business

Kathy (host):

Well, hello there and welcome back to another episode of Help! My Business is Growing, a podcast where we explore how to grow and build a business that is healthy and sustainable. I’m your host, Kathy Svetina, a fractional CFO and founder of Newcastle Finance, a company where we believe that everything you do in your business will eventually end up in your finances, and to get to healthy finances is to have a healthy business. Obviously, the question is, how do you get there? Well, this is where this podcast comes in to help. And let me ask you a few questions. Do you remember why you started your business in the first place? Was it mostly about the pursuit of profits? Or did you have a dream to have more free time? And if so, did this dream come true for you? Are you free to do the things that you enjoy? Or are you stuck in your business, trapped in this intricate web of never-ending tasks and responsibilities that you have on your plate as a business owner? And if your answer to that is yes, then I’m so excited because this episode is going to be specifically for you. I am thrilled because I’m going to be talking to a seasoned entrepreneur, Jeff Russell. And we are going to be sharing on how you can build and grow a thriving business while maintaining a fulfilling life. And the best part of this is that, thanks to his invaluable wisdom and experiences, you get actionable steps on how you can implement in your business right away. He has built and he’s maintaining six businesses as we speak. So he has a lot of wisdom to share with us. As a quick reminder, all of the episodes on this podcast, including this one, come with timestamps for topics that we discuss, and each one has its own blog post too. So if you prefer to read or scan versus listen to us talk, that is available to you. And I encourage you to use that. You can find the links and the detailed topics in this episode show notes. A little bit about Jeff, Jeff is a best-selling author, renowned speaker, and accomplished entrepreneur. As the founder of many successful businesses and author of his latest book, Fire Yourself First, Jeff is an expert in helping business owners break free from the daily grind. This is going to be a fabulous episode. So please join us.

Kathy (host):

Jeff, welcome to Help! My Business is Growing podcast.

Jeff (guest):

Well, thank you. Glad to be here, Kathy.

Kathy (host):

You know, when we connected, you shared that you currently own six successful businesses in different industries. And you only work 10 days a month, and the majority of business struggle, or business owners struggle with just managing one and only one. So my first question to you is, how in the world do you do this?

Jeff (guest):

Well, it was, you have to make a commitment. So there’s absolutely, you have to decide this is what you want to do. And every three years, I kind of set a goal for myself. And three years ago, actually, I guess it was four years ago, I set a goal that I would only work 10 days a month. Because, you know, when I was looking at it, I was working 60 hours a week, and family was getting away from me. I wasn’t taking enough vacation time. And I looked back, and I’m like, “You know what, I’ve been doing this for 20 years, so why not stop?” Now, let’s just take a look at all of my businesses. And I looked at one of them that I set up 11 years ago. And I had set that one up to pretty much run itself. So put in a team, put in operating procedures so that they know what to do, how to follow. My touchpoints are maybe an hour a month. And then I’m like, “Why couldn’t I do that with the other businesses?” And then I’m like, that was the AHA. It’s like, “Oh, I actually have been doing this. I just didn’t realize it. I just thought I need to grind it every day and long hours.” And when you look back, you really don’t. 

Kathy (host):

And the businesses that you have right now, did you acquire them, or were they already successful businesses? So, meaning that they were running already, they had the operating procedures, they had the people in there. When did you have to start them from the beginning or all started from scratch?

Jeff (guest):

So yeah, there was no purchasing of anything. So I guess I’m I didn’t realize this, but I’m a systemizer. So I like to put in procedures, and I hate doing the same thing over and over again. So if there is a way that I can kind of automate something, I’m going to do it. And so I just naturally put in procedures all the way through from the beginning first for myself because I was the only employee 20 years ago. And so I needed to like, here’s my checklist, this is what I need to do. Like why would I recreate it every single time? So me doing that for 20 years as I started hiring, going deep, all it was like, “Oh, here’s the job instructions, everything you need to do your job. Here’s for sales, here’s for marketing, here’s for operations, accounting, these are the books, these are the accounts.” So just doing that was very helpful. So if you’re not a systemizer and you just like to kind of go with the flow, you know, you’re actually holding yourself back, you really need to write down. And sometimes what I’ll do is I’ll video myself doing something like I use a Mac. And so I can do a screen recording. So I can actually do a procedure or do a process, record it, talk while I’m doing it, they can see the screen and then save it. And then I’m like, “Boom, that’s done.” So even if you’re not like the writer, you can still do a simple video recording, screenshot recapturing so that you can do that and share that with other people as well. 

Kathy (host):

I completely agree with you because I’m a huge systemizer as well. So I like systems and processes, even in my own business, especially in my client’s businesses. And one of the things that I always say is that your business should really rely on the systems and processes, not on specific people, not even on you. Because if you are the one that does everything, or the people come to you to solve problems, you’re essentially not being able to remove yourself from the business. It feels good to be needed, right? It’s like, “Oh, everyone comes to me for answers.” But when stuff happens, and when you really don’t want to be bothered, or you know, you get sick, or you want to go on vacation, it just doesn’t mesh well with that.

Jeff (guest):

No, absolutely. And building on your points about not having specific people, like I don’t have an organizational chart for my businesses, I have a roles chart. Right. So it’s the role. So that’s the key thing is this is the role. And then, sure, we’ll put plug a person in there, not have a person who does the role. So it’s very, when I’m hiring and building out a team, I look very much for the specific what needs to be done, not fit the person with the role that needs to be done. I find that just not very successful.

Kathy (host):

Yeah. And let’s talk about the difference between the organizational chart and the role chart. How do you see those being different?

Jeff (guest):

Okay, so I like to look at a business kind of on the 30,000 feet view. And I’m like, “What do you do? Okay, so do you provide a service? Do you provide a product?” Okay, then how do you do that? Right? You have a sales channel? Do you have two people? Is it inbound marketing, outbound marketing? How do people find you? How do your customers find you? And then once How do you fulfill what you’re selling, right? Whether it’s a product or a service, what operational stuff happens in the background. And so that’s how I look, this is not personal, this is just in order to sell this product or service, these things need to happen. We need to find customers, we need to sell to the customers, we need to fulfill to the customer. And then we also always want to have exceptional service and along with whatever our product or service offering is so that we can keep that connection with the customer and keep them for a long-term customer as well. And then I break all that down into operations, finance, sales, marketing. Some people combine sales and marketing together. And I really like to differentiate those because sales kind of process is different than marketing, even though often your marketing is getting them into the salesperson. So when you’re new, and you’re hustling and starting up, your sales marketing person’s probably you. And then you hire that kind of combination role. And then as you grow, you kind of want to expand that out or look at having a contractor or an agency do maybe the marketing side. I always like to keep the sales side right like that’s your core. The sales should be core to your business. And so you really want to own and control that process. But you know what, Google search engine stuff changes every week, pay-per-click changes, Facebook ads, you can do this this week. And now you can’t do that. So I just kind of put that onto an agency who really can live in that world? Because that’s not I’m not a marketing agency. Now, if I was then sure, yeah, I would do that. But I kind of look at, we have to produce the best product and service.

Kathy (host):

And how can we do that at the highest level, and then fulfill it to the customer as well, to the businesses that you have? Are they in similar industries? So let’s talk about the industries that your businesses are in because it could be, you know, the Systemizing and processing sounds great. But if you have something let’s say that you’re producing, I don’t know, bread, and the other one when you are selling widgets, and the third one is that you’re producing, you know, marketing services for companies, there’s like very different businesses. So when you were finding success, and you said, “Well, okay, this first business is doing great, now I’m gonna get another one.” Were you thinking in terms of I want to be in at least a similar industry so that I can take the lessons that I learned from this business and move it into this one? Or did you start something completely different?

Jeff (guest):

They all had, there was always a connection that one built on to the other. They were completely different industries. One, for example, is financing of medical equipment. The other one is teaching physicians and healthcare providers how to do cosmetic procedures. So if you’re teaching them how to do cosmetic procedures, that’s a whole industry right there. However, many of those cosmetic procedures need to have equipment, like lasers and things like that. Then the financing business would deal with banking and all of those regulatory issues, where the training was a different. And then one of my third businesses was a clinic. So actual medical clinics. So we had to finance some equipment, we had to get people trained. So those used it. And then that created like a third business, right. And then I also have a family office where I actually take the money that has been generated from these other businesses and feed it into that. And then it has an investment thesis, right, where we look at investing so much in real estate, equities, alternative investments, and cash equivalents. So that’s kind of so again, totally, I’m investing in multi, you know, syndicate real estate syndications, you know, creating training materials for physicians, and financing multimillion-dollar clinics around the world.

Kathy (host):

And do you have for your organizational structure for all these businesses? Do you essentially have a shared service type of organization, for example, because all of these businesses obviously need marketing, they need a financial person to go and make sure that stuff is accounted for, right? And you have all the plans and budgets and what’s going on. But do you have for each of these businesses, is there a separate individual in those or are you taking more of a shared service model where you have a marketing agency, one marketing agency, and team or financial people that are now controlling all of these businesses, or does each business have its own set of people?

Jeff (guest):

Each three of the businesses share finance, right, and the others are on their own. So finance is one of those ones that we do share. So we have individual bookkeepers, kind of CPAs. And then it goes up to a corporate because the tax structure we have tax attorneys, you know, that kind of manage everything. So because it is a little bit more complicated. It’s not like a simple, simple structure. It used to be right when I was building them, right? It didn’t have to be like that. And so it’s very helpful, right? Because I may be doing sophisticated financing structures, and tax accountants not quite good enough. And a tax attorney who knows actually the laws, and where what we could do is I find a critical part of when you start scaling up, that’s one of the first people you want to contract with. And they’re not full time. Right? So we have a big, huge agency, one of the biggest accounting firms in the world. They deal with that because we’re dealing in multiple countries as well.

Kathy (host):

Yeah, that makes sense. And also, it’s a shared cost as well, so that not every single business that you have, they don’t need it. That’s number one. And number two is you’re able to keep the cost down with that as well.

Jeff (guest):

Yeah, and I do have some key people like I have a multimedia designer role. And that role can go crossover because there’s not really full-time work in any one of the businesses. So for example, this month will focus, their goal will be to focus on creating materials for one of the companies. Next month, it’ll be another one. So it kind of they just rotate through. And if we need something critical, they can create whatever we need, if it’s audio, video, images, handouts. So some of those roles are, it doesn’t matter what the industry is, right? If you need a handout or a lead magnet, they just need it in a nice, clean and professional. And so we’re very good at doing that.

Kathy (host):

Yep. And the fact that you’re able to step away from the business so much who does the day-to-day decision making? Do you have a CEO in each of those businesses or is your director of ops or a COO, Chief Operating Officer that’s responsible for that? How is that structure managed?

Jeff (guest):

Yeah, see? Oh, right. So because it’s more of an operational thing, and I’m involved more in strategy and future. And this is one of the things is, I wish I, we underestimate thinking time. And when you’re in your business, and you’re grinding all the time, I need to be thinking about what’s going to happen in three to five years. Or my business may wake up one day and have a competitor we didn’t even know about, and our competitor could be chat, GBT, it could be a whole different technology, right? You just look at how taxis got upended by Uber. So like, it’s not likely, if I’m not watching the ball and looking at everything, it could happen. And so having a, you know, I probably spend five of my days a month just on strategy, looking at stuff, you know, looking at where the future could go. This AI is very fascinating for me because it is changing so fast, right? My undergrad is in computer science right? Many, many years ago. And I swear, like, things didn’t move in five years. And we are moving every day, there’s AI-oriented apps that are creating, you just can record your voice and it can take a photo of you and create you, right? Like so, so much is happening. And I really, I’m thankful that I have the time to take off and look at that. I was just in Silicon Valley a couple of weeks ago, and looking at robots that like look like humanoids and are moving boxes, and I’m like, wow, could they be the teachers of the future? So it’s just interesting, things are much more advanced, and not as advanced, right? So it’s nice to actually be there and see what’s going on. You know, I was at meta checking out, look, actually the day when they released their goggles there. So it’s just interesting to be in these different environments to see. Now if I’m grinding at 60 hours a week, I wasn’t making those trips, I wasn’t making those lunch appointments. And so you’re actually doing yourself a huge disservice by grinding it, just because you’re the first one in the last Moto, doesn’t mean you’re gonna have a successful business, right? You’re just maybe just grinding it for all the wrong reasons. And then something over here comes and hits you, and you didn’t even see it coming. Yeah.

Kathy (host):

And that’s the most unfortunate thing is because you’re essentially looking at the trees without actually looking at the landscape. And there might be stuff coming out at you that you have no idea because you just don’t have the time to look at it. And I see so many, especially in the small business world. This is there’s a difference between and we had this discussion too before we started recording as there’s a difference between being an owner and an owner-operator. And what we’re discussing now is your idea is that you are the actual owner, you own the business, but you’re not operating. There’s other people that are operating. Let’s talk a little bit about this distinction. Like why do you think that so many people struggle with this? And what do you what do you think it’s truly the antidote to it? We talked a little bit about systems and processes. But is there anything else that people can think about when they’re trying to get to that true owner? Vision?

Jeff (guest):

Yeah, and it’s quite interesting. If I look back, maybe 25 years, so I was in corporate America, I worked for Fairmont, I worked for Allianz big financial firms. And while I was commuting, taking the subway, I would read Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And then I would read the E Myth, right? And those are all about taking, like your business Systemising it right and creating. And then I look back and I’m like, Okay, that was 20 years ago. And I’m like, I understand that, but I wasn’t really doing it. I was kind of doing it. So we’ll see. Right. And so that is almost like a mind shift, you have to do that. And what a lot of people don’t realize is by being critical to your business, you’re actually devaluing your business. So when you go to sell it, it’s actually going to work be worth less than if you weren’t a critical part. And I had one of my businesses was probably 18 months ago, I was offered 10 million for it. And it was a good fair valuation wasn’t crazy. It wasn’t, you know, like a lowball offer. And I thought, well, what would I do? Right, like, and then you have tax issues, right? So don’t think that just because you have a windfall, you just get a check for 10 million doesn’t work like that, unless you’re in some states, but most people are not. You have to really plan for that type of an exit to happen. And so I wanted to kind of keep But up, but I didn’t want to grind it every day. And one of the biggest challenges I think is it’s difficult to hire the right people. And so many business owners have tried. And then they didn’t, didn’t work out. And then they’re a bit gun shy. And I found once I created this 11 step process for hiring people, I just basically brought in a player’s every time, right, so it’s like, wow, it took me 13 years to develop this 11 step process, which I have a whole, it’s probably the biggest section of my latest book, fire yourself first. Because it’s a critical, the biggest expense item on most businesses income statement is payroll, right? But we spend the least amount of time hiring people, it’s like, Hey, will you do it, we, you know, come on in work for us. Like I don’t want someone who just wants a job, I want someone who’s looking to make a difference and wants to help people. And so that’s the mindset because if you’re not a natural helper, and you want to make up, you know, want to do a good job, then it’s very difficult for me to make that personality change with you. Now, if you have that personality, and you’d like to learn, and that’s one of the other things, this is so critical. Now, if it doesn’t matter what they are, you need to be a learner, you need to be and take advantage of free podcasts and in free courses online at universities, and you just need to be a natural learner because almost everything we’re using today didn’t exist three years ago, like COVID really developed a lot of industries very quickly. And so now it’s much easier to be remote with Zoom meetings and, and slack and other tools that just connect everyone together. Where before, we didn’t really have that. So it was a bit of a challenge. And so once I demystified the hiring process, then I just find people are more comfortable. It’s like, okay, now you don’t have to worry about getting this person hiring the wrong person. What happens if they don’t do it, let set them up for success. And then they leave and then they have to start the whole process again. So that I find is one of the biggest issues most business owners have. And I know my one of my biggest regrets is I never hired soon enough, right? So it’s always it’s never that, oh, I hire tumor like, No, it was like, you know, looking back, I didn’t realize this one person is actually going to, you know, triple my business, right, like, so. It’s just interesting that you can get so much more done. And sure no one works like us, everyone’s individual. So you can’t just say, oh, this person doesn’t think as fast as me. Well, yeah, I’ve been in the business. 20 years, I speak at conferences. I listen to a lot of podcasts, I read six business books a month, right? So no, of course, they’re not going to think like me, but they have their own unique abilities that are really cool. And they will do things faster than I can do. So always look for that person who’s going to be one plus one equals five or 10, not one plus one equals one and a half.

Kathy (host):

Especially if you are hiring people who need to do tactical things, and you haven’t done tactical things, because you have been, you know, focusing on strategy and figuring out what the future is. And all that people who are on the ground have a lot more experience because they’re doing this that day in and day out versus someone you know, like for me, for example, I will give you a specific example. Like I don’t do any of my video editing at all. And because that’s just not where my time is supposed to go. Like I have other bigger fish to fry. And I recently I just needed to do something. And my assistant wasn’t available. And I realized, like, I have no idea it will take me three hours to do something that would take her 10 minutes. It just it just tells you like do you really need to spend time there? No, you don’t.

Jeff (guest):

Yeah, and exactly what I always tell people is calculate how much you make or per hour or what you want to make. So maybe you want to make $200,000 a year working 2000 hours, that’s $100 an hour. So can you do get it done for cheaper than 100? No, but maybe you make 200 But you want to make 400. Okay, so now it’s $200 an hour. So you look at the value of people and what they can bring in. Of course, I can bring someone in for 30 or $40 an hour, which is a fraction of my time. And if they take a little bit longer, that’s totally fine.

Kathy (host):

Yep. Let’s talk a little bit more about your 11 step process because I haven’t gotten to that part of the book yet. But I am dying to have a little bit more data about this 11 Step process because I think this is going to be really interesting to the listeners. And then you know, you can obviously you’re going to go more in depth in the books. But can you give us a quick rundown on this 11 step process?

Jeff (guest):

Yeah, no, absolutely. I hired everyone from psychopaths to a players and everyone in between. So in my 20 years, I’m like, What is? Again, if I hire a crazy person, I want to know, what did I do wrong? Ah, like so. Right. So it’s, I do not want to repeat that, right? I’ve had people I’ve had to pay people $10,000 to go away, you know, because I didn’t fire them the right way. Or I did. And, you know, I had to give them a severance package. So I want to make sure when I’m bringing on people, that I’m not going to go through all those crazy stuff that goes on. One thing we have to realize is this, you may have a job, and this person needs a job. But if you offer that person the job, that doesn’t mean they’ll do the job, right? It’s funny how there are certain people, they want to make the most amount of money by doing the least amount of work. And when you’re a small business owner, you can’t afford to do that, right? Like we’re all on all the time, almost seven days a week, right? 24 hours a day, we’re always thinking, Oh, I could do that I could do this. So we really are invested in that business. And that person, maybe they can go work for a fortune 100 company where they have 50,000 employees, and they don’t really know what anyone’s doing. But I think entrepreneurs and business owners get very frustrated when they hire those type of people. So you really want to kind of decide and look at where you’re at. Now. I recently last year, I posted for an executive assistant, I had 600 resumes. So if I took 30 seconds or resume time, 600. Right, I would have wasted my whole 10 days a month going through this. And so that’s nice. That’s at the top of the funnel, how it is. And this is just like when you’re looking at customers, right? Big customers at the top. I one of my first steps is actually to add some questions I asked two or three questions. And I alluded to this one earlier, one of the questions I ask is What have you done to improve your knowledge in the last year? So if the last thing they did was read, you know, Macbeth in middle school, then k, this is not the person for me. Right? Because they don’t have that growth mindset, right? That learners mindset. And I want someone who actually is proactive, because I want to hire someone I know, I’m not going to be there all the time. So they need to come with like batteries already included, ready to work. And there’s a lot of people like that. But you have to really make sure you captured those people that are self motivated and self driven to work when you’re not there. So me basing my decision, I’m only going to work 10 days a month, that means 20 days a month, there’s no I’m not there. I can’t supervise these people. I can’t bring on people that need to be babysat. Just doesn’t work. And so I’m my biggest kind of key is I’m trying to find and go through this process. And the toughest people are the Why call him like the psychopaths because they know how to work the system. They know how to answer the questions. And I can wear them down, right? So they may get through my first second, third, fourth step. But then boom, I’ll catch him at the fifth step. Right. And so for me, I have two or three questions that I asked up front. And one of the questions is this as well, please include a cover letter and address it to me and state your salary range or, you know, something like that. And that gets rid of so out of those 600 people, the people that said Dear Jeff Rasul 62. Okay, so I went from 600 to 62 people just for the cover letter. I’m like, if you’re so lazy, you couldn’t do a cover letter. You’re too lazy to work for me. I don’t want you there. And plus most of my roles. One, I’m kind of like a bit of an OCD guy. Like I like to have all the details. I like to know everything that’s going on. So being detail oriented, it’s very important. So if you read a job description that gave you a specific step, and you ignored it, what are you going to ignore in my business? Right? So I look in for though, and you will be amazed at how many like I can get down to a manageable number. And then you know, the other questions, what have you done to improve your knowledge? Just with those two, right? I really need to get rid of 90% of the people that aren’t the right people for the work. And so, and then it’ll be like, I’ll do a zoom. I’ll usually do an email to them. And I’ll ask them, Why are you looking to leave here? her job, right? And I want to see how they write back. Is it? The you, you know, are they using accurate? You know, like the short texting? Or are they using more formal, you know, proper wording, because when they’re dealing with my customers, and my customers are physicians and, and in finance, I need to make sure that they’re at that level. And maybe your customers are not in using the human all that is good. So you have to really know your customer. And so I don’t even see them for probably until the fourth or fifth step. Right. So it’s just very much in there. Many times people don’t know what questions to ask and why you’re asking them. And so in the book, I go into every question I asked, from the email to the online, usually I do a zoom interview with them to the in person. And why I asked them, right, because I may ask someone, you know, what do you know about the company? And so it’s amazing how, oh, I don’t really know anything. Let me Google. Um, okay, so yeah, because the interview is over now. Right? Because you didn’t, you couldn’t even be bothered to know about us. And so you just want to kind of look at that if somebody comes into the office, and I’m like, Oh, how did you find the place? Then? They say, Oh, it was, it was great. I got here early, went to Starbucks got a coffee, and I was waiting. And then there’s the other person’s like, oh, traffic was terrible, you know, the interstate, how the lane goes down, I just got here on time. Okay, so are you a glass half full, or a glass half empty person. So in there, I get very specific, don’t underestimate the importance of hiring the right people. And if you want to exit yourself from your business, which will directly increase the value of your business, because how many people started a business to have it worth less than when they were started? Right? Everyone wants it to be worth more. So that means you’ve got to get out of the business. And I didn’t start like I didn’t go from 30 days attendance. I went from 30 to 2522. Right? Like it took maybe six or seven months. Yeah, it’s gradual. Yeah, it’s not like rip the band aid off.

Kathy (host):

You know, that’s something I really love, those questions because that is something that I did recently as well. And every time I hire someone, I include similar types of questions and similar types of things in my recruiting process. I mean, it’s so easy nowadays in India, you know, you just click on the Apply button and your resume gets sent to the employer. And before you know it on the other side, on the employer side, you get 400 500 resumes on this one position. I’m like, Where do I even begin to look at this? And I mean, we’re human, we’re going to take a look at the resume and maybe, you know, go through the first 50 or so because they came the first ones, or maybe that were the last ones that they came through. But after a while, it’s just kind of your eyes start to blur. It’s like everyone looks the same. So this is a really good tactic of figuring out and reading down people who are truly interested opposed to the ones that are just kind of sending application to anyone and everyone.

Jeff (guest):

Yeah, no, that’s what you have to do is you have to weed out. And what I found is my most successful employees, I’ve been with me the longest time like 10, over 10 years. They’re all engaged, they enjoy what they’re doing, and they enjoy helping people. Right. And so that, for me is very now could be helping co-workers, depending on your role, you have to like to help people, right like not, don’t want to interact, because you either have internal helping, or it could be external to the customer as well. So depending on the role, you should like to help people, because those people get joy out of helping people and they do it naturally. And so that really is like a key to having a business that runs without you.

Kathy (host):

And I think a lot of the times is also the mentality as a business owner, too. And I’ve been in businesses where the person who’s running the business just hasn’t seen that or doesn’t have that management skill, or they just don’t understand how important that is. Obviously, they understand it from a level that they’re just not getting the right people and they’re super frustrated, but they’re don’t really see where this is stemming from. They just think, Well, I’m just really bad at this or, you know, I just I just have no idea where to start. What would you say to someone like that?

Jeff (guest):

Yeah, it’s like as I was building my businesses, when I came into a roadblock, or something wasn’t working 20 years ago, I’d be reading and often I’m still reading, but podcasts, go to conferences, learn from the best. So when I wanted to hire better, I looked at okay, who does an awesome job. Right. Jeff smart has a great book out. It’s called Top grading and I took some tips from him. I took some tips from Um, David Ramsey, and you know, Dan Sullivan and all these and Patrick Lencioni. So all these authors that now with podcasting, man, you can just put in your name and listen to these experts. And I want to know how to Hi. So I spent probably a year immersing myself because and I was the best investment ever, right? Because now I can literally walk away when I was walking when I was building my businesses, and we didn’t know more about email marketing. So go to the conferences, I would listen to podcasts, I would read books on email marketing. So I understood that right? And, you know, you read story brand, and then you know, it’s like, Okay, we have to kind of tell a story. And let’s create that. And so I’m not the expert. There. I am an expert in my specific niche, right. And I don’t know too many other people that have the expertise that I have in my niche. But I’m not a marketing expert. I am not a hiring expert. I am not of a sea of you know, finance expert, right. Sure. I know how to use fun. I know how to read and create, you know, income statements and financial statements. That’s not what I want to do. Right? So I educated myself, I think I read a book like numbers for the Numberphobic right to learn.

Kathy (host):

I always recommend that book. I love that book. It’s one of the books that I always recommend to people.

Jeff (guest):

Like, yeah, because that wasn’t my thing. But if you look at me, now I can go into a meeting, I can hold my own, I can be with a CFO at a fortune 10 company, we can talk about ratios. I know exactly. But I didn’t learn any of that when I was young, my computer science degree, right? Sure. I know how to code. And I think that’s where a lot of my organizational thought organization came from is actually having a computer science degree because when you learn how to code and program, it’s all kind of linear. If This Then That, if this else, right? If not this, this. So it’s kind of how I think I guess, and I’ve been brought up that way, my dad was in the army. And I moved around every two, three years, right? So I had to kind of assess the situation very quickly, figure out, okay, new school, new friends who’s there, who’s what’s going on. And so I just kind of have this awareness of what’s going on around me. And I also know when I don’t know how to do something, I’ll hire the person, I’ll bring them on, I’ll contract them. I find it’s very helpful when I was looking at exiting my business, these consultants that are exiting, they’re lazy, all they care about is they want to commission right to sell your company. They won’t go the extra mile to find that strategic buyer who’s actually going to pay 10 times more than somebody off the street, because you have strategic buyers who are one plus one equals 12, right? And then you have other buyers who are just buying your cash flow or just buying your basic business. And so they’re not going to see that 10 times growth where a strategic buyer would. And so I thought I’d better educate myself on the selling process of a business so that I know the difference between a strategic buyer and a regular buyer, fire sale valuation versus a fair valuation or an excessively good value as well.

Kathy (host):

I hear you know, and I’m the same way too. Like I am looking at if this, then that it’s it makes it very easy to like look at it on methodology. But it helps so much because you’re able to isolate the problem. And because you’ve been reading, you’ve been listening to podcasts, you know a little about a lot of things, you know, just enough to be dangerous, as I always like to say, that’s a good place to be know, just enough to be dangerous, but don’t put your head in it. And then you’re able to figure out well, this seems like a problem that I have, who do I need to hire to fix that particular problem? Because obviously, if you’re not an expert in marketing, if you’ve not, if you’re not an expert in SEO, if you’re not an expert in positioning or branding, it’s going to take so much longer to do this, and you’re going to be struggling. So hire someone that is able to help you with that. Because you’re going to get there faster, it’s going to be so much easier. But you do need to know enough about the problem so that you know who to put into that particular problem to fix it.

Jeff (guest):

Yeah, absolutely correct. Right. You just need to be able to ask the right questions so that you get the results that you’re really looking for. And sometimes we don’t, if it’s something new and we’re not familiar with we don’t know what questions to ask. And so just listening to two or three podcasts on that subject would really it’ll just like, collect for you, and then you’ll hire the right person. You’ll whether it’s an employee, a contractor, an agency, whatever, exactly.

Kathy (host):

This has been a delightful conversation, Jeff. We went through so many things because it’s like, I mean, it’s like your wealth of knowledge. But you know, someone is listening to this podcast and say, “Okay, I want to get to be I’m currently an owner-operator, I really want to be like Jeff when I grew up. I think we all want to be like Jeff when we grow up, be included. What is like the next step that they can do in their business?”

Jeff (guest):

The first thing, in my most recent book, “Fire Yourself First,” I have a four-step process. And the first one is actually, what’s your purpose, and it’s bigger than your company? Because I think we kind of are in the company and grinding it for so long. It just seems like that’s our life. But no, it’s not. Like, what do you want to do in 10, 20 years? If someone wrote you a check for 20 times what your profit is right now, would you take that? And then what would you do? If this business set you up for life and you didn’t have to work? What would you do? So think about that. And then that will actually drive you to put in the processes, the systems in place, hiring the right people that are ready and willing to work. And then always have to have your key numbers, right. And your KPIs. That’s the third step is KPIs. And I like to give my employee scorecards, and then the owner dashboard because here’s one of the things if you go away from the business, and many of you have tried this, so we’ve, this is normal, right? This happens to all loners, you hire the wrong people, and you get kind of shy, and then maybe you let go. And then you’re like, “I’m gonna take a three-week vacation,” and then it goes dish goes back. And then you’re like, “Okay, not doing that again?” Well, that’s because you didn’t have the right numbers that you were watching. So I have a comment, I have four numbers that I watch in my businesses, and two are leading indicators and two are lagging. So I want two numbers that show kind of what the next three to six months are going to be like and two numbers, what are we at right now? Are we profitable, you know, our expenses down, whatever it may be. So just find those four numbers for you, then when you leave, you’ll be confident that they know what winning looks like because they have the same numbers that you have. And then what you’re going to end up with is a business that’s going to be worth way more valuable value than whether you were in there grinding it. And so it’s those four steps. So really think bigger than you and you know, take a weekend, take a four-day weekend and just kind of brainstorm with your spouse and your family. What did they want? Right from you? And they probably want more of you. So okay, if they want to see more of you? How can you do that? How can you go to a four-day workweek? Starting next week, let’s just pull the band-aid off, let’s go to a four-day workweek, what needs to happen and what needs to change in your business to allow that to happen. And many times we feel guilty about doing this, but we have to let the team know, you know what I’m taking this day off. And I’m thinking about our future and our strategy. So if a pandemic happens, or there’s a disruption that happens, we’re going to be ready. And no employee thinks that’s bad. That’s like maybe golfing or you know, just you know, going for lunch with friends and all that. But all of that stuff triggers. Oh, yeah, yes, I know. So don’t feel guilty. That’s the number one thing, your mental health is critical. The highest number of suicides are business owners, entrepreneurs, and physicians, right, and healthcare workers. And so let’s not forget about taking care of ourselves.

Kathy (host):

Yeah, that is so important. Because just because you’re not in front of the computer or your workstation, whatever that might be, doesn’t mean that you’re not working. And usually, by the time that you’re relaxing, your brain always thinks something in the back. Like for me, it’s it’s always simmering in the background, and just at the time when I’m completely relaxed, like I’m able to fix a lot of problems. I’m like, “Oh, I didn’t even think about that.”

Jeff (guest):

Yeah, absolutely. So do yourself and your company a service by rolling back, and then maybe 10 days a month for you could be 20 days, right? If that makes you happy then great. You know, whatever is unique to you. Step back. You’ll love your family will thank you for it.

Kathy (host):

And you know, before I let you go, I do have to ask because I’m super curious. What are your four KPIs that you’re using in your businesses? Probably each business has their own but what are like the most common denominators for those?

Jeff (guest):

You know what’s interesting is this that changes right, obviously. But if you are a customer-facing business, almost all of my customer-facing businesses have the number of five-star reviews, Google reviews. Because, like in one of my clinics, for example, every 0.1 cost me $10,000 a month, right? So if I’m 4.7 or 4.4, that’s $200,000 a year that I’ve just lost, and so many, many, many. And you look at the studies, right? 87% of people read online reviews, and they take it like it’s a recommendation from their best friend. So people take these reviews very seriously. So I look at what’s the one domino that knocks down all the others. So we get a five-star review. That means we’re executing well, right? The customer experience is great. The check-in, the checkout, you know, we’re getting our bills out. So all parts of the business are there. So I like that. My team members always, they don’t usually have dollar numbers, but I do, net profits. Incredibly important for me. And the lessons from COVID, we really have to watch the expenses, right? Because the only way you can make money is to charge more and reduce your expenses. And so that’s a tough one because so many expenses have gone up 5, 10, 15%. So are you aware of what you were paying two years ago compared to today? And how can you mitigate that, because there are some expenses, like we’ve tried, we can’t reduce them, it is the new reality, these are the expenses. So my expense ratio, as well as my net profit, and then the number of five-star reviews, or I may have a customer associate that’s showing me okay, here’s our report. This is how it’s going.

Kathy (host):

Yep, that’s great. And also, you know, when you’re looking at expenses, it’s really important that you’re looking at optimizing those expenses versus cutting them. Because there’s a huge difference. If you just cut the expenses, you might be cutting your quality, which is gonna affect all the other parts of the business. So you know, your Google stars can go down, because now your customer experience is not the same anymore. So it’s really important that you’re not just looking at cutting but optimizing.

Jeff (guest):

Yeah, that’s a brilliant point. Absolutely. Correct. Yep. Couldn’t agree more.

Kathy (host):

So Jeff, thank you so much for this conversation. I know that people can find your book on probably on Amazon on your website, if you have one. Where can they find you?

Jeff (guest):

Yeah, so yeah, we’ve got Audible, we got Amazon, all the usual suspects. And I mentioned the 11 step hiring process. I actually have the download on my website for the book. And so we created a website, same name as the book, and it’s fire yourself first dot com. So that’s fire yourself first dot com. And if you go there, just scroll to the bottom, have a download of the 11 step guide. So at least you can get started on that right away. And we’d love it if you have buy the book or it’s not meant to be it’s not, I’m reading Elon Musk’s autobiography. This is not a 400 800-page book, right? So this should be a couple of hours light reading high level with very specific tactics because I want you to know exactly what I did.

Kathy (host):

I love it. I love that, and the URL is also going to be in the show notes. So if you missed that, just go in the show notes. It’s going to be there. Thank you so much, Jeff. I really appreciate you being on the show.

Jeff (guest):

Thank you, Kathy. This is awesome.