Answering Burning Business Questions at a Live Q&A | Ep 172
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What's up guys, welcome back to Build. On today's episode, I'm going to bring you some questions I was just asked at my most recent scaling workshop that you can find out how to be a better leader. So I have to let go of the whole department because it's not profitable. And the question is how I communicated with the team and also the people I have to let go. Okay, so you're going to close the department.

Basically. Okay. You mean let go of all of them. Okay. What department is it? It's electricians. Okay. I'm sorry. That fucking sucks. Yeah. Yeah. So do you also have to let go of the manager or is there one? Yeah, I have to let go of him as well. Okay. Understood. Because it does make sense that he's still there. Yep. I've done this before. Yep. Sucks. It's going to really suck. But the right way to do it is that

You do not ask him to let anybody go, but you shoulder it all. So you'll meet with them all individually. I think it's some people do these in group. I would never do that. I would make sure that I gave them all a severance package.

So even though you're laying them off, I think I've, anytime that I've had to shut down a department for any reason, whether it be monetary or otherwise, I always try to give them more than I'm even comfortable with because you're just trying to get them off on their feet. And so I don't think it is productive to keep those people because some companies say, let's keep the people, pay them. I don't think that's productive. I think it creates a very shitty environment for everybody. So I would say that

Basically, what you want to do is put together a severance package, however much money you can give them in terms of how much time they can then have to find a job. The next best thing, and what I did when I had to lay off our customer service team at Prestige Labs, I have the story of this on my YouTube, is I literally tried so hard. I contacted every friend I had that had customer service departments, and I got everybody to say what roles were needed for them, and then I got people lined up with interviews.

So if they didn't fucking hate me and want me to die, I was like, well, I have five interviews for you if you would like them. I also pre-wrote all letters of recommendation for everybody that I let go. So it's like severance package, line them up with interviews, letters of recommendation, meet with everybody individually and accept the fact that you're going to feel like shit for like a week.

And when I met with everybody, I was just completely honest. I took it all on me. I didn't blame it on the business, nothing. I said, this is my fault. I did not properly hire with, you know, forecast. I didn't know, I'm ignorant. I literally said, I was like, I would fire me, but I can't because I own the company. So here we are. Um,

Yeah, everyone else is stuck with me. That's how I felt at the time. I felt like really shitty. So I think you're just honest. You don't put any blame on them or the department or anything. You just say like, hey, I'm really sorry. This is terrible news. But I'm going to have to lay you off because we have to close the whole department. And also then communicated the same way with the rest of the team because like,

Like they like each other. Yeah, you have to be as transparent as possible. Like my transparency saved me with gym launch because the thing is, is that if everybody else, they're going to be scared no matter what you say. And they're even more scared if they feel like you're lying to them because then they're like, well, who's next? What's really going to happen? And so I told my team, I was like, listen, I overhired.

And it's fucked. But like I overhired by a lot. You know, we have 15 people that like we're doing nothing. And so I just owned it. I said, listen, I'm not perfect. This is my first time ever having a company this big. And I made a huge mistake and I'm embarrassed and I'm ashamed. And you guys don't deserve this. And I will never let this happen again to the best of my ability that I know how. Obviously, I never anticipated this.

Because it really fucked with me as a leader because I consider myself to be like, all I ever wanted to be was a great leader for my team. And that's what drives me in business. And then I did the thing that is like the complete opposite of that, despite all of my intentions and wishes. And so I just was honest about it. You know, I think it was probably the only time

I don't like cry in front of my team, you know, like I don't, but like, I think I cried on the call a little bit. Cause I was just like, I felt terrible, you know? And I was like, I know you're friends with all these people. I encourage you to keep being friends with them. They probably fucking hate me. Um, but I was just completely honest. And I said, I understand if you guys are, have lost trust in me or, um, faith in me, but I'm also not going to sit here and lie to you about what happened because I don't think that's going to make anything any better. I like just be honest, state the facts, um,

don't sugarcoat it to them because people are smarter than you think and it doesn't help the culture anyways. And I would say also just expect that people are gonna be like a little shook for six to 12 months. I know.

But companies go on for, I mean, Jim Rochester, they, they call themselves the survivors of the purge. I wish I was kidding. They're like, I went to the event like this and they were like, remember, because we survived the purge. And I was like, I was like, dude, that's like not funny to me, but I like appreciate that you guys like still believe in me. Um,

So, yeah, I'm sorry you have to do that. Be as honest as possible and just do overextend yourself for the people that you're letting go, because how you let them go is going to say it. It will it will translate into how you feel about yourself as a leader for the next however long. Thank you very much. Of course. All right.

So I asked Frank about how do I keep remote workers engaged? And he gave me a really good tip that he does with you. Well, you do with him. You send an Excel sheet every Thursday and you ask what went well, what went wrong and how can I help?

How do you stay disciplined? Because I tried that before. And then after like six weeks, I stopped kind of responding to that Excel and they stopped filling it out. So how can you stay like disciplined and make it fun for them to fill out that every week and make it fun for you as well? It's not fun. I don't give a fuck about fun. I'm trying to be a good leader. I'm trying to build something impactful. And so there's things that we have to do that...

Like if you want to have a great engaged team, you have like a lot of people get into being an entrepreneur because they want freedom and all these things. But then they also want to have this amazing team and all these things. Well, if you want to have this amazing team that is very loyal to you and will like work their ass off at the company, then you have to do that for them. And so I think about it as like I have to work my ass off to show them how much I value them because I do.

But in terms of like, do I like the fact that every Friday, and my assistants can see it on my calendar. I'm like looking for them. I'm like, where is she at? Yeah, Pat knows. It says like it has at 5 or 6 a.m. end of week report review. Takes me about 90 minutes to go through all of them. And I do it every Friday because I ask for people to submit it on Thursday. And I've done that for eight years. And I don't think it's like fun. But what I do think is fun is having a team that

I feel like has a fantastic culture that are driven, where I have people that share the same values as me and where I can retain good people. So it's like in the micro, it's not fun, but in the macro, it's fun for what you're creating. And so I will say this, if you don't respond to the reports, they will stop filling them out. That's just the science of behavior. And also, I think it's very punishing to ask someone to fill out a lot of data and then not respond to it. And so you could ask anybody in here,

If somebody fills out a new report that I review, I respond to every single thing that they put in. There's probably six or seven sections. I respond to all six or seven almost compulsively. Like I double check to make sure. And so little things like that are very important in terms of building a culture. And so it may not be fun, but you will see the fruits of your labor in six to 12 months.

Does that make sense? Yeah. Appreciate it. Thank you. For sure. How do you keep remote workers engaged and on task without micromanaging? Well, the first question I had was about end of week reports. And so do you do those?

Not currently, but I will be. Okay. That's the first thing. I would just say keeping remote workers engaged, like I would say that you, one, I'll say this. When you hire people remotely, you do need to hire people, in my opinion, that have more of a base level of skill than if you were to hire in person. And here's what I mean by that. A lot of the times there are certain people of certain experience levels that it doesn't make sense to hire remotely because they don't have the skill of self-management.

I made this mistake in our first company by hiring people who didn't understand that just because you work remotely doesn't mean that you're doing laundry, you're leaving for three to four hours from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. When you have a job that's an actual nine to five that you're on customer service, that would be tough. And so it's people who didn't know how to manage themselves.

And they didn't understand that remote work didn't mean like, oh, I'm just not working as much as I would be in person. And so I think it does require, like you have to determine like what are the base level skills that I actually don't think I should be training in people. I should just be hiring them already coming with those skills. That's the first because in person,

There's certain people like of that experience, right? Like that same person who like literally left for four hours and also was like doing laundry on a call. If that person had been in this office, that behavior would not have been physically able to happen. And so that person could work in the office and probably be productive, but not able to work at home. That's the first thing. The second thing is that when keeping people engaged, a lot of times, in my opinion, it's getting people to interact with people that are not on their team.

and also giving people a variety of tasks. And so the more variety somebody has in the job, the more engaged they're going to be for the most part. And so something that I think about a lot with our team is how do I build an organization where I give people a lot of variety in terms of the work that they do so they can acquire a lot of skills and they have a lot of interest? Because...

If somebody has a lot of variety in the things they do, they're constantly have something they can be working on and progressing in. And I think that a lot of people like that because if you have one thing and you get really good at it, you get really bored really quick. And so it's like, how do we put people on projects? How do we give people other things they can do? How do we cross train people? How do we add more variety to the job? I actually think that that fundamentally, whether it be remote or in person, is how we should be thinking about how to keep workers engaged.

That combined with positive reinforcement for doing their job. I think a lot of people think, well, I paid you to do the job, so you should be engaged. Well, not really. If you want people to be really engaged, put discretionary effort towards it, then they should be high five, handshake, great job, you did good work as often as possible. And that's just a cultural piece. That was not a very concise answer, but there we go. Thanks. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Okay.

Leila, your favorite video of mine is the one where you show behind the scenes of this event and all the rehearsals that went into it. I'm a public speaking coach and I work with CEOs and their teams. So just seeing that process was great. Oh, thanks. The question I had for you is my ideal clients are a lot like you, successful people who run events like these. That's a pitch. But I've never had to... Maybe it's coming. Who knows? It's happened. I've never had to...

pitch anyone for my business. Usually it's referral or they find me online. But now to expand my business, I know I have to try to do that. But I don't know how to get access to people like yourself and what offer to reach out to them with. So what would you recommend? Yeah, it's interesting. So what's your offer right now? Usually they have me come in, look at all their slides, give them feedback on the actual rehearsal. So I'm consulting them on the presentation and the delivery. So I don't have an offer per se. Understood. Is there a way that you could get some of those things ahead of time and then

literally do a review of a piece of it and send it to them? It's hard because a lot of these things are confidential until I sign the contract and I show up. So I don't even know they're having an event until they reach out to me. Yeah. Because, I mean, the best way, like, how anybody ever gets my attention is they do an enormous amount of work ahead of time and then find a way to get it in front of me. And then I'm like, damn, that was, like, really impressive. And then I almost can't. I'll give you an example. I have a girl who she, you know, I put a post up. I was like, I'm...

because I have a tough, these pants don't fit right. And I was like, I need a stylist. Somebody help, right? And so I put this thing up and it's like, everyone submits maybe three pages, five pages of outfits or something. This girl sends me a 140-page document

Photoshop my body into all these outfits, 140 pages. It's like I couldn't even say no to her. I was just like, it was overwhelming and they were all freaking awesome. And so I was just like, holy shit. And she had the methodology on each one behind why she selected that style. And then her offer was, you know, work with me. Like I will do this for free for six months. And if you like it, then we can do business together. And I was like, I mean, how the fuck do you say no to that?

I mean, like, really? Like, I actually liked it. It was great. It was overwhelming. I love the fact that she hustled. And I was like, I respect that. And so I sent her an email the other day. I was like, all right, let's do it. So that's what I'd be trying to figure out for them is, like, you have to deliver the value ahead of time because options is not an issue for anybody in my position. It's like you have overwhelming options. It's how do you stand out and become the best option, which in a lot of cases, like, for people that I would say, like,

The worst thing you can do is try and position yourself as like, I am the scarcest. It's like, fuck that shit. Anyone that tries to do that with me, I'm just like, dude, I just don't give a fuck. I'm not that way. I don't want to deal with people that way. But if somebody can give overwhelming value, they will get my attention. Another example, I had a guy who wanted to do my Twitter. This was like two and a half years ago when I thought having a Twitter ghostwriter would be good for me, which I do not have a Twitter ghostwriter anymore. But he got my attention because I said I'm looking for a Twitter ghostwriter.

And the guy made me 60 tweets ahead of time. And then he sent me the, it was a click up board with all the tweets. And then he was like, have them if you want them. Uh, and if you want help in the future, I'm here if you want. And I was like, okay. And I was like, these are actually really good. And so then, you know, I worked with the dude and I learned a lot. I just decided I wanted to do it myself in terms of Twitter. Um,

Like I can pretty much think that for every vendor that we work with at acquisition.com, that's how they've gotten in. It's that. It's like finding something that you can deliver ahead. So for you, it's like there's confidential stuff. Like is there something you can find that's not confidential? Content they put out, things that they have on their platforms, anything that you can do where you can do a breakdown and send it to them in an email format, something easy to digest. That's what I would be thinking of like how can you do that? I'm damn sure that would work.

Thank you. Hi. I had a question. So we didn't plan this, but we're an all-female group in medical practice. And when I first opened, I kind of swung the pendulum like a doctor, put your head down and work. And that didn't work.

So then we did a 180 and people didn't feel appreciated. There were different things. So swung the pendulum the other way and then did too much, like gave too much, too many parties, too many things. So now I feel like I'm kind of in the middle, kind of figured it out. But then I'm trying to lead by numbers. So I saw your video about using metrics, but that still doesn't seem like it's being well received. And I don't know.

But you can't argue with the data. So how do I use that as my lead point to still keep the pendulum kind of in the center? I'm always willing to give and take, but I feel like there's still this emphasis on give, give, give by the company and not so much on the other side. Have you shared with them any of this?

I have. But again, it's all women. So... And I don't know how to...

It feels like it's very emotional discussion, but it doesn't come back to... It stays on the emotional side. It never comes back to the factual side. And so do I have the wrong people or is it my delivery? Like, I just try to figure this out and I just... It might be a combination of both. Right. Because I would say, like, you know, we've got... I mean, our team has, like, 50% women probably. And I mean...

I don't think that they don't argue with facts, you know? And I think that that's something that you set as a precedent as their leader, which is like what's acceptable and what's not, what's okay, what's not. You know, I don't look at a guy, a girl any differently. I have guys that emote too. Like, you know, it is what it is. I would say that in terms of changing the culture towards being more data-oriented, that's something that I would deeply communicate with them as to why it's so important.

And so, you know, for our team, for example, anytime that something is really important that I want to continue to get the message across, it's like I'm going to continue talking at them over and over again about the topic.

Right. And so like, you know, something that's this quarter top of mind for me is like communication silos. You know, as our team has expanded, we added like almost 20 people this last quarter. Communication starts to segment and we're not getting enough peer communication and feedback. And so like our quarterly, that's what I talked about at our, you know, I did a leadership Q&A. That's what I talked about. And so it's continuing to reinforce the message of why it's important. And so for you, I would say that they probably need a

session where you explain why data is important because this is the way I would position it. My job is to look out for the business because the business feeds everybody here. And I can't do that without data. And so listen, I don't like collecting data more than any of you guys, right? Like I don't like having to have spreadsheets and systems and like typing in numbers. Like the last thing I want to do, I got into this because I want to help people, right? But we can't help people unless we have all of that.

And so you have to tie it back to how it impacts the people that they actually want to help. And how it affects them too. Exactly. How's it going to give them more job security? How's it going to actually help them help the patients more? Like every time I'm thinking about how to get a team bought in, I'm thinking of how does it benefit these individuals rather than me, the company, the customer? It's like, how's it going to be individually beneficial to everybody here? So I think that's what you want to speak to. And if people are opposed to doing things, I think it's also like,

This is not a democracy at the end of the day. And so just because you guys all don't want to do this,

this is what I have to do to make this business work and for us to actually serve our patients to this degree. So if you don't want to do this, like, let me know in private, but either get on board or get off. Like at some point you have to put your foot down and say like, this is unacceptable because if your team is not adhering to a way of doing things, that's going to make you a better business owner, a better business. It's going to help grow the business. It's going to help the customers more than that's just irresponsible to let that behavior continue.

All right. Thank you for answering that. That was actually a great question. Can you guys hear me? Perfect. If you don't mind sharing the most effective strategies that you implemented at Gym Launch for retention and ascension. Sorry, some little phone went off. It was an odd sound. Retention and ascension. Yes. Well, retention, I don't know if anyone here has read the book Gym Launch Secrets, but we have what we call the five horsemen of retention. You read it? Yep.

That's literally what we do. And so a lot of times, if you're looking at retention, it's really, I would say, you probably want to switch to instead of focusing on retention, focusing on time to value. So leading indicator of retention is how quickly do we deliver value to the person who purchased the product or how quickly do we get them to use the product? The two usually go hand in hand, but getting them to use it and then get value from it as quickly as possible, that's the...

for the most part, one of the highest, like highest leverage things you can do to retain somebody. The second piece to it is, did you know that more customers leave a company because of customer service rather than the product or the price? Interesting, right? That was a study that just came out by McKinsey. It was like two months ago. Um,

And so I say that because I think a lot of people think, oh, customer service, customer communication, all the soft stuff. Fuck that. This is how you actually have a business. And so I would focus on time to value and the communication that I have with the customers and what kind of experience I'm trying to create for them. Because when you think about retention, there's two sides to it. There's results and there's experience. And a lot of businesses tend to, especially smaller businesses, they can deliver results.

But the experience is kind of shitty. It's like you don't always get back to people on time. You don't know when you're going to hear from somebody. It's inconsistent. Where on the other side, some businesses are great experience. These are the kind where like, say you have a friend and they're in like a mastermind or something. And it's like one day you're like, hey man, how much more money are you making? You've been this mastermind for two years. And then they're like, the same.

And you're like, well, what the fuck? Why are you paying 30 grand a year for a mastermind if you're not making any more money? And then they're like, oh shit. And you're like, you know, they have these cool like events and we go to this thing and it's this whole thing, right? And so,

the best businesses where you have the retention zone is where you are able to deliver high results and high experience, both of those. And so like our team knows this because we talked about like for these workshops, like how do we increase the experience, not just from a professional standpoint, but a personal standpoint. You guys travel here, you've come a long way. Some of you are out of the country. Like how do we make it as comfortable as possible? We got a long way to go, but I do believe that that's where you are able to retain a customer at the highest degree. And so those are the things I'd be thinking about in terms of Ascension, um,

Retention is obviously the first piece to it. In terms of ascending people, I think most people try to ascend people too late. And so a lot of the times, it's like everybody, every buyer has a different phase that they want to upsell, right? And so there is a phase of buyers that are very excited in the beginning and they want more of what they've already got. And so they're actually usually eager quite quickly, like early on, you know, in the first couple weeks.

four to six weeks maybe even where they're like, I just want more of what I just got. It's kind of like, think about if you go shopping. It's like, oh, okay, for women. You go shopping and you're like, I'm going to go shopping. But like the next weekend you don't want to go shopping. But when you're shopping, you're like, all I want to do is shop. I'm ready to spend money right now. And so a lot of buyers are like that. It's like they're in a buying phase and they want to buy in the beginning. And so how I look at it is you want to have indicators of

of when you can offer. So for Gym Watch, for example, we did not offer anybody to upsell or ascend until week six, unless they left a testimonial where they earned back not just their initial investment, but 50% more of that. So it's like 1.5x what they put in is what they got out. Then we would say, all right, this person's so excited and they left a testimonial. Let's reach out to them and see if they have any interest in ascending.

And a lot of times those people would ascend. Then we also had the six week mark because we knew that what was six weeks? Six weeks was right after we had the first time to value, which was the average gym owner made back their initial investment in the first 30 days. And so six weeks in, people have already made back their initial investment plus some. And so it's like, great, that's a great time to ascend people because they've already made back their money. They've seen value from the program. And then the last phase is for the like the laggards, I would say, which is kind of like cleanup. And for that,

what we used to do is like, you know, kind of send a letter or an email with like a personal video, just like, hey, how's the program going? Like, do you need more help? Because you're actually kind of slow, right? And so if you think about it, it's like you have all these different personas that are going to buy from you and they all are ready at a different time. And so the business that makes the most offers to Ascend is,

tastefully, like given the indicators, will upset most people. So again, it's like you want the indicators, like left a testimonial, hit the time to value, or like they haven't and maybe they just need more help. All right. There are a lot of us medical doctors in the room that have left just regular Western medicine and are doing our own practice. What is the best piece of advice for those of us like, I'm in a med spa, I know he's got a cardiology, you know, trying to prevent people from actually needing a cardiologist. There's a lot of us that

We're not taught business in med school. Yeah. What's the best piece of advice for those of us that actually want to do this and do it big? You need to make a decision of which way you want to go. So I'll give you an example, which is I talked to a plastic surgeon because I got my nose done. And he was like, how do I grow my business? And I was like, dude, you have two routes, which is either you get in the business of training other doctors and learn how to expand locations.

But that means you have to know, are you a good teacher? A lot of plastic surgeons, for example, very egotistical. They're like, I am God. Look at your face now. And I'm like, okay. It looks good though, by the way. I was like, yeah, it's not bad, right? But seriously though, you get what I'm saying. It's like, I was like, are you the best teacher? Versus like, how do you get the absolute most, like I would say like Tony Robbins it, right? Like Tony Robbins has maxed out the like,

personal brand, like in terms of how much money he makes from it, in terms of the team size, he has learned how to leverage himself to a degree where it's like he is the main deliverable, right? And he has all the people that help facilitate that. But I see it as like those are the two routes you have. Like the Tony Robbins route and you have the trainer route. And so I think it's for everyone that it could be medical or it could be, you know, just like –

owner-operator practice of any sort, that's kind of the decision that has to be made. It's like, which route do you want to go? The reason I say it for medicine is because a lot of you guys are in a position where you have built a really great reputation and that can go a long way as well. And there's a lot of, I would say, more opportunity on the training side than there is for somebody like a gym owner. It's just not the same. And like the purchasing power of somebody who wants to get better at medicine is so much higher than somebody who wants to be like a better gym owner. You know what I mean? Yeah.

So I would say it's starting with like making that decision and it's knowing yourself. It's like, do I want to teach and train people? And also know that some of them are going to like take everything and then be like, fuck you. Exactly. Right. And can I deal with that? Am I accepting that downside versus like this downside, which is like a lot will rely on me. I will have a lot of upside too, but a lot will rely on me. That happens a lot in aesthetics. You'll train people and then they'll do their own thing. Totally. All right. It's just that decision. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I don't think there's a right or wrong. Just knowing yourself what you want. Yeah. Yeah.

I own a chain of martial arts studios, and something we struggle with a lot is retaining staff. We profit share with the communication leaders, the head person, the head instructor, and they make anywhere from $70,000 to $100,000 a year. But we constantly have people who say they're burned out due to stress or overworking. Our average hours worked last year was 41 and 1/2 hours per location leader.

So I've done a lot of things to make their work environment better and different incentives and things, but we're still struggling with it. So can you give some tips on how to deal with that employee that says I'm burned out? What to do now? I think a lot of the times people are burned out because they're not feeling the reward from their work in some way. And so that could be that they don't feel the impact they're having.

it could be that they don't feel they're making progress or it could be that they feel like they're not appreciated or recognized by their team or their boss. And so most of the time when somebody, I'll tell you this, if somebody tells me they're burnt out or they ask for more money,

One, I don't have a problem if either of those things are truly the – but a lot of the times it's actually feeling underappreciated, feeling like you're not seeing the impact of your work or you're kind of like stuck in a rut, like you're not seeing big progress. Like think about it for you. When do you feel burned out? Like I think for a lot of business owners, like we feel like burned out when you're trying really hard and you're not seeing the fruits of your labor, right? And so for a lot of –

Workers, I would say, like, they feel that way when the same thing is happening. And so I just try to reverse engineer, like, if they're not getting a lot of reinforcement. So I'll give an example. Actually, this is probably better. But, like, for example, when Alex is writing his book, it's, like, a lot of people don't write books because if you really want to write a good book, it takes a very long time. It's super tedious, right? And so...

When he goes through that process, it might be, you know, six hours, eight hours a day for a year that he's writing this book. And so while he's doing that, he's seeing no reward from it at all. And so like, it's not, it's like a dark place to be where it's like, you're working so hard and like, nobody gives a fuck, right? They just expect you to come out with this thing. And like, if it's not like to the best of it, so they're just like, and so I tried during that entire process to like, tell him like,

You worked on it so hard. It's going to be so great. Like constantly, constantly, as much as I can, reminding him of how great it's going to be, how hard he's working, how impressed I am by him, how much I admire him for how hard he works because I'm like, I don't want to fucking do that. Right? Like I'd rather be over here. So just like really, I'm not making it up, but I'm trying to be the reinforcement because the work is not yet reinforcing. And so in my opinion, what a great boss does is that they reinforce the teammate until the work reinforces them.

So an example might be if you have somebody, a weight loss coach, you run a weight loss business or a gym or something, right? And they have people that they're trying to help lose weight and they're not losing weight yet, right? Like you want to be the one that reinforces that person. Great job. You know what? You stuck with the plan. You did this until the scale says you've lost weight. And I look at that as like the job of a coach or a boss is to bridge the gap of the reinforcement until the work reinforces you itself. You reinforce them instead.

Thank you. So you mentioned that every business owner thinks that everything in their business is breaking. And so what is your framework to evaluate if that something is real, like it's breaking for real, or if it's just something that the business owner wants to have better? Well, I would say that

The main thing is like, is this the reason you're not growing? Is this preventing us from growing? Is it preventing us from the business like actually operating? Right. It's like, is this preventing the business from growing because we don't have enough CS and we aren't able to retain people? Is it preventing the business from growing because, you know, we have we don't have enough salespeople? I would be thinking about it through that lens versus like just not being perfect.

And so a lot of times people that are great operators also have like very high standards. And so not being perfect is enough to say it's broken. But the reality is a perfect business likely makes no profit and doesn't grow because we're so busy tying up all these details that will never be, that will never exist. At least not in the first 10 years of a business that it's like you miss, what do you call it? The forest for the trees. And so that's what I always ask myself, like, is this the biggest problem I should be working on right now?

Like, if I put my time here, like you as a business owner, where you put your time, that's the most valuable resource that exists is literally your attention. And so like, I constantly am auditing, like, should I even be putting my attention here? I'll even have like someone asked me a question, like, is this really where my attention should go? Sometimes I just ignore it, because I'm just like, I shouldn't even be thinking about this. And so it's almost like thinking of yourself as a resource. Is it the best use of your time to be solving that problem?

And if it's not the best use of your time, maybe it can be the best use of somebody else's time. But I think that the founder and the CEO's time should be spent on the biggest problems or I would say unlocks in the business. Like what constraint do you have to unlock to grow the business? And I try to put as much of my time in those areas as possible.