[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to Let's Not Sugar Coated.
[SPEAKER_00]: Season 3 is here and we're excited to dive into the core of communication relationships and leadership.
[SPEAKER_03]: We are hosts, Bella and Lee, a husband and wife duo with the successful business helping couples and organizations get it together to play a bigger game and elevate the relationships and performance.
[SPEAKER_00]: We believe in keeping it real, so each week we'll bring you incredible guests, entrepreneurs sharing their authentic experiences, along with episodes featuring just the two of us tackling the tough topics.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, if you're ready to enhance your connections and sharpen your leadership skills, you're in the right place.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's get started.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh!
[SPEAKER_04]: Welcome to the Let's Not Sugar Code of Podcasts, and today we've got Jeff Swan joining us again, actually, around two.
[SPEAKER_04]: So Jeff Swan is a sales innovator and founder of SOS signals, a platform designed to help enterprise and B2G sales team stop wasting time chasing ghost deals and start closing with confidence.
[SPEAKER_04]: with over $255 million in influenced pipeline across 75 plus revenue organizations.
[SPEAKER_04]: Jeff has worked as a fractional CRO consultant and founder helping teams transform the way they sell.
[SPEAKER_04]: So welcome, Jeff.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for having me, Gunlee.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, this is around two, only just because we had a bit of a glitch the last time.
[SPEAKER_04]: And, but this is the way things work, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: And here, whether you're running a podcast or a business, I mean, things sometimes don't work the way that they're supposed to do.
[SPEAKER_04]: And you just gotta pivot and do it again.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I can shake you, making time to come back and do this again with us, of course.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: But you work a lot in the,
[SPEAKER_04]: IT software kind of space.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I imagine you've experienced your fair share of more is not more than my fair share.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, as I'm telling you earlier, that the even me recording my videos daily, I got all this new equipment and my computer can't handle it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I have to re-build my computer now just to be able to handle all the great equipment I got.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm used to it, you know, recording five videos in a row and finding a didn't have audio.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it happens so I'm happy to do a redo and you know, share some insight with your audience.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, maybe to get started, tell us a little bit about your journey into where you are now, wouldn't being a founder of SOS signals.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I didn't always start with the idea of being a business owner.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, I remember in university, one of my colleagues, he was taking the business I went to at the first school of business in San Manitoba.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was telling me that he was, you know, we only wanted to start a business.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought he was crazy because that wasn't what it was like back in, in a way if I got everybody wanted to get that great job, you know, that was expecting to make it ton of money right out of school.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I was going for a job.
[SPEAKER_01]: It used to go for a business.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just so funny that like if you look now, this is 20 years later since I graduated, I'm running a business and he's a little bit junkly.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's kind of funny to that journey.
[SPEAKER_01]: It happens over time.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, you know, I had several different kind of turning points in my career where I had some of the best jobs on university, some great mentors.
[SPEAKER_01]: I worked for some of the top companies in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like all this stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I kind of got this for some reason.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, when I was living in Winnipeg, way, way back, I got this call to go, work on beach in Miami, you know, and so I was working on a laptop running a tech company, and that tech company could took me to Vancouver, because that's really great stuff with, yeah, and I loved that, and then just love, I got the bite for this life, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: So by the time I lived in Vancouver, I started really digging deep into that and, you know, networking, hosting workshops and on internet marketing.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the thing at the time, yeah, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And, and it just like, it, I just lit up with my whole soul lit up, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, it was hard, you know, some months you're making the money, some months you're making 30, 40,000 dollars.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't like it just, it's up and down, but it's that rush of just getting,
[SPEAKER_01]: We out there and solving problems for people that they want to pay for, you know, so along the way I ended up just talking to so many companies where, you know, I was selling marketing revops services, okay, so technology.
[SPEAKER_01]: web design, CRM's, all the other stuff that had always been building tech for kept gravity teams and every single person that I talk to, type in the same problem, how do I book more meetings?
[SPEAKER_01]: How do I book more meetings?
[SPEAKER_01]: And how do I run an SDR team?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, sales development representative?
[SPEAKER_01]: And the way you knew how to do it, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So it ended up taking me into coaching, which is outbound at Southwest, which is the company I have now.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is in 2021, and I've since coached thousands of people around the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've had clients in Egypt, in London, in France, and Russia, like all this stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the cool thing is that it's just evolved so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it kind of brought me to where I am today, where
[SPEAKER_01]: I've recognized that just doing outbound isn't enough.
[SPEAKER_01]: I used to tell people just, you know, it's a numbers game, do all the activities and go crazy and you will get results just for doing the activities, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And while there's still some truth to that, you know, doing the work against the work, gets the results.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to be a lot more intelligent now.
[SPEAKER_01]: As you see with the admin to VI, you know, people are
[SPEAKER_01]: very easily at their fingertips, they have all this access to what they call personalization and all that stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just don't believe that is the challenge.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't believe that is really the solution to getting more meanings because all that's causing is AI bloat.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, AI slot, I think you said.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so now what we're doing is is a very innovative approach to leveraging AI and human touch.
[SPEAKER_01]: to actually do deep research on clients so that not only do you have a personalized message, but you actually have a person like a more partner-driven approach and more like, you know, us as buddies talking to each other.
[SPEAKER_01]: I understand what's going on.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can anticipate your challenges and then come out of it with a real way to actually help somebody.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hmm.
[SPEAKER_01]: The underlying thing behind that is not to think of it as a vendor.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying to get customers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's how can I help the people that I know I can help today.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you take that approach that mindset and then really, really dig deep.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's amazing the types of meetings that you get from that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I bet those sounds like you're also wondering of not just getting any client, but it's also about now that you have this this vision that you have kind of this new path, yep, that there's also a certain type of clientele that you want to be working with as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: 100% and I'm stringent with this now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've actually turned down clients.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't even have a full client roster right now because it's a brand new service.
[SPEAKER_01]: I launched about a month ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I've been turning down clients because they don't fit what I want to produce.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want people who are ethical in how they do things.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have realistic expectations of
[SPEAKER_01]: the amount of work you have to do just to be successful.
[SPEAKER_01]: I even have on my website have a big exit says no set it and forget it.
[SPEAKER_01]: No high volume.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want people to use this as a trick, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it isn't unfair advantage.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's something that let's put this way.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did send two emails to one client.
[SPEAKER_01]: last week or two Fridays ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: Had a meeting with him Tuesday, I'm signing with him today.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's because I was very deliberate, very thoughtful and how I reached out to him.
[SPEAKER_01]: I knew that his company was stable long-term on a slight growth path, but I know I can help them get their
[SPEAKER_01]: And they have the right mindset, you know, just so happens, this one was in the M&A space where I don't know if you've ever heard this, but M&A groups that come together and they buy companies within a category and then they install a general manager as opposed to CEO.
[SPEAKER_01]: and that general manager's job is to make it more efficient, run better, you know, really build that brand up, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I knew I had it somebody with the mindset that I have and so when I talked to him, it felt like I was talking to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: It felt like I was talking to somebody that I know that I understand.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because I did my research and he actually really cared what we were saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it was just one of those things that just kind of came together and so I'm looking for clients like that I'm looking for people who understand growth isn't just this hockey step, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's these little building blocks every single day you have to do to build the wall build the whatever you're doing, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm really interested in your, um, I guess kind of like your, your filtering process as far as how you go about choosing which clients that you walked to work with versus the ones that you, you know, exclude the ones that you say I'm not working with them but first.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm even more curious about what is that, I guess, to unication that you have with yourself, what's that internal tension like when it comes to
[SPEAKER_04]: You know that you have this, let's say unfair advantage, because you're saying it's an unfair advantage for other companies, which really makes it an unfair advantage for you and only when it comes to other businesses that are working in the same kind of industry, providing the similar types of services.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I think it would be easy for most people.
[SPEAKER_04]: to want to leverage this as much as they can to blow up as much as they grow as fast as they can to really just, you know, beat all their competition, make as much money as possible, you know, become a, I think everybody looks at building businesses sometimes is a pathway to becoming multi millionaire right and so I feel like it would be.
[SPEAKER_04]: I want to see very difficult, but I think you need to have some type of foundation, I think some type of regular conversation with yourself, to make sure that you're not chasing the dollar that you have a different time of focus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, first and foremost, I know that I worked with over 75 businesses.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've started five of my own.
[SPEAKER_01]: I failed two point two of those five.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that this is a long road.
[SPEAKER_01]: This isn't a quick thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I used to say, oh, I'm going to be making that under geez in a month and three months.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like I just actually think that and having gone through it with other companies with my own.
[SPEAKER_01]: I recognize that I have to be as realistic as possible and put in more work than I think I need.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm just keep going farther further and all what in that internal struggle is is backed by decades and two decades of
[SPEAKER_01]: things that work, things that didn't, people who style worked and who styled in people who I mesh with.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I find that I try to look for people who I would go and spend a night with, I might go on a trip with and have great conversations the whole time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like where they're just aligned when they're expecting is what I'm giving and then
[SPEAKER_01]: But they're they're they're they're aligned in the way they think about business.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you and I talk last week about, you know, Stephen Covey 7 habits, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And and those habits are universal this book is 30 years old.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, maybe older.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, um, and uh, and it's just when you think of things like being proactive and beginning at the end in mind like,
[SPEAKER_01]: These are really, really important things to think about and when you have people who just settle a gold mine, you know, they just happen to find that one product or one solution that just everybody wants and they just grow viral like crazy and it's amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then people try to emulate that, even though it's not built on a foundation of development.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, there's there's a thing I learned in university was growth versus development.
[SPEAKER_01]: Growth, it's hockey stick development is built in those building blocks, I mentioned earlier.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I always have this as like, who I'm critical with myself when I'm talking to somebody is this my type of person is this that person I can go and sit around a campfire and you know just talk for hours on on business and what they're trying to do and their vision Do I believe in their vision?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do I believe they can execute on it?
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, just because they have a lot of money from investors or whatever else, it doesn't mean that you know, the general public is going to love them, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Some people have really switched on friends, you know, that can buy their service because their friends and they trust them and all that stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't mean they can go and get the next five customers that aren't their friends, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I always think about that and I look at it from, I also do investing, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I look at it
[SPEAKER_01]: What I'd be an advisor when I accept a position if they ask me, you know, and if that's that's a no I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I'm not interested right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll need your dollars.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm good.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that I need I need you to succeed and you'll and I have this incredible list of reasons why people don't succeed and I just wait and over the years I see them fail I predict it and I'm like that's why I fired that kind of
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and I'm sorry to say it sounds brutal, but it's a truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just like a lot of my mentors growing up was slow to hire, quick to fire.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the same thing with your clients, you know, take them on quietly, take them on deliberately and slowly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then once you get them, keep them at the lock of down.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I think when you're, when you're in that business mentality, whether you're a entrepreneur or you're running, you know, up business, you're going to, in your suit position, there is a lot of creativity that you have to bring to the table.
[SPEAKER_04]: And when you are investing that creativity into another
[SPEAKER_04]: into a team or into a client that is resisting it, I think that becomes a draw on energy versus feeding into your energy when you're working with individuals that are really what they take your ideas, whether they take your coaching, whether they take your service, and they really leverage it, or they take it and they make it better for themselves that feeds back into your creativity.
[SPEAKER_04]: So that makes sense that you would
[SPEAKER_04]: fire certain clients that just aren't aligned with your core values, ethics, or even just not doing the work with.
[SPEAKER_04]: I feel like that is actually a pretty important part of a culture that you would want to build in your organization, whether you want to be a small nibble company of 510, 15 people, or you want to have hundreds or thousands of employees.
[SPEAKER_04]: If you're building a
[SPEAKER_04]: These are the types of companies we work with.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're going to attract certain type of people that want to work for an organization that want to work for you because they're like, oh, this company really aligns with my own ethics, my own core values.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I think that's, that's pretty cool.
[SPEAKER_04]: I want to take us back, though.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, you were saying that you wanted to start off just working for someone else and not being the entrepreneurial space.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so, you talk about marketing and your journey almost as if you always knew that this is what you wanted to do.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I'm curious, is it something that you always knew that you wanted to do where you just had that clarity very early on of what your passion and purpose was,
[SPEAKER_04]: did you go through some, you know, trial and error?
[SPEAKER_04]: Like how did you figure that out?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, first and foremost, like I did find my way into marketing very naturally, tried to go for art, um, art turned into advertising art, which was craft design.
[SPEAKER_01]: looked into being a graphic designer, how, I'm sorry to say, but how little they may, when not interested anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then what can I do next?
[SPEAKER_01]: And when the marketing and ever since I went into marketing, took every course in school and everybody else is doing double majors, I just said, oh, give me all of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, and I just, and, and the funny thing is, as I was going through school, even though in my mind, I knew I wanted to get a job.
[SPEAKER_01]: the reason I wanted to get a job is I wanted to someone else to pay my education in business.
[SPEAKER_01]: Gotcha.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was really interested in being as the sweet executive.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, so I did tackle that I went after it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I became a VP before it was 30, you know, and um,
[SPEAKER_01]: It was exactly what I want to do and then it gained me enough business experience at someone else's expenses.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I got some assets and I was able to, you know, have an expense account, which was fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: But those types of things taught me, taught me so much about business and putting me in so many rooms that I wouldn't have been in.
[SPEAKER_01]: if I did it on my own.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's why I was able to work with 75 plus clients because I was able to be in the room, presenting the boards, having those side conversations with board members that want to read about the state of the company and what we're going to do, what are you going to do specifically to have been all like that kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: and it taught me so much, it introduced me to investor groups.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I know those are my peers.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know when I was running by M&A for a couple of years ago, like those are my peers.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are guys that they'll deal with.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now I'm kind of like on both sides.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been in the company or I guess all sides.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been in the company.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been in the boardroom.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been in the investor table and now I'm a partner.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and now I'm going into becoming my own actual business.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I think that I hope I'll answer you.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and how do you make that transition?
[SPEAKER_04]: When you are at that level, you've got a certain amount of success behind you.
[SPEAKER_04]: You just said that you were, you know, achieved a VP status at a very young age.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm assuming in an industry, I don't work in marketing.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, I'm assuming in an industry that can be pretty, you know, cut throat up and down, rate, very dynamic.
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_04]: Not only does, is it probably hard to walk away from that feeling of success to start over again, but it also feeds, you know, your ego, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: It definitely feeds into a certain bit of identity, right, where you, you know, you are successful.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then you also mentioned that you've had a couple of businesses that flopped that didn't work.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I'm imagining that that's probably
[SPEAKER_04]: that VP journey for those in the middle isn't in the middle.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so so tell us about kind of this transition because I think that's hard for everybody, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, there's people out there that have, you know, they have their dreams, whether it's in business.
[SPEAKER_04]: starting the room business, buying a business, or maybe just got dreams of not working in nine to five.
[SPEAKER_04]: They want to travel more.
[SPEAKER_04]: They want to have more flexibility, whatever it is.
[SPEAKER_04]: But you feel stuck.
[SPEAKER_04]: You feel tied down.
[SPEAKER_04]: You feel like, well, this is who I've become.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is how I've had certain successes in my life, whatever that means for you, and to try something different.
[SPEAKER_04]: Risks now failure.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, the funny thing is staying on the same road, there's just as much risk failure as there is if you change it, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: But that's not how our mind operates, our mind operates by focusing on what's predictable and certain.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so if I continue doing what I'm doing now,
[SPEAKER_04]: even if it's not chasing my dreams, it feels comfortable with feels safe.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, how did you go about making that shift, whether it was a leap or slow transition, how did you go about doing that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, let's start with a quote from one of my mentors, my first full-time job at a university was working at an auto-group, and when my mentors there said,
[SPEAKER_01]: Guys, I was negotiating with three of the groups that wanted me to be in their team.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was negotiating salaries across the three of them, and they had to be in W, so to me, it's Jeff.
[SPEAKER_01]: Realize, if you go commission, you'll always have a job.
[SPEAKER_01]: You might not always make the same money, but you'll always have a job because you're being paid on commission.
[SPEAKER_01]: when you get a salary, you become a liability that you'd have to be producing with company has to be producing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if not, you lose your job.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I heard it and it feel it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I went into countless tech companies as either a full-time employee or a contractor where I saw that I'm boom, they'd raise a bunch of money, they'd build so fast, they'd hire
[SPEAKER_01]: and I have this happened too many times for me to actually believe the lie that the salary is here.
[SPEAKER_01]: It taught me through all of these things and every time I got my contract dissolved or whatever because of this booming bus process, I was crushing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Personally, I was at least an average over about 20% over my targets and my targets were aggressive.
[SPEAKER_01]: So like it wasn't a performance issue, I recognized that I can slay it and I'm in revenue.
[SPEAKER_01]: I drive the backbone of the company, but it's a company who's not built with a solid foundation underneath.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't matter how many leads I get, how many opportunities, how much revenue my program's generate is that if they can't run it, it's not going to be successful.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'll take a side track on a story with one of those companies,
[SPEAKER_01]: is that they hired me because I have an expertise of getting foreign companies into the states.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in general, and so they hired me specifically to build their U.S.
[SPEAKER_01]: business.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I started putting all these programs together, getting U.S.
[SPEAKER_01]: business.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did an amazing work, I think, increase revenue for marketing source,
[SPEAKER_01]: It was working.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I found out that when they said they had a had the ability to do business in the States When they actually started getting business they realized they couldn't actually fulfill So it was one of those things where like it did not matter how good I was it was like a the old analogy of like chopping trees in the forest and You know one guy just chopping down his ass as he can and he just goes and he never gets out the other guy just climbs to the top of the tree
[SPEAKER_01]: Looks.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the shortest way, and then he goes that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, I have to be very particular about who I do business with, and it's the same thing with everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: Security is not real.
[SPEAKER_01]: And once you understand that it's so much easier to take off to previous risk.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing safer than having 20 clients.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing less safe than having one client.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you're employee on a T4, you'll have one client.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that client has to be successful.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're entire the time there for you to keep that job.
[SPEAKER_01]: Doesn't matter how difficult you do, the company could pull.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, that's a great, great perspective because not not only are you framing it in a way, I think very nicely that is like, that's your one client is your employer.
[SPEAKER_04]: That almost assumes that you have some type of control over how happy your client is, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: Because in a business mindset, even if you were your own business and you have one client,
[SPEAKER_04]: At least you have some control.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I've had clients where we pitch them something, give them a proposal that they were really excited about.
[SPEAKER_04]: But then when it came down to numbers, they weren't excited.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so that contract didn't go through.
[SPEAKER_04]: However, because they're not my employer, where it's like, oh, we just kind of fired you before we even hired you,
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm able to go back and say, okay, if that didn't work for you, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: What's the biggest pain point?
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, let's take a look and figure out what does work.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then adjust the proposals so that the money makes sense.
[SPEAKER_04]: They still get some value.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then all of a sudden, we're back on track.
[SPEAKER_04]: And we're working and providing value for this time.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, we're in employee.
[SPEAKER_04]: You have no control over the what your employer.
[SPEAKER_04]: how well they are doing for other clients, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe if you are part of a startup type company, maybe you've got a little bit more influence there, but if you're part of a big organization, I think there's even more risk there what you're part of a big organization, to be in that position where all of a sudden, you're being laid off because you don't have that,
[SPEAKER_04]: direct control over revenue stream, how money spent, write that fiscal responsibility.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I do like that approach.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah and it goes into the dynamics of we were talking before about running my own business versus being just a freelancer or something like that, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've always hesitated to go towards having a big staff because like I've had the biggest staff I've had at one point was like foreign 30 people or six continents.
[SPEAKER_01]: It took so much time and so much effort and so it took away from my sleep at a newborn at a time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it was the amount of time it took just to manage the managers.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't have to do the work myself because I had such a big name.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it wasn't that wasn't the issue.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was the time it takes to actually give true care through people in different situations.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's just not something it was probably the least happy I was working in a company.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then when I need to have two or three people that are contractors that they can just rely on, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and then they just they have other clients they expect me to not give them 100% in their business.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't feel obligated if I don't want to take on that client because they don't feel the alignment with my values or we can be successful.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not the worry about my paywall, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I just have to worry about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: With laws going up all over the place taxes, minimum wage going up and all these other things that surround it strikes all these other things, it seems like just a huge booby trap for having staff and I feel like
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I don't want to get full of philosophical, but I don't do.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I, I, it feels like our world is created, is being designed nowadays to make people like us not want to hire people, because it is such a pain in the butt, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And unfortunately, like, I have to look at that, is how do I live the best life and be present for my family if I have to work 16 hours a day every day?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, yeah, I mean, yeah, again, just before we hit record, we were having a conversation around not everybody wants the same things.
[SPEAKER_04]: And, and I do believe that there's a lot of, um, hike a lot of romanticizing entrepreneurship, you know, saying that it's, it's almost like this, this is the path to everything that you want in life.
[SPEAKER_04]: And the reality is that it's not, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, not your partnership in order to scale and grow your business.
[SPEAKER_04]: You need to scale and grow yourself.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's a lot of things that I'm still having to push through.
[SPEAKER_04]: I got a face, lots of discomforts, things that are just not natural for me, but I need to do it in order to grow the business.
[SPEAKER_04]: I need to grow myself, my mind's at my skill set, all those things.
[SPEAKER_04]: and yet, but there are people who just, you know, they want to go and work a nine to five.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, have their day very predictable, very static, come home and do life, and then there's I think people like yourself and myself and others that we know that that just sounds a little too boring, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: Nothing wrong with it, but it's just
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I guess balance that for yourself where, you know, you have this drive to build something, you've, you've had the big kind of experience of a big organization, the impact that which I also think is really important to have that reference because it's not always about building a behemoth company, you know, you need to think also have would be end in mind, was that right size of company for you right because if it's too big.
[SPEAKER_04]: then you probably need to be thinking about hiring a CEO at some point or getting a board of directors or something to help with something of that size.
[SPEAKER_04]: But if you're set, but you need to be willing to let go and step away from a lot of it to be able to manage something like that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Where things some people really love what they do so much is that they don't really want to step away.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so you need to be thinking about how do you keep your business
[SPEAKER_04]: either a smaller medium size because you can stay small, be very profitable, have huge value, maybe even more value to your clients.
[SPEAKER_04]: So how do you go about keeping that clarity for yourself in knowing the size of the business that you want?
[SPEAKER_04]: We talked about the clients that you want, but what is the right size and why?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I look at a company like, um, have you heard of 37 signals?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, there's a tool called base camp.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, I've heard a base camp.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, base camp.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're the team behind base camp.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they used to be a company called base camp and 37 signals and whatever else, now they're just all everything is 37 signals.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've always really admired how they, they work.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I can't remember there was a book that the founders built or wrote or whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was around that no mad lifestyle that I'm like entrepreneurial lifestyle that it it's not wish I knew the name of it But the the weight that they'd built their company is the instead of just striving for constantly more more More they decided they want to stay small.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think they have any work from 10 to 20 employees And they've been running one of the most successful platforms in their space for like decades, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I use them in my first web design company in 2003
[SPEAKER_01]: And what I really would like is I want to look at one metric when looking at the success of my company.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's revenue per employee.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, as you said, I don't necessarily want employees, but I want total time of coagulants.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I look at the metric is that I wouldn't want anything less than a million per employee.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if I'm taking a person, yes, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if I'm taking a person, well, that's a salary or a contractor or a team of people that make up one full time or whichever, that has to produce a million dollars in value.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, so, and then just knowing my financial goals, my, you know, my lifestyle and everything.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's very clear.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: It gives you that structure and that that clarity on what it is you want.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it and it really puts in a perspective before you just go out and hire somebody is you're going to really figure out whether you're hiring somebody for 20 bucks an hour or 200 bucks an hour.
[SPEAKER_04]: And what is that value?
[SPEAKER_04]: They're going to burn.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I imagine that it's also not just about paying money that increases revenue because there's going to be certain people that you would bring on again, whether it's a direct employee or your hiring out through a third party is.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're docing some type of cost maybe or your time just thinking about that now.
[SPEAKER_04]: So how would you go about actually factoring in what type of equation would you use?
[SPEAKER_04]: where somebody you hire somebody and what they do.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so it reduces maybe increases your profit a bit.
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe increases a little bit right now.
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's see, no increase in revenue.
[SPEAKER_04]: But there's a little bit of a profit shift.
[SPEAKER_04]: But then it's giving you some time back.
[SPEAKER_04]: For example, what?
[SPEAKER_04]: Does that get factored into that revenue calculation at all?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I'm adding time back to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, because I'm the equivalent of three, four full-time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when it's my company and any founder will probably maybe not thought about it, but they'll say the same when really impressed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that like, you know, I'm doing four full-time rules at one time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm doing full-time sales, full-time product development, full-time service, full-time cuts for support.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, sure I don't have full time, but you know how it is with entrepreneurship like it's very common that I'm working 16 hour days during the week But I have to say so I don't I'm critical about my weekends.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do not work on the weekend at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's good for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't do any meetings on Fridays
[SPEAKER_02]: That's good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I like I keep those blocks for two days for my family.
[SPEAKER_01]: I keep one day for just getting project work done on accept any meetings on Fridays and the rest of the week is meeting sales calls on list of their stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the way that I move my schedule around the way I'm diligent with my I think I can be a four full time employee person.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, what I would do is when I'm looking at it, let's say, for example, it's product delivery.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because as I scale, as I bring on my client, that's the thing that is going to sale.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, maybe I can work 10 accounts myself comfortably.
[SPEAKER_01]: and actually delivering the service.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I start taking on 11 accounts, 12 accounts, I'm looking at, okay, now is my productivity suffering.
[SPEAKER_01]: I get delivering less of a good experience for those first 10.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if so, then basically what's it hits a specific number where I know I can not go past this, I need to hire somebody three clients for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that I can get them on board, train them, and actually allow them to get me the next 10 clients and the next 10 clients.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I know with what I'm doing, I'm going to need that full-time equivalent every 10 clients.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've already done the math.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know what it's going to cost, and that's going to represent a million dollars a year.
[SPEAKER_01]: So 10 clients, million dollars a year.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'd port an note that of course,
[SPEAKER_04]: bring in somebody on doesn't automatically equal that million dollars a year.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right, it's going to be something that will scale and transition into that.
[SPEAKER_04]: So you also consider like a period of time.
[SPEAKER_04]: So when you bring somebody on, you've got to get a vision, you've got to plan.
[SPEAKER_04]: Is it three months, six months, do you wait a year to actually see whether that person you've brought on is actually contributing to right because you mentioned earlier one of your or many many of your mentors.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I've heard others talk about this.
[SPEAKER_04]: You want to hire slow firefast as far as how you bring on resources into your business.
[SPEAKER_04]: So how would you approach it with that mindset of each person you're bringing into the business as a resource is equaling a million dollars in revenue?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so if you think about, you've probably heard this before from real estate investors, but they say that with real estate, you need to make money on the purchase, not the sale.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you're hiring somebody for that next role, now I read a book called The E-Meth, not that long-long time ago, early on in my career and I read it again when it republished,
[SPEAKER_01]: But they have the author had a great practice that I do and everyone on my business is or teams or anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that you create a full or chart, is if this was like a 50% company, and you could have full or chart, what are all those rules?
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you as a founder, you're all the rules.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you look at, like I was saying, is that if you find that one specific rule,
[SPEAKER_01]: start to become bigger and bigger and bigger or like a cluster of roles that can fit in the same category for one person could reasonably do then what you do is you hire for that particular one
[SPEAKER_01]: and you make sure that like in a long sleeve I'm doing 20 accounts myself right now I'm losing money because I'm going to lose clients for sure right so if I hire that person for let's say 100k yeah yeah what have you I need to give that 100k person at least a book worth a million dollars right now yeah so if I don't have an extra a million dollars worth of the book for that client or for that employee then
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm losing on that for the, right, right, but if I have enough that I could just post that over and let's say for example, I have 15 clients, so I give them 10 clients and I have five on my own, I have half my time available now to go and acquire more clients and do more podcasts and do more webinars and do more content creation anything just to go out there and and send out the message of what we deliver to the world what problems we solve.
[SPEAKER_04]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_04]: I could, I was visualizing that as you were saying it.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's never something that I thought before that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, when you're starting out more, you know, you're already going.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it's a great idea to build out your orchestra on identify what size of business is kind of right sized for you.
[SPEAKER_04]: So how many employees would that take?
[SPEAKER_04]: And then start mapping out, or even before you decide how many employees figure out what type of departments you need and want to have or need to have and then figure out at what point in your scaling of your business, would you hire.
[SPEAKER_04]: in a system.
[SPEAKER_04]: At what point in your business would you hire marketing?
[SPEAKER_04]: What point in your business would you hire sales?
[SPEAKER_04]: I think a lot of that would depend on also what you love, what you're passionate about, what you're really good at.
[SPEAKER_04]: So if you're somebody that loves marketing, you might not hire out marketing right away.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're probably looking at sales.
[SPEAKER_04]: If you love sales, probably might stay in sales a bit longer at high up marketing sooner, but
[SPEAKER_04]: having that again that clarity and that structure I can see already how it really gives you an understanding of that structure when you hire so you don't hire too early which also don't hire too late because I think if you hire too early that's not good because you're you're bleeding cash before and it's not giving you that value yet and if you hire too late
[SPEAKER_04]: then you're rushed.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're behind the eight balls so to speak and you're really trying to train somebody when you've got all these clients that you need to service.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so both ends, your clients are not getting the value anymore because they're not getting your time because you also got to give it to your new employee, but then your new employee is not getting the time either.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I really, really love that.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's a great, great model.
[SPEAKER_04]: So these tools, I love them.
[SPEAKER_04]: is a very practical, very pragmatic, I also believe that in order for these business models to work, you need to be having kind of your own personal models and tools and exercises that you use to kind of keep you on track.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm a big believer that in order to know what you want.
[SPEAKER_04]: whether it's build a business that's aligned with certain values, certain ethics, the things that you want out of life, the partners that you want to be working with or having your life, you need to know who you are, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: You really need to know what it is that you want.
[SPEAKER_04]: So through this journey that you've been on, what are some of the key tools that you use today?
[SPEAKER_04]: Why do you use them?
[SPEAKER_04]: Just quickly I'll share that I've not that long ago started a daily practice.
[SPEAKER_04]: of a, it started off as a, like a walkstirl.
[SPEAKER_04]: So every morning, getting up and just writing, I want, you know, X, I want Y, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's everything from, you know, the type of a business that I want to build.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's I want to the type of value that I want to provide our clients.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's I want to the type of, you know,
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, revenue and and dollar values that I want to be coming to the business and into my life to the ones traveling right the lifestyle that I want.
[SPEAKER_04]: Then I realized that that daily practice one from I to I watts so I carve out time every morning to that, but then I also read I watts and then I then I write, who is it that I need to be in order to get those I want?
[SPEAKER_04]: um, the law of attraction, maps day, I do believe at peace of that, um, but you don't just write it down and then go back to your old habits, your old ways, because your current way of living your current lifestyle is a direct result of the way you're living your life now, your habits, your mindset, everything.
[SPEAKER_04]: So if you want something different, you need to do something different.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I write them in a present tense.
[SPEAKER_04]: So instead of, I need to be, I say, I am, I am focused.
[SPEAKER_04]: I am, you know, leaning into this guy.
[SPEAKER_04]: I am all these things.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then just recently, I thought it was very powerful because I felt the resistance when I thought of wanting to do it was like, oh, why am I resisting this there?
[SPEAKER_04]: I went from, I walked and I am to now, how I do, I walked, I am and I wills.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I really transfer what I want, who I need to be in a present tense and now to be that I will do what and it results in me writing I will exercise daily.
[SPEAKER_04]: I will journal daily, I will be on social media, I will do all these things that it's like when you look backwards, that's how you get.
[SPEAKER_04]: to those wants.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I knew it was going to be powerful for me because of that resistance that I felt when I thought of doing it, I was like, I don't want to.
[SPEAKER_04]: Because it really felt like it was holding myself accountable now to not just, you know, oh, yeah, I journal every day and write I want and I, and I, I am, but now I actually need to do the things that I'm saying that I will do.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's been a really powerful practice for me every day.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, what are some things that you use every day to focus on, continuing to move forward?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, funny enough, I became, I got one from my key, BMW.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was like accident that isn't the calling it this, but I use the thing that is not as much of a thought exercise, but more of a practical, I will, so more of like jumping right through here, I will.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's one of the three things I'm going to do today.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are the three things I'm going to focus on?
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's body mind and wallet.
[SPEAKER_01]: So body could be, you know, my meal plan.
[SPEAKER_01]: Making sure I work out and some wish they perform every day.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's body mind is do I have a great conversation with friends or do I.
[SPEAKER_01]: meditate or something that would actually expand my mind and expand my thoughts and make abilities of thinking critically and in my world and then about wallet is what are the things I'm going to do today to build that only knowing dollar company.
[SPEAKER_01]: want me to do to build my net worth.
[SPEAKER_01]: What investments are going to come in today.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I have a practice of having a tick all through boxes every single day except Sunday.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I have to do it every day.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's just a disciplined thing and I have a little board in my office and it has the right on calendar or whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just check a different color of each of them each day
[SPEAKER_01]: Did I check to it the three circle and did I do not have them?
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I can do better and then I'm in a constant, so that's one practice that I do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Another thing that I do just consistently is I'm always asking myself does this align, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is this where I want to be?
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, if I say no, why don't I want to be in this room, and then I go through the thought process.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think, clearly, on my own, maybe it's driving in the car, maybe it's in the gym, what have you?
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'll think through why did I feel that angst, when that feel like it's not aligned?
[SPEAKER_01]: and then I dig deep to try to find out what was it, was it the person I was hanging out with?
[SPEAKER_01]: Was it the the product that I'm on?
[SPEAKER_01]: Was it what they're selling?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I turned out clients because I didn't I didn't align with what they sold.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't believe what they sold was a good product.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to align with them.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's just an an exercise I do not as like a scheduled thing, but just every time I'm in a situation I always think in my mind at my line with us.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a great work to do, and that includes not just business, but personally as well.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, that intention of alignment is so important.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
[SPEAKER_04]: The journaling exercise just talked about, it's actually exactly that.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's setting up the intention on the front end.
[SPEAKER_04]: And by the end, when I'm writing down the I wills, it's ensuring alignment.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: That my actions and things that I'm saying I will do are aligned with who I need to be.
[SPEAKER_04]: and what I want to achieve in my life.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I think, yeah, intention and alignment are really two important mindsets, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: And you need to be having rituals in your life that are non-negotiable, that are aligned with what you want in your business, because for anybody that's been in
[SPEAKER_04]: at a business operating level.
[SPEAKER_04]: So you're not just individual contributor, you're responsible for teams and outcomes.
[SPEAKER_04]: When you're at that level, when there is a vision, when there's goals set, you are having regular,
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, meetings and conversations around achieving those intentions, making sure that the business direction, the activities you're doing are still aligned with achieving those goals.
[SPEAKER_04]: Get in and same thing in entrepreneurship.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yet in our personal lives, most people don't take that same intentional alignment series.
[SPEAKER_04]: We do it in business.
[SPEAKER_04]: What they want in a common
[SPEAKER_04]: kind of wax.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so having these things as uncomfortable as they can be sometimes is the tipping point.
[SPEAKER_04]: Is the catalyst for huge business success?
[SPEAKER_04]: Otherwise, I think that you will, you know, stay usually kind of just a smaller business always struggling because you're not focused on growing yourself.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're not setting that intention to be in a more positive mindset.
[SPEAKER_04]: How do you stay in more positive mindset?
[SPEAKER_04]: And I see that because
[SPEAKER_04]: I genuinely don't but so I believe that there are people out there who generally are a little bit more positive mindset focus.
[SPEAKER_04]: There are definitely people out there who are more kind of in a in a laugh mindset right a little bit more more negative always looking at how things can't or won't work for people who are more kind of geared towards being how things can work but I generally don't believe that.
[SPEAKER_04]: people who are more geared towards, I can never think that things are impossible, never think that things are can't.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, how do you, what's everything that you've been up to?
[SPEAKER_04]: and transitioning from wanting to be an employee to being a business owner to being an employee, to be key to running, you know, five businesses, couple of them failed, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, you know, your founding got big dreams and aspirations for this new venture of yours.
[SPEAKER_04]: How do you make sure that you are
[SPEAKER_04]: staying positive and that growth mindset without being I guess naive because there are risks we were just talking about how sometimes um the entrepreneurial journey one mindset is that it it is arguably less risky than being an employee in this
[SPEAKER_04]: However, there is still risk, and if you go into a business, what do you buy a business or you are starting your own, especially if you're starting your own?
[SPEAKER_04]: without the right approach, without the right scaffolding or structure, it can be more risky because it working as an employee you get paid for potential, right, not for performance.
[SPEAKER_04]: So you get a job, you show up, and the business is paying you from day one.
[SPEAKER_04]: If you're to get trains, to learn your job, to learn the filing system, all that stuff,
[SPEAKER_04]: you were getting paid to learn how to perform in that business.
[SPEAKER_04]: But even at the end of the day, regardless of whether you perform at a 10 or you perform at a 1, you're still getting paid.
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe eventually over time that gets, if you're always performing at a 1, you'll no longer have a job, of course.
[SPEAKER_04]: But as an entrepreneur, you didn't pay for performance.
[SPEAKER_04]: and a lot of the times, especially at the beginning, performances coming way before payment.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so that can make somebody really feel like this isn't working or what's gonna happen.
[SPEAKER_04]: So how do you keep yourself in the right mindset to continue pushing forward?
[SPEAKER_04]: Even though you sometimes have a voice on your shoulder,
[SPEAKER_04]: telling you that it's not going to work.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, there's so many things I can say on this topic because it's something that I grapple with all of the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember my most successful parts of my career were, you know, my climb up, that VP was then talking my career, like before I started on on my own, but like,
[SPEAKER_01]: I was bulletproof.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did not feel vulnerable at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I had that kind of that like mindset that seems irrational, where I just felt like anything I did to touch the bowl.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't look at the evidence of things that I didn't do right.
[SPEAKER_01]: um, as anything more than just a mistake or lessons, so like I just have this mentality that just made me just charge in and not care about the risks, it's not care about all the things, and I wasn't that rational about it, um, and I succeeded more than I failed, and that that risk-taking mentality got me so far in my career that like I have more evidence of
[SPEAKER_01]: The only times they ever had a rough patch was like during COVID for some reason I started feeling less vulnerable or I felt more vulnerable because all of a sudden I had three lines of business all operating and all three disappeared overnight.
[SPEAKER_01]: My retainers, everybody was streaming off-contractors.
[SPEAKER_01]: My projects that were in the pipeline, people were spending extra
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I had a flood business, and in one month, I had $800,000 worth of pipe on disappear, because all the project budget was going towards, like, the COVID relief, so all the budgets that I was dealing with on governments, then.
[SPEAKER_01]: all the budgets were being shifted towards COVID early.
[SPEAKER_01]: So all at once, I actually found out that who wait, like literally everything that I'm doing is failing right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Move everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so for three months, I had to reinvent myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had to redo what I, the value that I brought to the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and that's what I'll found out so I was just created from is that re-invention is that I went how can I make something that's bulletproof I made something that's bulletproof not because uh, clients will always tame me it's more about that I tied what I do to performance.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I make it so that just with my mentor said it'd be a W you know if you do based on commission you'll always have a job.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I can still keep 100 clients going.
[SPEAKER_01]: If it's just performance, if I'm not performing, they're not being a thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm aligning my goals.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm eating my own dog food.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm aligning with what they're doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know that when I'm taking on a client, I am assuming the risk because if I don't succeed, it's no loss on them.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's only loss on me.
[SPEAKER_01]: and because I know from my entire career that when I go forth and I just give it all, give my best as if it's going to win, going to succeed.
[SPEAKER_01]: I succeed four to five, nine to ten types.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I know that yes, I'm going to have some failures.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to have some losses.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to have some zero ones or low dollar months, whatever, but I know that in the end because I'm aligned directly with my clients.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm aligned directly with the problem that I'm solving.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my wallet is impacted by whether I do it well or not.
[SPEAKER_04]: What does that or what did that reinvention look like for yourself?
[SPEAKER_04]: Because I imagine, like, let's not, let's not sugar code it.
[SPEAKER_04]: When you are going through a rough patch, off the heels of, I think, one of the things you told me was that you went through a time of your life where you really felt like, and you had the minus touch.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh yeah, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: Like everything that you did, bulletproof.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right, turn it into gold.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: And now all of a sudden, you were going through a phase where nothing's working.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Nothing's turning into gold anymore.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're your your failing left rate and center.
[SPEAKER_04]: So you have this realization that you need to reinvent yourself.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think in the term reinventing yourself, it could be like, oh, you just pivoted with a new business strategy or something like that, but reinventing yourself means taking a look at, you know, your place in the world and not just how you provide value to others.
[SPEAKER_04]: but how you, yeah, who are you, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you're not this, if you're not the person with the mightest touch that who are you, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I'm curious, like what, what were some of those initial conversations you had to have with yourself?
[SPEAKER_04]: to work through that because I imagine some of them are probably tough.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were really tough.
[SPEAKER_01]: I went to counseling.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have deep conversations learning about myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: I re-read the alchemist.
[SPEAKER_01]: We were talking about before.
[SPEAKER_01]: I re-read that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I started re-reading a lot of the books that got me the minds that I needed to be so successful for 15 years straight of success.
[SPEAKER_01]: Great.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I started looking at it and I said, okay, well, what's different now?
[SPEAKER_01]: When I was living in Vancouver, I lived there for nine years and I took that market by store like I took it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I went to every networking event hosted workshops.
[SPEAKER_01]: did so many different things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody knew me as a wrestler.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody knew me as successful.
[SPEAKER_01]: If they were working in deal with me, then you know, good, I was at sales and marketing and all this stuff that I put.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so my personal connections were the thing that made my career so successful because I didn't have to go to market.
[SPEAKER_01]: I came to meet.
[SPEAKER_01]: We got somebody would say, oh, you need to talk to Jeff.
[SPEAKER_01]: You need to talk to Jeff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so like, through everything that I'm doing, I would just have success, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Fast forward to 2020.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm living in late country.
[SPEAKER_01]: All my entire network tour network is now there, not here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've got a kit to take care of because you can't stay in daycare because they keep having COVID outbreak so shut down shut down.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then my partner at the time, she was working from home and her people wouldn't let her
[SPEAKER_01]: have any flexibility, like if she's on the clock, she has to be there with Cameroom and like all that stuff, oh wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so they wouldn't even let her take her kid for a walk in the middle of the day or something.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it was just so they were so real.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we had all this pressure.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm losing the local contracts or whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was like I looked at what what was different than it wasn't just coated like that was a huge straps around its own right and I can deal with that kind of stuff that stuff doesn't phase me if stuff gets hard it gets hard Yeah, I can deal with it whatever
[SPEAKER_01]: But like the fact was, is that I recognized that the formula that I was using to be successful, then, was be present, be there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you saw me speak like, I don't want to go right ahead.
[SPEAKER_01]: I speak, I know how to be part of that world and I thrive in that world.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when your clients are not local,
[SPEAKER_01]: but not where you are.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to reinvent how you go about sharing that personality.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now I no longer look at it as where I can just go for dinner or lunch with some buddy or go for drinks or coffee and then next year I come out with a contract.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to reach out with intention to those people that we mentioned earlier on that absolutely fit that are aligned that I know I can help that I know we can have a long-term successful relationship.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I qualify out people through those conversations is that this was my theory.
[SPEAKER_01]: I haven't applied an hypothesis.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's say you're my target customer.
[SPEAKER_01]: I reach out to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have an hypothesis based on what I know.
[SPEAKER_01]: That you're going to be a good client for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll test that hypothesis in our call.
[SPEAKER_01]: And instead of me selling to you, I'm qualified.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying to understand, are you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you have what it takes to be successful with what I'm offering?
[SPEAKER_01]: I won't tell you, hey, it's you, it's you, not me, I will basically say like I don't see a path of success here, right, you know, it's not about who they are, whatever it's, it's more about like I don't see a path of success, so and now how do I portray my personality, my dad calls me Hollywood because of because of what I did, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I spoke at conferences hosted by weekly webinars, posted a weekly podcast, volunteered to help run a 100,000 person community of sales, salespeople, marketers and operations, professionals, I ran competitions, I did daily videos, boat LinkedIn posts, I became what we call an influencer.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I might have been on one of those top sales influencer lifts.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't really remember, but on LinkedIn.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I kind of portrayed myself almost as a performance as opposed to just having it come naturally.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then what I found was through my community because I had thousands of freely, really adamant switched on people that were just stoked to be part of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the competitions we run, they were, they were like, they were really cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were what we would do is pit people head to head in a bracket challenge.
[SPEAKER_01]: So one of ours was March Madden.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know if you follow in CWA at all, but we have a bracket challenge where we pit two sellers against each other.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then a three-day period we'd see who can book the most meetings.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, you know, the winner there would face the winner here and then it would go up and up and up and up.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have one guy book 76 meetings in 16 days.
[SPEAKER_01]: use that unstoppable.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we did this competition twice in a year.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the two people that one were people that were new to sales, new to this, they just really listened, they followed in the last stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: So through that, you know, the connections that I made there, the people that I met, the side learnings kind of mimic what I did in Vancouver when it was in person.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I learned how to do it online and be successful at it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I learned what it takes to actually build the community and be strong.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that all of a sudden those those projects started coming my way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so all of a sudden I've got like earner in April of 2021.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I don't know how close $3,000,000 contracts in like a matter of three dead two days.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Something like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was just like boom, I'm back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I've reinvented how
[SPEAKER_01]: I share my value to the market and how I go after people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I just have to take a lot more work.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'll be honest, it does a lot more work, a lot more time, a lot more effort and energy.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I know that from my last time really ramping up on us, I've kind of reinvented that to towards this SOS signals to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I know from my experience before that it takes time to get over the hill.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then once it gets there, it starts to become more like that natural approach that I had back when it was in Vancouver.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I guess relationships are very, very important.
[SPEAKER_04]: New accomplishment.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
[SPEAKER_04]: Without relationships, it's hard to get anything done at least.
[SPEAKER_04]: hard to get anything done at scale.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_04]: Scale your relationships, scale your ability to get things done to accomplish your wants to accomplish your wide.
[SPEAKER_04]: Also communication, that foundation to relationships.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so it sounds like you've found a way to be able to build that communication right to help build relationships.
[SPEAKER_04]: You also build community right scaled that for relationships.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think that's hugely important, especially right now.
[SPEAKER_04]: there is a bit of a loss in the human connection in today's world and that human connection is so important for so many reasons.
[SPEAKER_04]: And community is very much a, it's so important, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: And not just, I used to think of community as just like, you know, neighborhood community or just people hanging out, but it's community where you can feel vulnerable in.
[SPEAKER_04]: And when I save vulnerability, it doesn't mean you just need a place for you to show up and you can feel like, you know, you can cry.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, it can be that.
[SPEAKER_04]: But vulnerability where you can feel like, I don't know what to do.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I'm part of a community that's going to support me and help me figure out what to do.
[SPEAKER_04]: Whether that's in a business mindset or or in a different type of context.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think there's a lot of people out there that are trying to accomplish what you've accomplished on that that community and relationship side online.
[SPEAKER_04]: What would be maybe the one thing that you could provide somebody who's struggling with that.
[SPEAKER_04]: whether they're an extrovert and an introvert, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, myself, I'm a fine out in public space around people.
[SPEAKER_04]: But being online, there's a resistance there for me.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so what would be one thing that you would say to somebody to help them, I don't know, mindset shift, different perspective,
[SPEAKER_04]: do where you're at now, because again, I'm sure that when you started doing LinkedIn stuff and Facebook stuff and podcasting and setting up at the beginning, I'm sure it was, you know, not where it's at today.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not like you built it, you put out an invitation saying, hey, come join me here and all of a sudden you had an overwhelming response.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: What?
[SPEAKER_04]: What would be something you would tell somebody who's trying to get to where you're at, but they're at the very beginning.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, let's see.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's kind of take a different talk here because right now I'm kind of the beginning again, because I purposely took a year and a half off of LinkedIn.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've posted once in a while, but never really paid any attention.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was going from getting 200 plus likes per post to now I'm lucky if I get 10.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm at the beginning again.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, even though I've been there and I've got there, when it comes to actually being an influential voice in something like LinkedIn or Instagram or what have you, is that you really have to think of, like, why am I doing this?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm doing this again chasing a dollar, so I'm just doing this because every like has been to have a dollar amount to so suit of it, so I know I have to get a million likes and blah, blah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or are you doing it because you know that it's a great medium to help the people that you help.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like going to make my clients more successful at posting daily videos on LinkedIn.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or the things that I'm sharing actually going to be helpful for somebody.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of the clients ideal with arts, the types we're going to like and comment.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're busy, they're busy executives, they're busy people that don't, you barely have the time to follow up on emails.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I'm not going to expect them to be the same as the sales development reps that I was selling to before.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, in the first version of OpenSOS because they're people who are constantly on LinkedIn, they're doing their job on there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So like, of course, I'm going to get 200 lakes from sales development routes because they're already on there, right, and they're tracking my stuff and they're doing all that, but like the I all have, you know, a couple of sales and impressions on a post.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe five lakes, but a couple of thousand impressions because the followers that I have are ones that are executives are looking at it in passing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think, oh, that's an interesting note.
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't feel any need to like it or comment, because it doesn't value for them, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of the people that I sell to directly, you look at their activity feed on LinkedIn, they have nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: They literally have no activity, so no likes, no comments, no nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I can't expect that it's going to be the same thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So my lesson here is that you have to align it with your reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, who are you trying to attract?
[SPEAKER_01]: What are you trying to give them?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a vanity project now, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, so what are you trying to give them?
[SPEAKER_01]: What are you trying to solve for them?
[SPEAKER_01]: And just the as genuine as possibly can.
[SPEAKER_01]: And even if you don't get the likes, you don't get the million views or followers, whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: You might have 10 followers that are just watching your stuff every day, not commenting, not anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's see, you know, you meet with that person in a networking event, or at a trade show, or something.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, well, Leah, I've loved your posts.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's the biggest purpose.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to do business if you, or you should meet my colleague, blah, blah, blah, I think I would love your stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like, it does happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and there's the old saying, you know, you create your own luck.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that lucky people always tend to be a lot of times, tend to be the people who work the hardest to.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's true.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very true, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, go out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do the work.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Begin with the end in mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't begin.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't think that it's it's not about vanity.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not about likes comments.
[SPEAKER_01]: All that stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's about can you help people and the people you help are those the people that you want to attract for your life for your business for your friendships.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, all that stuff.
[SPEAKER_04]: Focus on value is what I hear, get out of your own way, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: So put aside, I mean, you're using a word vanity.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's putting aside your ego, which really means you're going to have to step through that fear of looking bad, that fear of judgment, because your your why is more important.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that why can be many different things.
[SPEAKER_04]: But the value you offer is a line going back to that alignment word is aligned with your why.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that will then help you show up on social media the way you need to because we are in that age.
[SPEAKER_04]: I've constantly reminded.
[SPEAKER_04]: that if you are an entrepreneur now, you got to be on my.
[SPEAKER_04]: You got to be doing content, somehow, some way.
[SPEAKER_04]: Doesn't mean you necessarily need to be on it every day.
[SPEAKER_04]: It definitely helps more with building funnels and visibility and people getting to know who you are.
[SPEAKER_04]: But that also leads to consistency.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, which is what my challenge is,
[SPEAKER_04]: But as a recovering perfectionist, that value to me sometimes comes across as like it has to be perfect value.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's a hard thing for me to sometimes balance where some of the stuff that I'm reading and consuming working through audio books is about the value you offer.
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe it's something that I put out that's maybe, hey, you know, this is an interesting perspective or it's a nice tool, maybe I think of it as like it's not like greatest work, but how it lands for somebody else can be a 10 out of 10 right and so it reminds me about perceived value, which means that.
[SPEAKER_04]: the value you intend something to be.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not always going to be the value that it's perceived to be in both directions.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I think that's your why is so important focusing on consistency adding value but not getting hung up on needing to know whether it's going to be valuable.
[SPEAKER_04]: Get out there, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: If you really believe in your product, your service, yourself, then people will feel that in fall.
[SPEAKER_04]: Speaking of following, where can people find you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you can find me on the socials at Jeff Swan 18.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's on LinkedIn, Twitter, or X, and Instagram, what have you?
[SPEAKER_01]: So we find you at Jeff Swan 18.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you'll find me on any of their, I do prefer LinkedIn though.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's where I post every day.
[SPEAKER_01]: The others tend to be a little more sporadic.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you really want my best stuff go there.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm like then.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, thanks Jeff for joining us today.
[SPEAKER_04]: And again, I, there were so many conversations that we, we've had in between takes before this that there's still more cover.
[SPEAKER_04]: and so we'll definitely do this again soon so we can keep things going.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Always happy to share it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you again for having me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for coming.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_02]: Take care.
[SPEAKER_03]: We hope you enjoy today's episode and gain valuable insights to elevate your life and business.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you found value in our conversation, spread the love, share this episode with family and friends, and let's grow this support of community together.
[SPEAKER_03]: And don't forget to like and follow us so we can reach more amazing people just like you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Until next time, remember, let's not struggle coded.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep it real, raw and unfiltered.