Episode 461: Scale and Profit with Coach P

Welcome to another episode of the Above the Business podcast. My name is Bradley Hamner, your host. On today's episode, we have a familiar return guest, David Peterson, Coach P, as many people affectionately have named him. We cover a lot of different topics every time we have him on. I think it just gets better every time I have David on the podcast. We talk about, you have a big dream, where do you start? We talk about how do you stay focused? And we talk about a question that all business owners and leaders struggle with, which is accountability within our team. You're going to get a ton out of this episode. Without further ado, here's my conversation with David Peterson. David, welcome back to the Above the Business podcast.

Happy to be here, man. Thanks for having me.

Always great to have you. Well, we were talking beforehand about, you know, some of the things I think are relevant right now. And you guys have been successfully having your scale and profit summits recently. And so we were talking through some of the commonalities that you've been seeing with the kind of pain points that agents are facing. And one of the ones that you mentioned is that people have a big dream, they have a big aspiration. They look to you, they look to Alex, they look to other people out there to be able to say, hey, that's, that's where I want to be. These are the qualifications I want to be able to hit. But the common theme seems to be for a lot of them is I, I don't know where to start. I've got this big— I'm where I'm at now. You know, I've got a $3, $4 million premium book, $400,000 or $500,000 in annual revenue. I want to get to these big numbers, but it feels daunting and overwhelming. They just don't know where to start. What are your thoughts?

Yeah, I mean, it's so common in any walk of life. We've, we've got social media, we've got reports, we can see everything. And all you're looking at is what have you done for me lately, right? So people see the end result. They don't, they don't see the path or understand the path. So, you know, they see someone's production, they think, oh man, I want that, right? I want to achieve that. But don't take time to think about how many years did it take to build up to that? How many struggles did we overcome to get there? And, and that's something that comes up in the Scale and Profit classes a lot because You know, Alex and myself, we, we have 3 agencies. We both have, you know, 30 team members probably. And people look at that like, one, it's either unattainable, or two, how in the world do I get there tomorrow? Right? And so I always like to share the story first. It's absolutely attainable because I was the agent looking at some of those people that had 20 employees thinking, Wow, good for them. Not possible for me. It wasn't even on my dream, like, board or, or in my head. I, I literally didn't think it was possible, right? There was a time I had one employee, um, and always struggling with teams. So it was so far out of possibility. So I was there, right? And if I can go from that guy that missed some of the most basic recognition programs out there and going from one employee, like, I can— you can absolutely get there no matter who you are. So that's number one. It is totally attainable. You just have to surround yourself with the right people and realize we're all human beings. We all have strengths and weaknesses. You got to figure out where to focus yours, right? But two, it's, it's understanding the path and paying attention to the journey, not just the destination, right? It's fine. You know, you come look at my team and go, oh my, it's huge. Like they've had all this success. But yeah, we also had a a ton, a ton of struggles, right? I've currently been an agent for 14 years, and we didn't do this overnight. We built one day at a time, right? And what I always tell people the difference is, and anyone can commit to this, is that I just never stopped. There was no slowdown. And in fact, it was the opposite, is all we did was speed up. And You know what I explained at the conference? We just got back from Portland last week. Is that all you got to do is focus on stacking wins, right? When you get one, you look for your next one. And when you get that one, you move to the next step. And what happens is you have this consistent, gradual growth, right? But 5, 10, 20 years down the line, The timeline is different for whoever you are, but at some point, if you never stop growing, what happens to compound interest? You start getting massive leaps. So what happened for me is we had very consistent growth for about 10 years, and then once we got into the 11 to 12 year territory, the growth started happening at a, a much faster rate, right? So Years 12, 13, 14 were insanely large compared to the last 10 years combined. And I like to reference the story of doubling the penny, right? And as always, I forget specific details because I'm not the detail guy, but I think it's 30 days. I think the story is 30 days, and you can correct me if I'm wrong because you're much more of a, a deep thinker than I am, but You know, the story goes is, would you rather have $1,000,000 today or would you rather double a penny for 30 days? I think it's 30 days. Y'all go Google the story. But for the first 2.5 to 3 weeks, the guy with the pennies, like, this was a bad deal because the growth is very, very slow. But then once you get into that later stage, the jumps are massive and then far outweighs the guy that took $1 million. So, it's just about following the path and committing to not stopping. That's the deal. Yeah.

It is 30 days to double a penny to hit $1 million. So, you're so right about that. A couple of things. I'm curious, who did you need to become? In those, at each one of those stages. And I don't know if you've looked back and you've had a chance to, if anybody's ever asked you of, you know, did you think about your own story as like, man, when I finally crossed a million for the first year, and then, and I'll even reference some Club Capital data that they have on this very thing that talks about the benefits of scale actually. Um, and then did you see that, that, you know, it took so long for me to get to my first million, and then from that million to the next million happened in like 20% of the time. I mean, it just happened so much faster. Have you thought through those stages, number one? And number two, at each one of those stages, who did David need to become? Forget the business for a second. Forget the team, as important as that is. But who did you need to become at each one of those?

Well, you know, my first answer for you with the numbers, the data, I don't know, because the numbers were never the thing for me, right? The million, the $10 million, the $20 million as we've grown past all of them. That's never been the thing. That's never been the marker because there's only so much of that that we can control, right? You know, in the markets, they decide to kind of shut down the state, like, you know, good luck growing through that. So you've got to figure out what it is for you, like what, what drives you, because that's what's going to get you out of bed in the morning. It's what's going to make you perform at your highest level. And for me, that's my thing, right, is being the best version of myself. So surrounding myself with better people and learning what they're good at and say— and just finding one thing like that. Let's just say that person's better at health insurance. I can learn something from that guy and I can come back and improve that part of my business, right? And then the entire thing blossoms and goes to another step. And what's cool is as we continue to grow, no matter how big we get, there's always a bigger fish. Even if we have to go outside of our company and go to another industry, there's always a bigger fish. So it's so inspiring for me to see people that are doing big things because then I realize Hey, I can do that, right? And I go work on that thing to be better, right, for myself and for the business. But that's different for everybody. Maybe it is financial for you. Maybe it is a target of a premium or a recognition program, whatever. Find your thing, because if you're fully committed to it, you'll become passionate. And that's where you don't slow down, right? I'm not going to go take off at 12:30 every day and go play golf because I am passionate about pumping as much as I can into my business and being the best version of myself. I don't have to worry about slowing down. The other part of your question was, who do I need? Who did I need to be in those moments? Well, that changes with time, and that's what I love about this journey. And I'll tell anyone listening, the first step is you have to be yourself. Typically, business owners, anyone in the world really, they're imposters when they're young and they're not confident, right? I'm not great at what I'm doing, so I'm just going to copy the people that are good. And the people that turn out to be great at some point realize along their path that I have to be myself, I have to be authentic for this to work. And they start to work their personality in there and then they get more confident and then they have more success and it's a snowball effect. So, That's step one is you've got to be you, right? You got to be okay with yourself. You got to realize that you're special. You have strengths. You just got to figure out what they are and lean into them and stop trying to be others. It's great to take ideas from others. It's great to learn from others, but you can't copy them because if you're not authentic, it's not going to work. And then over time, you just have to adapt to the business needs. And that's one of the big messages that we talk about in Scale and Profit is how that's changed over the years, right? As the business has continued to grow, my role has had, had to change multiple times, right? I went from being the guy that did everything to the guy that focused on financial services to the guy that focused on management. And, and now I'm in a place where I'm the guy that's, you know, sitting in the, the CEO seat and removed myself from all those other chairs. That's what I currently need, right? And, and I still think there's a, a whole nother step where there's probably someone that, that can be the CEO, right? And, and I'm an advisor or investor, you know, whatever that next stage is. I'm, I'm not there yet. Um, but it changes. And that's what's exciting about being in business for yourself is that it's never boring. There's always something to adapt to. There's always a change to make and your job is going to change with it. So you have to fully embrace that. And also realize that you can't stay still. You have to change. You have to, or you're going to— you're going to be stuck. You're going to plateau.

Well, for those of you that maybe are watching this on YouTube, I have my Auburn stuff behind me. He has his Alabama stuff behind him, which is great.

So a few more trophies behind me. I needed a whole bookshelf. Bradley just needed a little wall.

Well, speaking of that, I don't know if you literally adopted Saban's verbiage of the process, but I've heard Lane Kiffin on a couple of podcasts recently. Have you happened to hear him on the Theo Vaughn podcast or the Pivot podcast? Have you listened to either of those?

Lane Kiffin was on Theo Vaughn?

Yes, he was.

I am listening to that today.

He was. He was. He was.

I have not heard it. That sounds amazing.

For first of all, you know, Lane has always had a beef with Auburn because I think we were going to get him and then we decided not to, whatever. So he has this beef with Auburn. So, you know, across the board, Auburn people and I'm making a point here actually ultimately to get around this. I've never liked Lane Kiffin. I never thought he was going to be a good fit at Auburn. But I listened to him on those two podcasts simply because it showed up on YouTube and I was like, you know what, I'm going to— that's a weird combination. That's kind of what I thought. And I listened to that one. podcast, and I still don't like him as a, as a college football coach, obviously, since he's at Ole Miss. But my mindset has really changed around Lane quite a bit, David. And he told a lot of the stories around Coach Saban. And there's two parts to this reason I'm bringing this up based on what you just said. He went and he worked for Pete Carroll when he was at USC. And they, you know, they lost that, that, that game. They were going for 3 in a row against Vince Young, etc. And he was, he was calling that game. And then he ended up going and working for the complete opposite of Pete Carroll in Coach Saban. And both of them were successful. Yeah. And Lane is, is a unique version himself. He's certainly not like Saban and he's certainly not like Pete Carroll. And he actually talks about— I can't remember which one. I think it was on the Pivot podcast— how he's kind of a blend, right? I mean, Coach Saban's not on social media. He's not posting those type of things. And to your point, whenever you said be you, I'm sure that there are a lot of people that come to your Scale and Profit Summits with you and Alex, or they're in Coach P, and then they'll try to mimic being David. And the reality is, be you. Sure, take some of the— take some literal of our tools and our way of thinking. Sure, take some of those things, but be authentically yourself. And I thought that that analogy, just simply because obviously Lane Kiffin was at Alabama, would be a good one as an analogy for what we're talking about. Like, you can be yourself and take elements from both of them and people that you're inspired, whether it's in college football or whether it's obviously in business. What are your thoughts on that?

I mean, those are perfect examples, right? Look at polar opposites between Pete Carroll and Nick Saban, yet you're going to attract the ones that gravitate towards you because you're yourself. Right. There are going to be people that want to go be with the best. They're the disciplined go-getters. They need the routine. They want it. They're going to go. They're going to go seek Sabin out. You got the— you got the fun ones, the ones that want to cut up, have a good time, be a part of the family, go seek out Pete Carroll. Like, you're going to have people gravitate towards your authenticity because you are who you are. Right. No one's going to gravitate towards you if you're inauthentic. Yeah, they're just not going to connect. They're going to see right through you. They're going to think, I don't, I don't trust that guy. Something's not right. So there's not a right or a wrong way. Like, let's use Nick Saban and Pete Carroll again. They're two polar opposites, right? One's the fun guy, one's the mean old Grinch. But they are who they are and they're confident in it and it's authentic. So people seek out the one that is for them. So if you're a business owner, like, that's what you got to put out in the world. You're not there to get everybody, because if you're trying to get everybody, once again, no one's going to gravitate towards you because you're not exciting. There's no passion. But if you lean into who you are, you're going to get the people that are attracted to that type of personality. And I can't stress that enough. And if you're not there yet, you need to spend time alone going through your flaws, going through your strengths. You have to drop the ego and let the self-awareness in and say, like, what am I good at? What am I bad at? And then saying it's okay. Give yourself some grace. Realize no one's perfect and move on. You know, I may have shared this story before, but I remember sitting in a room with a bunch of new agents and we went around the circle and the, the thing we were going through, the little project was, all right, let's say why we're doing this. Like, what, what motivates us? Why are we doing what we're doing? And everyone, everyone, you know, out of 30 people, 29 said some type of emotional answer, right? I want to provide for my family. I want to be the first business owner in my family. I want to provide for my community. I want to change people's lives. It was all emotional giving, right? Which is all great. I'm also— that's also there for me. Okay. I don't know. I'm sounding like Nick Saban right now. Actually, I will. I would love for someone to put us together, but it got to me and you had all these emotional answers and it got to me. Why are you doing what you're doing? What motivates you? And I said, I want to be the best one here. I want to win a trophy. That guy right there. And I legit heard like audible gasps in the room, like, oh my God, what? And for a while I was a little ashamed of it. I'm like, did I say the wrong thing? Is that not all right? And I never spoke up again, at least for the next few years. And finally realized that once again, you go back to young, inexperienced, not confident. It took me a few years to realize, screw all those people in that room because it's not their motivation, it's not their goal, it's mine. And no one else can tell me how I'm motivated. And so it took me a while to get over that. But once I realized this is okay and I am fully committing to it, there ain't no stopping me, right? Because I, I was full of passion and excitement and I got to show up every day for it. I wasn't trying to be the other people in the room that were— they were doing it to influence the families, the community, or whatever the reason was. Like, in my heart, in my mind, if I'm the best, all that other stuff is going to happen. I'm going to help more people. My family is going to be way better off. All those other things are going to come along for the ride. So let my motivation be mine. And for the young, inexperienced people, you just have to be okay with yourself first. Before anything else is going to work.

When you set that— and I opened this loop a minute ago, and so I want to close it with this question, but it's actually ended up being a good segue— when you set that target and you said you went all in and you knew that that was the ultimate destination, but to your comment earlier, you said, hey, it's not just the destination, it's the journey along the way. When did you— when do you feel like what year and if— was there a moment, was there a drive that you had if you were driving back home or something like that, that you actually then said, you know what, it really is committing to the process. And again, that's a Saban thing for sure. But he does have that right to where, sure, we want to win a national championship. You wanted to win the trophy, but you did not fixate on that. You fixated on the process of doing— you've even talked about, you know, become the best version of yourself. Do you remember when that was? If it wasn't out a day or a moment, was it a period of time that you said like, this is what it's actually going to take?

I remember the moment, uh, it was in my second year. My first year was horrible, like really bad. Uh, very, very bad. Think how bad it could have been. And it was worse. And we got lucky and we got a shot at a second year. Uh, got very, very lucky and I got a shot at a second year and we had our head down and we started to make some changes and we had some success and things were moving in the right direction. And I, I committed to the process, right? I read the book, I studied his presentations, like I committed to the process, like focus on the daily activities. We're not focused on the end result. We're not focused on winning the championship. We're focused on the daily activity that's going to get us to the championship, right? Make his ass quit. I mean, we've all heard Saban scream that, right? And it's about dominating every single play. Right. I'm not worried about the score. I'm worried about killing the other guy. And if I do that every single play, the scoreboard is going to work itself out. Right. And that, that was my mindset. It still is. So getting in the trenches and coaching my team, what does the conversation sound like? When are we following up? How are we closing? What are we doing on a daily basis? Did we hit our numbers? And it— we had a sacrificial year, right, in the grand scheme of things. I'm so glad we committed to it because long term, look how it worked out. But in that one year, I wanted to kick myself because we were so focused on the process and the plays. We missed a very big company goal by 6 points and we were unaware it wasn't even on our radar. Like we got all the way up to the 1-yard line and we didn't know we were on the 1-yard line, right? So when the year was over and the dust settled, and it spurred into something great. We realized where we were. It's kind of like, you know, the movie where the lineman is blindfolded and he's carrying the player on his back, right? Yeah. And he takes off his blindfold and realizes he just traveled the entire football field, right? It was one of those moments. And instead of being down and depressed— and there was a short period where I was very frustrated and pissed off. I'm like, why did— why did no one tell me that we were this close? But it quickly turned into some really good stuff. And it was, it was, oh my God, we went from absolute hell, we were horrible, to transferring into year 2 and we were this close to competing, right, with the top 3 to 5% of agents in the country. We can do this. And it was that moment that we had the momentum and we had the success for the first time that we said, we've set the bar. We can play at this level right now that we know what we're capable of and we're gonna hit it right. And we, and we never went back from there. So you hit it the first time, you may have a little bit of imposter syndrome that creeps in, right? So the goal is do it again, right? Don't ever be a, a one-trick pony. You gotta repeat, right? And once you repeat, then the bar is set. And you never go backwards. It's always about taking a step forward. So you got— you got to find the wins is my answer to your question. You find the wins, you build a little momentum, and you keep growing. But I can remember exactly when it all started, and it's because we fell a little bit short, but we went so much further than we ever thought we would, would be.

You know, it's a— I guess it's a shameless plug for the name of the podcast itself, but I think that that's why the name Above the Business is that you don't just live above the business, you don't just live in it, and you don't even just live on it. I mean, the entire podcast is a nod to Gerber and his book E-Myth of work on it, not in it. And I agree. I just think that there's also these elements that you need to get above it. And you said earlier, spending time alone, right? Really understanding yourself. I think that that is an example of, of slightly disconnecting from the business so you can actually see it from a 30,000-foot view. But you can't just live there, right? You can't live just in the visionary seat and go around visionating all over the place and not actually work on it or in it. I mean, like, you have to, you know, you kind of toggle between all of these different places. In fact, that leads me to a question I have, which is along the way, how have you been able to yourself? But then also, I know that you have seen people that have been in your program for a long period of time and they share something about what their goals are, let's say, and then all of a sudden squirrel, right? How have they— how have you been able to remain focused on what it is that you want to accomplish and the process without getting derailed? And I'm going to say this too, as you have had more success in general, other opportunities have come your way. Okay. I mean, you know, just more opportunities have come your way. So you actually probably have to flex a no muscle even more today than you ever have before because other things are possibilities. Well, we could do this, we could do this. And now all of these things that you could do are. So how have you personally remained focused and what's your recommendation for you know, someone that's, that's growing and trying to scale themselves? Yeah.

Well, I'll answer your second question first. I've always been a yes guy, and I think the majority of my success has been because I've been a yes man. And now I'm having to become very selective about what I can say yes to. And that's becoming— it's becoming easier because there's only so much time to go around. Right. But it's very hard for my personality But the business has kind of created that situation where it's easier to say no because there's just no time, right? As you continue to scale up and you have more and more on your plate and there's more opportunities, you can only do so much, right? So, you know, it's funny you ask the question that you just did because I just had a call with my team yesterday. I meet with them once a month and coach them just personally about money and finances, helping them understand things that as business owners sometimes we take for granted that not everyone has. And I was talking about the value of your time. That was my lesson yesterday. How much are you worth? And then what do you do with your time that is less than what you're worth? And that was the number one question I got from my team after the call was, if I do free up time, how do I stay disciplined to do things that are going to bring me more value instead of wasting it?

Right.

Instead of jumping on TikTok or watching a movie, right. If I free up time, how do I become more valuable? And my answer was, once again, you gotta, you gotta have some alone time to figure out what brings you value. What are the most important things in your life that bring you wealth and happiness and health, right? And what activities lead to those results? And this is where you've gotta be spending your time. So I told my team, I created a list, right? I sat down away from the computer, away from the phone, and just went through what's important to me. And then I wrote down what, what leads me to it. And then I committed to doing it every single day. Like, it was that— it's that easy, right? If you know where you want to go and you know what leads you to the destination, then you got to commit to doing it. And you shouldn't struggle if, like, you really— if you really understand the why behind it, right? So I created a list and said, hey, I do these every day. Now here's what I told my team. You're going to mess up. You're going to miss a day, but don't ever miss 2 days in a row. That's where greatness comes from, is that we allow some failure, but then we get right back on our horse. And I can't tell you how many people I have seen let's use 75 Hard for an example, or a New Year's resolution, right? 75 Hard, if you never heard of it, it's 75 days straight, right? Or a New Year's resolution. You know, you want to lose weight, you go to the gym, whatever. It doesn't matter. But how many people have we seen that screwed up one time and then said, oh, it's over, I messed it up, I'm done? What? Like, that is— and this is why vast majority, I think it's over 90%, I don't know the number off top of my head, of New Year's resolutions fail. Because people think if they're not perfect, they're done, right? And I told my people, build failure in, just don't ever fail twice, right? So I, I think that's it. Once again, back to your point, you got to spend time away. And, and I'll give you a nod for above the business. I've always been pretty good at that, trying to do it on Sundays. Um, but then, you know, I've got 4 kids, sports get involved. I found a lot of time that the weekends would disappear, and so would that Sunday. But it was always kind of— I would try to spend a little time planning. Um, but as the kids get more and more active, it's harder and harder. So this year I implemented a planning day. So during the week there is a day where I am out of the office, disconnected from work, and it's for the visionary stuff. Now, here's the deal. It's not a day off. I want to be very clear about that. Yeah, it's not a day off. I am, I am in front of my computer or I've got a pen and paper. I'm working at that 30,000-foot view. And what you said earlier is so right. You've got to be above it and in it. I can't be too disconnected. I have to know what's going on. I have to direct the flow of traffic. But at the same time, you got to step out and look at it from a different angle. If we went back 12 years and I was in year 2 and I had done that just one time, I never, I never did it back then. I was— no one taught me that. If I had stepped back one time, I would have realized how close we were and we would have hit it. We would not— there's not a chance in hell we would have missed. Because I would have known the target, right? And I was not smart enough back then to understand that I have to do those things. So you got to do it. You got to plan on being out every once in a while.

I, I, I would say that I don't— I, I think it— I'd never heard this before until recently. I actually think what it is, the right word is, is, is ignorant. And what I mean by that is is that you didn't know what you didn't know. You are smart. If somebody had told you, you would have been like, okay, that actually makes sense how you would have done it. I think not being smart.

Yeah, yeah.

Is ignorance of like, I just didn't even know to do that versus not smart is actually knowing what to do and just not doing it. Right.

What do we do when we open a business? I mean, we just work as hard as we can, right? Like, if we don't have the experience and the knowledge, we just work as hard as we can. And it's— we're going to figure it out. And then as we continue to go through, when we meet other people and we go to conferences and we get into programs, we realize there's different ways to do this. There's smarter ways to do this. And we learn these things and we transform. And then this is how our businesses take off. Like, there's not a— if there is a conference coming to town, or if there's one I can get to and it work— like, not a chance I'm missing stuff like that, because all I need to do is take one thing and it can completely transform the rest of my life.

Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, I think also too legitimately, whether it is the Scale and Profit Summits that you and Alex do, but just get out of the office and go be around other entrepreneurs. You said it at the very beginning. It's who you surround yourself with. If you're in a room with other people that are learning You are above the business. That's sure. You can go to Chicago and have fun. You can go to, you know, do those sort of things. Sure. But I mean, the value of the people you're going to connect with, the learnings that you're going to have, and then the insight that you're going to be able to bring back into your organization, that is above the business time. And I agree with you. I think we've had a few people that have implemented, literally, they call them above the business days. And so they don't go to the office at all on a Wednesday or on a Friday. But to your point, that's not a day off. That, that they are working on and above the business. And that's some of the actual highest leverage, most valuable tasks that you can do in the business. And so, you know, sure, that's a plug for your Scale and Profit Summits. But even if it's not that, get out of the office, get out of your own head so you can be able to have people to speak into it.

You know, it's funny, I learned something from every Scale and Profit. And I'm the one teaching the class. Yeah, I mean, just last week in Chicago, because we're just talking to other agents and business owners, and in those conversations they say something like, man, that's a really good idea, I'm not doing that, right? And I'm, yeah, I'm the coach. So your point of just getting out and being around people, like, take someone to lunch once a week, right? Do something but be with other business owners.

Yeah, for sure. Um, all right, last question, uh, for us to wrap up. And I know this is a big topic, so we'll— I'll make sure I'll put my notes in for us to kind of pull back around to this. But I'd be remiss if I didn't ask this one question, uh, because I know it's come up a lot recently. And really, realistically, it's part of being a business owner. I mean, I believe business is a team sport. I mean, unless you're going to go try to do a solopreneurship, I mean, business is team sport. So you're going to have people that you're going to be leading, coaching, et cetera. What do you think? How have you been able to handle accountability specifically? Okay, we were going to talk about some other things, but just for time's sake, I want to ask that question around accountability, holding people accountable to what their expectations are. And especially if you have a small team, less than, say, 10 people. This happens even when you get up to your level of 20, 30. But when you have a small team, you build relationships with these folks. Maybe it's even your friend. Potentially it's a family member. I've seen that happen. And so people get really challenged in, oh man, this person's sucking. Their numbers the last 3 months have been terrible, but I don't know how to actually coach them and hold them accountable. What are your thoughts around accountability?

This is fresh on the mind. We have a whole segment on this in our conference, and I have a very easy answer. You know, because I struggled with it forever trying to figure out like, how do we punish people that don't do their job? Like that was always my mindset. Do we like dock them on their pay? Do I make them do pushups? Do we gonna go sprint in the parking lot? Like accountability was always hard to me and I finally figured it out and I was like, well, that was easy. And we just made everything visible. Like there's, there's no hiding in our office. And when you do that, you're going to have peer-to-peer accountability. You're going to have your own accountability because you don't want to be embarrassed. You don't want to not pull your weight. So we put everything on blast every single day. So there are multiple emails that go out on a daily basis with how many calls you made, how many quotes did you do, how many sales did you make, what, what does everything look like? And it's ranked, so it goes from best to worst and it's color-coded. Like, do you, Bradley, do you want to be on the bottom of the report in red on a daily basis? So I don't even have to do much, right? Because I've embarrassed you in front of your peers. You did that to yourself, right? So you have it internally without me even saying a word. Your teammates are going to ask you if you're going to help out this month, right? And it gets easier. And then the other part of that is like What you talked about with actually speaking to people, like you brought up a friendship, like how do you have difficult conversations? The other thing is the visibility. What's important to you? Your goals, the principles that you hold. And I tell people day one when I hire them, I'm looking for positive people. They're fun and we want to be around. I'm looking for coachable people that follow our processes and drop their ego. And I'm looking for hard workers, right? People that I don't have to watch, people don't have to push, people that have some pride. So if I keep these things in front of them, it's very easy for me to call them out, and I don't need to be a jerk about it. I can simply ask you, Bradley, when I hired you, you promised me that those 3 things were not going to be a problem. I'm looking at your numbers yesterday and I'm not seeing the hard work part. Talk to me about that. Well, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. None of those allowed you to get to your goal. So do they really matter? Right. And it allows us to have what a lot of people would consider difficult conversation. And it's very easy and natural because it's, it's not a surprise. And that's the most important part of it, is that we're never going to surprise the people because they already know whether they're winning or losing. I'm there to help them get to the podium. Like, I want them all to win. And this is another thing that you have to realize as a business owner, is that your people are assets, not expenses. And if you treat them as expenses, you're going to look at those conversations differently. And it's, how do I, how do I get off of this person? Instead of how do I move this person up a level? And that's a big problem that a lot of business owners have, is they have the wrong mindset about their people.

That's good. Fun, coachable, hard workers. Is that right?

If I have those things, I have a, I have a 3A and 3B that are just kind of— I do eventually speak them, but in my brain, like, they don't need to be said, but trustworthy, and not dumb. So if I have these 5 things, I didn't— I don't need to be smart. I just need you to be not dumb. If I have these 5 things, if I have someone that people like, if I have someone that's coachable, hardworking, trustworthy, and not dumb, I believe I can teach them to do something. They can provide value in some form in my business. It's my job as the CEO to figure out what that thing is. But if I have those 5 things, it's my fault that they're not successful, not theirs. Because if you're doing everything that I asked of you, I got to be better as a trainer. So that's how I see it. But if one of these falters, well, then they might not be the right person for the job.

David, great stuff as always. People want to connect with you, learn more about Coach P Consulting and also your Scale and Profit Summits with Alex. Where do you want them to go?

Yeah, so check out our website, app.coachpconsulting.com. But the best place to just see what's going on, whether it's Coach P, Scaling Profit, what I'm doing, whatever, is just follow me on Instagram @savingwithdavid. That's the easiest place to see updates because I am very active on it and there's, there's nothing that doesn't get put up. So If you're on Instagram, @savingwithdavid. If you want to check out our website, app.coachpconsulting.com.

We'll make sure we put all those links in the show notes below. David, appreciate you, my man.

It's always a pleasure, Bradley. Thanks for having me.

Well, as always, David brings absolute heat. I loved that conversation that we had. We started talking about basically where to start, you know, what are the things that, you know, you have this big vision of what you want to accomplish, whether that's, you know, some sort of a trophy, etc., whatever that looks like for you, revenue, a size of the, of, of your business, whatever that may be. It's like, where do you actually begin to start? And one of the biggest things he started with, and then ultimately kind of ended up closing with, was surround yourself with other people. Surround yourself with other people that have big goals and dreams and aspirations as you do. And one of the things— I didn't say it on the podcast, but I really love about David is he truthfully has a growth mindset. I mean, he's been able to— at any time he could have sat back, rested on his laurels, but he continues to grow and continues to want to push. And I think that that's a super unique quality to be able to have, is that some people would say, hey, when's enough enough? But at the end of the day, that's just who he is. And I know many of you, if you're listening to this podcast, you're very similar to that. You're wired very similar. And I think we ended up obviously going down to the second part, which was like, how do you stay focused? How do you stay focused once you've set this intention of what it is that you want to do and then commit always to the process? He said, talked about going all in. And I think some of the times going all in even means being able to kind of get above the business and have, if it's not a full day, have a half a day. To be able to kind of get away from the day to day. I know early on it feels like you, you really can't spend any time away from the business, but, you know, the bigger you get, you end up actually having more of a growing need to actually spend time above the business. I know Tyler, one of our podcast listeners and one of my members, he— that's what he does. He spends time above the business on Wednesdays, actually getting away so he can actually be able to see clearly. Can't just stay there. You got to be able to obviously work inside of it as well. So I love just some of the practical, the mindset shifts, but also some of the practical, tactical things that David talked about on this episode as well. And I loved his very last thing around accountability, which obviously was around transparency and visibility so that you end up having peer-to-peer accountability within each other. So it's not always you having to have those conversations. So I love the aspect of transparency by making everything visible and even heat mapping it with red, yellows, and greens. Obviously go and check him out at Coach P. Actually, it's— let me redo that. If you want to learn anything about David, connect with him on Instagram. Go to @savingwithdavid, @savingwithdavid on Instagram. You also go to his website, app.coachpconsulting.com. That's app.coachpconsulting.com. And then you can obviously be able to navigate through any of the Scale and Profit Summits that he and Alex are doing. At the time of this recording, the very next one is going to be in August in Chicago. So if you live in the Chicago area, if you want to go and be in Chicago in August, that would be an awesome time to be up there. Go and navigate to his website, go to their Scale and Profit Summit before it sells out. Big shout out to obviously Alex and his entire team at Autopilot Recruiting. They've been sponsors of our podcast for quite some time. Go to autopilotrecruiting.com, autopilotrecruiting.com. I know David was talking about, hey, I'm not so much of the numbers and the details person. And you know, honestly, a lot of people are that way. A lot of business owners that way. And if you feel yourself that you're kind of that way, Club Capital can help you to be able to really get on top of your financial numbers. Go to club.capital, book an obligation demo, and they'll be able to help you out on just all your financial numbers and being able to top of your taxes and tax planning and being able to know kind of where you can make investments in your people, in your marketing, et cetera, to be able to grow your top line, be able to increase your bottom line, and be able to take home more. Personally, club.capital. All right, everyone, till next episode, lead well and go be great. Hey, if you like videos like this, click below. We'd love to have your support, like and subscribe so we can begin to grow this channel. We have big plans going into 2026 to do more things specifically for our audience on YouTube. Would love if you would like and subscribe and maybe even share this with one other person.