Optimizing Business Efficiency With Adrienne Dorison

The litmus test of the book and of the system that we work with with our clients is this idea of taking a four week, completely unplugged vacation from the business. If we can get the business to run and grow without you being there for four weeks, then typically everything is happening within your business during that time. Right. We have a tool called the Crush Cringe Analysis for your clients. We're trying to understand who. Who are your best clients, not just because you kind of like them, but who's paying you the most, who is easy to work with.

Good day. It's Bob Govro here, host of the Wealthy Entrepreneur Podcast. I just want to actually leave a special message here for you guys. You guys have been supporting us for one full year, and you know what, to be honest, not a lot of podcasts actually post consistently for one year. I think I saw Alex Hormozi post out at one point. The survival of 52 episodes or one year is close to zero percent. So super proud that we've been able to bring the Wealthy Entrepreneur Podcast to you, our listeners, our entrepreneurs who are here to support. But I want to do a very special thank you to you guys for all of your support over the last year. We're really starting to build up momentum. We've got incredible guests and I have specifically pulled out one special guest today that I want to share this episode with. I won't message you just yet or tell you who it is, not just yet, but I wanted to introduce this and one more time say thank you for your support. We appreciate it. It's been an incredible year hosting podcasts, guests, messages, trainings to this wonderful community. And I just want to let you know I'm committed to making sure that the next year is even better. So thank you once again and enjoy our one year anniversary episode. I've got a very exciting guest that's going to join me today in a moment. Though we can't get started just yet. I want to remind you that this is the place where we dissect the elements that contribute to entrepreneurial success, from mindset and leadership to profits and revenue, and maybe even operational sustainability and efficiency. We'll throw that in for today. Today's episode is called Optimizing Business Efficiency with Adrienne Dorison. I am so excited to bring her in today, but before I bring her in, I want to do a brief intro and share with you a little bit of her bio and then maybe we'll be lucky enough to hear her story and how she became the CEO of One of my favorite organizations right now. So that means a lot. So here we go. An operational efficiency expert, Adrienne has helped thousands of businesses run more efficiently so they can do less and achieve even more. She co founded Run Like Clockwork alongside author Mike Michalowitz to help entrepreneurs design a business that can run itself. The best selling book Clockwork includes the simple system for making a business ultra efficient. Adrian has developed the Clockwork program and its proven process through her 15 plus years of of operational efficiency experience in small, medium and corporate sized companies. She's Lean, Six Sigma Certified, a SCRUM Expert Trainer and a Certified Smart Growth Advisor. Her work offers a new formal or a new normal for business leaders and shares practical advice for leaders, teams and individuals to redesign the way we work. I'm going to share one quick tidbit before we bring her in. If you have not read Run Like Clockwork, the book she is cited in there in numerous ways of how she's been instrumental in creating systems and helping business owners with efficiency is a fantastic read. I would highly, highly recommend it. But without further ado, I would like to bring my friend Adrian in and join us today.

Thank you. I'm excited to be here. Whenever I hear someone read my bio though, I'm like, I should make that shorter, right?

You know what, Isn't it the most. I always find like the most stressful point of doing any sort of presentation is when somebody starts introducing me and.

I'm like, oh, like listening to it, correcting it.

Everyone's looking at me right now and of course you're the speaker that's coming out. But you're like, no, I hate this. I hate myself.

I hate myself. I want to rewrite that bio right now.

Exactly.

You did a beautiful job.

I just, oh well, thank you.

It's just the most uncomfortable part and.

I have to read this also seeing your face attached to it.

So.

And how you're responding to me reading. So you know, it's a very stressful experience. Going forward. We're just going to cut out all introductions. That's just how this is.

You could also do it without me here. Maybe. Maybe it would make you more comfortable and me more comfortable.

I've done it before that way. But here's what happens. My podcast guys, they do a fantastic job getting this all launched, but when I record it at the end and I say included at the front, sometimes I feel like they just cut the whole thing out and they go right into the podcast and I'm like, no, I'm going to have to control how this gets deployed from now on. You can't cut this out.

I understand, I understand.

We're stuck with intros anyway. It is so wonderful to have you here. I always appreciate the opportunity to connect with you. But I would love for you to share maybe how you got started and share your story with everybody. I would love to hear the whole thing. I know elements of it I d know. I'm excited. Right. I brought my popcorn.

You're going to need it. Yeah. So my background actually from like my college degrees is in wildlife, ecology and conservation. I then spent a few years doing some random jobs. Like I got trained and certified to be a safari guide. I lived in South Africa. I came back, I worked at an environmental education camp, and then I went back and got my master's in forestry and natural resource economics.

You're so cool, by the way. I did know that part, but I love that.

So I was looking at, you know, the natural resource economic, the, the economic factors of things like wood. So then I got a job at a paper mill. Okay. When I graduated call like my, with my graduate degree, I thought I was gonna go work for like a non profit or an ngo, something like that, because that's really what I was interested in. You don't really go into wildlife for the money. You go into wildlife and ecology because you want to save the world and focus on sustainability and things like that. And so I got a job at a paper mill because that was like the only people that were offering jobs at the time was the private sector. It's hard to get a job in like non profits government agencies because there's not a lot of jobs and people stay in them forever. So there's like one new job a year that opens up and I didn't get it. Okay.

I feel like honestly I like, I love people in general and I can appreciate the experience of being in that role, but I think you've done like, you've taken a better journey and a.

Better path, I think. So I think it will go full circle at some point in my life. Like I feel like once I'm done with this stage of career, I would love to go. Like once my kids are graduated and living their own lives, like I would love to go be a safari guide again, you know?

Yeah. And sign me up. Like I said, I. That's something I want to go do. And that's how we connected the first time. Yeah, let's do it.

You know what I should do? I should do like an entrepreneur's retreat where we go on safari. Right. Like, how on brand would that be.

For me, that would be incredible.

Who else is going to take you on safari Besides the Safari Guide 100.

And just have it organized? Yeah, everything organized to a T. Yeah, I love it.

So I got a job at a, at a paper company do like corporate manufacturing company and Dunder Mifflin. Dunder Mifflin, exactly. And if that's your reference, it's exactly like that. And then they started to train us, some of us, on like, Lean Six Sigma operational efficiency. And so we were working on improving the supply chain of, you know, one of the longest supply chains in the world. When you think about going from a landowner and cutting down a piece of wood all the way to shipping your toilet paper to the store. Right. So everything in between, like, there's a lot of steps involved. And so I was learning about operational efficiency. There's. After some years, I realized that I didn't want to be in corporate forever. I thought I did. I, I was never like the entrepreneur that was like making bracelets and selling them as a kid. Like, I, I didn't have a lemonade stand. Like, I thought I was going to be like a corporate girl. I was going to be in the C suite and I was going to work my way up. And that's just what it was. I was happy about that. And then as some years passed, I started to see the values and the lives of the people that were in those positions and they did not match what I wanted. And so I was like, oh, I think I gotta. I think I gotta leave. And so I started my own consulting practice and I was doing operational efficiency, but for small businesses. So I was like, okay, I still like this idea of how do we get more results with less resources, less energy, less input, less money, less labor. But I, I didn't like the structure of how I was doing it or how slow it had to go in the corporate space. Like. So I started trying to figure out, like, how could I apply some of these principles to small businesses? Now, Lean Six Sigma is a very robust toolkit, right? It is for large corporations. And so while it is really valuable, it doesn't translate perfectly or very well at all to the small business owner. So that was really where I started to kind of do my own work. While I was consulting, I was researching, I was learning, I was taking tools and tweaking them and figuring out how could we use this to make smaller organizations more efficient. So I was doing that work at a very successful consulting practice at the time. And simultaneously, Mike Michalowicz, the author of Clockwork, was looking to write a book on operational efficiency for small business owners. And he was looking for someone who had lean Six Sigma experience but was applying it to small business owners. We did not know each other at the time, but someone knew him that also knew me, and they connected us, and that is kind of how we got connected. He interviewed me for the book. He thought it was just going to be one interview. And then he kept calling me, kept texting me, asking me more and more questions, would I give him feedback on this and this. And then we both realized this was going to be more than just me having one interview for the book, which is very common for him to do in his books. He interviews a lot of experts, and so he thought I was just going to be one of those experts. And then he asked me to run the company. So I own the Run Like Clockwork company, and that's where we deliver our end services to clients. And now we also have a certification where people can get certified in our methodology and then bring it to their, you know, clients and small business owners that they work with. So it's all about. Clockwork is all about how do we design a business that can effectively run itself without being, like. Without being super dependent on the small business owner. So it was years and years of me taking, you know, big business principles and applying them to small businesses who are much more agile but still need operational efficiency. But they don't really know anything about it, right? Like, they know their product or service and they know that they need to learn how to sell it. Everything else is secondary, to be honest.

You know, for sure. And then there's this gap where it. It's kind of okay, but it's really not. And what I mean is they get away with it until they start building a team, and then they go, holy shit, none of this works together. Nobody knows what they're supposed to be responsible for. Zero accountability. And, you know, super great challenge.

And I'm, you know, getting bogged down in all these questions. Like, people are coming to me all day long, even though they're supposed to be doing their own work. But that's not happening. It's like, it reaches a point of, yeah, oh, shit, we gotta. We gotta figure this out. Because it starts to be really painful, you know, like, until it's painful, it's hard to communicate how valuable sometimes it is.

Yeah, a hundred percent. Like, I can. I can share too fairly openly with our organization. So we're now 105 people. And you know, when we were 45 people, I was pushing it without having, you know, a really great operating system in there. We acquired a company, added 30 more people. So we were now, you know, up in that 75 to 80 mark. And that's when chaos started going and we were looking and going, we need a system of accountability in here, otherwise we won't survive. And thank God we found. And honestly, like clockwork, I, I loved it. The frameworks were incredible. And you know, it was, that was really one of the entry points for me researching and going, okay, let's learn all the different perspectives and come up with a customized sort of approach for me. But I gotta tell you what a light bulb moment listening to klocwork in the system. Can you share maybe some of the key principles of what that KLOCWORK system is? And I would love for you to talk about one other thing because I think we were at an event in January together in Miami and I came home and made a declaration to everyone that I was taking a month off work. So maybe you could talk about that as well.

Yeah, so the, the litmus test of the book and of the system that we work with with our clients is this idea of taking a four week, completely unplugged vacation from the business. And when we first share this with people, they go, oh my God, there's no way I can do that because I gotta check in, I gotta answer the Slack notifications, the emails, the clients, the team, like everybody needs me. It's like, well, that's the problem. And if something were to happen to you, then we want to make sure that you are not a liability to the business. Right? And so we, we have you do the four week litmus test. We call it like the four week vacation. But you don't have to take a vacation if you don't want to. But I highly recommend it because the business also needs a vacation from you. Right? Like, it's not really about you taking the vacation. That's just our, our carrot that we dangle to get you out so that you go and do something with your hands. Because if you're around, you're gonna start like inserting yourself back into things. But if we can get the business to run and grow without you being there for four weeks, then typically everything is happening within your business during that time, right? Like you're going to sign on new clients, you're going to have to market, you're going to have to sell, you're going to have to Deliver, you're going to have to collect money, you're going to have to make payroll, you're going to have to deal with team challenges. Like all of those things are typically happening within a four week cycle. And we want the team to be able to rise to the occasion and figure out like what does not work well without you being here. And then let's come in and improve it. The whole system though gets you to that point, right? I do not recommend taking a four week vacation without doing the prep and the training work for marathon day. Right? Like, like you don't run a marathon without training. I mean some people do, but that's just a recipe for pain, right? Or injury. And like the same is true if you just go and like completely unplug and take four weeks from the business when you've never even taken three hours away from the business.

Cancel that marathon I signed up for.

So the system kind of, you know, gets you to the point we have you take a one week, then you do a two week, then do a three week, then you do a four week. But really the idea is that we don't want anything to be super dependent on your involvement. And that's healthy for the business for a few reasons. Number one, you would know that like if someone wants to buy your organization, if you would ever want to sell your company, like it can't be dependent on you that is not valuable to a potential buyer, they're like, I don't want a job. Like I. And I can't do those things. If you couldn't train anyone else to do them, how are you going to train me to do them? Right? So it increases the valuation of your business. Number one, it will help your business grow. It will also just kind of be like this insurance policy for the business if something besides a vacation happens in your life that requires you to step away. And I think that all of us think, you know, a lot of entrepreneurs, I'm so invincible. Nothing's going to happen to me. And every single entrepreneur that I've ever talked to, some things either either happened to them or to someone that they love that required them to step away.

Right?

It's like that. The likelihood of that happening is actually very high. And we would rather you be in a position where you're not also stressed about the business and the business can keep functioning and running and serving your clients and paying the bills so that you're not having to take care of whatever life has handed to you and the business stress. Right? So, but the system really Revolves around understanding your time. Right? Like, time, I think, is the. Is. Is more expensive than our money because it's really what we spend money on. Is. Especially as our team grows, we're paying for people's time, so we have to really understand what are they doing with their time. Are they being efficient with their time? Am I being efficient with my time? What is the highest use of my time? What is the highest use of their time? And most of us don't have a really good handle on that. I think that we think we do. But the one when it goes, when push comes to shove and we have to actually write it out or make improvements, we just kind of have this vague idea of what we do. We have, like, a few big buckets that we know. Like, I do the marketing. Okay, well, what does that mean? Right? Like, and what is. What does all of that entail? And could we splice it out and delegate some of those things and only keep the marketing tasks on your plate that are absolutely most important for you to do? But we usually have a good handle on our financials in the business. Like, people have, you know, their P and L, their cash flow, spreadsheets, all these things they're making. You're using those things to make decisions, and you understand the value of using those things to make decisions. Well, you need to have the same approach as it relates to your time and your team's time. And so really, everything that we do inside the system begs the question of, like, is this something we should keep doing? Like, is this worth our time? Is it worth our money? Is it worth continuing to do, or should we not do it? You know, like, is this the right thing to focus on? And so there's different elements of that throughout the system. Like, number one, just looking at your individual time, then we're looking at your team's time. But we're also, like, we have a tool called the crush cringe analysis for your clients.

Ooh.

We're trying to understand who are your best clients, not just because you kind of like them, but who's paying you the most. Who is, you know, easy to work with? Who can we replicate systems for really easily because they don't require a ton of specialization or individual requests, things like that. Who are the best clients that really, we feel really aligned and we like working with? And who are the people, when they call, we go, oh, God, I don't want to answer the phone for this person. Like, I don't want to talk to them. I don't want to fulfill whatever Request they're going to ask me to do, like, it's a cringe. It's painful, you know, and we want to design the business to bring in more of the Crush, what we call the Crush clients, and start weeding out more of the cringe clients. Right? So now that we have certified partners, they are doing this with their clients, Right. It's not just me. And we had someone yesterday actually say that this client identified, like, their crush and Cringe. They were able to be charging more to the Crush clients because it's like a premium type of service. And they. They signed on two additional Crush clients, and because of that additional revenue, they were able to drop 20 of their cringe clients. Right.

Wow.

So that makes them much more efficient, too. Right? Like, if I only have to deliver this service to two people that I love delivering it to, and it's already aligned with maybe what we currently deliver, what is most efficient for us to deliver? The marketing that, you know, attracts the best clients. We only have to do that instead of doing all of this type of marketing. And I get to drop these 20 clients that were probably taking up the majority of my time anyways, Right? Like, we had one client, and he figured out through the crush clinge cringe that 86% of his revenue was coming from, like, half of his clients. Right. And 14 was coming from the other half of his clients, but they were equal. They were taking up the same amount of time. Right? I'm like, okay, so let's. Let's get rid of this half of those clients and let's focus on getting more of these clients. Right? Like, it's like Pareto's law attached to Every. It's the 8020 attached to everything. But oftentimes we're so, like, we're so busy in our business that we fail to ask the questions of, like, is this something I need to keep doing? Like, do we have to do this at all? Should we just stop doing it all together? Why do I continue to do this? Usually because we've always done it, you know, and, like, those are things that will be really exciting, expensive, and painful to the business over time. And so we really take that, like, lean approach to how we approach everything in your business and how we start to streamline things to make it more efficient and to help you reduce the dependency on you and grow the business at the same time.

You know, do you even have to say anything when you. When they have the 8614? And, like, do you even have to say, maybe we should get Rid of these.

Like, that's the beauty of the coaching, the data. The data is in the model, right? Like, with the framework, like, once they do the work to get those answers, it becomes really easy for them to make their own decisions about, like, what's best for them, right? Because I'm not going to tell you what to do in your business. Like, you can choose to keep them, but you can't unknow this now, right? Like, so that's what I tell my clients all the time. Like, when it comes to, I won't.

Tell you what to do, but I will judge you.

I will judge you. I will say that that's a bad decision, but it's your decision, right?

It's yours to make.

It's yours to make. Because sometimes those are really emotional and hard decisions for people when it comes to people, right? I will say this. When it comes to people on the team and when it comes to people as clients, like, I don't want to downplay that, that there are hard decisions to make as business owners. Like, you know this, right? Sometimes we know that someone on the team isn't someone that should be on the team, but we love them as a person. And so we try to play the mental gymnastics model of how can I make it in my head that I should keep this person, right? Even though, like, the math is mathing and telling us this is not the person for the team. And the same thing is true. You know, when we look at some of those frameworks around our clients or even around, like, product lines, revenue streams, we get really attached to things that we've been doing for a long time or people that we've been working with for a long time. And so it sometimes takes them some courage, some time, some empowerment, some pep talks to get to the point where they're ready to actually make the hard decisions and go, you know what? Like, we need to cut this entire revenue stream. Like, it's not profitable for the business. And some people are going to be sad about that.

But I know for me personally, like, I remember last year before we started taking, you know, the accountability thing a little bit more seriously, like, we needed to. And I want to want to ask you for, you know, maybe you've got a specific element that you love in your program for accountability. I want to circle back to that. But when we introduced this to the team about the accountability side and we started to see people that we knew weren't hitting their targets and it, it was the same thing. It was the 86, 14 and we were like, okay, let's see how you're doing. And they would go, oh, shit, right? And, you know, initially I'd always thought, oh, well, you know, confrontation. I hate confrontation. I don't like having difficult conversations. I'll do it. And I think now I've stepped into that role maybe a little bit more than I've ever wanted to, but it's just part of being a leader. But I remember thinking about this, and there's one particular person in my mind who I knew was under, and it was starting to show. But it's such a selfish. Like, I. This was my realization, this was such a selfish decision for me to make that I let the team struggle having this person as a very poor contributor, forcing everyone else on the team to have to step up if we were going to achieve the goals and create opportunity for them that I promised them. And I was being extremely selfish by letting this person away with it. And that hit me like a ton of bricks because I was like, here I was thinking I was the nice guy to one person, but I was actually extremely selfish to everyone else involved. And that person was later removed and we brought in someone who's extremely efficient. The team morale went up high performance characteristics went through the roof, and it was like, okay, accountability is now a thing again.

Does that happen all the time? It's so hard, right? Because we don't want to be seen as mean. We want to be liked. We also, I find that as entrepreneurs and small business leaders, like, we want people to. Like, we want them to do well, and we see the potential in them and we're trying to give them all these opportunities to succeed. And we're like, please, just. Just do it. I don't want to have to fire you.

You know, like, how dare you put me in the position that I have to consider it? And that's how we feel, right?

And sometimes we've put oursel in that position because we haven't given them feedback soon enough, or we haven't given them the right feedback, or we haven't been clear about expectations or outcomes, and they're just floundering because they don't know how to succeed. And so I do think some of that ownership is on us, but 100%.

And I think that's part of the entire accountability system. It's like, you can't just say you're responsible for this. It's like, we need to coach you, we need to give you the skills. We need to give you the support, the technology, the infrastructure, all the Tools to be successful and then help you get there. Like, we're letting them down too, if we're not supporting with that system. And yeah, I couldn't agree more. It's been a huge change and shift in our business.

Yeah. And so sometimes it is like, it's definitely the hard thing. And I don't think anyone loves having these difficult conversations, but it's just the nature of running a business and keeping the entire team and the entire culture at the forefront. Like you're saying, like, I was being ignorant to what I was doing to them because I was trying to salvage or save this one person when that's having a negative impact on everybody else. And so, like, what's the cost of that? Right.

Not just financially, but culturally, you know, like everything, it was just, it was having big impacts. And then all of a sudden, you know, you change that and you say, okay, we're taking this seriously and sorry, I didn't realize what this sort of team member, how they would have an impact on you. But I'm committed to making sure that this isn't an environment that we accept going forward. And you know, it's on, it's on.

Me totally because, like, what kind of impression or expectation does that show everyone else? Well, if they can slack off and they're still here, like, why am I working my tail off? You know?

Exactly.

So then it's just like lowers the bar for everyone and it's like, that's not the direction we want to be going. And so I think those are the tough conversations we have to have. And having that accountability system and having a safe space for them to understand. I think everybody wants this, but as small business leaders, often we don't give it to people is like, people want to know how to succeed and we fail to give them the guard rails to do that. Right. And so having like super clear expectations, outcomes, what is this, like, what is a win in this role? What are the metrics that they should be moving towards and helping them understand those things and giving them permission to run with it to get to the outcome will also take a lot of pressure off of you. Making all of the decisions within the business. Like, if they understand where they're going, then they can be more autonomous, which is ultimately what most a players want. Like if you want top talent, they want to be autonomous. They don't want to be micromanaged. They also don't want to be like a middleman where all, all their job is is to go and ask their manager or ask you what they're allowed to do. Like, that's incredibly defeating for someone. It's frustrating. It's frustrating for the business owner because you think like, oh my God, like, why can't they just make these decisions on their own? And they're thinking, why won't they let me make these decisions on my own? And the customer's over here thinking, why does it take them so long to get back to me? Like, can't they just put me in contact with the person who has the answer? Like, so it's. Everybody wants that. And I think we often don't know how to get it. And so having those systems for accountability, we have a delegation framework that we teach.

Thank you. I was just gonna say. And what is that?

Yeah, like, the delegation framework that we teach requires three elements when you hand off anything. Okay. So we want to make sure that they have the right information to make decisions within that role, to execute within that role, to move forward to the outco. Right. Like, which requires us to understand where are they actually going so that we can figure out what information they need to get there. Sometimes that information lives in like a database or a drive that they don't have access to. Sometimes it lives in your head and we need to get it out. We need to document that information. Sometimes it lives with a team member and we got to get them to document it or transfer it out. But it's unfair of us to ask them to make good decisions if they don't have information to make good decisions. Right? So that's number one, like, what information are they actually going to need to move this forward? Number two is permission. Permission is really the formal handing over of like, I want you to make decisions within this role or I want you to make all the decisions to get to this outcome. If you don't give this to people, they're going to come back to you because they think that you, you that. That you want to make the decisions. They think that you're not confident in them making the decisions. Which might be true right now. Right. Which might be how they've been trained. Oh, I, I don't quite know how to answer that. So just come to me when it happens. Right, And I'll help you answer that. Or they go to you and they say, do you want it done in red or black? And you go, okay, I want it done in black.

Blue.

Blue. That's even better, right? Actually, I want it in blue. And then they're really confused of like, okay, now I really clearly don't know what I'M doing, and I can't do anything right. And so I'm just gonna keep going to Bob because clearly he's the only one who knows why he's choosing blue, and I am not qualified to choose blue because I would have never chosen blue. So we have to give them formal permission of, like, hey, I want you to make all these decisions. And if there is a time, sometimes this, you know, people will say, well, Adrian, I did that. And then they're still coming back to me. And I'm like, well, because you chose blue. When they asked you red or black, they.

You.

You gave them, number one, you gave them an answer, right? So now they think, oh, he wants to make those decisions. Number two, you gave them an answer that clearly they didn't have information to pick blue, so where is the information? We got to fill that gap for them, right? Like, there's something that, you know, that you're running through in your head that we need to transfer to them. You're just thinking through it so quickly now because of years of experience. Experience or, you know, expertise, whatever it is. Like, I just know that it needs to be blue, but why does it need to be blue? Let's. Let's take the time to transfer that so that they have the right information to make good decisions. Another, like, sidebar of why they're maybe bringing, you know, decisions back to you is you're not practicing any restraint, right? Like, they come to you and they say, red or black? And you use it. You go, okay, like, yes. You. You got this. Like, I totally trust you to make the decision. You can choose red or black. Okay, great, I got this. Black. And then you come in and you go, actually, I think it should be blue, right? So now they've made the decision like you told them to. So we got halfway there. And really, black was also totally acceptable. Like, black was not a wrong answer. Blue was just your preferred answer, right? Like, that's what Bob would do. But is that what the company would do? Like, is that wrong for the company? So I always try to run my. My, like, restraint filter through the lens of, like, is this just a personal preference? Like, is this something that run, like, clockwork would do? Like, would run like clockwork totally be okay with choosing black. And if so, then I need to just take a step back and know that it's just a personal preference, and it's not going to make a big impact on the brand or the business, right? If it is going to make a big difference, then I've probably left out some information, and that's a different conversation. But if it's not, then I need to practice restraint.

And it's. It's hard, right? Like, as an entrepreneur who's growing a company, you have to be making fast decisions, right? And it's like you've just become accustomed to, okay, this is easy, let's make a decision. You know, like, I. My wife is not an entrepreneur. She struggles with making decisions. I go home and I'm making them. And she's like, well, I want to make them together. And I'm like, well, yeah, but like, I, I don't have time. And you're like, but I would like.

To make them faster.

Yeah, but let's make them faster. And to your point, you know, is it red or is it black? Well, if it's within, you know, 3%, who cares? Pick one and move forward. And, you know, that's just how we start living life. But if you want to help empower people to own that responsibility, we have to stop. And it's. That is hard. It's harder. It's hard to do.

It's hard. It's probably like the hardest lesson that I've had as an entrepreneur running a team, like, to shut my mouth. It couldn't be me, right? Like, but I have to. And that's like, my team would probably tell you I've created, I've like, had the most personal growth around that. So I'm not telling you all of this because it's something I don't understand. I'm telling you this because it's something that I struggle with. Like, I struggle too with. Oh, it's not exactly how I would do it. But what's more important here, like them developing some self trust and some confidence and some autonomy, or me being right and me having to do it my way all the time.

Yeah, I completely agree. And although maybe I need to start saying that would run like clockwork, do it this way. But normally what I do is I. If someone were to ask me, you know, should it be red or black? I would typically as a response, go, well, I'm happy to support you with this, but what would you think it should be? And you sort of explain it to me, convince me of why you would do it, and then, you know, Again, if it's 99 or 100, then let them pick their choice and, and support them, you know, And I mean, I love that framing.

I think that's a great way to frame it so that they also know that there's support if they're feeling, you know, like they need it. But let's encourage them that they can do this on their own. And you trust that they can do it on their own. You're not needing. Needing to be involved, but you're available if that, that would make them more comfortable. Right? But like, the first thing is tell me what you think, right? Not, let me just answer it for you, because then, you know, they will continue to struggle with the critical thinking because they're not, they're not trained to do that right now if, if you've been making decisions for them. The third piece of that framework that I'll share is outcome. Like, what is the outcome that they're actually moving towards for this project, for this role, for this thing that we're actually delegating? If we don't define where it is that they're going, they're going to walk in circles, they're going to struggle, they're going to not meet your expectations, which is then going to disappoint you and lead you back to going, see, I knew that I just had to do it myself. Which is like, not the neural pathway that we're trying to create. Like, we want them to be good at this, right? So we got to make it so that they can succeed, which they have to know where they're going. And most of the time, if you can fill in even just the, the O like the outcome, they're going to be so much more successful because if you're hiring a players, they can make a lot of good decisions, at least to get us to that outcome, even without all of the information they can go, huh? Like that's where we're trying to go. If that's where we're trying to go, here's what I think we should do, right? But if they don't know where they're going, then they'll struggle.

Agreed. And you know what? Outcome. Outcome for me, across the organization where everybody had an outcome was, you know, a very lengthy process to get to the point where we were able to have that outcome for everybody, but so necessary. And you know, when I'm talking to any of the leaders on our team, one of the things I continuously talk to them about is, well, do you have conversations with your team about one, how they're contributing to the success of the team? Because if they don't know that, then they won't feel like they're part of it and they won't feel that a player sort of, I'm going to step up and, and help the team. But if they don't really know what they're working towards and what the outcomes are of them achieving those milestones, then they won't head in that direction. They. It just doesn't happen. And so for any of you leaders out there, even if you've got a smaller team or if you're an entrepreneur who's running a larger organization, you want to get productivity and outcomes, make sure that everybody knows what they're striving to achieve. Because, man, oh, man, without that there, it's just. You're looking for the treasure without a treasure map.

Exactly. I love that you said that it took a long time, though, because it does. Right. Like, especially at your size, you know, like, this takes time, but you didn't abandon it. And I think that that's the important, important piece is, like, there is, you know, an end in sight when. And it becomes much easier once you have it in place for everyone. Now when we need to update. Update those things, it's not. We have to do it for everyone all at one time. And so it becomes easier and easier once we have the foundation. But, I mean, I have clients right now who, like, they have five people on their team, 15 people on their team, and they're in pain, too, trying to do this, because they're like, I haven't done this before. This is taking forever. I'm like, yeah, but this is necessary to move forward and to continue to grow. Like, you'd much rather put it in place when you have five or 15 team members versus when you have 105 or 160. Right.

Like, and truthfully, it's probably the same amount of work for the individual entrepreneur. And here's why. Practice what we're preaching right here. I didn't come up with all of these. Right. So you go to the leader and you say, you know, you create the outcomes for your team, and then let's review it together.

I'll give you a step further of what we do. We get the individuals to do it, and then the leaders review it and. And communicate feedback on, like, oh, that's interesting, because sometimes you'll get some interesting stuff from the individual contributors of, like, oh, that's what you think your outcome is. That's really interesting. Like, here's what I think we're moving towards, but let's talk about this, you know, because they also may have a better idea, too. Yeah, like, maybe there's an integration of that, you know.

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.

So just delegate all the work to them.

Just say, figure this out, and I'll be back in a month and we'll talk about it then.

That's the whole system.

All right, maybe not. Yeah, maybe not that easy, right? No, but it's so important. And, you know, honestly, I feel like I lost a year of my business's life because I wasn't prepared for that to be as important as it is. And so for anybody who's smaller out there, like Adrian sang, you know, this is something that is so important as a. As a startup with five employees and building it from there, because I missed accountability targets for a year by not having this in place. And it cost me a lot, and it was a huge mistake on my part. And it was one of those, you don't know what you don't know, but here's us sharing this, guys. Like, one of the most valuable things you can put in your business is to have an accountability system where your team knows exactly what's expected of them and they know that they have the resources and support in order to get there. And you will continue. Yes. Some people will fall short. It's going to happen. And we have conversations and we say, okay, you know, we're part of the way through. Where do you stand here? You're a little bit short. What resources support do you need for me to get you back on track? And let's not leave it till the end of the year and go, oh, you really missed the boat.

That's like, the most important part of an accountability system is that you actually hold people accountable to it. Right, Right.

Go figure.

Like, we gotta have feedback loops. Right? So it's step one is helping them understand where they're even going. But then you gotta make sure there's faster feedback loops. Not one year. They should not be getting a annual review. And not like everyone on your team should. Should know at all times how they're doing. They should be able to know their own performance. Right? And sure, like, we want to give them encouragement and help them, you know, stay motivated and all those things, but it should not be a surprise. So. But that's where most people fail, is like, oh, I did. I put this in place. But then they're not doing it. And I'm like, okay, well, then what did you do? Nothing. Okay, well, now we gotta finish. Finish that next step.

So 100%. Here's a question for you. If you were to pick maybe a couple really great examples of people that you've worked with and maybe how the system has transformed their lives, would you have any stories to Share. I know there's a bunch in the book, right. Like every chapter talks about a case study, which is really, really helpful. And as anybody who is going, again, get the book. It's a fantastic book. As you're reading through it, Mike is a wonderful storyteller. He explains things very clearly. He writes very, very clear messaged books. All of his books that I've read, He's a fantastic author. And one of the things that he does is as he's teaching things, he walks you through examples of how this applied in somebody's life. And so get the book and listen to those stories as you're applying some of his key insights. But for you, Adrian, now that you've not only been part of the book in the process and building out the models, now you've seen it applied to people's lives, what are some of the major milestones that you've seen them achieve?

There's so many. I can speak even for myself, like, one of the most important things for me was being able to take parental leave when I had my babies. And so I was able. I unplugged the first, first maternity leave for six weeks completely, and the business still grew. My second maternity leave, I unplugged for 13 weeks and the business still grew. They actually did like a whole launch enrollment while I was gone. So those are things that we've had clients also do, like people who actually. One guy, he actually clockworked his business in nine months because his wife got pregnant and he wanted to be able to take a paternity leave. We've had so many, you know, moms do the same thing. We had one client who started with us. I actually just heard an update from him. He started with us. He had 12 people on his team. He clockworked the business. He had a lot of emotional, like, mental challenges as it got closer to the four week vacation. Because he was like, I don't even know who I am anymore. Like, what hobbies do I have? Right.

Like, his identity has been. Been abandoned.

Yeah, like, what am I going to do? And I was like, all right, I become a therapist. I'm like, all right, here's what we're going to do. He now has 160 people on his team. Solid growth over the past. That was four years ago. And so he's grown exponentially just from getting himself out of the weeds. Right. It's like, you can't grow if everything.

Comes back to you as an emergency.

As an emergency, yeah, everything. So, I mean, story after story, people, you Know reducing even their entire team's like work hours. So we've had accounting practices like, oh, we gotta work 24 7, especially during tax season. We had a client who took their firm from like 12 hour days to 6 hour days. So everyone, like they're a 6 hour a day accounting firm. They don't work more than that and they get just as much done. They actually have even more clients at this point because they've grown. So just using the efficiency principles to make it work for whatever your goals are. Right. Like maybe it's not the four week vacation but like maybe it's like we take every Friday off, like we don't work on Fridays. So. Great. Like maybe you want six hour days for your team. Like what are the things that are really important to you? And let's motivate yourself and the team to start putting these things into place. I have one client actually, he just went completely asynchronous. He doesn't do any zoom or meetings at all anymore. That was his goal. He didn't want to do meetings anymore. I'm like, okay, well let's optimize for that. We can do that. And we did. So you name it, we can do it. Right?

Yeah, well, and you know, this is one of the, maybe the scary things too. And even just thinking back to the identity issues that people have as being that go to person, you're, you're the emergency person, right? Like everybody comes to you to get all, all of the solutions for everything. And, and it starts, your self worth can be like, your ego can be a little bit tarnished as part of this journey and that's okay, you know, be, be prepared for it.

What is my value if they don't need me for all of this? And so it's like, okay, let's figure.

That out, you know, and I, I know, I think about this too. I'm busy. I'm as busy as anybody. I'm putting out the fires still. You know, we've got a system that's in place that made that better. It still continues to happen from time to time. But here's the thing. Even if I got my four weeks right, which we're going to work on, we're going to, we're going to get the four weeks.

We're going to, we're going to do this, Bob.

We're going to do this. Even if I had the four weeks, I don't know that I want the four weeks, but I want that four weeks of strategy time. Like guys, business owners think of the fact that you could get four weeks to strategize on what you're doing. New idea is and a launch plan or partnership agreements or whatever. Like you are the most valuable person in your business. Without question. We want to take you out so that the business operates without you. But just think of all that superpower if we re inject you in strategy and ideas and revenue generation and which is our goal.

Right. Like that's typically like where we want the CEO to be spending the majority of their time. But right now they're not getting any deep work. As Cal Newport would say, like deep work time on the strategic visionary elements of the business. You know. And one of my clients, she had this metric goal of coffee shop days because that's where she came up with all her best like million dollar ideas. All the ideas that had generated millions of dollars for their business came when she was sitting in a coffee shop doing deep thinking work and not being interrupted by the day to day of the business. And so we're like, okay, let's optimize for that. She needs at least two to three coffee shop days a week. And so instead of like one four week vacation, she's getting three days a week where she's uninterrupted by day to day operations of the business.

Yeah. And like my, my brain work is best when I'm listening to an audiobook because honestly I feel like if I were sitting there and looking at a blank piece of paper, my mind would go back to all of the things that I've done in the past. But if I listen to an audiobook and I'm sitting there, all of a sudden my brain goes from listening to the audiobook, picks up one thing and it goes on to. I see an opportunity, a different idea. Yeah. And so I usually have to read or listen to books multiple times because I have to restart it every time I hit a new chapter. But that's my, that's my thinking time and it works. Incredible.

The goal though, right? Like you're getting new ideas, which is the whole point.

100%. Exactly. So that works perfectly for me. As frustrating as it is where I've got, you know, 10 books always on the go. It's like, oh man, if I could just finish one of these. But it, that is a wonderful, wonderful thinking time for me because I'm taking other people's success stories and saying how can this apply to me? But if you don't have that time, it's going to be impossible and you're going to Find yourself. If you don't, if you don't create that time, you're going to find yourself in that pocket of dealing with the emergencies, because that's just what you've always done and that's what people expect of you. And let's not do that anymore. Let's just not do it. Adrian, I love chatting with you at all times. What is so last thing I'll ask you what is one thing, And I know you've got the entire system and I'm going to get you to share how people can get in touch with you and Clockwork. But what would be like one piece of advice as like a first step to start making progress towards making your business run like clockwork?

Yeah, the one thing that we always have our clients start with is really looking at their time. So like I was talking about the data of your money. Like, we got to look at the data of your time. If you go to run like clockwork.com forward/time, I have like our time tracking spreadsheet that we use with our clients. You all can use it there. I don't even think there's an opt in. I think it's just there it gives you like some videos on how to use that spreadsheet. So if you go to runlikeclockwork.com forward/time, use our spreadsheet, track your time, see where it's actually going so that you can start making some better decisions on how to get it where it needs to be. But that's always the first step because other we need the data, right, to know how to make it even better.

And maybe not just do this for you, but get all of your leaders on your team to do it. Get your entire team to do it. You know, it's, it'd be amazing. And there is an element of this where people go, why do you want to track my time? And we say, because we want to help you make your life easier.

Yeah, we want to give you your dream job and you're probably doing a bunch of shit you hate doing.

So yeah, like, let's see if we can't automate some of these things that you're doing that you shouldn't be doing, that you hate. How can we use technology to help.

It stop doing some of these things because they don't add value to the business.

Yeah, they're part of that 14%. You know, like, let's get rid of the 14%. Okay, thank you for that. We'll make sure that that link gets into the comments and all of the postings of the podcast. How can people get a hold of you and your amazing team to help them get their businesses running more efficiently?

Yeah, they can go to runlikeclockwerk.com that's where everything lives. There's free resources there. There's link to the book, our social media, our programs. But, yeah, my best advice is always read the book. You know, it'll give you a really good starting point and understanding if this is something that is a current pain for you that you want to solve. But 20 bucks to figure that out, I think for a book is usually a good approach. You know, don't spend thousands of dollars with me yet until you spend the 20 on the book. So.

Yeah, and. And truthfully, again, you know, not that I'm making any money off of this book, but it sure as hell seems like I am.

My spokesperson.

Yeah, exactly. But it is such a good read. Everyone who's listening, it's an easy read. And if you can't listen to that book, or if you listen to that book and you don't come away with one thought or idea of how to make your business run better and more productively or most efficiently, like, I'll buy the book.

I'll send you the money. I'll buy the book for you. Yeah, I should do that. I should. I should actually promote it that way.

Well, because, you know, if. If they do come back, then they probably didn't read the book.

Right. I'll just give them a quiz.

Yeah, they're lying. And I'll be the assessor. You send them my way, and I'll be like, wait a minute, you didn't actually read this. But again, the case studies that are in there will show you how those principles would apply to a situation that's similar to yours. And that being a business owner or a leader in any position, walk you through how this can apply, the outcomes that they received. I can tell you that many of those principles that are in the book I have applied and have seen results from in a positive way. So without question, this is an easy 20 investment to get started. Check out their website. Adrian is absolutely amazing. She's been super supportive to our community, so we're happy to support her and her team in any way we can. Anyway, thank you once again for being here, guys. This has been the Wealthy Entrepreneur podcast. There's so many incredible tidbits in here from Adrian in sharing her wisdom today. If you see something in here or you heard something, drop a comment. We want to see your feedback make sure you give our podcast a like and follow. We'll have another episode coming out next week. But even more importantly, if you know somebody who you feel would benefit from this information, make sure you share this podcast with them. We're here to support entrepreneurs, help empower entrepreneurs with good information to change the world together. So thanks again for joining us today. I look forward to next time.