How to Build a Business for the Life You Want with EMyth VP Tricia Huebner - 54

Episode 54: How to Build a Business for the Life You Want with eMyth VP Tricia Huebner. Welcome to Creative Counsel with Brittany Ratel. I'm your host Brittany, an attorney for creatives who believes in solid contracts and cute office supplies, and who wants to empower you to be a more confident business owner. Whether you're a creative, influencer, maker, artist, shop owner, or content creator, you are not just a blank. You are a real bona fide business owner. So let's help you own your business and get you legally legit with Brit. Thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the podcast, entrepreneurs. I'm happy to have you. So I wanted to introduce our guest today, and I am super excited and just honored that we get to have her here to get her advice and her wisdom that she has. So Tricia Huebner has spent the last two decades helping small business owners in every stage of development to build businesses that serve the lives they want and leave a lasting positive impact on the world. She is a vice president and director of coaching at eMyth and has personally coached more than 200 business owners, consulted with several Fortune 500 corporate clients including American Express, Allstate, and Ace Hardware, and has led nearly 3,000 leadership and entrepreneurial management workshops. Tricia has also worked closely with the U.S. Small Business Administration creating a nationwide E-Myth business development training program. We're so lucky to have her depth of expertise to dive into. Now, if you're my book club, then you are already familiar with The E-Myth Revisited. That was our book for January, and so this interview is kind of the bookend to that discussion. But really, there's some irony there because I hope this is just the beginning of you digging into the work and the narratives and the ideas and principles that were introduced in E-Myth, which is to how to really build this business that you love through systems, through planning, through organization, um, so that you're building yourself, you know, and laying the groundwork to really achieve that you want, and not just giving yourself another job with the crazy boss, i.e., you. So please dig into this episode and make sure you stay till the end and dig into the show notes, because E-Myth has been super, super generous in giving us just a ton of resources, as well as 1 hour of free coaching for any of the listeners on this podcast. So make sure you check out those links in the show notes and listen to this gem of an episode. Apologies for my audio. I didn't have my mic tuned in, so I don't sound really great, but Tricia does. And that's who we're here to listen to. So here we go.

Welcome everyone back to the podcast, and we're so excited to welcome our guest Tricia today from E-Myth. Hi, Tricia.

Hello. Glad to be talking to you all.

Awesome. Well, tell us a little bit about, for those that haven't had the chance maybe to read the E-Myth yet, I hope all of you have, and if you haven't, certainly after this episode I think you're going to want to dig into it. But tell us a little bit about the book and, you know, what you do involved with the Eden Myth organization.

Okay, actually the, the book has kind of got its own interesting history. Um, the first edition was written by our co-founder and author of the book, Michael E. Gerber, back in the late '80s, like around 1984-ish time, and it had all of the the philosophy and kind of concepts and all of the sort of big ideas, but it was written more kind of like an academic book. And so it got immediately sort of adopted into a lot of business schools and management thinkers and people like that were talking about it, passing it around, but it wasn't reaching the intended audience, the small business owner that Michael, you know, he had the idea and the vision after working with a lot of small businesses with his brother-in-law for years and years and years. And he just saw these patterns and he started to formulate these concepts and the philosophy of why things weren't working. Then after a time, he decided to pull the book back in and rewrite it, recast it in the form of a story. That's where The E-Myth Revisited comes from. That's usually the book that people are accessing these days, and it's the one that's become one of the top 10 business books of all time.

Yeah, for sure.

Because you get that story and people identify with Sarah. The woman in the book that he personally kind of talks to about all these concepts. I think that made it much more relatable. As a result, the coaching company, the actual work that we do today and all of our coaches kind of sprung from the vast popularity of the book. I mean, he always wanted to provide this systematic way to develop a business for small business owners, new-time entrepreneurs, that kind of thing. It was really interesting because after the book sort of took off and then it hit the New York Times bestseller list and all this kind of stuff, people were calling saying, "I'm Sarah. How do I begin to apply this into my business and really take these ideas and make them stick?" Right.

The pie makers were coming out of the woodwork. If you guys haven't read the book, that's what Sarah is. She's a pie maker, which I always loved because I was first introduced to this book and I read it in college. Part of a lecture series I had in my business minor class that we had entrepreneurs who would come into the classroom and they would kind of tell their origin story and then there were a couple books assigned as readings and The E-Myth Revisited was one of those books. So I remember reading it in college and I loved the book especially because my mother is an amazing pie maker and she's never done a business out of it but she's considered it. And I remember and I was like, Mom, the only thing I'm going to say, I love you and of course I will believe you but if you ever think about starting a pie making business, I have one book that you are required to read first.

Oh, that's awesome. I love that.

So I love the personal connection. But yeah, I think the book does a really good job in that narrative style of trying to, you know, show just how common the pattern is about being a technician and some of the myths. You know, tell us a little bit about what is, what is the grand E myth and why do we need to figure out what it is so we can not do it in our own businesses?

Yeah, right, right. So, you know, the E stands for entrepreneur. And it was called The E-Myth because the myth of, of anybody starting a business is that they're automatically an entrepreneur. Just because I've started this business— oh, and this is more true today than ever, and I've been with the company, uh, 18 years, and I can tell you when I first started, when I was a business coach just coming on board with them, the concept of being an entrepreneur wasn't as massive as it is today. So that brings up a few issues for people to consider because what the entrepreneurial myth says is just because you know how to do the work of the business doesn't mean you know how to create a business that does that work. So you may be an expert technician producing craft baking pies.

Product, service, whatever it is, yeah.

Yeah, and you can even be an accountant or some kind of, an attorney, or any of those where you've got that expert part of where, like, I want to do this for myself, I'm tired of working for somebody, I could make more money, I could have more time, I'll build this business, and my life dreams are to be able to, you know, and they go on that journey, that seizure, and then they do it and they jump out of wherever they are, and then they find themselves in the middle of something that they, they know how to do the work that they're going to be marketing or they're gonna be trying to productize, but they have no idea about how how to start to build a business that isn't reliant on them. And so it's just, you know, that myth that we expose just helps open up people to the idea that, you know, building a business is a very different— there's a different set of knowledge and skills that you need. That doesn't mean you can't keep working in it. That doesn't mean you can't be the product. You know, we work with a lot of physicians and people that, I mean, they're the product of the business. Business, but how do you take the concepts and begin to then create something beyond you? Because maybe someday you want to sell it. Maybe at some point you want to have something that all that, you know, sweat equity and time and money you've invested is actually worth something at the end of the day. And so getting people to just start to relate differently to having their own business. And, you know, in the book we talk about the 3 hats and You can— you mentioned one because, yeah, yeah, that's the technician one, which I think is—

yeah, tell us a little bit about— we've kind of briefly mentioned it, but that's the one who's, who's doing the work. So they're the ones doing the illustration, the graphic design, they are making the signs and selling them on Etsy, they are the dentist, the doctor, the lawyer, the photographer, they're the person doing the thing. Yeah.

And so when you think about what I would say, when I think about the book over and over and over, there are few really powerful ideas. I mean, the whole thing is full of powerful ideas, but the one that seems to really stick with people that they can work with right off the bat are these 3 personalities. Understanding you've got your technician's hat that you wear, saying what you just did— producing, making, delivering the product. Then you've got a manager's hat, and the manager, when you step back, even if it's just from you, there's a whole lot of stuff you're managing in order to, to run your business or run your practice or whatever level you're at. That. And, you know, the manager thinks about things like who's gonna do the work and how do we do it productively, efficiently. That's where we start to talk about systems. The manager is the one who's designing the systems so that, you know, ideally as you grow, you're bringing in more technicians to do those work, you know, do the work. But they're really kind of in between what I say is the technician. And then of course the third personality is the entrepreneur, the one who has the vision, the one who first, you know, got ignited by the idea of, of building this, this thing for themselves. And so if you literally think of them as hats— I do this all the time when I work with clients. And in fact, one of the resources we're going to provide, I know we're going to go over them at the end, I specifically chose because this is one of the most helpful concepts from the book. It's all about how to think about juggling your time, wearing those three hats, and then really learning to distinguish when you're working in it when you're working on it. That's probably one of the biggest, you know, phrases that we invented that now everybody says, and they all get it. They know what working in it, working on it—

because yeah, as soon as someone hears that, they go, oh yeah, I totally understand that. I've been in the trenches. I've been doing my business World War I style, and I've been there and in it. And it's not to say there's not a place for that, because of course we— there's, you know, when we get started, we have to get going and we should have momentum and you need to grow expertise, but you can't stay there forever. Or if you do, you're unlikely to be an unhappy be an entrepreneur.

And likely to fail ultimately. The book starts out with some pretty kind of harrowing statistics, which I'm sure have not changed from, you know, it's printed in '84 now.

And I mean, and like you said, I think that it's— we've seen, you know, an incredible rise in entrepreneurship, and because we've seen barriers to entry of people starting a business fall. And now, since we have such a digital economy, because people, you know, they used to have to worry about, well, I'm gonna need a truck and I'm gonna need to, you know, lease lease a storefront and you go through all these other steps. Now you don't need any of that. You don't have to worry as much about manufacturing. You can get that outsourced. All you need is a website that's a couple bucks a month. And so I think it's tantalized people, which I think is exciting, and that's, that's really awesome. But with that, I think, yeah, comes a recognition that we need to make sure that we're following up and that this business is maturing, that there's a natural progression. Just like we as humans mature and grow up and we learn things in our relationships and academically and socially, our businesses need to be doing Absolutely.

And, and the degree that you're working on it and in it shifts around all of the time based on what your ultimate vision is. So in the book, we call one of the most powerful chapters— there's two— one is called your, your primary aim, and one is called your strategic objective. Now, your primary aim is business owners, especially according to E-Myth, and what we really care about is that the business is there to serve your life. So if you're gonna— if you're gonna head out and start your own business, for most people, I mentioned in the beginning, it's because they, they want to be masters of their own time. They want to control their own time. They want to have the capacity to make, you know, a lot of money, or more that they could make than working for someone else. And they want to have a sense of freedom of being able to choose what they do and they do it with.

And yeah, now more than ever, it seems like— I mean, that's really what people, especially I think of my generation, they, they care about is they They're not as concerned with acquiring a large home as much and a giant mortgage. They want a life that fulfills them and that they feel like they have autonomy of, and what that means having a really strong work-life balance. Yeah.

Exactly. And starting with knowing yourself in that way, really truly what's important to you, why you get out of bed in the morning, all that kind of stuff. We start there because from there, once you're clear about your life and the goals and dreams you have there, then you can create the kind of business that serves that life. And that picture is different for everybody. We actually don't, you know, we don't say, oh, it should look like this, or you should want 4 of those, or, you know, this, your market share should have been— that's up to the individual entrepreneur. That's up to the person saying, I may not wanna grow it beyond this, but just be really conscious and start out with putting— so the other chapter is the strategic objective. That's our term for a vision. Statement, a vision document. And the strategic objective, we ask in the very beginning of working with our clients, they, they uncover their primary aim, that really powerful why, and then they build a vision of their business. So 3 years from today, what would you want your business to look like, act like, perform like, and feel like? So how does it feel for you to own this? What are you doing? How do you see yourself? Do you see people coming in? Are you actually going to build more of a business and bring others in and do you have sort of— if you go on our website, you'll see this huge range. We have some client stories and they're really different. I mean, it goes from someone who wants just this really successful— and I've got a link for you for this too— cinematography, wedding photography business, this really powerful ability to be a mom to her daughters and have this business and that work-life balance you're talking about. So there's a really powerful story there. Then it goes all the way to the other side and talks about Curt Richardson, who is the founder of OtterBox. He was also an E-Myth client.

Hugely successful large product company. Yeah.

$8 billion business. It's up to the individual. What I love about this work and why I've done it for so long is it's parallel to people knowing themselves and working on themselves as it is working on their business because as a leader, One of the more confronting statements that this book makes, and you probably remember it, is it says the business is a reflection of you.

Yes, which is— that is a cold truth, you know, or warm truth, however you want to feel, but it's the truth. And I think your ability to recognize that and to self-confront both your weaknesses as a person and then as a business will, you know, will give you hands down the greatest chance of success and being able to evolve and to see the business as this cool laboratory, you know, of human experience that you get to discover things about yourself, about other people, about how to sell and market and grow and stretch yourself and have to do uncomfortable things, which are all part of, I think, of, you know, growing a successful business. Yeah.

Yes, for sure. It's like having that, that mirror in front of you. If you've raised children, you probably feel the same way because, you know, it's kind of like you're leading your household, you're, you're shaping the people around you, and they're getting their stuff from you and throwing it right back at you.

And you're, you know, I saw a great meme the other day that's like, how dare you, you know, speak to me like the way that I would speak, you know, how dare you reflect back to me the exact person that I am. And it's like, that's so true, you know, as parents you get that. And most of my listeners are parents here that, yeah, there's something that, you know, draws you to your core where you're like, oh, that's why I reacted the way I did, is because I'm seeing me. I mean, I'm seeing maybe things about me that I don't love or I haven't processed or I'm still working on. And that's a certain challenge to see that, yeah, that mirror being able to confront you like that.

Yeah, the things that you're afraid of, the things that, you know, I can think about clients over the years that they— let's just say something very simple that they grew up with. They were told never to get into debt, that debt was bad, and they had this fear of ever, you know, having any debt. And actually, you can't really grow and develop your business without an occasional dip in—

Strategic, you know.

Borrowing or getting a line of credit or something. Because if you're trying to develop and grow it through revenues, a lot of people don't have an angel investor land on their shoulder and hand them a bunch of money and say, now go build that business. So it's a really kind of nuanced process, and if you have a fear that suddenly comes out like that, that'll definitely affect you as a business owner and leader. So we, we work with our clients a lot on that. And we work on just really understanding the stage the business is in and what's appropriate for any given stage and what's needed. In the book, this is why I thought about the kids, because they talk about infancy, adolescence, and maturity. And it's so true, you know, an infancy business is not just me, you know, new startup business. But the business is too dependent on the owner, on the founder. So it stays in infancy because it wouldn't survive without that person.

Just like a baby wouldn't. You love it and it's cute, but if you step away, it's a goner. You know, it cannot survive without you. And this is what one of my favorite phrases from the book that I, I quote to my clients a lot is that, have you been— have you built a business or have you given yourself a crappy job?

You know, exactly. Did you buy yourself a crappy job?

Yeah, because if you are— if you bought yourself a crappy job, you've just, you know, you, you wanted to escape the hustle and the corporate grind or whatever else you were running away from, and all you did was sign yourself up, and now you work for the worst boss ever, which is yourself.

That is so true. And, you know, that's the part of it too that I think we can— I don't mean to make light of that because people, you know, invest so much time and money and energy and hopes and dreams and There are just some things that if you keep your eye on, your likelihood for success is going to be a lot greater than if you don't have that awareness. I think that's why this book is so, so powerful for people.

It's still so relevant all these years later. Yeah. It's still worth reading. Yeah. What do you think is powerful about that, especially relative to smaller companies? You guys talked about— I know at EMyth you guys have talked and helped the range of companies. And I could see that someone who's listening to this is like, okay, I'm on to you, I've heard that systems are important, whatnot, but that seems like that should be important once I've gotten going, once I've reached this size, once I've reached this revenue or this many people helping me. What would be your answer to that in terms of, no, if it's just you, you're, you know, the single woman shop doing this, what should you be doing in your business and why is this still important?

So you just named a very common misconception that people have around another hugely key idea in the book, which is systemization— the what systems do for a business and for the owner of a business. In the book, it's referred to as the franchise prototype. And just for those of you that haven't read it yet, the idea is if from day one you had the mindset of building your business as if you were going to franchise it, meaning replicate it 10, 20, 1,000, 2,000 times, you'd approach it completely different. You would from day one be designing system to do this, a system to do that, because in your mind, okay, I may be doing this now, so I'm gonna pioneer the system, I'm going to create the system,, but at some point I want someone else to come in and be able to do this and get the same great result I can get. So I have to design that from the beginning or I'll never be able to leave that work and move over to another part, which now the business is starting to take off. I need to focus more over here, like I need to be spending a lot more time in marketing or lead generation or something. So if you think about just looking, um, how you do what you do and in very simple ways, just get started in writing down, making checklists, creating, you know, this, this old-fashioned idea of an operations manual. That changes you. It changes how you think about the business. It changes your relationship to it because you automatically get a little objectivity when you're sort of looking at taking something out of yourself and putting it down on paper. Now suddenly, if something were to happen, someone else could do that. Let's just say you had to go have surgery and you were going to be out for 6 weeks. Weeks, how would your business survive? Could you actually bring in some money on a temporary basis to do certain things to keep your business going? You have to just start thinking about those types of scenarios. The book really presents the franchise prototype as a way to think about it. The 3 personalities, knowing that you've got to have all 3 hats present. You're just wearing them for different amounts of time. If you're just starting out, there's going to come a time where you you just gotta let it run. So it's not like this all happens at once. It's you start a piece and then you get the results and you see if something's working or not. And then you kinda go back. So having like a template design is really how to develop the business. That's kinda what came out of the book. We created a whole coaching system with a business process that you can walk yourself through. And I would suggest anybody would love to take a first look at that The book E-Myth Mastery was actually released— gosh, I'm trying to remember when Michael put that out. I was a new coach with them when that came out. It's kind of a continuation after E-Myth Revisited. It presents the first kind of layer of our business development process. Then there's a URL at the end of the book where you can actually download some worksheets and some templates and some things that come from that book that are pulled directly right out of of our coaching process.

To kind of, you know, walk you through what that process looks like in terms of being introspective and starting to ask those questions of how do you do what you do and can you write that down and what's the first step of intake and how do you, you know, first come in contact with the client and then how do you close them and how do you onboard them and then what do you do for them and what's the emails that get sent and who does what and piecing all of that together.

Yeah, exactly. And it doesn't have to be overwhelming. It can be very— if you can think about it very systematically. We love two words. We love the word systematically because it's a step-by-step process, and we love the word systemic because everything in the business is connected. That's another thing that the, that the book really talks about. And we have a model that we use with our clients. So if you could draw a circle and then a little circle in the, in the middle, so now that you have a don't, and then split 3 pieces off on the top and 3 on the bottom. So you have like a 7— there's like 7 areas, and in the middle is leadership. That is the absolute core of your business, because what happens in the discipline of leadership, which is what E-Myth Mastery walks you through, is your visioning, really getting your value. You may not have anybody yet, but if your vision is to have— but you need to get this all in place so that you're ready. So there are things you can be working on, maybe even a year before you're ready for it. But because you know that needs to happen, you can kind of piece that work in as you go. Then you go to marketing and you come up with your whole marketing strategy and product market grid and all this. It walks you through. Then you look at finance. Do I have a good finance system? Am I going to be able to keep track of my money and manage my cash and read my financial reports?

Do I need some help there? Do I need to hire a bookkeeper or an accountant? Do I need an attorney? Hint, you probably do. Exactly.

Yeah, when you think about that, that's how people can put together one of these kind of virtual businesses using contractors, using expert services, outsourced services, but thinking about it holistically as their business. And so, you know, there's pros and cons to doing that beyond a point, but if you keep going around the— we call it the wheel— and, you know, then you hit into management, and management It depends. Are you going to have people? There's a bunch of stuff you got to be thinking about to kind of prepare for.

If you want people and how involved you want to be in the oversight of those people and what's the vision and how do you want to be working with it and do you want people, you know, how often do you want to be checking in and, you know, and especially I think how when people first start to get people, I think it's important, you know, and I think you guys talk— this is a good segue— talk about what position contracts are, position agreements, because I think you do such a great job and this is something my husband has done for his business.— now he's in a very closely held 3-person family business and we both read the E-Myth last year and he took this to heart and started writing out position agreements for each of their roles in the company and he said it was just incredibly helpful to have written down exactly what you're doing. And I think this is especially true if you are in small businesses and especially if you're working with family or friends.

Absolutely. Position agreements are a game changer. So is an organizational chart, right? And, you know, a lot of very small businesses don't— just don't think about that. But here's why it's really important, especially if you're a one or two person business at this point. All that functional work of your business is still getting done. You're just not recognizing that if you created a real kind of a simple org chart and you put your name in every single box— yes, I'm the owner. Now let's drop below the line. Yes, I'm the president. Yes, I'm the director of marketing. Yes, I'm the director of finance. Yes, I'm the—

I mean, Yes, I do fulfillment.

Yes, I do.

Yeah.

It's a little overwhelming in the beginning, but then it becomes a strategy board or like a strategy piece where then if you fill this out and you're down into those areas you just mentioned, down in fulfillment, production, delivery, service, lead conversion, the sales, you get down and you're doing all that, the first place you want to start getting yourself out of the The only way you can get yourself out of the box is from the bottom because those are the pure technical job roles that if you— but the only way you can get yourself out of the box is to put a system in its place. Start there just in documenting all the production systems or all the delivery systems or all the customer support systems or things like that. You'd be amazed. If you're not going to outsource it, which is another option, you can maybe bring in that first part-time employee. Here's the other reason about position agreements that you really prompted to me that are so important because most small businesses, people wear multiple hats, right? People are doing this functional work and they're doing that functional work. My favorite example is people that hire an office manager and they're doing a little bit of accounting, they're doing a little bit of reception, they're doing a little bit of HR. Yeah, everything. And you're never gonna— if you find someone that can wear and do that, you know, those hats, um, separate it out on their position agreement because when it comes time to grow You're gonna have a decision. Uh, wow, we actually need more time over here now so we can take this chunk of work and put it on a part-time agreement for a new position over here. And it's just a very organized way of thinking about it and just gives you that structure from the beginning, right? And people are clear, you know, they're clear about what their role is, the responsibility, the results they're there to produce, and they own it, which I think is so, is so helpful.

It reminds me because I heard O Joy, who's a really successful product developer, and she started as an artist and a crafter, and now she has several different product lines. And she taught a— I heard her at a workshop last year, and she talked about that she really started— and it really is, it sounds like position agreements— but she wanted to really put out in everyone's lane what it is that they do and build into it when the checkup, or when like the communication would be between the two people. Because she's like, here's what happens if you don't talk about that, then and then you start getting nervous about the, you know, if they're doing their job or whatnot, and you're like, how's it going? And you're not sure the level of micromanagement or whatnot. But when someone's decided they're gonna own that, and you know what that looks like, and they know beforehand, hey, on Wednesday we're gonna have a midweek check-in, and that's already in there. So whether you're doing great or whether I'm over here anxious, you know, Nelly over in the corner, it's gonna happen regardless. And then it just takes out so much of the stress and drama I think allows people to feel really happy and fulfilled in their jobs instead of feeling like, "Oh, I've got this awful helicopter boss that's going to be on me all the time." Yeah.

Right. Right. So true. They're called agreements for a reason because when the manager drafts that up and puts that all together and presents that and you have a really clear and transparent conversation about this results, a part of them is standards too. How do you want— what kind of behavior do you want that person to exhibit when they're doing that work? The things that you worry about are, how are they really answering the phone or how are they really doing that?

Right.

Ideally have a way to measure that because if you say, hey, we want to have cheerful people with emails. Okay. What does that look like? What kind of language or is there a way that you're supposed to answer emails or like this? Even better, should you have templates about how you answer it and these are the 3 or 4 main ones that we answer or whatnot?

Because that's a system. Yeah, just what you described is a system. And that's, that's where you can say, okay, now I can relax. I can let this, this person do their job because they are good, you know, they have everything they need. They're going to deliver the kind of customer experience that I so want our customers to have. And the conversation with the person is on a whole different level, you know, about why they're there and what they're, you know, doing and the results. And, and, and they have everything they need. And people There's another myth that I can sort of expose after all these— all this time working with clients is that people actually love systems because it frees them up actually to be more creative and eventually innovate.

And did you hear that, guys? So all you creatives who think that, no, no, no, no, Tricia doesn't know me, I'm a creative, I'm a right-brain, I like my hand lettering and my art, my photography, I don't like systems— she's calling you out and saying you, you might just grow to love systems.

Yeah, totally. And, and hiring people, bringing people on board that really share that belief is very important because you don't want to bring kind of Lone Ranger people on board and then they keep everything to themselves. Because, you know, some people think, well, my job security is in all the things that I know how to do, and I'm not writing that down.

I'm not locking all that down, that special knowledge in my box. But then, yeah, it becomes really hard to, again, yeah, replicate that and for that to be something that it's a quality control issue. So my husband and I were talking about this again. He says what I love about position agreements is that they allow that on a day when you're feeling your worst, you can still deliver a consistent experience for the people who are interacting with your business. And I was like, I said I really like that because we have all days where we are feeling great, gung-ho, and days where we're not, where we're running low. And when you have a system in place for this is how we do our work, and there's some healthy boundaries between yourself and your mental state and your business and how you treat people, then I think it allows you to show up the way that you wanna show up for people.

Yeah, yeah, there's a great chapter in the book that sometimes is a little misunderstood. It talks about people and the organizational building part, and it talks about a game worth playing, creating a game worth playing. And that's not to trivialize anything about business, business, it's that people want to play a game where they know the rules. They want to be something where then they can be free. If I know the rules and I know what's expected, it's like running a play. You said it perfectly. This is how we do it here. That just becomes the mantra of creating systems because systems are really all about then the customer experience, delivering an experience. Or they're about getting a certain business result. If you think about two levels of systems, you have customer-facing systems that are really important for that experience, delivering on your promise and all of that. Then you have the internal kind of business systems inside that allow you to set the right strategy, manage your money, hire people, all the things. We kind of split it up into kind of the strategic sort of strategy areas and then more of the activities that go on day to day. That model that I was describing, what it does mostly is just keeps it all organized in your mind. In E-Myth Mastery, you'll see this model and you'll really understand why you go in and spend each particular time in each part of your business routinely because it's all connected. You can't just create something and then go off and not check up on it like your marketing strategy. Suddenly you're not getting the sales you—

Yes, send it out to the ocean, best of luck.

Yeah. So funny, but when you start a business, that's all you're spending time doing is in those activities. That's appropriate. That's where if you can draft and document some things and get to start those systems, then as you're starting to see what you're doing, then it might be time. Now I got to create this marketing strategy. I know who my customer is, where to find them, and why they buy. Yeah.

You've done your work about the customer avatar and understanding the demographics, but even more importantly, those psychographics.

Yeah. Very much. A lot of competitive pressure in the world today.

Yeah, definitely. So, well, and I think it— what it does is it also allows you to kind of have that healthy balance, because I think for a lot of my clients and entrepreneurs that I talk to who are working on their business, especially because I do intellectual property law, we talk a lot about, well, what's the— what's different about the way that you do it? What's different about your brand, your art, your content, your messaging, and whatnot? And I think for some people it might be difficult for them to say, well, how am I going to systematize me when this is a personal brand? When this is, you know, the secret sauce is there's lots of people who sell, you know, aprons, but they want to buy my aprons, or they want to buy them the way I talk about them or the way I do them. How could I systematize that? No one can do it like I can. What would be your response to that?

That is, that no one can do it like I can. That's a tough one because you really don't want to believe that in the way that you believe it, because at that point, then you're sort of done. Like you're not ever gonna be able to grow outside of yourself if you hold that belief versus shifting it a little bit to thinking about everybody has a way of how they think about something and with the decisions they make, how they actually approach something. So you've got a system inside yourself that actually can be extracted if you really just think about it long enough. I mean, this ends up being a question that financial advisors will always bring to me and say, I don't know I don't know how to teach people to consult and relate to the client like I relate. Yeah, try videotaping yourself and then try unpacking what you do and how you think about it and what, at what stage do you ask certain questions and then where does that lead you? Now that may sound like a little kind of complicated, but it's not. I mean, it just takes time. You just have to kind of approach it and I mean, if you ever wanna grow, you have to, you as a person can only serve so many customers. It's just a fact.

The end of the day, we all get the same amount of time in a day, even Beyoncé.

Yeah, yeah. So, so just really, like, you know, again, hold up the mirror and kind of examine that belief. Examine if you hold on to that belief, what is— what's that gonna do to your business? Or what's that going to limit in terms of your ability to maybe grow and build something that could be amazing, you know, that you really, you really don't know. And then you talk about the branding and all the different things, and that's where, you know, your own primary aim and your values and all— because it is about the experience. You're right, I could go to 15 different places and buy aprons, but I mean, I went to your website and I thought, wow, how, how fun to work with you, because you just—

your brand just blasts out.

Fun. But that is a huge part of it, and that's part of the mix that, um, people people can either spend too much attention and time on for the wrong reason or not enough.

Thank you. Yeah. And I think I like what you were saying there about the staying curious and understanding that especially if what you do is a more personalized brand and experience that you give to people, to know that that's going to be a process. I love the tip there about videotaping or maybe having someone else help you with that. That's why I think why it's helpful to have a coach and consultant or someone else in your organization out who can help you with that and even say, "Do you mind watching or helping me kind of sort through as I work through what is it that I do great and why is it?" Yeah, and just being curious about that. Maybe there's other people who can sell and sell the same types of products or services that you do, but maybe not everyone else is approaching solving that problem the way you do and the way you solve that problem is a system. It's just probably a system you haven't thought about, because you're right, it's in your head.

It's just so part of you, so natural.

Yeah, it's so commonplace, which is why you're great at it, which is why people want to buy from you.

Exactly.

You got to figure that out too.

Yeah, that's just like, you know, really spur you on to kind of like, oh, how do I get my secret sauce out of myself?

Exactly. And spread it around so that you can continue to serve more people, you know, and serve that primary aim. If your aim— which I think for most of the people that I work with is, you know, they want to make money, they want to support their families and have a great lifestyle, but there's always something underneath that because there's a lot of ways to make money and owning your own business is not the easiest way to do it for sure. You know, you could go be working at Costco and, you know, operating your forklift and then signing off and going home, but there, you know, there's usually underlying reasons for why is it you're trying to build connection or community or you want to help other people solve problems or you've been on a journey and you want to take people through that, you know, through that same spot.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah, good stuff. So, okay, so, um, we've talked a little bit about how we kind of get started with the systems, with getting position, you know, agreements set up. Um, what other things should people kind of be thinking of as first steps in terms of they're sold that they want more of this EMIS stuff in their life? What should they be working on?

Yeah, well, we talked about the two most important things is just be really clear clear about who you are and what you care about and your why, and, and, and really takes some time to just, you know, extract out what, what are your values, extract out. And, you know, some of this is already done when you think of your concept, you launch your idea, you know, you, you have a sense of your branding, and some of that is just— let's get them written down. And so that whole primary aim process is really important. Everybody needs a vision statement. It— when I do public work workshops, I go to a lot of business conferences, and I start my spiel about vision, and everybody's like, their heads are nodding, they're like, absolutely, most important thing. And then I ask for people to raise their hands if you actually have your vision written down on a piece of paper that you could pull out right now and read to me, or on your computer, or on your iPad, or wherever it is. And maybe 2 out hands, like 10 people in a room, 2, 2 would raise their hands. So why don't we do that? That's a really powerful question for people, because sometimes it's fear of, can I do it? Sometimes it's, I don't really know if I know what's possible, or there's a lot of reasons. But when you take the time to really— and again, this is a certain kind of vision— you actually transport yourself 3 years from where you are you are today and envision— I mean, this is the entrepreneurial juice. What do you want your business to look like? How many people are in it? What products are you offering? In what markets? Yeah, is there— do you want to keep doing the thing that you're doing? So that's a whole different strategy. You want to keep working in it because you love making those things and you really— that's where your juice is. But for a period of time, you're gonna have to work on it and set yourself up so you can go back to work in it. So having— and this vision document, it's not a business plan. It's really— it is a 2 to 3 page at the most, depending upon if you're someone who loves to, you know, describe and you love to write. It just puts this, this stake in the ground and gives you something to gauge your work towards. If you don't have that How do you, how do you make decisions about whether to do this or do that? Or an opportunity comes along, somebody wants to partner with you. How do you make those decisions in absence of really knowing where you're trying to get to? So everybody, just take the time, just take a Saturday morning and go to your most favorite beautiful place that makes you feel like you can dream and really get in touch watch with like 3 years from today. And then the thing is, most people will start to— this is entrepreneurial hat. You don't get to take your manager's hat and wonder, well, how are we going to do this? How many people is it going to take? Is that going to be profitable?

How much money? No, no, no, no.

Yeah.

None of those naysayers. No, it's all—

you're not going to— you can't be sitting there with the technician on one shoulder and the entrepreneur on the other because the technician is going, you're already busy. How are you going to find time to do that? What do you mean? No, there's no way. Blah, blah, blah. Get smaller. Get smaller. Don't go so big. Just give yourself that opportunity. You can always make a different decision down the road. Like, you can always revisit it. In fact, you revisit your vision every year. Some people do it quarterly because they're really committed and they want to know if what they're doing month by month by month and then quarter by quarter by quarter, am I getting closer? Am I actually I'm really making my way to that revenue target. It's just so important. I'm not sure why people don't do it all the time other than what I've heard, the fears.

Yeah, the fears, inadequacies, things that maybe draws up in terms of, again, I think that ability to self-confront and maybe they're not sure or they haven't done the work yet to know really what they want and what that looks like. Or yeah, the fears that once it's on paper, it's too scary because I'm not going to be able to get there, you know?

You know, this is ultimately what you want to share with people, right? You certainly want to share it if you have employees and you have a business partner, and everybody's got to be on the same page. But I think other times people think, yeah, if I write it down, oh my gosh, now it's out of me. Uh, somebody might look at it and go, really?

Who are you? Yeah, the idea of the imposter syndrome pops up, you know, which we're all subject to. Even people who are highly qualified, successful, and, you know, have all the evidence in the world to back them up that they can do hard things and they can, you know, figure it all out still, that that critic is so, you know, so biting to say who are you? And you know, you're a fraud and people are going to figure it out and no one's going to pay you to do that and you're not going to be able to figure this stuff out. And there's other people can do that, but not you. You know, you're missing something. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Right.

We all know it because we've all heard it before. But you know, you got, you got to quiet that down. So do you recommend with the vision statement that you get specific enough in terms of like like revenue or product or anything yet, or should we keep it more kind of high-level?

Yeah. No, you want a blend of the tangibles, the what do you want your revenues to be, what do you want your profit margin to be, your gross profit margin, how many locations, the numbers, the things that you can actually track and measure against. You need a set of that information in there, and you need the, the intangibles, the how does it feel, how do If you bring people in to work with you, what's, what's the experience like? What's your culture like? Like, what do you— what, what's it important to add people into your company? Or is one of your strategies you really are going to use outsourced services? And, and, you know, maybe— yeah, yeah, describe it though.

And what does maybe your day look like? You know, how many meetings are you in? And what kind of things are you doing? Are you speaking? Are you writing? Are you working one-on-one with people because you like that, or are you working one-to-many?

Yeah. It has those elements. Again, this would be in E-Myth Mastery. This is one of the pivotal processes in leadership is you just got to get that picture created so that you can go to work on shaping it and designing it. It just gives reason to every decision you're going to be making, basically. And then, you know, my experience has been, and I think this is somewhat the power of writing down your goals, and other people talk about this, but my experience has been I've worked with clients and we say create at least a 3-year because anything less than 3 years gets, it gets too more like a plan. It's not truly a vision. So 3-year, but some of, some of my clients have wanted to do a 5-year, or they actually, you know, 5 or 10-year. I don't recommend 10 coming in from where they start because they don't know what they don't know. And we haven't begun to kind of peel back the areas of the business to kind of really understand what's working and what's not. But if they have it 5-year— I had one client, I'll never forget them. They had— they did the 3-year and they actually accomplished it in 18 months. They got so incredibly focused. This was a husband-and-wife team. They manufactured custom homes, and she was doing all of this and he was doing all of that. And yeah, they had subcontractors and employees and things, but, but what they— they were also in their like mid to late 50s and they were first-time grandparents. And suddenly they got very clear on their why and what was important for this stage of their life. And it was important that they, they could, they could take off and take their grandkids and spend the weekend with them and be away from the business. And see, there's where the life goals and your personal dreams have to match what your business is equipped to deliver to you to be able to do that. They were nowhere near they just got so lit on fire with the idea. I mean, the personal stuff got them up every morning willing to like, okay, we got to talk to Tricia and she's going to ask us to see that system that we were supposed to design for da-da-da-da. And they do it because their personal motivation was so strong.

They've caught the vision. They can see the end zone now of what it looks like and it's motivating enough to wade through through some of this other stuff that maybe doesn't seem that fun, and, you know, in the interim, but they can see the why and how important it is to really build the functioning system.

And when you have a vision, let's say you just share it with just your, your best business friend and have that kind of dual, you know, accountability with each other. That's really powerful too, because if I don't know, you know, and I come at it from being a coach, and of course the most important thing for me to I want to know is, where are you guys trying to get to? What are you trying to create here? Once I know that, then everything that you go to work on, it has a reason. It gives it a perspective, or I can connect it to a piece. Without it, you're just kind of randomly spinning a lot of the time, and that's when business starts to feel unsatisfying and kind of chaotic, and, ugh, why are we doing this?

Right, yeah. If you don't know what— if you haven't defined what success is and how you know if you've even in there.

Yeah, exactly. And then the other thing is just, you know, those 3 hats, being really, really clear. Because the thing that'll start to happen is things start to happen. Got to kind of expect that once you get clear, you kind of open up this flow of opportunities. And, you know, whatever that is, I can't tell you, but it does start to happen. And so you have to get really conscious then of what you're doing and why. And at certain points, like maybe you do this quarterly, or maybe you do this in a kind of a mid-year check check in. But with yourself, you put a little— it's almost like if you created 3 columns: what should I continue to do, what do I need to start doing, what do I need to stop doing? It just is going to change and morph based on what's happening and what you're creating. And this is, you know, when you start working on it, things will start to become apparent, right?

And you'll see that momentum.

Yeah. Yeah, and so that's just a really simple kind of self-check-in organizing, you know, and making a commitment. And then don't, you know, you have like 15 things there and 12 things there and another, you know, 15 things over and all. So the columns look really big and you just pick one, one in each column, just one. And that's all you do. If you're, if you're saying what I got to start doing is documenting systems, okay, then make a list of your Google Docs.

Oh, let's start writing them down.

Okay.

Yeah. How, when you get an order in, what's the first step after that? What happens?

Yeah. Right. Right. And name your systems. That's the other thing you just said. So order entry system. Yeah. Um, this is our, yeah, phone answering system. This is our name them. And because that then it's a thing.

It's a thing.

Right.

For me, the trademark system. How do I, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, you can start to feel a little crazy about systems because how, how, how deep do you go?

Right.

Draw the tree and you have to go as deep as you have to go. The thing is you need to keep them— when you have this model that we use, you kind of keep them consolidated in that functional area, like your finance and accounting system. Sure, you have receivables and you have payables and you have credit systems, but it all kind of— you start connecting it up. And so there's that tree of systems there coming out of from the big trunk called finance. And again, map pop it out. I mean, especially what's really cool, I've worked with a lot of creative business owners who have a lot of visuals. They have their systems tree up on their wall. They have things. You can make it really interesting for yourself. It doesn't have to be drudgery.

Yeah.

It can speak to you and the way that your mind works and that you like to process information, which especially for my creatives out there who may be more visual, that's fine. Work with that.

Totally.

You can still get it done. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it happens. So, oh well, I love that. Um, well, I guess, you know, as we start to kind of wrap to a close, is there anything else that you have seen as you've worked with so many different types of business owners in terms of where people tend to get stuck with this work? You know, once they've gotten some buy-in and they're interested and they want to move forward, um, where do you see that people get stuck and what's maybe some advice you can say to help get them going again?

I think it just feels It feels overwhelming initially to really think about just that whole concept of systemization. And it can just, people can get stuck in letting themselves make it too complex or too, we just kind of talked about it. It's really simplifying the process for yourself so you can get started. 'Cause if it remains, it's kind of an analysis paralysis kind of thing. If it remains too complex, complex, you'll always find a reason not to do it. Nobody likes to do the work they don't like to do. Right. So definitely relate it to what's your endgame, like what's your goal, what are you doing this for, and keep it connected. That's another great visual thing that you can have around. You know, people love vision boards and things like that. You know, put something out that shows your direction, where you're headed down the road and what you need to do to get there. I think they get stuck in the beginning because they get afraid. When is the right time to, let's say, make that first hire? How am I gonna do that? How am I gonna know that I can really afford that? Back to why you have financial systems so that you can forecast out, you can start to— the more information you have to work with, the less fearful you're going to be because you can actually play it out, you know, and you can really look that maybe it's gonna take 6 months for that person to hit kind of break even. I'm doing the air quotes because, because, you know, when they're gonna start paying for themselves and when they're going to allow you to generate even more business so that things even out. You know, sometimes it looks like you kind of dip down before you start to come back out. And just knowing that those cycles are absolutely natural for a business, you're not doing anything wrong. And just give yourself the ability to see as far down the road as you can then, then again, you won't be kind of paralyzed by, by fear. The other thing that, you know, people get afraid of too is bringing others in and the whole management responsibility. It's really— I have one friend and former client that just— I mean, this is where she's just scared because she's had some really bad experiences when she first tried to start. And so I would say again, don't let that be your— that's not the only experience you can have with.

Yeah, this does not define you, you know, channel your Moana there. But yeah, it has happen to you, but this doesn't have to be who you are, you know.

I think there's a subconscious— yeah, that, that, you know, that management responsibility— will I be able to do it? Will I be able to find the right people, people I can trust and share my values? And, and that kind of goes to work on some self-sabotage sometimes. And that's why it's really important that maybe you can work with someone, you know, have these strategic conversations, go to groups where this kind of stuff is being talked about. I mean, I think I think when I think about our coaches and I think about the work they're doing, we have a really step-by-step curriculum, if you will, of processes that you actually go through your businesses, assessing your systems, helping you build systems, looking at analyzing an area of your business, really understanding what it's costing you, all that stuff. But at the end of the day, what people come is they come because they need reassurance and they need someone that they know is in their corner and is holding accountable and really, you know, helping them discover those blind spots and those fears. So, you know, there's a lot of ways to get that support these days. That's the thing that I think I'm more amazed at than anything, because really, IMA has kind of invented business coaching.

Yeah, and now it seems like everyone and their mom's a business coach.

Yeah, so I mean, it's, it's just, I mean, it's amazing for me to think about where, what's happened in the world and the plethora of of support for entrepreneurs that is out there. The thing is you just wanna make sure you're working with a methodology that, like, if you read that book, if you read The E-Myth Revisited, and that just makes sense to you, the reason it's making sense is because you love a framework, you love a methodology, you want something pragmatic that you could actually do something with. And that's where it gets, there's so much information overload, people get confused. They just— everybody says, oh, we'll just do these 5 things. That's what I did, and look at me now.

Right. And that's, that's not a methodology. That's anecdotal. That's, you know, oh, well, I put, I put essential oils on, so essential oils work. They work for you. That's great. Not knocking that, but that's not— that's no basis for building a business on top of that because you saw individual results. Can those be replicated for anyone else outside of you? Or you— can you How do you even teach that to someone else?

Those are very good questions. Yeah, and that's what this book does for people. It puts— it's basically all about you. It puts it back on that owner to say, you need to learn how to correctly and profitably and all of that develop a business. This is the process. This is fundamental. I mean, ours is proprietary in that we built it around known kind of business fundamentals, and we coined some things in there, but that's what it's about. It's about that understanding the fundamentals of, uh, building a business. And a lot of people have talked about going through our program like getting a practical real-world MBA because it actually was written by MBA students years and years and years ago. It was developed by a group of, or people who had had MBAs. And so that's what we pride ourselves on because you need to know how to do it. You need to know how to think about it. You need to know why you're doing doing it. And so that's— it's like we teach you to fish, we don't give you the fish. And that is more powerful than anything, because when, when you know and understand how to do it, you just go do it. Then you can't— you don't— you know, people don't stay in coaching for 15 years while they have their business.

No, no, that's not the aim.

3 years and then they are— they're ready. And some people then sell that business and they come back, and they just— because they want that process and that accountability in that strategic checkpoint for them. It's just a matter of really— the book can help you so much just by reading that book. If you add EMyth Mastery onto it, you've got a powerful pair there that can get you that first layer of development put into your business. Even if it's just you. Think about it differently, because how you think about it is how you end up doing it.

So your, your years and your lifestyle will be built on what your days look like, and you can change those even just in little ways. You have to make a big difference. Yeah, well, sure. Well, and you've got some resources that you wanted to talk to us about that we're gonna put some links in the show notes. So why don't you tell us a little bit about that and we make sure to get everyone super hyped up about this so that they'll want to dig in.

Yeah, great. Well, we put— for, for those of you that just go to the, to your podcast and to your blog and all that first, um, we put chapter 1 of the VMA3 Visit so you can get a little preview. I think chapter 1 is pretty, pretty compelling. If you read that, um, and doesn't make you want to buy the book, well, that's okay.

We can't help you here. Yeah, you just go move along, hop along.

So yeah, we also are going to have a link to one of our client stories that is this woman in Hawaii who worked with one of our coaches to build her business. And I think that'll be very inspirational for your creative audience here. We also put together a business owner's guide to transform your business with systems. And this is kind of a, just a way to think about the systemization as we've talked about it today and, and some actual kind of tool-based support for you. I absolutely made sure we put the time management handbook in there that talks about wearing those three hats and, and discovering a system for yourself so that you're always engaging in your entrepreneur, your manager, and your technician— how to understand how you're spending your time. Is it strategic? Is it tactical? Are you working on it? Are you working in it? Once you have that map for yourself and you can really see why you do and when you do and all this, it'll help you make some adjustments that'll, that'll yield much better results. We have a product process called Transforming Frustrations into Solutions. And this is all about every frustration in your business, every problem in your business is simply the lack of an effective system. It's either not been built or it's broken. So it's missing or it's broken. And this process takes you through a way of diagnosing your frustration and finding the system solution. However, you can just— you can completely like develop your business by just dealing with your frustrations.

Just that one, just that one resource, guys. If you just rinse and repeat that again and again, you will solve all your problems. We're gonna tell you right now, you've been healed.

It is, it's just another way to think about it that kind of gets, it puts systemization on its ear, you know, because it really connects it to the most important thing, which is not being frustrated. This is some interesting blogs to read. Read from the owner's perspective. And there's one on here, 7 Tips to Take a Real Vacation. You know, that's— that starts to talk a lot. Yeah, it talks a lot about, you know, sometimes we fool ourselves. Uh, we think we're on vacation, but we got our laptop, we got our phone, we got this, we're checking in. And it just— it just kind of brings up that question again of what do you really want? Like, what's really important for you as a business owner. And that's different for everybody, but this is just a kind of a different play off of the life piece that we've—

yeah, especially for all my business owners here who are, you know, active on social media. And social media plays a big part in their business. You know, it's especially challenging, I think, to unplug and to take that time apart and to realize you don't have to be there. Or if you have and you've really convinced yourself that you cannot step away from content creation, then why can't someone else do that in your place? Yeah, exactly.

Well, you see, they break. Yeah, brings up those powerful questions that you need to be asked. Yeah. And then I think we have a last one on just a very practical thing about managing, you know, kind of more organizational management. We're talking about time management and sort of thinking about your paradigms with those hats and everything. And then we've got stuff like just how do you self-organize? How do you handle your inbox a little better? How do you— you know, these are all subtle ways of also saying what's your system for that.

But we're just saying it in a nice way. See how cagey and sneaky the EMIT folks are being here, you guys?

Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, well, these all just sound amazing. I just can't tell you how grateful we are that I think my people are going to love this, certainly my book club, and anyone else who's not officially been in the book club, you need to get on it. But you're certainly going to have access to these resources. And so I'm just excited for people to dig in and just to start this work. That's what I love that you said, Tricia, is just start and don't let the enormity of the task— you know, how do you eat an elephant? You do it one bite at a time. And how do you create a business that you love, that has a vision and purpose and a process to it, is just getting started.

You know, that first step. Absolutely. We did some rebranding about 18 months ago and we have kind of a new— what most people would say is your unique selling proposition or your tagline or whatever, and it's lift your business, love your life. And that is the— those are the two elements. That's the marriage we're looking for, you know, that the business is truly serving your life. And so no matter how big, how small, what your picture is, just write it down and begin to go to work on it.

And piece by piece. So awesome. Well, and apart from these, if people want more information and they want to more connect with you and what doing with eMyth, how should they connect with you?

Well, there's a couple different ways. I think one of the things that we're gonna do is provide a very special link to the— to jump right to if they want to do a free coaching session, because there's a lot of stuff on our website for sure, and there's, there's more resources and tools that they can explore and things like that, but sometimes Sometimes it would just be fun to talk to a coach and kind of bring your, here's who I am, here's what— I don't know if anybody really is wanting to go into a full-blown coaching program and work the process. There might be a few people that do, but at the same time, just having that conversation where you're really talking about strategy and your world as a business owner can be very, very helpful.

Rewarding.

Right, just having another human being. And you know that this isn't one of those things where you're gonna talk to someone and they're gonna get mad at you if you're not, you know, a hard sell, okay, if you're not signing up and, you know, gonna pledge your firstborn child, okay. You've talked, you've heard Tricia, she's nice, she represents a lot of other nice people who genuinely love helping people in their businesses. You can tell that. And so yeah, I love that, and thank you for offering that and making that easy for people just to get started and talk to someone. Whatever else comes to it, I don't think you ever regret just exploring and being curious about the process and about what you can be doing to moving the needle forward.

Absolutely. Last but not least, that's why I mentioned E-Myth Mastery. That's just such a powerful book because frankly, not everybody is in the right stage of development to take advantage of working with one of our coaches through the process. Process, just not right now. Either they may not have enough time that they can put into it in terms of doing meetings and all that stuff I was sort of describing, the analysis, the reading. So sometimes you start— a lot of people start with the book, start with The E-Myth Revisited, then sometimes read Mastery, get the business to a certain place where they've got that time that they can invest and hopefully the money as well. But it's got to both be there. You got to have enough ready to go, otherwise it would be too frustrating. It would be too frustrating for them, It's frustrating for the coach because we want to make sure you can apply at the right stage of your development. So we're very honest about that. We know, we know the kind of businesses that can really take advantage of our process and working with one of our coaches. And then there's other ways to do it right now with Mastery.

So perfect. So, and you've listed so many of those. Well, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. This has just been a pleasure to talk with you. And yeah, just a dream to to really dig into more of this stuff. And like I said, I've been a huge fan of E-Myth for a long time, and I'm just excited that I get to be a small-time evangelist in spreading what good it can do in your business. And I'm personally, I love the kick in the pants that it's gotten me to start thinking more serious about what systems I should have in my own business, you know, as someone who's definitely a technician, but I want to be wearing, you know, those other hats more and doing a better job of that.

So, well, you couldn't be a better evangelist, Brittany. So thank you so much. I've had such a great time talking about this with you, and I really do hope that one of the things I said helps, helps your listeners out there.

Awesome. Well, thank you, Tricia.

Okay, wasn't Tricia just wonderful? Just a delightful human being. And I, and I love in talking to her how much you can feel the passion that she has in helping entrepreneurs.. And it's definitely— she speaks from such a great wealth of experience in helping small business owners in all different industries attack these problems. And she's seen these patterns again and again and enough times to know. But I love that she isn't jaded at all by the process and still has so much hope and optimism that you can figure this out too. It just takes time, it just takes some persistence, but there is a path forward for you to figure out how to systematize your business this and make it so that you're really creating the lifestyle and the life you want, which is probably why you want to be an entrepreneur in the first place. So, so kudos to that. I just want to thank E-Myth for all the amazing resources that they threw at us and made available to us. Those are all in the show notes, and so please check those out, peruse, download, you know, get them off their computers and in your hands, fill them out, really put those to use in your business. I know that's what the E-Myth folks really want to have happen, is not for this all to be theoretical but to be really applied to how you're building your small business. So, and just a reminder, if, if you haven't already subscribed to the podcast, please do. If you haven't left a review, that would also be a wonderful gift to me and would help other people and other small business owners find the great resources here. And if you're looking for ways and kind of a quick way to get started in legalizing your business and what that might— I want to remind you that I have my free legal checklist, my one-page power handout that I make available to you, and you can find that at brittanyratelle.com/checklist. That's b-r-i-t-t-a-n-y-r-a-t-e-l-l-e.com/checklist. Get on that. You'll also get added to my email list where I give all kinds of tips and tricks and resources and recaps of awesome episodes like this. You can also get access to my creative entrepreneur business book club. This is our first book of the year in 2020, was E-Myth. In February, we are reading Profit First, which is another awesome book. And the reason why I selected these two for the beginning of the year is that, you know, there's so much great momentum about moving forward and establishing good systems that I wanted to build on top of that. So E-Myth, I think, does a great job of getting kind of a bird's-eye view of all the different systems that maybe we want to set up and start attacking and Profit First is a really great, great way to set up a financial system that supports and has you having some really good business habits with your cash flow, okay, to make sure that you're paying yourself, you're watching your numbers, you're making friends with your numbers, you can have good money Mondays, okay. So please check those out, the links will be in the show notes. Thanks so much for being here, for giving me some of your precious time. I know this episode is a little bit on the longer side but on Honestly, the gems were all too good that I couldn't edit any of it out. So I just didn't have the heart. So thanks so much for being here, and we'll catch you next week.