Sold But Not Paid

Business brain, episode 628 for Wednesday, March 5th, National Stop Bad Service Day 2025. Greetings, folks, and welcome to Business Brain, the show where we take a few ideas and we crunch them, dissect them, use them to help tune our business brains so that we can each do a better job at living those charmed lives each day. Those charmed lives each day. See, that iteration is already happening first 10 seconds into the show. Well, it might be the first minute in our sponsor today is MacAudio.com brain. That is rogue amoeba software. They make some of the best audio software for your Mac. I couldn't record this show without it. I couldn't record any podcast. Literally every podcast episode of the 2,300 that I've recorded has been done with Rogue amoeba's software and MacAudio.com brain coupon code brain gets you 20% off. We'll talk about that more in a little bit. For now, here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And here in sunny Northern California, I'm Shannon Jean. Rogue Amiga. They've been around forever, man.

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It's great stuff. Yeah, yeah, very cool.

Good to have him here.

So I have a thing that I was thinking about this past weekend as I was responding to an email, and it was an email trail that I had started on Friday, kind of as a coaching exercise for one of the sales reps here, just to show them, okay, look, this is how I'm going to approach this. Follow along, and then the next one you take and do this. Right. You know, so, I mean, kind of stuff happens all the time, totally normal. And as. And they. So we sent them all the things they needed to send. And it was. And one of the main things that I was intending to coach was pacing. Like, we, you know, when somebody asks a question, we answer it. Right. You know, and if they raise an objection, we do everything we can to address the objection so that there's no more objections left and they're ready to rock. Right. And just help them through the process.

Sure. Makes sense.

Yep. So this all started On Friday, we got them everything they needed by end of day, which they needed for a thing on Monday. So it was like, great, we'll just get it to them before we leave on Friday and they're good to go. And on Sunday, late, an email came in. Actually might have been midday Sunday or something, but I saw, I looked on my phone and I saw an email come in with a question. It was a very easily answerable question. And I know for me that, and I don't know if this is good or bad, I want to address all of this. Okay, so I'll barf all this out and then I want you to dissect it with me. So I know for me, for better and or worse, if my head is already in an email because I've read it and I know the answer, instead of delaying responding until later, I will just respond right away. Doesn't matter if it's, if it's 10 o' clock at night, if it's noon on Sunday, my head's already in it. I have made the decision a mistake or not to look at the email. I'm already there. I can choose to come back to this and spend time on it again or never spend time on it. So I replied and I started thinking twofold. I had two parallel thoughts. One was, is this the right thing for me? And maybe there's three parallel thoughts. B. The second one is, how can I. Should I. Is it reasonable to train an employee, expect an employee to act the same way? Or is this a dangerous path and then see, am I training my customers? I am training my customers. Is that a good thing? So all of that.

Yeah, I, I have a hard time not, not doing exactly that. I know I want to be like super responsive and I want to, I want that message to be in their inbox when they come into the morning.

If, well, if they're, if my customer's working on the weekend and I can help them, I want to do that.

I agree. I know, yes, yes to everything you said about bad, bad habits, Teaching my customer, training my customer, expecting it to my employees. But I do the same thing. I check my work email all the time. And we just came out, we're recording this on a Monday. So it's like my weekend is spent like, oh, what are you doing today? Well, I got these projects to do on the house. We were home last weekend and both days was like, oh, and I got some office work. I need to go, I'm going to go up to my office and get, get some stuff. Done for an hour. And during that time, I answer those emails and send those responses and post that content. I, I've always done it. And I think it's a, It's a. I think it's a benefit. I.

Okay, but how do you scale that? Or, or can you. Is it realistic to expect your team to respond the same way? Because if the expect. Right. I agree with that. I tell my team, do not, like, listen to what I say. Don't do what I do. But here's the problem. Then how do you delegate? How do I hand this off to people? Like, the whole point of this particular exchange was to train and relinquish.

Yeah. Then. Then you made a mistake. Right.

Right.

You made an error. Because if. Unless you're just like, hey, you know, if you're around and you can answer this quick, you should do it. Okay, that's. That's. I mean, that's okay. If.

Maybe that's the message I'm sending.

If it's. That is exactly the message.

It's not. Maybe.

No, that's it. Yeah. You. If it's a sales position. I'm sorry. Sales is all the time. If you want to get ahead and you want to stand out, you know, I don't know what to tell you. You need to be answering emails on the weekend, I just think. Or getting back to customers or responding in a, in a workspace. I don't, I don't know. I think that's okay. In a sales role, I think that is. And perhaps the way you do it is you say, look, if you're not around or you're not available, I don't expect you to answer these questions.

Then you're not available. Right.

It's okay. It's okay. If you, if you're on your phone and you can answer a quick message, if you're at your desk because you're trying to get some stuff done to get ahead of the week, you might. You, you know, if you want to try to impress this client or, you know.

Yeah.

If you want to achieve more, that's.

How you do it.

That's how you do it. I don't know.

Yeah, it, it. Because it really.

It depends on the role.

You're right. This is, this is the message, and this is a hard thing to train. So maybe this is what we got to think about and get some feedback at Businessbrain show about is what I want to train is how to balance work and life without doing it by the clock. Because they're like the same expectation. Is of myself. Like if I'm in the middle of something with my family.

Yes.

And I'm not checking my phone. And then four hours later, I look at my phone and I see that, oh, three hours ago, this, this client emailed asking for a thing and it happened to be a Saturday or it even happened to be a Tuesday. Like, it's fine. I'll just answer it as soon as my head's in it.

Correct. Correct.

And that if your head's not in.

It, you're doing a disservice to, in this case, your family. Yes. As well as you're doing a disservice to your client. Now, I, I also find myself in those conflicts all the time. And I wish I was better at.

Yes.

Keeping it separate, but I'm not. And so it is a constant. It's a constant battle. But I think you can train your team. And now it depends now if it's an admin person or a customer service person or, I don't know, whatever.

Non sales.

Yeah, let's say non sales. I. Unless you're paying them a certain way.

Yep.

Then. Then I don't think you can expect them to do that. But yeah, for sales position, man, I just think you're on all the time.

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I don't think it does. I think it does send. I think it sets a expectation of the customer that you're hustling and that you.

By not. Delay. Sending it. Yeah, sending it immediately.

Yeah, yeah, by sending it. So it's kind of flipped. Right.

So delay, delay sending, meaning write the email and then say send it at Monday morning at 9am or whatever to train the customer.

Yes.

And in some scenarios that's actually a really good idea.

It is a good thing because it.

Gets it out of your head. You don't have to revisit it on Monday, but you're not training the customer that you're going to be available for them all the time now for everything non sales. I love this tactic.

So do I. So do I.

Like I need to employ this tactic. However, for sales stuff, I still think the immediate send is the key because. Yeah, I had a conversation with one of my salespeople last week.

Yeah.

Where they said, oh, I finally heard back from so and so about this thing. We proposed them, but I don't think we need to get back to them right away. They waited three days to reply to us. And I said, oh no, no, no, no, no, no. We have, we can't presume motive here. We don't know why it took them three days. They might have been out of the office. They might have just tabled it until they had time to really consider it. But the fact is we just got an email from them which means now is the time they are considering it. We got to get back to them right away. Otherwise we might be adding three more days after we send it. So yeah, when somebody, if a, if a, if a sale is hot, meaning if a client or a potential client is on top of things and asking you questions, answer them as quickly as you can. That's how I approach sales. It might be intellectually and psychologically unhealthy, but.

No, no, no. Well, maybe, but I think, I think it probably is. Yeah. I think context is really important here. Yes. And, and so I. On along that line, I want to read, see if I can find it. I want to read a Post that.

Okay.

What? A former. A guest that we had on a couple months ago, maybe. Yeah, month ago. Noel Hilal, who From Iris Tattoo and Piercing.

This guy, he's building.

He's building like the Apple store of tattooing and piercing. It's fantastic. It's really an interesting guy. He's a great follow on X. So I want to read this post and it really made me stop and think. Noel wrote, hot Take. If your business runs 100% without you, it means you sold it, only no one paid you for it, and all the risk is yours. And I was, I read that. I was like, wait, what? And so he added some context. If your business operates entirely without you, that's not financial freedom. It's a silent sale where you kept all the liability but none of the rewards. A business that truly runs on its own is either an asset generating passive income or an entity you've successfully exited for a price. If you're still carrying the risk, still responsible for failures, and yet not actively steering the ship, then you've effectively handed over ownership just without the paycheck to show for it.

All right, so I have. There's a, There's a dichotomy happening in his statement here.

There's a.

There's a conflict because he says a business that truly runs on its own is either an asset that generating passive income. And let's stop right there. Not the.

Or.

So if it is an asset generating passive income, you're using still, you still are carrying the risk, you are still responsible for the failures. Is that bad? Because, like, that doesn't seem so bad.

No, but I think what he's saying is you're. You're letting someone else make decisions. Someone else is steering the.

Oh.

So in essence.

So it's like owning stock in a company that pays dividends.

Yeah.

I mean, it is only stock in a company that pays dividends.

Yeah. But you're, you're also at far more risk. Right.

Well, if you, if you own.

Yeah.

You're not owning that. The same percentage of stock in the asset. That's correct. Correct.

So, yeah, and I thought. It just made me really think about, you know, there's all this talk you hear about, or, you know, passive income. Passive income. Passive income. But it's just an interesting way to look at it that I've never considered because I've stepped aside from, okay, I got an operator on this and that I'm getting some. I'm getting payment, basically a dividend, and someone else is operating the business. But at the End of the day.

If they walk away, you're holding the.

Bag or something bad happens, you know, you're all of a sudden you're like, you know, oh, you're dragged back in, but not in a, in a good way. So it, you know, it's a little hyperbole.

This. Of course it is. It's, it's intended. It was posted on X so it has to go through that filter.

Be a little polarizing.

Yeah, but, but like it makes me think about something I can't dive into right now for confidentiality reasons. But a thing we've got going on that it makes me like, this is going to stick with me.

It's a thought, it's a thought provoker.

What I don't. The, what I am concerned with this, this line of thinking can excuse the control freak in us all from not letting ourselves delegate enough.

Yeah, I could see that.

Like there is that.

I understand, I understand that, yes.

He's not wrong. I want to make it clear like there's there's a lot of sort of parallel things that don't all necessarily agree with each other happening here.

Yeah.

And he's articulated some of them and then we've articulated three more.

There's a lot of nuance to add about, well, what is the reward I'm getting.

Well, and how much makes sense to back off. So being completely out of it and someone else is steering the ship and you're checking in once a month at most. That is the scenario he's sort of painting here where you're, you know, your hands off and your eyes off.

Yeah.

But you still have all the liability and you know, it could be that someone is slowly eroding the value away without you getting paid for, for that value going away. Right.

Yeah. You don't know.

You don't know. That's what I'm saying. But holding the reins entirely and not delegating any of it, that's a problem. Also a problem.

Of course. Yes.

So it's a reminder that there's a middle ground here and, or, and probably. And a way of handing things off such that you are being paid for that and it might be, you know, you've got somebody else running it and they are buying the company from you over time. Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah. I think you, whatever you do, you have to structure it in some way that that reward offsets this liability that he's talking about.

Yes.

Like, okay, yeah, I ran this business and I was taking out a couple hundred thousand dollars a year and now I have a supervisor, general manager, operator. And now I'm. I'm taking less. I'm only pulling out, I don't know, $100,000 a year.

Right.

Right. Is that worth the risk of whatever. Whatever that risk is. Right. Does it. Where's the scale? The balance? It's just the same thing as that. When do you give up? Right. When someone can do 75 or 80 of your work. There's that. There's that balancing back and forth. But it's definitely worth thinking about and reminded me of. You know, if you're not steering the ship as he says, what could happen in a. In a negative manner? And. And you. You're someone else is controlling your destiny. Yeah, yeah.

For your company's destiny anyway.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I know you have to do that to grow these guys with hold coding companies. And I own 10 businesses or whatever.

Yeah.

But I would imagine there are controls that you have to put in place to avoid this from happening so that you can get whatever reward you're able to get from the business and limit your liability as much as possible.

I agree. I agree.

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