The ROI of Professional Development: How Coaching Culture and Time Management Drive Business Growth

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Chrissy and I see eye to eye on most things and this is one where maybe it's one eye to another eye or a different eyes or we both believe in professional development. Yes, yes, I. But very, very different ways because I have considered signing you up for professional development. Anonymous. Have you Check in for a couple of weeks. And I like to learn. I do too. And maybe I just do it the hard way. That's. Yeah. Explains the lumps on the head and the lack of hair and all that. Stay tuned. She's the CEO.

He's the marketing and operations guy.

If it's broken, you need the business fix. What's coming up that you're excited about? I mean, we talk about this. You always have something exciting.

Oh, I'm super excited. So I've got some training and development coming up, so I'm excited about that. For me, professional development, really? I know. Learning more business stuff.

Do you see a shocked look on my face? You don't?

There's that and then it's football season, so. I love football season. It just makes me happy. My heart is happy. I am sad after the super bowl until I have to wait for training camp. So.

Really, I did not peg you as a football fan.

I am a huge football fan. I love it.

Interesting.

And I don't get depressed about like, I just like, when teams are bad, they're bad. When teams are great, they're great. And I just like I will watch football for the sake of just watching the game. So.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Interesting. Not my thing.

No, that's okay.

Yeah, I enjoy football season because that takes a lot of people off motorcycles and off the road. So that way. Right. And it's not. It's no longer now 975 degrees outside.

So is that what you're looking forward to right now is just more time on the bike?

It is. I mean, like during the summer, 95 degrees in full gear. I. I will not go out without full gear. So I'm wearing gloves, jacket, pants, a lot of them are vented. But when you're sitting at a traffic light with a hot motor between your legs.

Baking.

Correct. Most of the gear, for some odd reason, they like to make it black, too. So you're baking in the sun on top of a hot engine? Yeah. No. What could go wrong? No, I like it when it's like 70 degrees out. It's amazing. Tires stay warm, so you still got plenty of grip and all that. But. Yeah, no, it's, it's nice to get football people off the road. I just have to make sure I'm off the road before they come home after a few drinks.

Yeah. You better strategically plan.

Correct. We covered strategic planning.

We did, yeah.

As a business owner.

Yeah.

You are responsible for everything. Yes. Your people, your stuff, your product. When you can say, someone screwed up, guess what? That's still your responsibility. There's a lot of people like, I don't have time for that. I know someone that they partners in the business that he was in purchased a time management seminar and gave him the tickets, at which point he goes, I don't have time for this. And they're like, exactly.

Yes, you do.

The most successful leaders are the ones that are perpetual learners. There's different ways to do it. That's why. Where, that's where we're going to talk about the differences because we have a different way of looking at this, this episode. We're going to dive into how to make professional development a core part of who you are.

Yeah.

And your business strategies part of your strategic plan.

Yeah.

Was that the last episode?

It was.

Look at that. It's like we're building businesses here or something. You are always taking a class, watching something.

Yeah.

I don't know how. You have to. Do you watch football on, like, one screen and have, like, a professional development class going on another screen.

Depends.

I'm not. Once again, I am not surprised by this. You could be serious. And once again, I would not be surprised at all.

There's a lot of commercials. You can learn a lot in between plays. You really can.

As a marketer, I, I, I'm more concerned about the commercials because I want to learn what their, what their strategy is for that. Your take on the biggest practical benefits of professional. That is a lot of syllables. It is a couple of words there. Business, owner and team. I mean, what are some of the big benefits for you? Professional development.

I mean, one of my favorite topics, so. Because really, I know. I'm so excited.

You just gave yourself a hug.

I do, I did, I did. Because you know, when we talk about development, we're not just talking about gaining new skills. We're really talking about creating capacity.

Sure.

And capacity is really what makes your growth as a business leader sustainable. So for business owners, the biggest practical benefit of professional development is perspective. So you start to see the business, not just the busyness, but the business, and you learn to ask better questions. You find frameworks that help you lead instead of just reacting. And you become more intentional with your time, your team, and your energy. And so then as you pivot that from yourself to teams for teams, professional development is really a retention strategy. 100% agree there. It boosts morale. It gives people a path to grow. It sends a clear message of, we are invested in you, we care about you. And that's huge for engagement. Because when employees feel stagnant, they check out, they leave, they quiet, quit. Sometimes it's not so quiet. And then professional development for teams also increases productivity, but it's not really in that mechanical way. It increases their clarity, their ability to see things and around corners. And, you know, we about talk about being clear is kind. And so when your team understands the why behind why they're learning what they're learning, it connects to the company's future. It's a key component to strategic planning. It helps people move forward. And then they stop just completing tasks and they start really building something and really building something for you as the business leader and the business owner. So, and I'll say this from a culture standpoint, and then we can have our street fight about agreements.

Oh, I gotta have. I have questions.

I'm sure you do. And I will say this. Organizations that prioritize development, to me, my opinion is they are more curious. They're more curious, they're more adaptable, and they're more honest. Because learning forces you to be humble, because it tells you we don't have it all figured out and we're willing to grow. And that mindset trickles down into everything. So to me, professional development isn't just a luxury. It's leadership in motion. It's something that you need to be able to continue to grow.

I want to go back to the why piece for your team.

Yes.

To me, I feel that's a big miss for so many people.

Huge.

Because what they do is they train people and the people perceive that as great. Now I've got more stuff to do rather than, hey, they are investing to try and make my job easier.

Yes. I will tell you this. I think there is a very significant difference between development for the sake of understanding how to. How to make the thing or how to do the thing and development for the sake of how to make the person better so that they can either lead other people or think of ways to help make the product or the thing better. Those are different tracks.

They are very much so. But making the people known that it is not just so you can get more blood from the stone.

Correct.

It is so they have better tools in order to move things forward. And I think the problem that so many companies do that they're like, hey, we got you a training.

Yeah.

And guess what, you're going to get a new project when you're done with the training. But it's in addition to what you're already doing.

Yeah.

So many companies present it that way, which becomes a. I mean, once again, then people are like, great, I got to go to a training thing. I've already got a lot of stuff to do. They're just going to throw more stuff on me. I'm not going to get a pay raise. That's where the. From that aspect. Aspect, I see it go so wrong because it's mishandled.

It can be.

It's mishandled. How do you, like, what do you look for when you're looking for professional development? What's the thing that. I mean, I'm sure it's not just, hey, I saw a Facebook ad for this and it's going to tell me, I grow my business. Yes. I'm going to click on every single one of these. What are you looking for? Let's be honest. You did not start your business so you could spend your days buried in HR paperwork or Googling how to handle employee drama.

That's why I started Clarity hr, where your fractional HR team giving you real people, real support and real solutions. Whether it's compliance, headaches, hiring struggles, or just needing someone to take the people stuff off your plate, we've got your back.

So if you're ready to stop using duct tape and hope as your HR.

Strategy and finally get some peace of mind, head over to clarityhr.com that's clarityhr.com simple, clear, and here to help.

I'll give you a few seconds to go to the website while we get ready to get back to the show.

So two things, practical and purposeful. So, I mean, if you're the business leader, you have a staff of three and you are in the business every day and the business cannot survive without you saying, I'm going to take a year off and learn all of these New things, like, you've got to be practical in how you're doing them.

So.

Or the same thing. Or you know what, someone needs to be in our office every day. We're going to shut the organization down for two solid weeks so we can learn this new thing. Like, there's got to be reasons around, you know, why are you doing it? What is. And then purposeful is, you know, what is it? Where do we need to find alignment? Where are the skills that we need to grow to be able to move the business forward? So you don't just learn for the sake of learning. You have to learn for a reason. So whether it is increasing your ability to do strategic planning, if it is building your soft skills around how to lead people effectively, I will say this. The one thing that I think most leaders don't do is the emotional intelligence and agility training around how to lead people. We'd much rather learn a skill, like a specific skill in, like how to do. How do I build better cash flow? How do I change this in my financial procedures? How do I change my marketing? How do I do as opposed to how do I have conversations that impact my ability to communicate and get things moved faster forward with more momentum with people and gaining alignment to, to me and because that's the squishy part where people are like, ugh, I may not feel comfortable doing that. I don't want to. I'd rather just learn how to do a thing. Let's do. I mean, there is a difference between professional development for the sake of moving your career forward or moving an organizational, an organization forward and continuing education. They are not the same thing. And people oftentimes think, well, we're doing continuing education credit around this HR policy and procedure, and we're going to do it about this insurance product and we're going to do it about this manufacturing process and we're going learn how to do like we're going to be Six Sigma. It's like that is a different type of thing.

Very different. So, yeah, when you're looking at, you said the, the practical piece, the, the application for it, how do you determine that up front?

So I think it depends. You've got to clarify what the goals are and the expectations are. So first determining, you know, what is your plan for the organization. I mean, so part of that we talked about strategic planning. So like, where do we talk about that? We did. And then there's that tactical piece. So a great ex. What we're doing right now at AUI and Clarity is we want to foster more understanding and ownership within our organization about, you know, how our metrics, what happens in sales, what happens in service delivery, how they all impact the business to move forward. To do that, we realized that we had a gap in financial education and really having our team members understand how the business works. So in order to facilitate and grow their knowledge base, we knew we had to do some basic training around financial acumen. So we built into our professional development plan for the year. Everybody's learning about how the numbers work in our organization, how do we actually make money. So it was something that, you know, not everybody, I mean, salespeople, they really need to understand how finance works. Yeah. As we're starting to move forward and grow faster, yeah, we do need to learn those types of things. So we kind of built that into what our training and development plan is for the year. Another example is, you know, you've got leaders within the organization and then you've got middle managers that you've targeted that are going to continue to grow in the organization. We fail to the level of our training 100%. I agree with that. It is really important as we're looking at people that are going to potentially be occupying a higher leadership seat. Where are the skills, the skill level that they are right now, what are they lacking, and how do we build that coaching into the model? And some of that is, you know, I can tell them things all the time, but I often sending them somewhere else. Bringing in a third party can be helpful in getting them engaged and getting them to learn and do the thing. There's a reason why we don't all homeschool our kids. We did for a while, and then it was like, you know what? We're gonna send you back to school. Cause we think it's more effective if you learn this way. So it just kind of, it's. You have to be willing to kind of find what those things are. And I will say, sometimes it's trial and error. There's gonna be moments where you may involve yourself personally in something as a business leader. And you're like, there's no way I'm taking my team through process. What I am willing to do as a business owner. And the level of discomfort that I am willing to put myself through is very different than what I'm willing to put my team through or what I should expect them to go through.

Sure.

For an organization. So, I mean, for example, I've done work with Tony Robbins. There is no way I am going to sit my leadership team or my general Employees in a Tony Robbins seminar for eight days in a 60 degree room. It's really more like 55 degrees, 55 degree room for 13 hours a day. But if that's what I need to do to get me to think in a different way so that I can build a different skill set so that we can grow in a different way in the organization, it's different, but they're not the person that's, you know, selling insurance and writing a policy. They're not going to need to do the same things that I'm doing.

So how do you pick your professional development? We've, we've talked a lot about, for people around you, for employees. Yeah, how do you pick? I mean I think for you it is the. This came up on my Facebook. Yes.

No, that's not how it works.

As many things as you go through and you look at and you watch and yeah, I'm like, oh, okay. She's done more professional development courses today than I have done this year. How do you pick the ones for you? What do you look at is for what's right for you?

So part of it for me it's what is this that they can give me that I am lacking? Whether it is learning additional skillset in visioning, learning a different perspective. The other part is part of the reason why I do so much professional development is because when you lead leaders, and that is almost all I do every day, if I am doing it in my organization, I'm leading people that are leading other people. If I'm doing it with customers or I'm doing with other business owners, you are always leading leaders, doing it in the community. So it requires a whole bunch of different perspectives and different ways to find alignment with people. So over the last couple of years I realized that I was lacking significant skill in strategic planning and visioning. So how do I gain some of those skills? And for me it's not just going to one place. I like to learn from multiple. If I can choose one, I'll pick one. But if I can do three and I have the time set for it, then I'm gonna do the three.

Three.

Three, three, three. Not six, not six, three. There was a time where I did six. Because the other thing, I mean, I understand I'm a high fact finder, I have high follow through. So the difference between me and a lot of other people who may be like professional development junkies is I won't implement between 50 and 70% of what I hear, which can be dangerous for my organization. So part of it too is what is the right thing. So it's really picking. Part of what I'm doing with professional development is where are the holes in my skill set? What do I need to do? Where am I lacking? And some of that in the, where am I lacking? Because you're like, well, where do you get that information from? Feedback from other people, feedback from other business leaders, feedback from coaches that I've worked with. So I mean, and I believe in personal coaching. My team is coached by other people. It's just really important because you've got to continue to grow because at the end of the day, Josh, we, we fall to the level of our training and so I want to continue to fall up. So if I'm going to fall up, I got to continue to level up and learn from other people. And I learn a lot from my mistakes too. So that's the other part.

100% makes sense.

Yeah. What about you?

It's interesting because I like we have a different approach to this is I, I have a difficult time sitting through those types of things. Tell me why it as soon as someone. I have a tendency to poke holes in things and as soon as someone gives me something where I'm like nope, nope, nope, nope, I'm out.

Okay.

I become dismissive fairly early. It is an issue. I realize that but. So that is why I have a difficult time with those things. So I do it on a much more fact finding basis. The reason being is. So I'm trying to go about efficiency here. We've said a lot of the, like, some of the things that you've said are like things that I even already have in some of my notes here. Like to me, I look at a needs assessment. Where are the holes? I do a self assessment. I ask the people around me. I'm looking for feedback from other people. Where do I, where am I horrible. Where do, where do I need to move forward? Same sense, look at some of the organizational data where if it's my organization and it's got a problem, guess what? I'm probably the one with the problem. Maybe generally those are the things that I look at. And then for me it's to go out and find those answers that I can get that apply specifically as much as I can to my situation. Now I realize that hinders me in some ways from a vision standpoint and from a perception or from a perspective standpoint because I'm not getting as many of those outside perspectives. Totally get that.

I'm okay, you're okay with it.

That's fine for the most part. The.

The.

And we'll get into some of the disagreement here part in a second, which I think is going to be interesting. One of the other things that I do is, too, is I look to people that have been in the same mud that I have. I talk to them. There's. I'm looking at another business. I'm talking with other business owners that have the same kind of business. They're in areas that don't compete. What are the problems you have? What are the things that you're seeing? Are these skills that I need to polish up on are these things. And it's been nice because many of them I've talked to have terrible marketing.

Yeah.

So I say, hey, look, if you're willing to talk to me about it for 45 minutes about your business, I'll talk to you for 45 minutes about marketing. They're like, wonderful. So it becomes a nice even exchange. The other thing that I look for is I. To me, it's that ongoing support in coaching. The coaching. I. I've been a firm believer, and I've said this for a long time. LeBron has a coach.

Yeah.

Michael Jordan had a coach. Formula one drivers have driving coaches. These are people that. These are the top 20 drivers on the planet, and they have coaches.

Yes.

I should probably get a coach. Yes. What I have a difficult time with is. And she's like, okay, here comes. Here comes the punch. Here comes the punch.

I'm ready.

Like, I started to read a book. There was 1. It's 10x is easier than 2x.

Ben Hardy, Dan Sullivan.

Yep. I couldn't get into it.

That's hard.

You know, the big reason being is. Is the first two chapters. I didn't make it past the first two chapters. The first two chapters were all about, like, pumping up the book. I'm like, I've already bought the thing.

Yeah.

I don't. I don't need to waste this kind of time. To me, pomp and circumstance, I don't do. There's a reason why I don't go to weddings. There's a reason why. Because it's all pomp and circumstance. Great. Sign the document. Give her a smooch. Go on your way.

We're done.

I'm a blast at parties. Trust me. Is. Those are the things, though, that, to me, that, I mean, really make it difficult for me to get into them because I'm like, look, this is inflated with a bunch of bullshit.

Yeah.

I don't want that. I don't need that. Why should I be listening to someone that's trying to convince me of something that I already bought? That becomes a very difficult thing for me. The other thing is. And we'll talk that you're. This is the one we talked about beforehand, like, stuff with coaches that lean into, like, personality profiles, and this is how your organization is going to work together. I have very strong opinions. Imagine that. On stuff like dise profiles, no one gives a about the four letters outside of your office. And I am not. What, like, if I am not walking up to someone's office and being like, oh, they're an I, a J and a C, what does that say? How should I know? I'm not approaching them that way. Now, what I'm going to say to that is I'm going to learn my people. I'm going to work with them.

Yeah.

I'm going to figure out how. I need to talk to them. Is it going to be perfect every time? No. But neither is reading the disc profile.

No.

The thing that I want to get your feedback on, and this is where I'm going to slide in the. The big curveball.

Yeah.

I think a lot of them are their perception. And the thing that I have, the, the, the deal that I have with that is when people take these disc tests, they are what the score that you get is who you think you are, not how anyone else sees you, who you think you are or who you want to be. It's not you. What are your thoughts on that?

So there's a great book. Since you can't stand the 10x is easier than 2x book. There's a great book by Dr. Benjamin Hardy, who wrote the 10x book with Dan Sullivan, but he wrote it by himself called Personality Isn't Permanent. And so he got an assessment and hated it and wrote a book all about how it's not permanent. Then I will tell you that outside of Colby, which is a totally. It measures different things. The majority of those types of assessments, they're not permanent. It's a snapshot in time, and you're on a continuum. And part of it is, what mood was I in when I took this?

And that's a problem, and it is a problem.

And as someone who has been, I would say victimized is the wrong word.

No, I like that. Go ahead and use that word.

As someone who has. Had. Has had an assessment and then had it weaponized against her.

Oh, sure.

It's frustrating. And I would say there is nothing that will make me more angry than someone. Well this is who you are, and it's not going to be changed. I'm like, no, no, no, no. That's personality. It's not permanent. It's flexible. It's a continuum. I may show how I show up is different in the situation. So what I will say about some of those assessments, though, is that it gives an opportunity for conversation. It's a starting point in discovery for some of those individuals in leadership that may not always be emotionally aware or aware of how to communicate. It's a tool to be able to use, to be able to start having conversations or start leading people, because most individuals don't have the ability to just go, I'm going to learn how to get along with this person. Like, there's got to be reasons and understanding. And, you know, at. At the end of the day, all of these things, Josh, are businesses. So there's always going to be money attached to it and learning attached to it and certifications attached to it. And I think that's where I can get frustrated with it, too, because it's like, how much more stuff are you going to sell me before I can actually get to the point where I want my people to be able to do their freaking job? And that, I think, is where when you have leaders that have done a lot of that work and you have the ability to pull from all of those different tools and different parts of the toolbox, it's. It enables you to kind of have the better conversation of, okay, this is this person. I need to get this person here. I have all these other skills in my life. What am I going to use to get that person to there. Part of it is going to be just telling them, I need you here. But if you don't have that skill set, you got to work on developing it. So I. I agree with you. A lot of what we do in professional development can be fluff if there's nothing attached to it. There has to be a why for why we're doing it, and then there has to be a set of skills that you're going to take from it. I will say another part of professional development for me is putting myself in rooms with other business owners where we can have conversations around how to solve something.

That is where I feel like I get my best professional development. That's. I mean, it's part of the reason why I wanted to start this podcast. Yeah, we can have conversations like this. And we're both taking something from this, too. We're. It's. There's other people that I'M like, I just want to be in the room with that person so I can talk to them. I can get their feedback. There's those other pieces to that.

That's it. And it's putting yourself in those other rooms. So if you want to be with people that are specifically working on a business in this type of size, you go to strategic coach. If there's stuff where you want to look on the mindset and you want to work with people who are in a different set of values, you go to Tony Robbins. Like, there's a bunch of different organizations you can belong to EO and it's a global organization. You're talking to business owners and all sorts of different things. They want to talk about the 5%. That's scary in your business and your personal life. It just kind of depends on what you need in that moment. But it's really about building that network of people. And I will say the most value that I have gotten from professional development is not the things that I have learned in the room. It's the relationships that I've forged with the people that were in the room with me that now are resources for my business and for other people that I can connect to at any given time. So much of my development has also been about developing the network of people that I can continue to have as resources.

It's interesting because I've even made this joke in the room with you is we have the shared trauma of 10,000 small businesses.

Yes. With 10,000 other people. And it.

Yeah, it's. I think they're up to 14 now. Is. But yeah, there's. There's those pieces. But I want to. I want to roll this back a little bit, that having the four letters on the outside of someone's office is not going to help me deal with them.

No.

Knowing that person will help me deal with them. Knowing how they need to be talked to, knowing how to approach them and that. Also making sure that they know how I'm going to approach them. I am not like, I. If I've got 40 different people in my organization, I am not sending out 38 different emails because they've got different ways of. They would like to hear messages or different personalities. They're getting one email. It's that. It's making sure that we find that. That common ground. And for me, that doesn't happen with. I mean, that happens by getting to know the people, not by having them take us take a test.

Yes.

I avoided adjectives there. The other thing that I find with some Personal development or professional development, I should say. There's a lot of clutter. There is. I have talked with a number of people that say a lot of things and go very deep in a lot of things that they don't need to in order so they can feel important in order so they can be smart. I was talking with a coach the other day and he said, literally, he gave me two sentences and I was like, oh, yeah, this is good. It wasn't. The transmogrifier isn't squabulating correctly. So you're not going to inclinominate. No, no, no, no. It was. This is going to lead to this and here's why. Oh, okay. Yeah, it was direct. It was to the point. There was. There was good advice in it. It wasn't the. It wasn't the fluffy stuff. It wasn't the take 10 supplements type of stuff. Because that type of stuff, I'm like, okay, you're just selling me sake of selling me stuff. I see the professional development industry is ridiculed with stuff like that is just filled with it.

Yeah, it is.

I have a. As you know, I have a very low tolerance for.

Yes, you.

Well, as a whole, you are a more tolerant individual than I am. I think that is a safe.

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Back to the show. Yes.

You have survived this podcast for. What is this? Now, let me look at my sheet. This is 24, 23, 23 episodes. We have survived this podcast together. Proving your willingness to be tolerant. And the fact that we're in a padded room together helps. So that is a piece that. That to me kind of is a. Is a struggle. Struggle for me and why I look at professional development from a different angle and Approach it in a different way than you do is I look for the short stories, I look for the lessons, I look for the, the, the clip, the information that I can ask someone. Your groups that you're a part of are phenomenal. Because I've tried to do some of the same thing, just a different approach. I am just never going to take the same number of classes you are, because that's okay. Right. And it won't wire differently.

And I know that.

And I. And I think, first off, I think that's part of what makes the podcast work.

Yeah.

But second off, it's the other thing that I look at is in so many ways, there are. There's a lot of things in business, there's only one way to get there with professional development, with personal development, there are a number of ways to get there. And it's one of the things that I truly like in looking at stuff like that. Something else that I want to mention on that is too, is I see so much professional development where people go into it without a KPI or any sort of feedback, like, destination for it afterwards. So they. They're like, okay, it's. It's the people that read the book, they enact half of what's in the book, and they don't look back and say, okay, what changed? How did it change? And how much better is it? Do we need to do more of this? Do we not need to do it? So many people get addicted to that professional development piece without actually the professional enactment piece.

Yeah, well, and I will tell you, if you're not, if, if you've never spent a lot of time working on your business, you may look at professional development as like, why do I even need to do it? But so much of that development piece as the business leader is you working on your business. It's giving you the capacity and the time to think differently. So, I mean, there are times where I'm sitting in a room and like, with some of the stuff that I do, I go to, they teach it in the four different learning styles. I know I only need to listen to one of those learning styles, and I got it. So they're teaching it the other way.

Wow.

And I'm like, okay, well, this is the other way. How is what I just learned, how am I going to implement it? How do I need to think about it? What do I need to do? So I'm learning about how do I build efficiencies as I'm learning to be able to either implement or think strategically about my Business. So that's the other part of it is there is a time attached to not just learning the thing or developing yourself, but then looking at how you're going to use it. And so if you can do that while you're sitting in the room for 13 hours. And so for those hours you're learning and the other nine of those hours you're implementing, it's great.

It's funny, with my mechanical experience, I think of so many mechanics that jump onto the snap on truck. Oh, look, shiny new tool. And they have bought that tool, they have spent the money on the tool and they use it that day and get it dirty. Once they wipe it off, it goes back in the toolbox and it may never see the light of day again for another year and a half. Yeah, I see that all the time.

Or there's also the people that get the shiny new tool and they're like, everybody's gonna use it right now. That is a way to burn out your team.

So that sounded like experience right there, the way you said that.

Self control is a really important part, especially as you are a leader in professional development. So I like, I learned. We talked about this. I spent three days learning a new planning system.

Wow.

I was so excited. I had a great time.

That sounds like a nightmare to me.

Oh, it was fantastic. I loved it and I'm using it. And in talking, of course, this is another business. And they're like, well, we can roll this out to your team and we can do this. I mean, I just said, look, I appreciate that that's what you want to do. I do not make unless it's something that's really important in our organization. If it's personal, I have to use it for a year before I force anybody else to do it. Because I know that I move fast and I make changes. And it's really important that if you're doing a lot of things and you're learning a lot of things, your business, the people that work for you, do not need to know all of the things all at once. I am not the type of person who says, I just came back from our conference and we're gonna do all these new things. Don't do that to your people. I think. And they've learned that that is not who I am. Like we looked at implementing entrepreneurial operating system eos. I read the book. We started doing a few things lightly because of 10KSB and because we went through scaleorator. We did not find and go with an implementer until five years After I had decided this is something that potentially I want to do with our organization, in part because I couldn't find an implementer that I didn't want to throw punch. And it was about finding the right person to teach us. Because the other part I will say about professional development, and this is a different place where we'll get hate mail, is I do not want to be taught from people that have not achieved like I have achieved or not achieved greater. Because there are going to be times where you are asking me, especially if you're coaching me, you're gonna ask me to make decisions or to lean into something that I'm gonna be fearful of. And I need to make sure that I'm not gonna die. I'm not gonna have a painful, professional, fiery death. And so I need to learn from people who have either done it before or have done it and have done it on a bigger scale.

Sure.

So it's really important. And I know that, I mean, that's not ego, that's me being self aware and going. I know that I need people who can and will say, I will do fine because I will shut down and go, you've never run a business of this size. You've never dealt with this many people. You've never dealt with this type of issue. Sure, go away. But if they're like, no, Chrissy, I promise, this is what happens. This is what I've done. Granted, our experience is different, but I can tell you you're not going to die. Okay.

Here'S a helmet.

I might lean into it. Yeah. And you still have autonomy and choice.

I love it. The one thing that, when it came down to the training that you mentioned that I wanted to, to go back to, is it made me think of, just because you enjoy drinking from a.

Fire hose, oh, God, don't do it to your people.

Doesn't mean your employees do. And that's, that's, and that's the point that you like, you know, hi, Mr. Analogy. And that really is the analogy that popped into my head. You're like, yeah, I want to take 10,000 courses this year. I'm not going to make my people do it.

No.

And I, I love the fact that you do that. It's, it's make it additive for them, but not so much additive. Like, look, you drink too much water. That can't even kill you.

Yeah.

It's called drowning.

It is. Or I mean, if you, Here's a great one. Like you do executive presence training and like there are certain organizations and I've done it with a couple that do it with. With horses. So it's like equine assisted therapy. You're. You're looking on managing your energy and your executive presence. Because how you show up in a room or how you show up to an event, the horse can tell. If I have someone in my organization who is deathly afraid of large animals, I'm going to be like, hey, let's go do this. Like, you have to be emotionally aware. Like, I have one person in my organization where I'm like, is this something that might interest you? And she's like, absolutely not. That's a terrifying. Like, nope. I'm like, okay, well, let's think of a different way to build your executive presence, because this is a skill set I think you need and you agree that you need it. So let's figure this out. And then I had another one like, yes, let's do it. I was like, okay, this is something that we send people individually on. And I think that's. The other part is, you know, there are some things that you do for your team as a whole. There are some things that you do for yourself, and then there are some things that you script specifically for different people in your organization. If you have someone with anger management issues, you don't need to send everybody to anger management and emotional intelligence classes.

No. Because if you do send everyone.

They're all hostages and they're pissed.

I was gonna say now you. Now instead of one person with anger management, you're gonna have five or ten. And I get to the different things for different occasions. Because you guys a while back went to Mystic Meadows. You went to visit alpacas and Sea Otis.

Yes.

Play with otters and all sorts of. Yeah. Which to me, like, that is good fun. And as long as everyone's like, yep, this sounds like a good time. Wonderful stuff. Some key takeaways from this.

Yeah.

The first one I want to start with is assess your needs where you think you have holes also in assessing your needs. Have someone else assess your needs. Yep. That doesn't mean you just be like, I'd like to make more money. Have someone else look at where they think your deficiencies are. Have it be employees, have it be mentors, have it be other business owners that you know. I'm sure that you're going to tell me. It's professional development. What's the piece for you?

Did you talk about budget? Like, it's important to have a budget?

No, no. Otherwise you just spend, like, all of your profit on it.

Well, not all of your profit, but. Or you don't spend anything on it. So having a budget, in part means that there's accountability for it. I will tell you this. Oftentimes, employees want the development piece as part of their career path. So if you really want to build engaged employees, having a budget around this is what your professional development is. Is important. Important. Empowering them to be able to ask for development when they want it, and then having that conversation about, you know, these are some skills that I think we should develop in you. What. What looks good for you, what do you think? Giving them some idea. But I will say, too, the importance is modeling the behavior you want to see.

Oh, 100%.

If you don't want people to do professional development, then just, you know, walk around like a curmudgeon and say, we're never going to do it, then nobody will. Or, we don't need that. What I will say, because I have an organization right now that we're working with, and we have a manager who's just pretty much said, like, I think I'm good. I don't need anything. And I'm like, your people are screaming for you to have some type of professional. The problems that you are seeing in your organization are because you are not willing to continue to grow your skill set. If you think you've arrived. If you think you've arrived, you are wrong. Nobody stops learning. Nobody. I mean, if you do, you die. I mean, if you want your business to die, stop growing.

There. I was about to say, their. Their life. There's one destination for all of us, and it's the dirt.

It is.

So you must constantly be on a journey or else you end up in the dirt. Speaking of which, whatever you get out of your professional development, figure out what's appropriate.

Yeah.

Share it with the people around you. Don't be like, my information. No.

Oh, my gosh. That's what's.

I see it all the time, though.

Well, and I will say too, with. With other business leaders, like when someone's like, hey, did you do this? I'm happy to say, like, yeah, here's my experience. There are certain things that you're gonna ask me, not on this microphone, that I will tell you absolutely not. Do not do it. It's not worth your time.

Correct.

There are other things that I will say that was a very valuable thing that I did. Some of them cost me money, Some of them didn't cost me money. It just depends. I mean, some of the most valuable information that I've Received has been free, but it's been from individuals that I've met because I've paid for other things. So it just. It happens.

Yep.

Work through it. Be willing to be a sponge. That's what I tell my daughter all the time. Be a sponge.

Be a sponge.

Be a sponge.

Like SpongeBob SquarePants.

No, like I said.

Good. Glad you said that.

Not spongebob.

Glad you clarified that. What's one often but obviously largely overlooked way that you can encourage, like whether it be other owners or employees, to go out and engage in that professional development?

So it's really simple, especially in a small business, it's to normalize talking about what you're learning about. So asking people in their team meetings like, you know, what's something you've learned this week that made you better at your job? What's something that you've heard in the last week that has you thinking about, you know, how our organization can be better? Just normalizing that. That learning. Those types of questions don't cost anything. Podcasts don't generally cost anything. Listen to a podcast. You know, there's a good one here. Just saying. Because when learning's visible, it becomes contagious.

Yes.

So it's really about just making sure that people see it and when. I mean, not because it's mandated, but because it's modeled. So we model what we want to see, so we celebrate it. All right, Josh, from an operational perspective, what's a simple way to track the ROI of training to see if it's worth the investment?

This goes back to know your numbers.

Yeah.

Know when you send someone for some professional development, you see a problem, you see a weakness, you see something that you're trying to fix, have at least a guess of what that's costing you.

Yeah.

And then look to see 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 months down the road if that money starts to finally appear, if that problem finally starts to go away. Unless you have a plan for. Have we ever talked about planning?

A couple times.

Unless you have a plan for it, you can't just willy nilly send people to go learn and come back and be great. That does absolutely nothing. I mean, it might do something, but once again, that's luck. And I don't know, typically try to rely on luck. In my business, I try to do things as much as I can. So yeah, to me it is that, like, know your numbers, know where you're at, know the problem that you're trying to solve.

Yeah.

And make sure that when they go out and do that thing or when they find the engagement with it, they. They come back and fix that biggest piece for me. So I'm curious and I would love to hear from people. Are you like engaged in courses the way Chrissy is or. Or do you learn by trial and error or by observ. Observation is my or.

Both.

Right. Observation is my strong suit. That is like I see patterns in people and I notice those types of things. So that's. So do you learn more by observation or do you learn more by going out, taking class or things of that nature? I'm curious as to how people learn. I think we're going to get some interesting data from this. Yeah, I'm excited and I like data. Have I ever mentioned numbers? I mentioned numbers. Thank you. I am glad we had the conversation today. As always, I pulled something from it and definitely helpful. For those of you that want more help from your business, if you want professional development from Chrissy, go tobusiness fix podcast.com. make sure you follow us on all the social media channels. A subscription, a follow. All those things go a long way. Share us with your friends and next week we are discussing fear. Did you like how I said that? Fear?

Yeah.

No, it wasn't all that good. Nonetheless, do me a favor, take care of yourself. If you can, take care of someone else too. We will see you very soon. It.