How to Fix Business Processes | 16 Minutes to Better Efficiency

Today I want to talk about recording your processes. Greetings everybody from San Francisco. I am here in California as a mix of business and personal. I went to interview somebody, Christopher Gavigan from The Honest Company, for my book. An entrepreneur I have a great tremendous amount of respect for and I'm honored that he's going to be in the book. And I'm also going to be meeting YouTube tomorrow, which is pretty exciting. I was assigned a channel manager and he said that my channel is one of the most innovative he's ever seen, which is highly flattering and very cool. And so I'm going to meet with him tomorrow and they're just outside San Francisco. Same time here with, with my wife and exploring California, having some fun. Today's message is about recording your processes, and I think one of the one of the biggest things that you need to do as an entrepreneur is record your processes so that it's easy to give to somebody else. And I hate having to do tasks repeatedly, and I automate as much as possible. And when I can't, uh, I always delegate it off to somebody else. And the way I usually do it is I'll do a Google Hangout and I'll record my screen, and then it's saved as an unlisted YouTube video that I can share with that person and say, here is how you do XYZ. So how that relates to my book, since that's what this series is about, is I have a great helper with me, helping me do the interviews of the book and recording all the questions and the answers. And I tie her in, she's in Portland, and we always do every interview via Google Hangout. And so she's on the call, but then I also record it so that we have all the information ready to go in case her notes aren't great, or we want to go over another point, or the person's talking too quickly, or whatever, there's a recording of it so that we can refer back to it over and over and over again. And it's great for me because I can just focus on the person I'm interviewing and not worrying about taking notes and making sure that I get all the— like, I'm present, I'm in the moment. And if you're so concerned about like writing everything down that that person's saying, then I find that it's harder to stay present and it's harder to ask great follow-up questions because often the best answers actually come from the follow-up. Say, well, that's interesting. How about this. And if you're too busy writing down, then you don't always pay the most attention and give yourself the mental— what's the word— free up your brain power to actually be thinking about where else you could take this conversation besides the standard questions that you wrote down. So I find it super helpful for my book, and I think it could be really helpful for you guys if you're writing a book, but also in general for your business record your processes so that it's easy to give off to somebody else. I'm gonna get to a bunch of questions. It's late. I slept 2.5 hours last night. I was excited about coming here, and then I slept another 2 hours in the car on the drive here, and Nina spelled me for 2 hours. So I'm starting to crash though. We had a busy day in San Fran, but I wanna answer your questions. So a few came in from the last episode. Miss Scotch is back. She asked a question, how do you mentally handle success? What things do you do to keep yourself grounded and stay focused on what is actually important. I'm seeing money come in for myself now, and I know it's just the beginning, but I'm afraid that when I make the shift from reaping to sowing, I won't be able to handle it. I hope you understand what I mean. Thank you for your hard work. There's a lot of people who sabotage themselves, who don't feel like they deserve success, who don't feel like they deserve the money that's coming to them. For me, it's interesting because I've never been about the money. I've always been about the impact. And so when I start quoting companies to do events, or if I'm speaking at a fee, you know, I've now upped my speaking fee. It's $10,000 plus travel and accommodations and all that to get me to speak at an event. And, and I don't know, I don't feel like— I feel like I'm the same person. I don't feel like I've changed at all because I don't— I've never cared about the money coming in. I don't know if that maybe— that maybe sounds strange, but my goal always has been Will this impact people? You know, that's what makes me feel good. That's what gets me to be driven and motivated to want to continue on. Like, why am I doing this? Why am I making this video? You know, I'm exhausted. I've had very little sleep. I had a full day in San Francisco. You know, I want to relax, have a shower, go to bed, wake up, get ready for my YouTube day tomorrow. But I'm here recording this video for you guys because I want to help you. Like, it fuels me, it drives me. I'm already getting more excited and have more energy than I had coming into the room. And so I would just be looking at understanding who you are and not having money define you. Like, money is not the biggest thing that you want to get in your life, and you want to make sure that the, you know, the money is representing representation of you providing value. And the more value you provide, the more money you're just going to make. And not being driven by money, I think, will help keep you grounded. If you start doing things for the money, then you might start to self-sabotage yourself. But I think if you're driven buy something else, as long as that's being fulfilled, then you'll just want to do that more and money becomes a natural byproduct of it. Next up, Tamara. Great to see you again, Tamara. Love hearing about your team growing, exciting. What happens if you don't meet the book deadline? That's an interesting question, uh, one that I, I hope I don't have to face. Uh, the way it's been scheduled is there are certain milestones, so I have to have it completed by a certain date and then we're going to launch it by a certain date. They said there is some flexibility, there is some leniency, as long as they see that progress is happening. I'm probably not the typical author. I don't know, you know, when I set a goal for something, I tend to get it done before schedule. Just kind of knowing me, that's how I like to operate. Mostly I think it comes from a fear of letting people down. I don't like letting people down. When people rely on me, when I commit to something, I tend to overdeliver because I'm afraid I'm going to let them down. I And so I'm not overly concerned, even though like that deadline is looming and it's coming up on me quickly and, and we're not ready yet. I think the worst case scenario is that they could cancel it and say, hey, you didn't meet our deadline because that's what we scheduled in. But my, my feeling is they'll be pretty, uh, lenient as long as it's not massively over because they're used to dealing with that from authors. But my gut is telling me that I'll have it done on time. Pete. Congrats on 100,000 subscribers. Looking forward to my video reaction. Yeah, I'm at 90-something thousand, 100,000 coming soon, and I have a special video coming for it. I apologize if the video is bouncing. I'm on a bed. So sorry for that. I'll try to keep still. Thank you, Pete. I appreciate it. I'm super excited. I mean, like, the growth has been tremendous. So pumped that we're getting to 100,000 and looking forward to getting to 1 million. Next. Uh, A Durst, I'm so excited about your book, can't wait to read it, keep up the good work, thank you for all you do. Thank you, uh, I'm humbled, I'm honored, I appreciate the support, and, um, having you guys along with me on that journey is special and exciting, and, um, I'm grateful for you guys. TSGrowthTV, great video Evan, I have 2 questions. Can I get a free copy of the book when it's finished? Bro, come on man. 2, could you discuss the creating an outline process for the book? Do you have any tips you could share that helped you be more creative, or any tips to help someone who's trying to write a book and get out of writer's block? Would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks. This is a little bit different for me because I am not writing a fiction book, it's a non-fiction book. And so non-fiction comes from your knowledge, right? It's coming from truth. And so I'm writing about experiences that I've gone through, experiences that I personally have gone through in my businesses, and then also that I've helped people with. And how I started off is I try to think kind of big picture. What are the 3 main things that I want to cover? You know, what's the most important? What's the easiest way to get the message across? How do I break this down into simple steps? This is one core concept, and then how do I break that down into simple steps? So there's 3 main sections, and then from there, how do I break each section down into even simpler steps so that you, you know, you might get the first big concept and then you might not get the next steps on their own. So then it's breaking it down to make it easy, easy, easy. So I want it to be so that you understand the philosophy and then it's also super easy to implement. And this has come as a result of me helping other people go through that process as well as doing it for myself. And so I think it's easier in that once I had that planned out and scoped out, which didn't take so long, it's more about actually delivering and writing the content that's taking the long time. So I think if you are a, a nonfiction writer, You just have to have some truth to say. You have to have a story. You have to have results. You have to have some success. You have to have something that's coming out of your head to be able to share. You have wisdom. If you don't have the wisdom or the processes, then you shouldn't be writing a book if you're in nonfiction. If you're writing fiction, I don't know if I have the best advice for that. I think a fiction book is highly creative, and so if I was to write a fiction book, I I would try to create a schedule or routine to get me into creative zone as much as possible. I find I'm most creative when I have a shower. I find I'm creative when I'm outdoors. I find I'm creative when I'm— you know what? When I'm thinking, I often fiddle with my wedding ring. I often kind of flip it over. If somebody gives me a challenge and I'm thinking and I'm trying to find a solution, I often find myself playing around. So I would try to do those kinds of things to get me into the zone. I know a lot of people suggest just sit down and write. That doesn't work for me. So I don't know, I would have to find— I would encourage you to find what works for you. Forcing yourself to sit down and write works great, but for me, I would, if I had writer's block, go take a walk, go talk to somebody, go play a game, you know, have a shower, do some exercises, you know, fiddle with something. I often get my best ideas when I'm not even trying to think about that, that thought purposely. It's like trying to tell somebody, "Brainstorm right now and give me your best creative idea," where that's often not how brainstorming really works. You can't force that creativity. So that's my view. So yeah, I would try to have a loose schedule and try to give myself as much freedom and creativity as possible. Next up, New Future Builder. Good to see your team growing. Thanks, man. Do you have any sales and marketing people as a part of your team? And if so, what roles do they play in promoting your book? And do you recommend any software to help manage and communicate with them? I could go on for a long time about this. I'm not a huge believer in salespeople as a general rule. My way of generating business is to provide insane value to a demographic, which in my case is entrepreneurs. And as a result, I get a lot of interest, right? People watch my videos, they leave comments, they subscribe to my newsletter. Big brands take notice and hire me to create Google Hangouts with them or Twitter chats. I get paid to speak at events. And so I provide a lot of stuff out there for free and build up an audience, and then I find ways to capitalize on that, whether it might be selling the book, it could be working with big brands or speaking engagements or whatever it is. But that's my preferred way to do things because I'm not a big fan of being sold to in general. I'm not a big fan of people spamming me on email or on, you know, my phone. I don't have a phone, so you can't cold call me, but you know, I'm not a big fan of cold calling in general. You know, if I'm not a big fan of that, why would I then be doing that to other people? Didn't make a lot of sense. So I have people who help me with the marketing. But not on the sales side, I guess. They don't have an official salesperson. In terms of software that I use and communication, I usually communicate by email. My team all have me on Facebook. That's the fastest way to reach me typically because I have it open usually during the day when I'm at home, when I'm, when I'm on the computer. Because I don't have a phone, nobody can reach me urgently with a, with a phone message or text. And I encourage people not to use that unless it's urgent. And so we don't really have a lot of emergencies, so people usually just hit me up on email. And I'm a big believer in trying to create a no-crisis business, and I find email highly effective. So I have a folder that goes— that my team goes to, my family goes to, my media contacts, big clients, my mastermind members go to this folder that I check at least once a day, and that's how we communicate. Pretty, pretty easy. And then last one, Malik: I'm working on my second YouTube video right now. It's a unique attempt at a video resume. I'm looking to target very specific employers and make a strong impression on them. I'm interested in having an entrepreneurial career as an employee. With this as my objective, do you think making a unique video resume is a good approach? Thank you for everything, Evan. You're helping me be more effective. Cool, super honored. I'm happy that I'm helping you out, man. Um, I think Here's what I would do if I was trying to get a job with a company. I would do two things. I would, one, trust and respect in their hiring process, and then two, try to overdeliver. And so a lot of companies— well, every company has a hiring process unless you're working with a pure startup and they don't know what they're doing. Every company has a hiring process that they go through, and if you don't follow that process, then it's unlikely you're going to get called in, right? If you have to write a cover letter and you don't write a cover letter and you just submit a video, it's unlikely that they're going to call you back because you didn't pass what they asked you to do, right? People want to hire creative thinkers and innovators, but they also want somebody who can work within their system. And so I would do my best at giving them what they wanted. So cover letter, you know, answering their questionnaire, the resume, whatever they wanted to do. And I would try to make myself stand out as much as possible using the traditional methods. And then I would do something over the top to get noticed, to be, "Oh, that's the guy who did the video submission as well," right? I would try to research that company as much as possible. I would try to have suggestions for how that business could improve. I would have done extra homework reading articles about them and just really doing my homework and really trying to be creative and coming up with potential solutions for them. And if you have a video that, you know, you feel comfortable in front of the camera and you want to talk about your experiences and share some of your ideas, that's great. I would try to support them on social. I would try to respond to haters who are hitting them up. If they had a video or a Twitter post or Facebook post, I would reply to them. I would support them. I would try to do as much as possible, try to get on their radar and be a valuable asset, but I would do it on top of the initial scope of doing what they wanted. So do both, right? Give them what they want and then go above and beyond to really stand out and wow them. I think that's it. Thanks guys. I appreciate the love, the support, all the questions. Uh, I'd love to know your thoughts on recording your processes that we talked about in the book. In this book video, sorry, at the top. And if you have questions about the book writing process, my book, your book, let me know in the comments below and I will make a video reply for you in next week's video. Thank you guys, much love from San Francisco, and I will see you soon.