Are You Playing Chess, Checkers, or Russian Roulette?

Hey, guys, it's Jim Johnson. Welcome to a new little part of our Contractor Radio episodes, our two minute drill. We just want to give you something really quick to think about in case you don't have all the time to listen to the entire podcast. Today's podcast is going to be awesome. It's all about strategy and tactics and whether you're playing chess, checkers, or Russian roulette with your business. But in order to understand that, we have to understand the difference between strategy and tactics. And strategy is the thing that no one really sees, while tactic is what everybody sees. As a matter of fact, there was a Chinese general, his name was Sun Tzu, and his concept or his quote on that is, everybody can see the tactics that I use to conquer, but nobody understands the strategy that evolves that victory. And that's really what it's about for us as contractors is developing a strategy that no one really understands, although they can see the tactics we learned long ago, that we can actually share all the tactics in the world. But if everybody doesn't understand the strategy involved behind those tactics, they never experience the same amount of success as we do. So I hope that you take a few minutes, think about that a little bit. What's going to be your strategy that nobody sees with the tactics that everybody sees to conquer your dreams and aspirations? Contractor Radio is brought to you today by Contractor Coach Pro, the business and life strategy coaches that help contractors grow and scale their business. For the last seven years, Contractor Coach Pro has helped over 350 contractors reach over $2.5 billion in revenue. We want to help you do the same. The best way for us to do this is to do a free assessment. So go to our website@contractorcoachpro.com click on free assessment. Take the assessment, which will tell you everything you need to know about your business. It'll afford you the opportunity to set up a free strategy call with us where we will talk about your strengths and weaknesses and give you some great coaching advice that day to grow and scale your business. Hey, everybody, it's Jim Johnson here, the head coach at Contractor Coach Pro with another episode of Contractor Radio where we help contractors develop their strategies and tactics to take advantage of their market and grow and scale their businesses to achieve the dreams and goals and aspirations they had when they first started their business. Our goal is to get you working on it, not in it every day. And in today's conversation, we're gonna talk a little bit about strategy. And are you playing chess, checkers, or Russian roulette? Now we see a lot of times when we're working with our contractors that it's more the Russian roulette than it is the chess. And what I mean by that is it's pretty shoot from the hip when it comes to strategy. And so in order to actually understand what strategy is, we need to define that a little bit. And what most people think of as strategy, they're really talking about tactics. So if your strategy is to hire a bunch of salespeople, well, that's actually a tactic, it's not a strategy. If you're looking to create a great sales presentation, that's a tactic, it's not a strategy. Think of it in terms of battle. We'll take Desert Storm, for example. There was a lot of tactics that were used. You know, a certain number of planes and a certain number of soldiers, a certain number of tanks, artillery, munitions, all kinds of stuff. But the strategy was a thing that nobody saw until after it had happened. And that strategy was shock and awe. We're gonna go hard, and we're gonna go hard. We're gonna go hard fast, and it's going to be immense. It's going to be jaw dropping, which brought this feeling of shock and awe. And this is just so much more power than we can possibly withstand. We give up. And it happened, and it happened really fast. And those tactics helped execute that strategy. But that's really the key to strategy, this idea that you're after something that nobody else really sees, how all of those tactics work together to achieve your overall strategy. And this is what we help contractors with all the time here at Contractor Coach Pro. But I want to make it clear on those differences between what strategy is and what tactics are. And so as you're developing what you're going to do as a contractor, we as owners are thinking about this all the time. We really need to think about what are we really after? What's our purpose, our goal, what are we trying to achieve, and then how are we going to do that? That's kind of the tactics of things. And so let's say that your strategy would be along the lines of just mass putting people out there. Well, you're going to need to have a really great hiring process. It's going to bring in a lot of people, probably plan for a lot of turnover, but you're going to have a lot of people on the street. And we see that strategy used quite often. Sometimes that strategy works out well, sometimes not so well. If instead you were like, hey, I don't know if I want all that chaos and all of that, those problems and questions and everything else. I want to be a little bit more pinpoint about things. You could apply the strategy. We call it the ninja strategy. I'm going to go after the best of the best. So I have to separate myself as being the best of the best. And that means setting up your business in a way that when somebody walks in the door, they go, wow, I really want to be a part of what's going on here. And so this strategy of getting great talent who can then execute all these other cool tactics that I have is paramount to your success with that particular strategy. And how much do you sit and think about that? How much do you take time to really think about? What are we really trying to do? One of the strategies that we really coach a lot with our contractors is this strategic thing of growing leaders, growing more leaders who can then take on some of those duties that we wear as hats all the time. And what this concept is is creating capacity. And so your strategic approach is to create capacity for you as an owner, to position yourself to work on your business instead of in it. And so what do we have to do to do that? If that's our strategy, that we're going to get great people, hopefully people even better than I am at doing whatever it is that I do, what do we have to do to make that happen? So we have to have a great foundation. We have to have a good working environment for them to come into. We have to have systems and processes, those type of things that all have to be kind of done up front in order to get those great people that could possibly be great Leaders may want to incorporate some assessments to ensure that the people that we're getting are solid, great people that have the potential to be great leaders. And then what happens when we start to see them stepping up and being leaders? And what does that look like? What tactics are we going to use? Are we going to just touch a guy on the shoulder and say, hey, man, that is a great job. How about you be sales manager this week and not really have much of a plan for that? Or are we going to be a little bit more strategic about that and bring them up through a leadership training program, starting to empower them with smaller tasks and seeing how they do with those tasks, coaching them through those tasks and allowing them to improve? There's a little equation out there, and I use this quite often whenever I'm speaking, but I really want to talk about it today, because today is so much about how do we create this capacity and there's really two sides of it. One is growing great leaders. And so if I can grow other great leaders to take on the tasks I do so I can start taking off a hat and putting it on somebody else, it affords me more time. So that's what I'm trying to get, is more time whenever I create this capacity. And so the other side of that is what can I automate? What can I get off of my shoulders that I could automate? Whether it's using a CRM or some kind of documentation tool like a company cam. How much of this stuff can we automate? Can we use technology to do that? Can we use people to do that? Can we use systems and processes to do that? So those are the things we have to sit down and kind of think about before we run off half cocked and shoot from the hip and just, hey, we're going to do $10 million and we're going to hire a bunch of people to do it. This concept of shooting from the hip leads us to this Russian roulette. And sometimes there's a bullet in there and sometimes there's not. We're hoping there's not. We're hoping we don't shoot ourselves in the foot and put us in a position of not being successful with our business. So there's a lot of gurus out there these days that talk about taking massive action. I hear this all the time. I'm not going to call them out because I do believe in it. I think massive action is important. I think it's something that any kind of a plan without action is wasted time. I wasted a bunch of time creating a plan. But on the other hand, taking massive action without developing a plan as a recipe for success. I'm not talking about writing a hundred page business plan. I'm talking about what are we after strategically? Are we strategically after building leaders? Are we strategically after building the best roof or siding or landscaping or whatever it is that we do as a contractor? Is it about us being involved in the community? That's our strategy that we're going after the community. Or maybe we're going to go after insurance adjusters. What is that core thing, the strategic intent that we're after? And if we're after that, then how do we get there? And those would be those tactics that we would incorporate. So we work with this all the time with our clients. We sit down and we actually make them think a little bit. We actually write it out, we put it down on paper a lot of times when you put things down on paper, you're able to go back to it. Of fact, there were some studies done that if you put something down on paper, whether it's a vision or a strategy or anything like that, if you write that thing down, you're 70% more likely to achieve it as long as you keep it in front of you. And that's another key piece of it, is not just write it down, put it in a drawer, but keep that thing in front of you. You're 70% more likely than the people that don't do it to actually achieve it. So that's a huge difference. I mean, massive difference. That 70% more will achieve it. And so this idea of having a written strategy to what you do as a business is super important. I think a lot of people don't really understand how to put a strategy together unless they've had some training on it. And it's something that we do every single year in our strategy conference. We really enjoy doing it, but we also do it with our contractors as we work through our contractor DNA or what we call the contractors game plan that there's an order to things. You can't just go, hey, I'm gonna go hire a bunch of people. If you're gonna go hire a bunch of people, how are you gonna train them? If you're gonna train all these people, how are you gonna produce all that? If you're gonna produce all that, how are you going to sell it? If you're gonna sell it in a very unique, specific way, how are you gonna market that? If you're gonna market it, what kind of technology you're gonna use to make all this stuff happen? And that's just the operational side of your business. What about accountability? And how are you going to hold everybody accountable? What about numbers and finance? How are you going to manage those things and understand those things so you can measure and improve and then make great decision on your finances? How about process? Exactly what is the process that you're going to follow to get things done? If you don't think about these things strategically, you get into a situation of shooting from the hip and kind of doing them out of order. And before process, we have organization and human resources. How are we going to ensure that these things that we're going to do are followed and that they're documented? And prior to that, we have culture and then, most importantly, leadership. And that's really what it all comes down to, is the quality of our leadership is going to determine our culture, which is going to determine the communication abilities of our organization, which then in turn is going to create a great process for which in turn is going to help us measure and make great financial decisions and hold people accountable. And then that will give us the opportunity to use technology to market and sell better, to recruit and hire better, to train better, and to actually execute an overall strategy for our business. So my challenge to you today on this episode of Contractor Radio is to think, take a few minutes, sit back and really think about what is it that you're strategically after? Because if you don't know what that is, you need to figure that out first and then build it backwards from that of how you're going to go about doing it. It's something we help people do all the time. If you need help with it, reach out to us. You can go to contractorcoachpro.com and click on Contractor Assessment and take one of our assessments and we'll do a free strategy call with you and help you out with it. No hard sales pitches or anything like that, but we really want to understand this difference between what a strategy is and what a tactic is. For the last couple weeks, I've been out there talking about this book. I've been writing this book about work on it, not in it, and what we've discovered as coaches over the last seven years. It's kind of this recipe for being successful in developing a strategy for your business. And everybody sees that tactic that I'm putting that thing out there, but they don't see the overall strategy behind it. And I'm not going to let anybody know today, but I want you to think about that as you see these things happening. What is it the contractor coach pros after? I want you to think about that for your own business. What are your people really after with your own business? And are they all aligned? Are they all striving towards it? Are we all rowing the boat in the same direction? Because when you put purpose behind your strategy, you find people that are aligned with your strategic intent that'll help you get there. So today, I hope you got a little bit out of this episode of Contractor Radio. Are you playing chess, checkers or Russian roulette? If you're tired of all the questions, if you're tired of all the chaos, if you're tired of constantly being the Google of everything contracting for your business, you need to start thinking strategically. You need to start thinking about your leadership ability, and you need to start thinking about how can you build more capacity to get more time to work on your business instead of in it. We're here to help you do that. But there's a lot of other resources. I'm going to give you a few of those right now. John C. Maxwell if you want to read anything about being a great business owner and leadership, John C. Maxwell is one of the best that you can possibly be involved with out there. James Collins and his book Good to Great really defines some of that culture stuff. Simon Sinek is amazing at finding your purpose and your passion. All of those folks are resources that you can go to. Google has all kinds of resources. YouTube, there's a ton of resources. You don't have to go get coaching or anything like that. It will help you get there faster, but you are able to go and find that information and we hope that you do. If you're trying to find out more of that kind of stuff, follow Contractor Radio and subscribe. Each one of our episodes is focused on helping you develop your strategies and tactics to own your market and to grow your business. Scale it. And it's not really about money. That's not really what we're after. What we're really after here is this idea of you're trying to achieve something, a purpose you're after for both business and your life, and that contracting just happens to be the vehicle you've chosen to ride. How can we use that vehicle to get to exactly where we're going? That's what we're all about here. That's what we try to help you do. If you have questions, make comments on this particular podcast. We'll get back to you. Feel free to follow us@contractorcoachpro.com our Facebook page contractor Coach Pro, Instagram, Contractor Coach Pro or our Facebook group Contractor Coach Pro should be easy to remember. Check us out. We'd love to help you. And this is our episode of Contractor Radio. We hope to see you in one of our events. And this week I'm headed to Chicago. I'm super pumped about it. I'm go hang out with a bunch of contractors. We're going to follow our core values to love, serve and care. Part of our strategy is like if we care enough to willingly serve you, you'll know that we love you. And that's part of our strategy as a contracting business is to go at it that way. Don't worry about the money, worry about serving. Worry about caring. You'll know that we love you. And if you know that we love you, you'll want to work with us. And so that's a little bit of an idea of what strategy looks like. What are the tactics? So the tactic is for me to go, when I go to Chicago or when I go anywhere else, attempt to go, meet with people and do it willingly and out of true service. I really want to help. And so I'm going to go sit down, have dinner with a bunch of folks and share whatever I can possibly share. Because here's something I've learned about the difference between strategy tactics. We can share tactics all day long and people can copy them exactly the way you do, but if they don't know how they work in your overall strategy, they'll never achieve what you've achieved. So we want you to get out there and really think about what you do. Put yourself in a position to achieve your full potential and if we can be of service. Contractor Radio has been brought to you by the Contractor Strategy Conference. This year's version, Strategy 21 is designed to help contractors develop a strategy for the coming year to end the chaos that they normally deal with, to position themselves to work on their business instead of in it, to grow and scale in ways they've never been able to before. Our whole goal with the Contractor Strategy Conference is for you to walk away with a written plan that needs to be executed with our guidance and our help to develop it, as well as many other contractors throwing in what they do well to help you develop your strategy. We look forward to seeing you there. You can find out more@contractorstrategyconference.com Go check it out today. That's contractorstrategyconference.com hey out there, contractors. Hope you enjoyed our show today. I hope you got something out of it. I hope you learned a little bit about the difference between strategy and tactics and how it applies to your business. And we have another new little addition to our show, the Parting Shot. And what I want you to do today after listening to this is I want you to take a few minutes and really think about your business. Take some time to contemplate. I think it's something that we don't do nearly often enough about our business. I think we think about it. I don't think we meditate on it and contemplate and philosophize about what's going on with our business. I don't even know if philosophize is a word, but taking this time to really say, hey, what are we after? Why are we doing this? Well, how does it benefit people? How does it serve a purpose? What's the impact of my business going to be how are we going to make a difference? Don't waste your time. There's only so much of it we have on this planet and you have an opportunity to either be a positive or a negative impact on, on those around you. It doesn't have to be huge. You don't have to change the world. You can change the world for just one person and have a massive impact. A lot of people don't really realize that every day we come in contact with people, people we work with, new people, new relationships, and each one is an opportunity to create a powerful moment, a moment that changes the life of that person that we come in contact with. And that should be part of your strategy. We highly suggest that each thing that you do with somebody and your interactions and your connections with them is to make that thing powerful. Something that they walk away from it going, wow, that was a great conversation. Take some time, think about your business. Meditate on it. Think about that impact that you're going to have as a business owner. We strongly suggest not just doing business, but working on your business. One of the best ways to do that is to really take some time to think. That's our parting shot for this week. Hope you have a great week and we will see you on our next episode.