AJ Roberts — How to Create a System for Creating Systems

Welcome to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast with your hosts, Matt Wolf and Joe Fear.

Hey. Hey. Welcome back to another episode of the Hustle and Flow Chart podcast. I'm Joe Fear with my co host, Matthew.

Yep.

Wolf. Wolf. The Wolf, El Lobo. And today we got a good buddy of ours who we met stand up paddleboarding. And I had no clue who he was at the, you know, when we met him, I was like, you got a gnarly tattoo, man. That's pretty cool looking. I'm like, you're pretty. I think it was your first time on the standup paddle board, A.J. but we have A.J. roberts here. Crazy powerlifter, world record, I think two times, right? World record holder and entrepreneur. You've done it all at Copywriter. You've worked with some of the biggest names in the online marketing space in a variety of fashions, and you're always up to something big. Welcome to the show, A.J. a.J. Roberts.

Thanks for having me, guys. Glad to be here and part of the Wolf pack.

That's a true story, man. Yeah. So I think it was the first time we met, was paddleboarding randomly. It was like a paddleboard mastermind or something. Mission Day.

Jason Moffat put it together and I think the day before got stung by a jellyfish. So his foot was all swollen. So he rented a kayak so that he could hang out and be with us. But then one of the guys who was there, I don't remember who it was, but he couldn't stand up. He keep falling off, falling off, falling off. So in the end and ended up like stand up paddleboarding on like one foot. And we went out and surprisingly I did pretty good. And that was when I, you know, I was pretty pumped because I hadn't, hadn't tried surfing or anything like that. And we were out in Mission Bay and it wasn't too bad of a day. It was a lot of fun. We met some great people and, you know, here we are a few years later and still connected.

Yeah, buddy. Yeah, it's been good. And so, yeah, you've had probably one of the most colorful, I'd say, upcomings in business, in life. I mean, you know, coming from what, what part of the UK are you from?

I grew up in Southampton, England. It's right on the coast opposite France.

Okay.

And I lived there for 16 years. And I had a cousin when I was about 10 years of age, I had a cousin come over from Kansas and her and her sisters were collegiate basketball players. And I never heard of basketball before, but I Thought it sounded pretty cool. And that was the era of the Chicago Bulls. So Channel four, we only had four channels, five channels on our tv. We didn't have cable or satellite or any. And lo and behold, Channel 4 would show the Chicago Bull games late at night. And so I started watching them and really got hooked on basketball. And so I played basketball, did very, very well on that. Played for England and then got cut from England and kind of out of spite and kind of like, I'll prove you guys wrong. I made my own way to America when I was 16 as a foreign exchange student. Ended up in Oregon and was playing basketball there.

In high school and was with dreams to go to college. But then kind of took some strange turns as I realized the height disadvantage I had, which is why I got cut from England in the first place. And the very words of the England coach were, I can't teach you to grow. Well, I'll prove you wrong.

That it is actually a big disadvantage. And unfortunately I wasn't a mugsy bogus or anything like that. So I had to kind of accept reality as it is. And that's kind of when I went into the powerlifting world and started lifting weights and was really, really strong. And so that kind of just was good fit for me.

Dude, I think you have one of the most gnarly YouTube videos of that. The deadlift you did. I know on YouTube you can just kind of google your name, but yeah, I think it's like what, you busted your nose or something? Blood coming out of your nose, you're lifting some ridiculous amount of weight. I'm like, I don't know what's happening.

There's a lot of pressure with the weights and the blood vessels go. And for me it wasever. Since I was a kid, I had nosebleeds all the time in the summer and things like that. Sorry, sank up there is not, not quite right. And so my nose would always bleed. Luckily that was the worst of it. You know, I know guys whose eyes would bleed and things like that. So, you know, I think I burst the flu blood first. It was in my face a few times and had a few nosebleeds. But other than that I managed to escape 10 years doing that. You know, competing competitively at the highest level. You know, like you mentioned earlier, I broke the all time world record total twice and managed to escape pretty, pretty injury free. And you know, and then while doing all of that, that's how I kind of got into the business side of stuff because I wanted to know how do you make money? And do you know, for me, my passion was powerlifting. How do I do this full time and make enough money to support myself, my family? And that's when I found Internet marketing or online marketing and realized, hey, this online stuff is useful for offline businesses too. I was running health club at the time and started integrating the two and just became obsessed with it. Came completely obsessed with it. And that's led to quite an interest journey over the years. And like you mentioned earlier, working with different people, doing different things, and I absolutely love it, you know?

Yeah, I mean, the bloody nose just makes you look like that much more.

Of a badass, though.

So that's probably more of a benefit to your image than anything.

Yeah, I should use that more. That should be on my business card.

Oh, my God. Yeah. You don't even look like the same person anymore, which is just crazy to me.

I'm half the size I was, so that's probably a lot to do with it.

I know, I know. So I guess what got you, because I know you did copyright and you still do, but you worked with some of the biggest guys in the industry, and you still do, I guess. What's your. How do you crack into it all? Initially.

Initially, what was interesting was, so I was running a health club, and the guys I worked with.

They also ran a consulting business for different health clubs and gyms and things like that. And they would come down, they would do training, and I was there learning sales and stuff like that. And I keep mentioning Dan Kennedy in different things that they were talking about. You know, we learned this from Dan Kennedy, or we saw this for a Kennedy thing. And so I said, who's this Dan Kennedy guy? So, you know, I saw he had a newsletter, I signed up for the newsletter, and that was the beginning. That was the entry point. And then stumbled on Frank Kern's stuff and just kind of just said, wow, this is a whole unique world. I'm very creative. I'm a very creative person. Sometimes too much, you know, and so all of that stuff, you know, learning how to be able to sell with words and communicate a message, to be able to convert people to clients, just like it was like light bulbs started going off and just it all seemed to make sense. And all of a sudden, everywhere I went, when I'd go eat restaurants or when I go to the movies, all of a sudden I'd stop. I'd pay attention to all these different marketing things that were going on. And it really fascinated me. And I got to the Point where one of the things in the old Kennedy newsletter that I used to love was he would take direct mail pieces and break them down and say why it worked, why it didn't work. So as I'd get direct.

I would look at it and say, oh, they should be doing this and they should be doing that. If we'd go to, like, one of the restaurants, Red Robin. You go to Red Robin and back then, you know, I was eating out all the time for the power lifting, so I'd go to a lot of these amazing fat, you know, not fast food, but, you know, burger joints and things like that.

Dirty gains.

Yeah. So we go to Red Robin and they'd bring you food, and then they would bring you the dessert menu. But the bill was inside the dessert menu.

You're closing the sale. You know, if you bring me my bill and I see how much I owe you, I'm not gonna get dessert.

That's true.

Yeah. I'd have to really want it. And the same, same kind of thing at Cheesecake Factory and the way that they, you know, serve you these huge meals and then expect you to want to buy cheesecake at the end, I just see all this stuff, and because of that, I, you know, I would just start helping people and things like that. And that's really how I got in. It's just helping people. You know, I'd see something they're not doing, I'd ask questions, and they'd be like, honestly, I don't really know. How about you do this? And they'd be like, sure, and we try stuff and it would work. And so I just was lucky and was right more often than I was wrong. And so I just built this reputation of being able to help people and kind of, you know, over time, was a part of, you know, a group. We built over a dozen seven figure businesses. And then, you know, just kind of got that reputation. And so it served me very, very well. But it really all started with the old Dan Kennedy.

Yeah, it sounds like, well, you didn't have any. You probably had some luck. But it sounds like you just took more shots than most people. You know, you just, you were just out there pounding pavement, helping people. Like you said, in essence, it was.

You know, dumb luck. And I think sometimes, you know, lack of knowledge is a blessing because you kind of just take action and you don't overthink things. You know, I think that too many people, you know, they want to. They want to gain wisdom, they want to gain knowledge, and they forget that really like, at the end of the day, it's about how much action you take. And so, you know, for, you know, every hour of information you learn, you should be out there executing at least three hours. And most people just think, oh, I need more information. More information they end up buying themselves. You know, now they have all this information and they have lack of clarity. They don't really know what to do with me. I just, hey, you should do this. And so I would say, hey, we should run this email campaign and we should. We should send this direct mail piece or we should do this. And they're like, okay. And we'd try it and it would work. And they'd be like, that was pretty good. I'd be like, oh, yeah. So it built that reinforcement just to trust these guys and to do what they say. And so I kind of stumbled my way forward. And it was one of those things where if someone said, hey, can you do this? I would say yes, even if I didn't know how, and I'd go figure it out. And, you know, like you said, I was. Because of that, I was able to execute and implement a lot more. And of course, a lot of guys had a lot of faith in me, which gave me a bigger playing field because I was able to test different stuff across different verticals. And that's invaluable experience.

Well, it sounds like you stepped them into the game where they trusted you to a point where they're just like.

Fuck it, let's just give you everything.

Or whatever, just open the door and kind of sky's the limit at that point. So what's kind of leading into? I think the bigger chunk of stuff we want to chat about. What's the one thing that you become kind of world class at over all these years now, you've done a lot of these things almost hustled up until this point. You're probably still hustling too. But is there one thing that you have that X factor to now?

Yeah. It's funny because it's like you start out as learning one thing, and you kind of feel like a specialist. And then you realize you got to know a lot of stuff in order to succeed. And so you become a specialist in many things, which essentially makes you a generalist. And then you come full circle. You say, okay, well, you know, as you start looking at your skill sets and what it is you do best. And for me, really, like, it's that. It's that strategic planning and especially around the marketing and advertising and just. And not just on the front end, but within the company as well, like building the tribe and doing those things. And so when I look at it a lot of times in terms of, like, for people who are looking to scale and stuff, a lot of it is just, I can see the gaps. You know, I'm able to really simplify the complex. And I kind of look at everything that they have going on and it's like, all right, if you just did this, then we can get to this next stage. And so in a way, what I'm really, what, you know, most people are just in their own way. And what I'm really good at is showing them the path forward. And most of the people I work with, they come to me and they're at a crossroads. And the crossroads is, hey, I've got this business. I don't really like it.

But it makes me a lot of money. But I got this other thing I want to do or have this other passion or maybe they don't even know what it is, but they're like, you know, I'm just trapped. I'm trapped. And they're overwhelmed. They're busy 24 7. A lot of the times they're working in the business, if they're not working in the business, they don't like managing a team.

They're not really managing it. They have a team, but there's all these problems. And so they come to me when they're at this fork in the road. And a lot of times I'm able to show them, hey, look, we don't need to burn the house down. We can change the game here. And so, you know, what's the long term vision? What do you see? And then let's break it all the way down to what do we need to do right now, what do we need to do tomorrow? And I'm just able to see that. I'm able to really see that path. And it comes from experience, you know, and. And testing, like you mentioned earlier, and having a lot of, you know, you know, batting, swinging the bat a lot. And through that, I've got that, you know. Okay, well, based on what you've shared with me, this is. This is the plan I would implement. And I'm lucky enough to have that tool bag where I can, you know, pluck from a bunch of different stuff and really business around a person that serves them. You know, I think most people forget that they're the most important part of their business. If without them, you know, the business doesn't succeed without them, their family doesn't get to eat without them. Their employees don't get to eat. They're the pin that holds it all together. And, you know, I'm really good at showing them. Okay, how do we build this to serve you? And if that means that you're only working a few hours a day, that's part of what it is. But how do we get that to be in your highest, you know, what you bring, what is your best skills? What is your essentially, as Dan Sullivan would say, unique genius. And I'm just able to see the gaps. And so, my friend, you guys have seen Pulp Fiction, I'm sure, but that's what my friend refers to me as.

That guy was Mr. Wolf, right? And it's just like you solve high quality problems. And so it's one of those things where it's like that seems to be what I get bought in to do a lot. And so that's where I come alive the most, is just in that mapping out that process and building that blueprint or building that plan for somebody where I really am weak. And this is something that I think a lot of people can benefit from too, is you got to know your strengths and you got to know your weaknesses. My weaknesses are just simply implementation. And so I know if I'm ever caught up in the implementation part of it, it's going to be slow, it's not going to be great. And so what I've really learned to do is surround myself with teams of people that are able to execute and have freelancers and different people like that on. And I think that that's, you know, why I'm able to continue to move forward. Because I do constantly look at stuff and, you know, I realize, hey, I can't do everything. And I might know about SEO, I might know about copywriting, I might know about design. My dad, my dad was a graphic designer. I learned a lot from him. So, you know, I might know about all these things and I might be really good at them, you know, if not excellent. But it's not my unique genius, it's not my brilliance, it's not my X factor, as you mentioned. And so it's like if I, if I get caught up in that, I have to realize, like, it's not the doing that is that I need to be, it's the orchestrating, right? And it's like the guy that stands up there and waves the little baton or whatever it's called. I'm sure I'm messing the name of that up, but, you know, I'm sure. He understands how each instrument should be sounding, what the chords should be, you know, what notes they should be playing, but he's not out there trying to play all those instruments. And I think that, that for me, to answer your question in a long winded way, that's really what I've discover. That's where my brilliance is. I'm a true visionary, true creative. And so the cool thing is in today's day and age is you can do it in your own business, but you also can do it for other people. And so I find those people who are more integrators, more COO type personalities that are running businesses and they need to tap into that creative brilliance. I guess you could be a creative agency or something like that to give reference, but that's essentially where I come alive. And you can just hopefully hear the passion coming through as I talk about it. It's really what gets fired up.

Yeah. Now when you do go into businesses and you're kind of like looking at all their processes and what they're doing, do you have specific processes or something along those lines that you use to try to spot the gaps? How do you find those gaps? What are you looking for when you go into businesses?

That's a great question. You see, the thing that most people think about is they go, okay, well there's like, we have sales, marketing and then, you know, product delivery, whether that's a service, whether that's, you know, an actual physical product, whatever it is, what they miss is, is that sales, you know, advertising is different than marketing, marketing is different than sales, sales is different than customer delivery, customer delivery is different than customer experience. And so I'm looking at that, I'm looking at that structure and I'm looking, okay, what systems do you have in place? Right? And if you don't have a system, then there's an opportunity here. If you have more than one product, right? If you have more than one service, which most people do, how are they linked together? You see what's the most profitable? And it may not be who has the most people, but what's the most profitable. I take that bird's eye view and I look at the business in a wholesome way from an overview. I say, okay, what systems are missing right now, you know, and what's in place? Because ultimately, you know, if we can bump the business just a few percentages in each of these areas, then we can dramatically change the projection of cash flow. And so that's what I'm looking for when I go in, I'M looking for the holes. If you know, for example.

Joey Coleman, he's the first one who opened my eyes to this. He presented at the Underground Online seminar which we were talking about earlier before we jumped on here. Joey presented and he said he has this thing called the First Hundred Days. And it got me thinking about, you know, I work a lot in the fitness space. So a lot in the fitness space have, you know, four weeks, six week, eight week, 12 week programs at these people and then they try to convert them into long term members. I said, well, what if you, if you automated a process that bonded that person to the business over that, that initial phase? You know, we can automate this whole thing. And so we go through and we use different things and I look for that and I say, okay, because you know, we can keep spending tons of money on the front, but if we're only converting 15, 20% of.

These guys are getting 40, 50, 100 people in to try a boot camp or something like that, or try a transformation program and they're only converting a small percentage on the back end into long term clients. I said, what if we. It's more than just the workout, right? And I think that's what people need to understand. Like even if you sell an info product or you sell something on Amazon, like what someone buys is the product. What you deliver should always be more than that. And that's how you get someone to continuously spend money with you. So when you look at lifetime customer value, you really look at, okay, once we get you as a customer, we don't want to have to replace you every single month. And so we look there and then we go backwards to the sales process and we go backwards to the advertising process. But that's really where I start. I start in those avenues and I say, look at the different pillars and look at the systems in place and say, okay, what is the low hanging fruit here that we could easily plug? And a lot of times it is just automated email sequences and it sounds so simple and most people shy away from it. But the greatest thing is we live in an information age now where for example.

Most people with what they deliver. I work with a lot, mostly transformational businesses, so a lot in the fitness space and coaches, consultants and stuff like that. And I call it the transformation space. They're really changing someone's life. But the biggest hurdle for most people is a mental, is the mental side of it. Well, you don't need to be an expert in that, but you do need to know how to use Google Search to find like TED talks and different content and you do need to be able to write a little bit, but if you can do that, you can piece together a 30, 60, 90 day email sequence every single day that educates, inspires, motivates, give tips, helps people understand what's going on in addition to the course or the product they've purchased. And so all of a sudd and they're saying again, with some of my clients, their weight loss, two weeks in, they're doing great and all of a sudden now they want a cheat meal. Well, if I've provided them with a video that's explaining to them, hey, look around the two week mark, you're probably going to want a cheat meal. And here's a video that explains why they're going to be like, when it happens, they're going to have the awareness and they're much more likely. It doesn't mean they're not going to cheat, it doesn't mean they're not going to go off their meal plan. But the chances of them of going off and it turning into an absolutely catastrophic event where now they've gained all the weight back, they're going to recognize it and they're going to turn it around the same like if someone doesn't take action and you can explain that. And so that's what really what I look for when I go in is like, you know, where are we missing the boat here? Where can we really improve that? And you know, a lot of the times the things that we find is just people are the bottlenecks. And so the question is, can it be, you know, automated? Can it be systematized? You know, can that person be replaced? And you kind of take the McDonald's approach and you look at it and say, look, if we can't simplify this process down, then maybe it's not, maybe it's not a good process. And we did this recently, my wife's nutrition business.

Everything she does is 100% custom, right? And I said, but what do you use? Well, I use formulas. I say okay, well there has to be a process. And she said, well I don't think so. And I said no, there has to be. So we sat down and we went through her process and we ended up with a 35 page document calculations and this is it. Well, we were able to take that and then get, you know, start getting a software built. Now we can't automate the entire process, but we can take maybe a three hour, you know, process of creating a customized meal. Plan to us to a sports specific athlete. And we can, if we can get that down to an hour now we've just tripled our productivity which gives us the opportunity to triple our customer base without bringing in new overhead. That's what we're looking for. We're looking for those opportunities in order to be able to do that.

Well, this is a perfect opportunity to actually, if you wanted to build your business, to sell. My wife just did this. Actually took the last year or so to document everything with videos, the processes, so she could then hire and scale kind of internally that way, but also set it up up for a buyer out there. So she had a broker analyze the business, all that. And just by doing that alone just added more multiples to the sale price of the business.

Exactly. That's what most people don't understand, that the valuation of a business is not by the income that it generates.

Even if you don't want to sell, let's say you want to expand and you need a cash flow and you want to borrow the money from the bank or you want to get an investor because you realize there's only so much you can do at this current rate. But if you had this extra money, you could invest and you could kind of go vertical. It would make a big difference. If you go to the bank and you have all of that, the amount of money you can get is going to be exponential versus if you just go to the bank and say, hey, this is my idea. They're going to look at it because essentially what they want to know is what's the risk with the money. And it's the same when you go to buy. If someone goes, oh, this business can survive 100% without anybody that's already there. It's much more valuable. And I think that's what people miss. A billion dollar company is not making a billion dollars. It's a valuation of a billion dollars and gets put out there and people invest at that. But the revenue that it makes is not that.

I think that the people, they need to understand that. And like I'm sure your wife was doing, it's like you're looking at, okay, what do we do? What's the, you know, everything that needs to be documented. And I think that's where most people fail is the fact that they, you know, and I'll go from like the trainer standpoint because obviously I work a lot with, you know, gym owners and health clubs and people like that. But like from the trainer standpoint, if you're the technician, same if you were a hairdresser or if you're a freelance copywriter or designer or something like that, typically if you build the business around your skill, right, and you build the reputation around you, well, that's great. But at some point, you have to be able to systematize your process. And you have to think of it like, if I was going to go teach someone else how to teach these movements or teach the squat or teach this programming, or if I was going to teach someone how to cut hair, or I'll teach someone how to do graphic design, you have to be able to create essentially a course that teaches people exactly what you do. If you can do that, then you can start to move out, because essentially you can. Now, you're not necessarily creating a product you're going to sell to the marketplace, but if someone comes in and they go through that course now, they've learned exactly what they need to do, and you've never had to speak to them. If you have to teach every single person, you can't grow. And they're not going to really grasp it. When you have documents in place, if they screw something up, you can say, hey, did you go back to this? Go back through this? So it's a reference. And so most people don't realize that when they try to build a business and, you know, they're a trainer, they think, I got to learn the marketing, I got to learn the sales, I got to learn this, I gotta learn this. Or they start bringing in these people, but they never make the first system. And the first system is what they're doing right now. That's the first system you gotta create is your job. How do you replace yourself? Because you essentially, you know, if you have the vision to grow, if you have the vision to expand and feel called, to serve at a higher level and build something of magnitude, that person you're going to bring in is to replace you as the copywriter or as the trainer or as the designer or hairdresser or whatever it is. They don't have that vision. They just want to be the best at that craft. And so you have to be the one to train them. What do you can't expect them just to invest in themselves and go all over like they don't have that money. And so all the years you've spent becoming the expert, you have to transfer that to them. And the only way to do that is, like you mentioned, is to stop videoing what you do or creating what you do and putting it into these documents. A week wikis as I like to call them. And now all of a sudden, now you have a system. People want to think systems are funnels and marketing stuff and things like that. No, systems are just what is the process to get shit done?

It's like people in process, basically. That's all it is.

Exactly.

You mentioned earlier that, well, I think you mentioned this before we actually jumped on the recording here, but you mentioned something about hiring an intern to shadow you and follow you around and sort of help with that documentation process. Can you speak into that for a second?

Yeah. So obviously with a lot of trainers, they're hands on, right? And so they're in the trenches and they're coaching their clients and one of the biggest fears they have is that, hey, if I'm going to replace myself, number one, my clients are going to be pissed off, right?

That's probably the biggest fear right there.

And number two, like this guy doesn't know how to coach like me. And a lot of that's just lack of experience, right? So what my. I came up with this idea and it's worked really, really well for those that have used and it kind of transcends wherever you are. But if you're going to hire someone, usually there's a three month period regardless, right? And in most cases there's people who want to intern, right? There's people who, if the job is attractive enough and you're building an amazing company, they want to be a part of it. Interning for three months, even if it was a paid internship, Right. They'll happily do it. Oh yeah. But usually if you're going to replace yourself, you don't have any processes in place. And the chances of you creating those, you know, are pretty slim to none if your schedule is packed and you're working around the clock. So my suggestion is, so for the first month, essentially they job shadow you, right? And their job as the intern is literally to write everything down that you do, right? And then the second month it's kind of split, right? You're starting to give them some responsibilities and you go back and forth and you're in heavily involved in the coaching as well still, but they're involved as well. And you're going back and forth and you're refining those processes. And then the third month, you as the owner or you as the, if you, if you're having your staff members do this to expand, you know, you would have that process and that intern would now be executing 100% without you saying anything. And what you're doing is you're going through that process and you're checking against what they're doing and what's on that process. Does it match up, up. And that phase, you should have someone who is proficient in what you want them to do. They're going to have connected with your clients because they're going to have been involved in this process for 90 days now. And you're going to have that system that anybody else who comes along, you have that system. So if that trainer decides to leave and this is what happens in the industry, in our industry as a trainer leaves and they take a bunch of clients with them and people freak out because they have no one to replace them. So they have to jump back in the trenches. And here they are again, you know, trying to grind and work really, really hard in the trenches versus on the business, and the business halts and they have all these issues because they've lost members and stuff like that. But it's like if you don't have that and you let that trainer just focus on being the trainer and the system's in place, you can bring another person in, you can start expanding, you can do these different things. The risk goes down that they're going to take off with anyone. And even if they do, you've got someone else who can replace them, or you have a process that you can quickly bring someone in and get them trained up so that you're not stuck doing that for another six months until you find another trainer. I think that that's where a lot of people letting go and transforming into who do you have to become? Who do you have to become to build that? That's the key. Because the process and the system is really not that difficult when you, especially if you have someone following you now and just writing stuff down or asking you questions. The question is, can you let go of that? You know, can you? And Richard Branson, when I was out at Necker island, there was a little Q and A and someone asked him a great question. It wasn't me who asked the question, but it was a great question. He said, you know, what's the biggest thing, you know, what's the biggest advice you can give someone when, like, building a business? And he simply said, like, the biggest thing you can do is just find people who you think are going to do a good job and then just get out of their way. And if they fail, you have to be. You have to allow them to fail and it's not their fault. Like, you have to be okay with that. And then you have to provide them with what they need in order to succeed. And he said, you can't go in and save someone. You can't go in and try to fix it yourself. Once you let go, you have to truly let go. And then you lead them so they can be the most successful person. Right. So, you know, if that's sending them off places or holding in staff workshops to train them on skills that they maybe not have to bring them up to speed in that in their area, then that's what you need to do. But I thought that was just a great thing, what he said. He said, you know, you find people who are good at what they do, find people who are smarter than you, and then you get out of their way. And if they fail, they fail. And sometimes it's hard to swallow, but you can't be a savior. Once you let go, you gotta truly let go. And I think that the reason that people get stuck is because of identity. Right. And ego. And they get stuck because they were a trainer. And especially with the people I work with. They were a trainer.

Oh, yeah.

Same with freelancers. If that's what you do, like, this is who I am, then you let go of it. But instead of becoming the leader to those guys, like, instead of turn around and say, oh, my customers, my clients are actually my team. Right. They kind of twiddle their thumbs and not really don't know what to do. And they try to still be involved in the client stuff, and maybe they learn the sales and the marketing. So they're over here, but they don't understand that their team is now their client. The team is now the most important thing to them.

Oh, yeah.

And the biggest and the greatest companies we see out there team is the number one focus of the CEO. And that. And that's really like what we're seeing, you see, with Zappos and these places that have amazing workplaces and amazing culture. It's not an amazing culture with the clients that bleeds through, but it's an amazing culture within the company. And I think that if people just wrap their head around, wait a minute, I'm no longer a trainer, I'm no longer a copywriter, I'm no longer a graphic designer. What I am is I'm a leader to this tribe and this tribe of my team and my staff, not my clients. Clients are a tribe of that.

Yeah. And it seems like if someone's having an issue with letting go, because a lot of us do, we think that we're the masters, we could do it all we have this freaking massive to do list. We never get through Bullshit, can never do it. But it seems like you're documenting your out. This process you're talking about, this three month process could be shorter or longer, but it's a process of letting go. So that first month, it's almost like baby steps. It's like, hey, they're just documenting. They're not even going to really do anything. They're just kind of lurking around you, monitoring everything you do and then you're slowly integrating them through. It's almost like the easiest process of getting accustomed to delegating and letting go and then fully letting go. Hopefully three months in or shorter.

Yeah, I love that process too because.

What we do on a daily basis, we're obviously so close to it that some of the things we do on a daily basis we probably do unconsciously. We don't even think about it. And if you have somebody mirroring you and following you around all day and watching what you're doing, if you were just to explain it to them without them sort of mirroring you, you may miss a lot of things where if they're standing behind you and you just gloss over stuff, they could stop you and be like, wait a second, what'd you just do right there? You didn't tell me what you just did. Right there, there. And they'll be able to extract even all the tiniest little bits and things that you do that you might not otherwise get out of a traditional sort of training process.

Right. And people think about processes and they go, okay, well they even think funnels like sales and marketing, or they think, how do you turn the light switches on and how do you clean the gym? Let's be honest, some of those things just get taken care of. People are going to replace the toilet paper if it's not there. Should you have a process? Yes. But the reality is there are certain things that can get done. Other things that were more technically proficient aren't. And so as you go through this, it gives you an opportunity because most of the time we don't really know what we do. It's so second nature to us. We undervalue what it is we do.

We always think we need to know more, learn more and become better at what we do. But the truth is that compared to our fellow man we could probably teach for days on end, we just. Everything we know. And so as you go through, you get to, number one, really extract what's in your head and put it on paper. Number two, if it's too complex of a system you can now look at. How do you simplify that? How have I actually made this more complicated than it needs to be? And then the other benefit of it is, like you said, there's this transition phase, but not just for you, but also for the clients. And that's key, because now the clients don't feel like you just shit on them and left. Now the client's like, oh, okay, you're building a team, you're building a company. They get behind that. And most of the time, to be honest, if you are a business owner and you have a million and one things going on in some way, shape or form, you've neglected your clients more than you realize. Even though they might love you, and even though on the surface they might not even notice there's an issue. You bring someone in who's fresh, you bring someone in who's 100% focused just on those clients and nothing else and focused on bringing an experience and can check in the other 23 hours of the day and can make sure that everything's good. All of a sudden, customer service goes up, customer experience goes up, and someone moves from just a satisfied company, sorry, a satisfied customer client, into an advocate, someone who's just going to shout from the rooftops and they're going to want to get involved and they're going to want to wear your swag and they're going to tell their friends, and that's what we're looking for. We want to turn our clients into the sales army. And not one that they're getting paid to bring on someone else to get paid to bring on someone else, but one in the sense that they're proud to be a part of what you do because of the results that you get or the service that you provide. I think that that's. As we move forward and as the world changes and technology starts to replace a lot of the middle, this is what we're going to see in a lot of businesses, is that they're just going to go to the wayside because the experience for the customer is not there.

People don't know what the culture is like. They don't know what the personality is like. And it doesn't mean that the business has to lay on your head. Right? We're not talking about creating something like Tony Robbins, where you can't get out because you're Tony Robbins, Jim Reynolds.

But you're building a personality with the brand and it's associated with you, but it's not you. It takes on its own life form. You are in that. If you look at Richard Branson and Virgin, he's one of my favorite guys, so I know I mentioned him earlier, but Virgin has his own life, Right? But it was fueled by Richard Branson's personality. So it's a piece of him, but it survives whether he's there or not. You know, it lives on. Same with Walt Disney and Disney World. Same with Steve Jobs and Apple. And you see, this is the problem that Apple's happening right now is because they're like, you know, we're losing this personality that we had. And so we, you know, we hear things about them bringing on Elon Musk and stuff like that, but it's because they understand. It's the personality that drives the business. That's what you have to understand as you create your business. Say the business is not me, but the business is a piece of me. How do I get that piece out? If you can look at it like that and start leaving little fragments in the different areas, that's how the business can thrive without you being the one to have to do everything. And it really is just that process of saying, you know what? There's probably someone who's better than me if that's just their job. Because I'm focused on 10 things. If they just focused on one, well, of course they're going to be better. I mean, they should be better.

They should be. Yeah. Because this truly is. It's a way of extracting pieces of you into someone else, into a bigger space. Because, I mean, I'm just thinking of the gym I go to, same exact thing. They're expanding rapidly right now. They're at a point where they need new coaches, more space, all that stuff. And I'll probably share this podcast with them right after we're done recording.

So, Ryan, if you're listening, there you go. But the idea is, it's the customers. I didn't even think about the customer side. I just thought about our side, the business owner. But as the customers, they're so comfortable at that point. Three months in, or whatever it is, even if it took just a month or so. But that fear of that new coach or whoever it is stepping in, who's this guy? Do I trust him? Who are they? They're kind of different. They're just different. And now they're totally accustomed. They're always there. Even if they're not actually doing the coaching or the service, whatever you are, they're there, ready. And when that three months is up, they're in their coaching, and it's no problem at all. No one leaves or anything.

Yeah, yeah. And you mentioned something there that, you know, people like, they're worried that the client's not as. Like the person's not going to be as good as them. Like, that is a concern.

And that is a possibility, too. And you got to think if they're not as experienced as you, then there's a good possibility. The other option is you're going to pay a lot of money for someone. So it's kind of. You got to choose which one. Are you going to have a little bit of patience and guide that person, or you're going to try to bring in the very best and just pay them a lot of money. The beautiful thing with someone who is less experienced or maybe not as good as you right now is they usually have a hunger and a passion. And the cool thing is you can shape them to be better than you ever were.

And they don't bring in preconceived notions or preconceived concepts or ideas. They're an open book on the other side. You bring someone in, you've got to pay a lot of money. Yes, they might bring something to the table right away, but they also come with whatever else has happened. What certifications have they gone through, what courses they learn from, who are they listening to. You never quite know what you're going to get. The other thing is, is that you have to remember. The biggest fear I think a lot of people truly have with letting go is that that person might go off and steal their clients. That person could just say, hey, just come work for me for a little bit less, you know, and that happens. But the reason I think it happens, it happens because what you haven't done is you haven't become a leader to that individual. Right? If, if you think about it, you know, everyone is searching for growth. Everyone is searching for personal development. They want to become a better human, they want to become a better husband, they want to become fitter, they want to reach their goals, and who knows what those goals are. But if you're not the resource for them of growth, right, then they're going to go outside of you, and you can't control that. And if they find someone who says, hey, maybe you should be an entrepreneur or you should start your own business, well, that's when that seed is planted. And as it goes and they start seeing it, they start figuring things out. They start saying, they go, maybe I could do this for myself. And if they don't think there's any opportunity within the business, then they're going to do that. But again, back to the, you know, to someone who owns a gym as an example, I got a trainer that's working for me. Well, I would hope if you own a gym, your goal is to either build a bigger gym like expand, you know, square footage, or open multiple facilities.

Yep.

Well, how about if you let that trainer know right away, hey, look, here's where we're going. Here's the vision and here's where, here's the roles that we're going to need to fill. So if I don't, I know you probably don't want it right now, but let's say one day you wanted to open a gym, why? We'll partner with you and we'll open another facility and all of a sudden they don't need to go off on their own, you know, and that's why I think most people miss within businesses. They don't lay the path out for the individuals they bring in to see that growth within the company. People think it's about money, but it's not. It's about experience and growth. And if you can create that within the company, you can help people reach their goals. You can sit down and create a 90 day game for them individually. How are you going to be better in the next 90 days and how can I help you? Well, I'd like to learn about this or I'd like to learn about that. You know, there's always new information. Okay, well, we're going to get you this course. So we're going to invest in this and you're investing in that person. You don't have to give them more money in their bank account to make someone feel like they're growing and that they have a, have an amazing experience. I think that's where most people fail, is that they think they can bring someone in, replace themselves and just step away and they forget, no, no, no. Now you're the mentor to that person.

Yeah.

And if you're not their mentor, then someone is going to be with, with audio books and podcasts and YouTube videos. They're going to find someone to be their mentor. They're going to find a mastermind virtually somehow. Right. And they're going to be surrounding themselves with people who are saying some things. If you're not one of those people, then of course at some point they're probably going to end up leaving. And so to avoid that, you've really got to start shifting the way you think about It. And now all of a sudden you're in the people management game. And at some point you may say, okay, well it's time for me to step out of this. Who's going to step into that role? And you move up to now you're only managing another, you know, a small group of people. And you kind of have to continue to see when you step out of a role, you have to replace yourself. But then you have to figure out who do you have to become.

Right.

And you're gonna have to continuously step out of that role for the business to continuously grow. And that's when you see these, you know, these, these companies get to a point and they end up bringing in someone else to run the business. They bring in a CEO to run the business because the person who's currently the CEO or the founder is just not stepping into who that new person is. And so they go and they just find the other person who's already ahead of them and bring them in. And it's sad because that person usually ends up lost, you know, depressed, don't know what to do. They usually end up out of the business, you know, but it's simply because they weren't able to transform into that person they needed to be for that business continue to grow. And it's a tough process. And being a business owner is probably one of the hardest things to do because your growth is not optional.

It's like. No, it's. You're constantly. Yeah, you're trying to grow. I mean, it's, it's forcing you to grow. And if you don't, you die. And that simple as that. Your competitor is going to get a little ahead, you know, and whatever happens, it's. You got to be on that edge, man.

Yeah, that's. Yeah. Beautiful. You say.

This is pumping me up, bro. This is great. Yeah. So, Matt.

Yeah. I was going to start to ask some of our wrap up questions. Questions. Unless, Joe, you had some other specifics you wanted to dive in before we did.

I guess. What's one? I know there's many that you see, I'm sure. What's one mistake that you see that when doing this whole process and you kind of mentioned it with stepping away, but is there another one that maybe you just see too often that we could just kind of nip in the ass right now, make sure that nothing that doesn't happen again when they start to delegate and train.

Yeah. So I think the biggest thing is that people, people want to add their own flair. Right. So. And you know Clarify what I mean there. So, for example, if you bring in a salesperson, right, and you have a script and the script works really, really well, they'll start to want to venture off that script. It's the same as if someone's coming in and, you know, they design in a certain way. And so you want to have space for creativity. But at the same time, if you have a system and a process that's working, then you don't change that process unless it's gone through, like, a review thing. And I think that's what a lot of people. They want to give people the flexibility. So, you know, hey, this is how I teach to squat. And the person goes, well, I want to do it like this.

Mm.

And. And so now you don't have uniformity within the business, and it confuses the client. And things are said that were on, you know, one salesperson promises this, one salesperson promises that. And so I think that. That. That's the biggest thing is you got to have. The script has to be stuck to. And the script can evolve, the script can change, you can bring people in, but it can't just be on the fly. The decision can't be made by that individual. Now they can come to you and say, hey, I got this idea. Could we test it? And now you can track and measure it. But if you're unaware of those changes and they're going on underneath you, that's how I think you end up in these situations where you see shows like Bar Rescue and Nightmares and all these different things. And Undercover Boss is where they come in and they're like, what the hell is going on? It's because the processes and systems weren't managed right. You know, the scripts were changed, and no one was aware of it. And so that's the biggest thing, I think, as you. As you're letting go is. Is to make sure that people understand like, I'm letting go. But that doesn't mean you have the freedom to do whatever you want. And you can create freedom within the game, you know, and so they feel like they can customize it, you know, but you can't. You can't just let them have free reign with it, because if you don't know what's going on and it's a red flag and you're looking and you're diving in, you're not going to know what's broken. If you don't know what's broken, you can't fix it.

That's where that business slowly starts to slip away. And then who knows where it's at then.

Okay, Matt, go for it.

There's just a few questions that we like to ask on every show. One of them is for book recommendation. I don't know why I can't talk right now. Do you have any book recommendations? They could be about the topic we talked about or any other random topic you want. Doesn't really matter. Just any sort of books that you find yourself recommending often.

Actually, on the topic of Letting Go, David Hawkins has a book. I think it's Dr. David Hawkins. I don't want to disrespect him. He has a book called Letting Go. It's by David R. Hawkins. Yeah, he's Dr. David R. Hawkins. It's called Letting Go. Now, it's very spiritual, right? So it's very much about different energy frequencies and stuff like that. But when you actually look at it, it deals with the emotions of letting Go. So I think that that's one of the best books for that. And then one of my other favorite books is.

Rocket Fuel. And I just like that book because in.

That book and then Millionaire Master Plan, I think that's what it's called by Roger Hamilton. I might be screwing that up. But anyway, he owns Wealth Dynamics. But what I like about those two books are, is you start to see who you are as an individual, and so you can figure out how to build the business around that, right? So are you an integrator? Are you a visionary? Are you a technician? And then what's the next steps that we need to take? Who do we need to bring in? How do we need to grow around that? Because the reality is that you have a personality. And no matter what you do, that's your personality. And so as you're letting go, you got to make sure you're not letting go of the things that are your strengths, that you are letting go of the weaknesses. And then, you know, if there's places you need to navigate, you need to be able to see. Okay, well, I got to do this right now, but really, I shouldn't be doing it based on these results. So those are three book recommendations. But Letting Go is just so great because it deals with the emotional side of it, which I think is really what keeps most people back. More people can let go of those emotions, let go, you know, let go of the attachments and those kind of things. They kind of can figure the rest of it out themselves.

Awesome. I literally just ordered those three books as you were saying that. I think I'm going to make That a habit? Now, on the podcast, just if somebody.

Mentions a book, you just buy it without hesitation.

I trust you, AJ Buy Amazon. Take my money.

I just sent rocket fuel to a buddy of mine.

Nice.

CEO of a big software company. And I know he's going to love it. So all three of those are great books.

Good. Tough. Good stuff, man.

Okay, one more question. Here it is. This is my favorite one, too. What's one question? This could be totally anything. It could even be the fitness stuff all the way back in the powerlifting days. But what's one question that you think someone should ask you, but you just never get asked that question and then answer that question.

Honestly? I think the biggest question I've never asked that I would love to answer is just what I see as the future. What I see as the future in business.

Cool.

And it's a fascinating space as we watch technology emerge and transform, and we watch the resistance. We watch the resistance of the people, we watch resistance of the governments, we watch resistance of organizations. And inevitably, eventually, it's going to come through. I mean, progress, evolution is a natural thing. So what's fascinating is that resistance. And so when I look at the future and I look at all these things, I think we're in a society right now where we fragmented everything so much. Right. Everything has been separated. Nothing is seen as whole. Right?

Right.

And so even in, like the. Again, use a fitness example. Like, we've got personal trainers, we've got nutritionists, we've got yoga experts, we've got meditation experts, we've got chiropractics, we've got massage therapists.

But here's the reality is if my muscular system isn't right and my nervous system isn't right, and my bone structure isn't right, and my tendon, ligaments aren't right, then I'm not right. Right. My mind's not right, my body's not right. And so it's really seeing as we move forward, what we're going to see, and technology is going to be a big driver of this in all industry is we're going to see this fragments coming together to be a whole. Now, that doesn't mean you have to be all things to all people, but it does mean you have to. You have to understand how all the pieces fit together. And I think we're seeing that business. You know, the whole. I mean, meditation is huge right now. The reason for that being is just understand it's stress. We're more stressed out than ever before. And so if you look at Technology, you look at what it's doing, you look at the disconnect and you look, you look at happiness, you look at all these things. What we've really done is we've separated the body, the mind, you know, the family, relationships, spirituality, everything is in segments. And when people start to see that it's all together, business is going to change forever. Because you know, if you're a copywriter and you're, you're dealing with someone and you're dealing with their audience, the reality is, is that they believe whatever it is they're investing in, they believe is the gateway to the next thing. Right? And so really it's about understanding what are they truly searching for. If it's happiness, then there's the association there. And it's going to be about understanding that. It's going to be about understanding how different people choose different things as gateways to something better. But underneath all of that there is something that they're searching for, there's something that they're chasing. And I heard a great quote from Ryan Holiday, I wrap up here, but he said that when he wrote the book, I think it was ego is the enemy.

Love that book.

It may have been obstacle, but he said when he wrote that book he didn't know if it was going to be a success. But he didn't write the book to become a best selling author. He didn't write the book to be successful. He wrote the book because he wanted to. And it's about falling in love with the process. Right? And I think that that's as we move in the business and technology and all these things, what we're going to realize is that there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And the reason we continue to push is because we love the process. And it's going to be looking at everything instead of individual and saying, okay, how does this all come together and how do we play this and how do I play this game where I know what they're searching for? Me, I'm just an access point, a gateway to all of this other stuff. It's going to open up opportunities for cross promotions, joint ventures, all these different things. And I think we're going to see a lot of competition become collaboration because people are going to realize that there is no competition because essentially people need it all. It's not a case of do they need massage or chiropractor? Well, they need both of it. So how do we get someone to understand that so that they invest? And you know, I think we're going to see a huge shift there. So it's integration right there. Yeah, that was a great question. I appreciate you asking me that.

Yeah, man. Usually it stumps people, but you were right on. I love it.

Somehow I knew AJ was going to have the perfect response to that one, you know, man.

All right, let's wrap this sucker up, Matt.

Awesome. So the last question is, where should people go from here? Where can they go? Learn more about you, work with you, find out more, etc.

Yeah, so you go to ajroberts.com or just find me on facebook@facebook.com ajroberts that's probably going to be the best two places. My website is probably not the best, but you know, websites are going to die in the next five years anyway. But that's how you guys can get a hold of me and Facebook if you want to connect and chat.

I'm on that more than I'm in my email.

Awesome talk. And it's totally what I expected in more.

So I feel like we could probably have a like three hours more. So we'll have to do a follow up one.

We could do a Tim Ferriss style. Go all day. All right, buddy, talk to you soon. Thank you.

Thanks, guys.

Hey, thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. Now, if you don't know already, myself and my partner Joe Fear, every single week we put together this killer weekly newsletter that's completely free. If you go to to theweeklyprophet.com you can get on this weekly newsletter. And what we do with this newsletter is we scour the Internet, we read every piece of content, listen to blog posts, check out new software and tools, and we distill down the best of the best into a weekly newsletter and deliver it directly to your inbox every single week. So head over to theweeklyprofit.com and make sure you're signed up to receive that weekly newsletter. You're going to love it. Thanks so much again for listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. We'll see you in the next one.