How Jordan Armstrong Builds Operations That Don’t Break When You Grow!

All right, we are back with another special guest on the Scale With Pros podcast. I have Mr. Jordan Armstrong here, and this is a guy that is very similar to me, you know, in that he loves operations. You know, he is building a company serving purpose-driven coaches in the info product space, and he has built, you know, a 7-figure business around helping all of these crazy visionary entrepreneurs fix their operations, scale their operations, and the back end of their business, which is often neglected by so many companies. And so, I'm excited to talk shop on operations because that's my jam. I love it and it should be a lot of fun. But Jordan, I'd love for you to share before we dive into that, kind of your background. Like how the heck did you get into building the back end operations for different info product companies and You know, uh, what was the story that kind of led you into the entrepreneurship game?

Yeah, uh, great question. That's a loaded question for sure, so I'll try and be as brief as I can here to, uh, save the listeners the, uh, you know, the novel. Um, but, uh, I got into entrepreneurship pretty late, um, at least by today's standard. You know, I went to college, did the whole traditional education thing, went school on academic scholarship, graduated from ASU actually. And then I didn't really know, like, had no connection to what I wanted to do. It was kind of just like figure it out after I got out of college. Went into corporate America and quickly realized that even as I was getting promoted pretty quickly, it wasn't, wasn't for me. And so how I got into the info product space was essentially as I was trying to build a digital marketing agency on the side, an SEO agency Specifically, I just realized that there was so many things I did not know about business and I was getting hit with ads on, you know, hiring this coach or buying this program to speed up my, you know, my learning path basically. And when I eventually did take action and took out, you know, $70,000 line of different lines of credit cards. And started to invest in myself and learn it quickly, like I learned more in 6 months than I had in 18 years of school, right? And so I got to see the power of investing in yourself and self-education and specifically the high-ticket space where you're, you know, parting with a large amount of capital, more money than I had spent on anything other than like a car at that point. And the amount of urgency that that created and it kind of put my back against the wall, which, you know, I came to find out later that's where I felt most comfortable was when I had no other choice. And so I got into the info product space as a client first and saw a lot of the over-promising, under-delivering, and the bits of value I did receive was super crucial to my growth. And I was like, man, if only these people had more of this stuff figured out and were operating more degrees of integrity. And I just felt like a calling, you know, to help solve that problem specifically because of the fact that I had been so successful in the traditional education route and still, you know, kind of wound up coming out of it without any real direction. And then I had 3 younger brothers who weren't as successful in the traditional education route, and they all had different implications, you know, from the lack of success, if you will, in, in that arena. And so it felt more like a mission of mine. I remember when I first got into journaling, I went through like an exercise from like a Tony Robbins event or something where you're like trying to figure out what your purpose is. And at the end of it, you know, mine that I had written down was to reform education. And the only connection that I could make to, you know, how I would do that was by empowering the coaching space to kind of take over as a main vehicle of, or at least elements of the coaching space where people are choosing what they wanna do and they're learning things more holistically and learning from somebody who's actually done it, like taking those elements and infusing them into the more widespread education system. And so, I initially started off running ads and doing like more marketing stuff for info product companies. But because a lot of them didn't have the backend systems and, you know, things figured out, I quickly worked myself out of a job when I would generate enough leads to where their backend systems would break. And so rather than having to figure out where to get my next client from, I just pitched them on the idea of, hey, you know, you clearly don't have enough time or intellect, whatever it was for that particular client, to figure this out. I've got both. Let me figure this out for you.

Yeah, love that. And so then it kind of just worked into that and then fast forward to today. So now it's turned into this backend operations agency. So what does that look like? Like what are you, what are you helping clients with specifically around operations? Are you basically like their fractional like operations team member or do you kind of help them like set up things and pass them off or like how do you do that?

And we've tried every single model under the sun when it comes to trying to figure out how to build a scalable like operations or backend service. And I think it's particularly challenging in the info product space because you're typically dealing with either more novice or intro-level business owners, meaning they just haven't been in business as long, or you're getting somebody who transitioned into the info product space because they thought it was gonna be really easy and high margins and all these advantages they're pitched on. And so they don't really take it as seriously or they're not equipped to, right? And so because of that and also myself kind of figuring it out as I was going as well, There's, I think the word you used was, what do I do specifically? And I think that my thing is I wish it was more specific, right? So we tried all different models from productized builds of like CRMs or project management systems or hiring funnels. And then we've also done like low-ticket retainers, high-ticket retainers, GHL SaaS. Where we're at right now and what's worked best is, you know, as we've developed the book of business and the relationships with different clients, the ones who are aligned in values, who, you know, really care about their customer, they feel like some type of purpose in providing the transformation that helped change their life to others. And they understand the importance of, in the value of their time, they don't want to spend it, you know, in the backend operations, you know, doing, you know, middle management stuff and looking at data and spreadsheets and, you know, managing projects. We've partnered with them to basically be their fractional operations team, and I use the term fractional lightly because, I mean, we're— we've got multiple full-time team members that are on, you know, specific accounts. It's more so just, you know, we try to build leverage around our, you know, our highest performing team members as well, and so that The leaders of our organization are usually split across like 2 or 3 clients, but recently we've just, a few of our partnerships have become lucrative enough to where it just didn't make sense for us to have that split attention anymore. And so we've narrowed down to where we're only working with 3 clients at this point and scaling through them and helping them to vertically integrate within within their space and their industry as opposed to trying to acquire new clients.

Got it, that makes sense. And yeah, no, it makes, uh, you know, makes sense going deeper with those clients and, you know, being able to— I mean, it creates, creates a really sticky deal, you know, working with them of like they become, you know, super dependent, reliant on, you know, the work that you do. So it creates that, you know, win-win where, you know, you're able to retain them but they're also not having to deal with that specific area of their business?

Yeah, I think a lot of people like on the backend, like system stuff, they're focusing on stickiness of service and, you know, getting their clients to be dependent on them. From an energetic level though, that's been very uncomfortable for me, where, you know, I build these great relationships with CEOs and, you know, they do trust me. But if I'm, you know, if I'm working with an ulterior motive to make them dependent on me in a way that isn't like super healthy or advantageous for their business, then it creates a rift in that relationship. So I've always been very careful and intentional with, you know, making sure that they always understand there's an escape clause and we will literally build ourselves out of your company if you ever feel it's not, you know, it's no longer aligned. And so I'm never like building things with the goal of— and that's for both internal team members as well as our clients. Like if there's ever a situation where, you know, a team member believes that they'd be more successful or be more happy working directly with their client, they have the opportunity to, you to approach me with that conversation and I'll just kind of transfer the talent basically.

Got it. No, super interesting that you transfer the talent. And I think, you know, 'cause some of the work that we do at Scale with Pros is, you know, we'll come in and work with clients and like our thing, you know, that we always tell clients when we start working with them is like, our goal is to do such a great job working with you that you no longer need us. But that we do such a great job and that we build such a great relationship and like, you know, the long-term vision of what you're building that, you know, we can somehow be able to work with you long term. So it's like, you know, we want to teach you to fish, but hey, if you want us to keep, you know, fishing alongside you and helping in certain areas, you know, our— that's what we would love to do. So that's kind of our, our thing that we tell people is we want them to be sufficient on their own, but if they want to continue having, you know, an outside team be able to kind of, you know, help keep moving things along in certain areas of the business You know, we want to keep doing it.

100%. Yeah. And that's, you know, the reason why I think that works so well specifically in the coaching space too is because that's what a good coach should do too, right? Is like, you know, you don't want to create this dependency. And a lot of times there's this, you know, kind of this framing by coaches where they're constantly trying to remind you of like how much they've helped you and how much like, and, you know, kind of take credit for their clients' growth. And I think that that's always been something too that's challenging for me is because You can't transform for someone, you know, like if you've ever tried to help someone who doesn't want help in your personal life, you understand like you can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped, right? And so there's so much energy and efforts that's required, uh, you know, from the counterpart that it would be, um, it just would be false or, you know, fraudulent for you to claim that you did the transformation for them. Right. But, um, in the world of online marketing and stuff, a lot of times, you know, people try to overstate the claims and overstate the, stuff that they were doing. And that's what that leads to. And I think that that also then hurts the future clients, or, you know, who come in, or leads to maybe bringing on the wrong clients. And I've been there too, where it's like, if I overstate what we're able to do, and like, oh yeah, we can make this completely hands-off, especially the nature of the work that we do, where it's like, my goal is to replace the CEO so they can focus on YouTube and focus on their zone of genius of like, you know, whatever. Studying the transformation that they specialize in and also just becoming happier, healthier human beings because, you know, law of the lid, the company is only going to grow to the capacity with which the CEO has to grow, right? So that is my goal, yet I cannot do that without their cooperation, without their buy-in, without their trust, and without their, you know, without them being very good and committed to what they're doing as well, right? And so I've gotten myself into challenging situations where I was like, no, I can do all this on my own just because I was able to, you know, because I understood from a tactical level what it would take and I knew we had the capacity to do it. But from like, you can't take someone's company over without them, you know, like, yeah, they have to, they have to cooperate, they have to cooperate and they have to, they have to want that, you know, you can't want it for them. And I've, yeah, I'm sure you've been in situations like that too, where it's like you almost want the growth more so than they do, and that never works out well.

Yeah, no, 100%, 100% agree on that. So, so let's talk about a bit, you know, obviously got the agency, you know, 7-figure a year business, and, you know, focuses around operations. What, what are the— what are some of the most common— there's so many because I know it's like a loaded question, but what are some of the most common things that you see that businesses are doing wrong with their operations, like when you initially come in? And I'm sure we could chop up around this for hundreds of hours because that's my jam too. But what are some of the things that you see that for the people that are listening, regardless, like there's people listening that are— maybe they have their own online courses, but we also have a lot of home service, real estate investor type people listening as well. What are some of the mistakes that regardless of niche, it's like these are some of the operational problems that companies are having.

Yeah. So not the most exciting answer, but I think it's really just choosing to work with the wrong clients. Right. And so a lot of times I think people try to grow too fast and the easiest way to grow is to expand your ICP or like what they perceive as the easiest way to grow. Oh, we can just— let's just let more people in. But they don't understand the backend implications of that and how much more costly that's going to be and less profitable it's going to be. And so they're just measuring, I guess if I were to sum it up, it's like they're measuring just the top line instead of the bottom line, right? And, um, you know, selling the wrong people into the program or the service, right? As opposed to, especially once you've been in business for a little bit and you've gotten 20, 30, 40+ people, you know, into the service that you're providing, Pareto's principle usually applies where there is, you know, 20% of the people that are actually your ICP and that are really getting the best results and are the most profitable and most enjoyable to work with. And if you simply focus on only selling those people, then you'd be much more profitable as a company. It'd be much more enjoyable, it'd be easier to retain staff, be easier to upsell clients, expand LTV, which then allows you to, you know, spend more to acquire those clients. And so the flywheel really starts to turn when you are focused on, you know, who you truly provide the best level of service and enjoy that service for.

Oh, so good, so good. There's so many lessons in that. And so like, you know, one of the things— I bought a residential cleaning company last summer and there was, you know, conversations around this. And, you know, whether you're listening and you have a construction business or a real estate or whatever the business is, you know, the way to scale is by, you know, going deep and focusing on the things that you already do well with the people that you serve well because As long as you don't have some weird super niche that there's only a few people in the world that you can serve, like there is a lot of people that you can serve. And you know, one of the things and you know, that I found to be true in like the residential cleaning business is when I got into this deal, they had tried all these things to scale. They were kind of, you know, they got a little bit stagnant for a while and instead of focusing in on what they already were doing great, they tried to launch like a carpet cleaning division. They tried to launch a window cleaning division. They tried to start cleaning like air Airbnb properties. They started trying to do all of these different things instead of like, well, we are— there's already, you know, at the time there was like 400-something recurring customers just getting residential, you know, normal house cleaning. And like, why don't we just do more of that instead of like all of these other things? Because it's like— but I think to your point, people think they're like, well, if I offered more services, I would be able to have more business. I'd be able to have more clients or more customers, and I can get even bigger. But, you know, to that point you're saying, it's like the operational complexity that comes with that of like you have more people coming into your business that are working at your business now have to be trained on more services, more systems, more nuances, you know, different variations of delivery, different variations of service, which then causes, you know, quality to not be as good because they're having to, you know, shift the way they're doing things for every different service that's happening.

And so I definitely see that a lot in different businesses, you know, so many layers to the additional complexity and difficulty that it brings trying to do new things, right? I think, uh, um, I think it's the— yeah, Alex Hormozi talks about it a lot, and I don't remember who exactly he got it from, but the more, better, new framework, right? It's like, first just try and do more of what you're currently doing, then focus on getting better at that, and then you can go into new, right? And I think what that— the reason why that logically makes sense is because as you become better at what you're currently doing, it becomes more profitable, and then you have more resources. And also, you just get better. You start to understand fundamentally what led to your success, and therefore you're able to replicate that success in a different, you know, different arena. And I think it's that aversion to getting better that people don't recognize they have that aversion. And so they would rather chase the shiny object or, you know, try to do the new thing because now you can just apply— like, theoretically, you can just apply the same level of skill and the same level of depth that you currently have as a business owner to a new thing and try and get it to the same level, as opposed to just— but they don't recognize, because again, if they were better, they would recognize that that's not going to work.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's where you see, like, people will jump from, like, an industry to another industry to other different niches because they grow to a certain level, and then they get to that level where they don't know how to fix the problem that they're at. So instead of just learning how to fix that problem, they like jump to start a new business or start in a different industry. And it's just really like doing that same thing. Like I tell this to, you know, the partners that are in at that cleaning company that I bought into last year, you know, it's just like we're growing, we're, you know, it's doing great and they're, you know, talk about these different ideas like, well, we could do this and it's just like, or we could just chop wood. I'm like, chop wood, carry water, do more. More of the same. We just do the fundamentals and we just continue doing them great and we just keep stacking on, on top of that instead of— but I think because it's, it's not, it's not exciting. And I think that's where people can get squirrely is because it's like, oh, it's not a new exciting thing. So they get bored with it and it's just like you're just doing more of the thing that's working is what actually leads to, you know, more success. And then obviously, like you said, on the better part, you know, to Hormozy's thing, it's like then you could just work on getting better at those skills that are already creating, creating the good result to then make those results even better, right?

And, uh, you know, with that, as you, as you get better, right, like the ultimate— like, as you evolve as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, as an operator, you replace yourself in the things that are mundane. So there, there really is always, you know, something new for you to focus on within the business as well to until eventually I guess you would, you know, start hitting, uh, hollow ground. But, uh, I think most people underestimate how difficult it was to get to where they're at, right? Because in hindsight it seems easy, it seems simple, it seems like, oh, okay, yeah, I can do that again now I have the experience. But the long nights and the long hours and the banging your head against the wall, and they also underestimate the amount of variables that that are present in taking on a new venture. And they overestimate how difficult it is to solve a new problem, or how difficult it is to solve the problem that they're currently faced with in business. And yeah, absolutely. People just kind of get in their own way.

Absolutely. So obviously, so that's one of the pieces that comes up is trying to change and serve too many people, which then obviously dilutes the quality service of, or, you know, fulfillment or whatever the business model is. What else do you see? You know, anything that you see like time and time again with, you know, how maybe teams are not working correctly that you're commonly having to like come in and help fix, or what do you typically see with that?

Yeah, I mean, I would say, you know, one of the things that we kind of touched on in that first one, right, is the importance of data. And I think that a lot of business owners underestimate the importance of just cold hard facts. And so a lot of businesses choose, and business owners and leaders within the business will choose not to, will choose to ignore data and go off of feelings and tell themselves that they, oh, I know the data, I don't need to look at it, right? Really what they're avoiding there is the accountability. Because when you're looking at the numbers, you can't, you know, you can't lie to yourself about the numbers. right? And those hold you accountable to actually improving. And again, it's just this aversion to growth because growth is scary and growth is hard and growth is painful is kind of like, you know, is the reality of, you know, of the situation for most people. And so they just avoid it at all costs. And I think so, you know, avoiding data is a big one. I would say another one that's common across all industries and businesses that I've worked with is a lack of clarity. So I think a lot of times business owners, you know, they underestimate how important clarity is for their team. And so they have very loose roles and responsibilities and KPIs and things that team members are responsible for. And they wonder, you know, there's not structured meeting cadences or reporting structures and things of that nature. And you know, they wonder why their team's underperforming and usually it's because they weren't set up for success. It's like if you don't know what the target is, it's really hard to hit it.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, we talk about it's like, you know, at the company level we need to have, you know, super clear mission, vision, values so the company, you know, everyone on the team is aligned and could be rowing in that same direction towards that mission and the vision that we want to be and the, you know, core values of how we behave on the way there. And then like within the roles, You know, we always talk about we want to have clarity of what the role is, clarity of what the goals are, or KPIs for that role, and then clarity as a whole. Like, how does that role like integrate, interact within the company as a whole? And like seeing a clear accountability chart so that they're able to see like how their role is connected with the other areas and who's accountable for what in the organization. So everyone knows what the heck everyone does at the company too. Like, that's also kind of helpful to know that. And To your point on the data side, you know, I actually, I didn't come up with this. My, one of my partners, Ryan, he, you know, I always like whenever anyone in meetings, they say they're like, you know, I feel, or like my gut instinct is this. I'm like, man, like there's no gut. We go off data, like data over drama. But he said, he's like gut, you know, we're gonna come up with an acronym. GUT means gave up thinking. So whenever someone's saying they're making a feel or a gut decision, they, they just gave up thinking with the data and they're just making a decision out of thin air with no nothing really backing it. Yep. Because I don't know how often you see that, but like oftentimes I'll talk with either clients or, you know, team members within our companies and they're like, I feel like if we made this change to the business, like it would make a big difference. Like they're like, this is something actually within one of our companies. They want to change the whole delivery of how we did something within one of one of the businesses, and there was like the whole team was deliberating on it. And I just asked them, like, guys, like, how many customers is this actually an issue for that have like raised their hand that this is a problem out of, you know, the last 1,000 customers? And, you know, no one actually had the answer. And then someone like went and looked and they're like, oh, it was like 7 people. And I'm like, so we're going to change the whole way our delivery is because It just happened to be yesterday was one of those 7 people said something about this. So we're going to change our entire company's delivery over the feeling that we have from yesterday's conversation.

Right. And I think that that's like, you know, the symptom of a deeper root cause, which is like most people, again, are more comfortable in chaos than they are with clarity, because with chaos there is no accountability. Especially people, team members who maybe haven't done as much inner work or don't have as much self-awareness as the CEO, it's easier for them to create a mess because it's a lot harder for someone to hold them accountable to their responsibilities if things are messy. And so if you're constantly changing things and there's all these different projects that you're working on, all of a sudden, it's 2 years go by before you can hold anyone accountable to something. That's job security, that's certainty for them. And it's tough sometimes, I think, for the CEOs to realize that because when they were innovating, when they were doing everything, especially in the coaching space, right? They usually build the business off their personal brand, they're doing everything in the beginning and they're innovating very quickly and iterating very quickly. And so they're like, "Okay, this is great. I'm glad that my team is coming with ideas. I don't have to be the only idea guy." But you have to make sure that Again, the idea isn't based on a feeling. And yeah, usually the response that I give to people is like, I feel like there's probably data to support a more accurate decision, right? So they're like, I feel like we should do this. I feel like there's probably data that would tell us.

Yeah, the data will tell the truth. You know, we joke sometimes, like when, you know, if there's like a sales rep that, you know, it's like on reporting, they're, you know, it's like, okay, like, what was What was the number for that last week? And then they start telling a story and it's like, you know, there's a reason on the Google, you know, on the Google Sheet, it's room for a number, not a story, because there's a number there. You don't, it's not meant for a story.

It's just the number is what we're looking for here. Huh? Yeah. Ambiguity is for amateurs is what I tell my team. You know, if you're giving me some super long, like convoluted answer, it's because you don't know the answer.

Yeah, yeah. And the numbers at the end of the day will tell the story. We don't need to hear the story. The numbers will let us know.

100%. Yeah, I like that.

Too funny. Awesome. Well, so one of the things, you know, for, for you, obviously, you know, I've had similar experiences in this, so totally, you know, I'm curious to see how you respond on this. But for the CEOs that you work with, because obviously you're helping them with operations and getting things dialed in on the back end of their companies. How do you manage that expectation with them where they likely like to change their mind and come up with 17 new ideas every day and want to implement all of them yesterday? How do you communicate with them? So then for those that are listening and maybe have that visionary type partner in their business, that's a squirrel trying to change everything all the time.

The numbers, just like we just talked about, man, it's boring, but it's— I got to show them the data. Hey, here's how long like, here's the existing projects that we have in play. Like, which one do you want us to kill in order to go with these 17 new ideas that you have, right? And then just to help it become more objective, right? Because a lot of time visionaries, they're living in the future, they're living in their head, they're, um, you know, they're, they're looking at what the business needs to, to be like 2, 3 years down the road, which is great, that's their role. But your job as the integrator, the operator, is to level set things, bring it back to reality and say, hey, here's where we're at today. And so which one of these things do we no longer need to do right now in order to get to that vision?

Yeah, I love that.

I've tried to do that with logic and math in my head before, and it does, you know, there's only so many times that you can like, you know, go head to head with the CEO, especially for, you know, some of the CEOs I've worked with that have, you know, a track record track record that absolutely drowns mine in comparison. Right. And so, you know, they got that appeal to authority bias, you know, pretty, pretty well secured. And without numbers, it's impossible to, you know, to continue to stand your ground when it comes to not adding just an insurmountable amount of projects to the pipeline.

Yeah. No, I, I'm just, you know, laughing internally because I'm like, man, like, that's such a— it's such a mission having to, you know, work through those. And that's like the same type of strategy that I would implement. It's just like, all right, here's our Asana board of our current projects and our quarterly objectives. Do we want to kill one of those to implement this new thing? And oftentimes, I had certain visionary partners in the past that they're like, well, no, let's just do that too on top of that.

And it's like, cool, you want to hire new team members and you want to train them? And where are we getting all this extra manpower from?

Yeah, yeah. Oh, so, so good. Um, no, I love it. So I guess, uh, so let's go back. So obviously with like the operational work that you're doing with, with clients and helping people, what would be some of the things you tell people to do to set their operations up for success earlier on in their business so that they don't have messes to clean up later? Obviously like we've really harped on data but what are some of the other things that, you know, if people had set up, maybe when they're like, I don't know, low six figures and working upwards of scale, like some of those basics that if they implemented would just help them have a better time on their journey.

Yeah, I think, I'm sure you're familiar with it, but the book Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell, I think he has a really good, like, I think he calls it the replacement ladder.

Yeah.

And there's some, some, I forget what the actual, like the buyback loop And so it's essentially, you know, not trying to do too much at once, right? And so pick one, you know, one, like, just be super intentional, very measured with your time, make sure you're tracking things. And, you know, as you start to replace yourself, make sure you know where that time is going to go. And make sure that you know, you have an actual number that you're measuring the replacement against. Because I think what What often happens is it's the, it's the, it's kind of like, you know, I played sports growing up and was, you know, you always talk about fundamentals, right? And it's like if you, you know, don't have a foundation of good fundamentals and you play too long, eventually you get to the point where, you know, I played basketball, it's like you don't have a, you know, good form for your shot or you can't dribble with your left hand. It's because you tried to be too good too quick. And so you just took your bad habits and you doubled down on them and you just like kind of built, built around them. I think that oftentimes is what happens to businesses is when they are scaling up, they're not doing it with any, you know, foresight of like what it takes to run a successful company because they're figuring it out as they go. And so they create so many bad habits and so much waste in their operation that by the time, you know, they force it to grow through, you know, just more caffeine and more work and more team members and less profit and all these things is you kind of build yourself a prison where, you know, this operational prison where it would, you know, there's so many people who are dependent on it, but there's not enough cash flow coming in for you to really overhaul things. And you've now built a brand and you've made all these promises based off of certain ways of doing things. And so I think the, like, I wish I had a better answer. I guess it's just kind of like have a plan from the get-go. And so I think that really, you know, comes back to like find someone who's done it before, right? And go ask them what that plan looks like. And then, you know, ideally be able to afford to hold, you know, to pay them to hold you accountable or pay someone on their team to hold you accountable to actually working that plan. And, you know, don't get— don't let your ego get the best of you and, you know, try to, try to make yourself think that you're special and you can somehow, you know, circumvent that plan because usually that circumvention is, is, is not going to work out for you, you know?

Yeah.

So I'd say, what, you know, measure things and, and document things would probably be the short answer.

Yeah, no, it makes sense. You know, one of the things that, and I learned this from a mentor of mine, and so I, you know, I can't claim credit for it, but, you know, I have one of my coaches, Adam Coffey, you know, he, you know, he got hired to, you know, be the CEO for private equity companies, you know, billion-dollar exits, $100 million exits. And, you know, he, he's been really amazing you know, working with him. And one of the things, because when, when he was involved in his big HVAC company and having to sit as a CEO, and it was like kind of jacked up, having issues, and they had thousands of trucks out on the road that were, you know, driving around, and there was inefficiencies everywhere. And one of the most interesting things is like, I asked him, I'm like, Adam, like, how did you— how do you fix How do you fix thousands of trucks on the road when it's like things aren't working efficiently? And he's like, Cody, the way that you fix it is, you know, it's like you want to build and model to have the perfect $100,000 a year company, then the perfect million a year company, then the perfect $10 million a year company. And he's like, then you can continue scaling up. And he's like, what that looks like is, you know, in the example he shares is he's like, you know, in the HVAC company, he's like, we know that, you know, one truck with one technician in it needs to be generating a certain amount of money a month. And out of that, you know, he's like, so I jumped in the truck and I found out what inefficiencies were happening within one truck. And he's like, we fixed one truck and then we duplicated that fix across all of the trucks. And they have the new process across all of the trucks. And so, you know, that's been a model that, you know, across the companies that I'm involved in, it's like we We build everything to that of like, okay, if we were going to have the perfect $100,000 a year business, what is one car or one— if it's like in our bookkeeping company, what does one bookkeeper need to be able to do? Just finding that at the smallest level in the business, what something needs to do, and then you could scale it up from there. Where I think to your point you're saying is people just try to throw bodies.

The unit economics. Right? Like, yeah, what does success look like at the most fundamental level of the company? And then build on that. Go ahead. Sorry. Yeah.

Oh yeah, no, all good. But yeah, that's like, and that was absolutely it. And where I think what you, like what you were saying is what made me think of it is people, they just try to throw more bodies at problems to like get more revenue. And it's like, okay, revenue is growing and we're going to throw bodies at it and hopefully it gets better. And, you know, more help will just solve my problems. And then inevitably profitability drops. And then to your point, then there's a burnout and there's the frustration and, you know, making less money with more people, more problems, and, you know, then more promises, more pressure, all the Ps. Yeah, yeah, all, all of the bad things that we want to avoid.

Yeah, I think, uh, you know what's interesting too that just came to me as you were talking, right, is like this idea of like the who, right, is a, is a really good way of solving problems as you get bigger, right? Like the who, not how, right? And so I think it's also one thing that would serve people who are getting started or who are earlier in their journey is to contextualize the information that they're consuming, right? Contextualize the advice, because there's a lot of people out there, especially with social media and AI and all these different, you know, the decentralization of advice and information. A lot of people that are giving advice to other people, not you, right? Like, they're giving advice from their lens, and you got to think, okay, where is this person at in their journey? Are they where I'm at? Because the same advice that serves somebody at 7, 8, 9, 10 figures does not serve you at 6 figures, right? The same advice that someone's giving at, you know, 7 figures doesn't serve you at 8 figures. But there's a lot of, like, right now, especially, like, you know, people are studying how to create good hooks and how to build following and how to posture their authority online. And so, you know, that person who's making $200,000 a year can, you know, sound like the person who's making $200 million a year, you know. And to, and to someone who's at $20,000, like, they don't know the difference. And so, um, yeah, contextualizing the advice is really important because, yeah, throwing bodies at problems is not going to solve the problems. But, you know, then when you're large enough, you can't solve all the problems either. And so you do need to go out and intentionally hire somebody who's solved that problem before, or at least you don't need to, but that would probably be the most efficient way of you getting it done.

Yeah, absolutely. And man, like, that's one of the things too, is just the whole online space. And it's like the whole trust recession that, you know, the world is in with online influencers. And, you know, and I'll just say it, like, I've met a lot of people like behind closed doors and stuff. There's a lot of them, they don't know what the hell they're doing. Like, they're terrible business owners. Like, a lot of people, they're just actually bad business owners. They're just great at marketing and, you know, having good online presence, which then makes them money, but they're actually terrible at business. Like, and obviously I won't call it names, right?

Where it's like, it's kind of like the modern-day Ponzi scheme, where as long as you can convince— because these algorithms, right, just give you free distribution As long as you can create content that convinces a stranger that you know something they don't and you understand human psychology well enough, right? Like, as long as you're good enough at marketing. And the more I studied marketing, the more I recognized it is like the manipulation of words and data to convince something of— to convince somebody of something that may or may not be in their best interest, right? Like, if you think about where marketing started, it wasn't with good intentions. It was big conglomerate companies that were placing radio and billboard ads, and there was a huge delta from the consumer to the, you know, to the company in terms of knowledge and information. And so they were able to make whatever claims they wanted to, and, you know, in order to drive sales. And now that's just— now everyone's able to do that. It's not just the big companies, but it's every single person with a phone that they can put in front of their face, right? So Yeah, yeah, there's definitely— I think you mentioned the trust recession. I think that there's a huge blue ocean for people to just tell the truth because I think at some point, right, like it's going to be really hard to hide. And that's part of our mission here at ImpactOps is to make it harder to hide the numbers, right? And, you know, that's what like we talked about earlier, right? The numbers aren't going The numbers don't lie and they're going to tell the story. And so I think if people were actually as good as they say they are, they would just let the numbers tell the story. They wouldn't have to.

Yeah, no, 100%. And, and so that's, I think that's also our warning to the people that are listening is, you know, pay attention to who you're listening to and, you know, what, what real businesses the people that you're listening to have actually built and grown behind the you know, rah-rah hooks and, you know, whizzes and things and the videos and the edits and all of that. And the, you know, charisma, you know, because unfortunately that's what gets out there. And, you know, then there's guys like that, you know, as you, as you know him as well, like Adam Coffey, where you go to his Instagram, he has like 800 followers or something and like doesn't have his own thing.

Like he's busy doing it, you know. Yeah, yeah, I know. I know of Adam. I shouldn't say I know Adam. I don't want to say anything that's not true when we just talked about truth. I know of Adam through JT Fox and Francie, right? So, we work with them to, like, we run their, like, the backend of one of their programs. And Adam's constantly a speaker at their events and partners with them on different deals. And so, we're setting all that stuff up on the backend. So, I've seen Adam's name and seen his videos and, you know, communication around his events so many times that it feels like I know him. But he, like, if you were like, hey Adam, I was just on with, uh, with Jordan Armstrong, he'd be like, I don't know who Jordan Armstrong is.

Too funny. Small world. Yeah, I know. But, but it's like, it's, you know, it's, it's guys like that that are out there just secretly killing it. And, you know, I have, uh, coming up soon on, on the podcast, I have another buddy named Brandon Armstrong that he's He's 33 and he has a roofing, siding, and windows company that'll do close to $50 million this year. I don't even think he has Instagram, you know, definitely doesn't have YouTube. He has like a 100-year-old Facebook that he hasn't posted on in years, but, you know, just murdering it. And, you know, just, just a guy out there just doing, doing real business. And, you know, it's like, I just wish there was more. It's just like, I don't know. And that's That's part of what I like doing on my podcast is I like bringing on real people that are building real businesses. And yeah, I'll have some bigger names that will come on every now and then, but I like having just real business owners that have actually been doing it. And it's just like, oh, they're not going to draw a crowd because there's their 17 followers, but their business did $4 million last month. And so they have some good things to say and some good insights of what works and doesn't work in business. And so it's just an interesting world. It's just anyone could be self-proclaimed anything now.

Yeah. And I think you're starting to notice it too in the types of content that perform, right? Where it's like now people are faking authenticity, right? And so it used to be the people who were the most trustworthy were the big companies because you thought like, oh, okay. These big companies that can afford great production and editing and post-production and distribution, those are the ones I can trust because they must know what they're talking about to have the money to facilitate that. But now as it becomes easier and easier to produce great videos, anyone can do that. So now it's like, okay, the people who don't care enough to dress up the videos, who are just face-to-camera posting wisdom, That is what people are gravitating towards. But then you have all, you know, everyone who's studying the algorithm and content and stuff now course corrects and they're like, okay, great, we're gonna do these minimalistic edits and now it's gonna make us more trustworthy. Again, everybody's spending all this time trying to figure out how to make the public perceive them as trustworthy instead of just telling the truth.

Yeah. Goodness, man, it's such So funny. So I know we've been cruising on that for a minute, and you know, as we're coming up on the last, last couple minutes, but you know, we're trying to help you guys out that are listening, not, you know, waste money with modern-day charlatans out there that, you know, are just selling you a bill of goods that aren't really anything substantiated behind them. So, you know, when in doubt, usually if they have a big following, be careful, proceed with caution.

Yeah, I mean, there's definitely a lot of guys out there that have earned their following with, with value created. But there's also a lot of people who they build the following and then they're like, oh shit, I need something to sell these guys. Right. And then they invent a product or they figure out something. And that's where, you know, the tough thing is too, is like, you know, you and I could probably, you know, I can watch someone's content even if they've got a bunch of followers and they, you know, can hit on the surface level topics, you know, that they probably got from ChatGPT or whatever. I understand like, okay, if someone actually knew this topic, they'd be able to go so many layers deeper than what they went. So I know not to trust that. But for somebody who's just getting started, it's tough. And so I think one just like silver lining I would say is I don't want people to be hesitant to invest in themselves. And so I think I mentioned I invested $70,000 I didn't have when I when I first started my journey, and I would say at least half of that was probably lit on fire.

Yeah.

But even just the signal to God and, you know, universe or whatever you believe in that, you know, you're ready to bet on you and, you know, putting yourself in a situation where you, you know, you do need to succeed or it's up to you to get the ROI out of the investment is a very transformational experience and very beneficial in at least anyone I've spoken to that's done it, right, in their entrepreneurial journey. And so I think just taking the ownership, right? If you're going to make the investment, that investment's on you. It's not on the person you pay to make sure that you get an ROI. It's your responsibility.

Absolutely. I love that. Well, as we're closing up here, Jordan, man, where can people, you know, learn more about what you're doing? Obviously, I know we talked about before you hopped on that, you know, currently not adding like clients to what you're doing, but you know, where, where do you hang out on social media? Is it LinkedIn, Instagram, or do you want people to come check you out?

Yeah, actually right now Instagram's deleted on my phone. So I'm trying to— I noticed myself getting a little bit, you know, scroll happy. Yeah, and so Instagram's the place where I have the most content and you know where I'm most active, but right now I'm not super active and I'm I only have a couple thousand followers on there. I am working with some different social media agencies right now trying to just be able to deliver more value because I have a bank of content. I just haven't prioritized doing it because it's not necessary for the business model that we're running. Yeah. So yeah, I would say Instagram. If there's anything I can do to help the audience, they can reach out to me there. I'm not big enough to where I've got other people in my DMs or anything. I'll respond to you. And eventually YouTube. I don't even have a website at the moment. It's currently in construction. I think there's like Lorem Ipsum on my, on my home page at the— if you tried to check that out. So working on creating more of a digital presence. But yeah, Instagram would be the place. Love it.

So on Instagram and hey man, like, I, I love it. I'm always take action, get sales, grow a business, and like all the other stuff isn't as important. Too many people, they spend too much time on building the perfect, you know, business name and logo and branding and website and all the things, and without actually just going and getting business. So I, I love it. Um, and Jordan, thank you so much for, for hanging out on here. And for everyone listening, see you guys in the next episode.