The One Way To Grow Your Business (For Anyone)
Cedric walks through a four-tier scaling framework: Hustler, Operator, Builder, and Owner. Each tier has a specific bottleneck, from inconsistent lead flow to decision fatigue to ownership gaps. The fix is usually simpler than founders think: pick one marketing channel, document your processes, delegate with clear rules, and hire people who take ownership.
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What if I told you that you aren't stuck in your business, you're just stuck solving the wrong problem for the stage that you're in? So today's podcast, we're going to be talking about the 4 tiers to business, y'all. And every single stage of business has a main problem. And oftentimes what I have found is that us as entrepreneurs, we try to solve perceived problems, um, and what happens here is, is that we create bigger problems for ourselves. So there are 4 tiers to business, and here's the first one. So We have number 1, the hustler. Number 2, we have the operator. Number 3, we have the builder. And then we have the owner. All right. So let's start off with level 1 right here. We have the hustler. Everybody knows that this is the, the one-man band, probably has no team. You're doing everything yourself. And we've all experienced that. Now, this is not to say that like you're at this level. You just have to discover where you are. And then what we will do is discover where your bottleneck is. Okay, so the very first thing we have, of course, is the hustler, right? What they typically experience is like this inconsistency of income. Maybe they don't even have, you know, a solid lead flow, and they have all of these, you know, problems that they look at, but they need to really solve one problem. And what I really found here is that they have no control over their demand, right? They, they are trying so many different things, right? So like in the real estate industry, right, we have different lead systems. Like you have cold calling, you have PPC, you got PPL, you can run ads, you got all of these things, right? And what we do is one-man bands, we try to handle every single thing, but we don't have the lead flow to come in, right? So, um One of the things that I want to cover here is talking about really what this hustler deals with, for one, other than, you know, obviously the leads, um, some bottlenecks that they, they, they have, and then how do we uncover those so they can like have new eyes and a new lens to look from and how they solve these things, right? So, um, I just named a couple when it comes down to this entrepreneur. Let me ask you this. What was your mindset when it comes down to like being at this level and starting a business from scratch? Like, how did that feel? Like, take us back to this because I really want to set the tone for our audience about like what that looks like for us.
Yeah. And so, you know, I think at this particular stage of this particular tier, most of the time people, because they are having to do everything themselves, they're the CEO, they're the CFO, they're the accounting person, they're the marketer. You know, they're the admin staff, they're everything, right? So it's always the mentality of, I got to get it, I got to get it, I got to get it, I got to do it, I got to do it kind of mentality. And unfortunately for most businesses, they never leave this particular tier. Yeah, because of burnout. They literally burn themselves out because they haven't separated the passion from the business. Yeah. And so, um, you know, sometimes that, that business begins to put that light out, right, of passion. So I would say for most of the people who are here, some of the key traits that you mentioned, uh, some of the key traits that you mentioned is that hustle-driven mentality. Um, they're probably missing on documentation. Uh, they're probably missing on some key elements of operation. You know, they may be missing on some of those things. Um, and so that's a hard place to be in, man, because you don't have anybody that, um, that you found to be trustworthy enough to come into your business. I know for me, when I first started, man, I didn't trust nobody.
Yeah, that's true.
I really didn't, because I didn't know somebody was going to try to self-sabotage. And I, you know, I wasn't a paranoid individual. I was always inviting for anybody to come.
Yeah.
And help me out. But it was always like yeah, but yeah, you know what I'm saying? Like, I think it's cool, but yeah, but let me find out.
I think that's the reason by that and why that is, is because like nobody is going to treat like our business like us. And, um, that's what I have found just hiring different people or bringing different people in. Nobody's going to treat our business like we are. Nobody's as serious as us. And like, um one thing that it comes down to is really just trusting that they can do their job, right? Because like, if at this stage right here, us ourselves is still wearing the hat, and I truly believe that you have to be in a place, uh, to come from a place where you can actually lead, you actually have to follow first. Meaning you have to sit in this chair, operate, and go through the different stages, like the problems that you have. It's kind of like when you're cold calling, you know all of the objections that happen because you're on the phone consistently and you're covering those. So in order for you to train on those things, you have to be able to— you have to go through it first, which is why at this stage it's very important to go through all of those stages. So like, let's scale it back real quick.
Yeah.
Most people in this specific stage right here, what they want to do is bring somebody in and hire somebody super, super fast without wearing all the hats. Like, how important is it to wear all of the hats starting out. And, and as sucky as this may sound, because like, y'all, I'll be honest, business sucks at times. Like, you, you have to do things that you don't absolutely want to do. You're not going to feel like it every day. Um, you're, you're going to be tired, you're going to be mentally drained sometimes. And at the end of the day, like, starting out at this level, it's only like— it's not forever, it's just for a little bit, right? Get some sales under your belt, uh, get some experience, and then scale up from there. But like, A lot of people, what they try to do is hire before it's time. And now when it comes down to training somebody, they fail miserably or they waste a lot of money because they're trying to scale too fast to that second tier. You know what I mean?
Yeah, I think, and let's just, you know, I really want to make sure that our viewers are really, really getting this because every— there's nothing wrong with wearing all of those hats. In fact, I believe— and this is what I teach— I believe it's necessary. Yeah, you know, depending upon the tier that a business come in when they're coming to my, my, you know, my direction, I say, yeah, um, you know, I put them through this audit. And the 4 tiers that we're talking about today is part of that audit. It's like, I need to see where you are in your business. And most of the time, man, they're in this stage. Yeah. Where they're wearing all of the hats, they're making all of the decisions, all of their SOPs and all of their metrics and all of their—
they don't have no SOPs.
It's, it's up here and they don't even know that that's what they are.
Yeah.
It's up here because they've been doing it by themselves the entire time. They haven't put it on paper to actually make it an SOP.
Yeah.
So what I like to share with people is, is that what we got to do is we got to put what's up here on here.
Yeah.
On paper so that it can become real. Yeah. And other people can see it and run with it. Right. But I wanted to— you said something very powerful here, and I wanted to mention this, and I think this part is very important. Every person that starts in business don't always start in the tier 1.
Yeah.
But I think it's necessary that every person that started business.
Yeah. Need to start in tier 1 because some people like for clarity, y'all, What we mean by this is like, if you, you already know what this stage is like, just starting out as a one-man band. Some people inherit businesses, some people buy businesses, some people buy companies with employees already in. But sometimes maybe they have been at that level and operated high at that level. And sometimes you have people who just inherit stuff and they've never been operating at this level, right? Which is why, you know, the company typically goes down.
Right, right.
So, uh, that's important for clarity.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and to add to that, it's just— and the reason why that's important, I think, is because, um, you learn a lot about yourself in this stage. Yeah, you learn a lot about yourself, man. You learn, you know, it— this— I always say business is a mirror. Yeah, right. And show me a business that's successful I'll show you an entrepreneur who's disciplined and successful. Um, you show me a business that's failing or struggling, and I'll show you a business entrepreneur that's struggling or failing, right? So it's always a mirror. So if you're not careful, your business will tell off on you, right? So this— these are the times where I believe business people are built. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? You're not— you're not— you're no longer— let's just take for an example, um, a t-shirt business, right? T-shirt is— making t-shirts is a skill. Yeah, right? I mean, it's absolutely an art, a skill, um, but the truth of the matter is, you knowing that skill don't make you a business person. Yeah, and it certainly don't make you a business, right? Um, But as you begin to start your business, you learn things about yourself.
Yeah.
And elements about yourself that you didn't even know existed.
Yeah. Because you're becoming the person.
Because you are becoming, right? So that's why I say I think it's important for every person and to everybody that's out there now that's listening to this and you're at this stage, listen, don't, don't get down on yourself on that. Right? Because I— if it were me and I was in control of the earth, and I would say I'm in control of all businesses on the earth, I would, I would absolutely mandate for every business to start here. Because you learn so much about who you are as a person. You learn so much more about the business that you're, that you're enduring to, uh, endeavoring to get into. You begin to learn more about that. And then here's the biggest part right here. It reminds you of your why. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? It reminds you of why you do what you do. Because at those times where things are not working, you need to be reminded why. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. So for every person that's out there and you're at this tier 1 and you're the hustler, you're the one wearing the hats, listen, don't despise it. Yeah, learn, learn, learn, learn. We don't fail, we only learn to mastery. So we learn as we go, right? And we continue to grow and we continue to lay those seeds and we continue to see that harvest come because we are continuing to grow every day.
That's very important because it's like you have to learn to fall in love with the process instead of the trying to get the result, right? So many people focus too much on the result. And y'all, we have solutions coming for you, but I really want to touch on this because It's the mindset. It's kind of like you're being reformed and you're being refined and you're, you're being like forged, you know what I mean? Like, you know how the stick goes in the lava and then you get built? Yeah, it's like you're getting refined in that process. And like, the business is either like working on you or it's working for you. And like, most of the time it's going to work on you because like, this business has taught me like patience. Like, and I can now listen to somebody just go and go and I'm like, all right, Um, so it's taught me the patience. It taught me, um, about like just, just listening, um, all of these different things. And it teaches you this, like, skills that you need for when you get to the higher level. Because if you don't have the patience, if you, um, sound salesy, if you, um, have— you don't have the, the development that you need to go to this next level, you're not going to survive there. Um, So oftentimes what we do is we ask for something that we're not ready for, and then when we get it, we fumble it, you know what I mean? So it's very important that you fall in love with the process, y'all, because the process is like— it is the late nights, it is the calls, it is these things, right? But like, when— here's a couple of things I think is very important to highlight so you can fix where you are, okay? You're at this stage and your goal is to go to the next level. You want to get consistent income. You want to have consistent leads. Let me just give you the fix right here. The fix here is one channel, y'all. One marketing channel, one offer, one audience. Like, you're trying to do too much. You're trying to try too many things. And if you're at this stage right now and you are doing these things, you're trying everything, you have something called this is, um, the shiny object syndrome where like, oh well, this works a little bit, but then I see something else getting marketed here. Oh, these people are trying this. It's like, hey, just have one offer, one audience, um, one marketing channel. Master that, dial into that, make the calls, make the offers. And then most importantly, tracking, right? Tracking weekly is important.
Absolutely.
Uh, what should they be tracking? Um, when I think of tracking, obviously you want to know like the industry standard numbers for your, your industry, right? So like, um, cost per lead, um, call to, you know, calls to close, dials to an offer, you know, uh, what do they call that, um, the, the fallout rate, success rate, right? Knowing those numbers, like, hey, what is the average, um, cost to acquire a contract? What is the, the cost to acquire a customer? What is my return on, on, uh, marketing spend or ad spend? Like, what are those things supposed to look like? Because what this does is it gives you a baseline. Like, all right, if I know that the industry standard cost per lead for cold call leads is $30 and I'm at $80, like, what's going on there? There's some kind of disconnect there, right? Um, so knowing your industry standard, um, KPIs is very, very important. So tracking how many calls you're making is very important on a daily basis, y'all. Uh, how many offers you're making, how much you're spending is important. Like, why don't we at this level— this is the most important level for the foundation because we spend a lot of money at this, at this, but at this stage, but we don't keep up with how much we spend. So when people ask us our numbers, hey, how much are you spending for a lead, or that we don't know it, right?
And that's only because we're not in that hustle. We're not in the mentality, mentality of tracking. We're in the mentality of making. Yeah, I want to make money.
Yeah, right.
So I can tell you how much money I made last week.
Exactly.
But I can't tell you how much I spent out last week.
Exactly.
But I know that what I made don't look like what I'm supposed to have in my bank account.
Exactly.
You know what I'm saying? So I like what you said, but let me dial into that a little bit too, um, about, about, you know, at this stage what— and I think this works for every industry. It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter what industry you're in. You can be you know, in the health industry, you can be in the fitness industry, you can be in real estate, you can be, you know, working t-shirt service industry, business consultants. It doesn't matter, right? What you want to always do is give yourself 30 days to track everything. And when I say everything, I don't mean, you know, you know, you, you tracking how much food you ate today. What I mean is tracking the things that are most important, critical mission things that you know you need to know in order to scale your business up, right? And you just laid out a couple of them there. They can start to track, um, but I'm gonna use t-shirt business again, right? Just, just as a means of it. So what you're going to want to know is where are you sourcing your shirts? How much is the cost of those shirts? How much are you buying those shirts for versus how much you're going to be selling them for, right? And then you track those over 30 days. Also, how are you marketing your business? Are you using Instagram? Are you using— by the way, if you have a t-shirt business, you should absolutely be on TikTok. You should be, you should be going hard on TikTok. I didn't say Instagram, I didn't say Facebook, I didn't say none of this. I said TikTok, and I'm gonna tell you why. Because of the TikTok Shop. If you got a t-shirt business, if you selling socks, if you selling ties, you know, you got a beauty brand, if you're selling any kind of product, you should be on TikTok and rocking it out 110,000%. That is all— that is a free platform. With millions of users who are looking for your product, right? So you, you use— what's that? Your marketing channel. Use that marketing channel, right? And start to market that. That don't cost you nothing. Excuse me for saying it that way, but this is how I talk to my mentees. That don't cost you a thing. Nope, that's free. You don't have to go and spend out a dime. Just show up every day on TikTok. Selling your shirts, selling your product, sell whatever it is, just do it every day and you will see how your business will grow. So at this beginning stage, and we're not trying to beat a dead horse here, but we got many other, 3 others to go to, but we really, really wanted to hone in on this one because y'all, here's the real statistic. 90% of entrepreneurs are here at this stage. If you're watching me, more than likely you are either here or tier 2. You're one of the, one of the two. But more than likely you're here at this stage. First, I want to high-five you for starting it. But secondly, I don't want you to give up because just like 90% of people that start their business are here, 90% actually— there are some that don't make it out of this tier 1, right? So that's what I wanted to share on that piece there.
Absolutely. So like, I think it's important to highlight this to end this tier off, is like, your job is not to work harder. Your job is to literally like make money predictable. And you do that by tracking, for one, by actually doing the work and understanding that you should have patience with yourself when it comes down to like owning this kind of tier right here so you can move to the next level. So the second tier that we have, y'all, is something that we like to call the operator, right? Um, typically what they experience, y'all, is leads coming in, the revenue is there, but it feels fragile. Uh, the third thing here is, is the team is forming, but you have the decision fatigue, right? The reason why this is is because, like, if we are bringing on people in this team and we don't educate them on, like, the system, the SOPs, the, the processes, right, um, what, what the business ends up doing is staying with us.
That's right.
So a lot of people that are operating and, and they're getting some traction, the business lives with them, so it dies with them. That's right. Meaning if they leave tomorrow their people won't know, they won't sustain.
Yeah.
Because everything is literally with you, right? So one thing that I did last year in 2024, so I went full time into real estate 2024. And essentially what I did, this was kind of like 6 months in. I think I had about— I made about the first 6 months, I made probably about like $600 grand, right? And I started to hire a team. But at this point in time, I had something that I had to admit to myself, which is a delegation issue, right? And I hired about 6 people thinking that obviously, you know, more numbers, more revenue, more leads, all of this good stuff. And I end up hiring about 6 people, like, just ended horribly because, because of the delegation, right? Uh, the business lived with me, and I did not— I was still kind of like giving it away but kind of micromanaging it, right? And if it didn't get done, I would do it. Right? And everything just lived with me. We had plenty of leads, the revenue was there, um, but at the end of the day, what ended up happening was we got 50 contracts in one month, 50 houses under contract, and literally only sold 3 deals. Literally just because of that.
Yeah.
And the industry standards success rate, like this, let's say worst case, is like 50%. Yeah. I was way below that. Yeah, yeah, like crazy. So, um, One of the fixes that I absolutely did, y'all, that I labeled here is simply documenting my decisions, right? Like documenting not tasks, but these decisions. Are these the decisions that I am supposed to be making? Right. So number one thing is documented decisions. The second thing here is creating rules and standards like for not only the team but myself too, because like if I'm going to kind of delegate this and try to delegate these, these task in this, I guess you can say this, this, this— what am I looking for? Not department, but like department. Basically, if I'm going to delegate this department, I have to make sure that like we label out rules, procedures, operated. What I'm looking for is SOP. So what an SOP is, y'all, is a standard operating procedure. So I want you to think about it like this. Every morning you wake up, you do what? You get out of bed, I hope. You get out of bed, you go brush your teeth, you wash your face, you probably shower, you go work out. That, that's a procedure right there. It's kind of like a— what's the other word? A routine, right? You have a routine. Every time you do this, you literally do this step by step by step. If we are not documenting every single thing that we're doing, uh, for each task that we have, y'all, for each thing that we do, we're failing because when we try to train somebody on it, we can't do it efficiently because it's not late, it's not documented, right? So, uh, that's one thing that I dealt with, you know, in 2024 when, when I was trying to scale, is literally that, like, making sure that I had the SOPs, um, there so they can know step by step what to do, right? Yeah. So the problem is, is that the the, the founder is the system. Like, you are the system, and, um, the business really depends on your brain. Have you ever had a moment like that in your business, like, where everything stuck with you and you didn't want to, like, give anything away? Kind of, yeah.
Because, you, you know, at this, at this stage, this tier, um, as we mentioned, and you already gave some solutions there, um, but as you mentioned, this is the stage where things are clicking. Yeah, you know, you got systems in place, you have, you have systems in place, you have people in place, um, you know, you have SOPs in place, you have, you know, you've delegated some authority, you've delegated some workers to do some, you know what I'm saying? You started, you're seeing it to begin to kind of take shape. Yeah, right. Um, and the biggest challenge now becomes you leaving the business and still seeing the business be successful.
Would you say that it's important to remove yourself from the, the approval process? Like, everything goes— like, when you give somebody a task, meaning, like, do they do it and you, like, and they come to you before they do it, they say, hey, is this okay? Or like No, is it like leave it to them, let them do it, and maybe you come back, you know, after y'all have a team meet? Like, what does that look like?
That speaks to two different things. Yeah, that speaks to your hiring.
Yep.
Having the ability to hire properly people who are solution-oriented, um, people who can think innovatively, innovatively, um, and, and people who can grasp your vision and run with it. Right?
Number one, everybody can't see your vision.
Everybody can't see it. And then number two, it speaks to how well you've documented, um, your processes.
That's true.
Because if you want people to respond the way you would respond, you have to train them as if you were training your replacement, right? So every time I've consulted with businesses And, you know, some people can take it and some people can't. Right. And I always say from the very beginning, when you bring me in as your business consultant, I'm staying for 3 months only. And that 3-month time, I'm going to 10x what you're doing. And the number one reason is because I already know you do not have the proper delegation.
Yeah.
And you do not have the proper SOPs. And that's what's causing the bottlenecks. That's what's causing the poor decision-making. That's what's causing some of the delays in your operations, uh, your day-to-day operations, etc. Those are the two criteria. Now watch this. This is the part, y'all, that I was stuck at for years in my own business, right? Um, I delegated the authority and trained to the authority. Here you go to your question. I'm trying to get back to you. Um, I, I trained the authority but didn't allow the authority to make the decision. It would always have to come back to me, right? And that had— and this is why I said earlier, when you are at that tier 1, it teaches you a lot about you. Yeah, right. And then when you get in that tier 2, it's going to teach you some more about you.
That's true, that's true.
Every tier is going to reveal something about you, okay? But I'm only mentioning this because I didn't realize that I was causing the demise of my company. I wanted everything to come back to me because I had trust issues. I wanted everything to come back to me because I didn't trust that somebody was going to make the right choice. And because of that, I was always in it even though I was separating myself from it.
Yeah.
So I started a whole nother business in conjunction with the— it was just a, um, an arm of the company, but I was starting a different arm on the company. And even though the business was successful, it was going well, everything was humping, and I, and I left the delegated authority I started doing some other things, but I still was trying to run everything over here instead of leaving that authority. So to your point, it's very important that if you're going to give them— give your hirings, um, the authority to do what you would do, you have to trust the decision that they're going to make. And you have to make sure that your SOPs are so tight that they don't have to ask you a question. Yeah. All they have to do is go into the SOP, put your— put the comment in there, it pops up, boom, this is the, you know, ba ba ba. And now I know what I need to do.
Exactly.
As opposed to me guessing and trying to figure it out. Oh, I guess wrong. Yeah. Now I just cost the company $10,000.
That's true. Let's break that down real quick because I want— I think that's important because people hear us talk about SOPs and like they probably know what it is. Maybe they're about to look it up, but like they don't know how to build it. What? So when we talk about a purpose of an SOP, it's designed to tell the individual what the importance of this, you know, this task is, what the, what the purpose of it is. How do you do it step by step? What are some other things that you would say? Are those—
but yeah, simply put, it's you in paper form. Boom.
Simple as that.
It's, it's exactly what an SOP is. It's, it's because you've been making all of the decisions, you know what's needed in your business, you know what procedures are there. And so whatever those procedures are, you need to write them down.
Yeah.
Now I would even tell people this too, um, whenever you bring in delegated authority— and we're going to, we're still on SOPs— yeah, whenever you bring in delegated authority I would always suggest that you give the people a video form of your SOP.
That's important. Very important.
Not just paper. Yeah. And you teach it. You need to want to teach it. And the reason why is because they see your eyes, they hear your tone. And because we're human beings, we see, we hear, we deal with verbal and nonverbal cues.
Yeah.
So I can hear you and see you at the same time and pick up on priorities. I can pick up, oh, this really matters. Oh, this— well, you can't really get that in paper form.
Yeah, or just texting it like, hey, do this.
Yeah, no, but if you have it in video form, right? And for those of you that are wanting to do something like that, I'm not even getting paid by these people. I don't— I'm not getting this— not paid sponsorship, but look, uh, Loom, hook me up. But, uh, Loom, guys, Loom is a beast. Not Zoom, but Loom. L-O-O-M. Yep.
We'll link that in description too, y'all.
Yo, when I tell you Loom is the best. So you have the ability to, you know, if you have a CRM and you're teaching on, you know—
who gave you that? I gave you that.
What, the Loom? Yeah, yeah, you showed me that one. I showed you.
I was thinking about it.
I'm like, okay, yeah, man, because I I was always, because I was old school, I was actually positioning myself to get into this new age era of technology. And I was on AI, man, in 2023. And I was looking at AI then with ChatGPT and all of these other things that were coming out with all of these different things, man. I was on there. I was beta testing, you know, some of these things via Slack. I was beta testing some of these things, right? But, but I was— the whole point of that was to better my efficiency in my business. So, uh, yes, to remove yourself, you have to train yourself. That's true, right? You got to train the people, you. And once you do that, you can start to see— now this is the tier 2 operator level. This is where all— you already got things rocking and rolling, you know, things are hopping, you're seeing some consistent money coming in, you're seeing consistent leads come in, you know, you're kind of at that point where like You got leads coming in, uh, the revenue is coming in, but it feels fragile.
It's like if I make a move—
wrong move, wrong move—
yeah, like we're, we're going under. Like, not under, under, but you, you're gonna be— you're gonna have to work a little hard to recover.
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. So I'm curious to know what are— because we mentioned this when we kind of went over it, but I want to go back now to some solutions, solutions of, of those things. Like, I think coming out of this stage, how can I improve to get out of this stage, out of this tier?
So I think number one here is, uh, documenting these things, right? Like, documenting, um, is going to be critical.
Another level document.
Yeah, another level. I'm talking about all the way from like, um, that you have to know what kind of person you are. Like, I have discovered this like about a year ago about myself is that I hate doing admin work. Yeah, um, it's something— not that there's anything wrong with it, but it's something that like I personally don't need to be doing because I can outsource it and delegate it. And then for two, it's like, um, I, I really had to put SOPs together, standard operating procedures together, and train, uh, my virtual assistants on this because That's what kind of person I was. So like, for one, you have to notice what kind of person you are, because this first level, you don't have any employees. Now you're getting to the point where you're hiring employees and you have employees, but you have an issue getting it out, like training a you to essentially be you, right? And I want you to understand that like nobody is going to be 100% you. Like, um, when you get to this next level, we'll talk about this, but nobody is going to be 100% you. You might get an 80% of you, a 70% of you, but like, um, it's okay. It's okay that somebody is not there because you can train them to be a you, right? So, um, number one is documenting these kind of decisions, what kind of person you are, things you don't like doing, and being honest with yourself. And then really, um, documenting these SOPs, because these SOPs— and recording the SOPs, because these SOPs are going to be the thing that, um, like, helps you when you hire more, because you don't have to keep retraining on the same thing. Absolutely. You say, go here, and then you, you test them on it, make sure that they know it, all of that. And then of course, um, I would say the next thing is implementing a point system before you get to the next level. So I have something called an online point system, a PTO system, and what it does is it, it kind of— you know how like you get people that come into your life, uh, maybe that's your business, personal, and like they overstep a line a little bit, you have to set set like boundaries. What a point system does is set boundaries. Hey, you come in late, hey, that's a point. Yeah, hey, we got to make sure that we're coming in on time. Hey, um, I taught you how to do this twice, now we're, we're going to count a point on, um, on, on production, on quality, right? Quality assurance. So it's like having a point system that sets the boundaries so the— your people that work with you— I hate to say work for you, I like to say work with you because they're, they're supposed to be there as extension, right? But the people that work with you know, like, hey, like, this is the standard that's set, right? Um, and then of course the next thing here is like making sure that you just— when you train on the task, be okay with like not having to get the approval. Like, let them do it. And then how you solve this, like, hey, you might be asking, hey Cedric, okay, What if I do train on it? I do give them SOP. I do record that and give it to them in there, like, and I let go of the approval and then it happens again. This is what the point system is for, for one. And then you don't come back immediately that same day and say, hey, you like— well, there's two sides to this, right? For one, we have team meetings every week, right? Top of Monday. And we cover those things right then and there. So that way, like, all right, Yes, I didn't come back and I didn't need the approval before you did it. But like, let's, let's go back over this thing right here in this meeting. So now we all are— you're strengthening as a team and you're building your culture. So I feel like I kind of went off the thing. But long story short, those are some tips and some solutions that you should do so you can just go to the next level because now you're getting into this delegation phase. Yeah.
Yeah. And that delegation phase is so important. Instrumental.
Yeah.
Um, in growing to another level.
Yeah.
Uh, being in this operational phase— and let me just say this for the record so we can move to the next thing— but remember, 90% of businesses are in either tier 1, tier 1, or tier 2.
Yep. Tier 1 is the hustler, tier 2 is the operator.
Yeah.
The long story short, y'all, if the business stops When you stop, you don't have a business.
You don't have a business, my friend. You still have a side hustle.
Exactly. And if you don't ever get to the point where you can just go to the next level, you're going to be stuck. All right, so let's talk about, uh, tier 3, which is what we call the builder. This person right here is somebody who has teams and systems in place. Uh, the growth feels heavy, like they're, they're, they're constantly growing. They're at a rapid pace of growth. Uh, they have more people obviously more people comes with more problems, right? And then, um, the, the founder stress increases. Here's why: because there's no ownership. I'll break that down. And then you have busy people and unclear accountability. So you're at the point where you have the systems, you have the leads coming in, you have the revenue, um, and maybe you've even delegated, right? This is the point where you have to start like at the second level. You're hiring maybe virtual assistants, uh, maybe some follow-up specialists, maybe these are VAs. But at this point, you need some people to take ownership, right? You need, um, um, really another you. You need a thinker. Um, you need people who are going to own their position, right? And at this stage right here, the, the problem that this person has is like the people right now. It's time to hire, like, look out for what we're hiring, like quality. Like, we're really hiring quality now. And now we, now we've got to get into the brass tacks of like, hey, what kind of people are we hiring? Um, what, what background do they have? Are they better than you? That I truly believe that when you're in this stage right here, the builder stage, y'all, The people you hire must be better than you.
I call them plug-and-play people.
Yeah, they got to be better than you.
I call it plug-and-play. I mean, you know, I— and, and I've, I've learned this. This was, this was the stage that I was in in 2023. This is where I was. Um, I, I hired the right people, I had the right staff, I had all of the things that, you know, that was necessary.
Yeah.
Um, but the stress of of the rapid growth and the demands that came with it.
Yeah, demand.
And, and now it's okay, um, I need to make sure that I hire these plug-and-play people, you know, wherever I was weak in my skill set, I hired for that skill set, right?
Yeah.
Um, I didn't, I didn't try to go and learn. This is not the stage where you yourself, yeah, are going to learn, uh, skill.
You, you go, you do that at phase 1. Yeah, you do phase 1, that's all the time.
You want to learn everything, you better learn it. Yeah, phase 1. Yeah, and potentially phase 2, potentially.
Yeah, that's true.
Um, but when you're in 3, you got money now.
Yeah, you got money at this stage, so don't be afraid to go pay somebody. Yeah, because you, you're gonna have to pay.
I'm sorry, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to go ahead and give the people that salary. Yeah, and, and go ahead and grow it, because I'm gonna tell you something You haven't— you've taken the time to learn the skill, teach the skill, train on it, micromanage it to ensure that the skill is taking place versus going to hire somebody.
You're going to spend more money doing all of the, the going through the mistakes. Yeah, yeah.
Then you have somebody that has already gone through it.
Yeah.
And now they can just you know, take it on. So with that being said, what is— and I can actually speak to that, man, I really can, but I want to hear what the perspective— what is, what is the biggest issue at this stage where you're making the money, you, you, you know, you're hiring right, you know, you got the proper delegation, um, you know, people are, you know, listening and they're taking care of business, they're doing all of the right things What is the biggest issue there?
You have to hire many owners.
Owners.
Here's— but before we even hop into that, you have to— when you're hiring owners, people at this stage start to make more money. And this is something that I had to come to a mindset of, is that like in the world we expect everything to be the same cost every single year for life. Like when we— like when the price raises, we're like, man, So you have to first understand the cost of value. When you hire somebody that's taking like an owner, right, they're owning their role. Yes, it's going to cost more, but like, what, what is the value of like learning to articulate the, the, the value of what you're spending? Like, all right, you hire somebody, let's just say that $60,000 a year, that's $5,000 a month. Really, it's not a $60K decision. It's not $60K out of the bank. It's like, let's just say worst case, y'all, you go through this, you're hiring an owner, and 3 months it does not work. Worst case, what you have done is you spent $15,000 to learn. That's what we do anyway.
Absolutely.
We spend money to learn, right? And, and hopefully this person set up the next person. Hopefully they were better than you. Um, hopefully, you know, they taught you something about yourself and you learned a lot about yourself. But the worst case you have done is, is spend money to learn, because that's what we do anyway. We spend money to learn. When you test out marketing, you're testing ads, you're testing out to see what works and what does not work. So understand that it's okay to go through a couple people, but like, if you've done everything that we've said thus far— documenting your SOPs, recording, making sure that like you have consistent lead flow coming in, you have, you know, all of these things right here. It should not— you should not run through a whole bunch of people. But understand that it's okay if you run through a couple, like 1 or 2. You know, I'm not saying that there's a cap, but like, it's okay. So understanding—
let me say this: hire slow, fire quickly, fire quickly, fire quickly. And then let me say this in conjunction with that, because you're on a very solid point and I don't want this to go without the proper attention. On the reverse of that, when you hire the right person, you save yourself more money than you do paying them out. This is how I've always viewed it. This is why I've always paid top money for people that work for me. Yeah, people that work for me have never been able to say that I didn't pay them over what they were worth. And when I say worth, I mean literally where they were at the time, right? Because I always want to overpay. And this is something that I believe in, y'all. I want to overpay for right talent. I want to overpay for right talent. And let me tell you why. Because right talent— I look at myself, I went into a business. I'm gonna give you this quick story. I went into a business back in 2017. And I found— I believe myself to be a sales beast. You know, I could sell, you know, sunglasses to a blind man. Like, I feel like that I am a sales beast, right? So I go into this business, right? And what we were doing, we were, you know, selling leads, we were doing leads. And, um, it was very, very, very simple for me. When I tell you it was simple, I, I, I laughed because the dude was paying me $150 per lead. Wow, right? $150 per—
people, people work 8 hours and probably still don't make that.
Yeah. And can you imagine me with the lead Yeah, right. And so I, and I want to try to cut it real short because I don't want to draw it out, but my point in saying this is when I knew that I had a firm grasp of the industry, I went to the individual and I told him, listen, if you allow me to do X, Y, and Z, I'm going to 3x your business, right? And he said okay. He gave me the, gave me the charge, okay. I showed him within a month's time, 30 days, that I didn't 3x his business, I 5x his business. I'm not making this up. 5x his business. Once I 5x his business, he started paying me 3 times more than what I asked for.
You know what happens when you, when you do that though? I feel like you really get an owner then.
That's a real owner, like, because I literally took on ownership as if that was my company.
Yeah.
And that's what I was getting to. Yeah. When I— he— instead of him hiring 5 people to do the job of one, right, he only hired one person that took care of 5 positions.
Exactly.
And not only that, but saved him money from bad choices.
Yeah.
From, from, you know, bad execution.
Yeah.
From laziness, not clocking in on time.
Yeah.
You know, all of these different things. He never had to worry about that with me, right? Because I was there at 7:00 in the morning and I didn't leave until 9:00 in the evening.
What was that mindset like if somebody is thinking about hiring kind of like an owner of their position, right? Like, obviously it sounds like you're speaking to like the mindset that you had at that time, which is an owner. And you're, you're 3 to 5x in somebody's business, and now, now they're paying you 3x what you asked for. Like, what— put us in the mind of what— where you were back then, and just so the people can understand. All right, when I'm looking for an owner, what does that look like? Yeah, like, obviously now I know I have to pay, that's okay. What does that look like? What is that kind of person? What kind of qualities does that person possess?
That person asks questions. He absolutely asks questions. And they're not questions that are— I call these people— some of these people that come in and ask questions, they're just nosy.
Yeah.
You know, they want to know information.
Yeah.
You know, they want to, you know, just kind of learn and so they can go out and, you know, and I'm all— look, I've trained my own competition several times.
Yeah. Hey, you know what I'm saying?
So it is what it is. It's capitalism. That's what it is. But, but a real person that comes through who's an owner, they're going to ask questions about how can I add value to your business? What do you really need? Right. You need me to make these? Okay, gotcha. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Yeah, right. What else do you need? That's exactly what I did. Yeah, I saw opportunities within the business. That I knew that I could add value to. But I proved myself, first of all, by being diligent in all things that I would hire for. You see what I'm saying?
Yeah.
So that's what I did. And so it allowed me within, I would even say, 6 months to move from just an ordinary salesperson. He saw that I had— and he did ask— it was a team. And I keep saying he, but it was a team. They did ask me, they did say, you know, you, you must have some, you know, small business or something on the side, or you must be doing something else. And I told them, yeah, I used to be, you know, in telecom. I used to do a lot of things in telecom, and I had a little small vendor, you know, and I was running this and that, and I was, you know, just giving my history. But you, those, these are the kind of people that you're looking for, people who are business owners who they don't want the responsibility of a business, but they will absolutely run yours like it's exactly. You know what I'm saying?
That's important.
They will run yours exactly as if it was theirs. And last thing, I would say it this way: they are passionate about growth. They're very passionate about growth. I was very passionate about growth to the degree that I was always looking at where are we failing to grow? What's causing delays in our growth? Because I always knew that revenue growth is not real growth. That's, that's another story, because somebody would tell you, no, money, man, that's where it's at. No, no. If I grow people, human capital, if I grow human capital, it will absolutely 10x where I'm trying to go.
That's true.
I invest in the people, and that's exactly what I did. I went to town training like crazy, you know. I was just training mini-mes. That's all I was doing. And before I knew it, man, people were just, you know, making plenty of sales, you know, all of that. So I guess my point is, you're looking for people who ask questions, and they're asking the right questions. What can I do to add value to your company? Company.
That's true.
So went on a tangent there, but forgive me.
No, you— no, you're good. That's— I feel like that's, that's really valuable for the viewer that's watching this. So like, um, now you've discovered what problems that you have at this level, y'all, and now you, you essentially need operators, right? Um, you need owners, you need people who, who really care about the growth and can take on their position like an owner, but they're not the owner. You are, right? Um, here's another thing I like here is scorecards. So having scorecards is very important. Same, really tracking KPIs. So scorecards and numbers—
key performance indicators, by the way.
Yep, key performance indicators. Um, and then of course letting the leaders solve problems. If you get people who solve problems, you won't have to worry about anything, especially when it comes down to growth. So So, um, those are some fixes that, you know, you can do when it comes down to this level right here, right? So, um, assigning owners these functions, right? The second thing is tracking outcomes, not effort. You have to track the outcomes. Number 3 is scorecards, um, making sure that you, you have scorecards, um, in numbers, and you're going off of those KPIs, key performance indicators, because I'll just be honest with you, numbers, numbers don't lie, people do, right? Um, when you look at the numbers that really solves like 9 out of the 10 problems that you have, the numbers are going to matter. The dials, the offers, all of these things, right? I mean, of course, letting your leaders solve these problems, and they're leaders, right? They're owners and mini owners. So like, you don't— like, I would just say this, you don't even have to kind of micromanage because they're kind of like a mini you. They're going to make sure that everything is good. So long story short, I think the lesson here is like you don't scale businesses, you scale people.
That's right. Human capital.
That's exactly what it is. And I cannot scale people who scale business.
I can't, man. If, if, if, if we don't get anything else in this tier, please get this part.
You don't scale businesses. You, you, you scale people who scale businesses.
That's right, man.
You scale people who scale businesses.
I empower people that want to be empowered. That's what I do. Even in, in me with, with, you know, all of my mentees, I tell them this all the time. You know, one, one of my mentees, you know, she, she— every time I show her something, you are a genius. No, I'm not a genius. Yeah, this is just information you don't know. Yeah, I learned this information, now I'm passing it on to you.
Yeah, same thing she has to do for her.
That's right. I'm just empowering you with information that you did not know. That's it.
Yeah, I'm not a genius.
I'm just sharing information that you didn't know. That's true.
So scale to people, y'all. Yeah, scale the business. So, um, level 4, y'all, you have the owner. This was kind of like the— this is you, you top dog now, man. You got money, you got the processes, you got the systems, you got the people. Um, so what this typical person experiences, y'all, is, um, strong— they have a strong leadership team, they have many opportunities now, like Sometimes opportunities— having too many opportunities is the problem, right? Um, having a lot— all right, yeah, you have high-stake decisions. So like a decision at this point can cost a lot of money, right? And then of course pressure increases. So the problem here, y'all, is like focus dilution. And then the second thing is too many initiatives, right?
Um, keep it simple, stupid.
Very simple. Like, what we do is we have like too many prioritizations at this point. You have too many, too many initiatives. You have so much. Like, you, you need to keep the focus crystal clear, simple. Like, stay the course. Like, if you were to think back now, you're at a level where you're a top dog. You really need to be thinking about— it's kind of I said take us back to when you first started or when you were operating this. You have to— you can't get too big. You, you can't try like, oh yeah, I got all the money now, let me try like 6 to 8 different marketing. Like, keep it very simple. Yes. Um, there's a saying that you said, you used to say to me before, it was something about start small scale. What was that saying?
Yeah, I always tell this, man. I always think big. Yeah, I start small, but I scale fast. And that's exactly how I teach my mentees. Yeah, you think big. I already know you got your plan, you got everything in, in tow. You start small. Don't try to get out here and spend thousands of dollars that you don't have. Start small, but you scale fast. And what ends up happening a lot of times, y'all, especially in this particular stage is that right now on this stage, you scaled. Yeah, you've already scaled to a certain degree. You know, you've taken yourself even out of the business, right? And you are starting to see, you know, real production stability and revenue. You know, people are just, you know, everybody is doing their job, right? And now what ends up happening is, because this happened to me full disclosure, um, this happened to me. I had so many different things happening at the same time. And when I say happening, I mean these were not things that were coming to me. These were opportunities that I took that I should not have.
Too many good opportunities.
I had a lot of opportunities, brother.
Would you say that everything starts to look profitable at this point?
And well, everything It is profitable, but that's the problem. Yeah, because it is profitable, the undisciplined mind will go for it, which is what I did. I went for it because it was profitable, not knowing that I would— me taking on all these different, yeah, opportunities, they still like— they caused a strain. Yeah, it called the strain to my business. And also because now I got to train for all of these opportunities. I have to make sure that all of these different things— now, now I have to replicate. And this is what people miss. Oh Lord, have mercy, y'all help me. This is where people miss right here. Whenever you start a new opportunity, a new initiative, you start from ground one. I'm still sick, y'all, so forgive me. You start from ground one. You literally start all over. Yeah, you're not just picking up everything out of your business and then putting it into this initiative. Yeah, because now you have to learn the new initiative, you got to learn the new arm, and you got to learn—
but is it really working? Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Yeah, so now your focus is off. Yeah.
Because it steals attention from the core, it steals attention from the main—
your main business. Yeah, and that's exactly what I did, man. I had one business that was rocking, I'm talking about, man, was rocking. And I had the good idea of starting this arm and starting this arm instead of doubling down, instead of doubling down here and really making sure this was airtight. Yeah, right. My focus began to look at and see all the profitability that I was— yeah, I used to have this thing, man, uh, that I would drive downtown Dallas.
Yeah.
And I would go in the daytime and I would go at night, and I would say, look at all of the opportunity here. Look at all of the money that was here, that's here. Man, look at all this money out here. But you know, later on in life, now I see more money, more problems.
Yep.
More responsibility, more time taken away.
Yep.
You see what I'm saying? So this is what I mean by focus. I gave all of my focus to here.
Yeah.
And to here, and lost sight of what was here. Yeah.
Because at this point, opportunity is like more dangerous than like—
gosh, it is—
than the risk.
Oh my gosh, it is. I got so many stories on that, but I'm not gonna do that.
We both do. Like, with the one venture that we both had, like, it's like, bruh, like— so I think that it's, it's at this point, long story short, you have a lot of opportunity. Opportunity can be a good thing, but like making sure that the right opportunity is there and You're going to have so much opportunity that it just dilutes your focus and even your team's focus from the main mission here. And I think that it's important to like, yeah, there's going to be other things out here. There's going to be, you know, other things that are profitable, this, this, and that. But like, is it really worth like you directing your energy towards something new when you can just double down? And stay in your lane. Like, there's— um, I forgot the saying, but, but essentially it's just basically staying in your lane, hogging your lane, becoming the best at what you do.
Yes.
And like, stay out of the other ones because in other lanes you got like— now you got, you got other people in those lanes, and either you're gonna— you gotta— it's a competition. Yeah, like it's a competition. You have to focus and stay up. So that, um, another thing I actually noted this down and capital allocation matters more than effort, right?
Oh my gosh.
Um, so what this simply means, y'all, is simply where money goes matters more than how hard people work, man. Like, um, it's very important that you, that you don't— you try not to make any like bad investments, bad hires, you know, all of these things, um, because these cash decisions compound. Like, every time you make a decision you, um, you, you get to a point where the losses become bigger and bigger and bigger.
Absolutely. And you're no more making $100. Yeah, yeah, $1,000 losses.
These are hundreds of thousands.
Now you're talking about hundreds of thousands just because of one decision.
Yeah.
Learn from my failure. Yeah, y'all, please learn from my failure. This is why my mentees trust me because I'm very transparent when it comes to— now, I have many successes, don't get me wrong, but my successes came by way of my failures. And one of my main failures that I always talk about is I did not allocate the capital to do what I knew it was supposed to do. I didn't allocate it properly. And when you just said that, that took me back. I'm just like, oh my gosh, yes, I had— I was blessed, um, to be making well over— I'll just— I won't even say a number because I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, but I was, I was doing pretty good for myself. And instead of me um, putting those money— and I'm not talking about personal, I'm talking about, you know, business— instead of me putting that money into proper places in order to grow the business, I was giving the money away and I never saw a return on the money.
That's true, because at this point, every decision that you make with the money must bring a profit.
It has to, it has to.
To.
It has to bring a return.
Yeah.
And so I didn't realize that at the time. I didn't. I thought I was just doing a good thing and thought I was just being kind and all that. But y'all, let me give you a secret in business that nobody will ever tell you. Being kind in business is great for nonprofits, but they're not good for profits.
You're here to make money.
You're in business to make money. And when you're making money, you can help more people, but you have to be careful of how you allocate your help.
And, and, but here's another thing, another thing when it comes down to protecting what you built is you have to notice that you're no longer managing, managing the systems, you're managing the people who manage the system.
That's right.
So keeping leaders that you have hired too long, right, when like you now you have to manage those people.
Yes.
And at this point, there is a such time as keeping leaders too long because like people lose focus, people get, people get, um, relaxed, people, you know, start leaning up, you start finding the manipulations with like, hey, oh yeah, I'm getting paid really, really good now, I can just slip off here, I don't have to work as hard, I don't, you know, and You have to notice that also. So now it's really about making sure that, that you keep the right people there to protect what you've built. Yeah. So when, when even if you do have to make a decision, um, everything that you protected is still— I mean, everything that you have is still protected and it's there.
Yes.
Because one wrong move and you can lose a lot of money, and then two wrong, and then before you know it, it's four, five, six, and then like everything comes crumbling. Because of these decisions. So like, we're no CPAs or tax experts or anything like that, but long story short, protect what you've built, protect your money, and make sure that you put them in the right places so your money can grow. Grow them, grow them. Very important.
You know, if they start out as your executive assistant and you see that they've mastered one of the skill sets to do, you know, um, you know, something in marketing or something of that sort, yeah. Grow your people, man. Yeah, grow your people. Absolutely. Always. Yeah.
Anything else on this, man?
No, I'm— I, I— well, let me say this, I always have more.
No, of course, absolutely.
But, but, you know, we— I, I think we've covered, you know, covered each stage. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay.
Well, y'all, we appreciate y'all for attending this podcast. We look forward to seeing you, uh, next Thursday, y'all. We drop every single Thursday, so do me a favor, hit that subscribe button, like, and go ahead and comment what you feel like. For one, you're serious. And then for two, what you feel like you've gotten from this podcast. Other than that, we'll see you later and we'll see you next week.
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