Episode 181: Building a Business without Being There with Lisa Kuecker

My dog does that, to be honest.

Your dog kicks you in the balls.

No, hey, no, not your ball.

I'm just saying your dog is a ball.

Because we have. Okay, we have a king size bed. First of all, you're gross. Second of all, we have a king size bed.

And misinformed. And most of this.

Exactly. And so Alex and I take up a lot of room to begin with because we both like to sprawl. And then the dog is like 100 pounds, so he comes up and when he turns, he, like, spazzes and freaks out and he'll, like, punch you in the tit or he'll, like, in the stomach or. I mean, he's cute, but I heard.

A woman taking a boob punch is actually pretty painful.

It is really painful. It hurts.

That's like, I've been hitting the boob, but not in the crotch area.

Yeah, I heard mammograms are very painful too, because that's a boob squishage. My wife says they're very painful. Doesn't it make a little farting sound.

When the air comes in?

Yeah, it absolutely makes that noise. Ask the next woman you talk to that.

No, no. This is your fart is your boob farts.

On that note, you are listening to the Profit first podcast, episode 100.

Grunt 1, with me, my listening friends.

Nice work.

There you go. Thank you.

Oh, welcome, everybody, to the Profit first podcast. I'm your co host, Christina Boldup, and.

I am the other co host guy, or Host, whatever, Mike McAllowitz, joined in studio by boob farter, Kelsey.

Hey, everybody.

How are you?

Oh, you should bring the machine in here.

I know. We're almost made that today. And you, my friends, yes, we are recording a Halloween, so it's a little extra goofy here today, even though this isn't being broadcast on Halloween. And you, my friends, are listening to the Profit first podcast. This is a show where we tackle all of the discussions around, you know, profitability, and today's going to be nothing different. We're going to tackle profitability and achieving, I think, the most important thing you can achieve, having your business run without you being present whatsoever.

Ooh, I like that. So you know where to listen to us? ITunes, Stitcher, Tune in, radio, Google Play, and of course, profitfirstpodcast.com and, well, there's.

Many other things you can do too, but we'll get to that a little later. So what do you guys have been up to? Oh, we can do an icebreaker today.

Yeah.

Oh, who has the icebreaker you already have.

Oh, yeah.

What was it? You already know it to ignore that.

What was your first job and what was your favorite thing about it or quirky thing about it?

First of all. Okay, so my dad is a DJ on the side and he used to bring me to these to the jobs with him, like on weekends. That was still our bonding time. Although that's what he called it. But I think he was just watching me when my mom was working. But either way, I remember being like 5 or 6 and he used to have me like run around and be the mic person. That was literally my first job. And he used to give me money for it.

Oh, cool.

Yeah. And I mean, sometimes looking back on it, it's kind of embarrassing. But he always brought so much attention to me. He's like, look at my cute little daughter.

And I would like run around.

Yeah. Like, you know, did he make it?

Like gave you a stage present?

Yeah, it did, actually. I think that's part of the reason why I got into theater. I got comfortable being in front of people at an early age.

Yeah, that's awes chance. He made you wear overalls and give you one of those tin boxes with the crank on the side where you turn around. It plays music.

Yes. Every gig.

You know? You know, you ever see that? The monkeys that they run out?

Oh my God, that's so funny because he calls me Monkey. See, that's my nickname.

See, I remember that because he still does. He DJs our events and he still calls you Monkey.

He does not to do that anymore.

So I'm like, monkey, where's the monkey? And I was looking for you to come around. Would you spare a penny, sir? Please, sir? Can you fair? What's. What's pence?

Fair pence.

A fence or two.

Don't they have fence or two?

Yeah, it was a fence. Did I fuck it up again?

No, I thought you said fence.

A pence.

Pence.

What's they call a bit.

Oh, a bit.

You may have a bit too bit, sir, for a pheasant.

Okay, so, yeah, that was my first job.

Pheasant. Am I misfronting you guys?

No, she's fishing. She's fishing.

Are you talking about a pheasant or a peasant?

I'm talking about a peasant sitting on a fence. A hole. You are tough.

Which makes it a pheasant. Kelsey.

Jesus. What were your first. What was your first job? Was it correcting people's language?

No, that only happened when I started working with you.

What was your first job?

My first job Was working at a farm stand and a bakery. So it was the same owner. So sometimes I would work at the farm stand, sometimes I work at the bakery.

Is it standard fare for the farm or was it like some exotic stuff?

Like, where's kiwis? Standard fares, like corn and tomatoes and zucchini.

Kiwis are exotic.

Well, it's not at a farm. What I'm saying is some of these farms, like, all sudden you see bananas for sales, like, oh, you grew these here in New Jersey?

No, right here.

Yeah.

Standard.

Fresh off the farm.

Yeah.

In. In like Guatemala or something?

Not here.

My first job was I worked at Clyde's cleaners in Denville, New Jersey. Oh, I was the pant pocket emptier. That's a job. Oh, my God. Tell me about it. Yeah, you have to wear latex gloves, or at least I chose to because people would drop off their laundry and someone actually has to go through the pockets because people could leave gum in there. And some of the stuff. Now, the benefit was sometimes you got.

Money and you would keep it.

Yeah. Well, the rule was if it was over $10, you had to call the client to return it. If it was under $10, you had to keep it. So you're always paying for $9.99. Sometimes you find stuff you didn't want to find. Like, I thought it was a piece of gum.

Oh, boy.

Because it was in a wrapper, a square wrapper.

Was it circular?

It was wrapped. It was circular. And I'm like, this gum is so. I'm like, looks like it might taste good. So I tore up the wrapper.

Oh, no, you didn't.

You're such a liar. Is this one of your stories?

Yeah. Yeah.

Did you blow it up?

Like a little balloon?

It blew up and then when the air came out, it sounded like a boo for once.

Oh, that's cute.

Oh, cute, cute, cute, cute.

Cute's the word I would definitely use.

You know, we have a shout out line. That's not all.

It's cute.

Yeah, we do. And it only costs two bits. If you call our shout out line, you can share how you've become permanently profitable. You want to hear it? I don't think we've gotten any recently. Are people afraid to do it?

I think so.

We get emails all the time. I get literally like 15, 20 emails a day. You see, I'm BCC ing you on.

A lot, but if it makes you feel better, a person doesn't answer. It's just a little recording. And then it just says, hey, tell us your 22nd thing, and if it.

If it coerces you at all, it really makes my day. It's my favorite thing in the world.

Yeah. I can tell by how your eyes kind of like, went around like that. Like, that is true.

Yeah.

It wasn't an eye roll. Like, it was the.

No, no. It was like an eye. Like, swoon.

Yeah, I like that.

Yeah, she swooned her eyes. Do you know there's two things that make Kelsey get really pumped? One is when someone leaves a message. The second thing is when she has an email. You were telling me yesterday because the.

Episode where we gave away Surge books went live. So all these people were emailing to get Surge books, and I loved it because I feel like it's really easy to disconnect from our audience. And so it. I don't know, I felt like I was connected to them, and I love that.

Yeah. What episode did we give away the surge books?

171.

171. All right, so listen. 171. So here's your opportunity. Go listen to episode 171. Listen to it. And there's a little cool thing going on there. And quite a few people. I'm actually surprised it still trickles in every day.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you can get a book and then, you know, say something nice about Kelsey because she's one of our loyal fans. Yeah. Do we have anything else to talk about? Corpus Partners?

You know, for now, just a soft thank you to Fun Box, Nextiva, and Recipe.

Yep. We'll share more details on those fine folks in a little bit. And let's see. And we got a shout out that we want to share too. Right? Let's do that now.

Oh, yeah, we can do that now. So this goes out to Tim Fitzgerald. He said, I'm listening to your book. It's life changing. But I still have to ramp up my sales because right now I just don't have consistent clients. By the way, I love the grunting in the beginning of your podcast. Really, Tim? Really, Tim.

You don't encourage him, Tim.

Stud.

Also, listening to Profit first helps me de stress because it lets me know what I was doing wrong. But there is still hope.

Tim, thank you for the shout out. You are a stud. Love you.

Give him a grunt.

Oh, my hat almost fell off. My.

My Halloween got a little crazy.

Did I have the best outfit or do you think? I think Ron actually wins. I was almost going to say, due to. Remember the incident with Jackson's dad. I was.

Oh, my God. Michael.

No, I was going to say to Ron a little too soon and inappropriate.

Yeah. But he wasn't here, thankfully.

Yeah, he's got to be a little more politically correct.

Oh, my God.

He should take direction from me. Okay.

Oh, yeah.

All right.

So we won't say words take direction from you.

Yeah. That is politically correct. Because it's a fact. It's a fact.

Is it?

Her name is. Guys are in pain. Her name is Lisi Kiker. Did I pronounce it right? Kiker. Right?

Yeah, Kiker.

It's spelled C U E C K E R. Which it looks like Ku Echer, but it's Kieker. So Lisi Kieker is a New Orleans based entrepreneur. She's a teacher, artist, and mama. She spent the last 10 years building her own kind of multimillion dollar fitness and wellness empire while working 20 hours a week causes. Because.

Because.

Yeah, who messed that up? Because she's kind of obsessed about family time and her next adventure. Why are you laughing? You're the one who wrote this up, right?

Try it again. She works 20 hours a week because she's kind of a cis.

It's Southern slang.

What was that?

It's Southern slang.

Oh, okay.

Got it.

This northerner just caught on. I'm a little bit slow.

I mean, my literature degrees have just gone to waste. Totally.

No, no. So here's the deal, Lisi. You are an owner of six fitness studios across the US you reach a seven figure income. You're the creator of the Client Cure, and you are a history nut. You backpack portions of the D Day invasion.

Yeah. That's awesome.

Welcome, welcome officially now to our show.

Welcome. I'm so excited to be here. Thank y' all. And on Halloween to boot, which you haven't told me what kind of costume you're wearing yet.

Oh, yeah. So it's kind of like a Southern rocker. That was the intention, like Molly Hatchet kind of guy. So I had this big beard, almost like a duck dynasty type of beard. I got the cowboy hat on. But really what drives home the southern rocker is my shirt with these like slash marks in it.

Wait, first of all, it's like fake denim, like polyester denim, like with a denim printed material on.

Stupid. Oh, and I have.

And the bandana.

A bandana on my foot.

Which started at your knee but is now at your ankle.

It slipped down. Are you doing a costume, Lisa?

Well, I will be soon. I mean, I am six months pregnant and my original plan was to go as a pregnant nun. However, my father, he was like this is the one time my father, growing up in New Orleans, it's about half Catholic and all of this. And my dad just said, what do you mean you're going as a pregnant nun? And I said, you gotta be kidding me. This is the best costume ever. Like, I'm really pregnant. It's perfect. Dan's gonna be with me. It's gonna be fabulous. So we're making some last minute adjustments or we're not going to send my father any pictures.

Very smart. Very smart.

That's perfect.

Just one last thing about Halloween. I went to a Halloween party this past weekend, and one of the guys dressed as Prince, but this guy was tall. He must have been like six, six. And I think Prince was a shorter person. So the tallest guy at the entire party was Prince. And he wasn't just tall. He was like a football player. Big.

Oh, I love that. Irony.

Yeah. The irony was intense. Lecy. All right, tell us, how do you. How do you even get endeavored on a fitness business that you don't plan to be at? It sounds like. Doesn't make sense.

It does sound like it doesn't make sense to anyone with any business that's brick and mortar. But for us, it was. It was a case of lifestyle. My husband's active duty army. When we thank you for his service.

Seriously, thank you.

Oh, my gosh, he's. He's a total rock star. Literally. And, you know, we were starting out, we were living out in Washington state, and I started my first company out there. And I built out the internal, like, personal training, Pilates and yoga studios inside of Intel Corporation. So I had a team. I was like, hey, this is. This is a fabulous thing. I really want to take this a step further. I want to see where I can go with this. And we had this real mission that we were going to go into these small communities starting in the south that really didn't have anything that was high quality, fitness wise. And. And we were going to open and we were going to change. Change the world. That's what you believe when you're like 25 years old on this one. So, you know, I mean, it really was. That was. That was our heart and intention. So we opened our first business. We started the process crazily enough when I was pregnant with my first child. Across the country, Washington state to Mississippi. I learned that in Mississippi, that my contractor, once deer hunting season opened, we had a slightly different schedule on.

Oh, interesting.

It was a party, what can I say? And we actually opened the doors when Remy was about Seven months pregnant. It was a wild ride. But we knew from day one that we were going to move quite a bit. I mean, that's kind of part of how Dan's career is. So we weren't going to have the luxury of necessarily being next door to our businesses. Plus, I'd also watch my family and I thought, gosh, I don't want to be tied down 100%. I. I don't necessarily want to be the face of a business. I really knew I wanted something bigger that was going to impact more lives and that was going to mean I had to be. I had to work myself out of a job, basically.

You know, it's interesting you said you didn't want to be a face, the face of your business. Do you feel a lot of entrepreneurs, that's perhaps maybe the most important factor to them. Maybe it's serving their ego.

It's a huge deal. I think it's a gigantic deal. It's the first thing that people ask me how I didn't do because I was really comfortable. I would walk into our businesses and I was a, okay, that the first thing that I did was look under treadmills and check and see if we needed weights. And so more often than not, I was mistaken as the housekeeper. That was like, no joke. I would have people walk up to me and be like, are you the new housekeeper? And I'd be like, yeah, kind of. What do you say on this one? But I didn't necessarily want to have that forward facing. I really wanted to empower our team to always appear to be the experts, to always appear to be the face of the brand. And it's probably a bigger risk in some ways because you are relying on the fact that you've hired right and you've built the right team. But at the same time, gosh, I mean, it was such freedom for me because there was no pressure there.

Has that ever kind of fired back at you? Like, did you ever find that you had an employee that didn't work out so well? Or have you been pretty lucky so far in your hiring process?

Would you like me to tell you horror stories?

Hold on, wait, let me get a sound set up for us. So here we go. Okay.

I mean, early on, look, the hardest thing is that I really was. I was in my mid-20s when we started opening these businesses. And, you know, you have a lot to learn when you're in your mid-20s. I would like to be like, so fabulous and be like, I knew everything. I knew nothing. I was clueless. And so, you know, I did what I thought was right. And I still remember with the first brick and mortar business, we'd hired a fantastic manager. And she was admittedly, she would be one who say to us, I'm a little suspicious of people naturally. And I was like, okay, that's fine. And so we hire our first, what appears to be rock star personal trainer. I mean, this guy comes with this amazing resume. References check out everything. And three weeks in, one of his brand new clients, who's paying like $500 a month to work with him, brings us his YouTube channel where he is a part time sale semi professional wrestler in the Mississippi state fair circuit. Okay, this was not pretty. It was, it was as bad as it comes. This was like the wwe? Is that what it's called?

Oh, it's like super cheesy bad or.

Like, like horrible cheesy bad. Like they were dressed up in costumes and like, like this fake talk and all of this stuff and you were just like dying. Because I'm like, this is a man I have put before you as an expert. And he is wearing like a unitard.

Oh, the unitard is that where it covers only one part of your chest and the other part's exposed.

It's like it comes down like this.

Oh, it's super low.

Think shiny spandex.

Oh, my God.

So, yeah, so the first few years, that hiring situation was a little dicey, I'm not gonna lie. But we got better and it got to where the point where we developed our systems and once those happen. Yeah, I mean, man, we rocked and rolled.

That's fine. Here's your fitness instructor, Steve, better known as the Crusher. So, okay, so I can see that could give your business. I don't know if it's a negative reputation, but I'm sure some customers, like, I don't want to be trained by this guy. How do you address that when you've made some hires that aren't complementing your business objectives?

Well, in this case, we were pretty open and honest with the client and we said, you know, hey, this is a side hobby. You know, we know and understand that this may not look like the most professional things, but I have to ask you about your experience. What has that been so far within our facility? And then they admitted, you know, oh my gosh, it's been stellar. It's the best experience I've ever had. I'm so impressed with this. And I was like, so I want you to understand that in this case, you know, for some people it's you know, cooking for other people. It's painting for this fellow. Yeah, it's dressing in the unitard and you know, jumping into the ring. But you know, in this case it doesn't impact what we do.

And he wasn't wearing the unitard like to work or anything, right?

Absolutely not. He was wearing a uniform. He really was like, I mean, it was more of just like, not necessarily a horror hire, but like, what do you even say to somebody, you know, in that situation? I mean, I was like really thinking fast on how to handle it. You know, at other times we've hired people who were, you know, seemingly fantastic, especially for forward facing positions. You know, I think a lot of people forget that the first people their clients meet, man, those are the most important people. They set the stage for everything else. And that's why, you know, go to a great restaurant. You know, the maitre d is a stellar position. I mean, that's an honored position within that. But, you know, it came to the point where we also really did. We developed a really strong selection process. We actually hung out. My husband was blessed to serve in the special operations community. And one of our dearest friends was a selection expert for the NFL and special operations. And so about six years ago I sat down and I'm like, look, I get that you're like picking Navy Seals or like whatever this is, but I need you to take my hiring process, which is working pretty well, and I want you to figure out how we infuse the selection process into that. Oh, cool.

So how do you select an extraordinary team?

Yeah, so, you know, it's a multi layered process. I mean, the first thing is that we do from literally the start of you submitting your application. We have task based hiring that begins and we start cutting people out as soon as they start missing tasks and deadlines. I mean, so it's instantaneous. I mean, we're funneling from step one, submit your resume. There's an automatic email that goes back and tells you exactly what to do and you've got 48 hours to do it. And if that doesn't happen, guess what? That's our first step in the right direction. We do a multifaceted hiring. So I mean it's. We hire. I guess what I would say is that we have a three step interview process. And one of those interviews is always going to be a peer or someone who's below them. And that's actually the most interview that we're ever going to get because you know that they're going to tell me everything I want to hear, even if I'm asking behavioral questions and attitude based questions and all of those things. But when somebody gets on the phone with someone they believe that they're actually going to manage, it's amazing how ego comes out and what will happen.

Interesting.

I love that.

And we wrap up our final hiring panel for all of our major positions. Isn't actually people on our team. We've already infused them into the process. They've already been a part of the first two rounds of interviews. The third round is people that we respect in the community that are likely to be their customer. And we do a really simple ranking system in there. So I mean everyone, you know. Exactly. Every candidate gets asked the same questions from the same people. We rank them all by number. Whoever gets the highest score wins the job.

Wow.

Interesting. It's a different. Yeah, it's different.

So let's go back to these steps. You said you do task based hiring and what are the type of tasks you assign during the hiring process to measure their ability to comply or to complete the work?

It depends on the job. But I mean we've had people set up things like a YouTube video for us. You know, record this video, set it up on YouTube, send us the share link embedded onto this site for us. Here's a link to the site password and login. So that's like more technical. Especially if we're looking for tech facing. I mean we've gone so far and I think this is a really simple one that we forget about. But we've sent people to do like typing tests because I want you to show me like I don't care how you type. I want you to show me that you like did it six times until it was perfect kind of test. And that's something that somebody told me about a year ago. They sent me a link to this article. I thought this is genius. Like why had we this sooner? Because it's so simple. One of the best basic is hey, this is a form I need you to complete so we can set up your first appointment. I mean like that's the first initial one is fill out this form and it's got some oddball questions on it because I'm not gonna lie, like we're.

Beware unitard should be one of your questions.

Yeah, but I mean I want them to understand that we're not not a traditional team. And so some of the questions reflect that. And people really are like I have no idea.

What would be an example. These sound so juicy.

Oh My goodness. So, I mean, like, we talk about. One of the questions we always talk about is, like, what shows we're actually watching. And if we always. If we sat down with you at like midnight with a bowl of popcorn, what's the first thing you would turn on that we had never seen before? And it was like, you know, tell us that movie that, like, you love that we've probably never seen before, but we should be obsessed with. And, you know, it could be something totally random. I mean, I've had people pull out movies from their childhood. I've had people pull out movies that I've seen before. I've had people suddenly go on like, I'm a Quentin Tarantino fanatic and here's why. And it just lets us into a different part of their personality.

But could they be. So mine would be Revenge of the Nerds and people like, whoa. And then I'd say, yeah, but it's the rise of the guy gets picked on. It's the weak one turns around. And to me, it's great symbolism and it's a goofy movie. But I feel if I put that on your application, you may say, this guy, get him out of here. That's so inappropriate. Or not, right?

I mean, I would love it.

I mean, that gets an opportunity for a conversation.

Oh, I see. You're saying, is that how you use it for an opportunity for a conva?

I mean, we open the doors. Because I want to know the why behind this. I mean, a lot of what we're getting at is why do people think the way they do? And how does that fit into a team that is already in place? Because we respect the fact that our team has a really specific attitude. Like, right now, it's funny because we're getting ready to go on a pretty major hiring wave, and we're going to be hiring six new positions in the next few months.

Wow. That's what you're at, is a lot of hiring going on at once.

And so, you know, you have this. But the one thing that's like such a priority for us is the fact that we're this super laid back team. I mean, like, there are people who will walk into my house and, like, that work with us. And I'm like, I'm so sorry. I am still in my robe. Like, I love you.

Is that one of your tests?

But I mean, this is just the way the morning has gone. There's nothing I can do about that. And, you know, we have to have. Not that you have to be comfortable with me like walking the road. But you gotta be comfortable with the fact that we're a pretty laid back team. We get things done, we're super driven people, but we play a lot. And so a type A personality that was gonna come in and just be like crazy intense, I mean, that wouldn't fly for anybody, including me.

I gotcha. Now. You said early on that you didn't wanna be the face of the business, but you have all these different locations, these seven locations. Does each location have to have a face and how do you determine who that is or do they not need a face? The business is a standalone kind of thing.

The first location I definitely was the face of and that's what taught me I did not want to be. That was within intel.

Interesting.

It was a no questions asked. I was the teacher that every single person wanted to be in the class on. I was the trainer that every person wanted to work with. And even though we had this amazing large staff, it was like people were like, oh, do I really want to work with them? Are they as good? And I'm like, yes. How did I input in just as I started this, that I'm any better than the woman that actually has 10 years more experience than I do and is phenomenal. So it taught me at that point that I wanted something very different. And in this case, our general manager would have been the primary face of the business. And we were really, during our slow times, we really pushed them into the community. So I mean, for example, not just our general manager, but our managers over like one on one and small group and athletic training during the summertime, that is a quiet time of year if you are in the fitness business. I mean, it's dead. And so we would do reduced work weeks and we would send people out one day a week into the community to do whatever type of community service they wanted to do. I mean, we had people that mowed elderly people's yards and other people that, you know, volunteered for breast cancer, you know, putting together breast cancer walks and leading that year long. And we had people that we really paid and put that as part of their job description was to ingratiate and enter into the community and be a big part of that. So I think for us it was very different. And they loved that we were hiring people who wanted to build community. I mean, that was a major focus. If you were going to leave this facility, you had to be a community builder that was at the core of it and that naturally engaged in being the face of a business.

So Kelsey and Christina as I'm writing my new book, Clockwork, which comes out August 21st of 2018. As I was working my book, I started doing research and I put out on the web, basically, who knows the most efficient business out there? And Lisi's business came up from multiple people. I think Chris Winfield ultimately is the person who puts in touch Lisi. And when I interviewed you, and you're one of the marquee stories in the book, when I interviewed you, you started talking about this dashboard you have and you're basically running your business by numbers. Can you share what you explained to me then and how you do this process?

Well, I mean, I am the least likely numbers person ever. I need to say that. I mean, I do. I have literature and philosophy degrees. I am definitely not a by nature skewed towards the numbers. But, you know, when I, when I looked around, I started seeing that I was essentially floating in a sea of metrics. And over the first year of our business, I started really pulling out what are the only metrics that matter. And for us, you know, it came down to really a very small core group of metrics. One group that we tracked on a daily basis, one group that we tracked on a weekly basis, and one group that we tracked on a monthly basis. Now, for us, our metrics, we had financial metrics that we were trying to meet, but that was more at like a C level in our business. That was more for us, for our general managers, I was more focused on task based metrics that I knew would add up to the numerical metrics. So for example, if I wanted someone to do $100,000 in gross sales over a promotion, well, it doesn't really help to put that necessarily in front of someone who's making, let's just say $55,000 a year. And I mean, it seems terrifying and probably pretty daunting to bring that kind of income in. Instead, I was like, okay, how many people does it take to actually bring in the $100,000 based on our closing rate, how many appointments do we need to see based on our appointment show rate, how many appointments actually need to be made Based on that, how many prospects do we need to connect with at some level? Well, once you start breaking that down, I can say, hey, every day these are your goals. Every day I want you to bring in this many prospects. Every day I'd like you to set this many appointments. Every day I'd like you to see this many appointments that show we're going to basically watch that closing percentage to make sure it stays steady because it either means that we're bringing in the wrong type of people or we're doing something flawed within our systems to begin with. And all of those things add up in a much more regular way to the end result, which was $100,000.

So I'm hearing something that I, I didn't expect. Are you saying you basically reverse engineered your Objective, say, was $100,000 in revenue, but not necessarily disclosing that as the primary objective for people because it was overwhelming, you were actually giving them a more specific number they can relate to?

Totally. That is exactly what I'm saying on this one.

I love your dirty secrets. These are awesome.

In the end, I think we get caught up in the high level numbers. I mean, I think the high level numbers are beautiful. I love the high level numbers. I live in the high level numbers. But the high level numbers don't happen on their own. There are other metrics that build those, and those are the building blocks I'm most concerned with on my metrics, especially when I'm communicating them downward to a team. I think that that's a really key understanding is what are the metrics your team needs to know versus what are the metrics you as a business owner needs to know? They're two very different things. You know, especially if you're really wanting to encourage and propel people forward now, it may be very different. I mean, if you're sitting here like we, for instance, you know, we just hired, for our consulting business, we hired a COO that's coming on board right now. I mean, obviously in his case, it's a C level role. He's, he's handling all the big numbers.

Right?

I mean, that, that's just part of his deal. But for me to hand that off to someone who's just starting out. No, no, I want them to focus on something that they can control. And those are things they can control.

I love that. Okay, that is huge to me. So focus on what they can control. But I now need to visualize, or here's what I am visualizing about your business. You're at home working on these seven different locations. You're looking at numbers. And two questions is how does the crew feel about that? The owner's not even there. And second question is, how do you influence the business if you're not there?

Well, so twofold. First of all, we were pretty, we had pretty intimate relationships across our business and our view of how we hired people. And it's how we hire people. Even still to this day, because I, I should say, you know, we actually were lucky. We sold those six businesses last year.

Oh, congratulations.

So we had a, they were a multi, seven figure sale. They were, it was a phenomenal thing. I mean, this is our lovely little nest egg that we are, because of how we laid it out, you know, brings in six plus figures a year to our family for the next roughly 15 years.

Holy Shinoli.

Yeah. So, I mean, like, that's a, that's a nice deal when you're setting this up. We were very conscious of how that was being set up on this because of it. But, you know, as we lay this out, you know, one, I took a lot of time with our team. They understood and I was really clear what my role was. And I was, I was very honest. I said, you know, I want you to understand that we put a lot of risk, we put a lot of effort. We've spent a lot of time building this. You know, this is where I sit. And I'm going to empower you to be in part of this and to really lead and to do things that frankly, in small towns, you know, are not typical. I mean, generally speaking, our managers were making the same as a, you know, a principal with, gosh, only I don't even know how many years experience. And sometimes in one case, they were making more than the new doctor that was being hired at the family practice clinic. And so we paid extremely well. We offered great benefits. I mean, people started with three weeks vacation time, a lot of extra holidays. We made sure that we rewarded people strongly. I mean, in this case, I was really blessed. I have a mother who had the coolest, most phenomenal businesses ever. And her team, I mean, they averaged, I think probably 14, 15, 16 years with her. So I had had a role model that I watched how someone nourished and nurtured their employees, and not just how they did it financially or through benefits. I mean, I watched my mother help employees get their GEDs and, you know, send their children to college to be the first member of their family that headed to college. I mean, there was real input that we put in. And so, you know, when we had employees who, for instance, you know, had a legal situation, I mean, my husband was the first person on the phone with them because by schooling he's a lawyer. By practice, not so much.

On this one, he's a perfect combination. A lawyer and a special ops operative. Yeah. Yeah, like, okay, whatever you say, sir.

I'll do it.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, but let me ask you this. I still understand the day to day operations, fires happen, I mean, proverbial fires and things break out. You're not there to address them. Doesn't that make you nervous? And who's addressing them?

Well, so first of all, so we had eventually, as we grew bigger and bigger, we had an operations director that stood underneath me. This was somebody that was in our club on a monthly basis in every single studio that we had and that was really heavily engaged within this. So we did have somebody that was there that was present. But I have to be honest with you, that was like five and a half years into the business. So going up until that, we had set times that we were there, we had a strong set meeting schedule. And then just like we had systems for the metrics, we had other systems that, you know, open the door to different things. So for example, every time there was a complaint, everything that we did was digital, I should say this. We had what we call digital binders. So we were constantly tracking things like where did leads come in from, how are they being followed up with? Was this being communicated? I mean, so every system was digitally run where I could look in at any point and see what was happening. The secondary part of that though is that we had a log of every, I don't want to say complaint, but that's really what it was. But every customer service concern. And so we were intimately addressing those. I mean, those popped up and when they popped up, we were there to put them out. Our managers were really clear on where their comfort zone was. So, you know, for example, we had an employee who unfortunately, after working with us for many years, developed an addiction to alcohol. I mean, this was a long term employee, one of actually our best full time employee. Just amazing thing. And you know, you can imagine when we put her on paid suspension, one, she told her clients, unfortunately, something very different. So it's a difficult situation. But two, we had a lot of angry clients. Why is this paid suspension happening? What's going on with this? And in that case, we said to our managers, you know, you're not going to touch this. It's our decision. It was our decision to put the paid suspension. We will handle every client from here. And so from afar, we set those appointments. My husband and I handled every single one of those calls. There wasn't even a question on that. So I do want you to say, I do want to say that there is, you know, we were blessed that we worked less and less and less as all the years. And actually as our businesses grew, there were always times and I Think there always are going to be times where you step back in and handle things that go above and beyond what your manager should hold. I mean, they're really just ownership level positions. And that's in part because I wanted to protect my team, frankly. I didn't want them to have to walk into angry, nasty, you know, customers who did want to do this. And the other part is because I wanted to protect my customers. And frankly, I felt confident in my ability to handle it. Was it easy? No. But was it workable? Yes. In addition to that, like, we bought a failing business.

Gosh.

So this would have been, I think, 2013. And so we bought a failing business. And, you know, whenever we would buy or open a business, that's where. That was my sweet spot because it was where I could deep dive in and I could look at every single thing. So on this business that had been on the market for about a year and a half, I mean, everyone was like, it is wasted, worthless. I mean, useless. You don't even want to know the things that we were told. It was like people couldn't believe we were buying it. And at the same time I said, you know, I see something here. And the first thing that we did, and this was all me and my husband laughs because this business happened to be in Minnesota, where he's from. I got on the phone and I called 400 people over a six week period that were involved in this facility. And I had this massive spreadsheet. I mean, I called for. This is one where I was like, hey, I'm doing my due diligence, going in. This is where I'm going to put the hours in. Because I. It saves me the hours later. I worked 8 hour days calling them. There were more than a few people that were terrified by the New Orleans number, like popping up in their phone.

Right. By the end of the day, your voice must have been so hoarse too. You're like, hi, how are you? I mean, you must have been exhausted.

I'm from the South. I could talk all day long.

I love it.

It was like my sweet spot. But I would take these full notes and I noted everything about what they told me because I wanted to learn about who they were, who their family was, why they started coming in, what they really wanted to do, what kind of suggestions that they had. What I was left with was this mass database of information and I was able to see, okay, here's where we go next. And so I think if you also put the time in up front, I mean, this is where A lot of people are so focused on, you know, getting the doors open, getting the business up and running. I mean, that's my time to, like, learn exactly who my customer is.

So we are running super tight in time. But I got to get the last question. Question in. You've grown a multi million dollar business where. What are the hours at the peak of your business? What were the hours you were working the peak of your success? Five hours a week. Right? Multimillion dollar business, five hours a week. That is an aspiration for, I think everyone in this room, for so many people, what's the first step to getting there? What can people listening to show Lisi do starting today to achieve what you've achieved?

I think the first step is to know the model of the infrastructure you're looking to build, and I mean literally the team and to map their responsibilities clearly. And once you've mapped those responsibilities, that's when it's time to open up your little virtual operations manual and start writing it out. I mean, that's. It's step one, two and three, and it works every single time.

Boom. Boom. All right, everyone, Lisi's story is going to be in Clockwork. Now, I know we're recording this on Halloween. Believe it or not. This doesn't broadcast until January 1st of 2018. So I know it's the new year. Clockwork is online and available, but you may want to get hold of Leci directly. Lisi, can you share any contact information ways people can find out more about you and your business?

If you head to lecyker.com I'm going to pray that you actually put a link to that so no one has to.

It's in the show notes. It's in the show notes.

That's going to be the best way. You could totally fill out a form on there and get in contact with our team.

Good. And everyone read her story. It's unbelievable what Lisi has done. It's the goal of so many entrepreneurs and she's one of the rare few to pull it off. And she made it so simple. Lisi, thank you for sharing your story with us today.

Thanks a million, Lisi.

Thank you.

Thank y' all.

Do you know the name of that guy at the unitard? His professional wrestling name? I found out.

What is it?

We have recording. Here's this introduction.

Fat Daddy Fat back.

That's right. He was. He was the original Fat daddy fat back.

You know what I keep picturing? Do you guys remember Billy Madison?

Yes. Oh, my God.

Billy Madison.

Yes.

Wrestling career and they pull up the old magazine with him.

I always thought the unitard was like where one nip is covered and it goes way down and the other one's exposed for men. I thought that was it. Like, it's the. It covers once one side like a picture.

What you are.

I know you think what you're saying.

But it's like, why one nip and not the other?

I don't know, I swear. It's just, it's like once. It's like. You ever see like overalls where people have the one? It's actually intentionally designed that way. I'm have to look it up on the net.

Yeah, I think I know what you're talking about, but no.

I was into wrestling for about two, three years.

Were you?

My brother in law is huge and he'll go to these like amateur wrestling events. Yeah.

Interesting.

The amateur ones are the best. They're so ridiculous.

Yeah, he said it's really absurd.

So my brother in law's all into it and he's like, it's real, you know, I'm like, it's not real, dude. Like, you don't walk up someone, you hit a piece of furniture over their head and they stand back up and suplex you. He's like, it's real. He talks just like that.

Just like that.

I'm like, how do you know it's real? Because I do. Because it's real.

How old is he? Is he like 12 year old?

I was just gonna say my brother in law who's six. No, he's. He's older than that. He's seven. All right, guys, here's what we're gonna do. We are gonna recap what we learned today. We're going to do some listener mail and we're gonna have fun overall. But first, my friends, I want to thank our corporate partners. Make the show a reality.

Thank you.

Why don't you, why don't you two handle it while I get my little show notes sorted out here? Is that cool? Can you two handle it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Go. Roll.

Next Stiva VoiceOver IP, the best phone system ever. And they link to your cell phone. Did you know that if you don't answer in the office, you can forward it to your phone? I think there's a text in thing too, if I'm not mistaken for support.

Yeah, and they're just releasing what's called NEXT os, which is a CRM. You know how we use Zoho right now? It's not picking on Zoho, but it's Supposed to be, like, 100 times better. And I saw demos of it. If this is what they showed. Oh, my God. We're one of the first businesses that's going to be getting a test run of it.

Nice.

So you two get ready. Supposedly.

Okay.

Yeah. It's exciting.

All right, who else you got?

Receipt Bank. You can scan your receipts with your phone, and it'll link up right to your QuickBooks or Xero or whatever. Your accounting system is beautiful.

Pure efficiency.

And our favorite friends at Fundbox, if you have a client that's not paying you and you need that moolah right away, reach out to Fundbox, fill out a form. They'll hook you up. They were forward. They will forward the funds to you. When your client pays you, you pay them back.

Like, that was a lot of Fs.

It was a lot of Fs. Fun Box is amazing. So I had to call Joanna because, like, there was this question, like, are they sponsoring us anymore? Like, do we know? So I call her. I go, joanne, are you sponsoring? She goes, yeah. And I go. She goes, I love Private first Podcast. Like, it's awesome. Like, we. We didn't process the payment because we're not sure. She's like, oh, I don't know if you can process the payment.

I'm like, I thought we totally endorsed.

I know, I know, but I'm like, I thought you were sponsoring. She goes, yeah. I'm like, joanna, what are you saying? She's like, I gotta go on vacation. No light. She goes, I gotta go on vacation. See ya. Let's talk in a couple. Chat soon. Let's talk in a couple weeks. So she's smart. I like how she rolls.

Yeah.

All right. I know we got some listener mail that came in, and should we do our summary first or listener mail summaries? Okay, let's do summaries. What did you learn, Christina?

Oh, man. This was such, like, an impactful episode. I think the biggest thing for me is opening the door to why, you know, why? Why, why, why?

Why?

Stop it. No. Why does this potential employee feel this way? Who are they as a person? Why does this client feel this way? That question is so impactful. If you think about it and you just. You just kind of open the door to it.

Bazinga. Oh, yeah, Bazinga on that one. That's nice.

So what'd you learn?

That's to you, Kal.

Thanks.

I feel like I learned so much today. First of all, I love the interview process. I think that's fantastic. I love having Peers interview. And I love having random, not random, but trusted community members outside to give you a different perspective. I also just love in general where I feel like she's a very genuine person who has remained humble or at least very honest with where she's at and changing courses. And I think that she led with curiosity and a genuine want to serve a community. Not about her ego or, you know, making a lot of money, but she happened to do that in the process. But just a very genuine intention to serve, which is really wonderful.

Yeah, I agree 100% with that. Such a good person. Yeah, I love when good, good guys, I'm doing quotes for you. Good guys win.

It's so inspiring.

It's so inspiring. And. And she went out with the intention of protecting and serving her family. Right. Financially, but also having impact on her clientele. The fact that she picked up the phone and call 400 people, really to understand what the community needs and the.

Fact to genuinely understand, not just like, let's do a survey and see, like.

How can I sell you more stuff. Yeah, no, it was really genuine. And she's in communities that are lower income communities and don't necessarily have access to higher end fitness facilities. But that's what she's having. She's having these higher end facilities there.

Yeah.

But also knowing how to break things down for her employees, not having to put all the pressure on them. And what you said about task based metrics, saying, hey, don't worry about the big number, just this is your task for the day. How many of this do we need to do for the day? Like, I feel like that creates so much more of an enjoyable work environment.

And I also like how she said it's a very different metric for the owner.

Right.

And the top managers as opposed to, you know, the workers or at each level of management. It's a very different metric. And I think that's a really important distinction that I don't think of at our organization necessarily.

Yeah, yeah, agreed. Totally agreed. I thought she protected the team too. The team is cared for and protected. And when she had certain challenges that she was taking the brunt of it. So she had a complaining customer, someone that was upset. She's taking it. She's not like, oh, she's not deferring to other people. So those most difficult challenges, she protects the team and takes them. And running everything by metrics. Holy cow. The fact she works five hours a week, that's amazing. Freaking believable.

Amazing.

But she has her finger now. I spent two hours with her on the phone interviewing her. She has her finger so on the pulse with this one. Very sophisticated, but one spreadsheet, and she goes in there and she knows when a number's out of whack.

Whoop.

I need to fix that. All right, let's do our listener mail real quick.

So this comes in from Linda Brown. I'm wondering if there's a particular bookkeeping system that Mike recommends to go with Profit first.

Linda, here's your answer. No, there is no particular bookkeeping system. That's the beauty of Profit first. Works with any system. It's independent of your accounting system. Actually, it's like an umbrella that sits over it. All right. Is that simple? Hope that helps.

Wow.

All right, we gotta get out of here.

Let's skedaddle.

Yeah, you gotta do it. You gotta say, you know, follow.

That's right.

You always get into. You start shaking the head.

Dancing music.

It's the music.

I'm sorry.

So leave us a comment. Give us a rating on itunes. Stitcher, Tune in radio, Google Play. And of course, head over to profitfirstpodcast.com to see all of our goofy pictures and posts. Yeah, and then click on over to profitfirstprofessionals.com.

Yep. Share your show with your amigos, too. They want to hear about us and we want them following us and learn about this stuff. So please do share and don't forget to join us. You know, next week we have a best of. And then the week after, we have the fabled famed Dori Clark joining us. Love her. She's going to be talking about her brand new book, the Entrepreneurial youl and how to make multiple income streams come into your business. And in the meantime, there's one more thing you can do. You can make your business more profitable than ever before. It's real simple. Go to Profit first professionals dot com. Yep, there's a brand new website. Check it out. Click on find and we'll hook you up with a Profit First Professional. The person who's certified in the Profit first method. An accountant, a bookkeeper, or coach. And they will drive your business to the highest levels of profit ever, ever, ever. All right, let's get out of here.

Bye.

We're grunting for you, Sam.