MBA1902 Stop Working With Jerks + Free Ride Friday

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Hey oh. Welcome to the Hunter. Welcome to the RBA show where businesses are passionate every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my co founder back in 2014 and today's episode is Free Ride Friday. On Free Ride Fridays, we give away a lifetime membership to one of our programs. If you want to win a lifetime membership, just go ahead and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and you enter our weekly random draw. Listen in on Friday to see if you you won. It's that simple. We'll be announcing this week's winner at the end of the episode. In today's lesson, you will learn why you need to stop working with jerks. One of the beauties of being an entrepreneur is that you get to create your own world. This is something I learned from Derek Sivers and his book Anything youg Want. You get to create your own business utopia. One of the things I've learned over the years as an entrepreneur is you really need to take advantage of the perks, the advantages of being an entrepreneur because it makes it worthwhile, because it's super hard, it's very challenging. As you know, so it's important that you actually get to do the things that most people can't do, and that's control their environment. Too many entrepreneurs that I've known and worked with will work with real jerks, annoying people, dirtbags, a holes, whatever you want to call them, people that just are not fun to be around with. We hire them because they're incredibly talented. We work with them because they're a client and they're gonna pay us money. We put up with them because it's a partnership and it'll be good marketing or pr. I'm here to tell you you need to stop doing this because it is affecting your business, your brand, and how you ultimately serve your customers. I'm gonna share a few stories from my own experience about how I used to do this and decided to stop and how I stopped and what was a wake up call. Business, as hard as it is, you got to make sure you don't make it harder on yourself by not working with jerks. I'll talk about why and how and how to get started in today's episode. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business.

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Many of us think that we need to put up with certain types of people that make our life unpleasant, that make our work life incredibly difficult because of the value they add, because they might be incredibly brilliant or talented or do a great job or they're bringing in business. We justify the means, but the problem is that their attitude and the effect they have on your business just doesn't go away. It actually makes a mark on your business that even after you stop working with them, is hard to kind of correct. It's hard to erase. I remember about a decade ago I was running a business consulting firm and I used to do a lot of website design, used to do a lot of branding, a lot of logo design. And I was working with this client that was really, really difficult to work with. They were rude, they were really obnoxious, and they were just downright mean. And I just put up with it because I needed the work. And I thought, hey, what's the big deal? I'll just ignore it. Then I read the book, Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port. And he has this philosophy in the book called the Red Velvet Rope Policy. And the gist of this policy is to prune your clients and cut out the duds, the ones that SAP you of your energy and creat. And this client I'm talking about, they were one of these clients. I finally got the courage to say, I don't really care about the money this person is bringing me in. I'm just going to prune them. I'm going to do what the book says and I'm going to hope for the best. And I had to say no to them. I said, hey, we're not going to work together anymore. I can refer you to somebody else if you'd like, but right now I'm unable to take your work on. Luckily, I did not actually recommend them to anybody. I think that's just what I said to them because I didn't know how to phrase it, but I knew how to cut them out. They just totally ghosted me and were completely rude. Didn't even thank me for the time we worked together. And I was super polite about it and thanked them for the opportunity to work with them. Now, mind you, I was super nervous about cutting this client off. But what I realized is that I felt this burden off my shoulders when I did this. And all of a sudden, I was so much more inspired. I was being more creative, I was more free. I wasn't bogged down by the negativity of this client working with them day in and day out. And I was able to get new clients that paid me double than what they were paying me. So it all worked out. But I just couldn't see it in the beginning because I was just seeing what's right in front of me saying, I have to have this client, otherwise, you know, I won't be able to pay the bills. And that's fine in the beginning because I understand people need to, you know, put food on the table, but over time of dealing with the same kind of people, it's going to affect your work, your creativity, and you're able to produce great work. And I really saw that firsthand. What I realized from that experience is that, you know, life is just way too short for me to be spending my time with somebody that doesn't excite me, that doesn't really inspire me or make me feel good or give me energy. After talking to them, Business is as hard as it is. You don't need to do this in another situation. Over the course of the last seven plus years, we've hired so many people and worked with so many people when it comes to webinar ninja. I hired a very, very talented person to join our team. And they were incredibly good at what they did and they took on a lot of responsibility and, you know, for all intents and purposes, their work was pretty solid. But their attitude was absolutely toxic. And I didn't see in the beginning because I was just so impressed by the work that I kind of just ignored it. I kind of knew about it, but I just kind of ignored, you know, the attitude they had, the way they treated other people. They treated people with disresp. It was very kind of underhanded and not very obvious. They would basically make people feel uncomfortable in meetings because of how rude and bossy they were. And I was really breaking our values as a company for the sake of great work. And I thought, you know, it's okay. Sometimes this is going to happen and it's good because they're going to produce something great for the customers and it's good for the company. I justified it. But one day I started to realize, you know what? Everybody in the team, all the team, as the team was growing, I realized this person is affecting so many people and making their job harder and not as enjoyable and it's causing a higher likelihood for turnover because of this one person and their attitude. Now, as good as their work was and as solid and responsible as they were, I had to cut my losses. And it was a tough one. But. But the aha moment came in a meeting one time where it was just so obvious the way they were treating other people. And I thought, you know what? This just doesn't feel right. I left the meeting feeling demotivated. It felt bad. I felt, I'm not doing my job as a leader. That should not happen on my watch. And from there we realized, okay, we're going to have to cut this person loose. As good as they are, we can find somebody that can do just as good of a job, but with a great positive attitude. That's infectious. That makes people happy. The funny thing is that the impact this person made kind of lasted for a while. After they left, months later, people had a hard time speaking up in meetings because they're just used to being quiet based on the way things were before. And as hard it is for me to admit I made this mistake and even to share this with you on the podcast. It's quite a personal experience. I know other people out there are going to possibly make this mistake and I want to help you out. If you've made this mistake or you're in the middle of it right now, or if you're about to make this mistake, it's not worth it. One of the things I say and try to remind myself of a lot is I cannot train somebody to have a good attitude, to have a good demeanor. You could train people on skills and knowledge and you can, you know, get them to take online courses and degrees and do professional development. So even if somebody doesn't have all the skills and the qualifications that you need to do the job, but they have potential, have attitude, and they would be a great fit for your team and would contribute beyond their job description, meaning they just are a positive person to be around. Super helpful, friendly. That stuff is priceless. You can't train that. You have to want to do that. And these are the things I look for whenever we're hiring.

Okay. Does this happen to anybody else? You sit down with a juicy cute PC, some McNuggets and those golden fries from McDonald's. Then you take a long sip of your Sprite because you can still hear your mama saying, don't fill up on that drink before you eat your food. But you're grown now, so you do what you want.

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To wrap up today's lesson, what are the best pieces of advice I got from a friend of mine, Noah Kagan, who is the founder and CEO of AppSumo, is after you interview somebody that is going to join your team or possibly join your team, how do you feel after the interview? Do you feel energized? Do you feel positive? Did you kind of feel like that talk ended too early? You wish you can talk more? Would you have a drink or a meal with this person afterwards if you could? If the answer is no, ask yourself why this is somebody you're going to have to work with day in and day out. Not only that, this is somebody everybody on your team is getting to work with. What I've learned over the years is that there's absolutely no reason to hire somebody that doesn't pass the vibe test. Right? And that goes whether you're hiring somebody on your team or they're a client or even a partnership. Don't work with them. If They're a jerk. Thanks so much for listening. But today's episode is not over. It's Free Ride Friday. Let's see who won this week's Free ride. We're giving away a lifetime membership to our automated webinar challenge over@webinarninja.com AWC. When enrollment opens, you will have free Access. It's a $99 value. 30 days to master automated webinars to automate your leads and sales for your business. Let's see who won this week's free ride. And the winner is. Marianne 1151. That's a handle on Apple podcasts. They say great show. 5 stars. Each episode is long enough to enjoy, but short enough not to get bored. The topics are interesting and worthwhile. I'm hooked. Thank you Marianne for that great review. Your mission is to email me over@omar00nba.net so I can hook you up with the free ride to the automated webinar challenge over@webinarninja.com AWC if you want to win a free ride just like Marianne, go ahead and leave us an Apple podcast rating and review and you enter our weekly random draw we call Free Ride Friday. Listen in on Friday, just like today, to see if you won. It's that easy. It's our way to say thanks for showing us love on Apple Podcasts. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. At the end of the day, your business, your product, your service is only as good as your team. And your team is just not going to perform at its best if they're walking on eggshells because of somebody, if they are worried they're going to get shot down if they can't feel comfortable to share their ideas. This is something I learned the hard way and shared with you today. And I've learned over the years that the more you invest in your team, the better your business becomes. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you on Monday's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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Okay. Does this happen to anybody else? You sit down with a juicy cute PC, some McNuggets and those golden fries from McDonald's. Then you take a long sip of your Sprite because you can still hear your mama saying, don't fill up on that drink before you eat your food. But you're grown now, so you do what you want.

Share and share alike with the 20 piece McNuggets from McDonald's for just $6 limited time only. Price and participation may vary. Cannot be combined with any other offer.