Creating Freedom In Your Business With Chris Moore

Welcome back to the show. I'm your host Phil Risher and on today's episode we have Chris Moore with us. We're going to be discussing how to find freedom in your business while also growing your profits and revenue. Chris man, thanks so much for joining us today.

Hey, thanks for having me on, Phil.

Yeah, absolutely. Chris and I got connected through just networking with different people and we met for a mini one to one and he adds so much value and I say Chris, you got to come on because he works with contractors and local service businesses which are a lot of people that listen to this show and he helps them scale their business. The way that he knows how to do is he actually built three multi seven figure businesses and now he coaches business. So pre call we were talking. So you kind of grew up in the trades is a little bit. Your dad owned an irrigation business, is that right?

Yeah, so I, I grew up, my dad was that, that entrepreneur self employed. My, my entire life, most of that was spent in the irrigation industry. I remember wanting to have a job back into the fourth grade. I was always motivated to make money and do something. And so he told me go out through central Oregon, I lived in Redmond, Oregon as a small town at the time and go out and see if you can get a job. And nobody would hire me. I was in fourth grade and so eventually he hired me and my job, he'd put pumps and wells and as he's putting those pumps in the wells, my job was to tape the electrical wires to the pipes. So I grew up in the trades.

That's pretty cool. And you ended up, you were in the Marines, right? You did you go straight out of school into the marines or how did that work?

Right out of high school I was not the one that was supposed to go into the military. I was the one in high school that was supposed to go to New York or LA to pursue an acting career. But I'm also kind of a contrarian. I don't always do what's expected of me. And so I did really well on the ASVABs and there was just something about the military that called to me and maybe the, the marine commercials at the time of the few, the proud the marines and the uniforms and, and honestly what it really was was I, I did so well in the asvab. I went into the, the Air Force, the army and the Navy and they said oh, you can do whatever you want to do and, and I go into the Marine recruit and like you can do whatever you want to do. If you can make it through boot camp. And I was kind of like, man, I will so show you I can make it through your little boot camp.

Yeah. And, and how did you. So you were in the Marines for what? Seven, seven years or how long? Eight years. Okay. And then you decided that you were going to leave the Marines and go pursue business or how did that transition happen?

Well, there were some changes in the Marines at that time. And if I'm being honest, I felt like I was kind of an underpaid babysitter. And you know, there were some things that I wanted to do professionally in the Marines, but they had put enough money into my education and weren't willing to allow me to go in a particular direction. And so I decided it was time for me to, you know, make my own direction. And so then I went to Portland State University, studied marketing and management. And then after that, you know, I started working for my dad just because my stepmother was diagnosed with cancer and he was busy taking care of her.

Wow, so you went back to the irrigation business?

I did for a while. Not because I really wanted to.

Yeah.

You know, and to be honest with you, it was one of those things is I, I'm there working, I'm thinking, man, I don't want to be digging ditches for the next 40 years. Yeah. And so I, I tried to move more into the business development side of things and that just really wasn't my dad's vision for, for me, you know, I was going to be the heir apparent, but it was always going to be, I'm out digging ditches and laying some pipe.

Wow. And so you ultimately ended up building three multi seven figure businesses. How did you get to that point? Or what did you do next? Or what was it?

Yeah. And so what's real interesting, kind of even before that, my dad helped me build some smaller businesses while I was in high school. So it wasn't, they weren't really my first, but I did have some experience in doing some small businesses. But my first one, we started in the late 90s, ended up having a partner of mine, his name's Mike, he passed away, I don't know, about 12 years ago, but we started a laptop distribution business in the late 90s where people could order laptops online. And we were, we were just drop shipping them anywhere from Kansas to Qatar and just had amazing success with that. We were one of the first ones online where you could actually customize the computers, buy them without operating system. We had partnered with Red Hat Linux and had some our own Distributions of Red Hat Linux for, for laptops. So we're really kind of, I don't know, really forward thinking in the industry at that time.

Yeah. And I think at one point you were doing some IT services type business, like service type business.

Yeah, that was my, that was my third one kind of moving forward from that, that laptop business. You know, one of the biggest challenges that I had and being a small business, even with that laptop business, we, we went from 0 to 4 million in sales at 16% profit. 2 idiots in a small 800 square foot home in called Boring Oregon. And yes, that is a real place. But, but cash flow was always an issue for us. Fortunately with some of our suppliers being some Chinese manufacturers, they didn't like to pass up on any business and so they oftentimes would hold some paper for us, but they didn't like to hold it very long. So we, we could feel some of those cash flow crunches as well. And Fast forward to 2004. You know, Marines, we like to take lemons and make lemonade. And so being the cash flow was kind of our issue. I remember going to our bank, I'm not, not going to name the bank, but a regional bank, actually it's a national bank now, and asked them for some help and there was just nothing that they could do to help me. And I had, I don't know, three quarters of a million in receivables that I was sitting on at that time and nothing that they would help me with. So I found and some alternate financing from commercial finance association.org and I was like man, I found some other lenders. Why didn't my, my banker tell me about this? Right? I was like, you know what, I think I want to work with some business owners and I'm going to start a commercial finance brokerage and I'm going to have some relationships with some of these lenders because I'm sure that there's other business owners out there that could really utilize these services. So then I don't know how, but by the grace of God ended up getting some textile companies in North Carolina and South Carolina that were doing business with me. And then I'd get people to say, hey Kris, do you, you know, do this kind of financing, this kind of asset based lending? And my answer was always the same. I don't know, let me see what underwriting says, what that was really code for. I was just going to go back to Commercial Finance association, find a lender that had an appetite for what they had, set up a relationship and just gather the information, man. That worked out well for a number of years. And then back in 2006, 2007, I could feel the finance market really starting to tighten. And so I told my business partner, I said, mike, you know, I want to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. You need to buy me out. And he bought me out. Then, of course, we know how 2008 had happened, and I'd helped a number of people transition from some of their industries. Like, I had a friend that was in the mortgage industry. Needless to say, the mortgage industry got hit super hard in 2008, and he decided he wanted to be in it and helped him grow his business in it. Then I'm sitting there, 2009, I'm like, man, I still haven't figured out what I want to be when I grow up. I know it. I can share it in complex things with people, make it real simple. So why don't I get in? I still want to work with business owners. So I ended up starting a managed service IT business here locally and had some great success with that. So 2016 rolls around. I've got an amazing company. But the reality was, is, man, I was just kind of phoning it in. I wasn't passionate about anything. And so I hired one coach, and I'm sure he was an amazing coach, but maybe it just was kind of the wrong time for me or I just wasn't quite ready or, I don't know, just something. But he didn't work out for me. But I ended up hiring a second coach, and his name was Dennis. He still coaches me to this day. And I loved working with him, and his job was to help me scale my business. Long story short, he said one day, Chris, I think you'd make an amazing coach. I'm like, Dennis, I'm a Marine, man. I need to stay focused. Don't distract me with crap like that, right? But it got me starting to think, man, if he. If he really helps me scale my business, am I going to be fulfilled? And here I was, 44 at the time, and the answer was no. It's like, what now? I'm 44. What now? And I only. I knew a couple things. I wanted to have more influence. I wanted to take from the successes. And let's get real. Some of the failures of, you know, running businesses, it's not all a white picket fence, right?

We know that.

So I wanted to take from some this almost two decades of experience, and I wanted to work with business owners. Those were the three things that I knew. So I'm sitting there with that and I'm thinking, man, what do I want to do? I was like, sounds kind of like coaching. It's like ate a little bit of humble pie. It's like, dennis, I need to get certified through your organization, which led me down a whole path to where I'm at today.

Wow. Well, yeah. Thank you for sharing that. I think it helps give context of. I think a lot of times people that are coaches, right, you see them on social media and stuff, it's like, well, have you ever really done this before? And it's like, yes, you have done this before. You've been through the ups and the downs, and more importantly, you're trying to find what you're passionate about. And I think you're. It's very important to do things not just to get the money out of it, but also to be in your zone of genius, which it sounds like you found. And you also had the experience to help people. One of the things that we were discussing was about your five stages of freedom that you have.

Yes.

Can you share a little bit about that? Because I think a lot of business owners, they're stuck or they feel like they're in the ironic imprisonment of entrepreneurship. They have all these weight, these weights on their shoulders. They don't feel. You know, a lot of times we get into business because we want to be free. We want to make all this money. But can you share maybe what those five things are? If there's one in particular that you think people would. Would be start with or.

Yeah. Well, with the five steps to five steps, five stages to freedom, every business is going to be somewhere on the continuum. Okay. It starts off with creation, or what most people will call startup, and it ends with freedom. Because the reality is, is that business owners, they want freedom of time, freedom of money, freedom of relationships, and freedom of purpose. Those are the four key areas, four freedoms that most business owners really want to have. But the first two, the freedom of time and freedom of money, are the big challenges that they have trying to really get there. So the first phase is in the startup, and this is where a lot of business owners go wrong. There's a number of things that they can be doing in their business that are foundational, that will not just impact the startup phase, but every phase thereof. And so the next phase is what we call the chaos phase. And we've color coded that red because the chaos phase is that phase where it's, man, there's too much month at the end of the money, our, our bank accounts are redlining. We need some help. If we could just get to that point to where we're flush. And so that's, that's why we've called that the, the chaos phase. And then the next phase, which is where a lot of those businesses really want to get to, is what we call that control phase. Man, I've got things a little under control. I'm able to start taking some money. But what I found is these businesses can easily go back into that chaos phase if they, they get a little bit big for their britches and start spending too much money. And so, and then the next phase from that is the prosperity phase, where there's a lot of different areas where they can go into some vertical markets or do other things in that prosperity ph, which then leads those owners into the freedom phase.

Nice. I think when you mentioned about the freedom of time, money relationships, those types of things, that's from the book who, Not How. And one of the big ones that really strikes me a lot is when people start getting money and they. There's a quote in there that says if you have the money to solve a problem, you don't have a problem. But I think a lot of people hold on to the money as the profit, as it's like this sacred thing, which, not that it's not, but at a certain point you have to be buying back your time and solving these problems. And everyone wants to get to that phase, but they're stuck in that chaos phase of not having any control over anything. And so, yeah, I think that's, yeah, that's something that's very important. We recently had John Warlow on, and we were talking about the Value Builder and Built to Sell and his model and those types of things. And you're certified in his, in his programs for the Value Builder, is that right?

Yeah, I'm an actual certified value builder advisor.

Okay. And so of the eight Value builder kind of pillars or whatever he calls them, what would you say is like one or two of the most important ones for a lot of these people when they think about their business?

Well, there's one that most people and most advisors that business owners will surround themselves with that they will focus on solely. And that's the financial aspect. Let's get real. You know, any, anything that's going to be based around the value is going to be based off of their ebitda. Right. But there's other things that they can do with their business that will help or hinder the value of their business. One of the ones that, that resonated most with me, especially with my managed service business. And probably one of the main reasons why I went into managed service business was recurring revenue. If you can build that base and not have to trade time versus dollars, man that, that really helps you out. I had a commercial location on a main street in our local area and there were five computer stores at one point on that, on that street. And because I focused on small business and because I had that recurring revenue, I was the last man standing. They didn't, they didn't change their business model to meet the demands of the market. As we were having more of the cell phones, the tablets, the low cost laptops coming into place where everything was disposable, these repair shops, they just weren't changing and so they ended up going out of business because they didn't have that recurring revenue model.

Yeah. His other book, the Automatic Customer is basically talking about that. I think a lot of times for our audience like okay, irrigation for example. Yeah, you could sell irrigation, maintenance services and those types of things over a long haul. But if like a carpet cleaning company, it's really hard for them to find those automatic type of con. Maybe they come up with some type of a contract or something. One of the interesting ones that we help businesses do is working with like B2B partners. So if you're, if, if you're a mover building a relationship with a bunch of realtors that would refer you business creating that automatic flow. So you're not, because you mentioned about selling one to one for the next job when you really just want to have that steady flow of money coming in and those jobs coming in. I think one of the other pillars that he has on there is the hub and spoke.

Yes.

Yeah, that one I think is extremely difficult for people to break out of. But also the biggest growth factor for a lot of these people is to get out of their own way. Have you seen some impacts or had experience of helping people solve that problem?

Yes. So you know, I think that that's probably one of the biggest challenges that keep people over in the self employed. If you think of Robert Kiyosaki's cash flow quadrant that keep them in the self employed rather than actually being a business is really that hub and spoke really feeling they need to be at the center of everything. And the reality is they don't. What that does is it causes more frustration because if they're at the center and everything revolves around them, how are they going to Take a vacation. How are they going to get that time away? Essentially, all they're doing is building themselves a job. And so the whole goal is to be able to take that business owner out. And this is where that's important when it comes to that, the value building. Because when you get somebody that comes to want to buy your business, whether it's an investor or it's an employee that buys it, or you're transferring it to kids, whatever that looks like, eventually, at some point, if you're the hub, you've got to be taken out. And so then the question is, what happens to that business when you're taken out? So if you can focus on the structure of your business not being that hub and spoke, it makes you as a business more attractive and more valuable, and it really helps give you, as that business owner, some of that freedom of time.

Yes. Is there some. Any simple strategies or. Or scenarios that you could help coach someone through that? Like, think about an H VAC contractor, their million dollars, $2 million. They're running, the sales calls, they're running to production. How do you, if you're sitting down with them, like, what's the first thing that you attack? Do you. How do you. How do you. How do you solve that problem? Because they're probably chaos, you know?

You know, I'm so glad that you asked that, because that is like, one of the first things I will address with clients. Even before their clients, I'll ask them, how many hours a week are you working? And they'll be like, 50, 60, 70, 80 hours a week. And then I'll ask them, how many hours a week do you really want to work? They'll give me, you know, 30, 40, sometimes 50. I'm like, okay, great, we've got this delta of 20 to 40 hours. What's your plan to figure that? And you and I both know they'll say, I don't have a plan. I already know this. And then really dive in deep. How's that impacting your life? You know, how is that working with your spouse, working with your kids? When was the last time you were able to take that vacation? Right. So we're identifying this problem, and then we'll get to the point that, Kris, I'm so busy, I don't even have time to work with you as a coach. Right. And so that's what I'll tell them, man, that's why my first job as a coach is really to help you or them find seven hours of work time back. So one of the biggest Things, and it's so uncomfortable for them, but it's amazingly productive. I'll have them write down on a calendar how they spend every 15 minutes of every day for a week. And most of them are like, seriously, you want me to do this? I'm like, hey, this, you know, this is. This is the first step in the process. And I think one of the reasons why a lot of them are hesitant to do that is I call it the pulling. Pulling back the sheets and seeing that the emperor's got no clothes, having to do with their times. But I get into that also with their finances as well. But once we do that, we sit down and we identify. Okay, let's take a look. What's a priority? Okay. What are you really good at? What do you really love to do? What do you hate to do? Okay, let's identify. Okay. Why do you have to be the one that does that thing that you hate to do? And kind of like, you mentioned that. Who, not how, who can do that for you? Yeah. Oftentimes I'll say, well, you know, if I don't. If I don't do it myself, it just doesn't get done right. Well, is that because you haven't properly trained your people? Is it because you have issues of trust? This now, that gets into some of my training and some organizational health where I've been trained with Patrick Lencioni's five behaviors and the pyramid that he's got there working on that base of trust. And if they can't trust their employees and their staff, then they can't have productive conflict. If they can't have productive conflict, there's not going to be any commitment. No commitment, no accountability. No accountability, no results. And that's what you need to work on. That's the structure, is having that pyramid. But the problem is a lot of business owners, what they want to do is they want to flip that upside down and they want to focus on results only. And then what happens when you've got that pyramid upside down? Guess what's unstable in every single direction.

Yeah.

The organization. And so I come in and help those organizations really create and start with that, that baseline of trust.

Yeah, it makes sense. So if I'm hearing what you're saying, it's not as simple as just, hey, hire someone to do your production. It's, you gotta kind of audit your time, figure out what you're doing, make sure that you're building a solid, quality business from a foundation perspective, not just.

Like, throw money at problems, you know, and sometimes It's. I'll work with some of those smaller clients that they. They just started their business and they're in the trades. They love what they do because they're. They're a craftsman, say, finish carpentry of some sort. Right. And they love what they do. And so then they. They've gotten. Gone out, they've gotten a few jobs, maybe gotten in a little over their head, hire a couple friends that they knew that are in the industry. Oh, my goodness. Now, got to start a business. Got to get a hold construction contractor board. Got to do all this insurance and all this business administration stuff. And they're like, man, I didn't sign up for that. I just want to do my skill. And that's where I've worked with some business owners. And I'm like, that's great. Well, then your first hire isn't somebody else to get you out of that. You know, if you want to stay in that trade, let's hire somebody that can be a business admin. Yep.

Yeah. What do you like?

I like that. That. That the. The artwork and the pride that comes with doing that. Great. Do that. Then you don't have to be, you know, be running the admin side of your business. You can still be an owner and not have to do the admin side. Oh, that's. That's okay. Finding out what it is they really want to do so that they can live a fulfilled life.

Yeah. I think what it boils down to is, like, what's your goal? If you. If you enjoy doing your sales and you like it jazzes you up in the morning to go and do sales, then build a business that allows you to do that.

Yeah.

Yeah. So inside a value builder, I've gone through some of the stuff, but I took the assessment. There's a. There's an assessment you can take to kind of see, like, where is your business value worth? If you were to sell it now, the goal might not be to sell it. It might be to just have freedom, which is why we all get into business, in my opinion. And I got a score of 74, which I think is decent. Pretty good, maybe.

That's. That is really good. However, you can score 74. It's not about the overall score. One of the things that you should have gotten via email right away when you took it is you'll get a quick little snapshot, and it will go through the. The eight key drivers of value in your business, and it will give you, on a scale of 0 to 100, how you rate on each one of those. So you might be particularly high on 2, 3, or even 4. And then you can be really low on, you know, two, three, four of the other ones. But the beautiful thing of that Value Builder score is it gives you an idea, it gives you direction on where to go and what to do.

Yeah, when I took it, I was a little nervous because, I mean, I feel like I have a pretty quality business. You know, I rebuilt to sell, I do traction, you know, a lot of this stuff. But you also, I think everyone is like, it's my business and it's a great business. And I know that's worth a bunch of money. But it's also, you want to benchmark yourself against what is actually the industry saying that your business is worth. And I think that's. I haven't found a place where you can actually go and kind of ask it and get actionable steps of things that you need to work on.

Yeah. And here's one of the things that I find really odd. So one of the reasons why, why the Value Builder really resonated with me, it gets into a story with, with my dad. So after my stepmother passed away, dad was running his business, but honestly just not real passionate about it. And he was like a lot of other business owners. You know, let's keep our verifiable income low and our verifiable expense is high so that our tax burden is low. The problem with that is when you want to transition out of your business, that is not a good equation for value in your business. But that's how a lot of owners run their business. And that's okay at first, but you really need to spend some time and change your business model and change the way that you do things so you can maximize the value of your business. And so my dad's story is here, he, he just wanted to sell his business and he ended up selling it to one of his employees. And that was great. And, you know, initially bought a 44 foot sailboat and sailed up and down the west coast of Mexico for six years. You know, that tough life. He had a really good time, but man, the reason why it was six years is because he ran out of money and had to come home, had to start all over again. And so part of my dad's story on that and why Value Builder is I really wanted to take some of those things that, you know, could have really helped my dad with his business if he would have just stuck it out for, you know, a year, two years, three years, and changed the way that he did his business, he maybe wouldn't have had to come back and start all over again. So my heart is to really help other business owners so they don't have to experience the same thing that my, my dad experienced on that. And. But bringing that down into a lot of some of my other clients we can think of, hey, I'm going to do that when I'm ready to exit my business. But what I'm really finding is the time that you should start thinking about your exit strategy is the time that you are in the growth mode, the time that you're building your business. It doesn't mean that you have to exit at that time that you created, but what that means is that you're being intentional. You're creating a plan so that you don't have to retool your business when you are ready to exit. You're prepared, you're ready to go. And so I'm really bringing some of those tools that we use in value build that are oftentimes meant for those that are ready to exit their business. And we have some amazing tools, but really bringing those down to my clients that are in the growth mode to really help them strategically build and develop a business that's ready to sell when they're ready.

Yeah, I think you. Well, thank you for sharing the story about your dad because that I think for a lot of business owners that are in the slog of things, they're like, that's my dream. But it's also about setting up yourself so that you can live out that dream and you don't have to come back and start over again, but you actually have a plan. I think Mike McCallowicz, he, we had him on the podcast and I think there's a huge misconception that profit is bad. And I guess if you're, you know, 100 million dollar business and you're traded on the New York Stock Exchange, okay, then maybe you can manipulate your profit. But for most of the businesses that are listening to this podcast and that are in business that are under $10 million, profit is a really, really good thing. And you should take the profits and you can even reinvest them back in. But we had another client that I was sitting, that I was sitting down with and he's telling me all about the stuff that he's doing and that he doesn't have any profit. And I'm like, like literally, like shrieking because I'm like, I don't know if that's, that's good, man. So to your point, I think if people are, regardless if you're thinking about selling or not, just having a healthy business to be set up. So that way, if your employees take it over, if you want to pass it down, or if you want to go and sail for six years and have your business running like clockwork or efficiently, you can set it up so that way you don't have to try to fix all your issues. After 20 years of issues, that's a lot of unwinding you have to.

To do, right?

Yeah.

And it can be a lot of change. And then you're spending a lot of time doing some change management because that, that can affect the entire organization as far as your staff and how you do things. Whereas if you're planning that intentionally from the get go, then it's, it's not as big of a change for you, your organization.

I completely agree. If you're looking in at a business and you're trying to figure out what to fix next, how do you go about doing that? Like, what questions would you ask the business owner for you to uncover, okay, we need to fix this problem or that problem. Is there a roadmap or guide?

Yeah. So with our five steps to freedom, we've got 21 silver bullets. And those 21 silver bullets all revolve around three key issues. Time, team, or money. Let's get real. Most of your business challenges are going to revolve around those key things. Time, team, or money. And that we know that in each one of those stages, what are diligent things that are foundational for a business owner to really focus on. And so what we'll do is, well, the initial engagement, usually a client will come to me or somebody will come to me and say, hey, Kris, I've got this big burning bush. Here's my big issue. So of course we'll work on fixing what that issue is. I can't make payroll in 60 days or whatever that is. But then we'll work at finding out what, what, what foundation steps have they laid. Where are they at? One of the biggest things for me as a coach, and I have to know this to work with anybody, we've got to build a relationship of trust. Because I have to know, where are you at really? I'm not going to judge them. I don't care where they're at, but I have to know where they're at. And then the other thing that I need to know is I need to know where is it they want to, to go. Oftentimes business owners Are so beaten down from the day to day, I call it, that they're. They're busy marching around the base of the mountain because they're so busy working in their business, they have no time to work on their business, Right?

Yep.

That they're never able to get to the top because they don't have that vision or those goals to get there. So I help them know where they're at. I help them learn to love life again and have hope for something greater. Identify what that something greater is, and then co create those steps to get them from where they're at to where they want to go. Oftentimes though, when they first come to me, they're just trying to put out fires.

Yeah, you mentioned that there are some foundational pieces that you gotta make sure those are set. Are there any. Is there one or two that you would say, hey, this one's pretty. Usually missed or common issues here or.

Yeah, a strategic plan where we get into mission, vision, values, which the values can really get into, play a role in the culture that the business owners creating. I had had one client that we got to that point and he was like, I don't want to deal with that foo foo crap. I just want to get onto sales. And ended up scaling his business really well. But then the challenge with that was, is that he gives me a call. He's like, chris, I'm having some challenges with a lot of turnover. Like, all right, well, I already know what the issue is. It's like. You do? I'm like, yeah, Remember back here when I said you need to focus on.

Your Got to make sure those are set. Are there any. Is there one or two that you would say, hey, this one's pretty usually missed or common issues here or.

Yeah, a strategic plan where we get into mission, vision, values, which the values can really get into. Playing a role in the culture that the business owners creating. I had your strategic plan, getting your mission, vision, values, and focus on the culture that you want to create. He's like, well, yeah, it's like you told me that was food and you didn't want to focus on that. It's like, okay, where are you going with this, Chris? I'm like, well, the problem is you got the culture that you deserve, not the culture that you wanted to create.

Yep, that's deep. That's deep. And if you're not creating a culture, the culture is creating itself. I think a lot of people miss that you have core values, you just don't know them.

We anticipate that it cost them over a quarter million dollars in mishires. Wow.

Because if you don't have core values, then what are you really hiring for? Just sales acumen or something?

Yeah. You're gonna hire based off of just the job. Then all you're gonna do is you're gonna get a resume in. Okay, this one's good. This one. One client that we got to that point, and he was like, I don't want to deal with that foo foo crap. I just want to get onto sales. And ended up scaling his business really well. But then the. The challenge with that was, is that he gives me a call. He's like, chris, I'm having some challenges with a lot of turnover. Like, all right, well, I already know what the issue is. It's like, you do not. Then you're gonna. This one qualifies to, you know, come in and do an interview. Then you're just going to interview, find out, you know, what their qualifications are. But rarely will they ever ask do they fit into the culture that we're creating, the culture and the values that we have for our employees, that we have, the culture for our sales team and the way we want our customers to see and perceive us, the way we want to relate with our vend. Your culture affects everything about your business. I'm not talking about those mission, vision, and values that you just slap up on your website that have no bearing on what you do. I'm talking about the actual, real culture in your business. You're gonna have one. The real question is, are you being intentional on what it is?

Yeah, speaking.

I'm like, yeah. Remember back here when I said you need to focus on your strategic plan, getting your mission, vision, values, and focus on the culture that. That you want to create? He's like, well, yeah, it's like, you told me that was foo foo crap and you didn't want to focus on that. He's like, okay, where are you going with this, Chris? I'm like, well, the problem is you got the culture that you deserve, not the culture that you wanted to create.

Think about the core values, mission, and that kind of stuff. How do you. How do you coach these business owners where they read the book Traction and they come in on Monday and they are level L10 meetings and mission, core values, and then they read profit first, and then they're on to the next thing, or they read scaling up, and they're on to the next thing. How do you get. How do you get business owners to stick to a plan for a long amount of time when they're all over the place.

Well, the first thing is you have to identify what are the key concepts, what are the key things to really create culture in an organization? And there's four key things that help build culture in an organization. First is you've identified.

That's deep. That's deep. And if you're not creating a culture, the culture is creating itself. I think a lot of people miss that you have core values, you just don't know them.

We anticipate that it cost them over a quarter million dollars in mishires. Wow.

Because if you don't have core values, then what are you really hiring for? Just sales acumen or something?

Yeah. You're going to hire based off of just the values. And these values aren't just, hey, here's the owner's values. These have to be values that are shared by everybody in the organization. And then the second one is language. They're going to have a shared language. Like you. You put me together with another veteran and you introduce us. I'm sorry. It's almost like you're a third cog. Because we get into, you know.

Yeah.

What was your branch? What was your mos? You know, and then. And we. So we get into that camaraderie, which is culture. Right.

She calls it teacher talk. She's a teacher.

Yeah. And then. Then the other. Then the third one is shared practices, the things that you actually do, and then the shared stories. So values, language, practices and stories. So the job. Then all you're going to do is you're going to get a resume in. Okay, this one's good, this one's not. Then you're going to. This one qualifies to, you know, come in and do an interview. Then you're just going to interview, find out, you know, what their qual qualifications are, but rarely will they ever ask. Do. Culture isn't just something that you write down on a piece of paper and say, okay, here's our culture. Everybody read it. Okay. Do they fit into the culture that we're creating? The culture and the values that we have for our. We're good. It's something that you put into practice daily.

Yeah, that's good. I think a lot of times it is frou frou stuff for a lot of people, and they just don't see how it builds. But when you get. When you're starting to scale your business, it's hard to unravel that and start over. I had. I had a client over 5 million in revenue, and he was at the point where he's trying to implement traction and he's got these core values, but he has 40, 50 employees to try to, like, now go and retweak and retool all of them into this process. And to your point, if you just start from the basics and build into it, it's much easier than having to go and retweak everything.

And that's where I'll get. And I'll talk our employees that we have the culture for our sales team and the way we want our customers to see and perceive us, the way we want to relate with our vendors. Your culture affects everything about your business. I'm not talking about those mission, vision, and values that you just slap up on your website that have no bearing on what you do with some business owners away from their business. And I mentioned about one of the questions that I ask about time, but one of the questions that I ask about team is like, man, if you could wave a magic wand and do it all over again, what percentage of your employees would you hire? What do you think the average is?

I would say maybe 50. 60.

Yeah, 50 is the average. I hear 40 to 60. Okay, so now imagine that here they've got 50% of their people that are likely doing 80 to 90% of their revenue, and then you got the other half that are likely pissing off the. I'm talking about the actual, real culture in your business. You're gonna have one. The real question is, are you being intentional on what it is?

Yeah. Speaking about the core values, mission, and that kind of stuff. How do you. How do you coach these business owners where they read the book Traction and they come in on my other employees.

And causing the owner to lose clients?

Yeah.

And I'll ask them, what's your plan? And they're like, man, I didn't even know I had an employee issue.

I was.

Talking. Let's talk. I'm not saying, hey, go in right away and just ax 50% of your workforce. But what I'm saying is we need to create a plan for your team. Sometimes that can be, hey, I want to keep this person, but I can't keep him the way that he is. A local family entertainment company that does bowling and arcades and stuff. They called me up one day and said, hey, we've got a manager of.

One of our locations, and they are level L10 meetings and mission, core values. And then they read profit first, and then they're on to the next thing. Or they read scaling up, and they're on to the next thing. How do you get, how do you get business owners to stick to a plan for a long amount of time when they're all over the place?

Well, the first thing is you have to identify what are the key concepts, what are, we want to keep him, but we can't keep him the way that he is. So I got a hold of the stakeholders, found out what some of the challenges were, asked them if the person knew that they were going to invest in the longevity of his employment. And they said, yeah, we've already had some conversations with them. And they put me together with them and, man, we hit the ground running. I used a tool called the disc assessment to really help him understand how he's wired, the way he communicates. But more importantly, how do his superiors communicate? How do key things to really create culture in an organization? And there's four key things that help build culture in an organization. First is you've identified it values. And these values aren't just, hey, here's the owner's values. These have to be values that are shared by everybody in the organization. And then the second one is language. They're going to have a shared language like you. You put me together with another veteran and you introduce us. I'm sorry, it's almost like you're a third cog, because we get into, you know, what was your branch, what was your mos? So we get into that camaraderie, which is culture.

My wife, she calls it teacher talk. She's a teacher.

Yeah. And then the other, then the third one is shared practices, the things that you actually do, and then the shared stories. So values, language, practices and stories. So culture isn't just something that you write down on a piece of paper and say, okay, here's our culture. Everybody read it. Okay, big, we're good. It's something that you put into practice daily.

Yeah, that's good. I think a lot of times it is fruit, fruit stuff for a lot of people, and they just don't see how it builds. But when you get, when you're starting to scale your business, it's hard to unravel that and start over. I had, I had a client, over 5 million in revenue, and he was at the point where he's trying to implement traction and he's got these core values, but he has 40, 50 employees to try to, like now go and retweak and retool all of them into this process. And to your point, if you just start from the basics and build into it, it's Much easier than having to go and retweak everything.

And that's where I'll get. And I'll talk with some business owners away from their business. And I mentioned about one of the questions that I ask about time, but one of the questions that I ask about team is like, man, if you could wave a magic wand and do it all over again, what percentage of your employees would you hire? What do you think the average is?

I would say maybe 50, 60.

Yeah, 50 is the average. I hear 40 to 60.

Okay.

So now imagine that here they've got 50% of their people that are likely doing 80 to 90% of their revenue. And then you got the other half that are likely pissing off the other employees and causing the owner to lose clients.

Yeah.

And I'll ask them, what's your plan? And they're like, man, I didn't even know I had an employee issue. I was like, well, let's talk. I'm not saying, hey, go in right away and just ax 50% of your workforce. But what I'm saying is we need to create a plan for your team. Sometimes that can be, hey, I want to keep this person, but I can't keep them the way that he is. A local family entertainment company that does bowling and arcades and stuff. They called me up one day and said, hey, we've got a manager of one of our locations. We want to keep him, but we can't keep him the way that he is. And so I got a hold of the stakeholders, found out what some of the challenges were, asked them if. If the person knew that they were going to invest in the longevity of his employment, and they said, yeah, we've already had some of his subordinates communicate. And then we spent some time really coaching him, and I. I absolutely love doing that kind of work.

Yeah, well, I really. You added so much value. And the thing that I really enjoy about your conversation, and more importantly that I value about your opinion, is that you've been in this. You. You are a business guy. You've built businesses that are seven figures. You're not just someone that's read the textbooks and now trying to, like, push yours. Your stuff, you know what it is. So you're not just giving people the frou frou stuff. You're actually saying, hey, I've been there, done that, and here's what I found that works and doesn't work. So if someone is interested in maybe scoring their business or something, how should they get in contact with you? Or what should they do?

Yeah, they can go right to my website biz strategists.com and they can connect through me that I've got. Let's connect all over that website. As far as calls to action, they can schedule a 30 minute call with me. Also, one of the things that would be good for some of your listeners and I'll just put this out there at the top, right hand side are free resources. And so one of the things that I'll offer to your listeners is if they go into those free resources and they do the value builder assessment, get a hold of me and let me know that they came from your podcast. I'll actually give them a complimentary coaching session and also the third, the full 30 page value builder report for free. Normally I charge 495 for that, that but if they let me know they're one of your listeners, I'll give that complimentary.

Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you so much. I think a lot of people, they don't know where they're at and at least this will give them a game plan of like, hey, here's what you got, here's where you're at, here's something that you need to do and I'm sure you know, regardless if they work together or not, at least they have.

Conversations with them and they put me together with them and man, we hit the ground running. I used a tool called the disc assessment to really help him understand how he's wired, the way he communicates, game plan and you know, absolutely, that 30 page report goes through all of those eight key areas, gives them suggestions on that. I'll work on that. They don't have to be a paid client to get that report. The complimentary coaching session is entirely free. While yes, I would love to work, but more importantly, how do his superiors communicate with some of them? You know, if they're ready, willing and able to make change and that's, that's one of the big key things. Just because they might think they want to coach, have the money to hire a coach if they're not his subordinates communicate and then we spent some time really coaching him and I absolutely not ready, willing and able to make change, then coaching is not going to be good for them. I want them to have an amazing experience. I want to build that value for them and their business. I want to create amazing culture where they love going in and going to work, where their employees feel like a sense of belonging, not just fitting in, but this true sense of belonging and love being there so that these Business owners can really embrace those, those four freedoms. And so whether or not they work, we love doing that kind of work.

Yeah, well, I really, you added so much value and the thing that I really enjoy about your conversation and more importantly that I value me.

I'm just happy to, happy to help. I love coaching.

I appreciate that, Chris. Well, thank you so much for your time and thank you for sharing all your wisdom with us and I'll talk to you soon, man.

Absolutely. It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me on today.

You, about your opinion is that you've been in this, you, you are a business guy. You've built businesses that are seven figures. You're not just someone that's read the textbooks and now trying to like, like push your, your stuff. You know what it is? So you're not just giving people the fruit, fruit stuff. You're actually saying, hey, I've been there, done that and here's what I found that works and doesn't work. So if someone is interested in maybe scoring their business or something, how should they get in contact with you or what should they do?

Yeah, they can go right to my website biz strategists.com and they can connect through me that I've got. Let's connect all over that website. As far as calls to action, they can schedule a 30 minute call with me. Also, one of the things that would be good for some of your listeners and I'll just put this out there at the top, right hand side are free.