Is the Team Who Got You Here the Same Team to Keep Your Business Growing?

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek with the favorite niche real estate website, thelandgeek.com and on this week's roundtable podcast, think of, like, the smallest, roundest table you can picture. It's like it's just me and Teria.

Sitting across from that little kindergarten table that's really tiny.

Yeah, yeah. I. My fragile ego doesn't know why the coaches have not showed up. I have a feeling it's my fault that no one knew the time for today's roundtable, but Teresa is here, and so we have actually an interesting topic. So before we get into the topic, just real quickly have to give a shout out to the sponsor, which is flight school. Learn how the next 16 weeks can transform your life. Go up that mountain of land, investing quickly, safely, efficiently with Scott Todd as your Sherpa. And I know what you're thinking, well, how much is all this going to cost? Nothing. Ain't going to cost you nothing. You can make back that money. 180 days or less, guaranteed. Just show us your work. Go to landgeek.comtraining thelangic.com training schedule a call.

Taria.

Harris, what's up?

Putting in the reps. Harris, what's. What's on your mind? What do we. What's our discussion topic?

So I was thinking of kind of talking about something that some of my coaching clients are going through. We're actually in the process of it, too, and it's reevaluating our staff. And so we. We tell all of our people, you know, don't build yourself into a new job. You know, hire these VAs. But I'm not sure we be. We talk about a lot or we emphasize some VAs won't work and some VA stay as long as they can, and they've provided all the value that they can. But if your business has kind of outgrown them, you may need to move on. So I thought, just talking about when VAs, when you reach a pivotal point with a VA, especially someone who's been with you for a while, how do you go about that and when do you know that it may be time to move on?

So these are really good topics, and they are. It's. It's a really good topic because inevitably every entrepreneur goes through the suckiest part of being an entrepreneur, which is having to fire someone that you really enjoy working with. But the business has outgrown their skill set, and it just sucks.

It does.

It really does. And so, you know, when you. You kind of know, you. It's It's a. It. It's not necessarily that the data is going to tell you. You kind of intuitively know that. Okay, what got me here won't get me there.

Correct.

And as you grow as an entrepreneur, the reason that that person was acceptable at that point in time was your level of entrepreneurship, where your level of being a land investor matched probably pretty well with their skill set and you were happy with it. But then as you grow and they have not grown to your new level of competence and understanding and. Or, you know, sometimes your goals are just bigger than their goals.

Right.

The goals aren't aligned. It happens to. It happens to everybody. Like, no one goes unscathed with this topic, so.

Correct.

It's a really good one. What are your thoughts? I don't want to keep rambling here.

No, no. So Landon and I, so we are kind of the yin and yang of higher and fire.

Yeah.

Let's hire you fast. I believe in you. And if things aren't working, let's go ahead and cut our loss and move on. Where he's more of. No, let's give him opportunity and opportunity. So oftentimes we balance each other out really well. What we have noticed that in some areas, we, as a business, we're scaling, we're growing, and we're trying to get, you know, let's say, for example, our sales manager, we're scaling. Can we scale with you? Are you able to kind of scale with us? So initially, we'll try to give you tips like, hey, this is what we want. This is where we're going. This is a direction we want you to go in. And we found that she wasn't very happy with kind of the direction that we wanted to go in. And so we reached a point where it's like, okay, we can't keep dragging you. And we feel like you're dragging us at this point.

So, yeah, I mean that right there. And so every day that that person stays on your team, the team not going to get better.

Correct.

And so from a sporting analogy, coaches have to do this all the time. They. They might love the player, but the city is not happy. The owner's not going to be happy.

Fans aren't.

The fans aren't going to be happy. So your personal feelings aside, like, it's for a bigger. Why it's for a bigger purpose. Like, your land business is bigger than you and land it. And so you're doing it for your customers. You're doing it. If you have investors, you have to do it. What's Right. For your investors. And ultimately, as an entrepreneur, you have to grow.

Correct.

And so you just have to do it. And so it's. You got to rip that band aid off. You have to have a difficult conversation and let them know that this is going to be difficult. It's not easy decision.

Right.

And it's just that as we have grown, I mean, you know, you can. You can. The phraseology isn't as important as the feeling of, we value you.

Right.

You're going to be fine. We're here to support you on your next endeavor. And we just need to. To each, you know, go on and, you know, you provide value for us. There's no doubt you. To be able to provide value for someone else. And, you know, we're. We're. You know, we're always here for you.

Right.

You know, in that capacity. But we now need to go to our. Our next level and move forward.

And so. Mark, can you talk a little bit or. Just a question. What do you say to people who find themselves afraid to do that? Because, you know, there's that saying, the devil I know is better than the devil I don't know. Right. So when they're afraid or more cautious, like, well, I don't want to let her go. No, he or she may not be doing well. But what if I get someone worse?

No. 100%. And I totally get the fear, but it's just fear. And so we can let the fear paralyze us, or we can lean into the fear and do it anyway. Because if we look back at our lives, when has fear ever served us well?

It never does.

It. It only served us well when, you know, a lion was chasing us in the savannah. That's it. Right. So otherwise, today, fear is really just a psychological. It's not. There's. I mean, there's. It's just an issue that you're gonna have to deal with. And so, yeah, I mean, fear of the unknown is just that. But everything that you've done in your life to grow to this point, you had to go into the fear of the unknown. So you're just going to. Yeah. I mean. And the next person might not work out. The next five people will work out. You still have the same problem. Exactly.

Exactly. For me, I'm willing to take a chance, though. And I think that's where your point. Lean into it. Fear and all. Not saying that the apprehension won't be there, but kind of lean into it. And another thing I wanted to kind of bring up is when you're evaluating your team, and I learned this from the Land Geek community. The first thing that before we go straight into, well, let's get rid of you. The first thing we look at is how well have we trained you, how well have we prepared you to do this job, to be in this position? And I've had several coaching clients who are not happy with their VAs, and that's the first thing I ask them. What has their training been like before you point the finger at them or before they become the blame? Because you're going to run into that same issue if it's a training issue, if you're not preparing them to be successful in the role. So that's one of the first things that we kind of. We look at how well have we trained, how many conversations have we had, and how much have we tried to get this person up to speed, where we want them to be?

No, that's a really good point that you're bringing up, because before you cut, you know, as Tay would say, cut bait. Is. It is cut. Cut bait. Tape.

Yep, that's right.

Cut bait with. With a. With a key va or a key person on your team, you have to look at yourself first, especially in the. In the beginning. Now, in this scenario, that tree you're talking about, you're talking about someone who's been with you for a while.

Correct.

And they've been great up until this point.

Yeah.

And so. And Tate will agree with this. This cliche what got you here typically won't get you there.

Correct.

And so I love when you call me Big Papa. Tate literally just joined the roundtable. So, Tate, the topic is that, you know, number one, when do you know when to let a key person go, even if you really like them personally? And then number two, like, how do you handle the. The logic of the fear of, well, the devil I know is better than the devil, I don't know.

Yeah, it's a good question. And, you know, I'm not a hiring expert by any means. I don't know the ins and outs of it, but what I can say is, is the people that we've let go, it. It hasn't been a surprise.

Right.

Most of the time, their performance starts to lag a little bit. And we're actually going through this right now internally with somebody, and we're just. We're seeing that they're not on top of things and they've become maybe disenchanted or they've lost that burning desire to grow within this position or capacity anymore. And at that point, it's a very relieving conversation to have with somebody and say, hey, you know what, it's obvious that you're not happy. And if you're not happy, we don't want to force a square pig into a round hole. This isn't the right suit for you. So we can either look at finding you a new spot within the organization, but I think it'd probably be best if we parted ways. And that's, that's typically how we handle this. And it's performance based. Right. I've got people who I know that hate what they do for us, but they do a good job every single time. And so do I care that they're not finding any sort of enjoyment out of this? No, because their performance is still up to par. But I do know that deals, you know, vas and employees, whatever you want to call them, are kind of like deals in the sense that there's always somebody else out there who is eager to learn who is willing to do the work. And where we work with so many people overseas and internationally, these jobs we offer, they might, might seem small for somebody in the United States to do, but overseas they're, they're in very, very high demand. You know, we're changing lives over there. So there's always somebody else who's willing to do certain jobs is what I'm getting at.

Exactly. And as you up level as an entrepreneur, your standards also up level. And so for these key roles, such as intake manager or a sales manager, your standards have gone up. And if they haven't grown to your standards, that's a really good litmus test to know, okay, this person got me here, but they're not going to get me there. And again, this is not a family, this is a team. And we want star players on our team so that we can be the best team possible, so that the fans and the city and the owner and the investors are all happy. This is bigger than just us because emotionally it is hard because you have a relationship with them, you like them personally, and it's not a fun conversation to have. But to Tate's point, I like that Marie Kondo saying, you know, does this bring me joy? And usually at that point they're, you're sensing it's, this is not bringing them joy anymore. Let's, let's find something that does bring you joy.

And sometimes that bringing you joy means no longer doing this job. Right. Like, that's the honest reality is they're not the owners of this business. I get to find joy in what I'm doing because this is what we. This is what I do. Right. I get to find joy in that. But if you're an employee and you don't enjoy it, well, sure. This is the 21st century. You shouldn't do something that you don't want to do anymore. Right. Like move on. That's okay. And it's a relief. I mean, I think we've all on this call, gone through that experience with letting somebody go and they finish and you think it's going to be this terrible, terrible conversation, but at the end they go, okay, yeah, that's fine, it's okay.

No problem. Yeah, yeah. And then, Teria, let's just get into the minutiae of, of that conversation. I have some thoughts on it. What are your thoughts? How do you actually go about doing it?

So, because I've had to do it corporately and we were kind of mandated as to how things had to go from a legal perspective, I still kind of approach it from that. It's a delicate conversation that we typically have. It's one of those where I would sit that person down and just begin to explain. We are grateful for everything that you've provided, and we wouldn't be in certain positions if were it not for you and just thankful for you. But we are going in a different direction, and we're just not sure we're going to be a good fit, you know, moving forward. So always done very graciously, never tearing the person down, but making sure that they understand that we're going here. You aren't going to be a part of that journey. Like, your journey with us is going to end today. And if there's anything we can do to help you moving forward, you know, we're here. We're here to help.

Yeah, I actually am going because we're going to transcribe. We transcribe the podcast anyways. So I'm going to take what you just said, and that could be a perfect training for somebody. I mean, that's a perfect script. If, if and when. And again, it's inevitable you're going to have to have this difficult conversation. And if you're not having this difficult conversation, you probably have been procrastinating. And if you've been in the land business for a certain amount of time. Yeah, you're. You're probably, you know, not growing at the rate you probably want to grow because you're avoiding this conversation. What's that? There's that Tim Ferriss quote I Think your success is dictated by the number of difficult conversations you're willing to have in life? Something like that. I'm paraphrasing. What do you think?

You know, one of the. Well, I agree with that. And one of the approaches that we take is I don't like to sit somebody down. And I'm not going to say here's, here's why. I don't feel the need to do that. Right. I'm not going to sit down and say, mark, you dropped the ball on X, Y and Z occasion. You know, that's kicking somebody when they're down. I don't agree with that. If they want to know what they could have done to improve, we're happy to provide feedback, but for the most part, it's just, hey, Mark, the company's taking a different approach, and unfortunately, that no longer includes you. Best of luck in your future endeavors. If we can ever be a referral to you, please let us know. We're happy to do that.

That's it.

I mean, I don't believe in dragging this out because if somebody's getting terminated or let go, they're dying inside. It's the most harmful, right? It is. It is a terrible feeling. And they don't want to sit there and be polite anymore. They don't want to respect you. Just let them go.

Right.

Let them hang up so that they can have that, you know, that moment to themselves. I. I just don't feel like you need to kick somebody when they're down. Just move on with the. Treat them like a big boy, treat them like a big girl, and treat them how you would be like to be treated in that situation. And that's professionally, just professional.

Yeah. Don't text them, don't email them. Do it if you're not in the same city, which you most likely aren't. Do it over zoom. Even if it's someone with, with a, with a language barrier, even that. Do it over. Like, look them in the eye, let them know, hey, this is hard. We're, you know, we're grateful, like, just what Teria said. But, you know, definitely have that, that, that, that call there.

Can I tell you, my worst experience I had was that, yeah, and by.

The way, shouldn't we do this on a Friday, not on Monday, or. What do you think is finally the day of the week? Oh.

I don't know if there's a.

Day of the week.

I don't know if I've thought about it.

I just think if you're doing it, make sure you have your ducks in a row.

Correct?

Right. Like, what I mean by that is don't let somebody go and not be prepared to take on their responsibilities or have their replacement hired or have your system set up to where you can say, well, I let you go. And now guess whose job just got more demanding. This guy's right here. Right. So we don't like to let people go until we have somebody in the queue ready to replace them.

Exactly. Good point.

No, that's a really good point. So, all right, what's your story, Tria?

So I was. I was a regional manager for a large software company, and I did a lot of training, and I happened to be doing some online training with about, I don't know, 25 database administrators, and I needed to let someone go. I thought I put everyone on mute. I did not.

Oh, no.

So I'm having this very difficult conversation and I'm getting all these chats like, terry, you're not on mute. You are not on mute. Mayday. So that was my. That was. And I felt terrible for the young lady that, you know, I had to let go. And obviously this wasn't my business. I was told to do this, but.

Awkward.

That's public.

That's rough. Well, I think this is a really great subject to bring up, but we're now at that point in the podcast where we're going to ask Tria or Tate or myself for a tip of the week. A website, a resource, a book, something actionable for the art of passive listeners. Go. Improve their businesses, improve their lives. I love when you call me get caught. But they literally. What do you got?

All right, you know, I'm gonna just. I'm gonna play really safe. And today, those of you who are listening to this email, you or this podcast should have received an email. And that email was an invitation to sign up for bootcamp based on the reviews that we got on the last bootcamp. If you're not there, you're not serious about this business. Period. End of discussion. So my tip of the week is very, very simple. Register for Vegas Bootcamp. It's gonna be a life changing experience. There's a reason why so many of our students come back and back and back. We have people who are attending, what, eight, nine, ten times now, Mark. They wouldn't do that if it wasn't of value to them. So the early bird gets the worm. Vegas is one of those hot destinations. I can promise you, especially if you're a coaching student, that VIP room is going to fill up if you Want to be in the big room and learn all things land investing. You had better get on the list today because I can't promise that we're going to have room for you in the future. The venue that we're at has a seating capacity, and once it's full, it's full. There's nothing we could do about it. So that's my tip of the week.

How's that?

No, that's a great tip, and it's a really great to bring that up, not just for the coaching clients, but anybody that wants to go to live bootcamp because it's going to fill up fast, and especially that room block. Don't procrastinate on it. Get those dates, put them in the calendar, book it. And there's no. I mean, I forgot who said it. It wasn't me. But live events change lives. And you want to be, as Tate said it, you want to be in the room, you want to be with the community, just to network, not. Not to see my mug or you definitely want to see Teres for sure. But, you know, it's. It's just seeing each other, networking with each other, and those side conversations of breaks can be so invaluable, so inspiring. Just the fact you're not doing this alone, other people are going through similar challenges. It's amazing. And, you know, let's toot our own horn. The training is second to none.

We're really good at this.

We're really good at this. So you're going to learn a ton. For sure.

Speaking of that, every time, I still learn. Like, I. No one. We've never reached a point where we're arrogant enough to think we don't need to learn and grow, even within our own business. So I'm still picking up nuggets and nuggets when I'm at boot camp.

Yeah, absolutely is Mark. I know people who booked their airfare in December for this boot camp.

Wow.

Because they're. They're so, like. I was talking. They're like, if we book our airfare, there's no way. We can't, you know, go. Like, we. We're committed. It's blocked off. We're gonna go, and we're gonna go change our lives. That's the idea. And it's so true. I. I don't know how many boot camps we've done, but we only do two live ones a year.

Right.

That's it.

So that's. That's a great register, a great tip. Hey, it's Mark jumping in here. So Tate gave a great tip of the week Sign up for Bootcamp. Unfortunately, as of this recording, Boot Camp is full. Now you can get on the waiting list and there will be a link to get on a waiting list in case spots do open up and people end up canceling plans. So definitely get on the wait list. But as of now, Boot Camp is full. You can learn more thelandgeek.combootcamp that means that there needs to be a new tip of the week. So, dear listener, I've got a great tip for you. If you're like me, you love to learn new things on YouTube, but if you're like me, you value your time. And there are some times, let's just say, for example, an Andrew Huberman YouTube podcast video, and it might be two hours, or Lex Friedman might be three hours. There's some really great content out there, but they're hours long hours. So I have a tip of the week. It is a Chrome extension. It is called Chat GPT for YouTube and you can go and you'll click on your YouTube video and on the side it'll give you the transcript and also it will give you the AI summary and the key salient points from that YouTube video. So that is your tip of the week and make it a great one. All right, well, I want to thank the listeners and remind them that the only way that we're going to be able to cajole the rest of the coaches to come on roundtables is if you do three little favors. Follow Rate Review the podcast so just a screenshot of that review to support@thelantic.com I'm going to send you for free a signed copy of Dirt Rich. All right, let's do this. One, two, three, let's.

Freedom, Freedom Ring.

Thanks everybody.

Thanks for listening to the Art of Passive Income podcast. Are you ready to learn how you can start building a passive income without renters, rehabs, renovations or rodents? Schedule a free consultation@thelandgeek.com forward slash training. Let freedom ring.