Welcome And Why Questions Matter

Dave 0:22

All right, all right, good morning, everybody. It is another, wow, this is another Friday morning. We're back live. So welcome back. Everybody, welcome back. If you're uh if you're a business owner, you are in the right spot, right? Because on this episode, on these this our show, we are business owners ourselves, but we also work with business owners. And so on this show, we're giving you practical advice, insights, struggles that we've been through in our life, our journey, and sharing those with you. And this is a great place if you are just looking to get motivated, maybe even hold yourself accountable. We're here. And so on our episode, we like to just we don't really we have maybe pre-show, we talk about a typical baby topic or two. But if you know Dorne and I, we'll go off the rails, and that's why we call it uh unscripted because uh we do not script our shows. Uh, we maybe have a couple things we want to talk about, but definitely not not scripted or anything like that. So you are in the right spot. So go ahead, grab your favorite cup of Joe, and let's jump back into the show. All right, love it. Warren, welcome. Obviously, last week uh you know we were away, we welcomed our baby girl into the world last week. So I was unable to do a live show. So we kind of did a uh yeah, yeah, yeah. We kind of did a recording of some of our most recent uh you know kind of tips. So hopefully if you watch that, you get some things out of that. But um, if you do have questions, as we're kind of getting into this and we're starting our conversations, if you ever have questions about anything, like watching live, drop them down below. We'll answer them. Or if you're watching the recording, feel free to you know drop them in the comments. And we are watching those and we'll get you some answers to those questions as well. Because you know, I think for me and Dwarney might feel the same way, but if you if you don't ask questions and you have them, I feel like you know you're you're only hurting yourself, and there's no dumb question, um, unless it's a question that you've asked five tops and times and got an answer for. But ultimately, there's no dumb question, especially when you're starting something that maybe you don't have experience in or you're facing a struggle, you know, it's always better to get get assistance. What about you? What do you think?

Speaker 2:27

Yeah, definitely. I think um I always say that you know, the only dumb question is the one you don't ask. And if you don't know, then you genuinely this is how we learn. We encourage children to ask questions in a in order to learn. So it's it's just what we're taught to do, and this is how you'll find a lot of really intelligent people will ask a lot of questions because they want to know more, they really want to know more, they want to find out more. So, and some things on the outset look really confusing. I mean, if you ask a few questions, it can suddenly become a lot clearer.

Dave 3:02

So I think ultimately, you know, if you and I struggle with this, so I'm gonna I'm gonna talk about this from experience here, but you know, if if you happen to think that you are always the smartest person in the room, then you're only hurting yourself, right? You're only you're only going to cause yourself

Surround Yourself With Smarter People

Dave 3:23

to be limited because if you have to see that the people you surround yourself with are people that you can learn from, right? People that are gonna point you in the right direction, people that are going to you know call you out sometimes, right? And and give you feedback. And you have to be open to that. You have to be willing to accept that, to be pushed forward in your life, in your journey. So I would say ultimately if you if you're struggling with that, and I struggled with that for a while, where I always you know would just think, oh yeah, I don't I don't need help with that, I don't need you know, somebody you can meet advice or I don't need to ask a question about what people think about that. And now it's something that you know, since I've been able to kind of open up and get some insights on that, but it's kind of been eye-opening for me, but also you know, it's also helped me project me forward as well.

Speaker 4:03

So a simple way to look at that, right, is if you go and you've got, you know, let's say you're an accountant, E. G. Dave, and you have a problem with your car, pretty clear the mechanic's gonna be the smarter person in that scenario because they've got more experience in that situation. Yet if the mechanic came to Dave with a financial related situation, they'd be the smartest person about that situation. You don't know who you're sitting with and what experience and life experience and and career experiences they have. So sometimes it's good just to sit back and listen and hear what they've got to say and ask those questions, and you may just learn something.

Dave 4:44

Well, and and I uh I've said it before, and I give this example all the time is about you know Henry Ford. You know, what I was learning, you know, kind of doing some, you know, I don't remember what book where it came from, but you know, Henry Ford didn't know anything about cars, right? Yeah, but what he did was he surrounded himself with all the the masterminds in the car industry back then because he had a vision and he surrounded himself with people that were smarter than him that could help him achieve that vision. And and now his name is on what millions of cars in a year, you know. So you can do the same thing. And obviously, you know, don't if you have a vision to do you know, Henry Ford, something like that, absolutely push forward, but you can't do it yourself. You know, you definitely have to have people around you in your circle that are going to advise give you the momentum, the honest feedback. You know, you don't want a bunch of a bunch of yes people in your circle, it's not gonna do you any good either.

Speaker 5:36

No, that's a good point, actually. I um I've had a couple of clients over from Australia this week, and one of

Rethinking Growth With Small Acquisitions

Speaker 5:44

the clients, it was my first time meeting them in person, and we were talking about their business, and one of the things that they shared was they had been trying to do acquisitions and merges with other companies for a few years now to try and grow their business. You know, they basically hit a plateau and they wanted to get to that next level, and that next level for them was an acquisition. And I was asking them how it had gone, and they said, Well, every time we've put an offer in and we've worked with the brokers, basically we come up, they're not interested in you know an acquisition from you, you're about the same size as them, they don't see that as a value proposition. So, yeah, they're gonna say no at this time, and they had no luck with it. So I gave them a couple of suggestions because some of the other things they shared is they were at the per they're at the point of adding an extra employee to which needed to have a very specific skill set in order to help their business grow, which would have come at a cost, quite a large cost, and a ramp up period. So I made the suggestion that why don't you look for somebody who's a sole operator in the same industry as you who may not like the business part of what they're doing, but be but really enjoy the actual work part, the skilled part, and see if they're interested in coming on board work as an acquisition, become a part of your company, get a full-time salary at a rate they're very happy with, with potential dividends or a buyout figure in a couple of years, whatever that looks like, you have to plan that out with them, but you also get their customer base as they come along, therefore you get the growth you're looking for potentially, and you get the technician that you're looking for in this instance. And when I suggested that, it was a very interesting moment because you could see it was something they hadn't considered, they hadn't considered buy going in and doing an acquisition of something smaller because in his words, he thought he was purchasing a list. But when I put it in perspective of you could potentially get a staff member that you and you want to add to your team anyway, and the customer list to go with it, suddenly it becomes a lot more of a you know lucrative solution to the problem.

Dave 8:11

And I think the the big the big piece there is that you don't necessarily have to always try to go bigger, right? You have to think outside the box. And for that, in terms of that example, you know, if you look smaller or you look somebody maybe, you know, if you're maybe in an industry that is struggling, that's hard, and you know somebody that's in your network that has mentioned to you that they're struggling and they don't know what to do, you know, maybe just have a conversation with them. I think everything starts with that conversation, and just go through and just follow up. But for me, the the the next step with that too is like you know, think of ways upside down. It doesn't always require you to pay big up on that money up front to purchase. No, you know, if they're motivated, yeah. There's like there's owner financing, you know, there's other ways as well, especially if you're buying a book of business. Because, and this is true in the accounting world or any other sort of you know uh industry that's the same, would be you know, offer like a percentage of sales that's like on a on a scaled down, you know, sort of approach over the next three to five years, whatever it ends up being that you guys can negotiate, where it's like, okay, for everybody that returns the first year, I'll do a 50-50 split with you. For anybody that then returns the second year, it's like you know, 35%, and then it's 25%, and then it's 15%. Where and and here you're not penalized for buying a book of business that may not come to fruition because people

Creative Deal Structures And Protections

Dave 9:42

may decide to leave at that point, and you're only paying for people that you keep. And so if you are doing things like that where you're buying a book of business or you're buying something like that, you want to make sure that you have some sort of provision in there where you know, if clientele drops off from the list by X amount of percent, you know, there's an adjustment if you're not doing a percentage of you know return, or if you, you know, any any sort of reduction like that, right? So whether it's, you know, hey, if the if the book of business drops 25%, you know, in the first year, you know, the price changes to X amount, or whatever it ends up being, the simplest way would just be to do a percentage of sales over the first couple years. And then after the end, either you could have like a small balloon payment, you know, just a final payment, or it could just be considered at that point, it's considered paid in full, and you know, there's no more rights to the list or anything like that. And then make sure you also have like the non-compete, the non-solicit, all that kind of stuff. So but one of the things we are we are trying to stay warm here. We have the uh the windshields of like negative 10 over here. Dword, I know you don't worry about that or anything like that.

Speaker 10:41

I think it was like 30 something today, so just degrees Celsius for those who are.

Dave 10:45

Yeah, Celsius looks like what 80 Fahrenheit. Yeah.

Speaker 10:51

Sorry, sorry, go ahead. Yeah, no, no, but an interesting point to that too is one of the scenarios which I played out to him was when you do this potential acquisition, you don't have to acquire someone in your backyard either. Go on, you could do the acquisition in another region location, and that can then be considered an expansion and a whole nother coverage zone for you. So you can actually take on an additional coverage zone as part of that as well. So it's a way to expand and get customers in different regions, and you might find that that could be a very good way for that other business that couldn't grow either because they'd reach their plateau. By having that merger in place, you could actually have enough power and clout to get more clients in that other region and your region as well.

Dave 11:39

And I would say the biggest the biggest thing there is it's don't go at it. Like you're the only one who has to win out of this, you know, long-term. You know, if it's if it's a and do your due diligence first, but also like make it a win-win.

Expand By Region And Build Win Wins

Dave 11:52

You know, we all win in this world, right? In business, when we work together, essentially. And if you're going in to purchase anything like that, don't don't go in with the mindset, like, oh, I have to win this negotiation. Like it's like, let's come up with something that we both are happy with, that nobody's gonna have bad feelings, and that you're gonna be, especially if you want a partner, like you said, in your inner circumstance, the idea there was that they were gonna come in and like still be an employee. Like, you don't want them to have this negative feeling that they screwed me over and now you know they're still working for you or still working with you as a partner, whatever it may be. You know what I mean?

Speaker 12:27

So absolutely, yeah. You got and I think that's the key, right? I mean, you've got to look at it. Anyone that you're going in to acquire has put in a lot of work at that point to get their business to where it is, and all you've got to do is remember how much work you put into your business and how many mistakes you made, and you could be in the same position as them a few years ago, a few months ago, or you know, one bad decision ago. So it's you know, you you should play it fair, you should do something that's makes sense for both parties because if it doesn't make sense to both parties, it's not a long-term solution, and it's only going to hurt you more in the future. So you want to you want to make sure both parties are walking away feeling good about it. And I think it was Cody Sanchez, one of the things that she used, she talked about was her purchasing from businesses where the owners are not really at the they don't want to carry on their business anymore. They're at that age where they're just ready to move on and they're just struggling with the idea that they're figuring the only option they've got is to close their business up. Well, a lot of these businesses that you could go in and work with and acquire could be in those sort of positions as well. You don't know unless you start having those conversations. And I think the conversations are not, do you want to sell to me? It's a case of how's everything going in your business? Are you happy? If you could make one change in your business today, what would it be? You know, start those conversations and and see what happens. And you might find that they say one thing that really sparks with you and go, this could be an opportunity to work together, or this could be an opportunity to present an acquisition to try, you know, because maybe they're not one of the things they say is like I'm not getting enough time at home. My relationship is struggling because I haven't got enough time to spend with my family.

Break The Status Quo To Stand Out

Speaker 14:20

I'd love to get more time with my family, but I'm just at that point I can't hire anyone to be a part of to help me grow. I'm just not at that point. So I'm sitting in your they're sitting in the middle. So an acquisition could be a perfect solution to help that. Or it could just be they go, you know what, I thought I was gonna get into business and make a bunch of money and get a bunch of free time, and all I've done is bought myself a job.

Dave 14:44

And one that's to take, you know, and and it's a lot easier, and and I've made this suggestion to a couple of clients, right? Where it's a lot easier to go out and find somebody that already has the book, already has the clientele, then try to build it yourself. Yeah. And and sometimes, like you said, you you could buy, you know, a million-dollar business, you know, depending on how you can negotiate for like $25,000 to $50,000 down, right? And even sometimes that can then be in, you know, depending on your financing. Um, if you do owner's financing, you could probably do it with like nothing down, you know, depending on how you negotiate, especially if they're motivated to sell, um, and you give them good, you know, good term, etc. So it's don't think that there's no opportunities out there. Like, yeah, you just have to think outside the box, you have to think differently. And this reminds me of you she you shared it with me. I think the the you know, Jesse from Savannah Bananas, right? He was doing a presentation, you sent me the clip, and he talked about how you have to be the one that's going to shake up the market and do things differently if you want to be different and you want to stand up. And it's funny because like I've had these conversations with my clients about contracting, about offers. And they keep going back to well, nobody does that yet in our in their industry. Well, I haven't seen that in the industry yet. Well, it's like, of course, because nobody's willing to try something different. You know, you have to be the one to try something different if you are looking to stand out. If you want to be like everybody else and then compete on price or compete on you know your basic service, then just keep doing what everybody in your industry is doing. But if you want to be there and you want to stand out, then think something differently. Offer benefits that are on both sides, not just to you, but to the client, you know, and make sure that it is you know beneficial for both. But yeah, don't just follow just because of status quo. I think the biggest you name me a company and its most successful companies have broken the status quo.

Speaker 17:11

Well, you have a look at Apple, probably the most iconic company in the world. When they came out with the multicolored bloody computers, everybody looked at them and was like, Oh, are you serious? But that got them back into the market that saved the business. Then when they came out with we're gonna put an entire record collection in your pocket with an iPod, everyone's like, hang on, what? This is nuts. What is this? And they changed the industry overnight, and then they went and did it again with the smartphone, like they just kept changing it, right? And look, admittedly, they haven't really done anything too revolutionary since then, in my opinion. When when a count there's just a new version of a phone, but they still keep coming out with some pretty amazing technology, and they were pioneers when they got there. Do you think Nokia and you know those guys were sitting there feeling really good about themselves at that point when they heard about the iPhone? You know, black, you know, the BlackBerry guys were pretty confident with what they'd built for the business users. Right up.

Dave 18:22

I would, if Blackberry came out right now, I would go and buy a Blackberry over an Apple. Like it's just a nostalgia fact, I think. But it would be cool to go back and maybe obviously not have like a black and white or whatever color the screens were, but like you know, maybe having some you know a colored screen with the colour.

Speaker 18:37

So I would go back to actually having a keyboard component.

Dave 18:47

Oh my god, I would I I would switch from an iPhone to that immediately, right? Even if this thing came out with something that had right that had a keyboard on it, I think I'd go back to it and just it's just kill it.

Speaker 18:58

You know what I mean? It's it's it's a strange thing, right? Like I uh I totally get that. And there's like people with Nokia's Nokia have got some of their across Asia, their keypad phones still, because a lot of people still like keypad phones in this region for what they do. And if you think of people who don't have great data plans or data options, then those phones are great. It was the Apple made a data play, which is with ATT, which is what got them the you know basically the nail in the coffin for the Blackberry guys, because they were all about trying to just get your email to your phone and doing it really, really efficiently and messaging on your phone, doing it really efficiently. But they didn't think that anybody wanted a photo on their phone sent, they didn't think anyone would care to see what that looked like, and that was just one of those things where they're revolutionary, but they focused on they got stuck in their rut, and then someone else came out with something

Offers Decay And Need Refreshing

Speaker 19:58

even more revolutionary and crazy cool. And even in cricket, like I you don't know any minute how many of the listeners actually follow cricket, but you've got the big battle. Yeah, cricket is in the sport. Oh sport, cricket. Oh, yeah. I don't know. I mean, I've heard of it, yeah, but definitely never big in Australia, England, and uh India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, that's sort of very, very big sport. They came out like they've got things like I I'm not a big fan of cricket, they don't get traditional, don't get me wrong, but they'll Do test matches which might last you know five days, which is just in my opinion, ridiculous. So it's they're really, really long games. Well, but did you say a game a game can last five days? Five days? It's a test match. Oh yeah, that's crazy. It is insane. So imagine when somebody comes out with the idea we're gonna do something called 2020. And that 2020 match dropped games down to like two hours. So they suddenly start having bright uniforms, they start having like the Nana Banana sort of thing. It was very engaging and interesting. I was talking to a client this morning on a video call, and she's like very excited because she's off to watch a big bash game of cricket tomorrow live. And it's effectively a 2020 game. It's a very quick game in comparison to traditional cricket. And she's like, Oh, it's so entertaining. They've got like fireworks here and this and that. And they're like, Oh wow, okay. It's like watching a Nano Bananas game.

Dave 21:33

Like well, I think the the lessons learned from that, right? Again, as we were just kind of chatting about, was that we you have to be you have to be different, but how can you keep people's attention, you know? And like baseball here has has done has done that, you know, we've changed the the way it's played because of the fact that like people lose interest because it's taking too long, so they you know the pitch clock, all that stuff. And there's there's some people that that hate it, right? But they're the you know, the nostalgia type you know audience. But yeah, you have to keep your your users' attention. You know, I I talked about this at my an alliance meeting. I was kind of talking about like the top 10 things that I'm seeing that you can really kind of begin to do a little bit differently in 26. And one of those was like offer decay. Like, when is the last time that you thought through your offer or you know your programs? And if you haven't changed it in a year and you're just pitching the same thing to everybody, you know, people are price, you know, it's decayed, you know. And so you you need to think of something differently. Go maybe change it. You don't have to change a whole thing, you don't have to go and change your whole business, but just change the way the offer is you know approached, maybe change the name of it, right? Throw in an extra bonus, whatever it ends up being, you can you can change an offer without necessarily changing the entire you know service line that you're giving it.

Speaker 22:53

And it's interesting, I mean, there is also the flip side of that sometimes too, where if you look at the the the big BIRO, the BIC BIRO pen, the old blue pen, that thing's been around, hasn't

Map Client Journeys And Upsells

Speaker 23:06

changed for 50 years, right? They're still selling them, it still works great. There's been no innovation on that product, it's a pen. There's going to be products that you can't innovate, but there's a lot of product and service. If you've got a service, especially, you can innovate. And if you just look at what's changed in the world in the last decade and what was normal a decade ago versus what's normal now, it's actually very eye-opening. I I see a lot of nostalgia videos on YouTube and social media. It's like, oh, if you're a 90s kid, you're gonna remember this. And I'm watching going, oh wow, yeah, I remember that. A Walkman, a discman. Yeah, that was cool. Mini-disc player, oh yeah, laserd. Yeah, that came out for a minute. You know, blockbuster. Yeah, I used to go in and pick videos, VHS videos, off the shelf and get excited, and then get my parents get annoyed because we didn't get them back in time and got a fine, you know, right.

Dave 24:11

And then you had their rewind be, you know, like fun stuff.

Speaker 24:14

Oh, yeah, please re-be kind, please rewind. Like, you know, I had friends who own video stores, and they were very successful at it because you know it was great. But times change, and I was saying to my wife just the other day, I said, How crazy is this? You go out and buy a brand new TV a decade ago, the biggest concern you got is picture quality and brand quality. Nowadays, and then size, of course, that comes into play. Nowadays, like I'm looking at my big screen TV in the living room, going, I think I need to replace it, not because it's broken, not because it's not working, not because the screen quality is not great, but because it's bloody slow to open up apps like YouTube app, Netflix app, and it can't support Prime, HBO, Disney, all these other channels that the family and the kids want to watch, right? So I'm like, I have to go and buy a new TV to support those platforms. Now that's a television that's innovated, and what they've done is effectively said, even if you've got a perfectly good TV, you still need a new one if you want to be able to use these other services to be more convenient.

Dave 25:34

So yeah, and I think ultimately they do those too, right? Because they want you to keep going. And and so I had the question in the Alliance meeting too, where it's like, okay, well, it was uh I can't remember what type of company it was, but essentially they they they had a service that a lot of people started with, and they wanted to get people to kind of like the next level, right? So it was like an entry-level program, and then they wanted them to continue on and and get you know, kind of expand, right? The upsell providing more services. And the question was, well, how do I effectively do that? And we kind of broke it down, and initially it was, and I won't use the exact prices here, but as an example. So let's say their entry-level program for a year was like $2,500, and a lot of people paid that, they got the service, they got the results, everybody was happy, but they didn't see or they weren't getting the value of the next level. So they would just kind of either renew or they would fall off. And I asked, you know, what is your next level price? You know, what do you, you know, and right now that next level price was about, you know, I think it was just shy of like $10,000 a year. And I said, and what do you feel like the outcome, the people that have gone through that, what is the value that they get from that level of service? And the I, you know, the outcome is like, you know, three, four, five X that, you know, so there's they know there's a value there. I said, okay. I said, what is the biggest sort of issue that you're seeing with individuals right now when you present this option to them? And it's price, right? It's uh obviously four X the investment. And I said, okay, how about you you know you want to get $10,000 out of it? I said, so increase the price of it because you know you're still it's still gonna be three, four, or five times that value. So if somebody wants to come into that service, they're still getting the value for it because you're still providing that outcome. So increase it to like $12,000, five or thirteen. Okay. Now it's a little bit more prestigious still from level one, and it's still worth it. So you're not, you know, saying, hey, it's I'm I'm increasing the price, but I'm the value is still only 10,000. Then as you're making the presentation to your level one clients, instead of saying, hey, by the way, like I want you to jump up, here's what I'm gonna do, right? Our level two program, it's 13 grand. But because you're already part of level one and I and you've started to see the success, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take your investment, everything you paid so far for level one, I'm actually gonna roll that into our level two program. So now instead of paying right the 13,000 or the 12,500, whatever the level two is, you know, you're only gonna have to pay, you know, 10 or you know, 85, 95, whatever it ends up being. And we're gonna roll that forward so that you don't lose any of your investment, but now you've got all that service and you're not getting all this extra level. And now they're feeling like they're not, they haven't lost anything. They feel like they've actually gained because and they have, right? It's still worth it. You're you know, again, you're you're not pricing your services, your programs, you know, you're not just picking numbers out of the sky. It's worth it because you know the outcome that you you've gotten results. Yeah, you're repositioning, you're repositioning. And and the idea with that now is that now they don't feel again, they don't feel like they've lost anything because they're rolling forward their entire investment

CTA And AI Teaser

Dave 28:44

and they're getting extra level service to get this extra level of value to continue the path forward. And that's how you you it's a journey, and you map that out. And the other advice I gave in this is that make sure at the beginning of your engagement you map out that journey for them, right? Hey, here I just want to share this with you. This is a typical path forward, a client journey per se, from start to finish with our organization. Everybody comes in at this entry level if they want, like yourself. And then the at you know, the actual progression is to then go to level two, level three, however many levels you have, and share the value at each level with them up front. You're setting that expectation. Hey, once we get the results for you that we're we're we're promising you, or you know, kind of overviewing here with you for level one. Are you ready to go to or will you be ready to go to level two? And then get that buy-in from them up front as well, and share all that information. Like just be transparent with them up front. Hey, level one, we want to start with you. Level two, we're gonna expand that progress, we're gonna keep it moving forward. And then level three and four is we're really gonna put it in place where we're gonna help you scale. And this is how we've done it. And now they know from the get-go, okay, it's not just just one service or you know, they're prepared for the upsell essentially, because you've already told them about it, and and you set that expectation, and that's ultimately what it comes down to. So, first think of think of your pricing and think of like what is that you would like to get out of each level, and then how do you you know kind of build your pricing structure where it's still valuable, but now you can roll forward each prior investment into the next level, and your clients aren't losing what they've paid because essentially you're giving them that discount. And now, if anybody comes in at level two, they're paying that 13 because it's worth it. And you're still getting the same as if they would have paid for level one because you're still giving them all that service as well.

Speaker 30:39

Yeah, absolutely. And I think what it is is you're giving them the outcomes right from the outset, and by laying out what the outcomes potentially are and what they're gonna get, the value propositions they're gonna get along the way, it really helps them understand. We do the same thing when it comes to digital marketing, right? We talk about this is your website, the next phase logically would be SEO with some maybe an AdWords campaign and some social media coming on top of that. Pick a channel and we'll work with it. And your results you can expect are this at six months with SEO, this with AdWords within two months, and this with social media within a month or two. That way you've got an expected outcome and you don't and you take them on the journey. But it's all about the customer journey at the end of the day, more so than just putting numbers on paper. And if you're hoping that people are gonna go to that next transition, then you've really you you've got to give them that journey, you've got to educate them on that journey. You've got to be talking about what that next step looks like throughout the entire first part of the course. Because if you're not, you're not getting them ready for what comes next. And if it feels like a shock and they feel like, wow, I got a lot out of that, I think I'm happy here, it means that you you probably haven't shown enough value in what that next step looks like to be able to get them to take the step into that next step.

Dave 32:48

And you hit it there, right? It's value. And that also then goes into one of the other things that I'm gonna talk about in a second, but I'm gonna pause here for a minute. So if you have questions, drop them down below. We love you guys. If you're here and you've gotten something out of our first part of our conversation, make sure you're subscribed, hit that notification bell, and help us as we say all every every episode, we are on a path, on a goal to impact a thousand business owners right now by the end of 2028. So help us with that. So if there's something that you find from this episode that's impactful to you as a business owner or your journey, feel free to share it with your network. And we appreciate you. Also, let us know down below if you've taken some advice that we've shared on this episode. What has that impact been? Share a win down below. We'd love to hear your wins as well. But before we kind of roll forward into the next idea that I wanted to talk about there, I wanted to talk and we want to share software. And I wanted to do this because we typically like to do it in the middle of the episode and we're right about there. So, Darn, you know, for me, uh, when I was thinking what software is that really impactful, you know, something that helped me yesterday. And that's uh we've talked about it before, but I think it's something that you need to leverage, and that is definitely AI, right? And ChatGPT or Gemini or whatever one that you typically you know use. And and I'm gonna give you an example of what I was doing yesterday and how it truly helped me and why it's impactful. So as an accountant, as a bookkeeper, right, or you know, and a mentor, some of our situations are trying to solve clients platform information that may not tie directly into their bank activity. And we need to figure that out on our own because they are not you know essentially gonna have an understanding of what comes out of the system. And in their mind, you know, especially when these platforms are designed for specific types of industries, and they tell them, Oh, yeah, we integrate with that, don't worry, like everything's fine, like all you got, this makes your life simpler, right? But what they don't tell you is how much more difficult they make it on the back end in in the bookkeeping and the accounting. And so the example of this is I have a client, they are in real estate, right? They're a brokerage. And so the system, awesome for a brokerage, handles all the paperwork, handles all the payouts, handles everything, right, with their accounting system, it integrates with their accounting system, but it sends every single individual line of transactions over to the accounting

AI As Your Data Analyst

Dave 35:02

system. Okay, and then what it does is when it pulls money out of the bank account, it aggregates all those things into one amount that comes out of the bank account at the end of the day, or it gets deposited into the bank account at the beginning of the day. And so for an accountant to then try to reconcile all the single lines of activity in the accounting software with the one number every day, it is very, very difficult, right? Especially when things may roll over from the end of the month to the next month. And so a real life example of here how I use ChatGPT was you know, they have their detailed general ledger report from the platform. And I had to download that, the hundreds and hundreds of lines of data. And for me, I wasn't gonna go through it, you know, I wasn't gonna put my accountant to go through it. We don't have the time for that, right? We're trying to close everybody. So, how I used AI was I said, here is the detailed general ledger report, here is the bank statement amounts, right? That I need to tie to for withdrawals and deposits. This activity sums it, you know, here's the column that has the deposit activity, here's the column that has the payout activity. What I need you to do is on two separate spreadsheets, I need to go through the deposits and I need to go through the payouts, and I need you to find the transactions that sum up to these totals exactly with no variances. Took a little back and forth at the start, but eventually it figured it out. And now I have a process in place with Chat GPT to pull that data every month, drop in the bank statement activity for it, and now it matches. And so that did it, right? Where I'm working on other things, and I had to go back and forth to it a little bit. But for me to have to go through and go through hundreds of lines of Excel spreadsheets and try to match it up, and you know, it's not only hundreds of lines, but it's also like, you know, I think like 50 columns of data. That would have taken me a while to figure that out. Obviously, you know, you can do pivot tables, you can do all this kind of stuff, right? But the fact that it was then again to give me the streamline process, right?

Speaker 37:03

You you're taking a very you're taking a very analytical, data-driven process, and you're asking for this tool to help you make sense of it better. You can ask it to help find patterns, you can ask it to look for anomination anomalies. There's so many cool things you can do with it. And you like you say chat GPT, there's all these amazing things out there now. Gemini has nano banana for creating some incredible imagery. Google has Notebook LM. Notebook LM, like we've been playing with that. Drop in a document. I did it with a client today. I dropped one of their product documents in for a piece of machinery they have. I asked it to generate a quiz. I asked it to create flashcards, I asked it to create a slide deck, an audio conversation.

Dave 38:00

Well, here's the thing I don't I love this one. So let's let's talk about this one more because I could we can go into this one next week in depth. I would like, let's go to notebooks LM as well. So if you're listening, you know, that's just a preview because we'll get into it. We'll actually make this a big conversation next week because notebook LM is a game changer, not only for business owners, uh, but if you have students, you know, as you were mentioning, if you have staff, like it's not just for marketing anymore. Like, and here's and and and I'll we'll give you a we're actually gonna make next week the here now. Next week is gonna be the notebook LM episode. We will come with examples of what we've done, we've done, what we've seen other people do. Maybe maybe we'll even pull it up live and do a couple things live if you're interested. And let me just confirm. I just want to make sure maybe it might not be next week because I think we might actually have a guest next week. So let me just confirm this while we're talking. We do okay. Well you confirm that we have one, yeah, the sixth.

Speaker 38:57

But I was able to keep my end.

Dave 39:00

We're gonna make the 13th, the notebook LM episode. I love it. Let's just talk about it, and we're gonna we're gonna dive deep dive into it because we have a couple guests coming up in the next one.

Speaker 39:08

Let me give a little teaser here, Dave. In within 10 minutes, I generated all these documents, and the client's jaw was on the floor at what I was able to do. And initially, when I hit the quiz button, because I was doing screen share, so what would we need that for? And I said,

Notebook LM Preview And Use Cases

Speaker 39:27

New product lines coming out, and you have sales training required for your staff. Oh, I said, What about flashcards? And I'm like, 64 flashcards generated on this, and I'm like rolling them up, and she's like, Oh, that's like every question a client would possibly ask.

Dave 39:47

I said, Yep, right there and let's let's talk about this because I think I think this is really you know good on that episode because there's there's that, there's a lot of other like flows and everything like that. 100% we're gonna make the 13th. I I think that's gonna be awesome. So and plus this gives us a little bit more time to kind of put it together. So if you're watching this, you're watching recording, mark down the 13th of February as your notebook LM right show where we're gonna give you all the the fun stuff that we've done that we could possibly do. Where you know, if you want to be live on that, you know, make sure you mark it down. Drop, you know, if if you're live on that episode, you'll be able to drop a note down below and we'll we'll take your situation and we'll we'll create something for you in notebook LM there too. So, but with to close up the software, I would definitely say like you have to integrate AI somehow in your business, in your day-to-day, because it is going to save you a lot of time. You know, if I had to try to figure that out in the example here and I had to figure that out myself, it would have probably taken me, you know, a couple days to go through, figure it out, balance everything. But here, once it did take me a little while up front, I would say, you know, probably going back and forth, maybe like an hour and a half, two hours to actually figure out the process. But then I figured out one month, but then I was able to do the rest of the year in one go. I I was able to drop out you know the entire spreadsheet for the rest of the year instead of just one month into the chat GPT and say, hey, take the Method that you just did, and now do it for the rest of the year. And here's all the statements, here's the actual full data. And it was able to do that in half the time. So now I did you know five months, you know, into in basically an hour and a half instead of you know once I figured it out to then develop that process. So for yourself, think of how do you how what are you doing manually now? What are some things that you could potentially, right? If you're looking through a lot of spreadsheets or you're looking through a lot of like you know data, how could you use AI to then simplify that and be detailed in the prompt, give it all the information, then let it go. It could be your own data analyst. And essentially that's the biggest thing about like AI, even Gemini, you know, Chat GPT. I use both. And I try to, you know, sometimes one one one's not working, so I go to the other one and that one works, and then uh vice versa. So you can go back and forth. But I would say definitely integrate something into your business related to that that can help you analyze your data, even if you're, for example, you know, like take you out, take me out of a job, right? You could take your financial statement, drop it in there and say, hey, act like a CFO, and what do you see about this financial statement? You can do that. There's so many cool things that you could do and integrate into your day-to-day. But I am excited for the 13th, we're gonna we're gonna get that going. But so with that, you know, Jamarin, the other thing that I wanted to kind of then go into from the first part of the conversation, and you had mentioned about value that you had, you know, if if you're facing some resistance, it's probably because you have not shown the value of your next level. And I think the the biggest thing, because this came up in the conversation with our alliance meeting as well, was the resistance to, or maybe this wasn't the alliance, I think this was like a pod meeting that I was part of. And it was, you know, people aren't closing. Like they know they have a problem, but they're not closing at the end of a sales conversation. And the biggest thing for me here, and advice that I give here, is that you probably haven't created that gap large enough yet. Right? So, you know, they're here, you know, you they want to be, you know, and and you know, they want to be here, but you haven't, and this gap is what they're willing to invest to get here. So if you're facing price issues, it's probably because you haven't created a big enough gap. You know, they still feel like, oh,

Create Demand By Widening The Gap

Dave 43:54

it's still attainable. You have to widen that gap by getting them to explain it to themselves. You know, I want to be, you know, stress-free, you know, whatever that's up being, I want to get over this obstacle. Okay, well, what's, you know, and they're like, but you know, right now I'm here. And if you don't ask any follow-up questions, you don't get them to, you know, say, well, what's what's that costing you? This gap's gonna stay small. But what you could once you can start like saying, well, what's it costing you? And now they're like, well, it's costing me time with my family, it's costing me, you know, money from from new sales, right? And each question that they're answering is why they need that gap. And then when you get to the end and you're like, well, if this was solved for you, like what would that mean for not only you, but your business, your employees, your family? What would it mean for all of them? And that's when right they start to realize maybe I maybe this time for me to make a change, and maybe this time for me to invest in this to then buy my time back. And that's ultimately what it comes out to. So I think that it's that gap too. So you know, you mentioned the value, but it's also like you haven't created that emotional gap between where they are now and where they want to be, in order for them to then get over the hump of of saying, okay, I'm ready to invest.

Speaker 45:03

And and that's where like I love Jeremy Miners' neuroemotional persuasion questioning. Like I've been doing it for decades, but I in some way, not to the extent that he does, but I'd never really put a name on it. Basically, I was just trying to build the desire up for the emotional buy-in on the whatever I was working on selling product, etc. Which and most people like you'll find when they're selling a product, it's not about the price initially, it's about getting the feeling, the emotional connection right, and then asking for a buy-in. And the buy-in doesn't have to be the price, it can be would you like to fill out this form so that I can create a quote for you? Would you like to fill it, would you like to have me prepare a customized proposal for you? You know, in order to do that, I just need to find out a few more details. You know, there's so many different ways. We used to call it the trial close. And there's everyone, anyone in sales, like there's all these different techniques and styles, but basically, most people who are selling something have to realize that the person who they're selling to doesn't need their product, they have a choice, they don't need their product. They choose to buy your product, they choose to buy your service. Very rarely are you the only person they can get that product or service from. And if you are, well, congratulations, you got yourself a very, very good niche. But for the most part, there's going to be competitors out there offering something similar or an alternative, which is probably going to be suitable enough for them to be happy with it, or they've just done a better job of selling it than what you have.

Dave 46:52

Yeah, I mean, I'll ultimately, you know, what that comes out to, you know, is niche. I get the only thing that came to mind when you said that was like, you know, if there's this like life-saving medication, they're probably the only ones that kind of fall into that that realm. Or you're like this high-level, highly, you know, like a Mr. Beast type, you know, like there's only one of him, you know. But typically, 99% of you in business, there is going to be some other person out there that provides what you do. And this is why I was initially against niching down, but the more and more you know, I talk to a lot of people, and and I've you know kind of seen the results in the real world, is that you don't want to be known as that diamond dozen. So if you're known as you know a bookkeeper and that's it, there's there are a diamond dozen. You're all you're all always gonna be competing on price. So you have to realize like, have you niche down, and niching down doesn't mean you have to pick one thing and that's it. Like niching down just means you could be a a sub-industry type, you know, you're the expert for that sub-industry type in in your your market, you know, and that's gonna help you stand out. So when people try to negotiate on price, it's like, yeah, absolutely. Like, I know and and and be up front with it. Like I told somebody the other day, it's like, I know I'm not the cheapest. And here's why. Because you're not just getting a bookkeeper, you're not just getting somebody sell you value to give you right exactly. And I was up front with it, and that then also actually negates their objection to price because you already stand up front and you're already and you already already know what they're gonna say. It's like, hey, I know what you're gonna say to me. You're gonna probably tell me that it's you know it's not the right time, that you know, the pricing's off, and you're not ready. And here's what I'm gonna say to that. You know, right now you don't have a time to waste, okay, because you know you don't you don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow, but you do know that you want to make better decisions, you do know that you need support, you want that support. So, what's an extra $200 a month if it's gonna get you back 10, 20, 30 times that because of the work that you're gonna do, the effort you're gonna put in, and the accountability you're gonna be held here. So think through what are those main objections, how can you come up with them up front to negate the objection right away? Interesting.

Speaker 49:08

I was a conversation this week that I was involved in, and one of the things that came up was there was a conversation around I want to create more automation using the software package I have already. I'm already invested in it, I've already set it up as far as I think I can set it up without putting some more serious time of my own in. I think my best bet at this point is to pay X other person sitting there in the conversation

Price Objections And Niche Positioning

Speaker 49:36

with us for him to go and set it all up for me because it's a better use of my time. And at least that the automations will be set up correctly and they'll be done much quicker than I would be able to get to it myself. Yeah, and it was a self-realization of that other person sitting there, the value they offered. Now they hadn't been working with them for six months, but they had chose to try and do more on their own and realized that it actually cost them more time, which potentially meant that they were further behind than when they than they should have been. So they made the decision to spend the money because they saw the value proposition in that. Now, are there other people that does the same thing as him? Absolutely. Is he the most affordable? Not at all, but he does the job really, really well, and he's fair, and he's quicker than what he the customer could do in himself.

Dave 50:33

And this is the mindset shift. This is the biggest mindset shift from this point is you have to, as an owner, as a leader, one, you have to stop seeing yourself as the the employee that's got to do it all. You know, you've got to stop being in the weeds, you have to start running, leading, all of that. The second part of that is you have to realize what is your value per hour. Okay. And if, for example, you know that you, when you're out there, you're negotiating, you're talking, you're selling your business, you're your time per hour is $100, $150, $200 an hour, and you're doing these tasks that can be outsourced for $10, $15, $20 an hour, how much money are you actually costing yourself by keeping control of that duty or that task? When in reality, you're like, okay, if I can do $200 an hour, I can outsource this for $20 an hour. That means every hour that I'm outsourcing that I already am doing myself, that's essentially making me $180 an hour because I know as long as you're gonna go out and do the work, right? That it's gonna make me $180 an hour. So if you're doing five, 10 hours a week of these tasks, you know, yeah, that's you know, $18, it's always two grand. And so if it you know costs you a quarter of that, it's it's a no-brainer. And you have to start thinking and seeing things this way. Even if it's an employee in-house, it doesn't even necessarily have to be like an outsource to a contractor, it just be, you know, what's the cost of bringing in an employee? And then if I get that time back, right, after they're settled and they're up and running, what what does that you know free me up to do to then continue to grow the business? And ultimately, as long as there's like a four, you know, three, four, five times, you know, the return on that outsource, it's worth it. Now, the one that makes it hard that is for a lot of people is like you know, personal. They're like, you know, I'm I'm spending 90 hours a week working on my business. How do I outsource? You know, and it's like, okay, well, how much is you know time with your family if you have and that's what it's taking you away from? How much is that worth to you? And many times that's priceless. So like it doesn't, you know, there is no price to that. And you it there's a couple things. Maybe it's not outsourcing, maybe it's just deciding to cut back. You know, maybe maybe it's actually looking at everything that you're doing, and it's like, okay, where is my ROI on my time? And cut out everything that's not giving me an ROI. Well, it's interesting. You know, you have it's that mindset shift of, okay, where's my hours? You know, and if it's if you have the money, right, because you know it's gonna make you money, then you know, look at where you can outsource this. And if it's just because you're doing too much, look at where your ROI is and then make adjustments from there.

Speaker 53:11

Well, it's interesting you should say that one of the comments, one of the another part of a conversation with the same client was actually talking about the ideal client that they have. And what they were advised is that they had a so many uh a certain size client that was a perfect client for them. And anything below it actually cost them money to deliver services to. Now, they were in a position where they hadn't quite gotten to enough of those new clients at the right size yet, but they had a process. Every time they bought on a new client that was at the right size, they have started culling three clients that are not the right size. And they found that they're actually not spending anymore, they're not losing anymore, and they're maintaining the status quo for their income. But they're freeing additional resources internally because of it, because this they found the smaller clients that didn't meet the criteria that they've now said, they got them when they're in that period of desperation and startup, and they've carried them on for that for 10 years now. But what's happened is it's

Value Of Delegation And Hourly ROI

Speaker 54:21

now costing them money to have those people on board because they're very noisy, they are used to getting the attention, and now they have to pay for staff to do that work. They've realized that there's a real cost associated to deliver that. So I found that was really enlightening to hear that because between that working out what their ideal customer was, working out what automation they need to put into their business to try and streamline portions, it was pretty interesting to see that they're willing to invest in the right places to make their life easier and to help make their business more profitable and be able to go after the clients they really wanted.

Dave 55:04

And that's another interesting fact. And I had this conversation with a client recently as well, right? Where you have to think, what is your margin? And this goes into you know, you this is where you have to know your margin. But essentially, they're trying to chase down, let's say, a thousand, fifteen hundred dollar jobs, which you may think is good, is sufficient, but yeah, their margin on these jobs, because of the fact that you know they have overhead, they have people that have to run these jobs, there it's only you know about 60 to 70 percent or is overhead. So they're only grossing gross margin on these, anywhere between 40, you know, 30 to 40 percent. So for example, let's just say it's a 50, $1,500 job, and you know, you're grossing 40%, so that's $600. But you're trying, he's trying to solve a thousand dollar, you know, sort of hole right now. Well, it's like you know, you're looking at the wrong size. You know, you you may think you're solving the problem by getting a $1,500 gross job, but in reality, right, you have to be looking at the margin on that job to solve your hole. So if your hole is five grand, right, and you're trying to do it with you know a job that's gonna gross you $450 to $600, you know, it's gonna take you 10 of those jobs to solve that hole. Whereas if you're looking to solve that hole with you know something that's like $15,000 or $20,000 job, one job that grosses that and that solves your hole, which one's easier? One may take a little bit more time, but it's easier in the end to close that, especially if you're you know to close 10 smaller jobs, it's still gonna cost you time in building relationships and outreach and follow-up, all that stuff, which he's doing right now. He's got to go out and give estimates, he's got to go out and follow up, he's got to create the estimates. So there's a lot of hours invested into these small $15,000 to $2,000 an hour jobs that are grossing, not anywhere near the you know gap that he's trying to solve. And it's like you have to think bigger in terms of like larger clients, larger projects. And those are the people you need to reach out to, longer-term contracts. And when you can do that, now you're actually solving because you know your margins. If you don't know your margins, you're just guessing, you're only going to look at the top line number. I had this conversation you know years ago with one of my janitorial clients. They came and they're like, Oh, yeah, I'm bringing in $5,000 a month or you know, from this one client. It's great, it's awesome. Okay, let's break it down. How many hours does it take your worker to do to you know do that on a monthly basis? Right. And by the time we broke down salary, taxes, you know, they were paying mileage, supplies. She found that on that $5,000, you know, she's making hundreds of dollars. Yeah, so every month in her mind, she's like, I got $5,000 coming, I got $5,000 coming. This is awesome. Yeah, but all that money is going out to your people. It's not when you start running to lose this job. Right. When you when you start looking at jobs as an owner, and you start looking at your business as an owner, you can't think top line anymore because you have costs, you have outsourcing, you have support that goes with that top line. It now needs to be what is my margin on that job? My gross margin, right? So what are the direct costs that go along with it? And then what am I gonna make afterwards to kind of pay for the overhead, your salary, your profit as an owner? And if you if you are only looking at top line, you're looking at it the wrong way. You know, I actually had somebody message me the other day. Hey, I uh I just submitted a $60,000 proposal. Okay, it's awesome, but what's that gonna net you? And it was kind of eye-opening at that point. You know, it's like, oh shit, you're right. Like I have to have time,

Prune Clients To Protect Margin

Dave 58:38

I have to have staff, I have all these things that go through with it. And this is why it's important to have somebody by your side to partner, to listen to podcasts like that. Listen to anybody else. Like again, we're not the only ones in this space. You know, there's tons of people out there that can give you advice. You know, we're not saying we are your only people that are going to give you advice, but surround yourself and hold yourself accountable. We've talked about the mirror mode in the past, you know, you've got to look yourself in the mirror. But ultimately, yeah, you if it's not only like the right client, but it's also understanding your margin on your ideal client. And is that the right ideal client for the gap you're trying to solve or the margins you're trying to make?

Speaker 59:12

And understanding the service you're offering, what is the real cost involved in doing that? Yeah, because a lot it's not as easy as going out and a drop shop business, a drop, so like a drop uh selling business, drop shipping on for their website, drop shipping business where they're going. That's right, I was confused with the word for a second, I was like looking for it. But drop shipping businesses was really big for a long time because people going out, they're getting supplier relationships, drop shipping stuff, but then what they forgot to factor in is yes, you're making your 20-30% margin, but you've got to pay tax, you gotta pay for your marketing, you've got to pay for your ads, you've got to pay for your shipping, you've got to pay for all these other things that come into play. First time someone tries to return something, oh, this is not fun. I have to deal with this. There's time involved in that, there's costs involved with it. The first time somebody decides to report that they never receive the product, and instead of contacting you, they contact your bank or their bank rather, and then suddenly you get a thousand dollars pulled out of your account, it's not as much fun. You've got to how many sales do you have to make now to make up that loss revenue while you sit there and fight to get that back from the bank? And in some cases, may you may not win. So a lot of these businesses that seem very lucrative on the outset, and you think I can just run this on a really low margin, I can do this, like it's out, I can undercut everybody in the market. It's not worth it in a lot of cases. There's a reason people are charging what they charge because they've probably done the maths, they've probably worked it out, they've probably worked out that it costs time, it costs money to have somebody sitting at a desk answering a phone for them to make sure that we can give good customer service to somebody.

Dave 1:01:02

Yeah, and if you're only I mean if your focus is on price, right? Like you said, with small margin, if you're if you're literally like I'm just gonna I'm just gonna do on price, it's it's it's you're basically on a race to non-existence, you're on a race to closing your doors. You know, you can't think that way anymore. You gotta you provide value and provide value that's significantly higher, but it's okay, like you can do that. You know, there's a reason why people pay salaries to people because they feel like they're getting value out of them. You could essentially almost save people a lot of time if you could outsource the you know the tasks that somebody in the in their you know uh their employment is doing by saving them taxes and benefits, all this stuff that they don't have to pay anymore. So, one of the biggest things I've told a lot of people to do is you know look in in your area and find people that are. That are hiring for your position and just give them a call. Hey, would you be interested if you ever thought about potentially outsourcing this support, outsourcing these tasks? I'd love to have a conversation, even if it's not right. At least we have a conversation. You have all the information before you make a hire. It's the best way you could do it.

Speaker 1:02:04

That's an interesting approach. That's cool. There's more than one way to skin a cat, right? And it's and at the end of the day, it's about thinking outside the box sometimes to get the results. So I love that. Absolutely.

Dave 1:02:18

Yeah. So with that, we'll go ahead and we'll wrap up because I know Dwarren, you as you said, you were a busy week. I want to get to get you some rest. So next week we have a guest, James. He's in sort of like the mentoring space. He's owned a couple businesses in the landscaping world and the service world. I'm looking forward to that conversation. And he will be able to kind of give us some insights, guides, that, especially because he and I are in that kind of industry. My niche is those service-based businesses, B2B as well as B2C. So looking forward to that conversation with James and you, Dwarne. I think it'll be some good, good education for everybody. But just so you know, if you didn't miss it and you missed it earlier, Mark, February 13th on your calendar. Dwarne and I are excited for that episode. We're going to give some insights, some tips,

Top Line Vanity Vs Real Margin

Dave 1:03:04

strategies, things that we've done in Notebook LM, and how it can be impactful for you and your business, and how you can use that in your business or your you know, your teams, you know, not just like for you as a business owner, but how can you use it with your teams? How can you use it if you have kids in school, anything like that? So I'm looking forward to that episode. So Duar, what's one thing that you really hope people walk away today's episode with?

Speaker 1:03:29

I think it really comes down to for me be prepared to look outside what's comfortable at other options and see whether it's an acquisition that you've been trying to make, whether it's a sale, you know, getting more sales, whether it's just trying something new to differentiate yourself in your market. It's gonna feel uncomfortable, but give it a go and surround yourself with people, a network of people who are actually like-minded, or at least they're gonna give you honest advice, not just a pat on the back and say, Great effort, good work. Because sometimes you need that, but sometimes you also need that honest advice, and you know, some get just when you ask the question, they're gonna give you the real answer, not the answer you want, you know. And that's the one thing you've got to be careful with with AI as well, is when you're asking a question, it's gonna not be totally honest with you sometimes, it's gonna be giving you a vague answer or something you it feels like you might like, depending on your personality you've trained it with. So don't go relying on Chat GPT or Gemini to be that person if you haven't told it, I want you to be really critical of what I'm gonna tell you. It's not gonna sit there and it's not gonna be that person. So sometimes having real people in your network that you can communicate and work with, it's gonna be a huge benefit for you.

Dave 1:04:55

Absolutely, absolutely, and I would say for me, I think the biggest thing is understanding that mindset of outsourcing, delegating, and beginning to approach your business as a business owner, not necessarily an employee in your business, but an actual business owner. And how do you lead it? How do you grow? How do you get out of that? I have to do everything mindset and be the bottleneck and start looking at what is my best way to, you know, and and you may have to like obviously take a pay cut a little bit at the beginning. And but ultimately, if you want to scale, there's always some expense up front, whether it's time, whether it's money, anything like that. You have to be willing to, you know, kind of let that go for a little bit, train some new people. But in the long run, they're gonna be trained on what you want them to do, and they're not gonna be able to do that task for you. So that's what I really hope that you know, some people can get out of today's episode is get out of that mindset. You may be in it. I was in it for a while, you know, until I became you know a really you know strong leader in corporate and now in business, and you know, realizing that yes, nobody's ever gonna do it as good as you. But if you can give them the steps, you can give them the guidance on how to do it like you, it'll be well and take your you know, be patient with that. So, with that, I hope everybody has a wonderful and amazing week. Again, next week we're gonna have a guest on who is in again, sort of the coaching space, but he's had a lot of successful businesses in the landscaping world. So, James, we're looking forward to having you on next week. And then mark your calendars for February 13th. February 13th, we're gonna do a full notebook LM episode with studies, etc. So mark your calendars for that. And then the week after next, just so you know, we're also have uh Mark. Mark's a CPA. We're gonna have him on and talk through some costing, some business, you know, strategies as well on the tax side. So if you have questions, questions for either one of them, drop them down below. We'll make sure that we ask, but you know, mark your calendars for those episodes because I think it's gonna be important for everybody to you know get in live, ask questions to those, and we'll get them answered. So with that, we hope you have a wonderful and amazing week. Thank you for joining us. If you are here, we love you. You're watching the episode live, or maybe you're watching the recording. We love you, we appreciate your support. Again, make sure you like, subscribe, share this with somebody. We're on a mission to serve a thousand business owners by the end of 2028. So we need your help with that. So go ahead and share this episode. Dwarne and I definitely appreciate it. Um, and then down below if you're interested to learn more about Triumph Business Solutions, scan. I don't know how you how you want to point it, whether it's me, but scan that QR code. It'll give you kind of a quick you know overview of who Triumph Business Solutions are and what we can potentially do and help you support you and partner with you. And then with Dwarne, reach out for Dwaran. Dwarne can help you on the automation side, CRM side, all of that fun stuff. So with that, we appreciate you. Have a hope you have a wonderful and amazing week. Dwarne, thanks for joining me again. And we'll see everybody. We'll see everybody next time. See everybody, everybody. Bye-bye.