TAMPA Build Expo Keynote 1: Material Delays and Pricing Increases

enMay 27, 2022

My Business On Purpose

What was the main topic of the podcast episode?

Summarise the key points discussed in the episode?

Were there any notable quotes or insights from the speakers?

Which popular books were mentioned in this episode?

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What was the main topic of the podcast episode?

Summarise the key points discussed in the episode?

Were there any notable quotes or insights from the speakers?

Which popular books were mentioned in this episode?

Were there any points particularly controversial or thought-provoking discussed in the episode?

Were any current events or trending topics addressed in the episode?

About this Episode

The U of SC football program had just won the first Bowl Game in the 100-year-plus history of the school.

After joining the rugged and tough SEC in 1992, the Gamecocks were still struggling to be the elite SEC teams like Florida and Tennessee.

Tennessee had a young QB with a head-turning last name…Manning. We had a pony-tailed enthusiast named Taneyhill, along with two offensive lineman, two running backs all headed eventually to the NFL.

We were desperate for a signature win in the SEC.

JAMES DEXTER STORY at Tennessee turning the table over, driving down to the five yard line

2nd and 1 (5 yard penalty): (7:40) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jPj3LKGMhc
Blocked FG Returned 95 yards for a TD (9:51): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jPj3LKGMhc
56 - 21 Final Score…

Often, in life, sports, and business, we do desperate things in desperate times in order to solve desperate problems.

The last 2 years have created a desperate longing. Let’s articulate the challenge that you are up against today.

PAIN - Skyrocketing material and sub Pricing, Uncertainty, Subcontractor frustrations, Schedule delays, unrealistic clients, and PEOPLE PEOPLE PEOPLE!

Let’s think through some of the desperate things you (or someone you know) may have tried in the midst of a desperate situation in your business…

Go more intensely after deposits, draws, or receivables
Maybe you’re in a habit of using tomorrow’s deposits, to pay yesterday’s payables
Hiring Marketing companies to get more leads/sales b/c “Sales solves everything right????”…even though we don’t have measure in place to manage the money even if it did come in
Tried to buy bulk material and it’s dropped your cash flow
Build Bonus structures and increased base comp, b/c “more money means people will stay longer”
Just putting your head down and doing it yourself…”it’s just easier”
Tried to fix your schedule, or job costing, or projections schedule…but it just takes too much time
Hired new PM’s and Supers, Fired old PM’s and Super’s
Hired your brother or your cousin, or your son
Take on more work even though you are way behind on receivables and never properly job-costed previous job to understand profitability

We are running around, spinning in circles, a slave to an over-heated market, the client, to the employee, to the sub, to the vendor.

And we just want it to STOP. Just for a second so we can catch our breathe.

Talked to a custom builder in Kentucky two weeks ago who said, “I’m actually looking forward to a market slow down.” I was waiting for lightning to strike.

You had a grueling week, and then you have a Saturday where you are fired up about a late breakfast where you are going to eat donuts, cinnamon roles, pancakes, bacon, cheese grits… then after you’re done, you turn on a game on tv watching world-class athletes and think, “I need to work out!”

Chaos can often translate to unhealthy habits because we are vulnerable. In the chaos of the pricing increases or material delays, we tend to rest in the false comfort of cash flow, while KNOWING that we are neglecting the discipline of purpose, process, and systems that will create a long term FIT-ness for us, our team, and the mission we are on in our business.

I’ve seen it reported recently that both Quarterback Russel Wilson and basketball mega-star Lebron James each spend over $1 million on the health and fitness of their mind and body.

Here is a hard reality…trying to control pricing and material logistics is like trying to control the weather…you can’t control the weather, BUT you can forecast and adjust plans based on the latest information…and PRE-PARE.

I love the world prepare…it’s actually two words in Latin

Prae (Pre) = before

Parare (pare) = make ready

How do we make ourselves and our business ready BEFORE the next step?

A friend of mine, Chad Jeffers is the lead Dobro player for Carrie Underwood. He was passing through Columbia, SC a couple of years ago as we were in town and we had coffee in the lobby of the downtown hotel he and the other band members were staying at.

I asked Chad a simple question that I had never asked, “what is it like to play in front of all of those people?” His response was sobering.

He mentioned that most nights he forgets where he is at, and that the “repetition of the event” can get quite boring. In order to be great and find joy in touring, you’ve got to go back to THE FITNESS of your repetition and training.

In preparation for Carrie Underwood’s Las Vegas residency shows, Chad said…

"Typically for tours (including Vegas) we will rehearse for a month and half to 2 months (7 days a week) prior to the first show. Personally, i prepare for the rehearsals about a month prior to that (especially if we are learning new music). "

Kobe Bryant was 41 when he and his daughter died tragically in a helicopter crash in January of 2020.

He was notorious for his relentless work ethic. Writers Scott Davis and Connor Perrett chronicle some of Bryant’s more remarkable disciplines.

Practice from 5a to 7a…in High School
Shaq said he would practice without a basketball…just visualization and mind preparation
Had Nike alter a few millimeters off the bottom of his shoes to achieve “a hundredth of a second better reaction time”
You must “love the process…the daily grind…this generation loves the results too much.” - Kobe Bryant’s conversation with Nick Saban
“I loved preparation more than the competing part” - Kobe Bryant’s conversation with Alabama Football Team
NBA Scout in 2008. -“Allen Iverson loves to play when the lights come on. Kobe loves (playing) before the lights come on.” -

Here is a question for us. It’s easy to scream, yell, turn over tables, run out of the tunnel with a new idea, rally the troops for a momentary push.

What about you? In the face of unpredictable pricing and material concerns, and personnel challenges, and disrupted construction schedules…will you commit to play BEFORE the lights come on??

The best bourbon is PREPARED before it’s aged and evaporated.

The best wine is PREPARED with full ingredients before it sits.

Some of you are coming to the BuildExpo hoping for a hail mary, hoping for a silver bullet, a bright idea that will change the game for you.

I want to offer you something else.

When explorer Ernest Shackleton was preparing for his Trans-Antarctic Expedition, he needed the right team. It is said that he published an advertisement…

"Men Wanted for Hazardous Journey. Small Wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success."

The advertisement may not be true, but Shackleton’s expedition with his crew aboard the “Endurance” was heroic and transformative for an entire British society.

Reading through Alfred Lansing’s aptly titled book “Endurance”, you realize what kept Shackleton and his 27-man crew alive during months of isolation and loneliness in what has been billed as one of the most remarkable pictures of survival in modern history.

What two things kept these men going, when all other expeditions facing similar challenges, died?

FITness and repetition.

In the new unpredictability, do you want to stop spending your days putting out silly fires? You want to discover REAL purpose in your business? You want to make time for what matters most?

To emerge out of the fog in this unpredictable market, you must commit to great preparation by becoming F.I.T.

Fundamentals

We convened an emergency meeting of our clients in March of 2020 and talked openly about our concerns and realities...and then all committed...
1. “We WILL NOT contribute to chaos, but instead will simply respond to this call-to-action so we can implement the leadership that we have all been invited into.”
1. It’s realizing that your business is not a slot machine that you put money in and hope for the best!
  1. Five Foundational Cornerstones
  2. Firm Foundation made up of 13 Ingredients
  3. Four Structural Walls of Admin, Ops, Marketing, and Sales
2. Your business is constructed in the same way that your projects are constructed:
3. Your business has a lifecycle just like you do as a human that goes through stages
What are some of the fundamentals of that leadership??…

Five Stages Of A Business

1. 1. Each stage requires different engagement from people, and different leadership styles from you
2. Great News! You can actually build predictability and stability into your business…sure, the tide and tradewinds of the market will impact you, but YOU determine your course
1. Custom Homebuilder from the West Coast comes into 2020 with a cash account of $32,000 available dollars. $32k on $12mm worth of contracts. That’s it. Within 12 months, by going back to the foundations, they began 2021 with over $300k of available cash, and it continues to grow. What was the silver bullet????
STORY:
FITness and repetition…no silver bullets. Knowing your cash gives you OPTIONS!!!

The most fundamental step to creating a FIT business, is to painstakingly spend time on the fundamentals. Blocking, tackling, throwing, catching

The second step in becoming FIT, is to…

Invest In People

NY TImes Headline: people are discontent and leaving for “greener pastures” (UPDATE: 4mm quit in January 2022)
1. We can either gripe about the Millennials/Gen Z…or you can stop whining and start investing!!!!! It’s not as expensive as you think…HOW?
1. If your team does not know where you are going…THEY WILL NOT FOLLOW YOU and they cannot make great pricing and material decisions!
2. How? WRITTEN Vision, Mission, Values
3. How? WRITTEN Cockpit and Master Process Roadmap
4. How? A clear, old fashioned WRITTEN Org Structure & Job Roles
5. How? BASIC Financial Accountability and Tracking…SIMPLE SPREADSHEETS
Invest with Clarity
1. Priority…SCHEDULE, SCHEDULE, SCHEDULE
2. 1. Common refrain, “I don’t know why she is so freaked out about missing the Electrical/Framing schedule…we’ll get the billing eventually!”
  2. Not realizing that the payroll bell rings EVERY month whether you bill or not
  3. In Ted Lasso, Danny says “Football Is Life”...in construction, “Schedule Is Life!”
  4. The pricing and material challenges leave ZERO room for unpredictable communication…so HOW?
  1. Weekly meetings don’t have to be pointless, boring, worthless, and a waste of time…
  2. 1. If they are consistent, agenda-driven, and leader-led…weekly meetings offer a consistency that your team craves!
    2. These are NOT project meetings…those are separate…these are business meetings that build clarity, focus, and camaraderie centered on the MISSION!
3. Non-Negotiable Weekly Meetings (cue eye roll)
Invest with Communication
1. The real crisis of our day is not all of the things we think exist from the cable news tapes…the real crisis is a crisis of compassion and empathy
2. STORY: talking with the psychologist who said that young people now have the capability to show empathy without FEELING empathy
3. STORY: 3 weeks ago a biz owner walks into our coaching time: Wife whose husband stole her money. They showed AND felt empathy
4. Your team will be more prone to stay on top of the unpredictability if you lead with empathy and laser focus on the vision
  1. Reclaim the Face to face conversation
  2. Brene Brown wrote “People are hard to hate up close”
  3. HOW? 5 Question Check Ins at set times on set days
5. Professor Sherry Turkle of MIT has written extensively for decades on the necessity of empathy. What is her solution for the crisis of empathy we find ourselves in?
Invest with Compassion and Empathy

We must go back to the fundamentals, we must invest in people, and in order to restore business FITness in an unpredictable reality, we must…

Trail A Mentor

Bill Gates famously said, “Everyone needs a coach!”

Pricing variations and material disruptions are not new…find others who have navigated past storm patterns…everything has a pattern if we’ll stop long enough to see it
1. I have a business coaching group I am a participant of weekly, a psychologist monthly, and a speaker coach, two wisdom mentors I meet with 4 times per year, and two guys locally that we meet together for breakfast about 25 times per year
Right now…
…And I’m a professional coach!
1. Mentor: (find someone who has a different perspective and who is farther along that you)
Everyone needs a coach, because everyone is broken…just admit it!
At the height of their game: Ronaldo still has coaches, Simoan Biles has coaches, Serena Williams has coaches, Tom Brady has coaches, Lebron James has coaches.
(PAUSE) - Who is someone further along than you, who is actively mentoring, pushing you right now?

FINAL STORY:

FITness is no longer optional.

Les and Sara Claxton…Les PREPARED, he made ready, everything is volatile in his world…and he was ready.

Are you?

ACTION: Which of the 3, needs to be your 1st priority after you get out of your seat?

Fundamentals?

Invest In People?
Trail A Mentor

If you want to test your business fitness, go to mybusinessonpurpose.com/healthy

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We stumbled across Mike Michalowicz’s Profit First methodology back in 2017 when a friend sent me a sample chapter of the book and I devoured it. We were only a couple of years into our business coaching firm and honestly were looking for a method that would demonstrate a numerical return on the investment our clients were making in themselves by engaging with Business On Purpose.

The premise is basic: subdivide your bank accounts.

Instead lumping all of the money of your business into one, two, or three accounts, begin subdividing each dollar according to where that portion of the dollar is supposed to go.

If your cost of goods sold (COGS) is 30%, then roughly 30 cents of each dollar should be funneled into a COGS account, and so on.

After a year of subdividing our own accounts we realized the massive real and psychological value of subdividing each dollar.

Others started following suit and we even began tracking the weekly balance of our cash into what was a more revealing “cash flow” report than the reports we were pulling from our bookkeeping software.

I am amazed that such a simple method is disdained by so many bourgeois.

Experience has taught us that simple things are often the key to clarity, and in this case, retaining more profit to be used for the things that matter most.

There are four primary reasons we have seen that rob owners of the joy of knowing where their money is going by subdividing their dollars.

First is the barrier of our own mindset. Whether it is the excuse of, “I’ll just do this all on a spreadsheet”, or the abdicating thought of, “it’s too much work”, our minds are the first to put up a fight against simplicity.

Just ask yourself, “am I content and joyful around what I am doing now?”

You might be content, but all of that effort and not much to show for it at the end of the year will leave an owner demoralized and empty.

Subdividing resources is not a novel concept and has worked for thousands of years across thousands of cultural settings.

Barrier number two is the bank who will be happy to add accounts for a fee.

There are plenty of local and remote banks who would love to host your deposits seeing as that money is what allows them to make money.

If your bank insists on charges, then insist on another bank.

Barrier three is a bookkeeper who is emphatic that “all of those transactions are going to take too much time and skyrocket your bookkeeping fees.”

Most of the accounts you add are simple savings accounts that just hold money until it is time to transfer to the government for taxes or to some other account for profit draws. Every quarter your real transactions will only increase by a few and will yield “voodoo”-like results in retained cash in the words of one of my friends who saw a twenty times cash increase in 12 months simply because he was subdividing and watching the money.

Find a bookkeeper who is excited to get you the clarity you need around your finances and retain the profit you have always known you could.

The finally barrier to implementing the subdivision of your bank accounts is your CPA, not all of course, but some. Most CPA’s are tax-first professionals focused on tax returns. There is a growing number of CPA’s who are seeing their role necessarily and beneficial evolve into advising beyond just tax returns.

If your CPA is unwilling to side with you on “all those new accounts”, there are plenty of CPA’s who would love to get you the clarity you need around your finances and retain the profit you have always known you could.

Remember, advisors, coaches, banks and support teams are here to serve you, not the other way around.

Commit to subdivide your bank accounts and begin to track the growth of your actual cash that you can then use for the generosity of your life and those you love and serve.

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770 2404851

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Growing A Debt-Free Business Without Expensive Software

At 67 Clark had owned his contracting business for 40 years…he was proud, but tired. The business had given him a chance to live in a good home, send his kids to good schools, and take a trip every now and then. Of course, business didn’t grow while he was gone.

At 67 he reached out to a business broker and asked, “how much can I sell my business for?”

He had always been told his business could be his retirement plan. HE was the value of the business and HE did not want to work anymore.

How do you grow your biz without debt, without expensive software, and yet WITH hope that your business can provide for you long after you have stopped working?

Can you imagine a business that not only runs, but grows without you???

Is that even possible?

What happens to your business if something happens to you?

Did you know that 80% of a biz owners net worth is locked away in their business?

How does an owner grow their number one asset without debt and expensive software?

I’m going to lay out four available next steps for you to choose from in taking meaningful action to be liberated from business chaos and build your biz to run and grow without you…especially if you plan to stay!

First, you must Write The Vision Down. Hope is not a plan, but hope is necessary. I hope to be a race car driver someday. I hope to live in Istanbul for months at a time. I hope my home increases in value. I hope the BOP team continues to build on it’s meaningful culture. Hope is the desire…but vision is the clarification of that hope

Writing a vision down converts hope into existence. Gerber says “if you don’t write it down you don’t own it”. We say, “if you don’t write it down it doesn’t exist”.

Write your vision down over a series of pages describing what you want for your family and freedom, your finances, your product or service, your team, your ideal client, and your culture.

The second tool for growing your business without debt or expensive software is committing to a simple life of spreadsheets.

I got a t-shirt made that says spreadsheets change lives!

What Project Management software is the best? Whichever one you will use.

Don’t try to drive a Stock Car before you’ve driven a Civic. Prove to yourself you will use the digital tools by using the free versions first.

Start any new tracking initiative on a spreadsheet…prove yourself, THEN you can sign up for the big boy stuff.

The third ingredient owners use to grow their biz without debt or expensive software is a culture calendar.

Culture is a science term, not a biz term. Culture is not something that happens to you but it is something that you proactively build.

You must create and invite people into a culture of RPM’s (repetition, predictability, and meaning). What a young generation does not want is a business or process that is glitchy, confused or bottled in your head.

What do they want? Clarity!

Stop Wasting time recreating the wheel. Start building a culture where people wake up and want to do hard things

You will need a tool that build the RPM’s of great culture: repetition, predictability, and meaning

Take a simple spreadsheet and add the weeks of the year along the horizontal bar at the top while adding all of the cultural ingredients you wish to install along the left hand vertical side.

Review this culture calendar in your weekly team meeting and implement. The team will begin to run and grow the business with or without you

The final tool to help you grow your business without debt or expensive software?

Subdivide your bank accounts and stop binge-drinking borrowed money!

Money leaks the fewer bank accounts we have. If we have 1, 2, or 3 accounts then it looks like we have a lot more money than we actually do

A $1 receivable drops down to pennies when we begin removing the cost of doing business. For every dollar of receivable you may realistically only be keep 2 to 4 pennies in CASH!

I’m not talking about your Net Income or P&L statement…that’s what the government and your CPA look at. We look at the cash you have in the bank. Nobody EVER has been able to withdrawal money from the bank using a P&L!

Of course those tools are important, and so is subdividing your cash.

Mike Michalowicz’s book Profit First is the definitive resource on this simple tool.

First, subdivide your bank accounts into at least 6 accounts. Then set percentages on each of those accounts. When receivables come in, subdivide the dollar up and put it in each home.

Don’t overthink this…don’t make excuses…you know what your doing now is not working. Money is creeping in the front door and flying out the back door.

Once you have subdivided, now you can begin tracking your actual cahs every single week and limit your need to borrow money. This is real-life cash flow, not some static report that you pull when you are in trouble.

It’s time to seeing where your money is sneaking

Sales are not your problem.

Marketing is not your problem.

Your process is your problem that free spreadsheets and subdivided bank accounts can empower you to solve.

Today, that 67 year old Clark is now 75 and he rarely leaves his house…he coughs all day. He always said, “when I retire, THEN I’ll…”

This wasn’t what he had planned…and his story can act as a catalyst for you to do something different.

To live NOW…enjoy your business now…enjoy your life NOW…stop allowing chaos to determine your life.

Write your vision down, commit to a life of spreadsheets first, implement the culture you see, and subdivide your bank accounts.

My new audiobook walks through these in details. Go search Let Your Business Burn: Stop Putting Out Fires, Discover Purpose, and Build a Business That Matters.

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How To Delegate Smartly: Break The Doing Habit

The Doing Mind vs. The Thinking, Solving, Equipping, Delegating (TSED) Mind

We recently had some heroic clients in discussing their transition from the first mountain into the second mountain. All clients coming into the Business On Purpose coaching experience begin at Basecamp where they are equipped and installed with the base-level tools to begin operating their business on purpose.

These tools systematize four primary areas of priority; purpose, people, process, and profit.

At basecamp, imagine each person is getting fitted with the appropriate business harness and then we begin outfitting them with the tools of a written vision story, master process roadmap, subdivided bank accounts and dashboards, and about 23 other tools that are often either missing, or in partial form.

Upon being outfitted and equipped at basecamp, we begin climbing the business owner's first mountain where each of these tools both for the owners and key leaders are implemented and tested.

After proving to themselves the utility of these tools and enduring a few slips and falls, the owner and key leaders then begin to set their minds on the second mountain. While it takes a few years to become equipped and acclimated; owners on the second mountain climb realize that the equipment and testing they received were necessary for the second mountain climb, and yet no amount of training could prepare them for the mindset shift needed to make the important move from the “doer” to the “thinker/solver”.

While in this recent meeting, I was physically watching our clients wrestle in their minds with the death of their “doer” mind and the awkward adolescent growth of their “thinking and solving” mind.

A phrase we remind our heroic owners often is, “You must move from task-leadership to people-leadership.”

And remember, tasks never talk back. Tasks don’t project emotion. Tasks move when you want them to move, and don’t move when you let them sit.

People are very different.

As we worked through this death and new life scenario we stumbled upon a paradox; the doing loop vs. the thinking/solving/equipping/delegating (TSED) loop.

Here is how it works.

For those caught in the doing loop, more doing will always be their answer to challenges that should require thinking/solving/equipping/delegating (TSED) instead.

The doing then cascades into a death spiral of sorts.

Doing then leads to working too long.

Working too long leads to burnout.

Burnout leads to frustration and perpetual negativity.

The negativity is eased briefly due to an increase in short-term income (because the doing produces more immediate response).

The irritation and money then responds with consumption; consuming food, stuff, or anything that will numb the pain of more doing.

The consumption leads to emptiness which breeds bitterness.

The bitterness will spur one of two responses: more doing (leading to more spiraling) or opting out of the business altogether and doing something else.

The doing loop is endless until it is broken either by brokenness, or broken through a willful desire to begin thinking/solving/equipping/delegating.

When an owner decides to forego the easy solution of “just doing it myself” and instead leans into the thinking/solving/equipping/delegating (TSED) loop, then will then break the cycle and find joy.

How?

Think about a small fire that is burning in your business right now. Just one. You could go put that fire out yourself right now. You get the joy of feeling like a micro-superhero if only for a moment and the problem is solved…for now.

The downside is that you have likely left your team feeling inadequate and certainly ill-equipped to handle the problem in the future which means you have signed yourself up for a lifetime of doing.

Or make a different choice.

The TSED model works like this.

Fire starts burning and instead of you rushing in with all of your gear to put it out, you stop.

You see the problem which invites you to think about a solution.

Once you have documented or recorded the solution, you then equip another person to permanently extinguish that fire every time it flares up in the future.

The delegation comes when you actually prepare the training, trust the other person to execute on the training, and then have a set follow-up to get a report back on progress.

You have now shown dignity, humanity, and leadership to another person while saving yourself hours of time and frustration; both of which cannot be reversed. Once time is lost, it is not recaptured. Once frustration is vented, it is out.

Think. Solve. Equip. Delegate.

We don’t need you to be our superhero; you don’t need to shoulder that additional weight. We need you to make time to think, solve, equip, and delegate.

By walking through the TSED loop you create efficiency and empowerment.

The efficiency and empowerment create margin.

The margin creates a profit of time, money, and connection which snowballs into generosity.

Today, you can make a choice to put on the cape of doing, or you can stay in the firehouse and make time to think, solve, equip, and delegate. One leads to a death spiral of frustration, the other leads to joy and generosity, that becomes a work worth doing and liberates you from chaos to make time for what matters most.

If you are ready to get started on the foundational basecamp equipment go to mybusinessonpurpose.com/book and grab copies of my print book, ebook, or audiobook Let Your Business Burn: Stop Putting Out Fires, Discover Purpose, and Build a Business That Matters.

My Business On Purpose

enFebruary 20, 2024

Tuesday Tools On Purpose 20: Canva Pro

Join Patrice Miles, BOP Business Coach, and Sara Gatewood, Covenant Realty as they unravel the power of Canva Pro on the latest episode of Tuesday Tools On Purpose at My Business On Purpose Podcast.

Discover how Sara leverages Canva Pro to revolutionize her real estate endeavors, unravel the strategic insights for small business owners to harness the full potential of this tool, and gain actionable tips for creating visually compelling content that resonates with your audience.

Contact Info:
Sara Gatewood
Covenant Realty
Instagram @502KYRealEstate
Facebook @502KYRealEstate
www.LiveIn502.com
+1 502-931-4581

For blogs and updates, visit our site HERE ➡️ https://www.mybusinessonpurpose.com/blog/

LISTEN to the Business On Purpose Podcast HERE ➡️ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-business-on-purpose/id969222210

SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube channel HERE ➡️ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbPR8lTHY0ay4c0iqncOztg?sub_confirmation=1

My Business On Purpose

enFebruary 13, 2024

tuesdaytoolsonpurpose

669: How To Delegate Anything And Make Time For What Matters

The influential Andrew Carnegie said, "No person will make a great business who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit."

We just cannot seem to help ourselves. We feel like we have to do it all.

Whether it is a function of a lack of support around us (which is usually our fault for not recruiting well) or an unhealthy sized superhero ego (which is always our fault)...delegation has been a challenge literally since the beginning of time.

Great news though about delegation, when it is done right, it will change the game for you.

John Maxwell said it clearly, “If you want to do a few small things right, do them yourself. If you want to do great things and make a big impact, learn to delegate.”

Let’s start with what delegation is, and what it is not.

Delegation is…
A Transfer of authority
Craig Groeschel said “When you delegate tasks, you create followers. When you delegate authority, you create leaders.”
You’ve heard it before, everything rises and falls on leadership. The height of your leadership determines the height of your team’s leadership. When you transfer authority, you empower someone else to execute and achieve the results.

Delegation is…
A powerful method of growth and margin
I recently read about some of the world’s remarkable leaders like Mark Cuban, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, and some of the habits they carry. Many of them read books for hours at a time. HOW? They have delegated. They realize that the growth of their team and organization are dependent on their own growth so they delegate to build margin for more growth. It is a growth snowball!
Delegation…
Creates a more stable product and process
When you try to do all things every time, they are going to be done with varying levels of commitment and quality.
When you delegate one thing to someone, it will have a greater level of integrity and quality because they focus on that thing while you can turn your entire attention to the highest and best use of your time.

Delegation is not…
Transferring your responsibility
Jocko Wilink’s powerful book “Extreme Ownership” is a punch-you-in-the-mouth reminder that even though delegation pushes down; leadership, authority, and ownership pushes up. This is why training is so crucial and why it cannot be the first thing to go when times get tough. Training empowers delegation which empowers quality and efficiency which then empowers serious competitive advantage and growth.
A lack of training empowers frustration and spirals in a decline to the wheels falling off an organization

Delegation is not…
An Abdication of tasks
Healthy delegation lays out a clear role, step-by-step training, and ongoing accountability and coaching
Unhealthy abdication simply says, “Here go do this” and then moves on without repetitive, predictable, and meaningful training
Abdication is evidence of our own self-centeredness whereas delegation serves others

Delegation is not…
Micro-Managing
It’s easy to micro-manage; simply ask the wrong questions at wrong times
Delegation embraces repetitive, predictable, and meaningful questions at predictable times to the right people who have been repetitiously equipped with the predictable tools

But how?

First thing to do is to write down EVERY SINGLE TASK THAT YOU DO IN YOUR BUSINESS on a spreadsheet. I mean everything!

If you answer phones, write it down. If you respond to social media messages, write it down. If you take out the trash, clean the windows, go on sales calls, sit through industry meetings, bid, estimate, job cost, or order materials...whatever you do, write it down.

Small tasks, big tasks, write it down.

Once you’ve exhausted everything you can think about, then it is time to prioritize those tasks and understand exactly what they are worth and how “delegatable” they are.

The first column after the task could potentially be the most telling.

Your time.

Time is the most valuable commodity that you have. You cannot create more. You cannot buy more. You can not recapture what is lost.

Next to each task write down the average amount of minutes it takes you to complete this task each week.

Next is to rank your “energy” with these tasks.

There are one of three possibilities to indicate when filling out this column that can be done by answering a simple question.

Does this task give me energy, suck me dry, or it is so-so?”

If that task gives you energy when you have completed it, type in the word UP

If the task sucks the life out of you and you leave more drained than when you started, then type in the word DOWN.

If the tasks leaves you thinking, “That’s ok...it’s no big deal” then mark it with a NEUTRAL.

There you go...UP, DOWN, or NEUTRAL

Does it give you energy or does it not?

The third column is to rank the type of task this is. If this is something that ONLY YOU CAN DO, and nobody else could ever possibly do this, then you write a “1”. There should not be many of those by the way.

If this is a task that you did not think could be delegated, but the more you think about it, you think, “Well, maybe so”, then write a “2”.

If this is a task that you know you can delegate, you should have done it a while ago, but you just haven’t, then write a “3”.

You should have WAY more 2’s and 3’s than you do 1’s. If you have a lot of 1s, you need to re-evaluate how important you see yourself in the business...that is not healthy long term. Remember, great leaders cannot go to higher levels without great people.

A list of 1’s may reveal the desire to meddle.

Time for the big reveal. Once ranked, go pick all of your tasks with a “2” or “3” and “Down” written next to it… especially those that take a lot of time. Once identified, ask these four questions…

Who will you delegate it to? (separate slide)
How will you train that person? (separate slide)
How will you track regular progress? (separate slide)
When will you get started? (separate slide)

The final missing piece to a simple and powerful training process for you and your team is IMPLEMENTATION.

I will take a half-baked plan with full implementation versus a perfect plan with half-baked implementation.

I quote Joe Calloway all of the time because it is so powerful, “Vision without IMPLEMENTATION is hallucination”.

If you meet with your team on a regular basis to review what you have delegated, while also delegating new tasks, it will work. If you do not share meet, it will not work.

Start delegating and stop belly-aching.

My Business On Purpose

enFebruary 12, 2024

668: Three Ways Contractors are putting their business at risk

I’m getting to a point in my coaching career where it can feel like I’m on a carousel. I meet heroic business owners all the time and it can feel like Groundhog Day, which was conveniently last week, as I hear some of the mistakes they are making. Many of them ask, “Thomas where are we at risk?”

I figured if I’m having that conversation with several business owners each week, so why not have it with all of you?

So thanks so much for joining today, it’s Thomas Joyner with Business on Purpose here ready to dive in on the 3 Ways contractors are putting their business at risk.

No, I’m not talking about dodging taxes or having poor quality, or failing to build team culture. Although those are important, I want to spend some time on the ones I see most frequently putting businesses at risk across the country.

The first one I want to talk about is this…not knowing how expenses affect your bottom line. I’ve talked about this in the past, but it rears its head all over the place, and here are a few areas I see it.

Firstly, hiring. We look at industry standard instead of what the business can afford. It feels too intimidating to actually build out a Pro Forma and identify what happens to our cash flow when we hire, so we come up with a random number that is in no way based on our business's performance and we decide that we will just have to do more work. How much work? We have no clue, but we’ll know it when we see it. If other businesses can afford to pay it, then surely we can too! Sound familiar?

Other areas I see it are in debt payments. We buy a truck or skid steer or scissor lift and don’t think through the ramifications of long-term debt payment. Or on the flip side, we need it for a few jobs and we go out and buy one instead of just renting it on the 3 jobs we need it and it really affects our cash position long term.

This is KILLING businesses every single day. We don’t forecast out our revenue and expenses in any kind of meaningful way, so we have to fly blind and we end up killing our potential profit downstream.

So, what to do about that? Build out a reliable forecast with projected revenue, cost of goods, payroll, nonpayroll expenses, and any other random expenses that will pop up like insurance, tax payments…etc.

Build a running tally of projected Net Income and then use those numbers to tweak when adding expenses like hires or equipment purchases. Can you hit your numbers with the new expenses? If not, what does revenue need to be to hit those numbers? Is that realistic? It’s a game you have to play where every decision has a reaction. But you, the business owner, need to be on top of it.

The second way I see businesses at risk is not giving and writing down crystal clear job roles for their team.

It’s the area I see things get dropped more than any other. We have 4 people who have overlapping job roles and no understanding of where their responsibilities start and stop. So you, then, end up with 4 people doing things slightly different, or human nature takes over and they let the one person who truly cares handle the most important parts. That person then gets burned out as the weight of the business falls on their shoulders and they leave.

This sound familiar? Absolutely it does! We expect people to know, mainly because we just wish they would take the initiative to figure it out for themselves, we expect people to know what we want them to do! And yet, it rarely works out for the better.

We have to build out an Organizational Chart that maps out responsibilities. And maybe it’s a great time for you to rebuild job roles to refine your operations instead of lean on the way you have always done it. Maybe it’s time to get in a mastermind group or ask a coach to walk alongside you and point out things you don’t see because you’re stuck in a rut!

Once you have the team mapped out, you may need to build a flow chart from Awareness of your business to closed sale and then see what are all of the tasks that need assigning. It takes time, but imagine how much clarity, authority, and purpose it would give your team to know exactly what it will be held responsible for and to be able to compensate on value to the business. Oh, it would be freeing for the whole team!

Lastly, I see businesses at risk in the way they don’t clearly articulate what will get them to their long-term vision. This may sound complex, but it’s not intended to be so. I see businesses chase after deals or projects that they have no reason to chase after because they don’t have a clearly identified plan to get to their vision. So they add a massive remodel or a new development, or maybe a completely out-of-the-blue maintenance division just to grow revenue.

It’s opportunity-driven, not vision-driven. Months down the road, the lead source dries up or they quickly realize it’s not as profitable as they hoped and they are left backtracking to get back to who they were in the first place.

It’s why we spend so much time on Vision story. We want a bulletproof plan that will lead your business where you want rather than just chasing after any shiny object opportunity that happens to catch your attention and happens to offer the promise of profit.

There’s so much to think through here, but if you can get laser-focused on what you want to offer from a product and service standpoint, and then stay locked in with that, you stand a much better chance at reaching your vision than allowing every distraction that passes by to knock you off course.

I see it every week in the coaching world.

Alright so let’s recap, write these down, and make sure you aren’t suffering from 1 or all of them.

Number 1, not knowing how expenses affect your bottom line, Number 2 not giving and writing down crystal clear job roles for their team and number 3, they don’t clearly articulate what will get them to their long-term vision

Think through those and please, let us know if we can walk alongside you in those. You are not alone! And you’re not silly or ineffective as a leader for failing at any one of them! They are tricky and they take work to navigate around and through them.

But the way they set your team up for success when you can effectively manage them, that’s running a business you can be proud of.

Hope you have a great day!

My Business On Purpose

enFebruary 08, 2024

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