Operations: Fixing the Money Leaks in Your MSP, with Jhana Li

[00:00:00] It is your job as the visionary to be focused on that money pipeline and bringing more and more water into the bucket.

[00:00:04] But it won't do you very much good if every drop of water that falls in the bucket just immediately leaks out through a crack.

[00:00:11] Your operator's job is to be keeping an eye on the gaps and the cracks, closing those so that every drop poured in stays in the bucket.

[00:00:20] And what's beautiful about that is like that's money you've already generated.

[00:00:24] And so for every efficiency gain, it's 100% profit.

[00:00:33] Welcome to MSP Mindset. I'm Damien Stevens. And today I got to talk with Jhana Li.

[00:00:40] She has helped hundreds and hundreds of companies with scaling past seven figures and eight figures of revenue.

[00:00:48] So if you're running into any of those issues, you're not going to want to miss our discussion on, stay with me, operations.

[00:00:55] Yes, I thought that was a horrible word too.

[00:00:57] And then she helped me realize this is how I can as an entrepreneur, get back the joy in my business, stay in my zone of genius and help my entire team do it.

[00:01:08] Not only will I and my team be happier, but if I pull this off, I can double the productivity for my business.

[00:01:21] If you don't mind, Jhana, tell people about your story and how you came to found SpyGuys.

[00:01:27] Yeah. So I always say that before I found operations, I was literally directionless.

[00:01:34] And what I mean by that is I was living full time in a converted van.

[00:01:37] I was traveling with my boyfriend in this van through North and South America, and I didn't really know what I was doing professionally.

[00:01:43] I was working kind of a series of odd jobs and mostly my life was around just like travel and kind of going wherever the wind took us.

[00:01:50] And my boyfriend at the time, he was growing and scaling a online business.

[00:01:55] And that was really my first introduction to entrepreneurship and what it takes to really start a company.

[00:02:00] And so as you do, you know, like you talk through problems and you try and figure things out together.

[00:02:04] And what became very clear to me, Damien, is that the things that I was seeing in his business were different than the things that he was seeing.

[00:02:13] He was seeing, you know, the technicalities of the product and the client success.

[00:02:18] He was seeing the growth opportunities and the revenue opportunities and the new offers we could be launching.

[00:02:22] I was seeing the holes, the gaps where people weren't using their time super efficiently, where it felt very obvious to me that things could be running better.

[00:02:31] But he didn't see that. And that was very interesting to me.

[00:02:33] And through a series of odd events, I ended up stepping into that company for what was supposed to be like 30 day fill in for somebody who had left.

[00:02:41] And eventually I became that company COO because not even knowing what I was doing, not knowing what operations was when I got into the business.

[00:02:49] It was I equated to like walking down Main Street in Las Vegas.

[00:02:53] Like it was just neon lights everywhere being like this is inefficient.

[00:02:57] This is a gap. This is wasting money. This is wasting time.

[00:03:00] I couldn't not see it. And so I didn't know what I was doing.

[00:03:03] But I just started cleaning things up. And I learned eventually that there's a word for that.

[00:03:07] There's a skill for that. And that is really what operations is, is just creating efficiency and minimizing loss within a business.

[00:03:14] And so I really dove into that. I studied hard. I found a couple of key mentors.

[00:03:19] I had the opportunity to become an operations coach in a community that had hundreds of business owners in it.

[00:03:25] And so I got access to the data of 500 plus different businesses pulling back the curtain and telling me what their operational challenges were and figuring out how to work through that together, figuring out what it really took, like what the actual best practices and patterns of success are to create scalable operations specifically for startups.

[00:03:45] And so that is really where I found my niche and my expertise.

[00:03:49] And then three years ago, I decided to take all of that and turn that into my own business.

[00:03:52] And that is what we do now.

[00:03:53] So tell me about how you define operations, because I know you go, oh, that's just the COO's deal or especially in like an MSP where we hire so many high stakes people.

[00:04:05] In other words, like technical engineers, I think we get focused on technical things and then operations becomes like, I don't know, back of the house or paperwork or administrative.

[00:04:17] And I don't think that's quite it.

[00:04:20] How would you define it?

[00:04:20] Yeah, I often see that people kind of define operations as like the everything else, right?

[00:04:25] The things that are not my expertise, therefore they must belong to you.

[00:04:28] And the challenge with that is that there is no success there.

[00:04:34] You can't succeed at being the everything else.

[00:04:37] You can't create improvements in the everything else.

[00:04:40] It's a non-definable term.

[00:04:42] So my definition of operations seeks to fix that.

[00:04:46] I define operations as any action required within a business to optimize a company's use of its core five resources.

[00:04:54] Those resources are time, energy, money, human potential, and physical capital.

[00:05:00] These are the five things that we as business owners have going to work within our company all day, every day.

[00:05:07] And the job of your operator, very simply, is to make sure you get the most bang for your buck.

[00:05:12] You get the most out of every second of time from you and your team, every calorie of energy,

[00:05:18] and if that's being spent on the right things at the highest productivity possible, every dollar that we invest,

[00:05:24] every machine or piece of physical capital that we have.

[00:05:28] And importantly, and I think in the most underutilized, human potential.

[00:05:32] Like are us and our team bringing our best to the table?

[00:05:36] Are we bringing our most amount of work ethic and creativity and innovation?

[00:05:39] That's a resource.

[00:05:40] And I believe it's the job of operations to maximize the ROI to the business from these five things.

[00:05:47] Hey guys, today's episode is sponsored by Servocity.

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[00:06:20] If you'd like to learn more, take a look at servocity.com.

[00:06:25] Interesting.

[00:06:26] So if I'm listening as an entrepreneur,

[00:06:30] and I know you've now helped hundreds of businesses scale past seven and eight figures,

[00:06:35] but as an entrepreneur, maybe I don't have a COO yet.

[00:06:38] I would say as a lot of MSPs, that's a title that gets put in really late.

[00:06:43] You know, we put in a, you know, head of operation,

[00:06:47] head of help desk or a CTO or kind of other things that I think sometimes fill a little bit of those roles

[00:06:55] and maybe head of marketing or sales or just other things.

[00:07:00] So as an entrepreneur, before I've put in a COO, before I've got somebody like you,

[00:07:05] what do I need to be thinking about?

[00:07:06] Because if I hear your definition, it's really innovating, right?

[00:07:11] It's not just saying that everything else, it's innovating for a specific reason to drive that efficiency.

[00:07:17] What should I be looking for?

[00:07:18] What should I be thinking out?

[00:07:19] Where are those opportunities?

[00:07:21] So two components to this, Damien.

[00:07:23] Number one is tackling this question of the COO.

[00:07:26] Because the reality is I think the reason we wait so long to bring in operations is because we think

[00:07:31] the only possible operational role is COO.

[00:07:35] Therefore, I have to wait until I'm really big so I can afford this really expensive person.

[00:07:39] But like any other department, there's layers to operations.

[00:07:43] And you don't have to wait to get that multi-six-figure COO.

[00:07:46] You can, you know, in my recommendation, anywhere between like the 50 to 100K per month mark,

[00:07:53] you can hire in what I would call an ops manager.

[00:07:55] That's an entry-level operational hire.

[00:07:58] They cost, you know, 60K per year more or less.

[00:08:02] And they're going to do the bulk of the operational efficiency that the business needs.

[00:08:06] Because at the size, the business just isn't that big.

[00:08:09] And there's not that much inefficiency.

[00:08:11] There's not that much complexity.

[00:08:12] So you don't need this really advanced COO.

[00:08:16] But you also don't need to wait to start to realize the efficiency gains

[00:08:19] that an ops manager could bring into the company.

[00:08:22] So that's the first permission slip I want to give to your listeners is like

[00:08:26] an operational hire doesn't have to mean a COO.

[00:08:29] And you don't have to put pressure on yourself to find budget and space for that level of person.

[00:08:35] When really what you need is somebody who can manage day-to-day systems,

[00:08:38] day-to-day workflows, processes, SOPs,

[00:08:41] start to help you build and scale out your team and manage your team with you.

[00:08:45] And you're going to see enormous ROI from that person way earlier in your business growth.

[00:08:50] So that's the first piece.

[00:08:51] It's like know the level of operator that your business actually needs.

[00:08:54] And frankly, don't pay for a level of experience

[00:08:57] that is well above what your company needs at its current stage of growth.

[00:09:01] And then second, you asked, you know, what should,

[00:09:03] let's say that I don't have that operator.

[00:09:05] What should I be looking at or looking for as a CEO?

[00:09:08] This is a tricky one, Damian, because most CEOs that I know

[00:09:13] don't have the operational lens, right?

[00:09:16] Again, going back to that original business with me and my boyfriend,

[00:09:20] he was not, he was literally not seeing the things that I was seeing.

[00:09:25] And I know that because I stepped into the business

[00:09:27] and in my first week, I found $50,000 leaking out of their company in a billing system, right?

[00:09:32] So if he had seen it, he would have done something about it.

[00:09:36] The challenge is that that visionary CEO lens is much more growth oriented.

[00:09:42] It's focused on driving top line revenue.

[00:09:44] It's focused on the technical skills that that CEO brings into the business.

[00:09:47] It's not focused on the billing system.

[00:09:49] It's not focused on the bad SOP, right?

[00:09:51] It's just, it's not a part of that reality.

[00:09:54] And that's totally okay because I believe the visionary lens,

[00:09:58] that's what your company needs you to be filling.

[00:10:00] And so in my, even my own experience, Damian, like I, I know this stuff, right?

[00:10:04] Like I'm a pretty good operator,

[00:10:05] but I find it challenging to be both the visionary and operator for my own business.

[00:10:11] And I hired out an operator.

[00:10:13] And when that person comes and works with me on whatever I'm focused on in the business,

[00:10:17] they're like, Jonna, how are you not seeing all of this inefficiency, all of this waste?

[00:10:22] And I'm like, holy shit, like I know these things and I don't see it.

[00:10:26] And it's because the visionary is so at odds.

[00:10:28] That lens is so at odds with the operations lens.

[00:10:31] And so I guess my, my way of answering your question, Damian is as a CEO,

[00:10:35] I wouldn't force yourself to try and wear both hats.

[00:10:39] I would really double down and master the CEO visionary hat

[00:10:43] because that's where you're going to drive the maximum level of growth to your business.

[00:10:47] And then I would give yourself permission to not try and step out of that.

[00:10:51] And also wear this operator efficiency hat.

[00:10:53] I would just find the person who's able to wear that hat for you full time.

[00:10:57] And that's where you're going to get that kind of combination of superpowers.

[00:11:02] I love that.

[00:11:03] And I never framed it that way, but I couldn't agree more, right?

[00:11:06] Which is stay, stay where your superpower is, focus on that.

[00:11:10] And I love the words, right?

[00:11:11] Give yourself permission.

[00:11:12] Because I think when you're wearing a lot of hats and running a business,

[00:11:15] you feel like any problem, any challenge, I have to,

[00:11:19] I have to now take on a new skillset and, and more than skillset,

[00:11:23] like you just don't see it.

[00:11:24] You know, you like even yourself, as great an operator as you are,

[00:11:28] you're missing something when you're the visionary.

[00:11:31] And so I think the permission to, to know that that's not the right fit.

[00:11:36] And what's funny is I think most people, you know, that are visionaries,

[00:11:40] they're going to get rid of accounting or get a CPA early on, or, you know,

[00:11:46] just something else, a little bit more mundane, sorry, accountants.

[00:11:51] And, and, and something that I know I did is one of the cross section of,

[00:11:55] I need it done well, and I'm not good at it.

[00:11:57] And I, and, and then the third one, I don't want to.

[00:12:00] And, but that for some reason seems natural and obvious.

[00:12:05] Probably most people have already done that.

[00:12:07] But it seems less obvious to me to give myself the permission,

[00:12:11] which I love that word, to not try to take on this operational role

[00:12:15] and make billing more efficient and make all those sorts of things.

[00:12:19] So I want to unpack that a little bit more.

[00:12:21] And I love your example because I love the pragmatism there.

[00:12:26] So tell me about if I'm, you know, a hundred K a month, like you said,

[00:12:31] or something like that, that's, you know, not a huge business growing.

[00:12:35] I want to bring on that first ops person, ops manager.

[00:12:38] You said maybe they're 60, I don't know, 70 K who knows,

[00:12:41] but that's not a terrifically expensive.

[00:12:43] That's definitely not a VP or C level.

[00:12:47] Um, what I know to probably vary based on business, but like,

[00:12:50] what do I, as a CEO visionary, what can I hand off?

[00:12:54] What can I let them do and focus on?

[00:12:56] And what kind of, what's typical, what kind of return they're going to do?

[00:12:59] Cause I think I'm struggling to say, Oh, I buy into what you say, but okay.

[00:13:04] I get the title and I kind of get the comp, but now I don't know what,

[00:13:07] what to do with it.

[00:13:07] So like, how do I set this person up for success?

[00:13:09] How do I know what they should be working on?

[00:13:11] And how do I measure success so that I know that they're the right person for the role?

[00:13:15] Is that correct?

[00:13:17] Absolutely.

[00:13:18] And you said this earlier, but I still struggle with it because I still,

[00:13:22] especially being kind of a technology operator, I go, Oh, well,

[00:13:27] cause I think a lot of people, they, they, some people, the less you know about technology,

[00:13:31] the more you treat it like, um, for example, healthcare.

[00:13:35] And what I mean by that is people say, Oh, you're in technology.

[00:13:38] And that's just as broad as saying you're in healthcare.

[00:13:40] Now, I don't know if you're a primary care physician or you're a brain surgeon or,

[00:13:45] or what, where you are or hospital administrator, but you're in healthcare.

[00:13:48] And those are obviously very different roles and all needed.

[00:13:51] They're kind of same thing in technology, right?

[00:13:53] We have everything from operational to software development,

[00:13:56] to help desk and all sorts of worlds in between.

[00:13:58] And, um, and I feel like, you know, we can get focused on the nuance and go, Oh,

[00:14:04] I need my technology development and my CTO.

[00:14:07] And I need my, um, service desk manager.

[00:14:10] And I need, um, maybe somebody to do dispatch and head that up and,

[00:14:16] and a bunch of engineers.

[00:14:17] But then I struggle.

[00:14:19] I go, where do I put, where's the CEO come in?

[00:14:22] Where, or where does that ops manager even start?

[00:14:24] Because I feel like I've already pushed things out into different roles.

[00:14:28] Yeah.

[00:14:28] And then I, I just come at it just being direct guys.

[00:14:32] I come at it from the everything else role.

[00:14:34] So how, how do I, how do I fix that?

[00:14:37] So how do I see this different?

[00:14:38] With that, with that very first operational hire, let's assume that that's an ops manager.

[00:14:43] It's an entry level operator.

[00:14:44] What are some of the things that that person should be working on?

[00:14:46] And how do I know if they're doing a good job?

[00:14:48] So the first thing I'll say around operations is that operations is the only department

[00:14:53] that transcends all departments.

[00:14:55] So what I mean by that is that while every department in your company is a vertical, right?

[00:15:00] You have sales and marketing and product and delivery, and these are separate verticals

[00:15:05] within the business.

[00:15:07] Operations is horizontal.

[00:15:10] Operations is there to make sure that each of these departments is working within itself

[00:15:15] as efficiently as possible.

[00:15:17] And that the handoff between departments is working as efficiently as possible.

[00:15:22] So one of the big mistakes I see, Damien, is that people will kind of push operations

[00:15:26] into a corner.

[00:15:27] Like maybe I'm a huge, like marketing and sales oriented CEO.

[00:15:32] So I'm going to hire an operator so they can handle everything on the backend.

[00:15:35] But what they don't realize is that there's incredible efficiency gains to be realized in

[00:15:39] the marketing and sales department.

[00:15:40] And if you don't let your operator into that part of the business, they're never going

[00:15:44] to be able to help you recognize those returns and those gains.

[00:15:47] So the first thing is that your operator should have a company-wide focus.

[00:15:52] And they are not just looking at each department individually to make sure every person in that

[00:15:57] department is as productive and as effective as possible.

[00:16:00] They're also there to be the safety net between departments.

[00:16:03] Because we know like all the biggest chaos and drop balls in the business tend to happen

[00:16:08] at the handoff, right?

[00:16:10] From marketing to sales and sales to delivery, right?

[00:16:13] And so they're there to create systems that form a bridge essentially between these departments.

[00:16:19] Specifically what that looks like for an ops manager.

[00:16:21] They should be focused on the day-to-day systems that are running the business, right?

[00:16:25] So front-end acquisition systems, a CRM if you're running that.

[00:16:28] On the back-end, the major system that I recommend every business has is what I call the single

[00:16:34] source of truth.

[00:16:35] That's their project management system that manages the day-to-day tasks and to-dos of

[00:16:39] the back-end team.

[00:16:40] They are building out your SOPs and they're working with your team to create the right SOPs

[00:16:45] for the business and keep them up to date.

[00:16:47] They're making sure essentially that the right work gets done by the right people.

[00:16:51] So there's sort of a project management component to it where they're making sure that people

[00:16:54] are on top of their tasks.

[00:16:56] People aren't falling overdue or behind, right?

[00:16:58] They're there to make sure that the day-to-day of the business runs.

[00:17:01] And so if we're looking at how do we measure success, what we're measuring is essentially

[00:17:07] how streamlined and chaos-free is the day-to-day.

[00:17:12] Right now, if you don't have an ops manager, you might be feeling like a lot of your time

[00:17:16] is being spent picking up dropped balls and fighting fires and like kind of frenzied running

[00:17:22] around, reacting to the business, trying to figure out what's going on and trying to just

[00:17:25] like keep the train on the tracks.

[00:17:27] The reality is, is that none of that should be necessary.

[00:17:32] None of that should happen.

[00:17:33] Balls aren't supposed to drop.

[00:17:35] Fires don't have to pop up.

[00:17:37] We don't have to spend our lives reactive to our business.

[00:17:40] In fact, our company would grow way faster if we could be proactive all the time instead

[00:17:44] of reactive, right?

[00:17:45] So your operator's job is to create that shift within the business.

[00:17:50] They create systems and safety nets so that balls do not drop.

[00:17:53] They create proactive notification systems so that the entire team is able to jump on the

[00:17:59] fire before it escalates and turns into this whole thing, right?

[00:18:02] They are there to make sure that the day-to-day runs smoothly so that everyone, yourself included,

[00:18:08] is doing their highest value work.

[00:18:11] And so the challenge with really good operations is that you almost don't see it.

[00:18:15] What you see is just a company that runs really well.

[00:18:18] But that's the operator doing their best work.

[00:18:21] The irony is, I think I struggle with it.

[00:18:24] I think the average MSP struggles with it.

[00:18:26] And what's ironic is when you're doing a job as an MSP, you're managing all the IT in a proactive

[00:18:34] way.

[00:18:34] And so I know some have come to me and said, my client is like, nothing breaks.

[00:18:38] I don't see anything.

[00:18:39] Like, why are we still paying you guys?

[00:18:41] Yep, exactly.

[00:18:42] This should, you know, kind of resonate.

[00:18:46] And what I find ironic is when I get that MSP model, but then I don't get that for myself.

[00:18:53] Like, operations is very similar, which is, you know, it's a, and my point around MSP,

[00:18:58] and if I'm understanding operations correctly, it's a proactive investment so that the fires

[00:19:04] don't get crazy.

[00:19:06] You're building a fireproof house so that nobody has to run around fighting fires.

[00:19:10] And Damien, if we're talking about how to measure this, the easiest gut check is really

[00:19:15] the CEO and how you're spending your time.

[00:19:18] Are you spending your time buried in the day-to-day weeds, feeling super reactive, putting

[00:19:23] out fires, picking up dropped balls, doing the things that like, let's be honest, you know,

[00:19:28] they're not the highest value things for your business, but someone's got to do them.

[00:19:32] So you step in and you do them.

[00:19:33] If that's how you're spending your time right now, let's say that you're spending 20 hours

[00:19:37] a week, kind of in that low value reactive state.

[00:19:40] Well, that's 20 hours a week that you're not spending growing your business, working on

[00:19:46] your business, driving the next marketing and sales campaign forward, delivering a better

[00:19:50] result to your clients and gathering more referrals, right?

[00:19:52] Those are the things that are going to move the needle.

[00:19:54] And so there's very real opportunity cost, right?

[00:19:57] Most CEOs that I know, they just kind of like live like that.

[00:20:00] And they're like, no, this is fine.

[00:20:02] It hurts and it sucks, but it's fine.

[00:20:03] And I'll just outwork the problem.

[00:20:05] And the reframe I want to offer is like, I don't care that it's annoying because you

[00:20:09] don't care that it's annoying.

[00:20:10] You're going to keep doing it anyway, but it's not that it's annoying.

[00:20:13] It's like a rock you've been walking around in your shoe and you've forgotten it's there.

[00:20:18] But in the rock in the shoe metaphor, the real cost is like, if we're running a race

[00:20:22] here, we have a rock in our shoe.

[00:20:24] How much faster could we run without the rock, right?

[00:20:28] That's the cost.

[00:20:29] It's the opportunity cost of foregone revenue and foregone opportunities.

[00:20:33] That you can't take on because you're spent busy in the day-to-day weeds.

[00:20:39] And so the greatest ROI that operations drives to a business is actually you.

[00:20:43] By freeing up your time and energy, they allow you to do the growth driving activities that

[00:20:48] only you can do.

[00:20:49] And the business will grow astronomically faster and smoother as a result.

[00:20:56] Hmm.

[00:20:57] I love that.

[00:20:58] I want to go back to something you said earlier.

[00:21:00] Talk about the five areas that OPs should impact.

[00:21:04] So those areas are time, energy, money, human potential, physical capital.

[00:21:10] We could talk these through one at a time.

[00:21:11] Would that be helpful?

[00:21:13] I would.

[00:21:14] And I'm a big proponent of separating time and energy.

[00:21:16] So I'd really love to start, you know, because I think there's too many people just think,

[00:21:20] because it's easier to, in my opinion, measure time.

[00:21:23] At least the hour somebody put into something than energy.

[00:21:26] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:21:27] So let's talk about time, right?

[00:21:29] Time is every second of everyone's day being spent on the highest value work.

[00:21:37] So we just talked about the CEO as the most obvious and measurable example of this.

[00:21:42] Is your time being spent on $10 an hour tasks or $100 an hour tasks?

[00:21:46] And the $90 gap there is the opportunity cost if your time is not being spent well, right?

[00:21:53] That's time.

[00:21:54] The CEO's time is the most valuable in the business.

[00:21:58] Therefore, it is the most important that the operators start by optimizing the CEO's time.

[00:22:03] That being said, like when I train my operators, right?

[00:22:05] This is what we do.

[00:22:06] We have a coaching program for operators to train them up in this stuff.

[00:22:09] We're then having them carry that forward to the team as well.

[00:22:13] Everybody on your team has high value work associated with their role.

[00:22:17] Even if they're at an entry level, there are more valuable things that they can do.

[00:22:21] Are they spending their time doing those high value tasks?

[00:22:24] Or are they spending their time in boring and unproductive meetings?

[00:22:27] Running around in Slack channels trying to track down information, right?

[00:22:30] Again, all of that is wasted time that you're paying for.

[00:22:34] Like you pay for your team's salary to sit around and have a bad meeting.

[00:22:38] That is wasted time that could otherwise be spent doing their high value work

[00:22:42] that actually makes you money.

[00:22:44] So that's time.

[00:22:44] Your time, the operator's time, the team's time.

[00:22:47] Super important.

[00:22:48] The second one is energy.

[00:22:49] And I do separate out time and energy because I could be spending the same exact amount of

[00:22:54] time on a project, but that doesn't mean I'm getting the same return, right?

[00:22:58] Energy comes down to productivity as well as what I love that you said, Jamie,

[00:23:03] is like the superpower, the zone of genius, right?

[00:23:05] I could spend as a CEO, I could spend an hour of my time doing something like this,

[00:23:10] coaching operations.

[00:23:11] That's high value work for me.

[00:23:13] It's high leverage.

[00:23:14] And I'm going to create, I'm going to love it.

[00:23:16] I'm going to be in flow.

[00:23:17] I'm going to be showing up excited.

[00:23:19] I'm going to hop off this podcast and be even more excited to get into the next thing that

[00:23:23] I have on my radar.

[00:23:25] Or I could spend that same hour like trying to edit a video, which I am like notoriously

[00:23:30] terrible at.

[00:23:31] It's going to be a bad video.

[00:23:33] I'm going to hate it.

[00:23:34] I'm going to wind up drained and exhausted heading into the next thing.

[00:23:37] So my energy is not being used to generate a max ROI.

[00:23:43] Understanding what your superpowers are, as well as everybody else on your team and putting

[00:23:48] them in the roles that activates and utilizes their superpower means that everyone is delivering

[00:23:53] higher output with the same amount of time.

[00:23:56] And that's where we get gains on energy.

[00:23:58] Does that one make sense?

[00:24:00] That makes a ton of sense.

[00:24:01] I've found that I've spent a lot of time looking at Patrick Galantini's six type of genius,

[00:24:08] Dan Sullivan's unique ability and the zone of genius by Gay Hendricks and trying to understand

[00:24:16] myself and those sort of things.

[00:24:18] I've shared it with some of my team, but I'm curious.

[00:24:20] I feel like not everybody does that.

[00:24:22] First of all, maybe some should, but I'm curious because I feel like even less of us take

[00:24:28] it to the team, you know, even if we believe it, even if we use those words and try to,

[00:24:33] you know, quantify what, what is that?

[00:24:35] I don't know if that's out of fear that I might identify that you're spending a lot of

[00:24:40] your energy in the wrong spot for you, but I really don't have something or if it's out

[00:24:47] of lack of knowledge.

[00:24:48] Um, and I know some people seem to gravitate towards understanding that, um, and others

[00:24:56] maybe on the team, there's like, I don't, I don't care as much to figure that out or dig

[00:25:00] into that.

[00:25:01] So I'm curious, how do you, how do you understand that and assess that and make that practical?

[00:25:06] Because I feel like there's a, I think there's a huge opportunity because I completely believe

[00:25:10] what you said.

[00:25:11] And, um, and yeah, we've, we've got stories about it, but I want to hear your thoughts.

[00:25:16] So the, I try and use the most simple framework possible for my team.

[00:25:21] And what I do is I really invite them to engage in this process with me, because at the end

[00:25:25] of the day, this is an act of self-discovery, right?

[00:25:29] I'm not going to do your self-discovery.

[00:25:31] You're going to do it.

[00:25:32] And I'm just going to provide a framework to help you with that.

[00:25:34] And the framework that I tend towards is, uh, the zone of genius, Gay Hendricks model.

[00:25:39] And he talks about the zone of genius quadrant.

[00:25:40] So very quickly, these are like four boxes.

[00:25:42] You can imagine a quadrant on a page.

[00:25:43] The lower right box is the zone of incompetence.

[00:25:46] These are the things that you are bad at and you hate doing.

[00:25:50] So for me, that's video editing.

[00:25:51] It is a complete waste of my time and energy.

[00:25:54] It like the product and outcome is not good.

[00:25:56] And it leaves me drained.

[00:25:57] I should never do those things.

[00:25:59] Bottom left is zone of incompetence.

[00:26:01] Sorry, zone of competence.

[00:26:02] So these are the things that you can do.

[00:26:04] You're totally fine at doing them, but they don't light you up.

[00:26:07] They're not energy ROI positive, right?

[00:26:10] So this would be things like maybe like invoicing clients or billing, right?

[00:26:14] Like we can all do them, but they're not, they don't light me up inside.

[00:26:19] Replying to emails.

[00:26:19] Replying to emails, right?

[00:26:20] Okay.

[00:26:21] So that's a great example.

[00:26:23] Then we have zone of excellence, upper left hand corner, right?

[00:26:26] So these are the things that you're really good at.

[00:26:28] You enjoy doing and you're, you're masterful.

[00:26:31] You've put in the time to develop.

[00:26:33] These are generally like technical skills.

[00:26:36] Operations for me, Damien, is a zone of excellence.

[00:26:38] It is an acquired skill that I've gotten good at over time, but it's not my zone of genius,

[00:26:44] which is the upper right.

[00:26:45] Zone of genius is the things that light you up.

[00:26:47] They are, you are in flow.

[00:26:48] You would do them even if nobody paid you a dollar to do them, you would do them until

[00:26:52] two in the morning and not even realize it's two in the morning because you're just so in

[00:26:55] it, right?

[00:26:56] And the goal, it might be impractical to have everyone in your team operating entirely in

[00:27:02] their zone of genius.

[00:27:03] But that is entirely practical for you as a CEO to do and to continuously optimize towards.

[00:27:08] And it is practical to have your entire team operating mostly like 80% plus of their time

[00:27:14] in a zone of excellence or a zone of genius.

[00:27:17] And when and where something drops into a zone of competence, like, all right, we all have

[00:27:21] to do like time sheets or whatever, right?

[00:27:23] It's nobody's zone of genius, but it has to get done.

[00:27:26] And none of us should be in our zone of incompetence.

[00:27:28] And understanding this framework is really powerful for a couple of reasons.

[00:27:32] Number one, it allows you to do the sometimes uncomfortable work of recognizing that maybe

[00:27:36] the wrong person is in the wrong role or recognizing that they have a growth opportunity is how I

[00:27:42] like to think of it to move in a different direction in the company in alignment with their

[00:27:46] zones of excellence and genius, right?

[00:27:48] It helps everybody become accountable to themselves and ask themselves the question, am I using my

[00:27:54] time and energy as effectively as possible for this company and to speak up if they feel like they're

[00:27:59] not?

[00:28:00] And then where it's most powerful to me, Damien, is in hiring because I can avoid all of the future

[00:28:05] discomfort if I just hire somebody whose zone of excellence and genius aligns with that of the role

[00:28:11] that I'm trying to fill.

[00:28:12] And in fact, by doing that, I ensure my team is happier.

[00:28:16] They're more in flow.

[00:28:17] They're more engaged and bought in.

[00:28:19] Then they enjoy their work because I designed the role and then fit the person into the role

[00:28:24] who is naturally in alignment with what the role requires.

[00:28:28] And so understanding this framework allows you to create way higher levels of productivity

[00:28:33] in your team just by hiring correctly from the beginning.

[00:28:37] I love that.

[00:28:38] And I love that because I think on a few levels.

[00:28:40] One, when I thought operations before talking to you, I thought you got to have it and it's

[00:28:47] the everything else role, just like you said.

[00:28:49] You really nailed it, unfortunately.

[00:28:53] And so, you know, I kind of treat it as everything else or I was not well-defined or didn't seem

[00:29:01] like something I wanted to do or even SOPs.

[00:29:04] Like there are people that get excited about those.

[00:29:06] I don't understand those people as the visionary.

[00:29:09] Um, and, but I, but I need those people.

[00:29:12] Um, and, uh, but when I think of SOPs, I think of formality or things we have to do, or maybe

[00:29:18] in the worst case, unnecessary box checking or something like almost extraneous.

[00:29:22] Um, and so, but what I love about what you shared is now I view operations as, uh, informing

[00:29:30] who we hire, changing the culture, helping me and the team getting into their zone of genius,

[00:29:38] operating in their, uh, genius zone.

[00:29:41] And that to me is very different.

[00:29:44] You know, there's a very big difference because I care very much about who we hire, where we,

[00:29:49] where they are operating.

[00:29:52] And obviously I want to, um, be the example.

[00:29:56] I want to try to operate in my zone of genius for myself, for my family, for my team.

[00:30:01] Um, and it's just, I've never had that view of operations.

[00:30:04] You know, I thought operations was, you know, maybe done well was like an efficiency thing.

[00:30:08] Like where can we cut, you know, some expenses or we wasted a few licenses here or there, you

[00:30:14] know, that kind of thing.

[00:30:15] So I really love that you're taking this to what ultimately matters, right?

[00:30:20] People.

[00:30:22] Um, and I just to share the direct story, we, um, I had a two other folks on my team and

[00:30:30] we did basically an audit of how we were spending our time and energy for two weeks.

[00:30:34] And we agreed to share it with each other.

[00:30:35] We were all open.

[00:30:36] It was not required, but they, they said they would.

[00:30:38] I said I would.

[00:30:39] And one, we realized we were not operating probably 50%, um, in things that gave us energy

[00:30:47] or kind of either zone of genius or excellence.

[00:30:52] And, um, bigger than that though, I think that helped us quantify it.

[00:30:56] But the other part was each of them shared what lit them up and I did.

[00:31:01] And, you know, person A told me what they'll lit them up and person B told me what lit them

[00:31:06] up.

[00:31:06] And I was like, those sound horrible.

[00:31:07] Right.

[00:31:08] You know?

[00:31:09] And, but they love it.

[00:31:11] And then, but a lot of the things that I'm doing that they thought the same thing.

[00:31:15] Like I would never want to do that.

[00:31:17] So even though I, I get it intellectually, if you're listening, I challenge you to do that

[00:31:21] even with a portion of your team, because it was a complete eye opener for, I need to

[00:31:27] give you more of these tasks because, uh, even if they took the same amount of time,

[00:31:31] which they probably wouldn't, um, you're going to get energy from it and you, you're just

[00:31:37] going to be lit up and do more.

[00:31:38] And then what I, the other thing that was a really interesting experiment I would encourage

[00:31:42] you to do is we share this with our team.

[00:31:45] We asked them to reflect and we probably need to evolve into moving people into roles.

[00:31:50] So we hadn't, we hadn't gotten there.

[00:31:51] One of the first steps we did is ask everybody to share.

[00:31:54] Um, and they shared what they love and some of the things they didn't love.

[00:31:58] And I wasn't even involved.

[00:32:00] Once that happened, folks just kind of raised their hands and said, can I have that?

[00:32:05] And so there's no restructuring of roles or anything that, but there was just individual

[00:32:10] tasks or things that need to be done.

[00:32:11] And some people are like, Ooh, organizing things like that's not my suit, but somebody else

[00:32:16] loves it.

[00:32:17] And they're like, can I have that?

[00:32:18] Um, and it wasn't always like Damien takes one off from Jonna and Jonna takes one from

[00:32:23] Damien.

[00:32:23] It was just like, Oh, I took one from, you know, this person and somebody else took one

[00:32:27] from you.

[00:32:28] And, uh, they just shuffled, but they shuffled.

[00:32:31] And I wouldn't even say it's all equal.

[00:32:33] Like, I don't think one person got 10 things, but you know, it wasn't like, I'll trade one.

[00:32:38] If you'll trade one with me, it was just some shuffling, but very organic.

[00:32:41] And everybody was more excited.

[00:32:43] So I just speak personally, if you're not asking that question, you have no idea what

[00:32:47] you're missing out on because you just don't know the answer.

[00:32:51] Well, and that bridges us beautifully into resource number four.

[00:32:54] We can circle back to number three, which is money in a moment, but number four is human

[00:32:57] potential, right?

[00:32:58] I think of human potential as just this like pile of money.

[00:33:02] You just have this huge pile of money.

[00:33:05] Every single person on your team brings this huge pile of money into the business every day.

[00:33:09] Are they putting it to work?

[00:33:12] Are you inviting them to put it to work or are they sticking it under their mattress,

[00:33:17] right?

[00:33:17] You will pay the same person, the same amount of money to show up and give you 80% or to

[00:33:23] give you 120%.

[00:33:24] It will cost you nothing to get 120% other than your leadership and knowing how to uplevel

[00:33:32] that person and invite them to bring their best to the table.

[00:33:35] But you will get statistically 2.1x the output from a high performance team.

[00:33:42] And so human potential to me is this like huge unlock that you can literally double your

[00:33:48] productivity and your output for free.

[00:33:51] There's like nowhere else in a business you get that kind of ROI.

[00:33:53] And it's as simple as things like, are people in the roles that light them up?

[00:33:57] Because if I'm in a role where I feel like I have room for growth, I have room for development

[00:34:02] and mastery.

[00:34:03] I feel like I'm delivering on a good quality and I take pride and ownership in my work.

[00:34:08] I'm going to show up with more innovative ideas, more creative ideas.

[00:34:12] I'm going to be more proactive in my problem solving.

[00:34:14] I'm going to be thinking about it on the weekends and reading books in my free time, not because

[00:34:18] you're paying me, but because I want to.

[00:34:21] And so as a business, right?

[00:34:23] Like I'm just excited because this is my zone of genius.

[00:34:26] This is what I love.

[00:34:27] And so I'm just going to go out of my way to over deliver because I want to.

[00:34:32] And if you can create an environment where everyone on your team feels that way for free,

[00:34:37] you get this huge increase in performance and output.

[00:34:41] And it has the added benefit, Damien, of dragging you into the weeds way less.

[00:34:46] Because if you have a team that comes up with their own ideas and solves their own problems

[00:34:50] and answers their own questions, then you don't have to.

[00:34:53] And you can spend your time driving the business forward and doing the very high value work that

[00:34:59] you need to do.

[00:35:00] So human potential is this massive unlock and it all just comes down to us.

[00:35:04] Like the very hard truth of human potential is that it actually has nothing to do with

[00:35:08] our team and everything to do with us and our leadership.

[00:35:12] So if you are across the board looking at your team and you're feeling just kind of meh,

[00:35:17] you know, disappointed.

[00:35:18] I like them.

[00:35:19] I care about them a lot.

[00:35:20] But like they don't wow me every day.

[00:35:22] I don't wake up like with tears of joy about how grateful I am to work with my team every day.

[00:35:26] You know, that is data.

[00:35:29] That's your business giving you data that says there's room for you to improve as a leader.

[00:35:34] And the good news is that if you improve, you make automatic and free ROI on that growth.

[00:35:40] Yeah.

[00:35:40] And one part that you shared there, I think is super critical, which is I've got to have

[00:35:47] the vulnerability to realize I'm getting that data.

[00:35:50] I need to show up differently.

[00:35:52] I need to show up better.

[00:35:54] And another part of that is what I feel like is every time I hit a wall from an entrepreneur's

[00:36:03] perspective, it's always me.

[00:36:05] First of all.

[00:36:09] And secondly, there's this invisible pain line.

[00:36:13] And what I realized is you just won't grow past it.

[00:36:15] And what I mean by that is it's different for every one of us, but it might be two people.

[00:36:20] It might be 10 people.

[00:36:21] But there'll be some point along that journey, I feel like, at least for me, that I've hit

[00:36:25] that line and now growing becomes kind of painful.

[00:36:28] It's not as joyous or whatever.

[00:36:31] And it's not the team's fault.

[00:36:32] They were excellent.

[00:36:33] They usually are still excellent, at least in my experience.

[00:36:36] But all of a sudden, it's like the joy is gone.

[00:36:40] And I feel like I'm now growing to grow the business and I'm not freeing up my time.

[00:36:48] I am.

[00:36:49] I'm not empowering them to make decisions.

[00:36:50] So now they all come back to me.

[00:36:52] And so this pain line, this invisible pain line that I'll just smack into over and over

[00:36:57] again, if I'm not careful, it prevents me from wanting to show up and prevents the business

[00:37:03] from growing.

[00:37:04] And so not only is this doubling for the same money, which is crazy efficient, right?

[00:37:09] If we could go from 10 people to 20 with no more spend, that's crazy.

[00:37:13] But also just as an entrepreneur, I've learned that when you hit that invisible pain line,

[00:37:18] you won't go for it.

[00:37:19] You will self-sabotage.

[00:37:21] You will not, you will kind of check out.

[00:37:23] And so I think this is super critical to realize if that's data, you got to listen to that and

[00:37:28] say, where am I running into this?

[00:37:31] And then to me, that's where I can start reflecting on why do I, why do I feel this way?

[00:37:36] Why do I feel like I've got to do all these things or whatever it is?

[00:37:40] And, uh, and it could be as little as not empowering my team to make the decision.

[00:37:44] So now they have to come to me for everything.

[00:37:47] And all of a sudden when it was one or two or three people that was tenable.

[00:37:50] And now with 10 or 15 people that just, just feels like I show up and have to answer every

[00:37:55] little question.

[00:37:57] I've talked to so many folks that didn't view it with the right frame of mind where they're,

[00:38:03] where they're mad at the team.

[00:38:04] Why can't they just make decisions?

[00:38:08] But I've learned that's because I haven't empowered them.

[00:38:11] So to me, there's this also like double it, but also there's this pain line.

[00:38:16] And at least with me, I'd love your input, uh, Jonna, but I won't go past that.

[00:38:21] I hit this pain line and then there's just an invisible thing.

[00:38:24] And what will happen is headcount won't grow.

[00:38:27] Revenue won't grow.

[00:38:29] The joy, the innovation, everything just kind of grinds to a halt.

[00:38:33] Um, the business keeps going, but not, it's not going anywhere.

[00:38:37] So interesting.

[00:38:38] It's not growing.

[00:38:39] Um, yes, I, I have experienced exactly what you're talking about.

[00:38:43] It is so painful.

[00:38:46] And what I have found at least in my own experience is that when I am up against that pain line,

[00:38:53] it is the business again, just giving me data, sending me a signal that says it's time for

[00:38:58] me to evolve into the next version of myself.

[00:39:01] I, there's a great quote that I love, which is your business will not grow any faster

[00:39:05] than you do.

[00:39:06] And so if your business is plateaued, the very first place to look is at yourself and ask

[00:39:10] yourself, who do I need to become to earn and unlock the next stage of my business?

[00:39:16] Maybe who I need to become is an empowered leader.

[00:39:19] And I need to learn what that means.

[00:39:21] And I need to learn that skillset.

[00:39:22] And I need to learn the identity and the belief and the mindset shift that's going to go along

[00:39:27] with becoming an empowered leader on this topic specifically.

[00:39:30] Quick side note, if anybody is experiencing this or interested in this level up, particularly

[00:39:34] the resource I would highly recommend is a book called multipliers by Liz Wiseman.

[00:39:39] And Damian, I'd recommend it for you.

[00:39:41] It talks all about like, it totally wrecked me when I read it.

[00:39:43] Because it talks about the things that we do to accidentally disempower our team and keep

[00:39:49] them at delivering less than their highest human potential.

[00:39:51] And so it's a super huge realization around where exactly and how specifically you may be

[00:39:57] accidentally disempowering your team.

[00:39:58] But again, like what I find beautiful, right?

[00:40:01] It's so relentless.

[00:40:02] It's so hard.

[00:40:03] It's just your business being a mirror every single day, telling you where you're not good

[00:40:07] enough and telling you where you need to grow next.

[00:40:09] But on the flip side, the thing that I always love to say is that just means that I get

[00:40:12] paid money to become a better person.

[00:40:15] And I will take that deal every day.

[00:40:17] I will take that deal every day.

[00:40:18] So if you can accept the responsibility that comes with believing everything in your business,

[00:40:24] good or bad, comes back to you.

[00:40:25] And that your business, every problem in your business is somehow a mirror being held up

[00:40:29] to your face, telling you where you have room for growth.

[00:40:32] That's a freaking intense world to live in.

[00:40:35] But it's also a world where you have unlimited growth and you get paid for every level up that

[00:40:42] you go through as a human being.

[00:40:44] I love that, right?

[00:40:46] This is what we talk about.

[00:40:47] We talk about mindset because my belief is I'm myself, my mindset and I am the thing

[00:40:53] holding my business back.

[00:40:54] And I just love the way you framed it because I think it's really easy to slip into,

[00:41:01] oh, I got to level up again.

[00:41:04] Because it can be, every time I think I've learned, I'm a complete naive idiot at the

[00:41:11] next level.

[00:41:11] And it's so intense and sometimes very painful that it would be very easy to say,

[00:41:20] instead of I get paid to learn and I get to do this, it would be very easy to frame it

[00:41:24] in a negative way.

[00:41:24] Right.

[00:41:25] And I think there's a lot of the traditional mindset might say, you know, grow your business,

[00:41:31] do these things, you know, keep your head down, give it five years, 10 years.

[00:41:35] Like there's a lot of, I think bad advice shrouded as kind of quote unquote conventional wisdom.

[00:41:41] And, um, and I just love the framing of no, no, no.

[00:41:44] Instead of saying, oh, I have to change again, or I have to level up or, you know, I get to,

[00:41:49] and I get paid to, because I think that's, that is so good.

[00:41:52] And the way I hear that is not only do I get paid, yes, I get paid in the business today,

[00:41:59] but when I unlock, that's when I really get paid.

[00:42:02] Yeah.

[00:42:02] Because now I go to an entirely different level.

[00:42:04] I agree.

[00:42:04] I agree.

[00:42:05] And you get to unlock new zones of excellence.

[00:42:07] You get to unlock yourself, right?

[00:42:10] And what is, what is happening if you share, if you wake up every day dragging your feet to

[00:42:16] go into the business is that you have found yourself very far away from your zone of excellence

[00:42:21] and genius, right?

[00:42:22] And so finding a way back to that place unlocks joy.

[00:42:28] You unlock fulfillment and excitement because you get to go back to the things that you love

[00:42:31] doing the most.

[00:42:32] And I think there's an important piece here, Damien, which is we get to choose as entrepreneurs,

[00:42:37] whether we keep going or whether we choose to go back through a different cycle and be in our

[00:42:44] zone of genius.

[00:42:44] So what I mean by that is like what I most often see in statistically, the CEO that scales

[00:42:49] a company is almost never the CEO that starts it.

[00:42:52] If you just look at businesses across the board.

[00:42:54] And the reason for that is that the startup, the zero to one mindset and skillset and zone

[00:42:59] of genius is fundamentally different than the zone of genius that goes from one to 10, that

[00:43:05] takes a business to the next level.

[00:43:06] And so the question I would put to the audience is like knowing yourself means also knowing where,

[00:43:12] where do you choose to evolve and become a different version of yourself for the sake of the business?

[00:43:18] And where and when do you choose that that's enough?

[00:43:20] And you want to go back to the time and the stage of growth that fits within your zone of

[00:43:25] genius and take on a new business or a new challenge.

[00:43:27] I think both of those are so valid.

[00:43:30] No one gets to tell you that you have to be the person to get your company to eight figures,

[00:43:35] right?

[00:43:35] Like something that we do a lot with our clients is we help them prep their business operations

[00:43:39] for an exit.

[00:43:41] And I love those clients because they've realized I have taken this business as far as my zone of

[00:43:47] genius wants it to go.

[00:43:48] And I would do much better going back to zero and creating something zero to one again,

[00:43:53] because that's where I thrive.

[00:43:54] And I think that self-awareness is beautiful.

[00:43:56] So it's just understanding yourself and knowing what stage of growth do you want to continue

[00:44:01] to do the level up through?

[00:44:03] I love that.

[00:44:04] And I think there's, you gotta give yourself permission to understand that one's not bad.

[00:44:10] One's not better.

[00:44:11] Exactly.

[00:44:12] There's a lot of great operators that couldn't do the zero to one.

[00:44:15] And if it never starts, it won't matter.

[00:44:18] And, but as somebody started multiple businesses, I just can't imagine the operations of a thousand

[00:44:26] person company would be my zone of genius, you know, the details.

[00:44:31] Um, and so you've got to realize somewhere along that journey, right?

[00:44:36] That this isn't that.

[00:44:37] And I love the freedom is the word I would use to kind of give myself permission to say

[00:44:42] that doesn't mean I'm bad.

[00:44:43] It doesn't mean I'm inadequate.

[00:44:44] It doesn't mean I can't level up because I think it's part of it.

[00:44:47] Like you, you know, earlier we just talked about, you gotta level up.

[00:44:49] You gotta, you gotta figure out how you take it to the next level.

[00:44:52] You gotta level up.

[00:44:52] So there is some of that.

[00:44:54] You have to figure out why you're holding yourself back.

[00:44:56] But if it's not in your zone of genius, maybe this isn't something I can level up into and,

[00:45:02] you know, being honest.

[00:45:04] Or just that it wouldn't start again.

[00:45:05] It's to me, it's about efficiency.

[00:45:06] It's about ROI on time and energy, because I believe that you will always create your

[00:45:12] highest success, financial, personal, et cetera, success when you choose to live and optimize

[00:45:19] for your zone of genius.

[00:45:20] So if you are that startup entrepreneur that takes zero to one and you do that beautifully,

[00:45:25] I genuinely believe you will create more success and wealth and abundance in your life.

[00:45:29] If you just keep hitting that sweet spot and every single time you can take on a bigger challenge

[00:45:34] or a new business, there's still plenty of ways to learn and grow and deepen into your

[00:45:40] zone of genius, right?

[00:45:40] It doesn't mean stagnation.

[00:45:42] It just means I've chosen to double down on this stage of growth and become a master of

[00:45:46] this as opposed to continuously push myself into like new stages of being and new versions

[00:45:52] of self that I ultimately don't choose.

[00:45:55] Not because I can't, right?

[00:45:57] That's, that's your part.

[00:45:58] Like it kind of feels like quitting and we don't quit.

[00:46:00] So that's a really hard thing, right?

[00:46:02] As opposed to it's not quitting.

[00:46:04] It's choosing to evolve in a different direction into a different version of yourself than this

[00:46:10] one business will force you to become if you take it all the way.

[00:46:14] Mm-hmm.

[00:46:15] Yeah.

[00:46:16] I've definitely met a number of entrepreneurs that built a business too big and came to hate

[00:46:21] it.

[00:46:23] And somewhere along the way, I think they, they didn't think through the choice that that's

[00:46:28] not really who they wanted to do.

[00:46:31] And some of them stayed in that for far too long and some of them were never happier until

[00:46:34] they figured out that they needed to exit and go start something else and build something

[00:46:39] else.

[00:46:39] Absolutely.

[00:46:39] Absolutely.

[00:46:40] And again, this is, this is the work we do with our clients.

[00:46:42] I love saying that we help our clients fall back in love with their business, but sometimes

[00:46:46] what that means, right?

[00:46:47] That means from going from burnout and stress and day to day doing low value tasks that you

[00:46:51] hate all the zone of incompetence and confidence shit and helping you elevate into your zone of

[00:46:56] excellence and genius.

[00:46:58] But sometimes what falling back in love with your business means is learning to let it go

[00:47:01] and start the next thing.

[00:47:02] And so whatever that, whatever that outcome is, the goal is, are you growing your business

[00:47:09] in alignment with yourself?

[00:47:11] I think that's really what it comes down to.

[00:47:13] Are you and your business partners and is your business a vehicle to help you grow in the

[00:47:18] direction that you want to?

[00:47:19] And when the business, what the business needs falls out of alignment with what you need,

[00:47:24] it's time to make a choice.

[00:47:25] Do we either adjust and pivot the business back into alignment at what cost?

[00:47:31] Or do we choose to part ways with the business and let it go on to the next generation of

[00:47:35] leadership that is that person that can take it to the next level?

[00:47:39] I love that.

[00:47:41] It's subtle, but are you and your business partners?

[00:47:43] I just really love that mindset because as somebody that's often the zero to one, you

[00:47:50] know, that's to me interesting and fun and you go start it.

[00:47:55] But a lot of times in this year to one, there's just nothing.

[00:47:58] There's nobody.

[00:47:59] There's no processes.

[00:48:00] There's no people.

[00:48:01] There's you're sending invoices.

[00:48:03] You're doing you're doing a lot of your in the zone of incompetence or you're just not

[00:48:07] in your zone of genius for even excellence sometimes.

[00:48:09] And so I think sometimes in the very early days, there might be some practical.

[00:48:15] This is going to like I get to spend some of my day doing wonderful stuff and there's

[00:48:19] going to be part of my day that's sweeping the floor and it just has to be done

[00:48:23] because there's nobody else here.

[00:48:25] Now, understanding as a hire to not scale my zone of incompetence is, I think, key.

[00:48:32] But I love how you say choose to partner with your business because to me that helps kind

[00:48:37] of unlock that I am choosing and how I build it and if it is the right investment for my

[00:48:44] not only my capital, because I think that's the problem.

[00:48:47] We tend to think one dimension.

[00:48:49] We tend to think the business is at, you know, four million.

[00:48:53] And if I work hard, I can get it to five million and then it's going to be worth more

[00:48:57] and probably is worth more.

[00:48:59] But if that takes all my time, my energy, and I could have had a better return on energy,

[00:49:06] return on capital, return on all kinds of other things by creating a different dynamic

[00:49:11] within the same business, creating a different business.

[00:49:13] There's there's a lot of options if I kind of partner with my business.

[00:49:16] And as a quick side note, one of the big questions I get is around hiring, right?

[00:49:21] Because we do a lot of hiring systems and team building systems.

[00:49:23] And the big question is, who do I hire?

[00:49:26] And you just said it perfectly.

[00:49:27] You can use the zone of genius quadrant to essentially map out your hiring timeline.

[00:49:31] Start by hiring out your zones of incompetence because that's where you're going to get the

[00:49:34] highest ROI of your time and energy back when you're able to get those things off your

[00:49:38] plate.

[00:49:39] Then move to your zone of competence.

[00:49:40] Then the really hard part, Damien, is when you have to outsource your zone of excellence.

[00:49:44] This is actually a crux point that most entrepreneurs never grow past because their zone of excellence

[00:49:49] is what they love.

[00:49:50] They've spent a lot of time becoming very good at it, right?

[00:49:53] I have a friend who runs a multi eight figure marketing agency and he is an exceptional marketer,

[00:49:59] but he does not do his own marketing anymore.

[00:50:01] He has a marketing team, right?

[00:50:02] So it's the hardest thing in the world to let go of the thing that you love and that you've

[00:50:06] created a lot of identity and pride in so that you can step into what the business really

[00:50:11] needs from you and what your true zone of genius is.

[00:50:14] So it essentially maps out who you need to hire and it is individual to the CEO because

[00:50:20] for you, you may be brilliant at, let's say sales.

[00:50:23] Cool.

[00:50:23] Sales is something you're going to hold on to much longer.

[00:50:25] Most coaches would recommend that you hold on to sales for a very long time.

[00:50:29] But for me, I'm terrible at sales.

[00:50:31] If we're being honest with myself, right?

[00:50:33] Like I am not good at it.

[00:50:34] It's a zone of competence at best.

[00:50:35] And so it made way more sense for me to hire that role out sooner in my journey, because

[00:50:41] again, it's just about optimizing me.

[00:50:43] Where am I going to get the ROI on my time and energy?

[00:50:46] Not by closing 20% of my sales calls, but by doing an 120% effort on podcasts and stages,

[00:50:52] right?

[00:50:52] So it's just, again, I think the big thing here is self-awareness.

[00:50:56] Knowing yourself as an entrepreneur allows you to build a business strategically to optimize

[00:51:00] for you as the highest value asset and resource within the business.

[00:51:05] I love that.

[00:51:07] I think that really succinctly ties up that because if I'm an MSP, there are so many books

[00:51:14] on how to build your MSP.

[00:51:16] There are peer groups that will teach you.

[00:51:20] There are all kinds of coaching and consulting.

[00:51:22] There are benchmarking.

[00:51:23] You can turn in your financials and understand where you are in the top quartile, bottom quartile,

[00:51:28] et cetera, in different levels.

[00:51:30] And none of that is necessarily bad, but most of it is quite prescriptive.

[00:51:34] One size fits all.

[00:51:35] At this level, you need to have these roles.

[00:51:38] So, and I think this kind of helps me unlock, like why that's probably better if I've never

[00:51:45] built a business than nothing.

[00:51:47] Right.

[00:51:47] And it's a good guidepost maybe.

[00:51:49] But, you know, you're going to outsource sales before I am.

[00:51:54] And there are people that are going to do, you're going to do a lot more operations than

[00:51:57] I will.

[00:51:57] I'm going to outsource operations before you probably.

[00:52:00] Um, unless you just knew better to outsource it first.

[00:52:03] Uh, so I love that, like building around you.

[00:52:07] And, um, I have a question around that.

[00:52:12] How do I give myself permission to do that?

[00:52:17] Because I've got a great team and I want to take care of them and I got great clients.

[00:52:20] I want to take care of them.

[00:52:22] And while I want to do it, I think there's this also part of this inner voice that goes,

[00:52:26] yeah, but this is just how business is done.

[00:52:29] Or, you know, it's not all about you.

[00:52:31] Or there's just a lot of those things that can come up and say, Hey, it's not really about

[00:52:36] you.

[00:52:37] Just, you know, if you like, for example, hiring can be really challenging.

[00:52:40] And depending on the market and the timing, sometimes you're like, I finally found somebody

[00:52:43] that has the skills.

[00:52:45] I just need to snap them up and maybe they don't really align and they wouldn't really

[00:52:50] take anything off of my plate in terms of that.

[00:52:53] They just would, would scale the business.

[00:52:55] Um, so how do I, you know, there's a lot of competing factors.

[00:52:58] How do I give myself permission and really dial it in?

[00:53:01] Because, you know, what you're saying is it's, it's about the, the, uh, the entrepreneur,

[00:53:06] the founder.

[00:53:06] So I've observed this a lot.

[00:53:09] Um, and it's so fascinating because we essentially help entrepreneurs step into their zones of

[00:53:16] genius by getting the right operations and the right team and the right systems in place.

[00:53:20] And it is fascinating, Damien, as white space starts to come back onto the entrepreneur's

[00:53:26] calendar as hours every week get freed up.

[00:53:29] And what happens?

[00:53:31] Maybe 50% of the time they fully freak out.

[00:53:34] They freak out and they jump back into the weeds.

[00:53:38] They will make messes just to clean it up.

[00:53:41] They will jump back into roles and processes that they have been detached from successfully

[00:53:47] for months.

[00:53:48] And why do we do that?

[00:53:50] Right?

[00:53:50] I'm not judging anybody here.

[00:53:51] I've seen it again and again and again.

[00:53:52] Why do we do that?

[00:53:53] Because I think it comes back to an identity piece and the identity, the belief says,

[00:54:01] I have to create my own success.

[00:54:03] It has to be me.

[00:54:06] And that's a beautiful belief when you are small because it is totally freaking true,

[00:54:11] right?

[00:54:11] What you said, like you can't be in your own way and say, I'm too good to be sending invoices.

[00:54:16] No one's sending those invoices.

[00:54:18] You better like roll up your sleeves and get it done.

[00:54:19] You are the creator of your own success.

[00:54:22] And so the challenge is in that zero to one stage, we do everything.

[00:54:26] We outwork every problem.

[00:54:29] We figure everything out.

[00:54:31] We have every idea.

[00:54:32] We solve every problem.

[00:54:33] That's what makes us successful.

[00:54:35] And so we build an identity around that that says, this is who I am.

[00:54:39] This is where my success comes from.

[00:54:41] And the challenge, one of the big evolutions that needs to happen between zero and one and

[00:54:45] one to 10 is a shift in the identity that says, I am the creator of my own success to

[00:54:52] my job is to create an ecosystem that creates success.

[00:54:57] My team is the one that's going to come up with the ideas.

[00:55:00] My team is the one that's going to fix the problem.

[00:55:02] My team is the right.

[00:55:03] You have to shift fundamentally what it means to be worthy, deserving and successful.

[00:55:09] And that is, that's the inner work.

[00:55:11] That is so hard.

[00:55:14] And so I would rather in that earlier belief, I would rather just jump in there and figure

[00:55:19] it out myself.

[00:55:20] I will never give myself permission to take this hat off my head because I believe I have

[00:55:25] to figure it out in order to be successful.

[00:55:29] And so I think if we can tackle the underlying belief, right?

[00:55:32] We talk about giving permission.

[00:55:33] I can show you a literal spreadsheet because we've built this that will show you exactly

[00:55:38] how much more money your business will make.

[00:55:40] If you delegate effectively, you hire an operator and you step into your zone of genius.

[00:55:45] I can calculate that to the dollar, but that doesn't mean you're going to do it.

[00:55:49] So because your identity will say, no, I have to figure this out.

[00:55:52] And so the question is, it's like, are you willing to evolve that?

[00:55:56] Because until you do, no amount of delegation frameworks or books are ultimately going to

[00:56:01] help you make this leap.

[00:56:02] You're just going to jump back in.

[00:56:04] And that is the definition of self-sabotage.

[00:56:06] You're just going to jump in and figure things out yourself, even if that's no longer what

[00:56:09] your business needs from you.

[00:56:11] Yeah.

[00:56:12] It's comfortable.

[00:56:13] It is.

[00:56:13] It's familiar.

[00:56:13] It is.

[00:56:14] It's identity.

[00:56:14] It's what we believe about ourselves.

[00:56:17] Yeah.

[00:56:18] And I think, you know, for most of us that start out a tech business, there's this chief

[00:56:23] troubleshooter, which is some form of chief fire putter outer.

[00:56:26] Yeah.

[00:56:27] Some part of innovating and some part of chief fire putting out.

[00:56:30] And I think, you know, we hire some techs and that's fine.

[00:56:33] And I feel like maybe then we struggle to let go of the chief being the most informed and

[00:56:39] like the top tech.

[00:56:41] And then it is a bigger struggle to actually hire somebody to manage the techs because then

[00:56:47] you've got to be another level removed.

[00:56:49] So, yeah, that's I know I've gone through those and continued to go through those.

[00:56:53] Now, I think it's amazing.

[00:56:55] The folks on my team know far more than I do about our product.

[00:56:59] And the me of a few years ago would have been like, I will never give that mantle up.

[00:57:05] Like, I want to know more about some of those inner workings.

[00:57:09] And it was pretty necessary in the beginning.

[00:57:11] Totally.

[00:57:12] You know, when you're small.

[00:57:12] It's what made you successful when you were small.

[00:57:14] Right.

[00:57:15] But until you go through the identity shift.

[00:57:16] So it's so hard about this.

[00:57:18] Again, right?

[00:57:18] What got you here will not get you there.

[00:57:20] That is true at every stage of growth.

[00:57:22] And so the things that literally made you successful to start are will actively stall you

[00:57:28] out when you try and scale.

[00:57:30] It's so hard because it's asking for 180 degree evolution of identity and beliefs and behaviors.

[00:57:36] And so I don't blame any entrepreneur that struggles with it because it's not just the

[00:57:41] tactical skills of leadership and delegation.

[00:57:43] It's the internal work that says, am I willing to let somebody be smarter than me?

[00:57:48] Am I willing to let go of this problem in my own business?

[00:57:51] That's a very hard thing to do.

[00:57:55] How do I help figure some of that out?

[00:57:58] Do I get a magical spreadsheet from you?

[00:58:00] Do I pay attention to something?

[00:58:04] Are there and also not asked this separately, but are there patterns?

[00:58:08] Help me understand when I know I'm the bottleneck and I need to make that next hire because you

[00:58:15] mentioned the first hire might be operations manager, but that's probably not the last one.

[00:58:18] So I'm guessing this is an ongoing battle.

[00:58:21] You know, I think the good and bad news is like you're always the bottleneck, you know?

[00:58:24] So it's not about, am I the problem?

[00:58:26] It's how am I the problem?

[00:58:29] Is it a belief?

[00:58:30] Is it an identity?

[00:58:31] Is it a skill gap?

[00:58:33] And the, I guess the fix to that is incorporating a regular practice of self-awareness.

[00:58:39] So for me, that looks like I work with a coach.

[00:58:42] I've worked with this same coach for four years and all we do every week is we just sit down and I just talk about my life and then we figure out where is my life in business feeding me data that this is where I need to grow next.

[00:58:55] I have this problem in sales with my company.

[00:58:57] Okay.

[00:58:57] What does that mean about me?

[00:58:59] I am having this challenge with this teammate.

[00:59:01] Awesome.

[00:59:01] What does that mean about me?

[00:59:02] Right.

[00:59:03] When you shift your framework so that everything in your company is data feeding back at you, then problems are no longer problems.

[00:59:10] They're growth opportunities.

[00:59:11] And it's just data.

[00:59:12] It's not good.

[00:59:13] It's not bad.

[00:59:14] It's just data.

[00:59:14] And if you can learn to interpret and read the data, whether that's through meditation or journaling or a coach, right?

[00:59:19] Like do whatever works for you.

[00:59:21] But prioritizing building in a practice of looking at that data, analyzing it, and then taking the necessary steps to improve from it will ensure that you'll always be the bottleneck, but you will move faster.

[00:59:35] You will grow faster and therefore your business will as well.

[00:59:38] Yeah.

[00:59:39] Yeah.

[00:59:40] It's like the saying, right?

[00:59:41] If you're going through hell, don't stop.

[00:59:42] And I've found that you can spend a year or you can spend a decade if you're not paying attention in the same, stuck at the same spot.

[00:59:51] If you're not willing to admit that.

[00:59:52] Yeah.

[00:59:54] I personally, just this week, one of the things that I do is get a wonderful executive assistant and every waking hour is now blocked the week before.

[01:00:07] I love that.

[01:00:08] And so I'm not sure it's for everyone, but what's great is if these are my priorities.

[01:00:13] Right.

[01:00:14] From my family to my business to how I'm spending time within my business, then those should be accurate and reflect.

[01:00:21] And then at the end of a week, I will fill out what went well, what gave me the most energy.

[01:00:29] And then also, what am I not getting?

[01:00:32] So in the past week or two, there was a task that I was supposed to do that I didn't.

[01:00:39] And it was, you know, calendars are time things.

[01:00:41] They're not energy things.

[01:00:42] And so there was time slots, but it was just draining me.

[01:00:47] And so it took, but it was a win.

[01:00:50] I considered it a win because it was data.

[01:00:51] Like I didn't take it personally.

[01:00:53] I said, huh, here's some data on what I had to reflect and kind of journal on that and realize that what that was telling me was I was kind of.

[01:01:04] It was really two things.

[01:01:05] It was make a bunch of calls and do these sort of things, which I don't mind.

[01:01:08] I love engaging with people, but I was just getting a lot of voicemails and doing a lot of things which made it feel much more like $10 tasks and zone of incompetence.

[01:01:16] And so I wasn't setting myself up for success.

[01:01:18] And it took some reflection to figure out like why I don't mind making this call and connecting with these people in this way, but the way in which I was structuring it.

[01:01:28] And so, you know, the win for me was at least I was present.

[01:01:31] I reflected on that and I realized it.

[01:01:33] And then I said, okay, under these conditions, that particular activity would go at least from competence to probably excellence instead of competence or maybe incompetence.

[01:01:43] Right.

[01:01:43] Um, when it comes to like the details and scheduling and trying to catch up with people, especially considering my schedule was a hundred percent blocked for the week.

[01:01:51] Like I was, I was literally the worst person in the business to feel the call when somebody called me back.

[01:01:57] Right.

[01:01:58] Right.

[01:01:58] I love that.

[01:01:59] So hopefully that helps.

[01:02:02] I don't know if you have any others.

[01:02:03] Just to me, it's like paying attention.

[01:02:05] Like you said, looking at his data and saying, what are the things I'm not getting done?

[01:02:09] What am I not looking forward to doing?

[01:02:13] Um, and I don't know that's bad.

[01:02:14] I don't know that, you know, I've tried to remove labels like the thing is bad or that I'm bad because I, you know, still struggle with that.

[01:02:20] I still often go, suck it up and get it done.

[01:02:23] You know, just power through it.

[01:02:25] You can, you know, work a million hours a week, do whatever it takes.

[01:02:28] Like, you know, I said, I've struggled to not say I'm bad.

[01:02:31] I'm struggled to not label the activity as bad and reframe it and say, I'm not bad, but why am I struggling with this?

[01:02:38] And try to figure out, do I not need to do it?

[01:02:42] Or under what conditions do I need for this to be successful?

[01:03:16] Of like, I feel backed into a corner.

[01:03:18] Things are getting tossed at me all day, every day.

[01:03:20] I don't know how to work myself out of this spot, even though I now have the awareness to know that I want to, need to, and should.

[01:03:26] Okay, beautiful.

[01:03:27] That's when you get to ask for help, right?

[01:03:29] And so the job of the operator is for them to sit down.

[01:03:33] A good operator would sit down and get to know their CEO and say, what is your zone of genius?

[01:03:36] What lights you up?

[01:03:38] Let's do a time audit.

[01:03:39] Let's figure out what's going on here.

[01:03:40] And they have the tools to say, oh, you don't need to do that.

[01:03:44] That's an automation.

[01:03:45] Oh, you don't need to do that.

[01:03:46] There's a team member for that.

[01:03:47] Oh, you don't need to do that.

[01:03:48] Or yes, you do need to do that, but under different conditions that will light you up and will streamline the process.

[01:03:52] And they can bring all of the tactical infrastructure around you to help you with this process.

[01:03:59] You don't have to do it alone.

[01:04:01] And in fact, it will be probably much slower for you to try and do it alone versus bringing somebody with the tools to understand how to get things off your plate.

[01:04:11] I feel like I could say on this one, unlocking human potential forever.

[01:04:14] Totally.

[01:04:15] But I did want to hear about the other five.

[01:04:18] Yeah, I totally forgot.

[01:04:19] I could stay the rest of the day here.

[01:04:21] And we could spend the rest of the day here.

[01:04:23] I know.

[01:04:23] I love it so much.

[01:04:24] Okay.

[01:04:24] So we've covered time.

[01:04:25] We've covered energy.

[01:04:26] We've covered human potential.

[01:04:27] The other two are physical capital.

[01:04:30] So, you know, this is probably more true in your space, Damien, of like if your company is invested into supplies or vehicles or any number of things, right?

[01:04:38] These are physical assets that need to be managed and specifically like waste needs to be removed from the system.

[01:04:46] So this is really, this is a nerdy read and it's for the operator in the business.

[01:04:51] But the Toyota way is probably what I would recommend for this.

[01:04:54] And Toyota absolutely revolutionized operations when it came to minimizing the waste of just physical goods, right?

[01:05:02] Where other like car dealerships in the U.S. would just have tons of inventory just sitting on a lot.

[01:05:08] Toyota viewed that as waste and they figured out how to minimize it.

[01:05:11] So that's an amazing read and a resource to dive deep into optimizing physical capital.

[01:05:16] The last one is money.

[01:05:17] And so most often I get the question, how will operations make me money?

[01:05:22] It's a totally fair and valid question.

[01:05:24] And what I say is that operations is not responsible for driving top line revenue.

[01:05:29] It's responsible for minimizing bottom line expenses.

[01:05:33] And so ultimately your operator is responsible for profit.

[01:05:38] Profit is the North Star metric that they own in the business.

[01:05:41] Not because they stack a bunch of money on top, but because they keep expenses low while you stack a bunch of money on top.

[01:05:50] And the gap between the top line and the bottom line is profit margin.

[01:05:53] And so knowing that every single dollar being put to work within the business, whether that's on a software or a piece of capital or an employee,

[01:06:02] knowing that that dollar is being invested in a way that will maximize the ROI,

[01:06:06] that is why having a knowledge of financial analysis, the P&L is important for more advanced stage operators.

[01:06:13] Let me be clear, your ops manager, your entry-level operator,

[01:06:16] is probably not going to come into the business knowing how to read a P&L.

[01:06:18] But as you get more advanced in the operations department,

[01:06:21] that's one of the key skill sets that you're unlocking is an operator telling you,

[01:06:25] this is where we're being inefficient with our money.

[01:06:28] Yeah, follow the P&L.

[01:06:30] Figure out where all your dollars that you're investing going every month.

[01:06:34] And just minimize waste.

[01:06:35] It's all about minimizing waste.

[01:06:37] I always say your business is a bucket and money, like sales and marketing is the water pipeline,

[01:06:43] bringing water, bringing money into that bucket.

[01:06:46] But every single bucket has cracks and gaps and holes and leaks.

[01:06:51] It is your job as the visionary to be focused on that money pipeline

[01:06:54] and bringing more and more water into the bucket.

[01:06:56] But it won't do you very much good if every drop of water that falls in the bucket

[01:07:01] just immediately leaks out through a crack.

[01:07:03] Your operator's job is to be keeping an eye on the gaps and the cracks, closing those

[01:07:08] so that every drop poured in stays in the bucket.

[01:07:12] And what's beautiful about that is like that's money you've already generated.

[01:07:15] And so for every efficiency gain, it's 100% profit because it doesn't cost you anything other than your operator's salary to close that gap.

[01:07:25] And now all of that money is kept in the business.

[01:07:28] That's profitability.

[01:07:31] You mentioned maybe bring them on somewhere in the 50 to 100K range.

[01:07:35] So I'm thinking, you know, at an MSP, it's probably 5 to 15 employees.

[01:07:39] Yep.

[01:07:39] Sounds about right.

[01:07:39] At that size, I feel like you're getting like a either a dispatch person or like a office admin, office manager role normally.

[01:07:50] And then what I just trying to map this, I see them trying to force what you're now describing as operations on them.

[01:07:57] Yeah.

[01:07:57] Which doesn't seem to be a great fit because they're like, well, yeah, not only invoice the clients, but, you know, look for inefficiencies.

[01:08:04] And, you know, in the MSP space, there's vendor waste because you got billed for 50 of these, but you really only sold 35.

[01:08:12] And if you don't pay attention, you know, those are sizable gaps and they can continue to go the wrong direction.

[01:08:19] So how do I balance kind of the administrative nature when I'm still a small company, you know, that 5 to 15 versus kind of, all right, how do I know I can bring an office manager in and there's a return on investment?

[01:08:32] Because as a visionary, I don't see it.

[01:08:34] I don't see the obvious waste.

[01:08:35] Yeah, exactly.

[01:08:36] But you come in and you're like, there's these huge differences.

[01:08:40] So I think the easy hack is to find a brilliant, you know, office manager who also has an operational lens.

[01:08:51] That would be the win, right?

[01:08:53] And depending on your budget and if you're able to afford that person, then you can put both of those hats on the same person and you can do so fairly because they have both skills.

[01:09:02] But what you just said, Damien, I love, which is like just because somebody's really high attention to detail and organized doesn't mean that they naturally view the world and the business through inefficiencies.

[01:09:12] So if you're hiring for this role.

[01:09:13] I would say that I probably conflate those too often.

[01:09:17] Most people do.

[01:09:17] Because I'm the visionary and I'm like, well, if you're detail-oriented and you're that, then you must also.

[01:09:22] You must be good at systems.

[01:09:23] Yeah, you must be good at systems and you must be able to see these details and you must understand the business like I do.

[01:09:28] So you would probably be able to see things that I couldn't and those are just not true.

[01:09:33] So you have two options there, right?

[01:09:35] So the first is you go and you look for somebody with proven experience on their resume that they have this skill set, they've done it at other places, and they can do it for you, right?

[01:09:44] If you don't have the budget for that, then you're looking for the raw potential, the person who has that operational lens and can learn to hone and develop it.

[01:09:52] And both of those work, right?

[01:09:54] And we work with both of those people.

[01:09:56] So we'll have clients that say, hey, here's our budget for the operator, and we also need them to do client success.

[01:10:01] And we also need them to do administration.

[01:10:04] Okay, perfect.

[01:10:04] We can go find that person.

[01:10:05] They're going to cost you a little bit more because it costs more to have somebody who can wear two hats well.

[01:10:10] Or you can take that really high potential office manager who has a gut sense of inefficiencies.

[01:10:17] This we see a lot, Damien.

[01:10:18] Like if there's a member of your team that is just always spotting problems, it might be kind of annoying.

[01:10:23] You're like, man, this person's just always calling things out.

[01:10:26] That's actually a gift, right?

[01:10:27] That's a leading indicator that they're naturally seeing inefficiencies and waste in the business.

[01:10:32] And so if you were to elevate that person, right, we have training programs to take office managers and project managers and executive assistants and account managers.

[01:10:42] These are incredible roles that often funnel and feed into operations.

[01:10:46] With the right lens and with the right training, somebody can become an exceptional operator,

[01:10:51] and it will cost you far less to pay the high potential low experience person and then level up with them as the business needs them to.

[01:10:59] So that is also an option.

[01:11:01] But the key is like, are you choosing the operator based off of the right talent and lens or just because they're an organized person?

[01:11:12] Half the time we have to tell our clients that the person they've put in the operations role is actually not the right fit.

[01:11:18] And then we have to move them.

[01:11:20] It's an uncomfortable process, but moving them out of that role into a role that's better suited for them so we can bring in the operator that truly has what it takes.

[01:11:28] Hmm.

[01:11:29] Tell me about we were talking earlier and you mentioned finding hidden operators.

[01:11:35] What does that mean?

[01:11:36] Yeah.

[01:11:36] So this is what I mean.

[01:11:38] It's like if there is – they could be anybody.

[01:11:40] They could be in any role, right?

[01:11:41] But if there's a member of your team that is intrinsically geared towards inefficiency, gaps, waste, they're seeing things, they're calling out problems, they're probably trying to organize and fix things.

[01:11:51] It's like almost compulsive.

[01:11:52] Like I can't look at a messy bookshelf and not try and straighten it out, you know?

[01:11:57] And so if you see that person, then the question simply becomes, do you choose to grow in this direction?

[01:12:06] That's it.

[01:12:07] They don't have to say yes.

[01:12:08] They could be like, no, I love my job and I want to stay where I am.

[01:12:11] Fantastic.

[01:12:11] Then we'll find somebody else.

[01:12:12] But there's a growth opportunity for you if you choose to develop into the role of operations.

[01:12:19] Listen to this podcast episode.

[01:12:21] Here's what that means.

[01:12:22] Is this intrinsically interesting and motivating to you?

[01:12:26] If so, there are coaches and resources out there that we can equip you with for you to start to grow and level up in this way.

[01:12:32] And so you give them the growth opportunity and they get to decide that intrinsic motivation of like, yes, I want that.

[01:12:38] I want to chase that.

[01:12:39] I want to grow in that direction.

[01:12:40] I will take on the learning to make that happen.

[01:12:43] And all you are doing as a business owner is investing in that growth and giving them the tools they need to be successful.

[01:12:48] That's your hidden operator.

[01:12:50] Well, John, I feel like I could do this all afternoon.

[01:12:53] But I don't want to take up all of your day.

[01:12:57] Tell everybody how, if they want more, if they want to learn more, if they want to hear more, find more about you.

[01:13:02] How do they connect with you?

[01:13:03] How do they follow you?

[01:13:04] What are things they could do to kind of get into your world?

[01:13:08] Yes.

[01:13:09] What I would love, Damien, is if this resonated with anybody, if they want to learn more, go ahead, follow me on Instagram at thejonnalee and drop me your biggest takeaway or your biggest question from this podcast.

[01:13:22] I would love to hear what stood out to you or maybe what was not clear and what you want to execute.

[01:13:26] And you just need some help in doing that so that I can help your listeners continue to move forward from this point.

[01:13:32] But Instagram is the best way to connect with me personally in the DMs.

[01:13:36] Love that.

[01:13:37] Yeah.

[01:13:37] And don't, if you're listening, don't, I challenge you to miss the opportunity.

[01:13:42] Don't just listen.

[01:13:43] Do something.

[01:13:44] Like, if you don't change your mindset, you won't change your life.

[01:13:48] And if you're just listening, that won't do it.

[01:13:50] So take on that opportunity that Jonna just gave you the gift of and make sure to DM her on Instagram.

[01:13:57] And there's just no downside.

[01:13:59] Like, so take that action.

[01:14:00] Make sure you reach out.

[01:14:02] And she is somebody that so many people love to work with.

[01:14:05] So to be able to get any feedback from her is just a super gift.

[01:14:09] And so as this has been, thank you so much for being on MSP Mindset, Jonna.

[01:14:14] This is really a gift.

[01:14:15] Absolutely.

[01:14:15] Thank you so much for having me.