It is my first day back and my mood is curious.
Today is July 31st, on June 30th I sat in the Houston airport awaiting a flight to Paris, then Rome, and promptly deleted my email and Slack apps from my phone. For the next 30 plus days I would not be available to the BOP team for any business-related items.
Of course, we could send some personal pics and updates, but no business communication.
While away the BOP team had a straightforward mission: grow the business by one client.
After founding Business On Purpose (BOP) over 8 years ago in 2015, it was time to take an extended time away from the day to day of the business.
Ashley and I just navigated a string of massive life milestones; our daughter’s wedding, our final son’s graduation from High School, and celebrating 25 years of marriage all within two months of each other.
I also wanted to test the sea-worthiness of the BOP ship with me not at the helm.
As I write this I still do not know anything that happened over the last four to five weeks, I still have not opened my email or checked our internal Slack since June 30th.
I am sharing how I plan on re-entering in such a way that does not overwhelm the team nor myself here on day one of my return.
First, I spent time quietly thinking and reflecting back on the last month in gratitude for a gracious creator who provides opportunities and a vast world to explore along with a strong passport that gains access to those places. That gratitude continued as I think about the team that has led BOP in my planned absence, and the clients I serve who were kind and flexible to adjust coaching schedules and plans.
Our clients were curious and excited as well because this is in part a model for what I push each of them to do as well.
Overwhelming gratitude is a wave that flood’s my mind on re-entry.
Second, I wrote down a list of the things that would be most helpful and least intense on day one. My tendency is to come in a rain down a list of revelations and ideas that will be sure to revolutionize what we are doing.
Throughout our time away, I continued to quietly repeat a Pilgrim’s Credo I read that was attributed to Fr. Murray Bodo:
I am not in control
I am not in a hurry
I walk in faith and hope
I greet everyone with peace
I bring back only what God gives me
Hurry must not be priority mode on re-entry lest I alienate and put our team on the defensive.
My first trip to Nigeria was a lesson for me when I returned home and began to tidal wave Ashley with all of the details of this new adventure. Over time I began to realize that while I was away, she was still parenting a 5, 3, and 1-year-old; right now she needed a husband and dad at home until the home calmed down at which time she would be ready to really listen and embrace the adventure.
One of the things on my list is to have a simple call with each of our directors to simply see how they are doing and listen to whatever they would like to share, and then we will have a more intentional conversation about the last month when they are ready; now or later.
Third, I intentionally delayed my start time today just to remind myself to be slow. I typically work from home on Monday’s beginning immediately after exercise and getting ready. Normally breakfast comes upstairs with me as I launch into the work day. Today, I took my breakfast on the back porch with no work just to remind myself that I am not in a hurry.
Finally, I will not open my email or Slack until later in the day; likely around mid-day. This is a step I am taking to intentionally remind my mind that email and digital communication are not the priority of our mission to liberate owners from chaos to make time for what matters most.
Email and Slack (or whatever internal messaging system you use) are supporting tools instead of life or death tools like we have allowed them to become; they should never be the primary actors.
Well, here we go; the time has come to go play my role on the BOP team to help liberate owners from chaos!
For too many business owners it is a pipe-dream scenario that would allow them to leave their business for one month while it not only continue, but also grow in their absence.
We are in the middle of doing it right now.
After a full Spring of 2023 of working as a team to liberate more clients from chaos professionally, and celebrating some major milestones for our family (daughter’s marriage, final child graduating, and 25-year wedding anniversary), Ashley and I made a decision a while back that we would setup an epic adventure to lean into our family mission of being a light and creating space through wisdom, adventure, and time around the table.
On the last work day of June 2023 we left; and will not return until the first workday of August 2023.
By leaving I mean that I, the owner, have no availability to the business team at all. Email… deleted from my phone. Slack…deleted from my phone.
The only correspondence with any team member or client has been entirely personal to share pics and stories of our adventure.
Zero business talk or email.
The last two weeks of our time, I will do a small amount of designated client work in specific time windows that was planned well in advance; but no business meetings for me.
At this writing, I trust that all things are going as planned. Ashley (runs our financial accounting) is still working and she has access to messaging, but I have asked her to not relay anything to me good or bad.
It has been a joy, but not a picnic.
The value of this time is that Ashley and I are enjoying time devoted to each other, and in celebration of 25 years of adventure while we plan and dream for the next season in some inspiring places that have become pillars of much of the world’s modern culture.
We have walked, read, rested, and had plenty to eat.
Productivity thoughts try and creep into to my mind, but a dear friend had me prepare some thoughts that I can begin to recite on repeat when distractions come into my mind, and one of those was a sobering truth that another mentor of mine shared with me back in 2015, “Scott, God’s favorite thing about you is not your productivity.”
It stung when he told me that, and yet I am grateful. I have been productive on this trip, but I have also been “intentionally wasteful”; another sobering thought this mentor gave me.
This time away did not just happen. It was not a burned-out festered mid-life crisis decided on a whim; this has been planned.
Here are a few things we set in motion prior to my leaving the business for one month.
First, we wrote down the desire that we had to go on this epic 25th anniversary trip. Don’t skip this step.
Second, we ensured that we as a business team were habitually working the systems and processes that we already had in place. Reviewing the vision, mission, values, following our financial processes, team meetings, coaches meetings, check ins, handbook training, content writing and distributing, marketing, sales, etc.
We have the majority of our business mapped out in our Master Process Roadmap; it’s our business on one sheet of digital paper. It’s a must to have, and it is a must to implement what you have.
Third, we paid special attention to, and updated our financial processes. One of the BOP Coaches asked a few months back, “What happens if something happens to both of you (Ashley and I)?” In other words, how does payroll get processed, bills get paid, and income get received?
We revised our financial processes in recorded videos along with a two-page “financial playbook” complete with contact names for each area of our financial wheel (payroll, bank, insurance, processor, CPA, etc.).
These videos are on a private hard drive in a secure place where one of our team members has access to in case of a legitimate emergency.
Fourth, we communicated our plan about 3 months in advance both to our team and to my direct clients.
Every other month we host a one-hour “Vision Day” with our entire team via Zoom. On a pre-scheduled Thursday afternoon, we all hop on a call having asked every team member to already have skimmed back through our written vision story.
I come prepared with a series of Green/Yellow/Red flags based on our twice monthly Director’s Meetings where we are prompted to write out some Green flags (things that are going great), Yellow flags (things we’re aware of, but not freaking out about), Red flags (things we need to pay urgent attention to).
After gathering those over the course of our twice monthly Director’s meetings, I then share them with the entire team during each Vision Day.
During a Vision Day in the Spring, we shared with the team of our plan for me to be away from the business.
Fifth, we re-clarified our organizational structure prior to leaving with a focus on “who’s responsible for what”.
We host an annual, off-site team day for our entire team each year. This year we prioritized time to work through a host of organizationally clarifying tools; a rebuilt Org Chart, new job roles (including my new “CEO” role moving forward), and clarifying responsibilities and expectations all towards our mission of liberating owners from chaos to make time for what matters most.
Everyone had insight and buy-in, and a clear perspective on how communication happens both internally (with us as a team), and externally (with our clients and partners).
Finally, I set everything to leave.
Setup a clear email response. Check.
Sent a clear email to all of my clients reminding them of our plans and how they get the support and help they need while I am away. Check.
Sent a final video to our team while at the airport about to leave. Check.
Deleted email from my phone. Check.
Deleted Slack from my phone. Check.
It has not been easy, and it has not been a psychology beach with endless Mai-Tai’s.
It has been more abundant, more restful, more inspiring, and more enlightening than I expected.
We’ve got two more weeks in some pretty amazing places that we’ve never experienced, and it has been space filled with light to share adventure, wisdom, and time around a variety of amazing tables; including Nico and Greta, our AirBNB hosts in La Spezia, Italy who we never would have met and learned of their story if not for making a plan and implementing that plan.
Teşekkür ederim, and arrivederci for now.
It’s summertime… school will be back in session before we know it and the routine will be upon us! So what questions do we need to ask our business BEFORE fall hits? Let’s dive in…
I’ve sat in with clients over the last month and summer is always a weird time. It seems like there is a ton of work, but payments are slow coming in, employees lack motivation or are just absent, and we begin to see the sprint towards the holiday season quickly approaching.
So what questions do we need to ask today to prevent chaos down the road? Well, I may not hit all of them today, but I’ll touch on 3 important ones to ask and engage your team with.
Where are we in relation to our written down Vision Story?
Don’t have a written Vision Story? Well, start there. Touch on the life you want for your family and the things you want in relation to freedom from work. Talk through your business financials, the products and services you need to offer to hit those financials. Walk through the team size and the culture. All of that. And write it down so you can revisit it regularly and stay on track.
Already have it written down and documented? Perfect! Now pull it off the shelf and dust it off. Or open up that google drive and open it up. And read through it bullet point by bullet point. Color code it… red/yellow or green. Green means it's done! Accomplished, check it off the list. Yellow… it’s in progress. Red, not started yet. Having a visible representation on the progress is so much better than just a simple reminder. If it’s all red, better schedule some time to get to work!
Things changed over the last 6 months? That’s fine. Adjust, tweak it. It’s your vision. The thing we’re hoping for is when it’s all said and done and we arrive after accomplishing it, let’s be excited and grateful that this is what we wrote down. Not upset because we didn’t place the bullseye exactly where it needed to be.
So, step one, pull out that Vision Story and find out where you are!
What are we consistently doing that we need to revisit?
This was a question we asked every year in the Young Life world. Sometimes you get stuck in patterns and habits that you never intended to get stuck in. So, look at your team meetings, your production meetings, and any other areas you meet with the team regularly. Are they accomplishing what you want them to accomplish? If not, why not?
Don’t stop there, pull out your dashboards you use to track your cash and finances. Are your percentages right? Do you know your numbers? If not, what else do you need to track? Or do you need to look at them more frequently? Do you need to get better at job costing or forecasting? What help can you pull from your numbers?
Even look at things like your culture calendar? Is it producing the culture your hope for? What do you need to add or take away? This is a great time to start some new habits or engage the team to see what’s working!
Ok, now you’ve revisited your vision, you’ve looked at what you’re doing consistently and audited that…
What do we need to start now that will make life better at the end of the year?
Think about this for a second… most businesses wait for the opportunity to arise instead of doing the work on the front end. They end up missing out on the full effect, simply because they weren’t prepared and ready to take advantage.
Maybe it’s making a hire by the end of the year. Great! Start your hiring process now. Interview multiple candidates. Update the job role. Put the performance metrics together. Add processes to support the role!
Maybe it’s knowing your numbers for next year. Great! Start forecasting and job costing now so you have 5-6 months of data to pull from for your budget.
Maybe it’s adding a new sales role or productions role. Great! Add the processes needed to train that role now. That way when you hire or split job roles up, the support is there for them to succeed.
Maybe it’s adding another bank account to your business and starting to file away some cash for the next truck in the fleet or maybe even the next hire. That way you have the cash on hand and don’t have to pull on your line of credit or finance anything and can simply take advantage when the time is right.
Thinking through all of this now gets you ahead and allows you to take full advantage of the opportunity. Don’t wait.
Don’t let the fall sneak up on you. The next few weeks will go by quickly! You can keep your head down and push through them, or you can take one question a week to think through and prepare for the end of 2023. It’s going to be a great finish to the year… but prepare to completely maximize it.
Look over your vision, think through what habits you do consistently, and begin doing now what will make the end of the year better.
Hope this is helpful for you! Have a great week
What do we pay our new hires? How do we know what the compensation package needs to be? Well, I can tell you it doesn’t start by asking, what is industry standard!
One of the questions we get most frequently right now is “What should we pay our new hire?” Now, the first thing I’ll say is if you haven’t listened to any of our podcasts or content on your hiring process, you need to start there first.
You need to make sure you have a Job Role, performance expectations, all the processes needed for their role documented, and have communicated the Mission/Vision and Values of your business. Great, we’ve got that out of the way…we’re ready to hire someone, how do we know what to pay them?
Well, I’ve sat with multiple business owners in the past month who have asked the same thing. They always start with, “Well, what are other businesses paying their Project managers, or admins, or sales guys…whatever they’re hiring for.”
Friends, let me stop right there and say…that is a dangerous game to play! And it sets you up to either under or over-compensate your employee from the get go.
Let’s talk through that. If you start with industry-standard, instead of what your business is designed to pay that role, you will always be chasing the industry instead of what your business can afford.
In two cases recently we moved past the industry standard conversation quickly and into what the business can afford. We walked through the numbers and what the role would allow us to grow our sales to or free someone else up to sell.
It was like a lightbulb went off. To maintain the profitability they wanted, it was in black and white. One scenario the business actually could afford to pay significantly more than industry standard for the position they were hiring. They were able to go after their number 1 target and make an incredibly competitive offer.
In the second scenario, they realized that they couldn’t afford to pay industry standard. The business was not ready to hire for the position yet. So they either had to find someone new who they could train up and pay a bit less than was typical, or build up some more cash reserves, improve their forecast from the sales side, and re-enter the hiring process in another 3-6 mos.
Either way, they didn’t get themselves hamstrung from a cash flow perspective by offering MORE than the business can afford.
And yet how many times does this happen? We don’t really know our numbers so we throw a random number up and decide that the business can do it. And then we look up 6 mos from the hire date and wonder what happened to our cash!
That’s no way to set your business up for success.
We need a job role. Need clear expectations. Need to know what will happen BEFORE we hire. And then once we have all that we can make an educated decision based on projections and adjust as necessary.
Here’s the awesome thing about this. A lot of people want to say that it’s being too stingy or it pushes you to underpay people for maximum profitability. And yet what I’ve seen is the opposite. It actually allows you and frees you up to pay what the employee is worth to the business and takes the stress off of that relationship. You’re not coming up with a number out of the blue to where they can say, “Oh my boss won’t pay me more, because they don’t like me.”
No! It frees you up to say, “Here’s what your role is worth to the business, and with your experience here is what we can pay you.” It takes the relational side out of it, which is necessary during the hiring process, and allows you to base compensation on value added to the business.
Let me say that again, compensation must be based on value added to the business. Not how long the person has been in the industry or what a past employee made or even what the person wants to make. It has to be directly tied to what value they will add to the business and what they will free the business up to make or grow to in the near future.
So, the next time you hire…leave out the “Industry standard compensation” myth. It will lead you down a road you don’t want to go down.
And if you need tools to walk through this or an extra set of eyes, please reach out. This is part of the chaos that we wake up every morning to liberate you, the business owner, from. And we’d love to work through it with you.
Thanks so much for listening today, have a great week!