In six days, I had flown on seven planes, spent the night in five cities across three time zones, and finally landed back satisfied and fulfilled.
It was a whirlwind tour to meet new business owners and to connect with some of our long-term clients.
A theme emerged immediately within a group of 17 remodeling contractor owners that I was speaking to in Vancouver, Washington, and that theme continued throughout the duration of my around-the-country tour; how do I grow my business by replacing myself?
That theme emerged in a variety of different questions, like…
How do I stop doing it all in my business?
How do I find the time and the people to delegate?
How come no one can do the job to the level I can?
Employees.... ughh!
And yet we look around us and see that other business owners have successfully transitioned their business away from the owner-does-it-all model into a model where the team runs the day to day of the business... albeit maybe not just like the owner had envisioned.
How do you grow your business by replacing yourself?
First, you must grow your mindset.
We are quick to look at other things around us to begin finding fault, blame, and breakdown.
As I was going through the various airports throughout the country, I noticed a common theme playing itself out on the thousands of screens that I was exposed to; live sports television constantly asking questions like…
Who is the greatest/worst of all time?
Whose fault is it that this team is so bad?
Who is to blame for this team’s failure to make the playoffs?
It is clear what grabs our momentary attention... drama and blame.
We are constantly looking to place fault while not fully acknowledging that life is not perfect, people are not perfect, and processes are prone to glitches every now and then.
Society is working to groom us with a blame-centered, grab-it-while-you-can, impoverished, and limited mindset.
In order to grow your business by replacing yourself, we must begin believing that others have been gifted, built, and designed with complementary skill sets and talents that not only have the capability to do a task almost as well as you right now, but also carry the potential to do that task better than you six, or twelve, or twenty-four months down the road…
IF…
You allow them to because you believe they can.
Second, in order to grow your business by replacing yourself, you must grow your predictable communication.
While I was traveling throughout the week, Ashley (my wife) and I had much more choppy, infrequent communication together, and it was all electronic (phone, FaceTime, etc.). It took a solid twenty-four hours upon my return for us to reconnect conversationally and catch up on all of the happenings.
When we are both together physically, we are much more apt to have choppy discussions throughout the day, and very predictable, engaged, sit-down discussions in the evening.
In business, we tend to presume quality communication on our team under the misnomer that “we talk all throughout the day”. Talking unpredictably in person, over text, email, or phone throughout the day, usually predicated on project-related issues, is not the same as predictable, sit down (even virtually) check ins and communication.
Team meetings really do matter, and really do work.
Weekly or every-other-weekly check ins with each of your team members for fifteen minutes really does work.
You are setting yourself up for failure of replacing yourself if your team never has an opportunity to connect with the person who is to be replaced!
You may think, “but I don’t have the time.”
Then you will not replace yourself.
Either make the time or continue doing what you are doing and cross your fingers.
Finally, if you wish to grow your business by replacing yourself, you must grow your conviction in what is unseen.
Nothing is guaranteed in business.
I know stories of people who have done everything right, and the market just moved away from them... they had to completely re-tool the business.
It is by faith that we own and run businesses. It is by faith that we hire and train employees.
Faith is being convicted of something you cannot see.
What do you see?
Do you have a written vision for your business? You will be challenged to replace yourself if others have not been given a picture of the future of what that replacement life looks like.
You can write a vision. It will not be perfect, but it will be helpful.
You can prove to your employees the conviction you have in the unseen picture, by writing down a vision of what you see three years from now and then sharing that with your team.
It is not impossible to grow your business by replacing yourself, but it is intentional.
Hey, y’all! Brent Perry with Business on Purpose.
Let’s talk about the impact your business is making. And today, I’m not talking about the goods or services or products that your company offers. I am talking about the impact you are making in your communities.
Recently I was reading an article from Cumberland Bussiness.com. They had a few things to say about local businesses…
First, they said that “Not only are local businesses important for creating a culture for the community, but they also build connections and relationships with the people.”
Now, you know at business on purpose, our radar goes off when we hear or see the word culture. We love it. We created an entire culture calendar for teams knowing how important it is for the health and success of a business.
It’s also important to talk about the connections and relationships with the people. Not only is this beneficial to you and your business, think of the pipeline for your leads and potential new hires.
But business-to-business connections can be an important aspect for long-term success... such as referrals from other business owners.
The article also goes on to say that
“Small businesses impact their communities in a variety of ways, from interpersonal relationships to local government to the economy.”
Whether you know it or not, your business is likely making an impact already in your community. Even if you haven’t been intentional about it, it’s happening. Now the amount of impact and the kind of impact you are making is really up to you.
Before I came to work with Business on Purpose, I was working for a local business based out of Columbia, TN. Last year, 2020, with the Pandemic in full swing, kids who were able to be back at school were not able to use the water fountains at school. And all the drink machines had been suspended due to the spread.
As a company, they raised money, pitched in and WireMasters donated over 533 cases of water bottles to the Maury County school system... it was over 15,000 bottles of water.
You want to talk about a positive impact on the community. The outpour of gratitude and news coverage and thank you’s from kids and parents were incredibly high. And this is just 1 of many examples we could share from our experiences and our clients experiences from BOP.
So, is there anything you can do to be more intentional about the impact you are having? Absolutely..
Here are a few ideas if you are looking to impact your communities through your business. These ideas come from The Chalmers Center’s Economic Development Lab who invited our team to a conference call this past week.
Let’s make a difference!
Thanks for listening.
If you haven’t done so already, subscribe to our Podcast, and/or our YouTube channel.
If there’s a phrase that describes the small business experience... it has to be “survival of the fittest!” So what questions do you need to ask of yourself and your business to make sure you survive? Well, I’ve got three for you... so, let’s talk about that today.
Hey everyone! Thomas Joyner with Business on Purpose here.
In the crazy pace that most small business owners run, it’s easy to run through a week, two weeks, a month, and never come up for air! There are sales to make, employees to manage, fires to put out, books to reconcile, invoices to send, voicemails to return, tech issues, supply chain issues, angry customers... and whose shoulders do almost all of that fall on? Yep, you guessed it... YOURS!
So how do we make sure we’re tracking the right direction. How can we grab a small ounce of perspective in the midst of the craziness? Well, I would argue that you can ask yourself 3 simple questions in an owners-only meeting with yourself and have a quick idea of if you’re on track.
So start by putting a 20-30 min meeting on the calendar with yourself. Don’t cancel it for anything. If you need to bring in a key leader from time to time to get some different perspectives, that’s completely fine. I would actually encourage it once a month or so, but cherish this time for the value it can bring to your business.
Question number 1...
1. Are we distracted by anything?
What a great question to start off with. It forces you to look back at your Vision and Mission. In the context of where we want to go and why we’re going there, is there anything pulling us away from that? Services we’re offering, problems that we need to solve, employees holding us back, things we need to say no to instead of winging it. Is there anything in our life or business that is preventing us from moving forward?
Write those things down. Keep a list. And one by one, begin to eliminate them. I think you’d be surprised by what you come up with when you look back at your vision and mission weekly. I think it would prevent you from taking detours and keep you laser-focused on the goal.
Here’s the thing, maybe you realize your vision is off... GREAT!!! Write down the updated Vision so that you and your team can run after it. Distractions hold you back, and if you label them weekly, you can push past and through them towards your mission.
2. What did I implement this week?
We have so many ideas and thoughts every week. But what are we truly implementing? I have a client who is incredibly disciplined as a reader and podcast listener. He’s an amazing learner, really consumes an incredible about of content, but struggles to implement the content. So... we made a new rule. After each bit of content, audiobook, podcast, keynote talk, or whatever. After each thing he consumes, he has to write down and implement 1 thing before consuming the next.
Because what good is it to consume the information if we’re going to do NOTHING with it??? No, we have to be people of action. It’s what brings freedom and impact to our businesses! So what if you set aside time each week and either wrote down what you implemented or wrote down what you were going to implement the next week? Maybe something from your 12-week plan? Good grief your business would change in 1-2 months!
But we’re so consumed with what’s right in front of us, we forget to implement and forget to continue tweaking everything, every week.
3. Are we who we say we are?
If you’re brave enough to be honest with yourself, this question is a game-changer. Are we overselling and underdelivering? The answer may be yes or no. Or there may be areas where it’s yes and areas where it’s no. But this gives you the freedom to take an honest look at who you are and who you say you are. They NEED to match up!
Imagine these past two questions working together as you realize where you fall short and then commit to implementing something that would change that answer. That is powerful! That’s building your business on purpose!
So when are you sitting down and making time for these 3 questions? Who else needs to be asked these questions to help give you perspective.
I’d wager right now your business would transform if you had the guts to ask these every week for 4-6 months. It can’t help but improve. Do it, be brave, and do it!
Thanks for listening, hey if you aren’t already subscribed to our podcast and YouTube channel, please jump on that! It’s free content delivered right to you every week and it’s changing businesses all over the world. Come be a part of it.
Have a great week friends!
Hey y’all Brent Perry with Business on Purpose.
Let’s talk about qualifying leads in your business.
In an article written in Business News Daily, Max Freedman writes,
“Lead generation is important, but qualifying your leads to determine which ones are worth pursuing can save you time and money.” Now I don’t know about you, but saving time and money when it comes to your business should be a priority as an owner.
I spent over a year working outside sales for a company that sells aviation wiring and cables. We sold to the military, major airlines, mom and pop hangers that flew Cessnas... if you have a vehicle that flew, we sold to you. I got to go to some pretty cool places over that year... Space X out in California, American Airlines HQ in Texas, Salt Lake City to see some guys who are doing amazing work on developing defense technology for the airforce. Literally, we went all over.
Now, we would usually plan a trip around 1-2 of our biggest customers or suppliers in that area we were traveling to. But we couldn’t go anywhere unless we had 9-10 visits set up for that week. But even a step furthers, my direct boss would make us submit our visits a few weeks in advance, so he could make sure... you guessed it.
These were qualified leads. He didn’t want us traveling week in and week out if we weren’t coming back with something that benefited the company. A new supplier, a new customer, a new point of contact at a company that we were trying to crack. Our trips were all justified because we had the take the time to qualify our leads.
In his book, Business Made Simple, Donald Miller notes that a qualified lead meets the following three criteria…
Let me read those again…
So the question is, are you qualifying the leads in your business?
If not, you may be wasting some of your time, energy, and money chasing down any lead that pops up.
Miller goes on to write,
“Create a list of criteria that qualifies leads so you can move them into a story that solves their problem and changes their lives.”
If your business already has a list of criteria, great! I would say make sure you are reviewing that list once a quarter or so to make sure you are up to date.
If you currently don’t have that list readily available for yourself or your employees, that's a good place to start. Let’s make sure we are going after the right people. A little work on the front end will save your time, energy, and money in the long run.
Thanks for listening.
If you haven’t done so already, subscribe to our Podcast, and/or our YouTube channel.
Why do we push so hard for weekly team meetings? Let’s talk about that today!
Hello there friends, Thomas Joyner with Business on Purpose here.
So, if you’ve listened to this podcast much at all, you know one of the cornerstones of our system is the Weekly Team Meeting. But why? Don’t most team meetings just turn into a task list that’s communicated verbally to a team? Just a box that’s checked off so we can be face to face for an hour a week?
The painful response to those questions is YES! Unfortunately, most meetings really serve little purpose and could better be communicated in an email. But that’s the Team Meeting of old. In fact, if you do them well, they become a source of accountability for the team. A place to connect. A jump-start of energy. And the lifeblood of training for your team.
Last week I had a client come in and they were frustrated. “I feel like we have the same problems week after week!” Alright, tell me about those, I asked.
The next 10 minutes were spent listening to a myriad of frustrations and disappointments from the past month.
My first question…”Well, tell me about your last few team meetings?” I could tell that question was uncomfortable. We implemented Weekly Team Meetings about 10 months ago and they started off with a bang.
“Well, we’re so busy, we’ve kind of put those aside here and there. We’ve probably done 1 in the last 6 weeks.”
“Ok,” I said, “now we know the root of some of the problem... let’s talk through why that is keeping your team from underperforming.”
You see... when we view weekly team meetings as just a box to check off, we miss the entire purpose. It’s so much more than that. So let’s talk through the components of an effective team meeting and jump off from there.
1. Something that builds community
For us, it’s BIG Wins. We start every meeting with them. For others, I’ve heard talk about their High and Low for the week. But is there something you can put at the beginning of the meeting so that your team feels like a group of human beings, not just a group of employees? That’s building culture and encouraging buy-in.
2. Accountability from last week's action items.
Are there areas you asked your team to improve? I know that I, for one, rarely implement things that I know will not get asked about again. But, if I know I’m going to be asked about it at next week's meeting, I will 100% find the time to accomplish it. It works the same way for your team. Don’t just assign tasks without following up and making sure they got done. Without critiquing the little things. That’s how you make sure your team is following your processes. You review it EVERY. SINGLE. WEEK.
I’ll never forget meeting with a client months ago and they told me how powerful that time of follow-up was. My response? Awesome! Now do it again, and again the next week, and again and again and again. The power is in the repetition!
3. The action items for the week ahead.
Not every single little thing, but some areas for emphasis that, you guessed it, you will follow up on next week! Does your team need to work on customer service? Do they need to clean out their utility vehicles? Do they need to improve the estimating process and follow the system? I don’t know, but put it out in front of them and let them know you will discuss the following week.
4. Last, but not least, a quick time for training.
Don’t overcomplicate it. Pick a system or process and retrain on it. That way your entire team is trained on every process a minimum of once a year! That’s powerful. I have a client that keeps a notepad in his truck. Every time one of his guys calls him with a question, he writes it down and trains the whole team on the question at the next team meeting. His thought process is that if one guy doesn’t know that answer, he can’t be the only one! And week after week he is getting less phone calls from his guys as they are trained better and better each week.
THAT'S POWERFUL! That’s a team meeting with a purpose.
Now back to my client. We rebuilt their team meeting process and recommitted to it. Because if they can feel like a team weekly, be held accountable for their actions, trained on the way we want to do business, and then be sent back out to do the work? That’s a recipe for success!
So have you given up on weekly team meetings? Have you just kind of rolled your eyes and done them half-heartedly?
This is your moment to grab a hold of them and make them matter! Make them truly give you some momentum heading into your week. Your team will thank you. Your business will thank you. And the chaos will slowly start to melt away.
It’s time to start a Weekly Team Meeting if you’re not doing one already. THIS WEEK!
Hope that is what you decide to do this week!
Hey Real fast, one thing most people do NOT know about with Business on Purpose, is if you are a solopreneur or a young business, we have an online Membership that is much more affordable than 1 on 1 coaching. All of our content, PLUS monthly accountability calls, to help you build this in your own business. If you would like to know more, reach out because you need this TODAY!
Have a great week.
As we got started, the mood of the room was tempered. We were a small group of 20 business owners all from the same town and with a narrow purpose; help each other to discover simple ways to lead our teams into a post-pandemic world.
The volume of life is on maximum decibels and the opportunity to come into a quiet, intentional room to think and respond are becoming scarce.
After a few minutes walking through the reality of where we are today, we began to think deeply about that reality and what it would take to lead in the life geography of what is around the corner.
We admitted that what life looks like today was something that we were unable to predict back in the spring of 2020 with the choppy and confusing announcements being reported and the prognostics changing minute by minute.
We also agreed that we would not be able to closely predict what would be coming around the corner. We started instead with what we know... human behavior.
While we do not have a roadmap to the future of pandemics and geo-politics, we do have wisdom roadmaps explaining that for human behavior, namely, “there is nothing new under the sun” (incidentally, that wisdom likely holds true for pandemics and geo-politics as well).
We began to think back and ask ourselves the question, “based on what we know about people, what are the areas that people of all types and all situations are positively impacted by, and how can we install those things to lead our team into a post-pandemic world?”
With no grand strategy in place, our small group of 20 business owners determined three areas that would empower our businesses to lead into a post-pandemic world.
First, play.
That’s it... play.
Twice this year, I can think back to times where I have had a smile on my face that would not come off.
In August, my wife and daughter sent my two sons and I off barreling down the side of a Montana mountain on bikes. It was a blast! We would ride up a chair lift, mount up the mountain bikes and race down the hill.
At one point, I was trying to show off for my oldest son who was stopped up ahead, and jumped what I thought were back to back jumps not realizing there was a third jump awaiting my low-skilled experience. My feet slammed to the ground, and my rear end slammed down so hard on the seat that it bent the seat frame and I was riding the tire. I thought my foot was broken, and the right pedal dug into my calf looking like a bear had dug its claws in. My back hurt, my foot hurt, my calf was on fire...and I was SMILING!
Just recently, me and a couple of clients went to a local indoor, electric go-kart track where the cars are capable of speeds up to 40 mph. Not sure how fast we were going, but for about an hour, I couldn’t stop smiling.
When is the last time you played? When is the last time your team members played?
Must I dole on the value of play? We all know it is healthy... let’s do it more.
Second, we are determined to do a better job of leading our teams into a post-pandemic world by creating higher levels of predictability.
We are obsessed with new, shiny, loud, novel, innovative, and late-model ideas and things. As we continued to have conversation, we realized that amidst tens of thousands of dollars in bonuses handed out, salary increases, employee benefits, and making sure we had just the right logo, what people care about more is predictability.
Not boredom, not mundanity... predictability.
Owners are notoriously unpredictable, irrational, and last-minute personalities.
Team members do not typically speak that language. According to the DISC profile, most people are passive and responsive... waiting for instructions on what to do next.
When we act unpredictably, it causes confusion, tension, anxiety, and concern.
The good news is that predictability is within reach. We can create predictable structure (org charts), vision, mission, values, processes, and systems; all of which bring clarity and confidence.
Finally, in order to better lead our teams in a post-pandemic world, we believe that over communication will win the day.
The irony is, you can’t over-communicate if you don’t have predictability.
Think back to the time you were stuck in an airplane on the tarmac for 15 minutes without moving (or an hour, or 3 hours!). Wouldn’t have been just a little better if the pilot would have come on to simply explain what she knew, even if it is no new news?
Communication is the simple exchange of information. This does not give us license to air all things, but it does give us the opportunity to share the things that others need to hear.
Predictable communication happens through planning. Planned team meetings, daily huddles, regularly scheduled team member check-ins, vision days, and training days.
We hear the excuse all the time, “well, we talk all throughout the day.” That is not a winning communication strategy for any relationship, including your business.
Let’s commit ourselves to do a better job of playing, of creating predictability, and of over communication with our team, our family, and our customers.
Scott touched on it and really hammered it home. Culture is NOT an Accident. It’s fought for, cultivated, intentional, curated, and tangible.
About a year ago, we were looking to expand our coaching staff and I stuck my neck out for a buddy. He began the interview process, which is lengthy, sat in on some coaching calls and team meetings, went through our Vision Story and I’ll never forget when he called me and said, “Y’alls culture is ridiculous. I can literally feel it when I’m on the phone with anyone at BoP.”
Now the point of that is not to brag on us. We do have a great team, but it’s to say that culture should be felt by all who come in contact with you. It should be what you hear when you’re standing in line at a restaurant and overhear someone mention your business. It’s that feeling all your employees have when they step inside your building. And it’s the feeling left for your clients after they work with you.
Now, we’ve spoken about what Culture is a ton, but I want to clear up, before this next bit, what Culture is NOT.
Culture is NOT:
100% 5-star reviews
That’s external. There are too many miserable people out there who go out of their way to nitpick every little thing and have nothing better to do with their days than tell the world about only getting two pumps of peppermint in their coffee instead of the 3 they ordered. You can’t measure culture solely off of what reviews are.
Culture is NOT:
More vacation days
Yes, that’s a part of it. Right, we rest AFTER we’re exhausted. We take turns running and running and running until we hit empty and then foolishly try to figure out a way to get back to a full tank. In reality, we run from ½ a tank to Empty all day instead of being proactive and RUnning between full and ½ a tank. Culture is proactive!
Culture is NOT:
A finished product. It’s not an arrival. There’s no app that you can type in the destination and arrive. No, it’s fluid. It’s constantly shifting. As soon as a new project starts, you know what, you have to fight to protect it. As soon as a new client shows up, you have to lean on it.
But the moment you think you have arrived, you’re one step away from the culture you worked so hard to build crumbling and falling apart.
So today... we’re going to answer some questions internally. I’m going to ask you all to be honest. If you have a great culture? YES!!! Awesome, what are the little tweaks to make it better.
If you have a crappy culture? Be honest. Forget people’s birthdays? Work too many hours? Burn out your team? Are y’all angry at each other? Do you shout back and forth? Do you do the least amount of work possible? Do people sulk around when asked to help?
I don’t know, but it starts with being honest. So let’s have an open conversation.
Before we dive into questions for you I want to highlight something we’ve built that I’d like for us all to build before the end of the year. We call it our Culture Calendar.
EXPLAIN:
We’ve realized that without writing it down, planning it out, and being highly intentional, our culture fails.
-Team Meetings
-Retreats
-Birthdays
-Onboarding/continued learning calls
-Vision days quarterly
EVERYTHING WE FEEL WE NEED TO DO TO BUILD THE CULTURE WE WANT
So what needs to go on your culture calendar.
I’m going to go quickly through these questions. There’s no way to digest all of these questions in the 10 min we have, so write them down and maybe use your team meetings to ask one question a week for 6 weeks. Tackle them together and build the culture you want to be a part of. I’ll give you about 2 minutes to chat amongst your team, but come back to these questions, as we have, and figure out how to implement in your business!
1. What is our culture today?
2. How would our last 5 clients describe working with us??
3. What do we do year-round to ensure we’re building a positive culture that people want to be a part of?
a. Again, look back at our content calendar…
b. Team Meetings, Retreats, Onboarding meetings, trainings, Production meetings, etc...
4. What else could we do?
5. Is there anything pulling us away or distracting us from the culture we want?
6. Is there another business culture out there we would like to be more like, what about it are we drawn to, who do we need to ask about it?
These questions matter. They help build your culture into something you can be proud of. So take time with your team outside this meeting to dive in. I think you’ll be glad a year from now when people are sticking around a long time and feel valued in being a part of your team.
Hey, y’all! Brent Perry with Business on Purpose.
As I am recording this, my beloved UT volunteers just received a good old-fashioned whoopin from the Gators down in Gainesville, FL.
Now anyone who knows anything about college football could have told you before the ball was kicked at 6:00 pm down at Ben Hill Griffin stadium what the outcome of the game was going to be.
But I would be lying if I didn’t tell y’all about an hour before kickoff I started thinking, we actually have a little bit of a shot to win this thing. I kept it to myself, I have been laughed at enough being a fan of the Vols (always will be), but over the years sadly losing to good teams (and some pretty bad ones) has become “The Normal” for us.
6-6 or 7-5 is a heck of a season in our books these days. Beating Alabama, Florida, or Georgia...probably not going to happen. Occasionally we pull off something bigger than ourselves (and we make sure to celebrate it for a long time) because we have found ourselves accept “that new normal”.
The question to toss around today is, how do we accept the normal in our business? ” And what do I even mean by that?
When I am talking about the normal, I am really talking about the systems and processes that you create that give you the results you are looking for. Is there such a thing as predictability in business, we think yes.
What SOP’s (standard operating procedures) have you built that gives you and your team your vision and making those wins regular.
At Business on Purpose, we use the Master Process Roadmap that holds all our processes in one place. Literally, any process that we have in our business is on this roadmap.
One of our coaches, Thomas, tells a funny story about his first week in the office with our owner Scott Beebe. Thomas noticed that the trash bag was full in the office and asked Scott, hey where do I take the trash out to, and where are the new bags. Scott’s response, oh just check the taking out the trash process on the roadmap. What? The man had created a taking out the trash process for everyone in the office.
It went through the details of where to take the trash, where to find the new bags, what to do when the new bags get down to 5 or less, etc.
Sounds funny, and simple, yet it’s effective.
Scott doesn’t have to worry about whether or not the trash gets taken care of. Or whether or not the office has enough bags. We all have access to the procedure, and we can use it effectively to accept the normal
In this case that we will always have trash bags, and everyone on the team knows what to do about it.
Now this is a very small example. I can’t even begin to count how many processes that have been created at Business on Purpose over the last 6 years. But just like the trash bags, they are all effective. They provide us with the normal results that we can expect and accept from each other.
So how do you as a business owner accept the normal and get your team on the same page? You have heard us say this before, write them out!
Get what’s in your head down on paper (or digitally)
Take the time to create it, and you will not regret it.
Thanks for listening.
If you haven’t done so already, subscribe to our Podcast, and/or our YouTube channel.