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Lesson Info

Your Team's Mindset

So in this segment, we're going to be talking about building a first hundred days team and systems okay, so they're two separate things, but they're things that actually tied together pretty closely now I know some of you that are in the studio studio audience and some of you that are listening at home are running your own business and have several employees that work for you, right? Some of you have one or two employees, some have does and some even have hundreds right? Then there are others of you who are running your own business and it's an army of one, you are the chief, you are the cook, you are the bottle washer, you are the person that scrubs the floren turns out the lights at night, you're doing it all we're going to talk a little bit to you is well, because you have a team even if you don't have anyone officially on payroll and then there's this really interesting hybrid that's right between those two? The transition where we go from a solo entrepreneur to having multiple emp...

loyees usually includes this middle space where we have independent contractors or freelancers or people that we've hired for specific projects or maybe they're even doing more than a few specific projects but they're kind of working for us but kind of not they may be work for other people, we have some maybe preconceived notions about what we can and can't do with them the experience they're going to give our clients the access we're going to give them our clients, right? Because we have a tendency, especially in the beginning, to be really protective or like, well, I deliver customer service better to my client's than anyone else. I don't want anyone to talk to my clients and that's fine save for the fact that her business will only grow to be so big, you know, you kind of as a solo entrepreneur by the time you're getting to the mid six figures, you're fast approaching being able to max out just working by yourself as you add independent contractor sure you khun move above seven figures and sometimes maybe even movinto like right on the edge of eight. But if your goal is to get to eight figures, you're going tohave employees almost guaranteed some some rare, rare exceptions. So what we want to talk about in this segment is how do we instill that first hundred days mindset that we talked about in the last segment in our employees, in our team, in our vendors, in our contractors, and then we're going to finish this segment. Talking about systems, I know some of the people in the chat rooms and some of the people in the studio audience were like, joey, this sounds fantastic. I'm really excited about doing this, but I have to admit I'm a little more advanced than pen and paper, I want software, how can I automate this? We're actually going to review some of the software's that are on the market now for those of you that are thinking, wait, I don't want to be overly technical, overly tools, it's not going to be a big conversation. I'm just going to highlight some tools that I've used that my clients have used and I found really successful give you a general overview of what they could do and maybe even some general pricing on what you might need looking at and then I highly encourage you to go investigate them deeper, okay, so that's, kind of where we're going to go in the next ninety minutes or so when we think of team there's, this corny phrase that people say well, there is no I in team and then the smart alex like myself say, but there is a me okay, this is kind of how your business looks right, there's me, the ceo at the top of the pyramid and then there's my team now again team could be employees it could be independent contractors. It could be vendors. It could be people who are kind of part of the delivery service. You know, we were using an example earlier of a wedding photographer most wedding photographers I know send their photos out to be printed by a third party and then the photos come back and then they present well, guess what? That printer is part of your team. You don't think of them as part of your team. The experience that they create is part of the experience that your audience members air going tohave so I'd like you to start thinking about them it's your team how many of you have ever had this experience that working kind of the creative arts where you may be work with a printer and the printer sends you the items for your client? You pull him out of the box that the printer sent him in, you clean him up, you arrange him, you straighten them maybe tired bo around him and then put him in a different box and that's the box that goes to the client. I know whenever I have stuff printed that's how I do it and I say that respect me and I've got some great printers I worked with but their definition of presentation with shipping is different than my definition of presentation when meeting with a client and showing it to them and there's some real logical reasons for those of you that air saying well, wait a second show you wouldn't ship ah beautiful box with a nice bow around it via ups or fedex it's going to get there and the boat is going to be all wrinkled and bent and I get it but are you stopping to think about what is thie unboxing experience like no apple does this brilliantly brilliantly like some of the people in the room are going home god yes, I love it and they're videos on the internet there's a whole subculture of unbox sirs right that they get stuff and they filmed themselves just opening packaging apples like, for example, in the iphone when you put I mean you almost here a little as you lift the top off and it's like ugh, this is so cool I mean they're packaging is down to the millimeter it's beautifully set up now apple doesn't print to my knowledge its own boxes apple doesn't actually assemble its own boxes and apple doesn't have a shipping company that ships them to you. Yet when I order my new iphone and it arrives in the mail is the experience that's why? Because apple has said when it comes to our customer experience, our vendors are part of that experience as well these air the standards to which they hold them my imagining is you found folks that get the job done but they may not line up to your standards he may be using the cheap printer because you want the margin on the project but as a result you don't always get the best quality you may be using some other type of vendor you know are buying you know back in the day when we used to shoot film right is opposed to digital you might have bought the cheap film because it would help you with your margins but then the photo's morn is good so when all of our businesses I'd encourage you to look at your expenses and see where did I make the decision that was in my best interest is the business owner toe limit costs and limit expenses? If I were to put my sheet itself in the shoes of my customers, my audience is it in their best interests that I'm doing this might find some interesting things the third piece of this triangle or a pyramid if we think three dimensionally is them and by them I mean the audience now I use the word them it's kind of a pejorative word cause it's like them but frankly that's how a lot of you are thinking about your audience right now it's us against them it's our business against my cranky customers it's my brilliantly beautiful, efficient process against that fool that isn't following the thing that was in the contract and doing exactly what I said we would dio and now in round one of the logo design is expecting to see the final logo when the reality is we're anticipating four rounds of design before we get to final we're treating them like the them the reason we're treating them like that them is because we were caught up at the top of the pyramid in me if we think about it more is one whole group one full set me, the team, them as one complete unit, it changes our perspective and whether you are a solo entrepreneur, whether you have one hundred employees, whether you have a thousand employees, these principles still apply. In fact, the more people you get on your team, the harder it actually gets, which is fascinating when we think about it, because most people get into business for the there are lots of different reasons people get into business, but a lot of people get into business because they want to have freedom, huh? All you people watching at home that are like, I'm gonna have so much more freedom now that I run my own business, you know, there's a great saying that's bandied about with entrepreneurs that they said, and I say this all the time, I'm like, yeah, I work half days ninety nine most entrepreneurs I know are willing tto work eighty to ninety hours a week so they don't have to work for someone else for forty hours a week so freedom I encourage you those of you watching you know at home or in the studio audience or thinking or in the face of starting a business freedom depends on how you define freedom now the ability to not have to ask someone to go on vacation to be able to just take vacation yourself yes many entrepreneurs I know don't take vacations they should you really should you should take a lot of vacations it's good for you it's good for your business it's good for your employees it's good for your partners it's good for your audience because it allows you to clear the mechanism clear your head and come back with fresh ideas and new perspectives especially if going backto our earlier session about mindset you're willing to spend some money on experiences while you're on vacation she doesn't have to be a boatload of money but go do something different one of my favorite questions to ask myself is when was the last time I did something for the first time and if it's been more than thirty days it's time to go do something for the first time because in those new experiences in those new situations in those new environments I'm going to be exposed to different perspectives, different experiences different ways of thinking that I can then bring home and share with my client share with my employees share with my team build into my business process now some of us when we think of a team we get an image like this happy go lucky everybody's just enjoying and playing and we have a common goal of having fun that's often how businesses start when we first get employees are independent contractors hey this is gonna be fun we're growing the business it's an exciting time are increased revenues are increased profits have made it possible for me to invite you onto the team and this is going to be a great experience and we envision that it's going to look something like this a very diverse crowd well dressed good looking walking through the halls of a nondescript office cheering themselves on for the big multi million dollar sale they just landed is that the reality does it go from there to there as easily no not really what it comes to teams I like to use this image this is more likely what your business is dealing with and if you're not a classical music fan if you've never been to the orchestra you've never been to the symphony you have a homework assignment remember when I said go spend some money on an experience go even if you're like no I only like rock and roll I don't do this whole you know violence saying you know and this type of old music just has a little insight rock n roll is based on this stuff okay? You're going to go and you're going to be sitting there going oh my gosh, I get it I get how that translated across the centuries but the reason I want you to go see a symphony go see an orchestra is is a general premise this is most akin in my opinion toe what your team looks like everyone has their own sheet of music that they showed up on stage with you hope it's the same sheet you have but you didn't go around is the conductor and check after you've been working with him for a while you expect them to show up with the music on their own you expect him to be on time you expect them to ever hurst you expect them to be bringing their a game and all of a sudden you'll be in the middle of a business day and a bassoon will go off page and it's loud and it's glaring and it blows your business back and you run over and you take care of the bassoon and you get everything set aside and you're set and now the violins aaron revolt there three of them they work in customer service, they've been kvetching all day and they're now wanna quit on mass the week before christmas and so you run over to the violin players and you say well wait wait wait I love you violin players hang in there the customer service is where it's at oh this is my mind said this is my belief first hundred days but they haven't bought into that sheet of music that's why goingto watch an orchestra a symphony is such a fantastic experience because you look out and you get the visual off all these people who are watching the hands of one conductor who is making all the decisions on what it's going to sound like what the tempo is going to be where we going to take a rest where we going today crescendo or get quiet where we gonna go faster that I grow where we going to get louder forte all the hands of the chief experience composer which is the title I have for myself in my own business designed symphony because my business is built on the premise that I helped companies get all of the pieces of their business on the same sheet of music playing in harmony together you two are the composer of your business and the interesting thing I noticed I said chief experience composer as opposed to chief experience conductor now when we look at this person we have the image of a conductor ah conductor takes the music that's already been written by someone else and gets everybody to play it for bigger companies, sometimes we see when the founder exits the company and they hire in ah professional manager, that person is a chief experience conductor they're not the one that composed it there just the one that's operating it in most of your business is you're still in the composing stage you're deciding which notes are going on the music pager music in which order but you still have to have not only compose, but you have to conduct a swell so it's an interesting nuance, I hope that you're kind of like, oh yeah, it's like the singer songwriter, right? The singer songwriter has unique position in the sense that they're pouring their blood, sweat and tears into the music, and then they're taking that music and getting up on stage, playing along their other artist that someone else writes the music and gives it to them and they perform it. In fact, most of our most popular artists today in pop culture are that type of artist average american doesn't realize that you know your top forty groups, they're not writing your own stuff that's why someone like john mayer is fascinating regardless of whether you like john's music or not, john writes a lot of it himself john can play a variety of instruments john's a tremendous, tremendously talented musician in fact, when he won his first grammy his acceptance speech with you get a chance to google it up made me a john mayer fan for life his acceptance speech not his music I liked his music I'd seen him in concert will talk about his concerts in a minute but his acceptance miss speeches what hooked me in because and I'm paraphrasing here he said something to the effect of I know this has come too early and I promise you my fans that I will work toe earn this in the future it's like wow, this is a guy who hasn't bought in to the ridiculous nature of, you know, globally renowned musicians this is a guy who's still remembers his roots and I had the chance to see john on tour in his most recent uh on his current tour and the guy's fantastic it's still that guy the crowds were bigger, the songs are bigger, the lights show is bigger, the speakers are bigger john still given it a hundred and fifty percent on stage every night homework assignment number to go see someone like john mayer so I sent you to the symphony some of you were like, oh, wonderful, I get to go to the symphony others were like, well, finally my spouse will stop begging me to go because I can say I had to do it for work it's a homework assignment, right but for those that were annoyed by it now I've given you go see a rock concert go see somebody that can really lay it down it will give you perspective it will give you experience if you get the chance you might even want to bring your employees is long because then you have a common experience and a common vernacular common language that can use to talk about how you're doing your business hey remember how when john came on stage and right out of the blocks we were captivated how are we doing that in our business or remember how that conductor at the symphony got everything really quiet and then everything really loud and then everything really quiet again what's the parallel to our business how could we be there for them but then kind of quietly there but then really present in there and then quietly there again on what's that dance we can create the experience your employees air having is actually more important than your audience members oh joey, wait a second I signed on for three days of raving fans and great new customers in the first hundred days why are you talking about employees or you're saying oh but joey I don't have employees well you have partners you may have independent contractors you have other people you work with so where you see employees think anybody other than me that is working with this business the reason their experiences actually number one is because you have to give them a frame of reference for what a great experiences we talked about the other day if I were to ask you what are the greatest customer experiences you've had in the last decade statistically you'll be able to come up with two maybe three your frame of reference for beautiful, amazing breathtaking experiences your catalogue is not that deep we want to get it deeper that's why I'm recommending having these life experiences and going and doing cool and fun and interesting and unique and different things challenging yourself to do something for the first time because it will build your experience you need to do that for your employees too the people you work with because they're like you they've had maybe two or three good experiences and then you hire them and you say okay, so what our company customer experience and customer service is number one we want you to do a really good job of that by the way we're going to give you a half day training today on customer experience from now we'll get you on the phones tomorrow and we want you to provide world class gold level standard experience and we wonder why it doesn't work what's your frame of reference they don't have one what they do it's minimal and if they do have when we rarely if ever asked them about it what if, in your interviews you started saying tell me the five most amazing experiences you've ever had in your life in the interview process, you would know whether this person has the life experience, the personal experience, to be able to deliver the type of experience you want delivered? What if their answer was? Well, uh, I signed up to get time magazine, and it came to the house that's when you must make. Yep. It was amazing. I was really surprised they could deliver a magazine to me that's printed somewhere else and deliver it to my little town. Ah, one time I got on an airplane and it flew me to los angeles. That was an amazing experience. Now, that is a cool experience. But what was cool about it? Explore deeper asked. Well, what did you like about it? Well, I love watching all the clouds. I loved the ability to see the sunset. I was actually taking photos out the window and kind of capturing these moments so I could remember what a cool experience it wass that's the person that you say ok, we've got a language, we've gotta vernacular, we could work with it.