Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign,
[00:00:18] Speaker B: Most firms survive. The best ones scale.
Welcome to the Managing Partners Podcast, where law firm leaders learn to think bigger.
I'm Kevin. Daisy.
Let's jump in. What's up, everyone? Welcome to the show. We're recording here on the Managing Partners podcast, and I'm excited to have someone that was referred to me or introduced to me through a friend of mine, Armando Leduc. And I got John Glenn on the show today, and we're gonna be talking about some cool stuff. I know a lot of folks here that listen to the show may have either heard of eos. They actually implement EOS in their business. And John's very familiar with that, but he's also got some. Some interesting takes on.
We're going to dive into that. But also kind of what he's doing, that's like a EOS 2.0, he calls it. So really excited to talk about that and some of the human elements for. For growing our businesses. So, John, welcome to the show.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: Kevin, thanks for having me, man.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: Yeah, dude.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: Yeah. You. You mentioned Armando, right? He's. He's good at. At connecting with good people. So happy to be on the show. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: Yeah, Armando's been great, and we know a lot of the same folks and hang out often and. And like I said, we're actually taking this podcast on the road. We're going to be at Lottie Gras in San Diego doing a live podcast booth on site together. So that's gonna be pretty cool.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: Sweet.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: Excited about that. So it's all about, you know, meeting good people and connecting with people and helping each other out. So this podcast is definitely all about that. So, John, tell us your background. Tell us where you've been and where you're at.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: Yeah. And, you know, and podcasting is fun, by the way. You just get to have really cool conversations. But for. For me, right. I actually started in the corporate world out of college. Cause I thought that's what you're supposed to do, is get a big name on your resume. And the more I rose through the ranks, the more I realized I didn't want to be in the corporate world. I think I was shunning the corporate world at that time. But more importantly, I think I'm just not a very good employee. And so found the right niche, found the right thing that I wanted to do was actually doing the same thing, just do it as an independent rep. And that company is Great Lake Essential power. And that's 12 years old here in. In January. So had a lot of fun building that Business skinning my knees, almost driving to the ground and then growing it back up and all those fun things that are, that are entrepreneurism and all along the way finding out what I really really want and what am I passionate about. And I, you know we implemented EOS in my company eight years ago and I've loved what it's done for our business but I also really loved the implementer that we had. Things Mike Coates, a shout out to him. He's, he is what I espouse to be right. There's EOS implementers that create a, a help you with the operating system in a business but then there are ones that get the human element and he took a personal approach with me as the visionary and realizing that I was struggling with some things and so introduced me to another side of the world which is tapping into my, my inner self and that led me on my journey to where I am today. Few, few stops along the way but you know I really realized that I wanted to help humans and I've found a limited way to continue doing that within my business unless I scale hyperscale as far as touching more humans. And I, I found that I always wanted to be an U S implementer and I felt that I could help more people raise the tides by helping more people within their business and then ultimately if I help them as humans then they can help, you know, that impacts their family and their families, et cetera. And so fast forward I found that right intersection with Bloom Growth operating system and with a mixture of some working genius in there as well and you know, cause again I get to help entrepreneurs, I admire entrepreneurs or their grit for their passion for their ideas and really just having guts and. But guts only get you so far. Grit only gets you so far. So at some point you gotta put some things in place to help you get outta your own way in most cases. And so Bloom Growth operating system is a marriage of like that's why we call it EOS 2.0. There's nothing wrong with EOS. I think what, what changes for me is I get to add way more human element. I get to do far more work on the human side of things that unlocks even more potential within companies for themselves and for their families. So long winded, right? I am, I am a Bloom Growth coach coaching leadership teams to scale.
[00:04:29] Speaker B: Love it. That's awesome.
As you know, just good way to put it I think.
You know again for those that know EOS implement it or Red Traction and things like that, very practical ways of doing Things. But yeah, some of the human elements, um, because me and John just, you know, we chatted before a few weeks ago that are missing that they. They kind of layer on. So I think want to kind of, you know, get into some of that. Like what. What are some of those things that make what you're doing slightly different or better than eos? Again, nothing knocking eos.
[00:05:06] Speaker A: Right. Yeah, Yeah, I. Yeah, I. Not to disparage by any stretch of imagination. It's fantastic.
[00:05:11] Speaker B: Where if you're not doing the us or nothing else, please, please at least do that.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Pick one.
[00:05:15] Speaker B: Right.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: Pick. Scaling up. Pick. Pick something. Your life will be better for it. And I'll also offer a suggestion is not try to do it on your own. Right. There's a reason that there are coaches and implementers and things like that accelerates your journey. And that's not just a plug for me, that's just for anyone. Very few people are great at implementing things themselves. Having a third party, someone to help push prod, really helps that. That's part of the human element that, that. That I bring personally, but also again, through the bloom process. So the things that we do are, you know, our, you know, each session we are digging into the things that hold us back as humans and the things that we. Stories that we tell ourselves that cause us to act in a certain way. We talk about how we interact with each other, but not with, you know, with. With. I wanted to say limerick. That's not right. But, you know, not with key phrases or anything like that. But it's around being centered as the, as the human. Right. We don't work on practices and, you know, not necessarily like, hey, you're. What's your disc profile? It's not necessarily that. It's just an awareness of how we are. I mean, case in point, you know, I have a new client and when he called, reached out to me a few months ago, he said, you know, hey, I've been. I've been watching your podcast and we've known each other for a long time, but we just haven't connected in a long time. And he said, I think I can. I think you can help me. And when we, When I, when we were talking, it was about the business, but then he was like, man, I got some other stuff going on. And, you know, there's always that as entrepreneurs, we're. We're humans and sometimes we bring in a lot of extra baggage because of the business. It becomes our identity, all those kinds of things. And I knew enough to know that There were some issues, but, you know, didn't really know what it was. Had our first day, day one session and he's like, hey, elephant in the room. I'm an alcoholic. Right. Okay, okay. We, we're on the surface and we, we talked about a lot that as a team. And then 30 days later we're back together and he kind of fallen off the wagon again and really causing havoc at home and in the business. And instead of going away and saying, oh, I need to go away and go somewhere, I said, no, we're going to do this all together. And so one, I got to help on the personal side. And no, I'm not a, I'm not a counselor per se, but you know, our session and it was, it's really curated to get through these things and to really realize the love that each one had for each other, regardless of what had happened over that last month. You know, everyone wants everything to flourish and thrive. But that, that personal side, again, that was a very extreme case, but it was just so powerful and moving with. To tears and not just surface level. Hey, I'm sorry, man. Is nothing like that. It's, it's. Hey, what are the things that we're dealing with? What are the triggers that are help happening for this person? But also here in the office, when you act this way, you may be saying that all you're trying to do is help us come up with a new process, but the way you say it takes us back on guard. And so we talk about how we approach each other and it was the most, the most magical session that I've had because we, we affected the business in different ways. Right. We did the practical things, but we also are getting through on the human element that unlocks all of it. You can write down all the processes you want. You can say, I'm shooting for the moon. Right. I want to be 10x in 5 years. You can say all that crap you want, but until everyone breaks their barriers down and that get to get that trust level, we're. You're going to have the same person pushing a rope up a hill and not everyone else on, on board with it.
[00:08:20] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, if you want real change, you know, you got to have those sounds of conversations. You got to break that down. I think too, as entrepreneurs, I don't need a helper, I don't need an implementer. I don't need a coach. That's kind of how we're wired to not have someone to help you or to tell you what to do or hold you accountable. And I think that's, that's a problem for a lot of entrepreneurs out there, especially some of the solo lawyers out there that I know personally or come in contact with that like, they are the end all, be all. A lot of folks that listen to this show and a lot of the guests I've had on the show are, they're open, they bring in people, they bring in coaches, they listen to people, they read books, they're in masterminds.
That's definitely the way to go. And to know that you need someone like a John or a EOS implementer to come in and do it for you and help you through it.
[00:09:11] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's the thing again, certainly, with the attorneys you deal with. They're all supremely sharp people.
So it's, it's, you know, and people that start business, right, they do it because they know whatever it is that they're doing.
[00:09:22] Speaker B: Right.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: So they're very good at it. And, you know, it's hard. You know, I had someone, that one, a good friend of mine, you know, said the one thing like, the one key learning he has an entrepreneur is no one's going to come save you like in all of that mess. Right. If you can drive hard and do all these things, but if you're sitting there by yourself, there's no one there to help you. And, you know, I think that you're right. It's not for everyone. You know, I'm not going to try to beat down someone's door if they're not open to it. And if they know everything already, just ask them. Sometimes I love those challenges, but at the same time, it's like, you know what? I know that that's not going to be a successful story because we've got to break down so many barriers that we might spin our wheels for six months because they're just not open and there. So you, you nailed it. Right. It's. It's those that kind of listen to this stuff and that. That join on here, right? They, they're eager to learn. They, they're. That ego is checked. They're still an ego. We all have that. But they still check the door a little bit to how the hell do I do this without just me doing it myself?
[00:10:13] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, Thank you for tuning in to the show today.
I have taken things to the next level and I've started the managing partners Mastermind. We're a peer group of owners looking for connection, clarity and growth strategies. So if you're looking to grow your law firm and not do it alone.
Please consider joining the group. Bots are limited. So I ask for anyone to reach out to me directly through LinkedIn and we can set up a one on one call to make sure it's a fit.
Now back to the show. If they're listening to the show and they read books and they go to masterminds and conferences and all that stuff, odds are they know that the shortcut to being successful in business is to bring in people and listen to people and open yourself up and not say I know everything or do everything. You delegate. Right. You want to get yourself out of the things that you're not good at and you know, focus on what your superpowers are and what you're, you're the best at. So yeah, the, the. For anyone that's listening to us about to start a business or start your own law firm or maybe you're just a solo that's never really grown and, and you're just trying to, to learn something, bring in experts, bring in coaches, listen to other people. The faster you do that, the faster you're gonna have the growth you're looking for and whether it's growth time, whatever. Right?
[00:11:35] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, that's, that's a really good point too is they also have to want it. Some guys that are by themselves and gals. Right. Maybe that's all they want to do. They just want to, it could be a very comfortable thing and that's what they want. And there's nothing wrong with that at all. And wanting it for the sake of someone else because someone else wants it. You know, you're, you're going to get burnt out. You're just, you're, you're, you're not going to get there same. I have that, that same struggle with clients again. If they just, they say they want to grow because everyone says they do or they hey, yeah, my buddy says my buddy's doing this and it's that and that. And so they say, yeah, I want to be 10x what I am. And then once we get down that journey, they're like, wait a minute. Actually I don't want that. I'm pretty happy where I am. So that's okay too, right?
[00:12:12] Speaker B: Yeah, but that's awesome actually, if you're, if you're okay. You know, I think you've already won this.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: Yeah. As long as you have really asked yourself those questions and you've really, really sat in it and know that's what you want and you're not just copping out because you're not growing. You know, there's a lot of that too. Just, you know, it's that, that, that ego protection thing that says, eh, you know, we haven't grown for four years. I didn't really want to anyway. Yeah, you did. We just didn't do the right things.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: Well, I think, you know, that's the, I like the exercise of putting yourself at the, the end goal and working backwards and be like, okay, let's just say I was there now. Like, is that what I really want? Or is it just a monetary goal or you know, some kind of goal that you just assumed you need to hit?
[00:12:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:52] Speaker B: Is that where you really want to be? And what would you have around you? Team, people, things, whatever. And is that where you would want to be? And some people would be like, probably not. Do I want a hundred employees, I want a thousand employees, I want two employees, you know, but if you put yourself in that, that spot now and say, okay, is that where I would want to be? Or maybe it's somewhere along the way that you'd rather shoot for.
[00:13:14] Speaker A: You know, that's actually a lot of, a lot of the work we do because it's again, certainly when someone is maybe in a more traditional, slow moving manufacturing or, or whatever, or hey, you know, they took over the law practice from their dad or whatever it might be, sometimes it's hard for them to see something different and bigger and it's kind of scary. And we, we go through those things of like, well, boy, yeah, if I just had three more employees, man, I'd be doing great. We're not. Are you really getting yourself up to really think and dream about something bigger doesn't mean you have to do it. But to get them to think about that is a lot of the work that we do too, but also just not about the work side. What does your whole life look like? What do you want the whole life to look like?
You know, we can, we can grow and we can make you a hundred million dollar firm or whatever, but do you want to be working 100 hours a week? Do you want to have stress? Do you want to be not home? What do you want it to look like the around you? You said that a little bit, but I wanted to bring that home.
[00:14:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: You want to be traveling? Do you want to be tied to that business? The whole picture is what we need to make sure we understand, not just what you think the business might look like.
[00:14:13] Speaker B: Yeah, like what? You know, it'd be like asking John, like what do you Want your position to be as the owner of a company five years from now, ten years from now, whatever. And that could be the janitor of that. I want to go mop floors and no one even knows I own the company, or I still want to be the CEO or, you know, I don't really want to be that. I need to hire in people, build a C suite, and I just want to do some of the law work that I love to do, and it might be very minimal amount of work that I just still enjoy to do. What is it? Right? And so you can lay that out and say, I don't want to be the business owner, CEO, I don't. Or I don't want to be a lawyer at all. I got tons of law firm owners that are friends of mine. They're like, I never want to. I never want to go, you know, run a case again. I never want to go to court again. I really don't want to do this stuff. I like the business side of, of the practice. So there's no wrong answer, you know,
[00:15:02] Speaker A: and that's the beauty of a couple of things you just said, right?
I don't know how in the hell you're supposed to know at 18, at 20, whatever you want to do for the rest of your life, right? I'm just figuring it out at post 40.
[00:15:13] Speaker B: I still don't know, right?
[00:15:14] Speaker A: And because, well, yeah, I get bored. So, you know, it's like, hey, what, you know, how can. Who can I help? How can I help and see what comes in front of me?
But, you know, again, and I, I have a ton of attorney friends also. It's like, you know, well, I'm in it now. I went to school. I've now got a great practice making great money. But, man, I am grinding. I'm, you know, either whether they're a partner at a firm or an employee or even the owner, and it's that same thing. It's like, well, now you can choose. That's the beauty of entrepreneurship, right? You get to. Well, and anyone can. It's just people tend to not try to change their careers depending on how they're, you know, how they're set up. Because now you have the cars and the house and the clubs and all those things, and so they feel locked into that. But that's the beauty of entrepreneurship, you know, again, certainly, because, you know, with you dealing with, with attorneys, right? How often many of them think of it like business, and they have this an opportunity to. Wait a minute either wait. I get a Way out of here to run this business. Not way out, but like, again, I don't have to do this stuff. I don't love to do anymore. Or, man, I'm a great litigator. Let me just go do that. And I imagine it's a tough conversation with some folks of getting that ego out the door. They're like, wait, but we have a CEO. And that doesn't mean I'm not the man. No, it still means you're the man or the woman. Right. I mean, you're the one bringing it home. But let someone else run that business. And that's a, you know, I gotta imagine that those that have the courage and again, their ego checked to be able to make that call. It's probably like throwing gas on the fire. Right. Of growth. It's like, get me the hell out of the way, you know?
[00:16:43] Speaker B: Yeah, get me outta here. I suck at this, you know, Or I don't want to do this.
I don't get energy from, from doing that. Like, you know, we have presidents that run our companies that have full, pretty much operation, control, budgets, everything. So that's our, our effort to get us out of the way because, you know, we haven't taken the company to where we want it to go, you know, so you gotta bring in someone that, that has got the ability to do that for you. And honestly, it starts to get, you know, you gotta do stuff that you just don't wanna do, don't care to do. You know, like me, I'm the face of the business. I wanna get, talk to people, do podcasts, build connections, and just talk about business. But I don't wanna be doing all the little things that, that has to be done to actually make it successful. I can talk about them all, but do I want to do them all? No. I suck at most of them.
[00:17:30] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think that's, that's a key piece because now that I just hearing a couple of things that we just danced around here too, is like investing in someone to run the business is really an investment. I think so many people are looking at, oh, I can't afford that. There. That's a cost to bring in a CEO, bring in a president, right? Yeah, there's a number that's tied to that, but that could be a multiplicative investment, not a cost. Because most people are trying to figure out, how do I fit this into my expenses versus what's the roi? I put this down, what could this possibly do if we did that? And 100%, you know, getting People to that conversation is, is different because most people again it's the scarcity mindset. It's hey, looking at a balance. It's looking at a bank statement versus forecasting A, A, P and L. Right. Looking in the rear view instead of figuring out how we do with the future.
[00:18:16] Speaker B: A hundred percent. And me and my business partner and it was something that he was trying to figure come up with my, my partner's way more like analytical and numbers guy and task oriented.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: Good.
[00:18:26] Speaker B: The opposite.
I love it. We put together, we wanted to get like a spreadsheet and some, some data to, to start tracking me and his investment into the business. So that's whether if we keep profit in and we reuse it, we hire people, we expand. How much have we invested in our business and what's been the return on that? So now we track that every month and our return on investment versus anything else like real estate, stock market, whatever, the business destroys all of them. By far the value that has grown and the money that we were taking out of it now and the value that's going to be worth we invest back in our business is the best investment possible.
[00:19:05] Speaker A: You know, that is if I get
[00:19:06] Speaker B: an extra 20 grand like this month, like I tell my wife, we can go do something or just keep in the business and hire another two salespeople, you know.
[00:19:15] Speaker A: Yeah. And you know what, that's so funny because again myself I, I generally only go off my experiences for the most part or someone else's fall down. But you know, I, I got, I got looped into early on when I started the business. Trusted advisor, cpa. And he's telling me all these ideas but these great things that people do to reduce taxes. Right. Do har. You know, safe harbor, get in the for do all these kinds of different things. And I got so intoxicated by the cool things you could do as an entrepreneur that I was like well wait a minute. Like three years later I'm like wait, how do we put this into the business? What would have happened?
[00:19:46] Speaker B: Right?
[00:19:47] Speaker A: And, and, and so many and I, I have other friends again, I deal with lots of, lots of entrepreneurs and they're like well I want to go start this other business. I'm like what you have or what do you, what are you investing in? The stock market? I'm not saying not to at all. But you have, you have an investment tool that's right in front of you that you can help control, that you control what happens with it and stock market, you don't have any control Wait a minute. What about what you have right here? And what if you put that back in here and you know, then we
[00:20:10] Speaker B: need to take it out and then do something with it. And there's all kinds of tax strategies and stuff that I'm currently working on from my personal side of things. But it's.
Me and my partner have the more every time we put money into the business.
I mean it's, it's.
And thing is when you, you know, evaluate your business and you grow your business and then it starts to become a multiples game.
7x10x12x14. I mean so you want an investment, you know, to, to put money into, you know, that's, that's the place to do it.
[00:20:44] Speaker A: And what a great best practice that you just shared that you know, I, you know, the, the more that you know. Again I obviously we coach and have folks talk to you know, do a monthly financial meeting. You don't need to, you know, the people that stew over every day look at the bank account every week like that. Most businesses, that's not necessary.
[00:20:59] Speaker B: Right.
[00:21:00] Speaker A: There's the, there's the, the monthly conversation needs to happen. But tracking roi, I don't have do it on a monthly basis and, and even then it's messy like trying to figure out. You know, it's like almost voodoo math sometimes. Right. Is it really? We just, we wanted to make the number look good, so we did. When you're doing it from a quarterly and a. In an annual standpoint.
[00:21:17] Speaker B: Right.
[00:21:18] Speaker A: Because there's just, there's a lot of stuff that happens in between there and. But really tying in when you can trigger what's going on with that investment and you can do that in a monthly basis, that's a, a really cool best practice.
[00:21:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Again, kudos to my partner for getting our financial admin to add that in and.
[00:21:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:34] Speaker B: Is it, is it, you know how, how dialed in perfect do we have it? I don't know. But we know we wanted to start tracking that and then the evaluation of our businesses and what they're. They're worth and valued based on current this month on contracts and MRR recurring revenue and stuff like that, which you know, not all firms are going to be able to, to kind of do the same things that we can because of we have predictable kind of cash flow. We're a contingency firm. Might make an extra 2 million this year and not make that extra 2 million next year. So it's, it's definitely a different game. But it's all about trying to Control as much as you can and predict as much as you can. Right?
[00:22:08] Speaker A: Yeah. And what were you doing? Because you're right that that big lump might not be there. Predictably not be there next year. So what are you going to do with it? Right? Are we cashing it out to go buy some boats or, you know, are we, you know, or whatever it might be, or what can we strategically do with this?
[00:22:22] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:22:23] Speaker A: And track it.
[00:22:24] Speaker B: Great exercise. I did. This is a EO Entrepreneurs Organization workshop, and it was like a speaker they brought in, and they made us do this exercise. Where. Okay, where do you want to be in five years? Right. I think it was three to five. Three to five years. And everybody's writing down these, like, big goals and cool goals. And at the time, I think our goal was like, five, you know, $5 million or something like that.
And we're way north of that at this point. It's.
There's either. I don't know, it was three or five, something like that, either way. And they're like, okay, cool. What tools, what people and systems that you need to get to that 5 million? And we make a list. Okay, we need this many salespeople. We need this and that. And at the end of it, we do this whole exercise and we're like, cool, now we can start to work on maybe, I guess, this plan over five years. That's what we kind of thought it was about. And the guy goes, what if you could do it this year? And everybody's like, that's. That's insane. There's no way. And the whole concept was, what if you get an SBA loan? Or what if you can get financing or an investor or backing and you get all the things on that list today, where would you be at the end of the year? And we were like, holy crap. And so we. We think we have to do. You know, we think we have to wait incrementally, have. We have to have everything in order, and it's perfection. And we have to have the money, and we have to the process. And then, you know, that timeline is. Gets drastically stretched out, even if you ever hit it, those goals. Right. So I thought it was a pretty interesting concept to kind of like, be able to say, hey, what if we. What if we wanted to do it now? And a contingency fee, they could take all. A big lump sum and say, double down, let's roll.
[00:24:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
No, because, you know, again, most businesses don't deal in that big of those swings. Right, right. Most businesses, like, at your point, there's a, there's a work in process. There's a. There's all, you know, there's continual work. But the ones that have those, you know, again, those chunky things, what are we doing with it? And that's actually, man, that's a. What a great exercise. And I'm just going to turn that, flip that around. I'm going to use that with some of my clients to get their gut check. When I was telling you before, like I've gone down or been a year in and I'm like, you know, they're grading how they did the last year on how they did against their priorities. Yeah, we call them priorities, not rocks. And you know, in your numbers. Right. And they're like, man, we just did a. We did a really shitty job. We didn't me to Bubba. But. But you're better. We agreed you needed to get a hire a COO or an integrator, but you're not doing it. What's going on? And again, they didn't do bad, but they were even. There used to be an even. That's why they, they came to me. But yeah, but then we just had that really hard look of I can't again, I can't. I always come back to, I can't want it for you. I kept like, hey, I. How can I help you more? And I, I can't step in and do the work in the business, but how can I help you? And ultimately what we came down to was he actually doesn't want to grow 10x. We're trying to set all these things up all year to grow 10x over five years. And he's like, I guess I really don't. If I just got 3x, I'd be so tickled. I'm like, well, that changes how we should do things. But coming back to again, that's why me coming up, hearing things like that about different practices to get someone's real gut check of where do you want to be like, hey, okay, you dreamed all that out. What if I gave you a million bucks right now to go do that and see if like, where's the gut? Because now you, now you. It's out there to your point, but there's a whole different risk involved. You got someone else's money, you got to lose versus the incremental game.
[00:25:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:37] Speaker A: And.
[00:25:38] Speaker B: And the thing is, was that was that dream, that list. Just because we're in a room of other owners and we were like, oh, I gotta be aggressive. And maybe deep down you're like that sounds like a lot of freaking work or.
Yeah, if you gave me the, if you gave me the money right now and said no interest. Kevin, go get all that stuff. I still have to hire those people, train those people, put in the systems, make sure everything's going right. Do I want to do that? Oh, well, I got a family trip coming up and I got. The kids are out of school and then, you know, whatever. You might not actually want to disrupt your whole life to do that. You might not end up being a position.
Or you might be the opposite. You might say, I got nothing else to do. This is it, this role. Yeah.
[00:26:20] Speaker A: You know, no matter what, it's going to work. Even if you hire people, right. To like come in and do the work, like you said, you hired a president. It's not flipping a switch and it's working like clockwork. You still have to be in it. You have to transfer knowledge. You still have to make sure pro. You know, all those things. So it is still hard work no matter what, if, no matter who, what kind of a check is being written. Right. You gotta, you gotta be ready to be in it.
[00:26:39] Speaker B: Yeah. And then you just. Even though there might be less, maybe the wrist might not be bigger, but it's gonna feel more on your shoulders. Like, I hope all this works, you know, so it's. Yeah. Do you really want that or not? And what's your risk tolerance?
[00:26:53] Speaker A: And, and yeah, you know, same thing. Like those of us that have tried the right. You know, have not failed, but taken on debt and it's become a noose. Right. It didn't have the desired effect, but the debt was still there. Right. And so it was the same. Same thing with me again, I only learned from my experiences. Not only, but that's how I learned the best is through my own bet, poor choices or attempts. And you know, I've been there where it was like we took on debt, but wasn't really for the right reasons. It was just to make me feel easier to not having the cashflow issue versus what is the actual plan with this? What are we hiring? What are we doing? And then. And tracking the roi. Then, you know, two years down the road, you realize I have a bunch of debt. I, you know, I. We didn't deploy it in the right way.
So I've got scar tissue. So. Yeah. What's it going to mean, like for me to take on some debt, to do something else? I'm actually going to follow the right process and make sure that my gut is aligned with these Facts and do I want to go tackle that or not? Yeah.
[00:27:46] Speaker B: I think it's a great exercise for anybody to. To do and be honest with yourself and. And truthful. I think that's the hardest thing. Like, you're saying, like, when me and my business partner, we had a podcast called the Journey to a Hundred Million Dollars still out There, we had, like, almost 1400 episodes. Wow. And, you know, back in, like, 20, 18, 19, we, like, we came up with this goal. We're gonna go to a hundred million dollars in revenue as an agency. And people were like, holy crap. Well, well, 10,000 or 10 million just sounded like, you know, not too crazy sounding. So we wanted to go big. Um, and we just kind of plucked that out of thin air. And it's. It sounds awesome, and it sounds like this big goal, but then it's like, okay, what. What does it look like to actually get there?
[00:28:29] Speaker A: Right.
[00:28:30] Speaker B: And I think a lot of people are pressured because their friends or their wife or their husband or whatever, like, they're. They're trying to go for this big goal, but it's like, do they really know what. What it's like to be there and, like, is that where they want to be? I think most people have not taken time to think about that.
[00:28:45] Speaker A: Welcome to entrepreneurism. Right.
[00:28:47] Speaker B: Not that I have done a great job of thinking about that myself, but it's just. I think it's a constant exercise with anything, you know.
[00:28:53] Speaker A: Absolutely. Where am I? What do I want to do?
[00:28:55] Speaker B: Even, like, with your kids, like, in the sports, are they going to be playing professional or they're just kind of like, I like it. And they're just like, I don't want to be pushed and go to every single thing in the world. That's something they can ask themselves. Right? Yeah.
[00:29:08] Speaker A: Got to have that conversation.
[00:29:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Because the parents, you can be like, go, go. We're going to go to every game around the whole fricking state, and they're just like, yeah, I don't even like it anymore.
[00:29:18] Speaker A: It happens. It's burnout. And then we. We take on that. It's exactly the same as. As in the business, takes on the identity of the business. Well, hey, I'm a proud father. My kids start being successful in sports, then I'm living vicariously, you know. You know, the whole, you know, you can do the dance moms, you can do all that kind of thing. Right. We all do that. We're living vicariously set. We had put a plan together. Oh, you're going to go college and do this. How many friends I have that again, that, like, yeah, they're doing this. We're doing all these things. We're going to all these camps, doing all these things to get exposed to college and then they potentially get a scholarship. They're like, I don't want to do that. Well, oops. But at least they're being honest with it now and not, you know, but things change, right? Especially as kids. We gotta be. If we're not willing to change as adults, how we. And monitor that and show kids that, you know, how do we. How do we help them be adaptable in society? That's a whole nother podcast episode. We should probably.
[00:30:01] Speaker B: That's a whole other one.
[00:30:03] Speaker A: This isn't the parenting one, but.
[00:30:05] Speaker B: Well, that's, you know, that's the cool thing about kids is, like, they have that freedom at the moment to hopefully. Right. To be flexible and go anywhere they want to go. And as an entrepreneur, you might feel like, I can't go anywhere. Like, I am stuck right here all day. There's nothing I can do.
[00:30:20] Speaker A: Yeah, we do have choices, but it comes down to that gut. Like, it comes back to that. Just checking in with yourself. What the hell do you really want?
[00:30:26] Speaker B: Well, yeah, obviously, if you don't implement things and plan and. And do some of these exercises that you will be right where you're at next year because you're just stuck in the work and going, well, I. I don't have a choice. I just got to keep working. I don't have time to talk to John or an EOS person because I'm just too busy. And guess what? You'll be too busy next week and next month and next year.
[00:30:47] Speaker A: Life's happening to you.
[00:30:48] Speaker B: That's right, dude. I love it, man. Yeah, Plenty more episodes we can.
We can probably dive into in the future.
Yeah, well, John, we shared a lot of different things, covered a lot of cool stuff. Excited to learn more about Bloom, of course. What's the best way for folks that are tuning in, listening to the show, can find you, connect with you and find out more.
[00:31:08] Speaker A: Awesome. Thanks. Yeah, you can Google Bloom growth coach, then John gone. J O H N G L O N. Yes, it rhymes. And yes, I'm the third. So, you know, three generation, two generations didn't understand the rhyming part. But you can look me up on LinkedIn. Happy to connect there. And my email is john gloomgrowthcoach.com and absolutely, you can call my cell phone. I'll throw it out there. 248-53-48503.
[00:31:31] Speaker B: John, where are you coming from at where you live again?
[00:31:34] Speaker A: I probably left that part out. Yeah, I live outside of Detroit, Michigan, so in Northville, Michigan. Got a lovely wife of 18 years and four lovely kids that keep me busy.
[00:31:45] Speaker B: Four kids. I got two. And that's. We're done.
[00:31:48] Speaker A: Yeah, we are too. Just took a little while to get there.
[00:31:50] Speaker B: Awesome. John, well, I appreciate you coming on the show and sharing, you know, your stuff. Great, great lessons to be learned. And it sounds like you're helping a lot of great people out there. So definitely connect with John. And if you want a personal introduction, just reach out to me and I'll make it happen. And we'll see y' all on the next episode. John, you stand on with me for just a moment to let this upload. Everyone else have a good day. We'll see you soon.
[00:32:12] Speaker A: Thanks again, Kevin.
[00:32:13] Speaker B: Yes, sir.
