My Business On Purpose

Remember that Billy Joel song We Didn't Start The Fire?

It is a maniacal mantra sequencing decades of rage into a lyrical pounding intentionally crafted as a relentless onomatopoeia; the song feels like it sounds allowing us as listeners to likewise feel the chaos.

That song could be the soundtrack for so many chaotic business owners who are on a remorseless campaign to find the next great marketing hammer that will crack open a whole new world gushing with leads and sales because, in their minds, sales solves everything.

The myth of that last statement will have to be fleshed out on another date and time; for now, we need to confront the restlessness and confusion of marketing. It is good to turn the volume down, or maybe off completely for a moment, and sit in the silence of what is rather than the snake-oiled and empty promises of what could be.

We've said often that marketers are like gypsies and business coaches (a bit self-deprecating seeing that business coaching is our profession); the barrier to entry into each profession is low and broad.

The good news for marketers is that the human brain is wired to respond to hope and promise often neglecting reality and objectivity. Marketing is always susceptible to the "Clark Stanley-anization" of theatrics and promise.

Clark Stanley (aka The Rattlesnake King) was known as the true snake-oil sales pioneer. According to Wikipedia, in the late 1800s Stanley began hawking his snake-oil linament at a variety of expos and shows throughout the United States.

The nothingness of the snake-oil linament was exposed in the early 1900s and eventually led to a series of food and drug laws that would be the precursor to the modern U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Stanley sold on what could happen forcing people to neglect the balance of what has happened.

Both perspectives are helpful; for without seen historical learning we will miss the obvious, and without unseen hope life will lack wonder, invention, and creativity.

Are all marketers like Clark Stanley? Of course not…just some.

So how can you find a marketing strategy, leader, or team who will generate leads that convert to sales in a meaningful way?

Let's start by looking in the foggy rear view.

One question that our coaches ask every one of our clients when they bring up the topic (usually in frustration) around marketing; where has 80% of your business originated from in the past?

We are continually stunned by the number of business owners who are ready to burn the boats, bomb the bridges, and cut off the parachute of what has brought predictable clients and customers in the past.

Where has 80% of your business come from in the past?

Start your new marketing strategy there!

But wait, "most of our clients are word of mouth". That statement has become a bit of an arrogant monicker of recent as if to declare, "We're so good we don't have to market."

NO!!!

That misses the point.

Marketing is tucked into every hidden crevasse of your business. The cleanliness of your bathroom markets. The quality of your material markets. The clarity of your communication markets. Every process, every system, every deliverable, every payable, and every receivable communicates something to your existing and potential clients and customers.

When you allow your business to be lulled to sleep by the apathy of word-of-mouth marketing you are building your real estate on someone else's property and you are robbing your business of the challenging creativity to innovate on what has already worked.

As an example, we work with a sizeable number of homebuilders and remodelers in the construction space.

Every time we present at a builder event we are asked about marketing at because of the assumption, "If I can just figure out where the faucet is, then we can open it up and have a constant stream of business."

More leads and sales added to a poorly systematized business will do nothing but hasten the end.

The system must be built to handle the load.

If your dominant marketing strategy is "word of mouth", then how do you build a system to capitalize on the mouths that are spreading your words?

Throwing your hands up and hoping for the best is not a winning strategy.

For homebuilders and remodelers, one of the best lead sources for new works are the professionals that live upstream. Who are the professions that receive early indications that new projects are coming down the pipeline in construction? Developers, Engineers, Architects, and Real Estate Professionals.

Everytime we have built a simple process for homebuilders and remodelers to proactively, repetitively, and systematically make time for these professionals, magically new leads begin to come in.

But doesn't that require face-to-face (in-person or virtual) interaction?

A side note, generally (not always) if you wish for a digitally scalable marketing option that limits or eliminates face-to-face interaction, then the entire culture of your business will be changing also. Not to mention, digital marketing and advertising will usually require a lot more money and resource expertise that you think and are typically prepared for.

Stop right now for a moment. Where has 80% of your business come from in the past (or some majority)?

Stop overthinking all of the unproven ways to go generate new leads and begin building a repetitive, predictable, and meaningful process that will add value to the lead channels that have already proven themselves in your business.

Down the road you can create a marketing slush fund for some skunk-works type activities when you have proven your predictable marketing model.

For now, turn the volume of marketing options down. Just calmly walk on past Clark Stanley's snake oil display, have confidence in the objectivity in what you already know, and take courage in building on that objectivity with the unseen hope of what could be.

Brent Whitaker Business on Purpose. I wanna dive right in. So we were sitting the other day with some folks, and, y'all have heard this song, "You can't always get what you want."True.

Well, you definitely can't get what you want if you never define what it is that you want. This came up because I asked a couple in real estate, and I said, Hey, what is it that you want?

And it was like deer in headlights. Like I'd asked them some quantum theory question and they paused and said, I don't know. And I said, well, definitely can't get what you want if you don't define what you want. I said, why is that a, you know, difficult question for you.

"So we're just so busy" Ask anybody how they're doing lately, man, I'm good. I'm just, just busy. I don't know if being busy is a good or bad thing, but they were so busy they haven't slowed down enough to ask that question. What do I want?

So that's the question today is if you're driving, if you're sitting, I'd encourage you, if you're in your office to grab a pen, if you're driving, maybe a voice memo after this is over, what do you want?

You're allowed to ask and answer that question! And then write down what it is that you want. And dream a little bit. We're not allowed to dream anymore.

It feels like we're so task-oriented that we don't dream. We get to the end of our lives and we say, Hey, how did I end up here? Well, you never defined where it is that you actually wanted to be.

It's one reason we build out a vision story, both for family and work. Cuz those things intersect. You can't compartmentalize those. What is it that you want? Write it down.

It's a brain dump as they say. Then ask the question, what's getting in the way of what it is that I said I wanted? Identify those barriers. Just write 'em down, all of them. Then as you kind of marinate on that, digest that, let that metabolize a little bit as they say, what will life look like? what will life feel like two, three years from now if nothing changes, if we keep moving in the same manner, on the same trajectory that we're moving in now and, and changing nothing, what will life look and feel like? And then what are you willing to invest time-wise to get what you wrote down or verbalize that you wanted?

That's why we create that vision story. We write it down, we get really granular, right, with what it is that we want holistically, life, work, finances, health, and then we make a plan to move forward in the direction of what we want and decisions are made in light of the vision story that we create. So I hope you pose that question to yourself today.

Maybe with your significant other or just to a buddy. Hey, what do you want? See what the responses are, but then take some time to really unpack what it is that you want.

Maybe you've done this, most folks I have talked to have it. So we've gotta set the target. We've gotta create this vision of what we really want and we've gotta identify the barriers that are in the way.

And it really gives you motivation when you ask yourself, Hey, what will life feel like if I do nothing different? No, I've said those several times. So unpacking the day, that's one of the things we do here at Business On Purpose.

We do not start anything in our coaching roadmap, our installation roadmap until we define what it is that folks won't. Y'all have a great day. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time.

While in Turkey, we were struck with curiosity as to the various wars and struggles that entangled Asia Minor leading to the rules and regimes that have inhabited the intersection of the world in modern Istanbul.

Netflix had an interesting historical presentation of the Ottoman Empire with a focus on Mehmed II that details how the Sultan empowered his forces with relentless raids on the impenetrable walls of Constantinople.

They eventually took the city and rules the regions for centuries.

While watching Rise of Empires: Ottoman I was struck by the number of messages that were sent by couriers, or delegation of one side directly to the leaders of the competing side.

These were soldiers who had but one task; deliver a message from the leader in its exact form and for its intended purpose. Mehmed II or Emporer Constantine were the originators of the message, and the courier its delegate.

Delegation is birthed from the Latin delegere and according to latin-is-simple.com carries the idea that you are assigning and entrusting an appointed trustee to carry out the wish and desire of the original delegator.

Delegation is not a modern concept, it has been used in organizational growth since the beginning of time.

In the midst of a time of overwhelming demand on his leadership, there is a story about Moses who was warned by his father-in-law, "'This is not good!' Moses' father-in-law exclaimed. 'You're going to wear yourself out—and the people, too. This job is too heavy a burden for you to handle all by yourself.'"

Leadership is an infinite cycle of emotional labor. Leadership is the constancy of assessment (seeing, hearing, and experiencing), deliberation, decision, evaluation, rinse and repeat.

There is not a clocking in and clocking out of leadership which is I why the statement "rest is resistance" is an imposing idea. The leader must artificially will moments of sabbatical (minutes, hours, days, weeks, or months) in the crevices of leadership.

A strategy for healthy leadership is found in the power of healthy delegation.

There is a difference between delegation and abdication.

Whereas delegation aligns with trust, equipment, and empowerment, abdication is the intention to leave a post or a task with no desire to return; a resignation.

Abdication does not require equipment, training, thought, care, empathy, or intentionality. Abdication simply wipes its hands of responsibility and walks away, at the ready to blame any nearby candidate for the failure that it will spawn…and spawn it will.

One of the privileges and massive responsibilities in leadership is to delegate well.

Three elements will stock your toolbox for healthy delegation.

First, setting clear expectations which can be found in writing things down.

Is it a role or a task that you will be asking someone else to complete for you? Write it down, record a video, and capture that role or task in such a way that will scale easily to those you wish to delegate.

Violate this step, and you will cascade downhill into the bitter valley of abdication.

Just last week we had a couple of clients that were "sort of not documenting their processes" and it was causing unnecessary delay in important hiring of new team members that would ultimately bring these leaders freedom.

Their homework was easy; "Record two videos by Friday of the tasks you are going to ask this person to do." That's it. No excuses…write it, record it, video it.

Second, build a simple scorecard of what success looks like. All humans will ask at some point, "Am I doing this right?"

Give a simple checklist of "here are the five, or eight things that will need to be done each week to ensure that your role is airtight."

A scorecard is what winning looks like.

Build your first version, and then adapt as time progresses.

Finally, build repetitive, predictable, and meaningful communication points.

Repetitive, pre-determined meetings times are your friend.

Each person who has been delegated to must have time on their leader's calendar that is pre-set and has a pre-determined set of questions that are aligned to the role, scorecard, and culture of what is being asked.

We have regular (twice monthly) check-ins with our team members in addition to a weekly team meeting, a weekly coaches meeting, and every-other-monthly vision days.

The goal is forced conversation. In the absence of information the mind makes things up; a wandering mind is good for innovation, but not delegation.

Clarity wins, and clarity demands repetition.

Are you abdicating? Or are you delegating?

Abdication brings burden and imprisonment.

Delegation brings clarity and freedom.

Join Patrice Miles, BOP Business Coach, as she interviews Conner Fennell, BOP Intern. Discover Conner's experiences, the hiring process, DISC test insights, tasks for BOP, and how this internship is shaping his goals. Don't miss this valuable internship discussion!

WATCH THE VIDEO to learn more!

Are you working IN your business or ON your business? Do you have all of the foundational elements that will liberate you from the business chaos? Take the assessment to find out which areas you can grow and improve on. Take our Healthy Owner Business Assessment HERE ➡️ https://www.boproadmap.com/healthy

SIGN UP for our Newsletter HERE ➡️ https://www.boproadmap.com/newsletter

For blogs and updates, visit our site HERE ➡️ https://www.mybusinessonpurpose.com/blog/

LISTEN to the Business On Purpose Podcast HERE ➡️ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-business-on-purpose/id969222210

SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube channel HERE ➡️ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbPR8lTHY0ay4c0iqncOztg?sub_confirmation=1

Join Patrice Miles (BOP Business Coach) and Jessie Barber (BOP Director of Client Experience) as they share essential tips on hiring interns. Learn the hiring process, overcoming obstacles, internship length, finding the right candidate, compensation, onboarding, and communication.

LISTEN HERE to learn more!

Are you working IN your business or ON your business? Do you have all of the foundational elements that will liberate you from the business chaos? Take the assessment to find out which areas you can grow and improve on. Take our Healthy Owner Business Assessment HERE ➡️ https://www.boproadmap.com/healthy

SIGN UP for our Newsletter HERE ➡️ https://www.boproadmap.com/newsletter

For blogs and updates, visit our site HERE ➡️ https://www.mybusinessonpurpose.com/blog/

LISTEN to the Business On Purpose Podcast HERE ➡️ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-business-on-purpose/id969222210

SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube channel HERE ➡️ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbPR8lTHY0ay4c0iqncOztg?sub_confirmation=1

It is my first day back and my mood is curious.

Today is July 31st, on June 30th I sat in the Houston airport awaiting a flight to Paris, then Rome, and promptly deleted my email and Slack apps from my phone. For the next 30 plus days I would not be available to the BOP team for any business-related items.

Of course, we could send some personal pics and updates, but no business communication.

While away the BOP team had a straightforward mission: grow the business by one client.

After founding Business On Purpose (BOP) over 8 years ago in 2015, it was time to take an extended time away from the day to day of the business.

Ashley and I just navigated a string of massive life milestones; our daughter's wedding, our final son's graduation from High School, and celebrating 25 years of marriage all within two months of each other.

I also wanted to test the sea-worthiness of the BOP ship with me not at the helm.

As I write this I still do not know anything that happened over the last four to five weeks, I still have not opened my email or checked our internal Slack since June 30th.

I am sharing how I plan on re-entering in such a way that does not overwhelm the team nor myself here on day one of my return.

First, I spent time quietly thinking and reflecting back on the last month in gratitude for a gracious creator who provides opportunities and a vast world to explore along with a strong passport that gains access to those places. That gratitude continued as I think about the team that has led BOP in my planned absence, and the clients I serve who were kind and flexible to adjust coaching schedules and plans.

Our clients were curious and excited as well because this is in part a model for what I push each of them to do as well.

Overwhelming gratitude is a wave that flood's my mind on re-entry.

Second, I wrote down a list of the things that would be most helpful and least intense on day one. My tendency is to come in a rain down a list of revelations and ideas that will be sure to revolutionize what we are doing.

Throughout our time away, I continued to quietly repeat a Pilgrim's Credo I read that was attributed to Fr. Murray Bodo:

I am not in control

I am not in a hurry

I walk in faith and hope

I greet everyone with peace

I bring back only what God gives me

Hurry must not be priority mode on re-entry lest I alienate and put our team on the defensive.

My first trip to Nigeria was a lesson for me when I returned home and began to tidal wave Ashley with all of the details of this new adventure. Over time I began to realize that while I was away, she was still parenting a 5, 3, and 1-year-old; right now she needed a husband and dad at home until the home calmed down at which time she would be ready to really listen and embrace the adventure.

One of the things on my list is to have a simple call with each of our directors to simply see how they are doing and listen to whatever they would like to share, and then we will have a more intentional conversation about the last month when they are ready; now or later.

Third, I intentionally delayed my start time today just to remind myself to be slow. I typically work from home on Monday's beginning immediately after exercise and getting ready. Normally breakfast comes upstairs with me as I launch into the work day. Today, I took my breakfast on the back porch with no work just to remind myself that I am not in a hurry.

Finally, I will not open my email or Slack until later in the day; likely around mid-day. This is a step I am taking to intentionally remind my mind that email and digital communication are not the priority of our mission to liberate owners from chaos to make time for what matters most.

Email and Slack (or whatever internal messaging system you use) are supporting tools instead of life or death tools like we have allowed them to become; they should never be the primary actors.

Well, here we go; the time has come to go play my role on the BOP team to help liberate owners from chaos!

For too many business owners it is a pipe-dream scenario that would allow them to leave their business for one month while it not only continue, but also grow in their absence.

We are in the middle of doing it right now.

After a full Spring of 2023 of working as a team to liberate more clients from chaos professionally, and celebrating some major milestones for our family (daughter's marriage, final child graduating, and 25-year wedding anniversary), Ashley and I made a decision a while back that we would setup an epic adventure to lean into our family mission of being a light and creating space through wisdom, adventure, and time around the table.

On the last work day of June 2023 we left; and will not return until the first workday of August 2023.

By leaving I mean that I, the owner, have no availability to the business team at all. Email… deleted from my phone. Slack…deleted from my phone.

The only correspondence with any team member or client has been entirely personal to share pics and stories of our adventure.

Zero business talk or email.

The last two weeks of our time, I will do a small amount of designated client work in specific time windows that was planned well in advance; but no business meetings for me.

At this writing, I trust that all things are going as planned. Ashley (runs our financial accounting) is still working and she has access to messaging, but I have asked her to not relay anything to me good or bad.

It has been a joy, but not a picnic.

The value of this time is that Ashley and I are enjoying time devoted to each other, and in celebration of 25 years of adventure while we plan and dream for the next season in some inspiring places that have become pillars of much of the world's modern culture.

We have walked, read, rested, and had plenty to eat.

Productivity thoughts try and creep into to my mind, but a dear friend had me prepare some thoughts that I can begin to recite on repeat when distractions come into my mind, and one of those was a sobering truth that another mentor of mine shared with me back in 2015, "Scott, God's favorite thing about you is not your productivity."

It stung when he told me that, and yet I am grateful. I have been productive on this trip, but I have also been "intentionally wasteful"; another sobering thought this mentor gave me.

This time away did not just happen. It was not a burned-out festered mid-life crisis decided on a whim; this has been planned.

Here are a few things we set in motion prior to my leaving the business for one month.

First, we wrote down the desire that we had to go on this epic 25th anniversary trip. Don't skip this step.

Second, we ensured that we as a business team were habitually working the systems and processes that we already had in place. Reviewing the vision, mission, values, following our financial processes, team meetings, coaches meetings, check ins, handbook training, content writing and distributing, marketing, sales, etc.

We have the majority of our business mapped out in our Master Process Roadmap; it's our business on one sheet of digital paper. It's a must to have, and it is a must to implement what you have.

Third, we paid special attention to, and updated our financial processes. One of the BOP Coaches asked a few months back, "What happens if something happens to both of you (Ashley and I)?" In other words, how does payroll get processed, bills get paid, and income get received?

We revised our financial processes in recorded videos along with a two-page "financial playbook" complete with contact names for each area of our financial wheel (payroll, bank, insurance, processor, CPA, etc.).

These videos are on a private hard drive in a secure place where one of our team members has access to in case of a legitimate emergency.

Fourth, we communicated our plan about 3 months in advance both to our team and to my direct clients.

Every other month we host a one-hour "Vision Day" with our entire team via Zoom. On a pre-scheduled Thursday afternoon, we all hop on a call having asked every team member to already have skimmed back through our written vision story.

I come prepared with a series of Green/Yellow/Red flags based on our twice monthly Director's Meetings where we are prompted to write out some Green flags (things that are going great), Yellow flags (things we're aware of, but not freaking out about), Red flags (things we need to pay urgent attention to).

After gathering those over the course of our twice monthly Director's meetings, I then share them with the entire team during each Vision Day.

During a Vision Day in the Spring, we shared with the team of our plan for me to be away from the business.

Fifth, we re-clarified our organizational structure prior to leaving with a focus on "who's responsible for what".

We host an annual, off-site team day for our entire team each year. This year we prioritized time to work through a host of organizationally clarifying tools; a rebuilt Org Chart, new job roles (including my new "CEO" role moving forward), and clarifying responsibilities and expectations all towards our mission of liberating owners from chaos to make time for what matters most.

Everyone had insight and buy-in, and a clear perspective on how communication happens both internally (with us as a team), and externally (with our clients and partners).

Finally, I set everything to leave.

Setup a clear email response. Check.

Sent a clear email to all of my clients reminding them of our plans and how they get the support and help they need while I am away. Check.

Sent a final video to our team while at the airport about to leave. Check.

Deleted email from my phone. Check.

Deleted Slack from my phone. Check.

It has not been easy, and it has not been a psychology beach with endless Mai-Tai's.

It has been more abundant, more restful, more inspiring, and more enlightening than I expected.

We've got two more weeks in some pretty amazing places that we've never experienced, and it has been space filled with light to share adventure, wisdom, and time around a variety of amazing tables; including Nico and Greta, our AirBNB hosts in La Spezia, Italy who we never would have met and learned of their story if not for making a plan and implementing that plan.

Teşekkür ederim, and arrivederci for now.

It's summertime… school will be back in session before we know it and the routine will be upon us! So what questions do we need to ask our business BEFORE fall hits? Let's dive in…

I've sat in with clients over the last month and summer is always a weird time. It seems like there is a ton of work, but payments are slow coming in, employees lack motivation or are just absent, and we begin to see the sprint towards the holiday season quickly approaching.

So what questions do we need to ask today to prevent chaos down the road? Well, I may not hit all of them today, but I'll touch on 3 important ones to ask and engage your team with.

1. Where are we in relation to our written down Vision Story?

Don't have a written Vision Story? Well, start there. Touch on the life you want for your family and the things you want in relation to freedom from work. Talk through your business financials, the products and services you need to offer to hit those financials. Walk through the team size and the culture. All of that. And write it down so you can revisit it regularly and stay on track.

Already have it written down and documented? Perfect! Now pull it off the shelf and dust it off. Or open up that google drive and open it up. And read through it bullet point by bullet point. Color code it… red/yellow or green. Green means it's done! Accomplished, check it off the list. Yellow… it's in progress. Red, not started yet. Having a visible representation on the progress is so much better than just a simple reminder. If it's all red, better schedule some time to get to work!

Things changed over the last 6 months? That's fine. Adjust, tweak it. It's your vision. The thing we're hoping for is when it's all said and done and we arrive after accomplishing it, let's be excited and grateful that this is what we wrote down. Not upset because we didn't place the bullseye exactly where it needed to be.

So, step one, pull out that Vision Story and find out where you are!

1. What are we consistently doing that we need to revisit?

This was a question we asked every year in the Young Life world. Sometimes you get stuck in patterns and habits that you never intended to get stuck in. So, look at your team meetings, your production meetings, and any other areas you meet with the team regularly. Are they accomplishing what you want them to accomplish? If not, why not?

Don't stop there, pull out your dashboards you use to track your cash and finances. Are your percentages right? Do you know your numbers? If not, what else do you need to track? Or do you need to look at them more frequently? Do you need to get better at job costing or forecasting? What help can you pull from your numbers?

Even look at things like your culture calendar? Is it producing the culture your hope for? What do you need to add or take away? This is a great time to start some new habits or engage the team to see what's working!

Ok, now you've revisited your vision, you've looked at what you're doing consistently and audited that…

1. What do we need to start now that will make life better at the end of the year?

Think about this for a second… most businesses wait for the opportunity to arise instead of doing the work on the front end. They end up missing out on the full effect, simply because they weren't prepared and ready to take advantage.

Maybe it's making a hire by the end of the year. Great! Start your hiring process now. Interview multiple candidates. Update the job role. Put the performance metrics together. Add processes to support the role!

Maybe it's knowing your numbers for next year. Great! Start forecasting and job costing now so you have 5-6 months of data to pull from for your budget.

Maybe it's adding a new sales role or productions role. Great! Add the processes needed to train that role now. That way when you hire or split job roles up, the support is there for them to succeed.

Maybe it's adding another bank account to your business and starting to file away some cash for the next truck in the fleet or maybe even the next hire. That way you have the cash on hand and don't have to pull on your line of credit or finance anything and can simply take advantage when the time is right.

Thinking through all of this now gets you ahead and allows you to take full advantage of the opportunity. Don't wait.

Don't let the fall sneak up on you. The next few weeks will go by quickly! You can keep your head down and push through them, or you can take one question a week to think through and prepare for the end of 2023. It's going to be a great finish to the year… but prepare to completely maximize it.

Look over your vision, think through what habits you do consistently, and begin doing now what will make the end of the year better.

Hope this is helpful for you! Have a great week

What do we pay our new hires? How do we know what the compensation package needs to be? Well, I can tell you it doesn't start by asking, what is industry standard!

One of the questions we get most frequently right now is "What should we pay our new hire?" Now, the first thing I'll say is if you haven't listened to any of our podcasts or content on your hiring process, you need to start there first.

You need to make sure you have a Job Role, performance expectations, all the processes needed for their role documented, and have communicated the Mission/Vision and Values of your business. Great, we've got that out of the way…we're ready to hire someone, how do we know what to pay them?

Well, I've sat with multiple business owners in the past month who have asked the same thing. They always start with, "Well, what are other businesses paying their Project managers, or admins, or sales guys…whatever they're hiring for."

Friends, let me stop right there and say…that is a dangerous game to play! And it sets you up to either under or over-compensate your employee from the get go.

Let's talk through that. If you start with industry-standard, instead of what your business is designed to pay that role, you will always be chasing the industry instead of what your business can afford.

In two cases recently we moved past the industry standard conversation quickly and into what the business can afford. We walked through the numbers and what the role would allow us to grow our sales to or free someone else up to sell.

It was like a lightbulb went off. To maintain the profitability they wanted, it was in black and white. One scenario the business actually could afford to pay significantly more than industry standard for the position they were hiring. They were able to go after their number 1 target and make an incredibly competitive offer.

In the second scenario, they realized that they couldn't afford to pay industry standard. The business was not ready to hire for the position yet. So they either had to find someone new who they could train up and pay a bit less than was typical, or build up some more cash reserves, improve their forecast from the sales side, and re-enter the hiring process in another 3-6 mos.

Either way, they didn't get themselves hamstrung from a cash flow perspective by offering MORE than the business can afford.

And yet how many times does this happen? We don't really know our numbers so we throw a random number up and decide that the business can do it. And then we look up 6 mos from the hire date and wonder what happened to our cash!

That's no way to set your business up for success.

We need a job role. Need clear expectations. Need to know what will happen BEFORE we hire. And then once we have all that we can make an educated decision based on projections and adjust as necessary.

Here's the awesome thing about this. A lot of people want to say that it's being too stingy or it pushes you to underpay people for maximum profitability. And yet what I've seen is the opposite. It actually allows you and frees you up to pay what the employee is worth to the business and takes the stress off of that relationship. You're not coming up with a number out of the blue to where they can say, "Oh my boss won't pay me more, because they don't like me."

No! It frees you up to say, "Here's what your role is worth to the business, and with your experience here is what we can pay you." It takes the relational side out of it, which is necessary during the hiring process, and allows you to base compensation on value added to the business.

Let me say that again, compensation must be based on value added to the business. Not how long the person has been in the industry or what a past employee made or even what the person wants to make. It has to be directly tied to what value they will add to the business and what they will free the business up to make or grow to in the near future.

So, the next time you hire…leave out the "Industry standard compensation" myth. It will lead you down a road you don't want to go down.

And if you need tools to walk through this or an extra set of eyes, please reach out. This is part of the chaos that we wake up every morning to liberate you, the business owner, from. And we'd love to work through it with you.

Thanks so much for listening today, have a great week!

I'm a huge NBA fan… but I was struck by something the coach of the Denver Nuggets said minutes after winning the championship this year. Let's dive in and talk about it today.

Thomas Joyner with Business on Purpose here, thanks so much for listening in today.

People who say the NBA is trash are just flat-out wrong. It's absolutely incredible to watch what the Denver Nuggets were able to do this postseason. Their win percentage for the year actually improved in the playoffs, which is unheard of. They humiliated arguably the hottest playoff team of the past few years in the Miami Heat and Jimmy Butler. Nikola Jokic found about 25 different ways to impact the game whether it was driving the ball, launching threes, getting assists, playing defense, you name it!

It was insane to watch the way that team came together to reach the mountain top of professional basketball. But here's what was fascinating to me. The confetti is falling, everyone is holding their kids, hugging, crying, laughing, dancing… all of it. And in the midst of the trophy presentation, they bring up the coach Michael Malone to interview him.

The interviewer does her job and basically just invites him to give his thoughts. He thanks the fans, rightfully so, but then, without flinching, says "I've got news for everybody out there, we're not satisfied with one, WE WANT MORE!!!" And the crowd goes wild. "We want more!"

I was up entirely too late, and it just hit me. That's so sad. Think about the message that sends to everyone. The players, the coaches, everyone. We're not satisfied with a career-defining moment. We've worked our entire lives to reach the mountaintop, only to realize that there's another mountaintop and another. So sad that you don't even have time to celebrate before voicing your discontentment and realization that maybe it's not all that it's cracked up to be.

And if there's one prevailing thought that would define our culture right now it's probably that…We're not satisfied. We set sales goals and hit them, and then without celebrating, we set more that are bigger, and that are the goals that we should have set all along. And then we subconsciously say… WE WANT MORE.

We hire a new crew and begin to enter a new corner of our industry and become really good at whatever it is we do…and at the end of the year, we hit our numbers. And what do we do? Ok, that was cool, let's do it again, but bigger and better next time! Why? Because…WE. WANT. MORE!

I felt so sad for the Nuggets coach. He's worked his way up from an assistant coach in college, to head coach in college, to assistant in the NBA, had multiple stops as a head coach in the NBA and now sits atop the throne and in what would be the crowning achievement for most coaches, he blew right past it to whatever's next.

I remember hearing a story about Urban Meyer, head football coach at the University of Florida where they won multiple championships. He said he knew it was time to hang it up for a bit when immediately after he won the National Championship for the 2nd or 3rd time he found himself in a dark room texting recruits, telling them how excited he was to run it back with them. He had lost his way and so have we.

So… what do we do with this? I think it starts with two things.

We've forgotten the ability to celebrate and truly be grateful for the journey! Or… we don't spend enough time on the front end defining what we want and what truly matters!

Let's start with being grateful and celebrating. What do you do as a business to celebrate? When was the last time you celebrated without feeling the need to drop that motivational minute at the end that quietly tells the team they aren't doing enough?

I think we're terrified to celebrate without motivating. We think our team will just stop. And yet, what we see, time after time, is that people just want recognition for their work and effort. Not to have it glossed over and minimized by the thought of…We. Want. More.

We're terrified because we don't know what to do with the feeling that we actually got what we said we wanted and it's still not enough! So… we do what everyone else does. Oh, it must mean we need just a little bit more! So we push and push and push and burn out everyone around us with this endless hamster wheel of success.

We need to set up a time regularly just to be grateful and celebrate. Now there may be years or periods where we don't do this. I'm not saying we just blindly celebrate mediocrity or subpar results, but I am 100% saying we set time aside to celebrate a job well done.

The second thing we need to do, and this needs to be done way before this, but we need to spend some serious time contemplating what we truly want out of work and life. There's nothing more depressing than putting years of work into something to only realize that it wasn't what you hoped it would be. So what are the things that, if at the end of a chapter in life, are worth the work?

Is it making sure you set aside times for kids' games, date nights, lunches with your teams? Is it making sure you plan in regular times for a weekend away so you don't "miss it" and look up years later to realize life passed you by?

It's why we spend so much time on Vision. To make sure that if in 2 or 3 or 5 years, if we hit the bullseye, we will be able to smile and enjoy it! And not think… we want more.

That feeling only comes from knowing you prioritized the right things at work and at home. And didn't get sucked into chasing someone else's vision.

I'll end here. Last week we spent a full day putting on a done-with you team training day for about 15 businesses. We ended the day giving the owners and employees time to think through their personal vision. After that we had them all stand up, to share one thing from their vision story that they wrote down.

It was honestly one of the most powerful moments of my coaching career as they, one after another, said out loud what they hope for in life and work, and family. It was all about people. The people they loved the most and what they hoped for those relationships.

A room full of people just like you opening up in a powerful way.

It was such a refreshing reset…to see people "get it". To understand and reorient their priorities in a world that just says more more more.

So will you do the same?

Will you take the time today to plan some time for deep work and thinking through your vision? So that when you finally hit the bullseye you can celebrate, and be grateful and not immediately push past to that awful thought…We. Want. More.

Do it today! If we can be a part of that with you, please let us know. Have a great week!