EntreLeadership - #357: The Business Owner's Path to Success with Daniel Tardy & Sarah Sloyan

Episode Date: January 13, 2020

At EntreLeadership, there’s nothing we love more than seeing small-business owners win. But we’re also fiercely committed to understanding exactly why they’ve been successful—and where they’ve fallen short—so we can provide a clear, guided path along the way. Tune in to hear Sarah Sloyan, EntreLeadership Senior Vice President, and Daniel Tardy, Ramsey Solutions Executive Vice President of Business and Leadership, unveil our brand-new EntreLeadership framework for the five stages of business growth. First, one question: Who’s ready to win in 2020?   entreleadership.com/podcast EntreLeadership Master Series EntreLeadership's Business Health Assessment Review this episode for a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card   Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The threats to the small business owner are real, an ever-changing market, the rise of corporate giants like Amazon, Walmart, and let's not even get started on the United States government. But what we've learned is that those external hurdles, they don't even begin to compare to the internal ones. The isolation, inadequacy, overwhelmed, the stress, the anxiety of creating, building, and leading a business that you are uniquely responsible for. From the Ramsey Network, this is the Entree Leadership podcast, where we help business. leaders grow themselves, their teams, and their profits. I'm your host Alex Judd, and here at the start of 2020, we want you to hear something aloud and clear from Entree leadership. We exist to help the small business owner win. And we get so excited about that. And here's why we get so excited about that. Because it's possible. And not only is it possible, there's a lot of

things going on right now that if you have the path, it's actually probable. That's right. That's right. you can win as a small business owner. And so today, at the start of 2020, Entree Leadership, senior leaders, Daniel Tarty and Sarah Sloin want to share with you everything we've learned to be true about the state of small business in America. It's better than it's ever been. There are more resources. There's more technology. There are more people talking about small business and how to have one and how to lead one than the history of our country. And it's not an economy thing. It's a mindset thing. And anybody in their basement can have a dream and decide that with a little bit of a Google search and a little bit of turning some

things on and grassroots and getting scrappy, they can start something and get off the ground and get their first customers and grow it and start hiring. And there's more tools and resources and knowledge than ever before. And it's an incredible time. And easier access to that. When you think about at a click of a button, you can get answers to problems that you have or things that you're trying to achieve in just a millisecond. And it's fun. It's exciting. And what we're seeing when we're talking to small business owners around the entire country is most of them are having a blast. Most of them are more excited about their future than even a decade ago what business owners were saying about how things were looking. And it's a great time. And you know what's crazy is I think we hear stories of

these big companies all the time or these flash in the pan companies. But I don't think people realize that a majority of the backbone of our economy are actually these small businesses. And how exciting that is that people have taken their passion into business. And they are the ones who are providing the jobs, and they are the ones that are driving this economy. We just don't get to hear about them every day. That's powerful. And we see all the time how small business is the backbone of the American economy. It's keeping this economy moving. But at the same time, it's almost like there's this dichotomy where we see the people that are winning and are crushing it right now. But then we also see all the stats of so many businesses fail within the first five years. So many businesses don't even

get off the ground. So many leaders are crushed by the thing that they're building. So how do we look at those two things and how do we as an organization, Entree leadership, respond to kind of that dichotomy? Well, I think a lot of the stats are driven by people who halfway do it. You know, it's not, it's not that, gosh, it's so hard to build a business and so much work and you're really rolling the dice if you think you want to go do this, you're really not. If you're going to work hard and you show up and you believe in something and you're committed to it and you're going to take it seriously, you're probably going to win. But so many people dabble in it. So many people kind of stick their toe in the water. Technically, you know, air quotes, they open a business. And then three months later, they failed.

They closed up shop. Well, they weren't, it was a hobby maybe. You know, so that really kind of inflates the stats. It's not as gloomy as it. It was a hobby. Or they are looking at these businesses that are making the news and are spending money like crazy and they're not using common sense. They think, oh, I can, I can do that too and make a big splash and that's what success looks like instead of using common sense principles on what makes sense to really grow their business. They're comparing themselves and they're trying to keep up with the Joneses, but in the business world. Yeah. And in general, it seems like it's not a good strategy to just do what you see on the news. It seems like that's true about the businesses that are big

successes, but what we don't realize is that is one business out of how many who have decided to take out debt and make big choices and take big risks in these massive ways. And it looks like it's paying off. But that's one business out of how many that that worked for, right? And I know so much of kind of our recognition in that over the course of the past several years has kind of brought us to a stage as an organization being Entree leadership where we've got a renewed sense of purpose and direction as an organization. So I love for you all to tell our audience a little bit about what that purpose is and why we truly exist as Entree leadership. Our roots have always been the small business owner, just like Dave started all of this

organization on a car table in his living room. If you got a car table, you got a shot. And somebody that can start something in their living room and grow it to what Dave has done, this big national brand just inspires people. It inspires me every day. And I work here. It never gets old. And when I hear stories of people that had this grassroots beginning and then they're able to really build something that has a significant size and magnitude and is providing jobs and making a difference in the world and serving their customers. That's the American dream. And so because it's our story as a company and it's what has become the story of thousands of business owners that we've helped transform from being stuck or being early on to really

being a peak performing business, we just get so lit up about that story that we have doubled down and just said that we're stubbornly committed to small business. You know, with a big brand like this. We get pulled towards what about leadership in corporate America or, you know, what about just general leadership or high performance habits and productivity? And I'm a fan of all that stuff. But when we're trying to be all things to all people, we're nothing to nobody. And so we're really focused on that small business owner. And this has been a struggle. I wish I could say that this was super easy and it was super clear to us all along. We knew we had this passion and this heart, but by degrees, other people were drawn into the information we were providing and we looked up and we had people in there

that weren't necessarily small business owners. And we really found ourselves going, okay, this is a turning point decision. Who are we? Who are we? So, I mean, Daniel just said that so beautifully, and that's absolutely the drumbeat of our area. You know this. Oh, yeah. But there was a year in there where we had to make some decisions and say, are we going to double down on this?

Or are we going to start broadening our business and what we offer and providing this? And we're certainly not mad at those people. They can come and sit in the room and join the conversation. but we're not going to change our content and who we are to serve everyone. We are stubbornly committed exactly as Daniel said. We have such a passion and such a heart for the small business owner who is out there, grinding it out, day in and day out, you know, making sure that they're meeting payroll and that they are better leaders and business owners and family members because of what they're doing every day. That is what we love.

I love that. I know Seth Godin has talked on this podcast before about the difference between being a wandering generality or a meaningful specific. And it was a powerful day for me as a team member to sit in the room that y'all were leading the meeting and you said we're putting our stake in the ground. We exist to help the small business owner win. So out of that, now that we have that clearly defined purpose, the small business owner is who we're out to serve. What is the next step from that? Like how do we start to really get specific about how we're going to serve that group of people as Entree leadership? Alex, you're exactly right. Our heart is to help the small business owner win.

And what we figured out is if we can help a small business owner win, the compounding effect of what then they will do to build an incredible team. And that team has families and those families have children and that business has customers. There's just this incredible butterfly effect that if we can get to the small business owner and help them, we're indirectly going to help thousands more people through them. And so that's what we really get excited about focusing on. And when you ask, well, what is next when we go, we're here to help small business owners win? then we have to zoom out and go, what makes a small business owner not win? What are the enemies to success for small business? And we've gotten really clear on that through working with tens of thousands of business owners,

not only in our own story and Dave's story of going from the card table to 900 team members. We've learned a lot of things about where you can get stuck and start to lose in business and how to have that breakthrough. And we've also learned there are so many businesses that are winning. And so we've done a lot of work to map the pattern. and find the common threads of success. And we've also observed when businesses don't do these things, they flounder and they dry up. There's a lot of distraction in the business world.

And so there are things that can feel really loud and really urgent, but they're not necessarily the things that are going to continue to move your business forward. And it can just be so confusing. Yeah. Okay, so what should I be focusing on? Should I be focusing on this tactical thing in front of me? Should I be planning out my future of tomorrow? Should I be looking at my five-year plan?

It can be very overwhelming. And then you had people in the mix, right? It's easy until people get involved, right? And it gets very loud because then they're having personal things and professional things, and you're trying to grow them. And so it can be so overwhelming. And we really had to sit down and say, we have all these amazing principles that we have laid out and we have all these tactical pieces. But how do we start to really capture exactly what Daniel is talking about, the growth tracks? Why have these people won?

What have they been focused on? And are they kind of milestones along the way? So you know that you're moving in the world. right direction and it doesn't just kind of feel like you're feeling your way through it. And so that has been a lot of the work over the last year is really putting down on paper, okay, after we've gathered the enemies, after we've gathered the things that seem to be signs of people winning, we have talked to so many small business owners and it's just been such a joy to be there and celebrate the fun times, but also to be there sometimes in the hard times and get to cheer them on and encourage them. And so

it's been so neat to take that and put it into practical steps that can then help everybody get there. And I know you mentioned the word thread, you mentioned the word pattern, and one of the drumbeats of our organization right now as a whole is that phrase clear guided path. Can y'all from a leadership perspective just speak to the value of having a clear path to know what's next? Well, without clarity, we're confused. And when we're confused, we're timid. And when we're timid, we do what's safe, which is we wait until someone else makes a decision and we don't decide. And that's true on teams. When we confuse our teams, they tend to kind of cower back because nobody wants to be the one that accidentally goes the wrong direction. But how do I know?

There's just no action. Because I don't know what the direction is and it's not clear. So we see this in personal finance when there's a clear guided path, what we call the baby steps, people win when they have a clear guided plan. When I go and I work out at the gym and my trainer says, we're going to do A and then B and then C today, here's the warm up, here's the amount of reps, here's the weight. I can win because they're giving me a plan, and I don't have to hesitate or kind of fake my way through something. Or rethink it. I mean, think about how many calories you burn by having to figure out, okay, what exercises should I link together and what should my diet be? When someone just hands you the template, you're like, awesome, I can do that. It might be a good plan, though. To burn,

I could burn more calories by thinking too hard than getting on the treadmill. Maybe a new diet. Maybe that's a bad analogy. It's so true, though. But when you confuse, you lose. Donald Miller says that all the time, and we've adopted that. And so with Entree leadership, what we've realized, Alex, is there are so many great things that we've been teaching people for almost 20 years now, whether it's just internally or the different iterations of this brand as it became a live event and then a book and this podcast. And I mean, now it's this mega brand. And we're so honored that we get to be among the top influencers in this space. I mean, we just, we think our fans for that. We think our customers for that because without them, that wouldn't be true. And yet we go,

there's still so much more clarity we can provide. Yeah. We really sat down and said, how do we serve them better. And I would say that the baby steps have been such an inspiration for us in that way. And that's how Dave teaches personal finances. Absolutely. When you look at Dave's first book where he really taught the principles and then when he launched the second book, that was really the clear guided path. That book stays on the number one bestseller list. I mean, that book's been out for forever. So we really took inspiration from that and said, gosh, we've been throwing all this information at people. How do we help them so that they have a template where they know here's where I am, here's the vision of where I want to go. How do I get from point A to point B?

Yeah, I get so fired up about this. This is so excited. And I think our entire team right now, we just can feel this windfall coming because we're taking something we've done for years and we're now giving people a sense of even more clear direction on how to apply it to where they are. Well, because the less time they have to spend on brainpower figuring it all out, the more they can pour into their people in their business, right? That time then opens up for them to do the stuff that they really need to do that matters. If we can do this behind the scenes of like, okay, we've done this before, let us be your guide, let us show you the way, here's how we're going to do it. You know, there's some nuances in there that are going to be unique to them,

but here are the major points that you're going to hit. And I'm stoked about what we're about to lay out for our audience because I think that the perspective that y'all have is really unique in that Daniel, you were Entree Leadership team member number one. Sarah. He was the team. He was the team. Yeah, that was Entrey leadership. designer. He was the salesperson. He was the VP. Y'all should see the one pagers when Daniel was the... It was bad. I halfway did everything. No, it was fantastic. Hey, it got work. It worked. Clearly it worked. Sarah, how big was the team when you started? When I started, there were seven of us on the team.

And ironically, that was seven years ago. So crazy. I know. And now we're approaching 70 people. And it's just been wild the things that we all just used to pile in and do. We now have these amazing team members that are fully dedicated to doing this. those things that are just upping our game and allowing us more time to sit down and put some thought into this clarity piece, right? So you, too, have been instrumental in the leadership of entree leadership as its own small business because it operates on its own P&L. It operates like a small business in our company. But then you've also sat in leadership meetings as Ramsey has grown through these stages and

followed this path. But then also our team and you two specifically have worked with thousands of small business owners around the country. and it's been so cool to see how we've started to pick out, okay, these are things that apply to every business. It transcends industry. It doesn't matter what you do, where you are, what stage you're at, these principles apply to you.

And so I'm excited that that's what we're going to lay out for people, is y'all's perspective on these stages. What is the value in knowing the stage of business that you're in today? Why is that really, really valuable to understand that? Such a great question. So what we're going to lay out here in a second, and what I want our audience to hear is we're going to be beating this drum for the next 20 years on every episode, on every event, every discussion is going to orient around this clear guided path. And that is that there are five really critical stages in business to go from what we call the treadmill operator ultimately to a peak performing business and eventually building a legacy that you're thinking about second generation.

And we'll unpack these five stages here in a second. But to your point, if you don't know where you are and you don't know where you're going, you're not going to get anywhere. And so to understand, I'm at a stage, and that's normal, and I've got friends at this stage, and we all start at stage one, if I don't know stage two exist, how am I ever going to move forward? You know, I'm just going to feel overwhelmed. And then, oh, after I've done stage two, I can progress to stage three. And, you know, that's true in any kind of goal setting, especially in a short term.

I go, okay, I got to build up the miles to run the marathon. but oftentimes we don't think about business that way in stages of training, if you will, or progressing and building blocks because it's just all the things and it's all overwhelming and I'm reacting to stuff all the time. And oftentimes, Alex, what makes me really sad is we talk to business owners who they've gotten lost. They were so excited and they were so passionate when they started something. And there was a reason they started it. And they forget about that reason.

Yeah. And you're like, you know what happened? They just got overwhelmed with the perpetuity and the infinity. and it's just always come into the office and just respond, and they kind of forgot where they're going. And it seems like they get this lie in their head that it's always going to be this way. Yes. And they lose hope. Well, and part of that is we were talking about this earlier.

A lot of our business owner friends are very isolated. They don't know other business owners. And so when you're the only one in your realm that is experiencing something, you just start to think, okay, this is normal. This must be what it's like. This must be the forever. And so what we really love about the entree community is you have that community around you to say, hey, you don't have to live in this. This is not normal.

You can continue making strides and bringing up people with you and delegating. And you can get back to that why that you dreamed about. And so that's what we're going to challenge y'all to do. As you're listening to this, we're going to walk through the stages. And Daniel and Sarah are going to tell you a little bit about kind of the challenges that each stage faces and give you kind of the overview of what each stage looks like when you're in it. I'm going to challenge y'all to self-identify, to figure out where you are, because once you figure out where you are, you can also start to think about, okay, where do we want to go? That's right. So let's go ahead and jump in.

The first one, you already alluded to it, it's the treadmill operator. Most people hear the word treadmill and they start cringing, right? No one likes running on a treadmill. So why is stage one called the treadmill operator? Yeah, well, so I have a thought. Maybe we outline all five stages just real high level so we can kind of get a sense of where we're headed and then maybe come back around and deep dive on each one. The idea is that most small businesses start out in what we call the treadmill operator. You're just kind of surviving each day.

And then if you get dialed in on this and realize that doesn't have to be the endgame. Because it's not sustainable. Yeah, you can't sustain that. And it sucks. It sucks. It's not fun. You go, uh, tell them like it is. I like it. It does.

It stinks. So step one is get off the treadmill, right? So treadmill is where we tend to start is phase one. Phase two is the pathfinder. You're on a different path. You're going to work on it, not in it. And then you get results and you be. become a trailblazer. You're actually blazing new trails and getting some traction and you and

your team are winning. And then you can become a peak performer. And this is where I want every business to be. A peak performing business is at the pinnacle of their game. They've got the right team and systems and product and customer feedback. And it's all just humming. And that business owner at that stage is really able to direct energy. And it's not all on their shoulders to drive every project and initiative all the time. And if they skip a day at the office, things go backwards. It shouldn't be that way. Business owners work way too hard very often for the fruit that they get. And it's not a matter of how hard they work. It's how smart they're working and putting the right team in place so that they can delegate and be on top of it. And if you do that long enough, you start going, okay, what's that

that business owner going to do when they think about retirement or them not being in the picture? Do you have the team that's going to carry this forward? And that's the fifth phase. And we call that the legacy builder. So treadmill operator, then your pathfinder, then your trailblazer, then your peak performing business and then your legacy builder. Those are the five stages. Very good. So let's jump in on that treadmill operator. If someone is in that, what are they feeling and what are they doing right now as a business owner if they are the treadmill operator? Often these folks go home and they feel like they could work for days and days and days and never get everything done. You know, they're just trying to make payroll. They're trying to meet all the needs. They wear a lot of different hats and they don't feel like

they can necessarily delegate to anybody, and taking a vacation is pretty much off the table because otherwise the whole business shuts down. And there is a stage of business where it's like, you kind of have to be on the treadmill, right, as you're getting going. Yeah, there's a reason why it's called a startup. Yeah. That's right. Because you are starting it up. But then it should run. That's right. Well, and I'll say this too. The treadmill operator oftentimes is unaware there's even a better way. And so I would wager, if you're listening to this podcast, you might not be too far from being a Pathfinder by the nature of, oh, there's a thing called a podcast I could listen to to get more information to learn how to do things better. Like that kind of makes you an anomaly.

You know, most business owners don't listen to podcasts. Most business owners don't read a book. Most business owners, they just come in and they do the thing that their dad always did, who started the business, or they get out on the job site and start swinging a hammer along with their crew. Just knowing that you can work on the business and that your knowledge is the leader as you consume more and you grow yourself as a leader is a factor. Like being aware of that is a big step to getting off the treadmill. So this is more working in the business than on the business, almost exclusively in the business, it sounds like, and it sounds like you almost don't even own a business, you own a job.

That's exactly what I was going to say. And the other thing, I just want to call out for anybody who's wired like I am, I want everything to be tidy in its little box and everything working perfectly. And then I can handle the next thing. What is scary about this phase is you have to start letting some fire. burn. So you have to start realizing what are the right things for me to spend my time on, but that means I can't necessarily get to everything. Because if you try to do everything, you're going to do everything halfway. And you're never going to get out of this phase. So you have

to start intentionally taking some time to say, I'm going to focus on these things, and there's a little bit of risk to these other things that I'm not going to spend some time on that. But these are the only ways I'm going to get out of this phase. So I think you already kind of answered my next question, which would be what one action can treadmill operators start to take? And Daniel, I guess I'd ask you the same question. There are businesses out there that plateau at the treadmill and they either die or the leader burns out or they just never continue past that point. What is one action the treadmill operator can start taking today to start moving forward? Well, the easiest step is to spend some amount of time every week and reserve it on your calendar to say, I'm not going to just do the

work, but I'm going to have a little bit of time where I think about the work and I plan the work and I grab a team member or two and I ask them to zoom out from just the task of the day and go, how are we doing? Stephen Covey and the seven habits of highly effective people. He talks about that leaders are strategic and they climb to the tall tree in the jungle while the cruise down hacking away at the branches and they go, hey, we're in the wrong jungle. You know, the team can be working their tail off down here. And so it's just taken a second to go, let's get above it and go, are we in the right jungle? Are we going the right direction? And it's so common in business because there's so many demands of our customers and there's so many fires to put out. And if we can know

intellectually, we should be looking across the jungle and going, are we in the right jungle? But behaviorally, we haven't done that in six months or a year or three years. That's the first step off the treadmill is committing every week to having some space to just kind of strategic thinking. That's a a fancy word for, I'm going to stop and on purpose evaluate, how's everything going and are we going the right direction? So a lot of where people get stuck, if you're so used to being the doer and you hear us right now saying, okay, schedule an hour a week, if nothing else, to just start working on your business. The immediate question we usually get from the brave ones is, but what do I do at that time?

Like, what does I even mean working on the business? And I would say that's where Daniel talked about this earlier. Okay, we'll first start with a podcast. Listen to a podcast and think about how does this apply to my business? or read a book and think, okay, based on what I just learned, is there anything I would do differently about my business? And that will help get you kind of kick started because otherwise you sit at your desk and you think, I should be doing something. I have a fire going on. I don't even know what to do it. What does it even mean to work on my business? If you dedicate yourself to doing that every single week,

you will get in that mode and you will look forward to that time and you will have ideas and you will start to think about how you can grow your business and it will fuel your fire again. The word that both of you used was doing something different. And like, I think that's how people start to realize, okay, I'm not going to get somewhere tomorrow if I do the things I've always done. And so they start doing different things. And inevitably, that brings them to stage two, which is this pathfinder stage. So describe for us, what does the pathfinder look like when they're operating running, leading a business? Yeah, definitely. So the pathfinder is committed to the daily discipline of evaluating every activity that they have and every, reactivity the team does through this lens of, is this the best use of time? Are we doing this on purpose? Are we doing this proactively? Are we doing this because we sat down and thought through our priorities and this is our top priority? Or are we just reacting? And the Pathfinder or business owner, that guy or girl is also going, am I the kind of leader my team wants to follow? Am I becoming a

leader or am I just working harder and harder at, like you said earlier, owning my job? And so Pathfinder is all about this commitment to this journey that I'm going to go on to get away from the treadmill and actually transform myself to be a great leader who can build the team and build the systems and scale the business. And it's not necessarily a lot of new fruit at the Pathfinder stage. It's more of I'm committed to doing the activities that are going to bear new fruit over time. We were probably there, I would say about seven years ago, when we first started thinking like, oh, you should have a plan each quarter for like what the team should do. You shouldn't just be like, oh, we got an event coming up.

And we, and. So if you remember, Sarah started seven years ago. So when Sarah showed up, she's like, what are you guys doing? Do you all think if a plan was here that would help? I wish I could take credit. I might have taken on some of Daniel's responsibilities and he got smarter and led us all that way. But I think that's when we started fishing around. And I got to be honest, when we first started doing this, we would be like in the quarter

that we should have already had priorities for. So we'll talk about that in some of these future stages. but we just at least had the awareness like, oh, we should probably have some intentionality and communicate across the team of what our focus should be. And we should probably talk about like, how are we going to do that work altogether, you know? And it's like people that are pathfinders are probably still trying to get their Q1 plane together. And we've been there. And that's okay. And that's okay.

It's the right step in the right direction. You don't have to be perfect. And people like me, we want everything to be done right and perfectly. And it's very uncomfortable. But if you don't just start doing something differently, like you said, you're never going to get there. This is the hardest stage because you're trying to merge, you know, like when you're merging onto really intense traffic and you're on the on ramp and everybody's going 90 miles an hour beside you and nobody's going to let you in. You don't just cut everyone off when you do?

What do you do? You know, you got your blinker on and you're trying to find that spot and at some point you've got to shut and you're trying to get all the way over to the HOV lane. And this is the stage where you're fighting traffic the most because you're going from something where your business has been working a certain way on the treadmill. And for the first time, you're doing things like, we're going to spend an hour. All the team is going to get together an hour every week and have a staff meeting. I'm going to start having one-on-ones with my team member. I'm going to start taking this time Sarah's talking about to sit down, listen to a podcast,

to make notes. And so the first thing that happens is you go, but I'm already working 80 hours a week. Where are we going to get this time? And you feel this pressure of. There's lots of tension. Now we have to find more time or we have to stop doing things to serve our customers or we have to say no to an opportunity just so we can have a staff meeting. how are we going to pull that off? So you start to feel that tension of I have to work in to make sure this thing continues to run and the doors stay open. And at the same time, we're going to always

be where we've always been if I don't work on some. What's the first thing you do to manage that tension? Yes, I was thinking about this. Two years ago, I had never worked out before. And I've had three babies. And so I wasn't real interested, but I also was like, okay, I'm getting up in age. Like, we got to get it together. And the first part of that journey for me was the hardest, is retraining myself to show up at the gym on a regular basis. All the exercises were really freaking hard. Like, trying to do a pull-up was

awful. Running, I was like, I can't even breathe. You know? More muscles. You don't want to go back when you feel sore. And you're kind of like, is this normal. Everybody around me is like zooming around. Like, it's no big deal. And I'm watching these people and I'm looking at it. I'm like, and it was so hard. That is the time it really is the hardest. But if you don't go through that phase, you're

never going to get to the phase where you're busting out the pull-ups. And you know. And what you say, you said, you said, you started showing up. I started showing up. And it's like people got to show up for the work and they got to do that. And in the beginning, that's okay. Like you said, if you just are creating the space in the beginning, don't beat yourself up. That's the first step.

Then you'll start utilizing that time more effectively. That's the next step. Then you'll start seeing the results, you know? Yeah, that's the key. Like, I think if the one thing you can do is it's the discipline of building the container in the calendar, not judging the quality of what's in the container yet. You got to give yourself some grace on that. We had a staff meeting, but it felt like it sucked. Have another staff meeting.

Have another staff meeting. Every Monday for an hour no matter what. And you'll get better at it. And 30 staff meetings from now, you're going to go, oh, we got this figured out. We figured out what we should be talking about and how to make them better. But if you don't fight to create that container to shove the car onto the interstate and somehow get into the traffic and you chicken out and you go, I'm just going to slow down on the on ramp and pull over to the shoulder and wait, then you stay on the treadmill forever. Yeah.

It was amazing. At our last event, Master Series, it was amazing to see how. you, Daniel, started talking about this path down to our stage. And it's like the room started chuckling and it was the chuckle of recognition. And people were like, oh my gosh, this guy has been reading my mail because that's where I'm at. And so people start taking these actions that y'all are talking about. And the goal is eventually to get to the trailblazer stage. So maybe people aren't there yet, but this is something to aspire towards. Or maybe there are some people listening this right now that are Trailblazer. How do you identify the people that are in the Trailblazer stage? Well, you're starting to kind of get new fruit. that is popping out on the tree that wasn't something that you personally as the leader had to go cause. You look up and you go, wow, I delegated something to a leader or another team member. They went and did it mostly without my input or involvement, and it was good. Look, there's a new project that I was the only one that did those projects before. I handed it to somebody.

They ran with it and the results are good or even better than what I would have done myself. And so you're starting to get, you're tapping into the power of leverage. you're tapping into the power of a team. And at the trailblazer phase, you and your team are starting to kind of gel and have this chemistry where at least at the leadership level, it may not be everybody in the company, but at least your several top leaders and you are going, hey, it feels like we're causing the business to happen. It feels like we meet and we huddle and we talk about the play we're going to run, and then

we run it and execute it, and we move the ball down the field, and it feels like it's happening on purpose. And as the owner, you start to feel like you can exhale a little bit because you're going, wow, I'm a part of something. I'm steering something. It's just like when I'm steering my car, all the horsepower is under the hood. I'm not causing it out of my physical body to go down the highway. I'm steering the horsepower that's there and I'm pushing on the gas pedal and I'm using leverage and this machine called a car that's going to drive me down the highway. It should feel like that in business. And at the trailblazer phase, you start feeling that for the first time and you're

going, oh my gosh, how do we get more of this? It's really addicting and it's really fun. And it's actually what's best for you and for your team. And I love seeing people step into their potential. Like, it's really fun for me as a leader. I think in my early days, it was really fun to see those results that I created. Now it's so fun. I was in a meeting this morning in our HR committee, and one of my leaders came in to talk about a situation, and she crushed it.

She was very clear, and I just was so thrilled. Like, she was chugging along with that project and did such a beautiful job, and I was so proud. I want to call out, there's a risk when you start doing this. this that you want to control the how everything is done. You want everyone to do it, but you want them to do it your way. Exactly like you would do it. Which is obviously the best way. So how do you fight that? So how do you fight that? I had to do a lot of self-talk. And we have an analogy we use,

which is kind of a ridiculous analogy, but when we cast the vision on, you know, we talk about the sausage analogy, we want the sausage to look like this, we want it to taste like this, but how you make the sausage, how you get there, as long as you're using our principles, I'm not going to get in the nitty gritty and try and micromanage you. Like, I'm going to try to just take a step back and let you, because there is a value to that person getting the reps under their belt. Now, I'm not going to let them make fatal mistakes. I'm going to coach them. But I'm going to let them make a few mistakes and feel it out and figure it out.

That's the best learning. If I sit and tell you step by step how to do something, you don't really learn as much as if you do it yourself. And you go, what I love to do is sit down with the person who's doing it and go, okay, we just had this thing. What did you think about it? How did you feel like it went? You asked so many questions. I've been in meetings with you. I just love to hear people's thought process.

So we had a stand up one time, and that's where our team all gets together on Thursday mornings, and it's a great time to celebrate each other, communicate. You know, now we're getting large, so we want everybody to hear what's going on. And it didn't go very well in terms of it was going over, and it was just kind of clunky. And so the person who was in charge of it, I grabbed her and I said, okay, how did you feel like that went? She said, well, I didn't feel like it was that great. And she starts calling out stuff. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, she not only noticed everything I would have.

have said, but she even took it a step farther and noticed stuff that I probably didn't even pick up on. And then I said, okay, well, what do you think we should do differently next time? And she laid out this plan. And I think you and I've had this. You've asked for like feedback on your stuff. And I find two things. One, when I say, well, what did you notice? It helps build my confidence because usually you guys call out stuff that I'm like, oh my gosh, that was fabulous. You're very insightful. And it builds my confidence that you're seeing things. And two, I think when I just give you the answers, you start to adhere to my opinion. But long, term, you have to have your own opinion. I'm not going to be in there every time. And to care about it,

too, to really buy into it. Yes. And so I just love, it is very hard to let go of that, but is so rewarding when you can get in this comfort level of like non-fatal things. Let people kind of have a little, let them play in the mess a little bit. It's okay. So you are both super growth oriented people and super action oriented people. And I know that there are times where you look at our team and you think, like, we could speed this up. Like I could just tell them the answer to this problem because I've been there before. So how do you have the restraint and the patience to hold back in this trailblazer stage and say, I'm going to let the team figure this out? It is a misnomer. In the short term, it will feel like you are making traction very quickly. But in the long term, you're not training

people to think for themselves. You're not teaching them the principles of how we make decisions. You're telling them tactically what to do. Yeah, it's totally the myth. And the Navy Seals tell us this. In fact, I think we've had some on this podcast that maybe have even said this, that slow is smooth. smooth as fast. And so we have to slow down enough to teach and train the team. And on principle, another thing, in addition to training, on principle, I have to accept that short term, like Sarah is saying, it may not be as good as if I just personally did it. Am I willing to sacrifice some short term excellence or short term, you know, exactly how I want

it to be done? Now, if you're delegating heart surgery, there's certain things you can't mess around on, right? Can I afford to have a little failure here? It's not going to mess up a customer. It's not really going to. But if I'm going to create a little failure so we can have a coachable moment, I'm on principle investing in the learning and mentoring of that team member that long term is actually going to cause us to go faster. And so the misnomer is that to go faster as the owner, I've got to come in and set the pace and do all the things.

If I can actually go long term, we're going to go faster by building a team who can run fast and who's aligned and who's unified and can finish my sentences. And they're going to do it the right way. It's a force multiple. And let me tell you, I was just thinking back, we had a situation in this spring. And now that it's in the rear of your mirror, it doesn't feel stressful. But in the middle of it, it was internal. It was all internal. And it felt very stressful and very frustrating.

And it was not how I would have handled it. And it put us in a pickle. But I'll tell you this, because I let those people learn it themselves, they'll never go back and make that same mistake again. You know, and that's who I'd like to have on my team, the person who has that real life experience and has some battle scars. and because of that, they have learned so much and they're never going to be in that situation again, you know? Yeah, we see that all the time on mastermind calls that the business owner will bear the consequences

of their team's mistakes. And as a result, they wonder why their team doesn't care as much. Well, it's because their team hasn't felt it the way you felt it because you took all of those consequences. There's a balance, right? You have to let them live in it enough, but know that they're not alone in it. You know, I am still going to trust you to continue to be the driver

even when you screw up, but I'm going to have your back. I'm going to be in the passenger side. I'm not going to just say, well, you created it, good luck. You know, if you want advice, if you want coaching, if you want me to jump in and give you some ideas, I'm here for that. That's what I'm here to be your coach, you know, and I'm not going to just throw you to the wolves and say, well, look at them. Look what they screwed up. I will always have their back.

If you care hard and work hard and you had the best of intentions, I've got your back and it's fine. We're going to learn from this. It strikes me. Before we move on to the next stage, it strikes me that as we talk about all these stage, we're talking about all the challenges, the tough parts, the mistakes. the really, because as you get to each stage, it's never like there is a stage on this journey where it's like, oh, this is the area where there are no problems. If anything, it's always like, these are where the bigger problems are. There's more zeros to your problems. There's, there's higher intensity people problems. There's more zeros. There's more people. So the volume, you know, your percentage is the same, but there's more people in there. Somewhere as a leader, you just get comfortable. I mean, I remember thinking my job is solve all the problems because if there's problems, I'm a bad leader. And then I don't know. who said it, Dave was like, dude, you know your job now is like deal with all the problems.

Like that is now your job. And I think once you kind of start going, you know, that's why we have business. The world has problems. And that's when we have leaders because there's always going to be more problems. And no idea fixes all the problems forever. It gets us further down the field. And then we've got new problems to work on. And so I want to give you permission. If you're a leader, if you're an owner, separate your identity from the problems being a problem. problem with you. Yeah, it's not a reflection of, I love, you've said before, your reward for being good at solving problems is new and bigger problems, right? But when you set that expectation, it's like it's not a surprise whenever it shows up. That's right. Okay, so let's talk about some

bigger problems then. The peak performer stage, what is that business doing and what is that leader doing? Well, here's what's fun about this. Your problems change into some things that are different, sometimes more enjoyable. Okay. So at the peak performance, phase, as a leader, you're exactly what your organization needs. And you've grown yourself as a leader. Your team wants to follow you. They trust you. You have awesome alignment. You're also really clear on your purpose personally and where your company is going and everyone has a sense of the vision for the company at this stage. The team is bought in. You've got awesome leaders you can delegate to and they're leading well. And there's organization and unity and core values.

And the team really rallies about the vision of the company. And then you've also got this great product and service that you're putting out there and you're iterating on that and your customer feedback loops are fantastic and you're just going, man, we know what we're great at and we know how we impact the marketplace and they actually love it and they're paying us with dollars and the dollars are starting to be more and more and so we can hire more people and invest back in this thing. And, you know, we're really good at strategic planning and breaking down our five-year vision into one year and quarterly goals and there's objectives and those have owners and you're just going, this is fantastic. We've got all the pieces. Sarah mentioned, you know, we now finally have all these

dedicated players with entre leadership that can do the thing. And so your job at this stage as the owner is to continue to push vision clarity, evaluate the results, and invest in the relationships with the influencers on the team who are going to continue to scale this thing. Okay, so that's a pretty big. Those three results right there are pretty big. So say those again, because I want people to write those down or certainly remember them because this is what we should all aspire to. Yeah, you should aspire. If you're thinking about what is my ultimate job as a business owner? To get it off the ground, you've got to do stuff on the treadmill.

You're a doer, you're a maker, you're the salesperson, you're in there shipping things out and putting labels on, whatever it takes. And then you're building a team and you're going through these stages. But the ultimate, if you can be in a place as a leader where all you're doing is vision and relationships and monitoring results, that's the best job description there is. That's the highest calling of a leader because the leader is always responsible to cast the vision and make sure that we have clarity about where we're going. You can't delegate that. Relationships with your top leaders and building into those relationships and mentoring them because you're not doing anything anymore. They're doing things that they're giving to their team to do things. I mean, you're advancing decision making and doing to the front lines of the makers and the people in the ranks that are causing this thing to happen. And then you're monitoring results going, okay, are we actually? winning? Do we say when we go, this is our vision, are we actually advancing towards our vision? Are we getting the results that we said that we set out to get? And so if you can do those three things all the time, you've really, I don't want to say you've arrived because none of us ever arrive, right? But you should be moving towards a spot, like you said, aspiring to

all I'm ever doing is cast and vision, building relationships, and monitor results. And these stages take years. So this isn't like, okay, in a six-month period, I'm going to zoom through these. I mean, to get to what Daniel's describing, it takes years and it takes work and it takes building up the right people and it takes a lot of work on your vision and over-clarifying your purpose and learning. So I don't want to put out there that this can just in a blink overnight happen, but I do think it is so worth it when you reach this stage. I would say not only years, like, yes, and there's stages where you backslide a little. You know, you kind of were like, oh, all I was doing was vision results in relationships and then I lost a key person.

Oh, crap. Now I've got to go back in and backfill that person. And I got to do their job when they're not here. And so you never fully just like sit there and put your heels up. You're always, the business is changing and creating new issues that you've got to slide back a little bit sometimes and kind of shore up. But you're always trying to push towards, you know, the HOV lane. Where you're over there. Amen to the HOV lane. And it sounds like the two of you are saying that, yes, it takes years. Yes, it takes intentionality. Yes, it takes effort and hard work and sweat. and you're going to make mistakes and backslide, but it is possible. Oh, absolutely. And what's kind of funny, I was thinking about where we're at right now when you just said that about losing a key person, our business is multifaceted in terms of what we offer. And some areas of the business, I would say that we're here. You know, we've got strong leaders and we've got a team and, like, everything's trucking. And then we have an area or two that we're still working to get here in, you know.

So I just want, I always want to be real and share with people. Like, we're not perfect. It's not like you wave a magic wand. We got a lot of incredible areas that are rocking and have leaders and there's lots of rope and it's fully delegated. And Sarah and I both right now are stepping in and doing someone's full-time job that's an open seat on our team that we need a great leader in. Well, we don't just go, well, we don't have leadership. Sarah and I have jumped into those seats and we're helping carry the water. We won't stay there long term.

But you never fully just get to a place where like, well, I just kind of chill out and point and people go do things. Yeah, I have this dream. I told some of my top leaders. I want to be in the grandparent stage where they're the bad guys, and I just get to be the fun grandma, you know? That's right. But I don't think that happens. I guess that's not real. Well, it's funny.

You mentioned the grandparent stage because that next stage is the legacy. And I think more than just diving into the weeds of what that legacy builder stage looks like, I'd like y'all to just close out today by describing why does that stage make everything we've talked about today worth it. stage. This stage is your legacy in the world. Why did you start a business to begin with? What is your impact that you were hoping to achieve? And how does it live past you? All this work that you did, if you put in all this heart and soul and sweat equity and then, you know, it just closed down when you were decided to retire. That stinks. And Daniel, I know you sit on our operating board. And Dave is very much in this stage right now where he's thinking about how our business 900 people lives past him.

So what has it been like to get to spend time with a business owner that is in that stage? Well, it's really great. You know, and I got to be honest, I was really immature and kind of naive in my worldview about business when I started here. And Dave has taught me so much about thinking about this idea of legacy. And what I've learned and what I've been inspired by as I've said at his feet and I've heard more about this idea of second generation, third generation, fifth generation businesses that are thriving. You know, it really is sad when somebody works as hard as most business owners work to

build something and they're planting in these fields at the end of their time that that whole field just dries up, that's really sad. It doesn't have to be that way because there's still employees. They're still customers. You've done all the hard work to get something off the ground to nurture it and feed it, and it should live beyond you. That's one of the really cool things about businesses. You can create something that for generations to come continues to have some type of life, some type of energy, some type of blessing people, whether it's the team or the customers. And of course, it's going to evolve and shift, and the business model is going to look

different from generation to generation. But you get to start something and get it into motion. And so I would just challenge, you know, if you're on the treadmill and you go, well, that sounds great, but I'm just trying to pay the bills. I get it. It's hard to think about legacy at that stage. But ultimately, what's life really about? It's not about us. It's not about us just growing our lifestyle and paying the bills and getting to have material success. It's about investing into people and bringing life into the world in a way that really empowers people and builds people. And so we get to do that with our team. We get to do with our customers. And hopefully we get to do it in a way where they get to continue doing that with something we started even when we're not here. Well, there you have it. The treadmill operator, the pathfinder, the trailblazer, the peak performer, and it's all in the pursuit of being a legacy builder. Daniel and Sarah, thanks so much for your time today. Thank you for walking this path so that others may follow. Now, I know as you're listening to that, the thing that's probably going through your head is, okay, well, what stage am I in? What stages are business in? And as you start to become more aware of kind of where you self-identify as a business leader, the next question that always comes up for someone that's growth oriented is, okay, well, how do I get to the next level? How do I get to the next stage? And that's a question we've asked for a long time now. And we're starting to get some answers because we've learned from business owners around the country that if you're going to move from one stage of business to the business to the, the next, it always demands intentional and deliberate focus on six key areas.

And so as Daniel and Sarah said, if you want to know where to go, you've got to know where you are. And so we've created an assessment to really evaluate your strengths and weaknesses as a leader in each of these six key areas. So we're providing that assessment to you for free as a podcast listener. And if you want to take advantage of this, text the word progress to 33444. Again, that's the word progress to 3-3-444 or just click the link in the show notes and we will send you a link to the free Entree Leadership Assessment. Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode, the Entree Leadership podcast. If you did, please give us a five-star review and tell your friends to subscribe. For a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card, you can review this episode by clicking the link

that's in the show notes. And be sure to follow us on social media at Entree Leadership. This episode was produced by Tim Hull and it was edited and mixed by Will Rutter. I'm Alex Judd and on behalf of the entire Entree leadership team. Thanks for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon. If you enjoy this podcast, you should check out other great podcasts from the Ramsey Network like the Ken Coleman Show. Are you doing what you were born to do? I'm Ken Coleman, host of the Ken Coleman Show, where I give you practical advice to help you discover your purpose and then map out a plan to get you there.

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