REAL AF with Andy Frisella - Avoid These Mistakes When You Start to Succeed, with Andy Frisella - MFCEO175

Episode Date: September 19, 2017

In business and life, it's great when you really get rolling. But when a little success makes you bigger and busier, you might make certain critical mistakes that will derail you before you really get started. In this episode, I tell you what those mistakes are and how to avoid them.

What is up guys, you're listening to the MFCEO Project, I'm Andy, I'm your host and I am the motherfucking CEO. Guys, today we are going to cover something that is very, very crucial and important to the growth of small companies that are seeing a little bit of success. You've started the company. You've got something going. You have something. You have some momentum. You might have some employees. Maybe you're making some money, okay? There are three huge mistakes that we see companies make over and over and over again. And I want to review those with you guys.

And a lot of these have to do with personal views and actions on what you take, how you act, what you do when you come to work. So it can not only apply just to the company, but ultimately how the company performs is how the person thinks, acts, and performs on a daily basis. So even if you're not the guy who owns the company and you're just a regular guy who's in a job trying to work his way up, this is important to understand. So don't tune out just because you think that because you

don't own a company, it's not relevant. It is. Usually I'm here with Vaughn. Vaughn's not here today. So I'm going to give you guys something, the short, sweet, and very, very, very important. All right, guys, when everybody starts a company, they get excited. They want to start a company. They want to make money. They want to be successful. And I get that. And a lot of companies don't even get that far. They don't get as far as it takes to, you know, have some sales, have some money coming in, have some profitability. Most people fail before that ever even happens. But let's just say that you get to that point. You're selling some product. You're doing some good shit. You are, you may be taking home a paycheck, a decent paycheck, and you're starting to feel like things are going your way. These three points are huge factors that you're going

to want to avoid. Okay. So the first point is this, a lot of companies that have success as they become more and more successful, they get away from the little details that got them where they are. Okay. And this can be in customer service. This can be in attention to detail on the product quality. This can be in how they handle the transactions. It's little bitty things, guys, things that the normal person wouldn't even notice. All right? We're talking about, hey, you used to keep the floors perfectly clean. Well, now the floors aren't perfectly clean every day because you're a little bit busier, okay, and you can't do the little things, those little things,

guys, you writing a handwritten thank you card to your customers, you calling your customers to check up on them, you emailing your customers to check up on them, you taking the time to go shake hands, you taking the time to put detail into your product, you taking the time to do all those little bitty things that have gotten you where you are that you get so busy and you say, well, those are the little things that we can let go. No, those are not the little things that you can let go. Those are the things that got you where the fuck you are. And the minute you start to cut those little details out is the minute you start to create your demise. Okay. So always look at the little details as the big

things. All right. Don't sweep them under a rug because you're getting busy. You think you're fucking celebrity because you own a business. You're making some money. You're doing something. No. And usually guys, when you start to see an issue, you can go back to the little bitty details that you used to do that got you where you are, and you'll find out that you aren't executing on those details. So guys, always execute on the small details. Always make sure that you're executing on those details and putting the proper attention on those details. Big companies get away from it, and it creates a huge gap for other companies to come in and fucking take them out. All right. So the details matter. All right. Point number two, we see this is a big culture issue. Okay. A lot of companies,

small businesses start out and they think that because they're growing and they're becoming bigger and they're becoming more quote unquote corporate, that they have to start pretending to be this corporate environment. They start having pointless meetings. They have a boring work environment. They create a situation where their employees are unhappy and have to go through useless motions just to get shit done, a bureaucracy, so to speak. Guys, that ruins company culture. That will keep people from producing the best work. It will keep you from attracting the best people and it will cause your best people to look elsewhere because they're unhappy. Don't create an environment because you think you're supposed to create an environment because you're growing.

If you grew, if you, if you're a business, you know, this is something that I see young business owners struggle with the most. They think they've got to do things a certain way because everybody else does them. No, that's not it. Your job as a business owner should be to take the pulse of your culture, figure out exactly who the fuck you are and roll with that. All right. If you're not a big corporate formal environment, don't fucking be one. Okay. When you start to try to be something that's inauthentic, you lose the respect of your customers. You lose the respect of your employees and you lose the identity of the business was creates a situation where you don't know

where you went wrong. So all of a sudden sales will start going down. Production starts going down. People start leaving. You start having turnover and you don't understand what's going on. Well, what's going on is, is you're presenting a false reality of what you really are. So being who you are and, and operating in an authentic culture environment is a super, super, super crucial detail that a lot of companies, you know, they get out of because they feel like they're getting so big. They've got to create this corporate structure. Guys, if you're a mom and pop type business and you treat your employees like family, it doesn't matter if you have a thousand fucking employees. Keep that culture. Okay. Don't let that culture go to the wayside because you think

that you're too important or you've got to present a corporate image. It's bullshit. All right. You want a great culture, be who the fuck you are and don't forget it. All right. Point number three guys, and this is the biggest one. All right. And I think a lot of you guys can identify this as individuals. Uh, they don't finish the job. And what I mean by that is this, okay. Companies will see a little bit of success. They'll get a, the, the people will get a little bit of a paycheck. People start making some money. We'll start creating some momentum. Things are starting to go pretty good. And what do they do?

They start going on vacations. They start kicking their feet up. They take their foot off the fucking gas. They take their eye off the fucking ball. And guys, this is what keeps companies small. This is what keeps you where the fuck you are. And you have to realize something that if you are staying exactly where the fuck you are, you're getting passed by people who are working to improve. There is no maintenance in business. There is no maintenance

in success. You're either getting better or you're getting passed by people who are getting better. That's the options. So you have to understand you cannot for one fucking second, take your success for granted. You cannot think that just because you got to this point, that things are going to continue to go the way they've gone. And you're going to be able to put it on autopilot and get there. We see this with small business owners all the time. How many people in your town roll around their town? Like they're a big shop business owner, but outside of your town, nobody knows who the fuck they are. Well, the reason nobody knows who the fuck they are and knows their company is because likely they're, they're so busy being a local fucking celebrity and thinking they're hot

shit and you're a little bitty area. You know, they roll around fucking Biloxi, Mississippi, like fucking Rick Ross. And they don't understand that they could actually be very successful, but they've got enough coming in to look like some sort of fucking success locally, but nobody knows what the fuck's going on in the rest of the world. lasted because all it takes is one shift in momentum, one new competitor, one new way of doing business, one shift in technology to take you from being the guy who's a local baller with your feet on the fucking desk to being the guy in the welfare line because you can't pay your fucking bills. It doesn't take much. All right. You cannot take your foot off the gas. You cannot take your eye off the ball. You can't look elsewhere. You can't look anywhere else but ahead. And you have to work at that every single day.

If you don't do that, you will eventually lose. There is no fucking question. All right. So guys, in review, all right, point number one, people get away from the little details. All right. Don't fucking do it. Point number two, just because you're growing doesn't mean you need to be something that you're not. You have to maintain

your authentic self. You have to maintain your authentic culture. You have to be who the fuck you are and be that better than anybody. And point number three, don't take your eye off the fucking ball. Just like they told you in T-ball. All right? Every single person that takes their eye off the ball, that takes their foot off the gas will fucking lose. Life is a long journey. Money runs out. Success runs out. Markets change.

Technology changes. Options change. Opportunities change. And if you're not there and present to take advantage of every single one of them, don't be surprised when you get your fucking balls kicked in by the young hungry buck who's trying to kick your ass and they've been paying attention. It does not take much. All right. So guys, if you're the company who's growing right now, if you're the company who's doing well, take those three steps to heart and be preventative about it. If you're an employee in this company, take these three steps to heart and be preventative about it. If you're an employee in this company,

take these three steps to heart and how you manage your day. Okay. Are you taking your eye off the task? Are you taking your eye off of doing the great things? All right. Are you, uh, you know, being something you're not. All right. Are you getting away from the things that make you great at what you do? These are all things that are relevant to the human as well as relevant to the business. And guys, I'm going to give you one tip. I said I was going to give you three. I'm going to give you fucking four. Here's the other thing. All right. With the internet exploding and we see people online, myself included, driving nice cars, traveling on private jets, wearing a nice watch and shit, realize that like what I spend is less than 10% of my fucking income. All right. It's tempting when you first start making some money to go out and spend it on

cool shit. All right. It's tempting to go out and reward yourself. It's tempting to go out and buy shit that really doesn't fucking mean anything. All right. Winners don't do that. Winners take the money and they reinvest it in their company they reinvested in their employees they reinvested in their in their systems they reinvested in the product they reinvested in their service don't fall victim to the temptation of spending the first few dollars you get and when i mean few dollars i mean few fucking million dollars all right so many people have great businesses that could be fucking tremendous successes. And I'm talking nine, 10 figure businesses, but they never get there because they spend all their money trying

to keep up with some fuck face from junior high who drives a nice car and lives in a fucking mediocre house. Do you want the fucking ice cream cone today? Or do you want the ice cream store tomorrow? That's what it comes down to. So don't get caught up in the instant gratification of going out and buying shit. All right. Take that money, roll it back in and become a real fucking boss. All right. So guys, that's the podcast for today. If you liked it, share it. Please leave me a review. Please hit subscribe. That's how we get ranked. We don't ask for anything in return. I appreciate you guys.

Thank you so much, and we'll see you next time.