Breaking Free: Transforming Business Challenges into Opportunities with Richard Walsh

[00:00:00] Entertainment, Insights, Don't Take Life Too Seriously Welcome to Brainsky Unleashed Hello everyone and welcome to yet another fabulous episode. It is now summer time here, Brainsky Unleashed. We got Richard Walsh with us, former Marine, Boxer, Author, Sharp in the Spear, Coaching.com.

[00:00:25] He's got a lot of insight to share. Welcome to the program. Thanks, Thomas. Appreciate looking forward to being here. Absolutely. So before you jump in, just a reminder everyone, what should you do before you even start listening?

[00:00:36] You should be hitting the subscribe button. You should be giving it a quick review when we're done.

[00:00:40] Like it, hit subscribe, offer review. Help us out with the bots out there that make sure that we get up there in the ratings so that way we can continue doing stuff. Alright, with that, Richard, again, welcome to the program. You are a business coach, right? Correct.

[00:00:56] Alright, so your main focus at this point is helping businesses do what? So my big movement, Tom, is to help 10,000 business owners create more freedom, profit and impact in their business.

[00:01:10] Alright, we're going to start immediately with freedom because in doing my homework on you and learning more about you, one of the things that you really like to focus on is helping business owners get out of the job that they've created for themselves.

[00:01:26] And get a little bit of freedom. So give me a little bit of insight on that. What would they expect if they work? Yeah, so I call it escaping the owner prison. Okay, that's what we'd call it. What can they expect?

[00:01:37] Well, the problem is guys get into business and the first two years as I tell people, I haven't figured out a way not to work extremely hard your first two years in business.

[00:01:46] Okay, so just accept that if you're new. If you're not, what I've also found over all these years of coaching and being in business over 30 years myself is people work hard that first two years.

[00:01:57] And then next, you know, 10 years has gone by and they've repeated the first two years five times. That's stuck in the owner prison. Okay, so they haven't. It's up.

[00:02:06] Right. No delegation, no systems in place. They're unable to truly scale or at least scale comfortably and they don't their time is no longer their own. They serve the business. The business doesn't serve them. But why do you think it is?

[00:02:19] Well, a lot of them get into it because they're a technician meaning they're really good at what they do and they get in to have to do it right in the beginning.

[00:02:26] And then they might get someone but they're afraid to let go of that hammer or that saw or or the keyboard or whatever it is.

[00:02:32] Right. And so they hold on. They kind of in a sense, micro manage, but feel if it's not done the way they do it, it's not good enough. And people will be disappointed, which is far from the truth.

[00:02:41] So that's really what happens. And then they don't know because they went from being an employee, right? Again, a craftsman, a tradesman or whatever they are, then it could be in business. They don't know about business.

[00:02:52] Now they can make money because making money in business is the easiest thing you can do. Right. But it's all the rest that gets them hung up and that's why they get trapped.

[00:03:01] Do you find that a lot of the people that you've worked with in this position, I mean, it sounds to me like, like these are the the technician threads or the and maybe

[00:03:10] maybe it's not technician per se and someone that makes a wire or some glass or whatever, but they do the operators are the people that do the tasks.

[00:03:19] Right. And they just have to be really good at what they do. So they decide they want to start a business and they can do it better.

[00:03:24] Right. But do you also find because one of the things that I'm hearing right off the bat is lack of leaders like right out of the gate. They may not have been trained as a leader. They may have been thrust into a management position at some point.

[00:03:38] Then they decide they're going to do it on their own or maybe they were just something made the glass cut the glass, you know, fix the fix the bad pipe bent the pipe did this or that. But it sounds like there's obviously a lack of leadership.

[00:03:51] But are you also seeing that with people who have come from leadership roles? Yeah, Tom, I don't honestly I don't think it's the leadership issue. Okay. I think it's a knowledge issue. It's a knowledge issue. They don't know.

[00:04:05] Right. They have one of the biggest things they haven't done Tom is they haven't created a plan. They don't even have why we could talk about this another time but the exit strategy right they don't begin with the end in mind.

[00:04:16] So when they don't when they don't do that, how do you know where to go? How do you know when to hire the first person?

[00:04:21] How do you know what you have to do when you hire someone? You just tell them to go do it because that never works. Okay. So that's really what it is. So I don't think leadership is going to come later.

[00:04:31] You're going to need leadership skills. Don't get me wrong, but that's going to come later. And a lot of guys never get to the point to be able to become a leader because they're in the trenches all the time.

[00:04:41] Now they're leading in there in kind of a microscopic way, but they're really not going to be that leader who can guide the company where it really needs to go.

[00:04:50] What do you normally try and do to wake these people up so they can see that they even have a problem? A lot of business owners don't even know they have a problem.

[00:04:59] Right. So if they talk to me for like an hour, they know all their problems because I can see them from the outside. I have what is called outside eyes.

[00:05:08] So they're very focused, right? Because they're doing it. They're making the money to try to get the next Friday and make payroll. You'll pay the bills, do all that kind of stuff.

[00:05:15] So I can come in and I can easily see it. Of course I have tons of experience, but at the same time I can go, What about this? And what about this? We don't even do that. That person should go.

[00:05:24] Right. So there's like things you tell them and they just, it's like you pull the blinders off them for a minute and all of a sudden they can see and go, oh, I didn't even know that. I go and that's okay.

[00:05:34] Give me an example. Like, you know, put you on the spot. You're talking to a business owner or a guy's been in business, say, you know, I'm a guy, I've been in business for like six years. And I make mugs.

[00:05:50] And I am just, I'm doing my thing and somehow you come along or like, how does that work? And then, and then what does that conversation look like where I can go, oh, okay. Now I'm listening to somebody who knows what they're doing and I've got a problem.

[00:06:07] I don't think I've got a problem. Right. So one question I always begin with, what's your biggest challenge right now in business? I mean, no matter what they think, they have a challenge. I don't know what it is until they tell me.

[00:06:19] What would say is like the three common answers that you get?

[00:06:22] I mean, for me, I would probably think, well, making enough money or, you know, I don't have enough sales, which is theater to me that the most typical thing I think a business owner said, if I could only get more sales, which by the way is never the main problem.

[00:06:37] It's usually a symptom of a problem. But like what would you say is the top three? Top three is going to be versus they're going to say I don't have the people. I don't have the manpower. There's a manpower shortage. They're going to go that route.

[00:06:51] Can't get good people, blah, blah. They're going to say all that, right? Secondly is they're going to be, well, we're making money, but not enough to and whatever that is, right? To bring more people on, to do this or do that, right?

[00:07:04] The third thing is going to be really like how to grow. I don't know how to scale. I don't know how to do more if I had the first two problems I have. How can I possibly ever grow because I can't overcome those first two problems?

[00:07:18] Okay, so people are always the number one problem and the problem with that problem. Okay, is again they don't know what they're actually looking for in people. They don't have purpose for their people. They don't have their positions laid out.

[00:07:33] So someone who's relatively competent can come in and thrive in that position and excel. A lot of owners, what they do Tom is they want to bring someone who's really good at what they do. And they want them to actually build their business.

[00:07:45] They want to make that position better. No one wants to be hired for that. If they're doing that, they have their own business. Right. So that's the first big mistake and I see that a lot. So they got everyone doing everything crossing over.

[00:07:58] So the first thing we do is we're going to separate what's called job functions, positions and job functions. Because they have to be very, very detailed. You can't put someone in something. So let's just call it a system. Right.

[00:08:10] Because you put people into systems, not systems into people. Right. Very important distinction. So someone wants to come in, drop in their goods. Let's say I'm a great HR person. Okay. Well they want to drop in a slot and they want to get hired. And it's all there.

[00:08:25] They're trained up in five to seven days and they can run. And they can be a great HR person. They're not trying to figure out why this system is broken. Why I can't do this and I can't do that. So the problem is you haven't done your work.

[00:08:37] You haven't prepared it for the right person to come in. It's like having a, you know, a Ford Escort on NASCAR track. You're just going to put them in that and say go win the race. Not going to happen. Right? So you really got to prep.

[00:08:51] That's one of the biggest challenges they have. So basically what you're saying is that, you know, your answer would be we got a system. That's the beginning, yes. Okay. And so you're looking at a business owner.

[00:09:07] The business owner says, you know, how do I have time to system a time? How do I even system type? Who am I using to help me system ties? It's one thing to get the advice from a coach. But what do I do with this?

[00:09:20] But, you know, I'm currently up to my ears and porcelain, you know, trying to complete and get enough widgets out because I've got heavy orders widgets, you know, it's summertime and it's mug selling season at the local shop down by the beach. So that's the best question ever.

[00:09:38] Okay, because I will tell you all owners I work with, none of them are going to systemize their business. Right. They want to. They know it needs to be done. They don't have the bandwidth.

[00:09:49] And it's unrealistic for any coach to come in and think they're going to do it. Okay, unless you love misery and disappointment. And for the others, you're going to get so. So we do not do that. Now, they need to be aware they need it.

[00:10:03] Most of them do and you can walk it out. But here's what we do at Sharpener spirit. Right. So I come in and I don't we talk about, okay, here's your positions. Here they are. We need to systemize this other processes in the business.

[00:10:14] I don't have the owner do it. We work with the team. We bring them on. We set goals properly. Right. We have deadlines. We have timeframes. I show them the structure and how it's done, how they can achieve it. Let them go to work.

[00:10:26] And the beauty of that is here. Here's, well, here's the caveat I'll throw in there. It's not part of their job. So if you're paying them 50 grand a year, they don't do that too and still get 50 grand a year. You're going to set a bonus for them.

[00:10:40] You get this is a goal. And when you achieve it, you're going to get acts because if you think about what is that worth? If I can get everything systemized, but main one department, if I can get that systemized, what does that do for me as the owner?

[00:10:52] It gives me back my time and the frustration and things that's worth a lot of money to me as an owner. So I'm going to give them a hefty bonus for doing that. Right?

[00:11:00] So they're, again, they're incentivized, but they get it done now and not only do they get a bonus, they completed it. They have complete buy-in into it. They help create that, but it's like an extra gig. Right?

[00:11:10] They're still doing their daily stuff, but they get rewarded and everyone feels good. We do that throughout the company. And then when it's done, we bring it back to the owner. Look what we did. Right?

[00:11:19] So I'm going to be that guy that has that I'm sure you have had to deal with hundreds of times. All right? I'm going to be the guy that says, well, there's not a lot of profit in this.

[00:11:32] And so therefore, how can I possibly afford your service much less afford to pay Bob and Susie and Dan because these are, these are the three people that you want to tell me that you're going to work with. You know, I'm so stuck.

[00:11:47] I've come to you for help, but I can't afford your help. So what do we do next? So when someone says there's not any profit in this, okay? So I'll take a look at what I call their bucket and I'll start pointing out all the holes in

[00:12:01] their bucket. So everyone says they don't have any profit in this. Well, I guess in the back of my mind, I go, well, why are you in business if you can't make any money? People really answer that at that point because they're too deep. Exactly. Exactly.

[00:12:13] So what I'm going to do is say, well, I can change all that. I mean, you talk about pricing value drive. You talk about cost of goods, right? There's a lot of things that are not addressing because why they're in it doing it every day

[00:12:25] trying to get next Friday. So they can't look at how can I buy in volume or get there or deal with a different distributor or what is my production actually doing? What is there some upfront cost to automate some more of that in, I get a great ROI

[00:12:38] in six, eight, 10 months and then from there is pure, right? So that's what they don't, they're not unable to do. So we have to address that. So we have to look at that and really say, okay, I can take a look at this and see these issues.

[00:12:50] We have to begin with that, right? But we really have to back up and say, well, what is the actual vision of the business? Where are you going? Where do you want to go with this, right? Because again, we talked earlier about starting with the end of mind.

[00:13:04] If you don't know where you're going to go, if I'm in New York and I want to go to California, the only thing I know is to go west. If I don't have a map, I'm in the direction I may eventually get there, but I'm going

[00:13:15] to be up and down the country on this road in a mountain stuck in mud, all that stuff. Not even know maybe not even have the right vehicle to go, right? So we have to decide that first.

[00:13:23] So there is some back stepping to do with guys who are so into it. So you can uncover this stuff for them and they can see it so they can now start to go okay now because they can say they don't have money Tom.

[00:13:34] And we all done this, right? I bet you there's no one listening who's never been over their budget. Of course. Okay, so we've all done that. But what we have to do just like he has to do with his mugs, we have to create value.

[00:13:45] I have to create value. What kind of value do I bring to the table to warrant X amount of dollars to have me coach? Right? If it's the same as putting out a mid-level to low-level employee for a year, if

[00:13:58] I'm the same cost, well, if I had someone working, they'd do some work. But would they systemize my business? Would they get my profit up? Would they give me a lower cost of goods? Would they do all of that? And then they're done.

[00:14:11] They're not going to do that, right? So we have to build value. So I think that's what it really comes down to. Okay. So you've got a book out. I did. And what is the name of the book? It's named Escape the Owner Prison. Okay.

[00:14:27] So basically what you're saying is that everything that we've covered so far most likely is in the book but more important than that. If anyone within the sound of my voice can actually hear and see, you are in business and there is at least probably, I would say,

[00:14:42] and you can agree with me, there's a really high probability that you have problems. Most businesses do. Most businesses have problems and many of the owners cannot even see that they have problems. They don't even know they have problems.

[00:14:56] They just know that they are making their widget and they come and they go and they make their widget and they go, well, you know, cash flows tight this month and that is an acceptable thing. Is that an acceptable thing? Yes or no? Oh, never. Of course.

[00:15:09] It's never but yet they're satisfied. So anyone who's listening should get this book. Read the book but more so get in contact. How do they find you? Sharpandthespearcoaching.com. Sharpandthespearcoaching.com that is. Sharpandthespearcoaching.com. Sharpandthespearcoaching.com and I said it three times therefore it gets in your head

[00:15:35] and you don't forget it so you go to the damn website and you get in contact because the reality is you have problems you cannot see. They are there. If you are someone who sits there every single week and goes, you know, cash flows tight.

[00:15:49] Ah, I'm having some stride, you know, we're having a struggle with this or you know, I'm running out of inventory or I've got too much inventory. I can't get sales going. Any of these problems get the outside help. Richard is your guy. Sharpandthespear.com.

[00:16:04] Richard, do you have any parting thoughts? Let me make them a let me give them a gift, a parting gift. I like that. Go ahead. If they go to sharpandthespearcoaching.com and they mentioned Brent's hand leashed, that's where you heard me.

[00:16:17] I will give you a free copy of the book on audio. Excellent. Thank you for that. My guests, by all means take it. And I'm reading it so you get to hear me for a couple more hours. How about that? It is a sultry voice. Absolutely.

[00:16:32] Richard, thank you so much for joining the program. I really appreciate you jumping on providing some excellent insight. It was actually a great pleasure to talk to you and I think that I am interested possibly collaborating with you on some projects

[00:16:43] future just based on the things we've talked about. So thank you again for joining us. Absolute pleasure. Thanks, Tom. And you bet.