The Exchanges

Q I'm surprised more, more people didn't find it strange that you were doing everything. If you're like, wait a minute, you're telling me to build a team, and yet you don't have a team. Why, why are you telling me to build a team, but you don't have a team?

A Because if you're speaking to me from an outward perspective, you'd think that I do, because the people that I work with become part of my team, but they just contract it, as opposed to employees. So when you email me, my assistant will respond, and it's, she's responding from my company email address, But she has her own company, but within my company, she has an email account. The same for the marketing team, the same, same for my sales person who does the sales for me, the same for my copy. So I have a team. It's just not an internal team. It's an outsourced team. Whereas now I'm going to have to have at least one member of staff internally.

AI assessment note: “So I have a team. It's just not an internal team. It's an outsourced team.”

Q another business where you'd be, you know, building something that wasn't like this, right? So like after people Uh, finish one of the businesses they've, they've started. Oftentimes they want to just go and build something else. Some people will go, ah, I'm just gonna, you know, be a coach. I'm gonna, or I'm gonna be a consultant, whatever. What made you choose the latter instead of building something else?

A I have loads of business ideas. So Be The Boss is my, my main business. There are two other businesses in waiting, one which is already registered, which I'm hoping, well, I will be launching later this year, but really it, It seemed like the obvious choice because that's what people were asking me to provide. Because I'd been informally providing support, business advice, consultancy in the first business, in that interim period after selling the business and whilst doing my MBA, people were still approaching me saying, look, I know that you know how to grow a business. Can you help me do it? So kind of go where, where it makes sense to go, right? If people are asking me for this and they're willing to pay me for it and I actually enjoy it and know that I can add value, then Why not? And I think particularly with the move from she's the boss to be the boss, the idea is for it to grow beyond me just doing coaching and consultancy. And actually there's so many different, uh, elements of the business that are going to be beyond me and already have started to, to kind of be beyond me providing one-to-one support.

AI assessment note: “It seemed like the obvious choice because that's what people were asking me to provide.”

Q Why do you think it is that people have such a big problem with like building a team?

A They don't trust people. I think that's the first thing. They don't trust that anyone will be able to do as good a job as they will. And the problem with that is you're probably correct if you don't put the right things in place to facilitate them being able to do their role and to complete tasks in the way that you want them to. What people tend to do is say, I don't want to hire anyone because they're going to be rubbish and they're going to get it wrong and they're not going to be able to do it as good as me. And then after a while they get to that point, as you said, of being maxed out and being forced in a position Where they have to take on staff and then they bring them in and they don't onboard them properly. They don't have a process for supporting them. They don't manage them properly. They don't train them properly. And then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because then that person can't perform and they do do a rubbish job. And then they say, see, I knew this is what was going to happen. And they probably will get rid of that person or they'll spend months and months and months complaining to everyone that will listen that this person is not performing. Without actually ever stopping and thinking maybe the reason that they're not is because I didn't put those things in place to enable them to. I say that it's actually one of the problems that a lot of business …

AI assessment note: “They don't trust people. I think that's the first thing.”

Q if then options. If you need this, then you should do this. If you don't, then you should do that. And so it creates this kind of flowing waterfall type of a graph that helps you to figure out those things. Um, I, I think they use this in programming AI as well. So what are some other emotions that you see in the people you work with, your clients?

A One of the main emotions that I see is frustration. Frustration with themselves, frustration with their clients and customers, frustration with their team members, um, frustration with their kind of support network or lack thereof, frustration with the speed at which they're growing. I think for, for many business owners, particularly those that are quite entrepreneurial, they come up with their ideas and they expect traction immediately. And when that traction doesn't happen and they have to actually stop doing a lot of hard work, it, it gets quite frustrating. And particularly when, by the time they get to me, they've usually gone through a whole load of frustration. And now they say, look, I, they finally resigned themselves to the fact that they need help. Can you help me? And even in me helping a lot of the time that frustration continues because they want this silver bullet. They want me to kind of just jump in and say, there you go. And it's fixed. And actually, I don't operate like that. The world doesn't operate like that. It's not possible. There's a lot of things that I can recommend, but you still have to go and do them. And actually there's things that I can recommend that you may do, but it's still not going to give you an instant result overnight. And I think for a lot of, for a lot of my clients that can cause frustration until they start to see the results when…

AI assessment note: “One of the main emotions that I see is frustration.”

Q The only way you can make your clients be accountable is if someone's holding you accountable for your own things. Is there anything we haven't talked about?

A Well, you kind of just touched on it. Accountability. I think accountability is, well, not anything I know. So part of the, the growth framework that I use with my clients, I can't remember if I've mentioned it already, but it's called VISA. So vision is the start, and then innovation, strategy, systems and processes, and accountability. And accountability, I feel, and I've recognized is that missing link for so many business owners, entrepreneurs, founders, who Are working really, really hard. I come across people all the time that are working really, really hard. And as I said, are frustrated because they're not making the progress that they want. And actually all they really need is a bit of accountability because even with the vision and the plan and with the strategies, et cetera, if there's nobody checking in to make sure that you're kind of doing what needs to be done when it needs to be done, it's very easy to let life get in the way. It's very easy to let your clients push and pull you in different directions. It's very easy. To kind of got, get lost in the next shiny thing. If there's somebody that's holding you accountable and checking in and saying, well, you said you was going to do this by this point. Have you done it? It's so much more likely that you're going to get it done. And I think there's not enough business or, well, from, from my experience here, there a…

AI assessment note: “Well, you kind of just touched on it. Accountability.”

Q I hadn't heard of this, uh, Sharia compliant, uh, requirement to be quite interesting. Neither had I. Um, now What are some of the things that you find business owners are doing incorrectly when you start to work with them? Something that's almost universal.

A Universal lack of systems, lack of systemization, trying to do everything themselves all the time, um, without any kind of structure systems, documented processes, checklists, standard operating procedures, just going with the flow essentially and running around to trying to do everything and be everything without laying the foundations. And that goes across the board from Startups that have been operating for one year, all the way up to businesses that have been operating 15, 20 years. I think the business that I've worked with that's been operating the longest is about 30 years, and you'd think after 30 years they must have some form of systems, and actually they did have some systems. Were they good systems that would help them? Not really. It was a shambles behind the scenes, which is why they needed me. But they managed to get by. Now, for business owners that want to do more than get by and who also want to, to be able to have some free time and not be running themselves ragged and burning themselves out and stressing themselves out, it's really important that they have systems, uh, that they automate, that they delegate, that they outsource where appropriate, but most business owners don't. They try to do everything themselves or they hire a team And then they complain all day that the teams are not good. The staff members are not good enough. The staff are rubbish, but …

AI assessment note: “Universal lack of systems, lack of systemization, trying to do everything themselves all the time”