Peaceful Profits Podcast Ep. 40 - How To Work Yourself Out Of Your Business
Synopsis:
Most entrepreneurs believe freedom comes from sales scripts, hustle, or clever marketing tactics. But as Mike Shreeve reveals in this Peaceful Profits episode, the real secret to creating a business that serves your life—not the other way around—is systems.
In this training, Mike breaks down:
Why every entrepreneur already has systems (even if they’re accidental and destructive).
The “4-Week Vacation Test” to measure whether you own a business—or just a stressful job.
Two simple ways to instantly improve your systems: capturing what you do now and buying proven systems from others.
The five primary growth engines that must have solid systems:
- Finances
- Sales & Marketing
- Operations
- Offers
- Team & Leadership
Why leadership and people systems—not funnels or hacks—are often the missing key to true freedom.
Mike explains how to strip away unnecessary processes, double down on what really drives results, and finally create a business you could walk away from—without everything collapsing.
Transcript:
How To Work Yourself Out Of Your Business
[00:00:00] Hello, my friends. Hope you're doing well. Mike Shreeve here. Let's jump right into it. I want to talk today about getting you to a point in your business where you have put yourself in your zone of genius, where the majority of the work that you don't like is either completely gone from your business, somebody else is handling it, or it has been automated in some other way.
And you are able to exit your business at any time, whether that's permanently exiting your business, so selling it for a large sum, or periodically exiting your [00:00:30] business. For example, taking long extended breaks say big vacations, and actually being able to unplug. Or, by doing what I really prefer, which is to have very unusual work timings or work schedules.
For example, taking a four day weekend. Every single weekend working only, a certain portion of a certain day at a certain time. In other words, a business that works around your life rather than trying to make your life work around your business. Now the real key and secret to that, it's not the [00:01:00] marketing, it's not the stuff that the gurus are trying to tell you in terms of, if you just have the right sales script, you'll be able to have a business that creates quote unquote freedom.
The actual secret to flexibility, to purposeful lifestyle design within the mechanism or within the vehicle of business ownership really comes down to your systems. Your systems. Now, what do we mean by systems? Really, it just simply means how you do things. [00:01:30] That's all systems means. I think sometimes, we read a lot of really interesting and good books, and we hear people use the word system, and we think it's this really big, complicated thing that only really smart types can figure out, and you have to be very boring, and you have to be very linear, and you have to be very left brain.
And the reality is that systems is just a way to describe, for most entrepreneurial SMBs, small businesses it's simply just how you do the things that you [00:02:00] do. Now the real big quote unquote secret of systems is that we all have them in our business now, whether we design them to be that way on purpose.
or we accidentally fell into that system. So let me give you some examples. An example of an accidental system is the cause and effect or the reactive process that so many people use to [00:02:30] drive growth. For example, they do a lot of prospecting, they do a lot of marketing because they see their business, sorry, their bank account getting smaller and smaller.
So they're reacting to that. You could call it a trigger or that input and their reaction is to then go and do a bunch of marketing and selling and then when they start to get the inflow of clients what happens they React to that trigger or input by putting their foot on the brake a little bit and starting to do the fulfillment And etc.
[00:03:00] Now most people who live in that world would say I don't have a system I'm the least organized person you've ever met and it feels frenetic and it feels chaotic and it feels wild But the reality is That is the system. It's a habitual system. It's a system based off of the lizard brain. It's fear and reaction and impulse and oftentimes you'll see people work three days straight and then crash and burn for two weeks.
That, that is a system. It's not a very good one. It's not one that was well [00:03:30] designed or designed on purpose, but it is a system because it happens again and again. And remember when we say system, what we're really thinking of is it's the way things are done in that person's business. So the first thing I recommend everybody do is just stop for a second and look at what systems you actually currently have in your business that you didn't even design.
So think about that for a second. There are ways that you do things in your business which you've done [00:04:00] habitually or you've done just because they happen to be the way that you've done them before. It doesn't mean they're the smart way and oftentimes if you actually stop and practice a little bit of mindfulness in the sense of observing what's going on around you, you can find that some of the systems, some of the habits, some of the reactions, some of the impulse that you engage in is actually quite destructive.
So you are following a system, or following a way of doing something, Which is quite bad for you, for the people who work with you, [00:04:30] for your clients. And it can in fact be the thing that is keeping you stuck. It might not actually be your sales and marketing. It might not be your fulfillment. It might not be the financials or the pricing or the etc.
It might just be the system, aka the way that you do things. Now one of the So that's just something to consider. We could go on for hours just talking about the difference between systems we design on purpose versus systems that we've just fallen into. Now, clearly and obviously, [00:05:00] my recommendation is always to be aware of the systems, And to start purposefully designing your biggest ones, right?
So the ones that you spend the most time engaged in or living in. So if you spend most of your time doing sales and marketing, it's really time to purposefully design a sales and marketing system, aka way of doing things, that includes Your decision making system, your reaction system, your [00:05:30] policies, your et cetera, et cetera.
And you don't have to be an expert in systems creation to massively improve your current way of doing things if the majority of your time or the majority of your systems were not purposefully designed in the first place. Because what I have found to be true, in looking now in thousands of businesses over the past 15 years, is that the majority of people who are operating systems that they just fell [00:06:00] into are operating really poorly designed systems.
Because they didn't design it on purpose. So it's an accidental system, which means there's inefficiencies, there's incorrect procedures, and et cetera, et cetera. You can, I think you can see this, you can probably even feel it actually, if you really think about how you're running your business.
There's another way to consider and put your business under a microscope, and to ask yourself, do you have good enough systems for what you [00:06:30] deserve, right? Because if Systems are the way that we do things. And you are out there sacrificing time, money, energy, resources, etc. to be an entrepreneur, especially if you're an entrepreneur in the help industry.
So your sacrifices aren't just to acquire money, but it's literally to help other people do something, whether you're a professional, freelancer, agency, coach, consultant, If that is the career path that you have chosen and you are out there sacrificing, [00:07:00] then the way you do things, the systems within your business dictate the life you live as the business owner, because it's the way you do things.
And there are stressful ways to do things and peaceful ways to do things. There are fun ways to do things and there are miserable ways to do things, which again, means that sometimes the problem in your business isn't sales and marketing, isn't fulfillment, isn't all these other things that are so shiny and bright and, we [00:07:30] want that to be the problem because it seems easy.
Sometimes the problem in your business is that the way you do things is not the way you should be doing things or the way you want to be doing things or the way you could be doing things. And so one very quick and micro bite or to be fair, a little bit of a slap in the face test that you can use on yourself right now is to ask yourself this very simple question.
If tomorrow you were forced to take a four week [00:08:00] vacation, completely unplugged from your business, Completely unplugged. You could only do it tomorrow. What would happen to your business? Would it grow? Would it stay the same? Or would it essentially start nosediving or completely collapse? And when we say your business, there are a couple of things to look at.
Would your income grow, stay the same, or collapse? Would your client results grow, stay the same, or decline and [00:08:30] collapse? Would the financial health of your business grow, decline, or collapse, which is different than your income because, for example would your reserves be completely gone? Do you even have reserves?
Would your, et cetera, et cetera, right? Things like your pipeline. Would the pipeline be full when you got back? from your four week forced vacation? Or would you have to completely start over from scratch and start remarketing and et cetera, et cetera. So you could go through and nearly every element of your business, your team, would your team grow, stay the same?
Or would everyone start [00:09:00] quitting? Would everyone start leaving? Would they start no longer, working? Et cetera, et cetera. So every single element of your business, you can test against this very simple concept of what would happen if tomorrow you were forced to take a four week vacation. Now, that's an interesting thought experiment, and it's easy to brush off and say I don't really want to take a four week vacation, right?
How many entrepreneurs have convinced themselves that they don't actually want to take a break? But let's get a little bit more serious. And I know this is gonna sound a little silly [00:09:30] to be talking about in a, random online training thing, right? However, it is real. It is very real. And the situation is this, if tomorrow you got so sick that you could not work for the next four weeks, or if someone you loved got so sick, injured, etc, that for the next four weeks you could not work, you didn't have the mental space, you didn't have [00:10:00] the ability, you couldn't access it, etc, what would happen to your business?
Now, I know that there's probably some people listening to this right now, that has actually happened to them. And it isn't always a negative thing, right? So I'll give you an example. About one week ago, from the time of me recording this, my operations director had a baby. So think of it this way.
One second, everything's cool, we're all doing our business, running our systems. Late at night, [00:10:30] we get the text, we get the, Hey, heads up, I'm headed to the hospital. And then all of a sudden, we found out very quickly if our systems within her role could pass. The four week vacation test. Now, granted, her vacation is maternity leave, so it's not really vacation, if, for those of you who have ever had a baby before, it's quite a lot of work.
But she's gone for at least four weeks. And so we were put under the, that test. Now, luckily, we've been doing this for so long we've got this stuff locked in, and we're able to do that [00:11:00] for our team because of, what, the way that we do things, a. k. a. the systems. So it doesn't always have to be negative that this could happen to you.
There's lots of wonderful things in life that require us to step away from our business. But the idea is that if you cannot right now take a four week vacation, completely unplugged from your business. then you don't have a business. You have a job, it might be a very high paying job, it might be a wonderful job, you may feel like you own a [00:11:30] business, but in my book, the way that I see things, the stuff I've been through for 15 years, if you cannot step away from your business for four weeks, if you cannot go unplugged, if you cannot focus on the things that are important, the things that are real, the things that you need to take care of as a business owner for four weeks without your business collapsing, you do not own a business.
And I think that there's a lot of talk in the business world about hustle, and there's a lot of very loud voices that claim [00:12:00] the virtues and the values of hustle. And don't get me wrong, there's a time and place to work really hard. But what is the point of working that hard if you can't step away whenever you want to?
Okay, so let me make two more points here before we dive into something really special that I want to talk about in this training. The first thing that I want to say is That there can be a feeling of overwhelm when we talk about systems because there's this assumption again that There is a right way to do something or there, and everything [00:12:30] else is wrong There's only one right system and I want you to consider two different ways to quickly add Better systems to your business because remember you already have systems They may not have been ones that you design but it's the system that you've been using to get to where you are today There's two ways that you can improve your systems dramatically, and they're very easy to implement.
Number one is just capture what you do right now. I'm not a big handbook guy. [00:13:00] I don't think that most companies at the seven figure level need to invest a significant amount of time into developing huge documents and, doing these things that corporate companies have to do and should do, and making employee handbooks and all that kind of stuff, because look, I've been doing this long enough.
Number one, the majority of the people who work for seven figure companies They don't even look at it. If you've ever gone down the road of creating these big, [00:13:30] lengthy documents and all this kind of stuff, handbooks, people don't use it, they don't read it, they don't consume it, and partially that's because the entrepreneur gives it to them and says, read it, memorize it, and then we'll never talk about it again.
So there's an issue there of, Most of the people who create them don't actually use them in the proper way to manage people, which is being the chief reminding officer and constantly reminding people to review something. And then the people who typically work in entrepreneurial companies, they're working for you because they don't want to go work for a big corporate company, right?
So they're not really into that kind of thing. And so I'm not a big handbook guy. [00:14:00] Instead, what I prefer to do, and I first learned this from Mike Michalowicz and a couple of others, is instead of sitting down and going through that very boring process of how am I Just capture what it is that you do.
It can be as simple as just writing down a day in your life. It can be as simple as turning on loom or screencast o matic and talking out loud while you write a piece of copy. Go through your thoughts. Explain why you do it this way. Explain why you [00:14:30] put your subject line like this and why you have your call to action there and things like that.
Record yourself going through your customer service emails. Record yourself interacting with other people. I'll give you an example. Our team, we are able to take closers, for example, sales closers, and run them through about a day and a half of training, and they're able to close on their first couple of calls.
Above industry average where a lot of people are onboarding [00:15:00] sales teams and it takes them weeks to get their closers Set up for success And the reason is we've just recorded all of our best calls and we say listen to these calls do that on the calls You'll be able to close sales. So it's an example just capturing the system and then we house it somewhere now Creating that is good, obviously because now you have something but what's even more important than that To me is yes.
Okay. So now we have these sales calls. Of course, we can give them to our sales team, but as a team, myself as the entrepreneur, whose job is to work on [00:15:30] the business, not in the business, I can actually listen to those calls. For example, I can watch the sales people in action. And because we have captured it, I can think about it because I have a recording and I'm teaching someone or talking someone through it on loom while I'm doing my customer service emails or whatever.
I can think about, is this really the best way to do it? We might actually need to do it a little bit differently. So much of what we Do as an entrepreneur and so much of what gets us in [00:16:00] trouble So much of why we end up with these systems that we don't actually like is because we've never had the opportunity We've never taken the time to stop and look at what we are doing.
I Look, we help people build systems. And so I'm definitely incentivized to say hey work with us We'll help you build and build your systems, but I'm gonna tell you the reality you can make unbelievable headway and incredible progress And you don't need to spend any money. You don't need to go read another book [00:16:30] You don't need to go buy another coaching program.
All you really need to do to make a burst of incredible Progress when it comes to systems is to record what you do And then think about it. You're smart. Probably, when you're being objective. And non overly emotional in terms of your response or hanging on to something too long, right? The old writer's axiom, kill your darlings, which is to say, just because it's something that you've done for a long time, that's actually not a good reason to keep doing it.
[00:17:00] Things like that. Now, obviously, will that take you all the way? Maybe not, but you can make tremendous strides now for free just by capturing what you do. And then analyzing it yourself. And pretending like you are, somebody hired you to fix their system. And being that objective about it. Okay, so that's the first thing, is capturing the systems.
That's a very easy way to instantly gain better systems in your business, better ways of doing things. Capturing than analyzing. And then number two, this is personally [00:17:30] my favorite, is just buying someone else's system. Buying someone else's system. A lot of people go into group coaching programs, they go into high ticket programs, they join masterminds, they do all these things, they invest all this money because they want to develop skills.
I buy masterminds, I buy group coaching, I get help from other people because I want their systems. Remember, what does system mean? How do they do it? That's all I'm [00:18:00] buying. I want to buy it, I want to take it and I want to put it into my business. Now I'm not saying plagiarizing. I'm not saying stealing.
What I'm saying is, for example, if I go buy someone's how to have excellent customer service in your business. And they use a tracking sheet, and they say in their program, this is the tracking sheet you should use, what do you think I'm going to do? I'm going to say, team, this is the tracking sheet now that we're using.
Because someone, this person that I bought from, has gone through the [00:18:30] struggle and the effort and brought their expertise to what? Creating a tool, a way of doing things, that we can either add to our system, replace an existing system, improve a system, or create that system for the first time. So many of the people who come in to our various programs and group coaching and things like this I just encourage them just use the system.
We've been doing this for 15 years You can go and try and figure it out yourself Nothing wrong with that or you can just take [00:19:00] our system. So there's again, like I said, there's two ways to really quickly change your system, change the way you do things for the better. One is to capture, observe, and analyze, and the other one is just to buy someone else's system that already exists.
It's, when you compare it to the ROI, so life with a bad system, life with an amazing system, the expense is unbelievably low for the ROI you get When buying [00:19:30] someone else's system that you can add to your particular business Okay, so now what I want to talk about here Actually, I'm gonna say one more thing when you are looking at systems Sometimes it's easy to just keep adding them to your business and the problem with Continually adding after adding after adding is that too many systems create chaos and Right?
We know that's true. When too much is going on, there's chaos. But there's something [00:20:00] else that a lot of people don't think of when they keep adding things to their business, which is Your business is only as strong as the weakest link in the chain. So if you think of every system in your business, every way that you do something, of all the things that you do, as the ring in a chain, and they're each connected, and you're trying to pull this big thing called a business with that chain.
If you know anything about, sort of basic mechanics, [00:20:30] the Strength of the chain is only equal to the weakest link because that link is the thing that will snap. And so one of the keys, especially if you're looking at systems to help you scale, is actually, one of the keys to system design, is to get into the habit of removing systems.
For example, everyone else wants to keep adding cool, bright, shiny things to do. My obsession is constantly asking, what can we get [00:21:00] rid of? What can we stop doing? It's not about how big can I make the team and how many things can I do and da, etc. It's more, at least for me, in the way that I do things.
things, it's more about looking for the most simple path forward using the 80 20 approach, knowing that 80 percent of our revenue comes from 20 percent of the things we do, knowing that 80 percent of our problems come from 20 percent of the clients, knowing that 80 percent of the joy and happiness we experience in our business comes from 20 percent of the activities.[00:21:30]
And just using that as the guideposts to essentially nurture the winners. So nurture those systems that bring incredible results. And then. Just turning off all the losers turning off the things that don't contribute like we had hoped that they would just this week Incredible it was like two people involved in this project that we were doing in our company And we had been running it for about six and a half months and they were incredible people wonderful amazing They were very [00:22:00] time focus and resource heavy and the results they were bringing were significantly less than the few things that we had been focusing on.
And about a week and a half ago, I had to make that terrible, horrible decision, but I had to reduce that system from our ecology of systems. I had to remove that chain from, or that link from the chain, so that the chain overall could be more powerful, it could be stronger, it could pull more, etc. So these are the things to think about when you're thinking about, [00:22:30] how do I take a four week vacation?
This is the stuff. Okay, now I want to say one more thing, because I love systems, they're incredible, but I think sometimes we need reminders about what actually grows a business and we need to be able to clearly see the reality of what it is that we're doing, how we're living, et cetera. So there are five primary growth engines in any business, okay?
There are just five. These five primary growth engines all have [00:23:00] systems within them. So what I want to do is I want to tell you what these five are. I want to share with you the symptoms of these growth engines. having problems. Okay. And then I want to share with you what it's like a day in the life when you have each individual system in place.
This is again, one of those things that you can compare your own business against to check to see where you're at, where you fall, what you should be working on, what you should be focusing on and prioritizing. Okay. Five primary growth engines. [00:23:30] The first primary growth engine is your financial growth engine.
Symptoms of a broken system within the growth engine of finances and financial strategy could be as follows. You have ebbs and flows in the amount of cash that's in your bank account to such a degree that it creates stress. So for example, you sometimes have too much month at the end of [00:24:00] your money. You sometimes have to lay people off, not because of any other reason, then you can no longer afford them.
Even though, say, a month or two before, you absolutely thought you could, and you were convinced that you could afford them. A month or two later, it turns out that you can't. Another example would be, you don't have money. three to six months of cash reserves and you struggle to be able to get it even though you know you should have it.
Another example might be your tax situation is a hot mess and all of the issues that [00:24:30] can arise and come from that. These are all very stressful, difficult confusing, distracting, resource draining issues and they're all symptoms of poor financial systems. poor financial systems. Now, what is life like when you have systems in the world of finances really buttoned up and well designed and designed purposely?
Number one, you are able to [00:25:00] comfortably and easily project finances. In other words, you have an accurate way to know What you can actually afford and what you will actually make into the future. Another example would be you have three to six months of cash saved for the operation of your business. So that if for three to six months you weren't able to Make any sales whatsoever, you could still keep the same [00:25:30] team, you could still keep servicing your clients, and you would be okay.
And by the way, at the time of this recording, there's a lot of talk about recession, financial pressures, etc. If you don't have your three to six month cash reserves, emergency fund, whatever you want to call it, if you don't have it now, I would recommend doing everything you can to get it. Because having it is a peace of mind that you can't even begin to fully grasp until you actually have it.
It essentially makes you bulletproof. A [00:26:00] client goes off the rails and starts saying blah blah blah blah blah and demands a refund and all that kind of good stuff, you have three to six months of cash reserves. Team, for whatever reason, You want to grow it, you want to shrink it, you want to change, whatever you want to do with team, three to six months of cash reserves in the background allows you to make decisions based off of something other than money.
Now think about that for a second. Many of you listening to the sound of my voice have lived so much of your entrepreneurial life making [00:26:30] all of your decisions based off of just the money. What will this do for me financially? How much money will I make from this? How is this going to affect my bottom line?
And that is. While it is an effective survival tool for helping you to keep your business running and growing, that is not the highest level of running a business. And when highest, most enjoyable, Driven by joy, driven by purpose, driven by mission, driven by vision, doing things [00:27:00] because you want to do them, not just because you have to do them because it brings in revenue, et cetera, et cetera.
Now understand, I'm not saying that someday you get to a point where you just do things, even if they cost you every penny that you've ever had. No, you still have to keep, you still have to keep a strong financial foundation, but having three to six months of cash reserves, that's very different than what most people are living.
They have maybe three to five days of cash reserves. And they're having to live that particular life. And I know that because I've gone through it like every single business owner does. Until I changed my systems, that was the [00:27:30] life I lived, just like everybody else. Another example of financial systems in place, taxes.
You are properly taxed, and you are paid at the level that you're supposed to be. Or you're paid to current, right? And when I say properly taxed, I mean based off of your approach to taxes, and you have CPAs, and you have financial people who can tell you all this money that you're making, what to do with it, how to turn it into more money, how to take care of it, how to protect it, how to turn it into legacy, et cetera, and et cetera.
How to protect yourself from over taxation, and all of that stuff is part of [00:28:00] having a financial system in place. Okay, so that's just one of the five primary growth engines. And you can see, just working on that one, how much it can change what? The way you do things. And what happens when you change the way you do things?
You change the way you live within the vehicle called business. Three to six months of cash flow, even if you don't have great systems elsewhere, you could take a four week vacation, even if it meant your sales went [00:28:30] down. Do you see it? I'm not recommending that, but even just fixing one of these fives gets you so much closer to this idea of an exitable business, of a business that doesn't consume your entire life all of the time.
All right, next growth engine is sales and marketing. So here's some symptoms of sales and marketing systems that aren't working correctly. One, you don't actually like who you're working with. Now that might not seem like a systems thing, but it is because it means that the way That you're [00:29:00] selling and marketing yourself is attracting the wrong type of people.
It means that you are putting a signal out there in the way that you put it out there that is telling the people you don't want to be telling to come do business with you. We talk a lot about the sales environment. That's just a system. And a really quick recap, the sales environment is basically when somebody shows up on a call, what is the environment that you've created?
What's the power dynamic? Who is chasing who? Who gets to set the price? Who's [00:29:30] moving towards the sale? Are you dragging people to a sale? Or are they walking themselves into the sale? Are you able to hold, and I don't mean power and like trying to lord it over people, but Are you begging them to be a client?
Or are they showing up and you're just trying to figure out if they would be a good fit to work together? These are all results of systems. If you have ups and downs in your lead flow. So some months you have tons of leads, some months you have no leads. That's a systems problem. Can you afford the leads that you're bringing into your business?
[00:30:00] That's a systems issue with sales and marketing systems. Are you able to attract marketing and sales team members so that you're not doing it all yourself all the time? That's a sales and marketing systems issue. So when you're able to Achieve strong, solid systems, ways of doing things in sales and marketing.
You should have a steady and consistent flow of new business, new leads, new opportunities that you can easily afford. So you're not struggling with cash. So your cost to acquire your [00:30:30] cost per sale is absolutely affordable. And then your ability to sell those individuals. And making sure they're the right individuals is something that you are comfortable with.
You like the people that are coming into your business. These are just a few examples. Again, we could probably break down each one of these into four or five hour discussions breaking down the very specifics of each of them. But just think about what I said here. We're talking about sales and marketing and be honest with yourself here.[00:31:00]
If you don't like the people that you're working with. If you can't actually afford how much it's costing you to land clients, whether it's costing you all of your time or it's costing you a bunch of money, if you are constantly the one begging to close a sale because the power dynamics aren't there, the sales environment isn't there, if you're experiencing ebbs and flows of lots of leads and then no leads, what is the state of your life [00:31:30] in that environment?
Set of systems. Now remember, they may be poor systems, but they're still systems. It's the way that you do things. Obviously you're going to be really stressed out. Now imagine the flip side. Leads come in every day, you can afford them, you like who you're talking to, that you're not begging them, they're showing up and you're trying to figure out if they're a good fit.
No ups and downs, everything's pretty consistent. What do you think the state of living in that collection of systems is? pretty peaceful, [00:32:00] pretty doable, pretty manageable, pretty predictable. Yeah, you can take a couple days off whenever you want completely unplugged. The system is in place. Okay. So we had financial growth engine.
Now we have sales and marketing growth engine. Next we have the operations growth engine. Now operations is a pretty big catch all for me in the way that I look at it, but it's everything from, are your contracts in place? Are you legally protected from Whoever comes into your business To [00:32:30] are your team members being properly cared for?
Do you have? Systems captured collected documented. We like to put customer service under operations and fulfillment under operations So the people who buy your stuff are they being properly cared for? Again, I think probably at this point I don't necessarily need to do the breakdowns of symptoms and what life is like I think you probably can begin to see when you don't have these things in place How difficult life is Now hopefully by me doing this [00:33:00] breakdown.
You can see specifically which areas you need to work on a lot of people a lot of people interestingly They're experts at what they do. They're very good at helping other people and Parts of operations they are brilliant at their fulfillment is strong They can absolutely Give their clients the white glove treatment their clients love them.
It's incredible, But it is entirely dependent on them. And this is where for so many in the help [00:33:30] industry, you have to make a critical shift to start capturing. How it is that you do what you do and to start your pathway towards being exitable Now we had a question the other day in one of our groups the person said look I get it Mike Fantastic good for you.
You work like a day or two a week and you have this big fancy business. That's wonderful But I actually like engaging with my clients and I like being a part of that does that mean I have to Completely be exitable if I want to be happy my business and my answer is Of course not [00:34:00] what you do have to do though is understand what your zone of genius is and work systems that put you there Some people for some people their zone of genius is working with the clients For some people that is the thing that they are the best at the thing that they're so powerful at The thing that is a compelling reason to buy is to because you get to work with that particular individual But there is a whole host of other stuff in a business that has to occur Sales and marketing, financial, all the operations, the day to [00:34:30] day, etc.
This idea of a four week vacation is not just about completely removing yourself from the business. It is about getting yourself to a point where you are doing the things that you bring the highest value in. And then making sure the systems run everything else. And then also making sure that if something were to happen to you, the thing that you bring the highest value in isn't limited by direct involvement.
In other words, if you were to take a few weeks off, would all of your [00:35:00] clients just fly away? That's a problem. It's a very serious problem. So creating, designing, systems, etc. to make sure that happens. Okay, so that's operations. Next we have offers. So again, we'll just do a very brief run through on this.
I think this audio's been plenty long and hopefully the point has been driven home. But offers is one of the five primary growth engines. What kind of offers do you have? And do those offers, A, actually give you the margin that you want, right? A lot of people have [00:35:30] offers that are selling, but it isn't making them the kind of money they thought it would make them.
They can't actually afford running that particular offer, but they keep running it because it's selling. That's a way of doing things, that is a silly way of doing things. That is a system, that is a silly system. And that's why I put offers as one of the primary growth engines, why there's systems within offers.
So that's one example. It's maybe not giving you the margin. Maybe the offer itself is what is attracting the kind of people you don't want to work with. Maybe the [00:36:00] offer is, maybe you don't have enough offers. So you don't have a system for getting people a result, finding out what their new problems are now that this result has occurred, and then giving them the solution to the new problem.
I'll give you an example. If I make you a ton of money, guess what you have now? A ton of money and new problems. What are you gonna do with that money? How are you going to turn that money into, how are you going to save that money from being just overly spent or taken away? How do you turn it into legacy?
How do you or, I'll give you another example let's say I help you [00:36:30] to build a funnel, and you run that funnel, and it's bringing you so many leads that you now need to, what? Hire a sales team. So I got you a great result, you have so many phone calls, but now you have a new problem, you need people to take all those phone calls, and et cetera, et cetera.
Offer design is the same thing as saying purposeful design of systems around what it is that you do. Again, going back to the idea of, are you the only person fulfilling? That's a systems choice. The fact that you are the only one fulfilling on your offers is a choice that you made [00:37:00] when you design the system of, for this offer, here is how we are going to do it.
This is the way that we do things. And et cetera. Again, we could go on for hours on each of these. Okay, last one here and then we'll wrap up, I promise. Team and leadership. Team and leadership. What is the process that you use to attract people into your business, not just as clients and prospects and customers, but what is the process you use to attract the top [00:37:30] team available?
What are the systems for leadership? How do you measure whether or not someone is performing? How do you know when to fire someone? How do you know when to hire someone? How do you know if someone's doing a good job relative to what could be the worst? being accomplished by someone else in your business.
How do you grow people within your organization on purpose? And et cetera. I know [00:38:00] a lot of entrepreneurs who have no systems around hiring and it's why they experience such dramatic churn. I have people on my team who have been with me since 2011. I've been doing this since 2007, hired my first team members in 2010.
Since 2011, I've had some of the same core team members. It's a point of pride of mine that I was lucky enough that early on in my entrepreneurial growth to realize that most [00:38:30] default systems That people have around hiring. Remember systems is just the default way of doing things. We can replace systems with way of doing things.
The default way that most people hire or interact with hiring or think about hiring or think about people coming into their business is unbelievably poorly designed. The default way That most people, the default system that most people have when it comes to hiring team, leadership, development, et [00:39:00] cetera, is unbelievably poor.
You look at financials, you look at sales and marketing, you look at offers, you look at operations. A lot of that is fairly intuitive, meaning common sense and you're there, right? That's why I say you can make massive, drastic improvements in your systems by just measuring them, capturing them, observing them, and then using common sense to improve them.
Hiring for most people, especially if they've been employees before, is unbelievably [00:39:30] counterintuitive. It is counterintuitive, which means by definition, if you have not purposefully sat down to design smart hiring, firing, leadership, training, et cetera, strategies for sorry, systems, not strategies, systems in your business, ways of doing that stuff.
It's very likely that you are currently operating a highly inefficient, perhaps damaging, certainly Limiting system in your [00:40:00] business today, and that's something to be concerned about. I'm not gonna sugarcoat it Business is people The sooner you learn how to get other people behind your vision the sooner your life is going to be Much more desirable to live I can tell you right now The key to taking a four week vacation the key to being able to take four to five days off every single week The key to being Unbelievably Lucky in the schedule that I have the key to being able to totally Turn things [00:40:30] off turn your internet off No one can contact you and your business still grows.
Your clients are still well served Everything when you come back from that time period is still going well and things have improved and maybe even things have happened Without you and there's they're introducing initiatives and innovation is occurring and etc. That's all people You That's all team.
That's all leadership. It's not a fancy sales and marketing tactic. [00:41:00] It's not even a financial tactic except that the finances have to be there to be able to support the people. Team and leadership is what most entrepreneurs need for the dream they're trying to achieve. Let me say that one more time.
Team and leadership for most entrepreneurs is the thing. It is the piece. It is the key to unlock what it is that they're trying to achieve. It's [00:41:30] not a funnel type. It's not a sales script. It's not a secret underground way to crush your opponents and make all that. It is team and people and almost more than any of the other five growth engines.
The quality of your system. dictates the quality of the output. Now, every one of these growth engines, that's true. How good your financial system is, it's going to be reflected in how good your [00:42:00] finances are, how good your sales and marketing systems are will show up in how good your sales and marketing ends up being for you and et cetera, et cetera.
But more than more, there's almost a higher emphasis on the quality of systems required in team and leadership because. The systems you have to support the team dictate who is on your team. And who is on your team dictates what your team can [00:42:30] accomplish. A real life example. If you're a hot mess, you don't know how to take care of people, you don't know how to properly onboard them, train them, incentivize them, reward them, Give them pathways to growth and help them to discover their why, attach their why to your role etc.
If you don't know how to do that, you don't have the systems in place, the good people will come and they'll leave and the only people who'll stick around are the people who you don't want to stick around. And so then you have a team full of people that if you're really honest with [00:43:00] yourself, you probably shouldn't have at all.
In other words, I know it sounds terrible, it would be better if you had no team than a bad team. Because bad teams can really weigh businesses down. The expense, the change in just dealing with the everyday of having to deal with clients and bad team members and etc. Okay, as you can see, I could go on hours and hours for team and leadership, but let's wrap it up here, okay?
So in conclusion, okay, in conclusion to wrap all of this up, in [00:43:30] summary, the idea of a four week vacation is really about exposing. How well your business can support a sustainable, flexible lifestyle. It's about exposing whether or not you have a job or an actual business. And it really shines a light on how good are your systems.
Because you have systems, whether you design them or not, whether they were done on purpose or not, you have ways of [00:44:00] doing things. And so if we can Create better ways of doing things. That is the key to the freedom, flexibility, lifestyle, all the stuff that we as entrepreneurs want when we very first get started.
It's not this other stuff that everyone wants to sell us. It's the system. It's the way we do things. Specifically, the way we do our five primary growth engines. The way we do our finances, the way we do our sales and [00:44:30] marketing, the way we do operations, the way we do our offers, and the way we do team and leadership.
That is what will drive the life we live within this opportunity vehicle thing we call business. And I really would encourage you to spend some time Really meditating, really thinking about journaling, talking to people on your team, talking to your spouse, if you have one. Sometimes it can be very easy to [00:45:00] get lost in the weeds of business, not even realizing how out of balance your life is until you Have an honest conversation with your spouse and they're like, yeah, you know thank you for working so hard But it does suck that every five minutes you're on your phone And you haven't taken a vacation with us and the kids in seven years and there was that one time we went somewhere But you were on your laptop the whole time working right that conversation is uncomfortable, but it can be helpful sometimes Because it can reveal what we as entrepreneurs sometimes do which is Tell ourselves [00:45:30] very comforting lies.
One of those lies being, I can go on this forever. And that's just not how life works. There's too much in life to be experienced and that could happen to us. To be living so risky in having a business that doesn't allow us the flexibility, the freedom, the etc. to go do what we need to go do when those times in life pop up.
where we are actually needed [00:46:00] for ourselves, for others, etc. Okay, my friends, that's it. If you would like help, to set up these systems. If you would like to buy our systems and implement them into your business. If you just need to talk to someone to see what options are available, what you can do. If you've watched this or you've listened to this and you think to yourself, you know what?
I don't know where to start, I just know, generally speaking, I came away from this and I know systems is something [00:46:30] I need to do. I need to change the way I do things because the way I'm doing them now is not sustainable. It's not the freedom, it's not the flexibility. There's no way I could ever take a four week vacation.
I want somebody to help me to do that. Please do not hesitate. book a call with our team, peacefulprofits. com forward slash call. Again, that is peacefulprofits. com forward slash call. We have all sorts of options. We have do it yourself options, done for you options, done with you options, et cetera, and et cetera.
This is the kind of stuff that we love there's a reason we are called [00:47:00] Peaceful Profits I purposefully chose that name for this particular business It's not the only business that I own or run but the purpose of this business Is to help people in those five primary growth engine areas to develop the systems that allow them to position their business around their life rather than having to force their life into a business which is full of poorly designed systems.
So that's it my friends. [00:47:30] Again it's peacefulprofits.com/call. We'd love to chat with you, see what we have available to help you and assist you to do what, in my opinion, you deserve as an entrepreneur, which is to have a real business that can work without you, keep you in your zone of genius, and allow you to do good for others and for yourself.
Okay my friends, that's it, and we'll see you in the next one.