ABOUT THIS EPISODE
In this episode Will and Josh talk about Stage 4 of the 5 unique stages of cell phone repair business growth, “$1MM+ Business.” They also answer an audience question regarding “Should I close one of my stores since I can’t get the profit that I’m used to?”
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:
Discover how to identify what stage you or your business is in, the challenges at each stage and how to grow to the stage that you want to reach. You’ll also learn some strategies around how to overcome the challenges at Stage 4 which are your people and the business systems.
DOWNLOAD 5 STAGES INFOGRAPHIC:
AskWill+Josh 013 EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Josh: Welcome back to the Will and Josh Show, the Ask Will and Josh Show, which again the focus of this show is to ask your questions about anything and everything related to cellphone repair, so we can help you with hopefully a little bit of knowledge that we’ve accumulated throughout these decades of experience, hard on these streets with all these lumps we’ve got.
Will: Decades, it seems like that
Josh: I felt like I needed to get out that off my chest real quick, that’s why I said it.
Will: Yeah. When you said decades you really went in and emphasize decades, right? Which is cool because a lot of times we understand that’s what it takes, it takes the experience, right?
Josh: Yeah, yeah.
Will: A lot times when you’re really focused on doing something that’s significant, right? It takes time to understand how to actually do that properly.
Josh: Yeah.
Will: Right? And so, I think decades is proper. We’ve been doing it for about what? 10 years?
Josh: Yeah.
Will: I won’t say decades, but a decade.
Josh: Yeah. Well, once you pass one decade, it kind of counts as decades.
Will: You actually stop counting once you pass one decade.
Josh: I didn’t stop counting. My wife doesn’t stops counting. She reminds me the closer I get to every decade she reminds me.
Will: Same here man, same here man, yeah, it all runs together for me, but the wives should do let you know.
Josh: Oh man, it’s always a reminder between them and the kids, you’re constantly reminded. Anyway, welcome back to the Ask Will and Josh Show.
Will: Yes. My name is William Agnew.
Josh: Joshua Gray, right, your industry insiders and experts in the real estate. Oh, I just said real estate, look, I have to take that back, in the cellphone repair business.
Will: that was a fraudulent slip.
Josh: That really was in the cellphone repair industry and everything related to it.
Will: Yes, it’s all relative though.
Josh: It really is. Business is business.
Will: Business is business.
Josh: Tonight it’s a continuation of the stages of business we’ve been doing, right?
Will: Yes.
Josh: So, over this series.
Will: Yes.
Josh: And we’re actually getting to the end of it now, so it’s 5 stages and we actually turn it into 6.
Will: Right.
Josh: Stage 0 through 5, but we’ve been talking about things that owners of businesses and entrepreneurs experience at every stage of growth.
Will: Exactly.
Josh: Which is associated to problems and opportunities at each stage, right? And what we were able to do is kind of really narrow that down to some key factors, so you can identify where you’re at in your business.
Will: Absolutely.
Josh: And what that looks like.
Will: Yes.
Josh: And there are some key indicators as far as like the amount of revenue that you generate, how many people on your team, right?
Will: Right.
Josh: Different things like that.
Will: Biggest hurdles, biggest hurdles.
Josh: Yeah. Biggest hurdles and biggest opportunities.
Will: Yes.
Josh: And that’s what this whole series has been about. This has been a fun series so far by the way.
Will: It’s been great man.
Josh: It’s actually kind of cool to like go back down memory lane.
Will: Yes.
Josh: In some ways and to relate from our own experiences through the years of building these businesses.
Will: That has been the biggest thing for me.
Josh: It actually opened up my mind in a lot of ways to about new opportunities for what we’re doing today
Will: Right.
Josh: And how you could get some of those challenges and how those challenges still create opportunities in the existing business.
Will: Exactly. It’s very therapeutic.
Josh: It is.
Will: Sort of
Josh: Yeah, it is man. This has been fun.
Will: Yeah, yeah. It’s like you get reflection.
Josh: Hopefully you guys are getting value out of it.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: It’s a lot of reflection.
Will: It’s a lot of reflection.
Josh: Right? And honestly a big part of this for me and I think you’re aligned with this too is because when we were coming up building these businesses, we didn’t really have resources like this to rely on. You had to go outside of the industry.
Will: Yeah, for sure.
Josh: Right?
Will: There was no blueprint.
Josh: Zero.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: You had to go outside of the industry to find, and you know one thing I’ve realized is and I would encourage all of you is to make sure that you really do become a student of business. If you’re going to be in this, you should be a student of business so you understand all aspects of this.
Will: I would agree.
Josh: But there are some unique things inside of our industry that are different than other industries and we didn’t have resources like what we’re creating to really be able to learn from and the community go to and ask questions, and man it’s actually so cool to kind of see how this has already starting to get some steam on, it’s just, it’s awesome because we didn’t have this when we started years ago, right?
Will: I would say one thing we always talked about and this is one of our first videos that we have to do which you call the 80/20, do you remember that video?
Josh: I do remember that. It looks grainy today, because it was so old, yeah.
Will: It does. It does, the technology.
Josh: Yeah. It looked like we record it them on VHS.
Will: Right. But we call it the 80/20 and the reason why we call it the 80/20 is we were talking about the different aspects of what’s involved, and even in this space today 80% of what we do is business, right? And 20% I would say is specific to what we do.
Josh: Right.
Will: So it’s the cellphone repair part of it that’s 20%.
Josh: Right.
Will: But 80% of it is probably just the business principle.
Josh: A 100%.
Will: Right? And I would, I mean I can’t say this obviously in terms of experience, but I would say in every industry 80% of what you do no matter what you sell and what you do probably the business principles and business concepts and then 20% of it is probably specific to what that product or that service actually is.
Josh: Yeah.
Will: Would you agree?
Josh: 100%.
Will: Yeah, it’s like the 80/20 actually its taking me back on to that time when we sat in office.
Josh: I forgot about that man, that was a long time ago.
Will: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Josh: Man it’s so true though because it was the Pareto rule.
Will: Yes.
Josh: Right?
Will: Yes.
Josh: The Pareto rule of the 80/20.
Will: Right.
Josh: And it is so deep when you start to go down that rabbit hole of 80/20.
Will: Yes.
Josh: Because at the high level what you’re talking it still applies regardless of the industry you’re in, right?
Will: Yes.
Josh: And one of the problems that we see all the time is because the 20% that doesn’t get focused on is actually what will move the needle.
Will: Right.
Josh: 80% for your business.
Will: Right, exactly.
Josh: Right?
Will: Exactly.
Josh: It’s the weirdest thing.
Will: Yes.
Josh: Because you spend 80% of your time focusing on things that aren’t really going to move the needle for you.
Will: Right.
Josh: And that 20% will give you 80% of the lift that you need.
Will: Exactly.
Josh: It’s so weird man.
Will: Exactly.
Josh: And until you really get it and you put a focus and it hurts to put a focus on that.
Will: It is.
Josh: It does, because you got to take attention away from other places.
Will: Right.
Josh: But when you do that, that’s when you really start to see that
Will: Differentiation.
Josh: That differentiation, that growth and that steam starting to go in your business which is a perfect transition to talk about what we’re going to talk about tonight.
Will: So what are we talking about tonight Mr. Josh?
Josh: Yeah. So tonight we’re moving onto stage 4, right?
Will: Stage 4.
Josh: So we’ll do a real quick recap, right? So for those of you, of course make sure you go back if this is new to you haven’t heard any of the other episodes in this 5 stages of cellphone repair business growth.
Will: Yes.
Josh: Definitely go back and listen to the other stages because we do dive deep, it was good 40 minute sessions to each topic easy.
Will: Yeah. And I think that’s back over the last 4 or 5 episodes.
Josh: Yeah.
Will: Yeah, yeah.
Josh: So, we’ve been going in. Tonight we’re going to go deep into stage 4 which is a 1 million dollar plus annual revenue generating business and beyond.
Will: Right.
Josh: So, I know that a lot of our listeners are not at that stage.
Will: Right.
Josh: Right? And again we’ve identified this in the other stages, but I still would encourage you to listen to this because if it’s your goal to potentially get here what you can, right? You need to understand what the problems and opportunities are at each one of these stages, number 1, right? And number 2, it’s always about growth, it is always about growth because in business if you’re not growing you’re dying and it is the truth because there’s always going to be somebody out there that’s going to outsmart or outwork you in some way.
Will: especially in today’s environment with technology.
Josh: Yeah.
Will: It can happen ().
Josh: It can happen and you wouldn’t even see it coming.
Will: Exactly.
Josh: So, it is so important to really understand what it is that you’re trying to build, and honestly I would encourage you to build the systems even if you don’t ever care about generating a million dollars plus in your business on your annual business.
Will: Right.
Josh: And on an annual basis.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: It’s good to build the systems because at the end of the day, don’t you want your time back, right?
Will: Yes, absolutely.
Josh: Even if your business is only, you only want to hit 400 thousand a year, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to do that and then have whatever time you want to do whatever it is you want?
Will: So you mean like drink () and chill on the beach while I make 400 thousand?
Josh: You’ve been on that lately. You’ve been on this beach thing lately. I can tell it’s time for a vacation.
Will: Well, I’m just saying who wouldn’t want to make 400 thousand a year and not give away all their time.
Josh: For sure.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: It’s a sexy thing.
Will: It is.
Josh: Right? And it’s
Will: But in order to do that
Josh: You have to invest time into building systems, right? And understanding this processes throughout. So, it’s an important part of it.
Will: Yes.
Josh: So again, so I’ll do a quick stage 0 ideation.
Will: Yes.
Josh: Again, this is not an all encompassing section for this. If you want to, go back and listen to the last episodes that we had. Stage 0 is ideation, it’s just when it’s an idea, you’re trying to figure out if it makes sense for you or not.
Will: Right.
Josh: We did say that there is, and actually I think this number is small, but there’s over a hundred million businesses that are
Will: Thinking
Josh: Ideas.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: I actually think it’s bigger than that.
Will: You think it’s bigger than that?
Josh: Personally. I think there’s way more people who would think about business ideas, but never do anything about it.
Will: I think everybody thinks about that at one time.
Josh: Most people in their life at one time or another I would say have thought about starting a business.
Will: For sure.
Josh: So, there’s more than a hundred million people in the US alone.
Will: Right.
Josh: And of course this is just US statistics, this isn’t international at all.
Will: Right, exactly.
Josh: But I think it’s bigger than that.
Will: I do.
Josh: Right?
Will: Yeah, absolutely.
Josh: Stage 1, we broke into two segments, right? You have a side gig and self-employed, we call this the solopreneur or the onetrepreneur stage, because you want to be an entrepreneur and you’re trying to figure it out.
Will: Yes.
Josh: And we broke that into two stages, because what we see really is there’s the side gig economy that exists, right? I use that in Uber, but in our space it’s really like the I crack guys, right? The guys that are doing I crack or Pulse or something like this.
Will: Right.
Josh: It’s kind of a part time gig.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: Where you’re just I want to make an extra few hundred bucks.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: Now, you can be in a system like that or you can even be doing it on your own, because you know how to do a little bit or marketing and generate leads.
Will: Right.
Josh: But 0 to 4 thousand a month, usually is kind of that cap, because to go beyond that 4 thousand a month you got to invest more time.
Will: Right.
Josh: Which means you got to quit your full time gig to go full time into this. So, you take your toes out of the water and you jump all in.
Will: Right.
Josh: Right? You’ve made the commitment, and that’s the right side of the stage 1 is you are fully self-employed, it’s you on your own doing 4 to 10 thousand dollars a month and all the challenges that come with that and the excitement as well. Stage 2, you’re a new employer.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: Right? You’ve grown, now you’re doing 100 to 300 thousand dollars a year, maybe you got one partner or a lead technician that you’re like hey, I’m investing in you, I’m going to help grow, but you do help my vision grow, right?
Will: Right.
Josh: We’re going to do this together, whatever it looks like.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: Right? Contractor, however that looks. But usually it’s going to be up to about 3 people on your squad building this thing, doing 100 to 300 thousand, by the way there’s only 1.7 million of those businesses in the US.
Will: Right
Josh: So you can see how it starts to shrink.
Will: Right.
Josh: Ideation a 100 million, stage 1, 16 million, actually self-employed, full time business owners 6 million.
Will: Right.
Josh: New employers, 1.7, you see that it’s getting smaller and smaller as we go here, right?
Will: It’s significant.
Josh: Significantly smaller and smaller.
Will: Significantly, yeah.
Josh: And again there are some great opportunities and challenges in that stage, make sure you go back and listen to the last episodes.
Will: Right.
Josh: We’ll have the links below this one, so you go and check it out. Stage 3 means that you are now a consistent business.
Will: Right.
Josh: Which means that you’re consistently generating money man.
Will: Right.
Josh: You have started to figure this thing out, you’re generating leads, you’re generating sales, you actually got a little system that’s churning and burning.
Will: Right.
Josh: You’re really delivering some good value on a consistent basis to your community.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: For that you’re being rewarded for 300 thousand to a million dollars a year.
Will: Yeah. And what you’re really looking for in this particular part is how to grow that, how to market that better, so you can get more customers for your services.
Josh: Right, right. Yeah, exactly. That’s what it is and exactly. The challenges at these stages these ones, sales and marketing, leads conversions and things like that, right?
Will: Exactly, how do I ().
Josh: So, that was last week’s episode.
Will: That was last week.
Josh: Actually, it was the consistent business we really went in deep on that one.
Will: Yes.
Josh: Today, right? I gave you the slow and dirty here, but today we’re going into the stage 4, 1 million dollars plus business. So that means that you more than likely in this space you’re going to have 11 to 25 employees, it means you got a good-sized crew, right?
Will: And it depends on what you do obviously. Like if you’re in the technical space maybe not so many employees, but if you’re in a really service base
Josh: Well, it’s the cellphone repair.
Will: Yes, cellphone repair.
Josh: So, how was that not?
Will: It’s totally a service.
Josh: I mean there are different ways ().
Will: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I’m saying I just want to you guys to understand like based on the number of the employees, it could differentiate
Josh: I get your point, yeah. Because if you’re a software company you could probably do this with yourself ().
Will: Yeah. I mean we’ve seen that, we’ve seen that. We’ve seen software companies really sell and turn around and do it with ().
Josh: Right. But when you have to provide a service like we do.
Will: Yes.
Josh: Where you’re repairing devices, guess what? There’s only so much time in a day, you’re not going to do this by yourself, you have to build teams.
Will: Yes.
Josh: Right?
Will: So, you’re going to deal with more people, is what I’m saying.
Josh: Right.
Will: So that 11 or 25 people that have a million dollars a year starts to make a lot of sense.
Josh: Right.
Will: So you really have invest ()
Josh: Right, yeah. 1 to 3, right? There’s only 700 thousand of you in the US.
Will: Right.
Josh: So the numbers are shrinking significantly.
Will: Exactly.
Josh: Right? The team, this is one of the things I think is interesting at this stage, is because the team goes from a core team of we could split a pizza together.
Will: Right.
Josh: Right? So now there are multiple teams.
Will: I might not even see for a week.
Josh: Potentially.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: Potentially.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: Or even if I see you, I don’t have time to actually engage in conversation with you all the time.
Will: Which changes the dynamic totally.
Josh: Right.
Will: And you guys got to understand we really need to put an emphasis on that because being able to have a pizza with everybody in the business versus not being able to talk to everybody in the business
Josh: Yeah, you got to have multiple pizzas which means I got to bounce between meetings.
Will: Multiples pizzas.
Josh: Right.
Will: You got to have multiple pizzas.
Josh: Right.
Will: I don’t think about it that way because you got multiple pizzas.
Josh: You got to have multiple pizzas.
Will: Yeah, you got to have multiple pizzas or multiple to eat
Josh: How many slices everybody eat?
Will: or multiple to eat.
Josh: Yeah, exactly.
Will: Or multiple to eat.
Josh: Exactly. That’s how you have to do it.
Will: You got multiple to eat.
Josh: Right.
Will: Right, so you got to take that into consideration. So that growth is getting significant to the point where it really changes the dynamic about people actually communicating.
Josh: Right.
Will: That’s a big deal.
Josh: It is.
Will: In a lot of people.
Josh: Which really leads into where we see the biggest problem at this stage
Will: Right.
Josh: Is people and systems.
Will: Yes.
Josh: Right?
Will: Yes.
Josh: Which means what, right? Exactly what Mr. Williams was just saying people are actually our number one asset in any business.
Will: Right, right.
Josh: To be honest with you.
Will: Yes.
Josh: But they’re also our number one hurdle in a lot of ways because when your team starts to get bigger.
Will: Yes.
Josh: It becomes a lot more difficult to manage, right?
Will: It’s a gift and a curse.
Josh: It really is. And your skills as an entrepreneur, as a manager, as a leader have to be more focused on how you start to empower these people.
Will: Right.
Josh: Right? How can you build systems, again remember the problems are systems and people. So, how do I develop my people and empower them, and how do I create systems that allow me to manage that effectively while at the same time have systems that develop and empower them?
Will: It’s very necessary for growth.
Josh: Yes.
Will: You have to empower people to make decisions. You can’t be the person to make decisions all the time.
Josh: Right.
Will: Right? And that is so successful.
Josh: Well, they say you know like where’s the bottleneck? When you look at any bottle it’s always on the top.
Will: That’s true.
Josh: The bottleneck is always at the top.
Will: That’s true. I think that’s the first time I’ve heard that, but that is so true.
Josh: Yeah.
Will: That is so true.
Josh: Yeah.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: Sorry to cut you off, but that’s exactly what you were saying.
Will: Hence the word bottleneck, right?
Josh: Right.
Will: That’s why they call it a bottleneck, so it makes total, total sense. So yeah, I agree.
Josh: So, let’s talk about what that looks like a little bit. I think this is going to be a little bit longer of an episode because there’s a lot to get into, and again what I would encourage you is even if you’re in ideation or if you’re a stage 1 business, I really want you to listen to this because one of the things that I experienced in my life as an entrepreneur to build the businesses that we have today is the focus on people and systems became almost maniacal man.
Will: Right.
Josh: Right? Because I started to realize that that was the ticket to freedom.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: Right? When you really got good at identifying people, hiring people and these are systems, right? It’s not, you can start by doing it yourself.
Will: Right.
Josh: But these are systems that you have to create that attract people, identify them, filter them, hire them, develop them, grow them, retain them and then at the same time, right? Reward them.
Will: Right.
Josh: So, they feel like they are eating off of what they’re contributing to your growth as well, and then all of the systems outside of just the people, right? One of the biggest problems we see, me and you were just talking about this, point of sale systems like so simple
Will: Right.
Josh: But so complicated.
Will: Perceived to the so simple.
Josh: Right. Because there’s a lot of them.
Will: Right.
Josh: Right? But they’re not always the right fit, and because of that it keeps people away from them, right?
Will: Yes.
Josh: But if you dissect the meaning of the word POS, point of sale system, it’s a system. You got to choose the right one that really empowers you to be able to do what you need to do effectively as a company. So, for us as a repair business.
Will: Yes.
Josh: That means that repair has to be two things that I’ve always care about, repair, right? The repair ticketing system has to be on point.
Will: Right.
Josh: Because I got to be able to really manage what we do, right? And then inventory.
Will: Right.
Josh: Inventory has to be managed the proper way too, because we have to manage inventory in our repairs, plus as a repair store I have inventory that I sell. Those have always been the two things that I care the most about in any point of sales system.
Will: As an owner?
Josh: As an owner.
Will: Yeah, right.
Josh: As a scaling.
Will: Yes.
Josh: Right? But to go back to stage 1, I actually started identifying how to build the right point of sales system or how to identify the right point of sales system before we ever needed one.
Will: Right.
Josh: We started with a paper system.
Will: Well, I think it’s important to understand too because I think that’s a really good point, because I think if you go back and you listen to all of the stages of business, what you really begin to understand is that the principles you pick up through all of the pages are kind of a combination
Josh: They are.
Will: Of where we get to at the stage 4.
Josh: It’s Lego blocks.
Will: Right, its Lego blocks.
Josh: Right?
Will: So
Josh: Because they build upon each other.
Will: Exactly. It’s not like you hit these at stage 4.
Josh: Right.
Will: It’s you’ve picked these principles of understanding how important those things that you’re talking about are up along the way.
Josh: Right.
Will: So as you get to stage 4 now, you’ve gone through the experience and you’ve gone through the evolution of understanding how all of these principles combine, so that you can be successful at the stage 4.
Josh: Right.
Will: And I think that’s a very important concept to understand.
Josh: It’s huge.
Will: It’s not like you, it’s just stage 4, this is where all of this kind of comes together, it’s been coming together, it’s just that now it’s a combination of all of these things at one point.
Josh: Right.
Will: So that now you’re going to be successful when you have 11 to 25 employees or you’re at this point where you need multiple teams and people and systems.
Josh: Right.
Will: You’ve learned that along the way, right?
Josh: Right.
Will: Does that make sense?
Josh: Yeah, 100%.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: And at the same time, right?
Will: Yeah.
Josh: You have to grow. I’m going to tell you the thing that I see, right, through my consulting and your consulting throughout the years, the things that we’ve been doing.
Will: Right.
Josh: And in my own life, the thing that I see is a lot of time we tend to be the biggest robot.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: Right? You got to be able to get out of your own way man, and you got to identify that you’re the problem, because at this stage a lot of times you are the problem. If you are the founder of the company you are the problem because you want to run things a certain way, you don’t trust your people to run it a certain way. I ran into this with our last business partner.
Will: Right.
Josh: Right? There was a lack of trust in the ability of the management team to grow the business the way that the vision was outlined.
Will: For sure.
Josh: Right? And that was the gap between the stage 4 and stage 5.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: Right? But to grow that you got to be, it’s like kids, it’s like raising kids’ man, you can’t ride them the whole time.
Will: Right.
Josh: You got to trust that the values and the mission of what your family stands for and all that, that you’ve instilled those things and you can let them go and they go into the world and become fantastic people that just become a reflection upon who you are and what your family stood for.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: And that’s what business is. There’s no difference.
Will: 100%. I think empowerment is the word, right?
Josh: Yes.
Will: And you used that word actually in this show already. Empowerment is very important, and I was actually having a conversation today with one of our employees, and I just kind of give you guys the back story. So one of our employees today kind of came to me and said you know that from a management style he wanted a different employee to actually come through him, so that he could know what was going on, right? In terms of doing a particular process. And what I told him is, well you have enough responsibilities right now. What you should not do is make it a requirement for him to come to you necessarily, but and still the empowerment in the person who is making the decision to actually do what it is you had a problem with. If that makes sense?
Josh: Right.
Will: I know you guys probably if you’re still following what I’m saying is, because what he was saying is I need to know when it happens, right? And he already has a lot of responsibility in terms of his day to day, and instead of taking on that responsibility and feeling like he needed to know, what I was telling him is needs to empower his employee to make the decision, right?
Josh: Right.
Will: To do the process that needs to be done the correct way, right? And make that decision, so that he doesn’t necessarily have to be in charge of that decision, but he’s confident with the person he empowers to make that decision and bring that information back to him. Does that make sense?
Josh: Yeah.
Will: And that’s the kind of thing that, and when you get to this stage you have to be able to do, you have to be able to empower people to make those kind of decision, it’s very very necessary for a couple of reasons; number one is because you can’t be everywhere doing everything all the time. As you grow obviously you’re going to have more responsibilities that you need to take care of, right?
Josh: Right.
Will: And so, what you don’t want to do is put everything on your plate and have everybody feel like they have to come to you to get that buy off.
Josh: Right.
Will: That’s number one. And number two is you have to empower people to be able to feel the empowerment to make those decisions because they are going to get more buy in to where you want to go at this level. So, when you get to this level you’re going to see that thing where you need to empower people to actually to make decisions in your company so that you can go. And a very big part of that is understanding the purpose, the goals and all of that stuff that we talk about, the value.
Josh: That’s kind of stage 5.
Will: It is?
Josh: Yeah.
Will: But
Josh: But the seed is set, yeah, the seed is set at the stage, for sure, right?
Will: Exactly.
Josh: For sure it is because it’s a system.
Will: Yes, for sure.
Josh: Right?
Will: 100%.
Josh: 100%, man, you nailed that 100%, and I think it’s hard to have this conversation in this setting because it’s a snapshot and a lot of it sounds lofty depending on where you are.
Will: It kind of does.
Josh: But I will tell you wholeheartedly like the way I look at it is everything in this world is built on systems.
Will: For sure.
Josh: We as humans are not just a human, we are comprised of systems.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: Right? You have your endocrine system and your immune system and.
Will: Yes.
Josh: All you know, digestive system
Will: Right.
Josh: Like
Will: It’s all systems.
Josh: Yeah, it’s all systems because it’s designed to work together and it does a specific function which plays into the way that the functions of the other systems need to work.
Will: Exactly.
Josh: And that is exactly what this stage requires.
Will: Right.
Josh: You really have to think about focusing on systems and what am I putting in place that allows the team that I have to do things without having to come to me for every answer.
Will: Right. That’s the only way ().
Josh: At the end of the day that’s what it is. You cannot scale if you are the bottleneck.
Will: Right.
Josh: You cannot. So, let’s talk about what some of those systems might look like.
Will: Right.
Josh: Right? I want to give you something actionable maybe to look at.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: Because what I’ve seen, right? I mean we’ve coached a lot of students throughout the years, dealt with a lot of different businesses in this space and they all looks so different because all of us are unique in the way that it build our businesses and what each particular person’s skillset and strengths might have been.
Will: Right.
Josh: Typically the businesses are going to be built on whatever the strength is of the individual that built it, right?
Will: Right.
Josh: So, if I’m strong in sales guess what my business is probably going to be a very strong sales focused team
Will: Right.
Josh: But () on the delivery of what happens after the sale, right?
Will: Right.
Josh: Right?
Will: Right. The execution.
Josh: The execution of
Will: Well, you can sell, but can you execute on it?
Josh: Right.
Will: That’s the question.
Josh: So, it tends to be that way. So that’s why I want you to kind of think about what does these needs to look like. So we’ll give some examples, right? Of course POS, point of sales system.
Will: Right.
Josh: What is the purpose of point of sales system? It’s not just to sell stuff, it’s to manage the entire process of what you sell.
Will: Right.
Josh: From the interaction of the customer which gives you a CRM which stands for customer relation management, right?
Will: Right.
Josh: It’s a database so you can collect information about everybody you do business with.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: Man that is so important by the way, but if you’re still doing paper tickets to this stage, you got a problem.
Will: Right.
Josh: Huge.
Will: Yes.
Josh: Right? Huge, huge problem.
Will: Yes.
Josh: It’s also to take that information from your customer and feed it into the next stage which is what is my customer want.
Will: Right.
Josh: Did they want to buy a product, what product did I sell them? What are those product cost me? Where do I get those products from?
Will: Right.
Josh: Right? That is a tracking piece in itself as well.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: The other stage is did the customer need a repair? What repair do they need? Where are the parts come for the repair? Who did the repair? Where does it come in for? What was the outcome? What was the condition of the device when we took it in? What was the condition of the device it left?
Will: Right.
Josh: Was it the same?
Will: Yeah.
Josh: Do we get the IMEI number on that device, because if there’s a problem and that customer comes back, did they bring us back the same device?
Will: Right.
Josh: Or did they bring us back the same device that looks the same, but it has a different IMEI number?
Will: Exactly. Warranty, right?
Josh: Right.
Will: Yes.
Josh: These are huge components.
Will: Yes.
Josh: And that system also allows you to manage your RMA system, your suppliers, how much am I spending on my parts? What’s my fail rates to these parts? I’m not trying to get too in the weed, but this is a big deal.
Will: This is ().
Josh: This is one of the major systems, imagine trying to live without your digestive system.
Will: Right.
Josh: Like you could look fantastic and everything else can be firing off, but if you can eat and poop what you need to, guess what? The body is not going to get the fuel it needs or it can’t expel the toxins that needs to expel. That is how I look at the point of sale system.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: It is the digestive system of your business.
Will: Right.
Josh: It is where the energy comes from and the way that the excrement gets handled which is RMA.
Will: Very important.
Josh: And it’s huge.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: But that’s one aspect, I’ll talk about another one. Training systems.
Will: Yes.
Josh: Right? Because now at this point I talk to it already, what do you have to have? You have to have a way to attract, develop, retain employees.
Will: Yes.
Josh: That is a system, that’s a system guys, you should have a system for how you attract employees. Tou should have a marketing plan to attract employees. It is not just about marketing to customers.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: You have to market the employees. At this stage if you’re going to broke, you’re not going to be able to keep everybody and you want to be at this place where you got a waiting list of people who would come work for you.
Will: Right.
Josh: Because your environment is that and we’ll get into that in the next episode.
Will: And really what we’re trying to teach you guys is how separate. At the end of the day this is kind of what we use to talk about in class.
Josh: All the time.
Will: It is, because that’s what people would come to us and want to understand like how do I separate myself from the guy down the street? How do I separate myself from the competition? And like Josh said for some of you guys depending on where you are, this may seem a little advance, maybe you’re not, that was supposed to be the word I’m looking for, maybe it’s not, you’re not ready for this type of information.
Josh: Yeah.
Will: Right?
Josh: Yeah.
Will: You will get here if you continue to move in the direction need to move in and once you get here you’ll understand that this is what you need, but really the point I am trying to make is this is and the details is that like, what do they say the devils in the details.
Josh: The devils in the details.
Will: Right?
Josh: Yeah.
Will: And at the end of the day that really what it is, the devil is in the details because the details are what kind of separate you in most cases from your competition and it’s the very you know it’s everything that we’re talking about, it is the ability to track inventory, it’s the ability to train your technicians the correct way or train your employees the correct way.
Josh: Train and retain and develop man.
Will: The systems, those systems are so important.
Josh: These are systems. You know one of the ones that’s missing, a huge component in this space because it’s a service based space.
Will: Right.
Josh: Sales system.
Will: Yes.
Josh: Right?
Will: Yes.
Josh: What systems do you have to sell?
Will: Right.
Josh: Right?
Will: Yeah.
Josh: Now, I would bucket sales into how do you market the customers, so you attrack and you get awareness?
Will: Right.
Josh: And then how do you capture that awareness and bring them down to the place to where they’re doing business with you?
Will: Right.
Josh: Right? And when they’re doing business with you, how do your people systemically engage with these people to push ticket prices, but not at the point of coming off as () bags that has chilling stuff, but coming off to the point to where they’re here to serve, but maximizing the customer experience and at the same time maximizing profit for the business.
Will: Right.
Josh: That’s a sales system.
Will: It’s a sales system.
Josh: Man
Will: There’s a balance you got to have with that, right?
Josh: Yeah.
Will: Yeah. And that’s a system, the only way you’re going to do that consistently and across different, because think about it if you got a sales team, right? Everybody needs to be bought into that same type of how we do this at this company, right? You can’t be selling one way and I’ll sell one way and Joblow sales a different way, he sells the different way because there’s no uniformity in that and you’re going to have some fallout in regards to that because the customers are going to be upset, it’s not going to be consistent, right?
So what the system also does even in a sales perspective like Josh is talking about is it allows everybody to be uniform, it allows the training to be what it needs to be and it allows you to have the same uniform approach to the consumers, right?
Josh: Yeah.
Will: So everybody’s on the same page, () the same way.
Josh: I would take to that point too man. I’m going to tell you what’s huge. One of the things that I see in the space that people miss all the time is the opportunity to upsell.
Will: Right.
Josh: Right?
Will: Yes.
Josh: I’m in the phone, why aren’t your technicians asking about battery upgrades?
Will: Right.
Josh: Right? Would you to have a battery upgrade?
Will: Right.
Josh: Can I sell you a screen protector of some sort of another, you need a case, right?
Will: Right.
Josh: Can I do some diagnostics for you?
Will: Right.
Josh: Man, there’s a lot of upsells and these guys man in this business it is what do you want, oh you want a tire rotation, okay, I’ll do rotate your tire for 20 bucks. Man, that’s not customer service.
Will: Right.
Josh: You need to serve your customer by really understanding what it is that keeps them up at night.
Will: Right.
Josh: Right? Understand that you are, that they have their device which is important to them in your custody. You are the expert.
Will: Right.
Josh: You are there to serve them which means these guys don’t know anything about these things.
Will: Right.
Josh: That measn for them I have to educate you on it. Did you know that your device is 2 years old?
Will: Right.
Josh: This batteries really aren’t design the last that long.
Will: Right.
Josh: Blah, blah, blah, whatever it might be, I’m not going to give you the sales script in this episode.
Will: Right.
Josh: But there are things that you should do, it’s a sales script, it’s a sales system.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: Honestly, I will tell you that is the number one thing that I would think everybody in the cellphone repair space needs to focus on is sales systems.
Will: Right.
Josh: And that is just one of many, right?
Will: Yes.
Josh: But again, so now we’ve identified 3, at the end of the day it’s about systems and systems allow you as the business owner or even you as a manager to be able to give the keys to the kingdom on someone else and allow them to run it without ().
Will: Yeah, without you being in there.
Josh: Yeah, without you having to be there. You don’t have to be behind the wheel.
Will: If you got to be there then you don’t have a very good systemize business.
Josh: And it’s going to be impossible to scale to any level beyond what you are, because you’re number one problem at this stage, I promise you, I’ve experienced this, I don’t know how many times in all my business throughout the years, people and systems, right? And not people like people are the problem.
Will: Right.
Josh: People from the aspect of you don’t know how to attract the right type of talent.
Will: Right, number one.
Josh: Right?
Will: Number one.
Josh: Which by the way is not always paying.
Will: Right.
Josh: Right? Some people like well, I got to pay you know 15 bucks an hour or I want to pay 8 bucks and hour.
Will: Right.
Josh: It’s not so much to pay. It’s really about the environment you create and the opportunities that you give people to grown.
Will: Right.
Josh: Right?
Will: I agree.
Josh: So, that is a huge one. How do you retain, how do you attract people?
Will: Right.
Josh: Right? I kind of fell like I’m going back in circles, but man this is honestly at this level is kind of crazy because it’s not brain surgery anymore.
Will: It’s that important I think and I don’t think it circles, I think it’s just that you’re emphasizing the importance of this apart, because when you hit the you know the one double M, right? Or the 11 to 25, it just gets that important in terms of success and at the same token it can fall apart that fast, which is why you got to be really careful at this level because not only does it take and we often talked about things in terms of what makes you successful, but on the same token when you get to 11 and 25 plus 30 people, if you don’t do it correctly it could be the detriment so fast, you can fall so fast
Josh: Yeah.
Will: Because now you have more people that are putting negativity.
Josh: It’s a way bigger machine.
Will: Yeah, it’s a way bigger machine.
Josh: Yeah.
Will: So just like it can go up really fast.
Josh: It can deflate really quickly.
Will: It can deflate really quickly if you’re not focus on these very very specific core competencies and principles which is why it may seem like we’re harping on the same thing over and over, but what we do understand is it doesn’t take as you get to this place, it doesn’t take much for you to be out of control in terms of what causing your business to actually deflate.
Josh: 100%
Will: You know what I mean?
Josh: Yeah, 100%.
Will: So you’re giving up more control and that’s what I want people to understand like the more you actually bring people in, the less control you have because you’re empowering people to have more control. So, with that control comes responsibility and so with that responsibility comes the need for you to actually engage, train properly, have systems because that responsibility is more detrimental to the entire part of the process, so it just makes it to put more into it. You know what I mean? It’s that important, it’s that important.
Josh: You know what reminded me man? It reminded me of, so I have my oldest daughter Taylor.
Will: Right.
Josh: Shout out to Taylor, I love you baby.
Will: What’s up Taylor?
Josh: But I remember when she was going for her driver’s license.
Will: Right.
Josh: Right?
Will: Yeah.
Josh: So you’re talking about 14 years of investing into the growth of my daughter.
Will: Right.
Josh: Right?
Will: Right.
Josh: And then what it was is we were putting her in a car.
Will: Right.
Josh: Which has systems.
Will: Right.
Josh: Right?
Will: Yes.
Josh: A car’s made up of bunch of systems.
Will: Absolutely.
Josh: She didn’t know how to operate any of those systems.
Will: Right.
Josh: Right?
Will: Right.
Josh: So we have to train her on the systems of how the vehicle operates.
Will: Right.
Josh: And then also the infrastructure of what she was going to drive on and how the rules of the road work.
Will: Right.
Josh: To keep her safe, right?
Will: Yeah.
Josh: This is important for her and her development, right? Because if we had not given her that she wouldn’t be able to develop to the person that she’s becoming.
Will: Right.
Josh: Right? To grow and still be a part of the family and actually contribute to society.
Will: Right
Josh: Right?
Will: Right.
Josh: I always go a little deep on this now. This like Miyagi with the Karate Kid, right?
Will: For sure, yeah.
Josh: But I love it because for me like I love doing these analogies because I think sometimes for me that’s how my brain works anyway.
Will: That’s how we make the connection, right?
Josh: It’s () connected because it’s the same.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: I look at our employees the same way I look at Taylor, right?
Will: Right.
Josh: You come in, I’m raising you on the way that I need to.
Will: Yes.
Josh: The way that our family works.
Will: Right.
Josh: Right?
Will: Right.
Josh: The values that I want you to have, so you’re a good person and you operate well in my family.
Will: I love that connection.
Josh: Right?
Will: Yeah.
Josh: Now once you get to a certain place, now I got to give you keys to the systems so you can drive without me there.
Will: Right.
Josh: You’re not riding with me anymore, you’re on your own.
Will: Same concept.
Josh: Right? You’re on your own.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: So, I got to train you babe.
Will: I got to trust that
Josh: And I’m going to trust that you’re going to be okay.
Will: That you’re going to be okay.
Josh: And maybe you’re going to do it even better than I did.
Will: Exactly.
Josh: Right?
Will: That’s a cool analogy man.
Josh: That’s what it is.
Will: It’s dope analogy.
Josh: That’s what this is, that’s what this stage is man.
Will: Right, it is, it is.
Josh: You got to trust the process, but you got to treat it like a kid man.
Will: But you got to have the process.
Josh: And you got to have the process.
Will: You got to have the systems, right?
Josh: Right.
Will: It’s important. You can’t just swing it.
Josh: Right
Will: Because you might miss something that is critical to that success.
Josh: Exactly.
Will: And when your baby is behind the wheels.
Josh: It’s crash and burn.
Will: You don’t want that to happen, right?
Josh: Yeah, of course not.
Will: So it’s important, it’s very important. So with that being said Josh I think maybe we got
Josh: No, we’re right on track.
Will: We hit what we need to hit?
Josh: Yeah, I think so.
Will: () to that?
Josh: Yeah, I think and it’s a good transition time.
Will: Yes.
Josh: It’s a good transition time because you know obviously this is the Ask Will and Josh Show. I was going to say hashtag, but it’s the Ask Will and Josh Show.
Will: I will say hashtag.
Josh: So again.
Will: Hashtag
Josh: Ask Will and Josh Show.
Will: Hey, there are you.
Josh: #RepairRight.
Will: Right, repair right.
Josh: Right?
Will: Sure.
Josh: But the goal is honestly and I love the fact that everybody is submitting questions and our goal is to always try to pick a question that you guys submit, again these questions are submitted exactly for this purpose, right?
Will: Exactly.
Josh: And right now we’re on a series of just teaching and educating this, but once we get off of this we’re going to get on to topics that the community has been submitting.
Will: For sure.
Josh: But we always try to choose the question that we feel really talks to the subject that we’re addressing that night.
Will: Right.
Josh: Right? And tonight we have a question from Samuel Castillo, right?
Will: Castillo.
Josh: Mr. Castillo, I appreciate it. Shout out. He says hi guys, thank you for what you do. I’m loving what I’m learning from this show and I’m hoping you would take my questions on. Thank you for the flatter and the feedback, we appreciate it. He goes on to say I have four stores that used to really produce good sales.
Will: Right.
Josh: But I’m thinking about closing a store or two because I can’t get the profit out of my business that I need to grow more locations.
Will: Right.
Josh: There are some stores doing well, but I have some dogs that I feel like they take all my focus and I can’t get them turnaround.
Will: Right.
Josh: Honestly I’m not really sure what the problem is, but it’s taking a lot of my time, I’m starting to feel burned out. I don’t understand why.
Will: It’s a good question.
Josh: Yeah.
Will: And it’s not the first, I don’t think this is the first scenario which we actually encountered or seen.
Josh: No, it’s not but it’s the first time that on the Ask Will and Josh Show we’ve been asks this way.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: Which is why I really like this question.
Will: Yes.
Josh: Thank you for your honesty and transparency Samuel.
Will: Yeah, thank you, we appreciate it.
Josh: By the way I mean that’s actually really cool that you could even be, because it’s hard when you’re at this stage right now I’ve been exactly where you are, trust me and it’s very hard to put yourself out there and be vulnerable because on one hand you have this () of success.
Will: Right.
Josh: Because you’re doing well and you’re checking all the boxes.
Will: Right.
Josh: But on the other hand you’re struggling because it’s eating you and you don’t know how to get out of it and you need support from somewhere that has some answers or some experience that might be able to put you in right direction. Now at the same time the problem is this question is so generic.
Will: It is.
Josh: I don’t really know how to address it specifically, so we’re going try our best and hopefully you find some help.
Will: Well, I think what’s important is, well, I think what’s good is we actually chose this question because it relates to this particular stage.
Josh: Yes, right.
Will: And so sounds like with Mr. Castillo he has four locations, so four locations well, obviously in my opinion would be a level of success.
Josh: And they used to, like what you said I used to really produce good sales.
Will: Right.
Josh: But he now he wants to, he’s shrinking back.
Will: Yeah, he’s shrinking back.
Josh: He’s closing.
Will: He’s closing.
Josh: Thinking about closing.
Will: Right.
Josh: Because of the time because he’s getting burned out because he’s doing, if you analyze it he’s focus a lot of his time on problems.
Will: Right.
Josh: And focusing on problems is burning him out.
Will: Right, yeah.
Josh: So, without, he didn’t give a specific problem, so we’re going to kind of address what those might look like and I actually thinks it kind of tie into some of the things we just talked about.
Will: Right. Well, if you think about four locations, how many employees he probably have around that?
Josh: I would guess he’s got 8 to 12.
Will: 8 to 12.
Josh: 8 to 12 employees.
Will: And he’s feeling burned out which means he is spending a lot of time maybe at certain locations ()
Josh: For sure, yeah, which is what he said, yeah.
Will: Right? So with that we can kind of, give me a second. There you go. So with that we can kind of understand or kind of assume, I wouldn’t say understand, but kind of assume because it is a very general question, right?
Josh: General man, we didn’t get any specific Samuel, and I really want to help you.
Will: Yeah. Because there are so many things. The thing is there are so many issues that could actually be happening with this particular question.
Josh: Yeah. I mean it could be a sales problem.
Will: Right.
Josh: Right? It could be a marketing problem.
Will: Right.
Josh: It could be a repair kind of flow management problem.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: It could be an inventory, so it’s hard to know, but let’s dissect a little bit. I would guess
Will: Yes.
Josh: It’s a people problem.
Will: Why would you say that?
Josh: Because he’s got four stores.
Will: Four stores.
Josh: Two were doing well.
Will: Yes.
Josh: Actually he didn’t say two, right?
Will: Right.
Josh: But he’s thinking about closing a couple of them. So, I assume two were doing good, right? I would assume two were doing good and he’s got two problems that are draining him, right?
Will: Yeah.
Josh: He doesn’t have different systems in all four stores.
Will: Right.
Josh: Right? If you had a unified system, right, he’s probably got the same point of sales system () point of sales system, whatever it is, if he’s using paper it’s all the same throughout all four stores.
Will: Right.
Josh: The only thing unique about each stores are the people in them.
Will: Yes.
Josh: So I would assume that this is a people problem and a people development problem.
Will: Okay.
Josh: Right? Because depending on the reasons that people are installed into each location, right? And what their incentives are to do what they do and why they do what they do, what they believe in.
Will: Right.
Josh: Right? And here’s the challenge at this stage 2 because you’re not spending time with them all the time.
Will: Right.
Josh: So, think about it, it’s like kids again, I’m on this kids thing tonight, right? But if I spend my time being negative with you because I feel like you’re always getting into problems, what’s that really going to produce for me? Probably more problems.
Will: Probably more problems.
Josh: Right? Because it is just reinforcing the fact that you’re bad kid.
Will: Right.
Josh: And that’s kind of what he’s doing. He’s spending his time with the bad kids.
Will: Yeah, I assume.
Josh: Right?
Will: Or it seems, or I assume.
Josh: Assume. He said is it’s taking a lot my time, I’m not sure what the problem is, but I’m spending a lot of my time, well, he’s not spending his time on the good stores.
Will: Right.
Josh: He’s spending his time in the bad stores.
Will: You got a point, exactly.
Josh: Right?
Will: Yeah.
Josh: So, again Samuel I hope you get something out of this, but I think the problem is in the way that the people are, it’s the people there and I can’t say it’s like this person or whatever it is.
Will: Right.
Josh: But it could be a cultural problem within that store.
Will: Right.
Josh: and I say that specifically of sometimes you end up with these little toxis cells, right? Because people if they don’t feel like they’re getting what they need from you or from the management team.
Will: Right.
Josh: Then they kind of become this rouge unites, right?
Will: We’ve seen that.
Josh: Man, we’ve experienced it.
Will: Yeah, we’ve experienced it.
Josh: Right? And you get these rogue units of we’re going to operate the way we do because me as a business owner and the way that we were running things, we were being great about sharing our vision and the way we’re operating to whatever it is, right? Like there’s a lot, again going back to parenting. If I’m treating you like bad kid it’s because I’m not really being honest with you about the way I live my life and what I’m trying to accomplish for our family.
Will: Right.
Josh: Right? And at the same time I got to be engage with you in what it is that you want to accomplish.
Will: Right.
Josh: And again I’m assuming it’s a people problem, so if you got a problem with people it’s because they’re feeling unappreciated, they’re feeling like they’re not getting what they’re supposed to, but they probably feel like they’re really working hard.
Will: Right.
Josh: Right? I’m digging, but
Will: I mean it’s a very generic, you know what it is? It’s very popular question or it’s a common question, as what I would say it’s very common. This question is very common, because what we see is people who get to this particular part of what I would say success, because it is successful
Josh: They call it the () too.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: This is a (), right? Like
Will: Yeah, it is. You get to that place
Josh: To go to 1 to 5 million, a lot of businesses die on that stage.
Will: That’s a great place to be.
Josh: Yeah, it is. But it’s also one of the most challenging.
Will: Exactly.
Josh: It is one of the most challenging spaces.
Will: So you has success and again the problem that we see a lot of times is one or two stores can be run for a certain way, right? You can manage that to a certain way, you can manage the inventory a certain way, you can train people in a certain way, you can do it on a certain way, but when you starts to scale above 2, when you get into the 3 and the 4, which he said he got 4, right?
Josh: It depends on proximity too.
Will: Yeah, a lot of it depends on proximity, and so many things that can be an issue with this, but once you get to four, you’re not necessarily using the right system, that’s why we’re talking about systems and so if you’re not necessarily using the right systems, it’s very hard to scale pass 3 or 4 or 5 locations with the wrong systems, it’s very difficult to do.
Josh: And again to this point I would think it’s a people problem.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: So it’s the people’s system which means that its attraction of people.
Will: Right.
Josh: Elimination of people.
Will: I could be actually people who you’re serving, it could be in a wrong location.
Josh: No, I don’t think that’s it.
Will: You don’t think that’s it?
Josh: I don’t think that’s it, because obviously you’re generating the sales and they used to do well. So, it’s not necessarily location. I think it’s a people problem inside and one of the biggest problems I see in business by the way is that a lot of times we’re scared to let go of people.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: Right? Which is a big problem. Why are we scared to let go of people is because we’re not good at attracting people and developing people, so their skills become valuable even though they’re toxic to the environment.
Will: Right.
Josh: Right? You know I had a mentor tell me this and ever since I’ve heard this it helps me run our businesses a little bit differently.
Will: Right.
Josh: Because like you know when is the right time is to let somebody go?
Will: When you’re thinking about it.
Josh: The very first time you think about it.
Will: Yeah, yeah exactly.
Josh: Because if somebody who’s really adding value, you don’t really think about getting let go of him.
Will: No,
Josh: Right?
Will: No.
Josh: If you really have a serious thoughts about why you got to get rid of somebody.
Will: Not getting rid of them, maybe how you get better out of them if you’re thinking about getting rid of somebody then it probably time to let them go.
Josh: Right.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: But it causes, it at least should initiate one of the things we teach which is that this isn’t working for me conversation.
Will: Right.
Josh: Right?
Will: Yeah, yeah.
Josh: Now any of our students know that this is, but this is a valuable question that we teach in our management sections is how to have these difficult conversation with your staff and just say hey, this isn’t working for me and the aspect of it is you treat it like your relationship maybe you’re going home to your wife or husband or whoever your significant other.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: Right? And you’re not happy with it and you just say you know what, it’s not you, this kist isn’t working for me.
Will: Right, yeah.
Josh: And then that opens up a fresh dialog about what it is and then you have the opportunity to talk about expectations and then you ask well, are we align on the expectation?
Will: I think that’s what Dr. Phil will say.
Josh: Right. It’s deep though man
Will: But it’s the same, it’s parallel, it’s the same.
Josh: Yeah,
Will: Conceptually it’s the same.
Josh: Yeah and it works, it really does work. So again Samuel hopefully you got some value out of this. Guys hopefully you’re getting some values.
Will: It’s a great question because and the reason why we pick this question because it is a common question.
Josh: Right.
Will: But it wasn’t a very in depth quite in terms of what the problem ().
Josh: It’s not specific. It was specific, but what I can definitely tell you without a shadow of a doubt, it’s a system and people’s problem.
Will: It is a system and people’s problem.
Josh: Right?
Will: Yeah.
Josh: And probably a people’s system problem.
Will: I would agree.
Josh: Right?
Will: I agree 100%.
Josh: So Samuel we’ll be happy to dive deeper in to this.
Will: Yes.
Josh: Please reach back out to us and we’re happy to give you more specific information.
Will: Absolutely.
Josh: Guys in the community hopefully you’re getting some values out of this. I really think though we harp on this tonight for the right reasons because I would tell you that literally this, at this stage of business, when you’re stage 4 and beyond.
Will: Yes.
Josh: This is a game of people.
Will: It’s actually, it reminds me of the little it’s complicated.
Josh: Yeah.
Will: Right?
Josh: Yeah.
Will: It’s complicated and that’s really what it is.
Josh: It is, because (), yeah, you know what you got a marketing problem, do this, do that.
Will: Yeah, do this, do this.
Josh: Right.
Will: They gets complicated in the space before they can be and actually, what was his name again Mr. Castillo. Samuel Castillo, his question being () is kind of the right setting because in this particular stage, things (). If that make sense. So, it’s hard and sometimes it can be very hard because you have so many different dynamics in terms of what can be the problem, it’s hard to identify what the actual problem is especially if you don’t have the experience and sometimes it takes consulting such as myself and Josh to come in and give you our expertise into what the problem may be if you’ve experience it before.
Which is what we’ve done and what we’ll continue to do and always do, right? Sometimes you need that outside influence or you need those eyes or that different perspective to actually identify why that is the case and maybe in Samuel’ case that is the case. Maybe the reason why he wasn’t very specific is because he doesn’t really know exactly what the problem is.
Josh: He did kind of say that.
Will: Right.
Josh: Yeah.
Will: I have no idea what the problem is and I will give you more if I knew more, but I can’t identify what it is.
Josh: Right.
Will: And this is where experience and wisdom a lot of times in this space to actually comes in to be a benefit. So, with that being said you maybe in a space where you just can’t identify what the issue is. You’re doing the same things, it’s working for some stores and in some locations and it’s not working for others and you’re like I’m doing the same things, I’ve tried different things, we’ve been very diligent in trying to find and do different things, nothing is working, right? To the point where I’m moving backwards, I got to close this thing down because it’s not working for me.
Josh: Right.
Will: And that’s the most frustrating place to be in business actually. It’s to be in place where you know it works, but it’s not working all the time. That can be very frustrating and sometimes you just got to do the due diligence to figure out what that is and sometimes you got to ask the outside out and you got to get an outside perspective and you got to get different eyes on it, so they can give you a different
Josh: Perspective.
Will: Perspective, right?
Josh: For sure.
Will: For us it’s just we can’t do it obviously on this podcast per say, but maybe if we work to see his set up or his operation.
Josh: It’s all about insights into this situation maybe we could help a little bit more.
Will: Yeah, for sure.
Josh: But again the purpose of this show is to help everybody.
Will: Yeah, for sure.
Josh: Right? So Samuel I appreciate the question. Hopefully everybody gets some value out of this and at the end of the day again it is definitely a system’s problem,
Will: Sure.
Josh: One thing I can guarantee you is it’s the system problem, but we didn’t get enough from Samuel to understand what ()
Will: What’s the thing I can guarantee you Samuel is Josh and myself were there and we saw it, we could probably tell you exactly what it is and like 5, 10 minutes.
Josh: Yeah.
Will: I can almost guarantee you that we’ve seen enough of it and we’ve experienced enough of it that if we saw it as supposed to just seeing the question, we’ll probably tell you what the problem is
Josh: Yeah, 100%, yeah. 100%, no doubt about it.
Will: Right.
Josh: Yeah. Anyway
Will: So with that being said
Josh: Hopefully you got value.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: Right? I think you know I didn’t feel buttoned up on this one as we did on some of the other ones, but
Will: It makes sense because we’re in stage 4.
Josh: Right. And the other side of it is because when we go in the stage 5, you’re going to see why because here’s a unique thing between stage 4 and 5, there’s a lot of overlap.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: Because stage 4 and 5 the problems that people on systems stage 5 is leadership and culture and that intertwines like man like a lot of times the people are struggling because they don’t have the right leadership or the culture, right?
Will: Right.
Josh: And it was very difficult to talk to tonight because I know myself and William were like yeah, yeah, let’s talk about leadership and culture, right?
Will: Yeah.
Josh: But that’s really something that you’re super focus on and we’ll get deeper into the next episode in the next stage.
Will: Yes.
Josh: But I can tell you that you start to feel those pains in this stage of stage 4.
Will: For sure, 100%.
Josh: You feel that.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: So really stage 4 is really about systems.
Will: Yes.
Josh: Right? And then identifying the seeds of leadership and culture.
Will: Yes, exactly.
Josh: Really that’s what it is.
Will: Yeah.
Josh: Yeah.
Will: For sure, 100%. So
Josh: With that
Will: We’re going to wrap it up.
Josh: We’ll wrap it up, we’ll leave you with this one. Hopefully, you guys got value. Of course we’re here to always help, always assist, we want to empower you guys, this is about doing things the right way and not just about doing them just to do them.
Will: Absolutely.
Josh: So, we’re going to leave you with the #RepairRight. Don’t use no () parts. Don’t treat your people like crap. Let’s build the right kind of business for you guys.
Will: Repair right guys. All right, so my name is William Agnew, it’s Ask Will and Josh Show.
Josh: Joshua Gray, until next time.
Will: We’ll see you guys next time.
Josh: Peace.
Will: See you guys.
