Ep18 The CEO Routine You're Probably Skipping (And Why It's Killing Your Growth)

Joe Blackburn  0:00  
If you're running a $5 million business, as much as SOPs and systems and all those things do help, what will solve your problems the most? And I go to my grade with this is your pipeline. If you look at what actual pipeline is meaning, 60 day pull through on pipeline, and how much is in there that solves a lot of problems.

Jason Croft  0:21  
Welcome to the lion's edge, where top performers sharpen their teeth. Hosted by Joe Blackburn, founder of The Lion who is relentlessly dedicated to helping business owners lead multi million dollar teams and me. Jason Croft, I transform unseen entrepreneurs into industry leaders by developing their market gravity. Each week, we reveal proven strategies and raw insights to help you maximize your business, multiply your wealth and make your family indestructible. Now let's create your edge. What about just business growth overall? How much do you get into that with the lions, with, you know, these folks? I mean, you've got your business, how you're running, but you've also got the people in line with all of these different kinds of businesses coming in there certainly want to manage growth. But also, how are they making that growth happen in the first place? For marketing side, the sales side, well,

Joe Blackburn  1:28  
the the thing we measure on them, you know, when we do our one on ones is, I want to look at last full month revenue, gross revenue, and then month to date. Now, some people can't measure their revenues mid month because they get paid out at the end of the month, or their invoicing or things like that, but I always I want to see trend month to month, and then look back over quarter, six months, just, where is the where is the cash coming from? Is it up or down? I mean, just kind of the basics of cash flow from profit. I you know, it's interesting. Very few people that run a, let's call it a three to $10 million business. Very few hire a full time CFO, I mean, I'm not even sure it's necessary. A lot of people, you know, they're, they're getting it month to month, meaning excess capital at the month end. What do I do with it? Do I hire someone? But I think one thing that I've have found, it's interesting you brought that up. I don't think they pay as close attention as probably necessary. This kind of came up. I've got a really strong, what I would call, like just personality connector. I think we've talked about him before, and we he was growing, but he wasn't paying much attention to anything below gross revenue. And then it was like, or, you know, we're invoicing and doing all this, and now we're but we're not making money. So it, I think it's a, I don't know if it's a fear, and I'm not sure it's like blatant neglect, but it's like, when things are going really well and we're adding, you know, we're adding to the pipeline and doing jobs and collecting cash, sometimes we get, you know, caught up in that. It's like, you it about that 2, $3 million mark, you really need to start paying close attention, because you're probably at, I don't know, anywhere from five to 15 employees at that point, and you're collecting it somewhat, you know, on time. So I think just a good habit. And this isn't my idea, but I think it's kind of old school. You know, when we ran $120 million business. This was looked at every day, obviously. But I think a good habit is to take five minutes and check your accounts and look at your cash flow, if you can. I mean, there's software out there. Just get in the habit of, you know, if you're, if you're the owner and you're running the business, treat it like, you know, you drink cup coffee, grab your coffee, and then pop your accounts up and see where you're at, because it can creep up on you, you know, you can, you can be and when it it's not, it doesn't creep up on you. When you're thin, that's not when it creeps up on you. It's when, like I said, things are going really well. We're getting a bunch of work, you know, I'm running, you know, all around and doing everything, and we've got all our crews filled and everything, and then all sudden, it's like, well, holy crap. Now we've got gross revenue here, but net revenues here, so it's just something to make a habit, just, you know, if you had a CEO routine. Yeah, let's just call it that. I don't know. You know my thoughts on CO or are you are held accountable by a board? There are shareholders that can show up to a meeting and ruin your life. And there's a consequence if you don't perform, if you own your own business those I mean, there's the consequence, but it's not someone else's call, but just from a routine standpoint, how do you know when you start your day, what are you looking at? Just to make sure there's nothing falling through the cracks. And I think in that growth trajectory, especially when it's fast, which a lot of our people are, growing extremely fast, it's easy to, I tell them, ride the wave. Well, if I'm on the wave, I might want to look for the shark that's in there somewhere. I don't want to, like, look down and crash, but I don't want to get blindsided. And we've avoided that for the most part, for people, but we I probably look at it from the standpoint of, if things are going really well, I tend to get into the and it's momentum. I tend to get into that stream of it, and sometimes I miss something we've had that not only in the P and L, but also in the people. So your two P's, when the waves high and I incur, you know, like we're all about momentum, because it's a momentum sport. It's a good idea to have just a quick routine on that, you know, the financials, and then just, I think, I don't know if we talked about this a couple weeks ago or whatever, but you don't always have to do all of your leadership in a scheduled meeting. It's a good idea to, you know, bounce in and see how things are going for someone just get gives you a better feel for how things are really going. Because I say people lie. Numbers don't the numbers don't lie. But sometimes, when I'm way up here, there's stuff brewing, and I think it's a good idea to have a beat on that. We, we, I have seen that in the last month or two where numbers are crushing, but we've got some problems, and it's easy, it's it's the time no one wants to spend when things are going well. So just putting a little, just a little routine, we used to, they would tell us, when I was a director, walk the boardroom every once in a while, just stop in and talk to someone, especially a key player or a key person, and see how they're progressing, what they're focused on. If you do it in your schedule, you know, if you do it in your wig, in your whirlwind, they're prepared for that. So they, you know, they've got their numbers in the wig, and then in the whirlwind, they've got the problems that everyone's solving, sometimes those get so rhythmic that the little things that I might have caught, especially if I was looking in times were tough and I was really dialed in on problem solving, I can neglect that a little bit. So, you know, it's called a routine, but don't make it routine. You know what I mean? Like, don't make it so mechanical that they're prepared to give you the front facing view you're looking for. If you make it unscheduled, you're more likely to get to the bottom of something or notice something, and I it's not bad. It's just as as you grow, you have to be more reliant upon more people. So you have to pay a closer attention to those two things, the P and L and the people, more than you did when you were, you know, in this trajectory, and most of it was on you. So that's it's just, I mean, I don't think it's revolutionary by any means, but make that part of your routine, like, look at your week, and, you know, some people are remote, so you might just pop on. Hey, jump on real quick. Let's talk. Haven't talked to you. You don't want to make them suspect of every time they talk to you, you have some agenda to catch them in something. It's just, if you're gonna, you know, it's this leads me to another thing I've been looking at, is how to develop that. Number two, it's, that's hard to do in a smaller business, you know, small to medium sized business, it's, you know, when you're in a corporation, they've got programs and funding and structure and all these things on bringing up, you know, I went through what was called Leadership and Development lid, and then they changed it to Mila or something. And that was highly structured. Ran through HR, and the, you know, the boss or the director would then help develop that next person. That was very it was very formal. It was scored. It was like The Hunger Games. Every quarter someone got eliminated. Somehow, I made it through, I don't, not sure, but when you're running that, that business again, there is a big whirlwind there. So just a routine of doing that, and we, I have seen that in the last two weeks, and it's been very profitable, because a lot of times in that P L, there's some waste that builds up. We tried something. We you. Abandoned it and we left it in cost, in the cost center, or with the people. Things are going so well. Why rock the boat? So I just, I would, if I'm running the business, I would make sure I'm very intentional. Of those two things, and the P and l1 you don't have to be a CPA. You can look at your finances very quickly. And if you can't, you can, because people out there will build you a spreadsheet. I'm not one of them, but I know they exist, so I would, I would put that in my into my daily and even if it's you and two other people or three or five other people, the momentum is going so, so make sure you're conscious of cash. I think it's important

Jason Croft  10:43  
to have a routine. I think it's good to have that mentality of a CEO, even if you're not a CEO in that definition that you gave and you got a board and you got all that, just like if somebody's a solopreneur, it's better that they run their business like a business instead of a freelancer. Chris is the same thing. It's that next level up. Hey, run this as though someone's gonna fire you tomorrow if you don't have this stuff dialed in, because that's just gonna make your business better. You're gonna look at those things again. Just take that little bit and, you know, have those people within your organization to go to like, you know what this looks a little wacky. I know things are, things are, things are awesome right now, what's, what's this about? And have those pop ins, and train your people to do those pop ins to their people under the, you know, depending on how many layers of folks you have, it just becomes a nice, like you said, it's like a planned, not planned routine, not routine kind of

Joe Blackburn  11:51  
check in with folks. It's intentional, like it, if you're going to develop anyone, you have to be intentional in their development. So, and a lot of times, I mean, in those, you know, those businesses, all of them, they're family esque. So it's, you know, in a big company, people all have the same set of problems. It's just they're less noticed and relevant. In a huge machine, when there's five of you there and someone's got shit going on that may not even be related to the business, it can impact everyone. And as the leader, you have to acknowledge it. Number one, we all have problems. And number two, not let it become so much of a distraction that it hurts everyone in the business. I mean, they're gonna feel a little bit but just being conscious that. And you know, my my mentor, who was really good at this, and he taught it to me, and I use it a lot, is sometimes, if I notice someone being a little off, or there's just something there, the best way to approach it is, be honest to say, I'm worried about you, you know, is something, you know, just I'm a little worried about you seeing like there's something bothering you or something off. And you know, if you want to talk about it, that's cool, and you can't force them. They may not disclose if they're having marital issues or whatever it is, but it's good. It's good to do that. He, he was really good at number one, like noticing when things weren't, you know, all the like, all together and then doing like, not calling you and berating you, just checking in see how you're doing, what's going on. He was really good at using I think Sabin does this too, but this was a long time ago before Sabin was as popular he was. He was really good about when things were going well. Every once in a while, putting the throttle down, just to, you know, it's unexpected, like he didn't lose his temper all the time, but every once in a while, so as a leader, every once while, you gotta let everyone know, you know, I know things are going well, but we're not hitting it here. So he just, and it was kind of sporadic. In hindsight, it wasn't though I got I figured out, you know, and he was, he was like the old school, really good leaders, where he was the hardest on the people he cared the most about. Because when it happened in our team, the clients and the other people, those were layups, like when we dealt internally, and, you know, held a high standard, and were hard on each other, and he was demanding, and held a execution standard. It made everything else easier. It's like, I mean, I think that's kind of coaching 101, like, we're, you know what? My boy is playing basketball, and they're, they had the parent meeting last night, and they're playing a little above their pay grade in their schedule, and one of the parents, well, tell me, tell me about this schedule. Why? Why are we doing this? Why are we playing fair hope, and hopefully, I don't see this, but they might. But the question was, why are you making us play such tough competition? And I thought the coach handled it really well. He said, we're trying to develop, you know, great high school athletes, and if we play down, we won't be as good. So it's kind of, it's just an old coaching, you know, way to go about things. Try to, you know, push your people. Know when to take foot off the brake and or the gas. And it just, I think, What happens, though, and I know I've long winded this, when you're in flow of a lot of momentum, that's when it's the easiest to neglect. So the going back 10 minutes when things are going, Well, don't just take that for granted, is what I'm saying. Like, keep your routine finances. You know, you get to, if you're you said solopreneur. If you're not making a million dollars, let's just call it a million. You have to highly focus on top line and get yourself to where you're grossing the business gross in a million bucks. And then that one to two, you can start paying a lot more attention. Three, I mean, you're probably, you've got enough workflow that stuff could slip through the cracks. You might want to add a bookkeeper or someone mining that store. You get to close to 10 million. You probably, you're, you know, we've got a handful and the lion that they've got a full time CFO, they've got enough receivables, payroll, you know, marketing and expenses, discretionary expense, all rent, all the that you've got to have somebody on top of that getting in that range. So yeah,

Jason Croft  16:34  
and there's some great, you know, fractional CFO, yeah, services and all industries out there too, yeah, what's working to get this growth even happening? It's

Joe Blackburn  16:45  
funny you said it, because I just put this out this morning. The thing that slows everyone down the most is when they put the fire hat on, as you know the court. I call it the corporate firemen, and that burning desire to make sure every little problem gets solved and that they're a piece of that at the expense of their pillar work, which is what actually moves the needle. I mean, you know, if you're running a $5 million business, you're going to, you know, as much as SOPs and systems and all those things do help. It's not like you set one in place and it's solved. That's always that's whirlwind. What we describe that's always going to be there. But what will solve your problems the most? And I go to my grade with this is your pipeline. And when I look at where people are on revenue and goals and things like that. If, if you look at what actual pipeline is, meaning 60 day pull through on pipeline, and how much is in there, that solves a lot of problems, because it's not that they go away. You'll always have them. So you're always going to have part of the team or people dealing with the day to day problems, but if I'm always there, I start to kill the pipeline. Now, if I've got a sales team or a handful of people that do that, that does help. But in our in our businesses, the owner is the chief marketeer. You know, they're the face. They're the ones that are gonna get, you know, the more valuable, the more luxurious type business through the door for now, and it's that, okay, well, but I got this problem. I gotta go get this taken care of. And some of them, you know, it's, what is it? Eisenhower's was I called like Eisenhower I do like a SWAT matrix. Yeah, yeah, the Eisenhower matrix. Most people. And now I'm not just saying this about the line. I'm saying most people do the urgent and important and then relieve themselves with the unurgent and unimportant. So they're like, on this side of the boxes where it's like, then I just distract myself, because I just poured out all my energy to kind of refuel where I see the biggest need is you don't have to do it all day every day. It'd be ideal. But if you're not putting some time into the important, but not urgent. You're, you're like, forever trapped in the other side. And it's, it's easy to say, you know, when you got kids to feed and payroll to make and all those things, it's easy to say, don't run to those fires so quickly and make sure you designate time to make to be in. I, you know, for our people, it's the pillars work, and bringing in new clients and keeping your best clients, it's too it's not just one or the other. Retention is a growth strategy. So I would, I think I. It's like this. I don't know you're gonna get me talking in circles. We developed something called the 5p day. And, you know, we've talked mindset, and we're working on that if unit, so it's like a domino, if in let's just say this is your typical day I wake up. I may exercise my kids are, you know, like, if it was anything like my house this morning, there's still homework on the kitchen table, and everybody's trying to get ready for school and all those things. And I kiss everybody goodbye, and I show up, and I just go to work on the fire. It's not like I put that fire out, and then the rest of the day is, you know, at leisure. I skipped the in the 5p day, I skipped the most, the two most important things. One, I didn't take care of this first, so now I'm already in completion chaos. I didn't do a mind reset. I didn't take my vitamin C. You've heard me say that. So I'm in a survival mode out of the gate, and then I get to work or to my office or wherever, and I didn't do the most important thing there, which is the connectivity with the people that are going to continue to pay us our ideal amount for a long time. So if I go to the third P, which is problems, and you're always going to have them. That cycle makes it so that I'm trapped as the key problem solver. Thus the corporate firemen. And I'm not saying people don't have them. I'm saying they'll always have them, but if I don't take care of me, my body and my mind and the pillars first, the odds of me coming back at four o'clock are what they're low. So it's it's a discipline of making sure those first two are an everyday thing, because the problems are I'm like, totally repeating myself. The problems are endless, and once you solve one, let's say you got the best AI prompt on the planet, and it did almost everything for you. How long will that be relevant in the AI world? Let's just use this exam for real, like, how? Like, how long will that be relevant? I don't know. I mean, I'm not saying it's wrong. I would use, you know, use it as long as you can. But it doesn't. It's just then I just have, then I got to retrain it, redo it. It's an arms race. It's like a spreadsheet and AI, like, there's this arms race in, in that, and AI and we and you can't, you know, the hard part for I call them, you know, small businesses, or small, medium sized businesses. The hard part is you can't neglect that either. Like, you can't get left behind. So you can have a functionality there. But if that's where, if, if you put all your eggs in that basket, that's okay. It's just No, I you know, know the game you're in now, I've got to play. I got to keep up there, keep reiterating that. Plus, as much as you can use it, that's great. I promise you, there's still people involved. I promise. No, I haven't seen a really super maybe they're out there, and I hope they see this and they correct us. Most people haven't, you know, automated their entire universe to the point to where they're just dealing with them. And by the way, if that's it, it's just, you guess what? You still haven't taken care of this, if that's your rhythm. Now, maybe you do, I don't know, but do you see how it like interconnects? Because if I don't do those first two, then I'm just a problem solver. I'm not the leader, I'm not the owner. Yeah, I solve big problems. But that's if you want your business to get to 3 million to 5 million to 10 million, you have to build a big enough brand, and you can use AI and ads and all that, and pillars, they work well together, but if you cut one of them out, I think it's a a very easy trap to fall into. And you know, I maybe it's just the people I see online or whatever, us included, if you're, if that's all you're relying upon, I can't believe that you're that profitable. I can't believe it.

Speaker 1  24:33  
I just if you're just, yeah, posting on Facebook or LinkedIn and yeah, and I think you

Joe Blackburn  24:40  
have to do that. So I'm not. I want to be careful what I'm saying. Like, I just, I don't know, maybe I'm a dinosaur or something. But if you're not getting that your people and the people that are your client part, right, and your mind, right? How is this working? You have to be great on the foundation and add to that. That, not the other way around. I don't. I just don't see it. And by the way, this has happened, and maybe I'm just terrible at this, as soon as we figure it out, it totally changes, which is business and life like, tell me what day that doesn't change. But pillars, by principle, is infinite. It just is, and until I no longer have the the chemical reaction of being connected to you or someone else directly, and maybe that day's coming, I, you know, if I did, if I could live on the island and only talk to like five people, I'd probably do that. But so but so far, no, I love all our people. So anyway, that's my that's the diatribe I have today that you've suckered me into again, my virtual kettle, prod, let me. Let me put the the cap on it. Pay attention to your people. Pay attention to your P and L. You can't bury your head in the sand on technology. Just don't neglect your own mind and your ability to connect. I think if you put all three together, you're as dangerous as they come. If I, if I have a great ability to connect. And I'm, you know, winning the war in my mind, pretty much on a daily basis. There's some days you're gonna get beat. And I put things in place that are leveraging all this. You're unstoppable. Let's there. There's a pot. I ended it on a positive note. You're welcome.

Jason Croft  26:40  
It's the intentionality of all of these things, right? It is. It's not I'm gonna post on LinkedIn, and that's where I'm gonna get on my clients. It's man, I'm connecting with people like crazy. What's gonna happen when I do connect with someone and they go check me out, what's over there? Well, you got it, what's happening, what's it, yeah, yeah. The better that, yeah, the better that is the that's going to reinforce that connection over here. It may even read a lot. You may meet somebody on LinkedIn to go have that personal connection, because you're over there and back and forth. And that is, that's the interplay of all this. And to your point, if you haven't prepped your mind and everything else the beginning of that day, you're not going to take that little bit of extra effort and make that human connection. And if you do try it, you're not going to be as good as you would otherwise. So absolutely, it's all wrapped up together in this, and that's the piece. And as much as you can make certain things a routine, whether that that CEO routine, the mindset, all of that, the better. And it sounds I was just thinking about it this morning like it does seem like the most ridiculous thing, that it's hard to sit down and be silent in the mornings and quiet, yeah, but it absolutely is, and it's one of those, especially again, when things are going great and you're excited about when you're excited to just get going. I want to get going, but I know the long term benefits of taking this little bit of extra time, and so I do, and it does. It sounds ridiculous that that's difficult, but sometimes it is, and it's still important,

Unknown Speaker  28:35  
correct? You said it, well,

Jason Croft  28:40  
I like to, you know, I like to take what you say and just to say it back as though it's mine.

Joe Blackburn  28:45  
That's what I like to do. Digestible,

Unknown Speaker  28:49  
all right, lines, there's your edge.

Jason Croft  28:53  
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Speaker 2  29:27  
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