Show Notes

Question

Show Notes

Accepted Answer

Shane (00:00):
The gap in satisfaction with time is always field by either eliminating actions that don't support my priorities, not filling up my calendar with more things to do

Amy (00:10):
The most successful people I've also observed are leveraging it and it is based around their priorities. Hi, this is the don't be fooled podcast. The podcast dedicated to helping us all answer the question. How do I get the highest ROI I'm Amy Harrill with Shane McKenzie, and I believe that it is unacceptable to scale without technology that is deliberately targeted and measured each week on the don't be fooled podcast. We will bust the business myths that are killing owners profits. Even if you have tried everything and failed. Now each week we're joined by real owners asking real time questions about advertising, marketing, product delivery models. These conversations will include automation numbers, and of course, how to help more people and get more discretionary time.

Shane (01:08):
And in just a moment we're going to hear from a Anugreh Sapra during a live consulting call, where we discuss the most important cost that is rarely spoken of in business, but it's the second highest threat to all leaders right behind cashflow. Now we're going to talk about this in a couple of ways. First, we're going to discover what is this undetected weapon and how do we avoid being annihilated by it? And then we're going to look at the four most important priorities to predict consistent ROIs. And then we're going to discuss how we actually duplicate them. But first let's hear from the sponsor of today's episode.

Amy (01:47):
Are you a Christ follower? Who's passionate to build a life of impact. And you know that there is something in this world that only you are meant to do. Maybe you're feeling lost, insecure, and unaware of what you actually bring to the world. Well, this is how a Anugreh Sapra described himself many years ago, and he searched high and low for a process, a system, somebody to journey with him to help him clarify exactly what that purpose was here on this earth. And he couldn't find anyone. So he made the system himself and today he is helping more and more people live a life that is powerful and crushing the confusion all around the calling. So if this is you, I would encourage you to reach out to a Anugreh Sapra today, directly into his email box@anewgrayatheart-hans-head.com. Again, that's anugreh@heart-hands-head.com. Okay. Shane, this might be a silly question to be asking you, but have you ever built anything like a shed, even a house? I know you guys have done a lot of house stuff. Have you ever built one?

Shane (03:13):
Yeah, we have done a lot of house stuff and we built one house and I swore I would never do it again. I just have to tell you one thing about that whole experience. Now, the other people, other people I've talked to, they love this, right? They love being the one who is making all the decisions. Minute by minute. For me, it just drove me absolutely crazy. If it felt like every time I turned around, I hired a general contractor, but, but I was serving as the general contractor. And every time I turned around, I was like, Hey, um, we need more stuff than what I thought, what are you kidding me? Like, Hey, we need more, we need more plywood. Uh that's a lot. That's a lot more money than what I was like. That was like the repeating theme. You know what I'm saying? Oh, so just frustrating. Yeah.

Amy (03:57):
And if you know anything and you might not know it now, but the more you spend time with us, the one thing you're going to find out is that budget is Shane's favorite B word.

Shane (04:09):
My son just reminded me of that yesterday.

Amy (04:12):
Right? So I'm really curious because you are incredibly, um, intentional about how you spend your money. Surely you sat down and when you were building this thing out, you sat down, you consider the cost of materials to ensure you have enough to finish the job.

Shane (04:33):
Right, right, right. Plus a little bit, right. Plus a little bit. Yeah. Right. Just not enough, a little bit. Exactly. It just enough to make me panic. Well, you know, I mean,

Amy (04:43):
Otherwise you, you might've started this project and not actually had enough money to finish, right? Like you don't want to be the house or the project where people drive by and shake their heads and wonder, um, how does one start a job like that and not make sure they have enough money.

Shane (05:03):
I've seen that house, right? Me too.

Amy (05:05):
I've seen that house. I wonder what happened there, or even that big building project. Right. And I know things happen, but it's a counting. The cost is very important. No one can actually start a business, sustain a business and scale a business without sitting down and actually counting the cost. And over 23 years now in this world, the one thing I know is that a business at any phase of growth is a luxury. And when I looked up that word luxury shame, the origin of the word luxury is this Latin word called Luxus. And it means excess. And you and I have daily and weekly conversations about the idea that we as owners must have an excess of time, an excess of money or an excess of both to be able to actually do what we want to do with the business, grow it, help more people impact more lives.

Amy (06:04):
I mean, time is a luxury. Most people talk about counting the cost of money. And so they sit down and they think, well, I've got, I've got six months in the bank. I've got 30 days in the bank, more like it. And they really think that if I hustle and grind, I'll be able to pay myself at the end of this 30 days at the end of this six months. And I have yet to see that workout because the, the big resource that most of us as owners fail to measure is time. And time is fluid. We can't save it. We can't make more of it. It's a luxury. And it, it is the thing that we need to actually make the business more profitable. And so I would say, and you and I have, uh, are on the same page about this is that time is the resource to value and respect wouldn't you agree?

Shane (06:58):
Absolutely would. And I like how you said that, you know, time is, is a luxury. And that time is what we need to be able to take the business to a higher level of, of profits. So it just, by default, if you're hustling for the next deal, you're right. Your time to really be able to build the business is consumed with all of this activity and you don't ever, you don't ever get there. You know? So the value of time, it's, it's precious. And here's some things that I've observed, you know, patterns in my own time management, you know, that I've, that I've seen people, people who have been successful at doing what we're talking about doing leveraging time to scale their business, right? Here's what they do. They establish priorities. And then they allocate the time in their calendar to focus on those priorities, right?

Shane (07:43):
Like doing that is actually a habit that all people who live their life being truly fulfilled have in common. So these people, they are highly satisfied. They're highly accomplished. And they do not treat time as something to be managed, but they treat it as something to be leveraged. There's a big difference, right? So different. And they understand you can't, you cannot get more time. You can not hustle your way into more than 24 hours a day. And you truly can't manage it because you don't have the capability to start and stop time on your command. So these people who are highly leveraging time, they know they know how to focus priorities. Now, if we treat the idea of time as something to be managed, here's, what's going to happen. We're going to end up with lots of tasks that fill our to-do list or activities that we just plopped down on the calendar.

Shane (08:32):
And at the end of the day, or even the decade, we're going to leave with an empty heart and empty hands. So our ability to leverage time, to truly get the most out of it, right. To, to be satisfied with the return on our investment of time, it's gotta be grounded in our ability to know what we value first and then to choose to do the things with the time that reflect those values. So look at it this way, the gap in satisfaction with time is always field by either eliminating actions that don't support my priorities, not filling up my calendar with more things to do. Wow.

Amy (09:11):
Okay. I just need to sit with that for a minute. Okay. Shane. Like there's a lot there and, and that, and that, that bit of content you just threw at us, man, and this is what I know most of the time I walk away from these kind of firehose moments with you like, wow, yes, yes, you are exactly right. We cannot manage time. And it is based around their priorities. Now it's, it's really interesting to me because at the very core of these owners who are always scaling, you're going to find their attention to other people first, which I think is very powerful. And because their attention is on other people first, I've also observed successful people. And, and you and I are part of that observation. We have learned a lot of what not to do, and we have committed the disciplined, focused attention to do what is hard. Let's, let's just, let's just say it again. Building a business is hard. My friend, can we all just agree on that?

Shane (10:20):
Yes. Yeah. It is hard.

Amy (10:24):
It is hard but it can be more simple when we eliminate all this stuff that feels important and actually focus on the two things that are the highest priorities to any owner. And again, just measuring patterns, knowing what numbers are of the highest value to me as an owner, and also in this world of technology and automation and digital marketing and human effort and advertising. What we know is that 60 to 90% of our new money, our cashflow, 60 to 90% of our cashflow comes from brand new client acquisition, 60 to 90%. So the number one objective has to be always acquiring the same kind of client that we really enjoy serving, not just any client, but the one that we enjoy serving the most. And that takes time to evolve and to understand who is it that we say yes to, and who is it that we say no to?

Amy (11:31):
And why are we saying no? Right. But it's important that we make that the number one objective, because it is still true. And the small business association is still reporting that the number one reason that businesses are closing is because of lack of cashflow, because often what happens is we, as owners get so created in putting out fires and making new offers and trying to learn the latest marketing tactics that we failed to do the things that have been proven to get the highest return on investment. Because oftentimes we believe there's a shorter path to cash. We believe that there's an easier way to do it. And I'm going to tell you right now, there is only a few digital marketing advertising tactics and client acquisition processes that are proven over and over to get us the highest return on investment. So the number one objective has to be always acquiring brand new clientele.

Amy (12:34):
The second objective, the second priority of successful owners is that they are then helping that very ideal client. The one that they enjoy serving the most, get what they want the most first. And that also requires a high commitment to attending to that client. And it means that we don't get to oftentimes attend to our own desires first, but Shane isn't it so true. I mean, step into our businesses spend a day with us and you will see that what we say is what we live and is what is the outcome of the work that we do? I mean, isn't it true that the indirect result of putting that client as the focus and what their most desired outcome is as our objective every day, we always get what we want, their satisfaction there's enough money. We have time. We get to do what we want to do. Is it easy? No, but the indirect result is we always get what we want. I mean, Shane, yes, that is the truth, right?

Shane (13:48):
The truth. I just wrote those three, those three things down. When we, when it comes to getting what you want in business, don't you want higher levels of satisfaction. Don't you want higher levels of impact, higher volumes of time available to you to do what's most important to you to focus on your priorities. And here's the strange thing about it, Amy, it really goes back to that 80 20 rule, right? 80% of our results are coming from 20% of our activity. And what you're talking about here is narrowing down the focus to the 20% that drives the 80%. There is freedom to be found here in focus, but that focus requires a discipline that does not look like what you see, all your peers doing. It does not look like chasing whatever is the next thing. It looks like committing to one group of people who really make your heart sing. When you think about working with them and continuously focusing on getting them the outcomes that they want versus trying to get them to give you something return. Now, the beautiful thing about businesses, it's value for value exchange you by giving up your right to be selfish, right, and only meet expectation by you giving up that right. And exceeding expectation. What comes back to you is 10 fold. That's what I've found anyway.

Amy (15:09):
So true. And you know, it's interesting because we have a client in common and it's Anugreh. And, um, it's interesting because that's exactly how he started his consulting call with us recently. He said, I really want to understand this 80 20 principle as it relates to building my business. And you know, the 80 20 principle radically changed the way I worked. Gosh, it's been 12 years ago, radically changed the way I worked. And from that experience of mastering this 80 20 principle, I really realized, wow, okay. There really is only four things every day that are important to me as a leader to achieve these two priorities every single day. And the interesting thing is, is that those four most important things have now taken over every area of my life because my values have become clearer and I have a stronger conviction around them.

Amy (16:12):
And for those that are not familiar with the 80 20 principle, it is a book that was written. I cannot remember the gentleman's name, but you can Google it. And it was basically this, that 20% of the things that we focus on are going to give us 80% of our results as really kind of Amy's understanding. Okay, I got to dumb it down here for me. And so it's a very powerful principle, but when you practice it and you measure it, you start to see, wow, there really isn't much in that 20%. That gets me the highest return on the investment of the time I'm putting in whether it's at work or it's at home or it's with friends. It really was a game changer for me. So Anugreh in this consulting call that we're all about to listen to together. He's, he's trying to wrap his mind around this.

Amy (17:05):
He, he had launched his business in 2020, and this is actually how I met him, um, on LinkedIn. And he was considering at the time launching a business right in the middle of a pandemic. And he was stuck in Canada. And, um, the love of his life is in the us and his family is overseas. He's all by himself in Canada. And he just said, Hey, I am compelled to get this business into the world. Even if it's going to require things of me that I never, that I never knew that it would. And it truly is a business that at the core of it is serving other people, but it's a service that most people would consider luxury. It's not, it's not people, it's not an essential, it's a, it's a something that people use discretionary money and time on. Now, the very first call with Anugreh, I could see that he really had served enough people to be able to duplicate that service again, which is a huge essential when it comes to scale.

Amy (18:08):
Have you done it once? Have you done it twice? Have you done it three times? If so, we can duplicate it. And Anugreh quickly became someone I knew I needed to know and study. He is at his very core Shane. He is an agile leader, right? Which just basically means he's flexible. He's collaborative, he's a learner. And these are all behaviors that are like gas to the fire of anything technology digitally or automation driven, right? So when you apply these behaviors of flexibility, collaboration and the, um, commitment to learn, it is like throwing gas on the fire of technology. So as we have walked with Anugreh now for, um, I want to say it's a year, he asks a lot of questions, which I love. I love someone that gets in there and wants to understand everything. He pays very close attention to what we talk about the most.

Amy (19:14):
And this call is crucial to all of us because the cost of labor hours, his own labor hours and his future team is a crucial conversation that Shane and I have a lot with owners. And so we pick up this conversation, this consulting conversation with the new gray, um, and what has happened prior to what we're all going to hear together as he's come on the line with us. And he's asked his question, which goes like this, I've noticed when I set apart one and a half hours per morning to focus on connecting with new prospects, my ROI is super high. So I'm curious, what are the examples of activities that fall under each of the four most important priorities? Now, let me pause here and help all of us understand what I'm talking about with these four most important priorities, because you're going to hear us discuss them over the next several weeks. And they really are the legs to these two objectives. Remember always acquiring our client and always helping that client get what they want. Those two objectives, these four most important things are essential to those priorities actually coming into fruition. Right. Makes sense, Shane.

Shane (20:34):
It totally does. Yeah. I mean, this is when we talk about allocating your time to be able to achieve what you want. Most it starts with the priorities, these four most important priorities are what you will begin to build out your activity on so that you get those clients that you really want to work with consistently and you get them what they want predictably. Yeah.

Amy (20:54):
Well said, and this is a really great opportunity for all of us to get a glimpse inside the mind of an agile leader. So let's pull back the curtain and hear this conversation with new, Anugreh.
Okay. So when I look at positioning, right, um, on the, if you're looking at the screen in the middle, you're going to see the foremost important things, right. There's positioning. And then when you look over on the left-hand side of the screen, there's the arrow, this arrow, which is the ascend arrow points back to these four things, because this is what happens under each. So under positioning and development, what we're doing is we're increasing our capability. We're increasing our capability to understand our market. We're increasing our capability of how much time we can spend with our clients. And also the capability of our, our model, right?

Amy (21:53):
What is really capable in a day, that's going to get us clients and help those clients get what they want. We're, we're really increasing capability there. Okay. Now we're also increasing capability of how to say no, because this is important and this fosters other things in your life, it helps you start to communicate better boundaries. So your capability to communicate to your family, what's happening, you know, you're, you're going to see your communication skills increase under a positioning and awareness, not just in marketing, not just with your clients, not just on sales calls, but in your life. Does that make sense? So you have communication, you have boundaries, you have marketing, um, under positioning and awareness. You have also the awareness of what you really are enjoying, and what's, you're not really enjoying here. Right? Um, and these are very important things to pay attention to also the positioning of priorities. So like when I sit down and manage my time, I'm looking at increasing capability. So I'm looking at my time and saying, do I really need to do this? Or can I outsource it or can I drop it? Like, I'm really becoming more and more thoughtful in the positioning and awareness phase of what I'm spending my time on. Is this answering your question, Anugreh.

Anugreh (23:19):
It is. I'm trying to wrap my head around it. Um, I might be, so other people might get it faster. Um, okay.

Amy (23:26):
Well tell me, tell me, um, how I can help you, how I can clarify further you need examples.

Anugreh (23:34):
Can I repeat back to you what you said just to see if you got it. Um, okay. So the versus the reverse engineering worksheet will is, will stay. But as we work on increasing our capabilities, there are presented percentages on it. They'll increase, meaning our conversions will become much better. So sales call will be more efficient. Our messages will become more efficient the way we choose the people we add also becomes more efficient. Am I right in that? Yes. Okay. And that applies, of course, to even right now, me learning how, how to be more efficient, keeping 15 minute calls, 15 minutes and not 25 that's.

Shane (24:19):
Amy, let's, let's unpack what we can focus on in this priority of positioning. And, and what I've found in my experience is that the core of, of this principle is servanthood. And when I think of servant hood, I think about sacrificing. And I go back to what you said earlier in this episode where we have to give up, we have to give up some self-serving behaviors in order to better serve the client. And that's where positioning starts. Would you agree?

Amy (24:51):
Yes, it does. Because in order to position something, we have to think about the outcome of that position. So like, if I'm going to, even as a friend, if I'm going to position myself in front of someone as someone that they want to be friends with, I have to show myself friendly, right? I have to position myself as friendly. If you want to be my friend, right. I have to position myself as trustworthy and dependable. And those are the exact same attributes we have to show up with. As a business, our business has a personality, and if we want people to be friends of our business, we have to position ourselves as friendly, as selfless. I'm willing to focus on you first, I'm willing to give to you before I take from you. These are attributes. We have to position the business as an oftentimes we don't see our business as something that is living and breathing and has personality and has ambition, but yet the people we're serving have personality and ambition and goals and personality. Okay.

Shane (26:11):
So let's, let's talk about this for a minute. Cause to me, the opposite of service is selfishness. Like if I just, you know, like, okay, what's the opposite of hers, it'd be selfish. So the selfish approach to positioning is, is what I used to do before I met you. Like, I didn't know any better. Right. I didn't know. There was a difference in the way in which I should be considering positioning in order to be, you know, someone who is actually likable. And so what I would do is I would go on social media and I would tell a whole lot of stuff. Right.
And that would tell about me and would tell about who I was working with. And I would tell about all the great things I could do. And I would tell you what your problem was. And I would tell you what you needed.

Shane (26:50):
Like, I would just, I was a big old teller, right? Of all this stuff. And looking back, I'm like, man, I was never considering who was on the other end of that post. It, I'm not kidding with you, Amy. It never crossed my mind other than the fact of, are they going to pay me or they can, can they pay me like that? Was it very selfish in, in the approach? And what I learned was, boy, we're flipping it on its head here. When we talk about positioning from the, from the standpoint of service. So service is where I really do put my needs secondary in the conversation where I'm trying to communicate with, you see people when we think about serving and can connection is just such a vital part of it. Right? So how do I best connect with you? Like, well, I've got to connect with your heart.

Shane (27:34):
I got to know what's most important to you. I've got to spend time thinking about what it's like to walk the path that you're walking, what the things might be that, you know, you're challenged by. And, and the more that I began to practice that you talk about satisfaction metric going up, boy, I got more satisfied because I felt like I was actually doing something worthwhile. You know? So this idea of positioning to me is it's, you know, am I going to be selfish or am I going to be service oriented? And there are there specific ways to be able to do that. And that's what I love about our work together. We talk about this a lot, right? Constantly putting the other person at the center of this conversation when it comes to positioning.

Amy (28:12):
Yeah. And, and one of the, one of the key ways we do that is there's a bit of an obsession with this model market. If you will, this target market that we know that we are created to serve. And so we, we stay in their world. We study them, we study them through, uh, co comments and questions that they ask on social media platforms. They're spending time on. We ask questions of them that allow us to better understand where they place value in their life, um, in their current situation and also value in the, in the situation they want to get by stepping into relationship with us. Now, it does not matter if we are selling dresses to pregnant women, because I have, I have been there, or if we are selling consulting services, as long as that person remains at the center of our focus, we're constantly listening to what are they wanting to achieve from us?

Amy (29:21):
And can we actually, can we actually deliver that or is it meant for someone else to serve them? And so we're constantly talking to this model market on the platforms they spend the most time on. We're not saying, Hey, this is our platform. You have to come over here. We are actually choosing to go where they are, even if it's not for us, or we don't want to be perceived as being on the less important platform versus the, the most important platform we are, where the people are. And another really practical way to, to walk out the first, the first focus, which is positioning is to really make decisions from a metrics perspective, not from a feelings perspective. You see the metrics tell us, um, based on people. Well, the metrics tell us if the people we're serving both inside of our business model and also the prospect, if they are getting what they want from us, because they're not oftentimes going to tell you that, especially in a cancel culture or a, uh, politically correct culture, people are less willing to tell you the truth and they'll just vote with their feet. But the metrics tell us if they're really getting what they want. And so, because their personalities dictate where they're spending time and time is a huge metric that we cannot ignore along with the other metrics in the process.

Shane (30:54):
Yeah. I think Amy, as I reflect on those three things, looking at, you know, getting on the platforms where the people I want to work with are spending the most, most time engaging with them in this authentic, real conversation, you know, with a clear objective of helping them and then having a set of metrics to measure by that's a pathway for service, right? And the more that I live in this pathway, the more that I understand the value of consistency, right? Because when I do the three things that are a part of positioning on a consistent basis, I gain efficiencies or when I get more efficient, I've got more time. And the other thing that I think is really important, you made the statement, you're like, you gotta be likable here. Like people like to like people who are likable and the fastest way to be likable to me, what I, what I've experienced anyway.

Shane (31:42):
And, and other people may have, have some other thoughts on this. And, but for me, the fastest way to be, to be likable is to be someone who's trustworthy and dependable. And when I walk out these three activities that are part of this priority, principle of positioning, when I walk them out consistently, I am building trust. They're like, this is the same guy, day in and day out. He's not changing. He's not a chameleon. You know, just try so many people that I talk with. And I know you experienced this too. Amy are like, boy, where's the hidden agenda. Like what, how am I going to get hooked in here? But when you live out these three things, you, you consistently do them. You begin to build trust and people get began to, to see that you are dependable to focus on what is most important to them. Now, there is a greater likelihood of joining you in a conversation to see what it might be like for you to actually help them at a deeper level than what you had that initially might establish that connection.

Amy (32:35):
So well said, Shane, and it's, it's the truth that the more we focus on this positioning piece, and I want to make it very clear that positioning is not marketing and advertising, marketing and advertising are direct, um, are indirect results of positioning. And so, and, and from positioning also comes the next most important thing to focus on, which is development. And we're going to talk about that the next time we're all together. So I have just so enjoyed this conversation, Shane, thank you so much for joining me

Shane (33:10):
It right on. Yeah.

Amy (33:13):
And you know, as we, as we wrap up today's time together, we, we must understand that when we start to count the cost of time, leverage time to get the highest ROI. That's when doing less things really becomes an obsession because you can see the direct results of people's lives changed and you are receiving monetary value for that transformation. So to begin your own obsession, I want you to know that you can go grab the foremost important priorities by going to a don't be fooled podcast.com forward slash daily four focus. Now that four is the number four. So again, go grab your own download of these four most important priorities, put them somewhere. You can refer to them, and then we will unpack them over the next few weeks. And the next time we're together, we're going to focus on development. And again, that's, it, don't be fooled podcast.com forward slash daily for focus.

Shane (34:19):
And finally, if you've yet to rate the podcast, I hope you'll do that same. I mean, this actually helps keep the podcast visible. So if you, if you happen to think it's five star worthy and you leave a written review. So I know who you are, I'll be sure to mention you by name in an upcoming episode as a small way to say thanks. So to rate and review the podcast, just visit your favorite podcast platform or go to don't be fooled podcast.com. That's

Amy (34:42):
All for this week. Shane and I can't wait until we meet up next time and remember systems run business, but people run the systems.

Shane (34:53):
The Don't Be Fooled Podcast is copyright by Ascend 1, LLC.

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