Trapped by your own success... 🪤
Hey Income Flippers,
I see it all the time, a badass solo entrepreneur that is so awesome at their craft that they are trapped in a job they think is a business because they can't let go.
I hear things like...
"I can't find talent."
"The last person I hired was a disaster."
"I don't have time to train another person."
"It's easier if I just do it myself."
The list goes on and on.
Let's get real for a second...
You can't find talent because you have not mastered it yet and you haven't taken the time to study and learn how to attract the "right talent" to your organization.
It's not the person you hired that's the disaster. Your hiring, training, and onboarding is a disaster. You don't have time to train another person which is why you need to find the time to train another person. We all have time, we either make it a priority or we don't.
And the last one on the list...
"It's just easier if I do it myself" is code for "I'm scared to hire another person." The good news is that everyone experiences this type of hiring pain when they start growing but too often people let this pain get in the way of their growth. They experience the pain and then shrink back to what is comfortable when things get hard.
After all, they are making money so they justify the long weekends, the sacrifice, and the failed family life as the "price you have to pay for being successful."
They trade their life for money.
I know, I have been there.
But it doesn't have to be this way and I want to save you the pain I experienced before I learned the truth... It's not about how hard you work, it's about how you think about the work.
(By the way, a really good book on the subject is Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martel.)
There is a mental shift we all need to experience....people are not an expense on your P&L.
They are an investment in your future, and like all good investments, they need to be nurtured, cared for, and protected. But I often hear the following, "I can't afford an assistant" which is code for "I don't trust in my ability to hire or produce."
Let that sink in.
This person sees hiring as an ongoing expense of their time and money when in reality a great hire gives you back your time, (one of the most precious resources you have) and helps you make more money.
So how do you emotionally move forward from this false belief?
I don't claim to know all the answers, but here are 5 things that have helped me on my own journey:
Learn the DISC Model. The DISC helps you understand someone's behavioral tendencies. You wouldn't want to put someone that's wired for operations in a sales role or vice versa. The DISC is a starting point to help you understand whether someone is potentially wired for the role you want to hire for.
Learn how to conduct behavioral interviews to understand what drives the person and whether they have the heart of a victor and or that of a victim. Don't hire victims.
Don't be afraid to hire quickly and fire even faster if they don't show up as expected. People rarely change. We are not in the business of changing people. We are in the business of finding and growing talent.
Use the WISE Framework (a tool I developed for my team) to set expectations and hold people accountable:
WISE stands for:
Write down your standards so people know what winning and losing looks like to you.
Inspect what you expect on a regular basis.
Supply the resources, tools, and training so people can grow.
Evaluate, calibrate, and celebrate talent. Talent wants to know how they are performing.
5. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Look at your them as investments in your growth. Mistakes are the only way we learn. See them as an opportunity, not as a failure.
Earlier this week, I was at a conference and I had a conversation with a friend, (no it wasn't David Huffaker the smiling face in this picture and overall badass) I could hear how tired she was from the cycle of people not working out in her world.
Let's face it, losing someone you have invested time into hurts both your ego and your pocketbook. It's enough to make most people give up.
At first, I also took those losses personally, today, I don't feel that same way. Something shifted in my mind that took all of that anxiety and insecurity away. I described it to my friend as follows:
"When you have a clear vision of what you are building and the value you bring, you stop focusing on those that don't work out and instead focus on the mission and the people supporting the mission.
You create an environment of equal opportunity and unequal reward —meaning some people will grow with you and some people will go.
And that's ok —put your energy into those who choose to be on the mission. Help them become massively successful, and their success will attract others who also want to be part of the mission.
Create a training and onboarding system that gives you permission to offboard quickly if people don't do the work. Make sure everyone understands that your onboarding system is a weeding-out process. Think Navy Seals training —only 25% graduate."
Once I fully understood this I felt free.
But for this to work you need a system that helps those 25% become successful. It has to be worth it. Navy Seals are the best of the best and they are given training and resources that make them elite. They pay the price because they WANT to be elite and Navy Seal training helps them get there.
Ask yourself —do you have a system to help your people become the best of the best? Can somebody become elite under your system?
You probably have a system but you have yet to fully define it.
Go define your system and then hire to it, train to it, and develop a coaching and consulting playbook that helps others become leaders within the system all with a common vision to fulfill the mission.
Here is a visual representation of the playbook and journey we take our people on:
This is how you move from bad-ass solopreneur to bad-ass business owner. You have to slow down to speed up.
It's counterintuitive for the high achiever who is trying to do everything themselves but a necessary step in the process to flip your income and win back your freedom.
Keep Moving Forward!
Rob
PS: Are you a real estate agent that wants to learn the game of real estate investing? Join my next 7-week interactive Income Flip class for real estate agents kicking off September 5th.
