210. Growth Without Scale with Khalil Stultz

If you weren't allowed to work more than four to five hours per day, and you had to hit the same goal, Here's the key question. What would you focus on during the day? Welcome to the Three Day Weekend Entrepreneur Podcast, where we help you create the personal and professional life you most desire.

Impact more people and make more money in less time. Do what you do best so you can create the life you want outside of work and better enjoy your family, your friends, and your life. Go to threedayweekendclub. com to join our community for free. Welcome everybody. Today I'm excited to bring on with you Khalil Stultz.

We're going to be talking about how to grow your business without scaling it. He has such a passion for business and for family. We share that in common and I'm just really excited to have him here. Thanks so much for joining us today, Khalil. Hey, thanks for having me, Wade. Absolutely. So he has 10 plus years of experience with sales, talent development, and business development.

He's a growth strategist and an entrepreneur. Before launching into his own ventures of sales and digital enablement, he churned and burned in the field of outbound phone calls. That's how you know somebody's done the work. Converting cold calls, learning how to do that and convert that into cash. Now he works with business owners so they don't have to waste their time.

With a lot of those things that used to work that some people are still pounding on, um, inefficient sales, marketing, that sort of stuff. So maybe if you just share a little bit about your story, because I come from the insurance field. We're one of the first fields of, yes, you grind and you, you get on the phone and you pound the phones.

And it worked so well that when the technology started changing, people still said, no, no, you still do it that way. And some things don't seem to work. So share a little bit about your journey, if you don't mind. Yeah, absolutely. Um, yeah, as you mentioned, I started, uh, uh, code calling, particularly 150 calls a day, roughly.

Um, in the transportation space at that, uh, for about three and a half years. And, uh, you know, I'm sure you can imagine dealing with shippers and truck drivers all day. Um, it's not for the faint of heart, right? Um, so, if, uh, if there was an equivalent to sailors, you know, as they say, you know, like a sailor's mouth and so forth, it will be a truck driver.

So, uh, but did that for three and a half years straight, built a book of business, um, you know, and basically what we're talking about enterprise level sales in order to be successful, you know, penetrating accounts with large, uh, you know, large level companies. Transcribed Um, to provide shipping and transportation services, so, um, and the interesting thing about that, I'm sure you can imagine tons of competition out there in that space, but not just externally, uh, but also internally.

Um, so about out of 100 sales reps in the office, I ended up, you know, performing in the top, you know, 3 percent out of the office, uh, in terms of amounts of accounts closed. Um, one of the ways I did that, you know, I kind of had a, an epiphany, if you will. You know, thinking, okay, um, there's a ton of competition internally.

And what I mean by that is, you know, only one person, one sales rep can prospect a company at a time. So if it's tagged in the system, somebody else has got it for X amount of time to try and close it. So you can imagine, you know, Walmart's taken for, you know, as a shipping client, Amazon is of course taken, you know, so you kind of got to get creative to.

Kind of find your slice of the pie. So I started thinking, I was like, okay, uh, I'm getting fed up trying to, you know, close a big fish as they say. Um, not only dealing with, you know, and talk about, you know, external competition. Your external competition is the shipping company they've been using for the last 15 years.

Right? How do you wedge that apart to, to get a piece of action, right? So, uh, I started thinking, you know, what is the most effective way that I can kind of increase my reach? Uh, without working more hours because, you know, at the time when I started this, I literally started this job three days after my wedding.

So do family. Um, so, uh, and yeah, in 2013. Um, and on top of that, uh, we, uh, I got, it turned out that we got married and pregnant on the same day. So, uh, a lot of life changes, a lot of things coming up that you're like, okay, uh, you know, you start building a different perspective, you know, as I'm sure you can imagine.

So I'm like, how can I get more done? Without, you know, spending extra office hours having to prospect and that's what it takes. Um, so, I came to the conclusion, I was like, you know what? There are other companies out there, um, that already have the clients that I'm trying to work with. Which, A, that helps me get around the problem of my peers inside my company who already have these accounts.

And they need what I do. Uh, the company I was with, we were very good at, uh, sourcing, trucking, service providers more than most companies were. We had a vast network, so, um, so, and you had a ton of other transportation companies who had an overflow from their clients they couldn't handle themselves. So I was like, why don't I just prospect what looks like my competition, because they got all the clients I want, they've already closed them, they already got the relationships with them, they'll have to go through that, and they're like hungry to find a way to keep their client happy.

Leverage, right? So, uh, so that's kind of what started my journey kind of in that pathway. Okay, how can I get more out of what I'm already doing? As opposed to calling prospects, I started hunting for partners. Um, so transition from there, I became a sales, uh, trainer at the company, went on to insurance myself.

I was with Liberty Mutual, um, for a few years. Uh, out of a thousand sales reps in the Orlando office, roughly I was performing in the top 30. So again, top 3%. Uh, and then I went on to become an entrepreneur, got the entrepreneurial bug, right? Went to build something for myself. So, uh, my first attempt at being an entrepreneur was to try and buy a 7 million trucking company, uh, which is a really cool story in of itself.

Um, ended up not being able to buy it regularly. I tried to get a credit partner. Uh, I'm sure you can imagine after leaving my job, didn't have a million in the bank. Go figure, right? Uh, so, but it turned out that the business owner had a divorce and a non compete legal battle back to back. which made, you know, the business unfundable.

Banks don't like that for whatever reason. Go figure, right? So, I was able to help financially re engineer the company, though, to add 880, 000 back to the net bottom line as cash without any additional new sales. Just even if the company stayed stagnant, you know, it would have netted an additional nearly a million dollars just from those few changes.

And Tweets that I made. So I went on from there to take an equity stake in a digital marketing company. Um, key, key note there, I didn't, I didn't necessarily come up with the concept of this company. I took an equity stake in one that was already existing. Um, and one of the main ways I grew it, you know, I was kind of boots on the ground growing it for the most part from where it was myself, you know, on the sales calls, I was creating the marketing channels, the whole nine.

Um, and again, I kind of had an aha moment. I was like, wait, hold on. How can I, how can I, you know, what if I could sell someone, quote unquote, and it had a residual return on my effort, right? Because traditional sales is like, okay, great, I closed someone today, but, you know, your, your P& L is like, what have you done for me lately?

You know, today's a new day. So, uh, I, I went back to what I, my original idea, why don't I start focusing on getting channel partners? Right? Resellers, right? People who have a pool of my ideal clients, same concept, but they're missing the value add that I provide and they can just interject it into a pool of already buying individuals, right?

The best buyers aren't already buying. So, I did that and within a, within about four to six months of implementing that, we grew 240%. Um, and I was on less calls. So, um, so that's kind of where that idea came from, if you will, you know, growing without scale, as I love to call it. Right? Most people grow just by traditional sales and marketing.

I got to pay for more marketing to acquire a new client. But then if I get more clients, I got to pay on the back end for more fulfillment. So now you have two additional costs, um, to acquire a client. Whereas plugging into what's already existing is a far more profitable method. So that was kind of the high level, what kind of led to that thought process, if that makes sense.

Awesome. I like. Uh, you know, it reminds me just the same, you know, measure twice, cut once, the idea of just kind of looking at things first. Most business models that I've found, if they scale very quickly, they can die very quickly. And if they're steady with renewals, there's, you know, a repeat income, residual income, whatever you want to call it, usually there's some sort of fulfillment overhead.

And so you're not taking, you know, a huge percent. So for example, if you're, if you're a coach. You can say, I'm going to charge for my coaching services, and other than the 3 percent credit card fee, roughly, you can keep all of it. Now that's, and it sounds great, but then you say, okay, that's not all that scalable.

There's a few people that have learned how to really scale it, but for the most part, that's not that easy. And on the flip side, if you have a business, an insurance agency, a software business, whatever it might be, you're usually able to get to about maybe 30 percent of profits, roughly. Because, you know, you've overhead, you have team members, you have other different things like that.

And those can be good too. But to your point, I just find so many people, and I've run in this before, where, especially as our kids were growing up, it was kind of this question, okay, well, how do I figure out how to make more, help more people? I mean, somewhere in my equation, I figured, yeah, okay, I've got to, I've got to create some more value.

It's not just going to magically fall from somewhere, but to your point, who are the people that really need me? And even who are the people that either are already looking for me, that already appreciate what I have to offer? Maybe share a little bit about that, because I, if you don't mind, because I, I think, I listened to what you said, you know, I talked about in the pre interview, so I kind of got it, but I think it might people...

Um, listen, you might even use even a little more specific example in the sense of what did that look like as far as you now saying, okay, I'm working with these groups, trying to get them, and now I'm working with the competitors, but I, you know, if I understand you correctly, you became a trainer for them, so you basically looked at the whole operation, the whole industry in essence, rather than saying, okay, I'm looking at it from one angle.

I mean, is that pretty much what happened there? Yeah, multipronged approach, right? Have multiple legs working for you. Right. Uh, that's real growth. I mean, you look at any major corporation. I don't know a single, I don't know a single billion dollar enterprise that literally does or offers just one thing.

I can't find it. Right. I don't know any top level entrepreneur, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, that does just one thing. There's, there's proper diversification that happens. So, yeah, to your point, uh, you want to fortify your business with rightful diversification and you don't have to build those things. That's the key.

What most entrepreneurs do, man, I gotta go fix this and implement that to do it, when really, whether partnering for or acquiring a business that does it, is a, is a far more effective solution. Way less risk, way less time and effort. Um, so yeah, to answer your question, kind of, I, I, I had to kind of think about it and think about it from this perspective, who is my ideal client already buying from, right?

That's complementary to what I do. I'll give you an example, right? Most people understand what a realtor does. Helps someone either buy or sell a home, right? So think about the ideal client of a realtor. Typically speaking, if they're engaging a realtor, there are others, some buy, there are other buying decisions that are at play.

Home insurance, right? Maybe furniture right? Maybe they need a new lawn care service, right? We can go down the line of all the things that you have to buy when it comes to either selling your home, 'cause you gotta go somewhere else, right? Or buying a home. Right? So, um, when you break those down, you start to realize who your potential circles of influence are, right?

That already have your ideal clientele. And you begin to create relationships for a value exchange. To say, hey, look, there's a, there's a profit center that we both can maximize together without any extra work. Um, Mr. Lawn Service Guy, you got a list of 5, 000 people in this area that need X. Well, hey, what if we just...

You know, marketed to that list who already trust you anyway, right? People do business with those they know, like, and trust. That know, like, and trust is already secured, so let's just leverage that. That's way less expensive and way less toxic to a business concerning growth than just marketing for a new client.

So, when we talk about, you know, how you grow without scale, right? There are areas of opportunity that you can drive growth. without the necessities of scaling because you're leveraging something else that's already in existence. Um, so you can get the, the upside from an asset without necessarily the responsibility of said asset, um, through partnership.

Um, so that's kind of the thought process. Think about who your ideal client, um, uh, either buys from now. Think about what they would buy prior to engaging with your solution. Who they would engage with instead of your solution. Who would they engage with after using your solution? And you're going to get a web of opportunity now that becomes apparent on who you can approach for something like this.

And yes, even competitors. I've actually found that people on the surface who are my competitors have been the best, uh, circles of influences that have just driven our growth. Just over and over again. Why? Because you might have the same realm of solution on the service, but you may either A, deliver it differently, or you may deliver it in a very similar fashion, but you have two different price points, which is a huge opportunity because if they're more expensive than you, you'd be their downsell.

Think about how many people they're turning down because they can't afford them, and they can just shoot right over to you at a profit share. The inverse, you have somebody who's less expensive. How many people are you turning down because of price? And you can just as, and they wanted to move forward.

They love the idea of your product, your service. They built a rapport with you, and you can say, well, you know what? We have another solution, right? Yeah, that's, that's, there's so much power to that. I know I've watched in the insurance industry. Gosh, I think it was late nineties that Ferguson Act where banking and insurance could basically get into each other's business before they couldn't.

And I've watched some of them do it, and some do it with success, but for the most part, if you want every piece of the pie, then nobody's going to send you any business. If you say, I want everything, whereas if you say, look, I do this, but I help, like, like you said, I, you know, if somebody's doing the lawn, well, somebody's going to do the pressure cleaning.

Now, that's not the same. It's not a monthly business, but something else. Somebody's going to do the rodents, you know, the, the, whatever it might be. And so that's the part that I remember a gentleman, Doug Andrew, who I'd met. And he always talked about, you know, can you make your competitors, your customers, your customers, or your partners into what you're saying?

And just look at it from a different standpoint, because I've just always found anytime I've shared with people, I do quite a bit of sales coaching, not as much marketing, but sales, like the one on one thing. And I always tell them, look, very often there's a sale walking right in front of you, but if you don't know how to see it.

It's not a sale. It's an opportunity. Right in front of you, you missed it. The client's screaming out a certain product or a need. And to your point, if you have a partner where you say, look, here's, here's my, my guy, or actually before you do this thing that you need to want to do with me, gosh, you need to do this first.

And I've just seen what credibility it builds, like here in Florida, as you know, the homeowner's insurance market, sometimes the clients I work with, they can't even write, and they say, Well, let me send you my friend who writes homeowner's insurance, he'll get you a better deal, or she'll get you a better deal.

And the rapport it builds to actually demonstrate, yeah, I, I delayed gratification, or I waited on something, and the most inefficient part of sales is persuasion. To get you to know, like, and trust me, and not just trust me that my intentions are good, but to trust that I'm competent. People, I think, forget that.

Wow, this, this is just something, I think that, so let's say somebody, and you know, you and I both are in the field of education, content creation in different ways. So what would you say then? Okay, so I'm going to go to a, I'm going to play to a stereotype, if this is cool, an archetype, if you will, an avatar, however you want to word it.

So, there's the content creator that says, Okay, I want to help people be more productive. Now, okay, that's a really generic conversation. A lot of people say I'm a productivity expert. Okay, let's say that person's really good. They're really good at productivity. And let's say they're specifically good at the time management part.

Okay. How might that person, who might they be looking for? And it's, it's productivity, like personal productivity. So they're working with entrepreneurs. They're working with people just like me and you. Right. And you and I know there's different dimensions than just the mechanics. Who are people that they maybe could be looking at?

That's a great question. I love that. Um, here's a few ways that I would think to go about. I would start with who the ideal client is. Now, this is a whole nother topic, almost, but it's relevant. Um, you have so much variability because you haven't dialed in who the ideal person is. Most people, hey, I help everybody, great.

But there's a sub niche that would be even more effective for you in higher converting because you're speaking specifically to them. So, it would behoove you to find what that, that dialed in lane is within that. So, I help entrepreneurs. Let's get that, let's, here's a great paper. I help entrepreneurs who are, want to spend more, who want to continue to build wealth, but spend more time with their kids, a lot more specific.

And it became less about marketing, hey, I am a productivity coach, and more about, hey, I help people get more time, get more valuable time back with their kids and build wealth. And the vehicle to get them there just so happens to be productivity training. It wasn't about the vehicle, it's about the destination.

There's an old saying, people don't buy a drill. They buy the whole, right? That's what I'm thinking about. And the drill is just the necessity to get there. So that's why they buy it. Nobody really cares about a drill, right? Yeah, I mean, let's just be frank. Unless you're a carpenter. Um, and even still, it's still, it's a means to an end, right?

So, with that in mind now, that makes it a bit more clear. Now I can ask, who the heck are working with entrepreneurs that have kids, right? Are there, are there private schools? Are there, you know, we start to think, right? Where do you? Where do they hang out? Where are they doing business? Right? And that's where we can start getting more clarity, right, on where we can go to say, Hey, you also work with, or a percentage of your clients are entrepreneurs with kids.

Maybe it's a, maybe it's an accountant who deals primarily with business owners, right? And we can start saying, Hey, you know what? Um, you work with a ton of affluent business owners, let's say. Are any of them, you know, family, family, you know, people, do they have kids and so forth? Do you ever hear that they want to spend more time with their kids?

Um, well, yeah, you know, so those are some ideas, right? But it's going to really be help when you can identify who your ideal client is first. Then you can ask the question, who are they doing business with? Now, those are kind of those two steps I would go to, to figure that out. That's so huge. I, I think about when I started this podcast, I had watched other people do podcasts, and I watched some of them always only be the host, to where then you say, Okay, gosh, if I'm only ever the host, nobody knows that I know anything.

They just think that I just ask questions. So I went the reverse. I got into this, I got into batch recording episodes. So I got like 50 episodes and it's all me talking. Well, needless to say, nobody, nobody shares it when it's only you. So that was the extreme the other way. But I was still also, I was almost myopic in my topic.

I was like, okay, it's got to be about specifically Three Day Weekends and Four Day Workweeks. And that's it. And then all of a sudden, you know, I had a couple of people, they'd say, well, hey, Wade, if so and so wants to have this, Would getting more sleep help them? Yes. Would having better nutrition help them?

Yes. Would getting better leads help them? Yes. Would, it's like, Oh, okay. And, and I wasn't trying to be resistant. I really was trying to be, I was trying to be a purist and say, okay, I'm going to focus on this. And I thought that's what niching meant to say, okay, I'm only going to do one thing. And it became such a tunnel vision that it was like, okay, unless you're already doing it.

And then I thought, wait, then everybody who's already doing it is actually pretty much my direct competition. Although you mentioned something else that I want to talk about, or ask you to talk about a little deeper. That idea, which I've seen so often, um, of the price point thing. Uh, again, coming to the insurance field, I think if there's certain, you know, larger insurance companies that they won't write people unless there's a certain amount of premium.

Yeah. And I remember my brother, hope it doesn't get him in trouble, uh, in his agency, he once, he once would tell the people who, you know, worked at these bigger businesses, he'd say, look, if you're not getting commissioned on this, but you have to write it anyway, just send it my way. And, and, you know, there was no like exchange of funds, but he's like, why should you do the work if you're not going to get paid on it?

Because interestingly enough, below a certain price point for the employee, it was literally, it was a pain. Like, I've got to write this now and complete this so that this person doesn't complain and I'm not getting paid squat on it now from a business model standpoint, there probably could have been a more elegant way to do it.

But he even just told the employees and like, sure. Because literally they were like, no, we don't do it. And it made sense the price point. So how can that person that is perhaps your competition, either by price point or even by a different niche, maybe they're into a different angle of the niche, how can you explore that?

And maybe even to give a little clarity, because we also don't want to be naive and say, well, everybody who's our competition, how would you determine a person that's a good fit of what appears to be a competitor that could be a collaborator versus somebody that's like, no, no, that's, that, that's a red flag.

They're probably are going to do me wrong. And that's not a good thing. Yeah, great question. Um, so a few things. I actually want to kind of point to that most, this sounds like a really different concept, but it is unique. But I want to kind of point that you engage, that most entrepreneurs engage, engage in this process in some form or fashion already.

If you get clients, uh, you go through a lot of similar mechanics, right? You got to talk with a client to see if they're a good fit, right? There has to be an exchange of value. for them to move forward with you. Those principles are, are similar. They're congruent with talking to a potential part, uh, or prospective partner, right?

If you can paint the picture of value, uh, paint the picture of upside and opportunity to them. Hey, you got this thing that's laying around that could yield potentially X, uh, without really much of any extra work for you. What entrepreneur doesn't want to hear that? You know, what fellow business owners like, nah, you know, unless they don't trust you, but you know, uh, I mean, really, why wouldn't that be appealing?

So it really, the simple thing, you know, solution is ask, right? Ask, explore, paint a picture together, see what fits and be kind of be open minded. Don't be rigid. Um, Don't Be Cookie Cutter, kind of allows space for whatever could happen to take its form as you guys explore together. Um, but I found that what really helps here is painting what's called a value gap.

Where is there an air of opportunity that they could be maximizing, but that they aren't, that they overlooked, they didn't see? Um, so to answer that question even further, I found one of the best ways to really make that connection, to develop a sense of trust in what most call authority, is by helping to teach someone something.

If you can point to say, hey, look, that diamond you've been looking for is under this rock here. They're going to say, yeah, I want to talk more because you, you, you've added value. You've rearranged, you've helped them to maybe get a renewed perspective on what they do. Um, so, yeah, uh, being able to do that, and that takes practice, right, um, and so forth, it takes work, but that's something that's going to really help to connect with someone for them to say, yeah, I want to talk more about how we can do something together.

Yeah, I think there's, there's something to that, too. Just the basic idea that, you know, I've always told people, I try not to... I try not to rely on good human nature. I believe, I believe humans are fundamentally good. That's a whole different conversation. But I also, for business, I try not to rely on that.

I try to rely on it being in their best interest. So to your point, when you help somebody get results, whether it's a prospective client or partner or however you want to look at it, if you're really good, or I've just seen this from other people do this with me where I'm impressed, it's like, okay, I kind of need this person.

I, I, or at least going without this person is going to make it a lot harder than it needs to be, and I just think of over the years in the field I've been in the insurance field, and maybe it's just the nature of the field, a lot of the consultants, it's been 20 plus years, there's very few consultants I'll meet, and this is not meant as a slight, but the industry is so win loss mindset that it's hard to find people and maybe it's because they're used to geographical territories or whatnot, but it's hard to find people that truly want to partner.

Whereas when I talk to more digital entrepreneurs, maybe it's because we all think that the entire planet is our marketplace or whatever it is that we're almost more like, yeah, dude, I got to reach more people. And so I'll talk to somebody who's in my space or seems to be in my space. And yet to your point.

I look at, you know, this, this idea that we want to help everybody, and you and I both know, of course, if you try to help everybody, you almost end up helping nobody, because then nobody knows who you're, who you're trying to help. Kind of like when the, The example I once heard was if somebody's, you know, somebody's on the floor and you say, somebody call 911 versus you, you, you call 911.

Okay. Now we know who's supposed to call 911. You get me the hot water, 10 blade. I used to watch Grey's Anatomy with my wife, whatever, you know, which is great. Um, but I think from that perspective. There's always that sense of, as you know, we're, we understand opportunity costs as entrepreneurs. Well, if I target the high end, gosh, I'm leaving all this money on the table on the low end.

And if I target the low end and I've just always found, well, look, if, if everything that's on the high end, I get into and everything on the lower end, my buddy says, Hey, Wade, you know what? You send me that, I'll send you this. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. I've just doubled my marketing force without having to do a single thing.

And. I'm better looking out for my prospects. So when I do those strategy calls or whatever it is that I think is that 20 to 30 percent that doesn't fit rather than me trying to squeeze a round peg or me trying to, to, to convince somebody why they just need to trust me and put the money on their credit card, which is, can feel very icky and can hurt you.

Why not just say, Hey, this other person's got something that might be more where you're at. I mean, that's, that's kind of what I see it as. Is that, I mean, is that really, is it really that simple sometimes if the, once you've qualified the person and then how do you, how do you, do you, do you kind of ease your way into that?

Cause I know I've been to some, some marketing meetings where it's like, Hey, we've just thrown 20 people in a room. We're all going to refer each other, but it's like, I have no idea who the hell these people are. And so that's very scary versus like you said, qualifying somebody, feeling like you have a good sense of what's going on and then kind of easing into it.

Yeah, that's it. Have a conversation, get to know them, you know? Um, I mean, that's, that's really it. Um, and yes, it conceptually, it can be that simple to say, Hey, look, you got this over here. I got this over there. Here's how the pieces to fit. Um, and let's explore that. Um, and really, you know, that approach is, Hey, you know what?

Um, I'd love to, I do this, you do that, I want to find areas of opportunity that's not currently in one another's wheelhouse. Absolutely. Right? You see that approach? It kind of reduces the thought of, hey, we do the same thing, or, but we're here to explore what's in your wheelhouse, what's in mine. We're two different people.

I doubt we do exactly everything the same. If you're married with your spouse for however many years, you two don't do the same. So, I'd say we probably don't. We probably got some area differentiation that we could probably maximize together, right? You know, so, uh, that's the perspective. Awesome. So how does then a person start balancing this concept of scaling at a pace that's comfortable for them?

So you mentioned you got married, pregnant, what's that? I mean, I mean, there should be some sort of bonus for that from the government or something. I don't know. That's pretty efficient. But, you know, how, how did you, or how should somebody then, or how can somebody understand to say, okay, I've got something that's growing.

I, without, I guess without giving up, then again, it becomes this, you know, I was thinking about, you know, what are the fears people run into? Well, if I go too much into this, am I giving up what I'm currently doing? How can a person start scaling in a way Do they, do they say I'm going to invest a certain amount of time per week in relationships?

Do I have a certain amount of revenue or how do you do it to where you say I'm not losing where I'm at? And just bottom line as a provider, whether you're male, female, whatever, that, yeah, I've got to, I still got to pay bills. I can't just go into partnership mode or scale mode. I've got to make sure I'm, I'm still paying the bills.

That's a great question. Um, I, my suggestion and thought is To, um, you should be spending time set aside and sacrificing time throughout your week to think about what you're doing and not executing. There should be time for strategic thinking and not doing this will cost you years. So I'll say that again.

You should be spending time thinking about your business. You know, as I say, on the business versus in it. Um, and I'll put it this way. You know, there's an old saying, you know, if I, if I have six hours to cut down a tree, I'm spending two hours to sharpen my ax, right? What most people do is I just got to get to work and they start hacking.

You know, you're, you're shaving off years of your strength, your effort and your energy and your morale just by hacking. What you need to be doing is spend that, just spend a little time to sharpen, right? So that way, everything you do there and after yields higher level, higher amounts of results. So, going back to that thought, what you need to be doing, when you do that, you'll be able to see the points in your business that you can tend to, to better systemize them.

Once they are better systemized, and whether it's systemized through hiring an employee, or systemized through some form of software, or systemized through a partnership, It's kind of both and. At least, I mean, you get what I'm saying, like, if you sacrifice that bit, a bit of time, a chunk of that time, to that, it's going to solve the problem, right?

So, this, this, I mean, I'm a little biased. There's probably nothing business wise you couldn't accomplish without a partnership. Man, I need more sales reps. I need access to that through a partnership. You know, like, uh, who out there has a few sales reps that their calendars aren't exactly packed to the brim, right?

And you can get their calendar packed without them spending any extra marketing? and a commission that they don't have to pay. Yeah. You know, they'll keep their employees happy, right? You see the thinking. So like, okay, what do I need to systemize? How can you partner for it? Right. And I love something you said there.

So I just love what you said is so usually when people say, well, if you work on your business versus in your business, it's going to, it's going to save you money. And you didn't set, you didn't start with money. You said it's going to save you years. And that's the thing that I think people miss. is, share a little bit more about that, because again, it's, you know, you reach a certain age, I don't know, I'm 50, so you reach a certain age, you're like, okay, there's certain things I can't do physically anymore, but at 50, I'm at least somewhat aware that there's a certain amount of time I have on the planet, so actually, you telling me I lose dollars, it matters, I've lost plenty of dollars, I've done a lot of stupid stuff by this time in my career, so you tell me I'm gonna lose some money, actually doesn't bother me that much.

You telling me I'm going to chase my tail for 30 days, 90 days, a year, two years. That bothers me. Maybe if you would, what does that look like? In fact, go a little bit deeper if you don't mind. What does that look like? Because a lot of people say work in your business, in your business. What does that look like for you?

Or what do you coach people to do when they're saying, okay, business is doing X, whatever it is, and I'm paying my bills. I'm working 40 hours a week, just to keep math really simple. They'll be both like 32, but we'll start with 40. And that, that starts to push it really, uh, at this point. Right. So what, what would I be doing and what would I be looking for?

Great question. So here's what I tell people to do. Um, take your current income, where you are in your business, however you gauge. You know, whatever your, how you view your scorecard and how you're doing. We'll use revenue for that. That's how most people think, right? Um, and let's talk about what your revenue goal is for the next 12 months.

So let's say your business is doing 500 grand a year. The goal is a million. What most people do to engineer how they're going to get to that million, they start thinking, okay, how can I get more customers? How can I push more hours at, you know, in the office to get X done? Here's what I tell people to do.

I want you that 12 month goal to double your business. Keep the same goal. Now, let's imagine that you got six months to get it done.

Same goal, but you only have six months as opposed to twelve months. What would you do in your day? What most people would think to do is, man, I gotta pack more hours onto the calendar. Let's go a step further. You got six months as opposed to twelve months, and you got half your workday to do it. If you weren't allowed to work more than four to five hours per day, and you had to hit the same goal, here's the key question.

What would you focus on during the day? And immediately you begin to realize... I need to change what I'm focused on because what I'm doing now is not going to accomplish that. That's where the real realization moment is by kind of walking through that process. That's where you need to get to. Is what you're doing now going to be able to get you exponential results or is it maintaining and getting you incremental results?

It's what you focus on. It's, we call it leverage. The 80 20 rule, as they say, right? And the interesting thing about that, that 80 20 rule actually breaks down further to the 64 4. And even beyond that, it breaks down to the 1 2. There's 1 percent of your action that yields 51 percent of your results.

That's mind blowing. What if you can get to the point that just focus on the 1%? How productive would your business be? I mean, if you could spend three hours a day Focusing on that 1%, where would your business be in six months? Man, you're freaking me out. Cause I just literally last night, I slept well for half the night and I woke up and I said, I got to, I got to read 80, 20 sales and marketing again.

Wow. And I, I, I, I know, I just, I heard you say, I know that's from that. So I know you've read that. I get that. It's like, gosh, man, and I literally, I forgot in my subconscious because I went back to sleep. So thank you for reminding me of that. That's it. That's what you focus on. That's the bottom line. The bottom line answer, uh, what you're focusing on with your time is going to dictate how long it takes.

And in, I'll even say this, there might be some area where there's some sacrifices might have to be made. You might have to shift a little time focusing on the things that maintain to invest that time for things that are going to yield exponential results. There's going to have to be a shift that has to be made.

One way or the other. Um, that's, uh, that's the cold, hard truth. That's the part I think though, that a lot of people, it's funny, you hear about most people like, God, well, most, whether it's Tony Robbins or this one or that one, it's usually, hey, at some point I lost all my money. I went bankrupt. I just said that.

And I find sometimes as entrepreneurs, when we get comfortable, It gets harder for us to do something as simple as, well, no, you know what? I need to have the organic juice of the best quality 'cause that's the best thing for my body. When you could easily probably cut your expenses by 20, your lifestyle expenses, your, your groceries, your this by 20%.

And again, I'm not looking to knock on nutrition either. I'm just saying there's certain things. Sometimes we get so inflexible and then we get our butt handed to us, we're like, oh, now I, now I, now that I'm completely at the bottom, now I can figure out how to, how to save like 50% off my expenses. But there's this almost resistance to take any step back or any working on the business.

I think that's your point is, gosh, if you're, if you're not willing to do some of it, I mean, are you pretty much just use, you might use the term incremental returns. Correct me if I'm wrong, at least in your experience, I've, I've kind of seen this and the word condemned is a strong word. It's not condemned.

If you're doing abundantly, that's fine, but you're, you're destined to not really grow much more. Because you're, you're not willing to, you're saying, okay, I want the one to two to 3 percent returns. You got your money all in CDs and you're like, well, how come I'm not making 10 percent in the market? Well, it's never going to happen.

It doesn't mean you got to get a Bitcoin. Yeah. There's gotta be something you do different. Yeah. And that's it. It's, it's, and just carving pieces of it out. And when you kind of go through that mental, uh, you know, uh, exercise of your calendar, you're going to start to realize what's really important with your time and what's.

What's not? I mean, you know, you checking your email for two hours a day. Oh, I got it. Well, let's be honest. How many of those emails have actually generated you revenue? Let's be real. I know we got that, that good old entrepreneurial optimism. Hey, something, you know, this goes, let's just be real. When was the last time you checking your email really made you money?

Really, really, you know, like unless you're doing outbound email campaigns, I do some and they legitimately have. Right? Um, but even that I don't, you know, I outsource. But even the email didn't do it. You had to have had some sort of relationship or value creation. It's not like somebody said, Oh my God, an email.

You know, I, I, I've got to, I've got to buy this. The email is probably just the, the, the, the vehicle that happened to collect the money. It's the, it's the messenger. Correct. So at the end of the day, it just gets back to it. You have, go back to that example. If I had to accomplish this in half the year, in half the day working out, working hours per day, It's going to make really clear, yeah, this thing I'm doing would not fit that time budget.

It's got to go. So either I need to assist automate it. outsource it so I can drill down on the 1 percent of stuff that's going to push 50 percent of my output. And let me double down on that. So one of the things we talked about, and this is something, this actually, I, I feel like this in some way reflects even where I'm at.

I'm really strong at one to one sales. I'm not really great at marketing. I do educational marketing and stuff. And I've been told, great coach, great this, great that. And I'm saying it not just like, hey, Wade's so awesome, but because I know a lot of people like this, that they're really good leaders, coaches.

They're not phenomenal at the mass marketing, the messaging, or even just the, what would you tell somebody who is really good at their, or whatever their craft, their thing? They're good. They're good artists, but they're not great at the marketing. I'm not talking about the person that they're afraid of marketing, but they're just not good at it.

Like I'm willing to do it. I just suck at it. Yeah. Uh, there's several things, right? There's getting a coach and mentor. Um, that's a huge shortcut. I mean, just the, the. I'm going to put it this way and it's polarizing, but I'm going to say it, learn to devalue money and value time. I'll put it that way. It's polarizing and like, what?

You know, like, you know, um, learn to devalue money. Um, and you will gain more of it by doing that. But, um, but in essence, yes, I would either A, find someone who can help you learn or B, partner with somebody who is Week where you're strong and strong where you're weak. So if you're great at sales, but you're struggling with marketing, go find somebody who's great at marketing, but they can't close anybody.

Yeah. And then break that down real quick. Cause most people, you and I understand those words. Cause a lot of people use those words interchangeably, right? And I try to make sure people like, no, no sales and marketing, they're connected, but at least the traditional definitions, as far as I'm aware of it are not the same.

What's the difference between those two? Just even again, for the, for the. Oh, in fact, let's do this, if you don't mind. For the person that's an entrepreneur, solopreneur to five to ten people, what's it look like when the marketing's great and the sales versus when the marketing's not great, what does sales feel like?

Yeah, uh, that's a great question. Sales is going to feel more difficult. You're gonna experience more resistance and so forth. Um, and, uh, to, to answer the original iteration of the question, marketing, as I define it, is really a creation of interest around what you offer. A creation or revealing of interest of what you offer.

Um, now I like to actually break this down and, you know, the, most people look at client acquisition in just those two components, marketing and sales. I like to think of it actually as three. Um, there's the marketing component, the creation or revealing of interest. around your offer. There's a sales component that we all know, right, which is, uh, how I define it.

That's actually the process of nurturing, educating, um, a prospective client to the point where they will move forward to become a client. And there's a middle component. I like to call that middle component prospecting, right, which is the conversion of those interests into pre screened, warm, booked appointments to then begin the sales process.

So, I like to differentiate it in three ways, but, um, yeah, what's going to happen is if any of those areas are out of whack, let's say, you know, you're great at sales, but you don't have any form of marketing, you're just living and dying by the next referred, non intentional referred business, right? You're kind of living and dying by that.

Um, so, if you have great marketing, but you not effect, not, not effective, no effective method of taking someone from prospect to client. There's going to be no value exchange. I, you're not going to make any money. So you're going to have a lot of people coming in the office because you're marketing, correct me if I'm wrong, your marketing brings them in.

So you've got great adverts, you've got a great storefront. You've got, you've got great, clever ads. Somebody comes in like, Oh, wow. I love your ad. That's great. And then the inability to sell. See, I almost see that because I'm stronger at selling. I almost find that inconceivable, but I feel, I feel you on the first part of, you know, like, well.

Every once in a while, a sale just drops in my lap because of, you know, word of mouth and whatnot, but when the marketing is strong, you can still miss out by just like, oops, I don't know how to get you to, to, to commit to that point. What would you tell that person if they have strong marketing, how do you get that person to want to, you know, how do you ethically, honestly, all that stuff, get that person to take action?

Yeah, so. I am of the mindset that the most effective, the most effective mechanism of selling is teaching, and I'll explain what I mean by that. Um, when you, and I mentioned this a bit earlier about helping someone to get a, uh, see opportunity or renew their perspective is a great way for a non quote unquote salesperson to learn how to convert.

Because if you can show them direction, which I assume you can because if you're, if you're a great marketer, you know how to paint a picture, tell a story, most likely, um, gauge interests. There, you can almost look at it as a continuation of that process and just articulate, right, again, not the vehicle.

The vehicle is just the last part of it on how they get there, but it's really about where they are, where they want to go, right, and what they've been missing and making clear and why they've been missing it. And that they no longer need to miss out on it. And if you can articulate that, which again, if you're a strong marketer, you kind of get these, you already have these principles at play in your arsenal, right?

Articulation, maybe you're a great copywriter, but whatever the case is, you, you're, you can articulate effectively if you're a great marketer in some form or fashion. Um, I would use that as a continuation, um, to educate someone, to give them a new perspective about their problem. And when you've impacted that, them that way.

To then say, here's how we get that solved becomes a natural next step to get them to convert. So, that's that process. And even on the flip side, right, you're a great salesperson, um, but struggling with marketing, uh, you're, you're at the home front of where the real source of great marketing comes from in actuality.

The greatest source of marketing is feedback from your clients, right? You, you already talked to them if you can sell. Right. At some level, even if it's by a referral, you have the ability to ask them, Hey, why the heck did you sign up with me? That's going to give you all the ammunition. You really need to get started on great marketing because now you can speak to something specific because anyone else that feels like that client, it's going to, latch on.

Right. So, uh, my answer to you, if you're someone who's strong in sales, but maybe struggling in marketing, get feedback from your clients. Ask them, Hey, what, what led you to look for this thing in the solution in the first place? What was that life event that trigger? That started you on your buying journey, right?

What got you in the funnel, quote unquote, right? Top of funnel. Okay, who else were, let's be honest, I'd love to know, who else were you looking at when you were kind of considering working with whomever? Why did you go with me? Not anybody else, why, why the hell did you go with me? Now they, now it's an open book test, you don't have to guess marketing after that.

You keep replicating that, you keep hearing back from more clients, etc. You're gonna have a pretty good idea on why people are working with you. And now you put that message out, that's gonna help you with your marketing. Yeah, I love that because it's, it's, it's scary. It's almost like asking the hot girl why she's out on a date with you.

Like, me? Really? I know I'm amazing, you know. Hey, I know I'm amazing, you know. Exactly. Well, that's it. And I think it's all how you ask it, to your point. Because if you say this, why'd you choose me? Well, that's not very inspiring versus, oh, I'm curious. And I think a lot like anything else, it's your vibe.

You know, what was it? What was it? You know, what was it? Because we want to make sure, you know, we want to work with people like you. you know, what was it that, you know, that sort of a thing. Awesome. So one of the other things that this is, and this is one of the main reasons why when I saw your work, I was so interested to have you on the show is that you do have this focus on family and work.

Maybe if you'd paint a picture, how has doing, how is understanding how to grow without scaling, how to, all the things we've talked about, how does that help you create more time, more balance, have more energy? Um, what's that look like? Yeah, great question. Um, at the end of the day, it's really about getting more out of doing less.

I mean, that's, that's the name of the game, right? Again, what you focus on. Um, you develop a strong habit to begin to say no to things. No, I'm not available at that time, right? Maybe that's, you know, me personally, I section off times every day in my weekday for just personal time, right in the middle of the day, right before the kids get home.

I get a nice break. hour to an hour and a half of decompression before the kids get home. I'm not taking calls at that time. I don't care how, you know, right. But what that does is it increases the value of your time. The more you tell people no, right, the less supply there is, the more demand there is.

Right? So, just by default, you value, again, devalue money, value your time. The more you value your time and tell people no, the more your time has value. So, that's really a great way to kind of begin that pathway, and that's how I do it from a practical perspective. Look, alright, this seems like a huge potential deal, and just, you know, I got, no, these are times we're sectioned off for this.

That's that, you know. And if you can do that confidently, you'll actually be surprised on on, you know, that perceived value becomes more apparent. Um, uh, don't be surprised if implementing something like that actually helps you to increase your conversion. Yeah, I remember when somebody told me that the first day, they're like, Wade, just trust me, when you tell people, because I was afraid to tell people that I don't work on Fridays, and I'm trying to get to this consistently, you know, Three Day Weekend Lunch, like, Wade, trust me, and I started doing it, and all of a sudden, the same people, the same people, the same conversations, Hey, Wade, I know you're busy.

Hey, Wade, wow, I know your time is, they would literally say those words. It almost sounds like voodoo, but they got it, like, because it was just that thing of, okay, I don't, I don't need the money. I do need money in general. Yes, but I'm not gonna, to your point, I'm not gonna take off what's important to me.

And I love the part of having time before the kids come in to decompress, because I found if I don't decompress, Then at least for me, that was the first five or six years after we had our first child, I stopped doing the things that were fun. And just, I figured, okay, I'm going to be super dad. I'm going to always be present.

Yeah. Working from home, always be present. Yeah. Not, not a great formula by the way. When I finally started getting Fridays when they were at school and I'd go to the beach and I'd do my volleyball to hang out with my guys and decompress and then come in and say, okay, now I'm ready for you. You're not like a stressor for me.

Yeah. I definitely don't agree with. Um, this model that we're just forced to subscribe to, which is I gotta work eight hours and the more and more in hindsight, I think I really think it's nonsense. Um, and it's, it's just not, it doesn't literally doesn't make sense. The majority of my working hours are supposed to be, but I'm supposed to be a good dad.

How's that work? I don't. Yeah, just, I mean, you, you really have to say, look, this time is for that. I need time for rest. Right? We all don't have to be Elon Musk. Hey, you know, and work 120 hours a week, you know, um, but I mean, really, I mean, even things that I do now, like I'm starting Thursdays, I'm starting to section off completely.

and Mondays. So I'm crunching down to like three day week kind of thing. I might take, might take one to two calls, but those are like consistent partnership calls, more, you know, strategic thinking calls, one, two max. But I spend most of that day listening to educational content and playing some video games, you know, so like this, you know, but it's amazing how much my net worth is consistently.

increasing, skyrocketing, and I'm working less and less, less and less. It, it, most people think it's the other way around. When I get here, then I can section off my time. No, it's choosing to section off your time is what's going to get there, get you there. Absolutely. So yeah, that's so cool. Good man. That's so awesome.

And thanks for sharing that. Cause yeah, I, I, and even, even the three day weekend is it's a concept. Nothing says you have to work four days, eight hours. It's, it's, it's an idea to say, okay, in essence, the theme of it is make time for life and whatnot, but certainly the more, even over the summer recently, I've allowed myself to more flow with the family schedule.

I can still be fully present for the kids. And then sometimes, yeah, as their schedules have changed. Yeah. Then, okay, maybe I'll work at different times than I didn't used to work at. But yes, I can be at the beach on a Wednesday morning if that's what I want to do. And like, nobody's going to, nobody's going to take me away.

Nobody's going to lock me up. It's going to be okay. Thank you so much. Tell me a little bit, where can people find out more about your work? And, and if you want a little bit specifically about how you help people. Yeah, absolutely. So, um, you can definitely check me out on LinkedIn. Um, my LinkedIn, uh, URL, linkedin.

com slash in slash growth levers, um, is where you can find me on LinkedIn. Um, yeah, and primarily most of my days now, you know, I believe in the highest use case of your time, right, that leverage. Now at this point for me, most of my time is focused on acquiring businesses, um, and interjecting my skill sets into already established systems to drive growth.

Um, So, uh, that's where most of my time is. I'm also taking partnership, you know, opportunities with, uh, with companies, um, to help them grow, improve, optimize performance. Um, so that's where most of my time is spent now. Um, but yeah, definitely can find more in my LinkedIn as well. I'm happy to have a conversation.

Awesome. And where's most of your time spent outside of work? Oh, man. Um, uh, the kids, uh, we actually got a Disney Day Friday. Um, going back to Star Wars, Star Wars, Star Wars, so looking forward to that, um, and then outside of that, just enjoying some video games, watching TV with the wife, going to the beach, we travel a lot, um, I mean a lot, probably, we're getting to the point where we're going to start traveling probably monthly.

Um, so, uh, we're getting, we're about getting to that pace. Um, so yeah, I mean, last night went out, shot some golf with a couple friends from my church. Um, you know, so those are all areas that, um, you know, kind of most of mine out of business time. Uh, and learning. I do a lot of learning. Again, that sharpening of the axe.

Um, I, I'm, I'm bullish on learning. I mean. Uh, maybe a little unusual. Uh, I even listen to podcasts while I sleep. I mean, you know, um, I'm, I'm very bullish on learning. So, um, that's, yeah, that's where my time is spent, you know, either recuperating and refreshing and or learning, um, or just hanging out. That's awesome, man.

Thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate your perspective. Just even from talking to you today is helping me realize more. I need to spend a little more time of letting the people I bring on talk more about even what's going on outside of their work because most of the people that I'm bringing on, one of the reasons, my criteria is, okay, not only are they good at X, but they are actually living a lifestyle that's pretty close to what they want to be doing or they're on that path and sometimes hearing more about it, you know, then you realize actually traveling frequently is not easy.

To balance your business, it actually can become a stressor. It sounds like a first world problem, but it's not a problem, but it is a challenge to then say, okay, how do we make this work? How do we schedule it? How do we not tick off our clients, lose our income flow, lose our mind. Uh, so if you're doing that, that's awesome, man.

Thank you again so much for joining us today, Khalil. Hey, thanks for having me, Wade. All right. And everybody is always look forward to helping you impact more people and make more money in less time doing what you do best so you can better enjoy your family, your friends, and your life. Thanks for listening.