WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.800 All right, so last week we talked about three strategies 2 00:00:04.800 --> 00:00:06.440 to grow and scale a business. 3 00:00:06.440 --> 00:00:09.600 We talked about 10% growth, improving your process, 4 00:00:09.600 --> 00:00:11.920 100% growth, creating a new product, 5 00:00:11.920 --> 00:00:16.200 and 10x growth, which is rethinking your business, 6 00:00:16.200 --> 00:00:17.040 pivoting. 7 00:00:17.040 --> 00:00:20.560 So today we're talking about shaping up your business, 8 00:00:20.560 --> 00:00:22.880 and we're gonna be using three expert strategies 9 00:00:22.880 --> 00:00:23.720 for pruning. 10 00:00:23.720 --> 00:00:26.600 So just like gardening, we wanna intentionally focus 11 00:00:26.600 --> 00:00:28.600 on where the life of the company exists 12 00:00:28.600 --> 00:00:32.680 so that we can redirect our energy to all the right places. 13 00:00:32.680 --> 00:00:34.760 And just before we dive in, 14 00:00:34.760 --> 00:00:37.360 I do have a pro tip for you all today. 15 00:00:37.360 --> 00:00:38.200 I love this one. 16 00:00:38.200 --> 00:00:41.360 It's to continually challenge your assumptions. 17 00:00:41.360 --> 00:00:43.360 And it's important for us to keep in mind 18 00:00:43.360 --> 00:00:45.920 the core reason we exist as a business. 19 00:00:45.920 --> 00:00:48.760 So it's always a good practice to question your constraints 20 00:00:48.760 --> 00:00:51.800 because all constraints can be wrong to some degree. 21 00:00:51.800 --> 00:00:54.840 And remember that great ideas have no rank. 22 00:00:54.840 --> 00:00:57.600 So you don't have to spend time optimizing something 23 00:00:57.640 --> 00:00:59.920 that shouldn't exist in the first place. 24 00:00:59.920 --> 00:01:02.240 And there's always a healthy destructiveness 25 00:01:02.240 --> 00:01:03.720 to challenging old assumptions, 26 00:01:03.720 --> 00:01:06.560 and we all have full permission to exercise it. 27 00:01:07.560 --> 00:01:09.520 All right, and as a friendly reminder, 28 00:01:09.520 --> 00:01:11.560 don't forget to add your questions, your comments, 29 00:01:11.560 --> 00:01:13.000 and reactions to the chat 30 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:15.240 as Dion's going through the material. 31 00:01:15.240 --> 00:01:18.000 And it looks like we're all ready to dive in. 32 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:22.080 So Dion, I'll go ahead and hand it over to you. 33 00:01:22.080 --> 00:01:22.920 Thank you, Jalen. 34 00:01:22.920 --> 00:01:23.760 I really appreciate it. 35 00:01:23.760 --> 00:01:24.760 Hey, how are you all doing? 36 00:01:24.760 --> 00:01:26.680 I hope you're having a wonderful day. 37 00:01:27.720 --> 00:01:32.080 This topic is one of the more challenging topics, 38 00:01:32.080 --> 00:01:34.960 although the concept is really simple. 39 00:01:34.960 --> 00:01:38.640 So I have, and I've always been amazed 40 00:01:38.640 --> 00:01:43.280 at how difficult it is to get leaders and CEOs to simplify. 41 00:01:43.280 --> 00:01:46.000 We'll talk about why that is in a second. 42 00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:48.000 If you're one of those leaders who struggles 43 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:50.040 to get rid of stuff, 44 00:01:50.040 --> 00:01:51.760 if you're a bit of a hoarder personally 45 00:01:51.760 --> 00:01:54.920 and maybe a bit of a hoarder in your leadership, 46 00:01:54.920 --> 00:01:56.440 hey, that's okay. 47 00:01:56.440 --> 00:01:57.840 We certainly get that. 48 00:01:57.840 --> 00:01:59.560 But here's a couple of things. 49 00:01:59.560 --> 00:02:03.240 We all know that clarity drives simplicity. 50 00:02:03.240 --> 00:02:04.400 Can you finish the sentence? 51 00:02:04.400 --> 00:02:08.320 And simplicity drives speed. 52 00:02:08.320 --> 00:02:09.160 Remember that? 53 00:02:09.160 --> 00:02:12.160 So simplicity, clarity drives simplicity, 54 00:02:12.160 --> 00:02:13.480 simplicity drives speed. 55 00:02:13.480 --> 00:02:16.440 But we've never talked about how do you get 56 00:02:16.440 --> 00:02:19.160 that simplicity in your business? 57 00:02:19.160 --> 00:02:21.320 And it is one of the hardest things for leaders 58 00:02:21.320 --> 00:02:22.760 to do to simplify, 59 00:02:22.760 --> 00:02:26.360 especially as we get attached to our products, 60 00:02:27.240 --> 00:02:28.520 we get attached to our markets, 61 00:02:28.520 --> 00:02:30.840 we get attached to what we're doing. 62 00:02:30.840 --> 00:02:34.160 And one of the most difficult things 63 00:02:34.160 --> 00:02:36.720 is a thing called creative destruction, 64 00:02:36.720 --> 00:02:39.960 where you deliberately blow up one of your own products 65 00:02:39.960 --> 00:02:41.640 before the market does. 66 00:02:41.640 --> 00:02:42.560 And so we're gonna talk about 67 00:02:42.560 --> 00:02:44.600 how do you know when to do that? 68 00:02:44.600 --> 00:02:46.440 How do you look at your business? 69 00:02:46.440 --> 00:02:48.840 And if you've got a range of price, 70 00:02:48.840 --> 00:02:53.600 last week, we gave you a tool for mapping your customers 71 00:02:53.600 --> 00:02:56.360 and your products in the four square analysis, 72 00:02:56.360 --> 00:02:59.400 and then what to do to get rid of all the fours 73 00:02:59.400 --> 00:03:01.840 and how to move everything as close to one as you can. 74 00:03:01.840 --> 00:03:04.320 If not one, then certainly a two or a three. 75 00:03:04.320 --> 00:03:05.280 And we talked a good deal. 76 00:03:05.280 --> 00:03:08.800 Now, today, we're gonna talk about that process 77 00:03:08.800 --> 00:03:09.840 in a little more depth 78 00:03:09.840 --> 00:03:12.200 and a little more practical aspects of that. 79 00:03:12.200 --> 00:03:13.680 So here's what it is. 80 00:03:13.680 --> 00:03:16.480 Most leaders are saying, man, if we had the right plan, 81 00:03:16.480 --> 00:03:18.200 let's do a three-day offsite, 82 00:03:18.200 --> 00:03:20.440 let's come up with the right plan. 83 00:03:20.440 --> 00:03:25.440 And really, it's about the right team implementing a plan. 84 00:03:25.560 --> 00:03:26.960 It's not about the right plan. 85 00:03:26.960 --> 00:03:30.800 And the reason why some leaders are incredibly successful 86 00:03:30.800 --> 00:03:34.400 at what they do is they come up with a simple plan 87 00:03:34.400 --> 00:03:36.480 that everybody can follow. 88 00:03:36.480 --> 00:03:38.760 Sometimes plans are too complicated 89 00:03:38.760 --> 00:03:40.240 or they change too often. 90 00:03:40.240 --> 00:03:42.080 Now we've got like theme of the month. 91 00:03:42.080 --> 00:03:43.480 I worked with one CEO. 92 00:03:43.480 --> 00:03:46.720 He literally came up with a new strategy every month. 93 00:03:46.720 --> 00:03:48.880 It was like strategy of the month. 94 00:03:48.880 --> 00:03:50.280 So after the fourth or fifth one, 95 00:03:50.280 --> 00:03:51.760 guess what happened when he said, 96 00:03:51.760 --> 00:03:54.000 hey, new strategy, everyone just yawned and like, 97 00:03:54.000 --> 00:03:55.080 well, I think I'm a bit busy. 98 00:03:55.080 --> 00:03:56.400 Can I go to the bathroom now? 99 00:03:56.400 --> 00:03:58.080 It was like bored, right? 100 00:03:58.080 --> 00:04:00.520 Because you couldn't follow that. 101 00:04:00.520 --> 00:04:01.840 What's important? 102 00:04:01.840 --> 00:04:02.880 If everything's important. 103 00:04:02.880 --> 00:04:04.240 So it was like, well, we're doing this, 104 00:04:04.240 --> 00:04:06.200 then we're doing that, then we're doing this. 105 00:04:06.200 --> 00:04:09.520 And I understand that in a small business, 106 00:04:09.520 --> 00:04:11.520 when you're still trying to find your space, 107 00:04:11.520 --> 00:04:13.000 you're trying to find your niche, 108 00:04:13.000 --> 00:04:15.240 you will pivot a lot, that's normal. 109 00:04:15.240 --> 00:04:18.720 But at some point you have to focus in on what you're doing. 110 00:04:19.560 --> 00:04:21.880 At some point you have to lock and load. 111 00:04:21.880 --> 00:04:25.520 And then the next challenge comes is that we lock and load 112 00:04:25.520 --> 00:04:27.240 and then things get a life. 113 00:04:27.240 --> 00:04:32.240 It's like, I don't know any of you have moved recently 114 00:04:32.760 --> 00:04:36.840 into a new home or whatever, or into a new office. 115 00:04:36.840 --> 00:04:39.680 And you move and then you have those pile of boxes 116 00:04:39.680 --> 00:04:41.160 that you never quite get around to. 117 00:04:41.160 --> 00:04:43.320 And after about two months, they get a life. 118 00:04:43.320 --> 00:04:46.040 And then they just like part of the view. 119 00:04:46.040 --> 00:04:47.200 You don't even see them anymore. 120 00:04:47.920 --> 00:04:50.080 And sometimes that happens to our product. 121 00:04:50.080 --> 00:04:53.520 Sometimes components in the business get their own life. 122 00:04:53.520 --> 00:04:55.880 But the leader's job is to simplify. 123 00:04:55.880 --> 00:04:58.480 In fact, when you're in the middle of complexity, 124 00:04:58.480 --> 00:05:00.480 the worst thing you can do as a leader. 125 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:04.840 is have hope. Because what hope does is keeps the complexity 126 00:05:04.840 --> 00:05:07.440 going, oh, we'll just try it. Well, one more, you know, just 127 00:05:07.440 --> 00:05:10.960 another month. And at some point, the best thing you can 128 00:05:10.960 --> 00:05:14.440 do is simplify. So let's talk about that. We've talked a lot 129 00:05:14.440 --> 00:05:18.000 about your brain cannot multitask, you know, it's, you 130 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:21.400 create cognitive stress and fatigue, when you try to 131 00:05:21.400 --> 00:05:24.800 multitask, multitasking makes you dumb and all that stuff. But 132 00:05:24.800 --> 00:05:29.240 in the same way, that can be same for a business to that kind 133 00:05:29.240 --> 00:05:32.600 of multitasking. There's a great story of when Steve Jobs came 134 00:05:32.600 --> 00:05:36.560 back to Apple, we may have used the analogy before, I think. And 135 00:05:36.560 --> 00:05:39.480 you know, he walked in and they had like, I don't know, 18 or 136 00:05:39.480 --> 00:05:43.520 27 different products in computers. And he, you know, he 137 00:05:43.520 --> 00:05:47.920 shouted down the way, this is insane. This is crazy. And he 138 00:05:47.920 --> 00:05:51.960 got a whiteboard nearby, cleaned it off, and drew four squares, 139 00:05:51.960 --> 00:05:54.840 just like we do on the four square analysis. And at the top, 140 00:05:55.120 --> 00:06:00.000 he wrote consumer, professional, so each of the columns, consumer, 141 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:04.800 professional, for the two rows, he wrote, desktop, laptop, those 142 00:06:04.800 --> 00:06:07.600 are the four products we're going to create. You know, 143 00:06:07.600 --> 00:06:10.600 consumer is going to get a desktop and a laptop and 144 00:06:10.600 --> 00:06:13.880 professionals are going to get a desktop and a laptop. That's it. 145 00:06:14.080 --> 00:06:17.480 Those are the four computers we're going to make. Now, what 146 00:06:17.480 --> 00:06:22.880 do you imagine the pushback was? Oh, my goodness, off the charts 147 00:06:22.880 --> 00:06:27.160 pushback, right? People having meltdowns about, oh, you know, 148 00:06:27.160 --> 00:06:29.000 we've got this, and we've got the special thing on this 149 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:31.440 educational thing, and blah, blah, blah. And they all had 150 00:06:31.640 --> 00:06:35.960 pretty good reasons as to why we had to keep the complexity. So 151 00:06:35.960 --> 00:06:39.680 as a leader, when you try to simplify its work, it takes 152 00:06:39.720 --> 00:06:44.040 actual leadership to take people through the simplification 153 00:06:44.040 --> 00:06:46.520 process, because we're getting rid of something we fell in love 154 00:06:46.520 --> 00:06:50.680 with along the way. So the real important thing is once he 155 00:06:50.680 --> 00:06:55.400 simplified those, he inhibited everything else. It's like deep 156 00:06:55.400 --> 00:06:58.000 work, when you focus on something, you inhibit 157 00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:01.040 distractions, you inhibit all the other things that are going 158 00:07:01.040 --> 00:07:05.520 to take your attention. Same for a business. So one of the best 159 00:07:05.520 --> 00:07:11.800 ways to think of this is, think of pruning. Now, those who of 160 00:07:11.800 --> 00:07:15.160 you, you know, who have ever been to, are there any gardeners 161 00:07:15.160 --> 00:07:18.640 among us who are actual gardeners? Okay, good. Okay, so 162 00:07:18.640 --> 00:07:22.440 Bev, you probably, I don't know if you have any rosebushes. But 163 00:07:22.480 --> 00:07:26.240 you know, many of you who have ever pruned a rosebush knows, a 164 00:07:26.240 --> 00:07:30.640 rose produces way more buds than it can actually sustain. And 165 00:07:30.640 --> 00:07:32.720 part of what you have to do is yet, you know, it's what the 166 00:07:32.720 --> 00:07:36.160 horticulture is telling me. So, you know, you have to prune that 167 00:07:36.160 --> 00:07:39.880 thing down. And so, you know, last week, I alluded to a story. 168 00:07:39.880 --> 00:07:43.400 So I went and got the full story again, of the guy who bought a 169 00:07:43.400 --> 00:07:48.240 $25 million company that had five main areas of business, 170 00:07:48.520 --> 00:07:53.720 and he grew it from 25 to $500 million. And when they 171 00:07:53.720 --> 00:07:57.800 interviewed him, I mean, that didn't just add a zero, right? I 172 00:07:57.800 --> 00:08:01.960 mean, he added a zero and double that. So an incredible growth, 173 00:08:01.960 --> 00:08:05.920 and he did it in like two or three years. So people were so 174 00:08:05.920 --> 00:08:09.680 impressed that they interviewed him. And when they interviewed 175 00:08:09.680 --> 00:08:13.600 him, they asked him the question. And he said, he said, 176 00:08:13.600 --> 00:08:19.440 I realized that the life of the company was in 20% of the 177 00:08:19.440 --> 00:08:24.040 business. The life of the company is in 20% of the 178 00:08:24.040 --> 00:08:27.400 business. So my job was how do we get rid of the 80%? We had 179 00:08:27.400 --> 00:08:31.680 five divisions. And so so the interviewer says, Oh, so you 180 00:08:31.680 --> 00:08:34.039 just got rid of the unprofitable ones? He says, No, no, no, no, 181 00:08:34.039 --> 00:08:37.559 they were all profitable. He says, Well, why did you get rid 182 00:08:37.559 --> 00:08:41.200 of them? Is it because we needed all the nutrients, all the 183 00:08:41.200 --> 00:08:45.560 resources, when you prune a bush, all the nutrients go to 184 00:08:45.560 --> 00:08:50.560 the very best buds. So we're going to go through the three 185 00:08:50.560 --> 00:08:54.240 types of pruning that we would do. And that's exactly what he 186 00:08:54.240 --> 00:08:58.520 did. And he said, Look, I want us to sell giveaway, whatever 187 00:08:58.520 --> 00:09:02.960 these four divisions, they were profitable. And it had huge 188 00:09:02.960 --> 00:09:06.080 pushback, people were obviously worried about their jobs, people 189 00:09:06.080 --> 00:09:09.240 were worried about, you know, the customers impact on the 190 00:09:09.240 --> 00:09:13.080 market, you know, positioning, marketing, branding, you get it 191 00:09:13.080 --> 00:09:19.040 has a lot of implications. This is hard work. It takes real, 192 00:09:19.600 --> 00:09:23.280 courageous leadership to simplify. It's one of the 193 00:09:23.280 --> 00:09:26.920 hardest things you may ever do in your business is to focus and 194 00:09:26.920 --> 00:09:32.080 simplify down to that one thing. So which buds are the best, and 195 00:09:32.080 --> 00:09:36.400 we got to prune the rest, find the best prune the rest. It took 196 00:09:36.400 --> 00:09:38.960 real courage. Anyway, he pruned it down to 20% of the 197 00:09:38.960 --> 00:09:42.200 business, and they grew like wildfire. Because he has an 198 00:09:42.200 --> 00:09:44.920 interesting thing, he didn't actually fire anyone. He 199 00:09:44.920 --> 00:09:47.840 literally took all those resources from all five 200 00:09:47.840 --> 00:09:51.240 divisions and stuck them in the one division, it exploded with 201 00:09:51.240 --> 00:09:55.560 growth. And so and also the market got very clear about what 202 00:09:55.560 --> 00:09:57.920 they did. They didn't do five things. Now they did one thing. 203 00:09:58.560 --> 00:10:00.120 And this was one of the most powerful 204 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:04.560 full ways. And I often see this, I see businesses growing, and 205 00:10:04.560 --> 00:10:08.240 then they hit a cap. You know, I don't know how many of you got 206 00:10:08.240 --> 00:10:12.600 25 or 50 employees. But when you start hitting that cap, a lot of 207 00:10:12.600 --> 00:10:15.640 the simplification becomes critical. But sometimes, I've 208 00:10:15.640 --> 00:10:19.040 seen business with five employees hit this because they 209 00:10:19.040 --> 00:10:24.240 just everywhere, they're all over the map. So that the three 210 00:10:24.240 --> 00:10:28.120 areas we want to look at is number one is let's, let's we 211 00:10:28.120 --> 00:10:31.600 have to prune the roses, because we know we're going to generate 212 00:10:31.600 --> 00:10:34.920 more buds, and then we can actually sustain, we are going 213 00:10:34.920 --> 00:10:38.600 to generate more ideas, more products, more meetings, more 214 00:10:38.600 --> 00:10:42.440 employees, more everything, just in the process of growth. And 215 00:10:42.440 --> 00:10:46.880 with growth comes complexity. So as part of the simplification 216 00:10:46.880 --> 00:10:51.280 process to take the business to the next level, takes courageous 217 00:10:51.320 --> 00:10:55.240 leadership. So, you know, we have to look at and say, the 218 00:10:55.240 --> 00:10:59.440 three types of pruning is number one, is what is sick, and 219 00:10:59.440 --> 00:11:03.040 not going to get well, what is sick and not going to get well, 220 00:11:03.040 --> 00:11:06.120 think about your own business, even if you're a one person 221 00:11:06.120 --> 00:11:11.080 business, what is sick and not going to get well, there's a 222 00:11:11.080 --> 00:11:14.720 point, you know, there's a point with every leader, I think that 223 00:11:14.720 --> 00:11:18.800 there's a product or a strategy or even a person that you get 224 00:11:18.800 --> 00:11:23.880 attached to. And they're not going to change, and it's sick, 225 00:11:23.920 --> 00:11:27.080 and it's not going to get well, you've tried, you put the 226 00:11:27.080 --> 00:11:29.880 person, especially, it's really hard when it's a person, we've 227 00:11:29.880 --> 00:11:32.000 talked quite a bit about that. But sometimes it's just a 228 00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:34.880 product, hey, man, we started the business with this product. 229 00:11:35.480 --> 00:11:40.640 So this pruning process is, takes tremendous courage. And 230 00:11:40.640 --> 00:11:44.120 here's the thing, because as leaders, we get attached to 231 00:11:44.120 --> 00:11:46.760 things, man, that was the product that launched us, that's 232 00:11:46.760 --> 00:11:49.840 the product that got us going. And so we got to keep it going. 233 00:11:50.400 --> 00:11:54.440 No, you don't. Because part of it, sometimes the markets move 234 00:11:54.440 --> 00:11:58.360 on, sometimes it's season has just passed. Sometimes that 235 00:11:58.360 --> 00:12:03.440 person season has just passed in your own company. So, you know, 236 00:12:03.440 --> 00:12:07.600 leaders get very, very vested in products get very vested in 237 00:12:07.600 --> 00:12:10.400 markets, you know, you spoke at that conference, and I can't 238 00:12:10.400 --> 00:12:14.320 just now get out of that whole business. Yeah, yes, you can. 239 00:12:14.840 --> 00:12:18.120 And, you know, you have to at some point, we got we get to a 240 00:12:18.120 --> 00:12:22.720 point, Warren Buffett has a great name for this. He calls it 241 00:12:22.720 --> 00:12:26.560 the institutional imperative, the institutional barrier, what 242 00:12:26.560 --> 00:12:31.760 he means by this is that we get put so much money, and so much 243 00:12:31.760 --> 00:12:36.240 time into something, it has to go because we put so much money, 244 00:12:36.440 --> 00:12:41.080 and so much time in it. Do you see the circular logic? No, no, 245 00:12:41.080 --> 00:12:43.960 no, no. Why are you doing this, man, we have got so much time, 246 00:12:44.120 --> 00:12:45.840 and so much money. So what are you gonna do about it, we're 247 00:12:45.840 --> 00:12:50.440 going to put more time, more money in it. I'm glad I'm glad 248 00:12:50.440 --> 00:12:54.040 you spot the mistake, right. But it's funny to laugh at when 249 00:12:54.040 --> 00:12:57.160 we're sitting in a training time like this, it's not so easy to 250 00:12:57.160 --> 00:13:00.920 do when you're staring at that thing. And you go, Oh, my, you 251 00:13:00.920 --> 00:13:05.920 know, there's a history here. We have strategic relationships in 252 00:13:05.920 --> 00:13:10.160 that market. This is a big deal. Yes. And so obviously, we don't 253 00:13:10.160 --> 00:13:14.840 do this lightly. But there comes a time, you have to stop sending 254 00:13:14.840 --> 00:13:18.000 good money after bad money. This time, you have to stop 255 00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:21.080 spending more time on the thing that's consuming your time. Now, 256 00:13:21.080 --> 00:13:24.320 the four square exercise of last week was designed to highlight 257 00:13:24.320 --> 00:13:27.600 that for you. And maybe you did that as a team. Or if you know, 258 00:13:27.600 --> 00:13:30.040 if you're a solopreneur, you did this for yourself. And you 259 00:13:30.040 --> 00:13:33.960 looked at where your customers, your products were. But now we 260 00:13:33.960 --> 00:13:36.680 have to talk about now that you've seen this, how do you do 261 00:13:36.680 --> 00:13:40.640 the actual pruning? So this was the first question, what is sick 262 00:13:41.360 --> 00:13:46.200 and not going to get well, this takes a brutal honesty, as a 263 00:13:46.200 --> 00:13:49.480 leader and as a team to lead your team there to give them 264 00:13:49.480 --> 00:13:53.360 permission to say that, because it takes a lot of courage to 265 00:13:53.360 --> 00:13:57.680 raise your hand in a meeting, if you're not the leader and say, I 266 00:13:57.680 --> 00:14:02.680 think product B is sick and not going to get well. And it turns 267 00:14:02.680 --> 00:14:07.160 out that product B is the CEO's favorite toy. So you got to be 268 00:14:07.160 --> 00:14:11.080 really careful. So we have to as leaders give permission for 269 00:14:11.080 --> 00:14:14.440 this. And I'm going to share some of our own things. The next 270 00:14:14.440 --> 00:14:18.440 thing is what's dead, it just needs to go. Seriously, it's 271 00:14:18.440 --> 00:14:22.880 time to call it somebody called the call the match already, you 272 00:14:22.880 --> 00:14:27.160 know, if it's knocked out and lying in the arena out cold, 273 00:14:27.320 --> 00:14:30.560 they stop pretending it's still fighting. But we do this in 274 00:14:30.560 --> 00:14:33.800 business, right? So it's time to just a brutal reality check. 275 00:14:34.200 --> 00:14:38.120 Look, yesterday is gone. Yes, it was a great product in its day, 276 00:14:38.240 --> 00:14:42.640 its season has passed. It's dead. Here's number three, 277 00:14:42.680 --> 00:14:46.880 number three is the hardest of them all. What's good, but not 278 00:14:46.880 --> 00:14:53.440 great. What's good, but not great. Because the good as we 279 00:14:53.440 --> 00:14:58.040 know, is the enemy of their bed of the best. But how do we trim 280 00:14:58.400 --> 00:15:00.000 the products, the service? 281 00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:08.080 is what we offer down into that fine space. Now for some of you, you don't have to necessarily 282 00:15:08.080 --> 00:15:14.080 kill. If you've got, let's say you have two business lines going, you may be able to sell 283 00:15:14.080 --> 00:15:18.800 one off to a competitor and generate some capital, maybe even keep some of the key people you want. 284 00:15:19.440 --> 00:15:24.560 There are, when I say prune, I don't mean kill it necessarily, I mean get it out of your 285 00:15:24.560 --> 00:15:32.400 organization. And there may be a way in which some employees want to buy a piece of that business. 286 00:15:32.400 --> 00:15:37.360 I've done that before. I've sold pieces of business to employees. So there's a lot of 287 00:15:37.360 --> 00:15:43.600 very creative things you can do. And if you're interested in all that more complicated stuff, 288 00:15:43.600 --> 00:15:47.200 management buyouts and all those things and earnouts and all those good things, 289 00:15:47.200 --> 00:15:53.120 there are ways to prune, but the pruning has to happen nonetheless. So we've gone through the 290 00:15:53.120 --> 00:15:59.360 three, what's sick, not going to get well, what's dead and needs to go and what's good but not great. 291 00:15:59.360 --> 00:16:05.360 So we put together an exercise around those things, but we actually made it five questions 292 00:16:05.360 --> 00:16:09.440 we found a little more useful, which is going to be in the worksheet for you to go through here 293 00:16:09.440 --> 00:16:14.800 in a second. And so at Brilliant, we went through this exercise and we asked this question, we've 294 00:16:14.800 --> 00:16:22.080 done it several times. Where is the life of our company? If the life of the company is in 20% 295 00:16:22.080 --> 00:16:28.480 of what you do, we know from Pareto principle, that's probably true. Where is that life? And it's 296 00:16:28.480 --> 00:16:32.160 interesting, you know, a lot of people get into the technicalities, what does life mean? 297 00:16:32.160 --> 00:16:38.240 What life means is that it's profitable and it's energizing. That's what life means. It's energizing 298 00:16:38.240 --> 00:16:45.520 to you, it's energizing to your team, to your customers. So at Brilliant, we realized that the 299 00:16:45.520 --> 00:16:50.960 life of the company was in coaching. Now, you know, we have many other products and we have, 300 00:16:51.040 --> 00:16:56.080 you know, we have an online bookstore with over 100 products on it. We have, you know, a lot of 301 00:16:56.080 --> 00:17:01.920 other elements we do, conferences and whatever else. And we realized that coaching was the life 302 00:17:01.920 --> 00:17:06.720 of what we did. And then we realized that community, coaching a community, because they're so tied, 303 00:17:07.280 --> 00:17:14.000 closely tied, is really the life of what we do. So we started then and we launched a new product, 304 00:17:14.000 --> 00:17:19.680 which we call Premium. And some of you may know it or used it. And in that process, when we 305 00:17:19.680 --> 00:17:24.319 launched the Premium product, it was designed after this analysis. We did this analysis and 306 00:17:24.319 --> 00:17:30.400 we launched a new program and we simplified and put the resources into that. The next question, 307 00:17:30.400 --> 00:17:35.760 is there something we're attached to that needs to go? So we rephrase the question to this, 308 00:17:35.760 --> 00:17:40.480 is there something attached that we've become attached to? Oh, we've always had whatever. 309 00:17:41.120 --> 00:17:46.080 And what we were doing is running multiple live events a month, and we kind of became hooked on 310 00:17:46.080 --> 00:17:52.880 them. You know, at one state, I think we've done 38 challenges, 38 three-day challenges as a company. 311 00:17:52.880 --> 00:17:58.480 I mean, that's insane amount of challenges. But then we realized that, you know, these multiple 312 00:17:58.480 --> 00:18:05.360 events weren't, there wasn't life and we just became attached to them. And so we also realized 313 00:18:05.360 --> 00:18:12.000 we became attached to the idea that Graham was the primary producer of content. And so we realized, 314 00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:15.520 man, we have got to broaden out, we've got to bring in new voices, we've got to train a team. 315 00:18:15.520 --> 00:18:22.240 And so we had to transition from Graham to a team. So that was a big transition for us to 316 00:18:22.240 --> 00:18:27.120 think about that, because we realized we became attached to the idea of what, you know, we all 317 00:18:27.120 --> 00:18:31.760 love Graham, we love what he teaches. And, you know, he's traveled in wherever many countries 318 00:18:31.760 --> 00:18:35.680 around the world, 140 countries, whatever the number is. And he's been around and he's done 319 00:18:35.680 --> 00:18:38.960 all this stuff. And he's been involved in all these things and written all these books. 320 00:18:38.960 --> 00:18:44.320 And we all love the content, but we realized we became attached to it in a way that wasn't helpful 321 00:18:44.320 --> 00:18:50.480 and healthy. And you need to prune this idea. And so that meant expanding. So notice that the 322 00:18:50.480 --> 00:18:55.760 pruning here was pruning an idea or a mindset than more than was pruning a product. Number three was, 323 00:18:55.760 --> 00:19:00.560 is there something dead that is taking up space? So I've got to just be vulnerable for a minute, 324 00:19:00.560 --> 00:19:05.360 I know we're being recorded, but that's what it is. Right. So one of the things when we first, 325 00:19:05.360 --> 00:19:10.880 when I first came to Britain, there were two companies, there was a publishing house, and 326 00:19:10.880 --> 00:19:16.240 there was a brand perspectives. And you know, what was dead and taking up space, 327 00:19:16.240 --> 00:19:21.360 the publishing house, doing the publishing, the shipping, the fulfillment, the orders, 328 00:19:22.160 --> 00:19:27.440 pack having a warehouse and packaging stuff and printing stuff and shipping them to our warehouse. 329 00:19:27.440 --> 00:19:33.440 And so we found a group in Pennsylvania called Stone Rooster, wonderful company, they became 330 00:19:33.440 --> 00:19:38.720 our outsourced warehouse, and we found an external publisher, and we got out of the publishing 331 00:19:38.720 --> 00:19:44.320 business. So brilliant, brilliant book house was the publisher. And we still use that brand for 332 00:19:44.320 --> 00:19:49.760 publishing. But it was just something that was dead and needed to go, it's time was over. And 333 00:19:49.760 --> 00:19:54.560 we needed to get out of the publishing business. And we needed to be into a different business. 334 00:19:54.560 --> 00:20:00.000 This was not an easy conversation. Why? Because that's where the business 335 00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:05.520 started. So there we were deeply emotionally attached to this. Oh, 336 00:20:05.520 --> 00:20:08.240 but you know, we published 23 books with Graham, and we got all 337 00:20:08.240 --> 00:20:10.720 this stuff. And we got all this and we've got this and this and 338 00:20:10.720 --> 00:20:14.400 this. And I said, Look, we can find a way. But we're not in the 339 00:20:14.400 --> 00:20:16.640 publishing business anymore. We have to get out of that 340 00:20:16.640 --> 00:20:19.760 business. So we got somebody else to publish for us somebody 341 00:20:19.760 --> 00:20:23.280 else to do shipping and fulfillment. And it just changed 342 00:20:23.280 --> 00:20:25.840 our lives. We literally print books that go to the shipping 343 00:20:25.840 --> 00:20:29.840 house, somebody gets us Shopify orders it, the printing house 344 00:20:29.840 --> 00:20:32.720 gets the order, ships it and we get notified within a few 345 00:20:32.720 --> 00:20:35.680 minutes. It's all electronically wired together. And we don't 346 00:20:35.680 --> 00:20:39.760 touch or see the book. And my rule was no touching books. 347 00:20:41.840 --> 00:20:44.720 We're out of the touching books business, stop touching books. 348 00:20:45.440 --> 00:20:50.640 So we stopped touching books. What we also noticed is that 349 00:20:50.640 --> 00:20:55.840 some of the books, our thinking and training had moved on, and 350 00:20:55.840 --> 00:21:00.160 some of them still had older thought processes that have 351 00:21:00.160 --> 00:21:03.680 been a little outdated. So we took them off the bookstore, 352 00:21:03.680 --> 00:21:10.000 another emotional process. We noticed that our email list, 353 00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:13.760 our engagement was too low, and our list wasn't growing. So 354 00:21:13.760 --> 00:21:16.400 there was something that was just dead taking up space. So 355 00:21:16.400 --> 00:21:19.120 what we do is we cleansed our list. So it didn't look so 356 00:21:19.120 --> 00:21:22.240 happy afterwards, because we had a much smaller list. But we 357 00:21:22.240 --> 00:21:26.080 knew that list were engaged with us. This is before the new 358 00:21:26.080 --> 00:21:28.880 compliance rules came out in California, we have to have the 359 00:21:28.880 --> 00:21:31.120 double opt in and you can't just send somebody an email just 360 00:21:31.120 --> 00:21:33.600 because they once responded to you, you're not allowed to do 361 00:21:33.600 --> 00:21:37.120 that. Under Californian law, lots of rules. But we became 362 00:21:37.120 --> 00:21:39.840 compliant, we cleaned it up. But that was just dead and taking 363 00:21:39.840 --> 00:21:43.760 up space. There was just those 10s of 1000s of emails that 364 00:21:43.760 --> 00:21:46.320 were just sitting in it. And it was sounded cool to so many 365 00:21:46.320 --> 00:21:52.000 emails we had, but it wasn't actually true. Number four, are 366 00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:56.080 there areas or things where we need to stop being a resource? 367 00:21:57.440 --> 00:22:02.160 Internally, we refer to this as the savior complex, where 368 00:22:02.160 --> 00:22:05.440 you're saving it all the time. If it wasn't for you jumping in 369 00:22:05.440 --> 00:22:09.520 and saving that thing, it would die. It wasn't for you jumping 370 00:22:09.520 --> 00:22:12.960 and saving that person every time they touch something, they 371 00:22:12.960 --> 00:22:18.560 would fail. So are we are the areas in people products where 372 00:22:18.560 --> 00:22:23.200 we're jumping in, and we have to be the source, otherwise it 373 00:22:23.200 --> 00:22:28.000 dies. If you are still the primary source of something, 374 00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:32.480 either it's time to turn that out, or it's time to rethink 375 00:22:33.120 --> 00:22:36.080 how that product because it cannot, it's not sustainable 376 00:22:37.040 --> 00:22:39.520 with you as the primary source. And I'm talking about you being 377 00:22:39.520 --> 00:22:42.720 the main leader. So on the CEO calls, that's one of the 378 00:22:42.720 --> 00:22:47.280 questions I like to ask, you know, CEOs, particularly areas 379 00:22:47.280 --> 00:22:51.440 where you're still the primary source is a problem. Okay, 380 00:22:52.240 --> 00:22:58.880 number five, what is good, not best? This is the hardest 381 00:22:58.880 --> 00:23:02.880 question of all. Because these are good things in your 382 00:23:02.880 --> 00:23:06.480 company, they're making money even, you know that but they're 383 00:23:06.480 --> 00:23:12.400 taking nutrients, resources from the organization, they're good, 384 00:23:12.400 --> 00:23:18.080 but they're not your best thing. So if we could take them 385 00:23:18.080 --> 00:23:22.400 out, what would it make room for that's a little more, more 386 00:23:22.400 --> 00:23:25.680 positive way of thinking about it, I think, if we took this 387 00:23:25.680 --> 00:23:28.640 item out, if we took this product out, if we offer if we 388 00:23:28.640 --> 00:23:32.320 didn't offer the service, and you know, most of this 389 00:23:32.320 --> 00:23:36.240 complexity comes because we want to please the customer, we get 390 00:23:36.240 --> 00:23:38.400 attached, you know, and the customers will, can you do this? 391 00:23:38.400 --> 00:23:41.440 Oh, yeah, we can do this. The quickest way to see that I saw 392 00:23:41.440 --> 00:23:45.040 was in the software business. In the software business, a 393 00:23:45.040 --> 00:23:47.680 customer calls, yeah, you know, I know it's not part of the 394 00:23:47.680 --> 00:23:50.400 scope, but do you think you guys can do this? And so the 395 00:23:50.400 --> 00:23:53.360 programmers are thinking, man, honestly, I can do it in 10 396 00:23:53.360 --> 00:23:56.880 minutes. Sure, we'll do that. And then it's Can you do this? 397 00:23:56.880 --> 00:23:59.680 Can you do this? Now the next what the customer what the yes, 398 00:23:59.680 --> 00:24:02.480 what the engineer is not thinking about? I don't know. 399 00:24:02.480 --> 00:24:05.840 Any of you been in the software business? Yeah. Anybody? Yeah. 400 00:24:05.840 --> 00:24:11.280 Okay. So then you know, writing code, debugging it, getting it 401 00:24:11.280 --> 00:24:18.240 stable and shipping it is 20% of the cost of that product. The 402 00:24:18.240 --> 00:24:23.040 other 80% comes in servicing it and supporting it. It's 403 00:24:23.040 --> 00:24:26.560 massively expensive. So yeah, I can just quickly write that 404 00:24:26.560 --> 00:24:30.000 special piece of code for customer A into the source code. 405 00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:33.040 Customers B and C don't need it. Then customer C comes and 406 00:24:33.040 --> 00:24:35.520 asks for another piece, but I got to give it to C. So when 407 00:24:35.520 --> 00:24:38.480 they hit that button, it goes to C, but not A and B. When you 408 00:24:38.480 --> 00:24:42.240 start all that complexity, which came from a place of I 409 00:24:42.240 --> 00:24:44.880 want to be great to my customers, what you're doing is 410 00:24:44.880 --> 00:24:50.400 you're killing your business. So it's either saying no to the 411 00:24:50.400 --> 00:24:53.360 customer or thinking, can I thin slice this in a way that 412 00:24:53.360 --> 00:24:58.000 gets the customer what they actually need? This exercise 413 00:24:58.000 --> 00:24:59.760 that we want to give you right now, which we'll 414 00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:12.880 here in the chat, is designed to really get you to think deeply about your business. Because if 415 00:25:12.880 --> 00:25:17.440 you're willing to go down this road and you're willing to have the courage to answer these 416 00:25:17.440 --> 00:25:24.160 questions, you could literally, like I told the story how somebody goes from a $25 million 417 00:25:24.160 --> 00:25:30.720 business to a $500 million business comes from this type of thinking. It's not because you're 418 00:25:30.720 --> 00:25:42.080 brutal. It's not because, you know, there was a guy who became very well known in the space I was 419 00:25:42.080 --> 00:25:47.440 in. And he was known as Chainsaw Al. His name was Al, somebody or another, I've forgotten. But he 420 00:25:47.440 --> 00:25:51.840 was known as Chainsaw Al because he just came and just cut stuff in businesses, cut them up, 421 00:25:51.840 --> 00:25:56.560 sold them off for parts, and he got known as Chainsaw Al. I'm not talking about being Chainsaw Al. 422 00:25:56.560 --> 00:26:03.680 I'm talking about thinking deeply about what's the best way to grow and expand your business. 423 00:26:03.680 --> 00:26:09.040 You only have that many resources, you only have that much capital, that many people, and you're 424 00:26:09.040 --> 00:26:13.760 putting a lot of time into training, educating, and focusing them. So when you did your four 425 00:26:13.760 --> 00:26:22.000 square analysis, maybe one of the things you can look at is, you know, what is just 426 00:26:22.000 --> 00:26:27.280 sick and not going to get well? What's dead and somebody just has to call it already and put the 427 00:26:27.280 --> 00:26:32.720 poor thing in the grave? Just stop it already. And the hard one, what's good but not best? 428 00:26:33.840 --> 00:26:40.160 Okay, questions? Any questions, comments? Anybody been through this process? 429 00:26:44.320 --> 00:26:48.560 Ben, you look like you're about to say something there. 430 00:26:54.480 --> 00:27:00.880 I mean, we've done SWOT analysis in the past, you know, that's been fruitful and really led to 431 00:27:00.880 --> 00:27:07.040 a lot of growth in our company. But I'm anxious and interested to see 432 00:27:07.760 --> 00:27:10.240 kind of what's popped up in our team's minds, so. 433 00:27:11.280 --> 00:27:16.640 Yeah, yeah. You know, what's great about the style of leadership we've developed, 434 00:27:16.640 --> 00:27:21.440 or part of the culture of creating a team of leaders over these, what, 31 weeks, 435 00:27:21.440 --> 00:27:25.440 as we've done this, is we've given permission for that feedback to now happen, 436 00:27:26.000 --> 00:27:29.840 without there being consequences. And I think this is one of the healthiest, 437 00:27:29.840 --> 00:27:33.760 you cannot, you can see why this is well down the bottom end of the course, 438 00:27:33.760 --> 00:27:37.920 because you have to have a culture to sustain this. You cannot, I've tried to go in in the 439 00:27:37.920 --> 00:27:41.680 wrong culture, everyone just stares at your nose. Everyone's thinking, I'm not raising my hand. 440 00:27:41.680 --> 00:27:48.240 I'm not saying that. I'm not telling the CEO that the division his son is running is terrible. 441 00:27:49.440 --> 00:27:53.680 I'm not telling the CEO that the product his wife created, you know, 442 00:27:54.880 --> 00:28:01.120 sucks. I'm not that guy. So it does take courage. But a culture which is really about 443 00:28:01.120 --> 00:28:04.240 all of us pulling together can do that. All right, let's go through the question. You'll 444 00:28:04.240 --> 00:28:10.000 see the questions are laid out. They are, as you would expect, five exercises, each one going 445 00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:14.080 through, trying to find each of the elements we just discussed. So we want to give you an 446 00:28:14.080 --> 00:28:19.440 opportunity, jump into your breakout sessions, discuss the questions, and let's circle back 447 00:28:19.440 --> 00:28:28.000 five minutes to the top of the hour. All right. Thanks, Dion. Well, we will go ahead and separate 448 00:28:28.000 --> 00:28:32.320 out into our breakout rooms now. You'll have an opportunity to discuss the material with your team 449 00:28:32.320 --> 00:28:37.680 and the worksheet has been dropped into the chat. If you have any issues accessing it, let me know. 450 00:28:37.680 --> 00:28:42.000 Solo leaders, you can go ahead and join the room called general, and that's where you can interact 451 00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:48.400 together or engage on your own as well. And I will go ahead and open up those rooms and have fun 452 00:28:48.400 --> 00:28:57.440 together. Let me know if you need any assistance getting into those rooms. All right. So we are 453 00:28:57.440 --> 00:29:03.120 going to go ahead and open up time for questions. So if you have a question or have any thoughts 454 00:29:03.120 --> 00:29:07.680 that came out of your discussion that you want to share with the team or with Dion, feel free to do 455 00:29:07.680 --> 00:29:12.640 so. You can raise your hand. You can post in the chat. Dion, I know you mentioned if anyone had 456 00:29:12.640 --> 00:29:17.280 something to share, they could do that. So I could kick us off with just a little thought. 457 00:29:19.200 --> 00:29:23.680 I'll see if anyone else wants to go. Any hands? Okay. Well, while you're thinking, getting your 458 00:29:23.680 --> 00:29:29.920 chats going, Dion, something that Cindy and I talked about was in the first question, just kind 459 00:29:29.920 --> 00:29:35.360 of understanding the difference of where's the life in our team, kind of like the shiny eyes versus 460 00:29:35.360 --> 00:29:41.600 where's the life in terms of measurable success and in what the company's putting out. So maybe 461 00:29:41.600 --> 00:29:46.480 could you talk a little bit about the difference between the two, what's going well with the team 462 00:29:46.480 --> 00:29:52.720 and the shiny eyes versus what the customers or the consumers are identifying with? 463 00:29:53.360 --> 00:29:58.000 Yeah, I've noticed that those, so you're talking about what's the difference between, 464 00:29:58.000 --> 00:29:59.840 hey, we find this life-giving, but it's 465 00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.080 isn't that profitable versus this is really profitable. We don't find that life giving. 466 00:30:04.080 --> 00:30:08.640 So it's like when I do my AC thing, I've got a low profit and my CC thing is high profit. 467 00:30:09.280 --> 00:30:14.880 What I've found over time is that those things do merge because where you're, you know, if your, 468 00:30:14.880 --> 00:30:20.480 if your core passion isn't financially viable, then it, you know, it might be that that has to 469 00:30:20.480 --> 00:30:27.840 be a separate thing. So what I found is that you have to, it's not just about optimizing profits, 470 00:30:27.840 --> 00:30:33.600 although that's part of it, but it's what are the core competencies of the, of the team itself? 471 00:30:33.600 --> 00:30:38.160 You know, what is it? You remember how we work backwards? We say, what does our customer need? 472 00:30:38.160 --> 00:30:42.160 And then let's work backwards, not what do we have and what can we sell them? We don't work it 473 00:30:42.160 --> 00:30:47.920 forward. We, we start with a customer in mind, we work backwards and that often in those discussions 474 00:30:47.920 --> 00:30:52.240 with the customers, the four square stuff and the stuff we did together, these go together. 475 00:30:52.240 --> 00:30:56.720 And usually a very clear pattern emerges. So I don't think it's just an isolated. 476 00:30:56.720 --> 00:30:59.600 It's why we give different tools because they highlight different things. 477 00:31:00.800 --> 00:31:04.560 So I know that wasn't a direct answer, but generally at some point, you've got to get your 478 00:31:04.560 --> 00:31:11.440 passions and profits to align at some point, right? It's got to align. Otherwise it's going to be 479 00:31:11.440 --> 00:31:15.760 short-lived. Either you'll run out of energy because it's not your passion or it will run out 480 00:31:15.760 --> 00:31:21.120 of money one way or another, you'll run out of one of them. So it's what a lot of businesses do that. 481 00:31:22.080 --> 00:31:31.040 Any other questions? So as you go through this exercise, it's also useful, you know, with a team 482 00:31:31.040 --> 00:31:35.920 to take a second and match it to last week's exercise. Last week we identified all those 483 00:31:35.920 --> 00:31:40.880 quadrant four things. And a lot of times the quadrant four things are the things that are 484 00:31:40.880 --> 00:31:47.520 dead or sucking up energy or taking up resources that need to go. All right. Yep. Any other 485 00:31:47.680 --> 00:31:53.520 questions? Pretty easy today. Going once. Okay. Back to you, Jaylen. 486 00:31:55.280 --> 00:32:00.000 All right. Well, if there are no other questions, we'll go ahead and wrap up for today. The time 487 00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:05.680 always goes so quickly. And don't forget when you hop off of this call, you will have the 488 00:32:05.680 --> 00:32:10.880 end of call survey. If you could fill that out, let us know what was fascinating with you, 489 00:32:10.880 --> 00:32:14.400 what's going to be helpful for your business. And you can also let us know if you have any 490 00:32:14.400 --> 00:32:20.240 additional questions there. So with that, we will give you all the last two minutes of the hour, 491 00:32:20.240 --> 00:32:23.200 and we'll see you next time. Bye, everyone.