How to Start a Business | The Better Than Rich Show Ep. 31

How to Start a Business

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How to Start a Business 〰️

How to Start a Business

If you don’t have any critics, you’re doing it wrong.

Yep, you read that right! Business owners without naysayers probably need to change what they’re doing. So don’t expect a high five from everyone you know when you promote your business.

We’ll get into that later but for now let’s just focus on your “why.” Have you identified the deeper purpose you are addressing with your business? How are you going to add value to people’s lives? Without truly knowing the answers to these questions, it’ll be far too easy to close up shop down the road when things get tough because you’re not all in.

Making sure you’re a provider of value is just the start of the journey, followed by a series of steps inspired by intention, careful planning, and the building of systems.

You’ll thank us later for that last one when you grow enough to be able to onboard people who will help share the load, giving you more time to drive revenue.

From identifying your purpose to learning the art of shameless self-promotion and far more, this latest episode will help you build the essential blueprint for starting and eventually scaling your business.

Give it a listen today and prepare to stop putting out fires all the time and focus on really building your business and fulfilling your “why”!

Mike Abramowitz 00:00
If you don't have any critics, you're doing it wrong. Okay, you're you're playing too small, the you should have some sort of critic because when when a critic comes, come stop whispering in the ear. What they're doing is they're projecting an insecurity onto you, that has nothing to do with you. It has to do with their own insecurity that they're projecting onto you. And if you're making other people feel insecure, then you're doing it right.
Andrew Biggs 00:37
Hello, everyone and welcome back to the better than rich Show. I'm your host, Andrew Biggs, and I'm here with my co host, Mike Abramowitz. Mike, how are we doing today?
Mike Abramowitz 00:45
Feeling great, Andrew. So it was a great day. Awesome, man.
Andrew Biggs 00:48
Well, I'm excited to touch base today and talk about the topic of how to start a business. You know, we get a lot of questions from existing business owners. And also every once in a while we talk to somebody who maybe has an idea or maybe would love to get started in business, but in some ways doesn't really know where to start. So I'm excited to break that down. Before we do we do want to let all of you listening you are our lovely listener that we appreciate so much know about a one hour masterclass we're gonna be putting on. It's going to be on July 26, at seven o'clock Eastern. And what we're going to be doing in that masterclass is breaking down some high level systems content because what we're finding in the marketplace is there's such a need for understanding how do I actually go from being this struggling business owner who's stuck in my business to actually working on my business and having the business work for me? Mike, anything you want to share about that masterclass that you're excited about? Talking about with with our audience?
Mike Abramowitz 01:41
Yeah, we find that most of the business owners are their own bottleneck. And they're typically in reaction mode, they're constantly answering questions and putting out fires. And it's, usually they're the bottleneck or they're the reason because they the system and the processes that they put in place, they haven't taken a step back to kind of evaluate a little bit. So we're going to be revealing some of our secrets and some of the things that we've done with some of our clients and our own businesses to say, alright, let's peel back the curtain. Let's do this masterclass, and show you how you can see that you are the bottleneck and how to remove some of those bottlenecks to free up five to 10, or 15 or more hours from your week, while also increasing your efficiencies in your business,
Andrew Biggs 02:24
right. And the high level offer we want to make to you is we believe that if you give us one hour of your time, we're gonna give you eight back every single week, if you listen to this hour and join us. So we'd love to have you links in the in the show notes here. And with that in mind, let's get on with today's show about how to start a business. And a lot of this was inspired by having conversations with people who come into our ecosystem. And again, we serve kind of entrepreneurs who are already along the journey. But there are a number of people who have come into our ecosystem, who are curious about learning how to get started. And again, maybe you're listening to this, and maybe you have an idea, maybe you you have a very small business, you're bringing in a few 100 bucks or 1000 bucks a month, and you want to be able to scale it and get to a level where it's actually a legitimate business that you can consider running in a full time capacity. And so, Mike, when you think about how to actually get started in business, what's the first thing that comes to mind, man, kick us off?
Mike Abramowitz 03:17
Well, for me, the first thing that shows up is have a reason as to why you want to run that business. And the first one is, you gotta have a reason why you want to run a business. Because if you don't have a reason, then you just have a job. Because oftentimes when people say I want to start it, I want to be the boss. It's like, oh, that doesn't happen right away if you if you don't set it up the right way. Right. So I think it's important to know what your purpose is, and why you want that business. Because if it's only like freedom and flexibility and time, freedom and all that, like, you know, sometimes that doesn't happen for a little bit of time after you build it, and you gotta build it the right way. So I would say have a purpose, and why you want to run that business and make sure that purpose is something that adds value to the marketplace, I would say something that adds value to the marketplace. I know we have an episode of discover your purpose, and maybe even revisit that episode. Just that's the first thing immediately shows up.
Andrew Biggs 04:09
Yeah, I believe that's episode 17. If I'm not mistaken, don't quote me on that. But when we think about, you know why you have to have this deeper purpose, what I would share is, being a business owner isn't easy, right? A lot of times, it seems easy, or people think it's easy. Or maybe the you've bought a myth that being a business owner is all about glitz and glamour and this amazing lifestyle and travel and all of this. But the reality is on a daily basis, it's really not easy. It's not as simple as it looks. And so what we tried to do is we tried to simplify it for people and make it as simple as possible. And also, if you don't have a big enough reason for why you're doing what you're doing, you will eventually fold your hand. You know, I was talking to someone the other day, and they were like yeah, you know, at this point, I've been operating my business for a few years even. And they're like why I basically have two options, either I gotta figure it out, right how to grow this business into something that's really highly profitable for me, my family, or I need to close up shop. And it's like, that's the reality of 95% of businesses is they actually get to a place where they say, is this really worth it? And the only thing that's going to sustain you in those moments where you're asking is it really worth it is a deep enough reason, a deep enough purpose a deep, deep enough meaning that you're giving to your business. And again, as Mike said, I do agree, it has to be something that's adding value to the marketplace and solving a problem. Not just any problem, but ideally, a problem you deeply care about to write, because I can solve all sorts of problems. But I really want to be solving the problem that's on my heart that's on my mind, that's really I feel like I'm uniquely qualified for and have a unique perspective on, you know, someone's already already solved how to get me really delicious coffee in the morning, maybe not a super reasonable price, but I still buy it. And it's like, that problem saw that don't need to go into the coffee business, from my perspective, if you're gonna go to the coffee business, you better have a unique selling point as well. And you can speak to this next, but you better have some sort of differentiation, right? If you're going to be going into it, and you have to have a purpose that's beyond just providing hot coffee people in the morning, so. So I definitely agree with that. Mike, what comes up for you next?
Mike Abramowitz 06:18
Yeah. And by the way, when you hear starting a business, I think making it so simple to the point where you think about a lemonade stand, you think about a kid who wants to start a business, right? Well, why does the kid want to start a lemonade stand? Well, they have a reason. Like, I want to buy that new toy, I want to go do that, whatever. So it's like, cool. They have this purpose. They have this goal started, they didn't do, what's the problem they're solving, people are thirsty. It's a hot summer day. So it's like them, I'm going to add value to these people. I'm going to quench their thirst with my lemonade so I can go buy the thing that I want to go by or go do the thing that I want to go do. It says Simple as that. And then you are going to start that lemonade stand. So what do you do when you start that lemonade stand? You're going to maybe put some billboard signs up around town so everyone knows you got to let everyone know that you started a lemonade stand. But before you could start advertising lemonade stand, you need to know what is the lemonade stand called? Right? So that's that would be my next step is what is what do you call in your brand? What do you call on your business? Is it you know, work with work with my name, you know, hey, work with Mike, that's the name of the business, maybe, maybe come up with something that just have to be perfect, but something that it, you know, is some sort of brand name, whether it's your name, or the product or service or something that you're going to offer I think is important. And then I would figure out who your target demographic is that you're gonna let that brand know, let them know about that brand. So using the lemonade stand example, it's like, well, if you come up with a brand of Mike's lemonade, wow, that's genius. Right? So we got this genius name called Mike's lemonade. Mike's soft lemonade, not the hard one. So Mike soft lemonade is what we call it sets the brand. And then we have to figure out who are the people that we're selling this product to this lemonade to? It's probably not toddlers on their tricycles. So we probably want to make sure we know who's our avatar, who's this target demographic that's going to be buying our lemonade. So that's the place I will go next, who's the avatar? Who is the target market that we want to make? Sure and I would do like a bullseye, where you have the Bullseye is going to be someone who fits like all 10 criteria that you have. And then the second ring outside of the Bullseye is maybe they fit like seven of the 10. And then the outside ring in that Bullseye is there your your minimum they have to fit these at least these minimum three or four criteria for them to be a target avatar. So that way when you start doing some marketing or advertising for your brand, you know it's going to the right, people.
Andrew Biggs 08:54
Absolutely. And I think a common mistake people make in in trying to determine their avatar is they don't go niche enough as reading Alex Rosie's book recently $100 million offers, which is a great book for anybody who wants to start a business in general, or obviously just an existing entrepreneur. He basically helps people productize anything that they're doing. And he says, from time to time, I have to niche slap my clients because they want to go too broad, right? So your audience, when you're starting a business, your target demographic is not anybody who will pay me right. Your audience is not entrepreneurs. It's not women. It's not men. That's way too broad, right. And when it's way too broad, then people perceive it as for everybody, and that's not what people want. People want something that's exclusively for them. So you really want to niche that down if I was running the lemonade stand. And maybe I would even want to charge a premium for my lemonade. Maybe it's $5 Lemonade. I might be targeting corporate executives on their way back from home as opposed to just anybody walking by. And so then that might change how I position myself in the market. Get place at my lemonade stand to say, Okay, this is who we're for, this is who we're not for. And we're not just any old lemonade. We're special lemonade. And that's what that's the next section that comes up for me and Mike, you can share your thoughts on this. But the next section that comes up for me, once you're clear on who your avatar is, you're clear on who you're the problem you're solving in the marketplace for that avatar, you're clear on your uniqueness and what you bring to the table, how your lemonade is different than everyone else's, then what you need to do is you need to actually create marketing and messaging that's going to resonate with that target audience. What's the sort of language that they use? What's the sort of lingo that they have, but not just the demographics of this individual? But what are the psychographics? Right, you know, think about psychographics. What that means is, what are their biggest challenges? What are their biggest fears? What are their biggest limiting beliefs, what do they want more than anything else in the world. And if we can get in tune with these things, we're trying to meet them, where they're at, now we can kind of enter into the voice going on inside their head. And then when they see your marketing, when they see your website, when they see your Facebook posts, when they see what it is that you're putting out there. Maybe it's your your billboard, going down the highway, what they're seeing, they say, Oh, my gosh, that's me, that's, that's me, this person understands me. And therefore, I don't want any other product or service out there. I want that one, because they're the ones who understand me the most. And they're the ones who are speaking to precisely the concerns that I have on a daily basis. And so once we kind of understand all of these things, why am I doing my business? Who am I doing it for? What's the problem I'm solving for them? How am I unique, then we can actually put together messaging that's directed directly towards them, so that when they see your ads, they actually want to click on it. So Mike, what's coming up for you?
Mike Abramowitz 11:44
Yeah, and I would encourage you to start with your own organic networks, right. So if you have a product or service that you're really excited about, using the lemonade stand, you're going to want your friends and family to be the first to know about your lemonade stand. So I think organic reach is going to be very important. So you want to let that entire organic reach know that you now have started a business. So whatever that might be, now what when you do that, now it's game on, this is where the critic start coming in. If you don't have any critics, you're doing it wrong, okay, you're, you're playing too small, the you should have some sort of critic, because when when a critic comes, come stop whispering in your ear, what they're doing is they're projecting an insecurity onto you, that has nothing to do with you. It has to do with their own insecurity that they're projecting onto you. And if you're making other people feel insecure, then you're doing it right. Because as Andrew said, In the beginning, running a business is not for everyone starting a business is not for everyone. So therefore, you should strike, maybe a little insecurity in someone, and they give you a little critic like, Are you sure? Is this what you really want to do? You might hear one of those. For every one of those, you're gonna have 10 Other people say, Wow, congratulations. Good job. That's awesome. Tell me more about it? How can I share it? How can I spread the word. So that's what I would say, with organic reach, you want to use your organic reach, let everyone know in your circle, that you've now started a business, change your Facebook profile picture, update your bio, update your LinkedIn, update your Instagram, let the world know, this is now my new business. This is my part of my identity and be proud of what you're now representing.
Andrew Biggs 13:27
Yeah. And if you you know, if you have any worries about that, if you're sitting there listening to this right now, and you're thinking, man, you know, I don't want to have any critics, I need to please everybody all the time. Well, first off, that's not possible, right? You can't please all the people all the time, you can please some of the people some of the time, but not all the people all the time. So get over it. Because no matter whether you start a business or not, you're not going to be able to do that. And then the second thing I would say is, then go back to your why. Right? Go back. And that's, again, why you need a deep lie, is because if a few critics on the internet, or whatever, we're going to stop you from actually living your dream and creating what you want to create and adding value in the marketplace and serving the people that you want to serve and changing their lives, in many cases, the way that you want to change their lives. And look, one little critic on the internet is going to stop you from doing that, then you haven't thought deeply enough about why it matters, why you've run this business and why you started this business. And so that's a big thing there. And I also do want to speak to and this is something that I've had to work on through the years. It's just like the shameless art of self promotion. The reality is that some of the best entrepreneurs on the planet are just shameless about their self promotion. I think that's good, right? We should be shameless in our self promotion. And the truth is, we have a product or service maybe it's not for everybody, but I'm gonna spread the word because I believe in what I'm doing. If you don't believe in what you're doing, then why are you doing it in the first place? Right if you're scared to share what you're doing, why are you doing in the first place? So Mike, anything you want to say to that?
Mike Abramowitz 14:52
Yeah, everyone should know you exist. That's really what it comes down to. Not everyone has to do business with you, but everyone should know you exist. Not everyone has to buy the product. but everyone should know the product exists. Not everyone has to abide the service. But everyone should know the service exists because why? By them knowing about it, two things can happen. Number one, they could potentially buy. Number two, they could potentially tell other people. But if they don't know about it, they can't do those two things. So you need repeat business and word of mouth advertising. And those two things are the birthplace of those two things is like spreading the word and spreading the word as organic as possible. There's, there's tons of ways to spread the word about your new business. Of course, you could go on Facebook and Google satis, spread the word about my business, and everyone will try to sell you their service. But me, I'm very much cheap. Let's go that way budget minded. So I tried to do it in the lowest lowest cost way possible. I've helped. I've helped college kids start their first businesses in direct sales and their college kids say 1819 20 years old, you know, on a very, very slim budget, we're of course going to help them start their their new enterprise and direct sales or network marketing as cheapest possible. And the easiest, cheapest way to do direct marketing of like your new product, or your new service or your business is going to be copy and paste messaging on text and social media and email. So you know, if you have an email list, if you have a social media platform, and if you have contacts in your cell phone, you come up with a nice template that feels like feels good and congruent. And it's like, Hey, I just want to let you know, this is a new business, I'm starting, do you know anyone who might possibly want some more information about it? Here's a link with some info. What that means is if you have a link with some more info, that link, you might have had to build, maybe you don't want to spend money on a website, if it's a brand new business, maybe you do, at minimum, just direct them to a Facebook page, a Facebook page could be a substitute for website, if you need, you could probably build a pretty cheap and expensive website, if you want, you could pay someone to build a really beautiful fancy website. But I would have something for them to be able to get some information, whether that be a simple Facebook page or something, you have this copy, paste message, copy, paste, copy, paste, copy, paste, copy, paste, copy, paste, send it and eventually you might say, well, all the time I'm spending on doing this copy paste work, I need to be doing all this other stuff for the business. Well, that's where you might say I need to hire help. And that's why we're advocates for the virtual assistant opportunity, which I would check out that episode on the podcast on how to lead through someone else. Because if you have, if you can hire someone to do copy paste work for you at $10 an hour, then that way you as the new business owner can focus on doing like 50 or 100 or 200 $300 hour work, then you might want to make sure you have figured out the system of the $10 an hour work and then hire someone to do the $10 an hour work. So that way, this $10 An hour work is still happening, which is like that copy paste messaging, and then you can be over here doing more of the strategy or the creative space or, you know, having the one on one conversations or the closing conversations with prospects. So that would be a couple of the next steps that show for me.
Andrew Biggs 18:04
Yeah, absolutely. And I'm really glad that you spoke for the exact amount of time that you did. So I can look up that the virtual assistant episode is episode 24. If you want to go back and listen to that, I highly, highly recommend that one as well. So I love what you're saying. I also want to just take one step back to double click on something because this is a common trap. This is a common pitfall that people getting started in business thing is, they think, Oh, I gotta go spend a bunch of money to get this thing started. The reality is a lot of times you don't I'm not saying that you couldn't, I'm not saying that there aren't awesome programs out there that that could help you start a business. And we're actually friends with with many of them that that do such things that I and I highly recommend their programs, because they actually do help people get businesses off the ground. One of the things is though, you could almost get so focused on how do i dot all my eyes and cross all my T's and make sure I look so good on the internet and make sure that my website is just immaculate, and every single word is perfect. And every single image is perfect and all of this, and you can spend three to six months or even 12 months with this idea. And you just keep telling yourself, guess what you keep telling yourself, I'm not ready. It's not good enough. It's almost there. I just need 30 more days and see 60 more days, then I'll tell everyone about it. And what happens is you spend a bunch of money you waste a bunch of time in this sort of productive procrastination, kind of rearranging the chairs on the Titanic as it's going down. You know, your website looks good, but nobody knows about it. No one knows where to find you. And you don't have any revenue so that when you want to reinvest in the business, you can't right. And so what we recommend is get started, get started now get started ugly. You know, I've often told people that if I don't listen back to the first few episodes of this podcast a few years from now, and I'm not embarrassed by it, then I started too late. And I and I believe that right? It's like hey, I want to get started. Get started now. Get Started ugly, and then just start moving because we need revenue, which is like the oxygen of the business that then we can reinvest. And then you upgrade things, then you make things better, then you make the client experience all the more valuable to them. And then you can charge higher prices. Right. So anyways, that Mike, any thoughts on that's
Mike Abramowitz 20:19
No, that's true. You need to OPM, OPM other people's money, that's all you need. Yeah. So you don't want to use your money to fund to start up that business, or you want to use other people's money. So how do you get other people's money, you get those first couple of clients in the door, or to pay for your product or your service, whatever it might be. So what that means is using the lemonade stand example, you know, your first batch of lemonade that you got to create, so you got to go spend your $25 and go get lemonade, get the cups, get all that stuff. And then you your goal is how if you're selling at $5 A cup, how can I get that $25 initial investment back as fast as possible? So how can I go sell my first five cups of lemonade to break even? And then it's how can I sell five more cups of lemonade to buy my second batch. So now I'm using other people's money. So my goal is to make my initial investment back as fast as possible, and then use other people's money to pay for the next batch of whatever it is. So it's so it's like, okay, I need to find 10 clients, because the first five pays me back the second five, I get to use that money to reinvest back into the business. And then you create the strategy around how fast can I get those 10? Who can I target? Who's the closest to being sold? is a good question, right? Who's the closest to buying this product or service? And then you start there. Let's start having conversations with them. Now, I would go back and listen to one of our episodes on how to have transformative conversations, because that episode will help you know how to have those closing conversations. There's also the art of negotiation episode, which will help you with how to negotiate and how to close those deals when you are with a prospect. This episode is just the ins and outs of how to start the business. And then if you are started the business but you're not closing listen to that episode, you started the business but you're still working and doing the copy paste work. Listen, the virtual assistant episode, you started the business but you're getting no sale after no sale or you're not finding the prospects you want or you're not retaining your clients listen to the creating a great user experience episode. So the couple things that show up for me.
Andrew Biggs 22:37
Yeah, awesome. And again, if you're not just subscribed to the podcast at this point, what are you waiting for people subscribe, like, share with your friends, please, please, please, this is this is my little window of commercial for self promotion, and a shameless plug, if you will. Also, by the way, we're on YouTube, and our YouTube views are starting to climb a little bit. So check us out on YouTube, we'd love to get you subscribed over there, too. I'm really liking the image that we're putting out on YouTube right now. So So check us out there too. But anyways, the you know, I love I love this direction. So we basically have an idea, we have a deep purpose, we have the target avatar, then we have, you know, the actual brand that we've created, that we've created messaging, right. And then you know, you raise an important point, I will just speak to the fact that there are different types of businesses. And so some businesses are more capital intensive than others. You know, I advised somebody who just bought a massive 28 foot truck. And now I think he has three of them. Yeah, he started with one. And you know, it's a massive investment to start. I don't know if it was, it was crazy that you bought a used it was like 70 grand or something like that. And so spent 70 grand up front, we got financing, right? So you didn't have to put 70 grand down. Because, you know, if you don't put 70 grand down and he can he can make more than what his interest is on that loan, then why not do that. But he had to put I think, at least 20 grand down. But then it was the question was, how do we break even? And then how do we get another 20 grand, so we go buy another truck, right? And so there are capital intensive, you know, type types of businesses that cost more to get started. But that's where you ask what the question might just ask, which is what's my breakeven point? Right? So the break even point is just an important concept might sound simple, but basically, it's when why at least recoup my initial investment, right? When Why have even one cent of profit. And that's what we have to determine is okay, once I make my six sale, or once I make my 10th sale, or whatever it is, or three months from now I will have broken even on my initial investment, then great, then we know that and then we're able to operate in the red until that moment, and then we can switch to the black. And then we start to play with the houses money, as Mike is suggesting. So awesome. So I mean, this is a really good starting point. And I also liked what you said about just getting the word out right, spreading the word. What else do people need to know when it comes to starting a business and what are some of the other common mistakes that you see?
Mike Abramowitz 24:57
I mean, sometimes a business owner when they're starting They're going to because you're going to be doing all hats, you're going to be wearing all the hats of every single department, you're going to be in charge of marketing, you're going to be in charge of HR, you're going to be in charge of sales are in charge of, you know, bookkeeping, finances. So you're going to be in charge of all the different departments, the common mistake that a new business owner does is they don't think of ways on how to delegate or automate some of those some of those things that they're doing, and they get stuck where they're always doing it. So as the business starts to grow and evolve, the owner of the business, their, their time becomes spread a lot more thin. So when things are small, it's okay, because you got to do everything. But as you might make, the common mistake is, as they're doing everything, they don't build out an infrastructure that could be scalable to teach to somebody else, or that can be automated. So that's why I would encourage you to document everything that you're doing to make sure everything is in writing, everything is recorded, everything has videos attached to it, I have one of my clients, he's in the real estate space. And he he's looking to now onboard, he has now built his business where he has 18 clients. So he's onboarding a project manager to offset some of those 18 clients. And one of the things that we've been working on now for about eight months, is how to document everything and how to video everything. So that way, when he brings on this next project manager to offset some of his load, he is very easy to teach that next next person. So as you're doing everything, highly recommend you to document to video to record module eyes, if you can. So that way, it's easy to scale and teach to the next person that you're going to need for each of the different entities and each of the different departments. And Andrew, if you wanted to speak to different departments, you can Yeah, you
Andrew Biggs 26:49
know, and just to clarify on that, that's definitely the time where you know, we'd be excited to get a call from you, and you should look into services like ours, because that's, that's really like, Our specialty is helping you kind of go from small to medium sized business, how do I go from, you know, a few 1000, a few 100,000, to, you know, hundreds of 1000s to millions. And ultimately, that's what we want for all of you. So, you know, the reality is what I would say here is thinking with the end in mind, right? So you want to think, okay, when I hand this off, I want to have one in place. So this is where you can start to organize things start to think about how do I actually need to structure this because a lot of times, you don't even know where to find that file on your Google Drive, or you don't even know that you came up with some sort of process and you put it in your notes app, you don't even know where it's at, you have like a big to do list. But you know, you'd only lives inside your head. So you have to start organizing these things. And start structuring your business, you have to even structure your personal life, right? Like what is your schedule look like? What is your time look like? How are you managing it? And are you reverse engineering your goals in a proper way, where you're actually spending your time on what matters most on a daily basis? Because most entrepreneurs, even people, people who are successful a lot of times you ask them, hey, what's, what's your goal right now in your business? And they they're kind of like, yeah, it's, I think it's this, they really, a lot of times aren't able to express it with absolute clarity and a goal, which is a target with a deadline they don't have. And they certainly even if they do, they definitely don't feel like they're doing exactly what they're supposed to do to get them there on time on a daily basis. And so really learning how to manage your time chunk your time down, and be efficient is really like the next step from my perspective, where you are able to spend time on the things that matter most instead of productively procrastinating through your day, which is what a lot of entrepreneurs end up doing. And they end up you know, maybe they get off to a hot start, but then do you know, they aren't able to scale beyond that, because A, they're inefficient with their time, or B, they're stuck operating their business actually fulfilling orders, you know, if you're, if you're selling T shirts on the internet, you know, great, you've created this business, you created a bunch of orders now, guess what you're doing, you're standing in your garage for 16 hours a day, packing the T shirts and putting the labels on the cardboard boxes and, and driving to UPS. And so it's like by actually getting sales. Now you created the problem of fulfilling those orders. So you have to think about, is it really the best use of my time to be putting T shirts in boxes and putting the labels on the boxes and driving to UPS? Or could someone else do that? So I could focus on growth, right? And that's the next graduation process. And that's where I really love to work with people and engage and say, hey, you've got your business started, let's take you to the next level and figure out how to, you know, kind of systemize you know, add some corporate type principles into it. So that, you know, in a way I know a lot of entrepreneurs don't love the word, you know, corporate but like we want to think with, you know, why is a business able to scale and become a large multinational corporation. It's not because, you know, they had one person at the top who was really talented and had a great personality, right is because they figured out how to organize things and operationalize things that they were able to be efficient with their time and provide superior value and service to the customer. So, Mike, I know we're kind of coming to the end here. But what else is coming up? Before we depart for that,
Mike Abramowitz 30:06
that's, that's that's perfectly said, Andrew. So and what I, what I love about what you're saying here is, eventually your problems that you're solving inside your business as you grow, you're going to have more problems to solve. And that's like that firefighters, I'm gonna put up this fire over here. And then it's like, oh, shoot, I have so much I got to put out this fire over here. And this owner becomes this firefighter where they're constantly putting out fires that they're creating, intentionally. So you want to intentionally create so many T shirts, that you have to go distribute them, that's a problem is a positive problem, which is great. And if you're doing that, then you're also have a glorified job. Because ultimately, now you don't have the time to spend with your family, you're not the time to travel, you don't have the freedoms or the flexibilities. And that's why when Andrew you said corporatized thing, it, it's, it's to systemize it to, to departmentalized it there's if you're doing every single department, I mean, how many departments are in the business. So we got the finance, right, we got the HR, we got the HR, the internal operations, then you have
Andrew Biggs 31:10
the sales and marketing. So that's, there's two more, and then I'd say, I'd say like strategy, operations, maybe a larger business like a tech department or something like that. But those are kind of the big ones, right operations slash client success, depending on if you're a service or product based business. So I usually like to talk about six that's like strategy, marketing, sales, operations, slash client success, and then HR and finance, I think those are kind of the core basic ones that pretty much every business needs my opinion. So
Mike Abramowitz 31:40
you're gonna be doing all of them. And eventually, at some point, as you grow, each of them are going to require more and more of your time. And that's when you have to think, okay, how can I get that department? So simple, so some so simplified, so somebody else can do it for 10 to $20 an hour, if you're over here making $300 an hour. And then this job is only $10 $20 An hour work. You that's when you got to start having those conversations, Okay, it's time to it's time to scale, it's time to grow. It's time to corporatize and systemize that business. So I think this is good. And I am really glad we were able to have this conversation. So you the listener, if you're just starting a new business, hopefully they you know, you are ready to go from where you are to where you want to go. And then when you get to that medium size, definitely let us know Andrew and I would love to help you take take your business to the next level. And that's obviously why we have our masterclass coming up in July 26 on a Tuesday, seven 7pm Eastern, so that way we can help you take that business, remove yourself from the being the bottleneck and and give you a little bit more time back. And when that time then you can focus on revenue producing activities, you can focus on strategy. And that's what we're just spend time out of the business.
Andrew Biggs 32:59
So absolutely. Again, we'd love to see you there. We really feel like it'd be valuable for you. No matter where you're at in your business. Come join us on the 26th at seven o'clock, we will definitely make it worth your while. Besides that. We hope you have a great day ahead and until next time on the better than rich show. Remember to leave today. better than you found it. We'll see you next week. Thanks everyone.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai