10 Things Learned While Growing a Business pt 2

All right, John, this is one of my favorites.

Yes.

And this comes directly from Mike.

Everything takes twice as long as you think, and is twice as expensive

Oh my gosh.

Everything takes twice as long as you think, and is twice as expensive

And bill, you and I are working through this insurance thing, you know,

with the licensing and everything.

How long did it take us to get our license.

Incredibly ridiculously long.

And then how long did it take me to go get my fingerprints done?

Okay.

You know, had to go twice or three times because you know, of different

things and then you waiting on this date to give you something right.

And then you're waiting on this and then people tell you, oh,

money will start coming in here.

It hasn't yet.

Okay.

And so, everything takes twice as long costs, twice as much.

Okay.

And you get about half the results you want.

Now I have been told that Mike, this is true for you.

True for Mike, because I'm an Uber optimist.

I expect things to go.

Right.

I expect things to work.

I expect things to produce.

I expect, you know, and I will tell you I'd much rather have

expectations of things going, right.

Instead of people walking around saying, oh, here's what could go wrong.

All right.

. Most of you guys all know I bought myself this incredible new vehicle.

It's like my it's like my midlife crisis.

It's like my post midlife crisis vehicle.

All right.

My midlife crisis vehicle was my mustang okay.

And it was a Mustang convertible.

It was an incredible car and a lot of fun with it.

Okay.

But it has Sirius radio and I've been waiting for a Sirius radio

for, I can't even tell you how long.

And one of the reasons is because every time I would go visit

somewhere and I would get a rent car.

That had Sirius XM radio.

I would start pumping it through.

And I found this guy who I'd seen in who I'd heard about Joel Osteen.

Okay.

And I will tell you that guy is incredibly motivating.

So now almost every day he is like channel number one on my xm radio

and I listened to him and he has this silly little joke

he tells at the beginning of every sermon, he has a pattern.

He has a system, a, you could almost write down his principles if you

listen to enough of his presentation.

Okay.

But he talks about how people sometimes are optimist and

some people are pessimists.

And here's the truth is optimists have an incredible.

Opportunity above other people that was not quite the right word but

opportunity because they just, they see the opportunity more than pessimists.

I was reading through something the other day and it may have come from the book.

I'm trying to remember where it came from.

I think it actually came off of TikTok believe it or not.

And this was guy, it was saying, so in college, we got all these

graduates to do something.

And we said, Hey, we'll give you a hundred dollars.

And all we need you to do is take a look at 30 pages of the New York times.

And do something for us.

And so they signed up all these graduate students.

He said, the first thing you learn is that the test is

never what they tell you it is.

Okay.

It's never what they tell you it is.

And he said, so here's the test guys.

And he said, one is, they gave him a whole series of things, but one of the questions

in there was, do you think you're lucky or do you think you're unlucky?

Okay.

Or do you think you're not lucky?

Okay. And the vast majority of people said

Okay.

Then say that we're unlucky, but they're not lucky.

All right.

So I will tell you, I go around and one of my Crow principles to some

degree is that I'm just damn lucky.

I get lucky all the time when I'm sitting at the poker table and somebody goes,

golly, I cannot believe you pulled that card And I go, you know, sometimes

it's just better to be lucky than good, you know, I just, I just, I am lucky.

All right.

So here's the test they're reading through 30 pages of New York times, right.

And he says, I want you to count the number of headlines, and I want

you to count the number of pictures.

And if you get that right , then we will give you a hundred dollars.

All right.

And so everybody sits down and they start reading and start taking a look at it.

Now, inside that 30 pages is this little ad that runs down the side.

And it says, if you're reading this ad and you're reading it pretty much in

the entirety, then you will know that all you have to do is now say I saw

this ad and bring it up to me and I'll give you your hundred dollars and you

don't have to count the headlines and you don't have to count the pictures.

80%

of the people that said they were lucky, caught that ad

hardly anybody, hardly anybody.

I'm not sure anybody that said they were unlucky, caught the ad.

And he said the conclusion, to some degree that we derived from this is

that people that are optimistic, people that are, that feel like they're lucky.

Part of the reason they're lucky is because they're more observant they're

taking a bigger picture than most people.

Now you've all seen the, where the gorilla walks through the middle, you

know, bouncing the ball and everything.

And people were saying, look at the white jerseys and tell me how many

times the white jerseys bounce the ball.

And while you're counting that the gorilla walks through and you don't even see it.

And I'm going to be honest with you.

I didn't see the stupid gorilla or the first time either.

What an effective learning tool though, that tells you, you need to be more

observant to the whole process sometimes.

Cool.

What's next, John?

Number seven, listening is your secret weapon for marketing sales and service,

which by the way, we all consider subsets of service because in each of those

phases, marketing, sales, and service, we're looking to bring value to the

people that we're interacting with.

A good example of this would be are you looking for

exactly how you can bring value to your mavens.

Well, then if you ask them the right questions and listen to

what they say, they will tell you specifically how you can step in

and serve them and bring them value.

Yep.

Absolutely.

Now I'm going to, I'm going to re-tweak this just a little bit because I'm Mike.

Okay.

Uh, Listening is your secret weapon for marketing sales and service,

which by the way, It's all marketing

the service we deliver.

, we're marketing the service we deliver.

It's all marketing to me and John I want to be very clear.

I'm not saying you're wrong.

I'm not saying that at all.

Okay.

What we're talking about, maybe more of a philosophy.

Yeah.

Depending on how you see it.

I think Barbara Cochran, if she read this she'd go listening is your secret

weapon for marketing sales and service, which by the way, it's all sales.

I guarantee you, she would say it, but she would emphasize it.

And here's a secret.

We all have this tendency to become really good at one thing.

And we think that one thing is what not only defines us, but creates our success.

And if my one thing is, I told people, if you cut me open, I

bleed marketing all over the place.

Okay.

Jenn, you want to add something?

I just want to add where the background or the perspective behind that philosophy

that we came up with that, that everything is service because that

came out of the coaching world where a lot of people, when they first start,

they struggle with the concept of sales.

They struggle with the concept of selling.

They struggle with the concept of marketing.

They don't want to self promote.

They just want to help people.

They just want to serve people.

So that framework all came from the place.

People want to serve others.

And so that's why Barbara Corcoran, it would be sales because the truth

is that even when you're coaching somebody you're still selling when

you're like, you're still selling.

And the truth is you're still marketing because you're still

moving them to a place where they're ready to take the next step.

So exactly what you said, Mike, it's all the same thing, regardless of the

frame, you look at it, but the intention of the quote behind it is to make

people feel comfortable with showing up.

Yep, absolutely.

And John, thank you for sharing that.

Number eight, John.

If you want to build a real business and not just a job, you have to build a team.

And then I think about the concept that we talk about a lot around the

office, which is future banking.

So what can we invest now to get more time and money later?

And this is one of the biggest, it's one of the biggest challenges.

And I'm going to tell you that in the beginning I thought nobody

could do it as good as me either.

And then I watched Jenn run the coaching call this morning and I'm sitting

there going, damn that was pretty good.

I'm not sure I would've said that or that.

Okay.

And then I watched Jonathan give a presentation to a group of

real estate agents and he's doing all this stuff and I go, wow.

Okay.

And I don't know about you bill, but I go out on a home inspection and Chris, I

bet you go out on even more frequently than I do, or bill probably combined.

And I'm watching one of our inspectors has been with us 10 years and he crushes it.

He catches things I would have never seen.

He writes it up really well.

He pulls the customer aside.

The home buyer aside does a great job with it.

Okay.

But honestly, 95% of people will never know how to grow a team.

Okay.

They think they do.

But they don't.

Okay.

And that's what makes this group of people different more than anything

else is they know how to grow a team, how to encourage a team, how to inspire

a team, how to help a team prioritize, how have a team literally do what they

are supposed to do, whether it's sales or service or marketing or admin.

Okay.

And so, what you guys don't know is in between the coaching call this morning

and in-between this call, I had what we called a freeze frame meeting.

I hate freeze rate meetings.

Okay.

Because I always pissed somebody off.

Because freeze frame meeting is where I have to ask the tough questions

that nobody really wants to answer.

Like, why did we spend money here?

Why is the money here?

Where does that money come from?

Where did it go to, you know, all those meetings.

And so freeze frame is something I created years ago to be able to once

a week, like take a snapshot in time and tell me where all the money is.

Okay.

And kind of like what John said, future banking.

I want to know where the money's coming from next week.

Next month, six months.

And I'm going to tell you, future banking is probably it's a term I started

using, oh, I don't know, 20 years ago. But when I started coaching people,

In fact, a Crow principle would be, Mike wants you to understand how powerful

future banking is because the 95% they're banking the paycheck this week.

Okay.

I'm banking the paycheck 20 years from now.

Think about that.

I'm banking my paychecks 20 years from now.

spend more time with my dad.

And you know, my dad called me yesterday morning.

He said, Mike, what are you doing today?

And you know what

I got to say nothing, dad, what do you want to do?

And he said, Hey, I got a proposition for you.

I'm going to come out and see you.

I said, well, dad I borrowed his truck recently.

Cause my cause Christa's moving and I said, I can, I was going

to bring your truck back.

And I'm just going to ask Jonathan, if they come with me and bring me

back home or I'll catch an Uber home. And he said, yeah, that'd be great.

So I went out and dad's proposition was, he wanted to buy me lunch for my birthday.

Okay.

And I got to have time with my dad, but I got to have time with my dad

because I believe in future banking.

Okay.

I've been a future banking my time for the last 20 years.

Okay.

So there's money time, all of that.

John number nine, every roadblock you face along the way to your dream.

Every pitfall, every hardship, every problem you solve, and every

experience you have as part of that journey is increasing your power

to impact the people you serve.

And Jenn, I think had it.

An interesting way sort of to summarize that as far as

that statement about advice.

Sure.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't remember if this is actually what you're asking for

John, but it's just that people want, they don't want advice,

but they want your experience.

Yeah.

And guys when Jenn talked about that earlier today, I wrote in

the notes for the coaches I wrote in there, accountability, and I

created a new word just today. It's an old word that I created a day.

Focus ability.

Okay.

Because I teach people when you're coaching.

I don't want accountability.

I don't need your stinkin accountability.

Okay.

What I need is your help to focus on what I'm trying to get

done and how to get it done.

Maybe why to get it done.

Okay.

I don't need you to beat me up going, did you get it done?

Did you get it done?

Did you get it done?

You know, I don't need another six year old sitting in the back of

the seat going, are we there yet?

Are we there yet?

Okay.

I want somebody going sitting next to me going, Hey, if we

take a left at this next exit.

Okay.

It's a left-hand exit.

We're going to hit this interstate and it's going to take us here.

That's what I want.

And so when John talked about this, I thought it was incredible.

And the other thing that I got out of this was I've been very,

very fortunate in my life.

I've never had a bankruptcy. I'm not divorced.

I have four amazing kids, but I will tell you that you know, all of us hit

these roadblocks, but these roadblocks help prepare us to be able to help other

people be able to overcome some of those.

Okay.

And it's incredibly impactful.

Yes.

Remember your job is not really accountability as

much as it is focus ability.

Okay.

how are you helping your people stay focused on what needs to get done today?

And if they didn't get it done today?

Well, something stopped them.

What roadblock did they run into that needs to get shifted?

Move sideways up, down, buried, you know, so that they can get

done what they need to get done.

John, number 10, you have to stop and take a moment to celebrate wins.

Even the small ones.

So completion of projects or business successes, positive things in your

personal life, and this is really important to help you maintain.

Positive perspective when you have those days where you feel like all you're

doing is putting out fires or you're just caught up in the whirlwind and you

can't zoom out to see the bird's eye view of the impact that you're making.

Yeah.

And John, you have a kind of a bonus one here, and by the way, before he gets

the bonus one, guys, I celebrate wins every single day in one way or another.

Now sometimes I'm future banking my wins.

Like I have been counting on going on this Disney trip for a month now.

Okay.

So every day that's like a future win.

So Jonathan and I went out on Amazon and we bought ourselves t-shirts a different

t-shirt for each part different days.

Okay.

So we're going to magic kingdom and they have Liberty square there.

It says Hamilton is now a Disney product or whatever because they bought it.

And we watched it as a family and everything.

I got a t-shirt says I'm not throwing away my shot.

Okay.

Which is a great line in the movie.

If you get a chance to watch it in Jonathan Uh, Burr shot first

and that is Hamilton shot first.

And then it says on there, he says, I don't care.

What you heard.

It's Jefferson.

Jefferson is lying.

Okay.

So it's another great line of the movie, but you know, we went out and a little

win was we ordered t-shirts for the trip.

Okay.

John, your bonus here.

And then we're going to run the question around the.

Sure things.

So gratitude is the quality of being thankful.

It's the readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.

I know we all want to work with mavens and vendors and clients and

employees that express gratitude.

And I just think every day is an opportunity for us to actually

embrace that, live it out and also model gratitude for others.

And hopefully that becomes a magnet that draws the people around you

into a spirit of gratitude as well.

Heck yeah.

The more grateful you are, you'll find out the more grateful

And I will tell you that this is one of the, this has been one of the most

difficult things in my last year.

If I have somebody around me that every day they're ungrateful.

I eliminate them from my world.

Okay.

And it's painful.

It's painful.

Eliminating.

We had this most amazing, wonderful lady at the office.

She planted flowers.

She did all this great stuff.

She organized stuff.

And every single day she complained about something.

Okay.

She complained about her apartment.

She complained about the maintenance man.

She complained about the neighbors she complained about.

And I already said, is your maintenance man here right now?

She went, no.

I said, then don't bring him to my office.

Okay.

And we tried Jenn and I both tried.

And by the way, we've had some people come in and leave and they

go, this place is a damn cult.

Okay.

You guys are like, you know, you're, you just are not realistic.

You, you just don't want to see the reality in the world anymore.

And um, Uh, maybe true, you know, maybe true which by the way, my dad

even gave you that, like yesterday, he said, son, one of the best lines

I ever learned from you, when people tell you a piece of garbage and you

don't really want to argue with them, you simply say, ah you might be right.