SPEAKER_02 0:00

You are the one slowing it down. So, what I my challenge for you is this block time in your calendar where you are not allowed to work. And I'm not talking about finishing at four o'clock on a Friday or starting at 10 o'clock on a Monday. I'm talking about in the middle of the day, take three hours and block your calendar so you're not allowed to work. From 11 o'clock until two o'clock on a Tuesday, block it out. I'm not allowed to work. You can do whatever you want, but not work.

SPEAKER_03 0:33

If you have a vision for the agency you want to build, then we want to help you build it. Welcome to the Agency Hour Podcast, brought to you by Agency Mavericks.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

To the Agency Hour live here in the Digital Mavericks Facebook group. Look, I've even had a new haircut. I've got a new haircut just for you. They even put a little part in. What do you think? You like, you like him? You like him? This is uh live in the Digital Mavericks Facebook group. Welcome back to 2022. Today we're gonna talk about earning more by working less. That's right. This is not clickbait, this is not some fanciful uh new kind of woo-woo, you know, black magic voodoo theory that we've come up with. This is a fact that if you work less, you will earn more. And I'm gonna explain uh during the course of this show. So stick around. And a big welcome to my co-host, my co-pilot, my partner in crime, my brother from another Pete Crispy Butter Perry. Oh, look at that. Oh my god, where did we get that picture? You've even got your own, you've even got your own bumper now. Wow, that's I look like I have a guest. Well, dude, I mean you just that's it how you look most of the time. So yeah we're gonna work on that picture, I think. Wow, we have bumpers, we have like animated bumpers. Max has been that's awesome over the Christmas period, hasn't he? Wow, that's fantastic. Good to see you.

SPEAKER_04 2:08

I haven't we haven't been on this together in uh a while over a month, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There we go. Uh happy new year, brother. Happy new year to you. Good to see you. How's things working out for you right now where you are in the world?

SPEAKER_04 2:21

Working out well, but I'm really interested in hearing how I can make more money and not work.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

Oh, easy.

SPEAKER_04 2:26

That's always been my goal.

SPEAKER_02 2:27

Yeah, well, you just but you just put money in crypto. That's how you how you do it. That's that's the answer. You just put money in crypto and then you go play golf and you go to the cinema and then you check your crypto every day and it goes up. Isn't that how it works?

SPEAKER_04 2:37

That's how whatever you're about to tell us, it works for agency owners, but does it work for heads of coaching too?

SPEAKER_02 2:44

Um maybe, maybe. So this is aimed at business owners. This is aimed at business owners. Uh, so here's what there's two things I want to talk about today. There's the outcome, and then there's the approach, right? And the outcome is we're gonna talk about how to earn how to earn more revenue by working less, right? And this is aimed fairly and squarely at agency owners. So if you're an employee, for example, this might be a bit tricky. So this is aimed at agency owners. Daniel King is here from Argentina. Well, there we go. Um, so the the I want to ask you a couple of questions. And and the approach that we're gonna use to get there is called minimum viable effort. Something I made up while I was camping, right? Uh, because camping is tricky when you've got a four and a half year old and a two-year-old, right? And uh it's and we were in a we were on an unpowered site intense. So we weren't glamping, we were actually camping, and it can be very exhausting. And so you get very good, very quickly at figuring out the minimum viable effort you have to you have to put in to get the desired outcome. So, desired outcome typically when you're camping is food and sleep, right? Personal hygiene is optional, okay? Uh, and so you figure because it's exhausting camping. When you're we were lucky we had good weather, but when you're battling the elements and you've got kids running around, there were eight families camping altogether, you've got kids running around screaming and not sleeping, and no one's really sleeping very well. So you just got to do the minimum viable effort to get the outcome. And I want to and I was thinking about you while I was on holidays, Pete, which is a little disturbing, but I was thinking about you learning how to play the bass. And the question I've got, and you sent me this great video, which we haven't got queued up, by the way. You sent me a great video of you playing the 12 bar blues on the bass, which I'm also obsessed with 12 bar blues, and when I discovered, and I have been obsessed with it ever since. So I intend on making a video over your video and sending it back to you, and I'm gonna play some guitar.

SPEAKER_04 4:51

That'll be fine.

SPEAKER_02 4:52

Uh, and we'll just continue.

SPEAKER_04 4:53

And then we'll get Adam, we'll get Adam some added drum track.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

Correct, that's right. And then we'll make a record. Um, and so the what I want to ask you is this when you're practicing the 12 bar blues, what is the outcome that you are aiming for?

SPEAKER_04 5:10

Oh, that's tough. Um, in my case, because I'm I'm really very new to musical instruments of any kind, and especially the bass, um, I like I think I'm like three and a half months in. My real outcome right now is just to be able to show somebody like you without being completely embarrassed. So show progress every day. I literally do work every day at it, and I have a structured practice routine that I try to follow. And then some days you just kind of wing it. But um, I'm really just trying to see progress every day, and I actually videotape myself like that uh every couple of weeks so that I can see the progress. And I have seen huge progress, even though it's obviously I'm not anywhere near where I would want the public to see.

SPEAKER_02 6:03

But yeah, does that make sense? But yeah, so so dude, like you played the 12 bar blues on the bass. You sent me this video, and I'm like, holy shit, Pete's like been doing this five minutes, and he just played the 12 bar blues on the bass. I was very impressed. Obviously, you've been putting a lot of work in. But let's get granular here. When you when you are practicing the 12 bar blues, what is the outcome that you are aiming for? When you are practicing the 12 bar blues, what are you hoping to achieve?

SPEAKER_04 6:28

I'm not really sure what you're getting at with the question.

SPEAKER_02 6:30

You mean okay? So so when you're when you're practice, when you're sitting down, you're practicing the 12 bar blues, you are the outcome that you want is you want to be able to play the 12 bar blues on the bass with a constant rhythm without making any mistakes and without stopping. You want to be able to get through 12 bars from start to finish without falling over, right?

SPEAKER_04 6:49

With the right chord progressions, chord changes, and and the right, the right rhythm, groove, whatever you want to call it. And um, yeah. So whether you're playing somebody else's pre-written one or the one that I did was just something I just made up real quick.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

And you know you've done it when you get to the end of the 12 bar cycle, yes, and you've played it and you've watched your hands hit all the right notes at the right time in the right place, and you haven't made any mistakes and you haven't stopped halfway through, like you've completed it, right?

SPEAKER_04 7:20

Right. So nobody and nobody downstairs is screaming for me to stop playing.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

There we go. Amber is here from South Australia. Thanks for joining in, Amber. We're talking about minimum viable effort, we're talking about how to earn more by working less, which I'm going to talk about in a moment. I'm actually going to prove this is a true thing. And we're talking about Pete learning how to play the 12 bar blues on the bass guitar because so can I throw something else in?

SPEAKER_04 7:41

Please instead of practicing for three or four hours a day, or even three or four hours at a time, and then not practicing again for three days. I literally practice for 20 minutes every day.

SPEAKER_05 7:53

That's it. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 7:56

So, yep, and I see more progress that way than when I first started. I was trying to do it a lot, like trying to jam it all in. I think it's easier just five minutes at 10 minutes, 15 minutes, a little bit at a time.

SPEAKER_02 8:08

Yep. Ness Brown is here from Melbourne. Hey Ness, welcome to the show. Uh, for those of you watching, let us know where you are from in the in the comments. We are talking about minimum viable effort uh as a way, as a methodology and an approach to earn more while working less, which I'm going to talk about more in a moment. But the example I'm using is Pete is learning how to play the bass guitar, is learning how to play the 12 bar blues on the bass. And so the first thing, the first thing here is when you sit down and practice the 12 bar blues on the bass guitar, the outcome is very obvious. And the success criteria for that outcome is very obvious. Like I've just played that this is what the 12-bar blues sounds like on the bass guitar, right? So uh I'm not gonna get halfway through and go off into like a jazz funk improv thing because that's not the 12-bar blues, right? So I I'm I'm I am doing, I'm playing what what key did you play it in? Was it in A?

SPEAKER_04 9:06

I think I started in G, actually.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

Okay, it was G. So we're we're playing 12 bar blues in G. This is what it sounds like. We play the G, then we do the C, then back to the G, then we do the D, then the C, then the back to the G. And uh that's you know, me just showing off my uh amazing musical talent and knowledge. Um, and and and this is what it sounds like. And the six so knowing what it looks like if it's successful is very obvious to everyone, okay? It's like and and you've all heard it.

SPEAKER_04 9:37

You've all heard it. You're all familiar with this. You've heard the pattern.

SPEAKER_02 9:41

That's right. It's like a it's like a basketballer, it's like Michael Jordan, right? It's very obvious what Michael Jordan's job is, is to score goals, right? And it's and we know when that happens because the ball goes through the hoop, through the swish, through the net, and a two goes up on the board, or in Michael's case, usually it's a three goes up on the board because he shoots three pointers. So the success cry, so the outcome is very clearly defined, and the success criteria for what that outcome looks like when it's successful is very, very clearly defined. There's no deviation from that. Okay, so that's step number one. Step number one is to clearly define the outcome and know what success looks like. Okay, that's step number one. Step number two is another question for Pete. While you are practicing the 12 bar blues, Pete, what else are you doing? Nothing. Ho ho ho now you would have thought that I teed him up for that answer, but I didn't. While Pete is sitting there practicing the 12 bar blues on the bass, right, he's doing what? Nothing. He's not on plug-in alliance researching plugins for the computer for the bass, he's not researching pedals, right, at the local music store. He's not he's not restringing the bass guitar, he's not cleaning the bass guitar, he's not fiddling with his amp, he's practicing the 12 bar blues. That's all he's doing. He's not on social media, right? He's not multitasking. You can't multitask when you're playing the 12 bar blues. The only thing you might be able to do at the same time is tap your foot to keep you in time.

SPEAKER_04 11:33

And I I don't I don't see myself ever able to sing and play singles.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

You know what? My my my best mate Bart is a great bass player and also plays guitar and a bit of piano, and is a good singer and a good songwriter. Can't play bass and sing at the same time. Playing bass and singing at the same time is really, really it's easier to play, much easier to play guitar, piano, even drums and sing at the same time, which I can do all three of those, by the way. Uh, but playing bass, and I can play a bit of bass, but I can't play bass and sing. Yeah, play. That was my first instrument. Uh, so it's really difficult to play bass and sing at the same time. But the point I'm trying to make is this when you are practicing the 12 bar blues on the bass guitar, that is all you are doing. You're not doing anything else, right? So here's what I want to talk about in terms of what the hell has this got to do with running an agency. The first thing I think that is really important is to understand what your job is as an agency owner and to have very clear outcomes that you are responsible for delivering and have very uh clearly written out success criteria for how you know you're doing your job successfully, right? So I just want you guys to let me know in the chat. Do you know what your job is as an agency owner? Do you know the outcomes that you are responsible for as the agency owner? And do you know how you're going to measure those outcomes? In other words, have you got the success criteria written down? Let me give you some examples from our everyday life, right? I'm going to throw a party for my wife's birthday in a couple of months. And the success criteria, the outcome is we're going to have a great party and we're all going to get COVID together, right? That's the outcome that I'm aiming for. Badoomch. And the success criteria is that a bunch of people will turn up to our house, uh, will go out in the back deck, there'll be lights, there'll be a uh a uh marquee set up in the backyard, there'll be some instruments on the back deck, we'll have some live music, we'll all get drunk, we'll all wake up the next day with a hangover in COVID. That's the success criteria. That's the outcome that we're aiming for. I'm joking about the COVID thing. Right? So very clear to me. I work then work backwards and go, what are all the things I need to do over the next eight weeks to make that happen? I need to send out invitations, I need to organize some catering, I need to book some live entertainment, I need to organize a sound system, I need to get the marquee up, I need to enlist some help from a. I just write it all out and click up and put together a project, and then I just go off and ticket off because the success criteria is very obvious, right? I need to warn the neighbors that we're gonna be making some noise, but you know, by midnight it'll all be done because we're old. We're not gonna be partying until four o'clock in the morning, so there's no need to call the police. Um, that was her 30th that we had the police called on us. And that's a true story. We did. We had we they shut us down at three o'clock in the morning. I'll I'll be well in bed by then. So the the success criteria and the outcome is very clear. And then all I have to do is reverse engineer the steps that I need to take in order to achieve the success criteria. So thinking about your role. Now, I also want to just talk about if it's just you in the agency and you're the only one that works in the agency, then I want you to think about all the stuff that you need to do to serve your clients. But then I just want you to kind of park that and go, all right, other than that, what do I need to do as a business owner to grow my business? What outcomes am I responsible for? So please let me know in the chat. Do simple yes or no answer. Do you know the outcomes that you are responsible for as an agency owner? And do you have success criteria written out for those outcomes? In other words, do you know how, do you know when you've arrived? Do you know how you're do you know if you're doing your job successfully as an agency owner? And it's okay, there's no wrong answer here, there's just the truth. Okay, you either do know it or you don't. If you don't, that's okay. That's why we're here. We're here to help you. Okay. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you some ideas and give you some um give you some some guidance here. Okay, Amber, yes, okay, wake-up call here. That's what we're here for, Amber. And uh, and uh Ness, yes, I know the outcomes, but no real success criteria. Excellent, excellent.

SPEAKER_04 16:09

So you're gonna give us some examples?

SPEAKER_02 16:12

I am, I'm gonna give you some examples.

SPEAKER_04 16:14

I don't want to push it, just want to make sure.

SPEAKER_02 16:17

Well, there are, I think there are um here's here's what here's what I think are the outcomes that an agency owner is responsible for. The as a business owner, your number one responsibility is to stay liquid. Right? What I mean by that is your number one responsibility is to not run out of money. That is responsibility number one, do not run out of money. Okay? Because if you run out of money, you're fucked, you can't pay anyone, you can't pay your staff, you can't pay your bills, you're out of business. So do not run out of money. Rule number one, do not run out of money. Okay. Uh responsibility number two is to stay profitable. And I said this before, I'll say it again. You owe it to yourself as a business owner who's taking all the risk for running and growing a business. You are taking all the risk if it fails, it's your reputation, it's your pride, it's your if you declare bankruptcy, you can't start another business for three years. That's kind of the rules here in Australia. Like you are taking enormous risk starting and growing your own business. Okay. So you owe it to yourself to be profitable. You deserve to make obscene amounts of profit from your agency. I'm gonna say that again. You deserve to make obscene amounts of profit from your business as the business owner. There is no, you cannot make too much profit from your business. Right? What you do with that profit is entirely up to you. Right? We have we have people in Mavericks Club who who buy cars and also uh put money into building orphanages, right? Well, whatever you want to do with your money is entirely up to you. But let's let's be clear about this. You have the right to make obscene amounts of profit from your business. That is your right. There is no, don't feel guilty, don't feel guilty about making lots of profit from your agency, okay? Whatever you need to work through, and I know this is confronting for some people, whatever your relationship is with money, and whatever you need to work through to redefine that relationship, I would suggest that you do that work around your relationship with money, but you have the right to make lots of profit from your agency. There's nothing wrong with that. The more profit you make, the more you can do in the world, and the more you can look after your family and your team and yourself, and the more you can give back. So what we are I'm all about creating abundance, okay? And you can't share your abundance if you are not making filthy amounts of profit from your agency. So, rule number two, make lots of profit because that is what will you be able to reinvest back into the business, you'll be able to reinvest back into your team, and you'll also be able to look after yourself and your family as a business owner, and you deserve that. Okay. So, number one, don't run out of money. Number two, stay profitable. Yeah. Number three, and this depends on what you want to do with the agency, but like there's there's let's just talk for a minute about the uh typical outcomes for an agency at the end of the life of an agency, right? So full transparency. I'm 48 now. I know it's incredibly difficult to believe that, but I'm 48 right now. And uh I am thinking about what I want to be doing in my mid to late 50s, right? And some of you might that for some of you that might be like, well, I'm not even thinking about that because I'm in my early 30s and I'm immortal. Okay, well, I'm I'm telling you that's not true. At some point, you are going to want to think about what you want to do with your business and how it fits into your life. And at some point in the future, you are going to not want to run your agency anymore because you'll just be tired. Yeah, and you'll want to do something different. And at that point, you've got to you've got some choices. One, you can sell the agency. Very tricky uh to sell agencies, by the way. It's a very tricky business model to sell, but it can be done. It happens every day of the week. Agencies get bought and sold every day of the week. Okay, so you can sell your agency. Two, you can hire someone to run it for you, and you can just step back and be a shareholder. So you don't actually work in the agency. My buddy Dave did this with um one of his businesses before he then sold it. He actually stepped back, he employed someone to run it, or he elevated one of his team members to run it, and he just became a shareholder. So he would just meet with the CEO once a month and advise and give guidance and based on his experience, hey, this is what I would do. Try this, try this. They would hit the numbers. The CEO would get bonuses for hitting the numbers. He was the owner of the business. Uh, he would just get a profit dividend every three months from the business, and then at some point he sold the business, right? So that's another option is you just step back, you become a shareholder, you take a profit out of the business every three months as a dividend, and the rest of the time someone else runs it, and you can go play golf or hang out with your kids or start scrapbooking, whatever you want to do. I don't care, travel, whatever. Right? The third option is you continue to run the business and extract as much profit from it as you possibly can. Use that profit to build your wealth through whatever you want to do property, shares, crypto, I don't care, whatever, right? And then at some point you just shut it down and you go, Well, I'm done. And you walk away because you've got enough money to retire and you don't need the stress of running the agency anymore. Okay. So there are your three options, really, is you sell it, you hire someone to run it, and you just become a shareholder, or you just shut it down. Okay, make sense. So any of those options is going to require a part, like unless you want to just shut it down and walk away from it, which I think is the worst option, by the way. I think that I think the two best options are to have someone else run it and you just be the shareholder or to sell it. Now selling it's tricky. So typically, uh I think the sweet spot is elevating a team member to take it over and run it for you with the idea that it's then going to become that team owner's, that team member's business. Right. This my voiceover agent did this. My voiceover agent, she wanted to get out, which is essentially an agency model. She wanted to get out of the agency, she wanted to retire. She had a girl working for her who's really good. She elevated her to general manager. Catherine ran the agency for about three years and then eventually bought it off Kathy. And now Catherine still owns it, and Kathy retired, right? So that's very typical kind of model. Any of these options are going to require the same thing. They are going to require that the business be able to generate revenue, deliver value, and create a profit without you, the business owner, actually being involved in the day-to-day. Right? Because if you can't do that, then you haven't got you know, you haven't got anything that you can pass on to someone else, or you haven't got anything that someone else can come in and run. So you need to build your team around whatever size that is, whether it's three or 33, whatever size team, you need to build a team of some description to deliver the value that you're promising your clients and to generate a profit for the company without you actually being in the building.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 24:04

So I think your third priority as a business owner is to build a great culture for your team to flourish and empower them to go forth and conquer without you. Make sense? Yes.

SPEAKER_04 24:20

And so is that really so how would you word the third outcome then? What's the actual definition of the third outcome?

SPEAKER_02 24:28

Well, the third outcome is is that the team are running the agency without you, and the success criteria is there that you know you are checking the business and seeing revenue and seeing profit, and you're not involved. Right? You just check the numbers, you don't, and maybe you consult with the team once a month to kind of keep them on track. And as a shareholder, you go, well, you know, like you become a board member then. Here's what I would do, and try this and try this. Here's what you know, here's what used to work when I was a dialogue, you know, when I was running the business, now I'm a dinosaur. I mean, you guys make decisions without me all the time now.

SPEAKER_05 25:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:06

Because I don't think I'm gonna make very good decisions.

SPEAKER_04 25:08

Yeah, better ones because we make better ones, actually.

SPEAKER_02 25:12

Right, because because I've got so many dis I've got so many things on my plate. I uh I sent Pete a message last night actually saying, if I make decisions right now in the business, they're gonna be fast decisions because I want the decision off my plate, and that's not gonna be the best decision. So you guys make the decisions, spend some time thinking about it and make better decisions than me because I'm just gonna decide something just to get rid of it, right? Because I'm gonna think about other things. Um, so number one, stay liquid, don't run out of money. Number two, stay profitable.

SPEAKER_04 25:42

Number three, empower your team to make decisions without the third one's a lot harder to reach than the first two.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_04 25:52

That's the that's the golden ticket right there. Totally.

SPEAKER_02 25:54

It's very difficult. If you build your team to make decisions and run the business without you, you that's the only way to actually get out of the business and still have it be profitable, right? Is to get your team to do things for you. Here's what I want to pivot the conversation now to how to get there. What is the minimum viable effort? What is this approach in order to get there? And how will the minimum viable effort allow you to make more money? Well, here's you know, we there's a there's an old saying, I'll I'll get you guys to finish this sentence in the chat for me, right? My best ideas come to me when I'm blank. My best ideas come to me when I'm blank.

SPEAKER_04 26:45

Sounding in game shell. We should have some game shell music right now, Max.

SPEAKER_02 26:48

It's funny because I we're running a webinar in an hour from now, and we've got over 420 registrants on this webinar, which is amazing. Proof. Case in point, if I made a decision in this business, I wouldn't run webinars because I thought webinars were dead. Our CMO, Tissu, who's a legend, says, no, no, no, we're running a webinar. I'm like, okay, just tell me what to do. Uh they did everything. I just built the slides. I'm going to turn up and present the material. And over 420 registrants, right? Now, man, webinars are not dead, uh, which is a good thing. So, um, and on the webinar, we're going to play Jeopardy, which I'm so excited about. I'm super excited about playing Jeopardy on the webinar. So make sure you join in for that. My best ideas come to me when I am in the shower. That's right. Why? Why do your best ideas come to you when I'm in the shower? Or when you're meditating, or when you wake up, or when you're not thinking about the business, or when you're taking a walk around the neighborhood, or when you're cooking. What's common about all of these scenarios, Pete? Not thinking about the business. Not thinking about the business, and also you're not looking at the internet.

SPEAKER_04 27:54

Right.

SPEAKER_02 27:55

And you're not on this.

SPEAKER_04 27:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:58

Right? You're you've got some distance.

SPEAKER_04 28:01

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 28:02

You've got some distance. Trying to listen now while getting the kids to child care. I hear you, Amber. It's okay. The good thing is that Mark Zuckerberg's minions miraculously record these calls in the Facebook group, and you can come back and watch the replay later. So uh my best ideas come to me when I'm not looking at the computer and not touching the keyboard or the mouse. Okay, when I'm doing something else. So here's the challenge for you guys. What I and most people approach this by saying, I'm going to take, you know, when the business, if I just get the business to this, which I'll talk about that in a moment. If if if we can just achieve X, then I'm going to take every Friday, every second Friday afternoon off and give myself a little reward and have an early minute and go hang out with the family. If I, but first I have to get the business to this.

unknown 28:58

Right.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

So what we do is we flog ourselves in front of the computer on the keyboard to get the business to this magical X that we need to get it to, whether it's a certain revenue level or we just need to hire a project manager or whatever. We just need to get this stuff off my plate. And then I can take every second Friday afternoon off and go and hang out with the kids. Here's my challenge. My observation is that's not going to happen because you'll never get to X. Right? You are the one slowing it down. So what I my challenge for you is this block time in your calendar where you are not allowed to work. And I'm not talking about finishing at four o'clock on a Friday or starting at 10 o'clock on a Monday. I'm talking about in the middle of the day, take three hours and block your calendar so you're not allowed to work. From 11 o'clock until two o'clock on a Tuesday, block it out. I'm not allowed to work. You can do whatever you want, but not work. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 30:07

One day a week.

SPEAKER_02 30:09

I would I would encourage you to do it more than one day a week.

SPEAKER_04 30:12

But minimum one day a week.

SPEAKER_02 30:14

Minimum. Minimum. I mean, my friend James Shramko doesn't work Tuesdays. He's like, I don't work Tuesdays. He comes back to work on Wednesday and he says to his team, what broke? Oh, well, this broke. He goes, okay, well, now that's what we need to fix. So that doesn't break again. Right? Three days a week, I don't work. That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_04 30:38

Well, that does that include weekends, though. That includes weekends. I'm going to go.

SPEAKER_02 30:44

No, no, if that's if that's three days, if that's three, you know, if that's three work days, that's good. I've booked out every six weeks. Cassandra, what does that mean? You've booked out what? You've booked out a week every six weeks, you've booked out a day every six weeks. What is that? Now here's here's here's where the minimum viable effort thing comes into play, right? If you the more time you book out of your calendar where you're not allowed to work, the less opportunity you give yourself to faff about while you are working. So the less time you have to get things done, the more focused you will be at getting it done. It's Parkinson's law. If I say to you, you know, here's an online course that we're giving you, and you've got six weeks to get through it. And at the end of six weeks, if you haven't finished it in six weeks, we're gonna charge your credit card $500. Well, guess what? You'll make sure you get through that course in six weeks. If I say to you, here's the same course, you've got six days to get through it. And if you don't get through it within six days and we'll track it, if you don't get through it, we're gonna charge a credit card $500 on day seven. Well, guess what? You'll get through it in six days. If that course is actually three hours worth of content, and I say, here's a course, I'm gonna give it to you for free, but you have to get through it in six hours. If you don't, we're gonna charge a credit card $500. Guess how long it's gonna take you to do it? Six hours. Because you've only allocated six hours to do the course. If you allocated six weeks to do the course, you'd fuck about for five and a half weeks and then get it done the night before.

SPEAKER_04 32:17

Right.

SPEAKER_02 32:18

Right?

SPEAKER_04 32:18

So what's the somebody's law, Parkinson's law, yes.

SPEAKER_02 32:21

Parkinson's law. It will take the time you've allocated to complete the thing.

SPEAKER_04 32:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:27

Right. So what I'm suggesting is that you allocate less time to complete the thing.

SPEAKER_05 32:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:37

And then based on the fact that you've got less time, you what I'm then suggesting is that you look at everything that's on your to-do list and ask yourself, as a business owner, what is the most important thing I need to do on my to-do list? Now, if you are too swamped with client work to think about being a business owner, it's time to hire someone. So that you can spend more time focusing on the activities that you need to focus on as a business owner. Profit, team, making sure you don't run out of money. Right? So that making sure you don't run out of money and being profitable is typically going to be doing more sales activities, talking to more clients, bringing more clients on, building your team to deliver. Okay. You don't need a massive team. Don't get scared. Don't freak yourself out. You know, three or four people on the team, part-time to begin with, is enough to get started. So now that you've got less time to work, you have to get smarter about the work you do during that time. And once you've got a couple of people on the team who are really good at what they do, they will start making better decisions that will generate more revenue for the business. Or they will free you up to deliver the thing so you can then go generate more revenue. Does that make sense? So we've we've got someone, we've got people in sales that do a better job than me in sales. So we're gonna make more revenue. We've also got people who are better at delivering the thing than I am and making decisions. So I'm freed up to then think about the next salesperson we're gonna hire and the next marketing campaign and working with the CMO to make sure that we're running the marketing campaigns to get the leads and all that kind of stuff. So I'm I'm really freed up more so than ever now because we have someone in marketing and sales and coaching and delivery, and I'm thinking more about product and how what we can offer our community, which is gonna make us more money because I'm thinking about more product, right? And what I realize is that if I give myself eight hours a day in the office, I'll spend about three or four hours doing really good work and the rest of the time just goofing off on the internet and going down rabbit holes I don't need to go down. So the minimum viable effort is thinking back to your 12-bar blues on the bass guitar, I now have less time in the calendar to work. What is the activity that I need to do? What is the minimum viable activity I need to do to achieve this outcome based on the success criteria that I've written out? Well, guess what? I just need to sit down for 20 minutes and play the bass. I don't need to look at pedals, I don't need to look at bass guitars, I don't need to look at bass software, I just need to sit down and play the bass for 20 minutes and I'm done. And over time, I look back on this in three months later and go, wow, check this out. Look at my progress. Look at how much progress I've made by just playing the scale for 20 minutes every day. Right? If you gave yourself eight hours to play the bass every day, you probably wouldn't make any more progress.

SPEAKER_04 35:50

Probably go backwards. Right.

SPEAKER_02 35:54

Right? Because you just goof around. Is this making sense? Let me know in the chat. Is this helpful? Very much so. Cassandra takes one week every six weeks. That's awesome. Let me know in the chat if this is helpful. Let me know if you've got any questions in the chat. I'm sure you have questions. Let me know in the chat if you have questions and what questions you have. Um, I'll say this again. If you are too busy to think about business owner activity because you've you're swamped with client work, it's time to hire someone. Okay, to help you deliver the thing.

unknown 36:31

Right?

SPEAKER_02 36:32

If you're running social media campaigns for clients and you're just smashed and you can't think about growing the business, it's time to hire someone to help you run social media campaigns. Right. This is a good question from anonymous Facebook user. Andrew Lichford. I'm swamped, but if I'm not working billable hours myself, how can I afford to hire someone and still pay myself? Is it a margins game? I have to spend most of my time doing client work and don't spend hardly any time on sales or anything that I should be as a business owner. I also can't afford to take time off because I'm not able to bill for that time. Okay, this is a great question. It's a really common question. And thank you for thank you for asking it, Andrew, because I promise you there's a lot of people who are thinking the same thing and uh kind of feel like they're stuck in the same cycle, right? So here's let me tell you what I know to be true is that the more time you put into sales and marketing, the more clients you will close if you have a good sales process in place and you have a good offer for a good target audience and you do good work and you get results for your clients and your clients are happy. If you put, if you don't put dedicated time into sales, your business won't grow. Well, it might, but you'll kind of plateau. You'll only get to a certain point. You'll never be able to afford to hire someone. So if you hire someone, even part-time initially, to take over 40% of the work that you're doing, 40% of the client work that you're doing, you've then just freed up two days a week, 40%. You've freed up two days a week to concentrate on sales and marketing. Right? So my mantra is this always be marketing, always be selling, always be recruiting. It's the only way to get off the awful treadmill cycle of time for money. Because that's at the moment what you're doing is you're just trading your time for money. Right? You're you're, I don't know where you are in the world, but you're either a registered business or an LLC, and you're just paying yourself, it's just an hourly rate.

SPEAKER_04 38:37

I have a I have I have what I call a Pism for that. Never trade time for money because there isn't enough time to make enough money.

SPEAKER_02 38:45

That's right. I love it. It's so good. It's so there is not enough time to make enough money. That's right. Never trade time for money. So um, so Andrew, the challenge that you've got here, and you've said it yourself, is you you can't afford to take time off because you're not able to bill for that time. So you're so if you continue doing what you're doing, your future then says the future that you're creating for yourself is a future without holidays, without time off, without traveling with your family, without doing the things that you want to do with your life. That's the future that you're creating for yourself right now. You you know what, dude? Let me tell you something. In all transparency, you're better off getting a job because with a job, at least you get in Australia, you get four weeks of paid annual leave. In the States, you get two weeks of paid annual leave, right? You're hard people over there. Only two weeks of paid annual leave. Hard people, right? So you're better off getting a job. You get some benefits, you get your health insurance, you get uh four weeks annual leave. Stability paid, right? So it's the future that you're creating for yourself right now, if you keep what if you keep doing what you're doing right now is horrible. So it is a margins game, but you need to, and let me walk you through the math here in a in a second, but before I do that, the mindset is this you need to make a decision at some point whether or not you want to be a business owner or if you just want to be an employee. And if you don't want to be a business owner, you should just go and get a job. There's more benefit to having a job than a business owner doing what you're doing because you you, you know, like a solopreneur, business owner, unless you are so good at what you do that you can charge 10 times what the market charges, and your margins are so ridiculous because you're so good at what you do, right? And if you can charge $100,000 for a logo, happy days.

unknown 40:51

Right.

SPEAKER_02 40:51

Right? There's very few people like that in the world. But if you can, then great.

SPEAKER_04 40:56

None of none of those people say they don't have enough time to do something else.

SPEAKER_02 41:00

Right. That's right. Because they're not they're not spinning the wheels constantly, right? So you want to stay a company of one, that's great. You just need to charge way more than the market is charging so you can make enough profit, put that profit aside into an account so you can take time off and have a holiday. Okay. The alternative is you hire someone to do what you do, and the margin works like this. Whatever it costs now, now when you hire someone, you become a business owner. Whatever, so don't, you know, a lot of people start out by just hiring for other freelancers, which is fine. It's a low-risk way of doing it. Whatever it costs you to build something, I'm gonna pretend that you're building websites because I don't know enough about your business right now. But feel free to tell us in the chat. I'm gonna pretend you're building websites. If it, if another freelancer charges you $1,200 to build a website and you're and and you've got the someone else has done the designs and you've got the designs, and the client's giving you the designs, and you're gonna give the designs to a freelancer and they're gonna charge you twelve hundred dollars to build a website, you need to sell that website to your client for at least $3,600 if they're charging you $1,200 to build the website. If a freelancer is charging you $1200, if I said to Pete, hey, bet, I got this design here. Can you build this website for me in Elementor? And he goes, Yeah, no worries. Uh, you know, we're gonna charge you two and a half grand. I go, great. I now go back to the client and I need to sell that to the client for seven and a half grand. I need to make three times what Pete's charging me. So whatever Pete charges me, I need to multiply it by three, and that's what I'm charging the client. Okay. Same when you bring on stuff, then that doesn't matter if you've got freelancers or if you've got staff. Typically speaking, you won't make as much margin if you're using freelancers than if you're using your own staff. Typically, you'll be able to make more margin if you're using your own team, right? So, whatever it costs you to build something, you need to charge at least three times to the client in order for there to be enough margin because let's run the numbers here. Pete charges me two and a half grand to build a website. I'd sell that for seven and a half grand. Two and a half goes straight to Pete. I'm left with five. Two and a half of that five runs the business, pays for my insurance, my rent, my electricity, my, you know, my water bottles, my sparkling water on tap, you know, my whatever, my coffee machine, whatever, right? My books. And then the remaining two and a half is my profit. Okay. That two and a half, the middle two and a half, by the way, might pay for my project manager, Slack, click up, right? G drive, whatever. And then the remaining two and a half left over is my profit. Okay. There you go. I always charge more simply because they want more guidance and expert consultations throughout the project. Exactly. So you're getting paid for strategy, which is exactly what you should be getting paid for, Thomas. Andrew, literally. Does web development. Great. So if you do web development, you need to hire a developer, dude. Right? You need to hire a developer. And you need to hire a developer and be able to charge three times what they cost you. So if a developer's going to cost you 50 grand a year, I'm going to make numbers up here, right? If a developer costs you 50 grand a year, that developer needs to be producing $150,000 a year worth of work in revenue.

SPEAKER_04 44:27

Okay. I'm going to go figure out if I'm profitable. I'm going to make sure that I'm liquid. And then I'm going to figure out how to get the team to take on more and more and more.

SPEAKER_02 44:39

So the team, when it comes to team, one of the things that uh we encourage our clients to do, and Pete actually built this, built this was the is to build an org chart, a future-facing org chart. Right. So work out your sales targets, work out your revenue targets, work out, you know, uh how what your team needs to look like in 12 months' time. And you might occupy multiple seats in that org chart for the time being, right? So, James Murgatroyd, you might be doing sales, you might be doing project management, and you might be doing development, and you might be doing the bookkeeping. First thing you should get rid of is the bookkeeping. Go and find a good bookkeeping service to handle your books, right? Second thing you want to delegate and hire for is the production of the stuff that you're selling. So designers, developers, SEOs, social media managers, whatever. That's the second thing that you want to hire for. The second layer of roles in your org chart is the production of the stuff that we're selling. So that's who you want to hire for. The next role you want to hire for is the project management or the account management level. Right. And then the last role that you want to hire for is the sales role. That's typically the last seat that you will occupy as the business owner is the sales role. Once you've hired salespeople, you've got project managers, you've got your production staff, you see the future here. You're like, I can piss off to you know Greece for four weeks with my family. And then ultimately, if you've got a really good project manager who can double as an ops manager, or at some point you end up with an ops manager. So you've got an operations manager, project manager, production staff, right? Bookkeeper taking care of everything. Yeah. What I don't need to be here. I've, you know, I've so I had a Maverick the other day on a call say to me, you deserve to take more time off because you've created the inertia.

SPEAKER_04 46:42

Oh, good word.

SPEAKER_02 46:44

Isn't it? You've created this inertia in your business. You now just need to let your team continue on with that inertia, and you deserve to take more time off. Right? So that, you know, and that's just about having the right people in the in the right seat. So that or if you don't have an org chart, if you don't have a projected org chart for 12 months' time, you need that's one of the first things you need to do is go, right, what do I want my team to look like in 12 months' time? Don't freak yourself out. Right? It's like hiring people is not, but it's hard work, sure. But I mean, what's the alternative? The alternative is that you just stay on the treadmill, right? You should just go and get a job. So you don't need to hire everyone right now. You just need to hire like who's the next person that you're gonna hire? Set targets, build your org chart, and then block time in your calendar where you're not allowed to work. Because when you're not working is when things, when ideas come to you, right? Is when, you know, watch the replay. It'll you you'll you'll get it. Question here from Abel Smith. What's number one on your suggested reading list for someone who needs this different mindset when it comes to profit? Uh yeah, look, you know, I have some thoughts about Profit First, and I'm actually meeting with a Profit First specialist this year because I I'm I look I think Profit First works to a certain point.

SPEAKER_04 48:08

Yeah, I think absolutely that's been proven actually, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:10

Yeah, I think it can get tricky once you get past a certain point. I think I think it can get tricky. But anyway, I'm I I will I'm looking forward to being wrong on that. I'm meeting with a Profit First specialist uh in the next couple of months to kind of try and go deeper on this. But in terms of just the mindset around money, my number one go-to book when it comes to like being okay making filthy amounts of money, and and even saying that, I go, Well, what's filthy about making money? Right? I mean, that people uh people say, Oh, you're filthy rich. Why are they filthy rich? Why aren't they just rich? Why aren't they just rich? There's nothing wrong with having lots of fucking money. There's nothing wrong with that, right? Right? So the number one, my go-to required reading for this is Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill.

SPEAKER_04 49:00

Oh, yeah, of course. That's the that's the classic baseline.

SPEAKER_02 49:04

Like if you haven't read Think and Grow Rich, go read it. If you have read it, go read it again.

SPEAKER_04 49:08

Go read it again, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:09

It's like, you know, which I should go read it again. I'm gonna go read it again, and then realize, and then realize whatever hangups you've got about money are not yours. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. I posted something the other day on Facebook, uh, just because I'm an idiot. And let me see if I can um here we go. At some point in my late 30s, at some point in my late 30s, I realized that worrying about how much things cost was getting in the way of living the life that I wanted, experiencing the things I desired, and becoming the person I wanted to become. Sidebar, this is not in the post, but here's my thinking around this, right? Every time, up until my late 30s, I was like, I want these things. I want to experience this, I want to drive that car, I want to travel, I want to donate to this charity, I want to be able to help here in the community. I want to have this house. I want to, this is the person I want to become, but oh my God, that's all gonna cost so much. Right? So my brain would go to how much do things cost? This happens every 99.9% of the people on the planet are concerned about how much things cost. I walk into a retailer, I never at this point in my life, never negotiate or try and ask for a discount. Ever.

SPEAKER_04 50:39

No.

SPEAKER_02 50:40

Ever. I just it's not, I just don't even think about it, right? So I walk into a retailer to buy something. 99% of the time, I go, cool, this is great. This is I'm really happy with this. I'll take it. The person says, All right, well, look, it's normally $49, but we can do it for you right now for $45. I'm like, you fucking idiot. I just told you I want to buy it for full price. You're giving me a discount because you're concerned about how much it cost. I'm not concerned about how much it cost. But hey, I'll take the $4 discount if you're gonna give it to me. Like, I didn't ask for the discount. So at some point in my late 30s, I realized that worrying about how much things cost was getting in the way of living the life I wanted, experiencing the things I desired, and becoming the person I wanted to become. So I made a decision, a conscious, deliberate, intentional decision to stop putting my energy into how much things cost, and instead made a list of the things and experiences I wanted, and then focused my energy into how to pay for everything. Right? I don't care how much it costs, and I never say I can't afford it. I stopped saying I can't afford it years ago, and I've trained my wife to not say it. What I say is, well, right now our resources are allocated elsewhere. So let's put that on the next list. Never say I can't afford it. Right? I just don't have the resources right now, our resources are allocated elsewhere.

SPEAKER_04 52:31

A much more abundant mindset.

SPEAKER_02 52:34

Much more abundant mindset. So think and grow rich. Because your thoughts, what you think about money is what will happen with money. If if you say I don't have enough money to go on holidays, I would love to go to Australia and visit that idiot at agency Mavericks, but I can't afford it, then that is true. And as long as you think you can't afford it, you can't afford it. And as long as you if you're thinking in three years' time, I'd love to go to Australia but I can't afford it, then you still will not be able to afford it because your subconscious will hear that message and will then go into overdrive to make sure that you can't afford it. Because your subconscious cannot live incongruently with your conscious. Now I know this is very woo-woo, but whatever you think your subconscious will make true. Because your subconscious is a pretty stupid computer that just says yes or no, right? So if you go, shit, I'm a bit fat, I need to lose some weight, your subconscious goes, yeah, right, let's go have some more pizza. Let's stay fat and let's stay to need some to lose some weight, because that's what you just said. I'm a bit fat, I need to lose some weight. That's true. And your subconscious will go into overdrive to keep you in that position. Whereas if you say, I'm losing five pounds, your subconscious will go, Well, we can't eat that pizza then because we're losing five pounds. Troy's losing five kilos. Well, we can't drink that beer on a Tuesday night because Troy's losing five kilos. So language is really important. The things that you think and the words that you say give your cell, your subconscious instructions on how to behave, right? A couple of questions I want to answer here before we bounce out. Third person present tense. Third person Troy is.

SPEAKER_04 54:29

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 54:30

Right? Because the subconscious takes what pays way more attention to that. I had a client sign on for a real estate website. The cost was $3,800 and was paid up front. This was last year. Communication was great until July 2021. We sent mock-ups, and the client was going to send some pictures for further edits to the mock-up. After July, there was no reply from multiple emails. Just the other day, she requested a refund. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 54:55

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no. We don't refund.

SPEAKER_04 55:04

We don't refund. We do nothing for free, and we do nothing where we give money back.

SPEAKER_02 55:09

We finished the project that we started. So here's the choice. You've paid for the website. Your choice is this. We can complete the project as fully stated in the contract, no problem. Well, I'm sorry if you've changed your mind, you don't want a website, but we've done the work where there is no refund. Sorry. There's, I mean, there's you've done the work, there is no refund.

SPEAKER_05 55:29

Right.

SPEAKER_02 55:30

I'm sorry you've changed your mind, but you know, once you fly from Sydney to LA, business class, which costs eight grand, you can't get off at, you know, it's the it's the it's the terminal's called. What is it? Is it Tom Brady? It's the Tom Brady terminal.

SPEAKER_04 55:47

I don't think so. Donald. I don't know. I'm not in LA, so I don't know. Damien, what's the terminal in in LA airport called?

SPEAKER_02 55:55

I don't think it's named after Tom Bradley. LAX International Terminal. It's called Tom Bradley. Tom Bradley. Tom Bradley International Terminal, right? So uh you get off at Tom Bradley and you walk up at the service desk and you go, you know what, man? I'll fucking change my mind. I don't want to come to LA. I want my eight and a half grand back, and I want you to fly me back to Sydney. They're gonna go, really? What school did you go to? Let me tell you how it works in the real world. No, we don't. I'm sorry. That's not gonna happen.

unknown 56:25

Right.

SPEAKER_02 56:25

I purchased some breakfast, but then I didn't eat it. Can I have a refund? Was there anything wrong with the breakfast? No, I just changed my mind.

SPEAKER_04 56:32

Not really hungry.

SPEAKER_02 56:33

Not really hungry. We cooked it, you paid, you don't eat it, that's up to you. Yep. Um, just I'll just ask her what the hell's going on. Like you hired us to do a project, we're doing the project, you paid us. You can't like this is loot. This is this is ludicrous. You can't just tell us halfway through you don't want it anymore and ask for a refund. That's just, I'm sorry. What's going on? I'm sorry you've changed your mind, but there are no refunds. Right. Hey, has this been fun? It has from me. Excellent. So I want to see you guys blocking time in your calendar. I want you to keep the conversation going here in the group. Right? Uh, block time in your calendar where you're not allowed to work. Yes, there we go. Sheila, she saw my post and said it was like a door unlocked in my mind. Excellent. Uh, Martin, would you recommend prioritizing sales before having the full team to secure funds for expansion with the risk of not delivering top services to these clients? I recommend priority. Here's the way that I prioritize everything: sales, team, ops. Sales, team, processes, sales, team, ops. You can get to a million dollars a year in revenue by just shouting at your team in slack. You do not need standard operating procedures if you are under half a mil or even a mil in revenue. It would be helpful once you get to half a mil in revenue to start having some processes. You do not need them to get to half a mil a year in revenue. I've seen it happen. All the time. All the time. So sales is priority number one. Remember, what is your job as a business owner? Don't run out of money and stay profitable. Sales is the number one priority. And the only reason people don't focus on sales is because they don't know how to. They're scared of it. It's like weird. There's all this kind of baggage and shit around sales. Just get into our training and our content and learn how to sell properly without being a sleazy douchebag, right? So sales first, then grow your team. At the same time that you bring on clients, grow your team and then worry about ops later. Worry about your processes later. I guarantee you, your team will design the processes for you. Okay. Sales, team, ops. Thanks for being a part of it, Pete. Keep sending me videos of the bass, dude, and I'll I'll uh lay some guitar tracks over and send it back. There you go. Do you record the bass at all?

SPEAKER_04 58:50

Uh no, not really. No. Just like what I did to you. Just it's right now. I'm just I'm doing that just to see my progress. That's it. I don't have any I don't have the equipment to do all that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 59:03

Okay. Oh, there's a fun little bit. Exactly. Exactly. All right. Uh thanks for being a part of it, gang. Keep the conversation going in the Facebook group. Let us know what you need. And for those of you who are registered for the webinar, we'll see you in 25 minutes. All right. Have a great day. Bye for now.

SPEAKER_03 59:23

Thanks for listening to the Agency Hour Podcast. Subscribe at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcast, Audible, and wherever you like to listen. You can catch all of the Agency Hour episodes on our YouTube channel at youtube.com slash agency mavericks. Or you can get involved. Check out our free digital mavericks Facebook group, where we broadcast these episodes live throughout the community every week, along with a ton of channel. We'll see you next.