April 22, 2025 • 52 mins
What happens when getting fired becomes the best career move you'll ever make? Steve Preda, founder of SummitOS and host of the Management Blueprint podcast, shares the remarkable story of walking across the street from the bank that just terminated him, opening his own office, and systematically winning back every client his former employer had.
Steve's journey from his "golden cage" of prestigious corporate roles to entrepreneurial freedom offers powerful lessons for anyone feeling trapped in traditional employment. Despite coming from a family of professionals and earning impressive credentials including the rigorous CFA designation, Steve discovered his true calling lay in building businesses and helping others do the same.
The conversation explores the critical distinction between entrepreneurial functions (marketing and innovation) and execution functions (operations) that allow businesses to become truly self-managing. Rather than chasing the myth of passive income, Steve advocates for entrepreneurs to focus their energy on value creation while building systems that handle day-to-day operations. His SummitOS framework, which he describes as "EOS on steroids," provides a customizable, scalable approach that helps business owners harvest low-hanging fruit quickly while building for long-term success.
We dive deep into practical strategies for attracting and retaining top talent, including Steve's three-tiered approach to compensation that evolves as employees demonstrate their value. His insights on defining culture through behaviors rather than abstract ideals and measuring outcomes through function-specific KPIs offer actionable frameworks for listeners at any stage of business growth.
The interview concludes with Steve's powerful formula for entrepreneurial success: desire provides the motivation to overcome challenges, resilience enables bouncing back from inevitable setbacks, and curiosity drives continuous learning and improvement. With these qualities and the right systems in place, entrepreneurs can achieve what Steve calls the ultimate gift: owning your time.
Ready to transform your business into a fast-growing, high-profit, self-managing organization? Discover Steve's frameworks, books, and coaching at summitosco.com or connect with him on LinkedIn.
How to connect with Steve?
Website: https://SummitOS.co
Apple Podcast: https://bit.ly/MBPpodcast
YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/MBPodcastPlaylistYT
LinkedIn Personal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevepreda/
LinkedIn Summit OS: https://www.linkedin.com/company/77938145/admin/feed/posts/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/steveipreda/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevepreda/
TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@summitos_creator
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevePredaCom
Amazon: amazon.com/author/stevepreda
Email: steve@stevepreda.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast, a
show for anyone who wants to betheir own boss.
If you sit in a cubicle everyday and know you are capable of
more, then join us.
This show will help you build abusiness and grow your passive
income streams in just a fewshort hours per day.
And now your hosts, serialentrepreneurs David Shomer and
(00:22):
Ken Wilson.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast,
where we explore the journeys ofentrepreneurs who have
successfully transitioned fromtraditional employment to
business ownership.
Today we have a special guest,steve Prida, a seasoned business
growth coach, author andpodcast host.
Steve is the founder ofSummitOS, a platform dedicated
(00:47):
to empowering business coachesand business owners to transform
companies into fast-growing,high-profit and self-managing
organizations.
With over two decades ofexperience, he has guided
numerous entrepreneurs inscaling their businesses and
achieving their ideal lives.
In addition to his coachingendeavors, steve hosts the
(01:07):
Management Blueprint podcast,where he delves into the
frameworks and strategies thatdrive business success.
Each episode featuresinsightful conversations with
entrepreneurs and thoughtleaders, sharing practical tools
and experiences to helplisteners navigate their own
business journeys practicaltools and experiences to help
listeners navigate their ownbusiness journeys.
Steve is also an accomplishedauthor, having written six books
(01:29):
on business growth andleadership.
His latest work, summit OS AFable, presents a compelling
narrative on transformingbusinesses using the Summit OS
methodology.
In today's discussion, we'lldelve into Steve's transition
from corporate roles toentrepreneurship, explore the
principles behind Summit OS anduncover actionable insights for
(01:52):
business owners aiming to firethe man and take control of
their destinies.
Stay tuned for an enlighteningconversation with Steve Prita
Steve, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Well, that's an amazing introduction.
Yeah, I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Absolutely, absolutely.
So to start our conversationoff, can you talk about your
path in entrepreneurship and howyou transitioned from kind of a
corporate role into anentrepreneur?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Yeah, so I am a child of two professionals, two
doctors.
My family was full of attorneys, accountants, so I was really
not born to be an entrepreneur.
But somehow I felt a little bitof a disconnect with this whole
professional ethos that myparents were representing and I
(02:44):
wanted something moreadventurous, more exciting.
And then I learned about mygreat-grandfather who, before
the Second World War, one of themost successful entrepreneurs
in Budapest, hungary, myhometown, and he built a chain
of bakeries and he supplied allthe hotels in town and he was
one of the biggest taxpayers,even though I learned that he
(03:06):
was not reporting all his taxes.
But so I was very mesmerized bythis story and I was very much
attracted to it and I thoughtwhen I was in high school that I
was going to become anentrepreneur and I had some
ideas.
But as I graduated college thatwas when the Berlin Wall was
(03:26):
coming down and there were somany opportunities with big
companies and studying abroadand traveling, and so I
basically took a job and thenfor the next 12 years I was kind
of in my golden cage.
I had high-paying jobs andbecause I was in this generation
of the post-Berlin Wargeneration, we were in high
(03:48):
demand by big companies and theywent to hire us and therefore I
was kind of trapped in thisworld.
And then when you say firingthe man, so I actually was the
man who got fired.
I didn't fire my boss.
I should have, but I didn't,and that's how I transitioned.
So suddenly my golden cageopened and I was free to go.
(04:11):
My opportunity cost was goneand actually I was very excited.
I was 35 years old.
I walked across the street fromthe bank where I worked
previously and I got my blue andmy pink slip on Friday and the
Monday morning.
I got my pink slip on Fridayand Monday morning I opened my
office.
I rented this apartment for afriend and I was in business as
(04:32):
an investor banker.
So that's how I kind of gotfired, but I proverbially maybe
fired the man.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Absolutely.
Now, before we hit record, wewere discussing something that
we had in common and that wasthat we both are a CFA
charterholder and, for those ofyou who don't know, this is a
very rigorous exam.
It takes three to four years,thousands of hours of studying
and it sounds like you're ininvestment banking, which is a
(05:02):
very prestigious position.
And what advice would you giveto people who are in a similar
position, where they've workedreally hard to advance this
career but they're not feelingsatisfied and they just believe
that there's more to life thanworking in a typical corporate
environment?
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Okay.
So I long believed, actuallysince I left high school.
Actually, when I left college,I made a pledge to myself that
I'm not going to be willing tobe bored for a single more
minute.
I'm only going to do stuff thatinterests me.
So curiosity has been a bigdriver and ever since I left
college I think I learned a lotmore than in college.
(05:46):
I've been reading stuff and oneof the things that really
excited me was to get into thesevery rigorous qualifications
like the CFA.
I'm also CPA, like you are, andI've got other stuff as well
stuff as well.
But I was very, very motivatedand curious about learning
(06:06):
deeply about the world offinance, which interested me at
the time, and I thought that ifI get more knowledge than anyone
else in my environment, it'sgoing to give me an edge and
it's going to give me theconfidence and it's going to be
kind of a passport for me totake a job anywhere in the world
or to make a living anywhere inthe world.
So that was kind of my thingand I highly recommend that.
(06:28):
There's a saying that in your20s you learn and in your 30s
you earn.
So take the long view andabsorb everything while you're
young, when you don't haveentanglements, commitments,
family and try to learn as muchas you can, and it's going to
help you to have a great careerlater on Outstanding,
(06:51):
outstanding.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
So you fired the man at age 35.
You got an office.
What comes next?
Speaker 3 (06:57):
So my initial goal was just to replace my salary.
So at the time I think I wasmaking three or $4,000 a month
and I said, okay, so I just haveto make sure I make that much
so we can keep things going.
And then I set up my computersand another desk and then I
(07:19):
moved to another office and myexpenses started piling up and
then I just had to revise mybusiness plan all the time.
So my replacement income becamebigger and bigger and bigger,
and that's what basically wasgoing on the first year.
The other thing I was reallypissed off that I got fired
(07:40):
because I thought it was unfairand it kind of hurt my pride
because I thought it was unfairand it kind of hurt my pride.
So I made the pledge to myselfthat I'm not going to rest until
I lure away all the clients Ihad in the bank.
I was in the investment bankingdepartment and I said I'm going
to prove to you that you're notgoing to be able to keep these
clients.
And actually the first coupleof clients walked with me the
(08:03):
first two or three weeks andthen within six months I got the
last one as well and it gave mea lot of satisfaction that you
know they didn't just reduce thecost but they also got the
revenue when they fired me.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yeah, yeah, revenge, you got your revenge.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah, which is very petty, but there you go yeah,
it's good motivation sometimes.
Yeah, which is very petty, butthere you go yeah, it's good
motivation sometimes.
So in your management blueprintpodcast, you look at different
business frameworks and myquestion is what are some of the
most effective frameworks thatyou've seen for scaling a
business?
Speaker 3 (08:43):
And how can our listeners apply them.
Okay, so we probably recorded300 episodes by now and
initially we covered the majorframeworks like ScalingUp and
E-Myth and Great Game ofBusiness, eos, this kind of
stuff, and then we ran out ofthose pretty quick and then we
started niching down and goingfor more vertical frameworks and
(09:04):
going for more verticalframeworks, and recently we've
been looking for frameworks thatthe entrepreneurs, the thought
analysts that come on the show,have discovered themselves.
It's some ethno-forced processthat allows them to see the
world differently, to makethings simpler, to be more
effective.
So what I'm trying to say hereis that there are hundreds of
(09:27):
frameworks.
Basically, everyone has atleast one or two frameworks in
them that they don't realizethat other people could use,
because we all find ways to copewith situations.
However, if I had to clusterthis, I would say that I would
put them in three clusters.
So there are the organizationalframeworks, where it's all about
(09:50):
people and how you create aculture and how you create a
healthy way to grow yourleadership and your people.
Then there is the strategyframeworks, which is figuring
out where to position yourbusiness and how to be different
and what's your vision and,essentially, how you create a
(10:12):
unique business.
And the third type of frameworkis the execution framework,
which really helps you with theexecution to be effective, to
organize everyone, to aligneveryone and to get things done
and solve your problems andessentially move the business
forward and building yourcapacity to be able to do better
(10:34):
and greater things.
So that would be the threebuckets, and of course there are
more buckets if you want.
But I think if you take care ofthat, if you have an
organization where you thinkabout the people first and
foremost and the kind of teamyou want to build and the
culture and growing your people,and then you figure out how
(10:57):
you're different with a goodstrategy, a few good strategy
frameworks, and then you execute, you can have a good run.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
I love it.
I love it.
So before I ask this nextquestion, I will mention to you
that I am a huge fan of the bookTraction and the EOS.
I've implemented EOS with everybusiness that I've ever owned
and I'm a huge fan of that.
However, for the first coupleof years of my entrepreneurial
journey, I did not have aframework.
I was kind of just putting outfires and I sit down at my desk
(11:28):
and whatever was the biggestproblem or the biggest
opportunity is what I would workon what is a good
out-of-the-box framework or bookthat they can read or something
that they can implement to takethat first step in getting some
(11:50):
organization.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Well, I mean, there are many, many books they can
read.
There's not one.
That would be the ultimatewinner.
And yeah, and I generallystruggle with this, this
question of what is the one book, Because it's like, what is the
(12:15):
one silver bullet, right?
Yeah, no silver.
But the whole point is that youneed to learn a lot and you
need to experience a lot to besuccessful in business.
But to answer your question, soobviously you mentioned EOS is
a very popular framework andthere are others like Scaling Up
(12:35):
.
The original one was the E-Mythfrom Michael Gerber in the 1980s
, who wrote this book, and hetalked about working on the
business.
It's a great start for peoplebecause it's a fable and it's
really easy to understand theconcepts.
That's what I implemented firstin my business in the early
2000s and then I persevered andI'm biased that the SummitOS
(13:01):
framework is the one that is themost effective one.
So this is a book I recentlyupdated.
It talks about, essentially,it's EOS on steroids.
So it is a version of EOS thatis customized to each business,
so it's not cookie cutter.
(13:21):
There's a deep pool of toolsthat can be customized by a
coach or by an entrepreneur.
It is scalable by a coach or byan entrepreneur.
It is scalable, so it supportsyou for not just an 18 to
24-month journey, but a 7 to10-year journey.
You're not going to run out ofconcepts and tools and you can
(13:47):
keep growing your business andget to the Inc 5000 and beyond.
And thirdly, it is a fast-startprogram.
So I strongly believe that whatan entrepreneur wants is they
want to harvest the low-hangingfruits quickly.
They want to get going, and wehave developed a process called
the 45-day execution momentumwhere we teach them all the
basic concepts of execution andactually help them practice it
(14:12):
in the first 45 days.
So for some operating system ittakes nine to 12 months to get
there.
We have them, we have ourclients get there in 45 days and
then it gives them such amomentum.
Then we can have them implementsome of the more strategic
frameworks as well, which thenultimately re-acits their
(14:33):
business.
So we want to be the privateequity without the private
equity.
So as a CFA chapter, youprobably understand you don't
need to bring on an investor totell you what you do, to tell
you what you already know andthat you should be doing.
You just need a coach that isgoing to hold you accountable to
doing the right things and helpyou habit stack your business.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
I love it.
I love it, and I'll tell you,there was a phrase that you said
that automatically addedSummitOS to my reading list, and
that was it's EOS on steroids.
That's all I needed to hear toadd that to my reading list and
to all the listeners.
I'll post a link to that in theshow notes.
But so let's dive into SummitOS.
(15:13):
As I was prepping for thisinterview, I was reading up on
SummitOS, and one of the thingsthat this methodology describes
is a self-managing company.
And before we dive into thespecifics of that, what does
that look and feel like?
And I'll tell you a little bitof background on where this
(15:36):
question is coming from.
You hear a lot of influencerstalk about passive income.
Oh, passive income.
I have not found most of myendeavors to be passive.
I am showing up for work andputting out fires, and I don't
think that when you sayself-managing, that's what you
mean.
But what would, from a30,000-foot view, what would a
(15:59):
self-managing business look like?
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Yeah.
So first the passive income.
I don't believe in passiveincome either, because what
creates income isentrepreneurship.
So how can you creates incomeis entrepreneurship.
So how can you create incomewithout entrepreneurship?
You can create income by givingyour money to someone else to
(16:26):
manage, whether it's real estateor whether it's investing in
equities or investing inalternative investments.
Essentially, you abandon theresponsibility for managing that
stuff, let someone else manageit who is a person who is paid
to manage stuff, and then youhope that they're going to
manage it.
Well.
That's passive income.
(16:46):
That's not attractive to me.
What's attractive to me is tocontrol, create value, to
control the creation of value,which is entrepreneurship.
So that's just about thepassive income.
Some people they're not likethis kind of perspective, but I
just had to get it off my chestNow on the self-managing idea.
(17:08):
So the idea is that, again,there is the entrepreneurial
function in a business and thenthere's the execution function,
and what creates the value isthe entrepreneurial function.
And Steve Jobs talks about thetwo a private, functional
business, which is marketing andinnovation.
These are the entrepreneurialfunctions.
(17:29):
These are the creativefunctions.
These are the creativefunctions where you create a
messaging that resonates withpeople.
That's the marketing, and thenyou create innovative products
that provide more value thanother products out there.
That's how you create value,and then you have to have an
execution system so that youactually turn it into a machine.
(17:49):
Your company turns into amachine and provides it right.
So what self-managing reallymeans is what Michael Gerber he
coined working on the business,not in the business.
So remove yourself from thehurly-burly of the business,
from the execution functionbecause that can be delegated
with good organization and withgood tools and re-elaborate your
(18:13):
time so that you can work onthe entrepreneurial functions,
which is marketing, innovation,building relationships, getting
the word out about your business.
And then the business isself-managing, but you are the
entrepreneur, you are providingthe entrepreneurial energy.
So it's not like a perpetualmotion machine that works
(18:36):
without energy, because thatdoesn't exist right.
So you need an energy source.
That's the entrepreneur, butthe actual money-making machine,
the business, can beself-managing, so the
entrepreneur is not buried inthe data.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
I really like that answer on making the distinction
between the entrepreneurshipfunction and the execution
function, and I like that way oflooking at it, and I think that
that's something that a lot ofentrepreneurs, especially early
on, get caught up in is, youknow, we're bootstrapping,
(19:13):
resources are tight, I'm goingto do everything myself, and it
seems like that really, reallystunts growth.
Honestly and I will also like totalk about this a little bit A
trap that I've fallen into a lotof times is and I'm just going
to use an example of Amazon PPCwhen I launched my first Amazon
(19:37):
business, I knew nothing aboutpay-per-click advertising, but I
knew it was important, and so Itook to the internet and tried
to learn it, and I self-managedfor probably three months, and
at that point I realized I'm notgood at this and I don't have
the time to do this, and, as youpointed out, that would fall in
kind of the execution function,and so then I hired it out, and
(20:00):
I can think of so many examplesof my career where there has
been a task that needed to bedone.
I didn't have any experiencedoing it, but I tried to tackle
it anyway, and three monthslater I ended up hiring an
expert, and so how can peoplekind of avoid that trap or
recognize that's what'shappening when they're managing
(20:23):
their own business?
Speaker 3 (20:25):
I don't know if you can avoid it altogether, because
the fact is that when you areboot setting, when you're
starting out, you have limitedresources and you have to find
this balance of uh, of uh, youknow, economizing on your
resources so that you haveenough buffer to experiment and
make mistakes, because you youlearn by making mistakes.
(20:46):
So you have to have some kindof a reserve to fund your
mistakes.
So you have to have some kindof a reserve to fund your
mistakes.
And if you hire a bunch ofpeople and you're taking too
much risk and you're going torun out of your reserves and
you're out of business.
So that's really the bigconundrum of when to hire and
how to hire.
And one of the things that Ithink is a really big
(21:07):
opportunity for entrepreneurs isto hire offshore talent that
can be really inexpensive, soyou can build an inexpensive
team and you can experiment,especially if you have other
income on the side that fundsyour business.
So that's another concept thatmaybe we'll talk about later is
(21:27):
how to get into business and howto fire that man.
Do you fire them from theget-go or you just develop a
side hustle and you still keepthat man as your employer and
let them pay the bills, you know, and and then give yourself
some time to to make somemistakes and build up your, your
side hustle.
(21:47):
So yeah, I mean it's.
It's a big question when thetypical point comes.
In general, what I see is thateven the big companies, they try
not to take reckless risks withhiring.
What they do is they not hiregreat employees?
They create great employees.
They go to colleges and theyhire young, smart students,
(22:14):
bring them in for an internshipand if they look good then they
hire them.
But they bring them in at thebeginning of their career so
that they can move into theright kind of person.
They can get them while theyare still relatively inexpensive
.
So that's how they do it.
They don't go out in the marketand hire an expert who
supposedly have already done itfor hundreds of thousands of
(22:35):
dollars, because it's a highlyrisky thing to do.
So no easy answer there, I'msorry.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
No, I think it's something that's important for
entrepreneurs to think about,and I really appreciate your
perspective on that because,yeah, when you are bootstrapping
, resources are tight, and I cantell you, when I did hire
somebody for Amazon PPC, thefact that I had done it for
three months and struggled mademe a better manager of the
(23:03):
manager, and so I think there isvalue in that.
Another thing I want to call outfrom your answer was funding
your own mistakes, and boy isthat the truth.
You need to have budget forthat, and to think that you're
going to start a business andnot make mistakes is ridiculous,
(23:24):
and I can say that, afterstarting several of them,
hundreds of mistakes and lessonslearned, and that's okay.
That's part of the process, andso I'd like to turn the
conversation over to technologyand implementing technology in
business.
In particular, ai is a reallyhot topic right now.
If I map out the number oftimes a day I'm engaging with AI
(23:50):
, and if I were to graph thatout, it would look like a hockey
stick, especially in the earlyparts of 2025.
I find that being something I'mtrying to utilize more and more
and more, and so my question toyou is how can you integrate
technology into your businessand, as you work with
entrepreneurs, what are someways that they are using this
(24:12):
technology, in particularChatGPT or other LLMs, into
helping their business grow?
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Okay, so I have to preface this I'm not an AI
expert.
I was fortunate to have had acouple of AI experts on my
podcast two or three years agowhen ChangePT was coming out I
don't even know whether it wastwo years ago or three years ago
, maybe two years ago and theadvice I got was that, whatever
(24:41):
you do, just start experimentingwith it.
Just start playing withChangePT and see what you learn
and what you can use it for.
And, as you say, I've beenusing it exponentially more and
more over time and it's amazinghow many things it can do for
you.
I love to ask questions.
(25:03):
I'm very curious, so whenever aquestion pops in my mind, I
just ask JGPT the question.
But I use it for writingcontracts, for creating visuals
for my blogs, for proofreadingmy blogs, for strategizing for
clients.
I even, you know, this morningI got an email from a client who
(25:24):
was very it's a difficultperson to deal with and he has
certain fears and it's a verycomplex situation.
So I asked the GPT okay, hereis what's happening with this
client and how should I handleit and it basically, within 20
seconds, it gave me six or sevensuggestions what to do and how
(25:46):
to handle the situation and Iput together an email and things
are much, much better.
So JetGPT, and AI in general,can be used on many different
things.
We use it for social media, forcreating posts, for
transcribing podcasts.
I'm sure you do that as well.
(26:06):
From summarizing, synthesizing,developing the questions for
sales meetings.
I'm not an expert.
What I can say is that use itAgain.
Don't complicate, don'tovercomplicate.
You're going to change thesubscription.
I recommend to get a privatesubscription so your information
(26:28):
doesn't get used for trainingother people's models and just
keep asking questions.
And whenever you think that youare a proud in you see what
ggpt comes up with.
Sometimes it hallucinates, but,but most of the time it gives
good information absolutely,absolutely.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yeah, I think just the simple act of using it is
huge, and the more you engagewith it, the more your prompts
become better.
And yeah, I think it'ssomething the more you use that,
the better you get.
And I have found it takes a lotof my 30, previously 30 minute
tasks and makes them 10 minutes,and it allows me to do a lot of
(27:10):
my previously 30-minute tasksand makes them 10 minutes and it
allows me to do a lot more30-minute what would have
previously been a 30-minute task.
In a particular day, I kind offeel like it puts a jetpack on
the entrepreneur where you'rejust able to achieve more and
kind of get rid of some of thetedious work that does need to
be done.
(27:30):
And so, okay, as we, oneperspective I think that you're
going to have a greatperspective on is avoiding some
of the common pitfalls.
Now, many business owners theystruggle with delegation and
leadership as they're scaling.
I know I've dealt with thisbefore and so what are some of
(27:52):
the common mistakes you've seenand how can those be avoided?
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Yeah, so really I mean a company.
What is a company?
In my mind, it's a collectionof people who are committed to a
common purpose.
That's really what it is.
And then, of course, thesepeople are going to do different
things, whether you are amanufacturer or a service
company or whatever company youare.
(28:18):
So it's all about people.
You need to put those peopletogether and you need to have
them work productively in thiscompany.
And how do you do that?
So I think the biggest pitfallis for people to not utilize the
resource they already have, thepeople they already have.
In very few companies do I seepeople maximizing their
(28:42):
potential.
It's probably no companies.
People maximize their potentialright, because our potential is
much, much bigger than what youcan do with it.
So if all you do as anentrepreneur you uh, you attract
and hire good people and thenyou help them maximize their
potential, then you are going toavoid most of the pitfalls I
(29:06):
like if you're good people andyou have good processes, good
approaches, good structures andframeworks, I like to say, then
you can solve any problem.
In fact, I believe that there isa pandemic going on in the
business world I call itbusiness COVID which kills about
(29:27):
180,000 small to medium-sizedbusinesses each year who run out
of cash, who get disrupted, whoget commoditized, who are not
able to attract and keep theright people, who are not able
to transition their business tothe next level of management or
ownership.
I call this business COVID.
And with the right frameworkand approach, such as SummitOS,
you can eradicate business COVIDone company at a time.
(29:49):
You can eradicate businessCOVID one company at a time, and
you know what the pitfalls comeback to not having the right
people or not being able toempower the right people to do
the right things for you, andnot having the right frameworks
to organize these great peopleso that they can maximize their
potential.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Absolutely, absolutely.
Now, one thing you've mentioneda couple of times is finding
great people so that they canmaximize their potential
Absolutely, absolutely.
Now, one thing you've mentioneda couple of times is finding
great people, and I think wecould probably do an entire
podcast on this topic alone.
But I'm curious in the hiringprocess or when you're scouting
for talent, are there any tipsthat you have on making sure
that you're finding the rightperson for the right seat in
(30:33):
your company?
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Yeah.
So a lot of people have writtenabout this stuff in the gym,
college putting the right peoplein the right seat, getting the
right people on the bus andputting them in the right seats
on the bus.
Seats on the bus and the way Ilike to look at this and
actually this.
Gino Wickman articulated thatright people is the people who
(30:58):
live and breathe your corevalues, your culture and the
business the right seat is well,that's paraphrasing, that's not
Gino Wickman, but it is thepeople who are consistently
highly productive in their seat,so they can be consistently
highly productive.
So that's right seat, rightpeople culture, right seat
(31:19):
productivity.
So it's important to start withdefining what your culture
already is.
So what are your core values?
And I like to put them inbehavior terms rather than
abstract ideals that a lot ofthe companies they have
integrity, professionalism,teamwork these are like
(31:40):
corporate values, corporateideas that the company aspires
to, but that's not something youcan hold people accountable to.
What you can hold themaccountable to is behavior.
So express your core values inbehavior terms.
That's number one.
Then you have to know what arethose seats that you want to
hire people for right.
So you have to define yourfunctions in the organization
(32:04):
that get work and do work andthat helps you get paid.
So these are kind of threefactors of the types of
functions that you need and thenyou have to define for each
function what are the outcomes.
So if you have a salesfunctions, what do we expect
that sales function to deliverto us?
Is it conversion, nurturing ofleads, converting leads?
(32:28):
Is it about onboardingcustomers?
What are those outcomes?
And for operations and formarketing and for technology and
all those functions that youhave?
And then you want to measurethose.
So you want to attract peoplewho fit your culture, who have
the profile to be successful indelivering those outcomes for
(32:49):
you.
So they have the technicalskills and they have the desire
to succeed.
And then if you do that, thenyou're almost more than halfway
towards the goal.
And then you have to look afterthe people.
You have to mentor them, youhave to make sure that you help
them fulfill their potentialthrough great coaching and
(33:13):
mentoring.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
I love it.
I love it One of the continuousconversation on building a
winning team.
One of the things that you hadsaid was like having measurable
outcomes and having that foreach position, and if I put
myself in the shoes of abusiness owner, in my opinion,
one of the biggest KPIs you haveis net income.
(33:37):
That's kind of to me, thescoreboard for the company, but
you can't hold everybodyaccountable to that.
There's certainly things thatare outside of people's control,
and so that is not the best KPIfor any individual position.
However, it's the ultimate KPIfor the business, as I view
(33:59):
things, and so when you arecoming up with these measurement
outcomes, how do you identifycharacteristics that are within
the control of that person anduh but, but lead to ultimately
(34:21):
having greater net income?
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Yeah, that's a great.
It's a great question.
So, um, um, okay.
So the way I look at it, youhave in small companies you will
just have a CEO who basicallyis the entrepreneur and who runs
execution as well, who runs thebusiness.
In bigger companies that canafford to have two leaders, you
(34:45):
would have an entrepreneur andyou would have maybe a CEO type
person.
You ask what is the visionaryand the integrator?
And then I would say, in acompany like that, the
entrepreneur's main KPI would beto increase the market share of
this business.
To basically proselytize whatthe business is all about, get
(35:11):
the word out.
That, I would say, is the mainoutcome for an entrepreneur.
For the CEO type person, maybeit's the profit, because they
will make sure that the revenuehappens, the expenses are
controlled and the difference isprofit.
Sometimes it's the CEO who doesthat.
(35:33):
So that's kind of the overallmetrics.
I think market share is veryimportant and then profitability
is important as well, becauseyou want to make money today,
but you also want to make moneytomorrow, so you want both, and
then the individual functionsare going to have their main
outcome.
Maybe marketing is going to beto generate leads and then maybe
marketing is going to be togenerate leads, and then maybe
(35:54):
sales is going to be to convertthose leads into customers, and
maybe operations is going to beto keep those customers,
whatever those major outcomes.
And then the question becomeshow do you reverse engineer
those functional outcomes?
So, for a CEO who wants to growmarket share, maybe it's the
number of speaking engagements,maybe it's the number of big
(36:15):
relationships that they touchedin that week.
It's what's going to be theirweekly metric.
For the CEO, it may be thenumber of coaching conversations
with their team members, thenumber of touches on prospective
employees that you want toattract at some point when they
get fed up with their currentbosses.
(36:36):
For the marketing person, itcould be the content created and
shared.
It could be I think that's thebig one.
It could be the number ofactions taken to maybe create PR
for the business.
(36:56):
For the salesperson, it couldbe the number of sales
conversations scheduled so thatthey can convert.
It could be the proportion ofconversion, conversion ratio.
So these are the kind of thingsthat you can control and that
will deliver you the outcome ofyour function and then all those
functional outcomes going toadd up into that net profit and
(37:18):
this increase in market share.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
I like it.
I like it and I'm glad that youmentioned market share as a in
addition to net income, and Idefinitely agree with that.
I definitely agree with that.
What on the topic of ofbuilding a great team and
retaining a great team,compensation comes up, and I
found that there's two primarymethods of compensating team
(37:42):
members.
There's salaried employees andhourly employees.
I think both are kind of not agreat way to measure the impact
that somebody has on a business.
You take an hourly employee,for instance.
If you have somebody that'ssuper productive and is
leveraging AI and technology,they may be able to get more
(38:04):
done in two to three hours thananother person does in 10 hours.
Salary's somewhat similar.
In that, I've always just kindof felt it's a lazy way of going
about compensation.
However, in my own businesses Ihave hourly employees and I've
salaried people, so like I'msearching for a better way, and
(38:30):
so I'm curious as you've workedwith different business owners,
have there been any compensationmethods that you have found
that really aligned the teamwith the company's overall
objectives?
Speaker 3 (38:47):
Yeah, well, you're right, it's a difficult topic
and it's multifaceted as well.
Yeah, you're right, it's adifficult topic and it's
multifaceted as well.
I would say that in addition tothe hourly employees and the
salaried employees, you alsohave the business partners, who
are maybe interested in profit.
Maybe they get the profit shareor they get dividends, so
(39:07):
that's a third tier and forprofessional service firms.
Then you get to the pinnacle ofyour profession.
You're going to become apartner and that's what you're
going to get.
Most of your compensation isgoing to be partnership income,
and what I see is that the morevaluable the person in your
business, the more interest yougive them of the eventual
(39:31):
product of the business, theprofit of the business.
If they are just executingmanual tasks that are highly
commoditized, then it doesn'treally make sense for them to
give them a profit share,because they don't have much
impact on it and they have notyet earned the rights to get it
(39:53):
right.
So you just pay them.
You take a low risk on thembecause they haven't proven
themselves, and when they haveproven themselves that you want
to tie them to the businessbecause they are harder to
replace, then you give them asalary.
And when you want to make them,give them an upside on the
company's performance, becauseyou might lose them if you just
pay them a salary and you givethem a profit share and then you
(40:15):
make them a partner eventually.
And sometimes you have to sellthem the business because they
are so valuable that they nolonger are going to take your
instructions and they're goingto walk away from the business
if you don't sell it to them ordon't make them an equal partner
.
So that's how I see it, anequal partner.
(40:36):
So that's how I see it.
And when you make those movesand how you make those moves is
highly nuanced.
In my investment bankingbusiness, at one point I decided
to make my key employeespartners.
So I give them some sharesbecause I thought that I wanted
to express my belief in them andthat I wanted them to be long
(40:57):
term and wanted them to be feeltaken care of.
And then we paid dividends.
And then, when the company wentthrough hard times it was a
hard adjustment because it washard for them to accept that
they were not getting dividendsanymore and then they wanted to
(41:21):
make decisions and the companyso that they get dividends and
counter to the long-terminterests of the company in some
way, so it became very complexand then I went away from that.
But yeah, highly nuanced, and Ithink what's important about it
is you want to take care of yourA players.
So somebody is an A player whoare fitting the culture like a
(41:43):
glove and they are hitting theball out of park in terms of
performance, and you are at riskof losing those people if you
cannot give them a bigger joband if you cannot give them
bigger influence.
And those are the people youneed to think about.
Okay, how do you keep them?
How do you motivate them?
How do you help them unleashthe potential for your business
(42:05):
more?
Speaker 2 (42:06):
Absolutely, absolutely.
I really like that answer andthere's a lot to digest there.
The main point I took away fromthat is ownership and profit
sharing, and I just mentioned myprimary KPI is net income, and
so profit share is in directalignment of that.
I really like that perspective.
So before we get to the fireround, I want to talk about your
(42:30):
podcast Management Blueprint.
That's how I discovered you,and so what was the origin of
this and how's it going?
Speaker 3 (42:43):
Well, to be perfectly honest, I didn't have a drawn
design, and this is how manybusinesses start, by the way,
that you just want to know.
You just, you just want to makesome money, and maybe you're
replacing a job, or maybe youjust want to make more money
than what a job can pay you, andthat's how you become an
entrepreneur.
And then then, over time, you,you refine your, your, your
(43:05):
vision, and then and then youdevelop a higher purpose for
your business and that thatmakes it more powerful.
So that's kind of what happenedwith our podcast.
I just started it out because Iwanted to create relationships,
I wanted to generate content formy business and, you know, I
thought that was going to be agood way for me to be able to
(43:27):
speak without being invited onpodcasts and to also engage
people that I wanted to engage.
And then, over time, I realizedthat we had this great thing
frameworks, business openingsystems that help people and I
(43:48):
realized that there were so manyideas and so many great
processes and frameworks thatpeople have discovered and and
they are applicable often acrossindustries.
So people can talk about whatthey discovered in one industry
and that can be applied inanother industry and other
people can benefit and they cando something better in their
(44:10):
business.
It's kind of like AI itsupercharges your business and
yeah.
And then we just doubled downon this whole idea of management
blueprint frameworks and we'restill going and not running out
of them anytime soon.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Outstanding outstanding.
I'll post a link to yourpodcast in the show notes To all
of our listeners.
Check it out.
It's an outstanding podcast.
Cannot recommend it enough.
And whether you're thinkingabout business, running your own
business or have been inbusiness for 20 or 30 years, you
will take lessons away fromthis.
(44:48):
And Steve, you're anoutstanding host.
And Steve, you're anoutstanding host.
So to wrap up the show, we havesomething called the Fire Round
.
It's four questions we askevery guest at the end of the
show Are you ready, steve?
I think I am.
Let's do it.
What is your favorite book?
Speaker 3 (45:04):
Okay.
So that was really hard and Ijust turned to my bookshelf and
I picked a couple of things.
So managing the professionalservice firm.
So few people know this bookbut this is one of my favorite
books.
I love professional servicebusinesses.
I find the challenge ofattracting and keeping people
(45:26):
and empowering them and helpthem fulfill their potential.
It's really hard to keep goodpeople in a professional service
, to not have them walk awaywith the intellectual property,
and this book is kind of theBible.
It was written in the 90s byDavid Meister who ran law firms
in the UK.
It's brilliant.
So if you're a professionalservice, don't miss that.
(45:48):
The other one again.
There are hundreds of books Ilike, but this I really like.
So this is Eugene SchwartzBreakthrough Advertising.
This book was written, I thinkin the 50s or 60s and I actually
had some audio tapes fromEugene Schwartz when he talked
about copywriting.
It's fascinating how he getsinto the mind of the customer
(46:12):
and writes copy.
Highly recommend it.
So these are like old books,the new ones and you know.
The third one I recommend isPinnacle, and you went there
should Summit OS.
So this is the Bible of theSummit OS system and I recently
revised it.
I think it become more powerfuland more clear and more useful.
(46:35):
We have more than 150 reviewson Amazon.
I highly recommend you thisbook as well.
This is self-serving, but thereyou go.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
Outstanding outstanding Next question what
are your hobbies?
Speaker 3 (46:51):
Hobbies?
Well, I love tennis.
So every weekend I try to do ittwice a week, but on average
once a week I play.
I have a Venezuelan friend andhis name is Arvin and we play
tennis for a couple of hoursevery weekend day and I love it.
I also follow the tour.
Grands says to go to the USOpen most every year with my
(47:13):
wife.
I also love reading books, sothank you for asking me to talk
about books.
I read and listen to at least100 books a year.
And finally, I love music, andespecially jazz music.
So whenever I can make it, whenI travel quite a lot and if I
(47:34):
get in on time, then I look upthe jazz club in town and go
there and spend an hour thereand it just always recharges me
outstanding next question whatis one thing that you do not
miss about working for the man?
Well, not being in charge of myown time.
(47:55):
So time is our most valuableasset, I believe, and not being
in charge of your own time as anentrepreneur is super painful,
and even as a self-employedperson, I'm running my own
business, but I still have to dothings that I don't really
(48:17):
enjoy doing and I feel like I'mnot in charge of my time and I'm
doing those things.
So I try to delegate thosethings and luckily, or automate.
Luckily, I don't have too manyof those, but yeah, that's the
biggest one.
Owning my time as anentrepreneur is an amazing gift.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Outstanding.
And final question what do youthink sets apart successful
entrepreneurs from those whogive up, fail or never get
started?
Speaker 3 (48:45):
Okay.
So I love this question.
So I believe that the numberone quality for an entrepreneur
is desire.
So I think if you don't havethe desire, I don't think you
stand a chance of even lining upat the starting line.
(49:06):
You're not going to make it,because there's so many
challenges in entrepreneurshipand if you don't have a strong
enough desire and that's whyit's important for companies to
develop a company-wide, a desirefor the whole company, so that
everyone can tap into it, that'ssuper important.
The desire.
And the number two isresilience.
(49:27):
So it's important to havedesire, and you have to and
resilience maybe the third oneis curiosity.
(49:56):
That's the third driver of that.
Then you got it madeOutstanding.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Steve, this has been a really fun podcast.
If people are interested ingetting in touch with you or
checking out your podcast,what's the best way?
Speaker 3 (50:11):
So I recommend checking out the book.
What's the best way?
So I recommend checking out thebook Pinnacle.
There are books which you canfind in Pinnacle.
My website is summitosco, socheck out my website, summitosco
.
And I'm on LinkedIn as well.
That's my main home, so visitme on LinkedIn, connect with me.
(50:32):
I'd love to hear from you andyou'll send me a message and
I'll promise to respondoutstanding well steve.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
Thank you so much for your time today and looking
forward to staying in touch yeah, david, great interview.
Speaker 3 (50:45):
Thanks for having me on the show, absolutely.
Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast, a
show for anyone who wants to betheir own boss.
If you sit in a cubicle everyday and know you are capable of
more, then join us.
This show will help you build abusiness and grow your passive
income streams in just a fewshort hours per day.
And now your hosts, serialentrepreneurs David Shomer and
(00:22):
Ken Wilson.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast,
where we explore the journeys ofentrepreneurs who have
successfully transitioned fromtraditional employment to
business ownership.
Today we have a special guest,steve Prida, a seasoned business
growth coach, author andpodcast host.
Steve is the founder ofSummitOS, a platform dedicated
(00:47):
to empowering business coachesand business owners to transform
companies into fast-growing,high-profit and self-managing
organizations.
With over two decades ofexperience, he has guided
numerous entrepreneurs inscaling their businesses and
achieving their ideal lives.
In addition to his coachingendeavors, steve hosts the
(01:07):
Management Blueprint podcast,where he delves into the
frameworks and strategies thatdrive business success.
Each episode featuresinsightful conversations with
entrepreneurs and thoughtleaders, sharing practical tools
and experiences to helplisteners navigate their own
business journeys practicaltools and experiences to help
listeners navigate their ownbusiness journeys.
Steve is also an accomplishedauthor, having written six books
(01:29):
on business growth andleadership.
His latest work, summit OS AFable, presents a compelling
narrative on transformingbusinesses using the Summit OS
methodology.
In today's discussion, we'lldelve into Steve's transition
from corporate roles toentrepreneurship, explore the
principles behind Summit OS anduncover actionable insights for
(01:52):
business owners aiming to firethe man and take control of
their destinies.
Stay tuned for an enlighteningconversation with Steve Prita
Steve, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Well, that's an amazing introduction.
Yeah, I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Absolutely, absolutely.
So to start our conversationoff, can you talk about your
path in entrepreneurship and howyou transitioned from kind of a
corporate role into anentrepreneur?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Yeah, so I am a child of two professionals, two
doctors.
My family was full of attorneys, accountants, so I was really
not born to be an entrepreneur.
But somehow I felt a little bitof a disconnect with this whole
professional ethos that myparents were representing and I
(02:44):
wanted something moreadventurous, more exciting.
And then I learned about mygreat-grandfather who, before
the Second World War, one of themost successful entrepreneurs
in Budapest, hungary, myhometown, and he built a chain
of bakeries and he supplied allthe hotels in town and he was
one of the biggest taxpayers,even though I learned that he
(03:06):
was not reporting all his taxes.
But so I was very mesmerized bythis story and I was very much
attracted to it and I thoughtwhen I was in high school that I
was going to become anentrepreneur and I had some
ideas.
But as I graduated college thatwas when the Berlin Wall was
(03:26):
coming down and there were somany opportunities with big
companies and studying abroadand traveling, and so I
basically took a job and thenfor the next 12 years I was kind
of in my golden cage.
I had high-paying jobs andbecause I was in this generation
of the post-Berlin Wargeneration, we were in high
(03:48):
demand by big companies and theywent to hire us and therefore I
was kind of trapped in thisworld.
And then when you say firingthe man, so I actually was the
man who got fired.
I didn't fire my boss.
I should have, but I didn't,and that's how I transitioned.
So suddenly my golden cageopened and I was free to go.
(04:11):
My opportunity cost was goneand actually I was very excited.
I was 35 years old.
I walked across the street fromthe bank where I worked
previously and I got my blue andmy pink slip on Friday and the
Monday morning.
I got my pink slip on Fridayand Monday morning I opened my
office.
I rented this apartment for afriend and I was in business as
(04:32):
an investor banker.
So that's how I kind of gotfired, but I proverbially maybe
fired the man.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Absolutely.
Now, before we hit record, wewere discussing something that
we had in common and that wasthat we both are a CFA
charterholder and, for those ofyou who don't know, this is a
very rigorous exam.
It takes three to four years,thousands of hours of studying
and it sounds like you're ininvestment banking, which is a
(05:02):
very prestigious position.
And what advice would you giveto people who are in a similar
position, where they've workedreally hard to advance this
career but they're not feelingsatisfied and they just believe
that there's more to life thanworking in a typical corporate
environment?
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Okay.
So I long believed, actuallysince I left high school.
Actually, when I left college,I made a pledge to myself that
I'm not going to be willing tobe bored for a single more
minute.
I'm only going to do stuff thatinterests me.
So curiosity has been a bigdriver and ever since I left
college I think I learned a lotmore than in college.
(05:46):
I've been reading stuff and oneof the things that really
excited me was to get into thesevery rigorous qualifications
like the CFA.
I'm also CPA, like you are, andI've got other stuff as well
stuff as well.
But I was very, very motivatedand curious about learning
(06:06):
deeply about the world offinance, which interested me at
the time, and I thought that ifI get more knowledge than anyone
else in my environment, it'sgoing to give me an edge and
it's going to give me theconfidence and it's going to be
kind of a passport for me totake a job anywhere in the world
or to make a living anywhere inthe world.
So that was kind of my thingand I highly recommend that.
(06:28):
There's a saying that in your20s you learn and in your 30s
you earn.
So take the long view andabsorb everything while you're
young, when you don't haveentanglements, commitments,
family and try to learn as muchas you can, and it's going to
help you to have a great careerlater on Outstanding,
(06:51):
outstanding.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
So you fired the man at age 35.
You got an office.
What comes next?
Speaker 3 (06:57):
So my initial goal was just to replace my salary.
So at the time I think I wasmaking three or $4,000 a month
and I said, okay, so I just haveto make sure I make that much
so we can keep things going.
And then I set up my computersand another desk and then I
(07:19):
moved to another office and myexpenses started piling up and
then I just had to revise mybusiness plan all the time.
So my replacement income becamebigger and bigger and bigger,
and that's what basically wasgoing on the first year.
The other thing I was reallypissed off that I got fired
(07:40):
because I thought it was unfairand it kind of hurt my pride
because I thought it was unfairand it kind of hurt my pride.
So I made the pledge to myselfthat I'm not going to rest until
I lure away all the clients Ihad in the bank.
I was in the investment bankingdepartment and I said I'm going
to prove to you that you're notgoing to be able to keep these
clients.
And actually the first coupleof clients walked with me the
(08:03):
first two or three weeks andthen within six months I got the
last one as well and it gave mea lot of satisfaction that you
know they didn't just reduce thecost but they also got the
revenue when they fired me.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yeah, yeah, revenge, you got your revenge.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah, which is very petty, but there you go yeah,
it's good motivation sometimes.
Yeah, which is very petty, butthere you go yeah, it's good
motivation sometimes.
So in your management blueprintpodcast, you look at different
business frameworks and myquestion is what are some of the
most effective frameworks thatyou've seen for scaling a
business?
Speaker 3 (08:43):
And how can our listeners apply them.
Okay, so we probably recorded300 episodes by now and
initially we covered the majorframeworks like ScalingUp and
E-Myth and Great Game ofBusiness, eos, this kind of
stuff, and then we ran out ofthose pretty quick and then we
started niching down and goingfor more vertical frameworks and
(09:04):
going for more verticalframeworks, and recently we've
been looking for frameworks thatthe entrepreneurs, the thought
analysts that come on the show,have discovered themselves.
It's some ethno-forced processthat allows them to see the
world differently, to makethings simpler, to be more
effective.
So what I'm trying to say hereis that there are hundreds of
(09:27):
frameworks.
Basically, everyone has atleast one or two frameworks in
them that they don't realizethat other people could use,
because we all find ways to copewith situations.
However, if I had to clusterthis, I would say that I would
put them in three clusters.
So there are the organizationalframeworks, where it's all about
(09:50):
people and how you create aculture and how you create a
healthy way to grow yourleadership and your people.
Then there is the strategyframeworks, which is figuring
out where to position yourbusiness and how to be different
and what's your vision and,essentially, how you create a
(10:12):
unique business.
And the third type of frameworkis the execution framework,
which really helps you with theexecution to be effective, to
organize everyone, to aligneveryone and to get things done
and solve your problems andessentially move the business
forward and building yourcapacity to be able to do better
(10:34):
and greater things.
So that would be the threebuckets, and of course there are
more buckets if you want.
But I think if you take care ofthat, if you have an
organization where you thinkabout the people first and
foremost and the kind of teamyou want to build and the
culture and growing your people,and then you figure out how
(10:57):
you're different with a goodstrategy, a few good strategy
frameworks, and then you execute, you can have a good run.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
I love it.
I love it.
So before I ask this nextquestion, I will mention to you
that I am a huge fan of the bookTraction and the EOS.
I've implemented EOS with everybusiness that I've ever owned
and I'm a huge fan of that.
However, for the first coupleof years of my entrepreneurial
journey, I did not have aframework.
I was kind of just putting outfires and I sit down at my desk
(11:28):
and whatever was the biggestproblem or the biggest
opportunity is what I would workon what is a good
out-of-the-box framework or bookthat they can read or something
that they can implement to takethat first step in getting some
(11:50):
organization.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Well, I mean, there are many, many books they can
read.
There's not one.
That would be the ultimatewinner.
And yeah, and I generallystruggle with this, this
question of what is the one book, Because it's like, what is the
(12:15):
one silver bullet, right?
Yeah, no silver.
But the whole point is that youneed to learn a lot and you
need to experience a lot to besuccessful in business.
But to answer your question, soobviously you mentioned EOS is
a very popular framework andthere are others like Scaling Up
(12:35):
.
The original one was the E-Mythfrom Michael Gerber in the 1980s
, who wrote this book, and hetalked about working on the
business.
It's a great start for peoplebecause it's a fable and it's
really easy to understand theconcepts.
That's what I implemented firstin my business in the early
2000s and then I persevered andI'm biased that the SummitOS
(13:01):
framework is the one that is themost effective one.
So this is a book I recentlyupdated.
It talks about, essentially,it's EOS on steroids.
So it is a version of EOS thatis customized to each business,
so it's not cookie cutter.
(13:21):
There's a deep pool of toolsthat can be customized by a
coach or by an entrepreneur.
It is scalable by a coach or byan entrepreneur.
It is scalable, so it supportsyou for not just an 18 to
24-month journey, but a 7 to10-year journey.
You're not going to run out ofconcepts and tools and you can
(13:47):
keep growing your business andget to the Inc 5000 and beyond.
And thirdly, it is a fast-startprogram.
So I strongly believe that whatan entrepreneur wants is they
want to harvest the low-hangingfruits quickly.
They want to get going, and wehave developed a process called
the 45-day execution momentumwhere we teach them all the
basic concepts of execution andactually help them practice it
(14:12):
in the first 45 days.
So for some operating system ittakes nine to 12 months to get
there.
We have them, we have ourclients get there in 45 days and
then it gives them such amomentum.
Then we can have them implementsome of the more strategic
frameworks as well, which thenultimately re-acits their
(14:33):
business.
So we want to be the privateequity without the private
equity.
So as a CFA chapter, youprobably understand you don't
need to bring on an investor totell you what you do, to tell
you what you already know andthat you should be doing.
You just need a coach that isgoing to hold you accountable to
doing the right things and helpyou habit stack your business.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
I love it.
I love it, and I'll tell you,there was a phrase that you said
that automatically addedSummitOS to my reading list, and
that was it's EOS on steroids.
That's all I needed to hear toadd that to my reading list and
to all the listeners.
I'll post a link to that in theshow notes.
But so let's dive into SummitOS.
(15:13):
As I was prepping for thisinterview, I was reading up on
SummitOS, and one of the thingsthat this methodology describes
is a self-managing company.
And before we dive into thespecifics of that, what does
that look and feel like?
And I'll tell you a little bitof background on where this
(15:36):
question is coming from.
You hear a lot of influencerstalk about passive income.
Oh, passive income.
I have not found most of myendeavors to be passive.
I am showing up for work andputting out fires, and I don't
think that when you sayself-managing, that's what you
mean.
But what would, from a30,000-foot view, what would a
(15:59):
self-managing business look like?
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Yeah.
So first the passive income.
I don't believe in passiveincome either, because what
creates income isentrepreneurship.
So how can you creates incomeis entrepreneurship.
So how can you create incomewithout entrepreneurship?
You can create income by givingyour money to someone else to
(16:26):
manage, whether it's real estateor whether it's investing in
equities or investing inalternative investments.
Essentially, you abandon theresponsibility for managing that
stuff, let someone else manageit who is a person who is paid
to manage stuff, and then youhope that they're going to
manage it.
Well.
That's passive income.
(16:46):
That's not attractive to me.
What's attractive to me is tocontrol, create value, to
control the creation of value,which is entrepreneurship.
So that's just about thepassive income.
Some people they're not likethis kind of perspective, but I
just had to get it off my chestNow on the self-managing idea.
(17:08):
So the idea is that, again,there is the entrepreneurial
function in a business and thenthere's the execution function,
and what creates the value isthe entrepreneurial function.
And Steve Jobs talks about thetwo a private, functional
business, which is marketing andinnovation.
These are the entrepreneurialfunctions.
(17:29):
These are the creativefunctions.
These are the creativefunctions where you create a
messaging that resonates withpeople.
That's the marketing, and thenyou create innovative products
that provide more value thanother products out there.
That's how you create value,and then you have to have an
execution system so that youactually turn it into a machine.
(17:49):
Your company turns into amachine and provides it right.
So what self-managing reallymeans is what Michael Gerber he
coined working on the business,not in the business.
So remove yourself from thehurly-burly of the business,
from the execution functionbecause that can be delegated
with good organization and withgood tools and re-elaborate your
(18:13):
time so that you can work onthe entrepreneurial functions,
which is marketing, innovation,building relationships, getting
the word out about your business.
And then the business isself-managing, but you are the
entrepreneur, you are providingthe entrepreneurial energy.
So it's not like a perpetualmotion machine that works
(18:36):
without energy, because thatdoesn't exist right.
So you need an energy source.
That's the entrepreneur, butthe actual money-making machine,
the business, can beself-managing, so the
entrepreneur is not buried inthe data.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
I really like that answer on making the distinction
between the entrepreneurshipfunction and the execution
function, and I like that way oflooking at it, and I think that
that's something that a lot ofentrepreneurs, especially early
on, get caught up in is, youknow, we're bootstrapping,
(19:13):
resources are tight, I'm goingto do everything myself, and it
seems like that really, reallystunts growth.
Honestly and I will also like totalk about this a little bit A
trap that I've fallen into a lotof times is and I'm just going
to use an example of Amazon PPCwhen I launched my first Amazon
(19:37):
business, I knew nothing aboutpay-per-click advertising, but I
knew it was important, and so Itook to the internet and tried
to learn it, and I self-managedfor probably three months, and
at that point I realized I'm notgood at this and I don't have
the time to do this, and, as youpointed out, that would fall in
kind of the execution function,and so then I hired it out, and
(20:00):
I can think of so many examplesof my career where there has
been a task that needed to bedone.
I didn't have any experiencedoing it, but I tried to tackle
it anyway, and three monthslater I ended up hiring an
expert, and so how can peoplekind of avoid that trap or
recognize that's what'shappening when they're managing
(20:23):
their own business?
Speaker 3 (20:25):
I don't know if you can avoid it altogether, because
the fact is that when you areboot setting, when you're
starting out, you have limitedresources and you have to find
this balance of uh, of uh, youknow, economizing on your
resources so that you haveenough buffer to experiment and
make mistakes, because you youlearn by making mistakes.
(20:46):
So you have to have some kindof a reserve to fund your
mistakes.
So you have to have some kindof a reserve to fund your
mistakes.
And if you hire a bunch ofpeople and you're taking too
much risk and you're going torun out of your reserves and
you're out of business.
So that's really the bigconundrum of when to hire and
how to hire.
And one of the things that Ithink is a really big
(21:07):
opportunity for entrepreneurs isto hire offshore talent that
can be really inexpensive, soyou can build an inexpensive
team and you can experiment,especially if you have other
income on the side that fundsyour business.
So that's another concept thatmaybe we'll talk about later is
(21:27):
how to get into business and howto fire that man.
Do you fire them from theget-go or you just develop a
side hustle and you still keepthat man as your employer and
let them pay the bills, you know, and and then give yourself
some time to to make somemistakes and build up your, your
side hustle.
(21:47):
So yeah, I mean it's.
It's a big question when thetypical point comes.
In general, what I see is thateven the big companies, they try
not to take reckless risks withhiring.
What they do is they not hiregreat employees?
They create great employees.
They go to colleges and theyhire young, smart students,
(22:14):
bring them in for an internshipand if they look good then they
hire them.
But they bring them in at thebeginning of their career so
that they can move into theright kind of person.
They can get them while theyare still relatively inexpensive
.
So that's how they do it.
They don't go out in the marketand hire an expert who
supposedly have already done itfor hundreds of thousands of
(22:35):
dollars, because it's a highlyrisky thing to do.
So no easy answer there, I'msorry.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
No, I think it's something that's important for
entrepreneurs to think about,and I really appreciate your
perspective on that because,yeah, when you are bootstrapping
, resources are tight, and I cantell you, when I did hire
somebody for Amazon PPC, thefact that I had done it for
three months and struggled mademe a better manager of the
(23:03):
manager, and so I think there isvalue in that.
Another thing I want to call outfrom your answer was funding
your own mistakes, and boy isthat the truth.
You need to have budget forthat, and to think that you're
going to start a business andnot make mistakes is ridiculous,
(23:24):
and I can say that, afterstarting several of them,
hundreds of mistakes and lessonslearned, and that's okay.
That's part of the process, andso I'd like to turn the
conversation over to technologyand implementing technology in
business.
In particular, ai is a reallyhot topic right now.
If I map out the number oftimes a day I'm engaging with AI
(23:50):
, and if I were to graph thatout, it would look like a hockey
stick, especially in the earlyparts of 2025.
I find that being something I'mtrying to utilize more and more
and more, and so my question toyou is how can you integrate
technology into your businessand, as you work with
entrepreneurs, what are someways that they are using this
(24:12):
technology, in particularChatGPT or other LLMs, into
helping their business grow?
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Okay, so I have to preface this I'm not an AI
expert.
I was fortunate to have had acouple of AI experts on my
podcast two or three years agowhen ChangePT was coming out I
don't even know whether it wastwo years ago or three years ago
, maybe two years ago and theadvice I got was that, whatever
(24:41):
you do, just start experimentingwith it.
Just start playing withChangePT and see what you learn
and what you can use it for.
And, as you say, I've beenusing it exponentially more and
more over time and it's amazinghow many things it can do for
you.
I love to ask questions.
(25:03):
I'm very curious, so whenever aquestion pops in my mind, I
just ask JGPT the question.
But I use it for writingcontracts, for creating visuals
for my blogs, for proofreadingmy blogs, for strategizing for
clients.
I even, you know, this morningI got an email from a client who
(25:24):
was very it's a difficultperson to deal with and he has
certain fears and it's a verycomplex situation.
So I asked the GPT okay, hereis what's happening with this
client and how should I handleit and it basically, within 20
seconds, it gave me six or sevensuggestions what to do and how
(25:46):
to handle the situation and Iput together an email and things
are much, much better.
So JetGPT, and AI in general,can be used on many different
things.
We use it for social media, forcreating posts, for
transcribing podcasts.
I'm sure you do that as well.
(26:06):
From summarizing, synthesizing,developing the questions for
sales meetings.
I'm not an expert.
What I can say is that use itAgain.
Don't complicate, don'tovercomplicate.
You're going to change thesubscription.
I recommend to get a privatesubscription so your information
(26:28):
doesn't get used for trainingother people's models and just
keep asking questions.
And whenever you think that youare a proud in you see what
ggpt comes up with.
Sometimes it hallucinates, but,but most of the time it gives
good information absolutely,absolutely.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yeah, I think just the simple act of using it is
huge, and the more you engagewith it, the more your prompts
become better.
And yeah, I think it'ssomething the more you use that,
the better you get.
And I have found it takes a lotof my 30, previously 30 minute
tasks and makes them 10 minutes,and it allows me to do a lot of
(27:10):
my previously 30-minute tasksand makes them 10 minutes and it
allows me to do a lot more30-minute what would have
previously been a 30-minute task.
In a particular day, I kind offeel like it puts a jetpack on
the entrepreneur where you'rejust able to achieve more and
kind of get rid of some of thetedious work that does need to
be done.
(27:30):
And so, okay, as we, oneperspective I think that you're
going to have a greatperspective on is avoiding some
of the common pitfalls.
Now, many business owners theystruggle with delegation and
leadership as they're scaling.
I know I've dealt with thisbefore and so what are some of
(27:52):
the common mistakes you've seenand how can those be avoided?
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Yeah, so really I mean a company.
What is a company?
In my mind, it's a collectionof people who are committed to a
common purpose.
That's really what it is.
And then, of course, thesepeople are going to do different
things, whether you are amanufacturer or a service
company or whatever company youare.
(28:18):
So it's all about people.
You need to put those peopletogether and you need to have
them work productively in thiscompany.
And how do you do that?
So I think the biggest pitfallis for people to not utilize the
resource they already have, thepeople they already have.
In very few companies do I seepeople maximizing their
(28:42):
potential.
It's probably no companies.
People maximize their potentialright, because our potential is
much, much bigger than what youcan do with it.
So if all you do as anentrepreneur you uh, you attract
and hire good people and thenyou help them maximize their
potential, then you are going toavoid most of the pitfalls I
(29:06):
like if you're good people andyou have good processes, good
approaches, good structures andframeworks, I like to say, then
you can solve any problem.
In fact, I believe that there isa pandemic going on in the
business world I call itbusiness COVID which kills about
(29:27):
180,000 small to medium-sizedbusinesses each year who run out
of cash, who get disrupted, whoget commoditized, who are not
able to attract and keep theright people, who are not able
to transition their business tothe next level of management or
ownership.
I call this business COVID.
And with the right frameworkand approach, such as SummitOS,
you can eradicate business COVIDone company at a time.
(29:49):
You can eradicate businessCOVID one company at a time, and
you know what the pitfalls comeback to not having the right
people or not being able toempower the right people to do
the right things for you, andnot having the right frameworks
to organize these great peopleso that they can maximize their
potential.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Absolutely, absolutely.
Now, one thing you've mentioneda couple of times is finding
great people so that they canmaximize their potential
Absolutely, absolutely.
Now, one thing you've mentioneda couple of times is finding
great people, and I think wecould probably do an entire
podcast on this topic alone.
But I'm curious in the hiringprocess or when you're scouting
for talent, are there any tipsthat you have on making sure
that you're finding the rightperson for the right seat in
(30:33):
your company?
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Yeah.
So a lot of people have writtenabout this stuff in the gym,
college putting the right peoplein the right seat, getting the
right people on the bus andputting them in the right seats
on the bus.
Seats on the bus and the way Ilike to look at this and
actually this.
Gino Wickman articulated thatright people is the people who
(30:58):
live and breathe your corevalues, your culture and the
business the right seat is well,that's paraphrasing, that's not
Gino Wickman, but it is thepeople who are consistently
highly productive in their seat,so they can be consistently
highly productive.
So that's right seat, rightpeople culture, right seat
(31:19):
productivity.
So it's important to start withdefining what your culture
already is.
So what are your core values?
And I like to put them inbehavior terms rather than
abstract ideals that a lot ofthe companies they have
integrity, professionalism,teamwork these are like
(31:40):
corporate values, corporateideas that the company aspires
to, but that's not something youcan hold people accountable to.
What you can hold themaccountable to is behavior.
So express your core values inbehavior terms.
That's number one.
Then you have to know what arethose seats that you want to
hire people for right.
So you have to define yourfunctions in the organization
(32:04):
that get work and do work andthat helps you get paid.
So these are kind of threefactors of the types of
functions that you need and thenyou have to define for each
function what are the outcomes.
So if you have a salesfunctions, what do we expect
that sales function to deliverto us?
Is it conversion, nurturing ofleads, converting leads?
(32:28):
Is it about onboardingcustomers?
What are those outcomes?
And for operations and formarketing and for technology and
all those functions that youhave?
And then you want to measurethose.
So you want to attract peoplewho fit your culture, who have
the profile to be successful indelivering those outcomes for
(32:49):
you.
So they have the technicalskills and they have the desire
to succeed.
And then if you do that, thenyou're almost more than halfway
towards the goal.
And then you have to look afterthe people.
You have to mentor them, youhave to make sure that you help
them fulfill their potentialthrough great coaching and
(33:13):
mentoring.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
I love it.
I love it One of the continuousconversation on building a
winning team.
One of the things that you hadsaid was like having measurable
outcomes and having that foreach position, and if I put
myself in the shoes of abusiness owner, in my opinion,
one of the biggest KPIs you haveis net income.
(33:37):
That's kind of to me, thescoreboard for the company, but
you can't hold everybodyaccountable to that.
There's certainly things thatare outside of people's control,
and so that is not the best KPIfor any individual position.
However, it's the ultimate KPIfor the business, as I view
(33:59):
things, and so when you arecoming up with these measurement
outcomes, how do you identifycharacteristics that are within
the control of that person anduh but, but lead to ultimately
(34:21):
having greater net income?
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Yeah, that's a great.
It's a great question.
So, um, um, okay.
So the way I look at it, youhave in small companies you will
just have a CEO who basicallyis the entrepreneur and who runs
execution as well, who runs thebusiness.
In bigger companies that canafford to have two leaders, you
(34:45):
would have an entrepreneur andyou would have maybe a CEO type
person.
You ask what is the visionaryand the integrator?
And then I would say, in acompany like that, the
entrepreneur's main KPI would beto increase the market share of
this business.
To basically proselytize whatthe business is all about, get
(35:11):
the word out.
That, I would say, is the mainoutcome for an entrepreneur.
For the CEO type person, maybeit's the profit, because they
will make sure that the revenuehappens, the expenses are
controlled and the difference isprofit.
Sometimes it's the CEO who doesthat.
(35:33):
So that's kind of the overallmetrics.
I think market share is veryimportant and then profitability
is important as well, becauseyou want to make money today,
but you also want to make moneytomorrow, so you want both, and
then the individual functionsare going to have their main
outcome.
Maybe marketing is going to beto generate leads and then maybe
marketing is going to be togenerate leads, and then maybe
(35:54):
sales is going to be to convertthose leads into customers, and
maybe operations is going to beto keep those customers,
whatever those major outcomes.
And then the question becomeshow do you reverse engineer
those functional outcomes?
So, for a CEO who wants to growmarket share, maybe it's the
number of speaking engagements,maybe it's the number of big
(36:15):
relationships that they touchedin that week.
It's what's going to be theirweekly metric.
For the CEO, it may be thenumber of coaching conversations
with their team members, thenumber of touches on prospective
employees that you want toattract at some point when they
get fed up with their currentbosses.
(36:36):
For the marketing person, itcould be the content created and
shared.
It could be I think that's thebig one.
It could be the number ofactions taken to maybe create PR
for the business.
(36:56):
For the salesperson, it couldbe the number of sales
conversations scheduled so thatthey can convert.
It could be the proportion ofconversion, conversion ratio.
So these are the kind of thingsthat you can control and that
will deliver you the outcome ofyour function and then all those
functional outcomes going toadd up into that net profit and
(37:18):
this increase in market share.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
I like it.
I like it and I'm glad that youmentioned market share as a in
addition to net income, and Idefinitely agree with that.
I definitely agree with that.
What on the topic of ofbuilding a great team and
retaining a great team,compensation comes up, and I
found that there's two primarymethods of compensating team
(37:42):
members.
There's salaried employees andhourly employees.
I think both are kind of not agreat way to measure the impact
that somebody has on a business.
You take an hourly employee,for instance.
If you have somebody that'ssuper productive and is
leveraging AI and technology,they may be able to get more
(38:04):
done in two to three hours thananother person does in 10 hours.
Salary's somewhat similar.
In that, I've always just kindof felt it's a lazy way of going
about compensation.
However, in my own businesses Ihave hourly employees and I've
salaried people, so like I'msearching for a better way, and
(38:30):
so I'm curious as you've workedwith different business owners,
have there been any compensationmethods that you have found
that really aligned the teamwith the company's overall
objectives?
Speaker 3 (38:47):
Yeah, well, you're right, it's a difficult topic
and it's multifaceted as well.
Yeah, you're right, it's adifficult topic and it's
multifaceted as well.
I would say that in addition tothe hourly employees and the
salaried employees, you alsohave the business partners, who
are maybe interested in profit.
Maybe they get the profit shareor they get dividends, so
(39:07):
that's a third tier and forprofessional service firms.
Then you get to the pinnacle ofyour profession.
You're going to become apartner and that's what you're
going to get.
Most of your compensation isgoing to be partnership income,
and what I see is that the morevaluable the person in your
business, the more interest yougive them of the eventual
(39:31):
product of the business, theprofit of the business.
If they are just executingmanual tasks that are highly
commoditized, then it doesn'treally make sense for them to
give them a profit share,because they don't have much
impact on it and they have notyet earned the rights to get it
(39:53):
right.
So you just pay them.
You take a low risk on thembecause they haven't proven
themselves, and when they haveproven themselves that you want
to tie them to the businessbecause they are harder to
replace, then you give them asalary.
And when you want to make them,give them an upside on the
company's performance, becauseyou might lose them if you just
pay them a salary and you givethem a profit share and then you
(40:15):
make them a partner eventually.
And sometimes you have to sellthem the business because they
are so valuable that they nolonger are going to take your
instructions and they're goingto walk away from the business
if you don't sell it to them ordon't make them an equal partner
.
So that's how I see it, anequal partner.
(40:36):
So that's how I see it.
And when you make those movesand how you make those moves is
highly nuanced.
In my investment bankingbusiness, at one point I decided
to make my key employeespartners.
So I give them some sharesbecause I thought that I wanted
to express my belief in them andthat I wanted them to be long
(40:57):
term and wanted them to be feeltaken care of.
And then we paid dividends.
And then, when the company wentthrough hard times it was a
hard adjustment because it washard for them to accept that
they were not getting dividendsanymore and then they wanted to
(41:21):
make decisions and the companyso that they get dividends and
counter to the long-terminterests of the company in some
way, so it became very complexand then I went away from that.
But yeah, highly nuanced, and Ithink what's important about it
is you want to take care of yourA players.
So somebody is an A player whoare fitting the culture like a
(41:43):
glove and they are hitting theball out of park in terms of
performance, and you are at riskof losing those people if you
cannot give them a bigger joband if you cannot give them
bigger influence.
And those are the people youneed to think about.
Okay, how do you keep them?
How do you motivate them?
How do you help them unleashthe potential for your business
(42:05):
more?
Speaker 2 (42:06):
Absolutely, absolutely.
I really like that answer andthere's a lot to digest there.
The main point I took away fromthat is ownership and profit
sharing, and I just mentioned myprimary KPI is net income, and
so profit share is in directalignment of that.
I really like that perspective.
So before we get to the fireround, I want to talk about your
(42:30):
podcast Management Blueprint.
That's how I discovered you,and so what was the origin of
this and how's it going?
Speaker 3 (42:43):
Well, to be perfectly honest, I didn't have a drawn
design, and this is how manybusinesses start, by the way,
that you just want to know.
You just, you just want to makesome money, and maybe you're
replacing a job, or maybe youjust want to make more money
than what a job can pay you, andthat's how you become an
entrepreneur.
And then then, over time, you,you refine your, your, your
(43:05):
vision, and then and then youdevelop a higher purpose for
your business and that thatmakes it more powerful.
So that's kind of what happenedwith our podcast.
I just started it out because Iwanted to create relationships,
I wanted to generate content formy business and, you know, I
thought that was going to be agood way for me to be able to
(43:27):
speak without being invited onpodcasts and to also engage
people that I wanted to engage.
And then, over time, I realizedthat we had this great thing
frameworks, business openingsystems that help people and I
(43:48):
realized that there were so manyideas and so many great
processes and frameworks thatpeople have discovered and and
they are applicable often acrossindustries.
So people can talk about whatthey discovered in one industry
and that can be applied inanother industry and other
people can benefit and they cando something better in their
(44:10):
business.
It's kind of like AI itsupercharges your business and
yeah.
And then we just doubled downon this whole idea of management
blueprint frameworks and we'restill going and not running out
of them anytime soon.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Outstanding outstanding.
I'll post a link to yourpodcast in the show notes To all
of our listeners.
Check it out.
It's an outstanding podcast.
Cannot recommend it enough.
And whether you're thinkingabout business, running your own
business or have been inbusiness for 20 or 30 years, you
will take lessons away fromthis.
(44:48):
And Steve, you're anoutstanding host.
And Steve, you're anoutstanding host.
So to wrap up the show, we havesomething called the Fire Round
.
It's four questions we askevery guest at the end of the
show Are you ready, steve?
I think I am.
Let's do it.
What is your favorite book?
Speaker 3 (45:04):
Okay.
So that was really hard and Ijust turned to my bookshelf and
I picked a couple of things.
So managing the professionalservice firm.
So few people know this bookbut this is one of my favorite
books.
I love professional servicebusinesses.
I find the challenge ofattracting and keeping people
(45:26):
and empowering them and helpthem fulfill their potential.
It's really hard to keep goodpeople in a professional service
, to not have them walk awaywith the intellectual property,
and this book is kind of theBible.
It was written in the 90s byDavid Meister who ran law firms
in the UK.
It's brilliant.
So if you're a professionalservice, don't miss that.
(45:48):
The other one again.
There are hundreds of books Ilike, but this I really like.
So this is Eugene SchwartzBreakthrough Advertising.
This book was written, I thinkin the 50s or 60s and I actually
had some audio tapes fromEugene Schwartz when he talked
about copywriting.
It's fascinating how he getsinto the mind of the customer
(46:12):
and writes copy.
Highly recommend it.
So these are like old books,the new ones and you know.
The third one I recommend isPinnacle, and you went there
should Summit OS.
So this is the Bible of theSummit OS system and I recently
revised it.
I think it become more powerfuland more clear and more useful.
(46:35):
We have more than 150 reviewson Amazon.
I highly recommend you thisbook as well.
This is self-serving, but thereyou go.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
Outstanding outstanding Next question what
are your hobbies?
Speaker 3 (46:51):
Hobbies?
Well, I love tennis.
So every weekend I try to do ittwice a week, but on average
once a week I play.
I have a Venezuelan friend andhis name is Arvin and we play
tennis for a couple of hoursevery weekend day and I love it.
I also follow the tour.
Grands says to go to the USOpen most every year with my
(47:13):
wife.
I also love reading books, sothank you for asking me to talk
about books.
I read and listen to at least100 books a year.
And finally, I love music, andespecially jazz music.
So whenever I can make it, whenI travel quite a lot and if I
(47:34):
get in on time, then I look upthe jazz club in town and go
there and spend an hour thereand it just always recharges me
outstanding next question whatis one thing that you do not
miss about working for the man?
Well, not being in charge of myown time.
(47:55):
So time is our most valuableasset, I believe, and not being
in charge of your own time as anentrepreneur is super painful,
and even as a self-employedperson, I'm running my own
business, but I still have to dothings that I don't really
(48:17):
enjoy doing and I feel like I'mnot in charge of my time and I'm
doing those things.
So I try to delegate thosethings and luckily, or automate.
Luckily, I don't have too manyof those, but yeah, that's the
biggest one.
Owning my time as anentrepreneur is an amazing gift.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Outstanding.
And final question what do youthink sets apart successful
entrepreneurs from those whogive up, fail or never get
started?
Speaker 3 (48:45):
Okay.
So I love this question.
So I believe that the numberone quality for an entrepreneur
is desire.
So I think if you don't havethe desire, I don't think you
stand a chance of even lining upat the starting line.
(49:06):
You're not going to make it,because there's so many
challenges in entrepreneurshipand if you don't have a strong
enough desire and that's whyit's important for companies to
develop a company-wide, a desirefor the whole company, so that
everyone can tap into it, that'ssuper important.
The desire.
And the number two isresilience.
(49:27):
So it's important to havedesire, and you have to and
resilience maybe the third oneis curiosity.
(49:56):
That's the third driver of that.
Then you got it madeOutstanding.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Steve, this has been a really fun podcast.
If people are interested ingetting in touch with you or
checking out your podcast,what's the best way?
Speaker 3 (50:11):
So I recommend checking out the book.
What's the best way?
So I recommend checking out thebook Pinnacle.
There are books which you canfind in Pinnacle.
My website is summitosco, socheck out my website, summitosco
.
And I'm on LinkedIn as well.
That's my main home, so visitme on LinkedIn, connect with me.
(50:32):
I'd love to hear from you andyou'll send me a message and
I'll promise to respondoutstanding well steve.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
Thank you so much for your time today and looking
forward to staying in touch yeah, david, great interview.
Speaker 3 (50:45):
Thanks for having me on the show, absolutely.
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