July 24, 2023 • 34 mins
Prepare your mind to be enthralled as we sit down with the phenomenal Pete Mohr, a certified business-made-simple coach, owner of ShoeTopia and a seasoned business broker. With almost thirty years in the business world, Pete has a unique understanding of business dynamics and shares his philosophy that you shouldn’t be owned by your business but be its owner. We delve into the nitty-gritty of transitioning from being operator-bound to becoming an owner, discussing the alignment of products, processes, and people to your business's promise.
Ever wondered how to transform your frustrations in business into freedoms? Pete Mohr has got you covered! In this insightful conversation, he elaborates on his philosophy, demystifying how to turn business frustrations into freedoms and the importance of understanding the promise you make to yourself and your customers for a clear business structure. Pete's 'love it or leave it' philosophy is something every business owner should aspire to adopt, as it encourages working in what he calls a 'love zone', effectively making life and business more enjoyable.
We round up this enlightening conversation exploring the significance of communication, process management, and accountability in freeing you and your team for growth. Using references from 'Traction' by Gina Wipman and the EOS Entrepreneurial Operating System, Pete illustrates how an accountability chart can be far more effective than an organizational chart. We also delve into how to create systems that can morph frustrations into freedoms, helping business owners identify areas of change, align systems with business promises, and create replicable processes tailored for business growth. Tune into this episode to discover how you can maximize business efficiency, achieve a better work-life balance, and transition from feeling overwhelmed and overworked to experiencing the freedoms you richly deserve as a business owner.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody, I am excited to present our guest
today, pete Moore.
Pete is well-versed in theworld of entrepreneurship,
having once been a radio hostand now he's a certified
business-made simple coach.
He's certainly no stranger topodcasting, having guests
starred in over 150 of them,which is a testament to his
(00:20):
ability to engage.
Aside from his coachingactivities, pete's also the
successful owner of ShoeTopia, arange of footwear stores based
in Ontario.
He's a firm believer inpracticing what he preaches, so
he implements his own strategiesand frameworks in his own
stores.
Interestingly, his pastexperience as a business broker
(00:43):
honed his ability to assistentrepreneurs in creating
self-sustaining, efficientbusinesses.
He's passionate about enablingbusiness owners to have
fulfilling lives outside theirwork, a perspective that
resonates in his coachingapproach.
Pete leverages a repertoire ofover 25 different tools, backed
by his nearly three-decade-longjourney.
His philosophy is you own yourbusiness.
(01:05):
It shouldn't own you.
This forms the backbone of hiscoaching practice.
His mission is to guide us intransitioning from just being
operators to fully-fledgedowners of our businesses,
empowering us to live the livesthat we truly want and deserve.
Here comes a transformativeconversation with Pete in 5, 4,
(01:26):
3, 2.
Pete, well, it is really goodto have you here.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Thanks so much for having me, matt.
I appreciate it.
I'm looking forward to ourconversation today.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Me too, me too, this is going to be a lot of fun.
So where are you located?
Speaker 2 (01:38):
I am about an hour outside of Toronto in a
beautiful small town in Ontariocalled Elora.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
I am in Erie, pennsylvania, so pretty close to
you yeah exactly the other sideof the lake.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself?
I own a few differentbusinesses, but this one around
coaching entrepreneurs.
I've been in business a longtime, matt, and since 1994, so
coming up on 30 years.
I find a lot of the businessowners that I talk to they're
overworked, they're overwhelmed,they're mired down in the
(02:10):
frustrations of dealing with theday-to-day intricacies of their
business.
They're in the weeds all thetime.
A lot of the people that I workwith have been at it for a
while and they're starting togrow a little bit tired of that.
And it kind of came from a longtime ago.
I used to be a business brokerhelping people buy and sell
(02:31):
businesses, and one of thereasons people actually put
their businesses up for salesbecause they're frustrated by it
.
So most of the stuff that Iwork with entrepreneurs and
business owners around is, Icall it, turning their
frustrations into freedoms,because typically and I'm
talking to you, the listener,here, but typically you got into
(02:53):
business for a reason and thatreason wasn't to work 50, 60, 70
hours a week and have all yourmoney tied up in your business
and not enjoy any of thefreedoms.
You had these concepts in yourhead about what being a business
owner would be and often wehave to go back and sort of
revisit those, because we'vebeen sort of like I said, head
(03:13):
down and going at it for threeyears, five years, 10 years,
whatever the case is, and noteven having a chance to maybe
take a good vacation or maybeenjoy some of the other things
in life that you're now kind oflooking back and saying, hmm, I
kind of like to do that again.
And so what I do is I helppeople through that and we set
up some process and we talkabout different things in
(03:36):
aligning and assigningaccountability.
And I'll use one of theexamples of a call I had today.
This guy's been in business for30 years.
He's had two other businesses.
He closed one of his businessesa couple of years ago.
He's got another one.
He's now in his late 60s and iskind of saying, okay, I'm ready
to move out.
(03:56):
And the reality of it is is thatmost of the process in his
business is in his head and it'svery hard to sell that.
It's very hard to from abusiness broker perspective.
I'm not a business brokeranymore, but when I was it's
very hard to sell a job.
It's very easy to sell abusiness.
So when I look at it I say youknow a lot of my frameworks
(04:18):
around and I've just createdthis little ebook called the 10
laws of moving from operator ofyour business to owner of your
business.
And when you start moving fromoperator doing all of that stuff
and moving into the owner'sseat, then it becomes more
sellable and also you can havemore freedom because you're not
making all the decisions.
(04:39):
You know you're aligning andassigning those accountability,
because decisions should be madeat the lowest possible level of
the organization every day.
They shouldn't always have togo through the owner.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Okay, well, I definitely do want to get into
that, because it soundsfascinating moving from operator
to owner.
But first, like before we getinto that, what are some common
problems that you're dealingwith as a coach?
Like, do you have like threebig ones that you're on a call
(05:13):
and you know the person's goingto say one of these?
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Yeah, I do, and it's really always around the
alignments essentially of theirproducts to the promise, of
their process to their promise,or of the people to their
promise, and so almost everytime it talks about one of those
and the big one lately is thepeople, the person.
(05:38):
You know where I can't findpeople who are, you know, behind
what we do or they're losingpeople because of a variety of
different reasons and a lot oftime it has to do with the
communication of the businessowner or the leader or the CEO
or whatever the case is, aroundwhat it is they do and why they
want to, why that person maywant to be involved with that.
And you know it seems simplebut it's not.
(06:02):
You know this is one of theissues of having alignment
within your team, because whenyour teams align with what you
do, they tend not to leave.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
You said every single one of those problems was in
relation to their promise.
So what do you mean by abusiness's promise?
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yeah, so I've got this thing called the 5P
framework and I've already toldyou four of them.
So it's first of all kickingoff with the promise aligning
the products, the process andthe people to it so you can have
the right amount of profit,which is the way to freedom,
right.
And the promise, really it's alittle different.
People talk about vision andmission.
I look at sort of the visionperspective, of sort of your
(06:44):
25-year framework.
Everybody needs that.
What's the grand vision of mylife?
Because my business shouldsupport my life, right.
And then you have your grandvision of the business and the
mission is more sort of themarching orders.
We will do this by then and,like in my case, I'll coach a
thousand entrepreneurs by 2026,because I believe that everybody
(07:04):
want, every business owner,should turn their frustrations
into freedoms, and so that'ssort of a mission, like I have
put numbers around it with thedata around it.
It's marching orders, right.
Promise is a little bitdifferent.
So vision and mission are moreinternally focused.
The promise is what you shoutout to the public and from that
(07:26):
perspective, you know what do Ido at Shuteopia?
I help you get your time back,I help give you more freedom
through your business.
You know you can come up withall these little one-liners that
are around.
Your promise and from thatperspective, you know my
ultimately my promise is I'llhelp you turn your frustrations
(07:47):
of your business into thefreedoms within your business.
And.
But you can think about allthese different little things.
What that means because itmeans something different to you
, matt, than it does to me, andit's something different to the
listener than it does to us andthat's the interesting thing
about being a business owner isyou need to start structuring
your business with the fullclarity of what it is you want
(08:09):
out of your life in order tohave your business prop that up.
And until you have that, ifyou're just mired down in the
weeds with it, you're just goingto keep working, right, right.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
It's easy to keep working.
We're used to it.
It is.
It is my promise to my clientsor my customers.
Is that something that is morecopywriting than it is actually
what you do?
I mean?
Speaker 2 (08:34):
or it should be what you do.
It should be taking yourcustomer from a transformation
from the pain that they have toa better future, because
everybody buys a better future,matt.
You know, ultimately peoplewill not sign a check unless
they see a better future.
Okay, that's right.
(08:54):
Yes, they don't.
So we own some shoe stores.
Our promise is in a Chewtopiahere in Canada is called Look
Great and Feel Fantastic.
What do we want our customersto do?
Want them to look great andfeel fantastic, and when they do
, they're happy to pay theirbill, and you can also overlay
all sorts of different things.
Remember, I was talking aboutfreeing yourself up from the
(09:17):
frustrations and giving you morefreedom within your business.
Well, with Chewtopia, if youthink of it, I've even narrowed
it down to nine letters.
Those nine letters of LookingGreat and Feel Fantastic are
these Ooh, ah and ah-ha.
So if you think about it, trythe shoes on, and everybody can
relate to this.
That's why I like this one.
(09:37):
You know it's like okay, I'mtrying the shoes on, I'm looking
in the mirror and I'm going,ooh, I look pretty good, look
great, that's one of my promises, right?
Feel Fantastic is the other one.
Close your eyes with the shoeson, take a deep breath.
Those feel fantastic, lookgreat and feel fantastic.
So if I get them in front ofthe mirror and I say, how do
(09:59):
they look?
And they say they look great, Ilook great.
And I say, because usually theones that look great don't feel
fantastic.
The ones that feel fantasticdon't look so great.
At least that's people'sperception of it.
(10:21):
So if I can deliver thatoutcome, then basically they're
going.
I love ShoeTopia man.
This is my favorite shoe store.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Okay, well, that's.
Do you find when you'recoaching, that you're helping
people actually decide whattheir business is going to be?
Sometimes, like this soundsgood, how are we going to
enhance it?
Say, well, we have the bestcustomer service in the world.
Well, let's figure out a way tothrow that in there.
Yes, exactly, and then peoplewill actually start changing
(10:55):
what they do based on thepromise that they've decided
with you.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Okay, so I mean, we go back and we'll revisit.
And usually it starts off bywhat do you want out of your
life?
Right, it usually starts thatway because they don't know
anymore.
It's been so long since theyhad a life because they've been
working 60, 70 hours a week andthey're working, you know, not
going to Little, league,baseball and all this other
stuff, and they're not enjoyinga meal at with their partner or
(11:21):
any of this other stuff, or evengoing away on a vacation.
So it usually kind of startswith that.
And then we come back into thebusiness and we're like well,
why isn't your businesssupporting that?
And what tweaks do we need todo in order to accommodate that?
Because ultimately, you know,if your business isn't
supporting your life, you're notgoing to enjoy your life and
you're not going to enjoy yourbusiness.
And my philosophy is love it orleave it.
(11:44):
And I have a whole programaround love it or leave it.
And from that perspective it'slike, hey, if you don't love
what you're doing, then youshould be leaving it, and that's
within your business or outsideof it.
And you know, the more you canwork in your love it zone, the
better life is.
So you start aligning andassigning the accountability to
the stuff that you don't like toother people, in order to get
(12:05):
your promise met and yourcustomers needs met, so that you
can have a more profitablebusiness and enjoy more freedoms
.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Okay.
So what are the steps then?
If I wanted to move fromoperator of my business to the
owner.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Well, I'll tell you some prime examples.
One of the steps is that youneed to get it out of your head.
If everything and here's agreat one If everybody comes to
you for the answer, that's aproblem, okay, okay.
If you're always.
If you say to yourself as abusiness owner or a business
(12:43):
leader, if you say to yourselfoften and often, my clients, at
the beginning at least, will besaying oh yeah, I say that all
the time, which is this line whydon't they just get it done
Like?
They should know this.
If you say that, then there'swork to be done because they
don't either know it because youhaven't outlined it in a
(13:04):
step-by-step format, which isprocess documentation, and
there's all sorts of ways ofround that, or you haven't
actually given them theauthority to make the call,
which is the aligning andassigning of that process.
And until you start aligninginto, well, first of all, so
many people don't even have theprocess yet.
(13:25):
You need to get the process outof your head onto a piece of
paper, onto a video, onto anaudio, onto any way that some
other person can actually tacklethis accountability for you,
and then we need to literallyassign that accountability to
that person so that they feelit's like I can make this
decision now.
That's the only way to freedom,or else you're going to be
(13:48):
stopped at a glass ceiling.
That is your thousand decisionsthat you make every day in that
business and nobody else canmake them without you.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
How do I find the people?
How do I find the people thatare going to do it and somebody
I trust giving accountability to?
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Yeah, that's part of your process.
How do you hire?
How do you hire, how do youonboard, how do you?
You know all of that stuff.
That's part of your process.
So you know we have differentsheets and different things that
we go through and hiring and Icoach too, and all that sort of
stuff and it's always aroundculture, it's around capability,
it's around all of thedifferent things about you know,
(14:25):
does is this person a right fit?
I'm also a Colby certifiedcoach and Colby is an awesome
source of information.
It's a, it's an assessment toolthat helps you understand how
you make decisions and how otherpeople on your team make
decisions, and then you alignand assign that into your team
(14:45):
and into your hiring practice sothat you're actually hiring
people with a base knowledge ofwhat you need before you even
hire them.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
You brought up an assessment tool, but you have an
assessment tool also, right,yeah, I do, I do.
And you know about the resultsof that.
If I go on there, what am Igoing to learn?
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yeah, I mentioned that I'm with Colby as a
certified coach with Colby, butI'm also a certified
business-made simple coach andthat's through Donald Miller's
book Business Made Simple andthe other ones he's known by
Storybrand and how to GrowBusiness and that sort of stuff.
So I work with Donald Millerand his team there and from that
perspective it's called myBusiness Assessment and you can
(15:29):
go on there.
It takes about 15, 20 minutesto take it.
But what it really does is itsort of all goes around an
airplane and you have thecockpit, the leadership portion
of your business, you know, andyou have your wings, your
marketing and your sales andyour fuselage, your overhead and
you know all of this sort ofstuff.
It basically lays it all out ina nice little flight plan so it
(15:51):
tells you what areas of yourairplane you're having.
Yet you're really doing wellwith the stuff.
That's like I'm killing it,which is great.
It greenlights that.
But it also redlights some ofthe areas that you maybe need a
bit of work on and you knowwhether you use a coach like me
or whether you use anybody else.
That's fine.
(16:11):
But the idea is it gives youthis sort of plan to say, hmm,
maybe I need to do a little bitof work on my leadership this
year, or maybe I need to do alittle bit of work on my
marketing this year or myproducts this year, because I'm
not super happy with this.
I'm good here and I hear andhear, but it gives you this plan
to say, hmm, here's where Ineed to dig down into nice
(16:32):
little sort of 20 page PDFdocument that is outlined and
good, good start for you to makesome succession steps and move
the ball for your business.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Okay, and everyone can find that on your website.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, and if you go to
simplifyingentrepreneurshipcom,top right hand corner, just
click it, take the assessment,and you will find that
assessment there, no problem,and it's free, it's no problem.
It takes you about 15 minutesor so and you'll get a PDF sent
to you and then I'll follow upwith you with a little video
regarding the outcome of thatparticular assessment.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
I did want to ask you about something that I read
about in your profile, your bio,that I read on you, and that
was your CPA.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Yeah, I like to put things out.
I've already sort of told you afew of my frameworks, but you
know the CPA is the one that I'mplaying with these days, the
five P's I've told you about,and CPA really is a leadership
one.
So it overlays that cockpittype thing that we talked about
in your in your airplane, andthe CPA is not your chartered
(17:40):
professional accountancy, as Ido think everybody needs to know
their numbers if they're inbusiness Like you can't, you
can't deny yet.
You need to know your numbers.
But it's really aroundcommunication, process
management and accountability,and I've touched on all three of
those already because these,basically, are the pieces that
you need to take and understandand be always getting coaching
(18:06):
on around running your businessproperly.
You need to be the ultimatecommunicator in your business.
You need to align and assignthose processes, create them and
then align and assign them andalign the accountability so that
you can free yourself up,because it's only when you can
free yourself up that you canmove up the totem pole and
everybody else can move up thetotem pole underneath you and
(18:28):
that's the way to growth.
Other than that, you're oneperson show for as long as
you're making all the decisions,you know, and there's
frameworks, of course, aroundcommunication, frameworks around
process and frameworks aroundaccountability.
But you know, ultimately, ifyou think about that from a
leadership perspective, howimportant is it for you to be
working on this year we'rehalfway through the year how
(18:52):
important is it for you to workon better communication skills,
both internally to your team andexternally let's call it
marketing, right?
How important is it for you totalk about process work, the
process?
Get it out of your crazy brainonto these papers, onto the
videos, so that you can thenalign and assign the
accountability.
Do you want freedom?
(19:12):
Because if you do, that's theway.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Okay, well, this is great because it seems like it's
a cyclical pattern, right.
Anytime you run into problems,you start over again, go through
.
What am I not communicating?
What processes do I actuallyneed to set up?
How can I make someone ormyself accountable to all of
this?
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Yeah, and I mean I'll flip it back.
One of the great books that Ireally like and I would
encourage everybody to read isan older book now.
It's called Traction by GinaWipman and it's all around the
EOS Entrepreneurial OperatingSystem.
And although it's not one thatI coach to specifically, I still
like a lot of the principles,and one of the principles there
(19:54):
is around having anaccountability chart, not an
organizational chart.
It's different and that's thatA piece of the CPA right.
And when you think of it, itdoesn't matter what the person's
title is.
Titles are titles, people are.
They get in the framework thatit's like oh that's not my,
(20:14):
that's not what I do, that's notmy title.
In small business in particular, it's more about
accountabilities what are youaccountable for?
And when you think of that, itlooks the same on a piece of
paper kind of thing, but theidea is this person's
accountable for marketing andmay be accountable for two or
(20:35):
three other things.
On the let's call itorganizational chart, I call it,
but I call it theaccountability chart and from
that perspective, if anybody hasneeds any clarity, the C you
know communication and clarity,because clarity creates
confidence and if you're notunconfident, you're going to go
to the owner to ask the questionand you're going to be bothered
again and you're going to saywhy don't they know?
(20:56):
Because they don't know who'saccountable, so they just assume
.
Well, I'll talk to the owner.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
What approach would we need to take to grow this
business then?
Well once I've got more freedomand I'm giving more people
accountability, how does thatactually help to make the
business better?
Speaker 2 (21:14):
I'll give you an example.
Back to my shoe stores again.
Okay, because it's near anddear, I mean it's, it's how I
live.
I work about a day a week in myshoe stores.
Now, all right, because I havealigned and assigned the
accountabilities to the peoplethat actually own those
accountabilities.
We just hired somebodyyesterday.
I haven't even met the person.
(21:34):
I haven't hired people in sevenyears now.
So you know, from thatperspective, that's off my
accountability list.
But when I look at the lastthree months that we've had in
our shoe stores best ever May,best ever June, and may not be
best ever July, but we're prettyclose I mean I'm not making
(21:56):
those decisions every day.
I don't open the store, I don'thire the people, I don't, I'm
not the bookkeeper, I don't evendo the purchasing for all of
the shoes that come into ourstore.
I have somebody that's alignedand assigned.
I used to.
I used to do all that kind ofstuff because I had to get going
and all that stuff.
But soon as I got to a pointwhere I was feeling confident
(22:16):
and I had my processes down, Iwas happy to unload those to
someone else so that I could doother things.
We wouldn't be having thisconversation right now, matt, if
I mean, I spend most of my timethese days coaching
entrepreneurs through thesethings because I love it.
When we talked about love it orleave it, I love doing, I love
having these conversations.
They're awesome to me, it fillsmy tank, it doesn't drain me,
(22:41):
so, but I couldn't do this if Ihad to open the store today, if
I had to serve the next customer, if I had to order the next
pair of shoes, if I have to dealwith the next return, if I had
to hire the next employee.
It's a no go, right.
So I've spent my life basicallyrunning more than one business
at a time, because I do thiswith every business that I have.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
So when you started the shoe store, you were doing
those 60, 70 hour weeks.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Well, I bought this one of the shoe stores I bought
and the other shoe store weopened.
We got it up and started andstuff like that.
And yeah, I did, for a veryshort time, pound in the hours
because it's like we're startinga new business, right.
So when we opened the new store, yeah, I was there a lot.
I was the front person, for Ihired a manager there, but I had
(23:32):
to kind of train that manageralong the way.
So first few weeks I'm thereand then not there as much,
because we already have aprocess manual.
It's like here's how to managethe store.
We're already doing it, butI'll be here to help you and
guide you and communicate andall of the stuff that I would do
as a leader.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Okay, did you start out with the processes already?
Was this something you hadalready been through and learned
?
Before you started it.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
It depends on your business.
It really does.
I used to run service-basedbusinesses.
We had a cleaning franchise andservice 300 businesses.
I also had a bathroomrenovation company and I had
multiple trucks out on the road.
So basically, processes arenever perfect.
You start with what you haveand then you build upon them
(24:21):
along the way.
So the nice thing now withtechnologies like we didn't have
30 years ago Matt I mean, wewere both there 30 years ago and
the nice thing now is thatvideo is so easy.
It's so easy and then you cantranscribe the stuff.
And when you transcribe a video,there's your documentation.
Throw it in a chat, gp, buildyour chat, gpt, build your
(24:44):
documentation forms.
And so it's so much easier tobuild process now so that you
can literally say here's thebook, here's the video, here's
how you do it, here's how youorder the shoes, here's how you
check somebody out, here's howyou whatever install a bathtub
all of those different thingsyou can video now and you can
lay all of these things out.
(25:05):
It's so much easier to setprocess than it ever was in the
past that there's very littleexcuse for anybody now not to
have proper process in place intheir business so that they can
then say hey, if you need toknow how to do this, go to file
number two and watch the video.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
You used to be a realtor.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
I did yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah, so well, when I was exiting a couple of my
businesses.
So, long story short, I took myexecutive MBA later in life and
I had decided that my cleaningfranchise and my bathroom
renovation company I wanted toexit those and get into big
business.
Well, that was in 2009 and thecrash happened and they weren't
(25:48):
hiring MBAs and stuff like thatat that point in time, and so I
jumped back into business.
One of the key projects that Idid was for Sunbelt business
brokers when I was doing my MBA,and Sunbelt business brokers in
Canada was headquartered inOttawa at the time, where I was
living, and you know, I workedwith Greg, who's the president
of Sunbelt Business BrokersCanada, and he said why don't
(26:08):
you become a business broker?
And to do that, you have to bea licensed realtor.
And I said, sure, I'll gothrough the process and that's
how I found Chutopia, you know,but ultimately, working there, I
didn't.
I never.
I mean, I was licensed to sellhouses, but I really was more
interested in selling businessesand you know, for the longest
time, with one of the businessesthat I had, I worked with so
(26:30):
many property owners.
Like that's all we did.
We were in a thousand units ayear refinishing bathtubs,
putting in bathtub liners,acrylic wall systems, spraying
kitchens, you know, fixing upunits to be turned and rented
and we worked I call them honeyholes.
We worked in some of the worstapartments going that you could
never imagine being in, and weworked in some of the best units
(26:53):
as well, so kind of seen it allworked with all kinds of
different property managers overthe years, worked with all
sorts of realtors in order tohelp them flip their homes if
they were putting them up forsale.
So it's a really interestingbusiness in the long the way of
marketing all of that sort ofstuff too.
And running multiple trucksright, you know, retail is
different because everybodycomes into your store, but when
(27:15):
you're running a service-basedbusiness, you're going out to
the actual client and that's adifferent way of framing the
marketing you were talking aboutgrowing and stuff like that.
When you start off with yourpromise and you align all these
things, it really gives you allyour pinpoints to move ahead
into how you're going to marketyour business and how you're
going to talk about yourbusiness so that you can grow
(27:36):
your business right.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Yes, yeah, and that's where I get stuck sometimes.
How am I going to grow the realestate business and really
turning it over to a propertymanagement company?
Yeah, basically those are theoptions.
Right, I mean, they're going torun it myself.
I'm going to turn it over to aproperty management company and
pay a lot of money to make surethat I get a good one that's
taking care of my tenants, orhire the people and almost start
(28:03):
my own property managementcompany to take care of the
units that I have.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Yeah, yeah, and I mean all of these are viable
options and it depends, like andas we talk to the listeners
here, depends on where you arein life, depends on what
freedoms you want.
It goes back to those samequestions, right, do I want?
What freedoms am I missing,what ones do I want and how much
am I willing to pay for them?
That's the profit piece.
Right, how much am I going totake?
(28:27):
Because profit isn't just aboutcash, dollars.
Profit is about how you liveyour life.
There's only 24 hours in a day,and if you're not enjoying any
of them, that's a problem.
So you may want to give up someof the profit in order to have
some of these things tackled foryou.
And the alignment of that is ifyou know, like, if we're talking
to property managers and peoplethat are renting units, you
(28:49):
have a certain class of unitsprobably within your portfolio
and you know who your client is,and so you're going to be
aligning your propertymanagement company, if you're
going to hire a propertymanagement company, with that,
because if there's amisalignment there, then your
client isn't going to be servedjustice and they're not going to
be happy staying in your unitIf they're not happy staying in
(29:09):
your unit.
You're going to lose moneybecause you're going to turn
them every year, right, right,yes, we want long-term clients.
It doesn't matter whetheryou're a retailer I want repeat
visits all the time or whetheryou're just signing on for
another year release.
It doesn't pay you to go andget the next person.
It pays you to keep the onethat you have.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Okay, so now I want to go back to your business
assessment tool.
Could I take that as a realestate investor and still get
out of it what I need to get outof it?
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Yeah, because, as a real estate investor, real
estate investing is yourbusiness.
So you look at it from abusiness perspective and you say
, okay, well, like, I ownproperties, but you still have
to market those properties, youstill have to manage those
properties, you still have tofinance those properties.
All of those different piecesare the very same whether you're
buying a retail business, aservice business or a portfolio,
(30:06):
and or whether you're a lawyer,whether you're accountant or
any of these things.
Right, we're all going throughthe same process.
And from that side of things,it's like, okay, well, what is
your marketing plan?
And you'll say, well, I'venever really done any marketing,
I just put an ad in the paper.
Well, do you want to make sureyour units are full?
Do you have any vacancies?
(30:26):
Maybe there's room, maybethat's one of the areas that
shows up red on your airplane,right?
Do you have a sales facility?
Do you want to be going outthere?
I mentioned earlier that I don'tdo any hiring.
I didn't want to do any hiringanymore.
I offloaded that.
So maybe one of the thingsyou'd like to do is to offload
even just the showing of yourunits.
I mean, you can think of allthese different things in ways
(30:50):
of offloading certain pieces.
If you don't want to offloadthe whole thing and if you want
to start your propertymanagement company, it's like,
okay, well, maybe this is a goodtool to actually start thinking
about how am I going to set theproperty management company up?
And then, hmm, maybe if Imanage my 20 properties and I'm
already setting doing that, Ishould manage five for Joe and
(31:11):
seven for Julie, and you know,and take that on, because I've
already got the process in placeand I've got the people in
place then it becomes easy.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
It's time for me to go start writing down all of
these processes, maybe even justturning on the video and
explaining my process to nobodyat first and then transcribe it.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Yep, and then I use tools that I like for that sort
of stuff.
I use Loom just to kind oframble and talk about stuff.
Then I transcribe it in ordertypically, and then I take the
order transcription and I pop itinto chat GPT with some great
prompts and it spits me outgenerally something that's
probably in the vicinity of 80%.
Right, tweak it and then we'regood.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
We could probably call this show creating systems.
Right, you've just giveneverybody like this amazing way.
So, besides your brilliantcoaching and everything that you
talked about, it's like thisnew, unexpected thing of oh,
here's a good way to make asystem, and I'm kind of excited
about that.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
There are so many awesome tools out there, matt,
these days that in my opinion,there's very little excuse for
not having process in placeanymore.
People would always say, oh, Idon't want to spend the time
writing, you don't have to justtalk it, transcribe it.
And that's even better, even ifyou don't clean it up with chat
, gpt or anything else justhaving the transcription and the
video that somebody can watchor read if need be.
(32:38):
If you're sick, if you're away,if somebody needs to do
something when you're notavailable, it's there.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Well, thank you so much.
So, as a business coach, if youhad 43 seconds to talk to the
entire world and you could tellthem anything, what would you
say?
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Well, I'd say there's only 24 hours in a day and if
you're working 16 of them,you're not enjoying life.
And you got into businessprobably anyway because you had
a dream that if you worked foryourself you would have a better
life than working for someoneelse.
And if you're not experiencingthat, if you're not feeling that
(33:19):
and you're feeling overworkedand overwhelmed, then maybe we
should chat.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Well, thank you, Pete .
Thank you so much for being onthe show.
I really appreciate your timeand your expertise today.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
It's been my pleasure .
Thanks so much for having me,Matt.
Make it a great day, hey youtoo.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Hey, before you go, how can people find you?
Where would you like to sendthem?
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Yep, as we said earlier in the show, just go to
simplifyingentrepreneurshipcom.
That's the name of my business.
If you hang out on LinkedIn,it's Pete Moore M-O-H-R.
Hey everybody, I am excited to present our guest
today, pete Moore.
Pete is well-versed in theworld of entrepreneurship,
having once been a radio hostand now he's a certified
business-made simple coach.
He's certainly no stranger topodcasting, having guests
starred in over 150 of them,which is a testament to his
(00:20):
ability to engage.
Aside from his coachingactivities, pete's also the
successful owner of ShoeTopia, arange of footwear stores based
in Ontario.
He's a firm believer inpracticing what he preaches, so
he implements his own strategiesand frameworks in his own
stores.
Interestingly, his pastexperience as a business broker
(00:43):
honed his ability to assistentrepreneurs in creating
self-sustaining, efficientbusinesses.
He's passionate about enablingbusiness owners to have
fulfilling lives outside theirwork, a perspective that
resonates in his coachingapproach.
Pete leverages a repertoire ofover 25 different tools, backed
by his nearly three-decade-longjourney.
His philosophy is you own yourbusiness.
(01:05):
It shouldn't own you.
This forms the backbone of hiscoaching practice.
His mission is to guide us intransitioning from just being
operators to fully-fledgedowners of our businesses,
empowering us to live the livesthat we truly want and deserve.
Here comes a transformativeconversation with Pete in 5, 4,
(01:26):
3, 2.
Pete, well, it is really goodto have you here.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Thanks so much for having me, matt.
I appreciate it.
I'm looking forward to ourconversation today.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Me too, me too, this is going to be a lot of fun.
So where are you located?
Speaker 2 (01:38):
I am about an hour outside of Toronto in a
beautiful small town in Ontariocalled Elora.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
I am in Erie, pennsylvania, so pretty close to
you yeah exactly the other sideof the lake.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself?
I own a few differentbusinesses, but this one around
coaching entrepreneurs.
I've been in business a longtime, matt, and since 1994, so
coming up on 30 years.
I find a lot of the businessowners that I talk to they're
overworked, they're overwhelmed,they're mired down in the
(02:10):
frustrations of dealing with theday-to-day intricacies of their
business.
They're in the weeds all thetime.
A lot of the people that I workwith have been at it for a
while and they're starting togrow a little bit tired of that.
And it kind of came from a longtime ago.
I used to be a business brokerhelping people buy and sell
(02:31):
businesses, and one of thereasons people actually put
their businesses up for salesbecause they're frustrated by it
.
So most of the stuff that Iwork with entrepreneurs and
business owners around is, Icall it, turning their
frustrations into freedoms,because typically and I'm
talking to you, the listener,here, but typically you got into
(02:53):
business for a reason and thatreason wasn't to work 50, 60, 70
hours a week and have all yourmoney tied up in your business
and not enjoy any of thefreedoms.
You had these concepts in yourhead about what being a business
owner would be and often wehave to go back and sort of
revisit those, because we'vebeen sort of like I said, head
(03:13):
down and going at it for threeyears, five years, 10 years,
whatever the case is, and noteven having a chance to maybe
take a good vacation or maybeenjoy some of the other things
in life that you're now kind oflooking back and saying, hmm, I
kind of like to do that again.
And so what I do is I helppeople through that and we set
up some process and we talkabout different things in
(03:36):
aligning and assigningaccountability.
And I'll use one of theexamples of a call I had today.
This guy's been in business for30 years.
He's had two other businesses.
He closed one of his businessesa couple of years ago.
He's got another one.
He's now in his late 60s and iskind of saying, okay, I'm ready
to move out.
(03:56):
And the reality of it is is thatmost of the process in his
business is in his head and it'svery hard to sell that.
It's very hard to from abusiness broker perspective.
I'm not a business brokeranymore, but when I was it's
very hard to sell a job.
It's very easy to sell abusiness.
So when I look at it I say youknow a lot of my frameworks
(04:18):
around and I've just createdthis little ebook called the 10
laws of moving from operator ofyour business to owner of your
business.
And when you start moving fromoperator doing all of that stuff
and moving into the owner'sseat, then it becomes more
sellable and also you can havemore freedom because you're not
making all the decisions.
(04:39):
You know you're aligning andassigning those accountability,
because decisions should be madeat the lowest possible level of
the organization every day.
They shouldn't always have togo through the owner.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Okay, well, I definitely do want to get into
that, because it soundsfascinating moving from operator
to owner.
But first, like before we getinto that, what are some common
problems that you're dealingwith as a coach?
Like, do you have like threebig ones that you're on a call
(05:13):
and you know the person's goingto say one of these?
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Yeah, I do, and it's really always around the
alignments essentially of theirproducts to the promise, of
their process to their promise,or of the people to their
promise, and so almost everytime it talks about one of those
and the big one lately is thepeople, the person.
(05:38):
You know where I can't findpeople who are, you know, behind
what we do or they're losingpeople because of a variety of
different reasons and a lot oftime it has to do with the
communication of the businessowner or the leader or the CEO
or whatever the case is, aroundwhat it is they do and why they
want to, why that person maywant to be involved with that.
And you know it seems simplebut it's not.
(06:02):
You know this is one of theissues of having alignment
within your team, because whenyour teams align with what you
do, they tend not to leave.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
You said every single one of those problems was in
relation to their promise.
So what do you mean by abusiness's promise?
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yeah, so I've got this thing called the 5P
framework and I've already toldyou four of them.
So it's first of all kickingoff with the promise aligning
the products, the process andthe people to it so you can have
the right amount of profit,which is the way to freedom,
right.
And the promise, really it's alittle different.
People talk about vision andmission.
I look at sort of the visionperspective, of sort of your
(06:44):
25-year framework.
Everybody needs that.
What's the grand vision of mylife?
Because my business shouldsupport my life, right.
And then you have your grandvision of the business and the
mission is more sort of themarching orders.
We will do this by then and,like in my case, I'll coach a
thousand entrepreneurs by 2026,because I believe that everybody
(07:04):
want, every business owner,should turn their frustrations
into freedoms, and so that'ssort of a mission, like I have
put numbers around it with thedata around it.
It's marching orders, right.
Promise is a little bitdifferent.
So vision and mission are moreinternally focused.
The promise is what you shoutout to the public and from that
(07:26):
perspective, you know what do Ido at Shuteopia?
I help you get your time back,I help give you more freedom
through your business.
You know you can come up withall these little one-liners that
are around.
Your promise and from thatperspective, you know my
ultimately my promise is I'llhelp you turn your frustrations
(07:47):
of your business into thefreedoms within your business.
And.
But you can think about allthese different little things.
What that means because itmeans something different to you
, matt, than it does to me, andit's something different to the
listener than it does to us andthat's the interesting thing
about being a business owner isyou need to start structuring
your business with the fullclarity of what it is you want
(08:09):
out of your life in order tohave your business prop that up.
And until you have that, ifyou're just mired down in the
weeds with it, you're just goingto keep working, right, right.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
It's easy to keep working.
We're used to it.
It is.
It is my promise to my clientsor my customers.
Is that something that is morecopywriting than it is actually
what you do?
I mean?
Speaker 2 (08:34):
or it should be what you do.
It should be taking yourcustomer from a transformation
from the pain that they have toa better future, because
everybody buys a better future,matt.
You know, ultimately peoplewill not sign a check unless
they see a better future.
Okay, that's right.
(08:54):
Yes, they don't.
So we own some shoe stores.
Our promise is in a Chewtopiahere in Canada is called Look
Great and Feel Fantastic.
What do we want our customersto do?
Want them to look great andfeel fantastic, and when they do
, they're happy to pay theirbill, and you can also overlay
all sorts of different things.
Remember, I was talking aboutfreeing yourself up from the
(09:17):
frustrations and giving you morefreedom within your business.
Well, with Chewtopia, if youthink of it, I've even narrowed
it down to nine letters.
Those nine letters of LookingGreat and Feel Fantastic are
these Ooh, ah and ah-ha.
So if you think about it, trythe shoes on, and everybody can
relate to this.
That's why I like this one.
(09:37):
You know it's like okay, I'mtrying the shoes on, I'm looking
in the mirror and I'm going,ooh, I look pretty good, look
great, that's one of my promises, right?
Feel Fantastic is the other one.
Close your eyes with the shoeson, take a deep breath.
Those feel fantastic, lookgreat and feel fantastic.
So if I get them in front ofthe mirror and I say, how do
(09:59):
they look?
And they say they look great, Ilook great.
And I say, because usually theones that look great don't feel
fantastic.
The ones that feel fantasticdon't look so great.
At least that's people'sperception of it.
(10:21):
So if I can deliver thatoutcome, then basically they're
going.
I love ShoeTopia man.
This is my favorite shoe store.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Okay, well, that's.
Do you find when you'recoaching, that you're helping
people actually decide whattheir business is going to be?
Sometimes, like this soundsgood, how are we going to
enhance it?
Say, well, we have the bestcustomer service in the world.
Well, let's figure out a way tothrow that in there.
Yes, exactly, and then peoplewill actually start changing
(10:55):
what they do based on thepromise that they've decided
with you.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Okay, so I mean, we go back and we'll revisit.
And usually it starts off bywhat do you want out of your
life?
Right, it usually starts thatway because they don't know
anymore.
It's been so long since theyhad a life because they've been
working 60, 70 hours a week andthey're working, you know, not
going to Little, league,baseball and all this other
stuff, and they're not enjoyinga meal at with their partner or
(11:21):
any of this other stuff, or evengoing away on a vacation.
So it usually kind of startswith that.
And then we come back into thebusiness and we're like well,
why isn't your businesssupporting that?
And what tweaks do we need todo in order to accommodate that?
Because ultimately, you know,if your business isn't
supporting your life, you're notgoing to enjoy your life and
you're not going to enjoy yourbusiness.
And my philosophy is love it orleave it.
(11:44):
And I have a whole programaround love it or leave it.
And from that perspective it'slike, hey, if you don't love
what you're doing, then youshould be leaving it, and that's
within your business or outsideof it.
And you know, the more you canwork in your love it zone, the
better life is.
So you start aligning andassigning the accountability to
the stuff that you don't like toother people, in order to get
(12:05):
your promise met and yourcustomers needs met, so that you
can have a more profitablebusiness and enjoy more freedoms
.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Okay.
So what are the steps then?
If I wanted to move fromoperator of my business to the
owner.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Well, I'll tell you some prime examples.
One of the steps is that youneed to get it out of your head.
If everything and here's agreat one If everybody comes to
you for the answer, that's aproblem, okay, okay.
If you're always.
If you say to yourself as abusiness owner or a business
(12:43):
leader, if you say to yourselfoften and often, my clients, at
the beginning at least, will besaying oh yeah, I say that all
the time, which is this line whydon't they just get it done
Like?
They should know this.
If you say that, then there'swork to be done because they
don't either know it because youhaven't outlined it in a
(13:04):
step-by-step format, which isprocess documentation, and
there's all sorts of ways ofround that, or you haven't
actually given them theauthority to make the call,
which is the aligning andassigning of that process.
And until you start aligninginto, well, first of all, so
many people don't even have theprocess yet.
(13:25):
You need to get the process outof your head onto a piece of
paper, onto a video, onto anaudio, onto any way that some
other person can actually tacklethis accountability for you,
and then we need to literallyassign that accountability to
that person so that they feelit's like I can make this
decision now.
That's the only way to freedom,or else you're going to be
(13:48):
stopped at a glass ceiling.
That is your thousand decisionsthat you make every day in that
business and nobody else canmake them without you.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
How do I find the people?
How do I find the people thatare going to do it and somebody
I trust giving accountability to?
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Yeah, that's part of your process.
How do you hire?
How do you hire, how do youonboard, how do you?
You know all of that stuff.
That's part of your process.
So you know we have differentsheets and different things that
we go through and hiring and Icoach too, and all that sort of
stuff and it's always aroundculture, it's around capability,
it's around all of thedifferent things about you know,
(14:25):
does is this person a right fit?
I'm also a Colby certifiedcoach and Colby is an awesome
source of information.
It's a, it's an assessment toolthat helps you understand how
you make decisions and how otherpeople on your team make
decisions, and then you alignand assign that into your team
(14:45):
and into your hiring practice sothat you're actually hiring
people with a base knowledge ofwhat you need before you even
hire them.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
You brought up an assessment tool, but you have an
assessment tool also, right,yeah, I do, I do.
And you know about the resultsof that.
If I go on there, what am Igoing to learn?
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yeah, I mentioned that I'm with Colby as a
certified coach with Colby, butI'm also a certified
business-made simple coach andthat's through Donald Miller's
book Business Made Simple andthe other ones he's known by
Storybrand and how to GrowBusiness and that sort of stuff.
So I work with Donald Millerand his team there and from that
perspective it's called myBusiness Assessment and you can
(15:29):
go on there.
It takes about 15, 20 minutesto take it.
But what it really does is itsort of all goes around an
airplane and you have thecockpit, the leadership portion
of your business, you know, andyou have your wings, your
marketing and your sales andyour fuselage, your overhead and
you know all of this sort ofstuff.
It basically lays it all out ina nice little flight plan so it
(15:51):
tells you what areas of yourairplane you're having.
Yet you're really doing wellwith the stuff.
That's like I'm killing it,which is great.
It greenlights that.
But it also redlights some ofthe areas that you maybe need a
bit of work on and you knowwhether you use a coach like me
or whether you use anybody else.
That's fine.
(16:11):
But the idea is it gives youthis sort of plan to say, hmm,
maybe I need to do a little bitof work on my leadership this
year, or maybe I need to do alittle bit of work on my
marketing this year or myproducts this year, because I'm
not super happy with this.
I'm good here and I hear andhear, but it gives you this plan
to say, hmm, here's where Ineed to dig down into nice
(16:32):
little sort of 20 page PDFdocument that is outlined and
good, good start for you to makesome succession steps and move
the ball for your business.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Okay, and everyone can find that on your website.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, and if you go to
simplifyingentrepreneurshipcom,top right hand corner, just
click it, take the assessment,and you will find that
assessment there, no problem,and it's free, it's no problem.
It takes you about 15 minutesor so and you'll get a PDF sent
to you and then I'll follow upwith you with a little video
regarding the outcome of thatparticular assessment.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
I did want to ask you about something that I read
about in your profile, your bio,that I read on you, and that
was your CPA.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Yeah, I like to put things out.
I've already sort of told you afew of my frameworks, but you
know the CPA is the one that I'mplaying with these days, the
five P's I've told you about,and CPA really is a leadership
one.
So it overlays that cockpittype thing that we talked about
in your in your airplane, andthe CPA is not your chartered
(17:40):
professional accountancy, as Ido think everybody needs to know
their numbers if they're inbusiness Like you can't, you
can't deny yet.
You need to know your numbers.
But it's really aroundcommunication, process
management and accountability,and I've touched on all three of
those already because these,basically, are the pieces that
you need to take and understandand be always getting coaching
(18:06):
on around running your businessproperly.
You need to be the ultimatecommunicator in your business.
You need to align and assignthose processes, create them and
then align and assign them andalign the accountability so that
you can free yourself up,because it's only when you can
free yourself up that you canmove up the totem pole and
everybody else can move up thetotem pole underneath you and
(18:28):
that's the way to growth.
Other than that, you're oneperson show for as long as
you're making all the decisions,you know, and there's
frameworks, of course, aroundcommunication, frameworks around
process and frameworks aroundaccountability.
But you know, ultimately, ifyou think about that from a
leadership perspective, howimportant is it for you to be
working on this year we'rehalfway through the year how
(18:52):
important is it for you to workon better communication skills,
both internally to your team andexternally let's call it
marketing, right?
How important is it for you totalk about process work, the
process?
Get it out of your crazy brainonto these papers, onto the
videos, so that you can thenalign and assign the
accountability.
Do you want freedom?
(19:12):
Because if you do, that's theway.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Okay, well, this is great because it seems like it's
a cyclical pattern, right.
Anytime you run into problems,you start over again, go through
.
What am I not communicating?
What processes do I actuallyneed to set up?
How can I make someone ormyself accountable to all of
this?
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Yeah, and I mean I'll flip it back.
One of the great books that Ireally like and I would
encourage everybody to read isan older book now.
It's called Traction by GinaWipman and it's all around the
EOS Entrepreneurial OperatingSystem.
And although it's not one thatI coach to specifically, I still
like a lot of the principles,and one of the principles there
(19:54):
is around having anaccountability chart, not an
organizational chart.
It's different and that's thatA piece of the CPA right.
And when you think of it, itdoesn't matter what the person's
title is.
Titles are titles, people are.
They get in the framework thatit's like oh that's not my,
(20:14):
that's not what I do, that's notmy title.
In small business in particular, it's more about
accountabilities what are youaccountable for?
And when you think of that, itlooks the same on a piece of
paper kind of thing, but theidea is this person's
accountable for marketing andmay be accountable for two or
(20:35):
three other things.
On the let's call itorganizational chart, I call it,
but I call it theaccountability chart and from
that perspective, if anybody hasneeds any clarity, the C you
know communication and clarity,because clarity creates
confidence and if you're notunconfident, you're going to go
to the owner to ask the questionand you're going to be bothered
again and you're going to saywhy don't they know?
(20:56):
Because they don't know who'saccountable, so they just assume
.
Well, I'll talk to the owner.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
What approach would we need to take to grow this
business then?
Well once I've got more freedomand I'm giving more people
accountability, how does thatactually help to make the
business better?
Speaker 2 (21:14):
I'll give you an example.
Back to my shoe stores again.
Okay, because it's near anddear, I mean it's, it's how I
live.
I work about a day a week in myshoe stores.
Now, all right, because I havealigned and assigned the
accountabilities to the peoplethat actually own those
accountabilities.
We just hired somebodyyesterday.
I haven't even met the person.
(21:34):
I haven't hired people in sevenyears now.
So you know, from thatperspective, that's off my
accountability list.
But when I look at the lastthree months that we've had in
our shoe stores best ever May,best ever June, and may not be
best ever July, but we're prettyclose I mean I'm not making
(21:56):
those decisions every day.
I don't open the store, I don'thire the people, I don't, I'm
not the bookkeeper, I don't evendo the purchasing for all of
the shoes that come into ourstore.
I have somebody that's alignedand assigned.
I used to.
I used to do all that kind ofstuff because I had to get going
and all that stuff.
But soon as I got to a pointwhere I was feeling confident
(22:16):
and I had my processes down, Iwas happy to unload those to
someone else so that I could doother things.
We wouldn't be having thisconversation right now, matt, if
I mean, I spend most of my timethese days coaching
entrepreneurs through thesethings because I love it.
When we talked about love it orleave it, I love doing, I love
having these conversations.
They're awesome to me, it fillsmy tank, it doesn't drain me,
(22:41):
so, but I couldn't do this if Ihad to open the store today, if
I had to serve the next customer, if I had to order the next
pair of shoes, if I have to dealwith the next return, if I had
to hire the next employee.
It's a no go, right.
So I've spent my life basicallyrunning more than one business
at a time, because I do thiswith every business that I have.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
So when you started the shoe store, you were doing
those 60, 70 hour weeks.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Well, I bought this one of the shoe stores I bought
and the other shoe store weopened.
We got it up and started andstuff like that.
And yeah, I did, for a veryshort time, pound in the hours
because it's like we're startinga new business, right.
So when we opened the new store, yeah, I was there a lot.
I was the front person, for Ihired a manager there, but I had
(23:32):
to kind of train that manageralong the way.
So first few weeks I'm thereand then not there as much,
because we already have aprocess manual.
It's like here's how to managethe store.
We're already doing it, butI'll be here to help you and
guide you and communicate andall of the stuff that I would do
as a leader.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Okay, did you start out with the processes already?
Was this something you hadalready been through and learned
?
Before you started it.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
It depends on your business.
It really does.
I used to run service-basedbusinesses.
We had a cleaning franchise andservice 300 businesses.
I also had a bathroomrenovation company and I had
multiple trucks out on the road.
So basically, processes arenever perfect.
You start with what you haveand then you build upon them
(24:21):
along the way.
So the nice thing now withtechnologies like we didn't have
30 years ago Matt I mean, wewere both there 30 years ago and
the nice thing now is thatvideo is so easy.
It's so easy and then you cantranscribe the stuff.
And when you transcribe a video,there's your documentation.
Throw it in a chat, gp, buildyour chat, gpt, build your
(24:44):
documentation forms.
And so it's so much easier tobuild process now so that you
can literally say here's thebook, here's the video, here's
how you do it, here's how youorder the shoes, here's how you
check somebody out, here's howyou whatever install a bathtub
all of those different thingsyou can video now and you can
lay all of these things out.
(25:05):
It's so much easier to setprocess than it ever was in the
past that there's very littleexcuse for anybody now not to
have proper process in place intheir business so that they can
then say hey, if you need toknow how to do this, go to file
number two and watch the video.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
You used to be a realtor.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
I did yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah, so well, when I was exiting a couple of my
businesses.
So, long story short, I took myexecutive MBA later in life and
I had decided that my cleaningfranchise and my bathroom
renovation company I wanted toexit those and get into big
business.
Well, that was in 2009 and thecrash happened and they weren't
(25:48):
hiring MBAs and stuff like thatat that point in time, and so I
jumped back into business.
One of the key projects that Idid was for Sunbelt business
brokers when I was doing my MBA,and Sunbelt business brokers in
Canada was headquartered inOttawa at the time, where I was
living, and you know, I workedwith Greg, who's the president
of Sunbelt Business BrokersCanada, and he said why don't
(26:08):
you become a business broker?
And to do that, you have to bea licensed realtor.
And I said, sure, I'll gothrough the process and that's
how I found Chutopia, you know,but ultimately, working there, I
didn't.
I never.
I mean, I was licensed to sellhouses, but I really was more
interested in selling businessesand you know, for the longest
time, with one of the businessesthat I had, I worked with so
(26:30):
many property owners.
Like that's all we did.
We were in a thousand units ayear refinishing bathtubs,
putting in bathtub liners,acrylic wall systems, spraying
kitchens, you know, fixing upunits to be turned and rented
and we worked I call them honeyholes.
We worked in some of the worstapartments going that you could
never imagine being in, and weworked in some of the best units
(26:53):
as well, so kind of seen it allworked with all kinds of
different property managers overthe years, worked with all
sorts of realtors in order tohelp them flip their homes if
they were putting them up forsale.
So it's a really interestingbusiness in the long the way of
marketing all of that sort ofstuff too.
And running multiple trucksright, you know, retail is
different because everybodycomes into your store, but when
(27:15):
you're running a service-basedbusiness, you're going out to
the actual client and that's adifferent way of framing the
marketing you were talking aboutgrowing and stuff like that.
When you start off with yourpromise and you align all these
things, it really gives you allyour pinpoints to move ahead
into how you're going to marketyour business and how you're
going to talk about yourbusiness so that you can grow
(27:36):
your business right.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Yes, yeah, and that's where I get stuck sometimes.
How am I going to grow the realestate business and really
turning it over to a propertymanagement company?
Yeah, basically those are theoptions.
Right, I mean, they're going torun it myself.
I'm going to turn it over to aproperty management company and
pay a lot of money to make surethat I get a good one that's
taking care of my tenants, orhire the people and almost start
(28:03):
my own property managementcompany to take care of the
units that I have.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Yeah, yeah, and I mean all of these are viable
options and it depends, like andas we talk to the listeners
here, depends on where you arein life, depends on what
freedoms you want.
It goes back to those samequestions, right, do I want?
What freedoms am I missing,what ones do I want and how much
am I willing to pay for them?
That's the profit piece.
Right, how much am I going totake?
(28:27):
Because profit isn't just aboutcash, dollars.
Profit is about how you liveyour life.
There's only 24 hours in a day,and if you're not enjoying any
of them, that's a problem.
So you may want to give up someof the profit in order to have
some of these things tackled foryou.
And the alignment of that is ifyou know, like, if we're talking
to property managers and peoplethat are renting units, you
(28:49):
have a certain class of unitsprobably within your portfolio
and you know who your client is,and so you're going to be
aligning your propertymanagement company, if you're
going to hire a propertymanagement company, with that,
because if there's amisalignment there, then your
client isn't going to be servedjustice and they're not going to
be happy staying in your unitIf they're not happy staying in
(29:09):
your unit.
You're going to lose moneybecause you're going to turn
them every year, right, right,yes, we want long-term clients.
It doesn't matter whetheryou're a retailer I want repeat
visits all the time or whetheryou're just signing on for
another year release.
It doesn't pay you to go andget the next person.
It pays you to keep the onethat you have.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Okay, so now I want to go back to your business
assessment tool.
Could I take that as a realestate investor and still get
out of it what I need to get outof it?
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Yeah, because, as a real estate investor, real
estate investing is yourbusiness.
So you look at it from abusiness perspective and you say
, okay, well, like, I ownproperties, but you still have
to market those properties, youstill have to manage those
properties, you still have tofinance those properties.
All of those different piecesare the very same whether you're
buying a retail business, aservice business or a portfolio,
(30:06):
and or whether you're a lawyer,whether you're accountant or
any of these things.
Right, we're all going throughthe same process.
And from that side of things,it's like, okay, well, what is
your marketing plan?
And you'll say, well, I'venever really done any marketing,
I just put an ad in the paper.
Well, do you want to make sureyour units are full?
Do you have any vacancies?
(30:26):
Maybe there's room, maybethat's one of the areas that
shows up red on your airplane,right?
Do you have a sales facility?
Do you want to be going outthere?
I mentioned earlier that I don'tdo any hiring.
I didn't want to do any hiringanymore.
I offloaded that.
So maybe one of the thingsyou'd like to do is to offload
even just the showing of yourunits.
I mean, you can think of allthese different things in ways
(30:50):
of offloading certain pieces.
If you don't want to offloadthe whole thing and if you want
to start your propertymanagement company, it's like,
okay, well, maybe this is a goodtool to actually start thinking
about how am I going to set theproperty management company up?
And then, hmm, maybe if Imanage my 20 properties and I'm
already setting doing that, Ishould manage five for Joe and
(31:11):
seven for Julie, and you know,and take that on, because I've
already got the process in placeand I've got the people in
place then it becomes easy.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
It's time for me to go start writing down all of
these processes, maybe even justturning on the video and
explaining my process to nobodyat first and then transcribe it.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Yep, and then I use tools that I like for that sort
of stuff.
I use Loom just to kind oframble and talk about stuff.
Then I transcribe it in ordertypically, and then I take the
order transcription and I pop itinto chat GPT with some great
prompts and it spits me outgenerally something that's
probably in the vicinity of 80%.
Right, tweak it and then we'regood.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
We could probably call this show creating systems.
Right, you've just giveneverybody like this amazing way.
So, besides your brilliantcoaching and everything that you
talked about, it's like thisnew, unexpected thing of oh,
here's a good way to make asystem, and I'm kind of excited
about that.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
There are so many awesome tools out there, matt,
these days that in my opinion,there's very little excuse for
not having process in placeanymore.
People would always say, oh, Idon't want to spend the time
writing, you don't have to justtalk it, transcribe it.
And that's even better, even ifyou don't clean it up with chat
, gpt or anything else justhaving the transcription and the
video that somebody can watchor read if need be.
(32:38):
If you're sick, if you're away,if somebody needs to do
something when you're notavailable, it's there.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Well, thank you so much.
So, as a business coach, if youhad 43 seconds to talk to the
entire world and you could tellthem anything, what would you
say?
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Well, I'd say there's only 24 hours in a day and if
you're working 16 of them,you're not enjoying life.
And you got into businessprobably anyway because you had
a dream that if you worked foryourself you would have a better
life than working for someoneelse.
And if you're not experiencingthat, if you're not feeling that
(33:19):
and you're feeling overworkedand overwhelmed, then maybe we
should chat.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Well, thank you, Pete .
Thank you so much for being onthe show.
I really appreciate your timeand your expertise today.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
It's been my pleasure .
Thanks so much for having me,Matt.
Make it a great day, hey youtoo.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Hey, before you go, how can people find you?
Where would you like to sendthem?
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Yep, as we said earlier in the show, just go to
simplifyingentrepreneurshipcom.
That's the name of my business.
If you hang out on LinkedIn,it's Pete Moore M-O-H-R.
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