October 31, 2024 • 41 mins
Unlock the secret to reclaiming your time and achieving a healthy work-life balance with insights from Dr. Sabrina Starling, a renowned business psychologist and international bestselling author. Discover how Dr. Starling manages to grow a thriving business while working just 25 hours a week by focusing on what she calls $10,000 an hour activities. Through her personal story, she shares her journey to identify high-value tasks and delegate lower-value ones, paving the way for enhanced business efficiency and personal well-being.
Imagine your business running smoothly even during a four-week vacation. Our conversation with Dr. Starling highlights the significance of creating sustainable systems and automation, enabling businesses to operate independently from their owners. This strategy, combined with hiring top talent and empowering team members, challenges the hustle culture and promotes a work-life balance where work is designed to support life. The result? Increased creativity, strategic thinking, and a more fulfilled team ready to take on greater responsibilities.
With practical advice on maximizing team efficiency through proper delegation, you'll learn how "vacation testing" can identify and address weaknesses in your business processes. Dr. Starling emphasizes the importance of empowering A players by aligning their strengths with your company's core goals while fostering an environment of trust and flexibility. Explore additional resources and actionable strategies available at TapthePotential.com to help you regain control over your life and business. Join us for an episode brimming with transformative ideas to elevate your entrepreneurial journey.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, welcome back.
This is Julie Baron.
I host at Seven Figure BuilderShow and I'm here today with my
friend Dr Sabrina Starling.
Hey, sabrina.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hey Julie, I'm so excited to be here with you this
afternoon.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
I am too, because you are the brilliant business
psychologist, your internationalbestselling author of how to
Hire the Best, the Four WeekVacation and you're going to
tell us how that we can earn$10,000 per hour.
Do share.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yes, oh, I love talking about this topic.
I believe that, as six andseven figure business owners,
one of the best things we can dofor ourselves is value our time
.
And I, early on in my businessI'm talking 18, 19 years ago, as
I was getting started I set outto grow my business, only
(00:48):
working 25 hours a week becauseI had a young family and I
wanted that was the most.
I was willing to put mydaughter in daycare.
Well, as you can imaginestarting up a business, you know
there's all the things that wehave to do.
We have to learn marketing, wehave to learn sales, and I was
(01:11):
as a coach, I was learningcoaching skills all at the same
time.
And one day I just found myselffeeling completely overwhelmed.
I had a breakdown, a big uglycry in my laundry room, trying
to figure out how I was going toget it all done in this 25 hour
work week.
And I had this moment ofclarity after I cried really
hard.
I had this moment of clarityand it was a question and it was
(01:32):
really Sabrina, if you can onlyget one thing done today that's
going to move this businessforward, what is the most
valuable thing that you could do?
And I knew my answer right away.
I went and did that thing.
I, when I walked out of myoffice at the end of that day, I
still had a lot of things on myto-do list, but I felt good and
(01:52):
I felt at peace because Ithought I did something that I
know is actually growing thebusiness, it's working on the
business, it's building afoundation, it's going to help
us grow and that's the mentalitythat I've used all these years
to grow, tap the Potential andto do it working about 25 hours
a week.
And I came to think about thehigh value on the business time
(02:15):
as my $10,000 an hour time.
And, julie, I did that for acouple reasons and I think you
and probably all all everyonewho's an entrepreneur can relate
to that.
It's because when someone saysI'll meet with you at nine
o'clock on Tuesday, if that'syour time to work on your
business, it's very easy to justblow past that time block on
(02:37):
our calendar, if we even blockit.
So let's just start like noteverybody, not we don't all
block our time, but if we haveit blocked, it's really easy to
say, oh somebody needs me duringthat time and so I'm going to,
I'll do it later, and then laternever comes, and we find
ourselves always in the survivaltrap in the business.
And the only way that I foundto get out of the survival trap
(03:00):
is to be intentional withholding my $10,000 an hour time
on my calendar and I'm notperfect, but when I call it my
$10,000 an hour time, I usuallymaintain it at least 80% of the
time, and that's been enough tohelp me grow, tap the Potential
all these years.
(03:21):
And so I came across a chart of$10,000 an hour activities in
the book the 80-20 principlesfor sales and marketing, or
80-20 sales and marketing, and Ithought that's such a really
cool chart because it delineatedthe difference between a
$10,000 an hour activity, $1,000, $100, $10 an hour activity.
(03:44):
But the problem was is it wasmostly geared for marketers and
it was helpful in some ways.
I was starting my businessbecause you have to do a lot of
marketing, but I wanted to havea chart for myself that really
focused on as the owner of thebusiness, and so I created that
chart for myself as a businessowner and over the years,
(04:04):
through the research that we'vedone on entrepreneurs who are
thriving, who have a highquality of life and who are not
burning out, what they dodifferently versus those who
burn out.
We've identified that those$10,000 an hour activities that
help the business to grow, thatgive the business owner their
(04:24):
life back and allow the businessto be profitable.
So that's the chart of $10,000an hour activities and I always
say, you know, you print it out,laminate it.
I keep mine behind my computermonitor where my eye falls on it
and it's a big reminder to mewhen I find myself bogged down
in the $10 an hour activities or$100 an hour activities to be
(04:49):
looking at.
How do I delegate that or getrid of it altogether?
I mean, ai now can just takeaway these $10 an hour
activities in our lives.
So there's lots of opportunitythere and I always like to think
of it as a game.
I want to trade up the value ofmy time so that I'm spending
less time on those $100 an houractivities, more time on $1,000.
(05:11):
And then I look at the $1,000an hour activities and look at
how can I delegate these, who onmy team can I delegate this to?
Which creates opportunities foradvancement?
A players crave theseopportunities for advancement.
A players crave theseopportunities for advancement.
So one of the fun things for mein all of this is the full
circle of realizing these aren'tjust skills that I've had to
(05:34):
learn for myself and how tovalue my time at $10,000 an hour
, but I've had to teach it to myteam and I love it when my team
members come to me and say I'mdoing this $100 an hour activity
, I see a way to delegate thisand I want to spend my time over
here on this $1,000 an houractivity or even a $10,000 an
hour activity, and that's whereI just say yes, yes, yes, yes,
(05:57):
because that's where we canreally grow in our businesses.
So I want to share the link forthe chart of $10,000 an hour
activities for anyone who wantsto go download it.
It's tapthepotentialcom forwardslash 10K.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Perfect.
I will include that in the shownotes and I absolutely love
that.
And it's so critical that weshift our mindset, like when we
put it in those terms yes, lookat things very, very differently
and I think um, I think of mydaughter as she's working.
You know, we've had similarlife lessons at home.
(06:37):
Everything here is a lifelesson at home.
It's like you want to go buy X,y, z.
Okay, well, she works her job.
So how many hours is that right?
Like when you frame it from$100 in the 17-year-old mind to
how many hours it takes her toearn.
That it puts it in a whole newperspective of like oh, maybe
I'm going to wait, or maybe it'snot so important, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, well, and what I really want to clarify about
the $10,000 an hour activitiesthere are some things that we
can do, like keynote speaking.
You get paid $10,000 an hourbut there's a lot of prep work
that goes into even being readyto do that keynote right.
So it's not like you just get$10,000 an hour for showing up
and walking on stage.
So the money doesn'tnecessarily show up in our
(07:29):
business, like if we're doing a$10,000 an hour activity, the
money doesn't show up that weekin our business for that.
But it does show up over timewhen we're working on building
systems and serving our topclients and looking at how can
we create more value for our topclients.
That's where the value of thattime really is $10,000 an hour.
(07:49):
And I I look back now, 17 yearsago and I want to thank myself
and say thank you so much fordoing that $10,000 an hour time,
because now you have a solidbusiness that is profitable and
that's what we're all after.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Yeah, and that all those activities compound upon
themselves so that over time itabsolutely is, you know,
creating that recurring revenueand a couple of things you
mentioned of working on thebusiness not necessarily in the
business, which is hard for allof us.
We get stuck in those, thosehamster wheels on occasion of
like okay, I need to focus ongrowth.
You know those hamster wheelson occasion of like okay, I need
(08:26):
to focus on growth.
You know, delegate your team andfocus on those bigger movement
activities than just spinningour wheels.
You know, in the day, to day,which is hard.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Well, julie, I know you're you're all about working
smarter, not harder.
So this fits right into that,and one of the things that I
learned this year is there is astudy that was done in three
years that was reported in theHarvard Business Review, and
they studied professionals andwe will spend up to 41% of our
time on tasks that offer uslittle to no personal
(08:57):
satisfaction and can becompetently handled by others
41% of our time.
So when I talk about I'm workinga 25 hour work week, a lot of
people say how on earth do youdo that?
Well, it's being really good atdelegation and being very
intentional, using this chart of$10,000 an hour activities to
(09:19):
get things off of my plate thatare not my strengths, because
when we work outside of ourstrengths, we procrastinate and
we don't do a good job and weend up spending a lot of extra
time on those tasks.
So when we're looking at whocan I delegate this to, we want
to look for people who have thatstrength, who enjoy doing it,
(09:41):
and we get it off our plate.
And then we get to look aroundand say, okay, what can I do to
serve this business from mystrengths?
That's really going to have animpact.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yeah, A hundred percent and, it's funny, my
brain is.
I'm very much a systemsautomation person, like that's
just how my brain is wired, andso I forever have always, when I
do something once, I do it withthe 50th time in mind.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Oh, that's lovely, that's so good.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
So it may take a little bit longer the first time
, but like I engineer it in away that it's repeatable, it's
documented, it's.
You know that I can just thentake it once I get it perfected,
and hand it to my team and sayokay, now you take it.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Yeah, that's $10,000 an hour time, and when it takes
you longer, it's okay, becausethat's how valuable that time is
that you're spending yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
And then it frees up your time, day after day, week
after week, and then you canfocus on the important things or
enjoy the free time.
Yes, which to that point.
I know you have an amazing book, the Four Week Vacation, which
sounds fabulous to me, but canyou tell us a bit about you know
how is that possible?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Okay.
So it's absolutely possible.
And to your point aboutcreating systems and automation
when we start systematizing inour businesses and we delegate,
we are freeing up our time, andone of the goals that we need to
have in our business is to haveno key team member dependency,
because any one of us can getsick, like we've all been
through COVID.
We know what COVID did in ourbusinesses, and so if we think
(11:14):
about if we had to be out of thebusiness for an extended period
of time, how does it runwithout us?
And we want to be able to takecare of our team members and
make sure that every operationcan run in the business, so
generating leads, convertingsales, delivering services,
collecting on payments all thatwhole business cycle.
(11:36):
And four weeks is usually, it'skind of the average for how
that whole business cycle runs.
And so that's the value ofreally setting your business up,
where you can be away and takea four week vacation.
Because if you and when you canshow that the business can run
without you for four weeks, youhave elevated the value of your
(11:58):
business dramatically.
Because if you want to sell thebusiness at some point which
it's not if it's when, when youwant to sell or transition at
some point, which it's not.
If it's when, when you want tosell or transition the business,
if it is dependent on you asthe business owner, you will
have so much less value, and theprice that you get for the
business is going to be so muchlower.
(12:19):
So it's really in your bestinterest to look at setting your
business up so that you cantake a four-week vacation.
The other part of this, though,is it's not just about the
business owner.
We want all of our team membersto be able to be away from the
business for extended periods,so we want to create redundancy
throughout the business, and itcreates huge incentive in terms
(12:44):
of when you're trying to recruitA players, when you can say to
them we run things here so youcan take fully unplugged
vacations.
We don't expect you to takeyour laptop.
As a matter of fact, we tellyou not to take your laptop or
your phone on vacation becausewe want you to fully unplug and
experience the benefit of that.
So this is you know.
It starts with the businessowner, because that's usually
(13:05):
you know.
We have everything runningthrough us, all the decisions
run through us, so this is aprocess of teaching your team
how to make decisions on theirown and how to make decisions in
alignment with a way that you,the business owner, feel good
about.
It means hiring A players andlearning how to hire the best.
(13:26):
So that's why I wrote my bookon how to hire the best, because
I realized you can't take afour-week vacation if you don't
know how to hire A players.
So, when it comes to taking afour-week vacation, a lot of
people will say I would love todo that one day.
And I want to tell you if youhave a six or seven figure
business, you can do this in 12to 18 months.
(13:47):
So if you have steady leadgeneration, then you can take a
four week vacation in 12 to 18months.
If you have a six to sevenfigure business, it means you
have figured out lead generation.
You have steady lead generationin place and what we do we offer
what's called the four weekvacation pledge.
So this is for business ownerswho hear about the four-week
(14:09):
vacation and you say, yes, Iwant to do that one day.
And what I want to get youthinking about is you can do it
much sooner than you realize.
So when you take the four-weekvacation pledge with us at Tap
the Potential, we reach out toyou and we give you an
assessment and then we look atthat assessment and we send you
resources to help you get readyfor the four-week vacation based
(14:33):
on the results of thatassessment.
So my big, hairy, audaciousgoal, julie, is to have 10,000
entrepreneurs out there in theworld who've taken a four-week
vacation, and so whenever I getthe chance to speak on a podcast
like yours and invite people totake the four-week vacation
(14:53):
pledge, I'm so thrilled becausethat, to me, when we have 10,000
entrepreneurs out there in theworld who've taken a four-week
vacation, we're disruptinghustle culture and we're saying
you know what work can supportlife?
It doesn't have to be our livessupporting work, and what we do
when we're setting ourbusinesses up to take a four
(15:14):
week vacation is we're buildinga sustainable business, a
business that can endure nomatter what happens, no matter
what crises pandemic.
You know business owner needingto just take time off because
you want to do something andtake care of a family member,
for example, or you have.
You need the time off and a lotof us as business owners.
(15:37):
We totally minimize the impacton our creativity and strategic
thinking when we're working allthe time.
So we need to take vacations sothat we're more impactful with
our $10,000 an hour time.
We come up with better ideas.
We come up with bolt from theblue ideas when we're on
(15:59):
vacation that solve problemsmaybe that we've been dealing
with for a year in the business.
So I want to share the link ifyou would, would like to take
the four week vacation pledge.
It's tapthepotentialcom.
Forward slash pledge.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
I love that and I'm writing down the link.
But, yeah, so many, so manythoughts come up as we talk
about this topic from in myyears as corporate, or my years
in corporate.
Rather, one of my biggestbeliefs and you know things that
(16:35):
I've come to discover is, themeasure of a leader is by the
ability for your team to runwithout them.
Yes, and just the competency ofthat leader is as you're
training your team to all thethings you just mentioned and
getting them independent,getting them, empowering your
team to make decisions, and itgives you that ability to be
(16:57):
able to go on vacation and notbe a firefighter all the time
and have you suck back into thecraziness.
You know you need to be able totake that step away.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Absolutely, and the only way to grow your business
into far into the seven figuresis to be that leader who
empowers the team, because whenwe have team members who can't
make decisions on their own orwho are constantly looking to us
for reassurance, we arebottlenecking the growth of the
(17:29):
business.
So, getting some A players onthe team, teaching them how to
make decisions on their own,teaching, learning, coaching
skills ourselves I think that'sone of the biggest pieces that
we can do is learning how to askthe powerful questions that get
our team members to come upwith solutions on their own and
(17:49):
really own their own creativityand expertise in solving the
problem, because usually theproblem that they're trying to
solve, they have much moreintimate knowledge of the ins
and outs of that problem than wedo as the business owner, and I
know they look at our teammembers, look at us and I think
we must know everything becausewe own this business.
But the more team we add, theless we know and we really have
(18:15):
to be able to call on our teammembers to bring their good
expertise and wisdom intosolving the problems in the
business.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Yeah, yeah, and to your point of creativity.
I'm going to massacre this, butI remember reading it was
either about Steve Jobs and orBill Gates.
I have a feeling they both didthis, but forgive me if I screw
this up, but they would takethese extended leaves from their
business and they would gocompletely off the grid and come
back with okay, this is whatwe're doing, right, Because you
(18:44):
have that time to recharge andthink clearly and not be stuck
in the day to day.
And so then you can, you know,bring that back and say I have
clarity.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Yeah, and this isn't just the business owner doing
this.
I have a team member who justtook a week long vacation, and
her experience was she had avery hard time shutting it down
and not thinking about thebusiness, but once she finally
did, she relaxed and she hadsome ideas for how to solve some
(19:14):
challenges that she's beendealing with for a while.
And so it's yes, we need totake four week vacations, but we
also need to take vacations allalong the way, and I think
that's the beauty of gettingyour business ready to take a
four week vacation is that you,the business owner, start
testing, and so you start withwhat's the longest you've been
(19:35):
able to be away fully unplugged,and if that's a week, which is
phenomenal, a lot of businessowners the research that we've
done, julie, with our BetterBusiness, better Life assessment
the average length in businessof those we've assessed is 12
years, and the most frequentlyreported number of days business
(19:56):
owners say they can be fullyunplugged is zero days.
Yeah, so when we talk aboutfully unplugging, that means not
checking email, not beingavailable on Slack or Vox or any
other messaging tool that wehave, and and really being down
and unplugged.
And so I'm getting ready totake my four week vacation in
July, and I've done this now forprobably for about five years.
(20:18):
This is maybe my fifth or sixthfour week vacation and I've
done this now for probably forabout five years.
This is maybe my fifth or sixthfour-week vacation, and the
reason it's so important is ourbusinesses grow and evolve from
year to year and so it's notlike we take a four-week
vacation and then we're done andwe never have to do it again.
We have to continually vacationtest our business.
Last year, when I took myfour-week vacation in the summer
, I had two new team members andit was their first experience
(20:46):
after I had trained them.
It was their first experiencein being on their own, with me
gone for four weeks, and theywere so excited to show me what
they could do.
I came back and we had we hadbeat our sales goals for that
month and they were so proud.
They were like, look at this,look what we did.
And I said, yes, yes, go awayagain.
And I happily did.
I scheduled another vacationand you know we just continue
(21:08):
that process in the business.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
I love that and you mentioned a couple of times.
But vacation testing it likeyou're, you're testing your
business for the weak spots ofwhat do you need to bulk up so
that you can take those extendedleaves, but what systems, what
people, what processes, whatSOPs, whatever you need to put
in place to fill those gaps?
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Yeah, and you know I, I know you love actionable
insights for your listeners, andso I want to give some really
pointed tips here around this.
So look at whatever you wouldneed to do to be away fully
unplugged.
And if you're if it's a weekthat you've done and you want to
extend that, you know, maybe gofor two weeks.
(21:48):
So what?
What are all the things youwould have to get in place for
you to be gone for two weeks?
Put systems in place anddelegate that ahead of time.
And then, when you get back,look at what fell through the
cracks and talk to the teaminvolved and ask don't fix it
yourself.
Ask for their ideas.
How could we prevent this nexttime around?
(22:10):
What ideas do you have?
What do we need to do?
And the other important tip isdon't take anything back.
So our tendency is we go onvacation and we delegate stuff,
but then we think our teammembers must've been so busy
while we were gone and theycan't wait for us to get back,
and then we take it back fromthem.
When we do that, we're actuallysending a very disempowering
(22:33):
message to our team members.
We're saying I know you handledit for two weeks, but I don't
think you could handle thislong-term and that's very
disempowering, and so we want,whenever we delegate, we don't
take it back, and so a lot oftimes business owners will say,
well, what do I do when I getback Because I delegated all
this stuff?
Well, great, now pull out yourchart of $10,000 an hour
(22:54):
activities and look at what isnot getting done in the business
that adds value to the business.
Look at what your strengths areand we'll figure it out.
There's always something thatyou can do.
And the other final pointer Iwant to give on this is whenever
we are delegating to go onvacation, we need to delegate
(23:15):
down, not up.
And this is very important whenwe're getting our team members
to delegate when they go onvacation, because it's very easy
for them to say, like my, mysales lead went on vacation this
past week.
It would have been very easy forher to say, ok, dr Sabrina, I
need you to respond to all theseleads that come in and you need
to do some consults for mewhile I'm out and I can't, I
(23:36):
don't have space anymore in mycalendar for that and I can't, I
don't have space anymore in mycalendar for that.
So she had to delegate it down,and a lot of us, especially tap
the potential clients, run onlean and mighty teams, so cause
we're all about profit andkeeping the team as small as
possible with a players.
And so, because she didn't haveanybody to delegate down to, we
(24:00):
had to get very creative withsystems and looking at who else
on the team, who is maybeparallel, same level as her or
in a different department, couldtake on these activities.
And now we have redundancy inthat area and sales redundancy
is absolutely critical in ourbusinesses.
If she wasn't taking vacationwe wouldn't have any of that
(24:22):
redundancy put in place, but nowwe do because she took vacation
.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Yeah, and that's critical.
I mean, that's something thatthat is so simple.
But it either is a matter ofyour business growing right,
because as you're delegatingdown, those team members are
getting more skilled and they'reable to take on more than we're
capable, right, so that you cancontinue to elevate the
expertise of your team.
(24:47):
Or if you're, if you'redelegating up, you're capping
yourself, right, because peopleabove you are always more maxed
out than people below.
So, absolutely, it's like twocompletely different results
based off of which way you'redelegating.
Yeah, wow, I love that.
And just you know, talking tothose A players, how, what are
(25:10):
the most critical skills andgaps that you see that that
people either are able to pullthem into their team or
absolutely not.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yeah.
So I think one of the things tobe aware of when we're talking
about A players is they are notlike typical team members.
So only about 10% of thepopulation will be A players,
and A players have a differentpsychology than a warm body team
member.
So A players are highlymotivated and it comes from
intrinsic motivation, sointernal, like we just want to
(25:41):
do a good job for the sake ofdoing a good job.
No one has to dangle a carrotin front of me and say show up
and be prepared to be on thispodcast with Julie.
I'm just like I got thisopportunity.
I'm going to show up and beprepared and do my best because
that's an intrinsic motivationfor me.
So all of our A players on ourteam are like that.
(26:02):
Business owners in general tendto be A players.
Most of us not all of us, butthe ones who want to learn and
grow are A players.
Our team members who are Aplayers are just like that.
They want to learn and grow.
They're looking foropportunities for advancement.
They want to contribute and addvalue to the team.
They want their ideas to beheard and respected.
(26:26):
So one of the gaps that youasked what are the gaps with A
players.
One of the gaps is we businessowners are not good at
articulating our vision for thebusiness, and so our A players
are full of ideas and energy andthey will come up with ideas
and want to implement things inthe business that have nothing.
(26:48):
They're not at all related tothe vision or they're not
related to the sweet spot of thebusiness or they don't drive
profitability.
And if that's left unchecked,then a players will be very
frustrated because a lot oftimes what they'll get is the
business owner doesn't doanything with my ideas.
I'm telling them all the timebut they're not doing anything.
(27:12):
And, as a matter of fact, we runa course called Leadership Boot
Camp and this is for the Aplayers in our clients'
businesses and we teach themabout the sweet spot of the
business, which is theintersection of your ideal
clients, what they value most,about what you do and the
systems that you put in place todeliver that.
And there was this team, aplayer team member, who was in
(27:35):
there and he had been gettingvery discouraged, he'd been
losing his motivation, and hecame back after I taught about
the sweet spot.
He came back the next week andhe said I had the biggest
epiphany, dr Sabrina and he saidwhen they don't listen toany,
dr Sabrina and he said when theydon't listen to my ideas, it's
not because I don't have goodideas, it's because my ideas had
nothing to do with the sweetspot of the business and they
were pulling us off track and wehave limited capacity, because
(27:57):
every small business does.
And now that I understand thesweet spot, I can see where I
can apply my strengths andsupport the sweet spot.
And I gave them some ideas thisweek and they took them and ran
with them and it was the bestfeeling ever and that's really
the value of us as businessowners, taking the time.
(28:17):
We've got to figure thesethings out ourselves in our
businesses and then we have toopen our mouths.
It has to come out of our mouthand we have to share it with
our A player team membersbecause they really do want to
support us in the business asbusiness owners.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Yeah, and that's really important too of not only
sharing the vision once, butthe vision is going to evolve,
so continually sharing.
This is the direction thatwe're going.
This is what we're all doingcollectively, together, to reach
whatever that goal is thatwe're working towards.
Yeah, I think that's critical.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
It's.
It's critical and I.
I share our vision statementonce a quarter in our all team
meeting and every time I do it Ialways feel like they must be
bored.
They've heard me say this allthe you know, just like three
months ago.
There's nothing new here andevery time I share it I get
feedback from team members thatthey feel inspired, they feel
(29:13):
excited.
I love sharing.
Hey, look what we accomplishedthis quarter that moved us
closer to the vision.
So I really connect how, whenwe achieve our goals as a team,
how it's actually moving us tothe vision.
But the other gap in relation toA players is that we business
owners again it comes back to usas the business owner are not
(29:35):
good about having one-to-oneswith our A players.
We will spend a lot more timetrying to coach up our problem
team members, our warm bodies,and we put all of our energy and
effort there.
Problem team members, our warmbodies, and we put all of our
energy and effort there and ourthinking is you know, these are
the problems, I've got to fixthem.
And a players over here they'refine, they've got this, they
(29:55):
don't need anything from me,they're going to just do their
thing, and we need to reversethat mentality.
We need to invest the most timewith our A players, because
that's where we will.
That's our $10,000 an hour timewhen we're talking to an A
player about here's the sweetspot and here's how what you do
in your role and how that servesthe sweet spot of the business,
(30:15):
and what support do you needfrom me this week to help you be
more effective?
That is $10,000 an hour timeand a lot of times I'll hear
from A players that the businessowners blow past the
appointment on the calendar forthe one-to-one and I think
that's a huge mistake because webusiness owners are over here
solving problems, putting outfires, and so we'll say I don't
(30:39):
have time to meet with this teammember this week.
But when we overlook doing that, we're just setting ourselves
up for more fires in the futurebecause our A players can help
us put out those fires.
So the one-to-ones and doingthat weekly or every other week
with our A players is highlyvaluable time on the team.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Yeah, a hundred percent.
And I I often think back towhen I was in corporate working.
I was reported directly to theVP and he asked me the one day
in our one-to-one what do youneed for me to be successful?
And I said I need flexibility.
And I could see his face dropLike I need flexibility to work
from home.
This was pre COVID and all that.
I need flexibility to use mycreativity to solve problems.
(31:21):
He's like, oh okay, I can dothat.
Go, that's what I need.
I need your trust in me to dowell.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Yeah, and you weren't making a huge ask, you weren't
asking him to go do somethingcrazy, you just wanted him to
trust you and to give you thatfreedom, and that I hope
everyone who's listening istaking that in, because that's
what a players crave is.
We want that freedom andflexibility to be able to solve
(31:53):
problems and do our bestthinking and our work
environments oftentimes don'tfacilitate that.
I'm so fortunate I work fromhome and I can have quiet.
I can just shut my door andhave quiet.
Well, yesterday I needed towork at the kitchen table
because we have a puppy and wedidn't want him in the crate the
(32:15):
whole time and I was doingemail and whatever, and so I
said I'll sit at the kitchentable.
Well, my husband, who alsoworks from home, came and sat
with me and he was just chattingaway and he said you know, you
told me you were going to bedone an hour ago.
And I said I am not donebecause you keep talking.
And but it made me so aware ofthis is what goes on in our work
(32:37):
environments for our teammembers constantly.
If we have an office settingwhere multiple team members are
together, there's constantinterruptions, and so we all
need to respect.
When does a team member needquiet time and solitude to be
able to do their best thinkingand to be the most productive?
And how are we setting that upin our work environments?
(33:00):
And a lot of A players aregoing to be more effective when
they can work from home or be inthe office part-time, but not
full-time.
And a lot of business ownerssay, well, I don't feel like I
can get the most out of themwhen they're working at home.
But if we really focus on aresults-oriented work
environment and the result thatthose A players are responsible
(33:24):
for, it's not about the amountof time that they're in the
office or or you know, evenclocking in.
It's about what is the resultthat they're delivering.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Absolutely no.
I love that and I know you'vementioned a couple of different
ways that you help people, whereyou have your books, of course,
and you have you know sessionsand all that.
But tell us a bit, how do youhelp people?
How can they find?
Speaker 2 (33:46):
you and all that, but tell us a bit, how do you help
people?
How can they find you?
Okay, so the core business thatwe have is tapthepotentialcom,
and a lot of our clients are inour Better Business, better Life
program and that is designed tohelp you take your life back
from your business and be on thetrack to taking a four-week
vacation.
The other way that I helppeople, julie, is on the Profit
(34:08):
by Design podcast, where I talkevery week about tips, tools and
strategies to design yourbusiness to be sustainably
profitable so that your worksupports your life.
And one of the things that Iwanna say I just wanna
acknowledge you as a podcaster,because podcasting is such a
valuable learning tool andyou're bringing incredible
(34:31):
guests.
For those of you who arelistening, please leave a review
for the podcast, because thathelps other people find it.
And when you're listening to apodcast, if other people come to
mind and you think, oh my gosh,I would love for my friend Joe
to hear this.
He needs to hear this.
Share the podcast, because thatorganic sharing that we do when
(34:53):
we share podcasts that we comeacross, it helps improve the
reach.
And I also want to say thatpodcasting is a $10,000 an hour.
Activity for sure, because ofthe impact that it has on our
businesses.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Absolutely no.
I appreciate that and Icouldn't agree more.
And I mean just being in thepodcast world, I get to meet and
connect with brilliant peoplesuch as yourself and it opens up
the doors for massiveopportunities, in addition to
the massive reach of theaudiences and the relationships
that you build.
And I mean I could talk fordays on just the benefits of
(35:28):
podcasting.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
So I agree with you wholeheartedly on that.
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
Awesome and I'm curious.
I mean, you've accomplishedsuch amazing things, but how do
you define success?
What does that look like foryou?
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Oh, that's such.
I have such an easy answer forthat.
When I walk out of my office atthree o'clock and I pick up my
daughter and take her to swimteam practice and I'm done for
the day, I feel successful.
When I take a four weekvacation in July, I feel
successful.
It's the freedom to be awayfrom the business and to know
(36:01):
that the business is running andthat I have built an
opportunity for my family tobenefit from the revenue in the
business and what I'm able topay myself from the business
that's that's how I definesuccess is this business is
supporting my life.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
And I just want to key on one thing you mentioned
there.
So many people I talk to speakto the freedom, right, like
that's, that's the key of whatthey do, but I don't often hear,
in fact, this.
This is the first time I thinkI've ever heard it correlate
with the freedom is being awayfrom the business.
Yes, and that's like critical.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Yes, yeah.
And so it's freedom to dowhatever I love to do in the
business.
So I love being on podcasts.
I love podcasting.
I have freedom to do that.
And it's also the freedom to beaway and to enjoy my time away
(36:59):
and fully unplug.
I love to be sitting at thepool at four o'clock watching
her swim and think I'm notchecking email.
I don't even care what's goingon in my email at four o'clock
because I'm done.
I'll take that up the next daywhen I'm in the office.
So that freedom to just bepresent fully in our lives with
ourselves and those we love is,to me, is the biggest success we
can have.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
I love that Absolutely.
And if you had the attention ofthe whole world for five
minutes, what would you tellthem?
Speaker 2 (37:26):
I would tell them that the gift of your emotional
presence with another humanbeing is the greatest gift that
you have to give People.
We are lonely and there's somuch loneliness going on,
especially after the pandemicbut it was happening even before
that.
When we put away our electronicdevices and we listen to
(37:50):
someone and we find out, wecheck in and just say how are
you doing?
And really how are you doing?
Tell me more about that.
And and really letting themlisten, or letting them know
that you're listening and beingfully present, I believe that is
what life is all about.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Absolutely.
I love that.
I love that.
And tell us again the links.
Where can people find you again?
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Okay, Tapthepotentialcom is our main
website and that's where you canlearn about our programs, where
we help business owners taketheir lives back from their
business.
The chart of $10,000 an houractivities is tapthepotentialcom
forward slash 10K.
The four-week vacation pledgetapthepotentialcom forward slash
(38:37):
pledge.
And then you will also find theProfit by Design podcast
anywhere that you listen topodcasts, but you can also go to
the website and find it theretoo.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Awesome.
Thank you, dr Sabrina.
This has been amazing, truly.
Thank you, julie, absolutely,and if you found value in this
episode, please do share it.
That's how people find us anddo leave us a review and Dr.
No-transcript.
Well, welcome back.
This is Julie Baron.
I host at Seven Figure BuilderShow and I'm here today with my
friend Dr Sabrina Starling.
Hey, sabrina.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hey Julie, I'm so excited to be here with you this
afternoon.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
I am too, because you are the brilliant business
psychologist, your internationalbestselling author of how to
Hire the Best, the Four WeekVacation and you're going to
tell us how that we can earn$10,000 per hour.
Do share.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yes, oh, I love talking about this topic.
I believe that, as six andseven figure business owners,
one of the best things we can dofor ourselves is value our time
.
And I, early on in my businessI'm talking 18, 19 years ago, as
I was getting started I set outto grow my business, only
(00:48):
working 25 hours a week becauseI had a young family and I
wanted that was the most.
I was willing to put mydaughter in daycare.
Well, as you can imaginestarting up a business, you know
there's all the things that wehave to do.
We have to learn marketing, wehave to learn sales, and I was
(01:11):
as a coach, I was learningcoaching skills all at the same
time.
And one day I just found myselffeeling completely overwhelmed.
I had a breakdown, a big uglycry in my laundry room, trying
to figure out how I was going toget it all done in this 25 hour
work week.
And I had this moment ofclarity after I cried really
hard.
I had this moment of clarityand it was a question and it was
(01:32):
really Sabrina, if you can onlyget one thing done today that's
going to move this businessforward, what is the most
valuable thing that you could do?
And I knew my answer right away.
I went and did that thing.
I, when I walked out of myoffice at the end of that day, I
still had a lot of things on myto-do list, but I felt good and
(01:52):
I felt at peace because Ithought I did something that I
know is actually growing thebusiness, it's working on the
business, it's building afoundation, it's going to help
us grow and that's the mentalitythat I've used all these years
to grow, tap the Potential andto do it working about 25 hours
a week.
And I came to think about thehigh value on the business time
(02:15):
as my $10,000 an hour time.
And, julie, I did that for acouple reasons and I think you
and probably all all everyonewho's an entrepreneur can relate
to that.
It's because when someone saysI'll meet with you at nine
o'clock on Tuesday, if that'syour time to work on your
business, it's very easy to justblow past that time block on
(02:37):
our calendar, if we even blockit.
So let's just start like noteverybody, not we don't all
block our time, but if we haveit blocked, it's really easy to
say, oh somebody needs me duringthat time and so I'm going to,
I'll do it later, and then laternever comes, and we find
ourselves always in the survivaltrap in the business.
And the only way that I foundto get out of the survival trap
(03:00):
is to be intentional withholding my $10,000 an hour time
on my calendar and I'm notperfect, but when I call it my
$10,000 an hour time, I usuallymaintain it at least 80% of the
time, and that's been enough tohelp me grow, tap the Potential
all these years.
(03:21):
And so I came across a chart of$10,000 an hour activities in
the book the 80-20 principlesfor sales and marketing, or
80-20 sales and marketing, and Ithought that's such a really
cool chart because it delineatedthe difference between a
$10,000 an hour activity, $1,000, $100, $10 an hour activity.
(03:44):
But the problem was is it wasmostly geared for marketers and
it was helpful in some ways.
I was starting my businessbecause you have to do a lot of
marketing, but I wanted to havea chart for myself that really
focused on as the owner of thebusiness, and so I created that
chart for myself as a businessowner and over the years,
(04:04):
through the research that we'vedone on entrepreneurs who are
thriving, who have a highquality of life and who are not
burning out, what they dodifferently versus those who
burn out.
We've identified that those$10,000 an hour activities that
help the business to grow, thatgive the business owner their
(04:24):
life back and allow the businessto be profitable.
So that's the chart of $10,000an hour activities and I always
say, you know, you print it out,laminate it.
I keep mine behind my computermonitor where my eye falls on it
and it's a big reminder to mewhen I find myself bogged down
in the $10 an hour activities or$100 an hour activities to be
(04:49):
looking at.
How do I delegate that or getrid of it altogether?
I mean, ai now can just takeaway these $10 an hour
activities in our lives.
So there's lots of opportunitythere and I always like to think
of it as a game.
I want to trade up the value ofmy time so that I'm spending
less time on those $100 an houractivities, more time on $1,000.
(05:11):
And then I look at the $1,000an hour activities and look at
how can I delegate these, who onmy team can I delegate this to?
Which creates opportunities foradvancement?
A players crave theseopportunities for advancement.
A players crave theseopportunities for advancement.
So one of the fun things for mein all of this is the full
circle of realizing these aren'tjust skills that I've had to
(05:34):
learn for myself and how tovalue my time at $10,000 an hour
, but I've had to teach it to myteam and I love it when my team
members come to me and say I'mdoing this $100 an hour activity
, I see a way to delegate thisand I want to spend my time over
here on this $1,000 an houractivity or even a $10,000 an
hour activity, and that's whereI just say yes, yes, yes, yes,
(05:57):
because that's where we canreally grow in our businesses.
So I want to share the link forthe chart of $10,000 an hour
activities for anyone who wantsto go download it.
It's tapthepotentialcom forwardslash 10K.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Perfect.
I will include that in the shownotes and I absolutely love
that.
And it's so critical that weshift our mindset, like when we
put it in those terms yes, lookat things very, very differently
and I think um, I think of mydaughter as she's working.
You know, we've had similarlife lessons at home.
(06:37):
Everything here is a lifelesson at home.
It's like you want to go buy X,y, z.
Okay, well, she works her job.
So how many hours is that right?
Like when you frame it from$100 in the 17-year-old mind to
how many hours it takes her toearn.
That it puts it in a whole newperspective of like oh, maybe
I'm going to wait, or maybe it'snot so important, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, well, and what I really want to clarify about
the $10,000 an hour activitiesthere are some things that we
can do, like keynote speaking.
You get paid $10,000 an hourbut there's a lot of prep work
that goes into even being readyto do that keynote right.
So it's not like you just get$10,000 an hour for showing up
and walking on stage.
So the money doesn'tnecessarily show up in our
(07:29):
business, like if we're doing a$10,000 an hour activity, the
money doesn't show up that weekin our business for that.
But it does show up over timewhen we're working on building
systems and serving our topclients and looking at how can
we create more value for our topclients.
That's where the value of thattime really is $10,000 an hour.
(07:49):
And I I look back now, 17 yearsago and I want to thank myself
and say thank you so much fordoing that $10,000 an hour time,
because now you have a solidbusiness that is profitable and
that's what we're all after.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Yeah, and that all those activities compound upon
themselves so that over time itabsolutely is, you know,
creating that recurring revenueand a couple of things you
mentioned of working on thebusiness not necessarily in the
business, which is hard for allof us.
We get stuck in those, thosehamster wheels on occasion of
like okay, I need to focus ongrowth.
You know those hamster wheelson occasion of like okay, I need
(08:26):
to focus on growth.
You know, delegate your team andfocus on those bigger movement
activities than just spinningour wheels.
You know, in the day, to day,which is hard.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Well, julie, I know you're you're all about working
smarter, not harder.
So this fits right into that,and one of the things that I
learned this year is there is astudy that was done in three
years that was reported in theHarvard Business Review, and
they studied professionals andwe will spend up to 41% of our
time on tasks that offer uslittle to no personal
(08:57):
satisfaction and can becompetently handled by others
41% of our time.
So when I talk about I'm workinga 25 hour work week, a lot of
people say how on earth do youdo that?
Well, it's being really good atdelegation and being very
intentional, using this chart of$10,000 an hour activities to
(09:19):
get things off of my plate thatare not my strengths, because
when we work outside of ourstrengths, we procrastinate and
we don't do a good job and weend up spending a lot of extra
time on those tasks.
So when we're looking at whocan I delegate this to, we want
to look for people who have thatstrength, who enjoy doing it,
(09:41):
and we get it off our plate.
And then we get to look aroundand say, okay, what can I do to
serve this business from mystrengths?
That's really going to have animpact.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yeah, A hundred percent and, it's funny, my
brain is.
I'm very much a systemsautomation person, like that's
just how my brain is wired, andso I forever have always, when I
do something once, I do it withthe 50th time in mind.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Oh, that's lovely, that's so good.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
So it may take a little bit longer the first time
, but like I engineer it in away that it's repeatable, it's
documented, it's.
You know that I can just thentake it once I get it perfected,
and hand it to my team and sayokay, now you take it.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Yeah, that's $10,000 an hour time, and when it takes
you longer, it's okay, becausethat's how valuable that time is
that you're spending yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
And then it frees up your time, day after day, week
after week, and then you canfocus on the important things or
enjoy the free time.
Yes, which to that point.
I know you have an amazing book, the Four Week Vacation, which
sounds fabulous to me, but canyou tell us a bit about you know
how is that possible?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Okay.
So it's absolutely possible.
And to your point aboutcreating systems and automation
when we start systematizing inour businesses and we delegate,
we are freeing up our time, andone of the goals that we need to
have in our business is to haveno key team member dependency,
because any one of us can getsick, like we've all been
through COVID.
We know what COVID did in ourbusinesses, and so if we think
(11:14):
about if we had to be out of thebusiness for an extended period
of time, how does it runwithout us?
And we want to be able to takecare of our team members and
make sure that every operationcan run in the business, so
generating leads, convertingsales, delivering services,
collecting on payments all thatwhole business cycle.
(11:36):
And four weeks is usually, it'skind of the average for how
that whole business cycle runs.
And so that's the value ofreally setting your business up,
where you can be away and takea four week vacation.
Because if you and when you canshow that the business can run
without you for four weeks, youhave elevated the value of your
(11:58):
business dramatically.
Because if you want to sell thebusiness at some point which
it's not if it's when, when youwant to sell or transition at
some point, which it's not.
If it's when, when you want tosell or transition the business,
if it is dependent on you asthe business owner, you will
have so much less value, and theprice that you get for the
business is going to be so muchlower.
(12:19):
So it's really in your bestinterest to look at setting your
business up so that you cantake a four-week vacation.
The other part of this, though,is it's not just about the
business owner.
We want all of our team membersto be able to be away from the
business for extended periods,so we want to create redundancy
throughout the business, and itcreates huge incentive in terms
(12:44):
of when you're trying to recruitA players, when you can say to
them we run things here so youcan take fully unplugged
vacations.
We don't expect you to takeyour laptop.
As a matter of fact, we tellyou not to take your laptop or
your phone on vacation becausewe want you to fully unplug and
experience the benefit of that.
So this is you know.
It starts with the businessowner, because that's usually
(13:05):
you know.
We have everything runningthrough us, all the decisions
run through us, so this is aprocess of teaching your team
how to make decisions on theirown and how to make decisions in
alignment with a way that you,the business owner, feel good
about.
It means hiring A players andlearning how to hire the best.
(13:26):
So that's why I wrote my bookon how to hire the best, because
I realized you can't take afour-week vacation if you don't
know how to hire A players.
So, when it comes to taking afour-week vacation, a lot of
people will say I would love todo that one day.
And I want to tell you if youhave a six or seven figure
business, you can do this in 12to 18 months.
(13:47):
So if you have steady leadgeneration, then you can take a
four week vacation in 12 to 18months.
If you have a six to sevenfigure business, it means you
have figured out lead generation.
You have steady lead generationin place and what we do we offer
what's called the four weekvacation pledge.
So this is for business ownerswho hear about the four-week
(14:09):
vacation and you say, yes, Iwant to do that one day.
And what I want to get youthinking about is you can do it
much sooner than you realize.
So when you take the four-weekvacation pledge with us at Tap
the Potential, we reach out toyou and we give you an
assessment and then we look atthat assessment and we send you
resources to help you get readyfor the four-week vacation based
(14:33):
on the results of thatassessment.
So my big, hairy, audaciousgoal, julie, is to have 10,000
entrepreneurs out there in theworld who've taken a four-week
vacation, and so whenever I getthe chance to speak on a podcast
like yours and invite people totake the four-week vacation
(14:53):
pledge, I'm so thrilled becausethat, to me, when we have 10,000
entrepreneurs out there in theworld who've taken a four-week
vacation, we're disruptinghustle culture and we're saying
you know what work can supportlife?
It doesn't have to be our livessupporting work, and what we do
when we're setting ourbusinesses up to take a four
(15:14):
week vacation is we're buildinga sustainable business, a
business that can endure nomatter what happens, no matter
what crises pandemic.
You know business owner needingto just take time off because
you want to do something andtake care of a family member,
for example, or you have.
You need the time off and a lotof us as business owners.
(15:37):
We totally minimize the impacton our creativity and strategic
thinking when we're working allthe time.
So we need to take vacations sothat we're more impactful with
our $10,000 an hour time.
We come up with better ideas.
We come up with bolt from theblue ideas when we're on
(15:59):
vacation that solve problemsmaybe that we've been dealing
with for a year in the business.
So I want to share the link ifyou would, would like to take
the four week vacation pledge.
It's tapthepotentialcom.
Forward slash pledge.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
I love that and I'm writing down the link.
But, yeah, so many, so manythoughts come up as we talk
about this topic from in myyears as corporate, or my years
in corporate.
Rather, one of my biggestbeliefs and you know things that
(16:35):
I've come to discover is, themeasure of a leader is by the
ability for your team to runwithout them.
Yes, and just the competency ofthat leader is as you're
training your team to all thethings you just mentioned and
getting them independent,getting them, empowering your
team to make decisions, and itgives you that ability to be
(16:57):
able to go on vacation and notbe a firefighter all the time
and have you suck back into thecraziness.
You know you need to be able totake that step away.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Absolutely, and the only way to grow your business
into far into the seven figuresis to be that leader who
empowers the team, because whenwe have team members who can't
make decisions on their own orwho are constantly looking to us
for reassurance, we arebottlenecking the growth of the
(17:29):
business.
So, getting some A players onthe team, teaching them how to
make decisions on their own,teaching, learning, coaching
skills ourselves I think that'sone of the biggest pieces that
we can do is learning how to askthe powerful questions that get
our team members to come upwith solutions on their own and
(17:49):
really own their own creativityand expertise in solving the
problem, because usually theproblem that they're trying to
solve, they have much moreintimate knowledge of the ins
and outs of that problem than wedo as the business owner, and I
know they look at our teammembers, look at us and I think
we must know everything becausewe own this business.
But the more team we add, theless we know and we really have
(18:15):
to be able to call on our teammembers to bring their good
expertise and wisdom intosolving the problems in the
business.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Yeah, yeah, and to your point of creativity.
I'm going to massacre this, butI remember reading it was
either about Steve Jobs and orBill Gates.
I have a feeling they both didthis, but forgive me if I screw
this up, but they would takethese extended leaves from their
business and they would gocompletely off the grid and come
back with okay, this is whatwe're doing, right, Because you
(18:44):
have that time to recharge andthink clearly and not be stuck
in the day to day.
And so then you can, you know,bring that back and say I have
clarity.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Yeah, and this isn't just the business owner doing
this.
I have a team member who justtook a week long vacation, and
her experience was she had avery hard time shutting it down
and not thinking about thebusiness, but once she finally
did, she relaxed and she hadsome ideas for how to solve some
(19:14):
challenges that she's beendealing with for a while.
And so it's yes, we need totake four week vacations, but we
also need to take vacations allalong the way, and I think
that's the beauty of gettingyour business ready to take a
four week vacation is that you,the business owner, start
testing, and so you start withwhat's the longest you've been
(19:35):
able to be away fully unplugged,and if that's a week, which is
phenomenal, a lot of businessowners the research that we've
done, julie, with our BetterBusiness, better Life assessment
the average length in businessof those we've assessed is 12
years, and the most frequentlyreported number of days business
(19:56):
owners say they can be fullyunplugged is zero days.
Yeah, so when we talk aboutfully unplugging, that means not
checking email, not beingavailable on Slack or Vox or any
other messaging tool that wehave, and and really being down
and unplugged.
And so I'm getting ready totake my four week vacation in
July, and I've done this now forprobably for about five years.
(20:18):
This is maybe my fifth or sixthfour week vacation and I've
done this now for probably forabout five years.
This is maybe my fifth or sixthfour-week vacation, and the
reason it's so important is ourbusinesses grow and evolve from
year to year and so it's notlike we take a four-week
vacation and then we're done andwe never have to do it again.
We have to continually vacationtest our business.
Last year, when I took myfour-week vacation in the summer
, I had two new team members andit was their first experience
(20:46):
after I had trained them.
It was their first experiencein being on their own, with me
gone for four weeks, and theywere so excited to show me what
they could do.
I came back and we had we hadbeat our sales goals for that
month and they were so proud.
They were like, look at this,look what we did.
And I said, yes, yes, go awayagain.
And I happily did.
I scheduled another vacationand you know we just continue
(21:08):
that process in the business.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
I love that and you mentioned a couple of times.
But vacation testing it likeyou're, you're testing your
business for the weak spots ofwhat do you need to bulk up so
that you can take those extendedleaves, but what systems, what
people, what processes, whatSOPs, whatever you need to put
in place to fill those gaps?
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Yeah, and you know I, I know you love actionable
insights for your listeners, andso I want to give some really
pointed tips here around this.
So look at whatever you wouldneed to do to be away fully
unplugged.
And if you're if it's a weekthat you've done and you want to
extend that, you know, maybe gofor two weeks.
(21:48):
So what?
What are all the things youwould have to get in place for
you to be gone for two weeks?
Put systems in place anddelegate that ahead of time.
And then, when you get back,look at what fell through the
cracks and talk to the teaminvolved and ask don't fix it
yourself.
Ask for their ideas.
How could we prevent this nexttime around?
(22:10):
What ideas do you have?
What do we need to do?
And the other important tip isdon't take anything back.
So our tendency is we go onvacation and we delegate stuff,
but then we think our teammembers must've been so busy
while we were gone and theycan't wait for us to get back,
and then we take it back fromthem.
When we do that, we're actuallysending a very disempowering
(22:33):
message to our team members.
We're saying I know you handledit for two weeks, but I don't
think you could handle thislong-term and that's very
disempowering, and so we want,whenever we delegate, we don't
take it back, and so a lot oftimes business owners will say,
well, what do I do when I getback Because I delegated all
this stuff?
Well, great, now pull out yourchart of $10,000 an hour
(22:54):
activities and look at what isnot getting done in the business
that adds value to the business.
Look at what your strengths areand we'll figure it out.
There's always something thatyou can do.
And the other final pointer Iwant to give on this is whenever
we are delegating to go onvacation, we need to delegate
(23:15):
down, not up.
And this is very important whenwe're getting our team members
to delegate when they go onvacation, because it's very easy
for them to say, like my, mysales lead went on vacation this
past week.
It would have been very easy forher to say, ok, dr Sabrina, I
need you to respond to all theseleads that come in and you need
to do some consults for mewhile I'm out and I can't, I
(23:36):
don't have space anymore in mycalendar for that and I can't, I
don't have space anymore in mycalendar for that.
So she had to delegate it down,and a lot of us, especially tap
the potential clients, run onlean and mighty teams, so cause
we're all about profit andkeeping the team as small as
possible with a players.
And so, because she didn't haveanybody to delegate down to, we
(24:00):
had to get very creative withsystems and looking at who else
on the team, who is maybeparallel, same level as her or
in a different department, couldtake on these activities.
And now we have redundancy inthat area and sales redundancy
is absolutely critical in ourbusinesses.
If she wasn't taking vacationwe wouldn't have any of that
(24:22):
redundancy put in place, but nowwe do because she took vacation
.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Yeah, and that's critical.
I mean, that's something thatthat is so simple.
But it either is a matter ofyour business growing right,
because as you're delegatingdown, those team members are
getting more skilled and they'reable to take on more than we're
capable, right, so that you cancontinue to elevate the
expertise of your team.
(24:47):
Or if you're, if you'redelegating up, you're capping
yourself, right, because peopleabove you are always more maxed
out than people below.
So, absolutely, it's like twocompletely different results
based off of which way you'redelegating.
Yeah, wow, I love that.
And just you know, talking tothose A players, how, what are
(25:10):
the most critical skills andgaps that you see that that
people either are able to pullthem into their team or
absolutely not.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yeah.
So I think one of the things tobe aware of when we're talking
about A players is they are notlike typical team members.
So only about 10% of thepopulation will be A players,
and A players have a differentpsychology than a warm body team
member.
So A players are highlymotivated and it comes from
intrinsic motivation, sointernal, like we just want to
(25:41):
do a good job for the sake ofdoing a good job.
No one has to dangle a carrotin front of me and say show up
and be prepared to be on thispodcast with Julie.
I'm just like I got thisopportunity.
I'm going to show up and beprepared and do my best because
that's an intrinsic motivationfor me.
So all of our A players on ourteam are like that.
(26:02):
Business owners in general tendto be A players.
Most of us not all of us, butthe ones who want to learn and
grow are A players.
Our team members who are Aplayers are just like that.
They want to learn and grow.
They're looking foropportunities for advancement.
They want to contribute and addvalue to the team.
They want their ideas to beheard and respected.
(26:26):
So one of the gaps that youasked what are the gaps with A
players.
One of the gaps is we businessowners are not good at
articulating our vision for thebusiness, and so our A players
are full of ideas and energy andthey will come up with ideas
and want to implement things inthe business that have nothing.
(26:48):
They're not at all related tothe vision or they're not
related to the sweet spot of thebusiness or they don't drive
profitability.
And if that's left unchecked,then a players will be very
frustrated because a lot oftimes what they'll get is the
business owner doesn't doanything with my ideas.
I'm telling them all the timebut they're not doing anything.
(27:12):
And, as a matter of fact, we runa course called Leadership Boot
Camp and this is for the Aplayers in our clients'
businesses and we teach themabout the sweet spot of the
business, which is theintersection of your ideal
clients, what they value most,about what you do and the
systems that you put in place todeliver that.
And there was this team, aplayer team member, who was in
(27:35):
there and he had been gettingvery discouraged, he'd been
losing his motivation, and hecame back after I taught about
the sweet spot.
He came back the next week andhe said I had the biggest
epiphany, dr Sabrina and he saidwhen they don't listen toany,
dr Sabrina and he said when theydon't listen to my ideas, it's
not because I don't have goodideas, it's because my ideas had
nothing to do with the sweetspot of the business and they
were pulling us off track and wehave limited capacity, because
(27:57):
every small business does.
And now that I understand thesweet spot, I can see where I
can apply my strengths andsupport the sweet spot.
And I gave them some ideas thisweek and they took them and ran
with them and it was the bestfeeling ever and that's really
the value of us as businessowners, taking the time.
(28:17):
We've got to figure thesethings out ourselves in our
businesses and then we have toopen our mouths.
It has to come out of our mouthand we have to share it with
our A player team membersbecause they really do want to
support us in the business asbusiness owners.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Yeah, and that's really important too of not only
sharing the vision once, butthe vision is going to evolve,
so continually sharing.
This is the direction thatwe're going.
This is what we're all doingcollectively, together, to reach
whatever that goal is thatwe're working towards.
Yeah, I think that's critical.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
It's.
It's critical and I.
I share our vision statementonce a quarter in our all team
meeting and every time I do it Ialways feel like they must be
bored.
They've heard me say this allthe you know, just like three
months ago.
There's nothing new here andevery time I share it I get
feedback from team members thatthey feel inspired, they feel
(29:13):
excited.
I love sharing.
Hey, look what we accomplishedthis quarter that moved us
closer to the vision.
So I really connect how, whenwe achieve our goals as a team,
how it's actually moving us tothe vision.
But the other gap in relation toA players is that we business
owners again it comes back to usas the business owner are not
(29:35):
good about having one-to-oneswith our A players.
We will spend a lot more timetrying to coach up our problem
team members, our warm bodies,and we put all of our energy and
effort there.
Problem team members, our warmbodies, and we put all of our
energy and effort there and ourthinking is you know, these are
the problems, I've got to fixthem.
And a players over here they'refine, they've got this, they
(29:55):
don't need anything from me,they're going to just do their
thing, and we need to reversethat mentality.
We need to invest the most timewith our A players, because
that's where we will.
That's our $10,000 an hour timewhen we're talking to an A
player about here's the sweetspot and here's how what you do
in your role and how that servesthe sweet spot of the business,
(30:15):
and what support do you needfrom me this week to help you be
more effective?
That is $10,000 an hour timeand a lot of times I'll hear
from A players that the businessowners blow past the
appointment on the calendar forthe one-to-one and I think
that's a huge mistake because webusiness owners are over here
solving problems, putting outfires, and so we'll say I don't
(30:39):
have time to meet with this teammember this week.
But when we overlook doing that, we're just setting ourselves
up for more fires in the futurebecause our A players can help
us put out those fires.
So the one-to-ones and doingthat weekly or every other week
with our A players is highlyvaluable time on the team.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Yeah, a hundred percent.
And I I often think back towhen I was in corporate working.
I was reported directly to theVP and he asked me the one day
in our one-to-one what do youneed for me to be successful?
And I said I need flexibility.
And I could see his face dropLike I need flexibility to work
from home.
This was pre COVID and all that.
I need flexibility to use mycreativity to solve problems.
(31:21):
He's like, oh okay, I can dothat.
Go, that's what I need.
I need your trust in me to dowell.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Yeah, and you weren't making a huge ask, you weren't
asking him to go do somethingcrazy, you just wanted him to
trust you and to give you thatfreedom, and that I hope
everyone who's listening istaking that in, because that's
what a players crave is.
We want that freedom andflexibility to be able to solve
(31:53):
problems and do our bestthinking and our work
environments oftentimes don'tfacilitate that.
I'm so fortunate I work fromhome and I can have quiet.
I can just shut my door andhave quiet.
Well, yesterday I needed towork at the kitchen table
because we have a puppy and wedidn't want him in the crate the
(32:15):
whole time and I was doingemail and whatever, and so I
said I'll sit at the kitchentable.
Well, my husband, who alsoworks from home, came and sat
with me and he was just chattingaway and he said you know, you
told me you were going to bedone an hour ago.
And I said I am not donebecause you keep talking.
And but it made me so aware ofthis is what goes on in our work
(32:37):
environments for our teammembers constantly.
If we have an office settingwhere multiple team members are
together, there's constantinterruptions, and so we all
need to respect.
When does a team member needquiet time and solitude to be
able to do their best thinkingand to be the most productive?
And how are we setting that upin our work environments?
(33:00):
And a lot of A players aregoing to be more effective when
they can work from home or be inthe office part-time, but not
full-time.
And a lot of business ownerssay, well, I don't feel like I
can get the most out of themwhen they're working at home.
But if we really focus on aresults-oriented work
environment and the result thatthose A players are responsible
(33:24):
for, it's not about the amountof time that they're in the
office or or you know, evenclocking in.
It's about what is the resultthat they're delivering.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Absolutely no.
I love that and I know you'vementioned a couple of different
ways that you help people, whereyou have your books, of course,
and you have you know sessionsand all that.
But tell us a bit, how do youhelp people?
How can they find?
Speaker 2 (33:46):
you and all that, but tell us a bit, how do you help
people?
How can they find you?
Okay, so the core business thatwe have is tapthepotentialcom,
and a lot of our clients are inour Better Business, better Life
program and that is designed tohelp you take your life back
from your business and be on thetrack to taking a four-week
vacation.
The other way that I helppeople, julie, is on the Profit
(34:08):
by Design podcast, where I talkevery week about tips, tools and
strategies to design yourbusiness to be sustainably
profitable so that your worksupports your life.
And one of the things that Iwanna say I just wanna
acknowledge you as a podcaster,because podcasting is such a
valuable learning tool andyou're bringing incredible
(34:31):
guests.
For those of you who arelistening, please leave a review
for the podcast, because thathelps other people find it.
And when you're listening to apodcast, if other people come to
mind and you think, oh my gosh,I would love for my friend Joe
to hear this.
He needs to hear this.
Share the podcast, because thatorganic sharing that we do when
(34:53):
we share podcasts that we comeacross, it helps improve the
reach.
And I also want to say thatpodcasting is a $10,000 an hour.
Activity for sure, because ofthe impact that it has on our
businesses.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Absolutely no.
I appreciate that and Icouldn't agree more.
And I mean just being in thepodcast world, I get to meet and
connect with brilliant peoplesuch as yourself and it opens up
the doors for massiveopportunities, in addition to
the massive reach of theaudiences and the relationships
that you build.
And I mean I could talk fordays on just the benefits of
(35:28):
podcasting.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
So I agree with you wholeheartedly on that.
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
Awesome and I'm curious.
I mean, you've accomplishedsuch amazing things, but how do
you define success?
What does that look like foryou?
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Oh, that's such.
I have such an easy answer forthat.
When I walk out of my office atthree o'clock and I pick up my
daughter and take her to swimteam practice and I'm done for
the day, I feel successful.
When I take a four weekvacation in July, I feel
successful.
It's the freedom to be awayfrom the business and to know
(36:01):
that the business is running andthat I have built an
opportunity for my family tobenefit from the revenue in the
business and what I'm able topay myself from the business
that's that's how I definesuccess is this business is
supporting my life.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
And I just want to key on one thing you mentioned
there.
So many people I talk to speakto the freedom, right, like
that's, that's the key of whatthey do, but I don't often hear,
in fact, this.
This is the first time I thinkI've ever heard it correlate
with the freedom is being awayfrom the business.
Yes, and that's like critical.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Yes, yeah.
And so it's freedom to dowhatever I love to do in the
business.
So I love being on podcasts.
I love podcasting.
I have freedom to do that.
And it's also the freedom to beaway and to enjoy my time away
(36:59):
and fully unplug.
I love to be sitting at thepool at four o'clock watching
her swim and think I'm notchecking email.
I don't even care what's goingon in my email at four o'clock
because I'm done.
I'll take that up the next daywhen I'm in the office.
So that freedom to just bepresent fully in our lives with
ourselves and those we love is,to me, is the biggest success we
can have.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
I love that Absolutely.
And if you had the attention ofthe whole world for five
minutes, what would you tellthem?
Speaker 2 (37:26):
I would tell them that the gift of your emotional
presence with another humanbeing is the greatest gift that
you have to give People.
We are lonely and there's somuch loneliness going on,
especially after the pandemicbut it was happening even before
that.
When we put away our electronicdevices and we listen to
(37:50):
someone and we find out, wecheck in and just say how are
you doing?
And really how are you doing?
Tell me more about that.
And and really letting themlisten, or letting them know
that you're listening and beingfully present, I believe that is
what life is all about.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Absolutely.
I love that.
I love that.
And tell us again the links.
Where can people find you again?
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Okay, Tapthepotentialcom is our main
website and that's where you canlearn about our programs, where
we help business owners taketheir lives back from their
business.
The chart of $10,000 an houractivities is tapthepotentialcom
forward slash 10K.
The four-week vacation pledgetapthepotentialcom forward slash
(38:37):
pledge.
And then you will also find theProfit by Design podcast
anywhere that you listen topodcasts, but you can also go to
the website and find it theretoo.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Awesome.
Thank you, dr Sabrina.
This has been amazing, truly.
Thank you, julie, absolutely,and if you found value in this
episode, please do share it.
That's how people find us anddo leave us a review and Dr.
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