August 13, 2025 • 42 mins
What if the very business you built to create freedom is the one keeping you stuck?
In this must-listen episode of Small Business Pivots, Andy Seeley—Founder & CEO of Creatively Disruptive—uncovers why so many small business owners end up trapped in demanding roles instead of running true businesses. With over a decade of experience helping 120+ small businesses scale through smart marketing and strategic leadership, Andy explains the critical mindset shift from technician to entrepreneur.
Most small business owners aren’t actually entrepreneurs—they’re skilled professionals who monetized their talent but never made the leap to ownership thinking. Andy challenges listeners to stop doing everything and start building systems, teams, and processes that allow them to grow, scale, and step away.
From empowering analogies like “be the captain, not the crew,” to real talk about why underpricing causes staffing headaches, Andy drops gold-level advice on what it really takes to grow a business that doesn’t rely on you.
💡 Key insights include:
- The 80% Rule: Why perfection is the enemy of delegation
- Why character trumps skill in every hiring decision
- How underpricing kills your ability to find (and keep) great people
- The importance of defining your “exit strategy”—even if you never plan to sell
If you’ve ever felt stuck in your business instead of confidently leading it, this episode will help you reframe your role and reclaim your freedom.
Andy Seeley: Founder & CEO of Creatively Disruptive
Website: https://creativelydisruptive.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyseeley/
Blog: https://creativelydisruptive.com/lovesmarketing/
#SmallBusinessPivots #AndySeeley #CreativelyDisruptive #BusinessCoaching #BusinessGrowth #EntrepreneurMindset #FromTechnicianToEntrepreneur #BuildToScale #TeamBuilding #ExitStrategy #WorkOnYourBusiness #BusinessSystems #ScalingStrategies #BusinessLeadership #HiringTips #BossBusiness #BusinessOwnershipSimplified #BOSS #MichaelDMorrison #GrowWithBOSS #SmallBusinessTips #MindsetShift #StopUnderpricing #ReclaimYourFreedom #SmartHiring #OklahomaCity
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, welcome to another Small Business, pivots,
where we bring guests fromaround the world, and today we
have another special guest.
But I know only the businessowner can say their name and
their business.
Like the business owner, soI'll let you have the floor to
introduce yourself and yourbusiness and just tell us a
little bit about what you do.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Sure, my name is Andy Seeley.
I am the CEO and founder ofCreatively Disruptive, which is
a small, business-focusedmarketing firm.
We have about 110, 120 clientsright now.
All small businesses, all arema's and pa's and they range
(00:38):
between service industry-typebusinesses to kids' activity
businesses type businesses tokids activity businesses a lot
of kids activity businesses,mainly because my wife is a
gymnastics coach and we owned agym for a little while.
So we we got a little bit ofthat business going on.
And, uh, e-commerce so we'vegot a little bit of an
e-commerce brand as well.
That's a bit smaller.
(00:58):
About 10 10 of the 120 or so ofour clients are e-commerce.
That's doing very well but, yes, basically every single one of
them, even the e-commerce brands, are small businesses, families
with hopes and dreams andwishful thinking and trying to
(01:19):
get the American dream and makethings happen.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Fantastic.
Well, before we introduce theshow, how do you think we're
going to help our listenerstoday?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Well, I think, yeah, I've been in this business for
25 years, credibly Disruptivehas been in business for 10
years, which is a lifetime, ifI'm honest, in the marketing
industry, especially digitalmarketing industry.
We're a very old company inthis industry, but there's a
couple of common factors that wesee all the time between the
(01:50):
successful and the notsuccessful, and that is what I'd
like to talk to us to get themagic source of what I see out
of the hundreds of businessesI've worked with.
The commonalities between theand some of the stuff that we'll
talk about might beuncomfortable for people to
listen to, but I will 100%guarantee that it is a
(02:14):
difference maker.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Absolutely there are.
The challenges are common inmost small businesses.
So we're going to share thatright after we introduce the
(02:39):
show Simplified for success.
Our business is helping yoursgrow.
Boss offers business loans withbusiness coaching support.
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
(03:01):
as 24 to 48 hours atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom.
All right, welcome back toSmall Business Pivots, Andy.
Where would you like to start?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Well, I think one of the things I want to go through
kind of what a lot of businessowners have spoken to me about
as their problems and a lot ofthe times when we brought it be
brought in as a company, becausethe reality is, whilst I'd call
(03:27):
ourselves a digital marketingcompany, we've really become a
revenue growth company.
So a lot of companies come tous when their revenue is on the
downslide or stuck and notgrowing and they're like we
don't know what's going on here,we can't grow, we need to hire
somebody to help us get morecustomers and oftentimes us get
(03:48):
more customers.
Right, and oftentimes theanswer is not just you need to
have better google ads.
Um, oftentimes, in fact, allthe times, they're not just
better google ads or betterfacebook ads or better website
or better whatever is, and a lotof times I think small business
owners that have a small amountof uh resources don't have an
endless amount of money to justthrow stuff at things and see
what happens end up spinningtheir wheels and doing a lot of
(04:09):
things that actually don't movethe, I guess, the needle in the
direction that they want.
They get very frustrated.
So a lot of times, what I hearfrom clients when they're new is
.
I was working with theseagencies.
I was working with theseagencies.
I was working with these people.
I'm so frustrated.
I've been burnt by all thesepeople.
I've been burned and burned andburned, and oftentimes it's,
(04:33):
it's very much similar stuff.
Hey, you've, you've you've goneto a vet to to see why your
plants are dying Right?
Or you've, you're, you're,you're, you're, you're?
You know you're taking yourmotorcycle into the car
dealership to be worked on by aguy that specializes in fixing
(04:56):
trucks.
Or you know you're going to thewrong place and the wrong
people to try to get a fix andthey're going to do what they're
really good at and you're goingto pay for their service and
you're going to walk away going.
Well, I guess this part of mybusiness is working a little bit
better, but I have still gotthe same problem.
I see that all the time.
Um, and we've actually uh, notbecause I promise not to get too
(05:18):
deeply into the ai thing, butwith ai, we're seeing loads of
people talk about that as thefix as well, and oftentimes it's
just another.
It's just another thing thatyou can spend a lot of money on,
which there is value in it, butif you don't correct some of
the stuff beforehand, which iskind of almost like time and
(05:42):
memoriam kind of issues, rightit.
It's not a technology problem,it's a human mindset problem.
And you know, to cut to thechase a little bit, what I see
typically with business ownersis very few business owners are
true entrepreneurs.
A true entrepreneur, in my mind, is somebody that wants to
(06:03):
start a business.
They don't care what thebusiness is, they want to run a
really good, they want to builda business.
They want to.
You know, they want to have areally good operating systems
and they want to build it outand and and build a business and
sell a product or a service andand and maybe at some point it
gets to a certain size and theysell it and they move on.
They start another business andthey don't really care what the
(06:23):
product or service is, but theylove building businesses.
They love the hiring and thebuilding of teams and the
putting of everything together.
That's about 0.5% of the peoplethat start businesses.
99.5% of people who startbusinesses are people who are
really good at something andthey go oh, I'll start a
(06:44):
business doing this.
So it might be a guy whopainted some neighbor's houses
and did a really, really goodjob.
And he's like you know what?
I could paint houses for aliving.
I'm going to go and I'm goingto start a business Andy's Paint
Shop.
I'm going to go.
I'll start my business byprinting out some business cards
and I get some flies.
(07:04):
I go out and suddenly I'mpainting five houses a month or
six houses a month.
I don't know how long it takesto paint a house, but whatever
it is, and I'm making $10,000,$15,000 a month.
I'm rich, I'm a business ownerand I'm painting houses all day.
And then it suddenly turns intoman.
I'm working six days a week,seven days a week, painting
(07:30):
houses.
I'm making okay money, but Ican't make any more money.
But if I stop make paintingthese houses, I'm not making any
money.
I can't go on vacation.
I can't enjoy family events.
I'm working all the time, I'mearning good money, but I don't
have a life.
I've now become a slave to mybusiness and my business owns me
.
My business owns my time andmany business owners kind of
(07:51):
that's their entry point into abusiness.
Not let's create a businessthat serves me, but oh, I'm good
at this thing, I can make moneydoing this.
It becomes a business.
But if you're not thinkingabout it sensibly, it becomes a
business.
But if you're not thinkingabout it sensibly, if you're not
thinking about it with a planof how you want your life to be,
your business will enslave you,and it's more.
(08:15):
Most people have heard of youown a job.
Right, I actually think it'sworse than that.
The business ultimatelyenslaves you because you can't
leave it.
You can't quit.
You can't quit, you can't stop.
You end up having commitments.
You buy a nicer house becauseyou're earning $20,000 a month
painting houses like crazy,seven days a week.
(08:37):
You've got to pay the mortgage,you've got to do stuff and I've
seen people literally cascadeinto mental health issues, all
sorts of problems, maritalmental health issues, all sorts
of problems uh what?
Marriage, marital breakups, allsorts of stuff because their
life is suddenly is taken awayfrom them and all they do is
whatever their, what, whatevertheir.
Their profession is housepainting, what could be,
(08:57):
whatever it could be baker couldbe, you know builder, you know
plumber, you know anythingthat's.
You know a business that youthink oh, I'm pretty good at
this, I know some things aboutthis, I'm going to try it.
So that is the problem, that isthe difficulty.
The people who are successfulmost of them that I've ever
(09:22):
spoken to started that way, butwhat they were really successful
at is transitioning out of that, which is, you know I know,
michael, you probably tell usall the time is your specialty
to try to help people transitionout of that, but that
transitioning out of that is thekey to happiness, key to
success and the key to turningthat.
(09:42):
That slave master, which isyour job Sorry, not your job.
That slave master, which isyour job Sorry, not your job.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Well, I guess it is your job.
It is a job.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Your business into a business that serves you, so you
can go on a vacation.
You can leave for two months,like I'm going on vacation in
December.
I won't be back till the middleof February.
I'm going to New Zealand.
In New Zealand it's the summerdown there at that time of the
year and it's beautiful.
Right, I go down there.
(10:10):
I'm going to go down there, andI would be very surprised if
the business is not in a betterspace in February than it was in
December.
Not because they're all like,oh, thank God, andy's gone, we
can actually do some proper work.
No, it's because it's just theevolution of the company.
We've got it set up in a waythat the people that are working
in it are actually doing theirstuff.
(10:31):
And hey, instead of us having120 clients, we'll have 130
clients in February, and Ididn't have to do anything
because I'm on a beach in NewZealand and that's what I want
for business owners and you canabsolutely have it.
What we don't let go of, whatwas always ours as business
(10:53):
owners, is the liability wecarry the liability of owning a
company.
If something bad happens, if anemployee does something bad, or
whatever it does, ultimatelycome back to us and we've got to
deal with it.
That's the downside that youcan't really escape from.
But you can escape from it withgood processes, good systems,
hiring the right people,insurance, legal setups, asset
(11:17):
protection strategies.
That's why all these thingsexist to help protect the small
business owner from theliability, which is actually
something that you can't escapefrom right.
But there's things to manage itand to make it a little bit
better and a little bit easier,and I've never been concerned
about it.
In fact, I'll probably never bean employee of anybody's.
I'm probably a damaged employee.
(11:39):
Now.
I'd be a horrible employee.
I'd probably be lazy.
They would think I was lazy,they'd think I'm lazy and
entitled, and whatever I want todo, I'd be just terrible, right
.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
I tell you, I've got some business owners that have
told me their drive that keepsthem going is because they know
they're not employable.
Right Exactly.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
It's true, it's true.
I mean, most of us who have hadespecially successful
businesses would be terribleemployees at this stage, right,
Because we've got habits thathave been developed in a
different way.
But you know, with that beingsaid, you know I'll go away.
(12:22):
I'm going to be driving.
I was talking to you before westarted, Michael Sorry, I'm a
New Zealander, so we shorteneveryone's names.
We're going to be driving toTexas and then driving to
Illinois and then driving toSouth Dakota, and blah, blah,
blah.
That's going to be about a19-day drive experiment of
whether or not we like eachother Experiment.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
I like that, not an experience.
An experiment of whether or notwe like each other Experiment.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I like that Not an experience, an experiment,
experiment of whether or not ourfamily will stay together
during that period.
But we're going to be doingthat and I won't be checking in
a whole bunch.
I'll be checking in a littlebit but I'm not going to be
working eight hour days, I'll beworking 30 minute days and I'll
be checking in to see ifthere's any questions or any
difficulties and the team runsitself in to see if there's any
questions or any difficultiesand the team runs itself.
(13:05):
And that is what I work on 100%of the time.
I don't work on anything else.
And all of the business owners,the really successful, out of
the 120 businesses that we workwith, I'd say 60 of them are in
that spot.
40 of them are kind of newer, Iguess, working with us and
they're kind of working throughour processes to help them get
(13:29):
to that understanding.
And then say 20 of them arekind of like in that transition
period where they're workingreally hard to make that
transition to join the 60.
The 60 that are doing it aredoing well and they seem to do
well, regardless of economy.
I mean now maybe they do better, but they do well.
(13:50):
The ones that are technicians Icall it technicians and business
owners.
The ones that are technicians,which are the ones that own the
job and are the slave.
Bad things happen to theeconomy.
They get smashed, they get hurt.
When COVID happened, ourclients that were more on the
technician side, they went outof business because they were
(14:13):
like think of the painteranalogy.
Covid happens all of a sudden,you can't paint any houses.
What's going on?
What am I going to do thosepainters?
Oftentimes they didn't actuallyhave they had partnerships.
They didn't have EIN numbers,they didn't have employees, they
didn't have anything, so theycouldn't access all of the help
that the federal government gave.
(14:33):
That helped my business owners.
My business owners were able to.
I mean, a lot of our clientsduring that period were actually
gymnastics, gyms and swimschools and so forth, which they
were closed down Six monthsthey were closed down forcibly
by the government.
Almost all of them, though, gothigh hundreds of thousands of
(14:54):
dollars of assistance from thegovernment because they kept
their staff on board.
They got the PPP, which wasemployment assistance.
They got assistance from theSmall Business Administration.
There was a lot of things thathelped them, those that didn't
treat themselves like a businessthat they did all the work
(15:17):
themselves.
They pretty much went out ofbusiness because they had no
employees, there was noassistance and they couldn't
work.
They couldn't do anything.
What they did do was just go onunemployment for six months.
But if you're making $15,000 amonth painting houses and then
suddenly you drop to $700 a week, that's probably going to cause
(15:38):
some problems.
But there you go.
There's a long you nailed it.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
You need to write a book on that.
It's obvious that you've workedwith a lot of small business
owners, so there was a point inyour story, though, that you
were like they're, they'reworking a job and then they
transition to the business worksfor them, to the business works
(16:06):
for them.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
I'll be honest that part.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
right there is the hardest part of the transition
and I see so many businessowners they're like they get to
that point where they go.
Something's got to change.
And so they invest in thecoaching, the consulting or a
business mentor or whatever itdoesn't matter and then they
quit because they're like thisis just more work, Right, I'd
rather go back to paintinghouses all day than try to fix
(16:27):
my business.
So in that transition period,what have you seen that people
can motivate themselves to?
Just plow through it because itwill get better?
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Yeah, I don't even know if it's a motivation thing.
What I think it is is a themcoming to terms thing.
It's a them changing theirbrain patterns and how they
think about life and themselvesand the way things operate,
(17:08):
change in mentality that, um,I'm okay with something being
done at 80 of what I could do itat if I don't have to do it
right.
Um, you know, a lot of timeswhat I see is and it doesn't
mean that it has to be 80 of howgood, because sometimes some of
the stuff that you think you'rethe best at, um, it's just a
control thing.
Right, you're actually not thebest at it.
There's maybe a different housepainter that's actually better
(17:29):
than you.
But because you've done ityourself and you know that it's
done, and blah, blah, you feellike, okay, I've done it, I'm
the one who I can rely on.
I can't rely on anybody.
Can I add something?
Speaker 1 (17:39):
to what you just said yeah, for our business, because
you made a valid point withoutactually saying it.
Remember what we said earlierbusiness owners are not good
employees and most businessowners think they do it the best
way.
So that's kind of acontradiction, right it?
Speaker 2 (17:56):
is.
It is and and I think you knowthat mentality is actually stops
the scaling.
So scaling is where the moneyis to be made.
The idea is not how do youpaint a house at any one time.
The idea is how do you paint 10houses at any one time?
So how do you have 10 housesbeing painted at the same time?
(18:19):
That's where the real money isand the reality is the way you
do that is by building a team,and you build a team of good
people.
The problem is, when you startbuilding a team of people, is
that you need processes, youneed standards, you need
management and you know where.
I think a lot of the smallbusiness owners that are
(18:40):
successful put a lot of theirtime is figuring out how to get
the best out of people.
What I see is the reallysuccessful guys, the ones that
are doing personally high sixfigures, maybe seven figures
income.
They're very good at buildingteams, very good at finding good
(19:06):
people, very good at gettingthe most out of those people.
I find that the majority of myjob is not interacting with
clients.
There was a time when westarted the business where I
knew all the clients, in fact,some of our clients.
One of our clients was our veryfirst client that we ever got
and they're still a client ofours 10 years later, which is a
(19:26):
feather in our cap.
I guess they're a personalfriend of mine now because I
found them, I brought them in, Ihelped them, I worked with them
.
I don't work with them at allnow.
The team works with them.
But the new ones that arecoming on, probably in the last
five years, I don't really havea relationship with them.
But there's no way we could havehad 120 businesses that we
(19:47):
serve if I was operating like Idid when we started.
Right, we probably would havemaxed out at 20, maybe even 15.
And you know, what building ateam around me has allowed me to
do is scale to get to 120.
What building a team around mehas allowed me to do is scale to
get to 120.
That is like building.
You know I always kind of usethis analogy a little bit.
(20:09):
I'd rather have like lots oflittle vending machines where I
make a little bit of money outof all of them than five vending
machines where I have onevending machine where I make all
my money out of it, right.
So I feel like I look at it andI got 120 clients making it.
I'm personally making a littlebit of money from all those
clients.
If one goes away, I haven't, ithasn't really affected me and
(20:30):
if I can add 10, my income goesup a little bit and I feel very
like as a, as a, as a human andas a dad and a husband.
I feel very calm and collectedabout my situation because we
were able to scale to a pointwhere I have very little
concerns about the future of ourbusiness and we've hired very
(20:53):
good people.
We've put in very goodprocesses, which is stuff that
you should learn.
But the biggest and those arenot hard things to learn right
there's a lot of companies outthere, like yourselves and like
others, that will help peoplefigure out processes and systems
and so forth.
Those are not hard things tolearn.
What is the hardest thing in mymind is the person deciding I'm
(21:18):
not going to paint any morehouses anymore.
To paint any more housesanymore.
I am going to focus on workingwith a Michael Morrison, getting
my systems and processes andthe way I'm operating correct,
get my headspace and mentalitycorrect, find the best people I
can find who are great atpainting houses, manage those
people right.
(21:39):
And then even the next step isgetting management below you
that are managing them day today.
So you don't even really talkto your painters anymore because
you've got really greatmanagement who really know how
to get the houses painted.
And then at that point you'renot looking at how the company
is operating, you're looking atwhere you want to take the
company.
(21:59):
And that is another analogy.
I'm a big one on analogies.
So that takes you to the pointwhere you really start going
somewhere is where you becomethe captain of the ship and not
the crewman of the ship.
And the way I look at that is acaptain sits in his captain's
room with this to think of an1800s sailing ship Right, he's
(22:23):
in his captain's room and he'sgot his charts and everything
and he's mapping out where he'sgoing to go.
He doesn't hold the tiller, hedoesn't pull up the sails, he
doesn't swab the decks.
He has a crew that does that.
He has a first mate or a firstofficer that might be, and even
the first officer's not holdingthe tiller.
There's a sailor that's holdingit and they're just saying pull
it over here.
We're going in that direction,we're doing this, but the
(22:51):
captain's in his cabin with hischarts, saying, okay, we need to
get, we're here and we want toget here.
This is how we're going to doit to avoid these rocks and this
storm and this thing and thatthing and get the boat safely
from this place to this place.
And it's truly the only personthat can do it as the captain.
Truly the only person that cando it in a business is the owner
(23:12):
.
You can't hire that out.
That is going to be the ownerof the business.
Or, if you step to another stage, you could get to the point
where you're the member of theboard.
Right, you're an owner who's amember of the board, or just an
investor, a stockholder.
You might be 100% stockholderand you have a director who
(23:34):
actually is running the ship.
But then, in my mind, you'rethe admiral.
Right, the admiral's nottelling each ship where to go
and what rocks to miss.
He's saying, saying we'removing our ships to this or hey,
these ships, you know, we wantto serve this, this, uh port and
that port and this port andthese people and it, and it just
(23:56):
grows on different levels andthat's how you scale.
You can't stay at the bottomscrubbing the decks and hope you
can actually have 20 ships.
Does that make sense?
I feel like I've kind of gone.
I've done a trump there, wheretrump talks about stuff and then
it's like what is he?
What's going on?
Speaker 1 (24:14):
no, no, that was good stuff.
So we're talking about a team.
So, yes, one of the challengesI hear from a lot of business
owners is where are all the goodemployees?
So how do people find them?
I wouldn't say find them.
How do they onboard them orrecruit them?
You're listening to SmallBusiness Pivots.
(24:37):
This podcast is produced by mycompany, boss.
Our business is helping yoursgrow.
Boss offers business loans withbusiness coaching support.
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
as 24 to 48 hours atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom.
If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to hit the
(24:59):
subscribe button and share it aswell.
Now let's get back to ourspecial guest to hit the
subscribe button and share it aswell.
Now let's get back to ourspecial guest.
So we're talking about a team.
So one of the challenges I hearfrom a lot of business owners
is where are all the goodemployees?
So how do people find them?
I wouldn't say find them.
How do they onboard them orrecruit them to where they have
(25:24):
good employees?
Because I've seen businessowners thinking well, if I just
hire some people and thenthey're running a daycare
because they've got six misfitson their team and it's created
more havoc and chaos.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Let me give you some real life stuff.
This is the biggest issue inthe kids activity center realm
right.
So we've probably, of our 120clients, we've probably got 60
in the kids activity centerrealm right.
So we probably, of our 120clients, we probably got 60
clients at kids activity centers.
Those, though, the biggestissue in the kids activity
center industry is staffingright.
Oftentimes they've got waitinglists, they've got all sorts of
(25:56):
stuff and that's you know.
Oftentimes when, when a clientcomes to us and they're saying,
oh, help me grow, and the firstthing we have to do is actually
unplug their business, becausewe could bring loads of mums to
their business, but if they'vealready got waiting lists, we're
just going to have longerwaiting lists, and that doesn't
actually help anything.
So one of the things that isalmost 100% of the time the
(26:17):
issue is that they can't findstaff, and that is almost always
based on the fact of how muchthey're willing to pay right.
That oftentimes is based on thefact that they don't charge
their true value, so they don'tactually charge enough, which
stops them from being able to um, you know, pay people.
(26:40):
You know to get good people.
Now that not charging enough isoftentimes something that
happens because they're worriedabout losing customers.
They're worried about gettingcustomers.
They think that I have to becheap to get customers.
The reality is no one buys anyservice, especially gymnastics
classes for kids.
But no one buys any service tosave money no one does.
(27:03):
No one buys a service to savemoney no one does.
No one buys a service becausethey're saving money.
If you truly are wanting tosave money, you won't buy the
service Right and that'severything right, even food
right.
I don't buy food to save money.
I buy food to keep myself alive, right, and I will pay a lot of
(27:23):
money.
If the only place that I canget food is Michael, I'm going
to pay.
Whatever you charge, you haveto have food Right.
So, business owners getting outof the mindset of you know, I
need to charge, I'm scared ofraising my prices because I'm
worried about not gettingcustomers.
Customers don't buy things tosave money, so that means it's
(27:47):
about value, it's about whatdoes the customer get is really
what it's all about.
And also, if you're a businessthat isn't marketing and I use
this term, I try to change thisterm with all the business
owners.
I do a lot of speaking.
I try to change this term withall the business owners.
I do a lot of speaking.
I'm actually going to aCongress in July and August and
(28:10):
I'll be speaking to about 500business owners and I will say
to them, instead of thinkingabout marketing and advertising,
which makes every smallbusiness owner go oh, because
they all say I've been burnt bya million people mainly because
they're trying to get thesecompanies to fix things that the
company can't fix Right, butthey, they have a bad feeling
towards marketing.
(28:32):
Stop thinking of it as marketing, advertising thinking.
Thinking of it as effectivelycommunicating with your
community.
So is it important for you tocommunicate with your community
as a business owner?
I don't know a single businessowner that's ever said to me no,
it's not important for me tocommunicate to my community.
Almost all of them have saidyes, and I'm not doing a good
job.
All right, well, that's whatmarketing and advertising is.
(28:53):
So let's just stop using thatterm and just say communicating
with your community.
If you communicate veryeffectively with your community,
you'll have more people lookingat what you're doing.
So let's use a kids activitycenter.
But it could be anything, itcould be a plumber, it could be
any service, right, but let'ssay, a kids activity center,
I'll use gymnastics because mywife owned one and I understand
(29:14):
kind of that.
You know I can walk throughthat.
So kids activity center owneronly wants to charge 50 bucks a
month because I'm worried aboutreaching getting customers and
if I raise prices to $100 amonth I'm going to lose
customers and I won't be able toget any more because I don't
know how to get customers andI'm not really doing a good job
of getting customers Because Ican only charge $50 a month.
(29:35):
The only people I can hire areteenagers because no one really
wants to work for me for alittle bit over minimum wage.
And then I'm caught in thisthing where my product is poor
and I've got parents complainingand writing Google reviews that
I didn't pay a company to havekids teaching my kids and that's
(29:56):
a very common thing that we seeall the time.
That literal scenario is thething that we hear all the time
and we see all the time.
That literal scenario is thething that we hear all the time
and we see all the time.
So the way to fix it is youmake sure you're communicating
effectively with your community,so everybody.
That's important.
So if you're a gymnastics gymit would be.
We want to make sure that everysingle mom in your community,
within a 10 mile radius of yourlocation or where you serve,
(30:20):
knows that you exist and knowswhy you're great.
Right, so that's start one.
So you start getting an influxof calls.
You get an influx of calls andthen all of a sudden, you're in
a situation where your supply ishere and your demand is here,
right?
So if demand and supply are outof whack, where supply is lower
than demand, then most peopleunderstand that an easy fix to
(30:42):
that is you raise prices.
Right, that's why inflationhappens.
Right, we've got a lot moredollars chasing a lot less goods
, right?
So so you're.
You're communicating with yourcommunity effectively.
There's lots of people showingan interest because they didn't
know that you existed and, quitefrankly, google, facebook and
instagram is where all smallbusinesses local small
(31:04):
businesses should be to explainthis is what we are and this is
what we do.
You'll get those incominginquiries.
You now know that people areinterested.
You now know that people arefinding you.
You raise your prices.
All of a sudden, you haveexcess money coming in, right,
so instead of getting $50,you're getting $75, getting 75,
right?
All of a sudden, you've got anextra 25 per class.
(31:28):
If you've got 10 kids in aclass, it's an extra 250 an hour
.
Give some raise instead ofpaying minimum wage and getting
a whole bunch of teenagers pay25 an hour and start getting
some adults get.
Get some people that are good.
You know, if you're a painter,pay good money for your painters
(31:49):
so you get real good tradesmenthat are interested in you.
If there's other paintingcompanies and you're paying more
than the other paintingcompanies, the good painters and
those other painting companieswill come over to you.
The good coaches and the othergymnastics gym will come over to
you.
The good coaches in the othergymnastics gym will come over to
you because, oh, I'm gettingpaid $18 an hour at this
gymnastics gym and I'm atop-rated coach, but I can go to
(32:11):
Andy's gym and get $25.
Andy's raised the amount thathe charges and he's making $250
an hour and he's making loads ofmoney anyway and the value,
which is what I originally spokeabout, has gone through the
roof because all of a sudden,the parents aren't complaining
about kids coaching kids.
The parents are like wow, this30-year-old ex-gymnast who is
(32:34):
now teaching my kid.
This is wonderful, this isamazing and that 30-year-old can
give a lot more to my kid thanwhat a teenager can.
That the painter that's been.
You know that I've sourced fromanother, from a, from a
competitor.
Um, who's working for me is now, you know, doing such great
(32:54):
work.
The reviews start going up.
People start talking to people.
Everyone's got a house,everyone needs to paint one once
in a while.
Everyone starts out with I'llwalk across the road and say who
painted your house?
Oh, andy's painting company did, and they did a great job.
They had a guy came in, he justknew his stuff and blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah.
So it comes down to in my minda lot of times it's paying Like,
(33:19):
if you can't find people inthis area country, it's not
because there aren't people.
There's 330 million people thatlive in the United States.
I live in Phoenix and we've gotin the Phoenix greater area.
There's about four and a halfmillion people.
If I want three human beings towork for me, I can find them
(33:39):
right.
If I'm charging $6,000 to paintyour house, I can probably
afford.
And it takes 20, you know, ittakes, let's say, 40 hours to
paint your house.
I can probably.
I can probably charge, you know, pay 30, 35, $40 an hour for my
painter to paint it and I'llstill have profit.
(34:00):
And guess what?
I'm not painting it.
I'm in New Zealand on a beach.
All of a sudden, I'm doingbetter and it might sound very
kind of like oh yeah, just paypeople more.
Well, because you're out therepainting all day.
(34:20):
You're not spending time honingyour skills on how to find
really good people, on how tointerview good people, right?
I tend to weigh mydecision-making on good people
much more heavily on characterand personality than I do skills
or experience.
However, you know, withsomething like painting, if
you're wanting to have somebodygo and get on a painting job,
(34:42):
you probably want that.
But if you're looking at 10experienced painters, you're
choosing the one with the bestpersonality and the best
characteristics and character.
Right?
That's the difference.
You know, if they've all gottwo years of experience, I don't
think I'm going to hire the guywith five years.
If he looks like he was drunkwhen he came into the meeting,
right into the interview, or hemaybe had a hard night the night
(35:04):
before.
I want to hire the guy thatseems like he's got it together
and he answers the questionswell and he communicates well
and he's really effective.
He represents the company,because the painters that are
going to people's houses aregoing to represent the company,
right, and you just hire ahigher grade of human and that
in itself will solve the problem.
(35:25):
I think a lot of business ownersget into exactly what you said,
which is a problem.
They hire bodies, yeah, andthey think the body count will
fix the problem, and, honestly,it's the opposite.
If you're just hiring bodycounts, it's going to be a major
problem.
We spoke about liabilities.
The real, true thing thatbusiness owners take on is
(35:45):
liability and difficulty.
Liability is probably thebiggest thing.
You hire the wrong people.
That becomes a nightmare, right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Yeah, and we always remind business owners that
don't forget that you usuallyhire for skill set.
Most business owners hire forskill set and fire on character
or a character flaw.
They could be tardy, they couldbe stolen something from the
company, drunk when they cameinto work, but it's usually
(36:16):
never.
We fire them because of skillset.
Every once in a while theymight be lacking some skills,
but most of the time it's acharacter flaw.
So what is it?
Slow to hire, quick to fire.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
And I always look at it as you know.
You're not discounting the factthat you need someone with some
skills, but it can't be the keyfactor of why you hire you.
For me it's like if I'm hiring,I'm like you need to have these
skills to get into the room totalk to me.
You have these skills Great.
Then I'm trying to find out ifyou're a great person and we'll
(36:50):
test to see if you actually havesome bare skills and minimum
skills to actually do what youwant to do.
But I've seen time and timeagain, if somebody's got great
character, great work ethic anda really good person, I can
actually increase and bettertheir skills quite easily.
A really good person I canactually increase and better
their skills quite easily.
If they're a flawed characterand flawed by nature, there's
(37:12):
almost nothing I can do toincrease their skill set.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Yeah, they've got to be trainable right, Exactly.
That's a good character.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
And that gets into the will of the way.
Have you heard of the will ofthe way thought process where,
when you're trying to figure outwhether or not somebody should
be fired or whether, as a goodemployee, you look at them and
you go do they know the way todo something or do they not have
the will to do it?
And if they don't know the wayto do it, you teach them how to
do it.
If they don't have the will todo it, you fire them.
(37:42):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Amen.
Well, I know you've just kindof wet people's ears wanting to
know more about you.
Where's the best place tofollow you?
Engage with you Right?
So the?
Speaker 2 (37:57):
best place to follow us is go to
creativelydisruptivecom and youcan yeah, there's a lot of stuff
on there.
Go to YouTube and search forCreatively Disruptive and you'll
see a lot of me talking about alot of stuff and you can
definitely engage through there.
I don't run the social mediaparts of the business.
If you do want to speak to me,reach out to the team and the
(38:21):
team will talk, because, if I'mhonest, I truly want to live
what I'm preaching, which is Iwant to spend time swimming in
the pool with my seven-year-old,not painting houses.
Yeah, right, amen, yeah.
But I also love the game of thesmall business owner and I love
(38:42):
helping small business ownersdiscover what they deserve,
especially living in thiscountry.
The United States is awonderful country.
I'm an immigrant, a legalimmigrant, that loves the
opportunity that was given to meand I want every American and
every person that's in here tobenefit it.
I truly believe small businessowners are the powerhouse of the
(39:03):
United States.
It's where the hopes and dreamsare, it's where the greatness
of America lives, and all largebusinesses started as small
businesses Absolutely.
Absolutely, they reach out to mecreativelydisruptivecom.
We do have ashweststrategycom,which is more on the e-com side.
If you've got an e-com businessthat you're looking at starting
(39:25):
or that you've started and youneed some help with, but from a
local owned business, creativelyDisruptive is the place to go
and go to the YouTube page forus Just find Creatively
Disruptive on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Well, I always end our shows with a question, and
that is if you were in a roomfull of business owners,
different industries, differentsizes, what's one thing that a
tip, an insight, a quote, a book, whatever it is that could be
applicable to all of them,something you've learned or come
across?
Speaker 2 (39:56):
And this is business, all sorts of different like
different levels everything.
Yeah, I would say.
I would say the most applicableis what is your exit strategy?
Why are you doing this?
Exit strategy doesn't mean youneed to get out of the business.
An exit strategy going back tothe what the uh talking about
(40:19):
the ship and the captaincharting his course.
The exit strategy is thedestination.
Right, like most ships, you getto the destination.
It doesn't necessarily be wherethis ship is scrapped and sold
off and everything.
Yeah, you can choose anotherdestination over that.
But what is your cleardestination?
(40:39):
And in a room of businessowners that will, for me, sort
out the guys that have troubleand need help to the ones that
are really good and going well,and either way, I, I win with
that information, right?
Um, I want to.
I want you know if I speak toyou and you say to me Andy, yeah
, this is what we're looking todo.
In three years time, we want tobe at $3 million of revenue.
(41:03):
Um, I want to be doing, youknow, 800,000 profit and we're
looking to sell that businessfor $3 million and at that point
I might be looking at someother options.
I would look at that as well.
That's a really good answer.
I'll go to another person, I'llsay what do you mean?
Exit strategy?
I don't see myself ever sellingthis.
I need to be painting thehouses every day to pay my
(41:25):
mortgage.
That's a good answer too, butit tells me a different story.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
Correct.
Well, clarity is key, as I'vealways found out so well.
You've been a blessing to manyand a wealth of information.
Appreciate your time on theshow.
I wish we had a whole bunchmore time because I feel like we
just barely dipped our toe inthe water, but we are out of
time.
So, again, I appreciate youcoming on and sharing your
insights with our audience.
(41:49):
Thank you, michael, and hope totalk to you soon.
Yeah, my pleasure.
Thank you for listening tosmall business pivots.
This podcast is created andproduced by my company boss.
Our business is growing.
Yours, boss offers flexiblebusiness loans with business
coaching support.
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
(42:11):
as 24 to 48 hours atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom.
If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to hit the
subscribe button and share it aswell.
If you need help growing yourbusiness, email me at michael at
michaeldmorrisoncom.
We'll see you next time onSmall Business Pivots.
All right, welcome to another Small Business, pivots,
where we bring guests fromaround the world, and today we
have another special guest.
But I know only the businessowner can say their name and
their business.
Like the business owner, soI'll let you have the floor to
introduce yourself and yourbusiness and just tell us a
little bit about what you do.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Sure, my name is Andy Seeley.
I am the CEO and founder ofCreatively Disruptive, which is
a small, business-focusedmarketing firm.
We have about 110, 120 clientsright now.
All small businesses, all arema's and pa's and they range
(00:38):
between service industry-typebusinesses to kids' activity
businesses type businesses tokids activity businesses a lot
of kids activity businesses,mainly because my wife is a
gymnastics coach and we owned agym for a little while.
So we we got a little bit ofthat business going on.
And, uh, e-commerce so we'vegot a little bit of an
e-commerce brand as well.
That's a bit smaller.
(00:58):
About 10 10 of the 120 or so ofour clients are e-commerce.
That's doing very well but, yes, basically every single one of
them, even the e-commerce brands, are small businesses, families
with hopes and dreams andwishful thinking and trying to
(01:19):
get the American dream and makethings happen.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Fantastic.
Well, before we introduce theshow, how do you think we're
going to help our listenerstoday?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Well, I think, yeah, I've been in this business for
25 years, credibly Disruptivehas been in business for 10
years, which is a lifetime, ifI'm honest, in the marketing
industry, especially digitalmarketing industry.
We're a very old company inthis industry, but there's a
couple of common factors that wesee all the time between the
(01:50):
successful and the notsuccessful, and that is what I'd
like to talk to us to get themagic source of what I see out
of the hundreds of businessesI've worked with.
The commonalities between theand some of the stuff that we'll
talk about might beuncomfortable for people to
listen to, but I will 100%guarantee that it is a
(02:14):
difference maker.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Absolutely there are.
The challenges are common inmost small businesses.
So we're going to share thatright after we introduce the
(02:39):
show Simplified for success.
Our business is helping yoursgrow.
Boss offers business loans withbusiness coaching support.
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
(03:01):
as 24 to 48 hours atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom.
All right, welcome back toSmall Business Pivots, Andy.
Where would you like to start?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Well, I think one of the things I want to go through
kind of what a lot of businessowners have spoken to me about
as their problems and a lot ofthe times when we brought it be
brought in as a company, becausethe reality is, whilst I'd call
(03:27):
ourselves a digital marketingcompany, we've really become a
revenue growth company.
So a lot of companies come tous when their revenue is on the
downslide or stuck and notgrowing and they're like we
don't know what's going on here,we can't grow, we need to hire
somebody to help us get morecustomers and oftentimes us get
(03:48):
more customers.
Right, and oftentimes theanswer is not just you need to
have better google ads.
Um, oftentimes, in fact, allthe times, they're not just
better google ads or betterfacebook ads or better website
or better whatever is, and a lotof times I think small business
owners that have a small amountof uh resources don't have an
endless amount of money to justthrow stuff at things and see
what happens end up spinningtheir wheels and doing a lot of
(04:09):
things that actually don't movethe, I guess, the needle in the
direction that they want.
They get very frustrated.
So a lot of times, what I hearfrom clients when they're new is
.
I was working with theseagencies.
I was working with theseagencies.
I was working with these people.
I'm so frustrated.
I've been burnt by all thesepeople.
I've been burned and burned andburned, and oftentimes it's,
(04:33):
it's very much similar stuff.
Hey, you've, you've you've goneto a vet to to see why your
plants are dying Right?
Or you've, you're, you're,you're, you're, you're?
You know you're taking yourmotorcycle into the car
dealership to be worked on by aguy that specializes in fixing
(04:56):
trucks.
Or you know you're going to thewrong place and the wrong
people to try to get a fix andthey're going to do what they're
really good at and you're goingto pay for their service and
you're going to walk away going.
Well, I guess this part of mybusiness is working a little bit
better, but I have still gotthe same problem.
I see that all the time.
Um, and we've actually uh, notbecause I promise not to get too
(05:18):
deeply into the ai thing, butwith ai, we're seeing loads of
people talk about that as thefix as well, and oftentimes it's
just another.
It's just another thing thatyou can spend a lot of money on,
which there is value in it, butif you don't correct some of
the stuff beforehand, which iskind of almost like time and
(05:42):
memoriam kind of issues, rightit.
It's not a technology problem,it's a human mindset problem.
And you know, to cut to thechase a little bit, what I see
typically with business ownersis very few business owners are
true entrepreneurs.
A true entrepreneur, in my mind, is somebody that wants to
(06:03):
start a business.
They don't care what thebusiness is, they want to run a
really good, they want to builda business.
They want to.
You know, they want to have areally good operating systems
and they want to build it outand and and build a business and
sell a product or a service andand and maybe at some point it
gets to a certain size and theysell it and they move on.
They start another business andthey don't really care what the
(06:23):
product or service is, but theylove building businesses.
They love the hiring and thebuilding of teams and the
putting of everything together.
That's about 0.5% of the peoplethat start businesses.
99.5% of people who startbusinesses are people who are
really good at something andthey go oh, I'll start a
(06:44):
business doing this.
So it might be a guy whopainted some neighbor's houses
and did a really, really goodjob.
And he's like you know what?
I could paint houses for aliving.
I'm going to go and I'm goingto start a business Andy's Paint
Shop.
I'm going to go.
I'll start my business byprinting out some business cards
and I get some flies.
(07:04):
I go out and suddenly I'mpainting five houses a month or
six houses a month.
I don't know how long it takesto paint a house, but whatever
it is, and I'm making $10,000,$15,000 a month.
I'm rich, I'm a business ownerand I'm painting houses all day.
And then it suddenly turns intoman.
I'm working six days a week,seven days a week, painting
(07:30):
houses.
I'm making okay money, but Ican't make any more money.
But if I stop make paintingthese houses, I'm not making any
money.
I can't go on vacation.
I can't enjoy family events.
I'm working all the time, I'mearning good money, but I don't
have a life.
I've now become a slave to mybusiness and my business owns me
.
My business owns my time andmany business owners kind of
(07:51):
that's their entry point into abusiness.
Not let's create a businessthat serves me, but oh, I'm good
at this thing, I can make moneydoing this.
It becomes a business.
But if you're not thinkingabout it sensibly, it becomes a
business.
But if you're not thinkingabout it sensibly, if you're not
thinking about it with a planof how you want your life to be,
your business will enslave you,and it's more.
(08:15):
Most people have heard of youown a job.
Right, I actually think it'sworse than that.
The business ultimatelyenslaves you because you can't
leave it.
You can't quit.
You can't quit, you can't stop.
You end up having commitments.
You buy a nicer house becauseyou're earning $20,000 a month
painting houses like crazy,seven days a week.
(08:37):
You've got to pay the mortgage,you've got to do stuff and I've
seen people literally cascadeinto mental health issues, all
sorts of problems, maritalmental health issues, all sorts
of problems uh what?
Marriage, marital breakups, allsorts of stuff because their
life is suddenly is taken awayfrom them and all they do is
whatever their, what, whatevertheir.
Their profession is housepainting, what could be,
(08:57):
whatever it could be baker couldbe, you know builder, you know
plumber, you know anythingthat's.
You know a business that youthink oh, I'm pretty good at
this, I know some things aboutthis, I'm going to try it.
So that is the problem, that isthe difficulty.
The people who are successfulmost of them that I've ever
(09:22):
spoken to started that way, butwhat they were really successful
at is transitioning out of that, which is, you know I know,
michael, you probably tell usall the time is your specialty
to try to help people transitionout of that, but that
transitioning out of that is thekey to happiness, key to
success and the key to turningthat.
(09:42):
That slave master, which isyour job Sorry, not your job.
That slave master, which isyour job Sorry, not your job.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Well, I guess it is your job.
It is a job.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Your business into a business that serves you, so you
can go on a vacation.
You can leave for two months,like I'm going on vacation in
December.
I won't be back till the middleof February.
I'm going to New Zealand.
In New Zealand it's the summerdown there at that time of the
year and it's beautiful.
Right, I go down there.
(10:10):
I'm going to go down there, andI would be very surprised if
the business is not in a betterspace in February than it was in
December.
Not because they're all like,oh, thank God, andy's gone, we
can actually do some proper work.
No, it's because it's just theevolution of the company.
We've got it set up in a waythat the people that are working
in it are actually doing theirstuff.
(10:31):
And hey, instead of us having120 clients, we'll have 130
clients in February, and Ididn't have to do anything
because I'm on a beach in NewZealand and that's what I want
for business owners and you canabsolutely have it.
What we don't let go of, whatwas always ours as business
(10:53):
owners, is the liability wecarry the liability of owning a
company.
If something bad happens, if anemployee does something bad, or
whatever it does, ultimatelycome back to us and we've got to
deal with it.
That's the downside that youcan't really escape from.
But you can escape from it withgood processes, good systems,
hiring the right people,insurance, legal setups, asset
(11:17):
protection strategies.
That's why all these thingsexist to help protect the small
business owner from theliability, which is actually
something that you can't escapefrom right.
But there's things to manage itand to make it a little bit
better and a little bit easier,and I've never been concerned
about it.
In fact, I'll probably never bean employee of anybody's.
I'm probably a damaged employee.
(11:39):
Now.
I'd be a horrible employee.
I'd probably be lazy.
They would think I was lazy,they'd think I'm lazy and
entitled, and whatever I want todo, I'd be just terrible, right
.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
I tell you, I've got some business owners that have
told me their drive that keepsthem going is because they know
they're not employable.
Right Exactly.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
It's true, it's true.
I mean, most of us who have hadespecially successful
businesses would be terribleemployees at this stage, right,
Because we've got habits thathave been developed in a
different way.
But you know, with that beingsaid, you know I'll go away.
(12:22):
I'm going to be driving.
I was talking to you before westarted, Michael Sorry, I'm a
New Zealander, so we shorteneveryone's names.
We're going to be driving toTexas and then driving to
Illinois and then driving toSouth Dakota, and blah, blah,
blah.
That's going to be about a19-day drive experiment of
whether or not we like eachother Experiment.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
I like that, not an experience.
An experiment of whether or notwe like each other Experiment.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I like that Not an experience, an experiment,
experiment of whether or not ourfamily will stay together
during that period.
But we're going to be doingthat and I won't be checking in
a whole bunch.
I'll be checking in a littlebit but I'm not going to be
working eight hour days, I'll beworking 30 minute days and I'll
be checking in to see ifthere's any questions or any
difficulties and the team runsitself in to see if there's any
questions or any difficultiesand the team runs itself.
(13:05):
And that is what I work on 100%of the time.
I don't work on anything else.
And all of the business owners,the really successful, out of
the 120 businesses that we workwith, I'd say 60 of them are in
that spot.
40 of them are kind of newer, Iguess, working with us and
they're kind of working throughour processes to help them get
(13:29):
to that understanding.
And then say 20 of them arekind of like in that transition
period where they're workingreally hard to make that
transition to join the 60.
The 60 that are doing it aredoing well and they seem to do
well, regardless of economy.
I mean now maybe they do better, but they do well.
(13:50):
The ones that are technicians Icall it technicians and business
owners.
The ones that are technicians,which are the ones that own the
job and are the slave.
Bad things happen to theeconomy.
They get smashed, they get hurt.
When COVID happened, ourclients that were more on the
technician side, they went outof business because they were
(14:13):
like think of the painteranalogy.
Covid happens all of a sudden,you can't paint any houses.
What's going on?
What am I going to do thosepainters?
Oftentimes they didn't actuallyhave they had partnerships.
They didn't have EIN numbers,they didn't have employees, they
didn't have anything, so theycouldn't access all of the help
that the federal government gave.
(14:33):
That helped my business owners.
My business owners were able to.
I mean, a lot of our clientsduring that period were actually
gymnastics, gyms and swimschools and so forth, which they
were closed down Six monthsthey were closed down forcibly
by the government.
Almost all of them, though, gothigh hundreds of thousands of
(14:54):
dollars of assistance from thegovernment because they kept
their staff on board.
They got the PPP, which wasemployment assistance.
They got assistance from theSmall Business Administration.
There was a lot of things thathelped them, those that didn't
treat themselves like a businessthat they did all the work
(15:17):
themselves.
They pretty much went out ofbusiness because they had no
employees, there was noassistance and they couldn't
work.
They couldn't do anything.
What they did do was just go onunemployment for six months.
But if you're making $15,000 amonth painting houses and then
suddenly you drop to $700 a week, that's probably going to cause
(15:38):
some problems.
But there you go.
There's a long you nailed it.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
You need to write a book on that.
It's obvious that you've workedwith a lot of small business
owners, so there was a point inyour story, though, that you
were like they're, they'reworking a job and then they
transition to the business worksfor them, to the business works
(16:06):
for them.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
I'll be honest that part.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
right there is the hardest part of the transition
and I see so many businessowners they're like they get to
that point where they go.
Something's got to change.
And so they invest in thecoaching, the consulting or a
business mentor or whatever itdoesn't matter and then they
quit because they're like thisis just more work, Right, I'd
rather go back to paintinghouses all day than try to fix
(16:27):
my business.
So in that transition period,what have you seen that people
can motivate themselves to?
Just plow through it because itwill get better?
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Yeah, I don't even know if it's a motivation thing.
What I think it is is a themcoming to terms thing.
It's a them changing theirbrain patterns and how they
think about life and themselvesand the way things operate,
(17:08):
change in mentality that, um,I'm okay with something being
done at 80 of what I could do itat if I don't have to do it
right.
Um, you know, a lot of timeswhat I see is and it doesn't
mean that it has to be 80 of howgood, because sometimes some of
the stuff that you think you'rethe best at, um, it's just a
control thing.
Right, you're actually not thebest at it.
There's maybe a different housepainter that's actually better
(17:29):
than you.
But because you've done ityourself and you know that it's
done, and blah, blah, you feellike, okay, I've done it, I'm
the one who I can rely on.
I can't rely on anybody.
Can I add something?
Speaker 1 (17:39):
to what you just said yeah, for our business, because
you made a valid point withoutactually saying it.
Remember what we said earlierbusiness owners are not good
employees and most businessowners think they do it the best
way.
So that's kind of acontradiction, right it?
Speaker 2 (17:56):
is.
It is and and I think you knowthat mentality is actually stops
the scaling.
So scaling is where the moneyis to be made.
The idea is not how do youpaint a house at any one time.
The idea is how do you paint 10houses at any one time?
So how do you have 10 housesbeing painted at the same time?
(18:19):
That's where the real money isand the reality is the way you
do that is by building a team,and you build a team of good
people.
The problem is, when you startbuilding a team of people, is
that you need processes, youneed standards, you need
management and you know where.
I think a lot of the smallbusiness owners that are
(18:40):
successful put a lot of theirtime is figuring out how to get
the best out of people.
What I see is the reallysuccessful guys, the ones that
are doing personally high sixfigures, maybe seven figures
income.
They're very good at buildingteams, very good at finding good
(19:06):
people, very good at gettingthe most out of those people.
I find that the majority of myjob is not interacting with
clients.
There was a time when westarted the business where I
knew all the clients, in fact,some of our clients.
One of our clients was our veryfirst client that we ever got
and they're still a client ofours 10 years later, which is a
(19:26):
feather in our cap.
I guess they're a personalfriend of mine now because I
found them, I brought them in, Ihelped them, I worked with them
.
I don't work with them at allnow.
The team works with them.
But the new ones that arecoming on, probably in the last
five years, I don't really havea relationship with them.
But there's no way we could havehad 120 businesses that we
(19:47):
serve if I was operating like Idid when we started.
Right, we probably would havemaxed out at 20, maybe even 15.
And you know, what building ateam around me has allowed me to
do is scale to get to 120.
What building a team around mehas allowed me to do is scale to
get to 120.
That is like building.
You know I always kind of usethis analogy a little bit.
(20:09):
I'd rather have like lots oflittle vending machines where I
make a little bit of money outof all of them than five vending
machines where I have onevending machine where I make all
my money out of it, right.
So I feel like I look at it andI got 120 clients making it.
I'm personally making a littlebit of money from all those
clients.
If one goes away, I haven't, ithasn't really affected me and
(20:30):
if I can add 10, my income goesup a little bit and I feel very
like as a, as a, as a human andas a dad and a husband.
I feel very calm and collectedabout my situation because we
were able to scale to a pointwhere I have very little
concerns about the future of ourbusiness and we've hired very
(20:53):
good people.
We've put in very goodprocesses, which is stuff that
you should learn.
But the biggest and those arenot hard things to learn right
there's a lot of companies outthere, like yourselves and like
others, that will help peoplefigure out processes and systems
and so forth.
Those are not hard things tolearn.
What is the hardest thing in mymind is the person deciding I'm
(21:18):
not going to paint any morehouses anymore.
To paint any more housesanymore.
I am going to focus on workingwith a Michael Morrison, getting
my systems and processes andthe way I'm operating correct,
get my headspace and mentalitycorrect, find the best people I
can find who are great atpainting houses, manage those
people right.
(21:39):
And then even the next step isgetting management below you
that are managing them day today.
So you don't even really talkto your painters anymore because
you've got really greatmanagement who really know how
to get the houses painted.
And then at that point you'renot looking at how the company
is operating, you're looking atwhere you want to take the
company.
(21:59):
And that is another analogy.
I'm a big one on analogies.
So that takes you to the pointwhere you really start going
somewhere is where you becomethe captain of the ship and not
the crewman of the ship.
And the way I look at that is acaptain sits in his captain's
room with this to think of an1800s sailing ship Right, he's
(22:23):
in his captain's room and he'sgot his charts and everything
and he's mapping out where he'sgoing to go.
He doesn't hold the tiller, hedoesn't pull up the sails, he
doesn't swab the decks.
He has a crew that does that.
He has a first mate or a firstofficer that might be, and even
the first officer's not holdingthe tiller.
There's a sailor that's holdingit and they're just saying pull
it over here.
We're going in that direction,we're doing this, but the
(22:51):
captain's in his cabin with hischarts, saying, okay, we need to
get, we're here and we want toget here.
This is how we're going to doit to avoid these rocks and this
storm and this thing and thatthing and get the boat safely
from this place to this place.
And it's truly the only personthat can do it as the captain.
Truly the only person that cando it in a business is the owner
(23:12):
.
You can't hire that out.
That is going to be the ownerof the business.
Or, if you step to another stage, you could get to the point
where you're the member of theboard.
Right, you're an owner who's amember of the board, or just an
investor, a stockholder.
You might be 100% stockholderand you have a director who
(23:34):
actually is running the ship.
But then, in my mind, you'rethe admiral.
Right, the admiral's nottelling each ship where to go
and what rocks to miss.
He's saying, saying we'removing our ships to this or hey,
these ships, you know, we wantto serve this, this, uh port and
that port and this port andthese people and it, and it just
(23:56):
grows on different levels andthat's how you scale.
You can't stay at the bottomscrubbing the decks and hope you
can actually have 20 ships.
Does that make sense?
I feel like I've kind of gone.
I've done a trump there, wheretrump talks about stuff and then
it's like what is he?
What's going on?
Speaker 1 (24:14):
no, no, that was good stuff.
So we're talking about a team.
So, yes, one of the challengesI hear from a lot of business
owners is where are all the goodemployees?
So how do people find them?
I wouldn't say find them.
How do they onboard them orrecruit them?
You're listening to SmallBusiness Pivots.
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Now let's get back to ourspecial guest.
So we're talking about a team.
So one of the challenges I hearfrom a lot of business owners
is where are all the goodemployees?
So how do people find them?
I wouldn't say find them.
How do they onboard them orrecruit them to where they have
(25:24):
good employees?
Because I've seen businessowners thinking well, if I just
hire some people and thenthey're running a daycare
because they've got six misfitson their team and it's created
more havoc and chaos.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Let me give you some real life stuff.
This is the biggest issue inthe kids activity center realm
right.
So we've probably, of our 120clients, we've probably got 60
in the kids activity centerrealm right.
So we probably, of our 120clients, we probably got 60
clients at kids activity centers.
Those, though, the biggestissue in the kids activity
center industry is staffingright.
Oftentimes they've got waitinglists, they've got all sorts of
(25:56):
stuff and that's you know.
Oftentimes when, when a clientcomes to us and they're saying,
oh, help me grow, and the firstthing we have to do is actually
unplug their business, becausewe could bring loads of mums to
their business, but if they'vealready got waiting lists, we're
just going to have longerwaiting lists, and that doesn't
actually help anything.
So one of the things that isalmost 100% of the time the
(26:17):
issue is that they can't findstaff, and that is almost always
based on the fact of how muchthey're willing to pay right.
That oftentimes is based on thefact that they don't charge
their true value, so they don'tactually charge enough, which
stops them from being able to um, you know, pay people.
(26:40):
You know to get good people.
Now that not charging enough isoftentimes something that
happens because they're worriedabout losing customers.
They're worried about gettingcustomers.
They think that I have to becheap to get customers.
The reality is no one buys anyservice, especially gymnastics
classes for kids.
But no one buys any service tosave money no one does.
(27:03):
No one buys a service to savemoney no one does.
No one buys a service becausethey're saving money.
If you truly are wanting tosave money, you won't buy the
service Right and that'severything right, even food
right.
I don't buy food to save money.
I buy food to keep myself alive, right, and I will pay a lot of
(27:23):
money.
If the only place that I canget food is Michael, I'm going
to pay.
Whatever you charge, you haveto have food Right.
So, business owners getting outof the mindset of you know, I
need to charge, I'm scared ofraising my prices because I'm
worried about not gettingcustomers.
Customers don't buy things tosave money, so that means it's
(27:47):
about value, it's about whatdoes the customer get is really
what it's all about.
And also, if you're a businessthat isn't marketing and I use
this term, I try to change thisterm with all the business
owners.
I do a lot of speaking.
I try to change this term withall the business owners.
I do a lot of speaking.
I'm actually going to aCongress in July and August and
(28:10):
I'll be speaking to about 500business owners and I will say
to them, instead of thinkingabout marketing and advertising,
which makes every smallbusiness owner go oh, because
they all say I've been burnt bya million people mainly because
they're trying to get thesecompanies to fix things that the
company can't fix Right, butthey, they have a bad feeling
towards marketing.
(28:32):
Stop thinking of it as marketing, advertising thinking.
Thinking of it as effectivelycommunicating with your
community.
So is it important for you tocommunicate with your community
as a business owner?
I don't know a single businessowner that's ever said to me no,
it's not important for me tocommunicate to my community.
Almost all of them have saidyes, and I'm not doing a good
job.
All right, well, that's whatmarketing and advertising is.
(28:53):
So let's just stop using thatterm and just say communicating
with your community.
If you communicate veryeffectively with your community,
you'll have more people lookingat what you're doing.
So let's use a kids activitycenter.
But it could be anything, itcould be a plumber, it could be
any service, right, but let'ssay, a kids activity center,
I'll use gymnastics because mywife owned one and I understand
(29:14):
kind of that.
You know I can walk throughthat.
So kids activity center owneronly wants to charge 50 bucks a
month because I'm worried aboutreaching getting customers and
if I raise prices to $100 amonth I'm going to lose
customers and I won't be able toget any more because I don't
know how to get customers andI'm not really doing a good job
of getting customers Because Ican only charge $50 a month.
(29:35):
The only people I can hire areteenagers because no one really
wants to work for me for alittle bit over minimum wage.
And then I'm caught in thisthing where my product is poor
and I've got parents complainingand writing Google reviews that
I didn't pay a company to havekids teaching my kids and that's
(29:56):
a very common thing that we seeall the time.
That literal scenario is thething that we hear all the time
and we see all the time.
That literal scenario is thething that we hear all the time
and we see all the time.
So the way to fix it is youmake sure you're communicating
effectively with your community,so everybody.
That's important.
So if you're a gymnastics gymit would be.
We want to make sure that everysingle mom in your community,
within a 10 mile radius of yourlocation or where you serve,
(30:20):
knows that you exist and knowswhy you're great.
Right, so that's start one.
So you start getting an influxof calls.
You get an influx of calls andthen all of a sudden, you're in
a situation where your supply ishere and your demand is here,
right?
So if demand and supply are outof whack, where supply is lower
than demand, then most peopleunderstand that an easy fix to
(30:42):
that is you raise prices.
Right, that's why inflationhappens.
Right, we've got a lot moredollars chasing a lot less goods
, right?
So so you're.
You're communicating with yourcommunity effectively.
There's lots of people showingan interest because they didn't
know that you existed and, quitefrankly, google, facebook and
instagram is where all smallbusinesses local small
(31:04):
businesses should be to explainthis is what we are and this is
what we do.
You'll get those incominginquiries.
You now know that people areinterested.
You now know that people arefinding you.
You raise your prices.
All of a sudden, you haveexcess money coming in, right,
so instead of getting $50,you're getting $75, getting 75,
right?
All of a sudden, you've got anextra 25 per class.
(31:28):
If you've got 10 kids in aclass, it's an extra 250 an hour
.
Give some raise instead ofpaying minimum wage and getting
a whole bunch of teenagers pay25 an hour and start getting
some adults get.
Get some people that are good.
You know, if you're a painter,pay good money for your painters
(31:49):
so you get real good tradesmenthat are interested in you.
If there's other paintingcompanies and you're paying more
than the other paintingcompanies, the good painters and
those other painting companieswill come over to you.
The good coaches and the othergymnastics gym will come over to
you.
The good coaches in the othergymnastics gym will come over to
you because, oh, I'm gettingpaid $18 an hour at this
gymnastics gym and I'm atop-rated coach, but I can go to
(32:11):
Andy's gym and get $25.
Andy's raised the amount thathe charges and he's making $250
an hour and he's making loads ofmoney anyway and the value,
which is what I originally spokeabout, has gone through the
roof because all of a sudden,the parents aren't complaining
about kids coaching kids.
The parents are like wow, this30-year-old ex-gymnast who is
(32:34):
now teaching my kid.
This is wonderful, this isamazing and that 30-year-old can
give a lot more to my kid thanwhat a teenager can.
That the painter that's been.
You know that I've sourced fromanother, from a, from a
competitor.
Um, who's working for me is now, you know, doing such great
(32:54):
work.
The reviews start going up.
People start talking to people.
Everyone's got a house,everyone needs to paint one once
in a while.
Everyone starts out with I'llwalk across the road and say who
painted your house?
Oh, andy's painting company did, and they did a great job.
They had a guy came in, he justknew his stuff and blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah.
So it comes down to in my minda lot of times it's paying Like,
(33:19):
if you can't find people inthis area country, it's not
because there aren't people.
There's 330 million people thatlive in the United States.
I live in Phoenix and we've gotin the Phoenix greater area.
There's about four and a halfmillion people.
If I want three human beings towork for me, I can find them
(33:39):
right.
If I'm charging $6,000 to paintyour house, I can probably
afford.
And it takes 20, you know, ittakes, let's say, 40 hours to
paint your house.
I can probably.
I can probably charge, you know, pay 30, 35, $40 an hour for my
painter to paint it and I'llstill have profit.
(34:00):
And guess what?
I'm not painting it.
I'm in New Zealand on a beach.
All of a sudden, I'm doingbetter and it might sound very
kind of like oh yeah, just paypeople more.
Well, because you're out therepainting all day.
(34:20):
You're not spending time honingyour skills on how to find
really good people, on how tointerview good people, right?
I tend to weigh mydecision-making on good people
much more heavily on characterand personality than I do skills
or experience.
However, you know, withsomething like painting, if
you're wanting to have somebodygo and get on a painting job,
(34:42):
you probably want that.
But if you're looking at 10experienced painters, you're
choosing the one with the bestpersonality and the best
characteristics and character.
Right?
That's the difference.
You know, if they've all gottwo years of experience, I don't
think I'm going to hire the guywith five years.
If he looks like he was drunkwhen he came into the meeting,
right into the interview, or hemaybe had a hard night the night
(35:04):
before.
I want to hire the guy thatseems like he's got it together
and he answers the questionswell and he communicates well
and he's really effective.
He represents the company,because the painters that are
going to people's houses aregoing to represent the company,
right, and you just hire ahigher grade of human and that
in itself will solve the problem.
(35:25):
I think a lot of business ownersget into exactly what you said,
which is a problem.
They hire bodies, yeah, andthey think the body count will
fix the problem, and, honestly,it's the opposite.
If you're just hiring bodycounts, it's going to be a major
problem.
We spoke about liabilities.
The real, true thing thatbusiness owners take on is
(35:45):
liability and difficulty.
Liability is probably thebiggest thing.
You hire the wrong people.
That becomes a nightmare, right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Yeah, and we always remind business owners that
don't forget that you usuallyhire for skill set.
Most business owners hire forskill set and fire on character
or a character flaw.
They could be tardy, they couldbe stolen something from the
company, drunk when they cameinto work, but it's usually
(36:16):
never.
We fire them because of skillset.
Every once in a while theymight be lacking some skills,
but most of the time it's acharacter flaw.
So what is it?
Slow to hire, quick to fire.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
And I always look at it as you know.
You're not discounting the factthat you need someone with some
skills, but it can't be the keyfactor of why you hire you.
For me it's like if I'm hiring,I'm like you need to have these
skills to get into the room totalk to me.
You have these skills Great.
Then I'm trying to find out ifyou're a great person and we'll
(36:50):
test to see if you actually havesome bare skills and minimum
skills to actually do what youwant to do.
But I've seen time and timeagain, if somebody's got great
character, great work ethic anda really good person, I can
actually increase and bettertheir skills quite easily.
A really good person I canactually increase and better
their skills quite easily.
If they're a flawed characterand flawed by nature, there's
(37:12):
almost nothing I can do toincrease their skill set.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Yeah, they've got to be trainable right, Exactly.
That's a good character.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
And that gets into the will of the way.
Have you heard of the will ofthe way thought process where,
when you're trying to figure outwhether or not somebody should
be fired or whether, as a goodemployee, you look at them and
you go do they know the way todo something or do they not have
the will to do it?
And if they don't know the wayto do it, you teach them how to
do it.
If they don't have the will todo it, you fire them.
(37:42):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Amen.
Well, I know you've just kindof wet people's ears wanting to
know more about you.
Where's the best place tofollow you?
Engage with you Right?
So the?
Speaker 2 (37:57):
best place to follow us is go to
creativelydisruptivecom and youcan yeah, there's a lot of stuff
on there.
Go to YouTube and search forCreatively Disruptive and you'll
see a lot of me talking about alot of stuff and you can
definitely engage through there.
I don't run the social mediaparts of the business.
If you do want to speak to me,reach out to the team and the
(38:21):
team will talk, because, if I'mhonest, I truly want to live
what I'm preaching, which is Iwant to spend time swimming in
the pool with my seven-year-old,not painting houses.
Yeah, right, amen, yeah.
But I also love the game of thesmall business owner and I love
(38:42):
helping small business ownersdiscover what they deserve,
especially living in thiscountry.
The United States is awonderful country.
I'm an immigrant, a legalimmigrant, that loves the
opportunity that was given to meand I want every American and
every person that's in here tobenefit it.
I truly believe small businessowners are the powerhouse of the
(39:03):
United States.
It's where the hopes and dreamsare, it's where the greatness
of America lives, and all largebusinesses started as small
businesses Absolutely.
Absolutely, they reach out to mecreativelydisruptivecom.
We do have ashweststrategycom,which is more on the e-com side.
If you've got an e-com businessthat you're looking at starting
(39:25):
or that you've started and youneed some help with, but from a
local owned business, creativelyDisruptive is the place to go
and go to the YouTube page forus Just find Creatively
Disruptive on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Well, I always end our shows with a question, and
that is if you were in a roomfull of business owners,
different industries, differentsizes, what's one thing that a
tip, an insight, a quote, a book, whatever it is that could be
applicable to all of them,something you've learned or come
across?
Speaker 2 (39:56):
And this is business, all sorts of different like
different levels everything.
Yeah, I would say.
I would say the most applicableis what is your exit strategy?
Why are you doing this?
Exit strategy doesn't mean youneed to get out of the business.
An exit strategy going back tothe what the uh talking about
(40:19):
the ship and the captaincharting his course.
The exit strategy is thedestination.
Right, like most ships, you getto the destination.
It doesn't necessarily be wherethis ship is scrapped and sold
off and everything.
Yeah, you can choose anotherdestination over that.
But what is your cleardestination?
(40:39):
And in a room of businessowners that will, for me, sort
out the guys that have troubleand need help to the ones that
are really good and going well,and either way, I, I win with
that information, right?
Um, I want to.
I want you know if I speak toyou and you say to me Andy, yeah
, this is what we're looking todo.
In three years time, we want tobe at $3 million of revenue.
(41:03):
Um, I want to be doing, youknow, 800,000 profit and we're
looking to sell that businessfor $3 million and at that point
I might be looking at someother options.
I would look at that as well.
That's a really good answer.
I'll go to another person, I'llsay what do you mean?
Exit strategy?
I don't see myself ever sellingthis.
I need to be painting thehouses every day to pay my
(41:25):
mortgage.
That's a good answer too, butit tells me a different story.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
Correct.
Well, clarity is key, as I'vealways found out so well.
You've been a blessing to manyand a wealth of information.
Appreciate your time on theshow.
I wish we had a whole bunchmore time because I feel like we
just barely dipped our toe inthe water, but we are out of
time.
So, again, I appreciate youcoming on and sharing your
insights with our audience.
(41:49):
Thank you, michael, and hope totalk to you soon.
Yeah, my pleasure.
Thank you for listening tosmall business pivots.
This podcast is created andproduced by my company boss.
Our business is growing.
Yours, boss offers flexiblebusiness loans with business
coaching support.
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
(42:11):
as 24 to 48 hours atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom.
If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to hit the
subscribe button and share it aswell.
If you need help growing yourbusiness, email me at michael at
michaeldmorrisoncom.
We'll see you next time onSmall Business Pivots.
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