June 26, 2025 • 41 mins
Are you at the point in your business where it's successful and profitable, but....you're unhappy? Have you looked at what may be contributing to that unhappiness? What's your plan for tackling that and alleviating that? Todd and Craig talk about The Owner's Trap, and how you can avoid it, or escape it.
Chapter Timestamps:
0:00 Episode Open
01:29 The Owner's Trap Introduction 0
2:03 Educational Conferences
03:48 Spiro Updates
04:16 AutoHDR Update
07:00 The Owner's Trap
39:50 Episode Wrap-up
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Coming up on this episodeof The Spiro podcast.
(00:04):
I was so unhappy.
I was like, and and business was good.
It wasn't that business was bad.
We had more business.
I made more money than I ever made.
Like I had all these thingsthat I wanted to do,
but I'm sitting there going,why am I here?
(00:35):
Hi and welcome to this Spiro podcast,
Managing your Real estate, photographyand Videography Business.
Spirit is a software platformdesigned to help you manage
and actually scale your day to dayreal estate media business.
I'm Craig Magrumand welcome to the podcast.
We've got a great questionand topic for you this week.
We're going to tease that in just asecond here, but let me first introduce
(00:56):
our owner and founder and co-hostof the Spiro podcast, Todd Kivimaki.
Welcome back Todd.
Craig, it's great to be back.
I missed you all last week.
You guys had a fabulous sessionwith Jess Paxson in our Director of ops.
Wow. So thanks for covering for me.
It's great to be back.
Talk to all of you all.
And, you know, my my daughter had surgery.
(01:17):
Everything went well.
So thank you all for the well-wishesand the prayers.
And, it's we're just cooking.
Cooking here in June.
Yeah. No joke.
It's it's gotten busy. It's gotten busy.
All right, well, Todd,we have a few announcements before that.
I want to kind of set the the episode up,and it's going to kind of pull
from some past episodes,but I think really kind of distilled down
(01:39):
to some really goodactionable points in the topic
this week is it's called the Owners Trap.
It's it's the paradox of your businessbeing successful,
but also experiencing more frustrationin the midst of that success.
So we're going to dive into thata little bit.
But first, a couple of announcements.
Before we start the episode.
(02:01):
Yeah, Craig, I'll be brief here.
The first one is is let's planahead for what
you're going to doto build into your education,
to put back into yourself,to put back into your well-being.
There are great conferencesin our industry there.
In November, out in Vegas, the REPPconference, that's Eli Jones and his team.
(02:22):
It's a fabulous conference.
It is coming up soonso you can get more information at
repplaunch.com/repp2025.
It's the second week in November.
Don't take the dates for me.
Just go to their website, look at it.
But look at it today.
There are 40%sold out in the first three weeks.
All of their MVP, what they call
(02:43):
that's their pre conference day.
We're just if you're doing it,if you're doing more than 20K
a month and businessthis is where we do a fabulous mastermind.
Eli's team will be there.
I will be there with my team from Wow.
And we're going to look at howwe really analyze your business,
how you go from 20 to 50,50 to 100, 100 to 300 K a month.
(03:06):
So take a look at that.
They sold out.
They sold outalmost instantly of these MVP's.
Because it's it's it's a close group.
It's not a huge group.
And it's a lot of interaction.
And so they sold outand they've had it so much requested
that they're findinga little bit larger of a venue.
So, they are almost done with that.
(03:26):
So keep that in mind.
Keep an eye out for those
if you are interested in that MVP day,one extra day to the conference,
email them and let them knowso you can get put on a waitlist.
So that is coming up again.
That is repplaunch.com/repp2025
repp has two p’s in it for repp launch.
Awesome.
So moving forward here Spiro updates.
(03:49):
This will launch the second week in July.
Not going to talk about today
other than I leaked a video of a featurethat's coming.
This is one of our most requested featuresI posted in there.
If you've seen it, you are like,oh yes, this is great.
One of them said, hey,this is my biggest thing, so check it out.
It's in there. I'll show you how it works.I'll show you what it is.
So that is on the SpiroSuper User Facebook group.
(04:11):
That's a mouthful. Craig.
How do we name that? Just a little bit.
And then my last thing is autoHDR.
So you all knowwe endorsed autoHDR a couple months ago.
And we we did it by using it.
We use it at our own company.
So all of our photos many of you asked meis wow, we use it on everything.
Yes we do. We use it on everything.
There might be 2 or 3 VIPs that we don't,but we use it on everything.
(04:33):
Literally.
The 1400 jobs or 1500 jobswe're going to do this month.
Almost all of them went through auto HDRlike a 99.9.
I'm sayingthey just launched a huge update.
So if you've triedit before and you're like,
try it again, take a look at it.
Maybe you don't do it
at this instant because you're busy,but put it in your brain of things to do.
(04:55):
I will tell you guys that we switchedup. Wow.
I'll also tell you that our largest usersin Spiro all switched as well.
So the thing I want to point out,and that we're going to get to
some of this today, is it's not perfect.
I'll tell you what, I've workedwith overseas editors for 20 years.
(05:17):
We changed their photos every day to
and there was some that they were goodand there was some that they were bad.
There were some days that werethey were off autoHDR is never off
autoHDR always is consistent with processingtime.
Google went down the other day.
Y'all like Google? Like
the cloud services.
So that means you can't process things.
(05:38):
They figured out a way.
They put it on a local machineslike 30 or 40 local machines, Matt said.
And they processed.
So anyways,
we use it.
Our largest Spiro users use it.
That's because it unlockssome things for you guys.
If you want to look at every pixel,don't use it.
You'regoing to be very critical of any editor.
But if you want to unlock growth andand check an easy button, give it a look.
(06:01):
Again, they have a lot of great updates.So that's my piece.
Again I'm you can go to autohdr.com/spiroI don't own autoHDR.
I'm not affiliated any other waythat our company uses it.
And if you click my linkI get a little bit of kickback from that.
So again I've said it before,
if you don't like me, don't use my link,just go to autoHDR and look at it.
(06:23):
But if you go to autohdr.com/spiro,it helps me out a little bit.
But by all meansthat is completely up to you.
But I want to be transparent with what therelationship is and how we're using it.
I think that's fair.
That's. Yeah, it's I try to be Craig.
Yeah, yeah.
You know this autoHDR and the benefitsit brings kind of ties
(06:44):
a little bit into what we're goingto be talking about today for sure.
The whole idea of delegation.
So anything else before I dive into itbefore I start I'm done.
I went over time.
I'm sorry.
Oh, you don't have to apologize to me.
I wasn't timing you.
All right, well, like, like I kind of saidat the beginning of the podcast,
last couple of episodes, we'vewe've talked a little bit
(07:05):
about mindset, and we've,we've kind of set down some things.
Todd, you've you've sharedsome really good things about,
you know, the gap in the gameand I think we
this is going to be a great episodeto take a deeper dive
and to really give you some answersand some, strategies
to make the most out of
what might have been started outas a really awesome, exciting adventure
(07:29):
and starting your business to the pointnow where you're
hitting goals, which is good, you'reyou're experiencing great growth.
I had that in my business,but you're also hitting a point of,
how do I want to put this, frustration
levels that you had didn't haveat the beginning of your business, right?
Yeah.
(07:49):
So we call it the owner's trap, right?
It's a place a lot of entrepreneurs getin, and they get kind of stuck in that.
I want to expound on thata little bit more, Todd.
Yeah, I so I've been very fortunateat Wow that we've grown
and all of the 22 yearswe have had great growth except one
(08:11):
and I've told the story before.
But the crazy thing is,I probably grew more in different ways
in the one year that our revenuedidn't grow than all the other years.
So it's crazy how life does that to you,but I can remember throughout the year.
So I had every year we went up.
And every year we
(08:32):
did new things and we grewand we had a great team.
And I had a lot of support around me.
And I would
go to a gathering,
you know, say I get off work and you all,I know how you work.
We're working a lot like as the owner,we put this on ourselves
like, hey, I have to do this.I have to put in the time.
I want to be the first one thereand the last one to leave.
(08:54):
Like we tell ourselves these lies.
And for me,I have some very vibrant memories
of Friday or Saturday eveningswhere I'm off work
and I'm sitting at friends houses, sittingout in their garage or their back patio.
And these arethese are close friends to me, like people
(09:15):
that are close to me that like,I should be enjoying their time.
And I remember sitting in the lawn chair,
just so engaged with work,
like I couldn't even likeI was listening to the conversation
which had nothing to do about work,had to do about our families, our lives.
(09:36):
It had to do about fun memoriesfrom the past, reminiscing,
and my brain could not process one thing
to even contribute to the conversation.
I was so unhappy.
I was like, and and business was good.
It wasn't that business was bad.
(09:58):
We had more business.
I made more money than I ever made.
Like I had all these thingsthat I wanted to do,
but I'm sitting there going,why am I here?
Like, well, why does this matter?
Like almost like this drawerto check my phone
or go back to open up thelaptop or back to the office
(10:18):
and it happened enough that I'm like, why?
Why am I doing this?
And then all the while
I'm more edgy, I'm more agitated,I'm shorter with my responses.
I might snap back not only employees, but
my family, my kids.
And I'm sitting there going,why did I dig myself into this hole
(10:42):
and feeling a bit hopelessabout being at the bottom of this
hole, feeling sorry for myself?
Quite honestly, Craig, to be transparent,I get it.
I think a lot of owners get it.
I'm going to go back prior to my time,
working in real estate media, and it waswhen I worked in broadcast radio.
I was general manager of a radio station,here in the Toledo area.
(11:05):
And, I was putting in 70, 75 hoursa week as GM of the station.
And I remember telling people,and I've told people since
even when I was not at work, I was at workexactly like what you just said.
And when I was home, I wasn't home,I wasn't mentally there for my wife.
I wasn't mentally there formy oldest son at the time.
(11:26):
And I think most owners experience
that somehow, you know,at some point in their career,
it same thing.
The radio station was actually doing.
Well.
We, we went through a format changewhere you're reaching new families.
There was new life in the radio station.
I mean, it was good, but I was
I actually started seeing a counselorat that time
(11:48):
because, as he put it, quote, Craig,
you are fried crispy.
You are fried crispy.
So yeah, I think most people are goingto understand that
most people listening to this podcastare going to understand what you're
talking about, Todd
Yeah, yeah.
I'll fast I'll rewind a little bit more.
Excuse me to earlier days.
(12:09):
So this was probably 3 or 4probably 4 or 5 years in the business.
I, we were growingexponentially at the time.
And you always grow
a larger percentage in your early daysbecause it's easier to grow and
we just had so much business.
And I had a good luckat bringing on photographers and business
(12:31):
part time photographers.
I didn't really know what I was doing.
You so not like I had it all figured out.
So you're like, man, I'mbringing on my first photographer.
Like I didn'treally know what I was doing.
I just, I just figured it outand I screwed a lot of it up.
But that's besides the point.
My point is, is that I had some otherthings that I was solely responsible for.
Everything pointed back to Todd
(12:54):
invoicing.
This was before Spiro invoice Spiro.
There was very little functionalityin the software.
The invoicing, phone calls.
I remember I went on vacationone week and I gave the phone, my phone
to someone that was helping me,
and when I got back, she was like,I have no clue how you do this.
Like your phone rings all the time.
(13:16):
Like your phone rings all the time.
Like, I know
email.
And Ihad a lot of these admin level duties that
I was the only one that knew how to do it.
I didn't have any processes written down.
I didn't have any time to think
that I could find somebodyto help me with these.
(13:38):
And I got to this, this low.
And I remember talking to my wife aboutI was just so unhappy.
And I was like, nobody can help me.
Like, no one's going to know how to do it.
There's no one that can help me with it.
Like, and looking back at the time, like,it's pretty dumb.
Like no one can putan invoice into QuickBooks.
(13:59):
But I was telling myself these liesor these thought airs.
Eli Jones has this term,this thought, and I love it.
I had this thought or somethingthat I was thinking incorrectly
and my wife was,and she's very gentle with me.
You know, our wives are significant.Others know as well.
She's like, well,I think you should just find somebody.
I'm like, no, there's no one out therethat can do it.
Like, I was something special.
(14:20):
Like it was crazy.
Like I thought I was doing thisinsurmountable task.
Like, really?
I thought I was going to get
the Nobel Peace Prize and next year, like,it was so difficult to work.
And my wife's, like very,very patient with me
and just bought me enough
and enough times that I began to open up
(14:41):
with the idea of hiringsomeone like a key person I had.
I had a part time admin.
I did add that to the story,but I needed someone
that I could depend onthat could take these low level
task away from meso I could focus on the bigger things
and and my story the way it ended up.
I was just so fortunate that God happenedto bring someone into my life.
It happened to be the adminthat was working part time for me.
(15:05):
She started talking to a guy.
This guy was working insurance,and he'd come in on his lunch break
and he and her would talkand I was in the office
and just kind of casually throughconversation, kind of connected, like
we're like, hey, we have a lot of the samevalues, believe a lot of same things.
And he was a go getter.
He's like, hey,I kind of like what you're doing.
(15:26):
And he's like, oh, by the way,I kind of hate this insurance thing too.
And. And then he was with mefor almost a decade
and help me just took things off my plateand allowed me to focus on bigger things.
So I didn't get caught in the minutia
so that the
idea of delegation huge in helpingyou get over this.
Can I rewind just a little bit just before
(15:47):
you discover the need for delegationand the mindset,
that you might be stuck in as an owner?
We talked we kind of touched on thisin a past episode.
Todd and the idea of the gap in the game.
Yeah.
Can you kind of set that up for us
and then we can transition intothen the idea of delegation and
and letting go of thingsto, to be able to grow?
Yeah, I'd love to.
(16:07):
So we had Simon on about a month agoand he happened to give a book suggestion.
It was a gap in the game, andI grabbed the book and I started reading
it, and I and just the psychology of it,
I love this, this approach to it.
So there is where you're at today,
okay.
And there's where you want to go. Okay.
(16:28):
So think that's above you.
That'swhere you're trying to grow the space
in between where you're at todayto where you want to grow is the gap.
It's a gap of what you have.
You're not there yet.
Okay.
Typically or always, I would say
you are going to be unhappyliving in that gap, focusing on that gap.
(16:52):
You all have done this.
Think about any timeyou've reached a goal.
You've now put a higher bar ahead of you.
There's always a gap ahead of you
no matter how you are,how big you are, how much you are,
there's always going to be a gap.
I believe it was there was an actor.
I heard this quote,I forget where I heard it from Adam.
I screwed up a bit, but the actor saida very famous actor said,
(17:13):
I think everybody should have basicallyloads
of fame, have a limitless amount of money,be able to get everything they want
and then realize thatit doesn't make them happy.
They realize that they'rethey were better off almost before
that, still living in the gap.
So you think if somebody
at the pinnacle of their careerlike this was a super famous
(17:34):
actor, had everything they wanted,and there was always
this gap ahead of them,there's always going to be a gap.
You all.
Now there is a different side of this,this equation that is the gain.
So where you're at today belowthat is where you were, where you started.
So I think going downthat is what you have gained.
That is what we should be happy about.
(17:55):
If we live in the gain, we'realways going to have gracious hearts.
We're always going to be positivepotentially,
and we're always going to be thankfulfor what we have gained.
So I love how the author approaches
this, and I'm using this terminologyat home with even my kids.
I'm like, hey, you're living in the gaptoo much.
Hey, I want this new thing.
(18:15):
Hey, my friends have this. Hey,can we do this?
Hey, can I watch a little more TV?
Like, no,you already watch too much of it.
Okay. Like, can we be appreciative that.
Remember, you asked for it?You got 30 minutes of TV.
Can you just be appreciativethat you got your time?
Block up TV?
Not that you want more.
We're always going towant more. As humans. Yeah,
(18:36):
I think it's
the idea of being contentin every situation.
You know, you get stuck in that, inthat gap section where it's never enough.
But if so, here's an actionable item.
You know, if you find yourselfin that spot where you're
just kind of stuck in that that morenegative mindset, hit the pause button
(18:57):
and think about three gainsthat you've had in the past year,
and it's shifting your mindset from it'snever enough to thankfulness
and being content in, in in that moment.
Right?
Craig I love that idea.
I would almost evenso what you just suggested
feelsvery weird to me, especially in the past.
(19:18):
Like, let me stop and reflect.
I'm not good at that.
I just every time is like,hey, let's have a moment to reflect.
It's like, wow, this is uncomfortable.
Like I need something to fill this time,but I will tell you that
as I continue down this journey in life,
I understand how important that isto really reflect and think about that.
(19:40):
So you all are probably driving right nowor maybe you're running or I don't know,
hopefully you're not working outbecause we're not very motivational.
Like it's not like we're like,you know, Rocky Balboa
getting you to run up the stairs,but whatever you're doing right now,
you probably have theability to stop and think.
And I'm going to give you some awkwardpauses right now.
Like, what are we thankful for?
(20:01):
Like, there's things your photographermight have screwed something up.
You might have an unhappy client,or maybe your editor
there was a problemor somebody set the wrong expectations.
All those things are in the gap.
You'll get to them.
There always be things in the gap,but what about the gain?
Think back
30 days ago.
(20:24):
What were you working on
that now you have accomplished?
You probably got a new client.
You probably talked to a new client.
You might have accomplishedsomething personally.
Go back six months ago.
Go back a year ago.
Go back to when you were working your job.
(20:44):
You were working for someoneand you thought, hey,
this might be coolif I could do my own thing.
You never imaginedyou'd be at where you are at today.
I never imagined
when I was 19 years oldthat I was going to have
what I have today and be so fortunateto touch so many people
and be able to influence peopleand have them influence me.
(21:08):
So really spend some timeto think about what you've gained
and when you live in that sector,the gain portion
life just feels better.
Yeah, it's a mindset thing. You
you know, in the past we talked about timetracking and, you know, things
(21:29):
that you can do to really manageand start to delegate. And,
there's all those strategies.
But reallyit boils down to rather than tasks,
it boils down to people.
I don't know if that makes sense.
Craig, you're completely correct
because you can only do so much.
(21:54):
You got your business off the ground.
And yes, I know you all can do a lot.
I talk to you.
It's amazing what you all are doingout there and how much you can shoulder.
But if you want to grow a business,
you have to depend on others.
Don't be me.
18 years ago, thinking that I was
(22:16):
the only one that could create an invoice,
I was the only one that could schedulesomething.
I was the only onethat could send an email.
No, you have to depend on othersto grow your business,
and it can be a scary thingand you're going to screw some of it up.
(22:36):
That's how you learn.
We can help you along the way.
We've got some tips for delegatingwe're going to talk about,
but I just want you to knowthat you're going to screw some of it up.
The thing that I warn the most on hereis, please don't come in
here and be like, Todd,how do you do 300K?
Last month?
Don't like I've done it 22 years.
Like I should probably be doing 600K,but I'm not living there.
(22:59):
That's the gap.
I am thankful that we're doing this,
so please don't compare yourself to me.
Don't compare yourself to social media.
That is the gap.
Please do not do that.You will be unhappy.
Be happy in the gainwith what you've grown to.
Now we're going to give you some ideasof how you can cross off
(23:20):
some of those things in the gapso that you move where you're at higher.
All right.
And we feel as though delegation is keyand you growing your business,
I can never do everything that I doand that we do without the team.
And then if you want ultimate freedom
and you want to beginto step away from your business,
(23:41):
you really have to learnto grow and manage up your team.
Okay, Todd.
So in the process of starting to delegate
the first step to really get that set up,we've talked about this in past
episodes is time tracking, knowingwhere you're spending your time right.
Yeah.
So how does that set upthen to move into starting to delegate
(24:04):
so that you're not experiencing thatfrustration you're stuck in right now?
Yes. Craig.
So time trackingI'm a huge believer in it.
If you haven't listened to that episode,if you haven't done it,
please go back and do that.
What that does is it unlocksyou making metric based decisions.
Okay.
So it's an activitywhere you're actually seeing where
(24:25):
your time goes, not emotional decisions.
Emotional decisions are not good, okay.
Emotions are great responders, terribleleaders tell my kids that all the time.
You don't want to lead with emotion.
You don't want to make decisionswith emotion.
So understand where your time goes.
At the end of that activity, you're goingto have three columns of activities.
(24:48):
You're going to have an admin nurseand a doctor as a list
explained to me by one of my coaches, you,if you want to move your business
along the furthest, you need to spend timein the doctor column, okay?
When you go to the doctor's office,does the doctor check you in?
No. That's ridiculous.
If your doctor was sitting thereand crossed your name or asked you
(25:09):
for your name and checked youin, you would be like, why is he up here?
Okay, you need to spend time in the doctorcolumn,
the other columns you need to delegate.
Okay?
Now, if it is just you,you have no one to delegate them to.
All right.
So this is maybe a pointthat you look to hire a VA, an admin,
a photographer, but one thing that I wantyou to be careful about is
(25:34):
don't get caught in the trap of thinking
you always have to hire someone
to delegate these task
I had people at Wow more than
I even ever believethat were ready and willing to help me.
and they actually feltlike they were growing in the company.
(25:57):
When I finally got overand outside of my own brain
and I was vulnerable with what I needed.
So remember y'all,you are the leader of your company.
You. I had misconceptionsin my head of the way
that employees would interact with mebecause I'm not intimidated by myself.
(26:20):
I think I'm pretty fun.
But your employees don't.
Your employees might think you're fun.
They might not be intimidated.
But there's always that fine linebetween employees and owner.
Okay, a coach said to me one time,If the Lions out to play,
the lion can always bite your head off.
(26:43):
When he said I was like, oh, okay,I get it now, I get it now.
So there's always that reserve.
So with me feeling like
I was proud and doing all of these tasks,I was actually dropping the ball
on many of them.
Your employees won't call you out on it,
they'll just try to fix itor they'll pivot around it.
(27:04):
Until I finally realize that
I was vulnerable and I asked for help.
That's when everything started to open up.
Yeah, you'll you'll find that peoplewithin your organization,
they might actually like doing the thingsthat you need to get off your plate.
Right. So.
Oh my.
Yes, I like I can't imagine enjoyingdoing the invoicing and the accounting,
(27:29):
but there's people actually weird peoplelike actually wired to do that.
Great.
Yeah.
Craig. This person did.
Yeah. It was like,oh man, I can clean all this up.
And he had 14 good ideasI never thought about because I was just
drowning in my sorrowsof having to create 100 invoices.
And he's like, this is great.
(27:49):
And I'm like, what are you talking about?
Like, do we need a drug test here? Oh.
But honestly, it is.
It wasn't until like,that is one way that you are truly going
to unlock your company to growis that you say, hey, I've got a question.
I need some help.
(28:10):
Because for a lot of years, Todd
was the person people went to for answers.
So everybody had to go
through Todd's brain for answers.
Everybody had to go through Todd's phone,
Todd's inbox, and I just couldn't keep up.
I was dropping the ball,and my employees weren't telling me
(28:34):
when I
had a coach finally tell me, like, hey,dummy, like,
you should probably ask more questionsthan give answers.
It wasn't until then
that when you ask a questionto an employee,
as when they begin to feel ownership,you know what they say.
They go, oh, this is Todd wantsmy opinion, Todd wants my help.
(28:57):
And they go, I'd love to help with this.
And then you know what?
They they go home, sorry, Craig.
And then they go home andthey tell their wife, hey, you know what?
You know what I get to do?
And all the while, they're helping you.
Just just touched
on this last weekon last week's episode about,
(29:18):
about a staff member or an employeeor even a contractor
feeling empowerment and ownershipthat that word feeling ownership.
So if you had to boil it down to like,say, three points of the positive,
you know, ripple approachto the approach to this,
what what would that beif we can kind of distill it down.
Yes. Craig.
So the three things first is empowerment.
(29:40):
So this is you empowering
or taking power that you haveand putting it in someone in your team
that is going to
make them feel goodand feel like they have that ownership.
Like Craig mentioned, next is the reliefyou are going to get relief from that
because you don't haveto do that thing anymore.
(30:02):
And then finally is focusbecause you have the relief.
You've cleared up some margin.
You can now focus on the doctor column
so that you can actually take the businessalong further,
because you're not so overloaded withthose tasks that you don't like to do
that don't energize you,and you have held on to a task
(30:25):
that an employee would love to help youwith.
Okay, Todd.
So let's tie all of this together.
So in the first part of this episode,we talked about,
you know, the internal mindset,shifting from the gap to the game.
Right.
We covered that part two.
Then we've got,
external actions that we can take.
(30:47):
The main thing being vulnerablewith your team, asking the team for help.
So how are those?
Let's kind of get this all tied together.
How are those two things then? Linked.
Directly linked.
Yeah.
I mean, so the mindset and theand the action. Yeah.
So sometimesyou just have to get out of your own way.
Remember my storyI'm sitting in my buddy's garage.
(31:07):
These are people that I've had a tonof just great times with in my life.
And I can't even contributebecause I'm in such a home.
My mind, you got to find a wayto pull yourself out.
Okay.
Talked to Craig,said he talked someone, a counselor.
I have I've had coachesthat have been counselors.
My wife.
Sometimes it just needs some talkingto someone
and someone go, oh, yeah, that's,you know,
they give you some perspective on it.
(31:28):
So once you get out of that mindset, okay,
you now have opened up the ideathat being vulnerable is okay.
You know, when you're in that hole,the idea of being vulnerable
is seems catastrophic, terrifying.
Yes. It's like you are already terrifiedand unhappy
(31:50):
in your business and then you're goingto go ask someone for help.
Hey, you.
It just doesn't connect.
Once you get out of that gapand you get into the game
and you realize that being vulnerableis positive from there,
then you empower a team memberto help you grow the company.
They take bigger task.
You get to focus on what's importantlive in the doctor category,
(32:13):
because that's where you're goingto grow your business,
and that's where you're goingto see the most success.
And one more pointthat I want to make, Craig, is
this is no different
than what your employees go throughat your organization.
Yeah, they might be doing theirall in columns as well.
(32:34):
And when you relinquish control
of a task that you're doing and put it
and give it to them, they move up a column
that is growth for them.
Two I have I, I've been fortunate enough
to see a lot of people Wow and Spiro grow.
(32:55):
There's been a lot of peoplethat started at one position, moved
to another, moved to another,and now two of them started
an entry level positionsand they're running the entire company.
It is incredibleto see how people can grow.
It will be the same effectthat you have that your employees
have as they grow up into your company,into the next column.
(33:19):
That's what
leadership is all about,really, is seeing the potential and others
and helping them get to that potentialand finding finding joy in that success.
And and you might I'm going to addsomething here, Todd, if that's okay.
Yeah.
You might have discovered
(33:39):
in your journey of starting in business
that you've gottento this point of great success,
but ultimate frustration.
I think the other thing that you need todo, and this is what I had to do,
and this can be, can be a humbling thing,because I got to the point
where I realizedI would rather do the hands on work,
the and for me,it was the creative aspect,
(34:00):
taking the photosand building the business relationships.
So, you know, the business development.
And be okay with.
That's what I really enjoy doing.
And the ownership aspect of itwasn't necessarily what I had to have.
And that's part of why I made the this,the change that I did
(34:21):
is I, I ultimately passed my businesson to
Wow video tours, and for a timeI went and worked at my church
and came back in.
I've told Todd this,I've told our other leadership this.
I love doing what I do now.
I don't own my this businessanymore. Right?
I'm part of now.
This team where I still get to dothe things that I enjoy doing.
(34:44):
And that's the creativeand the the relationship building
and everything else involved in ownership,
which is a leadership position,really helping grow people.
That's a different skill set.
And I came to the point where I hadto realize that's not my personal call.
And gift set.
(35:05):
And I've
I've had to get to the point where I'mokay with that.
And there might be a personor two out there listening
that is in that similar situation.
And I just want to say to youas a non owner, because I'm not an owner,
I'm just I'm on this podcastbecause I've experienced ownership.
Right?
I've learned a lot from Todd and I.
(35:27):
I'm enjoying teachingwhat I've learned along with Todd too.
You it's okayif you get to that point where you realize
I don't necessarily want to lead people,but I enjoyed this work.
There are other ways to do that work andnot necessarily be in the leader position.
Todd now you have two different goals
in two different callings and giftsets, and it's okay.
(35:49):
So I want to talk to that one
or 1 or 2 people that might be listeninggoing, yeah, but I don't I don't
necessarily enjoy developing peopleand looking for those things in people.
I just like the photography workor the video work and that's cool.
That's awesomethat there's nothing wrong with that.
So there's that.
There's that third kind of aspect to this,of maybe owning it isn't the thing.
(36:14):
And there can be anotherreally fulfilling,
business arrangement for you,for you to stay in this business,
but ultimately be fulfilled innot being the owner.
Is is that okay to say, oh,for sure, Craig.
And I think one thing that you justhave done incredibly in your journey,
I remember the first conversationyou have with me
(36:36):
about thinking about real estatemedia was at my house.
We were still working out in the office,in the house.
You came and we talked.
But you've always been honestand you've always been vulnerable.
We've had some vulnerable conversationsin both ways,
where I've shared things with you,you share things with me,
and we got it all out there and we said,where is there a win win?
Right. Well, you'll be happy.
Will I be happy?
(36:58):
And I and and I've learned a lot from youand that, Craig,
that you're very true to yourself.
And I so appreciate that about youbecause I think
as I look back over the times, I mighthave lied to myself throughout the years
and, and I might have forced
a few things and,and you just have to find that happy line,
because sometimes you just need to pusha little bit harder to break through.
(37:19):
And then other times pushingis just going to break
and you need to say, hey, wait a minute,this is not form.
I need to pivotand I'm going to find a win win somewhere.
My gift set is different.
I and I think part of it, Todd, isI was in the church world,
nonprofit ministry, church, you know,Christianity World for a long time.
(37:41):
And there was a huge, hugeculture of leadership
and how critical leadership is,which is true, but not everybody is
called to be an out front,charismatic type of leader, personality.
Some of us are giftedto be behind the scenes and to lift
the arms of the leader up,and I find my fulfillment in that.
I don't need to be the one outfront with the big vision.
(38:04):
But I shared love helpingsomebody achieve their vision.
And so if that's you did,there's no shame in that.
Even though the leadership culture
and all the seminars and, you know, thethe conferences are all pushing that
and you might feel that pressuredon't just I yeah just don't.
Yeah.
So yeah.
(38:24):
Well said Craig, but to the 99% of peoplethat maybe are owners and leaders,
this is great advice and and learninghow to delegate and getting the mindset
rightto be able to shift into that delegation
where you do empower people on your teamand and just have that joy
of watching themreally grow and blossom into the roles
and the things that they enjoy doingand are gifted to do.
(38:46):
So great, great insight, Todd.
Yeah, well, thanks for sharing, Craig.
And as you can be vulnerablewith these things,
let us know a time that you feltvulnerable, you know, and now
I'm asking you to share your vulnerabilityon on social media or just email me.
You know, me and Craig.
Yeah. hello@spiro.mediaWe'd love that.
We're in this with you.
(39:07):
For those of you that have email me,I could get a response.
It might be a little bit delay,
but email us likewe want to hear what we care about you.
It's just not. It's not.
Talk on a podcast is not face value.
We're real guys in the middleof cornfields and we care about you.
So hello@spiro.medialeave us a comment below.
You would be surprisedhow much your comment might help another,
(39:28):
so be generous with your commentsand your information
and how your comment might even help us.
There's there's a couple of youthat have encouraged us
and, I mean, we gowe go through the same stresses, right?
So just to hear, you know,you know, it's just encouragement.
It's so, so appreciated.
So yeah. Awesome.
(39:50):
Well there's there it is.
The owners trap ways to get out of it,strategies to get out of that and to move
and to growand to really enjoy what you do again,
if you've found yourselfin that spot of frustration
and losing the joy of of the workthat you do,
so awesome, Todd thank you.
Great episode here with you.
(40:12):
And, you know, as wewe always close things
down by just reminding you, be thankfulfor the blessings in your life.
Your business is a blessing.
You've got a resource in yourin your business
to allow othersto take care of their families.
Whether it's your clients, your realtors,or people on your staff
contractors that you've hired,you've been given a blessing in the
(40:34):
in the ownership of your business.
So just take some time to reflect on that.
Make sure you take some timeto breathe as well.
You guys have a great week.Thanks for watching and listening.
Coming up on this episodeof The Spiro podcast.
(00:04):
I was so unhappy.
I was like, and and business was good.
It wasn't that business was bad.
We had more business.
I made more money than I ever made.
Like I had all these thingsthat I wanted to do,
but I'm sitting there going,why am I here?
(00:35):
Hi and welcome to this Spiro podcast,
Managing your Real estate, photographyand Videography Business.
Spirit is a software platformdesigned to help you manage
and actually scale your day to dayreal estate media business.
I'm Craig Magrumand welcome to the podcast.
We've got a great questionand topic for you this week.
We're going to tease that in just asecond here, but let me first introduce
(00:56):
our owner and founder and co-hostof the Spiro podcast, Todd Kivimaki.
Welcome back Todd.
Craig, it's great to be back.
I missed you all last week.
You guys had a fabulous sessionwith Jess Paxson in our Director of ops.
Wow. So thanks for covering for me.
It's great to be back.
Talk to all of you all.
And, you know, my my daughter had surgery.
(01:17):
Everything went well.
So thank you all for the well-wishesand the prayers.
And, it's we're just cooking.
Cooking here in June.
Yeah. No joke.
It's it's gotten busy. It's gotten busy.
All right, well, Todd,we have a few announcements before that.
I want to kind of set the the episode up,and it's going to kind of pull
from some past episodes,but I think really kind of distilled down
(01:39):
to some really goodactionable points in the topic
this week is it's called the Owners Trap.
It's it's the paradox of your businessbeing successful,
but also experiencing more frustrationin the midst of that success.
So we're going to dive into thata little bit.
But first, a couple of announcements.
Before we start the episode.
(02:01):
Yeah, Craig, I'll be brief here.
The first one is is let's planahead for what
you're going to doto build into your education,
to put back into yourself,to put back into your well-being.
There are great conferencesin our industry there.
In November, out in Vegas, the REPPconference, that's Eli Jones and his team.
(02:22):
It's a fabulous conference.
It is coming up soonso you can get more information at
repplaunch.com/repp2025.
It's the second week in November.
Don't take the dates for me.
Just go to their website, look at it.
But look at it today.
There are 40%sold out in the first three weeks.
All of their MVP, what they call
(02:43):
that's their pre conference day.
We're just if you're doing it,if you're doing more than 20K
a month and businessthis is where we do a fabulous mastermind.
Eli's team will be there.
I will be there with my team from Wow.
And we're going to look at howwe really analyze your business,
how you go from 20 to 50,50 to 100, 100 to 300 K a month.
(03:06):
So take a look at that.
They sold out.
They sold outalmost instantly of these MVP's.
Because it's it's it's a close group.
It's not a huge group.
And it's a lot of interaction.
And so they sold outand they've had it so much requested
that they're findinga little bit larger of a venue.
So, they are almost done with that.
(03:26):
So keep that in mind.
Keep an eye out for those
if you are interested in that MVP day,one extra day to the conference,
email them and let them knowso you can get put on a waitlist.
So that is coming up again.
That is repplaunch.com/repp2025
repp has two p’s in it for repp launch.
Awesome.
So moving forward here Spiro updates.
(03:49):
This will launch the second week in July.
Not going to talk about today
other than I leaked a video of a featurethat's coming.
This is one of our most requested featuresI posted in there.
If you've seen it, you are like,oh yes, this is great.
One of them said, hey,this is my biggest thing, so check it out.
It's in there. I'll show you how it works.I'll show you what it is.
So that is on the SpiroSuper User Facebook group.
(04:11):
That's a mouthful. Craig.
How do we name that? Just a little bit.
And then my last thing is autoHDR.
So you all knowwe endorsed autoHDR a couple months ago.
And we we did it by using it.
We use it at our own company.
So all of our photos many of you asked meis wow, we use it on everything.
Yes we do. We use it on everything.
There might be 2 or 3 VIPs that we don't,but we use it on everything.
(04:33):
Literally.
The 1400 jobs or 1500 jobswe're going to do this month.
Almost all of them went through auto HDRlike a 99.9.
I'm sayingthey just launched a huge update.
So if you've triedit before and you're like,
try it again, take a look at it.
Maybe you don't do it
at this instant because you're busy,but put it in your brain of things to do.
(04:55):
I will tell you guys that we switchedup. Wow.
I'll also tell you that our largest usersin Spiro all switched as well.
So the thing I want to point out,and that we're going to get to
some of this today, is it's not perfect.
I'll tell you what, I've workedwith overseas editors for 20 years.
(05:17):
We changed their photos every day to
and there was some that they were goodand there was some that they were bad.
There were some days that werethey were off autoHDR is never off
autoHDR always is consistent with processingtime.
Google went down the other day.
Y'all like Google? Like
the cloud services.
So that means you can't process things.
(05:38):
They figured out a way.
They put it on a local machineslike 30 or 40 local machines, Matt said.
And they processed.
So anyways,
we use it.
Our largest Spiro users use it.
That's because it unlockssome things for you guys.
If you want to look at every pixel,don't use it.
You'regoing to be very critical of any editor.
But if you want to unlock growth andand check an easy button, give it a look.
(06:01):
Again, they have a lot of great updates.So that's my piece.
Again I'm you can go to autohdr.com/spiroI don't own autoHDR.
I'm not affiliated any other waythat our company uses it.
And if you click my linkI get a little bit of kickback from that.
So again I've said it before,
if you don't like me, don't use my link,just go to autoHDR and look at it.
(06:23):
But if you go to autohdr.com/spiro,it helps me out a little bit.
But by all meansthat is completely up to you.
But I want to be transparent with what therelationship is and how we're using it.
I think that's fair.
That's. Yeah, it's I try to be Craig.
Yeah, yeah.
You know this autoHDR and the benefitsit brings kind of ties
(06:44):
a little bit into what we're goingto be talking about today for sure.
The whole idea of delegation.
So anything else before I dive into itbefore I start I'm done.
I went over time.
I'm sorry.
Oh, you don't have to apologize to me.
I wasn't timing you.
All right, well, like, like I kind of saidat the beginning of the podcast,
last couple of episodes, we'vewe've talked a little bit
(07:05):
about mindset, and we've,we've kind of set down some things.
Todd, you've you've sharedsome really good things about,
you know, the gap in the gameand I think we
this is going to be a great episodeto take a deeper dive
and to really give you some answersand some, strategies
to make the most out of
what might have been started outas a really awesome, exciting adventure
(07:29):
and starting your business to the pointnow where you're
hitting goals, which is good, you'reyou're experiencing great growth.
I had that in my business,but you're also hitting a point of,
how do I want to put this, frustration
levels that you had didn't haveat the beginning of your business, right?
Yeah.
(07:49):
So we call it the owner's trap, right?
It's a place a lot of entrepreneurs getin, and they get kind of stuck in that.
I want to expound on thata little bit more, Todd.
Yeah, I so I've been very fortunateat Wow that we've grown
and all of the 22 yearswe have had great growth except one
(08:11):
and I've told the story before.
But the crazy thing is,I probably grew more in different ways
in the one year that our revenuedidn't grow than all the other years.
So it's crazy how life does that to you,but I can remember throughout the year.
So I had every year we went up.
And every year we
(08:32):
did new things and we grewand we had a great team.
And I had a lot of support around me.
And I would
go to a gathering,
you know, say I get off work and you all,I know how you work.
We're working a lot like as the owner,we put this on ourselves
like, hey, I have to do this.I have to put in the time.
I want to be the first one thereand the last one to leave.
(08:54):
Like we tell ourselves these lies.
And for me,I have some very vibrant memories
of Friday or Saturday eveningswhere I'm off work
and I'm sitting at friends houses, sittingout in their garage or their back patio.
And these arethese are close friends to me, like people
(09:15):
that are close to me that like,I should be enjoying their time.
And I remember sitting in the lawn chair,
just so engaged with work,
like I couldn't even likeI was listening to the conversation
which had nothing to do about work,had to do about our families, our lives.
(09:36):
It had to do about fun memoriesfrom the past, reminiscing,
and my brain could not process one thing
to even contribute to the conversation.
I was so unhappy.
I was like, and and business was good.
It wasn't that business was bad.
(09:58):
We had more business.
I made more money than I ever made.
Like I had all these thingsthat I wanted to do,
but I'm sitting there going,why am I here?
Like, well, why does this matter?
Like almost like this drawerto check my phone
or go back to open up thelaptop or back to the office
(10:18):
and it happened enough that I'm like, why?
Why am I doing this?
And then all the while
I'm more edgy, I'm more agitated,I'm shorter with my responses.
I might snap back not only employees, but
my family, my kids.
And I'm sitting there going,why did I dig myself into this hole
(10:42):
and feeling a bit hopelessabout being at the bottom of this
hole, feeling sorry for myself?
Quite honestly, Craig, to be transparent,I get it.
I think a lot of owners get it.
I'm going to go back prior to my time,
working in real estate media, and it waswhen I worked in broadcast radio.
I was general manager of a radio station,here in the Toledo area.
(11:05):
And, I was putting in 70, 75 hoursa week as GM of the station.
And I remember telling people,and I've told people since
even when I was not at work, I was at workexactly like what you just said.
And when I was home, I wasn't home,I wasn't mentally there for my wife.
I wasn't mentally there formy oldest son at the time.
(11:26):
And I think most owners experience
that somehow, you know,at some point in their career,
it same thing.
The radio station was actually doing.
Well.
We, we went through a format changewhere you're reaching new families.
There was new life in the radio station.
I mean, it was good, but I was
I actually started seeing a counselorat that time
(11:48):
because, as he put it, quote, Craig,
you are fried crispy.
You are fried crispy.
So yeah, I think most people are goingto understand that
most people listening to this podcastare going to understand what you're
talking about, Todd
Yeah, yeah.
I'll fast I'll rewind a little bit more.
Excuse me to earlier days.
(12:09):
So this was probably 3 or 4probably 4 or 5 years in the business.
I, we were growingexponentially at the time.
And you always grow
a larger percentage in your early daysbecause it's easier to grow and
we just had so much business.
And I had a good luckat bringing on photographers and business
(12:31):
part time photographers.
I didn't really know what I was doing.
You so not like I had it all figured out.
So you're like, man, I'mbringing on my first photographer.
Like I didn'treally know what I was doing.
I just, I just figured it outand I screwed a lot of it up.
But that's besides the point.
My point is, is that I had some otherthings that I was solely responsible for.
Everything pointed back to Todd
(12:54):
invoicing.
This was before Spiro invoice Spiro.
There was very little functionalityin the software.
The invoicing, phone calls.
I remember I went on vacationone week and I gave the phone, my phone
to someone that was helping me,
and when I got back, she was like,I have no clue how you do this.
Like your phone rings all the time.
(13:16):
Like your phone rings all the time.
Like, I know
email.
And Ihad a lot of these admin level duties that
I was the only one that knew how to do it.
I didn't have any processes written down.
I didn't have any time to think
that I could find somebodyto help me with these.
(13:38):
And I got to this, this low.
And I remember talking to my wife aboutI was just so unhappy.
And I was like, nobody can help me.
Like, no one's going to know how to do it.
There's no one that can help me with it.
Like, and looking back at the time, like,it's pretty dumb.
Like no one can putan invoice into QuickBooks.
(13:59):
But I was telling myself these liesor these thought airs.
Eli Jones has this term,this thought, and I love it.
I had this thought or somethingthat I was thinking incorrectly
and my wife was,and she's very gentle with me.
You know, our wives are significant.Others know as well.
She's like, well,I think you should just find somebody.
I'm like, no, there's no one out therethat can do it.
Like, I was something special.
(14:20):
Like it was crazy.
Like I thought I was doing thisinsurmountable task.
Like, really?
I thought I was going to get
the Nobel Peace Prize and next year, like,it was so difficult to work.
And my wife's, like very,very patient with me
and just bought me enough
and enough times that I began to open up
(14:41):
with the idea of hiringsomeone like a key person I had.
I had a part time admin.
I did add that to the story,but I needed someone
that I could depend onthat could take these low level
task away from meso I could focus on the bigger things
and and my story the way it ended up.
I was just so fortunate that God happenedto bring someone into my life.
It happened to be the adminthat was working part time for me.
(15:05):
She started talking to a guy.
This guy was working insurance,and he'd come in on his lunch break
and he and her would talkand I was in the office
and just kind of casually throughconversation, kind of connected, like
we're like, hey, we have a lot of the samevalues, believe a lot of same things.
And he was a go getter.
He's like, hey,I kind of like what you're doing.
(15:26):
And he's like, oh, by the way,I kind of hate this insurance thing too.
And. And then he was with mefor almost a decade
and help me just took things off my plateand allowed me to focus on bigger things.
So I didn't get caught in the minutia
so that the
idea of delegation huge in helpingyou get over this.
Can I rewind just a little bit just before
(15:47):
you discover the need for delegationand the mindset,
that you might be stuck in as an owner?
We talked we kind of touched on thisin a past episode.
Todd and the idea of the gap in the game.
Yeah.
Can you kind of set that up for us
and then we can transition intothen the idea of delegation and
and letting go of thingsto, to be able to grow?
Yeah, I'd love to.
(16:07):
So we had Simon on about a month agoand he happened to give a book suggestion.
It was a gap in the game, andI grabbed the book and I started reading
it, and I and just the psychology of it,
I love this, this approach to it.
So there is where you're at today,
okay.
And there's where you want to go. Okay.
(16:28):
So think that's above you.
That'swhere you're trying to grow the space
in between where you're at todayto where you want to grow is the gap.
It's a gap of what you have.
You're not there yet.
Okay.
Typically or always, I would say
you are going to be unhappyliving in that gap, focusing on that gap.
(16:52):
You all have done this.
Think about any timeyou've reached a goal.
You've now put a higher bar ahead of you.
There's always a gap ahead of you
no matter how you are,how big you are, how much you are,
there's always going to be a gap.
I believe it was there was an actor.
I heard this quote,I forget where I heard it from Adam.
I screwed up a bit, but the actor saida very famous actor said,
(17:13):
I think everybody should have basicallyloads
of fame, have a limitless amount of money,be able to get everything they want
and then realize thatit doesn't make them happy.
They realize that they'rethey were better off almost before
that, still living in the gap.
So you think if somebody
at the pinnacle of their careerlike this was a super famous
(17:34):
actor, had everything they wanted,and there was always
this gap ahead of them,there's always going to be a gap.
You all.
Now there is a different side of this,this equation that is the gain.
So where you're at today belowthat is where you were, where you started.
So I think going downthat is what you have gained.
That is what we should be happy about.
(17:55):
If we live in the gain, we'realways going to have gracious hearts.
We're always going to be positivepotentially,
and we're always going to be thankfulfor what we have gained.
So I love how the author approaches
this, and I'm using this terminologyat home with even my kids.
I'm like, hey, you're living in the gaptoo much.
Hey, I want this new thing.
(18:15):
Hey, my friends have this. Hey,can we do this?
Hey, can I watch a little more TV?
Like, no,you already watch too much of it.
Okay. Like, can we be appreciative that.
Remember, you asked for it?You got 30 minutes of TV.
Can you just be appreciativethat you got your time?
Block up TV?
Not that you want more.
We're always going towant more. As humans. Yeah,
(18:36):
I think it's
the idea of being contentin every situation.
You know, you get stuck in that, inthat gap section where it's never enough.
But if so, here's an actionable item.
You know, if you find yourselfin that spot where you're
just kind of stuck in that that morenegative mindset, hit the pause button
(18:57):
and think about three gainsthat you've had in the past year,
and it's shifting your mindset from it'snever enough to thankfulness
and being content in, in in that moment.
Right?
Craig I love that idea.
I would almost evenso what you just suggested
feelsvery weird to me, especially in the past.
(19:18):
Like, let me stop and reflect.
I'm not good at that.
I just every time is like,hey, let's have a moment to reflect.
It's like, wow, this is uncomfortable.
Like I need something to fill this time,but I will tell you that
as I continue down this journey in life,
I understand how important that isto really reflect and think about that.
(19:40):
So you all are probably driving right nowor maybe you're running or I don't know,
hopefully you're not working outbecause we're not very motivational.
Like it's not like we're like,you know, Rocky Balboa
getting you to run up the stairs,but whatever you're doing right now,
you probably have theability to stop and think.
And I'm going to give you some awkwardpauses right now.
Like, what are we thankful for?
(20:01):
Like, there's things your photographermight have screwed something up.
You might have an unhappy client,or maybe your editor
there was a problemor somebody set the wrong expectations.
All those things are in the gap.
You'll get to them.
There always be things in the gap,but what about the gain?
Think back
30 days ago.
(20:24):
What were you working on
that now you have accomplished?
You probably got a new client.
You probably talked to a new client.
You might have accomplishedsomething personally.
Go back six months ago.
Go back a year ago.
Go back to when you were working your job.
(20:44):
You were working for someoneand you thought, hey,
this might be coolif I could do my own thing.
You never imaginedyou'd be at where you are at today.
I never imagined
when I was 19 years oldthat I was going to have
what I have today and be so fortunateto touch so many people
and be able to influence peopleand have them influence me.
(21:08):
So really spend some timeto think about what you've gained
and when you live in that sector,the gain portion
life just feels better.
Yeah, it's a mindset thing. You
you know, in the past we talked about timetracking and, you know, things
(21:29):
that you can do to really manageand start to delegate. And,
there's all those strategies.
But reallyit boils down to rather than tasks,
it boils down to people.
I don't know if that makes sense.
Craig, you're completely correct
because you can only do so much.
(21:54):
You got your business off the ground.
And yes, I know you all can do a lot.
I talk to you.
It's amazing what you all are doingout there and how much you can shoulder.
But if you want to grow a business,
you have to depend on others.
Don't be me.
18 years ago, thinking that I was
(22:16):
the only one that could create an invoice,
I was the only one that could schedulesomething.
I was the only onethat could send an email.
No, you have to depend on othersto grow your business,
and it can be a scary thingand you're going to screw some of it up.
(22:36):
That's how you learn.
We can help you along the way.
We've got some tips for delegatingwe're going to talk about,
but I just want you to knowthat you're going to screw some of it up.
The thing that I warn the most on hereis, please don't come in
here and be like, Todd,how do you do 300K?
Last month?
Don't like I've done it 22 years.
Like I should probably be doing 600K,but I'm not living there.
(22:59):
That's the gap.
I am thankful that we're doing this,
so please don't compare yourself to me.
Don't compare yourself to social media.
That is the gap.
Please do not do that.You will be unhappy.
Be happy in the gainwith what you've grown to.
Now we're going to give you some ideasof how you can cross off
(23:20):
some of those things in the gapso that you move where you're at higher.
All right.
And we feel as though delegation is keyand you growing your business,
I can never do everything that I doand that we do without the team.
And then if you want ultimate freedom
and you want to beginto step away from your business,
(23:41):
you really have to learnto grow and manage up your team.
Okay, Todd.
So in the process of starting to delegate
the first step to really get that set up,we've talked about this in past
episodes is time tracking, knowingwhere you're spending your time right.
Yeah.
So how does that set upthen to move into starting to delegate
(24:04):
so that you're not experiencing thatfrustration you're stuck in right now?
Yes. Craig.
So time trackingI'm a huge believer in it.
If you haven't listened to that episode,if you haven't done it,
please go back and do that.
What that does is it unlocksyou making metric based decisions.
Okay.
So it's an activitywhere you're actually seeing where
(24:25):
your time goes, not emotional decisions.
Emotional decisions are not good, okay.
Emotions are great responders, terribleleaders tell my kids that all the time.
You don't want to lead with emotion.
You don't want to make decisionswith emotion.
So understand where your time goes.
At the end of that activity, you're goingto have three columns of activities.
(24:48):
You're going to have an admin nurseand a doctor as a list
explained to me by one of my coaches, you,if you want to move your business
along the furthest, you need to spend timein the doctor column, okay?
When you go to the doctor's office,does the doctor check you in?
No. That's ridiculous.
If your doctor was sitting thereand crossed your name or asked you
(25:09):
for your name and checked youin, you would be like, why is he up here?
Okay, you need to spend time in the doctorcolumn,
the other columns you need to delegate.
Okay?
Now, if it is just you,you have no one to delegate them to.
All right.
So this is maybe a pointthat you look to hire a VA, an admin,
a photographer, but one thing that I wantyou to be careful about is
(25:34):
don't get caught in the trap of thinking
you always have to hire someone
to delegate these task
I had people at Wow more than
I even ever believethat were ready and willing to help me.
and they actually feltlike they were growing in the company.
(25:57):
When I finally got overand outside of my own brain
and I was vulnerable with what I needed.
So remember y'all,you are the leader of your company.
You. I had misconceptionsin my head of the way
that employees would interact with mebecause I'm not intimidated by myself.
(26:20):
I think I'm pretty fun.
But your employees don't.
Your employees might think you're fun.
They might not be intimidated.
But there's always that fine linebetween employees and owner.
Okay, a coach said to me one time,If the Lions out to play,
the lion can always bite your head off.
(26:43):
When he said I was like, oh, okay,I get it now, I get it now.
So there's always that reserve.
So with me feeling like
I was proud and doing all of these tasks,I was actually dropping the ball
on many of them.
Your employees won't call you out on it,
they'll just try to fix itor they'll pivot around it.
(27:04):
Until I finally realize that
I was vulnerable and I asked for help.
That's when everything started to open up.
Yeah, you'll you'll find that peoplewithin your organization,
they might actually like doing the thingsthat you need to get off your plate.
Right. So.
Oh my.
Yes, I like I can't imagine enjoyingdoing the invoicing and the accounting,
(27:29):
but there's people actually weird peoplelike actually wired to do that.
Great.
Yeah.
Craig. This person did.
Yeah. It was like,oh man, I can clean all this up.
And he had 14 good ideasI never thought about because I was just
drowning in my sorrowsof having to create 100 invoices.
And he's like, this is great.
(27:49):
And I'm like, what are you talking about?
Like, do we need a drug test here? Oh.
But honestly, it is.
It wasn't until like,that is one way that you are truly going
to unlock your company to growis that you say, hey, I've got a question.
I need some help.
(28:10):
Because for a lot of years, Todd
was the person people went to for answers.
So everybody had to go
through Todd's brain for answers.
Everybody had to go through Todd's phone,
Todd's inbox, and I just couldn't keep up.
I was dropping the ball,and my employees weren't telling me
(28:34):
when I
had a coach finally tell me, like, hey,dummy, like,
you should probably ask more questionsthan give answers.
It wasn't until then
that when you ask a questionto an employee,
as when they begin to feel ownership,you know what they say.
They go, oh, this is Todd wantsmy opinion, Todd wants my help.
(28:57):
And they go, I'd love to help with this.
And then you know what?
They they go home, sorry, Craig.
And then they go home andthey tell their wife, hey, you know what?
You know what I get to do?
And all the while, they're helping you.
Just just touched
on this last weekon last week's episode about,
(29:18):
about a staff member or an employeeor even a contractor
feeling empowerment and ownershipthat that word feeling ownership.
So if you had to boil it down to like,say, three points of the positive,
you know, ripple approachto the approach to this,
what what would that beif we can kind of distill it down.
Yes. Craig.
So the three things first is empowerment.
(29:40):
So this is you empowering
or taking power that you haveand putting it in someone in your team
that is going to
make them feel goodand feel like they have that ownership.
Like Craig mentioned, next is the reliefyou are going to get relief from that
because you don't haveto do that thing anymore.
(30:02):
And then finally is focusbecause you have the relief.
You've cleared up some margin.
You can now focus on the doctor column
so that you can actually take the businessalong further,
because you're not so overloaded withthose tasks that you don't like to do
that don't energize you,and you have held on to a task
(30:25):
that an employee would love to help youwith.
Okay, Todd.
So let's tie all of this together.
So in the first part of this episode,we talked about,
you know, the internal mindset,shifting from the gap to the game.
Right.
We covered that part two.
Then we've got,
external actions that we can take.
(30:47):
The main thing being vulnerablewith your team, asking the team for help.
So how are those?
Let's kind of get this all tied together.
How are those two things then? Linked.
Directly linked.
Yeah.
I mean, so the mindset and theand the action. Yeah.
So sometimesyou just have to get out of your own way.
Remember my storyI'm sitting in my buddy's garage.
(31:07):
These are people that I've had a tonof just great times with in my life.
And I can't even contributebecause I'm in such a home.
My mind, you got to find a wayto pull yourself out.
Okay.
Talked to Craig,said he talked someone, a counselor.
I have I've had coachesthat have been counselors.
My wife.
Sometimes it just needs some talkingto someone
and someone go, oh, yeah, that's,you know,
they give you some perspective on it.
(31:28):
So once you get out of that mindset, okay,
you now have opened up the ideathat being vulnerable is okay.
You know, when you're in that hole,the idea of being vulnerable
is seems catastrophic, terrifying.
Yes. It's like you are already terrifiedand unhappy
(31:50):
in your business and then you're goingto go ask someone for help.
Hey, you.
It just doesn't connect.
Once you get out of that gapand you get into the game
and you realize that being vulnerableis positive from there,
then you empower a team memberto help you grow the company.
They take bigger task.
You get to focus on what's importantlive in the doctor category,
(32:13):
because that's where you're goingto grow your business,
and that's where you're goingto see the most success.
And one more pointthat I want to make, Craig, is
this is no different
than what your employees go throughat your organization.
Yeah, they might be doing theirall in columns as well.
(32:34):
And when you relinquish control
of a task that you're doing and put it
and give it to them, they move up a column
that is growth for them.
Two I have I, I've been fortunate enough
to see a lot of people Wow and Spiro grow.
(32:55):
There's been a lot of peoplethat started at one position, moved
to another, moved to another,and now two of them started
an entry level positionsand they're running the entire company.
It is incredibleto see how people can grow.
It will be the same effectthat you have that your employees
have as they grow up into your company,into the next column.
(33:19):
That's what
leadership is all about,really, is seeing the potential and others
and helping them get to that potentialand finding finding joy in that success.
And and you might I'm going to addsomething here, Todd, if that's okay.
Yeah.
You might have discovered
(33:39):
in your journey of starting in business
that you've gottento this point of great success,
but ultimate frustration.
I think the other thing that you need todo, and this is what I had to do,
and this can be, can be a humbling thing,because I got to the point
where I realizedI would rather do the hands on work,
the and for me,it was the creative aspect,
(34:00):
taking the photosand building the business relationships.
So, you know, the business development.
And be okay with.
That's what I really enjoy doing.
And the ownership aspect of itwasn't necessarily what I had to have.
And that's part of why I made the this,the change that I did
(34:21):
is I, I ultimately passed my businesson to
Wow video tours, and for a timeI went and worked at my church
and came back in.
I've told Todd this,I've told our other leadership this.
I love doing what I do now.
I don't own my this businessanymore. Right?
I'm part of now.
This team where I still get to dothe things that I enjoy doing.
(34:44):
And that's the creativeand the the relationship building
and everything else involved in ownership,
which is a leadership position,really helping grow people.
That's a different skill set.
And I came to the point where I hadto realize that's not my personal call.
And gift set.
(35:05):
And I've
I've had to get to the point where I'mokay with that.
And there might be a personor two out there listening
that is in that similar situation.
And I just want to say to youas a non owner, because I'm not an owner,
I'm just I'm on this podcastbecause I've experienced ownership.
Right?
I've learned a lot from Todd and I.
(35:27):
I'm enjoying teachingwhat I've learned along with Todd too.
You it's okayif you get to that point where you realize
I don't necessarily want to lead people,but I enjoyed this work.
There are other ways to do that work andnot necessarily be in the leader position.
Todd now you have two different goals
in two different callings and giftsets, and it's okay.
(35:49):
So I want to talk to that one
or 1 or 2 people that might be listeninggoing, yeah, but I don't I don't
necessarily enjoy developing peopleand looking for those things in people.
I just like the photography workor the video work and that's cool.
That's awesomethat there's nothing wrong with that.
So there's that.
There's that third kind of aspect to this,of maybe owning it isn't the thing.
(36:14):
And there can be anotherreally fulfilling,
business arrangement for you,for you to stay in this business,
but ultimately be fulfilled innot being the owner.
Is is that okay to say, oh,for sure, Craig.
And I think one thing that you justhave done incredibly in your journey,
I remember the first conversationyou have with me
(36:36):
about thinking about real estatemedia was at my house.
We were still working out in the office,in the house.
You came and we talked.
But you've always been honestand you've always been vulnerable.
We've had some vulnerable conversationsin both ways,
where I've shared things with you,you share things with me,
and we got it all out there and we said,where is there a win win?
Right. Well, you'll be happy.
Will I be happy?
(36:58):
And I and and I've learned a lot from youand that, Craig,
that you're very true to yourself.
And I so appreciate that about youbecause I think
as I look back over the times, I mighthave lied to myself throughout the years
and, and I might have forced
a few things and,and you just have to find that happy line,
because sometimes you just need to pusha little bit harder to break through.
(37:19):
And then other times pushingis just going to break
and you need to say, hey, wait a minute,this is not form.
I need to pivotand I'm going to find a win win somewhere.
My gift set is different.
I and I think part of it, Todd, isI was in the church world,
nonprofit ministry, church, you know,Christianity World for a long time.
(37:41):
And there was a huge, hugeculture of leadership
and how critical leadership is,which is true, but not everybody is
called to be an out front,charismatic type of leader, personality.
Some of us are giftedto be behind the scenes and to lift
the arms of the leader up,and I find my fulfillment in that.
I don't need to be the one outfront with the big vision.
(38:04):
But I shared love helpingsomebody achieve their vision.
And so if that's you did,there's no shame in that.
Even though the leadership culture
and all the seminars and, you know, thethe conferences are all pushing that
and you might feel that pressuredon't just I yeah just don't.
Yeah.
So yeah.
(38:24):
Well said Craig, but to the 99% of peoplethat maybe are owners and leaders,
this is great advice and and learninghow to delegate and getting the mindset
rightto be able to shift into that delegation
where you do empower people on your teamand and just have that joy
of watching themreally grow and blossom into the roles
and the things that they enjoy doingand are gifted to do.
(38:46):
So great, great insight, Todd.
Yeah, well, thanks for sharing, Craig.
And as you can be vulnerablewith these things,
let us know a time that you feltvulnerable, you know, and now
I'm asking you to share your vulnerabilityon on social media or just email me.
You know, me and Craig.
Yeah. hello@spiro.mediaWe'd love that.
We're in this with you.
(39:07):
For those of you that have email me,I could get a response.
It might be a little bit delay,
but email us likewe want to hear what we care about you.
It's just not. It's not.
Talk on a podcast is not face value.
We're real guys in the middleof cornfields and we care about you.
So hello@spiro.medialeave us a comment below.
You would be surprisedhow much your comment might help another,
(39:28):
so be generous with your commentsand your information
and how your comment might even help us.
There's there's a couple of youthat have encouraged us
and, I mean, we gowe go through the same stresses, right?
So just to hear, you know,you know, it's just encouragement.
It's so, so appreciated.
So yeah. Awesome.
(39:50):
Well there's there it is.
The owners trap ways to get out of it,strategies to get out of that and to move
and to growand to really enjoy what you do again,
if you've found yourselfin that spot of frustration
and losing the joy of of the workthat you do,
so awesome, Todd thank you.
Great episode here with you.
(40:12):
And, you know, as wewe always close things
down by just reminding you, be thankfulfor the blessings in your life.
Your business is a blessing.
You've got a resource in yourin your business
to allow othersto take care of their families.
Whether it's your clients, your realtors,or people on your staff
contractors that you've hired,you've been given a blessing in the
(40:34):
in the ownership of your business.
So just take some time to reflect on that.
Make sure you take some timeto breathe as well.
You guys have a great week.Thanks for watching and listening.
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