The Wealthy Wednesday Podcast with Dave Drimmie

This week, I'm delight to have Michel Falcon, Founder and CEO of Brasa Peruvian Kitchen | Author of People-First Culture.  We've based a number of previous episodes around the People First Culture theme and to speak to Michel himself about it is very exciting.

Partial Transcript:

Dave: I love that. Thank you very much for sharing that. and I completely agree with you. And in fact, talking about Apple, I just found a couple of weeks ago that you, go into one of their stores, and all the Apple, employees, working there, are required to do 40 minutes of customer, service sales training on a daily basis.

Michel: Doesn't surprise me.

Dave: It's just they're professional and they look after people, they ask the right questions. I'm, certain that's exactly what you do in your restaurants as well.

Michel: Well, think about it. If you wanted to be a healthy human being, you should have some sort of movement for 40 minutes a day. Walking, lifting weights, some sort of hit exercise or whatever. So if you want a healthy business, how can we not practice the same? It could be 30 minutes, it could be an hour, or whatever. As long as it's something that's habitual. You don't just host one customer experience seminar for your employees and not do it every month, or in this case, every day in some capacity. some companies see it as something on their to do list. They cross it off and be like, all right, we're done with this company culture stuff. It's got to be ingrained into the DNA of the company. It really does. It can't be hollow.

This week, I'm so please to have Mike McCormack back on the show, concentrating on Whole Person Assessments and they can be used before and during the hiring process to help you make the right decisions

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Dave: Mike, you shared with me a story. It might be worthwhile tapping into this. It's not just about, attracting and bringing in of, the employees, the five star employees, but it's about also using, the profiles that you specifically use to elevate the individuals into leadership. That's correct, isn't it?

Mike: Yes. Depending on what level it's kind of, opening Pandora's box there. Dave, there are a lot of different assessments that can be used in different areas and for different purposes. How you started off our conversation is very, consistent with how most people think about assessments in that when they hear the word assessment, most people think about some type of four quadrant personality style tool. And the reality is, there's a lot more types and kinds of assessments than that. And it really helps if you just take a step back and think about, okay, what am I trying to do with this tool? Before trying to select the tool and then understand what all the choices are that are available to you.

Dave: Great. Thank you, Mike. I appreciate that. So we're going to dive into that.

Mike: Just now, think about the purpose. And for most business leaders, owners, managers, our end goal is to get the best people possible who can knock it out of the park. And the ones that are knocking it out of the park are usually not the ones who want to leave. So we want to find people who can do things well and want to stay. That's the end game for all of us who are in business. So, like you alluded to earlier, there are literally thousands of different types of tools out there, and the vast majority of them fall into that bucket called personality style test. just to expand on that a little bit before we maybe drill down into some details, but other types of assessments include cognitive assessments, skills and abilities. What can they actually do? it might be manually, what can they do? It might be mentally. What can they do? There's lots of different types of those assessments, and also, what kind of work are they interested in? So, getting back to your question, what we do is use information from all of those categories. in a client company, we will go in and assess their top performers and then show the owner, manager, leader, whoever we're working with. We'll show them what traits, characteristics, skills, interest, et cetera. Kind of the whole enchilada, if you will. We'll show them what their top performers have in common and how it's different from their middle or bottom performers.

This week, I have the pleasure of talking to Danielle Mulvey of the All In Company.

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Danielle:  So what's interesting and Mike Michalowicz and I (Mike is the author of Profit First.) we're business partners, and sort of partners in crime and things. he'll do his keynote on Profit First, and then I'll follow behind him doing the workshop, actually teaching how to implement Profit First. And his books, have been sort of an evolution of the entrepreneur as their business grows and scales and such. And the next book that is coming out, is called All In how to Get Your Employees to Act Like Owners. And that is an evolution, really, from profit first, and seeing businesses become profitable, scale their business, but then sort of start struggling with their profitability at the point of, about ten employees and a million dollars or more in real revenue, then what happens is their biggest expense is payroll. And, that big expense, if it's not efficient, if it's loaded with one, two and three star employees, is starting to put a drain on the business and start to negatively impact the profitability of the business, because one, two and three star employees their average hom or worth. But the funny thing is, it takes two or three one, two, or three star employees to do the job of one five star employee. But you pay the five star employee the same that you pay a one, two or three star employee. So that is where you just start this spiral down in terms of losing some ground on profitability when your business has one, two and three star employees. The other thing about kind of that tipping point of ten or more employees, a million dollars or more in real revenue is that that business is scaling. That business started out with maybe, you know, two or three employees. And the interesting thing is, is maybe some of those employees that started with you, they were five stars when you were doing $300,000 a year. But as you grow the business, and as you get into new markets or require a new level of sophistication that five star employee who may be someone who started with you and was great, hasn't necessarily scaled with your operations of the business. So that person could become a one, two or three star employee as your business grows. And now they're sort of a liability, in terms of your profitability instead of an asset. And so it's really important for owners to continually be evaluating their employees. We like to use the five star employee rating system to keep leveling up the organization as it grows. And it's okay if someone isn't necessarily a fit for the organization after it reaches a certain point. I know for me, I was the bookkeeper I was the bookkeeper in our construction materials supply firm in 2010 when we started the company. That position quickly outgrew my skills and abilities, after about two years and such, so I moved on. I didn't hang on to doing that role, if that makes sense. And that happens in business. and so it's really important that as your companies grow as they scale, you've got the right people in the right role. Or as Jim Collins would say, on the right bus, in the right seat, and going in the right direction.

This week, I welcome to the show Tara O'Brien, Recruitment Strategist!

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Dave: I'm loving this, by the way. This is absolutely brilliant. And thank, you very much for sharing because what I'd like to ask now is how would you I've got my own thoughts about how to do this. How would you build that platform? Because M, if you think about in business, we've got, when we sell anything, if somebody wants to buy a Tesla, if they want to buy an iPhone, if they want to buy whatever they want to buy, we all go through three stages. We go through awareness, consideration, and decision stage. So aware that we have a requirement for something, we then go out and consider something and we'll investigate. And then decision is based about okay, price, et cetera. So what would be the first steps to a company or organization? building a platform to attract their ideal clients, would you say?

Tara: Yeah. And the recruitment or the candidate journey, as we call it, tends to go through exactly the same cycle as that. But we tend to call it awareness, consideration, and application are the first three stages in the candidate journey. And it's a difficult question to give a definite answer to, because it really depends on the organization and whether they're an organization that's known in the area that they're based in, or if they have a brand name that people are aware of. But ultimately it's about building that employee brand, that brand that people talk about when they're down the pub and say, oh, I work for this company, they're a great organization to work for, this is what happens. I don't know, I get to work from home three days a week, or I get to go early on Friday afternoons, or whatever it is that they're talking about. And bearing in mind that most people don't leave an organization for financial reasons, obviously some do. and of course at the moment, there's a little bit more of that because of the financial current situation, where it's difficult for people to, cost of living is going up. but generally speaking, people leave because of their manager or because of the organization. And it's usually linked in with fairness somewhere along the line. They rarely leave just because of money. So if you've got somebody talking about an organization, the organization they work for being I don't know, really inclusive, really caring, really wanting M to look after their employees and nurture them, they're going to tell other people that. And that's how you start to spread your brand message. there's other ways you can spread your brand message. so tools like LinkedIn, if you're recruiting for people in the professional sector, LinkedIn tends to be a great tool. Getting people to follow your social media pages. LinkedIn obviously, but the Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, whatever the platforms are on, that you're on at the moment. But also then putting out content that's going to be relevant to them. Where companies go wrong with these type of pages is they start to put out information about why they're brilliant. Nobody cares about that. You've got to focus on what's in it for the candidate. So you've got to put yourself in the candidate's shoes and think, what's in it for me from the candidate's perspective. So saying, we're an organization, we've got offices in, blah, blah, nobody cares. What they care about is how you're going to make them feel and what you're going to do to make them feel like they're the right employee for your organization. And so that content that you need to put out to really, build that, ah, brand needs to be all about what you're going to give to the candidates, not who you are.

This week, I'm so pleased to welcome Clayton Drotsky to the show, all the way from South Africa.

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Dave: So, how many years have you spent working within call centers there?

Clayton: 18 years.

Dave: 18 years. You must have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly when you've been working there.

Clayton: Oh, yes, definitely. I've had people who are leaders who may have got all their leadership qualities from watching The Sopranos. I've had leaders like the one I've just explained, who have been unbelievable. And that's why leaders have such a massive impact. You add value, and you can inspire people to do and be better every single day, and you shouldn't do yourself an injustice. Having a great leader like I had had a massive impact on the rest of my career, but I could have been unlucky, and I could have had a really bad leader, and I could have had a negative impact on my life. So when you look at a toxic call center, it's because well, my feeling, at least, is because the people who are in the leadership roles are there for the wrong reasons. they're there to make money, which is obviously what everyone wants to do, but they forget that the people that are in the call center, if they enjoy what they do and they find satisfaction in what they do, they'll look forward to doing it, they'll enjoy doing it, and they'll accelerate it, too naturally. But that's what you want. You want that feeling.

Dave: So this is really, really fascinating to me because this podcast series was actually, inspired by a gentleman called, Michelle Falcon. It's a great book, actually. It's called People First culture. I really strongly recommend it. People First Culture build a lasting company by shifting your focus from profits to people. So what you're really saying is that's exactly, without even knowing about that book, basically that's what you've been doing for the last 18 years, correct?

Clayton: Yes. Yeah, exactly. And lucky that it happened to me, that I was able to understand what good leadership looked like and was able to implement it myself.

Dave: Well, I just find that that's fantastic. so when you look at toxic companies, what you mentioned obviously, about leaders that are just solely focused on, the money side of things. And obviously The Sopranos, that's their training guide. But, what else? Talk about toxicity. Talk about some of the lessons that you've learned. And that when you walk into a company now in your current role, that you can immediately spot what toxic elements are there.

Clayton: I've been to some companies where people compare busyness. They'll, make some of the remarks. Like they might make a remark when they come back from lunch, just come back from lunch, probably have 120 emails. Again, why would you say that? Why are we comparing busyness? Why are we putting our boundaries do we not want people to ask us things because we don't know how to do it? Is that why we pretending to be busy? Or why is busyness such an important thing to us to compete in? And that, I must admit, I've heard often, and that's kind of a sign for me, that the people are not there as a team. They're working individually. And when you start comparing busyness, there could be boundaries up. they are afraid of taking on challenges. They don't celebrate the victories of others. and it almost rolls into what a fixed mindset looks like.

An amazing episode this week with Paula Wingate of Influential Minds

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Paula: Everybody gets out of bed because the doctor gets to get out of bed to watch TV. They get out of bed to make a difference, to be that game changer serve. they want to feel amazing, they want to feel fulfilled. But yet most employees are trained to get out of bed to fill a nine to five slot. So don't matter if you're on Facebook, don't matter if it's on LinkedIn. It's between nine and five. Right? I've got to fill my time. Whereas if we flip it and go, Right, I tell you what, do your daily target today, and as soon as you finish, get yourself off home. If you finish at 01:00, get yourself off my bank the time. If you finish by 10:00, get yourself a phone. and teach these employees to be sharper, not to fill the time, but to actually how do I actually do my job in a high quality return? Hit my targets, let the business grow, and then by going, take a rest day, just like a footballer would do, if that makes sense.

Dave: Absolutely. But I think that's a lovely way of putting it, actually. And it's just, reflecting on that just now, if we can inspire people, particularly post COVID and what have you, or post lockdown, I should say.  But in terms of, performance, if we can excel in a shorter period of time, then the employees of the team are allowed to take time off. That's just such a wonderful way to help them go and spend more time with their family, but cram in as much work as possible that can optimize the performance of a company.

Paula: Yeah, it's an operating they're like, you know, like, I see this 95 or fill the 95 strategy and they don't hit the targets. And I go, Why are you here, then? How do you feel if you don't hit the targets? Where's your fulfillment? Where do you feel special? And they go, we don't. We just come here and do the job, paul and then they go and I'll go, okay, and how would you feel if we did it the other way, where you felt brilliant, you felt fulfilled and you learned, I'll take your daily target in the shortest piece of time, just like an athlete would do. So you same bolt has trained his body to hit that 100 meters target in the quickest time possible. Turn them much of the money as possible. And I'm thinking everybody is an athlete, whether you're a business, whether you're an employee, whether you are a footballer, everyone's an athlete. So why are we not training our, body to return or be stronger or be sharper to return these returns for whatever business or your family or your friends, and play this level of fairly messing about and fannying about getting straight to the point.

Today I'm joined by the incredible Harlan Hammack, business coach.  Tune in to hear his story and more importantly, his experiences!

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Harlan: There are a lot of places that I've, I've worked that the culture was toxic. And and mainly because you had people set up, to where they were competing, or they felt they were competing against their colleagues, competing for raises, competing for recognition, whatever it happened to be. Those people, they keep knowledge to themselves. They don't share, they don't help. If they see somebody struggling, you know, they they point the finger at them. Look, they're struggling, but I'm not. So they can keep that spotlight on them. That's very toxic. I work for one company that was the exact opposite. We had people it was a big project, big software implementation project. And when somebody got done with their work, they went around all the cubicles, knocking on the cubicles, asking, what can I do to help you? How can I help? And they would do almost anything right to try to get things done, because that was the way that their company was set up, is that we live or die as a team. We survive, we grow, we thrive as a team. And so everything was focused on teamwork. And if somebody was struggling and you didn't at least offer to help, you had a conversation, right? You took a little walk outside the building, to have a conversation about that, because that was what was so important. And that's what I try to get in with my clients, is that you want to try to build a team that isn't out for individual recognition. They're trying to do whatever it is they can to make the company as successful as possible. Because if the company grows, everybody grows, everybody benefits, right? So with the business leaders, the business owners, I try to teach them, take care of your employees. If you take care of your employees, your employees will take care of your customers, your customers will take care of your business, and your business will ultimately take care of you. And that's really what you want to do, is try to get that thriving kind of, culture going in your business.

Dave: Wise words. Just fantastic, actually. I really appreciate that and a couple of things going on in here. So if a business owner comes to you and you go in and you spot some deficiencies in culture.  What would be the first area that you might work on? So if you take a, company through a process, until I'm using the consultative language here, but taking a company through a process of changing culture. What would be the kind of ABC of success that you would take people through?

Harlan: What I try to do is start with, the core values, right? Everybody has, a, set of core values. Whether you acknowledge it or not, every decision you make is based on your personal core values. Well, same thing in business. You set up the core values of the business. What are we in business for? What are we trying to accomplish? Why are we doing what we do? I help the company set up their core values and then teach everybody in the company, these are our core values. So every decision the employees make are based on those core values. If they aren't making them on the core values, who knows what they're using as their foundation, right, for their decisions? one client that I'm working with, Michael we're doing that. We put his core values in place slowly teaching everybody. At every Monday morning meeting, they go through the core values again to let people know, this is exactly what this means to us.

Join me in conversation with Emma Marriott (Emma Marriott Consulting, and recruitment expert) as we discuss good hires, bad hires, company culture, and more!

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Dave: What you're sharing here is absolutely fascinating, because when when I think about, recruitment consultants, many don't have the the experience you've got. Many do it in a very poor way. But your experience of actually growing a business all the way up to managing director, dealing with the internal clients, ie. Your own teams as well as the external clients, I find it absolutely fascinating because that must be part of what you've done, part of your experience in learning how to create a culture of growth, for example. And right here today, particularly in post pandemic situation, I think it's really, really relevant because I'm hearing time after time after time, oh, I can't find people, there's nobody in my sector, there's nobody good enough, et cetera, et cetera. Is that just like a time old record?

Emma: No, I think we're in quite a unique situation, actually, just now. in the 20 odd years I worked in recruitment consultancy World, there was definitely trends where you would go up and down following the curve of a recession. Unfortunately, my stand out time would be 2006 seven was an actual boom time, where there was more job of mortal vacancies than there was people similar to now. But you could see that that was just a good, wealthy, strong economy. Then also went to 2007. The world seemed to fall apart till 2008 nine, where we get more of a balance of quite a number of jobs. One recovery point, good number of people. But then also we got that branding because there was a lot, an awful lot of people not entering construction, you know, in the 2007 time. They don't see it as a career of choice. And then it comes to 2015, and you can't find the people you're actually looking for because they've never entered the marker at that point in time. So we get the difficulties of the push pool. But now I think we've not got a particularly buoyant economy at the moment, for a whole host of reasons, but yet we've still got a massive dearth of job roles are open that we can't fill. And, yes, the employment rate is high. I think there's been information out today that wage increases have been at a record level than they have ever before. But there is definitely the candidates and employees in the market are probably have more demands and more expectations than they ever have before. And I think we are not necessarily as employers going out to find the right people, where they're hanging out and giving them the type of culture platform environments where people will thrive.

Reach out to Emma at:

We're so excited to be joined by HR and 5 star employee specialist, Heenle Turner of The All In Company!

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Heenle: To answer your question, first and foremost, it's so important to understand what a five star employee is. And that goes with in all facets because you're never going to find a five star employee if you don't know what you're looking for. So our general theme around five star employees is that five star employees crave that transparency, they crave results, they crave accountability. So five star employee, um, meets all five stars of the five star criteria. First, the five star employees core values align with that of the business owners. Five star employees score seven or higher on the eleven universal qualities of five star employees. So the eleven universal qualities of five star employees is kind of that same DNA that runs through all five star employees. Things like they listen, they're limber, um, and they produce quantifiable results for you. And there's eleven different, um, qualities in total.

Dave: On that point, Heinle just, ah, sorry to interject here, but ah, it's a spreadsheet exercise, isn't it? The person is yes or no or a number, or thereby it's not, oh, this person might be a good person sometime in 2004 or whatever. It's yes or no, isn't it?

Heenle: It is, yeah. So we always look for, in our process, we're looking for an objective application of the five star rating system, um, against your employees as well as applicants who are coming into your pipeline. So you run through the eleven qualities exercise and identify first with your existing employees. Well, does this person have this quality or do they not? So with your existing team, for instance, you can do the Quick M Litmus test, right? You can tell yourself, well, does this person listen? Does this person produce results for me? Does this person have, uh, the skill set, which is that third star, um, for the role. So, um, a very process based system to evaluate your five star employees and five star candidates.

Dave: Outstanding. So that's two of the stars there, is that correct?

Heenle: Correct. Yeah. So you've got first is the core values. The second is they have to score a seven or higher on the eleven universal qualities of a five star employee. The third is that they have to meet or exceed your scorecard and expectations for the role specific aptitude and skills. So a big difference between saying it and actually doing it is what a skill is and aptitudes. Right. Every role has a different set of requirements in terms of what that person needs to bring to the table. So, um, it's your responsibility as, uh, the business owner to understand what those aptitudes might be and what, um, your minimum expectations are for that. So we guide our clients through this step by step process to customize this five star rating system for their organization and the role, and then they're ready to go to make that assessment, um, in their recruitment process.

Get in touch with Heenle to find out more on heenle@theallincompany.com

Welcome to this brand new series of the Wealthy Wednesday podcast. With me, Dave Drimmie, which we are calling People First Culture. 

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It's the culture in a company that provides fertile ground for people to grow and develop into amazing colleagues. One of the biggest challenges to building wealth in a company is the lack of talent in the sector. In fact, since COVID hit, and especially in 2022, I kept hearing phrases like, there's no talent left in our industry. It seemed to be a common complaint across the globe in multiple sectors when I was speaking to people. So in the summer of 2022, I conducted a quiz to uncover the biggest challenges that owners of companies in the construction sector were experiencing. Because that's the sector I specialize in. Now. There were five core, uh, challenges that appeared. One, no roadmap for strategic growth. Two, they had poor sales processes. Three, unreliable cash flow. Four, difficulty in hiring amazing employees, and five, lack of work life balance. In fact, uh, 2022 left most business owners highly stressed out and in need of time off at Christmas. It was horrible. Some of the things I was hearing, really, really horrible. For both the individuals I was speaking to and the families, it was just awful. The quiz highlighted that 39% of people who owned a company had huge difficulty in finding, hiring, and then retaining amazing people. Now, with work life balance coming next at 27%, and the remaining three sitting roughly level with each other, it, uh, really was apparent that I wanted to focus on the aspect of hiring amazing people. Okay, so discussing this with business owners in other industry sectors, talent acquisition was also their own major challenge. So it wasn't just construction alone. It was across multiple, multiple sectors. So our intention with this podcast series to unpack why this is the case and invite experts and guests on the show who really know how to hire amazing talent, how to retain them, and how to build culture that creates a fertile environment for them to grow and thrive. Because ultimately, when it comes down to it, the longer we can have employees working with us, and the more experienced they are, the better our business can perform. Because when we hire five star employees well, put it another way, if we don't hire five star employees, if we've just got poor quality employees in the business, the business doesn't perform as well as it possibly can. There's no way we can grow and scale that company unless it's some form of slick, automated sales machine. So that is really what we're looking to do in this podcast series. It's really just to help you to uncover how to hire, retain, and build culture in your company.

Link to Michel Falcon's Book:

Join me in chatting to James of Counting King and discover why you might have money hidden away in grant/tax eligibility.

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Dave: I found this absolutely fascinating because when we first met, I had no idea about this. But I also discovered very, very quickly there's a lot of people jumping on the bandwagon, but they actually are only thinking about themselves as business owners, where you think very much differently. It's quite a holistic approach. You're really caring about the results of the business and the business owner. That's correct, isn't it?

James: Ye, absolutely. I think in our market space, a lot of our competitors, um, either do one or two of the things that we do. Don't look at the kind of like that term, but that's what it is, like a holistic view and saying, what's the right thing for the business? . Sometimes we do speak to businesses that have looked at R and D, and we will always try and gravitate to, as I like to call it, um, where we can get free money for the client first. Or money. That they can get to without having to, , consider servicing that or paying, , an interest or arrangement fee in any shape or form. M, if that isn't available to them and they don't qualify, then we can look at other forms of funding. But the good thing is about all these, , various forms of funding, we can look , at, , all aid in cash flow, um, but in most cases, they can all work in tandem. So it's not that you have to choose one over the other. So for example, we're speaking to businesses where the initial discussions about R and D, but it actually comes through in discussion that um, they have a bit of an issue with cash flow in general. It's maybe a little bit slow and , they would like to accelerate that and take a bit more control over their own businesses cash flow and not be treated, as one client said to me recently, not be treated like a bank by their customers. Which is a very fair point.

Find James at:

Join me in conversation with Kerr Mathieson of Audio Outsource who specialise in creating podcasts for businesses.  Learn why a podcast might be just the right way to help your business Stand Out during this forthcoming recession.

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Dave: It's really interesting, actually, because there's a formula out there, it's called the 7-11-4. It's 7 hours of content. This is what people need to know in the buyer's journey. There need to be 7 hours of content. Eleven different touch points through four separate channels, and that's whether it's offline or online. So 7 hours of bumping into people and meeting them, having a coffee or boardroom or whatever, and then different locations, and then online exactly the same as well. So it's fascinating. As human beings, we want to actually, we want to connect with people and know like and trust, etc. For. And I was speaking to a client of mine this morning, or potential client, but hopefully it can be a client. And various people over the last few weeks, technicians, they're amazing at what they do, but they're rubbish at marketing. And as the whole crash comes along, my personal viewpoint is we need to increase the amount of marketing we do. So as the market, contracts, then we become more visible. And this is just what's going to happen. I've seen it back in 2008 when I was working with the company, helped the company go from six to 15 million coming out of that recession. And it was just about being in the right place at the right time with the right connections, but having identified them. So tell me, why is podcasting, as in podcast marketing, why is it so powerful in today's age, would you seek?

Kerr: Yeah, I think part of the biggest reason why podcasting is so popular is because it's still a huge growth medium, and there are so many different, aspects or topics for you to listen to that some of the most popular topics are things like the fictional topics like crime dramas, or true crime podcasts and things. And people go from, picking up and listening to podcasts about, fictional things, or as they would an audiobook, to suddenly discovering that, just like on YouTube, if you want to find out more about something, there will be a podcast about it. Or if you're looking for help on a topic or a subject, there will be a podcast about it. that's part of why it's still growing so much. And I think the other reason that businesses are starting to use it m more and it's becoming popular is because it's a very personal thing and it's very accessible. So we're all making video content. Even me, as an audio producer, is making more video content nowadays. But video is still a difficult medium to indulge in anywhere or any time. You can drive down the road listening to a podcast, but you can't drive down the road watching a video on how to do something. It's the same even with a walk. You can but you shouldn't drive down the road watching. But it's walking is the most popular form of exercise. And you can go for a walk listening to a podcast. It's much more difficult to get the benefit of going for a walk if you're concentrating on your phone walking down the road trying to watch a video. So it's very accessible. and it's completely personal and flexible. So, as a business, you essentially can do whatever you want with the podcast to get whichever message is relevant at the time out to people. so yeah, I think it's still.

Reach out to Kerr on kerr@audiooutsource.co.uk

Join me in discussion with Craig Alexander Rattray to tackle more of the financial side of our CRASH acronym:

Partial Transcript:

Craig: I think to start, we need to take a step back and understand that most people who are running businesses, and whether that's construction or some other sector, they're running that because they understand that sector. they know how to build houses, or they know how to provide a particular type of service, because that's what they've been taught in. But they've never been taught about finance, accounts, banking, cash flow, any of these things. And what happens is that as the business grows, they then move into managerial roles that they've perhaps not been trained for either. And that makes it very challenging. And there's no classic. You don't know what you don't know. So people, set up in business, they bring on a couple of employees, they grow, they bring on a couple more. And all that happens there is that the working capital stretches more and more, so that whilst you are turning over more and probably generating more profit, your cash position is becoming worse. And for many business owners, they're the worst paid person in the company, because you need to pay the employees first, then you need to pay the suppliers. And as you're growing, if you've not filed accounts, you won't get the level of credit limits you need from suppliers. So cash is always tight. So what I start by doing is understanding where is the business just now, because in most cases, they don't have up to date financial information either. So you need to know where you are.

Dave: I see a lot of accountancy companies, as very much generalists and more worrying, the companies who don't use cloud software. So how can they possibly help their clients be fully up to date in real time? And, more and more are moving, whether they're using Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, any of these wonderful tools. But it's amazing how many occasion practices do not do that. So that must frustrate you as well, coming from your background, is it not?

Craig: It does, but it's often used as an excuse. Dave if I look back to being 1999, when I did my first role in industry, now, this was long before cloud accounting software. I still managed to put in place systems and procedures where we did everything every day. I had to report to my divisional head office in Houston, Texas, within three days with flash figures for the whole month and five day full reporting packs. So I had to put in place the people, the systems and procedures to allow us to do that. So if I could do that 20 years ago, plus then there's no excuse for people doing that now, because it's so much easier now. You've got all the apps that can take the information, all the receipts can go in, your bank feeds talked to Xero and QuickBooks and all these other systems as well. So there really is no excuse for not being up to date.

Find Craig on Linkedin here:

Join me as I discuss the importance of Cash, Invoicing, and getting paid on time with Iain McPherson of Hewitt & McLeod.

Partial Transcript:

Dave: There are cashflow challenges in a good economy, and there are cashflow challenges in a downturn and recession. As we're here in, November 2022, just looking at the forecast for the next 26, 28 months. Looks a little bit daunting. so what are the differences between a good economy and a bad economy? Or are there not really any? We should just be doing the same processes to recover money?

Iain: I think what the difference is, it's the consequences of not getting paid, that's what's changed drastically in a good economy, so to speak. You can get paid. Okay. and you can maybe have to wait for that, as we may be going to discuss. But the big difference now is the consequences between getting paid and getting paid on time. what can happen in between time can have a huge impact on your business with your suppliers being able to pay your employees, cover your own expenses. That's the big difference. That time scale now has really just everybody is struggling, your customers are struggling. So you have to be very proactive now, more than you've ever been to make sure that cash is coming in as quickly as possible.

There is a basic framework that we would recommend every business has when it comes to getting paid. And the very first thing, as I alluded to there is knowing your customer. Before you even get to a collection process, you need to have an onboarding process so that starts with knowing your customer, doing a credit check on them checking, for example, company's house checking what their payment history currently is. Are they slow payers? Have they got a record the history of being a slow payer? Have they got a record of CCJs? So that warning signs right away, you then allude to terms and conditions. What are the terms of conditions? Are they, agreeable to them or are they forcing back? Are they trying to get you to come on to their negotiation there? So these are all steps that you have to have in place before you even get to the actual collection side of things. And, all these things have to be ticked to have to be agreed. They have to be agreed by the correct parties as well. Because your credit control and collection sometimes are looked on as the anti sales department. And we're not we're actually trying to maximize sales. We're trying to maximize sales that you're going to get paid for. And that's the difference. So when you're negotiating, you need to make sure you've got the right parties around the table. Okay? When you're agreeing payment terms, you're agreeing payment terms with your opposite number who can make those payments. You're not agreeing that with a buyer or a seller, you know, there's different parties involved in getting an invoice paid. It's not just anti accounts payable and accounts receivables.

Contact Iain on Linkedin:

Join me in talking to Mike McCormack of People Right about the difference between hiring and recruiting, how much the wrong hire can cost you, and how to land those 5* employees.  You can also watch the full video of this episode on Youtube and Vimeo.

Reach Mike at mike@people-right.com

Welcome to this week's Wealthy Wednesday Podcast.

Today, I'll be summarising the last few weeks content around the CRASH acronym.

Partial Transcript

I've heard there's going to be a recession and I've decided not to participate. This quote by Walt Disney is absolutely fantastic. And really, I wanted to start off today's show, as part of the summary of the last Crash series and really just simplify what we've been talking about, we have a choice of how we can look at a recession as to whether we're going to be a victim or whether we're going to be a victor. That's probably the best way I'd like to put this. And over these last few weeks, really what we're putting in place is, a way that we can be a victor and we can prepare for coming out the other side and taking market share. So if we look at the crash acronym, C stands for Cash Buffer, R stands for Reducing Costs, A stands for Assets and Automation. S is for standing out and H is for getting and giving help.

Truth is, if there's no downturn or recession, the advice I've shared over the last five weeks and today can dramatically improve the profits in any company. But here's the kicker. We all need a little help to push us in the right direction. Even this weekend, my niece and nephew were over visiting, from New Zealand, have been over here for a few weeks now and they stayed with us. Now they are 20 and 24. And, both of them right now are reading the 600 page book called Principles by Ray Dalio. Now, Ray Dalio grew Bridgewater Associates from a startup company in a twobedroom apartment in 1975 into a company 40 years later that has made more money for its clients than any other hedge fund in history and grown into the fifth most important private company in the United States, according to Fortune magazine. It's unbelievable. My niece and nephew are reading it because their dad recommended reading it to them. And he himself ran a $2 billion company as a CEO himself. 

Now, the testimonials in this book are phenomenal. Bill Gates rates it incredibly highly. That's all I really need to say here. It's phenomenal. So on Sunday, I actually dusted down, the copy I've had in my personal library for a couple of years. Actually never quite got around to reading it. Dusted down at 09:00 a.m. and began reading it. 6 hours later, having read over 300 pages, I learned that going back hundreds of years, recessions come in cycles, and quantitative easing, as in the printing of paper money, is not a new thing. So for me personally, I'm preparing for the worst, while at the same time looking for the opportunities for growth, both for me and for my clients.

Welcome to this week's Wealthy Wednesday Podcast.  We're continuing our campaign around C.R.A.S.H. and this week it's A for Assets & Automation.

Partial Transcript:

What I want to share with you is: in every industry there are companies that take off. They effortlessly hire talented people, attract loyal customers, create amazing products, and make lots and lots of money. These companies seem to stand out and scale up quickly with the support from investors, partners, and media, no matter what the economy. 

Now, sadly, most companies don't perform this way. Most entrepreneurs and business owners are not building anything of value. They work hard, they make sacrifices, they struggle, they dream, they plan and strive. In the end, it does not pay well. And it doesn't have to be like this, especially in the digital age. And continuing on from our last two episodes in this crash season, where C stands for Cash buffer, R stands for reducing costs. Well, this week we're going to talk about Assets and Automation.

And in his book 24 Assets, entrepreneur Daniel Priestley carefully lays out 24 of the assets in sequence as I'll explain in a moment. Now Daniel, Priestley is an amazing man. Actually, he's got some fantastic assets out there himself. He's got a wonderful company called Dent Global. There's something called key person of influence, and I just feel that he's somebody that should be followed. In fact, he created this crash methodology which I'm sharing with you just now. 

So listen, I want you to understand that none of us knows what's around the corner, but the economic warning sirens are blaring right now. And yet so many people are just going, whatever, it'll be fine. But, I'm sharing with you right here, right now, it's important that you pay attention to this message. I've been through three recessions and the recent pandemic, and I'm old enough to see the signs again. And wise enough to take advice from the red squirrels who prepare for winter all autumn by creating a store of nuts so they can survive when there's no food around. Literally. I live in the countryside and I'll watch these wonderful animals right now, just preparing for winter. 

Now, in terms of the last financial crash I've been through, well, back in August 2008, I joined a contracting organization in Scotland as the financial crash hit, I joined as a business development manager. I'd had 20 odd years in construction as a quantity surveyor and I'd set out from that career and I'd gone away to start my own businesses, some of which failed, some of which were successful. But I joined this contracting organization at the beginning of August 2008. And through careful planning. And from what I've learned before and through trial, and error managed to help them grow from 6 million of sales every year to 15 million, 5 years later. And they came out in a different sector and different niche where they still operate to this day. So what's that? That's, over a decade later and, they're still successful and profitable in that sector. So today I want to share with you a plan on how you can exit the coming recession. No matter how long it is, whether it's 24 months, 36 months, whatever it's going to be. So you can exit the recession in better health and with more profit than your competitors.

At school we are taught all sorts of fabulous subjects - however two subjects not taught are

1. Financial education
2. Goal setting

Financial setting - as in how to actually save money - is the subject of a Workshop I’m creating because we’ve all forgotten what savings are

However it’s linked directly to goal setting because if we don’t first know what we are after we will never be able to first picture it in our mind.

In the last 48 hours alone I’ve spoken with 3 separate people who have simply lost their way in life because they have no direction.

Welcome to the Wealthy Wednesday Podcast, with me, Dave Drimmie.

This week I want to touch on the power of “Strategic Alliances”

Building strategic alliances is something that comes naturally to me - as I seem to be able to find people who have similar core values - are targeting very similar clients - and might enjoy a beer together.

Join me on this episode to hear about why you should be building and utilising your Strategic Alliances, and why they could be so important for your business.

Building your one page Strategic Planner for Wealth:

Since we were together last week I’ve been working with 3 clients and helping them create a 1-page strategic plan for their business.

The beauty of a 1-page strategic plan is that not only does it act as a GPS for you and your business, it also gives you milestones for progress - and the ability to measure that progress.

In it my clients are away building the draft of their first 1 page strategic plan that will include

1. Core Values + Beliefs
2. Purpose (or WHY) - 10 years +
3. Targets (for the next 3 + 5 years of WHERE They want to be)
4. Goals for the next 12 months (The WHAT they want)
5. Actions for the next QUARTER (as in the HOW)

and so much more..........

Listen in to find out more.

Links:

Welcome to Episode 22 of The Wealthy Wednesday Podcast.

Avoiding the 7 Wealth Traps.

Are you aware what they are?  Let me take you through them so you're aware the next time you're thinking 'that's a good idea'!

We have a new link to get in touch now, try out our Linktree option where you can get my details, fill in a contact form, or get the links to all of our podcast hosts:

Today, I'm talking about making your offer rise so high above the competition, your customers would feel stupid turning it down.

The inspiration for todays episode comes from a book by Alex Hormozi : $100M Offers.  How to make offers so good, people feel stupid saying no.

It's available here:

One of the biggest challenges I hear almost every day from my clients is they cannot find Top Talent to join their business - or even retain the talent they have

And I’m on a mission to help them change that

So when I was asked to review a book written by Michel Falcon called

• People First Culture

        -Build a lasting company by shifting your focus from profits to people

I jumped at it.

In this episode, I talk about quiz funnels.

What's a quiz funnel?  Put it this way, how can you know you have a successful product which your market needs if you don't ask them what their challenge is?

As ever, get in touch with all you feedback

Dave@theprofitchampions.com

Join me in welcoming Tyler Martin to the Wealthy Wednesday Podcast.

Tyler shares with us some true nuggets of wisdom, gleaned from his vast experience in growing businesses large and small.

If you'd like to get in touch with Tyler, find him on:

I've got a message to share!  Come listen to some lovely feedback from a friend of mine on using some of the systems we've discussed in previous episodes to land a new position!

I love to hear from listeners so it was a real joy to hear that some of what we talk about here is having a real difference.

Not only, but also........

Join me this week as I speak to Kerr Mathieson of Audio Outsource: Audio Producer and Content Creator.

The key reason for this episode is simple.  In the last couple of episodes, our guests spoke about building a team you can trust.

Well, Kerr has helped make this podcast possible and is regarded as part of my 5* team!

Listen to his views on why podcasts are important in this day and age and whether it's something you should be considering (hint: you should!)

Get in touch with Kerr at:

Welcome to another episode of the Wealthy Wednesday Podcast.  In this episode I'm talking to Julia Felton

Julia is a Leadership Development Coach and an expert in Wealth Dynamics!

Listen in to the incredible amount of knowledge Julia imparts to us and start using it straight away!

Contact Julia at: 

Welcome to the latest episode of the Wealthy Wednesday Podcast, with me Dave Drimmie.

This week I welcome to the show Mark Coulter of Ellisons.

Mark has an amazing journey and incredible experience, especially in the Residential Property market.

Get in touch with Mark at:

0131 357 1989 

07704 512755

Normal Service is resumed!

Apologies for the radio silence recently, we had a technical issue which prevented us from broadcasting a fantastic interview we had.  However, plans are afoot to record it again and bring it in the near future!

The unconscious mind.  Give the right orders through your conscious mind so your unconscious mind carries out those orders.

I can.......or I can't......

This week, I'm joined by my very special guest, Sheryl Andrews - The Listening Detective.

Sheryl Andrews aka The Listening Detective – Clean Language facilitator. Motivational speaker and author of manage your critic from overwhelm to clarity in 7 steps

Listen in as Sheryl and I talk about what Clean Language is, how Sheryl helps you gain Clarity, and what the Do, Delegate or Ditch Academy is!

Sheryl can be contacted on:

Welcome to Episode 6 of The Wealthy Wednesday Podcast.  This week, I recount the story of the Mexican Fisherman.

Wealth Dynamics and Profiles.

Many people think that there are hundreds of routes to wealth. With Wealth Dynamics, you'll see that there are actually only eight paths to wealth and that one of those paths is the correct one for you.

Wouldn't you like to find your path, benefit from your natural strengths and excel?

This week I'm joined by my very special guest Jamie McBrearty, Director of Y Mindset, and Founder of Jamie McBrearty Coaching.

Take a deeper dive into the world of mindset, following on from last weeks episode and listen out for all Jamie's nuggets of wisdom.

Welcome back to Episode 3 of the Wealthy Wednesday podcast.

This week: Mindset.

What is a fixed mindset?  What is a growth mindset?

Do you know which one you have?  Is it the same in work and life?

It's quite possible you think you have one type of mindset, but you actually operate under another.

Welcome to Episode 2 : Vision

In this episode, you'll find out:

• What does booking a holiday have to do with building wealth?
• Why you should always have an exit plan, even if you're not planning on selling!
• Why you should definitely read Cashflow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki!