
Shawn Johal: Taking over a LED company and scaling it up to millions, an inside journey
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Steve Werner
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Steve Werner: what’s going on everyone welcome back to grow your impact income and influence the number one show.
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Steve Werner: for reaching millions of people, we dissect how successful entrepreneurs did it we start all the way at the beginning, we take it through their journey and we show them we show you the biggest mistakes, they made so you can avoid them.
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Steve Werner: I am super excited today we are talking to Sean joelle Sean had an led lighting business they started in 2009 so physical products.
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Steve Werner: E commerce business we’re going to dive into how he started that how he grew it and then transitioned into a coaching business where he helps other coaches do the same thing that he did Sean welcome to the show how are you doing today.
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Shawn Johal: St i’m super excited to be here thanks for having me.
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Steve Werner: No problem, I am glad that you are here, I know you just came off of running a summit and interviewing a ton of people.
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Steve Werner: Then thanksgiving hopefully you got a little bit of our and our i’m glad to have you here.
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Shawn Johal: that’s awesome really looking forward to this.
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Steve Werner: So talk to me a little bit about how you started an led lighting business I did you wake up, one day, and you were like LED lights or the thing of the future, did you.
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Steve Werner: happen to have a bad experience with one on Amazon like what happened How does that, how does one get started.
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Shawn Johal: Actually, none of the above it’s actually a more of a family business type stories, so I actually got out of university, I was studying at a rubbermaid.
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Shawn Johal: And I started working at rubbermaid if people know this company, you probably have a garbage can probably have a shed.
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Shawn Johal: You probably have some sharpie pen Those are all part of rubbermaid and I was there as a district manager for their sales teams and we were building a.
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Shawn Johal: The home depot division basically going into home depot’s and getting their stores up and running with our products.
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Shawn Johal: And then, what happened was my family business, so my in laws, my father in law’s mother in law and brother in law had this really cool led lighting business that they’re taking public.
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Shawn Johal: So this was actually a public business they put a bankrupt company on the tsa stock exchange in Toronto, no one knows how my father in law did it it’s still an unknown everyone today.
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Shawn Johal: We pulled it off somehow started raising money and blew up this company through mergers and acquisitions and really started having some amazing growth.
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Shawn Johal: brought me in 2004 and national sales manager and then you know, he was buying companies and really trying to build this thing.
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Shawn Johal: But when the recession in 2000 6007 the whole thing came crumbling down, it was a disastrous story.
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Shawn Johal: bought a company that we shouldn’t have bought in the US and the whole empire literally within one year fell to pieces, a very sad story.
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Shawn Johal: But from every you know devastating disaster comes opportunity and my brother in law and I had a chance to buy back.
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Shawn Johal: Three divisions, you know kind of 10 cents on the dollar, because it was such a mess and then we relaunched this led lighting company in 2009 so.
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Shawn Johal: that’s how we got started in it, we could have been selling shoes, we could have been selling clothes, it could have been selling.
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Shawn Johal: You know diapers i’m not necessarily passionate about led lighting and never really was a passionate about business but that’s how we kind of got the whole ball rolling on it.
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Steve Werner: So okay that that is really cool and you, you highlighted, something I recently read a book called Lawson founder.
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Steve Werner: The point of the book was about finding yourself through like mission, but it pointed to entrepreneurs can take any business.
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Steve Werner: It doesn’t matter what the business is they pointed to a couple different things, but like you just did it could have been shoes, it could have been light bulbs.
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Steve Werner: It could be anything right selling a service on coaching selling a physical product, but the entrepreneur mind solves the problem.
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Steve Werner: And grows, the business it’s about making revenue in the best way possible, through solving problems and creative thought.
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Steve Werner: Whereas a quote founder has some of the entrepreneurial bug but they’re really passionate about what they’re doing which.
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Steve Werner: In a way, is kind of what you transition to so we’ll get to that a little bit later, so you you bought this back you bought back some divisions 10 cents on the dollar and you started growing them, but specifically.
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Steve Werner: You will now you went from being a sales manager to being CEO is that your title.
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Shawn Johal: I was a my co partners, and we really have titles you didn’t we didn’t have that part figured out so we just ran the business as to owners.
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Steve Werner: Okay, and what did you use to grow it, because your role shifted right, I mean sales is obviously a huge part of any business, but your role shifted.
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Steve Werner: And you had i’m guessing like even though you bought it for 10 cents on the dollar like you have to start making money, especially in 2007 2008 like you need to be profitable pretty quick.
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Shawn Johal: yeah absolutely Steve I mean it don’t forget it i’m not telling you that part of the story, we actually took second mortgages on our homes, we had literally his wife my sister in law, my wife both pregnant with new babies, our first babies.
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Shawn Johal: You know I mean this thing is like high risk we’re very naive, you know we’re putting money into this thing without really knowing what we’re doing honestly.
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Shawn Johal: Logically, looking back if you were to give me the facts and probably wouldn’t have done this.
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Shawn Johal: So you know, thankfully, it worked out, but you know when you.
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Shawn Johal: guys do things when you’re young you don’t really realize so when we got into this business, you know, yes, we have to really start making money quickly as a matter of fact, we can even get a bank.
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Shawn Johal: To support us we couldn’t get a line of credit, we have to use this thing called factoring sure audience may not be aware it’s a nasty thing, where a company charges you very high interest the own your receivables they own your inventory.
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Shawn Johal: And you know they kind of fund you as you go along it’s tough because you’re paying a lot of interest, but at the same time they’re giving you find that you wouldn’t have access to normally.
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Shawn Johal: And that kind of led us into a bank, but what happened for us really was that we got this business going in 2009 shift our first order in June 2009.
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Shawn Johal: The first couple of years, we were just surviving right, like most new businesses, was just that’s not close the doors let’s just make sure we’re alive.
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Shawn Johal: And in 2012 2013 we got a little bit stability, but then what happened was that our biggest competitor came out and copied all 200 of our products and launched them in the market at $1 less.
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Shawn Johal: every single one of the products with the same suppliers and the same clients.
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Shawn Johal: And these are people that were part of our previous life in our previous business, so it was like the worst backstabbing you could ever imagine Steve.
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Shawn Johal: And that was when we realize, you know what we’re in trouble.
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Shawn Johal: This company, maybe not doesn’t have legs if somebody could just come and copy all of our products right what’s our unique differentiator what makes us stick out from the crowd and that’s when we jumped into the Rockefeller habits scaling up methodology.
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Steve Werner: So okay first off like one of my favorite things to talk about is entrepreneurial scars maybe not my favorite thing, but I feel like it is something that nobody really wants to talk about they’ll talk about.
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Steve Werner: Oh, I worked really hard, and you know I had to put my nose to the grindstone but then I woke up one day and I had a successful business.
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Steve Werner: I mean you just got like punched in the face like Mike one of my favorite Mike Tyson sayings right everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the face.
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Steve Werner: i’m.
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Steve Werner: The guy who founded masters I can’t remember his name right now but i’ve watched several interviews with them, and he just says he’s like he as an entrepreneur skill that nobody talks about that everyone has is like you just keep getting beat down.
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Steve Werner: That was my timer I apologize to everybody listening um you just keep getting beat down and beat down, but you just keep getting back up how did you feel in the morning.
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Steve Werner: Like getting up and seeing your competitor launch all of like 200 products at $1 less like we’re talking about light bulbs, so this isn’t like a I mean that that’s probably 10% maybe 20% savings off of what you were selling i’m guessing i’m.
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Shawn Johal: We had all kinds of led products at that point we had you know what i’ll do or lights indoor lights, they all kinds of products that you can put in any residential home, but you know, to answer your questions need the feeling.
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Shawn Johal: I mean it’s it’s it had a double there was a double is it was terrible because not only was it just a competitor coming after you.
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Shawn Johal: These individuals will launch that business were like brothers to me in the previous business there people who I really got along with I spent literally three out of five days a week, with.
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Shawn Johal: So there were people who, I was very close with and left on good terms with so to see them do that that had that effect where it’s this backstab you know just terrible feeling on that end.
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Shawn Johal: And, but worse than that was looking at a business and saying wow if somebody could just come out and just copy your products and launching the market, what do you really have.
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Shawn Johal: And so it really made us question you know, do we even have a viable business here, what is this business if anybody could just copy it.
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Shawn Johal: But you know what’s needed was the absolute best thing that ever happened to us by far, and my their 25 year business career that that moment, looking back now, which is always easier to do in hindsight, is the best thing that ever happened to us by far.
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Steve Werner: Why, I mean, I think I know the answer, but I want to hear in your words because, like the same thing that happened to Michael Jordan right you got cut from the team forced him to really be introspective.
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Steve Werner: Go ahead, though, I want to know what came out of that like what did you guys sit down and figure out over a week or two i’m guessing it was a very short period of time, like you had to dive deep and figure out the answer to this.
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Shawn Johal: What what it did, is that it sent us on a whole new journey, because it made us do that exact introspection and made us take a step back.
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Shawn Johal: And look at our business from an outside perspective 25,000 feet year and say Okay, what is this business and then you start realizing wait a second.
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Shawn Johal: We inherited teams right we bought companies we never questioned we’re bringing on board, we just hired everybody.
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Shawn Johal: And now we’re looking at our team and saying, well, we have the wrong people in the wrong seats throughout the entire organization.
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Shawn Johal: We don’t have a very good team and we start looking at our product development.
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Shawn Johal: Wait a second our products suck like they’re actually these guys copied products with these products aren’t even that innovative.
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Shawn Johal: We haven’t really been innovating and do anything special on the product side, then we start looking at execute.
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Shawn Johal: Our execution we’re not really shipping that quickly not really sticking out from the crowd in terms of how we deliver, so we have to look at every part of our business and say you know what.
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Shawn Johal: We believe in this we believe we can be much better and so let’s go on a whole new journey right now screw those guys now let’s make it our mission to prove to them.
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Shawn Johal: That we are 10 X what their businesses and essentially that’s what ended up happening actually we’ve actually 30 X what that company does today.
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Steve Werner: That is awesome so talk to me a little bit about like the Rockefeller habits scaling up.
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Steve Werner: Was this just a random book that you bought and you were like hey this looks good let’s just like dive into everything and find something that we can use somebody recommended.
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Steve Werner: And then, what what stuck out to you, and like what did you start to implement because.
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Steve Werner: I think there are so many business owners right like we’re always drinking out of a fire hose we’ve always got fires to put out we’re always reading something we’re always listening to something, how did that stick out to you and how did you start to implement it in ways that worked.
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Shawn Johal: Oh that’s another really great story, you know for us we’re part of the entrepreneurs organization so sure some of your audience knows who that is we’re 15,000 members globally.
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Shawn Johal: And in the entrepreneurs organization, it was actually founded by a guy named vern harness who wrote the Rockefeller habits, so we had already been exposed to his material in his book that he had had come out a few years before.
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Shawn Johal: And then there were coaches that were popping up at that time now coaches coaches all over the place, but then those days there weren’t as many.
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Shawn Johal: And so there was some coaches and then we figured out through the entrepreneurs organization wait a second there’s actually someone who could come in and help us with this.
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Shawn Johal: And what’s really hilarious about that process is that we wanted to hire this very senior very well experienced coach out of Toronto were based in Montreal so we’re about a six hour drive away.
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Shawn Johal: about an hour flight and that coach was kind of refusing to come to us said, you know what.
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Shawn Johal: i’m too important, you have to fly to me for like the small business thinking, how are we going to get the Toronto all the time.
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Shawn Johal: But ultimately what made a huge difference for us it was that this local coach was the only coach in the world who could speak French.
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Shawn Johal: And our business is actually a very French business because of the fact that we’re in Montreal.
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Shawn Johal: And on the North shore it’s about 85% of our team is French and so he said, you know what we’re going to take a chance, with this local coach who, by the way, I didn’t have any clients were her first client.
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Shawn Johal: So she’s got this methodology she speaks friends and we’re just desperate for for outside help for someone to come and look into our business and so that’s why we decided to hire her and start this journey with the Rockefeller habits which has now become scaling up.
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Steve Werner: awesome okay so that’s if you guys are listening to this and you’ve thought about hiring coach I wouldn’t necessarily take the first person with no clients, but sometimes taking somebody who is smaller.
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Steve Werner: will always work out better because that person they they’re 100% on you, if you take somebody.
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Steve Werner: I I was with click funnels for a long time I love Russell to death, joining his program when I did.
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Steve Werner: I met great people, but the coaching inside the program because he’s grown it so big was not the best rate people.
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Steve Werner: If I had to do over again, I would still do it because of the way that it changed my life and my business from 2016 on.
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Steve Werner: But finding somebody that has 123 clients is just getting going.
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Steve Werner: You know that they know their stuff because you’ve done your due diligence, that person is probably going to give you more bang, for your buck, because there is invested in your outcome, as you are right, I mean I would think that’s how it kind of works um.
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Steve Werner: So you grew the business how how long did it take to see results from when you started working with the coach to seeing some results to like rocket fuel blast off.
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Shawn Johal: So it really came it’s a great question it really came in phases, so there were there’s always this initial phase.
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Shawn Johal: That you when you get in your brain a coach and start a new methodology there’s some real problems right off the start right the coach will help you identify.
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Shawn Johal: And i’ll give you the perfect example we went into this, as most entrepreneurs with some preset ideas, where we’re stubborn.
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Shawn Johal: Entrepreneurs we think we know it all we think we already had the vision and direction, so we went to this meeting, and our team wasn’t very strong, so we said to ourselves, you know what.
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Shawn Johal: What we need to do is, we need to bring in the dream team around us, we need to bring in a VP sales, we need to bring in all these amazing you know.
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Shawn Johal: People are going to help us grow the business and we’re just going to become kind of the owner slash administrators of the business.
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Shawn Johal: And that’s what we thought we were going to do, but as we went into this reflection process and started building our strategy, but we came to realize was that, at that time we were you know.
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Shawn Johal: just starting to get some serious revenue going at that point, and to the low eight figures at that point what we realized was you know what.
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Shawn Johal: We are actually the best salespeople for the business, so my partner, and I, who are actually very strong at sales.
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Shawn Johal: We kept that part of the business completely against our instinct thinking that we need to bring in a VP sales and all the sales people that take over.
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Shawn Johal: What we did was the opposite, we brought in a controller Brian ahead of product development and we really went back to our passionate but we’re good at focused on sales and found people to help run the business.
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Shawn Johal: You know, at the same time as we were out there, growing the business.
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Shawn Johal: So for us that was one huge you know eye opening yeah element that right off the BAT made made made a made a huge impact.
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Steve Werner: Nice, and that was did the coach point that out to you or was that something that you kind of figured out on your own.
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Shawn Johal: it’s very organic right so it’s definitely the coach is, as you work through this process is a very specific process of identifying.
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Shawn Johal: Exactly who’s going to be doing what today who’s going to be doing this in three years so as we built our current plan versus our three year plan.
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Shawn Johal: And really mapping out that specific roles in the company, we just kept coming back to saying okay well we’re going to bring the salesperson.
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Shawn Johal: To joey what are you going to do Sean what are you going to do and.
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Shawn Johal: It just didn’t make sense and our plan and organically, we got to the answer just saying, well, we love being out there customer facing.
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Shawn Johal: we’re the best people to grow, the business but we’re not super passionate about finances are not super passionate about operations, so why not let other people come in.
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Shawn Johal: smarter than us run that part of the business and let us get out into the industry, so it was a very organic process, how it happened, which it often is.
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Steve Werner: that’s I, I agree, I think there are two ways that people get to that decision right like they’re directed by a coach and they’ve grown and they know that that’s the next logical steps they kind of organically get there.
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Steve Werner: The other way that i’ve seen it is like they literally like the entrepreneur takes on so much that they’re going to break if they don’t hire somebody.
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Steve Werner: This is not the ideal situation right, because then they usually hire the first person that hey I know the Joe over there, Joe does this let’s hire Joe and like they’re not the right fit they don’t do things correctly, the question that I hear a lot.
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Steve Werner: And I would love your feedback and how you handled it was did you believe.
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Steve Werner: A lot of entrepreneurs and say, no one can do it as good as I can I don’t love finance, but nobody’s going to look at the numbers, the way I look at them, I can’t hire finance manager.
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Steve Werner: No one is going to handle I don’t know inventory, as well as I do, even though I hate doing it i’m not going to hire it, how did you overcome that was that an issue for you.
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Shawn Johal: Massive issue massive issue for most entrepreneurs, I think, even the biggest companies still have that issue today.
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Shawn Johal: You know i’ve heard this and I forget who actually said this quote but it’s it’s it’s a common knowledge out there if as an entrepreneur you’re the smartest person in the room, with your team, you have failed.
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Shawn Johal: You failed for sure for sure for sure, because there’s no way that you should be the smartest person when it comes to everything in your business you don’t worry about sales.
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Shawn Johal: officer talking about it we’re talking about finance we’re talking about you know hr.
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Shawn Johal: there’s no way that you as an individual can be the best at all those things it’s just superhuman because maybe one or two.
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Shawn Johal: People in the world exists, like that, but that’s not how we’re built were built that we’re very good at certain things you know we have certain personality types and we’re not as good.
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Shawn Johal: At other things, and it takes a very, very savvy entrepreneur to realize that and to say okay i’m gonna surround myself with people who are actually smarter than me.
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Shawn Johal: In those specific roles that I know are my weaknesses, so I think that you have to come to that realization which a lot of entrepreneurs don’t and I.
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Shawn Johal: I rarely see entrepreneurs under the eight figures even get to that point ever because you know, usually they are wearing a lot of hats and they just feel the need to kind of control and handle everything.
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Shawn Johal: But what i’ve come to see him I experienced even you know in our business 50 employees there’s only seven left from the original group so we changed 43 TEAM members over six years.
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Shawn Johal: Okay, and for us, this was a massive game changer with something i’m not telling you that everybody who does scaling up does this.
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Shawn Johal: But we came to realize that we didn’t have people fit our values didn’t fit our culture we didn’t believe in our vision.
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Shawn Johal: And as you start changing 1234 you start realizing that there’s so many of those individuals that are not meant to be there around the table.
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Shawn Johal: So that’s when you can start leveling up your team, and then you have to have that you know that that vision, a little bit to be able to bring in people around you at the highest level, who are able to challenge you and really be able to bring expertise that you don’t have.
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Steve Werner: awesome I mean what I hear you saying, like the ECHO or reading between the lines is like.
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Steve Werner: it’s ego based and a lot of entrepreneurs have a hard time saying like i’m not the smartest because we want to be like an entrepreneur is my business we’re doing it my way.
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Steve Werner: But it’s one thing to paint the vision and it’s another to have a sense of I think some of it is ego and some of it is just sense of.
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Steve Werner: This is going to work out right trusting faith whatever you want to call that.
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Steve Werner: If you know something is going to work out you have no problem doing it right, you have no problem writing checks signing on the dotted lines.
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Steve Werner: Like doing whatever it is, but when you don’t know that it’s going to work, especially when you’re like i’ve been doing it, and I do it my way and it works, they might not be perfect, but if it’s breaks like it can kill the whole thing.
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Steve Werner: But just stepping back and saying you know what there is somebody out there that’s smarter than me and I trust myself to find that person.
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Steve Werner: and bring them in and have them implement, I think that is the sign of a for lack of a better term I guess mature entrepreneur, because that is the thing.
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Steve Werner: That grows your business faster than anything else is bringing in people that can take things off of your plate.
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Shawn Johal: That, I think you’ve really deal with Steve I think the eagle part is huge, because as entrepreneurs, we definitely have confidence in our abilities, but I think you’ve met as many entrepreneurs, as I have.
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Shawn Johal: Most time entrepreneurs if they’ve built this business from the ground up you know they put in all that sweat sweat equity, as we call it.
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Shawn Johal: You know they feel entitled to certain degree, and understandably tough being you know the best and most resourceful person in their business.
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Shawn Johal: But the reality is that you know until you realize that there’s better people than you be able to take on certain tasks.
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Shawn Johal: You know until you realize that your business will never be able to scale the right way it’s impossible.
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Shawn Johal: Now i’ve yet to see a business that had massive growth successfully and profitably with the owner doing everything i’ve never personally seen i’ve seen it for solo printers I seen it for.
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Shawn Johal: You know very small businesses, but I never seen a.
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Shawn Johal: Mid sized business, you know that can look back and say oh yeah we have this one burden and he just did everything you took care of sales took them to the next level we took our operations that next level we hired all the best talent themselves.
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Shawn Johal: You know, he took care of the whole financial process and.
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Shawn Johal: it’s not it’s not gonna happen, you know they mean it’s really not going to happen, and I would say that’s the number one thing holding back most businesses.
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Shawn Johal: it’s absolutely the fact that they do not bring in the right level of talent that right now as we’re living through one of the worst Labor shortages that we’re going to see in our potentially lifetime.
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Shawn Johal: it’s an excuse now so i’m seeing companies use as an excuse to not bring in the right, you know quality of team, which I think is a massive mistake.
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Steve Werner: that’s um well we’re gonna we’re going to transition into mistakes here in just a second we’ve kind of gone through like where you were how you started using scaling up how you start hiring people um.
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Steve Werner: In your own journey with the led lighting company was there a moment where you looked at it and you were like we’ve made it.
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Steve Werner: Or do you think that there are always things that you can improve moving forward, because I that’s an interesting question to me.
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Steve Werner: interviewing entrepreneurs hearing like do you think you’re in the middle of your journey at the end of your journey what’s going on with that, like where do you feel like you are right now.
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Shawn Johal: Well, so you know, as you know, i’ve transitioned into a whole new business and a whole new model which we’ll get to but for the led lighting business which i’m.
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Shawn Johal: You know, continue to be an active member and shareholder in although i’m not in the operations anymore, I would say that you were at what I would say, really, in the middle.
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Shawn Johal: of our journey as far as i’m concerned now, there were 12 years into it, you know, and you asked that question about feeling if you made it or not.
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Shawn Johal: To me, the way of defining that you’ve made it is when the business doesn’t rely on you, at every single moment.
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Shawn Johal: And for me, obviously, having been able to walk away from the operations is a sign that the businesses in a great position.
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Shawn Johal: That we have other amazing people and that you know it isn’t dependent on what I do, or what I say, or how I act so to me that was a very important milestone.
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Shawn Johal: And I would say to you on another side it’s also when the business is financially stable.
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Shawn Johal: So when you’re no longer feeling that crunch that you’re not sure if you can make payroll the next week or you need to increase your line of credit, the Bank, because you don’t have enough funds that they gone that next shipment.
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Shawn Johal: So those are the two big factors number one where financial stability is there, where you see yourself okay don’t worry as much anymore about the finances.
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Shawn Johal: And then number two where the business is not purely dependent on you, the rule of thumb is it can you leave your business for a month.
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Shawn Johal: Literally shut down for four weeks you’re not available, you go into a cave somewhere far away with no cell phone with the business builder survive without you.
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Shawn Johal: And then, could the business survive without you for three months, those are kind of your to gauges.
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Shawn Johal: You get the one month it’s pretty cool if you can get the three months, then you’ve really structured it the right way, because that means the business can run without you so to me those would be the two measures of success.
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Steve Werner: So for anyone listening to this and you’re like man I would love to leave for a month, I just want you to think about the ego conversation we had three minutes ago.
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Steve Werner: Because a lot of entrepreneurs are like the business has me if I leave it’s not going to work and, like they were that as a badge right like right here like.
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Steve Werner: Elon musk I feel like he’s super smart, but if he left tesla like tesla stock would fall, the company would fall Steve Jobs, if you would have left apple.
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Steve Werner: And maybe they’re just so smart that they couldn’t replace themselves, but like in your business.
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Steve Werner: If you want to get to the place where you can leave you need to hire you need to bring people on you need to train up.
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Steve Werner: And then you can have that because I think financial stability wall so come with that, because then you’re surrounded by a great team and you’re not doing everything yourself um.
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Steve Werner: All right, Sean let’s pivot a little bit so led lighting business is going great.
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Steve Werner: And you did everything through the scaling up system, and then you were like I need to coach in that how did you make the transition, did you wake up, one day, and you were like i’m going to be a coach or did you work with one business, how did that, how did that transition happen for you.
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Shawn Johal: yeah so it happens on a few different levels, first of all, since i’m part of the entrepreneurs organization they’re very active members on the Canadian board I was.
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Shawn Johal: The President of the local Chapter I was already coaching a lot of small businesses on my time purely on my own time.
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Shawn Johal: I would you know help coach these six eight businesses once a month get together for three hours and just give them experience sharing and structure them the right way, so they can have some growth, so I was already doing that.
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Shawn Johal: Just as a side gig side project we unpaid just you know, out of as a leader and as a member of the entrepreneurs organization.
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Shawn Johal: and obviously internally we were implementing scaling up, I was the person directly implementing it with our coach so her and I worked very closely together and then obviously the rest of the team participated with it.
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Shawn Johal: For me, what happened was about three years ago as the business was gaining this stability and we’re really starting to do things the right way.
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Shawn Johal: I also came to realize that my business partner and I and my brother in law.
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Shawn Johal: You know, we have two visions and it was going to be a little bit challenging to really have both visions see the light of day and go into the right direction.
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Shawn Johal: And I looked at, I thought you know what this could really come become difficult in the long term, why don’t we go with joy’s vision is my business partners great vision amazing entrepreneur.
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Shawn Johal: i’m going to support his vision i’m going to help him along the way.
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Shawn Johal: And, as a matter of fact today as still today I coached my own business, and next week we’re going to our today, you know annual planning and i’m coaching the entire team.
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Shawn Johal: Through scaling up, which I know sounds crazy and weird but it works for us.
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Shawn Johal: And so I said, Joe you know how would you feel if we follow your vision i’ll continue supporting you all stay involved.
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Shawn Johal: But i’ll go out there and coach other entrepreneurs, you know i’m not going to go and compete directly waiting.
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Shawn Johal: stupid on that i’m just gonna literally go help businesses scale profitably.
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Shawn Johal: You know i’m really passionate about and I really love doing it, and so you know we were it worked itself out, we spoke about it for a while and make it sound like it took two minutes it.
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Shawn Johal: took longer than that, but you know we worked out the details, and now, to this day, that that worked out very nicely so i’m working with about 25 companies around the globe, at this point to help them implement that same methodology.
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Steve Werner: that’s pretty awesome I mean that’s a really good story, because you went through you went through the process with a coach.
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Steve Werner: You scaled the business and now you’re out helping businesses, I mean, I imagine, working with all of the businesses, you see a lot of patterns develop you saw the patterns, probably in yourself a little bit, I want to actually ask you what happened to that first coach that you worked with.
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Shawn Johal: She just told me she’s a she’s a great friend I introduced her to her husband.
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Shawn Johal: We were we remain we text every week, and she is still a scaling up post today, you know 10 years later 12 years later she’s still coaching.
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Shawn Johal: She does a fantastic job she’s local we help each other out on certain files, but we don’t work necessarily directly together but she’s still very successful in what she does and.
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Shawn Johal: I would say just by the best she’s by far the world’s best French speaking coach that’s for sure, at this point and yeah she’s still someone that i’d like to go to as well, sometimes and share ideas with because we were in the same field.
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Steve Werner: Nice, the.
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Steve Werner: I mean that speaks volumes to there are very many coaches you coach on the same thing for 10 years.
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Steve Werner: Most of them move around quite a bit is that part of the reason that you decided to become a coach Is it because you saw what she did.
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Steve Werner: And I mean if you’re involved in it do it give us a little blurb on yo I know some about it, I know some other people who are in it, but if people are wondering what the.
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Steve Werner: Entrepreneurs organization is tell us a little bit about that, and how that grew your coaching because I mean it sounds like you were doing it for free, then you start getting paid for it talk to us about the journey of that.
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Shawn Johal: yeah absolutely so Eo the entrepreneurs organization are for founders or owners of businesses have a minimum million dollars us in revenue, so if you have a million dollar business minimum.
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Shawn Johal: You can join the entrepreneurs organization, what happens is you get into there, and you meet a lot of other like minded entrepreneurs.
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Shawn Johal: Businesses of every size, I mean i’ve seen businesses as small as a million i’ve seen businesses as big as several billion dollars in terms of within the organization.
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Shawn Johal: And so, when you get in there, you get into a forum and in that forum group you’re with six to 10 other entrepreneurs you’re not alone being with a competitor and you’re not allowed to be with a client.
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Shawn Johal: Now we’re respecting some key criteria, there you can imagine the conflict of interest that would happen if you were with one of those two groups.
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Shawn Johal: And once you get into these forums, that we call them they’re like your personal board of directors so every month we get together we share ideas we talk about you know.
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Shawn Johal: Family personal business people present you know i’m presenting next month on my online, the new online model that you and i’ve been speaking about and.
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Shawn Johal: You know just come up with ideas and to hear their feedback on it, and then we do experience sharing so they’re never supposed to give you advice they’re not supposed to say you know what Steve.
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Shawn Johal: here’s what you should be doing with your business right now right because that can be a very dangerous game instead they’ll say you know let’s see.
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Shawn Johal: Here is what I did in that similar situation here’s how it worked out went really well or was a disaster take it for what it’s worth and make your own decision with that information.
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Shawn Johal: So that’s why it’s such a powerful group is peer to peer learning, you know you’re you’re seeing conferences you’re you’re seeing all kinds of the best speakers worldwide as well.
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Shawn Johal: So that’s the organization itself, the Organization has always been very closely tied into scaling up obviously because of burns founder of relationship with the organization.
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Shawn Johal: But, for me, the big thing Steve at the end of the day, was that scaling up and vern you know I think would be agreeing to say the same thing scaling up as a book and it’s a methodology and its documentation.
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Shawn Johal: That alone is not gonna help you scale a business profitably right that’s a methodology it’s academic.
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Shawn Johal: The big difference for me is having implemented it in my business, we learned a ton including making mistakes again going back to that.
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Shawn Johal: Every so often, you know, a mistake, making that we all get scared of we all say Oh, we love making mistakes you’re going to learn you’re going to grow from your mistakes, I mean none of us want to make mistakes, none of us want to fail.
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Shawn Johal: You know you don’t wish to fail, you hope to learn from failure you’re not out there, actively trying to fail, but.
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Shawn Johal: You know, we had certain things that we learned from the methodology that worked through one other things that didn’t work and that we’re missing.
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Shawn Johal: For example, you know just hiring the book doesn’t have a very clear hiring process, so we have to develop.
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Shawn Johal: A super detailed hiring process, especially when you’re changing 40 350 people, and I was able to take those tools, now I can help my clients with them.
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Shawn Johal: So I was able to take a lot of what we did from the methodology our own proprietary materials and tools and.
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Shawn Johal: As you would know Steve it has a lot of credibility when they show up with an entrepreneur and say, by the way, you know i’m a coach kimmy approach.
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Shawn Johal: here’s the methodology here’s what we did in our business, we never had a month in the red, and you know 12 years and here’s how we grew it I can help you do the same, you know it’s usually a pretty easy sell.
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Steve Werner: Things I would agree on so in all of the businesses that you work with, I want to go through first off what is one of the biggest mistakes that.
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Steve Werner: You know, you said, like usually, when you start working with somebody as a coach right away, they identify one, two or three big levers that you can pull on to make a difference.
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Steve Werner: Working with more than 25 companies in this method, plus your own company, plus the numerous ones you worked with it yo.
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Steve Werner: What are one or two of the biggest things that you see right when you get into the business that somebody can take away from this call, and at least look at go read something about start to implement what would be the biggest mistake or biggest bottleneck maybe.
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Shawn Johal: So number one is strategically speaking most businesses have been built off an idea.
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Shawn Johal: or some type of product or some type of service accidentally somewhere right there’s not a lot of businesses out there that have been super well thought through.
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Shawn Johal: Incredible strategic plan for the next five years here’s what we’re going to do here’s what we’re going to hire here’s what we’re going to sell our core sandbox.
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Shawn Johal: Know companies have this stuff right you’re going to get into the the smaller businesses or businesses that are not having as much success and you start saying okay show me your plan.
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Shawn Johal: You know, show me your long term big hairy audacious goal show me your three year capacity show me your one year initiatives and they’re like what the hell, are you talking about we don’t have any of this stuff.
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Shawn Johal: So I think what happens is companies mistakenly fall into a peel an order a service of some type and then they just start building their business reactive.
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Shawn Johal: Based on what they’ve kind of tripped into and gotten started with, even if it’s something you’re passionate about right that’s still the case.
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Shawn Johal: You can be really passionate about something you figure out how to turn your passion into a business that doesn’t mean that you’ve structured a plan things out properly.
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Shawn Johal: So you know I would say that’s the biggest mistake number one is to just react in your business and not proactively take a step back and really look at it from again 25,000.
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Shawn Johal: feet to say Okay, if I was just an external shareholder this business not involved in it.
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Shawn Johal: What plan what I put in place for this business, so I would say to you that’s absolutely the number one thing that I see as a big problem there’s literally no plan whatsoever, when I get into most companies.
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Steve Werner: Okay, so let’s I wanted to go just a little bit further with that because I think.
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Steve Werner: A lot of businesses, my own included, when I started I had I sat down and I did like five year like where do you want to be in 10 years and where do you want to be in five and where do you want to be three let’s see what we can work on right now.
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Steve Werner: you’re welcome to disagree with me and challenge me i’m happy to have some conversation but, like the.
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Steve Werner: In my business right now I don’t I have like a five year like vision, I want to kind of be over here, I know what I want my business to look like.
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Steve Werner: I can say it and it’s like two to three sentences right.
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Steve Werner: But then I look at Okay, where do I need to be three months from now, and a year from now, like one year, I have a little bit of a one page plan for one year and then I do quarterly planning right because that’s any more than that.
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Steve Werner: I feel like i’ve seen businesses spend way too long, building out like the super complex five year plan and three months from now, things have changed they’re going in a different direction.
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Steve Werner: Is that it are we on the same page Is there something different, that you would recommend Where would you because the other thing I hear business owners say is.
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Steve Werner: I just need to stay afloat this month, how is a plan going to help me, you know what I mean like I just need to be profitable this quarter, how is a plan going to help me get there.
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Shawn Johal: here’s the here’s the biggest issue ICC is that when we get into the businesses they’re doing about 20 different things.
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Shawn Johal: Right and we get to see what are your priorities that we have so many priorities going to go up to these 22 clients and those four markets and we have these four people, we have to restrict all the finances and we have to change our process like a.
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Shawn Johal: chill out you don’t I mean like you’re not gonna do any of this stuff because it’s way too many and what’s gonna happen is you’re going to just be overwhelmed most companies they end up walking into our little overwhelmed.
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Shawn Johal: You know they’re coming in, they don’t really have the you know it’s rare that I do have some client that’s going well and they just want to micro you know.
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Shawn Johal: macro scale and just go super intense I have you know, maybe two or three or 5% of my companies that are that range, but most of them have hit a wall.
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Shawn Johal: And also we’re getting into there and we’re saying okay so what’s your plan and they often have this long term bull that’s a revenue goal.
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Shawn Johal: So it’s like I want to do 50 million or the magic number, we make that $100 million deal, but every company, I see is like i’m gonna get 100 million.
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Shawn Johal: And we’re like okay awesome but you want to get the hundred million, but.
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Shawn Johal: No one cares you know what I mean like in your business none of your team cares that you want to do 50,000,075 100 hundred 50 it doesn’t change anything for them.
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Shawn Johal: Where your numbers, so we get them to right away, think of things differently so when you look at this big hairy audacious goal that comes from Jim Collins.
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Shawn Johal: it’s this idea that all the best companies in history have always had this big hairy audacious goal we help companies build.
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Shawn Johal: A very long term North star goal you’re going to march towards and then everything has to cascade from there.
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Shawn Johal: So it’s not just that you’re coming up with these plans is that OK, now that we have our big hairy audacious goal, what are the three year capacities.
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Shawn Johal: that we need to get to that goal okay now, what is the one year plan that are tied into those capacities that are tied into the big.
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Shawn Johal: Okay now what micro actions are going to take over the next 90 days they’re going to lead us towards the when your initiatives and you have blinders on right this whole thing is you’re not allowed to look outside the blinders.
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Shawn Johal: That you made this plan now you did we’re going to stick to it or we’re going to keep our blinders on.
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Shawn Johal: And you go all the way down to a monthly weekly and daily meeting rhythm, so it really forces you to build the right vision at the stick with it through thick and thin at that everybody marching for that same be.
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Steve Werner: Nice, I think I mean having something that you can believe in and look at like that, I mean you call it a North star, which I think that is better than 100 million.
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Steve Werner: Because most employees could care less right because it’s not really changing their life, unless they are somehow monetary compensated through reward or.
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Steve Werner: Commission or stock profit sharing that’s where it’s looking for so Okay, we talked about the biggest mistake not having a plan.
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Steve Werner: I want to go back to what we were talking about with entrepreneur who is the first person that you think they need to hire I know you’re working with companies that are usually.
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Steve Werner: I mean they’re doing over a million dollars a year, probably what, what do you see in hiring that they need to do immediately if somebody was looking at that if you went into a business, what do you recommend around that.
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Shawn Johal: it’s going to be completely different from business to business for sure Steve anymore, we get in there, what we do is a major assessment.
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Shawn Johal: We start identifying right away, do they have a really strong hiring process, do we know how to onboard and train people do they have strategic goals you know we kind of go through the four pillars, which are strategy people execution in cash.
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Shawn Johal: So we make sure we understand where they are.
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Shawn Johal: Normally, when companies do this assessment, the first time the scores come out very weak.
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Shawn Johal: that’s natural that’s normal they have never done scaling up.
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Shawn Johal: And then, from that point on we’re going to go through this thing called the function accountability chart which means we’re going to start looking through the business and saying.
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Shawn Johal: Okay, who are in all these key roles today and who is going to be in these key roles within three years.
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Shawn Johal: And a lot of times it’s the same person wearing the same matter you have three people that are accountable for the exact same function in the business, which happens all the time.
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Shawn Johal: And so we get a lot of clarity on that segment and often then that’ll lead us to a decision on Okay, who is the next major hire, we need to do, but sometimes it’s, not even a new hire.
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Shawn Johal: You know, unfortunately what happens line you know I told you that we changed about 85% of our team is that.
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Shawn Johal: You know the one thing we do identify very quickly, is that there are certain people that shouldn’t be around the table.
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Shawn Johal: You know that’s just a reality we get to business Okay, these two out of 10 people shouldn’t even be here.
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Shawn Johal: Right now, because they don’t believe in the company they don’t have the right, values and it’s tough for in order to hear that, but a lot of times it’s more a fixing a little bit what’s broken versus just bringing in new people to solve the issues.
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Steve Werner: Nice that’s awesome.
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Steve Werner: I mean laying that out, I think, from I don’t have a lot of employees right now in my corporate job I had a lot of over 300 people under me.
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Steve Werner: And in that like there were certain people I like i’m thinking through my conversation like.
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Steve Werner: There were people that we kept on because the the what my boss at the time, said, the devil, you know is better than the devil that you don’t know.
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Steve Werner: And I remember being like we just need to fire this guy there was one guy was like he’s got to go like he’s he’s taking everything.
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Steve Werner: they’re like you know what like we just need to put our heads down and get through the season like we’ve got four months ago, we can hire after that, well then, we got to the end and they were like just leave him on for another year.
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Steve Werner: Like it’s going to be easier than going and finding it blah blah blah blah.
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Steve Werner: But I think you’re right, I mean as soon as we let that person go, we saw a lot of change in positive like we saw a lot of positive change and growth on.
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Steve Werner: So I think there there’s a lot of merit.
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Shawn Johal: And we we really take it, and we do an evaluation and I don’t care if the company has 50 employees that they have 500.
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Shawn Johal: I bring a very specific tool that evaluates every single employee.
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Shawn Johal: And we actually have to go within every single employee we sold us a little bit from us, we asked three questions do they get their job, do they want their job and they will be capable of doing it.
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Shawn Johal: So we call it the gw see that from us, then we go into what I call the grid, so we have a grid saying Okay, are they.
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Shawn Johal: What we call a promoter so someone who believes in the values someone who has a lot high productivity and you literally want to clone them if you’re a human cloning machine.
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Shawn Johal: We have the top left category, which are collaborators those people have good values but they’re not as productive as they could be but they collaborate quite well.
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Shawn Johal: In the bottom left category, which is non performer no values you got to fire immediately, and then we have the bottom right which is the worst category.
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Shawn Johal: Which are the brilliant jerks So those are we call them the miniatures, and these are people who are very productive, maybe even loved by your clients.
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Shawn Johal: But they are not team players, they couldn’t give a crap about the company culture and vision and they’re all about me and not about the company.
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Shawn Johal: And those are the hardest employees to change and get rid of so once we identify where these people fit on the grid it’s really easy for us, then, to say okay what’s the action plan.
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Shawn Johal: And if someone’s protecting somebody we say okay you’re going to save them Steve you’re going to save them.
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Shawn Johal: you’re going to save them right okay we’re giving you a quarter come back in 90 days and you tell me if you were able to save them.
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Shawn Johal: And then we get back 90 days later, and there was a Steve did you save them.
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Shawn Johal: And you’re not on all but it’s not bad it’s going a little bit better, and I think things are going to looking up and we say okay.
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Shawn Johal: we’ll give you another 90 days but usually by that second or third 90 day period it’s very obvious to the manager that you know what I can’t save this person they don’t fit the company.
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Shawn Johal: And we have to change them, eventually, so you know I look at changing it in an employee who doesn’t fit your business as a big favor for everyone.
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Shawn Johal: To favorite for the company, but it’s also a favor for the employee, I think that you’re making you’re doing them a disservice to leave them in an unhappy position where they’re disgruntled and they’re not doing their job or enjoying their teammates so.
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Steve Werner: That is, I mean, I agree, I definitely agree Sean you have shared a wealth of information we’ve.
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Steve Werner: gone through your journey from you know being naive buying a piece of business thinking you were getting a steal of a deal and then struggling and then.
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Steve Werner: Ultimately, coming on the other side wildly successful and now movie and coaching businesses if people want to learn more about you find you online where should they go.
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Shawn Johal: So definitely check out the website elevation leaders.com so as as as belt, as it said.
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Shawn Johal: check me out on linkedin to Sean joelle I seem to be the only guy with that name there so.
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Shawn Johal: i’m very active on linkedin you’ll be able to find me there connecting me there, and you know don’t be shy to email me Sean at elevation leaders calm.
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Shawn Johal: And i’ll answer i’m quite quickly getting back to you Steven though this so just shoot me an email and i’ll answer any questions you may have about the process.
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Steve Werner: awesome all of those links are going to be in the show notes down below if you’re watching this on YouTube check out the description, all of them are there.
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Steve Werner: Sean is an awesome straight shooter he knows what he’s talking about and he’s he’s just an all around great guy Sean Thank you so much for coming on the show.
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Shawn Johal: As the, thank you for having me i’ve really enjoyed the experience.
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Steve Werner: No problem, it is my pleasure to everybody else out there until next time take action change lives and make money we’ll see you soon.