Momentum Podcast: 489

It's Not About You

by Alex Charfen

Episode Description

When you start building a team, it’s no longer about you.  You can’t scale a business without interacting with your team.  If you don’t want to show up with your team, you shouldn’t grow a business. 

When you have a system and process in place, it will move the business forward fast.  If you aren’t willing to have a daily huddle, to meet with leadership, then don’t build a team.  A team will create more momentum than you thought possible.  You will get more done with a team than you ever could on your own, and time with your team creates massive impact and maximum momentum. 

You set the tone, the culture and the pace of the company.  If you aren’t there, the team will know the business isn’t important.  If you don’t show up, neither will they.

If you are ready to build a world-changing team, reach out to us at billionairecode.com and let us help you. 

Full Audio Transcript

One of the questions I get from entrepreneurs who are building a team is "How do I build the team without all the meetings on my calendar, without having to actually interact with my team, without having to meet with the leadership all the time? How do you do this so it's easy, and it doesn't take my time?"

My answer to them is, once you start building a team, it's no longer about you. You better show up for them, or it's just not going to work.

I'm Alex Charfen, and this is the Momentum podcast, made for empire builders, game changers, trailblazers, shot takers, record breakers, world makers, and creators of all kinds. Those among us who can't turn it off, and don't know why anyone would want to. We challenge complacency, destroy apathy, and we are obsessed with creating momentum so we can roll over bureaucracy and make our greatest contribution. Sure, we pay attention to their rules, but only so that we can bend them, break them, then rewrite them around our own will. We don't accept our destiny, we define it. We don't understand defeat, because you only lose if you stop, and we don't know how. While the rest of the world strives for average and clings desperately to the status quo, we are the minority, the few who are willing to hallucinate there could be a better future. And instead of just daydreaming of what could be, we endure the vulnerability and exposure it takes to make it real. We are the evolutionary hunters, clearly the most important people in the world because entrepreneurs are the only source of consistent positive human evolution. And we always will be.

Rarely, but it happens, that we accept a client into our programs, and they start going through our content and our information, and they come back to us and say, "Hey, you know what? I want to do this in a different way. I don't want to have to meet with my team every week. I don't want to have to do a daily huddle. I don't really want to have to meet with my leadership. And this whole weekly planning that we have to do, it's a lot of work. So, how do I grow the business, how do I scale my impact, how do I make more money, but how can I do it and also avoiding all of those things?"

My answer's pretty clear: Hey, you probably shouldn't scale a business. Let's just get real. You should stop. You should stop. You should probably find something that you can do on your own, that you don't have to do with a team, that you don't involve other people in, because this is going to be a complete and total unadulterated disaster. If you don't want to show up for your team, and follow the process, and do what it takes, with minimum effective dose, then you just shouldn't grow a business.

And here's what I mean by that: the way we show clients how to grow businesses is a pretty simple math equation. Here's what we know from talking to thousands of entrepreneurs, and getting time studies from dozens ... Well, hundreds. Hundreds of entrepreneurs: the average entrepreneur who runs a business, the average CEO, is spending somewhere between 50 to 75% of their time just getting everything done, just getting the trains to run on time, just getting the team to do what they need them to do. The average entrepreneurial CEO is not working 40 hours a week. They're working much closer to 60. But let's just take the extremes. Let's say at 40 hours a week, 50% of your time, that's about a thousand hours a year. At 60 hours a week, 75% of your time, is 2250 hours a year, or 2100 hours more than a full-time job.

So, just think about that. You're actually spending thousands of hours just getting the company to move forward because there's not a system, there's not a process, there's not a minimum effective dose series of things that you're doing that actually move the business forward.

So, here's what I want you to know. If you don't want to show up for a team, if you're not willing to do the 300 hours a year of minimum effective dose meetings, if you're not willing to have a daily huddle, to meet with your team on a weekly basis, to meet with leadership, here's my sincere request: don't build a team. Or, if you're going to build a team, find somebody else to do it for you. But let's be honest, that really doesn't work, because here's the challenge: if you're one of those entrepreneurs that sees your team as taking away from your momentum, you should not be in this game. Period. Because here's the reality, once you build a team, you will create more momentum than you ever thought possible. In fact, as I say those words, I get chills all over my body. Here's why: I've been an entrepreneur without a team more than one time in my life. In fact, I've been up and down more than a few times, unfortunately. And I know what it's like to work without a team. I know what it's like to do everything yourself. I know what it's like to try and create momentum all on your own. And I know that, very quickly, that gets old. And I burn out.

I want more momentum than I can create on my own. I want to get more done than I'm capable of. I want to do things that I don't even know how to do. So, I have to build a team, and build a team fast. And when I do, and I start leaning into that team, and I give them the time, the amount that we can get done is incredible. It's overwhelming. It's amazing. It's the stuff that dreams are made of for entrepreneurs. Every one of us wants to be that person who can get more done, who can expand their capabilities, who can make a massive impact, and make a massive income. Let's get real. And every entrepreneur has that secret superhero fantasy that we can strap on the Iron Man suit and have this massive enhanced capability. And the reality is, once you build a team, time with your team creates that enhanced capability, time with your team creates that massive impact, and time with your team creates maximum momentum.

This is why this is so important. See, when you build a team, you set the tone, you set the culture, and you set the pace of the company. And if you don't show up for meetings, if you set things up, if you set expectations with your team and then you're not there, they automatically know, not think, not wonder, they know that it wasn't important. They know that they're not important. They know that the company's not important to you. See, you need to set up expectations and fulfill them for your team, and then they will take you seriously.

Lee Iacocca, one of my favorite entrepreneurial leaders of all time, has a quote: "The speed of the boss is the speed of the team." Now, that doesn't mean you need to do more than everybody else. In fact, when you look at Iacocca's work, what he meant was the speed with which the person in charge offloads and changes behavior is the speed with which the team grows, develops, and accomplishes.

And here's what that means for you: you have to have a system to meet with your team, to process, to offload behavior, to understand what's going on, to overcome that huge entrepreneurial issue we all have, that as our companies grow, we have to make increasingly difficult decisions with less and less information. So, it's that system we have to offload, to meet with our team, to have them do more and more as we create more momentum together. That is "The speed of the boss is the speed of the team." And if you don't show up, neither will they.

Here's one of the biggest issues in business today: business owners, entrepreneurs, CEOs, people in charge, setting expectations with their team, setting up meetings with their team, and then not being there. Not showing up. If you don't show up, don't expect them to. If you miss a meeting with your team, you are deleveraging every penny you pay them, not for that day, but for several days. They now feel like they're unimportant. Unless it was an emergency, unless there's an issue that they can understand and explain, but if it's just "Hey, I wasn't there.", you are telling them, not only they aren't important, but what they're doing isn't important. It's one of the biggest mistakes you can make as an entrepreneur. It's like taking the productivity knob in your company and turning it down. Who would ever want to do that? You have to show up for your team,

So, here's what I want you to know. In fact, recently, I was on a sales call with a really well-known entrepreneur. He's sold millions of books. It's amazing what he's done. And in the preamble to the call, he said, "I'm getting on the call with you because I want to build a team. I want to make a big impact. I want to do a lot more with what I'm doing. But I don't want to get stuck in meetings. I don't want to have to grow a leadership team. I don't want to have to be in the room all the time. I don't want to have to do all the work. I want to make a much bigger impact."

And I stopped him, and I said, "I need to know something. If we can show you a system where, in about 300 hours a year, you can set expectations for your team, meet with them on a regular basis, make sure everybody's productive, and continue to create a strategic plan, pursuant, and update that strategic plan, are you willing to do 300 hours a year?"

There was a pause, and he said, "Yeah. If I can grow a team with 300 hours a year, absolutely."

And I said, "Good, because otherwise we would not continue this conversation. If you told me that you didn't have 300 hours a year for your team, I would tell you not to build a team, because building a team actually requires presence. Leadership is a contact sport. You have to be there in order to get people to be motivated to do what you want, in order to help them build your dreams. In order for your dreams to become their dreams, you actually have to be there. You have to be the example."

So, if that person wasn't willing to do the 300 hours, our call's over. I will not work in a situation where I know I'm going to lose. I've been there too many times, and it doesn't make sense. I don't need to do it anymore.

So, you are the example. When you show up, they show up. When you show up to those minimum effective dose, 300 hours a year, to every one of those meetings, ready and prepared, and ready to go, and excited, so will they.

And here's what's great about being an entrepreneur: you don't have to be there all the time. You don't have to do everything. You don't have to kill yourself, because here's what you have to do to be a successful entrepreneur: you have to set expectations for your team, and meet them. That's it. It's that easy. You set expectations for your team, and meet them. And I chuckle a little bit because this is such a difficult concept for so many people to understand, but it's such a simple concept to put in play. You set expectations like, "Here's when we're going to meet. This is what we're going to show up and do. This what we're going to accomplish in this time.", and then you're there, and you're there on time, and you're excited about it. And they know you're excited about it, and they can see that it's important.

So, when you set expectations with your team, and then you meet those expectations, guess what? You create massive momentum in your team. It's that easy as an entrepreneur. But far too many of us set expectations, set up the meeting, tell people we're going to be there, and then something comes up. And reality is, the first people that an entrepreneur will cancel on is their team. And I've heard of entrepreneurs canceling on their entire team for a sales call, or their entire team for an opportunity, or their entire team because they just didn't feel like they had time. When you do that, I want you to know you are hurting the productivity on the entire team, and your entire system, your entire organization.

So, here's what I want you to remember about building a team: once you build a team, it's no longer about you. Once you build a team, it's about showing up for them. And you don't have to be there all the time. All you have to do is set the expectations, and meet them. Tell them you're going to have a daily huddle, then be there. Tell them you're going to plan on a weekly basis, and make it happen, Tell them you're going to be there 300 hours a year in your targeted interactions, and not only will they respect you, they will be excited and help you create more momentum than you ever thought possible.

Once you build a team, it's no longer about you. Show up for them, and they will show up for you.

If you're ready to build a world changing team that can help you get into momentum and stay there, and create bigger outcomes than you ever thought possible, reach out to us and let us help you. Go to billionairecode.com, fill out the simple application, and set up a time to meet with a member of my team. Let me show you, or let us show you, how we help entrepreneurs, in just about 300 hours a year, set up all the meetings that they have to have with their teams, create a strategic plan, and go out and knock it down, create a massive impact, and more income than they ever thought possible.

We're doing this with people every single day. You could be next. Go to billionairecode.com. And remember, once you build a team, it's about them. Let us show you how to build a game changing, world changing team that shows up every day, creates massive momentum, where you get more done than you ever thought possible.

billionairecode.com

Thank You For Listening!

I am truly grateful that you have chosen to spend your time listening to me and my podcast.

Please feel free to reach out if you have a question or feedback via our Contact Us page.

Please leave me a review on iTunes and share my podcast with your friends and family.

With gratitude,

Alex

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