Momentum Podcast: 705

When Blind Entrepreneurs Lead Blind Companies

by Alex Charfen

Episode Description

Entrepreneurs without a plan can feel like they are the biggest bottleneck in their business.

Alex Charfen, a business growth coach who helps entrepreneurs grow and scale their businesses, gives practical, tangible, and actionable tips that you can implement into your business right now.

This is the remedy to being the biggest bottleneck in your business and will give you the clarity you need to grow and scale your business as the transformational leader you were meant to be.

By the end of this 13-minute podcast, you will understand how:
– To cast a vision for your team without creating fear, anxiety, or apprehension about the future.
– To clarify your mission so that you can go out and make your greatest contribution.
– How to overcome the most common entrepreneurial trap that can keep your business from truly growing.

The Momentum Podcast is created specifically for entrepreneurs like you to get into momentum and take the rest of the world with you. If this episode helped you do that, take a moment and leave a review. Let us know how we have helped you make a bigger impact on the world.

Our entrepreneurial journey doesn't end here! Be sure to check out our Facebook Community filled with entrepreneurs just like you who are getting into momentum and building world-changing empires https://charfen.com/community

If you are an entrepreneur who is listening in and you can relate, then be sure and head over to charfen.com/buildmomentum and gain access to some of my most requested business tools to grow and scale your business in any market condition, even in this one.

Full Audio Transcript

This is the Momentum podcast. Entrepreneurs without a plan can feel like they're the biggest bottleneck in their business.

This is amplified when entrepreneurs fail to cast a vision for the future to their team instead of clarifying. The future creates tension, fear and hesitation from a team that lacks clarity, confidence and commitment. Then, instead of boldly leading a team to accomplish the outcome, entrepreneurs feel like they're dragging their team along behind them. It can be frustrating. Can you relate? The good news is that the solution to this problem is not only to clarify your mission for the future. It can also make your plan clear to your team in the present so that you can go out and make your greatest contribution.

In this episode of the Momentum podcast, Alex is going to give you the remedy for being the biggest bottleneck in your business, and it'll give you the clarity you need to grow and scale your business as the transformational leader you were meant to be.

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.

You know, entrepreneurs, we're so different than the rest of world entrepreneurs are, we are we are incredibly unique. You know, when I when I look at the entrepreneurial personality type, when I look at the people that I work with, the people that I've had the privilege to coach, the people that I've been able to hang out with that are all like me. Here's what I see consistently, is that we are momentum based means we are driven to move forward, to make things happen, to to change the world, to to be in momentum. And when I say we're momentum based means I mean, we need momentum like the rest of the world needs oxygen. We want to feel like we're accomplishing something, achieving something, doing something. Can you relate to this? If you can let me know. Just let me know in the comments. I'd love to know that you relate to that feeling of wanting to be making something happen, because I've had that feeling for my entire life. In fact, that feeling can sometimes overpower other feelings, like I can forget to drink, I can forget to eat, I can forget to do other things that are important to me because I'm so busy trying to move things forward and make things happen and stay in momentum. I think that that is one of the most relatable feelings for us as entrepreneurs. We want to get into momentum and stay in momentum. Now, here's the issue. The issue is, is if we don't know where we're going, if we are in the condition that my team and I like to refer to as entrepreneurial blindness, where we are working out like crazy, we're getting stuff done, we just don't know where we're going. We don't have that forward vision. We can end up spinning our wheels, working like crazy and not going anywhere. In fact, you can hear it in the language of entrepreneurs. You know, you hear it. You can when you talk to entrepreneurs like you and I, you say, hey, how are things going? And they'll say things like, I'm spinning my wheels. I haven't really been able to make a lot of progress or I'm working like crazy. I'm just waiting for something to happen. Have you felt like that in your career as an entrepreneur? In fact, this is a feeling that is so common for entrepreneurs at the beginning of our career, in the middle of our career. It doesn't matter where we are. We can have this feeling of not being in the momentum we want to have, not getting the progress. We want to have to have this feeling of entrepreneurial blindness. So let me give you the symptoms of this feeling of entrepreneurial blindness where you don't know where you're going. So the symptoms are pretty simple there. And we'll go through them one at a time, because here's the reality for entrepreneurs. I've got some notes here. Here's a reality for us. Clarity is everything for us as an entrepreneur. So I want you to take it just a thought right now. When you look at your business, when you look at your life, when you look at what you're achieving right now, do you have the accelerator pedal down to the floor? Are you going as fast as you possibly can towards your outcomes, towards your goals?

Are you excited on a daily basis about what you're doing, or are you in a place where your foot off the accelerator pedal? In fact, maybe you're doing a little procrastination. You're not getting everything that you want to get done. You're frustrated with what you're getting done? Well, if you're in that state, the reality is you might have this condition, temporary condition of entrepreneurial blindness.

And there's three things primarily that this causes. And these are the three of the biggest things that Kosmo's one causes you to be the biggest bottleneck in your business. It feels like like everything has to go through. You two feels like you're not going fast enough. Do you have that feeling like you or your team? You're not getting anything done. You want to get done. And then the third one is you're feeling like you're still involved with everything. Let's examine this. And no one being the biggest bottleneck in your business. This is one of the most frustrating feelings we can have as an entrepreneur because it feels like everything has to go through us. And I know what this feels like. I've been there more than once in my entrepreneurial career, it feels like on a daily basis that to do list you make every morning is getting longer and longer and there's a back up of stuff that needs your attention. And the got ten minutes from people around you and having to verify, look at stuff or check stuff or or approve it is just stacking up and getting more and more overwhelming. And that feeling of being the biggest bottleneck in the business is debilitating for us as entrepreneurs. We want to be in momentum, but when we feel like we're the biggest bottleneck, it can actually make us feel exhausted and tired and frustrated and like we just don't want to even do anything. It's one of the most constraining feelings we have as an entrepreneur, because, one, when you're the biggest bottleneck, you know, things aren't getting done. And when you're a bottleneck for other people, other people aren't getting things done. This can wear us down, break us down, make us feel frustrated, make us feel like we're not accomplishing what we want. This is a massive symptom of entrepreneurial blindness. The second one I want to go through is your team. You you're not going fast enough.

In fact. Wait, let me back up. I just want to share a story about this. This first one being the biggest bottleneck. I have the privilege of working with one of the funniest people on the planet. His name's Daniel Rose, and he runs a company called Credit Repair Cloud. When Daniel and I met over, a pair of cloud was in the multiple millions.

But Daniel was literally acting as the customer service rep and the marketer and the speaker and the CEO and all these other roles. In fact, he's got himself a different name. When he did customer service, he was a huge bottleneck, like touching every single part of the company. When we got together with Daniel and he put together his first strategic plan, that entire business shifted. When we started working with credit plan, they were in the multiple millions, I think was three or four. This last summit that we had a month ago when Daniel was in the room, they went from 12 to 15 million in the last three months. They are at a fifteen million dollar run rate. When you get entrepreneurial blindness out of the way, when you clarify your future, when you know where you're going, things get infinitely easier.

[00:07:40] Now, the second thing that happens when you have entrepreneurial blindness, when you don't have clarity as to where you're going, when you don't have a strategic plan in place. You feel like things aren't going fast enough, and I know this feeling, you want the acceleration and the momentum of achieving and making things happen, but you and your team just don't feel like it's happening in the speed you want it to. You know, I always joke with people as an entrepreneur. I want everything done all at once and right away.

But over time, I become realistic to where if things are getting done and we are knocking things out and we are making things happen, I'm excited about it when I see tons of productivity around me and I'm not responsible for it all. That's an incredible feeling as an entrepreneur. It makes me feel like things are going fast enough, like we are getting there, like we're going to make the impact that we want. If you're not feeling this right now, here's chances are it's the same reason why you're the biggest bottleneck if you don't have a strategic plan in your business, if you don't know where you're going next and you're carrying it around all up here, you will be the biggest bottleneck in your business and you will never feel like your team is going. That's enough. And if your team doesn't have a strategic plan where they can see what's coming next, where they know what's going to happen, if they don't have that road map that shows them what's coming down, coming next, they won't be able to anticipate what they need. They'll be afraid to take initiative. They won't step up and do what they should be doing. That is a huge issue if you have a team. So if you're not going fast enough, chances are it's because your team doesn't know what's coming next. It's because they don't have clarity. It's because they don't have that accelerator pedal down to the floor. So first, huge symptom of entrepreneurial blindness is you feel like the biggest bottleneck. The second one is you don't feel like things are going fast enough. Now, this is a big one. You feel like you either have to touch or be involved in everything. Now, this is different than being the biggest bottleneck. Being the biggest bottleneck is people want stuff from you. They can't get it through you. You're not approving things fast enough. You're not doing things fast enough. Well, this other feeling of you feel like you have to be involved in everything. That's the the other side of the bottleneck. If you are the biggest bottleneck, then you feel like you have to touch everything, approve everything.

And here's what happens. We've all gone through this as an entrepreneur. You're doing everything you can. You're working as hard as you can. You're getting things done. You know, your teams getting things done.

You don't have a strategic plan, but you still are getting things done and you're kind of holding off feeling like a bottleneck and feeling like you're not going fast enough and feeling like, you know, you're still touching everything.

And then what will happen is you start going through your day's work and you find a mistake, you find a problem, you find an error, you find an issue somewhere. And that when you are in the condition of entrepreneurial blindness makes you feel like you need to go check everything, makes you feel like you need to get back involved in everything, makes you feel like you're not involved enough. So here you are touching everything. Then something goes wrong and it feels like you have to go fix everything. Why? Because you're in a state of entrepreneurial blindness and you have put your state and your team in a state of entrepreneurial blindness, if you want to stop feeling like the biggest bottleneck, if you want to start going as fast as you and your team possibly can, and if you want to feel like you are, stop feeling like you're involved in everything. Here is the easy way out. Create a strategic plan that everyone on your team understands. See if you have a strategic plan. Here's what immediately happens. Your team knows where you're going next, so you no longer have to be the bottleneck. They can anticipate what is needed.

If you have a strategic plan that everyone on your team understands, they have that 30 day roadmap of what's happening next. They will go faster. They can anticipate what's next. It's like sending somebody out onto a sports field with the play instead of without the play. If they have to play, there's a lot more chance they're going to be successful, much energy. And so they're going to be successful if we don't have a plan. It's like sending your team out onto the field without a play and just saying, go for it or here's my vision. When you have a plan or you actually have the play called On the field, things get a lot better. And if you feel like you're still involved with everything or touching everything, once you have a strategic plan.

This is a huge bridge here, by the way, not for our team, but for us as entrepreneurs. We feel the compulsion to be involved, everything involved in everything when we don't have confidence in how it's going to end up.

Why was Daniel involved in everything and try to repair the cloud? Why was he literally pretending to be a different person and answering customer service tickets? Because he felt like if he didn't do it, nobody what he felt like if he didn't do it, it wouldn't get done.

Now that the massive shift here is when we create a strategic plan as entrepreneurs, when we share that plan with our team, when we systematically achieve that plan on a monthly basis and start basis and start knocking those achievements down, everything changes for us.

And we as entrepreneurs can let go.

We can let go of having to do everything, see everything, be everything, approve everything. We can let go of having to be there for everything that happens in our company. We can let go of being the only person that can do everything.

And when we let go and we let that plan get executed and move forward and create momentum, that is when we finally get to the place where we've always wanted to be as entrepreneurs. I don't know about you, but I want a team where we say, here's where we're going.

My team lines up behind me and we go crush it and get there. In fact, with a strategic plan, I can say, here's where we're going. My team gets out in front of me and we go crush it and get there even better. And so when you have a planning system in place as an entrepreneur, everything changes. So here's our suggestions on how to create a strategic plan and what you should make sure you have a strategic plan. One, we like them to be created every 30 days so that you have every 30 days, you have a new plan that you're putting in place. And for us as entrepreneurs, that allows us to change things and shift things on a 30 day basis. If you're going to have a strategic plan in your company, make sure you have a system where it's created the exact same way every single time and distributed to your team. And if it's not in writing and everyone sees it, then you don't really have a strategic plan. And the last and most important part of this is you want to make sure that you have a way to both create your strategic plan and present it to your team so that it's easy to understand and impossible to misunderstand if you do these things, here's what will happen. A simple strategic plan will take you out of being the biggest bottleneck. Your team will start advancing quicker and you'll stop feeling like you have to do everything yourself. It really can be this simple to create a strategic plan and move your business forward. And this is what we did. We would love to help you. So if you're interested in creating a strategic plan and getting more information on how we help people do this, go to Charfen dot com forward, slash, build momentum. You can go to Charfen, dot com forward, slash, build momentum and download a number of different items from us. And in about five or six weeks, we have a new product coming out that is all around creating the ultimate strategic business plan.

I don't want you to miss it. It's going to change is going to change companies. It's going to change entrepreneurial lives. I fully believe it's going to change the way that entrepreneurs build and execute planned, execute and build their businesses from now and forever. And I can't wait for you to check it out. So go to Charfen dot com for to build momentum. And remember, as entrepreneurs, we are that tiny little percentage of the population that actually makes up our own rules. I mean, sure, we have to put up with government and taxes and all that other stuff. But as an entrepreneur, you make up your rules. You get to to make up what you do every day. You get to make up how you and your team behave, what you and your team go after, and you get to to literally create your reality. And when you create a strategic plan, that reality will actually happen in a time frame far faster than you ever thought it would. You don't have to be blind to your future as an entrepreneur. When you can create a strategic plan and a system to achieve that plan, you will systematically go out and make your dent in the universe.

That's the way it really works. Thanks for being here.

Thank You For Listening!

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

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With gratitude,

Alex

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