SPEAKER_02 0:02

Most founders started business to create freedom only to discover that they have built an organization that simply cannot function without it. Today's guest is Peter Bulka, known as the transition guy. After spending 15 years at McDonald's, Peter moved into business coaching and has spent more than two decades helping owners install the leadership systems and operational discipline required to grow. And when the time is right, step back or exit the business. Today, we explore how founders stop being the center of the business without losing what made it successful. Welcome to Scaling with Clarity, Peter.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Thank you, Maxim, for having me. I'm so looking forward to today's show.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

Me too. So why don't we just start with the obvious? How did you go from working for one of the largest organizations in the world to doing what you're doing now? Um, it's uh it it I mean, I would think this is an interesting transition for not just founders but also for other people that maybe are within uh big corporations and uh have the need to scratch the entrepreneurial it.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Yeah, have you seen the film Maverick?

SPEAKER_02 1:25

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

You don't think so? Okay, there's a great line in the film Maverick where his career was stalled because he pissed off the wrong admiral. Okay, unfortunately, when you move up in McDonald's, your reporting structure becomes more and more narrow. And perhaps the person I was reporting into, we weren't best matched to continue the career together. And unfortunately, one of us would have to leave, and it was me.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Yeah, understood, understood. Uh um, I mean that's that's fairly common, especially when there's a leadership change, especially when to get a new boss. And you might have worked fantastically well with a predecessor and then different style, and and quite often they bring with them um or leaders bring with them um their own trusted crew, just because they know who who can they rely on. So anybody that's seen plays before uh goes by the wayside. But I mean, for context, I was um I spent 13 years with uh EY and Deloitte, and when I was with EY, um I did work for McDonald's Canada for about a year. Um on at that time, so we're talking 2004, I think it was. Um, the Surveillance Actually Active was passed in 2002, and then McDonald's is a big corporation had to go through the adoption of uh internal controls or financial reporting. So that was the the scope of my work there. Um big corporation, uh big corporation. I mean, I remember from there, rigorous processes, systems, controls. So, how has that shaped you in terms of like what what you coach founders now?

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Do you know what was really ironic? I started in McDonald's when I was 16. Yeah, I kind of took it for granted what McDonald's offered, like with this management training, with the systems and processes. I thought everyone did it. Yeah, I really did. I thought that everyone did it. I thought it was a norm until I bought my first restaurant, and then it was it was a horror story. It was totally counterintuitive to what I'd been used to for 15 years, and then it kind of dawned on me. Huh. Maybe what McDonald's had was quite special, and maybe the way it approached business allowed it to scale across the globe the way it did. I don't know if you've ever seen the film The Founder with uh Ray Krock, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

Um, yeah, yeah. I I have I have.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Yeah, I mean that's a fantastic film, and it just shows you how the original McDonald's brothers just were not able to scale it, and how if you've got a structure and a system and a process in place, you can have scale and profitability. So, yeah, it is a big part of what I do, but it depends on the client in front of me, you see. Some businesses out there actually are well structured, but they're few and far between. Most people try to scale in chaos, which is interesting to watch.

SPEAKER_02 4:52

Yeah, I'm it let me frame my question. Um I am a process systems uh guy. I've I mean, after spending uh 13 years between Deloitte and EY and then leading uh a number of different organizations, um, you kind of really you kind of understand that in order for you to build a scalable business, you have to have a solid foundation. Why are founders resistant or are they resistant to building the systems, the foundation that's necessary for them to scale? And what are the what is that aha moment that brings them the clarity that okay, we cannot continue the way we are, we need to slow down to speed up, we need to establish the systems, processes, controls in place in order for us to allow us to uh hit the escape curve.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Listen, this is a really fascinating question, and to be able to answer that, we need to go very far back to when the business was formed. So, I'll give you an example on statistics in the UK. In the UK, there's about 5.6 small to medium sized privately owned businesses, of which 4.2 are solopreneurs. Think back to when a business is started. Very rarely do businesses start with more than one person, unless you're looking at a VC startup or something, I doubt. So that's very rare. So you think about small to medium sized enterprises in the UK are 90% of the economy. So they start on day one by themselves. Now, when they start on day one by themselves, they're the chief decision maker, they're the chief executioner to make sure the work gets done, they're head of sales, head of marketing, head of finance, head of HR in case they need to discipline themselves, head of everything. And it may be a number of years before they even get to hire their first person. And when you bear in mind that 80% of businesses fail within the first five years, can you imagine the habits the founder forms in that period before they even start hiring people? They're used to doing it all themselves, but even worse than that, they've trained the business to go through them. So they by the sheer nature of how they've started it, they've structured the business in a way that it can't run without them. Then we talk about the systems and processes. Well, you've got to understand and work in this environment where you've understand systems and processes and know what to do. Most entrepreneurs they don't understand systems and processes, they hardly read any business books or watch any business material, so they're constantly shooting from the hip. And that's why when I look at it, especially when we're coming up to when people say they want to exit, they don't have a pathway to exit unless they want their business massively discounted. So I think with the owners, to answer your question, it's habit number one lack of knowledge and understanding, and not being able to bring the right people around to help them get it done when the time is right.

SPEAKER_02 8:27

So how do they know when the time is right?

SPEAKER_00 8:35

You know, you said the aha moment. Hope you don't mind me swearing. But it's normally the oh fuck moment, not the aha moment. Normally these people don't make a things. They don't make their decision out of the fact of all it's going really well now. How do I make it better? It's like, well, I've tried to go past this point a number of times, and I am stuck, and I am frustrated. What needs to change? And normally it's because what they're trying to do in the business keeps breaking, and they're probably at the point where they're exasperated and absolutely tired of it all, and they can't go on no more the way it is. Their spouse is probably at this stage frustrated with them, and also telling them at this point, listen, if something doesn't change, you and I will change.

SPEAKER_04 9:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

And that's what I typically tend to find.

SPEAKER_02 9:38

That's a powerful motivator. Um, not surprised. And I'm I'm not surprised. It's uh um in order to overcome resistance to change, or in order to overcome change, there has to be a powerful force that's stronger than than the resistance to change. Um and so so this is good context. Now, as uh as the company is is evolving, so you you have this off-block moment, they come in, um you start building out systems, you start implementing things that that are important um to unlock whatever is holding them back. Uh let's say that it's uh sales, or let's say it's delivery, whatever it is. So with this context, what have you seen as the layer that must stay with the founder? Like what as the company grows, what must remain founder-led and what must become more institutional-led or um kind of delegated to somebody else or build out a function that supports this?

SPEAKER_00 10:51

I love that. I actually do love that question, and I will answer it this way everything must be everything must remain founder-led until they are capable and competent enough to hire people that can take over. So, what founders do is they've never learned how to truly recruit. So they recruit based on I have a feeling, and because they don't have the systems and processes in place, they then put someone in a position and say, Okay, go and lead it. And the person that's been hired to go lead it has no context, can never do it up to the standard now. The founder did it, so they've set the person up to fail, and there's constantly friction. I have a saying that you cannot delegate to the stupid, and I don't mean that the people are stupid, they're just the wrong people in the position, unfortunately. And it will always fail until the founder changes, and the founder learns how to build that next level. Now, when the founder manages to nail that, then by all means, as you bring better people on board, then you can start letting go because you can then trust the person, the which person you're letting it go, they're not gonna mess things up. So I do think you've got to wait to the point is right. And if you want to let go faster, then I suggest you spend time learning how to bring better people on board, spending time with them and set them up to succeed, not to fail.

SPEAKER_02 12:22

I couldn't hear more. Um as I said, I spent uh many, many years with the firms, then I've I've led uh departments within organizations. And one thing that when I first became a manager, I think that that must have been like 2005, 6 um review comments, you know, uh a working paper would come in and I review it, and and again, like you have a junior stuff uh preparing the documents, and it was easier and faster for me to go and fix things, but I knew that if I went and fixed things myself, I'll keep fixing things myself for uh eternity. And so it was pretty obvious that yeah, and and again, like the like EY, I was with EY at the time, amazing people organization. It was drilled into you um how to be a leader, how to uh bring the next um layer behind you forward, how to pull them forward. And it was like train, train, train, onboard, provide feedback, provide feedback, provide feedback, provide feedback because greatness is in the agency of others. Yes, it's slow work at first to onboard somebody to use systems, processes, thinking, culture, but guess what? It unlocks momentum afterwards.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

It absolutely does. That goes back to what you said at the very beginning slow down to speed up. Yeah, and you've had that hindsight, but you know what's interesting? You've also had great training. Uh you go back to you, but you go back to founder-led businesses, yeah, they don't have that context. Yeah, so you know that bit where you say, well, it would be easier to jump in and do it themselves. That's one of the habits that founders teach themselves at the very beginning.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

But we'll fix it. I'll roll up my sleep and we'll fix it up.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

Yeah, and but you know, because they are the top of the tree, the difference with you in sort of let's go back to like when you're working at EY as an example, you were accountable to someone, so you had someone always watching over you to make sure you never strayed off the pathway. And if you happen to have done stupid shit, they would have told you, and if they won't do that, whereas founders, no one talks to them, no one tells them anything. Employees are too scared to say anything, yeah. Their spouse has given up on them, even trying to say anything, so they live in their own distortion field, yeah, and it's absolutely distorted their reality, yeah. And until someone can call them out on it, that was a nice thing about when you bring a consultant in. I'm sure that you when you went in from ER EY and everything, and you went into an organization because you could see it from a third-party perspective, yeah, you were able to point out to them the damn obvious that they were missing.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

Agree, agree, okay. And it's kind of interesting. Um I've worked for three of the largest public trade companies here in Canada, and and obviously I spent over a decade as a consultant. External consultants carry a lot of weight, even if it's exactly the same as you live with exactly the same way. It's like, well, it's the outside in perspective, and and sometimes this is very, very valuable uh because it's hard to read the label on the bottom from the inside. Um, so I I get that. Um, but it's um it it it it's that moment when um people bring that perspective and and consultants. I mean, yes, there is there's uh the feeling that don't buy the the hand that feeds you, so you're never too frank about what you see, but at the same time, the company has brought you in for a reason to come in and fix something. And so for them, the outcome that is being sought is change, betterment, improvement, efficiency, optimization, whatever it may be. Um and so super important. Now, is this kind of what led you down the coaching path in terms of like you've you've you've seen these problems, you like you're observing them, and the next logical step was like, Okay, well, I'm going to do something about it.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

You know, the nice thing about that as well, when you're coming in from a third-party perspective, you are neutral. Every other relationship in the business is not neutral.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

Yeah, agree, agree.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

So it's a safer place, you're not coming with any agenda apart from the agenda of helping, and actually, a good consultant stroke coach will never judge. Whereas when you have employees, fellow directors, you've been in the boardroom. It's it's judge, judge, judge, judge, judge. Have you ever watched the ep? Have you ever heard of the episode the TV series The Traitors?

SPEAKER_04 17:50

No.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Oh, it's brilliant. I mean, for those that have ever watched it, you'll know what I'm talking about. It's literally like you know, very often you have a leadership team or management team or board, it's just a bunch of traitors trying to kill the next person. It's horrible to see because everyone is covering their backside, yeah. Yeah, and that is a sad thing. Whereas when we go and we have these conversations, and Jim Collins talks about it being the brutal facts, when we are able to have the brutal fact conversation with people, that's when real change can happen.

SPEAKER_02 18:25

Um, I mean, Jim Allen's great, uh, Jim Collins great author. Um the oh one book that uh really changed my my thinking. Uh, have you read a book called Radical Candor by Kim Scott?

SPEAKER_00 18:41

I love her. I was lucky enough to meet her a couple of times, super smart lady.

SPEAKER_02 18:49

Okay, yeah, I think that this should be um an institutionally required book for everyone to read the book, especially if you're in any kind of leadership capacity, uh, be it a supervisor, manager, it doesn't really matter. Um, but it's that candor that surfaces friction, and friction creates the fire, creates the evolution. Um, because without that, how do how do we make progress?

SPEAKER_00 19:21

The challenge is there's plenty of people out there that are can that will have radical candor, but their communication skills suck. So they deliver the candor in such an unkind way, yeah, it causes resistance, not progress. Yeah, so alongside radical candor, really they need to learn EQ, maybe some Brene Brown stuff on actually vulnerability, so that they can actually lead as a good human being and not an asshole.

SPEAKER_02 19:59

You're my spirit animal. I love Brene Brown. So okay, very good. Yeah, no, she's phenomenal, phenomenal. So now let's pull on a string that Brene Brown talks quite often. How do you create this EQ uh vulnerability without being an oversharer? What does vulnerability look like in uh in a founder lab business?

SPEAKER_00 20:28

For me, a big part of vulnerability is being able to leave your ego at the door and have done work on yourself. So one of the things that I make mandatory with anyone that will work with me is that they do need to have a psychotherapist in their corner. Everybody talks about the everyone talks about the sort of let me have a personal trainer, or I'd love to have a chef. No, no, no. You need to have someone for your brain because if you are trying to lead through trauma, you're never gonna get there. And so many founders lead through trauma because they're carrying shit around with them that they've never dealt with, no matter how many books they read, they're still damaged. So I don't believe you can be vulnerable until you've learned how to self-regulate, how to self-manage, you've dealt with your trauma, and you're not necessarily it's transference, you don't transfer your shit onto others. That's why you know when a lot of people overshare, what you see with oversharing is not the fact that they want to overshare, they're looking for some kind of sympathy from somebody. Oh, please, can you relate to me because I'm not in a great place? Please, please, please. They think they're sharing, they think that they're connecting. The people are looking at them thinking, what are you on? So I do believe all leaders, whether you are founder, managers, leaders, you've got to make sure you do the work on yourself so that you're the kind of person that people want to follow. And that for me is really important. Do they want to follow you? Do they respect you? I don't care if they like you or not. You don't, you're not there necessarily to be liked. But to lead and manage people, they have to respect you. Because as soon as they do not respect you, they're going to be sabotaging everything you do behind your back. And you've seen that already so many times.

SPEAKER_02 22:38

For sure, for sure. I've I've had an executive coach for a period of time. Um, and there's a number of different factors in terms of respect is the technical ability to lead the team. You don't necessarily have to be the smartest person, you don't have to be the most knowledgeable, but you have to have the technical foundation. Surprisingly, the technical competence, it's foundational. So without this, you cannot command the respect, but it only comprises 35% of the perception that or the importance that uh employees, peers, and uh superiors place on you. Um, so it's absolutely foundational, essential. Without it, you cannot achieve the other one in terms of visibility, in terms of like impression, uh communication, but it's uh uh it was the highest percentage of uh of any category within that assessment.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

I'm not surprised. That hopefully makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 23:41

So on the on the topic of the psychotherapies, um who is the psychotherapist? What does the psychotherapist look like? Is it one person? Is it is it a combination of many people that feel that that role of being the psychotherapist, that the confidant? Is it somebody that knows your industry really, really well, or is it somebody that can um help you um help you deal with, as you put it, with your trauma and have to move forward?

SPEAKER_00 24:13

I think that person very much needs to be a professional. I think the biggest mistake I've seen with third-party providers, be it consultants and coaches, that they very often blur the boundaries and they try to step in and have that role without having the skill set, the knowledge, and the training to be able to do that, which is damn dangerous. So I always say that psychoparists, look, whether it's a psychotherapist, psychologist, whatever, it's got to be the right person for the executive founder, and it's got to be a person that can help them break through the stuff holding them back. Yeah, so I like people to stay in their lanes, so always make sure that get yourself a professional in that lane, and then your relationships in that lane, they stay in that lane.

SPEAKER_02 25:08

Makes sense, makes sense. I mean, it's this is no different than than coaching. Um, if you just look on the surface, coaches are dime a dozen, good coaches are not. Um, and coaching is less about what you say, it's more about the questions you ask to uncover. Uh, let's use the same word of you as trauma, but but it's like maybe blockers or whatever is holding the the the person back.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

And and actually, there is a Canadian author that I could friend, I mean, I like him very, very much, Michael Bange Steiner. Don't know if you come across so he wrote the book, The Coaching Habit. Really, really good book, and it is around the it's around the questions you ask. It's around the questions you ask, 100%. And it's not asking questions for questions' sake, it's asking questions so that the behavior alters. Yeah, and that goes back to down to the coaches being like sort of a dime a dozen, because those that are dime a dozen ask the same stupid questions all the time without thinking about okay, well, what do I need to change to be here?

SPEAKER_02 26:22

Make sense. We um before we jumped on the on the call, we talked about um um the the cowardly marketplace and kind of like what does it look like in Oberta, and that is like probably the the most thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem here in Canada. Um, I've been blessed to be part of an organization called Venture Mentoring Services of O'Burden. And uh when I was the mentee or the coachy um team of three people, one of the coaches for each session rotates, and it's based on the MIT model. Uh one one coach asks questions, one uh coach um uh it's kind of like the pundit, like just uh observes, um uh does doesn't say anything during that session, but he leads to the debrief after the conversation. And the the third coach is kind of like uh the secondary question ask. Um, I found this format to be phenomenal. I've done the coaching training with uh one eleven and different organizations, and it's interesting, but for me, this the MIT model was the most effective if you have the ability to have multiple coaches as part of the conversation. Um, and in any frameworks or organizations or books could that that you have adopted as part of your coaching organization?

SPEAKER_00 27:51

So, definitely the coaching habits, one that I would suggest every person in a leadership position needs to read. I love Patrick Lencioni's Death by Meeting. I love Lencioni's work. I love yeah, I mean, he's just he's just one of those rare geniuses. Yeah, but Vern Harnish scaling up, which is also another really good book. And Vern Harnish also talks about the fact that every organization, everyone in a leadership management position, should really have a peer coach, and that's really important. Just having somebody there that can really ask the stupid questions. Most most most organizations are not gonna get to the point where they can go down the MIT model and have a three coaches in a situation. I mean, that's brilliant if you can. But what I should say, if you can't even, if you most will never have three coaches, but you need to have at least one coach. And you've got to be you've got to be prepared to listen to the feedback that to listen to what's coming your way and be open to change. Because that's the only that's the only way it works. Marshall Goldsmith talks about in Trigger, feedback was yesterday's news, it's all about feed forward, and I think that's a nice thing about coaching. If you do coaching well, it can be a feed forward where you're looking at what you need to change, not the history of what you've done. So trigger is another great book for that.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

For sure, for sure. And now if you don't mind it at the end of the conversation, wouldn't mind like obviously uh links to it to your profile, but also any kind of books that uh you would recommend. Um probably about four or five years ago. Um I I'm a CPA by designation, uh, or charter accountant. Uh now we're in Canada, we changed it, I don't know, a few years ago we changed it to uh CPA uh to more closely aligned with the US because that's the designation they were using rather than chartered accountant.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

Um I'm sure you're gonna go back to chartered accountant now.

SPEAKER_02 30:07

Oh my gosh. Like it's it's kind of funny. Um just a bit of a digression. Um I love the states. Um my wife and I got married there with with the kids. Uh we used to go there two or three times a year. We haven't been there in two years. And this year, um just before the kids start school, I was like, hey, let's go back to California. That that's our that's our happy place. And I got voted down. Um they're like, not until Trump is in power. Um, I'm like, okay, that's another two years.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

A lot of a lot of my Canadian friends will not buy any American product at the moment. And they love America.

unknown 30:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

But when someone is coming and trying to absolutely cripple you economically and bully you to becoming the 52nd state or whatever he wants you to be, 51st state. Look, yeah, Canadians are always gonna be Canadians, they're gonna they're they're going to say no. Yeah, I think the reality is that Canadians have more in common with the United Kingdom than they'll ever have with the United States.

SPEAKER_02 31:20

For sure, where I live is perhaps the only exception.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

So um French Quebec.

SPEAKER_02 31:26

Uh yeah, well no, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure, Quebec. But um I live in Alberta. Alberta is the richest province in Canada. Um in it's kind of divide, like the cities are very um um kind of like around the capital and capital region is very social democratic. Um, the um the rest of the the cities themselves are to use the US terminology, very blue, very democratic. The rural areas are very red and not not surprising. Um, I live in Alberta, and we are kind of the equivalent of Texas. Um rich resources, um, oil and gas are the predominantly, but then agriculture because we live in the prairie lands. Um, it's so similar. We quite often there's their petition that circulating around separation. Um and because for the last, I don't know, 50 years, in Canada we have this um uh equalization system where the richer provinces pay for the poorer provinces. And so for the last 50 years or since this system was put in place, uh, we have always sent money to the other provinces. We have never benefited, well, uh benefited directly from uh equalization payments. That's not to say that we haven't benefited from being part of Greater Canada. I am very much in favor of staying united rather than separate. But in in Alberta, there's this movement, in even in the current premier, in some some case, in some ways, is is uh fueling this fire around us separating and becoming an independent country or becoming um part of the United States. And I'm like, let's not do this. I like, I mean, you you live in the UK. Brexit, from what I've observed, is a colossal mistake on the UK's part.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

It definitely made it a lot harder for small smaller businesses to trade. It definitely has had an impact on our GDP.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

Okay, okay. Uh, but before we cut the grasp of where I was going with this is Charted Account by designation, but about four or five years ago, I decided to uh get uh a change management designation. And not because I've had dreams or aspirations becoming a change management practitioner, but because everything that they do requires change. And so when we're talking about the the founder getting the the understanding in terms of what needs to change or how to how to drive the change or behavioral aspects, um um I'm processed certified. So the model that they use is called ADCAR, and Adkar stands for awareness. So the founder has to have the awareness that they need to change. Then they have to need the desire. So A D uh K stands for knowledge, A stands for ability, and R stands for reinforcement. So in when I'm coaching founders, it's like, hey, okay, we have the awareness, you have the desire that you need to change. Typically, the Acker model breaks at the lowest, at the weakest point. And so you cannot proceed forward until that weakest point is reinforced. And so quite often you have like, okay, well, I I don't know how to proceed, the knowledge part, and then the ability. Knowledge is like knowing how to do it, ability is like being able to do it, and then the R is the reinforcement. And to me, the the car part is like where coaches can have a disproportionate impact on founders and leadership team because it's like they may or may not know how to do it, they they need the ability, but somebody needs to build that habit and yeah, it's still be a coach.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

And you know what's interesting for me is I see so many founders fall flat at the desire stage because they look we want to change, you know. Look, look, they like the let me explain it to slightly different. If we looked at desire, I think they like the romance of change. So they like the romance of change or the desire bit, but you know what? Wanting to change and actually changing are two different things, and when that change for them is either too far out of their comfort zone or too much hard work, I cannot begin to tell you the amount of people that say this is not for me. They don't want to go on that pathway because anything worthwhile isn't gonna be easy, that's for sure. And a lot of people think that okay, if we bring in some external advisors, there is this magic wand that they're gonna wave and we're gonna it's all gonna be solved, and it's never gonna be that.

SPEAKER_02 36:29

No, um anything that's uh that's the the drives values is hard. Um so speaking of this, uh my podcast is called Scaling with Clarity. You talked about Vernish and the scaling up framework. So I wanted to kind of double-click on the the scaling challenge. When a business is struggling to scale, how do you identify the real constraints that are holding the business back? Or uh maybe the founder is working on symptoms rather than root cause. How do you go about um driving this clearly?

SPEAKER_00 37:13

So, what I would normally do is do a deep dive into the business on the on the using the scaling up for decisions framework. So when you think about why do businesses struggle to scale, it's either a cash problem, people problem, strategy problem, execution problem. And if they're not if they're not in sync, scaling becomes traumatic. So normally we just look at those areas, we'll see where they are strong, yeah. But we also see okay, where are we weak? Yeah, where are the barriers, and then we look at removing the barriers.

SPEAKER_02 37:50

Okay, what is the most common of the four?

unknown 37:55

And how do farmers go about solving it?

SPEAKER_02 37:58

Like if it's people, okay, like you talked about most farmers are not good at hiring recruiting. Uh, if it's money, um like uh wait lease. I mean, some founders are amazing at uh at sales, but it it and you have to be in order to grow uh a founder in that business. Um, fundraising, I see a lot of founders struggling with fundraising. Uh, so kind of walk me through the four pillars and kind of like which one is more common? How do you go about solving it?

SPEAKER_00 38:33

I hate to break it to you, but there is not one that's more common. I'll tell you what you'll find. Depending on the economic cycle out there, you may find that one stands out more than the other. So I'll give you an example. If we go back to 08, 09, when Lehman brothers went bust, literally all the liquidity was sucked out the market. For the preceding years, 2010, 11, 12, 13, the biggest challenge we heard from founders was cash. Cash was a big problem. If you look at when uh when global markets are growing fast, so let's say when a country's hitting five to six percent GDP growth plus, which used to be the case. As soon as you've got that kind of market growth, then you tend to find out what will break. It's either going to be execution, which is the systems and processes, or it's gonna be people, because to scale you need people, especially when you're scaling 20% per annum plus, then that's a huge then people bit. So you then focus in on that. So if you're if your business isn't growing, which I'll tell you what right now, that's probably one of the biggest challenges. So if you look at economic growth at the moment, although you are in a really good bubble, you look at Europe, Europe's dead at the moment, UK's dead. I mean, those markets are contracting, businesses within, although those businesses within those markets still doing okay. A lot of businesses are having to re-look at their strategy because where they may have sit for a year or two, okay, we're waiting for the market to change, markets aren't changing anytime soon. Which means you now got to look at okay, how does the strategy of business need to alter in order for us to grow in this current economic cycle? So I do think it depends where the business is at.

SPEAKER_02 40:31

So if if if we're talking about market that that's not growing, that's not uh that's not changing anytime soon, how does a company go about creating differentiation or how do they outcompete their competitors, um positioning, branding, efficiency, optimization? Kind of like if if a farmer is sitting across from you and they are sitting in the red ocean, how do they differentiate? How do they how do they grow in scale?

SPEAKER_00 41:03

I think we first and foremost we've got to look at what is it we're offering, what's the product or service we're offering, and is it still relevant in today's marketplace? Is it a put is it a product or service problem we have, or is it a market visibility problem? Because if you look at the last sort of three to four years, we've probably had the biggest fundamental shift in online marketing that we've seen in decades. I mean, every platform, whether it's Meta, whether it's LinkedIn, whether it's Google, everything is changing. The way we interact with data is changing, our buying patterns is changing. I think questions got to be asked of the companies. When people are looking for a product and service, can you be found? One of the biggest ones right now happens to be AI. A lot of my business comes through conversations people are having with Chat GPT and Claude. Now, if you talk about Google, Google is a binary search. Give me this, and I'll give you a response. Very often, with Chat GPT or Claude, you're having a long drawn-out conversation where you're trying to find a solution to a problem, and then at the end of the day, they're then gonna say, Well, who's the best person for this? Then it will make a suggestion. So we're now in the era of opinion-based marketing, and I'll give you a really good example of that, Maxim. Yeah, so after 20 years, I dug this out because I'm gonna start playing a bit of tennis again. So I dug this out, and unfortunately, the grip is the grip is now falling apart, the strings are frayed because it's an aged racket. Now I do like the racket, but I appreciate they're not using it for 20 years. Technology's moved in. What was the first thing I did? Took a picture of it, went to Chat GPT, asked it to analyze my racket. It analyzed the rackets, and then it started to give me suggestions, started to say to it, okay, it's an old racket. You may want to consider newer technology, especially with your age. How rude. But anyway, I'll forgive it. Especially with your age, it could it could sort of it could place more strain on your joints, like your elbow. Yeah, there are newer rackets that are more sort of kinder to the arm now. Based on the racket you've got, let me draw up a comparison of what's available on the market today. Boom. How crazy is that?

SPEAKER_02 43:53

I mean, it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 43:55

It is fantastic, but this is the biggest danger I think that founders are going to find. If they're not careful and then not found how people are interacting with data, they're screwed. And there's a really simple saying if your if your potential customer is not using your data to answer a user query, they're gonna be using your competitors.

SPEAKER_02 44:19

So, okay, well, let's uh let's turn the table. How do you go about being found? How do you personally go about the discovery journey that you're that you know when somebody's looking in and being found and being engaged are two different things. So kind of you can if you can split both.

SPEAKER_00 44:40

So what I did, I kind of saw things changing during lockdown. One of our biggest challenges with being a coach was actually how do you use online to generate revenue. So I started a marketing agency, believe it or not, in 2022. Sole reason to be number one on Google, which we achieved. But it was all about it was all about making sure that your blog articles ranked high quality, but it wasn't just that, it was making sure that you used LinkedIn, you used different channels to really create a digital footmat sort of roadmap so that when you got AI, it was able to do multiple points. Give you another example. Right now, you know that I've just released a book. Yeah, now I do not own the space today for founder dependency. However, I will do.

unknown 45:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:36

Because I'm I'm using LinkedIn as a platform to talk about it. I have set myself the goal over the next year to do 1,000 podcasts where I talk about this subject. Yeah, now you think about it. 1,000 podcasts equals 1,000 published episodes. Now, depending on where they publish it, they're gonna be transcripts that Google, Chat GPT, Claude can dig into. Who's gonna own that space this time next year?

SPEAKER_02 46:07

For sure, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 46:08

And this is what founders need to start thinking. They need to start thinking, well, how do I start owning space? Vern Harnish talks about it scaling up. What are the words you own? Because if you online do not own words, especially for your own products and services, then no matter how great you are, your competitors are gonna absolutely trash you. And we've seen that when lockdown happened, and you've got two kinds of brick businesses. You got bricks and mortar businesses that people know about, and then you've got the digital businesses. I cannot begin to tell you how many people say to me, I've never heard of that company on that's online, that's absolutely kicking their ass in the digital space.

SPEAKER_02 46:48

For sure. I mean, um, I I I love ideas, we're we're approaching it very similar. Um, like there's there's a ton of tools, but it's href or mouse or uh that that would give you this like map coverage in terms of the the words that you have. And we're actually my my my company future ventures, we rank higher than scaling up coaches website, not yet over higher than scaling up, but that does the comment. But to you to your point, um I'll give you I'll give you a real example. And this is a founder that they coach. He's he's got an amazing business, and uh um his business in food service and hospitality. And there is a person in Toronto that has a trademark on food service and hospitality for print. And he was really, really upset because he got a cease and desist letter from that person. I'm like, his name is Jay. I'm like, Jay, why are you wasting your time on worrying about this? Like, he generates a massive amount of web traffic. I'm like, whether they have whether that person has the trademark or not, doesn't really matter because you dominate what the AI citations are, you dominate the SEO, you dominate the visibility, you have a ton of user-generated content that points to this. Like, why do you care? Just drop the bloody phrase from your print. You're compliant, refocus that time and attention and energy onto things that they're productive and growing your business. Um it was just interesting. Uh, because who cares? Who cares? Yeah, trademark. Yeah, great, great. I I'll I'll be fully compliant, but uh, I will still dominate, kind of like your space.

SPEAKER_00 48:42

Yeah, so perfect. That's it, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:48

Yeah, yeah. Because like I have no doubts. If you generate a thousand podcasts with transcripts, with LinkedIn posts, with this, that that all of the it doesn't really matter what whether it's grok or or uh clot or chat or google or like that that will default because you you know the game, it's it's purely math. Yes, how many links, how many backlinks, what is the quality of the back links? What is the dr, the domain rate? And so the higher the signal, the more likely is that the AI, uh the LLMs and uh and and the search engines are gonna recommend you.

SPEAKER_00 49:26

And these are things that founders have got to get clued up on.

SPEAKER_02 49:32

But I I want to double-click on this because you and I know this, but I'm getting a sense for your what lives inside your brain, and it seems like once you lock in on a concept, you go really deep. You want to know because how many people say, I want to know how this is done, and I want to rank number one? They may try hiring an SEO agency and things like that, but but you understand fundamentally how it works. Why did you like is this kind of common for you? Like, in terms of like you gluing on a game, like no, but you look at Steve Jobs.

SPEAKER_00 50:17

Yep, Steve Jobs was fanatical about detail.

unknown 50:21

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 50:22

Elon Musk, fanatical about detail, Jeff Bezos, fanatical about detail. Yeah, Jim Collins talks about it in Good to Great, actually great by choice, where he talks about you, you gotta be fanatical, level five fanatical leadership. You've got to be fanatical about stuff. If you're not, then you leave room for error.

SPEAKER_01 50:47

Yeah, yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_02 50:52

And any error, any doubt slows you down.

SPEAKER_00 50:58

So you've got no choice, you've you've you've got yeah, you've paid attention to detail today, you cannot get away with being lazy. Yeah, and I'm not talking about physically, I'm talking about mentally lazy.

SPEAKER_02 51:10

Yeah, but don't you see? Uh I mean, this is a bit of a rhetorical question. A lot of founders are all too willing to outsource their thinking to LLMs, and that is why their business is where it is.

SPEAKER_00 51:30

Look at look at the last two years. Everybody thought, oh, I'm gonna just do everything with Chat GPT, build my website, do all my content. Google's now removing their ass from existence. The index, the index, the index. You're seeing record number of websites disappear. Why? Because there is no shortcut. Yeah, they think it's never gonna be a shortcut. How can you scale with shortcuts? Yeah, it's not snakes and ladders. There's always gonna be a snake, you're always gonna go back down.

SPEAKER_02 52:07

I love this analogy. I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more. There's no shortcut. A lot of people are looking for this silver bullet. I'm like, there's no silver bullet, they just sweat in tears and and out thinking new competitors.

SPEAKER_00 52:20

The only bullet is the one that they end up getting in the head. It's a bullet, it's not silver, it's not kind.

SPEAKER_02 52:28

Uh that has been a fantastic interview, uh, Peter. Um, love the love the energy, love the insights. I'd like to close the interviews with uh um with two questions. One, what I mean, you mentioned a lot of books that have influenced your frameworks. What is your favorite book of all time?

SPEAKER_00 52:50

Do you know that's a really difficult that's that's a really difficult one. I suppose for the work that I ended up doing for a long time. So I mean I did for 14 years as part of scaling up. I do love scaling up as a book.

unknown 53:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 53:05

So a mid-market framework, I love it. I love it. For me, it just when you're fortunate enough to get to become a bid market company, it really does give founders and leadership teams a framework to bring them together.

SPEAKER_02 53:22

Yeah, okay. And uh the other question is, and you have a choice, what is the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you, or what is the best advice anyone has ever given to you?

SPEAKER_00 53:38

I think the best advice that I've ever been given is make sure that you've got a council of people that will build you, not break you. So people talk about your you talk about like sort of you are the sum of the five people you hang around with in terms of wealth. Yeah, no one ever talks about you are the sum of the people that are in your inner circle when it comes to your mindset, your knowledge, your thinking. And what I love about Napoleon Hill, the bit the best message that you can get out of thinking grow rich is as you think, so shall you become. So make sure you've got people around you that are gonna really challenge and stretch your thinking so that you can grow into the person you were meant to be.

SPEAKER_02 54:24

I agree, agree. This is a great advice to close this conversation on. I'm hoping this is one of many conversations, but I I really enjoyed the conversation, Peter. Thank you so much for coming on the pod and uh and being such a wonderful guest.

SPEAKER_00 54:39

You know what? Thank you for being a wonderful host and for having me.

SPEAKER_02 54:43

My pleasure.