My Business On Purpose

I was sitting on the backside of an eight-person round table in the middle of a high-ceiling, golf club meeting room clearly designed with interiors from the 1980s and yet to be updated. In the middle of a presentation on resource management the presenter said this, "you can always make more money, you can always make more friends, but you will never be able to make more time... time is a non-renewable resource." Huh. My mind began weaving through all of the available resources that we connect with every day realizing that almost everything that came to mind had the potential to be renewed; except time. The second that just passed is gone and it will not return. Taking a doomsday approach to the non-renewability of time is not helpful, and yet being aware of time's terminal tick is a wise base for thinking, planning, and preparing. Whether it is a Mom or Dad tired from juggling work, kids, bills, and friendships, or a newly retired person fatigued from a life of that same juggling, all of us would like to find the silver bullet to having more time for ourselves. Similarly, we also wish to know the secret for having more time with those we love, with the things we love, with the causes, we are passionate about, and the hobbies that feed our soul. But, how? Our clients are asking the same question at the time that I am producing this post. This is a special week that happens in November of each year, it is Business On Purpose PREP WEEK where each of our business owners makes time to work ON their business in preparation for the upcoming year. Most business owners feel a need to "get prepared" in the same way that a dehydrated athlete feels a real need to chug water on a hot, muggy, practice day when after an hour of running drills... they crave it. Unfortunately, most business owners never make it to the cooler to drag a swig of water before heading off to the next drill. Over time the inevitable happens, they cramp up and are no longer available to the team for their particular skill. Business owners are notorious for never making it to the cooler of refreshment for their business. They wake up to a fresh and exciting new year, with a tired and fatigued mind. How can business owners make time to work on the business... or just make time for themselves? First, you must come to your own conclusion that time, in fact, is non-renewable and that you wish to take advantage of that finite resource. Look no further than the 2020 pandemic for evidence of the non-renewability and fragility of time. Care and desire are undervalued realities in the push for personal transformation. You have to care, and you must have the desire to leverage the resource of time for the mission that you are uniquely built for. Second, you must stop seeing every detour and distraction as an excuse to making good use of your time. Truth is, most important things are not urgent. Where we get caught up is when others place the burden of their own urgency and lack of planning on us! This is a sobering statement, "your lack of planning and preparation does not mandate my urgent responsibility." Sure, if you are a medical or security professional, or run a nuclear power plant, urgent responsibility is in your job description, but for the rest of us, we spend far too much time reacting to the problems and chaos caused by the lack of preparation of others... or because we have not planned ourselves and are simply responding to THE LATEST, LOUDEST VOICE. Third, create appointments in your schedule with yourself or with a project that you are working on. When asked, "hey can you grab coffee tomorrow at 3?", you simply respond, "I have a meeting I cannot move." No need to share that the meeting is with yourself. That time you are spending in reflection, thought, or project building, is time spent serving others. Can you imagine a speaker standing up in front of 100 people with no notes and confessing, "I have been so busy responding to unplanned requests for my time that I have not been able to prepare notes for my talk... but at least I made those other people happy!" She would run out of the room, as frustrated attendees bemoan this colossal waste of the time of 100 people! Instead, when that presenter blocks three hours to work on that talk instead of reacting to the last-minute distraction, it is as if she is holding a meeting with those 100 people. We must reframe how our time alone is spent. Technically, as I write this, I am not meeting with anyone, yet it is on my calendar as a meeting. My phone is not in the room with me, my email and other notifications are not even turned on. The only person I am thinking about right now is you... the reader, the listener. Life can go on without the buzzing and dinging that we have become addicted. We don't have to live like Pavlov's dog. Finally, put accountability in place around you regarding your time. Create an ideal weekly schedule and then share it with a small group and make them ask you about it.

K.I.S It's not that kind of tutorial, keep it simple.. Hey, y'all! Brent Perry with Business on Purpose. I think there are times that we can overthink our businesses. Our strategies, our processes, our employees' production, our sales, you name it... we can overthink it. An article written in the Harvard Business Review written by Melody Wilding, states, "Deliberation is an admirable and essential leadership quality that undoubtedly produces better outcomes. But there comes a point in decision making where helpful contemplation can turn into overthinking. To stop the cycle of thinking too much and drive towards better, faster decisions you can: Wilding suggests. Put aside perfectionism, right-size the problem, leverage the underestimated power of intuition, limit the drain of decision fatigue, and construct creative constraints. I remember planning out the proposal to my wife. I spent weeks going through different plans and ideas. It had to be special. I wanted it to be perfect. The wheels were turning. It felt like it was all I could think about. And a couple of weeks into the planning of the big day, I noticed... I was way overthinking this moment. I'm talking about the actual moment of the proposal. I had stopped thinking about what this moment stood for, the fact that I was going to ask the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, to marry me. I still felt that way, and yes, we are happily married to this day... but in that moment I took my eyes off the big picture. It became about one singular moment that I felt had to be just perfect. And in reality, that wasn't even the point. Did Alissa deserve a great gesture in the proposal, yes... did she care about how grand the gesture was... no. I had to put aside perfectionism for a minute, and go back to telling myself what this moment was really about, and what it represented. It puts the proposal into perspective, and helped me make it our special moment. So, are you overthinking in your business? Again, let's go back to the quote from the Harvard Business Review… "But there comes a point in decision making where helpful contemplation can turn into overthinking." There is a balance after all. As a small business owner, if you're not thinking and planning in your business, who is? But don't get trapped into overthinking some of your decisions. A couple of suggestions: 1. Go back to your vision story! As we say at Business on purpose, "Vision is historic, vision is necessary, vision is powerful and when vision is absent it leads to chaos." 2. Review your core values. A lens through which powerful decisions should be made. 3. Trust the accountability in your life. This can be a coach, a teammate, your spouse, a mentor, a group like a mastermind. These are just a few simple ideas to help you keep it simple in moments you feel yourself start to take your eye off the big picture. Your business is important, and decisions need to be made everyday. Some of this requires you to do work on the front end (i.e. create or update your vision, writing out your unique core values, etc). But you will be thankful for the time in the long run as you begin to K.I.S. (keep it simple). Thanks for listening. If you haven't done so already, subscribe to our Podcast, and/or our YouTube channel.

We have 8 weeks left in 2021, even less if you subtract time for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years! So, what do you need to do before then? Let's build a checklist together! Good morning everyone, Thomas Joyner with Business on Purpose here. Real quick. If you have not already, go to boproadmap.com/healthy and take our healthy business assessment. If you're curious at all about how well your business is running, it takes about 10 minutes and will let you know your score immediately! Again, boproadmap.com/healthy. So, it is NOVEMBER! What? How? It feels like summer just finished and now it's a full on sprint to the end of the year. So what do you need to do between now and then to make sure your business is ready to take on 2022? How do you proactively dive in and make sure that you're intentional about 2022 being the most chaos free year yet? Well, it starts with hitting on three areas of your business and life. I'm going to take a look at 3 workshop days you need to take for yourself before the end of the year to ensure that your business is ready for everything 2022 will throw at you. Tweak and Revisit your Vision The end of the year is the perfect time to look at the next year and make any necessary changes or tweaks. Are you well on your way? Is your Vision still possible? Is it too bold or not bold enough? Just read back through it by yourself, and then with your team. Keeping your vision always in front of you is a powerful way to make sure you hit the bullseye! A few questions to ask yourself… -Am I living the life I want for my family? Am I spending time with my spouse and kids. How is my mental health? Are there healthy rhythms I can continue to live in for a long time? If not, write down what that needs to look like and make changes. -Is the business producing financially the way you had hoped and worked for? Are there any factors leading to that? Do you need to hire or let someone go? Is there anything standing in the way? Are there any new areas of opportunity for the next year that you hadn't noticed in the past? How do you take advantage of those? -Do we need to expand or shrink our product line or services to better reach our vision? This is huge! Too often we do what we do and never switch it up! I have a client right now who started offering Christmas light hanging, as they noticed their cash flow dropped in December and January. It helped him stay focused on his financial goal for his business and served a really unique need in his community! -How is our culture? Is there anything incongruent between who we say we are and who we actually are? Is there anything we need to do differently? Recommit to team meetings, do some staff development workshops, maybe play together outside of work? Does anyone deserve a premature raise! So often we wait until employees ask, but what if we went on the offensive and decided that to keep the people we want on the bus, we may have to give them raises before they ask for them to show them we value them! Man, what a way to build a positive, culture of appreciation! Lastly, write your team a letter to celebrate. Too often, we don't take time to celebrate! What did we, notice I said WE, accomplish. This is a team. Give credit where credit's due. Don't blow smoke at your team, but tell them how grateful you are for them. Tell them where you were this time last year... acknowledge the hard things and shed light on the areas of growth! Your team wants to feel like they're on a moving train, so tell them where you're headed next, but do it in the context of gratitude for a lot of hard work over the past year! That builds culture. That pushes them to want to stay in YOUR business vs look somewhere else. Put it in writing! Tell them to hold onto it. That way every time they get discouraged, they can read where you've been, see where you're going and get excited about the direction they're running. Celebrate, Celebrate, celebrate! Don't just keep pushing. Take a deep breath and celebrate. Alright, that's step one...do that this week! I'll have step two for you next week, but Revisit your Vision and write a letter to your team THIS WEEK! Don't wait. I promise it will get lost in the holidays if you let it. Have a great week and I'll see you back here next Monday to talk through what you need to look at in your business finances before the end of the year. Take care.

We have massive expectations at the end of a year headed off into the wild optimism of what a new year might bring... new products, new opportunities, new revenue goals. And then we look up and it's March...June...August... and we do it all over again, hoping that we'll take it more seriously next year, but never stopping to make the time to give next year the pre-planned attention that it both needs and deserves. It would be silly to show up to an event and the organizer welcomes you with this statement, "although this date snuck up on us and we just sort of woke up to the reality that you all were coming, we're hoping to make this a great event and are glad that you are here... so let's make the best of it!" You would be infuriated and frustrated. All of the time, attention, and investment it took for you to attend that event; and the event organizer treats it as "not a big deal" that they are not prepared. This is how many of us live out our year to year, on the year-end treadmill that methodically and non-dramatically waltzes us into a new year hoping it will be better, but knowing that we did not put in the pre-planned work to ensure that better will happen. How can we ensure that we take advantage of the freshness of a new year and launch into an optimistic twelve months, having laid the groundwork aligned with a vision of what we see? Here are four steps to building an annual business plan. First, you must make time to plan. "I just can't find the time... or don't have the time." We all have the time, but you will never make the time if you don't first go and find the time to make. We all have time, and we all have a choice in how we spend that time. SPEND time. Time is a non-renewable currency. Money is renewable. Time is not. You have a finite amount of time, which makes the value of that currency wildly expensive. The tasks that you constantly get caught in, are they worth the value of the currency of your time. You have the time... you must now make the time you have to prioritize preparing for the time that is coming. Make the time to plan. Schedule it in your calendar. Communicate it with your team and your clients and customers. YES! They will appreciate your intentionality. Second, spend the first part of your annual business plan on the vision of your business. There are three elements that will provide clarity in your vision, so you and everyone else knows where the business is headed. Remember, wisdom tells us that where there is no vision, people scatter. So let's follow the ancient Jewish wisdom to write the vision down so those who read it may run. You should have a written vision detailing the snapshot of the future of your business. With that vision should also come an annual letter that brings clarity to yourself, your team, and your stakeholders and friends. The best example of an annual letter is the 1997 Amazon Shareholder Letter from the pen of Jeff Bezos. It's powerful and filled with vision. Write an annual letter each year, so you have a vision template of what is coming, along with a chronicle of what has been. It's powerful to go back and read what you were thinking back then. Third, you should spend the second part of your annual business plan on the financial preparation of your business. Every business will be served well by subdividing their bank accounts so that the revenue that flows in may be allotted to its appropriate destination (profit, cost of goods and materials, taxes, compensation, and operating). Financial planning comes with time spent on subdividing the infrastructure that holds your cash. Also, every business ought to have a simple dashboard that tracks the ABCs of the business; cash Accounts, Bookkeeping (receivables, payables, etc.), and Customer metrics (leads, touchpoints, views, etc.). No business is complete without a simple budget. SIMPLE! A best practice is to go back and review the last few years of your business profit and loss statements to review the cost codes and categories. Evaluate your various expense categories, update where necessary, and then begin to apply anticipated dollar projections to each one based on the vision of the business and where you see it headed in the coming year. The fourth step of a proper annual business plan is our own personal preparation. How is your personal estate setup? Do you have the legal instruments in place you should have; written agreements, contracts, powers of attorneys, will(s) and trust(s)? Have you met with an Attorney to go over a list of legal instruments that will help protect you and your business in the coming year? The same holds true for insurance? Are you overinsured or underinsured? Have you had an insurance advisor walk you through your insurance options, needs, and future realities? Personal preparation culminates with an exercise we call the Financial Barn. A storied exchange took place between a sage and a wealthy man. The wealthy man was bragging about the growth of his farm and how t

In six days, I had flown on seven planes, spent the night in five cities across three time zones, and finally landed back satisfied and fulfilled. It was a whirlwind tour to meet new business owners and to connect with some of our long-term clients. A theme emerged immediately within a group of 17 remodeling contractor owners that I was speaking to in Vancouver, Washington, and that theme continued throughout the duration of my around-the-country tour; how do I grow my business by replacing myself? That theme emerged in a variety of different questions, like… How do I stop doing it all in my business? How do I find the time and the people to delegate? How come no one can do the job to the level I can? Employees.... ughh! And yet we look around us and see that other business owners have successfully transitioned their business away from the owner-does-it-all model into a model where the team runs the day to day of the business... albeit maybe not just like the owner had envisioned. How do you grow your business by replacing yourself? First, you must grow your mindset. We are quick to look at other things around us to begin finding fault, blame, and breakdown. As I was going through the various airports throughout the country, I noticed a common theme playing itself out on the thousands of screens that I was exposed to; live sports television constantly asking questions like… Who is the greatest/worst of all time? Whose fault is it that this team is so bad? Who is to blame for this team's failure to make the playoffs? It is clear what grabs our momentary attention... drama and blame. We are constantly looking to place fault while not fully acknowledging that life is not perfect, people are not perfect, and processes are prone to glitches every now and then. Society is working to groom us with a blame-centered, grab-it-while-you-can, impoverished, and limited mindset. In order to grow your business by replacing yourself, we must begin believing that others have been gifted, built, and designed with complementary skill sets and talents that not only have the capability to do a task almost as well as you right now, but also carry the potential to do that task better than you six, or twelve, or twenty-four months down the road… IF… You allow them to because you believe they can. Second, in order to grow your business by replacing yourself, you must grow your predictable communication. While I was traveling throughout the week, Ashley (my wife) and I had much more choppy, infrequent communication together, and it was all electronic (phone, FaceTime, etc.). It took a solid twenty-four hours upon my return for us to reconnect conversationally and catch up on all of the happenings. When we are both together physically, we are much more apt to have choppy discussions throughout the day, and very predictable, engaged, sit-down discussions in the evening. In business, we tend to presume quality communication on our team under the misnomer that "we talk all throughout the day". Talking unpredictably in person, over text, email, or phone throughout the day, usually predicated on project-related issues, is not the same as predictable, sit down (even virtually) check ins and communication. Team meetings really do matter, and really do work. Weekly or every-other-weekly check ins with each of your team members for fifteen minutes really does work. You are setting yourself up for failure of replacing yourself if your team never has an opportunity to connect with the person who is to be replaced! You may think, "but I don't have the time." Then you will not replace yourself. Either make the time or continue doing what you are doing and cross your fingers. Finally, if you wish to grow your business by replacing yourself, you must grow your conviction in what is unseen. Nothing is guaranteed in business. I know stories of people who have done everything right, and the market just moved away from them... they had to completely re-tool the business. It is by faith that we own and run businesses. It is by faith that we hire and train employees. Faith is being convicted of something you cannot see. What do you see? Do you have a written vision for your business? You will be challenged to replace yourself if others have not been given a picture of the future of what that replacement life looks like. You can write a vision. It will not be perfect, but it will be helpful. You can prove to your employees the conviction you have in the unseen picture, by writing down a vision of what you see three years from now and then sharing that with your team. It is not impossible to grow your business by replacing yourself, but it is intentional.

Hey, y'all! Brent Perry with Business on Purpose. Let's talk about the impact your business is making. And today, I'm not talking about the goods or services or products that your company offers. I am talking about the impact you are making in your communities. Recently I was reading an article from Cumberland Bussiness.com. They had a few things to say about local businesses… First, they said that "Not only are local businesses important for creating a culture for the community, but they also build connections and relationships with the people." Now, you know at business on purpose, our radar goes off when we hear or see the word culture. We love it. We created an entire culture calendar for teams knowing how important it is for the health and success of a business. It's also important to talk about the connections and relationships with the people. Not only is this beneficial to you and your business, think of the pipeline for your leads and potential new hires. But business-to-business connections can be an important aspect for long-term success... such as referrals from other business owners. The article also goes on to say that "Small businesses impact their communities in a variety of ways, from interpersonal relationships to local government to the economy." Whether you know it or not, your business is likely making an impact already in your community. Even if you haven't been intentional about it, it's happening. Now the amount of impact and the kind of impact you are making is really up to you. Before I came to work with Business on Purpose, I was working for a local business based out of Columbia, TN. Last year, 2020, with the Pandemic in full swing, kids who were able to be back at school were not able to use the water fountains at school. And all the drink machines had been suspended due to the spread. As a company, they raised money, pitched in and WireMasters donated over 533 cases of water bottles to the Maury County school system... it was over 15,000 bottles of water. You want to talk about a positive impact on the community. The outpour of gratitude and news coverage and thank you's from kids and parents were incredibly high. And this is just 1 of many examples we could share from our experiences and our clients experiences from BOP. So, is there anything you can do to be more intentional about the impact you are having? Absolutely.. Here are a few ideas if you are looking to impact your communities through your business. These ideas come from The Chalmers Center's Economic Development Lab who invited our team to a conference call this past week. Give employees 2-3 days a yearly r of paid time to volunteer in the community, either individually or as a staff. Make time for staff to share their experiences. Companies that have done this have watched it transform their culture! Pursue a workforce as diverse as your community at every level Create community among employees. Host an annual event for employees and their families. Track work anniversaries and birthdays, and acknowledge these. Invite employees to give monthly to create a general fund that is matched by the business and that is used to care for team members who encounter unexpected circumstances. Create a small team of employees to be on the lookout for needs and discern when those funds are given. Let's make a difference! Thanks for listening. If you haven't done so already, subscribe to our Podcast, and/or our YouTube channel.

If there's a phrase that describes the small business experience... it has to be "survival of the fittest!" So what questions do you need to ask of yourself and your business to make sure you survive? Well, I've got three for you... so, let's talk about that today. Hey everyone! Thomas Joyner with Business on Purpose here. In the crazy pace that most small business owners run, it's easy to run through a week, two weeks, a month, and never come up for air! There are sales to make, employees to manage, fires to put out, books to reconcile, invoices to send, voicemails to return, tech issues, supply chain issues, angry customers... and whose shoulders do almost all of that fall on? Yep, you guessed it... YOURS! So how do we make sure we're tracking the right direction. How can we grab a small ounce of perspective in the midst of the craziness? Well, I would argue that you can ask yourself 3 simple questions in an owners-only meeting with yourself and have a quick idea of if you're on track. So start by putting a 20-30 min meeting on the calendar with yourself. Don't cancel it for anything. If you need to bring in a key leader from time to time to get some different perspectives, that's completely fine. I would actually encourage it once a month or so, but cherish this time for the value it can bring to your business. Question number 1... 1. Are we distracted by anything? What a great question to start off with. It forces you to look back at your Vision and Mission. In the context of where we want to go and why we're going there, is there anything pulling us away from that? Services we're offering, problems that we need to solve, employees holding us back, things we need to say no to instead of winging it. Is there anything in our life or business that is preventing us from moving forward? Write those things down. Keep a list. And one by one, begin to eliminate them. I think you'd be surprised by what you come up with when you look back at your vision and mission weekly. I think it would prevent you from taking detours and keep you laser-focused on the goal. Here's the thing, maybe you realize your vision is off... GREAT!!! Write down the updated Vision so that you and your team can run after it. Distractions hold you back, and if you label them weekly, you can push past and through them towards your mission. 2. What did I implement this week? We have so many ideas and thoughts every week. But what are we truly implementing? I have a client who is incredibly disciplined as a reader and podcast listener. He's an amazing learner, really consumes an incredible about of content, but struggles to implement the content. So... we made a new rule. After each bit of content, audiobook, podcast, keynote talk, or whatever. After each thing he consumes, he has to write down and implement 1 thing before consuming the next. Because what good is it to consume the information if we're going to do NOTHING with it??? No, we have to be people of action. It's what brings freedom and impact to our businesses! So what if you set aside time each week and either wrote down what you implemented or wrote down what you were going to implement the next week? Maybe something from your 12-week plan? Good grief your business would change in 1-2 months! But we're so consumed with what's right in front of us, we forget to implement and forget to continue tweaking everything, every week. 3. Are we who we say we are? If you're brave enough to be honest with yourself, this question is a game-changer. Are we overselling and underdelivering? The answer may be yes or no. Or there may be areas where it's yes and areas where it's no. But this gives you the freedom to take an honest look at who you are and who you say you are. They NEED to match up! Imagine these past two questions working together as you realize where you fall short and then commit to implementing something that would change that answer. That is powerful! That's building your business on purpose! So when are you sitting down and making time for these 3 questions? Who else needs to be asked these questions to help give you perspective. I'd wager right now your business would transform if you had the guts to ask these every week for 4-6 months. It can't help but improve. Do it, be brave, and do it! Are we distracted by anything? What did I implement this week? Are we who we say we are? Thanks for listening, hey if you aren't already subscribed to our podcast and YouTube channel, please jump on that! It's free content delivered right to you every week and it's changing businesses all over the world. Come be a part of it. Have a great week friends!

Hey y'all Brent Perry with Business on Purpose. Let's talk about qualifying leads in your business. In an article written in Business News Daily, Max Freedman writes, "Lead generation is important, but qualifying your leads to determine which ones are worth pursuing can save you time and money." Now I don't know about you, but saving time and money when it comes to your business should be a priority as an owner. I spent over a year working outside sales for a company that sells aviation wiring and cables. We sold to the military, major airlines, mom and pop hangers that flew Cessnas... if you have a vehicle that flew, we sold to you. I got to go to some pretty cool places over that year... Space X out in California, American Airlines HQ in Texas, Salt Lake City to see some guys who are doing amazing work on developing defense technology for the airforce. Literally, we went all over. Now, we would usually plan a trip around 1-2 of our biggest customers or suppliers in that area we were traveling to. But we couldn't go anywhere unless we had 9-10 visits set up for that week. But even a step furthers, my direct boss would make us submit our visits a few weeks in advance, so he could make sure... you guessed it. These were qualified leads. He didn't want us traveling week in and week out if we weren't coming back with something that benefited the company. A new supplier, a new customer, a new point of contact at a company that we were trying to crack. Our trips were all justified because we had the take the time to qualify our leads. In his book, Business Made Simple, Donald Miller notes that a qualified lead meets the following three criteria… They have a problem your product or service will solve They are able to afford your product or service They have the authority to buy your product or service Let me read those again… They have a problem your product or service will solve They are able to afford your product or service They have the authority to buy your product or service So the question is, are you qualifying the leads in your business? If not, you may be wasting some of your time, energy, and money chasing down any lead that pops up. Miller goes on to write, "Create a list of criteria that qualifies leads so you can move them into a story that solves their problem and changes their lives." If your business already has a list of criteria, great! I would say make sure you are reviewing that list once a quarter or so to make sure you are up to date. If you currently don't have that list readily available for yourself or your employees, that's a good place to start. Let's make sure we are going after the right people. A little work on the front end will save your time, energy, and money in the long run. Thanks for listening. If you haven't done so already, subscribe to our Podcast, and/or our YouTube channel.

Why do we push so hard for weekly team meetings? Let's talk about that today! Hello there friends, Thomas Joyner with Business on Purpose here. So, if you've listened to this podcast much at all, you know one of the cornerstones of our system is the Weekly Team Meeting. But why? Don't most team meetings just turn into a task list that's communicated verbally to a team? Just a box that's checked off so we can be face to face for an hour a week? The painful response to those questions is YES! Unfortunately, most meetings really serve little purpose and could better be communicated in an email. But that's the Team Meeting of old. In fact, if you do them well, they become a source of accountability for the team. A place to connect. A jump-start of energy. And the lifeblood of training for your team. Last week I had a client come in and they were frustrated. "I feel like we have the same problems week after week!" Alright, tell me about those, I asked. The next 10 minutes were spent listening to a myriad of frustrations and disappointments from the past month. My first question…"Well, tell me about your last few team meetings?" I could tell that question was uncomfortable. We implemented Weekly Team Meetings about 10 months ago and they started off with a bang. "Well, we're so busy, we've kind of put those aside here and there. We've probably done 1 in the last 6 weeks." "Ok," I said, "now we know the root of some of the problem... let's talk through why that is keeping your team from underperforming." You see... when we view weekly team meetings as just a box to check off, we miss the entire purpose. It's so much more than that. So let's talk through the components of an effective team meeting and jump off from there. 1. Something that builds community For us, it's BIG Wins. We start every meeting with them. For others, I've heard talk about their High and Low for the week. But is there something you can put at the beginning of the meeting so that your team feels like a group of human beings, not just a group of employees? That's building culture and encouraging buy-in. 2. Accountability from last week's action items. Are there areas you asked your team to improve? I know that I, for one, rarely implement things that I know will not get asked about again. But, if I know I'm going to be asked about it at next week's meeting, I will 100% find the time to accomplish it. It works the same way for your team. Don't just assign tasks without following up and making sure they got done. Without critiquing the little things. That's how you make sure your team is following your processes. You review it EVERY. SINGLE. WEEK. I'll never forget meeting with a client months ago and they told me how powerful that time of follow-up was. My response? Awesome! Now do it again, and again the next week, and again and again and again. The power is in the repetition! 3. The action items for the week ahead. Not every single little thing, but some areas for emphasis that, you guessed it, you will follow up on next week! Does your team need to work on customer service? Do they need to clean out their utility vehicles? Do they need to improve the estimating process and follow the system? I don't know, but put it out in front of them and let them know you will discuss the following week. 4. Last, but not least, a quick time for training. Don't overcomplicate it. Pick a system or process and retrain on it. That way your entire team is trained on every process a minimum of once a year! That's powerful. I have a client that keeps a notepad in his truck. Every time one of his guys calls him with a question, he writes it down and trains the whole team on the question at the next team meeting. His thought process is that if one guy doesn't know that answer, he can't be the only one! And week after week he is getting less phone calls from his guys as they are trained better and better each week. THAT'S POWERFUL! That's a team meeting with a purpose. Now back to my client. We rebuilt their team meeting process and recommitted to it. Because if they can feel like a team weekly, be held accountable for their actions, trained on the way we want to do business, and then be sent back out to do the work? That's a recipe for success! So have you given up on weekly team meetings? Have you just kind of rolled your eyes and done them half-heartedly? This is your moment to grab a hold of them and make them matter! Make them truly give you some momentum heading into your week. Your team will thank you. Your business will thank you. And the chaos will slowly start to melt away. It's time to start a Weekly Team Meeting if you're not doing one already. THIS WEEK! Hope that is what you decide to do this week! Hey Real fast, one thing most people do NOT know about with Business on Purpose, is if you are a solopreneur or a young business, we have an online Membership that is much more affordable than 1 on 1 coaching. All of our content, PLUS monthly accountability

As we got started, the mood of the room was tempered. We were a small group of 20 business owners all from the same town and with a narrow purpose; help each other to discover simple ways to lead our teams into a post-pandemic world. The volume of life is on maximum decibels and the opportunity to come into a quiet, intentional room to think and respond are becoming scarce. After a few minutes walking through the reality of where we are today, we began to think deeply about that reality and what it would take to lead in the life geography of what is around the corner. We admitted that what life looks like today was something that we were unable to predict back in the spring of 2020 with the choppy and confusing announcements being reported and the prognostics changing minute by minute. We also agreed that we would not be able to closely predict what would be coming around the corner. We started instead with what we know... human behavior. While we do not have a roadmap to the future of pandemics and geo-politics, we do have wisdom roadmaps explaining that for human behavior, namely, "there is nothing new under the sun" (incidentally, that wisdom likely holds true for pandemics and geo-politics as well). We began to think back and ask ourselves the question, "based on what we know about people, what are the areas that people of all types and all situations are positively impacted by, and how can we install those things to lead our team into a post-pandemic world?" With no grand strategy in place, our small group of 20 business owners determined three areas that would empower our businesses to lead into a post-pandemic world. First, play. That's it... play. Twice this year, I can think back to times where I have had a smile on my face that would not come off. In August, my wife and daughter sent my two sons and I off barreling down the side of a Montana mountain on bikes. It was a blast! We would ride up a chair lift, mount up the mountain bikes and race down the hill. At one point, I was trying to show off for my oldest son who was stopped up ahead, and jumped what I thought were back to back jumps not realizing there was a third jump awaiting my low-skilled experience. My feet slammed to the ground, and my rear end slammed down so hard on the seat that it bent the seat frame and I was riding the tire. I thought my foot was broken, and the right pedal dug into my calf looking like a bear had dug its claws in. My back hurt, my foot hurt, my calf was on fire...and I was SMILING! Just recently, me and a couple of clients went to a local indoor, electric go-kart track where the cars are capable of speeds up to 40 mph. Not sure how fast we were going, but for about an hour, I couldn't stop smiling. When is the last time you played? When is the last time your team members played? Must I dole on the value of play? We all know it is healthy... let's do it more. Second, we are determined to do a better job of leading our teams into a post-pandemic world by creating higher levels of predictability. We are obsessed with new, shiny, loud, novel, innovative, and late-model ideas and things. As we continued to have conversation, we realized that amidst tens of thousands of dollars in bonuses handed out, salary increases, employee benefits, and making sure we had just the right logo, what people care about more is predictability. Not boredom, not mundanity... predictability. Owners are notoriously unpredictable, irrational, and last-minute personalities. Team members do not typically speak that language. According to the DISC profile, most people are passive and responsive... waiting for instructions on what to do next. When we act unpredictably, it causes confusion, tension, anxiety, and concern. The good news is that predictability is within reach. We can create predictable structure (org charts), vision, mission, values, processes, and systems; all of which bring clarity and confidence. Finally, in order to better lead our teams in a post-pandemic world, we believe that over communication will win the day. The irony is, you can't over-communicate if you don't have predictability. Think back to the time you were stuck in an airplane on the tarmac for 15 minutes without moving (or an hour, or 3 hours!). Wouldn't have been just a little better if the pilot would have come on to simply explain what she knew, even if it is no new news? Communication is the simple exchange of information. This does not give us license to air all things, but it does give us the opportunity to share the things that others need to hear. Predictable communication happens through planning. Planned team meetings, daily huddles, regularly scheduled team member check-ins, vision days, and training days. We hear the excuse all the time, "well, we talk all throughout the day." That is not a winning communication strategy for any relationship, including your business. Let's commit ourselves to do a better job of playing, of creating predictability, and

Scott touched on it and really hammered it home. Culture is NOT an Accident. It's fought for, cultivated, intentional, curated, and tangible. About a year ago, we were looking to expand our coaching staff and I stuck my neck out for a buddy. He began the interview process, which is lengthy, sat in on some coaching calls and team meetings, went through our Vision Story and I'll never forget when he called me and said, "Y'alls culture is ridiculous. I can literally feel it when I'm on the phone with anyone at BoP." Now the point of that is not to brag on us. We do have a great team, but it's to say that culture should be felt by all who come in contact with you. It should be what you hear when you're standing in line at a restaurant and overhear someone mention your business. It's that feeling all your employees have when they step inside your building. And it's the feeling left for your clients after they work with you. Now, we've spoken about what Culture is a ton, but I want to clear up, before this next bit, what Culture is NOT. Culture is NOT: 100% 5-star reviews That's external. There are too many miserable people out there who go out of their way to nitpick every little thing and have nothing better to do with their days than tell the world about only getting two pumps of peppermint in their coffee instead of the 3 they ordered. You can't measure culture solely off of what reviews are. Culture is NOT: More vacation days Yes, that's a part of it. Right, we rest AFTER we're exhausted. We take turns running and running and running until we hit empty and then foolishly try to figure out a way to get back to a full tank. In reality, we run from ½ a tank to Empty all day instead of being proactive and RUnning between full and ½ a tank. Culture is proactive! Culture is NOT: A finished product. It's not an arrival. There's no app that you can type in the destination and arrive. No, it's fluid. It's constantly shifting. As soon as a new project starts, you know what, you have to fight to protect it. As soon as a new client shows up, you have to lean on it. But the moment you think you have arrived, you're one step away from the culture you worked so hard to build crumbling and falling apart. So today... we're going to answer some questions internally. I'm going to ask you all to be honest. If you have a great culture? YES!!! Awesome, what are the little tweaks to make it better. If you have a crappy culture? Be honest. Forget people's birthdays? Work too many hours? Burn out your team? Are y'all angry at each other? Do you shout back and forth? Do you do the least amount of work possible? Do people sulk around when asked to help? I don't know, but it starts with being honest. So let's have an open conversation. Before we dive into questions for you I want to highlight something we've built that I'd like for us all to build before the end of the year. We call it our Culture Calendar. EXPLAIN: We've realized that without writing it down, planning it out, and being highly intentional, our culture fails. -Team Meetings -Retreats -Birthdays -Onboarding/continued learning calls -Vision days quarterly EVERYTHING WE FEEL WE NEED TO DO TO BUILD THE CULTURE WE WANT So what needs to go on your culture calendar. I'm going to go quickly through these questions. There's no way to digest all of these questions in the 10 min we have, so write them down and maybe use your team meetings to ask one question a week for 6 weeks. Tackle them together and build the culture you want to be a part of. I'll give you about 2 minutes to chat amongst your team, but come back to these questions, as we have, and figure out how to implement in your business! 1. What is our culture today? 2. How would our last 5 clients describe working with us?? 3. What do we do year-round to ensure we're building a positive culture that people want to be a part of? a. Again, look back at our content calendar… b. Team Meetings, Retreats, Onboarding meetings, trainings, Production meetings, etc... 4. What else could we do? 5. Is there anything pulling us away or distracting us from the culture we want? 6. Is there another business culture out there we would like to be more like, what about it are we drawn to, who do we need to ask about it? These questions matter. They help build your culture into something you can be proud of. So take time with your team outside this meeting to dive in. I think you'll be glad a year from now when people are sticking around a long time and feel valued in being a part of your team.

Hey, y'all! Brent Perry with Business on Purpose. As I am recording this, my beloved UT volunteers just received a good old-fashioned whoopin from the Gators down in Gainesville, FL. Now anyone who knows anything about college football could have told you before the ball was kicked at 6:00 pm down at Ben Hill Griffin stadium what the outcome of the game was going to be. But I would be lying if I didn't tell y'all about an hour before kickoff I started thinking, we actually have a little bit of a shot to win this thing. I kept it to myself, I have been laughed at enough being a fan of the Vols (always will be), but over the years sadly losing to good teams (and some pretty bad ones) has become "The Normal" for us. 6-6 or 7-5 is a heck of a season in our books these days. Beating Alabama, Florida, or Georgia...probably not going to happen. Occasionally we pull off something bigger than ourselves (and we make sure to celebrate it for a long time) because we have found ourselves accept "that new normal". The question to toss around today is, how do we accept the normal in our business? " And what do I even mean by that? When I am talking about the normal, I am really talking about the systems and processes that you create that give you the results you are looking for. Is there such a thing as predictability in business, we think yes. What SOP's (standard operating procedures) have you built that gives you and your team your vision and making those wins regular. At Business on Purpose, we use the Master Process Roadmap that holds all our processes in one place. Literally, any process that we have in our business is on this roadmap. One of our coaches, Thomas, tells a funny story about his first week in the office with our owner Scott Beebe. Thomas noticed that the trash bag was full in the office and asked Scott, hey where do I take the trash out to, and where are the new bags. Scott's response, oh just check the taking out the trash process on the roadmap. What? The man had created a taking out the trash process for everyone in the office. It went through the details of where to take the trash, where to find the new bags, what to do when the new bags get down to 5 or less, etc. Sounds funny, and simple, yet it's effective. Scott doesn't have to worry about whether or not the trash gets taken care of. Or whether or not the office has enough bags. We all have access to the procedure, and we can use it effectively to accept the normal In this case that we will always have trash bags, and everyone on the team knows what to do about it. Now this is a very small example. I can't even begin to count how many processes that have been created at Business on Purpose over the last 6 years. But just like the trash bags, they are all effective. They provide us with the normal results that we can expect and accept from each other. So how do you as a business owner accept the normal and get your team on the same page? You have heard us say this before, write them out! Get what's in your head down on paper (or digitally) Take the time to create it, and you will not regret it. Thanks for listening. If you haven't done so already, subscribe to our Podcast, and/or our YouTube channel.

Hey y'all, Brent Perry here with Business on Purpose. The question on the table today, how to make your business adaptable? And I guess before we dive into this question we have to take a small step back and ask ourselves… What does it mean to be adaptable? And is it important that we are building a business that is in fact adaptable? An article written by Martin Reeves in the Harvard Business Review cited that Adaptability is the new competitive advantage for businesses. "Instead of being really good at doing some particular thing, companies must be really good at learning how to do new things." They go on to describe some characteristics of companies that are willing to adapt. "Those that thrive are quick to read and act on signals of change. They have worked out how to experiment rapidly, frequently, and economically—not only with products and services, but also with business models, processes, and strategies." As I am recording this, the 43rd Ryder cup of Golf is underway! It's a fun golf event played every 2 years between the US and the European team. An article in Golf Digest had this to say about the Ryder Cup, "One of the reasons many—most—players crave playing in the Ryder Cup is because it is unique in that you are playing for your teammates, for your country... It isn't, as Koepka points out, just about you. In the week-to-week tournaments that go on around the world, including the four majors, you succeed or you fail. Period. It is why golf is so difficult mentally. It's all on you. But the Ryder Cup is different. At the end of the weekend, individual records really don't matter very much. All that matters is the team result." The best Ryder Cup teams in history have all been able to adapt. If you and your company are going to be able to adapt, you have to be ready to adjust to new conditions. But how do we do that? I am glad you asked that question. We have ideas on how you can become a company that doesn't get left behind as you continue to adapt to the ever-changing environment. Evaluate your competitors' strategies and products Utilize a wide range of resources Collaborate with employees Test new product adaptations without fear of failure Utilize technology, virtual environments, and online communities Utilize your business coach Thanks for listening. If you haven't done so already, subscribe to our Podcast, and/or our YouTube channel.

Do you give anyone license to speak into your life? Does anyone have a voice? Well, let's talk about why that's important today. Good morning friends, Thomas Joyner here with Business on Purpose. I was driving home from the gym this week and pulled up at a traffic light. Normally I kind of just zone out. Not really taking much in. It's a great time for quiet and thought before a day of coaching. As I'm sitting there at the light, I notice the truck in front of me has a license plate that's a funky series of letters and numbers. I love quirky license plates. It took me a minute to figure this one out, but the letters were all caps. SG2BME. So Good to be me! Bold! Right? So good to be me! My thoughts started racing. Wonder what that guy's life is like? I mean he does have a nice truck. Wonder what he does? Wonder why it's good to be him! Haha. But then, I thought. That's a pretty cocky statement. Like that dude is flaunting that his life is good. Did no one tell him that? Did he ask for anyone's opinion about how that comes across? Is it a joke? Does he have anyone close enough to him that they would speak up? Man, I hope so... Ok, maybe I'm overanalyzing it, but the question should remain. Do we have people in our life we give permission to tell us the truth? Do we have a tribe that we let in on the good and the bad? Another example for you, my wife runs a small business from home selling teaching curriculum around the world. She's REALLY good at it. This past week she had a mastermind retreat of several business owners who do the exact same thing. They watched several keynote talks and sat around in the evenings discussing their businesses. They talked about the areas they have momentum, the areas they're struggling and both cheered each other on and challenged one another. It was such a valuable time for her! To have another set of eyes watching her business telling her the truth. It's, in all honesty, one of the main values we bring as coaches. Holding business owners and key leaders accountable to what they say they're going to do. Providing perspective and honesty when necessary. Encouraging, cheering on, challenging, and grounding them when the time calls for it. But here's the thing... we have to be invited into that space. I think sometimes we believe the lie that we have it, but we've never invited anyone in. We guard that space, because we're too arrogant in believing that we don't need it. Or maybe we believe the lie that we don't have time. Either way, there's a major area that's a blind spot for you if you don't have someone looking and speaking into your life and business. So, take a minute to pause this video and think through this...who is honest with you? Does anyone have the freedom to tell you, "Getting a license plate that says, 'So good to be me,' probably isn't the best idea you've ever had!" Now I'm joking obviously, but who do you allow in to that space? Do they know they're allowed in? If the answer is, "They should know!" That's probably not good enough. Set a time and place for those conversations to happen. Set up a lunch twice a month to facilitate that happening. Tell them you want everything they got! Do you need a coach? Someone with content to lead you through and game-changing accountability to match it? Yes, you probably do! Only you can open up the door for it. Don't miss out. Don't be the guy driving around with no clue how he's being perceived. Last thing I'll comment on is this. You may say, "Thomas I can't spend all my time wondering what someone else is thinking and trying to please them!" You're absolutely right. That's why you give that permission to a select person or a select few people. People who care about you and will tell you the truth. NOT everyone else. Find someone you trust and let them in today. If we at Business on Purpose can do that for you, let me take you to lunch and see where it leads. We'd love to match you up with a coach who can hold you accountable and lead you to a place of freedom instead of chaos as a business owner. It's so so worth it! Have a great day everyone!

Although I am a child of the 1980s, I never fully embraced its music; too much hairspray and synthesizer for me. But for all of the studded leather jackets and the poorly designed Buicks of the '80s, the famed duo Hall and Oates did have a song title that still resonates, Everywhere I Look. They decried, "Everywhere I look I see people waking up, so why are we still sleeping, everywhere I look I see people shaking off all the old ways, so why can't we follow through". A modern version of that classic 80's rock dynamic might declare, "everywhere I look I see wealth and stuff, so why are we so anxious and unnerved?" In the west, we equate material wealth with personal success. I heard a statement last week that stunned me, "success is the sickness that is slowly killing us". Wow. Is that true? Could it be that success (or our response to success) has a part to play as a catalyst for the significant decrease in human wellbeing? Regardless, we have solid evidence and reason to believe that the well-being of our souls, our minds, our bodies, and our spirits are teetering on the cliff of discontent and isolation. There has been increased attention lately from companies (Shoreline Construction, Nike, Bumble, Hootsuite, and LinkedIn to name a few) providing a week off for their employees. A senior leader within Nike explains their suggestion to, "take the time to unwind, de-stress and spend time with your loved ones. Do not work…" This could be misconstrued as another line item in a long list of employee benefits companies are hoping will provide a reason for talented leaders to remain long-term. But this is more than a corporate benefit strategy. This is a real recognition that what we have been through, and are going through is unique, peculiar, and something worth acknowledging. Everything is shifting. Just last week I was attending a conference where leaders from a variety of faith and commercial backgrounds were in attendance. During a general session, a researcher began explaining the seismic shift up ahead for faith communities (churches, synagogues, etc.) Even the religious leaders, those most thought to be "stuck in a rut" are being presented with significant changes that culture is about to impose on their outward manifestations. Minus the hairspray and synthesizer, we are about to find ourselves echoing the lyrics of John Hall and Daryl Oates, "Everywhere I look I see people waking up, so why are we still sleeping?" Sleep is healthy, in moderation. The question is what do we do with the time we're awake? There are four disciplines that we can embed in our day-to-day that will provide us each a good rich soil for human wellbeing. First, practice the simple (and hard) art of thinking. Meditation is a common word used when discussing this personal discipline, but I don't want your mind to immediately cliche this idea with a trance-like "ohming" exercise that most of us think of. Part of the challenge of human wellbeing is that our minds are cluttered, confused, and foggy. Just yesterday Ashley and I took our cars to the car wash. We drove in feeling loud and cluttered because our cars were loud and cluttered. After a wash and a lot of time cleaning out and vacuuming, we left feeling just a touch more peace-filled and orderly. Making time (don't miss that... making time) to think deeply provides you with opportunities to begin decluttering, organizing, and culling all of the thoughts, impulses, and invitations your mind has received. Making time to think also allows for the space to replace negative, unhelpful, and degrading lies with uplifting and progressive truths that will literally renew your mind, providing that same sense of peace, orderliness, and clear-headedness that you know you want. Merely thinking is highly valuable, and is a step that most of us do not intentionally take leaving us wondering why we remain so cluttered. I literally schedule time to think... and then follow my schedule! The second discipline to encourage wellbeing is reading and writing. We now have no excuses to not read and write. Audiobooks are pervasive, and books have never been more accessible. Imagine if I asked you, "would you pay $20 to spend six hours with Peter Drucker?" Of course, you would. Books allow you to do that. We obsess about getting to meet famous people in person. Why? Honestly, so we can tell our friends we met them. What's more powerful is to actually learn from the people we hold in high regard. Meeting them will last for a minute or two...learning from them will last our entire lifetime and will continue to return. If I had to pick one discipline in all of human existence that I would want for everyone to learn and implement... reading. As you read, it is most helpful to write. I've heard it said before, "if you don't write it down you don't own it." For the last couple of years, I have been writing a sentence a day (for most days) in a journal that is titled "A Sentence A Day Journal". Even just a sen

Hey y'all, Brent Perry here with Business on Purpose. It is once again the time on the calendar when the Business on Purpose team looks ahead and plans out our next 12 weeks of action. Each of us makes sure we get our 12 week goals and actions planned out, and we invite our clients and their teams to join us in the challenge of taking back our time and defining the important goals we want to accomplish. The idea of the 12 week plan has been around some time, and one of the best books that has been written on the topic, I'm sure you have heard us mention it before, "The 12 week year" written by Brian Moran. I tell you all this, because this past week I got my copy back out and started reading through it to prepare myself for the upcoming 12 weeks. As I reread some of the chapters and concepts each 12 weeks there tends to typically be a different chapter that challenges me and helps realign me if you will. The chapter this past week that really hit me hard is titled, Interest versus Commitment. In the chapter, Moran writes, "When you are interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstances permit, but when you're committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results." Are you interested in your business? Or are you committed to your business in this season? I was with a good friend of mine this past weekend at his annual Banquet he hosts for the non-profit organization he directs. I got there early to help out a little bit, and we were talking about the unprecedented times that most nonprofit organizations have found themselves in over the past couple of years. And we all know that story. We are still living it really. It's not just for nonprofits out there, if for you as business owners as well. But where I was truly inspired by my friend, was his commitment to this cause. He told me that living through the past year and a half has made him more sure of the work he and this organization is doing. He is not stopping. He is not taking no for an answer. He's not making excuses, just moving forward and fighting. That is commitment. I love the quote from this chapter that Moran uses, "commitment is an act, not a word." The 12 week plan is a powerful tool for several reasons. One of them being, the commitments you make... a.k.a. the goals you are setting for yourself, are for the next 12 weeks. Not a year, not multiple years, not a lifetime... 12 weeks. Again, I want to ask you the question, Are you interested in your business? Or are you committed to your business in this season? If it interests you, this could be a long uphill 4th quarter coming up. If you are committed, make some goals for these last 12 weeks, and push on. Fight for those goals. They won't let you down. Thanks for listening. If you haven't done so already, subscribe to our Podcast, and/or our YouTube channel.

What is every business out there dealing with right now? Employees and hiring! So how do you make sure you are hiring the right people, or maybe more importantly not hiring the wrong people? Let's talk about that today. Good morning friends, Thomas Joyner with Business on Purpose here. I can't tell you the last time I walked into a restaurant and I didn't immediately see a "We're Hiring" sign in the window. Or go to a local nursery to grab a few plants, yep, they're hiring too. Mechanics, Banks, contractors, everyone is hiring today. So how do you make sure that you get great people? How do you make sure that you're not just winging it and hoping for the best? Well, here are 4 practical steps to making a great hire... EVERY. SINGLE. TIME! 1. Build out the foundation for what you want! I can't tell you how many times I sit with a business owner to talk through why they had to fire an employee. It almost always comes back to this... we missed something. So how do you build a process to weed through the junk and know who exactly you're hiring? It all starts with building the foundation. Do you have core values you lean on and use as a filter? Do you have a crystal clear job role that this person will be fulfilling? Do you know the numbers you're going to ask them to bring in or the background needed to thrive in this role? Do you know how many references you would like to hear from? Are there any technical skills you can ask them to display? Or maybe you work backwards. Who's your best employee? The one that if you could clone that person, you would do it in a heartbeat. What qualities do they have and what are the things you bring to the team that you need more of? Ok, now ask questions and look for those qualities in the person you're interviewing. Ask specific things to references about those qualities? We can't always expect to train the person perfectly and hope for them to end up ok. If ever there is a doubt, we lean away from hiring. Because here's the thing. When you make a poor hire, it always ends up costing you more than had you not hired at all! It affects your cash flow, your culture, your time... everything! 2. Meet multiple times and slow down Your interviewing should be a process, not an event! SLOOOOOW DOWN. Our BoP interview process starts with a phone call. Just getting to know them. Hearing their voice and how they present themselves. So often people jump in with all the benefits of this job, salary, benefits, hours, etc... save that stuff for further down the road! After the phone call, we have an initial face-to-face interview. If that goes well, we call references and send over Job Role, expectations, core values, and long-term vision. Then we do another in-person interview to dig deeper into anything that stuck out. Lastly, we do what almost no one else does, we host a dinner or lunch with their spouse to look for any further red flags or reasons NOT to move forward. It happens time after time. The spouse doesn't get to see your culture from up close, or maybe he or she is not as bought in and having some doubts. You can't see that stuff unless you go out and spend some time together. When I got hired by BoP it was nearly a 6-month process. And you may say, "We don't have 6 months!" Ok, I get that, but that's because you're hiring in chaos. But what would it look like to intentionally slow down and start preparing for future hires today? 3. Know your numbers and be honest on future possibilities This one hits close to home for every business. We trade dollar for dollar on a hire, so we never have any margin for slow times of year. A new hire should bring in 2-3x what you pay them. If you say the job is worth 20/hr, or around 40k/year for full-time employee can it bring 80-120k in revenue? If not, it's going to stress your cash flow! Know what you can afford and what your employee should bring to the team. Communicate that clearly so that expectations are in writing. Then, that gives you metrics to come back to early on in the onboarding process. It gives you a chance to set the standard and hold accountable. On the be honest part, in many exit interviews, employee after employee mentions they were OVER promised in the interview. You see, we want this job to sound amazing so we casually throw words around like "Upward mobility" or "Profit sharing", maybe "future partnership" or "regular raises based on performance" with no real metrics for tracking and implementing those things. Stop doing that! You're setting a bar for yourself that you have zero intention of reaching. It comes across as dishonest and leads your team members on. 4. Have an onboarding plan to ensure the people you move forward with are supported We recommend meeting weekly for a minimum of 90 days for every new hire. You want to capture their eyes, what they are seeing from a fresh perspective before it is lost forever. One of the things we've challenged our clients on recently is making the best hire possible, but also

Hey y'all, Brent Perry here with Business on Purpose. I asked a few of my clients and friends who are business owners over the past couple of weeks, what keeps you going in your business? On the not-so-fun days. The hard days. The want to check out at 10 am and be anywhere else days. Here were a few of the responses… "Getting the opportunity to serve clients through the biggest purchase/sale of their lives. It is an opportunity to share my life, share my experiences, share my knowledge, and stewardship outside of myself." "The challenge of life that keeps me going in business. It can always be tweaked to work better for your clients, your team, and yourself. I'm motivated to create a life of freedom for my family." "Freedom … Although I work hard and it would seem I am "Tied Down" to and by my work, it actually provides me with the freedom to do something worthwhile, something worth doing, I love my work and the freedom it provides … "Personal Satisfaction … I get up in the morning excited to be able to provide work for my hands, and in turn work for many others hands … I get to put smiles on faces, customers, vendors, delivery drivers, coworkers, concrete techs, Mason's, laborers, supervisors." These are just a few of the answers I got back. And I wish I had the time to share all of them. Because there is not a wrong answer when it comes to looking at what drives you to keep pushing the ball down the field. In an article written earlier this year in Forbes Magazine, they were discussing small business strategy, and they offered a column about entrepreneurs navigating seasons where they need extra motivation if you will. On that list, one of the thoughts that stood out to me, Connect with your peers and share advice The article goes on to say, "Take the time to study other entrepreneurs, whether they are your competitors or simply your peers. What are they doing these days that seem to be working for them? What are they doing that doesn't seem to be working? Most people are facing the same challenges you are, and we all have a lot to learn from one another." Sometimes what keeps us going is the people we have surrounded ourselves with. So who is in your corner? Who are the people in your life that not only celebrate the wins with you, but also will be there to spur you on? I'm not sure where you are in your business right now. Maybe things are going great, and you are living in a season that you wish would never end. If that's the case, take some stock right now. Take the time to make mental and written notes about what is going on, how you are feeling. Bottle it up if you will, because as we all know as a business owner those times can often be fleeting. But don't forget the feeling you have... it might be what you need to keep you going down the road. Or maybe you are in a tough/difficult season. The kind of season where you ask yourself, is this even worth it anymore? Short answer, we would say yes, it is. So maybe if you are in this season right now, it's a good time to make a list and remind yourself what motivates you. What keeps you going. And no matter what season you find yourself in as you listen, do me a favor. Reach out to someone today. Remember those people I mentioned earlier, the people in your corner (it can be a co-worker, a peer, your coach, your best friend, your spouse or partner...the list goes on. But reach out just to tell them thanks for being that for you. It can make all the difference in the world. Thanks for listening. If you haven't done so already, subscribe to our Podcast, and/or our YouTube channel.

What little things do you allow in your presence that affect the culture of your business? Do they even matter? Absolutely! Let's dive in and talk about that stuff today. Good morning, Thomas Joyner with Business on Purpose here, and I am so glad you tuned in today. I was sitting with business owners all of last week talking through each of their employees and the little nit-picky things that frustrated them. One went off on the owner in front of the entire team... literally got in his face and yelled at him for 2-3 minutes. Another, was caught taking a nap in the back room while on the clock. Even another, had been caught saying that she fully finished an assignment and was caught in a lie. Any of this stuff sound familiar? Of course, it does! It's the little things that, in the moment, you push aside because there are bigger fires to put out in other areas of your business. But what happens when you push these things aside and never deal with them? Never expose the behavior or have a conversation setting further expectations? Well, those behaviors become accepted and they slowly, but surely become engrained in the culture. A good friend of mine had noticed some troubling behaviors from the leadership in his business. There were some small things that began to add up, but since he was on commission in his business, he thought... well, I won't rock the boat. It's none of my business! About a month later we were talking about it and he finally decided to do something about it when he heard this quote, "What you allow in your presence IS your standard." Whoa...that's heavy. "What you allow in your presence is your standard." Immediately he knew that by saying nothing, he was consenting to the behavior. Not encouraging it, but failing to act and do anything to right it. So, what are the little things that get swept aside as you think, "oh, it's not that big of a deal?" Are there little shortcuts your employees take instead of fully finishing a job? Do they fudge on time cards as they think they will just round up a few minutes to get the full hour of work? Maybe they tell you they finished an assignment, but really just did it halfway and there are mistakes throughout? What do you do in those instances? I can tell you some of the responses I've gotten from clients. "Well, what if I call them out for it and they leave... I don't have anyone to replace them right now!" While that may be true, I think most employees, if spoken to with respect and without emotion can handle a little accountability. But this is also the reason for more frequent onboarding and training meetings. When the only time you meet is to come down on an employee that makes this way harder. But if you have a system in place to meet frequently, to praise often, and to handle accountability in a timely fashion, this becomes something that makes you better. Or another response I get, "It doesn't matter. Even if I bring it up, they just don't care and will probably do it again." My response to that. How do you know? Maybe they're waiting to see if YOU care enough to call it out. Or care enough about them to sit down and lean in. Here's what I can guarantee, if it doesn't get called out it will continue to go on as long as you allow it. Because what you allow in your presence will become the standard for your entire team and that cannot be tolerated. Or maybe a last response I hear…"I'm just too slammed to get to that today. When things slow down I'll have that conversation." Well, guess what, things are NOT going to slow down. And things are probably piling up because your team lacks training and accountability to do it right the first time. The more you push it off, the more these LITTLE things pile up and force you to deal with them down the road. No, deal with it quickly, respectfully, and efficiently. Draw the line in the sand for what your standard is every time you see a deviation. So stop this right now and ask yourself, "What am I allowing in my presence that is affecting our culture?" What has slowly become the standard that we never intended to? Write a few thoughts down, schedule a few meetings to address some things, or find a tactful way to do it at your next team meeting. One of my favorite quotes by Dabo Swinney, head football coach at Clemson, is "Praise in public, criticize in private." It's powerful. Brag on your team in front of everyone, but maybe pull them aside to address accountability in private. Now, there's always things that need to be addressed on a macro scale, but don't make the mistake of shaming or humiliating your employees out of an emotional response. No, be calculated, fair, and direct, but always in private when speaking to one employee. Alright, I really challenge you to take the time today to figure this out. To reset your standard. It affects culture and culture affects everything. Have a great week friends!

HELP! My business grew too fast. Well, that escalated quickly. Before we dive in...I want everyone to take a deep breath. You're not the first person and you won't be the last to feel this level of chaos. For those of you who grew really fast… What new challenges have emerged? What new opportunities have emerged? Wise leaders throughout history have always been truthful to lead the faithful to understand, "in this life you will have chaos...but do not worry." I will tell you the same thing, "in this business, you will have chaos...but do not worry...you can be liberated from chaos." How? Systems, Process, and Purpose. Think about it... how does Nick Saban build a behemoth of a college football program in the midst of competition like we've never seen? How do Novak Djokovic, Dawn Staley, Christiano Ronaldo, and others dominate their respective sports? What you see and what you don't see. What you see are the game days, the trophies, the interviews, the lights, the flash, and the makeup. What you don't see are minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years of preparation, of practice, of miscues and mis-steps, frustration, and hopelessness. You don't see the moments in the toilet, with your head hanging down, feeling like you've been kicked and it would just be easier if we did something else. Ed Sheeran describes it in his British lore, "You have to keep writing songs and get them out of you." We all have immature and undeveloped leadership inside of us that eventually has to come out, and then it is refined. How do we get a handle of a business that has grown too fast? The same way artists, athletes, and the military deal with a situation that has escalated too quickly. Clarity and Order through TRAINING, TRAINING, TRAINING. When I was at the University of South Carolina we had to sign a piece of paper for the NCAA saying that we had not committed more than 20 hours per week to our football program. Thinking back, we had winter workouts, we had spring practice, our summer workout program, the regular season, and then if you performed well, a post-season bowl matchup. Doing the quick math, a college football player will easily train somewhere in the neighborhood of 500+ hours per year, and will spend only 50 hours per year in live game-time situations. We spent at least 10 times as much energy and effort training than we did playing. Military training is far more intense than that, and for some, they may never see live action. Chaos calls for systems, process, and purpose. In his adventurous book Sea Stories, Admiral William McRaven re-lives a mission scenario where helicopters were called in for an extraction, and in preparation, they had planned second by second alternatives and triggers. Emotion would not steer the helicopters because it was life or death. Chaos is not all bad. McRaven recalls his time in the conflict and chaos of war, saying, ""War challenges your manhood. It reaffirms your courage. It sets you apart from the timid souls and the bench sitters . . . It builds unbreakable bonds among your fellow warriors. It gives your life meaning" This fast growth you have experienced can provide you with meaningful stories, adventures, and memories. Or it can eat you alive. How do you know? You don't, all you can do is build systems, process, and purpose... and then do the hard work of repetition and implementation.

Hey y'all, Brent Perry with Business on Purpose. Where is the vision in your business? Or maybe a better question, where is the balance in your vision? Looking back. Starting at what's straight in front of you. Or looking ahead. Let's take a look. Maybe you are busy looking into the past of what has happened this month or year (or years past)? There is an article written by Scott Petinga titled "Why looking back is key to moving a business forward." In the article, he asks the question: how do you get the most out of your past to get the best out of your future? He goes on to give 5 examples of how to spend productive time looking back on the life of your business. He says to ask the question what if Learn from your mistakes Reshape your past Get inspired And Get perspective Those are just a few examples of what looking backwards can look like and what it can mean for your business. So we talked about looking back, but maybe you are so busy with the day to day operations that you can only focus on the here and now. What is happening in the next 24 hours if you will? Just to survive and make it another day. I am a present liver (not sure if that's an actual term used, but you get the point). By design I live in the here and now, and if I am not intentional about looking back on life to learn and looking ahead in life to dream... I will just live day to day. I'll be honest, some days that just feels good. Focus on what is right in front of you, and get it done. Task, completed. Job, finished. Proposal, read. The list can go on and on. Okay, so we have talked now about looking back on your business to learn and grow. We've talked briefly about the here and now and just seeing what is right in front of you so last but certainly not least... Do you have the space, the margin if you will, to look at where you are, and where your business is heading? The direction you are going. The path that you're on. This is the "dreaming." The planning. The "what's next." Here is the reality as a business owner, if you are not taking the time to look ahead, no one is doing that for you. It has to start with you. So how do you do it? There is time and seasons and space for all 3, but what is the healthy rhythm for balancing your vision? Step 1: Identify your default if you will. Typically the clients we work with default to 1 of these 3. So where are you? Do you find yourself looking backwards all the time, or looking ahead and dreaming, or just busy with the day to day what's right in front of you? Step 2: And I'm sure you have heard us say this before... write it down! Go ahead... rank them if you will. Do me a favor...ask yourself which of these visions are you best at and which do you struggle with the most? And write it out. Which vision do you live in, and maybe which you have been neglecting? Step 3: Create the intentional time and space for each. Start with the vision you haven't been able to do for some time. If you haven't given yourself time to look ahead and dream about where your business is heading, make that a priority. If you haven't been able to look back over this past year and learn and grow, make sure to do that. Step 4: Create the habit. Don't just make this a one and done. This isn't Kentucky basketball...that one's for you Joerdan...make this a weekly or at least monthly habit that you do for yourself and for your business. I love cooking. I don't do it as often as I would like, but it's fun being in the kitchen or over the grill. It's fun for me starting from scratch and watching the ingredients come together to make something others will enjoy. Your business needs all 3 ingredients. A healthy balance with your vision. Look back Look at the here and now Look ahead Thanks for listening. If you haven't done so already, subscribe to our Podcast, and/or our YouTube channel.

The frustration was immediate as we were in our regular coaching meeting working through the action items to implement. My question was simple, "is the SEO company you hired providing you with their documented activity and updated results?" The answer was deflating. This well-established and progressive business owner shared, "not only do we not have reports and updates, but he is also degrading and makes us feel like idiots when we ask him questions." I lightened the mood by asking, "so is that the magic touch to win the favor of clients? If so, I need to commit to be more of a jerk in our coaching time." The laughter came and went, but the frustration lingered. Unfortunately, the common theme when talking to small business owners about hiring a marketing agency is simply… A lot of money with very few demonstrable results. Why? What's the similarity between a marketer, a business coach (we can self-deprecate a bit:), and a palm reader? The barrier to entry is on the ground; anyone can hang a shingle and become one. I'm not much of an expert on palm readers, but I do know that with any other profession. there are really great practitioners and really bad ones. So how do you find a great marketing agency to work with? A few things to consider. First, NOBODY will know your business or be as passionate about your business as you. You cannot delegate your passion. The majority of the time, we see small business owners abdicate the marketing responsibility to a distant, remote person who has you as one of many clients and does not wake up every day obsessing about how to grow your mission. Marketing agencies, by design, have a book of business... multiple clients. They can only market what they know, and they can only know what you and your market tell them over and over again. Markets change constantly. A marketing initiative that works today will likely be tired and irrelevant in six months. It's akin to a doctor having checkups with patients to monitor and tweak their treatments. Things change, and if you allow your marketing agency to be measured on activity instead of outcomes, then they are prone (not in every case of course) to hit "rinse and repeat". Second, because your marketing agency needs to see and hear directly from you (or someone in your business) you must commit to a weekly "touchpoint" with your marketing agency. This is a very brief check-in on story, content, activity, and results. It empowers your marketing first to capture the nuance, the client successes, and all of the little bits that happen day to day that in most cases go unnoticed and uncelebrated. I will say this, if your marketing agency balks at this as a condition of working together, RUN. You are hiring them as an employee of sorts (on contract of course) and in many cases paying them what you would invest a significant part-time or even full-time employee. If they are unwilling to have a weekly meeting that actually benefits you and them... move on. Thirdly, clearly write ALL of your expectations down before signing up with any marketing agency. Please don't be offended, but most of the failure of marketing agencies is not the fault of the agency, it is the fault of us as business owners for not communicating clear expectations. Think through, write down, and agree to outcomes first, and then everything else second. The goal of a marketing agency is first and foremost to either grow your revenue and margin or grow your brand awareness (which ties directly back to revenue and margin). Marketers may disagree and say that it is more complex than that. For businesses above fifty (50) employees that may be so, but for businesses like yours with between two (2) and fifty (50) employees, marketing is almost exclusively tied to growing the revenue and margin of the business. Write down your expectations and don't be veiled. It will then be up to the marketing agency to decide if they can perform to the level of expectation you have set. Fourth, don't get sucked in to "number of hours" or "number of posts" per week or month. Marketing is about OUTCOMES, not about the quantity of any one technical strategy. Views, likes, and impressions; we obsess over these because they are quick and give us an immediate snapshot into our public vanity. We know deep down that they are a bit like jolly ranchers... taste sugary but offer no long-term health benefit. Unless you are willing to spend BIG money on paid advertising (and I mean BIG), you are likely to see very little return on direct social media advertising at the scale you can afford. I know I know...someone reading this will be the exception. Let's focus on the general rule. Social platforms (YouTube, Blogs, Podcasts, etc.) are truly valuable assets IF you see them as air support to your ground game. In most businesses, still the number one lead generation strategy is good ole fashioned face to face referrals and follow-up. Your social presence is critical to provide authority and credibilit

Hey y'all, Brent Perry with Business on Purpose. As I am recording this, September is upon us. Which means football is back! High School football. College Games. NFL Sundays. It's happening. I love this time of year. I was at our local high school football game a couple of weeks ago. It was the first game of the season, played at home in front of a rowdy crowd, and the atmosphere was amazing. As I was keeping up with the game, I was watching the coaching staff having to make in-game decisions changing the game plan as it progressed. The play calling didn't change. The pace of play didn't change. And most of the offensive and defensive packages they had been in weren't changing. Really, the change that was most evident came with the personnel (the players) on the field. Switching guys around finding the right positions. The left tackle moved to right guard. The center switched over to play the defensive line. The starting wideout moved to running back. The quarterback also became the punter. It's football, these kinds of changes happen. But it did get me thinking about some of the businesses we work with, and thinking more specifically about the personnel within these businesses. So the question of the day... How is your personnel? Your employees. Are they currently playing the right position, where you are able to utilize their full potential? We hear it so often with business. The idea of getting people on the bus, and making sure they are in the right seats. And this is true. It is also true that as the leader of the business, you need to make sure you are finding time throughout the year to evaluate your team and make sure your game plan is aligned with your vision story, your unique core values, and your maximum effort to run the business you have dreamed about and built. Now, this isn't just about hiring and firing... while that can definitely play a part in this conversation, I am more interested in looking at the current "roster" if you will, and making sure each player is playing the right position. Here are a few ideas for you as September is upon us… Don't wait for end-of-the-year evaluations. I know that is something that has become common in the business world, but making personnel decisions (if they need to be made) should happen sooner rather than later. Make time to review your employees and their current job descriptions. Which brings me to 3, if you don't have job descriptions typed out for your employees, you should start there. Review your vision, review your values and mission statements, and make sure your team is playing for the same wins. Having the right personnel in place can make all the difference in the world when it comes to your business. It's up to you to make sure your team is moving in the right direction with the employees you have in house. Thanks for listening. If you haven't done so already, subscribe to our Podcast, and/or our YouTube channel.

One of the biggest headaches in business??? Making decisions. So how do you effectively make decisions that affect so many people and know you're making the right call? Let's talk about that today.. Good afternoon, Thomas Joyner with Business on Purpose here... thanks so much for listening and subscribing. One of my favorite things about what I do is the different types of leaders I get to work with. Business owners are all over the map when it comes to the way they lead, the way their businesses are run, and the things that are important to them. I learn new things in every single coaching meeting. In fact, relentless learning is one of our core values, so we put a great deal of energy towards writing down what we're learning and developing new content for all business owners to improve from. A few weeks ago, a business owner sent me a document they had worked on to help with their decision-making. Now, we use our core values, our vision story, and numerous other filters to run decisions through. If you haven't started there, I would urge you to put in the work there, first and foremost. This document I received was incredible... and a great way to solidify, codify and systematize all minor and major decisions in their business and I thought it would be a great thing to share. Every decision in this business is asked a series of 10-12 questions depending on what type of decision it is. Things like, "Does it make us more profitable? Is it fun?" One of their core values... and "Will it benefit the community?" Another of their core values. Each question, if the answer is yes, gets the number 1 put next to it. If the answer is no, it gets a zero written next to it. You tally all the numbers up and it gets a score equalling the sum of all the answers. Here's where this thing gets REALLY powerful! Each type of decision in their business is categorized. Everything from new hires to technology purchases, from who they do business with to hours of operation, even things like days off and compensation get filtered through this document. Everything has a category and every category has a minimum score required to move forward. Practically, if they were planning on buying new iPads for their field employees, they would ask all 10 questions and if the cumulative score is above 5, they move forward with the decision to purchase. Simple decisions require lower scores, somewhere in the 5 and up category. Medium level ones require 7 or more and big ones, like hiring or compensation, require 9 or 10! It's an amazing system to run every decision through and often times helps the leadership get on the same page! Maybe decisions don't fit in a category, so they use financial ones. If this will cost us less than $5k, it needs to score a certain level, $5-10k... a slight bump, anything over that number has to really line up and score 9-10 for us to move forward. Powerful... when implemented. So how do you make your decisions? Do you make them behind closed doors? Is there any authentic, purposeful discussion? Any process? Or do you just wing it and hope for the best. Do you just chase opportunity? Let me tell you when you build a system around the things your business values and measure every decision against those values, it keeps you on track towards your vision. It keeps you on track towards being the business you want to be! You can't fake this as it has to be repeated over and over and over. But, in looking back, the business is marked by a sense of purpose that's reflected in every decision. So... where do you need to start? If you're like so many businesses I work with, poor decision-making cripples them more than poor employees or economic climates. So open up a document and write 10-15 questions down. If you need help, reach out, and let's write the questions out together! Don't let indecision or poor decisions rule in your business! Build a system and stick to it. Your employees will immediately know what you value and who you are. It will hold their feet to the fire in maintaining that culture and hold everyone accountable to your standard. It's powerful. Don't skip this stuff! It really does make all the difference. That's all for today friends... if you enjoy these, make sure to subscribe to our podcast and YouTube channel so content is delivered straight to you every couple of days. And send me your questions so I can keep "relentlessly learning" how to make better decisions. Take care.

In a polarized America, inflexible statements of dogma are becoming normalized and opinions have become rights. This will not be such a post, but instead merely a reflection on the joy and value that can be when a woman or man chooses to live out their faith at work. In my faith background (belief in God and his Son Jesus) we have a varied history of faith expression largely based on the "tribe" that you were groomed in. For some it is a charismatic expression in the public view, for others, it is a somber expression in private. Most religions have a sect of fundamental purists, those who feel it their duty to protect the "brand" at all costs. Many also have a sect of passive attenders, those who are content checking the box of "showing up" to the various disciplines, gatherings, and perceived duties of their religion. Religion is by definition "the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods." Those holding to a "belief in and work of" also feel a sense of responsibility to both living out the teaching of their belief while also teaching others. Jesus himself said in one of his final statements, "Go and make apprentices of all nations... and teach them…" How do we live out our faith in the workplace when any faith can so easily divide and drive a wedge between relationships? How do we live out our faith in the workplace so that it facilitates human flourishing instead of human animosity? Wouldn't it be better if we were either agnostic or atheistic towards faith at work just so we could get the job done, and then as in the words of Fleetwood Mac, "you can go your own way?" Part of the value of faith is the vision of peace, it is a primary goal within many faith traditions. Talking with business owners throughout our tenure as a business, peace is of the most common desires among their angst minds. When asked, "what do you want?", many business owners respond simply with a version of the work "peace". Three elements will help us live out our faith at work. First, legislating faith into anything weakens the very faith you are trying to impose. Prayer in schools is a most likely example for how legislating something while bringing the appearance of embrace, can actually do more to harm the thing than to bring the intended outcome. I am happy to announce that in any country, under the rule of any government, and within any economy, that prayer in schools is alive and well. While you may not want to fall on your knees and bring attention to your ritual, it is quite plausible that in the middle of class, walking down a corridor, or eating lunch in the lunch area, you can quietly and thoughtfully seek God in prayer. You can do the same at work. Some say, "I want to work for a Christian (or Buddhist, or Muslim, etc.) employer." Maybe instead we should think to work towards a mission that you believe in and within a skill set that you have been gifted towards, and be a light based on the faith that you hold regardless of the faith your employer holds. I've seen plenty of non-faith-driven leaders pushing towards a powerful mission, and plenty of faith-driven leaders that are a bear to work for. Stop waiting for someone to give you legal permission to pray, to be kind, to be salt and light, to turn the other cheek, to go the extra mile, or to replace worry with faith and hope. The second element is to know that the heart and principles of your faith should integrate with your day to day decision-making even if all of your rituals or formal disciplines cannot. I'm an employer who employs a small team of like-minded people. Currently, all of our team members share a general faith conviction. And still, it would not be well received if one of our team members spent their entire workday in formal faith study and meditation in place of the work that must be done towards our mission to liberate business owners from chaos.. We have a work mission to push towards and we need our team members working specifically towards that mission. Of course, I strongly encourage studying and meditating within the personal disciplines of your personal and spiritual growth. I also strongly encourage living out moment by moment, the truths that each person gathers as they forage through their personal time of study and meditation; hunger for right things, laugh and cry with your workmates, show mercy, make peace, keep your promises, show love to those who frustrate you and make you mad. There is no law or boundary for these helpful things. Your business is not only a viable place to live out your faith, it is a perfect place to live out your faith. Business is an area laced with pressure, timelines, and the squeeze of deadlines. Business is an area where expectations are set and often not realized which requires grace, truth, kindness, forgiveness, and second chances. When many say "live out your faith at work" what they mean is "I must push, persuade and compel you to believe the same thing I d

Hey y'all, Brent Perry with Business on Purpose. Are you celebrating your victories? In your business? Or even your personal life? It feels to me like we go through seasons that we have our heads down, or our blinders on and we're just moving from one task to another, the next job, another fire to put out, you name it... and when we find ourselves in those seasons we can often miss the moments and opportunities to celebrate wins in our lives. If you have been in a room with one of our coaches here at BOP, you have probably heard us start most of our conversations with Big Wins, which is very intentional for us. It's actually one of our unique core values. Beginning in Gratitude. I was coaching a client of mine a few weeks back, and just like every week when we are together, I asked the question as we were getting started... give me a big win. He thought for a moment, and then like a light bulb going off above his head and his eyes lit up... that duplex he and his wife had been trying to sell for a year finally went under contract and they were going to be able to sell it. Again, they have been trying to sell this particular piece of real estate for a year, and it has been a thorn in their side. Awesome. What did you all do to celebrate? Well, nothing really, just kept on moving. What? Now, let me pause for a moment... this time isn't about me telling you that you have to throw a party every time something good or special happens that would be a victory... but I am saying you need to make sure you pause, even for a brief moment to acknowledge your wins. One of the most disciplined men in all of sports, Tom Brady, gave himself 6 days after the super bowl to celebrate before he got back to work with his trainer Alex Guerrero. Now, this may not seem like a long time, and between you and me, I would probably have taken a little more time myself, but for Brady, this was him celebrating his victory. Celebrating isn't going to look the same for each person. But each person can celebrate. Do me a favor, pull out a pen or your notes on your computer or your phone, and write down a couple of big wins... those victories you have had in your businesses over the last few weeks. These don't have to be winning the super bowl wins, these can be small victories that can oftentimes go overlooked. In an article written for the Harvard Business Review, Steven Kramer wrote about minor milestones, Minor Milestones When we think about progress, we often imagine how good it feels to achieve a long-term goal or experience a major breakthrough. These big wins are great—but they are relatively rare. The good news is that even small wins can boost inner work life tremendously. Let's celebrate wins. Even the minor milestones. And if you haven't been celebrating these last few months, do me a favor and take yourself to a nice lunch and dinner. Oh, and that's exactly what that client ended up doing that night. He and his wife went to their favorite burger stop in town and celebrated their win with burgers and a shake. Thanks for listening. If you haven't done so already, subscribe to our Podcast, and/or our YouTube channel.

Good afternoon friends! Thomas Joyner with Business on Purpose here, thanks for tuning in. One of my favorite comedians of all time is Jeff Foxworthy. His…" You might be a redneck" jokes still make me laugh to this day. His bits like, "the redneck spelling bee," or going on and on about how rednecks are attracted to shiny things like bass boats, beer cans and UFOs had me rolling for hours on end growing up. So, I thought I would put a little twist on it today. If you're a redneck, good for you. I applaud you in that endeavor. However, there's a far more dangerous situation for you as a business owner or key leader. And that's if you're in chaos. Here at Business on Purpose, our mission is to liberate small businesses from chaos. Plain and Simple. But how do you know if you're in chaos? How do you know if you're in deep? You know I remember having my first child. We were so sleep-deprived we almost couldn't remember what a full night of sleep was. But once our child finally slept through the night and we got that taste of normalcy again, it was a shock to the system! We never wanted to go back to those sleepless nights. So I hope this is a shock to the senses. A wake-up call, that, if this is you, you need to put some work in to punch chaos in the mouth. It's robbing you of joy, of profitability, of your lifestyle, and most importantly your mental health. Now, these are not just some funny lines I made up, but are actual quotes from businesses I have met with and worked through these issues. So, if you check all the boxes, know you're not alone. But know you need someone in your corner walking you back to sanity and back to systems in your business. Alright! You might be in chaos... If you've ever woken up early on vacation to return voicemails or emails... you might be in chaos. If you've ever wondered, if something happened to me today (car accident, sickness, injury) my business would go under... you might be in chaos. If you've ever printed out your P&L and wondered why the number at the bottom was a negative number... YOU MIGHT BE IN CHAOS. Now you know how this works, don't get upset. These are real situations that can be avoided and worked through! Please don't be offended, but please know there's another way. If you've ever canceled a lunch meeting because "my guys just need me on the job site"... you might be in chaos. If you've ever hired someone and they quit within 2 months because you "missed a red flag" in the interview... you might be in chaos. If your sales are going up, but your profitability is going down... you might be in chaos. Again, not picking on anyone, but these conversations happen weekly with business owners and we build systems to fix each and every one of them! If you are so sick of doing what you're doing that you, "just want to sell!"...you might be in chaos. If someone asks you your margins on a job and you can't back it up with numeric proof... you might be in chaos. If your employee asks you where the business will be in 2 years and what their role will be and you DON'T know the answer... you might be in chaos. Man... these are convicting. I hope they are for you too! If you find yourself being the person who handles every emergency on the weekend, because "at least I know I'll do it right"... you might be in chaos. Hey, listen. I had a bit of fun with these. The point of these is not to make you feel bad about yourself or your business. Actually quite the opposite. It's to shock the senses a bit and help you see that there are businesses out there that are doing things differently. That may have slipped into bad habits, but because they were challenged, built the business they dreamed of and wouldn't check a single one of those boxes! It's true. And it can be true for you! If you're frustrated or just want to hear a different way to do business, an intentional, on purpose way of doing business that will lift you out of the chaos... let's grab lunch. We would love to walk alongside you and your business to help you make time for what matters most. IF that's too much right now, just subscribe to our podcast and YouTube channel. Start there. It's an easy first step. Thanks so much! Have a great week.

"I don't have much to do in my business these days" were the exact words from a business owner I met with last week. You could get a sense that the words almost scared him as they came out of his mouth and left a concerned sense somewhere between, "I can't believe this is actually true" and, "am I missing something that I should be seeing?" As business coaches, we can't help but be excited and offer a bit of a chuckle when we see business owners arrive at the place where their business is running consistently without their direct, hour-by-hour, day-by-day input and effort. Not by unhealthy abdication, but instead by thoughtful, consistent, intentional leadership rooted in systems, process, and purpose. After a few seconds of joy and enthusiasm, we quickly move into a mode where we want to ensure that the owner is in a healthy place, and the team is in a healthy place. Frankly, it makes me a bit uneasy to think about a driven personality with a forward-leaning mindset to be equipped with marginal time and marginal resources. Ever heard the story of the successful entrepreneur who was engrossed in a twisted and bazaar mid-life crisis? The marginal time and marginal money paradox is the most common breeding ground for such an unrestrained crisis. The very first thing you should do if you are bored in your business is to pause and make sure you have health in your personal disciplines. Boredom has been made out to be a non-productive territory littered with heat, dust, and tumbleweed... a wasteland to progress. It's not true. It is in boredom where restoration can happen, insights can emerge, problems and opportunities can be clearly seen, and experimentation can flourish. Busy automatically cranks the volume knob to 10, boredom gives you control of the volume so you can think. Boredom is not bad; it offers value, flexibility, and opportunity. Boredom provides opportunity for you to indulge in your thoughts, either good or bad. Instead of asking "what should I do?" if and when boredom sets in, change your perspective to "what can I hear?" or "what can I see?" now that I have the wide-open space of boredom. Your mind has a trainload of thoughts, and boredom is the train station for those thoughts to disembark and lounge for a while. The second opportunity that emerges with boredom is a chance to revise your future destination. We travel back and forth to Nigeria on a regular basis, which usually requires four airports along the way. I follow a similar, subconscious routine at each airport reviewing my flight app to check boarding times, seat assignments, and the itinerary on the ground once we get there. Inevitably, sitting in the boredom of the airport terminal, a new idea that alters the itinerary will pop in my mind and brings with it some fresh ideas that I can breathe into the trip. Every business should have a written, multi-page vision story, and that vision story will be tweaked (as opposed to wholesale changes) throughout the year as you have new insights in the context of the boredom spaces. Boredom allows a business owner to re-evaluate and revise the written vision, drawing in a tighter and tighter focus on the final destination. That vision may include doubling down on what you have already written. It may involve selling your business and starting something else. You may uncover a pivot in your business or personal life that you simply had not seen or heard prior because the distraction and volume were too loud. The third thing you can do when you are bored as a business owner is to embrace the time and rest. It is said that even God himself rested. Probably an indication that we too should have moments of rest. Rest defined is to "cease work or movement in order to relax, refresh oneself, or recover strength". Rest can be reading a book, self converting a sprinter van, napping, writing, exercising, or just sitting and staring. This is where you need to be mindful of where your rest leads you, and it is best to have someone else help hold you accountable to how you rest so you maximize that time for good, and not for backward movement. Finally, when boredom hits you it's ok to just sit still. We undervalue stillness, silence, and solitude. Thomas a' Kempis said, "in silence the quiet soul makes progress". Dallas Willard has a modern spin on this idea in sharing that each of us "must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life." A dear friend has been in a health battle for the past 9 months and he recently shared his journey meandering through the dark values of stage three Melanoma, in concert with severe kidney trauma. His takeaway to the audience he was sharing with was not "woe is me", but instead, "the world has forgotten the joy of silence." He has spent hours waiting in the last 9 months. Waiting on doctors appointments, waiting on prognosis calls, waiting on the next treatment...waiting. As he has waited,, he has been reminded of the power and gift of boredom. If and when you get bored workin

How do you lock in and define your customer? It's a great question and one I'm excited to talk through today. Thomas Joyner with Business on Purpose here. It's so powerful... knowing who you want to sell to. Locking and truly defining your ideal customer. If you examine successful businesses across the landscape, almost always their success is a result of them knowing EXACTLY who they are selling to. Take someone like Chick Fila. They have successfully targeted a group of people that want to eat Chicken in a clean, convenient, customer service forward way. They don't branch into tacos and burgers and pizza. Trying to hit every single customer! No, they stay focused and then spread out their offerings to hit that demographic in as many ways as possible. So how do you do this in your own business? How do you figure out who that ideal client is so you can then serve them better than anyone else? Here are three ways… Ask who your most profitable client is? This is the logical place to start, right? If you look back at the past 6 months to a year, who did you do business with that gave you your highest profitability? Now, we can't exactly clone profitable clients, but you can begin to market specifically to that type of client. If you're in the trades and you have a certain builder that you worked best with, who else in your market does business like them. Go to that client and ask them. Or ask them how you can get more of their work. Too often we don't have because we don't ask. "Oh, that just feels salesy! It's not my style to be pushy!" Ok, first of all, you have to know your value you are bringing and understand that your ideal client is LOOKING FOR YOU!!! You provide just as much value to them as they do to you. That's powerful when you get that. It's not salesy, because you're delivering them exactly what they're looking for. A business or consumer is not frustrated when they get what they are looking for. No! It's gift. It gets them excited. So, if you know who that customer is, keep targeting them. Write it down and find creative ways to target more clients JUST LIKE THEM. A few more questions to ask...Who pays on time? Who are you not gonna have to nickel and dime and wait for checks to clear and just have the hassle of doing business with? That will lead us to our next question. Who is your least profitable client? Both financially and just in the joy of doing business? Sometimes it's just as important to realize who you do NOT want to work with as it is to know your ideal client. Who saps energy from you? Who robs you of profitability? Who, even if you do everything right, still ends up frustrated and complaining? Who are the businesses or clients that do NOT match up with your mission and core values? Who distracts you from your mission? Write a list down and scratch them off. Imagine if someone was in the Chick Fila drive-thru and asked them to make a cheeseburger for them. Now, if we have the mindset that everyone is a client and we have to serve every client, we COULD do this. Send someone to the grocery store to grab some ground beef, bring it in, make a patty, put it on the flat top or grill, use one of your buns and get it out the drive-thru window after a lengthy wait. The customer drives off. Next thing you know they leave a review online. Worst burger I've ever had. Almost like they've never made one. Waited an eternity for terrible food. Why does this happen? Because that's not your ideal client. That's not the person you can serve and thrive in the process. So if you look at your products and services, are there any that you need to get rid of to help you stay away from your least profitable clients? Are there any products, services, or clients that are distracting you from knocking it out of the park? Write them down and stay away. Every time you're tempted to do business with them, remember it's a distraction that could cost you big time. Ask yourself what problem you solve? Your ideal client will always need the solution to whatever problem you solve. So... if you were explaining to someone why they should do business with you, what problem do you solve? Now, it's probably not just one. It's probably 10 different things. Write those down. Then take it a step further. Who needs those problems solved? Who has those problems and is looking for an answer? What fears do they have and how often is this a problem? You'd be surprised, you may even come up with another million-dollar idea by focusing on the problem you're solving and who needs the solution! Alright, those are the three steps, ask who your most profitable client is, cross of your least profitable clients, and figure out the main problems you solve. Put those all together and you should have a great idea of who you should work with. Lastly, though I would tell you to filter it through this last question. Who do you WANT to work with... who do you like/dislike and draw energy from working with? I know you can't always choose the be

There is a movement sweeping across the southeastern United States in the form of a gas station. People are literally flocking to a gas station... planning their trips and their stops around a gas station. Buc-Ee's is a gas station posing as a department store, barbeque joint, beef jerky outlet, and Taj-Mahal-like restrooms. If you've never been, it is certainly worth the stop. A friend of mine recently walked in and saw a large yellow poster on multiple walls throughout Buc-Ee's with their starting wages posted boldly along with the promise of 3 weeks of paid time off, a 401k option, and other perks. For many in the contractor space, Buc-Ee's is now a legitimate competitor to finding employees not so much due to their rates and wages, but instead because they have clarity around their pay. In some cases, it is a good idea to share wages and benefits publicly, and other times it is a good idea to not share that data publicly. Regardless, most businesses don't have the clarity themselves internally regarding their compensation structure so that when it is time to bring in new employees, they are in a losing battle from the start. Large companies are mocked often due to their structure and bureaucracy, but the structure does offer clarity. Merging the clarity of structure with the local, family feel of a small business can be a powerful cocktail to find the right people for the right role all headed towards the right mission. How do you determine salary structures for employees? Here are five elements of determining a salary structure for employees. First, you have to know your own numbers. Recently we ran a test program among three Heating and Air (HVAC) businesses in the southeast United States. All three came into our test program through a relationship we had developed with Mingledorff's Inc. (a large HVAC supplier). As we began coaching each of the businesses, we found that although each business was similar in size and scope, each of the three businesses had a very different handle on their finances. Part of the Business On Purpose process is to create a subdivision of bank accounts, and a dashboard tracking process to follow real-time cash flow (different than a cash flow statement). Once set, each business began tracking their flow of cash, cash on hand, receivables outstanding, and any upcoming payables among other metrics. Within three months it was clear to see that one of the business owners had never fully followed their numbers and was on a collision course with a cash crunch and would eventually run out of money. A second business owner realized what was happening with their cash, and also woke up to the reality that the "family business" was creating real tension and apprehension in decision making. The owner had to make hard decisions so their business not only stopped the cash bleed but also started to generate legitimate profit. The third business owners also realized what was happening with their cash, and within six months had increased their cash position by $400,000, up from less than $100,000. More cash and specifically a higher baseline of cash means more options and flexibility in how to compensate team members. If you know your numbers, then you can know your compensation. Second, you have to know what additional revenue will be needed to cover any additional compensation. One dollar of revenue does not offset one dollar of compensation. You are running a for-profit company. Many business owners take a mindset of break-even when they are laying out compensation packages assuming, "well if we can just generate an additional $65,000 in revenue for the $65,000 in annual compensation paid to that new employee, then we are good!" No, no, no. A dollar of compensation should have an exponential return... three, four, five dollars in return. How much new real revenue (total revenue minus cost of goods) will need to be generated to profitably and generously compensate for this role? Third, you will have to articulate a clear job role. What specific activities lead to the new revenue-generating success of this new role as aligned with the vision and mission that you have set out. Too many new team members come into the fold and are unclear as to what they are being asked to do. We are coaching most of our clients to have a fully scripted, four-week schedule laid out for their new team members. Where should they be, what specifically should they be doing, watching for, listening to, and learning? Within this four-week script should lie many of the culture and skill learning that will be asked for in their job role. If you do not have a role written down, then you can have confidence that you have not provided the clarity that is required. Without that clarity, you will also have confusion around compensation. Fourth, you will need to have your head on a swivel to see what the market is telling you. Most businesses start with the market and then work backwards. Looking at what the market is pay

Hey y'all, Brent Perry with Business on Purpose. Are you listening? Not in the literal sense as listening to me right now, in this very moment. Are you listening in regards to your business? It can be an easy response to say, yes of course I am. But do me a favor, take a moment... are you really listening? Do you listen to your clients/customers? Do you listen to your employees? Do you listen to your counterparts if you have them? Do you listen to your coach? I love this quote from Justin Bell written for Forbes, "As leaders, every action we take either develops or deteriorates trust. One of the most powerful ways to build trust is through listening". Let me take you back to Brent Perry and third grade. Knoxville, TN. My teacher stood in front of the class and handed out a worksheet to us, turned face down. He said before we turned the worksheet over, we had to listen to his instructions. His instructions went something like this… First one who hands the assignment in correctly gets pizza today for lunch... a big deal in third grade. Make sure to read all the questions 1-20 thoroughly before you begin the worksheet. Print your name and date and the top of the paper. You must fill the worksheet out in pencil. You must answer the odd-numbered questions in cursive. When you are finished, turn the worksheet back over and raise your hand for me to collect it. Now I don't know if you know where I am going with this, but as soon as he said start, the whole class (myself included) flipped that paper over and went to work as fast as we could write. For the next 30 minutes, we worked diligently until we got to the last and final "question"... which read, disregard all questions, and simply write your name in all caps on the back of the worksheet. Done. That's all it took. And nobody in the class filled out the worksheet correctly. Now don't get me wrong, my teacher knew what he was doing. He was teaching us a lesson, but he also just wanted a free 30 minutes to himself without being bugged by third graders. But his lesson worked, it has stuck with me all these years later. If we would have just listened to him and not raced to be the first one done, we could have celebrated a win. So, the question on the table for the day, how well are you listening? Let me offer you 3 easy ways to improve the ways you are listening in your business… Make sure you set time each week for your employees. You might start with 1. This is outside of a team meeting. But carve out 10-15 minutes to follow up with someone in your business to have a small conversation about how things are going. Practice becoming a better Active Listener This might take more practice for some of you all. But I promise this is a skill that will benefit you as a leader. Eye contact; focusing on the other person Leaning forward a little or nodding Sitting still Letting the other person finish what he or she is saying without interruption Interested silence; giving a person time to respond Is a goal, learn something new from everyone you are listening to. It might not happen every time, but when you enter a conversation with that mindset, you are already bringing value to that conversation. If you haven't done so already, subscribe to our Podcast, and/or our YouTube channel. Thanks for listening.

How do you grow in a healthy way? And should growth always be the goal? Let's talk about that today. Good afternoon, Thomas Joyner with the Business on Purpose Podcast here. We get this question all the time when coaching. Thomas, how do we grow the right way? It's a great question. Because what it implies is that there is a wrong way to grow. Too many businesses only focus on top line revenue. Bring more in, bring more in, bring more in. And that is most certainly part of it. But top line revenue fails to set you up for responsible, long-term growth. Often times when revenue is the sole focus of growth, you can sacrifice long-term success for short-term spikes in sales. So how do we grow in a healthy way? Well, here are the 4 ways we encourage our clients to move towards sustainable, long-term growth. Figure out if you even should grow and by how much. Now this sounds counterintuitive, right? But I had a conversation last week with a client and we discussed just this point. With more sales typically comes more employees to manage that growth. That, in turn, means more training, more overhead, sometimes taking on more debt for service vehicles or machinery. It means more administrative work and billing, more estimating and invoicing. It means 25% of all of that! So where does that time come from? Are you staying late, hiring more of it out? If you try to take on that with your current team it means paying overtime and that shrinks your margins! So is this what you want? It's a valid question to ask. So often we think if revenues aren't growing, we're a failure as a business. And yet I applaud businesses who turn away more work as they realize more is not always better. No, decide if you want to grow... AND BY HOW MUCH! I can't tell you how many businesses just throw a number out without every understanding why they came up with that percentage. It sounds good, but it hasn't been thought through. So know why you want to grow by 5%, 10%, 20%, or if you even want to grow at all and then move forward to the next step. Once you've decided you should, in fact, grow and understand how much you would like to grow, it's time for the second step. Revisit your ORG Chart to see if your current structure can support the growth Most people have no clue why you build an Org Chart. It's just a picture of the structure we have in place. WRONG! What it should be is a picture of what the business should look like to hit your sales and profitability goals. So, look at it. Break it down into monthly numbers. Can your current team support the growth? Do you need another salesperson? Another admin to help with collections or scheduling and material ordering? Do you need a Project manager to take some strain off you so you can do more estimating and keep the jobs booked out and work coming in? What do you need as a business to grow? Because here's what too many businesses do. They add and add and add to the workload of their employees, expecting them to do more, yet never realizing they're at capacity! You can't always expect your employees to take on more. Sometimes, you have to change it up. So, if you change your Org Chart by hiring, re-run your numbers to make sure you can maintain your margins. Make sure you have the cash and begin setting it aside for those hires in a separate account. Get a few months ahead to make sure that you won't be going into the red each month after the hires are made. Your Org Chart has to reflect a business that can support the amount of revenue you want to do. Otherwise, you are looking at burnout for employees and they will begin to leave for greener pastures. Ok, once you decide on growth, and review your Org Chart. It's time for step 3. Build in short term metrics to measure growth and progress Here's where the magic starts to happen. It doesn't all change at once. But what does progress look like? How can you measure it? What are the Key Performance Indicators that you can measure along the way? Revenue may not grow month 1, but is the team in place, and are we making progress? How many more jobs do you need to estimate? How many more hours do you need to bill? Are you hitting those? It's why we push so hard for the 12-week plan. Build it out. Build out the 3 main goals you need to hit and then if you're missing the mark, you can adjust accordingly every 12 weeks! You can retrain and add support as necessary to make sure you are on track! Break it down into monthly goals and weekly goals to reach your numbers. It's not rocket science, but if you don't put a step-by-step plan together you WILL NOT HIT IT! Put the plan in place to measure growth and progress...and adjust as needed. Lastly… Build in margin before your next growth campaign This is a must! Don't fall into the trap of realizing 15 or 20% growth and then immediately jump into your next period of growth. Give your team some time to adjust. Some margin to make sure they're ready. Everyone wants their growth curve to look exponential...

How To Take Time Away From Your Small Business The rock stood about 25 feet above the water hovering over Phelps Lake in the Grand Teton National Park. The water was cold and clear. You could see the bottom of the lake giving the illusion that it was far too shallow to jump. Having watched a number of others take the plunge, my kids and I decided to give it a go while Ashley agreed to be the videographer from lake level. SPLASH. The temperature of the water was matched by the exhilaration of the jump. It was cold and it was thrilling. Throughout the hike into and out of Phelps Lake, we enjoyed elevation changes, landscape changes, spectacular views, and 10 different bear sightings, some within about 10 to 15 yards. I can honestly say, throughout the hike, I did not worry about our business. It was freeing. For context, at the time of this hike, Business On Purpose has been liberating business owners from chaos for 6 ½ years (founded in 2015). We have a team of seven people (including me), two of which are part-time. A couple of things you should know... we are not a multi-million dollar business, as the owner, I am still very much involved in day to day coaching of clients, and I am not independently wealthy. So how was I able to take a solid week away from our business, and the business actually grows and thrives and executes on our mission to liberate business owners from chaos? First, I wrote (and continually update) our vision story. The Proverb is continually true, "Where there is no vision, people scatter." This documented exchange between a Jewish prophet is also true, "write the vision down... those who read it will run... wait till it's appointed time... it will come true." Every business owner that we serve has been taken through a vision story process. This is a written, multi-page, highly detailed layout of what they see as the future of their business personally, financially, corporately (team structure and size), culturally, and clearly laying out who they serve and who they do not serve. This is a clear picture, and one written by faith (because we cannot see it yet), to help bring clarity to what we see not only for ourselves but also for our team. Every two months we host a simple online call with our entire team called a "Vision Day". It's not really a full day, but one hour where I read fully through the vision story, provide some commentary on where I see our business and host a live Q&A so our entire team has an opportunity to interact with our vision. It is exciting to see that the vision story process is being morphed from a nice-to-have document to a must-have, living, visual of the future of each business. If you want to take time away from your business, you must have written clarity on the future of your business, and your team must have access to the same clarity. Second, I planned this trip (and all of our others) about 9 months ago. Time is a non-renewable resource. I mentioned earlier that our business has been liberating business owners from chaos for 6 ½ years. Those are 6 ½ years that are in the books... no way to get those back. We believe that we can find time to do the things in our business that matter most. The reality is that we will not randomly find one of life's hottest, and non-renewable commodities (time). Instead, we must actively make or craft the time that we have in front of us. In November of each year, I sit down with a calendar for the following year and I begin to make my schedule for the year. Much of your week is repetitious. Meetings, email, phone calls, making or creating, etc. Many will say, "well my week is so unpredictable". Not really. It feels unpredictable because we have not made the time to stop and think through the weeks we've been given and how we will invest the currency of our time within each week. When I began thinking through the days, weeks, months, quarters, and entire year it provided me with a sense of stability. My schedule became an anchored dock moored within consistently choppy waters. No way that I hold to that schedule 100% of the time... but even a 50% hold rate is a massive game changer and gives me freedom to do the thing that I have schedule and have remembered to communicate precisely because it has been prescheduled! Whatever time of year it is right now for you, make time to sit down with a calendar of the next 6 or 12 months and begin to mark out some blocked times for team gatherings, vision days, milestone events needed to push your mission, and of course, your time away from the business. Just a note, your team, and your business need to see you leave from time to time. When you leave it provides them the encouragement that they can lead the business without you. It literally lends them courage to lead. When you leave it also exposes parts of the business that are too dependent on you, that you can begin processing, and delegating upon your return. Third, I spent the weeks leading up to our trip communicating with

Does your business back up its promises? Are you overpromising and underdelivering? Well... let's find out. Good afternoon friends! Thomas Joyner with Business on Purpose here. I'll never forget one of my best Christmas gifts I ever gave my wife. It was going to be magical! 3 days in NYC a week before Christmas. I had planned the entire thing, managed to buy plane tickets, book the perfect hotel, found a substitute teacher to take over her classes she taught, even get her sister to take the train down from Boston to meet us for a surprise dinner one night. It was all ready to go! So, we got on the plane as I finally told Rebeca where we were going so she could pack and we took off to New York City. Flights were great. Yep, nailed it. We jumped in our Uber from Grand Central Station to head to our hotel. I had checked multiple hotels in the area for a great view of the skyline in a historic hotel and found a great one that was affordable. We got dropped off, checked in, and took our bags up to the room before heading out on the town. The moment we stepped inside our room, I knew something wasn't right. The luxurious king bed we had been promised was a full. I could kick the toilet from the foot of our bed it was so close and I could almost stretch my arms out to touch both walls in the room. "At least the view is amazing!" Nope, I pulled back the curtain to see... a brick wall 3 feet from our window. Zero skyline view. What did I do wrong? As I went down to the concierge to ask if they gave us the wrong room? Nope, those are just the pictures of our 3 best rooms we use on our website. I was hot! Not only had I been oversold, but there seemed to be zero concern for us basically being lied to. Now, the trip was amazing. We look back and laugh about how bad that hotel room was. It was clean, the location was great, but it was not the luxurious experience I had hoped for. And it left me knowing that I would never come back to stay in that particular hotel again. It's no way to do business. You can't survive on one-time customers! So, if you were to take an audit of your business. The things you promise your customers? How many of them would you say you deliver on? Go ahead, stop this podcast or video right now and write down what you think are the deliverables you promise. What do you hang your hat on as a business? And rank yourself 1, 2, 3 on each of those things? If you looked at your last 20 sales. Where did you land on those deliverables? 1 meaning rarely, if at all, 2 meaning we were hit or miss but were pretty good at them, or 3 meaning we knocked it out of the park every time. Where did you land? I can't tell you how important this is in today's business climate. At the click of a button, people can get on Google or Trip Advisor and see what others have said about you. And here's the thing. Reviews are almost NEVER average. They are the people who are infuriated at your service or blown away by how great it was. So how can you audit your business in a way that leaves people blown away by OVER delivering on your promises? Because we know this, all discontentment stems from unmet expectations. And if that's true, you must know first, what are the expectations our clients have of us and how are we meeting or exceeding them in EVERY. SINGLE. INTERACTION. If you haven't read Jocko Willink's book, EXTREME OWNERSHIP, you need to grab a copy or listen to it in the car on audible. He outlines what most organizations or businesses problems are... a lack of taking responsibility or ownership. Think about it, the last time a customer complained. To their face, you probably looked at them and apologized and fixed it. But what happened behind closed doors. What words came out of your mouth next? "She or He is just difficult. There was nothing we really could have done. What are you gonna do? They're someone else's problem now!" Isn't that what we do? We pass the blame. Never looking at it objectively and taking ownership. What if we did this. What if we asked, how could we have handled that differently? Knowing what we know now, is there anything we could have done to preemptively keep that from ever having been a problem? If you can answer that question? Holy Smokes you become a business that's going places. One that focuses on the customer experience from start to finish. One that takes ownership of the problems that are within your control, fixes them, and delivers exactly what you promise day after day. So be real for a few minutes. If you dare, go to a few of your top customers, take them to lunch, and ask them? I'd bet they would be honored to get asked where you can be better? How you can better serve their business? Where you're not living up to and backing up your promises. If you can implement this into your daily habits and take ownership of this process, you won't just settle for single-serving clients or customers. No, you will make customers for life! With steady business to grow off of, knowing full wel

Hey folks, Brent Perry with Business on Purpose. The question on the table, can you do it for a day? 1 day. I am reading a book right now called Win the Day by Mark Batterson. At the beginning of this book, he poses the question…" can you do it for a day?" Let me explain a little further. He shares the story of Hall of Fame running back Emmit Smith, who has been known for living the 24-hour rule throughout his football career. Win or lose, Smith would give himself 24 hours to celebrate the win, or lament the loss. And then it was back to the basics, back to work. So, in your business and in life, what is one thing, one action, one goal, one task that you need to do for 1 day? One of my best friends is involved in a group called Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm sure most of you are familiar with it... have had loved ones a part of this powerful program, or maybe you yourself. When you ask my friend, who is now over 5 years sober how he does it, he gives a similar response to everyone... along with a few other things... a day at a time. We were driving in the car one day and I asked him to explain that a little deeper for me. He said, it's simple... it's too big of a problem to look ahead. Stringing days, weeks, months, years together seem daunting and nearly impossible. But when you can wake up and choose to live 1 day clean, I can do that. Apparently, that's a common outlook in AA. Powerful. So we have Emmit Smith's 24-hour rule. We have a good friend saying a day at a time. What does that mean for us? Batterson goes on to say, "identify a habit- any habit. Set a goal, any goal. Got it? Now let me ask you a question... Can you do it for a day"? And that's what we are going to do with your life and business right now. What's one action, task, goal, accomplishment, to-do list item, habit that you need to start or stop doing right now for personal and professional benefit. Go on. Think about it. And then, three easy steps to help us get there. Write it down! Simple. When you write it down (either on paper or typing it out) it gives you power over the task at hand. Share it with one person you know and trust. This isn't even for accountability as much as making it real to you. How many wonderful ideas and tasks get lost in your own mind simply because you never write them down and share them? Start today. 1 day. That's it. Thanks for listening. We'll see you all again soon.

How To Make A Formal Job Offer Skip called me and said, "I am excited to call and offer you the open position of Sales Representative in Augusta, Georgia." Wow, it was really happening. My first "big time", full-time job out of my time as a student. Pfizer was allowing me an opportunity to be a part of their mission and I was beyond excited. I can still tell you where I was sitting when the call came in. The final stage of the core hiring process (before onboarding) is the final offer. This is a time of both explanations, question answering, and a little bit of ceremony. I prefer doing this step either in person or online face to face. Before making that call or setting that time, make sure that you have all of your i's dotted and t's crossed. Job role... check. Notes from the interview process... check. Onboarding process written out and available... check. Compensation details and structure... check. Written offer letter... check. Employee Agreement prepared... check. Next steps checklisted... check. Start date on everyone's calendar... check. Now you are ready. Start off the meeting with the direct reason you are there. "We are excited to formally offer you the open position of POSITION TITLE here at BUSINESS NAME." Then explain what is about to happen. "We will lay out all of the details you need to know, and then will check in with you to see what questions or thoughts you have. We will then give you two business days to think through your decision and set a follow-up time to take the next steps." From there, lay out the job role again, the expectations of that person as an employee, the compensation details, and all of the other checklist items you have prepared and how they get each one of those accomplished. Stop and ask if they have any questions and then it is time to wait knowing that you have put in the hard work upfront and you have created an opportunity that any candidate will have to remark about as being unique. You are displaying your care and leadership through the entire process. If you have been prepared and fair in your role layout, compensation, and expectations and they choose to not accept the position, then you must trust that the candidate would not have been a good fit in the future. One note about getting into compensation negotiation. All compensation must be built through a view of business revenue and profitability. If a candidate requests an additional 10 percent of compensation, then you must demonstrate how their employment in that role will profitably generate additional revenue. Do not be a business that compensates based on what the employee "needs"... be a business that compensates on what the business can afford to pay. Of course, your compensation must be fair and generous... and profitable. This is an exciting time, and regardless of the outcome, you know you have put in the work that will benefit everyone moving forward.

The Most Unique Job Interview I was sitting in a hut that was around 12 feet in diameter with a palm-thatched triangular roof, mud walls, and a compacted dirt floor. The soft murmurs of a tribal dialect were casually being shared from family member to family member in an evening of conversation. I understand only what my friend could translate to me. The Fulani tribe is a complex, migratory and historic community of nomads that are known for their sub-Saharan sprawl facilitating their livestock herds. This particular family was intermixing Arabic with Fulfulde, and an occasional English word to grab the attention and grin of their visitor. I had seen thousands of Fulani across the Nigerian landscape in my travels, but never had I been offered a seat (and bed) inside the hut of a simple, rural Islamic Imam and his family. This new environment was intimidating and confusing. But when we sat in the dimly lit hut around evening I began to feel a sincere hospitality. Then slowly, one after one, different members of the family would slowly and quietly deliver bowls of freshly prepared food that had been the product of lit fires all throughout their camp. I had been invited to dinner. First watching my hosts put their hands in the starchy mix that looked like mashed potatoes I followed suit and began to eat with them. The conversation began to then meander into all varieties and corners of our lives and we learned of each other's backgrounds, cultures, challenges, and joys. All of the world's major religions have some connection to food. Food helps facilitate relationships and food helps break down walls. Shared food is a way of creating like-mindedness and yet still allowing for our unique differences. Food, or at minimum a casual gathering, is just what is needed towards the end stage of the hiring process to allow both the employer and the candidate to peer into deeper spaces within each before agreeing to move forward in a deeper employee relationship. At this stage of the hiring process, it is time to invite your candidate out for a meal together, or if you are meeting virtually, each of you agrees to bring some snacks and a drink and you casually hang out and just have a conversation about each other's interests. The easiest way to start is to ask, "so when you are not working, what are you most likely doing?" The follow-up question is even easier, "Oh cool! Tell me more about that." Again be a human... have appropriate dialogue where you get to know the candidate more and they get to know you more. You are not psychoanalyzing... you are having a conversation that is building relationship. Also, ask about general things like what has stuck out to them about the hiring process, or what has grabbed their attention about the business. Of course, you will offer to answer any job-related or company questions they or their partner may have. We recommend having a significant partner (spouse, colleague, friend) with you and offering for them to bring a significant partner as well. This will allow both you and your candidate to have someone else come alongside and help you both make a wise decision. So set your reservations, get excited about your favorite local spot, and enjoy a lunch or dinner together with the person who you are about to be connected to for a long time. This can be a powerful, memorable time... if you make the time for it.

How To Walk Through A Job Description During A Job Interview The internet is awash in example questions that you can ask during a job interview, it would be insufficient to try and give a thorough summary in a way that would bring value to you. So we will skip the interview questions and do something better. We have been programmed as humans to a "one-click" mindset. That one innovative button from Amazon that was patented in 1997 provided a twenty-year runway of revenue and profits that no other retailer would be able to match or come close. Staple's easy button and Amazon's one-click button productizes a mindset that we have been conditioned towards; make it fast and make it easy. Can you imagine if an online dating service advertised a one-click-to-marriage product or a counseling service marketed an easy-parenting algorithm? Why does that seem so absurd, but a one-click button to purchase ballpoint pens to be delivered in one day seems reasonable and expected? Relationships. I don't have a relationship with a ballpoint pen. I have relationships with people. Relationships cannot be reduced to one click, and the ones that are have little value. Employers have been trying to figure out for years how to automate and one-click their way to a hiring process akin to pushing a metaphorical easy button. Life is filled with examples of fast living leading to a shortened life, and intentional, slow living leading to a longer life. Hiring is similar. Either you will pay the price upfront and maintain the investment through consistent, predictable leadership, or you will not pay the price upfront and maintain your investment through hope, anger, frustration, and unset and unmet expectations. Throughout the hiring process, you have done the methodical hard work of determining the gap in your business, writing a job role that will help fill that gap, budgeting the role to ensure alignment with revenue and expenses, finding the right people to talk to, casually getting to know those people, sharing your vision, mission, values, and culture, and evaluating their technical skill set and their motivational leadership. All that leading up to this point of finally sharing the actual job role with the candidate. Pay the price now, and you will enjoy clarity later. At this stage of the hiring process simply be a human. Pull out two copies of the written job role, one for you and one for them, and begin walking through all of the steps and tasks, and capabilities that this role will require. As you go, be a good human... interact, ask questions, seek clarifications, field their questions, take notes, go deeper, and thank them for their time. Provide insight as to who they will be working with internally, who they will be interacting with externally. What does a day or a week in the life of their role look like? This is a great time of the hiring process to actually have an example ideal weekly schedule for this role so they can visualize a real-life week, and they can also see that you have put in the hard work of making sure there's a place for them. A lack of clarity on the front end will lead to significant and enduring frustration on the backed with real consequence. At the time of this training being developed the recruiting and placement firm Monster.com reported results from a survey conducted finding that a staggering 95% of American workers are looking to leave their jobs and a significant number of them reported burnout as the reason. Burnout is a direct result of chaos in expectations, chaos in planning, and chaos in blocking time. Essentially, we burn out when we see no progress towards the vision. You can search the internet for the silver bullet question that will ensure you've landed the right person, but the reality is that you likely won't need them and can simply have a helpful, life-giving conversation using the written job role as your shared point of focus. The right fit is less about their experience, and it is more about your preparation and leadership. Near the end of the conversation, this is the time to explain the job role compensation structure. This is not the time to discuss specific compensation amounts (salary, incentive comp percentages, etc.). You are simply communicating… This role is a liveable salary plus a commission of sales and will be paid twice monthly Or... This role has a base salary and qualifies for a quarterly bonus and will be paid every two weeks... ... or whatever the structure of compensation is. Again, this is not their job offer with compensation specifics. Just compensation structure. Once complete with a substantive dialogue using the job role as your foundation and the compensation structure explained, wrap up and confirm no other questions, thoughts, or concerns. Let them know that you will then take the feedback from this conversation along with the assessments you have had them complete, the feedback from their references, and any other questions they've had along the

We saved for years and made a decision that we were going to buy a new car and do it with cash. All that work saving and grinding, and then in a stroke of a pen, we would exchange it for a car. You better believe we did our research. When we hire, we are in effect, taking all of the hard work and energy that we, and others, have put into the business since its founding and in the stroke of a pen on an employment agreement allowing another person to come to operate behind the curtain of the business. Too many times we do it with a mindset of "just get them in here so we can get some of this work done!" Going into the hire we tend to spend a disproportionate amount of time on a person's experience, skill, and technical expertise, and less time on the true make-or-break details like mindset, desire, and motivation. The world of sports is stained with a graveyard of former first round, five-star, blue chip athletes who relied on skill and talent through their amateur play and yet could not harness their mindset for the true challenge of a professional when every other player is as good or better than they are. You are hiring professionals. Professional oil changers, bookkeepers, ice cream scoopers, trademark filers, superintendents, estimators, and on and on; all skills that can be built and developed on site. The greater challenge is to find the right fit, the right mindset, the right intangibles. A business can overcome skillset hiccups far easier than overcoming mindset deficiencies. A world-class soccer defender can only bring value if she first cares to bring value and believes the value she can bring is worth the effort. You are on the hunt for team members who will learn to ask, "what can go right" vs. "what can go wrong". Team members who will appreciate systems, structure, and touchpoints, instead of running rogue with an "I work best when I'm left alone" attitude. Testing for skill is much easier than testing for mindset. Testing for skill, simply provide your candidate with an actual task to do related to the job you may hire them for and them pay them for their time. Testing for mindset means you pay attention to all of the intangibles surrounding the test project in relation to how they accomplished the task. Did they ask questions? Were they on time? How did they utilize or interact with others? How did they communicate? Here is the problem, how do you objectively evaluate the subjective motivation of another person? Business owners are best served when they can hold tangible evidence in their hand of feedback that has been provided both by the candidate and by people who know the candidate well. Three things you should do during the testing and assessment phase of the hiring process. First, you should administer some sort of challenge to the person you are about to hire. If you are hiring a bookkeeper, then have them reconcile an old set of books. If you are hiring an estimator, then have them bid an old set of plans. If you are hiring a window washer, then have them wash your windows. This will help you to actually see, objectively, how they work and with what expertise. Offer to pay them for the time they committed to the task you provided. Second, you should administer a personality assessment. We recommend the DISC profile precisely because it is simple to understand for busy business owners and allows you to quickly understand what gives your candidate energy, and what sucks the life out of them. These assessments are so revealing of the motivation of a person that we no longer give hiring advice without an assessment to go with it. Finally, you should reach out to a minimum of three contacts that have had significant interaction with your candidate. Simply ask them for a list of 5 people to reach out to with their names, relationship, and contact, and then you pick three you wish to speak to. You may think, "what a waste of time... they are just going to have me call their friends." You will be surprised how many of "their friends" are willing to tell you some helpful insights. Do not overlook any of these three steps. They will take time, and they will give you irreplaceable insight into both their technical skill and their emotional intelligence so you avoid bringing a fixed mindset of pessimism into the mission of your business.

What do you want??? What do you want? No, really, what do you want? Who do you really want to be as a business? That's the question I want you to answer today. Thomas Joyner with business on Purpose here. So... that question, "what do you want?" Is always the first question we ask a business when we sit down to meet with them. It's a powerful question because it always informs us of if the business really knows who they are and where they're headed. Now, why do we ask this? Well, if we don't know where we're going... how can we make sure we are going to get there? Let me put this in practical terms by giving you some examples. I met with a small contracting company recently and asked them this. Their answer was telling… "Well, I don't really know. I mean, we were doing great doing high-end residential builds. We were a small crew and kept it pretty tight with the subs we chose. But then we got a great opportunity to start some high-end remodels. So now, we're kind of a builder who does some high-end remodels on the side. Does that answer your question?" I kind of laughed, when I said…"NO! You just told me what your business has morphed into. Not what you want it to be." And it's true, right? If we don't have a clear vision of what we want, who we want to be, and where we're headed... it's so easy to get caught taking a detour that we never intended. Now, obviously, sometimes these can be profitable. But, in this instance, the business had to hire another project manager to manage new sub crews, and had to add another admin to keep up with billing and invoicing, and ordering, all to maintain work that they didn't really want to be doing! Another story for you…"What do you want? Another client new exactly the sales goal they wanted to hit, they knew the team size they needed to reach that goal, they knew the areas of their market they wanted to penetrate and the potential distractions to avoid along the way."I can't tell you the freedom that brings a business. To know where you want to end up! From there you can work backwards in knowing if your employees are the right people to chase after the VIsion. In knowing if your ORG chart can sustain your vision. In seeing if you're offering the right product/service mix to reach these goals. Do you need to cut back somewhere? Do you need to add something? Are you being distracted in a way that is robbing you of efficiency and robbing you of your ultimate goal? This stuff happens all the time! Now, it has to be achievable. You can't throw out some wild, off-the-wall Vision that has zero chance of being accomplished. But, is there growth that is manageable in a 1-3 year window. Then at the end of that time period, figure out where the next growth can land you. If I could give your business one gift today... it would be a crystal clear picture of where you're headed. That's it! And it may sound elementary, but as I said, the businesses that don't know where they're going will never accomplish what they want to accomplish. So, what do you do with this? Well, set a meeting with yourself this week if you don't know what you want. Put it in the calendar right now. And if you do, set a meeting with yourself to look back at it and see if there's anything unintentionally distracting you from reaching it. Ask yourself when you see this vision coming to fruition. Ask yourself if the business is helping you achieve the life you want for your family...and what is that life you want for your family? Ask what revenue and margins you want to hit. Figure out who you need in your business to make this happen. What products and services you need to offer... and then finally, what culture you need to cultivate to accomplish all of this. That's the starting point... and so much more. If you can't answer these questions, you run the risk... day after day... of getting pulled away to a vision you don't really want. So set the meeting with yourself... write it down. Revisit it often. And build a plan to get there... on purpose. I hope this was helpful, make sure to follow us on YouTube and our the mybusinessonpurpose podcast. Have a great week!

In- Person Interview Questions I walked into an ice cream shoppe in Cincinnati to enjoy two scoops of Cotton Candy ice cream in a waffle cone with sprinkles on top. Yes, I am a grown man, and yes cotton candy with sprinkles is my preference. Waiting in line I noticed the manager of the shop come around from behind the counter and sit with a lady who had just walked in wearing workout gear. My first assumption is that it was a friend or family member coming into say hello. As the two sat down the manager pulled out a piece of paper and began awkwardly asking questions… "What experience do you have working with customers?" "What jobs have you had before?" "What do you think you would like about working here?" I did not time their conversation, however, there is no way it lasted longer than 2 minutes. It was noticeably brief and the conversation was vanilla (sorry, the dad joke just came out!). The interaction will be remembered as a waste of time for all involved. In-person interviews tend to either be too robotic and templated, or too meandering and wasteful. There is a better way. The business owners that tend to experience less chaos are the owners who have a mapped out, purposeful, sustained hiring process that walks potential candidates through the various attributes of the business. The exposure creates either desire or lack of desire. Imagine being guided personally throughout the various worlds of the Magic Kingdom at Disney. You don't ride the rides, but you take in the sights and the movement. At the end of your tour, you either love Disney... or not. Most in-person interviews are akin to showing someone a billboard about Disney and then asking them if they are ready to commit their lives to the cause based on a crafted, pass-by advertisement. In order to earn the right to have a great live, in-person interview, you must first have gone through the hard work of the first sections of your hiring process: Understanding the gap in your business and writing a role to fill that gap Budgeting for a new role Writing out your vision, mission, and values Drafting your organizational layout or chart Initiating a phone call with the candidate before bringing them in If you skip those steps, you are setting yourself, and your candidate up for a billboard-style job interview. Once it is time to bring the person in face to face (or via video conference if remote), you will resist the urge to talk about the actual job role. YES! You will resist discussing the job role. Instead, you will focus on sharing the things that matter most: a) where you are headed as a business (your vision), b) WHY you do what you do (your mission), and c) how your business makes decisions every day (your unique core values). You sit down with your candidate and hand them a written copy of your vision, mission, and values, and you will start to walk through each one pausing periodically to see what questions or thoughts they may have. In the first in-person interview you will discuss ONLY the culture of your business. Why? It is of no value to discuss the role or compensation if you come to find out that this candidate has no desire to head in the direction that you are going. Why would we share the details of their involvement in our trip to Kogi State, Nigeria, if we come to determine that our candidate would actually prefer to travel to Sarasota, Florida? At Business On Purpose we do things a certain way with certain elements and it can feel invasive even though our entire team is remote. We are in each other's business and are obsessed with predictability and consistency through the tools we have built and expect each other to use. Many businesses have the mindset of "get the work done however you get it done." We do not. For some that does not sit well... For others, they thrive with it. A client of ours, a mid-level Architecture firm in the Southern United States came with this idea of only discussing culture in the first sit-down interview. Once complete, the candidate looked across the table shocked, and simply said, "wow, that helps so much". As the employer, YOU lead the way. YOU set the tone. This is the culture that YOU and your team are building and it must be both protected and shared with thoughtfulness and preparation. During the phone conversation, it will be best to let the candidate know the entire flow of your hiring process by simply saying, "This is a six-step (or whatever) hiring process that will likely take 3 to 6 weeks (name your duration) to complete. After a casual phone interview where we start to learn your background, we will then invite you to an in-person live interview where we will focus our time on the vision, mission, values, and culture of our business. To be clear, we will not be discussing the specific job role or compensation details until the 2nd in-person interview (or whatever step that is for you)..." The more structured you are in the hiring process the more confidence you will breed into your

How Do You Manage Expectations? How do I manage expectations? With employees, clients, everything... Let's talk about it. Good afternoon, Thomas Joyner with Business On Purpose here. If there's one thing I've seen this year, it's the businesses that manage expectations the best are the ones who have the least issues with their employees and the least issues with clients. So... let's break this up into two pieces. First, how do we manage expectations with employees? I think it all starts with what we say. Do we honor what we say or do we tell people what they want to hear, hoping it will buy us enough time to figure out what to do? Don't do that! Slow down, mean what you say. I had a client recently who had an employee leave. Just out of the blue, submitted their two-week notice and took a job elsewhere. At the exit interview, they drilled down on why they were leaving and all the employee would say was, "There are just a lot of unmet expectations from the hiring process." So, at our next coaching time, we spent the majority of the time going back to listen to what exactly was communicated throughout the hiring process. I looked at their process top to bottom and it jumped off the page to me. "Potential for profit sharing and buying into the practice." It sounds great on paper, right? Profit-sharing and offering ownership to key employees to give them more of a stake in the company. So, I looked at the business owner and asked him, "Did you ever profit share or allow them to buy in?" Well, not exactly. We were trying to grow and thought we could table it for a bit until the right time. "So when is the right time?" Because what that communicates in the hiring process is that it's not a possibility, but a 100% option for the employee. That's the breakdown in communication right there. Without intending to offer that, it sounded like a great idea that he could figure out in the future when the time was right. A great way to get a quality person on the team and then figure out how to keep them happy on the back end. But... that's misleading and not managing expectations well at all. How else do we do this? Well, we tell employees we will train them and then feed them to the wolves. We tell them we'll have meetings to check on their progress and answer questions and then don't prioritize them ourselves so employees are left feeling unimportant. We tell them there is room for growth in the business, to give them more responsibility in their career and then bury them in their current job. What if it looked different though? What if we scheduled training times with employees and gave them an onboarding time to ask questions about their role. What if we were prepared, ready, and engaged in new employee check-ins. What if we gave employees metrics to hit, with crystal clear expectations for what you're looking for in order for them to move up in the business. IN a way that you both know if they hit it or not. You see, I think we're not careful about the things we promise, which in turn get our employees' expectations moving a direction we never intended. Be clear. Painfully clear in the expectations you set and watch the overall employee morale improve on a daily basis. So if that's how we manage it with employees, how do we manage it with clients. Well, the exact same way! Do what you say you're going to do and know what expectations you are setting before you put them in place. I have a friend who always feels like they are being attacked by clients. But here are the expectations he sets. Every time an email pops up on his phone, he answers it immediately. Every time a voicemail is left, it's answered as soon as possible. Texts, can't get to them quick enough. It's no wonder his clients get frustrated when it takes an hour because he's trained them that every text or call or email they send him is treated like an emergency. He is setting the expectation every day that he is available 24/7 to them. Now if that's the message he wants to communicate, ok. But I will sometimes read emails, and if they are not an emergency I will leave them until the next morning. I want to be 100% clear in setting expectations that I block out time for email every morning and cannot orient my entire life and schedule around other people's minor inconveniences. "But they'll leave!" Maybe... but the ones that leave are the headaches to begin with. The ones probably not worth working with anyway. "Well, that's a very narrow-minded way of doing business?" Is it though? I want the people I'm face to face with to know I'm focused entirely on them. Not being distracted nonstop at all the things vibrating on my phone. Let's talk about this practically. I asked for a quote from a contractor recently. I needed some work on my house and they came out to inspect. On the way out, the contractor said, "I'll send you a quote to your email." Great... thanks! The next morning, no quote. 3 days later, no quote. Monday of the following week I finally calle

Common Phone Interview Questions You show up for that blind date, and within an hour your date asks, "so you want to get married?" Country songs glorify fast love and love at first conversation, but the way of wisdom encourages time and intentionality in two people deciding to dive into a relationship. Certainly, commitment can drag on too long at times, but more often than not, having a solid boundary of time for a relationship to root and grow will give the runway it needs for longevity. As you begin the process of finding potential team members to hire into your business, it is necessary to have times of coordinated conversation. As important is to make time for casual, interactive, soft-skill revealing conversation. Because we are usually desperate to find good people, we tend to make the initial phone interview a catch all for everything we need to learn from the new employee candidate. In reality, the initial phone call should be just that, an initial phone call to help us get a feel for the person on the other end of the line. It is meant to be casual, free-flowing, meandering, and insightful. We are asked continually, "what questions should I ask?" Our response, "what questions would you NORMALLY ask anyone the first time you met them on the phone?" Where are you from? Tell me more about that… What is your background? Tell me more about that… How did you hear about us? Tell me more about that… What other work have you done in the past? Where? What did you like about it or not like about it? Tell me more about that… What are the things that you most like to do in life? Tell me more about that… What are the things that you don't like to do in life? Tell me more about that… Tell me more about that… Obviously, you may not ask questions that are inappropriate (age, race, gender, relationship status, etc.) Again, would you ask those in a first phone call with a new acquaintance? Probably not. The opening phone call should be used as a simple get-to-know-you. You want to know if they have done their homework on you. You want to know if they can hold their own in a conversation and think on their feet. You want to know how they can respond to open-ended, general questions. You want to know enough so you can answer this question for yourself… "Based on what role we are looking to fill, is this someone I would want to continue to walk through our process?" The initial phone call is simply a very broad filter to determine if you are ready to invest the serious time of the rest of the lengthy hiring process. I can hear some of you now, "but we are just looking for someone with a pulse to come and show up for work, we don't need to take them through this entire process." Whatever commitment you put into this process becomes the ceiling of commitment that you will likely get back from whoever you hire. If your ceiling of effort is a one (this is a made-up scale), then do not expect the level of commitment of your new hire to be any higher than a one. Your commitment will help determine their commitment. Most of us need a commitment level much higher than a one if we are going to collectively go after and achieve the mission that we have for our business. Consistently, I hear frustration from employers who went too fast and hired the wrong person. Rarely do I hear regret from an employer who makes the time for extended, intentional conversation.

3 Ways to Ensure a Successful Hire Who isn't hiring today? And how do you make sure your new hires actually stick? Well, let's talk through 3 ways to ensure your new hire is a success. Good afternoon, Thomas Joyner with Business on Purpose here. Thanks so much for joining! I recently sat in a coaching meeting with a business who had made some really important hires. But they were frustrated! "It just seems like they're spinning their wheels," they said. "They haven't really begun to own their job yet and I feel like I'm doing half of their work for them." "Well, walk me through how you set them up?" It quickly got very quiet. They realized that they hadn't done close to enough to set them up well to succeed in the new role. This story is all too common. We know we need to set our employees up and our new hires up for success, but we just don't do it for some reason. Now, many times it's because we don't know exactly what we want them to own when we make the hire. We realize that we're overwhelmed and we think more manpower immediately will help the problem. But that is nowhere close to true. Well-equipped manpower, well-trained manpower will help, but throwing more manpower at the problem is like handing someone a bike with flat tires and telling them you can get somewhere faster now. Yes, that's true, but you need to pump up the tires and give them ALL the tools they need to succeed. Before they can truly get where they need to go! So what do we need to do to ensure that our new hires thrive? Not just survive? It's what we all want to know because everyone is hiring. So… 1. Write out a Job Role It MUST start here. So often, we make a hire and put a few thoughts down, and wing it as our new employees start. "We'll just see what they're good at," we say. Instead of asking…"What does the business need them to do?" That questions should inform you of what needs to go on the job role. So write it all out. What are they responsible for owning? What does their day to day look like? You can even script out their first 2-3 weeks. Every hour, so they never have to guess what they should be doing! If it's not written down, it doesn't exist. That means if you don't write a Job Role down for a new hire, they will never know what they are held responsible for and, unless you make a 1 in a million hire, they will never accomplish what you hired them to do in the first place. But if you write down the Job Role, tweak as needed, and train on their responsibilities, you guarantee that they will at the very least know what they are being asked to do. 2. Build out their first 90 days of expectations It never fails. Well, we had an employee evaluation at 90 days and they are barely keeping their head above water. Why? Because they don't know what they were supposed to have learned in that time. Other than a few day to day items, odds are they don't know the technical skills you've asked them to learn, the systems they were supposed to impact, the meetings they were supposed to lead. No, we fail our employees when we don't tell them what the goal is at the end of 90 days. So they can ask questions and ask for help or clarity if need be. They have to know what our expectations are for them in the first 90 days so we can accurately tell whether they were the right fit for the role. If we don't set them up accordingly, their failure is on us. So what do these expectations need to have? Well, a weekly schedule for them, technical skills to know like sales software, industry contacts, workflow systems, you name it. The next set of expectations is on deliverables you need from them. Any accounts they need to sell to? Any budgets they need to work through or processes they need to write out? Lastly, what meetings and trainings do they need to attend or become competent in. If you can give them expectations for each of these, they will be led to the standard, not left to wonder where it is! 3. Schedule a weekly onboarding meeting to make small course corrections along the way. You have to check in on them along the way. Set 30 minutes on the calendar and a meeting that neither of you can cancel. Ask them some simple onboarding questions. What are you seeing? Capturing their eyes at the beginning and seeing what they see is amazingly powerful. What questions do you have about your job role? Again, always supporting, always providing clarity. Do we have any blind spots? Allowing them to speak and put words to what their seeing and maybe improve an area you didn't know needed it! And lastly, here's what we see. A chance for you to praise and critique. To make small course corrections instead of sweeping your frustrations under the rug for months until the next employee eval. Give them small windows of things to change and then you have a record for months down the road. That's it! If you can give them a detailed Job Role, build out their first 90 days of expectations and have a weekly onboarding meeting to course correct, you show them th

The State of your Attention Determines the State of your Life/Business Hey folks, Brent Perry here, and I am one of the coaches here at Business on Purpose. Let's take a quick assessment. James Redfield has a quote that states: "Where Attention goes Energy flows!" Take a few minutes and think over the past few weeks of work and life. Especially you business owners out there. Where has your attention been given in your business? Where has the energy, if you will, been flowing? Are you in a season where your attention is being focused on all the wrong things? Putting out fires everyday. Glued to your computer because you're drowning in emails and proposals. Finishing the day and already dreading the next? If that sounds like you, I promise you are not alone. John Mark Comer has a quote in his book, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, "Because what you give your attention to is the person you become." And he even follows it up again on the next page saying, "But again: we become what we give our attention to, for better or worse." Where is your attention? Story of Brad and his golf game... going pro! As a business owner, where does your energy need to be flowing? It's time to take a step towards working on your business, and not just in your business. Do me a favor next week… Write down 3 things in your business that deserve your attention. Maybe it's training for employees. Maybe it's time to budget for your next project. Maybe it's hiring an HR manager or a bookkeeper to clean up those books. Maybe it's a team meeting that you have been putting off. These are the types of things that need your attention as you lead your team and business into the 3rd quarter of this year. Thanks for listening.

Four Steps Towards Better Intuition in your Business Do you have intuition? Or do you think you do? Do you just wing it or do you have a process for it? Well, let's take a few minutes to find out if you truly do. Good afternoon friends, Thomas Joyner with Business On Purpose here. This past weekend, our entire team flew up to Franklin, Tennessee to celebrate the opening of a new BoP location in Middle Tennessee. True to our colors we spent time going over the vision, the mission, the core values and then spent the better part of the afternoon being taught by our own team members in ways that they are strong. It was an incredibly powerful time to be together, to halt coaching for a day and reinvest back into our team. If you're not doing something like this, I can't encourage you enough to invest the time and resources to do so. We all have a little spring in our step this morning and are excited to be a part of this team. One of our coaches asked us this question and the teaching from it was so powerful for me. He asked us if we have intuition. We all kind of raised our hands as we were like, "Of course, we wouldn't have been hired to do this if we didn't have some decent sense of intuition." But he didn't stop there. Most self-aware and healthy individuals have some sense of intuition. They can typically take a problem and drill down to what's underneath. However, most of us stop a few steps short of actually fixing it, so we end up repeating our mistakes over and over again. We walked through this "Intuition Process" as I coined it for my own memory, to never forget the 4 steps. So what are the 4 steps? Let's dive in and talk about it. The first thing we must do is wrap our arms around the problem. Asking simple questions to figure out what the dilemma is. Is it personnel-driven, a problem with a product or service, or maybe a client? I don't know... but it's asking enough questions to wrap your mind around the problem you're facing. The second thing we need to do is drill down and ask, "What's the root of the problem or what's the real issue?" I injured my back a few months back working out. I went to a physical therapist as I could barely walk and they asked me a series of questions. I pointed to where it hurt and how I injured it and they told me it was a problem with my glute muscles. "No, the pain is right here," I kind of said as I pointed to a spot 6-8'' above where they were telling them the problem was. I'll never forget what the PT person said. "Oftentimes where it hurts is not the problem. That's just where the problem is rearing its ugly head!" Man, that is so true. Often times the problem is not what you see or feel, but a failure somewhere else along the line and this is just where it manifests itself. So, as you're asking questions, what is the root of the problem? What created it? A breakdown in communication? Overlooking something in a hiring process? Maybe it was training-related? But find out what the real issue is! Third, ask "What's the action to take?'' Now, this can be tough. Rarely are actions black and white, but most are somewhere in the gray spectrum. So, with the information we have, what is the action we need to take? This can take some time to discuss, but there should be an action to take. Now, this is where most people stop. And it's natural to stop here. We fixed the problem, rooted it out, and took action. But if you stop here, you're bound to repeat your mistake! You've got to take one more step. That step is what Process do we need to build or tweak to prevent this from happening again! That's powerful stuff right there. What do we need to put in place to make sure this root issue is solved! Think how freed up your business would be if you built a process every time something went wrong to insure that it never happened again! For one, you would probably have a whole lot less mistakes every single day. So, what does this look like in the real world? Let me walk you through an example. We work with a client who hired a new salesperson. A few months in they just weren't getting the hang of it. We tried more training, we tried encouragement, we tried everything we could to get their performance up and it just wasn't happening. In fact, they were well below their peers who had been selling way less time than this new employee. So we began to work this Intuition Process. We knew the problem. This employee was not getting close to meeting sales quota. As we drilled down a bit, we realized that the problem was NOT the employee. We realized that there were some assumptions made in the hiring process. This person should have never been hired for this role in the first place. They were just not a salesperson, but much more of a support role type. So, the owner took responsibility for that and realized we had to take action. We put some metrics for the employee to reach to be able to continue in the sales role. There were other roles they could fill, but they couldn't be paid to pr

3 MUST DO business tasks at mid-year… We're at the halfway point of 2021... so what now? Well, here are 3 MUST Do business tasks that every business should do this month. Good afternoon Thomas Joyner here with Business on Purpose. It's easy to get into the habit of putting it on cruise control. It's summer vacation for kids, everyone is restless to get on the water over the weekend. It's hot and humid... you name it. It's natural to hit the halfway point and just kind of hit autopilot for a month or two until you realize you have to hit your numbers by year-end. But hey, that's not operating your business "ON PURPOSE" now is it? In fact, all that leads you to is getting stressed at all the work you didn't do in Q3! So what do you need to do today? You won't achieve all of your goals, you won't earn your year-end bonuses, but you can definitely stall your business enough to prevent yourself from either of those things. So... today. Get out your calendar and schedule 1-2 hours for each of these tasks. Now, that's the tip of the iceberg. Some of these things will take more time. But if you get the ball rolling you can always schedule more time to finish the conversations surrounding them. So, figure out who needs to be in the room and schedule it now. Ok, so what are the 3 MUST DO business tasks at mid-year? Look back over the first 6 months performance to see how you're doing You set goals, where do you line up in relation to them. Are you over/underperforming? If you doubled your numbers will that get you to yearly goals? How is your team performing? Are there pieces that need some care or further training? Lastly, take a peek at your financials. Ok, take more than a peek. Look at your Profit and Loss Statement, look at your cash flow month to month and check in with your CPA to see if there is anything that doesn't make sense. Are your margins where you hoped they would be? Are your labor costs high/low? Are materials and inventory where you thought? Any expenses way higher/lower than you anticipated? These are all great questions to ask so that you know if you need to make some changes moving into the second half of the year. I was looking over this with a client recently and they were frustrated at their payroll. It was almost 20% higher than they anticipated. So, we looked back over it and realized they were paying 8 guys 10 hours of overtime a week at time and a half. You do the math and that's a lot of extra payroll expense. So, we made the necessary decision to hire 2 new employees to get those overtime costs down. Had they not looked? They would be looking at a HUGE loss to the company, plus they now have the opportunity to get more work and grow their team. All because they took an hour to look back at the past 6 monthsperformance. 2. Spend some time forecasting THROUGH Q1 of 2022 What work can you plan on getting over the next 6-9 months? Do you have the staff to accomplish that work? Are there any roles you need to add? Roles you need to merge into one? Anything at all on the horizon, you need to be prepared for. I can say from experience that most BIG mistakes I've seen when sitting in with clients are all a result of not forecasting. This is what I mean… Acme Co. enjoys a slow summer. They take it all in and just enjoy the slower season. Waiting for them is 4 HUGE projects that all begin at the end of August. So... August 1st arrives, and by that time it's too late. They realize they need 3-4 more employees to handle the work. So, they have to rush the hiring process. They are unable to do the appropriate vetting because it's an emergency and they just need bodies. Next thing you know, they mess up on the job. It costs the business time, money and reputation. Margins go down. Businesses notice the quality of your work. All because they weren't aware of what was on the horizon. So what is coming in the future that you can prepare for now? Put in the time and then build out the systems to support it. You have time today. You will not 6 weeks from now. 3. Build out your hiring process for if, and when, you need people. The one thing that we hear constantly is this…"I feel like my employees know I don't have anyone waiting behind them, so there's no way to hold them accountable!" Well, what if there was a way to have someone behind them? What if you were in hiring mode all year round, with a pool of competent candidates ready to hire. It doesn't just happen. So often we wait until we need someone to actually put in the time. But, when we are interviewing, or at least working on our interview process, we can seamlessly integrate new, qualified people into our business and use that to push our employees to a standard. I can promise you this... you will need good people. I can also promise you that they will be tough to find in an emergency. Spend time and energy finding good people, build roles for them and then work hard to find the right role within your business to maximize their skills. That's how

Why Transfer Your Influence: How A Business Sets Itself Free by Scott Beebe Founder | Head Coach Business On Purpose 12 Week Plan Live Event Hewitt Oaks, Bluffton, SC 17th June 2021

"Transferring Your Authority: How To Equip Your Team And Set Them Free" by Thomas Joyner Business Coach, Business On Purpose 12 Week Plan Live Event Hewitt Oaks, Bluffton, SC 17th June 2021

What exactly IS the function of an ORG Chart? Two phrases I've heard in the past week… "I feel like our business needs more from our employees." and "I feel like we have holes between what our business needs and what it actually has!" My answer? You're absolutely correct. Happy Monday friends, Thomas Joyner with business on purpose here. We're going to answer the question today of what exactly is the function of an ORG Chart in your business. Let's go back to those questions that I was asked this week. And surprisingly, the two go together. The first one gets to the thought of What does your business need? It's a great question to ask. If you could wipe the slate clean, fire everyone (hypothetically speaking, please don't go out and fire everyone right now), and build your business to serve your needs today... would you have the job roles you have? Probably not! No, you need more from your employees, because they were hired in chaos... NOT from a place of vision. "Gah, the phones are ringing off the hook, we have to hire another administrative person!" Or maybe something like this, "We're driving all over the place, we need someone who can handle estimates and still do a little work on the job, so let's make a hybrid Project manager/estimator role to fill the gap for right now." Well, that whole fill the gap excuse lasts a year, then 2 years, then you can't remember what you were hoping that role grew into in the first place. You're not crazy, it happens all the time! Let's look at the second question. "I feel like we have holes between what our business needs and what it actually has!" Of course, because when you hire in chaos, it's solving an immediate need, but not the most efficient, best long-term need. And here is what happens. You end up with a bunch of people on your team with overlapping job roles, working outside of their strengths because the urgency is informing the hire instead of the vision and the need informing the hire! When we start in crisis and don't think things through we end up with an ORG chart that looks completely different than what the business needs. So... where do we start and how do we combat this? You have to go back to this thought of if I could start over from scratch and build my business to serve my current revenue numbers, what job roles does the business need. Notice what you didn't hear me say. I did NOT say, who do we currently have in our business and what else do we need. No, this may take us shaking up our entire business to finally, FINALLY give the business what it so desperately needs. So, go through the 4 main pieces to your business, ADMIN, Marketing, sales, Operations, and start putting down roles. To handle the administrative tasks our business needs, what roles does that require? Do we have 4 people handling this part-time? Could it be blended into one job role to help with communication and collaboration? In looking at Marketing, ask, who is quarterbacking the marketing processes. Who is leading the charge and what support do they need? With Sales? Who's in the field, how much can they legitimately handle? How many salespeople and managers does the business truly need? And with Operations, what does that team ideally look like? Is that how we're running things? If not, why not? The last question I want you to filter all of this through… Does this ORG chart, we built allow us to manage the growth we're expecting and wanting in our vision? If not, what are the necessary roles we need to get there? I love doing this! It's so simple and yet gives you a framework for all hiring. No more hybrid roles where one person is operating in total confusion because they're just a stop gap for all overflowing work! That's not effective and horribly inefficient. Your business will tell you what it needs if you're willing to put in the time and listen. But think long-term for a second. What if your business had all the roles filled that it needed, with employees that knew what they were held accountable for... with room for business growth! That's the purpose of an Org Chart. To tell you what your business needs today... and what your business needs to accomplish your vision. Thanks for listening today... Hey, make sure you subscribe to our podcast and our YouTube channel. We've got free content coming out daily for your commute to work or for just sharing with your team. Get on and subscribe...