Thomas Green here with ethical marketing service on the episode today we have Jhana Lee. Jhana, welcome. Hi Thomas good to be here. It’s good to have you. Would you like to take a moment and tell the audience a bit about yourself and what you do. Sure. So I am a operations coach and consultant. I work with digital startups. Digital entrepreneurs to essentially diagnose where they are experiencing operational bottlenecks within their business and I connect them with the operational expertise that they need in order to partner up and allow that operator to build out the systems, the team infrastructure needed to help that company scale. Thank you for the introduction. Lots of lots of good stuff to ask you about their, how did you get into this line of work? You know, I really stumbled into it. My first operational job was about five years ago and at the time I didn’t even know what operations was, I didn’t even know that that’s what I was doing when I had that job. Um And that’s what I hear from a lot of operators. There’s not really a clear career path there, most people kind of find it by accident. Um And that was certainly the case for me. So I ended up being the ceo for that, it was a digital marketing agency and then moved over to the ceo position at a coaching company that was coaching a lot of marketing agencies.
Um So I ended up getting access to a lot of like the inner workings of a lot of different businesses, seeing what worked what didn’t. Um And then I realized that I had amassed quite a bit of data around what are the best practices that allow a company to scale and so I started my own business to help uh spread that information and work with more clients to help them scale up so on that topic um what what’s the best way for businesses to scale? The best way? It’s a pretty big question thomas. Um here’s what I’ll say, I don’t think that there is a right way capital, r right way to scale a business. I think where it has to start um is with the entrepreneur and the owner themselves and really asking themselves the question of not just how big do I want this business to be, but what do I want this business to look like in relation to me and to my life? Right? Because there’s there’s a version of your company that’s the biggest dollar amount in your bank account, but you might hate your life and it might be pulling 14 hours a day from you and you never see your family anymore.
Right? To me, that’s not success. And so how we customize and how we create your operational infrastructure needs to be a reflection of the business that you are trying to build and what that definition of success looks like, not just for the business but also for your relationship to that business, What role you play, how much time you’re committing to it that’s going to determine the rigorous, like the rigorous nous of your infrastructure, the size and the scope of your team, right? Like these things are variables that we are able to match based off of what your vision for yourself is, if that makes sense? Perfect sense. Um I will push back with another question based on your answer, which is how how does someone determine what that, that best way for them looks like looks like provided that they’ve already established. This is the company that I want. This is the vision that I have. Well, it’s more of a question I suppose on what that vision is. So let’s say, I’m trying to determine what the business should look like. How how do I go about doing that? Sure. I think it starts by asking yourself why question and then drilling down deeper by asking yourself more why questions, right?
Why did I start this business on the surface? It could be any number of reasons to have personal freedom to make a lot of money right? Like these are common reasons that people might start businesses. Okay beautiful. You want to make a lot of money? Why? Well, because I want to provide a better life for my family than I had for myself. Okay, well why is that right? When you drill down and get to the core of who you are as an individual, your business is just a vehicle for you too accomplish that vision in the world, right for you to accomplish that, why in the world? And so unless you have clarity about why you’re working so hard and starting this thing in the first place. The business is leading you right? The business is determining what it’s going to turn out to be versus you having a clear picture from the beginning of here’s what I set out to build, here’s why I wanted to be the way that it is, and now I’m able to make strategic decisions and say yes and no to different opportunities on the table based off of that guiding principle. Great answer. So what’s your, your wife at the moment then? My underlying why is I genuinely believe entrepreneurs are one of the most powerful vehicles for change in the world.
I like working with entrepreneurs, they’re the most innovative, creative, hardworking, incredible people, and when you take that level of talent and you attach it to the world’s greatest, most challenging problems and and things to solve amazing things happen. Um and so for me, my wife is really about unlocking the potential and the impact and the vision of entrepreneurs because I think they can be such a force for good, thank you for that. Um you’ve been on both sort of side, so you’ve been in operations, um and now you’re an entrepreneur yourself, have you got any thoughts about the the owner or the entrepreneur actually being in operations and versus sort of hiring someone to do that on your behalf. That’s a great question, I don’t know if you’re familiar thomas with like e. O. S. Rocket fuel, the visionary integrator dynamic essentially, he draws this this distinction between two primary kind of avatars and the combination of these two skill sets tends to be behind some of the greatest business success stories that we know today.
There’s the visionaries, The visionary is that it’s the Elon musk’s and the steve jobs, right? It’s it’s these bold creative thinkers who are out in front, charismatic leaders, they are leading the charge, They’re building an inspiring vision for people to follow. And then you have on the back end this integrator and the integrators or integrator is this person that is responsible for taking that vision and reverse engineering it into an actual reality that exists, right? I would say most of the operators that I work with fall under that integrator category. Most of the business owners that I work with fall under that visionary category. There is a small Combat like there’s a small portion of the population about 5%. That could be both right? But there are there are few. They’re far between and what I would say is that at the very beginning of your business you have no option. You’ve got to be both right in the same way that you also have to be sales and marketing and client success, like that’s just startup, right? But once you’re growing your company, you have the opportunity and you have actually the duty to specialize and drive value to your business within your zone of genius and if operations, if you’re one of the 95% that is just straight visionary and doesn’t want to touch a system with a 10 ft pole, don’t write like you have the opportunity is actually the most efficient way to grow your business to allow for an expert who loves systems.
SNPs processes could build that all day to take that on because they’re gonna do a better job with it, They’re gonna do it faster, They’re going to do it like for the cost of your time, they’re going to do it cheaper. Right. And so there’s actually an operational argument towards this level of delegation and specialization because what your business needs from you and what nobody else on the company can provide is that vision and the role of the visionary. Great answer. Thank you. Where would you say you fit in those two categories? You know, I would say I am a a integrator by nature and a visionary by training. I’m working on becoming the visionary, but I’ll be honest with you thomas, it’s probably the hardest part of growing this business has been stepping into that role. And what makes you say that it’s just out, it’s out of my comfort zone, it’s out of my zone of genius. Right. And I always thought of myself as that person on the back end, helping somebody else’s vision to come to light um for me to do that for myself and for me to play both roles. My business coach calls it. Sometimes I have to sit down and have a schizophrenic tea party with myself and just, you know, take, take both hats and trade them back and forth and have the conversation um with myself and wearing both hats has been a challenge.
It is interesting though because I do find with with problems it almost seems like if someone came to you with a problem, you’d be able to give better advice than if you had that problem yourself. And so that kind of conversation is, I don’t know, beneficial, do you find it works sometimes, sometimes better than others? Um what I find generally, and this is true I think for a lot of entrepreneurs who have to wear a lot of hats right, is that you have to just be aware of the hat that you’re wearing in that moment in time where people get jumbled is when they are trying to be, take all of the lenses on their business all at once. And the reality is that the reason we ultimately have a whole team is so that your CMO can just look at the company through marketing and your C 00 can just look at it through operations for you to have the self awareness to recognize, like sometimes I’ll get clients hats to take on and off so that they can just be more self aware of. Like what is the lens that I’m looking at the company through right now and can I block out time to look at it through this specific lens and then switch hats as opposed to just trying to always be everywhere, thinking through everything all at once.
That’s where gaps end up opening up and you end up dropping balls are missing things. Thank you for that. Um, have you got any, uh, I mean this is a selfish question really. You’ve got a marketing agency experience? What are your thoughts on that business overall? I suppose your best advice for someone who’s in that business. Okay. I think marketing agencies are an amazing business model again, because I think they give you as an entrepreneur and especially as a new entrepreneur, an opportunity to experience every core pillar of a business, right? Sales, marketing client success. It’s all there. You get to to feel into every single one of those and understand what it works like, what works, what it takes, how to make that happen. And so it’s, it’s like a business in a box. It’s a business one. Oh, one course. I think it’s absolutely phenomenal. There’s a lot of marketing agency owners who, I don’t know if they are building that business model because they want to stay in that business model, which is not a bad thing at all.
That’s totally fine, right? But let’s treat it then for what it is and let’s build it then for what it is. What I see is a lot of marketing agency owners who start that business to get a lot of personal freedom or they do it to make a lot of money and some sort of recurring cash flow and 23 years later they find themselves completely stuck and trapped in their businesses and it’s a business that they didn’t even really want to run in the first place. And so again, my advice to you would be like, get clear on why you’re starting the business you are. Again, I think it’s an incredible business model to start with, but if that’s not your endpoint, build it in such a way where it’s not your endpoint and be willing to build the team and the structure around you that you need and let go the reins in the way that you need to keep your life moving forward as an entrepreneur and going out to create the passion projects and the impact that you are really meant to create. Any um, any wins from your perspective in terms of that spring to mind, what are your best wins in when you’re running that business? Uh, when I was the ceo of a marketing agency, hmm, best wins for me, honestly, the greatest wins that I’ve had in any business are winds that come from my team, That’s for me, just a source of personal fulfillment when I see a team member who steps up or who takes proactive action or who comes up with, like some genius, innovative idea that to me is is the biggest high of anything in the world because what it means is that I’ve done my work as a leader to create an environment for that thought to take place for that action to take place.
And it’s so fulfilling to me to see my team step into that environment and take full advantage of that opportunity and come to the table with just world class stuff. I absolutely love it. Thank you for that. Um I’m going going back for the, shall we say, the benefit of other people now, that’s my, my selfish, selfish question is done. You mentioned the systems in one of your answers and I’ve had this conversation a few times and I find it quite difficult as a, as a topic or a subject to give value um in the audio format. So in terms of, if you wanted to teach someone systems processes this kind of um I don’t know, I find it difficult to be able to teach that to someone in, in um in this particular format. So given that how, how would you go about explaining it to someone who perhaps isn’t doing it in the way that they should, it’s interesting to find that challenging. It’s, it’s, I have a coaching program where I do exactly that.
So I would say I figured it out to an extent, I think the, the biggest aha moment I had in building my program out was the very first iteration, the very first cohort was strictly theory, right? It was me giving a live presentation around, here’s all of the best practices around building out a project manager or slack or automation or any of these sort of system components. Um my students walked away from that cohort, I think with an understanding but not a mastery of the actual skill set. So in future cohorts, I ended adding in a layer of like actionable practice where every single week there actually practicing the skills that I give them and that has helped a lot. I would say that with when it comes to systems, you have to understand, you have to understand the best practices behind what makes the system work or not. But then at the end of the day you have to just get in there and click some buttons and you have to see what works. The thing I think with systems is that it’s an iterative process. People put a lot of pressure on themselves to have the perfect system the first time go around right, I want to solve this problem completely in its perfection and then I never want to touch this system again and the reality is especially in startups, things are just changing too quickly.
A right, like that system is going to change with every iteration that the company goes through and then be the only way to really crack and get the right or the perfect system is with the live feedback that your team is giving you because at the end of the day, unless you have your person of one and a team of one, in which case don’t build the system in the first place, you your team is ultimately the end user. So you have to build a system for the end user, the way you would build a product for the end user and get client feedback, team feedback and iterate constantly based off of what’s working for them. What’s not? Where is that system supporting them? Where is it slowing them down? So it’s a collaborative process? And if you are trying to create that system in a vacuum, it’s never going to come out in the way that you actually need it to. And if you’re trying to create the perfect system and never touch it again, it’s never going to come out the way that it needs to thank you for that. And I do think, um I don’t know why, I think it’s sort of like a built in assumption or presumption that I had about when you’re creating a system, it has to be, I don’t know that it has to be that, but it’s certainly presumed that okay, we’re going to do one that’s perfect start to finish and the reality of basically everything else that you do is that you build upon it right?
Right. Right. Why would it be any different? Well, and here’s the thing Thomas is that it’s also of benefit because one of the biggest issues as an operator is that you have to get your teams buy in to using this system, which is sometimes incredibly difficult, right? It gets easier when your team feels like they have a level of ownership over what’s being created. It’s human nature that if you were to come to me and put something on me, I’m immediately antagonistic towards that. I’m resistant towards that. I’m going to push back versus if we come into collaboration with each other and we’re co creating something now, I’m 50% owner of that and what I own what I create, I take pride in, I want to use that system because I built it was built for me. And so the other issue I see is that when you’re trying to create this system or an S. O. P. Or whatever it is in this vacuum and then just hand it to your team, they have no ownership over that. They don’t understand why it was built the way that it was and they’re naturally resistant to adopting that new system in those new behaviors versus providing a foundation of hey guys, I think this is what the system could look like.
Now we’re going to set up a team meeting 30 minutes every single week and I want you to come in here and I just want you to rant about all of the things that aren’t working and could be better and where is it happening for you, right? And like tell me your experience with this now. They feel like they’re a co collaborator in that process and they’re way more likely to adopt and use this system in the first place, which is ultimately the desired outcome, right? Like the best system in the world. Guys, if your team is not using it absolutely useless. And in fact it’s a waste of your time. Because all that time you invested in building it has now yielded no positive results within the business. Mm hmm. And to to add to that. Also, you don’t necessarily know what all the um implications of what you’re doing are aware is that the team can tell you that that stuff if you involve them. Absolutely. I think overall like treat your team as the experts in their role because they are like, as soon as you’ve hired that person in you no longer own that result. And I see a lot of leaders get this confused where I hiring a person to do what I tell them or to do their job the way I would do their job, right?
Versus I’m hiring this person to be an expert to bring their own innovation and creativity to this role and to own the result of this role and how it drives growth to the business. I didn’t hire this person unless I’m confident in their ability to be an expert and own this role and therefore I’m going to let them take the lead on how they do it. And I’m going to ask them to pull in the data from their role and help me support them in doing that role as best as possible, but ultimately they own it, they’re the expert there in it every day. I need their collaboration and buy in to make it as strong as possible. Well, we’ve kind of gone into the, the topic of the team, so I feel like it’s a good opportunity to ask you about remote team building, hiring, training and firing. I kind of just want to say, please share with me what your, what your knowledge is there because I think most people regarding the remote approach to this is just like default. Like I haven’t really got an approach, I’m just going to do whatever comes naturally. So what your thoughts there totally.
Okay, so the first thing I’ll say thomas is like hiring, training and firing are three different modules in my program because there’s a lot there and the reason for that guys is because at the end of the day, the biggest differentiating factor and this is true between the businesses that scale that I see and the businesses that don’t are the teams that they bring and how they set those teams up for success, who you hire is so much more powerful than any other lever you can pull in the business because once you hire and once you have a team around you, the determining factor for success in your business is no longer you right? When you’re a startup entrepreneur, it’s all about you. How hard can you work, How smart can you be? How great of an idea can you have when you’re building a team around you and you’re trying to scale a company, it’s no longer about you. It’s how well can you get a team to execute for you in alignment with you? Right? How can you inspire a team to have the best ideas and so who you hire determines your success at that stage of growth in the business?
So take it seriously would be my first, my first piece of advice. Take it seriously slow it down. Don’t hire the first person that comes along just because they come along and you’re stressed out and you need to fill this role right, hire the person that you know is going to have success in the role in the way that you’ve defined it. So my number one best practice around hiring thomas is build a definition for success for that role before you ever talked to a candidate before you ever look for a candidate, create a definition of, what does this role do in this business? How does it drive growth? What are the desired outcomes that I have for this role like really get tangible? How can you quantify and set targets and deadlines to what a player would be able to execute and accomplish if they were in this role. Predefined that and then what are the core skill sets and competencies? So these are the three pieces, the mission statement that answers the question why why does this rule exist? The outcomes that answers the question what what would an a player be able to accomplish in this role and then the skill sets the competencies.
That’s the how right How would they go about doing this? Predefined that and then go out into the marketplace and find the person who matches that definition because the reality is that as human beings we are terrible at judging other human beings objectively. We have all these cognitive biases and we’re gonna hire the person because they also have a dog and they kind of look like us and like we both love maine right? Like that’s how we hire. But having a pre built definition of success helps eliminate some of that cognitive bias and actually go out and look for the person and judge the people that you are interviewing and in fact build the entire interview process around filtering four who is the match for this avatar that I’ve created so that I can find them, I can recognize them And even if I don’t like that person very much, that’s the person that’s going to have highest success in this role. And ultimately I’m hiring them to be the expert in this role. So that’s the person I’m going to put in the in the place there. Thank you for that. I feel like that that should be like a video on its own. We should like snip that out and just put that as like advice for people to put that on the wall, quick reminder.
That’s just hiring, right? Training has a whole set and then firing has a whole set. So how did you get into that as well if you’d like? Um Well yeah, I feel like based on the last answer, I definitely feel like I should ask you about those things. But as a as just a comment in terms of what people tend to do. Like if you can stop making the mistakes that you referred to um like the first time you do it for example, and just use the advice that you just gave, it would be you’re going to remove a lot of pain, potential future pain from your Absolutely. And the reality is expense. Miss hires are unbelievably expensive for an entry level position. The cost of a miss higher is the full annual salary of that position at a c suite level. It’s 25 times the annual salary of that person because the cost that you’re factoring in is not just the cost of going to find that person hire that person train that person than fire that person, right? It’s also the cost of its the opportunity cost, it’s the revenue that didn’t come into the business because you didn’t have the right person in that role, right?
So you’re incurring this enormous cost when you miss higher and for that reason like, yes, take your time. You are playing with a lot of money here, try and and optimize it and use it as best as possible. Um, regarding training. It’s actually not a topic which I have spoken about very often. So what do you think that is? Why don’t, why don’t more people talk about training their staff? Why don’t people, you know, I’ve never thought about that. Why don’t people talk about that? Because ultimately how you, so like set that person up. I believe the 1st 30 days of any employee lifecycle are the most important. 30 days of any employee lifecycle. It’s like onboarding a client, how you set expectations, how you structure the dynamic in the relationship, how you like how you do that. We know that that creates churn and retention years out. It’s the same exact thing with your employee. The 1st 30 days should be very structured because you are setting expectations with that person around.
Here’s how we do things, Here’s what your role is. Here’s what strong performance looks like here are the things that are not okay, right? If you leave that up for just organic, we’ll see what happens, Then you’re missing out on this massive opportunity to a align the behaviors of your team, the culture of these things we know, but you’re also just leaving that completely up to chance of like what are the lessons that this person is learning? How is this person going to show up for you? Not today, not tomorrow, but six months from now, 12 months from now because as like our brains as human beings, we’re incredibly social creatures. When we step into a new tribe into a new village, we’re hyper aware of. What are the rules and regulations here? What are the behaviors here? What’s the culture here? Because I don’t want to be rejected. I don’t want to be thrown out of a tribe right at like a deep animalistic level. We are hyper open to any data and any information that’s coming into us in that moment. So you have an opportunity with the new member of your team to take advantage of that moment and surround them. But by all the right messaging and all of the right team moments and all of the right lessons that they need to learn Or you leave that up to chance and maybe they’ll get the right lessons or maybe they won’t right.
And that’s a very scary thing to me. I wouldn’t leave that up to chance. So I do a few things when I train somebody in the 1st 24 hours, I sit them down and I personally walk them through my culture deck, you can look net netflix Zappos. There’s great examples of culture decks out there, build one for your company, that’s your mission, your vision, your core values, right. Set expectations. Then in the first week I put them in as many meetings as I can because I want to immerse them again while their brains are hyper open, receptive to data, I want to immerse them in the best that my company culture has to offer. So I’ll put them in meetings even if it’s not relevant to their role necessarily, I’ll put them in the sales meeting. Right? But I want them to just be absorbing, here’s who we are, here’s what we do here. Here’s the behavior that’s okay. Here’s the behavior that’s not okay, right. And if I’ve done my job correctly, then the information that I’ve presented to them in the culture deck is going to be reflected back to them by what they see in the actions of my team and that’s going to gel and really coalesce and that’s like the biggest culture dump that I could ever put into a person.
And it happens in the very first week, My final best practice around training just to keep it overview at the end of the first week I sit them down and I asked them, where do you see this company could be better because the reality is guys is that as we step into our businesses, things start to lock in, we get tunnel vision, Oh we do that because we’ve always done that. It’s just the way things are for a new employee. They have an incredible gift to give you because nothing is the way it is, there are no patterns, there is no tunnel vision, everything is new. So they have this clear sightedness that is very soon going to go away. And I like to take advantage of that moment. And I asked them independent of your role, independent of your department like where do you see room for opportunity for growth and improvement across the business? I would love to learn and what sort of responses have you gotten? It can be anything, here’s where I see this meeting could be run better. I’m confused about why we do this system this way. It feels like that part over there is unnecessary, right? Like when you create that kind of, the other benefit of it is that you are creating a radically honest and kind of transparent communication flow right from the beginning as well.
When you’re asking the newest member of your team to tell the ceo what could be better. That’s a very powerful moment that says, hey, welcome to this company, Your opinion matters and I want you to always feel comfortable voicing anything whether that be good or bad, thank you for that valuable stuff. So the next one of course is is firing and I based on everything you’ve said so far, I’m very interested to hear your approach on this one. So can you share what your thoughts are there? Yeah, absolutely. Um, two things, number one, If I fire a person, I never want them to be surprised. If they’re surprised, then I will have failed. What I mean by that is that if you guys are planning to fire somebody, it is your responsibility to bring whatever performance gap or behavior gap you’re seeing to their attention immediately. That should be an open and honest conversation because until you draw somebody’s awareness to the problem, I promise you, they do not see it. We are not that self aware and I see business owners all the time coming in and like ranting to me about this, that person and they did this and they keep doing this and I’m like, well have you told them you’re like no, how are they going to figure that out?
I promise you that behavior is not going to change. Right? So I go through two cycles of conversations with a person before I off board them. The first I call a pep, a personal elevation plan and it’s a radically honest conversation. We sit down and I say, hey listen, we established that this is your role and these are the standards of performance in your role. That’s one more thing thomas I forgot to mention in the first week of onboarding, somebody I, that job scorecard, that definition of success I built in the hiring process, I give it to them and I say, this is your role, this is what you own and these are the standards that I expect first week, Right? So we’ve set that framework from the very beginning if they’re not living up to that definition of success, which is why we’re having this conversation, I sat them down and say, help me understand because when you first joined this company, we were on the same page that this was the definition of the role and the standards that were expected of you, they’re up here, you’re operating here. So help me understand why is this happening? Do you understand this gap and what are you going to do to close this gap now?
What do you need from me to support you in closing it? It’s really important because the ownership for fixing the problem is on them, not on me, I’m there in a supportive role, I’ll be there as an accountability coach, but I will not take this off of you. This was the definition of success and you’re here. It’s a problem. So what are you going to do to close the gap? And then we build a game plan together. Again, it’s collaborative there, A co owner. It’s collaborative. What are we gonna do weekly calls X, Y, z thing, get you in this training, whatever. Right. That’s the pep. If I still haven’t seen changes in their behavior for the duration of that, you know, four week period, then we elevate it to a pip, which I think people are more familiar with. That’s a conversation that says, listen again, this is the definition of success and I don’t accept anything less than this at my company. And so unless we can figure out how to close the gap, it’s not a problem. It just means that you’re no longer a fit. It just means that you’re not the right fit for the business. It’s totally okay. I believe you to be capable of this. What are you going to do to solve this problem? It’s just it’s an elevated conversation, but it’s the same conversation.
What are you going to do to resolve this issue? And what do you need from me? Because I’m not seeing the change that I need to see if after all of that they still haven’t corrected the issue. Yeah, I’m gonna fire them and they won’t be surprised because we’ve had this conversation every single week for like 4 to 8 weeks at this point, right? The key is is that you have to act immediately. I see a lot of business owners their own emotional discomfort around the conversation gets in the way guys. Let’s be clear. That’s incredibly selfish. You’re allowing your emotional discomfort to stand and rob your employee of an opportunity to grow and get better and rob your company of an opportunity to benefit from that person’s growth, get out of your own way. It’s not a good enough reason, right? And here’s the second part around off boarding and this was a mindset reframe I had to go through and really, really believe before I walked into these conversations without fear in the best definition of business, I believe that it is a vehicle for everyone’s growth. It’s a vehicle for your growth. It’s a vehicle for your client’s growth.
It’s a vehicle for your team’s growth. Your company is just a vehicle for them to accomplish what they want to accomplish in their lives and their careers and their skills. If your company is not the right vehicle for their growth, it is an absolute disservice to keep them on your bus because there’s a company out there, that is the right vehicle for them. Don’t you dare waste their time keeping them locked in a company that is not the right fit for what they need. It’s not a, it’s also a waste of your company’s time. It’s also a waste of your time, right? But it’s a disservice to them. So when you can walk into a firing conversation and truly see that as an act of service and an act of love, you’re no longer afraid of having to let somebody go. You’ve had these conversations plenty of times, haven’t you? Many? Many And it’s because I was really bad at hiring and training and I got better at it, but when you mess that up, Yeah, you end up having to afford a lot of people because of mistakes that you made earlier in the track. There’s an awful lot of valuable stuff in there. So really I just want to say thank you for everything that you’ve just said because I mean going through it, I mean I’ve I’ve already made a lot of, a lot of mistakes, some that you’ve referred to, but at the same time for for those who haven’t done that yet, there’s very valuable advice.
So thank you. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And to be clear thomas, the only reason I know these things is because I also make those mistakes, right? Everything I’m self taught, everything that I share comes from messing that up myself, trial and error within my own businesses. Is there something that I should have asked you about today that I haven’t you asked wonderful questions, I’m trying to think, but nothing’s coming to mind that just shows you’ve done a good job then, doesn’t it? You covered a lot of good stuff. I love it. What your goals, Jonah, what are my goals? My goals are to impact as many business owners as I can and to put operations on the map, so to speak. I think that there is a a lack of overall understanding for what operations is the value that it brings to a business and how it connects to the money pipeline. And I think that that is a disservice and a disadvantage certainly to the operators out there, but also to the business owners because they don’t know how to support that person, they don’t know how to find that person, they don’t know how to set that person up for success.
They don’t know what the definition of success is for a role in operations and operations can be such a powerful mechanism and lever for growth in your company. But if you don’t understand how that works, how could you possibly ever maximize it? And so my goal is really to educate business owners and operators alike on what is operations? I guess that is a question that we could dive into and how does it serve to grow your business? How do you set it up for success as opposed to just kind of allowing it to be this amalgams like it’s the, everything else kind of firefighter person that just they just, they just do everything right, there’s no success there, nobody can be successful at that. So would you like to share your philosophy? My philosophy? Yes. And to be clear, it’s my philosophy right. If I was to ask 10 operators for a definition of operations, I’d probably get 10 different answers. Would probably be no, I don’t really have a good definition there. That’s totally and as wild, I’ve talked to CeoS of big companies and I’m like, what do you think operations is, what’s your definition?
They’re like, you know what? I’ve never really thought about it. What what my definition is that operations is any act required in a business to optimize its use of its core resources, those resources, our time, energy money, human potential. And if you work in person physical capital, It’s just the optimization of scarce resources, your operator and your business is like your financial advisor of the business, right? You’re a financial advisor. Their job is to take a pot of money and get a 10% return on it compared to an 8% return. The job of your operator is to take the time energy money and human potential in your business and maximize the return that you get. Because let’s be clear you are spending that time, that energy, that money, that human potential, you’re spending it, whether you’re aware of it or not, your operator’s job is to maximize the return on that investment. And can you just tell me those categories again, time, where is your team’s time going?
What are they spending it on? Energy? That’s productivity focused, decision making money. Pretty self explanatory. And then the big one for me is human potential, Most of the coaching that I do is on human potential because in my experience it is the most vastly underutilized resource within any company again because people are hiring people with the assumption of Cool. Now I don’t have to do this thing, but I can tell this person what to do, cool if you’re walking in with that mindset, you’re gonna end up having to tell that person what to do forever and believe me, they don’t need you to do that. You just haven’t set them up in such a way where you’re inviting them to bring their best to the table. So how can we as leaders and in our operational infrastructure and how we set up our teams and our hiring and our training and our offering and all of these things. How do we create an environment where you are maximizing the human potential represented by your team? It’s like there’s a giant pot of money in your bank account. Are you spending it or not? Because for most business owners it’s just sitting in the bank account, they’re not doing anything with it. And again, that’s fine.
You can grow a business that way. It’s just inefficient. It’s a waste of money in a bank account use it. Well, thank you for that. Um it’s another great answer. I kind of almost want to see like a reality tv type thing where you go into businesses and we get to see you doing this in real time. This is this is what I’m envisaging some sort of, I don’t know shark tank like show oh my God, I would love that. I always had a vision of like building a queer eye team coming in and doing business makeovers. I would love to do that. Yeah. Well you’re a great podcast guest. And probably well as as you’ve shown today excellent operations. So thank you for sharing. Um have you got any closing thoughts for us today? I think it would be the question why is probably the most important question you can learn to ask yourself across the board at any stage of the company and at any stage of what you’re working on, why starts a business, Why am I building this thing?
Why is that important to me? Why is the core question behind any great system? You’re building an S. O. P. Why what is the desired outcome for that? S. O. P. For that system, for this? Higher, for that action. Why do you run team meetings that way? Why do you even have that meeting? The more that you can learn to ask yourself the question why and be unafraid of that and drill down into that, the better the more aligned your company is going to become, yep. Thank you, Jonah. Where do, where do people connect with you? Yeah, absolutely. So guys, this is what I do. I absolutely love it. Um if anything that I’ve said has resonated with you, you want to dive deeper into it? Probably the best way to get in touch with me would be through my website. That’s giannulli dot com. Um and you can also email me, Jhana Lee dot com. I’m happy to hop on with anybody. Give you a free discovery call and see how can I help you. Let’s dive deep. Let’s figure out what’s going on in your business and let’s figure out what you need to do to scale it. Well, thank you again. You’ve been an amazing guest and thank you for your time. Absolutely. Thanks Thomas. It’s been awesome.