Gold Nuggets
- Today is an almost perfect day for Juliet. Steve wants the credit, but only for the good days…
- “I believe that your business should support your life, not consume it.”
- “More often than not, you’re doing a lot of repetitive admin work.”
- “Start with a virtual assistant, but you want to be purposeful and keep that lane really small, and have it grow.”
- “Day 1, if you’re thinking of being an entrepreneur, start that team.”
- “You didn’t start a business to run a business.”
- “Your calendar is like your time bank account. If you don’t do things effectively with the hour, you’re going to lose the day.”
- “Your primary focus right now has been delivering the services and keeping the business, revenue, and profits, but there’s a second thing that most people neglect and don’t understand, and that’s the efficiency of growing the business and compressing the admin aspect of it so the creation continues to grow.”
- “Do anything you can to have a good laugh.”
- “You had jobs you didn’t like doing. You left them for a reason. So, this is supposed to be fun.”
- “Learning is only learning when you implement it. Slow down to speed up. Implement. Build your win team so you can get to what is next.”
- “Winning doesn’t always mean being first. Winning means you’re doing better than you’ve ever done before.” – Bonnie Blair
Meet Kris Ward
Our guest is Founder of Win the Hour, Win the Day, Kris Ward.
Kris is the leading authority on team building and productivity. After her husband’s cancer diagnosis, Kris stepped back from the day-to-day running of her business for 2 years. After her husband’s passing, she returned to the business full-time and found it growing despite her absence. Today, she coaches and teaches entrepreneurs how to grow their business so that they can become more successful with more freedom.
Kris has featured on multiple leading podcasts, radio shows, and TV shows, she is the best-selling author of “Win the Hour, Win the Day”, and the host of the Top 10 podcast, Win the Hour, Win the Day.
Kris holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Ryerson University.
Smart Man, Smarter Woman References
We talk about a lot in each episode; however, we don’t want you to miss a thing! Here are some key items were mentioned if you want to take a closer look.
Website Recommendations:
winthehourwintheday.com
Book Recommendation:
The E-Myth by Michael E. Gerber
Three Feet from Gold by By Sharon L. Lechter CPA and Dr. Greg Reid
Atomic Habits by James Clear
Stay Connected:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kriswardbuildyourteam/
Learn more about our Cloud Accounting Services here
Transcript
Steve (00:00):
Welcome, everyone to another episode of the podcast, Smart Man, Smarter Woman, a podcast for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs. And thank you very much for giving us a listen today. I am Steve Loates-
Juliet (00:15):
And I am Juliet Aurora.
Steve (00:16):
And we are your co-hosts. And before we get to today’s special guests, who were really excited to speak with today, let’s hear a few words from my wonderful co-host. That’s, smarter woman herself, Juliet. How are you doing today, Juliet?
Juliet (00:33):
I’m actually doing really well. If you had asked me that yesterday, or the day before, or the day before, I would not have given you the same answer, but you’re asking me on a perfect day. Everything is going really, really well. I’m having an excellent day, thank you very much.
Steve (00:50):
Would you care to elaborate at all on that, as to why this is almost a perfect day? You’re with me, so I know that adds to it, but there must be more to it than that. Or is this something, “No, no. That’s for another day?”
Juliet (01:08):
Well, quite honestly, Steve, with COVID, I’m with you every day. So theoretically I was with you yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. Obviously this podcast, we’re recording it a little bit in advance, so by the time this one comes out, we recently sold our house. Well, yesterday we sold our house. And so the last two or three weeks has just been getting the house ready for sale, decluttering the house, removing things, cleaning the wall over and over and over again, and seeming to having to clean the kitchen 8 million times to get the house ready for sale. So I’m great, because now I don’t have to focus on cleaning that same spot so that the house looks perfect every single day.
Steve (01:53):
Oh, okay. I get it. I get it. All right. Well, we’re not going to talk about that anymore. Other than I would like to say, I would like to see a little more enthusiasm, or like to hear a little more enthusiasm when you say, because of COVID, you’re with me every day. It could have been a little more dynamic, but anyway, we’re going to go right past that because we know the audience doesn’t want to hear us, they want to hear from our guests. So without further ado, let’s bring in our guest for today’s show, Kris Ward, all the way from beautiful Prince Edward Island in Canada. How are you doing today, Kris?
Kris (02:33):
I’m fantastic. Steve. I’m always good.
Steve (02:36):
Awesome. And again, welcome to the show. Why don’t we begin by you sharing a little bit, to tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do, how you help people, and a little bit about your journey as to how you got to where you are now?
Kris (02:53):
All right. Fair enough, Steve. I’ll give you anything but my weight. Other than that, we’re good. All right. I think people always want, “How did I fall into this?” Because I’m all about people, processes and performance. So how did this all unfold?
Kris (03:06):
So I started as a marketing strategist over 12 years ago, and most entrepreneurs, the first two years in business, oh my gosh. I ran like a crazy person, just trying to make something of it. I call myself now a recovering rushaholic, and the first two years, I swear, I went two years without sleep. And reports indicated from people that were around me that I wasn’t as charming as I thought I was, because you just go a couple months of sleep and you just start to lose that buffer. So, as my husband used to say, I was constantly stealing from sleep, that can’t be the first place you go for everything. “Well, I can get up earlier. I can stay later.” So I had these phenomenal supports in my life and I wanted to do right by them, but at the same time I was turning on them like a mad dog.
Kris (03:51):
So I thought, “Okay, this can’t be. I can’t be living like this 10, 12 years down the road, I’m not going to survive.” So I started to examine productivity, and team building, and everything, feverishly, “What is this?” because, like so many entrepreneurs, I just looked at these people and thought, “Oh, once you get to be a success, then you get this team, and you get all that other stuff.” And I just thought, “That can’t be right.”
Kris (04:15):
So I started to make some changes, and things turned around for me. I went from working 16 hours a day down to six. And the biggest shock to me was how much more effective I was, how much more I got done. I had been working against myself all that time. The grinding, and the abuse I took, working against myself, was unbelievable. So things really turned around for me.
Kris (04:38):
And luckily they did, because it was a couple of years after that, that my husband was diagnosed with colon cancer. And I was pulled away from the business for about two years. And when I returned, after his passing, my existing clients asked me, “How did I manage it?” Because they had no idea. They had no idea what was going on. We didn’t feel it was good for business. We handled it in a very positive nature, so we didn’t need people being sympathetic. We felt that if the doctors were wrong, we sat around for two years crying, holding hands. If the doctors were right, we sat around the last two years crying, holding hands. So it was just family and close, close friends knew about that.
Kris (05:15):
So my existing clients said to me, “Oh my gosh, how did you do that?” And they started to ask me to work with them under the capacity of team building, and systems, and productivity, because of course I had a new appreciation of fragility for life, because let’s be honest. If I had returned to that business and it was not growing and it had died, I was not in a position to craft up a resume, be charming at interview and learn a new job, right. So I believe that your business should support your life, and not consume it. And so I started working with my existing marketing clients under this capacity, and “Win the hour, win the day,” was born from that. And then I thought, “Well, how do I help more and more people?” because the people I work best with look good on paper, they’re doing all these things, right, but they’re still putting in too many hours and they’re working like they were the first six months they were in business. So I’m just trying to create a movement where your business supports your life instead of consuming it.
Steve (06:10):
Awesome. Awesome.
Juliet (06:12):
I love that. I love the statement that you started with early on, about the belief. And so many people hold this belief, that, “My business will run like this, but when I get to a certain level of success, all the pieces will just fall into place and it’ll run the way that I think it should run.” And that’s absolutely a commonly held misconception is that you need to be at a certain level to get there. You actually need to put all these pieces in place in order to get to that level. So I love that- [crosstalk 00:06:45]
Kris (06:44):
A hundred percent. It’s like being a mountain climber. You have to be in shape to climb the mountain. You can’t say well, “Once I get to the mountain peak, ah, then I’ll really get in shape.” Absolutely a hundred percent.
Steve (06:55):
So I do have to ask the question. How did you get from working all of those hours to six hours a day? Did you just wake up one day and decided, “I’m just going to start working six hours a day?”
Kris (07:10):
No, I did not, Steve, let me tell you, I did not. That didn’t even happen. We could do a 10-part Netflix docuseries on that one. So no, that’s a great question. It did not happen overnight, not even a little bit. And what I would say to you is, it’s not rocket science, but it did take me years to figure out how to effectively hire, on board, put things in play, all these things to make everything more and more efficient, because really, what you want is the entrepreneur, and this is the big part everyone gets, dare I say it, wrong. It’s a harsh word, but this is where you go wrong, people, is you didn’t start a business to run a business.
Kris (07:47):
And so what happens is, you start your business and all of a sudden you’re an 80, 90% admin, always trying to catch up, keep up. But you should be in what I call the 60-40 rule, 60% creation, 40% admin, because you should always be creating. Ideas to execution. That’s the only thing separating you from anyone that you admire, or professional jealousy, or anything, it’s ideas to execution. So you want it to be 60-40.
Kris (08:13):
And that did not happen overnight for me. That’s why I’m so purposeful about helping people and creating this movement. I’ll tell you, here’s where it started for me, with my first hire, and it’s an interesting piece that I want to share with you is, back then… Now, I went virtual long before anybody else. I was virtual eight, nine years ago. Even if somebody was 10 minutes away from me, I thought, “Well, I could have back-to-back appointments on my computer. I could show them my screen. But if you have to drive there, you have to include extra time, blah, blah, blah.”
Kris (08:43):
But even, say, nine years ago, I’d be sitting in these meetings as a marketing strategist, it’s very custom work, and I’m making notes and doing all this stuff. And I would promise, with this potential client, I’d get back to the office. I would promise, hand to God, that I was going to put it right in the computer. It’s going to be fine. That never happened. What would happen is, if I was lucky, Friday afternoon, I would get the notes in. But honestly, most weeks it was the next Friday.
Kris (09:11):
So then what would happen is, the potential client would call me. And then I got the opportunity to be one of two people. One, you could hear me sweating, my organs sweating, because I’m trying to make out these notes that were meant to be 20 minutes, and now it’s two weeks later, and they can sense that. They can feel when you’re not, and you don’t have it together. So I’d look unprepared, or worse, what if I misquoted them and they look like I’m trying to swindle them? “No, no, no. Don’t worry about that. I just have bad notes.” That’s somebody you want to hire, that’s all over the place. Right?
Kris (09:43):
So I hired my first outsourcer, and she was a transcriptionist. Now I don’t get this, but that’s what she loved to do. It’s what she did all day long and she had 10 clients. This was crazy to me. I felt like prisoners should be made to do this, but I would go into the meeting. I would come outside, sit in my car for 30 seconds, talk into my phone and go over my notes. And then she would just have them up within, my gosh, hours. But the rule was 24 hours. It was often, they were up at three. And what would happen was, some weeks I needed her for hours of meetings and some weeks I needed her for none, but the weeks that I needed for hours of meetings, because she only did this and she was so fast, it was $12. And then I thought, “Ah,” I saw the light. I heard the angels. It was, “Ah,” and I thought, “This is it. This is the motherland. I am here.”
Kris (10:33):
So then I started realizing this is the answer. And so that was how it unfolded, but there was all kinds of bumps and hiccups. And then you get it outsourced and you think, “Oh, okay, how come they don’t know what to do?” And they’re asking you questions because there’s different passwords, and that’s where people abort, because now the tail’s wagging the dog, but it did not happen overnight at all. But it is really simple, and profound, and effective, when done effectively.
Juliet (10:58):
So where would you recommend somebody start? Because after hearing your story, everyone in our audience is going, “Okay, I need to go find somebody and I need to get rid of some of this admin, because I’m the same way.” Where would you recommend that they start? Is it with admin work? I guess, what would the starting point be for them?
Kris (11:20):
Yeah, that’s a spectacular question, Juliet. It’s probably the most common one we get on our website, www.winthehourwintheday.com, and we get that all day long. And what I would tell you is, honestly I would say every business, you’re going to have different things. But what I would say is, more often than not, you’re doing a lot of repetitive admin work, and you’re also doing what I call the three D’s, damaging overhead, diminished opportunity, and delayed income. And the biggest D, I call it, the damaging overhead, is you. So whatever you could charge for your service, you are now doing admin work. And so if you even charge, let’s keep the numbers simple, a hundred bucks per package. Now you’re over here doing stuff that, I really believe we live in a copy and paste world. So you wouldn’t pay somebody a hundred bucks an hour to do that, but you think you’re saving money doing it yourself.
Kris (12:13):
So what I would tell you is, “Yeah, start with a virtual assistant, but you want to be really purposeful and keep that lane really small and have it grow.” Don’t think, “Oh, I’m going to spend all weekend, create these systems. I’ll hire somebody for 20 hours next week.” And then it all blows up in your face. It’s really starting small and being very specific. And that then creates white space on your calendar, and allows you to do more and more and more.
Juliet (12:40):
Excellent. And so you mentioned creating systems and processes, and we’re huge on systems and processes. Sometimes I think it’s to our detriment, and here’s why, and maybe you can shed some light on this topic. So, I’ve heard two schools of thought, that if you want to create a scalable business, that you have to have systems, and processes, and things documented, that you have your team members or your staff follow. The other school of thought is that, if you document and systematize too much, you take away the creativity from your team to think, that they’re just going to follow the steps and say, “Well, here, this is what I have to do,” and not think about, “How can I make it better? How can I improve it?” So, since part of your specialty is systematizing, creating processes, and creating a winning team, what are your thoughts on those two schools of thought?
Kris (13:45):
I’m so excited. That’s a fantastic question. Okay, fantastic. So first of all, systems sounds so boring and heavy, and they really are, because more often than not, we’re thinking about the corporate world, or when we had a job. And those systems in play, there were really meant about liability. They were not meant to be tweaked, and enhanced, and user-friendly, somebody who mostly didn’t have this job wrote out these processes and you’re like, “Ah, this doesn’t work.” So when you are running your ship, you guys out there, and you’re doing your entrepreneurial thing. What we want is, again, we want to compress the time that we are admin and increase the time of creation, right? That’s what the ultimate goal is. So my team also, we’re always looking at how they can compress their admin time and increase their creation time.
Kris (14:30):
So let’s give an example. Let me tell you a quick story. My podcast, Win the Hour, Win the Day, it’s all about how to get your next win now. We could cover anything from social media to sales, whatever. Just anything entrepreneurial-like. And so we have systems in place, so that you just follow this, tick, tick, tick, tick. And businesses are not run on memory, so you don’t have to remember, we hadn’t done that a couple months, everything’s not a new project. However, what happens then is, these are the things you don’t have to think about because you don’t have to remember, and the brain is best designed to create versus storing ideas.
Kris (15:06):
And in that case, we just had a meeting a couple of weeks ago where my podcast manager, Ruby, had come to us because she’s always in creation mode, and she’s coming to us with ideas. That’s how it’s all set up, so that they elevate you. It’s not you managing them, it’s them elevating you. So we were all excited that we were getting close to 199 five star reviews on iTunes. “Look at us, 200. Yay. Let’s make a badge. Let’s celebrate. Whoa.” And then Ruby comes and says, “Look, I’ve been doing some research. I found this platform,” and you know what? We didn’t know, but you could leave ratings on Stitcher and a couple other places. She said, “We’re at 900 five star reviews.” And I was like, “Oh Ruby, no, we’re not.” But she’s like, “No, Kris, look.” So she had went out cause she was pursuing something else in a creation mode, and then tripped across this. So she comes to us with something I would have never thought to ask about. I was so excited about 200, we were at 900.
Kris (16:06):
So when it’s set up correctly, they also are going to be in creation mode much more than admin mode. And that will, rising tide lifts all ships. So, that’s the goal. It’s not to make things robotic, it’s to keep the redundancy or the repetitive acts robotic, so that you then can get through those and less and less time and move on to creation.
Juliet (16:31):
Excellent. Excellent.
Steve (16:33):
Yeah. That’s great. Great advice. I don’t want to go too far off topic, but I would like to just talk a little bit. We talked about the entrepreneur who is already in the middle of it, and trying to get to a place of working more efficiently, let’s say. What advice would you give to that person, who is thinking of starting a business, and is worried because they keep hearing, “Oh, you’re 80 hours a week, you’re going to be working. You’re going to have no life.” What advice could you give them to try and help them make sure they don’t get to that 80 hours a week, and still are building a business?
Kris (17:24):
Yeah. That 80 hours a week. Listen, it’s true. It’s out there, because there’s this campaign that grinding it out is part of the story. And you beat your chest and you feel proud of how hard you worked. And I remember having conversations with my mother and I said, “Imagine having to learn not to work so hard, that was never something you were taught. That was the best thing anyone could say about you.” So people buy into that. And what I would tell you is, it makes for a good campaign on social media. Really what it is, it’s making a hero out of an ill-planned journey, right? So that’s all they’re doing, is they’re trying to say, “Look, here’s my journey. And it’s a much more dynamic and interesting story if I get to tell you all these pain points.” So it’s just a hero’s journey, and they’re doing that.
Kris (18:09):
When done well, I believe what doesn’t kill you makes you freaking tired. Okay? So I’m not into this journey that they’re pushing out there, and you don’t need to do that. I will tell you, day one, if you’re thinking about being an entrepreneur is, start that team. My transcriptionist cost me $12. You know what? She’s probably out of work now because there’s so many softwares out there that do it even in less, with less dollars. So you’ve got resources at your fingertips like we’ve never had in history of time, if you use them strategically and you learn how to do them. Right. But so I would say, look, get a team.
Kris (18:46):
And the team could be, right now, you guys, we just put up on our www.freegiftfromkris KI-R-I-S .com. We just put up how to get 200 free hours from co-op students. We’re on our 30th student and we’ve had 800 hours this year, just from grade 12 students that frankly are born with a cell phone in their hand. So they’re very tech savvy, and that’s free labor. So it’s really about the strategies in play, it really doesn’t have to be that hard, and there is no joy to that painful journey. There just isn’t.
Kris (19:23):
We had a virtual assistant for over seven years, and she had to move on for a couple reasons, family move and all this other stuff. And in the middle of our first info product launch, The Outsourcing Playbook for Busy Entrepreneurs, we hired a new VA, and she was up to 80% capacity within a week. And that was our first launch, so there was lots of learning in our first launch, but everything was fine and smooth and it all worked out. So it’s really about what we call our super toolkits. If you’ve got these practices in play, it just makes everything doable, easier, more effective, and then you can enjoy all the stuff that you thought you would get out of the entrepreneurial journey. Because you didn’t start a business to run a business, that’s not why you started it.
Juliet (20:06):
Yeah. So the name of your book is, Win the Hour, Win the Day, the name of your podcast is the same. Can you tell us a little bit about, how do you win the hour that it lets you win the day?
Kris (20:18):
Well, it all started, that lends itself a little bit more to productivity. So I’ll give you a quick example, but really, I think is a powerful one. The infrastructure, it’s almost like building a new house on sand, and you’re like, “Huh, it looked really good for about three months, and then it started to sink,” right? So most people use their calendar for outside appointments. It doesn’t matter how much they don’t want to go to the dentist, the dentist is on the calendar. I will be there, such is life. But what happens is, they don’t put their own work on the calendar.
Kris (20:46):
So this is the foundation of how it started, and this is, although this is symbolic of all the other things we do, but this is how it started. So what I tell people is, when they’re looking at the simplicity of their business, your calendar is really your time bank account. And so many people will say, “Oh, I do that every day. I don’t have to put it on my calendar,” and I’ll say, “Well, first of all, you might be going into your work day thinking you have eight hours, but you actually have four, right? Because you’re not counting the stuff you do every day.” And that’s like saying, “Well, my car payment comes out of my bank every month, but I know that, so I don’t count that.” Well, the money’s still gone. Right?
Kris (21:23):
So then it made me really look at, “Look, if you don’t do things effectively with the hour, you’re going to lose the day.” That lends itself to anything you do, running your team, being on social media, all that stuff. If you don’t have it set up so that it’s going to be smooth sailing and it really is simple. And that first hour, you can’t outrun the clock. I’ve tried. It doesn’t work. Okay. I’m a recovering rushaholic. So it comes down to, if it doesn’t work at hour one, it’s not going to fall into play at two o’clock in the afternoon.
Steve (21:57):
Yeah, time is not a renewable resource.
Kris (22:01):
And you can’t race it.
Steve (22:03):
Not that well. You can try, but you’re never going to win. So, what would be some of the tips you would give for making sure you are building a winning team, right? Because it’s easy enough to go out there and put an ad on, Indeed, or wherever, and find bodies, but that is not building a winning team.
Kris (22:30):
That is a spectacular question. You two are going to be my two favorite people. So, what I want to share with you right now is, I’m getting a lot of these questions from people. And what’s happening is when I deal with people like you guys, where you’ve been in business a while and you look good on paper, “Hey, I’ve been in business for 20 years. This looks spectacular. I have a small team. This is wonderful.”
Kris (22:50):
But then you start realizing, “Oh, I need more help. Or the business is growing. I want to do this.” And a couple of things happen, is you then start to pay for higher and higher, it’s like, “Okay, this isn’t working.” So maybe we need to have a higher, more of an executive assistant versus just a VA, maybe. So you start spending more money on individuals, or getting more bodies. But it’s like adding chaos to chaos doesn’t work, right? It’s not about growing or paying more. And you get this a lot right now, where there’s a push, where you’ll get these agencies that say, “Oh, we’ll give you a virtual assistant and then you’re fine.” And you think, “Well, that’s great.” But the virtual assistant may be spectacular, but you are not set up, your systems haven’t been tightened or improved, and they also don’t know anything about your business. So, imagine those two meeting in the middle and they’re equally lost, and it doesn’t work.
Kris (23:39):
So that’s why we also get clients who say, look, “I went through this agency, and I went through four VAs, and this isn’t working, that’s not working.” I would argue that people like yourselves actually have more pain points, and are bleeding out in different areas that are going unattended, than somebody who in the beginning is just working crazy hours and they can see it. They’re like, “I stopped exercising. I’m now eating at 11 o’clock at night.” They see the symptoms.
Kris (24:06):
But you guys are operating at a really great level, but what happens, picture yourself, if you can imagine, it’s almost like being the star of the track team in high school, but you’re really talented. So now you need a different system, a different coach, to get you to the regionals, to the Olympics. And, but in your community you look, “Oh, I’m the best of the best,” but you know there’s so much more out there. There’s sponsorships, there’s scholarships, there’s all these things that you can do.
Kris (24:32):
So the thing is, it’s really about what we call our super toolkits and constantly you should, anything you’re doing should eventually be able to get it from 12 steps to 10, to eight, and replace that and systematize it even more, because there’s a lot of redundancy in there, that you’re doing your work and there’s no screaming, large pain points. So then the little bleeding out is costing you more than you realize. Does that make sense?
Steve (25:00):
Yeah.
Juliet (25:02):
And as business owners, that is something that we look for, that we know we’re supposed to look for, and we know that we’re supposed to be tweaking, and trying to fix. But once you have a team, you aren’t necessarily hands-on with any of the service delivery or the product delivery anymore. So how do you get your team to look for those leaks? Is it that-
Kris (25:29):
Well, yeah. What I would say to you is, there is a training, and there is a way that, what my clients tell me all the time, especially my group coaching clients, is they say I change how they see their business. So it’s really not about, “Okay, Kris, my business is different, or we have this team in play and they’ve been with us a while. We’ve got these five people, and Sarah is great, and Jane is wonderful, and then they deliver, because they’ve been trained, the resources to the clients.” That’s great, but there still needs to be the building of the business. And when that’s put in play effectively, it’s going to be part of the culture, so that the team is constantly looking at that infrastructure as well. And talking to you, and your communication isn’t just about, “Are we fulfilling the clients’ needs?”
Kris (26:19):
But it’s like, recently I’ve become addicted, heaven help me, to the Formula One docuseries on Netflix. If somebody told me a year ago, that would fascinate me, I’d laugh. There’s cars drive around in circles. But the systems that they have in play to get, not just the cars and the machinery and billion dollar organizations from Australia one weekend, to New Zealand the next, and then race their car, is fascinating to a systems junkie like me. But when you look at that, they’re always racing, and they’re looking to shave off seconds and quarter of seconds and milli, so they’re always improving the system. Right. And even when I see the pit crew come out and they’ve got 30 seconds to change the tires, and the tires are labeled, “Back left,” “Front right.” You’re like, “Okay, but that guy only holds that tire.” You think, “Why are they labeling that?” But they’re trying to make it more and more efficient.
Kris (27:10):
So what I would say to you is, your primary focus right now has been delivering the services and keeping the business, and the revenue, and profits. But there is a second thing that most people neglect and don’t understand, and that’s the efficiency of growing the business and compressing the admin aspect of it, so the creation continues to grow.
Juliet (27:33):
Perfect.
Steve (27:34):
Yeah. It always reminds me of a coach we used to have, and we’ve worked with coaches probably for the last 10 or 11 years, we’re huge believers, but I always remember one of the things he said to us when we were talking about trying to scale the business, and growing, and going from a team of five to a team of 10, etc. And he said, “Yep. New levels, new devils.”
Kris (28:00):
Yeah. And what happens is, for most people in your position, the pain point is, “Oh, we’ve got an upset customer, oh, we need more revenue,” but you’re not looking at the pain point of, how am I improving? How can we get more resources within the organization? As my clients say, “Clear up more white space on my calendar.” Right? So what I would say is, it’s not part of your regular diet, it’s a backlash or a hiccup, or how do you address and react to a problem, but for most entrepreneurs and most small businesses, it’s not part of your culture or communication.
Steve (28:35):
Very good. And you’ve been doing what you’re doing for a little while now. What is one thing you wish you would’ve known when you began this journey?
Kris (28:48):
I wish I knew to have a team from the beginning. I thought I was saving money. So when I’d be up at two o’clock, oh my gosh, John used to say to me all the time, he’d be like, “Babe, you’re getting diminishing results, and you can’t be as effective at midnight as you were at 6:00 AM.” when I started this, right. I’d say to him, “You have a job. You don’t understand. I’m trying to do this,” and blah, blah, blah. Right. So, annoyingly, he was right in a lot of areas, and he was a very smart man, but I, of course said, “You don’t understand, you have a job.” Right.
Kris (29:21):
And so I thought I was saving money. “I can do this, and I can work really hard and rush through the day, and then learn this new thing that I have to learn at five o’clock tonight.” Oh, by the way, that turned into seven, then it turned into nine. And yeah, that makes sense. I started the day tired. I used up my brain cells all day long, and now let’s start something new, tonight, because we’re just in this world where we’re always having to learn something new, whether it’s LinkedIn, or Clubhouse, or this new software, it doesn’t matter. You have to learn something new constantly.
Kris (29:52):
And so if I had had a team that would have been very different and may I also add, now my team takes courses and they feed me bits and bites of what I need to do to keep it moving forward. They’ll say, “Okay, this is what we need from you. You have to do this intro video for this, because the course has, boom, boom, boom, boom. I have those things in play. I need this piece from you.” “Oh, by the way, this one video here, it’s an hour, but you should watch these 12 minutes.” So I don’t even take courses anymore. There’s very few things I take, I would say out of 10 courses I pay for, I am actively participant in two, it might be something really direct, like sales, or as a marketing strategist, something that I will be doing face to face, but I don’t even take a lot of courses anymore.
Juliet (30:34):
That’s excellent.
Steve (30:34):
Yeah. It’s fantastic when your business, when you reach that point with your team, right, where your team is contributing much more than just carrying out the tasks they’re supposed to carry out in their role, but when they actually start sharing, how can we help move the business forward? That is fantastic, when you reach that point.
Kris (31:06):
But it’s not an evolution, that is such an important thing you said, and that’s what I’m passionate about sharing. That is not a maturity or evolution that, “After we’ve solidified this team, we’ve been together five years, this starts to happen.” It’s not a marriage, right, an ebb and flow there. It’s the framework in which we train, hire, onboard them and do that. So my coaching clients have been with us six months. They’re seeing similar results, just at a smaller scale, but it’s part of the culture. So a few months later they’re going to have even more results. So it’s not something like, “Oh,” puff on a cigarette. “I’ve arrived. Let’s relax.” No, no, it didn’t just happen because I put in the time, it’s the framework. And so my coaching clients see those results years earlier than I did in the beginning, years and years earlier. So it’s a part of the framework that is missed in most businesses. And that’s why they’re caught up in 80% admin, when they should be doing the 60-40 rule, 60% creation, 40% admin.
Steve (32:04):
I like that. I like that. I’ve never heard it put quite that way. So simple. 60% creativity, 40% admin. Easy to remember, but I think very, very powerful advice. That’s great. And that, I think is a great place for us to go to the part of the show, the, Smart Man, Smarter Woman, version of James Lipton’s Actor’s Studio, where we ask every one of our guests the same six questions. And it’s fun.
Juliet (32:38):
Okay. Let’s have fun.
Kris (32:39):
He says, it’ll be fun. I’ll tell you if he’s right.
Steve (32:43):
It’s fun. I get to just ask the question, so it’s fun for me. Are you ready?
Kris (32:49):
I am.
Steve (32:52):
What one word best defines an entrepreneur?
Kris (32:57):
If they do it right, “Creativity.”
Steve (32:59):
What profession, other than your own, would you like to attempt?
Kris (33:05):
Gosh, anything I would do, I’d still, it would be like, “Oh, you could,” it’s still the entrepreneur component of it. I think, “Oh, you could start a cleaning business. You could do that so effectively.” Right? So I can’t separate whatever I did. Let me explain when I was 13, and I had a babysitting business, I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had them, packages for booking, re-booking and all kinds of stuff. I wouldn’t eat any of the chips they left me, because that would increase the overhead. I turned this into this thing. I was so serious about it, but I made money off of it and I had a calendar and I was all organized. So it was just supposed to be, wander down the street, watch some kids, but I turned it into, you had to book me in advance and there was incentives for it. It was a whole big deal. So, I turned that little thing into a business, so whatever I did, it eventually would turn into a business.
Steve (33:57):
Okay. And what profession would you like never to attempt?
Kris (34:03):
Oh my gosh. Anything, I guess, with constant repetition, just doing it for the sake of doing it. I wouldn’t want to work in a woman’s prison. I don’t want to, anything that involves skydiving. I’m really quite cowardly. I like to be home, so we could do days on what I don’t want to be.
Steve (34:24):
Okay. Yeah. What sound or noise do you love?
Kris (34:29):
Laughter, I just would do anything to be surrounded, just even just hear myself laugh. I just think laughter is everything. Just do anything you can to have a good laugh.
Steve (34:41):
Excellent. And what book, other than your own, would you recommend every entrepreneur should read?
Kris (34:50):
There’s so many. I think, The E Myth, is a good one. It’s a very simple tale, and it just resonates with you. So I think that’s a good one. Another favorite one of mine, by Greg Reid, is, Three Feet from Gold. He was also on my podcast, Win the Hour, Win the Day, but I’ve read his book many years ago, so yeah. There’s so much good stuff out there. There’s also, Atomic Habits, even though it’s not about business. I think that’s just a powerful one. It gets in your head. You’re like, “Oh, I can’t break the chain, so I have to go do that again,” right. So there’s a lot of good stuff out there.
Steve (35:20):
I know. Atomic Habits, is one of my favorites. I highly recommend everyone signing up for James Clear’s newsletter. It’s a great one. Okay. And our final question, when your own entrepreneurial journey is completed, what do you hope your legacy is?
Kris (35:41):
Yeah. I really, truly want to create a movement where people understand your business should support your life, not consume it. And that business should be fun. It should be fun. You had jobs you didn’t like doing, you left them for a reason. So this is supposed to be fun.
Steve (35:58):
Excellent. Excellent. And for those listeners who want to connect with you, Kris, what is the best way for them to do that?
Kris (36:06):
Yeah. Check me on any of the socials. Reach out to me on LinkedIn, and tell me that you heard me on this fantastic podcast. Grab some goodies off free gift, freegiftfromkris K-R-I-S .com, and yeah. Or you can reach me out on my personal email, Kris Ward, K-R-I-S W-A-R-D @winthehourwintheday.com.
Steve (36:26):
Perfect. And we’ll make sure all of your contact information are in the show notes, so it’ll be easy for people to find. And before we conclude this episode, Kris, do you have any final thoughts you would like to share with our audience of entrepreneurs?
Kris (36:44):
Yeah. Just do what you’re doing. Listen to these great podcasts, and it’s just connecting and building relationships. I’m always flattered. I really appreciate both of you, Steve and Juliet, for asking me to be on that show. That’s always fun. So just, you know what, there’s a lot of fantastic information out there, but just remember learning, people tell me all the time, “I love to learn.” Learning’s only learning when you implement it. So just consuming all this stuff and going in different directions like a crazy person, just, “Go, go, go,” and this is the next shiny object. That’s not going to help you. So slow down to speed up, implement, build your win team, so you can get to what is next.
Steve (37:21):
Great advice, right? It’s like Tony Robbins said, “Knowledge is not power, action is power.” Juliet, do you have any final words from today’s show?
Juliet (37:32):
I have so many thoughts going through my head. I think there were lots of great pieces of advice and as I am wont to do, I’m thinking, “Okay, well, what can we change in our business? What do I need to, how do I need to change the communication with my team to just tweak it a little bit?” So, thank you very much, Kris. There was a lot of very useful information for our audience, no matter where they are on the journey, whether they’re starting out or they’re further along. We’ve been in business 20 years and I’m always learning something. So I do appreciate the time out of your schedule to spend with us today.
Kris (38:07):
Thank you so much.
Steve (38:08):
Thank you, Juliet. And I think that’s probably one of the reasons why we are still in business after 20 years, is because we tried to never stop learning.
Steve (38:17):
And that brings us to this episode’s, Words of Wisdom. And so this week I have selected, “Winning doesn’t always mean being first. Winning means you’re doing better than you’ve ever done before.”
Kris (38:36):
Perfect.
Steve (38:37):
And so, again, thank you, Kris. You are fabulous guest, really enjoyed having you on the show. Thank you to my awesome co-host. Couldn’t do it without you, but most importantly, thank you to you, our audience, for tuning in and giving us a listen. We really appreciate it, hope you found some value, and if you did please, subscribe, we’re in all the regular places and we’d love to have you join us. You can also visit the website, smartmansmarterwoman.com. So, thank you again, and until next time, take good care of yourself and those that you love. Bye for now.
Song by Adam Vitovsky / CC BY 3.0
