As a business owner, it’s difficult to do the right work AND guide your company toward its next big initiative.
With Red Direction Business Base Camp, learn how to implement and handle processes to meet your business’s specific needs and better understand your market.
Starting the conversation:
Business longevity results from tenacity, small wins that compound, and saying “no” decisively. When you shape your decisions with nonnegotiables providing constraints, there is less to evaluate with regard to removing overwhelm and freeing up time to spend doing the real deep work necessary to build a thriving business. In this It’s Your Business program, Quentin Ortega, Founder and Lead Consultant at QCO Consulting; Christy Maxfield, President and CEO at Purpose First Advisors; and your host, Jess Dewell, Managing Partner at Red Direction, discuss how to build accountability into your business.
To maximize the compounding effect of your choices, effective communication is necessary. That comes from clearly articulating and sharing more than the vision … including the nonnegotiables for the way to do work. It can be difficult to persist, yet sticking to your decisions and continuously taking the next step illuminates the best possible next step to take. This effort compounds, and the small wins add up.
In this program, you will hear how the foundation to grow — including what you don’t do — is necessary to look to the future, about the importance of consistently coming back to the work even when it is hard, and that willpower and effort create momentum to push forward. Quentin Ortega, Founder and Lead Consultant at QCO Consulting; Christy Maxfield, President and CEO at Purpose First Advisors; and your host, Jess Dewell, Managing Partner at Red Direction discuss how consistent action is THE factor to achieve your biggest goals.
Host: Jess Dewell
Guest: Christy Maxfield and Quentin Ortega
What You Will Hear:
2:55 Why consistent action is important to your business’ longevity.
7:32 Know your non-negotiables so that you can say yes more quickly and to the right opportunities.
- Provides yourself with a margin of grace, and the ability to confidently say “no” often.
- Credibility is built from your confidence because others see that confidence and the results.
- Take ownership of your nonnegotiables because they can remove uncertainty when making decisions.
- Examples of what nonnegotiables look like and how to set them up.
- What’s most important?
- Risk assessment and your risk threshold.
24:00 Tenacity is necessary — just keep going.
- Big successes seem quick, yet in reality are the result of years of taking one step at a time.
- Don’t ignore the pain that is part of the process. Use the discomfort to choose your next step.
- Pushing forward through the good and the bad builds tenacity and resilience.
- Identify what you want to accomplish.
- Consistency is a strength, know your driver.
- Don’t let perspective get in the way of progress.
- Are your habits what you want them to be?
41:30 Create your own compounding effect.
- Your choices matter and will help you or prevent you from reaching your goal.
- Communicate your choices and communicate well.
- We are always choosing something.
- Actively reinvest your energy time … and choices.
- Know the game you are playing.
- Have a sense of the timeline for your business growth and possible exit.
- What were the results of the goals you set?
3 Takeaways:
- Always be in the process of doing something and commit to your nonnegotiables.
- Consistency starts with you, so choose the most important items.
- Credibility comes from confidence, and that happens with consistency.
Get started and make a difference in your business with a Growth Framework Reset.
Resources
- The Power of Small Wins
- Psychology of Money, by Morgan Housel
- To Put Your Company Values into Action, Create Working Agreements
- Grow on purpose
Transcript
Christy Maxfield 00:00
You know, what do you actually think is important? If you’re not consistent in communicating that to your team, they won’t know. And they will just start doing things that feel productive, versus doing the things you want them to be doing.
Quentin Ortega 00:14
There’s good times and there’s bad times and you know, in the journey but you have to stay dedicated. You have to have that tenacity. And you have to keep pushing forward.
ANNOUNCER 00:24
Welcome to it’s your business. Brought to you by the Bold Business Podcast. This is your go to source for navigating today’s ever-evolving business landscape. In this program, Jess Christie and Quinton, share the realities of current business challenges and triumphs. Get ready to lead with depth, understanding and achievement.
Jess Dewell 00:48
Hello, welcome. Welcome to the Bold Business Podcast. And this is it’s your business. And I am here with Christie and I am here with Q and we are going to get started today we’re talking about accountability. I know some people are like, come on, that’s just one of those a words. But you know what it is it’s not an eight where it’s the a word. And what we’re going to talk about today, we are going to be talking about the nonnegotiables and how that helps us with our accountability and our commitments. We’re going to talk about tenacity, and how that plays in and we’re going to talk about the compounding effect of all of the effort that we’re putting in. So as I stop right here, as I keep going, as we’re going to let everybody be settling in, we’re going to take a moment and we’re going to introduce ourselves to you in this podcast. Christie Quinton.
Christy Maxfield 01:43
All right, crispy Maxfield purpose first advisors, strategic business advisors and business valuation advisors as well. We work with businesses who want to grow and order to grow their current income, but also to create more wealth for themselves in the future.
Quentin Ortega 02:01
Quentin Ortega or Q if you prefer founder and president of TCO consulting, similar field to Christina Jess, we work on growth consulting, growth strategy, as well as succession and Exit Planning for the most part. And
Jess Dewell 02:13
I’m Jess Dewell your host of the Bold Business Podcast. And at Red Direction. What are we doing? We’re asking better questions so that we can take the right action at the right time so that the work we’re doing today aligns to our biggest goals that we can achieve tomorrow.
Jess Dewell 02:27
And back to our conversation today. We know it’s important, we know it’s important to foster consistent action. We know it’s important to have accountability. We know it’s important to have a lot of things, but really why? But really, why, why do we really we say it and we know it? And if you weren’t around for the three the our trios last conversation, we talked about the difference between knowing that it needs to be done and actually doing it. Good resource, check back listen in. You know where that is. That’s on YouTube. That’s right here on LinkedIn. And it’s in your preferred listening platform. Okay. So as we jump into this and why is this important today? I was thinking about this, as I was preparing yesterday, why is consistent action to achieve our biggest goals important today?
Quentin Ortega 03:12
It’s tax season, if nothing else, right?
Christy Maxfield 03:18
So brilliant. Every CPA is now our friend. He’s consistently add your transactions to your preferred accounting system.
Quentin Ortega 03:26
I was like accountability, we’re right approaching the deadline, right? So clearly, that’s it’s important to take those action, you can’t put that off,
Christy Maxfield 03:33
Makes everybody’s life easier. If you consistently do your bookkeeping.
Quentin Ortega 03:38
I can’t be the only one that’s doing my bookkeeping last minute all the time, right going through and re-combing everything. So I’m pretty sure other people are out there putting it off like I do.
Christy Maxfield 03:46
But I’m just telling you, if I were your business advisor, I would be saying, dude, let’s get it together.
Quentin Ortega 03:52
Let’s get good advice.
Jess Dewell 03:56
I was in a competition yesterday. And it’s a company who really wants to grow and has big dreams, and likes the dream state better than the actual state. And so I asked him questions and their response about this very thing. And they were like, I think I could hire somebody right now. But I don’t know. Oh, I love this. How would we know? And actually, so we brought it back down. And there’s one action takeaway was, this piece of information is not only going to help you decide, can you really hire that person? Which, by the way to be able to hire somebody and not really know, because your books aren’t up to date? That stinking Awesome, let’s just say it. But think about how much more could be done. Think about how much more could be done.
Christy Maxfield 04:34
It is thinking awesome to have that imaginary spreadsheet when I ask owners that and they look up and like oh, there’s they’re doing the imaginary spreadsheet. And yeah, I mean, it’s really great with an imaginary spreadsheet to have enough margin and have enough reserves to be able to hire somebody and like you said, what’s next? What about the next hire? How fast does it have to go? How far will the money stretch
Jess Dewell 04:55
When we do have the right things in place? Because some of us do and some of us don’t. We might be using the imaginary one we might be sifting through and making sure we have the most current one we looked at last, right? So I’m like, Oh, which one? Did I just look at? Am I remembering three weeks ago from Present Retreat? Or am I remembering Monday’s present retreat? That’s my biggest thing for that piece. Which information am I working with? But I would say even more than that, right? That the commitment to it, it’s interesting that we all have our biggest goals. And we all say we’re going to do these things. And what I find the most important and relevant today is, especially with Hello, taxes are a requirement. So they take us away, sometimes from our regular workflow, because they’re insistent it’s here, it’s now.
Christy Maxfield 05:36
Even when you’re well organized, they take you away.
Jess Dewell 05:41
That’s right. So why is it important today? For me, it’s because we’re always going to have the stuff that’s going to take us away from our most important work because it is necessary, even if it’s not our favorite work, even if it’s the stuff that needs to be done. And I think that’s an important distinction to be able to make in our, in our work the way our workflows, not our individual workflows. How’s that for weird play on words?
Quentin Ortega 06:02
Not workflows, but workflows.
Jess Dewell 06:07
So I really do think that there’s an element of understanding, okay, well, it’s in our control. We know it’s coming. But did we really plan for it? Or are we doing just as much now as we are in our busiest season with this extra expectation all around us?
Quentin Ortega 06:22
One of the comments that I saw actually, on one of your posts just leading up to this stream was people are saying like, Oh, this time of year, we’re reevaluating our beginning of year goals, right, were at the end of q1. And we’re starting to approach this idea of are we on track with these goals that we said, we’re at the time of year, I feel like we’re springtime is like the how’re things going? We’re finally checking in, if we made goals, and we’ve been ignoring them since to be in the year, which is often the case for a lot of people like now’s the time when you’re like, Oh, I’m not going to make those if I don’t start applying myself to doing the actions that are needed for this.
Jess Dewell 06:53
So how do we take those actions? And how do we stay committed. And which brings us to our first section of our program, part one that we mentioned at the very beginning, which is our knowing our nonnegotiables when I have my biggest goals at stake that are three years, five years down the road, a change I want to see made in the world sometime during the time that my company exists and the work I’m doing the good work that I’m doing is actually taking root. How does that tie back to today? And it’s because I knew it was nonnegotiable. I thought I would bring that to our table today. And what I think is interesting about that is we think about nonnegotiables as being too closed, we think about them as in relationship to I don’t want to say no, what if I say no to the wrong thing, I might, for a really weird phrase that is popping into my head right now throw the baby out with the bathwater, I think that’s one of the weirdest phrases ever. But it’s actually true, we’re worried about missing a tiny flick of gold in a whole bunch of sweaty, dirty water, that has to go out anyway. And so we get stuck and we slow down, and then we can’t see the bottom we can’t see around. And all it does is slow us down. So when we have nonnegotiables, it’s okay, there’s a margin for a margin of error could be actually be a margin of grace. And I’m gonna say that margin of grace, when I know what I don’t want, it helps me know better what I do you want and to zero in on that. And it’s okay, if I miss things that are good, or good for the thing that I’m doing for the right now or even for farther down the road to keep all my butterflies going down in the same direction here flying in the same direction. All I know is that margin of grace ensures that I know I’ve said no with confidence.
Christy Maxfield 08:40
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. It’s the saying go. And we talked about this last time too, you have to prioritize because what you described in terms of trying to find the gold slug among the dirty water, and the rocks and pebbles is that I’m going to keep my options open. Right? Somehow I’m going to remain flexible by not making any choices whatsoever. And by not focusing on anything in particular. And by not committing to doing something consistently.
Quentin Ortega 09:10
That’s commitment, like you said there, right, like pulling that out. Like it’s the, it’s just taking action. At the end of the day, our
Jess Dewell 09:19
Nonnegotiables may not feel nonnegotiable. And this is the other part of this particular section that maybe I think we could really bring to set the stage for not only why it’s important now, but bringing in this consistent action and achieving our biggest goals. And that comes down to if we’re not doing the things that we think are important. Other people will not be doing the things that we think are important. Let’s go back even and look at this in a slightly different perspective. And there’s a C word here a credibility word, the word of credibility shows up. And really, we’re not going to take consistent action or hot action or have that commitment on unless we have credibility, and that has to start with us, at has to start with us. And it goes back to our nonnegotiables. If I know what to say no to, okay, great. And I’m actually saying no to it, I’m building credibility with myself. I’m building trust in myself, we all have a sense of what’s going on, we don’t always listen to that voice. And we aren’t always really good at understanding the feedback loop of other people either. And we ask for it. And then we get into that realm of, oh, we’ve got to keep all of our options open, Christy, like what you were talking about? Because everybody is contributing? So how do we make something for everybody, we can’t. So why try margin of grace, I think that’s going to be my phrase of the day, the margin of grace. And so I do think that we have to start building credibility with ourselves. And as soon as we are, have credibility with ourselves, that increases our confidence to be able to say, when we communicate something, to a client, to our team, to our board, we are saying it with confidence. And then the priorities we have set a line that other people now believe us, other people see our credibility, other people start to have confidence in us, which adds fuel and influences the credibility that we do have. And it’s a scary, it’s an easy thing to lose, I shouldn’t say scary, it’s an easy thing to lose that credibility. But it all starts between our own ears. No,
Quentin Ortega 11:16
I totally agree. And I think that to take it to an example that I’ve seen with clients all the time, I encountered the owner who’s frustrated that the team is not engaging with their systems, their CRM or something like that. And I’m like, oh, but are you engaging as the owner Are you setting that bar of like engagement with those tools, and a lot of times, they’re not right, and that they have to set that example, as a leader of a company like people are looking to you. And they’re looking at what you focus on whether or not you believe that they’re paying attention, they are right at what you focus on, and then trying to try to make the right decisions on the company’s behalf a lot of times, but if they can’t tell what you’re focused on, or what you’re focused on is confusing, just because you’re avoiding something that has to be done. And that’s a non negotiable, then that could cause some real confusion and the whole team.
Christy Maxfield 12:05
And if you’re consistently inconsistent, they can’t trust you, they can’t trust that what you said is the priority. And I know teams that wait their owners out, right, you said you wanted to add, my experience teaches me I get halfway through doing it, you change your mind, or you change how you want it done. And then I have to do a lot of rework. So if you want people to take ownership, that’s something people talk about all the time, take ownership, right? I can’t take ownership of something, if I feel like it’s going to be ripped out from underneath me completely change, tabled, or somehow negated. Because the owner, my boss, whomever isn’t committed to the priorities, they’ve stated, aren’t committed to the course of action are committed to dedicating the resources aren’t committed to seeing it. And the people learned how to treat you, your spouse, your kids, your employees, your peers. And so if you prove to them that it’s a much better strategy for me to wait you out than it is to take ownership, be reliable and consistent. And stay committed to what we’ve identified, then going to be really hard to get the outcome you say you want.
ANNOUNCER 13:23
If you are ready to make a real impact in your business, and you’ve waited too long to take action, go to RedDirection.Com and click on Solutions to find out how.
Jess Dewell 13:35
I would be curious from each of you, how do you determine your nonnegotiables? And while you’re thinking about that, I’m going to answer that because I did come prepared, I did come prepared crazy. And the first thing I will say is I know myself, my personal values are going to be the driver for with which I show up to everything. And my personal values are different than my household values, which are also different than read directions values. Because while I’m part of those things, while I’m a major part in the decision maker, and all of those things, including myself, the only one I have complete control of is me. So my three personal values, I kept them simple on purpose, because I have to be able to show up as me all in to read direction as me all in to the partner in my household, to best represent whatever needs to come up. And so that’s curiosity, elegance, and truth are the three things that I know that if I am holding true to and if I feel are a little off, it’s time to pause, it’s time to go. Why is that? Where did I miss the mark? Because if I’m not showing up as me, I can’t help anybody else in the situation that I find myself in, whether it’s a redirection for a client, whether it’s a home for my family, whether it’s just for me and what I want to do next. I think that’s a really important piece. So I do that. And the second thing in addition to knowing that and living by those personally, I also really rely on my present retreat. I know we talked about that a lot because it’s the thing that I do all the time. So it comes out. But the ability to assess where I was assess where things are, what feels weird, what looks weird, what actually is weird and the data that I’m looking at, out of sync by Weird out of sync, maybe unreliable, whatever it might be, and then being able to then go back to the dream, and bring it back to the reality, go back to the priority list and bring it back to the reality so that there’s a gap analysis going on all the time. Because if I’m rooted in exactly where I’m at, and then I’m looking forward I, to where we’re going and what we’re expecting, I can actually set the priorities and then communicate those out. And that’s actually a big part of the work that I do for the clients that I’m working with to what’s the big thing. Where are you at today? That how do you set and change those priorities and poke holes in it, poke holes in it for myself. And that’s what I am working to teach other people to poke holes in it for themselves, and then go back to their board, go back to their advisors go back to somebody like the three of us to ask to talk through it and make sure there aren’t any other bigger holes.
Christy Maxfield 16:03
Who you are pondering? What did you ponder?
Quentin Ortega 16:05
That’s a lot, right? Like, it’s a question I haven’t asked myself before, right? How do I fully determine those nonnegotiables? I know that I do it. And it just comes I don’t want to say naturally, but I know I have processes. I just never thought about, hey, what are these processes that I’m using? And I think that, for me, as I thought about its tagging a little bit on what Jess was saying, like one of the big ones for me is like self-care and making sure that I’m in that I’m in the right headspace, right? If I come to the meeting with a client, or an employee, or anyone that’s helping me and I’m not where I need to be that day, I know I’m not gonna be able to deliver and help them get where they need to be. I prioritize that. And then I create my like daily to-do list every morning, I sit down and I say, what are the there’s an infinite number of things we all have to do every day. But what is what am I actually going to try to get done today? And then after I write that list, I think I sit for a minute. And I think about okay, what of these things? Am I the only one that can do? There’s a big difference between? Are you the only one that can do this? Or do you think you’re the only one that can do this? Right? Can I delegate this out to someone else? Right? Is there someone else on the team who is expecting to do this or should be doing this? That’s not me, right? And so I think that trying to be really honest with myself about what are the things that only can fall on my plate and my personal plate focusing on those. And then the other thing that I often share with people is just this idea of also every morning kind of reassessing what the biggest fires are, which is it sounds like a dramatic way to say it, but effectively looking around and saying, Okay, there’s a lot of stuff that’s burning about that, or the the nicer way of saying it, I’ll say is I often say there’s a lot of plates that are spinning, I imagined the circus where there’s like, the guy is spinning plates on sticks, and he’s running back and forth to keep them all spinning. Which one of those is wobbling the most? Which one? Can I be most impactful on that day? And then that drives a lot of stuff off my to-do list, right? It either I either have to hand it to other people, so that I can focus on keeping those things going, that I that only I can touch? Or I have to find another way, right? So
Christy Maxfield 17:58
I think part of them are we know truly we know what’s authentic to us. And going back to our conversation last time about head heart and gut in one of those is gonna give you a signal that something’s not in alignment, or that you’re breaking a commitment to yourself a commitment to me, it starts with what’s most important to me. And then if that’s true, then I can’t then do something that compromises that. If there’s a goal you have for your family, if there’s a goal you have for your business, if there’s a goal you have for yourself, and you’ve told yourself that there’s no way I’m going to make a decision that puts my family at financial risk, then you may have to say no to certain things, because you ignore family judge them to be too risky. And those are the kinds of things I think when we especially when we work with early-stage owners, if you don’t know what your threshold is, if you don’t know what your budget save for your startup is and what you’re willing to sacrifice, it’s very easy to keep throwing good money after bad because of sunk costs, this idea that I can get to somehow recruit the coop the money in the time that I’ve invested in something and that doesn’t necessarily go away. Once you get bigger, it just the numbers change and the deltas change and the frankly, the risk changes, right? But when you don’t know where your threshold is where you have to say no, even though some part of you says if I keep going, I think there’s hope over the ridge so to speak, there’s gold in them there hills. But if that puts your family at risk, and you’ve committed not to do that, then that has to be a nonnegotiable in order for you to stay in authentic truth to yourself into someone else. So for me, I think there’s an idea of what I just wouldn’t do. To make a buck, so to speak, there are certain people or certain industries, certain things that you know, even though I think you might be a really nice person, that industry doesn’t align with my values and I have to say no or you’re going to ask me to do something like travel 90% of the time, that might be a nonnegotiable, because even though it’s going to be a big paycheck, and maybe great work and very exciting, I’ve committed to be home more of those that time. So knowing what it is, and then making the choice that’s right for you and not getting caught up in the shoulds. Because for me, that’s the where my more I spend a lot of time I think is should I be doing this? Oh, my, my late afternoon meeting just got canceled, I should do these three things. Could I do those things? Sure. Is it really important that I spend my time doing them now, or two cues, point go take a walk, take a nap, play with the dog. Because I tend to neglect my mental, emotional, spiritual wellbeing if there’s work in front of me because I’ve been well-trained to continue working during working hours. So I think you have to understand too, if what you’re really trying to do is create more balance in your life, and more joy in your life, and really enjoy the freedom that comes with owning a business, which is around making enough money to do what you want, when you want, then what are you going to do with that freedom? And how much of it do you need? How big are your wants?
Quentin Ortega 21:25
I love that. And I think, again, you’re in my head Christian, because I love it. I love it so much. Because for years, I just, uh, people often say, Oh, I started my business, like people are going after money. They say they want to be wealthy, quote, unquote, whatever wealthy means and for years, I’ve told people like, I define wealth as being able to do what I want when I want. So it’s not necessarily about the amount of money it’s exactly the word you said, it’s about do I have freedom in my time? Yes, money is a factor, right? I’m not gonna say you have to have money to be able to do things, but it’s not the only driver. And if you lose sight of that framing, it can drive you to do the wrong things. Right?
Jess Dewell 21:59
Totally. And to your point, and I know, we’re gonna get into this next piece here in just a second. But I will tell you what Q and Christie, you bring up a really good point because for me, my freedom is security. And it’s very different. Because I’m like, wait a second, of course, I’m gonna grow that nut, I’m gonna grow that nut of whatever is going to be my security. But at the same point in time, being able to say, Hey, this is where I want to spend time. These are the projects, I want to prioritize. Here’s what I want to do with my time. There is a freedom of time that comes once that stability from for me once that stability is met. And to then the point of what both of you were sharing, is that an alignment? Is that something I can tolerate? It had I within my threshold?
Quentin Ortega 22:42
Chris, you said like a lot of early-stage founders that we work with, right, which is true. They don’t necessarily know where their threshold is, I would say the other caution I’ll give to anybody that’s listening to this, who’s out there, who’s a late-stage founder or somebody that’s owned a business for years, you also have to be careful, because what happens over owning a business for years is that you build up calluses, right? Meaning things that would stress the normal person, don’t stress you you’re like, Yeah, I’ll figure it out. I figured it out. 100 times before, right? And that is valuable because allows you to do things that other people can’t do. It allows you to be a business owner, if I’ll say that versus just going somewhere and being an employee. But it also comes with a risk, right? You have to always be mindful that things that might hurt others might not hurt me as bad. And I need to be watching for that. And aware that, oh, maybe my pain tolerance is too high. And I need to ratchet it down. Because before I dig myself a holes.
Jess Dewell 23:38
How does that tie into tenacity?
Quentin Ortega 23:40
That’s a great segue.
Jess Dewell 23:42
Like, I think we’re talking about that already. I’m gonna call it out. That was the second thing we said we were gonna talk about today.
Quentin Ortega 23:47
I think that’s right. That’s a great, that’s a great segue, right? Because so a lot of the time I’ll tie this back to when somebody thinks of a successful entrepreneur, right? The names that come to mind are, let’s say, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, like all these other people that Michael Dell’s that build things out of their garage, and I live in mostly the tech space based on those names. That probably is clear. But the thing is, you only hear about their last success, right? You hear about their big success, you don’t hear about the fact that those guys and many others who don’t have names that are well-known across industries, they were successful because they have the tenacity to just keep coming back and staying dedicated to the task at hand. But just great point, it has to be carefully balanced with not digging yourself into a pit. Right? So it is like a balancing act. I think for every business owner of like, you have to have to nasty keep going. But you also have to be careful that you’re not ignoring the pain or digging yourself into a hole. I think that’s a really it’s really interesting balance more and honestly, I probably for you guys, too. A lot of the coaching work and the consulting work that I wind up doing the mentoring work focuses in on that idea of helping people identify Oh, am I hurting myself in this process? Am I digging a hole without realizing it and trying to shine some light on that so that they can see that? and grow from it and go there. And I think that all that said, you can’t get anything done though if you don’t keep going. Right? If you stop and you give up. You’re done. Right. And I think that I told both of you this the other day when we were chatting, but one of my business partners and I have been in business now for too many years to count over a decade, over 15 years, I don’t know, somewhere between 15 and 20 years now working with the same group, they our go-to phrase has always just been just keep going, right? Because like at the end of the day, we have to figure out a way to push forward. What does that look like? And there have been, there’s good times, and there’s bad times and Ben the journey. But you have to stay dedicated, you have to have that tenacity. And you have to keep pushing forward.
Christy Maxfield 25:43
I think you also have to believe that you’re still on the right path to keep going. And so really evaluating that I’ve been reading the psychology of money, and just the need to really understand what you’re willing to risk and what your trade-offs are. So to just keep going does that mean you live a more, more austere lifestyle for another 510 years? To just keep going does it mean you put your anything you can save into a relatively safe index fund and leave it the hell alone for the decades that come to follow? That there’s always an example of somebody who really doubled down and stayed the course and somebody who tried to game the system. And usually, it’s a person who gamed the system that you could say they were both being consistent. And they were both saying Never give up. But what were they what was their time horizon? What were they trying to accomplish? Were they risking things they actually couldn’t afford to lose in order to get things they didn’t necessarily need? Warren Buffett, it was actually three Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger and another guy, right. None of us know the other guy’s name. Because when times got tough, he was overextended. And he lost all of his wealth. Whereas Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett, they let it ride. Charlie Munger has apparently said, Don’t interrupt compounding unnecessarily. So just keep going. Yeah. When everything around you when, when everybody’s calling their finance guy and saying you should I be pulling out of the market or sell everything I have, or I can’t stand any more risk? And I’m can’t stand any more losses. Can you keep it there knowing that historically, things will even out because you have enough, long enough time horizon and you’re patient enough, and you know, your ultimate security is going to be in doing that versus having a knee-jerk reaction to that? So I think I when I was doing truly a startup where I wasn’t getting paid, and my livelihood depended on us hitting real milestones. It was, Am I crazy for staying or crazy for leaving? And if you weren’t, if I wasn’t asking myself on that on a regular basis, then I don’t think I could truly evaluate whether I’d hit a point where my nonnegotiables were going to be compromised, where I was going to make bad decisions, because I simply wanted to prove that I could do it. And so I have a real heart, like I wrestle a lot with, yeah, and you need to persevere, you need to be resilient, you have to have grit, you also need to know when to quit.
ANNOUNCER 28:18
Maybe you are or know a company that is looking for support to double their revenues to 3 million, 10 million, or 25 million. Jess Dewell will roll up her sleeves to quickly understand your growth strategy and assess how you work with uncertainty. How much stamina is being used to make decisions? And how your current priorities align to your long-term growth goals. You can schedule a complimentary consultation to find out more RedDirection.com.
Jess Dewell 28:55
Listening to the conversation so far, and I’m thinking about tenacity, and whatever is important to us within the work that we’re doing. Do we care about service? Do we care about quality? Do we care about value? And are we evaluating that as part of every decision and sometimes between decisions when we’re showing up to the next meeting in our preparation? When we run into somebody, and we’re answering and these days, it could be answering the email or on a direct message somewhere in one of those awesome apps that we have to stay in touch when we don’t want to be on our phones kind of thing. But when we know those as well, what is the ultimate goal? Are the questions that we’re asking ourselves are actually is their ego in the way? Not only is it the right thing right now is my ego in the way but there’s also the have I asked anybody else about because if I’m not seeing the results I want and I’m part of a bigger organism that’s going where is the disconnect between my check-ins and their check-ins to feedback to me, because feedback loop matters for credibility. We know if we’re on message or off. We know if people are understanding us and proceeding what we’re saying correctly, we understand that there’s a direct correlation with the work that we’re putting out versus the reaction or the result or the ROI that we have asked for. And so that feedback is a big part of making sure that we are in consistent action, whatever it is, we can find out when we’re in our own way.
Quentin Ortega 30:20
I recently was talking with somebody about that, who had spent a significant amount of time and effort this is a business owners put a significant amount of time and effort in developing a new system to help better track what’s going on inside their company. But along the way, like they didn’t really ask for feedback, right, they didn’t interact as much with the team as they should have. And so they spent a lot of time in a vacuum is what I told them in a vacuum chamber, developing the tools that worked for them. But then when they rolled it out to the company, like it didn’t get the uptake that they had hoped it didn’t cause the big disruption or big progress that they had hoped. And a lot of that was because they hadn’t saw that feedback. And I know that when working with like people who are introducing a new product to the market, that’s something that I harp on all the time, which is effectively are you going and talking to your customers along the way, because if you’re just building a thing, and not asking the people who you eventually want to purchase it or buy into it, whether that buying it is financial or emotional or just engaging with it, right? You’re gonna build the wrong thing. First off, right, and if you’re gonna build in the wrong direction, most likely,
Jess Dewell 31:27
And just keep going even on a bad hair day. That’s all I have to say about that. Now just be real with you.
Christy Maxfield 31:32
None of us are have, oh, thank you.
Jess Dewell 31:34
Because I was actually thinking about that today. I’m like, Man, you have to embrace whatever shows up the curls on my head no matter how hard I try. And so I’m like, to your point, Christy, to your point, too, it can be and I’m bringing it back and trying to make a little point in front of myself, because I’m like, Oh, I hate to beat, I could take things a little too serious sometimes. And I don’t want to be attached to the outcome. And if I can’t break it up, and I can’t poke fun at myself, there might be other stuff going on that I need to dig deeper on. So I can just keep going.
Quentin Ortega 32:03
And I think earlier that tie-in to talking about nonnegotiables talking about the stuff that we were having about what are the things that only you can do, right, we have that conversation, one of the other things that I talk a lot to a lot of people about as far as commitment to action, as far as staying pushing things forward, is like when I’m going through that list I talked about in the morning, when I’m saying Am I the only one that can do this? What can I delegate and we talked a lot about delegation in some of our previous sessions. But look at that. And I would say don’t let, don’t let perfection get in the way of delegation. How about that? And I think the example that I that I use a lot of times is like having someone, most people today have engaged at least at some point with Instacart or something like that. And I’ll use my mac and cheese example, which is you go on Instacart. And you say I want Kraft mac and cheese. The shopper is at the store and there’s no Kraft mac and cheese. But they grab another and he has mac and cheese I don’t know whatever other brand is we’re not sponsored but I’m shooting for those sponsorships right craft or Anna isn’t wants to sponsor a podcast? That you they grabbed the Annie’s bag of cheese and they say we replaced it. But you have to think about as the buyer in that situation. Did you really care about Kraft mac and cheese? Or did you just need mac and cheese? Right? Is that successful? And so I use that example a lot when I talk to people about delegation, because if someone on your team does something, but it’s not 100%, to how you would have done it, or how you thought you wanted it done, there’s still a ton of value there, right 80% Done is better than not done at all, especially if, if it allows you to stay focused to your point just on your nonnegotiables. Right, if you can still get things done. And just keep going on the other pieces, I think accepting some fluctuation, and what completeness looks like is a big part of it.
Jess Dewell 33:48
And I’m going to add that the margin of grace comes back to that because you were talking about it through delegation and 80% getting done and I’m gonna be like, dude, if I can get it done at all, also take that as a win. Win. It’s not really a win-win. It’s not something to delegate. Okay, so remember y’all way back.
Christy Maxfield 34:03
And consistency isn’t completion. It’s not an it’s not a measure of intensity. Right? So did you consistently keep your books in order? Meaning that some weeks you did it at about 15%. And some weeks you did it more like 80 or 90%. But you never let it fully drop off as a priority. Right, you made it. So I think a few things if it’s Kraft mac and cheese or nothing, be very clear about that. Tell your team that they have the discretion to leave the store without the mac and cheese if the right mac and cheese isn’t there. Right? And then we all have habits, right? So I go back to this main question of how can my business foster consistent action towards our biggest goals. And so we have lots and lots of habits and most of the people we work with want to Change the habit that’s happening in their company. Right? Either there’s too much waste or there’s too much rework, or there’s the sales processes leaky or the messaging is inconsistent, or people don’t take ownership or whatever, like they’re not coming to us because everything’s working the way they want it to. So you have habits, are they the ones you want, because you’re consistently doing something, it might be that you’re consistently not writing the change order correctly, and consistently having to redo it, and consistently costing your company money. That’s not good. I don’t want that consistency in my business. Because we know consistency compounds, the more you do it, the better you get at it. So if you’re gonna, if it screwed up, you’re gonna get really good at screwing it up.
Jess Dewell 35:49
Oh, let me just tell you, I like this a lot. Gosh, darn it. Now I’m gonna have to think about this. When I go on my walk this afternoon. What, uh, what is the habit that I have that I really might not want? And we’re gonna, we’re gonna interrupt here before we get into this awesome compounding piece, which is the third part to reiterate, what have we been talking about? Nonnegotiables. What have we been talking about? We’ve been talking about tenacity, and what we’ve been talking about Christy Q. And I have a lot to say about this whole concept of accountability, and how can my business foster consistent action to achieve our biggest goals. And we’ve given some starting ideas so far that I know you will be able to take away from and so while you’re thinking about this, and while you’re thinking about, I wonder if I can win if I can guess what Christie is going to share with us. When we’re talking about compounding, we’re going to reintroduce ourselves and give everybody a chance to catch up with where we’re at so far. And check their hair in case they’re having a bad hair day. And make sure that they’re okay with the mat with a brand new mac and cheese or doesn’t matter to them in their cart. And Quinton, who are you?
Quentin Ortega 36:51
Quentin Ortega, founder president of Q SEO Consulting, we help companies and organizations on growth strategy, succession and Exit Planning.
Christy Maxfield 37:01
Christy Manfield Purpose First Advisors, we work with owners who are interested in strategic growth and succession planning.
Jess Dewell 37:08
And I’m just doing your host at the Bold Business Podcast. But also, I’m just the third point of this particular triangle so that we never have a tie and can bring a true instead of a teeter-totter, we can bring definitely three different points of view. And that’s actually the purpose of what the work I read direction is where we’re working at that strategic future level, and facilitating those conversations that meet, maybe you’re having too much of or not enough of. And that’s to be determined through the point of coming back to do you know what your nonnegotiables are, guess what that was the first part of our program. Do you know how you define tenacity and what that actually can mean for you? That was the second part of our program. And here we go into the third part of our program, which is all about compounding effort.
Christy Maxfield 37:53
So if you know what your nonnegotiables are, these things have to happen. Or these things can never happen, I’m never going to cross that line. And then you’re really clear about which ones you care a whole lot about, and which ones you just needs to get done. But however it gets done. I’m okay with the outcome and not the process. And then, are you do though, doing them on a regular basis? Yeah, I think we all pull different fields for analogies. But for me, it’s if you’re committed to eating healthier food, have you defined what healthy food is for you? Have you defined what doing that consistently looks like? Because I don’t know about you, but I’m going to reach for a cookie. If cookies in front of me, I’m going to eat some chocolate probably every day because my brain likes it. I’m going to have a cup of coffee or tea, whatever your preference may be. That’s also a whole nother show for the three of us. But wait, how have you defined what it means to eat healthier, consistently? And are you going to give yourself grace, that marginal grace to say, today, I’m going to thoroughly enjoy eating whatever it is that I’m going to thoroughly enjoy and eating. And tomorrow I’m going to get back to a regular routine of making these choices. Because I’m really, again, thinking about what my trade-offs. If I eat the cookie, every time I want the cookie, I’m going to not have the health outcomes I want. If I neglect my books, every time I want to neglect my books, I’m going to spend more on accounting I’m going to have I’m not going to have the information I need to make real-world decisions I’m going to miss opportunities that upset me that I missed them. I’m gonna be oblivious to opportunities because nobody bothered to come knock in because they got a sense that I probably couldn’t step up to the plate anyway. Right so whatever Rick field of life you pull this from, and find your analogy, find the part of your life where doing something consistently whether it was making your bed every morning, we’re reading to your kids every night. There’s something you do consistently that is a positive in your from your point of view, a positive thing that you do and you He’s made it a priority. And you’re clear about what it means you’re clear about what it means to do it that 80% or 20%, or 110%. And then you’ve made, you’re making conscious choices about what you’re doing. So if we take that slate to a company level, it goes back to all the things we started with, which are, what do you actually think is important. If you’re not consistent in communicating that to your team, they won’t know. And they will just start doing things that feel productive, versus doing the things you want them to be doing. So your consistency, your ability to be in alignment with yourself, and then show up consistently with them. There’s nothing we hate more as human beings than people who just we don’t know who’s gonna walk in the door that day, we don’t know what’s happy, Christie is gonna walk in are crazy, Christy is gonna walk it are 18 ideas and stop doing what you’re doing and do this new thing, Christie, if that’s where you’re working. That’s not good. You’re one of the people they’re trying to get away from, and you’re not getting the consistent outcomes you want into your business. So we got to be consistent on the front end, if we want consistency on the back.
Quentin Ortega 41:07
One of the things that you said earlier that has really stuck with me out of that was like, the reminder that we’re always doing something. Right? Like even everybody is always doing something meaning like, even if you’re choosing to procrastinate, that is the thing you’re doing right then right? If you’re choosing to watch Netflix, when you should be taking calls, right? Like you’re making a choice, right? And so framing like your day-to-day as you go through with okay, no matter what, even if I’m just sitting here meditating, or sitting or my eyes closed or reading a book, I’m always doing something, Am I doing the right things enough? Right the to move things forward for the goals that I want.
ANNOUNCER 41:49
Focused on growth? Listen to more programs like this which support the challenges and opportunities you are working with right now. Search Bold Business Podcast for the key terms at RedDirection.com or your preferred podcast listening app.
Jess Dewell 42:04
Once upon a time, I actually wrote a blog post, post called or I had a conversation about something called stopped dropping, roll. And it was all about how do you pause before you keep going? Because we’ve been talking about choice. Christie earlier, you actually mentioned the psychology of money. And we were talking we’re actually talking even before that about our books, and the things that are external factors, chess, and many of us will use the stock market as a savings vehicle for our retirements. And now our retirement is tied to something totally out of our control. Yet, what are we taught? And what do we know to be true about the stock market, it doesn’t matter what the day-to-day ups and downs are, over time, it always goes up. So putting something in and letting it grow through the ups and downs is incredibly important. How that relates to business, though, does come back to what you were talking about a choice. It also comes down to what am I reinvesting? One of the reasons the stock market works over time is usually there’s something in there that’s returning a dividend. So there’s even if even if we actively are not doing anything, it’s doing it for us. So to bring that back into our day-to-day business to bring that compounding concept into what we’re doing. It’s where we reinvesting are we doing? One more push-up? Are we taking one more breath before we open our mouth? Are we are we deciding I am going to not do something for a while to see if this is a habit I would like to change to invest energy differently. And so I think that’s the piece that we also I want to bring back into the compounding part, set it and forget, it does work for a lot of things. At some point, it will become death by 1000. paper cuts, there is a tipping point, hands down. That’s all. And so we have to understand if we know that’s going to be the case, we can’t forget about it forever. So set and forget it is only as good as our situation is. And if we’re always doing something and we’re always making choices, we’re moving towards something or not or away from that. And so how do those systems help us? So this is what’s coming up for me around this because this is my strategic alignment piece coming in, if I’m not if I great the ups and the downs of today, but I want to see that growth over time. So how am I reinvesting? Do I have enough energy to be happy until I go to bed? Or am I falling into bed exhausted every night? Or am I so depleted? I’m actually not getting a good night’s sleep, which is taking away from what I might be able to do tomorrow.
Christy Maxfield 44:35
Or are you always changing where you’re investing? Maybe this year you pumped money into sales, but then you didn’t see what you wanted to see. So you’re pulling that back and now you’re pushing it into technology and then you didn’t see what you wanted to see. So you’re pulling it back and you want to do marketing? Where are you reinvesting it and I don’t think anyone would suggest to set it and forget it as much as under-evaluating what you’re doing to understand if you’re actually only getting the benefit of consistent action. I don’t think Warren Buffett said it and forgot it. I think he’s intimately aware of what his investments are doing. But he’s also made the conscious choice not to try and make the most money today. He’s not a day trader, right. And he’s not playing the same game as a day trader. And so that other piece of that book, and these ideas that I’m wrestling with are really like, no, what game you’re playing. If I’m comparing myself to a company that’s in a very volatile market, where heavy investments in technology are needed, where I could be expecting to have to raise a lot of money, and not see profit for quite a long time. That’s a different game, than having to invest in a very brick-and-mortar, heavy industrial manufacturing type of industry, it’s very different than having to invest in a business where there’s a lot of direct sales, right? It’s not a click it and buy it kind of situation, right? So no, no fool you’re benchmarking yourself against and even within that space, are you playing the same game? Is the other person trying to get as rich as possible, as fast as possible while you’re trying to maintain some level of security and long-term growth? If so, then you shouldn’t be making the same decisions, because you’re not trying to do the same thing. And here’s the thing is, as much as everybody will tell you about what they’re doing in their business, and who’s doing what and who we should follow. We don’t know. Because they barely tell themselves, let alone anybody else in their company, let alone strangers like us who want to know, how did you do what you did? Right? So I think knowing really what you want, and trying not to get caught up in playing somebody else’s game.
Jess Dewell 46:55
So I’m going to take what you said, I’m going to raise you on that I’m gonna go yes. And, and I’m gonna say yes. And to the part where you were like, when you were talking about, you can’t put something money or investment or time into something and then pull it all out and then go someplace else, we completely agree on that. What I would say to that is, then maybe when you put it in, it might be the point you put it in, you put in the effort, and now you’re gonna let it grow with whatever investment you gave it, while you design the next with the resources that are now available.
Christy Maxfield 47:25
Yeah, and you’re gonna evaluate what’s working and what’s not working. And you’re gonna, and you’re going to experiment small.
Jess Dewell 47:31
Explain small experiment on time, think about what you’re saying about Warren Buffett, he’s in it for the long haul. We’re talking about this long-term thing. So we have to decide and it goes back to our conversations, I think about are we throwing enough resources at it for a short period of time to get a fast response? Or are we going to go and do it a little bit of a longer-term? And what does make sense for that to be there? So designing the experiment to understand the compound and Christy is I think that the thing that I would add to everything that you were saying.
Christy Maxfield 47:59
If you’re at the end of your business ownership horizon, because you have not figured out how to live forever, and you or you’ve decided that you want to do something else at work, that is maybe it’s a different business, I don’t know. But your time horizon is different than somebody who’s just starting. And your time horizon is different than the person you might sell to, or bequeath to, or gift to, or otherwise bring in to run the business, right? And knowing what your business’s time horizon is, versus what your personal time horizon is, I may be in an industry where I see the next five years are full of growth opportunities, but I’m tired. And I don’t want to do that. I want to take what I’ve got, protect what I’ve earned, reaps the wealth that I’ve created, and go take my toys and go do something else because I need a break. But that doesn’t mean my business time horizon, isn’t there to be fully invested in and matured by someone else? What’s your time horizon? And if something doesn’t go right, let’s say I do have a longer time horizon, or I don’t, I’m going to just suck it up and say, Okay, I’ll stay another five years, because I want to ride this wave out. And I don’t think I’m going to get another wave and this is my last wave. I’m really ready to be done, but I’m going to ride the wave anyway. What happens if it does go sideways? Do you have enough time to recover from it? What’s your margin of grace? What’s your margin of error? Most of us don’t have a lot of money we can throw at something to fix it. When it doesn’t go the way we plan and nothing’s gonna go the way you planned it. That’s nothing, nothing, not the flight you want to take tomorrow to go, go on vacation, not the walk using you’re taking with the dog later. Nothing is gonna go exactly as planned. And you either have enough time to absorb or enough money to absorb the impact and do what you need to do to react. So mine horizon is a big part of the equasion as well.
Quentin Ortega 50:01
Yeah, and I think all of that ties into just like, goal setting and revisiting those goals. And whether that’s for your life or for your business, knowing the vision of what you want to achieve, knowing the timeline, to your point, Christy, when you want to achieve that by, and then making sure that and to things that Justice said in many of our other sessions, making sure that you’re looking back at those goals and saying, are the actions I’m taking pushing me towards those every day? Right? Am I taking some small action, because I’m always taking action, as we discussed earlier, some action is being taking constantly, are the ones that you’re choosing, pushing towards that slowly. And then I think I’m gonna say to like that, I’m gonna add that it’s just it’s patience, right? A little bit of it’s patience, right? And that consistency, being consistent and having the patience to be consistent, because I think a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of business owners, I’m gonna, I’m gonna go forth and say, all entrepreneurs and business owners always want the outcomes faster than they can be there, right? Like we are all people that want when we see with a path, we want to say, we wish it was here today, right? Like, we wish we could accelerate it today. And, but realistically, you can’t, right? It takes time. It takes patience. And so I think that applying yourself applying to these consistent actions a long time, just keep going right, all these things we’ve said, add up to achieving those goals and getting there over time. But it requires remembering that it’s going to take time to get to where you want to be.
Jess Dewell 51:26
So what was our biggest takeaway?
Quentin Ortega 51:29
I have two for today. Right? And one of those is, which I said, I’ve been thinking about consistently, which is how do you how do I when I say how do you how do I determine my nonnegotiables every day right thinking through I know I have processes, but better understanding what those are and why I’ve created them is gonna be a fun activity for me. And I think the other thing is, you’re always doing something, I’m going to keep harping on that, because that was my favorite thing. And Christy said today, right? And that will also be stuck in my brain for the next week, or month or year, we’ll see right? Doesn’t matter what you’re doing, you’re always taking some form of action, inaction is action at its core. And I think just keeping that in mind, is really important for all of us.
Christy Maxfield 52:06
For me, I think it’s that consistency starts with you. And if you go back to how does my business foster consistent action that allows us to achieve our biggest goals, then you have to start with as the leader, by choosing the things that are most important, and then acting in ways that are consistent with achieving them. And allow your team the time and the resources they need consistency consistently, and not be the factor that causes the disruption or causes the interruption into in that process where we don’t even get the benefit of consistent action. But that all and that all requires being really clear about your priorities, clear about your process, clear about who’s doing what, when and where and how. And then don’t mess with it too much. Get it good. And then don’t mess with it too much.
Jess Dewell 53:05
Yeah, there’s a trust in that too. And that’s my biggest takeaway, right? When we talk about, I’m going to come back to credibility, I couldn’t believe I was going to bring this up in a conversation of accountability. And then I was like, why not? Why not and to the discussion today, and what you two have brought, just reinforced that for me is that my credibility with myself is a form of trust, my credibility with my employees is a form of trust, my credibility with my customers that my company is serving is a form of trust. And when we’re talking about that, the more I feel that in myself, the more confident I will be. And I can say that is true for every business that I’ve ever helped the conversations we have had when we increase credibility with ourselves, we increase our confidence. But how does that actually result? The things when we were talking about just keep going and evaluating our goals, when we’re talking about the compounding effects and how this works. It’s more than trust, we’re reinforcing our brand identity and adapting and growing, we’re building almost like a sixth sense, if you will, a pulse of now that I know what all these things are together, I can tell if it’s off a little, and I can decide in my margin of grace, which I made that up today. So I’m gonna I’m gonna claim that right there. I was like, that was actually a really good margin of grace. Is that okay? Or not? When it starts hitting the edge of not okay, then I spend more time thinking about it versus going isn’t even worth thinking to think about right? Do I’m gonna think about maybe should I think about it, now we can. The margin of grace helps us with everything. Sure, all the way through, right? Get all the crumbs out of the way so we can have the place to play and keep going. And then time going by the longevity here that credibility that’ll allow that’ll give us the chance to have data come in feedback coming in so that we can understand efficiencies of our systems so that we can and Stand the message versus perception so that we can prioritize accordingly to keep going forward because I don’t know about you too, but I live in the future. And all the action I do today is taken because I already know what my future is going to look like. And there are others of us that know where we’re at today and are taking the next step to build our toward that future. And both are important and necessary. And it’s when we talk to each other that we really get the benefit of the whole picture as it is today, knowing that it’ll change tomorrow.
Quentin Ortega 55:35
Amen. Absolutely. Yep.
Jess Dewell 55:37
You heard it here. First people this is It’s Your Business hosted by Bold Business Podcast. Thanks. And until next time.
ANNOUNCER 55:45
Wow, Jess hosts the Bold Business Podcast to provide insights for building a resilient, profitable business by deeply understanding your growth strategy, ensuring market relevance, and your company’s future. It is Bold to deeply understand your growth strategy with your host, Jess Dewell. Get more information about how to drive solutions and reset your growth mindset at RedDirection.com. Thank you for joining us, and special thanks to our post-production team at The Scott Treatment.