The Key to Exponential Business Growth: Think 5 Years Ahead, Always with Carter Malloy: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Light that, Spark Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Business Made Simple. Today, we're pulling a classic episode from the archives, and we'll be breaking down the key to exponential business growth five years ahead. To drop these value bombs, I brought Carter Malloy in the EO Fire Studios. Carter is a financial analyst, guest columnist, and founder and CEO of AcreTrader, a leading farmland investing platform that makes it easy for investors to buy shares of US farmland.

0:35In today's information, We'll talk about how success is a state of mind. We'll talk about not thinking about your future, and you'll have increased odds of failure if you do, and how to be constantly selective about who you choose to become part of your team, how to do that, and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Carter and our sponsors. The Next Wave, your chief AI officer, hosted by Matt Wolfe and Nathan Lanz, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Matt and Nathan are leading AI creators in your guiding light in the AI and technology frontier.

1:07AI technology is transforming the way we do business and the media landscape is fragmented. The Next Wave strives to be the leading podcast on AI technology and how you can apply it to growing your business. Listen to The Next Wave wherever you get your podcasts. Ever thought about giving a TEDx talk? It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world. And four-time TEDx speaker, Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire to join Taylor's free training where he teaches you how to land a TEDx talk and spread your message to millions.

1:42Carter, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. What's up, John? Thanks for having me. Most people may disagree that being successful is not a point in time. It's a state of mind. And success should not be defined by a milestone, but rather by fulfillment and happiness along the way to all of your goals and milestones, which undoubtedly will continue to evolve as you grow as a person or business person. or whether you're measuring stick as wealth or impact or family or simply retiring early, the path is where I believe you should seek happiness and enjoy the ride as much as possible.

2:27And Fire Nation, please don't be upset with me repeating this quote one more time because it's so old in a good way because it is so timeless, but it is so true. Earl Nightingale shared that success and happiness is the gradual realization of a worthy ideal, Not getting to the mountaintop, not the realization, but the journey getting there, the gradual realization of a worthy ideal. And I want to start this chat today by talking about big picture goals. So Carter, talk to us about the first steps that we should be taking in order to identify our big picture goal. I believe defining what makes you happy is always most important.

3:09And most of us, including myself, are prone to forgetting that, you know, the meaning of life kind of questions. But it's really important to define what makes you happy. And in business, as an example, or being entrepreneurial, understanding things like what level of risk are you willing to take? So in defining a big picture goal, as an example, if you want to build out a business, do you want to build out a highly niche business in a defined market area like Tampa, Florida? And if so, that could be an awesome entrepreneurial journey with lower risk and lower reward versus maybe trying to build the next Airbnb where statistically you are highly, highly likely to fail.

3:51And so certainly understanding, defining what makes you happy and what types of success and milestones you want to have along the way are really important to ultimately describe that peak of the mountain as you just so put it. Now, one thing that you're a big believer in, and I really want to do a deep dive into, is being forward thinking. Because a lot of people are very present. They're in the moment. Or frankly, they're looking in the past. They're like, what worked yesterday? What worked the week, the month, the year before? How can we prioritize forward thinking when we're first starting a business?

4:27And why should we? Why should you? It's because you want to be successful, I think, is the easy answer there. Aaron, if you don't think about the future a lot, then your odds of failure are going to increase, period. And when thinking about starting a business and prioritizing those forward-thinking activities, it's really important to get out of the day-to-day. The minutia of the day-to-day is overwhelming at many times, if not all times, in being an entrepreneur. or I am personally guilty of this constantly of getting the day-to-day firefighting and forgetting to step back and remind myself and everyone around me sort of what's the beacon and what are the boundaries, right?

5:08So what is our North Star we're looking for and what are the boundaries we want to set around that? So as an example, when thinking about prioritizing this forward thinking, always consider first and foremost, is an activity that you're engaged in scalable? Like can the business do this thing, whatever that thing may be that you're doing, whether it's revenue generating or hygiene related or people related, can it do that thing a hundred times over? And if so, how can you design a system to automate a lot of that process? And that doesn't necessarily mean software. It just means sets of instructions so you can have other people help fill the holes there and grow faster.

5:47Then importantly, and especially as you just mentioned early in a business, do things that do not scale, right? So when forward thinking, think about how you can scale. But it's important to also, in the early phases of a business, focus on things that don't scale. That means talking to people. So speak to customers and prospects all of the time. Understanding your market and your customers is the single most important thing you can do in building that go-forward plan and making sure that you are, whether your intention is to directly provide them something they're asking for or not, right? If you believe you're the next Ford Motors or Apple, you still want to understand the market and understand what drives consumer mentality or customer mentality in your segment.

6:32Now, can you give us an example of a company, maybe yourself, maybe a client of yours, or maybe just a company that has no relation to you that you've seen them prioritize this forward thinking when they started their business and how that worked out? As a company, AcreTrader are all about liquidity, access and transparency in farmland. And ultimately, what that means is helping people to invest in farmland, helping people to buy and sell farmland, which is a very fascinating asset class. And so forward thinking in our case was we as individuals inside of the business understood from the get-go, hey, farmland is actually a fascinating asset class and can be a really lucrative one to invest in.

7:18And so we definitively made missteps by not placing enough emphasis on education. And education is something that is very scalable, right? providing information and data and charts and graphs and things for people to explore and get over that big barrier of understanding, right? So testing and testing and reformatting and representing information to make sure that it's highly consumable so that you don't have to do one-on-one blocking and tackling to educate folks, but rather provide that to the market. So I think that's an example of providing, maybe we'll talk about network nodes today, but providing something that can help to amplify your business is just information to your constituents or customers, whoever they may be.

8:08One thing that I talk about a lot to my audience is the snowball effect, because it's so, so hard to get that initial momentum, that initial traction. It's like that boulder stuck at the top of a hill. You just can't budge that thing. It is so hard to, but when you finally do, man, gravity takes over and you're like, whoa, check this out. So talk to us about your interpretation and definition of the snowball effect and then break down how you think we can both achieve and maintain this type of effect with our business's growth. I really appreciate that you broke that into achieve and then maintain I believe they are very different aspects if you're thinking about snowball effects or flywheel effects or many other momentum-based descriptors that we come up with.

8:59So the way – first to achieve, let's talk about that. We discussed doing things that do not scale. This is one of those. To get your first customers and to get your first partners, vendors, et cetera to have buy-in into what you're doing, you're going to have to put forth a crazy amount of effort. and just absolutely under no circumstances can you build it and they will come. So get in a car, walk across town, get on the phone, get on an airplane, even if it's not necessarily a hugely ROI generative event for those first customers. Making sure to build trust with people and to build relationships to get those first dominoes knocked down or that first kernel of the snowball built, achieving the snowball is really important.

9:43And again, that's not going to scale. It's going to be a crazy amount of lift, but it is absolutely necessary in most cases to get the thing rolling. Then how do you make sure that it feeds itself? And often this can be thought of in network nodes. So whether that is customers, which it usually is, or partners, vendors, bloggers, et cetera, turning people into evangelists is the best way to get your message out there and to get other people invested in your company. and the success of your company. And usually that is just through customers. But making sure that your customers, my gosh, especially those first customers, making sure they have an incredible experience so that they aren't customers, but they are evangelists.

10:28That's really what you're looking for is finding those people that will tell their 10 friends. And that's the beauty of network nodes is if you can invest really heavily in one node and that then amplifies your message out to 10 more people, that is a very scalable thing that you should really focus on is identifying network nodes in whatever business you may be in fire nation the evangelist effect is real like i have people reaching out to me all the time they're like john like i get so much value from your show from your free courses all these things i'm just not really in a position to support you right now by like buying one of your courses or your book or there's that and my response is always well first off thank you so much for the kind words.

11:09But secondly, you don't need to support me by buying something. You can support me by being an evangelist. How about you tell two of your friends, five of your friends, 10 of your friends about Entrepreneurs on Fire, just for them to check out a free podcast. Like that's a pretty easy like recommendation for your friends to check out something that's free. And that can be so effective, Fire Nation, so real. So always have something for people who are coming to you and thanking you for your content or for your product or for your service that they can do that's not going to take dollars out of their pockets because there's so much value there for sure.

11:40And we have some great value bombs coming up about an executive team as far as managing money correctly, which so many people cannot do, and some other value bombs. And we get back Fire Nation from thanking our sponsors. We all know that starting a business is hard, but there are tools out there that help make it easier. HubSpot is one of those tools. and just one way HubSpot makes starting a business easier with their all new entrepreneurship kits. This all-inclusive kit gives you step-by-step guidance and frameworks to help you crush every stage of starting a business. I'm talking project management, professional email and skill development templates in addition to an entire solopreneur guide and freelance pricing worksheets.

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13:03Thought Leader is not affiliated with TED or TEDx, but they're able to get these results because their founder, Taylor Conroy, is a four-time TEDx speaker himself and past EO Fire guest. You might be thinking a TEDx talk sounds great, but where do you start? Taylor has put together a free training that's going to teach you how to land a TEDx talk in as little as 90 days. Join Taylor to learn exactly what TEDx organizers are looking for in their speakers, how to write a talk that goes viral once it goes online and more. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire. Join Taylor for this free training and get your message out of your head, out of your heart, and out into the world where it belongs.

13:41That's thought-leader.com slash fire. So Carter, as I kind of teased before the break, break down what first an executive team looks like? Because I think there's a lot of people in our audience that doesn't even really know what an executive team looks like. And I'm actually going to be listening as well for your breakdown. And also, at what point should we expand our executive team? How does that trip occur where we know it's time to make that move? In terms of understanding the structure of an executive team, the org structure is going to be different for every business. You do absolutely need a clear leader, evangelist, if you will, internally for the business.

14:20and you need somebody that is operationally minded. Often those are two very different people within a business. So I would rather than go to organizational structure, instead talking about the types of people that you need, or at least that I think you need in a leadership team and the qualities of those people. One is not hiring people that are all the same because then you're going to end up with a workforce that's all the same and thinks the same way. So finding people that are intellectually curious and honest is incredibly, incredibly important. In our case, as an example, our director of investor relations, our COO, our head of marketing, these guys and girls are different than me.

15:07But most importantly, they're not afraid to challenge each other and to challenge me and have a very open dialogue. So first is that intellectual honesty and intellectual curiosity that's just really necessary to be creative and to grow a business. In terms of expanding them, how to find those people and what to look for, and we'll talk a little bit about characteristics. One is just be extremely slow and cautious, no matter how badly you need the person. Because if you hire an executive and it doesn't work out, it will be disruptive to your business. and potentially in a big, big way, if not catastrophic.

15:44So it's really important that you're careful in those hires. And if you're scaling up, be thoughtful about what that person will be doing. You don't want to hire the person for the job today. You want to hire the right person that can take care of the larger challenges coming down the pike at you six months out, 12 months out. Probably not two or three years out because you may end up hiring somebody that's too far advanced or too far of a leader for that position. but finding somebody that not only can tackle bigger challenges than what you see today, but importantly, somebody that can grow. And so I think that's when we talk about the defining personality characteristics.

16:20If somebody is going to be a leader of teams, which usually the word executive implies that they will have team members, they have to have important leadership qualities, things like empathy and self-awareness over communication. If you are interviewing someone to be a leader in your business and they say, I, I, me, me, a whole lot, that ain't your person. Just that's end of the conversation. You've got to have people who think about others and are empathetic towards others in their organization because that's ultimately the job of a leader is to be a servant to your organization, to help the people on your team and to enable them as much and as frequently as you can.

16:58So Fire Nation, I hope for people that are either far away from even creating an executive team at this point in your business, you now at least have that kind of north star you're moving towards. Or for somebody who's right on the edge, about to pull the trigger and make this happen, this is some great advice on both what an executive team looks like, but then also how you should expand and when you should expand, like when you actually know that the time is right. And I think this also kind of flows into nicely with the next topic. So if you want to kind of end with anything about the expansion and growing of the executive team, please do.

17:32but let's kind of move that into managing money because managing money correctly is the key to long-term success. And of course, this factors in to what your month over month expenses are. So how can we make sure that we're properly managing our money during a major growth period? You know, when everything's exciting and fun and seems to be working, what's your feedback there? There are a thousand answers and none of them are purely right or purely wrong, except for one. when managing money, there is one rule, do not run out of it. It seems like a ridiculous thing to say, but there is a massive graveyard of great companies with great teams and great products that did not manage their cash effectively and they are gone.

18:17And so you've got to be thinking about things like unit economics and margins and cashflow. And usually if you're in growth or hyper growth periods, you may be burning cash for the sake of growth. That's absolutely okay. But you need to make sure that either, one, you can see break-even happening well before the cash runs out. Or two, you have a very solid plan on how you're going to raise additional capital either via equity or debt. And start working on that, not just plan, but the execution of that now. If you know you're going to run out of money before you break even in your business. And again, that is okay.

18:53This is not a bad thing if you're growing like crazy. It is okay to invest in the business heavily. but if you know you're going to run out, start not just planning, but executing and talking to people and getting out in front of that capital or debt raise right now because it will sneak up on you quickly. And again, it does not matter how great your business is. It does not matter how great your team is, how great your market is. If you run out of cash, it's over. Fire Nation, managing your money is key to your long-term success. And Carter, you've given us a ton of value throughout this interview.

19:24I mean, we've talked about a lot of really important stuff. And again, Fire Nation, we're talking about the keys to exponential business growth, which we're thinking five years ahead always. So bring it home for us. What's the key takeaway you want to make sure Fire Nation really gets from everything that we talked about here today? Share how we can connect with you and your business and any call to action you may have for us. And then we'll say goodbye. Absolutely. So I think first we talked about big picture goals and always reminding yourself it's about being happy. It's not about a point in time.

19:58We've talked about being forward thinking and making sure your systems and processes are scalable. We've talked about network nodes and customers and evangelists. This is a huge, huge and really important point if you're building a business. We've talked about executives and partners for that matter. If you're bringing in a partner in your business, even if you're not about to start your business, if you have questions about that partner today, like, no, just don't partner with them. because it most likely won't work out if there are negative considerations there. So always being incredibly, incredibly selective about who you choose to work next to, and not just on your executive team, but on your entire team.

20:35And then never running out of money. I think that's a big takeaway as well. And in terms of our business and how to find out more about what we do, acreetrader.com is our website. We are a farmland investing website. It's actually really fun stuff. And we are a fast growth company. We're a post-Series A business. We've got about 35, maybe close to 40 employees now. And we're a two-and-a-half-year-old, three-year-old business, so it's all happening very quickly. So we love talking about and thinking about these things. We love hearing about them here at Entrepreneurs on Fire, so thank you for that.

21:10And Fire Nation, you know that you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with, and you have been hanging out with CM and JLD today. So keep up the heat. and head over to eofire.com, type Carter in the search bar. His show notes page will pop up with everything we've talked about here today. And Carter, I want to say thank you for sharing your knowledge, your truth, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, brother, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thank you so much. Hey, Fire Nation, today's value bomb content was brought to you by Carter and Fire Nation's successful entrepreneurs, they accomplish big goals.

21:45We're talking huge goals, which is why I created the Freedom Journal to guide you in accomplishing your number one goal in 100 days. We're talking step by step. Visit thefreedomjournal.com. Use promo code podcast for a$15 discount. And thank you for listening to my podcast. And I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side. The Next Wave, your chief AI officer, hosted by Matt Wolfe and Nathan Lanz, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Matt and Nathan are leading AI creators in your guiding light in the AI and technology frontier.

22:20AI technology is transforming the way we do business and the media landscape is fragmented. The Next Wave strives to be the leading podcast on AI technology and how you can apply it to growing your business. Listen to The Next Wave wherever you get your podcasts. Ever thought about giving a TEDx talk? It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world. And four-time TEDx speaker, Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire to join Taylor's free training where he teaches you how to land a TEDx talk and spread your message to millions.