The Scalable Business Framework: How to Build a Business You Love While Enjoying Your Life with John Burdett

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. Today, we'll be breaking down the Scalable Business Framework, how to build a business you love while enjoying your life. To draw these value bombs, I am brought to John Burdett and EO Fire Studios, CEO of Fast Slow Motion and co-author of the Scalable Business Framework. John helps entrepreneurs scale sustainably without burning out or missing what matters most in life, health or relationships. And today, we'll talk about that Scalable Business Framework, the most common mistakes business owners make, the key components of a scalable business framework, and oh, so much more.

0:41And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to John and our sponsors. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white label your own software. Say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today. Fire Nation, is this your year to take your business to the next level? Attend the world's highest rated business growth workshop taught personally by Clay Clark and now featuring football star and entrepreneur Tim Tebow and President Trump's son, Eric Trump, at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO fire.

1:25Again, request life-changing tickets today at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO fire. John, say what's up to fire nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. I think you never really truly feel successful. I think people never really arrive and there's always more. And if you really want to be successful, you need to decide what success really means to you. and oftentimes success is much more than more of a label than a feeling and I think it's if it's about achievement for you there's always another mountain to summit and I think the joy is in the journey not the accomplishment and people underestimate the value of relationships and the people that you meet along the way and I think most successful people are often unhappy and not content.

2:20I love a quote from D.L. Moody he says our greatest fear should not be a failure but if it's succeeding at something that really doesn't matter. And I think, man, I'm so guilty of that, winning at the wrong game. And I think that's probably what a lot of people get backwards about being successful. You know, that's probably one of the major reasons why I got out of corporate finance when I did, because one of my mentors there told me, man, John, I've been climbing a ladder for so long. And when I reached the top, I realized that I've been climbing the wrong ladder on the wrong wall. And I was just like, oh man, that's deep because I was still like 28 at the time.

2:59And I felt like I still had a life ahead of me. And this person was much, much older. So it was one of those things too. And when it comes to success, I love what you're saying, John. I mean, for me, my happiest times in my 13 year journey with entrepreneurs on fire, it's been when I've had some progress, when I've been moving towards that goal. It's never been hitting the goal because when I hit the goal, it's like, man, now I get to go and like set another goal and climb another mountain. Like I've had the fun times, like, and the progress and the achieving, not the achievements. And today, Fire Nation, we're talking about the scalable business framework, how to build a business that you love while actually enjoying your life.

3:38Now, John, what the heck is the scalable business framework? And more importantly, how can it change the way that we grow our companies as entrepreneurs? Yeah, it's a business fable that we wrote to kind of tell the story of how to build a business that you love. I don't know about you, but I suspect most entrepreneurs and business leaders have felt this way where they get trapped in their business and they've sacrificed so many things in their life. And as we were talking about before, they're just really not enjoying the journey. So I want to help people not make all the mistakes that I've made growing businesses and in life in general, because life is fully integrated.

4:15You know, you can be successful in business and in life. It's an and, not an or. And the scalable business framework is a is a fable that we wrote that teaches leaders how to build a business that they love while not missing out all in all the other important things of life and building a business that's excellent. We're not talking about compromising the outcomes of your business, but we're talking about building an excellent business and having a meaningful family life and enjoying life, not waiting to the end of life to enjoy it and building that business with intentionality and not compromising your core principles as you scale that business.

4:51I want to talk about the most common mistakes that you see business owners make that leave them stuck, that leave them burned out. Because that's what this show is all about, John. It's about learning from people like yourself who have been there, who have done that, who have the paperwork, have the knowledge, the experience. What can Fire Nation learn from that? I think it starts with building and defining your core principles and staying true to those core principles as you build and scale your business. I've called it the three P's. You can call it whatever you want to. I think your core principles need to be about purpose.

5:26It needs to be about people. And it needs to be about profit. Because if you're not building a profitable business, you're not building a real business. And these three P's become your North Star to build the company you want with intention that aligns with your values that your company represents. So many entrepreneurs, we're so gritty, we're always going to find a way to win. And the problem is we're so gritty that we'll pivot away from the type of business that we wanted to build in the first place. We lose our why. We lose our purpose. And we end up building that prison where we're trapped in our business.

6:03And then that's where real burnout occurs. You're not doing something that fulfills your purpose and your calling. And you've built something successful. And now you have the stress of trying to maintain it and deal with all the pressures that come along with that. and you really honestly get stuck and you can't get out. And it's a very, I'm sure you've been there. I know a lot of your listeners have as well. It's a scary place to be in because you've now built something of success and you have real problems. You have real employees, you have real clients, you have real investors, your spouses, you have spouses, you have kids, you have all these things that are competing against your time and you're miserable and you just wanna stop.

6:45And so as your business scales often to your problems and challenges, so the scalable business framework really starts with, all right, let's define what your three Ps are and then let's build systems and processes around that so you build your business with intentionality and focus and not just create a business that wins because you'll end up winning at the wrong scoreboard as we talked about before. I love this. Fire Nation, this is what it's all about, to actually have the process to follow that's meaningful for you, that you're setting out with intention, that you're going forth with the idea that you have in mind that you actually want to achieve.

7:21And now, John, we all know that we don't want to be the bottleneck in our own business, but sometimes we wake up one morning and we find that, in fact, we are a bottleneck in our business. What do we do at that point if we find ourselves to actually be the bottleneck in our own business to remove ourselves as that dreaded bottleneck? Yeah, we're often our own worst enemies when we're the problem. Our businesses don't scale. And you have to admit that. Number one, we all we all we all have that problem. The reason you're successful is the reason your business is probably not scaling and you have to change your mindset.

7:57So it's no longer about you completing the task, you solving the problem, you being the hero. It's now about how do I put processes and systems in place to complete those tasks, solve those problems without you being involved? And if you can't make that mindset switch, you're going to have a very difficult time changing the culture in your business and changing from, OK, I've created a business that's made it to a business that's actually going to scale and do well without me. So the key is not lowering your standards or compromising on excellence as you do this. No, the standards, the standard, we don't lower the standard.

8:36But when you put good systems in place, and you do things the right way, you will build a team and a culture that do things way better than you ever thought possible. and honestly that is a really good moment when you realize my team is doing things way better than I ever thought I was possible and that means you know honestly if you want to create a definition of success there's a good one to start with like my my goals for success at Fast So Motion is the business does better without me than it is does with me and then my team has a better opportunity when I'm gone than they do when I'm here so my mindset is all about how do I create this business that thrives without me and gives my team the ability to love life, love what they're doing, and enjoy the journey along the way.

9:24And it really is a mindset switch, but it kind of changes the game in your head. It kind of changes that scoreboard that we were talking about before so that you become proactive instead of reactive. You have the freedom to make wise decisions. You can say yes to the right things, no to the wrong things. You can drive your business looking out the windshield instead of the rear view mirror. And life just gets a lot better. And you never get burned out when you're doing those kinds of things because you're really enjoying the journey and building something that's bigger than you, that matters and you're making a difference in the lives of your clients and also your people.

9:58Man, I love that. It brings me back to when I was finally about to take my first vacation. It was like after two years of just grinding at the business every day, I was terrified to go. But then I went, I was like out of pocket for days because we were traveling and we were just without cell phone service or any kind of connection. I remember logging back in with like all this dread. And then all of a sudden I was like, oh, wow, everything's moving so smoothly and everything's just working. And it just felt so good. And it made me realize, man, I was probably actually slowing things down instead of actually thinking that I was helping the processes out.

10:32So, I mean, when you can get this down, Fire Nation, you are releasing yourself to go off and to conquer those dragons, not kind of trying to stamp out those ants. Now, we have a lot more to talk about around this topic when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Okay, let's talk about a platform that's completely changing how entrepreneurs are running their business, and they are also our featured partner, HighLevel. If you're an entrepreneur, coach, agency, or course creator looking to grow faster and smarter, HighLevel is the all-in-one platform that replaces your entire tech stack. Seriously, think ClickFunnels, Calendly, MailChimp, Kajabi, and even your CRM all rolled up into one powerful white label solution.

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14:17Secure your family's future with PolicyGenius. Head to PolicyGenius.com to compare free life insurance quotes from top companies and see how much you could save. That's policygenius.com. John, we are back and I really want to go over the key components of the scalable business framework. Break those down for us. Yeah. So we just talked about the foundation, which is the three P's. It's purpose, people, and profits. If you don't have your core principles in place and you don't have that solid foundation, everything else we're going to talk about doesn't really matter. You got to get that right first.

14:53I'm not saying that's easy. I'm not saying it's easy to stay disciplined to those things, but you got to stay true to those things and make sure you have those foundations in place because you're not going to be able to scale if you don't do that. And those three Ps act almost like an iron triangle. You have to keep them aligned and you have to keep them balanced. One isn't more important than the other. You can't just focus on profits and not take care of your people. You can't serve your clients so much and not make any money. All these things have to stay aligned. Now, once you do that, you can then focus on the framework of what we call process automation and visibility.

15:29Now, this is an iterative framework of how you start putting those processes and systems in place that will actually scale. And it's very important that you think of it iteratively. It's not a once and done kind of thing. It's something you're always going to be refining, but it allows you to slowly start working on the business instead of working in the business, it allows you to start scaling with systems instead of just heroes and allows you to really kind of get the freedom you want to build a really scalable business. And it really creates a flywheel of intentional scalability and growth for your business.

16:06So if we break them down just very briefly, the three components are process. So you have to be process driven. You have to create consistency, clarity, predictability. You have to move away what we call the MacGyver syndrome, where you're going in and using paper clips to solve problems and stuff like that. You got to think from a systems perspective and an internal structure perspective, because consistency is the key to success. And those consistent outcomes will build real business value. And even if you're wrong or you're producing the wrong outcomes, if you're consistent, you know what to fix and you're able to do that.

16:44And it really creates freedom for your team because your team has clarity about what they need to do and how to do it. and it allows you to, it puts you on the right path with the right data so that you really understand what's going on in your business and you know when things are not working and you're able to move from, once again, from that reactive stance to that proactive stance. Now, once you start defining these processes, you can then start automating them and this allows us to be a lot more efficient so that we're not doing rote things all the time and our team's not working on the mundane, we're elevating them to focus on what really matters.

17:22And then we're automating the things that can be automated. You know, your body doesn't think about breathing, it just breathes. If you imagine if I had to think about breathing all day long, I wouldn't be able to do anything else with my body. The same thing happens for your business. There's so many processes that you can then automate. And once again, you can do this in an iterative manner, so that you can then take advantage of doing things more consistently with less people and elevating those people and making sure you're getting consistent outcomes. On a side note here, with AI going on, this is huge because AI is going to allow us to automate even more, but it starts with having those good processes in place and then automating the behaviors to elevate our team members and create more value.

18:09And then the final step is visibility. you need to know what's going on in your business. And I mean this from a proactive standpoint, not a reactive standpoint. If your accounting system is the only visibility you have in your business, something is really, really wrong. What you want to know is what are the right inputs that produce the right outcomes? And if your visibility into your business is all outcome driven, like what was my revenue, that kind of thing, instead of what are the inputs that are going to drive the right outcomes, you're not running really running your business so visibility gives you insight in the data so you have a single source of truth that's data driven it's not emotion driven it's not like what people think it's what's actually happening so that you can then predict the future and then therefore predict the outcomes that you want in your business and also prevent things from happening that could be potentially bad because you have now have early indicators into what's going on.

19:07And then we use these lessons learned from the data that we're capturing to put better process in place, to automate the things that we can automate, to create more visibility in our business, to build that flywheel so that our business scales and it really kind of runs itself. We don't have to run it. Now, John, this seems exciting, but it still seems like a lot. So how can we build a thriving business with doing all these things, implementing everything you're talking about while still having time for family, for health, for personal life. Is that dream just too good to be true? Well, honestly, I'm living proof.

19:42You know, I made the decision to do this. I started Fast Slow Motion 11 and a half years ago based on my previous experiences doing things the wrong way. And I was like, I'm going to do it the right way this time based on these principles that we outline in the scalable business framework. And to be a little personal here, I almost died this year. I'm 46 years old and extremely healthy my whole life. And then I have a, I have an ulcerative colitis, which is an autoimmune disease. I lost 60 pounds at the early part of this year. Yeah. I was hospitalized for three weeks. I wasn't getting any better.

20:17I was basically dying from my colon being inflamed so much. I couldn't eat. I couldn't, I was basically bedridden, had to have my entire colon removed. It was four times the size it was supposed to be. So it was highly inflamed. And I tell you all that to say, I was extremely prepared for that stage of life. And I can't tell you how much freedom comes along with knowing that the business runs without me. I'm financially secure based on the decisions we've made to grow and scale this business, I had meaningful relationships in my life that I could rely on and turn to to help me during these difficult situations.

20:57And it's all because of, you know, we took the time to implement and build this business the right way. It wasn't rocket science. It was just a lot of hard work and a lot of discipline to do those things. But honestly, I'm living proof that you can build a business that you love, you can have meaningful family and relationships. You can be very successful from, you know, a business perspective and, um, and, and, and build the business that you want and get the outcomes that you want. And because I had done those things, you know, the relationship saved my life. One of my friends called me up while I was in the hospital.

21:35We had just found out that I was going to have my colon removed, which I didn't even know you could live without a colon, to be honest with you. And so it was kind of shocking, obviously, it was not a decision we wanted to take lightly, didn't have a lot of peace about it. And he introduced me to a doctor, his, his daughter had worked as a nurse under him, he had just moved to our hospital. Long story short, that doctor called me on a Saturday, we walked through the whole process for about an hour. And you know, the peace of God just kind of come over me. And I knew this was exactly what I need to do.

22:07You know, good news is I'm doing well now, but if I hadn't built a business that would run without me, the business would have went under because I was basically out of pocket most of this year. If I hadn't have focused on working out and being healthy before I lost 60 pounds, I was extremely healthy and in good shape. If I hadn't invested in meaningful relationships with all my family and friends, I would have just been miserable and died more than likely. And so, yeah, these things work. Is it easy? No. Is it worth it? A hundred percent. And I want that for everybody. I want that for every business leader.

22:42I know the pressure that you're under. I know how difficult it is. I understand that it's hard to relate to other people who are not going through it, but you can build a business that you love that is super successful and have a meaningful and enjoyable life with real relationships and real people. and not have any regrets when you get to the end of your life and wish you'd done things differently. Wow, well, that is a powerful story. And if Fire Nation is listening, John, and they're like, well, I need to start taking some steps to get myself in this position too, because we never know what life's gonna throw at us.

23:18What is the first step that anybody listening can take to start gaining freedom? So this is gonna sound super simple, but it's really, really hard. You have to pre-decide that you're gonna do it. And what I mean by pre-decide is you have to decide before the circumstances change, meaning you can't wait till it gets hard. You can't wait to whatever pops up. You have to say, OK, I'm going to do it. You know, I'm more than likely the reason my business isn't scaling. I can't blame other people. I have to hold myself accountable. And I've got to decide that I'm going to start implementing these processes, processes, building in automation, creating the visibility of my system.

23:57I'm going to be a principle-based company that here's who we are, here's who we're not. This is going to, we're going to stay true to who we are. And we're going to decide to build this type of business in advance and not compromise. Because it's much better to go on and just fail than to build that business where you get gritty and pivot into something that you hate, because honestly, that's worse than failing. I'd much rather you fail early and fast and then pivot to a calling or a purpose and build something that you love than to waste your life building a business that you hate. And so you have to make that decision.

24:31So it's a mindset change. And then I would say, be very clear on what success means to you and your success metrics and what my definition of success doesn't need to be yours. I'm not trying to push my values and systems on anybody, but you need to be clear about what success means because you want to win at the right game. You want to win at the right scoreboard. and then you just stay disciplined and consistent to it because you've defined what success is. You've defined your core principles. You've started putting processes and automation and visibility in place. And now it's a matter of, okay, this is what we're going to do.

25:10We're going to stay consistent to it. We're not going to jerk the steering wheel every time something pops up. We're going to stay true to who we are. Doesn't mean we're not going to evolve and change. We're going to do that, but we're going to do it very consistently because consistency compounds. and you're going to get the results of that constant work that you're doing, and it's going to build up, and then you're going to look one day, and you're going to have freedom to really run your business instead of your business running you. So the Scalable Business Framework really just teaches you those core principles.