Maximizing Your Startup's Success: Tips and Strategies from Jeff Davis

0:00Welcome to the Big Success Podcast. Cutting-edge conversations on business and personal success, as well as how to level up. Here's your host, number one business coach in the world, Brad Sugars. This week is packed with literally idea after idea after idea. Jeff just keeps blurting out stuff that is brilliant. Serial entrepreneur, built many companies, litigation support company built and sold, all those sorts of things that he's done. His company, 12 Mavens, works with CEOs and helps CEOs become amazing out in what they do. So when you think about what he's achieved, and then in today's session, when we talk about how to lead leaders, when we talk about how to build a great lead generation and great conversion rate systems, and even how to build a business for sale, I think some of his takes on that are phenomenal.

0:53And yeah, let's just dive right in. Jeff Davis, invitation-only company, CEOs only, 12 Mavens. He coaches them. He helps them succeed. And today he's going to help us succeed on the podcast. So Jeff Davis, welcome to the Big Success Podcast. Thanks for your time. Absolutely. Excited to be here. But I want to start with the question that I've heard you talk about before, but how do you define success? What's your definition or what is success to you? Yeah, to me, success is well-rounded success. If somebody has great revenue or they're making a great income, but they're out of shape, they're not healthy, they're depressed, they're burnt out, they're not enjoying life.

1:42You know, to me, that's not success. Maybe they're winning with the revenue. Maybe they're winning with the income. um but it's not to me my definition not uh not success it's it's more of a full um full spectrum success has that always been your definition or is that something you had to learn and grow into over time no when i i think when i was in my early 30s i was the classic warrior mode trying to prove myself to my parents prove myself to my friends and working every night every weekend you know wearing a fancy suit and tie and trying to look successful, trying to get things that gave the appearance of being successful.

2:25And, you know, push the gas as hard as you could push that pedal through the floor, you know, at all costs. And yeah, I mean, I was I started to get to a point where I was burning out and tired out and starting to have some health issues. how did how did you shift what was it that made you shift from that model of success to your current model my for me personally it was the the moment that i became a father when we had our baby um who will be uh graduating high school in a year now for context yeah um uh but when the moment I became a father, then it didn't feel cool to work until three in the morning anymore.

3:13I wanted to be a great dad, like that full spectrum of success, being a great dad was, became, you know, one of the highest things, you know, and so that I became fanatical, just like I became fanatical about lead generation, sales conversions, and, and, you know, of all those things, I became fanatical about being a great dad. So let's go back in your life then. Where did you choose success? At what age do you remember? Was it a particular thing, a particular time where you chose, hey, I'm going to be successful in life? Yeah, I feel like I was a little bit of a late bloomer in that in college, I was still, you know, hanging out, pushing around on a skateboard, going out with friends at night.

4:00Even in grad school, I was still, you know, usually you're kind of clicking in grad school and you're a little bit more, you know, straight laced and focused. But I was still enjoying myself, you know, like a guy in his 20s. But I think it was the point where I got a job right out of grad school and was just learning the industry that I wanted to start my own company in. And after a couple of years, for me, when I got to a point where I could do this, I got enough, it's time, let's go. For me, I put myself through every kind of training, education, boot camp. I walked in to a library. This is back in the day.

4:43You know, I go into a library, go to the audio cassettes, blow the smoke, the dust off the cassette boxes with the cheesy music at the beginning. you're listening but everything I was obsessed I would get everything I could consume and really just try to brainwash myself in a positive way I mean everything from from like tapes on negotiation on sales on on marketing on mindset you know I probably drove around listening to Napoleon Hill speak you know that tape I almost burned through it you know I played it so many times. So do you think it was a decision to go into business or was it just what triggered that success choice?

5:32Oh, well, there were little things planted throughout my life. So I used to love surfing when I was a teenager and I used to like to surf at this one place where there are these beautiful mansions on the on the ocean. And I'd be sitting out there on my board, looking out at these homes and thinking, I want that. I want to live somewhere like that. And I was lucky enough to go to two very different high schools. One was a public school that was for the arts. It was great for being creative and that sort of thing. But I also went to a fancy private school. and there were things that were good about both and things that were bad about both.

6:19And I think that contrast of some of the struggles, some of the limitations of what you could have at one school and some of the things that at the other school that you were able to do and experiencing both of those. And I was kind of probably in the middle. Yeah, yeah. So what's your formula then? Or how does success happen in your mind? it happens in a number of ways. And you made me think of a time I was asked to speak to this big room of people, young, up and coming, you know, aspirational entrepreneurs. And I grabbed the microphone and I looked around the room. I said, you guys want to know the secret to the one thing, the one thing that you do this and everything starts clicking like magic.

7:10I said, can we lock the door in the back. I was like, is there anybody coming? And everybody's kind of, you know, getting their pens out and getting all excited. And I said, here's the secret is that there is no one thing. It's a lot of things. It's hard work. It's believing in yourself. It's a bunch of different skill sets that you have to really work at. It's resilience. It's, you know, perseverance, it's not just one thing because I know some really smart people. I know some really successful people and I've yet to meet anyone who hasn't had a million explosions blow up in their face along the way.

7:53Yeah. So let's talk about that then. How does failure teach success? Failure teaches success every time. If you take the time to learn from it, usually most people get mad. They curse it. They hate it. They're not do that again. They point out every, every buddy else's fault for that thing happening versus really assessing, what do I learn from this? What could I apply next time? How could I have done that better? And really being a student of it, you know, what's the expression? Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn, you know, and, and if you just look at it that way, and when, And when you have an employee do something that was a big expensive mistake that you realize, all right, great.

8:42I just invested in a whole course on, you know, how not to onboard a salesperson or, you know, just looking at what what could I take from it? What could I learn from it? And that's one of the reasons why I love being in a CEO roundtable group is because you also get to learn from all these other people's costly mistakes. You hear them talk, oh, we tried to do this happen, this happen, this happen. And and you're picking up little clues. You know, you're filling in the dots with more knowledge from other people's mistakes, too. So let's think about that for a moment. Learning from your own mistakes, learning from other people's mistakes.

9:24failure teaches it gives us a lesson every single time what's the biggest lesson you've taken from one of your so-called failures the biggest lesson i mean i think it's personal for each person you know there there are as many lessons as there are entrepreneurs going after it times a thousand And some of my own personal lessons that I've learned was not being too nice, not being too trusting. And when I say not being too nice, you know, you get into trouble sometimes when you're, you know, you don't want to ruffle feathers and hold people accountable and say the things that you should have already said and that kind of thing.

10:09um i would say um not pushing your strengths too far if that makes sense yeah because your biggest weaknesses usually are the result of you pushing your strengths a little too far yeah yeah that double-edged sword type thing is very important yeah yeah being conscious of that and having leveling the optimism with some practicality. Absolutely. We're going to be back on the Big Success Podcast. You've got Jeff Davis here. We're going to talk about leading leaders. We're going to talk about building business for sale. We're going to do a whole bunch of this. We'll be right back on the Big Success Podcast.

10:53Business empires are where most people create the vast majority of their initial income and wealth. Through Brad Sugars' Entrepreneurs Event, you will learn how to turn your companies into valuable and sellable assets. Visit bradsugars.com to attend this program as a standalone or as part of Brad Sugars' Entrepreneurial University. And we're back on the Big Success Podcast. Jeff Davis from 12 Maven is going to talk to us about how do you lead leaders? Yeah, and when I think about what I do is I lead meetings with CEOs that are running multi-million dollar companies all the time. And so you have these visionaries sometimes with ADD and looking around for opportunities and moving fast and inability to sit still.

11:42And how do you lead a leader themselves? And to me, it's more impactful to earn their respect more so for them to love you. you want them to like you a lot. But but when when people are pushing and testing and kind of seeing what they can get away with when when they see you as their leader, not allowing that to happen, whether they like it or don't like it, they know that they're following a good leader. So how then do you bring out the best in people? yeah you i think you bring up the best in people by kind of customizing your approach to that particular person um if you try to do a cookie cutter approach to all these different people um it'll work with this person and that person maybe but it won't really have an effect on this person so i think it helps to really get an understanding of what motivates them what's driving them is I've seen it, you know, where a CEO will put in some kind of a bonus incentive and then be surprised that it didn't really move the needle, but because maybe these people aren't really, you know, money motivated.

13:03Yeah. So I think it's customizing the approach to each individual leader in a way that you think will be the most effective for that leader. Yeah. So let's go back a ways. You're a serial entrepreneur, started multiple companies. How do we succeed at starting a company? We'll get to selling it in a little while, but how do you succeed at starting a business? At starting a business, I always like to compare it to that scene in Braveheart where there's that big field, they're all lined up, and then you see on the two sides, they're just running towards each other. I tell entrepreneurs, that's kind of what year one feels like.

13:40It's a bloody war that you have to be prepared for. And that's why I think entrepreneurs are modern day gladiators, because the statistics are that 96 out of every 100 startups will not celebrate a 10 year anniversary. So if you imagine 100 warriors lined up at the field of battle, looking at each other, pulling out their swords, about to charge, knowing all of them are going to die, except for a few survivors. And you say, let's go. Let's do it. So how do we succeed at that then? If we know we're going into battle, how do we succeed at it? Well, I think part of it is knowing what you're up for and being willing to fight for it.

14:26And the first year of a startup, maybe, you know, a couple of years into it is I don't know what the rule is, Brad, on bad words. Keep it clean. We can bleep them if we need to. Well, I'll say you have to eat a lot of poop sandwiches. And so the thing that you're starting to start up, you have to love it and be so passionate about it and obsessed with it that it's worth eating all of these poop sandwiches. is because if it's just an idea and you just kind of like, yeah, it seems like it would make sense and maybe it would make money, but you really don't care that much. After a while of eating those, you start to lose that drive.

15:14You start to lose that push to fight through all those obstacles. I mean, that's a part of it. I mean, so much of it, I think the separation of a large portion of startups making it is just the founder had that toughness, that resilience, and that work ethic, because for sure, that that work ethic is going to be one of the most important elements of it. And I would say, also with the mindset of the startup is having this, this sense of inevitability. It's not something you hope is going to happen. It's not something that would be nice if it's going to happen. It's something that it's definitely happening.

15:57We are going to find it. And when we get to, you know, 30 ,000 users, we're at that point going to, you know, does that answer your question? Perfect answer. So you're also massively passionate about lead generation and converting the sale. How do you succeed at lead generation? Yeah, it's I mean, it is such a moving target already in marketing. When you have something that works, oh, my God, it's working. We're getting the you know, we're getting this is happening. This is going here. Oh, perfect. The plan is working. You know, it's a matter of time before more people will use it, more people will use it.

16:34And then it gets diluted. So so you've you've had that happen with multiple lead gen techniques over the last few years. Then you you layer that with a pandemic. You layer that with new technology. I mean, the world of lead generation of marketing is getting turned on its head right now. Forget the pandemic. Forget inflation. Forget a recession. AI is is changing all the rules right now. It's happening. You know, go on chat GPT and ask it about your company's name and see if anything comes up, because it will for some of your competitors go, you know, you could have AI write blog entries. You could have, I don't want to get too down one particular area, but it's testing, it's measuring, and then optimizing.

17:34And when something starts to work, really go after it. I used to hear the expression growth hacking and thought like, growth hacking, the hack is hard work. until I actually learned about growth hacking. And it's really what it's a, I don't like that term they gave it, but really it's blending a data scientist with a marketer, with a salesperson, you know, it's almost more scientific than it is artistic. So let's go to that salesperson then. How do we succeed at converting those leads into actual sales? Yeah, I think the more you can have a winning replicable process, the better chance you have of those conversions.

18:26So, for example, if you say something that you know works a lot of the time, it should be transcribed, it should be a script, and it should be worked on, drilled on, practiced, perfected. and same with like the the rebuttals to the most common objections it should be scripted they should be you know oh we don't have time the person should know like almost waiting for it like you're you got your bat out and you're almost hoping somebody tells you they don't have time or they already have somebody that they use or that sounds expensive or but you know like those things it's not freestyle it's not a freestyle rap it's it's scripted out it's practiced and rehearsed like uh you know, like a symphony.

19:11And then the part of it that really was where the, you know, rubber hits the road is holding the team accountable to actually doing it because very few salespeople like all of this, you know, between the lines type of stuff, administrative details and following this and this. I remember telling a salesperson, I've had 17 people try to freestyle and improve on this script and they're 0 and 17. And then that person became, you know, 18 thinking that they could do it better than that script. And so it gets to where like recording those conversations, not just trusting that the calls are going how you think they are.

20:00I'd be willing to bet anybody listening to this, If you listened to all of your salespeople's sales calls, you probably won't want to grab a beer at the end of that day. So let's go backwards. 10, 20 years ago, it was 20 % marketing, 80 % sales to get a conversion. These days, it's sort of flipped on its head. How do you see that changing the way we build businesses?

20:28it's i mean it's changing so fast that i'm cautious to even answer that one because everything is changing so fast right now that i mean literally a year from now i could be embarrassed about what this answer is i can't even imagine how difficult it would be to write a book on this topic because by the time the publisher's done printing it it's like this thing's a factor now There are a lot of tools that can automate a lot of things. I mean, you could be robotic with so many parts of that lead generation into the sales conversation and the follow up where you could automate. You could have the perfect, you know, post conversation email, you know, automated.

21:16So you're not relying as much on a salesperson's like remembering to do this or remembering to do this or having the time to do this. And I think the more that you can use marketing and marketing automation, sales conversions and follow up automation and tools that are, you know, coming out all the time, I think the less and less of the salesperson you need, which could be nice if you can just have salespeople just closing and converting and almost everything else is taken off their plate. that, you know, that's great. Depends on what the product or the service is, whether if you can do the whole thing from beginning to end without a human, then more power to you.

22:04We'll be back in just a moment on the Big Success Podcast. We're going to be talking to Jeff Davis about how to sell a business and how to scale it up. Jeff Davis is an award-winning author, professional speaker, and leadership expert. With over 20 years of experience, Jeff has coached executives and teams from various industries to develop their leadership skills and achieve their goals. To To learn more about Jeff Davis, please visit his website today. And we're back with the Jeff Davis. When you think about Jeff building as a serial entrepreneur, building businesses, you build them for sale.

22:34If you look at your trial prep company, many companies you've advised, what are the keys to building something that is saleable? Yeah, to build a saleable business, it takes real specific intentional actions. I always feel bad for the person that decides they're ready to sell the business. And I think, oh, man, too bad you didn't start that plan three to five years ago, because I think you need to map out a detailed plan for how you can get your business to run with or without you. To the degree that you are involved in the business is the degree that the valuation will go down. I remember my mentor, who's a Harvard MBA, explained it to me at a lunch one time.

23:18and he said back in those days a long time ago he said you're too entrenched in your business you're gonna get the the key man discount and I said what's that you know he explained it and I said well if I can get my business to run with or without me how much more could I sell it for and he said probably about 40 percent I almost spit my water in his face you don't need much more motivation but but but so I got to work on mapping out a detailed plan like over the years to transition myself out of the business. So it wasn't, I wasn't, you know, such a bottleneck, which then the next step of that is building out a leadership team.

23:51Like we talked about how do you lead leaders and developing leaders and a support team that can start taking things off your plate little by little more and more to the point where you're almost trying to make yourself obsolete, which then goes into the next thing, which is mastering delegation. it's it's an art and it's a science and I actually went to I trained myself on on the skill of delegating and I remember at the end of the day going darn it's all my fault and I wanted it to be everybody else's fault but I you know I was like did I have them repeat it back to me when I gave them that thing that I thought would take about an hour and a week later they still hadn't done it did I tell them I need this by tomorrow at 2 30 no did I you know what I mean all these different little nuances that can make you a more effective delegator, master delegation.

24:43Another thing is systematizing your business. I mean, Brad, you've been successful because you built a replicable model that people can leverage and build a business because the playbook is there and that's the beauty of a franchise. But even if you don't want to ever sell your business, You should be fanatical, you know, fanatical about systematizing everything that you do and processes, video capture, you know, on your screen, checklists, you know, because when you have all those processes documented and other people could come in and do it, then there's no end. You just have to imagine, you know, on Monday, a hundred different people are all going to pay you for a franchise and what would they expect to get and then have that for yourself, for your business.

25:33Another thing is actually making the time to learn how. Like, so you're putting this out into the world, which helps a lot of people, impacts a lot of people that could, you know, make a little tweak in how they're doing something. And by watching this, you're taking the time to learn some of this stuff. But but so many people are so busy making what they make, selling what they sell that they just keep going head down and they're not taking time to learn these kinds of things that we're talking about. Another thing is getting over your guilt, ego, limiting beliefs, which, you know, you you you might you feel like you have to be first one in last one out, which is great and respectable as a leader.

26:12But at the same time, as far as sellability of your business, it's not great. And then, you know, doing things like this, leveraging hindsight. I mean, there are a lot of factors we could go into recurring revenue and all these value drivers. But that's often, you know, some of the things that make a more sellable business. You know, one of the big things you do at 12 Mavens is you help CEOs scale. What is the difference between someone who, you know, their business grows a little bit versus those who scale and grow massive? So I love this topic, Brad, because I have had the unique privilege of picking the brains of highly successful entrepreneurs and CEOs for years, dozens and dozens of Inc.

27:02500 CEOs, people running and scaling the fastest growing companies in the world. So not just what I did to scale, but I have, you know, great friends that have built businesses from, I have a friend that literally built a business from three people to turning just about at a billion in annual revenue right now. Now, when we say friends, most of these are clients at 12 Mavens, and that's how you built the friendships with a lot of these people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, you're like a family when you brainstorm together every month and you hold each other accountable and you've been, you know, help each other through Ruckpatch.

27:36you do become friends. But but for sure, I've learned from members of the groups that have made, you know, the Inc. 500 and best places to work been named ultimate CEOs of their of their area, you know, their areas where they live. And I've asked this question countless times. One thing that's come up a lot of times is that is that ethic of hard work that we talked about is that all in mentality. You know, some of the other things we talked about being they're nice, but they're not pleasers. They obsess over the vision and they don't get too bogged down with in the weeds type of activities. They're focusing on the things that move the needle.

28:17They're optimistic, but they're not too optimistic. They're also mitigating the risk. They're being practical. And if you think about the biggest financial mistakes that you've ever made. It probably was because you were too optimistic about that thing. They know their formulas. They know their metrics. They, you know, they're very well aware of what numbers need to happen and what these, you know, percentages are and where they're at daily, weekly, monthly. What then Jeff sets them apart? What's the difference between the CEO that sets a million dollar goal and the CEO that sets a billion dollar goal?

29:01What's the difference in those two people? I think you said it in the question. One of them is setting a million dollar goal. The other one has a mentality of a billion dollar goal. I mean, the most successful people think in massive scale. You know, and for you watching this or listening to this right now, you know, what's your three year goal right now? Forget about at the end of this conversation, but what's your three year goal right now? OK, the most successful people, they would add a zero to that, if not several zeros. And then it becomes a matter of believing it and then reverse engineering.

29:43All right. How am I going to get there? And it goes back to a lot of the things that we've talked about, that quest for knowledge. you know, the finding ways to connect the dots faster, because if you knew exactly how to build a$12 billion business, you could be a$12 billion business right now. But yeah, things that you have to figure out. But but but they have that belief. And they set the bar that much higher. And then they're very realistic about what do we need to do to do it where most people like you said, they do. what they think they could probably do and then not have to feel like a failure if they don't get it.