Navigating Change and Strategizing for Success w/ Jacky Fischer

0:28Welcome to the Big Success Podcast. Now, she bought into the business when it was doing a few million, took it to tens of millions. It's a moving business. So as a young lady who was in art school, dropping out, going to build that really phenomenal philosophy on how to build, how to grow business and how to be successful. But also the scale aspect, because she did it, her version and her stuff on how to go from good to great is real life examples. Actually, what she did. And I think you're going to love it. Dive right in. And Jackie's going to take us away. Oh, by the way, Growth Paradox. I got the early edition.

1:03Make sure you check Amazon for the real edition of this thing and take it, read it, and learn from it. Okay, so Jackie, let me ask then, what's your view? What's your definition of success, I guess? You know, success to me is about achieving what you value. And so if you value money, it's achieving lots of money. If you value, because I know a lot of very wealthy people who have achieved financial success, but along the way have hurt their relationships with their family and they're miserable. So I think it encompasses more than just money. It's about the whole thing. And it's also about the journey of how to get there, about aligning your values with your actions.

1:48Yeah. So do you think that's evolved for you? Like your definition of success has evolved over your lifetime or has it always been that way? Absolutely evolved. I mean, when I was younger, it was all about the money. And, you know, it was funny because I was talking to a business mentor of mine and he said, and this guy was super wealthy. And he goes, yeah, well, you know, it's not all about the money. And I'm like, yeah, it's easy for you to say because you have a ton of money. But when you're trying to make a buck, you start focusing very, very strongly on making a buck. I'm 100 percent. I'm there with you.

2:25I remember that as a young man. It was kind of like that was like the yardstick. It was a thing that you could measure and therefore it gave you something to go against, I guess. Is that how you found it when you were younger? Well, I think about it as a yardstick now before I thought about it as a goal. And now I see it as a result of reaching the goal. And I find it fun. I find it challenging trying to make money. I find it challenging. And it's a measurement of whether or not you're creating value for your employees, for your customers. And if you're creating value, then you reach the goal and the result is money.

3:02Yeah. So if you look back in your life, where do you think you chose success? You chose to be above average. Where did that happen? Well, like a lot of entrepreneurs, I grew up poor. And that kind of creates this like drive, this scrappiness in you. So I was always scrappy, always trying to figure out how to make money and how to just figure out how to take opportunities and make them work for me. But I think what really happened that launched what I'm doing now is my father in 2002, he had a stroke. Yeah. And at that time, I was an art major in college and I he was running this business. He he was a serial entrepreneur, but not like most.

3:52Well, probably actually more like most entrepreneurs. We always get these ideas of Elon Musk who had PayPal and he sold it and he opened the most serial entrepreneurs. They just fail and fail and fail until they hit it big. Right. So he's 50 years old and he had failed at everything he did his entire life. And then he finally started this moving company and started to become successful. And then he had a massive stroke. So he didn't have the money to retire. He asked me to come in and help him out. And I helped him out for about a year. We started butting heads because I don't know if anybody's worked for their dad before.

4:28And so I quit my job. And when I quit my job, about a week later, I own a moving company. So about a week later, the drivers found out and they took a piece of paper. They all wrote their name down on the piece of paper and they gave it to my dad. And they said, we want your daughter to come back and run the company. And it was at that moment that I chose success because I knew I could let these guys down. As a matter of fact, see that little yellow paper right there? That is paper. Every day I look at it and I know who I'm working for. And if I can make them successful, I'll be successful. So hang on, that's all of their names on that piece of paper?

5:09You kept it? Yeah, so my parents gave it to me a couple years later and told me what happened. And they put their names at the bottom too. And they gave it to me and I had it framed. Fantastic. So with all of that, what's your formula for like, how does success happen? What's your methodology? So if you look at success as trying to reach a goal, it's just like Google and GPS. Yes, you're trying to find a place on a map. So you've got to know where you are and where you want to go. You have to have those two pieces of information. And I think understanding where you are, what sort of skills you have, what sort of skills you need to develop is important.

5:50And because when you're building a team and you're building a business, you're not going to be good at everything. You've got to build a team that they complement you. So if you're not good at math, you've got to have a bunch of people that can dig into the numbers. Maybe you're the idea person. So and then you have to know where you want to go and not just know, but like really feel it. You've got to know how it smells, how it tastes, what you know, what it looks like when you walk into the office and really get a good visual of where you're going to be when you actually achieve your goals. And then you start making a plan along the way.

6:24But I think if you don't know where you want to go, you're not you're absolutely not going to get there. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, obviously, that's an important thing. So let's flip it over then. How does failure teach success, I guess, is probably the simplest way to ask that question. So I think people think of failure as the opposite of success. And I think failure instead works. It complements success. It works with success. And in our culture, when we look at people who fail, that's considered not a good thing. But we love these risk takers, the Richard Bransons of the world. But if you look at his track record, he's hit some good ones.

7:05But I think he's crashed a few of those balloons. He's floated around the world, right? And these companies, like I was looking up the other day about how long it takes these big companies to achieve success. I can't remember the numbers, but it's like five years, nine years, FedEx, Amazon, all these big companies. It takes a long time to achieve success. And so you've got to be willing to risk big if you're going to achieve big things. Got it. So let's go back to that decision when you went back in to run the company. Like you mentioned something that I think is really interesting. You didn't want to let them down.

7:45So do you think you chose success for yourself or for others? Or how did that come to fruition for you? Well, it really has been a journey. For a long time, it was about proving to my dad that I could build his company. None of us have been on that, have we? There are serious daddy issues there. But when he passed away in 2016, I kind of had like a little bit of a, I became a little bit unhinged. unhinged like he was that that foundation in my life and I I felt like what what is this all for and I was doing it for the guys but I was also doing to prove to him that I could do it too and and he got to see me be successful and he at the very end it took him maybe 40 years he he said he was proud of me so that was like a very big thing for me but um yeah it was it was for them I'm a servant leader, so it makes me happy to help other people.

8:47And I think you being a coach, that's probably how you see success too, right? You know, how did you find, because I find there's a transition somewhere in life where you transition for success for yourself, like doing it for you now rather than that. How did you find that happened for you? well like I said in 2016 I was kind of depressed you know my dad died and um I had to I had to figure out why I was in it what what was all this for um and and then it became more about me and less about fear of failure and more about the excitement of achieving something because I I think when you're doing things for other people, a lot of times it's focused on this great sense of fear of not letting somebody down and fear of failure.

9:39That is the joy of actually achieving. Yeah. So when you look at that joy of achieving, how do you get yourself into that mode? Like, what is it that you've done to make that a reality for you? I think um when I was a kid um I had this kind of work ethic um really pounded into me um my dad was like a German Catholic and he was just very very you know strict and so it's just it's somewhat innate like I wake up every day and I I like I I love things that most most of times people think certain things are stressful. And I think about like stress is like gasoline. You can throw a match on it and then it can like explode or you can put it in a car and use it to get you somewhere.

10:30So I feel like for me, it's always been something like this natural drive of this hunger. Got it. Love that. Hey, you're on the Big Success Podcast. We're going to take a quick break. I'm going to come back and I'm going to ask Jackie about growing business, accountability, control all that stuff in a way you don't think about. In Brad Sugars' book, Instant Team Building, you will learn the elements that contribute to a great team. The process of finding and assembling a team of motivated, compatible employees who will help you take your business to new heights of productivity, profitability, and fun.

11:03Pick up your book today. And you're back. Big success. Jackie Fisher. I have to ask because I got the advanced copy, I got the advanced copy of Growth Paradox, so I'm one of the lucky ones. Let's dive in to actually explain the actual thought of the Growth Paradox for us first. I think that's important to understand. So the skills that push you to start a business, the risk-taking, the being – man, I'm losing my words. I'm sorry. The skills that drive you to begin a business are not necessarily the skills that you need to scale your business. And so being a person with a lot of great ideas, for example, if you're going to grow your company to be a multi-million dollar company, if you're bringing ideas in every single day and you're taking your people off track, they can't focus on things.

12:09It's kind of like a light. You can have a light and shine a light through the football stadium, or you can have a laser and cut through steel. And so you need to stay focused. You need to, a lot of times, small business owners are all about power and control. And so they actually suck the oxygen out of the room. The more you talk, the less your people talk, the more engaged you are and the more like that you take control of things, the less that they're able to become engaged and take control of things. And so all of these things I learned along the way, the last 20 years, I failed a lot. I succeeded a lot too, but I sat down and I wrote this book and I wrote like every single thing I wish I would have known 20 years ago.

12:59Yeah, it's kind of a bit that way, isn't it? So let's go back into one of the things you talk about in the book is about how growth can kill. I mean, growth is great, but it can also kill the business. Tell me more about that. Yeah. So when you're growing a business and you're looking at the revenues, right, you're looking at sales, you're looking at revenues and it's exciting. And all of a sudden you hit it big and the revenue starts coming in. And if you have unplanned growth, it can really hurt your business. Now, planned growth is different. We all want that. But unplanned growth, when the revenue starts coming in, you start hiring very quickly, reactive hiring.

13:37And you start just throwing money at problems. And if you do that in an unplanned way, then when the economy starts going down and the economy is cyclical and you're not in control of your costs and your expenses, you can find yourself stuck in a pretty bad situation. I always tell people the number one rule in business, don't run out of cash. And that's what can happen with really fast growth. Yeah. Fast growth can kill faster than slow growth and no growth. It's definitely been the way. And it's sneakier too, because when you have no growth, you're stressed out and you're worried about money, right?

14:18But when you have fast growth, you start spending really fast and you're not paying attention to your expenses because you're just trying to keep up with it. So it can be very sneaky. Yeah. So you have an interesting view on accountability and how accountability works in a business. Talk to me more about that.

14:38When I was early on, I was always trying to hold people accountable. And that was like me trying to kind of control everything and hold people accountable. And what I found was even the words holding accountable, to hold means to do something on your own without the support of others. And to be accountable is doing something without the support of others. So you're trying to hold somebody and then make them accountable for their own work. And so what I found is that you have to hire accountable people. And that's tricky. But what you really need to do is focus on getting people off your team that are not a good fit and getting them off as quickly as possible.

15:21Yeah. Let's talk more about that. How do you know when someone is not a good fit? So we look at their attitude and their aptitude. And I think there's three different types of companies. There's a bad company where they just put anybody in the position. They just need like a meeting seat, we call it, like a pulse, a heartbeat. Yeah, when you go into the DMV, that's kind of what it's like. You just put somebody in there. And then you have good companies where they want you to have a really good aptitude. They want you to be able to do the job. But then a great company, in my opinion, is when people actually can do the job and they're a great fit for the culture.

16:04And a lot of times people won't fire their top salesperson, even if they're a really bad fit for the culture. And you've got to be willing to do that. Yeah. Yeah. So let's go back to that whole culture thing. That's an interesting one to look at. When you built the business and we go back to the moving business, how did you define the culture and how do you teach people to do that now? So I think that sometimes there's a misconception about what culture is. I think Google's kind of done a lot to make us feel that it makes us not understand what culture is, Because, you know, we think of culture as being a buffet table and free yoga and bringing your dog to work.

16:50And all of that is great. I'm not against it. I think it's wonderful. But really and truly what culture is, is about having a group of people with the same set of values. And your culture should be so strong that people feel uncomfortable if they work for you and they don't fit into that culture. and I don't mean like a culture of like a bunch of like 1980s culture where high school culture where you got the nerds and the jocks I'm not talking about that I'm talking about values like your work ethic whether or not you're a risk taker and in each culture each company culture can be quite different so somebody who doesn't fit your culture it doesn't mean they're a bad employees.

17:34It just means that they're not a fit for your culture. If you have a culture that values precision and going things at a slow pace and making sure things are methodical, then you can't put somebody who's a good fit for a risk-taking culture in a position like that, or they're going to go crazy and vice versa. Yeah. I want to flip that over for a second and just give some advice to some of the young people on the podcast who are looking to join companies. How would you suggest a young person evaluates the culture of a company and whether they fit it when they're looking to join it as an employee?

18:10I think there are a number of things. Like one of the things is go on their website and look at the board of directors. And if the board of directors doesn't look like you, you're probably, or the executive team as well, if they don't look like you, then you probably don't want to join that culture. I think also I would encourage people to get into the office And I know that is very controversial. People like working from home. But I think they need to be around other people to learn how to behave in a work culture. And I think young people are being not served well when they're not in an office full of old people.

18:53Yeah. So let's dive over to business again and talk about change, because I think you have a unique view on how change can be handled or managed or led through. Yeah, give us your perspective on how that works. I love change, and I think most entrepreneurs love change. We wake up every morning and we kind of eat it for breakfast. You know, it feels good. It's invigorating. But most people, most employees find change very scary. Even something as simple as getting a new software system, they can go through all the different phases of grief, like the grief that you have when somebody dies. They go into denial.

19:36Oh, man, you know, maybe they'll take the software and put the old one in and lost and all of these things for something as simple as a new software system. And so being very transparent with people, communicating with people, helps them get through change at the workforce. I mean, they have full departments on change management. It's such a big thing. Yeah. So let's then go to the word control, because I think if I look at the three words that I think you're looking at, how do we handle change? How do we handle accountability? The third one, I think, is that you address really well is control.

20:16That's another thing that small business owners struggle with. And if you're in an operating room and you're the head physician, you can boss everybody around and have complete control of the whole room. But if you're trying to build a multimillion dollar or a billion dollar company, it doesn't work like that. If you're Elon Musk and there's some guy in the Tesla plant, you're not going to know about that. And you've got to be willing to let go of control. and when I started doing that that's when I really saw a lot of growth happening because it wasn't just me fully engaged it was the other people on my team engaged.

21:00Yeah and you used two words that I really love is unhook and empower. Tell me more about those words. Having an empowered team is a force multiplier and so if you want to have work-life balance if you want to go on vacation and unhook, you have to have an empowered team in the office. Because if you don't, they're going to be blowing up your phone. And in order to have an empowered team, you have to be willing to allow them to make mistakes. And that's really hard for small business owners to do. Because people learn leadership skills by making decisions. And they have to have practice. But if you have like an answering booth at your desk and a long line of people saying, what do I do now?

21:45What do I do now, they're not learning how to make decisions, how to lead, how to make mistakes and recover. I mean, as long as you're failing fast and forward, we're okay with mistakes here. Yeah. So I want to go back to that letting go. What was, how did you learn that? Because obviously, you know, when you first got into business, you had to learn that ability to let go. What was some of the key factors in you getting that? I think the biggest lesson was I hated meetings. I found meetings so incredibly boring. And so I would have meetings like when, whenever I felt like, you know, shit was boiling up, we'd have a meeting, but it wasn't like a regularly scheduled meeting.

22:28We weren't, there was no agenda. It was my agenda. And when I would show up for a meeting, it began. And when I left a meeting, it ended. And if I was on vacation, we had no meetings. So really, truly the meetings were all about me. I showed up, I had the agenda, I ran the entire meeting. And so one day I had this really sneaky idea. I was like, you know, I hate meetings so much. I'm going to create this agenda and I'm going to have them have the meetings without me being there. And so the first meeting, I got there 10 minutes late and they were waiting for me. So there was a couple of false starts, but pretty soon they started having the meetings without me.

23:07and the funniest thing happened because when they started having the meetings without me and they became fully engaged I wanted to go to all the meetings they became it wasn't just me talking they were talking they were engaged I didn't want to miss out what was happening and so I they were fully engaged and I it's still a challenge sometimes because sometimes I'm sitting in the meeting I feel like I know what the answer is and I just have to kind of shut my mouth and not say anything because I'm trying to build leaders to figure these things out on their own. Love it. You're the Big Success Podcast.

23:43We're going to be back. Jackie Fisher is going to talk about scaling up. As an expert on what it takes to build a multi-million dollar brand, Jackie Fisher loves helping entrepreneurs skyrocket their businesses through proven and unique growth processes. Her book, The Growth Paradox, Rethinking Control, Accountability, and change to move your business to the next level, we'll publish November 21st, 2023. To learn more about Jackie Fisher, please visit JackieFisher.com. Okay, so Jackie, let me ask, you took over the business, it was doing a few million dollars, you built it to tens of millions.

24:15What's the difference between running it and scaling it, do you think? Running it and scaling it. Well, when you run a business, you're down there in the trenches in your hands-on and you're working in the business. And when you're scaling a business, you're working more at a strategic level. And in the book, there's a page with examples of what that is. If you're focused on one deal with one customer, you're in the business. If you're looking at sales projections and growth for the entire company, you're working on strategy. And so there's little things like that. The day-to-day operations of your business, really, if you're going to scale it, it needs to happen without you present.

25:00Yeah. Yeah. I love that whole factor. What do you think from, let's dive into a couple of different areas of the business. From a sales and marketing perspective, what's the keys to scale? Sales and marketing. Well, first thing is to separate those two things. So, and I know when you're a small business, like we were, our sales and marketing person was the same person. But as you grow, you definitely want to separate those two things out. The marketing is about, you know, getting people interested in sales is about taking them down and making them customers. But scaling is really understanding your target market.

25:40You can't be everything to everyone. And I think small business owners, they're so focused on trying to make money that they try to be everything you need to find your niche um when you go to neiman marcus you're not going to see a pair of 20 crocs right yeah because it's out of their brand it's not not the brand and the same thing when you go to walmart you're not going to see a louis baton it doesn't match the target market so you want to um not be everything to everyone find your niche and create value for that niche market group. Fantastic. So let's flip that over then. Building a team, what's the difference when we're scaling versus just running a business?

26:25So with building a team, if you're just running a business, you're just trying to get people to do their job, right? You're just trying to get people to do their job. And when you build a team, you've got to first start with the right people on the team. You can't go to the Super Bowl with a bunch of C-level people. So take out a pen and piece of paper, write down the name of every single person on the team, and ask yourself, would you rehire them if you knew what you know about them today? Do they have the aptitude and attitude? Do they fit your core values? So first, you've got to start with a great team.

27:01And once you start with a great team, a lot of the problems go away. You don't have to worry about excuses and all of that because here's a trick. If you're laying in bed at night and you're thinking, how do I get this person to do their job? You got the wrong person. And what's frustrating is I see a lot of business owners say, oh, all my employees are a bunch of idiots. And I'm like, and I hear this a lot. And I'm sure you've heard this too, where they're like frustrated. And I'm like, who's the idiot? You know, they're coming to work and they're getting paid to do a substandard job and you're the one that's paying them.

27:41So I don't think they're the idiot. You've got to have good people. Yeah. So let's talk about mindset then. How did you have to shift your mindset to get to that scale mindset? What had to change? I think the biggest shift was making our focus not about me and what I wanted. It was about choosing goals at the beginning of the year, breaking down those goals. Everybody had jobs that they needed to do and making it about what was best for the company. So instead of me being the center of attention for everything, we put the company's vision as the center of attention. and really pushing as hard as we can to reach those goals.