1838 – Building a Strong Business Foundation with Adam House

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0:58with us right now it's adam house adam you are the ceo uh and host of the podcast house of bricks but you're the ceo of house of bricks your website adam is adam house senior sr.com adam thank you so much for joining us thanks for having me glad to be here yes well uh please give us an overview of the work you do, like who you serve and the impact you have in the world. Yeah. So right now I have a company called the house of bricks. We're a business advisory company. So a little bit about me, I've been an entrepreneur for the last 25 years. So I've started five businesses and five different industries with no background in any of them, just a lot of hustle, a lot of grit.

1:39And with each business, you learn more about what you need to do in the next business. So I've had mobile technology, healthcare company that recently went public. And now I'm using all of those learnings and blueprints that I've created. And it's not through succeeding. It's actually through failing over and over again and never giving up is really how I've built my career. And now I want to inspire and empower other entrepreneurs to do the same. Yeah. I'd love to talk about failure for a moment. um what um so i think a lot of us especially of us you know us driven you know kind of type a high achiever personality types where you know we get pretty bulldogged and you know laser focused and getting stuff done and you know we probably have a bunch of ideas always coming in in our head and so we're executing trying to execute on those things you know with our teams and so forth but um you know what is your like i guess you know what is your story around failure and you know when you're working with leaders, you know, where do you find that conversation about that topic typically going?

2:46Well, early in my career, I started when I was 19 and I was an athlete, so very competitive and I just didn't like to fail. And so a lot of my work was in preparing and doing everything I could to prevent it. And then as I matured as a leader and as a business person, I flipped the script a little bit and not using it or viewing it as failure. But I ask myself these four words every time, which is, what did I learn? And if you learn and everything, then failure doesn't exist. Yeah. So it's, you know, you're thinking about maybe your past. What have been some of the most important failures that you've experienced?

3:32And what did that give you? Well, I can bring my wife on and she'll give you a long list, but, uh, you know, uh, look, it's, it's, uh, every day you're failing every day. You're, uh, struggling as an entrepreneur, we call it the struggle zone. And the more you can get comfortable being uncomfortable, uh, the more success you're going to have. Uh, but look, I've made mistakes as a leader. I've made mistakes in products that we've launched, how we brought it to market. So you name it, I've made the mistake, but I'm a very good student of life and business. And so I try not to make the same mistakes twice.

4:17And I was just looking at what some of your content that you share on social and you were kind of talking about failure. And so what, you know, if someone wants to minimize maybe the painful aspects of failure and maximize the value that we get from, say, running a test that could, you know, be suboptimal. You know, is there, you know, what kind of things would you recommend that, you know, one consider before they're venturing into something where there could be the chance for some fails. I always tell people that free advice is worth exactly what you're paying for it. So find someone that is where you want to be and pay them for the advice.

5:04And the reason is, is you have a personal investment capital in the outcome, and then they feel an obligation to deliver value to you. So there's two ways to pay. You either pay with your time in learning it on your own, or you can pay with your money and accelerate that process, accelerate the growth, and really make it much more enjoyable. Because your life as an entrepreneur, as a leader, it's very lonely at the top. And the people that you surround yourself with all report to you. So you get the mirror or the hallway of yes men. So who's really going to tell you the areas that you need to grow in, your strengths as a leader, and areas of improvement.

5:50Yeah. Adam, what are some, you know, aside from, you know, obviously we've been talking about, you know, the importance of failure, but, you know, in leadership today, I'm curious, have you been seeing any trends on the topic of leadership that maybe, you know, maybe it has to do with, you know, some larger trends that are going on, maybe AI coming into organizations and being a tool that's more adapting and some of the disruption that that may be causing within organizations certainly may be related to hybrid and remote teams where maybe that's causing a little bit of friction as well. But any observations that you've seen that maybe leaders are coming to you more often to talk about?

6:34There's always a chance to get distracted as a leader. So whether it's AI or 10 years ago, mobility, there's always some shiny object you can take. But the trend that I am seeing and have been seeing and trying to correct in a lot of leaders is that I think leaders have become too soft. They're getting too many opinions from people in the organization, they're lacking the decisiveness of what it takes to be a leader. Everyone can't steer the ship. And so when you're getting input from a lot of places, number one, when you ask for input and you don't act on that input, then there's some frustration on the people giving it.

7:23And so I'm certainly not saying to run your business like a dictatorship. I've always, well, in my last four businesses, kind of shifted to more of a bottom-up buy-in. So there's times to get input from people. But at the end of the day, leaders are looking to their team for too much guidance. Yeah. So how do we know that we're in that spectrum of I'm going to run our company like a dictator versus I'm going to run it 100 % in committee? How do we know where we are in the right space on that spectrum? It's test and learn. You have to set your vision, get buy-in in the right areas of your vision.

8:12And part of being a great leader is also recognizing your weaknesses, right? So we are in the process of building a group coaching course. I'm not the right guy to pick which LMS we use. And so I assign that to my team and say, hey, look at these three LMSs, whichever one you guys decide, then that's what we'll run with. I'm the content creator. I'm the leader. I'm the visionary. You guys pick the platform. Yeah. Yeah. Good example. How do you run meetings? We have our standard weekly meeting where we're running it off of Monday.com platform. But I'll start with opening and updating the team on the vision.

9:01They're reporting on their various stacks, whether it's marketing, sales, social media. So we'll run those. And then I'll try to meet with my team at least once a month, depending on the size of the team. Our team is smaller now, Some of my companies have had 50, 75 people. So obviously you can't do a one-on-one with everybody every month. But the standard weekly team huddle and try to get some one-on-ones in every month. Yeah. Adam, how do you work with your clients? What does that look like? That's a great question. So we're really focused on entrepreneurs that have a business, have revenue, have clients, and they've hit a ceiling.

9:47They've done things a certain way. And as you probably know, and our listeners would know, you have to do business a certain way to get from napkin to reality, right? You're scrappy, you're doing everything as the entrepreneur. And then you kind of have these arbitrary buckets. Okay. You do things a certain way from zero to a million. Then you got to start to build a team and delegate one to 5 million, five to 10, 10 to 25. They all require different leadership strategies and the ability to let things go. Because as an entrepreneur, you've built it, you've got it to where it is. It's very tough to let go of certain things.

10:27And that's where a lot of entrepreneurs get stuck. And our process helps them do that. Yeah. And maybe just a little bit more specifically or tactically, like how does the, are you structurally, like how does that engagement look with that client? Yeah. So the first phase is a discovery phase. It's not about you not having a business plan or a financial model or a vision, but what we do is help you tie it all together. We're going to help you build a strong foundation, making sure you have a good financial model, a business plan, direction, and vision of where you want to go. What does the future business look like three years from now?

11:11We do an investment in and cost to analysis. So what decisions are you making now that are an investment in the future business versus what's costing the business three years from now you're taking maybe on clients that don't fit your ideal client profile. And you have to do some of that stuff, but it's just the awareness of what is costing the future state of the business. And then most importantly is we help them become an exit ready. And what that means is, doesn't doesn't mean that you're going to sell your business tomorrow or a year from now, or you may not even be thinking about it. But we help you put the disciplines and strategy in as if you were selling your business tomorrow to make sure that you can exit for the highest multiple when you do.

12:00Yeah. You are a podcaster, your how or your podcast is House of Bricks. To our friend that's listening right now, just do a quick search in your podcast app. You'll find it. It's called House of Bricks. Adam, what's the show about? Well, obviously it's a play off my last name, Adam House. And our mission is really to treat life's experiences like bricks. You can either carry them with you, right? And they're heavy and weigh you down and prevent you from accelerating your business, or you can lay those bricks down. We talked about failure, using those failures to build a strong foundation. And we've had some amazing guests over the last 25 years that made really good relationships, just being a man of integrity and character and faith.

12:52So our first 12 guests have been NBA champions, Super Bowl champions, doctors changing the landscape of healthcare, top keynote speakers, CEOs. So I've had an amazing first 12 to 15 guests and plan on continuing to do that. So it's inspiration, it's business advice, tying sports and business together. There's a lot of parallels there working in a team environment and being competitive. So it's an amazing podcast. Check it out. I love to have people listen to my show. Yeah. You know, and I'm sure you've had this metaphor shared with you as well regarding bricks. I took improv for a while and kind of did some improv stuff for a little bit.

13:36And that is a fundamental in improv is that you're building a scene and it's just brick by brick. You have some idea maybe where it might go. But again, if you try to lead too much in that, that's not good improv. You know, when you have two people that are trying to build off each other. So it's like you just this one, this person offers a little bit. And again, you build the scene brick by brick and eventually have it. Well, that same thing is in, you know, in companies like we have an idea. We got the blueprint. You know, we kind of know where it is that we want to go. But ultimately, you know, you're not it's not you're not going to show up and just put up a whole wall all at once.

14:12It's just not how it works when you're dealing with multiple people, iterations. You know, hopefully we've got some malleability, you know, when we're, we are setting sail and, and, and getting things executed. That's a great analogy. And that's what we tell people with their business as well. A lot of people are trying to put the roof on before they have the foundation. So it is a process and watching a house being built, they spend months and months on the foundation and you don't see anything. It's all underground. Right. And if you don't have that right foundation, I've seen it many times over the last 25 years where people are leaving millions of dollars on the table when they go to exit the business.

14:57Yeah. Yeah. Adam, we're in the midst of this right now. And it's interesting. We've had just a higher ticket concierge type service. We've done that for years and years and years and years and years. And there were, you know, there were times where I think we could have started to say, well, we're ready now for a lower ticket offering to the to the world. And it just never felt like the right time. You know, I just I really wanted to work out and just dial in some systems and perfect our craft. So it's almost like and I wonder if you see this right where, again, you're just like it's almost like, you know, you're the general and you're like telling them don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes.

15:33hold, hold, hold. And then, you know, it's like, okay, now we feel like, you know, we've got the right blueprint to go, let's say major market expansion or major marketing investment or play or something like that. That's where you could really experience some painful lessons. If your go to market is premature and you haven't tested. Right. So it's like, you know, even now is, you know, as confident as we are in our service, we know without a proper beta and validation phase, Like that's a fool's errand. Oh yeah. That's a great analogy. And we always coach our clients or advise them. Your best feedback is going to come from your customers, right?

16:12So if you can get an MVP to market, get a couple of beta customers, because I've watched entrepreneurs also sit in the closet, try to come up with a perfect product. And by the time they release it, it's not even valuable to the market. Yeah. We're just guessing. We're guessing. like it's amazing how you know i don't think this happens too much anymore hope i know but this idea that you know what the market wants more than the market does like that's those are not good odds right to you know kind of do that uh you know it's like everything i feel like you know it's like everything good should be directly you know told to you from the market the market should be able to you know kind of co-create with you exactly what it wants and and again um there are uh lower quality ways and getting that information.

16:58And then there are higher quality ways. And I like your way. Yeah, exactly. It works. Yeah. Adam, your website, Adam house, senior.com. So it's Adam house, S R.com. When somebody goes there, what would you recommend they do? Obviously, we talked about the podcast, but, um, you know, folks that have enjoyed this conversation, they want to learn more, obviously have a phenomenal background. You've worked with some big companies, Rockin' Mortgage, Quicken Loans, Akamai, Qualmetrics. But when someone, what, I guess basically what's someone's next step after this conversation? Yeah. Go to the website.

17:32We have a get started section, book a call directly with me or one of my team members. And we're going to talk to see if you're a fit. I'm not a fit for everybody. That's for sure. If you're looking for someone to tell you everything's okay and have coffee, with every week. I'm not the guy. If you're looking to grow and scale your business and exit for a high multiple and you're bought into the process because it is a done with you program, which has been some new muscles for me to develop as well. So I'm not the one on the court playing the game. It's I'm coaching. I'm helping you draw up the plays and how you're going to execute and succeed.

18:12But ultimately you have to, you have to run your business. You have to be comfortable being uncomfortable and held accountable. Yeah. Adam House. Did you go by Adam House or Adam House Sr.? Adam House. It's fine. Adam House. Adam House. Again, your website, AdamHouseSenior.com. Adam, again, host of the podcast House of Bricks, which you can search for right now. And again, one last time, Adam, your website, AdamHouseSenior.com. Adam, thank you so much for joining us. Hey, thanks for having me.

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