The 3 Things That Can Trainwreck Your Business Success

Brandon McCurdy: If you ran your business like you ran your home, how would it go? And if you ran your home like you ran your business, how would it go? And immediately when we start thinking about things through the lens of outcomes Mhmm. All of a sudden it changes activities. If you go to an Apple store, from the point that you hit the website to the point that you fill out a satisfaction survey at the very end, the experience never changes.

If you go to IKEA, the experience never changes. It's one experience all the way through. Yeah. Experience all the way through. Yeah.

I think that is the biggest missed opportunity in the real estate space, specifically. The thing you have to understand about an entrepreneur is that there is always this fear that if the ball stops, I'm I'm not gonna be able to get it rolling again.

Steve Trang: Hey, everybody. Thanks for joining us for today's episode of real estate disruptors. So we have Brandon McCurdy with Sharper Business, and Brandon has worked with over 600 businesses. And today, we're gonna be talking about the three things that can train wreck your business. Now guys, I'm gonna mention to create a 100 millionaires.

The information on the show alone is enough to help you become a millionaire. In the next five to seven years, you will take consistent action. You will become one. And, guys, if you get value today, please hit that subscribe button. That way, we can create more millionaires.

Ready? Yeah. Let's do it. Alright. So first things first is let's talk about what your life was like right before you got in the business.

Brandon: Before I got in a business. So I, I was in college. I was managing a truck stop. So I was working fifty hours a week managing a truck stop. I would work from, 09:00 at night till 07:00 in the morning.

Mhmm. And then I had an 08:00 class. So then I finished college, and, I went and got a position. I was I was actually working at a church, and, that doesn't pay much. So, had to figure something out.

So got into started a a branding and marketing agency, started doing graphic design work, and, they would send me over their their their marketing plans that, you know, they had paid some agency to do and to design the work on it. And I get into it and be like, this is horrible. Mhmm. And I said, can I just do the marketing plan for free? And so I did that a couple of times, and, and it went well.

And so agency kinda grew from there and, just kept running it. My wife is a crazy entrepreneur, so we've started four or five businesses and and done different things there. So, yeah, life before was college. So

Steve: How was that conversation about, like, hey. This marketing plan sucks. Let me do this for free. How was how did that go?

Brandon: Yeah. Most of the time, they they weren't too confident in it either by the time time you brought it to them. I mean, there's just there was just common sense stuff that you'd get into a lot of those. And, you know, on its face, theoretically, it sounded okay, but then you'd get and realize this is not practical. Or they would have these just inflated budgets that didn't make any sense.

And so I would do it for a much better price.

Steve: Yeah. Because I'm working with someone right now, and, like, they had me meet their their marketing person.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: And, like, we're talking logos and colors and this and that. And I was like, this is just the wrong place to start.

Brandon: Yeah. I mean, I teach I teach a junk that that Illinois State University. So I go there every semester

Steve: and teach.

Brandon: And and, you sit in the marketing classes with these kids who are taking marketing, and, there's not a lot of practicality being taught in in marketing today. So Well,

Steve: it's great if you have Coca Cola's budget. Sure.

Brandon: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. All day.

Steve: Nike's budget, Coca Cola, who is always on the Super Bowl. Right? Like, Corona, Coors Light?

Brandon: 100%. Right. Does not work in a direct response environment, though. Would if you actually need sales today, that that's not a good plan.

Steve: No. No. And that's what I learned later on. So so you started your agency.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: Why did you start an agency?

Brandon: It was the best vehicle for for the type of work I wanted to do. I wanted to bring on clients that I could help them end to end. Mhmm. And so a lot of times you get your specialty, and so you have people who have third of a design studio, and then somebody else will have a social media management company. Mhmm.

And then somebody else will have an ad buying system and so forth. And then somebody else will have a, you know, their your

Steve: actual

Brandon: physical products. And I liked doing all of it. So I'd rather I had four or five big, deeper clients that I would just go all the way down, and I almost acted more like a fractional CMO for them Mhmm. Versus having 50 clients that I'm doing, you know, one project here or there for. So it was more retainer work.

Steve: Was this around the same time you got involved with StoryBrand?

Brandon: Yeah. So I had been doing a lot of the the messaging and things just kind of organically. It kind of came natural to me just just because of, you know, the way my mind works.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: And story branding was just a way to kind of message it a little bit better Mhmm. Frame it up a little bit better. And, it's a great system. And so it worked really well with what I was doing already and and definitely added a a nice link wrinkle to what we were doing.

Steve: Yeah. And we're gonna talk a little bit about marketing guys for a bit. Yeah. Before we continue, I just want you know, if you guys are asking, like, why Brandon's here. Brandon ran our quarterly.

Right? Like, so, you know, when I asked Brandon to come on, like, you know, they're part of Sharper business. Sharper business works with us directly. I can't think of a better testimonial than, like, we work with Gary, Susan, Brandon, Amanda, Austin, like, the entire Yeah. Organization.

Right? Brandon, although you've worked with hundreds and hundreds of companies Mhmm. Your, additional talents include marketing and branding. Yeah. So that's the reason why we're talking about this, but we're gonna talk about business.

Brandon: So Yes.

Steve: You guys can bear with me with my own, you know, inquiry, curiosity about business about marketing, and then we come down to the business.

Brandon: Let's do it.

Steve: Right? So alright. So, StoryBrand. So I a quick, you know, little fun fact is, I was creating a website. Right?

It was about, hey, realtors. You know, aren't you tired of all the wholesalers, like, stealing all your business? Like, that was the message. Right? Like, that's that's the headline.

Right. Right? And then we had this whole real estate, this whole website built out for this. So I was gonna start, teaching, you know, realtors how to find motivated sellers because, like, why don't you know this skill? Right.

Right. Right. And so I put it together. I'm really I'm really proud of the work I put together. Right?

Because I went through StoryBrand. Like, I started the morning going through StoryBrand, then I put the website together and made it all look pretty look at all pretty. And I showed it to my wife, and I was like, you know, I'm feeling really pretty good about myself. Like, if I were to go hire an outside consultant to do the story brand and the website design, that's more than $5,000. Sure.

Right? My oldest hears this, and she's like, $5,000 to make a website? Yeah. She's like, probably. Yeah.

She's like, how do I do that? Like, well, step one is you gotta restore your brand.

Brandon: Nice.

Steve: And so she got halfway through. She didn't finish it. But I wanted to spend a little time talking about story brand. Why story brand?

Brandon: Yeah. So, we look at everything through the lens of whoever says that the simplest wins. I said this to your team yesterday.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: The clearer you can define a problem, the clearer you can solve a problem, you win every time. It's the reason why, the family restaurant with the 85 page menu is going out and Chipotle is coming in. Right?

Steve: Chick fil

Brandon: A is coming in by us raising canes. Right? They just sell one product. It clarifies the messaging.

Steve: Yeah. Versus cheese steak factory.

Brandon: Versus, like, here's this, you know, like, book of item for you to choose from. Right. But in every scenario, that's not always necessarily possible. Mhmm. Sometimes you have to get more information across.

Sometimes you have to be able to evoke a lot more emotions, and the only way to do that is by storytelling.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: And so if you think about every great movie you've ever watched, if I said, hey, Steve. Give me, you know, give me 75 points from our our meeting yesterday. No notes. You'd be like, I'm out. Right?

But if I said, tell me the plot line to your favorite movie. Give me 75 points from Star Wars.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: If you knew Star Wars, you could probably do it pretty quick. Yeah. My daughter is 13. She's deep into Star Wars. Right?

She could tell you every character's name, every person, everything. Now you ask her to tell you what she did in her math homework yesterday, that's probably not gonna happen. Right? Because stories make sense. They're like a like a bag, a sense making device that we can put stuff in and we can carry concepts.

So when we story brand something, we're basically creating a story Mhmm. Because it's a native mechanism that people know how to use. From the time you were a child, you somebody told you a story, and they all have the exact same outline. First time you do a brand script with somebody, it literally ruins every movie they'll ever see.

Steve: Oh, yeah.

Brandon: Because then you're sitting there the whole time going, oh, stink. Like, there's the character. There's the guide. Mhmm. There's the, you know, external, internal, and philosophical problems.

This is the call to action now, and now we're hitting it. Now it's either gonna be a success or a failure, and it's that point of tension, and then it's a success. And they reach their aspirational identity as a person.

Steve: So Yeah. The It

Brandon: just makes sense.

Steve: The hero's journey. Right?

Brandon: It's the hero's journey. It's it's how we get to points, and and it's helping a business reposition themselves as the guide, not the hero.

Steve: Yeah. You understand hero's journey, it does ruin a lot of movies.

Brandon: Good to us.

Steve: Because, like, what was the takeaway? I also read the the the heroes two journeys, I believe. Mhmm. Jimmy Wheeler suggested it. And, like and then they talk about, like, yeah, like, in in romance, the all hope is lost is, like, when the guy loses the girl.

Brandon: Right.

Steve: Right. Something's uncovered and all hope is lost. And then in in in, every Marvel movie where, like, all the heroes are sullen. Yes. Yes.

Like, they just lost to some big bad guy. All hope is

Brandon: lost. Right.

Steve: And then, you know, a eureka moment, and then everything's fine.

Brandon: Yeah. And you can always find those those guides in there. Sometimes it's a person. Sometimes it's a character. Sometimes it's a philosophy, but there's always the guide, and the guide's always the stronger one.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: You know? Yoda's already been there. Luke Skywalker is about to fail, and he's gonna help him get there.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: And it's just a perfect way of mapping out for a business, like, how we should be positioning ourselves. Yeah. I mean, in 2024, it doesn't really make sense for a company to tell you how great they are.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: I've been saying this a lot lately as we talk about benefits, not not features.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: And that's all that is is is identifying as I'm a guide to get you to where you wanna go, and it's got a very, very apathetic to the person.

Steve: And something that we push really hard in our sales training is using stories to overcome objections.

Brandon: There you go.

Steve: Right? Like, hey. Like, you don't wanna go with a realtor. Realtor's gonna overpromise the price. You're gonna listen to it in the market.

A bunch of people walking through your home like that. Like like, whatever.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: But, hey. You know, Brandon, I was actually talking to Austin, and he went with a realtor because the realtor said the house is worth 400,000. And I I just reached out to him to see how it's going, and, well, it's now $3.75. Yeah. Right.

And it's been four months.

Brandon: Right.

Steve: And, he he's frustrated as all can be. I'm not saying this is gonna happen to you, but, you know, like, if you were to have that situation, how would that affect you? And, like, you get a story like, I don't wanna be Austin.

Brandon: Right. Right. Right.

Steve: Don't don't let me be Austin. So it it changes the the the dynamic there. So then Now you just mentioned, though, you your message has been, like, don't we're not number one. Right? Like, the the classic realtor marketing, we're number one.

Brandon: Right.

Steve: Right? So one of the challenges I have in in working with salespeople is they wanna talk about how awesome they are. Brandon, like, look. We got these five star reviews.

Brandon: Right.

Steve: We had the biggest budget. We bought this many houses and all these things. Right? And, like, no one cares about any of that. Right.

How are you getting that message across to people?

Brandon: The moment you stop talking about their problem is the moment they stop listening. Yeah. And that's literally as you're having a conversation with somebody, If you ever find yourself not talking about their problem Mhmm. Then you're wasting your breath. Mhmm.

I mean, we sat yesterday for, what, eight hours, and we went through a whole consult together. Yeah. If at any point in that consult, I would have started talking about all my problems and all all my issues and all the problems I'm having Right. And not all the problems that Steve is having and all the things that we're solving within the business here and all those different things. At any point in there, you would have completely disconnected from it

Steve: Right.

Brandon: Because I'm not

Steve: talking about your problems anymore.

Brandon: Right. And you you can watch it happen in a room. We we you know, we're in a couple different masterminds that are that are the same. You know, we go to those meds and we'll show up there, and you'll watch somebody get up and present. And and you'll watch half the room take their phone out, and half the room is like, this is the greatest thing ever happening.

What's happening?

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: People are self identifying as this is not my problem. Yeah. And the other half of the room is saying, this is the greatest thing ever. Like, this is this is my problem. This is exactly what I'm having a problem with.

I mean, I was at an event recently. The guy spoke, and I was sitting next to a guy. Mhmm. We both heard the exact same presentation. I was kinda like, it was fine.

The guy next to me was like, that changed my life.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: Same same thing. Right?

Steve: It's funny you mentioned that because, at the last CG, the guy that spoke was the author of Gapology.

Brandon: Yes.

Steve: And the guy's just going through it, and I already read the book. Mhmm. And we've just started applying it. Right. But it's different when you read the book or listen to the book and you apply it.

And then the guy speaks and you hear a slightly different take. Sure. And I'm, like, writing notes down. I'm loving it. This applies to me.

This is gonna help me be a better trainer.

Brandon: Yes.

Steve: Right. Now, I didn't notice his delivery was not the best. Sure. But it was like, this applies to me. Yes.

Everyone else I talked to, like, that was a terrible presentation.

Brandon: That's so funny because I was texting with a mutual friend of ours during the presentation, and he was he was saying the same thing to me. He was like, boy, this is a struggle struggling with the delivery here. Yeah. And, and I was like, yeah. It's it's really good content.

He was he was he was he was having a rough go of it. But, again, if it was your thing and it's your problem, the delivery would have almost been irrelevant.

Steve: Yeah. Well, I was I was going through it. I was enjoying it despite the delivery.

Brandon: Right? Pulling out the nuggets.

Steve: Pulling out the nuggets. Because, again, like, for me, this applies directly with the reason why my training how my training could be more effective. I'm looking at this. Like, I'm gonna take this information Yeah. And make my training more effective.

Like, this is all gold. Sure. But, yeah, if this isn't your intent

Brandon: Then then it's not it's not gonna be interesting to you at all.

Steve: Right. Yeah. So that's a great point. So, be the guide. Don't be the hero.

Brandon: Mhmm.

Steve: I mean, I can't I I don't know how many times I've said this in talking to a salesperson, like, you're not the hero. Right? You're the guy.

Brandon: It's understanding this, and this is this usually helps the salesperson out a little bit is is the he the guide is always the strong one. Mhmm. I I always when whenever I brand script, I always ask when we get to the trying to figure out successes, I always look at them and say, how many times have you bought a house? And usually, it's, you know, four or five, six hundred times. Mhmm.

Like, great. Your average seller, how many times have they bought or sold a property? And there's the answer is always the same, which is I think they've they're probably only gonna have had done one or two real estate transactions in their life.

Steve: And I

Brandon: said, great. So they have no idea what success looks like. Mhmm. They have no idea what failure looks like. They have no idea what it's like to to get a letter from a bank.

They have no idea what happens next. And so in that scenario, you are the stronger party. Mhmm. You have the knowledge. You have the skills.

You have the experience. You have all the things working for you, and they don't. And so for you to to compete to be the hero with them, you just turned your customer into your competitor.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: Is there a worse position to be in? No.

Steve: There's not.

Brandon: Exactly. And so that's my point is, like, by by saying you're the guide, it's identifying as the stronger party

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: That can take somebody where they wanna go, not compete with them for for positioning

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: Which is tough, again, because the things we love about salespeople are the things we hate about salespeople. You know, the the charisma and the dominance, you know, in PI and those things that are those high level skills also can become a bit of a hindrance when it's time to say, I've gotta be selfless, and I've gotta put you in the right position. So

Steve: Yeah. It's tough. Like, when I talk about managing salespeople, like, that is, like, the most challenging. I think of everything I do, that's probably the most challenging thing I do.

Brandon: What makes them great makes them terrible. That's what I always I always say to clients every every time we talk about salespeople is what makes them great makes them terrible. Yeah. So

Steve: But that's the reason why, Ryan and I launched the the the sales leadership training together. The other thing we were talking about yesterday, after our quarterly, we had a had a conversation. I made the comment that I think Ryan Pineda is the best marketer I know, and you gave me a clarification.

Brandon: Yep.

Steve: Let's talk about that.

Brandon: Sure. So I take marketing as we would traditionally call it. Let's say it's just marketing as a whole, and we just take this big giant bucket and we throw everything in it. Mhmm. I break it down to four different parts, which is branding, marketing, advertising, and sales.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: So branding is who you are. Brand is the promise. The promise I make to you is this is the brand. This is what you're gonna get from it. Marketing then becomes what I say.

That's where we get into why story branding or messaging or considering how you're using your words is important. Advertising then is where I say it. So that's all the ad buying, the channels, the organic, all the stuff I'm doing. And then the sale, your wheelhouse, is when now we're gonna ask. Mhmm.

Now we're gonna ask for something, and this is the point of decision where you're gonna decide whether my branding, my marketing, my advertising are worthy of me being able to ask you the question if you wanna buy something from me.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: So back to Ryan. I mean, it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a nuance. Mhmm. But I think Ryan is one of the best branders in the space. Yeah.

When you sit with Ryan, the way that he clearly delivers his promise, there's no misunderstandings Mhmm. About as to where he stands on things. There's no misunderstandings as to how he's trying to portray the brand. Mhmm. We worked with him, you know, about a year and a half, two years ago to help kinda clarify this a little bit and, like, bring it to a place.

And he just executes at such a quick breakneck and high level pace Yeah.

Steve: He does.

Brandon: That he's able to take that promise and scale it Mhmm. At a speed that I I you'd have a hard time finding a comp.

Steve: There's no I can't. The the people in our space, right, is really cool to start on the beginning where, like, I was with Ryan before this social media journey.

Brandon: Yeah. And I

Steve: was at Pace before, like, his crazy journey. You look at the best branders then using this, filter. I think, Ryan and Pace are the two best branders.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: What is, in your perspective, Ryan's brand promise?

Brandon: I think the brand promise with Ryan is that that I mean, it's it's it's on the front end. Mhmm. He went with this wealthy Mhmm. Which which evokes conversation on the front end. So wealthy way, wealthy business, we work with Ryan with that.

Mhmm. There's wealthy, creator. There's wealth con, all of these different things. It's evoking this question on the front end as to what is actual wealth.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: So when you evoke a question, then he has to fulfill the promise to answer that question. And so the brand promise is that wealth isn't necessarily financial. It comes with all of these other components behind it as well. Yeah. So that promise that you can be wealthy even if the bank account isn't where you'd like it to be, or you can be wealthy without having all of the the peripheral things that maybe the world is telling you you need.

It really is a it is a clear promise to a very specific and, clarified audience

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: That resonates. You know, you think about it, millennials on down will trade a high amount of their lifetime earnings in exchange for purpose.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: So that's why with Sharper, we talk to people all the time about core values and purpose and mission and vision. And a lot of times, folks who are 41, 42 and above kind of start rolling their eyes when we're talking about purpose statements, and everybody who's 35 and below is like, this was the greatest day we've ever had in our business.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: I think that's what Ryan does a good job at

Steve: is

Brandon: that bottom side of the audience where it's the 35 on down, and he can come and say, here's the purpose. I'm gonna clarify a purpose for you, which is around wealth and a life of wealth. Mhmm. And I just think he does such a good job with that, of clarifying what he's doing there. Pace would be in that same boat.

I have not worked with Pace. I've I've I've spoken at events with him a couple of times, but does such a good job just clarifying up up on the front end. This is what's gonna happen. This is how it's gonna be. This is the promise.

Mhmm. Uses consistent messaging and verbiage. I just read a book the other day. They're explaining this process, which is all great businesses or communities or groups, function a lot like cults.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: Right? And every cult has three things. They have a book. They have scheduled meetings, and they have principles or doctrines by which they live. Yeah.

And I think that's what all the both of those gentlemen have done a really good job of. They have a book. Mhmm. They have scheduled times where they meet.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: And then they have doctrines with which they believe in. Yeah. And that's where those those foundational pieces go.

Steve: And those doctrines, you know, like, right now in 2024, I guess, we're kinda on the other side of cancel culture. Mhmm. But, you know, having a strong opinion Yeah. You always subjected yourself to possibly getting canceled.

Brandon: Right.

Steve: But what we've also seen is, like, there's a guy, in San Diego who does really, really well, and he's, like, super right wing

Brandon: Mhmm.

Steve: Right in San Diego. Yeah. And he's like, you know, he's just screaming for the mountain top of first amendment rights, second amendment rights, which, you know, like, good for him. I'm not screaming it. Like, just Right.

Brandon: Right. Right.

Steve: Not screaming it.

Brandon: More power to you.

Steve: Right. But what he found is that he's got a really strong clientele. Mhmm. Because, yeah, you're, offending Right. Probably more than half of your audience in California.

Correct. But the ones that you're not offending, like, they'll ride with you.

Brandon: Yes.

Steve: So that's the doctrines you're talking about.

Brandon: Right. The the worst emotion to have in branding is apathy.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: Right? You either need to love me or you need to hate me. If you're apathetic towards me Yeah. It doesn't exist. I mean, I'm a I'm a Chicago Bulls fan.

Right? I grew up in Chicago in the nineties. Mhmm. The Bulls right now are you know, we're in basketball purgatory. Right?

I mean, we're not good enough to win anything. We're not bad enough to get a draft pick. Yeah. And so right now, I don't even own any Chicago Bulls merch. I'm completely apathetic to it.

Yeah. Now in the nineties

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: You know, I mean, you either love them or hate it. I mean, that was just is what it is. It's the same thing when you think about a company, a brand, a personality, whatever the case is. They're you're always if you're not getting hate mail, you're probably doing something wrong.

Steve: Right. Yeah. So I can't remember who says it, but you can love me, you can hate me, but you will not ignore me.

Brandon: That's right.

Steve: Yeah. So something I did end of last year, I wanna say maybe November, ish, is I block or we we look for a unifying message.

Brandon: Mhmm.

Steve: And our unifying message is close more sales. Alright. So I bought closemoresales.com and everything. All all our messages, like, we help you close more sales. Yeah.

So I want your perspective. Is that a brand promise, or is that marketing?

Brandon: It is a brand promise. The only thing that we would wanna work through on it is making it what we call it more of a relevant differentiation Mhmm. Is that there is a very, very distinct difference in the way that Steve Trang believes that you would close more sales versus somebody else would close more sales.

Steve: Let

Brandon: me give an example. This is the most I use this example all the time because it's such a good one. Years ago, Quicken Loans came out with a product. Mhmm. It was called a Rocket Mortgage.

Right? And so, like, everything's Rocket this and Rocket that and Rocket Rocket Mortgage. Right? You know what's the difference between a Rocket Mortgage and any other mortgages? Rocket?

Absolutely nothing. They're the exact same mortgage. In fact, they did such a good job. They re literally rebranded Quicken Loans to Rocket Loans. It's it's Rocket Companies now.

That's how good of a job they did with the Promise Right. Because they created a relevant differentiation

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: Which is the here is our secret sauce, original recipe Mhmm. The thing we do better than anybody else. And so Right. That would be the only thing a tear down from close more sales would be is what are the doctrines? Mhmm.

Like, what are the the nonnegotiables? What are the things you believe about sales that that somebody else would disagree with? How do we create the the widest point of friction there

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: So that you can have the the dominance in the space on that?

Steve: Yeah. Gotcha. So this this joke in me yesterday is that we don't believe you need a six pack to to sell.

Brandon: That I mean, there's a good starting place.

Steve: Okay. So then how do we go from so I wrote this down as you were saying this. So you got the brand promise, what you say, where you say it now. So I just put who, what, where, ask. Yeah.

Is that way oversimplifying it?

Brandon: Yeah. Brand is who we are. Market is what we say. Advertising is where we say it. Sales is when we ask.

Yeah. Very simple. Yeah.

Steve: So the difference then between branding and marketing Mhmm. So what you say. Yeah. So then is story branding on the what?

Brandon: That's right. Story branding comes in at the what you say level.

Steve: Gotcha.

Brandon: And so I'm gonna get very clear with what we how we how the voice now sounds.

Steve: So we're

Brandon: having a conversation right now. It's like you see somebody's face, that's the brand. Mhmm. The tone of their voice, the intonations, the type of words they use, the the cadence of their voice, that would be the marketing side of it.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: And I would wanna see that it's consistent across the entire entire company.

Steve: Gotcha.

Brandon: So Especially the disconnect in in the real estate space. Right?

Steve: So let's talk about that. Yeah. What's the disconnect?

Brandon: We send out the postcards. We do the cold calling. We PPC. We text people. We do all these things, and it has one tone to it.

Mhmm. And then the salesperson shows up at my door, and they sound completely different than than what you sent me. And then we get to the TC, and they're like it's like a whole different company all over again.

Steve: It's disjointed experience.

Brandon: Correct. I mean, it's just this, like, wave of and then we get to the end of the thing, and we wonder why nobody gives us a testimonial. Mhmm. Right? If you go to an Apple store, from the point that you hit the website to the point that you fill out a satisfaction survey at the very end, the experience never changes.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: If you go to IKEA, the experience never changes. It's one experience all the way through.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: I think that is the biggest missed opportunity in in the real estate space, specifically, in business in general, is that there is no cohesion at all to how we how we present our message.

Steve: See, that is way better than an answer than I thought it was gonna be. I was thinking more along the lines of, like, you know, your marketing copy on your website is different than your direct mail piece. It's different than the billboard.

Brandon: Yeah. Marketing is marketing is top to bottom. I mean, it's it's yeah. I mean, you you put a post out this morning, so I'll I'll I feel free to do it. It's like is you put a post out this morning that you're hiring salespeople.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: Right? That's part of your marketing. It's internal, external, the entirety across the entire business. And so when we think about it, if we thought about it like that Mhmm. All of a sudden, it would make us reflect on it a little bit more and stop and say, okay.

Every single thing I do is is marketing my business. What should it actually be saying? Mhmm. And why would I leave that up to each individual member of my team to decide what our core messaging is?

Steve: Gotcha.

Brandon: Right? So I wanna brand script that on the front end. Mhmm.

Steve: And then

Brandon: I'm gonna give that brand script to every single person in this company and say, this is how we talk. This is how we sound. This is the terms we use. This is the way we say it. And make sure that it's there's a cohesion across.

Steve: How do we do that? Yeah.

Brandon: So you start with the brand script. Mhmm. So you sit down with a with a story brand certified guide Mhmm. Or you can do the book and you can try to do it that way. I've not read one yet where they tried to do it by themselves out of the book that it made much sense.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: And you walk through that journey and you walk through. They ask key questions. You come up with specific terminology, and then that brand script becomes same as what we do with systems and processes with Sharper. We sit down and we build out your business systems and processes. We built out a process ownership chart with your team yesterday.

Right? This is the outline for how we're gonna function and operate as a business. A brand script is the same thing on the on the marketing side. Mhmm. Here is how we're gonna talk about our company, leveraging chat GPT and things like that now to take that brand script and plug it into AI tools and maximize that is critical.

I always got that question for us. Like, well, when AI comes out, there there goes your job as a marketer. I'm like, oh, no. My job just began. Like, I I, you know, I I just became more valuable.

Mhmm. Because now it takes that front end work to make it thoughtful and intentional and consistent that now I can multiply all of that into AI and do some really cool stuff.

Steve: And I think that's what we've seen consistently with AI. Like, the people that are afraid of it might need to work on their skills.

Brandon: It's going to put a premium on on high level skills.

Steve: Expertise.

Brandon: Expertise. That's right. It's going to put a premium on expertise, and it will diminish if you don't have an expertise. If it's not something that you're you're getting better at, it will it will erase the middle for sure.

Steve: Yeah. I think a lot of people I think a lot of people have very legitimate reasons to be concerned. Mhmm. But if you're elite, then you're excited.

Brandon: Yeah. It it reminds me of a, I mean, a great quote Seth Godin uses all the time, which is, you know, basically, when you when you tell me that you're gonna take something of mine or you're gonna take it away from me, it means great. I don't have to do it anymore, and I can go do something more interesting.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: And that's how I look at all that kind of stuff is, okay. Cool. You wanna take that away? Great. It just means I get to go do more interesting things now.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: So I love it.

Steve: Most business owners waste their time and money on solutions that never fix the root problems. They'll address all the symptoms due to slow revenue. And because they're only fixing the consequences, the real problem stays hidden and the cycle of wasting time and money continues. It's like having a lingering headache that won't go away despite trying every over the counter medicine, when reality should have just gone to the doctor and had them figure out exactly what was causing the headache. And that's what's so difficult about business.

You can see and feel the symptoms, and yet struggle to find it. Now imagine you can find a prescription that doesn't just mask the symptoms but actually addresses the root cause. Where would your business be if you address that right now? That's what our sales event is about. Your marketing doesn't suck.

Your leads aren't bad, and your operations aren't terrible. It's that you haven't addressed what actually makes you money in wholesale, which is the conversations you have with homeowners. It's critical that you build trust with sellers, demonstrate that you fully understand their situation, know exactly what's keeping them up at night, and paint the ideal outcome that leads them to a better future by working with you. That's what it takes to get signed contracts and keep your business going. Simply put, at our event, you'll walk away with a framework, phrases, questions, documents, and process to close more sales and buy more houses.

Join the hundreds of others who've come to our live event and dramatically grown their business. Our event is happening soon and is available for you to join only if you're willing to take the pill. So you started your agency. Mhmm. And then

Brandon: Yeah. What? So, I was going really well. I had had seven, eight clients. I helped launch a skincare company.

We won some awards doing that. I was helping a guy out in, out in Utah with a with a large education company. I was a brand consultant for them for a little while. Mhmm. And then, Austin started with Sharper.

So Austin's my brother. Mhmm. Austin had owned eight Papa John's pizza franchises and and had kind of was gonna retire. And Gary said, hey. Why don't you come help me part time?

And that turned into Austin's now the full time CFO Sharper and and does all that. And he sat down. He was doing all their finances and going through everything. He said, hey. We have about five different marketing vendors.

Would you wanna, would you wanna put in a proposal? And so I did, and I became fractional CMO for Sharper. And, and then Gary goes, hey. You know, you've got some business experience. You've ran a few businesses and done some different things.

I helped do a consolidation on a pretty large media, company and things like that. He goes, you think you wanna do some consulting? And I'm like, yeah. I'll do a couple. Mhmm.

And so I did one here, and I did one there. And last year, I did a 113. So it's kinda kinda blossomed from there. You

Steve: still have your agency?

Brandon: I do. I I usually look for very specific, very special projects that I wanna work on every now and then. I've I've kinda scaled it down. I converted it more to a software company. So I have software now, and treated a little bit more on that side.

I'm starting to lean back into it. I'm getting a lot of, interest in that fractional CMO type of thing. So I'm vetting about five different companies right now determining which ones I wanna kind of kind of help out. But Yeah. Within Sharper, it'll all be internal with with Gary and Austin and myself.

So

Steve: Gotcha. So you worked with over 600 businesses. Yeah. So we talked about the three things you've seen, what was it, that can lead to a train what was it? Three things that's to to do to train wreck your business.

Yes.

Brandon: Yeah. When we run a business, there's really only three variables. And, like, to oversimplifies business as a whole, there's really only three things we're talking about. Yeah. We're talking about people.

We're talking about processes, and we're talking about the market. So every time we have a problem in a business, we have to look at it and say, is this a people problem? Is this a process problem? Or is the market telling us that we need to make an adjustment

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: To all of it altogether?

Steve: Right.

Brandon: And so we always start with measurables. So we start at the top of a process ownership chart. We work our way down. The the innovator of the business is accountable for the purpose. The leader of the business is accountable for the profit.

The department heads are accountable for performance, and then the employees are accountable for process. Mhmm. And we run metrics on each of those, and we determine first and foremost, is this a process problem? In other words, how we're making the cheeseburgers, does it actually make money? Does it actually make sense?

Can we make them fast enough for us to be profitable at an acceptable number?

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: If the process is solid, now I look and say, great. Now we're gonna put the people in the seats. Mhmm. I mean, we go to all these events and you hear if I hear right people right seats one more time. Right?

I'm gonna lose my mind. Right people right seats. Alright people right seats because it's completely subjective. They have no baseline for why they're saying that. And that's what

Steve: Collins said it.

Brandon: And that's what Sharper does is we look and say, let's clarify what the seat is. Let's put measurables around it. What are the metrics? Mhmm. Right seat, what actually makes money?

We did this yesterday. Right? We talked to the remedial. Like, how are we gonna make this seat? How does it make so much money?

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: So there's the seat, and then the people is not just I got a buddy. He seems like a really nice guy. I think he should come work for me. That's usually how that works. Right?

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: So we don't clarify the seat. We go get our buddy, and we put the two together, and then we wonder why the business doesn't work.

Steve: So, Jim Collins, I think it's from Good to Great. Yes. Yep. Right? It was like, you gotta get the right people on the bus.

Yes. And then once they're on the bus, we put them in the right seats.

Brandon: It it's a great philosophy. The problem is is visionaries just went and said, well, I I have the subjective knowledge to just figure that out on my own.

Steve: Oh, yeah. I mean, the seats are, what are they how would you put it? Generic job descriptions.

Brandon: Right.

Steve: Right. Right? Not not specific to your business. Right. Not specific to your market.

It's just like, okay. This is what an acquisition manager does.

Brandon: Right. Exactly.

Steve: So I think what you're talking about is, like, we need to really examine the seats

Brandon: That's right.

Steve: For your company.

Brandon: That's right. So we're looking for two things. We did this yesterday with you, which was performance and potential. Mhmm. We're gonna look and say, what is the baseline minimum metric we would need for this role?

Yeah. What is the number we should be targeting, and then what would be an exceptional person in this role? Mhmm. And And then we're gonna look and say, does this person have the potential to do that? We're gonna look at a predictive index.

We're gonna look at their resume and say, do they fit the potential to do this? And then we're gonna use what we call a nine box, and we're gonna nine box that out and say, here is the seat. Could the person hit baseline metrics? Do they have the potential to do the job? Yeah.

And if the answer is yes and yes, then great. Now we can go to the next step and talk about this person. But I find more often than not, they can't tell somebody what success looks like in the role. They can't really give them a clear description of what the job title is. They don't know what the ninety day onboarding looks like.

Mhmm. They're not sure what exactly this person is gonna be doing all day. And then when they fail, we kinda look at the person and be like, wrong person. You know? It's like, no.

No. That was the wrong seat. You didn't even give him a seat to sit in.

Steve: Yeah. The seat wasn't ready. Right. So as we're talking about this, you know, I'm thinking right now, the process map that we put together. Mhmm.

Another process map. The

Brandon: Process ownership chart.

Steve: Process ownership chart, which for those of you guys that are familiar with traction is the accountability chart.

Brandon: Yep.

Steve: Right? You know, you used a funny expression yesterday. Right? Like, who belongs in that? I was like, well, we only have one throat to choke.

So, like, who the way I always put it is whose head's rolling? If this doesn't get done, whose head's rolling?

Brandon: That's right. We can't we can't have more than one person in the seat because we don't if we have two people, then nobody's accountable.

Steve: Yeah. So what I'm thinking here is, we'll take Steve's my, process owner chart Yeah. Slash accountability chart. I'll have that as a downloadable so you guys look for the link in the show notes. Seems to be upset with me later on.

But look for the link later on the show notes so that as we're talking about this, this makes more sense. Because we're gonna be talking about this in a as as an abstract. Yeah. If you guys wanna download this later on, you can see it, visualize it Yeah. And they have a reference point.

Brandon: Absolutely. Yeah. And I'm we'll we'll get you one of ours so you can have something to put in there that'll be a little bit cleaner from a

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: From an understanding of how it breaks down.

Steve: Yeah. Okay. So we have, so you were saying the visionary not the visionary. Sorry. Yeah.

The innovator and leader.

Brandon: Yeah. So so one one, like, clarifying thought to all of it is in a process ownership chart, we are not putting any titles.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: These are the seats that have to take place in a business, whether it's one person sitting in all the seats or you have a team of 5,000.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: These are the processes that have to take place for us to make money as a business. Yeah. Now it's just a matter of putting people in those seats. I mean, if you ever saw, Moneyball, it's exactly this. I gotta have x number of hits.

I gotta have x number of home runs. I gotta have x average batting average. Now who can get me those numbers and just back filling the seats?

Steve: Yeah. So, the traditional when we talk about traction. Right? Because the traction, like, blew up.

Brandon: Yes.

Steve: Yeah. Right? So the EOS. Yep. Visionary, integrator.

Yes. But you guys are different.

Brandon: Right. We changed that because we kept running into it where when we said visionary, everybody heard owner. Mhmm. And so they would just kinda check out from the business and go into more of this ethereal, you know, up in the sky, like, man in the clouds kind of thing who just dreams all day of how great the world's gonna be. Right.

Steve: I like that role.

Brandon: Yeah. Everybody does. And it's called the owner of the business. Right? You get to own the company.

We identified the fact that each department of this company has different needs.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: Some of them are more in an innovation. For example, like, if we look at a business and they're struggling to bring in leads, we would look and say, you need to go innovate the marketing department, or you need to go innovate the sales department, You need to go innovate the finance department, or you need to innovate other parts of the company. And others of them need to just be led and ran by the numbers, held accountable for their work, and we're not gonna create chaos there. Yeah. What what what employees and team members wanna know is, are you gonna be creating chaos for me over the next ninety days Mhmm.

Or are your is your expectation the same? So we take now the process ownership chart, and we say, great. Who's gonna innovate this business? And we identify the parts of the business that need innovation. And then we say, great.

Who's gonna lead, manage, hold accountable this business? And we identify the the the separate departments that that person is going to lead, manage, and hold accountable. So So that way the finance department knows we're not changing from QuickBooks this quarter. Right? We're staying in our we're in our role.

We're gonna stay where we're at. But the marketing department should expect that every single week, there's gonna be adjustments. There's gonna be modifications. We're we're working on some new things, and we're making some changes. Yeah.

You should expect that the innovator is gonna be down there in in the work of that.

Steve: And that was, it was kind of a funny moment yesterday because we have Larry.

Brandon: Yes.

Steve: Right? And he's our artisan. Right? Formerly craftsman for those PI.

Brandon: Yes.

Steve: Those you guys sophisticated or or or familiar with PI. Right? Like, the one thing that pisses him off is when I mess with this stuff. Right?

Brandon: Right. Right. Right.

Steve: I go in there, start moving things around. Like, he starts getting really aggravated. Yeah.

Brandon: I get that.

Steve: And so when we had this conversation, like, alright. Steve's the innovator.

Brandon: Right.

Steve: Steve's come into marketing and messing. So I looked at him. I was like, alright, Larry. I'm gonna be in there. I'm gonna mess with your stuff.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: I need you to not be upset. I need you to give me grace That's right. Because I'm gonna be in there

Brandon: Right.

Steve: Making a mess.

Brandon: And if we were to if we would have followed the the traditional visionary model, it would just be every department would be on notice that Steve's gonna come make a mess this quarter. Yeah. Right? Where this way, we look and say it's a little clearer what's going on, what's happening, what's taking place. And secondly, we found it a much more scalable.

That's always been the challenge with traction is it can take you to a certain level. But once you jump above that level, there there are some missing components like that where and in a lot of businesses, the visionary and the and the innovator or the leader the leader and the innovator are the same person right now. And so we just need to let the rest of the company know what's taking place in in in this quarter so we can make the right adjustments.

Steve: Yeah. And, you know, and and you explaining it in this way, this kinda makes more sense for me because I talked to Phil Green quite a bit. Like, I mean, someone I admire incredibly. Right? He's a

Brandon: good dude.

Steve: And I see Eric, a guide us on his team. Mhmm. He's constantly balancing from department to department. Mhmm. And I was like, this is interesting Yeah.

That we have this guy who's, like, on loan to all these different departments.

Brandon: Right.

Steve: But now when you say, like, he's the innovator Yeah. That's right. Is that is that was that the vision?

Brandon: I mean, you when you look at Phil, it's it's kind of an ecosystem. So they have multiple companies, and Phil kind of works as the, you know, the the the master brand above all of them. And that's exactly what it is. And what you find is not to bring it back to PI. Eric is not a traditional, what you would call integrator profile.

He's a captain Mhmm. Which you usually always would see in the in the innovator or in the CEO type of seat is more of a captain profile. But the way that their company is growing so quickly and the needs that they have, it it it demands that he's able to go in and say, okay. This company, this quarter, get ready for chaos.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: Eric's gonna come in here and and fix and solve problems. Yeah. And then he'll be on to the next next quarter. So Right. And it's very it's very interesting.

Steve: Yeah. So, okay. So we have not visionary integrated, but, innovator and lead.

Brandon: Leader. Yep.

Steve: And then the next row Right. Is performance. Right. So, because I went through this and I made the I don't wanna say mistake. Right?

Because I was putting Manny under Larry. I was putting media under marketing. I'm like, no. Right. It's performance based.

Brandon: That's right.

Steve: So explain that.

Brandon: So if we were gonna look at like we did yesterday and we said to Manny, we're gonna hold you accountable for performance. In other words, the the videos you're putting out, the content we're creating, the things that we're doing need to lead to business results.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: Right? We need to see performance from it. Then we're saying we're holding you accountable for outcomes, not work being done.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: And so we can't put you under somebody who's then gonna be accountable for your performance if we're holding you to it. Mhmm.

Steve: I

Brandon: always use the same analogy for this. It's if you ever get confused between process and performance, just think of a boat going down a river. If the motor and the propeller is spinning, that's process. Mhmm. The weight coming behind the boat is performance.

Steve: Gotcha.

Brandon: So if I'm asking you to turn the propeller, you're a process person. Mhmm. If I'm asking you to give me bigger waves, you're a performance person.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: And that chart should be indicative of that. Mhmm. That's why every time I teach a process ownership chart to somebody for the first time, I always start by teaching an org chart first. Mhmm. And I walk them through.

Here's the regular traditional model. Here's the flat org chart, which, like, if you go to, like, a not for profit or, like, Tom's shoes, it's like a flat org chart, which means everybody's on the same level. I call it the delusional org chart. Mhmm. Right?

Somebody's gotta be in charge. There's matrix models. There's divisional models in org charts. CEO, COO, all the titles. That is not what we built yesterday.

No. What we built yesterday was here's processes and whether it's Manny, Steve, Larry, whoever, this stuff has to happen for us to function as a business. Mhmm. And now it's just identifying if somebody wants to own the performance of it or whether they wanna just make do the work to get us there.

Steve: Yeah. So that's performance. Mhmm. And then underneath that was process.

Brandon: Right.

Steve: So, again, guys, look at the link. Look for the link in the show notes. Hopefully, it's in there. Yeah. Look, but so the process was different than what I've seen before.

Yep.

Brandon: So when we get down to the process level, we're gonna identify, the actual process for us, process maps that explain that part of the job. Mhmm. So let's just break this down. Right? So if we're in the marketing department, one of those things in there is gonna say, lead gen.

So how are we generating leads? That would be a performance metric. How many leads did we generate lead gen? We would have a process box below that would then say, here is the channels we're gonna lead gen on. It's gonna be cold call PPC, mail, PPL, so forth and so on.

Those then, we would have a process map for how we do each one of those so that the person who owns those processes, we could go to them and say, look, you're accountable for let's use PPC. PPC. And and I get always get the same thing, which is we have a vendor. Right? We have a vendor that does PC, but you're still accountable for the process, whether it's this vendor or that vendor or you're doing it yourself.

Steve: Still need the results.

Brandon: We still are looking at who is accountable for the process of this taking place. Mhmm. Then we're gonna take that process map, and we're gonna find in it, all the diamond shapes in a process map

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: That become our key process indicators that tell me whether or not this person is doing their job. Are they following our process? Mhmm. And I'm gonna measure those every single day to see if the process is working. Yeah.

So I'm gonna go process daily, performance weekly, profit monthly, purpose quarterly, and then I can see within a matter of three days. If I have three days of bad process, guess what happens? Mhmm. There goes my week.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: Right? If I have three weeks of bad performance, guess what? There goes my month. If I have three months of bad performance, guess what? There goes my quarter.

And so we start from the bottom and work our way up. Yeah. We're able to find those holes in the pipe a lot faster than if we wake up at the end of the quarter and say, oh, man. We didn't have our goals again. Like, what happened?

Horrible way to do business.

Steve: Yeah. I I'm too familiar with that way of doing business.

Brandon: Me too. Me too. Then they're done then.

Steve: So one of the major, light bulb moments I had in in when you were putting it all together is, like, now that we have the all the processes and who owns it, now we have a succinct I mean, that's succinct, a specific list of all the processes that we need to document.

Brandon: There you go.

Steve: Right. So now we say, okay. Like, basically, almost every person has anywhere from three to seven processes. Yep. That needs to be documented.

So we have, like, probably years worth of documenting right right now Right. From that list.

Brandon: Right. And it's just going through there and sitting down with that person and saying, walk me through from start to finish. Where does this process start? Where does it finish? What are the steps in between?

And now I can very quickly and we use another tool called the SIPOC where we'll just go through with them in a SIPOC, and it's kinda like a speedy version of a process map and say, great. Give me the three to five points I'm gonna measure across across the line here to figure out whether or not you're following your process or not. Because what I don't want is we talked about this yesterday. I don't want you coming in here with your talent and just making it happen because the day you don't feel like using your talent is the day my business goes under. You follow my process.

I was with a client recently. We went through this incredibly talented salespeople. I mean, they could just they could just wake up and get a sale. Mhmm. And then the market shifted.

So back to our three things. Right? Something changed. The market shifted on them, and all of a sudden, it wasn't working anymore. Yeah.

And he was like, I don't know what's going on. I got these incredibly talented salespeople. They just can't close anything. And I said to him, I was like, do you trust their process or your process? And he's like, I trust my process.

He's been a realtor for twenty five years. Mhmm. I trust my process. I'm like, great. Then you outline that, and that's what we hold them accountable to.

Because we're betting on you as the owner, you as the expert here in your process, not their skills. Yeah. When this when when things are going well, talent can can do great.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: When things are not going well, I need to know the process so I know on a daily basis whether or not we're gonna get to where we wanna go.

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So you mentioned SIPOC. I wrote this down.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: So the way I had the our process owner chart set up Mhmm. In my mind, it was kinda like SIPOC. Right? Because we had, leads coming in. Mhmm.

So we had, marketing Right. And, you know, organic and versus paid, but marketing and then sales Mhmm. And then fulfillment and then finances. The way I had it put together Yeah. On the on our chart.

Brandon: That's right.

Steve: But SIPOC is a little bit different than what we did yesterday.

Brandon: Yeah. A SIPOC is gonna tell me what the pipeline of a business or a specific process is.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: So for those who don't know, it stands for supply, input, process, output, customer. Easiest way to explain SIPOC, I always do the same thing, which is think of it like it's a restaurant. Supply food truck brings the food. Right? Input, they put all the food in the refrigerator.

Process, chef takes out the food, makes the food, output. He puts it on a plate, sets on a little hot counter on top there. Waitress picks it up, sets it on the table customer. Supply input process up a customer. In between each letter then, I can put a measurable, and I can say, great.

The food showed up, so that would be the s. Mhmm. The I did it did it make it into the refrigerator. And so I would have a measurable there, a a performance indicator Mhmm. Or rather more specifically, a process indicator that says food in fridge a 100 of the time.

Yeah. Why yes or no? Right? In between input and process, I could then say how much food got taken out, how much waste was there. Right?

He makes the meal, how many meals were made that made it on the counter, how many got dropped on the way. Right? Food on the counter to on the customer's table, measurable, measurable, measurement, measurable. So that's how we use the SIPOC is to understand what's going on. In real estate, it's even simpler.

Right? Supply, marketing. Input, acquisitions. Process, am I gonna flip it? Am I gonna wholesale it?

Am I gonna wholesale it?

Steve: Am I

Brandon: gonna wholesale it? Am I gonna innovate it? Whatever the case is there, that's my process. Mhmm. Output.

Now we're at the TC level. The TC is taking the paperwork. They're doing their job. Customer, did I get a testimonial review from somebody who who bought or sold my house?

Steve: Right.

Brandon: Right. So that's our SIPOC measurables all along the way. Right? Leads, appointments, all the way down the line.

Steve: Yeah. So So the the process owner chart is not quite the same.

Brandon: No. Process ownership chart is just telling me what's going on in the business. The the order of it is just by nature of the fact that this is where the business starts and this is where the business finishes. It has similarities. But Yeah.

Steve: Somewhat really different. Not concept. Not really the same. Yeah. Okay.

So going back then. So we're saying, the thing that kills you the most is when I say, well, Brandon, I just need the right people in the right seats. Yeah. So why do people why do business owners get people wrong?

Brandon: Because they they try to use antiquated means for identifying whether or not this is the right person or not. Statistically, we know if you just look at a resume or an interview, you're you're about 11% sure you just hired the right person, and you're about 89% sure you did not. Mhmm. I always explain it the same way, which is we wanna hire with rifles, not shotguns. Mhmm.

Most hiring gets done as a rifle. I'm gonna hire 10 people, and I hope one of them works out. Mhmm. That's a horrible way to hire. The way to hire is hire with a shotgun.

Hire hire three people, and two of them should work out. Mhmm. Much better odds. The waste is is reduced incredibly. Yeah.

And so if I've already identified over here and I've done my work to identify the processes and the measurables and what the seat should look like What

Steve: success looks like in that seat.

Brandon: What success looks like in the seat, how it's gonna it's gonna thrive in my business, how they're gonna do good, and how I'm gonna do good. It also tells me what type of person should be sitting in that seat. Yeah. So I'm gonna look at three things. I'm gonna look at the resume in the interview because I do need to know if they have talents and abilities.

Mhmm. Have you done this before? What's your experience?

Steve: What

Brandon: they're gonna tell me, all the jobs they didn't get fired from. Right? Mhmm. You know, all the places they were great, how awesome they are, the people in the world who liked them the most as their references, and they're gonna give me all that information. Mhmm.

Then I gotta know, do they match me on core values? This is the part gets missed all the time. Core values exercises, we as a company, and then me testing them on an interview as to whether or not they match those core values.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: And then I'm gonna look at, for us, their cognitive ability and their their drive. That's what we get for predictive index.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: Can they learn quickly? Do they absorb information quickly? And then do they drive the drive to do the job? And now I'm gonna take that person that I've properly vetted out, and I'm gonna put them in the right seat.

Steve: Yeah. I mean, you think

Brandon: about this is a Chick fil A would do it. I mean, they they'll they'll get I talked to a guy who owns one by me. They'll take a 100 employees, and they'll predictive index test a 100 employees.

Steve: Oh, really?

Brandon: They have a PI for somebody to work in the drive thru at Chick fil A. It's why they're all the same person. And so they'll vet them, and they'll get about 10 that have the right profile for the job. Mhmm. They'll take the 10.

He'll sit them down, and he'll walk through them the core values of Chick fil A. You could probably guess what they are because if you've, you know, know anything about Chick fil A, they have very public core values. So they're gonna go through those core values, and he said that usually gets rid of about five of them.

Steve: Mhmm. And

Brandon: now he's got five, and he's gonna look at knowledge, skills, and experience. And he's gonna say who's the most knowledgeable, who's the most skilled, and who has the most experience, and he's gonna hire one or two of them. So he went from a 100 down to one to fill a seat over here. Mhmm.

Steve: But

Brandon: what are the odds that this person's the right person versus Significant. Just guessing.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: And and the point of it is is it's two sided. A lot of times we look at it and say, well, that obviously, I'm gonna make a lot more money for my business. And you're right. You should. We look at it should be about 34% higher efficiency than if you just hire anybody.

Like, hiring three and getting one for free is basically the way to think about

Steve: it. Mhmm.

Brandon: But that being said, it's also not fair to that person. When they told you in a predictive index that they don't like risk, they don't like being rushed, they like rules, and they don't like dominating over people. And, oh, by the way, they'd rather sit in a cubicle by themselves. Yeah. And you're gonna say, awesome salesperson.

Right. Right? That's the point is you're gonna make that person miserable.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: I mean, we talked about this yesterday. I was with a client. They have 200 employees. And some of them are the happiest, most joyful people. They love their job, and the others go home at night and sit in a dark room by themselves and try to regroup because they just bad fit.

Steve: Yeah. Right?

Brandon: We don't wanna do that to people.

Steve: Yeah. I said before, like, we hire people that are bad with details by design. Because if you're good at details, I'm really concerned about your sales abilities.

Brandon: That's right. That's right. Right.

Steve: Like I

Brandon: would say, what makes them great makes them terrible.

Steve: Yeah. And I've had, like, these battles forever, with my administrator team. They're like, man, why are these people so incompetent? I was like, well, if they were good at the things I'm asking you to do, you wouldn't have a job.

Brandon: That's right. If they were masters of filling out the CRM, it would also mean they're incredibly patient, which means that they would tell a seller, oh, yeah. We'll call you back in a month. It's no big deal. There would be no pushing for us to get a contract signed today.

So Yeah. We have to we have to look at that role. And if we do our job right, they would be doing well enough at sales that we could hire them an assistant Mhmm. To fill out the CRM for them or Yeah. Buy them a recorder to to, you know, transcribe their notes.

Steve: Is there anything else you're missing as far as people goes?

Brandon: No. I mean, that's usually what we look at is those those three main factors. We're gonna look at it through four different assessments, desire, whether or not they have that. We look at it head, heart, hands, and feet. Do they have the drive and the cognitive ability?

Do they have the desire, the heart? Hands, do they have the skills and the ability? And then feet, where could they move in my business? Mhmm. And if I can answer those four questions that, yes, they have the right drive, yes, they match some core values, yes, they have the skills, and, yes, they're either gonna sit in this role or they're gonna move up in the business as time goes on.

If I can answer those four questions, I feel pretty good about this person. So

Steve: yeah. That's awesome. Processes. Yeah. So you were saying that that's the other thing that can train wreck your business.

Brandon: Right. When we don't have clearly defined processes that are being reviewed and adjusted on a regular basis Mhmm. Then we have this great gifted and talented person now sitting in the wrong seat in the business, and it's like giving somebody a a dull knife.

Steve: So you worked with Kristen Stampede not too long ago? Yeah. So Kristen Kristen was my coach

Brandon: Nice.

Steve: Back in the day when I was doing Proctor Systems. Right? Realtor days. Yeah. I wanna say maybe this is some maybe 2014, 2015 around here, like, almost 10 ago.

And she's like, Steve, I just read this book. Great book, Traction. You should read it.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: I was like, okay. Fine. I read it all the way through. What I take from it? Man, we need better processes.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: After I finished reading it, didn't do a damn thing. Alright? And in 2018, someone else is like, hey. This is a great book. Traction.

Brandon: You should read it.

Steve: You should read it. It's like, I already read it. But you know what? Let me go through it again. Yeah.

And then we started implementing it. But what are the parts I could implement? L 10, regular meetings. Mhmm. Quarterly, annual.

I could do that part. Right. Right? Get it one, capable.

Brandon: Easy enough.

Steve: Got that part right, people. Right. Got that part. But this whole section of the processes

Brandon: Right.

Steve: Sucks.

Brandon: It does.

Steve: So, like, how do you really impart the the, what's the word? The the gravity.

Brandon: Yes. So if you think about it in terms I'm a big basketball fan. Obviously, I brought up the Bulls. Right? So if you think about the Bulls in, like, the eighties, it was give Michael Jordan the ball and everybody get out of the way.

Steve: That's a process.

Brandon: And that works. But that was a people thing. Right? There's not really a process. Doug Collins, great coach, awesome, did not have a plan in place for that.

And so they brought in a guy named Phil Jackson, and Phil Jackson started a thing called the triangle and became one of the most successful coaches in all NBA history Mhmm. And also became one of the wealthiest coaches in all NBA history just simply because he was able to implement a system to fit the talent that was sitting there and said, if you can put the talent in the seats, then he's gonna get paid a lot of money. Mhmm. Bill Belichick gets paid a lot of money because he has a process. He had a process for winning with the people that he had.

Right. Not so much now, but that's another thing. Right? Mhmm. Those processes, they come in place.

I'm just a big 85 Chicago Bears fan. Right? Buddy Ryan in the 34 defense won the nineteen eighty five Super Bowl. Same thing. He took less a less talented team and put them in the right process.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: And all of a sudden, it all works.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: Now that being said, what does it take to develop that process is the painstaking work of saying, I'm not just gonna go run out here and and grind out work. It's I I said it to your team yesterday, which is turning players into coaches. Mhmm. You're the best player on the team. I can hand we talked to Manny yesterday.

I could hand you a a chunk of video, and you could probably chop it up faster than than 90% of the people in the space and make it look really cool and do some really neat stuff. Mhmm. Could you get 10 people to do that, though? And that's that that growth opportunity there. And most of the time, thankfully, for us at Sharper, that requires some coaching.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: That requires somebody to sit with you and pull those processes out of you and refine those processes and figure it out and how is that all gonna work and what's gonna take place. I mentioned the beginning, like, my wife is a crazy entrepreneur. I showed you yesterday her your PI. You know? A, way off the chart to the right and d way off to the left.

I mean, just can come up with an idea, execute it, and start a business tomorrow if she wanted to and probably make a lot of money. Mhmm. However, the struggle is and the way we complement each other well is the process aside. How do we keep that running and moving forward, and what's the what's

Steve: the getting bored with this process?

Brandon: That's right. And so you have to figure that out. Yeah. And if you didn't marry somebody who where that's that natural fit and where I don't necessarily have the same vision she does.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: You know, she wanted to get into flipping houses. She already has the property. She picked it out. She's already got everything laid out. She's already convinced people to give her them.

She already raised the capital for it.

Steve: Yeah. It's

Brandon: done, like like, in a month. I mean, in, like, in a new area. Mhmm. All of that now, the execution on it is where you have to have the other side of it. And I think, you know, not to I'm I'm I'm the world's worst salesperson for a thousand reasons.

Mhmm. But I have not seen that done well yet unless you finally make the the investment and the time and the energy and the effort to say, somebody's gonna come in and dissect what we do, ask us the tough questions, lean out those processes, figure out all of the waste, all of the stuff that we don't need to be doing, and find a process that makes money.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: I find that to be the biggest struggle as well. I really enjoy doing this, but it doesn't make money.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: So then let's either start it not for profit and you can go enjoy doing it, or let's figure out how we maximize this machine over here.

Steve: Yeah. There was a story. I can't remember where I read it. But, basically, in the in the lobby or so it was it was a big company. In the lobby, they had these two printers.

Right? And, the printer goes out. And they're like, hey. Let's get that printer replaced. So they do.

Right? It's like a $2,000 printer or whatever.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: And then someone eventually asked, like, what does that printer do? And they're like, well, I mean, that's they're not, well, we don't know. Right? That's around. And they find, like, someone that's been with the company for, like, over ten years.

I was like Right. Well, this is the printer we use to, like, spiral bound our presentations they would bring to the clients. Like, when's the last time we did that? It's like It's so true. Right?

So they haven't spiral bounded anything, and they just spent $2,000 on a new printer, and there's two of them Right. In a lobby that no one's ever used. Yeah. It's Are you finding that in A

Brandon: 100% and more on the side of I mean, the term is human capital. Mhmm. The more you're sitting with somebody and saying, what do you do? And they're like, I'm just so busy all the time every day. I'm busy all day.

Okay. Great. What processes are you doing on a daily basis? Mhmm. What trackable, measurable, replicable processes?

And as soon as somebody says, I well, you can't you can't process map what I do. You know? It's just there's just so much of it. I sit with them and I pull out my old friend, the SIPOC, and then I say, great. Where when does the ball get passed to you and when do you pass the ball?

Mhmm. And you walk them through that process and you either find number one, they're doing a lot of busy work that doesn't necessarily do anything for the business Mhmm. And it's not not efficient, or you do find very clear metrics and you find out that they are actually doing the work of two or three people, and we've got to adjust for it and modify for it. We need to change the process of how they do it.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: So anytime you are refining, leaning, looking over processes is time well spent because it's getting better and better and better and better at what we do.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: If you could imagine Amazon not reviewing their processes on a regular basis, You could you imagine, like, Apple not reviewing processes on a regular basis? And then we come to a business that we wanna grow and scale and thrive, and we're like, we don't have time for that.

Steve: I mean, number one in our market.

Brandon: You're right. Always the same. Right? I'm gonna be number one in my market, but I'm never gonna look at my processes. Right.

And we say to folks often, we have what we call a system 60 meeting. Every single week, you should be sitting down with a process map and either documenting or refining a process. What process are we adjusting today? And what you find is the process may not have changed, but now your team the the wheels are starting to rattle because now everybody's doing it different. Mhmm.

Centers them back up to the process again. Yeah. It just has to be part of our business.

Steve: For someone that's listening right now Yeah. That wants this help. Because I can tell you, like, doing process mapping is, like, my books. Right. It's like, I'll do it this weekend.

Right.

Brandon: Right. Right. Right.

Steve: I'll do this weekend. Yeah. And he was like, nine months goes by. He's like, crap. I haven't done my books.

Brandon: Yeah. Yeah. Right. It's it's it's it's a it's a tedious job, but once it's done and you have it, it's incredibly valuable.

Steve: It's one of those that keeps get that can keeps getting kicked down the road and kicked down the road. So if someone's listening right now and they want help with process mapping, like, what would you suggest to them?

Brandon: Yeah. So sharperbusiness.com Mhmm.

Steve: You can

Brandon: go in there and fill out a form, and they'll they'll walk you through, like, how we do process mapping, what it looks like. I always warn the same thing in the head ahead of time, which is we need to set the business up before. Mhmm. It would be like me handing you a diagram of a triangle offense without you having a way that you do things as a business. Right.

It's not gonna do anything for you. It's gonna be a waste. So that's always the thing is set the business up, implement it properly, then now those processes make sense.

Steve: Right. So we need to start off with the process ownership chart.

Brandon: Right. Right. Because we gotta identify what processes we need, who's gonna own them. Because in the meantime, somebody does have to just figure it out with their talents Yeah. Till we can get it documented.

But our goal is to get to the place where we have processes Mhmm. Is what we do. Then we can create the procedures, how we're gonna do it, and then our policies of when we're gonna do it. Yeah.

Steve: And so

Brandon: if you walk into a business and they have processes, procedures, and policies, the way that they do things around there, now all of a sudden, that talented gifted person that I just hired is exponentially better at their job than if I would have just said to them, just go figure it out. Mhmm.

Steve: And then the third thing we said that can train wreck your business is the market. Right. So and we kinda experienced that the last couple years.

Brandon: We we see it we see it everywhere. And, you know, in real estate, it's almost like a ripple that comes from the coasts. Right? Like, the coasts feel the pain first, then it ripples into the Midwest.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: And, like, the ripple seems to die a little bit, and then it ripples back out. And now the coasts hurt again. And Mhmm. You know, our clients in New York and California usually get the brunt of it. Mhmm.

And then the Midwest doesn't feel it as bad, then it ripples back out a little bit. But it's the variable you can't account for, and it's the variable that entrepreneurs thrive in.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: If if nothing ever changed, if I said, hey, Steve. Here's 20 processes that will never change, and here's 20 people who will sit in those roles, and they're never gonna change, and it's always gonna be the same. It's never gonna be different. There will never be any problems to solve. You'd be like Nightmare.

I'm out. Right?

Steve: This is a nightmare.

Brandon: This is a nightmare. Right? Because there's no innovation. There I don't have to come up with any creative ideas, and I will never have a competitive advantage. Mhmm.

Markets create competitive advantages.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: It's it's Warren Buffett. You know, you you're running in when everybody else is running out.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: You make your money when there's blood in the streets. Right. And that's what we find with the markets is it's actually your competitive advantage as an entrepreneur.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: And so don't don't look at it as a negative. Look at it as as a we need to pull these processes back out. Make sure they make sense. We found it during COVID. The people side of it.

Mhmm. Great salespeople, a over b salespeople during COVID, and they were all on the phones. B over a salespeople performed better. We had to take a lot of those Mavericks and move them into different roles and find other people to step into those roles to do it. Really?

Because the market demanded it. The market demanded an adjustment.

Steve: Interesting. What else, you know, for everyone that's listening, you know, again, you've you've worked with 600 plus over a 100 last year alone. Yeah. 100 in person Yeah. Consults.

Yeah. What are some other things that you you've noticed that, people listening can take back and implement or incorporate right away?

Brandon: Yeah. I mean, from a high level, don't discount what you do. I mean, I'm always I'm always trying to make sure that people feel encouraged. Mhmm. Like, at the end of the day, it takes an incredible amount of talent to start a business, run a business, operate a business, and function a business.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: It's the reason why entrepreneurs feel like the loneliest people in the world because there's nowhere you really go unless you're in a mastermind group or something like that where people understand what you're trying to do. Mhmm. So don't discount what you're doing. There's an incredible amount of value in it, but also understand that it is going to require of you that you invest in yourself. Mhmm.

This is the problem we run into more than anything else. If we put on an event for Sharper and it's around systems and processes or how you're gonna make more money next year, we sell tickets all day. Mhmm. If we say, hey. We need you to come because we're gonna do a leadership seminar on you growing and becoming a better leader.

It's like crickets. Mhmm. Right? That idea of becoming the person that your company needs. I sit with teams all the time, and we'll lay out a five year plan.

There's the five year vision of where we're going as a business, and it's it's it's impactful. Right? It's it's big. And I was with somebody the other day, and they're like a $10,000,000 company. In the next five years, they wanna be at a $100,000,000.

And I said, here's this business five years from now. Here's the 30 to 40 additional employees we're gonna have to hire. Here's all the capital we're gonna raise. Do we feel like the people that are here today are the people that can run that business? And they all said the same thing.

Absolutely not. Mhmm. Like, I can't manage 12 people. I can't even manage myself right now.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: So great. So we all are understanding either you're gonna have to become those people or we're gonna have to go hire those people. Yeah. And so if you don't become that person, then then the company will outgrow you. And that's no more true than with the owner.

Is if he is not himself becoming a better person and growing as a person, his company will outgrow him, and he'll either hurt his his business or he'll become so frustrated because he's capped the growth of his people. Mhmm.

Steve: I

Brandon: mean, with Sharper, that's you know, Gary knows it, and Gary does a great job of it is of of developing himself. Because if he's not personally developing himself, he knows that we have coaches of people who are out here working and and and in businesses all day and having high level conversations. He knows he's gotta keep the ceiling high because because if we catch him, you know, we're not gonna sit under it for long. He needs to keep going too.

Steve: Yeah. David Richter was on the show not too long ago, and, we were talking and he's like, yeah. Gary Harper today is very different than Gary Harper he works for.

Brandon: Yeah. I if I mean, for context, I've known Gary since I was 16 years old.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: I mean, I one of my first jobs, Gary was was working for, Icon Office Solutions Mhmm. And he got me a job working in a copy center at a at a hospital, you know, that he was working at. So I've known Gary for years, and that's a that's a good testimony. And and I've known David for years, and that's a that's a testament to to Gary as a person. Mhmm.

And it's the reason why, you know, we don't really have to do any recruiting. We don't really have to, we get pretty high level talent because because he keeps the bar pretty high.

Steve: One of the things that, you know, I've had people ask me, like, why do I keep investing in personal development? Like, why can't I just, like, rest? And part of it, I can't rest. But the other thing too is I have this healthy paranoia, which is that someone's gunning for me.

Brandon: So true.

Steve: I don't know who. I don't know who. Right? If I'm not growing, this is something else I learned. This is from a KW program a long, long time ago when they were recruiting me.

It was that talented people will work alongside you will will work alongside you until the day they no longer see you as a vehicle for their success.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: The moment, I don't see Brandon being helpful for me Right. And grow my business. Hey, Brandon. Thanks for everything. I'm off over here.

Brandon: Right. It's it's it's we look at it through trust and alignment. Right?

Steve: Do

Brandon: I trust you? Core values, alignment. Do you align with the purposes of where I'm going? Mhmm.

Steve: So

Brandon: if I can't answer those two questions for you, create a path forward, we're gonna have a hard time with the long term relationship. Yeah. I mean, I had a very similar situation recently. I was sitting with a couple, and the wife was very, you know, she was kind of bothered because she's like, my husband's a workaholic. I get it all the time.

Right? He's a workaholic. He works all the time. He's working in the business all the time. And and I've I've said this to several people, so it's not one person, I'm targeting right now.

But I've said this to many people, which is the thing you have to understand about an entrepreneur is that there is always this fear that if the ball stops, I'm not gonna be able to get it rolling again. And so that growth mindset that has to exist is because if it ever stops, how do we get it moving again?

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: And and that's that healthy growth mindset as a leader. To you, it's there's somebody coming from behind you. Mhmm. The other idea is if if we if we don't keep moving, how do we how do we keep it going? Yeah.

Which gives you a great appreciation for guys who run high Fortune 500 businesses, gives you a great appreciation for that single operator out there who has to motivate himself and keep himself going.

Steve: Yeah. I mean, a couple of things that jump out here. There's John Maxwell. Right? The law of the lid.

It's that, you know, the you you can only help people as far as you can go. Something I learned a lot from Darren Hardy is that, you can go on your people can only go as far as you can lead them. Likewise, you can only go as far as your people can help you go.

Brandon: Yeah. A 100%.

Steve: It it goes both ways. And I've referenced this, you know, like, no fear. Do you ever wear those no fear t shirts? Yeah.

Brandon: Back in

Steve: the day. Yeah.

Brandon: I had a cousin that that he man, he lived in that stuff. He had he had the t shirts and the bumper sticker and all that stuff. Yeah.

Steve: There was always one that's, like, you know, like, there's something along the lines of, you know, I'm gonna keep working and working because somewhere out there, there's someone who's coming for me. And that message always resonated Yeah. With me. I wanna go back real quick to people. Yeah.

So, Cameron Herold. Right? He wrote the vision. He wrote second in command. Mhmm.

And I bought his course. Right? It was a pretty good course. If you guys are listening, I'd be happy to be an affiliate.

Brandon: It was

Steve: a really good course. And one of the things he talks about there in interviewing was different than anything I've ever heard from other places.

Brandon: Okay.

Steve: And I would say, Brandon, you know, First interview went really well. You know? It looks like your, you know, core values fit and this and that. So we wanna have a final interview with you. Mhmm.

Now for this final interview, what I need you what I need from you to do this final interview is I need a a list of 10 people that I can call as a referral or or for reference. Yeah. Throw out a reference check. Nothing new. Right?

I said, okay. Great. Now we're gonna sit down. And what do you what do you say? C players aren't showing up Right.

For the final interview. B players will get you eight. A players will get you 10. Yeah. And great.

You got the list. And he's gonna go through. Alright. So, Brandon, when I call this person, I ask them this, and I ask them this, and I ask them this, and I ask them, what's he gonna say? Yeah.

Great. When I call and then he's gonna do it for all 10

Brandon: Right.

Steve: For a final interview. He never calls him.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: He never does the reference check. Right? Mhmm. Like, you can smell

Brandon: Yes.

Steve: In that interview

Brandon: 100%.

Steve: If this is gonna be, like if they're, like, being honest and forthright or, like, well, you know, well, here's what happened.

Brandon: Right. Right. Right. Right. Right.

Right. Trying to shade the story.

Steve: Yeah. So I wanted your perspective on that.

Brandon: Yeah. I I love it. I think it's incredibly robust. There's a laziness in hiring that people don't usually even go to the when I say to somebody, core values exercise, PI Mhmm. Full resume, clear interviewing process, they're just like, well, I'm never gonna get anybody.

You know? And so I think that's the challenge, and I think it comes down to is, are you a place people would wanna work? Mhmm. Am I recruiting you or are you recruiting me?

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: And I think that's the challenge. I I think that's an incredible process. I think it's I mean, we're we're in very similar like, we have a very robust, like, vetting to make sure this is somebody we'd even wanna have on our team and be with us. I wish people would go to those levels.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: I think it's a great process. I I like that a lot. He had another one too, which was, like, I believe they took you and your spouse to dinner. I thought, was that him or was that somebody else?

Steve: I don't remember that was him.

Brandon: I felt like that was a really interesting way of doing it as well as, like, is you know, because we know this. Like, if you're I mean, for me, I mean, I do a 113 clients a year. If my wife wasn't on board with this thing, you know, I'd I'd be in trouble. Yeah. So that's that's the other side.

I thought that was an interesting way of doing it too.

Steve: Yeah. He was very, very interesting character. An unusual presenter. Yeah. Yeah.

There was something else I was gonna say there, dang it, about interviewing. Oh, core values.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: So what do you do for core values? Love it. Check on interview.

Brandon: Right. So the the traditional way of doing it is, Steve, our core values are hard work, integrity, honesty. Are those yours too? Unless you're an idiot, you're gonna say, oh, yeah. That's me as well.

Mhmm. Same exercise we do with a business owner to flesh out core values, we do in an interview process. So I'm gonna say to you, Steve, tell me about the most impactful people in your life. And you're gonna tell me about a parent or a coach or a teacher or whatever. Mhmm.

And I'm gonna say, great. Give me three to four words that describe why those people are so impactful in your life. And you're gonna say, well, I chose my dad because he's, you know, consistent, and he's faithful, and he's hardworking, and he has integrity. If in that list of those three people and the words that you give, I can't find words that speak to my core values, then we're probably not gonna be a fit for each other. I mean, if my core value is integrity and we get on here and you're like, yeah.

You know, my hero is this guy is Michael Jerry, and that guy would rip off a nun. You know,

Steve: he can get the

Brandon: deal. Right? Or like Jordan Bofford. Right. Then I'm gonna identify, okay, these people and these things not gonna fit here.

Yeah. And I'm gonna flush that out at that level. Mhmm. That's the step that most people don't wanna go to, which is like, why don't I ask him these random questions? And, frankly, the part that's even rougher about it is it's the smaller the operator, the less they're willing to do the interviewing processes, which is mind blowing to me because if you hire somebody and you have three people on your team, let's use yeah.

Three. And you hire another, they just became 25% of your company. Mhmm. So now 25% of your business is this person that you had to kinda coerce and beg to be on your team.

Steve: Some Rando.

Brandon: Yeah. I mean, what again, you're you're affecting the entirety of the entire business when you do that.

Steve: Yeah. So, I like those questions. We ask those. Another one I like to ask is, Brandon, tell me about your best friend.

Brandon: Right? I like that.

Steve: Because, you know, like, well, you know, my best friend is this, this, and this, and this. Like and we know

Brandon: Correct. You

Steve: hang out with people like you. Right.

Brandon: You're the sum of the five people you hang out with.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. So that's another question I always like to ask as well to

Brandon: Yeah. I I find just in interviewing in general, it it's if you talk to high level recruiters, if you talk to I mean, Austin, we run Sharper Talent, so they're interviewing people all day long. And the the the thought and intent that goes into an interview versus the average person who's like, yeah, this guy coaches my kid's soccer team. He seems like a nice guy. Let's bring him in here.

It's just not it's not a it's not a good fit. Now if that guy wants to apply for the job, great. Let's go through the process. And if you're a candidate, I mean, Sharper, you know this. A lot of us are family.

There's a lot of relationships going on, but all of us get hired blind.

Steve: Mhmm. I

Brandon: mean, even my first proposals with Sharper did not have my name or my company logo on them. It had my PI. It had my proposal for how I was going to do the work and what I wanted to do. Mhmm. How I would build out the marketing department and what would take place, and then that was turned in with two or three other proposals, and it just so happened to win.

Yeah. Right?

Steve: Yeah. The the guy that coaches my kids soccer or whatever the example was, like, that's how we all start. That's right. It's like it's not we're not it's not that we're looking down on it. No.

That's how we all start.

Brandon: 100%.

Steve: And it's like, well, that didn't work.

Brandon: Right. But it's it's looking and saying it have I built a business that somebody should come work at?

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: Is it in their best interest as a person to come work for me? Have I done a good enough job creating a place where somebody could feel safe to work?

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: Because the thing you have to remember is when somebody hires on onto a team, that's what they're looking for. Safety and security. They wanna know that they have a safe and secure place that they can work. The growth opportunities and all those things that you think about as an entrepreneur, that's not in their mind yet. Now they're gonna get there.

We're gonna get them bought into the the purpose and the mission, the vision, all those different things. But at the end of the day, they're thinking about how am I buying groceries this week?

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: How am I paying my car payment this week? How am I getting these things done? And if you're not giving them the confidence on the front end, I always say this way is you'll keep them the way you brought them in. I was with somebody a while back and, like, they were they had an employee starting the next day. And I said, great.

What's the schedule for day one? And they're like, we don't really have a plan right now. And so we sat there for an hour, and we mapped out what that person's day one was gonna look like. Because if they came in that day and there wasn't a plan, how much confidence do you have as an employee? Mhmm.

Right? And and then we wonder why they don't last more than sixty days.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: So

Steve: I was gonna say the thing that we're talking about bringing them in. Had it. Can't remember what it was. But yeah. I mean, I I think a lot of this stuff is, it it's obvious after the fact.

Brandon: Yes. We find it that's exactly what happens is Yeah. We fired this guy because it didn't work out. And what's the first thing we do? We go build the roles and responsibilities.

We create the measurables. We document processes and all of that. So when the next guy comes in, he's got a nice seat to sit in.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: Right? And in reality, if we had just done that with this guy in the front end, we probably wouldn't have had to lose him. So

Steve: At the same time, though, we probably wouldn't have built a good seat if we didn't know what failure looks like. Potato, potato. Right? Right. Yeah.

So, what what is your purpose? We need to hire nine salespeople in the next five weeks. We launched our done for you sales service just a month ago, and the demand for it has been absolutely crazy. We have all these people reaching out to us saying, our sales service has been so helpful for them. Please get us more salespeople.

Speaker 2: If you are in high ticket sales or looking to get into that space, if you want a calendar filled up with people raising their hands saying, call me at this time, please sell me. I wanna be sold to by a highly experienced salesperson. We are looking for you to have that role. We wanna take people who are good and make them great. People who wanna be held accountable the same way Michael Jordan would want his coach to hold him accountable, to take him to that next level.

Steve: So if you want Ian Ross or myself to train you to get better at sales, if you wanna be able to control your income, decide exactly how much money you make, and you wanna work at a company where you value and appreciate it, we encourage you, click the link below. However, we're only hiring superstars. If you're not a plus caliber, don't click below.

Brandon: So the reason why I align so tightly with Gary, for for Sharper, our purpose indicators are very clear. And Gary shared them at a thousand times, so I don't care sharing them either, which is to give $2,600,000 to faith based causes to the Lord's work by 2026. And the reason why Sharper exists is to do that, is to fulfill that purpose. Mhmm. That so closely aligns with me and who I am as a person, and what I wanna accomplish with my life that that it fits me directly.

I tie it to core values for me. My number one core value is together and that I'd rather fail together than win alone. And a lot of times that seems like people I would say that people are always like, no. We'll just win together. I'm like, but if you had to choose, would you go with these people?

Mhmm. And I find that that those groups and those places where I can identify a purpose of helping and identifying issues that somebody's having is the reason why we do this. Mhmm. I live every day to wake up and go sit in companies and hear all their worst problems Yeah. And help them solve them.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: And that brings a lot of joy and a lot of purpose to me. Mhmm. And so I've kind of aligned my purposes, very, very tightly and directly to what we're accomplishing with Sharper and with Ryze, with the business frameworks. Gary and I have started a not for profit now. We have all of these different things that we're doing together and, just just purpose for me is going out there and helping a business solve problems, be able to walk out of a room at the end of the day and somebody say I'm so much clearer on what I'm supposed to do for the next ninety days.

I'm so much clearer on who the people are I'm supposed to be hiring. I'm so much clearer on what our marketing strategy is gonna be for the next ninety days. Just brings me a lot of joy. It it it it fuels me up. Like I said, I've got I've got a wife.

I got a 17 year old, a 13 year old, and a 10 old. And most weeks, I go to the airport and get an airplane and fly all over the place out of the country this week Mhmm. Here and then out of the country, all of that. And it's it's very much a mission and a purpose for us, not just a job.

Steve: And I will say for sure that was true for us yesterday. Right? After you left, like, we were clear on our purpose, clear on a direction, clear on marketing.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: Clear on the people we need. Yeah. So for sure that was the case.

Brandon: Awesome.

Steve: Question for you, going back to your purpose. Sure. You'd rather be on a losing lose together than win alone. Yeah. I would not.

Brandon: Okay.

Steve: Would I not be a good fit for your company?

Brandon: You would fit fine with Sharper. Mhmm. Again, I so here's the way we're set up is it's we have an ecosystem model.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: You would not work in my department. Yeah. And we've tried it. We've tried to take high a, low b people Mhmm. And put them in the marketing department.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: And, you know, if you repeatedly I'll be careful here. If you repeatedly show up for work late on me Mhmm. If you repeatedly don't follow the plan, if you repeatedly will not listen and work together with me

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: Then it's gonna violate a core value for me.

Steve: See, I could do all those things. Sure.

Brandon: But the but the motive behind it would matter to me. Yeah. I would wanna know that you're a team player. Yeah. This is what it works for me because Gary Gary is a venturer Mhmm.

But he's a high b venturer. Mhmm. And so because of that, it's people over task.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: And I find I find my peace and I find my solace around people who are more about the people Mhmm. Than about the task that's being

Steve: Well, and that's what's interesting because, like, my c is now middle. Right? But Okay. The first time I took it, it was, you know, almost one Sigma

Brandon: Got it.

Steve: Positive. Right? So, my a was over my c, but not by much.

Brandon: Okay.

Steve: So I was, one and a half a, negative one and a half b, point seven five c, negative point seven five b. So the things I always said is, like, I want I want us to win. Right. I guess what I've always kinda described it. Right?

It's not like we're gonna win.

Brandon: Right.

Steve: Or, like, I will do everything in my power for us to win.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: But that win

Brandon: The win first.

Steve: Win first.

Brandon: That's right. Yeah. I I'm I'm the opposite. Yeah. I look at it and say, I would rather get there with the people that I'm with Mhmm.

Than to get there and be standing there all alone.

Steve: Right. And that's a collaborator part.

Brandon: Yeah. It's a collaborator part. I I feel like it's driven into me, you know, things from from growing up. I have a I have a a brother who passed away at two at, had nearly drowned at two and passed away at 14. And so that created within me, I believe Mhmm.

Some some things that tie me back to the people that I'm with and the people in my life are so critical to me, that that I'm it's a very deep core values violation for me if somebody is not gonna be a a together person. Yeah.

Steve: So But this we're talking about core values. Right? So this is the ultimate test. Right. Like, this doesn't align.

Like, it doesn't matter how much I like you.

Brandon: That's right. Again, we I do these I do these every single week with people as I go through the core values and say, if somebody is not in line with this, are you willing to fire them today? Yeah. Right? And for me, I had to come to that place.

When I when I started this journey with systems and processes and all the things that we do now with Sharper, I had to come to that place, and I had to look at people who were in my marketing agency.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: And I would say, you're not a team player. This is not a together thing for you. You don't wanna walk in communion with me. Mhmm. You know, like, in life together, you don't wanna join up with me.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: This isn't gonna work, and you gotta go. And and those are tough conversations. But, I mean, I I've had people who are and, again, it's it's it's the blessing and the curse. I've had underperformers Mhmm. Who are willing to be team players

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: And I've suffered through them longer than I probably should have.

Steve: I have as well. I have as well. Alright. I have as well. That's that, I think, that high c.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: So other question here, and this might be too personal. You don't have to answer it. Your wife's a maverick.

Brandon: Yeah. My wife is a a yeah. The venturer, but, yeah, high high

Steve: High a venture.

Brandon: Very high a.

Steve: So how does that work with core values?

Brandon: Great question. And so two different things. There's drive and then core values. Mhmm. She knows and I know and we both know that high a, that dominance, she could she can get her way whenever she wants to.

Mhmm. She can she can push it to a level that I would never push it to because I'm gonna be more collaborative. I'm always gonna go on that side, and that's where that purpose and that trust alignment Mhmm. Becomes so critical.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: That there is a there is a mutual love. There's a mutual care for one another that looks and says, you know what my core values are.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: You know where we're going as a family and how we're gonna get there.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: And therefore, you're gonna have to there are gonna be times I'm gonna respect you, that you know what you're doing, and you're gonna be times where you're gonna respect me and I know what I'm doing. And just understand that it's always coming from the right place.

Steve: Right.

Brandon: I find that's often the cases when when not to go too deep into to to marriage counseling here, but I find it often within couples. That's usually where the problem comes is is they feel like the intent is bad. Mhmm. And if the intent is bad, then there's then then there's nothing you're gonna do right. And if the intent is bad, then everything you're gonna do is wrong.

Steve: Yeah. What was it? It's not discussed. But there's something like there's a book. I can't remember who wrote it not too long ago because I'm I've been on this deep dive about how to be a better husband.

I was like, the the worst way to start a conversation

Brandon: Mhmm.

Steve: Is just right off the bat or the accusations.

Brandon: Yeah. Right.

Steve: Right? It's like, you know, like, when you start off, you know, coming off a curious perspective. Hey, Brandon. You know, you did this. Right.

What happened here? Or, like, Brandon, why did you do this?

Brandon: Right. Right. Right. It would I can't think of the guy's name. I'll get it later.

But he he says it this way, which is as soon as I ask a why question, it demands that you justify. Mhmm. Where if I ask a what question, it requires that you discover.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: And so it's being careful with the the the the Nuance side of things. They're being careful with with those types of things, from from a from a from more of a macro perspective.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: It's just looking at each other and understanding, like, you both bring strengths to the table. My I'm a very high c person, and she's a very low c person.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: I mean, she could get stuff done tomorrow. I'm gonna wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait. And we both understand and respect the fact that if I'm asking us to wait, I understand you wanna go now. Yeah. I I understand that.

I respect that, but I'm having to I'm making a decision for our family Mhmm. Just the same as if it was a speed question, I'd be coming to you and saying, how quick would she move? Would we move on this? Yeah. That being said, if my wife was a Calabrio like I was, this would not work.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: Like, the idea that right now, I mean, like, you know, my daughter's 17, and, like, she's gonna open up a boutique, and my my wife already found her a spot. Mhmm. Like, it's done. Like, it's happening. She'll be a 17 year old with, like, her own boutique.

It's gonna be wild.

Steve: Awesome.

Brandon: That doesn't happen if your mom is not, like, a a monster entrepreneur. I mean, my wife built a a very large business on her own back running three heat presses all by herself. Right? Just, I mean, just grabs a bull by horns, can work twenty hours in a row straight.

Steve: I will. Yeah.

Brandon: She's she's again, that's the thing is you're in fact, we talked about it earlier. You're not gonna get up earlier than her, and you're not gonna stay up later than her. You're not gonna work harder than her. And so having that as a team, you know, the word gets overused all the time, but synergy. Right?

Mhmm. The two of us together is is a synergy that I mean, again, I'm not I'd put us against anybody, and that's that's more on her than me just because she's an incredible, incredible person and that's a I'm I'm I'm very, very blessed, to have that because especially raising daughters. Mhmm.

Steve: I

Brandon: mean, I always grew up with all boys. Right?

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: So my raising daughters and having an example of a of a of a a lady like that who can do those kind of things Mhmm. And can just be awesome. I mean, just my daughters have the best. So

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: I'm just there for the ride.

Steve: Are you talking about why and what? Chris Voss does a really good job explaining that

Brandon: and so Oh, yeah.

Steve: I never split the difference. Something I do with my kids, you know, because when I was growing up, if I was crying, it wasn't a lot of times. Yeah. Our emotions got beat out of us. If you're crying, I was like, why are you crying?

Brandon: Right.

Steve: Right? And then, you know, I I learned with my kids how come you're crying. Yeah. Allows them to feel their emotions.

Brandon: That's good.

Steve: Another example I've used is, like, you know, you you come home, your wife's like, I feel so overwhelmed. It's like, well, why are you overwhelmed? Right. It's gonna be bad. Wrong question.

Right? It's like, what happened today that caused you to feel overwhelmed? Now we're having a conversation.

Brandon: Yep. It opens it opens doors. I mean, the one that helped me so much was a very crucial conversations Yeah. Talks about this a lot, which is just asking the right questions on the front end just to reset the brain. Mhmm.

I mean, I find myself all the time where it's like in in a marriage, you're, you know, you get in an argument, you have a disagreement with each other, and you'll you'll be ten minutes into it. You'll be like, man, I sound like an idiot. Like, I sound so stupid right now, and there's science behind it that says you get dumber the matter you get. Mhmm. Just those resetting clarifying questions.

It's what we it's what I do all day. It's what I did to you guys all day yesterday. It's just one question after another after another after another. I mean, not to make it a biblical thing, but go through the Bible and see how many questions get asked.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: I mean, the whole gospels are basically Jesus just asking people questions. Yeah. Let them hang themselves.

Steve: Yeah. So what is your biggest struggle today?

Brandon: Biggest struggle today is and I I think it's a it's a it's a good it's a good struggle is imbalance. Mhmm. You know, my wife has helped me with this one is that we should just embrace imbalance. That that life is is is not gonna ever be a perfect balance of everything. Mhmm.

If you want that, then you probably should go get a nine to five and just, you know, do your thing.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: And to embrace that imbalance. Don't try to fight against it, but understand that there's seasonality of life. Mhmm. There are times where you have to be incredibly busy, and there are times where you can completely check out.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: And so I always live with a little bit of that, like, imbalance that I feel there. And so that's probably the biggest struggle is trying to trying to bring back that balance a little bit. But my wife always tells me don't don't fight it. Just lean into it. You know?

Yeah. If it's time to work, it's time to work. If it's time to play, it's time to play.

Steve: I think it's something, Gary Keller pushes right in the one thing. Yeah. It was a balance is a myth. Yeah. What is your superpower?

Brandon: I I think I can do a good job synthesizing what what a customer is going through Mhmm. And figuring out what they need to hear in that moment. I I think I do a good job with that. That's probably where I would where I would sit.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: I feel like I could do a good job, delivering tough messaging without it without it feeling like it's hurting.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: I get that a lot when we go places is Gary was here, and he just beat us to death. You know? And I your team said it yesterday. We got done there. Like, well, that wasn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be.

But I also felt like we slice some things open. Right? I feel like I I can be surgical when I need to be surgical. You know, there's there's positives and negatives. Some of that doesn't resonate with everybody.

Some people want you to come in with the, you know, the bull in the China shop, and and I'm not gonna be that guy. I'm gonna come in there and slice them open

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: Figure out where it's at. We're gonna remove the tumor, and then we'll heal up from there.

Steve: Yeah. I remember the very first time I had Gary come in because I think it was 2020 Gary came out. Yeah. And that was one of the most intense. Right?

Because, like, I've been doing this for a long time. Right? I haven't started o seven. Right? I've gone through.

I've paid for a lot of coaching over the years.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: And I've read, you know, like, you're not supposed to read, like, a book a week or whatever, but, like, I've read a lot of books.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: And I implemented and executed a lot of different things, and it was incredibly humbling. Right. Because, like and it's I said this to Gary. Right? Is that you didn't say anything?

I didn't already know Mhmm. Knowledge wise.

Brandon: Right.

Steve: But you pointed out all the blind spots, and, man, it hurt like how because, like, it was like, he pushed every pinpoint inside the company.

Brandon: Yeah. He's good at that.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: He's good at finding those spots. It it is a it is a humbling thing and also understanding at the same time is, like, that's and anybody getting an outside perspective to be able to find those weak spots

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: Is going to find those. And secondly, I always remind folks of this, which is when you think of intelligence, we always think that means somebody's smart. All intelligence is is pattern recognition. Yeah. So a 113 times last year, I walked into businesses and saw where all their problems were, where the pains were, where the issues are.

So when it comes to walking into a business like that, it's not that I'm any smarter than you. I do have a pattern recognition. And Gary, at this point of seven years of this, especially when it comes to a real estate company Yeah. There's a pattern recognition of I can almost walk in and say this person will be gone in three months.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: And this process is gonna kill you if you don't fix it tomorrow. Yeah. Not because I'm any smarter than you, but because I've seen it literally a 100 times this year Yeah. And it's almost always exactly the same.

Steve: Yeah. There's two things he said, that, a, you'd pay more attention to Summer. Right? She requires more of your, attention.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: Right? And we had a blow up.

Brandon: Summer, you're employee, not this season.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. Right? And you met her yesterday. Yeah. And he's like, yeah.

If you don't pay more attention to her, she's gonna blow up. Mhmm. And she blew up.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: Right? And then b is, like, your partner your partner here, like, you need to take extra precautions or this is gonna not gonna end. Or does it this is this is gonna end and perhaps not well. Yeah. And, yeah.

Yeah. I walked into a team

Brandon: once and we got done, and the guy the owner pulled me in his office afterwards, and he goes, what do you think about so and so? He's, like, he's a great sales guy, blah blah blah. I said, I think he'll be gone in three months. No. No.

No. We're really close. He's gonna be here a long time with me. He's gonna be he's gonna be forever. So that's fine.

What do you think? He called me about a month later. He says, hey. Guess what? So and so left.

And I'm like, there's just markers. Yeah. There's things you look at and you say, look. If, you know, you start seeing, you know, unhealthy conflict in a business or you start again, it's like it's like a it's like a it's like a pitcher who picks up on, like or a batter picks up on, like, a tick of a pitcher. Mhmm.

Right? He's like, he's tipping his pitch. Mhmm. It's the same thing. Like, I can almost see it where it's, like, this process is tipping its pitch that it's it's not gonna work.

Or somebody is it's just the way they answer, they get it, want it, have the capacity to do it questions. Like, there's just things that come up that if you put me in another environment, I'm not gonna have that that, you know, that that clarity. But But

Steve: you got the reps.

Brandon: Yeah. I got the reps at this point. So

Steve: Yeah. We'll book Heavy Gifted more than any other.

Brandon: Oh, great question. Hero on a Mission, again, by Donald Miller from Story Branding. It's the most incredible, journey you'll ever go on from a from a book perspective. It's the most practical book you'll ever read. I always want people ahead of time when they read it.

Be patient with it. The first, like, three or four chapters is him kind of unpacking a little bit of his own journey, his own story.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: And then about chapter five, it picks up the pace, and all of a sudden, it turns into just to give you the the highlights of it. He has you write your eulogy. Mhmm. And then he has you work your life backwards off your eulogy. Mhmm.

And so you literally create a daily action plan off of what you want them to read at your funeral someday.

Steve: Yeah. That is very practical.

Brandon: Super, super impactful. I I'm very I'm a big fan. I've probably given out a 100 of them at this point.

Steve: Gotcha. Quick side note. We're talking about Donald Miller. So I mentioned earlier story brand. Right?

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: So, my daughters, they're very ambitious, probably a function of mom and dad. Right? Of course. One's a strategist, one's an individualist. Okay.

Her a is higher than mine. Okay. Right? So That's fun. So I had to read StoryBrand, and, she wants to get the annual subscription for Duolingo.

Brandon: Okay.

Steve: Right? Because they get the monthly subscriptions, like, $12 a month, something like that. And the annual is, like, a 130. So it's cheaper if you go a year. Sure.

Of course. But if you go with the annual, it's a family plan, and you got five people on it. Nice. Alright. And so she's talking to she's trying to pitch mom.

Brandon: Greg. Greg. Right. Mom. Like,

Steve: here's why we need

Brandon: She needs to she needs to go to some classes. Yeah. Yeah. Closemoresales.com.

Steve: Closemoresales.com. Well well, she's pitching. And, like, as she's listening and she's doing it, she's like, here's why. She's she's talking about the financial benefit and this and that and, like, you know, the the outcome. Right?

So she's doing a pretty good job. Yeah. And I was like, Amelia, I gotta stop you right there. Like, you're better than, like, 90% of salespeople out there. Right?

Like, that was really good. I love it. Here's a couple of things.

Brandon: Yes. Yes.

Steve: I would like to add to this. Right? And I was like, you know, instead of talking to mom about, like, how, you know, you're saving money and, like, the whole family's gonna benefit getting better at lang language and this and that, talk about, like, you know, hey. Can you imagine? Mhmm.

We're in we're in Europe. You know, we're going to France where you wanna go.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: And you're able to just talk to the shop owner in French. Like, how awesome is that how is that gonna feel?

Brandon: Yes.

Steve: Right? We're taking this to the next level.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: Right? And as as I'm as I'm done, she's already tuned me out. Completely tuned me out. Yeah. And she looks at me.

It's like, are you arguing with Donald Miller? Like, what do you mean? It's like, well, the story brand, he says you saw this way. I was like, okay. Well, just look look look.

Brandon: Look look look.

Steve: He's great at stories. Yeah.

Brandon: That's it.

Steve: I feel like I'm more qualified on the sales side.

Brandon: That's funny.

Steve: But, like, she she crushed it on on, like That's so good. Because she's she's pitching benefits. Yeah.

Brandon: It was

Steve: on a feature. She was pitching benefits. Like, let's just take this one step further.

Brandon: Absolutely. Absolutely. I I would again, we we that's why we make those distinctions. The marketing is the what. The sale is now.

It's time to ask. Right? Yeah. And I think that's where the nuance comes in that you fill the void for, which is the ability to ask Mhmm. Beyond just more marketing messaging

Steve: Right.

Brandon: Which is there's that's where that distinction takes place for me. That's the disconnect that always takes place is people always get either marketing and advertising confused or they get marketing and sales confused. Mhmm. They forget that it's, like, it's not just where you say it, it's what you say. Mhmm.

It's not just that you had a postcard got mailed out. What was on the postcard? Right? And then what was the call to action on the postcard? Mhmm.

I mean, Donald Miller will tell you, you go through your website and nobody has enough calls to action

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: Which is what you're doing in a sales process is you're reframing to create a new call to action, which is, like, now you're in France. What would you wanna happen? Right?

Steve: Right.

Brandon: It's a little bit of a different different framing. I like that, though. But My daughter's the same, but I see I take it from a different perspective. I make her she has to make me a PowerPoint.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: And so every time she wants something, she wanted goldfish. She wanted fish a while back. She wanted beta fish. Mhmm. So she had to make me a PowerPoint on, you know, the benefits of her of her beta fish.

And so I I sit on the couch, and my wife and my daughters, we all sit there, and we put it up on the TV. Mhmm. And she walks us through her her her pitch for and she got some beta fish out of it.

Steve: So That's awesome.

Brandon: It's a good deck.

Steve: We had a there was, both my daughters had something they had to do presentations on for school.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: Alright. So they were they were presenting something. I was like, well, if this is a skill that you need for school right now 100%. And then they asked me something. I was like, well, you gotta get make you're gonna have to make a presentation.

Brandon: Right. Let's go.

Steve: And they had to create a new presentation from Google Slides. Yep. And it was really cool to see.

Brandon: Very cool. And and it's nice to start seeing those things that are practical skills making their way into the school. I mean, my my daughter came home and she had to build a she had to build a Google website. Mhmm. And and, you know, and my wife's like, well, it's cheating a little bit because, you know, obviously, you could just sit down with your dad, and he's got a story brand out your landing page or your website for you.

I'm like, I'm not gonna do it. It's all you. I'll be happy to look it over with you when you're done. But it is cool to start seeing a lot of those things that are much more practical Mhmm. Making their way into the into the education system for sure.

Yeah.

Steve: They'll ask me for help, and I refuse. Yeah. So, basically, what I say is you have to do all the work.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: And before you turn it in, we feel like this is something I can turn in.

Brandon: Yeah.

Steve: At this point, I'll look at it.

Brandon: Yeah. But I'll look at it. Me though because, you know, how they score it and how they they they score it at the school versus what I know is actually gonna work in the real world is also different. So there was something the other day where it was one of those where I was like, it just pained me, but I'm like, if that's what the teacher told you to do, I guess you gotta do it.

Steve: Yeah. You got a rubric. Yeah. Well, we gotta pass the rubric.

Brandon: That's right.

Steve: But this is not But This is not how the real world works.

Brandon: That's right. Yeah. That's what I teach at Illinois State. That's what the teacher always tells me every time. She's like she's like, yeah.

I like it when you come here because she's like, I don't run marketing campaigns. I teach marketing.

Steve: Yeah.

Brandon: She's like, so actually getting down to the practicals of it now is is like a different perspective for the kids at the at the college, which is kinda sad when you think about it.

Steve: Yeah. Well, if when when they need it, they'll reach out to you. That's right. They'll reach out to Sharper.

Brandon: I get a ton of LinkedIn messages from kids who heard me speak at Illinois State and saying, hey. Can you refer me some references so we

Steve: can They don't they don't need to learn it in school. They just need to have their eyes open too.

Brandon: That's right.

Steve: Alright. So I want you to think about the last thoughts, that you wanna leave everyone with. Guys, if you found this to be valuable, please subscribe. Please share this with your colleagues. Right?

Like, we again, we're on a mission to create millionaires. That's our key purpose indicator. There you go. Right? So we're we're gonna do better now after our consult with Brandon yesterday.

So, share so we can create more millionaires. What are some last thoughts? I'm gonna leave all of this.

Brandon: Somebody gave me this thought a while back, and I thought it was a really intentional way of thinking about life just in general, which is if you ran your business like you ran your home, how would it go? And if you ran your home like you ran your business, how would it go? And immediately when we start thinking about things through the lens of outcomes

Steve: Mhmm. All

Brandon: of a sudden it changes activities. Mhmm. And so I'm I'm on this pursuit. You asked me earlier, like, biggest challenges, and I guess I probably should have gone there, which is a little bit more along the lines of being much more intentional about where life is. Friend of mine is a performance coach, and you've heard the phrase all the time, but he he just preaches this concept of being where your feet are at.

Mhmm. And, I think that's that's a very, very important thing for all of us to think about. Whether it's in your business and you're gonna be in business, you might as well run it right anyway. Mhmm. You might as well have the right systems, the right processes, the right way of doing things, and same thing in the rest of your life.

You might as well we're gonna you're gonna twenty four hours in the day anyway. They might as well be a good twenty four hours and, to create those efficiencies that are gonna make you the best version of yourself possible, for the people in your life, for the purpose for which you're here, or why God created you to be here. You might as well do it right if you're gonna do it. And, I think that's that's a that's a good challenge for all of us.

Steve: So the greatest challenge and what's the hardest part to implement, because, you know, three questions or whatever for for a frantic family. Yeah. Right? Brought that home. My wife's like, we're not a business.

Okay. But, like, it's not life or death, but it certainly feels like life or death in business, and we do it wrong. Like, we we have Paul Sparks at the World Club. Right? Like, one of the funniest things, like, he sent out, like, 30,000 mailers with the wrong phone number.

Right? That's like it feels like life or death.

Brandon: It does.

Steve: Right? Like, I screwed up this one thing, and there's massive consequences

Brandon: for it. Absolutely.

Steve: Family is kinda like, food. Like, you screw up for some time, you don't notice until it's too late.

Brandon: Yeah. It's a concept that I've heard many different places. I'll give Gary attributed because I think that's probably the first place I heard it, is the difference between glass balls and rubber balls.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: The average millennial will go through 12 micro careers in their life. They'll have one job. They'll go into another career. My father stayed at one job for thirty five years. Right?

There is always more opportunities out there. And there are some things that are glass balls, and there are some things that are rubber balls. Some will bounce back, some will not. Mhmm. Family is one of those things that is a glass ball.

Oh, yeah. So you have to think of it through the lens of how am I going to properly take care of this thing

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: While also fulfilling purpose and doing the things that I'm supposed to do. And so I I think there's it's definitely being much more intentional about our decisions there, understanding business is important, it's valuable, it's vital. But I sit so often with people whether it's husbands and wives or brothers and sisters or family working together. And at the end of the day, I sometimes have to look at them and say, look, at the end of the day, this business could go under.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: We could all figure it out. You guys are gonna be fine. Mhmm. You know, we can go get other jobs, do other things. That's fine.

But this, we can't we can't do anything about this. We gotta we gotta take care of this thing. So Absolutely. Being intentional.

Steve: Yep. And, something that we've done more of is looking at where we wanna be. Mhmm. Right? Like, you know, what is sounds corny.

Right? Like, what does success look like? Like Yeah. Like, where do we how do we want this to look down the road? And then Working your

Brandon: way backwards off of it. It's it's it's we do these we do these, business simulators with large teams. I've done it, I don't know, five or six times now, where we say we create all the different things that we did yesterday, process on charts. We give them about 15 different tools that you need to make within about a two hour time period. And one of those things is is the the ninety day, one year, five year plan, a three year, five year plan.

You You gotta give that to me by the end of two hours. And so we put everybody in different seats, and they're usually in in the business. Salespeople are over here in operations. Operations people are over in sales. Finance people are now visionaries of our company, and we did it in a big hotel.

And so, literally, they're running around this hotel trying to build the pieces for this business. And I've done it again probably five times. Nobody's ever actually done it right.

Steve: Mhmm.

Brandon: Because what happens is you have finance people or people who are more in operations, and they usually start at ninety days, and they try to work their way up to five years. Mhmm.

Steve: You

Brandon: can't do that. Yeah. You have to start at five years and work your way back. Mhmm. And I find that same thing, life business all the way across is we have to look down the road and say, where are we going with this?

Because visionaries have to know where we're going. If we don't know where we're going, then there's no hope, and there's no reason to go down their line to it. Mhmm. And that's where I think the planning side of this, thinking about life more as a plan that is going to get changed. I mean I mean, stuff gets thrown at you all the time, and the the path gets detoured and gets rerouted, but that hope is that thing that keeps us going.

Steve: Yeah. Awesome. Someone who wants to reach out to you, what's the best way?

Brandon: Yeah. So sharperbusiness.com is the best way to get ahold of us. We have all sorts of stuff on there. There's all sorts of free resources, all sorts of stuff. We do free webinars, like, every other month.

There's events. There's also stuff. So sharperbusiness.com is the best way for that. I'm at brand mccurdy on Instagram. So if you want Awesome.

Hit me up there.

Steve: Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you guys for watching. We'll see you guys next time.