Firing The Man
THANK YOU TO OUR 25,000+ LISTENERS! We are so thankful to be one of the TOP E-Commerce Podcasts delivering high-quality authentic content to you! Serial Entrepreneur’s David Schomer and Ken Wilson share tips, advice, and insider knowledge about all things Amazon FBA, Walmart WFS, and E-Commerce. Discover how you can create multiple income streams by selling physical products online so that you can have the time and freedom to do what you love - whether that is spending more time with family or traveling the world. Ken and David have successfully created several six and seven figure online business ventures. During the journey, they have had major wins, losses, and lessons learned. This podcast will teach you about selling physical products online through platforms such as Fulfillment by Amazon, building a team, outsourcing, listing optimization, pay per click (PPC) advertising, driving traffic to your listings, and productivity tips / life hacks that will provide a path to be successful in building your online business. It’s a mix of interviews, special co-hosts and solo shows from Ken and David you’re not going to want to miss. Hit subscribe, and get ready to change your life.
Firing The Man
Systems That Set You Free with Jeremy Shapiro
Jeremy Shapiro returns to the Firing the Man podcast with game-changing insights on scaling businesses beyond the hustle phase. With decades of experience helping established entrepreneurs break through growth plateaus, Jeremy unpacks the mental shifts and practical strategies required to build sustainable growth without burnout.
We dive deep into the concept of moving from "reactive chaos" to strategic growth. Too many business owners spend their days firefighting – constantly bailing water without patching the hole in the ship. Jeremy shares a powerful framework for carving out dedicated time to work ON your business, not just IN it, and explains how this simple shift transforms business performance.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn when Jeremy reveals his process-driven approach to scaling. He challenges the common misconception that systems are ever "done" and emphasizes creating a culture where team members own and evolve processes rather than having procedures imposed from above. For listeners struggling with "SOPs that die in Google Drive," Jeremy offers practical advice for keeping systems alive and relevant.
Perhaps most valuable is Jeremy's counterintuitive approach to pricing. Through a simple mathematical example, he demonstrates how modest price increases can potentially double profits, even accounting for customer attrition. This perspective-shifting insight reveals how fear-based pricing strategies leave substantial money on the table for many entrepreneurs.
For those feeling stuck at business plateaus, Jeremy offers hope through practical strategies that have helped thousands break through ceilings. He explains how growth typically follows S-curves rather than continuous hockey sticks, and how being open to new channels, products, or strategies that weren't right for your previous growth phase can catalyze your next expansion.
Whether you're running an e-commerce business, service-based company, or any entrepreneurial venture trying to scale beyond six or seven figures, this conversation delivers immediately applicable wisdom. Grab Jeremy's new book "Your Business Growth Playbook" and start implementing these proven strategies to escape reactive chaos and build a business that grows on your terms.
How to connect with Jeremy?
Website: https://YourBusinessGrowthPlaybook.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bayareamastermind/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremyshapiro/
Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast, a show for anyone who wants to be their own boss. If you sit in a cubicle every day and know you are capable of more, then join us. This show will help you build a business and grow your passive income streams in just a few short hours per day. And now your hosts, serial entrepreneurs David Shomer and Ken Wilson.
Speaker 2:Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast, where we spotlight entrepreneurs who've taken the leap from employee to business owner and are building something on their own terms. I'm your host, and today we're joined by a powerhouse in the world of business strategy Jeremy Shapiro. Jeremy is a seasoned serial entrepreneur with decades of experience helping established business owners break through growth plateaus, scale sustainably and achieve what he calls true entrepreneurial freedom. He's not just another business coach. Jeremy is known for his unique ability to simplify complex ideas and translate them into practical, actionable steps that drive real results. He's the author of the new book your Business Growth Playbook Breakthrough Strategies to Scale your Business.
Speaker 2:For Business Owners Who've Outgrown Hustle, it is a must read and is available now. This is going to be a great read for founders ready to move beyond the grind mode into strategic, scalable growth. Jeremy's insights have been featured on NPR Morning Edition, fox News, pbs and hundreds of podcasts, and today he's here to talk with us about scaling smart, leading with clarity and building a business that does not run on burnout. Whether you're deep in the trenches of e-commerce, launching a new venture or looking to scale beyond six or seven figures, this conversation is packed with wisdom you can apply right now. Let's dive into mindset, methods and strategies with Jeremy Shapiro. Jeremy, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for inviting me on. Excited to be here.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I have to congratulate you. You are on a short list of two-time guests on the Firing man podcast. It is an elite club and you are now part of that elite club. Welcome back.
Speaker 3:Thank you. We get jackets on three visits, is that right? Monogram jacket.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. So yeah, Green Jacket, there we go. So well, good stuff. So since we've last talked, you have been working on a book titled your Business Growth Playbook, and it's geared towards founders who've outgrown hustle. What does that mean to you and why do you think a lot of entrepreneurs get stuck there?
Speaker 3:You know, it's interesting as we look at growth right, from someone who wants to start a business to getting going, hustling, grinding and really validating your business idea right Like the things you do on a day-to-day basis to prove out your business idea and get it off the ground are different than what it takes to scale that, to go beyond being a solopreneur to building a team, to differentiating product line and so on. So one of the things I often see newer business owners do is continue staying stuck at sort of like one frequency of work right, not recognizing that what got you where you are now is not what's going to get you where you want to go next. And so really a lot of this comes down to that mindset shift, of shifting out of the solopreneur mindset, expanding beyond market validation and moving towards the scaling side. Once you've got something that you know works well, now we can build on that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. Now in the book you talk about moving from reactive chaos, which I can say as growing my businesses I've been there for sure. So from reactive chaos to strategic growth. What is a sign that an entrepreneur or a business is ready or overdue for this shift or overdue for this shift?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, when we talk about burnout, or you know, there's reactive chaos, right? Another word for reactive chaos is firefighting. So often, business owners, even of larger companies, will find themselves spending the day reacting to everything, whether it's, you know, opening your eyes in the morning, grabbing your phone and looking at emails and Slack messages and you know, the social medias and everything right and jumping into the problems of the day and next thing you know, it's the end of the day, right, and all you've done is react to the, the things that keep popping up in front of you. Right, that's one way of working, but none of that moves the needle. None of that moves the business forward. All that does is you've bailed the water out and you're back to where you were, but the next day is just the same thing again and again. So, to shift out of that reactive chaos, there's a few things we've got to do, right? So, if you're feeling that you're in that firefighting mode, then that's step one, right, Recognize that. But then step two to move beyond. That is a few things. Right that. But then step two to move beyond. That is a few things, right. One is you got to make the time to work on the business. If all your time is firefighting in the business, you'll never get that time to patch the hole in the ship instead of just bailing the water out right. You'll never have the time to, you know, to trench that fire line versus just trying to take care of the spreading fire. So make the time in your calendar whether it's the first hour of your day, or half a day a week, or a few days a month right. Carve out that time that's dedicated to doing what it takes to move the business forward towards where you want it to go. This could be your strategic planning. This could be working on your marketing campaigns. This could be getting the job descriptions out there and interviewing people to hire and build out your team right. Like. There's a lot of things we can on using these products in the business every day to keep their doors open and take care of their customers.
Speaker 3:Like many of us, had a lot of pride in that product and wanted to take great care of his clients. What that meant, though, was, as a solopreneur, he needed to be by that phone and by the email inbox if his customers needed him, Because if they needed him, well, he better take care of them, or else they're offline until he gets them sorted out right. The result of that was is he was tied to this business. It was this ball and chain around him. He couldn't put the time in to grow the business. He wasn't able to get outdoors where he loved to be. He was a mountain biker. He couldn't get out in the mountains, which was not just good for his physical health and wellness, but like his mental health. And also, where do we usually get our best ideas when we're away from the business?
Speaker 3:He wasn't getting any of those needs met, so one of the first things we did was we helped him to figure out where a lot of the time went and what the systems were that were needed, and we were able to get a full-time person on board virtual right Contractor overseas handling frontline customer service. What this meant was when customers emailed or called during business hours, someone else was taking care of this. This gave him back 40 hours of his week. That he wasn't fighting frontline fires, that he could step away from the business get back to the mountains. Or he could step away from the business. Get back to the mountains, or he could reinvest in the business and get new accounts by working on sales, get new customers, by working on the marketing side of things right, Work on the product, figure out what's next and all the important stuff. That's the real work on the business that he couldn't do before because he was doing all the work in the business and that's that really powerful shift from that burnout right and the firefighting to getting you back to growth.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Now you said one word. I want to drill into this. You said process. You focus on building a process, and I think this is something you know. I've heard a lot about this and you've interacted with thousands of business owners. What does a good process look like? Or how do you know that you've arrived? Because this is coming from a guy who's written a lot of SOPs that have went to die on Google Drive and never be opened again, and so what does this look like when it's functioning well?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you touched on a few interesting things there, right? One of them that I love is this idea of a process being done. I argue that your SOPs are never actually done right. When we create a new process or a system, there's only three outcomes that we're going to get with that right. When we create a new process or a system, there's only three outcomes that we're going to get with that right. The ideal one we want, the happy path, is that someone else runs the system and gets the result that you want, or the result that you would have gotten had you done it on your own right. That's where we want to be.
Speaker 3:In reality, when the system starts getting used, what we're going to find is a person follows your system, but the system wasn't complete yet. There was a detail, there was a piece of things you forgot to document or that you thought was clear. That wasn't clear, right. That comes up when you use your own system, but more so when other people start using your system. So your system is open to revision, all right. The third outcome is going to be the system is now correct and is proven out, but someone just doesn't use it, and so they don't get the result that you want, right, and that's just a matter of coaching and retraining and getting your team back to using the systems. Okay, so our systems evolve, right, and, as our business needs, change over time. One thing that I have in all of our systems is not just the date the system was created right, but the date that it was last reviewed right, and maybe it's the same and nothing's changed, but at least we can say we've gone through it and it's all the same. But oftentimes, when I'm working with business owners who do have systems which is fewer than you might think right what we find is that their business has moved on and a system is no longer accurate, but the team has just learned it and has used it, and the team has evolved to do something different than what we have documented. And so when we review that system, we go through and we realize what parts no longer apply, what parts need revision and what we can change to bring the system back to current what the team is currently doing. This means when you hire someone, you can train them on the new system. This means, if you don't get the result you want, you can fall back to your system, and so on All right.
Speaker 3:And that second thing I want to touch on that you mentioned is, you know the Google Drive full of documents that go to die there. Yeah, creating systems is fun for some of us, right, it's enjoyable to document this down and they're so vital for training. But if we don't actively manage by those systems right, if the team doesn't use us on an ongoing basis, if we don't review them from time to time, then, yeah, the systems go somewhere to die. And it's okay, you know, once someone gets their reps in and they know how to do it, to not be looking at the system side by side.
Speaker 3:But I find that, you know, a successful system has a few components, sort of three versions of it, if you will right. One is like a really clear, succinct definition of success. Secondly is more your checklist to inspect that result of what makes a successful outcome. And the third is the exhaustive list of the steps and things involved. Right, training uses that last one. Training someone new uses that longer list. Managing from a self-management standpoint can use the checklist. And then the self-sanity check uses that clear, succinct definition of success. And those last two are the ones that you manage by.
Speaker 2:It almost seems like you are talking about systems and a culture of systems as being one in the same, and so, as a business owner, what are some things that you can do to create that culture that's respective of systems? Is it an SOP day every quarter? Is it new employee training? What do you think?
Speaker 3:Yeah, where we've seen this be a challenge is sometimes we have business owners that have staff that's been with them forever and maybe their business has plateaued so they're not in a growth mode, right? They're not looking to document and train new staff, it's just them and their small team, and they've been doing this for 10 years and nothing has changed. That can be really hard to culturally shift to SOPs, and that's not because you can't put them in place, but there can be resistance from the team, right? So when we change the conversation from like you versus an employer, you versus a team member, and change the conversation to be around where your business is going and what that vision, mission, purpose are, now everyone can get behind that, from existing team to new team. And now your SOPs are merely in service of that bigger picture, right? So instead of having a conversation with someone around, why didn't you follow the system? Now we're talking about, hey, for us to get to this place. We all agreed we want to go. How can we use this system better to make sure we get there?
Speaker 3:Once you have a system, in this culture of systems, revising the systems becomes far more culturally. There's a far better cultural fit, right, because now we understand that these aren't written in stone documents, but they're living and breathing. So when we change up the way we do things, when we expand our workflows or our processes, we update the document with our team not for them, but with them. Our team, not for them, but with them. And that brings them into that conversation. It's not the word coming down from on high about how they've got to do it. It's a process they've participated in, right? So if you're trying to get SOPs in place for the first time with a team that doesn't have them, have them create the first draft of it, create it with them, revise it with them, and they now have ownership in that document, in that process and an eye on what they're building with you. And that could be the powerful difference between being told how to do it and being part of the creation.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I really like that, and I've got one last question on systems, and then we're going to move on. As we sit here chatting in Q3 2025, where do you see systems living? So is it on Asana or ClickUp or a Google Doc? I've been in all of those places and I like to bounce around about every year and a half, and so I'm just curious any platforms that seem to do a good job for long-term implementation of systems?
Speaker 3:Man. I've seen and I've tried so many systems over the years. I know multiple companies who their entire SaaS platform is just for documentation and all of this, and some of those have felt like overkill, especially because it's one more system, one more login and so on. I've also successfully used Google Docs, right. Google Drive, like that, is also a usable, good system. I've also built our own platforms, right. I have SaaS products that have incorporated in a system for SOPs and systems. We've really used everything under the sun, right.
Speaker 3:The key piece to all of this is, whatever system you're going to use, you want to make sure you can easily organize your systems and pretty much all platforms do that that your team can easily get access to them, that you can easily revise them, right. So you know, I've been doing this for decades. So a lot of businesses I've worked with came from a time of where you have these documents, you print them out, they go in three ring binders and go on bookshelves and go in desks for team members to use at different stations around a business, right, and that's fine, right. That was from a very you know, analog world and that is still a good way to have systems, in fact, when working with clients and moving towards an exit. It's pretty valuable when you're selling your company to not just have tribal knowledge but to be able to show your buyer that we have the documentation.
Speaker 3:Here's the entire operations for the whole company, right? You know how everything in this business works, versus them needing to learn it all from you from scratch. So there's value in that, whether it's literally printed on paper, it's in Google Docs, it's in a custom system or somewhere, but you do want it in one place, not nine, right? I had one client I've actually had a few clients who sort of have a Google Sheets where they list all the different systems and each of the sheets links to a document, and that starts to get kind of complicated. It's a nice idea, but it starts to overcomplicate, right? So have your folder structure, have your documents right. Have them be printable so they could be printed, shareable at an organizational or folder level, not individual document, and easily editable and really any system, so long as you pick one, it can be fine for you.
Speaker 2:I think that is very good and practical advice on that topic. So one thing that I had mentioned in the intro is you have a knack for taking very complex things and simplifying them, and I'm curious what are some areas of a business that you often see entrepreneurs overthinking?
Speaker 3:What are some areas of a business that you often see entrepreneurs overthinking, that this simplification process is really beneficial. It's funny, speaking specifically to our e-commerce space, pricing and differentiation can often be overcomplicated. I see owners overthinking what the pricing model is going to be and chasing the competition and trying to figure out how to undercut the competition on pricing. And you know, looking at a crowded marketplace and being just another product in a busy marketplace right, If your whole business is built on being another of something else, another commodity, that's a really hard place to command the pricing you might want, right. And so one of the strategies I talk about often is pricing. Well, guess what, If you're in a commoditized industry, you don't have the ability to control pricing. Your competition does. When you start to differentiate and when you have a brand and when there's customer loyalty, that starts to bring that power back to you to set your own prices. So I work with clients a lot. One of the topics that comes up is pricing. And it may sound kind of pithy, but if you just increase your prices, that does great things for your business. But so often I hear from business owners this pushback of you know, but I can't just raise my prices because baked in for you is what your pricing is. And often business owners look at this race to the bottom of how do I discount the competition? When really what we want to be asking is how do we differentiate? So in our customer's mind, there's no other choice but to work with you.
Speaker 3:Once you are in a market of just you, you can now command the pricing. So let's look at a subscription-based business, for example. If you have, say, a $40 a month subscription that your customers pay you and we increase that to $50, right, We've now increased that pricing. You know there's a 25% increase over what you had before. Your cost of goods hasn't changed, right? What it costs you to fulfill that customer is the same. So your profit margin just went up. Let's say, for example, that you're all in cost of goods is $30. And so your profit margin is 10. And sorry listeners, I know we're going through a lot of numbers here right, you were selling at 40 and it costs you 30,. Your profit was 10. We now increase that price to 50. Your profit was 10. We now increase that price to 50. That means your profit is now $20. We have literally doubled your profit by increasing your pricing. Only 25%? Oh no. But what if you lose some customers? You might lose some subscribers. You also, by the way, might not right. But let's say you do lose some customers, that's okay, Because your profits have doubled. You could technically afford to lose half your customers and still have the same profit margin, right? So when we start thinking about the numbers that way, that becomes really powerful.
Speaker 3:In one of my businesses we had, we faced exactly this challenge. We had a subscription-based business and our customers were paying us. I think at the time it was like 19 bucks a month, right, and we were debating this increase to 29. And we were pushed to make that change and we said, look, let's just experiment with this. Right, we always look for what's the cheapest and easiest way we can test something. So instead of trying to change subscriptions for all of our existing customers right, we said let's just adjust the pricing for new customers existing, we won't even tell about new pricing, right, they're fine. So we just tested out on the sales pages the increase in the price and, wouldn't you know it, we didn't see much of a change in conversion, which, of course, the harsh takeaway is like oh my gosh, what if we'd done this sooner? Right. So we're kicking ourselves for not doing it sooner.
Speaker 3:But making that small change in a really small, easy to test way proved out the concept that the market would accept that higher pricing, right. And so then, of course, what do you do next? You test again, we put the upsell in place, you add in this is stuff I talk about in the book Right, controlling what we charged. So you can do that Experiment with that pricing, find the easiest way to do that. It doesn't need to be complicated. It doesn't need to be a complicated plan of messaging to existing customers and so on, because that can be a mess. But it can also be simplified and done right.
Speaker 2:I like that. I really like that approach. Right, I like that. I really like that approach. One topic I'd like to move to is scaling, and this is I think this is has kind of gained notoriety as like a sexy word, a word that people love to talk about scale, and so why don't we start with what is scaling Like?
Speaker 1:yeah.
Speaker 2:What does that look?
Speaker 3:like. So I think scaling there's sort of this balancing act that we do when we scale right, but scaling generally means growing, well, growing to what right. So first of all, we've got to be clear, as a business owner, what we're trying to build. Because scaling, by the way, is not for everyone and it's not to be lusted after per se. If what you want is a certain size business, right. If you're looking for a certain you know income for yourself, or a certain you know value for exit and all these things like that's great. But get clarity on what that is. For many business owners, you may be in a size where, like, things are good, right, you might be happy with the hours you're putting in and the cashflow that's coming out, and that is an okay thing to run, to. Let it run its course, right, you may not need to build the next deck of corn, but if that's what you want to build, well, then you know there's steps to get there. So scaling those two pieces that need to kind of work in lockstep as you grow comes down to on the one side, is your sales, marketing and getting new customers and increased revenue in, and then with that, the other side of the equation is the operations, right. So I've seen some businesses scale up the operation side first, right. And then you're looking around uh wondering where the customers are, and you've got all this overhead from staff and warehouse space and operations and expenses to support a business you don't have yet, right, but you can grow into. And I've, on the flip side, seen businesses where we scale up the growth side on the front end for customers, right. So now you have all these customers coming in and you don't have product for them or team to support them or onboard them or fulfill stuff. So too much of one is not a good thing, right? You're looking to, you know, ratchet each of these in turn as you grow, all right. So that, in a nutshell, is what scaling is.
Speaker 3:But which do you do first? Well, the first thing you do is figure out where you want to go, what you want to grow to. So in business, no matter what any of our businesses that we have, there's only three directions and only three outcomes for our business. One is we're going to pass it on to our kids. Are we really going to do that? Like, if you think about it in your heart of hearts, do your you know, do your kids want your business? Will your business model even make sense a generation from now? For most folks that's just not a viable direction. It was generations ago, but that happens far less and less these days. All right, so let's go ahead and scratch off the table. That's probably not an option for us.
Speaker 3:The second direction and this is where, unfortunately, most businesses go is they get run into the ground At some point. You just close up shop and the business is done and that's okay. In fact, a lot of baby boomers now, you know, are at the point in their business where they want to get out. They don't want to run into the ground, they know their kids won't take it and they're sort of looking for that exit. Right. But if they don't find the exit, then they just close up shop.
Speaker 3:Which brings us to our third option, and that is that you actually exit. You sell the business. So of the three passing it on to your kids, closing up shop or selling the business which one seems like the direction that you might want to go in your business, and for most folks, given those choices, we look towards exit. And so now we've got to decide who the category of buyer is going to be for us and how they're going to value our company and how they're going to value our company and what they're going to look for. And now we can track towards building so that we are a very attractive company for our ideal buyer to acquire.
Speaker 2:I like it. I really like that Now for the entrepreneurs that are feeling stuck or they feel like they've plateaued and that I have personally experienced this, where things are rocking and rolling and then they just kind of taper off. And so when this happens to me or to anybody listening, when they feel that plateau, what are some things that they can do or they can take action on to bust through that and continue to grow?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I want to answer that, but can we switch mics for a moment? Absolutely, can I ask you when you face that and you hit that plateau, as so many of us do, what did you do? How did you get back to growth?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I'm in the physical product space and I view listings as fishing hooks in the water, and the more fishing hooks I have in the water, the more likely I am to catch a fish, and so one of the things that I did was spent a ton of time focusing on products. Now, that causes cash flow constraints, and so I got creative on dropshipping or low MOQs or negotiating payment terms, but I was really focused there. One last thing I would tell you is I got out from behind my laptop. I fall into this maybe every six months, where I will be in my office and not leave and I'm grinding. I'm going from meeting to meeting, task to task. I kind of like it. I kind of hate it. It's just this weird entrepreneurial rollercoaster. Kind of hate it. It's just this weird entrepreneurial rollercoaster.
Speaker 2:And I will go on a vacation or I will go on a walk and all of a sudden there's clarity and I'll share with you a recent development is I really like AI and we should talk about AI if you'd like to. But you can now converse with the smartest being that's ever existed. You can put in AirPods and you can have a conversation with them, and that's one of the like. Helping. Knowing that that is an avenue to engage with AI has been great, because, at the end of the day, I want to get out from behind my desk and I don't want to watch a YouTube video on how to use AI or prompts, but I can go on a walk and talk to an advisor, and one thing I'll tell you that I've been doing is I will establish a board of directors. Warren Buffett and Mother Teresa Give me five pieces of advice based on these people, um, and you can make it whoever you want, and it's fun and there's really no doubt you can ask it dumb questions and it'll give you responses.
Speaker 2:So no judgment either on that too none none, and so it's private conversation, and and so I. That's a long answer, but heavily focused on revenue generating activities getting out from behind my laptop and, most recently, talking to AI as if it's a sentient being.
Speaker 3:That's really cool, and what I love is all three of those touch on the exact strategy that I was going to share to answer the question. So masterfully done. So what got you where you are now in your business right to the plateau is not what's going to get you to the next level. Right, I've seen over time, in businesses, growth usually happens like these S-shaped curves. In businesses, growth usually happens like these S-shaped curves, right, when we talk about this idealized, you know, hockey stick up into the right kind of growth that companies so aspire to. What we don't realize is, if we go forward in time and we zoom out, that hockey stick doesn't go forever, right, like, at some point that hockey stick starts to plateau and it has this S-shape. So at the point you're starting to get that traction and takeoff for your S, recognize that history has shown us that doesn't go on forever and that that's going to plateau. So what is the next right? What is going to get you? You took the escalator from you know the, you know the, the lobby to the first floor. There's a different escalator that's from first to second, second to third and so on. So we've got to stack those and look towards that future growth, okay, great. So what does that look like? Well, we got to take a step back and recognize that there may be sales channels that didn't make sense for us at that last stage, that start to make sense for us now. There may be products that our market wasn't ready for or our business wasn't ready for when we launched our last stage of growth, that we are now ready for. So be open to those new sales channels, those new products, the new pricing, new marketing, new channels and all new partners, all these things, because one of those is going to be the game changer For a previous business of mine.
Speaker 3:We were using Google AdWords in the early days, right, and we found that our ads were doing really well. For every dollar we spent, we were getting about $4 in upfront revenue from new leads that came in, which was great. We're really happy with that. So what do you do when it's working? You scale it. So we spent more on our ads and now we're at the point we'd spend a dollar and get three back, still good. So we scaled it up and it was dollar out, $2 in, and we got to the point where we kind of maxed out that channel that for every dollar that went out we were getting a dollar back in, so we were breaking even on the front end. Thankfully we had recurring revenue and so longer term over customer lifetime value right, which is super important for businesses to know.
Speaker 3:We were still okay with that, but we then saw it started to go negative. We were spending a dollar and getting like 50 cents in and we took our eye off the ball. And this was a problem because it was a channel that was growing and we also didn't know a ton about. We were just seeing success with it and so we started to be losing money on that. We were hitting a plateau. In fact, we were arguably over a plateau and on a downward slide from there.
Speaker 3:So we changed up a few things. One is we brought in a specialist who knows that channel really well and has eyes on many businesses, not just ours. With a few key changes they were able to turn that back around. So we were profitable again on the front end not just breakeven, but profitable. So they turned that around. That helped us to break a plateau by bringing in someone who knew that existing channel better than we did. They knew how to scale it and that was really powerful. But, secondly, we also added on other channels that we weren't using at the time.
Speaker 3:We also implemented a number of the strategies I talk about in the book to do more with the sales channels we already had right, the incoming customers. We did more with them. And secondly, strategies to sell more and do more with our existing customer base. So, even if we never saw another new customer come in and even if we saw nothing no new channels or anything there was more we could do with our existing recurring revenue-based customers to continue scaling the business. Now, of course, we didn't shut off the front end. We kept that going right, and so we were able to get back to scale. And these are the strategies that you know, I've used for decades, not just in my own businesses, but with all of our clients as well. Right, this is, you know, rinse and repeat recipes that are successful, that can break through that plateau. So, in summary, there be open to trying the thing that didn't work before but that might get you to that next step, but it wasn't for your previous step.
Speaker 2:So you said what got you say to a million is not going to get you to 10 million, correct, and when I think of systems or software or things like that, it does not weigh heavily on me. When I think of people that's tough, the people that helped me get to a million dollars. They've been along for the ride, but I know they're not going to get me to 10. Yeah, and that weighs heavily on me and I can. I know there are people I've held onto for way, way too long because I like them and and so any any strategies or ways to navigate that to where you can have a a clean conscience is a comfortable pillow type of scenario.
Speaker 3:Well, if we look at it so, let's touch on the oftentimes the scariest person to swap out in a company, and that's you as the founder, right? You as the CEO. And you're the CEO simply because you started the company and when you were one person, you were CEO and never gave that leadership role up. At a certain point in the scale, you start to have your C-suite, including, at some stages, bringing on a CEO to actually run the operations. Now, the CEO who gets you from founding to your million or your 10 million is very different than the CEO who's experienced and has a depth of knowledge of running a $10 million business and scaling it to a hundred, right. So it's rare but possible. You'll find a CEO who can get trained up on that and just their own business More often than not. If we look at, like you know, big public companies and all the name brands, we know there are often different CEOs who come in at different seasons and stages of growth for a reason. That's where their expertise is the same. The same in athletics, right? You know the same in many kinds of things. You bring in the right leadership or the right coach for that size business to get it. You know who has experience getting to that next stage of growth In terms of the existing team and different roles? Well, usually there's.
Speaker 3:You know, for example, we've had clients where the business owner did all the marketing right, because it's what you do as a small company.
Speaker 3:And then at some point you bring on someone who full-time runs marketing and as you grow you then might bring on a CMO right, because the person who is doing marketing in your business is probably not CMO material.
Speaker 3:They just don't have the experience doing it. If they did, you would have hired them as a CMO, but that would have been overkill, right. So you're sort of you're putting layers in between versus graduating people up, and that's okay. So you know, in this example, you know a client went from doing the marketing to hiring a marketing person to then putting a CMO between them and the person doing the marketing to then having a marketing team, right, you start to have specialists, not just generalists, on the team and you'll find your existing team members probably are really good at one thing that they were doing and they now get to go from we'll use marketing still as the example from running social and ppc and content and seo and all of these things. So now they get to specialize in the one thing they really are passionate about or the area they're really good at, and that actually is often a relief for team members to have that specialization.
Speaker 2:I think that's a really really good point, that this does not need to be a sad ending and oftentimes in that zero to a million, you have team operations, people that are doing 10 things and as you grow they can be more specialized in areas that they like.
Speaker 3:I really like that answer up a level that they never wanted to go to.
Speaker 3:And the two areas I see this most common are you'll have a sales rep who's a phenomenal sales rep, so you assume because of your best sales rep, that they should manage the sales team. Those are vastly different skills and oftentimes you'll find someone fails out gloriously and horrifically because they were thrust into a management role when they were really just good on the front lines as a sales rep. And the second area we see is like with developers. You'll take someone who's a really good coder, developer, you know, and so on, and move them up to managing a development team Vastly different skill set who want to grow and take on those leadership roles, yes, but when you move to managing a team, you are using a different skill set. You need different education and training and it's something you've never done before and in fact you are farther away from the work that got you there than you might want to be. So, yes, people can move up, but don't assume because someone's good at doing a job that they'll be good at managing people to do that job.
Speaker 2:That is a really, really good point, and often the best technical people are the ones that get promoted to managerial. And yeah, you're absolutely right.
Speaker 3:It's a classic, yeah, you're absolutely right, it's a classic.
Speaker 3:Yeah, now, before we get into the fire round, we touched on it a little bit, but I really enjoy asking everybody I come into contact with how are you using AI? Yeah, so we've seen AI be we're using AI and seeing AI being used in a really interesting role, and I realized that by the time anyone hears these conversations, anything about AI these days is like immediately dated the next day. So take this conversation on AI with a grain of salt. It may not last the test of time. We've seen AI be really powerful in supportive roles versus replacement roles, right? So, for example, one place that many companies have tried to use AI, and have for well over a decade, is on frontline customer service and putting AI or chatbots between their support team and customers. And, yes, for getting access to frequently asked questions or answering that frontline question. It can be helpful. It can be helpful, but it's more often supportive, in still maintaining a human connection right with the customer by providing the resources and things we need and getting access to the resource, but not replacing a person entirely right. We've seen AI in the example you were sharing earlier in this, you know, being a sounding board, right, helping to develop some ideas or sketch out an outline or provide a counterpoint to an idea. Right. So from a development standpoint, like an ideation standpoint, it can help to short that timeline, poking holes in your assumptions, for example, or providing a an opposing perspective. So those have been really powerful ways.
Speaker 3:We've seen business owners use it and of course there's you know, uh, all the places we've seen it from summarizing the inflow and the outflow of information, one area where I thought it was really interesting to use, so the book that that we have out your business growth playbook.
Speaker 3:That is like my original content from you know my decades of experience doing this stuff.
Speaker 3:But what I found is that we had a number of folks who wanted to take an early look at creating this multi two-person host format audio book overview.
Speaker 3:So it took the whole book and consolidated it down to like a 20-minute conversation around what the book is, and I found folks love that high-level overview of what we're going over in the book. It was longer and more in depth than just a description of the book and it was enjoyable to consume with multiple personalities talking about this in a conversational format. But then for me, like I'm a reader much more than I am a listener, I, you know, want to consume by reading, so I was able to use AI again to get the transcript of that and then the summary of that. So it was sort of this iterative process of using AI to adjust the format to different audience members, taking the original content but producing that and getting it out in a way that people want to consume. So it's been super helpful from a ideation standpoint, as well as from taking your original work and creating derivative work for formats your consumers want.
Speaker 2:I like it. I like it. Well, jeremy, this has been an outstanding conversation. Before we wrap up the interview, let's go into the fire round, love round. So what is your favorite book?
Speaker 3:Well, naturally, your business growth playbook. So, yes, love my book, but really, when I look at foundational books, they're books that I find myself recommending all the time and in fact, about once a week I share out and publish the latest book that I'm loving and think folks would enjoy. But a few have stood the test of time that I still continue to recommend. One of those is Michael Gerber's E-Myth Revisited. It's huge. I refer back to that a lot. Robert Kiyosaki's Cashflow Quadrant when we talk about moving from an employee to self-employed, to business owner and investor all of that's on the cover of the book, but uh, you know, jump diving deeper into that book is, uh, I find really helpful and I recommend that a lot. Um, elliot goldrat's book the goal is excellent. Um, and when it comes to core values, mission, vision, purpose and all that and that collaborative approach of doing that with your team, the go-to book on that is traction nice, nice.
Speaker 2:I'm a traction disciple. Um, all right. What is one thing you do not miss about working for the man?
Speaker 3:a job is that someone else has a say in how you spend your time, and that's like what prison is, where someone tells you you know how your time will be spent. And a job is that same thing. So when you run your own business, you, for good or better or for worse decide how your day looks and what you spend your time doing. So the good news is you're your own boss. The bad news is you're your own boss. So, yeah, get control of your calendar.
Speaker 2:Very nice. And last question what do you think sets apart successful e-commerce entrepreneurs from those who give up, fail or never get started?
Speaker 3:Oh, my gosh Hands down. Implementation, execution, action, call it what you want, but taking the action, getting stuff done. I can share a quick story for you on that if you want, but I know it's a rapid fire round.
Speaker 2:Let's hear it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, go ahead. So it's a story far older than I am right, this is an ancient Greek story, aesop's Fables. It's been reused across cultures and time, but I think it's a really illustrative story. The story is about this wagoner is out pulling his oxen cart down the road and suddenly his wooden wheel literally gets stuck in a rut. We talk about getting in a rut. This was the days where you actually could get a wheel stuck in a rut and that was a bad thing.
Speaker 3:So the wagon is stuck in this rut and he's like oh man, this sucks, how do I get out of this? And so he prays to the gods and prays to Hercules, like, please, you know, save me, help me, get this wagon out from the rut. And so Hercules shows up and he, you know, looks at this wagon and he's like, well, lean into this thing. Like, have you even tried getting the wagon out? Have you, like, leaned in and urged your oxen forward and pushed on the cart to get it out of the rut, or did you just stop and complain and hope someone else would solve this for you? And so the wagoner's like, okay, fine, and you know, grumbles and leans into it, wouldn't you know? By urging his oxen on and leaning into that cart, the cart begins to move and he gets out of that rut.
Speaker 3:And so sort of the moral that comes from this is like if you're feeling plateaued or stuck in business or you know, like what got you here is not getting you where you want to go, you can wish and want for change, but that doesn't do anything. You've actually got to implement and take action and lean into that cart that gets you out of that rut. It's not hoping, it's taking action. So any ideas you have from not just this episode but any of the episodes of the Fire the man podcast, like it's great if you have an idea, but like write it down and then schedule a time and go execute on it, that's what drives change, is implementation.
Speaker 2:Yes, I really, I really really like that. Take action and I like the story I'm glad that you shared, even during the fire round. So, before we wrap up to the Firing the man Nation, get your hands on Jeremy's full playbook of tried and true strategies today. The book is called your Business Growth Playbook. It's available on yourbusinessgrowthplaybookcom. Also on Amazon. I have links in the show notes for both of those. But get that and support Jeremy. Jeremy, thank you so much for your time today and we'll talk to you later. Thanks for inviting me on. This was a ton of fun.
