How to Turn A Struggling Business Into A Successful Business | Brian Shields

Unlock the secrets to revitalizing your business as we sit down with Brian Shields, an acquisition entrepreneur and burnout survivor. You'll learn practical strategies for stepping back from day-to-day operations to work on your small business, ensuring operational excellence and customer satisfaction drive your success.

In this episode, Brian shares his journey from Lehman Brothers to private equity, revealing how understanding sales and customer service can eliminate roadblocks and enhance team performance. Gain insights into the importance of a non-bride of authorship approach and honest evaluation of business practices. Hear about the challenges and strategies involved in business turnarounds, emphasizing the necessity of having the right personnel and a solid track record to validate new initiatives.

Finally, we dive into the mindset required for business success, exploring the benefits of setting ambitious goals and the value of regular reflection. Don’t miss this episode packed with actionable strategies and inspiring stories to help you overcome obstacles and achieve business success.

Brian Shields: Shields Consulting

Website: https://www.brianleeshields.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianleeshields/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brianleeshields/

Books Mentioned:

High Output Management - Andy Groves
10x Is Easier Then 2x - Dan Sullivan
Relentless - Tim Grover

#BusinessGrowth #ValueCreation #Entrepreneurship #BusinessSuccess #BusinessStrategies #OperationalExcellence #BrianShields #CustomerSatisfaction #SalesTips #CustomerService #EntrepreneurJourney #BusinessOwnership #BusinessStrategy #EntrepreneurTips #BusinessGrowth #SmallBusinessAdvice #SuccessMindset #BusinessTurnaround #AcquisitionEntrepreneur #BurnoutSurvivor #TeamPerformance #BusinessMindset #AmbitiousGoals #BusinessPodcast #SmallBusinessPivots #SmallBusinessSuccess #Success #Podcast #SmallBusiness #BOSS #MichaelDMorrison #Oklahoma City

Chapters

• 0:00 Helping Small Business Owners Overcome Challenges
• 8:37 Strategies for Improving Business Value
• 22:23 Challenges of Business Turnarounds
• 30:20 Mindset and Strategies for Business Success
• 35:24 Embracing Big Goals for Success

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

All right, welcome to another Small Business, pivots. Today we have a very special guest, and I know for a fact that no one can say their name or business and what they do, like the guest, so I'm going to let you introduce yourself.

Speaker 2: 0:12

Thanks, michael. My name is Brian Shields. I'm an acquisition entrepreneur and a survivor, a beater of burnout, and what that really all means is I have spent a lot of my career out, and what that really all means is I have spent a lot of my career acquiring and improving the operations of companies. Initially at an institutional level, I was working on Wall Street for a number of years doing this and decided to do it for myself, and so I've been doing that with small and medium-sized businesses for the last five, six years. Recently had an exit and that was really successful after turning a business around and, you know, really excited to be here and share more lessons learned from that and anything else that I've lived.

Speaker 1: 0:49

That sounds very intriguing because I know a lot of our listeners are stuck in their business and when we coach them or help coach them, when they reach out to us, they just can't even fathom doing one more thing. So how are you going to help? In a little nutshell doing one more thing. So how are you?

Speaker 2: 1:06

going to help in a little nutshell. How are we going to help them today? Yeah, Well, the greatest thing that I find people appreciate from me is a dispassionate perspective that says, hey, should you really be doing that? A lot of times I'll be talking to folks that I'm either advising or taking over their business and I'll just ask them questions objectively. And those objective questions that come from a place of thinking about how to improve shareholder value, improve the service that the clients are receiving, etc. Tends to rub afoul of people's feelings. And that intersection is a great place to live because there's a lot of growth opportunity there, so I'm happy to push on that.

Speaker 1: 1:47

Absolutely Well. Let's take a second to introduce the show and we'll come right back. Welcome to Small Business Pivots, a podcast designed for small business owners. I'm your host, Michael Morrison, a small business coach and founder of BOSS, where we make business ownership simplified for success, so that you can own a business that runs without you. To learn more, go to businessownershipsimplifiedcom. All right, welcome back to Small Business Pivots, Sir. Where do you want to start? Do you have any things specifically you want to start with? You want to get off your chest to help these people.

Speaker 2: 2:23

I would love to. So let me start with an anecdote. So one of the things that I personally find incredibly important for business owners whether they're preparing to sell to someone like me or want to continue running their business at a higher and higher level is having super clear systems and processes. One of my favorite books is Andy Grove's High Output Management, and it's come in different flavors. Right, like the theme is measure what you manage. Right, and so if we can set metrics around things, we can improve those metrics. But if we don't have metrics, then we're just going to go off a feel and feelings lie.

Speaker 2: 3:06

So when I took over the last business, which was Hill Company, it was an HOA property management business. So very people focused, very like hey, people ask you to do things, things happen behind the scenes, then hopefully the thing is completed. I asked the departing general manager hey, how do you know if people are doing what they're supposed to be doing? And she looked at me and she smiled with confidence and said well, I walk by their offices and if they look busy, that's good, and if I get complaints, that's bad. And I was like, oh, no, no, and listen, I say that in jest because for obvious reasons. That was great for me. There was a lot of upside and we can get into how that all manifested itself. But for those of you looking to continue running your business, if your answer is anywhere close to that, then I would challenge you to listen attentively and also look yourself in the mirror and say is this really the best way for us to run this business? Spoiler alert it's not.

Speaker 1: 4:10

What would you say, cause I know there's a lot of backlash on from business owners where they go. I can't even imagine doing one more thing than putting out fires in my business. Do you think that's probably the ultimate cause of why they haven't moved past that, or do you just feel like some of us are lazy and we're okay with the status quo? I know that's a loaded question.

Speaker 2: 4:36

I mean it's hugely loaded, because the obvious answer there, michael, is that an entrepreneur is, by definition, the least lazy person in the room. Right, you know, we carry all the risk, we carry all the weight, the buck stops with us, and so we have to make sure that we're putting our full shoulder into the work so that momentum is happening, because if we don't, then nothing happens, right, and it's very different than working in a corporation. So, that being said, what I tend to find in those situations is that there is one of two things happening. Thing one is that the entrepreneur is so overloaded with work that they're incapable of making time to step back and work on the business instead of working in the business. Step back and work on the business instead of working in the business, and that's really important because in those step back moments, right, you can then see more clearly solutions to your problems. But if you are working 24-7, if you are constantly underneath paperwork or solving problems or jumping in for every one of your employees whenever they make a mistake, then you're never going to have that time to work on your business. So that's one part of it is like you just allowed yourself to get into that cycle.

Speaker 2: 5:50

The other part of it and this might hurt some feelings, but we talked about feelings at the beginning of the show is that some people might just think that they know everything and they're in their own ego about it and they're unwilling to accept that there may be a way that is better or different than the way they've come up with to do things, that could be more efficient. And that's just not true, right? So, just going back to the example I was using, I was in this property management field, right? And there were somewhere between 5,000 to 7,000 property management companies, just for HOAs in the country. 5,000 to 7,000 property management companies, just for HOAs in the country 5,000 to 7,000. That means that there are 5,000 to 7,000 different ways of doing things. Some of them work really well, some of them don't.

Speaker 2: 6:37

But to assume that there's only one way of doing things would mean that there shouldn't be 5,000 of these companies, or that if you met Brian's company, that Michael's company would function the exact same way. And we know that's not true, because people would leave Brian's company to go to Michael's company or vice versa, because something the way they respectively did things they didn't like. And so what I would say to that person who is stuck in their own ego and is like, first of all, look in the mirror and just be honest with yourself. Is this about you? Do you have pride of authorship? Are you stuck in the well, I know best mindset?

Speaker 2: 7:10

And if that's true, if that little voice in your head is saying, hey, man, like yeah, you are just own it, and that doesn't mean you have to like, admit faults or look weak or whatever you're worried about to people who are watching you. In fact, once you get over it and you start to make improvements in the business, people will be happier, people will be more trusting of you, people will be more loyal to you because you demonstrated the strength to be able to work on yourself and to chisel yourself into a more perfect form of the David that has been sculpted by Michelangelo, right? So that's what we want for you guys, and those are both very different and difficult things to work your way out of. I'm happy to dive into either of them, but that's kind of like what I see is the challenge for folks in those places.

Speaker 1: 7:52

Well, I know there's a lot of reality shows on TV, and sometimes that can be to our demise as well, because we come in there, like you know I'm not even going to mention their names but you come in there and you just fire and you do this and you move people around, but you don't really understand what you're doing. So you're a professional that comes in kind of evaluates, assesses a business and says I'm going to make some tweaks here, but it's not the same every time. So how do you go in truly objectively to scale a business and then sell it versus subjectly or like being subjective about? Well, this is my opinion, kind of like what you talked about. Well, this is kind of how you see it being the only way, but you come in with an open mind. How do you do that?

Speaker 2: 8:36

Yeah, that's a good question, Michael. So let me let me back up and give some context about how I started my career Right. So in my initial phases of my career I was working 100-hour work weeks in New York. So I was at an investment bank first called Lehman Brothers. You may have heard of them.

Speaker 1: 8:54

Sorry to the entire country.

Speaker 2: 8:57

And second, then I was at a private equity firm for a number of years and we bought companies for nine to 10 figures one case 11 figures. And so at that level, right, you're at like the the professional league level of the mba kind of like game of buying and improving companies, right. What I learned from that is there are, like on a spreadsheet, generally, a few different things you can move and change levers on to be able to ensure that the number that you paid in the beginning is lower than the number you sell for, right, and that's what those folks care about, right. But what we found and I was lucky because the private equity firm I was at had a very strong focus in ensuring that there was high quality operations and infrastructure at the businesses that they owned right, and the thesis of how they operated was hey, if we take over this company and make the clients happier and make the operations easier to deliver the thing that makes the clients and customers happy, then the business will be worth more. And so I took that to heart, right.

Speaker 2: 10:07

But one thing that I didn't learn there was I didn't understand how sales happened. You may have heard the term EBITDA, right, earnings Before Interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and I was like I barely know how to spell it. I don't know how it happens. So I left behind the spreadsheet and I went to go work at one of the portfolio companies for a while and I actually worked with our um that that firm had a like a group of operational executives that would consult with the companies in different ways sales, inventory, hr, pricing, all that stuff. So I worked with them for a while and then I worked at one of the portfolio companies to launch a division, and that's really important, because what I came to appreciate from those experiences is not just that there are check boxes that you should tick to ensure that the value of your business improves and the cash flow improves, but the downstream impact of those policy decisions and those priorities that affect the team and how they're actually able to deliver that thing to the client. So, all that being said, I like to look at any business that I've looked at or invested or bought from a perspective of how can I make this business more valuable, which means that the sub bullet of that is how do we make sure that the thing that we're delivering to the client is getting to them in the most efficient, least stressful for the team way, but with the highest quality possible for that client. And one of the things that I would like we like to come up with mission statements for our company. So, like the last company I was at, we took over, we had a negative net promoter score of negative 50. When we took over which, if you don't know what net promoter score is that's really bad. That means that people are actively telling people that they don't want to work with us. Yeah, yeah, not good, and so um so.

Speaker 2: 11:55

So I started asking myself, like what are the things that are causing this? Right, and it was like you know, thing a, thing B, thing C, thing D. And then I started asking myself cool, how are we doing it today? And I mapped that out, and then I asked myself if I were going to completely redesign this, how are the best and most successful people who are doing a thing like this doing it? And so point one was that I wanted to take a non-bride of authorship approach to seeking out the answers. So I would ask people who had a customer service organization how do you guys ensure all of your tickets are closed out by the end of the week? How do you measure that all the tickets are closed out? How do you incentivize the team to close out all the tickets, etc. And I would get feedback right.

Speaker 2: 12:43

And then eventually I started to understand. I would even ask our competitors and just like kind of just understand how they did it, and you know, two out of three people wouldn't tell me, but one person would, and that was super helpful, and so for me, the approach was number one. My North Star is ensuring that these customers get the best service possible, and we do it in a way that doesn't completely blow up our team or myself, and so I have to accept that maybe I don't have all the answers, but the world might have pieces of it, and so I would seek out those pieces and then put them together in a format that worked for us right. So I would start with that goal in mind of hey, I want to make sure that people are going to get the best service possible. I identified the things that were roadblocks for us. Then I actively sought out other opportunities or solutions to provide that, and was open to things not working the way that I thought they should or that they've historically worked. Now, what did that give us. That gave us the opportunity to rethink how things were done right.

Speaker 2: 13:48

And it's really easy for someone like me when I step into an organization, because I don't have as much of the legacy of oh, we've always done this or that sunk cost mentality, like I invested in this thing and we got to figure out a way to use it, or else because I spent all this money. I don't have that. What I do have is, hey, we just paid a whole bunch of money for this business, so we probably need to make this work. There's some incentive there.

Speaker 2: 14:13

But, that being said, what I have found to be the most effective motion is a very disconnected, dispassionate look at the business and constantly asking myself.

Speaker 2: 14:26

Dispassionate look at the business and constantly asking myself if I'm honest with myself, is this actually the best way to deliver this part of the business or service?

Speaker 2: 14:32

And then, secondly, am I the best person to do this thing, or who is the best person to do this thing? And that's another trap that entrepreneurs I will include myself get stuck in. I'm very good with a lot of things, and so when you're an entrepreneur and you've been doing your own business for a while, you could be good with a lot of parts of the business, but again thinking about like is this the best way to do the thing and am I the best person to do this thing? In a lot of cases, you probably aren't the best person to put together the marketing collateral you could, but should you Probably not and so, like little things like that start to add up and that's how you end up in a system and a situation where you're like I'm doing everything and putting out every fire without actually like giving yourself the space to work on the business, because you haven't like stepped back to ask these questions dispassionately.

Speaker 1: 15:27

So when someone's looking to sell their business and they've been that person that's working all facets of the business, let's say, because this is most businesses, older businesses today that come to us, they're 55, 60 years old. They've ran the business for 20, 30 years. Their kids don't want it because they don't want to do that to their kids how they worked, you know, and how they miss their parents. So they're trying to figure out okay, I want to sell my business, you're talking about it, you go in there, you try to increase sales, that reputation, that retainment of customers and new customers what, what should someone focus on at first? Is it about the systems and processes, like you mentioned? Is it about the sales? How can someone spend time on their business and actually create more worth a couple of years down the road?

Speaker 2: 16:18

It's a great question, michael. So when I'm looking at a business, the things that make it easier for me to assess value and ultimately I will be willing to pay a premium for are a few things. Thing one is strong team, perfect world. The owner and president, ceo, whoever they're selling the business, they're going to move on Totally fine. But if everything goes with that person right, if the intellectual property of the business is really that person, then there's no transferable assets in the business. Like I can't make that person live forever. So having a team that maybe isn't up to the ownership task but is dependable, is clear on their roles, is able to execute, has some of that continuity of knowledge, that's hugely valuable right. And even like this is maybe getting a step ahead. But like even being willing to bring one or two of them into the sales process to represent that back to the sellers or the buyers excuse me is hugely, hugely valuable right. So upgrade your team, make those investments.

Speaker 2: 17:28

Second I would say is having clear processes In a perfect world. If a new person were to step in tomorrow, they would be able to understand. Here's kind of like how the week shapes out. You know we have all hands meetings. On Mondays, I have meetings with my directors and whoever are managers on Tuesdays, I meet with clients. On Wednesdays, etc. Etc. Etc. We make sure the product goes from here to there in these formats. These people are responsible for them, etc. And the more you can document that stuff, the more valuable the company becomes. And there are really cool ways to do this. Like I've been, like we did a bunch of this stuff with my last company, and I've also now learned that there has been even more advancements with AI. So, as examples, what I would do when we'd hire like a new accountant, for example, I would have them like learn their job and then, as kind of like the final test for them, I would have them document their workflows in a slide, work to at like in 30 or 60 days, and then now we have a document of the processes. They have learned their job well enough to be able to teach it, which is hugely important. And in a perfect world, they might be like you know what. This is how we do it today, but you know, if we tweak these three things, we could actually do it better. So now you've had the opportunity to improve the way that you do things, so it's win-win right. So giving me the processes and being able to see clearly that this is a, this is a ship of systems and not just, like you, kind of like moving shells around, like trying to make sure everything's going the way it's supposed to, based on your intuition, makes the business more valuable.

Speaker 2: 19:05

And then last piece I would say is keeping clean books, like I mean, frankly, as an owner, you should keep the book super clean anyway, not, I'm not. Listen, to be clear. I'm not saying don't run your personal car or your country club fees through the business. Listen, businesses are great for tax management. Do that if you wholly own the business and don't have external accountability. But what I would like to see is hey, it's July 1st. Is, hey, it's July 1st If you told me hey, I have trailing 12 months up to May and I'll get June in two weeks. Great, if the categories make some intuitive sense so I can understand how the financials flow and when you made hires and when you made investments in different pieces of equipment or whatever. Great. And you should want that too, because you're operating the business. So if you're making decisions on a new hire or a new sales product or whatever, you want to see the results in your financials pretty quickly. So those three things, right, like having a strong team, documenting your processes and keeping a clean set of books, will increase the value in our conversations. And you know what, michael? That also makes your life easier as an operator, right, like if you're an entrepreneur and you have those three things, you could arguably have the business forever, or at least like work on it for another 10 years, because the things that you need to be in place are there to take some of the burden off and for things to move more efficiently. Without you there and I'll close at this point If you think that your business can't run without you for two weeks, then I would challenge you to skip.

Speaker 2: 20:47

Like this is Q3 now, sometime in Q3 or Q4, schedule a two week vacation for yourself. Number one y'all deserve it. Let's just be real. Number two, it's a forcing function for you to get some of these pieces in place so that you can be gone for two weeks, because if you can do that, then again someone like me will come in and be like oh, this can run on its own. He just took a two-week vacation to Mali or whatever and had a good time. All right. I think there's something here Versus. He took a two-week vacation and every single decision that needed to be made, they were trying to text him or call him and he couldn't figure it out, and so the business kind of fell off. One of those two scenarios is better, and it's way better than the other, because you get a vacation and your business becomes more valuable.

Speaker 1: 21:39

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Speaker 1: 22:21

Let's get back to our guest now. What would you say is the average? And I know it's dependent on how involved the business owner is. But let's say you do buy a business or a business owner wants to sell. What would you say is the average to turn the ship around to where it creates more value? In other words, is that a year, three years? And I know it really depends on kind of where the business is at. But what have you found to be kind of a good measuring stick?

Speaker 2: 22:48

Yeah, that's a good question. I would say give it at least a year. I've seen people do it quickly, but a year is really important because it gives you time to season it and show it in the financials and, in addition to that, it gives you time to make sure that people are right. These businesses, like all businesses people stuff right. Like we're having a conversation between two people. People are running these companies and asking other people to do their functions. So if you bring in like a new head of quality control for your cabinet production, you need to give that person some time and really see are they good? Are they doing what they say they do consistently? Are they getting along with everybody? If I take a two-week vacation, do they treat it like the cats the cats away kind of situation or do they treat it like it's a time for them to step up and and, just like any relationship, right, that takes time. So I would say give it at least a year on the on that side.

Speaker 2: 23:43

Similarly, if you have a couple of new ideas, like with the last company we had, we launched a new service line that was a lower cost service offering for hoas to kind of like do most of the work that they wanted to offload but pay less. And for us, the way we staffed it made it hugely profitable for us. But to get credit for it we needed like at least nine months of revenue. And you know, ultimately we had like a little over a year. But people could see it and then be like, oh, this is real. Now I will give you credit for this thing, whether it's a cost saving initiative or whether it's a new revenue line or whatever.

Speaker 2: 24:21

If you have at least a year of track record in your P&L, then someone like me will come in and say, all right, yeah, this seems like a real thing. Maybe we put a little gas on that and light the fire hotter. So I think that that's like a good rule of thumb. Two years if you have someone like michael to, and they're like seriously committed to the process. I'm talking like set yourself goals, set yourself objectives, hold yourself accountable, be willing to have your ego hurt and your feelings bruised. Flip that ego bruised and feelings hurt. Yeah, then, like you could, you could make a ton of progress in a year, and in two years, you know, the thing could be a totally different business. So I would just highly encourage you giving yourselves the right amount of time and investing in support.

Speaker 1: 25:04

I know most older business owners, and I don't mean in age, but those that have owned a business longer. There's a lot of us out there I'm including myself to make them feel like we're grouped. But there's a lot of us out there I'm including myself to make them feel like we're grouped. But there's a lot of business owners out there that they're like I'm on board, let's do this, let's delegate, let's hand off, but they won't get out of the way. They are the problem. And whether they realize it, whether it's ego, whether it's control, whether it's being a narcissist, whatever it is, what would you say to these people? That your business isn't changing because of you? Is there a way that you address that with some of these business owners?

Speaker 2: 25:45

Because there's a lot out there like that? Yeah, you know there are a lot out there like that, for sure, and the flavors come in a bunch of different types, right? Like there's also some fear. Some people are fearful of what might happen and like losing everything, right. And so what I say to those people, first of all, like, just to be clear, like I tend to be very confrontational with them, I'm just like, hey, like what are we doing here, right, like you know. So I like what I buy companies, and then I sometimes consult with companies to turn their operations around. So somebody will hire me, pay me a reasonable retainer and then not listen to anything I say and I'll tell you I don't have time for it. So I'm just like, hey, look, man, like I could sit here and pick up checks from you, but I don't want to do that to you. That's not in alignment with my values. And so I just I have a direct conversation with them and I say, look, here are the three things I've suggested to you. You have done the opposite and this is the result. And so is this worth your time, and is this the vision you had for our relationship, to have these kind of outcomes?

Speaker 2: 26:46

I had this situation with a client last quarter where, in the first month of our relationship, they would ask for my opinion and I'd say, look, you got to let go of this person. They're not doing anything and they're costing a lot of money. This is happening. This is happening. Here are three other ways that you could apply resources to execute these same things at a lower value. And they were like, okay, cool, and then just didn't do anything about it and actually reinvested in those people and I was like, okay, so aside. And I said, look, man, like I don't have to keep taking your money, like I'm totally fine, like I'm partially here because I think this is fun, but this doesn't seem fun and I I enjoy getting from where we are to a new place. But in order to do that, we have to work together. So I'm going to ask you why do you feel like you made these decisions? And I'll really start unraveling the thread. And that's when we get to the underlying, like motivations of fear or like ego or whatever.

Speaker 2: 27:42

In this case, one person was really focused on, like they got sold on this big, scaling dream of like, oh, we can build this huge company and blah, blah, blah. And I was like dude, you can't go to the league straight out of the gate. You got to win your local local rec league, then win the YMCA, then you get to city, state, national, like yeah, it's a process, right. And so I would say that to people here where it's like, if you are willing to accept and submit to a process of improvement, then that requires you to accept that you need to listen to other people and like other people have to have influence over you, and if you're going to do the same things over and over again, then you're going to get the same result. And so what I do is just call them out on that. What I would ask them to do and anybody listening to this I would suggest is to truly write out, like why you can't let go of the reins and try it in different bets, right, like I like to think in bets. Like I make a bet here, I make a bet there.

Speaker 2: 28:40

Some people like to think about it as like prototyping or trials, but use that two week vacation as an option, right, book two weeks somewhere out of the time zone that you're at, maybe by several hours. So you know, if you're in California, where I am, go to Asia. You know, if you're in California, where I am, go to Asia. If you're in New York or on the East Coast, go to Hawaii. The time difference there will make it so that you cannot be as productive in the day-to-day with the business as possible. And I guarantee you one of two things will happen Either you will prepare the team to operate independently of you and things will work themselves out, and then you'll realize oh man, I can do this, maybe make a bigger change, or you're going to hate your trip so much because you are answering messages at like two in the morning and like just. You'll hopefully break yourself of that habit. But I'm telling you, man, that two week prescription, nine times out of 10, dislodges people from their own nonsense.

Speaker 1: 29:46

So the name of the show is Small Business Pivots. What does a pivot look like to you? When should someone consider it? Some people call them iterations. Someone considerate? Some people call them iterations. But what is a pivot in businesses? Because I know, with you buying and selling and growing and scaling and all that stuff, I'm sure you've had to pivot from time to time. What, what does that look like?

Speaker 2: 30:06

So I will be the first to tell you that I am wrong a lot. Uh, there's research out there that shows that two thirds of every decision made is wrong. So so, anybody who thinks that they get it right all the time, you're lying. So so, that being said, you know, first, I think what I, when I think of pivots, I think about them as like, uh, almost in that framework that I articulated earlier, which is we have a situation we decided to do X because of these three reasons. What happened? Did it go the way we wanted to, or not? Then what? Right? So it's kind of a sequential set of decision making and, just to be transparent, what I do is I sit down every Friday with a few blank sheets of paper and I reflect on the week and the month in this framework. So I'll sit down and say hey, you know, we thought that we should invest in an offshore team for customer service, because our clients are saying that they're not getting as much responsiveness as they'd like, they're not hearing back from their team and it's frustrating them. So if we invest and try out some offshore people, then we should see response times go down, we should see customer happiness go up and, you know, in a perfect world maybe costs come down a little bit Cool. So we did that. How did that go this week? Oh, it seems like it's going well. Maybe we should do more.

Speaker 2: 31:29

Or, as it was in my case, one real situation that happened was we invested in these people, but some of our clients are feeling like some kind of confusion because the person they're talking to sounds like they're out of the country instead of a domestic person, and you know, in customer service, that matters so cool. I got 60% of the decision right. People were happy with response times, but there was something in the interaction that wasn't making them feel much happier. Let's make a pivot. So we then swapped out some of the people for people in the US Maybe they just weren't based in California and so then again, I reviewed, we made the decision to swap people out. Is this improving service times? Is this improving customer satisfaction? Now the answers are yes and yes, great, do more of it.

Speaker 2: 32:18

And so a pivot doesn't always have to be like a massive, huge turn right. It doesn't need to be like we've built this whole service line servicing consumers only Now, all of a sudden, we need to go to B2B, right, but if you think about and look at all the parts of your business and the major decisions in small increments, then you can start to pivot slowly, based on whether or not those little increments were working out in ways that you thought that you intended for them to work out, because you know what? In a lot of cases they won't. But if you catch it early enough, right, then you can tweak it and redirect it so that you're on course, and so that's how I think about a pivot man.

Speaker 2: 32:56

Pivots are hard, though. Like you know, I'm 40. I spent probably the first 20 years of my career learning to just accept that I'm not right about everything. So I'm definitely not one to be on here and be like well, I know everything and I have all the answers. It's come at a high cost. I have scars on my arms and back from getting it wrong. So a high cost, I have scars on my arms and back from getting it wrong. So I'm just here telling you things that I've learned from my own lived experience, so hopefully you don't make the same mistakes.

Speaker 1: 33:24

Yeah, no that's, that's, uh, amen, brother, that's that's where I come from. I'm like my education as a business coach is more about what not to do than what to do right is more about what not to do than what to do right, because those things will bite you big time.

Speaker 1: 33:43

So what is a mindset or business book that you've come across that changed the trajectory in your career? I know for a lot of business owners we have mindset challenges that hold us back. Maybe we don't feel we're good enough, or whatever it is. What's something that you've learned, a tool, a resource that has helped you overcome some of that from your past?

Speaker 2: 34:03

Okay, so this is a great question. I have two books for the readers. Book number one is the book Relentless by Tim Grover. It's Relentless by Tim Grover. Tim Grover was the personal trainer for Michael Jordan, for Dwayne Wade, for a bunch of other professional athletes. I'm a huge basketball fan, so I'm just like fanboy all the stuff around it, and so that book was really helpful in helping me set a new standard for myself of what is required to be successful. Right, you know he works with like the top 1% of the top 1% and so these guys are crazy, like just to be real and like they talk about it in the book, guys are maniacs. So you know whether or not you want to be a complete maniac, that's that's for you to decide. But like you can see that there's a gap between where you are and where they are in terms of, like, world championship. You know elite, best of the best of the best, and there's opportunity room for you to grow right. Plus, it's a great motivational book. Like, get it on audio book, listen to it when you're commuting in. You're going to show up every day revved up and ready to go. So that's book one. Book two is the book. 10x is easier than 2x by Dan Sullivan.

Speaker 2: 35:24

This is a very recent read. This is a first half of 2024 read for me, and what that's been doing for me, I suspect, will be really helpful for your clients and listeners as well. What it's challenged me to do is to think about if the things that I'm focusing my time on will help me get to a goal so big that it's intimidating, right and that's intuitive. You're like oh yeah, you know like set a big goal and like you know it should be. You know you should focus. But the exercises in this book and the language really helped me see that if I were to set a bigger goal than what I'm setting right now, everything becomes into focus.

Speaker 2: 36:01

And I've experienced this because I did this a month ago, where I sat down and I looked at my personal net worth goals, my income goals, and I added a zero to them and I was like, oh man, my eyes went huge, I freaked out and I was just like, okay, I cannot be wasting time anymore, I cannot be just lollygagging on some of went huge, I freaked out and I was just like, okay, I cannot be wasting time anymore, I cannot be, you know, just lollygagging on some of this stuff. I have to delegate these things, I have to spend more of my time doing this thing, which is the most valuable thing that I do, et cetera, and so that was really helpful in just confronting my own biases about what I think I should be doing or what I'm good at in order to achieve this big goal. And so you know for folks out here, if you want to build a lasting legacy, like that, exercise is really really, really helpful. So those would be the two books I would recommend is Relentless and 10x is easier than 2x.

Speaker 1: 36:50

Fantastic. We'll have those in the show notes and the link for easy access for people. So if people wanted to get a hold of you, what's the best way? Where can they find you?

Speaker 2: 37:00

Sure, I'm most communicative on LinkedIn, so just confine me. It's Brian Lee Shields. Brian with an I and yeah, I'm always happy to chat. I'll send out my Calendly link to set up times for people to talk. If you want to chat about how to value your business, if you want to chat about whether or not you should think about selling it versus keeping it, or if you just want to think about a way to get unstuck, like I'm happy to just come in and be like.

Speaker 2: 37:24

Here are the 10 questions I ask business owners and hopefully it helps. You see that you know there's a lot of things you can do to write your own ship. What value do you bring to the table that people would reach out to you for? So, um, I've, so, broadly speaking, I've operated in or invested in or owned companies in 15 different industries, so I've been able to see best practices across a bunch of different permutations, and I will tell you that the way your sales team is set up is not novel. There's probably a better way to do it from some other industry, and that's okay. There's opportunity. So that's one.

Speaker 2: 38:01

And then, second, I grow companies really quickly. In the last two companies that I had, one I grew from half a million dollars to 10 in a couple of years, mostly through acquisitions and also through fixing the sales process and the pricing model that that business had and you can see that my training in private equity really translated to that. And then the second one, which is the property management business. We grew that by 40% on the top line through acquisitions and adding a new service line and so I really intuit the customer dynamics and customer behaviors very quickly in industries and can work backwards from that into how a business should be set up to better solve that and to take advantage of the market opportunity.

Speaker 1: 38:44

That's fantastic. If you were in front of an audience of small business owners, what is one thing you could tell them that would be applicable no matter what industry, what season of business that they're in?

Speaker 2: 38:57

I'm going to this is yeah.

Speaker 1: 38:59

Is it one thing?

Speaker 2: 39:01

No, no, no, no no.

Speaker 2: 39:01

Like I actually, it was actually going to be something akin to that, to be honest with you, michael. So so I experienced pretty severe burnout after this last company and turning it around and and so like when I say that I got the scars from mistakes made, I'm speaking from experience Like I took on too much work, I cleared the path for my team so they could have everything that they needed to be successful, and I did not give to myself and that burned me out. Now I was very lucky in that that happened after we had a successful exit, and so my, my, my family was in a situation where I could take some time off. But you know, maybe people don't need to do that, don't want to do that or can't do that, and so I would tell you now take the time for you to rest, to step back, to reframe your perspective and to reconnect with what drives you right.

Speaker 2: 39:54

That could be taking a 30-minute walk every day. That could be going on a camping trip by yourself. That could be taking a shower in the dark. All of these things could sound touchy-feely and weird, and they are, but that's not a bad thing, because if it helps you get back to 100% and makes you a better owner operator of your business and a better steward of all the employees livelihoods and paychecks and your clients needs, then it's worth it and I'll leave you with this. So I said I was a basketball fan. Lebron James is going to be 40 this year, right, still playing top 10, 15 level in an NBA, which is a young man's game.

Speaker 2: 40:34

Like the last time I tried to play basketball, I was sore, I kid you not for a week, like it was terrible, and the number one reason that his trainer attributes to his ability to continue to operate at that level is they are maniacal about rest. He takes micro naps, he stretches as soon as he gets off the floor ice bath as soon as he gets off the floor ice bath. As soon as he gets, gets off the floor, he has like the hyperbaric chamber, cryo chamber at home uh, blackout curtains, eye mask, the whole nine. I'm talking like he takes it to another level in terms of rest and that taught me how valuable rest is to our performance. You know, and if that's for his physical muscles, you know how much more exhausted are our mental muscles and that's what we use day to day. So rest them, take your time.

Speaker 1: 41:18

You've been incredible today. You've been a blessing to so many people and I'm sure so many people are going to thrive from implementing this information, so I appreciate you taking the time to be on here. Please go follow Brian, reach out to him. I'm sure you're open to just a conversation on Calendly, even if it's not even business relationship related, as most of us are. We're here to help and impact others. So thank you again. I wish you more success in the future.

Speaker 2: 41:46

It's been a blessing to be a blessing. Thank you, Michael.

Speaker 1: 41:49

Thank you for listening to Small Business Pivots. Please don't forget to subscribe and share this podcast. If your business is stuck, you need help creating a business that can run without you, or you need a fast business loan or line of credit. Go to our website businessownershipsimplifiedcom and schedule a free consultation to learn why small business success starts with boss. If you want to talk anything small business related, email me at Michael at Michael D Morrison dot com. We'll see you next time on Small Business Pivots.