You're Fixing the Wrong Thing: Why Your Business Isn't Growing

Seven pillars, 10 words each, go. Cash. Cash is oxygen. Pay yourself first. Business operating system. The operating rhythm, scorecard, rocks, weekly meetings. Operations. Fix the machine before you add fuel. Financial intelligence. Close clean, forecast forward, 13 weeks of visibility. Tax planning. It's about the calendar, not the calculator. Marketing and sales. Know your CAC, right? And your lifetime value. Never scale past your capacity. Exit planning. Build a business that runs without you. The key here is those seven items need to be connected. That's where the beauty is. If they all working independently, you've got chaos. But when they're starting to understand how they're all connected one with the other, operations affecting marketing that affects that affects financial intelligence that affects exit planning, that's where it is. There's 27 lines between them. One always is pulling on something else. The key point there, and to reiterate it, it's not the circles, it's a line in between them that really allows the connectivity, the connected tissue of an

organization to really operate at maximum capacity. That's it, Jon. Great. I'll just have to repeat what you say. You're, you sound really intelligent right now. I try my best. That's my job, just to make you look intelligent and parroted. That's right. Okay, fun fact time. All right, fun fact. Spider silk, weight for weight, is stronger than steel and tougher than Kevlar. The web looks fragile, but the whole thing holds because of the connections, not any single strand.

Does that sound familiar? Your business is the same. The strength was never in one pillar. It's in the entire web. Deep and relevant. So why don't we try here? Yeah. We're achieving it today. Quick break, brought to you today by Joe Cutter's Turf and Snow out of Pittsford, New York, serving all around Rochester and Monroe County. And this one ties right into the episode, which I appreciate, because most people think a bad lawn is a grass problem.

And it is almost always a soil problem. That's the whole thing. Joe does the unglamorous stuff under the surface: aeration, soil grading, conditioning, the root work that actually fixes it. Instead of spraying it green for a week and calling it salt, which is the loudest problem lie in lawn floor? Exactly the episode. 21 years in, only outfit in the county running Ventrac compact tractors, cleaner, more effective lawn care, mosquito and tick landscaping, and when the Rochester winter shows up, snow removal and ice control.

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They are the best in the business, Ventrac. Got up to pandanation. Joe will know what that means, calling card. Nice. He's the only one. Yes. No, he's got a whole nation out there. He's got some followers there. He's, his social media is stacked full of tips and tricks, life hacks and such like. Interesting dude. Nice. Okay, so we touched on one thread, or we say we're touching on one thread, the whole thread moves.

Give me the classic misdiagnoses, the symptom people face versus what actually is pulling at the thread. So typical cash problem, but it's actually an operations problem because the money is okay on paper, but it's trapped in rework, slow delivery, and WIP. There's a marketing problem, but it's really a capacity problem because marketing is promising two weeks, and operations is delivering in six. Tax problem in April, but it's really a cash planning problem in March.

The CPA did their job, but you didn't fund the jar to pay it. A growth problem, that's a forecast problem. The CFO forecasts growth. The bank account disagrees, because hoping is not a plan. The diagnostic question that we have to give you is, when this problem shows up, what had to be true one step upstream? Keep asking until you hit something you can actually fix. And that's how you get there.

Okay. So I mean, can't some of these really be the problem they look like? Not everything is secret. It's not hidden. No, sometimes the problem is just the problem. It is what it is. Marketing's not delivering on ROI. Right? There you go. Very, very simple. Rare, but possible. Okay, we'll put it the other way. Sales isn't converting, right, on these magical, wonderful, qualified leads that marketing is providing.

Right? That's often the problem. So that, you know, that's the problem. And the answer isn't pouring more cash into it. It's actually fixing that marketing problem. Right? But in the example we gave, if you can't deliver what you're saying, right, and if we're promising two weeks in here, six weeks out, that's an issue. The other issue is, well, maybe it's an operations problem, why aren't we delivering in six weeks?

That's an efficiency problem, that's a scheduling problem, that's whatever that is, rework problem, right? If we can't get it out the door right the first time, we have to bring it back in and do the work all over again. That costs us time and money, right? I think one of the key things, and obviously just to tap back into the lines, not the circles, you know, all of these problems and all of these issues can exist.

And if you're in a silo and there's no communication going on in the organization, then it's really difficult to uncover that, right? If people aren't communicating, then to be able to air all these problems out, get them on the table, talk through them as a team and fix them is nigh on impossible. The seven pillar system, and the operating system that we talk about, is kind of a key component of that.

Right? What's most important about that cadence and that sort of cycle of communication that's necessary to uncover some of this stuff? Well, you need to get everybody in the same room hearing the same things. All your decision makers, department heads, people who need to lead your company, right, towards that exit plan that you can go away for three weeks. Well, they need practice now and they need to talk about it together and make the decisions together.

So if I'm the finance person, and I'm really good at collecting money, right, and that's all I'm focused on, is making sure that my AR over 30 days is less than 20%, and I'm doing that, but I'm finding out that there's no sales in the funnel, right, there's no cash in the bank, there's no operations that's 12 weeks out and we're missing those targets, if I'm only focused on collections, I've missed everything else.

It doesn't matter about anything. Right. Right. Yeah, it's so difficult. It's so easy to get sucked into your own silo, right? Like if you, back to the example, sales and marketing selling something with a two week turnaround, what you're going to get is a bunch of phone calls coming in from customers that you just sold and you're solving problems. You're starting to tap dance. You're having those conversations with those customers.

You're not knocking on operations doors and say, saying, hey, what's going on with our process here and trying to fix their problem. So if you don't have those regular communication sessions and everybody in the same room, it's difficult to air it all out. I think that's one of the most important things about that leadership meeting cadence that we push so hard that we talk an awful lot about, because those weekly meetings that are very well structured and get all issues on the table for people to discuss is super important.

You got it. Yes, indeed. Alrighty, time for the marketing tip of the week. This week, it is about reviews and Google Maps, and specifically Google Reviews. So here's the tip. Reviews, and especially Google Reviews, are not about vanity. They're a conversion and ranking asset. Google Maps and your business profile will rank depending on the number and the quality of reviews you receive. So pay close attention to those reviews, reply to them, call the people that give you poor reviews and try and resolve the problem. Get those reviews removed because they bring your score down and you want a large number of high-scoring reviews.

You then rank higher in maps. That gets you more telephone calls, and obviously it's a self-fulfilling prophecy of success for your marketing channel. Also be cautious as you build these reviews, build them steadily and use the technology available to help you. A steady drip of fresh reviews beats a pile of old five-star reviews from three or four years ago, and for local businesses this stuff is critical. The Map Pack is the phone. It's how you get customers. If you're not there, you're paying more for leads than you should be, which is kind of exactly what we're talking about in our episode this week. So the single step this week: text or email your last five happy customers and give them your direct Google review link. It's in your My Business profile settings. And reply to each review that you already have, good and bad. Do this as soon as they come in.

That's the whole week one move. Alright, back to it. Okay, so even if you find a real problem, it can still be the wrong thing to work on right now. Walk us through the stages and one priority each and the classic mistake at each of the different stages. Yeah, so we talked about the stages last week to find those. You know, treadmill is you need to prioritize cash and a basic rhythm.

Right, the mistake that a lot of treadmill operators make is that they're trying to build a fancy funnel or an exit deck while the accounts are bleeding money, right? So you can't exit plan your way out of an overdraft in your bank account. So focus on cash and getting a rhythm. The pathfinder, right, is your priority should be systems and clean books, right? And try to get the owner out of every decision. Now we're starting to build up a team, right? Generally, mistake is that, you know, we're chasing revenue, but the machine can't hold the weight of it right now. Trailblazers, focus on forecasts, govern for growth, tax planning, and match your marketing to capacity. The general mistake is that they're trying to really establish a treadmill error habit instead of a rolling forecast, going by gut instead of really looking at data. Peak performer is, you need to get all seven of the pillars that

we talked about synchronized and start getting to real exit readiness. Generally speaking, the mistake is that we're trying to make sure that we're optimizing marketing, right? For another 3% return on investment, while really everything's still dependent on the owner. And then the legacy builder, right? Is you need to harvest the value on your terms. Risk mitigation, making sure you have the team in place, you're solid.

Generally speaking, the mistake is that exit is an event, instead of a state of mind that you've been building for years. Pick the right pillar, but at the wrong stage, and it's still the wrong thing. So you've got to make sure that you focus on those things. Got it. I'm just going to land that the right pillar at the wrong stage is still the wrong thing. Yes, it is.

All right. All right. Advice. Alright, time for a word from our sponsor. One more from Joe Cutter's Turf and Snow. And this one's for the Rochester listeners because people have a specific kind of denial about winter. The denial is real. Every October a Rochester homeowner looks at the sky and thinks, maybe this year. It's not going to be this year. It has never been this year. Rochester winter is not a maybe, it's a scheduled appointment you keep forgetting you made.

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You said that was your one last segment. I contained multiple ones. Call Joe. 585-248-8873, cutterturf.com, before the bathrobe. Before the bathrobe. Great tagline. Don't put that on the truck. Put the number on the truck. 585-248-8873. How the hell did I get stuck with the number this time? Finally got a number in there. I screwed it. I put it in. I edited it. It gave you a damn number.

Pandanation. Pandanation. 5-8-5-2-4-8-TERF. Okay Ryan, so this is the part people have been waiting for. How do they figure out their real weakest link instead of the loudest one? I think you got to take 60 seconds to self-diagnose, right? Score each of the seven pillars one to ten. Don't generously round. If you haven't fully implemented it, you don't get the points, and it totals up to 70, right? So you score them out, and if you're 35 or below you're probably in the treadmill or early Pathfinder. If you're 36 to 49, Pathfinder or Trailblazer. 50 to 59, Trailblazer a peak. And 60 plus, you're in that peak or legacy builder. You know, most important thing is circle your two lowest scores.

That's your starting line. Cross check against your stage. If your lowest pillar is also a stage priority, that's where you go. If a stage priority pillar scores a 1 to 3, stop the bleeding there first. The 1, 3, 5, 7 rhythm: one pillar deep at a time, three months to make it automatic, five quarter rocks to lock it in, and then seven pillars integrated over two to three years, right? And that's where it's going to get you. Gotcha. Alrighty. So just a word of advice with scoring, like how does somebody score themselves honestly? And won't they just generally rate themselves a bit more generously? Yeah, absolutely. That's usually human nature, right? If we can't be self-critical. So then pass it on to your leadership team. Rank these. What's this for? Don't worry about it. Just go ahead and rank it. I don't even know what this is. Okay, well, that's a one.

And then you move on there and you see what the folks think. Yeah, love it. Love that collaborative discussion on it. And then you've got a scorecard there to be able to gauge your actions. Okay, so as per all episodes, owners on the commute right now listening to this podcast. What one thing do they do this week? I think tonight, not Monday, score the seven pillars, one to ten. Circle your two lowest, then do the honest cross check. Which of those two is a priority for the stage you're actually in? That's the one. Put it on next week's scorecard with an owner and a date. Get the accountability going. One pillar, 90 days, and just keep it strictly tactical and that's going to take you to the next level. Got it. Awesome. Great episode. Give us a take away here, Ryan. Here's the thing to keep. The loudest problem in your business is almost never the right one. Your company is not a to-do list, it's a web. Every

pillar is pulling on the others, so the fix that matters is really the fix that's screaming. Find the load-bearing thread, match it to the stage you're actually in, not the one on your business card, the one that states reality. Pull that thread and the whole web tightens. Chase the noise and you'll spend another year fixing the wrong thing while the right thing quietly costs you the business. Excellent. Good stuff. A lot of really good guidance there for our listener base. Again, the screaming problem is not necessarily the right one to go and fix. There's a model here, you've got to follow the model, and everything will work itself out.

It certainly will. Just go to the source. That's it. Excellent. Okay, over and out. Anything else for this episode? I think we can sign off now. No. Hasta luego. See you in the next episode. Ciao ciao. That's it for this episode of From Burnt Out to Bought Out. If something we said today hit home, don't just nod an agreement, pick one thing. The number you've been avoiding, the process that only lives in your head, the conversation you've been putting off for six months.

Do that one thing this week. That's how it starts. And if you're not sure which one thing to pick, drop us a line. We'll happily point you in the right direction. New episodes drop every week. Until next time, stop burning the treadmill, start building something you can actually sell.