Being Irreplaceable Is a Countdown: Key Person Risk with David Todd

and he's taken a lot over from me. I've got a sales and marketing manager, and he's taken a lot over from me. So we're getting to the point where I'm not the only one that can run the business. And in fact, I celebrated my 30th wedding anniversary, and I went off the grid for almost two and a half weeks, and everything was fine. And that was a big step for the business, right?

being able to go away and the decisions get made without you. That's a milestone right there. I mean, it's probably one you couldn't have missed, right? You missed your wedding anniversary and there's a whole world of trouble waiting for you. And as most entrepreneurs know, their wives go through it with them so you better take good care of them. That is right. Happy wife, happy life. I think, Ryan, we're trying to do that, right?

Yeah, my wife's miserable. I'm not sure it's because of your job though. That's true. That's me. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, I think... So it sounds like hiring really good people, setting up a strong leadership team, some of those things we've talked about in previous episodes was kind of core and key for being able to get yourself out of the process and enable people.

We talk, and going back to those episodes, we talk a lot about that kind of mental, almost addiction to being right at the center of things. How did that work for you? Were you able to kind of set that aside and delegate? You know, I mean, it was hard in the beginning because I was the best salesman that we had and I was probably close to the best installer we had.

And so, you know, it was hard to give up those jobs. But that was early on, like, you know, I stopped doing sales, I definitely had to stop doing installations early on. That was, you know, no way to build a business, right? You know, you get to a point where you have to go, yeah, that's not going to be done exactly the way I want it to be done, but it's going to get done and it's going to get done right.

And a lot of that comes from your core values, right? Just making sure that you hammer home your core values with your leadership team and with your people, even beyond your leadership team, you want your people out in the field. Most of our stuff is field work, so we're not sitting on their shoulder being able to tell them what to do. So it took a lot for me to give up that control of knowing, hey, if I go to this sale, I'm gonna make this sale.

I know I can make this sale, and to watch people lose some sales and not do as well as I would have imagined that they could do. But if you have good core values, they're still trying to do the same things, make the same decisions that you would, and do it the same way that you would. If you can get to that point, then if they're not quite as good as you, you just kinda have to sit back and let them get better.

You know, unless you wanna keep doing everything and stay on the treadmill, which I did not. Right. Yeah, it's that conscious decision, right? Stop being the firefighter, stop being the center of all things. Yeah, and excellent. It sounds like you worked through that really well. Ryan, what's our process? We've got some step process with training people, right? You teach them how to do it, monitor them. For those that are in David's or were in, are in David's position back then, how do we kind of coach them through that process to give up that trust and get them on track for being able to devolve responsibility.

Well, I think, you know, I can talk about systems and standardization and SOPs and all that kind of stuff, right, and those are things that are very important to build, but really, David hit the nail on the head is if you have people that share your core values, right, that's how you create and maintain your culture. You can train them to be a ramp installation person. You can train them to be a sales and marketing person.

And yes, they are going to stumble and bumble their way over there through that thing. But they're representing you. They are representing your company with really how it should be done. This is the EZ Mobility Solutions way. And so those people are doing that. And so as people step off the treadmill, they need to be teaching, they need to be mentoring, they need to do that because even as an owner David, you started 20-some-odd years ago, how many mistakes did you make? Yeah, just a couple. No, I mean, you know, that was one of the things that we talked about. It was like you know some of my leadership is younger and people are like well they're young. I'm like yes they are and they're gonna make mistakes and guess what I did 25 years ago? I was them. I was making those same mistakes, I was doing those same stupid things. And, you know, our kids don't

learn by us, you know, they learn by putting their hand near the hot stove that they shouldn't put their hair near the hot stove. And sometimes we have to let our team kind of learn that too. They need to make those mistakes and they need to pay for those mistakes because they won't make those mistakes again. I mean, that's how I learned. And, you know, certainly you want to present guardrails and stuff to try and make sure they don't make those big mistakes, you know, but in the end, they're going to not do it exactly the way you want it done sometimes.

And that's when you got to come back and coaching is a lot of what we do now, right? Hey, okay, you did it that way. Can you tell me why you did it that way? Well, here's how I might have done it, right? And here's the things that went through my mind when we're talking about how I would have done it. Just kind of guiding them down the path so that, you know, they have — what would Jesus do?

You know, for me it's what would I do? What would David do, right? How would he answer that question? What would David do? And I think when you made it as an entrepreneur is when everybody knows what would you do in a situation? How would you handle it? What would the answer be? And if you can get your people to that point, man, you have killed it, in my opinion.

And absolutely, I think it's important for everyone to know that this did not happen overnight. No, still happening. Right, and how long have you been in that process of actually, I mean, you're building up a leadership team, you're building up empowered employees, how long has that been happening? I probably — seven, eight, maybe even 10 years. I mean, we've had stops and starts where we've had to get people in place and oh, this leader and the right leader, they're not gonna follow our core values.

We got to move that one out, get this one in. So it's just kind of an ongoing process, right? You're always kind of looking for that next leader that shares your core values, that has a good idea of how you want things done, and it's teachable and coachable. And when you get those, those are the people that you've got to clamp onto and hold onto. Absolutely. And you were able to take a two and a half week vacation.

That's right, that was two years ago. So, I mean, I haven't planned anything for my — maybe 35 will do something a little bit longer, but yeah, I mean, I've been able to take some longer vacations early on. I mean, most of the people know that if you're on a treadmill, even if you do get a week off, you're still answering emails, paying bills, you're still doing stuff, probably doing payroll, right?

I can remember going on vacation and before the internet was really prevalent, trying to do payroll and make sure that everything was done while I was on vacation. So when you can get to truly get away and unplug, that's a big deal. Absolutely. Awesome, awesome. All steps in the process, but yeah, kudos. We're going to jump over to Ryan's fun fact and our ad, but when we come back, what we'll do is, I think, talk a little bit about the leadership team that you built and how you built it.

I'm also super interested in the inflection where you were going too fast and had to ramp back down again, because I think those are learning points. And we've been talking about those learning points. But why don't we kick over to Ryan's fun fact? Yeah, so fun fact, only a small fraction of founder-led businesses survive the founder's exit intact. And roughly a third make it to the second generation and far, far fewer make it to the third and beyond.

Wow. So most businesses can't outlive the person who actually built them. Right. The founder being irreplaceable, it isn't a trophy. It's just a countdown. Oof. And David, you're working on that already. Right. Yeah. But I do want a trophy. Yeah, you got a trophy wife so I can see one on the wall over there. There's something on the wall. Looks like a trophy. Alrighty, quick break and this one's a little funny because today's sponsor is EZ Mobility Solutions, David's company, the guy sitting right here. What proves the thesis of the episode because David didn't write this at all, his team handles it, that's the point. See, it's working already. EZ Mobility Solutions, Roanoke, Virginia, since 2008, helping people regain their freedom with mobility and access solutions at home and at work. Modular aluminum wheelchair ramps in any configuration. Straight, L-shaped, U-shaped, W-shaped with platforms and stairs, plus stair lifts, vertical platform lifts, accessible bathrooms, power chairs and

scooters. Wow Ryan that's awesome. Buy or rent, whether you need something permanent or just help through a recovery or rehab. David, you're here. Anything to add? Well, Ryan added that W shape because there's no W shape ramps. But that's okay. You know, this has actually been a pretty good read you guys. That's pretty good. Like, this is what you want. You want to be able to hand things off and it to go well. Maybe I need to be here for your reads from now on. You know what? I think there's a direct correlation there, David. Sounds like there's a commission coming.

Awesome. EZ Mobility Solutions. ezmobilitysolutions.com, Roanoke, Virginia. Awesome. Thanks there. Thanks David for helping out. We need help on those. That was... you guys did good talking to that one. That's the first. Except for W ramps. I was like, what's he talking about? It's a new product. What you talking about, Willis? Alright, let's keep rolling. We talk a lot about accountability. You want to ask this one, Ryan?

Sure, yeah. Alright, so David, we talked a lot about accountability on the show, roles, scorecards, you know, it's just not vibes, actual stuff that we can count on. How did you build the leadership team that can actually make decisions without you? Well early on most of my leadership team were the people that I counted on most and the people that I counted on most were my friends, you know. My best friend for 30 years is involved in our business and you know, that was who I counted on, and so that's who my leadership team was. Now the thing is that when you have a lot of friends or family that are involved in your business, they're not always the people that are gonna say no, that's a stupid idea to you. So I realized at one point that this probably wasn't the best structure to be able to grow this business.

And in fact, my best friend came to me and said, I don't think I need to be that director of ops. I don't think I can do what you want me to do. And you need somebody different. And so we went out and hired somebody that could actually tell me, hey, you're being stupid. And then I'm not quite sure what I was thinking about, but we decided that we needed a fractional CFO.

And so then Ryan joined the fray. And so now I've got two people that call me stupid occasionally. But building a leadership team that pushes back is important. So I have a human resources person. That person's been with me for 10 years. I have my director of ops. I have my service and election person. And that's Leon, my best friend. And then I have my sales and marketing guy, and that's my son-in-law, who is the future of the business.

That's who I would like to take over the business eventually. But one of the things that I said to him is, yeah, you're my son-in-law, but you better tell me when you think I'm wrong or you're not ever going to run this business. And so he does that, reluctantly sometimes a little bit. But he does that. Maybe makes for an interesting meal every now and then. But until I did that, I would have an idea and everybody would say, OK, great.

Let's go with it. And sometimes I don't have the best ideas. Sometimes I didn't think the things through. And so having people to hold on to me and say, hey, why don't we think this through? Here's something that we should consider is a good thing. And Jon, you mentioned we grew a little bit too quickly. And that's not because my management team didn't say, no, we shouldn't. They just believed, like I believe that we were in a position to grow. And, you know, the last two years have been a little more difficult than we like. Some of that is geopolitical, you know, tariffs have not been kind to our business, as far as everything's made out of aluminum. So that's made, you know, pricing different, but also, you know, we're not the cheapest on the market and so when people are worried about money and money's tight you know you're looking for the best solution that you can find that might be the

cheapest solution that you can find and so I don't think growing trying to grow was a bad idea I think we tried to do it too quick and we got hit by the wrong time you know it just became the wrong timing to try and do it so but definitely building a leadership team that has been able to sit down in our L10s and say, no, you're crazy, or I don't think that that's a good idea.

It's much nicer for me to kind of sit back and let them talk about things and figure out things without me having to say, well, this is the way we're going to do it. Awesome. Yeah, that happens in our leadership meetings an awful lot. You're crazy, Ryan. What the heck? But kudos to you, I think there's a ton of self-awareness in everything that you said so far, right?

What are my limitations? How do I grow? How do I scale? How do I build trust? What if I'm wrong? Right? And I think people have to, when you have to have the right answers all the time, it's important to be able to shift those gears into that self-awareness to be able to let people come in and build that trust. So that's awesome. Again, being surrounded by yes men is not the best way to build your business.

I think one of your core values as well is extreme ownership, right, and accountability for the team. I'm going to try and jive a couple things together here because you got into that situation where you tried to grow too fast. You've got a leadership team that you're building and you're building trust. You then have to fix that. How did the leadership team help with that and how did that sort of value of extreme ownership dovetail into all of that.

Because it's easy to step in when you've got a problem and start to pull it apart yourself and start to rewire things. But at that point, you're also building your leadership team and you have a bunch of people that can help. Yeah, so one way that extreme ownership showed up is we had a marketing firm that we had decided on. We were spending a ton and ton of marketing and we just weren't getting a good return.

I despise marketing. I despise looking at PPC and all that, impressions and all that stuff. I just hate it. Sorry. Hate it. Mark, our director of sales and marketing, took that on, worked with you guys, and worked to figure out are we with the right agency. We switched agencies. He made the decision to switch agencies. He made the decision where the marketing bucks were going to go this year and really take a hold of the marketing program. And then with the help of AI and Claude and our new ERP, he's gotten a dashboard that has really kind of distilled down to where our money's going, how it's being spent, got him listening to your podcast, you know, the one where it's, you know, how much, yeah, you're spending money here, but where, how much is that making kind of thing? And so he really got really in-depth into that and I didn't have to ask him to do that at all. That was, he just wanted

ownership, he had ownership of it, but you know, he wanted to take that over and make sure that we were spending our money right. So that was awesome. That's a pretty good example. I can give you one other one. The best example I can give you right now of extreme ownership is we have a local casino two hours away from us. And people need scooters at that casino.

And that casino kept recommending us to rent them the scooters, but it's two hours away. And so we were renting them the scooters, but we weren't making any money at it. Because you take one down, you pick one up, you take one down, you pick one up, four hours around, every time you're doing a scooter, it's hard to make any money at it. So, I had a middle manager, she took on the task of figuring out how can we make some money at this?

And she found a person down there that was retired that would be willing to deliver it for us. She set them up with the equipment, set up a new system where now when you show up at the casino and you say you need a scooter, they give you, they actually give you a poker chip that's got a QR code on it. You can scan the QR code and you can book your scooter right then and you can get it delivered that afternoon.

And she did all that. I did nothing with that. Now, that's kind of amazing. Like somebody went out and found another source of revenue for you that's gonna make you, I don't know, $52,000 this year or something. You know, I mean, it's a decent amount of money and I didn't have to do anything for it. I just had to say, oh, okay, let's do that. Yeah, that sounds great.

Let's do that. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So if you start off with, you know, either we have somebody generating $52,000 and you standing back, what would be this? Yes. I just had to basically sign off on the things that she wanted to do to create this other revenue stream. And, you know, I mean, that's extreme ownership when somebody works extra hard and extra hours to make sure that they figure out something that is really beneficial to the company.

company. I've not had that before, not in that way where we figured out an entire thing without me having to step in and do some steps of it. There are so many healthy indicators with what you just described and we work with a ton of businesses that are challenged. I've had about eight different thoughts there of how you've overcome these things. And I think, first of all, building a leadership team, we've talked about that, empowering a leadership team to be able to make decisions and feel like they can go out and solution these, find some additional revenue.

That in and of itself is a huge success because sometimes you set the leadership team up but they still feel handcuffed. We've got one organization that investors stepped in and it's taken a year to build trust. And their team is only now, maybe a little bit earlier this year, starting to go out and find solutions and find problems and coming to the table. So it takes time to build trust.

So to get your organization, for those people who are in those different stages of, well, I don't have a leadership team, I've got family members on board, everybody's saying yes to anything I say, I made these decisions and I'm still struggling. It is a process to put this all together like David has with his organization, but stick with it and apply the principles and I think you get some healthy results.

Great. Let's... where do we want to go next, Gents? Talk a little bit more perhaps about entrepreneurship and the ideas of coming in as an entrepreneur and kind of shifting your thinking around what it takes to not be an entrepreneur and be a CEO. I know we've talked about building the team. What other things are kind of top of mind there for how you've had to evolve personally and also bring the business along?

Yeah, you know, being the guy or gal in your business is just not sustainable, right? I mean, I know, you know, I'm in a couple of business groups and I've got some people that are two, three years into their business and I keep saying, man, you need to find somebody to do that thing for you or you need to figure out, well, it always comes down to, well how do I pay them, right?

But you start looking at, if my time was spent better over here, growing the business, can I grow enough to be able to pay for this person to do A, B and C? You know, I've got a buddy who's a screen printer and I gave him some business and the other day he said, yeah, I'm running your backpacks through my screen printer and I said, you're doing it?

Well, yeah, you know, I wanted to make sure that they're perfect and just right for you. And like, man, don't do that. Get somebody in there. You've got a screen printer. Make sure that that guy is doing it. You know, it's just, he needs to be building the business, right? He needs to be doing those things to make sure that his sales guys are out there doing their sales and doing the best sales that they can.

And like, yes, could I go out and sell better than my salesman when I first hired him? Absolutely, but I couldn't continue to do that. And I couldn't cover three appointments at one time when you hire three salesmen. You know, funny thing, they can cover more appointments than one person. So even if they're not doing quite as good a job as you, they're still increasing your business.

So I think that's entrepreneurs really got it like, what is the true cost of me doing this job over me handing this job off and me working to build this, right? Awesome, awesome, great advice. Yeah, my two cents. And David, this one's especially for a local install and service business like yours. Your Google business profile really matters, and it matters oftentimes more than your website. Somebody searching for wheelchair ramp near me or stair lift installer near me is the highest intent lead there is.

They need you this week, and the map pack is generally what they see first when they're putting things into Google. So most of your competitors will be treating Google My Business Profile as a bit of an afterthought, and owning it is a super easy win. You just have to complete all the fields, add real photos, put installs in there, make sure you ask your customers for reviews, reply to those reviews, and run local maps ads to get to the top.

So my recommendation, my one step this week, worth 1.4 cents, is to claim fully your Google Business Profile, add photos, add actual jobs, reply to every review you've ignored, fix your process, you capture as many five-star reviews as possible, that's super important, and run the Maps ad. They are the cheapest and most cost-effective you will ever run. Well, I hope Mark and our marketing ad agency was listening to that.

I'm sure. And Jon, because you're Canadian with the tariffs, that thing is actually probably costing three cents. Ah, excellent. Doesn't go into my pocket. It's landing in somebody else's pockets. Generally that's the way it goes. You know what? I'll discount it so that I'll eat the tariff. Nice. Yeah. Well, we already talked about you can't be the cheapest. So just remember that. I try not to be.

One more for tonight's sponsor, EZ Mobility Solutions, David's company, in which we are contractually obligated to say he is not currently reading the ad. This is progress. The thing I want people to hear is the mission. EZ Mobility helps people stay in their home, own home longer, and move around it safely. That's the real product, not aluminum and rails. Independence, a ramp or a stair lift is the difference between staying in the home you love and having to leave it.

Transparent, customized quotes based on your actual space, ramps, lifts, accessible bathrooms, to buy or rent. Serving Roanoke in the region since 2008 and built apparently to run whether or not the founder's in the building. We know he's right there. ezmobilitysolutions.com, Roanoke, Virginia. I mean that's better. You guys are better. Better. I could coach you up though, you know, I could get you better. I love it.

No refund required so far. I was going to ask for a make good on a couple of the previous reads, but this one was better. You heard it. We're better than crap. Oh, I have a crap story for you guys. I had a crappy week last week. My dog had giant diarrhea all over the front of my truck on our way back from the lake. That was very pleasant. Not a lot of fun. Yeah, that was — it took a lot. It took a lot of cleaning. He was lucky to survive. We almost lost — left him at the gas station. Free dog. All right, let's jump in.

Let's jump in a little bit. As I say, I want to talk a little bit about the financial measurements back and forth. Let's start with AI and some of the tools you're using first, though. There's a lot of AI use going on at the moment, management tools, et cetera, people dipping out, getting things written. How are you guys using it differently to most small businesses who are getting their feet wet with AI and systems like that.

Yeah, I mean, one of the biggest pain points for us was the handoff from sales to ops and making sure that everything that sales told them that we were gonna do got done. And I can tell you as a salesperson, if I was in grandma's house and she said, well, could you please replace that outlet cover that's cracked right there? I would have said, sure, we're gonna plug something into it.

I'll replace that outlet cover. Now would I put that in my quote? Probably not. So then they're going to get there to the job and not have the outlet cover and they're going to have to leave and go get an outlet cover and come back. So you know the sales guys do that. We, you know, small promises, not big promises. The big things that they're selling them they're really good about getting in there. It's the little things and the little nuances. So we started first with an AI sales coach that records their sales appointment and then this particular product will give them coaching tips on what they should have done based on our selling process but the big thing that I've done with that is I can now take Claude and say, Claude, we just sold Mrs. Smith's job, Mrs. Smith 0164 opportunity, and Claude can go and look at that opportunity. It can look at all

the pictures. It can look at the download of the appointment. So everything that was talked about in the appointment and it can then print out a primer for the ops team that says here's how this should go. Here's how quickly you should get it done. Here's the things you should look at and oh by the way Mrs. Smith asked four times if you all would paint this one thing for free and we told her all four times we couldn't do it for free. So when she asked you go ahead and say yeah Mrs. Smith we told you we couldn't do that for free. So I mean, it's just — I think it's going to — it is reducing the amount of friction between ops and sales where ops gets frustrated that they can't complete the job on the timeline that they want to because sales is not giving them every piece of information that they need. And so that's a big, big thing that we're using AI for right now.

That's awesome. And how are you systematizing it? Have you built something around it? Or is it just a matter of everybody has Claude? Well, we just figured this out in the last three weeks. It was a rock for me to figure out this quarter, to figure out a sales to ops handoff. And so we're working on systematizing it, but right now it's basically that we sell a job and we have to manually tell Claude to look at the job.

But once Claude looks at the job, then it'll spit out the primer or spit out the handoff in the form that we want it. So it's pretty simple, but it could probably be automated. We just haven't gotten to that point yet. Awesome. Awesome. The great thing is it's enhancing the organization, right? It's not replacing people. It's just making things better. I think it's not. No, yeah. It is not.

There's not replacing anybody. It's just making, I mean, it was such a pain point between sales and ops, because ops would get frustrated. Hey, you told her, or they would walk in and they go, hey, you guys didn't tell us that we had to move 20 boxes to get to the stair lift, to be able to put the stair lift in, we would have allotted more time for this.

And so now that's gone away. That pain point and that friction between the two departments has gone away. Awesome. Great use of the tech. Let's roll around to some financial systems and thinking and process here. because I know with Ryan coming on board, and obviously you've heard in the episodes, Ryan, we're constantly talking about the metrics that you need to be reviewing on a regular basis. How has that systematization helped out?

I mean, obviously you had some challenging times present themselves, and it's really important to get ahead of those, right? Because the earlier you get ahead of those challenges, then the easier it is to be able to make decisions that affect things later. So, and Ryan, perhaps you can jive in with some of the regular reporting, but you guys understand what I'm getting at with the question. Sure.

You wanna tell him how you helped me, Ryan? You know, I think one of the biggest things that we talk about in the leadership team meeting is the financial status of the company. We talk about cashflow. We talk about things that generally were taboo. A lot of times, the owner themselves had it in their head. So now the whole leadership team is discussing how we're getting ourselves out of a hole or the opportunities to take advantage of the opportunities later on, those kind of things.

We're seeing that, hey, our visibility is showing in six or seven weeks, we might have a cash issue here. What are we going to do about it now instead of being a surprise? So I think a lot of things that we've been doing is really just giving better clarity. We have a longer focus time, right, that we're able to see some things. And I think that's really the most important thing is that everybody is in the same room discussing the same things.

There's no longer silos, right? Right. Yeah, I think Ryan pushed us to be more open, but also to look beyond next week, right? And to try and make sure, hey, six weeks from now, you've got this coming up, how are you guys gonna get through that week? How are you gonna get through that month? And so they really, really pushed us to be more open and discuss more about when cashflow gets tight, you know, how do we handle it?

What are we doing? What are we doing to combat that? Yeah, because those conversations, they have to happen. Cash flow crunches are going to happen with any organization, right? It's just having a handle on it ahead of time and being able to plan for it. That's the difference. Somebody tells you they haven't had a cash flow crunch. They're a really big business or they're lying.

And that's in even the good times. You can, you know, just like what David says, that they grew. There was a perfect storm where they were in growth mode and realize that they have to scale it back. Right. And that's not that's not a detraction. Right. Being able to understand that, hey, we can't we're not ready there yet. Or the game has changed a little bit.

Right. We're now going to regroup, reformulate our plan. And then when we have all our ducks in a row, the foundation's built, whatever that might be, is that then we can go ahead and move forward. So there's nothing wrong with going from $10 million to $6 million to 7 to 5. It's not a reflection on anything. It's actually very smart to be able to come back and reflect on this and say, you know what, it was too much too soon.

And if — when you're willing to admit that and that vulnerability comes out between you and the leadership team, everybody comes together better. It's a tighter group. And they have to solve the problem together. That's great. Awesome. I think last question here before we start to wrap up. David, you mentioned death. You didn't mention divorce. But the five Ds, Ryan, take us through the five Ds and how that kind of relates to the exit planning conversation you guys have been having.

because David, obviously you're already thinking about what's the legacy here, where's this going to, how do I roll through this and hand the organization off, and where do I go from that point onwards. Yeah, let's have a little bit of an exit conversation, but take us through the five Ds first, Ryan. The five Ds are death, disability, disruption, divorce, drugs, those kind of things, those kind of things where there's going to be something happens that's devastating or is abrupt to that point where okay I now need where's my exit plan right because these things can happen and then partnerships it could be because of your partners and drugs right those kind of things right so it's just not reflected that so you know we've been talking a lot about short-term succession planning and long-term succession planning. There's two different paths there.

So David went on a trip for two and a half weeks, but being the numbers guy, when we talk about, let's say, 90 days, say he wants to go to Nepal for 90 days and find Buddha, that's a big jump. He's not there. Right? So what are some things that you know David that you think of that might prevent you or would have some issues in the company if you were to go away for that extended period of time? Well there's still some financial stuff that I'm doing. I think, I mean, I think we could probably farm it out to Synergy but there's still some financial stuff that I'm doing you know but there's not a ton that I have to do day-to-day anymore. I still have my finger on all the financial stuff. I'm still the one that transfers money between bank accounts and makes sure you know that payrolls there's enough for the payroll

and the payroll account right so I'm still doing that. Those things could be handed off but they're not at this point. So I actually feel fairly confident that the business could survive without me for 90 days. Certainly it wouldn't be as smooth as if I was there for 90 days, but we're in a pretty good place now that they could survive me for 90 days — without me for 90 days.

They'd miss me a lot. But I think that's important. That's what they're telling you. Right, I think that's important for our listeners to understand is that when David first went to, he has a leadership team, he's growing his business back in the day, is that when he took off for a week off the grid, his hope was that when he came back, the building wasn't burnt down.

Right? And now we're saying, OK, now it'll survive. It'll be just fine as things going. And then the next step is, will it thrive? And that's the big key that he's working on now, is that there's a couple of layers to this thing. He's working on the upper layer because you've been doing it for years now. Right, right. I mean, it would be nice to go away for 90 days and come back and somebody have solved some big problem that we've been dealing with or somebody to come up with, hey, we just figured out another $100,000 revenue stream and we've got it in place and it's moving and we didn't need you to do anything.

I mean, that's really where I wanna be, right? That I can walk out And when I come back, the company's better than, you know. And I think my leadership team is getting there. I mean, they want to improve the business. They're just not fully sure of all the decisions that they need to make, which I wasn't either 20 years ago or even 10 years ago. I was, you know.

So they just got to kind of make those decisions and go, oops, or, oh, yeah, I really nailed that one, right? Right. They're not quite in that role yet, right? you're still a visionary in the organization, right? They're all the integrators in all their different departments, so perhaps at the moment it's not their responsibility to come up with the visions for growing the business in the future, but as your succession plan continues they get more and more comfortable in those roles and then at some point you have a visionary that you bring in. So yeah, it's all part of the process. Have you guys talked about exit plan, what you're going to do with the company, how you're going to put your feet up? Is it any of the conversations like that?

Yeah, you know, I — we've talked some about the exit plan. I mean, I've already done a little bit. So my goal this year was to work four and a half days. And that's what I've done. I pretty much take every Friday afternoon off. My goal next year is to take another afternoon off. So, you know, I'll be down to four working days. And then the year after that will be three and a half and the year after that will be three and then it's a decision whether I want to work three days a week or not right, you know, your episode where you guys talked about how many people sell their business and then within two years they're back buying another crappier but same business right. I don't want to do that and I have plenty of other things that I love to do but this is my baby. It's like raising a kid. You don't just kick the kid out

after they get out of college and you're never gonna be mentoring them again. So in this case, unless somebody came in and made a big offer to buy me out, I'll probably be involved with it for quite a while. But my goal is to really be three days a week and I come in, I'm the culture guy, I'm the cheerleader, I'm the team builder, the guy that just kind of comes in and says, you guys are doing a great job, keep it up, let's keep going.

And I don't have to do anything day to day or anything to really improve the business, right? And I think this is a very important distinction, right? Is that David is choosing to be involved in the company, right, as a board level member at that time or whatever it is. He doesn't have to be. And that's where a lot of founders find themselves, is that it's all them reliant.

And there is no exit plan at that point. Don't want to be the person to personality. If only Brian had the personality to do the same thing. To pull that off, right? Yeah. He thinks he's going to, you know, I hear that he's going to be going away in December and not making any decisions totally off the grid. So he's doing my Tahiti 30th wedding anniversary trip this winter, right?

That's what you're doing? I'm calling it the David Todd Method. Yeah. There you go. We're getting ready for it. We've got the margaritas at the ready. That's right. Awesome. Well, that's great. David, thank you so much. So many great insights there into your organization and just the process and how it kind of jives with a number of different subjects that we've been talking about on the podcast.

We really appreciate it. Before we wrap up, any thoughts, questions, comments, anything for us at the top of mind? Now, you know, I would just encourage any new entrepreneurs, a couple of things. Make sure that you've got a good bookkeeper or accountant starting out. And then don't wait too long to get a CFO or a fractional CFO. I mean, this is your podcast, so I am goosing a little bit for you guys, but seriously, I made some decisions when we made a lot of money one year and we were in growth mode and I was gonna grow and I made those decisions without the help of a CFO that could have looked and said, well, let's look at this out a couple of years.

Let's slow down this boat just a little bit. And so I encourage, if you're a new business owner or even a business owner that's five, 10 years into it, but you're just not sure exactly where you should be going. I mean, getting a fractional CFO is a really, really important part of becoming a company where you can step out of it for 90 days and then keep going.

That's it? Just get a good one. Yeah. Yeah. Desperate times, desperate measures. I was the only one that answered back. That's it. Well again, David, thank you so much. It was really great. Once Ryan and I improve, we'll have you back when we get good at this. Well, you know, hopefully we're still going about episode 150, right? That's right. How much time you got? No, I appreciate you guys having me on.

Awesome. Thanks a bunch. We'll go watch some football now. That's right. That's great. Thanks everybody. Hasta luego. Thank you David so much. Absolutely. Awesome. That's it for this episode of From Burnt Out to Bought Out. If something we said today hit home, don't just nod in 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 running the treadmill and start building something you can actually sell.