Come on a journey with me, as we navigate the world of entrepreneurship alongside Chris Joyce, the visionary founder of Gusher and the driving force behind 24 companies. Our conversation is not just insightful but also incredibly inspiring. Chris shares the strategies that fuel his entrepreneurial ventures, particularly his latest venture aimed at revolutionizing the startup landscape.
Explore Chris's unique leadership style, where embracing your 'superpower' can give a business an irreplaceable edge. We delve into a fascinating case study of a dog food venture that thrived on passion, emphasizing how a narrative infused with genuine enthusiasm can set a business apart in today's competitive markets.
As we dive deeper into the entrepreneurial journey, Chris and I unravel the intricacies of scaling and the strategic moves necessary for a successful exit. Chris's journey, marked by never leading the same company twice and the thrill of birthing new ideas, is truly exhilarating. We discuss the importance of designing processes that turn mundane tasks into valuable assets and how stepping back from day-to-day affairs can elevate a company's trajectory. This segment is a treasure trove for anyone seeking to understand the art of expanding a business and preparing it for a future beyond its creator.
In our final chapter, we pull back the curtain to reveal the seldom-discussed vulnerabilities of business ownership and the monumental impact of seeking guidance. I share my own experiences, highlighting the transformative power of acknowledging one's limitations and the courage it takes to ask for help—insights drawn from numerous success stories of those who've leaned on the wisdom of mentors. By sharing these narratives and personal productivity strategies, our goal is to equip you with the tools and advice needed to navigate the complex waters of entrepreneurship. Join us for this profound dialogue that could very well be the catalyst for your next business breakthrough.
Chris Joyce: Gusher, Founder & CEO LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dealrules/ Website - https://gusher.co/ Blog - https://gusher.co/blog Email - chris@gusher.co
Come on a journey with me, as we navigate the world of entrepreneurship alongside Chris Joyce, the visionary founder of Gusher and the driving force behind 24 companies. Our conversation is not just insightful but also incredibly inspiring. Chris shares the strategies that fuel his entrepreneurial ventures, particularly his latest venture aimed at revolutionizing the startup landscape.
Explore Chris's unique leadership style, where embracing your 'superpower' can give a business an irreplaceable edge. We delve into a fascinating case study of a dog food venture that thrived on passion, emphasizing how a narrative infused with genuine enthusiasm can set a business apart in today's competitive markets.
As we dive deeper into the entrepreneurial journey, Chris and I unravel the intricacies of scaling and the strategic moves necessary for a successful exit. Chris's journey, marked by never leading the same company twice and the thrill of birthing new ideas, is truly exhilarating. We discuss the importance of designing processes that turn mundane tasks into valuable assets and how stepping back from day-to-day affairs can elevate a company's trajectory. This segment is a treasure trove for anyone seeking to understand the art of expanding a business and preparing it for a future beyond its creator.
In our final chapter, we pull back the curtain to reveal the seldom-discussed vulnerabilities of business ownership and the monumental impact of seeking guidance. I share my own experiences, highlighting the transformative power of acknowledging one's limitations and the courage it takes to ask for help—insights drawn from numerous success stories of those who've leaned on the wisdom of mentors. By sharing these narratives and personal productivity strategies, our goal is to equip you with the tools and advice needed to navigate the complex waters of entrepreneurship. Join us for this profound dialogue that could very well be the catalyst for your next business breakthrough.
Chris Joyce: Gusher, Founder & CEO LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dealrules/ Website - https://gusher.co/ Blog - https://gusher.co/blog Email - chris@gusher.co
I don't care who's starting a business, whether it's in an extremely competitive industry or a brand new industry, the fact that you personally, you and your DNA that you're bringing to the table, makes that company a fundamentally different entity.
Michael Morrison:
Hello and welcome to Small Business Pivots. I'm your host, michael Morrison, a small business coach and founder of Boss. Boss helps small business owners start, build or scale a business that can run without them there for more freedom and more profits. To learn how Boss can help you, go to businessownershipsimplifiedcom. If you enjoy this podcast and want to stay up to date with all our latest podcast episodes, make sure to hit that subscribe button and make sure to listen to the end of this episode for my recap and coach's corner, where I share applicable action steps for small business owners to move the needle in their business.
Michael Morrison:
Our guest today is Chris Joyce, founder of GUSHR. Chris is a serial entrepreneur with a remarkable track record of founding 24 companies spanning high-tech consumer goods, health and manufacturing. His products have graced over 11,000 stores in 23 countries and his tech innovations have reached users in 148 countries globally. Frustrated by witnessing brilliant ideas and entrepreneurs consistently overlooked for funding due to superficial reasons, chris decided to disrupt the traditional startup landscape. Enter GUSHR, his latest venture offering a simple, quick and capital-free approach to building startups. Gushr believes that great ideas can come from anyone, anywhere, and aims to let the market, not venture capitalists, determine the fate of these innovations. Find out how GUSHR is revolutionizing the startup game across various industries, from technology and media to health, design, finance and gaming. In this episode, chris will share the essentials he has learned and used to build a portfolio of successful businesses. Let's get to Chris now.
Speaker 3:
So welcome to another Small Business Pivots. Today we have a very special guest, Chris. Where are you from today?
Chris Joyce:
I'm located right outside of Philadelphia Pennsylvania.
Speaker 3:
Philadelphia. So the purpose of our show is to help small business owners. I know a lot of us can barely handle one. If we can even do that and you've handled 20 plus plus, you have a 300 plus portfolio. Let's talk about that real quick. How did you get that entrepreneurial mindset? Did you have upbringing in that world?
Chris Joyce:
Well, I always say this I have this thing that I call. You know you're an entrepreneur if and then. I give 50 reasons, and the number one reason that I start off with is that if you grew up in an F'd up family, you are qualified to be an entrepreneur. So I didn't grow up in a great family, I grew up in an F'd up family, okay, and I went into entrepreneurship from a young age. It was just something I really started at an early, early age.
Speaker 3:
Wow, were you studious at all. I know a lot of us had challenges growing up in books, if you will.
Chris Joyce:
Well, I had my brother, who was a straight A student and a physicist in front of me by about four years. So I always went to school and they'd be like, oh, you're nothing like your brother. It was kind of like a mix. I actually had all A's and B's. I wasn't a straight A student because I was bored out of my mind. I used to skip school and go to earlier. You and I were talking about you going to a library. I used to go to what are called score meetings in Columbus, ohio I drive when I was 15, 16, skip school and learn how to write a business plan from these old guys that had started businesses and knew the ropes and how to do it. And so that's what I skipped school to go ahead and study is how to write business plans.
Speaker 3:
Wow, wow. So for those listeners that don't know what score is, that's the government SBA, is it not?
Chris Joyce:
Yeah, it's like it's a senior core of retired executives. So you run into executives in all different industries, all different verticals, and you're able to go ahead and get their experience and help you out in doing whatever you're doing.
Speaker 3:
And that's at no charge, is that?
Chris Joyce:
right, no charge. It used to be no charge, yeah.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so that's the first business venture. I'm sure it did not go like the ones that you have today, or maybe it did. Maybe it just took off and exploded. Tell us about that.
Chris Joyce:
Well, it depends on your definition. When I was six years old was really my first, first business venture. That was literally a classified ad. In the back of the Spider-Man comic book there was something called Burpee Seeds. I think they're still around. They were like sunflower seeds, watermelon seeds, flowers, and I sent away for this business opportunity ad and so you sent your $5 in and you got 50 packets of Burpee seeds and I got my packets in and I sold them door to door for a dollar a piece, and so $50 gross $5 in terms of spent. I netted $45 knocking on doors on an Air Force base and just trying to go ahead and sell those seeds.
Chris Joyce:
And so you learn a lot about humanity when you start knocking on doors.
Speaker 3:
Absolutely, absolutely. So today you are the founder of Gusher. Tell us a little bit about that, because that sounds real fun.
Chris Joyce:
Gusher is a great company. Gusher is a platform to launch companies without the need for capital, without the need for financing or investing or anything else. People join companies in exchange for performance-based equity, meaning they get a piece of the pie if everything works out, but nobody gets anything in the company unless the company succeeds, is able to go ahead and launch successfully, including us. So what I usually say to founders is imagine that you had a million or two million in the bank account, right this second. How would you go ahead and build your company, in whatever way? How would you put together your dream team? And then Gusher that. Because we do it all day, every day, every industry, everything from B2B, b2c, b2b2c, even B2G consumer goods, manufacturing, saas, fintech, ar, vr, ai, gaming, metal, good Devices, proptech anything you can imagine. We actually able to start and we have founders across the globe. It doesn't matter what age you are, what ethnicity you are, how much income you have, how much education you have. We have got greater than an 80% success rate, which is really unbeatable with our companies.
Speaker 3:
Wow. So you and I were talking earlier and it intrigued me because you asked me why, what got me into business coaching, and I said because I come from a sense of empathy, owning my own business back in the 90s, referencing the library, and I didn't have that experience of having a business coach or just being able to watch YouTube or have people like Gusher to help guide my hand. And you mentioned something about how you just come and say it is as it is what business owners really need to hear. So we're going to have fun here. So what are some of the things pivots things that you see that could help small business owners like you got to get a handle on this or this is what I see that's common and you need to change that Kind of start with that.
Chris Joyce:
Sure, I went off on a little bit of a tirade just a day or two ago about something that I call setting the standard.
Chris Joyce:
Okay, by setting the standard, what I mean by that is that, on a personal level, a founder, when they're creating a company, has to set their own personal standard, their own set of expectations for what they expect from themselves, at an extremely high level and lead by example.
Chris Joyce:
So when they're putting a team together, whether it's on Gusher or off Gusher, whether it's for equity or whether it's for dollars, the whole point is you need to set that standard damn high, especially in today's competitive marketplace. Just coming up with a basic MVP, it doesn't cut it a minimum viable product. What they should be ideating and really creating is a market viable product from the very beginning, and there's different ways of doing it and different ways of going about it. But that setting the standard almost in a way their personal philosophy should take precedence over everything. Before they start developing, before they start putting their ideas into paper and creating that whole damn thing and actually making the company come to life, it comes down to their standard and their philosophy. That sets the bedrock upon which they build that company, how they're going to treat their people, how they're going to treat their customers, what they stand for, what they believe in, what they're trying to accomplish. Those things are damn important when it comes to creating a competitive product, a competitive company.
Speaker 3:
I almost want to say can you say that letter for the people in the back? Seriously, I preach and coach from the very beginning of the foundations which I call guiding principles, which is all that stuff, your mission, your vision, your all that stuff. So tell me how and this may not be applicable for the businesses you work with A lot of businesses. Let's say they were a plumber or they worked for a manufacturer and they just go out and they just do kind of a commodity type business where they're mowing lawns or plumbing. How would they do that? How would they differentiate themselves?
Chris Joyce:
Okay.
Chris Joyce:
So if you go ahead and ask almost any business owner and they've done this, I can't remember the exact study in the numbers, but it was around 75 or 80% of these general business owners were asked what unique differences are between them and their competitors and 75 or 80% of them said nothing.
Chris Joyce:
There was absolutely nothing, and I literally said to myself my God, they don't even realize what their superpower is, and what their superpower is to me is that I don't care who's starting a business, whether it's in an extremely competitive industry or a brand new industry, the fact that you personally, you and your DNA that you're bringing to the table, makes that company a fundamentally different entity. So you may be starting a new gasoline company, on the same corner that there's three others, but that right there, that DNA, the way that you believe, the way that your structure was in the beginning, your philosophies, those things can have an impact upon your day to day things that you do, and have an impact upon your sales, the way the company grows, the way it's created from the beginning. So, first and foremost, it's your DNA, and that's something that people don't realize that they have. That's a very strong difference. Nobody else has your exact same damn DNA.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, yeah, I hear that about writing a book too, where everybody says nobody wants to hear my story and it's like your story is unique, just like the other books. It may be the same topic, but nobody's heard your story. Same thing with your business, what so, on the businesses is are there any vital things that, because you work with so many right, you have 300 plus in your portfolio? What are some things that you're like you must do this? We kind of covered the vision differentiator, but what are kind of those steps? Because there's so many business books out there, there's so many YouTube videos out there, it can be confusing.
Chris Joyce:
Well, I'm going to simplify it Okay, so I'll go into our thesis which could be complex and whatever, but it comes down to one thing, but I'll tell you it as a story. Okay, so we had a founder come into our platform and this founder went ahead and had this dog, this sick dog. Okay, and he went ahead and said his name is Colin Buckley by the way, great founder, I went to his wedding a couple of months ago, phenomenal guy. So he goes ahead and had this sick dog and he he took it to the veterinarian and the vet said put your dog on this dog food dog, we'd need it. Then put your dog on his other dog food dog, we'd need that. And so on and so forth. And so this dog was literally dying. It wasn't eating at all. So Colin, in desperation, went ahead and hacked this dog food together over two, three, four months in his kitchen and literally the dog magically came to life over four, five, six months.
Chris Joyce:
Now I don't know what you know about dog food companies, but dog food companies are brutal. They've been around for more than a hundred years. They don't give up territory, they don't give up shelf space, they don't. They don't make it capital easy to come into that market. It's an extremely capital intensive market. And he said Chris, I want to start a dog food company. So I said, sure, let's start a dog food company. So Colin goes ahead and brings in this team of pros this is what people have to understand, right Brings this in this team of pros that had managed 50 million, 100 million, 200 million dollar budgets, p and L, responsibility type of people. You know people that have worked for like Nabisco or in Mondele, whatever the hell it's called now McLean Tabasco. You know big companies, you know good CPG companies and the company failed and imploded six weeks later failed miserably, right.
Chris Joyce:
So he finally listened to me and his second team took off like a rocket. He put the second team together. It's worth more than 10 million. A year and a half later. They've got national distribution. I think they got CVS, walgreens and everything else. I'm going to ask you a simple question here. It's not a trick question. Okay, his second team all had something in common that the first team did not. I want you to think like an eight year old, not like a business coach, not like person who's dealt with all these founders. This is a dog food company. If I asked an eight year old, what do you think the second team all had in common that the first team did not. It's a dog food company, you would tell me what?
Speaker 3:
I would guess they all have dogs. They all have dogs.
Chris Joyce:
You won't believe how many people get that wrong? They didn't just have dogs, they didn't have children. They ate dog, breed dog, live dog, poop dog. They were dog zealots. Okay, so what we teach is that when you're creating a company, it needs to be made up of them the I am the vested interest market. It has to be made up of the people that have the best interest market. It has to be made up of the people that have the most to gain from the success or failure of that company, and that Vim, right there, ends up taking off like a rocket. That's how you build companies that create market viable products, not minimum viable products. You leapfrog generational development with them, so they don't have to believe at the level that you do. You, as founder, have to be the ultimate zealot, but you need some people there to really get at their core. Whatever you're doing and had that same problem or the same issue in some way, they have to relate to it hardcore.
Speaker 3:
I might get on a tangent now. You got me worked up Well, because my educational background is marketing. So I get frustrated with business owners that don't have all this information you're talking about. They haven't defined it themselves yet. They'll go pay a marketing agency or firm thousands of dollars to try to figure it out with them and then they wonder why their campaign failed. And that's exactly how what you're talking about Well, this is.
Chris Joyce:
You always hear this oh, product market fit and a company will get 5 million, 10 million of venture capital funding and then they're burning through this money trying to figure out product market fit. Where I come from, when you're in Columbus learning from the score people, you didn't do product market fit. You created a company from the beginning that was self sustaining and the way you did it was this very difficult thing called talking to people. I mean it's crazy, it's mind boggling, but you actually talk to people. You go meet them. You meet them in the park, you meet them in the street, you meet them wherever you run into them and you talk to them. Maybe it's online, maybe it's influencers, maybe it's groups. You can reach anybody right now. That's a potential market, but you need to interact and talk and hear and see them to be able to hone in on what the message is and what the problem really is, what the solution.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, you don't hear that Hardly at all what you're talking about. So what is probably one of the top things that you get the most frustrated at with business owners?
Chris Joyce:
Like it could be something that you say repeatedly that they just don't adhere to, or Well, I don't know if it's necessarily that, I think that it's it's more of there's a lack of recognition by founders or potential founders or people who start a business, or in the midst of it, as to how long it really takes.
Chris Joyce:
Okay, so one of the frustrations that I have not even a frustration, but it's kind of like an emotional connection to the founders feeling in kind of a negative way is they go through these cycles of hey, it's hard, it's rough, it's down, and there's nobody that's really there with them. That's a hard thing for them to understand. Is that that delayed gratification, the ability to delay gratification, is proportional to the amount of money and success that you typically have and being able to do that in a very long way, a long term horizon? That's not something that many people can do. They typically want it now, now, now, and business doesn't work that way. That doesn't mean that certain things can, you can do pops and you can figure certain things out. With e-commerce, they come and go, but building a substantial business that has legacy legs, that is there for a long period of time, you can't do that. It's something that takes a good amount of time.
Speaker 3:
Oh, absolutely there's. You can't see it in the video here, but to the right of me is a box of tissues. I'm a business coach and people often ask me why do you have tissues in here? Like, yeah, I'm like you'll find out Because you'll be using those here pretty soon.
Michael Morrison:
So let's talk about you yourself, and some pivots that you went through.
Speaker 3:
How did what business did you start first and how did you get to be so successful?
Chris Joyce:
Sure, I mean, one of my businesses was the audio tech industry. It's something you don't hear about anymore because it really doesn't exist, but it was something with voice boards and we had entertainment companies that came off of it. We had data companies that came off of it. We had service bureaus that expanded. I had a business brokerage in New York that was the largest of its kind anywhere. I've had the largest low carbohydrate manufacturer in the world at one point where we were everywhere I mean every possible store you can imagine and all different companies in between. So what I like to do is never the same company twice. I just get bored with it. That's kind of like with Gusher right now. I don't really have to do the same company twice. It's just really kind of like a conveyor belt of companies, which is really what I like to do.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so something you mentioned business brokerage Was that buying, selling or helping people exit?
Chris Joyce:
Yeah, it was basically helping people primarily to exit and also to get in. So I started it with one of the founder I won't mention his name that had one of the largest business brokerages in retired. They had a couple of hundred units at the time. But I did it primarily. It was in my early twenties to really learn more about business, and so we ended up taking over New York by storm. But my primary motive was really learning about businesses at the time and what I concluded with that business was well, they're almost all the same other than people, philosophy and property. That's. The only difference is the mix of people, the mix of property and the mix of philosophy there.
Speaker 3:
I know for a lot of business owners that are starting up and not too seasoned in the business world. When I mentioned you know what's your exit plan, they're like I can't even get past payroll this Friday. But yeah, I know for a fact working with businesses that are scaling. If you start doing that stuff you should be doing now. It's so much easier to exit then whenever that is, and I know that's a long time away. So what are some things that a business owner should be working on on Currently, even though they're not planning on exiting in the next five years, ten years?
Chris Joyce:
Well, there's two questions there, one regarding scale, and then we're guarding exits, so I'm gonna answer both. Okay, thank, regarding scaling and everything else, what, what a person has to do. I don't know if it's okay to curse or not on your show, so I'm not sure. Okay, so I have something I call do the shit All right. Unfortunately, your founder has to do that shit.
Chris Joyce:
Work In some way, shape or fashion in the beginning, the stuff that's not scalable, because that leads to the scalable stuff, meaning that you've got to make linear phone calls. Hey, it's not a scalable way to do business, you've got to do it. There may be linear emails, linear face-to-face meetings, where it's not something that can be scaled. That stuff always leads to the scalable stuff All right. As for exits, it comes down to processes. Anything that really a founder does in a repetitive fashion, meaning that they find themselves doing the same thing over and over, they should be turning into a process, a standard operating procedure, a process that becomes part of the company's DNA, so that they can have somebody else do that process, because a founder's main, main Responsibility really is that philosophy, that mission of the company and just getting resources and growing it. It's not all those damn details. It's creating processes. The more processes that are able to be standardized, the higher the valuation, because then it really becomes an asset play, not just somebody's work.
Speaker 3:
Yeah no, that that's good points. So when they're scaling, can you define what that really means? Because we hear a lot of small business owners say I want to scale my business and I look at them, I'm like you know, can you define?
Chris Joyce:
it In an easy way? No, in a dollar way? Yes, okay. So I think that anything that any that basically up to zero to five million, or if they have you know five or less locations, that's really a labor of love. It's a standard linear business. It's. It's a it's it's, you know, a standard Small business. It's nothing that is scaled.
Chris Joyce:
When they start turning it over to where they're able to grow above 10, $20-50 million, then it becomes more or less a poker chip. It becomes something that isn't dependent upon that person coming in every day. It's has it. Where you have enough people you said you were at the hundred employee mark for one of your businesses, you're there, all right. You know that anytime you get above 20, 30, 40 employees, you're suddenly developing fundamentally a different company. Well, to me, scaling is either monetary or people, or both, but there's different marks there. For me, you know, it's anywhere between 10 and 50 million is when a company really starts scaling. For a SaaS company it can be something completely different, but for most companies, is 10 to 50 million Become something that's more of an asset there that they've developed something that could be sold Sub 10 or 5 million, not so much.
Speaker 3:
How does a business and I'm just with a fire hose here with all kinds of questions how does a business owner we hear the terminology or analogy of getting stuck on the hamster wheel working in the business. I Work with business owners that come to us and they say I don't have time to do all that vision, that mission. I I'm putting out fires all day, baby sitting employees for 10 14 hours a day. Then I have to go home do invoicing and then watch the kid. How does one, like take that step away from getting out of that rut?
Chris Joyce:
I'll give you another story. All right, so I was manufactured. I was, I was literally had this low-carb Manufacturing. It was in the beginning stages, we were just doing a couple hundred thousand a year. And remember, one Friday night I went in to move a packaging machine. Now, this packaging machine was a cartner. It was a very, very long cartner, all right, something like 30 to 40 feet, but it was on wheels so one person can do it. So I went up to the electrical panel and I went ahead and started disconnecting. It was three phase 460. I'll remember it to this day. So I go ahead and I take those three legs out and everything else and I pulled down on this electrical cable, thinking that I knew what the hell I was doing. And sure enough, right then I realized oh my god, I'm going to die because what happened is I forgot about the ground, and the ground went right into the border or broke off or Something like that. It sent current through my shoulder, out my shin, and when I woke up I was on the other side of the factory, alright, and then I ended up in the ER and everything else. So it took.
Chris Joyce:
Why am I telling you this story? I have a story called shock block that this has to do with, because it was then I realized I didn't belong in a factory Okay, just like a founder doesn't belong really doing all this detail stuff. My first thing that I did was get somebody who that really was their life. They understood plants, they lived it, they ate it, they breathed it. They did all that different stuff and then, sure enough, our company grew like wildfire, wildfire and blew up everywhere over the next 12, 18 months. After doing that because my only goal was I didn't care if I stopped business, I needed to find that person. That was my primary goal to get other people in there to help grow the damn company.
Speaker 3:
That's. That's. That's good information. I'm just gonna keep asking you questions because these are all questions that come from business owners that are listening. So if someone's wanting to start a business because you work with so many what I know, they're not easy, no, no, owning a business is not easy at all, but what are? How would one decide what business is right? For me it's easy.
Chris Joyce:
All right, this part. This part's actually easy. Okay, it's two things. One I had this gentleman come into our platform and he was a middle market exeft that got laid off during COVID, okay, and he started this software company. But every time we talked he told me about this other idea, that he was on it, and I noticed that he kept Smiling every time he talked about that other company. I said, mike, you shouldn't be doing this company, the first company, you should be doing the second idea. And he goes really. I go, yeah, really goes, but I'm just not really qualified. I go, mike, it doesn't matter if you're qualified. Make a long story short. He did that second company. A year later they won product of the year in the trucking industry. Off to the races, everything else cool product, cool company.
Chris Joyce:
What I do when I tell founders is this, or potential founders if you look in the mirror and you're thinking about that idea and you smile, that's definitely the thing to do. If you're going to sleep and you're thinking about it. If you wake up in the morning and you're thinking about it. If you're on the crapper and you're thinking about it. If you're eating your breakfast, you're talking to your wife or husband or whatever it may be, and you're thinking about it. That's an idea.
Chris Joyce:
If it's something that you should be following, you shouldn't be doing this stuff where it's okay, I can make this and I can generate this and, as a tam, the market is this, so it's big enough to penetrate. It's got to be something that you feel, something that actually, at your core, is something that you want to do, because You're gonna need that when the times get tough, and the times are gonna get tough and brutal, and that's the only thing that you're gonna have to fall back on is that I don't want to say passion, because that's not it, but that emotional tie to whatever it is that you're doing.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I. I use the purpose statement for that reason, because I'm like you're gonna need this one day when you wake up and Feel like the world is against you, reminding you why you're doing what you're doing.
Chris Joyce:
I have a thing that I show founders. I don't know if I have it on me oh, it's not in my wallet cuz I gave it away but I have this coin that I keep and it always says never give up, on one side, and on the other side it says trust the process. No, our founders get that coin.
Speaker 3:
So, going back to your history, what is a pivot? That you learned? That you wish you would have two questions one you wish you wouldn't have done, and then what's one that you're like I wish I would have done that sooner.
Chris Joyce:
I don't want to sound like I'm a know-it-all or anything else, because I'm far from it and I don't know everything about it, okay, but I fundamentally don't believe in pivots, okay. So the reason is that if you look at it, historically, successful pivots are as rare as unicorns. You see iterations, you see ideas that started out insanely bad, that then led to good ideas, but very rarely do you see a company that let's say your example they were a plumber and now they do a lawnmower service, and that's the same company. Almost always they're not. So I personally don't do pivots. It's something I'll do iterations, and I'll iterate the hell out of it what I call picking the lock until I get it, so that it may not resemble what it started out as. But literally it was the same road in the same path. It just was an additional steps to get there.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, no, that's a good description, and so for those listeners that the show is called small business pivots though, that's exactly what I'm talking about is, you're not going into a whole different business, you're just Pivot your what did you say that again.
Chris Joyce:
I said so there iterations iterations yes yes, an example.
Chris Joyce:
So let's use the low-carb company as an example. All right, what we did is we had this frozen product, low carbohydrate blueberry muffin. I'll save you the details because that's an awesome story for another time. But in within one year we had six different packaging iterations because we got out there. It got us in business, but it wasn't great. That product wasn't awesome, but it put us in business. And then we created a better one in a better version and we went to a better packaging system. And then, sure enough, then we had shelf stable rolls and breads and everything and that exploded the business. It's never the road that you start out on, but you need to start out on that road regardless, and the tools you have right now are all you need. You don't need anything else but the tools in your own damn intelligence.
Speaker 3:
What would you say speaking of tools, because there is so much out there? Yeah, we can get so distracted, including myself. I'm always trying to try to stay up with trends and things and it's impossible I can't imagine for someone that's never owned a business before and they're trying to figure this out. Are there any tools that you recommend that you would say, hey, if you just go here or watch this and then go, do it.
Chris Joyce:
Yep, I used my three by five cards or four by eights, I can't remember what the hell they are. All right, I know very low-tech tool. The reason why I use that is because I create a checklist each morning, a checklist based upon priorities. What the heck the priorities are that bring the most value that I can do that day, and that's the way I operate. So I literally operate by priority and value. Whatever brings that most value in, I will do. If it doesn't, I don't do it at all. I don't care what the heck it is. I'm here about big motions, and making the big impacts is what I do, and so that's how I go about my day. If you keep doing that, you will progress quickly and very far. Take the pick, the priorities. The rest are what I call squirrels. Like you're walking down the road with a dog a dog, she's a squirrel, and it wants to take off at it. Everything to me is a squirrel, all right, other than what's on that list.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, yeah, I'm writing on one side of this paper very low-tech. Pin and paper. Pin and paper I don't have. I don't have the iPad, I don't have all those devices to plug this and do that. No, I write it down and check it off and reorganize it, scratch it, move it all that stuff you know yep. Plus I retain it. Better, a Lot better than just throwing it on a device and it sits there till I remember it or a notification goes off.
Chris Joyce:
There's something about it, but maybe it also was the way we were brought up. I have no clue, but it has an impact upon me in my brain that when I put something on paper, it suddenly becomes real.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, any good books out there that you've read that you would recommend, because you work with so many different business owners.
Chris Joyce:
Okay, I'm just gonna bore you with Austrian economics books and stuff like that is the most boring ass stuff. I would not recommend to anybody read the stuff that I do. You'll gain nothing from it. Business wise, I think, if anything, it'd be more of reading inspirational stuff or doing whatever the heck it takes you to get out of bed on time or early and keep doing the same boring stuff for a period of time until you Breakthrough, because that's really all it is having the discipline to do that. I have.
Speaker 3:
Everything seems to kind of be bundled in these three areas of business that I say you have to have to be successful. One is guiding principles and I'm gonna see if you have anything to add to that guiding principles. That includes your mission, your vision, all that stuff. Second one is systemization. So you gotta have that. And then third is your team. And people say, yeah, but you got to have cash. I'm like, well, if you have the right banker and you have the right CFO and you have the right salespeople, cash will come. But you got to have the right people, because I've seen horrible people in those positions and you don't have any cash. So what right you add anything to those three?
Chris Joyce:
elements. Yeah, I'd say it comes down to also this and we find our most successful founders and this is gonna sound kind of wild Our most successful founders are the ones who are honest to a fault. They don't fake it till they make it. They don't bullshit, they don't go ahead and and make something seem that it isn't, and the reason I say that they're successful is because those are the Ones that if they need help, they ask for help and they get help. And many times founders in the beginning stage are so busy Trying to pretend to be something that they are not, or at a stage that they're not, that they attract the wrong business. They attract the wrong people and the wrong scenario for what they really need, and so honesty is the best policy, from what I see, when you're starting a business from scratch with nothing.
Speaker 3:
Oh, absolutely. So, speaking of nothing, when I started my first business, I learned what I should have hired first. The first role what would you say that is for a business that doesn't have cash and they are bootstrapped and some things they just have to do themselves till they can afford it? What role would you say is critical for the first?
Chris Joyce:
Okay, well, I'm gonna say this in a two-part way. Okay, so a founder's primary role is sales. All right, so I'm not gonna say sales. Even though I want to say sales, it's not gonna be sales. So I would say, literally, a founder should be selling about 90% of their time or interacting with potential customers. That's what they should be doing, first and foremost. Secondly, they should be hiring a COO, a chief operating officer. They should be putting somebody in place that can standardize the processes, that can take everything that they're doing all day to day with the business and creating systems, duplicable systems and processes, because, again, that's a bedrock that enables you to build.
Speaker 3:
Absolutely so. I I always say 80%, so we're in line there on the sales. I'm like because business owners will ask me what should I be working on? And I'll ask them how long they've been in business. You know just couple of general questions. I'm like sales. 80% of all your time should be sales, sales, sales, sales. You don't have to ever wonder about it again Keep selling.
Chris Joyce:
Yeah, but even more importantly, when you're selling versus when a salesman is selling. Yeah, what happens is you learn real quickly what message is working, how to iterate the product, what feedback you're getting, what pricing makes the most sense, where the people are pushing back the objections and Figuring out the rebuttals, not just for the other sales people to be go, but really for the better creation of the next generation of product, the next iteration of product. That's why a founder can't stop selling. They have to be selling absolutely.
Speaker 3:
It kind of goes back to my topic of marketing agencies and firms. House some business owners if they don't even know where they want to go, and then they hire somebody to try to figure it out and it doesn't work. Same with salespeople. I hear business owners say all the time, where do you find good salespeople? And I'm like well, you have to create them. I mean like you have to give them the information, the tools, the resources, the information they can't figure it out for you.
Chris Joyce:
What I say to founders is a couple of things. I say, first and foremost, you're not a manufacturing firm, you're not a consumer goods company, you're not a medical device, prop tech, ai, whatever the hell it is. First and foremost, you're a sales and marketing company. Period, that's what you are, sales and marketing. And when you put that at the forefront of your company, the rest starts falling into place automatically. And so that to me is quite literally everything.
Chris Joyce:
But also with a founder, that if they bring on other people, other salespeople, other biz dev people, I tell them that they are not there to figure out the sales process. They are not there to figure out how to really originate those sales. They are there just to execute whatever that plan is, and I hate to say whatever that script is, but whatever that script is that you figured out, they can then expand on a script, they can then make it better, but they can't typically originate. What to say to penetrate a market? That is actually a superpower of a founder, and you don't have to be a great salesperson. You just have to get out there and physically meet the people or get on the videos or whatever the heck it is, and talk with people, talk with the customers. You'll figure it out if you do it enough.
Speaker 3:
Amen, amen, unbelievable. We are out of time. This has been very fun. How would someone get ahold of you? Do you have a podcast blog, anything like that?
Chris Joyce:
I'm just gusherco. You just go to gushrco, you can find me. My team would be happy to help you out.
Speaker 3:
Fantastic. What is the process of gusher? How does that work?
Chris Joyce:
That's free. You literally sign on. You start creating a startup draft, you submit it for review. We go over it with you. We take an hour or two with you to get it up and running. It doesn't cost you anything. You need to have a corporation. That's the one thing you need to have and then we help you get published and we start helping you recruit and moving you along the pipeline to get your company successful. We are really main strength is taking it from zero to 10 million. That's where really we are strongest. We do do above that, but we prefer taking it from zero to 10 million are most of the companies we deal with.
Speaker 3:
So you've shared golden nuggets in the business world. Do you have any in the life world?
Chris Joyce:
Yeah, never give up, and I mean that with life also. Never give up, never give up.
Speaker 3:
Never give up. Fantastic Well, you've been awesome. I appreciate it. We'll see you around. Thanks for having me.
Michael Morrison:
Welcome to the Recap and Coaches Corner, where we break down the key insights and give you actionable coaching tips to help your business thrive independently. Today, chris reiterated the importance of setting your own standards in your business, like the expectations, your core values, what you stand for and your differentiator. Simply put, to be successful, no two companies should be the same. You are unique, you are unique, your business should be unique and your business should have its own DNA. If you would like help establishing the DNA in your business, go to businessownershipsimplifiedcom and click the let's Chat button in the top right hand corner. Now let's dive into the Coaches Corner, where I share one actionable item for business owners to build their business so they can own a business that can run without them.
Michael Morrison:
Chris mentioned an essential trait every successful business owner must have honesty. Be honest with yourself, he said. There is no such thing as fake it until you make it. Ask for help, quit going it alone. Chris said In fact, more than half of our guests on small business pivots have mentioned that asking for help was the one thing that significantly, that asking for help was the one thing that significantly changed the trajectory of their business success. So your one thing inquire about outside guidance today a coach, a mentor and if you'd like to learn more about how coaching works and helps, go to my webpage, michaeldmorsencom, and you will find every question that you could ever think of answered there. Thank you for listening to Small Business Pivots and don't forget to subscribe and share this podcast. We'll see you next time.
