268. Detaching from outcomes, cutting back on 60 hour workweeks

Navigating the turbulent waters of a sales funnel mismatch, my heartfelt conversation with Courtney shines a light on the stark realities we face in our business and personal life. As I lay bare the alignment issues between our ads and customer experiences, which are causing hiccups in conversion rates, you’ll hear the raw emotions behind the toll it's taking on us. The candid dialogue with my wife not only exposes the struggles of work-life balance but also the emotional and financial strains we’ve shouldered over the last six months. It’s a glimpse into the sacrifices made at the altar of entrepreneurship and the search for harmony amidst the chaos.

This episode doesn’t just stop at the problems; it’s also about the solutions and the journey ahead. I take you through the essential measures we're implementing to keep our business thriving—focusing on profit and loss metrics, nurturing new members, and boosting retention and referrals. In the midst of strategizing, we also confront a proposed technology migration that threatens to shake the stability of our operations. Here, I emphasize our philosophy that values the effort we put in more than the outcomes we're attached to, trusting that a higher power has a plan for our path. Join us as we embrace these challenges, determined to press on with fortitude and faith. Business Buyers Club
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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:32

Hey, happy morning. So it's Monday, we're off to a. We're going to be a busy full week, so the challenge starts this upcoming Saturday. So that means we have three weeks of sales because we sell it all the way up to the challenge, as well as two weeks after the challenge for people to participate in the challenge to get the results that they're looking for. So far we are far behind quota, or at least goal, for the sales side of things and it seems like there's been a. From what I'm gathering, the disconnect has been from the lead to the marketing to the sales conversation. Those are the three steps in our sales funnel.

Speaker 1: 1:13

We put out the ads on primarily Facebook. We then have someone engage and interact with those leads, calling and texting voicemails, and then finally the person comes to the studio and they have that in-person sales experience. The ads are very straightforward. We have like 10 different ads and they all say hey, we're looking for people to do a transformation. We're looking for men over 50 to do a transformation, women over 40 to do a transformation. We're looking for men over 50 to do a transformation, women over 40 to do a transformation. It's pretty generic. We're not doing anything. It's straight copy. We're not doing like reels, video clips, testimonials, which we should be doing, but those haven't clicked the way that we want it, so they're not turned on right now.

Speaker 1: 1:52

And then when the leads come in, the conversations we're hearing, are people coming in and like, oh it's, it's not smooth. I thought I was coming in for a class, I thought I was coming to talk to a manager, I thought I was coming in for this, coming in for that, and there's there's misunderstanding as to what they're coming in for, there's confusion as to what they're coming in for. So they come in like I, I don't know, and, and the closing rate is really small, it's not what it used to be. And so there's two transition points where there's an issue and I need to get down to the bottom of it, and it's either when they see the ad and they talk to a person and they say, oh, I didn't realize it was actually this, and so that's where it's a drop off. Statistically that's not the issue, because it's about a 50% conversion to the next step rate. Or it's from the time they're calling and texting and conversing to when they come into the studio with like hey, I thought I was coming in for this and now you're telling me I came in for that and I don't know, I'm not going to buy. I'm pretty sure that's going to be the handoff and that's the trickiest one to quality check because that's where there's a 10-minute phone call per lead. Or you have a bunch of back-and-forth texts where people are scheduling and booking, something. That just takes more time for me to go in and spot check. And my wife and I had a really good sit-down this past weekend on Saturday night.

Speaker 1: 3:16

Long story short, I've been working 12 hours a day for the past I don't know two months, at least one month, but I haven't been plugged in, connected. We haven't been on the same page. I'm still thinking about work when I'm with our kids. I have a short temper with them and I'm not the person I am on this podcast. I'm lively and upbeat because I can just unload my download onto the audio waves, but I'm at home and I have to be a parent. I get to be a parent, a husband, a friend, a mentor, a spiritual leader in the home. I'm just moody, I'm not plugged in and I'm not present, because I'm stressed and I'm thinking about the profit and losses. I'm thinking about the sales process, the training, people who want pay raises, staff that want better hours, members that want to join, members that want to quit SBA, loans that need to get paid, a technology migration that corporate is pushing on us. That's not going to improve our revenue, and I have too many things in my head, and, even though I'm an absentee owner, I still have a lot of my brain space, and so, all that said, I had a good heart-to-heart with Courtney over the weekend.

Speaker 1: 4:35

It's like hey, here's where I'm struggling, here's where I'm stuck, and we both were able to just say hey, here's, here's what's not working. Like this is not, this isn't. This part here is not fun, this part's not fun, this part's okay. This part, though, is not really going very well, and she's a type nine I'm.

Speaker 1: 4:58

It's hard for me to hear some hard truths, but I need to hear like the straight talk, and for her, she takes a little for the general population. She takes longer to like open up and like show like that, like the deeper thoughts that are there, because she doesn't want to upset the apple cart, she doesn't want to make people feel like she's correcting them or like chastising them, and so it's harder for her to give like candid feedback With me. She's able to do it. But she also wants to give me runway, like hey, maybe it's a season, maybe I'm just working a full-time job and mentally like work in the studio, maybe it's just a season, maybe we just need a day, a week, a month, and then to realize, like no, the past six months have been really hard, and that's the truth. It's been hard, it's not easy, it's been really difficult. And it's a candid question Like hey, would we do this over again?

Speaker 1: 5:54

In some parts yeah, in some parts like no, I didn't sign up for having to figure out how we're going to cover losses every month. I didn't want to want to think about like that man or managers. I don't want to have to think about like instructors wanting pay raises when certain things are happening, and so all that to say, let's bring the conversation back to a normal reason for bringing it all up what am I going to commit to and when am I going to let go of? What am I going to allow to and what am I going to let go of? What am I going to allow God and fate, which actually God's in control of it all? Fate is the non-spiritual term for it. What am I going to allow to happen and what am I going to stop?

Speaker 1: 6:35

Trying to grip control over the whole time? And I've been trying to grip control on so much, and that's why I've been working until 10 o'clock at night, like like here's the work schedule work from 8am until five 5.30pm, hang hang out physically with the family from six o'clock until eight o'clock. The whole time I mentally like disengaged, and then when the kids go to bed, from like eight to 10, work another two hours. I'm drained, I'm tired, I'm just ready to take a break and not do it. My wife doesn't feel like I'm there, I'm not present, which I'm not, and no one's happy with it, with the arrangement, and so something has to get let go of.

Speaker 1: 7:22

And so realizing okay, I can do a lot, I can participate a lot, I can invest a lot, I can try to solve a lot, but I can't just give, give, give, give and assume that the home front's going to be okay with that in the long run. So all I have to say stop reducing the work hours and like I've got a full-time day job, like that's a commitment I've made. They still get my full 45 hours, but I can't give 60 hours anymore. I have to. I have to wind that back to like a 45 hour time commitment, and then the bonus things I'm trying to do on top of my day job and on top of the studio.

Speaker 1: 8:06

I have to like really question, like, is this something that I can do or not do? And yeah, all that to say, the upcoming session is looking very light and I can stress about that. I can implement this and this and this, this new program, this new sales funnel, this new talk track. Let's mastermind this. It really is okay. I don't have the the bandwidth to invest more time into this because I'm bleeding my personal life dry and I can't do that, and so if that means we have a light session, then I'm going to have to trust my staff to come up with a difference. And if they can't come up with a difference, then the things are going to start to unwind, and I have to be okay with that.

Speaker 1: 8:47

And detaching from the outcome is something that I need to do better at. I can do a lot of time, I can do a lot of energy, I can do a lot of mentoring, guiding, coaching, training, resource development, pointing people in the right direction, but I can't be so hands-on and I don't want to make it sound like I'm a superhero and I'm at the club or doing so much in the club'm still a very much an absentee owner and at the end of the day, I need to slow down the pace of life because I'm just wiped out every day and I'm not giving my best to my family, not giving my best to my day job, I'm not giving my best to the studio when I'm doing 12 hours a day, even 14 hours a day. Um, so that's where I'm at and we'll just have to let things play out. Uh, past podcast is set up to auto publish three episodes a day. Uh, see, I waited to have like 250 260 episodes before starting the the publish and release, so that should be good. For what? Three a day? That's like. Uh, what is that? 90 days worth of content, so three months? Uh, I'll still record these episodes, so it's gonna probably just be a hair over 90 days. I just praying that, hey, like, record these episodes, so it's going to probably just be a hair over 90 days. I'm just praying that, hey, all these episodes, all these diaries, letting the world into my brain and into what it's like to go through all this so that this can lead to some traction and free up some other areas of life.

Speaker 1: 10:39

Yeah, in the back of my head I thought a long time ago yeah, we'll buy two, we'll buy two studios that'll far surpass my day job. We'll transition. It'll be peaches and cream and it's. It's been a giant process that was not nearly as smooth as I thought. I stayed my job way longer than I anticipated and I like my job, so I wasn't trying to bail on anything that I disenjoyed. But there was this big fairy tale that turned into more of a reality check. So releasing these episodes, recording these episodes and wearing my heart on my sleeve. So I'm going to stop here. We're almost at the studio. When I say we, it's just me, myself and I and this recording microphone that I've got. We're going to go have some good sales training. We're going to be very candid like hey, oh, and also, I'm going to transition. What KPIs are reported on?

Speaker 1: 11:30

I talked to someone who they this other person has been open with their staff about the monthly profit and loss, the finances on the business, and the owner is very profit and loss driven and the team is very much people impact driven. So when the team sees, oh, we had a great month, we lost money, it's just a turnoff, because they're like, hey, well, how many people did we help? How many lives did we change? How many customers are we going to keep? Those are the things that they care about. And so, where people did we help? How many lives did we change? How many customers are we going to keep? Those are the things that they care about. And so, where are we at?

Speaker 1: 12:01

We're in early April, so I'll still I'm going to focus or I'm going to shuffle my focus for the team I'm definitely still on the profit and loss side, because that's how we keep the doors open, but I'm also going to include a metric of like, how many new members are we helping?

Speaker 1: 12:16

How many members do we lose?

Speaker 1: 12:19

How many people do we have in the pipeline for this?

Speaker 1: 12:22

How many referrals are we at? How it's going to focus around like number of lives and humans in our sphere, because I think it's be more relevant for them. Uh, yeah, all that, plus telling them them like corporate is wanting to do a technology migration in two weeks and I'm pushing back and saying, hey, I don't want to do that. We're not in a solid position to do that kind of thing. Let's put a pause on that, because it's not going to help us thrive. That's going to make it tougher for us to have a solid month. So please give us another couple weeks so we can give our attention to this and not disrupt our business structure.

Speaker 1: 13:05

So, anyhow, one thing at a time, lots of things at a time, and detaching from outcomes, we'll do the input. We'll do the input, but I'm not going to attach emotional energy to the output because I'm going to let God and fate figure that out. I don't want to say God and fate. I'm going to let God figure it out and he will make a way when there is supposed to be a way. That's where we're at. That's where we're going. Let's rock and roll.