How We Run Two Multiple Seven-Figure Businesses Together Without Burning Out

Speaker A: So if you feel completely overwhelmed and you're stressed out and burned out, and you're like, I just want to burn this whole thing to the ground, we felt that before, and that's why we sat intentionally looked at the calendar one day, it's like, this is too much.

Speaker B: There was a while where the schedule started to get really hectic, where it just looked like it was insane. Every day there was a meeting after meeting after meeting. And you know, what I started to realize was I didn't enjoy that.

Speaker A: Even though we're exhausted, guys, we're tired too. At the end of the day, there's no special elixir that makes us, uh, inhuman not to be tired. We second guessed every meeting, and then at the end we said, all right, we absolutely should and need to meet with these meetings. And then that's what stayed on our calendar. And that's why we are able to fit them all on one Monday. Every week. In that blank space day, we will look at where our goal is over the next five years, look at our goal for the next year and how we're going to get there.

Speaker B: All right, welcome to another episode of the Scaling Together podcast where we're talking about how we've grown and scaled our businesses to multiple seven figures and beyond, uh, as a couple. And what we wanted to talk about today is that concept of running two businesses that are multiple seven figures. Uh, how do we keep that together? How do we continue to grow both organizations without kind of fragmenting at the, at the seams?

Speaker A: It takes a community. So starting off with, uh, number one, we homeschool our kids. So that's part of what makes it work. When we're running to, uh, multimillion dollar businesses. We, uh, took out our kids from their, uh, comfy schools that they were going to, uh, doing tons of homework. We would be going to a lot of different events. And, uh, the whole family was feeling like it was time to bring it all in house. And so that's what we did. We were able to decide what we wanted our kids to learn. And it was a big year of us stressing over what that looks like should we, and what would we need to have in place. So we needed to create an entire system. And I took, uh, an entire three months during a summer to create that system and put into place. So we have a homeschooling team of three teachers for our three boys, and we have a coach. In the morning, they come and do PE with them, and, uh, that allows them to get fitness in, uh, they see their friends outside of school on the weekends. We're very close to the school that they used to go to where they made their friends. So um, we have that going on and we have a house manager that we hired that was a big piece of the puzzle helping us with home cooking. We were doing uber eating all the time and so that allowed us to bring that in house. So aside from a house manager who takes care of everything from opening up Amazon Amazon packages and ordering our groceries and doing our laundry and cooking and cleaning, uh, and all the things, um, we also have uh, my mom who helps us with uh, taking care of our kids because our littlest one just turned five. So uh, we have her help come during the daytime, uh, to help out. And then we have uh, extracurriculars for the kids as well. So lots of people that are constantly at our house at any given time. Um, and that's how we make it happen.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's important. A lot of times we talk about the business side of things, right? Like the plumbing and H vac SEO and the great leadership team and all the systems, procedures and then seven figure agency with the team we have there. But the fact is if we can't take care of our family and we can't create a great experience for them, then what's it all for? Um, and so if you think about running these two multiple seven figure companies, it started with plumbing and H vac SEO, right? It started with that. As our core business grew that up now doing about $7 million per year. Um, the, the thought process from the beginning was let's build a business, not a job, right? So let's put a team in place that can run this, that can run the day to day. So we've got an amazing leadership team over there that is responsible from everything from the sales and marketing to the client onboarding to the operations. Uh, and there's a great meeting rhythm for that, which is our Level 10 meeting that happens every Wednesday at 10am that I'm actively involved in. Uh, and then the leaders meet with their teams for level 10s. And so as plumbing H Vac SEO grew and we put that team in place, we were able to put even more emphasis over on plumbing and over on Seven Figure Agency. And uh, now that's grown to multiple seven figures, serving 350 plus agencies at seven figures. A lot of them and beyond. Uh, talk to us about how the level 10's run for um, for seven figure agency and kind of where that fits in and why that, that's created the freedom for us in our, in our lives.

Speaker A: Yes. We recently rescheduled our calendar. And uh, the thing about calendars, uh, running two businesses like that, it fills up your entire week very quickly. And so it's kind of just adding on and like, okay, every now and then you think, well, I guess I don't need that meeting anymore. But then another one comes up that's important. You're like, well, we gotta meet with this leader. We just. So let's fit that into the schedule. And then we gotta meet with this other team member that's also on the schedule. So it's sales, it's marketing, it's operations, uh, it's fulfillment, it's customer, client, uh, management, and it's also finance department and it's the integrator. Ah, for those of you following eos like we are. So there's a lot of different meetings that can easily pile up and take over your entire calendar scattered around. Um, so what we did was take this Frankenstein monster of piecing out our meetings based on space that we had available and actually looked at our calendar and intentionally said, how do we want our week to really flow? And so we took all of our meetings with the team, with our level 10s, our leadership, um, and booked them all on a Monday. So that, that way on Monday we're checking in with the whole team where any hot questions that we need to make sure to uh, address and just confirm anybody's uh, top threes for the week. It's all communicated there with leadership. We see the entire team for about, uh, 15 minutes in the morning to get all the top things that we need to do, do an icebreaker, get to know everybody a little bit better each week, and then we jump into the actual level 10 and we follow the exact EOS method for doing a level 10. So if you read the book Traction, it's literally detailed. They have a screen capture of what that looks like minute by minute. You know, first five minutes you do an icebreaker and you go on. So uh, that's the process that we follow. And then all the leaders go from there, meeting with their departments that we are not in. And that's the part of get buying back your time if that's why it's so important to hire the right person in the right seat for these leadership positions. Who is in the head of sales, who's in the head of marketing, who's in the head of ah, fulfillment, and so on and so on. So, um, that's what's going to alleviate Time that you don't have to be answering questions all the time. Uh, they're the ones that are going to end up being those leaders that the rest of the team look up to.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think without that meeting rhythm, what we were winding up with was a lot of got a minute Meetings, a lot of like, hey, I've got a question, you got a second? But having the level 10 and knowing for, you know, for seven figure agency, that's on Monday morning and for plumbing H vac SEO, that's on Wednesday morning, that's like the parking lot where those issues come together and questions get asked, problems get solved and things move forward.

Speaker A: Um, I think it would be helpful to talk about the rest of the week. Josh. We talked about Monday being meetings, uh, all day. Where do you fit in in your content planning and uh, recording videos, doing webinars and that kind of thing? Um, because mine is scheduled so that it's Tuesdays and Thursdays for me. Fridays we have a women's mastermind that we get together on, and Fridays is when we do our podcasting recording at the studio. Um, what does your week look like?

Speaker B: Yeah, there was a while where the schedule started to get really hectic, where it just looked like it was insane. Every day there was a meeting after meeting after meeting. And you know what I started to realize was I didn't enjoy that. I started like dreading the week because it was like, all I'm going to do is sit in meetings. And what I found is I like white space. When I can start a day like a Thursday and not have anything booked, but I can find, what am I excited about right now that I can pour my energy into. That's where my best work happens. And so I think even the last couple of months, just recognizing we need that white space on the calendar, but we also need those meetings, right? Like the level 10 meeting, the team meetings with the leaders. We got to pour into those leaders so they have the time and the feedback that they need. Um, healthy balance in white space, but then also blocking. These are the days I do my webinars, right. Thursday afternoon for Seven Figure Agency, Wednesday afternoon for plumbing and H Vac SEO. This is when I do my long form content, uh, planning that stuff in advance, but also proactively protecting some, some white space time as well.

Speaker A: As visionary, it's important to have time to look over the current state of affairs and to also game plan and get together. So Josh and I also whiteboard, uh, during that week, uh, in that blank space day, we will look, um, at where our goal is over the next five years. Look at our goal for the next year and how we're going to get there. Right. What, what's the trail that's going to need to be put in place? Who are those extra team members? We're going to need to fill that gap once that happens. And that's basically what has been helping us grow from, uh, when we started out small to where we are today as far as, um, just trying to pre plan and think, what are the pieces that we need to continue to add? And um, the other thing is to make sure to have, um, space for creativity. It's amazing when you do look at that day. You wake up in the morning, you look, you have almost nothing else to work on that day. It gives you a freeing feeling that allows you to open up a space in your brain that wouldn't normally open up to you. So if you feel completely overwhelmed and you're stressed out and burned out and you're like, I just want to burn this whole thing to the ground. We felt that before and that's why we sat intentionally looked at the calendar one day it's like, this is too much. We started to say, oh, but then we have a meeting, we have to add, uh, this meeting, we have to add that meeting. It's like, we're not gonna have time to actually work on things if we continue down this path. So we made an intentional decision out of a frustration and stress. Point of, let's clear the calendar, let's start from scratch. And we put on the side all of the things that we needed to officially have a meeting for. Um, and second guess all the little sidebar meetings. Like, do we really need to have a, uh, meeting with, uh, specifically operations, or can the operations director just take that on? And so, uh, that's what we did. We second guessed every meeting and then at the end we said, all right, we absolutely should and need to meet with these meetings. And then that's what stayed on our calendar. And that's why we are able to fit them all on one Monday every week. Uh, and that's what works for us.

Speaker B: Yeah. And sometimes that Monday can get a little bit, a little bit long. So one thing that I do that has helped a lot is having a standing desk that's got a walking pad underneath it. So like, while I'm in meeting all day and I'm taking notes and we're being proactive, I'm also getting some steps and keeping my energy up, which has, uh, really been Helpful. So a question for you is like, what are three things you do every week that move everything forward, the stuff only you can do?

Speaker A: So thinking about the top three and, uh, the filter through of, can someone on my team, can I delegate this thing that needs to happen this week? And if I can delegate, obviously you do. Right. But a visionary should only be doing three things and really, really well. Number one, building relationships. So if it has nothing to do with building relationships, whether it's with our team, because that's part of a relationship, whether it's building it with other clients, um, or, uh, new relationships that are going to help you, uh, extend and build your business larger, those outside vendors, people who are in your space, that has the ability to unlock more clients for you, Those are the kind of relationship building that's number one. And then number two is having time to come up with big ideas. And that is the content creation. That's the creativity piece. Which is why it's so important to have at least one day in the week that you wake up and you don't have a meeting scheduled. Uh, that's not to say, by the way, that every now and then there'll be an issue that pops up and it's a fire. It happens in any business, no matter what size. You have to pivot and create a meeting, uh, on that day. But it's one meeting and it's 30 minutes to an hour, and that's it. So, um, protect that time as much as possible. And then the third thing that visionaries do is, is that they focus on the culture of the team, uh, making sure that the hires that we bring in, the amount of people that are serving our members, our clients, are the right people in the right seat. And that is the most important thing because you have two things that help run the business. It's number one, systems. If you have the right systems and procedures, that's going to get you ahead of the game. And number two is those people who are actually doing the systems and processes in your business.

Speaker B: So walk me through your actual morning routine, and then I'll give you mine.

Speaker A: So, uh, my morning routine is I wake up in the morning, I go to my workout, and I have breakfast, and I, um, say hi to the kids because we homeschool. And then I sit at my desk and start my day. How about you?

Speaker B: Yeah. So I wake up, I do my X3 workout, I take our youngest son, who's five now, down from his bed and get him ready for the morning, um, and get the kids ready. Ready for their day and then get to work. I usually start the day with, um, a little bit of time on my walking pad, either working or in a meeting. And then, um, off to the day.

Speaker A: And then. How do you end your day, Josh?

Speaker B: And the day? Just, I'm usually crank it all the way to the end and then when it's time to stop, it's time to stop. How about you?

Speaker A: Yeah, real, uh, talk is that we usually try to find time to have lunch, but we eat lunch quickly. We don't usually sit and chat. And have sit and chat is for after work. Um, so we usually have something that Andrea, you know, cooks us. Uh, for our meals, we eat that super quick. Sometimes it's on my desk, sometimes it's at a table. And then, um, yeah, we're just constantly going from one meeting to the other, or we're working on activities and things on the calendar that we want to make sure to get done. Um, part of that creativity space, that content creation space. And then, um, it's about 5:30 or 6 is when we end our day. So then from there we unplug, um, we have dinner and then we get to be with each other. Um, I spend time with Josh, we spend time with the kids. Uh, we tuck them in at night, read them bedtime stories, uh, pray before bed, and then we, we get to go to bed ourselves. The day starts again the next day. But making the most out of every moment. And when we sit down at the end of the day thinking, how can we be intentional even though we're exhausted, guys, we're tired too. At the end of the day, uh, there's no special elixir that makes, um, us inhuman not to be tired. Uh, we work out, that helps. We eat healthy, that helps. We have Andrea to do a lot of the cooking and cleaning and that kind of thing. And that keeps us still energized. But at the end of the day, we're still tired because we were in a lot of meetings, we did a lot of content creating, we're working our computers, we're talking to other people. Um, but, uh, we find time to at least do 20 minutes a day with each child. 20 minutes together. And then, uh, sometime on our own too. It's important.

Speaker B: Amazing. Well, hopefully you got value from today's episode. Just kind of a peek behind the curtain in terms of how we run it. The two businesses at multiple seven figures together while running our family of three, um, and trying to have as much impact as we can. If you've got follow up questions on this, please post them in the comments wherever you happen to be watching. And be sure to subscribe and tune in for a future episode of the Scaling Together podcast.