161 | Why Most Businesses Stay Small: The Structure Your Service Business Needs From the Very First Client with Brad Sugars

Speaker A: My guest today has built something almost nobody in the business world can claim. Brad Sugars is the founder of Action Coach, a business coaching franchise he launched back in 1993 and he grew to more than a thousand offices across 80 countries. He has spent over 30 years helping business owners build companies that are profitable, so structured, and are, uh, able to grow without depending on the founder. He hosts the Hundred Million Entrepreneur podcast and he has written more books on business than most people read in a year. Now you might be thinking, Chichi, I don't even have my first client yet. Why should I listen to a man who coaches hundred million dollar companies? Well, stay with me. The single biggest reason most businesses stay small and stressful is the very thing Brad and I are going to talk about on today's episode. Because he has spent his entire career fixing this one thing. The best time to get it right is not after you have built the wrong way or built the wrong thing. It is right now, before you have even started with your first client. So tune out the road noise, lean in and let's get started.

Speaker B: You're currently working a 9 to 5, but you know you're called to do more. You feel unfulfilled at a job you've clearly outgrown. You ignore the quiet nudge prompting you to move in a new direction because you're afraid of losing your predictable income and stepping into something God sized. If that resonates with you, you are in the right place. Welcome to Start that Business podcast where you will find the clarity, strategy and systems you need to start your service based business without leaving your job yet. My name is Chichi Okomadou. I um, am a business strategist, an execution coach and a Jesus follower. I knew I was called to start a business, but I struggled with lack of clarity, self doubt and the fear of losing a predictable income. My lack of courage kept me stuck until I traded it for obedience to God's calling. I left my job, built a seven figure service based business and ran it for 13 years. Now I help other Christians working a, uh, nine to five do the same. You don't have to stay stuck in unfulfillment, fear, doubt or lack of clarity. It's time to partner with God and step boldly into your calling to start that business. You know the one I'm talking about? Yes. That one you've been putting off for a long time.

Speaker A: Brad, thank you so much for being here. And I have to tell you this, this is a full circle moment for me. So back in 2012 when I launched Hiroshi, my e commerce global business. Your book Instant Systems was the first book I read about building business systems. It was a uh, friend of mine that recommended it to me at that time because I was just overwhelmed by the different moving parts of a logistics company. I read it cover to cover and then I did the thing most people don't do. I actually implemented it. It became my guide. It was on my table. I marked it all up with pen. That book became the foundation for every system we built to scale Hiroshi into a multi seven figure logistics company serving thousands of customers across six countries. So in a real way, Brad, you were my first business systems mentor. You just didn't know it.

Speaker C: Here I am not knowing that and very excited. I think it's, you know, ultimately that's signals success of a business is when things happen without the owner knowing. So you know, it's a good thing that when success is happening without the owner, that's a good start to it. So, uh, very happy to be here and very happy to know that that's part of your success strategy.

Speaker A: Yes. I am so excited. At some point in the business I actually took a uh, one year sabbatical because of the systems that we had built in that system. I was able to step away for a whole year. You can imagine a global logistics company stepping away for a year and the business was still running because of what I learned from your book. Your book became the voice on my desk. So when I got an email from your team, I'm like, wait a minute, is it dbrad sugars? I went to Amazon and I googled. I'm like, let me make sure this is the person and I saw when I purchased the book. I'm like, oh my God, yes.

Speaker C: So, so you felt like, uh, you know, life's good when someone puts the in front of your name. I know, uh, helping everybody else today, let's make sure we help everybody because I think that's part of my mission today. And the reason I do pods is I love to teach. It's just, you know, I get to live my legacy today. So it's kind of exciting that way.

Speaker A: Yeah, it is such an amazing legacy because it feels like a student finally getting to sit across their teacher and that and just listen to everything he has to pour out. So like you said about leaving your legacy through the pod, that is why everything we're going to talk about today matters. Because the systems thinking I learned from reading your book was not something I added when we got to seven figures. It was something I Started when it was just me running it from my apartment back then. And it was about the foundation I built from the very beginning. And that's exactly what I want us to talk about today. So let us start by. There's this famous saying. You always say that most businesses don't fail from lack of effort. You say they fail from lack of structure. So for a person that is listening, who has not even started, who is probably sitting in their nine to five dreaming about their first client and this business, what does that mean for them right now?

Speaker C: When you start a business, you got to understand that you're not starting a job. Uh, and I think there's a big distinction between the two. A business is something that ultimately can run without you. A job is something that you build around yourself. Most business people think they become an owner just because they sign the paperwork. No, an owner is someone that's created something that can work without them, something that's transferable, something that's sellable, something that can build value. So the first phase of any business is really where you are the center of the business. You are the hub of the business. That's phase one. And the only way to get through phase one is to build people and build systems. I've said it forever and a day. The job of a business owner is to build people who build their business, not to just build the business. And so when you think about getting to your first million in business, getting to your first million is about you being great and you building a team of helpers around you, if that makes sense.

Speaker A: That makes sense.

Speaker C: Getting past your first million is about you building a team of managers that can get the work done without you. And so that team of managers will generally help you build to around 10 million. But then it's to get past 10 million, you got to build a team of leaders who not only will get the work done without you, but who will innovate and create without you there. So it really does come back to a phenomenal building of the people. Now, in order to build the people, guess who you've got to build first? Yourselves.

Speaker A: That's right.

Speaker C: You know, the great thing that you show as an example is that you were learning, you were studying, you were growing. Because as much as you build your business, your business also builds you. Uh, and I think it's important to understand that the job of the business is to build you. The job of the business is to show you all the things you need to learn. That tough customer is there to help you learn how to deal with that, that hiring of a team member that didn't work out is there to teach you what to do in the next time. So every stage of business is teaching you the next stage of business, you know, so, right. If you're sitting there dreaming about your first business, I'll give you three pieces of advice. Number one, there is no perfect time. Just isn't the perfect time to start a business is today, you know, and everyone waits for that perfect time. I mean, if we all waited for the perfect time, none of us would have kids.

Speaker A: That's right.

Speaker C: And it's pretty, you know, I have five kids and thank goodness they give you a nine month gestation period to get used to it. Every time. I remember when my wife told me we're having twins, I'm like, oh my God, I need more than nine months. This, you've got to understand, there's no perfect time. Second, there's no perfect business. There is no perfect business. There is a business that you start that over a period of 6 months, 12 months, you will adapt, change, do things different. If you think that your job is to sell what you want to sell, 12 months later you're going to realize that you're selling different things in a different way, in a different price point. If you try and stay with what you initially started and you don't change, adapt, move, change with what the market wants, then you're going to struggle in business. Got to keep changing. That's, that's the greatest thing about business is that change is what makes a successful business long term. I know we've been in business now 33 years. We've been through seven different real iterations of the company and we're moving into another iteration of the company now.

Speaker B: Um, wow.

Speaker C: So, you know, with Action Coach, I don't look at it as the same company I started with. It's gotta change, it's gotta grow, and if it doesn't, I fall behind. You know, the market changes, the market shifts. It's like the old idea of a tree is either growing or dying.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: The third piece of advice if you're looking to start your own business is one of two emotions is gonna win. Every time you make major shift in your life, there's two emotions, fear and excitement. The question is, do you keep letting fear win? Because if you keep letting fear win, you won't do it. You won't start. You'll think, oh, it's not quite right. I know for me, I'm about an 80 percenter. Uh, I think when I'm 80% of the way to a yes decision. I just go, because the last 20%, all I'm going to do is find reasons not to do it, find reasons to talk myself out of it. And there could be a hundred reasons to do it, and I'll find one not to. And, oh, no, I better not go ahead because of this one thing. Yeah, but you've got a hundred reasons to do it. Yeah, but there's one reason not to. Yeah, that's you'll never get into business for yourself. If you're that, then, you know, the entrepreneur inside you is begging you to take action.

Speaker A: Right. Wow, that is so good. I love the last statement you made. The entrepreneur inside of you is begging to take action. It's like this nudging, this calling, oh, I have to do this. And I like the way you explain the different phases of business, because a lot of people that start think, oh, it's going to be like this forever. But like you said, there are different iterations. You keep growing and you keep moving to the next phase. And that is what keeps the business alive. That is what keeps it relevant. So I like that you said that. So, so many listeners are terrified of one specific thing. I know you spoke about the two emotions, fear and excitement. They don't want to quit their job. They dread only being able to build a business that becomes another job. They will dread. So from everything you've seen over, uh, 33 years, what causes that trap and how does someone avoid building it from day one?

Speaker C: Well, the trap is in your head. The trap is what you create. The trap is, and I'll put it even more bluntly, we live in an age of an epidemic of wimpy goals. There is an epidemic of, um, setting tiny goals. Like if you want to build a business just to replace your income. Yeah, you're right. You probably will build a trap for yourself. If you want to build a business, though, that you, you can sell one day or that you can have running without you. Because this is what every business owner needs to confront. The fact that the day you start a business, you have to know that you will have an exit at some point.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker C: At some point, the business will exit. Now, what does that mean? What it means is that you get one of two exits. A negative exit or a positive exit. Now, there's two ways to exit. Negatively, you kill it or it kills you. Okay? And we see that far too often that, you know, and actually, you know, the worst business is not one you shut down. The worst business is One that just survives and you keep running it forever. Grinds on your soul. Wow, that, that's the worst business. So if you fail, and I always say to people, your first one or two businesses, you're probably going to mess them up.

Speaker A: Right? Right.

Speaker C: So kill them faster. You know, the old hire slow, fire fast should be for your business. Hell, if, if you start a side hustle and it doesn't work, kill it, go and do the next one. All right, the lessons with you, there's a lot of knowledge you gained. Take that with you and apply that to the next one. So the positive exits are a passive exit or a financial exit, meaning passive, it can run without you, or financial, meaning you actually make a sale of the business. Either of those is perfectly great. But that's the aim of what we're aiming to do. And so we want to build something that can run without us. Now, you're not going to build a company that can run without you that's doing a few hundred thousand a year. Uh, that doesn't work because reality is you can't pay enough wages for a company to run without you at a few hundred thousand a year. As you found out in your business, you had to build it millions in a year for it to be able to allow you to take a year off and go and have a vacation.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: So we, we look to business for a perspective of what are we aiming to create. And I think on day one, business people should look at it as, I'm aiming to create something that can run without me. I'm aiming to create something that ultimately is an asset on aiming to create something that, you know, I can transfer or sell or allow others to run it for me. There's so many things to think of from that front. And I think that if you start with the end in mind, Stephen Covey said it best. Begin with the end in mind. And he's seven habits of Highly Effective People. Then you will actually push yourself to a point of, I'm, um, aiming to build something that can run without me. So from the beginning, you'll start to create checklists and systems and do videos of how stuff gets done. You know, I know in my restaurant business, our chef films, every time he creates a new dish, he films himself how he does it. So therefore everyone can cook that dish. He doesn't need to cook it for the rest. Uh, so I think it's important to keep that in mind, that if you set the big goal. Now, here's one other thing, though, about setting big goals. If you set a big, let me go backwards the other way and teach it. If you set a goal that you already know how to do, it's not a goal, it's just a uh, to do list item. A real goal mans growth demands change, demands you get better. A real goal demands innovation, it demands disruption. In some cases, most people set a goal based on knowing what to do already. Like most business people, their goals are wimpy. It's like last year plus 10% and that's not a goal. Let's just, oh, let's do a little bit more. And psychologically that goal ruins you because it doesn't excite you, it doesn't give you passion, it doesn't give you a reason to get going sort of thing. So I think we've got to be clear on the fact that the enemy of your goals is the word how. When people say, oh, here's my goal and someone asks you, how are you going to do that? How are you going to do it? Or you ask yourself, how will I do that? How will I do that? And you how yourself out of the goal. Look, my formula for success is relatively simple. Dream, goal, learn, plan, act. The reason you set a goal is so you know what to learn, not to go to work. You don't set a goal to go to work. You set a goal so you know what to study, so you know what research to do. AI has made research so powerful. You can do research in 8 minutes or less today. Yes, give ChatGPT the right prompt and hey presto, in 10 minutes it comes back to you with all the research.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker C: You know, so you've got to set goals that make you grow, make you change, make you learn, and then you write the plan. You don't set a goal and just go to work. It's like if someone comes to me with a business idea and I say to them, great, show me the research. And they go, I haven't done any research. Well then go and do your research for goodness sack don't you scientists are ah, great at that. They put a hypothesis, a vision and uh, then you do the research. Business people should be better at doing the learning and the planning and then going to work if they want to succeed at this.

Speaker A: Wow, thank you so much. You've said so many amazing things. But one of the things I'm taking away from what you just said is start with the end in mind. So in other words, what you're trying to build, if you know you don't want to build a job that's a business that will keep you trapped. You need to think of what you are going to build or what that end is going to look like. And man, you just tore everything about goals. I'm like, oh, but you gotta grow into it.

Speaker C: If you set that big goal now, your job is to grow into the person that can make that a reality. To grow into a business owner. You're not an owner on day one. You're a technician. You grow from a technician into an operator. You grow from an operator into a manager. You grow from a manager into a leader. And you grow from a leader into an owner. You know, but you've got to do the growth. I think there's too many people that expect to create without growing. You've got to grow into your goals. Your goals tell you who you need to become. The formulas B times do equals have who you are times what you do equals what you have. So if you decide I want to have this, then you work backwards. Well, that means I need to do this. Well, to do that, I've got to become beliefs, behaviors, all the B words.

Speaker A: Wow, I need to be.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: I love the be, do and have framework because it just makes sense. Because if you've not become the version, um, of the person that can do what you want to do, you cannot have what you want to have. So that be, do and have always has to be in front of you as you plan your goals and as you move along. So I wanted to ask you, you, um, coach people to build companies that do not depend on the founder. That's the whole essence of being an owner. Like you said, you start from a technician, then you go to an operator, then you become a manager, a leader, then you get to the owner status. But my audience is starting completely solo, just them and maybe their first client, maybe a couple AI employees. How does one person sit service based business? Start thinking about structure before any team comes along or before they can delegate to any team. What can you break down what that first piece of structure can look like when it's just them?

Speaker C: Um, I think you want to start with your very basic organization chart and start thinking about what are the first jobs you want to delegate. What are the first, first things you want to get off of your sheet? I guess because they're the ones you're going to need to systematize first. And usually most entrepreneurs want to get off of their list things that they don't like.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker C: You know, it's like, and if you're a visionary, then you want to get uh, administrative tasks off your list. If you're an operator, you want to get that, you know, so you start thinking about one area at a top. Don't try and systematize the whole business. Don't try and create checklists or videos for the whole business. Do one area at a time, one small area. Maybe it's an area that you can hire a virtual assistant in. Maybe as you said, you can have an AI take care of one particular area of the business sort of thing. And in most cases, what I'll say to owners is remove the tasks that don't. That don't move the needle. Remove the tasks that don't add money to the bottom line of the business type thing. But I'm also going to warn you about hiring too fast, especially hiring senior positions too fast.

Speaker A: Can you speak a little bit about that?

Speaker C: So the base level of a business is what's called mastery. There's four areas of mastery, time mastery, which is about productivity, okay, because productivity equals profitability, right? If you get good productivity, you get good profitability. The second is numbers mastery. You must know your numbers in a business. And that's not just profit and loss numbers. It's how many leads, what's our conversion weight, what's our repeat business rate, how much is our average sale, what are our margins? Okay? The third is delivery mastery. Are we delivering the product or service properly? You know, are we making it, or are we delivering the product or service? And the fourth is destination mastery, where are we going? Sort of thing. So when you're at that level of building the base format of the business, be very patient for growth, but be impatient for profits, okay? You want profitability. When someone says to me, oh, I'll grow into our profits. No, you won't. Yeah, you need to start profit profitable. Don't think you'll grow into profits unless you've raised billions in capital like Amazon, right? You know, you want to be profitable from the beginning. So I have a rule of thumb with hiring, and that is that if I can afford half of their wage, they should make me the other half.

Speaker A: Right? I love that. So when you speak about being profitable from day one, what does that look like? How can one be profitable from day one?

Speaker C: Keep your costs low. Don't go and hire, don't go and buy brand new furniture. Go to a secondhand store and buy your furniture. You know, you don't need a brand new desk, you don't need brand new everything. Go and buy it. Don't take out leases. It's those consistent Costs that kill early businesses in the beginning, you know, buy it for cash, but buy it second or third hand sort of thing, you know, that's, that's where a new business should start. They should keep costs low in the beginning and that's where taking on someone on fiverr, uh, might make sense. Rather than hiring a full time person, having an AI agent do it rather than a full time person. Now that being said, I'm also a very big proponent of saving a wage will cost you a fortune. Okay, so, uh, you know, there's a point at which you've got to say, you know what, this is now costing me money to do it myself because I can't do the sales or I can't do the high value tasks. So you've got to just be careful that you're not going crazy. But also remember that at some point that saving a wage is going to cost you money.

Speaker A: So at what point in the business are you able to gauge that? Okay, I've reached a point where saving a wage will cost me a wage. At what point is it when the systems you have begin to break down? What tells you that? Okay, it's time to make that leap?

Speaker C: Well, systems are going to break down all the time because the business gets bigger. Every system that you have today will need to be broken, changed, edited, adapted to be the system for tomorrow.

Speaker B: Right?

Speaker C: So the bigger the business, the more the systems need to change and grow and adapt. So don't be scared of breaking a system. You will break systems, in fact break them before they get broken.

Speaker A: Okay. I love that.

Speaker C: A system that works for 10 staff won't work for 100. A system that works for eight customers won't work for 500 customers. So you gotta be clear on the fact that your systems have to continually grow and continually change. Okay? Now when will you know that three ways that you can get to know that? Number one, you have a coach that has already been there before that gives you the idea. So know, I'm, I'm a very big proponent, as you can imagine, of having a business coach. And um, and, and they better have a great system. If you're going to have a great coach, they need to have a great system. The second thing is the day you start asking questions is generally when you know the answer. You know, it's I, I always joke and say, if I stand in the mirror thinking, do I look fat in this? The fact that I've asked the question probably gives me the answer that, you know what I mean?

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker C: So if you business, you start asking the question of, uh, am I ready to do this? The fact that you're asking the question is usually the point at which you say, okay, I'm at the answer time now.

Speaker A: Right. Right. Wow, this is so good. This conversation is so good. I'm learning a lot just listening to you and all the whispers.

Speaker C: You started your podcast, isn't it, to get free advice from successful people.

Speaker A: I know. So a lot of new founders believe systems and structure are something you add later because. Just because of the sheer work of creating the checklist or the templates or the sop. So they are like, okay, once I get bigger and I can afford it. But you teach the opposite. Why does getting the foundation right at the very beginning matter more than people realize? And what does it cost them to wait later to actually build their system?

Speaker C: Well, let's be blunt. You won't get bigger if you don't build the systems in the beginning. No, people think that building the systems is actually going to reduce creativity. No, systems allow you to be the most creative because 80% of what happens in business is routine. So it should be systematized and 20% should be humanized. So if you're thinking about 100%, then you're not doing it right. 80% should be systematized so you don't have to think about all of those parts. Those parts just get done. So it's important that we're in that mindset, I guess, of doing that now. I will say in the beginning of business, I want people to think about business this way. There's nine to five and there's five to nine. You work five to nine to build your future, and you work nine to five to pay the bills. Now you can pick which five to nine it is, five to nine in the morning or five to nine at night. You know, I was crazy when I was young because I was single and a young man didn't have kids. So I worked both five to nines. I would write books in the morning from five till nine and write systems. And then I'd go to work during the day from 9 to 5 and build the business. And then I'd work at nights, uh, five till nine, going out looking at real estate to invest in. So I was kind of the crazy young man at that point. But it was also because I didn't have kids and everything to do. So. But yeah, you've got to work on the business at some point and in the business at some point. And if you're doing the on the Business during the money making hours, you're doing it wrong. Money making hours are called money making hours for a reason. You need to be making the calls, make it rain Monday, get the sales in, do the work.

Speaker A: So no hiding behind busy work at all. You got to do the work.

Speaker C: The hiding behind. Well, I posted on social media, but did you make any phone calls?

Speaker A: No.

Speaker C: Then you're not doing marketing. Don't tell me that. If you're like, uh, it annoys me that business people now hide behind emails and social media and all of this stuff. Rather than just being getting on the phone, going and meeting people, getting out and networking and actually at networking. Don't just eat the breakfast. Go and actually ask for appointments with people to tell them a bit about what you do and learn about their business. Business is done face to face. Business is done on the phone. Business is done belly to belly. Business is done on zoom calls. It's not done on social media. Stop thinking that social media is your future. In the beginning, you need to make sales, which means you need to get in front of humans. And that's the way business is built. If you try and hide, business will find you out again. Business will grow you as much as you grow it.

Speaker A: You just heard that from my coach. You cannot hide. So we're done hiding, Brad. We're done hiding. We're going out there, we're putting ourselves out, we're eating the food frog. Like Brian Tracy says, we're eating that frog and we're moving along. So if you sat across from someone who is about to take on their very first paying client this month, what is the one structure or, uh, decision you would tell them to make now that they're just starting out?

Speaker C: Plan for that client to be investing more in a month, two month or three months. Don't just keep them at the level they're at, look to upgrade. Keeping a customer is good. Upgrading a client is what you should be thinking of. So always be looking at the upgrade. What's next? What else? What can they do more of? Second thing is, never sign a client to a contract. Well, not never, but aim to sign a client to an ongoing contract. A business that's built around subscriptions or memberships or ongoing retainers. That type of client is the type of client that builds a business. Get a customer once and keep them coming back forever. If you get a customer and then you have to go and get another customer, and then you have to go and get another customer, business gets harder as it gets bigger. So we want business to get easier as it gets bigger, meaning we want our customers to stay forever type thing. So, yeah, that's where I would start.

Speaker A: Wow, thank you so much for sharing that. Because you're constantly looking at your client and you're asking yourself, what do they need next? How do you determine that next thing that they need? Need from just serving them the one time?

Speaker C: Well, you keep asking them. You find the, uh, and it's always be problem focused in finding the need and solution focused in offering the solution sort of thing. So, you know, when you sit with a client and you discuss what's going on with them and where they're at and what's next, you find those things, you find ways to assist. Now, I want to warn of one thing though. A business, as it gets bigger, needs to get more and more focused on what it sells. Not doing a little bit of everything for everybody. If you have two programs, five programs, your business can scale much faster than a business that has 100 programs. Um, if you serve a target audience or two target audiences, your business will scale faster and easier than a business that tries to serve a hundred target audiences type thing. So it's, it's easy to fall in the trap of doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that for everybody. But I would say you can't scale chaos. It's important to recognize there are two things that don't, uh, scale. Chaos is number one. So if it's, if it's chaotic, if it's, you know, if it's a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and we have new products for every customer, or it's a individual design for every customer. We, you know, we make everything one at a time for every single person. Then it's going to be a difficult business to scale. The second theme you can't scale is genius. You can't scale genius. You must create a systemic approach. You know, so when we look at the McDonald's business, it's a scalable business. When you look at the highest performing restaurants in the world, they are a boutique business because they run on absolute genius level. Chefs, not built around a system that you can train someone in at any point of time. So genius doesn't scale and chaos doesn't scale. Now, that being said, you can choose to just have a boutique business. You can choose to be boutique. I want 10 customers at this thing, and that's what I choose to have. Because every one of us has different needs, wants, and desires. Don't think you have to go to 100 million. Don't think you have to build anything that big. If you sit down and say to me, brad, you know what I want? I really want to build a business that does 2 million a year. It makes half a million a year in profit for me, and I'm very happy with that. Then, fantastic. Set that as your goal and go do that. Don't try and do something. Just because I said you can build 200 million doesn't mean you have to.

Speaker A: Right? I like that you put that caveat in there because everyone has what they're trying to build and they have how they want to build it and where they want to go to. So I like that you said that because it gives people the leeway so they don't feel like they're pigeonholed in a particular direction. But I also like what you said about focus, because you can't scale chaos if your business is chaotic at 100k, when you go to a million, if you don't focus, it will still be chaotic. So you keep scaling the chaos all, ah, the way as you go. So, uh, I like that focus component that you talked about.

Speaker C: It's not just the business that's getting bigger. It's that the owner's job is getting bigger. It's that the owner's head is getting fuller.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: Eventually what got you to a million becomes the bottleneck to you getting to anywhere past that. So if you've become the bottleneck to your business, it's still all in your head.

Speaker A: And when it's still all in your head, that's an indication that you have not pulled it out of your head to build the systems to give you that freedom to enjoy what you have built. Because most people that start or, ah, want to start, they're like, oh, I want something to give me freedom. And the thing that gives you freedom is the systems you create so that you can systematize the things that you can. And it gives you this freedom to live and enjoy what you build. Thank you so much for this conversation. This is so good. So if a listener takes just one thing from this conversation, um, and they go and act on it this week, what is that single move you would tell them to make to start building the right structure?

Speaker C: Go follow me on Instagram DM me the Word Playbook and I'll send you a free book on how to get this stuff done for yourself. That's the one thing they should do first and foremost.

Speaker A: You heard that, guys? Go follow Brad. I am so, so excited because I am a Testament of what you teach. So I'm not even speaking theory. This is what I've lived. I wish I brought my copy of Instant Systems. I would have shown it here to really be excited. So Brad, this has been so valuable. I am so grateful that you're here. Apart from Instagram, where else can my listeners keep learning from you or connect with you or for those who want

Speaker C: to go anywhere, basically anyone find me on all of the platforms. But if you Want to hit actioncoach.com if you're looking for a coach, we do the first two weeks coaching for free for every business owner because we want everyone to get the help they need and uh, it helps us see if you're coachable and helps you see if coaching will work for you.

Speaker B: I love that. I love that.

Speaker A: I will drop all the information for Brad in the show notes and you can grab it from there. Connect with him, learn from him. I am still learning from him as I build this new business that I started. So Brad, thank you so, so much for being here. I knew your experience was deep, but I appreciate the way you took 33 years of your skill and wisdom and made it land for someone that is just starting their business. That is the genius we're talking about right there.

Speaker C: Well, congrats on everything you're doing. And if you're following this podcast, make sure you subscribe. Subscribe because this knowledge will get you there every week. You need more knowledge. That's what makes a great business owner. The more you learn, the more you earn.

Speaker A: Thank you so much. You heard that from my coach. So go subscribe and let's make this happen. Thank you so much for being here.

Speaker B: Brad.

Speaker A: I'm so glad you were able to come on today. Before you go, if this conversation stirred something in you and you're ready to start your first service based business the right way with the structure to actually serve your clients well, that is exactly what I teach in my free workshop. You can grab your seat@fromjobtobusiness.com and I can't wait to see you in that workshop.

Speaker B: Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. I pray it made you feel seen, taught you something new and encouraged, encouraged you to take action. If it did, please hit the follow button so you are notified when a new episode drops. It will be a huge blessing if you left a review for this podcast on whatever platform you are listening from right now.

Speaker A: It's the number one way I know

Speaker B: this podcast is serving you and it helps more Christians just like you find this show and take that foot first step toward their business. Until next time, remember, your expertise is needed. You're calling it real, and I'm here to help you make it a reality.