More Sales Won’t Fix a Leaky Growth System

Speaker A: Welcome to the Trimetric Roadmap, powered by Business Freedom Advisors, the podcast for business owners who want to grow their business and enjoy their life. Hey, I'm, um, your host, Scott Landis, creator of the Trimetric tracking system and author of Balancing Act. If you're tired of chasing success at the expense of your health, your marriage, or your peace of mind, you're in the right place. Um, on this show, we help you track what really matters. Business health, life quality and leadership performance, all in one simple, powerful system. Because when those get out of sync, everything else starts to break down. Our goal here is to help you align it all so you can lead with clarity, scale with purpose, and finally, enjoy the freedom you've been working so hard to create. And if it feels like no one's ever shown you how to pull that off, this podcast might just be the missing link you've been quietly searching for. Now, let's dive in to today's episode.

Speaker B: Welcome back to the Trimetric Roadmap podcast, brought to you by Business Freedom Advisors. I'm Scott Landis and that guy over there, that's Jeff Jacob. Today we're continuing our series on the five freedom levers. So far we've covered keep it, which is around making sure the business produces real profit that lets, that helps, uh, you retain more of what you earn. Then there's number two is know it. Having the financial visibility and command to make confident decisions. Run it was the last one. Building the operational infrastructure and intelligence systems that allow the business to run with less dependence on the founder. And we strongly advised you or recommended to come to our next founder roundtable out of that. And you can go register, uh, for the next one coming up@getvfa.com and we hope to see you there. But today we're moving from freedom. We're moving into freedom lever number four, which we affectionately call growit. This lever is about your growth engine and revenue strategy. So what are we talking about? And this is where a lot of founders get stuck. They have like, a real business, you know, making real money. They have customers, they have even, even have strong referrals and, and a good reputation in many cases. But growth still feels inconsistent. Some months can be strong and some months can be slow. It can kind of feel like a roller coaster and sales start depending too much on the founder, and that doesn't give you founder freedom. The marketing starts to feel random. Follow up is inconsistent. Pricing may not be as strong as it should be. So those are some of the things we're going to look at. And the business just grows mostly through effort, relationships and momentum instead of a predictable revenue system. Of course you feel that that creates pressure because if the founder has to personally drive every major sale, every revenue relationship, every strategic conversation and every follow up, then growth just becomes another form of founder dependency, which is what we're all about hearing. So the goal of the grow lever is not just more revenue, it's predictable, profitable and sustainable growth. How does that sound? Because more revenue is not always better revenue. We're going to talk about that. If growth creates more chaos, lower margins and more delivery problems or more pressure on you as the founder, then the business may be getting bigger without becoming healthier, might keep beginning even more unhealthy. So today we're going to talk about how to build a growth income engine that creates better opportunities, stronger margins, clear sales process and more consistent revenue without everything depending on you and your personal effort. So let me kick it over to you, Jeff. Let me start with this one because we hear this all the time when a founder comes and says, hey, everything's cool, we just need more sales, uh, just more sales if we just have more sales. So how do you help them figure out where as, as, as you and I know. I mean sometimes that could be the presenting issue, but maybe not the, maybe not the real one. So how do you help them figure out whether they actually have a sales process, a sales problem, or is it a marketing problem or maybe it's a pricing problem or some deeper growth system problem. Where do you go with them on that?

Speaker C: Well, first with everybody, we need to do a systems audit and figure out what these systems are, what are they doing for sales, what are they doing for marketing, what are they doing for pricing? You know, there's different ways to do cost accounting, there's different ways of pricing models and uh, but there are some fundamental trustworthy foundations to all of those models. And uh, and it depends on how the business runs and what the rest of the systems are that makes it so the cost accounting can be really integrated into work with the rest of the organization. And so that can be an issue. And, but most people look at the sales and marketing as interchangeable words and they're really not. The marketing really is more about your brand. It's more about your reputation, your image within the industry. Um, and we have one client for instance, who, who has a great image, great reputation within their industry. It's in the. More of the construction world. And they have a great reputation, but they don't have enough sales Right now. And so it's not a marketing problem for them. They have the relationships, they are very in with all the people, their image, reputation is great, they do wonderful work. Uh, it's always very trustworthy. And so they're probably the most trusted and most connected in the industry in the place that they are. But they still have a problem with sales. And so those definitely aren't the same thing. And so how do you go fill the pipeline? How do you then close or increase your conversion, uh, rate within that pipeline? And one of the biggest issues that we come across over and over again is it really is an issue of founder freedom. Because the founder has been the one who has built this company, done the sales, created the marketing, made it so that it is as successful as it is now. But because it's gotten so big, they've gotten drawn out of the aspects that really build the company. And so they've gotten drawn into the whirlwind that I talk about all the time, the task whirlwind in uh, their lives and get drawn out of what actually builds it. And so they're. One of the first things to go is filling the pipeline because they're trying to, uh, deliver to the clients that are in or that have converted. And so therefore they come into a problem. It's the business becomes cyclical not because of seasons or seasonal work, but because of not being able to spend enough time in the pipeline. And so therefore we have to look at that sales system or that pipeline system and figure out what the problem is, what's the source of the problem? Why is it so dependent on the founder? And if it does need to be dependent on the founder, then how do we free them up from the rest of the whirlwind that's drawing them in? And if it's not, if it doesn't have to be dependent on the founder, uh, how can we transition that and move the pipeline to being a, to being either automated or someone else's responsibility so that we can really give them the freedom so that they can be, uh, giving their necessary contribution and not drawn into everything else.

Speaker B: Yes. Good. Yeah. And, and um, there's another thing that we often run into, um, that more revenue is not always better revenue, um, more of the same isn't necessarily good or healthy for the company. This is why we really look at business health. But there's a lot of sales gurus out there and um, sales, um, you know, there, it's a company selling sales systems. Right. So, um, m it in. And if you are a founder. If you're a business owner, you're thinking, I need more sales, I need, I need more cash coming in, I need more revenue coming in, I need more closes every month. You, you think, I mean, logical thought is, oh, I get a, I get a prospect or I see this Instagram guru and click on his link, um, and I start working on sales. And, and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Getting educated, getting better, um, getting uh, more efficient, um, and more, uh, more effective at sales. Uh, I think, you know, unless you're a full time sales professional, like I think all of us business owners could be better at sales. There's always more to do. Um, so not necessarily bad, but is it the right solution for what feels like an obvious, an obvious solution for the problem? Is it actually the correct one? So we, uh, we kind of preach this to sales management, sales design, um, companies that we, that we work with, that, hey, before you go fixing their sales in air quotes, um, let's do a business health diagnostic to make sure that, you know, you're not just throwing more fuel on a, on a burning dump truck here. Let's like, let's make sure that this thing is, is ready for the increase in, in sales. Like it's not questioning your effectiveness as a sales organization but, but let's not throw fuel on a fire that maybe isn't the right kind of fire to be burning. So what, what do we mean by. Unpack that a little bit more, Jeff, about like what we mean by that? If it doesn't, if it's not clicking immediately for somebody listening, like, uh, why wouldn't I need sales? Of course I need sales. Like, what else could they be needing? Go, Go a little deeper into that.

Speaker C: Yeah, that's really good. You talked about this at the last founder roundtable a bit. And it was, um, inspiring to me as well. But, uh, but Plato, I don't remember if it was Plato or Socrates that did the speaking and one of them did the writing. I don't remember which one it was, but uh, it. But Plato, I'll just say Plato.

Speaker B: Plato said a really, really smart guy.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: In certain ways. It's not all of his life I would emulate, but yeah, um, but he's interesting to read. The uh, he said that every thing that we say is trying to convince somebody of something which is effectively sales. Um, and my first sales job. That's how I, that's kind of how I sold the interviewer on hiring me. And uh, because I didn't have any background in official sales, but we're all trying to convince people of something every time we speak is what he said. And there's elements of that I agree with. And so we're all in sales in some way, but what. And so therefore it's helpful for all of us to get better at it. But we're talking about a specific kind of sales and if we're bringing a bunch of new water into a bucket with holes in it, that's not going to do a lot of good for us. We're going to continue to have the same problem. If we are bringing more activity into an element or uh, into an atmosphere of chaos, there's just going to be more chaos which can effectively make an organization implode. And so there's times when it's not helpful for bringing in new. Now what we like to do is start working on the pipeline, start bringing in new business. And a lot of marketing does take time. Um, the, the most effective marketing takes time. And so we like to get that started right away. But while we're doing that we need to from, from the very start getting those, be getting those holes filled and the chaos calmed. And so it's really about making sure you. In certain industries we talk about closing the back door. Like people are coming in, but how do you close the back door so they're not just leaving out the back? And so um, and filling up, therefore filling up the house more. And so sometimes it's not necessarily sales, it's the environment or atmosphere or structure of the company that's leaking too much with an open back door so that uh, the things that are coming in aren't actually filling up the bucket.

Speaker B: Mhm. Yeah. This is making me want to just have everybody listening come to the founder roundtable. We are doing them multiple times. Not just a one time event but uh, go to get BFA.com to jump into our next one. It's always updated with the, with the next one coming up. Um, probably sometime in the next couple of weeks is when we'll be doing it next. But, but yeah, we unpack a lot of that. And the reason I'm suggesting that is I'm, I'm just imagining a lot of light bulbs going off right now. Listening to what you're saying being like, oh yeah, it does seem like, I mean I've been working on the sales problem for a while. I keep trying to sell more and it just seems like it, if, if this is what you're thinking like m. Write something down Like, I keep selling more, but it still doesn't seem to fix the problem. That is a huge clue into what we're talking about here. More revenue isn't always better revenue. Um, the, the bucket has some leaks. So the bucket has some leaks. We usually, um, use that, uh, analogy for, um, like just a financial, uh, we, we used that a lot in our last episode. Financial controls and stuff like that. But, but on the Founder Roundtable, what we were talking about this last time was the chaos. If you're experiencing chaos, and this is usually I think of that more associated with teams and processes that teams are doing. Um, if you've got some team members, congratulations, by the way. If you built your business to a place where you have some team members, that's awesome. But this is what we are so passionate about, about curing owner dependency, or what we like to call founder dependency. You get stuck. You built a business like that, uh, that you imagined or visioned when you first started because you have some teams and processes. But if it. The clues of chaos are this. If you keep getting pulled into decisions, um, if you feel like you have to be, um, uh, there for your team all the time or, you know, if, uh, if things are, um, falling through the cracks, often by doing more sales, you're just going to experience way more of that. And it does the exact opposite of what we're, what we're all here trying to do. Make the business run without the founder. Um, it makes it worse because it brings you in if the, if you bring, if you bring extra revenue into a chaotic system business, you're going to get drawn more in. Um, one of the points you made at the Founder Roundtable is hiring seems like a good idea. Like, oh, if I just got some more hands on deck, it'd be so much easier. I wouldn't have so much to do. But it actually does the opposite. So if that's not like making immediate sense, come to the Founder Roundtable and we'll talk about that more. But, um, I, I have another topic to bring up, Jeff, but did you have anything, ah, to follow up on that?

Speaker C: Uh, no, I feel pretty good about that.

Speaker B: Yeah. All right, cool. Um, all right, cool. So, um, another thing we want to talk about in this Freedom lever, and by the way, let me just zoom way out to the hundred thousand foot level again. We've been going through the five freedom levers, and in case this is the first time you're listening and you didn't listen to the, you know, the, the intro to this series, um, what are we talking about? Founder. What are we talking about? Freedom levers. So we had this experience this week, Jeff, where we were talking to, um, a couple of people, but one was a business broker, um, and we were talking to people about valuations. Like there's, there's companies out there, exit planning companies, business brokers. And we get into the mix with these, um, kind of businesses because we have a, a business health diagnostic that, you know, like I like to say is a business valuation on steroids. But what, what came out of my mouth and it was like, you know, as we were talking to this person and, um, and it was like one of those things where you kind of get a clue while you're hearing yourself talk. Like one of the things that, um, that separates our Business Health Diagnostic. If you're just comparing it with an exit planner or business, um, a business broker who's giving you evaluation, you're just curious, like, oh, what would it be if I sold my business right now? What, what is my exit strategy? Um, you know, I'm a little biased. I think you should call us if you're thinking about that. But if you happen to be calling, talking to one of those other professionals, um, our business health diagnostic includes the five freedom levers. That's a huge differentiator, like we're measuring. We talk about this all the time on this podcast with all the things we're measuring, all the different areas of business, so you can see where the gaps are. But the, the brilliance of the freedom levers is, um, after your diagnostic, or let's say comparing it to the valuation, once you see the valuation, you say, oh, I wish my business could sell for a little bit more than that. That's not enough. The freedom levers on the Business Health Diagnostic point to exactly what lever to pull. There's five of them we've been talking about in this series. We're talking about number four today. But there's five of them total. And it just in, in every business, there's only five levers as we've defined it, that you can hold on to make a gigantic move in your business. And oftentimes this is equating to millions of dollars of value of what your business is worth or what somebody be willing to pay for it, um, which is probably the biggest asset on your balance sheet as personal wealth. So it's kind of a good idea to know what these levers are and to understand. Oh, okay. According to the diagnostic, I have the, uh, well, since we're on it today, I got a Pull on this lever called growth engine and revenue strategy. Okay, what does that mean? Let's unpack that. What do I need to focus on? And you might think, oh, that means I need more sales. And we're making the case here. That doesn't always just mean I need more sales. Yeah, you need some, probably need some sales. But you need to plug the holes. You need to cure the chaos before you go there. So now all that to say Hunter, back down to the uh, zooming into the business freedom lever. Um, unless you wanted to add anything to that, Jeff.

Speaker C: No, no, there are a lot of ways that, that can, um, that can play out. So what, what growth engine is, I just want to agree with that double down on it is growth engine isn't just sales, it's not just marketing. But there are, it could be a lot of different details in there. It depends on where the holes are in the bucket.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you already made um, a good point that um, I had on my list here, um, that predictable growth, um, doesn't just require marketing activity or sales. Um, but here's, here's one I think we can talk about for a little bit. Um, so if you're, here's, here's something to, to think about as, as you're listening to this. Founder led sales is not a, ah, scalable growth engine. So on the, on the uh, on the founder roundtable we were talking about, a leadership system is needed that's not just the founder. I mean if you are the leadership system then you are the operating system of the business. If you're the sales system, if the sales system is completely dependent on you, then you don't have uh, one, a scalable growth engine, but two, a business that um, is as worth, worth as much as it could be if you're looking at the valuation of it. So um, you know, like you were sharing, Jeff was sharing just a little bit ago, um, you know, a founder's reputation, referrals, relationships and hustle. You know, a lot of us in this stage of business, um, like that client in the construction business, that's the, that's the, that's the fail. So you know that works for a while. It got you to where you are. Right? But the real question is can the business create, convert and follow up with opportunities without everything depending on the founder? And the more that you can remove the founder from that, the more of a real business you have. And we talked um, in our last series about moving through the stages of business ownership and you can start to become an owner of a business and maybe even graduate into the uh, to the. What's the last one? Um, the investor. And you just have, this is one of your assets you own. But if you are, if you're wanting to get to that place where you're not just an executive but you're an owner of a business, this is one of those systems you have to create. Um, so Jeff, maybe you can add to just like what does it look like? Like what has to happen to go from founder dependent sales to, you know, something that can create, convert and follow up with opportunities without depending on them.

Speaker C: Yeah. So if, let's say you have, let's use round numbers and let's say there's $100,000 of profit a year in a company and, or EBITDA or sde, whatever metric you want to use with that. Say there's $100,000. I mean it's going to cost you $100,000 to hire a salesperson to run that whole system. We'll get to that system in a second, but it's going to cost you $100,000. Just having that system in place makes the multiple for somebody purchasing the company or you selling it makes your multiple go up. So that a hundred thousand dollars, maybe you're at a 2 multiple and it raises you to a 5 multiple. So instead of the company now being worth $200,000, it's worth $500,000. So that if you're going towards sale of a company, you have to have those things, uh, those elements of systems separated from you. Because people want to buy an asset, not a job. And if it's reliant on you, it's a job. And so it, and one of the fundamental mindsets that we try to get people to move to is, and it's not each system isn't reliant on a person. The person runs the system. And so we hire people to run systems or that can be a part of the system. Yeah, when we say hire people, a lot of that can be done with AI. You know, we do AI audits, AI readiness audits for people and we go through their systems, figure out what can be turned into an agent so it frees them, uh, freeze their cash flow. Um, there's all kinds of ways we do that, but it's not based on the person. And I'll put agents in person category. It's not based on the person, it's based on the system. But you have to create that system correctly because the power isn't just writing down an sop. The power is in thinking through that process of thinking through and defining that sop. And, and then it's. You can, it's not based on whoever that person is, it's based on can that person I'm hiring or replacing then run this system for me. And those are the things that make you scalable actually. Yeah, there's art to all of that. Of course.

Speaker B: Yeah. And that was so well said. And. But I want you to go back to something that's so natural for you to say. But I think the business owners that we talk to, I mean even like other um, professionals and um, parallel lanes that we work with, when you go back and repeat, you could repeat it verbatim or uh, in a different way. But you said something so profound that I think people need to really know when you were saying that, when you were bringing the multiplier, when you were saying a hundred thousand dollars, uh, and multiply adding the multiplier on that, what that's actually worth. Can you repeat that whole thing again?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: So, um, let me, let me say. Sorry, one, one more thing. So, so if you're. Because, because what I think it spoke to is the person who's saying, I don't know, I mean the reason I don't have a sales system is because it's hard to make one, it's hard to implement one, it's hard to design it, hard to implement it. And, and, and it requires some investment. It might cost me a uh, hundred thousand dollars to make $100,000. And that's what I want you to speak to.

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. It's because uh, when you're talking about selling and buying businesses, it's a, you buy it for a multiplier of one of those metrics. EITA sde. Um, some people look at just operating profit, which relates to both of them. Um, you have to add in assets, there's details to that. But there's a multiple involved. No matter which metric you use, there's a multiple and you get a higher multiple based on uh, how attractive this business is to purchase. And so people who are going to be spending more and more money on these higher valued businesses, they don't want to buy a job that they're going to be working 60 hours a week in. That would be crazy. And so uh, they want to buy an asset that can cash flow for them or that they can roll up and you know, uh, optimize, make more money out of. It's not something they want to be working in. So if you want to get top dollar for your business, uh, there you have to separate out the jobs, the whirlwind that you have to remove those from the founder. And that's going to cost time or money and usually money will be involved in that. But that money that you're putting out gets um, gets multiplied multiple times in the return when you're selling. Um, and it can get, depending on what stage the business is in, it can just be beneficial for the cash flow, uh, over uh, in the meantime, if you're not going to sell the

Speaker B: business

Speaker C: and it makes it therefore so that you can be scalable. If you create from the get go a scalable system and remove it as much as possible when possible from the founder, there are stages in that uh, and timing is important. But if you create those systems that are scalable, therefore multiple people can run that system. It's not based on the person, it's based on the system. And if you create the successful system instead of just hiring incredible people, um, but mix a great system with a good person, then you can hire multiple of those good people to have the same, to have a bigger output than just you alone can do. And so therefore it's talking about sales bringing in more and more money and you're spending money to bringing in more money, uh, while you are now able to work on the business or sit at the beach with your kids, you know, either one. Uh, and then depending on what stage it's at and then you're getting the bigger multiple on the back end, you're making it scalable so it can get bigger than it currently is and also making it so that the multiplier you get on the back end is, increases um, a lot which is where some of that exponential business growth gets. Um, and we've seen just it's like a house. If you want to buy a house and you want to go buy a fixer upper, you're going to pay bottom dollar for it because you have to put a bunch of money into it. But if you go buy a house, the same house that has been redone and it's beautiful, you can just, it's move in ready, you don't need to do a thing, you're going to pay top dollar for it. And so it's the same kind of thing with a business. It's getting it the curb appeal, the, you know, remodel's all done, all I need to do is buy it and it's going to be bringing me in M money long term.

Speaker B: M. Yeah. So don't make your business a fixer upper. Make it a top dollar, top market value, um, all updated, everything's looking good and working well. And, and you might be saying, hey, I don't, I'm not looking at selling my business, but here's the benefit. It doesn't matter if you're selling your business. First of all, death and taxes, right? You are going to exit somehow, some way. Um, and if you, uh, if you want to cash out on that or leave a legacy or something that can pass on to your, your kids or whatever your goals are, um, you have no downside to, to you know, make your fixer upper an actual top of the market property. You know, using the analogy, um, it's worth millions in almost every case. Uh, and sometimes more millions than you, than you even thought. Right? It's. And we see this all the time. And if you're like, okay, what? All right, good. Yeah, like, how do I figure this out? What I want you to do is, um, we have a nice URL called Get Freedom Score, uh, which will take you to our business freedom diagnostic. It's not the full business health diagnostic, but it's the starting point. So in free, it takes you, you know, five, ten minutes tops if you're really slow like me, but five minutes for most people, uh, and you'll get an instant freedom score. And then book a calendar there. Get on our calendar free. We will meet with you, and then we'll talk about the full business health diagnostic. We'll talk about how we can determine what your current business value is and what it maybe could be. Here's the fixer upper price. Here's the top market value price. Would you be interested? You're. You're, uh, capable. You. You built the business to this place. Like you can change out the cabinets and, you know, countertops and, you know, closets and, and bathrooms and make this thing really shine. You can do it. You just need a little bit of clarity. You need a little bit of sequencing. Like, which freedom lever do I pull first? All of it comes from the diagnostic. And we want to meet with you and talk about that with you. So get freedomscore.com that's going to get you there. We're out of time for today, Jeff. So the big takeaway from today is that's more revenue does not automatically create more freedom. So the growth lever is about building a growth engine that is predictable, profitable, and not completely dependent on the founder's personal effort. That means clear offers better pricing, consistent lead flow, strong follow up, and a sales process that turns the right opportunities into healthy revenue. Because the goal isn't just to grow bigger. Right. The goal is to grow in a way that makes the business stronger, more valuable, and holy grail, less dependent on you as a founder. So next week we're going to move into the fifth Freedom lever and kind of wrap up the the series on the Freedom Levers. The next one is called Funded. So how to strengthen capital access, banking strategy and financial position of the business so growth can be supported strategically. And Jeff, I'm excited about this because we've had some recent, uh, client case studies we could talk about, um, when it comes to this lever. Jeff, thanks again for being with me on the podcast and we'll see you next week. Bye, Scott.

Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the Trimetric Roadmap, powered by Business Freedom Advisors. I've been your host. Scott Landis. If you're growing a business but something still feels off, you're not alone. That's exactly why we created the Trimetric Quiz. It's not a personality test test. It's a powerful diagnostic tool that shows you where you're in alignment and where things may be silently slipping off track across your business life and leadership. It only takes a few minutes and the clarity you'll gain is a game changer. Go to trimetricquiz.com to take the quiz now before the cost of staying stuck gets any higher. Until next time, stay focused, stay aligned, and keep building a business that truly supports your life.