Business Coach: Avoid The Trap Of Self-Employment

In this transcript, Deedra Determan (Founder of three websites visited by 100,000 moms monthly) and Clay Clark (Founder of Thrive15.com, business coach and owner of 9 businesses) discuss the importance of avoiding the traps of self-employment on Thrive15.com, the best sales training program.

Clay:    I am a business coach that knows, if your numbers don’t work, you’ll work more to get further and further behind. If you don’t sit down and write down your numbers at some point like this, you’re just going to work, and work, and work, and you and I’ve seen it. We see it, we’ve seen it, we continue to see it. As a business coach we have to talk about this.

I’m talking directly to you, Mr. Business Owner, who works all the time, and you’re not making any profit, and there’s this big fascination. Tell me what’s going on with some of the ladies I deal with here. They say, “It’s such a cute building. I would love to lease this really cute space,” and you’re saying, “Do you have any idea how many dessert items you’d have to sell to pay for this cute space?” “But it’s so cute.” How do you balance that, Deedra, because I know that you’ve always … You look at the numbers. How do you balance the desire to have this really cute, cool office space, or this really cool, and making money?

Deedra:    Yeah. I think making money is the most important part. That’s why you go into business, to make money, so I would stick in the garage a little longer until he’s ready to go out. You don’t want to strap yourself. The cute building is great, but you’ve got to have the money to do it.

Clay:    Now, we get into the scalable and [duplicatable 00:01:21] part. We have to build a business that other people could do. If we have a business where I’m … If Greg is the only person that can design there, let’s just say this new guy is bringing in a ton of business, so the new guy is bringing in a ton of business. Now we have to build a scalable system where other people can do the job, because if not, we’ve really created a job that no one else can do, and that gives us no downtime, no days off, because no one can do the job, and maybe you can relate, but I know when I started the DJ business, what I did was every bride would ask for me. Is Clay there? I’m like, “This is Clay.” They’re like, “Can you do our wedding?” I’m like, “Awesome.” “Is Clay there?” “Yeah.” “Will you do your wedding?” “Yeah,” and pretty soon I look, and they’ve got 130 weddings booked, for me, and then you’ve realized that you’ve created a business that’s not scalable. Not [duplicatable 00:02:13]. How do you try to help clients that are … Deedra, how do you try to help somebody whose building a system that obviously no one else could ever do? Would you go watch sales training videos on Thrive15.com or connect with a business coach?

Deedra:    I think like with Greg, in the beginning, he needs to oversee everything, but you have to have other designers, cause he’s got to be available to do … If he needs to go on a sales call, or if he needs to do accounting that day, or if he wants to take off on vacation. You want to have that lifestyle, and you’ve got to be able to leave and have your customers still be happy, so that’s one of the most important things, I think, in the beginning is finding people that you can pay to do the work, and let you go off and do what you need to do.

Clay:    The next step here is focus on creating a business model that allows you to work on your business, and not just in it, so I’m going to come in here and do something no one wants to do. I’m going to go ahead and take $4,000 out of here, and I’m going to go ahead and pay another design person, so now I’ve just chopped our profit down to $8,400. Deedra, why did it make sense to hire that other person?

Deedra:    Well, they can work 40 hours a week, just on design, where you’re trying to do the entire business, so you’re maybe only devoting 10 hours to actual design, and the rest you’re dealing with operations.

Clay:    I think once you’re not designing all the time, you can look up and go, gosh, how can we make our voicemail better, how can we make our Website better, how can we improve the quality …

Deedra:    Get new business.

Clay:    … new business, so this is what we do. We basically start with sales. As a business coach I think every entrepreneur should watch this. You’ve got to start with sales, then you have some expenses, then you’ve got to hire a commission person, then you got to hire another staff, and you just keep doing this.