How Managing Expectations Can Increase Your Revenue | Ep 85 31:10

I think one thing to distinguish is that without the properly defined expectations, nobody understands how to play or win the game. And so you can bring someone in with the skills, but to assume that they know how to play the game that you're playing in is absurd.

How do you create an unshakable business? I crossed $100 million in net worth by the age of 28. Now I'm growing acquisition.com into a billion dollar portfolio. In this podcast, I share the lessons I've learned in scaling big businesses and helping our portfolio companies do the same. Buckle up and let's build.

Today is actually really different. So I polled my audience, what audience I have, and basically asked, you know, do you guys want to see more longer form content? And so what I really felt like is actually needed is foundational series. And so what I want to create is really a foundational series on how to build the infrastructure for a business and then how to scale it.

And so this is the first one. This is really a foundational piece in essentially management for a company and how to build the structure for that and kind of like the foundational pieces to put in place. And so it's definitely a subset of do the boring work because I think a lot of times like the stuff me and Alex talk about is really exciting and sexy. But the stuff that we do when we bring in like our portfolio companies is like this shit.

And so I want to provide it to you guys. It's a longer training. It's the first piece in five of the first series I want to do. Okay, so like I mentioned in the introduction, this is really just a part of a series. And it's honestly intended for people who already have companies and are looking to scale and grow. And they're wondering maybe like, why am I not growing? Or what do I need to do differently in order to continue to grow? And so I want to talk about high output management practices. And before I go into why I actually made this entire presentation, and actually for others, I want to talk about what it is and then why it's important.

Okay, so what is high output management? Well, it's increasing performance and outputs of an organization influenced by each manager. So managers can collectively increase the outputs by adopting output-oriented approach. And so I think there's a lot of management by activity and management by metrics that

But this is management by output. And I think it's especially relevant if you're in the remote business or you have a remote company, because that is really all you can see. And you can measure activity and you can track activity. But at the end of the day, you cannot watch what someone's doing all day. And I think, honestly, that is far gone and in the past. And I do not think that people like working at places like that, nor are they inclined to work for companies that are like meticulously tracking what they do anymore. And so that's why I want to make sure that we put controls in place to measure output, right, rather than micromanaging.

And so the real question for this is you're like, Layla, management, that sounds boring as fuck. And I'm like, I totally get where you're coming from because I used to hate the term and thought it was incredibly boring. So the question is really like, why should you give a fuck? Well, I can tell you that in 2016 is when we started Gym Watch. And over the next three years, we scaled to 28 million. And so you can imagine going from literally zero employees, never having managed people before, never having wanted to manage people before,

never having wanted to have like a formal business meetings and all that stupid infrastructure that I tried to avoid my entire life. And then this business just started exploding. And it was almost like you had to do something, right? And so come 2019, we actually peaked at about 115 employees. And I actually remember this was a meetup and we had, this is part of our team. And we actually had all 120 employees there at this meetup. And I felt actually terrible. And the reason I felt terrible is like, honestly, I felt like there was,

There were so many people there and I like could not understand why I was still so stressed and still felt like I was doing everything. Like I felt like it was still all reliant on myself and Alex. And I was like, I was literally looking in the room and like, I'm not even joking. I was just like, what the fuck do half these people do?

Like, I really do not get it. And I've been doing like the practices of managing and leading and all that. But I don't think that I was doing, I wasn't doing it to the extent that I understood. And there's one thing when you do things because you hear that you should. It's another thing when you do things because you believe that they matter.

And I didn't believe that they mattered at that point. I was like, I have to do these things. I need to check the box and to get them done. I didn't understand why they mattered. Right. Yet I could drown myself in self-pity or sorrow, which I didn't. But I could in the sense of like, I just felt terrible. Right. And I, I,

Honestly, they feel like I was in a really negative space. You know, Alex and I went on a vacation in 2019 and it was the first vacation we'd taken since we started the company. And I told him, I was like, dude, I just like cannot keep living like this. And you know, that's why I make this because if you feel that way and you're like, I am growing this business, it's going really well, but I feel terrible.

and I feel like I'm overwhelmed and there's stuff happening all the time and it's absolute chaos, then this is for you. And so it's really if you feel like you can't take time off, like I told you guys, like we didn't take time off. I mean, that was the first time since I met Alex. So I mean, I think it was three and a half years. Your team rarely is meeting or exceeding deadlines. So that was another thing. I felt like every single person on the team, I was like, are they all just terrible? Or am I terrible? Right? Because like nobody can ever meet a goddamn deadline.

And I was like, I don't understand. People also then complained. They were like, I have too much to do. And I was like, but you can't meet one deadline. Like, I did not understand all. Both Alex and I felt like we were the smartest people on the team in the room. It felt like nobody was bringing novel ideas. Like, there was nothing that was said on a meeting that we hadn't already thought of. And that was extremely exhausting because it felt like we had to have our brains on all the time on every single part of the business because nobody was...

thinking on our behalf. And we felt like we did everything more than anyone else on the team, right? I was like, I'm over here working from 4 a.m. until 8 p.m. every day on meetings, always on. And I didn't understand why. I was like, what is going on? Why do I have 120 people? And yet I feel like I'm still doing more than everybody else on this whole team. And then again, feeling like sole source of value for the business.

I was like, if we take a break, if we stop being in the day-to-day, if we stop running things, I just felt like it was going to fall apart. And I didn't understand why. And honestly, it comes back to the fact that it is, again, it's believing something is true and doing something because you think you should.

And if you feel like you should be managing and you're just should, you're just shooting all day. You're like, oh, I should be doing all this. I'm going to do it versus I believe that this is how you build a successful company. And therefore I'm going to do it with conviction. It's very different. And that's the nuance. And that's how we were able to make a transition that year. I decided that I was going to be more intentional with how I was doing things. I was really going to take this more seriously. And that is what I believe allowed us to really scale ourselves out of the business and eventually sell it. Here's what I've observed. And here's what I experienced myself.

was that we were at, back in the day, 10 million a year. And at that point, it's like, how do you get to 30 million? And you think that in order to get to 30 million, that you need more traffic, more sales, more bodies, more money. I need to hire 10 more sales guys. I need a better marketer. I need a better firm. You best think you need more and better of all the things that produce the inflow. That's for the most part. And that's what I see a lot nowadays when it's really common with founders, right?

But what happens is like you work your ass off and you literally just like grind yourself into the ground trying to get this stuff going only to get to like 11 or 12 million in the next, you know, one to two years. And you're like, I don't get it. What the fuck? And when you get to that 11 or 12 million, what you start to notice is all the leaks in your bucket, which is like you have increased overhead, yet there's no increased output. You have no data or no numbers. So it's like a clusterfuck. Like everything's just flying around by the seat of their pants. You don't understand what's going on. It's disorganized.

There's chaos everywhere. You don't understand how things are getting done or what's getting done or where anything is at. There's high churn. So you most likely see that retention starts to go down, churn starts to go up, client complaints start to go up, and then there's less conversions. You look at like your upsell percentage and you're like, why the hell is that trending down? I have more people. I have a bigger team. I don't understand what's happening. And this is really common. And it's because everyone's wondering, okay, then how do I get from 11 million or 12 million a year? Because I've itched my way up there. I've barely gotten to that point to 30 million a year.

And guys, I'm just like playing with the numbers. This is just the most common spot where people get stuck. And I know I was stuck, which is like, how do you get from the 10 to 30 and then even the 30 to 50? And what I've come to learn and realize is like, it literally is just the professionalization of management. And I know it sounds stupid and boring and dry, but this is the shit that works.

And like, if you know me and Alex, we say do the boring work. This is the boring work that makes a company work. And so if you want to not feel stressed all the time and manage the chaos that is the business, then this is the stuff you've got to do. And so...

What I put together is in the next few presentations, and this is more of an educational like take notes series, the five practices that I have found are most effective in terms of managing in a company. And so this applies to anyone who's a CEO and anyone who's a leader in the company as well. Because I think if I were, you know,

If I were a subscriber of my own channel and I were watching this, I would have all of my team watch this because I think everyone needs to be on the same page. And I think one of the most advantageous things I ever did was when I was learning how to manage, how to lead and do all this stuff, I gave those same books to my team and I had them watch the same courses as me. And I did as much as I could to translate that down because it's a lot easier to give them a third party source to listen to rather than just you. I know that sounds shitty, but it's like you can't be Jesus in your hometown.

And so the first piece is what I want to talk about today. And it sounds more vague than it is, which it's really, you have to keep expectations clear. And I want to explain what expectations are when it comes to business. Okay. Expectations are just the verbalization of how someone should act or something should be done. That's it.

Okay. So I could tell someone, like I say, I have a kid, right? I'm like, go make your bed. And they could, you know, come to me with this shit, right? Or I'm like, okay, that looks like shit. You didn't make a bed or you did technically make your bed, but does not how I wanted it done. Versus if I say, make your bed like a five star hotel would, and then they do it, you know, nice and pristine. They're like, okay, five star hotel. They fold the sheets nicely. They fluff the pillows. They do all this nice stuff that sheets are clean. Right. And so even just what I said, like the way that you state how you want work to be done is an expectation. Okay.

And so in businesses, they're often unsaid rules of engagement, right? They're non-negotiable, agreed upon behaviors and norms that everyone else on the team is held to based on the values of the organization. And so that's the really interesting part is that they are non-negotiable. Okay, so notice that non-negotiable. So it's like if someone comes into your company and everyone responds within five minutes and that person doesn't, everyone's like, dude, they shouldn't be on this team. They

They can't respond fast. Yet, it's not written anywhere in most companies that if you respond within five minutes or you don't, that you're going to get fired. But in many companies, it's actually how it works. And that's why there's often so much contention between people who come in and they're hired and then they're quickly fired and people who fire them because they're like, well, you didn't follow the rules. And they're like, well, there's no rules fucking written on the walls. And that's why...

Those things happen and a lot of companies have turn and turnover and they can't figure out how to build the team. And so that being said, I think one thing to distinguish is that without the properly defined expectations, nobody understands how to play or win the game. Okay, and so let me explain this to you. Is that business is a game, right? Right.

But say you're head of finance. The last company she was at was like Monopoly. And so she's playing the game of Monopoly the entire time she's at that company. And then she comes to your company and it's basically checkers. So it's actually, it's a game, yes, but it's a completely different game with completely different rules and completely different players. And so she doesn't know how. She knows how to play a game, but she doesn't know how to play this game. And so you can bring someone in with the skills, but to assume that they know how to play the game that you're playing in is absurd.

Because they don't. They're like, I need to know the rules. I need to know how we play. I need to know how to win.

What qualifies me to lose? What disqualifies me as a component? And so in order to clarify that for your team and for the talent you're trying to attract, as well as ultimately clarify for your customers what you do as a business, you have to have really four levels of expectations. And I'm trying to break this down as simply as possible. But when I've really drilled down to it, if you just have these four, and if even today, if you don't have any of these, you just start implementing one, it will be immensely useful for your business because it will absolutely clarify what people can do. And with clarity comes speed.

So that being said, the first part I want to talk about are core values. And that's really the root of and the highest level of expectations in a business. This is where everything else comes from. Okay? They're the root beliefs that an organization operates from. They're the principles and the perspectives that guide the organization's behavior. So if you're like, okay, here's the goals we have. How do we achieve those goals? We achieve them by adhering to these core values.

Okay, here's the role that I need to fulfill. Well, how do I get the job done? By abiding by these core values.

And so the reason that values are so important, and the reason I'm such a fan of instilling a strong sense of culture rather than rules, is because you want people who are value-based, not rule-based. There are two kinds of people in this world. There are people who are value-driven, meaning they want to come in and they want to be given, understand, and adhere to a set of values. Those are usually first principle thinkers, strategic thinkers, A players. They are attracted to places that are ruled by values versus values.

you know, C, D, E players, right? They are ruled by rules, okay? Rules are, here's a checklist, go do all these things. I don't need to tell you why. And so which one would you rather rule your company by? Rule your company by, right? Which one would you rather run your company with? Would you rather write down every single thing that somebody has to do? Clock in it every day at 8 a.m. sharp. Respond to every teammate within 120 seconds. Respond to every email within 60 minutes.

Or would you rather say our value is speed is king and that pertains to all communication? And so I hope you're getting the point, which is if you want to go fast in your organization and you want to accelerate the speed of decision making, which ultimately accelerates your growth as a company, then you want to be a value-based organization, not a rule-based. And the thing is, if you're not clear and convicted on your value, you will default to rules. If you do not focus on values, people default to rules.

because they don't know what the values are. So they say, shit, I guess I've got all the rules. I don't know the values. So let's even try on, because now that you've understood there's rules versus values, then there's what kind of values are you picking, right? And so the values are really what make up the personality of the company. And so even just think in terms of your company, kind of try these on, right? So at Gym Launch, we had the core value, speed is king. Now I know another company that had a core value that was pace yourself. Now that company was actually a UX design company. And

And they built meticulous, like very detailed slides for essentially software companies. And they did all the UX.

And the reason that they have that core value, I asked, is because they said, well, people, when they rush, they miss things. They miss parts of the screens that we need to integrate. And so we said, you have to pace yourself because the work is not done if there's anything missing. It's not considered done because it won't work with the software. And so they needed the value, pace yourself. Versus our company, we know how fast small business owners move. So we're like, we need speed as king because they expect us to respond quickly because things are always urgent in small business. Bigger businesses have more stability, more resources, more people. They have more time.

versus small businesses don't. And so that's why we chose Speed is King. Another example is always innovate versus do the boring work. Okay, so I'll give you the reason why we have do the boring work. Because I think that in small entrepreneurial companies, a lot of the times what happens is people lose focus because they actually have so many naturally innovative ideas. And we realized that with our team, we're like, we have to remind everyone that they've got to flex that do the boring work muscle rather than continuously innovate because a lot of times you're overbreaking things.

versus I know of a company, but as a core 10, this is always innovate. And it's because the kind of people that are on their team are actually more inclined to just do the boring work and never innovate. And so they have to, it's a reminder that this is how we behave in this company. If you have core values and you don't utilize them, or if you don't have core values, these are just what I have done, what Alex and I do every time we start a new company. As we go through this process, and we actually just did it recently with acquisition.com. So I'm going to explain to you what we actually selected as our core values of that company and how we came about that.

So the first one is you decide what part you should be involved in picking those core values, right? Is it just the owners, the managers, the whole team? So recently, as we did acquisition.com, it was myself, Alex, and Suzanne. Suzanne's our CFO and our third partner. And the second thing you do is you brainstorm and write down your favorite quality and trait about each member on your team, right? And so we kind of looked at ourselves and we were like, why is it that the three of us jive so well? And why is it that, you know, we are the foundation of this team? What are the qualities about ourselves that we value, right? And so you have to have a little bit of self-awareness to identify that.

And then if you need help kind of exploring beyond that, then the question I like to ask is if an alien came down from space and was looking at your business, how would you describe the environment of the team to them? Hey guys, if you already don't know by now, I am actually fairly active on LinkedIn. I may go so far as to say it's actually become my favorite platform. So if you'd like to connect with me, just send me a request or hit follow. And shout out those who've been sharing my posts and tagging others. Right, so I'm thinking, okay, how would I describe Alex? How do I describe Suzanne? How do I describe myself?

And then lastly is really just changing the verbiage of the values in a way that's congruent with your team, which is like, do you have a funny, lighthearted vibe? Is it a serious vibe? Is it an intellectual vibe? Is it a hardworking vibe? If you look at gym launch, our core tenants were like, do the boring work. Don't sugarcoat it. Have humility. Grow or die. Like,

aggressive, hard-hitting. They had like a rhythm to them and they were little phrases. Versus at acquisition.com, it's unimpeachable character, sincere candor, competitive greatness. Notice it's descriptor, noun, descriptor, noun. And then it's more of a poised, polished sounding core values because that's the personality we're trying to create of the business. And the last thing is you just want to evaluate how those feel together.

which is, you know, a lot of things can sound good on their own, but altogether, do they encompass what you're looking for in the company in terms of the behaviors you want people to abide by or exemplify every day? And so, like I said, Acquisition.com's core values, unimpeachable character, sincere candor, and competitive greatness. We chose those because, one, for unimpeachable character, we said, we all believe that we have pretty unimpeachable character, and the partners we look for need to, and the people we bring on our team must.

That's just like, the business won't work if we don't because we're so intimately involved with the partners that we bring on and the team that we have. It's a small team, but a tight-knit team. And we work very closely with the CEOs of the companies. So if we don't like them, if they don't have good character, I don't want to talk to them every day. I'm going to be less inclined to help them. That's just human nature. The second piece of that is sincere candor, which is understanding that we need transparency in the teams. And so if a partner in a portfolio company is

is not going to be transparent, and they're not going to have great candor, they're going to, you know, be aggressive or passive aggressive, then it's going to be really unproductive communication. And so we need people who have more eloquent communication than, you know, standard everyday Joe. And lastly, is really competitive greatness, which is, this stems from, you know, kind of, I think, where Alex and I are in our lives, which is,

We're not doing this for money. We're doing it because we enjoy it and it's what we want to do every day. And we want to be great for the sake of being great. And we want people who are like that. So yes, wanting money, there's nothing wrong with that. And I love that, but it can't be the only reason you do something.

And so that's why we look for people who have that competitive greatness in them when they come on board. They have a drive beyond a dollar amount. That is why they do what they do. And so once you've gotten all of your core values in place or you've solidified them or even honestly redone them after seeing this, you're like, fuck, we don't even talk about them. Like if you don't talk about them and bring them up, just throw that shit out because it's not you. It's not your personality. Because if it was, you would talk about it.

Right. And I think that's the one thing we spend a lot of time doing this stuff. Like me now, it's probably spent honestly 12 hours trying to figure out these core values for three. That's it.

because it's that important. And so what stems from the core values is really a second level of expectations. And that second level is your brand promise. Brand promises are usually tied to strategic metrics, okay? Those are metrics that drive your business forward, and they tell your external customers what your internal values are, as well as what to expect in terms of results and experience, okay? So think about it like this. Results times experience equals brand promise. If

A brand promise is a combination of expectation of experience, expectations of

Expectation of result. And you can hear that if you listen to these four examples. 15 minutes or less, or you can save 15% more on car insurance. Okay, well, I know how long it's going to take, which is the experience, and I know how much I'm going to save, which is 15%. Your dream haircut in less than an hour. I'm going to get a quality haircut, and it's not going to take much time. We will get your package to you by 10.30 a.m. the next day. Well, the result and the experience when it's physical products is pretty much all in one, so I know that both will be completed by 10.30 a.m. the next morning. And then your questions answered in five minutes or less.

Okay, what's going to not take long to do something or to resolve a problem. And so those are some brand promises that are common. Now, when you're thinking about your brand promise, this is how, this is why it's useful. And this is, I'll give you an example of how we use ours and how it actually applies to acquisition.com.

So your internal is like, what's your vision? What's your mission? And what are your values? Stemming from that is what you create your brand promise. So once you've created those core values, then you can say, okay, what kind of brand promise stems from one of these values? So you look at your values and then you think, how can I tie a brand promise to one of these values? Now, what stems from that brand promise is your offer that you're making.

And so if you've read like Alex's book or you've been looking at your offer, if you have your offer and you don't have these other two things, it might actually be good to even reverse engineer and say, why did I choose this offer and what could I create as a brand promise and then create as core values? Because you can kind of think from two different angles in terms of creating that. Now, this is what we did.

internally, we know that our core value is competitive greatness. Okay. What that turns into in terms of our brand promise is that we do majority work for minority investment. That is our brand promise of acquisition.com. And then how does that position itself externally? We say we will 3x your business in three years or don't pay us again. And that's a big promise.

And the reason we can make that promise is because we do majority work for minority investment. And it's because we're competitively great. We love what we do. So you see how those stem together. So it's like, if you don't have the values, you cannot make this promise to then make your offer to the external client. So once you've got the brand promise down, the part that gets into like the nitty gritty is departmental expectations. And I'll tell you guys,

Until I got down and understood that measuring departments and KPIs and all this crap that stems from all of the fundamental stuff that's a little more fun, like values and mission and brand promises and offers, until I got this stuff in place, nothing's going to happen without you looking at it, without you sniffing around, without you putting your hands in it. Because nobody knows what the scoreboard is.

If you don't have a scoreboard for each department, how the hell do they know if they're winning the game? How do they even know what the rules of the game are? They're like, here's the rules that they set for the company. I don't know how this pertains to my department. And they really don't because there's many different things you can measure for each department.

And so departmental expectations are really how those values and those brand promises flow down into the departmental metrics and the expectations. So it's a combination of the two. So think about it like this, right? If you're in the restaurant business and a customer comes in and they want eggs, but breakfast ended at 11 o'clock, how does your employee know if it's actually okay to serve eggs or not? Okay. Do they, do you expect them to delight the customer or

Or do you expect them to uphold the agreed upon service hours? That is an expectation that you must make for that department.

And if you don't make it, then you will find that people will act out of accordance and out of alignment with what you want for your brand. I'll tell you that if you think about like this, right? Like a mom and pop shop, if you go in, you're probably going to have the experience because they think about how do you delight the customer? We want loyal customers, we want referrals, et cetera. They're going to make you like eggs at 1115, right? They don't care. Versus McDonald's, it's 1101 and they're like, get the fuck out, you're not getting eggs. You can't pay me enough money to make you eggs. I'm not allowed to. And so it's funny because if you look at that,

One of them is driven by values, which is delight the customer. The other one is driven by rules, which is on my checklist doesn't say I can do this. And so again, this all ties back to starting those values. If you're a value-driven organization, it makes all of this much easier. So let's look at one case study, okay? Which is...

Core value is speed is king. Brand promise is your questions in five minutes or less. That makes sense pertaining to speed is king. So then what metrics am I going to measure my customer service department by? I'm going to say all client inquiries need to be responded to in less than 120 seconds. And then the KPI, the key performance indicator, what's telling me if the department is performing,

is the total number of inquiries versus the total number that are under 120 seconds responded to. And I'm going to know that I'm always going to maintain a good ratio. And the reason for this, and this is actually how we ran our customer service department,

and that's why I used the example, is that I knew that I could promise five minutes or less because our average response time was 120 seconds. And so it was an easy promise to make. I was like, I can promise that because on our bad day, we respond within three and a half. But to make sure that we always stay in line with this, I'm going to measure this department by how many people respond in less than 120 seconds, because that's what keeps top of mind for them. So that's the first case study. Now, if you think about a different example,

Case study number two, right? Say the core value is the customer is always right. That translates into a brand promise of your dream haircut or your money back, right? It's your dream, not my dream haircut. I can be Francois from France and like, it doesn't, it doesn't give a fuck like what my opinion about your hair is. If you like it, it's your dream haircut or I'll give you your money back. So what are the departmental expectations and what are the KPIs, right? And this is actually from a salon that I used to go to and I asked them about this.

which I would come into that salon and the guarantee was your dream haircut or your money back.

And the thing was, is that no haircut was conducted without one, a picture that the client had to bring in and show to the stylist. And oftentimes they'd ask for two or three. And two, the approval of the master stylist. So the master stylist, we had to wait, bring the master stylist over. They would literally have to watch that person cut the first like two minutes of my hair before they said, okay, you're good. So that is an expectation that they hold. And then the KPI that's tied to that is number of clients who refer a friend. Okay.

The reason for that is because if you get your dream haircut, why would you not refer a friend? You would, right? Another KPI that you could tie to this would be number of Yelp reviews left. So it's like every time you do a haircut and you say, hey, if this is your dream haircut, can you leave us a five star on Yelp? It'd be awesome if you leave a review. And then you maintain a ratio there and you say what percentage of customers are leaving your review. So those are two examples of how you can kind of flow down those departmental expectations.

And if you have no department expectations at all right now, honestly, just think of the one. Like if there was one thing you needed from that department,

one thing that was going to drive the business forward more than anything else, what would it be? And what metric can we tie to that? And what expectation can we put in place? Just start with one. I think a lot of people get overwhelmed because they see this and they're like, oh, it sounds complicated and KPIs and like all this bullshit, right? It's like, just do one. You can add more later. So last piece of expectations is really just role expectations. And if you've done everything else, this becomes incredibly easy. But here's the thing.

Most of the times, like when we bring on a portfolio company, this is where I can identify all of the other issues because they come in and they say, I don't know what anybody's doing. I don't understand how to measure and hold people accountable. I don't know what their job is. I don't really understand what's going on or where everyone's contributing value. And so they say, I think I need to clarify everyone's roles. And I'm like, yeah, I mean, you do need to do that, but you need to do all this other shit before.

Because like, how can you clarify their role if you don't know the role of the department? And then how can you tell what the role of the department is if you don't know what your values are as a company? So you don't know, do I value fast customer service or quality customer service? I don't know. And so that's why it all stems from those values that you decide in the first place. Now, looking at role expectations, if you've done that groundwork, this piece is fairly easy, right?

Role expectations are simply the departmental KPIs tied into a role measured against performance. To give you an example, we're going to go back to one of the other ones that we have, right? Which is speed is king. So my core value is speed is king, which means your question answered in five minutes or less, which means all client inquiries are responded to in less than 120 seconds. And my KPI is total inquiries and number that are in less than 120 seconds. Now the role expectation, the role, the KPIs of that role that I'm going to be looking at is

is total number of inquiries out of number of inquiries responded to in less than 120 seconds, right? So it's the same as the departmental. I'm going to be measuring for individuals, right? Because you just want to see individual performance rather than departmental. And then the second piece that I could even put in there is that I need as a KPI, right, a key performance indicator, to know that we are performing at par, that at all times, 80% of inquiries are responded to in less than 120 seconds.

And if we start to go below 80, then I'm like, do we need to hire somebody? Is there somebody that's like out sick? Like what's going on with that KPI right there? Why are we not getting 80% done in less than this amount of time? And so it's a really good way to measure utilization of the people on the team. So...

That being said, if you're thinking about all of this, if you don't have any of this in place, which it's totally fine if you don't, like it's not a big deal, start with core values. And maybe what you do is you say, all right, this quarter, we're literally just going to figure out our core values and our brand promise. And you get those in place and you get those implemented. You get people understanding what they are and learning. And then you say, we're not even going to worry about departmental

expectations or role expectations until two quarters from now. Because guess what? It's like people need time to digest things. And I think that it's like, I'm going to go implement it all right now, but everyone's going to forget. And so what you want to do is take what you've learned and then slowly implement it.

It's very similar to like when you're inserting like a meeting cadence for the entire company. What I see a lot of people do is like their team comes in the next week and they have like 30 meetings on the calendar and they're like, we didn't have any of these. Like, yeah, we've got the new EOS system in place now. And they're like, I fucking hate the EOS system. I don't care what Gene said. Like, I hate this thing because there's 30 meetings on my calendar. Versus if every week you do a different meeting and you add a different meeting or every month you add a different one, it's much more likely to stick.

And so I'm much more a proponent of small changes over time because they will stick with people. And part of that reason is because the average employee is not going to believe that something is important to your company unless they've heard it seven times, okay?

So I would give yourself the opportunity to voice all of this seven times, each one of them, before you do anything else. So that being said, something that I think helps me a lot and I think would help you is if you are somebody who you're at a point, maybe you're at 10 million, maybe you're at 5 million, and you're like, I do need all this in place and I want to learn how to manage and lead people and actually build the infrastructure for operations of an organization, then I would say rate yourself on a scale of one to 10. One is like you don't have shit and it's a disaster, which is totally fine.

It's just the state of some people's businesses. And a 10 is I'm absolutely better than you, Layla, and I don't know why I'm watching your fucking YouTube, right? And so I'd say rate yourself on a scale of one to 10. And then on the next videos, what you can do is you can compare at the end of the day and say, where do I fall on a scale of one to 10? Which one do I need to tackle first? And so with that, I'm curious what you think of this style of video. If it was useful, if it wasn't, you know, I'm not really sure in terms of the people that watch my videos, where you're at with your business, and if this is applicable,

If you could leave me a comment down below and let me know, I would love to do it because like you guys know, I do not sell courses or have coaching or mastermind or anything. I'm just doing this to help the entrepreneurial community. So with that, have a fantastic day, night, bike ride, walk, whatever.