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The reason entrepreneurship is so difficult is because it forces you to change who you are, your

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identity, the values that you supposedly have as you continue to grow. I'm not saying you're

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honesty, et cetera, those types of values, but the way that you see the world and how you operate.

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Welcome to the game where we talk about how to get more customers, how to make more

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per customer, and how to keep them longer than the many failures and lessons we have learned

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along the way. I hope you enjoy and subscribe. What's going on everyone? Alex Mosey here,

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three companies who have now done over $110 million in sales, and this video I want to talk

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about the entrepreneurial journey as it relates to control. The reason I think this is so important

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and this is probably the biggest reason that people get stuck. At the end, what I'm going to do

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here is I'm going to explain how control shifts throughout the entrepreneurial journey,

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where people get stuck. At the very end of the video, I'll tell you basically the most

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valuable rule of thumb that I've learned in scaling our companies. The reason entrepreneurship

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is so difficult is because it forces you to change who you are, your identity, the values that

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you supposedly have as you continue to grow. I'm not saying you're honesty, et cetera, those types

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of values, but the way that you see the world and how you operate, because in the very beginning,

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most of us at some point have to transition from a lack of control to complete control. What I

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mean by that is either you went straight into entrepreneurship where you shifted control from your

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parents to yourself, or if in many other instances you started, you had a job, someone else was

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responsible for your income for the most part because they're paying you, you weren't generating

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yourself. You're very limited, and then you jump to taking complete ownership over all of your

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outcomes. You have complete control. The difficult thing is that the thing that takes you the first step

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that huge leap of saying, I'm going to be completely in control is usually the thing that will

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stifle most entrepreneurs who are trying to grow, because if you have complete control and complete

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ownership, that's great, but there's only one of you. What that leads to is this buyback. I think

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the first time I heard this recently was Dan Martell's talking about buyback principle and I just

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like the terminology. Basically, you just continue to buyback your time as you continue to grow the

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company. In the very beginning, most people are buying back support time. It's just lower skilled

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support tasks that they're doing in their business. It's like them and then they've got maybe an

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assistant. After that, there might be higher level support or administrative tasks that might be

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like billing, collections, contracts, all that kind of stuff that might happen in the business.

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After you have your support role, it's taken care of. From there, the next level of control that

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people have to give up is selling. No one can sell like me. No one gets it like I get it. People

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just don't relate to my customers. The issue is control. You're trying to control the whole thing.

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The thing is that every time you add someone in, you buyback more of your time, you relinquish

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control. The thing is that every level of entrepreneurship, I'm telling you right now,

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it is always uncomfortable because the thing that you are now holding onto is the thing that you

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have to give up. This has been one of the hardest things for me. A lot of this is because we

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identify with being the thing. In the beginning, I'll give you a simple example because we work so

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many gyms in the gym lunch company. People will be like, no one trains a class like I do. The first

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level of fulfillment, first level of delivery is training. It's also the first thing they need

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to outsource. The reason for that is because the market will pay someone $15 an hour. Somebody

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will come in for $15 an hour to do that work. If you have work that pays you $100 an hour,

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then you should be doing $100 an hour and not the $15 an hour work. They think because they like

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to feel special, they like to feel unique, no one can train like I can train. Obviously,

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there's probably some people who train a lot better than you, so maybe you should let them do

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the training. Then after that, usually the business owner will do contracts, billing, and they're

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usually not that good at it anyways, because they're entrepreneurs. That's the next thing that

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happens. Then the next piece might be some sort of assistant of some kind or some sort of right-hand

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operator that would help you out. Then again, there, I don't trust anyone with the money. If I'm not

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looking at the money, then we're going to lose. I used to say the same thing until I had someone

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who's better at tracking the money than I am. Crazy. It's I had to give up control of the money.

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Not today, I don't look at it, but I had to give up control of it. Then I'm just selling,

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because that's the highest value thing I could do at the time, because I could just talk to people

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and get them to give us money. Then eventually, there's too many, too many consultations that have

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to happen. I still have to run the business. I have to give that control over to someone else,

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which is probably one of the biggest and most difficult people. This is usually the thing that gets

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the way people go. I would say it from a million over. Up to a million dollars a year, you can just

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sell yourself. You yourself can sell, and you can have these other people who are assisting you.

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But once you cross a million, it's usually difficult to be doing the selling yourself, and that's

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where we have to start scaling sales. I think guys, real quick, if you're new to the podcast,

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I have a book on Amazon called 100 million dollar offers that over 8,000 five star reviews

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and it has almost a perfect score. You can get it for 99 cents on Kindle. The reason I bring it up

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is that I put over a thousand hours into writing that book, and it's my biggest gift to our

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community, so it's my very shameless way of trying to get you to like me more and ultimately make

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more dollars to that later on in your business career. I can push the bar towards you. So that's my

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gift. Go check it out. Amazon and back to the show. You have to give that control up, right? The next

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level after doing control of the sales is now you have to teach other people in a group, not

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just one person, but a group of people on a sale. So you have to manage sales, you have to recruit,

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you have to hire, you have to train, compensate, et cetera. And again, this level is a control. But

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again, here, here, even with the sales team, you're talking maybe three, maybe 10 million. When you

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get to 10 million, you're trying to go to 30, the level of control that you're giving up here

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is leadership. Weird, right? Because there's too many departments, too many people. You can't

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lead everyone, right? So you have to lead a small group of people and get them to lead the people

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who are underneath of them, right? And so again, it's a level of control. It's control over your

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culture. Obviously, you want to lead it. You want to lead by example. You want to be the most

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distilled down version of that thing so that it permeates, right? But as you continue to buy back,

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I think the question that I like to ask myself is, what am I trying to control?

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What am I trying to control? And I think if you think about that, and then rather, what part of my

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identity am I giving up by giving up this control? I used to think I was, you know, such a great

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salesman, right? No one can sell like I can sell. But I, you know what? I can't out sell 12

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guys, right? I literally can't. You know what, I can't do it. And so, and if the business model

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requires, you know, only a soup like your level of sales to make it work, then the model's broken,

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right? You should be able to have people close half as many as you and still make the model work,

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right? Now, obviously, over time, you want to get them to sell better than you because all they're

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doing is selling, right? Whereas you were, when you were selling the way you did, you were running the

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business. And so, with each, each of this kind of cycle is you have to give up control. And so,

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I told you at the beginning of the video that I will give you the rule of thumb that has been,

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has served me very well in running my companies, which is how far away do you get, right? How far

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away do you get when you, when you relinquish control? Because the thing is, is you relinquish control,

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but you still take full accountability and responsibility for the results. That's what's wild.

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Is that you have to say, I'm going to give this over to you. I'm losing control. And yet,

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I'm still responsible. That'll trip you up. But the rule of thumb that I use is no where the bodies

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are buried. No where the bodies are buried. And so, what I mean by that is, if I don't know where

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the flaws are in a department, I'm too far away. So, if I'm, if you know, if I talk to, let's say,

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a marketing director, or I talk to a sales director, I talk to, you know, customer support,

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I talk to, you know, finance, and I don't know where the bodies are buried. Like, I don't know what

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the issues are because every department has issues. Every department has problems. It's a business.

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It's made of humans and humans are imperfect, right? Which means that there are always imperfections.

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There are things that are not working as well as they could. If I can't name problems,

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if I don't know where the bodies are buried in the department, then I'm too far away, right?

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Now, when I say that, it doesn't mean I have given up too much control. That's not the issue.

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It's just, I need more transparency. I need to be paying more attention to that area.

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And this rule of thumb has served me well. So, if I start hearing only good news from

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a department and I don't hear anything negative, I'm too far away. And this has been my, my

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managerial leadership rule of thumb that has really helped me a ton is no where the bodies are

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buried. And so, this is the entrepreneurial journey in a nutshell. I got a lot of feedback from

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the zero to a hundred million dollar video that I made of kind of the steps from a business model

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perspective. But from the personal perspective, the issue is control. And that's why most people

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can't get stuck because they have all these personal issues that prevent them from controlling.

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I'm sorry Alex, they just don't trust people. I've trust issues. Well, get over it because

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you're not going to build something great without trusting other people. So, if you want your mom

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or your dad or the thing that, you know, you have your trust issues with to be the reason that

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you're not successful, then give them more power. Go, you know, power to you, right? Just get,

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just keep giving them control over your life because you have these issues, right? Or you can decide,

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I think this person's done enough damage to me in my life. I'm not going to let them stop me from

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accomplishing what I want to accomplish. And so, I'm going to take back that power. I'm going to

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take back the control over my outcomes, take responsibility, which may feel shitty in the moment

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because it means I suck. But at least I suck and I don't point at them saying they suck because I can

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control what I do. And as a result, I can go through this process and continue to buy back and

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relinquish control, buy back and relinquish control, buy back and relinquish control. First of the

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doing, then of the admin, then of the the ops, then of the sales, and then of having a sales team,

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and then of the leadership, and then continuing on and on as we relinquish more and more control,

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right? How can you be free if you control everything? Interesting.

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Anyways, lots of love, keep being awesome. I'll catch you guys on the flip side,

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if you found this valuable. Bye!