WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.880 What's going on everyone, welcome back to the game 2 00:00:01.880 --> 00:00:04.240 where we're talking about making that cheddar, 3 00:00:04.240 --> 00:00:06.360 making more money, help more people, 4 00:00:06.360 --> 00:00:08.760 scaling businesses and all that fun stuff, 5 00:00:08.760 --> 00:00:11.000 becoming unreasonably wealthy so they can question 6 00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:12.840 the meaning of our very existence. 7 00:00:12.840 --> 00:00:14.720 So I will be your host today, Alex, 8 00:00:14.720 --> 00:00:16.760 her mother's a weird saying my own name out loud. 9 00:00:16.760 --> 00:00:21.520 Today I want to talk about IT, Jan, right? 10 00:00:21.520 --> 00:00:23.160 Who gives a shit? 11 00:00:23.160 --> 00:00:27.000 Well, I think that you may want to hear me out on this 12 00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:31.640 because in multiple businesses that I have founded, 13 00:00:31.640 --> 00:00:33.920 the biggest problem that I ran into 14 00:00:33.920 --> 00:00:36.440 were technical deficiencies, so IT deficiencies, 15 00:00:36.440 --> 00:00:41.440 which I'll define IT as how you gather, store, 16 00:00:41.840 --> 00:00:45.840 analyze and display data within a business. 17 00:00:45.840 --> 00:00:47.080 What is IT stands for? 18 00:00:47.080 --> 00:00:49.320 IT stands for information technology. 19 00:00:49.320 --> 00:00:52.880 2000 years ago, information technology was a paper and pen, 20 00:00:52.880 --> 00:00:54.840 right, and probably some sort of system 21 00:00:54.840 --> 00:00:56.680 of organizing parchment, right? 22 00:00:56.680 --> 00:00:59.840 Or beads, right, for an advocates for calculating. 23 00:00:59.840 --> 00:01:02.840 You have data and then you have the collection of that data, 24 00:01:02.840 --> 00:01:04.560 you have the analysis of that data 25 00:01:04.560 --> 00:01:06.640 and then you have the displaying of that data. 26 00:01:06.640 --> 00:01:08.480 Data is how we make decisions 27 00:01:08.480 --> 00:01:10.280 and decisions are arguably the most important thing 28 00:01:10.280 --> 00:01:11.160 that you can do in a business 29 00:01:11.160 --> 00:01:13.240 which is prioritizing the resources. 30 00:01:13.240 --> 00:01:16.840 Then it would follow that having an intelligent infrastructure 31 00:01:16.840 --> 00:01:21.160 for gathering, collecting, analyzing and displaying 32 00:01:21.160 --> 00:01:23.520 information would be a priority. 33 00:01:23.520 --> 00:01:24.720 I want to share this with you 34 00:01:24.720 --> 00:01:27.120 because some of you are in this position right now 35 00:01:27.120 --> 00:01:29.560 where you run what I like to affectionately call 36 00:01:29.560 --> 00:01:31.720 a Google sheet empire, and I want to be clear. 37 00:01:31.720 --> 00:01:33.120 I don't think there's anything wrong with that, 38 00:01:33.120 --> 00:01:36.240 and I think that usually call it below $3 million a year. 39 00:01:36.240 --> 00:01:37.600 This is where a lot of businesses are. 40 00:01:37.600 --> 00:01:40.720 Sometimes up to 10, $15 million a year, 41 00:01:40.720 --> 00:01:44.520 sometimes even, is mostly comprised of Excel sheets 42 00:01:44.520 --> 00:01:45.600 and Google sheets. 43 00:01:45.600 --> 00:01:48.200 For them to run the majority of the departments they have. 44 00:01:48.200 --> 00:01:50.120 The reason that people use these type of sheets 45 00:01:50.120 --> 00:01:51.400 is because they're incredibly flexible. 46 00:01:51.400 --> 00:01:52.200 They can change. 47 00:01:52.200 --> 00:01:54.480 There's not a huge investment in a required to do that. 48 00:01:54.480 --> 00:01:57.360 The downside is they can be broken very easily. 49 00:01:57.360 --> 00:01:58.720 They're hard to organize. 50 00:01:58.720 --> 00:02:01.800 You have to manage permissions, which can also be a pain. 51 00:02:01.800 --> 00:02:03.600 This will become a constraint in the business, 52 00:02:03.600 --> 00:02:06.560 and so I am somebody who is hilariously untechnical 53 00:02:06.560 --> 00:02:08.040 and I try not to speak that over myself, 54 00:02:08.040 --> 00:02:09.200 but for the sake of this podcast, 55 00:02:09.200 --> 00:02:10.880 I will be straightforward with you. 56 00:02:10.880 --> 00:02:13.120 I will typically prioritize doing everything 57 00:02:13.120 --> 00:02:17.280 else besides this first, mostly because I just really don't enjoy it. 58 00:02:17.280 --> 00:02:21.600 I want to talk to you about two different IT implementations, 59 00:02:21.600 --> 00:02:23.000 and you're like, why am I talking about this? 60 00:02:23.040 --> 00:02:25.080 I promise you it is important. 61 00:02:25.080 --> 00:02:27.400 If you want to make a switch over to a CRM, 62 00:02:27.400 --> 00:02:30.280 which you will invariably do at some point in your business career 63 00:02:30.280 --> 00:02:32.000 because you realize that you can't just keep 64 00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:34.040 chicken scratch notes all around your office 65 00:02:34.040 --> 00:02:36.240 and think that that's somehow going to result 66 00:02:36.240 --> 00:02:38.880 in having a very good data to make good decisions 67 00:02:38.880 --> 00:02:39.720 for the business. 68 00:02:39.720 --> 00:02:43.680 As a quick sidequest here, you'll notice that many times, 69 00:02:43.680 --> 00:02:46.400 especially recently for me, the first thing I do 70 00:02:46.400 --> 00:02:49.160 when I get into a department, if I want to fix something 71 00:02:49.160 --> 00:02:52.120 or a business, is like, I just need to get data systems 72 00:02:52.120 --> 00:02:53.120 in place. 73 00:02:53.120 --> 00:02:56.080 And so despite the fact that I hate the actual implementation 74 00:02:56.080 --> 00:03:00.200 of data systems, I absolutely love data, right? 75 00:03:00.200 --> 00:03:02.960 And so it's kind of one of these very odd love-hate things. 76 00:03:02.960 --> 00:03:05.560 Like I hate the process, I love the output. 77 00:03:05.560 --> 00:03:08.880 Most of you, and actually I'm saying this 78 00:03:08.880 --> 00:03:11.440 with like fortitude here, most of you listening to this 79 00:03:11.440 --> 00:03:12.800 have shit data. 80 00:03:12.800 --> 00:03:14.560 So either you don't have data in general, 81 00:03:14.560 --> 00:03:17.520 or the data that you have is not correct. 82 00:03:17.520 --> 00:03:19.280 You don't have a lot of confidence in the data, 83 00:03:19.280 --> 00:03:21.240 which makes it just as bad, basically. 84 00:03:21.240 --> 00:03:22.960 You can't use it to make decisions. 85 00:03:22.960 --> 00:03:24.480 And the reason that collecting data 86 00:03:24.480 --> 00:03:26.120 makes a business more valuable is two things. 87 00:03:26.120 --> 00:03:28.760 One, anytime somebody would want to potentially 88 00:03:28.760 --> 00:03:31.320 acquire a business about one of the first things 89 00:03:31.320 --> 00:03:32.680 they're going to ask for is data. 90 00:03:32.680 --> 00:03:34.720 They're going to ask for, hey, send me all this information, 91 00:03:34.720 --> 00:03:35.560 right? 92 00:03:35.560 --> 00:03:38.200 And if that information that you send is in crayon 93 00:03:38.200 --> 00:03:40.600 on napkins, and I say that figuratively, 94 00:03:40.600 --> 00:03:42.320 they're going to immediately discount the value 95 00:03:42.320 --> 00:03:44.320 of the business for a couple of reasons. 96 00:03:44.320 --> 00:03:46.080 One, because it just looks like you're not 97 00:03:46.080 --> 00:03:48.960 that professional, but secondarily and far more importantly, 98 00:03:48.960 --> 00:03:50.160 they will discount the value of the business 99 00:03:50.160 --> 00:03:53.240 because they will assume and rightfully so 100 00:03:53.240 --> 00:03:55.200 that you were making the vast majority of your decisions 101 00:03:55.200 --> 00:03:57.200 based on intuition and not data. 102 00:03:57.200 --> 00:03:59.120 Because if you were making all your decisions 103 00:03:59.120 --> 00:04:01.920 based on data, then you would have good data systems 104 00:04:01.920 --> 00:04:04.200 and good reported, which you probably don't. 105 00:04:04.200 --> 00:04:06.320 And so it means that the vast majority of the decisions 106 00:04:06.320 --> 00:04:07.560 you make are just making by gut. 107 00:04:07.560 --> 00:04:09.840 And I don't care how good your gut is, 108 00:04:09.840 --> 00:04:12.240 it's not going to be better than data. 109 00:04:12.240 --> 00:04:13.680 And it's not going to be better than data 110 00:04:13.680 --> 00:04:15.760 across a variety of different departments 111 00:04:15.760 --> 00:04:18.400 measuring many different inputs and outputs 112 00:04:18.400 --> 00:04:19.840 that occur across the business. 113 00:04:19.840 --> 00:04:22.800 You're just too far away, especially as you scale, 114 00:04:22.800 --> 00:04:23.680 you're too far away. 115 00:04:23.680 --> 00:04:25.240 You can't know everything. 116 00:04:25.240 --> 00:04:27.840 And so you have to have this data not only available 117 00:04:27.840 --> 00:04:29.280 but pushed to you. 118 00:04:29.280 --> 00:04:31.040 So it's one thing to say, okay, 119 00:04:31.040 --> 00:04:32.600 these departments collect the stuff. 120 00:04:32.600 --> 00:04:34.920 It's another thing to have those people send that stuff 121 00:04:34.920 --> 00:04:37.560 to you in a curated fashion so that you can quickly 122 00:04:37.560 --> 00:04:41.200 analyze what's going on out of glance. 123 00:04:41.200 --> 00:04:43.280 Returning back to the side quest from the side quest 124 00:04:43.280 --> 00:04:45.600 with now a bejeweled sword so we can slay 125 00:04:45.600 --> 00:04:48.320 our ignorance enemies, our lack of data. 126 00:04:48.320 --> 00:04:53.080 The biggest mistake that I have made in IT implementations 127 00:04:53.080 --> 00:04:56.360 is that I was not involved directly. 128 00:04:56.360 --> 00:05:00.000 I have done four mega IT implementations. 129 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:01.360 I've done obviously lots of smaller ones 130 00:05:01.360 --> 00:05:03.920 but like basically switch entire platforms 131 00:05:03.920 --> 00:05:06.360 for everything, souped nuts for a business. 132 00:05:06.360 --> 00:05:07.480 I've done it four times. 133 00:05:07.480 --> 00:05:10.840 Two times it went very well and two times it went very poorly. 134 00:05:10.840 --> 00:05:12.120 Would you like to know the difference? 135 00:05:12.120 --> 00:05:14.160 Well, the first time I went really poorly, 136 00:05:14.160 --> 00:05:18.520 I just said, hey, tech geek, go do that thing 137 00:05:18.520 --> 00:05:20.040 and just get a set up. 138 00:05:20.040 --> 00:05:22.800 Tech geek went around, talked every department head, 139 00:05:22.800 --> 00:05:24.840 seemed logical, asked them what they needed, 140 00:05:24.840 --> 00:05:27.560 said got it and then went back and made it. 141 00:05:27.560 --> 00:05:31.520 The problem was the data systems touch 142 00:05:31.520 --> 00:05:33.520 every component of the business 143 00:05:33.520 --> 00:05:37.280 and understanding the entirety of the business 144 00:05:37.280 --> 00:05:40.680 at a deep level and the interplay between those variables 145 00:05:40.680 --> 00:05:43.240 is something that very few people in the business can't do. 146 00:05:43.240 --> 00:05:46.920 Especially a tech geek and I say that affectionately. 147 00:05:46.920 --> 00:05:49.160 It would follow that the person who probably knows 148 00:05:49.160 --> 00:05:51.320 the most about the business should be the one 149 00:05:51.320 --> 00:05:54.640 trying to figure out how to collect the data 150 00:05:54.640 --> 00:05:57.080 that matters so that they can continue to know 151 00:05:57.080 --> 00:05:58.320 the most about the business. 152 00:05:58.320 --> 00:05:59.960 Because imagine somebody who doesn't know anything 153 00:05:59.960 --> 00:06:02.440 about marketing or sales or customer service 154 00:06:02.440 --> 00:06:05.640 creating the data and creating all the systems behind it 155 00:06:05.640 --> 00:06:08.440 for them to do their jobs without ever understanding 156 00:06:08.440 --> 00:06:09.760 any of these functions. 157 00:06:09.760 --> 00:06:11.160 It's ridiculous. 158 00:06:11.200 --> 00:06:13.720 And yet, that's exactly what I chose to do. 159 00:06:13.720 --> 00:06:16.600 So that failed miserably, so then we had to redo it. 160 00:06:16.600 --> 00:06:19.200 The next time when I was successful doing it, 161 00:06:19.200 --> 00:06:21.800 I was integrally involved in the entire process 162 00:06:21.800 --> 00:06:23.840 as painful as that was. 163 00:06:23.840 --> 00:06:26.400 And so I, number one, would encourage you 164 00:06:26.400 --> 00:06:29.040 to just basically roll your sleeves up, 165 00:06:29.040 --> 00:06:31.040 put the bell between your teeth and bite down 166 00:06:31.040 --> 00:06:33.040 and just deal with the fact that it's going to suck 167 00:06:33.040 --> 00:06:35.400 and that you're going to have to basically be very 168 00:06:35.400 --> 00:06:39.040 integrally involved in this because it touches everything. 169 00:06:39.040 --> 00:06:40.040 So if you're like, wait, 170 00:06:40.040 --> 00:06:41.920 so then why did the other two, 171 00:06:41.920 --> 00:06:43.800 one failed and one didn't? 172 00:06:43.800 --> 00:06:45.680 Well, here is the brilliant thing that I did. 173 00:06:45.680 --> 00:06:47.720 I figured after I had the successful implementation, 174 00:06:47.720 --> 00:06:50.480 what I should do is forget what made that one successful 175 00:06:50.480 --> 00:06:53.520 and go back to giving it to somebody else. 176 00:06:53.520 --> 00:06:54.760 And then guess what happened? 177 00:06:54.760 --> 00:06:55.600 It failed. 178 00:06:55.600 --> 00:06:58.400 Now, to be fair, I could have had an IT person 179 00:06:58.400 --> 00:07:00.240 who lacked the skills of doing it properly. 180 00:07:00.240 --> 00:07:01.200 Very possible. 181 00:07:01.200 --> 00:07:02.920 To be clear, I'm not saying it is impossible 182 00:07:02.920 --> 00:07:04.280 for an IT person to do this. 183 00:07:04.280 --> 00:07:06.400 I think it is unlikely that they will be able to do it 184 00:07:06.400 --> 00:07:08.840 as well as if you were integrally involved. 185 00:07:08.840 --> 00:07:10.400 Especially since you were fundamentally 186 00:07:10.400 --> 00:07:12.280 the receiver of this product. 187 00:07:12.280 --> 00:07:15.680 So it's like asking for an entirely customized workflow 188 00:07:15.680 --> 00:07:18.440 from a vendor and then wanting to be involved zero 189 00:07:18.440 --> 00:07:20.720 and telling the vendor, yeah, just go make it 190 00:07:20.720 --> 00:07:22.200 and just I'll assume that it's good. 191 00:07:22.200 --> 00:07:23.840 Of course, it's not going to work, right? 192 00:07:23.840 --> 00:07:25.400 Like you would never treat a vendor that way. 193 00:07:25.400 --> 00:07:27.080 You'd hire them and say, hey, go do this thing 194 00:07:27.080 --> 00:07:28.360 and then that's in it. 195 00:07:28.360 --> 00:07:29.840 Really unlikely that it's going to come out. 196 00:07:29.840 --> 00:07:31.400 I mean, it would just be sheer luck 197 00:07:31.400 --> 00:07:32.720 where that person would have to understand your business 198 00:07:32.720 --> 00:07:34.120 better than you, which is unlikely. 199 00:07:34.120 --> 00:07:36.000 Here's what this happens in terms of the process. 200 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:39.360 In the beginning, you'll typically have some sort of, 201 00:07:39.360 --> 00:07:41.800 I'll call it the duct tape tech guy, right? 202 00:07:41.800 --> 00:07:45.520 This is a guy who's not truly IT, but just like techy, right? 203 00:07:45.520 --> 00:07:48.240 Like, understands how to plug different tools together, 204 00:07:48.240 --> 00:07:50.520 understands how to set stuff up, you know, 205 00:07:50.520 --> 00:07:52.480 when things break, they go in and just, you know, 206 00:07:52.480 --> 00:07:54.240 they duct tape, right, they fix it. 207 00:07:54.240 --> 00:07:58.800 That guy is typically not the guy you need 208 00:07:58.800 --> 00:08:00.600 to get to the next level. 209 00:08:00.600 --> 00:08:02.320 You need the guy who's going to work 210 00:08:02.320 --> 00:08:04.000 and I hate to say this. 211 00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:06.600 Not more slowly, but more deliberately. 212 00:08:06.600 --> 00:08:07.840 All right, it's a big difference there. 213 00:08:07.840 --> 00:08:09.400 I'm not saying get the SOIT tech guy 214 00:08:09.400 --> 00:08:10.560 because you'll just kill yourself. 215 00:08:10.560 --> 00:08:11.400 And don't do that. 216 00:08:11.400 --> 00:08:12.880 And then if you kill yourself, your business dodges 217 00:08:12.880 --> 00:08:14.640 and then, you know, then your family's alone, 218 00:08:14.640 --> 00:08:17.720 they're crying over grave, all because of a CRM. 219 00:08:17.720 --> 00:08:18.560 And that's horrible, right? 220 00:08:18.560 --> 00:08:19.640 We want to avoid that. 221 00:08:19.640 --> 00:08:23.440 And so the beginning is you just hire the duct tape bro. 222 00:08:23.440 --> 00:08:26.560 But the deliberate guy, the second guy, the better guy, 223 00:08:26.560 --> 00:08:30.800 is somebody who will purposefully basically slow you down 224 00:08:30.800 --> 00:08:33.440 to say, hey, did you know that if we changed this, 225 00:08:33.440 --> 00:08:35.360 it affects these three other areas. 226 00:08:35.360 --> 00:08:37.560 What I will do is I will take the information you give me, 227 00:08:37.560 --> 00:08:40.640 I will create a flow chart of here's all the different pieces 228 00:08:40.640 --> 00:08:41.560 that it touches. 229 00:08:41.560 --> 00:08:43.560 I want to make sure that the decisions 230 00:08:43.560 --> 00:08:46.120 that we're making of how we want to route this information 231 00:08:46.120 --> 00:08:48.240 and how it would affect these downstream impacts 232 00:08:48.240 --> 00:08:49.800 is where you want it to go. 233 00:08:49.800 --> 00:08:51.720 Because if you think that one change 234 00:08:51.720 --> 00:08:54.560 doesn't affect everything else, you're wrong. 235 00:08:54.560 --> 00:08:56.960 An IT person who does your bidding that way, 236 00:08:56.960 --> 00:08:58.160 you will love as a founder. 237 00:08:58.160 --> 00:09:01.400 And I say this, having had my fair share of duct tape tech 238 00:09:01.400 --> 00:09:02.800 keeps they just like I had, you know, 239 00:09:02.800 --> 00:09:05.640 stapled to my side because I just wanted them to do what I, 240 00:09:05.640 --> 00:09:07.760 just fix this, do this, move this here, whatever. 241 00:09:07.760 --> 00:09:09.680 You probably might be smiling thinking about this 242 00:09:09.680 --> 00:09:11.400 because you might have that person in your business 243 00:09:11.400 --> 00:09:12.760 and you're like, I love this person. 244 00:09:12.760 --> 00:09:13.960 But the thing is is that other people 245 00:09:13.960 --> 00:09:15.320 on your team all complain about them. 246 00:09:15.320 --> 00:09:16.160 And they complain about them 247 00:09:16.160 --> 00:09:17.720 because all they do is they're basically the, 248 00:09:17.720 --> 00:09:19.320 the bull in the china shop version of you 249 00:09:19.320 --> 00:09:20.880 that just knows how to click buttons. 250 00:09:20.880 --> 00:09:24.000 And so they just go and just break shit, constantly. 251 00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:26.080 You're like, I'm good with it because I get my way. 252 00:09:26.080 --> 00:09:30.400 The thing is that it net globally hurts production. 253 00:09:30.400 --> 00:09:34.880 The best people that I have found in this space for tech, 254 00:09:34.880 --> 00:09:38.480 one, worth paying more money for. 255 00:09:38.480 --> 00:09:40.840 Right off the bat, I'm just telling you right now, 256 00:09:40.840 --> 00:09:42.600 if data is one of the highest leverage things 257 00:09:42.600 --> 00:09:44.720 that you can have in order to prioritize decision-making 258 00:09:44.720 --> 00:09:46.240 and prioritize resources, 259 00:09:46.240 --> 00:09:48.800 then having somebody like that person 260 00:09:48.800 --> 00:09:51.200 is basically the person that makes you look really good 261 00:09:51.200 --> 00:09:52.480 or really bad. 262 00:09:52.480 --> 00:09:53.520 People don't think about this. 263 00:09:53.520 --> 00:09:55.280 It's like one of the highest leverage positions 264 00:09:55.280 --> 00:09:57.120 you can bring on also because you don't need 265 00:09:57.120 --> 00:09:58.960 to have a lot of IT guys. 266 00:09:58.960 --> 00:10:01.120 Like if you have a really good IT person, 267 00:10:01.120 --> 00:10:04.720 you only need like one for a while, like a while. 268 00:10:04.720 --> 00:10:09.000 And so it's a role that you should not skimp on financially 269 00:10:09.000 --> 00:10:10.520 and also in that you should not skimp on 270 00:10:10.520 --> 00:10:12.120 in terms of your involvement 271 00:10:12.120 --> 00:10:14.080 because the best IT guys in my opinion, 272 00:10:14.080 --> 00:10:15.240 the more time they spend them with you, 273 00:10:15.240 --> 00:10:16.640 the more strategic they will be 274 00:10:16.640 --> 00:10:19.440 because the more they will understand the entire business 275 00:10:19.440 --> 00:10:20.960 and the more you'll enjoy talking to them, 276 00:10:20.960 --> 00:10:21.960 which means that they'll get better. 277 00:10:21.960 --> 00:10:23.360 Basically, what this nice feedback loop 278 00:10:23.360 --> 00:10:27.240 where you and that person have a good working relationship 279 00:10:27.240 --> 00:10:29.000 rather than feeling like you put them, 280 00:10:29.000 --> 00:10:30.320 you know, in the cupboard under the stairs 281 00:10:30.320 --> 00:10:31.520 and they come out every once in a while 282 00:10:31.520 --> 00:10:33.520 when there's like a site that goes down 283 00:10:33.520 --> 00:10:35.640 or like logins you need to get changed, 284 00:10:35.640 --> 00:10:38.040 TLDR on this process. 285 00:10:38.040 --> 00:10:40.840 Number one, it is okay to have a Google sheet 286 00:10:40.840 --> 00:10:41.920 empire in the beginning, 287 00:10:41.920 --> 00:10:44.240 but over time you will need to transition 288 00:10:44.240 --> 00:10:47.840 because data is going to be one of the big constraints 289 00:10:47.840 --> 00:10:50.160 of the business in time and probably quickly, 290 00:10:50.160 --> 00:10:51.840 depending on the rate of growth. 291 00:10:51.840 --> 00:10:55.720 Number two, I define everything that falls under IT 292 00:10:55.720 --> 00:11:00.080 as the gathering, storing, analyzing, 293 00:11:00.080 --> 00:11:02.560 and displaying of data. 294 00:11:02.560 --> 00:11:04.800 That's everything that I consider under IT. 295 00:11:04.800 --> 00:11:09.760 Third, if you're going to bring this person on, 296 00:11:09.760 --> 00:11:12.640 you should have a much faster feedback loop 297 00:11:12.640 --> 00:11:15.000 with that person on a more regular cadence 298 00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:16.800 so that they can start to think more like you think 299 00:11:16.800 --> 00:11:19.560 and they can prioritize tasks accordingly. 300 00:11:19.560 --> 00:11:22.360 Otherwise, they will get buried in work. 301 00:11:22.360 --> 00:11:24.880 And the same thing goes when you have an IT department. 302 00:11:24.880 --> 00:11:27.320 Your team will ultimately start using them 303 00:11:27.320 --> 00:11:28.320 as though they are a vendor. 304 00:11:28.320 --> 00:11:29.880 They're kind of an internal services, 305 00:11:29.880 --> 00:11:31.480 if you think about what they do in a company, 306 00:11:31.480 --> 00:11:33.680 they serve the internal business, 307 00:11:33.680 --> 00:11:35.520 they support value creation. 308 00:11:35.520 --> 00:11:36.360 And so the thing is, 309 00:11:36.360 --> 00:11:37.760 a lot of times your team doesn't know how to prioritize 310 00:11:37.760 --> 00:11:38.800 their time. 311 00:11:38.800 --> 00:11:40.480 And so it's like you have somebody who says, 312 00:11:40.480 --> 00:11:41.600 hey, can you automate this thing? 313 00:11:41.600 --> 00:11:43.520 It takes me 30 minutes a week. 314 00:11:43.520 --> 00:11:44.720 And it's like, okay. 315 00:11:44.720 --> 00:11:48.520 And then it takes them a full day to do that. 316 00:11:48.520 --> 00:11:51.080 And they potentially get paid three times 317 00:11:51.080 --> 00:11:53.640 what the person who spends 30 hours a week on that, 318 00:11:53.680 --> 00:11:55.520 30 minutes a week on that work. 319 00:11:55.520 --> 00:11:56.360 It's like, oh, wow, 320 00:11:56.360 --> 00:11:59.040 I just basically spent the equivalent of 45 weeks 321 00:11:59.040 --> 00:12:01.760 of that person's time on this one task. 322 00:12:01.760 --> 00:12:05.320 And it also results in nothing, right? 323 00:12:05.320 --> 00:12:06.720 And so there are other things 324 00:12:06.720 --> 00:12:08.760 that would have been higher value for that person to do. 325 00:12:08.760 --> 00:12:11.040 And so them having the understanding of prioritization, 326 00:12:11.040 --> 00:12:12.960 coming from you in terms of tasks 327 00:12:12.960 --> 00:12:16.120 can help them do the most important stuff first. 328 00:12:16.120 --> 00:12:20.280 Four, you gotta be involved in the process. 329 00:12:20.280 --> 00:12:22.880 Click the close, soup the nuts, it sucks. 330 00:12:22.880 --> 00:12:23.720 I'm just telling you right now, 331 00:12:23.720 --> 00:12:25.960 my heart goes out to you, it sucks. 332 00:12:25.960 --> 00:12:26.800 I hate it. 333 00:12:26.800 --> 00:12:27.720 I hate it for you. 334 00:12:27.720 --> 00:12:30.040 But it's what you need to do. 335 00:12:30.040 --> 00:12:32.160 Because otherwise you will look like an idiot. 336 00:12:32.160 --> 00:12:33.920 Because you will make decisions. 337 00:12:33.920 --> 00:12:36.400 The thing is, a lot of times, 338 00:12:36.400 --> 00:12:39.560 data deficiencies manifest 339 00:12:39.560 --> 00:12:42.560 in not knowing what to do next. 340 00:12:42.560 --> 00:12:43.520 So yeah, let me get, 341 00:12:43.520 --> 00:12:45.880 this is actually probably a good drawer to open. 342 00:12:45.880 --> 00:12:47.480 If you go into a department and you're like, 343 00:12:47.480 --> 00:12:49.840 I'm not sure what we should do here. 344 00:12:49.840 --> 00:12:51.640 It's because you like data. 345 00:12:51.800 --> 00:12:52.920 I made a podcast a little bit ago 346 00:12:52.920 --> 00:12:54.720 about how important data is. 347 00:12:54.720 --> 00:12:57.080 But the process of getting that data 348 00:12:57.080 --> 00:12:58.800 is what this one is about. 349 00:12:58.800 --> 00:12:59.920 And so with that being said, 350 00:12:59.920 --> 00:13:04.920 as terrible and painful as this process may be, 351 00:13:05.120 --> 00:13:08.120 it may be one of the things that makes you the most money 352 00:13:08.120 --> 00:13:10.760 and makes you look incredibly intelligent. 353 00:13:10.760 --> 00:13:13.560 Because if you have good information, 354 00:13:13.560 --> 00:13:15.160 you will make good decisions. 355 00:13:15.160 --> 00:13:19.200 And the course to grow will be obvious. 356 00:13:19.200 --> 00:13:20.600 When it's not obvious, 357 00:13:20.600 --> 00:13:23.000 it's typically because the data you have sucks 358 00:13:23.000 --> 00:13:25.360 or doesn't even exist to begin with. 359 00:13:25.360 --> 00:13:26.720 And so with that being said, 360 00:13:26.720 --> 00:13:28.680 give your IT guy a hug. 361 00:13:28.680 --> 00:13:30.600 Tell him you'd love him and appreciate him 362 00:13:30.600 --> 00:13:32.880 or her, but I haven't seen any IT girls. 363 00:13:32.880 --> 00:13:34.480 So maybe that's just my, 364 00:13:34.480 --> 00:13:35.600 my bias system, my experience. 365 00:13:35.600 --> 00:13:36.800 So it's been an IT guy. 366 00:13:36.800 --> 00:13:38.520 Not to say that women can't do IT, 367 00:13:38.520 --> 00:13:39.880 but just in my experience. 368 00:13:39.880 --> 00:13:40.880 Anyways, with that being said, 369 00:13:40.880 --> 00:13:43.240 lots of love, make all that money 370 00:13:43.240 --> 00:13:45.600 so that you can question the very fabric 371 00:13:45.600 --> 00:13:46.680 of your own existence. 372 00:13:46.680 --> 00:13:47.520 See you in the next one. 373 00:13:47.520 --> 00:13:48.360 Bye.