FFF 020: Bagel Shop Lessons, The Power of Influence, Calculating Opportunity Cost

0:01 Welcome to The Coaching Equation brought to you by Empire Partners and hosted by Ryan Lang and Brooke Bishop. Our mission is to help you build a profitable and impactful coaching business by cutting through the noise and all the expert advice to deliver tried and true actionable insights that you can deploy in your business today. Each week, we bring on expert guests, unveil cutting-edge tactics and strategies, and share the secrets and stories that we've gathered from working with the most successful coaching companies on earth. Welcome back to the Coaching Equation Podcast.

0:42 I'm your host, Ryan Lang, CEO and co-founder of Empire Partners. And this is your Fast Five for Friday. All right. So number one, this morning, I took my girls to breakfast like I do every Friday morning. It's our tradition called Daddy-Daughter Breakfast Day. And I typically run them through the drive-thru at a little bagel shop that's right around the corner from the coffee shop that I like to sit at on We go to the bagel shop this morning. And first of all, we pull up to the window after waiting for probably about 10 minutes behind one car. We finally start ordering the bagels that we ask for. They haven't made yet. So we go through like three rounds of trying to order two bagels before we finally land on something that they actually have made and have available that morning.

1:27 And. We get it ordered and we're pulling right around the corner and we're behind two cars. We sit behind those two cars for another 20 minutes. When we finally make it up to the window... Uh, it takes quite a while for the gal to come over when she finally approaches the, the, the window. Uh, this is your total blah, blah, blah. It'll be out in a second. And we wait another 10 minutes. We're now up to a 40 minute ordeal in a drive-thru at a little bagel shop for two freaking bagels with some cream cheese at this point. When she finally comes to the window with the order, with the bagels in hand, she says, yeah, so here are your bagels.

2:10 And you're going to notice there is an extra one in there. We actually screwed one of them up. And so we ended up with an extra one and we threw it in there for you. You know, take care. Okay. The week before, they screwed up my youngest one's bagel order, and we didn't discover it until later on when she opened the bagel and we were already gone. And now this morning, we have pretty much burned almost the entirety of our time for Daddy-Daughter Breakfast Day so that they could deliver to us three bagels with no apology whatsoever. Now, here's the point, why I'm bringing this up.

2:50 Look, at the end of the day, shit's going to go wrong. You're going to make mistakes. Your team is going to make mistakes. You're going to screw something up. You're going to think you had something and then you don't. Mistakes will happen. And the truth is that people are not looking for perfection. Perfect. I wasn't looking for perfection. My daughters weren't looking for perfection. But by the time we had spent 40 minutes going through this ordeal, you know what we were looking for? An apology. We were looking for someone to say, listen, I'm so sorry for the wait. I'm so sorry that it took even longer because we screwed up that bagel. I hope that you enjoy the bagels.

3:30 I hope the rest of your morning goes really well. And I hope that we have the opportunity to do better next time. Have a beautiful day. That's what people want. People just want to know that you care enough to fall on the sword and own your mistakes and be sorry about it. That's what people want at the end of the day. It was so palpable this morning, and it's really sad because we literally drove away after the screw-up last week and the debacle this morning. No apology whatsoever. I mean, literally no even acknowledgement that anything wrong had happened. we drove away going, you know what? I don't think we'll be back for quite a while.

4:11 Make sure that doesn't happen to you and your business. Own your mistakes. Make it right. Apologize and do what you need to do to improve your processes and get better. All right. Number two, influence. I was reflecting on this this week after having a wonderful podcast episode with my good buddy and partner, Kulene Shah. We got to talking about how people offload sales and marketing so quickly. And it got me thinking, you know, if there were one thing that I would beg you to master in your business and never, ever, ever let go of it, it is becoming a person of influence, right? Your ability to influence people is going to be directly tied to the success of your business and the impact that you make in the world.

5:00 And here's the interesting thing about it. As the leader in a business, as a CEO, I don't believe you can ever let go of that. Ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. Are you going to have people that help you with your marketing? Yeah. Are you going to have people that help you with your sales? Yeah. Are you going to have people that help you with your team? Yeah. Yeah. But you can never let go of being the primary person of influence in your business. It is absolutely paramount that you make relationships that you understand, not in a nasty way, but in a way that really helps people. How to influence people to get them on mission. It's vital for your sales. It's vital for your marketing.

5:40 It's absolutely vital when it comes to your team and building a culture and a world-class organization that... that you become a person of influence and that you hold on to that and cultivate that skill over time. The better that you get at that, the more success you're going to have, the more impact you're going to make. And the most successful people that I know in this world are masters of influence. Do that. Master that. Make that the core of what you're working on and what your focus is, and I promise you, you will win. Number three, Alignment of outcomes. I had a very uncomfortable conversation at the end of a meeting this week and discovered that we had an agenda that I was pushing the boulder up the hill on an agenda.

6:28 And I found that our team had some disagreement around what really the outcome should be for that specific agenda. And it really hit a light bulb for me. You know what I realized? And I'm not embarrassed to say this. We're going to screw up. We're going to make mistakes. But this is such a good learning. We weren't aligned on the outcome for that specific project and agenda from the very beginning. And this is really interesting because we talk a lot about quarterly planning inside of our mastermind. It's a core tenant of what we do is help people with quarterly business plans and how to actually go execute on them and all the things. And here's the thing. When you have a really important agenda that you decide to focus on during whatever time period it is, a quarter, a month, a day, a week, whatever, you're...

7:15 You and whomever else is involved has got to be very clear on what the outcome is. Now, here's the thing. If you have team members involved, not everybody has to agree with you per se on the outcome. It's the job of the leader and the job of the person that owns the task or the strategy or the agenda to decide what the outcome should be in the context of the longer term goals. But here's the thing. It does have to be very, very clearly explained and enunciated so that everybody can nod their head and go, okay, whether I agree or I don't that this should be the outcome, this is the outcome, and then there's no confusion.

7:56 When you get towards the end of the project and people are thinking, oh, I thought it was going to do this. Oh, I thought it was going to do that, blah, blah, blah. You don't want to go through that. It causes mass confusion. It causes disagreement. It causes uncomfortable conversations that don't need to be uncomfortable. Make certain that when you start on a project or a task or an agenda – or a goal. You know what the outcome is at the end of the day. And you've clearly instructed everybody else around you about what that outcome is so that everybody is in total alignment. All right. Number four, opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is something I'm reflecting on a lot lately.

8:38 And it really jumped off at me the other day when I was actually on a sales call where a salesperson for... A very, very successful organization says to me, Okay, Ryan, the investment for this thing is going to be $21K. And I didn't flinch. And here's why. I didn't flinch because this particular service is something that I know I am not a master of. And could I go off and figure it out and learn it? Yeah, I probably could. But I have no idea how long it would take me. But it's certainly like I don't feel confident I could figure it out in six months, even if I obsessed on it.

9:20 I don't know if I'd figure it out in a year. Maybe. Maybe. And this group has been doing this particular service for a pretty long time, and they've nailed it. They've got it down. So the reason that I bring this up is that I think it can be really tempting for many of us to say, Oh, I'm not going to spend the money. I'm going to save the money, and I'm just going to go figure this out on my own. I'm smart. I'm smart. I can figure it out, right? Well, no matter how wicked smart you are, you got to consider the opportunity cost because if something that you really need to drive results in your business, a service, a product, an expert...

10:03 If that thing or that service or that person is going to cost you a certain amount of money, you've got to juxtapose that against what it would cost you to not have it. If you had the speed to result and you implemented something that would add an extra $10,000 to your business in the span of two months, okay, you start actually getting the result after two months and then the rest is gravy. Okay. As opposed to you try to go hack away at this on your own and you spend six months, you've now wasted $60,000. You spend a year trying to figure out, you've now wasted $120,000.

10:44 So in the context for me, in this case, of a service that would cost $21,000, it could legitimately result in 10K additional to our bottom line. Probably more at the end of the day. Will I make that investment? You bet your ass I will because I would rather have speed. I am more concerned with speed to result than I am 100K. trying to go figure something out on my own that is not in my zone of genius that somebody else has already mastered. It's really, really, really important. All right, and number five, I've been reflecting so much on community lately. I have been over the last couple of weeks at a couple of mastermind events of my own where I got a chance to see my people.

11:31 And it was so valuable. The connection was amazing. I've probably had seven conversations away from community. the events with various people from those masterminds since I got back. And the connection has truly driven me. It's expanded my possibilities. It's opened my eyes to new things. It's motivated me to want to go farther, faster, because I want to keep up with these amazing people. And it's exactly why I want to invite you right now To our next event, which is coming up in June, because I know what's going to happen in that room and it's going to be epic.

12:12 Our next event is June 5th through the 7th in the Vail Valley right here in Colorado. If you've never been to Vail in the summertime, it is the Garden of Eden. It's my childhood stomping grounds. It's my favorite place on Earth during that time of the year. Uh, the setting is going to be incredible. We're at the Westin Riverfront Resort, uh, right at the base of Beaver Creek mountain, uh, in Avon, Colorado. And the room in and of itself is going to be incredible. We've already sold a crap ton of slots from the waiting list. Uh, and we're just now as of today, releasing this to the general public. So this is your chance to get in on this. Now we have a number of, uh, a limited number of slots left. I think as of last I saw on the website, I think we might have like 18 slots left.

12:57 So it is a finite amount of opportunity to get into a room full of unbelievably committed, driven, creative, heart-centered business owners and coaches and experts and entrepreneurs, along with... An amazing room of mentors and coaches to help you put together a plan for the next quarter, as well as look at new strategies and new things that are working in the world of sales, marketing, operations, technology, leadership. This is an amazing opportunity for you to take the next step to getting to the next level in your business. And I want to invite you cordially to this event.

13:39 And I would love, love, love nothing more than to spend some time with you in person in Vail in June, the 5th through the 7th Weston Riverfront Resort. Go to www.quantomempire.io forward slash event. You can see all the details. You can apply to join the event there. And yes, it is an application process. This room is not for everyone. We are selective about the people that get in. But if you think you want to get in, go to the website, www.quantomempire.io forward slash event. Apply for the event now. We'll get back to you quickly and let you know. And if you're in, you can sign up. You can grab your spot while it's still available. I hope to see you there.

14:20 Thank you for listening to this episode of the Coaching Equation Podcast. Until next time, be well. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Coaching Equation. Please hit subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you got value out of this episode, we would be so grateful if you would share it out with a friend and leave us a review on iTunes or your favorite platform. To learn more about Empire Partners or to inquire about working with Ryan and Brooke, please visit www.empirepartners.io forward slash go.