Build Your Business: From Fear to Freedom – Details, episodes & analysis

You are responsible for the financial health of your business, so you must have a good handle on your business's finances. This includes understanding basic business metrics that matters, using leading indicators, and ensuring a profitable business. We walk you through mastering financial management for business owners.
 

You must understand, in real time, where money is going in and out of your business. You cannot delegate this to someone else (and early on, you cannot afford to have someone else manage this any way).

What is your top line revenue? What is your net profit, gross profit, etc. Matt discusses these business metrics that mattered here.

If you do not understand what is going on in your business financially, you will get surprised.

The metrics you assess need to be leading indicators, not lagging indicators. For example, Matt used an accountant for Barbell  Logic that would give the financial numbers for the previous month two weeks after the end of the month. This is too late to course correct.

Matt and Chris love the approach outlined in the book Profit First, which helps you better understand your business's finance and helps you ensure your business creates profit.

You organize the money in your account, either using a bank account that lets you create sub-accounts or using something like YNAB where you can assign purposes to the money.

You must assign money to profit. Start with 1%. The point is it helps you build the habit of assigning money to profit. You need to increase this percentage over time.

You can end up paying yourself the profit or strategically reinvesting it into the business.

The other areas to assign money toward include:

• Revenue
• Payroll
• Operating Expenses
• Taxes (don't let this one surprise you)

A key action in mastering financial management for business owners is getting lean.

You almost certainly want to increase your revenue, but this takes time, usually comes with cost, and takes time.

The fastest way to get profitable, the MED way, is to cut costs, specifically in operating expenses (as opposed to cost of goods or payroll).

You have to keep your business from burning cash and keep it there.

Negotiate costs for subscriptions. Most of the time you can email a business that you plan to cancel something, and they will offer you a discount.

If you have not been using a service, you also can often cancel it effectively some time in the past.

Using 1099 contractors can help reduce costs as well.

You have to master financial management of your business. It may be hard, but it is crucial and worth the time and effort.

PS - 
Coach Smarter, Earn More: https://bit.ly/3X4ixOX

Matt's Links
Website: https://ryanmattreynolds.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reynoldsstrong/?hl=en

Chris's Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrismreynolds/

 

Matt and Chris discuss the merits of bootstrapping a business versus seeking external funding.

A business owner has 3 levers to pull to push the gas pedal: time, effort, and money (or capital).

Early on, you need to maximize time and effort and use the company's revenue to build the budget. This is what bootstrapping is.

You are going to have to work long hours, work hard and efficiently.

You will need obsessive drive to push you along the path for decades.

As a business owner, you have to get used to stress. This stress is good and will drive you to improve yourself (as owner, manager, and technician) and the business.

If you take on money, it is easier to not feel the pressure. This is bad. You should feel the pressure early on. It will help motivate you to push harder and think creatively.

You will build excellent habits during this period and great habits within the business. These habits will carry on if you take on debt or investment.

Once you take on equity, it is harder to pivot the business to potential opportunities.

Your idea is going to have to change. Iterating intelligently will improve the business. Don't be wedded to the initial idea, but be open to change as you learn more about the business and the market.

It is much harder to do this if you have to justify pivots to a board.

Learn why you should bootstrap your business.

PS - 
Coach Smarter, Earn More: https://bit.ly/3X4ixOX

Matt's Links
Website: https://ryanmattreynolds.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reynoldsstrong/?hl=en

Chris's Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrismreynolds/

 

Most people do not do enough. The evidence for this is all the time people waste performing non-important, unurgent tasks such as watching TikTok, doom-scrolling through Twitter, or binge-watching Netflix.

Do not build walls around your time that should not exist. “It’s unhealthy to work on the weekend” or “I deserve to not work on the weekend” can be the difference between your business succeeding and growing or failing.

You have more time than you think. You can do more than you think. This does not mean that you do not enjoy time with your family or in leisure activities. People, however, by and large, are too lazy. People generally do less than they can.

Business owners and the self-employed enjoy the freedom to set their own schedules and choose how to spend their time. This may be the single greatest aspect of starting a business or being your own boss.

If you give in to your worst tendencies, however, you will not do enough. You will choose laziness.

Matt, for example, gets up early to complete urgent tasks when no one else is awake. He does this on the weekend as well, which leaves him ready to perform on Monday as the CEO. He does not begin work Monday morning having to catch up on email.

Don’t let freedom lead to laziness. Don’t be lazy, but rather do the work.

PS - 
Coach Smarter, Earn More: https://bit.ly/3X4ixOX

Matt's Links
Website: https://ryanmattreynolds.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reynoldsstrong/?hl=en

Chris's Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrismreynolds/

 

Someone in the All In conference Matt, Niki, Andrew, & Josh recently attended said “that’s below my line.”

What does this mean? It means certain things should be below “your line” that stirs up your anger.

Of course, anger is an emotion, and emotions arise sometimes whether you want them to or not. That being said, you should avoid outrage culture, and if you find yourself dominated by your passions, you should step back and deal with it.

Matt has identified that addressing a situation in anger almost never works out well. This does not just mean yelling or punishment, but even talking in anger – it usually does not come off well.

If accomplishing the goal is the goal, and anger does not help, then don’t lean into the anger. Acknowledge, overcome, and try to make peace.

One component of picking your battles is assuming the best in others, especially others who have built up a level of trust with you.

You cannot be in a healthy relationship with your spouse or really any other important person in your life if you assume the worst possible motives for their actions.

Reach out to the other person and listen. Winning an argument or seeking to dominate conversation is not a good way to reach understanding or peace.

Pick your battles, seek peace, and overcome anger and other passions.

PS - 
Coach Smarter, Earn More: https://bit.ly/3X4ixOX

Matt's Links
Website: https://ryanmattreynolds.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reynoldsstrong/?hl=en

Chris's Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrismreynolds/

 

Barbell Logic has identified a somewhat typical progression among a cohort of its clientele. These folks go from fan to strength client to Academy client to coach using TurnKey Coach.

Micaela Bickel followed this path.

She began more in the fitness space, programming circuits and endurance. Barbells were sprinkled in.

Despite her skepticism and fears, training with barbells produced the results she wanted and not only did not hurt her back but actually helped her back.

She attended a seminar and left humbled but ready to pivot to strength-based training for both herself and her clients.

She soon found the Academy and learned many of the practical and academic things it teaches. Despite having an exercise science degree, she derived a huge value from the academy.

She opened a gym in February 2023. That was a steeper learning curve.

She learned as she went, though the Academy also not spends more time addressing the business of coaching.

Her first important transition was from charging per session to charging monthly. Soon thereafter, she moved to a hybrid model of coaching, where clients receive usually 2-3 months of in-person coaching from her and then are moved to online through TurnKey Coach.

This has increased her ability to coach more clients and decreased her time at work.

The way TKC measures progress and PRs has encouraged compliance, and clients are able to train while away from the gym (and Micaela can coach away from the gym).

Learn about Micaela’s story from client to coach and how she crushed the client life cycle.

PS - 
Coach Smarter, Earn More: https://bit.ly/3X4ixOX

Matt's Links
Website: https://ryanmattreynolds.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reynoldsstrong/?hl=en

Chris's Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrismreynolds/

 

This is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion. It comes from doing too much for too long, especially too many urgent things. Some people have performed some great feats of endurance in their lives, but they often focus on the important, not the urgent.

You will experience a lack of desire to work, even with things that used to motivated and excited you. It will affect all areas of your life.

There is a clear parallel with overtraining. Overtraining is actually less common than most people think, but if you become overtrained it is debilitating. Overtraining and becoming burned out are better to avoid than dig yourself out of.

This is one of those instances when important things become urgent. You drown in an overwhelming amount of urgency for too long, and you will have to confront it. It is better to get out in front of it.

Ensure that you are making time for the important. You are taking days off and there are things you do unrelated to the urgent every day.

Take care of your health always: physical, medical, spiritual, psychological, social.

Do not medicate with activities that can exacerbate the problem, such as alcohol or other drugs, unhealthy foods, empty pleasures, risky behaviors, or excessive spending or gambling.

To dig yourself out will require more work and greater effort than if you had never found yourself burned out in the first place. And, of course, some people never dig themselves out.

Avoid burnout, but reach out for help if you find yourself burned out.

PS - 
Coach Smarter, Earn More: https://bit.ly/3X4ixOX

Matt's Links
Website: https://ryanmattreynolds.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reynoldsstrong/?hl=en

Chris's Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrismreynolds/

 

In many industries and organizations, there are general guidelines, rules, or ways of doing things. You may learn, early on, that generally, for example, employees should have one manager only or that you should never divide your forces in the face of a larger force.

Great victories and advantages, however, lie in consciously not following these rules.

For start up companies, your advantages over larger companies come from nimbleness and low costs. When you start your business, you are the technician, the manager, and the owner. You wear all the hats.

You will hire employees, and they will begin to take some of those hats.

Do not, however, force your people and processes under principles that slow you down or increase your costs.

As you scale, you will reach higher level nodes where payroll will increase. As you do this, profitability may decrease as you take on more people, but then it will improve as you improve and grow at that node.

Move fast and move cheap. Know when to break the rules and knowingly break them for the good of your business (when it makes sense).

PS - 
Coach Smarter, Earn More: https://bit.ly/3X4ixOX

Matt's Links
Website: https://ryanmattreynolds.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reynoldsstrong/?hl=en

Chris's Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrismreynolds/

 

You almost certainly consume content in some form. Free or cheap content abounds: podcasts, social media, YouTube, reels, articles, books, audiobooks.

You should be consuming and encountering meaningful, challenging, useful content. You should constantly be learning.

That being said, too many people do not put lessons learn into action. Don’t be one of these people. Then, your education is really just infotainment.

You do not improve yourself or your business by knowing more but by improving yourself and your business by changing your habits and applying the insights you learn from these educational resources.

Some businesses focus on monetizing content and making money through content.

That is not Barbell Logic, and that is not most businesses.

Content is a means to build trust and demonstrate value and expertise. Potential clients (leads) consume your content, they become warm leads, and eventually some of these people will purchase your products or services.

For example, Matt has purchased Alex Hormozi’s books (which are cheap) and watched some of his free online content. Because of the value he has gleaned from this, he was willing to pay more to attend an intensive in-person seminar.

Why? Because the free and cheap content, and Matt and Barbell Logic’s application of the lessons contained in that content, have provided value. Matt was willing to invest more deeply in a higher level of service with a higher price point because of this trust from previous experiences with the content.

How are you building trust with your potential customers?

Leverage education and build trust.

Barbell Logic used the seminar, and has used free and cheap content from Hormozi and acquisition.com to identify constraints within the business and levers to pull that will provide the most return for the least effort, time, and money.

Sounds a lot like MED (not on accident)!

MED does not mean do the least you can. It means valuing your time, money, and effort to get the biggest return on investment you can. It applies the law of diminishing returns. It asks, if you can add 5 pounds to your squat every 2-3 days with 1 set of 5 repetitions of the deadlift, why would you do a program that involves 3×5 or 5×5?

Leverage education to identify constraints and improve yourself and your business.

PS - 
Coach Smarter, Earn More: https://bit.ly/3X4ixOX

Matt's Links
Website: https://ryanmattreynolds.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reynoldsstrong/?hl=en

Chris's Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrismreynolds/

 

Greg Hess is an instructor and athletic trainer at West Point. In this role, he has a host of responsibilities, including immediate treatment of injuries, overseeing mandatory physical training of all cadets during their cadet basic training, and leading an elective course on compound barbell lifts.

Really, what he is doing, in his roles, is trying to spread the benefits of simple, hard, effective training.

During basic training, he exposes cades to the deadlift and bench press, despite the limited time.

In his elective, however, he has more time to instruct technique on the four main lifts, along with the power clean and power snatch. Cadets also learn how to coach other cadets.

This is a good thing. Cadets at the United States Military Academy (West Point) are being exposed to simple, hard, effective strength training.

Learn about something exciting that is going on at West Point.

PS - 
Coach Smarter, Earn More: https://bit.ly/3X4ixOX

Matt's Links
Website: https://ryanmattreynolds.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reynoldsstrong/?hl=en

Chris's Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrismreynolds/

 

Two main categories of metrics exist to help measure progress toward strategic goals and gauge the health of the company: targets to improve (TTIs) and key performance indicators (KPIs).

TTIs are your top set of metrics, which have to directly impact your strategic priorities. Your strategic priorities need to align with your tenets and core values.

If these metrics improve, you have moved closer to or met your strategic priorities. These are not monthly or quarterly (though you measure them monthly and quarterly and probably more often than that) but likely annual priorities and TTIs.

KPIs are snapshots of the health of the company. If they improve, they should help your TTIs and strategic priorities (for the most part).

Often times, these are metrics that lower-level employees may care about. The CEO does not need to get into the weeds of Instagram post performance, for example, but the social media manager does.

Some metrics will likely not move, but if they do move you need to identify why they moved (either to understand the success or address the underperformance).

For Barbell Logic this might be churn. A good example in another industry is engine temperature in an airplane. This should remain constant, but if it starts to go up you need to address it quickly.

What you measure focuses your attention, so pick your metrics carefully. The CEO should not be looking at 100s of metrics. Improvements in your TTIs must actually move you closer toward your strategic priorities.

For example, if a strategic priority for you is to earn $50k in coaching revenue this year, revenue is a TTI. KPIs that align with this may be churn, clients, cold calls, and life time value of clients.

Make sure your metrics align with your priorities and your priorities align with your values and tenets. Prioritize metrics: do not measure metrics just because you can.

Not all metrics are created equal.

PS - 
Coach Smarter, Earn More: https://bit.ly/3X4ixOX

Matt's Links
Website: https://ryanmattreynolds.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reynoldsstrong/?hl=en

Chris's Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrismreynolds/