My Business On Purpose – Details, episodes & analysis

In this episode of Tuesday's Tools on Purpose, we dive into "Trainual" with Maria Walls from Beaufort County Treasurer Office. Maria shares how this powerful platform helps streamline procedures, enhance onboarding, and even save time with AI-powered quizzes and video integrations.

Contact information:
Patrice Miles
Business Coach, Business On Purpose
patrice@mybusinessonpurpose.com
Discovery Call:
https://bit.ly/patricediscovery

Are you working IN your business or ON your business? Do you have all of the foundational elements that will liberate you from the business chaos? Take the assessment to find out which areas you can grow and improve on.
Take our Healthy Owner Business Assessment HERE➡️ http://bit.ly/healthybusiness1

SIGN UP for our Newsletter HERE ➡️ https://www.boproadmap.com/newsletter

For blogs and updates, visit our site HERE ➡️ https://www.mybusinessonpurpose.com/blog/

LISTEN to the Business On Purpose Podcast HERE ➡️ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-business-on-purpose/id969222210

SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube channel HERE ➡️ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbPR8lTHY0ay4c0iqncOztg?sub_confirmation=1

In this episode of Tuesday's Tools on Purpose, we're diving into the transformative power of Buildertrend with Adam Copenhaven from Cope Grand Homes. Originally geared toward builders, we quickly realized the insights apply to any business still relying on yellow notepads and spreadsheets. Adam shares how Buildertrend enhances both his internal team’s workflow and the client experience, offering practical advice on training, team buy-in, and maximizing software to drive efficiency and growth. Discover how shifting from manual methods to a robust software can truly change the game for your business!

Contact information:
Patrice Miles
Business Coach, Business On Purpose
patrice@mybusinessonpurpose.com
Discovery Call:
https://bit.ly/patricediscovery

Adam Copenhaven
Cope Grand Homes
https://www.copegrandhomes.com/
https://www.instagram.com/copegrand_homes/
https://www.facebook.com/CopeGrand/

Are you working IN your business or ON your business? Do you have all of the foundational elements that will liberate you from the business chaos? Take the assessment to find out which areas you can grow and improve on.
Take our Healthy Owner Business Assessment HERE➡️ http://bit.ly/healthybusiness1

SIGN UP for our Newsletter HERE ➡️ https://www.boproadmap.com/newsletter

For blogs and updates, visit our site HERE ➡️ https://www.mybusinessonpurpose.com/blog/

LISTEN to the Business On Purpose Podcast HERE ➡️ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-business-on-purpose/id969222210

SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube channel HERE ➡️ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbPR8lTHY0ay4c0iqncOztg?sub_confirmation=1

Join Patrice Miles, BOP Business Coach, and Sam Wheeler from State Farm, as they discuss Navigating Buy-Sell Agreements for Business Success on the latest Tuesday Tools On Purpose podcast!

Learn how to protect your business and ensure a smooth transition with the right agreements in place.

Contact information:
Patrice Miles
Business Coach, Business On Purpose
patrice@mybusinessonpurpose.com
Discovery Call:
https://bit.ly/patricediscovery

Sam Wheeler, State Farm
Office Number: 502 459 9700
Mobile number: 502 753 9833
https://www.planwithsam.com/

Are you working IN your business or ON your business? Do you have all of the foundational elements that will liberate you from the business chaos? Take the assessment to find out which areas you can grow and improve on.
Take our Healthy Owner Business Assessment HERE➡️ http://bit.ly/healthybusiness1

SIGN UP for our Newsletter HERE ➡️ https://www.boproadmap.com/newsletter

For blogs and updates, visit our site HERE ➡️ https://www.mybusinessonpurpose.com/blog/

LISTEN to the Business On Purpose Podcast HERE ➡️ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-business-on-purpose/id969222210

SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube channel HERE ➡️ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbPR8lTHY0ay4c0iqncOztg?sub_confirmation=1

How do your customers and clients feel after they’ve done business with you? Do they feel your gratitude? Well, let’s talk about that today!

Thomas Joyner here with Business on Purpose.

I spent 4 days last week in Mexico with my wife celebrating our 10th anniversary! Gah, what a special time as it was just us for an extended period of time for the first time in 5 years. We’ve done a night or two getaways, but having 3 kids in 4 years meant that we always had a little one at home and so getting any more time than that was challenging.

We walked into the resort and from the moment we were there we were welcomed in a way that we never have been before. Let me paint the picture for you.

The first morning, because it was the west coast of Mexico and 3 hours behind… I woke up wide awake around 4:30 am. I’m used to going 0-60 when I wake up and it was so strange to wake up and NOT be needed by anyone. The tricky part, breakfast wasn’t served until 7 am! I remembered the concierge telling me they had 24/7 room service, so I picked up the phone and dialed it…half expecting it to ring and ring and ring. They picked up on the first ring. Remember, it’s 4:30 in the morning!

Hey is there any way I can get some coffee for two of us? Absolutely, sir! We would love to. I apologize that it will be about 20-30 min to brew a fresh pot for you and your wife, but we will have it there as soon as we can.

Great! 20-30 min later, there’s a knock on our door, at 5 am with a fresh pot of coffee, a tray of fruit, and a basket of chocolate croissants for us to enjoy. It was incredible. 

I just said thanks so much for bringing it so early and they thanked me multiple times and talked about how grateful they were to serve us.

Wow…that leaves an impression. 

Every time we ate dinner, ordered a drink, asked for a towel, needed anything and everything we were met with gratitude and feeling that the employees of the resort were overjoyed to be asked to serve.

So… the question at hand as I was flying home. Is that how our clients and our customers feel when we do work for them? Do they feel the gratitude at being chosen for their work? Do they know that it truly is a joy to get to do the work and serve them?

If I had to wager, I would say not!

I would say more often than not you are at odds with your clients. Left cursing them under your breath as they walk away or as you leave the job site. Maybe even thinking, if we can get through this one nightmare client, maybe we can get back to the good ones!

And some of that’s true. There’s entitlement and a lack of gratitude on the customer side. There’s no doubt about that. But I think it’s more than just that. I think that we’ve forgotten that work is a gift. That we were designed to work and create and problem solve and all of that, in and of itself, is a gift.

Because think about this for a minute. If what you were doing is easy, if it didn’t come with problems, people wouldn’t need you to do it! They would do it themselves and probably not pay someone like you to do it for them. If it didn’t require expertise and planning and calculation and learned skills, you would not be able to make a living doing it!

So maybe there’s a mindset shift that needs to happen. Next time there is an issue, can we train ourselves to be thankful… to feel gratitude for that problem. Because behind the problem itself is the reason we can build a business around solving that unique challenge! That is exciting! That’s something you can retrain your team on.

To feel joy at the challenges because each and every one of them is job security and the opportunity to support your family moving forward. 

I think that’s what the employees of this resort thought. They were grateful to serve because they knew the more people they served in an exceptional manner, the more people would want to come there and a better life for their family! But not just that, I think the gratitude that was present helped them not just, “get through the day,” but helped them enjoy their days working. And there’s a huge difference between the two.

So, how do you need to shift your thinking? What problems in your work need to be seen with gratitude? And do you need to take an inventory of how your customers feel when they are done working with you? I think it’s a great place to start and a great way to enjoy your work more! 

Bring it up around your team and see if it changes your culture and deliverables. Alright! Have a great day…and if I’m practicing what I’m preaching. Thank you for continuing to listen and allow us the opportunity to keep delivering content like this to business owners. It really is a gift to us and a joy to keep doing it. Take care!

If you have ever been interested to see a group of business owners conduct a communal eye roll, bring up the topic of bonus and incentives.

A few years ago we had a client who decided to reward their team from a banner year and forego distributing a substantial six-figure margin to himself and his partner.  There was no expectation created for this one-off distribution.  

It was a $200,000 sum that would be distributed to around 25 employees… you can do the math.  Not bad.  

The response?

Crickets.  

Of the 25 employees, there was a thoughtful “thank you” from three, a casual “thank you” from a few more, and crickets from everyone else.

To add insult to unexpected injury, the next day an employee came in and confessed, “I just got a job offer to go make $10k more per year and I don’t know what to do…”

Candidly, when calculating an employee's compensation, most owners in businesses with less than 50 employees have not considered the additional investment of bonus or incentive outlays.  When the thought finally arrives the plan is usually built from a position of fear rather than a position of joy, celebration, and sharing.  

In other words, “What can I do to make these employees feel more valued so they don’t leave!”

Most owners wish to generously share in some of the margin that has been created over and above what has been budgeted for base compensation and commission.

There is a chasm that exists that almost renders any over-and-above distribution as challenging at best, frustrating, and divisive at worst.

Owners are forced to think of the business finances in terms of the net…what is left over after all responsibilities are payed out.

Employees are often time locked in on the gross… the big numbers that come in at the top or total sales.  

An employee can do math in their head and determine the total sales of either their efforts, or the total sales of the company and think, “Well, look how much I generated for the business, and all I get is my base with a little extra (or sometimes no extra at all).”

The owner looks at the math spelled out on the profit and loss statement, the cash balances in the bank account, and the budget of projected expenses and revenues for the coming year and thinks, “How in the world can we afford to pay out any additional and not be cash-strapped for the future?”

It is a silent stalemate between owners and employees, top line and bottom line, perceptions, and expectations.  

How can employees see additional compensation as motivation and incentive, instead of seeing it as an expectation?

How can owners see additional compensation as a budgeted item to be shared and joyfully extended, instead of seeing it as a fear-motivated mortgage that taxes future growth opportunities (remember, marginal cash is the prime fuel for future growth).  

Most owners desire and have motivation to extend extra-compensation to reward over-and-above effort and to show additional appreciation.

There are however three primary negative motivations for the build-out and deployment of these plans that usually result in a lack of health and longevity. 

Owner guilt is where the owner feels unwarranted guilt for having access to the net income of the business while employees do not.  

What is often missed during boom times is that the owner must use a portion of the net to stack in reserves for when the business has negative net income and wants to continue employing personnel even though the business cannot “afford” it in a particular month of the year.

Another negative motivation for deployment of extra-compensation plans is an owner’s fear that an employee will leave.  It is a crucial principle that all businesses be built to weather a valuable team member leaving the roster.  A business will never be bulletproof from the handicap of losing great talent… but it can be prepared on how to respond.  

Businesses must be cautious about being held hostage by one highly valuable employee; it can damage morale and cash-strap a small business for future opportunities.

A final negative motivation for extra-compensation plans are employee demands in a vacuum of understanding the full scope of the business finances.   

Financial literacy in a business is key to building consensus and understanding around incentive compensation and bonuses.  A two step approach will aid employees in understanding the basics of business finances.

The first of the two steps to financial literacy is communicating with all employees that a dollar is not a dollar because…

• A dollar out is always more than a dollar (think when you pay for a sandwich that costs $9.95…you will pay more than $9.95 with taxes, tip, delivery, time spent, etc.)

• A dollar in is always less than a dollar (think when you receive a payment for $9.95…you will send the majority of that $9.95 to other people before you get to keep what is left over)

The second of the two steps to financial literacy is communicating with all employees that business finances are reviewed in a past, present, and future tense.  

The profit and loss statements and balance sheets reveal what has happened (past).

The subdivided bank accounts and level two dashboards reveal what is happening (present).

Simple budgets and pro formas give insight into what will happen in the future assuming the inputs hold true (future).  

Reminding employees that a significant part of financial literacy is assuming what may happen (future) and so not all hoped-for elements of compensation can be guaranteed.  

Communication of preparation, purpose and payout are the three priorities of creating an incentives program that can yield the hoped for results (notice the use of “can” and not “will”...there will continually be volatility around this issue).

First, in communicating purpose, it is helpful to understand what these programs exist for.

What is a bonus?  Without being punchy or rude, a bonus is simply a bonus, a cherry on top, an unexpected treat, and added benefit that displays generosity.  That’s it.

Bonuses should never be extended for baseline job role responsibilities, for showing up regularly and on time.  

It is not uncommon to overhear someone say, “Well, I’ve been here for 12 years, I should get…”

You have been compensated fairly and regularly for 12 years, that is what you have received.  A bonus is undeserved extra.  No one should ever… ever expect a bonus and should never base any portion of their personal budget on an anticipated bonus.  

A bonus is a bonus.   

The purpose of incentive programs is to incite (same root) an action. 

Most compensation opportunities above base should have the spirit of an incentive compensation in contrast to bonus or “profit sharing” (btw, profit sharing can be a dangerous term, and in some states place the business in a vulnerable legal positon).  What is the business trying to incite, to encourage, to stir up in addition to the baseline job roles and responsibilities?  

Incentive compensation carries an over-and-above idea of performance over-and-above the base job role.  

There are multiple ways to structure incentive compensation plans that all yield various outcomes.  

A few structures of notable mention are…

• A simple lump sum based on a percentage of an employees base salary based on hitting target profit

• Top line percentage of sales based on total volume

• Bottom line percentage of sales based on net income per sale after job costing

• Monthly or quarterly target incentives based on sales, or other measurable activities 

Regardless of the structure you decide, there are a few crucial questions to ask as you prepare for an incentive structure.

1. What will be incentivized?

2. How will it be tracked?

3. What flexibility does the program have to adjust if it is counterproductive either to the team or to the business? 

4. How will the incentive dollars be set aside to ensure profitable payout? (i.e. subdivided bank account?)

5. When and how will it be paid out?

6. How will it be well-communicated when it is paid out to achieve the desired outcome?

Every incentive payout should come with added communication both the celebrate the payout and to add a subtle reminder that this is over-and-above and you should cautiously budget your life based on this pay out. 

One final thought, all incentive structures should be considered to be subject to change at any time, and at least reviewed and updated annually.  You are not required to be held hostage by a bad incentive compensation structure…it will not only ruin the business, but ruin opportunities for each employee.  Don’t allow the benefit of one to backfire and cause the detriment of many.  

Incentive structures can be a value add to a business and to a team IF it is well-communicated, held with open hands to adjust over time, and generously given and received. 

For six years Ashley and I coordinated the meeting of a group of young men who met weekly during the school year.  Some weeks there were four, and others there were sixteen.  All between 15 and 18 years of age and all at different stages of maturity.  

We walked these young men through a variety of discussions, situations, and scenarios and even adapted a five stage growth pyramid for each to understand where they were at in their level of maturity.  

For these young men we relayed the identification of those stages as 

Boy
Adolescent
Man
Mentor
Patriarch

Upon introduction many of the young men in our group presumed that age was the entry point to each stage.  Turn 13 and you become an adolescent.  Turn 18 and you become a man.

One astute young man asked a resonating question around our communal fire pit, “at what age do you become a mentor?”

It was akin to asking, “at what year do you become an expert in your field?”

In 1964 US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart was providing an opinion on the use of obscenity in the public square  in the State of Ohio’s  case vs. Jacobellis who had been reprimanded for showing what was considered by some to be an obscene movie.  

Justice Stewart explains, “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it…”

We will certainly do our best to layout helpful marks of maturity within a civil society, and yet maturity can be validated in part under the mantra of “I know it when I see it.”

My response to the young man asking at what age you scale the stages of manhood?  I asked, “have you ever seen a 19 year old boy walking around in a 54 year old body?”

He understood a primary principle of maturity:

Maturity equals maturity.

Age equals age.

You can have age without maturity.

You can have some maturity without age.

You cannot have full maturity without the combination of age and wisdom.

Wisdom is a cocktail of time, understanding, trial, error, learning, teaching, consideration and circumspect, humility, confidence, and curiosity.

Wisdom gone right is shrewd and helpful.

Wisdom corrupted is deception and gaslighting.

The secret to wisdom is this…GO PURSUE WISDOM!

How do we know what to pursue, or what a wise person, a mature person even looks like?

Here are NINE marks of maturation that we can pursue ourselves and begin looking for in others.  These marks do not prove full maturity, but simply a pursuit of maturity at some particular mile marker on the highway.  

First, a maturing person is someone who has written and defined principles (mission, values) for their life.

We all like to think that writing things down and defining “purpose” in our lives is good for the self-help section at Barnes and Noble, but in real life we can never find time for that.

The maturing person makes time to articulate the things that drive them and the things they value. 

Our family has a drive to create space and be a light through adventure, wisdom, and time around the table.

One of the more sacred spots in our day to day is any table we find ourselves at together whether it be our dinner table in Bluffton, a bleacher seat in Winston-Salem, a tray table in row 31 seat C, D, and E somewhere over the Atlantic, or a restaurant table in Cinque Terre.  The table is an indicator for us to limit distractions, share peaks and pits, discuss a wide range of recent events and future plans, and to play 3 rounds of a twitchy card game.

It’s written, we talk about it, and it has become a habit at this point.

If you don’t write them down, they do not exist. 

Second, the maturing person invests a bulk of time into a recurring “thing” (Reps): 

Distraction has become chaos’ tool of choice in our modern battle to fight.  Desire is rarely the enemy that keeps us from progressing to expert status.  We have a desire to fly planes, learn a language, love yoga, travel to Siberia, or hike the Cascades.  

Distraction then hijacks desire in mid-flight rendering us aloof and frustrated not being able to achieve that thing we know would satisfy and re-energize.  

While at the Chick Fil A mothership in Peachtree City, GA we heard a recurring idiom that for a while felt like classic corporate goofiness and then over time was sobered up to a well trained conviction; “Full Time…Best Effort”.  

It’s one thing to “be at work” all day vs. “working all day”.  

While we are at work all day, distraction begins hovering like sand gnats on a warm May afternoon at a southern coastal ball field.  It nips, bites, frustrates, until we either leave, or take measures to battle against.  

Three hours at work is not the same as working for three straight hours. 

One gives the allusion of maturity.  The other implements boundaries which lead to maturity and exponential value to you and the people you impact.

When you mature to give your full time…best effort, choosing not to work in a short series of fits and starts, you are setting the stage for a mass accrual of reps in a given task or skillset providing you a valuable path to expertise and value.

Immaturity always welcomes distraction.  

The third mark of a maturing person reveals a sober judgment and intuition spending time looking at a “thing” from multiple angles.  

For most of my life I didn’t “get” art.  People would sit and look, observe, think, contemplate, review, change angles and keep looking.

“What are they looking at?”, I would think with disdain and arrogance.

Perspective is a hallmark in appreciating great art.  Today I would accept an invitation into just about any display of artistic creation.  One of my favorite art displays is the small, dark Museo Leonardo Da Vinci.  A two minute walk from the infamous Duomo in Florence is a unique museum displaying recreations of da Vinci’s drawings.  

Da Vinci was a prolific illustrator drawing fine details of human anatomy, mechanical machinery, and novel tools.  Many of these drawings were never manufactured into tangible instruments.  The da Vinci museum displays actual (in some cases life size) creations of da Vinci’s drawings like a tank, a flying machine and others. 

These tools in essence jump off the page into real life and the museum gives you a unique opportunity to look at aa Vinci’s mind and work from multiple angles and perspectives.  What might have seemed hideous or impractical on paper is now meaningful and unique when built in real life.  

Maturity is making the time to walk around and see the various angles of a thing not in hopes of proving your opinion, but instead to reformulate your convictions with great understanding.  

The fourth mark of a maturing person is situational awareness; the ability to “read the room” knowing who is in the room, when to act and how to act.

Walk down a terminal in most major airports and he will be nearby, the guy with the bluetooth headset talking as if Nine Inch Nails are playing a live set at the next gate down and he’s got to make sure the person on the other end can hear everything he has to say.

Your response, “READ THE ROOM”.

Solitude is helpful, isolation less so.  We (yes, even introverts) live in a communal society with shared spaces.  It serves us well to read the room and respond in kind to the dynamics of that room.  

If people are tired, frustrated, jet lagged, in a hurry, delayed, short-fused and in need of space and peace, probably best not to add volume to that chaos.  Read the room.

If people are energized, fired up, ready to storm the hill and score the winning touchdown, probably best not to reveal your inner Eeyore.  Read the room.

There is a time and place for everything and the maturing person is willing to reveal their “true self” in moments where their true self will be invited and welcomed.  

Read the room.

A hallmark of situational awareness is the ALL important SELF-awareness.  Spending time discovering the inner workings of yourself will open up a world of insight and aha’s as to why you are the way you are, do the things you do, and act the way you act.

Maturity in self-awareness never uses what you have discovered as a crutch to excuse preference.  “Well, I’m an ‘S’ on the DISC so you shouldn’t ask me to do that.”  Or, “I have no Tenacity on the Working Genius so you can’t expect me to have that done so quickly.”

Profiles and enneagram numbers are helpful; these are third party tools that give us objective insight into the intangible parts of our personality.  As you learn, the mature person asks, “what are the things that I naturally love to contribute, and what are the things that I need to be aware that I am not as prone to so I can push through those areas when needed?”

Maturing people realize that Jim Rohn was right, “you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” 

In fact, you are likely the average of the five books you read, the five foods you eat, the five songs you listen to, and the five things you spend your money on.

A new rhetorical question that we are going to begin adding to our hiring process is this, “if I asked you to setup a dinner with the five people you spend the most time with, would you be excited for me to meet with them?”

Life and business necessarily intersect.  Who you are out there, is who you will be in here.  

Run with chaos out there, and you will want to burn the building down here.  Run with wisdom out there, and you will want to build up the culture in here.  

Who are the five people you spend the most time with?  Would I enjoy dinner with them?

The sixth element of a maturing person is they feel compelled by gratitude to reinvest the wisdom they have received into others. 

This reinvestment is less about waiting until you have hit a threshold of wisdom to start giving that wisdom away, and more about immediately teaching the wisdom you have to the people you interact with immediately.

Did you learn something today?  Use it today and teach it today.

Seneca, the Roman Philosopher said, “while we teach, we learn”.  

Benjamin Franklin said, “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”

In just a few minutes, I will involve you in an exercise that will help teach the things I’m learning so that we can all grow and perpetuate the wisdom to our co-workers, partners, families, and friends.  

The maturing person is always teaching out of the gratitude they have for being taught. 

The seventh mark of a maturing person are the stress-tests they’ve endured.  

Our family loves to hike, to walk along trails in the woods with no distractions and to simply look around and take it all in…to see what is out there and allow our minds to voyage into peaceful places.  

My son has a bazaar tradition when we are hiking in the woods, if he sees a tree he thinks is dead or dying he will work to “truck the tree”.  He’ll give it a few pushes casually to see if the tree is vulnerable and off balance; to see if it has some “give”.

After a few pushes he then makes a highly scientific judgment call to determine that tree’s “truckability”.  Can he make that tree fall if he were to deliver a linebacker like form tackle to its trunk? 

Mis-judge the tree and the tree wins whilst you get an Uber ride to the Orthopaedics office.  Judge correctly and you feel like a dominant predator of the woods knocking down trees with your bare shoulders.  

The maturing person has been pushed, pressed, and had tested through a variety of trials and tests both personally and professionally.  It is unreasonable and naive to think that you will live life on Lake Placid, where your waters will always be smooth and your skies will always be blue.

That testing is a gift because it breeds and develops endurance.  Endurance then works itself into hope, into a light at the end of a tunnel that is opportunity, life, conviction, belief, and satisfaction.  It is said that having hope will never disappoint.  

The maturing person will be aware of their response when they are rejected, or when they win.

Notice the maturing person may or may not respond perfectly to rejection or to winning, but they are aware of their response and the impact that response has on themselves and on others around them.

Rejection is fertile ground for shame.  Brene Brown has been studying shame for decades and describes shame as an “intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.”

Each of us has unique shame triggers, events that happen that open the door for that intensely painful feeling because our flaws have been revealed.

You could have just received a stern response, a cross glance, a critique on your work, a roll of the eyes in response to your contribution, or a harsh pushback from a client.  

Maybe your Dad only calls when he needs something or your Mom still treats you like you were 8 years old.

Maturity is not never feeling rejection.  Maturity is being aware of how you feel when you are rejected and then intentionally using emotional tools to grow from that rejection instead of self-medicating with rage, anger, return shame, substances, or loneliness. 

Victory and winning are equally as important.  When you win, how do you win?  Maturity will always lead with humility, joy, satisfaction, and gratitude.  Maturity will never thrive in an environment of arrogance, stand alone pride, gaslighting, and trash talking.

Humility is the currency of the wise.  On par with self-awareness, Shakespeare “A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.”

We are told it is the “foolish things of the world that are used to shame the wise, and the weak things of the world to shame the strong.”

A ninth mark of a maturing person is how they respond to authority, to coaching, and to the less fortunate.

The coaches you remember are the coaches that were hard, the ones who demanded more, and who were convinced that you had more to give.

Dr. David Crutchley was a professor of mine in graduate school.  I studied more for his classes than I did anyone else’s in the history of my education.  I never scored above a B minus on any exam or paper I turned into him.

Frustrated I tried to reason with him as to why I earned higher grades.  His response echoed, “I would rather you get a C in my class and walk away having truly learned, than for you to ace my class and to learn nothing.”

A life of 5.0’s and 10 out of 10’s on everything is a life that is ultimately not helpful towards resilience.  

Karen Arnold, a researcher who followed 81 High School Valedictorians came to an eye-opening conclusion:

“Even though most (valedictorians) are strong occupational achievers, the great majority of former high school valedictorians do not appear headed for the very top of adult achievement arenas….Valedictorians aren’t likely to be the future’s visionaries . . . they typically settle into the system instead of shaking it up.”

This is not license to not work hard, to not grow in diligence, and to not give great effort.  This is motivation to seek and appreciate hard coaching, serious feedback, and honest insight.  

Remember, the launching point into a life of wisdom is to simply GO LOOKING FOR IT.  If you find someone willing to do the hard, emotionally taxing work of giving you honest feedback, GO SIT WITH THEM and go get wisdom.  

Wisdom will be the road sign to maturity.  

Before English was widely spoken in the far corners of the globe, Latin was the lingua franca for much of the European world from the days of the Roman Empire into the middle centuries.

Latin stands at the root of many of our English words and offers us contextual insight into the flavor of our language.

Some Latin words proved so powerful in the fullness of their meaning that we simply adopted them without alteration into our common language.

Such it is with the financially laced Latin phrase pro forma.

With past-centric financial statements like profit and loss and balance sheets, it is helpful to see what-was in the lifecycle of our business.  

With the power of subdivided bank accounts and the Level Two Dashboard merging the perspectives of real-time cash, real-time receivables, and real-time payables, it is helpful to see what-is in the current state of our business in real cash.

We need the what-could-be picture to help us with a complete past, present, and future snapshot of our business.  

The pro forma is a common financial statement with powerful insights.

Pro forma literally means “as a matter of form(ality)”.  In other words, if you want to know the hypothetical future of an element of your business, especially a financial element, then create a form or a formality and run hypothetical scenarios.

The pro forma allows for such scenarios and provides powerful insight.  The downside is that it takes time and focus.  It feels unproductive because it is a future that is not promised.

It is the perfect work and effort given by an executive leader looking to have proximity to the business. 

The good news for a pro forma is that when you have the initial foundation of calculation built on a simple spreadsheet, you can continue running scenarios with often nothing more than a few tweaks to the calculator each time.

Here are some of the key areas you would implement and utilize a pro forma:

• Determining the compensation of a new hire

• Discovering impact to the bottom line through any role (new or existing)

• Uncovering future revenue and or expenses projections based on anticipated sales

• Future plan your product inventory (or billable hour inventory in a service business) and availability based on seasonality

• To simulate a variety of “what if” scenarios with business finances, personnel, and production

A simple pro forma is often the first step to answering the question, “what would happen if…”  If we hire that person?  If generated that revenue?  If we stocked up on that inventory?  If we saw a 10% reduction or a 20% increase in sales?

There are a few basic elements needed to build a simple pro forma calculator for your business.

First, you will need to define the purpose of the particular pro forma calculation.  An example purpose may be to answer, “What is the financial impact to the business of hiring a new person?”

Next, define what categorical outcomes the pro forma will provide… what is the ultimate result or number you are looking for?  In our example, the “financial impact” means looking at the net income of the business if we hire the person and they receive a compensation of X and produce a work-product of Y.

Once you have your ultimate result defined then begin to work backwards to fill in the gaps of values (inputs) you will need to know in order to calculate a final result.

Typical foundational cells or values to include in a compensation pro forma are:

• Base compensation values

• Incentive compensation (bonus) values

• Any other expenses (overhead, etc.) values

• Type(s) of product or service(s)

• Average ticket price of product(s) or service(s)

• A spread of months and years to run your scenarios (Year One/Month One, Year One/Month Two, etc.)

Pro formas can actually be quite addictive as you become equipped with greater objective information to make decisions in a constantly moving subjective climate.  

A pro forma is best situated within a business that runs the RPMs of great leadership.

A culture of repetition ensures that the necessary communication feedback loops are in place to regularly run pro formas for decision-making.

A culture of predictability ensures that the results of the pro formas find a home in the decision-making process.  

A culture of meaning ensures that the decisions made based in part on pro forma generated data is properly and appropriately integrated into the day to day aligned with the vision, the mission, and the values of the business. 

Listen to Jessica VanBrunt, owner of Van Brunt & Company, as she talks about how she implemented processes, a strong company culture, 12-week plans, and effective meetings to achieve business success. 

“It’s just easier if I do it myself.”

“No one does it as good as I do it”

“They just don’t care as much as I do.”

These are all statements that I have heard you make, and they are all statements that will sabotage your Executive Leadership.

The leader could drive the tractor, could fulfill the order, could supervise the build, could execute the transaction, could meet with the client, and could negotiate the material pricing.

But the Executive Leader reminds herself that she has “Proximity to motivate a team to pursue the named future you see”

The Executive Leader creates proximity.  They receive a phone call from the client and elect not to respond, or to immediately pass it to the trained and capable team member who can respond within the core values.

The Executive Leader intentionally withholds their response…even when it is helpful, knowing that their discipline will create an opportunity for their team to get more reps in a crucial part of their business.

When an Executive Leader willfully withholds a natural response in a display of self-discipline, it will be misunderstood and will be questioned… and it will create the value of another rep for the leader to whom that response has been delegated.

John Maxwell famously stated, “If someone else can do a task at least 80% as well as I can, I give it to them.” 

The math of that reasoning tells us that 20% of their work may not hold up to your personal standard… and yet, the 80% that they take from you allows you to be freed up to pursue the highest and best use of your time.

Money can always be regenerated… time and attention cannot.

An Executive Leader must guard her time because nothing she has dominion over is of more value than how she spends her time.  Yet, we waste it on task management and decisions that others could easily make (even if they don’t perfectly align with our decision).  You might have selected a circle while your leader selected an oval, but either way the decision is done and allows the organization to hit on the mission within the guideline of the values.  That’s a WIN!

Starting and building your business required a relentless, red-eyed, sacrificial devotion to doing and seeing it all.

Be free from that.  What you have built is good, valuable, helpful, beneficial, and powerful… but not if you are going to insert yourself in every little task and decision thereby sabotaging growth and therefore opportunity.

When the growth of a business is stunted so too are the growth opportunities for each team member.  As a business grows, so too the roles required of which existing team members have opportunity for promotion.  

Executive Leaders are more like pilots; build the initial systems to operate the plane, and then set the GPS coordinates and allow the people and systems to get you there. 

What are the indicators that you are moving in the right direction of Executive Leadership?

First, You will spend far more time on vision and people, than you will on process and task.

The executive leader will have multiple calendared times throughout each year they gather the entire company together in person or virtual and read back through their written vision story, mission, and values followed by a self-evaluation of “Green/Yellow/Red” flags in the business.  These vision days with the added addition of flag-reflections offers the executive leader and the team a sobering, in-the-moment consideration of where they think they stand in a number of business and personnel areas.

The executive leader will be in a continual state of learning and understanding the art and science of human psychology and personality.  They will take seriously the objective insights of profiles and assessments while pursuing acumen into generational diversity, trends, and norms while training their leaders on what they see and hear..  

Second, you will have a defined and published group of tapped leaders in place, and those leaders will begin showing evidence of building and refining the team to carry the heavy loads of business.  

In this case, published means a visual org chart, formally communicated to the team, while you make space in team meetings and check ins for investing time and attention through line item training and with the culture calendar review.

Published is public and the Latin root “pub” means a collection of people.  If the people have confusion about who is leading, then your leadership is not published.   

The third indicator of executive leadership is revealed when you begin having greater proximity to your leaders; both close and far away.

Proximity towards your leaders comes by way of the RPMs of great leadership that we talk about frequently.

Repetitious proximity is an engagement that happens over and over realizing that once is never enough.

Predictable proximity is an engagement that happens without surprise allowing for clarity and sobriety in thoughtful and timely conversation.  The micro-manager asks the wrong question at the wrong time, whereas the executive leader asks the right question at the right time.

You will also need to prioritize meaningful proximity which will welcome the skill of intentionality…a deliberateness the way a skilled surgeon navigates a robotic arm into a space unseen by the naked eye.  Not hurried but targeted, slow, seeing and hearing what is in front of you, not allowing your mind to be pulled apart to the worthless things screaming for your limited attention.  

When you have well-communicated time away from the “office”, defined meetings structure, and a more closely aligned weekly schedule they offer an unrestrained path to the bull’s eye of what is most valuable in that moment.  

A fourth indicator of executive leadership is when you are making time to pursue the wisdom of 3rd party voices OUTSIDE of your business.  Your internal leaders cannot serve this function in full, they are overseeing the management of the business…they will soon be in desperate need for new inspiration and updated motives to lead.

For some, this 3rd party wisdom will reveal themselves in nature walking, hiking, biking, swimming, or jogging alone outside.

For others, it may be in silent and unruffled stillness; a quiet room with a small chair and a window, or the edge of a wooded park in the middle of a workday when no one is around.

Books are a magical merging of the rustling of words without a sound.  Books are the perpetually evergreen wisdom of the years encapsulated in the products of our earth; the pages, the glue, the string, the binding, the ink all creating a quiet symphony upending our norms and reclassifying our most closely held beliefs. 

As Thomas Jefferson was sending books as a gift to the US Library of Congress, he wrote in a note to John Adams saying “I cannot live without books”, neither should the executive leader.

Many times those books are penned by the hand of a sage, which draws its root from the sophists; a Greek term that doubles for wisdom.

Wisdom from a sage, a wisdom-dispenser brings nuance, clarity, brilliance, and sturdiness.  Like a battered book in an antique shop, a sage presents its attractiveness precisely by their brokenness and scars.  The executive leader has sages, plural, multiple.

The uncoordinated team of sages offers a teaspoon of fresh strategy in favor of a full cup of tested perspective.  The sage is rarely interested in solving a problem that will last a week…they wish to help transform the soul of a person or a business for a lifetime.

At least four elements revealing the growth of an executive leader:

Investing more time and attention on vision, mission, and values…purpose.

A published group of defined leaders in place.

A proximity to those leaders both close and far.

A symphony of sages.

None of these will be purchased in the pre-packaging of modern products, allowing you to “hack” the system.  The elements of executive leadership are only obtained through adventure and pioneering…creating ruts of repetition, predictability, and meaning.

Listen to Thomas Joyner, Director of Coaching, and Brent Whitaker, Business Coach, as they discuss the importance of having a clear mission statement. They talk about the difference between passion and purpose, and how purpose is what drives us forward even when our passions change. They also discuss how a mission statement can guide a business and why it's important to define your own mission instead of letting others define it for you. Ultimately, a well-defined mission statement helps us understand the "why" behind our work and keeps us motivated to push through difficult times.

LISTEN HERE to learn more!

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