They say one little leak can sink a massive ship - massive ship - can completely sink
because of one little leak.
By the way, your business, your enterprise, you as an entrepreneur, you can absolutely
sink your ship if you don't plug the little leaks you have in your business.
And today, I'm going to talk to you about three different companies, from three different
industries, if I'm running them, how I'm going to find those leaks and how I would plug them.
I wish we had hours and hours together to go through your business, but whatever I'm
talking about here today, I'm going to give you feedback on what you need to do at the
end with your business.
So, the first thing I do is whenever I'm running any business, and we have an area that's not
going well.
Like today we just had a conference call.
It was a pretty strong conference call I had with everybody, and we went through areas
that we need to be improving in.
First thing I do is I write out all the steps.
And I do this with every aspect of my life and my business.
For instance, if it's health, I write out every single thing I do with my diet and every
single routine I have with working out, and every single routine I have with sleep, everything.
So step #1 is take out your business and write all the steps.
It could be 20 steps.
It could be 10 steps.
Customer comes in, what they do next and what they do . . . until they buy from you.
All the steps.
Once you write all the steps, prioritize the five most important steps.
So go this is the most important step, then this, then this, then this.
Then rank how well you do in each step.
Then bring a group of two, three, four, five people that work with you that are also leaders,
who can say, I think we can do this to improve.
I think we can do this to improve this.
We're not doing this that well.
Then put an action plan together and attack the action plan.
So whatever I just told you right now, watch how I do this with these different businesses.
I've got a sales office, any sales office, real estate, insurance, it doesn't matter
what it is, sales office.
We've got a restaurant here, and then we have a construction business here.
Let's start here with sales office.
I'm running a sales office.
Real estate, pharmaceuticals sales, whatever it is.
I want to find out where my leaks in my business are.
So I either have inbound calls or customers coming in, or I have outbound calls, reaching
out.
I'm reaching out or I'm getting the call.
I'm getting an email of interest.
I'm getting a message.
I'm getting a visit to my business, whatever it is.
Or I'm outbound.
So if I'm inbound call, somebody calls me, yes, I would like to talk to a real estate
agent about buying a house, hypothetically.
What is my script?
I test the script.
What is the questions asked?
What questions are we asking, the sales rep is asking the customer that's called in.
Three, what are my FAQs?
Do I have an FAQ sheet.
For instance, If you're running real estate, there are 20 questions that everybody's going
to ask.
Everybody that buys a house asks the same exact questions.
Everybody that's selling and buying asks the same exact questions.
So I need an FAQ sheet.
Do I have an FAQ sheet?
Next thing is called call to action.
So let's just say a person calls, I have a script.
And I ask questions, they ask me questions, I already know the FAQs.
Then it's call to action.
Meaning, "when do you want to buy the house?
How soon do you want to buy the house?
Are you already prequalified?
Do you already have a property?
Do you already know what area?"
I'm asking, call to action, what do we do next.
Then we're going to go.
Schedule a time to go do whatever we're doing.
And then we're going to close.
And when I close, then it's follow up, once I got the close.
Then I follow up as we got closed.
Then there's onboarding, paperwork, all this stuff, filling out all these things I've got
to do.
Then it's referral, then it's nurturing that relationship.
If it's outbound, and I'm reaching out to the customer.
Let's just say I am a social media marketing company and I'm running an agency and I'm
outbound.
I'm trying to reach out to people.
First I have to identify who my ideal client is.
Do I even know who my ideal client is to call?
Then it's volume of contacts, meaning if I'm selling a membership to a magazine, it's volume.
If I'm selling a subscription to a certain membership or whatever, it's volume.
If I'm selling a gym membership, it's volume.
I'm calling everybody.
But if I'm selling exotic cars, Lamborghinis, Ferraris, I'm not contacting 200 people in
a day.
I'm nurturing, meaning I'm going to country club events.
I'm going to certain speaking events.
I'm going to certain places that people of money are going to be around.
So volume is quantity vs. quality, depending on the product that you sell.
You need to be clear about that.
Then, am I good at finding customers?
Some companies have finding problems.
They don't know how to find the right customers.
Then what's my script, when I'm outbound.
Closing, do I close well?
Do I have a finding or closing problem?
Follow up, onboarding, nurture, all the same.
So now, once I know what my inbound and outbound is, and I write this out.
Let's just say this is you.
I'm going to circle the most important ones on inbound.
For instance, FAQs.
That's important for everybody to know the FAQs.
Great, that's important.
Questions asked is important.
Close is important.
And man, follow up has to be up there.
Then I'm going to score every one of them how well we do.
Our script sucks, man.
We're at two.
We don't even have a script, honestly.
Two, questions asked, we don't even know what questions to ask.
Three, FAQs - we do have somewhat of an FAQ, six.
I'm scoring all of them.
Then whatever those four were that were important to me, and whatever the ones that are the
lowest ranking, I'm figuring out how to improve those.
And I improve them.
It's that simple.
I'm doing the same thing here [outbound].
And I'm improving it.
Then I get a couple ideas, then we improve.
Again.
Let me do another example.
Here's a restaurant.
I'm running a restaurant.
I have a lot of friends that come to me for advice about restaurants and they run restaurants
from doing a half a million a year to restaurants doing $15 million per year.
And they're always asking, "How would you improve this.
How would you improve that?"
And for me, I've been to thousands of restaurants around the world, and I love good food.
And I'm so meticulous, that I pay attention to every single thing about restaurants, because
if I ever ran one, I would want it to be ran in a certain way.
This is what I'd be paying attention to if I'm you.
Your location of your restaurant.
You say, "I'm not doing that well."
Is it even a good location?
I went to a restaurant the other day, yesterday in Houston, Paul, and we're looking at the
sushi spot.
The sushi spot was all the way in the back.
I couldn't even find this place.
Food was great.
Everything was good.
Horrible location.
If this is the main street, these were the businesses up front, the sushi spot was here.
There is no street there.
That's a horrible, horrible location for it, right?
So location.
Where can I be found online, Yelp, on apps, am I everywhere?
Parking, is parking available.
Next, entrance, presentation.
I'm scoring every one of these, from 0 - 10.
I am truly scoring every one of those zero to 10.
Next, my process, hostess.
What's the script when somebody comes?
Who do I hire?
What is the attire?
What is she wearing?
What is he wearing?
What's their look?
What's their attitude?
Do I want somebody attractive?
What age do I want?
How helpful do I want them to be?
How do I attract how helpful they are?
I'm scoring this with all my hostesses.
If I've got five hostesses, I'm scoring every one of them and I'm firing the bottom two,
okay?
If they're not at all like this, I'm firing them.
So meaning I'm hiring somebody to shop them.
Let me explain what I mean by shopping them.
When I worked at Bally and I was selling memberships at Bally, I used to shop all the other Bally.
Everybody would say, "This Bally in Chicago is the best one!
This Bally in New York is the best one!"
I'm working at Bally.
I would call that Bally.
Until the best guy at that Bally picked up.
And I would act like I'm a customer, wanting to buy a membership.
And see how he handled it.
I'm like, "wow, no wonder this guy's number two in the company.
No wonder this guy's number three in the company.
No wonder this guy's number one in the company.
He is a beast in closing on an appointment.
I didn't even know what to say.
He closed me, and I work at Bally."
I'm shopping all my hostesses.
I'm bringing 10 people, and I'm having all them shop them.
Different personalities, single mother, single female, a husband and wife, kids, I want a
whole experience, how she handles kids being rattled and loud, I want to shop my hostesses.
Next, ambiance.
What's the music?
Is it too loud?
What kind of music am I playing?
Is it hip hop music?
Is it a lounge with jazz?
Is it more salsa?
Is it more like current music that we have?
Is it just, you know, the white noise music?
What am I playing?
What station am I playing here?
How loud is it?
How's the lighting?
How's the dress attire and the ambiance, right?
Decorations, smell.
Is there scent for it?
Is there a smell?
If I go into a place that smells bad, I walk out immediately, right?
Service.
Waiter, how long it waits to come.
For instance, I'm here, I come in.
I'm timing this if I'm running a restaurant.
You got to do this with your business.
I walk into a restaurant.
Okay.
A restaurant that's empty, and it took me six minutes to get seated, you're annoyed.
I want to know from the moment I walk in to how soon I get seated.
If you're an A-rated restaurant, I'm coming for the service and the food.
I have expectations of sit down, if I don't have a reservation.
I'm okay with that.
But if I come in, from the moment you sit me down, how long does it take for the waiter
to come and say hello?
The other day I was at CPK that we went to that one time.
You came, Mario came, the day after we launched the 2017 rewind, if you remember that, in
Plano.
You came by.
We went to that same CPK with me, Tico and Dylan.
Five year old and a three year old.
When you come with a kid, I expect you to pay attention to the fact that this father
comes with two boys, a father does know.
. . you know, I'm sitting there by myself.
It took seven minutes for the girl to come say hello to me.
So finally I screamed out, "Who's working on this side?
Who's working on this side?"
They're all like, "Oh, sir, we're so sorry."
Who's my waiter?
Seven minutes I've been sitting here.
I've got two kids.
You guys don't pay attention.
The place was 20 percent full.
So finally the person comes.
Very, very good waiter.
He comes and says, "I'm so sorry sir.
She's busy."
She wasn't busy.
She had one other table.
But he's willing to do that.
Perfect.
I like the team work there.
The other girl needs to be fired.
He takes an order.
He puts it in.
The girl comes an apologizes.
Whatever happens, we leave.
I would have fired her like this [snap].
This is not her job to do.
That's stuff I'm paying attention to.
Right?
Speed.
Quality of food.
Without good food, you're a done deal, right?
Then you have manager greetings.
How many times you go to a restaurant.
I love it when this happens.
I'm sitting.
The waiter keeps coming, doing their thing.
But a manager comes.
How's the service here today?
Everything is good.
Enjoying yourself?
Is there anything I can help you with?
Not at all.
Thank you so much.
That little subtle movement increases my impression of the restaurant by at least 10%.
So if you're not doing that, I'd be doing that, right?
Speed.
Upselling.
Do you upsell?
Would you like to try this?
Oh, let me tell you my favorite items on the menu is this.
If you're going to have this, it's good to do this.
By the way, you sure you don't want to have a red wine with this?
You know, it goes good with this.
Let me tell you what red wine I recommend.
The other day I went to Capital Grill, a restaurant here.
And my wife and I went back to back.
It's not every day you go to a restaurant twice, especially that kind of restaurant.
But we went back to back, Friday and Saturday night.
Look how scripted this Capital Grill place was.
We go in, and the guy says, Oh my gosh, let me just tell you about this one red wine that
we have.
I think we only have two or three bottles left.
Let me check.
And this is the best bottle of wine you want to have.
It's $99.
. . We only have a couple of bottles left.
So what does my wife say?
I want to try it.
Great.
They bring the bottle of wine out.
The next day I go with Tom Ellsworth and his wife.
The next day, not the same waiter, but another waiter comes.
It's the same exact bottle of wine.
And he says, Oh, we have this bottle of wine.
I think we only have two or three bottles.
I have to check.
But if I do have it, it's only $99 a bottle.
And I didn't say anything.
I looked at my wife and I said, "that's a script."
But you know what?
It's effective.
Because how often do a couple go to the same Capital Grill restaurant back to back?
They don't.
It worked on day one.
It didn't work on day two.
But there was a script on how to upsell.
That upsell got them $99 upsell on the ticket, at 20%, that's $20 more tip to the waiter.
Good for him.
That's upsell.
What's this over here?
Specials.
Can they say the specials?
I love when they say the specials and they say it so eloquently.
You know what I'm talking about, when they say, "Today's specials are with the.
. . " What they're saying on it, we don't know what they're saying, but the way they
say it, and the temperature, and this is from Bulgaria, and it's like, "Oh my gosh, I want
all of it!"
right?
There's a script to it.
There's a way you present that.
Dessert, handling complaints, technology.
This, if I'm running a restaurant, I'm writing all of these things down.
I'm bringing it down to five importants.
I'm scoring my lowest area.
I'm bringing my team together of experts, that know what we're doing.
And I say, "How can we improve this?"
Then call to action.
Then attacking all the calls to action.
Construction, same thing, inbound, outbound.
What's our script?
Do we know the client?
Who is our client?
Are they a homeowner?
Do we want $300,000 homes?
Do we want million dollar homes?
Who's our ideal client?
Are we going after construction of bigger condominiums?
Who are we looking for?
Right?
Then prices over the phone.
For instance, if I'm running construction, I'm not giving prices over the phone.
The first thing I want to do is I want to come to your house.
I want to send somebody to come to your house to get an estimate.
When I come to your house and I see what it is, I'm paying attention to signs.
If I see artwork's not on the wall, if I see a rinky-dink car parked outside, like a Toyota
Corolla and you want to do a $50,000 job and that's our minimum, and I'm seeing the way
the house is not really decorated, maybe I'm paying attention to clues.
And then after I find out when I visit the property, I get a commitment.
What kind of range are you trying to get for this kitchen upgrade?
Well, our budget is around $20,000."
They want $60,000 for $20,000.
Have you gotten already a commitment from someone else?
Yes, we got an $18,000 commitment.
Can they do everything you asked for?
Yes.
Interesting.
Okay, so then I have to decide.
Do I want to make a bid to this?
And can I pry a little bit more to know who it is?
How much work do they want to do?
Do they want better quality?
What quality wood?
All that stuff I'm asking for, right?
Quote, three options.
My sales people never leave with three options.
Follow up, close, finishing at time, delivering, then client testimonials and referrals.
Same thing if I'm running a construction.
I'm scoring these.
And I'm finding out what I'm not good at.
Then what I'm not good at, as I address it, I bring a team of three to five again and
I say, "What do we need to do to improve this?"
I fire the weakest link that I have on the team that's not doing their part, right?
And then we put a plan of action together and we attack it to improve the company.
I've done this.
I think I've done this since 2003, 2004.
Every time I find leaks in '03, it was my credit score.
My credit score was terrible.
I put a system together and improved my credit score to 822.
Savings, investments, health, relationship, business, improvement, leadership, CEO, startup,
entrepreneurship, everything is a system for you to put together.
Once you do that, and you find the leaks, and you attack it, then you see three percent
growth here.
Eight percent growth here.
Nine percent growth here.
Thirteen percent growth here.
And you don't even see the compounding growth of it over a five, ten year period.
Then all of a sudden, years later people are saying, oh, he got lucky!
Oh, she got lucky with her business.
No, no, no, no, no.
While you, as the business owner went out of business because you don't pay attention
to details, this entrepreneur decided to actually act like an entrepreneur, pay attention to
the details, improve the business, and now they have an established business that you
claim they got lucky.
If you do the same thing, you will have the same results.
But you don't pay attention to the leaks, that's why your ship sinks.
I'm not saying you, I'm saying the person that didn't make it.
So you watching this, my challenge to you is to take out a sheet of paper.
Write out the systems in your business.
Identify exactly what the leaks are.
Get the opinions of a couple of other people Rank them.
Find out what they're suggesting to you.
Put a plan of action together.
Fire the bottom, weakest link.
Go attack the plan and see what happens to your business.
That's my message of the week to you.
If you've got any questions and comments, thoughts about this, comment on the bottom.
Take care everybody.
Bye bye.
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