Have you hit an operational threshold plateau that you can’t seem to get past? In today’s episode Nelson Barss & Liz Sears interview Proactive Business Management owner Crispin Sanford. He discusses the 4 core roles you need to set up to scale up.
Crispin Sanford
Proactivebusinessmanagement.com
@crispinsanford for twitter, facebook, & instagram
Podcast = Marketing Secrets by Russell Brunson
Book = Expert Secrets by Russell Brunson = https://www.amazon.com/Expert-Secrets-Underground-Converting-Customers/dp/B08B9DTGFM/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3PRCRH8X7OU75&keywords=expert+secrets+by+russell+brunson&qid=1645210994&s=audible&sprefix=expert+%2Caudible%2C106&sr=1-1
Episode 6
SPEAKERS
Liz Sears, Nelson Barss, Crispin Sanford
Liz Sears 00:01
Welcome to the Business greater than you podcast, where we dive deep into the stories of men and women who have successfully transcended the fragile solopreneur life and built protective teams with better lifestyle and income.
Nelson Barss 00:13
I'm Nelson Barss, the founder and owner of he taught independent mortgage.
Liz Sears 00:18
And I'm Liz Sears, founder and co owner of My Utah Agents.
Nelson Barss 00:21
We're excited for you to listen, interact and grow. So please share your comments below. And let's get started.
Liz Sears 00:33
All right, I am super excited for this week's podcast. We have here Crispin Sanford, and he runs a company. In fact, I'm going to set forward a little bit on this. And so he runs a company that's called Proactive Business Management. And what this business does is it helps or what he does with his business as he helps other businesses set up to scale up.
Crispin Sanford 00:52
That's correct.
Liz Sears 00:53
And so how to basically make sure that that the management's in place, the personnel developments in place that the leadership skills and the structure and everything is where it needs to be. So that way, I love how you said like when a business manager owner goes out of town for a week or two weeks or a month, that actually everybody loves it, because then they're not like nitpicking because they've built it to run on its own.
Crispin Sanford 01:14
Right, and the machine is running the businesses running. Everyone knows what they're doing. And it's plain sailing, and they like, feel a bit relaxed and able to just get on with the work. But you you should be my my Director of Communications.
Liz Sears 01:27
That's a good intro. Right? Yeah.
Nelson Barss 01:28
Perfect.
Crispin Sanford 01:29
Thank you.
Nelson Barss 01:30
And that's, that's really the goal of our podcasts, we want to help people get to that point in their business, having done it alone for a while, and recognizing the how hard it is to go on vacation, or to even just have respectable work hours.
Crispin Sanford 01:45
Right.
Nelson Barss 01:45
Right, if you're trying to do everything yourself. And so we've been we've been interviewing and trying to share tips on how you can get from that stage to you know, a team of business that's greater than you. Yeah, I'm excited to hear your, your input and your advice and your stories.
Crispin Sanford 02:02
And we'll be glad to give it I mean, that's a really admirable mission. And I think you know, it's important to have a mission beyond yourself, it's important to have a mission that is even beyond one business, where you are pulling together, multiple businesses, groups, social betterment causes, all in alignment with accomplishing a greater goal. So I applaud you guys.
Liz Sears 02:30
And I love how you said about building multiple businesses. Because once a person comes in and creates a business, that one of the things I love the most about building a business is that you don't bless just yourself and your clients, you create opportunity for other people to have meaningful careers that are fulfilling. And as you do that, you create one business, why not go and see how many more lives you can impact for the good
Crispin Sanford 02:51
Its true. And you know, one of the things that I learned, one of the things that was true for me and is true for every single person I talked to and work with is that their professional business, their career is something they're good at. It's something that they have made a viable concern. But it isn't always their original dream or their true passion. And so part of what I tell people is that look, my mission is to help make your reality a dream. And your dream a reality. I'm going to work with you on your current business helped make it so that you build a business that where the day to day work and management viably is done by others, and you can step away.
Liz Sears 03:32
When you can step away?
Crispin Sanford 03:34
Yes, yes, yes, true. And everything though, that everything that you've learned is effective management tools, business administration, skills and tools that you can bring to your dream, your ambition, your passion, and actually make that a viable concern as well. Right, that serves the marketplace, it serves you and the marketplace, and then needs so that you lead a business that you're good at, you're capable, that serves many other people, employees, management, and all of the customers, clients and families that the business serves. But also now you're realizing that aspiration you've had that dream that you've had with professional application of business skills, to make sure that it functions and succeeds. And you can put more and more time into that. And you're less and less time into the thing that that is simply a vehicle in many ways for people to make their living. And yes, the more able you are, you're the more able you are to rise up and to continue to rise with other businesses. Other concerns, your your partner's business, your child's business, your friends, you know, you can be a blessing to too many businesses, with your competency as a leader in your own business and your passions too.
Nelson Barss 04:54
So Chris, tell us a little bit about your story. How did you get into this business and Where did what brought you to this point?
Crispin Sanford 05:03
Okay, so it's interesting. I was mainly interested in in the arts, film, theater actually did like economics. Interestingly enough, I was quite surprised I took a, I think in America you talk about auditing a class, or is it an economics class and really, really enjoyed it. But actually, I'd already had an interest in business because I felt at a young age, that of course, you would need business skills to accomplish that thing that dream that aspiration you had in life, you you'd have to know business and I even took typing at school. I mean, I'm I'm 48. So I'm back in the day when we actually had typewriters.
Liz Sears 05:44
Oh, I did, too. I remember, like, if you type too fast, all the little things would get caught. So yeah, I was there too.
Crispin Sanford 05:49
Yeah, yeah.
Nelson Barss 05:50
Never had that problem
Crispin Sanford 05:52
Well, we have actually, you know, the balls, that so they didn't have it didn't have that problem. It just would quickly spin so rapidly. But yeah, I'm familiar with how that can occur on manual typewriters, they can get jammed up. But then, you know, I took you know, and I did study computers, we had a computer at my school, but we I left school at 16. Because I think we have a different system. When I went to college at 16. I was wondering as
Liz Sears 06:19
Cause you're in England.
Crispin Sanford 06:20
Because you're in England, and I actually took Business Studies at college, because I want to learn about business. And I was stunned, being you know, very much into film and theater and the arts and, and I was like, wow, business actually makes things more efficient. It makes it so that you can accomplish so much more. And, and I was blown away. And in the next year, I went to business school, I studied business and finance kind of got my economics kick. And I actually loved how you take your balance sheet. And you're looking for that mistake. Where's the decimal? Where's the mistake? And
Liz Sears 07:00
You know what, I think we would have gotten along really well in college, because I love the same stuff went through the same school.
Crispin Sanford 07:05
Right, it's such a rush was like Oh, my word. So I was completely turned around. And when I came to America, I, I knew I need to get experience. And I went to different companies. I worked, I voluntarily worked at a temp agency. So I got to work at all kinds of different businesses.
Liz Sears 07:22
That's nice you get your foot in the door, and you get to see all the different options available to you. Yeah.
Crispin Sanford 07:27
But it was more that I wanted to get a lot more experience, a different positions, different companies. I worked a lot in the Hollywood industry working in coming to America. And I worked at studios and uses TV production companies. I worked at marketing companies just everywhere, right? Then I got an opportunity to work at a consulting firm, literally, I was going in I probably should learn about consulting. And somebody that week, I mean, good. Thank you. Like, said, Have you ever been ever considered consulting? As a matter of fact,
Liz Sears 08:00
I have.
Crispin Sanford 08:01
And so I got the opportunity to work at a company, they hired me. I started the consulting firm. And then that was in 2000. In 2006, I got my first client, I helped them with business organization, which is my focus, incidentally, helping them get organized and streamlined and optimized in business. They gave me $4,500. After two months working intensively, tentatively, I followed up with them. After a month, they had gone from 120,000 that they were consistently getting to 300,000.
Liz Sears 08:35
Oh my gosh.
Crispin Sanford 08:36
Right simply from helping them get more organized. I say simply, it's not. It's not rocket science, guys.
Liz Sears 08:43
Yeah,
Crispin Sanford 08:43
but everything just flows smoothly, everything works more easily. Everything's where it should be a dangerous one more effectively. I want to I spent some time learning sales. Because I wanted to learn to sell high ticket items. I sold mini mini, Mini Coopers for a year and a half in in Silicon Valley. And then then I went on to a marketing firm with a CRM and marketing arm in the financial industry. So I learned marketing and financial again, it came back again. And then finally just was like, You know what, now's the time. I'm going to build my company. I started delivering my, my services, training people and just carried on and here we are now.
Nelson Barss 09:01
mini cooper So 2006 At first client,
Crispin Sanford 09:29
2006 had my first paying client. Okay, man, I really love people. But these are the first people
Nelson Barss 09:35
growing ever since then.
Crispin Sanford 09:36
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like it was a journey, right? So when I clicked when I finished delivering to that client, I didn't have my next client. So I was like, this is
Liz Sears 09:45
the thing about being self employed. As soon as you're done with a client, you're technically unemployed,
Crispin Sanford 09:49
you're out of business
Liz Sears 09:50
until you find another
Crispin Sanford 09:50
right and I was like, well, don't you want to keep giving me money? Like they were like, This is great. We're done. So that was so I also knew that I needed to learn more about sales and marketing, and get more experience and be much more prepared and understand more about how I can do that for clients. But how I can do it for myself, ensure that there was a flow of business, right,
Liz Sears 10:19
nice so filling up your pipeline,
Crispin Sanford 10:20
filling in my pipeline, exactly. And completing client services, but having upper level services for them. Competing services, we're getting always getting new clients, having somebody take over the regular clients, you know, smaller entry level business, so I can focus on the high level business so that the business continues to be viable, and I can continue to grow and expand.
Nelson Barss 10:42
So I was gonna ask you that because I I don't know the answer to this question. But do you have a team? Do you have employees? Or are you a solopreneur?
Crispin Sanford 10:50
So I am a solopreneur. In one way of looking at it, right? My wife does amazing things with my computer fixing IT, she teaches IT. I have a neighbor that will look after my daughter, sometimes she's on the half, half day schedule. And I have a guy that does amazing work as a marketing pro in terms of website optimization. I have tons of vendors that I send my clients to directly related to my business, but also outside of that, right, because
Liz Sears 11:27
and those are all probably structured with as contract workers.
Crispin Sanford 11:30
So yeah, like either, you know, either I'm paying them specifically for contract work 1099. Or they're a vendor, and I'm just giving them
Nelson Barss 11:40
Yeah,
Crispin Sanford 11:40
right. Like, I'm getting one on one of my guys, that works great deal with clients. I just give him straight business. But also on the other hand, we're doing an event, and we split 50/50 The business we close, because I'm doing what I do, he does what he does, and we're splitting that service 50/50. And I also have affiliate fees, you know, so the CRM and marketing system with AI components, you know,
Liz Sears 12:04
as you help your clients get set, you get the affiliate.
Crispin Sanford 12:08
Yeah, like the other day, I set up a meeting, they closed, I get an affiliate fee, plus, they get an onboarding. And I get a fee portion of that, too.
Liz Sears 12:17
I love it.
Crispin Sanford 12:18
So now I do want to get my team in my office, but I'm waiting to the last minute I am Minister midnight, quite honestly, to get that
Liz Sears 12:26
not the 11th hour, but the 11.57.
Crispin Sanford 12:29
Right, like minutes to midnight means the nuclear war right now. like, I'm almost there. So I probably at least by the New Year, I think I will get an assistant and then follow my own structure for building a team.
Liz Sears 12:42
Love it.
Nelson Barss 12:43
And talk to us about that. So let's see if we can get some good advice for those who are listening who are maybe in the same spot. You know, both Liz and I were there recently, we've been building our team and having a great time of it. That's why we wanted to share this and encourage other people to take that journey and get some help, Really
Liz Sears 13:02
Yeah, and especially like, what, what advice would you have? So the majority of our listeners, which some of them might be consulting, so I'm super excited for the advice that you're sharing here as well. And traditional clients of yours, what, how do you guide them?
Crispin Sanford 13:15
Well, so first things first, when you're building your own business, in many ways, you're building the airplane, in the air as you're flying through. Yeah,
Liz Sears 13:25
that's actually how it feels.
Crispin Sanford 13:27
It is definitely how it feels right. And what's ironic is it it is far easier for me to go into a company that's already going concern that you know, has their pattern of work dialed in, and they're just concerned now that they've hit a plateau that they can't get beyond is a certain operation threshold that they can't get beyond I go, what you're doing right now is great. But it only serves you to this level, you need a new operating basis to get to the next level. And it actually means you got to change what you're doing. So an important distinction to make in any business, whether it's a solopreneur, or you have a team is that what you're what you need to do is resolve the bottlenecks that concern your business and how you operate as an individual, or as a business. Now, I've isolated at the last company I was at, I learned three core roles. And we were
Liz Sears 14:24
Yeah you were telling me about this, this is amazing.
Crispin Sanford 14:26
We would learn we would train people in these three core roles. But also I know there's actually a fourth component and whether or not my old boss admits it. He would admit it even if you heard this podcast right, is it he already knows it is the fourth role but so and also there were some details that I added with all my experience and what I've learned and thankfully he led the way so I was able to build on on things that he told me but the the the three roles plus the fourth ones this four roles for a professional, four core roles for professional This is administer Should have assistance, service assistance, perception and routing and lead development. So when you bring somebody on as an assistant, which is typically the first thing you do, they're handling fires, they are handling bottlenecks, they kind of handle what you need. And they're learning a lot about what it is you do and how you operate. So they're perfect for becoming a key aid in your organization, leadership member, you know, even our office manager, but more a key executive in your in your business as time goes on. But then what you're going to want to do is, is document and turnover, the administrative support work. And when that person is spending the hour that you spent doing paperwork, they're not being able to do it in 45 minutes, or half an hour, 20 minutes. And they're doing that paperwork all day, very often that administrative work. So they can actually had ended up becoming more advanced at handling the thing that you know, you have to do, and you have to do it right. And they actually end up becoming much better and making good recommendations for how it can be more efficient, and it becomes a blessing. Same thing with a service, you deal with a client, I train my clients I deliver to them, but when they call when people call to get that service that they need and those service questions, if you have a pro that can handle those questions, again, you're saving all of that time. Then reception routing, making sure that particle parcels, packages, phone calls, go to the right person, that people are being handled, they're being turned away when they're, you know, unwanted calls or, or they're confused downstairs, instead of this was going upstairs, they get to handle all of that. And again, they prevent the organization from getting tied up in what was I doing? Before I was interrupted, you know,
Liz Sears 16:47
interruptions takes right say
Crispin Sanford 16:49
your gonna get 20 minutes to get back into a groove sometimes. And then the same thing as well lead development. If there's somebody dedicated to following up on leads developing leads, the person that can't close now wants to talk in three months, you call them in three months, and you're checking in with them and actually providing them with everything they need logistically to arrive sooner rather than later. Then again, just business goes much smoother. Are you familiar with easily with a printer law?
Liz Sears 17:17
80/20? Yes.
Crispin Sanford 17:18
Right. If we can isolate the 20% of work that you really need to be doing that gets the 80% of results in your business. And now you can do that. You can do that? Five times 20, you can do that 20%, five times a day. How much growth is that in your business?
Liz Sears 17:37
There's tremendous
Crispin Sanford 17:38
Tremendous growth,
Nelson Barss 17:39
do you find that for most people, so the more the role that you didn't spill out in that was lead generation?
Crispin Sanford 17:45
Right? I was there was a little bit I suppose at the end, if they're making those lead development calls and doing the follow up, then they offload that. But I can tell you much more about that.
Nelson Barss 17:55
Yeah, I just wonder if you find that that's the last spot to fill on a team, you know, my team, I think we've done most of those roles, but I'm still generating leads, right? That's the, that's the 20 out of the 80/20 in, in my world, right? And trying to fill that spot has been the most challenging for me. So I'd love your advice on let's say, we've got to that point, you know, fulfillments good, great reception, greatly development. And, you know, to really step away, the leads have to keep flowing without me. What would you recommend? Or what do you what do you see working
Crispin Sanford 18:28
so so I, so I want to tell you something right now, when I was at the marketing firm for full service, financial advisors, so I sold salesmen, basically, who ran into this problem all the time, this was their biggest burden was how do I get somebody to do lead development? I made 40 to 140 calls a day for five and a half years. Okay. We had multiple campaigns running every month, every quarter every year. And, you know, all manner of ways to do lead generation. And I've thought about this a lot, right? And I've learned a great deal about it. And I've studied it a lot. So there are so many ways to handle this problem handle this. Number one is this, you continue to run into people that need your services. The real dilemma is when you have that name, a number of that person you met at business networking International, at a cocktail party, at the studio, you run into somebody in the hallway or reconnect with somebody and they realize that you can actually really help them. You need to be able to put the information that's important, that you know, that you can put on a form and turn it over to somebody who can do the follow up. Who can call them make that connection, schedule the appointment for you to then have the interview. At the end of that interview you you also gather key information, they need this service they need that you know, send them this Thank you. Gift or never want to be someone else needs to handle all that. Right. And that is your lead development department. Now, lead development in America, America really, truly brought efficiency and professional industrial level marketing to a fine tuned engine, right Madison Avenue was was the juggernaut of America. And one of the terms they had in the old days in sales was canvassing, literally somebody that just calls up suspects, people they suspect of, of wanting their services, and asking precise questions that would prompt that person immediately. Yes, yeah. So, you know, let's say you call your financial advisor, you call a firm that has people in Dupont, right? And you say, and you get their LinkedIn names, right, you've got network, you got the LinkedIn tool. And so you got this again, you call somebody calls them and says, you're an executive of DuPont, says you're an executive of DuPont. So you probably have a stock portfolio that you have, you know, various different delineations of what they're what they have available to them. But has someone giving you a robust strategy for how you're going to maximize that? Not really no, boom, you have their interest, but that's canvassing that's asking for the opinion of that's then discussing thoroughly, where they're at what they need, what what problems are running into. So when you have a team doing those, so that's not something just handing off and then developing and scheduling a person for you. And in for you
Nelson Barss 21:40
Generating new leads.
Crispin Sanford 21:41
All right, this is an office dedicated to specifically calling targeted groups of people with exact questions that will prompt them to one year services to Yes, I want to meet Yes, I want a package, please send it over, you know, yeah. Someone available tomorrow. Right. That's what you also need. Now his and I could talk about this all day? I would say is this one, right? I mean, we could talk all day. But is that also, there's a difference, I believe, between people calling into your firm, based on the PR and promo and advertising that you have out there, this essentially ready is ready to find out if you're right for them. I mean, they still cautious, right?
Liz Sears 22:23
Yeah,
Crispin Sanford 22:23
they don't know if you're legit or not. Right. But you if that person calls in, they should just have somebody ready to take that call. And then again, ask precise questions, and give answers that lead that person down a precise channel to a an appointment to a meeting, right. And then and then. But that's separate from somebody who's going to BNI, somebody who's going to events and who's going to conferences, someone who's meeting with their friends, and specifically building a network of potential clients for which they should get a hefty commission. Right, they earn a commission when they bring that person in, and then that person comes in, it's probably going to be a big ticket item. So there's lots of areas there's lots of ways of distinguishing, distinguishing, and delineating how you handle the broad the broad area of business development, looking for new clients looking for targeted audiences that will respond in a specific way to your public relations to your promotions into your advertising. So that's it. So you need an entire division dedicated to doing that work, not just somebody to replace what you're doing, but to do what you're doing and more. And you still hand over some of the leads that you do get, and some of the people that are gonna benefit from your services. As a kind of a
Nelson Barss 23:46
the entire division part is the scary part. Right,
Liz Sears 23:48
right. Yeah,
Nelson Barss 23:49
it's not as easy as just hiring one assistant at a time. At some point there's, I feel like there's a leap from this, you know, in my business, you know, I've got I think I've got most of what you describe. And I've been trying for over a year now to form a division of salespeople who can generate leads, we have quite a few who go out and do their own networking and get paid well, but that that in house group that can can generate some steady flow they're obviously more profitable for us because we are supporting that has been a real challenge. I feel like you have to be not just good at what I do mortgage right? Not just get a mortgage, but all of a sudden you have to be really good at marketing and PR and systems and sales and scripts and like it's just a big hurdle.
Crispin Sanford 24:14
Well, now we're coming into where I truly focus my attention and my energies and also the area where I have discovered the gold. Where is the gold?
Liz Sears 24:52
I want the gold
Crispin Sanford 24:53
gold right. I want to give you the gold right so now here's the deal. Literally, you need to document exactly what you do that works. Not what you think you might do that would work but no, no, what you're currently doing that gets the results. If you focus in on documenting what you actually are doing to get results right now, the last several months, and making sure that you know, I say document to delegate, make sure that it's written as a specific thing that I'm sharing with you in what you're going to do, this is what I do that works. And this is how I do it. And you hand over that document, it may
Liz Sears 25:34
Document to delegate,
Crispin Sanford 25:35
right document to delegate, it must be written in ninth grade language. So that someone it's easy for them to consume, understand and apply different then you're not trying to impress anybody, please don't try to impress them. Just get them to understand that when you call somebody, or when somebody calls in, remain polite, it's so important to remain polite. And just somebody just because someone's had a bad day that's on them. And I'm sorry, people have bad days, but don't make it worse. Just apologize and let them go. You know, it's like, you just keep you know, you want to maintain a day where you can just do your work. And be polite, remain polite and playfully hang up a call, you know, I'll call you another time or I'll just take off my list. And so but that's something that you just need to write one single document. This is the culture, a culture of good manners. But also, you need to make sure this is this is now we're getting up to the gold. When you're training somebody in all of those practices and procedures, and the culture that you've created that works. And this effectively, you know, works. When you're training somebody, you don't ask you. You know, the silliest question, the most basic question, you're like, Oh, my word, you don't know that. Don't be rude. Take a deep breath. Remember, be polite to yourself to write that down. Tell them the answer. But note down what you're telling them. Because actually all of those items that you like, that's obvious. No, no, no. That's your unconscious competence. Dean Graziosi talks about unconscious competence.
Liz Sears 27:07
Oh, my gosh, there's a process I love we talk about that in our work a lot. Yeah,
Crispin Sanford 27:11
perfect, perfect, perfect. Because now, but you need to document it and make it a part of a pack. So that you have, as you go along training somebody, you get a complete pack for the next person to come in. They train on it, they study on it in the quite of a room, maybe Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, they're Training Tuesdays and Thursdays and Saturdays they're working, you know, but however you you structure it, they're able to train and apply. But now they get all of the unconscious competence. And when they have a question, they go to their pack not to you. Right?
Liz Sears 27:43
That's awesome. Do you mind if we kind of talk on unconscious competence? Because I bet some people don't know it here. And correct me too, if I know it differently than you. So it's kind of like a four step process where you start with unconscious incompetence. You don't know what you don't know. And then conscious incompetence, where you're like, oh, my gosh, I realized I don't know this, and then
Crispin Sanford 28:03
you know that you don't know.
Liz Sears 28:05
Right?
Crispin Sanford 28:05
Know that you don't know, you don't know what to do about that.
Liz Sears 28:08
Yeah. And then the third step is conscious competence where you can do it, but you have to really pay attention. And then unconscious competence. So like, the best way is like tying a shoe like little kids, they don't know, they don't know how to tie a shoe. And then they see their older siblings doing it or their friend doing it. They're like, Wait, I don't know how to do that. And then they learn it, and they can do it. But they have to really pay attention. And now us, we tie our shoes, and literally, we don't even think about it. It's just done, out the door.
Crispin Sanford 28:32
Right? Right. So I'm what I'm going to divide it down into two things.
Liz Sears 28:36
Okay.
Crispin Sanford 28:36
All right. So what I what I've learned, and this is one of my introductory courses, actually, services and what I teach in this course, is I say, and I learned this from my wife, she she was studying as a teacher. And she shared this with me, like, I was building this course. Right in this book
Liz Sears 28:57
fits perfectly.
Crispin Sanford 28:58
Right, right. So what she told me was that cognitive thinking is required when you're learning something new. I don't care how old you are, or how young you are. When you're learning something new. You're like, so I stand up and turn right. I lift up the door to go up rather than down. I push this stuff like when you're learning something new, you're really struggling to think about it and have a drill which we'll go into another time in the next podcast if we ever have one, perhaps. But But basically, you have an unconscious competence. You sorry, you have a cognitive effort that's required until it becomes a pattern or habit. And then it's unconscious competence, right? And you just know what to do you know how to handle it. This is one of the biggest things that I remind clients of all the time. Don't feel bad that you have to think this through.
Liz Sears 29:48
That a pre-requisite
Crispin Sanford 29:51
and you're struggling to get get done apologize. You need to apologize to me. I know that it requests why you got a coaching package.
Liz Sears 29:58
Yeah,
Crispin Sanford 29:58
that's why I continue to come back. and somebody will ask me, oh, how do I solve this? And they'll be in a panic. And I go, well remember in our first session, we covered this, and am I right? Right, right. But now it fits in its place. Now they go back to their material study. Think about it, cognitive thinking, application, learn it, and now becomes more important and then become, to become to make a habit. Right, so So now. So I defined it into those two things, cognitive thinking, to learn it, or it's in now that you've got a pattern, right? A thought pattern. That's what you want thought patterns. Now, the reason why I was saying earlier, when you're documenting what you do that works, when you're turning over a job that you want to, you won't be able to successfully delegate, you don't want to delegate the work here, do the work. Doesn't work, you go,
Liz Sears 30:09
but so many of us have tried it that way.
Nelson Barss 30:49
Many times.
Crispin Sanford 30:51
You need to take full responsibility of being a true leader. There's a general, I can't think of his name right now. But I'll probably have to send it to you soon. Put it in the notes. Okay. But what he said he was a general in America, World War One, World War Two, he said leadership, "You must lead, you must train, you must supervise." That's the responsibility of a leader. So you must actually set a good example, and show what people should do. You must train them in what you want them and require them to do what they
Liz Sears 31:22
Don't expect them to mind.
Crispin Sanford 31:23
Don't just expect them to mind right? Like, you go to great lengths to explain your latte with caramel and or your your steak medium round with, you know, a just what is it drizzle, a little drizzle and a side of this. Are you going to great lengths to explain certain things. And it's true of work also, and the responsibilities that people are expected to fulfill when your place of work. But then you must supervise their application, you must let them cognitively think through and just jump in and do it. There you go. They go to repeat to you. Well, you remember when you said to do it, but does it includes this right? Is that right? Yes. That is right,
Nelson Barss 32:02
How many people in this world have been hired and fired, because the employer didn't do any of that?
Liz Sears 32:09
Right.
Nelson Barss 32:09
And the poor, the poor new hire just had no chance from the start right, Figure it out? You know, you let me know how it's supposed to run you document this you. It's all it's all backwards. I think we let a lot of people down by not following a process.
Crispin Sanford 32:23
That's the issue. And I'm gonna tell you right now, the entire pathway to where I'm sitting right now, consisted of this idea that I had, and I trained people in this. I call it a tool now. I call it Well, there's several tools now actually. But basically, I call it an Info Sheet. Right? When I got a job esspecially when I was tempted to walk in. I mean, I walked in, again, I don't wanna drop names, but I walked into places where I was like, wow. And I was like, keeping my cool. And I'm having to do this job, right?
Liz Sears 32:57
Wow good or wow bad?
Crispin Sanford 32:59
Like, Wow, amazing. Like, I'm with this person, this person is getting calls from people that you would know, that are globally known figures calls coming in, and I'm transitioning to this person, I don't wanna drop names, or yeah, I'll tell you, I'll tell you when we're at dinner sometime, perhaps, or lunch. Or if we when we get together another time, but we name it. But here's the thing. What I would do is when somebody would tell me the job, you're expected to do this, this is this person's name. And you're going to get you deal with this office. Okay, one second, I would write down the name, I would write down the other person's name, I would write the name of their department. And I would ask, what's their extension number, and I would write their extension number down. And they would say, well, you're going to go to here to get these faxes because I work on the days of faxes. And then they go over here, and I go, okay, one second. So, one of my responsibilities or responsibilities, take the faxes to you know, the duh duh duh. Okay, good. I would write it down. And also, I would make sure to check, I would go, so I dial nine to dial out? No, no, no, you dial six to get out of the studio, nine to get a line. And then you dial the area code in them, okay. But when you're doing a conference, when you're doing an internal conference call, these are the digits and I would practice internal conference call, okay, this works. This is great. And outside code, call someone's phone, outside phone, a friend, even I checked, it worked, but write down the exact steps to transfer to a cell phone, to transfer to an office, whatever was required of me and I remember specifically, I remember to Fox Studios one time, and they and the guy said to me at the end of the day, you didn't come to me with questions one time. I said yeah, yeah. Was there a problem? And he's like, No, it just never happened before. And this has been the core backbone, documenting what works that documenting what's already established that works. I need to get I need to get a client to please just write down what their what they know other best practices and get results. First, we strengthen that streamline that optimize that then we can test your theories how it should be, could be, might be, we will try those out. But once we've got the infrastructure, once we've turned over some of the workload, and now you're freed up to innovate, you're freed up to try things and test things, then we'll do that. And then we find gold, we find wonderful things. But we do it in an order in a sequence in a mechanical way, because I'll say this, I believe wealth and success are mechanical. If you do the work, you get results. But you need to know what to do. Like W. Edwards Deming says, "it's not enough to do your best. You must know what to do, then do your best." So what do you say to the clients who are like me? I'm thinking that sounds great, but I'm flying a plane. I don't have time to how do I find time to document & document and this is work right? That doesn't. It's always one of those. Oh, geez, Stephen R. Covey phrase, it's quadrant two, right? It's right. It's important, but not urgent. And I'm too busy you know. doing what's urgent.
Nelson Barss 36:13
Yeah.
Crispin Sanford 36:14
So he, this is what I do. I expect to view orderly progress. We address these things in an orderly way. I put in 30 years of thought 16, I'm now 48. So that's 32 years. I have a process. I have a method I have a way. Don't you worry about it. It's a whole process. But really what it is, is that the secret is I give you core principles that when you hear you go, that's true. That makes sense. Like I'll give you one of them that that is an early principle I share with people. There's a there's a chat, Myron Golden, he was on a podcast with Russell Brunson. This, I lit this podcast is, when I decided to leave my company that I was working at as a VP, right, and set up my own company because of this podcast for various reasons. In this podcast, he said there are four levels of value. There's the implementation, the workout, the work that gets done, unification or management, unifying the team, aligning everything, aligning the work getting done. There's communication, not just messages and emails and texts, but being able to move people's hearts and minds powerful messages that move people's hearts and minds. And then there's imagination. Those are your people who imagine new things who innovate, who establish a new paradigm in the industry, you can only do that when you free to innovate. So the first thing we got you we got to get you to do is get organized. And it frees up your attention. It's magic. But if as soon as I organize your business, according to seven major sections, you suddenly feel relief. And then I say let's document the work that you do. Right? So just the process of money income, which is the product, the production, the five steps, the six steps that you take, and you go, well, it's this, this this and is great, we're done. Those are the six steps. And then when you have a moment you start to work on step one. And what do I need to brief somebody in order to understand all six steps if they don't know, what concepts do they have to understand, we set the document. So we focus on on the production on the work, then we focus on on marketing, how we're going to get more people in to go through that similar process. But ultimately, what is the work that's being done? Then how do we manage the workers? What are the powerful messages that communicate to people's hearts and minds, your unique, your uniqueness? And then we talk about we look at, we turn those over Administrative Service, the reception routing, the development? And then we look at now with this time that we've created, what innovations do you have? What is try these things out? What can you do more to serve your dream and serve your market stream. So there is a way and I can tell you, you get the relief. As soon as things start to get organized. You get the relief, you start to get space, you start to think about the simple process in terms of products and services. And then how you market and just bit by bit we ease off with the consum, the time that you're consumed within your mind. And also the work that's been consuming You we turn it over, but only bit by bit and only a lesson of the time and only administrative work that gets results. Right management that gets results. And you know, the powerful messages to get results and innovations to get results.
Nelson Barss 39:38
That's fantastic. I can tell you have put 30 years in this.
Crispin Sanford 39:41
Thank you both. Thank you.
Nelson Barss 39:42
Well Good.
Liz Sears 39:43
Perfect. Well, we have around a question.
Nelson Barss 39:45
We're running out of time. We want to get to our rapid fire round.
Crispin Sanford 39:48
I'm ready. I'm ready.
Nelson Barss 39:49
So the way this works, I've got them here. We're gonna go through you got one minute. We're gonna try to answer all the questions in one minute. Are you ready?
Crispin Sanford 39:56
I'm ready.
Nelson Barss 39:57
What is your favorite podcast?
Crispin Sanford 40:00
Russell Brunson is Marketing Secrets,
Nelson Barss 40:01
marketing secrets, okay. I've never tried it. What is your favorite business book?
Crispin Sanford 40:07
Expert secrets by Russell Brunson,
Nelson Barss 40:08
Oh boy.
Liz Sears 40:09
Okay,
Nelson Barss 40:10
I gotta look him up. All right, how many hours a day do you work?
Crispin Sanford 40:14
It depends.
Nelson Barss 40:16
On average,
Crispin Sanford 40:17
some too much right now myself. But again, I'm putting a plan together. But sometimes I work six hours, sometimes I work 16 hours.
Nelson Barss 40:24
What's your goal? How many hours a day do you want to work?
Crispin Sanford 40:28
My wife wants me to work half an hour to an hour a day. I think I could probably get away with two because I still want to do events. And I still want to do trainings. I probably end up about three or four day.
Nelson Barss 40:41
So you're building towards that. Okay. Who do you really look up to in the business world as a role model and why?
Crispin Sanford 40:47
So there's several, one of the people I truly admire is a guy named Simon Sinek. And gosh, start start with why because again, he was on my journey to where I am now. And I literally had built part of my my message around you know, why you do what you do, how you do it, and then what you do. So he and also like my boss, I was surprised that we got a minute but I was surprised with how much I have, how truly good you can be in in the corporate world.
Liz Sears 41:22
Love it
Nelson Barss 41:22
what is the one best piece of advice that you can share with our audience?
Crispin Sanford 41:26
In all things success depends upon previous preparation. And without without such preparation, there is sure to be failure. Confucius.
Nelson Barss 41:35
Very good, great. Well, thank you, Crispin. How can our listeners get a hold of you? How can they find you if they'd like to find out more about you or hire you?
Crispin Sanford 41:44
Sure. So you can find me at www.proactivebusinessmanagement.com @CrispinSanford on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter and Crispin@productiveBusinessManagement.com and I'm sure I'll give you all my information so you can tie it in the notes. That'd be great
Liz Sears 42:01
love it. Perfect.
Nelson Barss 42:02
Ok thank you very much.
Crispin Sanford 42:04
Your welcome
Liz Sears 42:04
You're very amazing.
Crispin Sanford 42:05
My pleasure.
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