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In this episode, I’m taking you behind the scenes of what I learned while building an eight figure business, making the Inc. 5000 list, and starting over again with a brand new venture. I’m sharing the biggest lessons that came up for me around hiring senior talent, trusting my instincts with people, having hard conversations faster, investing in the skills I needed to grow as a leader, getting in the right rooms, and listening closely to customer feedback. If you’re building something of your own, I hope this episode helps you skip a few painful mistakes and reminds you that growth is never a straight line, but every lesson can move you forward.
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- Read the full transcript: https://abundant-at-the-top.simplecast.com/episodes/6-lessons-i-learned-building-an-8-figure-business
Welcome to the abundant at the top podcast
I'm Brittany Fox your host!
Today is gonna be a really fun episode
I am taking us back to my journey
of building an eight figure business
making the ink 5,000 list
and I'm gonna share what I Learned
the mistakes I made and what I'm doing now
and how I'm implementing it in my business
to not make the same mistakes
which I'm on week two of my new venture
my new business and more than anything
my new community she created
and I'm just in this vision start up mode
and I'm loving it I'm like
the highs of starting something new
and also the emotional roller coaster
of all that comes with starting something new
and I had a moment
where I needed to review some of the lessons
that I Learned
cause I knew I was repeating some of the same mistakes
and also having Learned those lessons
I didn't want to repeat them again
so today
we're gonna be diving into some of those lessons
so let's get started
when Dave and I launched our company
Focus GTS it was in 2018
and we bootstrapped everything
we built our company from the ground
we never took outside funding
and it was pure startup mode
and I actually had a moment
back here on this couch yesterday
I think it was or just a few days ago
that I had such a flashback
of when we were in build mode
and we would wake up at 7:00am
go into the second bedroom
and we would work all the way till seven PM
and even then grab a glass of wine
and we kept going we were just so excited
we were so excited about what we were building
and what we were doing and I
I find myself in a very similar season now
I'm just so excited
I can't sleep at night because I have such vision
I have such excitement and my adrenaline's high of
of what I'm building because I'm on mission
I'm in alignment for what I'm supposed to be doing
in the season of my life
and I also remembered
I was having this moment back here on my couch
I had two dogs my
my new two dogs my other two had
they've passed away they've since gotten older
and now I have Luna and spike
which you were gonna hear a lot about Luna
I am sure
but I was having this moment of remembering those days
and the lessons that I Learned
because I had a moment where it was full meltdown
I was crying hysterically
and I just was going back to telling myself old stories
and programings and I just thought like
what happened here like
what's going on I had launched a new product offering
and it just didn't go how I thought it would go
like I just didn't land it how I thought it would
go out to the market
and I didn't have the strategy in place
I didn't have my priorities
I didn't have all the things that I know to have
so it made me go back
and look at the lessons that I've Learned
so that I don't repeat them
and I wanna share them with you
so you also can save yourself some lessons
I'm a big advocate
of learning from other people's mistakes
and having to make uh
my own when I could can
but of course you're still gonna make some
but let's save you a little bit of pain today if we can
so one of the first things
and this comes down to leverage
which is one of my favorite things
and the first thing that I had wrote down
is that I would hire people that are senior
and more qualified than I am
in the most critical roles
this is one of the strongest things you can do
to leverage
and to get you staying in your zone of genius
thank you Gay Hendricks and the Big Leap
highly recommend this book
if you haven't read it already
but staying in your zone of genius
and how do you do that you leverage talent
and I was in the talent business
we had a tech staffing company
I knew all about hiring I was building my own team
to helping other companies
Fortune 5 hundreds
and super successful startups build their teams
and this
is one of the number one things you can do to leverage
and to get to your business goals even faster
so hiring senior people most critical roles
and leveraging what you are not good at
so the other thing is it drains your energy
when you're doing all of these things that
maybe you are good at but sucks your energy
so that is another part of hiring the senior people
is to also leverage the people
the items that drain your energy
because you are the visionary
you are the founder you are the person in build mode
and you need to stay in your zone of genius
now the second lesson that I had wrote down
you're gonna find that the first three
are all about people I believe
this is one of the biggest challenges that we have
of building businesses is the people and building teams
and getting really good at both managing and leading
I had never managed people before I started my company
Focus GTS I worked on a team in Manhattan
I did real estate for eight years
I worked on one of the top 10 teams
and I was an independent contractor
so I wasn't building a team
and I wasn't managing people
and I had to learn that skill set
when I launched my company
and I know some of you have come from corporate
where you've managed teams
and that's amazing I had to learn that skill set
and holding people accountable
and having tough conversations
which we're gonna get to soon
which is one of my other lessons
I'm getting ahead of myself
I'm so excited
because this is such a big aspect to your business
people because
if you have a really big vision for what you're doing
what you're building and what you're creating
then it's gonna take a team
it's gonna take a team to get you there
and you can get there so much faster
with the right people so
we have leverage of hiring the senior people
in the most critical role
and I know that there is also the factor of financing
Dave and I we bootstrapped our company from the ground
and we had to take a lot of risk in that
and I know people is one of your biggest expenses
especially senior people
because when we were building our team and our company
we did what every bootstrap founder does
we hired our friends and family
and I know that people like Cody Sanchez
it's worked out great for her
it didn't work out so great for us um
most of the time
and that's why I am such a big proponent
of hiring people with the right skill sets
not just people who are in your network
and you have to learn how to interview
and hire these people and again
back to the point of
depends on where you're at in your journey
if you're building something
we run ran our company on the EOS model
which if you're not familiar with it
it's the entrepreneur operating system
it's this book called traction by Gino Wickman
I highly recommend it if you are building a business
and you are still under 500 employees
it gives you the systems and tools to really scale
and to manage your people
but one of the biggest components
is having the right people in the right seats
and I know because we were bootstrapping
we did not have the funds
to be able to hire those senior people
but looking back even then
what I would have done is
I would have made a plan
to be able to hit certain targets financials
to be able to bring in those senior people
before I brought in people at a less salary
with less skill sets
and thinking that I would hit those goals that way
but that also takes a lot more work
and took a lot more of my energy
than I had originally imagined
and again I can relate so much to the business
that is in growth mode that is in bootstrap
or that just doesn't have the funds right now
and I'll never forget when we were building our company
we were about two years in
we were in growth mode
we hit $2 million in revenue our first year
we grew to 6 million the following year
like we had massive growth
and we were super excited
and these are revenue numbers
and we are just like man
we are so pumped about what we're building and doing
and we had a vision that we were in the process
and we were hiring and our number was about 30
we started looking at office spaces
cause we launched in the second bedroom of our condo
we had up to five people coming there
and that wasn't sustainable
so then we got a co working space
and we were outgrowing that
so we were looking at getting an office
and we hadn't been in business two years
when we went to get this office
and we didn't have any credit
because we were still under that two year Mark
and so we had to personally guarantee
the office we were looking at
it was a beautiful office
and I'm such a big believer in your environment
to make it feel how you wanna feel
what you're creating
and putting yourself in those environment
so you can envision what's possible
like it's such a key to creating anything you want
is visualization
but what if you could not have to close your eyes and
but what if
you were living in a beautiful vision already
and so I was so excited about this office
having been in luxury real estate in Manhattan
I was like this is it
this is the spot and we had to personally guarantee it
it was a five year lease and it was $500,000
that Dave and I would have to guarantee
this was such a burn the boats moment
like either we're doing this or we're not
are we in are we not
and so we did it we went all in
and I am sharing this specific story
so that you can also relate that to hiring
like are you in
are you fully in on your vision
are you willing to take that risk at the right time
like do your analysis
when does that make sense for you
and then taking the risk and hiring those senior people
so I hope you give us lesson
because we talked about it a lot
but
there's so many ways to build a business with people
getting the right people in the right seats
and hiring that senior talent
is one of the first things that I look back
and reflect
that I would do different as I was building my company
moving on to the next one that I think of
the first three are gonna be all about people because
you know people are
everything in your company
is to hire slow and fire fast
this is not advice that I'm giving you
probably for the first time
you've heard it and I heard it
and I didn't listen right
I got really excited
and I would hire people that I liked
and that I related to not even knowing it
because so much of the hiring process
process is the unconscious is that bias
that you just have to naturally gravitate
towards people who are like you
and I had to learn through hiring
as especially someone in this space
how to take that bias out
and to really look for the skill sets
and this comes to getting really clear
on what it is you want this person to do in that role
what is the outcome what is the measurable
don't even think about hiring
until you can get this on paper
and I don't just mean a job description
I mean going even deeper and putting it on paper
on what does success look like for this person
and what skill sets would they have
so you really wanna spend time on getting super clear
on what it is that you want
for someone in this specific role
once you get really specific about this specific role
then you can go out to the job market
and start to recruit for this position
whether you recruit for it yourself
or if you hire a staffing firm
or go the traditional route of when you're a startup
of your network which is
of course your best referrals and place to start
even as someone who's had a staffing company
referrals can be your best source
it's so important though
that you have a really clear
and standardized hiring process
because if not you're gonna have that bias kick in
of people you like but if you're not measuring out
them against what you just wrote out
you're going to end up hiring someone that you like
who might be a great person
but they're just not right for that role
they might even be a good fit culturally
or for your company or team
but when you are in build mode
it is so important that your first few hires
are exactly what you need
at that point in the business
so getting really clear on that
having the hiring process outlined
having the same hiring
interview process for every single candidate
so you can get the same information from all of them
to make the best decision
and at the end of the day
you're gonna hire the person
you're gonna bring them in
and the moment you know that they are not right
if you made a bad hire you have to let them go
you have to I can't tell you the amount of times
that we kept people for too long
it's a lesson I had to learn far too many times
because one person
especially in a startup or in a small company
a small team it affects everyone
the culture they can
they can feel it they know when someone is not right
they are not a mission they are not a culture fit
and if they're not doing a good job
everyone knows and you're lowering your standards
for your entire company
and you're saying that this is okay
it's okay not to do the best job
and you'll still have a job here
and you'll slowly see your team and your company
continue to lower their standards
and if they don't lower their standards
which I hope they don't
your a players are going to leave
because they don't want to be in an environment
a players want to be around
a players so it is your job as the leader
as the founder
to be able to keep that standard level of excellence
and hold people accountable
which leads perfectly into my third lesson
having tough conversations fast
so not only letting people go quickly
firing fast
as all of the great leaders in business talk about
is having those tough conversations first
I had mentioned I never managed people
and I just thought a lot of things were common sense
that people should know if you have metrics
like if you're not hitting them
then it's not going well well I
I had to learn
you have to communicate that to certain people
over and over again
and I had to learn about the pit process
and all of the things that go into HR
and letting someone go
but also just having tough conversations fast
even if it's not to do with performance
if something was uncomfortable
or something wasn't done the way that is
to your standards or just giving feedback
I mean maybe this is easy for you
but
it's something I struggled with for quite a long time
and it had to do with my own identity work
of feeling like who am I to call these people out
I mean I was the leader of the company right
but I had some internal dialogue
that I had to work through
because a lot of people that I hired
they were older than me
or they were more senior than me
as we grew the company
and that was a real big challenge
I had to overcome that you know what
this is my company I am the right person for the job
I am the person that is building this
so I need to be able to lead these people
and hold them accountable
so having tough conversations fast
is such a critical part of building your company
and your team and the lessons that I Learned
okay
so we're through half of the lessons that I wrote down
and I made really clear about not repeating
and number four is
to invest in the skills that you are not good at
I had just mentioned
how I wasn't good at managing people
or I didn't have that skill set yet I
I had a big challenge of having the tough conversation
so what was I working on
is I had a life coach at the time
and that was a lot of our conversations
was why do I have a challenge with that
and I had to work on that for quite a bit of time
but I had someone coaching me
and teaching me about how to get better at this
so if you can't hire or outsource that skill yet
or if it's just a skill that you can't outsource
there are certain skills that you
as the founder as the leader
as the builder as the creator
that you won't be able to outsource or to leverage
so for example
that skill set that I needed to manage people uh
I had to work on that
and then the second one that I had to work on
which was later on in building my company
which has played a big role in what I do now
is public speaking that I used to get so nervous
even speaking to my team at my own company
when I would do trainings
I would get dry mouth
and I would just go into this panic mode
I know this is one of the top fears of most people
but it was just uncontrollable
and I thought this is ridiculous and uh
it's something that I had to hire a coach for
I've worked with several coaches
I've taken courses it's something I still am polishing
and getting better at I mean I
I know a lot of public speakers still get nervous
and have to work through that
but it's something I'm still investing in
I'm still working with a coach
and I'm still working on a program
so the learning really never stops
at the end of the day
of this journey of building a business
of personal development
of being the creator of your life
the growth never stops the inner work
we're never there we never arrive
well this isn't one of my points
that I wrote down about the business
it's one of my life awarenesses
and I'm so just grateful that me and my husband
are also aligned on this journey
that
it's one of the most important things to us in life
is that we're always open to growing
and to learning new skill sets
this will serve you throughout your entire life
every single area that you would invest
where you see that you can't leverage
that you can't outsource
and that is something that you need to work on
and speaking of investing in yourself
the fifth thing that I had wrote down
was a huge lesson for me and we did this really well
actually
this is something that I don't think was a failure
for us as we were building the business
it was actually one of our biggest successes
I tell the story of how when we launched our company
we were in the second bedroom of our condo
we had never run a business before
we were both successful and what we were doing before
but we had never built a business
we had never been entrepreneurs
so we did what every entrepreneur did at the time
before chat G b t we googled how to run a business
and of course we get hit by these Facebook ads
about personal development
and different conferences
and that began our personal development journey
of figuring out who we are
what how to run businesses
and not 80% of it is psychology
20% is the strategy
and there's plenty of strategy out there
so we're gonna figure it out
but we're only gonna figure it out if we have a belief
they will always find a way
which I already had that belief before
but having it ingrained even more
and learning the other areas of psychology and mindset
that I needed to work on
to become the type of leader to run
the type of company that I wanted to build from
the person who started the bootstrap company
in the second bedroom of her apartment
would not be the same Brittany
would not be the same person
that would build the company to eight figures
and make the ink 5,000 list
this was a journey of who I needed to become
and now
there's still the journey of who I need to become
to build my community
to be the leader that I inspire to continue to be
so it's a constant becoming journey
and the only way we do that is through community
is by getting in the room
surrounding ourselves with the right people
I have personally invested over half a million dollars
over the last eight years
in personal development
and being in the right communities around uh
hiring the right coaches
and going to different conferences
to invest in my mindset
there is not a dollar that I would take back
it is one of my greatest investments in my entire life
it's not the real estate investments that I've made
it's not the savings and stock market
it is simply investing in myself and my mindset
because I know you could take everything away from me
all my financials and I would still have my mindset
to get me to where I wanna go
to create the life that I want
because of my mind
because I have the ability to create certainty
from within so I'm just so grateful for that journey
and I think we did that one really
really well
and being a part of community has been everything
and the last thing that I want to say
that I wrote down
was so important about building in that company for me
was to measure what is bringing in success
and pick up on the customer feedback and patterns
quickly often times
as visionaries as founders
we start building and we fall in love with our product
our baby
and we just think that it's the best thing ever
but we're not getting our customer feedback
and I absolutely love to do that
I love to pick up on the patterns
what are people saying what are the buzzwords
what do they wish they had more of
and I do this with the
she created community all the time
I think it's something I'm already doing really well at
is having these one on one conversations
asking for feedback you know
is this something that you'd be interested in
like what do you love about the community
what do you wanna see more of
and speaking of that I'd love to hear from you
if there is something you wanna hear more on
on this topic if the podcast
if there's a specific thing
you want me to talk to you about
share with you about my journey or my lessons
or a guest you wanna hear on my podcast
hit me up I want your feedback
I wanna know what resonates with you most
and this is a lesson that I highly encourage you to do
from the start is to get feedback
because you don't want to go so far down the road
that it's not resonating and you wasted all this time
money and energy
so these are some amazing lessons
that I Learned along the way
some of them I had to learn the hard way
others I figured out pretty fast
and I know that I'm gonna have more lessons
along the journey I mean
as I mentioned does the journey ever really end
and
I just wanna encourage you to see failure as a lesson
to see it as an opportunity to grow and to continue
on because we're all going to make mistakes
but keep going that's the road of a high achiever
of an ambitious woman is to just keep going
to pivot and adjust I mean
there's so many more lessons that I could share
but these are my main six for today
I'm sure I'm gonna think of more
have them written down but hit me up
what has been your biggest lesson
in building and creating whatever it is that you have
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