Climbing the Second Mountain: Essential Skills for Scaling Your Business with Dennis Riley

Are you an entrepreneur looking to take your business to new heights? In this episode of "Chasing Financial Freedom," we sit down with small business expert Dennis Riley to discuss essential skills for scaling your business.

Dennis shares his insights on climbing the second mountain of entrepreneurship, from building effective systems and processes to surrounding yourself with the right people. He believes that business success requires a mindset shift from a start-up founder to a CEO, and he offers practical advice on how to make this transition.

Tune in to hear Dennis's tips on overcoming roadblocks, navigating the hamster wheel of entrepreneurship, and achieving long-term success. Whether you're a small business owner or an aspiring entrepreneur, this episode is packed with valuable insights and actionable takeaways.

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Transcript

Climbing the Second Mountain: Essential Skills for Scaling Your Business

[00:00:00] Ryan: Hey guys, Ryan DeMent from Chasing Financial Freedom Podcast. I hope you guys are having a great day today. On the podcast, we have Dennis Riley. Dennis is helping businesses take control of their actual business. And what's really cool about what Dennis is doing, we're gonna get into it, is he has systems, he has technology, he has a C R M, and if you guys don't know what a C R M is and you're a business owner, you're in trouble.

So we'll probably talk about that also. Dennis, welcome to the show. 

[00:00:28] Dennis: Thanks Ryan for having me. I appreciate it. Looking forward to this. 

[00:00:32] Ryan: Not a problem. Before we get into how you're helping small business owners, really get their act together in their niche or their business, a little bit about you and who you are and your background, and then we'll jump into some rabbit holes.

[00:00:44] Dennis: Sure. Like I said, dance for eye gold stories, results. I've been in business since 1994. I've been I started out as a software development company. Went 10 people strong. That lasted 20 years. About five years into that, I realized that I was working a lot with small business owners. We started talking strategy with them and that thing just ballooned up.

So I had two businesses running at the same time and I kept going to the consulting side cause I love helping small business owners with their business. A lot of people don't go into business for sake of going into business. They have a skillset. And so I help them with the running of the business, especially when it comes to systems.

And we'll talk more about that, but that is really the key thing. 

[00:01:25] Ryan: So do you, what is, who's your typical client? Is it an existing business, a startup, somebody looking to acquire it? What is, what does it look like? 

[00:01:33] Dennis: A typical business would be, it's definitely not a startup. Those people, there's a lot of things with a startup.

We, I don't even, we don't even have enough time to talk about startups, but it's really the people who have gone to that next level in their business. They've they, they look in the grow or they're in the growing stage and they're stumbling and they need some help. But that's usually where I come in.

Cuz a lot of the times people think when they start their business, no matter how much they grow, they do the same thing over and over again. No small business owners get in the way very quickly when they, when a business starts to grow and you have to have systems in place. If you don't have systems in place, you're really screwing this up.

[00:02:15] Ryan: And there's, that's there's so many rabbit holes we can go down there. But before we go there, on a personal side note, I've gotta ask the question. I recognize your accent. Boston 

[00:02:26] Dennis: fine. You win. Yes, I am definitely born and raised in the Boston area and yeah, I am definitely a Bostonian and there's nothing you can do with this accent.

[00:02:37] Ryan: So are you a traditional Bostonian where you like all Boston sports or you like some that I've had on where they've digressed and gone to the Yankees, which makes no sense. 

[00:02:48] Dennis: I am definitely a Boston sports person. Unfortunately, we're doing this the day after the Bruins did their thing. So yeah.

So yes, Boston Sports through and through I, but here's the thing. I do love good sports teams. For example, yeah, your live and grow to hate the Yankees if you're for Boston. Yeah. But you know what, there's some good talent on some of these teams in the past. Yankees, I love Aaron Judge.

I think he's an amazing person. An amazing talent. But yeah, I'm a Red Sox 

[00:03:17] Ryan: guy. Awesome. I went to Northeastern, so I'm very familiar. Oh, there you go. With Beantown. And I lived in Delaware and I tr and I took the ELA. Northbound on the weekends to do my master's program at Northeastern.

It was fun. And I just, probably late eighties, early nineties, we were, I was born and raised in Southern California and always followed the Dodgers. And after the O'Malley sold the Dodgers, my dad's what other team were we gonna follow? And I said I don't know. So he started, we started watching all bunch of teams and it ended up being on the Red Sox.

So I liked them ever since and just followed that way. But I was really heartbroken and we digress and we go, good. When Tom Brady left the Patriots, I mean that, that was hard, but you know what? It's life and it's rebuild and let's see where it goes. 

[00:04:00] Dennis: Boy was their ride. It was it. My goodness, where they started.

My, my son was born in 98 and I kept, I always say to him, he's it's like you don't know the time you're living. It's and Tom Ray was amazing, amazing talent and now you have to just readjust and move on. 

[00:04:19] Ryan: And yeah. And now he's hinting about potentially coming back again.

I'm like, oh, come on dude. Just stay retired. 

[00:04:25] Dennis: Yeah, stay retired. Do you've done what you had to do. Now move on. Yeah, I agree. 

[00:04:28] Ryan: Yeah, just move on. It's time to go on. So let's just go right down the rabbit hole businesses. So profile you, you're using an existing company, you're working with them, but do you have a niche or an industry that you're really passionate about that you want to go after and help?

[00:04:46] Dennis: Not the niche yourself, but it's more like this, the small business owner. I love those people who are just starting out not meaning the, startups, like they've already made it to that first mountain. Cause I always say there's not, it's really not one mountain that you climbed during as a yes, as an entrepreneur, you get to the top of the first mountain to see the view that you didn't see climbing up the mountain.

And so to me, to more of, it's more of a mountain range that you're doing. Okay. So I, I can't help you on that first mountain, but I can definitely help you from that mountain on. And I'd love that second mountain because I. Like I said, just because you climbed that first bound, you're gonna need a better skillset to climb that second mountain and you better have systems in place and you're better also as a business owner, do not be the roadblock.

A lot of times people are the roadblock cuz they do exactly what they did to get to the first bound. The first mount is roll up your sleeves and do anything you can to get there. Yeah, and once you're the, so that's climbing up the first mount, but the second mountain, you better do it in a right way because you will really fall down, not on the second mountain, but even past the first mount, you'll fall down.

And that's where a lot of business owners struggle because they think they can do it that way. And you can't. You have to have people involved. You have to have projects involved and systems involved. And if you don't have that system involvement you are going to just be on a you call it rabbit holes that we're talking about.

It's more of that hamster wheel. If you don't change as a business owner, you're staying on that wheel and it's going faster and faster. And when it falls off, it's going to be a higher landing. 

[00:06:30] Ryan: So that first mountain, when they reach that crescendo or the top, or the peak, Is there like a revenue dollar amount that you look at, or is it years in business?

Combination of both. Cash flow, 

[00:06:43] Dennis: all of the above. Because usually what happens, it's amazing. The revenue is al always a good indicator, but I've had people have million dollar revenues that they crash and burn. Because they didn't have the good systems. They made it amazingly, the first mountain, and maybe they were, the high six figures and stuff like that.

But they kept doing things the same exact way and those six figures went away. And also, quote unquote, revenue is a tough animal because you can be a million dollar revenue but have 1.2 million expenses. Yeah. And you're really not a million dollar business, 

[00:07:20] Ryan: are you? A lot of people don't realize that.

It's tough to run a business and then I joke about it, but it's, my learnings is I failed at entrepreneurship, small business ownership, whatever, twice. And I came from corporate America running call centers in collection agencies and any type of financial instrument, thousands of people, but I couldn't run my own business.

That was sad and that it was an eye-opener, but it's. It's probably one of the better things that have happened to me and what I've learned from that process and be able to share those experiences. But as a business owner and this is you I'd love you to comment on it. It's the embarrassment part that you don't wanna open up to somebody like yourself, like a consultant to come in and look at it and say, I'm struggling.

I don't know what to do. Because it's hard to let somebody in to see the inner workings. 

[00:08:08] Dennis: Yeah. And I could tell you what that software business that I've had for 20 years, those first eight years, was a struggle. And I learned more in those first years that I've had all my life. Because you really are running around your head cut off.

You never, no one goes into business to run a business. They go into business cause they have a skillset that they can offer the world. And then what they do is they take that skillset and they start running with it. Running with it. And they're amazing at it. Meanwhile, they don't know how to run a business, so they're just, let's get to the next client.

Let's get to the next client. Let's get to, and you, oh, I need to hire people because I have new clients. Let's go. Let's go. And I'm, and then, you know what happens is it's like the wheel. It's like having a wheel. You are the hub, and the longer you stay in the hub, the slower the wheel goes. As the business owner, you need to be more the conductor than the doer.

And those first couple of years you are doing and conducting, there's no tomorrow. And you have to realize, stop playing the instrument. Stop doing the conducting, and E. And once you get conducted, once you're a conductor, you can't say to the person, oh, stop. You're playing that instrument wrong. I think you should do, let me show you.

And you go downstairs, you start playing with an instrument. It's no. You hired that person to play that instrument. Let them play the instrument and you use your skillset to make sure that they play at the best of their ability. 

[00:09:33] Ryan: There's so much to unravel in there because that is, that's the crux of small business ownership is.

Going from the doing, which I did a lot of to being that conductor, as you say. And now I still do this because it's still just myself. I have a VA and then I have field staff. Cause I'm in real estate development construction. I. Project managers before I hand something off, especially a new skillset or a new task, I tend to dig into it a little bit to make sure that I'm giving the right information, but also how to set it up like an s o p a little bit.

And that has slowed me down. So I have to figure out a way how I can actually effectively do that and hand it off as that comes along. But that's just scale and growing the business. And I know that's just a, a. Scale is a word that I just, I don't know why I say it, and it's so prevalent in the market, but it truly isn't.

It's growing in expanding your business and understanding how you play that role. Like you said, you're not the cog, you're the conductor. But we struggle with that as small business owners, entrepreneurs, because we think the business revolves around us. 

[00:10:43] Dennis: It's interesting. I love the line, and especially nowadays, I have a really good answer for this.

Is that people, every time I talk to someone and I see what's on their plate and they say I'm doing this. I'm like, why are you doing that for, you should give that to someone else. Oh, but you know what? I can do it quicker and I'm so much, I, that skillset I know really well, and it'll take me longer to explain to someone.

And I stop right there. And especially if I'm on like a conference call with them, zoom, whatever technology they use, I say, look, we're already in a place that you can record. So what you should, and so then I say, you know what we're gonna start doing? I'm gonna start asking you what this is all about and you're going to answer it.

So I'll say, what are the steps to do what you are doing right now? And they go through the whole process and it's on recording. And I stopped recording. I said, here you go. He said, what did we just do? I said, you now just gave the instruction book. On how to do what you're doing. So now I can take it off your plate.

Oh, and, but listen, you give them this recording and then they say you come back with any questions. So what happened is you have this recording that is, can be looked at several times and then you just gave the first basis of something. Yeah, you can go in and modify it and all that stuff, but guess what?

You now just got this off your plate. You just created your first system. And people think of systems as this elaborate thing that's from A to Z. Yeah. Sometimes it's just a recording and you say, look, can you do this for me? I know how to do it here. Watch this recording. If you have any questions, come back to me.

You just created your first system. You just now created the first time that you are now conducting instead of doing the, playing the instrument. 

[00:12:27] Ryan: With the system in, in what you're working on. We'll get into it. I'm gonna digress and go backwards. If the small business owner is hiring people but doesn't, and this is just a question because I struggled with this too, doesn't have a mission statement that's like effective mission statement that talks about, the three revenue things or re a revenue, whatever you want to call 'em, events that you are going to try to accomplish in 12 to 18 months.

How can you effectively put systems in place if you don't know what you're trying to accomplish? Love that 

[00:13:01] Dennis: question because you have to have, you wanna, whatever you wanna call it, mission statement, whatever I like to say, I like to call it that vision. What is your one, one defining moment that you're gonna do in the next 12 months?

And people go, what do you mean? One, I'm like, Joe, just pick one. Because if that's gonna be your lighthouse, if that's gonna be your beacon of light, that no matter what you do during the year, if you're struggling with all these things, like what system to put in is this system putting in line with that beacon of light?

Because if it isn't you're, it's, you're in trouble. Yep. It's not going to happen. So mission statement, whatever you wanna call it, it's like, what's that one thing that you can show people? That when they say, Hey, look, I'm struggling with why we're doing this system, or I'm struggling with why we're doing this work, or I'm struggling with getting the right people in as my clients.

If Hey, look, in the next 12 months I want this business to do X you're, you just now got the end game and me coming from the software side of things. I say to people, that's what's how software is built. You build. You don't come in and say, I think I'm gonna do this.

No, this is the software you need and this is what's gonna look like the end game. And then you reverse engineer to bring it back to how to build it. Same thing with a business. What's your end game? And once you know your end game is, whether it's a three year plan, a one year plan, a five year plan, whatever, what's your end game?

Then you can take and reverse engineer and bring it all the way back. Then you can now have systems in place or create business systems in place that help you reach your end game. So I 

[00:14:42] Ryan: have to ask the question, how many have a mission statement or a beacon of light in place when you come to start helping them?

Not 

[00:14:52] Dennis: that much. So do you, is it like 

[00:14:55] Ryan: 50 50, 60 40? Is it, is it just, here's the thing. I 

[00:14:59] Dennis: would say it's at least 50 50 that they have an end game. Okay. But that end game is not usually what happens is when I talk to people about that end game, it's not the, it's the funniest thing that I say to people.

I'm like, where do you wanna be in three years? And it's so easy they can figure out three years, I want this. I say, okay, we're gonna do this in one year. They're like, what? Because what happens is we tend to think that a year we can't get a lot done, but three years out, oh, yeah. Three years out.

I see the vision perfectly. I have this, but what happens? It's If you make that, what I try to do again we were talking earlier about the baseball and baseball analogy. When you are at the plate and you hit a ground ball where you hear something that you're not sure you're gonna make it to the infield, you run straight through the bag, don't you?

You don't round first base, you run. So you run as fast as you can through the straight back. That, to me is someone's three year plan that makes it a year. And so what I do is I take someone's three year plan and I say, okay, how we gonna do it in a year? Because think about this. When people start in three years, you're gonna do X, Y, and Z.

You have a slow journey. You know how you're gonna build up to it if you have one year. Now what you have to do is you have to think right away, do I have the people in place? No, we gotta scale it, or we have to put pit systems in place to get that. And now you think a lot differently. If you take that three year plan and you make it one year, your focus is totally different now because now you better have systems in place.

You better have key people in place. Now, the business owner cannot be the doer and the conductor at the same time. If I have to get this three year plan in one year, I'm not doing it. I'm conducting. So the whole set of how you do things totally shifts. And then if people go I can't do this in a year.

What can you do in a year? Because imagine if I say to you, we're gonna go after three year plan one year, and you just barely make it. You kicked butt on it in one year. You just barely made your three year plan. And that's what I tell people that right away I say, we're gonna do your three year plan in one year.

[00:17:20] Ryan: It's amazing how many people would wanna change that goal. And not adhere to it. And I'm a big fan of Grant Cardone and I've read all his books and 10 X Love Great. Is one of the books that, yeah. I've read probably five times, maybe more. I don't know. But the one biggest thing he talks about in there is most sales businesses or groups, when they see a goal and they're not hitting it, they tend to lower the goal.

So they can actually come back and say, check mark and done. But in, in hindsight, something you were talking about is we're going into, and I'm relating this back, is we're going into a development where we have to build 14 houses in a very challenging time. I'm in the affordable housing space, so I'm like, how can I build 14 houses in the next seven to eight months?

And I'm thinking, wow, that's a stretch. But what about if we did accomplish that and sell them at the same time? That would be huge. So guess what? That's my goal. Now I have to go figure it out and that's what really puts me on edge. I don't think I would've put a, of an aggressive goal like that out there unless I really was tuned into trying to figure out how we're gonna grow the business and go out there.

And that's where systems come in play because a lot of the things that we do are, is remote. And I, this is the question to you is, Businesses that, there's, you're in a ser I know you wanna do service business and I'm in a service business too, but where we build in Indiana, I'm in Arizona, so I travel and I go back and forth, but I can't be there 24 7.

How could we, and not asking for experience or topics for my business, but anyone that's running a remote business nowadays, it seems majority, how do we put systems in place? That could actually help us grow the business and achieve that beacon of light or that mission statement. See, I 

[00:19:06] Dennis: think, honestly, I think remote really helps you out even thinking even better for this because now you got your systems in place, have to work with others using it.

That is building a system for yourself is a challenge, but, When you are running through the system and there's a hiccup, we figure it out. It's your system, it's you. Okay. So you know, when you said building a house or something, if you are on site and there's a screw up, you're like, okay, I got this.

Yeah, I know the system is, system has room for me to change things around because I'm on the site, so I'm gonna do X, Y, and Z. This person didn't show up. Okay? I'm gonna hound down that guy right now. I'll knock on his door and say, Hey look, you're supposed to be on this site. Why aren't you here? Okay.

That allows you to do that because you built the system. You know what's going on here. This case, if you are not there, you now put more checks and balances in your system and you now say, look if you are on a site and you don't see why these people aren't there, here are the things that you need to do.

And then here in this system, we're gonna have some checks and balances, and we're also gonna make sure we have accountability. And we're also gonna put this data in a central place for other people to see. And now you're thinking differently. In fact, when you're not there, you focus more on to make sure that everyone works on the same system and there's, people can see the same things.

Because now if you are not there, you now have to make sure that, okay, did this first step happen? No. Okay. Did you go with these five things? Okay, look at on the fifth thing, you now were able to put all this data in place that says, okay, this is what happened on this one. We gotta make sure it doesn't happen again, the next one.

Because all these things are in, in check. So that's, to me, it's like having, not being there and just being remote. It makes you more how you're gonna rely on this system because now, like I said, if you had a system, it's just you. You could go, oh, I'll get to the system later. I'm running around doing this.

And then you get back at the end and say, oh, okay, yeah, I filled this in. Okay, we'll move this in. But if you are not there, You want that system, everyone should lie on, rely on that system because then you can make sure the system works. I love the line that says systems run businesses. People run systems.

If you can remember that, is that it's not the person that's in the business, it's the person running the system, and the system is running the business. So 

[00:21:57] Ryan: how do we get to that level as small business owners 

[00:22:02] Dennis: to get to that level of small business owners? What you have to do is when you start creating the systems for the first time, you have to have things that, if you were in the picture, what would be done?

Because think about if you are in the picture just like that small business owner I was telling you about. I was that person that I had to be at every single meeting. I had to make every single decision, every decision had to go to my desk because hey, on my desk it says the box stops here, so therefore I'm the guy that needs to be in all this.

No. What you do is you remove yourself from the position and say, okay, if I wasn't here, how would things get done? And then now what happens is now you start implementing those things and you are the conductor that makes sure that, because think about it. Even though yes, the box stops here, which means your butt is on the line, and if you can't physically be there, you better make sure that you have a system in place that it, that drives the results.

Because think about it. No matter what is said and done, it's a results oriented. Everyone's about results. So you make sure that this system that you are creating has results. 

[00:23:15] Ryan: So let's dig into that rabbit hole, cuz I think that's where everyone wants to go, is how do we implement those systems with results?

And I think there's two parts of that, focusing on the results. But the other piece of it is the human capital being able to bring in the right people to execute, to obtain those results. 

[00:23:35] Dennis: It's also not only that, it's the this, it's the people, it's the tools, it's the customers, and it's yourself.

It's all as the business owner. It's all you. It's all, it's, like I said it's one happy orchestra. You have different, you know the line, the violins over here, the tube is over here. You have to make sure to get results. They all have to have a nice tune that sings. You can't have one person be better than the other.

So when you're creating the system, you say to yourself, okay, what are the steps going from A to Z to get the result? And then if I was able to do all those steps, this is what would happen. Okay, now I'm gonna take myself out of this. That's perfect example is when a small business is running, they what they first have to do, they have to get.

Leads. Okay. They have to go out and tell the world about what their business is, and they need people to be interested in those leads. So what do you do with those leads? As a small business owner, you might, have a phone and then you write, you have a notebook and that's all you write.

And then you might use emails, and then you use a, like either Google Sheets or Excel to track things. Or you're starting to go up, or the sticky notes that you put on your monitor. Okay, that's not gonna work that well. But especially when you go in the office and you leave the office I don't have my sticky notes with me.

Okay? And that's what you do, is you start doing these things and that's when a CRM comes in, which is a contact customer relationship management system. And what you do is you. Put everything into that, and then you keep track of everything in there. You keep track of all the emails, you keep track of.

What are the phases that you do to get a lead? When a lead comes in the door, what do you do? Do you have some kind of information that you can email them? And then what happens is you book a session with them now in that session, what are you talking about that gets them interested to what is your services or your products?

And then when you go from that point, you start maybe a proposal. Whatever the steps are to get someone from a lead to a a closed sale, those are the steps you put in what I call a pipeline. And then you have the league go through all those steps in a, and you set up systems to go through that steps like, okay, this person now has some information.

Okay, now this person is interested. I want this person to sign up for a discovery call. How do I do a discovery call? I'm gonna give them a link to, to my calendar, and they book a thing on their calendar. And then what happens is, maybe prior to that session of your meeting with me, you ask some questions so that you can dig into that.

When you get that. So when you first meet with this person, it's not a, it's not this one hour, let me get to know you. It's Hey, I already have these questions in here that I'm going to ask you and you already gave me these answers. We're gonna jump right in. And so then from that point on, maybe you show them what services you have.

Here's the price points. Where's your pain? All that stuff to take them through to a sale. Then once they're in a sale that's pipeline number one. Pipeline number two is you're an active. Business. Now what do you do in that active client? It's okay, I guys take them to the result to get, I promised them a result and now I'm gonna deliver a result.

What are the steps to deliver? And I'm gonna keep the client in the know as much as possible. And then once I deliver that service, now what? They may become a PLA client. There should be a pipeline there in pa, past clients. See how I'm building these systems. Oh yeah. One on top of another. And people say, if I told someone that's what we're gonna do, we're gonna do four pipelines, we're gonna do this.

They're gonna go, I don't know what you're talking about. So that's why I always start at the beginning and say, look, I. We're gonna, we're gonna start with this pipeline, then we're gonna build this, then we're gonna build this. And over time you start to build an incredible system that you rely upon so much.

And then you have other people in your organization in the same system that they, everyone knows where they're going. And that's how you build all these systems and that's how you can do it remotely. And that's how you can build it with people who are on your team. And you make sure you have strong people on your team.

And listen, these people on their team should run these systems if they can't, unfortunately you find someone who will. And some people, and I say to people, okay, you don't have to build this team of all employees. You can build them of contractors, you can build them with other business small businesses that you all work together to build this one thing.

So there's so many different ways that you can create these systems. 

[00:28:11] Ryan: Is that the biggest roadblock that small business owners are facing when you come in is they're overwhelmed with the systems and putting those, I call 'em funnels if you wanna call 'em something else, but Yes, in, I gotta ask the other question.

How or what percentage of the small business owners are actually using A C R M? Very small. 

[00:28:32] Dennis: I'll even go, I'll even go any further. If they're using a CR r m, they're not using it properly. Most people think of a CRM as, oh, I'm just gonna hold the data, and that's it. And I always say to people who are using a crm, is your C R M A workhorse is your C R M working when you are not, while you're sleeping?

And if the answer is no, I don't know either A, I don't know, or B, they're not, you're not using your c R M properly. Your CRM should be automating all these things. Remember I said at the beginning, give out some information that should be instantaneously that they can sign up on, usually what I say to a lead or whatever, it's look, do me a favor.

Go to my website right here and just fill out this form. And what happens is they're not just filling out a form, they're jumping into my pipeline. My first pipeline. Yeah. And I have all these things that I'm going to do with the person. That's automatic. Hey, look, I'm gonna tell you a little bit about my business.

Hey, look, here are some of my client's success stories here. Here are my, my, some of my pains that my clients have. Do you have any of those pains? If you do book a call with me right now and here's the link. I'm not doing any of that. And then what I to even do is now people say that's informal.

Okay? I throw videos on myself on there as well. So when they sign up, they get a video of me saying, Hey, thank you for having interest in me. Hey, look, if you're interested, we could do this. Now it becomes a little bit more personal. Now they, in fact, there's a, sometimes when I get on the first call with someone, they say, I feel like I've already known you.

That's cool. That to me says my system is working. 

[00:30:10] Ryan: Yeah, that is, that's really cool. But I go back and I jump into, cuz that's the next question is it a daunting task to convince these small business owners to say, I need to adopt A C R M and then be able to put this all into play? Or is it, you're there, they're ready to go and they just need the help to implement the pipelines?

[00:30:33] Dennis: Well, a small percentage know that they need the help and they're ready to go. They, and usually when they, when those people I contact me, unfortunately, bad things have happened in their business and they've flatlined or they're going down and they need help. Okay, yes, I can help people with that very easily.

In fact, I love helping people, go right back up. But there's other people too that they don't know they need this stuff. So when I have this conversation with them, I say, Hey, look, do you have a three year vision? And then I say, you know what? What happens if you don't get that? You think you're gonna get that vision?

You think it's a result set that can happen? And I, what happens when you're gonna get to that result? And most people, if they're not smiling, when they're thinking about that result isn't worthwhile attaining. But most people, they're like, oh, I would love it if I got to this.

And I said you know what? Then I ask him, do you have systems in place to achieve that? Because you're not gonna be able to achieve it on your own. And then all of a sudden they stop and they're like, what do you mean? And I'm like, the things that you would tell 'em about, do you really think that you get in three years?

Just you getting there? I'm like, no, we need this. Yeah, exactly. And then I say, now you better have systems in place to achieve that vision, and if you don't, I can help you.

Wow. 

[00:31:48] Ryan: It's, these are all the things that played in my head back in the day that I struggled with and I had to learn the very hard way for you all listening or watching. It's what we're talking about is at the crux of being successful in business. And the more systems you have in place, the better off you are.

It is and I say this, it can be overwhelming to put all the systems in place, but if you have somebody that can help you, Hint, hint nod. Then really it, it becomes to a point of how much do you want to put in place? How much can you put in place? And then what can you do? But I think we're back to that point of if you don't have that beginning point to be able to have a goal or goals to hit in whatever timeframe that you're looking at.

I don't think a system can work at all until you actually have that, because there's vision and you have to have that vision be put into the pipelines and put into the people that are working there. It has to translate to the customers. There's so many pieces for me, and I'm backing up.

There's a question in this. How do you get in maybe you don't work with these type of clients if there's too much convincing to get somebody to put that vision together or that mission statement or that beacon of light. Is that a point where you just say, Hey, I just can't work with you, or do you try to help them through that 

[00:33:09] Dennis: process?

There's, first of all, I love what you were saying and you were exactly right on, you know what I say this to people and people look at me and they head scratches what you talk about? I'm like, do me a favor, did you drive a car? If you have keys to the car, what do you do? What do you mean?

I said, you get in the car and you start driving, right? He goes, yeah. I said, do you know where you're going? Of course I know you know the GPS may have to, but you have a destination. No one gets into a car, sits in the driver's side and starts putting in reverse or whatever, and takes off and goes, I have nowhere where I'm going.

I'm just driving around. No one does that. They say, Hey look, I have a destination. They might have a G P S telling him, turn, RAF turn light, whatever. But no one gets in they car and drives and doesn't know the destination. And I say to that, Is that how you're running your business? Because if it is you're going nowhere.

And if they say, oh no, I know the exactly. I wanna go here, I'm like, great. Can you get there by yourself? Or you do? Do you think you need others people to do it? And then I say, if you can get there by yourself, is that really a worthwhile done thing to do? Because I can tell you, life happens along the way and you don't know a year from now, two years from now where you are in life.

So if you think you're doing this all by yourself, I can tell you right now that there's gonna be so many roadblocks along the way that you will not hit that destination. And then if they, if people argue with me on that, then I'm like, okay, best of luck to you. I can't convince them, but if they, usually what happens?

They go, you're right. It's yeah. It's do you really want, what are you building here? You, everyone has what I like to call a zoner genius. People go into a business, they start a business cuz they have a zoner genius. All right? You want that zoner, you wanna spread that zoner genius to so many different people.

And you want people to do it. So are you just gonna rely on yourself to do that? And don't you think that's a huge challenge to be putting on one person? What if you can build a company, okay, build a vision, scale it, whatever you wanna call it. I don't care if it's scale, grow, whatever you, but no one goes into it.

Some people say I just wanna work for myself and that's it. Okay, great. But you still have a vision, you still need to have 

[00:35:31] Ryan: system too. And pipelines. Yeah, but 

[00:35:34] Dennis: most people they, I said imagine if you can help you personally can maybe help out a group. Imagine if you can. Take in 10 x or whatever.

Those them are people that you can help. Yeah. Wouldn't that be amazing? And then everyone's oh yeah, that'd be great. It's okay, guess what? We're gonna grow your company. We're gonna grow your company by having a systems in place. And by having the vision of growth. So now, like that's why I take that three year plan and bring it back to one year.

Because now you have a vision of scaling. And now you build the system to scale. You may not get there, but that's okay. But you have the mindset of doing that and the vision in place to do that. And we're gonna put the systems in place to do that. And that's why I say, people say what system do you start with?

I always start with a C R M. Because it's the simplest thing to do. Because it's like everyone, every business needs leads, every business needs clients, every business needs sales. That's your C R m. It's what do you do with that CRM 

[00:36:34] Ryan: that helps out? One of the things that I preach and I heard from Grant Cardone many times in that book and some other places we're in the business of customer acquisition.

If you don't have customers coming in the door, how are you gonna keep 'em happy on the back end? So you have to always be out looking for customers. So when we're gonna wrap this up and bring this playing in for a landing, but I got a couple more questions is, so the c r m is the biggest aspect from your services and what you're providing to your clients?

Are you setting them up on the crm? Let's say they have no c r m. You're setting 'em up on the crm, you're figuring out what their life cycle is of their service or their product, and you're building them those pipelines, correct? Yes. 

[00:37:19] Dennis: Okay. And then what happens is, I also use the strategy involved because you just can't build something without a strategy.

Of course. So there's, the goals, the strategy, all that. And the thing is that if you start with a C R M, there's all these other systems that can be put into place. Feeding the CRM or the crm, feeding the system. So that's why I like to, I have an analogy that I call a boat in that there's six different pieces to the boat that I like to call.

The bottom piece is what you offer your client and your services. And then on top of that is your goals and data. That's the ma that's the bottom of the boat. The mass of the boat is the crm, and then you have two sales. The systems and the strategy. That's your boat. If you put your boat into the water, to me, I call the ocean like the economy or whatever the case.

You don't know what you're gonna happen in your, in the economy, you don't know it. But if you have a strong enough boat, you can handle which way to go with the waves. Okay? The interesting thing, a boat does not sink on the water. A boat sinks cuz water got put inside. Yeah. So if you have a strong enough boat and you can navigate that, the seas, it doesn't matter.

You you know this, it's like in the darkest of economies, most of the amazing companies were built. Yeah. All right. And it's amazing so that when you say, oh, it's too turbulent out there, I'm never gonna get things done. Usually most people, most companies, when it's turbulent, They shrink and they just hone in to make sure they can restore.

If you already have a strong boat, you're not shrinking. You're growing. And even in a bad economy, and when all these, your competitors are shrinking, you just take away their their clients. And so if you have a strong enough boat, I don't care what the economy is, you can navigate and get through the tough times.

You have to have a strong one. You have to make sure, and when I say strong, I don't mean just the systems. You better have a service in place that you produce value to people. If you don't produce value, why are you in business? If you are just doing something for sake of doing it so that you can make money, why?

You should have a value that you offer people and if your services are valuable enough, if your services are valuable enough, what happens is it's amazing What happens is that people don't ask about how much it costs. No. If you're getting them results and you're valuable to people, it doesn't matter.

Obviously you're not gonna rip people up While I'm saying it's like, You are going to your the amount of money that people will pay for your services and you give them value is so much more than if you just said, Hey look, this is my service. Take it or leave it. It's like any other service or it's all my other competitors.

Go ahead. You pick and choose. You're in trouble. But if you say, this is my service, and look at the value and the results that I'm gonna get for you, people aren't talking about money anymore. No, 

[00:40:33] Ryan: It's amazing. Boy, we could go on talking about this forever and ever.

Great conversation, but I gotta bring this plane in for a landing. So wrap it up here. What is the best place people can get ahold of you if they wanna work with you? Oh, absolutely. 

[00:40:50] Dennis: It's my website. Goals Two results to, so goals to results.com. And you're gonna see that boat I just talked about. It's prevalent everywhere.

There's places that you can sign up to. What I'd like to do is I say, how strong is your c r m? I'll give you a c CRM audit for free. So book a session with me and I'll be asking, trust me, just like I just said, when you book a session, it's going to be in my c r m, I'm gonna give you a preform to fill out.

I'm gonna know those answers to those questions. So when we hit the ground running on that free session, I'm gonna be asking about all this stuff and it's an audit of your current C R M and usually people aren't gonna be happy with that audit. Because I'm gonna poke holes in their crm. It's gonna be very easy for me.

Cuz most people, like I said, I'm not doing this to pat myself on the back. Most people don't either have a system, have a crm, or they don't use theirs effectively. So I will poke holes in it and then I'm not doing it just to say, Hey, look what I can do. I'm doing it. So I can say, look, if you're gonna use a C R M, please use the right one and do it.

Make sure that your C R M is a workhorse for you. And so then that's when I help and say, okay, I can make your C R M A warhorse and it will bring in revenue. Cause I know that for a fact because I'm gonna make it a warhorse. So that's on my website. You just go right there and sign up. And I 

[00:42:15] Ryan: will make sure we share your website in the show notes so everyone get ahold of you.

Sir, thank you so much for coming on. It's been a great conversation. You've highlighted some of the biggest struggles we as small business owners struggle with. And guys, if you're looking for somebody to work with, please work with Dennis. He's got all the right. He's got all the right tools, especially from a CRM perspective.

If you wanna automate it, put a system together, it's where you need to go. But he's also gonna help you get over that mountain into the next mountain. Sir, thank you for being pleasure. Thank you. Thank you for coming on all you take 

[00:42:51] Dennis: care. All right.