Chasing Financial Freedom
Entrepreneurial Insights: Overcoming Pitfalls and Maximizing Success with Scott Anderson
Want to learn from a seasoned entrepreneur and licensed mental health therapist? Join us as we sit down with Scott Anderson, a businessman who has launched and sold eight businesses, to discuss entrepreneurs' common pitfalls and challenges. Scott delves into his journey, offering invaluable insights into the dangers of micromanagement and the need for delegation. He encourages a shift in mindset, challenging the typical approach of working harder and harder without seeing different results. Scott also addresses an often-overlooked problem - the lack of leadership training in corporate America that contributes to the struggles of small business owners.
Dipping into the wisdom of Mike Michalowicz's book, 'Profit First', we highlight the importance of saving for taxes and managing overhead costs. But did you know profit is even important for non-profit organizations? Scott argues they should operate with a for-profit mentality to increase their effectiveness and impact. We then switch gears to discuss the crucial steps to help struggling entrepreneurs get back on track and rediscover their purpose and passion.
Lastly, we explore the dynamics of team hiring. Scott emphasizes creating systems and processes to help your team excel. We also discuss the Predictive Index Assessment tool, a revolutionary way to retain talent and maximize the unique skills within your team. We take a moment to find value in failure while wrapping up our chat. Scott encourages entrepreneurs to view setbacks not as the end but as a golden opportunity for growth and learning. So, tune in for a rich discussion with insights and practical advice you won't want to miss!
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Want to learn from a seasoned entrepreneur and licensed mental health therapist? Join us as we sit down with Scott Anderson, a businessman who has launched and sold eight businesses, to discuss entrepreneurs' common pitfalls and challenges. Scott delves into his journey, offering invaluable insights into the dangers of micromanagement and the need for delegation. He encourages a shift in mindset, challenging the typical approach of working harder and harder without seeing different results. Scott also addresses an often-overlooked problem - the lack of leadership training in corporate America that contributes to the struggles of small business owners.
Dipping into the wisdom of Mike Michalowicz's book, 'Profit First', we highlight the importance of saving for taxes and managing overhead costs. But did you know profit is even important for non-profit organizations? Scott argues they should operate with a for-profit mentality to increase their effectiveness and impact. We then switch gears to discuss the crucial steps to help struggling entrepreneurs get back on track and rediscover their purpose and passion.
Lastly, we explore the dynamics of team hiring. Scott emphasizes creating systems and processes to help your team excel. We also discuss the Predictive Index Assessment tool, a revolutionary way to retain talent and maximize the unique skills within your team. We take a moment to find value in failure while wrapping up our chat. Scott encourages entrepreneurs to view setbacks not as the end but as a golden opportunity for growth and learning. So, tune in for a rich discussion with insights and practical advice you won't want to miss!
Start for FREE
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
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It's Ryan Dement from Chasing Financial Freedom podcast. I hope you guys are having a great day. Today on the podcast we have Scott Anderson, serial entrepreneur, executive coach and licensed mental health therapist. Scott, welcome to the show. Thanks, ryan. Great to be here. Thanks for coming in. I know it was a little bit of a wait, but we'll get things started off. So, before we get into who you are and what you're doing, everybody, everyone knows I've got a dog moose. He's in the back barking, so we'll do some edits, but be patient with us. So, scott, tell us a little bit about who you are.
Speaker 2:As you said, I'm a serial entrepreneur. I've watched 10 companies and sold eight of them, and selling eight of them is the best part. It's like they say about your second best day is buying a boat. Your first best day is selling the boat, and I find it's like that with businesses too, and I've been an executive coach mainly for entrepreneurs with small to medium-sized businesses, so two to 20 million is my sweet spot in sales. I'm also a licensed mental health therapist. I started not-for-profit for military families recovering from PTSD about 15 years ago and as part of that I went back to graduate school.
Speaker 1:That's great. So I've got to ask the question you started eight businesses and sold all of them. Why start all of them and then sell them? Are they just not in love with them?
Speaker 2:As far as there's other thing, yeah, to be fair, two of them cratered, so selling them is probably a fair enough flattering me. What I find about me as an entrepreneur not everybody, but we tend to be very strong starters and not so great finishers. And just as a group and I know that about myself and a lot of the folks that I coach have the same sort of implement where they're just intensely white, hot, interested in something for a while. But the interest is has a beginning, middle and an end and in fact the worst mistake that I made in the business that I owned the longest was staying with it as long as I did. I should have left it to my partners, who are infinitely better at running it than I was five years before I left the business and in fact, when I thinking back on mistakes that I made, staying too long was one of the worst ones in that particular business. So I've just come to accept that in myself.
Speaker 1:So what mistakes are you referring to, other than staying too long? What would be some of those that you made along the way? Because we have a lot of entrepreneurs and small business owners that listen to the show.
Speaker 2:There are so many. This is why we say Swedish people have flat foreheads From smacking myself in the forehead. But I've made so many mistakes. The main mistake I think that I see over and over that I've made over my clients tend to make, is that we tend to do things over and over, expecting different results the definition of insanity. So we'll get a business that we with our entrepreneurial grit and will, if we get to start. We get it off the ground and it gets to two or three years and then it begins to plateau in some way or another and what was a great business is now only an okay business because the trajectory is leveled off. We can't get sales and profit to move, and so what most of us do and I did over and over is to work harder and harder and do mainly the same things again and again and again, expecting different results, and sales and profits would continue to be plateaued and I would work 50 hours, then 60 hours, then 70 hours, then 80 hours, and work myself into burnout. And that's one of the things that can make you want to get out of a business is working yourself into a whole, realizing that I was the problem. And in fact, in all of the mistakes I've made in business, all the business props I've had, 99% have been of my own making.
Speaker 2:But this is a classic one where the real answer was I needed to start working about 20 hours a week, but I needed to start doing things that would have an impact so I could delegate. I was micromanaging, I couldn't recruit and keep a team. I wasn't really good at systems and process, though I desperately needed it, and so I would make up for that or compensate for that by trying to do everything and not delegating anything, not really delegating anything and the business continued to. I've had this happen a couple of times.
Speaker 2:You'd think I'd learn, but that's that, and that creates a whole other chain of problems, because then you begin to look at your team and say, my God, I just can't hire good people. I hear that all the time there's just, with unemployment as low as it is, even though we're in a recession, I can't hire good people because and the truth is that people like me, entrepreneurs like me, even if I don't intend to, I drive them away by not being able to delegate really, genuinely delegate by continuing to micromanage, by continuing to hover, by having unrealistic expectations, by being unwilling to train people, really. So then I wonder why I can't keep people. And so there's a revolving door of talented people, and I'm still hammering my head against this plateau, this glass ceiling.
Speaker 1:Where do you think we get that from? Because that is a struggle that I spent before coming into our businesses. I've had two failed businesses before this. I attributed a lot of my failures was through corporate America never taught me how to be a great leader, taught me how to be a manager, never a great leader, and I think that's missing in the corporate world and maybe I'm wrong. I don't know, but I'm just talking for myself. But where we have these habits we pick up, we all pick them up somewhere. What's a common theme for us entrepreneurs, small business owners?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of it is.
Speaker 2:You're exactly right about the idea of being great doers but not great managers, and I don't know if anybody we created.
Speaker 2:Actually, in our practice, in our double-deer coaching practice, we developed specifically a leadership development process for small business doers that need to become leaders First the CEO, founder, but ultimately their teams and some people are naturally born with some skills, but most of us are not, and our skills as doers are the things that get us promoted to be leaders, and the difference between doership and leadership is it's a pretty big gulf, and so I think you're exactly right.
Speaker 2:There are some principles about leadership that come naturally to some people, but for most people, unfortunately, being a great salesperson or a great serviceperson doesn't mean you are necessarily a great leader of sales or service people, so it's a skill that most of us, I think, have to learn, and in most entrepreneurs cases, we learn it through a series of failures and figure out what didn't work. To a big degree, I think to your earlier question about why entrepreneurs tend to get this predictable ceiling is because our superpower, our ability to make something happen out of thin air, is a great skill, and the ability to get a business to 1 million or 2 million or 3 million in sales, mainly by bit exclusively of our own willpower. That's a superpower, but it's also kryptonite, as I'd like to say, and sooner or later, the very skill that got us to 2 or 3 or 5 million dollars in sales will be the exact thing that prevents us from scaling the business and turning it into something that's really livable and can break through those flat tones.
Speaker 1:There's a book out there and I'm sure you've heard of it, called Profit First, and I've read it several times. Have you heard of it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Mike McCallow, it's just fantastic. I practice a lot of those. He saved me for myself a lot of times.
Speaker 1:I actually just finished reading it for the third time because I'm embarking on something you've got in place already a nonprofit and I want to run my nonprofit in our real estate space like a for-profit and at the end of the world at the end of the world, geez boy, more coffee. At the end of the day, when we come to the end of our fiscal year, if we have monies left over and there's profit there, I want to use that to either help someone go through some financial coaching literacy Maybe we have enough money to where we could build a house for a family in need and show them how that works. There's just so many other things to do that to do through the nonprofit. But when you, I'm in a space where a lot of nonprofits work I'm in the affordable housing space and you should see how they run their businesses upside down. All they do is just get grants and dollars and they don't care how far they run it into the ground and they wonder why they can't help more people. It's crazy.
Speaker 2:Really true. In starting, I had been on the boards and board chairs of several not-for-profit organizations before starting my own, sida-1 C3, to help military families with PTSD, and really learned a lot about what the people who give money to not-for-profits, what they're looking at and most of them come from business. Let's face it, they made a lot of money somewhere and in a lot of cases. That's true. Yeah, we tried to run our not-for-profit in the flattest way we possibly could, with as little overhead as was humanly possible, because that's the thing that grandtowers hate and should hate is overhead. You're paying for the transformation, you're paying for the change in people's lives, but when you see a lot of officer salaries and rent, various overhead charges, as a grandtower, as a donor, I just I hate that. I think you're exactly right. Profit First is such a great book. I've read it a lot of times myself and all entrepreneurs should read that book.
Speaker 1:I love his saying in there and I'm probably going to get it wrong. I think he calls it entrepreneurial starvation or something to that extent where he wants to eliminate that altogether. The first two times I read it, most of it didn't even stick. I'm like, oh my God, this is so backwards from what we're taught. And now, the third time into it, it's oh wow, this all sticks. There's so many things I can do and how much more impact can I make if I truly put that profit first and take care of myself and then make sure that the business not running the business off of a small budget, but also, the same time as a lot of businesses, have some fat in their op-ex? Why can't you get rid of most of that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I discovered Profit First and Mike McCallowix's other books, but that one in particular. Just after I had one of those years that a lot of entrepreneurs have where you're ideally saving money to pay taxes but if you don't pay taxes until the end of the year, you sometimes get that dreaded phone call from the accountant that says good news and bad news. Good news is, boy, you had a great year, much better than we planned. Bad news is you owe the IRS $100,000 tomorrow. I hope you have that, the checking account, because you need to run a check over for $100,000. That happened once to me and I didn't have $100,000. Fortunately, I discovered Profit First shortly thereafter and I've never had a problem like that again. Again, we learn so much by our failures, but that's one thing that Mike McCallowix or Profit First can completely eliminate and also makes you focus on OPEX absolutely.
Speaker 1:Because in the space that we're in the real estate space, it's backwards to most service businesses because we're going to spend a lot of money up front to build a house and then make money on the back end. That back end is not all profit and until I saw that, let's say, we had $50,000 profit on a $50,000 gross on that house, still got to pay taxes, still got to pay owner distributions, there's still payroll, there's all this and an OPEX in there and when you start breaking that down, it's man, I was missing a lot of that and that's slowly but surely. We've done that over the last several years to get that together and then now I'm going to try to really implement it into that non-profit. But the question is and I want to get into your coaching and what you're doing, because it sounds like you're doing some pretty interesting stuff how do you take a business that's struggling in all those aspects and help that entrepreneur get back on track and find their passion and their purpose for why they started the business?
Speaker 2:Exactly, and this is the thing that seems so counterintuitive, in fact, to the point where a lot of entrepreneurs will just shake their heads and say that can't be possible.
Speaker 2:But the short version is that the way to make more is to work less, and for to break, it's definitely to break through a plateau, but if you're running your business by mainly working harder or worrying more, or both, we're never going to break through to a life worth living that way, and so the biggest switch is to help entrepreneurs see that 80% of what they do is not what they set out to do in the beginning, was not really the genius of their business, not the magic that made their business start, but that after two or three years, the 80% of what they do is really doing the work that they can't delegate or haven't been able to systematize or turn into a process, and so mainly what we want to do is to create a schedule that's completely flip flop, where, instead of doing 10% maybe of the things that only they can do that are really magical and that their customers love and their market loves, that really are transformational, we want to flip flop their schedule.
Speaker 2:So 80% of what they do in a day is in that genius zone and 20% or less ideally more like 10% has to do with tasks that are. The others generally can do better, faster and cheaper, and this is so counterintuitive that it really takes a desperate entrepreneur to begin to even look at it. It's very similar with profit. First, until you're in a lot of pain, you don't necessarily look at this.
Speaker 1:But it's after you realize after a while, that boy.
Speaker 2:My sales have not moved, my profit has not moved, but my life has moved. Now my children are needing to go to college one day, or we're wanting to have a vacation one of these days, or we want to retire one of these days, but our business is not growing along with our lifestyle. What am I going to do so that the biggest switch is to really identify what are the things that, as the entrepreneur, only you can do, that really move the needle, and almost always that involves on strategy and sales. Not always, but in most cases, the magic that the entrepreneur brings is in those areas, but they're at a point in their lives where they're spending 10 hours a week doing that and 60 hours a week doing tasks that others could do better, faster and cheaper and I lived that life in all.
Speaker 1:three of my businesses first failed, first two failed and now this one. When I first started is I was doing and this is not a bad knock, but I was doing $7 an hour work. I was posting social media stuff, I was doing blog posting, I was doing stuff to get our name out there, and it's I had to reinvent myself to learn all that stuff when I could have found somebody else to help me. And I would probably say two and a half, three years into this current business I finally realized that a strong VA that has the skill sets that I was looking for even if it took me weeks, if months to find the right person, was worth it. And now I'm working on a second VA, because my first VA is very good at video and I'm looking for somebody now can do social and really take us up another notch. And I don't want to do that. I want to work on the business, not in the business, and there's people out there that have better skills than I do. I know that.
Speaker 2:I'm not offended, no, absolutely. When I'm honest with myself and most of my entrepreneurial clients, there's really two or three things that they do that nobody else can do, but which is which also accounts for the trajectory of the business and the fact that it's survived and thrive for two, three, four, five years. But there's only two or three things. Really, it isn't 20 things, that isn't even 10. You see, it's I don't know between two and five things that the founder does that are truly important and really do move the needle. But if we only spend 10% of our day doing those magical things, we're never going to make any progress. And it's one of the things I found is a lot of people realize, okay, I have to hire a team, and more and more people are hiring virtual assistants or executive assistants or what have you, which can be great leverage. But what I've heard a lot of my clients say is, yeah, but I keep firing people that fail or I can't find. They say I can't find people that really work.
Speaker 2:One of the things that we take our clients through we have a program called CEO Freedom. One of the things that we take our clients through is a process that will help actually give them technology so they can predict with 90% accuracy how folks are really going to show up at the job. Because most of us have such strong interview bias, we tend to hire people we like or people who are like us, and those people tend to wipe out because people like us aren't good at the details you just described. But that's the main thing, because a lot of people know, yeah, I've got to get a VA, I've got to get a team, I've got to introduce systems or processes, but they also they've tried and failed a lot of times and mainly it's because they don't have a technically model in order to hire the right people for the right job and then to manage them in a way that's that will retain them and actually make them love to come to work every day.
Speaker 1:It's an SOP, really standard operating procedure. If you don't have it in place, how are you supposed to bring somebody in to do that role, to support you, one but two, to excel at the role and then want to stay, and I failed at that many times along this path, this journey.
Speaker 2:And also to create KPIs or other quantitative measures. So the end more importantly, in a way, your partner knows, your team member knows whether they're actually fulfilling the requirements of the job in a measurable, indisputable, quantifiable way. Unfortunately, as entrepreneurs we have this sort of gut instinct sometimes that they're not measuring up or they don't do it like we would do it, and we lose confidence in them and our employees feel that. But if we can instead really measure are they doing what we hired them to do, then it really does take away a lot of those management mistakes.
Speaker 1:It's amazing because you talked about something that I've focused on a lot and I've struggled with was hiring people that are different than you, with different skill sets. It's a tough struggle out there, but the second person I hired was opposite of me and total introvert not an operator, really was about the numbers, but also had a different type of background when it came to housing. It's amazing, just a whole different mindset of how he sees the business, the world and how he approaches our projects. He's like my yin to my yang, yin-yang type of thing. But the thing I talk about is, if you surround it you've said this you surround yourself with people that are like you, you're just going to get the same results over and over again definition of insanity. But if you start adding, just dropping some of those different people into your space, watch your business grow, and we truly have seen that happen. But I'm backing up to this long question is why are we so afraid to bring in individuals that are different than us in our business?
Speaker 2:I think that part of it is that we don't have the tools. Most entrepreneurs don't have the tools, which is why, in our CEO freedom program, one of the things that we bring to the party is performance projection technology. In our case, we use predictive index, but what it tells you is, first of all, it helps you create a model so that you can identify, first of all, the things that you're best at, but also, most importantly, the places where you're weak and the places where you really need to help, and we can create a online model for what that yang looks like that's different than you. Then we can create a job description out of that. But, more importantly, we can create an online assessment that the individual can take so that we know with 90% accuracy whether they can actually show up and be that person.
Speaker 2:And this is the problem with interviewing is that most entrepreneurs are not great interviewers. In fact, most people aren't great interviewers. So one of the things predictive index helps us do is to discern, with 90% accuracy and, using a really great technology, to tell us will these people actually show up on the job and perform the way we need them to or not, notwithstanding how they interview or even what the resume says. So, mainly, I found that entrepreneurs know in their hearts that they just are great interviewers, and they've had failure after failure. So we try to give them tools that will give them confidence to make decisions with greater accuracy and projectability.
Speaker 1:Without giving away your secret sauce, whatever. What's predictive index? It sounds very exotic and very cool, so I have to ask a little bit.
Speaker 2:Sure, sure, check out predictiveindexcom. Okay, so today it's a technology that we've used for a long time and there are a number of performance projection instruments that are available today. The reason we use predictive index is that it's been in business for geez, almost 16 years, I think, or no, yeah, about 60 years. And the reason that's important is because they have analyzed more potential hires and then done the back end correlative studies to see how they actually did perform or they actually did get in the job, and that's the key. The correlative studies are what gives predictive index the statistical projectability that it has, and that's the key to it.
Speaker 2:There are a number of online instruments that are available today, but what's important is that in predictive index case, it's the most statistically projectable one therein. In fact, they have done north of 50 million assessments. They've evaluated 50 million potential employees and done over 500 correlative studies in the back end, which makes it so much more projectable, and it also means it's EOC compliant. So the Labor Department will allow you to use tools like this because they're so accurate to hire and fire people. But this takes the guesswork out of it, and I think that's the main thing I found is not to program was I. Just I knew my gut instinct was terrible. I could see it in the bat, in the wrong hire over and over again, but I didn't see any way to get out of it.
Speaker 1:So Predictive Index, I'm guessing it sounds like something that's like the disk method. It's just on steroids, so it's a little bit more in-depth.
Speaker 2:It's yeah, it's in some way. Disk probably is a sort of a grandchild of Predictive Index. Disk is not EEOC compliant. It's very good, but it's not EEOC compliant because they don't have enough back-end projection or projectability and correlative studies. So disk is great, but I prefer Predictive Index because it is the most accurate instrument on the market and when, as a result, the our clients can hire with great confidence.
Speaker 2:Predictive Index assessments also give you coaching and management, like scouting reports that tell you here's how you need to coach, like you mentioned, the VA you hire that's introverted and different from you.
Speaker 2:Managing that person is way different than managing somebody like you or me, where we can talk about it and you up it up and pat each other on the back. That's not going to work with an introvert, and so one of the things PI gives you and our clients get as a result is this is a, a management guide basically, that tells you step by step here's how to coach and lead these people, because they're different than you are and the things that would be meaningful to you aren't going to be meaningful to them, and that's the key. The whole problem right now is how do we first of all identify great talent and recruit them, but, more importantly, how do we retain them? So many of my clients complain of a revolving door where they train people up, they polish up their resume and then they're gone. So the key really is not just identifying these rock star people that are different than we are, but then to keep them over time where they can become more and more about, and that's where most of us fall down.
Speaker 1:Oh God, we fall down so many times on that. But I've got an off, kind of off the beaten path question Can you use predictive index to potentially use it to a contractor? When I say a contractor, is it only?
Speaker 2:Is it not only no, any kind of relationship, any kind of business relationship, but can help you find it, can help you choose an attorney or an account. They'll be a little surprised.
Speaker 1:Are you really Absolutely?
Speaker 2:absolutely. They may not be willing to do it, but it really helps. It really helps with communication, for example. Most entrepreneurs are good with big ideas and big concepts, but we have trouble landing the planes. So most of us do need people who are SOP oriented, detailed oriented, et cetera. If that's what you need in an accountant, an editorial or any other contractor online that you would find online at Fiber, let's say it's a great way to find out what's going on with those people, how to work with them not necessarily manage them as employer, but how to be a good partner with them.
Speaker 2:The other thing that this tool does that's really important is, if you've had enough people, do a PI. One of the things is that we can identify people who you've hired and have failed, who have taken a PI, and we know what that template is or what that model is, and we can be sure not to hire someone who has that profile. By contrast, we can identify your rock stars and get a given role, let's say, editing and once we know what their PI profile is, then we can try to hire against that profile, and so it allows us to clone not really, but clone people to understand what their unique skills are and to hire them right on the button. That gives you so much more hiring confidence on the, and when you match that with the job description, then your chances of retaining that person are much, much greater.
Speaker 1:Wow, I'm going to take a look at that because I just thought of, because we go through realtors a lot. It's just nothing. I'm not trying to say bad things, but some have better work ethic than others and I need to find those individuals because there's some inter-properties.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. There are some realtors that are way extroverted in their people but terrible as detail, or maybe are terrible with their persistence and their sort of drive day after day. But you can definitely do that. Have your favorite realtor, take a PI assessment and then you'll know the profile that works best for you and for your company and your culture. That's one of the most important things about PI is that it's not, you know, there isn't just one kind of realtor that succeeds, but there's probably one that does best in your company and in your culture and that's what PI can tell you.
Speaker 1:Is the test itself or the platform, is it? I'm guessing it's like disk you have to pay per assessment. Or is there some other route? Or is it cost prohibitive for smaller businesses?
Speaker 2:It may be cost prohibitive for some businesses At least. If you want, you can leave my email in the show notes and if anybody wants to know more about it, I'm happy to explain it, or we could talk offline too. Yeah, for the average small business it's probably cost prohibitive. It depends on how many employees you have and on how many people you need to interview and hire a year. Probably speaking, you need probably north of 50 a year for it to be cost effective, but this is a tool that I can provide for my clients in a way that is cost effective.
Speaker 1:Interesting. I love that. I'll have to check it out and we'll talk offline and go through.
Speaker 2:I'd love to.
Speaker 1:That would be great. So a little bit more about what you're doing on the coaching side. What is your typical client profile and where they add in this whole sphere of entrepreneurship or small business owner?
Speaker 2:Sure, we've already described the experience both you and I have had, where you have a good idea and buy willpower and sweat and midnight oil. You get the business to a couple of million dollars and you're pinching yourself. You're happy, but you realize that on the other hand, you're a little bit trapped and that what was just miraculous for you to be able to start a business is now feels like a little bit of a trudge. The clients that I typically work with they are entrepreneurs. They have small to medium sized businesses and they typically get stuck someplace in the two to $10 million range where the business is good and they're grateful, but it's not as good as it could be or maybe as they originally envisioned. What they especially notice is that the role they're playing in it isn't as much fun as it was.
Speaker 2:As one of my clients said, it's become adult daycare, if that resonates for you at all. You're the sort of person that I work for, where it's pretty good but it could be a lot better, especially if you find that either sales or profits or market share are starting to plateau where the trajectory that used to be straight up has leveled off. If you're in that kind of a spot, and especially if you're getting tired or you've ever said I feel burned out, then that's the sort of person I want to talk to.
Speaker 1:How are your clients? And you said it earlier we're in a recession. I agree with you. There's so much going on there. How does that affect your client base in future business? Are more small business owners reaching out?
Speaker 2:What I'm finding is that there are some businesses that are interest rate sensitive and they definitely have some issues Generally feeling or finding that the recession is overblown. Really, most of my clients their industries are okay. The biggest problem that they're having is that they are unable to find and to retain the people that they really need to propel their business through a plateau. That's the biggest single problem. I'm in Omaha, nebraska, where the unemployment is, I think, number two in the country at under 3% it's like 2.4%. You can't find anybody to do anything. That's the biggest problem I found with most of my clients is talent. Number one is finding the people. Number two even worse is keeping the people. If you have a revolving door of employees that don't work out generally, I found part of the problem is that you're not defining the role in enough detail, but you're also not. The process of recruiting and interviewing is off. That's why you're not just not getting the people, but you're not retaining the people. That seems to be the area that's hurting my clients the most right now is that they just can't seem to get enough traction to grow to the next level. The other problem that I'm finding I don't know if your clients are seeing this in the real estate business. You may see this. I've got clients that are developers and of multi-family and things like that.
Speaker 2:Their biggest problem is insurance. Yes, we've got clients in the Midwest who used to be insured for one big hailstorm a year or maybe one every two years, but now they're having three major hailstorms a year and the underwriter or the carriers are saying pass, we're going to get out of the market. You see this in Florida and California, but you also see it nationwide. If you're in a business that requires you to have insurance for natural disaster, that's becoming prohibitively expensive. I've got one multi-family client who all state or state farm. One of them came to him and said okay, we'll give you a policy, but you have to have a $200,000 per incident deductible. That's not insurance, that's self-insurance. I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:No, it's mostly workforces much bigger problem than anything else right now.
Speaker 1:That's just a lot. We're going to get right, but I got to learn to speak English again. Guys, we're going to wrap this up, but I just had one other question. Is the workforce aspect in being able to get the traction on the front end and then also keeping them on the back end? Any of that related to that C word we have going around before COVID, the pandemic? Or you just think that's just a hiring issue, or both? I don't know.
Speaker 2:What we know from the Gallup people is that an astonishingly high percentage of the American workforce says that they feel mostly or always burned out. It's 77%. One of the biggest things that we just have to do and most people expected it to go down when COVID ended if it has ended last year but it didn't go down. In fact, it went up. People are feeling more burned out now, post COVID if that's a thing than they were before.
Speaker 2:One of the things that we have to contend with.
Speaker 2:We don't necessarily have to agree with it or disagree with it, but one of the things we have to contend with as employers is we've got a workforce that's very sensitive to, especially the millennial workforce, which is most of the workforce, is very sensitive to and likely so in a lot of cases to how they are treated, the experience they have, et cetera.
Speaker 2:In a lot of cases, they're not willing, as my generation was, to trade time for money at any cost. One of the things that we really work with our clients is to give them management leadership skills that work with the current workforce. Part of that is putting the right people in the right seats of the bus and being confident when you hire them to do that, but also to know what works. Our leadership development program, for example, is specifically designed toward managing the millennial workforce and also training millennials to manage other than millennial, because it's not the same at all as it used to be. It's very important to get that right. There are nuances that are. I find that's maybe the biggest single challenge that our clients are having today.
Speaker 1:Wow, we can unpack so much there. There's so much going on in this space and there's so many things that entrepreneurs go through the best way. Someone can reach out to you or channel if they want to work with you.
Speaker 2:Go to DoubleDareU, which is DoubleDareus, and information about everything we talked about is there. If you'd like to talk about predictive index, about our CEO freedom program or anything like that, you can schedule an appointment right there on the site.
Speaker 1:Great. I will also link it in the show notes. I'll put that in there instead of your email address so they can reach out to you there. Probably that, yeah, okay, perfect, sir, thank you for coming on the show. It's been an honor and also it's just been so great to have you share your information with the listeners.
Speaker 2:My pleasure, Ryan. Thank you.
Speaker 1:But also you've gone through the same thing some of us have also gone through is the failure and so forth, and that humbles us, but it also is a lot of learning experience out of that and I thank you for sharing that knowledge and experience with the listeners my pleasure, thank you, ryan. All right, thank you.
