Navigating Entrepreneurial Pitfalls: Lessons Learned from Small Business Struggles with Scott Goodrich

Tim: Hello, welcome to The Control Your Cash Podcast and it is our pleasure to have Scott Goodrich. Scott is a business consultant and the name of his business is grow your damn business. But on top of that, he and his wife own a business called get your damn haircut. And Scott’s going to share with us his unique story, uh, his entrepreneurial journey. What that led him to and more importantly, what were some of the pitfalls that he had experienced? Scott, welcome to our show.

Scott: Thank you so much for the intro and thanks for having me. Looking forward to it. Tim Olivia. Nice to see you today. Thanks for having me.

Olivia: pleased to see you as well, Scott.

Tim: So Scott, tell us about, you know, you worked in the corporate world and tell us what you were going through, you know, sort of like the gestation of, you know, you get your job, you’re, you’re working in the corporate world. You think this is the greatest thing since sliced bread. And then And you know, what were the sort of red flags or the things that you had seen that said, you know, this ain’t my cup of tea.

Scott: Yeah, that it’s interesting because I had done a lot of entrepreneurial things as a teenager and coming up and then got into college and You know, a lot of the folks around me were accountants and accountants get jobs out of college, and I’m looking around going, what am I going to do, right? I didn’t really have that, that set plan.

My degree was in political science, which a lot of times leads to law school. It’s what my father did, uh, can lead to a lot of things. Well, for me, it led to a sales job because I wasn’t ready to go out on my own. So starting in sales and then, uh, made a pivot, uh, from sales, um, into sales leadership and then ultimately onto the operations side and just sort of worked my way through a couple different companies.

Moving my way up there. Uh, so kind of left that entrepreneurial thing behind me. Um, in the mid, around 2015, 2016 Um, I took, you and I were talking before we got started here, I took one of those those hits to the gut, if you will, and got, was in the middle of a company reduction and realized, although I had a job and a paycheck, it’s not that security that comes with that necessarily. Right, just because you have that all the time, right, there’s always that chance it could happen. And so when that ended, I said, how would I get more control of what I’m doing? So I had some money that I could invest and so made the decision to invest into a franchise opportunity labeled as or marketed as, um, absentee CEO, right?

The old passive income marketing. So. Mistake number one. There is no such thing as absentee CEO. There is no such thing as passive income. So, right there. Uh, so, so that, that’s learning right about. And, and we love the concept. The concept was based out of Portland, Oregon at the time and had a really good footprint in the, in the upper northwest.

So Portland and Seattle were the, were sort of the anchors of the franchise. And my wife and I just loved, loved the concept and thought it had legs. And, and the team that was leading it really had a really great story to tell. So it was easy for us to track in there, but the operating model was, was not what we expected.

So, uh, lesson number two on that is that the operating model that we were handed was, uh, was, was not ready for prime time. And unfortunately, I was trying to take some things that I learned from leading larger companies and larger teams into running a small business. Well, that doesn’t work either, right?

It’s good knowledge, like I was. I don’t know, a smart guy or smart enough guy, but it wasn’t knowledge that was gonna help me get this business started in the way that it should have. And so, uh, those first few years were painful, to say the least, trying to Be an absentee CEO without a straight operating model is just, it was a lot of, um, earning money on one side and, uh, and putting it back into the business to just keep it afloat on the other side.

Uh, you know, really treading water and, uh, on certain months drowning, um, you know, operating in the red all too often.

Tim: So that’s a struggle that a lot of small business owners work with, which is the cash flow issue. Uh, we commissioned a research report. There’s over a million dollars worth of research, and it came back with what we refer to as the three disturbing trends that threaten small business owners and put the next generation at risk. But the number one trend, as you probably know, is cash flow. And it seems that, according to Intuit, 61 percent of small business owners struggle with cash flow issues. 69 percent of small business owners either admitted to sleeping less or losing sleep due to cash flow concerns. Now I’ve worked with small business owners in the financial services sector for 38 years and here’s what I found Scott, every one of those cash flow issues was self inflicted meaning that it wasn’t the amount of revenue.

that the company had that was holding them back or was creating their cash flow issues. It was literally how they were using their money. I call that the financial golf swing. And when you utilize, when you’re using the club properly in golf, it’s a beautiful thing. You hit these straight, beautiful shots. And, but when you’re not using the club properly, it could get ugly, as we all know. But the point is, how you’re using your money is way more effective than where your money is. And that’s what we teach our clients. We teach them how to utilize their cash flow in a much better way. But one of the things, the unique things that I liked about your story, uh, share with our audience. What your budget was as far as, you know, your, your revenue and, and, or I’m sorry, your overhead. And where were you from a cash position? Because that was the thing in our pre call that really stood out and struck me.

Scott: Yeah, so I, I, let, let me admit to a few things here. So, uh, shortly after, uh, Deciding to, to build, to go into this franchise world and take this on because it wasn’t well run and because we were running in the red and my wife was already working full time. She had never stopped working. I actually went back and got a JOB because I needed to find a way to bring some more cash to the table.

So mistake number one is I went out and tried to find a salary that was going to allow me to keep this business going. So now when I say I’m literally moving money from one pocket to the other, right, it’s going in one pocket and going out. The other side because I thought that was the answer. I wasn’t fixing the fundamental challenges in the business So tim your point is spot on I wasn’t actually addressing The the the illness right?

I was on a symptom. Oh, let me just find a way to mark money I’m sure it’ll be better next month. Right and then i’m sure it’ll be the next month. So that’s that’s a wish That’s a hope that’s not a plan Right. So, so, and that kept going and going. And the irony, Tim, that I shared with you here is it’s a haircut and color retail storefront, right?

So we got it internet proof, right? You cannot take your haircuts online. So really thought that was great. Not pandemic proof. So, right as we’re getting into March, and, you know, we had been on the struggle bus for some time, just as I’m describing here, with expenses outweighing revenues, weren’t quite hitting the market, we thought we were in a good location, but we hadn’t hit it yet.

And so, we went into the pandemic really struggling and doing this kind of dance with, okay, we’ll make a little money here, but then we’ve got to put it back in, or I have to invest more personal money from a savings account into this thing. And then the pandemic hit and of course we had to shut down that was mandated by the state and we went back and look my wife and I did just recently and in our bank account at the beginning of the pandemic, we were down to 230 in our in the bank account to finance this this business and it’s all W2 employees, you know, we’re not renting chairs.

We actually are paying people to do this and you’ve got to have coverage. The model for this was a walk in business, which means you had to have people on An hourly rate, hourly plus commission, but they had to be there in case someone did walk in. So we had no idea, no predictability. We all, all we know is we had to have people there.

Do we have to have two people there? Do we have to have six people there? You never knew, right? Because we didn’t have a really good insight into that thing. I mean, it was just a lot of flawed fundamentals that sitting here today seems so obvious, but when you’re in the middle of it. And I wasn’t doing the right things.

I wasn’t reaching out to anybody. We weren’t getting all the support from the franchise from an operations side. Like, literally, we were looking for a lifeline, couldn’t find it. We weren’t aggressive in going to look at it and just said, Well, we’ll just keep kind of charging and working on this one side in order to see if this thing will ever kind of catch fire magically.

Um, so, a lot of bad stuff going on in those first three years of this little venture that we were on.

Tim: So how did you and your wife manage to work your way through that, get through it. What did you come upon or what ideas were you able to implement that got you through all of the mud, if you will. Could, could,

Scott: to heart talks. You talked about losing sleep about cash. Well, we simply lost sleep. Do we even want to open this thing up? Do we just take all of the losses that we’ve incurred thus far and close the door and deal with it? Like a lot of businesses did in the pandemic. There’s a lot of restaurants that went that way.

A lot of retail storefronts like that. Tim, Olivia, I’m not telling you guys anything you don’t know. You probably had clients or people that you know that went through that same, same journey.

Tim: could I share some data with you?

Scott: Please, let’s do it.

Tim: uh, 40 percent of all retail businesses. That closed during the pandemic, reopened. And I really think, and some of those businesses were third and fourth generation businesses. It is a sin. You know, listen, the pandemic was bad enough. But the state’s response to the pandemic Was a crime against humanity.

And it’s really a shame what they did to small business owners.

Olivia: Yeah, and at the end of the day, the small business owner is the backbone of the U. S. economy, right? And to Scott’s point, you know, there were struggles going on before that pandemic, and it pushed so many people over that edge that there was no return. You know, so a lot of people get into the small business like Scott was mentioning for that sense of freedom, for that sense of control, for that sense of, you know, being in charge of your own destiny.

And, you know, it’s, it’s not easy. It doesn’t come with an owner’s manual. Um, there’s a lot of things that have to be learned on the fly. And, you know, if you’re not going for those efficiencies along the way, it could be a real struggle. You know, especially when push comes to shove and then. The world shuts down.

Scott: Yeah, yeah, guys, guys are spot on, right? And look, this. We only had so much influence. We had o over the, the state and what was going on there. And I, I think obviously uncharted waters decisions that, that were being made, you know, that, that were impacting folks. You know, we could probably talk for hours on that.

You know, that’s, that didn’t even sweat that so much. It, we just took a person say, you know, what is going to happen here? What, what is it, what are we going to do? Because this is our money , our savings that have, and the investment that we made. What, what are we going to do here? And so this is where I have to give all the credit to my wife, who decided no, and she, she’ll be the first to tell you, she’s stubborn, and when she decides she’s going to dig into something, she digs in.

So she made the decision that, ironically, she had left her previous job before the pandemic hit by just a couple days. We had no idea what was coming, but she had just, that had run its course, it had been 20 plus years, and she was going to do something different. Well, the pandemic hit. She, we weren’t just, we were

She said, okay, I’m gonna take this challenge on, like, I’m going to dig in both hands and figure out how, how to get this, get this back going. So we took this challenge and, and found the gift in the challenge. She, she dug in despite it’s not what she wanted to do, but realized we could change our operating model.

Some of it was required, so we went from walk-ins to appointments. Right. That was the first thing to control it. The second thing is we reduced our hours. Right. Big operational change. The operating model of that franchise, and I know it sounds silly, was to be open for a long period of time so that you could take people when they wanted to come in and you’d have this walk in traffic.

All sounds well and good, but if you don’t have a big clientele and you’re open for 12 hours, that’s tough on staff. It was a money suck. It was just dragging money out. So we said, no, we’re going to control the flow, appointment only. Concentrate the clients, right? Those are the first things. We changed the way that we compensated folks so that they would win when we won, right?

So that was an incentive for them to get on board, work their social media accounts, bring in their clients there, right? And then we dug into the real. So, I would just, we went micro on the business and really started to identify those areas where there was real leakage, what was going on, where could we make moves and just kept tweaking and tweaking and tweaking and, oh, we have this challenge, we can do this here and oh, this is the one marketing source that’s really working for us, so let’s stop throwing stuff against the wall and concentrate dollars here.

We just got smart. The sad part of this is that we just weren’t getting any of this information from our franchisor, so, you know, I. If you find the right franchisor, there is that playbook that’s given from an operational side. But if you find the wrong one, they’re really good in the marketing side. But the, the operating playbook for a new startup of a, of a location is not there ’cause they, they’re at a different stage or they wouldn’t be franchising. They’ve got a mature business. And, and so we rewrote the playbook for ourselves. We rewrote the operational manual operational playbook and, and it, we, it, it just started to hit for us. We started to realize we could. We could maximize and optimize this opportunity and actually opening less, concentrating more, and that began the road back.

And we started to see real inroads, um, as we got into the summer and then into the fall of 2020, sort of post the pandemic. And it’s been nothing but a straight upward trajectory since that time, uh, to a remarkable degree, actually.

Tim: So that’s a great point. You know, you, it seems like you. Part of your DNA was this entrepreneurial spirit. And you sort of abandoned it when you got into the corporate world. But that’s a fire that it’s either in you or it isn’t. And it was clearly in you and that led you to, okay, wanting to be in business for yourself, control your own destiny.

And, you know, getting in on the franchise side is usually a good idea because theoretically the franchise or has. everything figured out and he’s gonna, or they’re going to, uh, hand you over the key, so to speak of a turnkey operation. But what you realized probably too late, you know, there’s an old Dutch saying that, you know, too old, too fast, too smart, too slow.

And what happened is you realize, you know, we don’t have the support here that we need. And in,

Scott: to hear that, but that’s what was going on. I don’t think it was, you know, intentional, obviously as a franchisor you want your franchisees to succeed. It was just what had worked for them at the time that they were building the business out in their home market was just different than opening up with no brand recognition in a new market.

Those are just two different things. And so what worked in one wasn’t going to work in the other and I just don’t think the playbook was, was adopted or adapted. I should say adapted for, for opening in new markets. And then we compounded the problem by not doing the right thing. Tim, it’s funny you mentioned, I’m going to, I’m going to be critical of myself here.

Because, yes, I say, I’ve done entrepreneurial things and I’m on to a couple other ventures even since the, um, since the haircut business got, got going. But an entrepreneur keeps going in the face, even when things are challenging. And what I did was went back to work. So I, I do challenge myself. Like, do I, is that, so the spirit is there, but is it like, there are some folks that I talked to, I’m sure that you do, they couldn’t imagine working for anybody else. They couldn’t, they can’t bring themselves, even when times are at their worst, that, that confidence, that, that crazy. Irrational belief that they’re going to get it turned around exists. If I’m going to be honest with myself, I’m not sure that’s all there. We’ve made a go of it through stubbornness and stick to it ness and all those characteristics. But it’s funny, you know, Gino Wickman, the author of the book, and I’ve used this on my podcast a little bit and share it with you. He believes that all entrepreneurs are born not made. You either got it or you don’t. Now, you can still run a business out there, but he says the true entrepreneurial spirit, the true entrepreneur, is born and can’t think of doing anything else ever.

And anything else that they’re doing is just fake because they always are going to go back to the roots. And so I wrestle with this one just as I go back and forth and I, and I appreciate what we’ve done and really what my wife has been able to do and build this and I give her all that credit for it.

But that’s just pure stick to it ness. I don’t know if that’s that internal thing. So this is my internal debate. You’re getting a little bit into my brain here. This

Tim: not intentionally, Scott, but, uh, but you know, you, so let’s, let’s sort of pivot. So, so you, you and your wife worked your way through this, figured it out and then put yourselves in a position to profit from that. And then you had mentioned the book. We didn’t mention the title. It’s it’s traction.

Scott: Traction, yeah, that’s the book that all of EOS is based on, and the book that Gino wrote, you know, over a million copies out there, you know, for any entrepreneur, a must read. Just gotta read it. You don’t have to do all of it, you don’t have to get a coach, but you’re gonna grab something from it. So if you haven’t read it yet, you’re running a small business, spend a couple hours, read the book.

Pay attention to what’s in there. Like there’s some real gold in there and then you can figure out what works for you from there.

Tim: Exactly. So for, for our listeners out there, EOS means entrepreneurial operating system. And Scott is a implementer for EOS. So Scott share with us how you came about EOS, how you became certified or, uh, you know, uh, Registered to be an implementer and how that helps entrepreneurs.

Scott: Yeah, I appreciate your letting me do that. So the journey to EOS for me comes in three parts. And part of the story that they just heard is a big part of that. It’s just lessons learned and not wanting others to go through what I did. Whether you’re into a franchise or doing it on your own and bringing those to the table.

Uh, the second part of it is just this coaching gene that seems to run. I’ve been doing coaching in one aspect or another for seemingly 30 plus years, whether it was in that corporate world, doing mentoring, being part of internal company mentoring programs. I’ve created training classes for new managers as they’re coming through.

I love to see people succeed. Um, I took a turn for three, four years in college and shortly thereafter I was a basketball coach. Like, I, that’s, that’s just part of who I am and I, and I enjoy that. And that’s very much what an implementer does is just help to coach small business owners through some of these challenges.

So those are those, those two pieces there. The third piece is really just a, you know, I’ve been in operations and execution for a lot of years and there’s a lot of things that I’ve learned. from that about getting stuff done. So you kind of take this execution arm, which is really what EOS is. It’s about execution, right?

The word systems in there has nothing to do with I. T. It is about executing with discipline and accountability each and every day. So you got execution, you got coaching. So I try to bring that to clients and then obviously sharing the, the story that I, that I have around my own business and, and say, hey, here’s some things not to do.

It’s the best teacher, right? When you fail and struggle, it’s the best teacher. Just trying to impart some of that and say, hey, here’s a potential pitfall, here’s a potential area of concern. Let’s get ahead of it or let’s plan for it. Um, let’s be intentional around what the next steps are as opposed to being reactive.

And to me, that’s really the most important thing that I can bring to anyone that’s got a small business and is struggling and trying to figure out a different way forward.

Olivia: Yeah, absolutely. So, um, tell us a little bit about, so did you come into the EOS system through, through the book? Um, is that where you first were introduced? And then how did you decide that it was something that you wanted to, you know, do and bring to other people? You know, what connected with you there?

Um,

Scott: then what I know now, uh, cause I wouldn’t have had all those struggles and we wouldn’t be having a story about my, my limited bank account. Uh, cause, cause now that you’re sort of in the ecosystem of EOS, it’s very clear that there’s some really basic things that every entrepreneur should be doing.

Whether they’re using EOS another system, but there’s some really fundamental stuff. Um, so ironically, yes, I did come to it academically, right? I was talking to some folks about what I wanted to do next and The things that I had done and tell my story a little bit it those that were in the know said hey You need to read a couple books See what this is like see if this resonates with you and it and it absolutely did so the minute I read traction and then the follow up rocket fuel Which, which is about how, uh, uh, the, the first and second command.

So the owner and founder, then his or her second in command, how they interact with one another. But that combination of books really lays out the path for any entrepreneur to follow to really fulfill on what they originally set out to do in their business. And so when I read those books, I’m like, Oh, well, that’s me.

That’s the things that I really believe in. I’ve been doing many of them. I haven’t been using the same terminology. necessarily, but it just so that came together nicely. And then it said, well, hey, I can go out and coach. And now we’re back to being out in your own again. So I left that W two world again and that J.

M. E. One said, I’m gonna do this on my own. And I would say that the the beautiful thing is what E. U. S. Is constructed. Yes, the anyone that coaches with the U. S. We are franchise owner. So here I am once again in a franchise world, but they actually do have the playbook. The process is to because No kidding, right?

They run on EOS. So, EOS runs on EOS, so there’s actually a proven

Olivia: what they preach,

Scott: Imagine that. Yeah, walk the walk, talk the talk, right? So, uh, that’s exactly what’s doing so. And jokingly, my wife who really has the reins of the haircut franchise, you know, she looks at it and goes, well, that’s kind of laid out a little better than what we had, right?

You may have gotten the better of the two franchises in terms of how we spend our time. Um, and credit to EOS for what’s been built out. So that platform is there. Now, you have the tools. Now it’s about meeting a client, making sure it’s a good match, and seeing if my personality and my story resonates with them in an effort to help them, and that’s a process that we go through with every client.

Oftentimes a client will talk to multiple implementers in trying to find the right person for their situation, because it’s a personality match as much as is, I like EOS or I don’t like EOS, right? So we want to have both those things, and that’s the process that we go through. We now run our business on EOS and I can tell you we have, we’ve exceeded even our expectations in what we could do with our business after running it on EOS the last year.

The things that we now do, the decisions we now make, the lens in which we view our business through, even now is dramatically different than it was just 12, 14 months ago. Um, because of, of what we’ve been able to, to bring into the business and how we run it now using all of the tools and techniques that are part of EOS and as we were just reflecting this actually had our kind of a year in review of what we did and like, wow, we do a lot of things really, really well right now that, um, that we can attribute to the framework and the system in quotation marks that is EOS and how it lays out You know, here’s the, here’s the way that you want to run this business day in and day out.

Really is, I can attribute a lot of our success in the last 12 months to those techniques that are in there. I can now be a walking advertisement for how effective this can be for a small business owner. 

Tim: And that’s the best advertisement, right? I mean, because nothing could replace experience.

Scott: yeah. And a lot of folks that are implementers. Come from companies that were running on EOS. So their story is very closely tied to it. So they are working for a company They’re either on the leadership team Maybe they own the company or but they say boy this what EOS did for me I want to share with others so that spirit of taking what’s learned and sharing with others that is present across 720 EOS implementers across the globe.

Like that, that is very, anyone you talk to is going to have that same thing. And whether you came to EOS through the book or through a company you worked in, or through someone that referred you, or you were friends with someone else that was doing this, there is this, this genuine tie to the power of the tool, right?

And really put in the end, really truly understanding that this is, this is fundamental change in how you run your business. But if you do follow and do dig in and are willing to do the work when you come out on the other side You’re gonna have what you want from your business whether that is to get it ready for sale Get it ready for the next generation Tim as you mentioned, right?

So so being able to continue it on there, whether it’s just to grow to the next level Maybe it’s I want to keep it running, but I actually do want to have more time So I’m spending 80 hours in this business and I just want to spend 30, right? I’ve done 10 years of 80 hours or 8 years of 80 hours. How do I stop being in it for 80 hours?

Well, there’s a lot of things that we do in the U. S. to reduce that time in there and make it more fulfilling and maybe have it be what you want it to be, which was flexible and be proud of what you built and creating opportunity for others. Like all of that is part of the, the intent and what we try to do when we’re bringing this forward to an organization is giving peace of mind to a business owner that may or may not have it before we met them.

Olivia: Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like beginning with the end in mind and having that intention of what you want to do and what you want to achieve and what you want your life to look like is so important. Scott, could you share with us? I know you mentioned the framework of the EOS. Could you share with us a little bit more about, you know, what’s involved in the EOS, that system?

And, you know, it seems really interesting and really impactful for business owners. You know, bringing to light, you know, even a few of the most impactful systems or, or techniques that you guys talk about would be great.

Scott: Sure. The fundamental thing that we try to bring to business owners, um, is really three things. One, having a clarity of vision, understanding where you’re going and more importantly, how you’re going to get there and making sure that’s clear to everyone involved, your leadership team, anyone that works for you.

So clarity of vision. The second is actually gaining traction in your business and that is operating with discipline. Accountability, high execution, right? Building that accountability up and down the organization so that everyone in the organization cares just as much as the owner does, which is not always the case.

And the third is we work in building team health. So it can’t be a one person show. That business has no value if it’s a one person show. You need to be a healthy, cohesive team that likes working together because that actually demonstrates to anyone that may be interested in your buying business that you actually have a business and not Tim’s Snack Shop.

Right? If it’s just Tim’s Snack Shop, if Tim goes away, there’s no business. But if you can demonstrate that you’ve got a real operating model and you can point to this is the way this thing is structured, you actually have a business that has some value. And if that’s a desire of yours to sell it. Get there.

So vision, traction, healthy are the three things that we do for every client.

Olivia: Yeah. Mm

Scott: things that have made all the difference for us in our business. Okay. The first is one of the big components that we help clients with is people. We typically find that 60 plus percent of all issues related to running a business are in the people. It’s just the way it is. And so we really want to help business owners to identify. We borrow from Jim Collins here. Who are the right people? What are the right seats, right? What are the functions you really need to have to make this business go? That’s a right seat. And what are your core values in making sure that the people that you bring on are aligned with those core values? And we just say that you have to have both of those. You can’t have one or the other because if you have a right person in the wrong seat, that’s expensive. They don’t know what they’re doing. They’re nice people. That’s a lot of, we find that, right? So, hey, I liked, Mike brought my buddy in to, in to run this company with me but he actually doesn’t know what he’s doing.

But I like having him around so I keep paying him, right? That’s an expensive, right people, wrong seat. The flip side of that is the more damaging one, which is a wrong person, right seat. So, to any business owner that, that may catch a glimpse of this, if you have someone that is not aligned with your core values but is a really, really good employee, You need to think about letting them go right they be able to do the work But if they don’t align with your core values, they are a cancer in your organization Even if you don’t know what they’re doing, so this was lesson for us in our business We had a look we’re struggling for revenue.

We’ve detailed that we had a really high performing person But they did not align with what we wanted from the business what we were around and they were killing us Slowly every day with the things they were doing when we weren’t there

Olivia: Yeah. I mean, that’s so

Scott: writes E. And it, until that person left, but when that person left and took all their revenue away, we actually rose. was another thing that we broke through by, by just realizing that we’re not going to put up with that. It’s, it’s, it sounds so simple, but to make that call when you’re in a business, we don’t have that many, we’ve got a dozen employees, it’s not crazy big, but when one of those employees is doing things to work against you 

bad decision. Lesson learned. Open our eyes right to that. So critical.

Olivia: The company culture is so important, right? And the, in so many businesses, you know, as a consumer, I’ll walk in and Um, you know, I, I judge the, the owner by what the staff is bringing to the table. You know, I don’t, I don’t blame the employee. I blame the management because it’s, it’s top, it’s top down in that culture is so important because that’s what’s facing your, your customer, your clientele and representing you and your business.

Um, so yeah, that’s really great. And what else I was thinking about as you were talking. was how scary it could be to cut off the main revenue, right? But, but instead, you know, it sounds like you took that leap of faith and, and trusted that by staying true to your values and what you believe in and what you want to bring to the table, you were provided for even more by getting rid of what you call, you know, cancer.

You know, that, that toxicity within the business. So, um, that’s a really, that’s a really great story and very impactful.

Scott: Yeah, I mean, this, this person was representing between 25 and 30 percent of our monthly revenues, yet they represented 10 percent of our staff. So this is a high performer who’s no longer with us. Just was, just, just did not fit. Uh, believe a little bit late to get there, but it was, but you know, like when that was coming, other folks just stepped in, right?

Other, they took it on and they, they stepped up because they, they saw we were willing and committed to this. And so now to today, we, we utilize this language with all of our folks. We have three core values, and if there is not an alignment on those three core values, we just don’t have room for you. And that’s okay.

There’s other spots out there. And, and frankly, there is actually. There’s less, there’s less hair stylists than there are jobs in our market. So, so we, we, we are always looking for people, but we’re also willing to not have someone stay with us if they don’t fit. that’s, we just, that’s, that’s our, that’s our force.

And, and that’s. That allows us to have all the right people around us all the time, and that’s critical, right? And it allows for, and then folks feel like they belong, and then they’re going to stay for longer. It helps your retention, your customers feel it, you know, as they’re coming through, as you described.

Right? I mean, it can say a lot of things, and I mean, I just, I use Chick fil A, which is a big national brand, but you know when you’re in a Chick fil A, you know how you’re going to get treated.

Olivia: Yep.

Scott: you right now, I’m a fan. I never, I have never been treated wrongly in Chick fil A. It does not matter what is going on.

And that’s a franchise. But that is a pervasive culture, and I, it’s, it’s real when you’re in there. You’ll get treated really well by everyone that works there, and it doesn’t matter what role they’re playing in that business on that day. And they won’t tolerate anything less.

Olivia: Right, right. And that’s so powerful, right? So, um, I was thinking that while you were saying, talking, talking through your story as well, how impactful it is to have those good experiences in, in these environments, in these businesses. Um, and I, I would argue it’s even more impactful, you know, when it’s in your community, you know, it’s good to.

See good people in your community and be treated well by people in your community and you know It’s easy to support those businesses, you know, it’s easy to want to see them succeed and and do what you can To do that, you know

Scott: Yeah, at Last Check, our little, our little 1, 100 five star reviews on Google. From

Olivia: It’s impressive

Scott: coming in and having the experience that they’re having. Um,

Olivia: really saying something

Tim: wow.

Scott: it’s a big focus of ours to deliver that. And, uh, The, the comments can be humbling when, when you read them ’cause of the clientele that we have and, and how we serve and the things that they, they’ll say about, I’ve never felt comfortable getting my haircut anywhere else.

This place, it allows me to be who I wanna be. I can come in here, do what I want. That we just allow for that as core, as one of our core values. It, and, and allows for that. And that we, we live it and it shows up when our clients talk about us and, and share, um, publicly what their experiences would like.

But you don’t hit them all, but to have that kind of response, um, we feel really good about.

Tim: That’s impressive. So, Scott, we love your story. We love how you found the gift in the struggle, came out much stronger on the other end. More importantly, we love your passion for helping business owners. So, how, how could our audience reach you? How, how can we find you?

Scott: Sure. Uh, so you can find me on LinkedIn. It’s, uh, scottgoodrich eos. So hopefully you can find me there. Pretty, pretty findable there. Um, you can email me directly scott. goodrich at eosworldwide and anyone who does email me reaches out that way. I’m happy to send them a free copy of the book traction. So, if they would like a copy, get their arms around that, we can shoot you up a free copy.

We still use old fashioned hard copies, so you have one physically to hold on to and reference back to. I mean, digital copies are available, but nothing like getting a book in your hand and really digging into it, and so we encourage folks to do that. So, that’s scott2ts. goodrich at eosworldwide. com.

Shoot me an email, I’ll send you a book. Ha ha ha!

Olivia: We appreciate that, Scott, and we appreciate you joining us today. You had a great story, um, you know, full of struggles and triumph, and those are the best stories, as I mentioned in our pre call.

Everyone loves a comeback story, and we also love that you have that experience now. My dad always used to tell me, you know, someone else’s mistakes are the cheapest lessons you could learn. And You know, we appreciate that you’re here sharing that with people and, and bearing all and also, you know, here with a solution and, and showing people the way so they don’t have to make those same mistakes.

Scott: Thanks for saying, I appreciate it. Tim, I’m much better at taking a punch these days. So, I’ve taken a few now, so yeah, I toughen up the jaw, uh, so I can take a punch a little better now than I may have done in my more fragile early years, let’s put it that way.

Tim: So, that’s, absolutely. That’s in reference to, in our pre call we had, we had discussed how everybody has a plan. according to Mike Tyson until he punches them in the face and then that just changes everything and that’s sort of what happens in business, right? You know, it’s amazing to see how your business has evolved. You never could have dreamed, I’m sure, that the business would look the way it does today, even a year ago. the key is, your As, as much as you plan, which you need to do, your business will not, it’s not a linear growth, right? It’s going to have the ups and the downs, and it’s going to morph or evolve into something you never could have imagined. And it’s probably going to be better than you thought,

Scott: If you do the right things and willing to fight the other, I 100%, every business, we like to say every business is going to hit ceiling. It’s inevitable. You’re going to hit them as an individual business owner and be like, uh, this is brutal. You’re going to feel like you hit him as a team or a department or a company like these ceilings are inevitable.

Do you have the tools? Do you have the wherewithal? Do you have things in place that allow you to fight through those ceilings when you hit those, those body blows that you’re bound to face? And we just try to help you provide you with a set of tools that you can go back to, to handle those when they come at you because they’re going to.

You’re right. It is not linear. It is not. It is not a straight line of growth at all. It comes with these plateaus and dips. Uh, how do you gonna rebound? How you gonna stick through it? And so hopefully, uh, we’ve got some tools for you. But, you know, we even within your own that there’s there’s some there’s some things you can turn to to get things going back in the correct direction.

Olivia: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Scott, for joining us today. It’s been a pleasure having you. It’s been a pleasure and honor to hear your story. And, you know, I’m so happy that, you know, you made it through and that you’re here to show other people the way as well. So, um, if anyone wants to get in contact with Scott, please reach out to him.

He gave you some, some resources there, LinkedIn and his email. So thank you again so much, Scott, for joining us.

Scott: Thank you both for having me. Great speaking with you.