Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Welcome back to the Total Profit Podcast. Your place for cutting through chaos, tightening up your margin, and building a business that actually pays you. I am T2 and joining me is the sultan of smart decisions, Tommy P.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: I appreciate your intros. They get me ready to dig into something that's going to hit home for a lot of folks today. It's, it's, it's going to be a good show.
[00:00:35] Speaker A: Let's talk about one of the biggest bottlenecks in most businesses and that is indecision or worse, making every decision yourself.
So we're getting into the tools and tactics for decision making frameworks that save you time, protect your profit, and empower your team.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: Absolutely. And too many business owners feel like they have to make every decision themselves because they don't trust their team or because they haven't created systems for others to decide or they think nobody can do it as good as them. At the end of the day, if it gets done properly, does it really matter how we got there? So these define bottlenecks of growth.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: In full humility. This was something that I really struggled with when I first became, when I first moved into a position of authority in corporate America and it was really hard to trust my team. I am self admittedly a bit of a control freak. And I just wanted to, really wanted to make sure that everything was done the right way, what I thought was the right way. And, and I was running my own little business within the corporation. I used to call it intrapreneurship.
So had my own little, my own little area of responsibility that I was responsible for. And I got a lot of feedback from my team on that anonymous annual survey about being a horrible micromanager. And so that was, that was a huge growth spurt for me. And I will tell you from experience, trying to manage things while I was on vacation and everything, it burns you out.
If you are the one answering every single question, you are the system. And that's not scalable.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: No, a decision making framework is a structured way to filter those decisions, big or small, so you don't get paralyzed or reactive.
Think checklist criteria triggers, dollar thresholds.
Grow wings, not roots.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: Grow wings, not roots. Instead of asking, what should we do? Your team already knows. This is how we decide what to do. And that really is much better leadership.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: No, exactly. So let's, let's get into the examples or frameworks that you can use to help gain your time and gain your trust in your employees.
A few things we can, we can talk about and help you implement today is There's a thing called the $500 rule. If a decision involves the price of $500 or less, let your team make that call. It shows them trust, it shows them empowerment that you they can do that and they will make conscious decisions. And usually they're treating it like they're taking the money right out of their own pocket.
There's one called the three bucket filter.
Does the decision affect the margin, the team or the customer experience?
If yes to all three, bring it to leadership. Let's have a discussion. Let's, let's get it going.
And then predefined yes or no criteria. For example, we don't take on projects under our target margin of 30%. 30% is an example and to some people that's a dream. But defining those goal posts that we have to get through to get the win.
[00:04:17] Speaker A: I love the idea of making the decision once.
I treat my inbox the same way. If I just grab a piece of paper, it's a one touch method that I try to follow as much as possible, make that decision once, touch that piece of paper one time, deal with it and then let the framework take care of the rest from then on.
I heard something really profound recently that, that has stuck with me and that is to let your systems run the business and let the people run the systems. I really, really love that. It made so much sense to me.
[00:04:56] Speaker B: Oh, it really does. And it is one once you execute that, it just is like the machine like you've picture of train when it's taken off from a dead stop and you're just gaining that momentum. Yeah, good, excellent. And your teams will be surpri will surprise you in a good way. If you give them the structure and the trust to decide, they're going to take it with, with the most respect and do you a great job. And if they mess up, great. It could be the process or procedure needs to be adjusted. Things have changed, you're growing. And now that you've trained your people, make this a coaching moment to grow everybody involved. And you know, we all make mistakes. Nobody's gone through life in a perfect way and let's learn from it.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: Freedom within the boundaries, right? That's the sweet spot. And, and that's how you lead from the front without micromanaging. I had to learn that the hard way.
[00:05:57] Speaker B: I think we all have had a seat in that chair for sure. And when you need to step in, you know, here's some, some opportunities to grow with that.
You need to take the lead on decisions that include but are not limited to shifting the business model if it involves a major financial risk or impact or if there's a legal or brand reputation impact that, that no people aren't aware of. So. But these are also introductions to more about the company that, that your employees can learn and know and retain for the next time. But those are. They should be rare if you're. You're deciding everything your business can't grow. It's. It's all stuck up here. It. It just, it's very limiting and, and it's, it can be. Like you said, it's gonna wear you out.
[00:06:51] Speaker A: It'll wear you out. It'll lead you to burn out super fast. And that's how business owners get stuck in the weeds instead of steering the ship. So.
Great segment today. Here's your challenge for the week. Your total profit challenge for the week. Identify number one. Identify one decision type that you can delegate using a simple rule or a threshold of some sort like that $500, maybe $500 threshold is not your limit. Maybe it's 1,000, maybe it's 10,000, depending on what type of business you're in.
But yeah, let employees make those decisions underneath a certain threshold that you think you can afford.
Number two.
I want you to write out your first framework, all right. Make it a visual or a checklist style and write out your first framework. Number three. Share it with your team and commit to letting them use it. This is the beginning of really documenting your standard operating procedures. And it's a good thing.
[00:07:50] Speaker B: No. And as we're speaking through these, just the, the thoughts come racing to my head. And, and one of them is the, the fact of. Give people the opportunity in the direction to. If you, if you come to a point where you need to make a decision, let's talk about this decision. But make. Give me three options to repair that or make that decision and give me your preferred decision and see what happens and what kind of help. Help the people help you make the decision. And in the end they're making their own decisions. So you'll buy back your time. You'll build up your team at the same time. And it just like it. It's that perpetual motion that'll get. Keep rolling.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: We called this episode don't become the decision department for a reason.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: So.
[00:08:42] Speaker A: All right. Hey. This episode was sponsored by performance margin. The software that we use. It makes it easy to see where your decisions are impro or hurting your bottom line.
It's wonderful data that helps you run your business. And, and if you want to take a look at real numbers in real time for your business, let us know. We can absolutely help you with that. When you've got the numbers, you've got the power.
[00:09:09] Speaker B: Absolutely. No. Great. Thank you. Performance Margin software that they are such a great team team member.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: If this episode hit home, make sure to subscribe, share it with somebody else that you think might be doing too much on their own.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: And we've said this in prior podcasts, you can do anything. You just can't do everything. So you don't have to do it all. Just decide who does it.
[00:09:37] Speaker A: All right, Take her cool.
[00:09:39] Speaker B: Right, Take her cool.
[00:09:41] Speaker A: Don't get too excited. It's all under control.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: It's going to be fine. Thank you.
