E29 The Future Entrepreneur
In this interview, entrepreneurial expert and best-selling author Gino Wickman joins host Don MacPherson to discuss what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur including how to tell if you are a “true entrepreneur,” how to plan for a successful career, and how to make the best decisions for your business. They also discuss common mistakes made by entrepreneurs, the entrepreneur’s identity after they sell their business, and the impact of COVID-19 on entrepreneurship.
Season Three of the podcast is dedicated to exploring the future and how life is sure to change over the next decade. This episode provides insight into how to be a successful entrepreneur in order to manifest future change for yourself, the economy, and society.
An entrepreneur since the age of 21, Gino has an obsession for learning what makes businesses thrive. Gino is the founder of Entrepreneurial Leap and EOS Worldwide. He has also authored Traction and Entrepreneurial Leap while continuing to help entrepreneurs-in-the-making thrive and succeed.
Don MacPherson:
Hello, this is Don MacPherson, your host of 12 Geniuses. For 25 years, I've been helping organizations and the leaders who run them improve performance. Now I travel the world to interview geniuses about the trends shaping the way we live and work. Today's topic is entrepreneurship. It can be a life-fulfilling dream or an abysmal nightmare according to our guest bestselling author, Gino Wickman. After launching his first business at the age of 21, Gino has dedicated his career to helping other entrepreneurs harness their full potential. He's influenced countless people as an advisor, and through his books, Traction and Entrepreneurial Leap. In this interview, Gino shares the traits required to be an entrepreneur, a glimpse into what success looks like, and a path for taking an idea and building it into a thriving business.
Gino, welcome to 12 Geniuses.
Gino Wickman:
Thank you. Happy to be here.
Don:
Let's start with a little bit about your background. It sounds like you started your first entrepreneurial venture when you were 21. What were you doing?
Gino:
So, what I did is after saving up a bunch of money, after working in a machine shop, I was going to open a corporate travel agency. I started a mail-order business, and I invested in real estate; pretty much all three of which failed, but it was the real estate investing that led me down my next path. So, it was a combo of three things.
Don:
And how many companies have you started in total?
Gino:
So, I've technically started and built two companies. So, EOS Worldwide is a company that I started when I was 32 years old. And that's what I built over the last 20 years. And a year before that, my company, Virtual CEO, which is the holding company for everything that I do, and all of my speaking, and writing, and books, and things like that, is the second business. What I did in my 20s is I then found myself in real estate, actually decided to go get my license, sell real estate because other agents were making the commission when I was buying the properties, and discovered what my dad did and had created, and that was creating the number one real estate sales training organization in North America.
And so, upon getting into the real estate industry, being very successful, applying all of his training, I fell in love with his business and set a goal that I want to be the president of his company; I want to run his company. So, went from making a six-figure income to 25 grand a year, selling his products door to door, worked my way all the way up through the company, discovered the company was in dire need of a turnaround, and then turned that business around, took the reins, replaced the prior president. And then seven years of running that business, we decided to sell the business. It was through all of that experience that I got my PhD in business through some great mentors, great trainers, great teachers, and great peers through the Young Entrepreneurs Organization. And that all led me to taking this leap with EOS and creating EOS; and writing Traction.
Don:
Could you talk about a failure or one of the biggest failures that you've had and the lesson you've learned from that?
Gino:
I actually, in my 20s, went broke twice, but I don't consider either of those failures. I considered those all parts of learning experience. I just basically spent all the money I'd saved each time I took a leap. But it was when I was… We had sold the family business. I was a millionaire by 31. I had lost everything and I was $200,000 in debt by 33. So, that was a combination of a bunch of things, the dotcom crash, some ridiculously risky investments, and starting a new business. And so, that was the biggest failure because that absolutely crushed me when I really thought with this rocket ship in my 20s, that rocket ship was going to continue on through my 50s, and it just didn't. And life taught me a huge lesson. I just took too many risks. I put every dollar I had in all the risk buckets. And so, I don't operate that way any longer and haven't since I was 33 years old.
Don:
What's the most important piece of advice you've gotten as an entrepreneur? It could have been last week or could have been when you were 21 just starting out.
Gino:
As an entrepreneur, and so I want to keep it in the context of being an entrepreneur and a business owner, it's to know thyself and just stay in your sweet spot. You have a genetic encoding. You have a skill set that is uniquely yours. Stay in that sweet spot and don't fall into the trap of thinking that you can be everything to everyone and that you can do everything. And so, that was number one. And then number two is 10-year thinking. And this might come up in our later conversation, but just the power of thinking in 10 timeframes. I learned it at age 35 and it literally transformed my life.
Don:
That's a great segue to talking about Entrepreneurial Leap, which is your latest book. One of the really controversial things in the book is your definition of an entrepreneur. Maybe you could summarize what an entrepreneur is.
Gino:
Yeah. And, and as I go into that, I want to start by saying there's not one ounce of theory and what I've put in this book, and this is 30 years, three decades of obsessing about what makes entrepreneurs successful, and interviewing and helping thousands of entrepreneurs, and certainly getting their feedback on this and their sign of approval that says, “Yes, this is me.” My intention is now to put my energy into helping entrepreneurs in the making. And so, the whole focus is about helping a million entrepreneurs in the making get a huge jumpstart and taking their leap. And in that, first and foremost, I believe I have an obligation to help, first, confirm that the person is an entrepreneur in the making before they take their leap.
And what I've discovered is that they have six essential traits, and I'll roll through them really quick. And I just urge and ask your listener to just do a checkup on themselves as we start this dialogue. But the six are; visionary, passionate, problem solver driven, risk taker, and responsible. And the belief is that you are born with these traits. They can't be taught. It is nature over nurture. And so, a true entrepreneur at their core, when you look at them historically, they all exhibit these traits.
Don:
One of the reasons why I think that your definition is fairly controversial within the book is that somebody who might own a franchise, or have a lifestyle business, or be a solopreneur would consider themselves as an entrepreneur.
Gino:
What's funny is this topic is not so controversial when you're talking to a true entrepreneur, but it does need to be defined. And so, I created a visual that helps this makes sense. Imagine an arc, and on the right side of that arc, picture the words true entrepreneur. And on the far left side of that arc, picture the word self-employed. And so, if we start on the left side of the arc, self-employed, every entrepreneur is somewhere, or every business owner, I should say, is somewhere on this spectrum or this range that I'm talking about. And so, on the left side would be people like solopreneurs; people with a side hustle, like you said, somebody that buys a franchise location; a freelancer. That's the left side. And if we go all the way to the far right side of that range, you have the greatest entrepreneurs of all time.
And so, Walt Disney, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Oprah Winfrey, Sarah Blakely, Elon Musk, again, you could name them all. If you picture that range, what I'm talking about with an entrepreneur — a true entrepreneur — are the people on the right side of that range. I'm not discounting anyone that is self-employed and has their own business. That's admirable. They are absolutely taking a risk. But my definition of an entrepreneur is someone who sees a need or an opportunity, takes a risk to start a business to fulfill that need by creating something or approving upon an existing product or service, and then builds a company with people to make that dream a reality.
Don:
I want to get back to the six traits, visionary, passionate, problem solver, driven, risk taker, and responsible. You said these cannot be learned. They're fairly innate. Have these been the traits of successful entrepreneurs over the last 200 years? And will these be the traits necessary over the next 10, 20, 50 years?
Gino:
The people that were selling beaver pelts and buggy whips were definitely entrepreneurs. And yes, so as we look forward to the future, I want to say for the next thousand years, but let's say for at least the next 200 years, because again, at the core, the things that change our products and services over time and the mechanisms for how we communicate, and sell, and promote those things to people to get their attention, the things that don't change is people have wants and needs. And entrepreneurs, people with these six essential traits, are just constantly evolving, moving, adjusting to meet these ever-changing needs and capitalizing on them.
Don:
If you're interested in finding out if you are an entrepreneur, if you have these traits, go to e-leap.com and take the assessment. But let's say there's somebody who has four out of six or five out of six of these characteristics or these traits, and they still want to be an entrepreneur, what advice do you have for them?
Gino:
Don't do it. That doesn't mean you can't still go start a side hustle, or buy a franchise, or become a freelancer or a consultant. Go become self-employed. One example I always love to give is, if somebody's really handy, and you want to be free, go be a handyman or a handy woman because you can go charge 60 bucks an hour, make a six-figure income, be completely self-employed on your own, totally free. If you're any good, you're going to be referred like crazy and you'll be busy for the next 20 years. Well, that's someone who's self-employed, has their own business, but probably not going to build a thousand-person company.
Don:
How is what you're doing helping other people who should be entrepreneurs avoid failure or reach success, is another way of putting it?
Gino:
The book is written in three parts. So, up until now, everything we've been talking about is the first part that I call Confirm; second part is called Glimpse; third part is called Path. And the whole idea is that once we confirm that you are an entrepreneur in the making, and again, like you said, go online, take that assessment. Be really honest with yourself, please. You're only hurting yourself if you're not honest. But assuming you score a 90 or higher, odds are pretty good that you're an entrepreneur in the making. Now, if that's true, we're going to take you on your journey to taking your entrepreneurial leap. And the whole idea from this point forward — glimpse and path — is to greatly increase your odds of success is to help you avoid half the mistakes that you're about to make.
Don:
Well, let's talk about glimpse because one of the things that you do in that section is talk about the day in the life of an entrepreneur, both the dream and the nightmare. Let's start with the dream and have you talk about what living the dream is like for an entrepreneur.
Gino:
The dream looks like this: as you as an entrepreneur, you wake up at the time in the morning that works best for you and your energy; you head into the office at the time that works best for you; you walk into an office full of energetic people that are completely engaged in the business, obsessed about the customer, thrilled about the product or service; you meet with those people, your leadership team once a week who are all engaged; you're solving all the problems for the week; everyone's focused on what they've got to get done for the week; you're charging an above-average price for what you're providing to your customer because you're worth it; you're providing incredible value; your customers and clients love you; you generate a lot of profit; you distribute that profit to your partners and yourself; you share those profits with your employees; you go home at a time that works for you; you're balanced, you're energetic, you've got time for friends and family.
The nightmare is you have to wake up at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning and you'd rather sleep till 7:00 because you've got to get into the office and solve the crisisis that happened yesterday. You walk into an office full of unengaged employees who are there just for a paycheck. And the second they can find another job, they'll leave. You are having to do half of their work, because again, they're just totally not engaged. They don't care about the customer. Your customers are barely hanging on. They're only using you because you're the cheapest price in town. And the second they find a cheaper price; they're going to leave you. You're losing money. You, unfortunately, get home at 11 o'clock at night. Your family's getting sick of it. You're burning the candle at both ends.
And there's what the nightmare looks like. So, we're in this glimpse part of the book. And what I do, in addition to sharing the dream and the nightmare scenario, I then share with that reader and your audience all of their options as an entrepreneur. Because there's a fallacy right now that an entrepreneur, the only entrepreneur is the billion-dollar tech unicorn, and that's like one in a million. What I do is explain that there are so many options, and you, as a potential entrepreneur, have to decide what you're built for. Because if I can help you understand what you're built for, you will increase your odds of success because you're going to do something that's completely in your sweet spot. So, that means; what are the industries that appeal to you?
Are you a product person or are you a service person? Are you a B2B entrepreneur or a B2C entrepreneur? Business-to-business or business-to-consumer? Do you want to build a $1 million company? Do you want to build a $1 billion company? Are you going to be the highest price, low volume, high quality, or are you going to be low price, high volume? You can't be both. And when you weigh all those factors, there's a total of nine free tools on the website, and one of them is called MyBiz Match, and it's a tool I created that addresses this. Where you go in, you click on everything that appeals to you, and out pops the perfect business for you.
Don:
In the book, you also outline eight critical mistakes entrepreneurs make. What is the most frequently made mistake that entrepreneurs are guilty of?
Gino:
The reality of these eight mistakes is these are the eight most common mistakes. And so, there are, quite frankly, about 200 mistakes an entrepreneur can make. And so, I know you want the perfect answer, here's the number one, but it's literally all eight mistakes. But it's; not having a vision, hiring the wrong people, not spending time with your people, not knowing who your customer is, not charging enough, not staying true to your core, not knowing your numbers, and not crystallizing roles and responsibilities. And I certainly go deep into each one of those in the book, but those are the eight. Again, I've sifted through all of them, and these are the ones that rise to the top. These are the most common.
Don:
Half of these have to deal with people: hiring the wrong people; not spending time with your people; not knowing who your customer is; and then not crystallizing roles and responsibilities. Maybe you could talk about why entrepreneurs are bad or how they can overcome or avoid these issues.
Gino:
The solution is when you're making your first hire, you've got to know your core values going in. Those are your three to seven most important characteristics that define you as a being. And you've got to find people that align with those core values. Number two, you've got to make sure they've got the skill set to do the job. And if you shift to that 10-year thinking, as I talk about, when you're looking out 10 years, you'll make a better hire. And again, all these pieces start to come together. When you know your sweet spot, when you really know yourself, and let's pretend finance is what you’re weakest at, your first hire needs to be. In finance. If operations is what you’re weakest at, your next hire needs to be, operations. If it's marketing, if it's sales, well, that person you hire has to have the skill set to do that kind of function and have your core values; then you will have hired well and increase your odds of success.
Don:
I want to talk about education and the importance of it because the first chapter in Path is college or not. And if I did my research correctly, you did not go to college. Is that correct?
Gino:
That's correct.
Don:
You obviously would say that a formal education is not important, but you also said that you're a fanatic about learning. Maybe you could talk about the difference between education, the importance of education, and the importance of learning.
Gino:
I was fortunate enough to know that academics were not for me. I could not wait to get out of high school. I could not wait to get to work. With that said, education is incredibly important to me. And I've spent enough money on education to get three PhDs. I spend about 5% of my income every year on educating myself. But what I did is I just learned how to educate myself my way. And so, what I do in that chapter is I just show all the facts and then leave it to the reader to decide, because I share many, many great, successful entrepreneurs that have college degrees and don't have college degrees. I share the statistics and then you decide what's best for you. And when in doubt, you should probably go to college.
Don:
If I heard you correctly, you spend 5% of your income on education.
Gino:
Yes.
Don:
So, talk a little bit about some of the ways that you are educating yourself.
Gino:
I am a 23-year student of the Strategic Coach Program. And so, any entrepreneur that's earning at least a hundred grand, please look into the Strategic Coach Program. Transformed my life. Dan Sullivan is the creator of that. I happened to be in his highest-level program, which is not inexpensive. I go to Abundance360 every year with Peter Diamandis. I was a member of Entrepreneurs Organization for many years. I belong to other organizations. I read a ton of books. And so I educate myself, I surround myself with people and information that help me get to the next level. And I'm not afraid to invest because 30 years running, I've gotten a return on every one of those dollars.
Don:
One of the things that I find truly exciting about the future is that just about anybody in the world is going to have access to information is going to be a lifetime learner if they want.
Gino:
Yeah. And I love that you went there because that's so important. Now all of a sudden, we can start to tie these pieces together. Again, I hope that your audience understands the goal here is we're trying to give you as much as possible to decide if taking this entrepreneur leap is right for you. This isn't about you and I touting our successes. It's about hopefully helping a lot of people. I love what you said because know thyself means you got to figure out how you like to and want to be educated. How do you learn best? And then the second point, yes, I spend a lot of money on educating myself, but you can get all that same education for free as well. Again, you've got to decide, because I give a list of resources in the final chapter to go educate yourself. I mean, just through Ted Talks and YouTube and podcasts. I mean, there is a wealth of information, and it is all free.
You have access to all that. So yes, I'm fascinated that once the world goes live on 5G and has access; these countries with people that are truly hungry, energetically hungry, not physically hungry, look out because it is going to spawn so many entrepreneurs. Because yes, they're going to have access to the exact same information we are.
Don:
Could you talk about why it's so important to have a mentor and maybe how to go about finding that mentor?
Gino:
In all of my research and interviews, a little more than half of all entrepreneurs had a mentor, about 60%. Please know, if you don't have a mentor, it's not a death sentence. You're going to be fine. The 40% that didn't are very successful, but you will get a nice leap forward with a mentor. I had two great mentors in my 20s, Sam Cupp, my business mentor, and my dad as kind of my people and leadership mentor. It was truly life changing. So, highly, highly valuable. In terms of finding a mentor, it's a simple formula. It's just not easy, but it's finding someone who's where you want to be. And so, let's pretend you do MyBiz Match or you know the business you want to start; your job is to go find a mentor that has a business like that and just simply ask, “Will you mentor me”?
You're going to need multiple names because you're going to hear some nos. These are very busy people, but assuming you get a yes, you meet, you share your aspirations and ask your questions, they share their story and their insights. And after that one-hour meeting, if everything's feeling good, you agree on a format going forward. I met with my mentor about two hours once a month over about a five-year period. And so, every formula's a little bit different. And then what you need to do for your mentor is constantly express appreciation and do what they tell you to do. They're doing it to leave a legacy. And so, you've got to show them how you're practicing what you're teaching them and keeping their legacy alive.
Don:
You talk about the power of passion and the importance of passion. And this seems so obvious to me, but it's probably it’s because of what I've spent the last 25 years doing, which is helping people build more engaging organizations. But why would anybody do something they're not passionate about?
Gino:
Yes, there are people that will start a business without a passion. And we're talking about these true entrepreneurs that build organizations from the ground up with people. And there are people that will start that business with the sole intent to make money. As my dad says, if money's your motivator, eventually you'll cheat. Not cheat in a low integrity kind of a way, but you'll cheat yourself, you'll cheat your company, you'll do things that are not for the betterment of the company, and you will decrease your odds of success. And so, you've got to have a passion. You've got to know your passion. Because the truth of the matter is that it's your passion; it's knowing the reason why you're doing this; it's what lights you up. What is the cause? What is the purpose of this whole thing that you're doing?
Because it's that, that is going to pick you up each time you get your ass kicked because you're going to get your ass kicked many times on this journey of building your company. Without that passion, the first time you get punched in the mouth, you're going to give up, throw in the towel because you're just doing it for the money and you can still get a real job and make that kind of money.
Don:
We're assuming that people have the six traits and they've found the business that they should be in, the industry that they should be in, and they want to take the leap — what now?
Gino:
Again, eight disciplines. First is to clarify your vision. And so, we've touched on this, but this is where, as an entrepreneur, you've got to clearly know your vision. And so, I created a tool called MyVision Clarifier. Whole idea here is just getting out of your head, into a document, one page, who the customer is, what it is you're offering the world, pricing strategy, some three-year planning, boiling it all the way down to what you've got to get done in the next 90 days so that your people know the vision, so that your customers know the vision, so that your vendors know the vision. Number two is decide if you are a partner person. So vital, hard to do in 15 seconds to explain it.
But there are three types of entrepreneurs: entrepreneurs that should never have a partner; entrepreneurs that should have equal partnerships: and entrepreneurs that should have controlling interest and give away some equity. And you've got to decide which one you are. I've had to unwind so many partnerships because the entrepreneur didn't know what kind of a partner person they were. Number three is know that the bigger the problem you solve in the world, the more successful you will be. And so, simply put, you cut along, that's worth 25 bucks. You put somebody on Mars, that's where the trillion dollar is. And so, you need to decide where on that spectrum you want to add value in the world.
Number four is get feedback from customers and clients early and often. The real secret that entrepreneurs do is they obsess about their customers and their clients' needs and they're constantly evolving to those needs. And so, they know their client customers better than they know themselves. Number five is know that your first plan will not be your final plan. And so, that vision that you launch with is going to change and it's just an awareness. Might be week one, year one, year five, but your original plan will not be your final plan.
And number six is work hard, really hard. And so, nothing's ever going to replace hard work. And that one is obviously self-explanatory. Number seven is take criticism and doubt from others with a grain of salt. The point here is you're going to get lots of feedback from friends, and family, and spouses, etc., and customers, and you've got to take it with a grain of salt, because if you take everybody's advice, you'll put yourself out of business. And you're going to have people that criticize you; think your idea is dumb; think you're crazy from doing this. At the end of the day, you got to trust your gut because people will twist you in a knot with their advice. And number eight is see it every night. Every night when you go to bed, see that 10-year goal in vivid color in your mind, and it's more likely to happen.
Don:
I just want to remind folks that we are recording this on March 31st, 2020, and we're going through this incredible pandemic, and it's unfolding every day. Something you said about discipline number three — know that the bigger the problem you solve in the world, the more successful you'll be — we're seeing a lot of people who were on the margins with their ideas and their inventions and creations, who have now been thrust into the forefront and their time is right now. Could you talk a little bit about knowing when your time is and being able to seize that and preparing yourself for your moment?
Gino:
These are the times that spawn many great new entrepreneurs. And so, I believe more entrepreneurs will be spawned from this than any of the previous years of the last 10 years after ’08 and ‘09, which spawned a lot of entrepreneurs that I certainly work with today. I truly think that that's what's going to happen. Number two, the ones that got their butts kicked, and I've got clients that are suffering right now. I've got two clients with over a hundred locations each that are completely shut down. And so, many companies will be reinvented in these times. Again, it's the entrepreneurs that are going to do the reinventing. Then last is there are going to be lots of opportunities.
As hard as it is to think about wow, opportunity in this totally unpredictable, terrifying time that we're in, entrepreneurs are absolutely going to capitalize on how we're going to evolve through this. Every crisis for the last 500 years, we, human beings, we evolve. So far we have survived. I'm certain, I think we'll survive this one. And it's just a matter of, again, when I say evolve, it's that entrepreneur that sees and reads the tea leaves and see where everything is shifting and they capitalize, see that opportunity and maximize so that we can certainly pull out of this. There'll be great ideas that solve a lot of these problems. Again, but these are the times that entrepreneurs are at their best and when many are spawned.
Don:
Yeah, I'm so glad you said that because that's what's keeping me really sane and stable, is focusing on what the opportunities are and how we can solve problems. I have, every day, a different idea for our business. Every day. And sometimes multiple ideas for businesses. I hope that the 4% who have the traits to be entrepreneurs are thinking in that way, too, because society is going to change as a result of this pandemic. There's no doubt about it. There are people who can capitalize on that and seize this opportunity. So, I appreciate your optimism there.
Gino:
Yeah. My pleasure.
Don:
Quick question around advice for founders who are looking to sell and how to manage their identities afterward. And the reason why I ask this question is because I am a founder who sold a few years ago, four years ago. And I spent about six months thinking about what my identity was going to be before we sold. I think I managed it pretty well. In fact, my daughter, my oldest daughter was born the day our sale was announced. So, I was able to transition pretty easily from founder, company owner, to dad. But a lot of founders have a very real challenge around their identity after they sell.
Gino:
The first piece of advice would be to read Bo Birmingham's book, Finish Big. It will really help shape your thinking. And I urge you to read it five years before you sell so that your mind is right, which is about how many years in advance I read it before I sold. Again, I'm going to speak from experience. The experience is me selling two businesses and then me having probably now 15 of my 134 clients sell their businesses and watch what happens. So, again, most of the time, what I saw with my clients, aside from my advice, whether they would listen or not, is literally after the sale, they become a mere shell of themselves.
They got all this cash, lots of money, but their identity and their sense of worth goes away because it was all in this business. First of all, I need everybody to know and hear that pain because when you know that, and I was fortunate enough to see that so that I could do it right this most recent time. Number two, you've already said it, is you've got to know your next identity, purpose, mission, plan, what it is. Again, for me, speaking from experience, I knew well in advance that this new book, this project, this passion project, Entrepreneurial Leap, was what I was going to do next. So, I was excited and eager to sell so that I could pursue this next passion.
Then the last piece is just make sure that you've got one hell of a leadership team in place. I was able to sell and literally, the day after closing, not be involved one ounce in the day to day of the business, because my partner and I had put such a strong leadership team in place, we could literally walk away from the business the day after the sale. Those are the things that I would strongly advise. Because if you don't do those things, what will happen is you will sell, you're probably going to be stuck with a three-year employment agreement because you've got to still run that business. In most cases, you're going to be miserable working for someone, which has happened with almost every one of my clients. And again, you lose that identity.
Don:
Let's talk about the nine stages of building your business because that's one of your final chapters in the book, and it seems like one of the most important.
Gino:
What I try to do with these nine stages is put these as linear as possible, but it's not linear because it's impossible to make them linear. But it's close. And the way to think about these are milestones. So, as you take your entrepreneurial leap and as you build your business over the next 10 years, these are the stages that are going to happen at some point. So, the first stage is generating cash. Obviously, this one is linear and is the first step because the day you start your business, you've got to obsess about generating cash. That is job one. And so, you've got to obsess. The idea is just to sell one, and then sell two, and then sell five, and then sell 10. The second stage is hiring an integrator. I made a discovery, working with my dad at about age 27, of this amazing combination that every visionary entrepreneur needs to be counterbalanced with an integrator.
I wrote a book around it called Rocket Fuel, and it really is the secret formula that helps an entrepreneur take their business to the next level. And so, you, as an entrepreneur, have to decide where on the journey you're going to find this integrator — and that's the person that runs the day to day for you to free you up to grow the business. Some entrepreneurs are able to economically, or savvy enough to literally hire their integrator, or partner with their integrator day one, and some have to wait until year 10. Third stage is discovering your core values. So, going back to that hiring issue we talked about, you've got to know your core values as early as possible in the journey so that as you start to bring people into the business, you're only bringing people in that have your core values. Fourth stage is holding yourself accountable.
What that means is, in the early stages when you're growing the business, you've got to know the three most important numbers that's going to make your business grow, generate cash flow, generate profit, and obsess about those numbers every single week. Number five is communicating frequently with your employees, and we talked about that. Again, keep the circles connected, meet every week, meet every quarter, and openly and honestly share feedback when necessary. Sixth stage is having a plan B, C, and D. So, as we talked about, plan A is going to change. You're going to get your ass kicked. You're going to have to pivot, as they say, evolve your business. And so, you've got to have a plan B in your back pocket. And not necessarily a C and D, but I do urge you to think out as far as you can because you're going to have to continue to adjust, evolve, and weave with the times.
Number seven is staying in your personal sweet spot. And we've talked about this, this entire conversation, is know your genetic encoding, know your sweet spot, stay in that sweet spot, and surround yourself with people that are great at all of your weaknesses, and you’ll build an amazing organization and survive startup. Stage eight is preventing your business from getting away from you. In addition to staying in your personal sweet spot, you got to stay in your company's personal sweet spot. Whatever that is that you're masterful at doing in the world, the value you're providing that customer, stay focused and don't get distracted by all this shiny stuff that will present itself the more successful you become. And stage nine is capitalizing on coaching, training, and mentoring. And this is what we talked about, giving you all of those resources, both free stuff and stuff you pay for, but you've got to, on that 10-year journey, 20-year journey, 30-year journey, constantly continue to educate yourself.
Don:
Well, Gino, where can people learn more about your book, Entrepreneurial Leap, and where can people find out about you online?
Gino:
All things can be found in one place, and that's e-leap.com. And so, there they will also find a free chapter, the first 30 pages of the book, along with nine free other tools, all focused on helping you take a successful entrepreneurial leap e-leap.com.
Don:
Gino, fantastic conversation. I really appreciate all of your time. I'm very sorry I couldn't be there in person in Detroit, but doing this over the phone and online has been fabulous, and I really appreciate your books and all of the resources that you have provided for free to Entrepreneurs. Thank you for your time; thank you for the conversation; and thank you for being a genius.
Gino:
Had a blast, Don. Thank you.
Don:
Thank you for listening to 12 Geniuses. We have a trio of fascinating upcoming episodes, including The Future of Aging, the Future of Reproduction, and the Future of Faith. Devin McGrath is our production assistant; Brian Bierbaum is our research and historical consultant; Toby, Tony Jay, and the rest of the team at GL Productions in London make sure the sound and editing are phenomenal. To subscribe to 12 Geniuses, please go to 12geniuses.com. If you know someone who would benefit from the information in this episode, please share it with them. Thanks for listening, and thank you for being a genius.