S2 E63: Three Pillars to Thrive

A false choice can be defined as something that you have to pick between...something that looks like an either/or situation when, in reality, it’s a both/and opportunity instead.   

Growing a business has a multitude of moments like that. You find yourself facing a choice and only see 2 options but, often, it isn’t just 2 options...there’s more choices than what you first see. 

There are 3 pillars of growing a mission-based business. Many business owners mistake those pillars as either/or choices instead of seeing them as both/and opportunities. 

Join me in this episode, where you’ll get:

• The most dangerous time in the growth stages of a business
• Why throwing money at the problem doesn’t solve it
• The needed mindset shift to achieve team building success 
• A simple question that horrified my successful business mentors
• My personal story where a single comment changed everything for my family

And, you’ll hear how cultivating a healthy respect (and dare I say, love) for all 3 pillars is the key to being ready...

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Transcript

Winston Faircloth: 0:00

Your client experience will only rise to the level of your team's satisfaction in your business. What if you could only choose one aspect of your business? The one thing you love the most? Which of these would you choose? Are you ready? loving your idea or service? loving your clients and customers are loving your team and your people. In this episode, I'm going to share why I believe becoming a level three leader is the most important leadership opportunity for a business that last. Hey there, it's Winston Faircloth, and this is episode 63. of the for love of team podcast. We're here to help you serve more people you love. Simplify your business by eliminating automating and delegating and surround yourself with others doing the work they love. So in our last podcast, we talked about three important pillars of a growing mission based business. Level One, love the product. Let's face it, most of us founders are idea people, we love to solve problems, seize opportunities and create solutions. Yet, we often have more ideas than bandwidth. There's something about seeing a solution that others cannot see. And bring that to the marketplace that ignites our passions, and excites us about waking up each day. Level two love of clients, you finally get that traction money starting to flow in. And now your idea is serving others, the focus begins to shift to creating a client experience to be as excellent as your original product, idea and service. We know what a remarkable client experience feels like. And we're committed to delivering that for our clients. And as I shared last time, this level can be a dangerous time for many founders. Because we've been so committed to our idea, looking for traction, we fail to document how we've done things by ourselves. And now that we're having success attracting paying clients, we're likely to begin to need help in delivering that one of the con client experience we're trapped about to hit the wall. And this is when many founders begin a spending spree to relieve the pain, expensive consultants or contractors to plug holes, perhaps a part time VA, often at the lowest price per hour you can find and then you add others. The thought of building a team with intentionality is very far in the distance. Right now our focus is both on service excellence and unique client experience. And well after you're established in the multi millions of revenue, the focus can remain here on just product and client experience. So level three, love of team. Consider this, your client experience will only rise to the level of your team's satisfaction in your business. Let me say that again, it's a pretty powerful statement. Your client experience will only rise to the level of your team's satisfaction within your business. Now we've all experienced the salesy person who continues to drone on and on about their awesome widget. You can't even get a word in edgewise. But yet we can intuitively sense their desperation. Maybe it's because they're on the verge of missing their quota. Maybe it's because they're juggling multiple work commitments. And perhaps they're even unsure if this is a place for them to continue to work. And even if your service, your price and your value are perfectly aligned. That particular interaction with a team member likely ends any possible opportunity for you to serve them over the long term and as a founder up to often treated my team's well being as an afterthought. When a conflict arose between a client demand and my team's point of view. I too often chose the client, which ultimately demoralized and eventually ran off wonderfully talented and committed team members. And when they left, not only did I have the expense, and time to replace them, they took with them significant institutional knowledge and unlimited opportunities to innovate. They walked away with them. Now I see many founders struggling with how to incorporate team building into their love of product development and excellent client service. Recently in some online forums, I was watching the dialogue between different business owners but it was really sad because these owners were viewing people as a commodity. Comparing hourly rates, versus looking at this as an expanding capability in their business, it made me shake my head in disbelief. In the opening of this episode, ask the following questions. If you could only pick one aspect of your business, the one you love the most, which would you choose? loving your idea or service, loving your clients and customers, or loving your team and people. Now, recently, I posed this question in my online community. And on Facebook, that's future seven figure CEO, I'd love to see you there. Continue to dialogue with us. But the responses to that poll, were pretty evenly spread between levels one and two, namely, loving your products and service and loving your clients. Earlier this week, I posed the same question to some very successful business owners and mentors that I'm familiar with. In this one response, I just will never forget, the person was somewhat somewhat horrified if they said it was like, asking them to choose between their three children to say which one's their favorite kid? Well, their response reminded me of a story from my 20s. And this story has nothing to do with business. So I got married at a fairly early age and my 20s. And when I got married, I had an instant family because my new bride had been married before and had a child from that relationship. And I became an instant father. And so I remember, our son was in second grade. And he was really struggling acting out a lot in in the school. And finally, we got word from the principal that we needed to take action at home, we needed to do something about this because he normally is a very even keeled, really sweet personality, but he was acting out at school, and I couldn't figure out why. So we ended up going to a family counseling center. And as we're talking and just relating our story, I will never forget what the counselor said to us that day. And she says to our son, hey, do you love your dad? And of course, you know, his response was yes. And do you love Winston? He said, Oh, yeah, of course I do. And the counselor said something like, I'm paraphrasing here. You know, Love Is Something You don't have to divide. It's something that you share among many people. And the more you share it, the more it multiplies. Well, that made a big impression upon me, because it really got to the root of his anxiety. His concern is acting out because he was feeling he was having to choose between his biological dad and me has adopted dad. And the counselor said, No, this is a false choice. You don't have to choose what you see, I believe becoming a level three leader in our business has a healthy respect. And yes, love for all three aspects of business building. Number one, loving your product. Number two, loving your clients. And number three, loving your team. It's only when we lack balance. And we focus only on our products and clients that we missed the multiplication opportunity that an artfully crafted, curated team of people doing work they love provides to our business, we lose their potential contribution. And we also miss out on serving more people doing the work that we most love. Now, the caution here is not to follow my example from the last podcast episode. And to refresh your memory. If you don't recall, this was where I was consistently putting the client ahead of our team throwing the team under the bus. Well, this is this is not a great recipe for long term success. We blindly miss the opportunity to build lasting value and impact way more lives. And by ignoring the teamwork potential inside your business, either today or in the future. Now building a team you love his art, not just science, but ultimately, it requires a leader like you who will give team building the same level of passion, intentionality. And yes love that you've already demonstrated with your product and client experiences so far, will cover the values and mindsets required to become a level three leader on future episodes. And frankly, this is a journey we're gonna take together As I build my new company, aptly named for love of team. Next time we'll talk about the three pillars of for love of team. The three key ingredients to help you move from overwhelm founder to having a business you absolutely love. That's coming up on episode 64 next Monday morning, and when you're ready to multiply your impact your income, your margin and your freedom in business. For a love of team is for you. For love of team is not a course nor program. It's not yet another informational product. We lock arms with you, the overwhelmed business leader, helping you build a culture and team you absolutely love working with you wake up each workday energized to connect, create and conquer. With your hand selected on mission teammates to make a difference in your world. It's an ongoing journey of growth and discovery. And when you look back 25 years from now, the teamwork you experienced that you helped craft and build will be the essence you remember most. Our intimate, immersive and interactive for love of team journey helps you serve more about doing the work you love. simplifying your business by eliminating automating and delegating and surrounding yourself with others doing the work they love. And here's your invitation. When you're ready to experience this type of business, text me and my personal number at 1-754-800-9461. Share your name and story I want to hear from you. That's 1-754-800-9461 And remember, loving your team multiplies your results and your reach. Thank you for listening, and I'll catch you on the next for love of team episode.