Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello. Welcome back to Rogue startups. I'm your host, Craig Hewitt. Today is a solo episode. You're flying with me, Uncle Craig, talking about how we're growing our businesses. That is the theme of every episode, 325 or six of these episodes. And today I'm going to be sharing a little bit about what's going on in my business.
[00:00:22] I know that these are the most popular episodes because y'all tell me, y'all tell me on Twitter and in LinkedIn and on email. Hey, Craig, I really like this update. I love hearing what's going on kind of behind the scenes and getting the real kind of skinny on what's up in your world. And today I'm going to share with you a little bit on the coaching side of the business because it's been going for about six months and it's pretty mature as it's just a very kind of part time side deal.
[00:00:50] But I did want to share kind of what I've learned because that's the whole point of this podcast, just sharing what I know, but also not just to share, but because you probably will take a few things away from this that will be helpful for you and your journey as a founder. And my sincere hope is that you grow faster, more sanely, more sustainable, and more profitably as a result. So with that, I have five things I want to talk about that I see across the board in almost everyone that I coach. And I'm doing about eight or ten customers on a one on one basis and then serving as advisor in residence at tiny Seed, where I've exposure to like 200 companies. And I've probably had calls with about 50 of them so far and have seen a lot of stuff. You can imagine. You can imagine that the issues and the topics run the gamut, but I really broke them down into these five categories and considerations. And along with this, I've gotten some best practices and some rules of thumb and some ways I'm thinking about these things to help founders level up themselves, their game, their business, and kind of get through this, because that's all that we're trying to do, is get through this and thrive and survive. So with that, I want to introduce the first topic, which is uncertainty.
[00:02:11] You'll hear this a lot in the entrepreneurial world, and you as a founder probably know that going from zero to one, or really from one to ten or one to 100, whatever it is, is really weird, because literally nobody's ever done this before. Nobody has start, nobody has started your business in your industry and grown it in the way that you're doing it. Sure. If you're a CRM, there are blueprints, and you can follow HubSpot or close or pipe drive or ato now, whatever, but everything about your journey is going to be slightly different. And so while I do believe in these rules of thumbs and these kind of. What is it when you're bowling? And there's the gutter thing, right?
[00:02:50] There are these things that can keep you out of the gutter, like best practices around growth and marketing and product and things like that. But even within that lane, if you want to continue the bowling analogy, there's a lot there that you have to make decisions about and you have to make up. Josh Pickford referred to this as decision fatigue, and it's 100% spot on, right? Like, the number of decisions you have to make every day as a founder is enormous. And I think one of the goals should be to reduce the number of decisions you have to make as a founder, so that when it's time to make really important decisions, you're fresh mentally, and you're able to look at this with a clear. A clear view and not say, fuck. Like another freaking big decision that could literally make the difference in my business. You only want to be doing that every once in a while. Right? So uncertainty and indecision as to, like, what the next priority should be. Hugely important. And this comes in the form of, like, group sales and marketing channels often, and product and team. Right. It kind of touches every area of the business. And so I think the lesson for me as. As a coach and an advisor is you got to get really specific about the question that you're trying to answer with what is the next priority and what is the problem? Like, clearly defining the problem that we're trying to solve really is the first step to making an educated decision and process around answering the question of what's most important. So let's just say you're in marketing. Marketing is, like, all I talk about right here in marketing, and you're like, okay, how do I decide on where to invest my growth next?
[00:04:35] Is it SEO or content or partnerships or YouTube or podcasting or SEO, whatever it is. I think you have to ask yourself, is the problem with your growth eyeballs and top of funnel, or is it conversions or is it retention or is it, you know, whatever, right? So I think that I always say that business is part art and part science, right? And the science of it should be the metrics, right? So making data driven decisions to a point, right. Kind of paints the picture and then how you interpret that picture is the art part of it, right? So the science kind of sets the scene and then you look at it and you say, okay, based on this in my dashboard, I believe x, y, z to be true. We're going to go with this. When the founders that I work with are able to paint that picture and create the scene of what the hell really is going on in their business, they're able to see the forest for the trees. If we're going to continue the analogies, right, I'm just following these today.
[00:05:34] They're able to see what the heck is going on so they can make a smart decision. So that again, just kind of pattern matching. Folks who have a lot of clarity around what is actually going on in the business, what is the problem and what is the opportunity, are often able to more easily make a good decision about where to focus their energy next. So uncertainty, that's how I see it presented and solved most of the time. The second thing that I see a lot is an accountability buddy. Right? I serve as that good angel or bad angel on your shoulder saying, hey, we talked in our last session about you blocking off Tuesday and Thursday mornings from eight to 930 to do marketing. How'd that go?
[00:06:18] And kind of sit there? Because the reality is, early on, it's super easy to be just gung ho. I'm going to run through this brick wall every day and I'm going to make a difference and make a dense in the world.
[00:06:30] And then at a certain point you get to this level and you're like, man, this is freaking hard. Like, I'm just tired, you know? And the intrinsic motivation that you had maybe starts to wane. And part of the reason folks reach out to get a coach is because they feel like they need somebody to know that, shoot, I'm talking to Craig at 09:00 next Tuesday. I said I would have this thing done. I got to get this freaking thing done. And no joke, like, I have a pretty solid knowledge, I think, in SaaS and in business and I help quite a bit there. But definitely one of the places I helped the most is just being this person that you're staring at every other week and spilling the beans and telling how you did on the thing that in the last coaching call, in the moment of clarity and sanity, you said you were going to do. So I would just say for you, if you're struggling from lack of motivation, not feeling like you have an accountability buddy, get it. Somehow I provide that for folks. And I think it's really helpful. So that's just something I've seen that was a bit unexpected is especially solo founders are just kind of like, you know, I don't have anybody to hold me to doing this thing. And I'm glad to be that for some of the founders that I coach. And I think it's really valuable because in those instances, they don't necessarily need the advice or the guidance side of things. They just need someone to keep them on this path going forward because they're largely going the right direction. They need to, you know, keep those trains moving and tweak a little bit, you know, here and there. But. But largely, it's like, hey, how do I keep this thing rolling?
[00:08:10] The opposite of that is also true. Right? So the third thing is, you got a new idea, and you need somebody to sanity check this with you, right? So I have. I'm sure you have never had this new idea for a new product or a new marketing channel or a new shiny object over there, right? Like, none of us have ever done this, right? I freaking bought a domain yesterday for castos because I think it's such a great idea.
[00:08:36] It is kind of an opus that we're gonna. That we're gonna start writing.
[00:08:40] But, like, ideally, I would have somebody to bounce that off of and be like, hey, I'm thinking about doing this thing. Like, is this crazy or is this a good idea? And so, like, that's my coach for me, and I am that for some folks, right? It's like, you want to go do this thing or you want to explore this avenue, or you want to hire this person, or you want to go raise a bunch of money again, especially as a solo founder. Even for founder teams. I do coach several founder teams. Within tiny seed. I don't have any through like that. I coach privately one on one, but through tiny seed definitely do. And a lot of the calls that I have are like, hey, I'm thinking about doing this thing. Please shoot holes in it.
[00:09:22] And a lot of times, these are smart folks, right? They got successful businesses. They're like, hey, this is what I'm thinking. Shoot holes in it. And maybe I have a couple places where I'll challenge them, or I'll ask probing, interesting questions to make them think about the ramifications or the unintended consequences of some that they may be doing.
[00:09:39] But a lot of times, they're largely on track. Sometimes not right, but largely, you're on track. Your founder intuition is usually spot on, and you just need some confidence and some reassurance to say, like, cool. That's right. Maybe I'll course correct five degrees over here, because this part I hadn't really considered. But that's the value of working with somebody, and that's something that I do that I think is really helpful. The next one is challenging for everybody who has ever had financial troubles in their personal life or in their business is figuring out how to get out of this mess.
[00:10:20] I think it's no surprise that, like, for a lot of folks, like, the economy is not great, inflation and, you know, SaaS is kind of not on an upward slope right now. And so a lot of companies are like, hey, things are getting tight. What should we do next?
[00:10:37] And those are hard because you literally can't talk to anyone else about that stuff, right? You can't go on twitter and work in public about the fact that you got five grand left in the bank and payrolls tomorrow. You can't largely kind of talk to your mastermind group about that because they may have never seen that before.
[00:10:57] I've never had five grand at the bank, but we've definitely raised money and spent it and had to raise more and wanted to raise more, and we've had loans and we've done a lot of these things. And so not just through my personal experience, but through kind of, like, learning how to be a better coach, I am helping folks through these emotionally challenging times where they. This is, again, like, they know the right thing to do. Like, the right thing to do is you got to cut expenses. You know, if you're not growing, you got to cut expenses. If you're growing, maybe you get debt or something to get you through this kind of part in the j curve to where you, you pick it back up to their side and you're really off to the races again. But when you have financial troubles in the business, you largely are not thinking clearly. You're emotional, you're the sad, you're passionate, you're unrealistically hopeful often. And that is where I ask a lot of questions. But I also am a little more prescriptive than some other times when I'm coaching, when my job really is just to ask questions and get you to think slightly differently about what you're doing.
[00:12:05] And in situations where I think folks can't or aren't thinking clearly, I'm a little more prescriptive in saying, like, I think this is the path for you, or why don't we consider this?
[00:12:18] And so if you're, if you're a founder who's like, man, like, I see the end of the road coming, or I don't know if we're going to make it. Um, one, I would just be happy to chat with you for free like that. That, that's, I wouldn't call, I wouldn't charge for anything like that. But, but through the journey of coaching founders, like, you know, this is kind of part of the life cycle of a lot of businesses. Like, cash can get tight. If you're reinvesting everything back into the business, you're going to have cash crunches. And I haven't talked to a founder yet who hasn't experienced some version of that and it sucks. And, like, knowing how to handle that and deal with it, you know, a lot of us kind of lived through Covid where we had to make some of these difficult decisions totally out of our control.
[00:12:59] But I think when it's not in the context of an event like that, that's external. Not all of us are used to or accustomed to knowing what the heck to do. And so I've had enough of these conversations and I kind of build on my personal experience to say like, hey, this is really kind of the path. You know, generally, this is the path, this is what you want to get to. How are we going to achieve this end state of you feeling good about the, the stability of your business? And we kind of explore that and come up with a game plan together.
[00:13:33] And the last one, and again, these are not in any order. The last one is actually probably the most common, which is sales, marketing and growth tactics and strategies. I think a common thread in every business is I want more customers, I want more butts and seats, I want more eyeballs, I want more revenue, I want more profit and sales. Marketing is usually the thing that you do, the lever you pull to get that. And so folks come to me because you see me talking about sales and marketing. I do quite a bit of sales and marketing spoken on stage. This podcast with 326 episodes of YouTube channel, several YouTube channels, and within tiny seed am kind of positioned as the sales and marketing guy for folks to talk to along with all the other amazing advisors there. But a lot of folks come to me and say, hey, having growth challenges, let's talk through really specific things that I can do to move the needle in my business. And this is challenging because it takes a fair bit to get all the context of a business to where I can actually be helpful in a 30 minutes call. So for tiny seed founders or anybody out there who's looking to book a call, given some of that context ahead of time just makes our time together so much more valuable. So sending over a blurb, recording a loom or shooting over analytics data or something is really helpful so that I can process that and grok it and we can enter into our conversation really kind of productive. So building a go to market strategy, talking sales and marketing and helping you solve the riddle of how the heck am I going to grow this business is something that I talk with most all of my clients and the tiny seed founders about in some way. And I think that this is because like, there are local maximums you can achieve in things like product and team and yourself as a founder, maybe, but relatively, like, the upside is unlimited from a sales and marketing growth perspective. So it is right for most of us to focus a lot of our energy there because like, it would be unrealistic to think that like, hey, I can make the product 500% better and that would make like a huge appreciable difference in the business. If you made your sales and marketing machine 500 times better, 500% better, whatever, that would put dollars in your wallet. So I think that's why this is such a popular theme and thing for folks to want to chat about and solve and optimize is because the upside is pretty much unlimited. The return on the effort you put in, hopefully is really high. And I don't see other places in a business where the opportunity is untapped or unlimited. And for most of us, untapped, right, like, most of us are not doing this really well, myself included. I look at myself with a critical eye a lot of times and saying, like, craig, you suck at this. Like, you are just not good at executing on the plan that you lay out for yourself, and that's cool. So I'm able to coach myself in a way just by seeing the things that founders are going through. I self identify and I say, gosh, I need to level up myself because I'm not showing up like I should in some ways. So these are kind of the five areas that I see a lot of founders struggling with.
[00:17:05] And this is over a large enough sample size now to where I feel pretty confident saying, like, probably each of you are struggling in one or more of these places.
[00:17:19] And whether that's working with somebody or getting a buddy, or just texting a friend or going on growth mentor or hiring someone like me to help you out. I guess first, you're not alone. You are human. You are absolutely probably kicking ass, right? But you also probably know, like, gosh, I could be 10% better, if I had more clarity, if I had a better handle on my finances, if I had better growth, you know, sales and marketing strategies and tactics. And that's what folks get help for. And you should, right? You should not be doing this alone. Whether it's your team or some kind of outside counsel, you absolutely should be getting help because you're not alone. And you shouldn't be alone because it's just freaking hard, right? Like this is a hard game and getting help, especially from an unbiased kind of outside source, is often really helpful. So I hope this is helpful. I thought, I've never seen anything like this online, really, to say like, hey, someone who has coached at this point, kind of 100 different companies given perspective to kind of roll that up and say, these are the kind of the five areas that most founders typically struggle with. And at least hopefully you identify one of these and you say, hey, cool, I'm going to work on this thing for the next month or the next quarter, and if that's the outcome that comes out of this, that's amazing and I'm so happy for you and I wish you all the best. So that's a wrap. I hope this is fun. Hope this is helpful. If you have any questions, shoot me a message. Podcast at rogue startups I am thecragh Hewitt on Twitter. If you're looking for coaching, head over to craighuit me coaching. Would love to chat, offer free kind of consultations and free coaching sessions. We'd love to chat and look forward to catching up with you soon.
