John Nunemaker (00:00) Hello, you are listening to Standing in the Fire. This is John and Kris is also with me today. And we like to discuss real talk for founders in the heat of SaaS growth. And today, Garrett is not with us. And I figured I should go into that a little bit. That's because we fired him and he is out of the company now. So we're gonna talk about that today. I'm just kidding. So instead, Garrett is just gone for basketball. It's literally nothing. And we're gonna talk about Kind of have our own little mini book club Kris we had Kris and I have this thing where He likes to recommend books to me and I like to scoff at them and then eventually I read them and I enjoy them so today we're gonna go over a couple of them that I have scoffed at and Now have repented from those scoffings so So for the first book is buy back your time Dan Martell and so that's I think we're just gonna kind of dive into that some of the things that we like in it and that I've got us thinking Kris (00:33) hahahaha You John Nunemaker (00:53) is highly related to running a software business. And the goal is to kind go through those and hopefully, A, recommend a good book for you all to read and B, maybe pull out some really nice tidbits that'll get you excited about it as well. So that's kind of the plan. So I figured I could kick it off with the first one that I liked a lot, which is every task that you're handling is slowing your growth and sucking the life from you. Kris (01:02) Thank John Nunemaker (01:18) and you should clear it from your calendar. You can always get more money, but you can never get more time. So you need to ensure the stuff you spend your time on makes the biggest impact. So that was kind of like, it's two quotes from two different parts, but that was the ones that really kicked it off for me. What about you, Kris? Kris (01:37) So I'm maybe more starting with like the problem of just like in my own life of like wanting to do too many things and figuring out how to really accomplish them all because I see other people doing it and doing it well and wanting to be like them and how are they doing it and so I guess the thing the piece in there that and there are lots of pieces that resonate, but of just like how to think about when is it time to, you know, pay someone else to do the activity so that you can do more. And I never did any math on it to calculate, I know he goes through some of that, but it's just, we wanna build our empires and the only, like, and how do we do that? How do we build our empires? John Nunemaker (02:07) Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I actually like that he did kind of make it like a math thing. So he was he was like, look, this is if your hourly rate is this, then, you know, if it if you can outsource this for I remember, it was 25 or 50 % of your hourly rate. He was like, you should absolutely outsource it if it's something you don't enjoy. And I think that's what I liked is like, you know, there's parts of this that are like Kris (02:38) Mm-hmm. John Nunemaker (02:42) yeah, outsource this outsource that like outsource delivery and delivery is like building the software. And I'm like, I'm not going to outsource delivery. I love building the software. That's the thing I love. But I think you can look at it through that lens of like outsource the things that you don't love, you know, that are involved in it. And so like if you love software, build a software and outsource other things, you know, it might be harder to outsource sales or things like that, but it's not impossible. And again, like for you, your your thing would not be Kris (02:49) Yeah. John Nunemaker (03:09) probably delivery would be something different than that. And so I think it's kind of an interesting point. My favorite thing about that buyback principle that you're talking about is the quote was, don't hire to grow your business, hire to buy back your time. And I just thought that was interesting because I actually tried to hire to grow a business and completely failed at it. And so was like, that would have been helpful to read like a year and a half ago. Kris (03:12) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm Well, the thing and I forgive it to this book, if I'm mixing just things that I've read, but the things that aren't even related to work, you know, and how tasks that you're doing in your life that you should maybe pay someone else to do. I know this the simple one is that it can come up is like cleaning your house like that. That's That's an easy one that people can go to. But and so recollect me if I'm wrong of talking about. other tasks like driving, you know, like I need that time during the drive. And so that's, you know, an hour that I don't have to make phone calls or do emails or, you know, like food prep, you know, things that I don't enjoy or someone doesn't enjoy doing. And you can find someone else who does enjoy it. And that eight dollars, ten dollars, fifty dollars. It's hard for I think to say, yes, I want to spend it and it feels luxurious, but also then John Nunemaker (04:11) Yeah. Kris (04:26) to not have to go to the grocery store or not have to worry about taking an hour and a half the day to eat because the folks who are super successful are not doing those things. And yes, because they can afford it, but also now they have more time the day to take that extra meeting or hang out with their friends or do the thing with the kids because they're not spending an hour standing in line at Target. John Nunemaker (04:51) I immediately I'm thinking of the Lincoln lawyer. Both of us are Lincoln lawyer watchers and he always has a driver. You know, rest in peace. Spoiler alert to his his last driver. But yeah, I thought about that right away. And I also thought about I miss locally there was actually I think was called Beard and the boss. And so it was like, you know, the boss was the wife and the beard was, you know, the husband. And they had it locally a service where you could like Kris (05:12) Hmm. John Nunemaker (05:16) once or twice, I think it was once a week, you could order like two or three meals already made and all good to go. And then they would literally deliver them. And it was like, all you had to do is just warm them up and they were awesome, like so good. And unfortunately, like a year ago, or maybe two years ago, they stopped doing it, but we did it for quite a while, my wife and I. And so it was like, we got local, food made right here. And like they had this little van and they would drive around and, you know, deliver all of it and everything was really cool. you know, now I feel like our food prep that when we don't prep is basically, you know, door dash or something like that. And so, I mean, last night, I think we, we door dashed Chipotle. So it definitely happens. and that is a way to gain back some time, you know, like the alternative would have been an hour of, you know, cooking and things like that. And instead it was like five 30 and we were like, it's too late to wait an hour and then, you know, feed the kids and stuff like that. So definitely made a difference. Kris (06:01) So, John Nunemaker (06:09) The other thing that I really liked about this is the camcorder method and the idea of playbooks. Yeah. Kris (06:15) Yeah, yeah, I'll let you brought that up. Yeah, go, no, go, John Nunemaker (06:19) Yeah, so like the thing that really struck me about about that is that like he basically he does this like all the time like he'll actually record himself doing everything. So like he's uploading a YouTube video, he'll record it. He's putting out a new tweet, he'll record it. He's going into QuickBooks and generating a PNL, he records it and he saves all those videos. And then eventually like when he got to where he was busy enough that he had an assistant. What he would do is he would actually have the assistant. He would train them on how to make playbooks. And then he would use them to go through all these old raw, you know, video footage and turn them into playbooks. And I thought it was really interesting because like even if nothing else, a video of showing how something is done is really powerful for a delegation to someone. But even beyond that, talking about, you know, the camcorder method of recording it and then like the course, which is like, here's the steps that are involved. And then the cadence, how often do you do this? Do you do this task monthly, daily, weekly, stuff like that? And then lastly, the checklist of like, whenever you do this task, these things need to be done. I saw it like encompassed everything you'd want to do if you're going to pass a task off. Kris (07:27) Yeah, well, and I think like for me when I was listening to that, I think I was I was reading this over the summer. It was like, you know, I I would train someone on one thing and then if they're no longer working with me in six months, then I got to read that I got to find that same time to do the retrain. I'm like, this is insane that I if I would have created a playbook, I can pass this on to anybody. and I think there's some other, projects that I work on where I know that's solution because I don't need to be there. Yes, I have the knowledge right now, but it's not an expertise. It's more just the knowledge and trying to find time to pass that along is going to save me time driving to the space, doing a thing, then driving back home versus if someone in that space knew how to do it. It's, don't even have to think about it or be involved in it. John Nunemaker (08:12) I also think there's nuance you can add when you do it in video because it's almost better that it's in real time because the people can see you kind of like pausing for a second and being like, okay, well, like the reason I stopped right now is because I'm thinking about how do I want to phrase this or I'm adjusting like this list so that it looks like a waterfall. So my eye doesn't, you know, scan back and forth on it. has like a nice smooth line or you can kind of go into things a little more in depth. I have not. Have you ever created a video play playbook before? Kris (08:19) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay, so have I done it sufficiently? The answer is probably no, but where I've tried to do it is, so for a long time I was doing consulting work, building websites for clients, non-technical clients, and I wanted them to edit their websites on their own. So I did have, for one in particular, I actually did a pretty robust knowledge base on how-tos with screenshots line by line, and then I also sometimes included videos. John Nunemaker (08:46) Okay. Mm-hmm. Mmm. Yeah. Kris (09:07) So I guess I would consider help docs for larger customers, like playbooks. And even at the one that we started, it's never actually, it doesn't have a house yet, and it's not complete at all, is, so this can even be for non-software things. So at our screen printing shop, videoing how to do embroidery, screen printing, replacing things, cleaning things, that can all be in video as well. and it should be in video. It doesn't have to be just someone like a screen recording. John Nunemaker (09:39) Yeah, that's actually a great idea. I actually almost made one the other day. I was going to make one because one of things I have to do for box out is I have to export like bank statements and reports and things like that and then give them to the bookkeeper. And it kept happening like every month and I would take forever. And then I'm sure she was frustrated with me. She never admitted because she's too nice. But I'm sure she was frustrated. And I was like, finally, I was like, is there a way I actually after reading Bye Back Your Time, I was like one of the smallest things I could do is like, why am I wasting 15 minutes exporting? Kris (09:50) Yeah, yeah. John Nunemaker (10:09) these bank statements. was like, I need to like, what if I just allowed her to do it? And then she could just do it whenever she wanted. So I was like, hey, actually, like you have access to all, almost all of these. Can you just, you do it on your own? Like if you don't, if you're not sure I can make a video and she was like, I think I actually, yeah, I can do it. And yeah, I figured it out. So she got all of them except for like one. And so there was one left and it was a local bank and it required like a Kris (10:33) Ha ha ha. John Nunemaker (10:33) like a text every time, but my phone wasn't on it. So it would text my business partner and then I would have to text them and be like, can you send me the code? But sometimes I couldn't. And then the code would expire and you'd have all this, you know, kind of chaos around it. So finally I was like, hey, actually, can I just, again, I read this book and I was like, can I just show you how to do it since your code, your phone is on the thing? And he was like, sure. And so I started showing him and in the process of showing him, I figured out where to change the phone number. And so now I'm on it and I can just do it again. Kris (10:41) Yeah. John Nunemaker (11:02) And I'm like, it's not the worst case scenario, but at least now I can do it and there's no hindrance to me doing it. I can just hop in and I don't have to have a business partner send me a short code or anything. Kris (11:03) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, and I think like how again, I'm not being great at it, but I am very good at setting a new thing up. I like it. It's exciting, like to problem solving that. But once you're like once it has a consistency, it's not as interesting because there's no challenge to it. And there's a number of things for even the marketing side for various projects where I can train someone to do that for, you know, twenty five, thirty bucks an hour. They can do all that work. and I can do other things, but I need to show them how to do it. Whether it's scheduling certain types of cadence on posts on social media or sending out newsletters that the content is very structured on what it needs to be. Getting those set up so that it worked efficiently took some, let's say expertise or a little bit, but once you know this is what you gotta do, I'm just pushing the button every time and I don't like pushing the button. John Nunemaker (12:06) Yeah, yeah, it makes total sense. I feel like one of the quotes that's kind of related to that he he has actually James Clear. Have you read his habits book? Kris (12:15) Which one is Atomic Habits? Yeah, I think I know I have it so I don't know if I've read it. John Nunemaker (12:17) Yeah, I think so. Gotcha. It's it's a good book. It's got several nuggets in it. But this nugget was winners and losers have the same goals. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. And yeah, I mean, that's just like that hit home. It reminds me of, you know, like Nick Saban in Alabama is like the process, you know, and like it's not about winning or losing. It's about the process. And if you do the process, then the wins just stack up, you know, kind of thing. It's the same idea. And I've always loved that because I feel like that's one thing that I that I'm Kris (12:33) Mmm, yeah, yeah. John Nunemaker (12:51) relatively decent at is setting up systems for myself on how to be productive and how to get work done and all those kinds of things. And so I just I liked seeing that that quote. It kind of reminded me of all of this. whole point is have systems because systems are a lot easier to kind of like replicate across, you know, lots of people and stuff like that. So that was some good stuff. There was a really good section on what I took that as time tracking, because that's something that I've been doing recently. And I Kris (13:19) Mm-hmm. John Nunemaker (13:19) talked about that a little bit on a previous podcast, but I loved the audit transfer fill. I thought those are really good audit. Kris (13:24) I don't remember the explain, maybe explain that a little bit. don't recall that section. John Nunemaker (13:27) Sure. Yeah. So it's basically like, how do I figure out what kind of things I can delegate? So it's like you want to delegate things, but like, how do you do that? So what you do is for two weeks, every 15 minutes, you write down what you did in that 15 minute square, you know? And so at the end of that, you say, okay, who do I have on my team or who can I hire even part time to take over some of these things? So that's so audit is like first, it's like the time tracking. So audit could just be write it on a piece of paper. Kris (13:41) Mm-hmm. Yep. John Nunemaker (13:57) Or, know, I use toggle T O G G L and like that's how I track my time. And then I can look at my reports and I can see, you know, what I can transfer to other people or what am I spending my time on priority wise? But then transfer is the second part, which is like, you got to give it to somebody else. And so I thought that was kind of interesting. And then the last thing is now that you've transferred it, it's like, there's no way to get rid of a bad habit. You have to replace it with another habit. like I always hear that, like, you know, people who are trying to quit smoking or drinking, like Kris (14:23) Mmm. Yeah. John Nunemaker (14:26) Like Sam Parr on My First Million always talks about when he quit drinking and he was like, he's like, drink so much like Odools and Heineken and like Waterloo and anything that is like a beverage that has some flavor in it that's not alcohol to just replace what I was doing before. And I've always thought that was super interesting because it's like you can't really get rid of a habit. You're used to that habit. So instead you got to like just sub a new thing in. And that's the last thing, which is Fill So it's like what tasks Kris (14:46) Yeah. John Nunemaker (14:52) you know, should I be doing that will bring, you know, more revenue, more whatever to the company or more happiness, you know, to myself and my work life. What now that I've cleared that that time off where I was spending time audit transfer, fill I just thought that was really succinct. Kris (15:02) Yeah. Yeah, I mean, my my relevant is like, so, you know, trying to drink less caffeine in pop form. Yeah. And so now literally, and I'm not a Starbucks person, I don't drink coffee, but I get my chai lattes almost every morning at like 7am because it's like it's just now that's the replacement. And so then I don't really need the Diet Coke. Now, I don't think chai lattes are John Nunemaker (15:13) Diet Coke, baby! Kris (15:32) that healthy for you, but that's the next habit to kick. John Nunemaker (15:36) Again, it's one thing at a time you replace something that's bad with something that's like a little bit better, you know, like, I think that's a completely fair and like good thing. So one random thing also kind of passed this after he talked about like the time tracking and how to figure out what to delegate talked about delegation and people who did it a bunch. And this is something I didn't know. But Kris (15:41) Yeah. John Nunemaker (15:55) Andy Warhol, like the famous artist with all the different color pictures of the same things and all that stuff. Yeah, everybody knows him. And what was crazy, this one quote was in 2014, Warhol's artwork accounted for 15 % of the entire world's art trade. So I was like, well, that's insane. But what was more insane is he didn't do all the work. Like he had the vision and then he had this like, Kris (15:59) Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. Mm-hmm. John Nunemaker (16:21) gaggle of artists that he would train on how he did his art. And they were the ones producing the art. So he was like the idea and the vision. And they were actually the delivery and the production. And I thought that was like crazy because you just always assume like with art, you would never farm out art. Like art is about that, you know, that custom, that creative, that like personal kind of touch and stuff. So that was like one of the most mind blowing things to me. They also brought up another person that was shocking. And I'm blanking on it right now. So Kris (16:26) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. John Nunemaker (16:51) If it comes back to me, I'll bring it back up. I thought Warhol is so famous. And it's like, well, how do you get to be 15 % of the entire world's art trade? The only way is to replicate your process to other people. And I just thought that was really cool. Kris (17:04) Mm-hmm. Yeah. And again, I just think of the people who do have who are running a company. will say like so you know, last night John, I were chatting before this of I went to a panel where it had a bank CEO was on the panel. You know, great to hear him speak. You know, he's been CEO, I think, since the late 70s of the same bank. And they've grown it from, let's say, a couple million when they when they bought it back privately to like over a billion. And He still has a family, know, he has other things that he does. And the only way to get to that scale level is to delegate and to have people you trust to do other things. And obviously a bank is different because you always have to have employees. But even on this level is like, how do we grow out of the, we think we have capacity for and trust that other people can get things done so that we're not stuck at a plateau of what we've seen in the past for ourselves. And I would say even from my consulting is like, what, where I was able to get revenue wise, early on I peaked because it was my own time. And so then I started outsourcing to designers, outsourcing to developers. And then I was more of the project manager. But even now, like with some of our software tools is how do we spend our time doing the thing that's gonna grow it and not just, like once we set up, again, set up the system for sending the marketing email, it's like, John Nunemaker (18:20) Mm-hmm. Kris (18:33) I would love doing that piece of it, but once we have it going, do we have someone, a marketing person continue to do it so that I can create the next thing that we want to add that we're not currently doing? John Nunemaker (18:43) Yeah, yeah, once the process is in place and on the topic of processes even, know, one of the things he talked about is like, if you have a hard time giving up the process entirely, like he was really big on like, look, if somebody else can do it 80 % as good as you, then like just give it up and be okay with it. But he was like, if you're... Kris (19:01) I feel like I've argued with you on that a lot over the years of delegation. I remember Barbara Corcoran said that I think as well, and Shark Tank at one point a long time ago, and yeah, when I was trying to push you to do some delegation, you're like, no, I want to do it all. John Nunemaker (19:16) Yeah, I'm practicing on box out and it's going okay. Yeah, I'm practicing on that. I'm letting a lot like we have, you know, three or four different people that are writing code on on box out at this point. And so I kind of just have to be like, well, this isn't quite how I would do it, but it's good enough. It's 80%. It solves it for the customer and I didn't write it. So it's a win, you know, Kris (19:29) Yeah. Yeah. And I would say what we're doing on fireside, you know, like having like guest blog blog writers, you know, to help create content that, you know, we will look at it after it's done and maybe add a couple of tweaks. But it's not relying on us to write every single blog post. And we don't have time to. And I think also the one that's hard, it's not hard to delegate, but it's hard to maybe train someone on the voice is John Nunemaker (19:53) Mm-hmm. Kris (20:02) like social posts where we want to do that a lot. But, you know, using AI, it can be tricky just because it can sound very cold and very like not like sound corporate. But if you have a person doing it, it may not also be the right voice that you're trying to get to your customers. But that's an easy, it is one where when you can set up a good system and you have someone in place that does get it, you can just quickly like pump those out and you're not having to do. John Nunemaker (20:10) Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Kris (20:31) Go over it hours and hours every week yourself. John Nunemaker (20:34) Yeah, and that's kind of along the same lines. think this is something that you're you're a lot more skilled at than I am. But it's like, you know, his big thing was the 1080 10. So it's like, look, if you can't if you can't do the 80 percent and like, I mean, you let someone do it 80 percent is good and just kind of give it up. You can still do like this 1080 10, which is basically like you do the initial 10 percent. It's like maybe you scope the project, you scope the like functionality, whatever. Then somebody else like his hands on the keyboard making it happen. Kris (20:56) Hmm. Yeah. Yep. John Nunemaker (21:04) And then you sail back in and like put the finishing touches to make it feel more like you did the whole thing. Kris (21:09) that a lot with not that I do as much design work anymore, but I write. I've gotten decent writing good briefs for designers who don't really know what the project is. And then, you know, I go back and forth with them maybe two times before showing it to somebody and people are like, oh, my gosh, you do this in like two days. And it was someone else doing it. I just did. I did the brief and then I gave him some edits. But yeah, that's. It's funny, like I've done that in certain things, but other things where I struggled to delegate, I haven't perfected that doing a little bit at the beginning and then do just a little bit at the end. And so then people kind of flail until they get more guidance from me. And so then I feel like it's 50 % of my time versus it should only be the 20. John Nunemaker (21:44) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. And the thing that really struck me is when they were talking about, you know, again, this is like audit transfer fill. So it's like figure out what's taking your time. Delegated to somebody else, you know, fill it with better things that you should be doing higher value things. And then they go into like, well, how do you delegate? And then they go into like, well, how do you create replicable systems and stuff like that? So talk about playbooks. They said companies like Starbucks, Chipotle. Kris (22:11) Mm-hmm. John Nunemaker (22:16) Microsoft, I would throw in, you know, the obvious ones like McDonald's and other ones. They continue to grow not because they're the best because they're not like they're just straight up not the best Starbucks is not the best Chipotle is pretty darn good. But like, you know, you can definitely get better of the same kind of food if you go to somewhere authentic. But the reason that they do that is because they can execute predictably. And that was one thing that I bolded. And then the bigger thing was, you know, they know that in the long run, unlimited predictability. Kris (22:19) Yep. Yep. Thank John Nunemaker (22:44) is more valuable than intermittent quality. and I just absolutely, that's going up on my board. Cause I was like, unlimited predictability is more valuable than intermittent quality. Cause I'm like, you can, I can pump out quality, but I can't do it all the time. But can I create a system where myself and other people together are continually predictable? Like, yeah, that's definitely a doable thing. So yeah, I thought that was just another great thing on the. Kris (22:47) Mmm. Mmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. John Nunemaker (23:13) playbook side of things of like, why do you do them? Kris (23:15) Yeah, and like the other thing I was just thinking in other ways that aren't software is, you you were at the happy hour event that we did a couple days ago. And historically, I've run around and done all that stuff myself, you know, like three hours before getting the booze, getting the getting the ice, you know, setting it up. And this time there were like five or six people that were helping set it up. And that is You know, I had a checklist that I kind of morphed over time. It's like and I was there to help but I was also doing other things So now the next time I know I don't really have to be there until it starts because there's now a team that Understand the vision of what we're trying to achieve because now they've seen it once and it just yeah, it's It's fun sometimes to be in that rush of like let's get this done. Let's make it awesome, but it's also super stressful John Nunemaker (24:03) Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Well, I think what's really interesting about that is like you can recognize that, but then you can also say, well, what are things that you could record of that setting up process so that you can pass it on to other people? So I'm like, if I were you, would have had like, when Cassie went out for beverages, like have her record like what she's picking. Yeah, or like, yeah, have a list of it or yeah, all that kind of stuff or like. Kris (24:16) Mmm. Yeah. What she bought. Yeah. And how many? Yeah. All of those. John Nunemaker (24:32) when you set up the tables, set up the tables, but then explain why you're setting up where they are. like you wanna like a lot of room for seating here, you want a lot of room for standing here. Like, you know, this is the lighting and the mood. this is, know, the, here's the bartender to hire or like all that kind of stuff. just think that's it totally, you can replicate that. That's cool. Kris (24:51) Yeah, because I'm still the bottleneck. Like the bartender, I'm the person hiring him. You know, the security guy that we had, like I'm the one who's contacting him. You know, the food, I'm the one texting our catering person to say, hey, like we have XYZ people, four o'clock on Thursday. Yeah, I own a lot of that stuff still, which I shouldn't. yeah, the question was, so that we should probably both hear answers. So if we could... John Nunemaker (24:56) Yep. Yep. Yeah, what was your question? Kris (25:18) something that we're not, let's say, delegating or outsourcing right now in our life. If we could do it, what would it be? And I guess I'm trying to think like, not extravagant, but something that would be not ordinary, if that makes John Nunemaker (25:34) I more examples, I think, of where I have done this. And I don't say it because like, I'm awesome at this or anything. like, the last, you know it, hashtag, the last, I would say six to nine, it's probably longer than that now, nine to 12 months, I have like ruthlessly audited and transferred. so prior to this book, I just didn't have succinct words to describe it. Kris (25:39) Wow, humble brag. Mmm, yeah, yeah. John Nunemaker (25:57) I think you do also, but like we have, someone who comes in, helps clean, not our whole house. It's like bathrooms, first floor, the things that we spend the most time on, you know, in the summer, I have people who like, we have a lot of trees. have like 30 mature Hickory trees. drop all kinds of branches. And so they pick up the branches, they mow the yard. It saves me four hours, every week. Cause we have three or four acres to mow. So like there's stuff like that, that in my personal life and then in, you know, in my work life, Kris (26:20) Mm-hmm. John Nunemaker (26:24) I would say, you know, what helps is I just I don't do projects alone. And then I make sure that like, you know, each thing that I don't necessarily want to do or that I'm not great at somebody else is kind of outsourced. You like a box out. Steve always handles are like everything with gusto. It's like payroll and, you know, insurance and like all that kind of stuff. I don't really have to think about it. It's pretty much done, you know. Robbie handles sales and all that kind of stuff. I can support him in whatever way I need to, but I don't have to do a lot of those kinds of things. And so that's really nice, you know? And so I think that's the thing. It's easy for me to think of things that I've handed off or that I've just never done intentionally. It's harder to think of like a thing right now that I'm like, because I feel like I've been pretty ruthless, especially the last like three or four months of just like anything that like the example from earlier of, you know, generating statements that's Kris (26:58) Yeah. John Nunemaker (27:13) Immediately, was like, I read this book and I was like, why again, why am I doing this? This is like, I should be whoever needs it, they should be able to just do it right when they are going to do their job. They shouldn't have to wait on me and I shouldn't be a blocker, you know. Kris (27:25) Yeah, see, I think my list is just so long, like because there's the professional and then there's the personal. So you went all professional, I would say, like in your answer, right? You weren't thinking personal? Yeah. Huh? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it's like on the professional, like now. John Nunemaker (27:29) Haha! Well, mowing and cleaning. Yeah, mowing and cleaning would be personal. Mowing and cleaning. Yeah, they'd be personal. Yeah. Kris (27:47) Again, hopefully I always wonder like when clients know that I'm doing other stuff, like certain things of like that instead of focusing on their project, it's like I'm digitizing artwork because I know the process, but I'm not even actually physically doing it. I have a guy who does it. And so for one of one of our businesses where we're doing that, like every week, we're digitizing artwork because people give you a PNG that has a white background. it. John Nunemaker (27:58) Yeah. Yeah. Kris (28:13) Is it not a PNG So we need to get it and it would take a lot of time to do an illustrator You can also have a person do it for what in 24 hours for way less money and I have that relationship so I'm the one doing it like I need to get that off my plate I've no skills. I there's no added skill. My was finding the guy and And there's other things like that, but I guess I'm gonna jump John Nunemaker (28:24) Mm-hmm. Gotcha. Yeah. But what do you have to do to do that though? What do have to do? Like, do you just need to talk? Who do you need to talk to? You know what mean? Yeah. Kris (28:40) One of the employees, need to teach them, hey, go to this place. Here's the guy, order it. Credit card's already in there. And then you just download it. Yeah. whoa. By next time. Yeah. John Nunemaker (28:45) Go here, do this, yeah. Yeah. Here's your challenge. Here's I'm dropping a gauntlet just before the next one. Record it and pass it off and see how it goes. Kris (29:01) Yeah, that's good. How many of those simple things that can I do? Not how many. Let's not make it how many, but can I do at least one? John Nunemaker (29:09) Yeah, exactly. Just do one. You don't have to do a ton. Just get one off the list. know, like whichever one that seems like it would be prime because yeah, it's just exactly. Kris (29:17) Yeah, it's it's so silly. I went to see I sold you on the book and I'm doing worse at executing because I went over I went over to the shop this morning at like 7 a.m. to print off something because I hold the keys on the metaphorical keys to. True. John Nunemaker (29:27) Hahaha Yeah. Also the physical keys. I still don't have a key. So, you know, you hold both of those keys. Kris (29:43) Ooh, fair, Dang. Burns, lots of burns today. Again, that's what happens when you're standing in the fire. John Nunemaker (29:47) Yeah, it's okay. Yeah, yep, toes in. Kris (29:53) Is that the opening clip? I guess what I was thinking about on the personal side was would be very, I think, helpful more prepared because I do spend a lot of don't order in as much, but I spend time going to a place, parking, walking in, getting the thing, and then which sometimes is a good break. I'm not saying that I always need to be prepared, but I sometimes make bad choices because my options are limited based on where I'm at. And if I had a thing with me that was already ready to go, like I would make much better choices. I feel like we've talked about that math. Yeah, yeah. John Nunemaker (30:31) Just like two or three days a week. Yeah, it doesn't have to be like a lot. I think it's just just that is enough like the four or five days you can be disciplined, but you just need like a backup for like the one day where it's six o'clock you're exhausted and you just want to eat something that's not you know, you want to eat terrible, but you don't want to let yourself eat terrible. Yeah. Kris (30:44) Mm-hmm. Right. Right. And sometimes the terrible is not even just ordering something terrible, it's saying, I'm have like cheese and crackers, you know, and wine. Like that's my dinner. John Nunemaker (30:58) Hahaha! my, yeah, that's pretty terrible. That seems worse than eating, you know, not healthy for you, so. Kris (31:02) Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and then and then I think we've talked about in South Bend. So so this this luxury is not as prevalent, but, know, we talk about the driver, it was in this book where he talks about, the driving, the parking and then waiting. And, you know, I think it is. And, you know, not having to find the parking spot, drive around and you can just like go to events and leave things. John Nunemaker (31:22) I so. Kris (31:31) I feel like I could actually go to more things that I want to go to because you don't have to buffer so much time in between. And I don't like being late. You know, I know I am now more than I used to be, but I just don't like being late. And Mike Brubiglia has, he's a comedian, he has a great just line about this of, you have infinite time to be early. And he hates people being late because there's infinite amount of time that you can be early to a thing. And then after that moment, John Nunemaker (31:34) you Mm. Yeah. Kris (31:58) It doesn't matter. you're just late. And he says it better than I do. But I yeah, I don't like being late. If we had a driver, then that would help. John Nunemaker (32:06) Yeah, and then you would feel like the Lincoln lawyer too. So you just need to buy a Lincoln. That's the first step. Kris (32:11) well, I did see I've heard in larger cities we don't have as many luxury, you know, Ubers and like lyfts here. But, you know, you just kind of strike a relationship with some of those folks who do drive a real left in like the black cars of the Lux. And then you just get their phone number and call that will I know probably against their rules and regulations of Uber and Lyft. But. John Nunemaker (32:20) Mm-hmm. You're getting kicked off Uber now, yeah. Kris (32:38) Yeah, all the apps that I just get kicked off of because I don't like to follow the rules. But then you just text them and say, hey, I am done at the party. Can you pick me up? And I even think I like whenever I go somewhere else, we even if the people I'm with have a car, we always take a car. And but it's also we're going somewhere that often is serving alcohol. And we just want to think about it. And so in South Bend, if that's not as John Nunemaker (33:04) Mm-hmm. Kris (33:06) Like people take an Uber and they don't have a car. It's not because they're going to a party that is like a girl gonna go late and there'll be lots of drinking involved. And we need to normalize that in South Bend of having a car service. John Nunemaker (33:17) Okay. That's funny. So on the topic of delegation, one other thing that I think this probably comes into the last 10 % that you come back to is like the definition of done. So it's like he talks about like the facts of like, are the metrics? What are the measurements? The feeling so like, how would you and others feel like for this task to be done? Kris (33:30) Mmm. John Nunemaker (33:39) And then like the functionality, like when it's finished, what must it enable others to do? And I really liked facts, feelings and functionality as like, this is how you define done. Because sometimes it's kind of hard to tell. You know, and the big thing they kind of went on to is like nothing's more addicting than being the super girl or the super guy with all the answers. But, you know, it feels in his words, was like, it feels downright intoxicating, which is, interesting word. But he was like, every time you solve a problem on your own. you are eliminating the chance for somebody else to learn. And I thought that was like really interesting too. Kris (34:09) Yeah, it goes back to a little bit what you were saying is when you're looking at someone's code and it's maybe not exactly how you would have done it, but if you just tell them the answer, there's no way that they're ever gonna get better at it or get closer to maybe how you would have done Well, and then I know, okay, before we started, that actually makes me think, so I'm gonna open the book to that. the 131 rule of, when you, when someone comes with a problem, not trying to solve it for them, but have them define the problem, offer three viable solutions, and then make one suggestion from the list of all the possible solutions. That helps empower those people who are working with us versus just saying, here's the, like, even if you stopped at step two, which is, John Nunemaker (34:38) yeah. Yup. Kris (34:53) they came up with a problem, gave you three solutions, but then you're still picking it. You as John, like that's not giving them any insight into then how to pick the right solution. John Nunemaker (35:03) Yeah, they talked about the $50 principle as well, which is like give everybody in your company like a dollar amount that they can go up to this dollar amount to make any problem go away. Kris (35:11) Yeah. ever read Delivering Happiness from, yeah, I think 2011 or 2014. So that was Tony Hsieh from Zappos. I would say they were probably the originator of that kind of thought process of their support folks were able to do a certain amount for anyone calling in with a complaint. John Nunemaker (35:17) I did, but I don't, it's been so long I don't remember. Mm-hmm. Kris (35:38) And there are some stories I think in that book and it's been on I think different blog post of where they would sometimes send pizza You know to customers just various things that weren't even related to you know buying and returning shoes because they wanted that experience to be so great and they they created it but it was giving empowering their employees to You know a hundred bucks or five hundred bucks that there's no questions asked on that because you you were then trusting your employees to do the right thing John Nunemaker (35:45) Yeah. Kris (36:05) versus getting a managerial approval each time something happened. The other thing, is it Shake Shack or Chick-fil-A? One of those has a pretty strong thing in that too of if someone drops their food or whatever, I think something like they not only give them that food back, but like more, or something like that. they want, so maybe I'm wrong with the more, but I know that experience just makes you wanna go there again. John Nunemaker (36:22) That's awesome. That makes me want to drop food. I want to start testing it. Kris (36:31) to wherever the place is. John Nunemaker (36:31) Yeah. I mean, I think that's a great, a great call. Like again, it's surprising and delight, you know, make people really happy. We, we early on had that at fireside, you know, somebody was really frustrated. They weren't able to get their episode out and there was a bug and I hadn't, I didn't even know the bug existed yet because we only owned it for like a little while. And I remember looking into it and I'm like, you know, what, what's the, the first thing I can do and be like, look, you know, I'm sorry you're having this problem. Here's like a month free. Kris (36:37) Yeah. John Nunemaker (36:58) for you, here's a month free for your customer. But he was both a customer and also had a customer that he was doing work for himself. And so I was like, here's a month for both of you. it's free because we made a mistake. So now I'm going to go find that bug, whatever it is, and I'm going to fix it. And we did and got it better. And then that person obviously now is like a huge fan. So I think there's little things like that that you can definitely do to turn stuff around. There's a couple more sections, I think. And honestly, I think Kris (37:11) you. John Nunemaker (37:24) We'll just stick to one book on this one because we're close to 40 minutes now. Yeah, I don't want to I don't want to rush software as a science, but I really liked the bit on hiring because then it's like, you know, you go through all this and like, OK, now you're delegating, you're either part time or full time or outsourcing in some way, you're hiring. And so one of the things he said, I've had this rule for like a long time as well, is when it comes to hiring, you know, one simple rule, I can't work with you until I work with you. And so. Kris (37:25) Yeah, I was gonna say we shouldn't digress. Yep. John Nunemaker (37:52) His big thing is like, if you, if I haven't worked with you, then like, you're not getting hired. And so he will actually like create projects for people, pay them to do it. And that's their like interview. And I would say it's the same for me, except I don't, you know, create projects. just try and look for ways that like, I can work with the person prior to actually, you know, working with them. I think that's the easiest way to filter of whether or not it's going to work out for a hire. and then he also like along those lines of hiring, was like, you know, Kris (38:04) Mm-hmm. Yeah. John Nunemaker (38:20) asked every candidate to upload a three minute video max. So it cannot be longer than three minutes of themselves answering five questions. And the five questions were, you why are you interested in this position? What do you know about the company? What's your ideal work environment? What are your strengths and where do you see yourself in five years? And it's just like this tiny little filter of like, can you follow instructions? And then, you know, you as a person who's doing the hiring can see them, get a vibe for them, get a feeling, you know, that they actually can follow the instructions because if it's longer than three minutes, Kris (38:36) Yeah. John Nunemaker (38:49) They're not, you know, if they don't answer all the questions, they're not like it just gives you a little bit of insight. I that was kind of good too. Kris (38:51) Yeah. Yeah, I would say hiring is always I think we talked about this maybe a couple of episodes ago. I thought, yeah, it's it's hard because I agree with all that and I try to follow it. John Nunemaker (39:00) We did, yeah. Kris (39:06) it's it's hard to follow that all the time, depending on the position and what you're trying to hire for. John Nunemaker (39:10) Yeah, yeah. The other thing, there's two sections left that I thought were interesting and then we can kind of kind of wrap up. So there was talked about leadership and energy. So leadership was they said, while the overall goal for your company is probably to increase profits. Right. That's what we're all trying to do. We're trying to either make more money or lower expenses, all those kinds of things. But the key thing is you was like each team member. Kris (39:27) Mm-hmm. Yep. John Nunemaker (39:35) a team or member. not team member, but you know, a team of people or an individual member, they need one number they can directly impact. And I that was kind of fascinating. I hate KPIs. I hated doing that stuff at GitHub and other places I've worked. It was so much effort. And you know, you spend three months doing it. And then half the time, it would change, you know, three months in. And so I can't say I'm a huge fan of some of that stuff. But I really like that idea of like, Kris (39:46) Ugh. John Nunemaker (40:01) giving everybody something. I feel like that's a lot of autonomy and a lot of like chances for people to like learn and get better to like say this is your thing. Like here's your thing. Here's your number. You know make it better. I really like that. Kris (40:04) Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think it's challenging. once you, maybe for yourself, you don't need those to be motivated, know, and to do productive. But, you know, as, you know, one of our projects that you and I are working together is, you know, we actually need tenants of actual people and leases. And if we have someone helping get those people, if we don't have a goal of how many people we're trying to get in the door, you know, then it's a hard, do we go six months? We still have zero tenants. John Nunemaker (40:21) Yeah. Kris (40:43) And so on some of those cases, it's a little easier so that someone can shoot for, okay, we want to have 20 offices rented by, you know, April 23rd. And then they can start measuring towards that versus if we leave it too vague, they might be thinking they're being successful because there's so much outreach happening. But if there's no leases signed or pre-leases signed, whatever it may be, that progress isn't actually happening. John Nunemaker (41:06) That's a great example. Yeah, I actually I like that example because I was trying to think and it's hard for me sometimes to come up with like what number could that be? You know, like there's a few things like on box out, you know, some of our exceptions have gotten a little bit out of control. And so, you know, like not too long ago, I was like, hey, I was like, Philip, I was like, it would be awesome if you could kind of own these in this section. And like, you know, I'll occasionally like see them and I'll like drop a couple links to Tony. I'll be like, Tony, it'd be it'd be great. No rush. But like if you could kind of look into these at some point, stuff that I used to do. Kris (41:19) Mm-hmm. Yeah. John Nunemaker (41:35) that I don't do as much now. You know, and so that's kind of like giving a little bit of a number, but like, it's not, you know, it's not a great example. But I think the leasing is perfect, like, because if you don't have that goal, you know, then it's like, what's the point? So I thought that was kind of good. And then the last one was like, energy, this is something that I also really love, which I think is why I kind of obsessed about this. I have had this Kris (41:43) Mm-hmm. you're obsessed with a book that I recommended? I just want to tweak. John Nunemaker (41:57) No, not with the book. No, I'm just obsessed with energy. I can't I can't I can't let this go to your head. So when you're energized, the way you talk about your goals in the future has a different energy. And there is like everybody knows there's nothing more contagious than someone who's energetic about something. So for a long time, I've had this thing where I try to like, leave a meeting with whoever was in that meeting. I want them feeling stoked. I just want them excited vibe. Kris (42:04) Yeah, yeah. Yes. John Nunemaker (42:27) I don't even care if they know why. I just wanted to leave and be like, that was fun. You know, like that was a good thing. And so I tried to bring a little bit of energy to that. And so, but they said, you know, the reason why is because, you know, energetic people, customers buy more employees, work harder, vendors go above and beyond. And so like, you know, the TLDR was go find your passion and pass it on. And that's something I definitely resonate with. And so I didn't want to like go through this entire book and not bring that section up. I thought it was really good. Kris (42:52) Yeah, with with some of the stuff I feel like we're working on lately. Versus client work, it's very different. It's different in terms of maybe there's ownership to it. But even though the client worker, technically people have their own companies. But to talk about it with people. I think the people on other side can tell when there's energy and excitement and John Nunemaker (43:11) yeah. Kris (43:14) coming through even. Yeah. I don't know. John Nunemaker (43:18) It I mean, I yes, it does. It makes a big difference. Like people can feel it. And I think it even happens with software, you know, like I think somehow people can feel if there's energy behind the software or not, you know, like if it's not getting updates and it feels like it's dying, they feel that. And even though it's still solving their problem in the same way that it was before, they're like, this feels like it's dying, you know. And if it's not dying, they're like, sweet, it's not dying. It's growing. It's getting better. Like I see little tweaks and changes and. Kris (43:29) Yeah. Yep. John Nunemaker (43:44) and they vibe with that. yeah, I thought that was really cool. And the last statement I have from this, I really liked this because I'm like, why do we love sports so much? You know, like we, everybody, I mean, not everybody, there's a small fraction of people that like don't like any sport at all. But like, generally, you know, especially US, etc. Like, we love sports, we love the sports heroes, we love the champions, we love all this kind of stuff. And I'm like, and I've been thinking about, I've thought about this for like a long time and Kris (44:06) Mm-hmm. John Nunemaker (44:11) You know, Dan in the book just summed it up really well. He was like, it's the scoreboard. Athletes win because there's actionable, clear target. It's the scoreboard. When there's a scoreboard up and there's time running out, you're driven to do things that you would not do sans those things, you know? people finish marathons because there's a finish line. the problem with and this is the quote that just really hit home for me. It was like the problem with many of our dreams. Kris (44:32) Mm-hmm. John Nunemaker (44:37) is that we wouldn't even know if we achieved them. And I thought that just like really hit home. It's like, do you know when you like, we're dreamers, I would say both of us are dreamers, dream up things and stuff like that. And I'm like, do you even know when your dream is achieved? You know, like with momentum, when is your dream achieved? Was your dream just to open it? Was your dream just to open it with certain number of people? Was your dream like five years in that it still is, you know, running and stuff like that? Kris (44:47) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. John Nunemaker (45:05) Like I think that's really interesting, like because I've never been a goal writer. I've always had in my head. I'm like, well, I want I want to only work on this or I want this much revenue or like, you know, there's been little things that pop in your head, but like never. I don't think I've written them down clearly as like this is when the goal is achieved. This is how I think I'll feel and then I'll make a new goal after that. You know, it's always like I get the thing done and I go right to the next one before without stopping, you know, and kind of Kris (45:29) Mmm. Yeah, well, yeah, we'll have to talk about that in the future when I'm just maybe add that to the list of authentic celebration. I think we talked about it a little bit maybe before, but celebrating authentically and I think talking about, I have even on my wall a different version of goals. I know we're a little bit different on that. That's why I think that'd be interesting to chat about. John Nunemaker (45:35) celebrating or recognizing. Yeah, well, I actually that's I mean, I think that's one of the things that I do like about you, even though I'm not a champagne fan. I like the intentional like, let's celebrate, you know, something happened. let's get together. Let's have a good time. Talk about it, that kind of stuff. I think that's cool. So awesome. Anything else you want to wrap up on of like your thoughts and feelings on buy back your time? Kris (46:03) Mm-hmm. I think that's it. Again, I might bring things up in the future just as I try to do things, but I would say so my goal is to do at least one thing by the next episode. I know, yeah, I would even challenge like other folks to try to can you get one small thing that you can offload, create a video, create a playbook, even if it's not a full playbook, just to allow someone else to do a task that you don't need to be doing. John Nunemaker (46:28) I was gonna bring that up again. I wasn't letting you off the hook. Kris (46:47) and that would free up more of your time to do the things that you want to and are passionate about. John Nunemaker (46:53) Love it. And should people like and subscribe? Kris (46:56) They should, you know, us on whatever you think they like us LinkedIn. I feel like that's our social media. John Nunemaker (47:02) You know what? We're on YouTube now, man. So you're have to get that back display going. I'm officially now a YouTuber. are too. So you can go there and subscribe if you want to watch it on video and you can always subscribe on Apple, Spotify and all that stuff. Kris (47:04) yeah. Yeah.