How to Build a Business That Runs Without You

If you can't live your business for two weeks, there's a problem. I've developed a framework for many of my businesses that I use to grow it and scale it to where I'm not really needed. You get these seven pillars down and implemented. Everything becomes easier. Everything becomes more valuable. You don't wait till you're big to do this. You do it to get big, quicker, faster, and it increases the value of your company. Your valuation goes up. So if you're looking to grow, it's one thing. But if you're looking to exit, it's mandatory. The seven pillars are very simple. Number one. What it is, Brad Lee back again with another episode of Drop Bumps Today. My friends in the studio, I have me. Why? Because so many of you are basically asking a lot of questions that I think this episode is going to answer. And I wanted to do what's called a solo bomb. I'm all by my loansome. The main topic for today, folks, is what I call my real scale framework. It's how to grow these companies. A lot of entrepreneurs out there listening right now. Pay attention. If you want to grow and scale your company to a higher level without bottlenecking yourself or causing yourself to be in a cage. Because I've developed a framework for many of my businesses that I use to grow it and scale it to where I'm not really needed. That's why a lot of people are always like, man, I didn't even know you own that business. Well, that's because if you have a real business, folks, you're not required to be there every day. You're not working 80 hours a week in the business. And there's a lot of people that do that because they don't understand the real scale framework. So I'm going to walk through it today. So it's ultimately how to get real growth and the framework I use to do it. And it's for small to mid-size businesses. Obviously, if you're a bigger business already, you don't need this. And it's a lot of the entrepreneurs that are out there, between one and ten employees, maybe 20 or 30 employees. It applies across all businesses. I think the larger ones are just already doing it. They've already been able to grow and scale and get out there. And a lot of the people with their smaller businesses, they may be doing great revenue, but they're just a little bit small. And the problem is they can't leave their business alone for two weeks without it going to hell. They're not able to create systems and processes that allow them to enjoy owning the business because they're too trapped inside the business. And I know a lot of you guys are already recognizing what I'm talking about because we've all been there, especially if you're growing a business. You're supposed to be able to enjoy the ownership of business, right? And everybody wants to grow and scale their business. So the question is, is how do we do it? How do we get everybody on the team fired up? How do we keep people moving in the same direction? Ultimately, how do we lower turnover? Grow the team. And ultimately, get where we're trying to get to, which is a business that's not only valuable, but at the same time, it's also, you know, exitable, meaning what you've put together, someone actually wants someone wants to buy. Can't be owner dependent. It can't be relying on you to operate the business every single day. If that's the case, it's just less valuable. So how do you increase the value of your organization? Believe it or not, you build a framework into it to where it operates and grows and scales on its own. It basically develops into something that doesn't need you. And really, I call it a two week test. What do you do? Well, if you disappeared for two weeks, what would break first? What would break first? Would the sales break down? Would delivery break down? Would everybody be calling you on vacation, wondering what to do? Because if that's the case, this is how you fix it. There's seven pillars to my little real scale framework. And it's not theory. It's an operating system. It's an operating system where if you miss one pillar, the whole thing wobbles. Okay. You got to have all seven in place and order matters. It stacks like a foundation, not a buffet. Number one, vision. You got to have a vision, folks. The vision needs to be clear and concise. You can't just be, oh, we're going to grow. Oh, we're going to make millions of dollars. Oh, we're going to be number one in the world. Okay. It has to have a little bit more substance than that. If you walk around your organization and everybody cannot recite in 60 seconds or less, exactly where it is you're going, what you do and do not do and what your standards are, then you probably don't have a clear enough vision. So step number one, folks, is you want to get a vision. That vision is important because it's basically the cadence. It's the direction everybody needs to row. So if everybody's not rowing in the same direction, you're going to get a wavy ship, push and pull. It's not good. So how do you get that vision? Well, again, folks, you sit down and you take a little time and you're right out your vision. I mean, if you need help with it, Google, use chat GPT. Hey, I want to create my vision for my company. How do I do it? It's not that difficult, okay? But you really need to take the time and actually get a vision that's recitable. It's a vision. So everyone knows where you're going. Okay. Step one, you got to get your vision crystal clear. There's so many businesses out there that just have a idea where they want to go, but there's no clarity and they're not really focused in on it. They're not concise. They're not crystal clear. They're just general. You know, hey, we want to be the biggest company in the world. You know, doesn't everyone? Okay. How are you going to get there? What are you going to do to get there? What's the plan? What's the vision? Ultimately. And if you can't say it out loud repeatedly and more importantly, if your people can't, well, then you don't really have a vision. What you have is a hope and hope isn't a good strategy. So we're going to get your vision in place. Number two, you need a team. This is where I made the mistake. Okay. You got to build a team. Took me a long time to realize you're not getting very far by yourself. If you really want to get somewhere in life, you're going to need a team of people. And those people need to be aligned with that vision. If you have a team of people that are going this direction when you plan on going that direction or they're not clear on what your vision is, you get chaos, you get confusion, you get struggle, you get push and pull. And that will cost you a players. So again, wouldn't it make sense to slow down for five seconds? Get yourself a crystal clear vision and then make sure that your vision is aligned with the team. The team is aligned with the vision. Okay. Because obviously a team of people, which basically should consist of, you know, the right people in the right seats aligned with your vision. So you have to have the vision to begin with. That's the foundation. Then you start to fill in your team. And what most people do is they try and figure out who they have and what they can do to get the job done. Rather than here's my vision, who do I need now to execute on that vision? You might find that you have people missing. In other words, your team is not complete. So what do you work on if you really grow in the business? So many times all we're worried about is selling why? Because revenue solves a lot of problems and I'm a firm believer in that. So let's just sell our way out of it. Well guys, that only lasts for so long. Once you get to, you know, mid seven figures, high seven figures and you got a little bit of money. Okay. Now you need to start figuring out what team members do I need? What positions and roles do I need here to actually grow and scale this thing to another level? Eight figures, nine figures. And more importantly, again, people to exit the company. You want to be able to exit someday. What's your building needs to create some sort of enterprise value where other people would actually want to buy it? They're not going to buy it. If it's just this chaotic mess, they need to buy a machine. So this is why you're stuck in the system because you have the answers. You have the vision. Everyone needs you and that's really not a place you want to be in. So you're going to need a team. And what I would highly recommend is that you create your vision first and then you build the team based on that vision. So when people build out their team, they usually just figure out who they have and they put different hats on everybody and everybody pitches in to get the job done, which is fine when you get started. Okay. That's what we all had to do. That's what we all still do in most cases. But what we really want to do is you take the vision that you've decided on. Basically it's a decision. And then you say, who am I going to need to execute on that vision and now you write down roles and positions and then you look at the people that you have and figure out who do you have and who do you need? It's very simple. Who do you have and who do you need? Now some people you have might be good people, but they're not good for that position. So now you have to start weighing who's right, who's wrong. Just because they're wrong for one position doesn't mean they're wrong for the company. So get the right butts in the right seats and then align them to your vision. Now you need your SOPs, your standard operating procedures. And I would highly recommend that. some sort of training system, whether it be manual, whether it be digital, but you have to have a training system, okay? Your SOPs and your training system. That is the third thing you want to focus on. If you are a company right now and you do not have a training system, then you probably don't expect to grow or you're pushing it down the road and you think, "One day when I get big, I will develop a training system." Well, that's a mistake. You need to figure out how are you going to train people currently, otherwise you're going to be stuck in your business. Because again, there's been many times where I needed people and I wanted to hire somebody, but I didn't have the time to train them and explain things. So what did I do? Nine times out of ten, I either didn't hire them. I procrastinated, which cost me, or I just hired them and then trained them poorly, because I didn't have a training system in place, which is crazy, because as you guys know or don't know, I own a software that builds world-class training systems for companies and individuals looking to train people. So I wasn't even using my own software like an idiot. Here I am with a leading world-class training technology. All I had to do was stop and do what it is. I'm teaching you right now. And I would have saved tons of time, tons of turnover, tons of frickin' loss. Because what people don't understand is they think it's a pain in the butt to go figure out a training program. What they don't realize is they're going to pay one way or the other. You're going to pay through mistakes. You're going to pay through due overs. You're going to pay with your reputation, customer satisfaction, employee turnover. It costs you a lot of money not to have a training system. So you might as well bite the bullet and get a training system put in place. And this training system is your SOPs. It's your manuals. It's how you do things. If you have to do it more than once, there should be an SOP tied to it. If someone calls in and says this once, well, that's not something you need an SOP for. But if it's something that continues to happen over and over and over again, well, then you got to sit down even if it's after work and figure out what would someone do? What would I expect someone to do? How do they need to think? How would they handle this if I weren't here? Because that's the goal. The goal is your business grows and scales and does well without you. That's when you have a real business. That's when you're building something worth exiting, something that somebody wants. So you're going to have to figure out, hey, what are these things, these SOPs that need to be written and documented and transferable to someone else, whether it's in a manual or behind a password, a technology that delivers tracks and measures it. So an LMS or some sort of training system. But at the end of the day, if something happens on a regular basis, and I cannot hand somebody to hand something to somebody that will teach them exactly what I want them to do, how to handle situations like that, then you're not prepared to grow and scale. You're going to grow and scale chaos, or you're going to allow individuals to hold you hostage because so and so knows how to do it, but what if so and so sick? What if so and so quits? What if another company steals so and so? So at the end of the day, you have to document these things. These SOPs are massively important. You have to have the ability to train somebody clearly and effectively on exactly how you want these things handled. What goes where? Who does what? When? And if you're thinking, man, this is complicated. Folks, it's not complicated. You just have to slow down and do it. So if you're running a business, you have 20 employees and you don't have a training system and the SOPs all completely documented, you might want to get that done. If you want to really grow and scale in 2026, this is this seven pillar framework for it. This is exactly what you do, whether you spend extra time, whether you get your team and you go off in the mountains and rent a cabin and get this done, and then come back 2026 will grow and scale faster than if you don't do this. So there's companies out there right now that are struggling. Well, you should have done this years ago. There's some companies that are looking to grow and scale, but they just think pushing revenue and sales is going to be the answer. Folks, it's 10 times harder to do if you don't put these things in place first. So you got your vision? That's incredibly important. Then you get your team in place. Okay? Then you get your SOPs, your standards. Okay? What are your standards? How do we handle everything? How do we operate like a machine, your SOPs, and then you put it in some sort of training system? So you can transfer that knowledge relatively easily and it doesn't start over every single month. Okay? When a new hire gets put on, you give them a password. They log in, you pop up and you start to explain everything for the 790th time that week, but yet you are on vacation. Why? Because you created a training system with all the answers. You took everything out of your head and your management's head and your star players head and you documented it and you put it in a training system so you can deliver track and measure it. And by the way, folks, a training program is not watching a video. Okay? There's four things that are necessary in order for you to have an effective training system. Okay? What you want is a system, not a program, not a weekly meeting, but a training system. There's four things that you're going to need. Number one is the right content. You have to know the right way to do it in the first place. If you don't have the right way to do it, there's people out there. There's subject matter experts that have developed ways of doing things that you can take from them and actually create your own from it. But at the end of the day, you need the right content. Okay? If you don't know the right way to do it in the first place, it's very difficult to train someone on how to do it right. Okay? So the right way to do it, let's call that good content. You need good content. The next you need repetition. Repetition is the mother of learning. Nobody wants to go to a church where the pastor read the Bible once. Nobody wants to go to a plastic surgeon who performed the surgery once. Okay? Repetition is the mother of mastery. How many times have they went through it? How many times have they sat down and went through it? Even if you're using a video because a lot of people obviously videos a great way to do it. How many times have they went through the material? If it's once that's not a training system, that's an exposure system. You're exposing them to information and then expecting them to perform and understand the information. That's not what you do. Okay? What you need is a training system that delivers the content, the right way to do it with repetition, then practice, then accountability. So just ask yourself, do I have a training system at my organization? If the answer is yes, cool. You're better than most. If the answer is no, get one. Okay? It's worth all the money in the world. It's worth its weight and gold. It will eliminate turnover. It will eliminate reduce. It will eliminate brain damage and it makes your company more valuable because the second you put an actual training system filled with all of the SOPs and industry knowledge that you have, which makes you successful in SOPs, manuals, or a training system, it's more transferable. So the valuation of your company increases dramatically just from that. Okay? It's not rocket science, folks. If I'm going to come by your company and I have to worry about all of your people and hope that when I buy it, they like me, like they like you. They're going to perform for me, like they perform for you and people are scared of that. So I'm not going to buy your company for as much money knowing full well that all of that knowledge is in your team's heads. I want to see that it's in a system. It's in a book. It's in a documented resource that shows me every single thing you guys do on a day-to-day basis that makes you successful. That's the machine I want to buy. So training in SOPs is critical and the training has to be good content, repetition, practice, and accountability. So how am I delivering the information? Is there repetition? Is there a way to practice? And is it being tracked, measured, and monitored in real time? Because if it's not guys, it's not necessarily training. It's still better than nothing. But if you want a real training system, you need good content, repetition, practice, and accountability. There's no ifs or buts. If you can't track it and you can't measure it, you can't manage it. You can't hold people accountable. You can't inspect what you expect. It's pretty simple. And by the way, light speed, our software, it gives you the technology to deliver, create, deliver, track, and measure in real time, killer content. If you don't have the content, I've got tons of people with with with all the content you probably need sales, customer service, leadership, operational excellence, culture building, and the list goes on. The content is available. We live in a world where man, there's a million people that have done well and they've documented it. It's just you don't possess it. Well, it's easy to acquire. So do you have the content? Are you delivering it with repetition? Are you giving them the ability to practice that information without costing you money, without practicing on real customers? Okay, when you look at athletes, they don't. They don't go practice during the game. They practice during the week and then on game day, they're executing. So can you allow people to practice this information that you've given them? And then are you able to track measure and monitor? Are you able to hold people accountable? Do you know if they trained or didn't trained? Do you know if they're trained or not trained? If you look across your organization right now and you just hope they are, they're nodding their head in the meetings, well, that's not really training. Okay. I know companies that do Zoom meetings and they're killer Zoom meetings. If you're on them, if you're paying attention, if your kid isn't making noise when you're on mute and your camera's off, like guys, that isn't training. Stop fooling yourself. That's exposing people to information. So you might think you have a training program and a lot of companies do think they have a training program. When in reality, they have a exposure program. They're just exposing people to information, hoping they understand it, hoping they can implement it and hoping that they do. There's no way to inspect what they expect. There's no way to measure. There's no way to tell. Okay. Other than a head nod. You understand? Yeah, I understand. That's not a training system. Okay. So you want a training system and your SOP. That's very crucial. Okay. After this, now the lifeblood is revenue. So you're going to need a lead acquisition model, predictable, qualified leads, and they can't be based on you or your personal brand. Because again, now your company's worth less. If you're the one driving all the traffic folks, that's good for making money. God bless you. I do it. Okay. But you need predictable, qualified lead flow that's not based on you. That could be meta ads. That could be LinkedIn. That could be newspaper, billboards, radio, commercials. It doesn't matter. But do you have a predictable way to drive qualified leads? Because a lot of companies, they're out there hustling and they get leads, but they're getting them from random places and it's not predictable. So you want to establish at least several predictable lead flows, like a lead mechanism. If you don't have that, again, write that down. That's one of the seven predictable qualified leads. Do I have them? No. Well, then I need to take some time and figure out exactly how I'm going to drive leads to the business predictably, qualified ICPs, the ideal customer profile. Okay. Do you have one or do you not? And if you do, are they documented? Does everyone know what they are? Can they be replicated? Can they grow and scale? Because again, let's say I spend a thousand dollars on ads and it causes me to get 12 customers that equal $3,600. Well, if I spend a thousand dollars to get back $3,600, that's a pretty damn good ROI. Why am I not spending 10,000? And then a hundred thousand. And then a million. Okay. That's how you grow and scale revenue is you find predictable qualified leads and then you convert them, which would happen to be step five, which is your sales process. Folks, you have to have a sales process. Sales isn't hoping it isn't strategy and you don't want to be relying on the top sales person or the top 20% of the sales people, which usually exists. At any company I go to, there's always a top sales person or a top 20% selling 80% of the business. What happens when they leave? What happens when they quit? What's making them so successful? Why isn't the other 80% able to do what they're doing? You think it's talent? No, it's the things they're doing, the things they're saying. Is it trainable? Can those people transfer that knowledge and create 80% that aren't producing into top producers? Because if the answer is no, 20% of my sales people do most of the selling. The other 80% are learning on the job, which is costing you money and reputation and everything else. Well, then how do I replicate those top 20%? What are they doing? What are they saying? What are their habits? What is their mindset? What skills do they possess? Because if I can just capture that and train properly and effectively, these 80% that aren't producing as much, guess what? I'm going to get more productivity. I'm going to lower my turnover. I'm going to increase my revenue. I'm going to increase my customer base. I'm going to grow my business. So again, pay attention to the predictable qualified lead flow, because if you don't have that in place, you're going to need it in place. Again, if it takes you two hours or two months or two years to figure it out, it's worth figuring out. And then it's worth documenting. And then it's worth training everybody on it. So you have multiple people completely aware of exactly how your business produces leads. Where when you're not there and something goes awry, boom, they already know the vision. They already know who does what on the team. They already have the SOPs for every little thing that goes on that that organization. They understand how you get leads, the message that you deliver, they understand everything. Why? Because it was thought about, created, documented, and trained. Now, after you get the lead acquisition, dialed in, well, now you're going to need to focus on your sales process, guys. The process of sales is converting those leads. You have to convert the leads. You could get a million leads and no conversion. And it doesn't work very well. So what does your sales process look like? What happened? Step one, what about step two? When do we ask for referrals? When do we follow up? How long does it take to follow up? What's the standard? What are your rules? How do you win? Where's the playbook? Does everybody know this stuff? Or you just relied on a few people to figure it out. So now you got your star sales people, crushing it, making demands, and holding you hostage. Because if you lost them, you're screwed. You're going to lose massive amounts of revenue. Why? Because you didn't take the time to do what I'm talking about. Okay. You got to figure it out and document it. What's your sales process look like? Can it be trained? Can someone brand new come on board and understand exactly what those people do? What they say when they did it? What sequence did everything happen? What's step one? What's step two? What's step three? What's step four? What's step five? Or is it just a hope strategy? Folks, pay attention. You need a sales process. If you don't have a sales process, again, folks, chat GPT, Claude, any AI model properly trained, properly prompted will give you very good ones, subject matter experts, sales experts, leadership experts, lead acquisition, marketing, compliance, culture, everything, all the information's there. For you not to go after it, find it, acquire it, and deliver it with repetition, practice, and accountability is your limitation. It's whatever excuses that you're making. I'd stop making them. Why? Because I honestly believe that anybody that wants to grow their business beyond anything they've ever been able to do in 2026 can do it and will do it if they just apply these seven pillars. These seven steps of the real scale framework is what you do. I've applied them to all of my businesses. Unfortunately, they all grow and they scale. And by the way, this is years of trial and error to get this down to the basic seven. There's little steps in all of them, but at the end of the day, they're seven. Sales process. The next one is KPIs. Folks, you have to measure everything. You have to measure it in order to manage it. You have to see what's going on through data. Don't operate with emotions and feelings and intuition. Operate based on data. When I put a thousand dollars into Facebook, what happens? How many leads did that create? What was my cost of acquisition? How many did it take to actually close a deal? What was the revenue on that deal? Who made it? How many people did they need to talk to? What's their closing percentage? Who are your top salespeople? I mean, it goes on and on, but it all boils down to KPIs. Do you have your KPIs figured out? Key performance indicators. What are the indicators? Are you looking at lagging indicators or leading indicators? What's the difference? Well, a leading indicator is something that you would look at to determine whether or not you're heading in the right direction. A lagging indicator is something that you look at and realize that you didn't hit your goal. So using weight loss for an example, if you're looking to lose 10 pounds in a week on Monday, did you eat right? Did you do your cardio? Did you do your exercise? Did you do everything you were supposed to do? Those are leading indicators. What did I do on Monday? Did I do my pushups? Did I do my cardio? Did I eat correctly? Because if I did, that's a leading indicator. Well, then more than likely, I'm on pace. Come Friday, I can step on the scale and see that I lost 10 pounds. If you wait till Friday and then step on the scale and realize you only lost 6 pounds, well, the week's gone. It's too late. So you want to look at leading indicators. What are the key performance indicators of your business? Do you know what they are? And if you kind of know, yeah, we map a few things. You need to map everything that matters. Okay. If it doesn't get measured, it doesn't get managed. You need these KPIs in order to to operate through data. You have optics just like when you fly a jet. Okay. There's there's all kinds of gauges and panels and readings and data. And you need that data in order to successfully go where you're going and land where you want to land. Okay. And if you take a jet as an example, you know, this much like a business man, you fly a jet with no instruments. You don't know where you're going to end up. You don't know where you're going. You think you might be going someplace and you find out you're heading in the complete wrong direction or you crash, especially if you get in the clouds. And in today's world, guys, you need data. Okay. Especially with AI. You can feed that data into AI and get some incredible insight into into what moves to make. And if you're not leveraging AI guys, I'm telling you right now, you better start figuring it out. Okay. It's not going anywhere. Trust me when I tell you. But the KPIs again, we could be here and do an episode on each one of these. The KPIs, the basic KPIs would be like, you know, how many leads came in, you know, who talked to them, you know, how many closed? Why didn't they close? Who followed up? Did they follow up? How long did it take them to follow up? How long did it take the sale to happen? How long does it take to deliver that sale? Okay. What does it cost you every single time you make a sale? I've literally found companies that thought they were making money and only to find out later, they went bankrupt because they weren't pricing their products and services correctly because they weren't measuring things. It seemed like they were making money, but they weren't. When it all boiled down to it, it cost them more to actually deliver what they were selling than they were charging. And if you guys think, well, those guys are idiots. No, it happens more than you think. Why? Because people are not fine-tuned on their KPIs. Okay. So the sixth pillar for real growth and real scale is your KPIs. Sit down and figure it out again. If you guys don't know what I'm talking about, you might be too new. Okay. But you, you, you want to listen to this episode over and over and over if you want a business because I can tell you right now, if you get these seven pillars down and implemented, everything becomes easier, everything becomes more valuable. Your time is, is, is, is less taxed. Your gray hairs come later than sooner. Your stars attract more stars. You want to build a great team, create structure, create order, create success. How do you do that? This is how you do that. It's pretty simple. And then once your KPIs are all figured out, don't forget the last pillar, which is feedback. Okay. From your team and the customer, is there a way that you are getting feedback from your customers and your team? If you're not getting feedback from your customers, and I'm talking about direct, consistent feedback, did you do well? Did you do poorly? Are they happy? Are they pissed? Would they recommend you? Would they not recommend you? If you were on Yelp, what's your fricking Yelp reviews? If you're on Google, what are your Google stars? Do you even have a system to get reviews, to get testimonials? But your feedback mechanism, the feedback loop that you that you have or don't have, which is what most people don't have, is basically, how can the customer give me their real and honest opinion and suggestions on how we can improve our product or service? And a lot of companies listening to this, they're going to think, wow, I didn't really think of that. I mean, I hear stuff from people, but I don't really have a system that allows me to get it consistently, directly, and honestly. So you got to get that figured out. You have to put in a feedback mechanism to where your customers have a direct line of communication to you or your management team that basically gives you the insight, the truth. And then also for your team, does your team, your vendors, your partners, your team is your partners. If you don't consider your team partners, you're highly mistaken. These people are your partners. Yeah, they might be W2 employees, or that might be 1099 employees, but they're your partners. They're the ones that are going to make you look good, sound good. And at the end of the day, make money or lose money. There's people on your team right now, unfortunately, that don't give a rat's ass about you or your company. They're called clock watchers. They're called unengaged team members. One of the ways that you can find those people is feedback. When you solicit feedback from your team, suggestion boxes. Anyway, we can improve. Anyway, we can make it better for you and your family to work here. You know, good, engaged people, they will reply. They will provide suggestions. They will give you feedback. But if you're not listening to it, because you think you know everything and there's nothing you can do better, you're smoking crack folks and you're destined to stay small. If you really want to grow and scale in 2026, make sure that you have feedback mechanisms in place for both your customers and your team. Now, a lot of you are thinking, well, how do I do this? How do I do this? Again, your vision, sit down and pay attention to your vision. And by the way, I'm going to drop this ASAP so it should be available Friday, no, Thursday at 4 p.m. I'm going to be doing a podcast February 5th at 4 p.m. You can find the link. If you can't find the link, we'll put it in the notes below. But I am doing a webinar and I'm going to break this all down and I'm going to walk people how to create their vision with perfection and clarity, how to build their team, find a players, keep a players, how to put a training and SOP system in place that actually works and is effective where your company trains itself, where you can find and create predictable qualified lead flow. What's your sales process needs to look like in order to be effective and convert at a high rate? What KPIs you need to be focused on in detail, okay? And then how do you put these feedback mechanisms in place? And again, it's a free webinar. I would suggest you go and you register for it ASAP. Someone will put the link if you're listening to this and you're like, well, I can't see anything. I'm listening. Well, then go to YouTube, my YouTube channel, okay? And watch this episode and look in the notes section and there will be a link to that webinar. And it'll probably be just in time because it's going to take me a day to drop this thing. So if you're really interested in getting help, show up for the webinar, okay? Just show up for the webinar. But guys, that's really it, okay? You're basically wanting these seven pillars if you want to grow and scale in 2026, okay? Your vision, your team, your SOPs in your training system, your lead acquisition methods, your sales processes, your KPIs and your feedback loops. You want that information. I call it the real scale framework, real being an acronym, refine your vision and team, establish your systems and processes, attract and convert leads and then leverage the data. This is all you need in order to be data driven organization with a killer culture, complete order. You're able to make decisions quickly with that training system in place. You're able to communicate the change or the pivot that you're making, new product rollouts, SOPs, harassment, compliance, safety. Do you have a mechanism in place for this? Pillar one, which would be your vision, okay? Your vision should be a decision system, not a poster, okay? If your team can't repeat it, they can't execute it. Your real vision needs to include who we serve, what we do and how we win. If it doesn't do that, folks, it's not really a clear vision, you know? What do we, what do we not want? What do we refuse? What is our absolute no list? What are our standards are non-negotiables? What are our targets? for the next 12 months, for the next quarter. Does your whole team know these things? Because if the answer's no, again, it would serve you well by getting these put in place. What are we focused on right now? That's what a vision sounds like. Okay? If you can't say it in one sentence, you really don't have clarity that you need. Okay? Your team, people don't quit hard work. They quit confusion and inconsistency. Okay? A role, score card, fixes turnover. So if you're finding people are quitting quickly, it's because they're not winning and they're not winning because they don't have a score card. They don't even know if they're winning or losing. Okay? And neither do you. And that's the problem. Okay? A, players like scorecards. They like to be judged. They like to be graded. They like to prove how kick-ass they are. Okay? Your score card has outcomes, competencies. Okay? Standards, ownership. Who owns what? What do they do? What's their responsibility? Okay? You've got a delegation ladder. You don't delegate tasks. You delegate decisions. If you want to be this owner that owns something that's not requiring you day in and day out. Okay? You're training an SOP's folks. Your SOP's without training is a dead Google drive. Okay? Training without SOPs is tribal knowledge and inconsistency. You don't want that. Okay? Training system. Okay? Document, teach, test, coach, and improve. That has to be an ongoing thing. Training is something you do, not something you did. Okay? If it's not assigned, tracked, and measured, it's just optional. Okay? You should probably start simple. Pick the one thing you explain every week. Build an SOP. Turn it into a lesson. Check list, a quiz, a certification. Okay? Consistency is the business. Okay? Then your lead acquisition, your fourth pillar. Okay? Random leads equals random revenue equals owner stress. Okay? How many times have you guys been stressing to make payroll or stressing to get from A to B? Because you don't have a consistent, qualified lead flow. Okay? You want to track inputs and what you control. Okay? Outreach volume, content output. What people are asking for? Okay? Add spend, cost per lead. Want to do it all? Okay? If you don't know leads by the source, then you don't have a marketing plan. You don't have a lead acquisition model. Okay? Your sales process? Okay? It's a sequence. It's not charisma. It's not talent. Sales is a system, not a personality. Okay? You need to define your stages and exit criteria so deals don't rot. No orphan leads should be your rule. Your follow-up cadence is a standard, not a suggestion. Okay? If your sales process lives in one rep's head, it's fragile. It's destined for failure. It's not going to grow and it's not going to scale. Okay? You're going to be held hostage. With six pillar KPIs, that's your scoreboard folks. It's not trivia. Okay? KPIs tell you what's happening before it becomes a disaster. You want to keep it simple. Okay? Five to twelve weekly metrics and you're on pace. Every KPI needs an owner. Okay? You can't have a KPI if nobody owns it. Okay? What's the threshold? You know? Red, yellow, green. You know, now when you have these meetings, you have weekly reviews. Let's talk about the red. What's in the red? What's yellow? What's green? If it's green, obviously it's going well. If it's yellow, hey, better pay attention. If it's red, that's the focus for the next week. Everybody's on the same page. Okay? If it isn't reviewed weekly folks, it's not a KPI. It's just trivia. Okay? And then pillar number seven is feedback. Okay? Feedback loops equals a self correcting company, an innovative company, a company that listens to its customers, a company that kicks its own ass before some other company comes in and does it. Okay? Feedback loops. KPIs tell you what happened. Feedback tells you why it happened and what to change. Okay? You need a loop. You need a feedback mechanism. Okay? Measure, diagnose, adjust, train and then repeat. The non-negotiable rule about KPIs should be every fix becomes a training update. Okay? Every time you fix something, boom, create a new SOP and train it. If you don't capture lessons, you repeat mistakes. Okay? They all depend on each other, by the way folks. Vision tells the team what winning means. The team needs training and SOPs to communicate and execute consistently. Consistency reduces the turnover and stabilizes delivery. Stable delivery supports leads and sales and growth. KPIs show where performance is drifting. Feedback loops correct the drift and update training so it sticks. Okay? This is how a business becomes self correcting instead of owner corrected. Okay? Okay? So here's what I tell you guys. Run the two week test. Okay? Pick a bottle neck and build one SOP and one training and one test this week. Okay? Get your shit in order. You guys are out there running a business, dreaming that you're going to be big someday, dreaming that you're going to grow and scale and half of you don't even have a plan for it. So again, I felt this was necessary because 2026 is upon us. Matter of fact, January is already gone. You only have 11 months left. What are you waiting for? Okay? Get yourself a plan. Get yourself situated to where you can actually grow and scale with intelligence and frickin and certainty. Okay? If you don't have your vision figured out, figure it out. If you don't have your team in place, get it in place. Are you able to hire people? Are you able to screen applicants? Are you able to train them once they do come on board? Do you know what they're supposed to do? Do they have a scorecard figured out? Do they know what winning looks like? A lot of these answers in your mind are saying no, folks. You got to stop what you're doing or spend a little more time in the evenings. Okay? On the weekends, when everyone else is partying, you're focused. You're saying, I need this framework to grow and scale in 2026. I need my vision. I'm going to go get it, even if I have to go away for a day. Then I need my team. I'm going to at least identify what roles do I need and who is going to fit those roles and what those roles are going to do and how they're measured and how they're going to contribute to this vision. They obviously have to be aligned on the vision in order to do that. Okay? My SOPs figure them out. Okay? If you don't have the expertise, find it, Google it, hire it, pay for it. Then your lead acquisition, then your sales process, then your KPIs, and then finally, your feedback mechanisms. If you guys have those seven things in place, you're going to grow and scale with much more ease. Obviously, it's not going to work if half of them aren't there as well. If you want, show up to my free webinar where I'm digging into each one of these with a little bit more detail. For anybody that's out there that understands what I just said, number one, congratulations, because it took me a long time to figure it out. Some of you guys are scratching your head thinking that this is all nonsense, but at the end of the day, trust me when I tell you, it works. Works like frickin. It works. Then for companies right now that have most of this stuff sitting on a shelf, you just can't figure out how to get everyone to understand it. We have a technology that you can implement in your organization right now, and it will allow you to create, deliver, track, and measure all of what I just talked about. You would go to instant.lightspeedvt.com, the links down below. If you're listening, it's instant, like in an instant.lightspeedvtvt.com, instant.lightspeedvt.com. And for peanuts, you can spin up a world-class technology that will allow you to create, deliver, track, measure, practice, everything that you need to do. Everything that I just said, you're going to need a system, your minds will use mine. You're less than a cup of coffee a day. Literally 399 bucks, you can train your whole damn team on a regular basis, often as you want 24/7, track at all, measure it all, let them practice, et cetera, et cetera. So if you're interested in that, go to instant.lightspeedvt.com. Then for some of the companies that really understand the value of training, because in order to do these seven things, you're going to need to do a lot of training. There's a lot of really deep thinking to figure it out, then document it all. Then you have to get it all out there on an ongoing basis, like this isn't something that you did, this is something that you do. So again, if you have the system, you're able to do it, but if you want to do it, you're want my team, my company to actually become your training department. We've created the world's first fractional training department. It's called ITD. It's on the page as well. But basically we will build your courses from existing materials. You can send us your SOPs, your manuals, your work books, bar napkins, videos of you talking, zoom meetings, your favorite business book. I don't care what it is. You send those materials to my team. My team will then turn them into interactive full-motion video-based modules with testing, tracking, practice mechanisms, leaderboards, badges, and the whole nine yards. So we literally become your training department. Now most large companies have a training department. Why do you think that is? How do you think these companies got big? Okay. They had the ability to train their team and make people successful. They had whether they did it manually or whether they were smart enough to do it from the get go. They've got what they call L and D departments learning and development or T and D training and development. You go to any of these large companies. They've got human resources with training departments and personnel on payroll to do nothing but what I just talked about. They have a they have a deficiency. They go develop courseware. They go, you know, create the freaking content, deliver it, track it, measure it with repetition, practice, and accountability. So again, even if you're a small business, one to five employees, you want to do this sooner than later. Okay. You do it to get big quicker, faster. And it increases the value of your company. So just by investing into a training system. Okay. You need a training system. And for, you know, let's just say $300 a month, you can train your entire team 24/7, let them practice, drill, roleplay, rehearse, everything's tracked, measured, you get reports, notifications, there's leaderboards and badges and engagements, the world class technology, you can deploy it for fricking 300, 400 bucks a month. Now go get it instant.lightspeed vt.com, get a training system for your organization. And then if you still don't have time to do it all yourself, well, then let our company, let my team filled with all the people that have been doing it for 25 years. We've done it for some of the biggest companies on planet earth. We do it for some of the biggest brands biggest names. Go to the page. You can see some of who our customers are. Okay. But let us be your training department. You can deploy an instant training department without hiring anyone or creating anything because we do it for you. All we need is the source material and the direction. If you have an employee manual, I'll make an onboarding course. You want an applicant screening tool, give me your standards and your core values and your mission statement. And I'll create it into a full motion interactive course that you can deliver track and measure 24/7. If you value your time and you're tired of repeating yourself a thousand times, if you're tired of having people shadow other people and you want to grow up and you want to become an actual business that is going to be valuable to where it doesn't depend on you and cause you to turn gray prematurely, then implement a training department. And rather than go higher a bunch of people that cost half a million dollars a year minimum in salaries. Let us be your training department. I'm already paying their salaries. You can leverage them. We will build you courses every single month. We will assign it to the right people. We will mirror it to your organization. We'll base it off your SOPs, your manuals, your favorite business books, your Zoom meetings. Okay, and then we will give you the system to deliver track and measure all of it. So folks, there is how you grow in 2026. Everything else is just an excuse. Some of you guys are driving around right now and you're thinking, well, I'll do that later. Folks later becomes never stop what you're doing. Come on board with my company. I'll help you create these seven pillars. I'll help you create a world class interactive training technology and a whole system that allows you to grow and scale with confidence and certainty and precision rather than hope and chaos. And until next time, keep it real. [MUSIC]