Firmentraining: In 2,5 Jahren von 2 auf 10 Millionen

0:00Unternehmer/Gast I sell corporate training to B2B, B2C. We do right under about 2 million revenue per year. I'd like to be at 10 million with about >> B2B and B2C, you mean companies? Uh So corporate training Yeah, to businesses. Oh, B2B then. >> Yeah. Okay, got it. Okay, so B2B, okay, got it. And then B2C, consumers, just individuals. Oh. So we do both. We We do We do We do corporate training for for companies and when do we do open enrollments across the country that individuals can sign up. Interesting. Okay, got it. Yeah. And the corporate training is around what?

0:35Uh communication. Public speaking, presentations, how to employ. Yeah. Okay. I'd like to be at 10 million in about 2 and 1/2 years. And what's stopping me is our really our sales process. And my question is as a growing company with limited upfront cash Yeah. how do you hire top A talent to attract and and bring somebody on that can drive sales and but expecting, you know, a good good revenue. I want somebody to make a lot of money. But how do you do that with with really a limited cash flow? What are the models or things that you've seen I can give you the answer you want or the answer that's true.

1:19Um the answer that's true is if you hear like John Paul DeJoria, you talk you know, you hear Elon Musk, you talk you hear the you hear Bezos talk about the early days. Um it's it's I mean the reason that founders get disproportionately compensated is because we have to do more jobs better than most people for an extended period of time to make up for the debt that the business has to incur. So basically every business always incurs debt, period. The question is just what type of debt you want to incur. And so you can incur financial debt in the beginning uh which would be that you take on capital and then you go and find the all-stars. and then by doing that you don't incur the operational debt, the talent debt, the data debt, the the tech debt that you have to do that you have to make up later. And so fundamentally, you want to take on the debt that you can most easily pay back.

2:10Alex Now, if you're bootstrapped, then you're choosing not to take on financial debt, but you do actively take on talent debt, you take on infrastructure debt, you take on tech debt um because you can't do it all as a founder. And the alternative to that is that you can give away equity in the business to attract a better player uh without the necessary cash comp and then part of that still going to be levered on your skill set because they're going to be betting on you and to a large degree of like I would rather have 10% of this guy's thing than 100% of my own thing cuz I think this could go places.

2:41Right? Um and so the the long the long story short of what's margins right now? 20%? Ish. Okay, so you got 400,000 in free cash flow, which is basically enough to hire like one good person. Right? That's a that's a stud. Um and so you're like, okay, so I can just risk all of my paycheck >> [laughter] >> to have one good person and they might not work out. I mean, and this again is why we get disproportionately compensated for when we win.

3:09Is that we make bigger bets and we take bigger risks. And so the choice is you take the bet on the person um who you sell using your skill set um who can help you grow the business or you work third shift you increase the revenue and the cash flow so that now you go to 2.5 and you can pay 300 to get somebody who can actually drive growth and then like you basically work overtime to afford the guy so that he can then work more and then all of a sudden you get lift off. But the cash flow is kind of like the oxygen for the business. And to be fair, this is actually what the whole money models book is about. Which is like is there a way that we can recombine the money making variables in the business so we can accelerate cash flow, um get customers for cheaper, get them to pay faster, get them to pay more um so that we can de-constrain the business from a cash flow perspective so that we can grow. Whether that means scaling ads or scaling team or talent or infrastructure.

4:03If it's you know physical obviously like manufacturing locations etc. So the long story answer you're like I'm still waiting for an answer. What should I do? Um I will ask a different question which is why how do you how do you get business right now? Mainly it's it's SEO. People calling us from some of the stuff we've done on our website and and customers re- just re-upping. We Yeah. So right now it's word of mouth and SEO. Yeah.

4:32And you should probably be a little bit concerned because of Chat GPT. Yeah. Um We thought it out. That's eating away the SEO pretty rapidly. Um So right now I think the the real thing that you're lacking is a reliable acquisition channel. And so for me if I were to switch places with you, my first and primary function would be how do I get a reliable acquisition channel. Once I have that then you can put all of your eggs in like you can basically drive all of your own inputs through that channel.

5:02Then get disproportionate return with the additional cash flow, hire the people to backfill yourself. And then it's like okay well then what am I what am I currently doing that I need to give up in order to get the attention in order to do that. And so it might be less expensive instead of saying how do I hire that guy who's going to grow my business which I'm still waiting for that guy. Um how do I hire the person to do what I'm already doing so that I can go grow the business is probably the better question. And that guy will probably be less expensive than the guy who can grow because rainmakers ain't cheap.

5:31Because they if they actually can grow they don't need you. Yeah. Like that's the real. Like the people who are absolutely the best at growing can do things on their own. And so you have to make the the vision for the business so much bigger and so much more compelling that they're willing to come. So, I think backfill what you're currently doing, take all the existing resources that you have in terms of time and money, put them towards uh getting the next channel going uh for for a corporate sales motion.

5:59I'll bet also that you probably just focus on B2B. I don't know yet. I'd have to look under the hood, but that's that's going to be my bet. Um and that would probably The nice thing for that business is I'll bet you have a much higher ticket for the corporate corporate gigs than you do for the individuals. Yeah. And so if as soon as you get a channel there, all of a sudden you can start selling 10, 20 engagements a week or whatever and you're like, "Holy shit." Um because there's no there's no reason why you Like if you can sell 10 B2C people a week, there's no operational constraint on selling 10 businesses a week.

6:29It's just it's the the function is the same, but you just add zeros. And so you just got a lot more operating leverage. That was my long short answer. Cool. Very good. >> Okay. >> [laughter] >> Appreciate that. Yeah. If you're a business owner and you're not growing as fast as you like, I'd like to give you a free gift. So, my team and I put together the $100 million scaling road map, which is basically 200 hours of us looking over all the portfolio companies we've had and what stages of growth they went through and more importantly where they got stuck and how they got past it.

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