Baktari MD

How to Market Your Business With Guest Joe Reilly (2024)

• Jonathan Baktari MD • Season 2 • Episode 42

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Welcome to episode 42 of Season 2 of Baktari MD! This week we have a very exciting episode with our guest Joe Reilly, the CEO of  @Nationaldrugscreening and Joe Reilly Consulting! In this episode we talk about Marketing, and how it means EVERYTHING when it comes to starting a business. Joe Reilly is an expert in the drug testing industry and is nationally known for being an expert in consulting, speaking engagements, and training programs for many organizations including Quest Diagnostics, Inc, the United States Small Business Administration, the United States Department of Education, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), as well as many, many more. All of the tips and trick you need are right here! Find out all of this and more in the full episode!

The key factor, which you've mentioned on some of your podcasts in the past, which is something that I am part to everyone who works for me and everybody who I coach is to listen with intent, to understand, not to reply, listen with the intent, to understand. So. Hi. Welcome to another episode of Baktari MD. As you know, this season we're doing Crash CEO School, where we're going to go over really all the skill sets that any good leader is going to need to move his organization to the next level. We've covered a lot of topics this year. We've talked about building culture. We've talked about growing your organization by being involved in your organization both in and on top of your organization. One topic we haven't really fully addressed is marketing. And I want to touch on that, but I thought the best way to do that is to bring on a guest who really is an expert in that field and an expert on helping entrepreneurs and small businesses focus on marketing and grow their business. So I want to introduce to you my guest, Joe Reilly, who is the CEO of National Drug Screening, a nationwide drug testing company, as well as Joe Reilly Consulting, where he consults and helps other businesses get started and grow. So welcome to the show, Joe. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here with you, Dr. Baktari. A big honor for us too. Joe and I, of course, have known each other for a long time. So some of this is going to be things that I already know. But I do want to kind of get your opinion on a lot of stuff that I think a lot of the listeners might enjoy. So, Joe, part of what you do is you help a lot of businesses get started. Do you want to just briefly tell us what your role is and what people come to you for and how you help them get started? Sure. Absolutely. So being in the drug testing industry for now, 30 years, probably about 15 years into it, I started getting recognized as like a national expert and I've always had a passion for entrepreneurship and helping others to achieve their entrepreneurial goals. So I had people ask me, Can you teach me what you did when you started your drug testing business? And I said, Yeah, I could do that. That's actually that's actually a great idea. It's a business opportunity. So I started putting together a program that someone is brand new coming into this particular industry, this particular drug testing industry. And a lot of times they knew nothing about it, or sometimes they knew enough about it to make them dangerous. And we put together a program where we teach them the ins and outs of the drug testing business. We teach them the skill sets that they need to operate the business to collect specimens to go out to a lab for testing. But the biggest part of what I try to teach them is that marketing. And from a CEO point of view, understanding marketing the business is a is a critical success factor because if you open up the doors tomorrow morning and nobody walks in the doors and the phone doesn't ring, you're going to get kind of frustrated after maybe six months of that happening. So when you meet different people and you try to educate them, whether it's marketing for drug testing or anything, do you find that there are certain types of people who hear the message and other types that don't and what do you seeing patterns in the people who are successful versus people who don't get the message when they're being sort of mentored on how to start a business and the right approach to marketing? I think, you know, entrepreneurship isn't for everybody and sometimes you can almost clearly see that even though somebody is saying, I want to start a business. A key factor which you've mentioned on some of your podcasts in the past, which is something that I impart to everyone who works for me and everybody who I coach is to listen with intent to understand, not to reply. Listen with the intent to understand. So whether it's a prospect, a customer, an employee, a team member, a partner, listen to understand what they're trying to accomplish, and it's okay to ask clarifying questions so that you can uncover and help them with what they're trying to accomplish. So that's one key item where if I see people aren't really listening with intent to understand, I repeat that and I repeat it every day. If we're meeting for three days and if they're not getting that, I kind of think there might be. It's a bad sign. Yeah. So that and are there other things that are telltale signs that maybe this person isn't really cut out to be an entrepreneur? Are there any other things? And I think as you know, I mean, you've been an entrepreneur and involved in lots of businesses. It's hard work and not everybody realizes that it's hard work. And typically the CEO of a small business in particular works harder than anybody else. Yeah, we talk about being on all the time, not necessarily working all the time, but being on all the time we've talked about in some of our podcasts. But along those lines, if someone's not mentally, emotionally prepared or it's not a good time in their life, I would imagine that would hold them back. Yeah, absolutely. I think you've mentioned on on the podcast, on your previous episodes is, you know, if you were you know, getting ready to go on a month long vacation, it's probably not the time to start your business two weeks- two weeks prior. Right. But you got to pay attention, you know, like they come to me and they pay good money for me to, you know, to teach them and to coach them. Sometimes they're just not you know, a lot of people are great and they're going to be successful and they make it. And you're a great example of that. Okay. But sometimes you see people, they're just not paying attention. I give them homework to do on their own. I can't spend, you know, hundreds of hours, one on one with them. They don't they don't have the capital for that. So I give them a lot of information to study and read on their own. Before we meet one on one. And then when we meet, I quickly realize sometimes they haven't done any of the homework. Right. So maybe they like the allure of having their own business. But some of these trappings of working hard and being committed and making time for things is not what they were expecting. They just- sometimes just the glamor of having your own business without understanding what it would take is what I'm hearing from you. Yeah. And sometimes individuals are coming out of corporate America and they went to work

at 8:

00 every morning and they went home at 5:00 every night. Right. And they put their 8 or 9 hours in and then they checked out. Right. It's difficult to check out when you're when you're the owner of a business. And you have to like you said, you have to be on all the time. You have to be on for your customers. You have to be on for your prospects. You have to be on for those people that you bring in and hire that become your team member. And then you've got to be home and then you got to go home and be on for your family. Do you ever have to have that kind of conversation with with someone who is not prepared and just say, you know, this is going to be a struggle unless you develop this kind of. Yeah, it's it's a difficult conversation. I mean, we've had times where we we've said to people, we're going to need to reschedule because you clearly haven't done the homework that you needed to do. Well, let's flip the coin. What about the positive, like the people that have it? What are the attributes, the common themes that you see in people who do have what it takes and are going to be successful? Is there a couple of things that you see in all of them? Absolutely. So people that are enthusiastic, they're going to be opening a business. People that are committed, they've done their homework. They've done their research. They're organized. A lot of times people show up and they've got a three ring binder of all the articles and all the research papers and everything I asked them to go over and they got it in a binder and it's all tabbed out and they've read it and they've highlighted things. So you see that organizational skill, you see that excitement. They're not really shy. They're going to be okay going out and meeting people in the community because a big part of in a small local business is I always tell them, you got to market yourself and you got to market your business. So it's an enthusiasm. It's a commitment, it's organization. Those are some three top things. Well, so this is a great segway to what we really want to focus, because this is something that you really help small businesses, which is the marketing aspect. You know, in our prior podcast, we've talked about leadership skills, how to hire, how to fire, how to build culture. All of that is very important. Sure. But assuming you get all that and you have everything we've talked about, let's just talk about what it takes if you're starting a business and how you coach people on the approach to marketing when you're just getting started. I think you touched on it, but pretend I'm a client or someone out there is a client and you want to give them the the speech about what it's going to take, what kind of approach they're going to need in terms of starting to market their business. Sure. Absolutely. And we do have 8 or 9 hours for that, right? Yes, for sure. Yeah, We make it a whole season. You know, one of the one of the things I often say in my company and I tell people that I'm teaching and coaching is that everybody in the small business is on the marketing team every body is on the sales team. Okay. And you got to answer the phone. Okay. You can't have press one for this. Press two for that. The very basic thing you got to answer the phone and whoever is answering the phone needs to know where they're talking about. You know, I was involved with an organization and there was a buyout and it was a pretty successful business. And the new big company people came in and they said, We see everybody here answers the phone. We want one receptionist to answer the phone. And they put the the person that was last in the door that knew the least to answer the phone. Right. So that was terrible. But there's lots of things that a small business person can do to get started with marketing their business. Okay. Get involved with the community. Get involved with the Chamber of Commerce. Get involved with a local manufacturing association or a local trucking association. Get on a committee. Get involved with an organization so that you get to know people and you build relationships. It may not be an immediate sale, but it plants a seed for referral business. Get a website and get a good website. Don't spend $100 on Build Your Own. Right. If you know nothing about building a website because Google will never find your website in that situation. So it starts with a website today. You know, you don't go down to the printer like we did 30 years ago and order a four color brochure the day you open, right? You build a website, you build a good website. From there you can get your Google business profile that that's a task you have to you have to contact Google and you get a postcard back and then you build out this profile. But it's free advertising on Google. You wouldn't believe how many businesses that are 5, 10, 15 years old don't have a good presence on their free Google business profile. It's free. And then on your website, you can write some blog posts. You just opened a business that's important information to put on your blog. And then you go to social media and you direct people back to your website. Don't don't put a Facebook icon on on your website to have people go leave your website and go to Facebook, put something on Facebook to have people come to your business. So you wouldn't want to, you know, Macy's wouldn't want somebody to walk in their store and see a sign to say, go somewhere else right now. Right. Okay. And then so there's then you got to decide, and we cover and this is where we take hours and hours, but target markets. Identify what businesses you want to be your customers by industry, by location. Okay. Maybe this month you're going to work on automobile dealerships. Maybe next month you're going to work on manufacturing. So you're targeting and so you're learning the language of that industry. Okay. You're targeting them. Make a list. Make a list of what you're going to do. Check it off. Okay. I give them a list. They give them a list of 100 things that they could be doing to market their business. And I'd say if you go into the office next Thursday morning

and you're sitting at your desk at 9:

00 and you don't really have anything to do. There's a list of 100 things you could be doing. Pull out that list and start doing those things. Okay. And the old the old marketing school. You know, I graduated from college with a marketing degree. And in every marketing class they talked about, you got to have the four P's product, place, promotion and price. So you have to identify your products and services. You've got to identify the pricing for those services. You've got to identify the place. Where are you? Where are your customers, and you've got to promote and you got to promote, promote, promote. Because if you if you're not doing aggressive marketing as a new small business, you're not going to make headway. So when I hear you saying all those things and I'm a new person, if taken the wrong way, I think a lot of people say, well, what you're giving me is a lot of work because that that sounds like a lot of work. So I think it ties into some of the other qualities that we're talking about, because if marketing was just opening a bottle of something and letting it out, then everyone would be a great marketer. Everyone would do it. And what I'm hearing from you is that maybe people who are starting a business, maybe you were planning on being in the business and working the business, but this whole marketing thing is almost like another full time job that they may have to be doing simultaneously, especially if they're the only person or just one or two people. So what I'm hearing from you is they have to be emotionally prepared to start the business and whatever that takes or order inventory and, you know, work the front, work the back, answer the phones, get the insurance set up, you know, get the lease signed and blah, blah, blah. But this is a secondary job that's almost a full time job that you have to intermingle with everything else. And if and if that is the case, do you think that's what keeps people from from doing it? They're like, I'm so focused on starting my business and, you know, ordering the equipment, interviewing for a couple of staff that this is I don't know what I'm going to get around to this. But yeah. And it can almost be overwhelming, as you mentioned, all those things, because you've got to work in the business and you've got to work on the business and it's different between different entrepreneurs and their situation. I mean, some people have more capital and they can hire people. Some people they're starting out all by themselves. Some people are acquiring an existing business and maybe they have to do some things to jumpstart that existing business. Maybe that's why it was sold to begin with. Maybe it wasn't doing that well. So it's it's different situations for different levels of entrepreneurship. And, you know, I tell people sometimes to, you know, you've got high school kids or college kids, they can help you with social media marketing. They know that stuff. They grew up with it. They know it better than I do. Ask them for help. Right. So you have to really kind of be creative also. But it can be overwhelming. And that can be something that inhibits people from being successful because it's too overwhelming for them sometimes. You know, I mean, in my experience, I think if people are thinking about starting a business, they may like try to figure out what it's going to take to start the business. You know, will they need to get a lease or they need equipment, but maybe they're they don't put into that thinking about what they what they're going to be doing for marketing. If that was part of their business plan, that they're going to be knocking on doors, putting fliers out or getting Google getting Google ads or Yahoo ads or if that was part of their original plan. So it's not like I'm going to start my business. Oh, now I should also market. That should be should be at the same time as you're starting your business, that that plan should be starting. Absolutely. Or 100% right. And you know, you can Google for a business plan template and every single one of them will have what's your marketing plan, right, in every template for a business plan. So do use as a company grows the marketing strategies, the differences between that initial phase and as you get to midsize or larger, can you kind of discuss that a little bit and how that's different? Yes. So as the company grows, the CEO might or might not be kind of the face of the business. From the day they open, they're the face of the business. Okay. But as they grow, maybe they hire a marketing person, a marketing director, maybe they have a sales team. Okay. So it maybe the CEO is the main sales person, but maybe they're not. Maybe they were able to hire somebody. So somebody or a couple of people become the face of the business. So the marketing tasks might be delegated at that point. So the marketing person may be now the one that's going to a Chamber of Commerce breakfast event, maybe going to a society for HR Management luncheon, maybe going to a trucker's industry meeting, maybe going to play golf with an association or helping check people in at the golf tournament. Just getting involved in the community. That's something that could shift from the ceo to someone CEO So that's just an example. And then a lot of your like technical marketing, the the SEO, the Google AdWords, as you mentioned, the social media posting. That could be outsourced, or it could be done internally by maybe an intern or college student or a full time person that has the skill set to do those type of things. Right. So you're saying as you grow and you have more resources, more capital, you're you're eventually not going to be the 100% director of marketing and implemented marketing, but you still keep tabs and get feedback because one of the things I've seen as the company grows is if you just spend money on marketing and there's no final arbitrator of is that money well spent or can that money be spent somewhere else? And did that work like we thought or it didn't work like we thought? Should we should we go from, you know, putting money into Google or into something else? So I think I've given a podcast about the CEO at the end of the day, getting all the data back, right, and making those decisions. So even though you're not going to be involved in marketing, you should be involved in getting the data, the feedback on your marketing strategy and help steer the ship on a higher level. Do you want to talk to that or do you see- Sure, I agree with you 100%. So you're getting to you're getting from working in the business to working on the business. You got to be aware of what's going on. You know, let's say you have a marketing budget of X amount of dollars. You have to from your staff, your team, whoever is implementing the spend of those funds. What are we getting back from them, whether it's an end of the day report, whether it's a weekly meeting of your top leadership people and there is going to be questions and decisions to make. And as the CEO, you got to make those tough decisions that this program's working. This program's not working. We're going to give it a little bit more time or we're going to cut it, we're going to tweak it. We're going to shift from spending more money on technical SEO compared to pay per click advertising, right? The CEO's got to make those decisions. They got they got to yeah, they got to you know, the buck stops here, right? Right. Well, so that that leads me to the next level, which is marketing versus let's say branding let's, let's call it. Because marketing is for, for the most part, a lot of it is driven by ROI. You know, we're spending this money. What are we getting back? You know, how much sales are we getting back versus branding, developing a position in the industry where you've become, you know, one of the big leaders in the drug testing industry. And that's really essentially a form of branding because it's not like it says that on your website, people have just equated you with that. So I want to talk about that, where some of the marketing is not necessarily trying to drive our ROI, but to position yourself in the in whatever industry you're in. So if and when that opportunity comes, you're already positioned in that place. You've already been branded as the go to company for this or the go to company for that. So as you're looking at your marketing spend, you know, is there a place as you get bigger not to always just be ROI driven, but how do we brand ourselves as the leaders of this particular portion of the industry? Do you want to talk to that? Yes, absolutely. So branding is a function of marketing, but as you mentioned, it's not a direct ROI and you can't really measure based on we put emphasis into branding and what did we get out of it. But branding is critically important. So branding includes, you know, do you look professional? Does your website look professional? Does your office building look professional when someone drives up to it? How do you answer the phone? Are you professional? Are you getting out in the community? Do people get to know you? They know Tom Smith and he this is his business and they know that this is his business. And if you're doing you know, if your services go beyond your local area, you know, let's say maybe nationwide, you're going to need a lot of exposure on the Internet. You're going to need a great website, you’re going to need great blog posts, YouTube videos. You probably know, Dr. Baktari, more about this than I do actually is in your Google ads spend. Are you allocating money just for branding ads as opposed to buy this specific product ads? There needs to be a mixture of both, correct? Yes, possibly. Google Ads has also a lot of content besides, you know, their bylines and different bylines. And so which as you're creating them, you realize some of them you're you're branding yourself as the go to place. You're not necessarily even like saying here's a product per se, but, you know, if you need help in this industry, we are the answer as opposed to come by the specific product and not just only in Google ads. I think even what you do with your videos and your blogs and you talk at conferences, I think a lot of that goes to branding because someone may hear you at a conference and three years down the road, some, you know, something happens in their company and they're like, well, you know who who's. Who's the guy that can help us? And so as you were saying, the ROI isn't immediately there or when when someone really finds a need that they didn't have a year ago, but they have it now, they're going to go back in their mental Rolodex of people that could potentially help them. And and if your name is out there and you're seen or your company's name is out there. So I think I think when we talk about marketing, I think we're both saying the same thing. Part of it is marketing. But at a certain point is, especially as you get bigger, part of it is you have to have a brand, a presence in your industry so people can think of you as the need arises. Today we have a bullet proof system that helps us close up to 80% of those inbound calls. Our High Converting Call Class will teach you how to demonstrate your authority quickly without being pushy. We believe that many businesses out there can benefit from this and we promise to help you achieve your revenue goals by converting more of your incoming calls into actual sales. For more information, please visit our website at HighConvertingCallClass.com. Stop waiting for the sales to come to you. Put your revenue into your hands. So the next thing you know. Let me let me just add something to that. So, you know, you mentioned conferences and being a speaker, that's all part of your branding, just something very simple as an example. Okay. So currently our National Drug and Alcohol Screening Association, which is the the, you know, trade association for the drug testing industry, they have this really cool thing called a town hall. Every week. It's like a big zoom meeting. There's like 150 people on it and they just talk about, you know, these are all people that are business owners or managers, and they talk about issues that have come up about this and this and this. And out of 150 people on this Zoom meeting, there's usually only three or four people that are really doing all the talking. But those people stand out as someone who they're professional, they're kind of an expert. They stand out and that builds their brand. So you have to be willing to be out there. First of all, go to those things. Yeah. And put yourself out there. Exactly 100%. Because, I mean, it'd be easier just to kick back. You got to market yourself and, you know, and market your business. Right, right, right. By the way, I know you've often talked about guerilla marketing. Can you just I want to hear your perspective on what what that means to you going back to more traditional marketing and how companies should implement those kind of strategies. Sure. You know, in marketing is a is a big, huge thing in the world. And, you know, Fortune 500 companies do marketing much different than the average, you know, small business owner. My life has been small business owner life. I've never been a fan of Fortune 500. I worked for a state government when I first got out of college, and I hated it too much bureaucracy and all that stuff. But and, you know, big business branding is a huge thing, as you know. And, you know, buying an ad on the Super Bowl for $7 million is is what big business does for marketing. But I read a book 30 years ago by I think it's Jay Conrad Levinson called Guerilla Marketing. Okay. And what I got out of Guerilla Marketing out of that book is all the different tasks and activities that I could do that didn't cost me money, just cost it my time. And if I didn't have any money, why not do these things that I could do? And I'll just give you a very simple example. You know, when I was much younger, one of my businesses that I owned was a bar nightclub restaurant. Okay. And I used to make fliers, and I would go to the apartment complexes and put them in the laundry room and put them up by the mailbox. And that was a form of guerilla marketing. The only course was printing the flier. Right. And your time. And my time, the guerilla marketing today is there's a lot of things you can do on the Internet that only take your time or you can delegate that to someone else. So by guerilla marketing is using yourself, right, Using your time, using your energy. And part of it is going to the Rotary Club, going to a business leads group and getting exposure without costing a lot of money, right? I mean, I've seen some people who literally on their phone just did a video and posted it up on YouTube on their business YouTube website and that cost them nothing. No time, no energy. It just literally took 5 minutes. Boom, and they've got something up there. So. Well, what I'm hearing and I think what we've often said is if you're starting out and you don't have the big budget, that doesn't that doesn't absolve you from having to market because like you said, you have your time. Yep. And now, especially with technology, there's plenty of ways to market yourself and get out there without requiring a lot of money or a big budget. So really, there's no reason why someone shouldn't have a very aggressive marketing plan when they're starting out, even if they don't have the budget. You're 100% right. And some people do it and they do it well. And other people, they call up and they say, you know, I've been I'm 90 days into this and we're not really seeing any business. And I say, have you done this first item on the list? Now, I haven't gotten around to that yet. Have you done this a second time? I don't know. I started I started that, but I haven't gotten to it yet. They haven't done anything to market their business. They haven't taken advantage of the tools that I that I gave them. I mean, it's specific lists of what to do. And then we also talk to them about, you know, some things are just a task, just do this and it's over with. And then some things are more of a structured marketing campaign, which kind of sounds a little complicated, but it can be very simple. And I say, Here's a campaign. You do this task and you do this task. You do maybe four tasks, and then you follow up and you do this and you do that. And you actually built a marketing campaign. You're a small, very small business, but you're doing what big companies do. Wow. When you ask them, Hey, it's 90 days, you're calling to complain. Yeah, but you haven't done it. Do they ever come clean and tell you why they haven't done it? Is there a common answer? You don't have time. There's it's you know, it's unfortunate that some people were just not made, you know, to be a entrepreneur or to be a leader, to be a CEO. And plenty are. But I think people have to really dig deep down into their own soul, especially after we've given them the information and the tools to say, if you do these things, you're your probability of being successful is ten times greater than if you don't do these things. So why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you do these things? And it goes back to we talked about a few minutes earlier. I often say to people, you know, when they're leaving, I say, Now, listen, Monday morning you got to get up and you got to put your clothes on and you got to go to work. Okay? Right. You got to go to work. Right, right, right, right. When- when people finally listen to you, is there is there any commonality in the people that finally hear your message when you're trying to turn people? People are around. Is there. It's something you have to really say to them that really shakes them up? Or is there some common thread in the people that you can turn around or is it just all over the place? I think number one, there's there's a gene or a trait of people that are sincerely entrepreneurs and willing to put the work in and I don't know that from seeing them or even maybe from a somewhat maybe from spending a few days with them. But not everybody's made out to be an entrepreneur. I mean, there's people that don't want a lot of responsibility. So it's kind of like you've talked about culture in previous episodes and getting I call it in my business, every person that works for me, I tell them, you're the CEO of your own department. And that ownership thing. It’s ownership. Own what you do. Okay. Yeah. And and for some people they take that and they run with it. Okay? But others, you know,

they want to punch in 8:

00 and they want to punch out at 5:00. And yeah, they want to put their 8 hours in. And sometimes people get into business for themself and they think it's that all over again, right? Because let's say they've had a job where they've clocked in and out for the last 15, 20 years and now you're trying to make them an entrepreneur. I don't know if they even know that there's another gear. Yeah, right. I mean, you wouldn't even know because if your last five jobs were happy with you clocking in and out and you think, look, I'm going glow, the funny thing is like, I don't know if I ever share this with you. Sometimes I get this glowing reference from old bosses about people, how they're amazing, but those old bosses were happy with them clocking in and out. You know, when you have, you know, 100 people in a department, you don't need all of them to like. They were happy they showed up. They were happy. They showed up, clocked in and did a good job. Yeah. And left. But, you know, so what what I think the dichotomy is this. In my last five jobs, I showed up, I clocked in and clocked out and the bosses were happy with me. So I don't really understand why this should be any different, because if that was good enough, you know, when I was at Macy's, you know, in the apparel department or whatever, and they said I did great work. I walked in. But you weren't trying to change Macy's stock price, right? I mean, you were there just to do a good job. You know, the difference is, you know, having a job at Macy's where you're 1 of 800 people in a department store is not the same thing as you're in charge of changing Macy's stock price. And so maybe the issue really is it was good enough for everything else. Now I'm coming to you to start my own business. And you're saying what I did at Macy's is not going to be good enough. But Macy's was super happy with me. Well, it let me share along those lines something very interesting. Okay. Some of my students have come out of corporations with high paying jobs, executives making two, $300,000 a year, and sometimes they can't make it as an entrepreneur. So along the same lines, is that what you're saying. Yeah, it's like go to work and you know, the work's there, you know, and you manage, you know, maybe a department with 100 people and you're the senior vice president of HR. Or the senior vice president of manufacturing or whatever. But your skill set is not like you got to work on the business. Somebody else is working on the business at a fortune 500 company. Right? Right. So that that transition from what was okay there, it's not going to be okay. I need a second and third and fourth gear. Yep. Right. Because if you're in a typical clock in and clock out, basically have one gear. Meh, maybe one day's a little more hectic, but still one gear. Yeah. I often say I don't know if if I've ever shared this with you. I'm on both myself and my staff who are owners. I can tell how busy of a day it is by looking at their body language. In other words, just even not necessarily how fast they walk. But there's a little more if it's if things are just blowing up, I can just walk into the room and I can already understand that they're in a second or third gear or I'm in a second or third gear by literally the body motion. And I don't necessarily mean walking faster, but there's there's a level of intensity. So people who get it know that, yes, I'll have a normal gear, but if I need for a couple of hours to take it up to two more gears versus. No, no, things will just pile up until I get to it versus no, there's a pile. I got to blow through this because I've got another meeting. And so whether they stop answering their cell phone and whatever they do, whatever strategies they have, you know, I think you and I were talking yesterday about one of the adages of when you have a big project to do in your organization, you often go and give it to your busiest person. Right. And they get it done. They'll get it. But but why is that right? Why? Why is it that you know, because they have multiple gears. Yep. And you and I are big sports fans. And, you know, I, I think one of the things people always just said about Michael Jordan is, no matter where it was or what the situation was, he still had one more gear he could lay on you that that, you know, you thought, okay, he's he's going full throttle. But then well, now full throttle is not going to win the game. We've got one gear above full throttle or two gears above full fight. I've seen it. I used to be a season ticket holder for the Orlando Magic. And when Chicago came into town, it was the biggest thing around to go see Michael Jordan play and he would put on another gear and win the game sometimes, right? Because that's what it called for. It wasn't like, these are my three gears if if the game requires gear four, I'm going to get a gear four. Business owner needs to be able to to pivot into into multiple gears and they may not have that trait. And so a lot of people do and a lot of people are successful. And I think you can almost learn that trade if you're committed to it, because we can we can tell you the things that you should do and give you the tools. And and if you're willing to learn and you're willing to have an open mind and clear out what you're used to and take any blinders off and you and you're seeing in all directions what's going on in your community, what's going on in your business, how you’re treating your employees. Are you treating them well? Because if you're not, you've talked about this and in prior episodes, you know you're going to get a bad culture. And so you got to have some leadership skills also. So this but these are these are things that can be learned, but they got to be 100% committed. Yeah. So I think I think it's not for someone who is just going to cruise, but if you're in a mode where even if you don't have these skills, you're willing to learn them by watching podcasts, like we've been doing other people's podcasts by using your consulting firm, there are ways that if you want to acquire these skill sets, they're out there, but you just have to be willing to pay the price in terms of the time and emotional commitment. Yeah, and we hadn't mentioned this, but for some people, buying the franchise might be the answer because a lot of it is done for you. A lot of the branding is done for you, a lot of the marketing systems are done for you. But I've seen franchise owners, some be very successful because there are you still got to go out there and market and I've seen franchise owners that just die on the vine they just walk in there and sit there and. Well, that's a two edged sword because you think the franchise is going to do everything for. You. Exactly. And you're. Just it's always their fault if you don't make. It right. Right. And you're just going to cruise in there, open the door, and businesses are good. And it might be different if it's a McDonald's on a high traffic road. But a service business, you know, business to business sales, it's different than a retail sale. You know. What? What I kind of wrap up over time, but what I try to impress upon young people that I'm mentoring and maybe you can tell me is when you serve it up like this and say, look, even if you don't have to put in more hours, like you're going to put in 8 hours, however you get there, okay? You're going to have to be there for those 8 hours anyway. It’s not like it's not like those 8 hours if you if you don't give it everything. So why not, like really be an owner during those 8 hours and give it everything you got as opposed to, you know, being in that one gear? Because even if we're not asking people to put in more hours, which sometimes of course as an owner you do. But even if you don't, I I'm initially happy with if the hours you're putting in, you're all there and you're doing whatever it takes. You're, you know, like knocking things off your desk and responding to emails and what have you and having a list of things to plow through. Because I think a lot of people think, what they're saying, what Joe is saying is, I'm going to have to put eight hour weeks in. And that may be the case. I'm not ruling that out. But what I have found is before they get to 80 hours, even in that first 40 hours, they're in that one gear. So I would say more people give up just when you ask them to have a second gear in the first 40 hours, then, you know, I don't. But because a lot of times I get this thing like, I need work life balance, so I can't do this because, you know, beyond 40 hours, I, you know, I've got other priorities. I'm okay with that because a lot of times if in those 40 hours you really killed it and many times that might be enough. You don't need to work nights and weekends, but are you killing it there during those 40 hours and. Those those team members that do that, you know, that kill it in those 40 hours that they're there? Okay. There's going to be a return on investment for them because when there's an opportunity to move up in the organization, they're going to move up quicker than the person who, like, doesn't do it. And, you know, there are things that happen in the world. You know, we went through COVID, we go through good economic times, we go through bad economic times. There can be there can be layoffs in a company who's getting laid off first. Right. Okay. My wife used to work for a big defense contractor, and I think it was the Jack Welch theory is, you know, we got the A performers, B performers, and C performers. And if if for some reason we got to let people go, the C performers are going, right. They're going first. Right. Okay. And A performers are the ones that are going to stay. So they're it may not be an immediate, but I think like I know you do a great job is communicating to your team that you do a great job. And there's something at the end of the rainbow for you. You know, we're going to take care of you. It's not tomorrow, but we are going to take care of you. And when there's an opportunity that presents itself, you may be first in line for that opportunity. Right? Right. And so the payoff may not be immediate right there and then. Right. But unless you're in an organization that doesn't appreciate it and just wants you to clock in and out, but once you sense you're an organization, that being all in is is a commodity that they appreciate, I think you should take advantage of that. And like you mentioned, you know, they put in their 8 hours and that's okay if, you know, they got a work life balance and a family. But often you hear people that there's just not enough time in the day for me to get my job done. There's enough time to do your best between eight and five. You just do your best. Right? And if there's still stuff that has to be done tomorrow. Yeah. Okay. Well, let me know what the priorities are. And tomorrow we'll all reshift the priorities. Well, then, just to extrapolate, you saw I did a podcast on work life balance, and you and I both have I like to think, you know, we have other priorities in life, family, other interests. I and I think work life balance is important. I just don't want to see people use that as an excuse not to kill it in those 8 hours, because I think they they said, well, you know, I need work life balance. And unconsciously that may mean that I'm I'm not going to go into second or third gear potentially in those 8 hours. So I think there's a way to have work life balance and be an A performer also. There absolutely is. And I know you've talked about this in a previous episode about this whole work life balance. And if you're an entrepreneur and you're starting this week, that's not the time to say. The. Work life balance. Okay, get into it six months or a year and then but plan, you know, I you know, my wife has a tendency to call me a workaholic, but between now we're in, what, February? Between now and November, we have five trips planned. You know, we have a cruise- Two cruises, a trip here, a trip here and a trip here. So, you know, that's our work life balance. We like to travel. We like to go places. Yeah, right. So you can be an A performer, you can have work life balance, you can have other priorities in life. And so I think people need to know that if they're signing up for this, it doesn't mean that, you know, it's going to be disruptive. And there is another interesting tidbit that I just thought of. You know, I've heard people talk about work life balance in my company. I think one example and then in every year and the first payroll in January, we pay them out for any unused vacation. We pay them. And we've had people that had two weeks of unused vacation. So so if they were complaining about work life balance, they were not taking advantage of the life part of it. Right. Right. So I think it's to sum it up. I think you can have both. I think you both you and I work hard, but I think we can we can fit other stuff in. But that doesn't absolve you from killing it when you're working and yeah and really and, and listening to stuff. Then on my end to sum it up, you know I've really enjoyed the season of Crash CEO because I hear things that maybe I hadn't heard before, but I hear things that I've been doing successfully and it kind of reinforces that I'm I'm doing the right thing. And it's really an honor to be on here with you today to talk about marketing, because that's really my passion. And so hopefully we've shared with your audience that you can be successful, but marketing has got to be part of it, right? Because opening the doors and praying people show up is not a strategy. Exactly. And I think I think people need to incorporate that is to be it at home as part of their plan initially them. But it has to be part of the plan from the get go. Well, Joe, I really enjoyed this. You know, we've been friends for a long time. It's really wonderful to even have this professional dialog for other people to hear. Now, if people want to get a hold of you, I know you have Joe Reilly Associates, your website they can go to. Yeah. So it's real simple. My name is Joe Reilly, R-E-I-L-L-Y, and it's JoeRielly.com. Oh, okay. Very simple. Perfect That's my brand. And also they can get ahold of you on LinkedIn. LinkedIn LinkedIn is a good place for professional Yeah. To. Yeah absolutely Just go to. Joe Reilly. Or go to your website. You could Google me. Joe Reilly Drug Testing there's a million things on. Joe Reilly and drug testing on the Internet. Okay, perfect. Well, I want to thank Joe. Thanks again for coming. Thanks for sharing your wealth of experience for everyone who's been watching Crash CEO School. I want to thank everyone for joining us. Again, If you like this content, please make sure you comment like and subscribe. And our hope is to have other leaders in different industries be guests and talk about things that Crash CEO School can teach people. So thanks again for joining us and have a great day. Be well.