Mads Singers - Management Coaching for Online Business Executives

Running the Bases today with Mads Singers the Founder and CEO of Mads Singers Management Coaching - management coaching focused on online businesses.  Mads has been helping established online business 5x without having to work 80 hours a week by improving management skills.

Mads started his career working in very large corporate entities.  He became fascinated with management and specifically how to improve skills and improve outcomes with his team.  A self-starter and learner - he read every management book and took every management training course available.  Soon he was recognized for his achievements and was pursued for his management advice. 

Managing team members through questions rather than answers is critical.  How do you train and support your team so that they are independent and making the right decisions?  Mads has an answer for this and supplies great examples.

Mindset, decision making, and process are all topics on the board - and we even get into a little baseball talk!

Learn more about Mads Singers and management coaching  at https://www.madssingers.com/

Grab Mads FREE Management Training HERE

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Transcript

Randy: 0:01

I'm Randy Rohde and I'm fascinated with entrepreneurs and small business owners. Plus I love baseball. Every show I sit down with a small business owner and we discuss they're running the basis of entrepreneurship. We throw the ball around on strategy management, execution and innovation, plus a little fun baseball park. Hey, thanks for joining us today. Settle in, grab your Cracker jacks and you know what they saying? All right. It's a great day for a baseball game or talk about business. Hey, we've got a really exciting another international guest with us today., so this guy he's worked for some of the biggest tech companies in the world,, created a consulting and management company out on his own and has three separate businesses, in that portfolio with,, over 140 employees., Produces a podcast focusing on management and,, you can grab a free seminar from him on his website for online businesses and management. So very excited, to have Mads Singers. That is a great name. I got to hit you up about that name in a second, but, uh, welcome to the show. Mads. Glad to have you on board here.

Mads: 1:25

Thank you, everyone. That's Randy and I'm super excited to be.

Randy: 1:28

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, just as we were chatting earlier, so you really have kind of lived all over the place,, all over the world, where do you call home now?

Mads: 1:39

Uh, right now, uh, the closest to call home is Vietnam and. I would say that's a little bit Corona faced. So luckily Vietnam hasn't got any Corona, but my wife and I have been staying here for a bit over a year, kind of. Hiding it out, uh, which is great., typically, or the last few years, we've spent a lot of time in the Philippines. and prior to that, I've lived in sort of Eastern Europe, uh, UK, uh, Ireland and so on. So I've been a lot around,

Randy: 2:09

you've been around the neighborhood. Very good. So. Your name is fabulous. I love Mads. Is that a, is it short for something? Is it? I never come across anybody intentionally called Mads. I've called people. You are just daft or mad, but you know, w what is that name? That is, is that a family name?

Mads: 2:31

It's Danish. So it's a, it's actually one of the more popular male names in Denmark. And. Actually when I was a kid, it was the most popular male name. Wow., so not sure for anything that might be low, like short names make life simple. There's a similar motion of the name and other languages usually done with a T. So like in Sweden and Germany. And so on day it happened Matt or Matt.

Randy: 2:58

Okay. There we go. again, thanks for,, coming on the show today, Mads,, tell us about your portfolio of businesses., what are they, what do they do?

Mads: 3:08

Yeah. So basically I should say I used to work corporate for some cool companies like Xerox and IBM., unlike most entrepreneurs, I loved my job. I loved managing lots of people and I had a lot of fun with it. However, the key thing for me, and what's always made the biggest difference to me is really the ability to help people and really. Change the world to put it politely. And I obviously managing hundreds of people., you, you do impact a lot of people's lives, but I found that going on out on my own as a management coach,, working with many, many businesses, I can really impact the world much bigger., and basically my mission is better management, right? I think pretty much anyone that have had a day job have had a bad manager. And it's not necessarily the person's fault. It's more a question that most companies absolutely suck at management training, uh, with, uh, with a few exceptions, of course, but again, I've worked in some of the biggest companies in the world and. not wanting to shine a bad light on them. I would say there's definitely room for improvement. And pretty much every company I've worked with,, in terms of leadership and management training, right? Like if you take a typical organization, you know, you promote someone in and say, Hey, you're now going to be head of customer service. And then they buy them a bunch of customer service trainings, and they're like, No, this person is moving into a managerial role.

Randy: 4:33

And I would say, yeah, if they're fortunate, they'll buy them some customer service training. Otherwise it's like, Hey, you can, here's your new title and go get it

Mads: 4:42

right. And w one of the things that's very common people always say, Oh, but you know, the best sales guy doesn't necessarily make the best sales manager. Right. And that is to some extent, correct. However, if someone had the skillset. To learn and to push himself all the way to being the best sales guy or the best engineer or the best, whatever. They generally also have that ability to learn management. Now, will they be the best manager from day one? Probably not, but most people weren't the best sales guy the first day on the job either. Right? So the reason in my experience that most of these best something doesn't work out as a good manager is really because it's a totally, totally different thing. And if you get no support, you get no training, just like any other job role. You're probably not going to do it very well. Right. So really my mission is really helping and I primarily work with online business owners., I, I do have some brick and mortar clients, but I, I work mostly with, with, uh, online business owners. Right. And really help them. I mean, You know, some of these guys, I mean, there's some very young guys amongst them as well, but you know, suddenly people start a business. They've never managed staff. They have lots of success, and suddenly they find themselves having five, 10, 20 people and have no idea how to manage them. Right. And that's really where I love helping. Right. Because the difference it makes like teaching both the owner, but also the sort of senior management team. Good management makes such a huge difference. Right? And like, I see it every single day. I literally have clients talking about, you know, their happiness and so on from, from changing their perspective from changing, uh, particularly the amount of time they work and so on and so forth., So, yeah, that's, that's fantastic. So that, that, that is my true passion. I absolutely love management and I love building teams. I love building companies., I have a rule because like most entrepreneurs, I could start 17 businesses tomorrow. Uh, but I have a rule. I don't, I don't start a new business onto the previous one. Can. Pretty much run itself., so after starting initially my management consulting company, I started a big outsourcing company in the Philippines. And with that business,, basically we, we started out probably been running about five years now and we are currently about 130 people, uh, in that business.. Yeah. like most businesses, it typically takes two and a half, three years onto the business is solid and self-sustained and so on and so forth. So basically when it had been running for about three years, I had put in place the right systems. And I basically, and I still do run that business with basically two hours a week. So I have two senior managers and. Uh, I meet with them on a one to one basis each week. And I do a team meeting with the two of them together each week. And that's basically, yeah, that's roughly two hours. It takes me to, to run that company., and then lastly, I've started the media publishing company, which is all around things like SEO and, basically building content websites and, and monetizing those at Glen. Honestly, I can build it. Company that emitter like. Uh, but for me it's more about finding, finding people who are really good at something and, you know, helping put a team around them and I have like start a business with them and really give them the opportunity to shine. And that's what I love doing.

Randy: 8:13

Terrific. So you've got a really, uh, diverse,, kind of experiences. Probably in the tech side, uh, online, you know, I'd say that kind of loosely, but kind of in an online services, online businesses,, and, and technology side, I, I wanted to touch base on,, something. So, you know, you're talking about, the best sales guy gets promoted to become the best sales manager. a vein of that conversation you were going down was that, you know, if the guy had the desire,, and the drive to be the best sales guy, he probably could do the same to be a great manager as well. There's something innate within them. I'm curious though. Do you think that that's true? You know, if the guy isn't really motivated, I'm wondering like the motivation factor in that, I think a lot of sales guys that I know that are like hardcore sales guys, because they are really motivated. They want to be number one and they want to earn a great load of money as well because good sales guys can really earn a significant. amount of revenue for themselves at great financial benefit. Oftentimes the, on the management side, you know, it's really not quite as do this and you earn this, uh, as like in a sales transaction. I wonder, you know, if you find that that motivation factor plays in, in that kind of transition from actual sales to, uh, to manager.

Mads: 9:43

typically, you know, companies do it differently, right. But if I run a business, the sales manager salary is based on what the teams deliver. Right. So again, a it's definitely a bearable salary, but in the end of the day, if that person has the skills to make the team deliver fantastic results, they get rewarded. Right., and it's like, the whole thing is. I mean, if we take sales as an example, right? well actually it doesn't really matter what we're talking about, but, but, but the thing is when you move from being an individual contributor to being a manager or a team leader or whatever, the sort of level is, right. But when you move like that mindset shift is so critical because the challenge is most people continue with the same mindset that make them a good salesperson. Uh, or a good engineer or whatever. Right. But the problem is that will never work because being a good sales person, it's all about you. And this is when you are a manager, you don't matter. Right? So when you're a manager, you don't matter what matters is the team and the results they deliver, you can in principle, like work your ass off. You can work 25 hours a day, if you like., but in the end of the day, if the team doesn't deliver., you're, you're not better off now. My experience is that most sales guys are super competitive. Right, right. They wanna make more money, but fundamentally they want to make a bigger impact.. And when I, when I, I mean, again, it's down to motivation hundred percent because I mean, if someone's not motivated for something, you know, you're not going to force them to do it. But,, most sales guys like yes to money is definitely important, I mean, for me, if you have a great sales manager, they can make a lot more money than the foot soldiers. Right. Right., if, if everything is structured the right way and if they can deliver the right results for the business. Right., and, and I, my experience is that. When you get them into the right mindset when you teach them the right skills, like they are just as competitive as they are delivering the sales in helping the team get to that level. But the fundamental, and this is what's very difficult is it's not about them doing the training. It's not about them. Doing everything. And that is the mindset that's so different between an individual contributor and a manager. Right. And, and fundamentally, if you, if you don't have a coach, if you don't get training, if you don't help change that mindset before you move into a management role. You're not gonna succeed.

, Randy: 12:20

I do want to get into this concept around mindset, cause I know that's a big,, topic you like to pursue. before we go down that path though,, you know, path actually is a great word., So here you were working for these large corporations, I'm sure you were successful. You were probably leading teams there, right? So, you know, you just didn't start like, Hey, I like teams and I'm going to build teams. You were probably were in charge of large teams in these other organizations. What led you down the path though, to say, you know, I want to do this on my own. I want to create something. Different or bigger, what was that motivation that took you down that path?

Mads: 13:00

Yeah. So what happened was, I mean, now I was, I was working in IBM at the time and a couple of years before I left IBM, I actually started coaching people outside. Right. And the thing is like, maybe I should actually go a step back. So basically when I was 18,, Before turning 18. I've basically been, I wanted to do something with computers because I'm pretty it tech addition. So on, right. What happened was when I was 18, I got my first job Basically, I got a manager that in the span of three months totally changed my worldview. And I literally went from, I want to be an it guy to, I want to do what she does., she was an amazing manager and I really, uh, I saw the impacts you had on people, you know, my whole childhood up until like, you should love school because when you start working life, life has got to be hell. Right. And I got this manager and everyone in the team have left working and I'm like, That's great. You know, I want, I want to make people love work. And basically what happened was that fundamentally within a span of three months, I literally turned around my mindset and I figured out that I wanted to be a manager and I started pretty much since I was 18. I started very, very rigorous self-development I haven't never been a fan of school. And the idea of going and taking some kind of random management education, What probably has made me not go into management, the fellows requirement. but, but fundamentally I, I spent 10 plus years reading a book a week, uh, really spending a lot of time and effort and self-development fundamentally, I mean, I ended up in a situation where, I was giving a lot of responsibility and so on. And there was always a joy. Now the biggest problem I always had even inside these last corporations was like, I love management. I love talking about it. I like, I love sitting down at a management meeting, you know, how can we do better? But reality was like most people around. It was a job that didn't really care very much. And it was very difficult for me. Like when you have a lot of passion about something it's very difficult when people around you are just like, yeah, whatever., so that was why I started coaching people because I was like, you know, I need an outlet for my, for my passion here. And basically I started coaching first people in other large organizations, and then I started my entrepreneurs and so on. And what I really liked about entrepreneurs, what was direct impact I saw, I mean, cause if I coach a couple of managers in Coca Cola, it's not like I see Coca-Cola double in size over a couple of weeks. Right., whereas when I was, when I was coaching people in small businesses, like. Literally within six, nine months, like sometimes a business, double, a triple. I definitely feel I made a much bigger impact and I started that a couple of years before I left. And then when I left, there was, it was kind of a situation where. You know, I just felt like I could make so much bigger difference just working with entrepreneurs and so on.

Randy: 16:01

let me maybe retrace this a little bit. So you decided, Hey, I want to be a manager. I love the idea. Love the concept you just started digging in kind of self-taught and pulling a bunch of different resources. I'm sure. In the various positions that you had, you probably kind of said, Hey, this is going to be mine. Kind of live lab. I'm going to try out some of these different concepts or theories., but did you also have, though, I know sometimes when people are influenced by others and on a good side and a bad side, like sometimes you're influenced like that is the worst manager I've ever had and I'm going to do things completely opposite of what that guy did., Or you've got a great manager and she was incredible. I learned so much from her. She was a great mentor to me. so did you have those experiences as well, kind of as inputs into your management concepts?

Mads: 16:58

I will, uh, I can be very polite on set. I've worked with a lot of people and I've definitely had my middle son was better than others. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Enough said. Right. Okay. So, so you did though have some input. was there a strong influencer though that they,, Help mentor you. So as you now look to coach and to mentor others,, did you have that same kind of influence on you? I mean, I was honestly, I don't know where it comes from, to be honest with you, because you know, most 18 year olds don't go come home and personal development and so on. But literally, I mean, when, when I get the fire lit in my ass and I was literally like, in the beginning, like, I didn't know what books to read. Like I'll literally go into a library and be like, do you have anything on like management? No, I didn't know what I was doing. It wasn't picking good books because I had no one to refer to and so on, uh, what I started within the business. So we, we worked in various shifts, right? So many days when I finished my shift, I would literally go around to other managers in the company who were still working. And I'll be like, Hey, you know, can I sit and see what you're doing for an hour or something? And I'll get to know a bunch of the managers and team leaders and that kind of thing. An hour, just cut it out. Like, what do you learn management? What did you do? And how did you do it? And we had this, uh, internally in the company that was this sort of virtual learning system at this time. It was in the early 2000 it was called Skillsoft, I think. So there was a fairly big one used by many companies. And within the company, they had a learning and education department and I think they said the. The most courses someone had taken on our platform was like 18. and basically in a couple of years I did 248, something like that, but it was still whole, here's a full hour thing about how to run a meeting. Here's a two hour thing of how to do this. So it was all like, Sort of quite specific things, but everything from a couple of hours to some of them was like multiple days. but yeah, that was okay.

Randy: 19:04

So you're just still just consuming. You were just like driving and consuming information,, even after all of these years, is there a book or a couple of books? They like,, these were great books. I love these books.

, Mads: 19:16

I think the, the one that makes the biggest difference for me. Was called a first break, all the rules by a guy called Marcus Buckingham. And I think, uh, that the essence of that book really that, you know, management is not being a certain way. It's figuring out your own strengths and weaknesses and figuring out how you can become the best manager with those. Because the challenge many people have is they look at like, you know, either Musk or Steve jobs. They're like, I have to be like these guys. Right, right. And the thing is, if you're not an asshole, one in cold, your

people at 3: 19:50

00 AM in the morning, don't be like these guys, right. If you're trying to be the one thing I learned with managers is if you're trying to be something you're not, you absolutely will fail. Right because you like, just like relationships, right? Like if you go into a relationship pretending to be something you're not, you know, you can, you can pretend for a certain period of time, but at some point of time you're going to run out of steam. And, and it's the same with management. Like you have to figure out, what is your strength? What is your weakness? How, how do you take the best version of you? How do you make the best version of you into the leader that you can be? Right. And that's really what I work. Like a lot of my clients that's really what I work with the mind, because that is not a way that most people typically look at this. They're always like, Oh, well, if you have to be a manager, like silly things, like. Oh, you can't be a friend with your people who work for you. I'm like, if you can't make the right decisions, if you are a friend with the people who work for you totally correct. You shouldn't, but Hey, many people can. Right. So the whole point is that you need to figure out for yourself, what are the rules for you? What are the things that work for you and what doesn't work for you and how do you deliver the best result with who you are?

. Randy: 21:10

I love that. Figure out what works for you?. Peter Drucker, you ever read any of these?

Mads: 21:16

I love everything. The one thing I would say with, with Drucker is, and I can understand it. Most people find that a little bit boring. Like it's very logic. It's very dry. He's a little dry. Yeah. I would say the effective executive is probably his most condensed book and it's not a long,, I mean, someone who's focused like 500, 800.

Randy: 21:39

No, I love the effective executive is probably like a perennial bestseller I would imagine.

Mads: 21:44

Yeah. Yeah., but, but something like the, of your second service is fantastic. Right. but yeah, I've had a few others, Massive Goldsmiths., what's it called? Oh yeah. Cold sweat. What got you? What got you here? Won't get you there.

Randy: 21:57

Right? Right. And he's still very active. He posts a lot of stuff out in LinkedIn and, he's still churning it out,

Mads: 22:04

but what, what got you here? Won't get you there. It's also a fantastic book. I would say particular, if you are a very assertive person. I've, I've used a lot of the learnings from that book in terms of helping people who, you know, sometimes make a lot of enemies, sometimes piss people off. And so on that that's a lot of very good workable advice. And that book,, also, I mean, Dale Carnegie, how to win friends and influence people,, also fantastic book, but yeah,

Randy: 22:36

I could talk books for hours. Cause I similar to you, especially earlier in my career, I just consumed business and management books. I mean, I was like, just like that every other week I was like picking up a new book and reading all kinds of stuff. So yeah,

Mads: 22:55

here's the thing that it took me a while to learn this. Right. But I got most of this theory. Because before I could use it. And here's the thing, it worked well for me, because very often when I made a mistake, I didn't get the output. I expected. It was very easy for me to see what I did wrong. Like very often I'll be like, Oh shit. Like it just, the fact that I had all the theory doesn't mean I don't make mistakes. Right. But it meant that when I made a mistake, I was very, very quick at picking up what I had done wrong. Right. Like I remember some of the first management stuff I was looking at was like how to do business flights as a professional manager. First, I was kind of like, why am I reading this? And I'm like, well, I'm going to be a manager someday. So, you know, I might just find out, but the whole point was that it wasn't about, you know, knowing something about how to fly business or, you know, how to, like, it was a lot of advice with like only carry hand luggage because of your suitcase disappears, you're screwed and all that kind of stuff.. But the whole thing was it wasn't something I needed at that point in time, but it's something that has been super valuable not to figure out if that makes sense.

Randy: 24:04

Repeat that again. Cause that was kind of,

Mads: 24:07

has been super valuable not to having to figure it out when I need it. Right. Like I've had, I've got the knowledge earlier on, so I haven't had to learn the hard lessons yeah.

Randy: 24:16

And had, had to apply it. Yeah. So maybe that it was back there in the subconscious kind of waiting to, ah, it here. That's good.. Hey, so on your website and on your podcast page, you've got a great quote., and I want to read the quote and I want to get your insight,, behind it. and so here's the quote human beings are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others and are also remarkable. For their apparent disinclination to do so dig into that. What, what does that mean? What leads you to that belief?

Mads: 25:01

So, first of all, I used to think people was unique and then I spent 15 years utilizing the disc framework and I realized there absolutely not,, that set though. I think when you wake up from that surprise and realize how predictable you are and how predictable people around you are, that's a valuable lesson to learn. I, I think again, I mean, particularly around the learning aspect, right? It comes back to this management staff, like so many people have gone down the road, but so many people are doing it like so many small business owners. Literally have no idea what they're doing and management so many people around who have learned the lessons the hard way, but so many small business owners,, who isn't spending the time. To, to grow themselves. I mean, fundamentally, like I have a course of management right on, it's literally like four or five hours,. We're talking 17 weeks or, you talking four or five hours, that's going to help significantly in terms of mindset, in terms of the most critical processes and so on. it isn't rocket science in that degree. Right. Like, it's not like you can become significantly better. With a relatively small investment of time.

Randy: 26:15

So, and you mentioned about your,, courses and stuff. And I just want to remind people they can go to,, your website,, mad singers.com, check out your various courses and your free seminar that you're giving away there as well. So with this, you know, that people are really, actually are predictable and that sometimes they consume this content, but they don't apply it.. This disinclination, uh, as you say, you know, what's the obstacle, what is it? People can't get over themselves. Uh, is there something that you found that tends to be, you know, kind of along like, Hey, it's predictable. This is what people do. Is there a trend that you say is like, this is why people have a challenge?

Mads: 27:02

Well, I mean, different people have different challenges depending on the personality.. What I would say, like with my training, for example, I talk a lot about mindset mindset is not really something about implementing it's about understanding,? So you can not implement most of the stuff listen and understand the mindset part, you will still be significantly better. because ultimately, I mean, as I said earlier, right, like moving from an individual contributor to a management role. even a low level management role, it's a much, much bigger step than moving from a low level management role, 10 steps up in an organization, the mindset between an individual contributor and a manager is so, so different.. And if you get the mindset, right, if you, if you get the right sort of attitude to what's management, it really solves a lot of problems, not everything, but it really solves a lot of problems.

Randy: 27:57

So that that's mine. The mindset is really as beginning. I don't even, I don't know that I want to say it is the full solution, but it is certainly as the first step, but to,, awareness or, uh, improvement and such. Okay. I want to get back to this mindset, but we're going to take a little break here. This is that part of the show, Matt, I was trying to warn you about and it's time for it is the seventh and stretch nomads. You grew up in Denmark. So I'm assuming probably were nuts. Um, Uh, a big follower of, uh, MLB and a major league baseball and such. but, uh, there's part of the show we do w there's what we call running the bases, right. Of, businesses. And we can tie everything in with baseball a little bit., and so I have my research team knowing that you,, focus on management. so they've dug in kind of find a baseball related question that you might be able to, uh, connect with here. And, uh, all right, you ready for this?

Mads: 29:11

I'm ready.

Randy: 29:12

All right. All right. So in sports is, you know, and you probably follow football or soccer,, maybe, I don't know. Do you follow that at all? European guys kinda like that. Yeah. sports agents, right? They are the, the managers of athletes in the sports world.? So they play the critical role, um, for their athletes. They negotiate the contracts. Promote their clients to the teams and to companies to help build the market for their players. sports agents. Now, this is an interesting business, actually, you know, these guys received generally, about four to 10%. Of an athlete plane contract, and then an additional 10 to 20% of the athletes endorsement contract. So they can really begin to really enjoy a nice payday. So here's the question for you, Matt? who is the highest sports agent in professional sports?

Mads: 30:08

following sucker, I would guess it's a guy called Mino, Raul Oli or something in that direction, but that's all I know from soccer. I'm not really super well off many other sports.

Randy: 30:22

Okay. Well that's all right. So this guy, I'm going to give you a little background on him., he represents about 96,, professional athletes. his name is Scott Boris, a big US-based guy. want to take a Gander at,, what the value of his sports contracts are, are worth

Mads: 30:43

the total volume. Yeah. Probably a couple of billions.

Randy: 30:46

Yes, exactly. Dang right there too. Billion dollars in sports contracts. And I actually, I think this number's a little bit old back in 2018, but, yeah, big numbers. all right. See you that wasn't so bad. Was it? Well, we'll swing back into it. All right. So Mads, Back under this concept,, before we get into this stretch, in your courses,, on your podcast, you address, you introduced it already a little bit mindset and the importance of having the right mindset for success. how does a small business owner, challenged their own mindset? How do they begin to make adjustments? That can be beneficial for them.

Mads: 31:28

small business owners start out from a let's call it like a freelance point of view. They often, you know, if you start a business and you're just you, then you're really not a business owner. You're really an individual contributor to a large extent in terms of mindset.. Because if the business is only you,, you're you're really have yourself. At glorified full-time job or a glorified job. Right. So when I look at my management consulting, uh, in the beginning, when I was only doing coaching and consulting than, I mean, in principle, it's a glorified job, right. Because if I go to a hospital for three months or whatever,, no money comes in. So fundamentally the key change in mindset really needs to happen around expansion. Right. And making the company ready for expansion. I think that the fundamental challenge that most small business owners have is what they actually provide because most small businesses are, tend to be quite desperate for customers and they always put their arms out and they're like, okay. And the customer has come my way, right? If someone calls them up and say, Hey, you know, I have this thing, can you help me? 99% of the time? Even if it's something people never done, they keep saying yes. And the problem is that mindset is, it will make you a little bit of money short term, but it's not building your business longer term. the way I look at a business, particularly a small businesses, it is the execution of a particular process. In a narrow niche. So that means you have it for most businesses. It is one process that you execute again and again and again. And the reason why I like to look at it like that is that, most people like saying, let's say I build websites and when they do the website, come my way. Right now, here's the problem. When you do that, you know, someone needs an e-commerce website. Someone needs someone as a coach and need a website for coaching that the problem is you can never build a single effective process around that. That it's easy for you to let go of. And when you can actually build solid expertise. Right? So from a website perspective, for example, if you're like, you know, we only work with. E-commerce businesses in, I don't know the retail industry and here's what we do. We build a basic frame, a basic website that fellow follow a certain framework, and this is to cost, Or this is the cost options or whatever. Right. But you have a very, very set package with a very, very clear deliverable. Cause when you do that, first of all, what happens is one, you become a master in that area. The biggest problem most swept developers have is they have no value. Because if they have a dentist one day and I close the sign up the next day and a coach to third day, they don't know anything about those niches, but if you're constantly working within a limited niche and within a limited process, you have a process that you can keep improving and keep bettering. And every time you improve your process, it basically makes it faster. It makes it more cost-effective for you. Now here's the kicker, the faster, the more cost effective it becomes, the more you can charge. Because that you don't chance necessarily based on the time you spent you charge based on the outcome, right? And the better the outcome you can deliver, the more money you can charge. now our website is just one example. I mean, it doesn't really let let's say you're a carpenter, right. Go down the same route. And most capitalists, like, yeah, I can do anything with wood and nails and screws and whatever now here's the thing. If you're going and specialize and say, I only do roofs, or I only do, I don't know, bill. A garage, whatever, if you do one thing, then you do it really, really well. First of all, your branding is going to be so much easier to your marketing is going to be so much easier because you're not like, uh, I do stuff with wood. Anyone needs stuff with wood. If you're like, Hey, you know, I build, you know, guarantees and here's the last 17 dashes I built. Do you need one?. So both in terms of,, aggressive marketing going out and trying to pitch clients, uh, but also in terms of inbound marketing, you're, you're so much easier finding clients. And I mean, web development is probably one of the worst examples of how people do it., I think most people on planet earth probably get three emails a week saying, Hey, you need a website. We build websites. Right. And it's like, there's no value in these things. Now, if I got an email saying, whatever, I build websites for coaches, he has the last 10 coaches I work with. He has to results. I go gave for them. that would be interesting. But when someone is just like spamming out, does what I do. This is what I do. I it's a little bit like a carpenter standing on the corner of the street saying, Hey, I'm a carpenter or, Hey, I'm a carpenter.

Randy: 36:26

you know, if you're out there in your it's difficult to scale, But the more that you and narrow your focus, specialized define the processes, get that expertise. whether you're you use your example of the website developer or the carpenter, maybe we will use the carpenter because that might be a little more relative to everybody that, you know, as that carpenter says, we are specializing in roofing., Then that's ability to scale and S so instead of just Randy, the roofer out there, and I'm doing every project, but then I, the more expert that I get, the more processed that I can define,, then it's easier to show somebody trained somebody. This is how we do it. This is our standards of operation. And so that now I've got Randy and. And fill out there as well, doing roofing jobs. And I can begin to focus on other aspects of building the business and scaling. Right. Is that

Mads: 37:30

exactly? And the key thing here is most business owners that I start working with that tells me I'm the only one in my company that can do it fundamentally. Again, they don't have a business because if they are out of commission for a period of time, Life sucks. So as a business owner, if you're, if you're not just building yourself a glorified job, if you want to build a business, you have to scale down on the processes,? Because the reason why it's only you, again, if you're a carpenter running around to all sorts of different jobs, you're the only one who knows how to give a quote, because you know, you have. Some kind of way of doing it, right? You're the only one that can piece different pieces together. But if you have a solid process that also helps you to do a quote, because if you have a solid process, you know exactly how long it takes you, how much it costs you, and that enables you to give a quote. Yeah, it is very much about bringing in sort of these small narrow processes and really mastering them. Now, the thing is when you master process, when you have a solid business, that's running with a solid process and you have a team doing it for you. Yes. Then you can go and add an odd process, perhaps that could either be an extension of the service so that you can sell your existing customers more. Or it could be a similar service targeting a different market. Now often actually adding service that you can sell to existing clients is easier to scale with because it basically, you can basically sell more to the same people that you're already selling to. Right. Whereas if you do the same thing, but you know, if you start with roofs and you master that, and then you go to building something else that, you know, might not be generally wouldn't fit the same customer, then. It'll be, it'll take more to actually kick that off.. Whereas if you had a bunch of existing customers that already want what your, your new process, that's an easy way to basically quickly get more money.. But don't do it before you master the first and make sure you put the same granularity of mastering the process into the second thing you do. And again, when you learn master that, then you can do more. Relatively there's huge companies that run on one process. If you look at companies like Coca Cola, if you look at, I mean, that's huge companies that literally just do one thing and yes, sometimes it put in glass bottle and sometimes in cans, but I mean, Coca-Cola as an example, how one product, You don't need to be providing the services all over the range. Right. And it is the fastest way. To not scale a business.

Randy: 40:02

do you find, so this concept around mindset, and especially when you're talking about a small business owner and, and maybe either when you've started working with somebody and you've started having these conversations, do you find that that changing the mindset is the most difficult thing for somebody to do?

Mads: 40:22

No, uh, changing the mindset is I think when, again, when, when people understand the, how to look at things, I mean, people are not making bad decision on purpose, or they're not making decisions that are holding them back on purpose. They're making them because they don't know, but.. I mean, I'm the same. Sometimes I make silly decisions. I don't make, I don't wake up in the morning and say, Hey, I want to make bad decisions today. I make decision based on what I know at this point in time, you know, the more I learned, the more I realized,, now I might realize five years ago, I made a bad decision, that's how we live and learn.

Randy: 40:55

So after mindset then, what do you think is. The next challenge or the obstacle for individuals,

Mads: 41:01

if we take, I mean, we can take a couple of things, right? So you have a lot of people that are very detail-oriented perfectionists,, Generally quite well organized. Their biggest challenge is typically delegation,? Letting go. And very, very often what happens is they they're micromanaging. And what actually happens is not just a slowing the company growth down, but they're actually killing the growth of their employees because what happens very frequently and, and this. Often happens as more companies because they never grow big. but, but when you see a guy who have a team of five, 10 people and he can't grow, he or she can't grow, it's very often the case that it's someone who's trying to keep being the expert. She's keeping a roofer, keeping the, the person in charge is like a good example. And I ask clients for this,, if you open their computer, And you're constantly seeing the employees like asking questions. Like I have this problem, what should I do? I have this problem? What should I do? If you're constantly seeing that, it's probably an indication that you might have some challenges in this area. Because if people constantly need your either permission or you advice to do what they're supposed to do or do what they're hired to do, then they either haven't got enough Tonomy or they haven't been able to develop enough to learn, to make those decisions. And that used to comes back to the business owners. So in most cases when, when that is the case, that is really about teaching the individual about,, better delegation. And really, again, most people are not doing it to be bad. Business owners have bad managers, right. They're doing it because they want the best for the company. And they have this idea that if they make every decision, that will be the best for the company., but they don't necessarily understand the mindset about growth. They don't, they don't understand how they got to where they are in the first place. And the thing is all these people, the way they got to where they are is because they've been given trust. They've been given responsibility, they've been given ownership. That's why they've learned, but then not giving that to the people. That worked for them. And therefore what happens is their growth stagnate and the business. I was always like, Oh yeah, but I don't have good staff. They can't do it most of the time. The reason they're not good, the reason they can't do it is because you've ended their growth and you are hindering their growth. Right, right. some of that is public. One of the ones I see the most.

Randy: 43:33

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's the owner holding on and for probably a lot of different reasons, some of them have their own personal kinds of,, obstacles. I know I talk with a lot of owners and they think, I just can't turn it over to them because nobody's gonna have as deep of a commitment to the success as I do.. Basically, they don't trust the employees or their staff members to be able to do the things,, that they would, you know, think would be the right choices to do. Which all kinds of comes back to have you trained them appropriately? Have you enabled them to make those kinds of decisions appropriately?, Mads: in most cases, actually what between giving people tasks and giving people responsibility. So if I'm, if I'm talking to you and I'm like, Hey Randy, you know, Uh, I've hired you to do customer service. Here's how we do the customer service. Let me see. Yeah. You're down and show what we do, right? Okay, great. Ryan. They keep doing that. Right. That's how most business owners do it. And honestly, that's not very motivating, right. If I, if I approach it different and say, Randy, I've hired you because I love the way you're communicating. I want to, I want us as a company to communicate to our customers like that. I want us to be friendly. I want us to be helpful. All that good stuff,? I want you to be in charge of our customer service. You know, as a business owner, I have a ton of other things I need to look at, but customer service is really important to me. I really want you to be in charge. Uh, I, I know you don't know anything, everything about this stuff, but I want you to be in Charleston. I want to give you the responsibility to own this. And you know, you can come to me any time. Uh, but I, I, we didn't want to give you the ownership to try and figure out how can we do even better here. Right? The difference between those two conversations is heaven and hell. Right? Right. Well, in the second example there that you gave, you really are empowering. The individual to say, listen, you're great. I want you to run with this. Right. You're giving them a third party, uh, versus the other, the first example you just said, this is how we do it. Don't here's the manual. Don't veer from it. Just spew this stuff up.

Mads: 45:54

And, and, and the key thing is most of the business ones, again, that I have this problem, they often say like, Oh, you know, my people have no initiative. They've no, they're not comparing knob ideas. They're not telling me how we can improve. because you've taken it all from them. Right., and that is fundamentally what you do when you're not empowering people. Yeah.

Randy: 46:12

Oh, this is terrific stuff., Mads, I w I think we could talk for hours on, uh, on this concept. Sure. You could,, specifically,, so I want to get back to you're offering this free seminar on your website, mad singers.com. What's the seminar about, can you give a little flavor of what that's about case people I'd like to go in and check it out?

Mads: 46:36

I mean, it's really trying to help people figure out some of these,, key challenge point they have. So for example, you know, do they struggle with delegation,, time? one of the big challenges most people have in entrepreneurial roles is they're spending way too much time. In their business. And the problem is you have all these, like the hustler generation, like everybody in a Chuck and so on. It's like, yeah, you know, work a hundred hours a day and all that kind of crap., and the problem is if you work more than nine hours a day, the next day, your input is kind of sucked. Right. I mean, you can have a day here and there where you work 10, 12 hours. Okay. Fair enough.. But fundamentally the amount of business owners that are making bad decisions, we're doing really poor work because they're working too many hours on the wrong things is scary. Right. And so that's one of the things that I talk. A lot about,, and really again, it's, it's helping figure out what is your sort of key pain points? What is your kind of key problems,. Whereas if you struggle,, because people, people have different struggles, right. And they have different things that they're, that they are fighting with., so that's, that's really what it's about.

Randy: 47:47

All right. I think just through the conversation, I think I'm going to go check out the seminar because I love again, I'm still a student of, uh, management myself. You know, so on this show, we try to as well provide some guidance, some advice, uh, for what we would call the rookies in the game. You know, the folks that are either just starting out or have just started their business, uh, and, or are thinking about starting a business. what kind of advice do you have for those rookies in the game? What are some things maybe that you could give them some nuggets to chew on?

Mads: 48:24

So I'll have a very big nugget of here, which is never answer questions is one of the most important things that you can learn as a business owner now. And it comes back to the delegation chapter we had earlier a little bit, the fundamental here is again, most business owners end up as to Oracle that solves all problems because they. Not on purpose, but by accident built a process in most the staff's mind to go to the business owner when they have something they don't know what to do. So for example, if I come to you and say, Randy, Randy, you know, I have this customer who want a refund, should I give it to him or not? And problem is most business owners and select question right now. What happens next time I have that exact same issue. I'll be like, Last time I had this problem, I ran to Randy, let me do that again. So I come back to you and say, Randy, Randy, this customer wanted a refund. What do I do? And that's as a business owner is how you end up one and up answering way too many questions, having a ton of interruptions too. It's how you end up again, not empowering your staff. No. Your staff not growing because they're not thinking about the issue. Here's the problem. Most business owners think when they answer a question, staff learn from it. Right. And he has to answer. They absolutely do not.. The way people learn is when I come to you and say, Randy, Randy, should I give them a refund? And you say, wellness, what do you think? And then they'll have to think at a half to actually go, Hmm, what would I do? Randy. I think we should give them a refund. Yeah. Why do you think that's the case? Well, you know, this happened, this happened blah, blah, blah. And in 90% of the case, you're 95 and 98% of the case, you probably say sounds great. Why don't you do that? Learning to ask questions instead of answering questions. Is the way to let go of all these million questions it's to develop your staff, right? Here's the thing, the third time I come to you and say, Randy, Randy, should I give them a refund? you know, you've asked me this question a few times. You always, I mean, you have a good way of thinking about it. You know, I trust you unless we're talking about millions of dollars, you know, you make the choice. So, but the fundamentalists learn not to answer question. Every time you answer a question, you're building a process and the head of the individual at every time they have that type of challenge. Go ask you. And if that is actually the case that they need to do that you should probably go and review what you're doing. Because if you've hired people to do a certain job, and they're incapable of doing that without your input, no business, right.

Randy: 51:14

that is a huge nugget. And you know, that lesson could be applied to so many different things. I'm just seeing me thinking. So I'm a parent, you know, I'm thinking of my kids. I'm like, ah, boy, it's a good reminder. What to do with my kids. It's easiest to just answer the question. Yes. And that was the other thing that was kind of going through my mind is that sometimes all your, you know, in the heat of the day and your role rolling, you know, like if you're running a retail store or something, and you're bouncing from one thing to the other. Yeah. Sometimes like you look at it. Yes. Do the refund, you know, versus. Stopping having that two or three minute conversation to instruct and to coach, as you had outlined, longer investment in that moment, but ultimately it's the right thing to do because ultimately it will free you up from that constantly reoccurring.

Mads: 52:11

I work with a client, right. And he had 10 staff members. Now we went in and looked and an average, he had 140 messages per day. Hmm. Oh, barriers degrees all happening in the U S using Slack or some kind of communication channel system. Right? You had an average 140 messages a day where he was answering, like, do this, do that, whatever. after us working together for a month and a half. You had an average of 10 questions a month and a half.

Randy: 52:47

They're probably freed up like two or three hours of his day. Just

Mads: 52:51

he has to think his staff became so much better because they felt empowered. They will learn it.

Randy: 52:58

Yeah. Oh, that's great., wow. Thank you Mads, for being on the show. That is fabulous. just so great to have you here today. thank you for the time for joining us all the way from Vietnam. That is FA I think you're the first guest we've had from that's located in Vietnam anyway, so that is wonderful. And again, I'll remind folks, they can go,, to Mads. Singers, Mads singers.com. There's two S's in the middle of that. and, uh, check out your various seminars. You've got a free seminar on there. Your podcast is on the site as well, where you've got some, just some really great conversations with a lot of great people on there and talking about management. and again, Mads, just thanks for being on the show or appreciate it. It's been a real pleasure. Pleasure. Good. All right. And so, as we say, that's the ballgame. So thanks for joining us today. And if you liked her show, Hey, please tell your friends. And of course, with her review, Running the basis with small businesses is brought to you by 38 digital market. A digital marketing agency, committed to client growth with lead generation higher conversions. And the increased sales connect with us today at 38 digital market.