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These 2 Meetings Changed My Life
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I suck at managing.
I really think I do. I need to get better at it. Who’s got recommendations or advice? I thought I was amazing up until a few months ago.
Ps. Keep reading this until the end for a chance to meet with the co-founder of Starbucks next month.
If you’re like me, you interview somebody, get a good gut feeling, and then hire them. But then you expect them to have the same level of tenacity as you do while not having an ownership stake in the business. It just doesn’t work that way, and it never will.
This month is all about slowing down and building the framework so we can grow properly. We are developing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for everything we do at The Founders Club and my new Pilates studio, which hopefully opens next week. No matter how small the task, if it's a repeatable function that will continue to happen weekly or month to month, we are SOP’ing it out.
We now have two full-time executive assistants at the Founders Club, who I am blessed to have because they honestly do more work than three full-time $75,000 hires. They are incredible. They move the ball forward and don’t stop until the job is done. If you’re looking to hire an assistant, I could not recommend Tim and his team at The Great Assistant more - they saved me 100+ interviews and some terrible hires - [email protected]
Two Meetings That Changed My Life
One of the best things about my job is that I literally get paid to just hang out and network with founders. As The Founders Club membership races past 300 members, it's been eye-opening to see how similar most businesses are. Regardless of whether you’re selling software, running a smoothie bar, selling four-way volleyball nets, or a Pilates studio, the core of the business is the same: Make money. Optimize for profit. Hire good employees. Keep your customers happy. Do that for long enough, and hopefully, you’ll have a sellable business or be able to pay yourself handsomely along the way.
Our team now has two standing meetings a week. Moving forward these will be implemented into every business I run.
Meeting #1 - Monday Huddle: 12-1:30PM
As a virtual company getting facetime with each other is more important than ever. The banter and camaraderie are harder to build without the cubicles and watercooler, and these 90-minute blocks every week are a way for the company to become closer and more unified on our goals.
The format is simple:
Each team member takes anywhere from 10-15 minutes each to discuss the following:
A win or highlight from the previous week or weekend
Reveals their 4-5 big milestones for the upcoming week. These are things that are going to push the company forward and get people excited.
Review last week’s projected milestones. Did they get the shit they said they were going to done? Why didn’t they?
Where do they need help or a second set of eyes?
This entire thing lives inside of Notion and is a living document that we update on a weekly basis. Our entire company runs on Notion now. So its get learning or get left behind.
Here’s a great example from our CMO, Rayne. Very easy to keep accountability with a list like this.
Meeting #2 - Friday Huddle: 1-2PM
This is my favorite meeting of the week. This is an hour lightning round that holds every employee accountable and gets us so excited to see how the business grows. Think of this as like standing up in the town square in the old day on one of those big blocks but instead your teammates praise you for your good work instead of getting beheaded.
The format is simple.
Every team member (including the founders) has reportable metrics we are tracking against every single week. We then compile our scores on a weekly basis and see how close we are to achieving our quarterly targets. Simple things like hearing we are 18% to our revenue goal 5% in the quarter is music to my ears. By having this weekly pulse check it allows us to get ahead of problems before they actually become a problem.
Have large expenses coming up? Need to hit a revenue target in order to pay them? Don’t wait until the last day and be like oh shit we’re nowhere close to where we need to be.
As always, I’m an open book, so these are some of the metrics we are tracking on a weekly basis. It probably comes as no surprise we have DOUBLED the business in the past four months since actively reporting on these metrics.
Highbeam Saved One of My Friends
Luckily I’m getting to talk to more founders than ever before. One of the things we talk about more than ever is money. Not in the sense of flexing on each other, but more in the sense of how do you keep the plane flying. There’s nothing worse than investing your blood, sweat, and tears only to run out of fuel along the way or make one or two stupid mistakes that kills all your momentum.
One of those mistakes is PERSONAL GUARANTEES and disgusting interest rates.
When it comes to personal expenses, I am a hawk. Everything that touches my bank account I know about. Although I do the majority of my transactions with a credit card for the rewards, I always pay off my card in full at the end of the month and before I get hit with interest. Loans are one thing, but credit cards are the worst. Sometimes 25% interest. If you have the money, you should NEVER be letting credit card interest payments hit. Its stupidity and just giving away free money to American Express who certainly doesn’t need more money.
What’s even worse than this type of stupidity is signing your life away to personal guarantee and disgusting interest rates. I had a friend who just joined The Founders Club looking for $1,000,000 of growth capital. His business was super profitable, had a proven track record, but he had no experience with banks and loans. He hit me up early this week and it was simply too good to not write about.
He was SO EXCITED. Somebody offered him the $1M he needed. Not only did they offer him that, but they said he could borrow up to $2M. He was hungry, excited and ready to sign.
But here’s the catch. There’s always a catch.
He had to pay the money back in six months and there was also a 27% interest on the money.
And it was personally guaranteed.
He figured his business is humming. They do over a $1M a month. This is no problem for him.
I broke it down to him. If you don’t pay back the loan in time, they have the ability to take your entire company. Not only your company, they can then go after your personal assets. That beautiful house you live with your wife and kids - gone. That amazing new Mercedes - also gone.
Plus you’ll spend close to $150,000+ in interest as a penalty to borrow this money. Awful deal all around.
Instead I was able to introduce him to my guy David Segal, the legendary DTC & retail founder from David's Tea. Remember them? They were at every mall in the country, and I remember ripping nearly 15 free samples with the homies back in high school. They had these light blue Adirondack chairs out there and I’d just sample $50 of tea while my mom shopped until her feet hurt.
Remember this place? Those kettles had my name all over them.
Well David dealt with the same thing my friend did during his e-commerce days. Banking was tough. Snakey. And just overly complicated.
He just joined Highbeam, which is a bank we actually use at CROSSNET & The Founders Club as the President, and the partnership amongst us has been amazing. So good that I want to shout them out this week because they are legit building out a product that is a no-brainer for every entrepreneur.
As part of our partnership, they wanted to give away $15,000 of value with the highest tier of value for all CROSSED Commerce & Founders Club members. From the lowest-interest lending offers, to automated cash flow forecasting, live 13-week cash flows, and best-in-class high yield, they have blown every bank out of the water and are perfect for high-growth e-commerce brands.
Take a look at their site or hit David up at [email protected]. If you want me to make the personal introduction and are looking to borrow money for your business, I can help and get you the $15,000 of value.
Come Meet the Co-Founder of Starbucks
Once a week, I organize a weekly speaker series for Founders Club members with some seriously badass entrepreneurs. Most of the time they are just amazing people that I’m fortunate enough to call friends. Sometimes, I’m lucky enough to land extraordinary guests.
On February 12th, Zev Siegl, the co-founder of Starbucks will be joining me for a live Q&A and unfiltered talk. We’ll cover everything from the early days, mistakes he made, and how he’d build Starbucks in 2025 if he had to do it all over again.
We will probably have to cap this call at a few hundred guests and I think we’re close to 75% of the way full. If you want to join and meet the co-founder of Starbucks, its 100% free just sign up below!
Recap:
That’s it for this week squad! I hope you enjoyed. As a recap:
Schedule those two weekly meetings with your team. You won’t regret it.
Almost everyone can afford an executive assistant for a few hours a day/week - stop doing mindless work and grow your business
Need funding or a better bank? Check out Highbeam
Sign up for the Starbucks call
Apply for The Founders Club
All the love in the world,
Chris