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My best advice to you right now is to go from being apeacetime CEO to awartime CEO.

A lot of businesses -- predominantly service-based businesses are atrophying because the market is changing.

The sophistication level of the buyer is increasing, money is tightening up, sales cycles are elongating, and leads are not once where they were.

Now you're wondering what you're doing wrong.

"Is my offer not good?", "Why am I not selling?"

And suddenly, you feel like you don't want to do this anymore.

It requires a new level of fight to decide whether you're just going to let the market happen to you or if you're going to make the market happen.

In Ben Horowitz’s book “The Hard Thing About Hard Things” he has a chapter about the Wartime CEO.

It’s my favorite chapter in the book, and it details how the wartime CEO has to "violate protocols to win.

This is the problem that most businesses are facing.

You’ve lived in peace over the last few years and the market has changed.

Are you going to allow the war to define your culture?

Are you going to address the issues in your business to win the market?

Are you going to bury the idols that need to go, whether that's process or people or situations that YOU'VE allowed to happen?

Or are you going to continue to allow things to happen to you?

If you ask me, I think It's time for you to wage war.

If you ask any business owner if they want more revenue, the answer is a resounding, “Yes, you idiot.”

You might even get a funny response like, “Is the pope Catholic?”

But most owners don’t want to face the reality of what it really takes to grow.

No, I’m not talking about working harder.

I’m talking about attacking your business’s biggest enemy …

We all want to grow our companies. We want out of the day-to-day. We don’t want everything to depend on us.

We think we are the only ones who can do critical tasks.

We’re afraid to let others step in for fear of what their mistakes might cost the business.

We may even bad mouth employees (that we’ve hired, mind you) because they cannot match our level.

But we forget that what got us to this place is not success … it’s failure.

We failed for so long that we fell in love with success.

Your growth is capped by your own limitations as a human.

But if you’re the only solution to every problem, you’ll never be enough.

It’s a quandary because you’ve worked so hard, and you really are incredible at what you do.

You know the painful lessons that got you here.

If you want to grow beyond what you alone can achieve, you have to give your team the opportunity to fail.

But your business can’t fail along with them.

So how do you kill the hero without killing the business?

Failure is (unfortunately) a spectacular teacher.

It pushes us to attack problems in new ways, grow into new skill sets.

I invite failure into key areas in any business I own and pinpoint other areas where missing the mark would be detrimental.

If you want a team that can kill it on a grand scale, they have to practice failing.

Train your team to nail the macro moments by pushing for failure in the micro.

Imagine a pro football team that’s just finished an undefeated season.

They’re going nuts on the field: High-fiving. Spraying champagne. Pouring Gatorade on their coaches.

Their season was stacked with c-level teams. Every game they won was a walk in the park.

They think they're the best of the best because they’re undefeated, but they’ve never faced a formidable opponent.

When it comes time for the Super Bowl …. it’s a total bloodbath.

Your team has to face big challenges to learn how to win big.

And if you want them to win, you have to let them fail.

Let me give you an example from my agency:

Our Account Strategists are the main relationship point for our clients. (Other agencies call them Account Managers, Account Executives, etc. I intentionally gave them a different title … but that’s another email.)

They have a really high close rate when it comes to winning upsold work.

But their close rate was significantly lower on multi-service, 12-month retention work than it was on single-service upsell.

The Account Strategists had the same responsibilities on retention and upsell: pitch the work, build the contract, retain the client.

What we realized was trying to use upsell pitching as practice for 12-month contract work was like bringing the National T-ball champs to the major leagues.

Upsell conversations were fluid, organic. The work practically sold itself.

The conversation for the 12-month renewals was much more difficult.

It was bigger dollars, more complex concepts, higher stakes for every player at the table. And if they treated it like the light-hearted upsell conversations, they’d lose and the client would churn.

The micro-playing field we thought we had for training wasn’t setting them up for the macro-obstacles they needed to overcome.

So we created a high-stakes, big leagues simulation.

Every week, all of our account people get into a room with our top sales person for a mock pitch workshop.

The sales person plays the part of the client.

The Account Strategist delivers their pitch for the new 12-month contract in front of all of his peers.

(And they have to really pitch. No copping out. No breaking the fourth-wall. You practice like you play.)

He asks hard questions so they get reps thinking on their feet and answering the unanswerable.

He critiques their presentation skills, their contract, their assumptions. Everything.

He even tells them if he would buy from them.

These mock workshops have become one of the most valuable tools in our entire agency.

The result … more clients retained and more upsells closed.

So, don't shy away from failure — embrace it.

Kill the hero to let the business thrive.

I used to think there were hundreds of unique reasons customers choose my business over others.

But, it really boils down to three things:

People buy from you because you are either better, faster, or cheaper.

Most successful businesses can accomplish two, but exceptional ones find a way to do all three.

Recently, my wife and I were looking for a place to stay during an overnight trip to a concert.

I wanted to try something “different” so I started at AirBNB.

They have seen enormous success over the past decade.

AirBNB’s offered a fresh, different model from the traditional hotel.

But for every perfect stay, there’s five other stories with of poor maintenance and thin walls.

The quality varies significantly from place to place.

I found myself wondering if different was actually better.

You don't have to worry about clean sheets or questionable neighbors when you go to Marriott.

I’m a believer in different is what drives demand, but we shouldn’t confuses different with unique.

Marriott is better in that they are so remarkably consistent that many prefer them over unique AirBNB offerings because of their inconsistent experiences.

The same can be said for every Starbucks.

Is their coffee better than your boutique one-off cafe?

No, but their consistent experience is what makes them better.

You don’t have to question what you’re going to get.

Can the same be said about your business?

As I navigated AirBNB I was scrolling trying to find the perfect option.

Looking through every review and scrutinizing every photo.

This process started as fun, but quickly turned to work.

I realized the simplest solution might be Marriott

It was so much easier and faster than the endless scrolling it takes to find the perfect Airbnb.

Speed and ease are remarkable drivers of demand.

When I say "cheaper," I'm not necessarily talking about undercutting your competition’s prices.

You will always have competitors who cost less than you.

“Cheaper” can sometimes mean the opportunity cost of making a mistake, or getting to a solution more quickly.

These are the times when paying more saves you money.

Reflecting on the concert trip, I was surprised that Marriott was not only better (clean sheets) and faster (booking in two clicks), but it was also cheaper than Airbnb.

I use this example of Marriott vs. AirBNB because it's important to know what your brand is providing to your customers, and what they actually want.

If you want the option of stepping away from your business to have a life beyond the business you’ve created, you need to understand how your customers make purchasing choices.

BETTER: What are you willing to do that your competitors can't or won't?

FASTER: How can you leverage technology to reduce operating costs or deliver better results faster?

CHEAPER: Can you improve value to make your product/services more cost-effective than the initial price?

What problems can you solve for your clients that everyone else assumes are "just the way it is?"

Remember, it's not just about being better, faster, or cheaper.

It's about combining all three and creating a truly exceptional business that clients can't resist and can't wait to share with others.

Better, faster, and cheaper will give you a business that will scale.

What are you exceptional at that 99% of the population cannot replicate?

This is a question I ask in interviews often, and I want to explain why.

Most leaders look at what people have done, not what they can do.

This is a critical oversight, and could cost you dearly in margin and profitability as you add to your team.

When I ask the question rarely do people give concrete skills such as “I can code really well.”

I get answers like “I win people over.” or “I don’t let balls drop.” or “I can see the big picture.”

They usually pull on their soft-skills as their 1% skillset.

Their 1% is typically something they do well, and gravitate towards doing easily and efficiently.

If you’re only looking for people who fit the role requirements, you’ll create bloat and inefficiency within your organization.

You need people with the skillset to do their job well and the skillset your organization needs to move the business forward.

Jim Collins famously wrote in his book Good to Great:

“People are not your most important asset. The right people are."

This is where great leaders separate themselves.

They excel at spotting the 1% skillset in people.

The 1% Skillset is Your Greatest Multiplier

Aligning 1% skillset in an organization creates a massive flywheel effect.

Look at Chick-Fil-A. Have you ever met an unhappy employee there? Of course not.

Importantly though, they don’t train for it.

They only hire happy people because they know it creates a better customer experience.

“Talent is the multiplier. The more energy and attention you invest in it, the greater the yield."

— Marcus Buckingham, The One Thing You Need to Know

If you can align somebody’s 1% in an area that generates revenue or value, it will have exponential return thoughout your organization.

Aligning 1% Skillsets with Value & Profit

Just because someone has a 1% skillset that is needed in the organization doesn’t make it valuable.

1% skillsets must create of 1 of 2 things:

If you want to scale and create Optionality, this must be your goal.

To nail hiring for the 1% skillset, there’s two things you need to know: the formula and the equation.

Find Talent → Align Core Values → Uncover 1% Skillset → Revenue (R) or Perceived Value (PV)

Overlap of role + (Revenue Generation or Perceived Value) = Winning Equation

Let’s say your organization has a project manager. Clients expect project management but rarely stay because of it.

You need to find highly competent people who are detail oriented and can drive a project.

So let’s say you have two candidates for that PM role.

Candidate A has more experience in project management and their 1% skillset is “not letting balls drop.”

Candidate B has less experience but, their 1% skillset is “making people happy.”.

You hire based on who creates the most impact for your bottom line and client experience.

I know this is an over simplification, but I’ve seen firsthand how the right talent has greatly increased my confidence in the businesses I own and my ability to exit day-to-day.

Recently we hired a new account person and were down to two candidates.

This role is highly focused on client experience and retention.

My team was pressing each candidate to try to understand their psyche and what makes them tick.

My CEO was pressing one of them and finally asked

​“What makes you really upset? What really bothers you?”

His response “I can’t stand losing people.”

Sometimes uncovering someone’s 1% skillset isn’t found by asking the question directly, but rather finding out what makes them tick, upset, nervous or excited.

Having the right people in the right seat is more than just finding people to get the job done.

It’s the difference between scaling lean or growing with bloat.

It’s the difference between you being stuck as the constant bottleneck and only driving force in your organization and Owner Optionality.

How much effort do you put into “beating your competition?”

It’s easy to fixate on what other businesses are doing — especially when you lose a customer.

Obsessing over their wins won't fix why you're losing.

The truth is … chasing better will always leave you wanting more.

What actually drives demand is how you are different, not better.

Here’s what most companies don’t understand:

If you didn’t create the category then you need to separate yourself from it as quickly as possible.

Instead of only worrying about all the things you have to change to get better, you are laser-focused on a single question:

“What can we do that no one else can?”

Knowing what you’re uniquely capable of requires a deep and honest understanding of the strengths, capabilities and weaknesses of you and your team.

Most importantly though, you have to know your customer AND the problems or friction points, they experience in your industry that everyone accepts ass just part of the process

Two examples of how “different” became better than “better”

Ryanair was on the brink of bankruptcy when CEO Michael O’Leary made a bold bet.

He believed that most passengers would be willing to sacrifice small comforts like reclining seats or in-flight meals and entertainment if it meant saving money. O’Leary and his team even contemplated removing toilets to add more seats or charging passengers to use the onboard bathrooms.

The company’s slogan became: "We promise to get you from A to B for the lowest possible price, but that's all we'll promise."

Unwavering focus on reducing fares has led to an increase in sales and a decrease in operating costs. Today, Ryanair employs 8,500 people and generates annual revenues of more than $3 billion.

Steve Ballmer served as CEO of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014, succeeding Bill Gates.

During his tenure, Microsoft's share price decreased by 33%. When he resigned, the company's stock price rose 7%. (Ouch.)

During his tenure, Microsoft's valuation has multiplied nearly 10 times over as it has recovered from losses.

Windows 10 and 11 have both outperformed previous versions, and Azure now commands 18% of the $500 billion global cloud market, making it the second most popular option behind Amazon Web Services.

At an event in San Francisco, he led a discussion with a giant screen behind him. He declared that “Microsoft Hearts Linux.” This was a big deal because Microsoft has historically been hostile to outside companies and open-source software projects.

Today, more than 50% of Azure's compute core runs on Linux, and Microsoft works with Apple, IBM, and Dropbox.

Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella solved accepted, and acceptable, problems.

O’Leary directly confronted the assumption that air travelers required a balance between price and comfort. Nadella replaced a culture of “Microsoft vs everyone else” with a culture of “both-and.”

No other business in their respective industries is capable of or willing to compete on their terms.

If you want to scale your business and expect your customers to advocate for you, solve problems that no one else will.

Find the accepted problem you’re uniquely capable of solving.

Design every process in your business around solving that problem.

Lean into this differentiator with your marketing and delivery

Get hyper-focused on exactly one thing: what you can do that no one else can.

6 Steps to Exit the Day-to-Day of Your Business

Some days I work ten hours. Some days I work one hour, then spend time with my family.

The more time I spend with entrepreneurs, the more I realize we don’t want to work less.

We want the freedom to work on what we want to work on, as much or as little as we desire.

I’ve spent the last five years building a system that allows me to remove myself from the business without impacting my income.

I want to detail how and why I did it and share what I learned along the way so you can do it much faster than I did.

Every business owner should want to exit the day-to-day for at least two reasons:

Detach time input from money made. (Different levels to the game)

The asset you’ve created becomes more valuable when it doesn’t depend on you.

When you step out of operations, you 10x your ability to see the future of your business.

"I'll build a business, hire an operator, sit back and collect passive income".

You’re an entrepreneur. You’re a creator.

Instead, the better end goal is to create Optionality for yourself.

When you have Owner Optionality, you have choices:

Hold the business, but exit the day-to-day.

Continue to work on the parts of the business you enjoy the most.

When building a business that ultimately won’t need you, most people build the wrong thing first.

It's time to wage war

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