Mm hmm.
Well, got it. I'll drop that over there for her as well.
Fantastic way to be super prepared on that. So yeah, Chutopia, other franchises or rather businesses that you sold,
brokering businesses, you've managed to have your hands full.
I believe when we talked, there was a certain book we talked about.
Yeah.
That I'm a huge fan of that you said that you had already had access to and read back in the 80s, right?
Oh, no, that was Traction.
Traction?
Probably Traction.
Traction and Emeth. Both those books. I was like, wow, and you found that you've been building with those concepts in your mind and heart and strategy for decades now.
Yeah. And then I'm an exit planner now. So I help people with their set up their businesses for a good exit. Right.
So I'm a certified exit planner. So this is a book I'd recommend if anybody's wanting to start the journey of exit planning.
I love that. Walking to Destiny?
Yeah, walking to Destiny. I'm also a certified Colby consultant. So I work with Colby Assessment and the Colby system with Kathy Colby.
Yep. That is one of the highest recommended assessments that's out there in the market. For those of you who might be new to Colby, K-O-L-B-E.
Disc, Myers-Briggs, all of those typically go in the same conversation.
One of the resource in addition that they don't even talked about enough is landmark communications.
And so I like to throw that out there just so you guys have all the potential resources to help you with growth. Today, we're going to get even more.
So with that two more resources, Pete, what you got?
What have I got? I've got well, two resources you recommend for visionaries and leaders out there.
Yeah. Walking to Destiny is definitely one of them. One of the other ones, if you're a small business getting started, I think Donald Miller's book called Business Made Simple is good.
I used to be a Business Made Simple coach as well. And from that side of things, he's got a wonderful platform on the back and it's Business Made Simple.
And there's all sorts of great courses in there. And I think in particular great for sort of people getting going, for smaller businesses, for people that need to do a bunch of work to get their website going,
guiding principles going, a lot of this kind of stuff, how to communicate your message. A lot of that sort of stuff is really good. And Donald does a great job of it.
So, you know, I worked on that side for three years as well as a Business Made Simple certified coach.
And there's some great stuff there for people that are getting going. I mean, as you as you move along, a lot of that sort of already developed.
And it's good to go back and review all of that. But, you know, in particular for people that are getting going in business, I think it's a great one.
Nice. Donna Miller is a fantastic model of somebody whose stage presence, specifically when he's doing video sales letters.
He's got a great leadership demeanor and voice. I've never met him. So I can't speak firsthand. But his brand is one that one of my assistants opted into.
And he's like, I read this guy's emails every time they come out. And so I started looking and I was like, man, this is good stuff. And it's it's a it's definitely got some some major value in the market.
I don't like that. It's not as concise as the emiss is and as traction is like, hey, let's get to the point and get this done.
But it to me, it kind of showcases Donald's willingness to be a high nurturer as well. And maybe he's different behind the scenes. What did you do? You work with them one on one?
No, I worked with them in group setting, you know, with group coaching and that sort of stuff. So from that perspective, I mean, I do think that a lot of the courses are really well laid out so that you can actually knock that stuff off.
You know, you come with great workbooks, and there's a variety of different things. So there's it's literally step by step procedure of what you need to do to build your vision, what you need to do to build your marketing plan, how you need to lay out your work
in that group environment. It was good. You know, he does he does group training, essentially, right as part of it, but he's got a team, Jackson. And, you know, a lot of that revolves around the team.
And then there's I don't know how many coaches there are now, but there's probably 300 or so coaches that are out there coaching to that methodology. And, you know, some people like me that have been there and have left and other people that have been there a
longer time. And then he's got all the story brand people too, which is really good. It's kind of where his business side of things started, which is called building a story brand, another great book, and a great methodology that I love to use with any clients that are
finding it hard to express what they actually do, how they take their customer from their pain to the gain that you're going to provide through your services as a business owner. I mean, and how do we lay that language out? How do we how do we put it into our social posts? How do we put it into our, our websites, all of these different things? Because one of the big things that we need to do as leaders is we need to communicate that promise, right? That promise to our customers, which is, okay, I know what's bothering you. Now, take me
through that. And here's how I can help you through to a better life. Because ultimately, Jackson, people don't buy anything unless they see a better life at the end of the tunnel.
Yep. And I think you were the one who shared that quote with me just less than a month ago.
Yeah, everybody buys a better life.
Yep. And it's been something I've been marinating on a lot. It's made a pretty big difference and how I approach certain circumstances. You know, it's it's one of those quotes to you're like, I'm not ignorant to that. But man, I sure miss out when I'm not focused on it. Yep. So glad that I'm really glad you shared that and you're you're chock full of these types of tips. I know I keep going back to it, but I'm I'm a big fan of, like, let's take advantage of getting behind the doors we don't typically get behind in entrepreneurship.
Because it just doesn't happen. So when I talked about when you said Don Miller has his team to that he runs, it made me think of the difference between McDonald's and Chick-fil-A. Right. So if I go to make like, I'm talking about today's world, McDonald's is lost, man. Oh, my god, you can't even get somebody to come up to the counter. And there I'm taking my kids in. When I go to Chick-fil-A. It's like I'm talking to the owner's daughter or son. You know, it's like this amazing experience. That is a 100% reflection.
On the depth of the culture of the brand at hand. So what was it like to work with Donald's tier one people?
It was good. Leave that word. It was good. And it was it excellent? No. I mean, there's a reason why I'm not there anymore.
I'd want to know that. And you know, if I were Donald, too, I'd want to know that I gotta be grateful, even if it was public or live or whatever, like only a pretentious leader gets upset in these situations and feels attacked. It's an opportunity for quality assurance and optimization.
So thank you for being able to highlight that. I've never been in there. I know how hard the game of business is. So I would never evaluate the quality of a coach solely based on the students who don't win. But it is an indicator to be aware of and think about.
So, no, I think like I said, from from all of everything around Donald stuff, it's professional, it's well done. It does take you through a lot of different things. But there's like I said, for the time, here's the main reason why I left Jackson is because I tend to work with business owners that have been at it a while are already doing well and want to do even better.
And I think the platform of business made simple, and I mentioned this off the bat, is really for startups. And that's, that's where they really shine and do well with. And that just wasn't me. So, you know, for the culture, they had a culture of startups and working with independent operators and working with a lot of sort of smaller micro, I'll call them micro businesses. That just wasn't my thing. I work with businesses that are typically well established, doing well, where the business owner is, I call it, they want to move from front to back.
And they're frustrated to freedom. And the the our owner, our operator to owner, which is another one of looking at that. And it's like, if you're tired of operating your business, you've been out of 10 years, and it's like, I'm just done with making these decisions, sometimes even done enough to sell your business because you're just tired of it all.
That's the kind of client that I'm usually working with. And because that's what that's why I'm an exit planner, you know, I'm a certified exit planner, and I work with people to help get their business ready to sell and transition in those periods of frustration. So that was the primary reason why I left that whole business made simple.
Super happy about it. Visionaries, leaders listening in. This is what we're doing is we're exploring perspectives outside of the standard perspective on purpose. I read the Five Love Languages. That book is not a direct business book. But all of the principles matter and are helpful and give me a new perspective on communications with human beings that also directly contributes to how I show up with my team. So these these types of external resources, when you're a franchise
owner, it's important to follow the regulations and liabilities and rules and compliance that exists with franchising. But it doesn't mean that you should close your mind to the other opportunities that exist out there, you might discover your best secrets. And it's a it's kind of a one plus one equals two situation if you make it that way. So you know, Jackson, go ahead, you got I was a franchisee, right? I won two franchises. And I got to tell you, I was not a great franchisee.
Hmm, I can see that you're an entrepreneur. So yeah. So I mean, I have owned two franchises. One of the first one I bought, which I'm proud to say is 30 years old in August of this year. Whoo. I know 30 years still going. And and so this was a bathroom innovation company, we went in and sprayed bathtubs that were harvest gold white, we sprayed tiles, I sprayed appliances, I sprayed old dark oak kitchens to white, we would do sort of, let's call them
rip out alternatives for homeowners and and mostly for property managers, like all the apartments in town and all that stuff. So we did about 1000 bathtubs a year when I sold it, like we're in a lot of bathrooms a year. And, you know, had had multiple trucks out on the road and all this kind of stuff. But we started I started that off as a franchise, I was 23 years old 1994. And I had 10,000 bucks in my back pocket, I paid for my education went through business school, and I still had 10,000 bucks because I worked all
through school and did my thing. And I'm like, but what can I buy for 10,000 bucks? Well, at that time, I could this is the days when we didn't have the internet, we're flipping through entrepreneur magazine looking for ideas, right? Right. And I saw this business called surface doctor. And I'm like, Oh, that's interesting. So I went down for discovery day to Atlanta, Georgia. I'm from at the time I was living in Ottawa, Ontario in Canada here. And I flew down, I'm like, Yeah, this looks cool. So I went back down, took my few weeks training,
and started my business, I was franchisee number 20. They sold about I think about 300 of them. But within the first three years, I think they were down to about 50. They almost all failed. The franchise or changed twice in the matter of five years. So the original guy that started it told it that person didn't do well that sold it. And upon the second sale to the franchise or I elected to take the option to buy my franchise out. And then I just rebranded it called it
surface medic. And so for the last 25 years or so, it's been called surface medic and choice on that name. Yeah, no, it's I mean, it was it's a good it's a good name. Surface doctor was a great name, too. But of course, as to properly defranchise that I couldn't keep that name. Right. And then, and then we carried on business and worked my own way, which I was kind of doing anyway, because it was a poor franchise. It wasn't a McDonald's. It wasn't a Chick-fil-A. It wasn't, it wasn't these big ones that had all sorts of systems. And here's the methodology. And I didn't pay
for that either at $10,000. You know, so when I talk to people, franchises, it's like, really understand what you're buying here. And are you buying a system? Are you buying a name that people actually know, like and trust? And are you working through that stuff? You know, so to be quite honest, I ended up defranchising it. And then the person that bought it for me 15 years ago called me about two weeks ago. And he says, Hey, Pete, I've owned it for 15 years, you owned it for 15 years. And so I was so happy to have a great chat. They're doing well with the business and the
business continues on. The other franchise I had was through one of those three franchisors, they had other businesses too. And the person that had the cleaning company, which was called Sani Service in Canada, Swisher in the States. And we serviced bathrooms for
15 years and retail and all sorts of different things. We bought it with 30 clients, it was underperforming. We built it over a period of 10 years and 10 times it to 300 and then sold it. And you know, what you bought it for? Or is that you don't have to reveal that. But do you remember what you bought it for?
I bought it for 15 grand. Yeah, I mean, it was they were just gonna, they were just gonna turn hand it back in essentially and say we're done. And I'm like, no, we can do something with this. And so, you know, we built it and sold it for I can't remember what it was now 325 or something like that time. This is a while ago. So but you know, it was it was a good business that treated my family well and provided us well for for 10 years and we sold it and sold it successfully. Right?
In the world that that only you know, has time to celebrate the multi billion dollar transactions that exists out there, you know, again, nothing wrong with those. It's just like, these are the stories though, that are more tangibly accessible, then people don't they overlook all day long, they don't see the opportunities for them. My parents had a twice the ice machine. I don't know if that's the thing in Canada and Texas.
No, no, no, no. So I know what they are, though. Yeah, that's right. And so they did about 4000 to $5,000 per month on that on that ice station and the ice station was on their 18 with their parking lot. They had the only 18 with a parking lot on the corridor of 35 through San Antonio, Texas. And so it was always full. The apartments all around and they found out the restaurant owners also when their ice machines broke down, would come by and buy so there was lots of lots of just little things that contributed to the
ice scene on the cake, if you will, for the business. So there's there are all sorts of opportunities out there like that, guys. And that's where communicating talking with somebody like Pete becomes so powerful is you don't really know all of the intangible values that you get out of meeting people like Pete
anymore. And especially somebody who understands the value of simplifying entrepreneurship. So we're going to take a short break. We're going to come back. I'm going to grab some water as fast as I can. And we'll be talking about Pete's vision for what's ahead. All right. Welcome in to Vision Pros Live with Jackson Callum. I'm your show host. We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are building fantastic visions out there.
What's up, Vision Pros and welcome into another episode of Vision Pros Live. I'm your show host, Jackson Callum, founder and CEO of First Class Business. And we get to talk about one of my absolute favorite leadership topics with Pete Moore. We're going to talk about simplifying business for success. And we're talking to somebody who's owned multiple businesses. This is huge and I love how transparent he is. In fact, when we were doing our pre-show, I hit Pete real hard with some difficult questions, one being, how do you get to the top of the business?
I was literally trying to trap him in his own choice of words regarding businesses because I hate that so many people try to make business sound like it is simple and that it's going to be easy to move a business forward. And he took it like a champion. It didn't even move him one iode. He was like, no, business is hard. That's why we have to simplify it. And I was like, oh, we speak the same language. This is cool. And I didn't melt that fast. I had to hit him with a couple other angles on it.
But he survived the blows that I tend to throw when I'm evaluating and vetting people for the show with flying colors. And I was like, man, I just cannot wait to catch up with this guy more. So we're going to be really fast in the sponsors today. The last spot with Melissa Gray, she is my go-to chief legal officer. And I'm super happy that we met. She understands that legal does not have to be complicated. She created a blueprint to help you understand it. I had a $20,000 trademark lawsuit, my friends. I should have had better legal
counsel. I should have had done my research to find out who needed to represent me, who could have. And we also had a panic meltdown when Apple patented our software when I was at Restaurant Connect. That sucked. Again, when you have that protection, you know who to turn to. You don't have to stress about it. You can move on with your life and keep moving productivity forward so you can be profitable as a business.
And there's the Healing Institute with Pramiliya Parham. With Pramiliya, you've got somebody who has been in the game of healing for decades. I actually want to find out how old she is because I love diving into the wisdom of our elders. They know so much more than we do. And while she's working on the technology front for what she's building, she's building an international community for practitioners and clients, meaning anybody who's practicing a form of
healing therapies coaching can be included in this network. And people who are clients can go in and say, You know what? I don't know if I should be working with a therapist or a coach or an integrated healer. I don't really understand all this stuff. She's creating a hub for that. And my hope is that she will continue to raise the funding necessary to take this beyond all of our wildest dreams because I see too many people in this world suffering and feeling like it's okay to just feel okay about life. And it's okay to block the best feelings that life has to offer. I'd rather see all of us enjoy it.
Thoroughly. I recommend catching up with Pramiliya if you are a practitioner, seeing how you can get involved in that process. Then there's the water project. I thought I was going to get water. My show segment for the trailer is it's too short for me to do that. I don't know what it's like though to suffer with true thirst. Meanwhile, when I found out about this project and I learned that there are millions of people who don't have access to clean drinking water, I couldn't let it go. I was like, man, I got to do more for this. I've got to tell people about it. We've got to
give back to it as well and include ourselves in terms of how we do this. I love that the water project is super transparent. When you actually select a community, you get to see where the project's at from the get go. You get to see where they're going to build a sand dam or a borehole well or whatever other project they might do. Those are the two that I've seen. And once it comes to fruition, you get to see the community celebrate that experience. You get to see, I mean, look at this picture. These kids are celebrating water like it's Christmas day. And while that kind of breaks
my heart to think of like, man, I'm glad my kids don't have to go through that. It gives me perspective to remember that while we're rocking these microphones or listening to podcasts, we can do so much more good in the world. I hope that you either give back to this or if you're in a financial position where you can't. My hope is that you just share this with somebody who might be able to. You never know how far the ripple effect will go of the good that you do in simple ways, such as just sharing about an experience. Without further ado, we're going to bring Pete Moore on stage, talk about simplifying business and entrepreneurship
Pete. Thank you so much for joining me today, dude. Yeah, thanks for having me. It's, uh, it's great chatting with you, Jackson. The last couple of times we've been on and the first little bit here. So just really excited. I'm always excited to talk business. So love it.
I do. Well, that's that makes sense. I mean, when you when you've been gifted the knowledge of the E myth, when you've sought it out diligently and traction all that you have, like, you know, you you learn the secrets of how to make this thing not suffer or not not be so painful that so many people are going through. And there's a lot of people who feel like they have to fake it till they make it. Let's shelve that for now. We're going to go right into your vision, though. What is your vision for the people that you serve? So I've already given you a couple of
nuggets there around around the idea. But the real the vision that I have is all of the small business owners. And I've told you some of the people that I work with, you know, those business owners have been at it a while that really are have been working in their businesses hard to get it done because they had to because they had to put in their blood, sweat and tears and those they had to do the hard things that they had to do. But maybe now they're doing a little better. Maybe they have a little bit more money. Maybe they have a little bit bigger team. Maybe things are doing well and they're kind of looking and they're saying to themselves, hmm,
I'd kind of like to go on a vacation. Haven't had a vacation really a good one for a couple of years. Or maybe I want to coach in my kids little league team. Or maybe I want to be more involved in my church or maybe whatever it is, it's uniquely yours as you're the business owner. But whatever those wants and wishes are. And if you're not exploring them and doing them and living them, why did you become a business owner?
Because if you will back the real when you become a business owner, the idea was maybe if I become a business owner, I'll have a better life. And you had these visions of what that better life was. Sometimes we got to reel that back and go back to those early days of thinking what better life would look like because we've been trapped and habitualized into working all these hours, making all these decisions, doing all this stuff. And then start to think about, hmm, maybe I'm not actually getting it.
I'm not getting what I wanted out of being a business owner from that perspective. I'm not enjoying maybe the life that I wanted to live. So what are we going to do about? And that's where I like to come in. It's like, okay, let's clean this stuff up and let's help you move from operator of your business to owner. If we look at we pull it back into the traction book that you were talking about, which I do like the best thing in my opinion that I like about traction that I took away was it's called the accountability chart as opposed to the
operations, opposed to it just an operations chart, right? You know, when, when, when we look at that accountability charts, like who is actually accountable? And if your accountability chart is flat, where it's you at the top and everybody else underneath and everybody reports to you, that's a problem, because you'll never be free. And so let's start working through better communication, better process management, better accountability within your organization to get you out of making some of those smaller decisions.
Off the bat and then get, get your team making decisions because they want to your team actually wants to make the decisions as business owners. We tend to get habitualized into making them. And we don't actually, we get might give them a title, but we don't actually hand over and transfer the accountability. Why? Because we say we don't trust them, but we really do trust them. We just don't trust the process. And a lot of the times when the process is in your head, that's a problem.
Absolutely. Uh, to, to highlight color, commentate a bit on the vision for those that you're serving. I know firsthand the value of this. I've been in the business ownership, um, life since I was 21 years old. Um, right. So it's been like 15 years. I think that's the math. Um, we've had our ups and downs in the process. I've been fortunate since the beginning to kind of have the, I had that four hour work week mentality, not the one of being lazy, the one of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of,
um, could get things done the right way so that I, and, but also always maintained balance since the very beginning. Then that book came out and kind of validated. And I was like, oh, good. I'm not the only one like trying to do this. And now I can point to this book.
And my business partners are like, Jackson, why are we suffering as much as we are? Read the book guys. Um, you know, let's, let's get this balance. So to highlight that for those people out there, there's, there's two dynamics on that.
One, Restaurant Connect, we signed our first international restaurant while we were at
the South by Southwest show and grabbed a really good foundation within Austin, Texas.
What people didn't see was I was going around Avery Ranch, an upscale neighborhood in Austin
at night, picking up furniture on the side of the road, bringing it home.
My wife and I were sanding it down, painting it, and that's how we were making InsMe.
Why?
Because the restaurant software wasn't paying the bills at the time.
We had to do everything that we could to make sure that we made rent while also running
that business.
It took us three years to get 36,000 recurring monthly revenues.
We had to do lots of things to try to make that business model work.
On the same token, as we got to where we were prospering a little bit more and made a little
bit smarter decisions financially, that also led to us going on a 41-day road trip.
Up the California coastline, back through Colorado, and here we are in the gandola at
Telluride, Colorado.
Three days before that, I was on a podcast in the Redwood Forest in an Airbnb.
I was like, holy crap, this is what this is all about.
I'm coaching my kids' soccer teams and being involved in their sporting events.
This is Harmony and I back when we were – she's obviously a lot younger here, but during the
middle of a workday at Six Flags.
Those types of things, they are possible to be able to achieve even if you're not fully
winning in business.
You can still set some boundaries and say, I'm still going to show up and be there for
my family and I'm a big fan of you can have your cake and eat it too.
That's what you're helping people figure out and realize with the entrepreneur.
Don't lose sight of those things that were so important to you when you first got started.
Glad you hammered it.
Pete, what's ahead for you?
What's your vision look like?
These days, my main focus really is around working with business owners.
Of course, that's what I do.
I work with business owners.
From that perspective, the two main areas of the business that I work with is with the
Colby system.
I love working with teams and overlaying Colby, the Colby A assessment, B assessment and C
assessment, which are all around who you are, what your perception of your job is and what
your boss's perception of your job is.
When we start overlaying those onto the accountability chart, it really makes for powerful teams.
It lets everybody on the team understand how to communicate better and essentially get
stuff done.
To me, that's what we're trying to do as business owners.
We want to get stuff done.
If you know how to present to one of your teammates something that you're wondering
why the heck aren't they getting this done?
It's probably because you're not actually communicating to them in the way that they
need the information.
We all assume that people want information and want to be communicated to the way that
we like it.
This is the problem because that's not the way.
There are other people that are very different than you and they need their information in
different ways.
If you're expecting them to do something, you need to present it to them in that way.
A lot of these different things when we start overlaying Colby is so awesome with teamwork.
The other thing that I spend a lot of time these days with is helping people set up their
business for a proper exit.
From that side of things, here's a vision.
One day you will exit your business.
Guaranteed.
Right.
True.
The big one, you die.
Yep.
Divorce causes a lot of business exits.
Disability, partner disagreements, lots of reasons.
Those are unplanned exits.
I think the only one I haven't passed through is the first one.
I'm not dead yet.
Yeah.
There you go.
You've experienced these and a lot of people have.
50% of businesses transfer in unplanned exits with those reasons.
The other 50% are planned exits, which are nice.
It's like, okay, well, I think within two to five years I would like to exit my business,
so let's work on that.
That's where I come in as a coach and it's like, okay, let's work through all this stuff
to maximize all of the different areas in your business because I used to be a business
broker helping people sell businesses too, so I really understand this.
What do we need to do to clarify and maximize everything within your business so that you
can present this property and obtain the right amount of multiple upon your exit?
That gets me pumped.
When I look at the vision there, it's like once somebody understands because in those
early days it's like, I'm not looking at the exit right now.
I'm just looking at getting this thing going, but once you get to a certain level, now it's
like, okay, well, it's at this level.
I better start planning for the unplanned exit.
That's just good business strategy.
Yes.
I should also plan a little bit, at least depending on where you are in your business
cycle for the planned exit because it takes time, Jackson.
It takes time to get this stuff, all the process down, all the people.
You talked a lot about culture, the difference of culture between McDonald's and Chick-fil-A.
Your culture means something when somebody looks at that.
How are you perceived in your local community?
How are you perceived within your team?
What is that culture?
There's a lot of value to that and it takes time to build it.
Absolutely.
When we look at all of these things, my vision is helping people get to their exit strategy,
get their business running on rails so that it can run without them because that's when
it's also most valuable, by the way.
Part of that is the team.
A big part of that is the team, which is where Colby overlays.
I love that.
We focus heavily on the vision, obviously.
That's why we launched the show.
What that leads to, oh, we need to create a culture here.
That culture attracts certain types of leadership.
Whether you intentionally-
And repels, too.
... do it unintentionally.
Was that-
And repels.
Exactly.
Here's what's cool about that.
If you intentionally build your culture out, it will attract people that are intentional
about culture.
If you don't care about culture and don't put any importance on it, you're going to
attract people who do not care about culture and do not care about belonging to what it
is you're building.
That transition process, we've experienced this in Texas within the last three years,
I think.
Water Burger sold.
Water Burger is our McDonald's of Texas.
The family finally sold it.
People are super unhappy about the fact that it sold.
I'm excited and happy for them.
They did everything they could to probably transition the brand.
At the same time, I already know full well that we make it when you order it.
Uh-uh, not anymore.
That culture did not stick in the franchise right now.
The people who've been loyal to that brand for a lifetime, we're now like, I think a
lot of it's hard.
A lot of people will be like, Jackson, what are you talking about?
Don't hate on Water Burger.
That's a Texas thing.
It is.
I went last night, actually.
Once again, I was reminded of this isn't what it used to be.
We've got to plan those aspects, whether we're selling the business or we're the one buying
the business.
You're the one buying the business and you don't look under these bricks and see how
sturdy is this house, how sturdy is this environment.
You're probably going to be disappointed with where the brand is as you're moving it forward.
Pete, I want to dive into Gallup.
I want to dive into Colby, both of them.
I don't know if you've done Strengths Finder 2.0.
I'm going to give you my background on it because you're obviously a Colby fan.
Yeah, I've been a
junkie.
I've done almost all of them.
Strengths Finder 2.0, man, it had such a groundbreaking life changing effect on me
when we did this.
I've learned, I've done so many assessments.
I was 21 or 22 at the time when I did it.
I got mine too.
Man, there, you got to get a new guy.
There's an assessment in the back.
It doesn't work without the new book.
You got a QR code here that you got to scan to get your assessment.
I was always the guy in the middle on the assessments that could do everything or anything,
which is nice, first world problem.
But I didn't really feel like it told me anything about me until I took that one.
And I was like, holy crap, this thing knows things about me I didn't know about myself.
And it's a management reference guide as well and resource.
But I remember taking Colby and I just didn't, for whatever reason, it didn't have a lasting
impact on me.
I wasn't in a big company.
I was a startup.
So it was like a one-on-one.
I didn't get that like guidance process either.
I do remember the Gallup people contacting me and saying, hey, we can help Strengths
Finder stuff too.
And as a startup, I'm torn between, all right, when we get to the next phase of leadership
development and where we're investing more in external assessments of executives, Colby
or Gallup, which one do we start with?
Why would you start with Colby?
You always start with Colby.
And I'll tell you why.
But I will also tell you that out of all the assessments I've ever taken, Strengths Finder
is my second favorite.
And I do think they work really well together and they should be used together.
Right.
So you want it.
So again, I'm with you on that.
For those startups who are listening, like, oh, I'm just going to do one and forget the
other.
No.
Start with one and build up to the next.
So here's why.
There are three parts of the mind.
The first part of the mind is cognitive.
It's what you know.
It's what you've learned.
Think about like IQ tests and any if you took an SAT or any of these kind of things of what
you've learned since you were born.
All of that is got to do with your cognitive ability.
Right.
So there are cognitive tests out there and then there are emotional tests.
It's what you prefer.
It's how you you know, it's all around preferences.
Essentially, that's what Gallup is.
That's what Strength Finders is.
Enneagram, Fascinate, Disc, MBTI, almost all of those ones.
They are all around emotional intelligence, which is really, really important.
So I don't ever discount any of those.
OK.
There's a whole nother overlay to do around emotional intelligence.
Colby is the only one that actually is unbiased and you can use for hiring because it's completely
unbiased.
It's how you make decisions.
It's got nothing to do with your preferences.
It doesn't change over time, depending on how you how much you've learned since you
were a kid till now.
Colby has been going since 1975, forty nine years.
And if you took your Colby test forty nine years ago and got your your numbers, it comes
with four numbers.
If you got those numbers and you took it today, you probably would be almost exactly the same,
even with all of your life's learnings, even with all of your experiences, all of that
stuff.
It's because it's who you innately are and how you make decisions.
And as a business owner, I want to know how my team makes decisions.
I want to know how to present information to them so that they can make decisions and
we can be a more efficient team.
Here's my challenge on that.
Let's explore this deeply.
So they're all saying that these days.
Yeah.
Well, there's only one that's unbiased and can be used.
I'm saying they all say they're unbiased.
Right.
So how do we know what's how do we know how do you define something that's truly unbiased?
Well, because nobody else will use it in the hiring process.
There's not an HR firm out there that would put this to test in an HR in a first part
of your hiring process, because if you put disk or if you put an enneagram or anything,
it's all got to do with their preferences and you can't hire based on somebody's preferences
these days.
Okay.
That makes sense.
Yeah.
So you start with the unbiased from a standpoint of like also compliance.
Yes.
In HR.
Oh, yeah.
It's not corporate guy.
Yeah.
So no, it's real.
Like you don't want to get sued because you turn somebody down because their strength
finders report came back and you didn't like something that they didn't like.
Right.
That's what that's what you mean by that.
That's right.
Thank you for the context on that.
Yeah.
So with Colby, you can hire based on Colby results because I'm hiring a bookkeeper and
if they have a low, let's call it fact, you know, fact finder and follow through, which
are two of the nodes, I want my bookkeeper to have a high follow through, not a low follow
through because she or he needs to really be there checking off those boxes.
So the visa bounces at the end of the month.
And if that bothers them, they probably aren't going to do it as a regular rhythm of their
natural instincts of what they need to do at work in order to accomplish the task.
And I'd like to know that before I hire them.
That's fantastic.
Thank you.
You solved that.
That was fantastic.
So Colby first, and then once they're on your team and you're doing some team development
and all this other stuff and digging into some of that kind of stuff, then you lay in
strength finders or Enneagram or disc or any of these other ones that are more around what
do you prefer.
And we start talking about preferences because we're already in, we're already group.
We're good with each other.
We trust each other.
All that kind of stuff.
One of the things you're all witnessing live is the simplification of my business for success
right here, right now, because I'm going to the person who understands how these assessments
come together.
And yeah, I could go through the trial and error and figuring that out.
And it would take me, if I dedicated every bit of my effort towards that, maybe three
to four years.
But you just solved a three to four year problem for me.
That is the advantage of getting engaged with leaders who've been there and done that.
Let's dive into the opposite side of that though.
You've also gotten to go through the trenches and battles of life.
What is the worst leadership experience that you've ever had, Pete?
I don't know whether it's worse because I've had a lot of bad ones.
Like I said, I've been in business 30 years.
So we've had a few along the way for sure.
But I'll tell you one of the things that comes back to process because based on our conversation
today, I'm a big process person and I like to have process outlined and laid out and
assigned accountabilities to and all this kind of stuff.
Well one of the businesses in the past, and it doesn't really matter what the process
was because it's more about the learning here.
One of the processes that we had laid out was a customer facing process.
And the customer was trying to return a particular product and we weren't allowing returns on
these products at that point in time if they had been used.
And if they, you know, there was just some stuff around it.
And we had a detailed process.
And my team at the time was following process really well and going through it.
And they had mentioned a couple of times that this is a bit of a sticky one.
And I'm like, no, we just got to do it.
And I'll tell you why we did it because my coach, I'm a coach, but I also am coached
as well.
My coach at the time was saying you need to really put some firmer policies and procedures
in place around your returns because there are some issues here.
And I'm like, yeah, okay, so we'll do it.
And it felt against my culture at the time, Jackson.
It's like, I was like, I don't even like this, this myself.
So my real learning here around this was if you feel that a process in place is something
in your business that you personally don't like and your name's on that business in some
way, shape or form, and it's really not aligned with a culture that you have internally, then
don't do it even if somebody else tells you to do it.
Because I was there returning this product for a client and I was like, and my staff
member was right beside me, my team member.
And I'm thinking, okay, I don't even want to tell this person that because I don't like
the policy myself.
And I wouldn't want to be told that as a client.
Absolutely.
So we changed it.
Yeah.
Right after that, I'm like, this is done.
I don't care if my coaches tell me to do this, this isn't our culture.
With coaching, I believe we are all coaches as well.
And I'm glad we're circling back to this concept because any coach that does not have a coach
is probably a pathetic coach.
We all need coaching in different aspects of our life.
And it doesn't always come in the form of a direct, hey, I'm a certified coach through
XY or Z. I don't care what you're certified.
I care about that you know what you're doing.
But it reminds me of the golf caddies.
I read in Reader's Digest a long time ago that golf caddies don't last very long with
the golfers that they're with, partly because the golfer has to pay for them directly.
It's not like they inherit that individual like on another type of sports team.
But there's only a few caddies out there have been with their golfer for decades.
And a lot of that has to do with change and adjustment of strategy.
Some of it has to do with bad leadership.
Some of it has to do with the evolution of circumstances and the needs of that individual
as they age as a golfer and needing somebody of a different mindset perhaps.
We're always evolving.
I look at Greg Popovich as one of the greatest coaches of all time and he actually has the
accolades for it.
But what really sets him apart to me as a coach is he won with his trio, his dynasty
in San Antonio, and then he stayed with the team during years when he could have retired
when they're in complete rebuild and destroying his win percentage.
And now he's got Victor won by Niyama.
And he's ready for the next go.
And I don't really think he cares about all the accolades.
He just has this passion for what he does.
But back to the other bigger point of what you're saying, we don't have to drink the
Kool-Aid of everything that somebody offers.
And that's not why he was successful as a coach.
He had utter respect for his team members and their ability to communicate back and
forth with them on what they thought that they should do together.
Anybody who's trying to control you, once again, I would say is a pathetic coach.
I'm not saying your coach was.
I'm saying if a coach does not recognize the need to back off when you have your intuition
or know what you need to do or they get hurt by that, like, oh, well, you don't listen
to me, Pete.
I mean, it's time to reevaluate.
Is this coach the one who's going to help me get to the highest levels or should I be
looking for a coach who understands that I have intuition and confidence and things that
I need to be able to go and lean into as well?
Thoughts on that?
Yeah, I love it.
I mean, all of that is good.
And I think, well, I'll tell you what, I'm being coached next week.
I'm going for a three day seminar with one of the people that I've done some stuff with
along the way.
But I've never been live with them, so I'm really excited about that.
His name is Dean Jackson, and Dean Jackson is one of the marketing gurus.
I mean, he's the guy that started the squeeze page back when you open a website and that
pop up page comes.
Dean Jackson was the guy that created that.
So I mean, he's got all sorts of different things, really a master in all sorts of marketing.
And I've been following his stuff, listening to his podcast, reading his stuff for years.
And I've taken a couple of his online courses, group coaching type stuff, but I've never
been live with them.
So I'm going to be live with them for three days next week.
And I'm really looking at learning and digging deeper into some of his stuff.
So I'm a big believer in following those things.
And it just never worked until now for me to make it out to one of Dean's events, but
I'm excited about that.
So part of being a good leader is never ending learning.
And it doesn't really matter who you learn from.
But if it's stuff that you're interested in and it's stuff that's going to advance your
business, advance your life, advance your culture, advance your team, then you're going
to have a better life.
Absolutely.
By the way, those of you listening in secret, I already knew Pete was a process guy because
of his bookshelves.
So those of you looking for little tweaks and like insights and how to evaluate, I mean,
somebody who's got a backlight for his brand behind him when he could have just endless
books on there, the plant in the top right corner, et cetera.
There's lots of little signs that we sometimes overlook.
Just one that I caught long before you started talking processes like this guy, the process
guy.
Hey, man, I know you have your guitar, my guitar, my mandolin are right here on the
other wall.
So we got to jam out together.
All right.
Speaking of what's the best leadership experience that you've ever had?
I've had a lot.
I mean, I really truly have been blessed with some awesome mentors.
Easy to see.
Easy to see Pete, your reflection of all of them and all the things that you've done.
Thank you.
And I encourage anybody listening here, if you're a business owner that's struggling
or even if you're a new business owner, or even if you're an existing business owner
that has been at it a while, you should still have mentors and you should still go talk
to them.
And they've been through so much.
And I mean, I look at myself now, it's like I told you, I've been in business 30 years
already, even though I'm in 53, like you started young too.
But you know, there are people that have been through this stuff before.
And most business owners are the kindest, most giving people.
They don't want to see you struggle through the things that they struggled through.
They want you to take the fast road.
They want to give you the answer.
And most business owners are either too brash or too proud or whatever the case to ask the
question.
It's unfortunate because there are a lot of people out there that want to give you the
help that could exponentially help you take years off that leadership journey.
And you know, when I look at the best leadership experience, I mean, I just have so many great
mentors, and it's mentorship, Jackson.
It's the good conversations with business owners that have been there, done that.
Sometimes they're now, sometimes they're younger than me before, it was always older people.
But now, some of my mentors are younger than me.
And it's like, wow, man, I like, I wish I knew that when I was 25.
And I wish I knew like, and it's like, wow, they're like, they're killing it with some
of this stuff.
And I want to learn from them.
And they're sometimes half my age.
And I love that.
So when I look at this kind of thing, it's like, what can you do?
And I'm talking to you, the listener, what can you do to connect with a mentor?
In an area that you're struggling in.
And there are lots of people, whether they're paid or not paid, it doesn't really matter,
that that are willing to give you help to overcome the pain that you're feeling so that
you can live a better life.
I used to listen to Smart Passive Income fairly religiously with Pat Flynn, love him, love
the show, love what he stands for.
And there came a day where I realized I need to stop consuming every word that this person
is saying and that others are saying.
If I'm going to become a leader, I need to start producing content, not consuming it
constantly.
And now I need to find who's virtues, whose values I align with.
And when I need access to certain information because of the challenge at hand with what
I'm producing.
If I'm running into a Facebook campaign problem with lead forms, I'm going to look up on Google
Facebook lead forms, but at case study, and I'm going to type John Loomer and I'm going
to type Pat Flynn and I'm going to type Gary Vaynerchuk.
I'm going to look for very specific resources that I need from those individuals when I
need them.
But there does come a point in time when as a yes, you should look at mentorship opportunities
all around you and to curate that with what is needed in the moment for you to move your
visions forward.
That was a huge shift for me.
I don't know, five to 10 years ago.
It's been quite some time on that.
And the other thing that you shared was about these younger mentors.
I don't know how soon into fatherhood where I realized like, holy crap, I'm learning more
from my children than I'm probably even teaching them.
And it was just constant.
It's just like a fire hose.
And at first it hurt.
And I was like, man, I suck at this.
And some of it hurt in terms of like, man, I wish that I could see how I'm supposed to
help this child.
But in the process, through self-awareness discovery, I got to learn how to see the world
from their angle and perspective.
And so they weren't trying to teach me per se.
But because of the opportunity and my willingness to learn on that, it dramatically shifted
my ability to connect with them and understand where they're coming from and then relate
to others.
So there is no limit on age for who we can learn from.
We also need to be curating based on what's needed for us here and now, because there
are billions of opportunities out there to learn.
Speaking of, if this was the last chance that you had in your life to share a powerful lesson
with other visionary leaders, what powerful lesson can other visionaries learn from your
experience?
Well, being that I mentioned Dean Jackson a little while ago, I'll give you one of his
little nuggets that I don't even know he uses, but it's one that sat with me when I listened
to it one day.
And he said, there are only 24 hours in a day.
You can't buy more and you can't use less.
So there are only 24 hours in a day.
You can't buy more and you can't use less.
So when we think of our leadership and we think of our business and we think of our
family and we think of our health and we think of our wealth and we think of all the different
things that revolve around being a business owner and being a good person, how are you
using your 24 hours?
Wow.
That is an angle I hadn't thought about, the aspect of you can't use less of it.
You're going to use it somehow.
You're going to use it.
I miss my night.
That's really neat.
That's like an empowering side of the formula.
So once again, you've given me yet another insight that I got to go meditate on and ponder
and I shouldn't say got to, right?
We're always training our brains that I have the opportunity to go ponder and meditate
on.
I'm glad you're sharing that.
I wish we had shared a little bit more visually about what you got going on.
We got to wrap up fast because I want to respect your time.
But those of you listening in, we're going to be dropping below the episode, the action
steps that you can take to get involved with Pete.
We've got his link regarding simplifying entrepreneurship.com forward slash laws, where they attend laws
for moving from operator to owner.
You'll be able to see, we'll put on there too, shootopia.ca.
That way you can just kind of see one of the businesses that he runs and has several locations
for Instagram, LinkedIn, et cetera.
All those will be on there.
If you have a specific question, don't hesitate to drop that in the comments.
We'll be happy to forward it to Pete.
And if you'd love to be a guest on the show and share your vision, you do not have to
have decades of wisdom like Pete has and decades of experience with business.
We're looking for leaders who care.
We're looking for leaders who care to help others.
There's a button in the top right corner that says, be our guest.
We'd love to have you on our show and be a visionary guest with us.
Pete, any final thoughts before we wrap up?
Well, I mean, I love the name of your show and I think everything starts with a vision.
And if you haven't visited, I'm talking to you, the listener, if you haven't revisited
your vision in a while, if you don't have clarity around your vision, and if your team
doesn't have clarity around your vision, it's really hard for other things to fall in on
top of that.
And to me, the vision, or as I call it in my language, the promise around what it is
you do and taking that person, and I started off, I'm going to end with a two, taking that
person from their pain to the gain through your unique set of processes so that you can
take them from the issues that they're having to a better life.
If you can do that through your vision and you can explain that and you can communicate
it to your clients and to your team, you'll have a better business and a better life.
I love it.
Words of wisdom from Pete Moore.
We're blessed and honored to have you here today.
And Vision Pros, we will see you guys on the next episode.
Everybody have a fantastic rest of your day.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision.