Local Market Monopoly

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Eric Knam: When you look at coaching, a lot of people think that it's for the weak and the wounded business, but if you go and you talk to Tom Brady or a Michael Jordan or Michael Phelps Tiger Woods, anybody who is the peak of their game, they see that coaches played a huge role in their success. So while we certainly can help businesses that are struggling really, where we get a lot of opportunity to make some significant impact is in the businesses that have kind of hit a plateau, right? They've flattened out. They know that they can get to another level, but they're just not quite sure how to get there.

Clarence Fisher: Welcome back to Local Market Monopoly. I am your host Clarence Fisher. And today we talk with certified business coach, Eric Knam about providing business, help advice, coaching and mentoring services to small and medium sized businesses like yours and mine. We'll uncover the six steps to building a profitable enterprise that works without you. Key phrase "without you." Also the three elements you must have in check in order to increase sales conversions and create a consistent stream of income, how to put systems in place so that you can finally take time off and much, much more. Eric has a passion for helping businesses like ours grow and become profitable so that we, the business owner can enjoy the lifestyle we deserve. As a business coach and as an advisor, he helps you deliver the results that you desire using proven tools, methodologies, and systems tested and perfected over tens of thousands of businesses worldwide in over more than two decades of experience. Hold on, we will be right back with Eric Knam.

Intro: You're listening to Local Market Monopoly with Clarence Fisher, uncovering the tools, tactics, and strategies the most successful small businesses used to their local market and own the block.

Clarence Fisher: All right, Eric Knam, how are you, Sir?

Eric Knam: I am doing well, Clarence, how are you, sir?

Clarence Fisher: Man... I'm doing well. I've been looking forward to this since we met and so glad that you made it. Thank you for taking the time.

Eric Knam: Well, thank you so much for having me. Yeah, I've been on pins and needles all day looking forward to this, so it's finally time.

Clarence Fisher: Awesome. Awesome. So can you tell us a little bit about what you do?

Eric Knam: Yeah, tahat's kind of a loaded question honestly, but I think the, the easiest way to, to kind of set it up is, you know, when you, when you think about people who start their own business, really, there's one thing that they should have in mind when they do that. And that's to build a business that they can sell someday. And I talked to a number of business brokers and it's absolutely shocking how many people go to the business broker trying to sell their business when they're ready to retire and find out that it's really not worth anything. So what we do is we work with business owners to help them build our definition of a successful business is a commercial profitable enterprise that can work without you. So if you think about it, when it's time to sell that business, if you have to work in the business all day, day in, day out, if, if the business revolves around you, then you've really created a job for yourself and an investor isn't looking to come in and buy a job for themselves. They're coming in to look for something that's gonna be able to make them more money with them, not having to do a whole lot of work. So that's in a nutshell what we do.

Clarence Fisher: That's great. Yeah. A lot of us find, do find ourselves, with a job it's like, you start the business to leave the job that you hate and that sob you work for, whatever. Right. And then you find out, well, dad gum, I'm working holidays, I'm workings weekends

Eric Knam: And the guy I'm working for is a bigger sob than the one. I, my first MLS job

Clarence Fisher: Exactly. Outta the pot. Right. It's fire. So, how did you get started helping businesses the way that you do?

Eric Knam: You know, it's really kind of been an interesting journey. I've spent over 20 years in corporate. America was with a fortune 100 company, ran a multimillion dollar business unit for them. And when I left there, I spent most of my time in sales and marketing and leadership really predominantly. And when I left there, I thought, you know, what are the things that I loved about what I did that I could carry over into something that, where I would have a little bit more control over, over my own life. Right. I wanted to get away from, from the corporate grind, so to speak. And

Clarence Fisher: You're not gonna say sob, right, you're gonna be

Eric Knam: . I mean, no, no. uh, so, you know, getting away from the corporate grind, it's like, well, what are the things that I enjoy doing? And it was, it was coaching, it was mentoring, it was leading, it was helping people, you know, set goals and cast the vision, and then put a plan in place and help them move toward that, and then celebrating the steps and celebrating the successes along the way. Because so often I think what happens is, you know, we set these goals and then we just, it seems like we're never gonna attain them and it's kinda like trying to, trying to get to the horizon, right? If your goal is to get to the horizon, you're never gonna get there and you can get really dejected, but if you stop and turn around and look at where you started and look at where you are, then that's something to celebrate, right?

Eric Knam: So we wanna measure, we wanna measure the gain, not the gap. So that was kind of the surface reason for it was just, I really love working with people and helping them achieve their goals and celebrating with them. But, you know, when you peel the onion back, I think the real emotional thing that ties me into to what I do is that my Dad was in the air force. He was a career air force man, retired after 23 years, I think it was and decided to take his pension and buy a business, buy a small business. And unfortunately the business didn't survive. So he and mom had to go back to work. So here they are spending their, you know, their, their golden years, both having to work. And then unexpectedly at the age of 56 which I guess probably isn't quite the golden years yet.

Eric Knam: Right. But at the age of 56, Dad passed away from heart attack and that left mom with the debt of a failed business, you know, and no husband, obviously as well. So it really put a real strain on her. And I think about that, and I think, what would their, what would their last years together have been like if they had had a successful business and then what would her years have been like upon his passing? How much easier would it have been for her if she didn't have to assume all of that debt and all of the challenges that went along with that failed business?

Clarence Fisher: Well, so, wow. So of course, in a situation like that, you would want someone to coach you kind of help you get things together with most of our listeners, how would they gauge whether coaching would be right for them?

Eric Knam: Okay. That, and that's a great question because I think when you look at coaching, a lot of people think that it's for the weak and the wounded business, but if you go and you talk to Tom Brady or a Michael Jordan or Michael Phelps Tiger Woods, anybody who is the peak of their game, they see that coaches played a huge role in their success. So while we certainly can help businesses that are struggling really, where we get a lot of opportunity to make some significant impact is in the businesses that have kind of hit a plateau, right? They've flattened out. They know that they can get to another level, but they're just not quite sure how to get there. So I like to say that the business owners we work with, they need to be open-minded and they want to grow their business, and they want to grow themselves personally as well. So if they fall into those categories, then they'd be a great candidate for coaching. Cause let's face it. There are people out there who they know everything their way is the only way. And they're not willing to try any new things. And honestly, if that's the case, then probably not gonna be that successful if we work together.

Clarence Fisher: yeah, yeah. That's that's Hey, that's great and that's wisdom, and there are quite a few people that are already tired, already frustrated in their business. And I'm sure some of the things that we'll cover today, but definitely hopping over and working with a coach like yourself can help them get things together to where, you know, it really is a dream to be able to go out of town for a week and not have to worry about what's going on back home at the office, you know?

Eric Knam: Yep. That's Absolutely.

Clarence Fisher: That's the dream. So how do you go about creating that? When we talk about a commercial, a commercial profitable enterprise that works without them, what are the steps to do that?

Eric Knam: So we actually have what we call it, our six steps. If you think about building a house, right, you gotta have a good foundation. And then you build on top of that. So I always equate it to, um, a recipe for baking a cake or cupcakes or cookies or something like that. Your business has got all of the ingredients, but you gotta put 'em together in the right order, because if you don't, if you take the cake mix and you throw the frosting in there, and then you throw that in the oven, cook it for however long you cook a cake, you know, at 350 degrees, take it out. And then you add the, the eggs and the, the oil and the water, stir it up, put some candles on it and give it to your spouse. They're probably not gonna be pretty happy with, with what you gave them, but if you do it in the right order, you end it with something that people appreciate and enjoy, and it can be the same with the business.

Eric Knam: So the first step where we start is really what we call mastery. And there are four key components to that. So we've got time mastery, we've got money mastery, we've got delivery mastery and we've got destination mastery. So time mastery is really all about making sure that the business owner is using their time wisely. Are they, do they find themselves doing the $12 an hour jobs that somebody else should be doing, or are they working on the business and doing the, you know, the $500 an hour business owner tasks that they should be focusing on, right. Growing the business, working on it. If they're in the trades, are they getting their invoices out on time, things along those lines, which leads me then to money mastery. So how tight control do they have over their finances?

Eric Knam: And I'm, I'm constantly amazed at how many business owners find out if they made money at the end of the year when their accountant sends them their taxes. And it's really kind of scary. So I will talk to some business owners who say, oh yeah, I get a profit and law statement. And I look at that once a month. Okay. Well, that's great. Well, do you take that and do you compare it back to previous months? So you can kind of get an idea for what trends are. And that's one of the things that we like to do is say, okay, we had some really interesting blips here. We went way up in this month, on this particular expense, what happened there? Very often, the, the response back is, Hmm. I don't know. Okay, well, let's go do some digging and see if we can find out what happened.

Eric Knam: So the business owners who do tend to actually pay attention to their finances, a lot of times are just using the reports. So that's, that's looking in the past. So it's kinda like driving your car, just looking in the rear view mirror the whole time. So we also want to think about forecasting, right? We wanna budget. So looking at your numbers from your P and L is gonna give you an idea of, you know, that that's kind your, your measurement, are we on track? And then your budget is really for profit, right? This is, this is how much we intend to make. This is how much we think we'll make. We've got our certain KPIs to help drive the drive, the revenue, you know, so we got a much better understanding of what our financial situation looks like, so we can make better decisions.

Eric Knam: So in addition to money mastery, then we move on to delivery mastery. Delivery mastery is really all about a consistent product. So consistent product or service that is delivered on time, on budget and at a profit. Uh, we wanna make sure we're getting feedback from people, right? Finding out how'd you find out about us? What did you think we want the bad feedback so that we can tweak our delivery and make sure that it's that much better. The next time somebody comes in, because when you've got customers who love what you do, love your service, love your product. They'll keep coming back. And then the fourth component, there is destination mastery, and that's really all about what's the, where do you want to take the business? You know, what's the vision, what's the mission? What are the values that you ascribe or that you subscribe, I guess I should say to your business.

Eric Knam: And it's really important to know where you want to go. Cause otherwise you're just kind of out there flopping in the breeze. It's like getting in a, getting in a boat and setting out to sea, and maybe you end up on an island and maybe it's a, a really nice island, or maybe it's a desert island, or maybe you end up floating around in the middle of the ocean for a couple of years and you end up at the bottom of the sea, right? So if you don't have a destination, it's really hard to get where you're going. And even if, uh, you know, you're gonna get blown off course sometimes. Uh, but it, when you know what your destination is, then you can kind of adjust your sales, you know, change the rudder and make sure that you're getting back on course to get to where you wanna be.

Eric Knam: So that's kind of that, that first step is making sure that we've got that foundation of mastery in place after that, then we move up to niche. So this is kind of the, the marketing component. And this is really all about being that profitable enterprise that we talked about, right. Making, making some money, having some consistent cash flow. And here we wanna, we wanna get to a point where we're not competing on price. Uh, and so many people when I ask 'em, you know, Hey, do you think people buy because of value or they buy because of cost. A lot of people think it's cost, but it really isn't. You I'm sure you probably have a car, right. Mm-hmm okay. Is it, uh, is it 20 years old held together with duct tape? No radio, the windows are still

Clarence Fisher: Made. I got one like that, just because I live, debt free. So there is one like that. It's an old truck, uh, that, you know, I think we got from her mom and it's just like four speed. And I promise anytime I roll up somewhere, the, the kids at the drive there're like, is he really rolling that window down?

Eric Knam: That's awesome.

Clarence Fisher: How so, so I am the abnormal. Yes, I have one, but you know, we've got the, we've got the reliable and that you're

Eric Knam: Right. Yeah, exactly. Or maybe a better analogy would be, you know, every time you take the family out to eat, do you take 'em to McDonald's and, go to the, you know, the, the dollar value menu. And that's the only thing that you can order off of, you know, when you go out for your anniversary, do you go, Hey, all right, honey, we're going, we're going for the dollar value menu tonight to celebrate high on the hog. Right.

Clarence Fisher: I'm not bad too yeah.

Eric Knam: Yeah. so there's value in that. Right. Right. And we see value in having a, a nice car with a working air conditioner and windows that roll up and a radio that works. Right. Right. So that's why, that's why they can't keep cars on the lot right now. Right. Cuz people want, want the new cars and they can't get 'em. So, so it's really all about selling on value and, and a couple of ways to do that are number one is figure out what is your unique selling proposition? What makes you different than anybody else out there? And, and a great example I like to use on this is, um, Uber and Lyft are, are fantastic example of totally taking an industry and turning it on its ear because we had the taxi industry for so long. And you called you waited when the guy got there, you hope that he wasn't, you know, a smoker, you hope that the, the seats weren't held together with duct tape.

Eric Knam: I mean, I think we've all been in some of those taxi cabs where it was like, I hope that this thing gets me where I'm supposed to go. Right. You know, and now you can pull out your phone and order a car that's there in two or three minutes, you got a picture of the person driving it, you know, their license plate. They've got ratings from other people who've ridden with them before and oh yeah. They get to rate you too. So that's a great example of us P really defining themselves and changing the game. The other thing that I like to, to see happen is for business owners to have a guarantee because guarantees really helping that conversion process when you've got somebody on the fence as to whether or not they want to go from, you know, from not being a customer, to being a customer, a guarantee can help.

Eric Knam: You know, we offer, uh, for our coaching clients, we offer a guarantee of within 17 weeks. If we haven't found our fee, then we'll coach you for free until we do. Right. That's how confident we are in the, uh, you know, in the results that our clients are gonna get. And we even, we even set a goal of saying, okay, okay, so I'm paying for myself. That's great, but what's in it for you. So our goal really is to go three times the return on investment of the coaching investment within the first year, 10 times return on the coaching investment within the second year and globally, we average seven. So you can see how something like that really gets somebody's attention and says, oh yes. Wow. I can go ahead now and, and move forward with this with less concern or less worry. So niche is really all about marketing.

Eric Knam: We know 80% of marketing doesn't work. So we wanna make sure that we're testing and measuring, uh, figuring out what are the things that we're spending money on that, uh, that are really making a difference for the business. Because if you gave me a thousand dollars and I gave you $1,500 back, every time you did, how often would you gimme a thousand dollars? Mm-hmm right. And that's really what marketing should be too, right? It's an investment, not an expense. So once we get the, the, the consistent cash flow going, then we start to look at, at leverage as the next level. And that's really all about systems and systems stand for, save yourself, time, energy, and money. Okay. It's all about making sure that all those little tasks that are repetitive can, can be covered and we have a good way to do it.

Eric Knam: And I think, uh, the great example of leverage here is, uh, we say leverages, do the work once get paid forever. And one of my favorite examples of this is, uh, back in Silicon Valley in the early days you had Microsoft and you had, um, you had Apple. Microsoft created this software that they were able to just sell over and over and over again, they tweak it, they sell it, they tweak it, they sell it, they tweak it, they sell it, uh, Apple on the other, on the other hand, uh, made a computer, sold a computer, made a computer, sold a computer, made a computer, sold a computer, which was great until everybody had a computer. And then what happened? Steve jobs got fired. Do you remember where he went? Mm-hmm he went to Pixar. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. And that's really where he learned about leverage.

Eric Knam: And you think about, uh, you think about Monsters, Inc.or Toy Story or any of those movies. They made those once, but they sold the lunch boxes. They sold the, you know, they sold the stuffed animals. They sold the little Woody, pulled the string in his back. There's a snake in my boot. Right. They were able to sell over and over and over again. They're getting still getting money off of every time it's run on television and royalties, right. So he leaves Pixar and he goes back to, to Apple. And I think this is where it is really, really brilliant is he figures out a way to do the work, never and get paid forever. Because if you think about it, how many songs has Apple written, right. How many apps have they created? They're just taking a cut off of it as it's coming through.

Eric Knam: So that's a great example to leverage as far as putting systems in place and then doing the work one time and getting paid on it forever. Uh, so once we got good systems in place, we can work on expanding our team to run the systems and systems really should run a business. And anytime there's a challenge, you know, we really wanna look first at, is it a system issue or is it a personnel issue? If it's a personnel issue, then we think, okay, is it a competence issue? Do they need more training or is it a commitment issue? And if it's a commitment issue, then obviously we have to address that a little bit differently, but really the team is there to support the customers, right? Given the absolute best experience possible. Uh, we wanna put, uh, have good, uh, job descriptions in place. We wanna have good key performance indicators in place.

Eric Knam: We need to make sure that everybody understands exactly what it is that they're supposed to be doing so that they can get out there and do it. Once we got a good team in place, everything's coming along there. Then we put a general manager in place and we move into synergy, which is, uh, really where you can now duplicate the business over and over again. So you think about a, uh, you know, McDonald's or Chick-fil-A or something like that. They've got that set up so well that they can just go in and drop one on a, on a, you know, a street corner, anywhere in the US, if they were anywhere in the world in a lot of cases, right? So now you got somebody else kind of managing the day to day on it. You can be as involved as you want to, as the business continues to grow, then we hit results, which is that final step. Uh, and that I like to call that the mailbox money step. So that's when the business owners getting passive income, uh, you know, they can, they can reinvest it. They can start buying property, they can sell the business, you know, whatever it is, but they've got that freedom. They've got that financial independence to be able to do whatever they wanna do. So that's a really long answer to your question of what steps do we take to get people to a point where they have a commercial profitable enterprise that works without them.

Clarence Fisher: No, I be, no, that's great. That is great. And that, and that's one of the things that I don't know, I found so fascinating when I came to hear you, uh, speak was just how formulaic it was and, and, and laid out. And I, I thought I, I'm looking around, I'm thinking, okay, I've been in business for 10 years. And I'm wondering if the people around me are really picking up what you are laying down. If you know what I'm saying? Like, like I'm in the back. And I wanna take my handkerchief off, like, like old school church and just, yeah. , you know, So like how long, so how long does it I'm gonna ask, how long does it take when someone engages, engages you to, to walk those steps?

Eric Knam: Hmm. And that's a great question. Quite honestly, it's gonna depend on the business, right? So some businesses can be ready in a year. Some businesses can be ready in five years. It, it just really kind of depends on where the business is now and how big, how big we need to grow it. Right? So I've, I coach businesses that are, you know, low six figures, all the way up to multi, multiple million dollar businesses. And the interesting thing is every time I sit down and get, and start a new engagement with one, they all have a lot of the same problems, you know, you would think, okay, here's a, here's a $10 million business that's been around for, you know, 15 years. Surely they've got the mastery component under control. They don't, they don't, they just have the challenges on a bigger scale.

Clarence Fisher: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It's, it's it. It's, it's amazing. It's, it's trying to find payroll run around last minute. You know, if the people on the lines is AB AB like new, how close , you know, things come.

Eric Knam: Yeah. Uh, I heard a quote from, from our founder, Brad sugars. He said, if you've never struggled to make pay, if you've never worried about how you're gonna make payroll, then you've never really owned a business.

Clarence Fisher: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And, and there's then there's times when you have those, those discussions, and I'm sure your, your parents had them. I I've had them with my wife where there are serious. I'm about to pull my hair out, trying to figure out how to not let these people down. Mm-hmm on the client side and my team side, it's all about to crumble. Why did I, how can I, you know?

Eric Knam: Yep, absolutely. Yeah. I hear that every day.

Clarence Fisher: And my poor wife is, I was like, well, babe, I supported you. I supported you. ,

Eric Knam: You know? Yeah. so I think that's such an important thing too, is to have somebody in your life who does support you. Right. But at the same time, you know, I think I'm thinking back to a, a client owns a, a large accounting firm and we were talking and the comment was made about their spouse. And it's like, well, you know, that person's not really a lot of help when it comes to, to business advice. And then we were talking about their friends and they said, well, you know, normally I I'm the most successful of my friends in business. So normally I'm the one giving them the advice. So it's like, I need somebody to, to sit down and talk with and bounce these things off of. And, you know, I, I went through the, the six steps and it's a really important part of what we do, but I don't want it to come across like this as a check the box type of thing.

Eric Knam: Cause we are very much about coaching business owners to achieve their goals. Right. It doesn't matter what I want for you. It matters what you want for you. So one of the first things we do when we, when we enroll a client, when we engage with them is we do what we call an alignment. And it kind of goes back to that, uh, uh, destination mastery that we just talked about in that first step. And it's all about getting really clear on where do you want to be in 10 years? Where do you want, where do we need to be in five years to get you to the 10 years? Okay. So now where do we need to be in one year to get you to the five year to get you to the 10 year? All right. So what are the steps we have to take over the next 13 weeks?

Eric Knam: And we actually sit down and put that first 13 week plan together, again, based off of the things that they want to accomplish. Now, there will be some things that I will definitely interject on and say, okay, I think that your time management or self management could really use some help. So here's some tools that we're gonna implement. Here's some things that we're gonna do to help you get that under control, because when we do that, then you can be more productive. But by and large, what we do is really focused on getting them to build the business that they dreamed of, you know, when they, when they started things

Clarence Fisher: That is so great. And it's great to have the option. I, I think I I've heard that, that we all should be building to at least have the option to whether sale or, or keep someone in charge and get that mailbox money

Eric Knam: As you're right, as you're talk well, you know, and, and it's funny too, to talk to, to business owners who say, well, you know, my kids are gonna take it over. You don't know that, you know, my dad thought I was gonna go into the air force. I went into the army, you know, , there's no guarantees there that just cuz it's attractive to you doesn't mean it's gonna be attractive to the kiddos.

Clarence Fisher: I have to ask, how was that taken

Eric Knam: He actually commissioned me. So it was, it was pretty cool. It was a neat thing. But yeah, he, uh, it's funny. I saw when I was deployed, I saw, uh, a cartoon in, uh, one of the over in the, we were the air force. Uh, and, and there was a cartoon that was posted up in one of the orderly rooms and it was the four different services and it was the, the Marines, you know, laying there in the mud and all this. And the guy's like, I love how much this sucks. And then next to it was the army guy also laying in the, you know, laying in the, uh, in the mud. And he's like, man, this sucks. And it was the Navy guy and he's sitting on a boat and he is, I can't believe I'm gonna be at sea for three months. This sucks. And then it shows the air force guy sitting there with the remote control in his hand saying what no cable TV, this sucks. so, uh, he definitely got over me on that as far as, uh, me picking a place where I got to go sleep in the mud while he got to go sleep in, uh, you know, really really nice barracks.

Clarence Fisher: Yeah. That's awesome. Well, the, um, a couple of things that stood out to me, there's so much, I'm going to have to rewind at, you know, this myself and, and just hit it on slowmo and make sure that I have bases covered, you know, it, it was right before I came to see you. Uh, my wife and I had went to on a trip to, uh, San Diego, um, never been to San Diego, did the zoo and all of that stuff, uh, did, uh, midway, uh, got to tour the midway battleship, which was mm-hmm , which was really great. And you know, they have these guys with the, they call 'em them yellow hats. And these are guys who had actually served on that ship. Oh, wow. That you they're, you know, they're older and you can, uh, you know, talk with them. Uh, so that was great.

Clarence Fisher: But one of the things that stood out to me is we had started, or I had started, I say, I, no, it was definitely we, me and my team two months prior to allow, to just make sure that I could take that, that week mm-hmm . And one of the things in consulting with, you know, my peers is that I, I took, I didn't even think about was, was getting them mentally prepared and understanding that I believed in them enough to what that they could, that they could do it mm-hmm because I, I I'd never taken a, a, any time off, but it was, Hey, I promised my wife, I'm not touching anything for a week. Right. And so I'm, I'm passing this on to them look Brandy. I told, I told them, they know my wife, you know, it's like I told her, I'm not touching anything. And they're, they're mainly, they're mainly females. They're like, yeah, go her, you know, , I'm like, well, but you know what that means, right? Like I'm not going to be here for you to ask me anything mm-hmm and then it's set in for all of us, like, do we have the systems in place? And you know, I found myself, Eric probably day three on vacation where I just didn't care. like, I was

Clarence Fisher: Like, Whether I come back to anything, I don't really care right now, you know? And I didn't care until the last leg of the flight coming home. Mm-hmm then it started kind of like, oh, Crap. That real. Yeah.

Clarence Fisher: Say, to say again, when I sat in front of you, all of this was so timely, it was on my mind. And that's why I was so excited. And so hyped to be able to speak with you and get this out to my audience, because I mean, we all need this mm-hmm and very rarely do we say, Hey, the solution is outside or, or outside of me, kinda like what you said with the athletes and the, and the coaching for whatever reason, we just don't do it.

Eric Knam: Yeah. And I think as business owner, it's interesting you say that, cuz I think, and I find myself doing this too, right. As, as the business coach, I have to have all the answers and I have to be the strong one and you know, I'm human too. And I make mistakes and I, but I think sometimes we get to a point where it's like, okay, I own my own business. I've I've made my bed. I've gotta lie in it. And I, and I, I can't ask anyone for any help. And you know, if you, if you look at, if you look at humanity, I mean, we're meant to, to exist together. We're meant to, to serve each other. We're meant to help each other. We're meant to bless each other. And you know, that's really what I love to do. That's the best part of, of this.

Eric Knam: You were talking about putting the systems in place and taking time off. And it made me think of clients. I brought onboard a little less than a year ago and their whole thing was, you know, we're making plenty of money. We have no time. We are working 24 7 all year. And it was funny cuz during one of the, one of the initial coaching sessions, uh, it's a husband and wife team. Uh, one of 'em said, we don't have time for this. We can't do this, this just, this isn't working, uh, trust the process. And by the end of our session, we had figured out something to help free up their time. They just took a five day vacation. They're not working weekends anymore. And it would, it just, it, because we put systems in place, we put the right people in place. So we've taken offloaded.

Eric Knam: Some of those $12 an hour jobs that they were doing to other people who can handle it, handle it more efficiently, uh, more effectively freeing up their time to work on the business. And now not only do they have time off, but the business is growing exponentially as well, as far as the, the revenues and the profit. So it's really, and we were, we were on the call not too long ago and to come up with me and you really did pay for yourself and, and that's the kind of stuff that makes me do what I do. You know, what everything else is great. But being able to know that it made a difference in somebody's life and that they're able to now actually go enjoy a weekend, you know, away with, with their spouse, just that you can't put a price on that.

Clarence Fisher: Not at all, not at all. There were, there were a few things that jumped out at me when I saw you in person. And one of those, if you can speak on was the point of power.

Eric Knam: Yes. The point of power. So, uh, maybe some of the folks in your, in your audience have, uh, have read the book called The Oz Principle. It kind of hits very similarly to that. And it's really all about, we call it the point of power or the, the point of decision. And it's all about how you handle a situation that, uh, that you're in. And if you, if you imagine this, this red dot caught of floating in the, in the middle of a piece of paper and then below it is the word bed B E D and the B stands for blame. The E stands for excuses and the D stands for denial. Okay. So when we're below the point, we're powerless. So when we're in a situation, we can see denial is a, is a great example. Uh, you know, with the business owner who has continued to do the same thing over and over again, the money is not coming in.

Eric Knam: They're about to run outta money, but they're not doing anything about it. They're just in denial, that things are, are gonna get really bad really quick, right? So then you move up to excuses. So excuses are all about, it's not my fault. And we see this all the time. My wife was trying to sell something on Facebook marketplace the other day she had had it sold person said, I will come and pick it up. At this time, she was supposed to come on Sunday afternoon. We blocked off like an hour and a half of our day on Sunday afternoon for this person to come, never showed up. My wife messages her back. And it's only when she says I was under the, uh, I'm guessing you don't want this anymore. That she responds back. Well, we had to leave. So she wasn't able to come.

Eric Knam: We just finally ended up selling it to somebody else. Cuz there were 60 people in line for this thing. And the response came back. Well, it's not fair. It's not fair. I, I got hung up shopping. I was busy all these excuses as to why they couldn't keep their commitment. Right. So perfect example of somebody making excuses and then there's blame, right? So it's somebody else's fault. And when we get stuck down underneath the point of power, we really are powerless because we're not taking control of things. You know, we're letting, we're letting the, the winds kind of dictate where we take the ship so to speak. So when you go above the point of power, that takes us to where we are powerful. And if you think of, think of the word or like you used to paddle a boat, uh, and you've got ownership, accountability, and responsibility, and those are really the things that make us powerful.

Eric Knam: Those are the things that really help us change our destiny. And a lot of people look at the word accountable and responsible and they use 'em interchangeably and, and they're really not the same thing. And, and really the perspective here is responsible is forward looking. So I am responsible for doing something accountable is rearward looking. I was accountable for having met that result. And then ownership is really own your ship, right? It is the buck stops here type of mentality. And when a business owner can address a challenge like that and lean into it and actually own it, then it makes a huge difference because it changes kind of that, that mindset of theirs and it, it permeates throughout the organization. And that's so, so that's really one of the cool things about the point of power is that you can use it personally, but then you can think about your business as well.

Eric Knam: So if you've got a culture that is regularly below the point of power, you've got people blaming one, another making excuses in denial about what's going on. Then that's really an opportunity for more management systems for putting clear job descriptions in places for KPIs, for testing and measuring, for holding people accountable for, for sitting down with them and, and making sure that you're managing their performance, doing those performance reviews, having the work in progress meetings, you know, whatever it is, that's gonna help them understand what they're supposed to do and manage them out of those behaviors. Now, if you've got a group that is on top of it, they they're accountable. They're responsible. They own the, they own their job. They own the business. Then that's where you can really focus on leadership. It's kind of the whole, here's the vision, follow me. Let's go get this thing. So the point of power just is, is so amazing and, and, and works on so many different levels and in so many different situations,

Clarence Fisher: How is this related or passed on to a person's team? Not just, not just them as they're working with you, how do, how do we get this to our team?

Eric Knam: Yeah. Well, so that's a great question because it goes back, I think to the, the mission, vision and values, because if you've got a clear set of values, then you can use that as part of your hiring process. Right? I can ask you what are, what are the things you value? I can tell you, these are the things that we value at this organization. I can have you sit down with other people who work at the organization and they can say, Clarence, this is what it's like to work here. Right? So they get a really clear idea. And when you start bringing people in who have those same values, the rest of it kind of takes care of itself. Right. But, uh, again, I think it goes back to what are you dealing with? Do we need to put more management things in place or do we just really need to get the troops fired up? Right? Do we need to reconnect and reengage? Cause sometimes you got the wrong people on the team. You got the, you know, sometimes you got the, the wrong people on the bus. Sometimes you have the right people on the bus, but they're in the wrong seat. And then sometimes you have the right people on the bus, in the right seat. And that's ultimately what we want.

Clarence Fisher: So do you sometimes run into it where we have to say, Hey, I'm going to blame it on our new coach that I need to either move you or remove you. Does that does does that happen? Or, or, or what?

Eric Knam: I've got? I've got no problem being the bad guy, but you know, it's kind of funny cuz I've had several instances where uh, probably in the first or second coaching session, I've realized that somebody needed to go just from the stories. But as, as a coach, I don't tell you, you need to fire somebody, right? That's not my place. It's, it's your business. As a coach, it's my job to help guide you to see. And I ask, I got several clients who could call and talk to and say, what's the question asks you about your personnel and it's is your organization better off with this person or without this person? And then listening to the response, it's like, okay, do you realize how many excuses you just made for that person and helping them get to that point? But I got no problem being a heavy, as long as they don't give him my name and, and home address,

Clarence Fisher: He lives here.

Clarence Fisher: That's right. Yeah. Here's his office. As soon as you asked her that question, I went, I went through, well, if I have to, if I have to think too hard about it, then that's an issue as well. Isn't it?

Eric Knam: Yeah. I was actually working with clients yesterday. They're looking to bring in somebody else on and they wanted my opinion and it's really kind of funny because I just kept asking him questions. And one of the final questions was it's yes or no. Is your organization going to be better with this person on your team? And they both said yes. And then at the end of it, like, we really appreciate your feedback and insight. And like, it was all your feedback and insight. I just helped you get there. Cause you knew the answer all along. You just had some mental block to keep you from getting it.

Clarence Fisher: Isn't that interesting that uh, we do need people to pull it, pull it out of us. Mm-hmm so I, I know, you know, me and I can wake up in the morning and, and I'm shooting ideas with my wife and she's in the shower and I'm, I'm like shooting ideas. Like what do you think about, what do you think about? And she's like, babe, I don't, I don't know. like,

Clarence Fisher: , it's like you wanna say So, but it's, it's great to have somebody to bounce off. Okay.

Eric Knam: Well that's exactly why I have a coach, right? Yeah. Cause I believe you gotta eat your own cooking. Cause I can't grow myself and grow my business if, if I don't have somebody to bounce things off of as well. And yeah, my, my wife's happy to talk to me too, you know, but I get the same thing when she's in the shower. Yeah. I don't know. go talk to your coach.

Clarence Fisher: Exactly, exactly. So, uh, man, I I'm gonna be respectful of your time. There's got, there's so much that you covered. I mean, we talked about no price competition and when you went over testing and measurement, that was huge in, in closing today though, let's hit the, because when you went over the unique selling proposition mm-hmm and you went over the guarantees, we have a, we have a, a client in common who he came and he was telling me about these guarantees that he wanted to do. You know, we were having our QBR, our quarterly business review

Clarence Fisher: And, and we're eating, going back and forth. And, and then he is like, Hey, I'm gonna create these guarantees. Uh, we got a guarantee for this niche and we're gonna create this guaranteed this niche. And I'm like, who are you like, like, huh? I mean, that's great. But, but where did this come from? You know? And then, well, it's, it's, it's my coach. It's it's it's Eric mm-hmm okay, great. And so yeah, when I got there and then I heard you speak on it, I leaned over to him like, this is what you were talking about. Right? He's like, yes, this is what I was talking about. And then I heard your guarantee, which is phenomenal, even, you know, and you covered it a little bit earlier. How do you, how do you get people to come up with that? And we'll close with this and, and let everybody know where they can get more information from you, but okay. You know, how, how are they coming up with that?

Eric Knam: So, and that's a great question because a lot of times when, when I say the word guarantee, people immediately think that I'm saying, you know, if you're not happy, then you get your money back. And that, that doesn't have to be the guarantee. Then they automatically start to try to come up with the guarantee themselves. And it's like, okay, slow down. You're not the decision maker here. So what we wanna do is we want to go to the customer and ask them what are some frustrations you have with my industry? So a great example that, that I, I use in that workshop that you attended is, you know, if I own a plumbing company, what are things that people don't like about plumbers? Well, they never show up on time and they leave a huge mess wherever they were. Right. So I could come up with a three point guarantee that says, we guarantee that we will arrive within 30 minutes of our scheduled appointment. If we don't, then your first 30 minutes is free guarantee. Point number two, we will leave the area where we work as clean or cleaner than it was when we got there. And then just for fun, you can throw in a third guarantee that says, we guarantee that every one of our plumbers will wear a belt.

Clarence Fisher: Love it. love it.

Eric Knam: Yeah. So it's really all about who's the, who's the perspective customer and what's frustrating to them. If you're a doctor, right. We all hate sitting in the waiting room or we all hate being, you know, we get it through the waiting room and they leave us in a, in an exam room for an hour. So if you're a doctor, can you figure out a way to put systems in place? So you can guarantee your patients that they'll be seen within 15 minutes of their appointment time. Right? How many people are gonna go to that doctor? Just cuz they can get in and out now the ones who wanna miss work. Right. They'll be staying at the other place, but I got stuff to do.

Clarence Fisher: Absolutely. Okay. That's great. So could you one more time your guarantee for you?

Eric Knam: Yeah. So my guarantee is if I don't find my fee within the first 17 weeks, then I'll coach for free until I do. So. And that can be any number of ways. Right. So we could be the, the financial component of it. Like I told you about the folks who they wanted their time. Right. So that was worth way more than any, any coaching investment they'd ever made. So it can be a little bit subjective, but yeah, I will coach for free if I don't find my fee within 17 weeks now the business owner has to do the work. Right. I get that's like the gym saying, all right, we guarantee that you're gonna lose 20 pounds and look buff for the, for the beach this summer. Well you gotta show up in order to do that. Right. Right. Right. and then our goal is, uh, and I don't know that I did a great job of explaining this earlier is, you know, for, for every thousand dollars that somebody were to invest in coaching, our goal is to get them a $3,000 return in profit. By the end of the first year, on the end of that second year, we're looking to get 'em a 10 times return. So for every thousand dollars they would invest, they'd get $10,000 back in profit. And globally, we average seven. We are global company been around for 27 years, 82 countries over a thousand coaching offices. So we're not a, we're not a fly by night organization.

Clarence Fisher: That is so great. And one of the things that you said that really hit that, I don't think a lot of people think of is if, if you get stumped on an issue, you have that many other coaches to tap into.

Eric Knam: Which is that's a great, great community. Yeah. That's one of the reasons that I, I went with action coach was because of the community, you know, you're only as good as the people you surround yourself with.

Clarence Fisher: Absolutely. We all do that in our, in our industries. If I get stumped on a, on a digital marketing question, I'm, I've got my masterminds and all that stuff that I'm, I'm a part of too. That is excellent. So Eric, how do, how do we find out about how do we get in touch with you? How do, how do my listeners get in touch with you? Find out more?

Eric Knam: Okay. Yeah. Awesome. Uh, well I think the easiest thing honestly, would just be to go to the website, actioncoachtulsa.com, or they can just Google action coach Tulsa. And if they Google action, coach Tulsa, uh, phone number is there or they can just reach out 9 1 8 2 2 3 3 4 4 2. We can set up some time to grab a cup of coffee, do a quick 30 minute zoom. We'd love to hear about them, their business, their goals for the business, what they're hoping to accomplish and see if there's a way that maybe, maybe I might be able to help 'em out.

Clarence Fisher: And what do you, oh, I gotta, I, I have to, this is a new thing that I've done. I've done. I've got the interview deck here. Oh nice. And so the last question, okay. You are going to be the determiner of your fate here. Okay. Okay. I'm going to pull, uh, for those listening, this is brand new. We've got the interview deck and it's a deck of cards, uh, full of questions. And I'm going to ask Eric, how many cards should I pull off the top? And, and, uh, which, which number he wants to answer.

Eric Knam: It's got a skull and crossbones on the front of it. It looks like poison sign, like, uh, nuclear waste. Uh, so let's go. Let's go simple. Let's go four.

Clarence Fisher: Okay. So the, the last question one. Oh, you have to see it. One that I'm, I'm cheating.

Eric Knam: That's please keep your hands above the table. Two

Clarence Fisher: three and four is if you were going on a road trip, what are the three must have you could not leave without?

Eric Knam: Oh wow. I'd have to take my wife. uh, I can leave the kids. That's OK. But I'm definitely gonna take my wife. All right. Going to take my iPad cuz I love or my phone. Uh, not because I wanna be able to be contacted, but because of all the music that I have on it, cause I love listening to music. Uh, and then I'm thinking probably some sunblock cuz we're headed someplace tropical.

Clarence Fisher: All right. Wife, phone, music and sunblock. All right. So thanks Eric. You've been wonderful. Uh, I really love the, uh, interview. Thank you for stopping by.

Eric Knam: Oh, you're welcome. Thanks for having me. It was a lot of fun.

Outro: We appreciate you listening to Local Market Monopoly. Be sure to rate, review and subscribe to the show and visit Clarence fisher.com for more resources that will help you dominate your local market and own the block.