Episode Transcript
Frank Hereda (00:04.864)
What's up everybody. Welcome to another episode of Focused Free Fit. It's your favorite business coach, Coach Frank, and I have a special guest today, Mr. Christian Brim. How you doing today?
Christian Brim (00:20.401)
I'm Will, thank you Frank.
Frank Hereda (00:22.23)
Good, good. I'm excited to have the conversation today because, you know, most of our listeners on this channel will be entrepreneurs, small businesses, small business owners. And this topic, which is really money, it really hits everybody no matter what you do. And so, and there's so many different avenues that you could go. So I'm really excited to have the conversation
you know, hopefully we don't go too far down some rabbit holes, but we probably will a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. See where it goes. Why don't we start, of course, on this podcast, we always start and I want everybody to get to know you a little bit. So tell me about early life. Tell me about what it was like growing up, where and how that might have played a role in where you ended up or the rest of your life.
Christian Brim (00:53.619)
You never know. Let's do
Christian Brim (01:17.247)
Sure. So I was born in Oklahoma. My parents divorced when I was two, which in 1972, that was not that common. It was growing. It was the first time in Oklahoma that parental custody was granted to the father instead of the mother. So I was...
raised by my father who remarried. And I have four siblings from that relationship. But the whole blended family thing definitely impacted me in a lot of ways. But specifically, the part that impacted my emotions or
or thinking on finances was we had a family business. And it was in the oil industry. And in 1985, 86, the family business went bankrupt. And all of my family just kind of dispersed to the four corners seeking employment. And
What was, you know, I was 16 at the time. What was traumatic about that was not the change in financial situation, although that was dramatic. What really impacted me was the breakup of the family. And because I didn't have a great footing to begin with, that that really stressed me. But I didn't I didn't realize it at the time.
I went, I went on to university and studied accounting, knowing what accounting was. but came to realize as I moved into the workforce that what I really wanted to do, what my passion was, was help people, business owners avoid what I went through because I saw the impact.
Christian Brim (03:36.669)
that bad company finances had on my family. And I thought that there had to be a better
Frank Hereda (03:46.614)
Gotcha. So much to unpack and everything you just said right there. That's a whole episode right there. So let's just, let's try and get through some of this. want to ask some questions. I can relate to what, what got you to where you are. We have a little bit of the same story here. So, but, but I think your, your, your parents get divorced. You said you're two. Did you say you were two years old and that happened? Okay. So probably, I don't know that that really probably you were too young to really have that affect you too much, but I don't know.
Christian Brim (03:51.167)
Yeah.
Frank Hereda (04:16.128)
but too, that's pretty young. When did your dad get remarried? Because you stay with your dad?
Christian Brim (04:21.567)
Correct. Got remarried when I was
Frank Hereda (04:28.596)
Okay, so still really young. Okay, so four and then pretty much that was was everything pretty normal from there moving forward.
Christian Brim (04:36.039)
Yeah, you know, my brother showed up a year later when I was five. But, you know, I would say my childhood was very normal in that regard, except that we had a lot more money than we should have. You know, there was a lot of very flamboyant spending.
Frank Hereda (04:57.122)
Okay.
Christian Brim (05:06.555)
And, you know, that was unusual. And then I would also spend the summers with my mother. And that was highly disruptive because during summer vacation, when everybody was swimming or playing golf or playing baseball, you know, all of those summer activities, I didn't get to participate. the fact that I went back and forth and it was kind of disrupted,
made it apparent to my siblings that I was different. I mean, I was older, obviously, but, you know, I had some aspect of my life, they didn't quite understand that, that I was
Frank Hereda (05:52.118)
Where was your mom at at the time so you'd go from Oklahoma to where?
Christian Brim (05:55.295)
Well, I lived in Enid and she lived in Oklahoma City, which is about 90 miles.
Frank Hereda (06:00.36)
Okay, so not too far. Okay, I wasn't sure if it was outside the state or okay. Gotcha. So have you ever read the book called The Boy Crisis?
Christian Brim (06:09.951)
It has been recommended to me, but I have not read it yet.
Frank Hereda (06:13.186)
It's a good book. It made me think about some things you mentioned. yeah, anyway, so something to think about. when you were younger, so from four to 16, what was your relationship with money and how did it change after the bankruptcy when you were 16?
Christian Brim (06:32.287)
Well, you know, I think my attitude, and this is my attitude probably until I was about 40, because what I found was even though I didn't want to repeat the behaviors that I saw in my family around money, I repeated a lot of the same mistakes. But the attitude
we that money well you just make more like there's an endless supply whatever you know there were no conversations growing up around budgets or you know very rarely were was I told we can't do that because you know we can't afford it
You know, it's not, I mean, I definitely was spoiled along. mean, you know, I lived a very privileged life. But my attitude about money was not well defined other than, you know, it was just there. Right. The bankruptcy, you know, obviously the money wasn't there. But I feel like I adjusted to that fairly easily because my mother didn't have money. And so I,
I had already been exposed to that. It wasn't like a, you know, culture shock. And it kind of, you know, for a large amount of my adult life, my attitude about money was just kind of laissez -faire. It was just kind of not a focus. wasn't intentional. There was not a lot of intentional...
Frank Hereda (08:17.035)
Not a focus.
Christian Brim (08:26.343)
intentionality around my money, I guess, if you'd say. I made enough for our family to be comfortable, but never that my wife felt like, you know, she was financially secure. And, you know, I didn't really start thinking about finances until after I'd had a couple of decades under my belt as a business owner.
and started thinking like, you know, I saw a lot of colleagues, a lot of other entrepreneurs that had been way more successful financially. And I started to view my business as a business, not as just an extension of me, and start being more intentional about
Frank Hereda (09:20.438)
Gotcha.
Christian Brim (09:25.831)
my profitability.
Frank Hereda (09:27.17)
Was there, so, but I'm going, I wanted, I'm just curious. Was there any talk in, so your family had their own business until you were 16 and then, but while you were growing up in the home, while they had the business, was there a lot of talk about money? Did they talk about, it sounds like you said there was no talk of budgeting. So I'm guessing no, but no talk of like, like some kids, for example, get their first bank account at a certain age, but they're never talked
how to invest and interest and credit cards. And so there was none of that. Okay.
Christian Brim (09:58.083)
No, no. And the funny thing is I was just having this conversation with my adult children last night. When my kids were young, I made them play cashflow for kids. Robert Kiyosaki's game that he invented. And that was actually the first unpeeling of the onion. I read Rich Dad Poor Dad right out of college.
Frank Hereda (10:10.947)
love that game.
Christian Brim (10:24.595)
and it really forced me to rethink my views on money. I didn't change a lot at the time, but it did introduce this idea that what I had learned may not be the truth that I think it is.
Frank Hereda (10:40.15)
Yep. Isn't that amazing? So we have a similarity there. That was a wake up call for me reading that book. That was kind of like a punch in the face where you just wake up and you're like, what in the heck have I been doing for all this time? That is huge.
Christian Brim (10:53.137)
Right. It didn't punch me into action, but it did punch me into thought.
Frank Hereda (10:58.658)
Yes, yes, that's what I mean. Yes. Okay. So, so you, you, you, your family loses their business. You go on to school, kind of just get through the motions. And it sounds like until you were 40 or in your forties, you were like, Hmm, maybe I should rethink my relationship with money, not because it's bad, but because it could be different and maybe
Christian Brim (11:20.339)
Exactly. It wasn't bad. that was part of the problem was I was in a high margin business and it never was... I didn't have to really think about profitability. You just kind of made profit unless you really were stupid. And
Frank Hereda (11:25.462)
Okay.
Frank Hereda (11:44.258)
What business are we talking about?
Christian Brim (11:46.511)
Well, an accounting firm, right? Like, it's professional services. you know, but it was like, you know, really the comparison to the peers was like, wow, they're making a lot more money. Why am I not?
Frank Hereda (11:49.154)
OK. OK.
Frank Hereda (12:03.13)
Mm Yeah. Gotcha. So you're an accountant, things are good. Tell me about the changes that you decided to implement or that the process you went through to say, okay, I'm to do some things differently. And what were those? What were those things?
Christian Brim (12:20.425)
So honestly, what happened was, and I didn't coin this phrase, but I'll use it. It was an entrepreneurial inflection point. And what happened was I got to the point where, and this was in my mid -40s, I hated the business. I didn't like dealing with employees. I didn't like dealing with clients.
My brother at the time was my partner and I had brought him into the business. He was with us for probably 12 years. And I said, I'm going to go start a software company, which of course that's what you should do, right? I'd never done any software. The last time I'd done coding was
like eighth grade on a TRS -80. like, you know, I had no business doing it, but I really didn't like what I was doing. So I left him in charge and I went to start the software company and it was a brutal two years. At which point the company had actually started to decline under my brother's tenure.
And so I was forced back into the business. And so what I did was I came back and I said, OK, I will run this business. In my mind, it was temporarily. You know, I'm going to come in and write the ship, but we've got to do things differently. And the first thing that I implemented was actually not financial. It was
EOS, the entrepreneurial operating system, which we had attempted to implement before ourselves, but we actually hired a third party implementer to come in and help us implement it into the business. And that radically changed some things because we implemented EOS eight years ago, almost eight years ago.
Christian Brim (14:43.839)
And virtually nothing about the business or what I do in the business is the same, nothing. Almost 100 % turnover of people. My brother has since moved on and I bought him, bought his shares out. through the EOS process, although there's not really a financial component to EOS,
I started to look at the business differently and, you know, I knew that we weren't making the profit we should, but the EOS structure allowed me to make the changes to be more profitable.
Frank Hereda (15:31.316)
Okay. So I'd love to have a conversation about the structure. a coach, so having the conversation about EOS is interesting, but let's get to that. So you get more profitable. What makes you decide what to do with your
Christian Brim (15:46.239)
Well, you know, I'm 54 now and, you know, turning 50 during that time, I started to listen to my wife a little more about the financial security in the sense that, you know, in my mind, I was always financially secure. But what financial security looked like to her was different than me. And so I really have leaned into trying to do some of the things
Frank Hereda (16:07.841)
that's a good point.
Christian Brim (16:15.791)
that make her feel more financially secure. And I guess the, I never envisioned and I still don't envision myself retiring because I don't have any hobbies and I would make both of us crazy if I retired. But I'm cognizant.
of my age and mortality and like not wanting to have to work. I don't feel like I have to work now, but you know, there's a liquidity difference, I guess, in my mind between where I am now and where I want to be at 60.
Frank Hereda (17:10.508)
Sure. So I think that's interesting. I think it's a journey, right? So you start to, some people learn later than others, you know, listening to the wife and taking both of the opinions. And I think in the earlier stages, you're just trying to make the money, right? And then you have some options later and you start considering some other things. Where did you choose to put money and how are you doing that? Are you doing
Retirement accounts, are you doing real estate? Are you doing gold and silver? Where did you say, okay, maybe I should do this? it investing in an index fund? What are we talking here? Okay.
Christian Brim (17:49.981)
Yeah, all of the above. So, so, you know, I was in that Robert Kiyosaki mindset in that I, even though I was a licensed broker, I had my series seven at one time and provided financial advice to clients. I was, I was not pro
Christian Brim (18:20.191)
public investments. because in my mind, and this is, you know, again, the Robert Kiyosaki influence, you're turning over control over the management of that money to others in return for a lesser return on your money. In other words, to put that in a different way, I think I thought I could do better investing my money than they could.
But the reality is that I never applied that benchmark to my own company until recently, like three years. So if you look at your business as a business owner, is it giving you the return on your capital, a convince it with the risk, right?
Frank Hereda (18:57.878)
What do you mean? You lost me there. What do mean?
Frank Hereda (19:11.724)
Gotcha. I gotcha. Okay.
Christian Brim (19:16.767)
You know, for most small businesses, the return on capital, if you really look at it risk adjusted, it should be somewhere around 30 to 40%, right? As opposed to investing it in the stock market and getting 10 % because there's more risk, right? And there's less liquidity and like all of these other things. until I started applying that benchmark to say, okay, if
put this profit back into the business to grow it, I should be receiving a commensurate return on that investment. And that was something that was absent from the conversation for many years.
Frank Hereda (20:02.432)
Yeah, just focusing on it. mean, yeah, you weren't thinking about it and weren't focusing on
Christian Brim (20:07.551)
Yeah, because I have these conversations with my entrepreneur colleagues all the time, and sometimes it's like, well, I don't want to take money out of the business because I don't want to starve the business. It can go either way, but the point is, if you've got invested a half million dollars, $500 ,000 into a business, it should be producing $150 ,000 return on that capital.
absent your labor. if I have to invest time in the business, that's on top of that. And virtually no business owners that I talk to think about their businesses in those
Frank Hereda (20:53.078)
Yeah, it's a, it's a good point. So, where do you think the biggest, so let's stay on the route of the entrepreneur. You know, there's, this is going to probably apply to most people as well. If even if they're not entrepreneurs, but what are the biggest mistakes you see people making with money, as they make more and more and more money, or if they don't, you know, I know you talk about budgeting and some other things, but what, are the most important
pieces, you know, is it the relationship? it getting your mindset right around money? Is it what you do with it? How you look at it, you know, what you use it for? There's so many different ways to
Christian Brim (21:34.019)
Yeah, and I think a good coverall phrase would be mindset. You know, under that heading is like intentionality. Are you just spending more because you make more? Right? And you see that strangely, or maybe it's not so strange, you see that as much in entrepreneurs as you do wagerers.
It's as the money increases, the lifestyle increases. Without any thought about like, okay, is this really what I want to do with my money? So being intentional, like having a purpose for your money. But I think that is tied into how you view money.
what you were taught as a child, what you think you know about money.
Frank Hereda (22:43.65)
Would you agree that, you know, let's say somebody never read Rich Dad Poor Dad. Let's say they didn't take any classes in school. Let's say they don't have a good relationship with money and what they saw growing up. I mean, I know when I was growing up, I'm 47, so you're a couple of years older than me, but when I was growing up, that was a rare thing. Families just didn't talk about, at least mine didn't. And it wasn't a common conversation, at least I don't think.
If that's how everybody grew up, what steps should they take to be like, should it be a podcast? Should it be reading books, both? I kind of feel like all of that can help, but you got to introduce yourself to that world.
Christian Brim (23:28.499)
Yeah, I'm a reader, so I prefer to read, but yeah, I would definitely seek more knowledge. think entrepreneurs make the mistake of, you know, they're good at something. They're good at plumbing, and so they start a plumbing company, or they're good at cooking, and so they start a restaurant, whatever it is. And then they set all of those things in
business side into a separate category, right? Like I don't know anything about hiring people. I don't know anything about taxes. don't, you know, I don't know anything about marketing. And, it's, it's real easy to try and delegate that to somebody else, you know, usually a third party. So I'll hire a CPA or I'll hire a marketing agency or, know, whatever. But my experience has taught me
you need to know enough, whatever base level understanding it is, because you have to know enough to know how to communicate with the people that you are hiring and understand, they full of shit or can they really do what they say they're going to do? And that's uncomfortable a lot of times because you've got to learn skills you don't necessarily want to know, but you've got to know enough.
Frank Hereda (24:57.632)
I agree. I tell most of my entrepreneurs that I coach, I'll say, look, the first thing you have to do is be the best at what you do to make as much money as possible. Then once you have that money coming in, then you have to keep as much as possible. And those are the first two. And not saying you can't invest, you need to figure that process out, but you have to have a plan also. If you don't have a plan, you end up doing
Christian Brim (25:16.404)
Yes.
Frank Hereda (25:26.42)
random stuff and it doesn't serve you well. But when you have a plan and you talk to your CPA, your professional that you do decide to work with their team or whatever, then it's like, okay, I know that if I make this much money, I have to put this much aside so that I can get the tax breaks I need or the write -offs or whatever. And I saw that think there's a plan there that has to be in place as
Christian Brim (25:49.587)
Yes. And, know, it's kind of like, I do a lot of analogies to the medical. So like, if you go to the doctor, even if they're a doctor you've had for a long time, they don't know you as well as you do, right? And so if you can't communicate to them in a way that they understand,
what's actually going on in your life, in your body, they're going to give you incomplete diagnosis and prognosis and prescription. You know, it's like they can only deal with the knowledge that they have and if they don't have any specific knowledge, they're just going to go with, you know, the most likely, right? So,
In having conversations with professionals, whether it's finance, marketing, know, whatever, it's, to me, it's very critical to share your whole situation, right? Because I can tell you the tools, but I don't have any context if I don't understand
Frank Hereda (27:06.54)
Sure.
Yeah, no, I agree. Okay, well, what about like, you know, there's some people out there that are, you know, I feel like there's so much advice with social media nowadays. It's like, you can, you know, you jump on and everybody's an expert. so any recommendations to, you know, you got your Dave Ramsey's and then you got your, you know, like Robert Kiyosaki nowadays. I mean, he
He's a little, well, I don't know how to explain it, but he basically is just all about his oil and his gas that he's got. And he didn't talk about, he's a little bit off a little bit these days, but genius, no doubt, paved the way, no doubt. So it's like, you gotta find somebody that's like more in the middle. So I think it is about the research part, but anything that's for the beginners that are like the budgeting, the...
technology to help them do that, anything with the businesses that helps people do
Christian Brim (28:13.481)
Well, I think Profit First is a seminal book that any business owner should read by Mike McCallowitz. Of course, my derivative, Profit First for creatives, deals with some special situations and mindsets that show up in creative industries. But the thing I like about Profit First is it doesn't require you to understand accounting.
it is psychological, base, psycho psychology based. and and it works with you as opposed to, you know, against you. And for that reason, honestly, there are a lot of accountants that don't like profit first, you know, they, they have clients come to them that want to do a profit first and they're resistant. but the reality is that the modern accounting
system is designed for compliance and reporting. It's not meant for business owners. so, ProfitFirst kind of bridges that gap to allow business owners to get a grasp on their finances without having to understand accounting.
Frank Hereda (29:31.681)
There's some good books by a guy named, do you know who Greg Crabtree is? He wrote...
Christian Brim (29:35.551)
yeah, Greg Greg and I. He was going to review my book for me, but he didn't want any confusion between his brand and Mike's brand, but. One of the books I do recommend is simple numbers 2 .0. I never read simple numbers, but I told Greg I said, you know, I get what you're saying. It is simple,
you really should retitle the book because it's not simple. mean like that's a dense book, right?
Frank Hereda (30:08.038)
Yeah. That's not even the book I was thinking of. was thinking of it's called Big Profits, something, something. There's like two, there's like profit and then big profits, it's 2 .0 or something, but they're good. They're good.
Christian Brim (30:18.737)
I haven't, yeah, but his is a very solid foundation. It's just more complex than Profit First, for sure. Because, I mean, Mike McHallowitz is not a CPA. He didn't come with that background Greg is, although he tells everybody he's just a chicken farmer from Alabama,
Frank Hereda (30:40.87)
That's funny. How about owning versus renting? lot of conversations about owning versus renting these days. Thoughts on
Christian Brim (30:51.485)
Well, you know, is I don't know if you're talking about personal residence versus, know, like the business question. I. Yeah, so, you know, there are times and I think we might be in one now where renting does make more economic sense than owning, but over the long term.
Frank Hereda (31:03.556)
Personal residence is mostly where I was meaning to go.
Christian Brim (31:20.547)
I don't think it makes sense to pay for something that you permanently need, right? You're always going to need a place to live. But I think a lot of people get hung up on the psychology of home and it's real hard to get a objective perspective on it.
like, you know, if, if, if you lost your home to foreclosure when you were growing up and that was a traumatic event, you're like, I've got to have a home and it's got to be paid for, right. But that might not be the best, financial, move to make for instance. but in general, I would, I would say owning, although I will point out Robert K. Wasaki does, and that was, that was the first one where.
Frank Hereda (32:16.608)
That's the... I know where you're going. Yeah, I know.
Christian Brim (32:17.789)
where I was like, huh, I hadn't, right? Cause, cause he said, well, you've probably been taught that your home is your largest asset and it's actually a liability. And I'm like, huh, you know, he's actually right. Like strictly from an accounting standpoint, he's wrong, but, but, but from his definition of what is an asset and what is a liability, he's
Frank Hereda (32:25.121)
Yep.
Frank Hereda (32:30.081)
Yep.
Frank Hereda (32:40.48)
Yeah, it's an interesting way to look at it. and I think it depends on the stage of your life and that kind of thing. but there's also some truth to having equity sit in your home and does nothing. It just sits. So I think there's an arbitrage play there maybe with lots of equity, but you gotta be careful. The problem is most people aren't disciplined enough to not mess it up. And that's, think part of the
Christian Brim (32:51.154)
Absolutely.
Christian Brim (33:00.767)
or objective enough to really think about it unemotionally. And frankly, think that as far as a financial professional that's giving investment advice, I think that's the key thing that a good investment advisor does or a financial advisor does is they help you clarify your goals and deal with the emotion around it because
It's way too easy to get caught up in your own head and make decisions emotionally. And that doesn't matter how much money you have. Like, you you could have a lot of money, but you're afraid to lose it. And so your emotions get into play and it's hard to be objective. And that's what I think a good advisor does is has that deep understanding of you as a person, what you want to achieve, what you fear and helps you
manage that and not make emotional knee -jerk reactions.
Frank Hereda (34:05.696)
Yeah, I agree. I agree. So I want to, I want to talk a little bit more, anything else on the money front? Cause I want to ask, I want to talk a little bit about the implementation in your business and EOS and that kind of stuff. Okay. so tell me why you said something that I was interesting earlier. You said we tried it once before and then we got an implementer and you had success. I'm a business coach, and I'm familiar with EOS
Christian Brim (34:18.001)
No, no, pressing.
Frank Hereda (34:35.552)
other forms of processes and systems, frameworks, if you will, explaining to why you didn't have success the first time and was it the accountability? Was it just helping you like stay on track? What was it about the second time and what was the eye -opening experience the second
Christian Brim (34:55.167)
the reason why it was unsuccessful when we self implemented was twofold. a minor part of it was I'd also read the Rockefeller habits and scaling up by burn harness. And I kind of took pieces of both and tried to implement them. And, and so part of it
I mean, I think I could do that now with the experience that I have, but I didn't have enough experience to be playing with it, right? You you don't know what you don't know. And I was creating a Frankenstein monster that I didn't really understand how it worked. But the most pervasive reason that we did not succeed was a lack of trust in the organization.
I didn't realize that until about two years after we'd implemented it the second time. Because I started looking backwards and I'm like, why didn't this work the first time? And there was a mutual distrust between me and my employees, including my brother. And the way that looked was I didn't trust
they would do what they said they would do. And they didn't trust me that I wasn't gonna come in and try and fix it anyway or be off on another tangent.
Frank Hereda (36:35.628)
That's something I tell all the people that I coach, all the entrepreneurs, one of the top reasons why businesses fail is because the leader changes the direction or the framework they're using every other week. And they don't stay committed to a process and a framework. And that's one of the number one reasons businesses
Christian Brim (36:57.117)
Well, yeah, and you know, the truth was they were right, because after six months I abandoned it.
Frank Hereda (37:03.178)
Yep. Let me tell you about this new great system and book that just came out. Let's try this. Yeah. Okay. So it was really just, you know, staying on task and committing. And it sounds like the commitment level to just, okay, we're going this route, come hell or high water, we're going to try this process and we're going to give it a fair
Christian Brim (37:06.525)
Right, right,
Christian Brim (37:23.411)
And that's, that's, that's why I hired an implementer because I realized, even though I didn't understand why it hadn't worked, that I, at some level, I understood that I couldn't do it myself. Like the business had grown to the limit of my capacity. and that's, that's that entrepreneurial inflection point. And you have several, as you go on that journey.
But it's all the same thing. It's gotten beyond you. And at that point, you can either delegate it or you can grow yourself and learn new skills. Or I guess you could sell the business. as long as you're the head of it, it's capped with
Frank Hereda (37:57.846)
Yes.
Frank Hereda (38:17.506)
Well, that's exactly right. There's only so big you can get if you don't grow operationally, right? So, you know, need certain, I always tell my clients there's three pieces that they need to focus on to grow their businesses and succeed. And that's automation, elimination, or delegation. And if they can't master those, it's gonna be pain at some point.
Christian Brim (38:40.569)
I use that phrase frequently in our organization. What can we, I use eliminate. So what can we automate, delegate or eliminate?
Frank Hereda (38:51.424)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So true. So implementing an actual framework, like was there big results? Was it like, wow, we went from this to this in revenue or, you know, how did, what did that look like?
Christian Brim (39:06.039)
No, actually, and this was a very painful part of the process, we had to shrink. We, like a lot of professional services firms, were trying to do too many different things. And so there were lines of business that we had to get rid of, clients we had to fire. And as an entrepreneur to go backwards,
Frank Hereda (39:14.144)
Okay.
Christian Brim (39:35.839)
Sucks. mean, it was emotionally very difficult to do. know, from a financial standpoint, we are just now, and I track this and it was like a 10 year journey. We're just now getting past the gross profit margin that we had 10 years ago.
Frank Hereda (39:36.832)
Yes, it does.
Christian Brim (40:05.585)
In a lot of ways, that's still difficult for me to deal with. But the reality is that the business is completely different. It has a trajectory to grow that gross profit now, whereas before it didn't. And my time in the business is less than half than it was. And probably most importantly, my frustration level is gone.
Frank Hereda (40:09.76)
Yeah. Yeah.
Christian Brim (40:34.513)
Like, sure, I have frustrations, that, like, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm going to go start a software company. That's completely
Frank Hereda (40:47.102)
So what would you tell somebody that's struggling right now? They're like, they're just starting the business. It's chaotic. They're, you know, maybe the markets changed a little bit and they're like, my gosh, what the heck do I do now? I mean, we've gone through a really horrific period for a lot of small businesses, meaning COVID. Like we wiped out massive amounts of small businesses. It was an execution. So.
Let's say there's people out there and they're listening and they just started or they're in the middle and it's just really tough. What, what, what would you, what would you say to them? You know, to help them right
Christian Brim (41:31.305)
Well, I think the only real advice I could give is to focus on yourself and growing it yourself. Because at the end of the day, that's the only thing you have absolute control over. There is a great article by Daniel Marcos and he was a, he is a scaling up advisor and coach and he's written a
But there's an article he wrote called grow yourself to grow your company. And it goes through the different stages of business and it kind of identifies what the business needs from you at each stage of growth and like what you have to become at that next level for the company. you know, it starts with delegating.
Frank Hereda (42:23.778)
It's interesting. Gotcha.
Christian Brim (42:31.315)
But I think that's the true inflection point that most entrepreneurs get stuck at is they don't really delegate. They think they delegate, but they delegate the task and the responsibility maybe, but they don't delegate the authority.
Frank Hereda (42:58.172)
Hmm, for
Christian Brim (43:00.523)
And until you can get past that inflection point where you say, Frank, I need you to do this, and I'm perfectly OK with you doing it completely different than I would, and I'm OK accepting the responsibility that something may go wrong, you haven't really delegated. I'm not saying I don't have service standards or quality control standards. I say, Frank,
The outcome needs to look like this. But you may do it completely differently and somewhere along the line it goes wrong. And my reaction is not, well, that's not the way I would have done it. And to think in my own head, well, if I had done it, it would have been okay. Like we wouldn't have had that problem. Well, that's bullshit because you make mistakes, I make mistakes. I might not have made a mistake in that instance,
I'm not gonna do everything perfectly and Frank's not gonna do everything perfectly. Until I'm comfortable with that, I'm stuck.
Frank Hereda (44:06.978)
I find that, you know, there's a couple different stages, but I think that you got the people that started business and let's say they start to do well, right? They're out there, they're getting sales, whatever they got to do, whatever their job is, or getting clients. And then they get to the point where it's like, okay, it is time to delegate, right? Because they get to 200, call it 300 ,000 roughly. And now you got to delegate, right? And it's like, okay, then they're willing to delegate, but they micromanage.
And I think that's kind of what you're talking about a little bit. And then after that, you've got to be able to just kind of step away and give the authority to do what they got to do. And they have full autonomy to do what they think they should do at their
Christian Brim (44:34.791)
Yeah. Yeah.
Christian Brim (44:48.765)
Yes, we use the term deputize in our organization. it's, you know, I, I have deputized certain individuals in my organization. And that means that I've given them the responsibility, but I've also given them the authority. And just like the deputy sheriff speaks for the sheriff when the sheriff's not there. So do these people. And, know, to be frank about it, bad pun, to be honest about it.
Frank Hereda (44:51.766)
Okay. Okay.
Christian Brim (45:18.691)
that's not necessarily comfortable for them, right? Because they're used to someone making the decision for them. Right. And so I, you know, when I initially deputize people and still sometimes I was having this conversation with my marketing director and she had sent me an email and I didn't respond. And when she was in the office, I said, guess what my response to that was the email was going to be, but I didn't send it. She said,
Yeah, do what you need to do, Deputy. And I'm like, exactly. That's exactly what my response was going to be. And so until people feel empowered and believe it, like, I'm not going to get called to the carpet because I made this decision and it didn't turn out and feel like they actually can make the decision, then you haven't delegated. Right. And it's about alignment.
I need to know that she and I are on the same page. We both know exactly what we're trying to do. And she's going to do things radically different than I am because she's a creative and I'm not. But as long as we're aligned, she can make those decisions.
Frank Hereda (46:35.222)
Gotcha. That's excellent. That's exactly what it comes down to. Okay. So we've covered a lot today. Any final thoughts for anybody who's going to start a business, has a business, going to save money, looking to figure out what to do with their money, anything at all on subjects we've talked about today? Any final thoughts for anybody?
Christian Brim (46:58.761)
Well, I definitely think you should buy Profit First for creatives and read it. It's a great book. And I say that because I really did pour a lot into it. was a, was a, a act of self discovery in a lot of ways. And there's a lot of personal stories and client stories in there that, you know, I think one of the things that happens to entrepreneurs is they get
isolated and it's very important to understand that you do think differently than other people and that's okay but you need to have a circle of colleagues, not friends, a circle of colleagues, other entrepreneurs that you can connect with to hash out things that are in your head to understand
I'm not the only one dealing with this kind of problem, or I'm not the only one that has those feelings or thoughts. I think that's very crucial because it can be a very lonely place as an entrepreneur. Oftentimes you can't have those conversations with your spouse. you can't certainly can't have most of them with your employees. your friends aren't necessarily entrepreneurs. So, you
you know, just respect the fact that you are different and that's okay and connect with others.
Frank Hereda (48:32.14)
Gotcha. Where can people find
Christian Brim (48:35.485)
Well, easiest one is christianbrim .com. That's my website. You can buy the book there, read my blog, see my podcast that I'm launching next month.
Frank Hereda (48:46.316)
Cool, exciting. We'll put links to everything down below in the show notes as well so everybody can find out where you're at. I appreciate the time today, It's been a pleasure. we'll catch everybody on the next episode. And if you have any questions, you know how to reach out to me, frankarita .com. And we'll catch you on the next episode. Thanks for tuning in, everybody. Bye.
Christian Brim (48:55.559)
My pleasure, Frank.
INFORMATION:
Frank Hereda - Business Coach: www.frankhereda.com
Christian Brim: www.christianbrim.com
