We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mike McCord a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Mike, thanks for joining us today. Let’s jump right into something we’re very focused on here – improving our ability to make decisions. Everyday, we’re faced with decisions that can impact the future of our careers, businesses, relationships and more and so one of the most impactful areas for personal development, in our view, is decision-making. Can you talk to us about how you developed or improved your decision-making skills?
One of the first business books I ever read was the $100 Startup.
The metaphor that stuck with me (and is honestly the only part of the book I remember) is to treat your business like a bicycle.
When you start riding a bicycle (or starting a business), you are going to fall (and fail). Everyone knows that. You learn by falling. And getting back up. And falling again. These lessons teach us what works and what doesn’t. The same is true for business. You aren’t a failure, if you get back up and try again.
Once you’ve learned how to ride the bike, now you need to figure out where you want to ride it!
You can look on a map of where you want to go. Start at Point A and end at Point B. If you’ve never rode that route before, you might want to figure out the directions and turns you need to make. If you’ve been there before, you probably don’t need to reference the map.
You know what no one does? No one plans out how many times they need to pedal and the exact angle to turn the steering wheel. You cant predict all of the potholes and stop lights and cars on the road. The same is true for business.
The best business advice I can give anyone is to choose their Point B on the map and start riding the bike! You will speed up, slow down, pedal harder, and turn sharper as the unforeseeable circumstances arise. Just ride the bike and keeping looking forward. You’ve got this!
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I’ve been an entrepreneur for as long as I can remember. It doesn’t run in my family, but its in my blood. Creating something new excited me. Whether its launching a program or building a physical structure, I love the whole process from start to finish.
A fatal flaw that many entrepreneurs have is that they get bored! It is a part of their nature. New things excite them and repetitive and monotonous tasks are draining. That isn’t a negative trait. It just is what it is.
The technique I use to prevent boredom with my companies is called kaizen. Kaizen basically translated to “continuous improvement”. The idea is that nothing is perfect and you can always iterative and improve your systems and processes. Using this methodology, I can run multiple businesses, constantly improve their efficiency, and never get tired of them.
Over the past decade, I have started and built multiple 7-figure businesses. After seeing my success in these ventures, friends have asked me to mentor them in their entrepreneurial pursuits. And their passion for building something new is contagious, so I reflect back their exuberant energy.
These experiences helping friends and family start and grow their businesses directly lead to me offering business coaching as a service. I’ve talked to many small business owners in a variety of industries and I identified common pain points across most small, service-based businesses.
The most common issue I hear from folks is that its incredibly difficult to find and keep reliable workers. You might have hired folks in the past but they showed up late, or didn’t follow directions, or did poor quality work. So I used my experience and insights to create a turnkey system to hire, train, and retain reliable workers, which is called the CREW Hiring System.
I find great joy in helping other small business owners to solve their problems and grow. So if anyone of my words have resonated with you, I would love for you to reach out and connect!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Empathy
Decision-Making
Resilience
Empathy: you will never 100% understand someone else’s perspective. Recognizing this fact, and that everyone has a reason for their actions, will help you navigate a majority of life’s hurdles.
Decision-Making: don’t burn bridges! Bite your tongue and wait to respond until after your emotions have subsided. You will thank me and yourself.
Resilience: you will only fail if you stop getting back up. Get back up, get on your bike, and pedal even harder than before.
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
If you don’t resonate with the status quo of business culture in our society, please read “Reinventing Organizations” by Frederic Laloux. It is not a quick-read and is fairly dense. But I promise the content is eye-opening, mindset-shifting, and can greatly impact the way you run your business.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.crew-method.com/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-mccord/
