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Scaling Up Success Podcast
Scaling Up Success is a podcast designed to inspire and educate entrepreneurs and business leaders on their journey to growth and development. Through in-depth conversations with successful small business owners and C-suite executives, we delve into the strategies, challenges, and triumphs that have propelled these businesses to new heights.
Discover the secrets behind scaling your business, from building a strong foundation to navigating complex market dynamics. Learn from those who have been there, gain actionable insights, and unlock your business's full potential. Join us as we explore the stories of innovation, resilience, and unwavering determination that define success in the ever-evolving business landscape.
Scaling Up Success Podcast
Navigating Business Challenges: Expert Insights with Len Bruskowitz
Scaling Up Success Podcast #3: Len Bruskiewitz
In this episode Len explores challenges faced by small and medium-sized businesses, the importance of personal and business strategy, and the need for planning for business transitions. Len discussed business growth strategies, the importance of taking action.
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What's up everyone. This is Brian Van Ornum, and this is Scaling Up Success. Today I'm here with Lynn Bruskowitz of Focal Point Coaching, and thanks for being on the podcast today. I appreciate you spending some time with us Awesome.
Speaker 2:Brian, I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 1:Very, very cool. So you have had a had a very interesting, you know backstory of. You know where you came from and everything and and and what you're building now. So why don't you give the audience a little bit about who you are and what you've been up to?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, I'd love to do that.
Speaker 2:So I think one of the most interesting things about me is I'm a third generation small business owner.
Speaker 2:So both sets of my grandparents emigrated here to the US in the late 1800s and started small businesses, and then my father took that one of them over from his father and then that business is still going today and I started my own business businesses as well today, and I started my own business businesses as well. So, but I did have in between there I had about a 30 plus year career in high tech and what was interesting about that is pretty much every company I worked for serve small businesses. So I feel like I really understand what the needs are of a small business, are what, what the challenges are, both from growing up in one as well as working with so many of them over my corporate career. And then I got to the point in my corporate career where I said you know what? I think I can just do more for small businesses directly and really enjoyed coaching, and so I decided to go out on my own and start business coaching, and that's a little bit about how I ended up where I am today.
Speaker 1:That's really cool, man. And so you deal you said it yourself a few times you deal with a lot of small and medium-sized business owners. So what do you see are some of the biggest challenges that are happening in today's economy for that type of business right now?
Speaker 2:Well, there are certainly several factors at play in depending on the industry. Hiring great people is a real challenge. That's certainly, you know, a big thing that I hear from clients and prospects. Certainly you know a big thing that I hear from clients and prospects. And other is just again, it's uneven but price increases where you know their supplies are increasing and they really don't have the freedom to increase the prices they charge their customers. So that's been a big challenge for some small businesses who really can be not replaced. But a good amount of what they do is now more accessible to a consumer with a couple chat GPT prompts. So know, a serious challenge for certain industries within the small and medium systems, small and medium business segment.
Speaker 1:What, what do you? What advice do you give to people right now in to be able to combat some of that stuff?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, if you look at all of it, you know hiring great people, you just you can't settle. You really need to be patient and find the right people because hiring hiring the wrong person is really can be traumatic for a small business, right, it doesn't matter as much if a big company hires a few bad people. For a small business it can be. It can have massive impact. So, as much as it's hard to say it's, be patient. On the cost perspective, this is going to get the cost and the AI are going to run together.
Speaker 2:But it's really some of the advice I give, which is focus on what you do really well, focus on what you do better than anybody else, better than anybody else, and that's going to be your best way to both price accordingly and not be replaced by, you know, a faceless computer, right? So figure out what you're going to get rid of the rest of the stuff, like if they're. You know, a lot of what I do is about helping businesses grow and I don't necessarily say that's growing revenue. That could be growing profitability even though revenue is decreasing, because it's focusing on the things that they're the best at, where it's gonna be harder for them to be replaced.
Speaker 1:That's really well said and there's so many poignant aspects to that that really can help people that are watching, people that are, you know, watching this really really grow into something even more. So what are you most proud of as being a business coach? What, really? What gets you up in the morning? What you know, that pride, that motivation, what gets you going?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd say it's pride and fear Let me put it that way in equal amounts. The area of business coaching that I focus on, Ryan, is on exit planning, so it's really on assisting business owners to get their companies ready so that they can transition out of them on their terms and on their timeline. So that's kind of what I live for. So that's kind of what I live for, and I'll tell you a quick story of how I got into this. I started out just doing generic business coaching, and one of my first clients was a 72-year-old woman who ran a very successful retail store with her husband for 50 years and unfortunately he passed away and she was involved in the business but just didn't know how to preserve her legacy. And so when I first talked to her, she said, Len, I can't sleep at night because I don't know what's going to happen to my business. And I said, OK, let's talk about the options. You know we could. You could sell it to a third party. You could shut it down. You could, you know, pass it along to a family member, you could pass it along to the one of your staff. And we worked through those options. She picked one and is now implementing her plan and after that she called me and she said, Len, I can sleep now at night, and so that to me was a huge source of pride for me that I was able to help there.
Speaker 2:And what I say on the fear side is that I watched your prior podcast and saw you talking about some numbers of how many small businesses. According to my research, there are about 6 million small businesses in the US with 1 to 20 or 30 employees. So, on the small end, over half of those 51% of those businesses are owned by people 55 or older. So there's a huge grouping of these older business owners and the scary part is that they're woefully unprepared. They need help in figuring out what to do to get ready to transition out. It doesn't matter if you're 55 or 25. You need to figure out what your exit plan is and then work yourself back. So hopefully that answers the question Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Plan is and then work yourself back. So hopefully that answers the question Absolutely. And one of the things that kind of follow up on that is like you know what, what strategies do you give people to to create that exit strategy for them? You know, like, is there, is there any little piece to get, pieces or nuggets that you can, you know, give to somebody that they feel comfortable like saying, okay, I may be ready to do this in X amount of years?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm going to share with you four areas that I think every business owner should be thinking about. So even if you're young, even if you've just started your business, you need to think about these things sooner rather than later. So I'll talk about the four categories. The first one is your personal what you want to do personally. So figure out what your next great adventure is. What do you want to do after you move out of your company, because that's super important. It'll have a lot to do with your timing, have a lot to do with what your goals are post-business. And another big thing is this is especially important as you get older is discuss those plans with your family. You really want your family to know what your plans are, because they're involved for one and B. If something does happen to you, you want them to know what to do, right. So that's on the personal side is. You know? It's really important to me and I'll just tell a quick story.
Speaker 2:The majority of the business deals, the sales of small businesses that get right to the end and then don't happen, are because the business owner didn't know what they were going to do next and effectively got cold feet and said all I know is running this business. I'm going to keep doing it. So that personal side is really important. The next side, the next point, is what I call a business strategy. So this is I talked about this a little bit before focus on what makes you really unique.
Speaker 2:Okay, I talked about this a little bit before. Focus on what makes you really unique. Okay, you also want to really minimize your risks, your earnings. Most small businesses are valued on a multiple of their earnings. So you really want to minimize the risks to those. Start to focus on the customers that are the best for you, the most profitable, and get rid of some of those that aren't right. Everybody seems to have customers they don't really like and they don't make money on, but they keep doing them, you know. Get rid of those now, it's easier. And then also to work on the growth plans. Right, figure out how you're going to grow, because that again, growth is what potential buyers want to see.
Speaker 1:All right, Well said, well said.
Speaker 2:Third piece is your process and your accounting right. Just make sure your accounting is in order. Document your processes. So, again, if something happens to you and I keep talking about the negative side the positive side is that if you document your processes so somebody else can come in and run your business, then you can take a vacation and not have to worry. So there are upsides to this, you know. Document your processes.
Speaker 2:Start to think about tax planning. You want to sell your company. There are ways that you can pay zero tax on that, but they take time. You can't implement that today and then sell tomorrow. So, thinking long-term about how you want to move out of the business. Then the fourth one is really buttressing the management of your company. This again gets back to I know you might not have 25 people, but if you have two or three, you need to find somebody who can be that second in command and, can you know, let you take a vacation and can potentially run the business when you're not there any longer. So those are my four things, again, regardless of where you're at today personal business strategy, process and management.
Speaker 1:Man, I love that and it's amazing what a couple SOPs and KPIs can do for a business right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, I talk about it. When I talk to some business owners I say, explain your business to me financially, not what you do, but explain it to me. And they really can't. They'll say, well, here are my financial statements. That's not the question I asked. Tell me what drives your business Right. Do you know what the five things are that that are going to predict how you're going to do? And then the other one on the SOPs. That I find interesting is that you know, in the bad old days you have to write everything down, right, right. You don't have to do that anymore. Take a five minute video and you can. You can document. Doesn't have to be written, doesn't have to be boring, can be a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:You know you can. You can also have other people do those for you too, or have utilized artificial intelligence to create some other things as well down the road. So one, one question that I comes to me is like the way that business has been changing over the last couple of decades, what, what new, unique challenges are you seeing when you're talking to business owners right now?
Speaker 2:Um, a big piece you know I've hinted at before is just the advent of AI is definitely a game changer. Um, another thing that I'm seeing again with the groups that I'm talking to are predominantly more experienced business owners is A lot of times, as they get older, their risk aversion increases.
Speaker 2:So, they tend to be kind of static right. So I think that's something that's a challenge for businesses that are successful. Over time, they can run into this fallacy of if I did it last year, it's going to work this year, and so I think that's one of the biggest changes is you just you know what worked for you yesterday isn't necessarily going to work for you tomorrow, and you have to be in a learning mentality in order to realize that. Right, you can't just kind of go with blinders on. You got to be looking out and saying what can I learn, what can I try. You can't just kind of go with blinders on. You got to be looking out and saying what can I learn, what can I try? Who can I talk to that knows this right? Who can do these things that I don't want to do? You know things that your firm offers right. Like I hate this piece. Is there somebody that could do it for me? Knowing about a firm like yours is a great way to do that right.
Speaker 1:Yes, there are people that can do those things for you, absolutely. One of the things that I kind of see as well is like the economic and social environments how quickly they change. It really affects the way that business is are reaching their customers in different levels. Now, too, I think some of the impact with social media over the last 15, 20 years the way that people communicate with each other is different, the attention span, I think, is slightly different, but it's all I can. Kind of going back to the point that you kind of made is like complacency is a killer of business, and if you're complacent at a certain level, do you feel like you're? You may feel like you're winning, but you're actually slipping away, you're losing. You're losing some of that, all that hard work that you put in to step yourself up. So talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the really daunting, I think, stats out there is that typically, business owners have about 80% of their financial assets tied up in their businesses. So just think about that for a second right. So, regardless of age, if 80% of your financial assets are tied in something that is pretty illiquid right, you're not like a publicly held company that can just sell shares tomorrow. You've really got to focus on having that increasing that value right, and you do that via growth. On having that increasing that value right, and you do that via growth. But you also have to make it to a point where somebody else is going to be willing to buy it, right. So that's a lot of you know.
Speaker 2:Those four tips I gave are really designed to do that to make your business saleable whenever you want. Again, this isn't just for somebody who's been doing it for 30 years. You can have a plan to say, hey, in five years I'm just going to be done with this and I want to move on, right. So it really boils down to thinking about these things all the time and figuring out how to make your business as attractive as possible, again, even if you don't want to sell it.
Speaker 1:So that's my advice. I love that. So if you had somebody that was wanting to get into being an entrepreneur, starting that journey, what couple pieces of advice would be? You know, some of those little tidbits that you learned along the way that you pass on to somebody else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, some of them are the ones I've already mentioned, those little tidbits that you learned along the way that you pass on to somebody else. Yeah, some of them are the ones I've already mentioned, but a big one is going to be figure out what your end game is, right at the start. And that sounds crazy because you're saying, hey, I'm just going to make my widgets or sell my service, but if you plan out in five years, if you plan out in five years, in seven years, I want this is what I want as an exit. Then you just work yourself back and now you've you know, now you've got a plan right.
Speaker 2:So the more nuts and bolts thing about that is don't mess up your accounting. It's the single biggest, single biggest reason why companies aren't ready is that they just have bad accounting, and bad accounting leads to mistrust and to really low valuation. So great accounting doesn't have to be expensive accounting. It just has to be really good process documentation and again I talked about it in the strategy piece Don't try to be everything to everyone. You know niche, figure out where you're really good and go like heck after that market.
Speaker 1:I love that Take immense and big action. You know, I've always kind of found if, even if I did something incorrectly, at least I took action, learned from it and pivoted quickly. You know, analysis by paralysis, or paralysis by analysis, can actually hinder more than than making a mistake. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:Yes, I have a mentor of mine. There's a guy by the name of Bill Campbell who was the CEO of Intuit for a while when I was there and he became a mentor of mine. He was an ex football coach. He coached at Columbia, coach at Boston college and he was an advisor to Google and lots of Silicon Valley companies. Was an advisor to Google and lots of Silicon Valley companies and he would say, to paraphrase from his football days he would say, len, if you don't know what to do, go effing hit somebody. It may not be right, but do something. Yeah, yeah I love that which.
Speaker 2:I think is a great motto to live by right, even if even if it may not be right, do something rather than sitting around waiting for something to happen.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Well, I I really appreciate you taking time out of your schedule to uh to chat with us a little bit. It's been very uh informative and it's you know I I love hearing different points of view about business growth and strategy. How can people get a hold of you if they're looking to? You know, take on a business coach.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the best way is to go to my website, which is greater heights coachingcom, and I've got a free little free business valuation calculator on there which I encourage everybody to take a run at. It's up in the right. There's a link at the right hand top of my site. It takes about 15 minutes to do and it gives you a basic idea what your business is worth today, which is a good thing to know, and it also tells you the pieces that are either hindering or helping the valuation of your company. So that's what I'd encourage everybody to do Go check out the site and check out that business valuation calculator.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Thank you so much for being on today, lynn, and best luck in your future endeavors with business coaching. I know you're you're going to continue to just kill it, and thank you for being a part of everything today. Awesome, thank you, ryan. All right, enjoy.
