How Nolan Bradbury Uses A Family-First Calculation to Define Success

Full HSB 110 - Nolan-2

Nolan [00:00:00] I think this gets overlooked a lot in the process of running a business, which is running a business can be lonely. It just can like you. You feel very isolated. Oftentimes, your friends are not business owners. Maybe your spouse isn't working in the business. It's hard to talk to them about what the day-to-day aspects of the business are 'cause they don't really understand it.

Hector [00:00:19] Hello and welcome to another episode of the How to Scale a Business Podcast. My name is Hector Sanya Esteban, and I am your host for today. Our special guest is Mr. Nolan Bradberry, and he's a good friend of mine and, uh, by trade he is a CPA, but we may or may not get into what he does on a day-to-day level because I think most importantly, what we were talking about before the recording is the impact that has outside of the business and outside of the numbers.

Hector [00:00:42] Nolan, thanks for spending some time with us today. Pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. I think it's probably important for us to catch the listeners up on, on some of the key milestones in your career, and then we can get into not what you do on a day to day, but what you're actually [00:01:00] doing with your clients when you're working with them.

Nolan [00:01:03] Yeah, so I'll keep it. I'll keep it light and breezy. So, CPAI went a very traditional route. I went into, I have a master's in CPA, which is very nerdy. I went into public accounting, did that for a few years. Went into private accounting, took a company public, did that for a few years, but for the last decade plus, I've been working with small business owners in that half a million to $10 million range or however you wanna define small business, and really helping them be more successful.

Nolan [00:01:32] But helping them define what success is really, so that when they become successful, it actually feels successful.

Hector [00:01:39] It's interesting. It seems like there was a, probably a large percentage, and I don't wanna say closeted 'cause that's a very loaded term, but there's like a lot of people who went into the finance sector or went into the legal sector or went into the medical sector because.

Hector [00:01:54] That's what you were supposed to do, or that's what the, whether it was family sort of pressure or [00:02:00] societal pressure, or just wanting to be successful and seeing that there are X amount of paths laid out in front of them. But it seems that a lot of those people always, they either knew what they. We're gonna do afterwards.

Hector [00:02:13] Like they were like, this was stop one. And I had, they did this so that I could get my parents off my back or check the boxes, and then this was the actual eventual sort of thing. Or they had an inkling or an understanding, an intuition underneath that what they were studying or what they were doing was the dressing, if you will, the furniture, but wasn't the actual bones and the structure of what they.

Hector [00:02:36] What they wanted to do. Do either of those, so like while you were studying going this sort of traditional route, was there something bubbling underneath that was saying like that telling you to do something different? Yeah.

Nolan [00:02:48] Guilty as charged. So I went to college. Initially I went to be a, a history teacher and then I really got there and I really loved psychology.

Nolan [00:02:59] And I went down the [00:03:00] path. I'm fairly close to having a, like a minor in psychology. If not having it, I never fully applied for it. But to be honest with you, I don't know ultimately why I ended up in accounting probably. 'cause I've met a lot of friends and that was where they were going as well. And so I just was like, okay, yeah, sure this sounds good.

Nolan [00:03:15] But part of the reason why I left public and what part of the reason why I left private is that at ev, each of those stops. What I was doing was fine and it was enjoyable on some level. It was challenging, it was motivating. It wasn't rewarding. It was always compliance type work. It was like necessary evils.

Nolan [00:03:34] The people I was doing the work for largely didn't want me there doing it in the first place. It was like, yeah, we need you here to do it. And like at some point, some people that that's fine, like they can separate that and compartmentalize it. For me, it was like, I just felt like I need to do something more.

Nolan [00:03:48] I really, you know, both being a, I think. Wanting to be a teacher and going to psychology, like there's a base overlap there, a Venn diagram if you will, of like at the core of wanting to help people. [00:04:00] And I would say that ultimately that one out in my life, in terms of like where I'm at and what I'm doing now is that, yeah, I'm a CPA, but really that's just the tool I use to help people get to where they want to.

Hector [00:04:13] That, that, that's a great segue. I feel like you're in my head in terms of, we, we could spend a whole episode, we could spend a whole season how there's lots of podcasts talking about the actual CPA sort of stuff, and I believe we've had a, we've done a number of episodes on, so go back into the catalog and look on those.

Hector [00:04:29] But if you fast forward to, okay, so here's, we get through all the work and then like you're cured if that were like a way to say it. What is the end result? Or what is the thing that's at the end of the yellow brick road for either the businesses that you're working with or wait for business owners that even they may not be able to see for themselves at this point?

Nolan [00:04:49] Yeah, so I'll back up just a sec to explain what I'm gonna say, which is, so for the last decades I would work with business owners and. We were doing all the right things, [00:05:00] right? We were helping them look at their financials. We were helping implement reporting systems and cleaning things up. And like every MBA class, every accounting like, check, check, right?

Nolan [00:05:10] And then you look and they didn't feel any better. Their life was not any better. And I was like, what is the point of all this? We're here to help them. We're here to give them a better life, in my opinion. Like they're not doing this 'cause they like to, they're doing it because they feel like this is the investment they make.

Nolan [00:05:26] And yet. After they're done, nothing is better. I was like, I can't have that. Quite honestly, that's not an acceptable way for me to spend my life. And so I took a step back and genuinely went down a rabbit hole of like, where am I failing people? What is it that they are really not like getting and, and I don't mean like them, but like in terms of what we are giving to them.

Nolan [00:05:48] What is it that we are not providing to our clients that is holding them back from being successful? And I approach it from like a total accountability standpoint. If this was on me and I was the client, like how would I want to [00:06:00] be helped? What is the things that I have blinders to? Where are the places that I know I need help but don't wanna ask for help?

Nolan [00:06:07] Like all these sort of self-reflective questions. And the ultimate outcome of that was a change in the framework of how we work with clients. And we call that the numbers for freedom framework, but really it's about, it isn't. I think traditionally accountants focus on accounting and making sure the numbers are right or doing your taxes and making sure your taxes are right, and that's great.

Nolan [00:06:32] That's important. Not dis, not diminishing that, but what I think if you ask any business owner, what they really want from any service provider they have is they want them to help them have a business that gives them freedom. Most business owners go into business not to run a business, but to have a better life.

Nolan [00:06:51] At some point along the way, they were doing something that they were really good at and were like, Hey, I bet I could make more and have a better life if I did this on my own [00:07:00] and on that journey as it happens, right? They got sidetracked and they made a job for themselves and now they don't know how to get out from it and they don't know what things to adjust and what to tweak, and that is really where we start and focus.

Nolan [00:07:15] The most bulk of energy is like helping correct those things upstream from the financial pieces so that when we get to that, it just like waterfalls out and we're getting the crystal clear information we need to be successful, but like we've done the work up ahead of that.

Hector [00:07:31] Do you find that there's any sort of common easy wins or even common blind spots that, that people have that just by illuminating these or by fixing these, you just get an outsized return and, and, and sort of the things that you're doing?

Hector [00:07:53] No. Every

Nolan [00:07:54] business owner is a snowflake. No, I'm kidding. Yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of commonalities that exist [00:08:00] regardless of what industry you're in, regardless of the size of your business. Generally speaking, the pain points are often very similar. They may not be exactly the same, but they're very similar.

Nolan [00:08:11] It's largely to what scale they exist and in what shape they exist, but like the underlying tensions are usually the same. And I would say I. One of the ones that tends to be most problematic and maybe the least focused on is the goals of the owner and the business itself. And I know that sounds like very simple.

Nolan [00:08:33] Oh, we all have goals. I know what my goals are. Yes. But I think that's the way you're, most people define what they're trying to accomplish is part of the problem.

Hector [00:08:46] It brings me to mind. I came up in the sales world and. The only goals at that point was just to sell more. And I remember thinking like almost being seven years into the business, having [00:09:00] generated millions of dollars of revenue for the company and myself earned hundreds of thousands of dollars and then going, Hey, what about profit?

Hector [00:09:11] What about time? What about, what about all of that? It wasn't, it was because I remember looking at stuff and then there was a moment where I was. Spending all of this money to drive more revenue, which was great for the parent company, but not great for my bottom line. And I see myself, those sort of things I've had to realize am I doing that with my time and, and all that sort of stuff.

Hector [00:09:32] And so I know that I've just made decisions 'cause we wanna go bigger and we want to go. Bigger, like whatever the shiny number is or whatever the next number is. And that's obviously one, one sort of example. But I would imagine that sort of mindset bleeds over into other things where people are just setting numbers because it looks good or it feels good, or they're, they're trying to keep up in, in some sort of capacity as opposed to actually [00:10:00] designing a business that they, that creates, like you said, the life that they wanna live.

Nolan [00:10:05] Yeah. So I found that there are like kind of four. Areas where traditional, the way we were traditionally thought to think about goals, the way that people do typically think about goals breaks down. I think one of the, so the first one is like this concept that I would argue that the wrong goal is worse than no goal.

Nolan [00:10:25] And what I mean by that is if you, if you're, I forget who said it and I wish I could attribute to 'em, but basically the, they said that the path of a lesser goal is usually the obstacle that keeps us from being successful. And I think that's very on point, meaning that like when you go after the thing, something that isn't really what you want, you're using the same amount of energy, you're still like working hard, but when you get there, you don't feel any better.

Nolan [00:10:50] And that is a very dangerous outcome to arrive at because that is what you, when you get to that point, the first thing you do is you go, oh, I guess I needed more of it. And [00:11:00] you go back and you write, get back into that wheel, and you double down on it. Right? Oh, I made. 200,000 in sales this year. I don't feel like it's any better than it was when I did a hundred thousand, so I guess maybe I need 300,000 or 400,000 and you just start doing it.

Nolan [00:11:13] The second one that often hurts people is they use social goals as their own goals, and that doesn't mean that like inherently goals that you see other people have cannot be meaningful to you. But oftentimes the amount of thought that is put into a goal is very small. I can't tell you how often it is that like I will talk to someone and I will ask them.

Nolan [00:11:36] The very first question is, what is it that you are hoping to accomplish? If we could snap our fingers right now and make it true, what would you want? And it is some variation of, I want a million dollars, or I wanna generate a million in sales, or something like that. And a million dollar business sounds heroic until it, until it doesn't feel like it's enough.

Nolan [00:11:56] And the problem is like we get into these social [00:12:00] circles or lives where the people around us all have very similar things and we feel we need to have them as well. And so we, we pursue them, but we never actually stop to ask like, why are we going for this? What is the thing that I'm trying to get to?

Nolan [00:12:15] And so we either undershoot what we want or need and so we're left feeling unfulfilled or we overshoot. And then we never accomplish it. And that feels underwhelming. And so that the shame comes with this, right? And we end up just on this hamster wheel. And the thing about that is that part of why that happens is because not only do we not know what we really want to make us happy, we actually don't know where we're at right now.

Nolan [00:12:44] And if you've ever, if you've ever opened like a map app on your phone, like Google Maps or Apple Maps, or pick any variation you like, it asks you two questions, which we often take for granted and not don't realize are questions. It asks you where you're going and where are you right now, and it can do nothing [00:13:00] for you until you tell it.

Nolan [00:13:00] Those two things. And then once you do it, then follows up with some other questions like preference based questions. How do you want to get there? Do you want to go HOV or toll? Do you wanna avoid highways? Do you, are you gonna take the bus? Are you gonna walk? Like all these things. That is very true about like our life as well.

Nolan [00:13:16] We tend not to think of it that way, but that is a core element.

Hector [00:13:21] I've got all these questions, but I wanna get through the next You said there's two, is there two more? Is there two? Yeah, there's two more. You want? Keep going. I want, yeah, I would give you Otherwise i'll, we will never get to them.

Nolan [00:13:30] So the next one, the problem is that oftentimes what our goals are, some form of metric, but the metric needs a why.

Nolan [00:13:38] Otherwise it just becomes a distraction or a blinder. So we will say, Hey, I wanna generate a million dollars, or I want to have X number of followers or this margin. But that in and of itself, if I gave you, that, doesn't change your life. It doesn't solve any of the things that deep down are the things you [00:14:00] really care about.

Nolan [00:14:01] They may help facilitate that, but they're not the actual thing that you need. Okay. And that leads us to the last one, which is a goal is just a rung. It's not the roof. And this is a, this is probably the one that gets most people hung up the most, is that they think that when they accomplish this goal, their life will be perfect.

Nolan [00:14:21] They will feel everything that they've been working towards solved. That is not how life work I works. I hate to tell you, you have to think of goals as simply. Steps towards what you're going towards and the guardrails in making sure you're moving in the right direction. They are milestones, they are checkpoints.

Nolan [00:14:41] It's not that they shouldn't be celebrated when they're accomplished, but it's like in a video game, right? Level one, level two, like you finish level one, that's great. They're still another level. After that, the game does not end at level one, right? You keep going. I think sometimes that gets us into a trap of, [00:15:00] oh, I accomplished this goal.

Nolan [00:15:00] Why don't I feel happy? Why don't I feel joyful? Why don't I feel free? So that goal was not actually the thing you are working towards. And plus, life evolves. You always have to reassess, have my goals changed? If you have a set of goal when you're first married and then you never change it, guess what? If you have kids, your goals have probably changed, but you've never taken that into consideration.

Nolan [00:15:20] You never really fundamentally thought about how it's gonna work. So those are the four areas that like. Traditionally speaking, we have not been taught how to think about and incorporate into the goal setting process unless you do those things. In my opinion, you will. It will be very difficult to be successful downstream from that.

Hector [00:15:40] I'm glad we got to this point and I didn't jump in. 'cause when we get back from break, I'm like, now what? Okay, great. That's, that is like a total paradigm shift. I like, hopefully you've brought some solutions and didn't, we're gonna leave you there, that's all. Yeah, exactly. So when we get back from from break, we're gonna get into what some of these life rafts are and how you can move forward.

Hector [00:15:58] How you doing? My man? [00:16:00] Good. How are you Doing great. Yeah, this is great. This is, these are okay so far. Yeah. These are my kind of conversations. Every time I see a CPA on the books, I'm always like, oh, we'll see where this goes.

Nolan [00:16:11] I always tell people to put like a PSA, like a public service announcement at the top of the podcast.

Nolan [00:16:15] Like, it's okay. We're, this is an account, but we're not gonna talk about accounting. It's okay.

Hector [00:16:19] Hey y'all. Today's episode is brought to you up by Amplify Media, and we are a content and podcast production company. We like to think of ourselves as like the fractional media part of your company because chances are, if you're listening to this, you have a passion, a product, a mission, a message, some sort of service you're trying to get out to the world, but you might not have the time, the team or the tech skills to be able to do it well.

Hector [00:16:37] If that's the case, we can help go to amplify media.com. That's A-M-P-L-A-F-Y media.com. You can also check the show notes for the link. And with that, let's go back to Nolan. Nolan. I think like there. What we've done a good job of is shaking up the shaking people up a little bit and I think it, you're really presenting a different paradigm and which I think are [00:17:00] totally necessary.

Hector [00:17:00] 'cause, 'cause that's critical and I think definitely the first step, but then also people are wondering like, okay, so then what do we do next? Or how do we approach goal setting differently? There's all these sorts of things. 10 x is better than two x or the seven habits of, you name it, there's a, a book, you know about it.

Hector [00:17:19] How might we approach things differently, especially with regards to our business, if we're gonna take these into consideration?

Nolan [00:17:26] Yeah. So as I mentioned earlier, we developed this numbers for Freedom framework and I'm gonna walk through that to explain how you can implement that in your own life and hopefully resolve some of these issues and put you on a path that maybe will hopefully be more successful for yourself.

Nolan [00:17:41] So. Before I do that though, I want to preface that all of that framework is based on the idea that we are not just focused on the business. Now, the business is important and it's a critical cog in the solution, but we are ultimately solving for you the individual and your family, whatever that looks like, [00:18:00] because to me, the family is the part that gets overlooked and sacrificed the most when someone has a business, right?

Nolan [00:18:07] Like when you have a rough day at the office, it comes home. When you're checking email during dinner, it's at home. Your family knows how the business is going, even if they don't know how the business is going. It's really hard for small business owners to separate that, and a lot of cases, the family works in the business.

Nolan [00:18:24] It is a family business. A lot of my clients are family run businesses where you have a generational families or husband, wife, or whatever the case may be. What we're gonna talk about is not just solving for how does the business get better, it's about. How does the business get better so the family gets better?

Nolan [00:18:40] That is the ultimate goal I want in all this, because if we don't solve for both, in my opinion, I've let you down, frankly. So with that in mind, where I want you to start is maybe what you would not traditionally think, but as I said, when you open up Google Maps, it asks you two questions, right? So one of those questions is where are you right now?

Nolan [00:18:58] So we have to anchor you [00:19:00] to what your reality actually is. Okay? So if you ask someone. What is important in your life, they're gonna give you a set of answers, oh, my kids, my, my wife, my husband, whatever the case may be. And then you look at how they spend their money. And it is often not in alignment with that.

Nolan [00:19:16] Sometimes it is, but it often isn't. And so what we always start with people is, and there's no shame involved in this. I do not care how you spend your money, but I do need you to categorize it so you understand how you spend your money. Because it is a reflection of what is valuable in your life if you're spending.

Nolan [00:19:34] $6,000 a month on Legos. I hate to tell you this, but Legos are an important part of your life. You cannot tell me otherwise. They, it just is, that is a real life example for what it's worth. And it is totally fine to me. Like I, I don't, I do not care. It is not, there's no judgment. None of this information when I do it with clients, goes into a database that I use to like extrapolate off of.

Nolan [00:19:54] It is simply so that you understand and are in agreeance with how your [00:20:00] life is actually structured. How, what is your lifestyle? Where do you spend your money? Okay, so to do that we have a sheet and I can make it available. Can I hop in and

Hector [00:20:08] just Yeah, please. Maybe get a curiosity or for the listeners you're talking about for them personally, the how the family essentially spends money.

Hector [00:20:19] Yes. Can you just expand on why? I bet there's a lot of businesses, business owners, 'cause I've, I'm coming around on this sort of perspective, but I know I used to think, what does it matter? Why, how we spend money over here? How, how might, or what would you say to someone who's of that mindset?

Nolan [00:20:36] Yeah. So I get it, and there are two main reasons why we start with this and why it's really important to know.

Nolan [00:20:42] So one, the total of how you spend your money is an input into your equation. It's part of your freedom calculation, right? It's what leaves your house every month. So you gotta know what you're spending every month, right? And I'm not talking about it from a budgeting standpoint. Okay. I'm not asking you to change and cut back.

Nolan [00:20:59] This is [00:21:00] just about being honest with where the money goes, because you need to know in totality what you have to spend or what you need to make to be able to spend that. The second thing is that often the way we spend our money right now is not actually how we'd want to spend our money. So a common example is that people will spend X amount on travel, and when I talk to 'em and just to look down the road a little bit.

Nolan [00:21:22] They will tell me later on, I really would like to spend more on travel, or I'd like to put more away into my kids' college savings account. Okay. You can't really know that unless you know what you're spending right now. Otherwise you have no context to what more or less is, right? Those are relational terms, so we do have to start with your personal, because it is why we're doing all of this.

Nolan [00:21:43] It's a quantification of your family's lifestyle. It's not the only thing, right? Like you, you spend time in different ways, but your money is a fairly strong reflection of how you spend your time. If you eat out, that probably, if you have a lot of eating out expenses, it probably means you're entertaining a lot.

Nolan [00:21:58] If you go to a lot of concerts, that [00:22:00] usually means that type of music or comedy is important to your life. That's okay, and this is why it doesn't matter to me how you spend your money. It's just so that it's authentic and real to what is your life.

Hector [00:22:10] I just think it's a, it's an important distinction, right?

Hector [00:22:14] So getting clear on where we're at, where we're at, what's next.

Nolan [00:22:18] Yeah. And one quick thing before I go that I imagine you wanted to lose some weight to get healthier. One of the things you'd probably go, I need to know how much I weigh right now. Same thing, right? We're just quantifying what the status is right now.

Nolan [00:22:33] Okay? So once we've done that, the next step is to understand what the business component of that is, right? So now you know what your lifestyle costs, if you will. And for most small business owners, the money or revenue or salary that is generated from their business is what funds that lifestyle. They may have other sources.

Nolan [00:22:54] Maybe a spouse works, maybe they have some real estate that contributes money every month. But [00:23:00] usually it is the business that is generating most it. And so what we then do is we look at what is the business again on an average month doing what does it look like? How much revenue is it generating? Where are you spending your money?

Nolan [00:23:11] Now that is. Basically like we're looking at the p and l and the balance sheet to help quantify that. And for some people they're pretty up to speed on that, but for a lot of people they aren't. Or the data that's provides that isn't a very good quality such that we can't really draw the right conclusions from.

Nolan [00:23:29] And so that's the thing that we wanna identify is if we have bad data, we're gonna make bad decisions. So we have to understand, do we have the proper starting point to be able to analyze the business and what it needs to do. Okay. So we help them summarize that down and understand and distill it into something that's easy.

Nolan [00:23:47] We don't give them pages and pages of p and ls. We're trying to simplify it down to a snapshot so they can very easily see it on one screen, what the business is really looking like to them. Then we add in [00:24:00] any sort of other source of income, like I said, spouse, real estate, investments, things like that.

Nolan [00:24:05] And then what we show them basically is this snapshot of what their lifestyle looks like. Meaning at the top of this funnel you have, what is your. So from all sources, we then factor in what do you owe in taxes based upon that income that we need to account for? And then we get to a fork in the road where we have, this is what you have available to spend on your life.

Nolan [00:24:28] How much of that is going to your lifestyle, how much of that is going to savings? And then what is leftover or not leftover? We help illustrate for that, that for them in that standpoint. And what I would encourage you at home, you can do this for yourself. It is essentially, part of it is understanding do you live within your means, right?

Nolan [00:24:44] That is a basic, like you can draw that conclusion fairly quickly in looking at that snapshot. But regardless of what it looks like, it helps anchor people to what life actually looks like right now. And I will tell you that most people educated [00:25:00] not, doesn't matter, any element of this. Are not very good at estimating what their budget or their lifestyle looks like in the moment.

Nolan [00:25:06] They don't have a great concept of what they're spending, how much the business is generating. They have rough ideas, but by and large they're, it's not very accurate. So we help them get to that point. So that's like the first step in all this process. There's some baby steps in there, but that's really what we're trying to get to.

Nolan [00:25:22] It's anchoring you to where you are right now.

Hector [00:25:28] Yeah, I think it's. You. I'm not surprised by how many people just run their business by feel. I was one of them for the longest time. And, and then once you're on the other side of it, the clarity that comes from actually knowing the numbers,

Nolan [00:25:44] intuition is a very common guide for strategy within a business.

Nolan [00:25:49] And unfortunately, intuition runs out at some point. It can only really take you so far. But the challenge and the danger with intuition is that until that point, it feels like a [00:26:00] really strong driver. You feel like you can trust it because it continues to be the right thing until it isn't. And then if you're not prepared for that moment, all the things start to break down very quickly.

Hector [00:26:12] Yeah, it's a lot to hold. Usually it increases with scale and that's. That's a lot to hold, right? Intuition is great with when the, it's smaller, but as you continue to grow, the numbers give that solidity.

Nolan [00:26:26] So once we've anchored to where you're at now, what we want to do is reorient you on what you actually want your life to look like.

Nolan [00:26:33] So we will go back to the initial breakdown that we help people classify their spending to. What I consciously tell them is, I am not here to tell you to spend less. I, I'm actually encouraging you to tell me what you wanna spend more on that. If today, if we snapped our fingers, how would you. Want to reflect your lifestyle and your spending.

Nolan [00:26:51] Would you like to spend more on travel? Would you like to contribute more to your kids' college education? Would you like to save more? Do you want to pamper yourself more? Do you want to [00:27:00] hire someone to help clean your house? Like none of this is off limits, right? It's all about what is most authentic to a lifestyle that would be representative of freedom, of happiness, of joy.

Nolan [00:27:10] And so we helped recalculate that. That then feeds into our what we we're gonna refine that funnel again, if you will, right that snapshot. Because now what we show them is, okay, this is what it looks like with that lifestyle. So now we have to back solve into what your business is going to do to fund that lifestyle.

Nolan [00:27:29] And this is where the work really starts, if I'm being honest. Right now, we're really getting into understanding what are you selling, how are you selling it, what are the costs associated that, and we will spend a significant amount of time here with them to really break this down and make it as simple and relatable as we can.

Nolan [00:27:46] Because what we're ultimately gonna do is from this process, identify two, three, maybe four things that we are gonna get hyper-focused on. We are going to create accountability for so that we can be successful in that, knowing that [00:28:00] as we achieve these goals, these stepping stones on the ladder, the rungs that we will be getting closer and closer to the roof.

Nolan [00:28:06] And that if we're focused on these and successful in them, that success will also yield itself in the rest of the parts of our life in the business and the personal side. And then the last step is we work very closely with the owners. To stay on top of those goals and we refine them, we will adjust them as necessary, but we create accountability.

Nolan [00:28:26] And I think this gets overlooked a lot in the process of running a business, which is running a business can be lonely. It just can like you, you feel very isolated. Oftentimes your friends are not business owners. Maybe your spouse isn't working in the business. It's hard to talk to them about what the day-to-day aspects of the business are.

Nolan [00:28:44] 'cause they don't really understand it. Unless you're a business owner, you don't really understand other business owners to be honest. And so we act as that accountability coach, that workout buddy that when you say you're gonna be at the gym at one. If someone else is there, you're more likely to show up and [00:29:00] be at the gym at one and do the workout, right?

Nolan [00:29:01] Same thing here. If you're gonna show up, we're gonna meet with you weekly, biweekly, once a month, whatever the cadence needs to be for you to be successful, then the greater likelihood there is that we're going to be successful in achieving those, and that's the part where you need to do all three. You can't just shortcut it, you can't skip ahead.

Nolan [00:29:18] You have to understand where you're at. You have to reverse engineer what you have to do, and then you have to get hyper-focused and be accountable to doing those steps.

Hector [00:29:27] Yeah, it's why the first part of this conversation is so important. 'cause like you said, if you end up down the wrong road, you're wanting to get somewhere and to your, to your GPS point.

Hector [00:29:37] If you take the wrong route, yeah, you've gone somewhere, you've spent all that energy and gas, but you're not where you want it to be. And I think it's, it carries over the same,

Nolan [00:29:46] it's very unfulfilling and it, like I said, it's dangerous because it, the most common reaction is to double down on what you did because you assume more is the answer.

Nolan [00:29:57] And a lot of times when we're going through the process, what we [00:30:00] discover is the business doesn't need more. Maybe it needs the same, maybe it needs less. It's just about reorienting the business in a way that is reflective of how the business owner wants to financially be rewarded and how they actually wanna show up in the business.

Nolan [00:30:13] Both of those things have to be satisfied for ultimately the family behind the business to be successful and free.

Hector [00:30:23] Well said. I think this lends itself really well to a round two, somewhere down the line, because I feel like we just, we didn't even scratch the surface. We like scooped into the top of the chaff.

Hector [00:30:34] Two questions for you. First is, if people wanna get in touch with you, stay more connected, follow up. Where's the best place for people to go?

Nolan [00:30:41] You can find me on LinkedIn, Nolan Bradbury. We have a website called numbers for freedom.com, which is really an overview of the problems and the solutions that we were talking about today.

Nolan [00:30:51] So if you wanna go read more about that and understand it, I encourage you to do that. It's numbers for freedom.com or our company website, bradfield co.com. You can go check [00:31:00] that out. You can contact us through that. It's real human, so please don't spam us in the contact box. We will be responding to each one, and I would encourage you to reach out, like if any of this resonated and you felt like, man, that that feels like where I'm at.

Nolan [00:31:12] Set up a time for us to talk and we will go through and help you understand like where you're at and how you might approach this. It's not a sales call, it's really more about helping you orient yourself onto what you need to do. And if it means you want some help and we can look at that, and if it doesn't, then hopefully you at least get some advice on how to start the process for yourself.

Hector [00:31:31] Absolutely. We'll link all that up in the show notes. Nolan, last question for you. In your opinion, what is the secret to scaling a business?

Nolan [00:31:40] I'm gonna be biased here. I think scaling a business, if you want to do it, you have to understand what you're scaling to and why you're scaling in the first place, because there's a lot of different ways you can go about doing it, but unless you understand.

Nolan [00:31:53] What the driving force is behind it. Kinda like in this goal setting process, what is it that you're trying to get to and why are you trying to get there? Because [00:32:00] without that, assuming you get there, you're gonna be at this mountaintop without any real idea of why you're there and if you wanna be there in the first place.

Nolan [00:32:07] And so I, I just think that's an important process that often gets overlooked in terms of moving the ball forward.