How Raul Hernandez Ochoa Scales Businesses Without an MBA, a Forbes Feature, or a Fancy Title

[00:00:03] Hector: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the how to scale a business podcast. My name is Hector Santiasteban and I am your host today. Our special guest is Mr. Raul Hernandez Ochoa. He is the, the head honcho over at do good work. And we're going to talk about expanding revenue and expanding your, capacity to serve more people. So, well, thanks for hanging out with us today.

[00:00:24] Raul: Thanks for having me on. Excited and energized to be here.

[00:00:28] Hector: Yeah, I was looking, I was doing some research and your website, it was just really cool to see some of your, client testimonials talk about. them to scale because I think that there's a sort of a challenge that a lot of businesses get into in the sense of they, they figure out their service market fit.

[00:00:44] Hector: They start to get some customers, but The ability to serve a lot of customers is its own challenge, right? Scaling is sort of separate from starting a business. And so I'm curious how you sort of got into the space of helping people kind of take that next step and then would love for you to share a little bit about what and how you do that with your clients today.

[00:01:05] Raul: Yeah, so I got into it by doing it with Living in the agency. So I cut my teeth in direct response agencies different training different people being able to even train their teams live events virtual events coaching clients I got behind the scenes of prominent names that You and I may both know, and then from there, I, there was merger acquisitions. I was a COO of an agency and that agency, we nearly tripled in a year. And that was with Aaron Parkinson. And that was a wild ride, a fun time. I still remember 12 calls per day in some, some instances. But a mentor at the time told me, Hey, you should write a book around this. I'm like, why should I write a book?

[00:01:43] Raul: She's like, you should do it. So I did it launched the book, and, that came the catalyst of my coaching and consulting with other agency founders, service providers to help them not only just scale, but grow to the level of growth that they want to hit. Not what someone else is telling them to hit.

[00:02:02] Raul: I think that's an important point. What is a growth? If on its own, it's vanity has to have an end goal.

[00:02:07] Hector: Yeah, one of my favorite books early on in my entrepreneurial career is the E Myth by Michael Gerber, and it's sort of a simplified, you know, wish it was as simple as he makes it sort of seem in that book, but there's this evolution of going from the technician to sort of a manager or even an owner, right?

[00:02:25] Hector: And there's sort of these, these evolutions. I'm curious, you know, from your perspective, if The most important, if there is an order of operations to sort of making that transition from being only cook in the kitchen to now all of a sudden being the owner of the restaurant, which has a sort of it's different roles.

[00:02:42] Hector: What's that journey been like for you? And sort of what's your perspective on that transition?

[00:02:47] Raul: Well, I think it's important. So I'll give you actual real stories or just case studies from clients It really depends on where you're at. Are you stuck fulfilling and doing the deliverables on top of the selling? Are you mostly in sales and you've got the deliverables dialed in?

[00:02:59] Raul: The key thing is to buy your time back in the beginning. With team members and operations and systems, so you gotta hire that team member, train them up, get yourself out of fulfillment. And then from there, you can focus and invest more in the sales and the marketing front to get more business through the pipeline.

[00:03:14] Raul: I mean, we can dive into that, but a priority, like these are frameworks from books that, Hey, it's nice. I've been there, done that, do this. The key thing right now is figuring out where are you in the process? Are you where you want to be, or are you caught in fulfillment? Putting out fires, meeting with the team, Really depends on blister where you're at and that's where you would start.

[00:03:34] Hector: Yeah, I think that's a great thing. And maybe we can go into some ways to sort of diagnose or, 11 framework that I like to ask to our guests is about blind spots because inherently the by definition, blind spots are things that you can't see. And I think as a business owner, we're constantly trying to, illuminate these blind spots and then figure out how to, you know, overcome them I don't know, fix is the right word, but find solutions to them.

[00:04:03] Hector: Are there common blind spots that you see business owners have or common problems or the needle business owners eyes that if they just pulled this out, you know, this almost too obvious thing that if they did that, it might unlock some, other sort of progress or, growth.

[00:04:21] Raul: I'm not sure there's an obvious blind spot So there's three constraints that I usually focus on with clients to overcome the first constraint is with every business like leads and sales, right? That's the first constraint second constraint is your operations fulfillment client management execution Boarding upselling, cross selling and your final constraint.

[00:04:38] Raul: This is a hidden one. This is your leadership, the quality of the inputs, the quality of the people. So really it's diving into what are your current constraints right now? Typically, every listener is going to have one to two constraints right now. If you have all three, then you're kind of in a situation that.

[00:04:52] Raul: You might want to pay attention to what we're going to dive into here. So that's the first spot. The second spot is then like maybe the normal blind spot is one. Typically founders are in silos. They're not talking to other successful founders. Hopefully they are, but they're typically not. they're grinding, they're working, they're meeting with clients, meeting with the team, hiring people, but they're not talking to other people.

[00:05:10] Raul: What's working right now in the marketplace. And then the second is just like the fear of the unknown. And not wanting to let go and letting go too late. So that's typically the common themes that I'm seeing.

[00:05:21] Hector: Yeah, when it comes to constraints, I think a lot of listeners are probably gone. Okay, I've got all three,

[00:05:28] Raul: Hopefully not all three. It's usually one or two

[00:05:31] Hector: So maybe, maybe that's a great, a right way to approach it or to diagnose, because perhaps people go, and maybe that's just my brain thinking everything needs to be better.

[00:05:40] Hector: Nothing's perfect, you know, and that's maybe my self criticism Catholic school sort of upbringing coming out. How might a business owner, Diagnose what stage is like, are there, symptoms that might be showing themselves as this is something to focus on more than the other? Cause, At least in my experience, sometimes I find myself too in the weeds Oh, everything feels good or everything feels bad and to not have that proper diagnosis or assessment of the actual realities.

[00:06:10] Raul: I think it really needs to start like, where are you? Are you content with where you're at right now? And where are you wanting to go? And why do you want to go there? And those are simple questions, but they're big questions that you should be reviewing at least every quarter, if not every year. And then when you do that, I mean, you'll natively know, you'll know that, okay, sales are locked in.

[00:06:28] Raul: We have consistent lead flow or pipeline or deals. And we have, you know, offers that are out that we need to see if they're going to close. If you have that. But then you're afraid of winning new business. That's a sign that your operations are not tight. Like if you think that more clients equals more stress, that's the wrong mindset.

[00:06:45] Raul: How are you going to grow if you don't want more clients? You're going to subconsciously, shoot yourself in the foot to not get more clients. If on the other hand, you're like, you're focusing too much on the product and you're perfecting it R& D. You're super in the weeds there, but you're failing to do your daily deposits of outreach, you know, communicating with prospective clients, doing, I don't know, webinars.

[00:07:04] Raul: Trainings, et cetera, getting out on the marketplace. Then you can see there's another sign that where you need to focus on. And then the third with leadership, like, you'll know they have the team is, you're meeting with the team. Everyone's nodding their head. They're super happy. you're stoked.

[00:07:15] Raul: Cause like, Hey, they're getting it, but the work quality is not where you want it to be. You feel frustrated. Like at the day, it's like I told them they should have do this way. Why don't they get it? And you're just frustrated that you have a leadership situation that you need to fix the leadership problem operations.

[00:07:28] Raul: So it really depends, like, where are you right now and what are you currently experiencing? So the easy diagnosis is, okay, it's end of day, let's say it's 4 o'clock, 5 o'clock, and you reflect on the day. What went well, what are the wins that posit the wins, then what could be improved on what's like, oh, this sucked or like that could be better and just doing that for three days, you'll have a trend of like, okay, I think I have an operations issue.

[00:07:51] Raul: I think I have a pipeline issue. I think I have a leadership issue that self awareness you can do in a day. You can do in three days, but you'll start to see by the data your experience, like what's actually happening today. Okay.

[00:08:03] Hector: Yeah, I you mentioned this sort of assessment and I only have a sample size of me, but my challenge has been. in knowing the numbers, right. And not running my business on feel or on emotion, but in actually, you know, having a real understanding. You know, just the other day I met with my, accountant, CPA and, and you know, just knowing the numbers is a important thing.

[00:08:27] Hector: And what was interesting is how much I was trying to avoid that understanding, right, or avoid, you know, avoid those things just because of. Of whatever reasons, right? My own sort of money mindset and all that sort of stuff. I think that there's an internal battle that perhaps, you mentioned like kind of an invisible constraint that is holding people back.

[00:08:49] Hector: Is that Something that is out there in the marketplace. Or is that my own neuroticism? Or is it much more of a tactical sort of thing where it's just no, we need to make sure that we're checking these boxes or we need to make sure that we implement this marketing plan. what do you find actually enacts that sort of growth from leaders?

[00:09:07] Raul: I think what you're asking is like a personality situation, right? Like you mentioned that you are probably more like, just by hearing what you're saying, you're probably more creative. You like, have to have big ideas. He's like to move fast. Like, and I just met you today. Right? So, like, tell me if I'm wrong.

[00:09:21] Raul: And then maybe if numbers actually scare you or whatever, it's like, you're not avoiding it. It's just like, it doesn't feel you up and you're naturally avoiding it that way that I. 90 percent right. 80 percent right. Completely wrong.

[00:09:31] Hector: Yeah, most of it. I mean, for me, it's a at least personally, it's like an incompetent sort of thing. like to be good at what I'm good at and things such as finance or accounting or like those sorts of things were just they were never juice me up. And thus I never spent the time to learn it. And so I'm good at going and closing deals and making sales.

[00:09:52] Hector: And so I,

[00:09:53] Hector: that's where I some kind of naturally spend my energy. And I'd imagine that leaders have similar things where they're investing their times in the things that they're more competent, sometimes at the expense of, the actual growth the attention of what needs to be attended to.

[00:10:09] Raul: Yeah, the reason I brought that up and why I like focused on the personality. Usually we'll see and there's more to this than than just to personalities, but it's either super creative and forward facing and sales and driving or different, more introspective and a little bit more on the product front and then less not timid on sales, but not as hey, let's let's talk sales. You know, jump off and figure out the parachute while we're falling. So it's a two different personalities and I work with both in my, in my practice. So it's just fascinating to see. And you lean into that and you build a team based on those strengths and those weaknesses. So I'm not saying it's a wrong answer.

[00:10:46] Raul: Like you have to be more, there was a dude that was talking to yesterday. The guy, like I can't explicitly what he does specifically, but the guy does. Pretty much world class work and he does things like comparatively, like if someone was spending a million a month in direct response ads, but he's doing something similar in a different market.

[00:11:02] Raul: He's not in the paid ad service space and he was just telling me, Oh, I just hired my accountant for the first time we met and we're finally doing this thing for payroll. I'm like, that's great. Can't believe you've gone this far and you're in the, this is, you're barely getting started, not a judgment call.

[00:11:16] Raul: It's just like, that's his situation. He's more creative. He's more forward facing. He's more, he mentions the ADHD brain, whatever. That's his thing. I have other founders who are super technical. Like I give them a plan. They go to like 20 S. O. P. Documents. Like I meet with them the second time we meet or like the third time we meet incredible planning.

[00:11:35] Raul: Incredibly like to the detail. Like this is insane. Like I gave you this thing and you just like S. O. P. The crap out of it. I'm excited for you to implement it, but that's his modality, very structured, very organized. So when you mentioned like what's stopping us from doing what's necessary, I think it's just like awareness of where you're at appreciating that talent and that gift and making sure that you're not avoiding what needs to be faced.

[00:11:56] Raul: And it looks like you're not. But like, It's just the key thing to keep in mind. Like, if you know that you're not good at operations, hire that person, get that operator in there, get that fractional person in there. If you know you're not good at Legion or sales, get that person in there, hire that person, hire that fractional person, get a strategy.

[00:12:10] Raul: So it's just having that self awareness is step one.

[00:12:13] Hector: Yeah, I want to get into the rest of the steps. This is really good. And I'm, sad that we only have, a short period of time today because I feel like these could be go on for hours into each of these, different threads. But when we get back from break, I'm curious about.

[00:12:25] Hector: Effecting these changes with team or through, you know, an organization or I find that a lot of founders, they have these brilliant ideas or these wants for change, but it seems to get lost in translation or there seems to be, somehow getting stuck when it comes to, you know, actually getting the team on board and to carry out those things.

[00:12:44] Hector: And so we're going to get into that right after this quick break. Hey, y'all. Today's episode is brought to you by amplify media, and we are a podcast and content production company.

[00:12:52] Hector: Well, we like to think of ourselves as like the media entity of your company, because chances are, if you're listening to this, you probably have a product, a passion, a mission, a message, some sort of service that you're trying to get out to the world, but you might not have the time, the team or the tech skills to tell people about it.

[00:13:05] Hector: Well, if that's the case, we can help go to amplify media dot com. That's a m p l a f y media dot com. You can also check the show notes for the link. Well, I'm curious, you know, we've talked about this sort of step one, which I think is the awareness part of it.

[00:13:20] Hector: I'm curious your whether it's tips or tricks or strategies, you know, habits for actually creating this change and implementing it, you know, not only within the founders, but then the leaders and obviously the rest of the team members. Are there certain things that you like to lean on when it comes to integrating some of this stuff.

[00:13:39] Raul: Yeah, so it depends on your cadence and how you actually work with the team. So it's The heartbeat or the pulse of the organization, if you're meeting quarterly, if you're meeting weekly, if you're meeting monthly, like if you do the quarterly all hands or the quarterly planning, monthly planning, or if you just meet with your team once a week and you don't have that like sophisticated structure, which you don't technically need in the beginning, the best thing to do is there's two routes to do this, depending on your personality. The first route is like, Hey, we're going here. You're captain of the ship and you're saying we're sailing that way. All right, y'all with me, we're going to go that way. And that's a good approach. I think that's a fair approach, and that's fine, especially if you're cool.

[00:14:13] Raul: Your team is like, they like you. They like working there. You got a good culture. It works pretty well. You don't really have to negotiate another approach, depending on how large your team is and depending on the sophistication of the change. If it's a dramatic change, and it's more like, Oh, crap, like, why are we changing this dramatic?

[00:14:30] Raul: And the team might like not perform well, or there's like new tech that you're implementing. You want to set the tone around we're heading this way. But then get the team involved. What do you think about heading that way? If we were to head that way, what would be the obstacles we'd be facing? What do you think we could do to solve this?

[00:14:48] Raul: So you're giving them a container, you're actually building up the playground. In their mind of where they can safely play without you telling we're going to go that way anyways, so you're creating that playground in their mind. And then from there, you're actually asking open ended questions.

[00:15:01] Raul: How do we get there? What are some of the obstacles? What are things we don't know? How do you think we should get there if we were to even go over there? So now you're opening it up. a slower pace of change, but this equals a higher stick rate, a higher commitment and follow through rate. And then you meet with the team.

[00:15:18] Raul: Maybe you're, of course, a 2 to 3 weeks. And then from their feedback to you, Hey, we thought about heading that way. Here's some things that we thought about. Here's some things that came up. And then from there, you brainstorm to answer the question. How do we make it work? And then now they're energized because they're putting their own ideas, how to make it work now becomes their idea, not your idea. And that's a way to co create the future with your team in a simple format and a cool format in a format that, Hey, we're actually all going this way. But instead of me dictating it and the level of my capacity is the level of your execution, which a lot of leaders find themselves like my level of intellect is the organization's level of intellect versus I'm down here.

[00:15:58] Raul: You guys are all this smart. you guys all rise. The level of consciousness for the organization and you help us guide forward and co create a new future together. That's just the 2nd way and I like both ways depending again situation team culture founder, but that's essentially had a great change.

[00:16:16] Hector: Yeah. One of my, mentors, my earliest business mentors is one of the biggest appreciative inquiry facilitators in the world is essentially just a fancy way of doing exactly what you're saying and creating a structure to crowdsourcing ideas from everybody in the organization. And they would go into.

[00:16:35] Hector: Large scale municipalities and some of the biggest companies, you know, fortune 500 companies and be asking, you know, the janitors, like how do we solve this problem? what do you think, Mr. Janitor about where this fortune 500, company can solve this problem. And by giving those people a voice to your credit, to your point, the answers and the creativity is just goes through the roof, but then also the buy in.

[00:17:01] Hector: That's kind of what you're saying. People are just so much more bought in because they feel invested and involved

[00:17:06] Raul: Yeah, and it really depends again on the culture of the industry where you're trying to change the level of change and some things you just have no choice. You have to do it. So again, this is a variable, but it's a good variable play with.

[00:17:18] Hector: I think there's a, bunch of shiny objects out there. One of them right now being ai and a lot of, you know, people are talking about what it is and obviously what it is and all these sorts of things. But in your space and in unlocking, you know, new levels of capacity and, .

[00:17:33] Hector: Unlocking some of these constraints. Is that something that you are looking at favorably? Do you think that people are misusing it? are they better off focusing on something else? are you looking at it?

[00:17:47] Raul: The answer lies with the premise of the question. I don't think it's a shiny object. I think it's something that we need to take very seriously. Not obviously not just on the ethics front, but also, like, practically speaking, how are we implementing this now for the way of how future of work is going to be.

[00:18:04] Raul: I mean, we can go on so many factors on this. the value of time, the value of human connection, the value of soft skills, implementing cost efficient formats, the shifts in the marketplace, the trust with clients, like, is this a or is this really you depends where you want to take it? in my opinion, this is like having a cell phone.

[00:18:22] Raul: It's like the beginning of a new way to move a new modality.

[00:18:27] Hector: I think that creates for some people a lot of opportunity. And what I've seen, I love new technology. So I love to dive in and figure things out and tinker. And like, I don't, you know, I'll figure it out. I'll go take some arrows. And enjoy that aspect of it. But I know a lot of business owners, not that they don't have the time for it.

[00:18:47] Hector: It's that they don't have the interest in spending the time to figure it out. And so I'm curious for someone who's in that position, how do they eat the whale or where do they start? What, piece do they start chewing on first if they are going to try and, attack this thing?

[00:19:03] Raul: So I think systematically you look at what you're currently doing right now. So every action in a company is a habit, a one time habit. A weekly have it monthly quarterly. You get the point that habit is either done by you, someone else or a machine. And when I wrote those words that I wrote this before popular rise of of a I an option. So a machine can still be an automation. It could be an email. It could be a zap. It could be a make it be in whatever kind of automation you want. But now we have the capability of those automations to be self, I wouldn't call it self thinking, but self processing agents. So where do you start? Start with where you're at.

[00:19:41] Raul: What are you currently doing that you know you shouldn't be doing? And this starts with simple principles that you should be doing anyways as a leader, like every week review. What are the top 1 to 2 things that if I only did that every single day would drive dramatic revenue and impact to my team and to the business?

[00:19:57] Raul: Because essentially as a founder, and I'm assuming you're talking to founders. There's only like two metrics that matter for you. It's culture, revenue, anyone trying to argue against that, like show me the proof and show me the state, like the bank statements. Like those are the only two that matter culture and revenue.

[00:20:12] Raul: There's a lot more that fall under each, but those are the major, like if I'm just focusing and. You're listening into this like, I don't know, at 11 p. m. You're super exhausted. That's the only thing you remember. That's the only thing you remember. That's the two key areas. So when you start from there, what am I doing?

[00:20:27] Raul: What do I add the most value? What should I stop doing? And this is one of my favorite exercises. Like, what do I keep doing? What do I stop doing? What do I start doing? And then from there you optimize, you hire the right team members, you delegate, you eliminate the whole, simple, like, rinse and repeat, take a shower situation.

[00:20:42] Raul: But when it comes to AI, it's really, really nice. It's figuring out, okay, when it comes to someone else doing this now, to be honest with you, my questions are like, do I actually need someone else to do this? I'm actually looking at different workflows or different builds because for the price of 250, a month, you can actually do a job, which was just like, what does that displace people?

[00:21:03] Raul: Are we going to remove people from the organization? Maybe probably, or you can just take that person and make them a three X. Versus a 1x output not because they're a work machine, but because now they can do more So it's just something to think about but the simple format is what are you currently doing? Is that something you should do a team member or a machine? And then weekly kaizen What should I only be doing? who can I delegate to this? Or can I create and when it comes to like, well, I don't know how to create it. Hire someone, do some research, literally ask AI how to create it. Like it's to the point where you, you can self Google, self search, self find something.

[00:21:42] Raul: And I'm pretty sure there's a service provider. Trying to implement this change for you. But the window right now on the flip side for the opportunistic and the opportunity, it's the adoption curve right now. Only early adopters are using it. Large organizations are adapting it pretty quickly, but they also have policies and compliance in some situations they can't.

[00:21:59] Raul: the window might be 18 months. It might be three years. I personally don't know. This thing is evolving faster than Moore's law as of like this week. That's your home to the rains. You are with it. But if it's adapting that quickly, I don't know how long this time frame is of opportunity and the seismic shift is going to make in the marketplace with different job displacements and opportunities, but to answer your question, focus on what you're doing and figure out the three questions.

[00:22:23] Raul: Should I do it? Someone else or machine? If machine, how do we automate it? Or how do we leverage technology like a I To streamline this.

[00:22:33] Hector: I love that. Yeah, I think it's frankly, it's the Wild West. And we're going to look back and say, like, if only I would have done that when that was still perhaps allowed or legal or I don't know the way the way things are moving. I've got one more question for you, Rob. Before I do that, I'd love for people to listeners to know where to get connected with you to find out about what you guys do, or there's any, you know, rabbit hole or resource or training or anything that You know, you want to send people to, we'd love for you to share that.

[00:23:02] Raul: Yeah, everything's on the website. Do good work dot io. That's do good work dot io Input output you input do good work you output excellence Also linkedin you can connect me with you there and have free resources tons of articles essentially Whatever you need depending on the three bottlenecks that you might be facing

[00:23:22] Hector: And as always, you can also check the handy dandy show notes for the links to that. My last question to you all is in your opinion, what is the secret to scaling a business?

[00:23:32] Raul: think consistency showing up every single day Everyone's going to be successful If you make the deposits every single day