Ep800: Wes Schaeffer – Future-Proofing Your Business: Trust, Strategy, and Agility

Andrew Stotz 0:02
Fellow risk takers, this is your worst podcast host, Andrew Stotz from a Stotz Academy, and today we have a special guest, and his name is Wes Schaefer. Wes, are you ready to rejoin the mission?

Wes Schaeffer 0:19
Did you call yourself the worst podcast host.

Andrew Stotz 0:23
You know, they said, they said. They said, when you got to Define Your Niche, that nobody else can beat you at

Wes Schaeffer 0:32
I thought I was the worst. But, you know, I maybe I'm happy to lose the title.

Andrew Stotz 0:37
Yes, yes, yeah, Trust me. Trust me. I'm the worst. But the good news is, when I started podcasting many years ago, I thought when I made a mistake, I always said to the audience, I told you I was the worst.

Wes Schaeffer 0:48
What do you expect?

Andrew Stotz 0:51
So I just want to welcome you back on. You were episode 280 that was back in October, November of 2020 in the heat of the COVID madness. And so for those listeners that want to hear Wes story, just go to episode 280 on my worst investment ever.com, but let me just reintroduce you to the audience for those people that haven't followed you. And so Wes is the business fixer. He sees the message you want to convey, but can't find the words, and gives them to you, because if you don't, toot your own horn, there is no music. He's a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and the President of his HOA so low your damn lawn. And pay attention to what this AF, veteran, father of seven and grandfather of three, has to say, I think, I think you're actually younger than me, and you've already got three grandchildren. My goodness, he's a half three. He's written a couple of books, spoken around the world, published over 700 podcasts, and was once duct tape to a bar in Korea, which we may or may not talk about. So tell us a little bit about what the heck is going on with you in your life,

Wes Schaeffer 2:11
raising kids, playing with grandkids, measuring lawns, you know, all the important things in life,

Andrew Stotz 2:18
exactly, exactly, exactly, you

Wes Schaeffer 2:22
know, it was actually, it was during COVID, the previous boy, I never even been on the board, and the previous board locked us all down during COVID and closed the pool. And a bunch of us got mad and said, open the pool. And they said, No. Said, Okay, we'll run for the board. And we won, and we opened the pool

Andrew Stotz 2:41
the COVID madness. I mean, just gonna look back. People are gonna look back 20 years from now, and they're gonna say, Why did everybody just comply with

Wes Schaeffer 2:50
that? My goodness, but

Andrew Stotz 2:53
that's another story. So tell us about what's going on. I know you've got, you know, I listen to your podcast, and I know that you got a lot of different things that you do, you know, but main thing is, obviously helping people market and sell themselves their products. Tell us about what you're working on recently.

Wes Schaeffer 3:14
Yeah, the, you know, the core of my offering has never changed. It's, you know, started in 2006 helping people sell 2008 I ran across the marketing automation space and how you could streamline things and serve more people and keep your costs down. And but that was ever since then, it's like technology keeps rearing its ugly head, right? And people become too dependent on it, really. And it can become overwhelming, because every time you look up, you know, at first there was a new CRM, and then there was a new email tool, and then a new e commerce tool and new affiliate tracking, and now it's all AI and they're scraping and cold email, and we just get caught up with all of the tools. But it's still garbage in, garbage out. You see these people saying, you know, get my props, you know. So you can educate, train, you know, shape your algorithm and all that is still very true, and at its core, we need to remember that there's humans on the other end of the screen. You know, always make the joke. 15 years ago, you know, virtual assistants were all the rage. So your VA would write an email, then my VA would read it and delete it. And you know, the only people making money were the VAs, and so it's almost getting like that with AI, right? AI can send, you know, 100 emails. Now we're going to get AI to to scrape it, to screen it, fill. Filter it out, summarize it already. I mean, I use Google, you know, G Suite, and it already has an option, you know, summarize the email. So what are you doing to connect with the human being on the other end of the screen, we're starting to forget it. It's like, we don't want to be treated like a number. Yet we don't mind buying all these tools and blasting and spraying and praying and, you know, as long as they click and buy. So it's like you need to be consistent and congruent, you know, in how you go to market.

Andrew Stotz 5:35
So the word I wrote down as you were speaking is connect. So we need to be connecting and making connections. You know, one of the things I was thinking about as you were speaking is that, you know, I'm a pretty well educated guy in the area of finance, and I was pretty much guaranteed at a young age that if I could just keep reading, keep studying, keep teaching finance, I would be at the top of the pile by the end of my career. And I would say, I'm there. I got a PhD in finance. I've got my CFA. I've read every book, every research paper that I could get my hands on, and all the time I felt like I was building a moat. And now, all of a sudden, I got all these students like, oh yeah, I summarize everything you did. And, you know, a student showed me yesterday, says I went to his his his house, his office, and he said I used Google notebook, LM, I uploaded all the PDFs that you gave in the course, and I created a whole, basically chat bot where I could ask you any question and get an answer and understand it. And I was like, Oh, are all these young people now gonna take away my moat? I've never been like, worried or intimidated, but now I have some questions in my mind. I'm wondering what you think about that?

Wes Schaeffer 7:00
Well, maybe a little but really, ever since the internet came around, the role of the salesperson changed. Before the internet, salespeople were the keepers of the knowledge. If you want to buy a car, you had to go down to the dealership and do battle, you know. And now you have CarFax and online shopping in comparison, and you can negotiate before you get there. You can compare models, you know. I mean, you wouldn't get a car shipped in from across the country, you know, 20 or 30 years ago, you had to buy what was on the lot. Maybe you maybe drive across town, maybe drive to another town, maybe. But now you can compare all over the place. And so in the same thing, you know, looking at software, there's Reddit, there's Quora, there's LinkedIn groups. I mean, people will share information, and so you're no longer the keeper of the knowledge. So now, but people are still confused. In the past, they were confused and lack of knowledge. Now they're confused because there's too much information. So can you be the trusted advisor to help the assuage their fear and give them the confidence that they're making the right decision. That's you know. Now you really do have to be that trusted advisor you always said you were.

Andrew Stotz 8:32
So as I'm I'm taking some notes here, and the first one I mentioned was Connect. The other one was information like everyone has access. In fact, now it's too much information. I remember when the internet first started with like, Oh, this is amazing. We get all this information. And then all of a sudden, people started subscribing the emails that curated. And then they started paying, I'll pay nine bucks a month for an email that curates all of this down. But then you also mentioned trusts and being that trusted advisor. So connect information trust. Is there anything else that comes to your mind?

Wes Schaeffer 9:09
Well, just to really elaborate on that, you know, we've always heard people buy from people they know, like and trust. But what happens is, it turned everyone into a bunch of professional visitors. They just want to be known and liked. The reality is, trust is 98% of it. Knowing you is, of course, 1% trust liking you. Of course, that helps. But at the end of the day, we'll buy from people we don't really know, someone we just met. We may not even like you, but if I trust you, if I see your data, if I see your work product, if I know you're shooting straight with me, I know it's a good value, it's a good warranty, or whatever, I'll buy from you. And so we don't spend enough time building trust. So you know, I've, I've consolidated a lot of the things that I've done over the. Years, looking at goal setting and going through different programs myself, fitness training programs and financial planning and whatnot. And there's I haven't seen, like a comprehensive program that helps people plot and document and achieve a life cadence. Okay, for lack of a better term, like I said, there's fitness programs, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, whatever. There's 30 days, sprints and and. But how do you live your life? Can you and should you schedule time to relax? Should you get up at a certain time every day? Should you schedule self improvement? Should it be a goal? Should it be something that that you schedule and track and are focused on, you know, when you look at people that you really admire, you know, it's, you know, in your world of financial you know, Warren Buffett. He's not a glamorous dude. He literally lives in the same house in Omaha. I mean, I think 50 years, 70 years, something like something crazy, right? He just does very boring things over and over and over again. And truth be told, the superstars we follow in sports, their regimen is pretty much anyone you look at, there's other than maybe John Daly in golf, right? But he's an anomaly.

Andrew Stotz 11:44
He's lights up a cigarette, grabs a beer, grab the

Unknown Speaker 11:47
beer brings at the club.

Wes Schaeffer 11:50
But he's an interesting character. But everyone else get up at the same time. You know, go and putt. Go to the range, go shoot their free throws, hit the gym, uh, nutritionist, stretching. Sports Psychologist, you know, I just heard a thing from Nick Saban, you know, retired coach of Alabama, everywhere he's been, he's had two sports psychologists on his teams. That's amazing, you know. So he, he always had access to the, the greatest physical talent in the nation, you know, and yet, physical isn't enough. You need the mental acumen. So are you tracking what you're doing? Are you intentional? So, you know, I came up with a program. It's a free habit tracker, you know, called 12 weeks to peak, and then it's a, it's a program as well. I work with individuals, small teams, to help them create their cadence is, you know, you always hear companies, oh, our greatest asset are our people. Then they grind them into the into the ground, you know? So I'm like, Okay, we'll prove it. You know, help them schedule their lives, uh, exercising, prayer, family time, you know, I have you every day. Uh, call a friend. You know, we we lose we lose touch. And me, and life is short, yeah, and don't leave it up to chance. Oh, you actually call them what? No, figure it out. Maybe it's something to drive into work. Maybe it's to drive home from work. Maybe you know first thing in the morning, and call people in different time zone. You've got some night owl friends. Okay, call them, but like, stay in touch with people. Be intentional with this. And, you know, because you always see, you see these horrible things, right? Somebody will commit suicide, especially in the military, you know, and and somebody will make an announcement, it's so tragic. And they'll say, hey, reach out if you need help. You know, here's my number. Reach out. Like, why don't you reach out, you know? And so I just, I think people need to be more intentional with everything that they're doing. Social media makes it too easy to just waste our lives away, you know, I call it. We live in the time of pot porn and playoff you know, drugs pornography, sports. I mean, people are just numbing themselves with these things, and life is passing them by.

Andrew Stotz 14:32
You know, here in Bangkok, we've, they've liberalized, you know, weed to a very extreme point where there's a shop everywhere you go. And I think that many people just equate that, like it must be safe or something, or, you know, the like. And I always, you know, think to myself, we have to protect our body. You know, putting anything in it, you know, you can't expect it. Putting anything in it doesn't have an effect. It's going to have some effect. And I like what Thomas soul says, which is, there there are no solutions, only trade offs. So I drink a few cups of coffee in the morning to fire up my morning. But that is not creating new energy. It is shifting my afternoon energy to the morning. So if people are smoking weed or, you know, whatever, everything's a trade off. And so that's, you know, one of the things that I, I think a lot about, and I think young people and people these days, you know, you can just get sucked into it. Well, since everybody's doing it, it must be okay. And you know, but really, there's a cost, there's a consequence of these things. Yes, yep, um, I noticed that you you that I like what you say. 12 weeks to peak, stay the course, endure, succeed. So for people that are interested in getting some support, just go to weshafer.com and you'll see it, and I'll have that in the show notes. And you know, you're talking about faith, family, fitness, finance and those types of things. I know the the concept of scheduling, you know, one of the things that that's worked for me over the last couple of years is I, I knew that I had back pain, and some, you know, I had, I needed to deal with it, and one of the ways I decided was a good way to do it was yoga. And so every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I do yoga in the morning. Now, luckily, in Thailand, there's some great yoga teachers, so I have a couple different ones, and so they come on different days. It's not that expensive, and we do an hour. And I've completely reshaped my body over two years, but it's Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and I got the habit. And then I decided this year, it's, it's more I want to, I want to blend in lifting weights. So gym, there's a gym right nearby, so before yoga, I go and I do that. And I thought, well, I also, I do need to do some cardio. And so I have been doing that, but I mainly walk at the park because I live right next to the park. So I thought, Ah, just do 20 minutes of lifting, you know, focus. You know, I don't need to break any records right now at my age, but I, I don't. I need to not get injured at my age. So just do 20 minutes of lifting, you know, push, pull, whatever, and then go to the park, one lap around, get back, do the yoga, do that three days a week, and then take Saturday and Sunday off, and, you know, and I'm but I'm scheduling it. That's what I heard about, what you were saying, and the idea of scheduling, but I'm not scheduling my calls to the people who matter to me. And I think that that's something, you know, that you're talking about, that, that that's valuable,

Wes Schaeffer 17:45
yeah, yeah. I mean, you gotta be intentional, you know, or life just, it'll, it'll just pass by. And, you know, I used to think, Oh, if I'm too scheduled, like, it takes away my creativity and whatever. And it's like, the reality is, when you're taking care of the important things and you know, they're handled, it frees up your mind. So yeah, in the beginning, it'll be tough, because, like, learning anything new, but it's not, it's not meant to. I want you to have a lot of white space on your calendar, you know? I don't, I don't want to totally schedule that. Yeah. I mean, just like airlines, right? They people always wonder, Oh, the flight's 30 minutes late, you know, and they still arrive on time, you know, because they, they build cushions in there, you know, you can't, you can't be totally perfect, or you'll, you'll one little glitch, and you'll never recover, so you need some downtime. And it's like, you know, I'm a little envious of you living overseas, because we take things to too much of an extreme in the US, you know, this hustle culture and grind, and I think this the younger generations, you know, we take everything to an extreme. You know, the younger generations, in a way, don't want to work. They just want life experiences. And so you gotta find the balance. You gotta produce, but you gotta relax. Yeah, no. And so, life, I saw something that hung about in Europe, you know, comparing and contrasting Europe and the US. It's like Americans live to work and Europeans work to live, and so we gotta find that happy medium. I was

Andrew Stotz 19:31
speaking, I was speaking to a group of graduating seniors at university nearby, and I said, Look, you know what I can just tell you is that when I got out of university, I really only wanted two things. Number one, I wanted a job that I enjoyed, you know, that I liked, and I wanted to do it with people that I enjoyed being with, and that's all I was at. I wasn't asking to be Elon Musk, or I wasn't asking to be super rich or anything like that. Well, the. First couple of jobs kind of fit some of those. You know, maybe one fit it was what I like, but maybe not with the persons I liked or the other way around. So I just kept I just kept quitting until, boom, I found the job that I love, which is to be an analyst and and then I set up my own business. So I do it with the people I love to do it with. So, you know, that's one thing that I really try to tell them, is that, you know, you can build a happy life and great work, you know, and if you're, if you're sitting in a bad job that you're not happy or with bad people, then you see, you got to get up and move, yeah, I since, since you're the the man in the sales front, I do need to get some help. And I think that if I ask you for some help on something, it's going to benefit the audience. So maybe I'll try something here and ask for your advice. So I came to Thailand in 1992 Wow. I became an analyst in the stock market in 1993 and I built a career as a very successful analyst for 20 years, and then I set up my own business about roughly 10 years ago. So let's say 20 years as an analyst, 10 years with my own finance business. But in 1995 my best friend from Ohio, where I grew up, where we both grew up, came to Thailand, and we agreed to set up a coffee roasting factory, which we did. And basically, as a financial analyst, I was the best advisor for him, but what I found at some point was we weren't making as much profit as we should have been making, and we actually went into COVID in kind of a weak position, profit wise, and I we had kind of lost control of our accounting and finance, and Our accounting manager kind of collapsed in but it was like over a three year period, so we're trying to work with her, but eventually it just kind of all fell apart. And so we it's like the rear view mirror was black. We couldn't see anything happening in the past. We could kind of just manage what was going on. And then COVID hit, and we weren't prepared. And then we lost a lot of money because we were supplying coffee shops, hotels and restaurants, and they were all pretty much closed, yeah. So our revenue was down 80% at the worst of the COVID time. It took everything we had to survive them and come back. And what I told myself is, I'm never going to let us have low profitability again. And so I started on a mission four years ago to create a course, and I call it the profit boot camp, and I put my company through it, and I started offering it to other companies. And the tagline is very simple, I help family businesses double profits in 12 months. So that's my kind of origin story of where it came from. My target market is family businesses mid size, I can't stop I can't help startups and large companies can spend millions doing whatever they want, but for this group, I can help them double profits. I've been there. I know the pain of losing and I know the feeling of winning, and we are winning big time now, and this is our 30th year anniversary of our coffee business. Nice. So I'm just curious, like, how would you advise me to think about my sales pitch, and you know, the way that I tell a story? You know, what's missing, what's good? How would you advise me on that? And I want people to listen, you know, to the story that I've told. I've thought a lot about how to tell that story. I still think it's a bit clunky and it's a little bit long, but it gets the message across it. I've been there, and I can help you get out. But what are your thoughts on that? I

Wes Schaeffer 24:17
mean, it's a good story, and it you do need to figure out again, a lot of people suffer during COVID, and so a lot of people, it's almost like those that survived have the battle scars. They're, they're different, right? It's, it's going through something it was, it's different than just a recession, right? Just a business cycle. So you. Yeah, and some are still recovering, yep, some are still bitter, right? And so you've, I like how you've, you've niched it down, which is good. You're clear on the size of business that you can help. So other than just like brute force surviving through COVID, what's, what's the claim to fame? What's what? What separates you, what differentiates this program from others and from other consultants,

Andrew Stotz 25:43
yeah, and I don't think I've weaved that into the story, right, and I think that's what I've gotta but I'll just briefly explain that this is the back story. I've read between 3005 1000 books in my life, and I take notes when I read and I basically went on Amazon back when COVID happened, and I went on Amazon and Goodreads, I downloaded every book. I downloaded basically the 500 best business books of all time. Then I'm a financial analyst, so I know how to analyze. So I created a scoring system based upon the reviews and the ratings and the number of comments that people have written on both Goodreads and Amazon. I set up a weighting and algorithm, basically, and then I created a composite score for every book. Then I ranked them from number one to number 500 to say number one is the best book of all time. Now, if you gotta, you gotta, you gotta do this based upon time too, because Good to Great was written now 30 years ago, and how do I score this book relative to a new one that's just come out? So I resolved all that, and I ended up with about 40 books that I would say are the best business books of all time. I classified them into 11 modules, and basically 40 books. Each module basically has four to five books, and then I created, I wrote one page cheat sheets for each book, I read every single one, and then I created a PowerPoint on that book related to the cheat sheet. So you can just look at the cheat sheet follow. And then in the PowerPoint, I tell all my stories and I create worksheets. How do we do this? Okay, this is one of the best books out there, the one page marketing plan by Alan dibb, one of my former guests on the podcast. So I made a great template and put my own business in there, and then demonstrate. And I say, now you got to do this. And that's basically the back story of how I created the curriculum. Each book is between 30 minutes and 60 minute video. That's it. You don't have to take any notes. You don't have to do anything, watch it, think about it, and then you got an assignment. And that is the worksheet that I'm going to give you about that book. How are you going to apply this in your business? So that's the backstory related to the curriculum.

Wes Schaeffer 28:25
So my initial gut feel entrepreneurs. So when people are struggling right, they either have more money than time, or more time than money. And the people you want are the people that have more money than time they will pay for answers, okay? And people in general that they'll pay more money for an aspirin than for a vitamin. Yep, it's just how they are, you know, and so can the fact you have a PhD carries a lot of weight, okay? And so don't downplay that. People. Will Have you read the goal.

Speaker 1 29:29
The goal from by gold weight, yes, yeah, yeah, that's great.

Andrew Stotz 29:34
That's the goal meaning the constraint theory, theory of constraints, yeah, yeah, where Brian tells

Wes Schaeffer 29:41
it kind of as a novel, yeah, he's working in a factory. And yep, yep, yeah, you know, such a great book, and the way the consultant made them now. Now they didn't have time, or they didn't have money, right? But the consultant in the story you know didn't charge them, said, You can pay me later, but he had to help them come to their own conclusions. And that's how we all are. We can't tell anybody anything. We have to guide them. We have to help them come to a new understanding. And so, you know, I most entrepreneurs, they don't, they don't want homework. You know, the way I explain what I do is, is like now that you know you're, you're exercising, right? Years ago, when I was in high school, my high school buddy, he had a gym in his garage so we could work out at any time. And my sister had come to town to visit. It was during the summer, and you know, I was like, well, let's go work out. And you know, I had to get I was playing football, played in college. And so, you know, we were, we were always lifting. And I was, you know, I was bench pressing. I was a big, strong kid, and I told my sister, I need you to spot me. And she says, I can't lift that weight. And I said, I don't need you to lift this weight. I'm going to lift this weight 678, times. Hopefully, nine. Maybe I'll need your help at the very end. And you know, like a good spot, like, if I'm bench pressing 225, pounds, a good spot, or if they keep me moving, that sticking point may literally only be five pounds.

Andrew Stotz 31:38
That's amazing, great story, right?

Wes Schaeffer 31:41
Like, literally, two fingers get in there, one one hand. You know, I'm 17 years old. My sister's 14 years old. I'm, like, worst case, put your hands and kind of pull 20 pounds of help. So we get to a sticking point, and if we can just get past that sticking point where, like, we're good, you know. And so in your world, with your knowledge, with Your wisdom, you can't do it for them. There's not enough of you to go around and they don't have enough money to pay you to do it all anyway. So you want to be a spotter. You're a business spotter. It's like, Look, I've, I've been in business, I've I've analyzed, I've studied, I've compiled, I've narrowed it down. You know, in in the eight hours it would take you to read this book and do the in depth analysis in eight minutes on one call, I can give you the applied wisdom until you get stuck again and call me back. So

Andrew Stotz 32:52
there's a couple of things I'm thinking about that. The first one is, because I've read so many books, I really can just hone in on what matters in this book. Yeah, you know, like, Okay, you would, you would spend seven or 10 hours reading this thing, but I can. I've already done it for you first of all. But really, this is the thing, and if you can implement this in your business, it's going to make a difference. But I love the idea that the spotter concept, the way you explain that, is a great example for everybody listening and watching about how to teach something through a story. And I'm never going to forget that story. Yeah, again, and, and what, what you taught was that sometimes all you need is a tiny bit of help to do a huge thing.

Wes Schaeffer 33:34
Absolutely, and, and, you know, in your case, I, I'm, I might downplay the books. Yep,your PhD, so I assume you're analytical. Yeah, I assume you've stayed current. So what you have to do, you know, in sales, we have to meet our prospects where they are, okay, and so it's good and bad that you're a PhD. Some people may see it like that you're unapproachable. They may think that you've lived in the ivory tower and don't know what it's like to be hands on, meeting payroll, you know, running a warehouse. So share the story that you do own a business, that you have a coffee business, that you do retail and commercial business, and have for 30 years. And so they're coming to you for applied, proven functional wisdom of 30 years of hands on and 30 years of detailed analysis of the best business books out there, I've been sick for nine days. So yeah, I fought off the cough mostly, thank goodness for this mute button.

Andrew Stotz 34:58
Yes, exactly. Well, you. Use it. There's one thing I was thinking about, about the bench press story, and that is, maybe we could flip it. It's me that's doing the hard work. All you got to do as a business owner is the 5% to take it. Shoot here. It all is on a platter in this particular area, this is what you need to do. So one of the great books, for instance, is Checklist Manifesto. And this book is, of course, a great book, and it talks about, how could we apply checklists in our business, in our lives? And everybody that reads it, you know, gets it and so and all of my clients so far, they read it like, Oh my God. And that's just like, all right. So here's a little format for a checklist. Where is one place in your business that you could implement a checklist just one? I don't want you to implement five checklists just one, and who is the person that's going to do that implementation? And so one of my clients, they said, Well, just before we the delivery truck leaves the factory, we're going to have a checklist. Does he have the parts? Does he have the tools? Does he have everything so that when he arrives at the customer's location to do the delivery and the installation? Can he complete that job and get back? And if he messes that up by just one ranch or one part, the whole thing is delayed for maybe half a day or another day, and it's expensive and everybody's unhappy. And so this is an example of, you know how to apply something. And so that's where I'm trying to get to. And so in that sense, in some ways, you could say, I'm the guy that's doing the bench with lifting the bench, you know, bench pressing, and you're just there taking it. So maybe another story would help to illustrate that. I'm just trying to think about that. Well,

Wes Schaeffer 36:56
you've done the heavy lifting in so far as plowing through the books and discerning and distilling the pertinent information. They're you know that they can't get around, that they're the ones doing the heavy lifting, and you're there. But you know, we may not go to the gym because we don't have a spotter, you know, or we may just put on the weight that we know we can lift safely. So we don't, you know, we stymie our growth because we don't have that spotter, because we don't have that 5% assistance. So, so we don't lift to failure, and so we minimize our growth. So it's like, you're there, you're that safety net that helps them go bigger faster.

Andrew Stotz 38:00
Okay, now, one other thing you mentioned, which I think is relevant, is business. I'm going to quote you business owners don't want to do homework, and I agree that. You know, I mean, and if it could work out, where you just go hire McKinsey and let them do all the work and come to you and go, Okay, here's how you fix your business. But we know 50% of the time, those projects never get implemented because they didn't originate from the owners, and they're, you know, even, even though they spend a lot of money on it. And so what, what, what I'm trying to do is basically be someone behind the scenes, driving them to make the decisions to face the challenges that they have to make, decision they have to make, implement the things. Plus, every single month, I benchmark their business using my benchmarking system on finance against global peers. And when I do that, I can identify their exact weakness in their finances, of their business, and then I meet with them once a month to say our objective is doubling profits in 12 months. So where are we? Here's where we were last month. You've been focusing on this. Did you move the needle? No, you didn't move the needle. Is this still the right place to focus? Well, I can definitively tell you yes, because not, I'm giving a measure in this, what I call world class benchmarking scorecard, which I developed many, many years ago as an analyst, when I looked at companies, there's two things that matter in a company. Number one, profitability needs to be high. If you're selling something and you're only making $1 for every 100 that you're selling, it's not a great business. And the second thing is, you have to have growth, or else, yeah, okay, you can have a 20% net profit margin, but no growth because you priced yourself out of the market. So there is competing forces, and a great company to look at is Hermes, the bag company. Because. Dollars. They're massively high yield, high return, you know, high profit margin and strong growth. So they're like the dream. But the point is, then I look at these two and I create a composite score from one to 10, and I look at where you are, and if you're a seven, I'm sorry, you're not in good shape, you're below average. And our goal is to get that to a one. Now I break that down into many components, but the second thing is, let's say you have a high return, you're getting a high net profit margin, and you're getting growth in your business. Now you pat yourself on the back and say, you know, we're doing really well, but what you find out is that the whole industry is doing well, and then you have to ask yourself, are we performing in line with the industry, or are we outperforming the industry? A good example where I've seen some of my some companies that I've invested in or that I've advised, they tell me, we have a bonus. We paid a big bonus this year. Oh, why? Because our profitability was high and our growth was high, great. And then I look at their profitability and growth, it's average compared to 700 global peers. You just rewarded average performance. Now it's good for you. I understand it's better than last year for you, because you were a six or a seven, and now you're a five, so you're making progress, and you're maybe rewarding that progress. But this is not exceptional. This is you're not world class, and so this is one of the tools that I use in it. And I don't, I didn't tell the story of that, you know, in my origin story, either, and maybe that's more valuable than the books. Now, in the origin story, I didn't talk about the books, but I did tell you the back story on the books, but maybe my world class benchmarking, and the way I'm doing that on a monthly basis should be something that I should build in how I designed that for my own business and we applied it well.

Wes Schaeffer 41:58
But do people want to be world class, you know, they may not think they can. They may just want to sleep better at night. You know, they just want some predictability. I mean, like I said, people pay more money for an aspirin than a vitamin. They may be having a heart attack. So that's where you gotta be clear. You know, are you? Are you a turnaround king? You know? Are you a king maker? You know? So, so,

Andrew Stotz 42:27
okay, so let's, let's address that. So basically, I'm looking at mid sized businesses. So, and I'm, I don't accept companies that are losing, losing, losing, and there's a turnaround, because that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to help an ongoing business get better. But I like what you said. I wrote down, many people don't want to be world class, and I can say, you know, what's the goal? You know? And I know for my clients, it's legacy, it's their it's their family, their kids, you know. In fact, last night, I was on Instagram and I saw an announcement of a Western Pennsylvanian architectural firm merging with a West Virginian architectural and design firm to become one of the larger architectural firms in, let's say, eastern US, or maybe Even all the US. Why was that an interesting story? Because the architectural firm from Pittsburgh in western Pennsylvania was founded by my great grandfather in 1898 Wow. My grandfather ran it, and then he sold it at one point, and then the others took it over. Other people took it over, but still the origin story, and the legacy is still a legacy. And so my family clients want legacy, and as I tell them, it doesn't have to be that your son or daughter runs the business. If there's a better operator, that's fine. But the point is, and you don't even have to own the business if your children sold it and got cash out of it, and the legacy is still there, of what you've created. So legacy is something that that may be more important than being, I don't need to be financially world class. Well, then let's just be above average and enjoy that.

Wes Schaeffer 44:15
Yeah, you know something along the lines, you know, maybe not future proof, but, yeah, Legacy may be what resonates, yeah, you know, but I don't think world class will, yeah, that's interesting, you know, because, and again, depending on the size of the company you're dealing With, I mean, if you're dealing with the larger companies in the SMB space, they may be thinking that, let's

Andrew Stotz 44:47
say, you know, 20 to 4020, to $100 million in revenue is what I'm you know, my target market, okay?

Wes Schaeffer 44:56
And I mean my personal experience. Experience. I don't know that companies that size use that kind of phrase, world class? Yeah, in my mind, that's like a fortune 1000 maybe so. But if the, if the, if it's still family owned and operated, if the founder is still running things, you know, then they've got some pride of ownership. They've got frustration with how things are going. I think everything we're seeing in politics, like with Elon taking over Twitter, and how he's he's doing things with, you know, the doge. I think there may be an efficiency kind of theme you could run with, you know, say, are you? Are you bloated? Are you? Are you lean and mean? You know, are you paying for things you shouldn't, you know, it's so coming up with something like that. It's like that, because it does feel like a new era, politically, globally, you know, we're past COVID. Ai is here. It feels like, kind of like how things felt like in 1995 you know, Windows 95 came out. The internet was like, okay, the internet's here, and it's a thing. It's not, it's not a maybe. And so it feels like there's, there's potential, there's a lot of uncertainty, but there's, I think there's hope. Maybe there's some angst, right? Like, how is this all going to shape out? But so playing on that, you know, it's like, are you ready, you know, for this next Industrial Age, information age, AI, age, whatever we're going to call it. But there's a pivot happening right now. And so, you know, is it time for some spring cleaning in your business? Get light, get lean, get focus, you know, and take advantage of of what's company and you know, get light, get lean. Build the legacy. You know, get light, get lean. Leave a legacy.

Andrew Stotz 47:20
The big challenge that companies here in Asia are facing is that China is a huge competitor now. And I think for countries like Thailand over the 1020, 30 years ago, you could definitely have a low cost advantage. And if we go back to, you know the core of strategy, as taught by Michael Porter, we talk about being differentiated or being low cost. Well, China has just blocked your strategy. In Thailand of being low cost, there's just no way you're going to compete with their cost base. And add on to that, their engineering talent and their drive is pretty impressive. So it's not just low cost cheap, it's low cost, quality. And all of a sudden, many family businesses in Thailand, at least, and I know it's happening around Asia a lot is feeling like, what do we do? And repositioning a company that was a low cost leader to become a brand and a higher value added company. It's not easy. It's the challenge that they're faced with. Um, I want to, uh, just highlight, I mean, this, this discussion, is it? It wasn't my purpose on this call to go through this all, but as I thought about it, you know, just before we started, I thought it's a good example of, you know what you can bring. And so I want to think about the audience for a moment, and you know, what's the best way for them to follow you, to get, you know what you have to give? Because I think you do have a lot to give. And I really want to, you know, make sure that they can get that. So what's the best way I'll have links in the show notes, everything. But what? What's the best way for them to reach out to you?

Wes Schaeffer 49:03
Yeah, just click on that, on the links. You know, in 12 weeks to peak com, we'll take them to the landing page on my site. I mean, it's easy to remember. It's the number 12, and all my social media is there. You know, I'm active online. You know, if you reach out, it's me that'll respond. Outsource that. So you know, if the 12 weeks to peak to free tracking sheet, I got a free group on LinkedIn for accountability and helping you. But like I said, if you want some accountability, somebody to nudge you for every day for 12 weeks, I've got some private options, you know, again, for individuals and for small teams, and we get into sales cadences and talk tracks and overcoming objections and prospecting. And, you know, I've written books on CRMs, and so I understand. I. The technology side of things, but I always bring the humanity side. So, you know, if you need help in that regard, then go to the site, look around, hit the contact us, and we can talk great.

Andrew Stotz 50:12
And I just want to go back to our the beginning of our conversation, when you talked about the importance of connecting, you talked about the importance of you know, everyone has access to information, but you need to become that trusted advisor. And that brings us to the third point that you mentioned about trust. And I think that those three things are a great reminder for us all. So my last question for you is, what is your number one goal for the next 12 months?

Wes Schaeffer 50:42
Um, yes, I'm wanting to grow this the 12 weeks to peak. I've had it for a couple of years. It was just kind of on the back burner, and it was too I built out a very detailed spreadsheet that helps track because I, like you, I'm kind of analytical, so I've revamped the whole thing literally right now. So it's, I'm proud of the new kind of look and feel. You know, it's the 84 days, but then you got your daily tracker, and I've gotten good feedback from folks jumping into it. So, you know, I would like 12 weeks to peak, to become, you know, not necessarily a household name, but recognizable in the next 12 months, because it's helping people build that life cadence.

Andrew Stotz 51:40
And you take people from around the world,

Wes Schaeffer 51:44
Oh, for sure. And like I said, it's a free tracker, and then the group is free, so you can absolutely be around the world. And yes, coaching wise, right? I mean, 6pm right now, what? Nine? Well, 7pm now, so 10am for you. And yeah, I've got clients. I've, I've, last time I pulled up my database, I have customers in 29 countries,

Andrew Stotz 52:07
in fact, and if you didn't have one in timely and you have one now, because I just signed up. So ladies and gentlemen, sign up and I'll see you in there, because I listen to you and I appreciate you. Know what you share, whether that's YouTube, whether that's by your podcast, so you know, keep up that great work, and for those people listening, get what Wes has to offer. And that's a wrap on another great discussion. I want to thank you Wes for coming on the show for a second time and sharing, you know, and also coaching me a little bit on what I'm trying to get to. And in fact, that's what you asked in the intake form. What's your biggest challenge? My biggest challenge is scaling up my profit boot camp, and so I look forward to being in there. So any final words from you for the audience,

Wes Schaeffer 52:58
just take action. Boom. You know, if this speaks to you, then do it. Don't wait. You know, you've got to become a good decision maker. Listen to your little voice, you know. So, whether it's this or whatever, working with Andrew, buying another course, whatever, hiring someone, firing someone, listen to your little voice and take decisive action,

Andrew Stotz 53:24
ladies and gentlemen, that is a wrap. This is your worst podcast host, Andrew Stotz saying, I'll see you on the upside. You.