809 – Operations is her game: Tom interviews Jhana Li

Episode 809 – Jhana Li
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 809 To Screw the Commute podcast. I'm here with Jhana Li and this lady, I've watched her a little bit and she uses the term badass all the time. But you know what? She's a badass when it comes to scaling a business and one of the smartest people we ever had on this show. I got to tell you that. So we'll bring her on in a minute. Hope you to miss Episode 808. That was Alfie Noakes from the UK and he told us all about how to make stand up comedy an actual money making career and at the very least, get more attention in whatever you do, which I've been teaching to professional speakers for 100 years and and I got to tell you, whatever audience you have demands some kind of entertainment value. I don't know. Unless there's crows or something, those boring people. But anyway, I'm just kidding, check out my mentor program at GreatInternetMarketingTraining.com Longest running, most successful ever in the field of Internet and digital marketing. Check out my automation e-book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. You will thank me for it. We we actually estimated just one of the tips in this book has saved me 8 million keystrokes.

[00:01:42] And that's not an exaggeration. Hundreds and hundreds of hours where I was spending with clients developing products and services and taking care of customers rather than fighting with my computer. So download that eBook right now and follow me at tiktok.com/@digitalmultimillionaire on TikTok. And also we have our podcast app is available in the App Store. It's for iOS only right now. Android should be coming out for too long and check it out at screwthecommute.com/app.

[00:02:14] All right, let's get to the main event. Jhana Li, she first stumbled on this field of operations which is a little bit foreign to to us, but it was about five years ago and she was traveling full time in a converted van through North and South America. And since then she's been the COO that's chief operating officer at two successful startups and directly consulted over 37 and eight figure businesses and and coached hundreds more in her program. So she helps founders scale their businesses and scale themselves out of the day to day operations by training their operator to become the second in command. And her mission lies in transforming purpose based businesses into vehicles for growth and good. John, are you ready to screw the commute?

[00:03:07] Are you ready? Let's do it.

[00:03:09] Hey, were you a digital nomad or something? I've had several of them on, and that's. That's a cool lifestyle.

[00:03:16] Yeah. No, I was for about two and a half years when I was in that van, we were fully on the road. I was learning operations. That's kind of where I got my start.

[00:03:24] And you were driving around to different places. Were you actually sleeping in the van?

[00:03:30] Oh, yeah. No, it had the whole thing. It had a bathroom, it had a shower. It had like a desk and a workspace. It was it was a full time residence.

[00:03:37] Were you by yourself or did you have a dog with you or something for protection?

[00:03:42] No, I had a close I had a boyfriend. Okay. Now. But he was growing a digital marketing agency. He was kind of the first startup entrepreneur that I got to observe and work closely with, and it was actually his business that I ended up stepping into. And that gave me my first taste of of operations and really what it is that I do now.

[00:04:02] Wow. So two and a half hope. Hopefully the gas prices were cheaper in those days, but.

[00:04:07] They were definitely and they're a little bit better in South America.

[00:04:10] Now. Where did you grow up?

[00:04:13] I grew up in Boulder, Colorado.

[00:04:14] Boulder. And then you're located now where?

[00:04:18] In Salt Lake City.

[00:04:18] Salt Lake City, Utah. Now. Now, like I said, you are one cerebral lady. I got to tell you, where your family, academics or what. How did you how did you. I'm telling you, seriously, like you have to be probably smarter than the average 3 or 4 guests we have put together. I do.

[00:04:40] Appreciate that. Um, I would say, yeah, it was it was definitely nurtured from a young age. My dad is a doctor. Both of my parents are quite, quite intelligent, quite philosophical. Both of them were entrepreneurs. So I think it started at a young age. And I really I was a bookworm. Honestly, I was I was a nerd growing up. And honestly, I'm still a nerd. Um, but I was that kid that probably everybody hated in elementary school class.

[00:05:04] Well, you know, now I separate these two things, but you being smart on one hand. But my God, you have a drive. That's just unheard of in your generation. And where did you get that? Is that the same from your parents?

[00:05:20] You know, excellent question. I think I'm continuously assessing that myself, to be completely honest with you. Tom like think for a long time. It came from a place of feeling like I needed to meet other people's expectations. And now that I feel like I've met them, it's really a place of what is the highest impact that I am possibly capable of creating in the world. And you should.

[00:05:42] You should be wearing a cape or something the way you I've seen you on other things where you have brothers and sisters. I have.

[00:05:50] Two sisters. Yeah.

[00:05:51] And where are they at age wise to you?

[00:05:54] I'm the middle child, so I'm the. I'm the.

[00:05:57] Usually stinker. Usually just oblivious.

[00:06:04] No, I've got an older sister still in Colorado, and I have a younger sister in New York.

[00:06:08] Well, you busted out of that myth for middle children, I tell you that.

[00:06:11] There we go. There we go.

[00:06:13] A thing I heard you talking about on people that have, I guess, second in commands that they dump everything on earth and you call them a firefighter. Tell tell him about that.

[00:06:24] Yeah, totally. So for context, right. Like I specialize in operations and specifically I specialize in working with the second in command. The operator within a business operator is a very generic term. I use that intentionally because this person could have any number of job titles. This could be an executive assistant, an office manager, a project manager. Right. But like like if you're the founder, who is the person on your company who is like keeping the ship together, Right? They are. They're the organized one. They're the detail oriented one. They're the systems oriented one. And they are just making the day to day run. That's your operator, That's your okay. But.

[00:06:59] But you wouldn't call them.

[00:07:02] I wouldn't call them a firefighter. No, you.

[00:07:04] Wouldn't call him a VA. I saw a quote that says I effing hate the term VA, so.

[00:07:10] Oh, and I wouldn't call him a VA for sure.

[00:07:13] For sure. Are they really different people?

[00:07:17] So think that the label matters only insofar as like how you think about them and how they think about themselves. Right? So if I call a member of my team a VA, how are they going to think about themselves? They're going to think about how am I going to think about them? I'm going to think about them as a as a hired help, cheap labor that can't think for itself and that I have to micromanage and that is dull, incompetent or stupid. Like that's generally the connotations that come with the term virtual assistant.

[00:07:44] And so let all you virtual assistants out there. I didn't say that.

[00:07:49] Yeah, right. Well, let me give you a tactical example. Tom. Right. So I hired somebody under the job title executive assistant. She called herself a virtual assistant for a long time. And on her very first week, I sat her down and said, Look, we're going to need to give you a new job title because I don't believe that you should be an assistant to anyone. What do you own in this business? If you assist anyone else, then you lack ownership over anything that is your own. So let's give you a new title. And we ended up calling her an ops coordinator and just in shifting the title and just in having the conversation with her Tom, it completely transformed what she felt herself to be capable of when it came to what she brought to bear. In my business, she is easily one of the most valuable people of my team. She's still with me. She was special.

[00:08:34] Does she still work for other companies?

[00:08:37] And that's a great question. She started fractionally, but she quit her other two clients. Within the first two months of working with me. She quit her other clients because she preferred working with me.

[00:08:47] The is that you develop, are they some of them fractional?

[00:08:53] They combine the term fractional.

[00:08:54] For for the audience please.

[00:08:56] Yeah. Essentially meaning like as opposed to going full time for one company you are offering your services fractionally. So you might be working, you know, ten hours a week with four different businesses, but you're doing kind of the same role, right? That operations role for each of those companies.

[00:09:11] Now, this this person that you just told me about, were they originally a contractor, But when they went full time for you, that really changes the status of being a contractor in the eyes of the feds.

[00:09:25] So for sure, she's an employee.

[00:09:27] They are based in Mexico, right? So like by by all intents and purposes, the term virtual assistant would have applied really well to them. But by changing that wording and changing how they thought about themselves, she's totally transformed into a highly valuable member of the team. And so to your point around contractor versus W-2 contractor versus full time, there's constraints around what you can ask a contractor to do legally that, you know, if you want to treat them like a member of your team, you have to make them W-2 and bring them in full time to do that. Um, and I think that when you manage people through the lens of like just high performance management, autonomy and empowerment and, and key decision making to me Tom, I don't see much of the difference in terms of how I lead. I don't see much of the difference. It's just a human being. I'm a human being and how can I lead and manage you in such a way that you're invited to bring your best work to the table? Regardless of whether we're working together full time, half time W-2 contractor like these are just titles. These are just labels. At the end of the day, it's two human beings. How do we get amazing work done?

[00:10:31] Yeah, but the non-human being that gets their face in the thing is the the IRS.

[00:10:37] Yeah, right. And of course. Right.

[00:10:39] Like be aware and, and walk the line and like from an HR and policy perspective, you know, be in accordance with that. But in the day to day of like how you show up and work with members of your team, I think a lot of people get in their own way saying, Oh, but they're just a contractor or or do I have to make them a W-2 in order for yada, yada, yada, Right. As opposed to. What is their role within your business? What's the function that they fill? How are you able to set them up for maximum success to fulfill on that role and that function regardless of what we call them and you know what tax forms they fill out.

[00:11:12] So guess she passed the Fbfi test, huh?

[00:11:16] Yes, that's.

[00:11:17] Right.

[00:11:18] The guys that is my that is my new metric for what I do in my life. And my business stands for full body. Yes. And it's actually my favorite thing to Tom to say on, like, sales calls. Right? Like, so how are you feeling? Because if this is anything less than a full body, yes, we probably shouldn't do it right. I want everyone who works with me, whether a client or a team member, to be all in on the work that we're doing together and want to feel that way as well, working with them.

[00:11:43] Now, how long has this young person or this person that you converted to a different title? How long has she been with you?

[00:11:52] It's been about a year and a half now.

[00:11:55] All right. So she passed. I saw some statistics you were citing that 40% of new hires don't make it the first year. So she passed that test, right?

[00:12:04] She did pass that test.

[00:12:05] And she's probably not in the 65% that are considering leaving. Right.

[00:12:11] I would hope not.

[00:12:12] No. You ever ask her?

[00:12:14] Yeah, actually, we do. We have the conversation frequently. I tell my. I tell my team. Tom like any one of you guys at any given point in time could go out and find another job, Right? I have to earn the right to work with you as your leader just as much as you have to earn the right to work with me.

[00:12:29] Absolutely. And, you know, and I never expect anybody and anybody that's crazy to think about, you know, being there for 20 years and getting a gold watch at the end. Right. You're lucky if it's 20 minutes in a lot of companies. Yeah.

[00:12:43] Yeah, yeah. And think, you know, companies used to be in a position really where they could take advantage of the workforce in that way because nobody had any other options. But then the Internet happened and then Covid happened and people became very aware very quickly just how many options they have. And so the the practices that companies could get away with when it came to HR and team management before, and they could count on people to just hang around for 20 years and work their way up the corporate ladder. That world doesn't exist anymore. And I really believe that the power and the leverage lies in the hands of the employee now, which just means that as a as an employer, as a business owner, how can we meet them where they're at and how can we earn the right to attract and retain the best talent? Because the best talent has options and it doesn't need you? So how are you going to turn yourself and your business into the most competitive offer that they get? And to be clear, Tom I'm not just talking about compensation, right? When you talk about hiring a players, I think the biggest objection I hear is that I can't afford an A player. Right. But my you know. Ops coordinator, formerly virtual assistant out of Mexico, is an absolute a-player and I hired her for less than $1,500 a month when we started. So it's not a compensation question when I say how do you make your business as competitive and offer as possible? I mean, do you have a vision that is compelling and inspiring that somebody would want to work for? Do you have a workplace environment that challenges them and like pushes them to grow and grants them the autonomy to try and to fail and to learn and to be fulfilled? Do you have a team culture that they're excited to show up and be a part of every day? These are the things that will be the make or break between somebody choosing to stay or choosing to leave, not how much you pay them.

[00:14:25] Well, in our pre talk, I told you a little bit about my hiring methods.

[00:14:31] Yeah, I'm.

[00:14:32] Curious. Would never get accepted in Monster.com, I can tell you that. So. So the only place I hire from or I haven't had to do it for a while. By the way, is Craigslist okay? And I write an ad with an exact headline. Well, first of all, you know, you can't really age discriminate, but I'm an Internet guy. I don't want a 55 year old out of work MBA that can't even turn their computer on coming and bugging me to death for a job because it's not worth it to me. I want the young people that are handy with the computers. So. So I say the title of the ad is Paid Internship. No, no. Mba 55 year old person is going to apply for an internship. So I get rid of all of them right off the bat.

[00:15:22] Okay. Okay.

[00:15:23] But it's paid. All right. So. So then the ad starts out with, Hey, work for an internationally known multi-millionaire Internet guy, and you're going to learn all this, blah, blah, blah, all this great stuff, right? And so it sucks them in. And then it gets to the point that says, but if you're a actually use this verbiage, if you're a worthless slug that doesn't care about your work and shows up late and is an entitled little brat, if I don't throw you out of here, the good employees that work here will.

[00:15:53] And amazing.

[00:15:55] Know every person that shows up is like, I'll show this guy I care about my my work and job, so I get rid of all the idiot riffraff. Yep. Yep. So the people who've been here five years as minimum got I got 19 years on one, 12, 13 years on other. I forget, you know, because of that ad, but trust me, it wouldn't get accepted most places on Earth.

[00:16:22] Well, here's what.

[00:16:23] I'll say about that. Tom. And because for for those listening, they might be like, Oh my God, is that what I have to put in my.

[00:16:28] Job description to.

[00:16:29] Attract high retention employees? Right. But like, let me pull out the best practices there because there's actually a couple of brilliant things. First off, you turn to your job description into exactly what it is, which is an advertisement, right? Any marketer can tell you that you need the right headline, you need the right copy in order to attract your ideal lead. Your your new team member is the lead your job description is the ad right it to them in such a way that will grab their attention and will draw them in. The other thing that you do that did that was really well done Tom is that you turned your hiring funnel into a magnet. And what is a magnet do? A magnet attracts and a magnet also repels. So I also have a line in my job description in our first you know, the first section of our job description is our vision and our core values. And at the bottom of that, I say, if this culture does not resonate with you, please do not apply, right? We're telling people to self-select out of the funnel. We're telling people that if you're not the right fit for our culture or our vision, or the fact that we swear or that we call each other like, you know, we use the word useless slugs, right? Like, if this doesn't resonate with you, you are going to click off of this so fast you can't even say it. And that's brilliant because it means that I shouldn't work with you and you shouldn't work with me.

[00:17:41] So let's not.

[00:17:41] Waste each other's.

[00:17:42] Time.

[00:17:43] And I shouldn't have to go through a legal situation sitting there interviewing you, you know?

[00:17:49] Sure, Totally. And see, so.

[00:17:51] Many people hire from a place of scarcity and not enoughness like I have to create the most watered down, generic, all encompassing job description because I don't want to send anybody away. I need as many candidates as I can get. Guys in the world of remote work and the global workforce. Believe me, there is an abundance of candidates for any role you could possibly dream up. The issue isn't that there aren't enough. The issue is that there are too many. And your task is to unearth the diamond in the rough. And so the the more specific you can make your hiring funnel so that it really only speaks to and attracts through the 1 to 2% of qualified best fit players that you're looking for for this specific job, the better because it will self-select out and automatically select out the 98% who are not a fit and would really just waste your time if they went all the way through your process.

[00:18:47] Yeah, you need to tell Monster.com what a good guy I am. So there you.

[00:18:51] Go.

[00:18:53] They're not going to accept my ad, I could tell you, but. And also, yeah, you could mean the more worthless slugs. It's worthless. Not useless, by the way. The more of them you bring in, the more, especially in today's atmosphere, the more legal liability you have. Sure. Because everybody gets offended by everything. You know, it's it can be a nightmare. So I'm very happy to just bring in the best people that are the A players and not have to deal with the other ones.

[00:19:23] So sure. And I would be clear Tom that right like the players for you are going to look different than like an a player at my business.

[00:19:29] Absolutely. So that's the other thing, right?

[00:19:32] Everyone's going out there being like, how do I find the eight players versus asking the question, How do I find the people who will work best with me? And for me, given my unique culture, my unique vision, my unique way of doing things. So the more distinct, the more unique you can make your job description, in my opinion, the better.

[00:19:48] Yeah. And plus, anybody that works for you has to know that you, Jhana Li, are perfect. Because. Because I heard you talking about cross-checking things that you tried on your own with your mentors to see if you did good. And you said you said, I always did good. I never.

[00:20:06] Got. So that's back.

[00:20:08] To like the it's a hard habit to kick being the straight-A student. Yeah, but don't like it any more than you do.

[00:20:14] It's hard.

[00:20:14] Be in you, John. Yeah.

[00:20:16] That's hard being right.

[00:20:18] But, Mr. Harold, tell him about Cameron. Harold, this is a big shot guy who also recognized what I'm recognizing in this young lady. And then you teamed up with him after a while, right?

[00:20:31] We did, yeah.

[00:20:32] So, Cameron, tell him who he is. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:20:34] Cameron. Cameron. Harold is the former CEO of one 800. Got junk and he scaled one 800. Got junk from like its infancy. Think they were doing around, like 2 million maybe a year up to like 24. 25 million.

[00:20:45] 106 million.

[00:20:47] Well think that might be where they're at now. He's in their kind of initial stage of growth. And you know, while he was CEO, they got, you know, best place to work. And they're a junk removal company. Right? Junk removal. Got the best place to work. How did you do that? So that really put Cameron on the map. He's had many successful ventures since then. He has coached and consulted many like very high level eight, seven, eight and nine figure entrepreneurs. And I was lucky enough to join him on his podcast. Last year we hit it off really well because both of us are our operations nerds at heart and we love serving that second in command SEO. And so we ended up teaming up on a community called the Spot that is specifically for operators. So our goal was to create a home, a community, a place no CEOs allowed, just operators coming together, figuring out how to redefine what operations is and level up themselves, their network and their skills.

[00:21:40] Beautiful. Yeah, but it shows. One of the things I try to tell the younger people is it doesn't take much now. I mean, you went to the Nth Degree on being a standup, but I mean, it doesn't take much to stand out from the generation that's out there now that's very entitled and so forth. And guys like me that have money and Mr. Harold and and older people, you know, we care about like, for instance, my whole thing is if you're not early, you're late. Okay. I was talking to a gen something person expert and they're saying, well, time is fluid with us. Tom. And I'm thinking like, wait a minute, you got a store? And it says Open at 9 a.m.? Well, maybe 9 a.m., maybe 930 depending. You know, I can't do that. So so what I'm saying is, is that people like us that can really make, you know, put people on the map, appreciate some of the old school values. And so it doesn't take much to stand out. In fact, the guy that I started I don't know if you ever heard of Ilya Posen, but I started him out in 10th grade working for me. And he just sold Plutotv for $340 million to Viacom.

[00:22:53] Yeah, that's awesome. But he the one.

[00:22:55] Thing I'll say Tom about like the generational narrative because I've actually seen this play out in larger organizations pretty, pretty destructively where it's easy for an older generation to write off the desires or needs or motivations or opinions of the younger generation by just saying like, Ah, it's Gen Z or like, Oh, they're just millennials. They're just entitled, they're just spoiled. Where as a member of that generation at the ground level with that workforce, they have some very real legitimate concerns and ideas around how the business could be better. And so to open the door and be open, like you don't have to take every suggestion, you don't have to meet every expectation, but to be willing to talk and listen to your employees is really important because to write it off as a generational gap robs you of the opportunity to hear some of the very real concerns or suggestions that they may be able to give you that will make your business better.

[00:23:51] I totally am on board with it. That's why I said earlier, you know, I want to keep young people around that are tech savvy and they they have insights that I would never have in a million years. I mean, I'm two and a half times your age, you know, So so I'm so far over the hill I can't remember going up the hill. So, yeah, I'm all into that. But I'm just saying, if they could adopt, if they could do the same, give us the same chance to say, Oh, hey, being on time, people kind of appreciate that.

[00:24:22] There's no reason that's important to be late all the time.

[00:24:26] Yeah, I mean, and it's not appreciated and it's causing some of this kind of friction. So so I think if if they could also give us some slack, you know, it would be it would work great for everybody. Twice a week my team and I have a Zoom meeting and then I make them, well, I don't have to make them anymore. This is years ago. I put this into place. At the end of the meeting, each person goes around and tells how they improve themselves this week. So that I got a question for you about meetings. Would you rather go to a meeting or a movie? I wonder where I got that question.

[00:25:06] Yeah.

[00:25:07] Me personally, Tom, I would always rather go to a meeting, but I know many people who would much rather go to a movie.

[00:25:13] But why? Because meetings usually suck. So what are some of the tips you have for for creating, you know, meetings that really move people?

[00:25:23] Yeah, it's.

[00:25:23] So interesting, right? Because. On service value. Why are meetings so terrible? Like, why would people rather go to a movie when a meeting is real life? A meeting actually affects you and your business and your clients and your team Like a meeting is the opportunity to make change in your company versus a movie. Frankly, nobody cares whether or not you watch that movie. It has nothing to do with you. Right? So it's so interesting. And and the real root cause behind it is engagement and buy in. Right. Do people feel like they are going into that meeting and that change is actually going to come out of it? Is there actually going to be effective dialogue and is there a reason that we're here and do we accomplish that reason every time we show up as a group? So my first best practice around meetings is have a clearly stated outcome and goal attached with every single meeting. We don't just meet for the sake of meeting. Why are we meeting? Why are we having this meeting on Monday morning? And what's different about this Monday morning meeting than tomorrow's Tuesday afternoon meeting? Those are two different meetings. How are they different? What are their different goals? Right. So the first thing is, is like, see, a lot of people throw meetings on the calendar just because either they feel like they should have one or they don't have enough visibility into what's going on.

[00:26:36] So they throw a meeting on the calendar so they can figure out what's going on. Those are not good like reasons to have meetings, right? So setting an outcome and then always having an agenda that will guarantee you reach the outcome. I also see a lot of meetings where it's essentially just like a everybody show up and then talk about whatever you feel like you need to talk about, not an agenda, right? What is the set of steps that is going to help us systematically arrive at our outcome every single time? And then the third best practice on meetings is does every single meeting have a facilitator? This is, by the way, not the most important person in the room, right? The CEO, I think, should rarely be the facilitator. I am not the facilitator in any of my meetings. The Facilitator's job is not to talk the most and not to be the most important person. The Facilitator's job is very simply to keep the conversation on track with the agenda so the desired outcome can be met and for the facilitator to do their job well, that includes them having the ability and the empowerment to interrupt, cut off, redirect and reframe any conversation from any person, including you.

[00:27:46] Now, are there any rules for the attendees, like, you know, like cell phone usage or any any any kind of rules?

[00:27:54] Great question. I put a single line in my culture deck on day one. So everybody who comes into my business, I sit them down for a cultural onboarding. And the only line that I've ever had to include around meetings ever is meetings in on time, on video, on top of it.

[00:28:13] We talked earlier about the quality.

[00:28:15] In there, huh?

[00:28:15] Yeah. Yeah, 100%.

[00:28:17] Right. And so what I'm telling them is that from day one, I respect your time. You need to respect mine. And by showing up on time, it's an act of respect towards each other.

[00:28:29] So be on time.

[00:28:30] You're older than you really are.

[00:28:34] But what's really key is that right? Like, I set that expectation on day one. So if I ever I've never had it. But if I ever had a team member who was systematically late or who was systematically not on video, I would be able to go back to the thing that we agreed to on day one and say, Hey, I laid out very clearly what the expectations are with these meetings. You're not meeting those expectations. So what are you going to do about it? Because I've already told you the rules of engagement when it came to working with me and my business. If those aren't rules you're willing to play by then, we're not the right fit. And it is yours to own Closing the gap. So what are you going to do about it? And what do you need from me to make that happen?

[00:29:14] Well, I had a bad hair day.

[00:29:18] Right, Right. Guess. You know, it's funny.

[00:29:21] I've never I've never had the objection. Everybody shows up on time.

[00:29:24] Everybody has their video.

[00:29:25] Turned on and everybody's on top of it. You're setting.

[00:29:28] Expectations. That's all it is.

[00:29:30] And that's all it is.

[00:29:31] All right. We got to take a brief sponsor break. When we come back, we'll ask John what a typical day looks like for her folks. About 25 years ago or so, I kind of turned the Internet marketing guru world on its head and people at my level were charging 50 or 100 grand up front to teach what they knew about small business marketing. And I knew a lot of these people you give them 50 grand up front, they'd be hiding out behind under Johnny's van somewhere in South America. You'd never see him again. So I said, That's too risky for small business. I'm a small business advocate, so I kind of pissed them all off in that I just charged an entry fee, which was like 10% of what they were charging. And then I tied my success to your success. So for me to get my 50 grand, you had to net 200 grand. Well, 1800 students later, it's still going strong because people knew I wouldn't disappear on them because I want my 50 grand. It's the longest running, most successful, most unique ever in the field of internet and digital marketing. I triple dog dare anybody to put their program up against mine and they'd, you know, run away crying and be embarrassed because I'm a crazy fanatic.

[00:30:41] It's a one on one with me and my entire staff. It's a year long program. You get an immersion weekend in this great Internet marketing retreat center in Virginia Beach. You also get a scholarship to my school. It's the only licensed, dedicated Internet and digital marketing school in the country. The four year colleges now are just I mean, if they weren't colleges, they'd be in jail. They're the way they're ripping students off nowadays, teaching you how to protest and faking the grade point averages. Did you realize grade point averages are being artificially inflated to make it look like they're doing a better job? Check GPA? I think it's .com or.org. So anyway, you have an actually usable skill in the internet and digital marketing field that's in super high demand. Every company on earth needs it. So check it out at greatInternetMarketingTraining.com.

[00:31:30] All right. Let's get back to the main event. Jhana Li is here. She is a prolific lady in the field of helping you scale your business. So, Johnny, what's a typical day look like for you? I mean, we're talking about what time do you get up? Do you have a morning routine? Do you meditate? What do you eat? All that stuff?

[00:31:48] Yeah, I'm not a huge believer in the the I shouldn't say the Miracle Morning because Cameron Herald actually co-authored that book. Um, but for me personally, I, I find my mornings to be a little bit more restful when I don't jump immediately into the first thing in the day. Um, that being said, I'm a huge advocate Tom for optimizing energy, right. Think that that's a core piece of operations is making sure everybody is using their energy as effectively as possible. And so I'm also not against it, right? Like do the thing that works for you and allows you to feel at your best every single day because your company deserves nothing less than your best every single day.

[00:32:28] Absolutely.

[00:32:29] So what what? So when you say that, what does that mean practically? I mean, what do you eat? When do you eat? I mean, give us a picture into your into your life.

[00:32:39] Sure.

[00:32:40] If we're deep diving into it. My favorite morning meal is like a brain smoothie with arugula and spinach and banana and blueberries and oat milk and chia seeds and all kinds of yummy things. I don't know. I know that sounds gross, but it literally tastes like a milkshake to me. Think it's so good. Um, so I have that.

[00:32:56] What time?

[00:32:57] What time do you get up? Regularly At a certain time. Or do you.

[00:33:01] Yeah, generally get up about an hour before I start my day, so I have plenty of time to, you know, spend some time in bed and take a shower and make a nice breakfast.

[00:33:10] What time is it?

[00:33:11] We have a garden.

[00:33:12] Is it.

[00:33:13] About. No, I get I get started at 8 a.m.. 9 a.m. is when meeting start and then. And then we jump into team meetings. So my company is spread all across the world, as I'm sure many people in your audience is the same. So the way that we've solved for that in terms of time zones is that there's a four hour window of time each day that is, you know, spyglass ops hours. If the team is going to talk, that's when everybody is expected to be available online, regardless of the time zone that you're in. That's the time zone. Like that's the time frame that everybody's able to schedule in meetings because they know that everybody's going to be awake and everyone's going to be available. So for those first four hours, I generally have a variety of team meetings and then I'm able to jump into the rest of my day, which is a combination of, you know, sales calls, podcast episodes like this, masterminds that I'm a part of, um, etcetera, etcetera.

[00:34:02] You work out.

[00:34:04] I do. Generally, at the end of the day, I'm a big rock climber hiker. I do all things outside. So here in Salt Lake, we have amazing access. And so at the end of the day, I'll hop off, jump into the mountains, go for a hike, go to the gym, do something.

[00:34:16] You still have your van.

[00:34:18] I do not have the van, although my my current boyfriend has a van. So we take that out most weekends and.

[00:34:23] But you stay. You sleep in it like it's glamping kind of thing.

[00:34:27] Yeah, exactly. It's not quite as robust. There's no, there's no shower, but it is. It's great for the weekend trips.

[00:34:34] Beautiful. Beautiful. So tell them more about Spyglass ops, what they would see when they got there.

[00:34:40] Yeah, totally. So we specialize in working with digital founders who are scaling towards that seven figure run rate or have passed it and are scaling towards eight. And essentially we help the founders not be a bottleneck in their own business, right? When you're small, when you're starting, everything come back, comes back to you. Everything is dependent on you. You are the only person moving things forward. As you start to build out a team, how do we elevate you out of the day to day weeds of that business.

[00:35:06] So that you can not only.

[00:35:08] Yeah, there's one. Yeah, yeah. There's one good thing about being that person is your employee. Your employee of the month. Every month.

[00:35:17] There you.

[00:35:18] Go. And if that's what, that's what drives you Tom then recommend you stay deep in the weeds. But if you have other aspirations, aspirations around freedom or flexibility, aspirations around travel or time with your family, my goal is to not just help business owners scale businesses and create more profitable, more impactful businesses, but also accomplish their own lifestyle goals. And like the real the real vision of their life that they set out to build when they started their company to begin with.

[00:35:45] So what will they find when they go to Spyglass? Usps.com?

[00:35:50] Yeah. So guys, if there's a couple of core things that we do, my favorite thing in the world is what we call our ops inspections, which is where me and my team get to dive into their business for a full week. And it's a company wide audit. We take a look at absolutely everything and we get to build a 12 month custom build roadmap of here is every single bottleneck that currently exists in your company and here is every single bottleneck that will appear in your company over the next 12 months as you scale towards your goals. Here's why they're happening. Here's how to fix them and in what order. So we generally start our clients with that inspection so that we are able to get super clear on what their problems and challenges are and then we custom build from there. How can we best support you, whether that's my operations coaching programs or a consultant in my network that can connect with you, we're able to help them out in the most cost effective way possible.

[00:36:40] That's beautiful. Beautiful. So, yeah, so check that out.

[00:36:43] Yeah.

[00:36:44] Here's what I'll say, guys. If you want to get started, the best way is that we've got a mini diagnostic. It will help. It will automatically spit out of the six core operations pillars in your business. You answer 25 questions and it'll tell you which of the six currently represents your biggest bottleneck to growth and your biggest opportunity to unlock that growth. From there, we're able to hop on a call, dive deeper into why that's your biggest bottleneck and what exactly is going on and see if we're the right fit to help you clear it.

[00:37:09] Beautiful. Beautiful. Well, well, thanks for coming on, John. A very insightful person, folks. That's really stands out among the crowd. If you want if you want to get somewhere fast, just take a cue from the way she operates, too, because she's she definitely stands out. So check out Spyglassops.com.

[00:37:39] spyglassops.com. All right. Thanks a lot for coming on.

[00:37:45] Thank you so much, Tom. This is a good one. All right.

[00:37:47] We'll catch you on the next episode, folks. See you later.