How I’d Fix a $10M Business With 85 Employees — Transcript

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1. 0:00Hey, my name is Dominic and I'm
2. 0:01definitely a little starstruck right
3. 0:03now.
4. 0:04>> You and me both, bro.
5. 0:05>> Uh I'm here with my four partners.
6. 0:08>> Where you at?
7. 0:10>> Over here. And we do omni-channel
8. 0:12digital marketing for dental offices.
9. 0:16>> [laughter]
10. 0:18>> The plot thickens. Yeah.
11. 0:21>> We actually just a couple months ago, we
12. 0:23merged our two companies. So we're at
13. 0:25about 10 million in top line
14. 0:27>> Amazing.
15. 0:27>> at 5 to 8% margins.
16. 0:30>> Okay.
17. 0:31>> is to be at 20 20 million 20%.
18. 0:34>> Real quick, on the 5 to 8% are you guys
19. 0:36all taking salaries?
20. 0:38>> Yes.
21. 0:38>> Okay, so that's probably What would it
22. 0:39be if you added all salaries back? Not
23. 0:41saying you should do that, I just so I
24. 0:42understand.
25. 0:42>> Probably 15-ish.
26. 0:43>> Okay. Still low, but okay. Keep going.
27. 0:46>> Um so I think what's holding us back is
28. 0:49lead flow for our business
29. 0:51>> Right.
30. 0:51>> and consistent results for our clients,
31. 0:54which
32. 0:54>> Right.
33. 0:55>> I would say are both constraints, but
34. 0:56Tim Kim might kick my ass.
35. 1:00>> Um
36. 1:03I'm not going to comment on the irony of
37. 1:05marketing companies not having leads. Um
38. 1:08>> [laughter]
39. 1:09>> So from an omni-channel approach, what
40. 1:11are you What different channels are you
41. 1:12guys advertising on for your customers?
42. 1:14>> So all socials, all all main socials.
43. 1:16>> What size So it's dentists of what size?
44. 1:19>> Two 2 million-ish, but we also do
45. 1:21>> And up or 2 million's the average?
46. 1:22>> 1 million to 5 million.
47. 1:24>> Okay, got it.
48. 1:26>> multi-locations DSOs as well.
49. 1:28>> Got it. Okay.
50. 1:30>> We do We do websites, obviously SEO,
51. 1:32paid ads, social.
52. 1:33>> you so much money?
53. 1:34>> Our team.
54. 1:36>> Okay.
55. 1:37>> We have about 85.
56. 1:38>> Feels like a lot.
57. 1:40>> Yeah.
58. 1:42>> I think realistically
59. 1:43like if I were in y'all's shoes, I would
60. 1:46probably take the next
61. 1:486 months and walk through this process.
62. 1:51So
63. 1:57So
64. 2:01right now you have
65. 2:03people who report to people, right? And
66. 2:07this is how the structure of the
67. 2:08organization works.
68. 2:10But the reality is that this is actually
69. 2:12a very inefficient structure for
70. 2:14information to transfer and for
71. 2:15decisions to get made. It's just the
72. 2:16only way we've done it. Jack Dorsey had
73. 2:18an awesome piece about this, but it
74. 2:20actually comes back from the Roman
75. 2:21Empire of how they organized legions.
76. 2:22That's why organizational structures
77. 2:24exist like that. We haven't evolved
78. 2:25anything new and it's because humans
79. 2:27have the same level of competence which
80. 2:28we can manage three to eight people
81. 2:29underneath of us and you just ladder all
82. 2:31the way up, which means that every level
83. 2:33everything gets compressed, which is why
84. 2:34there's so many bad decisions get made
85. 2:36from the top because they're so far away
86. 2:37from it. And so what you need to do is
87. 2:39instead of having what I would consider
88. 2:41role-based
89. 2:44thinking from an organizational
90. 2:46structure perspective,
91. 2:47you need to shift to workflow-based
92. 2:49thinking.
93. 2:51And so no longer is the work of the
94. 2:54company bound by the people's titles.
95. 2:57So, when we hire a role, we put this
96. 3:00title up and we have some sort of
97. 3:01description of what we think they're
98. 3:02supposed to do. But more realistically,
99. 3:04this person is going to do, you know,
100. 3:05step two of this six-step process.
101. 3:08They're going to do step one of this
102. 3:09other three-step process. And so they
103. 3:11just do these couple of things uh on a
104. 3:14day-to-day basis. This is the ones that
105. 3:16they're responsible for. And so you have
106. 3:17to get incredibly granular to figure out
107. 3:19what every role in the company is doing
108. 3:21right now.
109. 3:23Doing.
110. 3:25Doing. And you'll find out it'll make
111. 3:26you sick because I can almost guarantee
112. 3:28you that of the 85 people that you have
113. 3:30right now, there's probably like 10 that
114. 3:31are really running the ship. Right?
115. 3:33And so lots of the people that are in
116. 3:36the company are not that productive. And
117. 3:38honestly, a lot of those roles can, and
118. 3:41I don't want to say be automated away,
119. 3:43and more so I'd rather have those people
120. 3:44learn the tools and then find more
121. 3:46valuable things to do.
122. 3:49And so
123. 3:50I said earlier,
124. 3:52the next trillion-dollar is a technology
125. 3:54company that's masquerading as a
126. 3:55services business. You can keep all your
127. 3:57pricing the same, you can sell to the
128. 3:58same customers, but if your operational
129. 3:59complexity inside dropped like if you
130. 4:02had a team of 10 that was running this,
131. 4:04you'd probably love this business.
132. 4:05>> Mhm.
133. 4:06>> Right? And the thing is the team of 10
134. 4:07can run this business with more tech.
135. 4:10And so I would look really hard at the
136. 4:12team and see who's leaning into AI
137. 4:15versus who's not. The people who are
138. 4:16leaning in, lean into them. The people
139. 4:18who are leaning away, I would lean away
140. 4:19from. And you'll probably need to be
141. 4:21bringing in, I don't know, three to five
142. 4:23development like engineering hires that
143. 4:25are actually going to help you like
144. 4:27take every workflow in the business. Cuz
145. 4:29right now, there's a lot of that
146. 4:31gets done, but you should be able to map
147. 4:32the entire business if you were to erase
148. 4:35all of these circles into one continuous
149. 4:37workflow.
150. 4:38I mean fundamentally a customer sees an
151. 4:40ad of some kind, they click, they go
152. 4:43through a funnel, they get to a sales
153. 4:44call, and each one and like then they
154. 4:45get onboarded and from onboarding they
155. 4:47get data collection, from data
156. 4:48collection they have you know, they meet
157. 4:50with an account manager, creative gets
158. 4:51gets made, funnels get spun up, they get
159. 4:53their logos up. Like literally it's just
160. 4:54an endless checklist until eventually
161. 4:56they
162. 4:56get a customer that shows up at their at
163. 4:58their facility, right? And so every
164. 5:01single person that's touching that
165. 5:02process, most of that can be automated
166. 5:05now.
167. 5:06And so we want to allow people to do
168. 5:08much more valuable work, so we have to
169. 5:09get them to stop doing the less valuable
170. 5:11work that technology has already
171. 5:12replaced.
172. 5:13So I think for you guys, I would not be
173. 5:14like, "Hey, let's scale this thing."
174. 5:16Your margins are too thin, it's too
175. 5:17volatile right now. Because I mean 5% is
176. 5:20a hiccup away from losing money.
177. 5:21Especially for a service business.
178. 5:23That being said, it's my position that
179. 5:25like you should always be able to keep a
180. 5:27service business alive because like the
181. 5:30costs are variable, right? For the most
182. 5:31part.
183. 5:33And so
184. 5:34does that help?
185. 5:35>> Build an AI agency basically.
186. 5:37>> If you want to win.
187. 5:38>> Yeah.
188. 5:41Thanks.
189. 5:43>> [applause]
190. 5:46>> Any other marketing agencies here?
191. 5:49Was that uh helpful? All that applies to
192. 5:51you, too.
193. 5:53>> Yes.
194. 5:53>> Okay. Thank you.
195. 5:56>> [laughter]
196. 5:59>> Good afternoon, Alex.
197. 6:00>> Good afternoon.
198. 6:02>> I'm pretty new to this, actually. I only
199. 6:03came across you about 3 months ago. So
200. 6:04>> Oh, awesome.
201. 6:05>> Key man, I might think we might get to
202. 6:07that.
203. 6:08>> [laughter]
204. 6:09>> David Field.
205. 6:09>> If you like this video and you're
206. 6:10business owner who wants to break
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215. 6:25Again, absolutely free, and since you're
216. 6:26business owner, I appreciate you, and uh
217. 6:28enjoy.