Business Is Booming

Episode 13-Stephen Smith.mp3
Narrator: [00:00:01] Business is booming from the small mom and pops to the big industries. Our local businesses drive our economy and provide the products, services and jobs we depend on. Our host Jennifer McCurdy, brings us these stories as she visits with the business owners and leaders of Fort Payne and DeKalb County, Alabama. And now here's Jennifer.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:00:25] Hey, business is booming, listeners. I am joined today by my good friend Stephen Smith with Rare Life Media for another episode of our Small Business Success Series. So today we're going to talk about, because May is Mental Health Month, we are going to talk about the importance of mental health in your business and workplace. And I'm super excited about this because one, I don't think it's talked about enough, but also what makes me even more excited is that mental health now is becoming more talked about than it has ever been, and people are accepting that they need to take just as much care of their mind and their mental health as they do the rest of their body. So I'm excited to hear what you have to share with us today, Stephen, and welcome.

Stephen Smith: [00:01:11] Well, thank you. It's good to be back for another Small Business Success Series and to be with you. Jennifer and I share your excitement with that because I think that as tragic as everything through the COVID the last few years, the pandemic, as tragic as all that was, there were some positives come out of the, I guess the perspectives and the way society looks at certain things, work life balance, for instance, but absolutely on mental health and this being Mental Mental Health Awareness Month. I think that I think it's very timely for us to focus on that, in particular for small businesses.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:01:51] Oh, of course. I mean, you,re small business owner, you're already stressed. So many people depend on you, your family, your employees. And a lot of times I think you might feel you don't have time to focus on your health in general, much less your your mental health. And I know you've experienced some of that.

Stephen Smith: [00:02:08] Oh, absolutely. You know, it's it's so foolish to think about it now. It sounds crazy, but, you know, there was a time in running our business a few years ago where I really went years thinking that to put any focus on physical and particularly mental health was really a sign of weakness.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:02:30] And that's what a lot of not to judge men on this. I think it's more of the way men specifically have been raised in general to really taking care of themselves physically is not really a priority, but mentally it could be kind of considered maybe even a sign of weakness. And that's so not true. I mean, I think if you can switch that mindset and think my family depends on me, if I don't take care of my mind and my body, how can you know I can't take care of them appropriately? So just as much as anything else success wise and family wise, I think that should be your number one priority before anything is making sure that mentally and physically you feel good enough to take care of your family.

Stephen Smith: [00:03:18] You're right. And really, it's it's all about perspective. You're thinking of, like you just said, putting a priority on that. And when you do that, I think you you look at the business that you're running and say, where does that fall in my list of priorities? And like I say, if you're not taking care of yourself physically and mentally, you're not going to perform well in your business. You're also not going to perform well and be the the husband or the wife or the father or mother, you know, at home and your your friends and your extended relationships as well. It. It takes one of the beginning steps, I think, in taking care of your your mental health as a small business owner. Is understanding why your business to begin with. You're not in business. For the purpose of running and growing a business. As the central focus of your life. That business is a means to an end. That is not a hard concept. When you work for someone else. But it's very difficult when you own that small business and you have to come to a place where you understand that, Wait a minute. I'm doing this. I'm running this business. In order to live this particular lifestyle. I want it to support whatever that lifestyle looks like. You know, being a family member. You know, if travel is important to you or if, you know, leisure time and if supporting non-profit work or missions work or whatever. It's a means to an end. You're not living to work. You're working so that it will support the life that you really want to build and the legacy that you want to leave. Yes.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:05:23] Well said. That's sort of like my I live to eat. Some people just eat to live. Good analogy. I know.

Stephen Smith: [00:05:35] Well, the thing about running a small business, Jennifer, is that. There's you're never finished. And that's what you have to focus on. You have to realize that. No matter what time you turn the lights out. And close the door. Or if you work from home or whatever, you know, close that laptop or whatever. There's always going to be work left undone. There's always going to be another contract to write, another prospect to see. There's always going to be something else to do. And if you ever get to the place where you feel like everything's smooth. I've got everything under control. Someone's going to turn in their notice. You know, client's going to give you. You know, they're going to exercise their termination or whatever. There's always more to do. And so you can't. Focus on. I'm going to work until I catch up because you're not going.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:06:46] Right.

Stephen Smith: [00:06:48] So you have to build in. Limitations. You have to build in buffer. You have to build in margin for your life.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:06:58] This goes back to our previous podcast about the Spoken hub. I mean, if you have people working with you who you have trained appropriately, you'll be easier. It'll be easier for you to let go of some of those things that maybe bother you so much or keep you up at night and prevent you from. Going on vacation or just really genuinely relaxing and spending time with your family because you have a back up plan or you have someone in your organization that can kind of take some of that stress off of you.

Stephen Smith: [00:07:30] Yeah. The hub and spoke trap that we talked about is so characteristic of a small business owner. You find yourself in the middle because. You're the only one you think can handle X, Y, or Z. But in order to, like you say, have that balance in your life. You've got to figure out a way to manage yourself out of some of those. The small business owner, you're going to be in the middle of some things, Yes. But part of it comes down to looking at how your business is structured. Are you depending on? Like every time something happens, Are you making up the approach or does your does your business have documented processes and procedures? Do you have systems? A SOP, standard operating procedures. Do you have those in place for the key? Um, activities of your business. Do you have things that you're responsible for? That are documented so that if you stepped away from that or if one day you needed to have someone in your operation step in and handle that. Can they open up that document? Can they look at the steps you take to do that? A whole lot of small business owners would have to answer no to that.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:09:01] And I think speaking for myself, too, and I'm sure others. It's. Taking that step to just that time to put those documents together. You feel overwhelmed by the thought of doing that. But in reality, if you could just close your office door, put some time into it, initially it would free up so much more time in the future for you.

Stephen Smith: [00:09:26] Yeah, there's there's a concept called deep work. And if someone wanted to take a deep dive on that, there's a book by that title, Deep Work, by Professor Cal Newport. And it's really worth a read. Even if you come away with only 2 or 3 action steps that you're going to apply. But overall, the concept is. Blocking out time to do certain things that are not putting out fires, that are not just running and gunning and doing the things your business. But for a small business owner, it's critical that you set aside some blocks of deep work. So that you can think about things just like that. You can think about how do I get from A to Z on this particular action of my business? Is there a better way to do that? You may not see a better way if you're up to your eyeballs in it. But if you. Go through the process of documenting that and then share that with an employee later who observed you doing those things. You know, they may be able to say, well, you could cut out 2 or 3 steps here if you do this or that. You're never going to get to that point if you don't carve out that time. And make it a priority to do some deep work. Like, say, close that door. Go somewhere else. I mean, do something. Set aside. A little mini retreat for yourself one weekend.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:11:06] Some of my best works from home now. I mean, you don't have any phone calls coming in. No one's coming into your office. You can really focus on some things that you don't want to do on The Daily. And because you have that peace and quiet.

Stephen Smith: [00:11:20] And the rewards you reap from that. I mean, the return on that investment will be phenomenal.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:11:27] I sleep better knowing that I had several things during the day that I actually finished. I completed these tasks. I feel so good about it because a lot of times it work. It's so hard to to do that. But even if you're at work and you can close your door and carve out that time, that's better than nothing for sure.

Stephen Smith: [00:11:44] Yeah, and people want lump stuff like that into time management, but I like to think of it more as energy management. I like that you only have. So many hours in the day, as everyone says, but you also only have so much energy. And you really need to get a good grasp on. What your ebb and flow is for yourself personally. For instance, when we're talking about the deep work. If you want to take some time out and I challenge everyone listening. Take this month Mental Health Awareness Month and do one deep work session. Just make it happen. One. Carve out two hours. Just two hours. And focus on one aspect of your business. And let's look at setting up a documenting your operating procedure for a specific task that you're doing in your company that you feel like no one else can do. And or you can take that time to focus on. What part of my business? Is bringing in the most money. Here's a great exercise. Um, chart out some of the things that I mean, all, all, all your offerings, what you're doing. And try to determine. Where's most of my money coming from? And I guarantee you're going to find some products or service offerings that you're really not making any money off of, in fact. There may you may even have some clients or customers. That you feel like, oh, this is an important every customer is important. No, not every customer. I guarantee you every business has at least 1 or 2 customers that they would be. Ahead by firing. Yes. You say this this is what we're going to focus on. And this customer takes 20% of my resources. And when I look at that, I'm making nothing or worse than that. I'm losing money on serving this. And likewise the service or product that you have. Is there something you're offering that's taking way more energy to provide than it is than the money that you're making off that? And if you can look at that, take take that as one of your deep work topics.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:14:27] I'm going to say something about that. Okay. In a recent conference that I attended, one of the vendors there, I said, I would love to meet with you to discuss your services. He said basically get in line. I mean, not like that. But what I walked away with was. If someone is not begging for your business. They must be doing a good job. But I thought so. What is it he's offering that I have to get in line for? You know, I loved it. I did so. And I think it's okay to not just take on everyone. Everyone's not for you, right? Sometimes you're like you said, you're better off to just. Take who you know would be a good client for yourself and for your business and fits within your mold. Exactly. And it's okay to get references on clients. I think I think that's something that people should do more often because. If you just take everyone and you're not really doing your research on them. Maybe some hard lessons that we learned with that. Absolutely.

Stephen Smith: [00:15:38] Yeah. I mean, I have a personal experience with that. I have. Um, as part and we've talked about it on this show. I'm a certified value builder consultant, and that's sort of my framework for doing business coaching for small businesses. And we look at we look at some of these operational procedures and the hub and spoke and recurring revenue. And, you know, we're going to take a deep dive into those things. And it's. I want to bring quality to these small businesses. And so I've got a limit of I won't work with more than 12 small businesses at a time because I want to give them quality when we're together. I want to provide value to their business. Yeah, provide value. And you know, every business is different. There are issues. I mean, there are common issues that run throughout. But what got you to this place and where you want to go is very unique to you. Yes. And so it's important that, you know, I have the time to give that back to energy, to give that energy. But now, because I'm limiting myself to that. I'm also being selective about who I work with. And there might be some folks that I say, you know, here's. Here's the video series of. Of training modules that you can go through. And that might be the best for them to do instead of a more highly engaged one on one coaching program. Because I want I want that top tier. I want folks who are really committed to. Taking what we're working on and applying that and making their business and their lives better. So, yeah, I like that approach. I mean, everyone's not your customer.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:17:36] No, everyone's not for you. And that's okay.

Stephen Smith: [00:17:39] Yeah, that's okay. So that that could be another thing you could focus on during that that deep work. But take two hours some time for is better but. You know, take two hours at least sometime this month. And look at some of those things your revenue model, your profit centers, your standard operating procedures. The level of delegation. We've talked about delegation on this show before. The level of delegation that you're doing and how you could do more of that. Pick one of those topics. Spend that two hours. And that investment in your business is ultimately going to not only make your business run better. But it's going to help you as a small business owner in terms of how you feel about your business and the toll that that business takes on you mentally. Yes, because let's face it, running a small business takes a toll.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:18:39] It's hard. And I appreciate all small business owners. I'm not one because I'm afraid to do it. I mean, there's that fear. It's a risk you take when you when you open a small business. So I commend all of our small businesses. But I agree with you. It's, I think, harder for small business owners than anyone to really take care of their mental health and slow down enough to make anything better. Right. If that makes sense.

Stephen Smith: [00:19:09] And, you know, we talk about taking that mental break and physical break, too, in terms of like vacation.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:19:17] Oh, yes.

Stephen Smith: [00:19:18] It's so important. And I know this sounds like well, of course it's obvious, but to maintain, no one can run in high gear constantly. We've never seen a machine that can do that and a human can't do that. There has to be downtime for maintenance. And if you. As a small business owner feel like you can't take. A few days off work. Something's broken. And these things that we've talked about for you to take some time out to focus on during your deep work, there are things that you can do implement in your business. That can allow you to begin to let go of those ropes a little bit because nothing is going to get better. It's only going to get worse and eventually something's going to break if you do not take some time to disengage. That doesn't mean go on vacation with your family and sit in the room with your laptop and keep answering.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:20:28] Emails so many people are guilty of. Yeah, Yeah. And I like, you know, you had shared with me earlier. About one of your policies that you implemented in your small business, and I would love for you to share with our listeners what you did.

Stephen Smith: [00:20:44] Yeah. A few years ago, we we were really ahead of the curve in the business that we sold in 2020. We had an agency that provided marketing communication, publishing services across basically the eastern part of the U.S. And we grew rapidly over the course of a few years. We decided that because we were working in lots of different areas, that a distributed workforce made sense to us. So we were really ahead of the game with this work from home concept. When whenever, when so many businesses were forced to try to do that. We had been doing that. We had all the systems in place. So as part of having that distributed workforce, which gave us access to talent and a lot of different areas, a much broader area, we also decided to implement a time off policy where you had unlimited time off. And that sounds crazy. And it sounds dangerous. But what we found was that from a recruiting standpoint, from a retention standpoint, employees loved that idea. You could take the time off you needed for whatever you needed, be it doctor's appointments, long weekends. Certainly vacations. You needed to work with your manager to schedule that. And you needed to make sure that your job would be covered while you were gone. And everyone was really good about helping each other out, taking on their c load, whatever while they were gone. The fear. Adopting a policy like that is people will abuse it, right? But we found the opposite. We ended up tweaking that policy and saying, look, you have to take five consecutive days. You have to take a week off at least during the year. Because people were a day here, a couple of days there, and we're like, no, you have to at least take a week. Even at that, Jennifer, we would have people halfway through the year, we'd have to say, look, you haven't taken any time off or you've had one day off. You know, this whole you've got to get something scheduled. So instead of people abusing it, people weren't taking advantage of the time that they were given.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:23:29] It's one of those things, you know, just knowing you have the option really makes a difference. Just giving people a chance to prove you wrong. Like you said, people are not did they didn't abuse it. They proved that what we thought would happen wrong. I love that.

Stephen Smith: [00:23:46] And I don't know what the mentality was. If they felt like, well, I don't want to burden my coworkers or. Well, I have to take care of my clients because their work keeps going. But very few people took the time they should have and no one abused it.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:24:00] As I've gotten older, I have realized too, and it's a generational thing, and I think we're all going to start seeing it more and more. You really are working to have fun in life and to purchase things. That's the only reason you're working. Let's be real. I mean, luckily, I love what I do, and a lot of people do, thankfully. But if you're. What are you working for? If you can't take time off and go enjoy yourself and do things that you love and purchase things that you want. I mean, you can't take that money with you when you go. And that's my motto. My husband, if he's listening to this, will be like, we know that your motto. Jennifer I'm like to Bruce, just keep packing it back.

Stephen Smith: [00:24:47] I saw a bumper sticker once that said, I'm spending my children's inheritance. That's fine.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:24:54] I know. Sports car, I think. Well, you know, parents, they earned it. That's their money. Spend it. Yeah. Have fun.

Stephen Smith: [00:25:01] So you've definitely hit on something important there. And it gets back to what I said at the beginning. Your mental health depends on your sense of purpose. If you feel like you're floating through life and you have no idea why you're even here. What are you doing? Unless you're part of something that's bigger than yourself. You don't even know what you're contributing to.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:25:35] That's true.

Stephen Smith: [00:25:36] And as a small business owner, the first if someone listening to this doesn't take anything away but this, this is the this is the top point I want them to come up with.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:25:47] A little drum roll here. There you.

Stephen Smith: [00:25:48] Your small business is not your purpose. Your small business is a tool to help you achieve your purpose. That's not why you're here now. Can a small business be mission driven? Absolutely. Our company was the coaching work that I'm doing now. 100% mission driven. That's the only reason that I'm doing that. Besides the income, that the income is certainly to support what I want to do with my family in my life. But that's not to say that it's I'm not just swapping time for dollars, Right? You know, if I can help a small business owner who is where I was five years ago in the process of wondering what can I do with my business to get it ready. To sell or to be more valuable and run itself with less of my involvement without me working 60 hours a week, how do I structure it to do that? I want to help those people because I know where they are, and I've been there and it's a tough spot. There said I'm doing it because it's going to help them, but also because it's going to help me achieve my goals. And that's taking care of my family, myself and my health and doing the things in life that we want to do.

Speaker4: [00:27:21] Yes, because.

Stephen Smith: [00:27:23] That's what a small business is for. It's a tool.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:27:27] Love that. Yeah. And I don't want to seem like I've picked on men with the mental health. We can take it. We can take it. Yeah. Yeah. Even you're like, okay, sure, whatever. But I only say that because in general, I feel like women are more accepting to help around mental health and talking about things more openly and in general. Women have more good friends that they can talk to about things, and men seem to not. They just hold things in more, which is not good. So it's not that I'm just picking on men.

Stephen Smith: [00:27:59] Sure. Sure. Well, I guess I can kind of summarize all we've talked about by saying this. What I'm doing personally now is I am continually reminding myself that moving forward in my career and with the small business that I have now. That I need to focus less on productivity and focus more on the impact that I'm having.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:28:31] Oh, that's good too Stephen.

[00:28:33] So what I mean by that impact? Well, well, certainly how your small business impacts your clients and prospects. How it impacts your community, but how it impacts your family as well. And that relates to some of those things. If, let's say through my. Through my coaching and working with small businesses, if I was really having an impact on those clients and really moving the needle for them, providing a very valuable service. But my family was suffering because I was working 60 hours a week and I was never, you know, physically or even emotionally available to them. I wasn't present. What's the point? What's the point?

[00:29:20] I know. And what are you doing it for? You're doing it for that quality of life. Exactly. In the end.

Stephen Smith: [00:29:26] And we throw around this term work life balance a lot. You know, we've heard that for years. And. It almost oversimplifies it with that term, but. When when you shift your focus from productivity to impact. Then I think things begin to fall in place with your your perspective changes and you begin looking at, well, how can I change my business to where I can still have. Optimal impact in my clients, in my community, my customers. But. I'm also looking at impacting my entire life and putting those changes into place. That's when that's when everything begins to click for you and you can start making those changes. That, you know, it's so hard to make a change.

Speaker4: [00:30:22] It is, isn't it?

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:30:24] It's the thought of it even is overwhelming, usually. It is just thinking about making a change.

Stephen Smith: [00:30:29] How many things do we do every day, but particularly small business owner. It's because we've done it this way for ten years. This is where our customers expect from us. This is just this is just how we do things. But I love the old saying that even a dead fish can swim downstream. Yes. I mean, once that current gets you and takes you, you know, it doesn't take a lot of it takes more effort to get out of the current.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:31:02] That's right.

Stephen Smith: [00:31:03] Than to stay with it. So for Mental Health Awareness Month.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:31:07] That's also a good Stephen. I love that one. Lots of good little. Just write these on some sticky notes guys and put them around for inspiration.

Stephen Smith: [00:31:17] Make some shirts.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:31:18] Right? Yes, let's do it.

Stephen Smith: [00:31:20] Yeah. So I think for Mental Health Awareness Month, I just hope your listeners come away with some practical tips that we've talked about to implement. But but more than that, how to adjust their mindset, to think about the role that their small business plays in their life as a whole. And to get inspired to really jump in there. And look at those, do some of that deep work and look at changes that they can make in their business that will make it more effective to have more of an impact, but make it easier to run, a greater pleasure to run so that it plays an important role in your life but doesn't take over your life. And your your perspective changes. You have that mindset of change. I'm not doing this to be more productive. I'm doing it to have a greater impact.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:32:21] I love it. I always love speaking with you. You always have the best advice in general, and I think I've shared this on some of our other podcasts. You know, I've known Stephen for a long time and he has always been such a great mentor to me in general before he even started his coaching business maybe I inspired that you did.

Stephen Smith: [00:32:39] You inspire so many things.

Speaker4: [00:32:41] I thought so.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:32:42] And by that I mean calling and asking for advice quite often. So and always receiving the best.

Stephen Smith: [00:32:48] Yeah, always glad to do it.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:32:49] As always. Thank you. And please take care of your mental health. It's so important. Just as important as your heart health or any other part of your body and take care of that small business.

Stephen Smith: [00:33:00] Absolutely. That's an important part of running a business. Yes. Well, this small business success series is a lot of fun, and I've really enjoyed doing it with you. And we'll come back next month for another topic.

Jennifer McCurdy: [00:33:11] I've already thought of one, So thanks for listening, everyone, and we'll see you next time.

Stephen Smith: [00:33:16] Thanks, Jennifer.

Narrator: [00:33:18] You've been listening to Business is Booming, a podcast brought to you by Fort Payne Chamber of Commerce. The host is Chamber Director Jennifer McCurdy, executive producer Stephen B Smith. Our engineer is Lucas Smith of Lucky Sound Studios. Business is Booming is a production of Rare Life Media.