Sometimes Business Sucks

This is the part of business that I honestly hate the most.

On today’s episode Russell shares what he feels are the worst parts of being a business owner including having to fire people. He talks about feeling horrible whenever he has to let someone go, even if they needed to be let go.

Some of the other things you’ll hear in this episode are:

• Why when you start a business you don’t think about some of the not so fun parts that come with it.
• What some of the parts of owning a business suck the most.
• And why after 14 years of having employees, it is still so painful for Russell to let people go, and how he finds solace in it.

So listen below to find out the parts of being a business owner that suck.

---Transcript---

Hey everybody, good morning. Today is a beautiful day, and I’m grateful. Yesterday was a tough day, but today is beautiful. I’m out here, riding my bike again, it’s a little chilly and I wore shorts today. Probably a little too early to be in shorts. I think I could do shorts or I could do bike, but doing both this early in the morning is probably not a good idea. I’m feeling it already.

Anyway, I hope… I gotta go back and listen to the last podcast I did on my bike and see if you guys can hear what I’m talking about. Hopefully the wind is not too bad. I’m heading into the office today, we’ve got a webinar for Funnel Scripts 2.0. It’s actually Funnel Scripts, but Jim’s at a lot more and we’re doing it. It’s been a year since we launched it, so we’re re-launching it and raising the price and it’s going to be fun. So that’s what’s happening today in about 90 minutes, less than that. It’s happening here, pretty soon.

I’ve been thinking a lot, most of the podcast I just talk about happy-go-lucky stuff and cool things we’re doing and stuff like that. But sometimes business sucks. Sometimes it’s hard and something I want to talk about today, and I have another idea for a podcast that I might share in the future. I’m nervous about sharing that one but I’m just going over my regrets of the past ten years. Because I do have regrets.

I almost did a podcast a little while ago, but then I wimped out. I have it in my head and I think I will soon, but not today. Today is not so much about regrets as much as just the sad side of business. It’s tough because when you get started as an entrepreneur,  I don’t know about you but I just wanted to sell stuff. I just wanted to create and sell, create and sell, that’s the fun part. That’s the part of business that’s so much fun. Initially when you start it, it’s just you in your basement or closet or on your laptop in your bedroom. Whatever it is, maybe one day you get a partner and you’re starting and you’re starting the creative process and doing stuff and having fun and selling, trying to sell………dang it’s cold. My fingers are numb.

But what’s interesting, at first you have all these problems. “I can’t figure out how to sell, I can’t figure out how to do this. No one’s buying. I can’t get traffic…” all the problems that happen at the first of your business, right. And I understand those, I remember those. I worked with a lot of people going through those. That part of business kind of sucks too. But after a while you figure out what are you selling? What do people actually want? What are they excited for? You figure out how to get traffic and eyeballs consistently. You start doing some cool stuff there. And that part becomes really, really fun.

Everything is working and you’re like, “Sweet, all my problems are solved. Making sales, making money, things are good.” But then what happens? You start getting a lot of customers, they start emailing you, and you get more of them, and then eventually you start drowning in supporting all the customers that come in. I remember for a long time I prided myself, “I answer all my own emails.” And then after a couple of years of that I couldn’t do it anymore. I went crazy. I couldn’t go on vacation, if I was on vacation I was stressing out.

I couldn’t create anymore because I was so busy. So finally I had to hire someone to help support. And that freed me. As soon as you hire your first support person you’ve got people. There’s payroll and taxes and all these new problems introduced. And as you keep growing, you try to figure out ways to maximize your time and figure out things you like the most and do that and start outsourcing and hiring people to do the other parts. And you go from one person to two to five to ten.

Now in Clickfunnels, we have just shy of 100 people now. Crazy. I swore I would never get back to this spot. But we’ve been a lot smarter this time around. With 100 people there’s all sorts of new challenges and issues. Especially in my business where 90% of your employees are entrepreneurs and they all want to be selling stuff and it’s hard to keep them focused. That’s a constant struggle on my side. There’s other things, tax issues, trademarking, now we’ve got all sorts of people out there using Clickfunnels, so now we’re hiring a full-time legal person just to scour the internet for compliance. It’s like, ugh. Success breeds a whole new level of challenges and hard things that you don’t think about when you’re trying to figure out how to sell something at the beginning.

But they come and there’s just different, what do they call it? There’s different Swont Analysis. Strength, weakness, opportunities, and threats. There’s different opportunities at each level. But of everything the thing that I think sucks the worst in this whole business is when the people you love and care about and people who have done great work for you that for whatever reason you have to let them go. I still can’t get over that.

I remember the first time I fired someone I cried for the next hour. The person was a horrible person, looking back now, not only should I have fired them, I should have called the cops and locked him up. But I still cried like a little baby. Yesterday we had to let go a couple people that I’ve known a long time, that I care about. It didn’t, it wasn’t the right fit anymore. Man, for me it destroys me. All day yesterday I couldn’t even function or think or eat.

I hate it because I know what our business means to me and if someone took that away from me, how I would feel. I think I’d place all those things on them. It’s horrible. But it’s one of those things that has to happen and doesn’t always make logical sense but sometimes you…..I don’t know.

So I just wanted to share with you guys today because I know, depending where you’re at there’s different pains you are all going through. There’s different pains every step in this process, but the ones for me that are always the worst, is parting with people that are amazing, that you care about and you want to succeed. This is what the one thing that has given me comfort. I feel like if someone’s not completely happy in a spot or doesn’t fit, doesn’t make sense. Sometimes, us, as business owners, try really hard to make it work and try to, what do they say? Put a round peg in a square hole, or vice versa.

We can do that but I think not only does it hurt the business, but I think it hurts them more often than not. So usually there’s this huge pain of being able to let somebody go. But looking back now at the last almost 14 years now of having employees and seeing some of their journeys afterwards is like, it was so much pain letting that person go. But I look at what came from that, and it was the best thing. If that, if we hadn’t ever done this, that new door in their life wouldn’t have opened.

For example, I can’t give the details, but someone we had to let go about 6 months ago, probably 8 months ago now, it was really painful. I care about them, their family, their kids. It was, I bawled my eyes out. But I look now 8 months later and where that person went to at their next job, opened up the door, which radically changed that person’s life.  Had we have selfishly kept them, it wouldn’t have served us or them.

Anyway, so that’s the only thing that kind of gives me solace. Is that the right word? Solitude? Solace? I think solace. Anyway, it makes me feel a little bit better at times like this. Anyway I just wanted to give you that podcast and let you know, wherever you’re at, whatever the challenges are you are struggling with, I get it. I’ve felt it at different levels. I think the biggest thing is just understanding that and being okay with it and just keep moving forward. Don’t lose sight of your vision of what you’re trying to create and who you’re trying to serve.

At the end of the day that’s the most important thing. There will be people who come and go and help you on your mission in different stages and I think those people are brought into your life and out of your life on purpose for different reasons. When you look at it that way, hopefully it makes some of the challenges a little bit easier. With that said, it’s a beautiful day today. It’s webinar day, it can’t get better than webinar day. We just sell some amazing stuff and change people’s lives, so I’m looking forward to it. I’m grateful for the sun shining this morning, and grateful for all of you guys. With that said, I will talk to you all again soon. Bye everybody.