Matthew Sanjari is the founder of Prime Consulting, shares his harrowing journey from a life-threatening car accident to becoming a serial entrepreneur. The accident left him battling chronic pain, depression, and disability, pushing him to redefine his life and career. This transformative experience fueled Sanjari's passion for helping organizations navigate growth and systemic challenges through Prime Consulting. He emphasizes the importance of building resilient systems that allow businesses to thrive independently of their founders.

Sanjari's approach to leadership is deeply human-centric, prioritizing empowerment and delegation within teams to foster innovation and efficiency. By integrating AI and automation strategically, he showcases how modern entrepreneurs can scale their impact while maintaining personal well-being. His story is a testament to the power of resilience and the pivotal role of leadership in overcoming adversity.

Want to learn more about Matthew Sanjari's work? Check out their website at https://consultingbyprime.com.

Connect with Matthew Sanjari on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-sanjari/.

Key Points with Timestamps

• 00:00:51 - Introduction of Matthew Sanjari, highlighting his background and the inception of Prime Consulting.
• 00:02:04 - Sanjari recounts his life-altering car accident and its immediate aftermath.
• 00:05:09 - Reflecting on the accident's impact, Sanjari discusses how it reshaped his approach to life and business.
• 00:07:39 - The significance of perspective change and resilience in overcoming personal and professional obstacles.
• 00:09:06 - Sanjari outlines how he built systems to mitigate the effects of his chronic pain on his business operations.
• 00:13:04 - Discussion on leveraging AI to enhance business efficiency without losing the human touch.
• 00:23:25 - Sanjari talks about the importance of empowering employees and delegating responsibility for scalable business growth.
• 00:33:27 - Closing remarks highlighting Sanjari's insights on leadership, empowerment, and the use of technology in business.

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;30;20
Craig Andrews
I was in a coma for six weeks while the doctors told my wife I was going to die. When I woke up, she told me the most fantastic story. My team kept running the business without me. Freelancers reached out to my team and said, we will do whatever it takes. As long as Craig's in the hospital. I consider that the greatest accomplishment of my career.

00;00;30;23 - 00;00;51;10
Craig Andrews
My name is Craig Andrews and this is the Leaders and Legacies podcast where we talk to leaders creating an impact beyond themselves. At the end of today's interview, I'll tell you how you can be the next leader featured on the show.

00;00;51;25 - 00;01;22;09
Craig Andrews
Today I want to welcome Matthew Sanjari is the founder of Prime Consulting. One of the really interesting things in Matthew's story is he had a life altering car accident, and it really changed the trajectory of his life. Some things positive, some things negative. He spent a lot of the next decade overcoming chronic pain, depression and disability, but also forced him to respond in a way of positivity.

00;01;22;09 - 00;01;53;01
Craig Andrews
And part of that response was becoming a serial entrepreneur. Over Matthew's 15 years, he's seen how organizations can grow beyond their ability to run effectively, and part of what he does with Prime Consulting is build systems and safeguards against that. So Matthew's got a really diverse background. It's, not your average entrepreneur's path. And so I'm really looking forward to today's discussion.

00;01;53;03 - 00;01;54;21
Craig Andrews
Matthew, welcome.

00;01;54;24 - 00;01;57;21
Matthew Sanjari
Thanks for having me, Craig. I'm I'm excited to delve into that.

00;01;57;24 - 00;02;04;00
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So so literally I know absolutely nothing. What what happened.

00;02;04;03 - 00;02;30;20
Matthew Sanjari
Okay. So so to give you a bit of context, the accident happened about 12 years ago. So to set the stage a little bit, I was working full time, traveling across North America, had a great job, and public speaking, felt like, you know, really, really good life overall. And, one that I was just driving home and, late at night in the country, Canadian countryside, and two horses jumped out onto the road, and I don't know anything about horses.

00;02;30;20 - 00;02;33;12
Matthew Sanjari
I don't know if you do, but they were Clydesdales, and,

00;02;33;17 - 00;02;35;11
Craig Andrews
Oh. Wow. Those are big horses.

00;02;35;19 - 00;03;01;07
Matthew Sanjari
Yeah, and I was driving an SUV at the time, and they were bigger than my SUV. And so I slammed on the brakes. Couldn't avoid it. Absolutely. Just smash them. the car a couple times, rolled the whole bit. And, before you knew it again, we're in the country, right? So massive ditches on either side. When they ended up measuring, I was three inches away from from dying like it was that crazy of, of an experience.

00;03;01;09 - 00;03;18;04
Craig Andrews
Oh my goodness. Now, I've met somebody who was in a car accident with a moose and I saw a man one year after the accident, and he was celebrating being able to see the certain light from dark for the first time in a year.

00;03;18;06 - 00;03;19;21
Matthew Sanjari
Wow.

00;03;19;23 - 00;03;25;20
Craig Andrews
How in terms of size, I mean, I know Clydesdales are big. How would you compare them to a moose?

00;03;25;22 - 00;03;52;09
Matthew Sanjari
Oh, man. for sure. Like in terms of height, they're pretty pretty close. I would say so. But the thing like to give people a visual, I was driving a Honda CRV, and I remember looking at the horses and the horse, the top of the horse was I had to look up and I'm already elevated. And so it just felt like I absorbed the entire weight of both of them at the same time at the car, literally just accordion just collapsed on,

00;03;52;11 - 00;04;04;04
Craig Andrews
Oh my goodness. Yeah. And in a CRV, I mean, holy cow. now you say three inches from death. Was there something were you about to be impaled or what was.

00;04;04;04 - 00;04;22;26
Matthew Sanjari
Yeah. So the the entire car collapsed. So I'm talking like everything got pushed into me. The engine, the steering wheel, everything got pushed in. So even to get out, I had to, basically, because the frame bent, I had to use my elbow and slam into the door a few times just to get out. And when I fell out, I fell into all the broken glass and and all of that.

00;04;22;26 - 00;04;33;06
Matthew Sanjari
And so middle like we were ten minutes to midnight, pitch black outside. Summer night, 11:50 p.m.. Nobody's around. Yeah, it was a pretty, pretty crazy ordeal.

00;04;33;08 - 00;04;38;10
Craig Andrews
Now, where the horses impacted, did they walk away or were they injured or what?

00;04;38;13 - 00;04;56;11
Matthew Sanjari
They they died instantly. So one of them actually got flipped over. He literally went literally, like smashed onto the top of the SUV and went, oh, and went over mine. So like on my trigger warning, of course. But all of my social media every year I'll actually go to the site. And it's been really, really good to just reflect on some of that, you know?

00;04;56;11 - 00;05;09;07
Matthew Sanjari
And when that started, it was pretty bad in the beginning. And now I'm I'm pretty thankful for it. But there's pictures on my social media and, it's to kind of remind myself of what I've been through, where I've come from and where I'm headed.

00;05;09;10 - 00;05;27;18
Craig Andrews
You know, you brought up something really interesting. I, you know, so anybody knows a little bit about my story. Nerds that almost died, two and a half years ago. And there was one year I went back to a hospital in San Antonio not to go in, but just to go by because it was a place where I first woke up from the coma.

00;05;27;20 - 00;05;40;22
Craig Andrews
And so there was at least one person that just never understood. Why would you go back there? And I would imagine they'd be asking you the same thing. Why do you go back to the site every year? What does it do for you?

00;05;40;29 - 00;05;59;14
Matthew Sanjari
Oh, I, I get the same thing, Craig. And so for the first few years, honestly, I would go like my whole life flipped on its head. Right? I ended up leaving my job. I had chronic pain I like, I basically, I actually still suffer with a lot of the symptoms. I get headaches that incapacitate me from 15 minutes to three weeks.

00;05;59;17 - 00;06;19;23
Matthew Sanjari
And so in the first few years, I would go and I would just mourn. I'd honestly, I would reflect on life and I'd be like, man, this is my lot now. Right here I am, my mid 20s. My life's wasting away all that potential, you know, all gone. And I would just sit there so depressed, you know, barely making it poverty level, wondering what's going to happen.

00;06;19;23 - 00;06;37;08
Matthew Sanjari
And as the years went by and things started to change, my attitude, my perspective did also. And so going to the accident now is, actually a reminder for me of where I've been and honestly, how good life has become versus what it was in the first few years.

00;06;37;11 - 00;07;08;10
Craig Andrews
Yeah, yeah, I think. I mean, for me, when I went back, when I woke up in that hospital, the whole world was bigger because everything for me was so small. I was confined in a bed, and I had to see what the world look like from a healthier lens. I had to see what that time and world. But I think, you know, I think frame by it's been through something like what you what you've been through.

00;07;08;12 - 00;07;15;06
Craig Andrews
It's also a way of going back and remembering where you started versus where you are.

00;07;15;08 - 00;07;39;08
Matthew Sanjari
Totally one of the things. Because again, and what I do, there's the business coaching side. So we're talking a lot of mindset, a lot of strategy. And then there's the consulting side the systems and and all that. But on the coaching side, one of the things I often remind people, as I say, you know, you don't have to hit two horses to go through pain, but you do get to change your perspective on the pain that you have gone through, whether that's business pain, relational pain, whatever it is.

00;07;39;15 - 00;07;56;18
Matthew Sanjari
And so for me, I didn't honestly lean into that until probably about 4 or 5 years in. And so for the first 4 or 5 years, I was consumed with my pain. And it wasn't until I started to change my perspective that I that I recognized, you know, just like you were saying, where I'm like, you know what?

00;07;56;21 - 00;08;02;23
Matthew Sanjari
I've I've got to see this from a different way. I've got to look at this different because I'm wastin away here.

00;08;02;25 - 00;08;06;25
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So do you still struggle with chronic pain?

00;08;06;28 - 00;08;26;24
Matthew Sanjari
Yeah, yeah. So 12 years later, I've still got the headaches. I've still got chronic pain. again, a lot of the symptoms haven't changed. I built systems into my life to mitigate the effects of those things. And I'm in a much healthier place emotionally. But yeah, yeah, the physical pain and the mental pain still lingers.

00;08;26;26 - 00;08;30;00
Craig Andrews
What what are some examples of some systems that you built?

00;08;30;03 - 00;08;47;20
Matthew Sanjari
Yeah. So I mean, one of the biggest things that that I learned is so I about a year and a half post accident, I quit my job and I was in this place where I was like, I'm unemployable. Doesn't matter how smart I think I am, how qualified I think I am. who's going to hire somebody that you know, you don't know if you're going to show up to work?

00;08;47;22 - 00;09;06;21
Matthew Sanjari
And so in this crazy roundabout way, I basically was kind of handed a business, took it, built it. But I started to realize that as quickly as I was adding clients, you know, if I got in the room, I'd get the client. But as quick as I was adding them, I was losing them. And so I had to learn this valuable lesson that, you know, my headaches aren't going away.

00;09;06;22 - 00;09;32;11
Matthew Sanjari
So I've got to build systems that basically replace me in the business. And so examples of that were, you know, I started to to build out, you know, structures and I started to build out processes to easily document my work so that I could offload those onto first delegated services. So hiring a bookkeeper, right, hiring, you know, for an administrator or whatever, until I could actually afford to bring those people in-house.

00;09;32;14 - 00;09;50;20
Matthew Sanjari
And so I actually basically said, look, I need to create my life in a way that it's not time sensitive, right? Because sometimes I'd be good at three in the morning and I'd want to work at three in the morning. But if a client's expecting something earlier, well, that's not going to jive, right? So some of those systems were time management.

00;09;50;22 - 00;10;00;25
Matthew Sanjari
they were delegation in essence. and really just automating a lot of things in my life. So they weren't dependent on my availability.

00;10;00;27 - 00;10;10;25
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So did you were these how did you build a team? Sounds like a combination of a team and automations.

00;10;10;27 - 00;10;27;15
Matthew Sanjari
Yeah. So so the first thing I did before I built out of teams, I said, look, what what of this? Can I automate? Right. Because I was barely making any money. I couldn't afford to bring people on. So I said, you know, can I use five, ten, $15 tools online? You know, something like Zapier? Can it can I automate some of these things to make my life easier?

00;10;27;17 - 00;10;51;11
Matthew Sanjari
So I started to automate. And then as I was buying back time, I started to use that time to go generate some more revenue. And I was like, well, you know, I can't hire a part time or full time employee, but maybe I can hire a service. And so I'd go pay a company, you know, $150 a week for, you know, whatever it was, I think it was like 7 or 8 hours of someone and I would have them start to fill in gaps for me.

00;10;51;11 - 00;11;10;10
Matthew Sanjari
And I was slowly just buying my time through automation and then delegation and then eventually actually building out a team. And that that path I had, I just gone down the road of delegation. I don't think I would have succeeded, right. I had to create margin in my life. And so I think the automation and then the delegation really, really helped.

00;11;10;15 - 00;11;22;00
Matthew Sanjari
And that elimination was kind of my last step where I just said, look, there's things here that I'm wasting that I'm being redundant about. And so that three step process, I think really helped me. And it's integral to my business now.

00;11;22;02 - 00;11;53;03
Craig Andrews
You know, and I think that's, you know, in the automation, the one thing that I've learned about people is well-intentioned. People can't do things perfectly repeatedly. And so it's it's not that the it's not that, you know, and so early in my career, I, you know, I worked in high volume manufacturing. And anytime you saw a human introduced into a repetitive task, you had an error rate.

00;11;53;05 - 00;12;02;28
Craig Andrews
And the fact is we have these machines that they're really, really good at doing repetitive, predictable things. It's not where the humans excel.

00;12;03;00 - 00;12;28;01
Matthew Sanjari
Totally. Right. And so for me, it was identifying what are these things like again, you know, I could be knocked out days or weeks at a time. So simple things like, man, why am I not automating my finances, right. Why are my why are my all my bills and all these things not automated, even client onboarding, right? I'd meet with a client and then I was like, look, why don't I set it up and create, you know, these, these easy access points.

00;12;28;01 - 00;12;48;07
Matthew Sanjari
At the moment someone fills out an application, it auto generates a proposal, sends them payment. You know, why am I not automating payments? Just things that again seem so easy now. But when I started to add up, I was like, man, I am wasting 6 or 7 hours a week on these things. How can I decrease my administrative burden?

00;12;48;10 - 00;12;51;07
Matthew Sanjari
And for me it was really a matter of survival.

00;12;51;10 - 00;13;04;02
Craig Andrews
What? And you know, the buzz phrase today is, as I and you know, there are people replacing their entire customer service with AI, you know, and all that. What's what's your take on AI?

00;13;04;05 - 00;13;21;20
Matthew Sanjari
you know, I love the example you gave where, you know, when you introduce humans, naturally the error rate is going to increase. And so for me, one of the ways I'm already leveraging AI and doing it for my clients is I'm saying, you know, what are these? You know, let's let's take any employee, okay. Identifying first what what is a great way to leverage this employee.

00;13;21;20 - 00;13;40;04
Matthew Sanjari
What's a good use of their time, their skills. Right. Their talent. and when I figure that out that anything that's not a good use of their time or something, that's a really low return. I want to use AI for that. I want to automate for that. So I want to be put in a position that a it's great for the business because I'm always getting the best rate of return.

00;13;40;06 - 00;13;42;02
Craig Andrews
Also great for the employee.

00;13;42;04 - 00;14;05;00
Matthew Sanjari
I want to put employees in in positions where they feel so happy, satisfied. They're like, I'm doing things that are impacting. I can tangibly measure the impact of how I'm contributing to the organization. So I think leveraging AI in really identify and identifiable ways, to maximize ROI in both your people and your business. That's that's a really good place to start.

00;14;05;03 - 00;14;09;11
Craig Andrews
Are there's some things you think AI is not good at.

00;14;09;13 - 00;14;32;07
Matthew Sanjari
Man, I honestly I think anything right now I've really struggled and I know people are getting better at it. There's people that are much smarter than me, but I think anything that can anything that really features creativity or has any emotional quotient, I'd shy away from AI. Now if you want to use AI to do, you know, an initial draft, get a human in there to add that human tone, right?

00;14;32;15 - 00;15;05;28
Matthew Sanjari
Add that creativity, add emotional quotient because I just, you know, I've had people test things and I'm telling you, I'm no, I'm no wizard here, but I can tell the difference. I can read two and I'll say, look, there's a there's a pattern repeating itself here. This kind of reads mundane reads cold. And so anything that's got creativity to it, you know, if you're building a brand, I ran a marketing company for ten years and so I to me, I look at it and I'm like, man, AI is fantastic to give me to analyze my cold, hard data, tell me which campaigns are working, to tell me which of my systems need to get

00;15;05;28 - 00;15;23;18
Matthew Sanjari
better. But when it comes to ad creatives, you know, even tell me which ad creatives are effective. But when it comes to the creatives and it comes to actually doing great copy, I think right now that's best reserved for for humans, because I want to feel the warmth and the emotional connection of those things.

00;15;23;20 - 00;15;45;27
Craig Andrews
You know, I interviewed somebody one of the first episodes in the podcast, a guy named Ryan Dice, who, he was just put out a book called Get Scalable, and he, he made the point. He's like, I wrote this before, I so this is not ai written. And what was really interesting was right around that time, I was in the process of publishing two books.

00;15;45;29 - 00;16;05;13
Craig Andrews
by the way, for those listening, do one at a time. Bad idea. Do two at a time. But the but I when I look at those two books, I really don't see how I could write them. I just I don't think, you know, I look at what was accomplished in the creative. It's the human element in there.

00;16;05;16 - 00;16;13;06
Craig Andrews
Yeah, presumably I could write enough prompts to get AI to write the books, but it would be shorter just to write the books.

00;16;13;09 - 00;16;28;16
Matthew Sanjari
Totally. Right. It's funny, I was actually just with a client for an on site, and they're, they're starting to really delve into their personal brand. They're they're building a yoga health brand and I think this idea. Right. You know, she finds it harder to find exhausting to get all their ideas on a paper and go from there.

00;16;28;16 - 00;16;47;16
Matthew Sanjari
And I said, look, a great use of AI for you might be why don't you interview style record, record yourself dumping all this content? Have I go through it and just categorize everything you said? It's not going to be perfect, but even if it knocks out 70 or 80% now you go in, make a few edits, you'd save your time.

00;16;47;18 - 00;17;06;00
Matthew Sanjari
You brain dump, let I do the the kind of filtering and then you can take your your human element from there. And so this idea of AI similar to automation to me, it's like I'm not trying to replace things per se. I'm actually just trying to become more effective. And I'm trying to leverage AI to become more effective and more efficient.

00;17;06;02 - 00;17;24;08
Craig Andrews
Well, in something you tapped on, tapped into there, I think one of the most powerful things AI does is it summarizes mass quantities of information. It takes more information than you or I could read in a lifetime and deliver a quick summary.

00;17;24;11 - 00;17;42;10
Matthew Sanjari
Oh, I mean, so when one of my clients, they run three law firms and they were bringing their administrative assistants in and their executive assistants in a meetings, and I was like, you know, how much does your e get paid? Okay. yeah. Gets paid 70 grand. I'm like, that's about $35 an hour. How many meetings is there a week?

00;17;42;13 - 00;18;10;21
Matthew Sanjari
Seven meetings. You're looking at between 200, 250 bucks a week on meetings. That's 10 to 12 grand a year spent on meetings. Next thing you know, you know, we through an AI automation order, I starts joining every meeting. And we now just allocated 10 or $12,000 of the executive assistant actually going and leveraging more efficient tasks instead of, you know, being in these meetings and that software cost, I think $25 a month and everybody's better for it.

00;18;10;21 - 00;18;20;09
Matthew Sanjari
And so even if the AI is 80 or 85% effective, man, what, you know, what would you do with an additional 10 to 12 grand of capital in your business every year?

00;18;20;11 - 00;18;23;19
Craig Andrews
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, that's a nice little vacation.

00;18;23;21 - 00;18;24;28
Matthew Sanjari
Totally.

00;18;25;01 - 00;18;55;25
Craig Andrews
You know, one thing I've noticed about AI is it feels like the holy wars. I use AI every single day. You know, this morning, I mean, we're recording this interview first thing in the morning, and literally before I got out of bed, I was sitting there with my laptop in bed using AI. I love AI, but boy, if I go out and I post anything negative or not, not even negative, but a limitation, things that we're talking about, I get pounced on.

00;18;55;25 - 00;19;01;29
Craig Andrews
It's it's like I just, you know, it's like I just insulted the Pope or something.

00;19;02;01 - 00;19;28;06
Matthew Sanjari
Oh, man. And you know what? I could be way off base here, but I feel like we go through these, these cultural cycles of technology every, you know, 1015 years, whatever it is, it's probably shortening now the more we evolve. But, you know, I even think of, you know, the advent of the phone, you know, of the cell phone, you know, this idea that, you know, people while there was a large portion of the population that was excited, oh my gosh, calendar and life, you know, email BlackBerry the whole day, you know, email in my hand.

00;19;28;08 - 00;19;46;14
Matthew Sanjari
There was also people who were just absolutely avid, you know, the idea that this is going to ruin society and any critique of, you know, of these things, and even for the people that are pro, I think in, can really rile people up. I've already seen that on LinkedIn or a few places. So I get what you're saying.

00;19;46;16 - 00;20;07;04
Craig Andrews
Well, and, you know, so going back to the human element that you were talking about, there's somebody who comments on my posts on, on LinkedIn. And I first one I looked at, I was like, that's a weird comment. And then the next one came through and it's like a whole paragraph. It's not, you know, like 1 or 2 sentences.

00;20;07;04 - 00;20;38;04
Craig Andrews
It's a, you know, it's an entire paragraph. And the next one comes from like, that's weird. And then eventually it finally clicked. You know, for me, if you have, you know, LinkedIn premium, you know, has a little AI tool and it will write things for you, but it doesn't feel warm. It doesn't, it doesn't. You know, I believe this person's doing this because they're trying to endear themselves to me at some level, or they're trying to endear themselves to to their audience.

00;20;38;06 - 00;20;43;14
Craig Andrews
But it doesn't feel warm. It doesn't it doesn't draw me into them.

00;20;43;16 - 00;21;08;00
Matthew Sanjari
And this is what I was saying earlier. It's my fear with leveraging AI in creative or emotionally emotional quotient sort of situations is that not only will it not endear people to you, it might actually repel them, right? Yeah. Where you look at that and you're like, oh, come on, you're telling me that you didn't have the seven seconds to actually just type, an actual human robot and try and engage with me?

00;21;08;00 - 00;21;33;24
Matthew Sanjari
Right. We're going to automate that. Whereas again, I, whether good or bad, could be leveraged for things that don't capture that, that are so much more effective. Get A.I. to build your target list on LinkedIn. Right. Get AI to to review math skills of text. Get AI to automate A to to Z. Find the inefficiencies. But things like that that require human touch, that have that emotional connection.

00;21;33;24 - 00;21;37;23
Matthew Sanjari
You know man, let's keep that in the hands of humans.

00;21;37;25 - 00;21;52;07
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So you said something interesting. you said you get AI to create your target list on LinkedIn. So this is just purely self-serving. How do you do that? You know, because LinkedIn is real touchy about being scraped.

00;21;52;09 - 00;22;12;14
Matthew Sanjari
Yeah. So, I mean, actually, one of the things I'll do and I man, I don't remember the the tool I'm using, but basically it's in my Chrome browser. What I'll do is I'll, actually just have it scan my existing connections and I'll have I learn. Okay. So this is like the general. These are the three biggest areas where you biggest locations where all your followers come from.

00;22;12;16 - 00;22;37;11
Matthew Sanjari
this is you know, a lot of your people tend to be business owners or VP's. So now we're going to go and find things that mirror that and recommend those to you. And then what I'll do is I'll have someone on my team actually go vet that list, because again, if it's 70 or 80% correct, you know, we've got 20% margin of error, but their time is so much better used vetting that list and building it, that would have taken an eternity.

00;22;37;13 - 00;22;55;18
Matthew Sanjari
And so that has been a really, really good use of my time. And, you know, and then we kind of go down that list down and I say, look, of this list, let's say it's 100 people. There's ten people here that are super active on LinkedIn. I'm going to engage with these people often. The other 90, we'll throw this in the pipeline, we'll start to nurture them.

00;22;55;18 - 00;23;18;29
Matthew Sanjari
We'll send connection requests. And and so there's so many human elements. But for me, I'm at I'm a sucker for a workflow, Greg. So, I'll drop the workflow. And I think that the best thing you can do is when you get that visual representation is to say, okay, so which of these parts can I kind of slide AI into in my LinkedIn process, which the parts require human human connection or human a human element.

00;23;19;02 - 00;23;25;11
Matthew Sanjari
And of those human element parts, which are the ones that I absolutely have to do and the ones I can outsource. And so I just try and apply that strategy everywhere.

00;23;25;13 - 00;23;47;17
Craig Andrews
Wow. So I and I mean, you mentioned earlier that you pivoted the, you know, the car accident, put you on the entrepreneurial journey and, I mean, the stuff you're sharing is powerful. Is this, what does what does your current work look like? What are you doing currently in terms of, leader and coaching and that sort of stuff?

00;23;47;19 - 00;24;07;10
Matthew Sanjari
Yeah. So so I had a successful exit from my marketing business about a year and a half ago, and, I, I didn't know what I was going to do next. Had zero idea. I, I told myself said, look, you know, I've worked quite a bit post accident. I deserve a bit of a break. And, I don't know if you can relate, but I, I lasted about four days, and I was like, no, I got to start something.

00;24;07;10 - 00;24;09;00
Matthew Sanjari
I can't do that either.

00;24;09;01 - 00;24;32;09
Craig Andrews
Yeah, that's funny you say that. I'm sitting in the hospital. I can't walk and I tell my wife I want my phone. And so I'll, From the hospital, I start reaching out to clients, telling them, no, hey, I'm coming back now. My team had been working with them. My team was amazing, kept the business running while I was in the hospital.

00;24;32;10 - 00;24;55;17
Craig Andrews
But, I have one client who actually visited me at the hospital and said, Craig, take as much time. You know, we'll be here for you when you get back. Take as much time. It's like, I'll be back January 1st. And this was in October. And, and, he was like, for reference, I was assuming you'd be back second quarter.

00;24;55;20 - 00;25;03;13
Craig Andrews
And I said, Trent, if I'm not working by January 1st, I'm not going to be a nice person that's.

00;25;03;15 - 00;25;26;08
Matthew Sanjari
bad. I'm the same way. I can't I can't just sit around. Right. Like, even, like, in pain. I'm like, I gotta do some. But, you know, it's funny that you mention that, though, because I think that that's that's probably the one of the top three pain points for my clients. I was having a conversation with, with my my second client ever signed in this business, and I had said, hey, let me hit you straight.

00;25;26;11 - 00;25;42;14
Matthew Sanjari
I was telling them about the first client that I had to sign, and I said, let me hit you straight. You know my story. If something were to ever happen to you and you got taken out of the business for a month, what would your business look like? And the person just kind of smiled awkwardly, kind of give it a laugh.

00;25;42;14 - 00;25;58;21
Matthew Sanjari
And then it was like, okay, if we're being honest, I wouldn't have a business left. And I said, well, then you don't have a business. You have a job. Because if you stop showing up to your job and you don't get paid, we should build you a business. And she said, yeah, let's do it. And that's how I landed my second client.

00;25;58;23 - 00;26;27;09
Matthew Sanjari
And it's kind of under that guise that I've built much of this business coaching, which is a lot of the strategies, mindsets, helping these entrepreneurs push past their plateaus. And that second side where I say, look, you know, I want to build a business because I have to do it that survives in spite of me, right? Where, you know, whether it's pain or a desire to have financial freedom or a time freedom that exists and serves people, whether or not you're availability is always in question.

00;26;27;14 - 00;26;48;02
Matthew Sanjari
And so that's been a tenor of of what I do now is helping business owners overcome their an entrepreneurs overcome those plateaus get unstuck but also recognize hey, why are you still doing so much of this work right? Why aren't we giving opportunities to people in your organization? Why aren't we scaling to delegation, automation? Elimination?

00;26;48;04 - 00;27;13;25
Craig Andrews
Yeah, well, I think that's so powerful, what you're bringing and that was a such powerful point that you brought that if you have to be in your business, what you have is a job. You don't have a business. And I think I know for me, the when I woke up from my comma and my wife started telling me what my team had been doing in my absence, I was so incredibly proud.

00;27;13;28 - 00;27;38;02
Craig Andrews
And, you know, I think that's some of the vision for business owners. Your value is not and your unique knowledge that you and you alone possess. If you can build a team that does incredible things that to help people accomplish things that they can't accomplish on their own, there's way more value. It's harder. It's harder.

00;27;38;02 - 00;27;38;18
Matthew Sanjari
To build that.

00;27;38;18 - 00;27;44;23
Craig Andrews
Team, but it's also way more valuable and at least for me, way more rewarding.

00;27;44;26 - 00;28;09;18
Matthew Sanjari
Oh, 100%. I think it goes back to leadership, right? It's this idea that I keep connecting with people on the where I say, look, systems are important systems, structures. They're important, SOPs, processes. They're important, but nothing's as important as people. And so if we build people, people will build business. And so this idea that one of the first things we target, I tell people all the time say, hey, do you have a leadership pipeline in your business?

00;28;09;22 - 00;28;26;04
Matthew Sanjari
I don't care if you're three people, right? If it's you and two people, how are you building into them? How are you? How are you? It's so easy to delegate task, but how often do we delegate responsibility right where we say, hey, I know that I can just say, hey, can you can you go take care of the grocery list?

00;28;26;07 - 00;28;46;19
Matthew Sanjari
What I'm asking you to do is, can you take this task off my plate, workshop it think of a better way to do it. And let me know that make me feel comfortable. The buck stops with you and seeing people empower other people. I have not had a single person yet that I've worked with who is not been in a better spot by doing that.

00;28;46;22 - 00;28;51;26
Matthew Sanjari
and so I just feel like it's such an important part of moving forward.

00;28;51;28 - 00;29;00;26
Craig Andrews
At least in the people that you work with. What are some of the barriers that you see that keep people from doing that? You know, from from delegating and empowering the people?

00;29;00;28 - 00;29;23;11
Matthew Sanjari
Oh, yeah. I think a big one is that people just don't know where to start. Right? I think it again, it goes back to that it's very, very easy for us as humans. It's not hard to delegate a task, but I would argue that that's actually not delegation. You're just passing off the buck. Right? But at the end of the day, you're actually not empowering that person.

00;29;23;11 - 00;29;44;22
Matthew Sanjari
You're just managing that empowerment, I think, which is where people struggle and pushing past side of this idea that I'm going to explain the why of what this thing is. I'm going to model it to them, I'm going to monitor them while they're doing it, and then I'm going to say, hey, just so you know, it's not your job to do everything.

00;29;44;25 - 00;30;07;05
Matthew Sanjari
It's your job to make sure everything gets done. So now you start to do that for somebody else and if I can empower people with responsibility, then man, now someone gets to say, oh, so I can kind of make this my own. I can make this better. I can add my flavor. Let's say, hey, actually, yes, as long as we hit the goal and you operate within these parameters and these boundaries.

00;30;07;09 - 00;30;19;06
Matthew Sanjari
Absolutely. And so the biggest thing is moving people from just giving away tasks to empowering people with responsibility. I think it's been just a big shift in seeing people actually delegate properly.

00;30;19;08 - 00;30;38;12
Craig Andrews
You know, there's somebody named Elena who works for me. And years ago she came up to me and she said, started talking. I was listening, and she got done talking. And so let me see if I have this right. There was a problem. You identified the problem, you fixed the problem, and you're just here kind of updating me on what happened.

00;30;38;12 - 00;30;44;25
Craig Andrews
I don't need to take any action. She said, yes. I'm like, bless you.

00;30;44;27 - 00;30;47;00
Matthew Sanjari
the jury. The jury?

00;30;47;03 - 00;31;08;28
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So, you know, I think one thing that at least one thing that I see in myself, this is a, you know, demon that I have to fight myself is if I let go, they're not going to do it as well as me. How do you coach people through that? If I'm if I'm your if I'm your client, how do you coach me through that?

00;31;09;05 - 00;31;28;03
Matthew Sanjari
I think if I'm being completely transparent with you, one of the reasons one of my clients think about firing me on a weekly basis is this this button that I push all the time. And so I was having a conversation with one of them recently, and I said, hey, hey, she had she brought this up. She's a perfectionist and she's an operations beast.

00;31;28;08 - 00;31;50;20
Matthew Sanjari
And and it's, it's that perfectionism that enables her to be such a good operator. But it's also her downfall because she struggles to delegate. And I basically created this framework where I said, look, you're outputting 100% of your time and you're getting 100% of your output, right? If you delegate to somebody and they only get 70% of the output, you're focusing on the 30% failure.

00;31;50;22 - 00;32;10;29
Matthew Sanjari
What I need you to realize is that it took you 20% of your effort to train someone, to get 70% of the output. That's a 50% margin you just created. That's how you win in life. That's actually how you win in business. And you can exert more effort to keep refining that person and get them 70 to an 80 or 80 to 90.

00;32;11;05 - 00;32;29;15
Matthew Sanjari
But instead of focusing on the deficiency in their output, why don't you focus on the margin you just created? And it was really, really hard for her. But actually she the biggest win for her and she started to realize was as she started doing it, she was like, oh my gosh, I'm getting my time back and things are still getting done.

00;32;29;22 - 00;32;50;09
Matthew Sanjari
They're not getting done necessarily the exact same way I would do it, but they're still getting done. And now I have an opportunity to coach people to make them better people. And it's still leaving me with all this margin. And so that 20% to get 70, I can do that five times over. And hey, I know what math was, but you're going to come out quite ahead every single time.

00;32;50;12 - 00;33;24;00
Craig Andrews
No, absolutely. You know, there was somebody who died recently, a guy named Daniel Kahneman who, he and his, research partner introduced something called prospect theory. just absolutely groundbreaking work. But one of the things that they highlighted was we feel the pain of loss way more than we feel the excitement of the gain. And so in that scenario you just described, you get obsessed about that 30% loss and missed the 70% gain.

00;33;24;03 - 00;33;27;04
Craig Andrews
And it holds us back totally.

00;33;27;06 - 00;33;55;19
Matthew Sanjari
It's human emotion. And that's why I act as a as a hybrid between the coach and the consultant, because I also feel like there's a real emotional connection with my clients. Right? I could sit here. I tell people all the time, I said, look, you know, you could listen to podcasts, you could you could go online. A lot of the stuff that I do with my clients is not revolutionary per se, but it's that accountability and that human connection of being able to say, I want you to know that your perfectionism is not bad, per se.

00;33;55;20 - 00;34;11;22
Matthew Sanjari
It's actually what drives you to be a great operator. What I'm asking you to do this for us to take the next step, I need you to relinquish and just take that next step with me. Try a little something. And because we meet every week and we're we're in the trenches together, there's that accountability to say, I love this.

00;34;11;22 - 00;34;47;04
Matthew Sanjari
This scared me. This is what worked. I think this was really stupid. Whatever. Right. And so that that consistent go at it. Similar to like working with a personal trainer is what I found is so effective in my clients because then I can also relate. I'm a bit of a control freak. The idea in the beginning of handing things off to people like this is my company, I've built this, these are my clients, and at the end of the day, I think I just issued the responsibility and kind of gave it away without realizing, oh, well, I can actually train and teach these people to care about these things just as much as I did.

00;34;47;06 - 00;35;12;29
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So, Matthew, we're here for kind, like way over. And because you're the information you're providing is so incredibly powerful and I could literally go another hour. I think you have so much wisdom to share. And obviously you help share this with other folks. How did people reach you? If somebody heard something and they want to carry this further, how do they reach you?

00;35;13;01 - 00;35;27;02
Matthew Sanjari
Yeah, I love connecting with people. You can go to my website, consulting by prime.com consulting by prime.com. Or you can look me up on LinkedIn. Matthew and Jerry S and Jerry and I just love to connect with people. So can you share it on their.

00;35;27;05 - 00;35;43;21
Craig Andrews
I hope they reach I, I, I'm sitting there looking at the clock. I wanted to keep going because you're just really delivering so much powerful insight. I do hope people reach out to you because I believe you can make a big impact in their business. Matthew, thank you for being on Layers and Legacies.

00;35;43;24 - 00;35;50;08
Matthew Sanjari
Craig. Thanks for having me. It was just such a great living room chat.

00;35;50;08 - 00;36;19;06
Craig Andrews
This is Craig Andrews. I want to thank you for listening to the Leaders and Legacies podcast. We're looking for leaders to share how they're making the impact beyond themselves. If that's you, please go to Alize for me.com/guest and sign up there. If you got something out of this interview, we would love you to share this episode on social media.

00;36;19;08 - 00;36;42;18
Craig Andrews
Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend, or posted on the socials. If you know someone who would be a great guest, tag them on social media and let them know about the show, including the hashtag leaders and legacies. I love seeing your posts and suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content to make sure you don't miss anything.

00;36;42;20 - 00;38;53;04
Craig Andrews
Please go ahead and subscribe your thumbs up! Ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show. It means a lot to me. It means a lot to my team. If you want to know more, please go to Alize for me.com. or follow me on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.