Richard Walsh, a seasoned entrepreneur with a diverse background, shares his journey and insights on leadership, resilience, and entrepreneurship. Walsh, a former Marine and sculptor turned business coach, discusses his transition from military service to entrepreneurship, emphasizing the critical role of adaptability and perseverance in overcoming business challenges.

Richard recounts the early days of his entrepreneurial career, highlighting a pivotal moment when he transformed a simple landscaping job into a lucrative business opportunity, which eventually led him to become a renowned creator of custom water features and steel sculptures. However, the 2008 financial crisis tested his resilience, leading to profound lessons about the importance of building a sustainable business beyond mere profitability.

Throughout the interview, Richard emphasizes the value of mentorship, the necessity of learning from failures, and the importance of strategic planning. He shares anecdotes from his coaching career, where he helps business owners scale and improve their operations, advocating for a visionary approach to leadership that empowers both individuals and teams.

Walsh's story is not just about personal success; it's a testament to the impact of authentic leadership on communities and industries. His insights are invaluable for anyone looking to enhance their leadership skills and build meaningful, resilient enterprises.

Want to learn more about Richard Walsh's work? Check out his website at https://www.sharpenthespearcoaching.com.

Connect with Richard Walsh on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-walsh-866ab237/.

Key Points with Timestamps:

• 00:00:30-00:01:27: Introduction to Richard Walsh, detailing his background as a U.S. Marine, entrepreneur, and leadership coach.
• 00:04:08-00:05:28: Richard discusses his early entrepreneurial endeavors, transitioning from the Marine Corps to starting his own landscaping and sculpture business.
• 00:06:01-00:07:17: Reflection on the impact of the 2008 financial crisis on his business and the lessons learned about sustainability and resilience.
• 00:06:24-00:07:50: Emphasis on the importance of strategic planning and understanding the broader aspects of business beyond making money.
• 00:08:07-00:09:15: Discussion on the role of vision in leadership and how it guides business decisions and growth.
• 00:26:30-00:29:15: Richard shares insights from his book "Escape the Owner's Prison," focusing on scaling businesses and empowering business owners to achieve freedom and impact.

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;16 - 00;01;27;26
Craig Andrews
Today I want to welcome Richard Walsh. He is the CEO of Sharpen the Spear. Coaching. He's an author, a speaker and entrepreneur. He's spent 30 years in entrepreneurship. And he's bestselling author of Escape the Earners. Prison. he's also a podcast host, a husband, father of six children. And one of my favorite. He's a U.S. marine. He's a champion boxer, a black belt, and an internationally recognized steel sculptor.

00;01;27;28 - 00;01;31;26
Craig Andrews
So, Richard, welcome. Semper fi, Semper fi.

00;01;31;27 - 00;01;34;18
Richard Walsh
Greg, thanks for having me on, man. But looking forward to this.

00;01;34;20 - 00;01;58;02
Craig Andrews
You know, I'll be honest. When I saw you, when I saw your application. This is a hemp frame. By its listening. If you're a marine, you're almost certainly getting on this show. It's just, you know, I just, I love, talking with fellow Marines. There's a there's a kinship. There's a language that we speak where we just instantly connect.

00;01;58;04 - 00;02;16;14
Richard Walsh
Yeah. And I, I'm with you, and it's not everyone will. I'm not talking smack. But it's not like that in the other branches. No, no, we are we are unique in that sense. I was on with a woman from New Zealand and she didn't know anything about the Marine Corps. So I get the educator a little bit.

00;02;16;17 - 00;02;37;12
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And it's, you know, it is something, really special. I when, you know, we went through boot camp within a couple of years of each other. And I remember somebody asked, you know, hey, aren't there, special forces in the Marine Corps and the answer the drone starters gave was the Marine Corps is Special forces. What are you talking about?

00;02;37;14 - 00;02;48;10
Richard Walsh
That's right, that's right. Even now they have mask. So they had that whole quandary. Every, you know, maybe. But now they have the marine, you know, special Operations Command and stuff. But yeah, it's it's what we are right.

00;02;48;12 - 00;02;55;21
Craig Andrews
Yeah. My, my wife's father was a marine Raider during World War two. Wow. Yeah.

00;02;55;23 - 00;02;58;27
Richard Walsh
And that's what mask is now. Mask is the Raiders.

00;02;59;00 - 00;02;59;10
Craig Andrews
Yeah.

00;02;59;17 - 00;03;06;21
Richard Walsh
So it's pretty cool. My my son is going for mask. He's in the corps now. And that's his goal is to get in the mask.

00;03;06;23 - 00;03;25;06
Craig Andrews
Oh that's awesome. Yeah. And and hopefully I mean my wife's dad, he. Yeah. He stood up for our country when we needed it. Unfortunately, some of the stuff he did, you know, really put the zap on them, you know, hand-to-hand combat looks good in the movies.

00;03;25;09 - 00;03;42;13
Richard Walsh
yeah. People have no idea. No, I have a I, I have a church security team that we kind of do. And I was having a, a brief training session on Sunday, and I had to drive the point home on you all watch too much TV to say what's going to happen here. You're going to I'm going to show you.

00;03;42;13 - 00;03;48;05
Richard Walsh
And it's. Yeah. So people don't get it. But the ones who've been there get it.

00;03;48;07 - 00;03;56;05
Craig Andrews
Yeah, yeah. Well, I, I, I consider myself fortunate that I've never had to fire a weapon in anger.

00;03;56;07 - 00;03;57;17
Richard Walsh
And with you there.

00;03;57;20 - 00;04;08;25
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well, anyway, so. Well, let's move on. I mean, so you've been you've spent 30 years as an entrepreneur. Tell us a little bit about that.

00;04;08;28 - 00;04;26;00
Richard Walsh
Yeah. So I was coming out of the Marine Corps, you know, you got to get a job. So I got a job and I was swinging a pickax, digging trench eight hours a day for five bucks an hour. Incredibly exciting. I didn't think it got worse than working in the Marine Corps. What it did, it was that job that made the Marine Corps look pretty awesome.

00;04;26;02 - 00;04;28;29
Craig Andrews
Because.

00;04;29;01 - 00;04;52;00
Richard Walsh
I was like, wow, I'm going to this. And it's in Tucson, Arizona. It's 100 degrees out in the summer, and I'm making five bucks an hour. So I met someone. They needed help with their landscaping. They wondered if I'll do a side job. I'm always looking for, you know, always looking for work and money. And they had, like, 35 tons of granite, you know, crushed granite, like, you know, three quarter inch that needed to go from the street to the backyard and spread into grass there and stuff.

00;04;52;03 - 00;05;07;29
Richard Walsh
So I can do that. And I got a shovel and wheelbarrow like I spent like, 85 bucks was like all the money I had. I bought a wheelbarrow and a shovel and, I went they knocked it out, took me about ten hours and knocked that out to the whole thing. Greg, I made $1,000.

00;05;08;01 - 00;05;08;15
Craig Andrews
Wow.

00;05;08;22 - 00;05;28;14
Richard Walsh
A thousand bucks a baby, okay? And I'm like. And I'm sitting there looking at this thousand dollars. No, baby. Fabian cash back on. It was kind of nice. So no fees on the debit card. And I'm looking. I'm going, wow, I do this all day and it's like I make $50, you know, like I'm going to work for myself.

00;05;28;16 - 00;05;45;20
Richard Walsh
And that just started it all right there. I'm like, social and landscape is going to do that. And I'm doing custom water features. I really went into a niche and became the best at that in the country, you know, so huge award winning blah, blah, blah, all that cool stuff. started the steel sculpture stuff, added to my water feature stuff.

00;05;45;20 - 00;06;01;07
Richard Walsh
So I was I got I always told Bill I never had to be a starving artist. I get to sell everything I made, and it was awesome because I did really unique stuff. You know, I just taught myself and I built this really big stuff, cool stuff, and, rolled that out and that all just kind of came together.

00;06;01;07 - 00;06;24;01
Richard Walsh
And I was rolling for almost 20 years with that. And then 0809 hit and, yeah, the financial collapse, what I do tell people and on other podcast, I said I could easily blame the economy because everybody did. I said, but that's not why that was a contributing factor. But it wasn't the factor for me. It was what is?

00;06;24;01 - 00;06;41;27
Richard Walsh
I again, I tell people the easiest thing to do in business is make money a piece of cake. You make money all day long, okay? Money making money is not a problem. It's everything else that is a problem that you have to do to build a lasting business, right? So that's sustainable. It can weather storms like that because companies do.

00;06;41;27 - 00;06;57;27
Richard Walsh
Companies have been around for 100 years or 20 years. Why didn't they collapse during the depression? Why didn't they collapse during, you know, in the 80s when we had that the late 70s? All right. They just keep going because they did the business. Right. So, that was my problem. And I end up losing everything. Glued my house.

00;06;57;27 - 00;07;17;00
Richard Walsh
I have a wife, six kids under four years old at the time, and, just had to shut the doors, you know, that was rough, you know, had to move, relocate, change states and everything else, you know, and then. But again, I'm not much into losing, you know? I mean, I get failure, I'm okay with failures because I make a lot of mistakes and I fix stuff and I learn from them.

00;07;17;02 - 00;07;32;12
Richard Walsh
So I figure as long as I learn from them, I'm going to still do this because I am at this point unemployable. I'm not. I mean, I always will go, well, actually, I'm the best employee you'd ever want. I show up early, I'll stay late. You never tell me what to do. You have to ask me extra. I'll do everything.

00;07;32;18 - 00;07;50;12
Richard Walsh
I'm amazing until about the 12 month mark. Then I got to run your business, right? So I'm taking over. So in no way say that I got to leave because you won't let me take over. So? So I do that. So I said, well, I'll just, you know, do what I got to do. I sort of building I started really looking at the connecting all the dots.

00;07;50;12 - 00;08;07;18
Richard Walsh
I didn't connect right during the tour my whole time in business because that was about it. I was an artist. I'm about making beautiful things and making incredible money. Like, because no one could do what I do and I can just charge whatever I wanted. It was really awesome, you know, I just could make more. So I wasn't concerned about things being broken.

00;08;07;18 - 00;08;12;11
Richard Walsh
I just make more money. Yeah. You know, but it worked for a while.

00;08;12;14 - 00;08;31;07
Craig Andrews
Well, and and, you know, going back to when you said, you know, you buy a wheelbarrow and a pickax from me, one of the most magical things is when when a stranger reaches out and says, hey, I want to pay you to help, help me solve this problem. I don't know, it's just it's an amazing feeling.

00;08;31;09 - 00;08;52;10
Richard Walsh
It's, you know, what you become, right? Then you know what you become. You become a professional because you're paid for what you can do. I know a job is not being a pro, but when someone pays you to do something, you become a professional. They pay you in sports, you're a professional sport. I was an amateur boxer. No one was paying me to get knocked out, right?

00;08;52;12 - 00;09;15;15
Richard Walsh
I did that for free every day. Step in the ring. It took a beating for nothing. but you go pro and you can sign on the dotted line. You get paid. Now you're a professional boxer. You want to be a good one. You just get paid. So you know. Yeah, it's. And it is for the someone with an entrepreneurial seed that wakes you up that that that that seed burst open at that very moment like you're talking about.

00;09;15;18 - 00;09;16;29
Richard Walsh
Yeah.

00;09;17;01 - 00;09;32;00
Craig Andrews
Well then the you know, the other thing that a singing when you were talking about 0809 when everything's lapsed, I, you know, it, it took me back to a very marine mindset. You know, I was thinking of Chesty Puller in the chest area.

00;09;32;02 - 00;09;33;12
Richard Walsh
If your buddy.

00;09;33;14 - 00;09;51;02
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And I mean, for those that aren't familiar and there's different quotes attributed to what happened, but some version of it was, you know, one of his officers came up to him and said, you know, I think it was Colonel at the time, crown puller. We're completely surrounded and, you know, different there's different answers on what he said.

00;09;51;02 - 00;09;58;26
Craig Andrews
But, you know, some are they won't get away this time. Now, you know, now we can shoot in any direction, hit the bastards. You know, there's got to.

00;09;58;26 - 00;09;59;28
Richard Walsh
Where where we want them.

00;10;00;00 - 00;10;07;19
Craig Andrews
We got them where we want them. But it's that type of mentality that I believe helped you go through. 0809.

00;10;07;21 - 00;10;28;21
Richard Walsh
Yeah, I agree, it's, another one for that. The chosen ones were actually the fighting withdrawal. Yeah, it wasn't a retreat. So fighting withdrawal, which again, it's a mindset thing. It's like you're saying it's so important that you're right. because the first 20 years, one of the mistakes I made was I was too marine. I wasn't accepting help.

00;10;28;23 - 00;10;48;08
Richard Walsh
I just dip my shoulder, kept driving forward, and I'm. I'm getting there, but I'm going to do it. I don't need your help on anyone's help. I'm going to take all the credit. Very ego driven, you know, for whatever the, you know, whatever my past put in life. So that need the need to succeed on my own. I tell all my kids, I go, don't be like I was.

00;10;48;10 - 00;11;10;17
Richard Walsh
I said, get up. I coach people now, right? I compress ten years of time into a year. Of course. Mistakes, bad decisions, all this stuff. And I tell people quick, I had clients who were multi billionaires. Give me that advice because they love me. Do you think I took it? No, because I'm a thick jarhead who's you know, what do they know?

00;11;10;17 - 00;11;31;07
Richard Walsh
They just own multiple professional sports teams and all the stuff. And I'm some goof making water features, right. So yeah, it was. I look back and it's like, man, you were just an idiot. It's like just I always try to encourage people like, just help is good. Now back then you we you couldn't just go on the internet because it wasn't even around and find a coach, right?

00;11;31;08 - 00;11;48;20
Richard Walsh
That was a difficult thing to do. But there was mentors. Yeah. There were people who were willing to help you. You've already been where you're at. And it's just it's just funny. When I look back, I mean, I survived it, right? You know all that. No help cause my collapse because I wasn't listening to it. And it was simple little things that they just.

00;11;48;22 - 00;11;53;15
Richard Walsh
Well, yeah, it's an ego killer, man. Ego is a killer.

00;11;53;18 - 00;12;18;18
Craig Andrews
Isn't that amazing, though? I mean, I see this, you know, so I, I, I help folks with their marketing. I see this all the time. They get like 90% right, but set 5 or 10% that they get wrong. That's just absolutely holding them back. It's not like they're getting 90% of the results they're getting about 20% of the results because of that 5 or 10% that they're missing.

00;12;18;21 - 00;12;40;01
Richard Walsh
Yeah. It's and you know, it's interesting that number I do the same. I have a lot of clients were in the construction industry and that last 10% is 90% of the job. It's what it's all about that's finishing putting the last touches to clean up that, to get that final check. Like everyone, most struggle on the 10%. Yeah.

00;12;40;03 - 00;13;08;29
Richard Walsh
Just like you're saying that 10% that being a finisher, I'm a finisher. I do not like things left unfinished. I'm a mission oriented individual. Okay. So I'm about finishing. So, but you're totally right. And marketing man, God bless you. I, I know a lot about marketing, but the 10% they don't know crushes. Yeah, I like it's. So it's just, man, I woof.

00;13;09;01 - 00;13;23;28
Craig Andrews
Well, and what's interesting is so many times, I mean, so, like, here's a common mistake, you know, so many times they have the right messaging. They just have it in the wrong order, you know? So if I look at their website, they have a bunch of crap that either means nothing or nobody cares about all the way at the top.

00;13;24;01 - 00;13;29;27
Craig Andrews
All the stuff they care about is way down the page where they never scroll because they lost them at the top, right.

00;13;30;00 - 00;13;45;00
Richard Walsh
You know what else I found? This has been talking a little marketing. You know, I had done this website for Sharpen Spear like, oh, it's awesome. And a stage and I got Spartans and I got everything with spin. I'm like, well, man, and here's what we do and here's how we fix your stuff. And and then that was a few weeks ago, a month or two ago.

00;13;45;00 - 00;14;04;28
Richard Walsh
I looked at it go see, here I go again. It's all about me. I don't even talk about their problem. What's holding them back? Oh, I am such an idiot. So that's gone. Holy website. Sometimes you just get so you can't. You have to think like your client. Yeah. Who? Who am I trying to help? I'm not helping me.

00;14;04;28 - 00;14;17;15
Richard Walsh
I I've done it. I'm already there. So you got to that. That's. And you're exactly right. That marketing that flip and it it's it's just a mixed bag of stuff that you got to put in the right order and then you got a shot.

00;14;17;18 - 00;14;42;04
Craig Andrews
Well, and whether it's marketing or the people that you help, it's the same in my mind, it's the same issue. You're too close to the problem. You live and breathe it every single day so you can't see your blind spots. You're just they're all around you. You can't see him. And so that outside perspective, it's a coach like you or, you know, a marketer like me that comes in and says, hey, did you notice this?

00;14;42;07 - 00;14;42;29
Craig Andrews
Yeah.

00;14;43;01 - 00;14;58;20
Richard Walsh
Yeah, we call it I call it Outside Eyes. Okay. If you can put outside eyes in your business, everything changes. Because what I do now, like I know what I went through for 20 years and all this. But now I go in and I see it plain as day and I can be. We'll go back to the Marine Corps.

00;14;58;20 - 00;15;15;03
Richard Walsh
Gratitude like I am knife hand and like you're going to do this and you can do this and I change it right away. So it's not necessary a turnaround because their business, their business isn't going under but it's stalled. Right. So it's this, this, this. And all of a sudden you go from, you know, an average job praise here.

00;15;15;03 - 00;15;27;18
Richard Walsh
You know what this and also you're three times that, you know less than a year later and you're doing less work and you're making more money because you didn't understand what you're delivering. You know, you didn't you didn't present it right.

00;15;27;20 - 00;15;34;12
Craig Andrews
Wow. I mean, so I mean, right there, that was a bomb. What do you mean you didn't understand what you were delivered.

00;15;34;14 - 00;15;52;20
Richard Walsh
So people get out and they do where they and and I do. I do worry people who do great work. I won't work with someone who does really poor work, like is. That's what they believe in. We want people want to get better and deliver a great product, but what they don't understand is they don't understand value their own value.

00;15;52;23 - 00;16;18;18
Richard Walsh
They don't understand the value of what they're bringing to the marketplace. We all are guilty of this. And I don't care how much money you make, it's not enough. And I don't take that the wrong way. But I'm saying this that we all have this value, and since it's us, we're always whether it's a doubt, you know, they call it imposter syndrome or whatever, they got all the little names they have, but but they look at the product and I look what they deliver, and I go, do you see what you deliver like?

00;16;18;19 - 00;16;35;10
Richard Walsh
And you only charge them that? My father's a great example. He came, saw what I'm building for people, and I told them how much. I'm sure he goes, they pay you that much? I go, well, there, you can do this. Like you can actually you can operate machine. You can, you can build something. You could do it so you don't value.

00;16;35;10 - 00;16;52;19
Richard Walsh
They can't do it now. They could buy everything that I own with a stroke of a jack. What? But they can't build it, I said. So there's a value to it. Because what the end product is to bring so, so much peace and joy and they love and they sit around this water feature and all this stuff and I'm like, you don't understand.

00;16;52;26 - 00;17;10;11
Richard Walsh
So you really have to understand your clientele. So that's an ideal client profile, right? The ICP understand who it is and what they're looking for. So what I've done, Craig, is go, you know, everyone kind of gets to the same product at the end for the most part, right? Like it's done. Like if you walk into a remodel, let's use that.

00;17;10;11 - 00;17;29;15
Richard Walsh
Right. You come in and it's been finished and everything good. And someone's cooking has a beautiful kitchen. What they usually tell you. What would that homeowner of your friend, what do they usually tell you? Not. It's a great kitchen. At the end, they're going to tell you about the experience of having that done. They don't communicate. It didn't show up.

00;17;29;16 - 00;17;49;00
Richard Walsh
It took too much longer than it should have. And they'll go, that's older. Remember, you know yeah, have a great kitchen. But you don't have to go through to get this. So what we do is like I understand what you're delivering, right. If you can deliver a world class experience okay. Now they're sitting in something they loved because it was awesome.

00;17;49;00 - 00;18;00;27
Richard Walsh
They have it made, you know, like the whole process was like handled by professionals. They communicated, they delivered, they cleaned up, they kept things the, you know, all the stuff. Right. Does that kind of make sense?

00;18;01;00 - 00;18;20;00
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well, when what I think of like, hotel experience, what's the difference between a motel six and a Waldorf Astoria? They both have a bed. They both have a bathroom, you know, nightstand. They have the same best basic elements. But it's not about the bed. It's not about the. It's about the experience.

00;18;20;02 - 00;18;36;11
Richard Walsh
That's right. Well, the time you pull up, roll open, that door gets opened for you, and you get out the valet, your car, and you take your stuff to take it. It's the whole experience. So and I tell people like, people don't think of that in construction. And I have a really great client down in Texas. He's just builds custom house.

00;18;36;11 - 00;19;00;14
Richard Walsh
Beautiful stuff. And, we just he created the world class experience. Like, it's an unbelievable experience. You have, you know, when you have a home built by that from the very first phone call, from the very first, it's an unbelievable experience. You do that. People will pay for that. Yeah. You know the level you want to work at when you want A3X, what you're charging.

00;19;00;16 - 00;19;16;19
Richard Walsh
Okay. That doesn't come from the same people you are charging. The lowest of. You got to go to new client level. So you going to build that up, but you can't go to that client level two you're ready to deliver right. So that's what I really mean by they just don't value themselves. They don't get it. Sometimes they don't know what to do or how to do it.

00;19;16;22 - 00;19;36;07
Richard Walsh
Of course they help with that. But it really is understanding like what you want to deliver. It's way beyond your product or service. Do you know what I mean? It's not the end products, not clean carpets. It's not. They deliver clean carpets. No no no. That's everybody does it right. What what happens from the beginning all the way through.

00;19;36;10 - 00;19;39;02
Richard Walsh
That's really where it changes the game.

00;19;39;04 - 00;20;09;11
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And it's and I think where people don't value themselves or they undervalue themselves. It's there. And think about the the cost of getting it wrong from the customer's perspective. You know. So let's say it's building a house and something goes wrong. And you spend the next five years trying to fix construction issues or maybe it means, you're staying one place.

00;20;09;11 - 00;20;28;26
Craig Andrews
And because it takes six months longer to build the house, you have all the commitments and expenses tied to that place. Because if, let's say, if you're buying a multimillion or you're building a multi-million dollar house, chances are you're presently living in a multi-million dollar house and the cost to living there is not zero.

00;20;28;29 - 00;20;47;21
Richard Walsh
Exactly, exactly. It's it's as you hit again, get into your get, become your customer, be who they are. You have to be who they are. And like you have to look at everything from their perspective. They don't. They don't care if you got problems. Okay, let's be honest. They don't care if you guys didn't show up or whatever.

00;20;47;21 - 00;20;53;10
Richard Walsh
That's your problem. You're the business owner. Handle it. Make it a great experience regardless. Okay?

00;20;53;10 - 00;21;14;03
Craig Andrews
And and that's the thing people fall into. I believe people fall into the false belief that they have to be perfect. Nobody's perfect. The differentiator is how you respond. I you know, before I did this, I used to do marketing in semiconductors for mobile phones. And when my customers with Siemens in Germany, you've never met bigger ball busters than Germans.

00;21;14;06 - 00;21;37;14
Craig Andrews
And the, And we screwed up a lot. But basically I had general manager that would go off and promise things that we knew we never could deliver. And then he sent me in to go tell them we weren't delivering it. And so, I got really, really good at delivering bad news to Germans. And they, they actually at one time actually thanked me.

00;21;37;16 - 00;21;50;04
Craig Andrews
And, and so it's the reality is there is no perfect company. It's what's the experience you're delivering as life happens and life does happen.

00;21;50;06 - 00;22;08;23
Richard Walsh
That's right. It's so important. And you have to have that flexibility. That adaptability all the time is built into your system. So we do a lot of systematization where you want to systemize your business, but you get a factor that in it's not a machine, you're not building a machine. Yeah right. We call it systematization. It sounds like you're building a machine, which really not.

00;22;08;23 - 00;22;29;11
Richard Walsh
I mean, you have a system, but you put people into it. Yeah, right. So you've always got the people factor. Yes. We can automate, we delegate, we eliminate, we do that kind of stuff. But really, that portion of that human being operating within the system, that's where the that's where the, the mistakes happen, right? That's where the life happens.

00;22;29;13 - 00;22;39;16
Richard Walsh
You know, they don't show up, things get delayed and all that. Something like you did, you became a good arrow catcher okay. As the messenger okay. But but do you learn to deal with it right now?

00;22;39;19 - 00;22;39;27
Craig Andrews
Come on.

00;22;39;27 - 00;22;58;23
Richard Walsh
Hit the heart to the hearts. Right. You know, so someone's got to do that. If that's the owner, so be it. If it's the GM, so be it. But that you need a plan for that. You need a system for that. Actually like you create is your own system. Actually, that's why they liked you, because what you did unknowingly was create a method to deliver bad news.

00;22;58;25 - 00;23;18;20
Richard Walsh
You know, it's like that and that. And that's actually that could become duplicate evil. You could actually turn that into a system. And now with a company, you can teach that, right? So when you get because there's always a time for bad news, especially if you're building things right or new things right the first time ever you're trying to create a prototype for someone.

00;23;18;20 - 00;23;24;11
Richard Walsh
So there's a lot of bad news being delivered, right? So you can actually systemize that if you think about it.

00;23;24;13 - 00;23;55;13
Craig Andrews
Well, which I did, I broke it down to a real simple formula. I can fill in the blanks, you know. Right. And and the first, the first step in the formula is saying we, we screwed up in some form or another. We screwed up. And no equivocation. No, you just kind of lay it out. As a matter of fact, in more recent years, we had a client where one of our subs was have been making some mistakes repeatedly, and it was really embarrassing for me.

00;23;55;16 - 00;24;23;02
Craig Andrews
And I walked into the client one day and said, hey, I have a quick presentation to give you and in the largest font I could possibly fit. On one slide, I wrote three simple words. We screwed up. And that's that was the first slide of the presentation. Awesome. And by the end of the presentation and by the end of the discussion, she's sitting there smiling and happy and, you know, it feels like shit.

00;24;23;02 - 00;24;34;07
Craig Andrews
You know, we're working towards a solution, but you gotta come clean. You got to just lay it out there. Don't people know they're you're bamboozling them?

00;24;34;09 - 00;24;52;18
Richard Walsh
Yeah, they and people know you're human in the show. Them you're human because, you know, you think they've ever made mistakes. They've been in the same position one way or another. It could be with their own kids. It could be with a friend. It could be in business. Again, everyone gets that. It's like you said, it's the it's the, of authenticity, right?

00;24;52;21 - 00;24;58;10
Richard Walsh
It's like, listen, here's what happened, but here's how we're going to fix it. The problem is when you say we screwed up and sit back down.

00;24;58;12 - 00;24;59;29
Craig Andrews
Okay? Right.

00;25;00;04 - 00;25;13;00
Richard Walsh
You got to keep going. Okay? Now I'm going to show you how we're going to fix it okay? Now we're going to fix it. And that's good. Then they're okay with that because then they go oh it's like when someone's is arguing with you and you say, oh, I totally understand. You know, you understand so we can take care of this.

00;25;13;00 - 00;25;31;08
Richard Walsh
I totally get it. I know exactly where you're coming from. That that the escalation. Right. Because now you're just telling them that, like at the same time trying to figure out how to come up with the right answer. Yeah, that's okay too. Right? We're going to solve the problem. But there's a problem and problems are opportunities. Yeah. And that's what I always tell to a problem is it's an opportunity for us.

00;25;31;11 - 00;25;48;22
Richard Walsh
For us to shine is for you to overcome something really big that leads to the next great thing because you figured out this problem. So problems are totally welcome here. Yeah. Like I love solving problems. A big part of what we do is called tactical. So you've got strategic, which is, you know, building the plan, laying it out in a growing and systemize.

00;25;48;27 - 00;26;06;24
Richard Walsh
Then you have tactical, those little fires that that pop up every day in business. I just get on Fox. Should they call me that? Here we go. And I solve it in like, 20s do this, do this. Okay. Oh, that was awesome. Okay. I just love that stuff because the problems are what kind of gets you kind of going.

00;26;06;24 - 00;26;19;25
Richard Walsh
You know, they get they get they get the energy flowing because you get to solve something, you know, and it and it makes a difference. And they keep moving at the speed of business. Yeah. You know. So not waiting a week to find an answer like we could do this right now.

00;26;19;27 - 00;26;30;23
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well let's I mean so that kind of leads into your book. You've published this book called Escape the Owner's Prison. What's the book about and what are the points that you're making?

00;26;30;26 - 00;26;49;18
Richard Walsh
So escape the old prison is the subtitles, the contractors new way to scale, regain control and fast track growth while living life. So the owner prison is the technician. The guy who's great, what he does working for someone else. But hey, I could do it better. We all think that. So we go start our own business, right? And he starts to happen and he's.

00;26;49;18 - 00;27;06;06
Richard Walsh
And what I tell people is, the thing I have not figured out to date is how not to work hard. The first two years you start a business. Okay, I don't think I don't think it was discovered that that the overcoming that challenge, you were going to work a lot of hours. You're going to work hard. You can wear a lot of hats to get this thing off the ground.

00;27;06;06 - 00;27;27;14
Richard Walsh
That's okay. It's to be expected. But the problem is, Greg, in ten years, you find you just repeated the first two years five times. Yeah. So that's why you're not growing. That's why not scaling. That's where you're margins aren't where they need to be. That's all this stuff is like I'm on a hamster wheel, so the owner prison is if you don't open the door, business doesn't start.

00;27;27;17 - 00;27;46;10
Richard Walsh
If you don't show up. Monday, Tuesday morning, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, business doesn't happen. People got to come in your office and ask you how to do something all the time. Should I do this or should I do that? They're not. They're not given authority. They don't actually know what all their job functions are, right? Like specifically what they're supposed to do, or they're crossing over, you know, back and forth in other positions.

00;27;46;16 - 00;28;03;23
Richard Walsh
It's kind of just a hot mess. It gets done because you keep driving and moving and you're the entrepreneur and you're a doer and you'll get things done. But you find out two years later you're still delivering materials to a job site. You know, you're the highest paid person in the entire company, and you're running materials to a job site.

00;28;03;26 - 00;28;19;28
Richard Walsh
Yeah, they can be delivered for 30 bucks. Okay. I mean, it's like it's that mindset, right? And I get it because I did it for a very long time. it's like, got to put the hammer down and we talk about you got to delegate and was like, okay. And they just tell people to do stuff, but they don't build out the position.

00;28;19;28 - 00;28;41;12
Richard Walsh
They don't delegate properly. Right. So that prison and people will operate 2030 years like this, you know, 2 or 3 million operations. Five, ten, 15 people, 50 people, they're still there. So they never create the freedom from the business. If they leave for a month. And I ask them, can you leave that with a week? Can leave a week, not call the office.

00;28;41;14 - 00;28;59;16
Richard Walsh
No communication. You and your wife and kids, they go on a vacation for a week. Can you do that right now? Some cancel. Can't I go two weeks? Three weeks? You go bliss. You hit 3 or 4 weeks and you have. There'll be nothing left. The place will be burned down when they give you because they don't have the system process in place.

00;28;59;16 - 00;29;15;19
Richard Walsh
They have a delegate. You don't have people in charge. They haven't given the authority. So can you leave for two months? Three months? Like that's what you want to do, right? We didn't go in the business to be chained to it. We came for the freedom. We came for the profit. And then what we also had is the impact.

00;29;15;21 - 00;29;36;07
Richard Walsh
Right now, if your business is running right and you're doing well, right, it's in control. You can start to focus on what I call your 5%. The 5% is what only you can do in your business. No one else can do it. That's all. You should be focused on. And that's growth. That's vision. Right? Strategy, stuff like that that you're you're awesome is not going to do that.

00;29;36;07 - 00;29;51;03
Richard Walsh
Your site foreman's not going to do that. You know they're not going to do that. They're going to be great at what they do. You're going to be great in that 5%. What you do and you're going to lead this company, but you're going to bring it to where it's going to be. So everyone in the whole, organization can thrive, right?

00;29;51;07 - 00;30;08;00
Richard Walsh
And once you can do that now, you can go, well, you know what? Yeah, I'm making some pretty good money. I love to help this organization locally. Let's get a percentage of our profits to that. Let's do this. Let's make impact. Let's improve my my, my, my team as people. So they're not just improving and being competent workers.

00;30;08;03 - 00;30;27;14
Richard Walsh
Let's make them better people. How can I do that? We help people create those those levels too, because then they take that home and they're better people. They go home and they improves their family and their families go in the community, and that's an influence there. So my movement is that helping that 10,000 business owners create freedom, profit and impact in their business.

00;30;27;16 - 00;30;47;23
Richard Walsh
So think of what even if I do all 10,000 okay. And when I do it I'm not only affecting 10,000, I'm affecting their people, their people's families and the community. That's millions of people that you can make a legitimate change, like without going like I'm changing the world kind of thing, but like, just that improvement, that's a good thing.

00;30;47;25 - 00;30;49;26
Richard Walsh
That's the impact you want to make.

00;30;49;29 - 00;31;19;06
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And that's I mean, that's so awesome because I mean, I think about stories, I mean, I grew up in a small town and, you know, I think about stories by one family called the Pink Family somewhere of a name, but they, they ran a big manufacturing plant in the the Great Depression hit, and they took care of their employees during the Great Depression.

00;31;19;08 - 00;31;40;02
Craig Andrews
And and then they ended up being some of the most prosperous, one of the most prosperous families in the entire county. And where things started falling apart was when the kids took over and they didn't carry over the the values. The kids saw the business as an opportunity to enrich themselves, and they weren't making that impact on families.

00;31;40;02 - 00;31;42;15
Craig Andrews
And so it was harder to get workers.

00;31;42;17 - 00;32;01;13
Richard Walsh
I think being a well, what we do is we help our we help our families become vision driven. Yeah. So they create what's called the strategic vision. And when you're vision driven, because there's the mission statement, right. Companies have in there hanging on the wall. They're wallpaper. They're what they serve. Only the owner. It's like a it's a chest beating thing.

00;32;01;13 - 00;32;22;16
Richard Walsh
They put the so we're going to be the best in the blah blah blah. Like come on now. That didn't inspire anybody that is fulfilling your own desires okay. You're not you're not inspiring your team by saying how great your company's going to be. Right? Because they're not you. You didn't hire 50 entrepreneurs. You hired 50 workers. You know, people wanted to do great at what they do.

00;32;22;16 - 00;32;41;23
Richard Walsh
But when you become a vision driven business, every person in the company knows exactly where they fit and how are they here in their journey, the entire customer experience, and you continue to build them up, right? You get them super competent, but again, build them as people and they understand you're fulfilling a vision not operating in it. Right.

00;32;41;27 - 00;33;05;02
Richard Walsh
Different. So this is futurecast. So you want this in 18 to 24 months. We're going to do this. And you write this out and it's 6 to 10 pages. And they all find themselves and new hires do that. It's an internal document right. It's not something you market with. But for your people it's it's done. A whole lot of times, Greg, people cry because they're like, they have purpose.

00;33;05;04 - 00;33;24;06
Richard Walsh
It builds real purpose and people money is great, but it's third on the list for people. They don't. They're not just chasing money, okay? They're chasing purpose. They want a purpose. You know? They want to be purposeful. They want what we call quality feedback, recognition. Right? Am I doing a good job and last going job? Do they have input into stuff.

00;33;24;12 - 00;33;40;13
Richard Walsh
They do that. Then the money, now they want to make money. Don't get me wrong. You know we want to pay them well, but that's not the first. So what that means if you can develop those two things, they're not going to sell you out for $0.50 an hour, walk down the street, walk to the other guy now because they don't want to get into that environment.

00;33;40;13 - 00;33;45;09
Richard Walsh
They've already been in that environment before. It is really enriching.

00;33;45;11 - 00;34;04;01
Craig Andrews
Well and kind of circling back to where we started. I remember when I was in boot camp at Parris Island, if somebody's one of the worst insults you could have was, drone structured, say, where you some kind of individual. Right. And it's the. And I think a lot of people misunderstand that. Yeah. You know, in the Marine Corps.

00;34;04;02 - 00;34;28;02
Craig Andrews
Yeah. You can have your own individual character, but the, the mindset of the Marine Corps is the mission is more important than the individual. And we align behind the mission. That's why I'm hearing you talk about is it's that that goes all the way back to your roots in the Marines, where you helped businesses get that vision in mind, and then the people aligned behind the mission.

00;34;28;07 - 00;34;30;11
Craig Andrews
And that's a sticky culture.

00;34;30;13 - 00;34;53;03
Richard Walsh
Yeah. It's awesome. And you're serving you're serving your people, your team who's all serving the customers. You know, it's all about serving them. So you've heard obviously servant leader Hood, things like that, right? Like, you know, leadership do that, stuff like that. That's what it's about. But people think it's they get to go wonky on what they think that I don't know what they it's like, no, you don't want to because and I am guilty of this.

00;34;53;05 - 00;35;10;17
Richard Walsh
Okay. My first 15, 20 years, you know, I was a guy. Like I was hard core. Okay, you do it or you get out. Okay. I'm I'm a what a what of I say I was a hammer. I was a hammer. And everything I saw was a nail. Okay, let's work everything. And I just I drove hard, I drove fast.

00;35;10;24 - 00;35;31;15
Richard Walsh
You either either kept up or you're off the ship. Right? So that's not the way to do it. Okay, again, like I said in the beginning, I tell my children, you don't do what I did early on. You do what I do now, you learn and you work. Then you and you build a real team. You know, I, I even I noticed recently I just, I never used the word employee any.

00;35;31;17 - 00;35;46;17
Richard Walsh
I just don't use it. I know they've gone through associates and, you know Home Depot, their associates, they're just wearing an orange apron. They're not associating anything. You know what I mean? They're really. They came in. Find the part I want. Okay. So that's like, you give them a title, but you're not giving them what goes with it, right?

00;35;46;17 - 00;36;06;21
Richard Walsh
Right. So, you know, I want to if I'm giving someone a job function, I also want to, attach authority to that position. What authority do they actually have to make decisions, perhaps tell other people what to do. People under them. What does that look like? Because if they're not given the actual authority there, it's it's there's no there's no power behind it.

00;36;06;24 - 00;36;22;15
Richard Walsh
Right. No. It's going to listen. So it's an interesting concept, but I really love it. Just more of a team aspect. Like you're saying, we're not individuals. We're here fulfilling a vision. Each one of us has a role to play in the vision, but it's about the vision, the true outcome. So I do a lot of outcome based stuff.

00;36;22;15 - 00;36;45;06
Richard Walsh
So quick example is okay, we're going to straighten out the lobby before we open up. Right. And we need to empty the trash can okay. So what's the outcome if you don't empty the trash can. Is it you have a full trash can. No. The outcome is someone comes in, the trash is overflowing. It looks terrible, right? You now you now tarnish the reputation of the business.

00;36;45;08 - 00;37;04;19
Richard Walsh
That's the outcome. Because you empty the trash. You've tarnished the reputation of this business in which you work, and you depend a paycheck from. But just by doing this, we look at outcome based activities, right? What does it really mean when you do this? What does it really mean? When do you produce your portion of the build, right, or whatever it might be?

00;37;04;19 - 00;37;22;16
Richard Walsh
So is it just a different way of looking at? But once everyone gets in that that ability to see. Right. So now they see things different. So your team starts to see outcomes is not did it didn't do it. What's the real outcome I did it so that right. So that and that's how you how you approach it.

00;37;22;16 - 00;37;39;08
Richard Walsh
So it really changes the mindset. And that's what establishes a new culture in the business. Because people talk a lot about business culture can tell you the first thing about how to actually change it or what it should be, you know? So that's a frustration point for me. You talk about business culture. Well, what does that mean? You know, give me some specifics.

00;37;39;08 - 00;37;44;21
Richard Walsh
You know, how do you actually change that to fit what you want? You know, and it's very doable if you know how.

00;37;44;24 - 00;38;03;04
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well, Richard, this this has just been amazing. so powerful, simple, practical, you know, and it's, you know, I just really appreciate you bringing it. how did people reach you?

00;38;03;06 - 00;38;09;08
Richard Walsh
Sharpen the spirit coaching.com guidance. One stop shop.

00;38;09;10 - 00;38;17;10
Craig Andrews
There we go. Well, I hope people reach out to you, because I love what you're saying. I think can make a big difference in people's lives.

00;38;17;12 - 00;38;34;22
Richard Walsh
Thanks, Greg. Yeah, I love helping. I could tell you pure joy. When I can help a business, you just create that freedom, profit, impact. When I can do that, see what it does for their family, see what it does for their life. Give them those four weeks off. Six weeks off to me on that ability to do all that stuff, that there's just nothing better than that.

00;38;34;25 - 00;38;36;02
Richard Walsh
I love it.

00;38;36;04 - 00;38;39;00
Craig Andrews
That's awesome. Well, thanks for being on Layers and Legacies.

00;38;39;02 - 00;38;42;08
Richard Walsh
My pleasure. I loved it.

00;38;42;08 - 00;39;11;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;39;11;08 - 00;39;34;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;39;34;20 - 00;41;45;02
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.