Episode #210: Building Systems That Set You & Your Business Free: Lessons from David Forster

David Forster joins Craig Andrews to dismantle one of the most persistent myths in business: that people are the problem. With eight businesses under his belt, Forster explains why 94% of business issues stem from broken or missing processes—not bad hires. He shares how simplifying systems, building checklists, and offloading mental bandwidth into clear SOPs empowers teams to thrive.

Craig and David dive into leadership lessons learned the hard way—like when Forster realized his wife was miserable in a "successful" business, or when Craig’s team kept the company running while he lay in a coma. Forster explains how true leadership means letting go of control and creating scalable systems that free both the owner and the team.

He also breaks down why simplicity beats complexity, and how business owners can build a company that doesn’t rely on their daily involvement—creating optionality, not dependency.

Want to learn more about David Forster's work? Check out their website at https://www.systemsoversweat.com.

Connect with David Forster on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/rdavidforster/.

Key Points with Time Stamps

00:01:03 – David’s experience building 8 businesses and helping home services companies scale through systems.
00:01:24 – 94% of business problems are process problems—not people problems.
00:05:04 – Why clear communication is about simplifying down to a fifth-grade level.
00:06:06 – SOPs should be checklists, not encyclopedias.
00:07:06 – How high performers often succeed because they already have systems in their head.
00:08:50 – Muscle memory and overlooked training gaps in the trades.
00:12:37 – Even experts skip steps—why every pro needs a checklist.
00:14:04 – Checklists enable focus and consistency, even in high-stakes environments.
00:16:12 – Why David and his wife sold their first business and how that transformed their leadership.
00:20:03 – What changed in business 2.0 and beyond: delegation, communication, and trust.
00:23:34 – How Craig’s team ran the business while he was in a coma.
00:25:06 – What freedom really means for business owners: options.
00:27:12 – The paradox of leadership: the less the business needs you, the more valuable you are.

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 in 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 this show.

00;00;51;12 - 00;00;58;13
Craig Andrews
Today I went welcome David Forster. He's the founder of Defined Frameworks. He makes sure a

00;00;58;13 - 00;01;03;05
Craig Andrews
business is run efficiently and smoothly for the home services businesses.

00;01;03;05 - 00;01;08;10
Craig Andrews
David's built eight businesses. Ever slight serial entrepreneur, and,

00;01;08;10 - 00;01;10;12
Craig Andrews
he helps him service business owners,

00;01;10;12 - 00;01;24;03
Craig Andrews
scale by integrating clear systems that eliminate inefficiencies and unlock hidden profits. And apparently, 94% business problems are process problems.

00;01;24;05 - 00;01;35;20
Craig Andrews
Only 6% are people problems. So I think there's some nuggets there. Even if you're not in a home services business, I think there's probably some things are going to be really interesting. So let's,

00;01;35;20 - 00;01;38;21
Craig Andrews
let's hear what David has to say. David, welcome.

00;01;38;23 - 00;01;41;03
David Forster
Hey, thank you for having me on.

00;01;41;05 - 00;01;52;06
Craig Andrews
I absolutely, absolutely 94. You know, I have to admit that surprise me. Only 6% of business problems are people problems. I,

00;01;52;06 - 00;01;54;19
Craig Andrews
I'm you're you're you're testing my,

00;01;54;19 - 00;01;56;23
Craig Andrews
That seems too hard to believe.

00;01;56;26 - 00;02;03;28
David Forster
Yeah. And it's I mean, obviously, it's a generality, right, of across the board. So there's going to be everybody's got their own exact percentage, but,

00;02;03;28 - 00;02;11;22
David Forster
when you really dig down into what you think is a people problem, it's probably going to point a lot of fingers back at you. And did you have a process for what went wrong?

00;02;11;22 - 00;02;15;13
David Forster
Was that process clear and were they properly trained?

00;02;15;15 - 00;02;15;19
Craig Andrews
So,

00;02;15;19 - 00;02;19;14
Craig Andrews
yeah. No, it's well,

00;02;19;14 - 00;02;24;14
Craig Andrews
okay. We, we one of the things a process problem I have,

00;02;24;14 - 00;02;27;11
Craig Andrews
you know, so obviously we bring people on and,

00;02;27;11 - 00;02;45;01
Craig Andrews
Elena, who runs our, you know, the Buckingham, what have you. And by the way, Elena's amazingly awesome. We've worked together for a long time. And I think the world of her and I realized somehow we got to the point of the interview, and there wasn't a LinkedIn.

00;02;45;03 - 00;02;46;17
Craig Andrews
I didn't have your LinkedIn thing.

00;02;46;20 - 00;02;47;15
David Forster
Yeah.

00;02;47;18 - 00;02;55;14
Craig Andrews
And I realized I didn't have the process in place to say, hey, Elena, don't let anybody schedule,

00;02;55;14 - 00;02;58;05
Craig Andrews
an interview until we have this information.

00;02;58;05 - 00;03;00;06
David Forster
All the info. Yeah.

00;03;00;08 - 00;03;07;02
Craig Andrews
And it would be easy to say, you know, there was something in there, but,

00;03;07;02 - 00;03;15;09
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So that's an example of a process problem. You could say, well, was the people problem, but I don't know. The process should be robust.

00;03;15;12 - 00;03;24;22
David Forster
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of time, especially as like high performing, quick thinking, problem solving entrepreneurs.

00;03;24;22 - 00;03;32;29
David Forster
We get easily into that. Like, why, why, why didn't they think of this like, it's common sense, right? But it's not for everybody. And,

00;03;32;29 - 00;03;36;25
David Forster
when you've built the system, it just lives in your head, right? And you're changing and tweaking.

00;03;36;25 - 00;03;54;25
David Forster
And so unless it gets out in a very clear way for somebody else to learn and create their own habit from it, it it doesn't live there for them. So even if it's just a short, simple mistake, there's probably an easy way to process it to make it not happen again.

00;03;54;28 - 00;04;11;18
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well, and one of the ways that I kind of a similar application is if there's a communication error, I've found it's easiest to assume it was all my fault.

00;04;11;21 - 00;04;12;10
David Forster
Yeah.

00;04;12;12 - 00;04;16;18
Craig Andrews
Because my, my communication was not robust enough to communicate to everybody.

00;04;16;21 - 00;04;17;27
David Forster
Yeah.

00;04;18;20 - 00;04;19;18
David Forster
I would agree.

00;04;19;20 - 00;04;23;25
Craig Andrews
Yeah. As a matter of fact, we had a guest on that.

00;04;23;25 - 00;04;30;14
Craig Andrews
Like researching military history. And he told me that Napoleon would,

00;04;30;14 - 00;04;32;25
Craig Andrews
there was somebody they considered,

00;04;32;25 - 00;04;42;20
Craig Andrews
maybe the hardest to communicate to. I don't know what the. You know, there's, like, unkind words for it, but basically, yeah, he was kind of the slowest of the of the slow.

00;04;42;23 - 00;04;44;13
Craig Andrews
And so when Napoleon was,

00;04;44;13 - 00;05;04;29
Craig Andrews
put together his battle plan, so he would bring this guy in and he would tell him the plans and he'd say, okay, what I tell you. And he would keep refining the the way communicate it until this one guy could repeat it back to him. And then he knew he had a robust message they could communicate to all of his troops.

00;05;05;06 - 00;05;15;08
David Forster
Yeah, that's I love that. I mean, we hear a lot of people say, now you got to create a language that, you know, a third grader or a fifth grader can understand. Just simplify it, you know?

00;05;15;08 - 00;05;21;24
David Forster
Great leaders simplify things, and or leaders make things more complex. Right? So that's that's a cool,

00;05;21;24 - 00;05;28;09
David Forster
you know, historical kind of shows you that we're really not creating a whole lot of new.

00;05;28;10 - 00;05;30;25
David Forster
We're just figuring it out along the way.

00;05;30;28 - 00;05;31;27
Craig Andrews
Yeah.

00;05;32;19 - 00;05;47;07
Craig Andrews
But what you're saying is kind of same thing with the process, right? You want to have a process that's less dependent on people that, you know, you can put different people in there and they. What's that look like?

00;05;47;10 - 00;06;06;18
David Forster
I mean, the way I like to build stuff, I love checklists and fill in the blank. Make it very simple, very clear, very easy to follow. Most people, if you have a, you know, an SOP book that's 300 pages and it's just paragraph after paragraph and no pictures, right? It's like nobody wants to read that. And that's probably not going to get followed very well.

00;06;06;18 - 00;06;09;28
David Forster
Even if they read the whole thing, they're not going to retain the whole thing. So,

00;06;09;28 - 00;06;23;11
David Forster
anything that's repetitive at all, just creating it into I don't have to type it. I don't have to write it. It's always it's the same thing every time. So just simplify it for efficiency. And just for simplicity of understanding, check the box.

00;06;23;17 - 00;06;26;11
David Forster
Fill in the one word that needs to be filled in or the number,

00;06;26;11 - 00;06;28;10
David Forster
digitally handwritten, whatever it is. But,

00;06;28;10 - 00;06;38;18
David Forster
just making it so it's there, there's no question. And I don't understand how to do this. It's just, what do I need to do?

00;06;38;21 - 00;06;49;11
Craig Andrews
So what would you say to the person who's listening? Say that that's still just persuaded. That's a people problem. I just need the right people that can understand. Because I'm sure you've heard that.

00;06;49;13 - 00;07;06;07
David Forster
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're all. And I've been that. I've been the owner that was looking for the rock star. Right? You know, I read E-Myth by Michael Gerber and it says, you got to make the system so simple that you could put a monkey in there, and they could do it. Just make it super simple because, you know, that's that's what it is.

00;07;06;10 - 00;07;24;02
David Forster
And then you hear the opposite viewpoint of if you're hiring the right people, then you don't have these problems. And there's, you know, there's a marriage of the two things. If you have the right people and you've got a system built, those people are going to perform even higher because they don't have to come in and create their own systems.

00;07;24;05 - 00;07;43;23
David Forster
High performers. Generally, when you find that rock star, the reason you love them is because they already have a system in their head and it's similar to yours. So you don't have to rebuild your system and train them because in what? In the industries that I work in, generally in the trades, a lot of us were technicians that had an entrepreneurial spirit.

00;07;43;26 - 00;08;05;24
David Forster
Right? So we know how to do the trade really well, and we were really good at it, and we wanted to go do it on our own. And we're good at problem solving and pretty good with people. But that management part in the center is the hard part for a lot of us. So training and slowing down to train somebody is just it's like it's like you want to pull your teeth out.

00;08;05;26 - 00;08;07;29
David Forster
So go ahead.

00;08;08;01 - 00;08;14;12
Craig Andrews
I would bet, I would bet the other thing that happens is let's say,

00;08;14;12 - 00;08;27;17
Craig Andrews
so you were specifically in landscaping. And so I would imagine if you're the, if you're the guy on the property, you know, doing the install or doing whatever,

00;08;27;17 - 00;08;37;23
Craig Andrews
by the time that you're expanding the team, you've done this hundreds of times and there are things that you know to do, but they're more like muscle memory and you just don't think to document them.

00;08;37;25 - 00;08;50;27
David Forster
Yep. And then you think that they should pick up on it in the first week by seeing you do it. When you didn't mention it, you didn't even think to mention it. It's just something that you do. And that's exactly right. Is,

00;08;50;27 - 00;09;00;28
David Forster
you know, another way to look at and I've told my wife before, I realized, like, by the time I tell the team about a change or a new thing we're going to do or whatever.

00;09;01;01 - 00;09;17;08
David Forster
I've had it in my head and I've broken it and fixed it so many times in my head that now it's just become a habit. By the time for me, it's been 30 days or more, and I've repeated it so much and me building it that yeah, I can boom, I can take off with it. It's new today, but I've been.

00;09;17;08 - 00;09;27;15
David Forster
That's already a habit for me. I need to give my team the time and the focus to do that for them, so that I can help them create it as a habit.

00;09;27;15 - 00;09;33;09
David Forster
If you just put it out there as a system and then expect it to happen, it's there's a lot more to it.

00;09;33;11 - 00;09;36;27
Craig Andrews
You know, while you're talking about that, I was remembering,

00;09;36;27 - 00;09;40;10
Craig Andrews
it's probably ten, 15 years ago,

00;09;40;10 - 00;09;48;12
Craig Andrews
I went to my brother's place in West Virginia to go shooting. We left him way over to somebody else's house to go to shooting in. This guy had,

00;09;48;12 - 00;09;52;28
Craig Andrews
you know, and them for, you know, military style rifle and,

00;09;52;28 - 00;09;54;14
Craig Andrews
and I picked it up.

00;09;54;14 - 00;09;58;22
Craig Andrews
I started handling it, you know, I, you know, I'd been in the Marines and of course, you know,

00;09;58;22 - 00;10;10;14
Craig Andrews
but we had m-16s back when I was in and I start, you know, playing around with it and he's like, oh, you know, how to break this down? Like, yeah, he's like, well, you show me. Which was a surprise in itself.

00;10;10;14 - 00;10;13;01
Craig Andrews
I'm like, you bought this weapon, you don't know how to break it down.

00;10;13;01 - 00;10;21;26
Craig Andrews
But I start breaking it down. This is the first time I held this class a weapon in, like, 20 years, and I start breaking it down. I get down to the,

00;10;21;26 - 00;10;26;11
Craig Andrews
I had the bulk carrier group, and I'm looking at it, and I couldn't remember what to do.

00;10;26;16 - 00;10;36;22
Craig Andrews
But somewhere, instinctively, I just kind of flicked my wrist and shot the bolt out, and I'm like, oh, yeah, that's what I do. And yeah, and you pull the pin out and then you pull the,

00;10;36;22 - 00;10;50;06
Craig Andrews
you know, the, the bolt out and but it was that muscle memory. But the thing that got me there was when I was in the Marines, I can't count the number of times that I had to strip the rifle down.

00;10;50;09 - 00;10;50;27
David Forster
Yeah.

00;10;50;29 - 00;11;07;27
Craig Andrews
And so it was kind of built in. Well, if you're, you know, it's you've been the one doing the trade. There's so many things I would imagine they're just like that, that it's just obvious. And you wouldn't even think that you'd have to tell somebody to do it.

00;11;07;29 - 00;11;24;02
David Forster
Like the way you the way you push a wheelbarrow. Okay. You would think that would just be like, oh, just go push the wheelbarrow. Like, no, like if you want to make it through the whole day and not be absolute toast, like, you need to learn how to leverage with your arms and shoulders and what muscles are doing what you don't want to.

00;11;24;03 - 00;11;40;14
David Forster
You don't want to carry it like this. Just let your arms hang and use your your shoulders and you know, get your body weight certain ways. And those were little things that we did teach our team. Over time, I figured out like I'd see them and I'm like, gosh, man, you're you're going to be dead by like noon.

00;11;40;14 - 00;11;42;08
David Forster
Like, stop doing that. Let me show you.

00;11;42;08 - 00;12;05;15
David Forster
And obviously there's a lot of equipment we can use to. But certain places, when you're hauling heavy material in or out of a small backyard or something, it's got to be that way. And if you can save their energy, they're going to be a lot better mood to. Yeah. So but that's a great that's a great little example of something that nobody probably ever thinks about as how it impacts your your body and your strength and how you carry a tool.

00;12;05;18 - 00;12;11;16
Craig Andrews
So I don't think about him, thought about that. I know there was a certain way you had to carry a wheelbarrow.

00;12;11;18 - 00;12;13;29
David Forster
You see, it helps.

00;12;14;01 - 00;12;16;19
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Wow.

00;12;16;19 - 00;12;37;25
Craig Andrews
So when you look at. Well, and let me circle back when you mentioned something earlier called checklists and I find for me, in my business, even on things that I'm really good at, I find that I skip steps when I don't have like a little checklist.

00;12;37;28 - 00;12;38;29
David Forster
Yeah.

00;12;39;01 - 00;12;41;29
Craig Andrews
So if I'm writing an ad,

00;12;41;29 - 00;12;56;28
Craig Andrews
I have I've made fillable PDFs for myself that has my process. Yeah. And I go through that, and I can't tell you the number of times where there's, there was a period of time where I was doing some group coaching and,

00;12;56;28 - 00;12;58;12
Craig Andrews
like, one was on,

00;12;58;12 - 00;13;01;19
Craig Andrews
how to build a something we call it first time offer.

00;13;01;22 - 00;13;03;08
Craig Andrews
And,

00;13;03;08 - 00;13;15;04
Craig Andrews
and so for the group coaching, I made something called the power offer worksheet. You know, you fill out this worksheet, at the end of it, you'll have a powerful offer. And I thought, oh, well, let me just put my, my offers in here to,

00;13;15;04 - 00;13;22;18
Craig Andrews
you know, as an example. I'm not kidding. In the process of doing that, I was like, oh, I started realizing all the steps.

00;13;22;18 - 00;13;39;07
Craig Andrews
I stepped, all right, all the steps I skipped and ended up changing my offer, and it made it more powerful offer. I'm sitting there teaching the process, and because I hadn't followed my own checklist, I was missing out on just the incredibly

00;13;39;07 - 00;13;40;10
Craig Andrews
more powerful offer.

00;13;40;17 - 00;13;52;14
David Forster
That's great. Yeah, yeah, that's, I love checklists, and I am like, I'm the last guy that wants to be told what to do. Like, I yeah, I'm just I'm a very,

00;13;52;14 - 00;14;04;03
David Forster
high autonomy individual. And I'm very fast paced as well. So checklists for me allow my mind to think about all the other things or be distracted by the phone call or the question or whatever.

00;14;04;03 - 00;14;09;19
David Forster
That's probably going to come at me and then refocus right back on where was I? What's the next thing?

00;14;09;19 - 00;14;18;23
David Forster
We had a bike shop for several years. And so when you're doing a tuneup or a like a deep overhaul on a high end triathlon bike, that's a $25,000 bike, carbon fiber,

00;14;18;23 - 00;14;20;24
David Forster
everything with ceramic bearings and blah, blah, blah.

00;14;20;24 - 00;14;48;19
David Forster
You don't want to be distracted, right? Yeah. And you don't want to miss anything because this person can go out and do an Ironman 110, 112 mile bike ride after they've swam, and then they're getting ready to run a marathon. So you got to make this thing right. And so having a checklist that just keeps you in that would done it like you said a million times, but it's still there to allow for distraction to give you the freedom of knowing and being still efficient and accurate.

00;14;48;21 - 00;14;53;01
David Forster
So it's quality control more than real control.

00;14;53;04 - 00;15;03;02
Craig Andrews
Well, for me, think about think about fighter pilots, some of the biggest egos in the world, some of the most capable people in the world. Yeah, but even them, before they,

00;15;03;02 - 00;15;06;16
Craig Andrews
before they start heading down that runway, they have a checklist they go through.

00;15;06;19 - 00;15;34;24
David Forster
Yeah, yeah. And dot checks on trucks every morning for all the stuff we had to fill out for our trucks and trailers and stuff. And it's we do it every morning, so it gets super monotonous and boring. But if you miss that one thing, it could be a 5 or $10,000 fine and it would have taken you 30s if you don't, if you if you didn't miss that step and you saw that little thing and you just replace that light bulb or whatever, you know, I mean, it just depends on what it is.

00;15;34;26 - 00;15;56;28
David Forster
And all the downtime of sitting on the side of the road while that officer is really just taking his time to weigh everything. And he pulled you over for a light bulb, but that's not what he's looking for. Yeah. So just the little it is, it's it's the really high end stuff that's super important. And it's just the little monotonous stuff that can just cause a really bad day if you just.

00;15;57;01 - 00;16;03;29
David Forster
Oops. I do this every day. How did I forget that one? So yeah, they're valuable.

00;16;04;01 - 00;16;04;29
Craig Andrews
Now. You,

00;16;04;29 - 00;16;11;09
Craig Andrews
so you've had eight businesses and you said several of them. You started with your wife.

00;16;12;14 - 00;16;14;25
Craig Andrews
And there was

00;16;14;25 - 00;16;20;25
Craig Andrews
there was one where you guys to say it was time to leave was that was that landscape in business.

00;16;20;28 - 00;16;24;12
David Forster
There was. Yeah. That was the first one together. Yeah.

00;16;24;15 - 00;16;26;24
Craig Andrews
So what what happened.

00;16;26;27 - 00;16;32;08
David Forster
So I'm like I said, I'm a very high autonomous and high paced individual. So,

00;16;32;08 - 00;16;34;14
David Forster
the, the unique part of our marriage to,

00;16;34;14 - 00;16;40;23
David Forster
we met, dated, engaged, married. That was a that was in six months. Wow.

00;16;40;23 - 00;16;43;28
David Forster
So when I knew what I want, when I know what I want, I know what I want.

00;16;43;28 - 00;16;46;00
David Forster
But three weeks before we got married,

00;16;46;00 - 00;16;50;17
David Forster
I decided that it was time to launch a landscape business.

00;16;50;19 - 00;16;57;26
David Forster
And we weren't even married yet. She was cosigning on a truck and her maiden name to get everything up and running and get going.

00;16;57;26 - 00;17;00;16
David Forster
Things went very well.

00;17;00;16 - 00;17;08;16
David Forster
We were thriving. She had left her job to come and around the office and admin stuff. I was doing sales and ops. Great team, profitable customers. Loved us.

00;17;08;16 - 00;17;10;02
David Forster
Great reputation.

00;17;10;02 - 00;17;15;04
David Forster
Even through this was in like 2008. So even through that downtime,

00;17;15;04 - 00;17;20;10
David Forster
from 2008 to 2012, we were thriving and doing great. And,

00;17;20;10 - 00;17;34;17
David Forster
over a winter I had a dream and I woke up and I the dream had been that I. We should sell the business. What in the world does that mean? So I told her, and she was like, oh, thank God.

00;17;34;20 - 00;17;43;11
David Forster
Like I've been miserable, but there wasn't any way I was going to tell you because I this is your baby. This is the thing that we're building. This is your passion.

00;17;43;11 - 00;17;49;10
David Forster
And so, I mean, that was an immediate red flag for me, right? Like, let's look into what this looks like.

00;17;49;10 - 00;17;52;19
David Forster
We got it sold. That was a whole adventure.

00;17;52;19 - 00;17;56;08
David Forster
Because 27 years old,

00;17;56;08 - 00;18;00;27
David Forster
and never sold a business before. Didn't know what I was doing, so went through that whole journey.

00;18;00;27 - 00;18;10;21
David Forster
Took a little bit of a brief season afterward to do some other stuff. Got our our marriage and our unity together and trust and everything rebuilt.

00;18;10;21 - 00;18;13;24
David Forster
Especially because we never really got much of a newlywed season.

00;18;13;24 - 00;18;25;25
David Forster
We just went straight into running business. I'm sitting on the couch at 910 at night doing bids and designs and email and customers, and I thought, you know, well, she's sitting next to me. This is quality time, right? And so,

00;18;25;25 - 00;18;28;21
David Forster
after that, though, we've,

00;18;28;21 - 00;18;32;02
David Forster
we've done six more since then and,

00;18;32;02 - 00;18;34;14
David Forster
all of it together, all of it amazing.

00;18;34;14 - 00;18;36;16
David Forster
The trust in the way that we run together,

00;18;36;16 - 00;18;44;22
David Forster
has been, has been great. So it was a great reset in the early part of our relationship and business journey,

00;18;44;22 - 00;18;48;16
David Forster
to make sure that we were focused on the right stuff.

00;18;48;19 - 00;18;49;28
Craig Andrews
And that's that's cool.

00;18;49;28 - 00;19;02;11
Craig Andrews
That's really cool. What what was it that wasn't working in 1.0 that started working in 2.0 and 3.0?

00;19;02;14 - 00;19;03;00
David Forster
Yeah.

00;19;03;00 - 00;19;15;08
David Forster
I, I was carrying everything. I thought I just needed to work harder and do more and get it done sooner. I thought, well, you know, I could like I'd like to say I was oblivious to the fact that she was

00;19;15;08 - 00;19;20;16
David Forster
miserable, but I was, and I could see it. I didn't know how to fix it. The only way I knew how to fix it was to just work harder.

00;19;20;16 - 00;19;39;21
David Forster
Right? I grew up on a farm. I know how to work my hands and build stuff, and I just we just just go harder at it. So I thought, the harder I push now, this will this won't last as long. And so we'll have the freedom of either a bigger business that I don't have to do so much or will sell the business and do something else, or whatever that future looked like.

00;19;39;21 - 00;19;45;17
David Forster
I thought I just needed to go harder and longer now to get through it.

00;19;45;17 - 00;20;03;05
David Forster
And what I really needed to do is slow down, put the right systems in place, learn how to delegate, learn how to properly communicate not only with my team, but with her, and understanding and like just all of those things. And 2.0 wasn't perfect.

00;20;03;05 - 00;20;11;07
David Forster
3.0 wasn't perfect. I mean, it's still a growing process. Yeah. So yeah.

00;20;11;09 - 00;20;23;18
Craig Andrews
So when you work with when you work with businesses, what are some of the where are some of the biggest, most common issues that you see that that you help them fix?

00;20;23;21 - 00;20;28;07
David Forster
I mean, communication is huge. And that's why the clarity and simplicity is huge for me.

00;20;28;07 - 00;20;34;08
David Forster
Was because it if you I would tend I used to tend to overcomplicate things

00;20;34;08 - 00;20;45;19
David Forster
and trying to explain them and trying to find a way that would work for everybody. And so I would just the redundancies that I would build into systems just kind of got confusing.

00;20;45;24 - 00;21;02;26
David Forster
And I thought, you know what? Let's just cut the fluff, make it. This is and I was trying to protect people to, I think protect them from me. I thought I was a very gruff, hard working, hard driving person. So I wanted to protect them by making sure that I had a way to explain it. That worked for them.

00;21;02;28 - 00;21;07;17
David Forster
Yeah, and it just got confusing. So simplifying everything,

00;21;07;17 - 00;21;09;06
David Forster
to be clear, like,

00;21;09;06 - 00;21;13;20
David Forster
like you were saying about Napoleon, that's like, I love that. That's going to stick with me forever now, but,

00;21;13;20 - 00;21;15;22
David Forster
and the control side of it,

00;21;15;22 - 00;21;39;10
David Forster
those are the two things is learning how to communicate what's in your own head as an owner who thinks a million miles an hour and has just all of this knowledge and experience bottled up in there over decades of of learning how to do things, how to cleanly get that out to somebody who knows nothing and then delegate properly, that has the the follow up and the accountability on it.

00;21;39;10 - 00;21;42;18
David Forster
That still gives you the control that you're looking for.

00;21;42;18 - 00;21;51;19
David Forster
But not the, the micromanagement or the just elbow. And get out of my way. I'll do it. Let me do it. Yeah.

00;21;51;22 - 00;22;11;20
Craig Andrews
So gives and that's I mean, it's so easy when you're sitting there and you're looking at it, you know, it's five minutes. If you do it, it's 20 minutes. If you coach them how to do it, it's so tempting to run in and do it. Just because it's it's time efficient that time.

00;22;11;23 - 00;22;27;00
David Forster
Yeah. And even if you get them trained, they may only be able to get down to ten minutes. Yeah. But having a team of ten people doing that in ten minutes is better than you doing it in five, and nobody wanting to work with you. So.

00;22;27;02 - 00;22;32;26
Craig Andrews
Well, I know for me, you know, there were some things where,

00;22;32;26 - 00;22;34;22
Craig Andrews
well, I'll give an example. The,

00;22;34;22 - 00;22;38;10
Craig Andrews
you know, I had had an employee who,

00;22;38;10 - 00;22;50;10
Craig Andrews
would tell her clients some things that she shouldn't, you know, over promised or, you know, some something. And I was like, you need to clear that up. And she didn't want to make the communication with the,

00;22;50;10 - 00;22;51;02
Craig Andrews
client.

00;22;51;02 - 00;23;23;01
Craig Andrews
She's like, well, can you do it? I'm like, no, you've made the communication. You need to clean up. It's going to be fine. It's going to be fine, and I'll coach you through it. And that was painful for me. I mean, it was, you know, I don't like to see people suffering. And she was suffering and. Yeah, but I, I did that and and I had no idea how much it would pay off because as you know from my story, at one point, you know, I go into a coma and now she has to have the hardest client conversation she ever had.

00;23;23;03 - 00;23;25;26
Craig Andrews
She calls all of our clients and says,

00;23;25;26 - 00;23;27;11
Craig Andrews
hey, I need to let you know that,

00;23;27;11 - 00;23;34;25
Craig Andrews
Craig's in a coma, and they're pretty sure he's going to die. And and the,

00;23;34;25 - 00;23;48;00
Craig Andrews
And so she ran the business for me when I was in the hospital, and she had one of the toughest client communications you could have. And then that whole time, we only lost one client.

00;23;48;02 - 00;24;01;00
Craig Andrews
Yeah, but it's doing. That's great. It's having that patience to let them go do something at 80% that, you know, you could do it 100% faster.

00;24;01;02 - 00;24;08;21
David Forster
Yep. Yeah. And that, you know, that reminds me of something that just it sits,

00;24;08;21 - 00;24;24;27
David Forster
not heavy on my heart, but the real like the real, like, passion behind doing that, helping other business owners figure this stuff out is like, there's multiple reasons you would want to grow a business or start a business, right? You either just want to you want to

00;24;24;27 - 00;24;27;27
David Forster
control your lifestyle and have a good income.

00;24;27;29 - 00;24;39;16
David Forster
So you're either growing your business to provide for or having the freedom to call your own shots and travel when you want to and do that kind of stuff, whatever, or you're building it to sell as an asset,

00;24;39;16 - 00;24;43;20
David Forster
or you're building it and wanting legacy from it. And multi-generational and,

00;24;43;20 - 00;24;48;12
David Forster
you're wanting to hand it over to your kids if they want it, or employee owned or whatever that looks like.

00;24;48;14 - 00;24;49;10
David Forster
And,

00;24;49;10 - 00;25;05;12
David Forster
so all of that, whatever is somebody's definition of freedom, right? Everybody's got their their definition of what freedom is. And the society kind of paints a picture of like, fancy cars and big houses and vacations on the beach and all this stuff, and that's freedom. Do it. What you want, when you want, with who you want.

00;25;05;15 - 00;25;06;20
David Forster
And,

00;25;06;20 - 00;25;33;19
David Forster
what I've realized from building and exiting a few times is not, amazingly, all it's cracked up to be on the other side. And even if there's a ton of money on the other side, you might get bored. It's just like, whatever. So what is freedom? And it's understanding that, like building something that gives you options. Like you were saying, you built a team that whether you knew it or not, you had options.

00;25;33;21 - 00;25;48;20
David Forster
And when that happened, thank God you did, because your business was able to survive and thrive without you. They're not because they didn't need you, but because when they needed you, you were there and you did the right thing. Yeah.

00;25;48;20 - 00;25;54;15
David Forster
And I think that's a, an identity thing that a lot of owners go through is they feel like, well, I don't want my business to not need me.

00;25;54;19 - 00;26;21;07
David Forster
I'm essential. Right. It's like, well, it does need you. I just need you to do the right thing now so that you can have options later. If you don't want to sell your business today, something may change tomorrow. And that decision is completely different. And if you have a business that's sellable and you need either you need the finance or you need the time back for a family issue or whatever it is, then you've created that option.

00;26;21;07 - 00;26;42;16
David Forster
So create that option so that you have the option. And then you wake up in the morning and like it's a whole different life when you know that, you know, kind of no matter what happens, I have options. I'm not tied down to this thing that owns me. I've just I've created something that not only is good for you, but it's good for your team.

00;26;42;19 - 00;26;56;17
David Forster
Yeah. If you have financial hardship, your business goes under. What about your team? What about the community? Like, there's so many like. So that's what that's the like a real drive that when you said that that's what clicked for me on your story.

00;26;56;17 - 00;27;12;00
Craig Andrews
So yeah. And I think, you know, I think the, the paradox that's hard to appreciate is the more you can build a team that can operate without you, the more valuable you are to the business.

00;27;12;03 - 00;27;28;21
David Forster
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And that's that. It's that hard thing as an owner to wrap your mind around. Because it's it it wasn't that way in the beginning days. It couldn't operate without you. Right.

00;27;28;21 - 00;27;34;12
David Forster
And so that that felt like the value you were, you were the value because you were the one that came up with it.

00;27;34;12 - 00;27;44;07
David Forster
You're the one that created it and built it. And it changes that at that certain point. Yeah. Yeah.

00;27;44;09 - 00;27;45;01
Craig Andrews
Well David.

00;27;45;03 - 00;27;46;27
David Forster
Hard, hard left on that one.

00;27;46;29 - 00;27;48;16
Craig Andrews
Yeah, yeah. No.

00;27;48;16 - 00;27;53;10
Craig Andrews
Well, David, this has been really interesting and so once again, you help,

00;27;53;10 - 00;27;57;29
Craig Andrews
you help home services businesses really get their processes dialed in,

00;27;57;29 - 00;28;05;22
Craig Andrews
and get to that point where they have options. I love the way you put that, that they have options. And,

00;28;05;22 - 00;28;08;25
Craig Andrews
so how can people reach you?

00;28;08;27 - 00;28;09;07
David Forster
Yeah.

00;28;09;07 - 00;28;12;10
David Forster
Websites, DF scales, dot com, and,

00;28;12;10 - 00;28;13;24
David Forster
I'd love to put a little,

00;28;13;24 - 00;28;16;08
David Forster
package together for anybody that's listening.

00;28;16;08 - 00;28;21;11
David Forster
So if they, if they reach out from the website and we may be able to put a little,

00;28;21;11 - 00;28;27;03
David Forster
tag on the end of it, but we've got some templates that'll help them get started and just really simplify.

00;28;27;03 - 00;28;32;25
David Forster
They may already have some stuff in place, but these templates may help you just really simplify the language of your systems.

00;28;32;25 - 00;28;37;27
David Forster
Your role descriptions, how the handoffs happen from team to team within,

00;28;37;27 - 00;28;43;20
David Forster
and then even our decision making framework, kind of a decision tree framework has been really popular for people to,

00;28;43;20 - 00;28;47;19
David Forster
unload their mind and help their team read their own mind.

00;28;47;22 - 00;28;52;13
David Forster
So I'd love to package that stuff up together for people if they mention the web, the podcast, or,

00;28;52;13 - 00;28;57;02
David Forster
we'll put a little URL on there and make sure that happens for everybody.

00;28;57;04 - 00;28;58;25
Craig Andrews
Excellent. Well,

00;28;58;25 - 00;29;02;18
Craig Andrews
David, thanks for coming on Layers and Legacies. It's been fantastic.

00;29;02;20 - 00;29;05;25
David Forster
Thank you.

00;29;05;25 - 00;29;32;19
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 Ally's for me.com/guest and sign up there. If you got something out of this interview, we would love you to share this

00;29;32;19 - 00;29;34;14
Craig Andrews
episode on social media.

00;29;34;16 - 00;29;57;26
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;29;57;28 - 00;30;06;03
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.

00;30;06;03 - 00;32;08;08
Craig Andrews
It means a lot to my team. If you want to know more, please go to Ally's for me.com. Or follow me on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.