Episode 41: Letting Things BURN

Growth, Focus, and Making Tough Choices in Business

All things are not equal.

As your business grows, you will reach a point where you will have to learn to let things burn for growth and clarity.

No, it's not easy, but it is necessary.

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Collab with Kiva.

See you next time!

Are you ready to take massive action in your business and make data-driven decisions? Let’s chat 👇🏽

Podcast Transcript:

Kiva Slade: [00:00:01]

Hello, and welcome to Collab With Kiva. I'm your host, Kiva Slade. From the marbled halls of the US Congress to my racing-themed office chair, I've learned that there is no perfect path to the life of your dreams. My journey over the past 20 years has included being a legislative director for a member of Congress, policy director for a nonprofit, stay-at-home mom, homeschooling mom, jewelry business owner, and now the owner of a service-based business. Whether your journey has been a straight line or full of zigs and zags, join me and my guest as we share insights, hope, and lessons learned from our female entrepreneurship journeys. May the collaborative sharing of our stories be the tide that lifts your boat. Let's dive in.

[00:00:55]

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Collab With Kiva. I am your host Kiva Slade. And today we're going to talk about learning to let fires burn. Yep, learning to let fires burn. Last week I was on a webinar and there were several business owners. There were tons of comments when it became an open Q&A that was referencing mindset, people feeling like they were too busy in their businesses, when to hire, how to hire, what kind of people to hire. And there were so many different themes that you could see in the comments. And they're very similar to themes that I see when I'm working with my clients. And so, I was asked by the call leader to share some insights. I was really on there as a guest, so that kind of surprised me. And he was like, "I'm going to meet you." I like, ah, okay. But he knew that there were some things that obviously I could add to this conversation. And so, I'm just grateful for when we have others in our circles that recognize that and are willing to share stages. And what I started to share was that as an entrepreneur, as a solopreneur, call yourself whatever you like, it's often our inability to let fires burn that hinders us more than it does propelling us forward. And I'm going to dive into what I mean by letting fires burn. So, there's an episode of Masters of Scale with Selina Tobaccowala. She was the co-founder of Evite. She worked at SurveyMonkey. She founded a fitness company.

[00:03:07]

Long story short, Selena is a serial entrepreneur. And she says something that's always very interesting to me. And she says, "Knowing which problems not to solve is just as critical as knowing how to solve them. You have to conserve energy for the biggest blazes and learn how to sleep easy while other fires smolder around you." I'm going to say that again. Knowing which problems not to solve is just as critical as knowing how to solve them. You have to conserve energy for the biggest blazes and learn how to sleep easy while other fires smolder around you. And this is the thing that I see with clients, with the themes that I was seeing in the comments. Somewhere along the line, most of us aren't being the CEOs of our businesses. We are choosing to be firefighters. And for those that live out in the West in the United States or if you watch the news, they actually are strategic about which areas of the fire they put out and that they deal with, and the removing of the brush to allow some of it to burn in, literally directing where the burn should take place. The thing that we do differently than those firefighters is we're not selective. We aren't selective in our fires. And we feel that all embers are important. All sparks and all embers are super important and are equally important, so all of them then are requiring our immediate attention.

[00:05:13]

And that was the thing that really separates oftentimes those entrepreneurs who are successful from those that may not be as successful. And that's the thing that I started to share because you have to stop thinking that everything in your business holds the same level of importance. Because the reality is they don't. They absolutely do not hold the same level of importance. However, when we're that solopreneur and we are the one who feels that everything is on our shoulders, all of these things become equally important to us, and we're not able to often distinguish between or prioritize rank order the things that actually are important versus things that sometimes might serve as distractions. Because there are the fires that are smoldering and we're not okay with them smoldering, we have to put them out. And I love in the podcast ... because Reid Hoffman, who was the co-founder of LinkedIn and is the host of this Masters of Scope podcast, started talking to Selena about when she came to SurveyMonkey. Literally, SurveyMonkey for... I can remember when it was still free, so I'll just date myself there. And don't get me wrong, there are still aspects of it that are free, but I can remember when it started. And when she came there they didn't even have backups of their customer data.

[00:06:59]

Reid shared that for the first six years, LinkedIn didn't have a fail-over database. These are companies that are literally making money. And some of us feel that our companies need to be at this level of total, utter perfection with all the bells and whistles and all the boxes checked off, once again, because we feel everything is equally important. It isn't. So, Selena talks about how she purposely made the decision to keep the design ugly. And for those who can think back to when SurveyMonkey started, seriously, the user interface was not pretty. Lots of people told her it was ugly. And she says something I find so important. She said, from her perspective, what she was more focused on was the fact that people love the product and it was performing. So, she was willing to let it be ugly for the sake of being able to actually build a great business. And you'll know I'm going to repeat that because I'm going to repeat things. From her perspective, she was more focused on the fact that people love the product and it was performing. And she was okay with letting it be ugly for the sake of being able to actually build a great business. There are some of you who are listening who have an amazing product, an amazing service. You are selling it. You are serving your clients with excellence. Things are rocking and rolling. But there's smoke coming under the door because you feel that your website isn't pretty enough or your branding isn't pretty enough. Fill in the blank.

[00:09:01]

You have clients, you have a proven product, and now you go off and become suddenly obsessed with rebranding. That's a fire you need to let burn. You need to let it burn. Because it might be that, yes, you do need to rebrand, but do you need to do it right now? Is this something that if you do right now, it's going to move the needle in your business by what? Or is it something that you need to do two years from now maybe? And these are the things that others are like ... those that are on the opposite end, you won't even launch your product or service because you can't even get to the proof of concept stage because you want everything to be just perfect. "Oh, my logo. Oh, my website. Oh, my-my-my-my-my-my-my-my." You don't even know if what you have is going to sell, but you're investing tons of money into making sure that everything is so pretty and perfect. And don't get me wrong, I love a good logo. I love good branding. I love a good website that has a beautiful user interface, user experience, all of the great things. Yay, love them. However, if what you have is working right now and there's a way to maybe possibly tweak it, not overhaul it, why do we go for the overhaul? If you don't have a ton of stuff right now and you don't even have a proof of concept that anyone is going to buy your stuff, why are you so focused on the logo and the website? Because somewhere along the lines, someone told you that in order to have a business, you're going to need to have this amazing logo and this amazing website.

[00:11:07]

And honestly, you don't. You need customers buying your stuff, paying you money. That's what you need. That's what you need. But again, all things are not and should not be of equal importance. Launch the thing even if it is ugly. Keep selling the thing, even if the user interface is ugly. Let's be real. There will always be needed improvements in this journey, but the key is they don't have to be made all at once. Some things you have to let, once again, burn. And the interesting thing is sometimes when you let fires burn, you actually realize that "Oh, my gosh, why was I going to do that? I don't need to do that." But if you don't let it burn, you'll never know that. And in order to let fires burn, you're going to have to face some hard truths. One of those truths is that sometimes you just have to trust and do. That's my business version of boxing's bob and weave. You have to trust and do. Trust yourself and do what you need to do at that moment. Because if we think back to Selena's story about the ugly user interface for a SurveyMonkey, in knowing that it was ugly and knowing that she was not going to focus on it, she made a decision and she committed to the decision of not dealing with it. So, she committed to "I'm going to let that burn. I'm not going to deal with this right now. Because this is not the thing that I need to focus on."

[00:13:17]

So, you have to trust and do because that's needed sometimes when you have to decide to commit yourself to let a fire burn. That is a decision. It's not one that we think about, but when you choose to ignore something, that's a decision. You have to trust and do when you feel like you're swimming against the current of popular opinion, a.k.a. all those shoulds that are being shared with you. Trust and do is needed when you have to muster the energy and strength to keep going. You can have all the coaches in the world, if you as the CEO, as the owner, as the one who is giving birth to this business ... if you. Reach a point of complete burnout and can't move forward, all the coaches in the world aren't going to help you at that point. Another thought that was going through so many people's minds was that they needed mindset, they needed mindset. And some might say trust and do is mindset. I don't really think that trust and do is mindset. Mindset is definitely important. It does play a vital role in whether you're a business owner or whatever else that you do in your life. However, to me, your actions, that's what mostly directly impacts your mindset.

Speaker1: [00:15:06]

When you trust and do you build your mindset muscle, you start seeing and believing the results of your decision. Trust me, your mindset is going to follow suit. Last week I was talking about Thomas the Tank, the little engine who thought he could. You do enough I think I can, I think I cans, and then you actually do it, it's no longer I think I can, it's I did. There's a difference between I think I can and oh, no, I've already done that. There's a difference. So, that's why I don't think trust and do is simply mindset. It's like the basic laws of physics. An object that's in motion will stay in motion until acted on by a force. Part of the problem sometimes is we're not trusting ourselves and we're not moving forward, so all fires are burning because we're just not even able to focus. And that is a hard part of this. But some of us don't need mindset, you need to just start doing hard things. Staying focused is a hard thing. People say what? Riches are in the niches. In order to do that, though, you have to focus. And focus means that you might let some fires burn because that's not what you need to focus on at that particular point in time. So, some of it is we need to do hard things. Hard things like focus, hard things like letting things burn, hard things like not getting distracted from a pretty website, and focusing on actually delivering a high-quality product service.

Speaker1: [00:17:16]

Sometimes the hard thing is managing people. Lots of questions about when to hire, who to hire, and how to hire. People. Management is hard. When you're focused on the right things and you are letting fires burn, your business sees growth. Growth might mean that you have to bring in other people. And with bringing in other people, it means that those people need to be managed. And that's a hard thing. Russell Brunson of ClickFunnels likes to say, "You hire when it hurts." So, I want you to ask yourself what's hurting you in your business. What's hurting you? Take some time to think about that. Because you probably do need help. Most people I find hire way too late. You're past the part of hurt. You are seriously about to become incapacitated. You hire too late. But the question becomes ... maybe you don't need a person on a regular basis, maybe you have a few projects that you need to knock out, so you can get someone to help you with these projects. Maybe you do have enough consistent work to bring on a team member. What do you need to have in place before you bring them on so you aren't feeling like yeah, I have help, but I don't have help?

[00:19:03]

Let's be serious, starting a business is all fun and games until you have to start managing people. That's when this stuff starts to change and you're like what in the world have I gotten myself into? You wait too late to hire. You don't know what to hire for. Unicorns don't exist. I don't know how many times we all have to tell each other that, but they don't exist. Sometimes you don't clearly set expectations for yourself and the people you hire. And let's not even begin to talk about the Kool-Aid that's going around lately that you can hire and have some team that runs your entire business while you do something or nothing. Quick secret, it's not your team's business, it's yours. I'm just going to say that and move on. But managing people requires you to grow the leader. Even if you bring someone like me on to help you in this area, taking care of your team is one of the best things that you can do for your business. And side note, go check out my blog, I kind of talk about this. But as I shared earlier, sometimes it's just people management is hard. It's a hard thing. It's hard to manage other people and it's often hard, just like parenting, if anyone's a parent out there, your kids reflect back, they are like that mirror and that reflects back those things about yourself that you're like, "Ewe, I do that? I act like that? Ooh." Yeah. Guess what? Your team, it's like kids, they reflect back that same kind of mirror. It's hard. It really is. And managing people is not exciting. Not hiring for what everyone tells you to hire for and thinking about what you need in the moment allows you to get the support that you need while you let some other fires burn in your business.

[00:21:24]

And I think a really important part to remember is that hard things are only hard for a period of time. They're not hard forever. And when you finish, once you go through the hard part, you can look back and you're like, "Wow, I surprised myself with this. Look at this skill I've gained and look at how this stretching has grown me as a leader, as a business person, as a human." We go through life and we have to learn lessons, and they're important lessons. So, wherever you find yourself in this business journey, know that you're going to have to do hard things. Hard things like focus. Hard things like keep on moving even when you don't feel like it. Hard things like managing people. Hard things like trusting that other people will actually do what you are paying them to do. The hard things like letting things burn in your business.

Speaker1: [00:23:00]

If you live in an area where forest fires happen and sometimes they're actually planned, it's to remove all that underbrush that is preventing growth. So, controlled burns happen. Why? Because they're like the start of rejuvenating the soil to give a fresh start to the things that are happening. So, to the trees that are about to start coming up. Sometimes the things that you let burn up in your business, they're necessary. Because all things are not of equal importance. So, as I close out, let's go back to the seventies and I'll leave you with this earworm. Burn, baby, burn. I'll see you next time. Bye.

[00:24:09]

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Collab With Kiva. Each of us has a different path and I hope that this episode gave you some takeaway that has left you inspired and motivated to keep pressing forward on your unique path. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss out on any future episodes. And of course, your reviews on Apple are greatly appreciated. If you're a small business owner ready to start making data-driven decisions in your business and you know that without the data, you're really just guessing, make sure to visit my website, the516collaborative.com, and let's schedule a time to talk to make sure that you can harness the power of data in your business. I'll see you next time. Bye.

Meet Kiva Slade - the Founder and CEO of The 516 Collaborative. With a unique background in high-power politics on Capitol Hill and sixteen years as a homeschooling mama, Kiva found her calling in the online business world as a trusted guide for entrepreneurs looking to build the business of their dreams.

Kiva's work began behind the scenes, orchestrating the back end of businesses and managing teams. But her inner data diva couldn't help but notice that small businesses needed help harnessing the power of data for growth. So she and her team set out to uncover and tidy up the data required to enable clients to grow their businesses confidently and easily.