Good morning. It's Monday morning all over again. It's the Monday Morning Marketing podcast, and we're so thrilled to have you here to join us. Nice and fresh. Well, hopefully as fresh as a Daisy as you can be. But today I'm leading the charge. And I am delighted to welcome the incredible and enigmatic because I've actually spoken to this lady in a Zoom call already. Chris Wards. Chris, tell us, first of all, where are you based?
I'm in Canada.
You're in Canada?
Yeah.
See, this is where I got thrown. I'm absolutely shocking when it comes to international times. And you are the founder of Win the Day. So tell us about this business.
Yeah. Okay. So sometimes people want a little bit of my backstory. Like, how does this happen? Because I think the misnomer is somebody looks at you and says, oh, so what we focus on is we help entrepreneurs stop working so hard. And we do that because your business should support your life instead of consuming it. And I do it in three areas, team time and super toolkits. Now, it's a great question you ask because how do you get into so often people just think, oh, like you're efficient or you're organized all that stuff. And what I would tell you is that works against you because you just keep reorganizing yourself. So if you don't mind, Melanie, I'll give you a quick little backstory of how this came to be so you can have a better understanding.
Yeah, go ahead.
Make sense. Okay. So I started as a marketing strategist my business twelve to 15 years ago. And like so many of you out there, the first couple of years I worked insane hours. Like my husband used to say. I was always stealing from sleep, getting up earlier, earlier, staying later. And I kind of noticed at the two year Mark that I was not as charming as individual that I used to be because I was a little tired and little rough around the edges. So I thought, this cannot go on. Like the people that were cheering me on, supporting me the most, I was impatient and exhausted and just not my chipper self, as you say, across the pond. So what happened was I really started working, going from 16 hours a day down to six. Now, that didn't happen overnight. That's a whole story itself. But let me move the story forward. So what I would tell you is Luckily I did that because it was a few years after that that my husband had been diagnosed with colon cancer and I had been pulled away from the business for about two years. And when I returned after his passing, my existing clients had no idea of my absence. It was not how we navigate his journey. We were very positive in nature. It was not the attention I needed. So the local business community and my clients were shocked. Like, how could they have not known any of this. And so they started to approach me under the capacity of like life is fragile. And if you could do that, Chris, maybe you could get me to my kids soccer games. Maybe I could stop working Sundays when everyone's laying around watching TV, right. Watching a good movie as a family event. So I started working with them under that capacity and I started to realize there was more and more people out there that looked good on paper. That had been business like five years. They're making money, maybe they had a podcast, they're doing good work, but they're still working a lot more hours than they thought they would be at this point in the journey. And it's fun. They love what they do, but they're just tired of being tired. And so I believe that you can work school hours and really excel your business because it's all about getting ideas to execution. That's all being entrepreneur is about. So I wrote the book and now we've got all different coaching platforms and we've got this new winner circle that people are really loving. So that's kind of how it all unfolded.
Yes, well, that's quite a story, but you're absolutely right. I was a stay at home mum when I first started and I had a choice of being a special needs assistant or making cakes to make money. And I completely fell into this by accident because I was already doing it for a charity. So it really is weird how we get to where we are. I don't think anybody really appreciates the winding road that a lot of entrepreneurs take. But there isn't a real magic bullet, though. There's no real formula, is there?
I think there is. I think it's not that there's a magic bullet. I think what's happened is we have been misinformed along the way significantly. Right? So first of all, we were never taught even if you went to post secondary school, you were never taught how to manage competing deadlines. You had six or seven professors. You could be going to school to be a doctor and each professor is telling you this is what's important and figure it out. I don't care about the others. And then I also think when I talk to people about their team and we help them build their win team, their what is next team so they can get to what is next. What happens is so many people hire someone and then when they hire that person, what happens is they've created a new job because now you're busy, Melanie, you're running around trying to get all this done. You hire someone and now you're leaning over and you're having to check on their work. So it's like a parent child teacher student type situation. And that's how the corporate world and everything we've known has been set up. Right? You have a supervisor to check on your work. You repeat the work, blah blah, blah, where I believe your team should manage you. And it's the complete opposite. And that's how we work with our clients and stuff. So it's not that it's a magic bullet. It's you've been misinformed and sort of taught upside down and backwards in all capacities of your life. So I think it's better than a magic bullet. It's like, hey, I don't know why you're teaching that, because clearly it doesn't work. That's why you all left a job. So there is an easier way for sure.
Okay. Do you have to be a certain type of business in order to do this? Does it only work for services, let's say, or can any business apply this rule?
That's an excellent question. Yes, any business can. If it's a business, we all think, every one of us. I read a quote once where if you fill the business football Stadium full of business owners and ask them to raise their hand and which one thinks their business is different and unique? My business is different. Every one of us would raise our hand. Right? So I hear that all the time. Oh, Chris, but you don't understand. My business is different. And just last week, I have a new client in our winter circle, and she had come to me. She only been with us a month. And so many of our clients tell us that within the first month of working with us, they get 25 hours back a week. And she said, Chris, oh, my heavens, I was away on holidays. And normally it would have taken me three weeks to catch up when I came back, which, by the way, I call snow banking because you don't actually take a vacation. You plump the work before and after, like you're digging yourself out of a snow bank. And so there's this big spank on one side and the other versus the snow going away. And she said, Chris, I got 80 hours worth of work done in 40, and I'm not tired. Like, this is crazy. I've been doing it wrong all these years. So it really is just a bad formula that we've all subscribed to.
That is impressive. That 80 hours in 40. Wow.
Well, because people realize how much time they're wasting. So if I can give you this quick example, and Esther, I'll speak to you as well. Every business is so different. I had a designer, she's a client of ours, and she came to us. She said, Chris, this is how they all start. Chris, my business is different. You don't understand. When I walk into a house and I see a room, I just see a room, right? A team can't help me. Even if I had a million dollars, I see a room. I just see stuff. I know where to put it. It's my God given gift. And I'll hats off to her. She is really good at it. I don't see what she sees. She's right? However, even if you're a brain surgeon, there's pre and post work to everything, and there's a lot of copy and paste and redundancy that most people don't see because you connected to the important work that you're doing. And that's what we do. We sort of break it down. So what happened was we sat down with her, we were working with her, and her average appointment was something like between one to 2 hours. And after working with her a while, we were able to take pieces out of that and say, this doesn't actually need to be done here sitting with the client, we did all that, and we were able to as we build her win team and put super tool kits in play, and we'll address what a super toolkit is later, we put super tool kits in play, and then we got our appointments down to an average 40 to 55 minutes. So what she did with that was then she started just having morning appointments with her clients in the afternoon. She had a very short time, became a very internationally known speaker on the subject. She just called me last week. She was so excited. She couldn't wait to hear this week's strategy call. And she's like, Chris, I now am seeing this very large home design mega event. It's a three day event. It's a home show type thing. And she, of course, has two guest spots, but she'll be introducing big celebrities of American television and stuff like that. So even with her where she thought her work was very different, we were able to do that. And that's the magic of it is everyone just thinks the bloody knuckles, the grinding it out. Listen, you didn't start a business just to run a business. And if hard work was the answer, you'd be where you want it to be by now.
Yeah, I totally didn't just start a business to run a business. I think that's brilliant. It's true, though.
It is. And we do fall into the trap of how I want it to be done. Only I know how to get from A to B, only I know, and we forget that. Okay, so there's the pre A and there's the post B. So I think it's really I personally do have a team with me, but there are still things that I just won't let go of, which I probably should.
Well, it is kind of like saying we definitely work with people who have a team. And it's kind of like saying, well, I already have a car. And you say, well, okay, can we make that car more fuel efficient? What can we do to increase the life of that vehicle or make it more comfortable, right? Make it get places without any hiccups. Because we definitely work with people with teams. People come to us all the time with teams and say, look, they're wonderful people, and they do as I ask, but what we are all about is that they should be managing you. Did you raise your hand on that?
Yeah, I did. One thing I forgot I neglected to mention is that when Esther and I are in here, we both have points to say we try and put our hands up so that one of us gets permission to speak first and whoever gets.
Okay, then I'll not act like I'm the teacher, but I didn't know if it was for me. No, go ahead.
Now, what I wanted to ask is obviously you've got a structure, like a framework that people can use for every type of business, and they'll obviously pay for your services. But do they have to pay for platforms to help them do it or is it something you provide for them?
That's a fantastic question. So what I would argue is almost any tool like, listen, here's the thing with tools, the best tools in the world, used by the most successful people in the world, millionaires. They are usually free or next to free, right? And we get this whole thing all the time where people will say, well, Chris, what apps do you use? What this? That's not it. Adding automation. People get confused with automation. You can say, let's think about like a factory if you can imagine a factory and they say, okay, we're going to produce this many widgets and all of a sudden we build a machine and say, well, great, we don't need 20 people to make the widgets and we now have this machine. But you need somebody to supervise that machine or else you come back two weeks later and go, oh, the belt broke on this three weeks ago. We didn't know anything about it. So automation can expediate some things that your team does. But even in that anything that you're going to use as a tool, you should be able to learn in five minutes. You should be able to teach your grandmother and it should really be free or next to free, right? I no longer say a five year old because they are smaller than all of us. But what I would say is the most powerful tools in the world are free because they're globally used by everybody and they will make purchases or sell you in other ways. So it's not about if you work with us and you have to buy all these things, because if you had to do that, listen, all you're doing then is saying money can solve any problem. We already know that, right? So this isn't, oh, if you had enough money, you could solve this problem. This is a reorganizing. And being more efficient with your energy and making you, you should constantly be in creation mode. We believe in what we call the Win formula. You should be in 60% execution mode, because ideas to execution is all that makes an entrepreneur successful. It's not about repeat work, because that's a job, and we all had those. So you should be in execution mode 60% of the time. So too should your team. Because as you take on a new ambition, whatever that next thing is, they need bandwidth and their work to keep up with you. So it's not about buying apps or anything. We do lean heavily into what we call super toolkits. People sometimes confuse that when they don't know, like a standard operating procedure. But standard operating procedures are written, not by the end user. They're static in nature and they're usually just to cover liability.
No, I'm totally behind you there with the free or next to free. We totally advocate that as well. It's like if you can find something that's free. Well, we've also recommended stuff to Melanie that she's been paying for extortionately and then go, oh, I can get that for free. Well, it's something that we like to share with our clients as well. Why pay for something whenever you can get almost
get lifetime deals or lifetime deals as well,
and almost exactly the same. Yet it might not be all the bells and whistles, but you don't need all the bells and whistles either, because that's just going to confuse.
You know, and even all that. Sometimes you do buy into something. And that's what I felt prayed too many years ago when I was in what I still call my dark years, and I would buy some sophisticated software that they promised me. After hundreds of dollars in three months, I finally learned how to use it. Well, who had the time to figure all that out, right? So when I'm showing my clients different tools every time, it's like they're like, oh, my gosh, you just changed my life in two minutes. And it's not often the tool, but how you use the tool, right?
Yeah.
So there's little things like that. And that's also why we talk, too, about your team is we want your team. Here's a quick example, because this is all about the 60% execution mode. I have a podcast when they are when the day. And we just talk about general business stuff. It could be anything from sales to social media, whatever. And we were all excited. We were like, okay, we're getting close to 205 star reviews. Great. You can put something up on social media. That's what we're all supposed to do. Blah, blah, blah. And then someone on my team came to me and said, Chris, I found this website. And look, we had 954 five star reviews because we were only looking at one platform like Apple. And we're like, I didn't know all these other places. There are places I didn't even know exist. So first of all, just so you know, I'm a very flawed human being. The first thing I thought was, we're so close to 1000, why are we not there? Because I got one from 200. Still not happy enough, right? And it wasn't just us that didn't know this website because then I went into different communities online, LinkedIn, Facebook.
I said, hey, do you guys know about this? And then I was everybody's hero. And the reality was she brought that to me because of the way we're set up. She set up to have things to manage me. The bandwidth, her execution mode of 60% is there. The super toolkits support her being able to do things that normally would take twelve steps, get down to eight. We're always perfecting what we do and saying we don't need to do this, this many steps. Here's another way. And so that's how we operate. I'm not steering the ship. They are the sail to the sort of the sailboat that allow me to go really fast, not having to look back at the map. So we definitely work with people like yourself, Esther, that have a team. But can we get more mileage? Can you get that 80 hours worth of weekend to 40? And more importantly, them having fun with clear mindedness and leaving work fresh and starting refresh tomorrow.
Yeah, I think that's what a lot of people sort of go, right? Well, if I'm not exhausted by the end of a Friday afternoon, then I haven't done anything. I haven't worked.
That was hard for me in the beginning, and it's hard for a lot of my clients. And I remember saying to my mom one day, who knew I'd have to learn not to work so hard, like, this is nuts, right? But what happens is you are so used to that. And it's like a little addict. And I have to talk to my clients about that where they'll say, well, you know, I got so much done today. And then at 05:00, they still feel so good. So they think, well, I still feel so great, why don't I say a little extra hour? And then so to that unraveled. So we have to teach some more and more. The job was never meant to be work until you fall over. Because the human brain, anything invented in the history of mankind came from times of relaxation or play, when the brain is arrested. And that's how you create, and that's how you problem solve and do your best work. So this idea of running around multitasking and working really hard works against what you're supposed to be doing as entrepreneur, which is creating.
Earlier on this week, I put up a post about looking up for webinar names, and a couple of suggestions came through, and one of them was, people are the pipeline. And that pretty much sums up what you're doing there. I know it's not just for teams, but you're kind of helping people also manage their staff as well as their time. Do you help them create goals as well?
Listen, I do help them. I wouldn't use the word manager team. I help them lead their team. So their team can lead them. My goal and I assure you that I achieve this every day is to be the dumbest person in the room. Just recently. Recently we are diving much more effectively into keywords. So we're on this conference call with Sam Rush and we're really making our blogs more purposeful. Now let me tell you the story. Maura, who is new with us. Maura has only been with us about six weeks. She started right before Christmas. Why she started was Kayla, who works with us and lives in the Philippines. She suddenly with Covid and all that's going on. Got approved to go to school in Canada when two weeks notice all of a sudden. Now, to be fair, we were kind of looking at Kayla's job saying she's really grown a lot and maybe she needs a junior helper with more repetitive tasks because Kayla has really become a creator. And so we were looking at anyhow but it all happened really quickly. So we had to hire someone for our team. We hired Maura. This was like two, three weeks for Christmas. At the same time, I was called in and asked us a favor to replace somebody in a speaking gig that had pulled out. It was a four hour presentation and they wanted something very specific. So I had to edit my existing presentation. I looked at my calendar, I moved things around. I really had two days to start from scratch with the slides and everything. Now know a four hour presentation if you can do the math. Even if I went through it twice, that's 8 hours. So I didn't have much time. So it's right before Christmas. Kayla's move in Canada, we hire Maura. Kazal has her trained in up to 80% capacity in two weeks. I never met Maura once because I was busy, because we have these super tool kits. Cut two. Now this week, Maura is on a call with me on SEMrush because we're going to start learning much more effectively how to use keywords in our blogs. I'm sitting in this call. I said tomorrow. Last week, you're going to be on this call with me, do some research online with YouTube, figure what enough to know, to ask some basic questions. I kid you not. I'm sitting in this call. Have you ever been as a child where you're sitting in a room like a room for adults and you know that they're having an adult conversation? You shouldn't interrupt.
Yes.
And this is what I look like. I have it on video, right. And this isn't because I'm so dumb and she's so smart. It's because we have these super tool kits in play that expediates everything. So what I would tell you is it really does more than me managing them. It accelerates them so that they surpass me in their area and they just try to keep me up with it. Chris, I know all the stuff, but some rush all you need to know is here's the ten words and here's why I think you should use them. But you don't have to worry about the engine under the hood. You just have to know how to turn the car on.
Yeah.
Having said that, coming back to your question, Melanie, I really don't think any entrepreneur needs to be told or encouraged to have goals. Most of them have more ideas than they can implement, and in fact, they've learned to push them down. If I was having a strategy call with you, gifting you a free strategy call, and we talked a little bit about that. One of the things I would say to you is I want you to start open your phone. And every time you think of something where you said, I always wanted to do that, but I knew I couldn't even think of that right now because I got this thing. Whatever. You have all these dreams and little things, you want to have impact on your audience and your work, and you've been suppressing them because you just know how frustrating and painful it is that you can't get to them. So I get annoyed when I see these things online about motivation. No, entrepreneur needs to be motivated. They just can't get out of their own way and they're exhausted.
Yeah, no, I totally agree. I wouldn't personally going back to the car analogy. I wouldn't open the bonnet or the hood. Wherever you're from, whatever you call it, tinker with the engine. I know my limitations, but I think whenever we're thinking of our own business, we don't put those same limitations in place because it's our baby. We're the ones that came up with the idea, and we're the only ones that can help our baby grow. I think that's where we have to get out of our heads.
Well, then you become what I call a sufferpreneur. It's not a business. You're self employed and you're a sufferpreneur. So I had somebody on my show, and his father was a very sought after Carpenter. He made tables that were worth thousands of dollars, and people were on a waiting list for like six months. And when he retired, he had no super tool kits and play. He wasn't able to transfer anything, and he just closed the barn door. And then he's selling things like a used hammer. That's it. So all those years and the reputation and the finances he brought into the household were just done when he retired. And that's what happens. It's not even what about retirement? And you think that will never happen to me? I'm never going to age. What if you slip on the ice and hurt your arm or anything, right? Life has interruptions. And so unless the business can generate work and income without you, it's really not a business. You have paid a lot of money to be self employed, and frankly, you probably would have been better off with the job because you would have less overhead
and better health insurance.
Yes.
It means so much when somebody can say it is possible to make less is more a reality. It would be so nice for our startups and our scale ups who are listening here to know that there is an opportunity, a strategy, a framework, whatever you want to call it, a book that can help you really make this happen. So how do we get hold of you, Chris, Where's the best place to reach you?
You can reach out to me in any of the socials one of my favorite places to hang out is LinkedIn or for your listeners. I got a little special presence called www.freegiftgif T from Kris. Kris.com and I put something special in there just the other day. Free audio for ship and we're still charging for that so you won't be there very long so you can check that out. Free gift from chris.com and yeah, it breaks my heart because the people I work with are the last to bed in the first up and you're just racing life against that. I mean, I call myself a recovering rushaholic but you're just racing life against trying to get that last email in. One more thing and I'm here to tell you in the winter circle, I guarantee you'd love it. There's an easier way and business should be fun and it should support your life, not consume it.
Amen to that.
Yeah, absolutely. There's been so Hallelujah moments today. It really has. Thank you so much, Chris, for taking the time out to speak to us. And Esther, you have to book international calls from now on Because I'm a dismal at working out at times but it's been an absolute pleasure. We hope to get you back on again and next time we might be able to actually tell you how we're getting on. Wouldn't that be fun?
Yeah, we could talk. I mean, we have not even scratched the surface. I could talk to you even with your time bank account, which is your calendar. There's so much we can more we talk about. So, yeah, I am here at your service to help people because business should be one.
And with that, we'll be back next week with more Sunday morning marketing. Until then, bye.