498: Fundamentals, Freedom, Hiring, and Scaling with Nicole Wipp

Robert Plank 0:00 Marketer of the day number 498, fundamentals, freedom, hiring and scaling with Nicole whip. Hey, everyone, we're so glad you're listening and we're talking right now with Nicole whip. And if you want to look her up, that last name is spelled W, i, P, E, P, and Nicole is the founder and CEO of whip enterprises LLC, which is a consulting and training firm that provides a range of leadership team, creation, team, building and retention services to large companies and to the small business and entrepreneur market such as Nicole whip.com and she also leads a highly successful boutique Elder Law Firm. So Nicole, glad to be talking to you.

Nicole Wipp 0:38 Hi. Thank you for having me,

Robert Plank 0:41 glad to have you. So what's on your mind lately? What has you fired up?

Nicole Wipp 0:46 You know, I just love doing anything related to building my business. So we're at the beginning of the year. There is. It always feels like a fresh start at the beginning of the year. So I'm really excited and fired up for 2018

Robert Plank 1:03 Well, great. So like, what sort of things specifically, like, it's one thing that for some people to be, you know, fired up and ready to go and take action. But like, what kinds of things are you looking forward to that maybe you didn't have time to or didn't do in previous years?

Nicole Wipp 1:17 So this year, we're going to be rolling out several new programs in my consulting and training business. One is related to helping entrepreneurs build and grow really strong entrepreneurial teams, teams that help the entrepreneur make money instead of, you know, looking at their team as an expense, but how do you actually leverage the team members to make even more money, and do it in a way that doesn't suck the life out of the entrepreneur. So we have a program that we ran as a beta and 2017 I'm really excited to be making that a much bigger one for 2018 also some great programs that are crossover into our corporate market clients, which are helping people in the corporate market, or our entrepreneurial clients, really develop better leadership skills. So a very similar kind of notion to what we do with the team stuff, but really on an individual level.

Robert Plank 2:19 Okay. Well, great. Well, lots of cool things to unpack there. And like, I like your how you set up that kind of the problem and sort of the solution of that team thing, of that, maybe some people, they realize that they can't do it all themselves, but then they dread hiring a team because of the added expense. But then the goal is to hire a team that will make you even more money. So that way, it's just a total no brainer. So I'm interested in finding out, like, how do you how do you get to that sort of mindset? How do you undo maybe those, those bad habits of the hesitating, of the thinking, the worst, into into needing a team? How do you maybe fix your head in that way?

Nicole Wipp 2:59 Well, one of the things I think that happens, especially to people that are newer in their entrepreneurial journey, is that there's this perception out there that you really have to be able to do it all. And part of this perception happens because, you know, there's a lot of sort of Guru types out there that feed it to you that here you are, you can do all these things, or here's your magic bullet, and here's the next cool marketing trick, or the new sales thing, or your new funnel. And that's all great. I mean, I am probably one of the biggest fans of great marketing and sales training that there is, but the problem is, is that we really need to get back to fundamentals a lot of times. And especially if you're newer in your journey, you absolutely need to focus on fundamentals first, instead of like the next new shiny object, which is hard for some of us. You know, some of us are very attracted to shiny objects. I happen to be one of them and so. But the idea is that if you really want to grow a great business, you have to start thinking about your business in terms of scalability. And the only way that you're really going to be able to scale your business in a way that doesn't involve more of you is by having the right team. So that's the first, like fundamental realization that people need to come to. Then the second realization you need to come to is that building a team is literally not as simple as just hiring somebody. What I see all the time, and even by very experienced entrepreneurs, is that they're like, oh, I need somebody to be doing customer service, or I need somebody to help me build my funnel, or whatever their supposed need is. And then they just are like, does anybody know anybody that's good at this? And then you hire somebody, and then it turns out to be a disaster. And part of there's so many reasons why that happens. Yes, so I just would say to people, and then that's when it becomes an expense, and that's what people fear. So the idea is to use a very specific and thought through process to hiring somebody before you just jump in and then realizing that that's possible and that you can have a process that's going to make sure that the person that you hire is the right one instead of just guessing, and also a process to make sure that that person can help you make money instead of just guessing.

Robert Plank 5:29 Yeah, that's great. And I can definitely relate to maybe in the past hiring like the wrong way, like I still don't hire as much as I should, but early on, I kind of had some some bad luck in just doing what you described there, just kind of hiring, like a friend of a friend, and then being in the kind of situation where it really, I'm a programmer, so I was hiring another programmer, and I felt like the whole time he was just like trying to test me out and see how much he could get away with, like any corner to be cut, anything I didn't check, seemed to be undone. And it seemed like at the time, I kept having to go back and forth and back and forth and and even things that were gone on, uh, earlier, he kind of like seemed to break again. And I remember just like getting out of the whole situation thinking, like feeling really discouraged. And I didn't realize until years later that I should have done a better job of hiring him, I should have maybe been quick to fire him and swap him out with someone else, but I think I sort of fell into a lot of the traps that you mentioned there

Nicole Wipp 6:30 exactly. And one of the other issues and that you sort of alluded to is and this happens, and I'm not saying that you were this person, but I know that I have definitely been this person, and I know a lot of people I work with are this person is there's very often so much of why somebody doesn't work out is literally our fault, and it's because we don't know, like the skill set that makes you really great at your business. The skill set that makes you good at making money in your business, the skill set that makes you really good at delivering whatever your product or service is, or what you know whatever that is, is 9.999 times out of 10, a totally different skill set than it is to hire and manage a person that's going to help you do those things. And that's another thing that a lot of people just don't really realize in the beginning, is that, you know, when we first hire, this has been my experience, and I know a lot of other people's, is that you're sort of, like, what is wrong with this dope? Like, I hired this person, this isn't rocket science. Like, why are they so difficult? Why are they causing so many problems? Why are they? Why are they? Why are they? We get into that a lot of times, where we're sort of placing the blame on the person that we've hired. And yeah, they might be a dope, and they might be inept and they might not be smart. There's a lot of things that can that they actually can be, but part of it is we have to also step back and say, What am I doing wrong as a leader of a team that's causing this to even happen?

Robert Plank 8:08 So what? What is happening there in that situation? Is it like lack of people skills, not explaining enough, not having the processes to check up on them, like, where is the the breakdown happening there

Nicole Wipp 8:20 all of the above, right? And this is problematic, because if you're a person that normally would consider themselves to be a people person, and then you're not having good people skills and managing people, oh, boy, does that feel that's not something that people ever want to hear. But then, if you're not a natural people person, hearing that you need to be a good people person is also something you don't want to hear. So either way, it's not good, but it really is about first of all, I think the first and foremost thing that people miss and is the biggest problem in hiring for entrepreneurs is that you're not hiring the right person for you. And the reason why I really put emphasis on that is because what I need in my business and for my personality and the way that I work, and the things that I'm really great at, and the things I need to really be offloading, is going to be a completely different thing than what you need, for example. And so why would I be coming to you, asking you, for example, who, if you know anybody, to work in this exposition for me? Because the reality is, is what I would need in that situation and what you would need are two totally different things. And so the very first step is really getting clarity on that, and that's something that takes a little bit of work. So that is an example of a really big, huge. Missing component that then causes all those other things that you just mentioned to become problems.

Robert Plank 10:05 Okay, so not, I'm not quite yet understanding what you're seeing here, but I'm hoping that you can clear it up. So what does that look like? Exactly like, if, if you hire someone that maybe the right for the job, but they're not right for you? Does that mean like, it's a matter of like, maybe, if you're hiring you're not as detail oriented, or you want to give someone more freedom, or you want to check up on someone or, like, what does that really mean to hire someone who's good at what they do, but also good for you?

Nicole Wipp 10:35 So Okay, I will give you a very specific example as it relates to me, because it's just, I could go on and on, but I work with a lot of entrepreneurs that are very similar to me in style. So some of you that are listening may resonate with this, but somebody may not. So that's why I'm also saying that this might not be you, and you have to be clear on that. But okay, an example, so I tend to be a very idea oriented person that loves, loves, loves to try new things. And I also am not a person that likes to do detail, although, from a quality standpoint, detail is extremely important to me. So it isn't that I don't like detail. I love detail. It's essential, and you better be doing the details when it comes to my business if you work with me, but I personally don't ever want to touch a detail. And so that is an example of where I might be working with somebody that I really need them to be very, very detail oriented and really dot the I and cross the T kind of person, but they cannot expect from me that I'm going to be the same for them, and I need to exactly manage them in a way that their expectation of me doesn't match with my expectation with them, that they understand what their limits are to what they should be expecting from me. And then how do we work that through together? Does that help? Does that make more sense?

Robert Plank 12:21 Yeah, yeah, it does. So, so the things that that you expect from someone might not match up to what you yourself would like, what you yourself are providing exactly,

Nicole Wipp 12:32 and that's deliberately meant to be that way in certain circumstances. Because a good example of this would be. So if anybody works with me in an administrative role, let's say, for example, when I say administrative role, I'm talking about the person that's getting things done on a day to day basis. So it's an existing process that's already in place in my business, and now it needs to be executed with the same level of quality and detail time and time again. That would be an example of what I mean. Well, I can promise you that if somebody expects me to fulfill that role, if I expect that even out of myself, ultimately, I'm sort of doomed to failure. Because even though I can do it, I'm capable of doing it, you know, just like we're all capable. And so you can think of a lot of things in this world. This is part of the self awareness piece is like, think of the things that you're capable of doing, but if I asked you to do it day in and day out, that you would want to put a knife in your eye, right? Like, you don't want to be doing this task day in and day out, and that's going to be different for many of us, right? Like, we don't all have the same things that really suck the life out of us. So if I work with somebody though that, that is what I'm hiring them for, first of all, they can't be like me. They can't be the kind of person that that would suck the life out of them, but we do tend to hire people that are like us in that respect, and that's one of the very first big problems that people have. And then secondly, I they cannot expect from me when they're executing the process, that I'm going to be as all over it as they are, because even though I expect them to be all over it. They can't expect the same for me, because that's not how I operate, and so we want to work well together. So what is going to be the bridge between those two opposing ways of operating? That's where people really end up having a lot of problems, and that's the work that we do with people, is how to bridge that gap?

Robert Plank 14:41 Wow, yeah, there's, there's, it sounds like there's a lot of things to consider there. That number one, we might gravitate towards hiring basically a clone of ourselves, but that's not always what we want, and even if it is, then we, as the person managing that other person, aren't going to be. Providing the same inputs and outputs as that person, and the self awareness part is really making a lot of sense here, just as far as knowing what you want, what you want out of someone else. And then also, it sounds like a lot of this, a lot of the problems maybe happen because of maybe too much of an ego that that were unwilling to maybe look inside and unwilling to change, or unwilling to try other things, that maybe we keep making the same mistakes with hiring and managing people, and if we just kind of took a deeper look into ourselves, maybe admitted we're wrong, sometimes we'd have a lot better results. Oh

Nicole Wipp 15:32 yeah, and you know, before anybody gets the wrong idea, I do want people to know that this is like for me personally, was a massive game changer. Was the day that I did say to myself, I need to put my ego aside, and I need to realize that I'm as much, if not the biggest part of this problem, and that, yes, I may actually truly be hiring the wrong people, but whose fault is that that's my fault. And then once I accepted that, then I was able to say, okay, then what do I need to do? And the difference for me, just so that everybody can really be clear about you know, what that can mean to you as well. Was before I learned how to do this, right? I was working, and this is not a joke, 100 hours a week, and today, in that company, I only work five days a month, and I make way more money, like probably 10 times more, than I did when I was doing all the things myself

Robert Plank 16:38 that's living the dream, right? That's right, 8020, rule in action, right there,

Nicole Wipp 16:42 right? And so, you know when, when? If you're, if you're working and you're an entrepreneur, think about it like, you know, initially, I think a lot of people think that the reason they're an entrepreneur is for money. And then there's two things, money and freedom, right? But money and then people sort of get into the entrepreneurial journey, and then it's literally all about making money in the beginning, partly just because that's what you have to do to survive in business. But there comes a point at which that is no longer viable, like you can't just make money because you're killing yourself doing it. And if you take a step back and you say to yourself, am I going to be able to operate at this level for the next 20, 3040, years? Am I willing to do that? Is that really what I want to sign up for? Because that's what happened to me. I was like, Am I really going to spend the next 2030, years of my career working this much, doing this many things, and the answer for me was a resounding no. And that's the day that I said to myself, you know, being an entrepreneur, which I already knew this, but once you get into the sort of game of entrepreneurialism, it's sort of hard to remember this, but I had to remember that the point of being an entrepreneur was about freedom. And freedom is not just the money, it's also a time and the ability to do things other than work in your business. And so the way to do that is by having the right people and processes in place, and that's when I was able to turn things around. And so that's what we help people do today, right? Because it's so it sounds simple, but it's not easy. Just because something simple doesn't mean it's easy,

Robert Plank 18:26 right, right? Yeah, and, and I like how you explained your journey there, that like you kind of went through the phase of figuring things out, getting the business built up, and then maybe along the way, forgot, at least temporarily, why you started in the first place. It became more about the work for the work itself, it sounds like. And then you finally got to that point where you're like, I can't sustain this. Something has to change. And about how long did it take to maybe make that transition from like, total workaholic, the 100 hours a week into the five days a month, sort of lifestyle?

Nicole Wipp 18:58 Well, unfortunately for me, it took several years because I didn't have the help and I didn't know what to do, so I had to figure it out. I think today, the difference is, is that there's a lot more tools at our disposal to figure those things out, and I know lots of entrepreneurs that never figure it out. So the question becomes, how long are you willing to wait to figure it out, I think for a lot of people, and that's a personal question, right?

Robert Plank 19:28 Yeah, but also kind of a scary question, because it's like, well, I don't know how much time I do have left, or if the answer is 10 years, five years, that's five years you won't get back

Nicole Wipp 19:40 exactly. And let me tell you, I can I share with you also another story about why it's so important, and something that happened to me that made me realize, like, wow, this is so important.

Robert Plank 19:50 Yeah, go for it. Oh, but by the way, what would you say? If I said no, would that be to me?

Nicole Wipp 19:54 I'd say no. I would say, Okay, I'm just

Robert Plank 19:58 playing. But let's let me. Story. I'm just being so I

Nicole Wipp 20:01 can roll with anything. So you just, you're, Hey, you're the boss here. I'm just going with you.

Robert Plank 20:04 Awesome. Well, yeah, I'm curious about this other story now. So

Nicole Wipp 20:08 a couple years into that journey of like figuring it out, I got into a situation where one day I ended up in the hospital, and this was completely unexpected. I was totally blindsided by this hospitalization. Well, I mean, I sort of knew that there was something wrong before I went into the hospital. But just like if I'm relatively young when this happened, I'm in my early 40s, and if you saw me, and if you knew me like I am considered by probably most people that know me to be a super healthy person because I do yoga and, you know, I'm really like that kind of person, right? But here I am. I'm in the hospital, and not only am I in the hospital this day, but I end up spending a month in the hospital, which I don't know, if you're listening, I just, and you don't know anything about that, like to be in the hospital for a literal month in today's world is unheard of. Like, nobody is in the hospital that long. Like, that's crazy talk. And the reason that I was in the hospital that long was because I apparently had this rare lung disease that I didn't know about before this hospitalization, and nobody knew any took them a while to figure it out while I was there. So here I am. I'm the mother of a four year old child. At this point. I'm married. I have this business. All of this is going on. I'm in the hospital for a month, and then I have to get discharged, and then it takes me another 60 days to recover, so I'm literally out of my business for 90 days now. The moral of this story, though, is that not only did my business survive that we went on that year to make more money than ever because I had built up the right team to make that possible.

Robert Plank 22:03 Well, that's fantastic.

Nicole Wipp 22:05 And so, you know, we like, for most people like hearing that story, you're like, yeah, that's never gonna happen to me. Well, trust me, I never thought it was gonna happen to me. And when I got sick like that, everybody that knows me is like, if this can happen to you, Nicole whip this can happen to anybody. Because I am like, the like, if you saw me, you think I was, like, Miss healthy. Like, there's nothing to give you any indication that I am an unhealthy person. It was something that just happened. Bad things happen to good people, right or bad things happen to people that try to do the right things. It's just what life is about. And so, you know, just if you think about that, I hope for everybody listening that nobody ever has something like that happen to them. But hey, what if you want to go for a vacation on a for a full week or 10 days or a month, and you don't want to have to check in with your business? Like, could you do that without it imploding? For most people, the answer is absolutely

Robert Plank 23:00 not right. So they need you to set them straight and to maybe reconfigure things and and get them on the right track. So what sort of ways can you help with that? Like, I mean, actually, first of all, like, what's sort of your ideal client? Like, if someone's listening to our conversation today and they say, Well, you know, a lot of the stuff that Nicole says makes a lot of sense, how do they know that they're the right person to work with you and hear from you.

Nicole Wipp 23:24 I think that there we sort of work with a couple different categories of people. And so we work with people that either and want to have much higher level of self awareness as an entrepreneur. And what I mean by that is really getting into what should I be doing, what me? So if you're listening, this means you be really doing in my business, because there's something very freeing about having that level of clarity, about knowing what your highest and best value is to give to the world, and then just doing that all the time. If you've ever read the book, Thinking Fast and Slow, it was a New York Times best seller about a decade ago now. But he talks about or the book, flow. There's a lot of idea about being in flow, right? And what it really means is the state of expending the least amount of mental effort while getting the most done. And so that is figuring out what that actually is. For you, for many of us, is a journey. It's not something that you intuitively exactly know what that is. So we want to work with people that are people that care about that, because that is your, one of your paths to freedom. And we can work we have, you know, things that we do with people that are more at the beginner level. So beginner entrepreneurs that want to be on the right path to moving. Their business in the right way. But to do full blown like building your team stuff, we are usually working with people at a six figure and above mark,

Robert Plank 25:10 Okay, fair enough. So. So you help people of sort of all shapes and sizes, different depending on their size. You help them in different ways. But it sounds like above all people just need to, need to have that goal of removing themselves as much from their business as possible, so that way they can just focus on what makes them, them great. And I it sounds like, as you're kind of explaining this problem, that maybe a lot of people out there don't even know that this is a problem, and maybe they should wake up to that. Yeah,

Nicole Wipp 25:38 absolutely. I mean, it's so funny because I am also an attorney, and I run a law firm, and it's, I say this to my legal clients, and I'm saying this to your audience and this business as well as you know, it's what we don't know that hurts us, right? It's like, you know what you know, it's what we don't know that hurts us. And so this is one of the things that I really do think hurts entrepreneurs definitely, because also the all the problems around building a team are what I call the dirty little secret of entrepreneurship. And what I mean by that is that when you hire somebody that doesn't work out, and maybe you can, you know, speak to this, if you've experienced this, like, if you hire somebody that works out, there's something about it that feels shameful to you as the entrepreneur, because it's sort of like, well, I made a bad decision hiring this person, or I just, I don't know what the problem like, there's a lot of like, because it feels much more personal when you hire the wrong person and you see other people doing it, and it appears like they're successful, although I will tell you that nine times out of 10 their relationship with their team members are just just broken as anybody else's, but and so you feel shame about it, and you don't really know who to turn to. So that's another thing. It's like, well, you don't know what to do about it, so you just accept subpar and non productive team members that aren't really moving your business forward in the way that it should be. And these are things that I want to help entrepreneurs get rid of out of their lives. Well,

Robert Plank 27:12 it's a great goal for you to have, and I think that, yeah, no one wants to be stuck in that weird, mediocre land of having these basically like hires that don't work out, or being unhappy with your team, and maybe they need some of this outside help that you provide to get things on the right track. So what sort of web page, URLs, websites, resources do you have for us today to make sure that we do all these things correctly? So

Nicole Wipp 27:39 the very best thing that you can do as and you should do this, I would say, no matter where you are in your entrepreneurial journey, or even if you work at a company, because this is something that can be very enlightening to you. And I just know this because I've had so many people tell them that it has been so I it's a good resource on my website, Nicole whip.com there is an eight question quiz that you can take about your own sort of energy, where your honor, entrepreneurial energy lies. And then when you go through the eight questions on the back end, it'll give you the ability to access information about, okay, given that, given that this is where your energy lies, this is who you need to hire, if this is what you need, but beware of these are going to be your problems and or this is who you need to hire, though, if this is what you need, but be aware this is going to be the problems. So it really gives you a lot of insight into, maybe who you should be hiring, sort of where you're it starts that journey of self awareness in a way that you might not have thought of before, and it can really be eye opening and lightning for you. So I think that's like the absolute best thing to do,

Robert Plank 28:56 that's amazing, and that's eye opening. How you're saying that. Well, you take this, this test, you take this quiz, and then that, and based on your needs, it tells you who you're going to hire, but it sounds like there's always going to be some sort of problems. It's never problem free, but knowing what you're getting into will help you maybe manage those problems,

Nicole Wipp 29:16 right? I mean, listen, if you're an entrepreneur, and this is another I just, I would just want to say this as a sort of real important point is, if you're an entrepreneur and you're hiring a team, very it is not possible, I don't think, to have a completely conflict free team. Conflict is, first of all something that, if it's it can be productive, conflict can be absolutely productive, and when it's productive, should be absolutely welcome, because you do want people that are going to tell you you're wrong and why you're wrong in a productive way. That's good. That's awesome. Oh my gosh, if you can find a good team member to do that, you. To keep them like you're wrong, and these are the reasons why. So they can give you a different perspective. You may not agree with them at the end of the day, but it's great to have the other perspective, but it's never going to be conflict free, but that is a what being a leader is about, and it's accepting your role as a leader. And so it's okay to have conflict in a team, but you have to be aware of where it's gonna come from. You have to be aware of how to diffuse it and make it into this productive conflict. I

Robert Plank 30:29 like it. Well, those are some really great insights there. And so for people to find this quiz, they go to Nicole whip.com and is it right there on the page, or is there a link to click, or is it easy to find? Yeah,

Nicole Wipp 30:40 it's right, right there on the homepage, you'll see a thing that says, take the entrepreneurial instinct catalyst, click, and it'll take you straight to it. Well,

Robert Plank 30:50 great. Well, I appreciate your advice, and I appreciate the stories that you're sharing with us today, and especially that last part there about how, like, you're never going to be conflict free. In fact, it can be a good thing. So Nicole whip.com is the place to be, and any any other links to drop here, or is Nicole whip just the number one spot?

Nicole Wipp 31:08 Well, yeah, if you are an entrepreneur, Nicole whip.com is the place to go. If you're somebody that works on a corporate environment and wants something that's more of a corporate team training, then that's whip enterprises.com is the place to go.

Robert Plank 31:21 Okay, great. Fair enough. So corporate team training, whip enterprises.com and for entrepreneurs, Nicole whip.com Great. So that way, depending on who you are, you can go to the right place, either whip enterprises or Nicole whip. So Thanks Nicole for stopping by and for sharing some of these kind of vulnerable stories and these case studies and telling us what we need to know in order to make the best use out of that time in our day, and the best use out of whatever time we have left on the planet and all that. So that way our dreams don't become these things that we end up hating or struggling against or whatever, although all those usual traps that entrepreneurs fall into. So this way we can maybe think bigger, hire a team and do all these things that maybe we should have done, I keep saying maybe a lot today, but things that we should have done years ago, and now that we're on the right track, we hired the team get it done so Nicole whip.com and thanks Nicole for stopping by and sharing some of this great stuff with us today. Thank

Nicole Wipp 32:15 you.

Robert Plank 32:16 Today's episode is sponsored by done for you podcasting.com. Is your podcast not what it should be? One if you could simply show up and have a team deal with content outreach for guests, editing production, social media traffic and more. Check out. Done For You, podcasting.com, you