290 Pete Mohr

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast where you learn how to extract your business and personal Deep Wealth. 

I'm your host Jeffrey Feldberg. 

This podcast is brought to you by Deep Wealth and the 90-day Deep Wealth Experience. 

When it comes to your business deep wealth, your exit or liquidity event is the most important financial decision of your life. 

But unfortunately, up to 90% of liquidity events fail. Think about all that time and your hard earned money wasted. 

Of the quote unquote "successful" liquidity events, most business owners leave 50% to over 100% of the deal value in the buyer's pocket and don't even know it. 

I should know. I said "no" to a seven-figure offer. And "yes" to mastering the art and the science of a liquidity event. [00:01:00] Two years later, I said "yes" to a different buyer with a nine figure deal. 

Are you thinking about an exit or liquidity event? 

Don't become a statistic and make the fatal mistake of believing the skills that built your business are the same ones to sell it. 

After all, how can you master something you've never done before? 

Let the 90-day Deep Wealth Experience and the 9-step roadmap of preparation help you capture the best deal instead of any deal. 

At the end of this episode, take a moment and hear from business owners like you, who went through the Deep Wealth Experience. 

Pete Mohr helps entrepreneurs transform their frustrations into freedom by using a variety of frameworks that help them cut through the chaos and overwhelm of running a business. With over 25 years as a business owner, he's refined many of his tips, tools, and techniques in the trenches within his own businesses.

You own your business, it shouldn't own you. It's time to start using frameworks that allow you to have a [00:02:00] turnkey business so that you can live a life you deserve.

Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast. Our guest today is no stranger to the Deep Wealth community. He's been on before, actually a number of times, Pete, I think he may be setting a record here for the most number of times on the podcast. But before we wrap up this year, because by the time this podcast airs, it's just before the holiday season, just before the new year.

And even though our episodes are evergreen, we thought let's give the community a real treat here and take a look at what they can do for this upcoming year. But you know what, maybe you're listening to this and it's in the summer, or it's a spring, or it's a new day, it's a new week, it's a new month, it's a new quarter.

The same principles apply. So that said, Pete, welcome to Deep Wealth Podcast. And for our new listeners, for our new members of the community, what's your story behind the story, Pete? What got you from where you were to where you are today? Maybe we can start there.

Pete Mohr: Well, thanks so much for having me back, Jeffrey. I mean, it's always great having these chats how did I get here? Essentially? Well, lifelong entrepreneur. I've only ever worked for somebody for .About six months [00:03:00] in my entire life. I've had, bathroom renovation companies, I've had cleaning franchises bought and built businesses and sold them.

I was a business broker for a while, helping people buy and sell businesses. I've been a shoe retailer and continue to be a shoe retailer. We own a couple of shoe stores called Shoetopia. And I spend most of my days these days with Simplifying Entrepreneurship, which is my coaching business around helping other business owners much like you do as well through getting to the right exit of their business but also through the frustrations and trials and turbulations of business as their business coach and sort of mentor along the way as there's just so many different things that business owners come up against. And I mean, I've been at this for a while now, Jeffrey. So I have seen a few things over my 30 years of being a business owner. And I don't have a whole lot of hair on top of my head, cause I pulled it out through prior frustration.

So it's like, I don't want you to do that. I'm talking to you, the listener. But There are easier ways to do things, and I think that's the beauty of these kind of podcasts, Jeffrey, is the idea that, you know what, we don't have [00:04:00] to suffer through a lot of this kind of stuff, we can, reach out and listen to people who have been through different things before and learn from that, and take the fast path, so that we don't have to go through some of the things that everybody else who's up here talking, saying, oh, I shouldn't have done that, or I should have done this, or I could have done this better, and all that kind of stuff.

 Such great ways to advance your business journey even quicker than we did when we were coming up through the ranks.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely, Pete, and as you're talking about that, I'm just thinking it's not that long ago. The internet, podcasts, access to information. It wasn't happening. It was your local circle in your community, possibly some books, and that was about it. And it was really more trial and error, which nothing wrong with that.

But you're right. When we have conversations like this, you and I, we can stand and we do stand on the shoulders of giants who before us really led the way, and now we can pay it forward and pass that on. And so Pete, let me ask you this offline. We're talking about what's upcoming and what's ahead and how we can really together pay it forward in this episode.[00:05:00]

And you mentioned CPA. And I know when most listeners think of, or hear CPA, they're thinking of a different kind of CPA. We're not going to go in that direction. So what is CPA? What are these strategies? I love these acronyms you're always coming up with. So in your world, what's the CPA acronym and what are we talking about today?

Pete Mohr: Well, first of all, it's not your chartered professional accountancy, which is typically the one that everybody thinks about or, it's really around the idea of mastering these three things as a business owner. Your communication, the mastery of your communication within and outside of your business, the mastery of your process management, right?

So we've got communication process and The mastery of your accountability. So when we look at these three things, and one of the things as we're coming into the new year, for those of you who are listening to this live If you're spending time and you look at the course of the year and you spend a little bit of time with each of these pieces over the next 52 weeks[00:06:00] in improvement and dedication to improving your communication, improving your process management, and improving your accountability within your business structure, you will have a Not only a business that's running on rails at the end of next year, but you'll have one that's sellable.

That's, it's going to allow you more freedom. I mean, there are so many different reasons why these three things you want to spend some time and mastery over the next little while.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Pete, before we even get in there, you mentioned something that for our listeners, I want to circle back for their benefit, because let's be honest. Let's face it. Most people, particularly entrepreneurs, founders, business owners. Come, let's say, end of the year, they're looking back and saying, okay, what were my resolutions?

How did I do? Looking forward, let me make up some new ones, but you said just now, well, hey, 52 weeks, and when you think about that, if you have an opportunity to revisit something once a year or 52 times a year, Or maybe you want to become even more diligent, and instead of every week, it's going to be every day, [00:07:00] 365 times a year.

Who's more likely to succeed? Because what gets measured is what gets done. And so the rituals, and you and I have spoken about this before on previous podcasts, the power and the cadence of rituals to really move things forward makes all the difference. So for our listeners, if the takeaway is nothing more than coming out of the gates, hey, you know what?

I'm going to look at my KPIs, my goals. At least every week, if not more than that right there, that's the price of admission, but we're going to do a whole lot more than that. Okay. So CPA, so communication process, accountability, each one of those could be an episode, but let's do our best to get this all in.

So communication, what's going on with communication? What do you have in mind with that?

Pete Mohr: Because most of the people listening to this podcast are business owners, the real focus on communication is, do you have a regular meeting structure with your team?

Are you actually meeting, not just to meet, but meeting with clear process and clear accountability and meeting with reasons, dates, deadlines, KPIs, all of these different things.

How are you communicating what it is? And [00:08:00] that's the kind of things that you need to communicate within your entire team. We can look at communications two different ways. Like you said, we could talk about communications a lot, but, like to sort of focus on internal communications and external communications from a leadership perspective.

Right? So. As the primary leader of your business and potentially the owner of your business on the external side of things, you're really the person that's going to be spouting off everything about the vision of what I call the promise and my sort of five Ps analogy that I think we've talked about on a previous podcast.

But you know, what is the promise of your business and everything in communication should align to the promise of your business, because if it isn't, then that's showing to everybody that there's something wrong here. Right? So, if we look at external communication, if the promise of your business is at Shoetopia, our shoe business, our promise is to help you look great and feel fantastic.

Well, If you think about that, and I use that because it's a pretty easy sort of framework. When you come in [00:09:00] my store, our goal is to help you look great and feel fantastic. So when you look in the mirror, you go, Oh, I look pretty good. And when you close your eyes you're like, those feel fantastic. Well, if we can Drive that home, then I want to, as the leader of Shootopia, I want to be spouting that message to everybody out there so they truly understand what it is we deliver when you walk through the door.

Now comes the internal communication, because we need to make sure that everything in a line. With that, right, so that our process is in a line with delivering that and our accountabilities within the store is in alignment with delivering that. So that becomes the internal structure of your communication.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Let me ask you this, though, just before go on, so here's the question for you. When it comes to communication, I mean, on paper, it sounds so easy, sounds so simple. Okay, I'm going to communicate, I'm going to share my vision, I'm going to get it out there. Many companies even go to the time, the expense of having an off site retreat, and countless dollars and hours go into [00:10:00] all of this, and yet we get back to the workplace.

And it's like it never happened or it's some plaque on a wall with these meaningless words. It's collecting dust and it's same old that's going on. So before you go on to process or the next strategy, where are we missing it when it comes to communication? What are we doing that we shouldn't be doing?

Perhaps we can start there.

Pete Mohr: Well, what you just said was real for me because last week I was in Pennsylvania doing a two day off site with a group of 11 leaders and setting up sort of their 2024 and working with them. And, it's how do you take that and turn it into action along the way, right? And this is the communication of regular meeting rhythm.

And so when I look at the regular meeting rhythm, we. As a Colby certified coach, one of the things with Colby is that we gave everybody their Colby assessments so that everybody understands each other better. And then we overlay those onto the accountability chart, which is part of our accountability talk.

And then we talk about the process involved in making the [00:11:00] goals happen for the year, right? And then everybody knows because. Everybody communicates differently, Jeffrey, and it's important to know the powers of communication within your team. Because some people, for example, want a lot of detail. I'm not one of those people.

I like the executive summary. So if somebody gives me something in a great big, long, detailed format, I typically Procrastinate doing that. If somebody gives me executive summary with the three key points, I'm very happy with that and I can make a decision with that. But knowing that on your team, how that operates, knowing how to communicate.

So if I need Jeffrey to get something done and he needs detail, then I need to give him the detail in order to do something. And understanding if people like written word, if people like visual, if people like communication, like we're having a chat right now over Zoom for this podcast. Some people want an ongoing live interaction.

Do you like asynchronous communication or synchronous communication, which is. Do you want that one way so that you have time to think about it before you respond? Or are you good on the [00:12:00] fly? Like we're having a chat right now. So these kinds of things are all important pieces of the communication puzzle that you're putting together on your leadership team and the communication puzzle of your meeting structure within your organization so that you can drive home those goals after you have that year long or that yearly sort of offsite or whatever the case is, because so many.

Times. These things, like you said, collect dust and go up as a plaque on the wall. But the people that make a difference are the people that actually take that communication, take those things that came out of that, put them into process, drive that down into the accountability chart so that things actually happen.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow, what a gift that you're sharing, Pete, and let's think about this for a second, because what I'm hearing, you can tell me, Jeffrey, you're on base, you're off base, but what I'm hearing you say, and it's so true in my own experience as well, everybody has different learning styles. So Mary, as an example, if it's not written down, it's just not happening.

But Joe, on the other hand, if you don't share it with him, if you're not talking to [00:13:00] him, he's not going to read it. He doesn't really get it unless he actually hears it. He's more on the audio side. Some people though, they want to see really some kind of video. They're more visual kinds of learners or graphics or charts, whatever it's going to be.

So number one, we're establishing everyone has different learning styles, how they pick up things, what's really going to get them to tune in or tune out as the case may be. Number one, but then number two, if we're naturally doing that, so right now, if I'm going to start doing that, I haven't really thought of that before.

It's going to be okay, a little bit awkward. I have to think about this. It's going to take more time, but once I've automated that, just like when I learned to drive a car or ride a bike in the beginning, it's very manual. But once I get going, okay, it's autopilot, I get to do it. This isn't just for your staff.

This is, you're speaking to a prospective client. You can now cue in, okay, what does this prospect need to really get it or fast forwarding to your liquidity event? Yeah, I'm writing the check for these advisors, but I really want to make sure they get the point that they really understand it the first time.

So this is massive, Pete, in terms of what you're [00:14:00] sharing, that when we understand on the other side, we're tuning into WII. FM, what's in it for me, the world's favorite radio station. Okay. How does Pete learn? And I can even be, Hey, Pete, we're meeting for the first time. I really want to make sure you get the most value out of our time together.

How do you like to learn? Do you like having it in a conversation? Do you like as a follow up, everything written up? Are you visual? I suppose I could ask those kinds of questions just to get right to the point. And this way I can now cater to you. How am I doing so far?

Pete Mohr: Yeah. I think that's exactly it. And there are many different tools out there that help us understand our team, right? Colby is one. It's the one that I've aligned with because I think it's a really good one for business owners, because it helps you understand how you make decisions where a lot of the other uh, assessments are more what you like or what you don't like.

Disc or strength finders or some of those kinds of things. And I think we need those as well as part of our team building. I just like the Colby one because it's really how you take action. And for me, one of my main principles is that decisions need to be made at the lowest level of the organization.[00:15:00] And I'll say that again because I think it's important. Decisions need to be made at the lowest level of the organization. So if we're talking about taking action, then that's why I've sort of aligned with the Colby because it allows us as leaders to understand how people take action. So, and if I can feed that person the right information in the way that they absorb information, there's a better chance that they're going to take action so that we don't have to.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific. And as we're talking offline, I'll bring this online now. Really what we're talking about here, those famous golden handcuffs, so many business owners, they started business for a lifestyle, but then the business owns them. It's one of your taglines, Pete, the business owns them instead of the other way around.

And so this way, if the lowest level in the organization can start making decisions, we've unshackled ourselves and we can go on and take the day off or take the week off, take the month off, whatever the case may be. Because we know the business is not only going to be there when we return, if we've done it right, it's going to be even better.

So, communication side, you've really painted the solid [00:16:00] foundation of what we need to be doing, of really catering to other people's style, which we should be doing anyways, but oftentimes we overlook that. You know, It's, okay, this is how I think, this is how I am, so obviously everyone is like that, and that couldn't be the furthest thing from the truth.

Pete Mohr: That's a really interesting piece right there, Jeffrey, what you just said. We always assume that people like things the way that we like them, and they don't. Some people do, but a lot of people don't. And I think when that's something that I learned after many years. It, and for those of you listening, think about that now and how you are imposing the way you learn on the rest of your team.

Jeffrey Feldberg: In fact, Pete, I'd even take it a step further. I agree with everything that you're saying and what we're talking about here. It's really a very subtle, but important twist on the golden rule, not doing unto others, what we do to ourselves is doing unto others, what they would want to have for themselves.

It's a subtle, but really important mindset. And same thing on the communication side. Hey, I may be a [00:17:00] visual learner or an audio learner or a text learner, but Pete, you may be the complete opposite. So let me. Figure that out. Let me honor you, respect you with that and get it out there. And really by helping you selfishly in a good way, I'm helping myself.

Pete Mohr: Yeah. I mean, I think that takes us into the next spot, which is process, right? Because we need to set up the process that allows communication to happen efficiently and effectively. And when you look at process of that side of things I really think that process needs to be.

Searchable. So whoever's, whoever you're asking to do, whatever it may be, needs to be able to find out how to do it. It needs to be understandable, right? It has to be in a simplistic form that they can understand and complete. It needs to be Efficient, and it needs to be repeatable. So, when we look at all of these things and we overlay the framework of communication, I'll use tools that I'm using today, but it could, whenever you're listening to this podcast, there might be a different set of tools because things [00:18:00] change all the time.

But when you look at some process. That what we would do even in our retail stores. Cause I think that's a easy thing for people to understand for somebody to exchange a pair of shoes. We have a process for that, right? Somebody comes in, I'm a size eight and I need a size nine. Well, what's the process.

And first of all, as the business owner, why do I need to be involved in this? I don't. I'm going to push this down to the lowest level of the organization, like we just talked about, right? But for them to be able to complete that process, it needs to be searchable, understandable, repeatable, and efficient, what I call a sure process, right?

So from that side of things,

If they've never done that before, how would they search it? Well, for our case, we use Google Drive and everything's in Google Drive. So they can go to the drive under returns and in the return slot, it's in the format there of it's written out.

Step by step procedure with a checklist so that they can go on our point of sale system and actually complete this. It's also in [00:19:00] video format and we use a Loom for that currently and Loom is a great, you just share your screen and go through the point and click areas of your point of sale system, for example, in order to show them how to do that so they can hear it, they can see it, they can read it.

In the format, whichever suits them best, there's a checklist there, which allows them to just go through, for the people that love their checklists, go through the checklist. There's a seven point checklist or a 12 point checklist, whatever it may be, so that they can complete that whole thing of changing that person's pair of shoes from an eight to a nine without anybody else other than the process there.

And then the next piece is that they need to know that they have that accountability. So that's part of their training. So that, can I actually do this without anybody else approving it? And in our case, yes, the person who's going to be at the till is able to do that. But so there's levels of delegation too, when we talk about accountability.

Jeffrey Feldberg: A lot to unpack there, but let's start with this because in Deep Wealth language, what really you're talking about, it's step two, X Factors that insanely [00:20:00] increase the value of the business. And what you're talking about, we call that the four points of clarity. And this is where everything is documented.

It's written down and Pete, I like what you said. Yes, the tools may change. So you're using, and I'm not even going to use the names because who knows what it's going to be, but you're using right now a free service and it's tech space for the moment. It's all searchable. Down the road, this could be an AI bot and there's going to be a hologram and you're talking to this hologram.

Okay. How do I do this process? What does that look like? And you're seeing that, but for the moment it's accessible to everyone. Not really costing you anything. It's free there. So there's no excuse not to do it from a money perspective. Time wise, you're doing it anyway. So why not document it, get it out there.

And whether it's for you to take a month off, a day off, a quarter off, whatever that is, or you're going to be having a liquidity event and you want to demonstrate the business runs without you. Well, yeah, the business runs without you because in your case, you've documented it. So it's all text based.

It's all searchable. You've put this to video so someone can actually see what's all [00:21:00] going on there. And the other part that's really important that I didn't want to over miss as you were talking, my wheels were turning. It wasn't that far back. I was reading when it came to the kinds of words that we use.

If you look at, as an example, not that we want to rehash these memories, but if you go back to the pandemic and you look at how the messages were worded, and this is also very effective advertising and marketing as well. It's very simple words, often one syllable words that are being used. Everyone can understand.

If you look at some of the best world class advertising in the world, it's a very simple message. We can get it. It's not complicated. The words are right there and it's said in very few words. And the next time you're on a train or you're on a plane, look at the safety information cards. How do you get in a very small space, the message out to as many people as you can, that they're going to understand at all different kinds of education levels and everything else.

So it's not just the communication is not just the process. It's the words that we're using and how we're using those words. What would you say to [00:22:00] that?

Pete Mohr: I couldn't agree more. That's why I called my company Simplifying Entrepreneurship. I mean, it's the idea of simplifying things is the only way to move the ball ahead in most cases. And it's the most effective and efficient way of doing that. Because when we simplify things, In communication for either our clients or for our team, everything's going to be better.

So, I'm going to use another app right now that I like to use for simplification purposes. And it's called Hemingway. And I don't know whether you've ever tried the Hemingway app, when I do blogs or when I do any sort of written anything out there, I put it into the Hemingway app and it tells you what grade level reading they need in order to understand that.

And my philosophy is can't be read by Sixth grade reading, then it's the vocabulary is too enriched for what I'm trying to put out there. I want everything to be at sixth grade or less in the type of communication that I want to do. And that doesn't mean that I'm not talking to people who understand big words and all this other stuff, and sure they do, [00:23:00] but the understanding here is that the simpler we make it, the easier they'll be able to comprehend and they won't have to go digging for concepts and ideas and things that they don't, maybe aren't.

Totally clear on, we want total clear, transparent messaging throughout everything that we do in our communication so that decisions can be made in the right way in order to fulfill the promise that we're making. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Hemingway, one of my favorite apps, and it's interesting, my goal when I'm writing an article or an e book or a lesson, whatever it's going to be, I put it through Hemingway, and my goal is on Hemingway because it gives different colors to different things. So my goal is to have no colors on the page, and Hemingway, the less words you can say it in, the better.

So as an example, if I were to use the word. Pontificate, which is what I'm doing right now. That would be a no no in Hemingway. You would 

Pete Mohr: it would be. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: because it's a complicated word and it's kind of stuffy and you can say it much easier and really just tell it. Don't pontificate, just tell it or [00:24:00] speak.

That's it. Just like that. And so we, do that. I'm going to go back as we're talking about this. To Winston Churchill, savior of the free world, love him or hate him, I think this guy was incredible. And we're going back to wartime and for the speeches that he was given when it was life and death literally on the line, he was known for the short words are the best words and he would say that the old words, so the going back to the English language, the very original words in the language, those were the best words as opposed to the modern Perhaps complicated or more of them to explain something.

So we're down a rabbit hole here, but it's an important one when we're communicating, to prospects or to our internal staff or leadership team, simple words, the old words, as Churchill would say. Thoughts about that? 

Pete Mohr: couldn't agree more. just really think that whenever we look at anything that we do in communicating process or communicating to our clients, communicating anywhere, the simpler [00:25:00] path is always easier for everybody. If you say a word or write a word that somebody doesn't understand, in essence, you're making them feel stupid and nobody wants to feel stupid.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Exactly.

Pete Mohr: It's not a good feeling when somebody tells you a word and lot of people just won't even say anything. They'll just sit there as though, they'll just be quiet about it. And then how good is the messaging? It's not good. It's not doing what you need it to do. You need your messaging and communication.

And that's why when you take this messaging and you're building out your process, whatever it may be, whether it's your sales process, your operations process, or even the process to return a pair of shoes, it needs to be at that granular level.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so, Pete, let me ask you this because you've done a terrific job of saying, okay, on the communication side, here's what you need to know. Here's what you need to do. On the process side, here's, are you going to follow through with that? Now, you said something interesting when you were talking about accountability, and that is that at the lowest level in the organization, that person knows that he or she. Can make [00:26:00] the changes or adjust things within certain

Pete Mohr: Yeah, right. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: and what's going on there? So what's that all about? And why is that important? Sure.

Pete Mohr: earlier in Pennsylvania, and they have five business owners and they have about 150 employees in their team. They did not have a structured accountability chart. Everybody kind of knew what they were doing, but it wasn't really, and the people further down, whether you call it an organizational chart or an accountability chart, I like the word accountability chart, again, language means a lot. And so, I always have found organizational charts are titles and accountability charts are.

What are my accountabilities? So from that side of things, I like to know where people stand as far as making decisions. And so they had an organizational chart with titles, but there was no, it wasn't really shared. Nobody really knew what was going [00:27:00] on. And even within those titles, there was Not a lot of clarity as to who owns the decisions.

And ultimately, when we look at accountability, that's the thing. Who owns this decision? And one of the things that I do in some of my visual presentations, Jeffrey, is I flip an organizational chart upside down so that essentially it's like, okay, at the top, instead of at the top, it's usually the CEO or the owner, whatever the case is, but at the top, it's the front facing.

People that are actually dealing with the clients. And those are the people that should have the most accountability when they're the people that are touching the clients, right? And everything falls down underneath that. And when that's not laid out in an accountability structure, well, that's a communication thing as well, right?

All these things sort of bleed together. And so if people in the organization don't know who to talk to, because somebody has a title, but they actually know they aren't accountable for that because somebody else is making the decision, that's a problem.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Big problem. So Pete, it sounds like the accountability side of things. This is the glue. [00:28:00] This is the oil that keeps everything together. So as an example, you can have terrific communications. You can have a wonderful process. If the person though, at the lowest level of the, really the organization, the business, if they don't feel that they're accountable, they're kind of passing the buck, it sounds like, or the whole thing can fall apart, or, you know what, I don't know if I can really do this.

And now they're going to be making a phone call or an email that shouldn't have been made in the first place. Time's being wasted, customers are being frustrated. So that accountability, and to me, it's really okay as the employee or the team member. I have the confidence, hey, I can do within parameters. I know I'm going to make this up.

So in your example of being able to return something, okay, I'm able to exchange things or I'm even able, let's call it up to 150 of whatever I can do, whatever it is, even if it costs 150, I don't need to ask anyone. I don't have to justify myself. I can just do it. Okay. If it's going to cost 500 internally, yes, there's a process for that.

I need to get some authorization. But that confidence and that [00:29:00] peace of mind, and really, I'm going to say it really speaks to the person's, Hey, yeah, I got this. They believe in me. They trust me. I'm going to do the best job. We really want our team members thinking and acting like owners, not employees.

Pete Mohr: So true. And I have a lot of different frameworks, Jeffrey, and I've got one called the four A's, which is assess it, address it, align it, and assign it. And when we're looking at accountability we're going to assess the process. We're going to address it. If it needs changed, we're going to align it on the accountability chart as to who might own it and assign it to someone.

So, there's, Thought around all of those different things that you have to put into each of these things that you're trying to offload off of your job as the business owner into somebody else's accountability. But really it needs to be thought of for almost anything that happens in the business.

And from that side of things, when we start looking at us aligning and assigning accountability, it's really an interesting piece of this whole journey as a business owner, because [00:30:00] ultimately you will never be free until you start doing that.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Sure, and Pete, I want to venture something out there, and you know, I've actually talked about this before in a previous podcast, and it's Pareto's Law, the 80 20 principle. When we're giving somebody accountability, I suspect that the 20 percent of the issues that are creating 80 percent of the problems, if that's already covered in that accountability side, okay, Jeffrey, you have the authority to do whatever it is, X, Y, and Z.

Then 80 percent of the times where I would have to stop what I'm doing, make a phone call, send out an email, have to wait, keep somebody else waiting. It's gone. And life just goes on. And I would even take that further for our listeners. If a team member does it, maybe 80%, 85 percent as good as you. You know what?

A lot of times good is good enough because to get that 100 percent that you would do, well, what's your time worth? What does that mean to the other areas that you're now neglecting? What's that very real opportunity cost? Where someone else who doesn't have your qualifications or insights, your experience, 80 percent as [00:31:00] well as you, terrific, do it, let's move on.

Thoughts about that?

Pete Mohr: I Absolutely love this and, it's a big piece of what I coach to and help people with too. And I call it moving from detail to dashboard.

And so from that perspective, once we have the details in a process that is actually functionable and we can share. Then we can actually set up a dashboard that's going to allow us to get what we need from that person who's making the decisions on these intricacies of sort of the things that are outside of the norm, let's say.

And we can spend our time dealing with that 10 percent or 20 percent as opposed to the 100 percent of this previous accountability, right? that's when you're starting to move up the chain of accountability. And quite honestly, a lot of business owners would prefer to be dealing with those one off Things because they don't have time to deal with all the detail and all the different things that they have to do.

So from that side of things, they're working through the accountability chart. , the real power comes with when you start aligning your accountabilities underneath [00:32:00] you so that they can then be dealing with the dashboards underneath them. And then you're really only dealing with the things that are bubbling up in each of these individual areas of your business.

And it really becomes. Almost it's very interesting that you want to just keep doing more and more of this when it starts working out to free yourself up so that you can work in your unique ability and move ahead with whatever sort of your business ideas are as the business owner.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Pete, as you're saying that you're actually reminding me of something that we're speaking about offline and you're very open, very vulnerable with me and I'll put it out there for you to share if you're comfortable with the audience. And that was, we're talking about, okay, you know, I'm going to free myself up and the time and everything else.

But sometimes. And all that, you're in for a treat. X Factor, crappy people, you can't dive into that. But if the customer feels comfortable coming to the showjin in their closet with, the [00:33:00] money, they're comfortable coming. Just be patient and be nice to that crowd. If you're in the room and you hear the category dow people and say, etics.

com you're on the guylist, and you definitely feel comfortable. You probably look back and you can feel what happened today. For me personally, because at the end of the day, Ugh, I was Again, no fly, nine figure, nine figure, then one zone, sell side.

Pete Mohr: So, about a year and a half ago now. my parents are aging, they're in their 80s, and I got the message from my dad back in the Ottawa Valley, about five hours away from where we live now, that he had terminal cancer, stage four cancer. And so, that was, Say around spring and in October of last year, he passed.

And then my mom has also been a cancer survivor for about 10 years. And we always thought that mom would go before dad but mom's had a bad year this particular year. And as we're recording this here in December, my mom passed in September. So they both passed within a year of each other.

And Taking it back really I think, Jeffrey, business owners get in business because they dream of a better life.

liFe really involves, hey, I can set up a business that's going to give me the freedoms that I want to have in my life and how I want to set up my life is going to, my business is part [00:34:00] of that.

And if you listening to this episode today, Aren't enjoying some of the freedoms and reasons why you got into business, then I think this is a good episode for you because when you start setting up your CPA, some things will happen. And one of the things that I have a crafted a life planner for entrepreneurs.

And one of the things, I have a bucket on there, which is called the relationships. And how important are my relationships? Am I honoring my relationships? And for me. The last year, you had mentioned before we hopped on, how did your year go? And my year went actually quite well. It didn't go well as well as it maybe could have for my business side of things and the growth that I was hoping, but it went super well for the family in that, not because my parents passed, but because I was able to be with them and from that side of things, I couldn't have asked for anything more than having my business running on rails, being able to leave my business for better part of probably three or four months.

With [00:35:00] multiple trips back to the Ottawa Valley to be with my parents, to be with my dad before he passed, to be with my mom after he passed, to be with my mom before she passed and all the time in between, and helping them set up all of the things that they wanted to set up and then dealing with all sorts of things that I had to deal with on the personal side of things for my family and for my parents and for my kids, all of these different things.

So this year was a year as I look at my 30 years of being a business owner. This year was a year of really focusing on my relationships, Jeffrey. And for that, it was a big win. It was sad that both my parents passed, absolutely. But the win from the business side of things is that everything ran without me and ran well without me so that I could be with the people that I loved.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Pete, once again, my condolences for what you went through with your loss with your parents. And thank you for having that courage to share with us and to be vulnerable with us. And for our listeners, again, we're heading into a new year, but it could [00:36:00] be a new day. It could be a new month, a new quarter.

No one knows what tomorrow brings. And for some of our listeners, they have more days ahead of them than behind them. But for those listeners, I'm going to ask you this. There are people in your life who have fewer days ahead of them because they have more days behind them. And what are you going to do with those important relationships in your life that you're going to be there?

You're going to have what I like to call those magic moments that. If those people, your loved ones, family, friends, whoever it may be, if they get the call to the next exit, this is the final exit in their life, that you have no regrets. Yes, I was there. Yes, you know, I was able to enjoy with them. Yes, I had a great year with them before they passed because all too often when I speak with very successful people in business, the one common theme is.

Jeffrey, I was so busy with the meetings and flying across the country and doing all these deals. I missed out on time. I can never get back with my family members or some of them have passed and it's just time gone by. And here, as we really look [00:37:00] ahead in this case to the new year. It's okay, what are we going to do to ensure that we're checking the boxes for that fulfillment side?

Because I always say success without fulfillment is a failure and part of that fulfillment isn't just the zeros in the bank, it's the loved ones around us and the relationships that we foster and really how we're enjoying them. And Pete, it sounds like for you that this past year, definitely some loss, but you had some gains in terms of magic moments that you had with your parents and being there and you didn't have that pressure that most of us would have normally had because we weren't prepared to take that time off.

Pete Mohr: I'll give you another magic moment, Jeffrey, and it happened right at the time my mom passed, actually so we have three sort of senior people that look after Shootopia, that side of my business. And one of the fellows that has been with me for about eight years gave his notice.

And he gave his notice in August and we were going on a family vacation out to see our kids at West and Calgary at the end of August. And for 10 day period he gave lots of notes left on great terms, all of that stuff. It was all good, but he was just ready to move on.

[00:38:00] Well, we had our process in such good shape really that there wasn't much left for him to do to transfer what he was doing on a daily basis. And the two other people. Who run that organization, came in, absorbed his job, moved other people up within the organization to sort of offload some of their low hanging fruit.

And all of this happened while I was away on vacation. And then as soon as I got home on Labor Day, I went to be with my mom and she passed away about a week after that. And I was gone for about. Two or three weeks. And I came back after having lost one of our key individuals in the organization and being gone for better part of a month through that transition without really a whole lot of communication going on there.

And I said, what do I need to do? And when I got back and Michelle that does our bookkeeping said, well, there's that one company that doesn't like ACH transfers, so you have to sign a check. And I'm like, okay, that's pretty good. And that happened with the loss of a key pillar in our business, in our organizational chart, in our [00:39:00] accountability chart, as I like to call it.

And I couldn't be more proud of my team for making that happen. And did everything go exactly perfectly? No, it didn't. But like we talked about earlier, about 80 percent of it did. So, in those times of trial, or in those times where you can't be around, or choose not to be around, if it can go 80 or 85 percent good, that's a win.

instead of having to deal with the 100%, we're only dealing with the 10 or 15 percent or 20%, whatever the case this is what we're trying to do here, Jeffrey, in setting people's businesses up, so that they can either enjoy the freedom to keep it as an investment, or they can enjoy the freedom to set it up for their exit,

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Pete, I suspect for the team members that really stepped up to the plate when you weren't around that this now becomes part of the company culture. This is a story that they'll look back upon. You know what? Remember when so and so gave the resignation while we just figured that out, we kept on moving forward.

Our customers never noticed. We didn't skip a beat. And while talk about a great story to share for the new members who you haven't even brought on board yet, [00:40:00] they're going to hear about this of how resilient. The company is and how rich this culture is where everyone has each other's back. What a terrific really gift that they're giving to each other, that they're going to perpetuate.

There's a new word, I suppose, not the old word that we're talking about a fancy word, but they're going to keep on putting forward into the company lore and the culture of, Hey, you know what? We're resilient, whatever comes our way, we'll figure it out. We'll get through this. What a wonderful thing to have. And so Pete, let me ask you this. I mean, we can go down all these different rabbit holes. We're beginning to bump up again sometime here. So for this special episode, which is right before the holidays, and again, whenever you're listening to this, if it's in the start of the year, halfway through the year, same principles apply, but as we're looking forward.

Let me ask our favorite question. It's our ritual here on the Deep Wealth Podcast. You've answered this, you had a kick at the can a few different times. We'll see where it takes us and maybe you'll have a different outlook on this one. And so here's the question for you. Remember the movie Back to the Future?

You have that magical DeLorean car that will take you to any point in time. [00:41:00] And so now the fun part, Pete, is tomorrow morning, you're looking outside your window. Not only is the DeLorean car curbside. The door's open, it's waiting for you to hop on in, which you do, and you're now going to go back to any point in your life.

Pete, as a young child, a teenager, whatever point in time it would be, what are you telling your younger self in terms of life wisdom, life lessons, or hey Pete, do this, but don't do that? What would that sound like?

Pete Mohr: I think based on sort of the chat around losing my folks this year, for anybody who's listening today as a business owner, and if you feel that you are not taking the time for your relationships and let's take that bucket cause we could take the health bucket. We could take all these different buckets of our lives, but let's take the relationship bucket.

Whether it's your spouse, whether it's your partner, whether it's your kids, whether it's your parents. If you're not giving the time. To those people, because you are saying to yourself, Oh, well, I just got to push through this at work first, this is maybe an area of focus for you. And the [00:42:00] next year and an area it's like, how can you set your business up?

To get to little league baseball, or to get to the hockey game, or to get to girl guides, or to get to the dance studio, or to get a night off with your wife and go see a movie or, your husband or to drive back or fly back to see your parents or your kids more often than you currently are.

Because why are we doing what we're doing in business if it isn't for the relationships that we have and the continuance of those personal relations that we have? Because money only takes you so far and once you have a certain amount of money, then what is there? There's the relationships that we have with the people that we love and the time on earth that we have. do what you can do to spend more time with the people that are precious to you. And set your business up through setting up and mastering your CPA in order to allow you that.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific advice out there. And as you're talking through that, Pete, I'm just thinking to my daughters when they're very young, they're babies and [00:43:00] now they're young women. And it's interesting when birthdays come up or celebrations come up, particularly on my side. And I've always shared with them, one of our traditions is, hey, I don't need a present.

I would love a letter or a card if you choose to. And when they write those things, what stands out for me, it's things I often don't even remember of how I was there for this or there for that. Absent from that, as it should be, is, well, yeah, thank you for this really shiny toy that

you got or whatever it was, you were there for me.

And for our loved ones, whether it's a child or a parent, a friend, a spouse, a significant other. That's what really counts. And it reminds me of Maya Angelou's quote. It's not what we say, it's how we make people feel. That's how they remember us. And that's terrific advice that you're giving us. And so Pete, before we wrap this up, if someone wants to learn more about this different type of CPA or about your coaching or your system or your processes, where's the best place that they can find you online?

Pete Mohr: Best place is just go to my website at simplifyingentrepreneurship. com. And the other thing, Jeffrey, is you know, I [00:44:00] hadn't really talked to you about this before, but. Because I do have a planner that I've designed for business owners, and it comes with a little video and everything as well.

If anybody's interested in downloading that and setting themselves up for the next year of success, they can do that at simplifying entrepreneurship. com forward slash planner, nice and easy.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific. And it can't be any easier for our listeners. It's a point and click. Go to the show notes. It's all there. You don't have to remember any of this. If you're driving or walking, come to the show notes, you'll find all those links there. Well, Pete, it's official. Thank you so much. This has been a wonderful episode.

So many gifts that you're paying for, so much wisdom and insights that you provided for us. And as we love to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and prosper while remaining healthy and safe. Thank you so much. 

Sharon S.: The Deep Wealth Experience was definitely a game-changer for me. 

Lyn M.: This course is one of the best investments you will ever make because you will get an ROI of a hundred times that. Anybody who doesn't go through it will lose millions. 

Kam H.: If you don't have time for this program, you'll never have time [00:45:00] for a successful liquidity 

Sharon S.: It was the best value of any business course I've ever taken. The money was very well spent.

Lyn M.: Compared to when we first began, today I feel better prepared, but in some respects, may be less prepared, not because of the course, but because the course brought to light so many things that I thought we were on top of that we need to fix. 

Kam H.: I 100% believe there's never a great time for a business owner to allocate extra hours into his or her week or day. So it's an investment that will yield results today. I thought I will reap the benefit of this program in three to five years down the road. But as soon as I stepped forward into the program, my mind changed immediately. 

Sharon S.: There was so much value in the experience that the time I invested paid back so much for the energy that was expended. 

Lyn M.: The Deep Wealth Experience compared to other programs is the top. What [00:46:00] we learned is very practical. Sometimes you learn stuff that it's great to learn, but you never use it. The stuff we learned from Deep Wealth Experience, I believe it's going to benefit us a boatload.

Kam H.: I've done an executive MBA. I've worked for billion-dollar companies before. I've worked for smaller companies before I started my business. I've been running my business successfully now for getting close to a decade. We're on a growth trajectory. Reflecting back on the Deep Wealth, I knew less than 10% what I know now, maybe close to 1% even. 

Sharon S.: Hands down the best program in which I've ever participated. And we've done a lot of different things over the years. We've been in other mastermind groups, gone to many seminars, workshops, conferences, retreats, read books. This was so different. I haven't had an experience that's anything close to this in all the years that we've been at this.

It's five-star, A-plus.

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Deep Wealth is [00:47:00] an accurate name for it. This program leads to deeper wealth and happier wealth, not just deeper wealth. I don't think there's a dollar value that could be associated with such an experience and knowledge that could be applied today and forever. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Are you leaving millions on the table? 

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