Healthy, Growing, and Profitable Businesses
Okay. A phrase that we've been using a lot to talk about what our company does for business owners and leaders is we help leaders build a healthy, growing, profitable business that isn't dependent on the owner to make a positive impact. We have spent a lot of time just in the past twenty four hours really unpacking the value that's embedded in that as an ideal and as a goal. And in so many ways, sometimes, man, our aim obviously has massive ramifications for the actions that we take. And so if we have a worthwhile aim, it's pretty amazing how we start to take worthwhile actions.
Alex Judd:And so what I thought would be really, really helpful for the purpose of this episode is if that is your aim and you hear that and you hear like you've got a level of like emotional oomph associated with like, yeah, that is what I want. It's really critical that you understand what that actually is and what that actually means. And so I think the purposes of this twenty five minutes is to expand people's vision for what that goal is, to help leaders build a healthy, growing, profitable business that isn't dependent on the owner to make a positive impact. So with that, I wanna start with to build. Y'all, in so many ways, help leaders build.
Alex Judd:I'll forget one time I taught a full day lesson, and we had a lot of people sign up on the back end of that to implement the principles we taught in a one on one coaching relationship. And I was texting you, Kyle, on the backside of that. I said, man, dude, you're getting some one on one and even two on one customers out of this. Praise god. That's awesome.
Alex Judd:And I'll never forget your reply to me. You said now the dirty work begins. And and that's what building is. Right? It's dirty work.
Alex Judd:So let's set people's expectations. Like, why is that word build so important to frame this goal and frame this conversation?
Matt Aiken:Well, I mean, the the the analogy of building, like, what do you what does that entail? Well, it entails a foundation. It entails framing, putting up siding, filling in insulation, the electrical, the plumbing. And in all of these things, if one aspect of building goes wrong, the frame is not square, the the plumbing has leaks, The electrical is not connected. Like, you need a a full total successful effective build in order to have the structure do what it what you intend it to do.
Matt Aiken:And so building takes a lot of pieces and puts them together to accomplish some sort of goal. And so what we're doing is saying, you know, in some cases, let's go in and evaluate. Are are this the parts of the structure you have in place actually going to stand the test of time? Or what are you missing from this building in order for it to be effective and and be fruitful, growing profitable, not dependent on you? The building analogy is so good because it takes a lot of different skills.
Matt Aiken:You need a plumber. You need an electrician. You need to understand these different systems and aspects, how they go together. You need a plan. You need an architect that says this is what it looks like.
Matt Aiken:And so what what are we doing? We're helping people take all of these disparate materials and competencies and put them together that's that's ultimately serves a customer and accomplishes a mission.
Alex Judd:Yeah. Kyle, I have a very particular question for you on this because you I mean, you have a background in building. Right? You have a background People that are seasoned or veterans in construction and building, like, what are the things that they just know when they get into a building project that amateurs just don't understand?
Kyle Guemmer:Yeah. They, actually, a really good question, Alex.
Alex Judd:Actually. Kyle always says, actually, when he comments on my questions. Come on, man.
Kyle Guemmer:They know that there's a process. So an amateur or even a homeowner who says, I want a house, thinks that it's really, really complicated, that there are so many of these pieces that feel overwhelming or I don't even know where to begin. But someone who builds is is like, okay. You first start here, then you do this, then you do that. Now we're all of sudden framed.
Kyle Guemmer:Now we do this, and now we're on to the finished materials, and then now it's time to move in. And so while it's something that is complicated, there are many different aspects to it. At the end of the day, it's a process.
Alex Judd:Mhmm. And it seems like there's something to me I think this is true in physical the physical act of building. I know it's true in the act of building a business is, like, the people who, from my perspective, succeed long term are not the ones who say, this is going to go exactly according to my plan. It's the people that know, man, if I don't have a plan, I don't have a shot. And the chances that this goes according to plan, according to budget, according to timeline are, like, less than zero almost.
Alex Judd:I guess that probably does many things for you, but one of the things it does is it just makes means that you're not blindsided whenever you end up having to deviate from the plan. Yeah?
Matt Aiken:The plan is something that comes with it an expectation. And so oftentimes when this plan goes wrong or when the plan encounters a new circumstance, it's something that you go, oh, no. Do I need do I need to revisit the plan? Like, is the whole plan oh, no. There's probably just a step or two that you need to adjust.
Matt Aiken:There's there might be a a course correction. But if you have a well established plan, what you've done is you've thought through things in advance. You you've sat down. You've thought critically about it. And now what is was it Eisenhower?
Matt Aiken:Plans are worthless, plan planning is essential.
Alex Judd:Mhmm. I love how he asked, like, like, we're actually gonna be like, oh, yeah. That was definitely Eisenhower that said that.
Kyle Guemmer:It was Kyle Gimmer.
Alex Judd:Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Matt Aiken:But it's like the the planning is what matters. The planning then created a plan. The circumstances adjusted the plan, but we've already done the planning. So we can now adjust to those circumstances. Mhmm.
Matt Aiken:And that's something that, like, we help people do is to say, oh, there was a plan. We come into a coaching call. Didn't go to plan. Well, we've already gone through all the context. We've walked through what winning looks like.
Matt Aiken:We know what we're building. So what do we need to adjust? What what did we already learn? What have we already predecided that allows us to go and take another step?
Alex Judd:Yeah. The goal. What is the goal? It's to build a healthy, growing, profitable business that isn't dependent on the owner to make a positive impact. So the next word is healthy.
Alex Judd:This is actually a question that I've gotten a lot over the past several years because as a kind of overarching principle that we've taught from the very beginning in this company, we always say health and growth are not the same thing. To which everyone follows up and asks, like, okay. How do you know if you're practicing healthy growth? What does healthy actually look like? From y'all's perspective, think about think about the leaders, the business owners that you are in day to day one on one conversations with, and think about those that are really, really healthy.
Alex Judd:And then think about the leaders that you've coincide with that it's like, man, them and their business are not operating from a posture of health. What's the litmus test? How what do we look for to say, oh, that's what Healthy is?
Kyle Guemmer:We could probably spend five podcasts on Healthy. I I think in general, the the working, like, framework that I am I am operating here with when I think about Healthy is healthy leader, healthy team, healthy culture. And, man, there's there's a structure in in kind of what that looks like with mission, vision, values, role clarity, all of these different things. But, really, essentially, it's like, man, do we have a healthy leader, someone who is who is operating if you looked at that person and their marriage and their life and their leadership and in the business, are they operating in a healthy way? Do we have a team that is healthy?
Kyle Guemmer:Do we have people who are bought into what we're doing? Do we have people who are collaborating and working well together to accomplish a desired and a shared outcome? And then do we have a healthy culture? Like, do we have shared values in what we're trying to that we're aligned in, that we're collaborating on, and that we're working towards? And so healthy leader, healthy team, healthy culture.
Matt Aiken:Yeah. Health often comes to mind. How are you engaging with the metrics that if they were off, you'd go, there's a problem. And so, you know, I I love the idea of healthy leader, healthy leadership team, healthy culture because if any one of these three things has some sort of chronic issue, then you're going to struggle to do the next things in our list because then it's gonna be either all dependent on you or it's gonna maybe head in the wrong direction or you're gonna grow the problem because you're exacerbating this this issue or symptom. And so think about a checkup, a doctor's visit of like, hey, what are the the five or six things that when you when I go to my primary care and I do my blood work and she looks at me and says, hey, you know, this is improving.
Matt Aiken:This this is outside of range, but it's okay. Like, here's some small things you can do to adjust. Here's a big problem. Right? So when we're
Alex Judd:talking about
Matt Aiken:healthy, it is is both the absence of big problems while also the the the small maintenance things that we're going, okay.
Alex Judd:Yeah.
Matt Aiken:Not It's our culture is not perfect. Our leadership team is not perfect. I'm not perfect, but I'm close to in range, and I'm I'm trending back towards a
Kyle Guemmer:Growing.
Matt Aiken:Yeah. It's like when I'm a I'm a healthy guy. I've, generally speaking, I'm a healthy guy, but I get sick on occasion. That's okay. It's the absence of those chronic things constantly getting sick, having an issue that doesn't ever heal.
Matt Aiken:Like a healthy culture is or or a healthy leader or a healthy leadership team is something that, you know, that it's not perfect, but it's consistently returning to a baseline of effective.
Alex Judd:Yeah. And I love this because what we're really doing here is that we are you know, this is a bold thing to do. Most people will not do this. They will make winning very myopic, and that myopic definition of winning is I mean, the most myopic or shallow is top line revenue. And you can say, okay.
Alex Judd:How's the organization doing? The organization is doing great. We just had our best year ever. And you dig into what is best year ever, And they say, oh, well, our top line revenue, best it's ever been. And it's like, that's awesome.
Alex Judd:That is not a statement about health at all. Right? I I know a lot of people that have tripled top line revenue, and from a health perspective, they're the worst they've ever been. But at the same time, I think the conversation around organizational health can be avoided or even degraded just because it feels so fluffy, and it feels it feels soft in some ways. What are some actual, like, hard metrics or or even hard experiential things that leadership put their eyes on to say, where are we at from a health perspective as a business?
Alex Judd:I think
Matt Aiken:from from a hard metrics perspective, the first thing I'd start with is a leadership team. Yeah. Do do we have established roles of people responsible for the various functions of the business with decision authority sharing the load of growth and health of the business. Mhmm. And so, okay, like, evaluate, do I have leaders that are excelling in their roles, that are aligned with mission, that have decision responsibility, that are enacting plans of health and growth.
Matt Aiken:Yeah. If you evaluate those statements and you're like, well, I have some leaders, but it doesn't represent all aspects of the business. Or I I have some folks who they're representing the org, but they don't really have a decision authority. I make the ultimate decision. You know, you start going through, like, what a leadership team is and does, and you go, are these things true?
Matt Aiken:You're gonna be able to say, yes. The business is gonna be able to go someplace with with the right folks to to take you there or or to assist you to
Alex Judd:go with think to that point too, team member retention and customer retention retention I mean, I was gonna say depending on the type of business, but I actually think that's any business. Team member, customer retention, customer satisfaction, all that can be indicators, and they're typically lagging indicators of health as well. And really, you know, some questions to ask are, are you becoming more of the leader that you were created to be? Is your business becoming more of the business that it was created to be? And do you have the structure to keep you where your growth is taking you?
Alex Judd:Or is the thing that's causing the growth your personality because your personality is not gonna sustain the growth, and it's certainly not gonna just I mean, it's not gonna be, you know, move on at an infinite rate. There's limitations to your personality. Kyle, anything you'd anything else you would add on the health arena of the goal that we're talking about here?
Kyle Guemmer:Yeah. I think to maybe summarize even some of what I heard you guys do and and maybe, like, simple and actionable for someone who's listening to this under the umbrellas of healthy leader, healthy team, healthy culture is like, and let's even take a leadership team like Matt was saying, he's like, does success look like for you in this season as a leader, and how am I doing according to that standard? What does success look like for our leadership team? I think you could look at that in a couple different ways. Number one, like, what is the role of the individuals on the leadership team, and are they trending towards green?
Kyle Guemmer:And what is our effectiveness as a leadership team and our ability to do effective work consistently over time? And that would that would show itself practically in are we able to, as a leadership team, commit to things on a quarterly basis and consistently execute on those things? If your leadership team individually is trending towards green in their role, and then you guys collectively are effectively executing priorities, I would say that's generally very easy to measure, but also would represent health. And then as a culture is, man, what are the things that we care about? What are the shared values that we have?
Kyle Guemmer:What are the the shared goals that we're after? And and collectively as a team and collectively as a culture, like, how are we doing in regards to those things?
Alex Judd:And are we living those things?
Kyle Guemmer:Are we
Alex Judd:just saying those things?
Matt Aiken:Yeah. Which hard metrics, I I now that you say that, I'm like, oh, wait. How would you hard metric culture? Well, you could measure how many people have our core values memorized. Mhmm.
Matt Aiken:Well, here's a hard metric. Do you have core values? Here's a hard metric. Do you have a mission statement?
Alex Judd:Yeah.
Matt Aiken:That's red red or green. Right?
Alex Judd:Mhmm.
Matt Aiken:But then how many have memorized? Or, you know, I I've got a customer that's got a core values program where they, you know, they hand out core values or shout out core values. How many shout outs have gone into Slack? There's so many good AI tools for scraping your your whatever your chat feature is, your communication tool. Be like, how many times are these mentioned?
Matt Aiken:How many times are people shouted out? Doesn't always have to be a percent, but sometimes it can just be like, do we see instances of Yeah.
Alex Judd:And those things are all indicators too. It's not like, okay, this is the end all be all metric of health, but it's an indicator. Okay. Let's go to growing now. When a business is growing and we look at it and we say, that is good growth, what informs it being good?
Kyle Guemmer:If I were to even look at myself individually, it's like, what would represent me being a good coach? Because I am, like, we have a business where we're coaching. What represents good coaching or healthy growth in that is do we have a predictable and repeatable way to get the attention of people who need our services, number one. Then number two, like, am I delivering the value that we said we were gonna deliver? And then number three, are people staying around consistently as that value is being delivered.
Kyle Guemmer:And, naturally, if those functions are in place, there's gonna be growth because we're getting people's attention. We are doing what we said we were gonna do to a level where people trust us to continue to work with us, and then more people show up as well. And so, I think as you do that over time, that represents I have a healthy roster. I'm a healthy coach. And because of that, I'm continuing to grow because of other functions in the business.
Alex Judd:Yeah. Yeah. So underneath what you just said, I think there's something really powerful that is helpful for every business owner and leader to understand is, like, we've gotta examine our motives. Like, if you wanna grow your business or if you wanna grow your roster or grow your department, if you wanna pursue growth, what are the motives that we would look at and we'd say, that's a good motive versus what what are motives that we say, man, that's a faulty motive that's ultimately gonna be fruitless.
Matt Aiken:A good motive is to do something worthwhile effectively and efficiently.
Alex Judd:To
Matt Aiken:to solve a problem that is worth solving. And so I I well, there's a little ethereal or what's the one mind word? Theoretical. Theoretical. Like, when we're talking about growing, you know, most of us start a business saying this thing needs to exist.
Matt Aiken:This problem needs to be solved. And so what do we wanna do? We wanna make sure that if we are solving the problem well, we're solving as many of the people we're helping as many people who have that problem solve the problem. Yeah. And so, hey, are we having an impact?
Matt Aiken:Are we having an impact effectively? Like, is is revenue per head count going up while at the same time customer satisfaction is going up? Or the number of customers reached going up? God put Adam and Eve in the garden and gave them work to do to grow, to cultivate, to be fruitful and multiply. That idea is like, okay, there there are things to do.
Matt Aiken:Are we doing them at greater and greater scale at a a reasonable level of efficiency?
Alex Judd:Mhmm.
Matt Aiken:Is is it are we do solving the problem the most efficiently, effective way possible? And and people benefiting from that.
Alex Judd:Yeah. Yeah. That's really good.
Kyle Guemmer:Yeah, I think the only thing that I would add to that is this is where some of the theoretical things become very practical. If I were to look at motives for me in coaching is, one, it's clear what success looks like. For us, what we would say is like a leader is healthy, satisfied, and on the path, and like we have a standard for that. So that's really clear to me. So that's a motive for how I execute within my role.
Kyle Guemmer:The biggest motive is the mission. Like, I like, I want to do this because I want to help impact driven leaders step in who they're created to be so that others benefit and God is glorified. Like, that is why I am motivated to continue to serve and act in the best interest of the people I serve so that they step into that. And then the final thing is, like, the motives in so many ways are defined by our values, and that gives me a lot of clarity and confidence in how I can execute within that, which is in a lot of ways motives. Like, I can point to Jesus.
Kyle Guemmer:I need to operate within alignment. There is freedom and responsibility. Strength is for service and treat people like friends. And it's like, treat people like friends, like, that is a motive. Strength is for service, that is a motive.
Kyle Guemmer:Like, where am I strong and how am I serving people within that strength? These people are people that I care about, I want to treat them like a friend, so I'm backwards in the way. And I think that will produce growth. And so role clarity standards, mission, and values, I think, in so many ways can inform the motives of every person in an organization.
Alex Judd:Yeah. I was really interested to hear how y'all respond to this because in some ways, I think I maybe have had a front row seat to seeing, man, some of the most miserable people I know are the most goal oriented people that I know. Right? And they just are so obsessed with the the goal of growth that, man, they just become stress balls, walking stress balls, and they're not enjoying their life. And they've kind of bought into this idea that, oh, enjoyment isn't the destination.
Alex Judd:And we all know that's a that's a sham. Right? That's false. Because the destination almost always looks like the path that informed it. If you're miserable on the path, you're probably going to be ultra miserable in the destination.
Alex Judd:So I think that if I'm not careful, I look at that and I say, well, that means, you know, if you look at that path, that means all growth results in that. And that means growth is bad. Right? Which is a problem if you own a company called Path for Growth. Right?
Alex Judd:And and so it's like, okay. Does that mean we shouldn't have goals? I don't think so. Does it mean we shouldn't have desires? I don't think so because I I have seen the, the fruitfulness primarily in terms of focus that goals, desires, stated preferences, expectations, vision, all of that provides for a team of people.
Alex Judd:So then what makes growth good? Man, y'all have kind of already articulated some of these things, but there's three things I have been thinking about a lot with regard to our business recently. Number one is, like, I I have been reoriented recently through a a series of really intense personal conversations with customers of ours that, like, I just have re had my eyes reopened to the fact that people really need what our team does. Like, people really need it. And and these people are going to get coaching.
Alex Judd:They are going it's not like it's like they're gonna work with Path for Growth and not gonna they're going to work with someone. And and the people they work with, if it's not us, might not have a first core value of point to Jesus or might not have the value of alignment. They might not be as good as our coaches are in terms of what we do. And so not only do I believe people need what we provide, I believe so much in the way we provide it. And it's like, that's an incredible motivator.
Alex Judd:People need this, and we provide it with excellence and with a good heart of caring and serving those people. Man, that that, like, just that lights fire under me to pursue growth in some ways. The the second motivator that I that I think kinda ties health and growth together is, like, I have been really encouraged recently by the fact that, like, I want our place to be a place where great people don't just have a job, but where great people can build a career. And like, if great people are gonna build a career here, what does that mean? Well, it means that we're gonna hire people that are great people.
Alex Judd:That means those great people wanna grow. They wanna take on new responsibility. They might wanna move up in the organization. They wanna might wanna get paid more so that they can build a family. Like, all of those things they want to happen.
Alex Judd:And it's like, I don't want this to be a place where people say, man, that was so great whenever I was single. But now I'm married, and there's not an option for me at it's like, no. I want people to have a career here. And and it's like, that's feels to me like a motive for motivator for growth. And then the final one that has been so motivating for me recently of, like, man, that's that feels like a a good reason for growth is, like, once you reach a spot in business where you, like, you've got some profit and also generosity is a priority for you, you start having to reckon with where if I wanna give money and resources to something, where is that gonna go?
Alex Judd:And one of the things that I found is I just like, our team right now, like, I love our team. You know? And, like, we just spend a ton of time with our team. And I'm like, I love the way our team, you know, is invested in their marriages. I love the way that our team is invested in their parenting.
Alex Judd:I love the way our team is invested in their community. Like and it's like, in some ways, there's like, that feels like a great cause to invest in. And I want to continue to be able to pour into those things and think about that as an element of generosity. It's like, I want to foster more of that in the world. And the best way I know to do that and the most localized way I know to do that is, resource the people that I really, really trust to be doing that in their little corner of the world.
Alex Judd:And so those are just three areas that I think for me are motives of like, man, growth can be such a good thing and it's a good thing to pursue. Just make sure your motives are actually aligned with what's right. Okay. The third word is actually probably connected to health and growth in a very specific lens and arena, and the third word is profitable. Profitable as an aim.
Alex Judd:Why is it so crucial that our goal as impact driven leaders includes profitability?
Matt Aiken:Profitability is the fuel of a business. It's how you refill your tank to go and do the work that you need to do. The reality is is that we need to earn a profit to build up store houses, to to build up a cash reserve, which then we we can view that as stored stored future impact. Right? We need to be building it up so that we can weather downtimes when when our customers face issues, when there's when there's challenges.
Matt Aiken:We can get through that so that at the other side of that, we can serve customers. So we can accomplish all those things that you just said were great motivators for us to grow. But we can't have that if we're breakeven or losing money on on a regular basis. We have to have profit in order to, one, store up future reserve, store up impact for the for for the next season, and to enjoy our lives. Like, for for a business owner to profit and take home a reward.
Matt Aiken:I mean, a worker is worth their wage. I mean, ultimately, you can pay yourself as a w two employee. That's great. I we don't even wanna get into that right now. But but at the end of the day, like, your it is good to expect a harvest.
Matt Aiken:It's good to expect a harvest. God expects a harvest from us. Mhmm. We're gonna give an account for our effectiveness. And so is it not a good thing to to profit from us serving our customers really well?
Matt Aiken:Because that's gonna and then in turn allow us to invest. You can't invest if you're breaking even. It's not possible because there's no cash there to invest. You you've spent what came in. But if you wanna invest to grow, especially in a healthy way, to invest in your team, to invest in your product, your processes, working on the business, etcetera, you're going to need profit, which is going to advance the mission and the values of your business.
Alex Judd:Yeah.
Kyle Guemmer:Yeah. It doesn't really matter how healthy your team is or how pure your motives are if you're not profitable. And I would actually argue that I don't know if you can be a healthy leader, you can have a healthy team, maybe a healthy culture if you're not profitable.
Alex Judd:Certainly not over time. And I think that that's, you know, there are a lot of people that pour so much into quote unquote healthy culture and growing their business, but it's like you I mean, to go back to the building analogy, you didn't lay a foundation. Like, you are doing this in a way that the model, like, from day one is unsustainable. And so, really, it's just a timetable when when's the clock gonna run out. Right?
Alex Judd:Because, you you've you've bought this incredible office space, and and you filled it with all these great people that have all these incredible salaries, and everyone's thrilled to be here until we start laying people off because we don't have a model that can sustain all of that. Right? And so I think we do need to pause here for this episode, but I think what I wanna call people's attention to here is, like, this is building. This is a project you are getting into. You know, sometimes we we use the word goal, and we forget that a goal is actually a project.
Alex Judd:You are opting in for a project if you if you choose this goal, and this goal has three objectives associated with it. And then maybe in the next episode, we'll talk about the aim, which is non owner dependency and and impact. But the objectives, the world will tell you that these objectives are competing with each other. And it will say, you're gonna pursue health, you can't you can't be a growing organization. If you're gonna be growing, you can't spend or waste any time on health or profitability.
Alex Judd:Right? And I think what we are deeply passionate about because we've lived it and we are coaching other people on it actively and we're seeing it happen and we're seeing fruitfulness, vitality, and impact come from it is you can have a healthy organization that you are becoming more of who you were created to be. Your business is becoming more of what it was created to be, that organization can grow. It can be bigger next year than it is this year, and that's, like, so cool. Like, you could double over the course of the next several years.
Alex Judd:That is possible, and you don't have to compromise health to do that, and it can be profitable. Like, man, there can be leftovers for both challenging seasons, but also for opportunity and for being generous and for, you know, reaping the rewards as an owner. Like, those three things do not have to compete with each other. They are three objectives that actually, if you do it the right way, it becomes a flywheel that they support each other and ultimately lead to the aim that we're gonna talk about in the next episode, which is non owner dependency and impact. But this is a great first unpacking of those three objectives.
Alex Judd:Remember the goal to build a healthy, growing, profitable business that isn't dependent on the owner to make a positive impact. Thanks y'all. Hey, y'all. Thanks so much for watching. If you want more content like this, we've got some killer stuff planned.
Alex Judd:So make sure you rate, review and subscribe. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.
