The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of a Bad Hire

Sean Weisbrot: Welcome back to another episode of the We Love To Build Podcast. I'm here today with Daniela Genas. This is episode 136. So Daniella is the founder of Be the Boss International, which equips ambitious entrepreneurs with the tools, guidance and accountability to build profitable, sustainable, and systems driven businesses.

Sean Weisbrot: Daniella is also a motivational speaker having spoken at TEDx Aston University, and she's the vice chair on the Board of Directors for Ethical Equity. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me. Daniella, uh, why don't you tell everyone a little bit more about. How you got involved in starting this business, and we'll go from there.

Danielle Genas: I came to be the founder of what is now Be the Boss International, based on my experience of starting a business previously growing it, and then unfortunately being put in a position where I had to sell it. And all of the lessons that I learned, all of the successes that I had, all of the mistakes that I made, I wanted to take and support other entrepreneurs to ensure that they could grow their businesses successfully and sustainably without kind of doing all of the things that I did wrong, but also doing all of the things that I did right.

Danielle Genas: So the first business grew quite rapidly, but it was heavy reli, heavily reliant on me. It was also heavily reliant on funding. And external sponsorship as opposed, opposed to commercial revenues. And I recognize that whilst running the business, but really struggled to find the right support, the right guidance from individuals, organizations that kind of understood what it felt like on a day-to-day basis to run a business.

Danielle Genas: But also had the academic kind of grounding and frameworks to help me, uh, put them in my own business to help me continue to run it successfully. So I found that there was a bit of a missing link. So when I was in the position of having to sell the business and, and trying to work out what should I do next, because I had been providing mentoring, coaching, training in a quite an informal capacity with the first business.

Danielle Genas: It seemed like the obvious thing to kind of close that gap and be that bridge for business owners who, like me, wanted to work with an organization and or an individual that had walked the walk. Could therefore talk the talk, but also had the, the kind of frameworks and more of the academic understanding of what the success factors were for growing, uh, a successful, scalable business.

Danielle Genas: And that's essentially how the business was born. We've gone through three names. We started as Gina's Enterprise Consultants moved to, she's the boss International and most recently have rebranded as Be The Boss International. And I love what I do. And I think that I'm in quite a privileged position to be able to have an impact on the clients that I work with.

Danielle Genas: But I think for them in particular, one of the things that they really appreciate is my. Background, the fact that there's not really many issues that they can face in their business journey, that they can't come to me and say, well, this is happening. And I can say, yeah, I've been there, done that. There's not many things that they can ask me or say they're experiencing that I've not already experienced myself.

Danielle Genas: And I think that makes me kind of really well placed to be able to support them. And. Through my kind of academic journey. I have a, a Master's in enterprise and an MBA. I've really spent a lot of time researching and understanding from a academic standpoint what are those key success factors for sustainable growth for small businesses and particularly service businesses.

Danielle Genas: And putting those things together has enabled me to, to not only support lots of business owners, but also to help grow my own business, particularly over the last two years. So that's it in a nutshell.

Sean Weisbrot: You said that, uh, after you sold the first business, that you thought it would be a good idea to close the gap by providing these services directly to, uh, clients. What was it that made you not decide to start another business where you'd be, you know, building something that wasn't like this? Right. So like, after people, uh. Finish one of the businesses, they've, they've started, oftentimes they want to just go and build something else. Some people will go, ah, I'm just going to, you know, be a coach.

Sean Weisbrot: I'm gonna, or I'm gonna be a, a consultant, whatever. What made you choose the ladder? I. Instead of building something else,

Danielle Genas: I have loads of business ideas. So be the boss is my, my main business. There are two other businesses in waiting. One, which is already registered, which I'm hoping, well, I will be launching later this year.

Danielle Genas: But really, it, it seemed like the obvious choice because that's what people were asking me to provide. Because I'd been informally providing s support, business advice consultancy in the first business in that interim period after selling the business and whilst doing my MBA, people were still approaching me saying, look, I know that you know how to grow a business.

Danielle Genas: Can you help me do it? So kind of go where, where it makes sense to go, right? If people are asking me for this and they're willing to pay me for it, and I actually enjoy it and know that I can add value, then why not? And. I think particularly with the move from she's the boss to be the boss, the idea is for it to grow beyond me just doing coaching and consultancy and actually there's so many different, uh, elements of the business that are going to be beyond me and already have started to, to kind of be beyond me providing one-to-one support.

Sean Weisbrot: Now you're the vice chair for Ethical Equity. What is that?

Danielle Genas: So Ethical Equity is an investment company specifically for. Businesses that are B Core. Registered or sharay law compliance. So if your business fits within one of those two areas, then we essentially will match you with investors or potential investors to help you grow your business.

Danielle Genas: So it's a, a new position that I've taken on, taken on. Towards the end of last year. Very interesting. Uh, very different to what I've done previously, and I'm really excited because obviously it's an extension of what I'm already doing. If I can also then help businesses secure investment, that's also a part of businesses achieving growth, right?

Sean Weisbrot: I hadn't heard of this, uh, Sharia compliant, uh, requirement. It, I, I find it to be quite interesting. Neither had I in itself. And now, what are some of the things that you find business owners are doing incorrectly when you start to work with them? Something that's almost universal.

Danielle Genas: Universal lack of systems, lack of systemization, trying to do everything themselves all the time, um, without any kind of structure systems. Documented processes, checklists, standard operating procedures, just going with the flow essentially, and running around trying to do everything and be everything without laying the foundations. And that goes across the board from startups that have been operating for one year all the way up to businesses that have been operating 15, 20 years.

Danielle Genas: I think the business that I've worked with that's been operating the longest is about 30 years. And you'd think after 30 years they must have some form of systems and, and actually they did have some systems. Were they good systems that would help them? Not really. It was the shambles behind the scenes, which is why they needed me, but they managed to get by.

Danielle Genas: Now, for business owners that want to do more than get by and who also want to. To be able to have some free time and not be running themselves ragged and burning themselves out and stressing themselves out. It's really important that they have systems, uh, that they automate, that they delegate, that they outsource, where, uh, appropriate. But most business owners don't.

Danielle Genas: They try to do everything themselves, or they hire a team and then they complain all day that the teams are not good. Their staff members are not good enough. The staff are rubbish, but they've not given them the right support. They haven't put the right systems in place to enable them to do their jobs to the best of their ability, and then they complain that they're not doing the job to the best of their ability, but actually it's because they lack the structure.

Danielle Genas: In the first place to be able to do their job effectively. That is across the board. I see that constantly. Businesses of all stages and from every industry

Sean Weisbrot: I've dealt with some people like that, and I created the term maxed out. They're a maxed out entrepreneur because they just can't take on anymore. Now, have you ever gone to someone and said, Hey, why don't you just take like a week off and just see what happens? Just change nothing. Take a week off. Oh, I say that all the time right before we do anything to your business. Just take a week. People are terrified to do that. I think it's an interesting. I think, I mean, assuming a business is already at a point where there's, uh, team members, because if it's someone working by themselves, if they were to take time off, they would probably piss their customers off if they're the ones managing everything. But if they have a team in place, they should feel comfortable to take time off. And if they don't, obviously there's a really big problem.

Danielle Genas: But even if you are a solo printer, if you have the, well, depending on obviously what you're providing, but if you have the right systems and processes in place, you should still be able to take a week off. As long as you communicate effectively with your clientele and you put things in place so that they're able to still get the value when you are gone, you should, if you build your business properly, you should still be able to do that.

Sean Weisbrot: Why do you think it is that people have such a big problem with like. Building a team.

Danielle Genas: They don't trust people. I think that's the first thing. They don't trust that anyone will be able to do as good a job as they will. And the problem with that is you're probably correct if you don't put the right things in place to facilitate them being able to do their role and to complete tasks in the way that you want them to.

Danielle Genas: What people tend to do is say, I don't wanna hire anyone because they're gonna be rubbish and they're gonna get it wrong, and they're not gonna be able to do it as good as me. And then after a while they get to that point, as you said, of being maxed out and being forced in a position. Where they have to take on staff and then they bring them in.

Danielle Genas: And they don't onboard them properly. They don't have a process for supporting them. They don't manage them properly, they don't train them properly. And then it becomes a self-fulfilling pro prophecy because then that person can't perform and they do do a rubbish job. And then they say, see, I knew this is what was going to happen, and they probably will get rid of that person.

Danielle Genas: Or they'll spend months and months and months complaining to everyone that will listen that this person is not performing without actually ever stopping and thinking. Maybe the reason that they're not is because I didn't put those things in place to enable them. Two. I say that it's actually. One of the problems that a lot of business owners early stage business owners have when they're starting to build their team, is they assume that everybody should have the same level of knowledge, the same level of passion, the same level of energy as them, and they expect somebody to come into the business, suddenly have all of this common sense, have all of this initiative, have all of this passion, and be able to do all of these things.

Danielle Genas: Without stopping and thinking, well, actually, if they could do all that, they'd probably be running the business themselves and they wouldn't be here working for you. So actually you do probably need to give them a little bit more guidance, a little bit more support. And also you can't expect people to be mind readers. If you like things done a specific way, then you need to tell people that you like things done a specific way. And actually sometimes even telling them is not enough. You need to document step by step that this is how it needs to be done so that they can follow that because. How else are they going to know how to do it?

Sean Weisbrot: I've heard people say before, oh, well if they're so good, then why don't they make their own business? But I think those people either don't feel confident in starting their own business yet, or they don't have an idea of something they want to do where they would be the owner, or maybe they're just happy working for someone else and taking a salary. Like I know plenty of people that they've just got a job and when the job is done for the day, they. Don't have to think about anything else. And they're quite happy with that. And you know, I don't see a problem with that.

Danielle Genas: Oh yeah. There's definitely people that are, but, but I think what a business owners often expect is they bring in a staff, and this is not obviously all the time, but I've seen it happen a lot. They expect the people that they bring into their organization to be. To the same level in terms of, as I said, passion, initiative, energy, knowledge, interest, et cetera. As them as the business owner, as and as the entrepreneur. So they want them to put in the say like, I've had so many conversations with business owners where they'll say, well, they finished at five and they were still stuff to do and I expected them to stay and didn't they want to get it finished?

Danielle Genas: And I'm like, actually no, they're finished at five. So they want to go home. It's the end of the day. And there are going to be people that will go the extra mile that will. Come in early and finish late, and we'll be doing research in their spare time because they're genuinely passionate and interested. But actually, if you start at the, from the basis that anyone that you hire or anyone you bring into your business is really just here to do the paid hours and need that support, if you start from that base level, then anyone above that is a bonus. And you've still covered all bases so that anyone that comes in.

Danielle Genas: Has the right support, has the right systems, have the right processes, have the right everything to enable them to be the best in their role, rather than doing it the other way, assuming everybody's going to be like you, when actually the chances are most people are not going to be like you.

Sean Weisbrot: I think Gen Z sees things in an interesting way where they, they wanna feel connected to the work that they do. They want to feel like there's a purpose to it, but they also want to feel like they're appreciated. And they want to feel like they're earning what they're worth, which I think is quite difficult for millennials and Gen Xers and boomers to deal with because for boomers, for example, they're like, yeah, I'm, I'm here to do the job and I'm going to, you know, that's, that's the job. Whether it's sucks or not, if I'm getting paid, okay. That's the job. And I think Gen Xers are. Similar in that regard, but also more willing to quit a job if they feel like they're not getting paid enough. And I think millennials are a bit more outspoken where I'm, I'm a millennial and, and I, I think I feel closer to Gen Zers in that regard where like, I do wanna feel like my talents are being used correctly.

Sean Weisbrot: I feel like a lot of companies I worked with in the past didn't really care or didn't understand, didn't try to understand, didn't ask me what I wanted, and just kind of made assumptions about my abilities and therefore squandered, um, a lot of it. And I never felt like I was being paid enough. So I basically had no loyalty to anybody. Um, so that's why I ended up becoming an entrepreneur. But, um, but yeah, I think trying to build a team with younger people. Like, I think some people try to build teams with younger people because they think they can get away with paying them less. And I think they're in a for rude awakening because, uh, young people have higher expectations.

Sean Weisbrot: They, they think they should be paid more than people with 30 years of experience, even though I have no experience. There was actually a, there was a survey done in the US and it was like the average person in university in America right now. Thinks that they're gonna start off making 80 to a hundred thousand dollars a year, but the average that they're actually gonna make is about 50 when they leave university and they're like gonna be in for a rude awakening.

Danielle Genas: From my experiences of working with clients that have, have very young workforces, there is some level of what they see as entitlement. They think that they should be paid more for doing less and for having, as you said, less experience. But just for the fact that like I'm passionate about the job I. So you should pay me more.

Danielle Genas: And that's something that I've, I have a lot of clients coming to me saying what, I dunno what I'm supposed to do with these people because they're not doing what's supposed to be done and they still want to be paid more than what we are paying them. It's quite tough. It is tough. But then also, if you are young and in business, and this was my experience when I ran my first business, hiring people significantly older than you can be problematic because then.

Danielle Genas: They can have a bit of a superiority complex because as far as they can be concerned is actually, we're older than you. I'm more experienced than you. How can you tell me what to do? And that's something that I've experienced. So it's pretty, it's a pretty difficult line to, to balance.

Sean Weisbrot: I experienced that as well. I mean, I was, uh, managing my dad's business. He's a. Dentist. He had a practice a while ago in about 2011, 2012. I was managing his business. When I came in, he had like about 15 people working with him, and the average person was in their fifties and I was, you know, mid twenties. And they looked at me like the doctor's son, not, you know, the manager, right? They didn't see me as above them and. And you know, they were using this dental software that had been around for several decades, and some of them had been using it since it came out 20 plus years. And I came in and I had figured out the entire software in about a week or two. I knew it better than all of them with my eyes closed.

Sean Weisbrot: And they got mad because I was giving them advice on how to be more efficient with it. Like, who are you? You know, you're, you're half my age and you've been doing this job for two weeks. How do you know? Little did they know. I grew up with the damn software, but I hadn't used it in 10 years, but I still remembered enough of it to figure out everything I needed to know. And in doing so, made a lot of, uh, large strides in improving my dad's business's efficiency. I ended up having to fire all of them because they wouldn't listen to me and I had to rebuild a new team that would, I had a client that had a

Danielle Genas: very similar, similar experience. Actually. He took over his dad's company that had been operating for, yeah, I think like 20 plus years, and I came in to help them with all their automation, productivity, process management, et cetera. Um, put together a brand new operations manual, new systems for doing things, and the manager quit. That was the first thing. He was like, I'm just not, he'd been there since the beginning and he said that the way it's been working is fine. I'm not interested. And he quit and said He is not, he's not participating.

Danielle Genas: And then, yeah, there was a lot of kind of back and forth and. Pushing and pulling with some of the remaining members of this, of the staff, of the team, who also didn't really wanna fall in line. In the end they did, but it got a bit close with some of them who were gonna have to leave if they didn't cooperate. People don't like change and that's why, uh, so the question you asked at the beginning was kind of what, what is a common mistake that business owners make? From a startup perspective, one of the key things that I say to many startups is start with those processes in place. Because if you start to take on staff and then try to do them retrospectively, then you now have to deal with pushback from them wanting to do things, how they've always done it.

Danielle Genas: Whereas if you start but it's just you embedding those processes, then when you're taking people on, then it's, it's much easier to get them to not necessarily fall in line. Like, I can't think of a better way of saying it, but yeah. Fall in line and then you can make improvements and they will understand, okay, we're trying to improve this as opposed to we're trying to radically overhaul the whole thing. And then you, you end up in a situation where, yeah, you have to fire everybody and start again. So I always say try and do, go through that process as early as possible rather than trying to do it later down the line.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. With my startup, uh, nerve, I, we've had. Both things happen where sometimes we had to like upgrade something and we had to change the way it was done. And you know, the people that were there were willing to adapt and they thought it was exciting. And then we've had times where we had to do the same thing and we had to fire the person because they just refused to, to adapt. And you know, the average person's like mid twenties, you know, the, it's not, we're not an old team. There's like maybe there, there was like. Four of us that were in our thirties and everyone else was, was 23 to 27. So, you know, should be highly adaptable. But

Danielle Genas: people have an aversion to change. I personally have an aversion to change. I just, I, I know that it's necessary, but I don't like it. I don't like change, but I recognize the, the importance of it.

Sean Weisbrot: What is something that you know, you need to change but have generally avoided doing?

Danielle Genas: Picking on staff. I know that I can't continue to, to work with outsource teams, and this year I'm gonna have to take on staff. I'm gonna have to change my thinking around it. And it's now about, I, I tell people do as I say, not as I do, but it's time for me to do, as I say. And get it done. I've been avoiding it for a little while, but it's time. I'm

Sean Weisbrot: surprised more. More people didn't find it strange that you were doing everything. If you're like, wait a minute, you're telling me to build a team and yet you don't have a team, why? Why are you telling me to build a team? But you don't have a team?

Danielle Genas: Because if you're speaking to me from an outward perspective, you'd think that I do because the people that I work with become part of my team, but they just. Contracting as opposed to employees. So when you email me, my assistant will respond and it's, she's responding from my company email address, but she has her own company.

Danielle Genas: But within my company, she has an email account. The same for the marketing team. The same. Same for my sales person who does the sales for me, the same for my copy. So I have a team, it's just not an internal team, it's an outsourced team. Whereas now I'm gonna have to have. At least one member of staff internally.

Sean Weisbrot: If that's been working for you, then why do you, why do you need to change it?

Danielle Genas: Because it's not working for me anymore. Now I need, I need the, the direction that the business is going. I need somebody that's going to be kind of a hundred percent dedicated to the business and with outsourced, they're not a hundred percent, they, they've obviously got other things to do.

Sean Weisbrot: Totally agree. What is the most important position you wanna look for?

Danielle Genas: Partnerships manager for internal and external partnerships for the business to level up to where I'm trying to get it in 2023, where I'm going to get it and speak it into existence to level it up the the way that I want and need it to, to be leveled up. I need somebody that's going to be in charge of kind of building partnerships and managing them, and I don't think that that's something that can be done by an outsourced person. That needs to be somebody that is internal.

Sean Weisbrot: I agree completely. Yeah. I've done some work with, uh, lead gen agencies and content creation agencies, and to be honest, the quality of their work, it's not great because they're trying to serve 10, 15, 20, 50, a hundred other companies, so they're not focused on you. They may, it may feel like they are because they respond when you message them, but it's, it's not the same even at, even at that, that those layers.

Danielle Genas: Yeah. And I think particularly when you are, you are trying to grow in the early stages, outsourcing specific functions is fine, and there's certain functions within the business that'll probably continue to outsource for an extended period of time. But I also think that you get to a tipping point where you need. Some stuff inside, in-house. So the, the methodology that I use is, uh, I call it a o so it's automate, delegate, or outsource. So there's a, a process that I take my clients through. It actually, I take myself, I've been taking myself through it.

Danielle Genas: It's working out like, does it need a human? If it doesn't need a human, then you can automate it. If it needs a human, does it need a human that is, uh, that has specialist knowledge and skills? Do you have that specialist knowledge and skills in-house? If you do, then delegate it. If you don't, then outsource it. But then after that, do you need that specialist knowledge in-house? Or do you need that task to be, uh, carried out in-house? Then it needs to be delegated as opposed to outsourced. And if it needs to be delegated, then that means you need to hire somebody. And I'm at that point now, I've, I've done the automations, I've done the outsourcing. It's time to delegate. Now

Sean Weisbrot: I can visualize the workflow as you're talking about it, they're like, if then options if. You need this, then you should do this. If you don't, then you should do that. And so it creates this kind of flowing waterfall type of a graph that helps you to figure out those things. Um, I, I think they use this in programming AI as well. So what are some other emotions that you see in the people you work with your clients?

Danielle Genas: One of the, the main emotions that I see is frustration. Frustration with. Themselves, frustration with their clients and customers, frustration with their team members, um, frustration with their kind of support network or lack thereof, frustration with the speed at which they're growing.

Danielle Genas: I think for, for many business owners, particularly those that are, are quite entrepreneurial. They come up with their ideas and they expect traction immediately. And when that traction doesn't happen and they have to actually stop doing a lot of hard work, it, it gets quite frustrating. And particularly when, by the time they get to me, they've usually gone through a whole load of frustration.

Danielle Genas: And now they're saying, look, I, they finally resigned themselves to the fact that they need help. Can you help me? And even in me helping a lot of the time that frustration continues because they want this silver bullet. They want me to kind of just jump in and say, there you go. And it's fixed. And actually. I don't operate like that. The world doesn't operate like that. It's not possible. There's a lot of things that I can recommend, but you still have to go and do them. And actually there's things that I can recommend that you may do, but it's still not going to give you an instant result overnight. And I think for a lot of, for a lot of my clients, that can cause.

Danielle Genas: Frustration until they start to see the results. When they start to see the results, then obviously then that frustration is replaced by excitement, happiness, joy. Um, but yeah, I think there's, there is definitely a, a sense of frustration that is, I think, inherent to, particularly as I said, 'cause I think there's a, a distinction to be made between a business owner and an entrepreneur.

Danielle Genas: And I think a business owner often is. Is more satisfied. And this is a sweeping generalization, so I'm not saying every business owner, but a lot of the time I find that the business owners are a little bit more accepting of the fact that there's slow and steady movement, whereas entrepreneur.

Danielle Genas: Entrepreneurs are more frustrated because they want to see things happening quickly. I've had this idea, I'm gonna jump on this and I wanna see something happen straight away. I've had this idea, I've jumped on this, something should be happening straight away. Why is it not happening? It needs to hurry up. I wanna see this growth and it's this kinda just go, go, go, go, go. And, and actually, as I said, it can work like that for some people and well done for them. Like they've obviously hit the jackpot. But for, for most of us, it's more about kind of that steady progression.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, I've noticed that with my podcast. I've been doing it for nearing on two and a half years at this point. And, uh, I mean, in terms of the quality of the content and the quality of the guests, I'd say it's, it's up there, it's very high, but still not monetized. The number of people watching still isn't very, you know, very high. So it can get frustrating, but the way I look at it is.

Sean Weisbrot: A lot of the people I've seen that have gotten big out of their podcasts, like Lex Friedman and Tim Ferris and Joe Rogan, they started out where I started out, you know, and they just kept doing it. I mean, Joe Rogan's at 1900 episodes. You know, over like a decade, something like that. And it was like in his 10th year that he signed this like a hundred million dollars or $200 million contract.

Sean Weisbrot: Before that he was on YouTube, you know, getting millions of listens per episode, which is great, you know, but I'm sure there were many, many years where it was just a slog. Now granted, he already had a name for himself, but. Even Tim Ferris had to work really hard at it, and now he's charging $43,000 per ad read with, with a two episode commitment. So you're, you're looking at 86,000, you know, for ads.

Danielle Genas: Music to my ears, one of the things that I say to my, to my clients as well is. When you're, when you're in those. 'cause I don't, I still get frustrated from time to time, but I'm so focused on the vision and I'm so wedded to the, the fact that I will get to that point that I, I'm just enjoying the journey.

Danielle Genas: Like, okay, it's not gonna be right now, and it may take me another few years before I can do a podcast and charge somebody 40 something thousand pounds for an ad. Like, but I believe that get there. And I think for many people the reason that they get so frustrated or why they sit in that frustration is because they, they're not confident in the knowledge that they will get there or the belief that they'll get there.

Danielle Genas: And I used to be like that, particularly when I first started this business. I was like, oh my gosh, everything's moving so slow and it's not happening and dah, dah, dah, dah. But actually when I got really wedded to the vision and, and started to, to operate in alignment with the vision and I started to see doors open and things happening and not to the level that I want, I was, I, funny enough, I recorded a podcast with somebody earlier today and I was saying, I'm not at the point where I can go to sleep or go and sit on the beach and I'm seeing like seven figure.

Danielle Genas: Like seven figure notifications dropping in my bank account. I'm not there yet. However, I know and believe that I will be, and therefore when I see the phone ping and there's a few hundred pound or there's a few thousand pound going in, I'm still happy about that because I know that that's the, these are the steps that I need to take to make it.

Danielle Genas: To the, the place that I'm trying to get to, but I believe it, and I, I often speak to, to entrepreneurs, business owners, founders who don't believe it, and that's part of the frustration because they, they don't necessarily want to keep chipping at it because they're scared that if they keep chipping at it, it's not going to lead to the results that they want.

Danielle Genas: When you believe that it will lead to the results that you want, it's much easier to, to be less frustrated. I only ever get frustrated just because I think I should be. On the beach a whole lot more than I am. That's my main frustration. But everything that I'm doing pretty much on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly basis, I know is setting me on the trajectory to get to that end resort.

Danielle Genas: I just don't know when it's going to come. I would hope that it would come in the next five years so that I can still benefit from being on the beach and looking youthful and hopefully I've got good genes. So I've got at least 20 years where that could still pass, but, but I know that it will happen. I think that's really one of the key reasons why with when I work with my um, clients, I tend to start with vision as the starting point.

Danielle Genas: Because if you can get clarity on that vision and really believe in it, it helps to reduce that frustration significantly because you start to see that the tasks that you are doing that may not seem that exciting. Are actually quite exciting because they're the building blocks of this bigger picture. If you lack that big picture, then everything that you're doing is you're just doing it for doing it's sake on a hope and a prayer. When you have clarity on those steps, it's not hope and a prayer anymore. This is now an action plan and I'm following the steps to, to create this future that I want,

Sean Weisbrot: and that's what I start with as well. I think a lot of people haven't taken any time whatsoever to think about what it is they want from the businesses that they're creating because they're so busy thinking about serving clients or designing this poster or this, you know, whatever ad, whatever it is they're doing. And, uh, they get stuck in the daily grind of it. And so whatever their vision is for what it is they're doing gets kind of tossed to the side and. Along with it, the financial goals for, you know, what it is that the business is supposed to bring them besides a sense of purpose in life. Um, and so I think it's really important that you do that, and I'm glad that you do.

Sean Weisbrot: I was gonna say in terms of the, the beach, uh, I, I am in a, a few entrepreneur communities and a number of them are, a number of the people are Gen Z. Some of them are running digital marketing agencies, making, you know, 30, 50, a hundred thousand dollars month profits. They're like 18 years old. They're like, yeah, I, I dropped outta college.

Sean Weisbrot: I'm gonna go fly to Dubai for the week and just spend some time with my maids. And they're like, oh yeah, here's a screenshot of my Apple Watch. I just got, you know, $7,000 payment from one of my clients. I'm gonna go spend it like in the shopping mall. I'll, I'll be back in an hour. You know? So I, I think I, I just feel like you're not, uh, treating yourself as much as you should.

Danielle Genas: Well, there is also that, but I'm, I'm making a, a plan to change that this year.

Sean Weisbrot: You told me that you were, you wanted to take your daughter to Jamaica. And so I'm saying this out loud so that you're forced to do it.

Danielle Genas: Oh, no, we're doing it. We're definitely doing it. We've already started putting the plans together. Our conversation helped actually. Thanks for that.

Sean Weisbrot: Good. You're welcome. Yeah. 'cause I mean, hell, in your intro it says accountability, right?

Danielle Genas: That it does.

Sean Weisbrot: The only way you can make your clients be accountable as if someone's holding you accountable for your own things. Is there anything we haven't talked about?

Danielle Genas: Well, you kind of just touched on it. Accountability. I think accountability is, well, not, I think I know. So part of the, the growth framework that I use with my clients, I, I can't remember if I've mentioned it already, but it's called Visa. So vision is the start. And then innovation strategy, systems and processes.

Danielle Genas: And accountability. And accountability, I feel, and I've recognized is that missing link for so many business owners, entrepreneurs, founders who are working really, really hard. I come across people all the time that are working really, really hard, and as I said, are frustrated because they're not making the progress that they want, and actually all they really need is a bit of accountability, because even with the vision and the plan and with the strategies, et cetera, if there's nobody checking in to make sure that you are kind of doing what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, it's very easy to let life get in the way.

Danielle Genas: It's very easy to let your clients push and pull you in different directions. It's very easy. To kind of got get lost in the next shiny thing. If there's somebody that's holding you accountable and checking in and saying, well, you said you was gonna do this by this point, have you done it? It's so much more likely that you're going to get it done.

Danielle Genas: And I think there's not enough business owner or, well, from, from my experience here, there are not enough business owners that are ready to invest in the level of accountability that they need to achieve the goals that they. Are aspiring to, and I find that frustrating. So obviously I have a great client base and I, I love my clients, but there are people that I come into contact with and that I'll speak to them and they'll say, oh no, I'm, I'm fine doing it on my own.

Danielle Genas: I'll get there at some point. And yeah, you will get there at some point. We all will get there at some point, but why don't you want to get there at some point quicker? Like, I don't really understand that. And I, I shared a video the other day actually from a, another podcast that I'd done where I spoke about.

Danielle Genas: The fact that athletes, we don't find it weird that athletes have coaches. And I use the, I use the, um, I used Usain Bolt as an example, but there's so many athletes in this world that we can, we can look to who are born essentially with natural talent. They're naturally fast or they're naturally great at long distances, or they're naturally good at football or whatever it may be.

Danielle Genas: Yet they still have coaches. To, to support them, to hold them accountable, to get them pushing beyond their comfort zone. If we saw a, a 10,000 meter marathon runner who didn't have a coach, we'd think that was weird. Why would we think it's weird? Because if they're doing a 10,000 meter or Milo, I dunno, whatever the, the distance distances run, the chances are they're good at long distances.

Danielle Genas: 'cause I know I couldn't get out and run 10,000 anything, to be honest, because it's, I'm not good at long distances. It's just a fact. Yet the 10,000 meter runner has a coach, and we see that as normal and acceptable. Yet in business, we want to be doing those 10,000 meter distances, or we wanna be doing those a hundred meter sprints on our own.

Danielle Genas: And we don't think that, that's strange. We don't know everything. You don't know everything. Number one, you are often going to sit within your comfort zone because that's where you're comfortable. And I heard somebody say this something the other day, that it's okay to stay within your comfort zone within reason.

Danielle Genas: I think it's, I think you need to come out of your comfort zone for certain things. There's certain comfort zones that you don't need to come out. If it's not adding any value, just stay in it. Right? It's, it's not adding any value. But if you are trying to achieve major success, the chances are you're gonna have to do things differently.

Danielle Genas: You're gonna have to come out your comfort zone, and unless you can get yourself out of that, which most of us cannot, then why don't you work with someone that can, and that is a, A is something that I, I, I find it very. Confusing. You want great results, but you don't wanna invest in the support to help you get them. It's very strange and peculiar to me.

Sean Weisbrot: I think it goes back to the issue of investment. What I've found with a number of people who run businesses that don't have any employees yet. They are taking the money from the business and putting it in their pocket. So in their eyes, a coach or a consultant is someone who's taking away from their ability to bring money home rather than using the money that the business is generating, which doesn't belong to them, to invest in growing the business so that the business can get to a point where it can let them take some money out.

Sean Weisbrot: But. You know, I, I, that that's the issue that I saw. A lot of people were just, uh, afraid. They, they saw someone like myself as a, a cost not an investment.

Danielle Genas: One of the great things that's been happening with me recently is that because so many of my clients are, are visibly growing, I'm able to then say, well look. Remember this client that I was working with, then this is where they were, this is where they are now, and therefore I'm, I'm getting a lot more people reaching out to me and saying, well, I've seen what you've done for them. Can you do something similar for me?

Danielle Genas: And I'm like, well, I can give you the same tools. Whether it works for you. The same way is, is gonna be entirely up to, to you, the market, your team, et cetera. There's other factors. But actually, if you put in the work and you, you kind of. Or allowing yourself to be accountable and you're investing in that, then there's no reason why you shouldn't see, uh, similar results.

Sean Weisbrot: A lot of people look at the, the coach or the consultant, they expect them to do everything. It's like, but this is your business, not ours. So you have to be the one that like does the hard work to make sure that it's sustainable.

Danielle Genas: Well, you're gonna have to pay way, way, way more for me to do it.

Sean Weisbrot: That's why I liked consulting, because you could charge 10 times more. Mm-hmm. It's like, oh, you wanna get it done? All right. This is how much it's gonna cost. Fine. So how can people follow up with you?

Danielle Genas: I spend a lot of time on Instagram, probably too much. You can find me there at Be the Boss, INTL, and you can visit the website, which is be the boss INT l.com. And I'm also on LinkedIn, Daniela Genus, and that's G-E-N-A-S.

Sean Weisbrot: Thank you very much for your time and your energy. I appreciate it. Daniella, don't forget that entrepreneurship is a marathon, not a sprint. So take care of yourself every day.