Month: March 2024

Are you identifying and playing to your strengths while delegating or outsourcing tasks that align with your weaknesses? 

In this episode Carl discusses the importance of playing to your strengths rather than trying to force yourself into areas you are weak at. He uses the analogy of being a fish (excelling at swimming but failing at climbing a tree) versus being a cat (struggling with swimming but excelling at climbing a tree). 

Stop trying to be a “fish” if we are naturally more of a “cat.” He suggested leveraging tools like voice-to-text on phones or AI tools like ChatGPT’s voice mode to dictate content rather than writing it out. The key is identifying your natural strengths and weaknesses, doubling down on the strengths, and finding ways to delegate or outsource the areas you struggle with.

While there are times you may need to push yourself out of your comfort zone for personal growth, Carl cautions against constantly trying to improve major weaknesses. Instead, focus on honing and maximising the skills you’re already talented at. Surround yourself with team members who complement your weaknesses so you can lean into your core strengths. Trying to force yourself to be something you’re not may only lead to frustration.

Personal growth often requires stepping outside of your comfort zone. However, continually attempting to improve upon significant weaknesses could also be leading to unnecessary pressure . Instead try focusing your energy on refining and maximising the skills and talents that come naturally to you. To create a well-rounded team, surround yourself with individuals whose strengths complement your weaknesses, allowing you to fully embrace and leverage your core competencies. Attempting to force yourself into a role that doesn’t align with your inherent abilities may ultimately lead to frustration and suboptimal performance.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL DISCOVER…

• The phenomenon of forcing yourself to be a fish, when you’re actually a cat (00:24)
• The value of leveraging and growing your strengths and delegating tasks you find challenging (02:28)
• What you can do if you’re more of a speaker than a writer: record audio messages, use voice-to-text features, Chat GPT (03:13)
• The difference between stepping out of your comfort zone to grow and forcing yourself to do things you’re really weak at (05:20)

QUOTES

• “If you judge a fish by its ability to do something that a cat could do easily, it’s going to fail. Just like if you judge a cat by its ability to swim, it’s going to fail compared to the fish. And so what we’re talking about here is finding your strengths.” – Carl Taylor
• “There’s a delicate balance. There are times where perceived weaknesses may just be, you need to push through some stuff … but I’m gonna say the majority of the time, you just want to find your strengths, play to your strengths, grow those strengths, and then delegate, outsource, find other ways to find people who are really good at that thing that you suck at.” – Carl Taylor
• “There are certain elements where you might have to do some things that are out of your comfort zone to grow. But that’s a different thing to try to force yourself to do something that you’re really weak at, rather than maximising your strengths.” – Carl Taylor

WHERE YOU CAN FIND CARL TAYLOR
Automation Agency
CarlTaylor.com.au
LinkedIn
Facebook
Twitter

TRANSCRIPTION

Carl Taylor: Are you trying to be a fish when actually you’re a cat?

Hey, and welcome to another episode of Dadpreneurs Rising. This is the podcast for you. If you are a dad in business and you’re maybe struggling with how do you balance being the entrepreneur, the dad, the husband, the lover, and a man in today’s society? I’m, your host, Carl Taylor.

And in today’s episode, we are going to talk about a really interesting phenomenon of are you forcing yourself to be a fish when maybe you’re actually a cat?

Let me lay some context. This comes from a conversation from within the king’s council. It’s a coaching and community programme that, dadpreneur.com, where we run. And the king’s council is really for men who are looking to get support in balancing the worlds of dad, entrepreneurship, health, relationships, the whole gamut. Being a man in today’s society.

One of our members said that he was trying really hard to do these things. Like, he found it really hard, but he was trying to do it, like writing things down, making plans really challenging. Like, at the time, he’s like, I’m trying to, trying to create this one page marketing plan, and he was really getting quite stressed out about it. Writing emails, replying to things, even inside of our community, writing things was challenging for him. And I just stopped him and said, hold on a second. What I’m hearing from you is writing is really, really hard for you. He’s like, yep. I was like, okay, what’s easy for you? He said, talking. He’s really good with people. I said, great. I know people just like that. I’ve got a really good friend who’s probably very similar. He’s not a bad writer, but he definitely is amazing at speaking and talking to people.

And so I said, okay, what if you stop trying to force yourself to be a fish? And I use the analogy, I’m sure you’ve heard this story before. The idea of, like, if you judge a fish success, by its ability to climb a tree, it would fail, right? It’s all about the context of it. There’s nothing wrong with being a fish. Nothing wrong with being a cat. But if you judge a fish by its ability to do something that a cat could do easily, it’s going to fail. Just like if you judged a cat by its ability to swim, it’s going to fail compared to the fish.

And so what we’re talking about here is finding your strengths. There’s a lot of people in the personal development space, at least that are like, overcome your weaknesses, grow, grow, grow.

There’s a delicate balance. There are times where perceived weaknesses may just be, you need to push through some stuff. There are a few times, but I’m going to say the majority of the time, you just want to find your strengths, play to your strengths, grow those strengths, and then delegate, outsource. Find other ways to find people who are really good at that thing that you suck at. Don’t try to make yourself good at something you’re weak at. Make yourself better at the things you already naturally have talent and good at. Grow that, expand that, and leverage the other people who are really good at the stuff that you suck at.

And so with this particular guy, I said, okay, well, within our community, you don’t need to write text messages. Like, you can access it on your phone and every phone, whether you got iPhone, Android, whatever, you’ve, got the option to press a little button and speak and it will take what you say and turn it into text. So I said, if you need to write an email, a couple of options. One, you could record an audio message and just send them the audio. Or you can do a voice to text feature that’s built into your phone. You can send emails, you can write posts on Facebook, you can write, comments within side of a community. So if you are like this particular member who you suck at or struggle to write, and maybe that’s why you’re listening to an audio thing, you like listening to things, then play to your strengths. Use those voice to text. in particular, he was talking about struggling to use chat GPT because we talk a bit about how do you use tools like Chat GPT in your business to get an edge? And he was struggling with using Chat GPT. I said, well, did you know it’s got an audio version on your phone? You can speak to it, it can speak back, but even what it speaks back, you could then copy and paste that text because it gives you the text, and then you could then send that to someone else to write the email, or it can have written the email for you.

So there’s so much tools available to you today, even that one idea of like, hey, you struggle to say what you want to say in an email, fire up chat GPT, start the voice mode and say, hey, I, want to write an email. This is in general what I want it to say. Can you write me one and then have it write the email and then give it its feedback all via audio. And then when it’s finished, you go, great, you go into the text mode of the app, copy and paste the message. And then you can just paste that into your email and click send. Mind blowing for him. Allows him to be a fish in water, not a fish in a tree.

And I really want you to think about where in your life and your business are, you maybe trying to force yourself to be a fish when actually you’re a cat, right? Where are you judging yourself or pushing yourself into areas that you suck at and you know you suck at? Now, as I said at the beginning, there are certain parts, relationships, for example, if you just accept, well, I’m just sucking at relationships. So therefore, this is just how I am. I’ve found from my own experience that is a false belief system that is keeping you trapped and maybe stopping you from getting what you want. There’s, a lot of personal growth that can come and usually it’s to do with healing of our past experiences. So, there are certain elements where you might have to do some things that are out of your comfort zone to grow, but that’s a different thing to trying to force yourself to do something that you’re really weak at rather than maximising your strength. So that’s it for today. Till next time, keep up the journey.

Hey fellow dadpreneurs, thanks for tuning in to today’s episode. If you’ve missed something said on today’s episode, you can find transcripts, links and other notes from today’s episode, as well as all other episodes over at rising show. That’s show not so. Head over to rising show to get all the information that you need.

If you think by doing everything in your business yourself makes financial sense, then this episode was made just for you! Listen in and discover how you can step back from your business, buy back your time, and start enjoying the lifestyle you’ve always wanted, all while ensuring your business thrives and grows. 

In this episode of Dadpreneurs Rising, Carl Taylor discusses the importance of your automation rate, how it’s calculated and the potential it could be having on your business. Carl also breaks down the formula to establish just how much you can afford to pay to buy back an hour of your time. 

Carl emphasises that the mentality of “It’s too expensive to hire someone” is flawed and that being willing to invest in a team or technology at your calculated automation rate to free up your time. The key is determining what you can realistically afford to pay someone else to handle parts of your business operations.

Remember, if your automation rate is too low, it signals that you need to first increase your business revenues before hiring support makes financial sense. However, once you can afford to buy back your time at a viable rate, Carl stresses not to keep doing lower-level tasks yourself. Doing so prevents you from working on higher-value activities to grow your business and spending time on other important priorities, such as enjoying life with your family and pursuing personal growth.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL DISCOVER…

• Is hiring someone too expensive that you’re better off doing all tasks yourself? (00:35)
• What is an automation rate? (01:27)
• How do you determine your automation rate (03:40)

QUOTES

• “Your automation rate is effectively how much you can afford to spend to buy an hour of your time back.” – Carl Taylor
• “The bottom line is you get really clear on what can you afford to pay. And then find the person to do it … So you can start to buy your time back. Spend more time with the kids, the family, and on you as a man … finding what else lights you up and helping you grow.” – Carl Taylor

WHERE YOU CAN FIND CARL TAYLOR
Automation Agency
CarlTaylor.com.au
LinkedIn
Facebook
Twitter

Hiring someone is too expensive, I should just do it myself.

Hey, you’re listening to Dadpreneurs Rising. And I’m your host, Carl Taylor. And in today’s episode, we’re going to talk about just that. This was a conversation that came out from inside our Kings Council program. If you want to learn more about that you can check us out at dadpreneur.com. Reach out, have a conversation with myself or the team about what we do and whether it might be right for you. So if you’re a dad in business, check that out.

Now, this particular conversation came up on one of the coaching calls, and a particular king, a member of the program, he was struggling with this issue of there’s a key component of his business that was taking up a fair amount of time every week. But he had this thought process that he couldn’t get past that, you know, it seems too expensive to hire someone to fill this role. So he’s better off doing it himself. Well, I’m not going to share all the ins and outs of what I shared with him. But I want you to get the key takeaway. If you are in a similar position, or you’ve ever been in a similar position, this thinking is flawed. And it’s why we have a process that we do inside the program.

One of the first things anyone does when they first sign up is we figure out what your automation rate is. So what is your automation rate? Your automation rate is effectively how much you can afford to spend to buy an hour of your time back. Right. And so whether you use this money on, you know, technology tools, software subscriptions, or whether you’re employing someone part time, casually, full time doesn’t really matter. This helps you figure it out, at what dollar value can you afford to spend to buy an hour of your time back. And so I got him on the call to do this process. I was like, alright, well, you should have already gone through the training. But let’s, if you haven’t already, like, let’s go through it. And he figured out his automation rate. And I think from memory, it worked out around $65. And then I said, Great.

So if you could free up an hour for 65 bucks, how much do you think you’d have to pay someone to do a call like this? And instantly he started to go into the head of oh, Well, you know, actually, many of these calls don’t take an hour, they only take 15 minutes. So for that $65 I could probably get three calls put in there. And he’s right. But I said to him, Well look, you know, I guess you could try to load as many as you could into that one hour. But you’re not talking about a full time role. Here, you’re talking about someone who’s more part time, casual, on demand basis. So while that will be beneficial to you financially, it’s also going to be beneficial to them financially. Is this person going to want for $65, who have made three calls? And his answer was probably not. I was like, great. But you’re saying that often, even if you’re saying it doesn’t always take up an hour, if you didn’t have to know that, because let’s be honest, right, guys, if you have a 15 minute call, I know this is true in my life, if I have a 15 minute call in my calendar, realistically, that’s taken a whole hour chunk out of my day. Because there’s a bit of prep time for the call, there’s once you get off the call, maybe writing notes, or even just switching your brain into whatever other thing you are going to focus on knowing a call’s coming. Or when you’ve just finished a call, it takes time to get back into it.

So really, even if it’s a 15 minute call, it’s taken up an hour of your mental capacity to deliver that call. So I said if you paid 65 bucks, and you got that time back, would that be okay? He said yes. And so I’m going to ask the same thing to you. I want you to figure out your automation rate. If you want to know how to do that in great detail, we have a whole training on that. You can reach out to us, you can buy just that training. Or if you want to join the whole community and get access to all our resources, it’s one of the resources but let me give you the high level. You want to take how much you make from your business in a year. And when I’m talking about how much you make, I’m talking about the cash you take out of the business, plus any extra things. So if you’re Australian, superannuation, you might not get that cash in hand. But that’s money that business is effectively paying you for your future. For the Americans listing that’s a four, effectively like a 401 K, forced from the government out of our businesses.

So if you’re paying yourself super, you take the money that you’re paying yourself. Plus, there’s, if you’re like most small business owners, you got stuff personally going through the business, right? You might have mobile phones or internet providers, cars, various things through the business. So you want to put all of that together and figure out what is your package that you take away from the business. And then you’re going to divide that dollar amount by two numbers. You’re going to put brackets around to figure it out. So you’ve kind of got your dollar amount. Now here’s another formula you need to figure out is how many hours do you work in a week on average? And how many weeks do you work in a year? So for example, most guys inside King’s Council, when they come to us, at least, are working more than 40 hours a week. Many of them are 50, 60 or more. But if 40 hours a week, let’s let’s go conservative, let’s say you put in 40 hours a week in your business right now. And most guys are probably doing 45 to 50 weeks a year, many of them are doing 50 weeks, you know, they’re lucky to even take the two weeks off in a year. So if you take like two weeks off over Christmas, you’re doing 50 weeks in a year.

Personally, I do around 40 weeks a year, and I definitely not doing 40 hour weeks, I can tell you that much. So you figure out that number, how many hours you’re working per week times by the number of weeks you work per year, that’s gonna give you a number, whatever that number is, is that what you’re gonna divide your dollar figure by, so effectively taking the amount you earn in a year divided by the amount that you, the hours that you work in a year. And that’s gonna give you your owner’s hourly rate, how much money you as the owner take out of your business, your owner’s hourly rate. Once you get your owners hourly rate to find your automation rate, you need to divide it by a multiple because we don’t want to just like if I make what’s for simple numbers fact. So like, say, let’s say I make $100 an hour as an owner. I don’t want to pay someone $100 to get my time back because then I’m not ahead, right, I’m just swapping. Like, yeah, I got some time back, but I didn’t make any money. If I’m making $100 an hour, I’d happily pay someone $25. Right. If I pay someone $25, that means I’m still making 75 bucks, and I got my hour back, that’s a win. So that’s what we’re looking at, what we’re looking for between 75 to $50. In that scenario, if you’re making 100 bucks, you want to be making 50 to $75 and get your time back. And so you’re going to divide it either by two or by four, I got a few different rules around that. If your hourly rate is over, if your owner’s hourly rate is over $50, then divide by four, if your owner’s hourly rate is under $50 then divided by two, because if you’re making $50 an hour or less, to divide it by four, it’s not going to be a realistic number. So if you can get at least a two times return, that’s good. But once you start getting into the bigger, bigger numbers, you want to be trying to get a four times return. But if the four times return doesn’t allow you to do what you want, you can always at least look at what if it was a two times return? And are you willing to pay that?

The bottom line is you get really clear on what can you afford to pay. And then find the person to do it. Ask them, ask yourself, can you realistically do it. If your number is too small, then it means you’ve got some work to do in your business to get your owner’s hourly rate up before we can start investing in getting your time down and buying that time back. If not, like if you’re like this guy who’s in the King’s Council, who’s just got the mentality of Oh, it’s too expensive, I should do it myself. Then it’s time to start investing in team and technology to get you out of the weeds of the business.

So you can start to buy your time back. Spend more time with the kids, the family and on you as a man, you know finding what else lights you up and helping you grow. So, hope that’s been helpful. Until next time, keep up the journey.

Building the right team is crucial for entrepreneurs seeking to scale their business so they can eventually step away from the day-to-day operations. Regular evaluation and being willing to make tough and quick decisions is required.

In this episode of Dadpreneurs Rising, Carl Taylor discusses the importance of having the right team in place to build a business that can operate without you being involved in every aspect. He emphasises that you can’t achieve this without assembling a synergistic, efficient team. 

Carl advises taking a close look at your current team members and evaluating their performance. Some may be high performers you want to keep, while others may be underperforming and need either additional training and support or eventual replacement.

When someone is underperforming, Carl suggests first taking responsibility and examining how you may have failed to provide them with the necessary tools, clarity, direction, or support for them to succeed in their role. However, he cautions against letting this process drag on indefinitely. The saying “Be slow to hire, but fast to fire” reminds us that a negative team member can quickly impact the entire team’s performance.

If additional support doesn’t lead to improved performance, Carl advises making a quick decision to replace that person. The logistics of whether to hire their replacement first or let them go immediately depends on the situation. The key is to act swiftly once the decision is made.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL DISCOVER…

• Why forming an efficient team is essential to building a business that works without you (00:38)
• The different people you might find in a team (01:04)
• The key to replacing someone in the team: make fast decisions and actions (03:10)
• A simple activity for business owners for building efficient teams (04:00)

QUOTES

• “If you want to be out to build a business that works without you, a business that you own and not operate, to do that you must have a team. You can’t achieve it without a team.” – Carl Taylor
• “If you let something drag out, if you have a rotten apple, it’s not long before that rotten apple can infect all the other apples.” – Carl Taylor

WHERE YOU CAN FIND CARL TAYLOR
Automation Agency
CarlTaylor.com.au
LinkedIn
Facebook
Twitter

TRANSCRIPT

Carl Taylor  0:00  

You have the right people on your team.

Carl Taylor  0:14

Hey, Carl Taylor, your host here at Dadpreneurs Rising. And this is the show for you, if you’re a dad who runs your own business and you’re struggling or just maybe looking to improve the way you balance being an entrepreneur, being a husband and lover, being a father, and ultimately running a successful business, while not losing yourself as a man in the process. Now, today, I want to talk about your team. Because if you want to be out to build a business that works without you, which is a big thing that we do at the King’s Council and Dadpreneur Program that we put together, we help you become the owner of your business, right a business that you own and not operate. To do that you must have a team, you can’t achieve it without a team. Now, you may already have a team. And what I want to ask you is are they performing at the level you truly need? I find that when you build a team, you typically have a few different people, you have people who are performing and doing really, really well and you want to continue to bring them along the journey, everything you can you want to keep those people around. Then you have the people who are underperforming. And there’s usually two options. One is they need to be replaced, let go and find someone who can do a better job. Or they need to be upskilled. Now I personally am of the view that if I’m looking to replace someone, I first ask myself, How have I failed them? I take full responsibility and go if they’re not performing at the level I want them to perform that then maybe I haven’t provided them the tools, I haven’t provided them the support, and provided them the clarity or the direction or so they know what success looks like in their role. So I take full responsibility to go, How have I failed them? That is the first step. Don’t get into it. They’re just lazy. They’re just useless. Because that’s not setting them up or you up for success, take full responsibility and go, How have I failed them? How can I perform? How can I give them better support? How can I give them better tools? How can I give them better clarity? So take that step first and go Alright, can we get them where we need them to be? However, here’s the however, don’t let this process go on for periods of time, there’s a saying be slow to hire, be fast to fire. And so there was a reason for this, if you let something drag out, if you have a rotten apple, it’s not long before that rotten apple can infect all the other apples. And the same thing can happen in your business. If you have someone who’s not performing, or they’re in a really bad negative state that can very quickly start to impact even your top performance and send your business into a real mess. So you want to be quick to jump on saying, Hey, you’re not quite performing where I need you to be. Let’s get on a call and see how we can fix it. What’s going on, what’s going on in your life? What do you need? What have I not given you the systems take responsibility and go, How can you fix it? Then whatever they’ve said, do that, give them that support, do whatever you can to give them what they need. And if you see no improvement, then you got to make the quick decision to say hey, I actually am going to need to replace this person. Now there’s logistics around how do you replace someone? Do you just get rid of them and then go and try and find someone else. Do you try and find the new person so that you’re not completely left? That comes down to a real situation by situation. There’s no right or wrong. But there’s a preferred answer. But there’s no right way to do it. Because I’ve been in multiple situations, I’ve been in the situation where I’ve let someone go. And then all of a sudden, there’s a big gap, we didn’t have anyone to fill that role and became a mess. I’ve also been in the situation where I’ve tried to bring someone else in and get them ready and then let them go. And that can have its own challenges and misses too. So there’s no real right way to do it. The key thing is make a fast decision, and then make fast actions towards whatever it is. So whether that be putting the job out for the new person, whether that be getting rid of that person who needs replacing whatever it is, take a fast action. But if you have a team right now, and if you don’t have a team, I’ll give you something to do too. But if you have a team right now I want you to write up, get a sheet of paper and write them all out and just put a little tick or a cross, tick if you’re like, you know what, if I was done starting this business all over again, I would love them in my corner, I want them with me, tick, they’re your high performance, if it’s across? Or if it’s a question mark, you’re struggling to find an answer. It’s still ultimately across. So anyone who’s not a tick, they’re the people that you need to ask them and yourself, how have you found them? How have you let them down? What else do they need to perform? And once you’ve figured all that out, if they are still not performing, it’s time to replace them. Or maybe the replacement can be with technology and not another team member. It’s going to depend on the role. I’ll leave that with you. If you do not have a team. What I want you to do is list out all the things you currently do, everything you do, and I want you to go like if I was starting my business all again, would I want to be doing this, tick or cross, and everything you have a cross next to is who you need to hire to fill that role? You need to find someone who will do that task so you can focus on the stuff you love, which is the ticks. If you need help doing any of this, you can all obviously reach out to us over at dadpreneur.com. Until next time, keep up the journey. 

Hey fellow dadpreneur. Thanks for tuning into today’s episode. If you’ve missed something said on today’s episode, you can find transcripts, links, and other notes from today’s episode, as well as all other episodes over at rising dot show. That’s dot show not .com So head over to rising dot show to get all the information that you need.

Are you feeling overwhelmed juggling multiple roles and responsibilities? Do your businesses feel like they’re all just competing for your attention? If you’re nodding emphatically, then listen in for some practical insights into the benefits if simplifying.

In this episode of the Dadpreneurs Rising, Carl discusses the importance of focus for dadpreneurs juggling the demands of entrepreneurship, fatherhood, and personal life. From Carl’s own experience of juggling multiple businesses early on, he emphasises the mistake of spreading yourself too thin.

Carl stresses that if your primary business hasn’t reached at least $1 million in revenue with a comfortable 20-30% profit margin, you should avoid the distraction of starting additional ventures. He stresses that humans can only truly focus on one thing at a time, and multitasking is really just task-switching. As dads juggling entrepreneurship, fatherhood, husband duties, and personal roles, avoiding distractions is crucial.

Don’t chase multiple rabbits — put all your energy into maximising one business before diversifying. Cutting out distractions and maintaining a laser focus on one primary business is pivotal to your success as a dadpreneur.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL DISCOVER…

• Why focus is crucial in business as a Dadpreneur (01:12)
• Carl’s own experience in the value of “single focus” in business, plus the benefit of systemizing (03:11)
• What is the multitasking/task switching trap? (07:41)

QUOTES

• “You can only truly focus on one thing. Multitasking is not a thing. It’s called task switching.” – Carl Taylor

RESOURCES

Dadpreneur Kings Council

WHERE YOU CAN FIND CARL TAYLOR
Automation Agency
CarlTaylor.com.au
LinkedIn
Facebook
Twitter