Business Catchphrases Are Killing Your Growth with Josh Zolin

In this podcast conversation with Josh Zolin, I asked our guest if there was a recent business or leadership catchphrase that bugged him, without skipping a beat, the owner of the rapidly growing Windy City Equipment (WCE) in Phoenix, Arizona answered,  

Yes! Give it your best effort.

This video is a snip of what will become The DYOJO Podcast, Episode 88. With our guests, Josh Zolin and Kelsey Isaacson.  The video also introduces the article that will be released in Cleanfax Magazine titled Goals, Effort and Results, Developing Your Team. Josh wrote the skilled trades advocacy book, Blue is the New White and hosts a weekly podcast by the same name. 

This thought-provoking question that Mr. Zolin dropped during our discussion has caused me to think through our understanding and implementation of EFFORT versus RESULTS in our local contracting company, ARES Restoration based in Puyallup, Washington. Josh continues, "This was a big mindset shift for me. Look, it's a good indication of character. But that's about where it ends."

In preparing for this podcast episode, which you can view on YouTube or listen to on Spotify, I did some research. I found an article called The Effort Effect from Stanford magazine. In addition to our discussion with Mr. Zolin, we're going to be talking about the research efforts of a professor of psychology, Carol Dweck. We will also review several quotes from other business minds on the topic of effort versus results including this one from Mark Cuban whom you may recognize from the television show Shark Tank. ​

“The one requirement for success in our business lives is effort. Either you make the commitment to get results or you don’t.” - Mark Cuban

It appears that Mark blends the concepts of effort and results, and to some degree they are inextricable. What Josh was trying to get at is that it becomes more of the "work smarter rather than work harder" mentality once you have a level of competency in your field. But, when you don't know necessarily what to do you can't just start out working smarter. As you develop your skills and abilities, you have to gather the pennies (see video below). Once you are proficient in gathering pennies, or whatever work you can find, they will eventually turn into nickels. Then eventually your nickels will turn into dimes and so forth until you are up-and-running to the point that you have quarters (better quality work).

Gathering pennies is a reference to a rather old video and article (see above) title The Five Phases of Business Startup. Distinctives of Business Startup Phase One include:

• The clients that we are drawing to our business likely are pennies
• Our resources are similarly in pennies
• Our focus is exposure - we must get our name out there so that people even know that we exist
• When we consider investing resources we want to pursue the lowest cost, because we have the lowest resources, yet we want to find the highest exposure
• We are looking for opportunities that we can get out in the community for low cost or even free

In this first phase of business, the entrepreneur is asking, "Where can we get our name out there with fairly low cost and high exposure?" Often, these opportunities are in the various networking meetings that not everybody likes going to.  

“The best results are achieved by using the right amount of effort in the right place at the right time. And this right amount is usually less than we think we need.” - Tony Buzan

For The DYOJO Podcast, Episode 88 we consider this question from Josh Zolin and review several others, such as the one above from Tony Buzan, with Kelsey Isaacson, a successful realtor in Pierce County, Washington. It is important for people in a position of leadership to question whether what they believe, practice and reward is leading their team down the right path to achieving their shared goals. Dweck's research uncovered many interesting insights about goals, performance, and achievement which we will discuss in this episode and dive deeper into for the Cleanfax article. As people in a position of leadership, it is important to take a step back and determine, with brutal honesty, whether we are developing the right mindset and habits for success; both for ourselves as well as for our teams. 

​Please join us on Thursday as we help you shorten your DANG learning curve!