In this episode, Sharon DeKoning and business coach Jarrod Stanton explore the critical first steps to systemizing a business, focusing on creating clear and impactful vision, mission, and culture statements. Jarrod, who has been coaching businesses since 2006, emphasizes that these foundational elements are essential for guiding a company’s growth and attracting the right team members and customers. Sharon shares her personal experience of overcoming business challenges, crediting Jared’s guidance for helping her align her team with the company’s goals through these statements.

Sharon and Jarrod break down how a vision statement should clearly define where the business is going and inspire both the team and potential customers. They also discuss the importance of a detailed mission statement, which describes how the company plans to achieve its vision. Jared highlights that a well-defined culture statement helps create a positive work environment where employees understand how to act and collaborate. Throughout the conversation, listeners will learn how the need for clarity, alignment, and continuous reinforcement of these statements are essential to maintain focus and drive business success.

Jarrod has worked with and directed a team of 12 coaches and trainers, which helped create and implement programs and projects that were completed under budget and on time. The depth of his business knowledge is truly inspiring. He has guided and mentored hundreds of companies to achieve and surpass their goals and, in some cases, increased profits by an astounding 1000%+ in 12 months.

He has worked as a volunteer with the Canadian Youth Business Foundation, now Futurprenuer Canada, delivering quality industry guidance to our younger generation of entrepreneurs, giving them the tools and abilities to succeed. He also sits as Co-Chair of the Boxing Day Classic Foundation, an organization devoted to helping victims of Cancer, and other community initiatives.

 

Jarrod subscribes to the philosophy that a business should give you more life, not take away from it. A successful business is an entity that can function efficiently and profitably without the owner. Large or small, Jarrod’s wealth of information can help your business grow, become more efficient, and ultimately run without you.

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Sharon DeKoning: [00:00:16] My name is Sharon DeKoning. Today's podcast is 'It's Time For Success: The Business Insights Podcast', and today I'm with Jarrod Stanton. Jarrod is a business coach with Action Edge Business Coaching. His firm is out of Calgary, that's where I met Jarrod. Jarrod has been coaching since 2006, I believe. Is that how long you've been a business coach, Jarrod? (That's right.) That's a long time. Jarrod has coached over 300 clients and is frequently listed in the top 100 coaches in the world. I am very honored that I have been able to work with you since 2018, Jarrod. Thank you for joining us today.

Jarrod Stanton: [00:00:55] It's great to be on. Thanks, Sharon.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:00:58] I've known Jarrod since 2018, so Jarrod and I talk frequently, we know each other very well. We had decided that today's part of the topics will be on nine steps of systemizing a business. I'm going to quickly go over these, Jarrod, and cut in if I'm wrong. The first one is vision statement, the second one is mission statement, third one is culture statement, fourth, smart goals, I really like that one. Organization chart, positional contracts, KPIs, how-to systems and management systems. Before we jump into that, I'm going to get you to elaborate a little bit on that, but I just want to tell everybody a little bit of our story if that's okay, Jarrod. Why and when and how this all came about. Back in 2014, I was in the process of buying a business in Lloydminster, it was a big merge. Then, I think, at the beginning of 2015, we took over this business. Then in the same year, the oil crashed. Not only was I up against pricing, but I was also up against not really knowing how to run a business. Yes, I was a business owner, but I really didn't know the ins and outs of all that. I didn't know about profit margin, I didn't know about systemization, I didn't know all that kind of stuff. I had all that up against me.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:02:15] So anyways, I did power through that, and then I got a call. My mom had lung cancer, I don't know if you remember that, Jarrod. My mom had lung cancer and I knew I wanted to be out with her after her surgery, which also fell into our busy season. I didn't know how I was going to do that because at that time I was the business. I worked in 12 to 15 hours a day in my business, so it wasn't a business that could run without me, and I knew there was a difference out there and I needed to get to that. I was out for a walk, and I was listening to an audio book. It was Jen Sincero, 'You Are a Badass'. In this book, she said that she had a business coach, that was the best thing she did. She didn't have any money to get it together, but she figured it out. I didn't know what a business coach was, I'd never even heard of that before, so I had to Google it. You come up, and one of my suppliers had used you as well, so I phoned her directly. Anyways, the rest is history and it's been a great relationship between you and me since then, so I really appreciate you. I did go out with my mom after that surgery, you did implement systems, my team was on board and now we've definitely evolved. Let's go back to our nine steps, Jarrod. What do you have to say for yourself on any of those comments so far?

Jarrod Stanton: [00:03:28] Well, thanks for those sentiments, Sharon. It's obviously been great times working with you and the team. I consider it a privilege and never take it for granted, that level of trust. So much of the topic of today and what we might get into in future podcasts here, you've been just absolute living proof of how it's possible and obviously passing it down through the team, too. I think you'd be one to definitely say that when you provide your team with organization, provide your team with systemization, it's in no way suffocating or limiting or micromanaging as some narratives online would say, but it's actually the best thing you can do for them and allows everyone to have fun. Everyone knows what their job is, everyone knows their teammates got their back, and everyone can trust each other because everyone knows what the systems are, what everyone's job is, and people can just have fun and perform.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:04:28] I'd say we're there right now, Jarrod, but we're still growing, we're still learning every day. Did you want to talk about, the first one is vision statement, mission statement and culture statement. That might be enough for a podcast on its own, do you think, Jarrod or what do you want to touch base on today?

Jarrod Stanton: [00:04:41] I think those first three of the nine, I'll start by saying that, in terms of organizing a business or systematizing a business in a context, we're a franchise of ActionCOACH. At ActionCOACH, we have a very simple definition of a business. A commercial, profitable enterprise that works without me, and most of the people with an entrepreneurial vision and want to raise their business almost like a child where the main goal should be, it can cope and not just cope, but thrive and succeed without you. But before that final step of 'without me', this nine steps to systematize or organize really focuses on the business that works part. The business works, not necessarily 'I work'. Yes, we call it the nine steps, and there is a reason for the progression. I'll talk a little bit about that, why we have these. Some people are asking, why do you have vision, mission and culture in a list to organize and systematize? Aren't those more about work environment and culture? Yes, and we'll get into that, but we also think it's some of the foundation to this concept of organization and systemization as well.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:06:03] When you sit down to write them, they're actually tricky.

Jarrod Stanton: [00:06:07] I think a lot of us are naturally geared towards away from-we think of what we don't want first, if someone's asking us what defines our culture, or what defines our core values. A lot of us will default to what we're not, first. We're not like that company and we're not like this company.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:06:34] The vision says, where are you going? Why do you want to do it? What do you want to achieve and where do you want to end? Those are pretty in-depth questions, especially when you're starting out as a business you just jump in and you're just running. So those are pretty in-depth questions.

Jarrod Stanton: [00:06:49] It's hard to think up. There's lots of people who would publish what could be considered a pretty bland or pretty vanilla, not too of an in-depth vision or a safe vision. Some people's vision is not a vision at all, it's a reality. Which is a compliment, but it's more like a nice slogan of what they're already doing. They're already doing that today. Whereas our take on a vision statement is a hundred years, or what's our vision for the impact we want to have on the marketplace, on society. It should be a rallying cry for people who want to enroll with your company because you're going towards that vision. I think the reason for a lot of safe vision statements that aren't too provocative or too bold is that the company or the person writing the vision would not want anyone to scoff at it or make fun of it or think you're crazy, that's too huge. But there's some great stuff published on vision statements and the concept of vivid vision from other business experts and business owners and business builders. One of the sentiments is that the vision should repel individuals as strongly as it attracts certain individuals.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:08:16] When you say repels and attracts, is that more so employees, customers or all of the above?

Jarrod Stanton: [00:08:23] I think specifically in the videos I was watching and books I was reading, they're talking about potential employees, but it applies to all who you would ask their support. I love the sentiment of, where there is no vision, the people perish. If we can't clearly articulate what we're going for or what we're trying to build, or the impact we're trying to make, we can't expect to have too much of a support network. I just love that sentiment of, we're not trying to build a company or build a vision that attracts everyone in the world, we want people who believe what we believe or want to go after what we want to go after. If that vision is repelling some people, or you're getting some scoffing or some laughing or, quite frankly, sometimes it makes some people upset. Many people don't get uncomfortable around big thinkers, or people with any sort of aggressive and inspirational goal, that can upset some people. But it's just kind of a pendulum, the more intensely it repels some people, it will probably intensely attract and appeal and enroll those people who believe in it and want to get behind it. Just a matter of finding them.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:09:46] I stole this off of the Action Edge business coaching. If our listeners wanted to create their own visions, these are the three questions that they can answer. Where are you going? Why do you do what you do? What do you want to achieve? Where do you want to end? Is that the four sentences that they should be answering to work on a vision, do you feel?

Jarrod Stanton: [00:10:12] I wouldn't say as strong as they 'should' be doing, but I'd say yes. It's a definitely appropriate place to start your brainstorm. For a vision statement, if we're going to use the concept of vision statement, we teach a single sentence easily remembered by everyone on the team. Some clients use the template of blank through blank. So that would be what we want to achieve and then through how we're going to achieve it. So for us it's very simple. World abundance through business reeducation. Last time I checked, we don't have world abundance. We're far from world abundance, but that's the reason why we do what we do. We have our team here in western Canada, and there's over a thousand of me in 83 countries working with 10,000 business owners a week trying to believe that if we can develop more business owners that have the courage to create bigger businesses, create more jobs, those families do better, that community does better, those economies do better and the more the more, the more. Our vision statement alone is the reason globally, when all these coaches enroll and apply to be coaches within our system, it's so often they're citing the vision of what attracted them. We have an equal number, if not higher number of people laughing and scoffing at that. But that's a litmus test of how we know we got a good one. It strongly attracts those who believe in it, and it strongly repels those who don't.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:11:58] It attracted me. I think as a business owner too, people don't just get into business. We actually do want to help our employees, we do want to help our economy, we do want to give back. What you guys are helping us with is a huge factor for most business owners beliefs, so thank you.

Jarrod Stanton: [00:12:18] Just to take a moment to point out, again, why. Because some people question, what are these doing on the list of things to organize and systematize. We just figure, let's be honest. When most companies, usually starts with reading the e-myth. Whether you read the e-myth, you talk to a mentor, you get some good advice, you watch a Ted talk. Anyone who usually sits down with the intent of, I need to organize and systematize my business, typically the first thing that comes to mind would be number eight on our list here, which is the how-to systems or the processes. We just feel, don't put a lot of sweat and time into sketching out a lot of processes that you might look back on and say, that process really violates our vision or is not going in the direction or, that can cause some real feelings of disillusionment in you and your team not really feeling like you're living up to the 'why' and 'why we're doing this'.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:13:28] Necessarily, these nine systems, they don't have to go in order is what you're saying?

Jarrod Stanton: [00:13:34] We suggest the order, but it's more of a framework. It's just a cautionary or a beware of not to dig deep into publishing dozens and dozens and hundreds and hundreds of SOPs, standard operating procedures, just to come to the realization that a lot of these systems we built out of the quest for efficiency and effectiveness are quite contradictory to our vision, mission, culture.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:14:05] So our listeners have created their vision, their one sentence vision. Where do you suggest they post this, or what do they do with this vision now that they have that one created?

Jarrod Stanton: [00:14:18] I think it's literally, shout from the rooftops. Again, if you believe as I believe, that sentiment that I shared that I watched on that one video of 'where there is no vision, the people perish'. Also, if we can't clearly articulate what we're trying to do, we have no support network. Let me think of all the times, even with its time promotion, Sharon, over the years, where you have your boldness and courage to approach an alliance or approach another organization to contribute to an event you guys are doing for charity or some kind of collaboration or some kind of initiative where you're approaching a government or a municipal body or something, and how you're always able to begin those requests and your suggested call to action. You always are able to start with, this is what we're trying to do, this is the impact we're trying to make. Whether it's your vision succinctly or a variation of your vision for that particular organization. You always get those good receptions and good responses, because people can clearly understand the impact you're trying to make. Not just another business trying to get a pry bar underneath us and get some leverage so they can access our database. These guys are trying to make an impact. Who can I introduce you to, how can I help?

Sharon DeKoning: [00:15:54] Let's jump over to 'set your mission'. It has here, again, I took this off the ActionCOACH website. After you have set your vision, so our people have got their vision created, and it's either on their websites, on their social media, it's posted for all their employees to see. After you've set your vision, you need to define and work out how you're going to get there. I believe that the mission statement is longer, of course, because our vision is a one-sentence so our mission is more like a paragraph, if I remember. It is more like, what is it you are going to do and for who, and what is the roadmap of the vision? Can we talk about the mission a little bit and how they create something like that?

Jarrod Stanton: [00:16:40] Yeah, absolutely. And again, you're right, it's the way we teach it. It's longer than the vision because if you get one of those bold visions or the hundred-year's that we don't have yet, whether you get the naysayers, or 'good luck with that', or you get the 'I'm really inspired by that, but I'm interested how we're going to do it'. The mission is the 'how', it's how we're going to get that vision. Oftentimes it's multiple paragraphs. Again, there's no set rules.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:17:15] What would be a suggestion?

Jarrod Stanton: [00:17:16] A brainstorming template. We suggest to start thinking about the mission is, take a paragraph and describe your customers. Our customers will be in this frame of mind, 'this' value 'this', care about 'this'. The only thing most companies ever published to the world and their team about their customers, is that they're always right. That's not extremely encouraging to the team, necessarily. We often suggest an entire paragraph, or at least a few sentences describing your team. To get that vision, what kind of team do we need? What's the mindset of our team members? What will our team members care about? Where will they come from? What do they believe in? It depends on industry to industry, but some companies in their mission will dedicate a paragraph to the technology we're going to use, or the business model we're going to implement or what our attitude towards learning and development is.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:18:24] I know, myself, I find the mission statement really hard, and in fact, I don't have a mission statement, and I've been with you since 2018.

Jarrod Stanton: [00:18:32] It is of the nine, here. Many businesses will publish a vision and the points of culture or the core values, what we're going to talk about in a moment, and forego that mission statement, or some companies will definitely check the box in terms of, how we do things here by not necessarily publishing a mission statement by, sometimes, a publish like a roadmap or a customer journey or our purpose and operating manifesto or something like that.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:19:11] Is it easier to come up with these kind of things if you're more focused on one industry? Whereas we have customer based from, every customer possible in every kind of industry. Does that make a difference to help people? How do you narrow that down?

Jarrod Stanton: [00:19:35] I don't know if you have to think about it in terms of as if you were marketing to them. Like that of narrowing down, who are they? But I see more descriptions and defining, declaring, it's more of a declaration of who our customers will be in terms of mindset or attitude. I know at its time promotions, one of the customers, we are committed to serving and attracting and retaining customers who believe in the power of gratitude. It's time promotions core customer, whether it be a hundreds of millions of dollar energy company or the husband and wife that just started up down the road from you. Any business of any kind, any organization of any kind who believes in-the thing about gratitude is you got to express it and show it and have some tangible, and wants a great partner to help them. I'm just touching on one division of your business, but that is a dead red, target, ideal customer for its time promotions and someone to help us get the vision.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:20:57] You know me so well because gratitude is such a big feature of my core values. Thank you.

Jarrod Stanton: [00:21:04] It's often hard for the person, like you said, at the steering wheel or with the pen in hand to articulate, but you only have to spend a few moments of time with you and your team to understand that it could very easily be written into the mission statement. Our customers at each time promotions are not companies and individuals who feel they have to advertise and give out promotional products, but rather feel a sentiment of, we get to. We get to share our brand and showcase our gratitude, as an example.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:21:38] Yes, I love it. Thank you so much. There's been a time where, it's one thing about you, Jarrod is, you've been working with me over the years of even changing the way I talk to myself, and there has been times, even now, I crack myself or I will crack my team when they say the words 'I have to' and replace it with, 'I get to', and it's such a huge difference, mindset, how you feel, everything about it. Okay, the third one we're going to chat about quickly is, create a culture statement. This says the culture statement or rules of the game.

Jarrod Stanton: [00:22:15] Insert the language of your choosing, points of culture, culture statements, core values, guiding principles. One of our great clients who own a mechanic shop, they call them their 'guiding gears', kind of a play on their industry there. I love the sentiment of, the organizations with the strongest and healthiest culture is not necessarily an individual or 1 or 2 individuals or a series of managers holding everyone to the culture, but rather the culture governs. Or an organization where everyone is allowed to be a steward and a caretaker of the culture.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:23:01] It says here on your thing, it says 'defines how the team needs to act, be and work together'.

Jarrod Stanton: [00:23:08] That works. See, culture is obviously a very popular word. It's super buzzword, trend word, but I don't know if anyone really takes the time to think of, what is the opposite of culture?

Sharon DeKoning: [00:23:24] I don't know, what is it?

Jarrod Stanton: [00:23:26] I don't know for certain, but I think the opposite of culture is nature. But in a world where, obviously, everyone is their own person, everyone can be themselves. I'm me, I'm not you, I don't need to be a clone of you. I've got my idiosyncrasies, I've got my background, I've got my life, I've got my interests that might not be your interests. I'm me, it's fine. We want inclusivity, all people all places. But when I pass the threshold, when I come to work and it's time promotions, when I enter that space, when I enter that realm, here's how we, at it's time promotions, have decided to adopt as our culture. We respect everyone's nature and what they're into outside their life. Maybe I'm into sports, maybe you hate sports. Maybe part of me shaking hands and accepting a role at a time promotions as a team member, obviously, but also as a customer, as a supplier, as anyone you let into your sandbox. Here's what the points of culture we've chosen to stand for and embody here. We know in an organization that culture will develop. It's not a question of if culture will develop, it's do you take a proactive role in defining the culture and then therefore help protect it and allow your team to become stewards and guardians of the culture so it grows even stronger? Or does it organically develop, sometimes through not great means.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:25:15] Back in the day, you had me create an employee handbook. That was a lot of work, by the way. These things were listed in our employee handbook and handed out to any new staff that we take on even prior to them starting. They get to review our vision, yes, and our mission, kind of, I need to elaborate and fix that. In the culture statement, is that important to notify oncoming people, current staff, would you bring these up at meetings? Would you put them on the wall? How do you implement all these three steps, vision, mission, culture, to your employees to make sure that they have it and are installing it?

Jarrod Stanton: [00:25:58] I think it's placement in the employee handbook or guidebook is more of a courtesy reference for people. I would never recommend that's the only place you ever have it and hope that they happen to read it. I believe that awareness and then an in depth teaching of the points of culture happens early on in the hiring process. Strictly out of fairness to the potential candidate, let them select or deselect. Some companies will have it pretty broad, like four core values or four points of culture. Some companies will have as many as, like we have, 14 points of culture. How you defined it earlier, how points of culture core values can add to the organization systemization of a business in terms of that concept of rules of the game, sometimes we think of it as if you think of your business as a field of play. You think of, say, a soccer field or a football pitch. On the field of play, I think most businesses would want a loose culture. Loose in the sense that people can be themselves. People can be themselves, I'm me, but the only way to have a loose culture on the field of play is to that boundary of our field, that out-of-bounds line, should be pretty defined and pretty airtight. But for business leaders who don't define their points of culture or core values, what that border ends up being is the whims and the emotions of whatever the business owner or manager's feeling on any given day on their roller coaster of up and down. That's, first of all, not too encouraging to team members, it doesn't send the best message, and it's the farthest thing from organization. Versus if you can say, these are our seven points of culture, these are our 14 points of culture, they make up the border. Be yourself, don't step outside the border. Step outside the border, we're going to discuss it.

Jarrod Stanton: [00:28:07] As you've experienced at your great company there with your great team when you know it's starting to click in when you hear other people's voices on the team starting to help other team members stay in bounds. When they become guardians and stewards of the culture, and in sports there's a sentiment, within strong teams where there's strong trust, the dressing room polices itself. A person with the title of manager or owner or whatever the title is, rarely needs to hold people to the culture because the team is holding itself out of sheer pride in what it stands for. I think that, to answer your question, the culture statements don't just exist to have that framework to reprimand people when they step outside the culture. That's there, but we got to celebrate it. Some companies would make little posters or get it's time promotions to make some dry mounted photos of their ten points of culture that make up the circumference of their boardroom. They'll bring one off the wall if they have a weekly meeting or a monthly meeting, they'll say, point of culture of the month for November is this. Or sometimes a reflection, celebratory meeting, there will be culture call outs where, let's go through and reference one of your teammates who you felt really upheld our culture last week and how. Some of these trades companies are sending people into people's homes with one of their points of culture on the back of their t-shirt. It's such a talking point with the customers. Some of the companies do postcards with their points of culture.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:29:59] We started, well we've been doing it for a long time, but at our meetings with our team, we always do, first it was because of you, our wiffle, what we feel like expressing, we do that. Then we also talk about something positive which is part of our culture at every meeting as well. The team will go around, and it's usually about another member of the team. I find too, Jarrod, if your team is on board with your vision, mission and culture, it's almost like it attracts more of those people, if that makes sense. The people coming in our doors for work and our customers, it's almost like it's attracting more. I feel that if you know what these three statements are, and if you can get that hammered out, you will attract more of that, right?

Jarrod Stanton: [00:30:43] Absolutely, and then it allows-this isn't a podcast on leadership per se, but as you know, incredibly popular topic these days. Leadership is a massive inclination for people in business, to want to get better at leadership, be that inspirational leader. For someone who does what I do inside the fishbowl, fly on a wall in these lot of situations, the number of people I meet, organizations I meet, where dozens of hundreds of books on leadership read, countless investment, sincere desire to become a better leader. It's all being undone by these, sometimes, actions that they're unconscious of and one of the greatest un-doers of gaining and holding the respect and influence of your team who you so desperately want to be a leader to is suggesting we go this way, but actually going that way.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:31:45] Or even just not having them, fish on land is how I like to say it. We don't have any, we need guidance. We all need guidance, everybody needs guidance.

Jarrod Stanton: [00:31:52] Just a point to add on to, not only does obviously searing these into your heart allow other team members to be attracted, but it also is ever present reality and gut check for the owner and the people in charge to, I've got to live these because people are watching me. It also allows leaders, and all people of the company, but allows leaders and managers to always be viewed as consistently fair person. No one, I don't think, inherently wants to be hard on people or throw sharp or be accused of, 'Sharon really likes Bob, but she's kind of a jerk to Jarrod'.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:32:37] I have a Jarrod. I have two Jarrod's.

Jarrod Stanton: [00:32:42] What I think most leaders would hope is said about them is, holy smokes, you know where you stand with Sharon. Sharon's intolerant of anything that threatens the culture and therefore threatens any of our team or customers existence within our culture. If you step out, she'll let you know. Sharon is hard on issues and easy on people. But it's hard to do that unless you've laid out where the boundary is.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:33:15] If our listeners do not have a vision mission statement, is there a book or somewhere on ActionCOACH that they can go for help with something like this? Is there something that they can either read, or do you have any insights of guidance for them?

Jarrod Stanton: [00:33:30] Besides those tips I gave on vision and mission, I'll just say, for points of culture, again there's no rules, but if you're looking to start a brainstorm, I usually give people four categories, or I guess 4.5 categories. The first category I usually get them to consider, and this is usually without the input of a team, but category one, I try to get them to brainstorm values that are important to you as a business owner. Disregard your industry, you could do anything you want with your life. You decided to have a business or businesses, you might as well business on your terms. So as a person of business, as a business, what values are important to you? Have a brainstorm.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:34:18] So they can list down a few things for that point.

Jarrod Stanton: [00:34:21] The next three categories, I encourage getting a team involved, or sometimes the owner will take a stab at it and then get their team involved to add on. The next category would be, values that are important to our best clients and the kind of clients we want more of. Third category would be values that are important to our best team members, our A players and the type of team members we want more of. The fourth category would be, values that are important to us as a member of this industry and as a member of our community. Now, you don't have to have different words in each category, sometimes the exact same value shows up in all four categories, which is a pretty good sign that maybe that should make our final list. Sometimes I give people the fifth category, or category 4.5, is that, especially for very experienced business owners who have been at it years, if not decades, but have never published any core values or points of culture, I'd give them a category of, brainstorm all the things you detest, brainstorm all the things you hate, brainstorm all the things that make you ill when you see it. But then what is the value or the culture point that would be opposite of that, that could clearly lay out, this is what we'll stand for and embody at our company.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:35:55] Because there's even, for that one, the 4.5 what you're talking about, sometimes when you're doing business long enough, there's customers or clients of people that you have fired over the years. Why don't you want them as a team member or why don't you want them as clients or customers? What did they have? What was the opposite of that?

Jarrod Stanton: [00:36:14] In terms of your question about where to find stuff, my examples are just my examples, there's no rules to creating these. The best way to build this stuff, if you sit down to build this stuff and you as the owner feel passionate and engaged and enrolled, there's a good chance, there's a very strong chance, that the people you present them to will feel that way and feel clear on them as well. I would suggest people just go to YouTube and start by punching in 'vision, mission culture', even 'Brad Sugars action coach', I find to be the most succinct description of some of this stuff.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:36:59] So just to recap. Define the vision, again, where are you going? Why do you do what you do and what do you want to achieve? That's a one-sentence usually for the vision. The mission is multiple paragraphs, one paragraph or multiple paragraphs. It's a declaration of your mindset, basically you had mentioned. Then the culture statement is, that one's in depth, defines how the team needs to act or be worked together. That's a lot, the culture statements are your 4.5 points, is that your culture statement?

Jarrod Stanton: [00:37:38] Those are just 4.5 categories to help brainstorm possible points of culture or core values.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:37:46] Your values okay. All right, Jarrod, so if our listeners wanted to reach out to you I know for a fact, because I've used it before, you do have a complimentary where they can just chat to you for a few minutes, I believe. If they wanted to reach out to you, how do we get ahold of you?

Jarrod Stanton: [00:38:01] Just through our website's the best way, actionedgebusinesscoaching.com. There's a very simple contact form there if they just want to send a quick note, or they can find on that site you can find a 'request a complimentary consultation', which is a form where you can give us a little more background info on the situation and what you'd like to discuss. It's part of our culture that everyone in our team, we're mandated to give away a complimentary coaching session every week just out of abundance. Any business owner who wants to find out more about what coaching is or find out anything more about some of the stuff we teach and educate on, the door's open to do that at all times.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:38:47] Thank you, Jarrod. I did fill out that form once, and what I was intrigued with back in the day in 2018, I guess it was, is the fact that those questions that we had completed, you guys aligned your coaches up with the best fit for those needs, if I remember correctly. You go through the form and you figure out which of your coaches is the best fit for those.

Jarrod Stanton: [00:39:09] The form definitely starts that thinking process. The form gives a surface level, I'm already starting to think who might be a good match. Then when I actually meet the person or talk to the person, I get a sense of personality and idiosyncrasies. That's the other thing to consider. It's tough sometimes assigning a coach because often sometimes people reach out looking for the coach they'll be most comfortable with, and although I respect that sentiment, sometimes we like to tell clients, as you know, Sharon, we're never nice in terms of nothing inside us cares enough. Sometimes one of the ways we have to not be nice is, sometimes people are looking to work with a coach, like I said, that they're going to be most comfortable with, but sometimes we have to look at it through the lens of, comfort's that nice, warm, magical place where nothing ever grows.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:40:11] You have to get out of your comfort zone. There's been many times where you pushed me out of my comfort zone and I think I can't do it, but I do it.

Jarrod Stanton: [00:40:18] The coaches on our firm, as you know, you've met them, they are very adept to adapting to all personality types, all modalities. But yeah, you're right, when there's a good fit that I see, but it's just not going to, I'm not going to suggest in good faith that, someone who obviously has a million ideas every 10 seconds and is super energetic, but has trouble coming up and sticking to any priorities, work with our most creative, energetic idea coach. The two of them together will make more ideas faster. I would put that person with one of our more structured, let's get some of these ideas out of the parking lot onto the freeway style coach.

Sharon DeKoning: [00:41:12] I was really impressed with that when I reached out to you guys that long ago. We only did three of the nine, so I'm hoping you will join me again, Jarrod. I don't know if we need one more session or two more sessions to go over the next points, but I will call it episode two when we get to that so our listeners know. Thank you, Jarrod. Thank you for joining us today.

Jarrod Stanton: [00:41:35] Okay, Sharon, take care.