The WAY to WOW Shows
Systems vs. Heroics
May 6, 2026
Automatically generated from YouTube captions; names and wording may contain errors.

[0:00] Who [music] are you? And where are you going?

[0:06] >> [music]

[0:07] >> What do you want? Hello and welcome to people making money. Sorry, started off the wrong

[0:20] >> [snorts]

[0:21] >> the wrong you know, tape in my head. I'm your host Kevin Bemel and I'm here every Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time to talk about job hunting and being an employee, starting and running a business and building wealth. So the whole financial side of our lives. And I've been working on a a repertory of those three topics for this year. And so today I'm going to be talking about a a topic of running a running a business topic. And and that is something I'm calling systems versus

[0:56] heroics. So

[0:58] >> [clears throat]

[0:59] >> having you know, started a number of businesses two primary ones one before and one after my Navy career. One of the you know, banes of existence when you're a solopreneur is that you seemingly don't have a lot of backup. And and so this has become a larger issue for me and and how I make sure that my business has continuity without having you know, a staff in the

[1:37] company itself is is very important. And so I'm going to be talking about the issues related to that. But I thought I wanted to start out with a a little bit of a story if you will. So about two years ago Um, business I had I really just kind of started my business maybe it'd been around for about 6 months. And

[2:03] >> [clears throat]

[2:04] >> I had had some eye problems the prior year that had that had prevented me from really launching my business. And I by October of 2023, they were resolved even though nobody could figure out why it happened. They they told me what was wrong, but they couldn't figure out why it happened, and there was there was nothing they could do to solve it other than just let time and I guess healing take its course. So, roundabout May of 2024,

[2:39] the condition came back. And you know, talked to my regular doctor. He said, you know, go over to the Jules Stein Eye Clinic at UCLA. I did. They checked me out and they said, "Yeah, we're we're we're checking you into the hospital right now." And and you know, there I was for the next 3 days completely unexpectedly. And there was no one to take care of things in my absence. And and it was it was a very chaotic time in in my business. I had just a few months

[3:14] before been appointed administrator of a very large estate. There were all kinds of things going on. It quite literally was chaos. And I realized at that point that me being the single point of failure was not acceptable. It was also not conducive to my well-being. And this this is I think this is the hard part because as as business founders, there is kind of an ego aspect

[3:52] to that. I'm the founder. I'm the, you know, I'm the rainmaker. I'm the this, I'm the that. Uh, but you know, when all is said and done, we're here to take care of our clients and customers, and if we can't do that, so the, you know, raison d'être of our business is not being met. And so, this idea of heroics versus systems, I think is very important. It's one we all need to

[4:27] deal with quite seriously, and and figure out how how are we going to make sure So, I have five thoughts on this topic, as I usually do on this show. And the first one is that most businesses, they they reward the founders for stepping in and fixing it. Right? That's That's how they're set up. Um, often times, the founder is maybe or I shouldn't say

[5:03] is, but maybe particularly charismatic, particularly skilled, has the the client relationships, and so that loyalty is there. All of those, you know, put the the the founder in in this, you know, role of of of hero. I'm going to do air quotes cuz not a big fan of of of that word. Uh, but it really becomes a trap. So,

[5:29] >> [clears throat]

[5:30] >> in the early stages, uh, you know, heroics feel productive. I'm solving the problems. I'm

[5:37] >> [clears throat]

[5:38] >> I'm making the company grow. All those kind of things. But, what they also do is they mask broken processes.

[5:47] >> [snorts]

[5:47] >> Right? So, a business that's dependent on the founder is fragile, not strong. So, as the founder, we don't want to think that way. We want to believe, "Hey, you know, I'm I'm I'm I'm virile and I'm able to do all these things." But, the reality is, again, as I mentioned a moment ago, we're the single point of failure, and that makes the business very very fragile. So, scaling a business and and making the business durable requires shifting from being a

[6:22] doer to being a designer of systems and a builder of teams. Right? Those And And by the way, those teams do not necessarily mean having to hire a lot of employees. So,

[6:38] >> [clears throat]

[6:39] >> in my business, my teams are all composed of individual professionals. Right? And the team could be anywhere from three to, you know, eight, 10 people. We all have our role. Typically, I'm the captain, and that's fine. But, if something [clears throat] happens to me, it's not as if the whole process is going to grind to a halt. And that's what's important.

[7:15] The other issue for me, in terms of creating durability, uh in in my business, to to the bene- for the benefit of my clients, is I make sure I have relationships with more than one professional in each category. So, more than one lawyer, more than one accountant, more than one real estate person, right? All of that is important, and that's that is the the the founders uh best role uh to fill. Okay? So, the goal is

[7:50] profitable outcomes, mutually beneficial outcomes for the business and its clients, not constant intervention. So, um if everything requires your approval as the founder, so you don't have net leverage, what you have are bottlenecks. Okay? And you're creating a situation where you can never take time off. You're probably, if you have a family, you're putting burdens on your family that they may not particularly like, especially your children who want you to be a part of their lives,

[8:25] but but your spouse as well. Yes, they'll understand um or or they will they'll go along, but um you know, to to constantly be, you know, the one who has to be on the spot means that you're eroding those relationships outside your business. So, number two, every repeating task is a candidate for a system. Right? And that that that repetition is your signal that some kind of system

[9:01] is missing. Now, the good news is, with the advent of large language models and automation, all the tools of AI, it's getting easier and easier to build systems into even a a solopreneur business. So, yesterday I attended a webinar put on by a company called OnceHub. It's a it's a scheduling software or not software, but it's a scheduling platform that I've used for many, many years. And and they're adding in they added in all

[9:36] kinds of features that that are using AI to enhance the functionality of the platform. It's really It was really quite amazing to see what what they're doing. And uh you know, it it it it completely does away with the need to have someone scheduling meetings, really. So, interestingly enough, if you've ever used like There's other programs like this or other platforms like this. Calendly is probably OnceHub's uh biggest competitor. Those are the two that I see most often.

[10:11] Uh typically you have to click through to a web page in order to use it, but now OnceHub is has a a process where someone can call on their phone and essentially navigate through the same process of scheduling a meeting that they otherwise would have to do online. And for for some people, uh for example, my aunt, she's she's not a big online person. She would rather do things by telephone. So, that's that's a great system for, you

[10:48] know, for her. And it enhances a business's ability to serve its clients, but I don't have to hire anyone extra, right? I can just uh uh um you know, use OnceHub uh more effectively, basically. Okay? So, every repeating task is a candidate for a system. So, if a task happens twice, it should be documented. And you And And a standard operating procedure, an SOP, should be created to reduce decision

[11:24] fatigue, to reduce repetitive work, right? And put into a manual. Now, you know, these days manuals are online and and and so, you know, you don't even have to, you know, create a notebook the way we might have done, you know, 20, 30 years ago. So, templates eliminate reinventing the wheel. So, for those of you who are familiar with the promotions that I do for this show, you you probably know that if you're on my email list,

[11:59] my emails look very similar. They're all templated and when it comes time to to set up an email, I change the picture, I change the verbage in three places and I'm done. In in fact, in 15 minutes, I set up all the emails and social media posts promoting my shows because I use AI and templates. That's how efficient it can be. Now, you might say, well, you know, why don't you just, you know, get a like a virtual assistant

[12:34] to do that work? And the reality is I have to review the copy anyway. So, you know, it it I'm not going to be able to review the copy in less than 15 minutes. So, I might as well just set it up myself, right? But, it used to take me an hour to do all of that. So, I've reduced the time by 45 minutes, right? So, and and the the reality is if I did want to lateral it off to someone, I could do so now because all the templates are exist.

[13:09] Okay, so, I mentioned this already, but automation should replace manual effort wherever possible, right? So,

[13:18] >> [clears throat]

[13:18] >> I on this particular show in a in a few weeks, I'm going to be launching a mini series called Money in Motion with uh my friend John Rubino and and a colleague of his John Clark. So, uh we're we're if Again, if you're watching my if you're uh if if you um follow my uh Way to Wow show page, you've probably seen over the last week or week and a half, maybe a little bit more than that, uh promotional posts for that mini-series. So, it's interesting because uh John

[13:53] posts every morning live. I set up all my posts in advance. So, because I I you know, I don't want to be in a situation where I need to do something for a client and now I don't have time to post or I'm posting and now I miss, you know, taking care of a client. You know, all these social media platforms allow for scheduling. So, I used to have uh I I I don't remember what the scheduling platforms are called anymore. I used to use them. I don't use them anymore because I can use the built-in ones for each social media

[14:28] platform. It's just as fast. And according to my information, they prioritize using uh or they not not prioritize, but they sort [clears throat] of downgrade posts that are coming from these other platforms. So, automate as much as possible. And that will that will shrink your workload. It'll shrink, you know, the the dependency of your business on you as the founder. And then finally, um

[14:56] >> [clears throat]

[14:57] >> consistency tends to improve quality while um reducing reliance uh and and also then it reduces relying on memory and talent to solve problems. So,

[15:13] >> [clears throat]

[15:14] >> if we're doing things if we if we set up a procedure and look, again, I'm a solopreneur, so I'm not I'm not writing a procedures manual manual for other people, right? But I have set procedures that I do things. In fact, if you saw my computer screen over here on this side of it, I have my Apple, what is it called? Reminders. Everything is is systematized in Apple Reminders. When I step in front of my computer each morning,

[15:49] I have a list of things that need to be done that day. They're sorted by priority, by client, and off I can go and be as efficient as possible, right? So that that consistency has improved the quality of the work that I need that I'm doing because I don't have to constantly go, "Okay, what do I need to be doing next? Well, did I forget something?" No, I've I've developed the habit of of always creating a reminder for everything I need to do, and that way rarely do I miss

[16:24] a task and flub something for a client. Okay. Next. So, decision-making frameworks replace constant oversight. So, a scalable business doesn't ask the founder, "What do we do?" every time there's something to be done. Now, this can be a challenge if if if you're working with people who used to have to clear every single thing with the person in charge,

[17:00] it's it's hard for them to break that habit, right? So, I administrate a company as the administrator of the estate that owns it, and for over two decades, the people that work there were not permitted to make decisions. And you know, once I took over, I made it clear that, you know, now was the time and the opportunity to step up and really, you know,

[17:35] grow professionally, right? And but it it has it's not something that's going to happen overnight or it wasn't something that happened overnight. It has grown over the you know, over two years that that we've been working together. And that's good. Right? Because we've built a lot of mutual trust, mutual confidence. They've they've I think come to see that they have skills that they didn't necessarily think they might have had, right? So, it's one of the most rewarding

[18:10] professional experiences I've had is working with this team to move beyond the what do we do to them really taking ownership of of what needs to be done in this company, right? And so, one of the things I've done is I've defined boundaries, right? So, what are the limits of their decision-making authority? When do they need to consult with me? And and that's how I that's how I state it, by the way. I

[18:46] don't say I don't say, "Well, here's when you need to come to me for a decision." No, that's that's not that's not the way to approach it, either. If we want to give our people authority, what we also need to do is give them leave to consult with us and maybe talk some things through for before they make a decision, right? So, they need to be able to socialize the issues just like we would, right? So, there are certain there's there's a certain level, anything from there down,

[19:23] just you know, whatever you think is is the right thing to do, you know, have that it. From here up, let's let's talk about it either at the weekly staff meeting or if it's more urgent than that, let's let's have a call or whatever. And then, depending on what the issues are, in some cases I may need to make the decision. In other cases, you know, the the person with whom I'm consulting or or the person who's consulting me, I should say, will make the decision, right? And part of creating a good team is figuring out those dynamics, figuring out when

[20:00] and who will make decisions, right? So, you we can set some policies, but we also have to work with those policies to see in practice how do they go and where do they need to be tweaked, where they need to be changed, right? So, we can create rules of thumb for things like pricing, hiring, client exceptions, right? We we we do that, right? And and uh and and and that becomes uh you know, part of our uh part of our plan, part of our system.

[20:36] So, so for example, uh when this company has a client who is uh resisting the recommendations of one of the key employees, right? At that point, when the point comes that the client has to be told, "Okay, here's your choices." Understand our recommendation or shoot yourself in the foot. Okay? Those are really the two choices you have. Um, that's when uh, I have to get involved because now we

[21:12] could have a situation where a client may say, you know, I I I don't like that. I don't like I don't like being talked to that way or whatever. And and the client might decide to, you know, to leave to to no longer be a client of the company. So, that's something for which I need to take responsibility. I can't push I I can't um, delegate that responsibility to one of the other team members, at least not right now. Okay? And so, we we had an incident like that yesterday. We had our staff meeting and, you know, inexplicably, you know,

[21:49] one of the clients, uh, you know, we we keep, you know, we we negotiated a a a good arrangement for her for a tenant for a property, um, but she's decided she she, you know, doesn't want to make any of the concessions she had previously agreed to. And so, this this is a problem because there's there's virtually no chance that the prospective tenant is going to come back and give her the things that she's demanding. And, uh, you know, now it's time for me to step in. But, prior to that, the regular team has handled it within the guidelines that we have set.

[22:24] Okay? So, um, that kind of escalation path, it should be rare, not routine. And that is the system that we've worked out over the last couple of years, okay? So, the the goal for the founder is to move from being the approver to the architect of decision-making and using good judgment. Right? That's the evolution of our role. Okay? Let's take a quick break. We'll come back for more.

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[23:37] or visit magnumprops.com. Okay. So, next we need to build roles, not dependencies on individuals. And and this hopefully you're you're seeing a theme in what I've been talking about and that is when we talk about building a team, right? We're not We're not just assigning roles in that team. We're building a mechanism for professional development on the part

[24:13] of all the members of the team. Whether it's the founder or whether it's, you know, one of the people who who works you know, who's a part of the team who's not the founder. Okay? So, when one person owns critical knowledge, the business is exposed. And by the way, this is true not just in for-profit companies. It's true in non-profit companies, it's true in government. So, I believe I've talked about this example before but but perhaps it was on one of my other shows. So, when I first got to Okinawa, my brand new, you know, minted

[24:48] chaplain, I realized very quickly that because the military personnel, the uniformed personnel, were generally there for two or three years. The civilians who worked in the base chaplain's office had an enormous amount of power over what happened. And that was because they were there year after year after year after year. And they knew the uniform people kind of come and go. And in fact the most powerful person in the base chaplain's office when I got

[25:23] there was actually the secretary for the base chaplain. She had been there for close to 30 years at that point. And if she didn't want something to happen, it did not happen. She had control over all of the civilians who worked in the base chaplain's office, meaning all the civilians that worked at all the other chapels, including my secretary, it turned out. Right? And And so there were things that I wanted to accomplish and she would not permit them to happen. Now, fortunately for me,

[25:58] uh she retired about a year after I got there. And lo and behold, my secretary became the base chaplain's secretary. And because we had developed a good working relationship those kinds of issues essentially went away, right? But that doesn't mean that now, you know, what would be um almost 20 years later, she hasn't accreted a whole bunch of power and decided she's going to use it. I don't think so. I don't think that's the kind of person she is. But but it's possible. So, this is the problem when you have one person with all the

[26:34] corporate knowledge or most of the corporate knowledge or to, you know, coin a phrase, knows where the bodies are buried, right? That is a problem. So, we want to build roles for individuals, not I We want to build roles, but not dependency on individuals. So, single points of failure create operational risk. That's as true for the founder as it is for any team member. Right? I I good friend of mine recently left the company at which he was working, and I think they're going to be sorry because

[27:09] he was maybe not literally a single point of failure, but I I think that the CEO does not quite realize just how influential he was in seeing to it that the company was delivering the the the the services basically that the company you know, needs to deliver to stay viable. Right? So, how do we avoid dependencies and build roles? Well, one is through cross-training. So, that's why I say that a team is really an opportunity for professional growth.

[27:44] So, going back to the the company I mentioned a few years ago where the the the founder died and I took over administrating it, one of the things I've done is make sure that the two key employees there have cross-trained each other so that if one wants to go on vacation, she can and the other one can take over for you know, a period of time. I've also made sure we have a couple of sharp part-time people who are trained on many different aspects of what each of them do. So, again, if if if one of them wants to

[28:19] go on vacation, the other can sort of step into handling both roles, but can shift down to the part-time people some additional work, and everything can keep going and and working smoothly, and nobody has to be, you know, working until 10:00 every night or feeling stressed out because we can't get all the work done. Right? All of that is by way of of building resilient teams, which if a team is not resilient, it's probably not really a team. Right? And so then

[28:51] >> [clears throat]

[28:51] >> we've also taken time to document roles to reduce sort of tribal dependency on certain types of knowledge. So, um everybody has access to the Dropbox that has all of our files in it. They know where things are. They can look things up. It's really It's It's really quite wonderful to see how people uh how how members of the team take the initiative to look into things and get themselves up to speed on on different aspects of what's happening in the company. And

[29:26] periodically, we have the part-timers come to our staff meeting and participate so they can see how that works, so they can give some input, okay? And yeah, we pay them for, you know, a couple of hours to do that. It's It's an It's a It's a uh an investment well worth it because it it it breaks the dependency and but it but at the same time makes the whole team stronger. Right? And so uh when when you hire, hire for ownership f- function of

[30:01] ownership, not for sort of personality-driven hero performance. Now, this can be tough because some people, some employees, they want that role of hero. Okay? Uh you you you see this for um in particular among sales people. They want to be the breadwinner, the one who's bringing in all the business. The problem with that is if you've got one salesperson bringing in, you know, 50% of the business, what happens if they leave?

[30:36] Okay? Or what happens if they say, "Look, I want a big increase in compensation or I'm going to leave." right? So, as great as it is to have fantastic sales people on your team, you want sales people that appreciate that it is a team. Okay? And so, um they can understand why there has to be a balance uh between all the different players and why it's not good for the overall business for them to be be in such a dominant position. I.e., you need sales people who don't have a

[31:12] hero complex. Okay? Now, that may mean that you know, if you're giving up maybe 10% of sales. Okay? Well, but that may be good insurance because uh it's it's it's very dangerous for a business to have the bulk of its income centered in one individual, okay? By the way, even the founder, not that the founder's going to leave, but what happens if the founder gets sick, gets injured, and now is no longer able to generate new business, okay?

[31:49] Again, that's a problem. So, we want to hire for functional owner function ownership, not for the sort of personality-driven hero performance, okay? So, a resilient business, it survives uh it it it it um employee transitions uh without disruption or at least with minimal disruption. And indeed, a resilient business can can deal with the owner not being there for a certain period of time, or deal with the founder

[32:24] not being there for a certain period of time. Okay? And and that that should be the goal of the founder, okay? And then finally, um measure what matters so you don't have to watch everything. So, the tendency, I think, is is for founders is to have their hand in every pie, right? To micromanage. That is a bad strategy. First of all, it disempowers your people, your team members. And disem- um disempowered team

[32:59] members are not going to be as productive, they're not going to be as engaged, they're not going to be as happy, and therefore your business is not going to be as successful. That's just the bottom line. Right? So, look at what what are your key performance indicators. Is it top-line revenue? Is it net revenue? Is it controlling costs? Is it uh a a performance metric relative to your team members, right? It's almost

[33:34] for sure not all of those. Okay? So, for example, with my shows, there's a there's a couple of of key metrics. Uh one is subscriber. Actually, there's there's three key metrics. One is subscribers, or more more specifically, subscriber growth, okay? Not not total subscribers, but subscriber growth, how efficiently that's happening. Two is viewing growth, and three is time viewed per subscriber. Those are

[34:09] the three things. That's it. Okay? Those are the only ones I track. There's lots of other stuff I could think about tracking, okay? But those are the ones that I track. And that's how I know whether my shows are delivering what it is I seek to have them delivered. Okay? So, um a quick view at a the um and I I have a I have a spreadsheet where I track those KPIs, tells me whether things are on track or not. And if something's off track, I need to look at it. What what's happening? Why? What

[34:44] changes do I need to make? Right? And I can do that typically in about, mm, 10 to 15 minutes at the most, okay? Because I'm so used to tracking those those key performance indicators. Right? So, leading indicators matter more than lagging indicators, right? So, profitability from last year doesn't really mean a whole lot. What matters most likely, or more more what is more likely to matter is, what is the prospects for profitability this year?

[35:20] What is the pro What is the uh probability for net income growth over the next, whatever it is, 2 years, 5 years, whatever, right? So, what are the leading indicators for your business, okay? For my shows, I think the most important leading indicator is uh, subs- the the the pace of subscriber growth and the pace of viewing growth. Okay? Number of times a show is viewed, how long the show is viewed. Those are the two things. If those are growing,

[35:58] then what I'm doing is working, I need to stay the course. If those start to atrophy, then I've got to look at, what do I need to change in order to get back on track? Okay. So, um, if if you have to constantly check on various KPIs, then something is not complete in your system, okay? I check my KPIs for my shows once a week. It happens to be on Wednesday mornings, right? That's just the day that I I've been doing it now for I don't know, two, three years. Okay,

[36:33] there's no magic to that date. It's just it's just the day that I plan to do it. So, I don't I don't have to be checking my metrics every day. There's no reason to. Okay? It's just it's just a waste of time, right? It's like, you know, checking your stock quotes every day. There's there's there's no point to doing that. Okay? So, if I felt like I had to do that, then something was incomplete in in how in in the KPIs that that I've selected and in how I track them. Okay? So, if you're if you're feeling constantly ill at ease

[37:10] about your business's performance, then it's time to examine how are you analyzing that performance and does that need to change to give you the confidence to not have to be constantly checking on it? Okay. And finally, having the right metrics lets you step away without losing control, right? So, if if if you if you know, for example, what your key Let's say one of your key performance indicators is um is profitability. So, if you know that,

[37:47] okay? And you can see your profitability is on track uh for the year, let's say. All right, so you can you can step away for a little while, maybe take a vacation and not have to worry that, "Oh, the whole business is going to fall apart." All right, maybe you're going to lose a little ground. Maybe you're going to lose a tenth of a percent or two tenths of a percent uh uh of percentage uh profitability because you took a vacation. Well, still, that's good because we can't constantly have our noses to the grindstones. And so,

[38:23] it makes sense to take some time off in order to, as the old joke goes, sharpen our axes. Because then when we when we get back, it's with renewed vigor, with renewed focus, okay? And we might even be able to make up whatever little bit of ground we we lost while we took some time off, while we stepped away. Having those key performance indicators will help us figure that out much more rapidly than if everything is being done ad hoc. So,

[38:58] I thank you very much for joining me today. And schedule of shows. On Monday Mondays at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time, Trusts and Estates Weekly. Tuesdays at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time, Business Lessons from the Military. Wednesdays, like today, at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time, People Making Money. And then every other Thursday at 5:00 p.m. Pacific time is my show, Jigger's Place. We have a cocktail and a schmooze, talk about all kinds of things unrelated to finances. If you have questions, comments,

[39:33] criticisms, links to social media and my email are in the show notes on the three major podcasting platforms. That's YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcast. Always interested in hearing your comments. So, once again, thank you so much for joining me. Wishing you a wonderful rest of the day, and signing off as I always do. Marie Darling, you are my bell. Courage.