• Housekeeping, Launch Week, and Show Logistics 0:02 – 3:24
  Norm and Kels cover the new site, episode archive/search, show cadence, and newsletter promotion.
• Guest Introduction & Scaling Context 3:24 – 4:46
  Norm introduces Chris (“Dr. Daigle”) and frames the episode around strategic scaling and “crossing the chasm.”
• Planning vs. Brute Force: EOS and Outcome Clarity 9:53 – 11:00
  Chris contrasts “brute force” with planning, emphasizing clear outcomes and the ROI of planning.
• Ask Bigger Questions: The 10x Breakthrough Prompt 12:13 – 14:37
  Chris explains the “How do you 10x your business?” question and how it forces systems thinking.
• COVID-era Strategy: Stabilize, Find the Missing Variable, Execute 38:41 – 39:24
  Chris and Norm discuss action vs intention and finding what others are doing right to stabilize and win.
• Closing Advice: Community, Stress Tolerance, and Contact 39:32 – 42:16
  Chris closes with encouragement, community support, and the “stress tolerance = income ceiling” principle plus contact info. 

On brute force vs planning
“the default production protocol, is brute force and sheer ignorance… for every hour of planning, you're going to save yourself at least four hours of production.”

On asking better questions (10x)
“Okay, great. So I'm gonna ask you a question… How do you 10x your business click?”

On execution when results aren’t happening
“if you're not thriving right now… you're just missing some piece of the formula. Find out what it is from somebody who's got it.”

On community support and not doing it alone
“norm is creating these communities… so that you don't have to be alone… reach out and find out how they're managing…”

On stress tolerance and earning capacity
“the more stress you can handle, the more money you'll make.” 

Norm Farrar 0:02
Hey everyone. I'm Norm Farrar, aka the beard guy, and welcome to another lunch with norm.

Norm Farrar 0:19
So while we're broadcasting to you live on Facebook and YouTube, and hopefully one of these days, LinkedIn, what should we be doing?

Chris Daigle 0:26
Kels, all right, well, you should follow us on social media, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, Tiktok. Follow us everywhere. And we do have something exciting to talk about. Our our new website.

Norm Farrar 0:42
Oh yeah. So I guess we should just say, Hey, look at this is like my birthday. I have a birthday week. This is like the launch week. So we had the launch on Monday, but we have the official launch of lunch with Norm, the rise of the micro brands. It's this week, so I'm enjoying cake, and you can find it on all podcast platforms, including Apple. Yes, anything else there?

Speaker 2 1:06
Kels, so yeah. If you want to gather everything all at once, you can go to our website, lynchwithnorm.com there you can subscribe. You can see all the past videos that we have. I think we have 11 of the episodes so right?

Norm Farrar 1:21
And you can search them if you're looking for specific content. The other thing that I think is really great with what we're doing is we're putting all the information the people's any of their guests, bio, but also any references that they make. So if we're if there's a book, or if there's something that they wanted us to go to, or content that we're covering, we're actually trying to write blogs about those contents so we can keep you informed. So check it out. Hey, Alan, so check us out. We're also all the information is on YouTubes. And on YouTubes, it's like going to the Google. Yeah? Hey, Kels, you want to go to the Google and we're doing this Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays, noon, Eastern, Standard Time and, yep, go ahead.

Speaker 2 2:09
Yeah, there's no show tomorrow. So there's no show tomorrow. Yeah, no more Thursdays. I think we have one Thursday scheduled in September. But other than that, no more Thursdays. So Monday, Wednesday, Friday. All right.

Norm Farrar 2:22
Nailed it. All right. One last thing I wanted to go over is that you can go over to the website, and we've never talked about this. We've been doing this for a month, and we've been getting some positive feedback from the people that have signed up, but we've put out a really amazing newsletter that doesn't suck. It really is good. We spend a lot of time. We either write the content that's on there. It's for entrepreneurs, it's for online sellers. It's about business. It's about brands, social media, it's everything you need for your online business to succeed. So once again, it really doesn't suck. So please sign up for it. It's a good slogan. Yeah, it really doesn't trust me. It doesn't suck. Okay, so I think that's it for housekeeping. Anything else

Speaker 3 3:09
And hello, Sharon, thanks for tuning in.

Norm Farrar 3:14
Sharon Allen, hey, just a couple shout outs. All right, so Kels, do you have anything else to say?

Speaker 2 3:20
No, I think that's it. I think it's time to welcome our guest. All right,

Norm Farrar 3:24
so this guest is really incredible, and he is a scaling he scales businesses, and he does it like nobody else. I had the pleasure of meeting him. I met him through Rob burns. So this is the beauty of networking. So Rob said, Hey, you got to meet this guy. So we talked briefly about an hour, you know, a time of my mouth had dropped. I could just hear from the second we started talking the passion that he had about what he was doing. So anyways, I want to just introduce you. This is, I don't think he does a lot of Amazon talking. So this is about how to grow your business, how to scale your business. Great guys. Name is Chris Daigle. So we'll be talking about how businesses can scale strategically. It's a difficult transition for many online. I've seen it myself. I've tried to as the book says, cross the chasm, and it's very difficult unless you know how to do it. So stay tuned. You're going to learn more. And as always, if you have any comments whatsoever, put them in the comment box and we will try to get them so sit back, relax, grab that cup of coffee and enjoy the show. So now, Mr. Chris, Dr Daigle, how are you, sir, fantastic.

Chris Daigle 4:43
Thank you for that intro that was amazing. Well,

Norm Farrar 4:46
you know what? It's true. I mean, it's I talked to you, Hey, you got to get on to this podcast. And I said, You got to get on my other podcast, because it's really about the most interesting people I know. And like I said when you were talking. Into me, just the passion and I got to get you on that podcast. I want to hear about the struggles and successes that you had, which is, by the way, shameless plug. I know this guy. So anyways, let's, let's talk about a little bit about your background. So tell us a little bit about yourself.

Chris Daigle 5:17
I guess the thing that would be most applicable here to this audience is that I've been involved in direct response digital marketing since 2002 so been around this space like this is. I've got my 20,000 my 30,000 my 40,000 hours in this space in particular. So it's an area where I've been able to have a lot of impact when it comes to accelerated growth and businesses, so um, do a lot more. I'm a daddy, a husband, a friend, all around. Nice guy, I guess most would say, but um, in business, it's primarily direct response marketing in the digital landscape.

Norm Farrar 5:56
All right, so I think the topic today is really interesting, because so many Amazon sellers or E commerce. I mean, we probably have a few people just in in general, online business listing as well, but they do it wrong from the start. So what are some of the things people can do to prepare themselves for growth?

Chris Daigle 6:18
First and foremost, know what that looks like. There's a there's a model that I use whenever I work with a client to create the framework for accelerated growth, and that framework is called EOS Entrepreneurial Operating System. I think 150,000 plus entrepreneurial enterprises are run on this model. Very effective. But one of the first things they do in an EOS implementation is they get all of the leadership team together, and they say, okay, guys like, where are we going? And it's interesting when you do that, because the team, this guy wants to get to a 10 million, this guy wants to get to a billion, she wants to get to half a billion. Like, and it's interesting to see that all of these people who've been working so closely together haven't reached like, they haven't gotten calibrated on on what exactly, why are we where are we going with this? Tell you why that's important. The person that wants to get to a billion dollars, or whatever that number may be, they're going to behave a lot differently. And they're thinking and their strategy and their execution, and the people they reach out to, then somebody on their team who thinks that, hey, we're going to 5 million bucks. That's our goal. The behavior is going to be completely different. The resources tapped into are going to be completely different. So if you don't have a team, the point still stands. You need to be very clear on where, like, how do you know that you've won? So first and foremost, that's the number one thing. And the reason that I think this is important norm is because I learned this quote from LAO, and it's when the cup is full stop pouring. Most of us don't have any idea of like, that we've that we've made it because we never stopped to say, how will we know? Like, how will I know when I'm successful? Like, how will I know that this endeavor has, like achieved what I'm looking for. So first and foremost, be very clear on what the outcome needs to be.

Norm Farrar 8:07
You know, the other day we had, it was just last week we had, or, yeah, it was last week we had Jeff Sass on. He's a he's a Brand Builder. He's a guru. I hate using that word. I say too much. He's an expert when it comes to brand building. And one of the things that he was talking about exactly what you said, before you can build your brand, you have to have everybody from bottom up, as you know, as well as everybody. He was saying that from the top down, usually it's dictated by the CEO, and everybody loses the message. And so when you get everybody on board, then that's when you can start being a brand. And that's exactly what you're saying here, when you can grow your business. Exact same thing.

Speaker 3 8:56
It's a good comment. Who was that? It was Jeff sass.

Norm Farrar 8:59
If you have it. If you don't notice, Jeff got, oh man, I'll introduce you, but he's got this book called everything I learned about marketing came from the Toxic Avenger. So it really is a good book, by the way. And Jeff's a great guy. So everything that he does when you're building this business. So this is what he does. He goes into corporations, econ, businesses, and he says, Let's build your story, but inside out, not from the outside. He says, let's, let's build that story. It's like a four or five page book on your company, and it's got, you know, the the beginning, it's got a villain. It's got he lays it out really incredible. And I don't think enough businesses do that, and I think this is something that would apply to, you know, this model that you're talking about. So here's

Chris Daigle 9:53
what I find interesting, is that entrepreneurs, and I think I may have shared this with you before, but I've worked with a lot of entrepreneurs coach. Been mentored a lot, and the the default speed, or the default production protocol, is brute force and sheer ignorance. Let's just get in there and figure it out right. A little planning. However, if you were to talk to people who are at the highest levels of achievement within any industry, I think one of the commonalities would be that they they were very clear on their outcome. The reason that they're at the top is because they had a plan. It may not be something that entrepreneurs like to do. We don't like the plan. We just want to get out there and just make it happen because, like, that's that's what we do, right? But right without that plan, or without that target, or without that and I can tell you that for every hour of planning, you're going to save yourself at least four hours of production. So why not plan, right? Um, so that's Don't, don't, don't, pursue your your endeavors with brute force and sheer ignorance. Do it with finesse and planning.

Norm Farrar 11:00
I didn't go through EOS. Yeah, I've heard of it, but I went through old school, old school here Michael Gerber and the E Myth. So he talks about, you know, the typical entrepreneur pattern where you you'll never get anywhere. It'll be a constant struggle. It'll be constant crisis management if you don't sit back and create processes for your team, and if you don't create the proper what he says or break the sales cycle, the entrepreneurial sales roller coaster, where the entrepreneur has the passion. He goes out there. He's selling, but he's now he's working 25 hours a day. He brings on a VA. The VA doesn't know what to do. He gives them really crappy instructions, no training. She fails, or he fails, and they get fired because he's the only person or she it can do it properly. And then he does the same thing, and he hires another VA, no training, and just goes on and it goes on and it goes on and he can't understand why he can't grow the business. Yeah. So this, right?

Chris Daigle 12:13
So most of you are going to find yourself in that pattern, unless you identify, oops, I'm in that pattern. So another thing that I think would be really helpful norm for people who are interested in, how do I grow my business? I'll bet that the the questions they're asking aren't the best questions when it comes to that. For instance, I had a mentor, Paul Lindberg of formula five fame, and I remember how much it blew my mind when we were on a call and Paul basically said, Okay, great. So I'm gonna ask you a question. You call me back when you get the answer ready, yes. How do you 10x your business click? And this was not CARDONE thing. It was just like, I don't know. Took me about two weeks, and it was one of those questions that friend of mine sold his business to the golf network. He calls it shower time. He wants his employees shower time. And what he means is that he wants to be such a part of their lives that that when they're in those quiet moments and they're thinking that their mind doesn't go to I got to feed the dog, it goes to his business, right? So as an entrepreneur this shower time, watch what you're saying if you're not asking yourself, How do I 10x my business? Questions like that. You're not going to get those answers. If I asked you how to double your business, you want the answer work twice as hard, but at some point that falls apart. You can't work 10 times as hard, 10 times as long. So you have to actually start asking yourself. Like the result of answering that question is going to mean that you come up with systems and processes that you were just identifying or potential clients or whatever that weren't part of your your thought process prior to you asking that expansive question. So what ends up happening is most entrepreneurs, they and here's what I'd ask you to do if your goal, let's say your goal is a million bucks this year in your business, shoot for two if you fail. Like, here's what's going to happen if you don't hit two, you did more than one, usually, in most cases. So, like, just by pushing yourself to think a little bit bigger, even if you have no idea how to do it, that's okay ask the question. The mind will tell you the answer, or you'll be you'll be asking that question around the right people, and that answer will come to you, but if you're not asking those questions, you're going to be in that that cycle, that that E Myth cycle, that that norm was just talking about. So think bigger. Ask bigger questions. It's amazing the impact it'll have.

Norm Farrar 14:37
So when you're thinking bigger, are there any things because a lot of people don't understand. Yeah, a lot of people don't have any sort of systems, SOPs, policies and procedures in place. Where do they start? So, yeah, I want to 10x my business. Do you know Isabella Hamilton? I don't. Oh, great lady. So she, she owns this. Company called rank Bell, and she came from Romania. Yep, rank Bell, so she helps Amazon sellers with launch and rank strategies. So she came over from Romania, she she was a nanny, and then she got into Amazon rebates. And anyways, she just said, yeah, the reason I'm successful, is she listened to a bunch of people, Grant cardum and a bunch of others, and said, Yeah, I want to make this a $10 million company. I'm not satisfied with anything less. And you know, why should I start at $50,000 a month? I want to hit a million dollars a month, or I want to hit whatever it is. So she just says, you know, if you're going to Dream, Dream High and make it happen and work backwards,

Chris Daigle 15:45
yes, and that's unfortunately, a lot of people like, that's the part that we forget. We just get into the production side of things. But we don't. We know that we want to take care of today's cash flow needs. We want to keep the lights on. We know that, like, there's some shiny future that exists once we hit that certain thing, but we're doing it now. We don't know what that is, but because she said $10 million she was thinking, How do I do 10 million bucks a year? Not how do I be successful? That's nebulous. That's your definition. My definition of success may be completely different, but arithmetic is not an opinion. So by setting a specific number like that, it allowed her, that was her. That's the only thing she had to think of. How do I get to 10 million? That's the only question she had to ask. And everything that she saw, whether it was a blog post, video or something like she was looking for that answer. Does this help me get to 10 million? Does this help? I don't know her, but I'm assuming, like that's the process that happens. So if you're not asking yourself now, like for those of you who aren't doing $10 million a year, try it. Try asking that question whenever you catch yourself, just kind of like at a stop sign or whatever, with that moment, let your brain chew on that question. How do I get to blank? Let's call it 10 million and give yourself a couple of weeks, don't force an answer, and watch the things that start to pop into your head. You're like, oh, shoot, that's actually a really good idea. How come I didn't think of that sooner because you weren't asking the question. So that'd be a little bit of advice for scale. And I guess you know another piece of advice would be, I don't know the skill level of everybody on this but entrepreneurship, for it is a journey. It's a marathon. It's certainly not an event that occurs, right? So for those of you who haven't made the breakthrough yet, or even a million dollar business, sounds like it might be a stretch, the people that are doing that number now, the people that have achieved the things that you want, that you're aspiring for, they were where you are right now, confused, uncertain, whatever, whatever those of you who are just getting started may feel. So my advice would be, do exactly what they did, and be be do have you be the thing that you want to be, and you start doing the activities, and you will have that result. It may feel weird at first. It may feel like I'm a phony. I'm a fake. I'm not that person. I'm not smart enough, rich enough, I don't have the resources. I'm not whatever excuse you've got. Just like, let those things keep playing, but take the next step, right? And eventually you're going to be able to look back and go, damn, he was right. I've made it some little bit of rah rah advice there,

Norm Farrar 18:26
but a little rah rah. But, you know, this is interesting, because I go out, I used to go out to a lot of events, and certain events, it's almost like building a brand culture. Or corporate culture is that you have this anticipation of success, and by getting the right people, the right company, the right people, always drilling that message into the course or the event, you go around and you start talking to people, and it's not uncommon to say, Oh, this person's doing, you know, $500,000 a year, a million dollars a year, and eight figure seller. And there's, there could be a lot of new people there, but the people that are doing it are really doing a good job. And then I've gone to events where the products been out there for over a year. Product is on the water. The highest person I see is making $5,000 a month. And it's just sort of a completely different message that the the course couldn't it just didn't have the management or the trainers to get that message out there, to tell people, you can do it and to get them. It's not impossible. I know so many people out there that are very successful. Success could be $50,000 a month. It could be 10,000 depending on who you are, but I know a lot of millionaires out there that made it and not doing it that hard, it's a struggle. You've got to work, and especially if. You're going to go over a million and you've got to get these processes in place. So I don't know if you've ever noticed that as well, but depending on the trainer, depending on the course, you've got a way different outcome coming out of different events.

Chris Daigle 20:13
Yeah, you know, I think it could be traced back to the narrative that's being used by each of the instructors. If there's an instructor and his worldview is that $100,000 a month is crushing it, and you go someplace else where everybody else in the room is listening to somebody who's saying, Okay, guys, here's how you get to a million a month, the outcome from those cultures, those audience, those brands, are going to be completely different. So I think it kind of goes back to where that instructor T Harv Eker called it your financial thermostat, right? Like, like, how high or low each instructor's financial thermostat is is really going to determine how uncomfortable they're willing to get around big numbers and that sort of thing. And guys, it's just a number, right? Yeah.

Norm Farrar 21:00
But I guess, I guess one of the things that you just touched on it you really do have to, don't you hate this expression, but you got to know. You really do have to know your numbers to understand growth, and even, like Tim, Tim Francis, great guy, he's got this mini course, just knowing your numbers. You don't have to be an accountant, but you've got to understand at least that to grow your business. If you can't read a P L or a balance sheet, or if you don't understand cash flow, that is an issue. We're not here to talk about that today, but you know, if you can take a, you know, go on to what is it? It used to be lynda.com, now it's learn dot LinkedIn or something. Just take a bloody course on understanding you know your financial numbers, and that will help with growth as well. You know

Chris Daigle 21:51
that was that's another thing where I see it. Entrepreneurs have a lot of resistance. And I'll tell you a quote. I'm not sure the exact quote, something along the lines of Warren Buffet, saying, unless you know how to read the scoreboard, how? How do you know if you're when? Right? So, and the scoreboard in business, I mentioned it earlier, but arithmetic is not an opinion. A million dollars in China is a million dollars in Chicago, right? Like so if you're not able to read the scoreboard, which is the cash flow statement and the balance sheet, if you're not able to read those, you don't know what the score is truly in the game of business. And there's another, I don't know what you'd call him a wise old man named Keith Cunningham, and he has a quote that something along the lines of business is too important of a sport for you to learn by trial and error. Okay, very powerful statement to me, like, like, this is business. If there's a way that we can borrow on somebody else's success to compress the curve a resource to make things easier, like, don't do this with brute force. There's a plan. Do it. Don't do it by trial and error. Do it with intention, and business gets a lot easier. So, but that's a big tip. Yeah, if you guys aren't, there's so many free resources in 10 or 15 minutes, you would be functionally capable of being able to look at the three key documents in a business to understand its financial position, right? It's not complicated, but for whatever reason, entrepreneurs, just like, I'll let somebody else do that, or I'm not even going to look at it at all. I'm just gonna, I'm too busy. Yeah, and not, dude, that's, that's your numbers. Like, that's why we're doing this thing exactly.

Norm Farrar 23:29
I just, I say this a lot, I hope I don't say it too much, but I know we, we brought on a client once, and they did over $10 million a year, and they were ecstatic, and they puffed their chest out, and then we looked at their numbers, and they lost 100,000 Yeah. So, yeah, go Puff out your chest now.

Unknown Speaker 23:50
Go watch a YouTube video first on how Right, right?

Norm Farrar 23:53
So let's talk about simple mistakes that people make. So we've talked about going and working, you know, get that number what you want kind of work backwards. What are some mistakes that people are making that they can avoid? Sure? This was

Chris Daigle 24:09
taught to me a long time ago by rich shepherd, and it was this concept of that as entrepreneurs, let's say we've got three projects, five projects going, right? We got this one, this one, this one. What Rich was suggesting is that we start a and finish a and then move on to B. Because what ends up happening if you're not doing that, if you're not closing the loops, and your your business projects, you've got a bunch of open loops. And what ends up happening is that, like a laser, your focus, right laser is just light. If I focus it, I can burn with it. If I diffuse that focus of light. I can read by it. You know, it's it's benign. Same thing with your focus. As an entrepreneur, if you're focused on one project singularly and seeing it complete before you start something else, it will happen. And watch what happens over the course of a year. Let's don't measure it like you know, who's ahead this week? Who got more stuff done? Let's look at it over the course of a year. If I've. Started a and finished a and repeated that process. Maybe I only got three projects done. You as the other entrepreneur, you probably don't have any of them fully fleshed out, like maybe some of them are working, but you've got a lot of open loops, and as a result, the you're introducing your anxiety into your life. That is not like running a business is already challenging. We don't need to enter introduce anxiety by making poor decisions. And that poor decision would be lose the shiny object syndrome. We all know what that is. Create a discipline for yourself. That is, I'm going to start and finish this thing once this thing has made its first buck, then I'm going to go and look for the next shiny object. But let's don't chase four or five rabbits at once, focus on one and finish it. That's the biggest tip for any entrepreneur who wants to be successful, in my mind, right?

Norm Farrar 25:49
Shiny objects can definitely take your eye off the ball. And the other thing too is a lot of new people. They decide to go for the masses. They pay $400 for this mastermind. $400 $300 I went to Ben Cummings Launch Pad once, and, you know, I was talking to a couple of people, and it was $12,000 for the product, the app, and I talked to another person who product was on the water, and they were spending over $3,000 a month on tools and and masterminds. Now, I do believe and this is interesting, because all the guests that we've had on, I know this guy, and it's either entrepreneurs or it's, you know, it's just interesting people, the one thing, the common denominator, and I think that this is important with this is get a mentor. Yeah, you know, what do you believe in mentors? How can they help you grow your business?

Chris Daigle 26:50
So it's this concept of compressing the learning curve. Again, I mentioned that quote by Keith Cunningham about don't do business by trial and error. How you avoid that is, you say, hey, you've got, you know, you're further along than I am on this trail. How do I get where you are? And they're gonna say, Don't do this. Definitely do this. Call call this guy, call her. She'll help you with that and make sure you hire this like they'll give you everything you need that otherwise, without the mentor, let's take a look at the economics of that. That was a this, this mastermind war room. I think it's about 30 grand a year, right? Sounds like a lot of money. However, if I can go in there and at the scale of business where I typically operate, I can find somebody who's like, Oh, dude, do not do that. Trust me, we did that. We tried it three different ways. This is the way that works in the businesses that I operate like, $30,000 that was that that saved me, you know, years. Because here's the thing, Money comes and goes, but time only goes. So if you're like, I'm going to save my money and not work with a mentor or an advisor and just, I'll figure it out on my own. That's time that you're losing. And again, it does not come and go. Time only goes, get with the mentor or a peer group that has achieved more than you have, and leverage them to compress your your learning curve, your success curve, the whole deal.

Norm Farrar 28:15
War Room is great, waiting for the invite. But anyways, eo is also another great organization where you can, you go in, you will, I'm not sure what the I think it's a million and a half you have to have in sales right now. But anyways, you go in there, you have these monthly meetings, but then you have this form, and the form is non competing people that you can absolutely 100% trust. My form group is 26 years old, 26 years old, and I remember having horrible like there was, there was an experience that happened where it was just horrible. I was going to be going under i It was terrible. It was the worst. You don't want to go through it. I called up my form. They met on a Sunday. We sat around for the whole day, worked out a game plan, and then I was able to issue it, start going, you know, going forward, got through the situation. And, you know, I owe it all to them. But anyways, that's, you know, getting that mentor, getting into something like EO, or, you know, if you're, if you're lucky enough, into the war room, it's, you know, heard great things about it. But also, you know, I want to go back, and it's funny, because you and I have two friends. Well, we probably have a lot of friends in common. We have, we have Kathy and Rob. Kathy came on a couple of weeks ago, and she's an organizer. She's putting out this book for remote organization entrepreneurs how to how to keep their life in order. One of the things she said was what you just touched on a little bit, just about two. Minutes ago, and that was getting through the Task, Task A to task, you know, Task B and organizing your life. Go in, plan your day, get the task A out of the way. Go on to task, you know, B's and C's and just have it laid out on your calendar. So, you know, plan it out as an appointment. Like, I'm anal about this. I have, like, when I'm going to answer my emails, when I'm going to go take a walk. If you take a look at my calendar, it's just color coded every 1520 or every 15 or 30 minutes. It's but that's what you you need to do, is keep organized,

Chris Daigle 30:39
yeah, otherwise, the day gets away from you, and you're like, you get life out of week at life gets away from you. Yeah, right.

Norm Farrar 30:46
And especially remote, a touch off topic, but remote, I remember when I first brought my company back into the home, which was years ago, I had to do like traffic in Toronto was getting horrible. Instead of 45 minutes, it was an hour and a half where I had to go. The only thing I could do was smoke cigars in the car, there and back. But I didn't mind that part of it. But anyways, what I found is that I slowly started watching TV, and, you know, all of a sudden Judge Judy twice a day was, you know, creeping in, and it's very hard to focus when you're doing something remote. So you have to be disciplined, right?

Chris Daigle 31:31
Yeah, so that's a thing that you have to create the discipline of discipline, which is tough, but here's, here's what I did early on to make sure that that wasn't a problem and it wouldn't be distraction. I associated massive amounts of pain with me not getting stuff done, like not completing my tasks. So, like, even now, 20 years on, of doing a remote operation, I, like, I have a visceral, like, a physical reaction, if it's the middle of the day and I catch myself doing something that's but I take bike rides in the middle of day, but I'm not doing it to goof around. I'm doing it because I'm thinking, so it's different. But, yeah, like you, you have to know that if you work from home, yet you don't produce that. You will not have a home to work from in the future, like you really. I look at it, I get it down to the is this food that's being taken from my children's plates? Like that's how, how emotionally attached I am to not being disciplined. It's an unusual approach, but for me, it's worked because I, like, I can't if there's something that needs to get done, I can't goof around like, I have to knock it out, and then I'm, you know, but absolutely, if you don't have the discipline, guys, it's going to be tough. So here's what you do. You create an accountability partner that's also remote and or something along those lines. Google, right? Creating accountability working remote. The guys from base camp put out a book few years back called remote work. I think great book to give you some some structures and frameworks to to work remotely. Big change for a lot of folks. But trust me, create the discipline. Your life will be amazing. There's nothing like the freedom that comes with like, who am I going to be today? How far am I going to take this thing today?

Norm Farrar 33:28
Right? Yeah, and check out Kathy Burns's book. So that's going to be launching very soon, I think, within the next couple of weeks. And by the way, I just got to give a shout out to my old buddy from seventh Toronto, Dave apperley, so I'll say this to you, Dave, line, Bubble, bubble. Line, I think you'll know what that means. So anyway, let's get on to and I'm gonna put you on the spot. I don't know you can do this. Just 12345, if you can't, maybe shoot something over after, but if you could give a breakdown, step by step, five things, three things, whatever you can think of, of what people can do to get their business in line for scaling, what would those three or five things be sure,

Chris Daigle 34:17
and I can do this quick. If you go out there, and you google this word Sandor, s, a, n, d, O, R, it's a term that Frank Kern came up with, and it's basically, it's an analysis that you can do a holistic analysis on the sales and marketing of your business, and it's a very thorough checklist process, and it's you just like you identify, oh, I'm not doing that. I don't have that. Those aren't my numbers. And it makes it very easy for you to just take that checklist, after a Sandor process and apply those fixes to your business. You'll see immediate growth there. Is it going to 10x your business? Probably not, but it's he's very big on this concept of stabilize first, then Let's optimize what we've got. It, and then let's focus on expand. So if you can stabilize and optimize and expand, you follow that protocol, you're going to be in great shape to grow your business. But it's going to start with a deep dive on, do I have an upsell, a down sell? If I you know, if I don't have a down sell, do I have a follow up, like all of the little, little micro bits of marketing that can occur on a funnel. Do a deep dive and ask yourself, or have somebody else, Find a buddy, say, Look, man, funnel, hack my stuff and tell me where I'm dropping the ball or what you would do better. But that's the key. It's not about you coming up with the newest product. It's not yet. It's not about the first thing you have to do is stabilize what you've got, or else you're going to be running, you know, like shooting getting a little too close to the sun, and then now you're back washing bottles again, coming up with a new idea. Let's avoid that by stabilize, optimize and expand using sand or method.

Norm Farrar 35:54
Simple, simple to the point, very good. Yeah. Well, now let's turn the subject on to my favorite subject, covid 19. All right, so covid is kicking around. It's affecting everybody. Luckily, I'm in E commerce, so it hasn't affected me. Too bad. But are there any anything that you can say about covid, either if people are failing, I guess this is it, if people are failing and they're in E commerce with covid 19, any advice?

Chris Daigle 36:27
Yes, one of the things that I've done during this time is really cranked up my acquisition activities. So there are this is a great time for those who have the wherewithal and the prowess to be able to grow through acquisition, to reach out to those people who are having hard time and throw them a lifeline, which is essentially synergy. Okay, so. But for those of you who are having a tough time with this, other people are not find out why. What are they doing that you're not well, they're bigger. They're got more cash to borrow. What that's not going to be yet. It's going to be, they're doing something. It's either the way they engage with their clients, that's that's having people come back to them. It's going to be, maybe, maybe they're, they're paid marketing. It's something so what your job to do is, as a business owner, who may not be thriving right now is investigate what are like you may be smarter than than she is, or he is that's doing better than you, but it doesn't matter. They're doing something. There's a habit they've got, there's a process they've got. It's, and it's usually not like they've cracked the code. It's, it's the basics. They're usually doing some foundational stuff for business that you being an entrepreneur, you were like, Oh, I don't need to worry about that. I don't need to worry about a plan. I'm just going to go, like, whatever it is they're doing, figure out what it is and apply it to your business to at least stabilize what you've got. There will be an end to this. Who knows what the landscape is going to look like after this is over. There's been a lot of money introduced into the global economy. I you know, I don't know what that's going to do with pricing and that sort of thing, but I think for everybody listening to this, you have the best like, you're in a great spot. You don't have to go show up every morning and unlock the door and hope somebody wears their mask in your shop, right? You can do this stuff like, this is your time. So if you're not thriving like we've made it very easy by introducing covid into the landscape. We made it very easy for E commerce people to get a captive audience. So if you're not thriving right now, man, it's not you're just missing some piece of the formula. Find out what it is from somebody who's got it.

Norm Farrar 38:41
One of the other things that I look at too, for successful businesses, there's two types a business that has and the ownership or the management have great intentions, or they're action oriented. And they also, like even the people that I know and that I align with, they seem to be all action oriented. So if I hear people whining and crying, usually I find out that, why didn't you take the steps? Why didn't you move on it? You've got to act, you know, quickly, get get going. Find out, like you just said, Find out why, and then act on it. If you're going to sit back and have great intentions, well, that's what your paycheck is going to

Unknown Speaker 39:21
be. A big, great, fat intention, yep, yep.

Norm Farrar 39:24
So, all right, we're coming to the end of the podcast. Any last pieces of advice that you like to give?

Chris Daigle 39:32
Yes, you can do this. You're going to encounter challenges as an entrepreneur just tomorrow's a new day, like for everybody going through this time right now, like there is, you may feel like you don't have support. You're working from home and blah, blah, blah or whatever. Like, norm is creating these communities in these environments so that you don't have to be alone. Like, right now is a great time for you to be plugging into anything that he's doing, so that. Uh, you know, you're hearing how other people are coping with the same situation, like, globally, we're all dealing with the same stuff. Some people doing better with it than others. If you're having a hard time, reach out and find out how they're managing kids and spouse and work and, you know, all of those types of things. But that'd be my advice. You can do

Norm Farrar 40:20
this very good and just and I have gone through hell and back when it's come to all sorts of things, from huge failures to just doing things wrong. You know, if I had the old hindsight and one of the things, if you're in this situation and you're worried about going going forward, like risk management, maybe you're it's too stressful, or maybe you're stressed out right now, you know, I've been kicked between the legs so many times that what's another kick? So 20 years ago, you know, which gave me bleeding ulcers on certain things that I'd be up all night throwing up, you know, just just thinking that the world was going to end. If I look back at it now, it was just another day in paradise. You know, you get used to it. So don't freak out about stress. Stress isn't a bad thing, it's what and how you manage it.

Chris Daigle 41:14
Yeah, and the last bit of advice I can share on stress is, I had a mentor tell me, the more stress you can handle, the more money you'll make. It's true. Yeah, it's true.

Norm Farrar 41:28
All right, Chris, so let's do this. Thank you for being on the podcast. I can't wait to get you on the next one. How do people get a hold of you?

Chris Daigle 41:40
My social profiles are probably the easiest way LinkedIn, if you if you look down here, Dr Daigle, is how I'm known in the industry. My name is Chris, but they call me Dr Daigle. So I'm on Facebook and I'm on LinkedIn. I don't do a lot on Instagram. I don't know if I've ever been on Tiktok, but if you reach out and just say, Hey, I saw you on norms thing, had a question. Wanted to connect what happy to connect with anybody happy to answer any questions you guys may have. It's a privilege to be able to be on something like this with the community that norms assembled and be able to help. So please lean on me if you need it.

Norm Farrar 42:16
All right. So thank you for everyone for joining us today on Facebook and YouTube. Like we said, we're going to be posting everything on the new website, lunch with Norm, and please give us your comments. We put a lot of time and effort into it, and we think we came out with a winner in at least the graphic side, hopefully with the podcast side as well. So again, Chris, thanks for joining us, and please join us, Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, lunch with norm at noon, eastern standard time you.