Detailed Notes
In this episode, we wrap up our season focused on building better businesses with insights you can apply today.
Join hosts Rob Broadhead and Michael Meloche as they reflect on the most impactful strategies, lessons, and challenges from this season of the Building Better Developers podcast. From work-life balance and automation to hiring, planning, and leadership, this recap hits all the key themes that help tech entrepreneurs and consultants grow sustainable, scalable businesses.
🛠 Topics include: • Working on your business, not just in it • Avoiding burnout and recognizing fatigue • The value of unplugging to reset • Balancing remote work and company culture • Building the right systems for growth
⏱️ Timestamps 00:00 Pre-show 01:00 Podcast Intro 04:30 Season wrap-up review 20:00 Podcast wrap-up 21:30 Bonus material
👉 Subscribe for more insights on business development, tech consulting, and personal growth for developers and founders.
🔗 Listen to the full season: https://www.youtube.com/@develpreneur 🌐 Visit us at: https://develpreneur.com/ 🌐 Episode recap: https://develpreneur.com/building-better-businesses-podcast-summary/
#BuildingBetterBusinesses #DeveloperPodcast #SmallBusinessGrowth #WorkLifeBalance #TechLeadership #Entrepreneurship #PodcastRecap #BusinessDevelopment
Transcript Text
[Music] Collab recording in progress. We have clicked the record button. So we are going to do a this is the last one. will be our summary uh overview of the season building better businesses and then we're going to talk about our next season which we'll leave that as a surprise when we get to that point. Let's see if I can get that out a little bit. How's the audio? We good? It sounds good on your side. How's mine? Okay, perfect. Excellent. Because I'm just got my mic back, but now it's like it's desk mounted. So hopefully I don't bang anything and screw it up along the way. All right. Well, that means we will just dive right into it with a little three, a two. Well, hello and welcome back. We are continuing and not only that, but wrapping up another season. This is building better developers. It's the developer podcast. We are wrapping up the season of building better businesses. I am just getting started with my introduction. My name is Rob Broadhead, one of the founders of developer and also a founder of RB Consulting, where we help you do technology better. The whole point is to come in, understand your business, talk to you about your business and how we can find ways to leverage technology to help you do business better. This is whether you are, you know, a very big established business and you've just got this sprawl of stuff and you need to simplify that down so you can sort of reign in and have control over what you have or whether you are a brand new startup and you're just trying to figure out what's out there and what I can do and all places in between. Our goal, we sit down, we have a a technology assessment just like you would do like maybe your accountant comes in once a year or something like that. Talk to you about your business, what you have, some of the places you can go, help you maybe either provide or help you build a technology roadmap and then figure out the way forward. Whether that's us working with you to implement it or you taking that road map and running with it on your own. Good thing, bad thing. Um, there's been a lot going on lately. Uh, let's see. That's a it's a really interesting one. So last night it was a went to a show and it was actually a show as part of a rodeo which sort of the bad thing was I was not looking to go to the rodeo. I was just looking to go to the show. So that was I guess the bad thing of it. The good thing is is that the rodeo was actually entertaining. It was actually a really good time. So it turned out to be a great evening. So, even though there was like this little tiny bad thing, it turned into a really good thing. Just like this little tiny introduction Michael's going to give is going to turn out to be a great thing. Go for it, Mike. Hey, everyone, my name is Michael Malashsh. I'm one of the co-founders of Developer, Building Better Developers. I'm also the founder of Envision QA, where we partner with businesses to help you solve your technology problems. be it through software assessments, building custom applications or helping you find the right software to do the job. At the end of our help, you will have a your business should be more streamlined and hopefully you'll have better return on investment from your software instead of working for your software. Good thing, bad thing. Um kind of mixed this week. So like uh most consultants and that we tend to have a homebased business most of the time. We can work anywhere and for the last 3 4 years I've had impeccable internet and we've had some really bad storms lately and everything's been great but all of a sudden in the middle of important sales calls everything died. Like I lost sales service, I lost internet, everything gone. And when you have a stack calendar it you freak out. you're like crap, what do I do? So, uh the good thing of that is uh thankfully Jackson has a wei work type place called the co and I was able to hop in my car, get over there and be back up in about 30 minutes. So, the good and bad is we can work anywhere but we do need internet. So we are wrapping up another season uh season of building better businesses and we have covered a lot of ground in this uh this season and I think hopefully with the challenges and things like that we have given you guys some some good things to work on to to go back review and you know make your business better essentially make it build a better business. uh whether it is short-term kind of some of the more tactical kinds of things of just making sure that you've got like you know stuff in line to get your work done. You're keeping track of the stuff that needs to be done. Um you know better customer service or more long runs long-term things like planning out uh growth strategies and things like that. When do you go hire or how do you bring in consultants and things like that. So, it's a again as a you know a followup to the prior season where we really had we've had challenges every week. I don't know if we're going to continue that or not going into the next season. But first, I do want to look back on the the challenges and I guess I'm going to throw out to you uh and I'll give you I'll give you an example is like what do you what was one of the challenges that we threw out there that you know that was one that's like really I don't know hit home with you things like that. And one of them I will just go back to one of them we talked about early on was reviewing your your marketing side of stuff your you know your social calendar social media those kinds of things sort of your your general like you know polishing up cleaning the dust and the cobwebs off your website and some of your materials because it's one of those things that when I looked at it I was like I really need to you know I'm due for an update. How about yourself? Was there any challenge that stuck out to you? Yeah. So, some of the ones that stuck out for me uh definitely came around kind of like the automation, you know, uh you know, focusing on your business, resetting because a lot of times we get stuck working in our business, not working on our business. And I had gone through a period of month where I had been so heads down writing code, working with customers that I had neglected a lot of the uh business side of things like financials, taxes, and that fun stuff. So, it's like you had to rip the band-aid off and get it done. Um, and the only way I was able to really do that was to kind of reset, refocus, turn off all those, you know, notification popups, email, all the distractions that were keeping me from really doing the things I needed to be doing. as I was working in the business writing the software but kind of the other important things for the business again like you know like you said like social media reviews um marketing reviews uh looking for talent because you know at some point I need to figure out how I can extract myself from some parts of the business so that I can build and grow other parts of the business. So, I've spent some time uh but the big one was really, you know, kind of resetting and focusing more on what needs to be done, kind of your get it done approach and focusing on the lists. Yeah, I think that really is um particularly when you're starting out and then particularly if you're you're very much a uh a hands-on part of your business, whether you're a developer or I think you run into the same thing if you're a you know like baked goods or custom um like craft goods and things like that like you're building really cool windmills or something like you know there the things where it requires your skill and your time I think is those are probably the biggest challenge and I think actually software developers maybe a little less so because we can find other people that can do that can write code that can solve the problems. It's a matter of us shifting our focus so that we you know one write better requirements and write a better uh you know roadmap essentially for like what needs to be done a list of things that needs to be done but then also we've got to figure out where are you where do we really add a a value to it and where are we uh more of a commodity for lack of a better term like what are the things we're doing that's like we could get somebody else to do it and it's going to be it's not going to take away from our time and it's going to allow us, like you said, that allows us then to free up and work on growing the business as opposed to being in the business so much. And it's really, really hard. I I don't think there's anywhere I've ever gone that's a uh business, you know, books and blogs and podcasts and stuff like that where this hasn't come up somewhere along the way where it's just basically that's a challenge you're going to have and whoever can those that can find a way to find that balance are the ones that are going to be most like likely to succeed. And I think that's where the challenge for that was where that challenge sort of spoke to me is it really is getting back to uh for myself what works is having some sort of a schedule having some sort of a regular touch base on that. Uh, I went back like I think the day we did that like right after the podcast I went and I slapped a bunch of calendar blocked out pieces on my calendar and I had to play around with a little bit because I didn't want it to be completely unavailable but I put them tentative or whatever it is so that at least to me I look at my calendar and I see that I've got these things blocked off. This is what I should be working on. And if I don't, then I have the bonus of which one of the things I do is I'll just like drag if I didn't get it done today, I will drag it over tomorrow and fill a spot. And if I don't have a spot, you know, eventually it moves into like, okay, I'm maybe working on Saturday or something like that because I need to keep that kind of stuff going. Now, it helps that I now have somebody I have an operations person and she will whip me on a regular basis and say, "Hey, you haven't, you know, you haven't done this, you haven't done that." Uh, but she sometimes gets c called into the business as well. So it's like it was one of those we had a little bit too much time in the business and then we're like oh crud we got to jump out and we got to work on the business a little bit more. So I think those kinds of things there's like one of these little things that we've talked about over the years now that do really help I think for me they really help with these bigger things such as that. Is there anything else that sort of like or maybe an episode or something that sort of stood out to you this season? Yeah, because this season, interestingly enough, uh you know, it's been business has been very busy. So, some of the episodes really resonated uh especially, you know, taking breaks, you know, and resetting because, you know, we uh we kind of talked about that in episode uh 22, but then we also talked about um uh where was it? uh the work life balance strategies back in episode 10 where I think the combination of the two challenges really helps u but I still struggle with that because like you said you know if we don't get the work done we keep moving it over because we have to get it done but that takes time from somewhere else so you got to be very conscious of are you being busy are you getting working on what you need to get done and then the other thing is are you listening to your body? Are you mentally or physically fatigued to the point that you're not getting your work done because you physically just can't do it. You're just spinning your wheels and wasting time. And I found that a couple of times where if I just unplugged for a day or two, I felt guilty as hell doing it, but at the end of it, I was more productive. Uh kind of like a full reset. But there's still days where, you know, you do have to get it done. And it's it is a constant challenge. you know, you you always want to make sure you're providing, you know, quality services to your customers. You want to make sure that you're constantly getting your work done, but at the same token, you do need to take care of yourself. If you don't take care of yourself, it's like a car. If you don't change the oil, eventually the motor is going to blow up. So, you have to take care of yourself. And that was one of the biggest things that I still struggle with, but I'm glad we touched on it because I think a lot of business owners, a lot of uh developers and consultants deal with this, but they don't know they're dealing with it unless it's kind of called out sometimes. Yeah. And I think that you you started that off with something I think is is good to note is that there are depending on what you're struggling with or what uh your challenges are or you know even some of your blind spots or whatever it is there's certain like combinations of challenges I think that really work together that we've you know covered over the season and sometimes a lot of times we did them in pairs but there are more than a few times that there would be something we would catch you there would be a challenge related to some area of weakness we'll just call it and then it would be five or six episodes later we'd have another one that would be some area of weakness or challenge. And so I think it is one of those that just sort of looking across the season and there'll be certain topics I think that probably will I I know there were for me and I think for most people that will speak more to what you know you want help with, you need guidance with or you need, you know, consulting with. And I do think it comes down to um from the really going into like you know posture and and burnout and some of those kinds of other things that we talked about. I think a lot of that stuff does come down to like you said it's it's listening to your body. It's understanding your rhythms. Uh and honestly a lot of it is really it helps me to push myself more on it but and some people have different ways but it's really figuring out what matters and what doesn't. There are things and sometimes it it really boils down to the 8020 rule and that's a little bit along the lines of what matters and what doesn't. It's like do I have to perfect this or do I just need to get it done? There's like, you know, there's there's certain things where it's like, you know, I don't need to go for the touchdown in this play. I just need a first down. You know, there's some things like that. And I I think when we make ourselves more aware of those kinds of things and aware of like getting to the end of the week and I just didn't have enough time. Those are kinds of things that I think for most of it that makes more likely that we're going to look back and go well why did I run out of time and sometimes it is. It's like this thing just took too long. Okay, then I you know that's going to cause some stuff to shift and that's okay. And eventually you know there's c or you know we'll have to cut something. We'll have to do something to make room because life happened, the world happened, business happened, whatever it happens to be. We have to adjust. And it's funny that we're now only a few hours, few hours, few years out of the COVID shutdowns where people were forced to do dramatically different stuff. And now we're, you know, some of us are already back to I can't lose a, you know, I can't lose a minute. I' I've got to like have everything, you know, scheduled out to the minute. I've got to get every every minute has to count things like that and it really doesn't there's we have to you know take a grain of salt with the times of the things we do and also you know sometimes it's just working with the customers and helping them to you know communicating to them to saying hey this is this happened sorry it's going to be a little delayed or or whatever it is. There are other ways sometimes to to solve the problem than the okay just work through the night kind of thing. You know, sometimes it's as simple as like instead of waiting till the night before the exam to study, maybe you start studying beforehand. There's it's the equivalent of that. And that's where it is. It's like if you work on in your business all the time, when you suddenly need to work on it, you probably don't have the the momentum and kinds of those kinds of things built up for it. Thoughts on that? Yeah, it it's as you were kind of talking through that, it made me think, you know, especially like from the co because we just got done talking about the whole remote versus in office thing. And it it's interesting to see industrywide across industries like just in the work market in general the shift in understanding between okay yes we can work from home we get a lot done at home but then oh we lose a certain amount of you know the inoff communications the interactions relationships and there's no easy or right way to do this. It all depends on your business. And the end goal though needs to be are you doing what's right for the business? Are you doing what's right for the customer? And are you doing what's right for your employees? Because if you don't really have all three of those, something's wrong in your business. Some either you're going to be losing talent, you're going to be losing customers, or you're just you're business is going to suffer because something isn't right. So, a lot of it needs to like you're going to go through seasons just like we do seasons of developer where we change kind of our theme of what we're going to be talking about. Everything we talked about with building a better business. Every episode we covered here can probably resonate with you from day to day. One episode might be more pressing this week, one episode might be more pressing to you next week. You may think one episode doesn't apply at all, but then 2 months, 3 months down the a year from now, you might hit that and be like, "Ah, now I understand what they're talking about." So regardless of what's going on in the world, you just have to understand that you need you and your business need to be flexible enough to kind of weather the seasons, weather what's going on. And I think we did a very good job covering a pretty comprehensive uh level of topics and challenges to get our viewers through their problems with their business or their challenges. Yeah, I think we went and it's we covered it. We we did great in our breadth. I think every one of these there's a you know, you could go deeper in in each of those topics. And so I think that's where we we leave it for you to build a better business is to look at where those topics speak to you essentially and for those go you know spend a little more time on it go a little deeper on it to make sure that you um are covering what you need to. I think I want to go back to that balance. I think there is in business just like people talk about work life balance. I think there is a a business business balance the you need to balance within the business the the needs of the business itself the needs of the employees and the needs of the customers. And this goes back to your why because that's going to help you figure out what that balance is. that gives you sort of a your north star essentially for those of us in us in the northern hemisphere hemisphere that gives you that to guide you to say hey am I am I serving my customers the way I want to am I solving their problems and not solving problems that they really don't have or they really don't care about am I serving the business or am I just doing you know filling out paperwork for the business and just just really helping the business grow or am I you know, going through the motions and keeping it going. Is this keeping my, you know, is this something that is going to help my customer, my employees, uh, grow and, you know, be happy and improve morale and have culture or is it something where it's just like they're it's building more of it. They just want to, you know, clock in, get a paycheck and move on. There's a lot of it's why business is challenging and why it is such a you know a draw to so many people that or certain types of people because there's a lot of there are a lot of problems there. There's a lot of things to solve and there's a lot of moving parts and they all impact each other. It's just like very complex software. There's a lot going on there. So, you know, if you're struggling with these, if you've gone through the season and you're like, gosh, every one of those episodes there's something that like that speaks to me. That's okay because probably almost by intent they should to some extent if you're you you should have some relation to those things. That being said, we get to wrap this up this episode and now this season. We don't really even know what the next season's going to be yet because we've got some ideas and I keep changing that in my head as we're going through it. So, we'll see how that pitches as we as we step into the next season. There will be an episode one and by that time by the end of that episode we'll know what that season is. I'll I'll give you that much. As always, this is the best time. Give us feedback. I love to get an email from info at to [email protected] or feedback whether it's just comments on the on the YouTube channel or on the podcast or go out to developer.com. Go out to our Facebook page. Hit us up at on xdevelopure. What did you think about this prior season? Were there, you know, some thoughts that come out of this season for yourself? And then also, do you have recommendations? Are there things that you would love to see us cover in next season or future seasons? We are, as always, we're always open to this kind of things. We are looking at some uh we talked about this for a while, but we're still looking for some interviews and things like that. I think we'll start pulling some of those in along with some of the other uh ideas that we have for next season, but I don't want to get ahead of myself because we'll figure that out in episode one next time around. As always, go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week, and we will talk to you next season. Bonus material. Any bonus thoughts on this season? I'll throw one out uh just because I ran across it recently. Uh if and I think we talked about finances in one of the episodes this season, but if you are looking for funding, reach out to your small business uh branch within your area. There are a lot of grants, maybe there's some local uh kind of programs or things that they can do to help your business grow. Uh just recently through a customer uh we were kind of segue introduced to a uh software school in Memphis where they potentially uh we can get candidates through them through a small business grant to help hire interns or help kind of promote uh you know training students for a particular uh career or vocation. So definitely reach out to your small local small business and see what they can offer. Don't try to go it alone or just check out the website. But really talking to people they within these small business uh programs uh they understand what these programs are and they will probably be able to tell you no this won't work for you or oh hey this is a better uh option for you. So yes, you can go do it on your own, surf the web, you know, read the websites, but it's better to actually talk to these people because there's things that the website may not highlight that could be perfect for your business. I guess I'm going to follow on that is that it's if you're a small business and you're struggling, I think that's great that you can, you know, like I said, talk to these organizations. It's good to get involved in them. There's going to be there's networking opportunities. There's resource opportunities. There's a lot of stuff that comes out of that. Same thing if you're a middle or even a larger sized businesses. Look at like the local colleges and some of those kinds of areas and definitely your chamber of commerce and those kinds of things because even though you're big doesn't mean there aren't ways that those those organizations can help you quite a bit. And I guess it really helps from a a networking marketing uh messaging kind of approach as well is to to get out there and get your name in front of people and to talk to people and have the conversations. It's not just sitting on a website and figuring out what they do for you. It's actually like talking to people, getting some feedback. I think that will help you a lot in and in a lot of different areas. You are going to find help through these conversations that you didn't expect you were going to get. you're going to stumble across somebody that's completely like a perfect match for a problem that you didn't even realize you needed to solve yet. You know, those kinds of things are basically it's just constantly opening doors looking for new opportunities. So, I highly recommend that you take advantage of the the resources that around you and I do this as somebody that does not take enough advantage of them and is it a it is a constant little like pull in the back of my head. It's like you need to take more advantage of these things. So, don't be a me. go out there and take more advantage of them. Once again, thank you for your time for not only this episode, but this whole season and the prior 23 or 24 seasons. I can't even keep track of season numbers anymore. Uh, as we are, yeah, we're steadily marching towards a thousand episodes. It is just insane that we're just like this thing's been cruising along for actually darn near a decade now and just we're going to keep on plugging along. Uh, I'm really excited to see what the next season's about because we haven't gotten there. So, tune in and before you know it, we will be into the next season, episode one. Go out there and have yourself a good one. We will talk to you next time around. [Music]
Transcript Segments
[Music]
Collab recording in progress. We have
clicked the record button. So we are
going to do a this is the last one. will
be our summary uh overview of the season
building better businesses and then
we're going to talk about our next
season
which we'll leave that as a surprise
when we get to that
point. Let's see if I can get that out a
little bit. How's the audio? We good? It
sounds good on your side. How's mine?
Okay, perfect. Excellent. Because I'm
just got my mic back, but now it's like
it's desk mounted. So hopefully I don't
bang anything and screw it up along the
way. All right. Well, that means we will
just dive right into it with a little
three, a
two. Well, hello and welcome back. We
are continuing and not only that, but
wrapping up another season. This is
building better developers. It's the
developer podcast. We are wrapping up
the season of building better
businesses. I am just getting started
with my introduction. My name is Rob
Broadhead, one of the founders of
developer and also a founder of RB
Consulting, where we help you do
technology better. The whole point is to
come in, understand your business, talk
to you about your business and how we
can find ways to leverage technology to
help you do business better. This is
whether you are, you know, a very big
established business and you've just got
this sprawl of stuff and you need to
simplify that down so you can sort of
reign in and have control over what you
have or whether you are a brand new
startup and you're just trying to figure
out what's out there and what I can do
and all places in between. Our goal, we
sit down, we have a a technology
assessment just like you would do like
maybe your accountant comes in once a
year or something like that. Talk to you
about your business, what you have, some
of the places you can go, help you maybe
either provide or help you build a
technology roadmap and then figure out
the way forward. Whether that's us
working with you to implement it or you
taking that road map and running with it
on your own. Good thing, bad thing.
Um, there's been a lot going on lately.
Uh, let's see. That's a it's a really
interesting one. So last night it was a
went to a show and it was actually a
show as part of a rodeo which sort of
the bad thing was I was not looking to
go to the rodeo. I was just looking to
go to the show. So that was I guess the
bad thing of it. The good thing is is
that the rodeo was actually
entertaining. It was actually a really
good time. So it turned out to be a
great evening. So, even though there was
like this little tiny bad thing, it
turned into a really good thing. Just
like this little tiny introduction
Michael's going to give is going to turn
out to be a great thing. Go for it,
Mike. Hey, everyone, my name is Michael
Malashsh. I'm one of the co-founders of
Developer, Building Better Developers.
I'm also the founder of Envision QA,
where we partner with businesses to help
you solve your technology problems. be
it through software assessments,
building custom applications or helping
you find the right software to do the
job. At the end of our help, you will
have a your business should be more
streamlined and hopefully you'll have
better return on investment from your
software instead of working for your
software. Good thing, bad thing. Um kind
of mixed this week.
So like uh most consultants and that we
tend to have a homebased business most
of the time. We can work anywhere and
for the last 3 4 years I've had
impeccable internet and we've had some
really bad storms lately and
everything's been great but all of a
sudden in the middle of important sales
calls everything died. Like I lost sales
service, I lost internet, everything
gone. And when you have a stack calendar
it you freak out. you're like crap, what
do I do? So, uh the good thing of that
is uh thankfully Jackson has a wei work
type place called the co and I was able
to hop in my car, get over there and be
back up in about 30 minutes. So, the
good and bad is we can work anywhere but
we do need internet.
So we are wrapping up another season uh
season of building better businesses and
we have
covered a lot of ground in this uh this
season and I think hopefully with the
challenges and things like that we have
given you guys some some good things to
work on to to go back review and you
know make your business better
essentially make it build a better
business. uh whether it is short-term
kind of some of the more tactical kinds
of things of just making sure that
you've got like you know stuff in line
to get your work done. You're keeping
track of the stuff that needs to be
done. Um you know better customer
service or more long runs long-term
things like planning out uh growth
strategies and things like that. When do
you go hire or how do you bring in
consultants and things like that. So,
it's a again as a you know a followup to
the prior season where we really had
we've had challenges every week. I don't
know if we're going to continue that or
not going into the next season. But
first, I do want to look back on the the
challenges and I guess I'm going to
throw out to you uh and I'll give you
I'll give you an example is like what do
you what was one of the challenges that
we threw out there that you know that
was one that's like really I don't know
hit home with you things like that. And
one of them I will just go back to one
of them we talked about early
on was reviewing your your marketing
side of stuff your you know your social
calendar social media those kinds of
things sort of your your general like
you know polishing up cleaning the dust
and the cobwebs off your website and
some of your materials because it's one
of those things that when I looked at it
I was like I really need to you know I'm
due for an update. How about yourself?
Was there any challenge that stuck out
to you? Yeah. So, some of the ones that
stuck out for me uh definitely came
around kind of like the automation, you
know, uh you know, focusing on your
business, resetting
because a lot of times we get stuck
working in our business, not working on
our business. And I had gone through a
period of month where I had been so
heads down writing code, working with
customers that I had neglected a lot of
the uh business side of things like
financials, taxes, and that fun stuff.
So, it's like you had to rip the
band-aid off and get it done. Um, and
the only way I was able to really do
that was to kind of reset, refocus, turn
off all those, you know, notification
popups, email, all the distractions that
were keeping me from really doing the
things I needed to be doing. as I was
working in the business writing the
software but kind of the other important
things for the business again like you
know like you said like social media
reviews um marketing reviews uh looking
for talent because you know at some
point I need to figure out how I can
extract myself from some parts of the
business so that I can build and grow
other parts of the business. So, I've
spent some time uh but the big one was
really, you know, kind of resetting and
focusing more on what needs to be done,
kind of your get it done approach and
focusing on the lists. Yeah, I think
that really is um particularly when
you're starting out and then
particularly if you're you're very much
a uh a hands-on part of your business,
whether you're a developer or I think
you run into the same thing if you're a
you know like baked goods or custom um
like craft goods and things like that
like you're building really cool
windmills or something like you know
there the things where it requires your
skill and your time I think is those are
probably the biggest challenge and I
think actually software developers maybe
a little less so because we can find
other people that can do that can write
code that can solve the problems. It's a
matter of us shifting our focus so that
we you know one write better
requirements and write a better uh you
know roadmap essentially for like what
needs to be done a list of things that
needs to be
done but then also we've got to figure
out where are you where do we really add
a a value to it and where are we uh more
of a commodity for lack of a better term
like what are the things we're doing
that's like we could get somebody else
to do it and it's going to be it's not
going to take away from our time and
it's going to allow us, like you said,
that allows us then to free up and work
on growing the business as opposed to
being in the business so much. And it's
really, really hard. I I don't think
there's anywhere I've ever gone that's a
uh business, you know, books and blogs
and podcasts and stuff like that where
this hasn't come up somewhere along the
way where it's just basically that's a
challenge you're going to have and
whoever can those that can find a way to
find that balance are the ones that are
going to be most like likely to succeed.
And I think that's where the challenge
for that was where that challenge sort
of spoke to me is it really is getting
back to uh for myself what works is
having some sort of a schedule having
some sort of a regular touch base on
that. Uh, I went back like I think the
day we did that like right after the
podcast I went and I slapped a bunch of
calendar blocked out pieces on my
calendar and I had to play around with a
little bit because I didn't want it to
be completely
unavailable but I put them tentative or
whatever it is so that at least to me I
look at my calendar and I see that I've
got these things blocked off. This is
what I should be working on. And if I
don't, then I have the bonus of which
one of the things I do is I'll just like
drag if I didn't get it done today, I
will drag it over tomorrow and fill a
spot. And if I don't have a spot, you
know, eventually it moves into like,
okay, I'm maybe working on Saturday or
something like
that because I need to keep that kind of
stuff going. Now, it helps that I now
have somebody I have an operations
person and she will whip me on a regular
basis and say, "Hey, you haven't, you
know, you haven't done this, you haven't
done that." Uh, but she sometimes gets c
called into the business as well. So
it's like it was one of those we had a
little bit too much time in the business
and then we're like oh crud we got to
jump out and we got to work on the
business a little bit more. So I think
those kinds of things there's like one
of these little things that we've talked
about over the years now that do really
help I think for me they really help
with these bigger things such as that.
Is there anything else that sort of like
or maybe an episode or something that
sort of stood out to you this season?
Yeah, because this season, interestingly
enough, uh you know, it's been business
has been very busy. So, some of the
episodes really resonated uh especially,
you know, taking
breaks, you know, and resetting because,
you know, we uh we kind of talked about
that in episode uh 22, but then we also
talked about um uh where was it? uh the
work life balance strategies back in
episode 10 where I think the combination
of the two challenges really helps u but
I still struggle with that because like
you said you know if we don't get the
work done we keep moving it over because
we have to get it done but that takes
time from somewhere else so you got to
be very conscious of are you being busy
are you getting working on what you need
to get done and then the other thing is
are you listening to your body? Are you
mentally or physically fatigued to the
point that you're not getting your work
done because you physically just can't
do it. You're just spinning your wheels
and wasting time. And I found that a
couple of times where if I just
unplugged for a day or two, I felt
guilty as hell doing it, but at the end
of it, I was more productive. Uh kind of
like a full reset. But there's still
days where, you know, you do have to get
it done. And it's it is a constant
challenge. you know, you
you always want to make sure you're
providing, you know, quality services to
your customers. You want to make sure
that you're constantly getting your work
done, but at the same token, you do need
to take care of yourself. If you don't
take care of yourself, it's like a car.
If you don't change the oil, eventually
the motor is going to blow up. So, you
have to take care of yourself. And that
was one of the biggest things that I
still struggle with, but I'm glad we
touched on it because I think a lot of
business owners, a lot of uh developers
and consultants deal with this, but they
don't know they're dealing with it
unless it's kind of called out
sometimes.
Yeah. And I think that you you started
that off with something I think is is
good to note is that there are depending
on what you're struggling with or what
uh your challenges are or you know even
some of your blind spots or whatever it
is there's certain like combinations of
challenges I think that really work
together that we've you know covered
over the season and sometimes a lot of
times we did them in pairs but there are
more than a few times that there would
be something we would catch you there
would be a challenge related to some
area of weakness we'll just call it and
then it would be five or six episodes
later we'd have another one that would
be some area of weakness or challenge.
And so I think it is one of those that
just sort of looking across the season
and there'll be certain topics I think
that probably will I I know there were
for me and I think for most people that
will speak more to what you know you
want help with, you need guidance with
or you need, you know, consulting with.
And I do think it comes down to um from
the really going into like you know
posture and and burnout and some of
those kinds of other things that we
talked about. I think a lot of that
stuff does come down to like you said
it's it's listening to your body. It's
understanding your rhythms. Uh and
honestly a lot of it is really it helps
me to push myself more on it but and
some people have different ways but it's
really figuring out what matters and
what doesn't. There are things and
sometimes it it really boils down to the
8020 rule and that's a little bit along
the lines of what matters and what
doesn't. It's like do I have to perfect
this or do I just need to get it done?
There's like, you know, there's there's
certain things where it's like, you
know, I don't need to go for the
touchdown in this play. I just need a
first down. You know, there's some
things like that. And I I think when we
make ourselves more aware of those kinds
of things and aware of like getting to
the end of the week and I just didn't
have enough time. Those are kinds of
things that I think for most of it that
makes more likely that we're going to
look back and go well why did I run out
of time and sometimes it is. It's like
this thing just took too long. Okay,
then I you know that's going to cause
some stuff to shift and that's okay. And
eventually you know there's c or you
know we'll have to cut something. We'll
have to do something to make room
because life happened, the world
happened, business happened, whatever it
happens to be. We have to adjust. And
it's funny that we're now only a few
hours, few hours, few years out of the
COVID shutdowns where people were forced
to do dramatically different
stuff. And now we're, you know, some of
us are already back to I can't lose a,
you know, I can't lose a minute. I' I've
got to like have everything, you know,
scheduled out to the minute. I've got to
get every every minute has to count
things like that and it really doesn't
there's we have to you know take a grain
of salt with the times of the things we
do and also you know sometimes it's just
working with the customers and helping
them to you know communicating to them
to saying hey this is this happened
sorry it's going to be a little delayed
or or whatever it is. There are other
ways sometimes to to solve the problem
than the okay just work through the
night kind of thing. You know, sometimes
it's as simple as like instead of
waiting till the night before the exam
to study, maybe you start studying
beforehand. There's it's the equivalent
of that. And that's where it is. It's
like if you work on in your business all
the time, when you suddenly need to work
on it, you probably don't have the the
momentum and kinds of those kinds of
things built up for it. Thoughts on
that?
Yeah, it it's as you were kind of
talking through that, it made me think,
you
know, especially like from the co
because we just got done talking about
the whole remote versus in office thing.
And it it's interesting to see
industrywide across industries like just
in the work market in general the shift
in understanding between okay yes we can
work from home we get a lot done at home
but then oh we lose a certain amount of
you know the inoff communications the
interactions relationships and there's
no easy or right way to do this. It all
depends on your business. And the end
goal though needs to
be are you doing what's right for the
business? Are you doing what's right for
the customer? And are you doing what's
right for your employees? Because if you
don't really have all three of those,
something's wrong in your business. Some
either you're going to be losing talent,
you're going to be losing customers, or
you're just you're business is going to
suffer because something isn't right.
So, a lot of it needs to like you're
going to go through seasons just like we
do seasons of developer where we
change kind of our theme of what we're
going to be talking
about. Everything we talked about with
building a better business. Every
episode we covered
here can probably resonate with you from
day to day. One episode might be more
pressing this week, one episode might be
more pressing to you next week. You may
think one episode doesn't apply at all,
but then 2 months, 3 months down the a
year from now, you might hit that and be
like, "Ah, now I understand what they're
talking about."
So regardless of what's going on in the
world, you just have to understand that
you need you and your business need to
be flexible enough to kind of weather
the seasons, weather what's going on.
And I think we did a very good job
covering a pretty comprehensive
uh level of topics and challenges to get
our viewers through their problems with
their business or their challenges.
Yeah, I think we went and it's we
covered it. We we did great in our
breadth. I think every one of these
there's a you know, you could go deeper
in in each of those topics. And so I
think that's where we we leave it for
you to build a better business is to
look at where those topics speak to you
essentially and for those go you know
spend a little more time on it go a
little deeper on it to make sure that
you um are covering what you need to. I
think I want to go back to that balance.
I think there is in business just like
people talk about work life balance. I
think there is a a business business
balance the you need to balance within
the business the the needs of the
business itself the needs of the
employees and the needs of the
customers. And this goes back to your
why because that's going to help you
figure out what that balance is. that
gives you sort of a your north star
essentially for those of us in us in the
northern hemisphere hemisphere that
gives you that to guide you to say
hey am I am I serving my customers the
way I want to am I solving their
problems and not solving problems that
they really don't have or they really
don't care about am I serving the
business or am I just doing you know
filling out paperwork for the business
and just just really helping the
business grow or am I
you know, going through the motions and
keeping it going. Is this keeping my,
you know, is this something that is
going to help my customer, my employees,
uh, grow and, you know, be happy and
improve morale and have culture or is it
something where it's just like they're
it's building more of it. They just want
to, you know, clock in, get a paycheck
and move on. There's a lot of it's why
business is challenging and why it is
such a you know a draw to so many people
that or certain types of people because
there's a lot of there are a lot of
problems there. There's a lot of things
to solve and there's a lot of moving
parts and they all impact each other.
It's just like very complex
software. There's a lot going on there.
So, you know, if you're struggling with
these, if you've gone through the season
and you're like, gosh, every one of
those episodes there's something that
like that speaks to me. That's okay
because probably almost by intent they
should to some extent if you're you you
should have some relation to those
things. That being said, we get to wrap
this up this episode and now this
season. We don't really even know what
the next season's going to be yet
because we've got some ideas and I keep
changing that in my head as we're going
through it. So, we'll see how that
pitches as we as we step into the next
season. There will be an episode one and
by that time by the end of that episode
we'll know what that season is. I'll
I'll give you that much. As always, this
is the best time. Give us feedback. I
love to get an email from info at to
[email protected] or feedback whether
it's just comments on the on the YouTube
channel or on the podcast or go out to
developer.com. Go out to our Facebook
page. Hit us up at on xdevelopure.
What did you think about this prior
season? Were there, you know, some
thoughts that come out of this season
for yourself? And then also, do you have
recommendations? Are there things that
you would love to see us cover in next
season or future seasons? We are, as
always, we're always open to this kind
of things. We are looking at some uh we
talked about this for a while, but we're
still looking for some interviews and
things like that. I think we'll start
pulling some of those in along with some
of the other uh ideas that we have for
next season, but I don't want to get
ahead of myself because we'll figure
that out in episode one next time
around. As always, go out there and have
yourself a great day, a great week, and
we will talk to you next
season. Bonus
material. Any bonus thoughts on this
season?
I'll throw one out uh just because I ran
across it recently. Uh if and I think we
talked about finances in one of the
episodes this season, but if you are
looking for funding, reach out to your
small business uh branch within your
area. There are a lot of grants, maybe
there's some local
uh kind of programs or things that they
can do to help your business grow. Uh
just recently through a customer uh we
were kind of segue introduced to a uh
software school in Memphis where they
potentially uh we can get candidates
through them through a small business
grant to help hire interns or help kind
of promote uh you know training students
for a particular uh career or vocation.
So definitely reach out to your small
local small business and see what they
can offer. Don't try to go it alone or
just check out the website. But really
talking to people they within these
small business uh programs uh they
understand what these programs are and
they will probably be able to tell you
no this won't work for you or oh hey
this is a better uh option for you. So
yes, you can go do it on your own, surf
the web, you know, read the websites,
but it's better to actually talk to
these people because there's things that
the website may not highlight that could
be perfect for your business.
I guess I'm going to follow on that is
that it's if you're a small business and
you're struggling, I think that's great
that you can, you know, like I said,
talk to these organizations. It's good
to get involved in them. There's going
to be there's networking opportunities.
There's resource opportunities. There's
a lot of stuff that comes out of that.
Same thing if you're a middle or even a
larger sized businesses. Look at like
the local colleges and some of those
kinds of areas and definitely your
chamber of commerce and those kinds of
things because even though you're big
doesn't mean there aren't ways that
those those organizations can help you
quite a bit. And I guess it really helps
from a a networking marketing uh
messaging kind of approach as well is to
to get out there and get your name in
front of people and to talk to people
and have the conversations. It's not
just sitting on a website and figuring
out what they do for you. It's actually
like talking to people, getting some
feedback. I think that will help you a
lot in and in a lot of different areas.
You are going to find help through these
conversations that you didn't expect you
were going to get. you're going to
stumble across somebody that's
completely like a perfect match for a
problem that you didn't even realize you
needed to solve yet. You know, those
kinds of things are basically it's just
constantly opening doors looking for new
opportunities. So, I highly recommend
that you take advantage of the the
resources that around you and I do this
as somebody that does not take enough
advantage of them and is it a it is a
constant little like pull in the back of
my head. It's like you need to take more
advantage of these things. So, don't be
a me. go out there and take more
advantage of them. Once again, thank you
for your time for not only this episode,
but this whole season and the prior 23
or 24 seasons. I can't even keep track
of season numbers anymore. Uh, as we
are, yeah, we're steadily marching
towards a thousand episodes. It is just
insane that we're just like this thing's
been cruising along for actually darn
near a decade now and just we're going
to keep on plugging along. Uh, I'm
really excited to see what the next
season's about because we haven't gotten
there. So, tune in and before you know
it, we will be into the next season,
episode one. Go out there and have
yourself a good one. We will talk to you
next time around.
[Music]