Business Consultant | The 4 Hour Work Week Myth

The four hour work week, is it truth or myth? Stick on all the way to the end of this video, I will get Josh [inaudible] founder of sprawl associates. Canada’s top rated CPA and north America’s most sought after fractional CFO and business consultant. To answer that question, welcome back to another episode here. My name is Desmond soon, and I’ve been a serial entrepreneur running multiple companies. And Josh is actually my CPA and fractional CFO. Josh is the founder of sprawling associates. Josh, welcome to the show. Thanks very much. Now, Josh, we have created the business consultant series for anyone joining us for the first time and do click on the I button up here. If you want to catch some of the other videos in which I’m actually going to pick Josh’s brain, you have sent in comments and questions. I’ve gathered those questions or comments, and I’ve even got a bit of the secret manuscript of Josh’s upcoming book that he’s about to release. So in this video, I’m going to ask those questions to Josh, pick his brain, and also answer some of your questions at the same time. Why should you pay attention all the way to the end of the video? Because Josh, over 10 years, you have been seeing businesses grow and fail and those 4% that succeed. And I’m sure if you’re watching this video and you’re an entrepreneur, or maybe just getting started, you want to pay attention to what Josh has to say in order to succeed. So Josh, let’s talk about the four hour workweek.

Oh boy. Oh boy. We

Like Tim first. I think he wrote a really interesting book and you know, for a short period of time there, I was kind of caught up in the four hour work week. Yes, yes. But what’s your take on that?

There’s some good principles in the book, you know how to batch tasks, you know, how to be more efficient. Um, but really it might’ve set entrepreneurship back a decade with the title really. Cause we know that people, they read titles, they don’t read the rest of the book. Right. Um, and really the statistical odds that you are going to build a million dollar business is infinitely low. As we know it’s about one in 5,000 to stack on, on top of it that you’re only going to work on that business four hours per week and hope that it works. Your odds are you might as well start buying lottery tickets. Um, it’s very, very unlikely that you are going to build a successful sustainable business over the longterm by working only four hours per week.

But wait a minute, Josh, hold on. Let me, let me clarify this. You mean I can’t be sitting on some beach with my laptop, my rented Lamborghini, you know, drink a pina colada. I just turn on my internet. I got some VA’s I, I put out some things and I make some money and I just go back and enjoy the rest of my life.

It’s just not statistically likely to happen. Right. And so, you know, this whole thing is about how do we beat Dion’s right. How do we stop playing the casino game of business and flip the odds and be the card counter at the blackjack table. So if you’re going to do that, that’s not likely going to work. Right. And one of, you know, one of the most powerful quotes that I put in my book, right, with a Gary Keller bulletins, he says time on a task, eventually beats every time, correct. Uh, time on a task, eventually beats talent every time. Right. Um, and so what’s very powerful is when you read into who Gary Keller is. Yeah. He’s the one who, the author of the book, the one thing author of the book, you know, but he made his money building, you know, the largest real estate firm. Right. And the real estate is like the, the stereotypical business owner who you think is on their cell phone, perpetually distracted. And, and you know, yet here he was, you know, advocating that, you know, it’s simply hole, hard time on a task over time that would eventually beat talent every single time.

Right. But the younger generation, these days, we all want quick, quick business consultant fixes. We want that magic pill. We want that 90 day, you know, give me, give me the three steps to make, you know, six figures or, you know, make a million dollars in 90 days.

It’s been there for years. I mean, everyone wants the five minute version, five minute apps version of business. Right, right. Um, you know, they want that, you know, device that you can buy on the infomercial linen will work quick. And it just, it, if it was like, if it was easy, everyone would do it. Right? Yeah. Entrepreneurs on average worked 63% more than their counterpart employees. Right? When you own a business, you essentially have two jobs. So you know what, you’re not just working in the business. You were now have to work on the business. And everyone wants to think that I can work on the business, but who is going to pay your mortgage while you’re working on the business for two or three years, till you have something that’s actually profitable, you need to be working in the business as an employee, as well as an employee to pay the bills. And then you’re working on the business, completely separate job with a completely different calendar to actually grow and scale and build

Those. No one’s ever mentioned that. Now I’m reading from your business consultant book here as well too. Josh, you say you, I’m going to read it a little bit from the paragraph here. I remember when I first started my accounting firm, I knew how to do the work, but I was ill-prepared as an organization to deliver the service. I did not have my terms of engagement, written note to formal engaged with clients. Tell us a bit more about the story, you know, uh, what did you do? And in that experience, because you were already a very successful account in the CPX

As a good CPA. Yes. Uh, I can provide to in quality tax and business consultant advice, but in my world I would solve a customer’s tax problem. And then I would prepare it in software. That was pre-installed on computers. For me, it would go off to an administration department that administration department would, would output a year-end package, gather signatures, have contractual agreements. I did none of that. Right. I did none of that. I was the guy who got the credit from solving the problem. But without that at rest of the administrative team, everything would fall apart. There was no deliverable service. Right. And so when you start a business, you’re going to drastically all of those systems and processes and templates that have to be set up for the business to function successfully inefficiently. Correct.

What would you then advise someone who’s just getting started? What are some critical systems or processes that they need to pay attention to? If someone is, let’s say under a hundred thousand in gross revenues, and we’ll talk about those above in just a second,

What should they do? Well, number one, let’s sell something to someone. So let’s have an actual, you know, whether it’s an invoice sheet or checkout form on your website or, you know, a standard terms of engagement, right. Let’s have that available because you know, nothing happens until someone sells something. Right. Right. So let’s have a way to actually, you know, put a proposal in front of a client and give it know name on the bottom there. And let’s actually start doing work. That will be the first thing. Then you have to start, you know, figuring out what are the systems and processes that you can remove yourself from the administrative functions of the business. Right? How do you not answer the phone? Um, how do you, you know, not book appointments, things like that, right? Um, they’re not the value adds entrepreneurs. Think they have to do it. And it shouldn’t know Jeff. Basles never answered the phone. Amazon.

I don’t think that would happen. I don’t read this. I’ll put some business

Owners literally pride themselves on that. They answer the phone in their own business. It’s like, that’s a limiting belief. Not, not a value add. Understood.

All right, now let’s talk about time for a second. Josh. I think a lot of entrepreneurs underestimate, I was already getting to hit up that this started this video. When you said I have to be an employee in my own company and then work on the business. So how much time should the average entrepreneur getting started or even a mid level entrepreneur, but has never realized this. What is the average time?

The minimum you’re going to expect to work? And this is not based on my feelings. This is actually based on, on cold, hard staffed, Harvard business review. So, so forth that you’re going to have to work at least 60 hours a week, okay. To make this, to make it go that

Business 12 hours a day, 12 hours. Let’s think about it.

10 hours a day, six days a week minimum. That’s the minimum. And just think about it because you actually have a second job. Now, you still have to work in the business to pay the bills. Now, if you, if you’re blessed with significant startup capital, maybe you can avoid that. But for the most people, they’re going to have to pay their personal bills. They’re going to have to pay the overhead bills of their business. So they’re going to have to work in the business as a full-time employee at 40 hours a week. And they’re going to spend at least another 20 hours a week working on the business. And that’s not, you know, uh, a stretch goal. That’s kind of the floor where you actually start getting into the game. I would tell people it’s, you know, 60 to 80 hours a week, um, and uh, years, and usually to build a business that’s actually going to sell. Um, it’s a decade. It’s not in terms of the year. It’s a decade, right? And there’s really significant stats on this, on, you know, how old businesses are when they’re actually listed for sale and actually sell. And it’s generally that the chances that something’s going to be less than five years is very remote, right? 10 years, is it? So it’s grinding for 60 plus hours a week for a decade to actually get that kind of financial freedom that you’re looking for. Wow.

So another business consultant question that I get all the time is, well, Josh, um, I know that you were trying to cover that we have to wear these different hats, you know, like the hiring and the sales and the marketing and the operations and all these different areas. But if I want to do the four hour work, but can I just hire a bunch of people? I mean, you know, isn’t that what I’m taught to do? Like just hire a bunch of VA’s and that’s how I get my four hours. Yeah.

So first of all, there was a couple of problems with that. Number one, when you first start out your business and not likely that be profitable first two to three years, it’s not like they’d be profitable. So who’s paying for these staff, you know, for, you know, for you to scale down your calendar. Significantly. Second thing

Is your employees are not going to be anywhere nearly as

Productive as you are when you start the business. So it’s going to take a while for them to scale up, right. Um, and who is going to train these employees? It’s going to be the business owner, and it’s going to take a significant amount of time if you want to train them effectively. Right. Um, you’re going to have to learn how to be a teacher in your business, right? It’s not the most successful technicians in any industry that make the most money. It’s the people who can teach ordinary technicians to be above average. Right? Correct. That are going to be,

If I can even just teach them to do 80% of what I do or 70% of what I do,

That’s going to take a tremendous amount of time when you’re first starting, you’re going to have to write systems and processes for them to follow. Um, eventually as you get rolling, you know, the experience employees can teach the new employees. That’s not how it’s going to first start. So thinking that you can immediately scale back your workweek because you can hire staff is it’s just that it’s a false belief.

So if you found this helpful and you like Josh dive, maybe even drill into what are the things that we should be focusing on during those 20 hours or during those 60 hours of work, do let us know in the comments below click subscribe, like, and also go check out some of the other videos in the plaintiffs. We will see you in the next video.